1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) is a widely cultivated vegetable crop in india. karnataka is one of the major tomato producing states in the country. in 2017-18, karnataka state accounted for 10.54 per cent of the total production of the country (nhb, 2021). tomato production is limited by several biotic stresses. among biotic stresses, late blight disease caused by phytophthora infestans (mont.) de bary is a deva sta ting disea se on toma to in india a nd worldwide (fry et al., 2015). tomato late blight has emerged as a major pr oduction risk in toma to cultivation in southern hills and plains including karnataka. under severe epidemics, crop loss up to 100 per cent has been reported (chowdappa et al., 2013). in india, cr op insura nce scheme implies yield insurance. tomato crop yield loss is covered under pradhan mantri fasal bima yojana (pmfby) and restructured weather based crop insurance scheme (rwbcis). comprehensive risk insurance is provided to cover yield losses due to non-preventable risks, among other widespread pests and disease attack in standing crop from sowing to harvesting (anon., 2021). to consider tomato late blight disease as an important peril under insurance scheme, scientifically validated da ta on yield loss a re required in a par ticular geography. previously 100 per cent crop loss due to late blight in tomato due to a2-13 mating type of phytophthora infestans in southern plains and hills has been reported as per rapid roving survey observation (chowdappa et al., 2013; 2015). currently there are no reports in india with data generated on yield loss assessment due to late blight based on crop cutting exper iments. in this context, field tr ials wer e undertaken at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru, india during kharif 2019 and 2020, with two objectives viz., i) to estimate the magnitude of tomato yield loss due to late blight disease ii) to assess resistant hybrid as risk management option against late blight epiphytotics. materials and methods estimation of yield loss two sea son field tr ia ls wer e under ta ken in hesar aghatta farm of icar-india n institute of horticultural research, bengaluru (13.1362° n, 77.4980° e). the trials were conducted in kharif (july-december) 2019 a nd 2020 under na tur al epiphytotics of late blight. tomato late blight yield loss assessment and risk aversion with resistant hybrid sandeep kumar g.m.*, sriram s., laxman r.h. and harshita k.n. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : sandeep.gm@icar.gov.in abstract late blight (phytophthora infestans) is one of the devastating diseases of tomato worldwide. field trial was carried out in kharif 2019 and 2020 in hesaraghatta, bengaluru, karnataka, india, to estimate yield loss due to late blight and to assess extent of protection in resistant genotype during late blight epiphytotics. yield loss was calculated as per cent difference in yield between fungicides treated and unprotected plots in three f1 hybrids ns501, arka rakshak, both susceptible genotypes and arka abhed, a resistant genotype. over two years, average yield loss due to late blight was 79.47 per cent in ns501, 75.53 per cent in arka rakshak and 12.84 per cent in arka abhed. with lower mean audpc values (147.22 in 2019 and 469.17 in 2020) and with low yield loss, arka abhed provided affordable protection against late blight. our findings indicate late blight as an economically important peril to be considered for tomato yield loss coverage under insurance scheme in bengaluru region. arka abhed hybrid can be cultivated to avert yield loss risk associated with late blight epiphytotics. key words: arka abhed, resistance hybrid, tomato late blight and yield loss. 2 sandeep et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 field exper iment wa s la id out in 2 fa ctor ia l randomized complete block design. factor 1 was tomato genotypes with three levels. the three tomato f1 hybrids were ns501, arka rakshak and arka abhed (h-397). the second factor was fungicide protection with two levels, i.e., with and without fungicide protection against late blight as treatments. each treatment was replicated four times. these three hybrids were selected as they have relatively different degree of resistance against major diseases of tomato, so that effect of other disease on yield loss estimation is minimal. among three hybrids, hybrid ns 501 is tolerant to bacterial wilt and tlcv but susceptible to early and late blight. arka rakshak has resistance against leaf curl, bacterial wilt and moderate resistance against early blight, but it is susceptible to late blight. arka rakshak was chosen to minimize the effect of other diseases on yield loss, which might occur even with pesticide usage. the third hybrid chosen was arka abhed (h-397), which has disease resistance to tomato leaf curl disease (ty2+ty3), bacterial wilt (bwr.12), early blight and late blight (ph-2 + ph-3) and has field tolerance to bipa r tite tomato leaf curl new delhi virus (tolcndv) (kaushal et al., 2020). arka abhed was included in the experiment, to test the relative efficacy of this hybrid to be adopted as a strategy against this disease risk to get assured yield in conditions of late blight epidemics. each plot measured 3m × 3m, with 20 plants were transplanted on raised beds and covered with reflective agriculture mulch film (30μ) at spacing 100 cm × 45 cm. twenty-five-day old tomato seedlings at 3-4 leaf stage were transplanted on 21st july in both the years. the crop was raised with staking and drip irrigation. fertilizer application and weed management were made as per package of practices of icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, for open field cultivation of tomato (sadashiva et al., 2018). yield loss was calculated by subtracting yield from a plot protected with fungicides a nd one without fungicide protection. to protect tomato plants from late blight, a total of five sprays of dimethomorph 50% wp (1. 2 g/l) + ma ncozeb 75%wp (2 g/l), fenamidone 10% + mancozeb 50% wg (3 g/l) and famoxadone 16.6% + cymoxanil 22.1% sc (1 ml/l), fosetyl al 80 wp (80% w/w) (1 g/l), were sprayed at weekly interval until final harvest. all these fungicides have label claim for use on tomato in india (dppqs, 2021). a control plot without any fungicide protection against late blight was maintained in each hybrid with four replications. to exclude other pests additional sprays of following pesticides were given; spinosad 45.00% sc (0.32 ml/ l), indoxacarb 14.50% sc (1.34 ml/l), imidacloprid 17.80% sl(0.5 ml/l), azadirachtin 01.00% ec (10000 ppm)(3 ml/l), streptomycin sulphate 90% + tetracycline hydrochloride 10% sp (500ppm), neem soap (10 g/l), to manage, bacterial leaf spot, south american tomato pinworm, fruit borer and sucking pests. fruit yield data from all the pickings from each plot was pooled and expressed as t ha-1. at each harvest, observations on marketable and non-marketable fruits, incidence of late blight infection on fruits was recorded. in addition, ancillary observations on incidence of ea r ly blight, toma to gbnv, a nd infestation of south american tomato pin worm and tomato fruit borer on fruits were recorded. yield loss was calculated as the difference between actual yields recorded in plots with fungicide protection and unprotected plots (cooke et al., 2006). where yp=yield recorded in protected plot, yup=yield recorded in unprotected plot disease assessment late blight severity was assessed at weekly intervals from transplanting to final harvest on five randomly selected plants tagged in a plot. severity on leaves was assessed by using 0-5 scale where, 0=no symptoms, 1=1 to 11% disease (midpoint 6%), 2=12 to 38% disease (midpoint 25%), 3=39 to 61% disea se (midpoint 50%), 4=62 to 88% disease (midpoint 75%), 5=89 to 100% disease (midpoint 95%) (seidl-johnson et al., 2015). per cent disease index (pdi) was calculated based using the formula. from multiple severity assessments made at periodical intervals, area under disease progress curve for each variety was worked as per equation (wilcoxson et al., 1975). 3 tomato late blight yield loss assessment and risk aversion with resistant hybrid where, si=disease severity at the end of week i, k = the number of successive evaluations of disease and d=interval between two evaluations. statistical analysis: disease severity index data was subjected to arcsine transformation before calculating audpc values. the data were subjected to anova at 5 per cent significance level by spss software. yield loss and disease severity data were subjected to anova for statistical significance among different treatments at significance level 5 per cent using spss software. results and discussion yield loss assessment the results on marketable yield and yield loss in two years are presented in table 1. significant difference in yield was observed between varieties and level of protection. this may be attributed to inherent yielding potentials of the varieties and efficacy of plant protection schedule applied in both the years. yield loss in kharif 2019 was less compared to kharif 2020. this may be attributed to higher disease incidence of late blight recorded in 2020 (table 2). over two years, average yield loss due to late blight was 79.47 per cent in ns501, 75.53 per cent in arka rakshak and 12.84 per cent in arka abhed. in india, severe tomato late blight epidemics have been recorded during 2009-2010 in south indian plains and hills by chowdappa et al. (2013), during 2014 in eastern and northeastern india (nei) by dey et al. (2018) and during 2016 in eastern uttar pradesh by tripathi et al. (2017). in all these reports there was no yield loss estimation except for reports from south india plains and hills, where 100% crop loss is reported as per rapid roving survey observation. our data establishes that late blight is an inevita ble r isk in kharif cultivation of tomato causing considerable yield loss in bengaluru region if resistant genotypes are not used. the yield loss data generated will pave way for inclusion of this peril under pradhan mantri fasal bima yojana (pmfby) of india for yield coverage. disease assessment data on disease severity on three varieties during 2019 and 2020 kharif season are presented in table 2. data table 1 : tomato late blight yield loss estimation in kharif 2019 and 2020 in hesaraghatta, bengaluru kharif 2019 kharif 2020 marketable yield mean marketable yield mean average treatment yield (t/ha) loss (variety) yield (t/ha) loss (variety) yield (%) (%) loss (%) p* up p up arka rakshak 70.94 19.98 71.92 45.46 61.47 12.82 79.14 37.15 75.53 ns-501 53.84 13.25 75.39 33.55 48.12 7.92 83.54 28.02 79.47 arka abedh 61.25 53.14 13.65 57.20 55.12 48.50 12.02 51.81 12.84 mean 62.01 28.79 54.90 23.08 (protection) variety sem = 1.87, cd = 5.63 sem = 3.15, cd = 9.51(pd<0.05) protection sem = 1.52, cd = 4.60 sem = 2.57, cd = 7.76(pd<0.05) variety* protection sem = 2.64, cd = 7.97 sem = 4.46, cd = 13.45 (pd<0.05) cv (%) 11.81 22.48 *p=protected up=unprotected 4 analysis revealed significant effect of varieties and level of protection on severity of late blight. in 2019, significantly lower disease severity was recorded with variety arka abhed, which was statistically superior over arka rakshak and ns501, which were at par with respect to late blight severity. similar trend was observed in 2020 except for higher disease severity recorded in second year. the higher incidence in second year may be attributed to build up of soil borne inoculums a nd pr eva iling fa vor a ble wea ther conditions. in susceptible varieties, late blight severity ranged from 54.44 to 74.17 over two years. in a trial on four years evaluation of integrated management packages for management of tomato diseases at hesa r agha tta , la te blight was r ecorded a s the predominant disease during 2015-18 kharif season (kumar et al., 2020). the current and previous works substantiate that bengaluru region is a natural hot spot of tomato late blight disease. in our exper imenta tion, even with pr otective application of systemic fungicides at 7 days interval, late blight severity values in fungicide protected plots ranged from 8.34 to 18.33 in 2019 and 6.67 to 27.50 in 2020. this is due to prevailing continuous rains that might have reduced the bioefficacy of fungicides applied. this is in conformation with work of rani et al. (2015) that simulated rainfall after spray reduced persistence a nd bioefficacy of fungicides viz. , meta la xyl 8%+ ma ncozeb 64%wp, ma ncozeb 75%wp, which are widely used against late blight management in tomato. in kharif tomato production, where weather events like continuous rains limits fungicide and protection against late blight. in such situa tions, arka abhed, a r esista nt f1 hybr id developed at icar-iihr can be used as an effective component to get assured yield with reduction in input costs incurred on usage of protective and curative fungicides. in two consecutive season’s evaluation in hesaraghatta under high disease pressure, the hybrid arka abhed had significantly recorded low audpc values (147.22 and 469.17 in 2019 and 2020 respectively) compared to higher audpc values of susceptible genotypes viz., ar ka ra ksha k (997. 22, 2683. 33) a nd ns501 (1096.68, 2655.83) which were at par with each other in turkey’s test at 5 per cent probability (fig. 1). table 2 : tomato late blight severity in kharif 2019 and 2020 under fungicide protected and unprotected conditions kharif 2019 kharif 2020 treatment per cent disease index (pdi) per cent disease index (pdi) p up mean p up mean (variety) (variety) arka 13.89 54.44 34.17 25.83 72.50 49.17 rakshak (21.88) (47.55) (34.72) (30.55) (58.37) (44.46) ns-501 18.33 61.11 39.72 27.50 74.17 50.84 (25.34) (51.42) (38.38) (31.63) (59.45) (45.54) arka 8.34 12.22 10.28 6.67 17.50 12.09 abedh (16.78) (20.46) (18.62) (14.96) (24.72) (19.84) mean 13.52 42.59 20.00 54.72 (protection) (21.33) (39.81) (25.71) (47.51) variety sem = 1.42, cd = 4.27 sem = 1.29, cd = 3.89(pd<0.05) protection sem = 1.16, cd = 3.49 sem = 1.05, cd = 3.17(pd<0.05) variety*protection sem = 2.01, cd = 6.04 sem = 1.83, cd = 5.49(pd<0.05) cv (%) 13.12 9.95 *value in the parenthesis is arcsine transformed values of per cent disease index. first year peak severity data on september 12, second year peak severity on november 24. p=protected up=unprotected sandeep et al 5 higher audpc values in 2020 can be attributed to higher late blight severity recorded in second year. previous study by hansen et al. (2014) suggests that tomato varieties possessing both ph-2 and ph-3 genes can be used to effectively manage late blight caused by p. infestans clonal lineage us-23. in our two years study we have found that arka abhed with ph-2 and ph-3 genes has provided affordable protection against the prevailing late blight population 13_a2 clonal lineage of p. infestans in bengaluru location. conclusions the current yield loss assessment validates late blight as a major production constraint causing considerable yield loss in kharif cultivation of tomato in bengaluru region. hence, late blight disease has to be considered as an important peril and yield loss arising out of it has to be covered under national crop insurance programme. based on disease prevalence data it is clear that bengaluru area is hot spot for late blight disease. tomato breeders and pathologist should eva lua te their ma ter ial in benga lur u a r ea for identification of resistant germplasm and testing field efficacy of management measures evolved against this disea se. in consecutive two year s, two sea son evaluation, we have found that arka abhed is a risk aversion technology with assured yield under late blight epiphytotics. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the director, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru, for providing facilities. authors acknowledge the funding for this study by icar under nicra programme. references anonymous. 2021. operational guidelines pradhan mantri fasal bima yojana (pmfby) accessed on 24 april2021,https://pmfby.gov.in/pdf/ revised_operational_guidelines.pdf. chowdappa, p., kumar, n., madhura, s., kumar, m., myers, k., fry, w., squires, j. and cooke, d. 2013. emergence of 13_a2 blue lineage of phytophthora infestans was responsible for severe outbreaks of late blight on tomato in south west india. journal of phytopathology, 16:49-58. chowdappa, p., nirmal kumar, b. j., madhura, s., mohan kumar, s. p., myers, k. l., fry, w.e. and cooke, d. e. l. 2015. severe outbreaks of late blight on potato and tomato in south india caused by recent changes in the phytophthora infestans population. plant pathology, 64:191199. cooke, b. m. 2006. disease assessment and yield loss. in: cooke, b. m., jones, d. g and kaye, b(eds)the epidemiology of plant diseases. second edition, springer, netherlands, p. 4375. dey, t., saville, a., myers, k. tewari, s., cooke, d. e. l., tripathy, s., fry., w. e., ristaino, j. b. and roy, s. g. 2018. large sub-clonal variation in phytophthora infestans from recent severe late blight epidemics in india. scientific reports, 8:4429. dppqs. 2021. major uses of fungicides, accessed 25th april 2023, http://ppqs.gov.in/divisions/ cib-rc/major-uses-of-pesticides. fry, w. e., birch, p. r., judelson, h. s., grunwald, n. j., danies, g., everts, k. l., gevens, a. j., gugino, b. k., johnson, d. a., johnson, s. b., mcgrath, m. t., myers, k. l., ristaino, j. b., roberts, p. d., secor, g and smart, c. d. 2015. five reasons to consider phytophthora infestans a r eemerging pa thogen. phytopathology, 105(7):966-81. hansen z. r., small, i. m, mutschler, m., fry, w. ., smart, c. d. 2014. differential susceptibility of 39 toma to va r ieties to phytophthora infestans clonal lineage us-23. plant disease, 98(12):1666-1670. tomato late blight yield loss assessment and risk aversion with resistant hybrid fig. 1 : area under disease progress curve (audpc) of tomato late blight in three varieties during 2019 and 2020 in unprotected plots under natural epiphytotics. audpc values were arrived from seven disease assessments in 2019 and six assessments in 2020. 6 sadashiva, a. t., hebbar, s. s., nair, a. k. and senthilkumar, m. 2018. production technology of vegetable crops-a hand book (eds). icariihr, bengaluru, 560 089. seidl-johnson, a. c., jordan, s. a. and gevens, a. j. 2015. efficacy of organic and conventional fungicides and impact of application timing on control of tomato late blight caused by us-22, us-23, and us-24 isolates of phytophthora infestans. plant disease, 99(5): 641-647. kaushal, a., sadashiva, a. t., ravishankar, k.v., singh, t. h., prasanna, h. c., rai, a. k and jatav, v. k. 2020. a rapid disease resistance breeding in tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.). in: gosal satbir singh and wani shabir hussain (eds) accelerated plant breeding, volume 2: vegetable crops.; 1st ed. springer international publishing, springer nature switzerland ag. springer. p.17-55. kumar, g. m. s., reshma, v., reddy, m. k., sriram, s and sharma, d. 2020. integrated management of major tomato diseases. pest management in horticultural ecosystems, 26(1): 140-146. rani, r., sharma, v. k., kumar, p and mohan, c. 2015. impa ct of simula ted r a infa ll on persistence of fungicides used against late blight (phytophthora infestans) of tomato (solanum lycopersicum). indian journal of agricultural sciences, 85(2): 256-60. tripathi, a. n, pandey, k. k., meena, b. r., rai, a. b. and singh, b. 2017. an emerging threat of phytophthora infestans causing late blight of tomato in uttar pradesh, india. new disease reports, 35(1): 14. wilcoxson, r. d., skovmand, b. and atif , a.h. 1975. evaluation of wheat cultivars for their ability to retard development of stem rust. annals of applied biology, 80(3):275-281. nhb. 2019. area production statistics accessed on 24 april 2021, <http://www.nhb.gov.in/statistics/ reports/tomato-for-october-2019.pdf. sandeep et al okra (abelmoschus esculentus (l) moench) commercially cultivated in india. india is the largest producer of okra in the world, which contributes about 4% of total vegetable consumption in most developing countries (eftal duzyanman, 1997). okra is extensively cultivated during the spring-summer (march-june) and rainy (julyseptember) seasons for its green tender fruits. okra is increasing in popularity. the rapid expansion of okra processing by freezing and canning in the last three decades has been responsible for the increase of commercial okra production, as well as the development of suitable cultivars such as louisiana green velvet. the ideal fruit type for freezing should be short, dark green, round or multifaceted (sistrunk et al, 1960). canned okra requires colour retention, low mucilage content and low fiber content (woodroof and shelor, 1958). during the last 25 years a good deal of efforts have been made to enrich its genetic variability, and in developing promising cultivars, namely arka anamika and arka abhay. these are adapted to a wide range of agro-climatic conditions and cropping patterns, possess better fruit yield and quality combined with yellow vein mosaic virus resistance (dutta, 1990). germplasm characterization is essential for selection of distinctly variable characters. during 1998, the breeding work was initiated at indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta and short communication development of novel character in okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench] m. pitchaimuthu, o. p. dutta, v. s. r. k. krishna prasad 1 and k. r. m. swamy division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, banaglore-560 089, india e-mail: muthu@iihr.ernet.in abstract transgressive segregation in the population of iihr-31-1-2 x arka anamika bc 3 f 1 -f 6 generations led to the development of, various novel characters such as, ridgeless fruits (round fruit) and enhanced nodal productivity bearing short internodal length in okra selection-1, which was found to be promising for cultivation with high yield and good fruit quality. it can be grown both during kharif and summer seasons. okra selection–1 was also found to exhibit smooth fruits, high yield potential with sturdy plant habit and field tolerance to fusarium wilt and yvmv. due to rapid rate of increase of processing in okra by freezing and canning, okra selection i may be an ideal fruit type for freezing because of its short, smooth, dark green and round or multifaceted fruits with low mucilage content. key words: novel character, ridgeless, introgression, processing 1present address: principal scientist, national research centre for onion and garlic, rajgurunagar, pune available germplasm was characterized and iihr-31-1-2 was selected [nbpgr, new delhi, original sources from philippines (ec-no-189926)]. gene introgression was achieved through normal hybridization between iihr-31-1-2 and arka anamika, followed by backcrossing with yvmv resistant commercially cultivated variety arka anamika (fig1.). in the advanced progenies of bc 3 f 1 -f 6, a recombinant line having ridgeless fruits, enhanced nodal productivity, shorter internodal length, smooth fruits and, high yield with sturdy plant habit was identified. (fig 2 & 3). the salient features fig 1. pedigree of ridge less okra novel line j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 66-67, 2008 page 66 67 of the recombinant line are listed below: � plants are short to medium (75-100 cm), bushy, erect and well branched � short to medium fruit length (8-10 cm) � no ribs on the fruit, spineless, lush green, tender, and are borne in two flushes � fruit stalk is long and easy to snap � shorter internodal length � low fiber and mucilaginous content � good cooking and keeping quality � suitable for canning and freezing � field tolerant to fusarium wilt and yvmv � yield 15-20 tonnes /ha in 120-135 days � suitable for kharif and summer season fig 2. ridgeless and normal ridged fruit acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the director, nbpgr, new delhi for supply of okra germplasm and director, iihr for providing facilities to carry out the research. the help rendered by mr. s.k. ramakrishna rao and mr. chickabachanna both technical officer and field technicians, ms. manjula, ms. k. shobha, and ms. r. pushpalatha are thankfully acknowledged. references dutta, o.p. 1990, okra germplasm utilization at iihr, bangalore report of an international workshop on okra genetic resources, held at nbpgr, new delhi, india, 8-12 october, pp 114-116. eftal duzyanman 1997. okra: botany and horticulture. p. 41-72. in horticultural reviews. volume 21, (ed.) jules janick, john wiley & sons, inc. sistrunk, w. a., jones, l. g. and miller j. c. 1960. okra pod growth habit. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci.,76: 486-491. woodroof, j. g., and shelor e. 1958. okra for processing. ga. agri. exptl. stn. bull., 56:5-51 fig 3. selected line bearing ridgeless fruit (ms received 14 november 2007, revised 10 march 2008) development of novel character in okra j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 66-67, 2008 comparative toxicity of two isolates of bacillus thuringiensis berliner from plutella xylostella l. and papilio demoleus l. to some important lepidopteran pests of horticultural crops r. asokan1 and puttaswamy department of entomology university of agricultural sciences g. k. v. k., bangalore – 560 065, india e-mail: asokan@iihr.ernet.in abstract toxicity of two isolates of bacillus thuringiensis viz. kpx-1 and ipd-1 isolated from diamondback moth, plutella xylostella (lepidoptera: yponomeutidae), and citrus butterfly, papilio demoleus (lepidoptera: papilionidae), were tested against cabbage leaf webber, crocidolomia binotalis, hairy caterpillar, diacrisia obliqua and tomato fruit borer, helicoverpa armigera. among these, c. binotalis was highly susceptible (28.4 and 26.0 ng/cm2, for kpx-1 and ipd-1, respectively), while, h. armigera was the least susceptible (9.5 and 10.0 µg/ml, for kpx-1 and ipd-1, respectively). key words: bacillus thuringiensis, isolates, toxicity short communication 1 present address: division of biotechnology, indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake (po), bangalore – 560 089, india bacillus thuringiensis (bt) has been successfully employed in the management of insect pests in agriculture and in public health. during the survey, two isolates of bt subsp kurstaki (btk), namely, kpx-1 and ipd-1 were isolated from diamondback moth, plutella xylostella (lepidoptera: yponomeutidae), and the citrus butterfly, papilio demoleus (lepidoptera:papilionidae), respectively. in this communication we report the toxicity spectrum of these bt isolates to some important lepidopteran pests of horticultural crops viz., cabbage leaf webber, crocidolomia binotalis (lepidoptera: pyralidae), hairy caterpillar, diacrisia obliqua (lepidoptera:arctiidae) and tomato fruit borer, helicoverpa armigera (lepidoptera:notuidae). stock culture of h. armigera was maintained on semisynthetic diet (nagarkatti and prakash, 1974), while, that of c. binotalis and d. obliqua maintained on cabbage. the bt isolates were grown on nutrient agar at 30°c for 72 h and were homogenized in distilled water which formed the spore, crystal preparation (scp). an aliquot of the scp was used for protein estimation using lowry’s method (lowry et al, 1971). bioassay was conducted using serial dilutions of the scp. two hundred µl of different dilutions were applied on both sides of fresh cabbage leaf discs (62cm2) @ 100µl/side. single treated leaf disc was placed in individual, sterile plastic petri plate (10 x10cm) and 20 five-day old larvae of each c. binotalis and d. obliqua were released separately per replication. similarly, 100 µl of different dilutions were surface coated on 3 ml of semi synthetic diet and a single, five-day old larva of h. armigera was released per replication. there were five replications per treatment and an untreated control. mortality of the treated larvae was recorded every 24 h interval for one week and data were subjected to probit analysis (abbott, 1925). bioassay results showed that there was little variation in toxicity of kpx-1 and ipd-1 to all the test insects. differences in toxicity were 0.1 & 4.0 ng/cm2 and 0.1 µg/ ml for c. binotalis & d. obliqua and h. armigera, respectively. among the test insects, c. binotalis was found to be the most susceptible while h. armigera was least susceptible to both the isolates (table 1). minor differences in toxicity of the above isolates could be attributed to various factors such as protoxin composition, rate of dissolution and activation of protoxins, presence of receptors, etc. in different test insects (crickmore et al, 1998). other factors governing toxicity are complex and poorly understood (jarret, 1985). in the present investigation, as we found no appreciable variation in toxicity of the two isolates, it is likely that composition, rate of dissolution and activation of the protoxin may have been similar in the three test insects used. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 71-72, 2007 acknowledgement the senior author is grateful to the indian council of agricultural research (icar), new delhi, and director, indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore, for encouragement and for granting study leave. references abbott, w. s. 1925. a method of computing the effectiveness of an insecticide. j. econ. entomon., 18: 265-267. crickmore, n., zeigler, d. r., feitelson, j., schnepef, e., van rie, j., lereclus, d., baum, j. and dean, d. h. (ms received 8 june 2007, revised 29 june 2007) table 1. comparative toxicity of b. thuringiensis isolates, kpx-1 and ipd-1 to some important lepidopterous pests of horticultural crops insect species kpx –1 ipd – 1 lc 50 fiducial limit lc 50 fiducial limit lower upper lower upper crocidolomia binotalis (lepidoptera: pyralidae) 28.40 ng/cm2 28.30 28.50 26.00 ng/cm2 25.93 26.07 diacrisia obliqua(lepidoptera: arctiidae) 249.00 ng/cm2 248.89 249.12 245.00 ng/cm2 244.90 245.10 helicoverpa armigera (lepidoptera: noctuidae) 3.30 µg/ml 3.29 3.31 3.40 µg/ml 3.28 3.52 control 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1998. revision of the nomenclature for the bacillus thuringiensis pesticidal crystal proteins. microbiol. mol. biol. rev., 62: 870-813. jarret, p. 1985. potency factors in the delta endotoxin of bacillus thuringiensis var aizawai and the significance of plasmids in their control. j. appl. bacteriol., 58: 437-448. lowry, o. h., rosenbrough, n. j., farr, a. l. and randall, r. j. 1951. protein measurement with the folinphenol reagents. j. biol. chem., 193: 265-275. nagarkatti, s and prakash, s. 1974. rearing heliothis armigera (hb.) on an artificial diet. tech. bull. no. 17, commonwealth institute of biological control, p 169. asokan and puttaswamy j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 71-72, 2007 72 waterapple [syzygium aqueum (berm. f.) alston], a member of the family myrtaceae, is a tropical fruit plant cultivated in assam, meghalaya and, to a limited scale in west bengal. water apple is locally called jamrul, gives handsome returns to farmers of north 24-parganas district of west bengal. the crop has also been popularized in red laterite zone of west bengal. the taste of the fruit is very good due to dry climatic conditions prevalent during flowering and fruiting. the crop is conventionally propagated by layering but success rate is said to be low (biswas and roy, 1983). as no investigation has been made in the red lateritic zone of west bengal, where the climate is completely different from that in other parts of the state, an experiment was set up to find out congenial time for air layering in water apple. the experiment was conducted in a private orchard at jhargram, paschim midnapore, west bengal. air layering was done on 10th and 25th of every month from june to november in 2004 and 2005. eight-year old water apple plants were used in the study. each time, thirty layers were prepared with three replications in a randomized block design on 10-12 month old shoots of 3.5 cm diameter. the layers were detached from the plant when roots were clearly visible. five rooted layers from each replication were selected randomly for recording observations. the remaining layers were planted in polybags and placed in the nursery for studies on field establishment. data on establishment was recorded 90 days effect of season on success of air layering in water apple in red laterite zone of west bengal s. n. ghosh department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur-741252, india e-mail: profsnghosh@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted during 2004-05 on farmers’ field at jhargram to work out optimum time for air layering in water apple. results revealed that air layering performed during june and july resulted in highest rooting success (100%) with maximum field establishment (100%). considering overall performance, the months of june and july can be recommended for air layering in water apple in red laterite zone of west bengal. key words : air layering, water apple, season, west bengal after detachment. data on root number of layers, time taken for separation of layers, root growth and establishment of layers were collected and statistically analyzed. data presented in table 1 indicate that the highest number of rooted layers (100%) was recorded when layering was done from 10th june to 25th july, whereas establishment percentage was maximum (100%) from 10th june to 25th august, followed by 10th september. after 10th september, it showed a decreasing trend and was zero on 10th november, when rainy season completely ceased. it was interesting to note that the percentage of rooted layers in water apple was maximum during the rainy season. meteorological data (table 2) indicate that a maximum temperature of 40.3oc and a minimum of 25.2oc, with relative humidity of 95% at 7.00 am and 51% at 2.00 pm are congenial for getting higher percentage of rooted layers of water apple in the red laterite zone of west bengal. the maximum percentage of rooted layers was recorded in rainy season (june to july); this may be attributed to the prevalent favourable weather conditions which fostered better root formation and development. suitability of air layering in rainy season (june to september) in many fruit crops has also been advocated earlier by many workers (sharma and grewal, 1989; ghosh, 1998; ghosh and banik, 2008). for separation of rooted layers from the mother plant, a minimum of 80 days were required during september-october, while, during june-july, it took a maximum of 110 days. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 164-165, 2008 165 field establishment of rooted layers is considered to be an important observation in any layering experiment, as, the ultimate aim is to get maximum number of plant surviving under field conditions. results from table 1 indicate that establishment of rooted layers was highest (100%) when the operation was done during 10th june to 25th august, followed by 10th september, and, it reduced thereafter. it is clear from data in table 1 that root growth was maximum in layers prepared on 10th july which resulted in highest root number (11.5) and longest root length (11.6 cm), followed by 25th july. considering the production of maximum number of rooted layers and their establishment, the months of june and july are the best, followed by august, for air layering in water apple in red laterite zone of west bengal. references biswas, s. and roy, b.n. 1983. induction of rooting in airlayering of water-apple by auxin and non-auxinic chemicals. punjab j. hort., 23: 209-211 ghosh, s.n. 1998. studies on vegetative propagation in sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) cv. mosambi. the hort. j., 11: 21-28 ghosh, s.n. and banik, b. c. 2008. effect of season on success of air layering in acid lime grown in red laterite zone of west bengal. environ. eco., 26: 12041205 sharma, r.c. and grewal, g.p.s. 1989. a note on propagation studies in litchi (litchi chinensis sonn.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 18: 74-76 table 2. meteorological data during the period of investigation month temperature (0c) humidity (%) rainfall number of maximum minimum maximum minimum (mm) rainy days 1st to 15th june 40.3 28.7 81 51 11.4 1 16th to 30th june 37.7 27.5 87 58 154.1 4 1st to 15th july 32.0 25.2 94 80 199.6 7 16th to 31st july 33.2 25.5 95 75 119.4 7 1st to 15th august 33.4 26.3 90 68 142.7 5 16th to 31st august 34.1 25.7 94 66 203.2 5 1st to 15th september 32.9 25.4 95 78 211.0 7 16th to 30th september 33.4 25.2 94 71 33.0 3 1st to 15th october 33.2 23.8 97 69 178.7 4 16th to 31st october 29.8 22.5 95 75 18.3 2 1st to 15th november 30.8 16.8 90 47 0 16th to 30th november 29.5 12.9 90 39 0 table 1. effect of season on success of air layering in water apple* date of layering number of rooted days taken for number of length of establishment layers (%) detachment of layer (days) roots/layer longest root (cm) of rooted layer (%) 10th june 100 (84.26) 110 10.0 8.5 100 (84.26) 25th june 100 (84.26) 110 10.8 10.0 100 (84.26) 10th july 100 (84.26) 100 11.5 11.6 100 (84.26) 25th july 100 (84.26) 95 11.0 11.0 100 (84.26) 10th august 85 (67.21) 95 11.2 9.0 100 (84.26) 25th august 80 (63.43) 90 9.0 8.4 100 (84.26) 10th september 60 (50.77) 80 7.0 7.0 95 (77.08) 25th september 35 (36.27) 80 5.0 5.2 60 (50.77) 10th october 30 (33.21) 80 3.4 4.0 60 (50.77) 25th october 25 (30.00) 80 3.2 3.8 60 (50.77) 10th november 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 25th november 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) s.em ± 1.4 2.0 0.2 0.2 1.9 c.d. (p=0.05) 4.2 5.8 0.6 0.5 5.6 figures in the brackets are angular transformed value * the results are the average of 2004 and 2005 (ms received 28 december 2007, revised 23 september 2008) air layering in water apple j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 164-165, 2008 guava [psidium guajava l., (family: myrtaceae)] is the only cultivated species among 70 odd psidium species (landrum et al, 1995). though other species of psidium are non-edible and wild in nature, some of them possess a few desirable traits, which could be exploited either as rootstocks or as parents for incorporating the pest and disease résistance. (vasugi and dinesh, 2007). mango fruit fly, bactrocera dorsalis (hendel) and tea mosquito bug, helopeltis antonii (sign.) are serious and economically important pests of guava (butani, 1975) and finding a source of resistance against them would be useful in evolving resistant varieties. varietal differences of guava in their reaction to fruit fly and tea mosquito bug are reported (arora et al, 2000; reddy and vasugi, 2004) but information is lacking on the reaction of wild psidium species. in the present study, five wild species of psidium were field evaluated for their resistance to b. dorsalis and h. antonii. as endogenous metabolites were reported to play a significant role in fruit fly resistance (kaur et al, 1994), the per cent fruit fly and tea mosquito bug infestation were correlated with tss, total sugars, vitamin c and acidity. field studies were carried out during 2002-2004 at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore short communication resistance to fruit fly, bactrocera dorsalis (hendel) and tea mosquito bug, helopeltis antonii (sign.) in certain wild psidium species p. venkata rami reddy and c. vasugi division of plant genetic resources indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india e-mail: pvreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract five wild species of psidium viz., psidium cattleianum lucidum, p. chinensis, p. friedrichsthalianum, p. molle and p. quadrangularis were evaluated for resistance to fruit fly [bactrocera dorsalis (hendel)] and tea mosquito bug (tmb) [helopeltis antonii (sign.)], during 2002-04. significant variations were recorded among species in their reaction to pests. two species viz., p. chinensis and p. quadrangularis were resistant to fruit fly (<10% fruit damage) while p. quadrangularis was immune. psidium. molle and p. cattleianum were resistant to tea mosquito bug. pest incidence was correlated with fruit biochemical components viz., total soluble solids (tss), total sugars, vitamin c and acidity. the tss and total sugars were positively correlated with fruit fly infestation while acidity was negatively correlated. the tmb incidence did not exhibit significant correlation with any of these parameters. key words: guava, psidium species, resistance, fruit fly, tea mosquito bug using 8-10 years old wild psidium species viz., p. cattleianum var. lucidum, p. chinensis, p. friedrichsthalianum, p. molle and p. quadrangularis. ‘lucknow-49’, a popular cultivar of p. guajava, was used as standard check. one hundred and fifty randomly selected, mature fruits were harvested from each species (comprising four trees) and brought to the laboratory to record fruit fly incidence during the months of august – september. on attaining the fully ripened stage, fruits were cut open and observed for the maggots. tea mosquito bug incidence was recorded based on the visual symptoms of damage such as corky appearance on the fruit surface. three replications were maintained with fifty fruits per replication. data were subjected to the analysis of variance (anova) to compare the significance of mean differences. species were classified as immune (0% fruit damage), resistant (1-10%), moderately resistant (11-25%), susceptible (26-50%) and highly susceptible (>50%) based on the pooled means of both the years following a partially modified varietal classification suggested by reddy and vasugi (2002). the titrable acidity (%), vitamin c (mg/100g) and total sugars (g/100g) were estimated following ranganna (2000) and total soluble solids (tss) was determined as 0brix using a hand refractometer. j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 79-81, 2008 page 79 80 data on the variable reaction of psidium species to fruit fly and tea mosquito bug are presented in table 1. there were significant differences in the extent of fruit damage due to both the pests. the resistance trends of species were consistent in both the years of study. none of the psidium species was completely free from fruit fly infestation. psidium quadrangularis recorded the lowest fruit fly damage (4.66%) followed by p. chinensis (7.33%) during 2002-03 and they sustained the resistance in the subsequent year also with 3.33 and 6.00 % damage, respectively. two species viz., p. cattleianum var. lucidum and p. molle suffered high incidence (38.66 and 39.33%, respectively) and were on par with ‘lucknow-49’ (35.00%) during 2002-03 and recorded a similar trend in the following year. the extent of fruit damage due to h. antonii ranged from 0.00 to 29.33 % and 0.00 to 32.00 % during 2002-03 and 2003-04 respectively. psidium quadrangularis remained free from tea mosquito bug damage in both the years while p. friedrichsthalianum had the highest fruit damage and at a par with check variety. based on two year means, two species viz., p. quadrangularis and p. chinensis were resistant (< 10% damage) to fruit fly while p. cattleianum was moderately resistant. the other two species viz., p. friedrichsthalianum and p. molle with >30% damage were classified as susceptible and were on par with the check ‘lucknow-49’. the species, p. quadrangularis was free from tea mosquito bug (immune) and the factors contributing to immunity need to be further examined. however, considering an earlier report of reddy and vasugi (2004), rough fruit surface can be one of the contributing factors. among the rest of species, p. cattleianum (4.33%) and p. molle (5.33%) were resistant, p. chinensis (18.67%) was moderately resistant and p. friedrichsthalianum was susceptible. the tss in psidium species ranged from 7.4% in p. cattleianum to 11.6% in p. molle (table 2). similarly total sugars varied from 5.85 to 9.62g, vitamin c from 16.78 to 81.33 mg/100g and total acidity from 0.61 to 2.70%. correlation analysis (table 3) showed that the extent of fruit fly incidence was significantly correlated with three characters viz., tss, total acidity and sugars. there was a positive correlation between the fruit fly infestation levels in different species and their tss and total sugar contents. the correlation coefficient values were 0.576 and 0.674 pertaining to tss and total sugars, respectively. however, fruit acidity was negatively correlated with the fruit fly incidence (r = 0.614) and thus considered to have a role in imparting resistance, while correlation with vitamin c was non-significant. arora et al (2000) reported a similar trend of correlation between fruit fly incidence and tss of guava fruits. they also observed that total phenols were negatively correlated while vitamin c had non significant correlation. our findings are in agreement with these observations. on the other hand, none of these parameters showed significant correlations with the tea mosquito bug infestation. the non significant effect of biochemical components on tea mosquito bug infestation could be because of the fact that, the infestation starts at early stages of fruit formation and also confines to the fruit surface unlike fruit fly, where maggots develop inside the fruit and table 1. extent of fruit fly and tea mosquito damage in psidium species species fruit fly damage (%) tea mosquito bug damage (%) 2002-03 2003-04 mean 2002-03 2003-04 mean p. cattleianum var. lucidum 38.66 26.00 32.33 5.33 3.00 4.17 p. chinensis 7.33 6.00 6.67 21.00 16.33 18.67 p. friedrichsthalianum 16.00 12.00 14.00 29.33 32.00 30.67 p. molle 39.33 34.00 36.67 6.33 4.33 5.33 p. quadrangularis 4.66 3.33 4.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 p. guajava (lucknow-49) 35.00 30.33 32.62 30.66 25.66 28.16 cv (%) 15.59 11.14 15.37 14.85 cd (p=0.05) 4.31 4.67 4.19 4.02 table 2. biochemical composition of psidium species species tss total vitamin c acidity (%) sugars (g) (mg/100g) (%) p. cattleianum var. lucidum 7.40 5.85 16.78 1.31 p. chinensis 8.30 9.34 22.15 0.70 p. friedrichsthalianum 3.20 9.62 19.75 1.13 p. molle 11.60 8.12 80.65 2.70 p. quadrangularis 9.10 5.89 81.33 1.10 p. guajava (lucknow-49) 11.50 8.80 19.50 0.61 cd (p=0.05) 1.14 1.85 4.02 0.78 table 3. correlation coefficient (r) values of per cent fruit infestation with biochemical parameters of psidium species pest tss total vitamin c acidity sugars fruit fly 0.586* 0.674* ns -0.614* tea mosquito bug ns ns ns ns * significant at p= 0.05; ns = non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 79-81, 2008 venkata rami reddy and vasugi 81 are thus vulnerable to fruit biochemical composition variations. high tss and total sugars are generally desirable traits in fruits and hence it is appropriate to locate a resistance source rich in these quality parameters. our results show that p. quadrangularis, which was immune to fruit fly and resistant to tea mosquito bug, holds promise in this direction. psidium cattleianum and p. chinensis, which exhibited resistance to one pest and moderate resistance to another may also be useful. though p. molle was resistant to tea mosquito bug, it was highly susceptible to fruit fly and thus its potential is limited. as majority of species tested showed high degree of resistance compared to the check, it is worthwhile to screen as many wild species as possible to find resistance. acknowledgements authors are grateful to the director, iihr for facilities and acknowledge the assistance of sri. dasappa, field technician, in the field gene bank maintenance. we thank dr. n. k. krishna kumar, head, division of entomology, iihr for critical evaluation of the manuscript. references arora, p. k., kaur., n., thind, s. k. and aulakh, p. s. 2000. metabolites of some commercial cultivars of guava (ms received 12 october 2007, revised 3 december 2007) in relation to incidence of fruit fly. pest mgt. hortl. ecosys., 6: 61-62 butani, d. k. 1979. insects and fruits. periodical expert book agency, new delhi kaur, h., batra, r. c., dhaliwal, g. s. and singh, r. 1994. relationship of biochemical constituents to incidence of fruit fly in guava cultivars. punjab hort. j., 34: 47-49 landrum, l. r., clark, w. d., sharp, w. p. and brenecke, j.1995. hybridisation between psidium guajava and p. guineense. eco. bot., 49:153-161 ranganna, 2000. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products. t a t a mc graw hill co. ltd., new delhi. reddy, p.v. r. and vasugi, c. 2002. evaluation of guava germplasm for resistance to fruit fly, bactrocera dorsalis (hendel) in relation to fruit morphological characters. pest mgt. hortl. ecosys., 8: 27-32 reddy, p.v.r. and vasugi, c., 2004. screening of guava germplasm for resistance to tea mosquito bug, helopeltis antonii sign. in relation to certain morpho characters of fruit. ind. j. agril. sci., 74 : 1-4 vasugi, c. and dinesh, m. r. 2007. genetic variability in some psidium species. ind. j. agril. sci., 77: 420-23 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 79-81, 2008 resistance to fruit fly and tea mosquito bug pilot scale processing of red flesh guava rts beverage s. bhuvaneswari and r. b. tiwari division of post harvest technology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake (p.o), bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: bhuvana@iihr.ernet.in abstract pilot scale studies on production of ready-to-serve (rts) beverage from red flesh guava were done using 100 kg of the fruit. pulp yield was more (73.68 %) in lye peeling than in hand peeling (58.68 %). rts beverage was prepared by mixing fruit pulp with syrup to an optimum level of acidity and sugar, as standardized on a laboratory scale. blending rts beverage by using colloidal mill improved the colour, consistency and overall quality. from 100 kg of red flesh guava, 247 litres of rts beverage could be obtained. the cost:benefit ratio and value addition from this process were worked out at 1.79 and rs. 5.45/kg of fruit, respectively. key words: exotic red flesh guava, rts beverage, pilot scale, colloidal mill, cost:benefit ratio, value addition introduction guava is one of the most important fruits, valued for its high vitamin c content. it is widely grown in india under an area of approximately 0.15 million hectares producing 1.8 mt (anon. 2000). use of guava fruits in processed products such as jam, jelly, nectar (kalra and tandon, 1984), beverage (kalra et al, 1987), blended rts beverage and cheese (singh et al, 1983) is well established and several commercial products are being marketed. in general, both white and pink flesh guava fruits have good market value for fresh consumption. however, these fruits can also be used for processing. pink varieties are better suited for beverage preparation owing to their attractive colour. an exotic red flesh guava variety, with high acidity, attractive colour and good flavour was earlier identified as the raw material for production of rts beverage (tiwari and dinesh, 2001). fruit juice based rts beverages have the distinct advantage of higher nutritional value over synthetic aerated waters. hence, pilot scale studies on preparation of rts beverage from the high acid red flesh guava were undertaken as this is a prerequisite for commercialization of the product. results of the pilot scale production trial are detailed in this paper. material and methods fully ripe, exotic red flesh guava, harvested from the iihr orchard was used for scale-up trial. rts beverage was prepared by subjecting 100 kg fruits to the following unit operations. washing and preparation fruits were manually washed thoroughly using a jet of clean, running water. hand peeling with a stainlesssteel knife and lye peeling using 3% naoh solution were carried out. pulping and sieving peeled guava slices were pulped using a wareing blender (make: kenstar excellence) @ 10 kg/h. the pulp was sieved using a rectangular sieve of size 33 cm x 27.5 cm x 15 cm with 1/32" thick stainless-steel wire mesh to separate seeds from the pulp. rts beverage preparation rts beverage was prepared by using 15% pulp and adjusting tss to 18o brix with sugar syrup and 0.3% acidity. thorough blending of rts beverage was done using a colloidal mill (make: cm 305/94). bottling and pasteurization the rts beverage was pasteurized at 80oc and bottled in 200ml sterilized, dry bottles using a poweroperated bottle filling machine @ 300 bottles/h. bottles were corked manually, using a hand-operated crown corking j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 50-52, 2007 machine @ 240 bottles/h. filled bottles were batch pasteurized and stored at room temperature (28 – 30oc). quality evaluation in rts beverage total soluble solids (obrix) was determined using erma hand refractrometer. acidity(%) and ascorbic acid (mg/100ml) content were determined using standard procedures (ranganna 2000). viscosity (cps) was measured using brookefield viscometer fitted with spindle no.18 and at a spindle speed of 60 rpm. non-enzymatic browning was measured using a spectrophotometer by measuring absorbance at 440nm (ranganna, 2000). sensory evaluation sensory evaluation of rts beverage was done by a panel of 25 semi-trained judges using a 9-point hedonic scale with scores from ‘like extremely” to “dislike extremely”(ranganna, 2000). storage quality rts beverage was stored at room temperature (25oc-30oc) for 6 months and samples were analyzed for their composition at monthly intervals during the storage period. results and discussion in guava, fruit skin constitutes a minor portion of the fruit and loss due to peeling the skin varies with the method applied. use of lye solution in peeling several fruits and vegetables is common (khurdiya and srivastava, 1994). hence, fruits were subjected to lye-peeling and were compared hand-peeling. peeling loss and pomace recovery was lower in lye-peeling when compared to hand-peeling. time required for peeling was reduced by 50 % in lye peeling when compared to hand-peeling. in lye-peeling, pulp yield (73.68 %) and peeling rate (20kg/person/h) was higher when compared to hand-peeling (58.68 %) and (12kg/person/h), respectively (table 1). from the results it is obvious that lye peeling is advantageous over hand peeling in terms of pulp yield and peeling rate. pulping and blending of rts beverage in a pilot scale preparation of rts beverage, manual mixing is laborious and timeconsuming. hence, blending of ingredients was attempted using a colloidal mill. quality of the final product was compared to that from the manual method. from these studies, it was found that viscosity, ascorbic acid content and colour retention in the rts beverage was more when colloidal mill was used for blending as compared to manual mixing (table 2). it was also observed that blending in colloidal mill improved the colour, consistency and ascorbic acid content in the final product. this may be due to recirculation of the juice which could have resulted in the reduction of particle size in the pulp thereby improving product quality. these results are similar to studies on homogenized tomato juice by thakur et al (1995) . storage studies of red flesh guava rts beverage change in composition of the red fleshed guava rts beverage over 6 months storage period at ambient conditions is shown in fig 1. tss and acidity ranged between 16 –18.2 obrix and 0.26-0.3 %, respectively. there was a gradual increase in viscosity optical density of the juice indicating non-enzymatic browning increased with storage period similar results were observed table 1. peeling characteristics of exotic red flesh guava parameters hand peeling lye peeling weight of fruit (kg) 50 50 number of persons 2 1 time required for peeling (min.) 180 90 peel contentfruit basis (%) 26.88 17.98 average peeling rate (kg/person/h) 12 20 pulp yieldfruit basis (%) 58.68 73.68 pomace recoveryfruit basis (%) 13.44 7.46 table 2. quality parameters of red flesh guava rts beverage parameter manual blending mixing in colloidal mill tss (o brix) 18 18 acidity (%) 0.30 0.30 ascorbic acid (mg/100ml) 4.55 5.85 ph 3.48 3.48 viscosity (cps) 12.80 16.70 overall sensory score(9 points) 6.17 7.35 fig 1 storage studies on red flesh guava rts beverage j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 50-52, 2007 51 pilot scale processing ofguava by shrestha and bhatia (1982) during apple juice storage. ascorbic acid content decreased from 9.75 to 3.5 mg/100ml during 6 months of storage. reduction in ascorbic acid content during storage has been reported in amla (mehta and rathore, 1976), lemon (palaniswamy and muthukrishnan, 1974) and in citrus juices (mehta and bajaj, 1983). cost economics of pilot scale production of red flesh guava rts beverage guava fruit @ rs. 10/kg rs. 1000.00 sugar @ rs. 20/kg rs. 700.00 bottles @ rs.2 / bottle (200ml) rs. 2000.00 labour charges @ rs.107/day rs. 1950.00 chemicals rs. 100.00 total rs. 5750.00 overhead charges (electricity, operation of equipment and machinery) @ 20 % of total rs. 1150.00 grand total rs. 6900.00 rts beverage output (litres) 247.0 cost of production/litre rs. 27.95 selling price of rts beverage @ rs. 50/litre rs. 12, 350.00 selling price of guava @ rs. 10/kg rs. 1000.00 profit/litre rs. 22.05 cost:benefit 1: 1.79 value addition/kg guava rs. 5.45 / kg cost economics was worked out based on actual expenditure incurred during production acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the director, iihr, bangalore and project leader shri. e. r. suresh for encouragement and providing facilities to carry out the research. help rendered by dr. t. m. gajanana, sr. scientist (agril. economics), in working out cost economics is gratefully acknowledged. (ms received 21 february 2007, revised 29 june 2007) references anonymous, 2000. current status report. http:// agricoop.nic.in/hort/hortrevo 5.htm kalra, s. k and tandon, d.k. 1984. guava nectars from sulphited pulp and their blends with mango nectar. ind. food. packer, 38: 74-77. kalra, s. k, tandon, d. k. and lohari, h. c. 1987. prevention of discolouration in guava beverage during storage. ind. food. packer, 41 : 21-25. khurdiya d. s. and srivatsava, s. 1994. effect of enzymes, lye peeling and conditions of fruits on the quality of guava juice. ind. food. packer, 48 : 5-10. mehta, u. and bajaj, s. 1983. effect of storage and methods of preservation on the physicochemical characteristics of citrus juice. ind. food. packer, 37 :42-51 mehta, u. and rathore, h. 1976. storage studies of pressed juice from amla (phyllanthus emblica). ind. food. packer, 30: 9-11. palaniswamy, k. p. and muthukrishnan, c. r. 1974. studies on the physico-chemical characters of lemon juices and squashes during storage. ind. food. packer, 28: 37-41. ranganna, s. 2000. hand book of analysis and quality control for fruit andvegetable products. second edition. tata mcgraw hill publishing company limited, new delhi, p 9, p. 105. shrestha, m. k. and bhatia b. s. 1982. apple juice – physico-chemical characteristics and storage study. ind. food. packer, 36: 53-60. singh, r, kapoor, a. c, and gupta, o. p. 1983 the effect of cultivars, seasons and storage on the nutritive value and keeping quality of guava cheese. ind. food. packer, 37: 571 thakur, b. r, singh, r. k. handa. a.k. 1995. effect of homogenization pressure on consistency of tomato juice. j. food qlty., 18 : 389 396 tiwari, r. b. and dinesh, m. r. 2001. evaluation of seven exotic red fleshed guava varieties for processing into rts beverage. ind. food packer, 55: 58-62 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 50-52, 2007 52 bhuvaneswari and tiwari page 135 effect of modified atmosphere packaging on maintenance of quality in apple f. a. khan, a. h. rather, n. a. qazi, m. y. bhat1, m. s. darzi, m. a. beigh and imtiyaz ahmad plant physiology section, division of post harvest technology sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences & technology of kashmir shalimar campus, srinagar-191121, india e-mail: fakphtskuastk@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of modified atmosphere packaging (map) on the quality of ‘red delicious’ and ‘golden delicious’ apples. freshly harvested fruits were wiped clean and (25 µm thick) with varying number of perforations and stored in cardboard boxes at ambient temperature. ‘golden delicious’ showed higher incidence of bitter pit as compared to ‘red delicious’ apples. map proved effective in controlling the bitter pit disorder and in maintenance of quality. the least incidence of bitter pit in ‘golden delicious’ was recorded with t 4 (30 x 2 mm perforation) and t 3 (20 x 2 mm) treatment in ‘red delicious’ apples. however, map retained more freshness in ‘golden delicious’ than in ‘red delicious’. key words: apple, modified atmosphere packaging, bitter pit, quality j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 135-137, 2006 1directorate of extension education bitter pit of apples has long been recognized as a serious physiological disorder of stored apples and limits the local as well as export market resulting in economic losses. bitter pit has been described as a physiological breakdown of cells under the skin, causing slight depressions, which are generally concentrated around the calyx end of the fruit. the tissue in the depressed areas is dry and spongy with a bitter taste (ferguson and watkins, 1989). this is generally associated with low levels of calcium in the fruit (perring, 1986); however, the exact cause of bitter pit is not understood (steenkamp et al, 1983; witney and kushad, 1990). application of calcium salts as preor post-harvest treatment has long been practiced as a measure to control development of bitter pits in apple (van goor, 1971). it has been reported that reduction in bitter pit can also be achieved by storing fruits in controlled or modified atmosphere. modified atmosphere packaging (map) refers to the storage of fruits in polymeric films, which restrict transmission of respiratory gases. it is a simple and cheap means of storage but care must be taken to avoid injuriously high co 2 or low o 2, levels which may develop around the fruit due to a change in respiration rates under fluctuating temperatures. insertion of small holes into polymeric film bags has been shown to moderate co 2 and o 2 fluctuations and may be a safer way of obtaining desired atmospheric conditions. however, information on influence of map on reduction of bitter pits in apple is inadequate (hewett and thompson, 1989). therefore, the present study was carried out to examine the effect of map on bitter pit development and quality in kashmir apples. physiologically mature fruits of ‘red delicious’ and ‘golden delicious’ apples were obtained from a private orchard of shopion (dist.pulwama, j&k) in the last week of september. large and uniform sized fruits were surfacecleaned and packed in 25 µm thick polymeric film of 30 x 30 cm size. various treatments of map comprised of polymeric film without perforation (t 1 ), polymeric film with 10 x 1 x 2 mm perforations (t 2 ), polymeric film with 10 x 2 x 2 mm perforations (t 3 ), and polymeric film with 10 x 3 x 2 mm perforations (t 4 ). fruits without polymeric film packaging (t 5 ) served as the control. each treatment with ten fruits was replicated five times. packed fruits were kept in separate cardboard boxes and stored at ambient temperature (180c/120c). after four months of storage, observations were recorded on incidence of bitter pit and on other quality parameters. fruit firmness and tss were measured with penetrometer and hand refractometer, respectively. acidity was determined following the procedure of ranganna (1986). data were statistically short communication page 136 analyzed using standard procedures (gomez and gomez, 1984). bitter pit incidence was higher in ‘golden delicious’ than in ‘red delicious’ apples (table 1). fruits packed in polymeric film containing perforations had significantly less bitter pit incidence than fruits in sealed polymeric film and without perforation polymeric film. the incidence was found to decrease with increasing number of perforations (fig1). the incidence of the disorder in ‘golden delicious’ (15.1%) was the highest in t 1 treatment followed by t 5 (7.8%) and the least (1.8 %) in t 4 . ‘red delicious’ apples also showed the highest incidence (3.7%) in t 1 followed by t 5 (2.7%) and the least incidence of bitter pit in t 3 (1.5 %), and t 4 (1.8%). higher incidence of bitter pit in ‘golden delicious’ apples may be due to low levels of calcium in the fruits tissue as compared to ‘red delicious’ apples (khan et al, 2006). ‘golden delicious’ apple has also been reported to be the most susceptible cultivar with reference to bitter pit development (snowdon, 1990). efficacy of perforated polymeric film in reducing the incidence of bitter pit has also been shown by hewett and thompson (1989) with ‘cox’s orange pippina apples, on the contrary, fruit spoilage due to internal breakdown was significantly higher in ‘red delicious’ compared to ‘golden delicious’ apples (fig 2). this may be attributed to accumulation of co 2 in the intercellular spaces of the fruit, as, ‘red delicious’ apples have thicker skin than ‘golden delicious’ which may have hindered the diffusion of co 2 from the fruit. a possible reason for the increased rate of spoilage in fruits stored in polymeric film with a smaller number of perforations may be accumulation of acetaldehyde, ethanol, malic acid and succinic acid. the activity of glycolytic and krebs cycle enzymes is known to be inhibited by low levels of 02 leading to accumulation of co 2 around the fruits (parritt et al, 1982). it is also evident from table 1 that physiological loss of weight (plw) increased with increasing number of perforations, and, fruits of both the cultivars packed in polymeric films without perforation exhibited minimum weight-loss compared to fruits stored without polymeric film packing. the physiological loss in weight is attributed chiefly to transpiration. higher number of perforations in polymeric j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 135-137, 2006 khan et al 136 table 1. effect of modified atmosphere packaging on quality parameters in apple cultivars treatment plw fruit t.s.s. titrable (%) firmness (lbs) (%) acidity (%) ‘golden delicious’ t 1 5.3 10.3 9.8 0.228 t 2 7.1 11.0 9.2 0.258 t 3 9.0 9.3 8.6 0.265 t 4 10.2 9.6 11.2 0.188 t 5 15.5 8.2 13.2 0.154 c.d (p=0.05) 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.038 ‘red delicious’ t 1 7.3 8.8 13.4 0.165 t 2 6.5 7.8 14.6 0.158 t 3 7.7 7.1 16.8 0.135 t 4 9.8 7.6 15.3 0.128 t 5 16.2 8.5 14.8 0.184 c.d (p=0.05) 0.7 0.4 0.8 ns t 1 : without perforation; t 2 : 10 x 1 x 2mm perforation; t 3 : 10 x 2 x 2mm perforation; t 4 : 10 x 3 x 2mm perforation; t 5 : without polyethylene packaging. fig 1. effect of modified atmosphere packaging on bitter pit development in apple. t 1 : without perforation; t 2 : 10 x 1 x 2mm perforation; t 3 : 10 x 2 x 2mm perforation; t 4 : 10 x 3 x 2mm perforation; t 5 : without polyethylene packaging. fig 2. effect of modified atmosphere packaging on fruit spoilage in apple. t 1 : without perforation; t 2 : 10 x 1 x 2mm perforation; t 3 : 10 x 2 x 2mm perforation; t 4 : 10 x 3 x 2mm perforation; t 5 : without polyethylene packaging. page 137 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 135-137, 2006 effect of modified atmosphere packaging on apple 137 films may have may increase vpd leading to higher transpiration and weight-loss. fruit firmness decreased with increasing number of perforations whereas total soluble solids showed the opposite trend. decrease in fruit firmness with increased perforation could be the result of enhanced activity of glycolytic and krebs’ cycle enzymes due to an increased level of oxygen in perforated polybags (parritt et al, 1982; mir and beaudry, 2002). greater water loss from the tissue may also be one of the reasons for decreased fruit firmness through decreased turgor pressure of cells. increased tss in better aerated packing may also be attributed to hydrolysis of complex food materials to simpler forms due to aerobic respiration and to concentration of the juice due to dehydration. similarly, titrable acidity also differed significantly in ‘golden delicious’ apples but did not show marked variation in ‘red delicious’ with perforated polymeric films packing. references ferguson, i. b. and watkins, c. b. 1989. bitter pit in apple fruit. hort. rev., 11: 289-355. plate 1. bitter pit in golden delicious apple gomez, k. a. and gomez, a. a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research. john wiley & sons, new york, usa, pp. 92-98. hewett, e. w. and thompson, c. j. 1989. modified atmosphere storage and bitter pit reduction in ‘cox’s orange pippin’ apples. sci. hort., 39: 117-129. khan, f. a. rather, a. h, qazi, n. a. and bhat, m. y. 2006. effect of post harvest application of calcium chloride on bitter pit incidence and quality of red and golden delicious apples. progressive hort., (communicated) mir, n and beaudry, r. 2002. atmosphere control using oxygen and carbon dioxide. in: fruit quality and its biological basis (ed. m. knee), sheffield academic press, sheffield s ii 9as, uk., pp. 122-156. parritt, s. h., meheriuk, m. and lidstor, p. d. 1982. postharvest disorders of apples and pears. agriculture canada publications, 1737/e, ottawa, ont. perring, m. a. 1986. incidence of bitter pit in relation to the calcium content of apples: problems and paradoxes, a review. j. sci. food agri., 37: 591606. ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis & quality control for fruit and vegetable products (2nd edn.), pp 1-111. tata mcgraw hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi, india. snowdon, a. l. 1990. post-harvest disease and disorders of fruits and vegetables. wolfe scientific ltd., london. pp 203. steenkamp, j., terblanche, j. h. and de villeirs, o. t. 1983. the role of organic acids and nutrient elements in relation to bitter pit in golden delicious apples. acta hort., 138: 35 -42. van goor, b. 1971. the effect of frequent spraying with calcium nitrate solutions and occurrence of bitter pit of the apple cox’s orange pippin. j. hortl. sci., 46: 347-364. witney, g. w. and kushad, m. m. 1990. correlation of pyruvate kinase activity with bitter pit development in apple fruit. sci. hort., 43: 247-253. (ms received 3 june 2006 , revised 27 september 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 64-67, 2006 a statistical model for ascertaining the influence and reliability of weather parameters on incidence of blossom blight in mango (mangifera indica l.) r. venugopalan, r. d. rawap and a. k. saxena' section of economics and statistics indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: venur@iihr.emet.in abstract a statistical model was developed to study the influence and reliability of weatlier parameters on incidence of blossom blight in mango {mangifera indica) and subsequently to predict their incidence. results showed that preceding week's weather variables viz., maximum and minimum temperature, evaporation, rainfall, morning and evening relative humidity and wind speed were found to collectively predict blossom blight incidence to the extent of 94.3 per cent. further, as a measure of goodness-of-fit, the coefficient of determination (r̂ ) and mean squared error were used to evaluate the empirical model developed by using above variables. validation test showed that the model developed using relative humidity at 07.30 h (x,), evaporation (x̂ ) and wind speed (x̂ ) (y = 883.4 8.065 x, -11.506 x̂ -33.619 x̂ ) could predict the incidence to the extent of 75.7%. this model is useful in determining the role of climatic factors in disease appearance and progression and devising suitable management strategy. keywords: blossom blight, mango, coefficient of determination, climatic factors, model introduction mango {mangifera indica l) is the most important fruit crop grown across various climatic and soil conditions in india. although mango is grown in large area, the productivity is much lower than the world average. there are many biotic and abiotic stresses, which are responsible for the low productivity. among the biotic factors, diseases like powdery mildew, leaf spot and blossom blight are the most serious on mango and account for the major losses. the pathogens such as, colletotrichum glaeosporioides, alternaria alternata and pestalotiopsis mangiferae are responsible for blossom blight. these pathogens can cause disease singly or in combination depending upon the weather conditions. in india, the occurrence and importance of blossom blight disease was reported during 1992 (rawal, 1992). however, information on the influence of weather factors on disease outbreak is lacking. in view of this, a study was undertaken to find out the role of weather factors individually and in combination that lead to the disease incidence. such work will be helpful to develop prediction equations so as to facilitate devising a suitable management strategy. material and methods mango var. totapuri orchards were surveyed during august to october 2005 (flowering period) to record the blossom blight disease initiation and its progression. disease ratings were recorded at weekly interval by following 0-5 scale, where 0 = nil pdi; 1= 0> pdi d>10; 2= 11>pdi<25; 3= 26>pdi<50; 4= 51>pdi<75 and 5 =e <76 per cent disease intensity (pdi). data thus recorded were converted to percent disease index as per mckenny (1923). the weekly weather data such as maximum temperature (°c) (x,), minimum temperature (°c) (x^), relative humidity (%) (7.30 h) (x3); x4: relative humidity (%) (14.30 h), (x^), evaporation (mm) (x^), wind speed (kph) (xg), rainfall (mm) (x )̂ and number of rainy days (xj) were collected from iihr meteorological observatory for the same period. all the data were subjected to statistical analysis in order to assess the influence of abiotic factors on blossom blight incidence and subsequently for the development of disease prediction models as detailed below. in order to assess the degree of linear association of each of the weather variables on blossom blight incidence over a time period, linear correlation coefficient was worked out. further, with a view to understand the role of weather 'division of plant pathology mailto:venur@iihr.emet.in venugopalan et al parameters on degree of disease incidence, a statistical model was developed. as a measure of goodness-of-fit, the value of the co-efficient of determination (r^) was calculated (kvalseth, 1985) as illustrated below: a r^= 1-[i(y,-y)^ / [ i ( y , y ) ^ ] where ŷ represents pdi during the time period t. however, inclusion of an additional independent variable into the selected candidate model always boosts the computed rvalue. hence, to ensure the statistical significance of the computed regression coefficients, these were subjected to r-test statistical analysis. further, to test whether the regression models are robust against the basic assumption of regression approach, viz., independent variables should not be related among themselves, commonly known as the problem of multi-colinearity, variance inflation factor (vif) was worked out. a value of vif exceeding 10 indicates the presence of strong multicolinearity among observations (ryan, 1997). to select the significant weather parameters influencing the observed variability in blossom blight incidence, a step-wise regression procedure (ryan, 1997), was employed as delineated below. in step-wise regression, the final regression equation was developed stage by stage. during each stage, making use of f test, an independent variable (weather factor) would enter into the equation if the significance level of its f value is <0.05, and would be removed if the significance level is >0.1. this process was continued until all the variables were exhausted and are found significant, resulting in the final equation comprising only the significant weather variables. further, as we are dealing with a set of sample observations to take inference about the whole population under study (variability in blossom blight incidence over time), in general, it is essential to perform a detailed residual (difference between observed and predicted pdi) analysis (venugopalan and prajneshu, 1997) before flagging of the developed model for its universal validity. to this end, two important assumptions about the model generated residuals; viz. randomness and normality were tested by following onesample run test and shapiro-wilk test, respectively (agostid'no and stephens, 1986). results and discussion linear correlation coefficient analysis among weekly blossom blight incidence with preceding week's weather parameters were worked out and presented in table 1. perusal of the results indicated the presence of highly significant correlation among blossom blight incidence with the averages of preceding week's weather variables viz., relative humidity at 14.30 h (r=0.60) and wind speed (r=0.69). among the intra-class linear correlation coefficients based on preceding week's weather parameters, maximum temperature had shown a significant positive correlation with wind speed (r=0.65); relative humidity at 7.30h with evaporation (r=-0.82), with rainfall (r=0.79); relative humidity at 14.30h with wind speed (r=-0.88) indicating about the indirect effect of these factors on blossom blight incidence. as a next step, statistical model was developed by regressing weekly blossom blight incidence with all the weather parameters of preceding week. perusal of table 2 indicates that the preceding week's weather variables were found to predict blossom blight incidence to the extent of 94.3%. though the model developed resulted in considerably high r^ value, some of the regression coefficients corresponding to weather parameters were only significantly related to blossom blight incidence as indicated by the t-test statistic value (being greater than 1.96). in addition to this, the model indicated the presence of strong multi-collinearity among weather variables as indicated by vif (variance inflation factor) value 23.18 (being >10 and eigen value being nearer to zero). table 1. correlation coefficient ( r ) among weekly blossom blight incidence and weather parameters variable % damage (1) maximum temperature (2) minimumtemperature (3) rh 7hrs (4) rh 13hrs(5) wind speed (6) evaporation (7) rain fall (8) no of rainy days (9) (1) 1.00 -0.37 -0.41 0.31 0.60 -0.54 -0.69 0.10 0.3 1 (2) 1.00 -0.22 -0.11 -0.41 -0.12 0.65 0.09 -0.50 (3) -1.00 -0.22 -0.17 0.25 -0.02 0.19 0.35 (4) 1.00 0.37 -0.82 -0.52 0.79 0.76 (5) 1.00 -0.33 -0.88 0.05 0.56 (6) 1.00 0.40 -0.58 -0.51 (v) 1.00 -0.13 -0.69 (8) 1.00 0.60 note: bold values are significant at 5% level j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 64-67, 2006 65 mango blossom blight forecasting model table 2. results of statistical models with goodness of fit statistics model type full regression model (ail weather parameters) model using wind speed (x^), relative humidity 07.30 h (x,) evaporation (x,) and rainfall (x )̂ optimised model wind speed (x^), relative humidity 07.30 h (x,) evaporation (x,) only] y = 1866.4 (18.3) -stat -1.6 y = 1290.8 t-stat y = 8 8 3 . 4 t-.stat statistical model (with standard error of b̂ )) -31.1 x, -h30.4 x, -19.9 x, 25.5 x^ 4-4.6 x,-21.52 x^-h3.64 x, -15.45 x, (20.3) (7.7) (4.8) (8.8) (33.7) (1.6) (8.03) 1.5 -2.6 0.95 -2.87 -0.63 2.25 -1.9 12.9x,-12.7x,-41.2x^ 4-1.57 x, (5.04) (3.98) (11.3) (1.27) -2.56 -3.2 .15 -3.67 8.06x,-11.506 x,-33.619 x(, (3.3) (4.02) (9.84) -2.42 -2.86 -3.42 rh%) 94.3 80.7 75.7 vif 23.2 8.76 3.56 note: values parenthesis are standard error of regression estimates bi accordingly, to eliminate this multi-couinearity problem, step-wise regression models were developed and the results are presented in table 2. the results indicated that only four variables viz., wind speed, relative humidity at 07.30h, rainfall and evaporation could explain the variability in blossom blight incidence to the extent of 80.7 % as against 94.3% (when all weather variables included in the model). however, in another optimized model, rain fall was also eliminated, because the corresponding regression coefficient was not statistically significant as indicated by t-test statistical value 1.27 (being <1.96). therefore, among all weather parameters tried, only three weather variables, viz. relative humidity at 07.30h, evaporation and wind speed could themselves collectively explain 75.7% of the variation in weekly blossom blight incidence, which is quite high while predicting a biological variable. further, the regression coefficients corresponding to these variables in the final model were also statistically significant, as indicated by the t-statistic value, which in table 3. results of residual analysis for the optimized model test criterion residual statistic significance assumption tested value run test shapiro-wilk randomness normality 0.0091 0.931 p<0.005 p<0.005 table 4. calculated per cent error variation for predicted blossom blight incidences time in date of week observation predicted blossom blight incidence (%) error variation between observed and blossom blight (%) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 j. hon. 12.8.05 19.8.05 26.8.05 2.9.05 9.9.05 16.9.05 23.9.05 30.9.05 7.10.05 14.10.05 21.10.05 sci. vol. 1 (1): 64-67,2006 16.44 41.68 56.67 19.49 45.78 31.08 57.48 64.84 86.50 96.18 92.63 -7.76 -25.60 -27.30 12.50 -4.44 20.92 16.52 10.48 0.83 -2.17 6.03 absolute value exceeded 1.96, the critical region value. also the vif value computed for this model was well inside the acceptable limit (3.56<10.0) which further strengthens the statistical validity of the optimized model. before drawing final conclusion about the adequacy of the selected model, universal validity of the model was assessed by performing detailed residual analysis. the randomness assumption of the residuals tested using the one-sample run test resulted in the test statistic value as 0.009, which being less than 1.96, is well inside the critical region of normal table at 5% level of significance. the normality assumption of the model generated residuals tested using shapiro-wilk test resulted in the test statistic value as 0.931, which being less than 1.96, is well inside the critical region at 5% level of significance (table 3). these two results further ensured the universal validly of the developed model. a graphic representation of the adequacy of the fitted models is presented in fig. 1. the per cent error variation between observed and predicted values ranged from 0.83 to 20.9 (table 4). the approach of this study is to develop a reasonable prediction model for mango (cv totapuri) blossom blight using reliable and dependable weather variables which have direct influence on blossom blight incidence. further, validation of optimized model (the observed incidence values were fig. 1. statistical model for epidemiology of blossom blight in mango (cv totapuri) time pariod observed pdi predicled pdi 66 venugopalan et al compared to predicted values using optimized model), clearly indicated that the model could predict the incidence reasonably well. by using the model developed in the present study, it is possible to workout mango (cv totapuri) blossom blight incidence with minimum available data viz., relative humidity at 07.30h, evaporation and wind speed. however, future studies to standardize variables for improving the precision of blossom blight incidence estimates will be envisaged with good variability in the data set. this model is useful in determining the role of climatic factors in disease appearance and progression and devising a suitable management strategy. thus, we have used statistical modelling as a power tool for developing suitable disease forecasting models and also for optimizing factors influencing disease incidence. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the director, indian institute of horticultural research, hesseraghatta lake po, bangalore , india for providing facilities to carry out the work. the authors also thank the anonymous referee and the editor for their critical suggestions which led to substantial improvement in the quality of the paper. references agostid'no r.b and stephens. m.a. 1986. goodness of fit techniques. marcel dekker, new york.576p kvalseth, t. o. 1985. cautionary note about r^ amer. 5far., 39:279-85 mcknney, h. h., 1923. influence of soil temperature and moisture on infection of wheat seedlings by helminthosporium sativum. j. agric. res., 26:195-217 rawal, r.d. 1992. ann. rep. 1991-92. indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, india 204p ryan, thomas r 1997. modem regression methods. john wiley and sons inc., new york. 515p venugopalan, r and prajneshu. 1997. a generalized allometric model for determining length-weight relationship. biometrical j., 39:733-39. (ms received 3 april, 2006 revised 12 june, 2006) j. hon. sci. vol. 1(1): 64-67, 2006 67 introduction the productivity of brinjal could be improved by the use of high quality seed, which is affected during storage leading to loss of vigour and viability. several factors viz., inherent genetic potential, initial seed quality, environment during seed production, seed moisture content, mechanical damage, seed borne pathogens, storage insects, seed dressing chemicals and seed treatments influence the seed longevity and affect subsequent field emergence. hence, storage of seeds after harvest until sowing assumes great importance for a successful crop production programme. during storage, viability and vigour are lost due to many biotic factors like storage pests and other micro flora. the insect pest and fungi cause considerable damage and are responsible for deterioration and reduction in storage potential of seed. therefore, seed treatment with suitable chemicals and botanicals will reduce the quantitative and qualitative losses besides maintaining quality of seed for a longer period. seed pelleting is the process of enclosing small and irregular seeds with a small quantity of inert material to produce a globular unit of standard size needed to facilitate precision planting. it is also a mechanism of applying needed materials in such a way that they affect the seed or soil at the seed soil interface. thus seed pelleting influence of storage containers and seed pelleting on seed quality in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) during storage satish kumar, basave gowda and s. patil shekhar seed science and technology research laboratory regional agricultural research station, raichur – 584 102, india email: bgowdseeds@rediffmail.com abstract the experiment was conducted using brinjal hybrid seeds cv. arka navneet. seeds were pelleted with bavistin, znso 4, mnso 4, dap and arappu leaf powder and stored in paper and polyethylene bags under ambient conditions for 12 months. among the seed pelleting treatments, seeds pelleted with bavistin (0.1%) followed by albezia amara leaf powder (250 g/kg) resulted in minimum quantitative losses with better seed quality parameters. the seeds stored in polyethylene (700 gauges) bags maintained better seed quality parameters with less quantitative losses in comparison with seeds stored in paper bags throughout the storage period. in the interaction, effect of seeds pelleted with bavistin and stored in polyethylene bag followed by albezia amara leaf powder and stored in polyethylene bag revealed higher values for all the positive quality parameters when compared to other interaction effects throughout the storage period. key words: brinjal, seed pelleting, seed quality, seed storage. provides an opportunity to package, effective quantities of materials such that they can influence the micro environment of each seed (krishnasamy, 2003). hence, the present investigation was carried out to study the influence of seed pelleting and storage containers on seed quality of brinjal during storage. material and methods four months old hybrid seeds of brinjal cv. arka navneet, were obtained from agricultural research station, uas, dharwad. the seeds were pelleted with bavistin (0.1%), zns0 4 (0.03%), mns0 4 (2%), dap (6%). albezia amara leaf powder (2.5%) and stored in paper bags and polyethylene bags of 700 gauge with four replications laid out in crd with two factorial concepts along with control. the seeds were initially coated with adhesive and pelleting material followed by sprinkling and was rolling on the filler material (ash) for effective and uniform coating. the seeds were then dried back to their original moisture content and stored in paper and polyethylene bags under ambient conditions for 12 months. seeds were drawn at random from the bags at bimonthly intervals for sowing in the field above observations. observations on germination percentage, speed of germination, seedling length (cm), seedling vigour index j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 146-149, 2008 147 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 146-149, 2008 (svi), seedling dry weight (mg) and field emergence (%) were collected following procedure prescribed by ista (anon.,1999). the field emergence was studied by using one hundred seeds selected at random from each treatment in four replications, sown in well prepared black soil. field emergence count was taken on the 15th day after sowing and emergence percentage was calculated taking into account the number of seedlings measuring cm above the soil surface. results and discussion seed pelleting with fungicides and botanicals had a significant effect on germination. seeds treated with bavistin resulted in significantly higher germination throughout the storage period followed by seeds treated with albezia amara leaf powder, mnso 4 , znso 4 , dap and control (table 1). seed pelleting with bavistin was found to preserve the quality by its protecting the seeds from fungal and insect attack thus contributing to seed quality parameters (taylor and eckenrode, 1993). beneficial effects of albezia amara leaf powder could be attributed to bio-active materials present in them which might synergistically interact with amino acids especially tryptophan to form iaa in germinating seeds resulting in enhancement in seedling growth (krishnasamy and basaria begam, 2003). increased seed quality parameters might be due to the physiologically active substances present on the albezia amara leaf powder which might have activated the embryo and other associated structure leading to development of stronger and efficient root system and higher vigour index (ahmedraza, 1997). however, the decline in per cent germination observed in all the treatments with increasing storage period might be due to the phenomenon of ageing, depletion of seed reserves and degradation of seed coat resulting in leaching of its constituents as reported by chandra senan (1996) in chilli and joeraj (2000) in sunflower and basavegowda and nanjareddy (2008) in groundnut. seed pelleting with bavistin followed by albezia amara leaf powder recorded significantly higher seedling length, vigour index and seedling dry weight during storage (table 1). this might be due to the control of physiological deterioration of seeds by their anti fungal and antioxidant effects, increased enzymatic activity, efficient translocation of nutrients from the seed into the initially heterotrophic seedling (ref). the decrease in germination, seedling length, seedling vigour index and seedling dry weight with increasing storage period increased (tables 1 and 2) could be attributed to the damage to membranal enzyme, proteins and nucleic acids resulting in the complete disorganization of membranes and cell organelles (roberts, 1972). table 1. effect of seed pelleting and containers on seed quality parameters during storage of brinjal hybrid cv. arka navneet treatment 2 mas 4 mas 6 mas g sg vi sw g sg vi sw g sg vi sw (%) (mg) (%) (mg) (%) (mg) p0 87.50 12.58 913 438 85.10 12.13 839 415 82.60 11.78 768 393 (69.30) (67.24) (65.31) p1 96.70 13.78 1293 477 95.20 13.57 1224 460 93.70 13.35 1160 444 (79.56 (77.32) (75.45) p2 93.20 13.28 1139 470 91.60 12.07 1082 453 90.20 12.85 1026 436 (74.80) (73.13) (71.69) p3 92.60 13.21 1115 463 89.50 12.85 1050 446 87.60 12.50 973 428 (74.20) (71.60) (69.37) p4 91.60 13.06 1054 454 88.60 12.64 961 433 85.90 12.26 886 412 (73.10) (70.21 (67.96) p5 95.70 13.49 1267 473 94.20 13.28 1198 459 92.60 13.07 1140 442 (76.68) (76.06) (74.21) sem± 0.73 0.09 11.11 0.84 0.25 0.08 10.5 0.61 0.80 0.08 7.81 0.71 cd (p=0.05) 2.08 0.24 31.76 2.41 1.73 0.24 29.9 1.74 1.84 0.24 22.30 2.03 c1 92.30 13.14 1106 461 89.70 12.76 1023 441 87.10 12.49 945 422 (73.98) (71.27) (68.94) c2 93.60 13.31 1133 464 92.00 13.09 1072 446 90.50 12.87 1019 430 (75.38) (73.58) (73.04) sem± 0.30 0.03 4.53 0.34 0.61 0.03 4.30 0.25 0.23 0.03 3.20 0.30 cd (p=0.05) 0.85 0.09 12.90 0.98 0.70 0.09 12.22 0.71 0.67 0.09 9.09 0.83 g-germination (%), sg-speed of germination, vi-vigour index, sw-seedling dry weight seed quality in brinjal during storage 148 seed pelleting with znso 4 , mnso 4 and dap was not found to be effective in maintaining seed quality during storage. although micronutrients are not helpful in enhancing storage life of the seed, they are helpful in plant establishment in the field (krishna samy and basaria begam, 2003). effect of containers on storability moisture content, temperature and rh during storage are the most important factors in determining seed storability. the hygroscopic nature of seeds results in fluctuation of seed moisture content due to changes in atmospheric temperature and rh. so, storage of seeds in moisture proof containers during storage will eliminate the dampness, deterioration, microbes, and enhance the seed longevity. it was observed that a decrease in germination percentage, root length, shoot length, vigour index, seedling dry weight, field emergence and speed of germination occurred with increase in storage period of seeds in both paper and polyethylene bags. significantly higher root length, germination, shoot length, svi, and seedling dry weight were noticed in the seeds stored in polyethylene bag while the seeds stored in paper bag recorded lower values which might be due to a larger fluctuation in moisture content leading to a faster rate of deterioration in the seeds stored in paper bags. similar results were also obtained by karivaratharaju et al (1987) in brinjal. the seeds treated with bavistin, zinc sulphate, manganese sulphate, dap, arappu leaf powder and stored in polyethylene bag recorded better seed quality parameters. seed pelleting with bavistin accompanied by and storage in polyethylene bag recorded significantly higher germination percentage, speed of germination, root length, shoot length, vigour index, seedling dry weight and field emergence (table 2) than those seeds stored in paper bag. results obtained in seeds pelleted with bavistin and stored in polyethylene bag might be due to anti fungal effect of bavistin and impervious nature of polyethylene bag which caused less interference of outside atmosphere. similar observations were made by jacqueline and selvaraj (1988) in brinjal. references ahmedraza, m. 1997. seed technological studies on bellary onion (allium cepa) cv. agri found darked. m.sc. (agri.) thesis, tnau, coimbatore anonymous.1999. international rules for seed testing. seed sci & tech,12: 299-520 table 1. effect of seed pelleting and containers on seed quality parameters during storage of brinjal hybrid cv.arka navneet (contd.) treatment 8 mas 10 mas 12 mas g% sg vi sw g% sg vi sw g% sg vi sw p0 80.10 11.42 699 370 76.60 10.92 626 348 72.00 10.35 552 325 (63.52) (61.08) (58.40) p1 92.20 13.14 1092 428 89.70 12.78 1021 412 85.70 12.21 887 395 (73.36) (71.25) (65.74) p2 88.70 12.64 971 419 86.30 12.28 903 402 82.20 11.71 798 380 (70.31) (68.21) (65.03) p3 85.20 12.14 906 411 81.90 11.73 832 393 77.70 11.07 739 375 (67.38) (64.88) (61.77) p4 83.60 11.92 817 392 80.10 11..36 735 371 75.70 10.78 640 350 (67.12) (63.46) (60.44) p5 91.10 (73.64) 12.85 1070 427 88.10 12..58 996 411 84.70 11.97 835 392 (69.42) (66.97) sem± 0.54 0.09 9.16 0.70 0.50 0.09 9.80 0.61 0.50 0.09 9.60 1.11 cd (p=0.05) 1.64 0.25 26.24 1.95 1.38 0.25 27.90 1.75 1.38 0.25 27.30 3.25 c1 84.60 12.04 869 402 80.90 11.52 694 383 76.70 10.95 694 362 (66.89) (64.11) (61.27) c2 89.10 12.66 965 430 86.89 12.33 790 395 82.50 11.73 790 377 (70.68) (68.65) (65.23) sem± 0.22 0.04 3.74 0.30 0.20 0.04 5.52 0.30 0.20 0.04 5.52 0.50 cd (p=0.05) 0.63 0.10 10.70 0.83 0.56 0.10 15.80 0.81 0.56 0.10 15.80 1.38 p 0 – control p 3 – mnso 4 (2%) c 1 – paper bag p 1 – bavistin (0.1%) p 4 – dap (60 g/ka) c 2 – polythene bag 700 gauge p2 – zinc sulphate (300 mg/kg) p 5 – arappu leaf powder (albizia amara)(250g/kg) • figures in the parentheses indicate arc sine transformed values satish kumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 146-149, 2008 149 basavegowda and nanjareddy. 2008. effect of kernel pelleting on storability of groundnut. crop res., 35: 23-26 chandrasenan, n.v. 1996. effect of provenance on seed quality and halogenations treatment tocontrol seed deterioration. m.sc. (agri.), thesis, tnau, coimbatore jacqueline, a. and selvaraj. 1998. studies on storage of brinjal (solanum melongena.l) seeds biocide treatments and containers for storage. south ind. hort., 36: 313-317 joeraj, h.j. 2000. certain seed technological studies in sunflower (helianthus annus l.) hybrid kbsh-1. m. sc. (agri.) thesis, tnau, coimbatore karivaratharaju, v., palniswamy. v. and kumarasen, k. 1987. effect of seed treatment and containers on the storability of brinjal seeds. seed res., 12: 141–153 krishnasamy, v and basaria begam, j. 2003. effect of seed hardening and pelleting on seed germination and vigour in black gram. seed res., 31:194–195 krishnasamy, v. 2003. seed pelleting principles and practices. icar short course on seed h a r d e n i n g and pelleting technologies for rainfed garden land ecosystems, tnau, coimbatore, p.96 roberts, e.h. 1972. cytological, genetical and metabolic changes in seed viability associated with loss of viability of seeds. roberts, e.h.(ed.), chapmann and hall limited, london, 253-306 taylor, a.g. and eckenrode, c.j.1993. seed coating technologies to apply trigard for the control of onion maggot and to reduce pesticide application. in: efforts pertinent to the integrated pest management at cornell university, nys ipm publication, 117: 73-78 table 2. interaction effect of seed pelleting and containers on field emergence (%) during storage of brinjal hybrid cv. arka navneet treatments storage period (months) interaction 2 4 6 8 10 12 effect (p x c) p 1 c 1 88.00 87.00 86.10 85.10 82.50 75.10 (66.73)* (68.85) (68.06) (67.24) (65.24) (60.04) p 2 c 1 86.10 85.10 84.10 83.20 79.20 70.10 (68.06) (67.24) (66.45) (65.75) (62.82) (56.79) p 3 c 1 86.10 84.10 82.10 80.20 74.10 69.10 (68.06) (66.45) (64.99) (63.53) (59.35) (56.18) p 4 c 1 83.10 80.20 77.10 74.40 72.10 65.10 (66.67) (63.53) (61.36) (59.60) (58.06) (53.74) p 5 c 1 87.00 86.10 85.10 84.10 80.90 74.10 (68.85) (68.06) (67.24) (66.45) (64.03) (59.41) p 0 c 1 82.10 79.20 75.10 72.10 70.80 60.00 (64.92) (62.82) (60.01) (58.06) (56.88) (50.77) p 1 c 2 89.10 88.00 87.00 86.00 84.10 78.00 (70.65) (69.73) (68.85) (68.06) (66.45) (62.03) p 2 c 2 87.00 86.10 85.10 84.10 82.10 74.10 (68.85) (68.06) (67.24) (66.45) (64.99) (59.35) p 3 c 2 87.00 85.10 83.20 80.90 78.10 70.00 (68.85) (67.24) (65.75) (64.18) (62.04) (56.79) p 4 c 2 84.10 82.10 80.20 78.10 75.10 68.10 (66.44) (64.99) (63.53) (62.04) (60.01) (55.56) p 5 c 2 88.00 87.00 86.00 85.10 83.80 77.10 (69.69) (68.85) (68.06) (67.24) (66.25) (61.41) p 0 c 2 84.70 80.96 79.20 77.10 72.40 65.10 (66.99) (64.18) (62.82) (61.36) (58.55) (53.74) mean 86.03 84.24 82.53 81.10 78.00 70.50 s. em+ 0.70 0.69 0.66 0.64 0.64 0.53 cd at 5% 2.00 1.96 1.97 1.82 183 1.50 p0 – control p3 – mnso 4 (2%), c 1 – paper bag p1 – bavistin (0.1%), p4 – dap (60 g/ka) c2 – polythene bag (700 gauge) p2 – zinc sulphate (300 mg/kg), p5 – arappu leaf powder (albizia amara)(250g/kg) • figures in the parentheses indicate arc sine transformed values (ms received 5 february 2008, revised 15 july 2008) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 146-149, 2008 seed quality in brinjal during storage introduction alphonso mango (mangifera indica l.) is a leading cultivar grown commercially in the konkan region of maharashtra and occupies an area of 1,64,000 ha. the variety is highly preferred for export. but, alternate bearing and low productivity (3.0 t/ha) realized with normal spacing gives low net returns to the farmer. to overcome this constraint, a trial was conducted at the agriculture research station, mulde with five different spacings during the period 1997 to 2009. efforts were made to accommodate higher number of plants per unit area so as to get higher yield from the mango plantation during the initial period of orchard development. it takes at least 15 to 20 years to cover all the area with canopy in a mango orchard. this leads to low net returns to the grower. as a result, there is a feeling among mango growers that mango cultivation is not economical. to increase net returns per unit area of mango cultivation, this trial was undertaken. the major objective of the study was to optimize spacing for high density planting to obtain higher yields per unit area during the early period of the plantation. material and methods the study was conducted at agriculture research station, mulde, sindhudurg district, maharashtra state. the high density planting in mango cv. alphonso n.v. dalvi, b.r. salvi, s.a. chavan and m.p. kandalkar regional fruit research station dr. balasaheb sawant konkan krishi vidyapeeth vengurle 416 516, india e–mail: nitesh_flori@yahoo.com abstract a trial was conducted to optimize spacing for high density planting in mango cv. alphonso to obtain higher yield/ unit area at the agriculture research station, mulde, during 2006-07 to 2008-09 with four close spacings and one normal spacing as control. highest yield (6.4 mt/ha) was recorded with a spacing of 5 m x 5 m without reduction in fruit size in 10 year old plants compared to the mean yield of 1.12 mt/ha in 10m x 10m normal spacing. high density plantation helped to get significantly higher yield per unit area compared to the normal spacing, without affecting size and quality of mango fruits. the highest cost:benefit ratio (2.33) was recorded in high density plantation of 5m x 5m, with maximum net returns of rs.1,12,000/per hectare. the present findings show promise for more yield and returns per unit area during the initial years of mango plantation by adopting 5m x 5m high density planting. key words : mango, alphonso, spacing, high density planting trial was laid out in randomized block design, with five replications. the soil was red laterite, with ph range 5.5 to 6.5, and was rich in iron content. soil nutrient status of this experimental plot was as follows : n (2.24%), p (0.10%), k (0.72%) and minor nutrients zn (63.7 ppm), cu (12.1 ppm), fe (72.70 ppm) and mn (68.8 ppm). average rainfall in this region is 3000–4000 mm, with relative humidity of 85–90%. maximum average temperature is 35oc and minimum average temperature 16oc, with average sunshine hours of 9.00 h. weather conditions are ideally suited to mango cultivation. five spacings used for the planting were: 1) 2.5m x 10m, 2) 5m x 5m, 3) 5m x 7.5m, 4) 5m x 10m and 5) 10m x 10m. unit area /treatment /replication and details of number of plants /treatment are given below: treatment spacing number of number of total plants/ replications number of plot/ plants/ treatment treatment t 1 2.5m x 10m 20 5 100 t 2 5m x 5m 20 5 100 t 3 5m x 7.5m 13 5 65 t 4 5m x 10m 10 5 50 t 5 10m x 10m 5 5 25 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 117-119, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 118 the trial was conducted under rainfed conditions. planting was done during 1997. plants were given recommended fertilizer doses and prophylactic measures (with standard dose of paclobutrazol) were practised during july – august every year. age of the trees was ten years. regular pruning of overcrowded branches was done in the trial. three vegetative flushes occurred in june, october and march every year which led to luxuriant growth. observations were recorded at fortnightly intervals. to get better yield during the initial years, pruning of dead, diseased, weak and intermingling branches of mango plants was done at the age of eight years. observations on vegetative growth, flowering and number of fruits/plant and average yield kg/ plant were recorded and yield expressed as metric tons/ha. data reported here is the average of three years (2006-07 to 2008-09) and was statistically analyzed as per panse and sukhatme (1985) for randomized block design. mean values are reported for the physico chemical properties like fruit length, breadth, size, weight, tss, acidity, stone, peel, pulp ratio and shelf life. results and discussion vegetative parameters vegetative parameters of plants under different treatments are presented in table 1. plant height was found to be significantly higher (9.10m) with 2.5m x 10m treatment, whereas normal spacing (6.99m) was at par with the spacing 5m x 7.5m (9.05m). no significant differences were observed with respect to plant girth and spread among the treatments. in high density planting natural tendency of the plant is to put forth vertical growth rather than horizontal, due to mutual shading of plants. these findings are in line with earlier reports of ram et al (1996) and gunjate et al (2003). flowering and fruit yield parameters high density planting with 2.5m x 10m (t 1 ) spacing recorded a mean of 42 fruits/tree during both years and average fruit yield of 16.9 kg/tree, also in the same treatment. maximum fruit yield (6.4 t/ha) was recorded in 5m x 5m spacing, whereas, normal spacing recorded the lowest fruit yield (1.12 t/ha). all the high density treatments recorded higher fruit yield compared to normal spacing. maximum fruit yield (6.4 t/ha) in 5m x 5m spacing was due to higher number of plants and maximum number of fruiting branches. it was seen that under the konkan agroclimatic zone, the hot and humid climate favours luxuriant growth of cv. alphonso. during the initial years, high density orcharding with 2.5m x 10m, 5m x 5m and 5m x 7.5m spacings appears promising. these results are in line with those reported by ram et al (1996) in ‘dashehari’ mango. more number of plants /unit area resulted in more number of fruits/plant, higher yield/ha, and thereby, more tonnage from the same unit area. these results are similar to those reported earlier by gunjate et al (2003) and nath et al (2007). fruit quality data on physico chemical properties are presented in table 3. the study on fruit quality attributes of ‘alphosno’ mango showed that maximum fruit weight (248g) was recorded in the spacing 2.5m x 10m, which was significantly table 1. vegetative parameters in high density orchard of ‘alphonso’ mango treatment spacing no of tree tree tree spread (cm) trees/ha height girth e –w n – s (m) (cm) t 1 2.5 m x 10 m 400 9.10 59 4.85 4.60 t 2 5 m x 5 m 400 7.12 57 5.12 5.30 t 3 5 m x 7.5 m 267 9 .05 51 4.75 4.63 t 4 5 m x 10 m 200 7.80 53 5.10 5.05 t 5 10 m x 10 m 100 6.99 61 6.70 5.78 sem+ 0.31 0.81 0.20 0.24 cd (p=0.05) 0.93 ns ns ns * the figures are average/mean values of three years’ data (2006-07 to 2008-09) table 2. flowering and yield parameters in ‘alphonso’ mango as influenced by high density planting treatment spacing no. of flowering no. of average. average. trees/ha (%) fruits/tree fruit yield yield (kg/tree) (t/ha) 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 t 1 2.5 m x 10 m 400 31.80 30.83 32 52 8.3 13.1 4.280 t 2 5 m x 5 m 400 27.52 29.83 45 89 11.2 22.5 6.400 t 3 5 m x 7.5 m 266 16.50 15.83 39 74 9.7 18.4 3.737 t 4 5 m x 10 m 200 07.83 08.33 43 71 10.2 18.0 2.820 t 5 10 m x 10 m 100 15.80 15.00 31 48 8.0 12.3 1.12 sem+ 2.21 2.57 1.1 1.4 0.42 0.79 0.19 cd (p=0.05) 6.72 7.60 3.4 4.1 1.3 2.5 0.67 dalvi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 117-119, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 119 superior over the spacing 5m x 10m, and was at par with normal spacing (10m x 10m). the rest of quality parameters like tss, acidity, pulp to stone ratio, etc., did not show significant differences between treatments. these results show that a closer spacing and high density mango plantation does not influence or hamper the quality of fruit. regular training and pruning helps generate good aeration, thus ensuring better quality. the present findings are in line with earlier reports of krishna et al (2003) and gunjate et al (2003). cost : benefit ratio data in table 4 show that maximum net returns (rs.1,12,000/-) and cost benefit ratio (2.33) was recorded in the spacing 5m x 5m, whereas, normal spacing of 10m x 10m fetched lower net returns (rs.8,000/-) and cost: benefit ratio (0.22). normal spacing 10m x 10m may have yielded lower net returns as the trees were 10 years old and ‘alphonso’ orchards become profitable only after 15 years. these findings indicate that high density planting of ‘alphonso’ mango not only gives higher yield/unit area during the initial years, but also promises higher net returns subsequently. though the present findings are based on three years yield data these sufficiently indicate that high density plantation in ‘alphonso’ mango with 5m x 5m spacing is helpful for getting higher yield and more net returns/unit area. references kumbhar, a.r., gunjate, r.t., thimaiah, i.m. and amin, s.m. 2009. growth and fruiting of some mango cultivars under high density plantation in arid conditions of gujarat (india). acta hort., 820: 403406 krishna, b., kale, a.n., dhake, a.v., despande, s.s. and balsubrahmanyam, v.r. 2009. high density plantation in marginal soils and processing of mango. acta hort., 820: 447-462 nath,v., das, b. and rai, m. 2007. standardization of high density planting in mango (mangifera indica) under sub humid alfisols of eastern india. ind. j. agril., sci., 77:3-7 ram, s., singh, c.p. and kumar, s. 1996. success story of high density orcharding in mango. proceeding of the 5th international mango symposium. acta hort., 55:375-382 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agriculture worker, edn. 4. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi table 4. cost: benefit ratio under high density planting in 10-year old alphosno mango trees treatment expenditure/ receipts net c:b ha (rs.) realized profit/ha ratio (rs.)* t 1 48,000 1,0,7000 59,000 1.23 t 2 48,000 1,60,000 1,12,000 2.33 t 3 42,640 93,425 50,785 1.19 t 4 40,000 70,500 30,500 0.76 t 5 36,000 28,000 -8,000 -0.22 *fruits were sold @ rs. 25/kg table 3. fruit quality attributes of ‘alphonso’ mango under high density planting during year 2009 treatments spacing fruit fruit pulp stone peel fruit pulp: tss(0b) acidity(%) shelf life length breadth weight weight weight weight stone at room (cm) (cm) (g) (g) (g) (g) ratio temperature (days) t 1 2.5 m x 10 m 7.0 6.8 122.0 29.0 40.0 248.0 3.2 18.0 0.30 13 t 2 5 m x 5 m 7.0 7.0 120.0 35.0 39.0 194.0 3.2 18.0 0.29 14 t 3 5 m x 7.5 m 6.5 6.5 119.6 38.0 39.4 197.0 3.1 16.75 0.35 17 t 4 5 m x 10 m 8.0 7.0 122.2 38.0 39.8 200.0 3.2 17.00 0.29 18 t 5 10 m x 10 m 6.5 6.2 123.0 34.0 40.0 243.0 3.2 19.50 0.28 15 sem+ 0.4 0.8 3.2 0.6 0.8 4.3 0.2 0.7 0.6 0.1 cd (p=0.05) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. 12.9 n.s. n.s. n.s. 0.3 n.s.=non-significant (ms received 14 march 2010, revised 7 october, 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 117-119, 2010 high density planting in mango prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction allahabad safeda is largely grown in plains of deccan plateau characterized by subtropical climate conditions but rarely under heavy rainfall and humid conditions (rathore and singh 1976). chettalli, located in the hilly region of karnataka at an elevation of 1000 msl receives on an average, 1250 mm annual rainfall distributed over six months and is considered to be less suitable for guava cultivation as compared to other known agro-climates of guava production. however, a survey of north coorg region conducted during late 1980’s revealed reasonably successful cultivation of guava in few pockets of somwarpet taluk under marginal holdings (anon., 1986). therefore, it was felt that there existed scope to improve the profitability of such holdings by changing planting densities. studies in other fruit crops have shown that closer plantings resulted in early productivity leading to early returns on capital invested (iyer and kurien, 2006). it was reported that closely planted trees fill their allotted space earlier and the intense root competition increased fruitfulness (leigh issell, 1994 effect of planting density on growth parameters and fruit yield in guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. allahabad safeda cultivated under mild humid conditions of coorg h. ravishankar, t. n. shivananda and a.g. purohit central horticultural experiment station chettalli-571 248, india e-mail: hravi@iihr.ernet.in abstract a study was carried out in ‘allahabad safeda’ guava (psidium guajava l.) to standardize the effect of planting densities on growth parameters viz., scion girth, plant height, and spread (east – west and north – south), canopy area, canopy volume and fruit yield over a ten years period. the trial was laid out with five planting densities viz., 6x3, 6x4, 6x6, 8x4, 8x3m accommodating 555, 416, 277, 312 and 416 plants/ha respectively with four replications having sixteen plants per treatment in a randomized block design during 1988-89 season. the grafted plants on seedling rootstock were planted and the yield data were recorded from 1992 to 1997. the results indicated that the scion girth was significantly higher in 8x3 or 8x4m configurations. there were no significant differences among treatments for plant height. the plant spread across east-west direction was however significant in 8x3m. the fruit yield in mrig bahar was significantly higher as compared to that of hasth bahar in terms of fruit number and weight. land use index (lui) values exceeding 50% had bearing on the productivity of different configurations. the productivity was nearly double in 6x3m where, the planting density was twice as much in recommended spacing (6x6m) by sixth year of planting after which, yield levels declined. thus, it was concluded that a spacing of 6x3m having 555 plants/ha, gives the highest productivity in ‘allahabad safeda’ guava by sixth year of planting under north coorg conditions. key words: allahabad safeda, planting density, growth parameters, land use index (lui), productivity and miles and guarnaccia, 1999). under the prevailing land use pattern in coorg, there is enormous scope for crop diversification. in this background, it was felt to generate information on the effect of planting densities on growth aspects and their influence on fruit yield in guava for the north coorg region. material and methods uniformly aged inarch grafted plants of ‘allahabad safeda’ were procured from the nursery of state department of horticulture, hunsur, mysore district, for the study. they were planted in june 1988, in pits (0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 m size ) filled with 10 kg farmyard manure and 10 kg sand for easy and quick establishment of the crop. the experiment was laid out with five planting densities along with 6 x 6m spacing as the check (277 plants/ha). the other four configurations included, 6 x 3 m (555 plants/ha), 6 x 4 m (416 plants/ha), 8 x 4 m (312 plants/ha) and 8 x 3 m (416 plants/ha). a total of 240 plants were planted in randomized block design (rbd) with four replications, consisting of 12 plants per replication. j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 123-126, 2008 124 the plants were raised under uniform growth conditions with timely cultural practices including drip irrigation and application of recommended doses of manures twice a year. recommended npk fertilizers were applied and appropriate plant protection measures were adopted as and when required. the plants started flowering during 1991 but fruit set was prevented by deblossoming in order to encourage optimum canopy development through training to modified central leader. regular fruit harvests of ‘mrig’ and ‘hasth’ bahar crops were obtained from 1992 onwards. observations on different growth parameters viz., scion girth, plant height , plant spread in terms of east west and north south directions, canopy size, canopy volume, fruit yields in ‘mrig’ and ‘hasth’ bahars and productivity were recorded. the effect of planting density was evaluated by the measurement of land use index (lui), which was expressed as the percentage of the canopy area (m2) occupied by the plant in relation to the spacing (m2). the data were statistically analyzed by adopting standard procedures and interpreted using analysis of variance. results and discussion vigour scion girth (cm): scion girth increased from 17.24 cm to 41.56 cm from 1991-1992 to 1997-98 (table 1). there were no significant differences among the treatments for scion girth during the first four years of observation but significant differences were seen thereafter. the plants under 8 x 3 m configuration showed significantly higher scion girth as compared to the rest during 1996 and 1997 possibly due to table 1. effect of planting densities on scion girth (cm) spacing 19911993 199419951996199792 -94 95 96 97 98 6mx3m 17.79 22.93 24.24 26.67 30.46 33.42 6mx4m 17.24 22.71 26.08 28.63 33.29 36.63 6mx6m 19.05 23.92 27.83 30.70 35.11 38.08 8mx4m 18.79 23.70 28.43 33.19 37.19 40.44 8mx3m 17.69 23.65 28.88 33.76 37.75 41.56 sem — — — — 1.97 0.53 cd (p= 0.05) ns ns ns ns 6.40 1.72 table 2. effect of planting densities on plant height (m) spacing 19911993 199419951996199792 -94 95 96 97 98 6mx3m 3.19 3.28 3.75 4.48 5.22 6.54 6mx4m 3.09 3.26 3.44 4.40 5.08 6.45 6mx6m 3.18 3.23 3.99 4.59 5.33 6.97 8mx4m 3.20 3.33 3.80 4.49 5.22 6.73 8mx3m 2.87 3.35 3.88 4.58 5.45 6.99 sem — — — — — — cd (p= 0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns table 3. effect of planting densities on plant spread (m) in east – west direction spacing 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 6mx3m 2.72 3.01 3.57 4.02 5.28 6.50 6mx4m 2.68 3.06 3.44 3.37 4.96 6.70 6mx6m 3.08 3.05 3.65 4.05 5.40 6.80 8mx4m 2.54 2.94 3.40 3.96 5.44 7.07 8mx3m 3.02 3.77 4.32 4.82 6.15 7.44 sem — — 0.15 0.25 0.23 0.22 cd (p= 0.05) ns ns 0.49 0.81 0.75 0.71 table 4. effect of planting densities on plant spread (m) in north – south direction spacing 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 6mx3m 3.15 3.32 3.69 4.20 5.46 6.86 6mx4m 2.84 3.20 3.59 4.00 5.39 6.84 6mx6m 3.55 3.55 4.08 4.56 5.80 6.98 8mx4m 2.82 3.55 3.93 4.50 5.76 6.67 8mx3m 3.42 3.55 3.87 4.46 5.22 6.14 sem 0.17 — — — — 0.07 cd (p= 0.05) 0.56 ns ns ns ns 0.23 ravishankar et al wider inter-row space available in the middle of the alleys facilitating maximum light interception. they also showed a higher canopy volume and higher lui values as compared to plants grown in 6 x 4 m configuration. this is in congruence with the findings of leigh issell (1999). plant height (m): height of the plant increased from 2.87 m to 6.99 m from 1992 to 1997 (table 2) with maximum values recorded in 8 x 3 m by 1997 and a significantly higher lui value over the recommended spacing (table 5). this implied that over a period of ten years, the plants under 8 x 3 m spacing could fill their allotted space to a greater extent. such a situation warrants canopy management strategies to sustain productivity of the system (robinson et al, 2007; walsh, 1991). leigh issell (1999) also reported that closer planting forced the trees to grow taller and fill their allotted space. as a general rule, the height of the hedgerow should not be more than double the width of the alleyway (leigh issell, 1999). in this background, plants in 8 x 3 m configuration had attained more than 50% lui values by sixth to seventh year of planting. plant-spread (m): plant spread in terms of east-west and north-south directions was measured as one of the indices contributing to fill of allotted space by the configurations. further 8 x 3 m configuration recorded significantly higher east-west spread than the rest up to seventh year of planting (table 3). this may be attributed to wider inter-row spacing facilitating better light interception (leigh issell, 1999). the data on north-south spread (table 4) however, did not present clear cut trends. the seasonal variations in growth parameters and fruit yield documented by sahay and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 123-126, 2008 125 (2004) in guava indicated higher yields in winter. thus, seasonal fluctuations do influence yield as they are influenced by growth dynamics across seasons. the results obtained in the present study are consistent with the earlier studies. land use index (lui): the land use index values were derived in order to serve as an index for evaluating the capacity of the respective configurations to fill their allotted space over a period of time. lui also indicates the possible inter-plant competitions for water, nutrients, light and microclimate impacts on the system. in the present study, 8 x 3 and 6 x 3 m configurations, by sixth year of planting had crossed 50% lui values which were significantly higher over the rest (table 5). the ultimate cropping potential per unit of land, after the trees have filled their allotted space, depends upon the total volume of the hedgerow mantle where fruiting primarily occurs. the fruitproducing area and depth, or tree mantle, are the result of tree training and depth of penetration of light for cropping (leigh issell, 1999). this may possibly explain significantly higher level of productivity (table 10) attained by the 6 x 3 m configuration that also recorded significantly higher lui value over the rest by sixth year of planting. from seventh year of planting, the productivity of different configurations showed a declining trend, which highlighted the criticality of lui values exceeding 50%. this may be due to overlapping of the canopies of the adjacent plants and mutual shading of the branches leading to barrenness arising from low production of new shoots as observed by walsh (1991) in peach and bhatia et al (2001) in guava. thus, table 6. effect of planting densities on number of fruits /tree during mrig bahar spacing 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 6mx3m 124.17 203.03 410.67 192.09 143.38 6mx4m 124.75 159.75 368.42 192.50 139.65 6mx6m 144.67 141.33 459.58 198.52 144.20 8mx4m 117.38 107.38 398.38 203.75 151.82 8mx3m 122.50 122.50 463.75 222.38 156.31 sem — 7.37 — — — cd (p= 0.05) ns 23.87 ns ns ns table 7. effect of planting densities on weight of fruits/tree (kg) during mrig bahar spacing 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 6mx3m 13.04 21.32 43.12 20.17 15.05 6mx4m 13.22 16.92 38.91 20.38 14.79 6mx6m 15.77 15.43 50.24 21.67 15.77 8mx4m 12.68 11.63 42.95 22.07 16.44 8mx3m 12.99 12.98 49.10 23.56 16.56 s em — 0.80 — — — cd (p= 0.05) ns 2.59 ns ns ns table 8. effect of planting densities on number of fruits/tree during hasth bahar spacing 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 6x3 m 68.25 34.42 68.59 23.92 25.50 6x4 m 73.50 22.00 62.92 38.29 24.91 6x6 m 72.25 21.58 53.79 39.25 28.1 8x4 m 61.13 54.25 49.79 33.11 25.44 8x3 m 80.63 23.63 52.5 31.08 25.94 sem — 2.14 — 3.4 — cd (p= 0.05) ns 6.93 ns 11.31 ns planting density and growth parameters in guava table 5. effect of planting density on *land use index (lui) spacing 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 6mx3m 43.99 57.90 101.06 127.82 195.82 6mx4m 32.66 40.98 71.25 88.96 139.47 6mx6m 24.08 32.70 55.50 70.84 105.32 8mx4m 26.55 33.46 60.25 80.17 114.00 8mx3m 44.16 54.96 84.00 112.86 150.36 sem 4.01 3.55 6.79 8.70 9.40 cd (p= 0.05) 12.99 11.50 21.20 28.18 30.46 * expressed as per cent values judicious pruning of canopies is necessary to sustain productivity through higher light interception and promotion of new shoots. fruit yield ‘mrig’ bahar : the analysis of results indicated that yield performance in sixth year of planting of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava had reached stability. number of fruits/tree in ‘mrig’ bahar across treatments did not vary significantly except during 1993 (table 6). by sixth year of planting however, maximum number of fruits was recorded in 8 x 3 m. correspondingly, this treatment also had maximum fruit yield of 49.10 kg/tree in 1994 (table 7). after 1994, trend of yield decline was apparent. these variations are probably brought about by the dynamics of vegetative growth, crucial to fruiting intensity in guava. such variations have been reported by other workers also (sahay and kumar, 2004; bhatia et al, 2001; and yadav et al, 2001). ‘hasth’ bahar : results indicated that both number as well as weight of fruits/tree was maximum during 1994 (tables 8 and 9) in 8 x 3 m configuration although differences were not significant. it was observed that ‘mrig’ bahar was better than ‘hasth’ bahar in terms of number and weight of fruits/ tree due to the seasonal influence as it coincided with regular monsoon. productivity : the closer configurations of 6 x 3, 6 x 4 and 8 x 3 m gave significantly higher productivity by fourth year of planting, which increased progressively up to sixth year of planting(table 10). the total fruit yield data suggested that there were significant differences among the j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 123-126, 2008 126 treatments (tables 6, 7, 8 and 9). the configuration 6 x 3 m recorded higher yield by sixth year of planting suggesting that the high density planting of guava is superior to the conventional planting at 6 x 6 m. the spacing of 6 x 3 m also recorded significantly higher lui values than the rest by sixth year of planting (table 5) and continued its superiority even up to ninth year of planting. this is in agreement with the reports of walsh (1991), leigh issell (1999), robinson and hoying (2004) and robinson et al (2007). judicious timely pruning operations to overcome the adverse effects of closer configurations after sixth year of planting may sustain the productivity of the system in the long run. references anonymous. 1986. annual report of ches, chettalli, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore bhatia, s.k., yadav, s., ahlawat, v.p and dahiya, s.s. 2001. effect of foliar application of nutrients on the yield and fruit quality of winter season guava cv. l-49. haryana j. hortl. sci., 30:6-7 day, k.r., dejong, t.m., and johnson, r.s. 2005. orchard-system configurations increase efficiency, improve profits in peaches and nectarines. calif. agri., apr-june, 75-79 iyer, c.p.a. and reju m. kurian. 2006. high density planting in tropical fruits: principles and practices. lucknow, international book distributing, xi, p. 260 leigh issell. 1999. closer planting of peach trees in goulburn valley orchards, tatura. ny fr uit quarterly, 7: 26-30 miles, n.w. and r. guarnaccia. 1999. high density peach production in ontario. ny fruit quarterly, 7: 1-5 robinson, t.l. and s.a. hoying. 2004. which high-density orchard planting system for replant sites in ny is the most productive and profitable? acta hort., 636: 701-709 robinson, t.l, hoying, s.a. and andersen, r.l. 2007. performance of 6 high density peach training systems in the northeast. acta hort., 732: 421-428 walsh, c. 1991. overview of peach training systems and the application of pruning techniques. acta hort., 322: 93-98 yadav, s., bhatia, s.k., godara, r.k. and rana, g.s. 2001. effect of growth regulators on the yield and quality of winter season guava cv. l-49. haryana j. hort. sci., 30: 1-2 ravishankar et al table 9. effect of planting densities on weight of fruits/tree (kg) during hasth bahar spacing 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 6x3 m 7.17 3.55 7.52 2.51 2.68 6x4 m 7.72 2.33 9.29 4.01 2.62 6x6 m 7.58 2.36 5.71 4.12 2.94 8x4 m 6.42 3.70 5.31 3.48 2.67 8x3 m 8.47 2.51 5.46 3.27 2.72 sem — — 0.87 0.43 — cd (p= 0.05) ns ns 2.83 1.30 ns table 10. effect of planting densities on productivity (tons/ha) spacing 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 6x3 m 7.27 13.81 28.97 17.53 10.29 16.64 6x4 m 5.50 8.01 20.78 11.77 7.34 12.35 6x6 m 4.37 4.92 15.06 10.50 5.22 11.03 8x4 m 3.96 4.78 19.86 15.56 6.15 10.48 8x3 m 5.40 6.44 16.58 11.27 8.48 16.08 sem 0.52 0.51 2.71 0.66 0.24 1.60 cd (p= 0.05) 1.14 1.56 6.69 2.15 0.78 3.50 (ms received 28 september 2007, revised 21 november 2008) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 123-126, 2008 7 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 7-12, 2019 original research paper soft wood grafting a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulate blanco) b.m. muralidhara1 and i.n. doreyappa gowda2 1scientist (fruit science), 2principal scientist & head icar-indian institute of horticultural research central horticultural experimental stationchettalli 571248 1e-mail: muralidhara.bm@gmail.com abstract coorg mandarin is commercially multiplied by shield or t budding. the process of shield budding will takes eighteen to twenty months for the production of quality planting material. hence present experiment was conducted to standardize soft wood grafting in coorg mandarin to reduce the nursery phase for rapid multiplication of quality planting materials. in this study, two to three months old terminal shoots of coorg mandarin were grafted on one, two, three and four months old rootstocks of rangpur lime.the soft wood grafting on three and four months old rootstocks were recorded cent per cent graft success and higher plant survivability (98%) and minimum was noticed in one month old rootstocks. the plant height (45.77 cm), plant girth (0.60 cm), number of leaves per plant (42.9), number of side shoots per plant (5.65), root length (33.15 cm) and root spread (8.29 cm) were also found maximum on four months old root stocks followed by three month old rootstocks. age of rootstocks have significant difference (p=0.05) for plant weight, shoot weight and root weight in both fresh and dry weight basis.the above findings revealed that, four months old rootstocks are more suitable for soft wood grafting in terms of graft success and plant traits. soft wood grafting can be gainfully exploited for rapid multiplication of good quality planting material by reducing the nursery phase. key words: coorg mandarin, rangpur lime, soft wood grafting, success rate introduction citrus fruits have a prominent place among popular and extensively grown tropical and subtropical fruits. among the citrus fruits, mandarins are the most important one grown in india. there are three distinct ecotypes of mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco) in india viz., nagpur mandarins, coorg mandarins and khasi mandarins. coorg mandarin is one of the most important crops grown as component crop in coffee ba sed cr opping system in coor g, ha ssa n a nd chikkamagalur districts of karnataka and some parts of kerala and tamil nadu. the area under coorg mandarin is decreasing gradually due to many factors such as greening, phytophthora, tristeza virus and lack of availability of quality planting material for establishment of new plantations and replanting. coorg mandarin is commercially propagated by shield and t-budding wherein rootstock used is 1½ to 2 years old (karunakaran et al., 2014) and takes long time for production of quality planting material. presently there is huge demand for planting material and it is unable to meet the demand through conventional budding. hence there is an urgent need for alternate rapid multiplication technique which fastens the planting material production by reducing nursery phase. micro-budding is a new propagation technique and standardized in citrus species which could revolutionize the commercial citrus industry by saving grower’s time, space and money. skaria and zhang (2000) first developed this technique and later this was standardized in nagpur mandarin, sweet orange and grapefruit (vijayakumari and singh, 2003; alam et al., 2006; mazhar et al, 2006). this technique was also tried in coorg mandarin (karunakaran et al., 2014) but it was not successful commercially due to 8 muralidhara and doreyappa gowda j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 7-12, 2019 less graft success. soft wood grafting will help in rapid multiplication and reduces the cost of production as well as early detection of virus and virus-like diseases in plants through the biological indexing (ochoa et al., 2000; vijayakumari et al., 2008). therefore, present study was formulated to observe performance of soft wood grafting in coorg mandarin on different aged rootstocks of rangpur lime and which is beneficial for commer cia l citr us gr owers and nurser ymen to strengthen coorg mandarin cultivation in karnataka, kerala and tamil nadu. it will also help to double the production of quality planting material by reducing nursery phase and cost of production. material and methods the present study was carried out at the central horticultural experiment station, chettalli, kodagu, karnataka, india during 2016-17 under poly house condition. the soft wood grafting was carried out in the month of december 2016. production of rootstocks: the fruits of rangpur lime (citrus limonia osb.), were collected from healthy mother plants and seeds were extracted. the fresh seeds weresown inplastic trays at primary nursery. the seedlings were transplanted to polybags conta ining soil:sand:fa r m ya rd ma nure (1:1:1) atsecondary nursery, when they attained 4-5 leaf stage. after transplanting, one, two, three and four month’s old rootstocks were used for soft wood grafting. selection of scion: sixty to ninety days old terminal shoots were used as scion material from healthy coorg mandarin mother plants which are grown under polyhouse condition. seven to ten days prior to grafting the selected scion shoots were defoliated on mother plants. scions of 1.0-2.0 mm thickness and 5-10 cm length were used for grafting. technique of soft wood grafting : rootstocks were headed back at 6 to 15 cm above the polythene bag and the leaves of rootstock were removed leaving 2-3 leaves on the lower side before grafting. rootstock was split 1.5 to 2 cm deep through the centre of the stem with a grafting knife. a wedge-shape cut, slanting from both the sides (1.5-2 cm long) was made on the lower side of the scion shoot. the scion stick was inserted into the split of the stock and aligned properly. the union was tied using a 50-gauge polythene strip. use of poly tubes: the grafts were covered with 100 micron polytubes immediately after grafting will help in early sprouting and success of grafting. use of poly tubes will help to retain moisture content in scion and to avoid diffusion of water into graft union at the time of watering in initial stages. diffusion of water into graft union will lead to failure of grafts at initial period. observations recorded: daily observations were taken for initiation of sprouting and completion of sprouting. the graft success was calculated by using the formula i.e, {(number of grafts sprouted/ total number of plants grafted) x 100}. after 180 days of grafting all the parameters such as plant survival (%){(survived plants/ graft success plants) x 100}, plant height (cm), plant girth (cm), number of leaves per plant, number of side shoots per plant, root length (cm), root spread (cm), plant fresh and dry weight (g), shoot fresh and dry weight (g), root fresh and dry weight (g) were recorded. design and statistical analysis: the experimental design used was completely randomized design.there were four treatments which are replicated four times. twenty five plants were used for each replication. data were expressed as means of standard deviation. anova (spss version 16.0) and turkey’s post hoc test were used to determine the mean difference of different variables at different age of rootstocks. results and discussion the age of rootstocks showed significant (p=0.05) effect on initiation of sprouting, completion of sprouting, graft success and graft survival (table 1). coorg mandarin grafted on four months old rootstocks showed early initiation of sprouting on 11th day and took minimum (12.9) days for completion of sprouting and it was at par with the plants grafted on three months old rootstocks. delayed sprouting was observed, where coorg mandarin was grafted on one month old rootstocks in terms of initiation (18.75) and completion of sprouting (21.75). the early sprouting in four months old rootstocks may be due to, rapid callus formation between xylem and cambium tissues in the scion and rootstock union (hartmann et al., 1997). cent per cent graft success was recorded in two, three and four month’s old rootstocks whereas 89 per cent was observed in one month old rootstoc. the higher 9 soft wood grafting technique in coorg mandarin percentage of graft success in four months old rootstocks might be due to a ppropriate age of rootstock with higher sugars and moderate c:n ratio (deshmukh et al., 2017). the decline in graft success in one month rootstocks may be due to physiological condition of rootstock and decreased sap flow or quick cell dehydration, proliferation of callus tissues by both the graft components leading to vascular discontinuity arising from inadequate physiological maturity of rootstock (wang and kollmann, 1996). the similar results were also reported in coorg ma ndar in (ka runa ka ra n et al., 2014), nagpur mandarin (vijayakumari et al., 2003) and khasi mandarin (dubey et al., 2004). plant survival per cent was higher in coorg mandarin grafted on three (98%) and four month’s (98%) old rootstocks where as lowest plant survivability was noticed in one month old rootstocks (86.37 %). the higher survival on three and four months old rootstocks which may be due to strong stock-scion interaction which is very much necessary for water and essential nutrient flow (prez-alfocea et al., 2010) and findings are in line with deshmukh et al (2017) and patel et al (2010). after 180 days of grafting plant morphological traits were recorded and mean values were presented in table. 2. the maximum plant height (45.77 cm), plant girth (0.60 cm), number of leaves per plant (42.90), number of side shoots per plant (5.65), root length (33.15 cm) and root spread (8.29 cm) was recorded in coorg mandarin grafted on four months old r ootstocks a nd followed by thr ee months old rootstocks. the low values were observed in one month rootstocks for all the traits viz., plant height (28.65 cm), plant girth (0.38 cm), number of leaves per plant (22.55), number of side shoots per plant (2.88), root length (22.62 cm) and root spread (3.74 cm). the better morphological characters in the plants grafted on four month old rootstocks is due to suitable maturity of rootstock as well as rapid and better union of stock and scion (skene et al., 1983) is influencing the better absorption of nutrients by more number of leaves and higher number of side shoots. desmukh et al (2017) also found better morphological traits when they grafted kashi mandarin on six months old rootstocks of rough lemon and similar results were reported for plant height and girth by patel et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 7-12, 2019 age of rootstock days taken for days taken to graft success graft survival in months first sprouting complete sprouting (%) (%) one 18.75 21.75 89 86.37 two 17.5 20.25 100 91.0 three 13 15.15 100 98.0 four 11 12.9 100 98.0 cd (p=0.05) 2.87 2.97 6.83 6.59 cv (%) 12.38 11.01 4.56 4.58 table 1. influence of age of rootstocks on success of soft wood grafting in coorg mandarin table 2. influence of age of rootstocks on morphological characters of grafted plants age of plant plant number of number of root root rootstock in height girth leaves side shoots length spread months (cm) (cm) per plant per plant (cm) (cm) one 28.65 0.38 22.55 2.88 22.62 3.74 two 32.52 0.45 28.48 3.40 24.75 4.96 three 38.47 0.47 36.45 4.33 24.27 5.90 four 45.77 0.60 42.90 5.65 33.15 8.29 cd (p=0.05) 1.86 0.045 3.65 0.74 1.82 0.91 cv (%) 3.32 5.51 7.27 11.81 4.31 10.33 10 (2010). the four months’ rootstocks r ecor ded maximum root length and root spread due to the synthesis of required amount of secondary metabolites like phenols and alkaloid compounds which are most important for protection of rootstock by less root infestation by soil borne pathogens (el-motty et al., 2010; qiang et al., 2010). deshmukh et al (2017) also observed maximum root length (385.36 cm) on six months old rootstocks of rough lemon. the results also revealed that, the differences among plant traits viz., plant fresh and dry weight, shoot fresh and dry weight, root fresh and dry weight were significantly (p=0.05) influenced by age of rootstocks (table 3). the higher plant fresh weight (23.15 g), plant dry weight (8.34 g), fresh shoot weight (15.07 g), dry weight (5.16 g), root fresh weight (8.09 g) and dry weight (3.18 g) were recorded in four months old rootstocks followed by three months old rootstocks. the one month old rootstocks showed minimum values for plant fresh weight (9.31 g), plant dry weight (2.82 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 7-12, 2019 muralidhara and doreyappa gowda table 3. influence of age of rootstocks on biomass accumulation of soft wood grafted plants age of plant weight shoot weight root weight rootstock in months fresh (g) dry (g) fresh (g) dry (g) fresh (g) dry (g) one 9.31 2.82 5.76 1.77 3.56 1.05 two 13.54 4.32 8.78 2.71 4.77 1.61 three 17.31 5.58 11.34 3.69 5.98 1.89 four 23.15 8.34 15.07 5.16 8.09 3.18 cd (p=0.05) 1.61 0.91 1.05 0.81 0.71 0.16 cv (%) 6.61 11.32 6.71 15.8 8.34 5.59 g), fresh shoot weight (5.76 g), dry weight (1.77 g), root fresh weight (3.56 g) and dry weight (1.05 g). the coorg mandarin grafted on four months old rootstocks have better biomass compared to grafts on one month old rootstock and this is mainly due to the higher age of plants which will help for better growth of scion and root system. the higher dry weight of four month rootstocks indicates the presence of higher vigour. in conclusion, soft wood grafting of two to three months old terminal shoots of coorg mandarin on four months old rootstocks of rangpur lime have more graft success and better graft growth. exploitation of soft wood grafting in coorg mandarin will be very much useful in doubling the production of quality planting material by shortening the nursery phase and reducing the cost of planting material production. fur ther studies a r e r equir ed to eva lua te the performance of grafted plants in field condition for growth and yield. fig. 1. four months old rootstocks of rangpur lime fig. 2. grafts covered with poly tubes 11 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 7-12, 2019 soft wood grafting technique in coorg mandarin fig. 3. successful grafts of coorg mandarin on different aged rootstocks of rangpur lime fig. 4. general view of three month’s old grafted plants fig.5. scion suitable for successful grafting fig.6. general view of successful grafted plants acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge director icar-indian institute of horticulture research, bengalur u for guidance and encouragement during the study. we also thank grafter mr. madhesh for successful grafting work. references alam, n., naveed, f., khan m.m., abbas, m. and ahmad, s. 2006. early age propagation of thr ee commer cial citr us species through microbudding technique. pak. j. agri. sci., 43: 42-44. deshmukh, n.a., pa tel, r.k., krishnappa, r., verma, b. c., rymbai, h., assumi, s.r., lyngdoh, p., jha, a.k. and malhotra, s.k. 2 0 1 7 . i nf lu enc e of r oot s t oc k a ge a nd propogation methods on scion physiology and root morphology of khasi mandarin (citrus reticulata). ind. j. agri. sci., 87: 203-209 dubey, a.k., mishra, m. and yadav, d.s. 2004. softwood grafting in khasi mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco). ind. j. hort. sci.,61: 263–4. ei-motty, e.z.a., metwally, s.e., abou, y.r. and fa r aha t, s. a. 2010. studies on gr owth, nutritional and microbiological status of citrus seedlings infested with root-rot disease. nat. sci.,8: 112–21 hartmann, h.t., kester, d.e., davies, f.t. and geneve, r. l. 1997. pla nt pr opa ga tion: 12 (ms received 26 september 2017, revised 16 may 2018, accepted 22 june 2019) j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 7-12, 2019 muralidhara and doreyappa gowda principal and practices, 8th edn, pp 770. prentice hall of india pvt ltd, new delhi. kadam, j.h., karale, a.r., garad b.v. and desai, u.t. 2007. micro-grafting in wood apple. in: recent trends in horticultural biotechnology, raghunathkeshvachandran (eds.), new india publishing agency, new delhi, pp. 371-73 karunakaran, g. ravishankar, h., sakthivel, t and samuel, d.k. 2014. optimization of microbudding technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco). ind. j. hort.,71: 311-314 mazhar, a., khan, m.m., mughal, s.m., jaskani, m.j. and haider, a. 2006. propagation of ctv free sweet orange [citrus sinensisosb.] plants through micr obudding technique. pak. j. bot.,38: 583-87 ochoa, p.m., dekkers, m.g.h., skaria, m. and lee, r.f. 2000. use of microbudding to expedite production of experimental citrus hosts for use for biological indexing of citrus pathogens. in: isc congress, orlando, florida, pp., 129 patel, r.k., babu, k.d. and akath singh 2010. soft wood grafting in mandarin (citrus reticulata bla nco): a novel vegetative pr opa gation technique. int. j. f. sci., 10:54-64 perez-alfocea, f., albacete, a., ghanem, m.e. and dodd, i.a. 2010. hormonal regulation of source and sink relations to maintain crop productivity under salinity: a case study of root to shoot signa ling in toma to. functional pl. bio.,37:592–603 qia ng, s. w. , ying, n.z. a nd xin, h.h. 2010. contributions of arbuscularmycorrhizal fungi to growth, photosynthesis, root morphology and ionic balance of citrus seedlings under salt stress. acta physiol. plant.,32:297–304 skaria, m. and zhang, t. 2000. field performance of micro-budded citrus trees in texas. in: isc congress, orlando, florida, pp. 130 skene, d.s., shepherd, h.r. and howard, b.h. 1 98 3 . c ha r a ct er is tic a na tomy of u nion formation in budded fruit and ornamental tree. j. hort. sci.,58:295–299 vija ya ku ma r i, n . a nd s ingh, s . 2 0 0 3 . standardization of microbudding technique in citrus. ind. j. hort. sci.,60: 127-30 vijayakumari, n., singh, s. and thote, s.g. 2008. app lica tion of micr obu dding: a f a s ter propagation technique in citrus. j. soils and crops,18: 89-91 vijayakumari, n., singh, s., ghosh, d.k., das, a.k. a nd d hu r ja ti, t. 20 0 1. p er f or ma nce of micr obudding under different greenhouse structures in citrus reticulata cv. nagpur mandarin. south ind. hort.,49: 335-37 wa ng, y. a nd k ollma nn, r . 1 9 9 6 . va s c u la r differentiation in the graft union of in vitro grafts with different compatibility. j. plant physiol., 147: 521-33 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 20 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 20-25, 2019 original research paper effect of cultivars on tree growth, yield and quality attributes of apple on espalier architecture under high density planting system k.k. srivastava, dinesh kumar, s.r. singh and o.c. sharma icar-central institute of temperate horticulture, old air field, rangreth, srinagar 190 007 (j&k), india. email : kanchanpom@gmail.com abstract annual extension growth (aeg), an indicator of tree vigor, was recorded maximum (145.63 cm) in granny smith and minimum (111.04cm) in spartan, where as correlation matrix showed negative relation between trunk cross sectional area (tcsa) and aeg. granny smith exhibited maximum (184.09 g) fruit weight and it was minimum (128.68 g) in spartan, the correlation matrix between fruit weight and yield efficiency exhibited significant positive correlation over the years. yield tree-1 was maximum (29.45 kg tree-1) in coe red fuji and minimum (16.04 kg/tree) in spartan. significant and positive correlation coefficient (0.870) observed between yield and tcsa. tcsa has positive correlation with fruit weight and yield efficiency, maximum mean yield efficiency (1.11 kg/cm2) was recorded in granny smith. all the cultivars trained on this architecture had high chroma values (color intensity). key words: apple, tree architecture, espalier, high density planting, coe-red –fuji, yield efficiency, chroma introduction apple (malus domestica borkh) is an important fruit, occupies more than, 70% area and 60% production of total temperate fruits in india. apple productivity is a production function of rootstock, planting density, tree architecture and variety in addition to orchard and floor management. dwarfing and semi-dwarf rootstocks ha ve been widely accepted in apple industry a s effective tools to increa se orcha rd efficiency (barritt et al., 1995) as smaller and compact trees can more efficiently intercept the solar energy. high and early productivity in high density planting system is partly based on the greater leaf area ha -1, r esulting gr ea ter light inter ception of photosynthetically active radiations (par) (jackson, 1980). tree height and canopy shape also affect the light interception, penetration and distribution in the inner portion of the canopy. high density orchards have varied canopy architecture form, practiced all over world; however, the most common is the spindle form (mika et al., 1984; mika et al., 2001). tall trees have potential to intercept more light and yield than short statured tree at the same spacing (barrit, 2000, callesen, 1993; palmer 1989. the trunk cross sectional area in the hdp was 20% less than that of low density (hampson et al., 2004). the tree size is virtually expressed in trunk cross sectional area (tcsa), as it is the most common and reliable factor to determine tree size and yield potential (jimenez and diaz 2004, wright et al. (2006) a nd yield efficiency indicates the real potential of tree yield irrespective of the tree size. annual extension growth exhibited the state of tree health; it is not affected by the training system (hampson et al. 2004). the fruit weight, yield and fruit color depends on light interception, plant architecture, cultivars, density and planting rectangularity. square planting system (1:1) is the most favorable for light interception and distribution (wagenmakers, 1991; wagenmakers and ca llesen, 1995). espa lier is like kniffin tr ee architecture of grape, comprising 4-5 layer of wires running parallel at 30-45 cm interval on which scaffold branches are trained on both directions. materials and methods the present experiment was carried out during 2010 to 2014 at icar-central institute of temperate hor ticulture, srina gar, j&k. the experiments includes 3 cultivars; co-red fuji (v1), granny smith (v2), spartan (v3) which were grafted on to m.9 rootstock. the planting was done at 1.5x 3.0 m (row 21 espalier architecture in apple j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 20-25, 2019 to row and plant to plant). all the experimental trees were trained on 5 tier galvanized wires fixed on the iron angle of 1.5 m, the angles were fixed at 8 m distance. first wire fitted at 45 cm from ground level and rest 4 wires at 30cm intervals. the experiment was laid out in complete randomized block design with six replications and 2 plants/ replication; uniform cultural operations were practiced in all the trees under study, drip irrigation laid out for irrigation and fertigation. trunk diameters were measured 15 cm above the graft union. the trunk cross sectional area wa s ca lcula ted by using sta nda r d for mula e (tcsa=girth2/4π). for fruit weight, 15 fruits were randomly harvested at maturity, weighted using digita l electr onic ba lance a nd fr uit yield wa s calculated as total weight of fruit per unit tcsa (kg/ cm2 of tcsa) at the time of harvest. the color was recorded using hunter colour lab, it was calibrated using the manufacturers’ standard white tile and were expressed in l*,a* and b* . the color intensity (chroma) was worked out using formula (a2+b2)1/2). the data were analyzed statistically as per procedure given sheoran et al (1998), and are being presented in the table for interpretation of the results. results and discussion espalier architecture annual extension growth (aeg) is the indicator of tree vigour, maximum aeg (145.63 cm) noted in granny smith and minimum (111.04 cm) in spartan while as correlation coefficient exhibited negative over the years between tcsa and aeg (table 1). similar trend in fruit weight with respect to variety was recorded in this experiment, granny smith showed maximum fruit weight throughout the studied per iod. avera ge fr uit weight r ecorded maximum (184.09 g fruit-1) in granny smith, while a s minimum (128. 68 g fruit -1) in spar tan, the correlation matrix between fruit weight and yield efficiency exhibited significant positive correlation over the years (table 2). yield per tree was also inf lu enc ed b y t he c u lt iva r s u nd er es p a lier architecture, where in, maximum avera ge yield (29.45 kg tree-1) was recorded in coe red fuji and minimum (16.04 kg tree-1) in spartan. significant and positive correlation coefficient (0.870) was observed between yield and tcsa (table 3). the apple grafted on to dwarfing rootstocks, the tree exhibited precocity resulting fair yield in 2nd year on wards. coe red fuji has tendency to bear large number of fruits tree-1 of medium sized in turn had maximum mean productivity (65.84 t ha-1), while as, spartan has comparatively low productivity over the years, 40.69 t ha -1(fig.1). tcsa is reliable criteria to estimate yield of the tree. trunk cross sectional area was recorded maximum (33.01 cm2) in coe red fuji over the years which were on par to gr anny smith and spa rta n, significant and positive correlations were noted, tcsa with fruit weight and yield efficiency (fig 2). fig. 1: yield of apple varieties under espalier architecture fig. 2. yield efficiency of apple under espalier architecture yield efficiency permits comparisons among the trees of varying vigor and was used as reliable cr iteria to estima te yield potential of different varieties grown under different spacing. maximum average yield efficiency (1.11 kg cm-2) recorded in granny smith followed by coe red fuji (1.04 kg cm-2), whereas, it was minimum (0.67 kg/cm2) in spartan. chroma values were worked out to show the color intensity, all the studied varieties exhibited high color intensity as per their genetic constituents hence, no considerable variations were observed on the chroma values among the studied varieties over the years (table 4). 22 srivastava et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 20-25, 2019 table 1. varietal influence on annual extension growth under espalier architecture aeg (cm) variety year year year year year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 mean co-red fuji 106.67 113.66 116.89 121.0 127.17 117.07 granny smith 139.66 142.50 145.50 148.17 152.33 145.63 spartan 97.67 105.87 111.17 118.67 121.83 111.04 r with tcsa* -0.368 -0.053 -0.325 -0.025 -0.035 cv (%) 8.90 8.91 7.10 6.15 6.17 lsd (p= 0.05) 13.31 16.95 10.75 9.73 10.75 *r= correlation matrix (p=0.05) table 2. effect of varieties on fruit weight under espalier architecture friut weight (g) variety year year year year year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 mean co-red fuji 154.71 163.03 148.47 155.67 182.53 159.98 granny smith 176.14 172.76 160.58 208.28 207.68 184.09 spartan86.28 125.67 94.62 166.97 171.86 128.68 r with yield efficiency 0.933 0.988 0.919 0.985 0.602 0.950 cv(%) 3.0 2.41 4.90 1.92 2.50 1.50 lsd(p= 0.05) 4.87 4.38 7.71 4.00 4.82 2.73 *r= correlation matrix (p=0.05) table 3. effect of varieties on yield potential yield kg tree-1 variety year year year year year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 mean co-red fuji 7.52 26.09 43.26 46.22 24.18 29.45 granny smith 6.80 22.83 20.19 43.91 15.67 21.88 spartan 2.70 13.50 10.72 38.40 14.90 16.04 r with tcsa 0.782 0.643 0.875 0.638 0.977 0.870 cv (%) 5.18 12.87 9.1 5.08 12.16 4.25 lsd(p= 0.05) 1.20 3.15 2.70 2.60 2.61 1.30 *r= correlation matrix (p=0.05) 23 t he scion gr owth is not a ffected by the tr ee architecture as it is due to genetic constituents of the cultivars; similarly hampson et al. (2004) also reported that scion growth was affected by genetic constituents of cultivars not by tree architecture. the coe red fuji which has prolific in bearing habit are medium sized and large number of fruit set per tree (4-5 thousand) after 3 years, these results are in agreement with ahmed et al. (2015) who also reported higher yields in coe red fuji, granny smith and spartan on espalier architecture. fruit weight has dir ect corr elation with yield; it decreased with increasing planting density (costa et al., 1997). tcsa of the tr ee wa s positively cor r ela ted with the transporting and distribution of the photosynthates from source to sink, which ultimately affects the tree growth and fruit yield. the productivity efficiency of the tree increased with increase in tcsa (table 5). similar growth pattern in tcsa with yield and tcsa with aeg were reported by, kumar and kumar et al (2011) in banana. in general, fruit weight is negatively correlated with tree density, where in higher tree density has low fruit weight. in espalier architecture, initially no clear cut trend in fruit weight was observed because of negligible competition among fruit-lets for photosynthates, space, and light energy. similarly, palmer et al. (1997) reported that fruit weight was greatest when there were minimum competition between fruits. the yield per tree was observed increasing trends, since the observations were taken on the 3 years after plants, the trend may change in future with the age of the trees. tree architecture determined the tree shape, but not over a ll tr ee size (ha mpson et al. , 2004). further, horizontal growing shoots have lower auxin content as compared to upright shoots (kato and ito, 1962). luckwill (1968) reported that the supply table 4. trunk cross sectional area of apple varieties tcsa treatment year year year year year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 mean co-red fuji 25.99 27.90 33.31 37.02 40.83 33.01 granny smith 17.54 19.87 21.70 24.97 28.13 22.44 spartan 17.22 19.49 22.03 25.97 28.93 22.72 r with fruit weight 0.321 0.246 0.135 0.552 0.392 0.990 r with yield efficiency 0.639 0.592 0.511 0.385 0.956 0.638 cv (%) 14.47 9.20 8.5 9.90 4.67 2.5 lsd (p= 0.05) 3.45 2.4 2.47 3.2 1.8 0.75 *r= correlation matrix (p=0.05) table 5. chroma value of apple on espalier architecture variety year year year year year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 mean treatment year 2010 year 2011 year 2012 year 2013 year 2014 mean co-red fuji 26.53 27.14 26.35 25.67 29.68 27.07 granny smith 23.27 28.47 28.37 26.70 27.70 26.90 spartan 25.25 25.71 25.71 28.00 27.85 26.50 r with aeg -0.822 0.853 -0.014 -0.660 -0.185 0.760 cv (%) 9.07 1.90 10.16 11.53 8.20 5.80 lsd (p= 0.05) ns 1.33 ns ns ns ns *r= correlation matrix (p=0.05) espalier architecture in apple j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 20-25, 2019 24 of nutrient to the apex is controlled by auxin in top meristem. srivastava et al (2008) also reported that minimum growth in shoot diameter noted at 60 and 900 branch angles in conian itly apricot. the color was very intense in granny smith, however, costa et. al. (1997) reported decrease in chroma values with tree density in braeburn apple. yield efficiency is reliable parameter for estimating the yield potential of varying tree size. aeg ha ve positive correlation with yield efficiency, it may be due to more vegetative growth, more production of photosynthates resulting high partitioning of photoassimilates to developing fruits, thus increased in yield efficiency. similarly srivastava et al (2008) recorded maximum yield in apricot tree branched at 600 angle. maximum color intensity (chroma) was recorded in espalier architecture, which may be due to the maximum exposed leaves to the solar r adia tions which results in more car bohydr ate production and increased sugar content in fruits help ed in t he develop ment of c olor int ensity (chadha, 2001). the coe red fuji and granny smith have better performance on espalier architecture, though the initial cost for erection of the training structure was high. yield efficiency and quality on espalier tree a r chitectu r e wer e high. fur ther, ea se in tr ee br a nc h, shoot a nd lea f positioning a r e a dded advantage and low wastage of inputs are additional advantage. the aeg might be an indicator for assessing tree vigour. granny smith exhibited high growth and fruit weight but overall productivity was r ec or ded hi gh in c oe r ed f u ji o n es p a lier architecture. tcsa showed positive correlation with fruit weight, yield efficiency, and yield kg tree1. chroma value in all the varieties were found on par, as trees on espalier architecture have all the leaves well illuminated to the solar radiations. srivastava et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 20-25, 2019 references ahmed n., srivastava, k.k., kumar dinesh, lal shiv. 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(1995) light distribution in a pple or cha rd systems in relation to production and fruit quality. j hort. sci 70: 935-48. wright h., nichols d., embree c. 2006. evaluating the accountability of trunk size and canopy volume models for determining apple tree pr oduction potentia l a cr oss diver se ma na gement r egimes. acta hort. 707 : 237-243. espalier architecture in apple j. hortl. sci. vol. 34(1) : 20-25, 2018 (ms received 24 september 2018, revised 16 march 2019, accepted 21 june 2019) 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() introduction pomegranate (punica granatum l.) is a widely grown fruit crop in almost all the tropical and subtropical countries. it is classified as a non-climacteric fruit, and, in spite of the low respiration rate reported (ben-arie et al, 1984), it is a highly perishable commodity. pomegranate, when stored at room temperature, suffers reduction in shelflife by accelerated desiccation and decay, which makes it necessary to store fruits at low temperatures. however, when stored below 5oc, pomegranate fruits develop chillinginjury (ci), resulting in reduced internal and external fruit quality (mirdehghan and rahemi, 2005). to reduce occurrence of ci, several technologies have been tested, including chemical treatment with thiabendazole (mcdonald et al, 1991), controlled and modified atmosphere storage, intermittent warming (artés et al, 1996), shrink-film wrapping and coatings (nanda et al, 2001). polyamines (pas) are low molecular-weight, small, aliphatic amines ubiquitous in living organisms, and have been implicated in a wide range of biological processes, including plant growth, development and response to stress (smith, 1985). the most common pas, putrescine (put), spermidine (spd) and effect of polyamines on storability and quality of pomegranate fruit (punica granatum l.) cv. bhagwa d.p. waskar*, v.s. khandare, b.m. kalalbandi and p.s. shelke department of horticulture vasantrao naik marathwada krishi vidyapeeth parbhani 431 402, india e-mail: dpwaskar@gmail.com abstract pomegranate cv. bhagawa fruits harvested at adequate stage of maturity were dipped in aqueous solutions containing various concentrations of the polyamines putrescine (1mm, 2mm and 3mm) and spermidine (0.5mm, 1mm and 1.5mm), along with tween-20 as a surfactant, for 5 minutes. the fruits were then stored at 5oc and 8oc temperature with under 90-95% relative humidity. polyamine-treated fruits showed reduced chilling-injury, weight loss and respiration rate during storage at these 5oc and 8oc temperatures. an increasing trend in total soluble solids (tss) content, and a decreasing trend in acidity were found in polyamine-treated fruits during storage at 5oc and 8oc temperature. maximum reduction in chilling-injury was obtained with putrescine (2mm) at both the storage temperatures. control fruits stored at 5oc and 8oc temperature rapidly developed chilling-injury developed symptoms of brown discoloration of skin and weight-loss in pomegranate fruits. key words: pomegranate, polyamines, shelf-life, storability, chilling injury spermine (spm) are found in every plant cell. it is believed that pas have anti-senescence function (kumar et al, 1997), but their levels usually decrease during ripening in most fruits. this general diminution affects textural attributes of the fruit and its shelf-life. thus, exogenous application of pas has been reported to enhance shelf-life and textural attributes in fruits like plum (pérez-vicente et al., 2002) and mango (malik and singh, 2005). scanty information is available on the effect of polyamines on extending shelf-life, alleviating ci, and maintaining quality attributes of pomegranate fruits. in view of the importance of pomegranate cv. bhagwa, and problems faced by growers/traders in cold-storing, this experiment aimed to study the effect of polyamines on storage-life and quality attributes of pomegranate fruits under low-temperature storage. material and methods sample preparation: pomegranate cv. bhagawa fruits were procured from a commercial orchard in solapur (maharashtra). fruits were harvested at commercial maturity stage and transported immediately to the laboratory. uniform-sized fruits, free from sunburn, cracks or bruises were selected. the experiment was conducted in completely j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):48-53, 2015 49 effect of polyamines on storability and quality of pomegranate randomized design, including seven treatments, viz., t1– 1mm putrescine, t2–2mm putrescine, t3–4mm putrescine, t4–0.5mm spermidine, t5–1mm spermidine, t6–1.5mm spermidine and to–control, with three replications. fruits were treated with various concentrations of putrescine (put) (1mm, 2mm and 3mm) and spermidine (spd) (0.5mm, 1mm and 1.5mm), along with tween-20 as a surfactant, for 5 min and washed in distilled water (control). after treatment, fruits were air-dried and kept in ventilated, corrugated fiber-board boxes. fruits packed in boxes were kept in the laboratory at room temperature, and at low temperatures of 5oc and 8oc. after 15, 30, 45, 60 and 75 days of storage, fruits from each treatment were sampled. fruit peel was carefully cut at the equatorial zone with sharp knives and arils were taken out from which juice was extracted, manually, for further analysis. weight-loss in fruits was determined during storage at different sampling intervals of 15, 30, 45, 60 and 75 days after treatments and expressed as percentage. respiration rate was measured using auto gas analyzer (model: checkmate 9900 o2/co2, pbi dansensor, denmark). respiration rate was expressed in milliliters of co2 released per kg of fruit per hour (ml co2 kg ”1 h”1). pomegranate fruits for studies on chilling-injury were rated on a scale of 0–4 (wild and hood, 1989). for juice recovery, arils were removed from the fruit and weighed using an electronic balance. juice was extracted by a hydraulic juice press and weighted. juice recovery was expressed as percentage of total aril weight at the time of measurement. total soluble solids content was determined using erma hand refractometer at 20oc and results expressed as percentage. titrable acidity was estimated as per ranganna (1986). data were subjected to anova in completely randomized design, and, the means were separated by lsd test. results and discussion effect of polyamines on physiological changes in fresh pomegranate fruit physiological loss of weight: physiological loss in weight was found to increase with advancement in storage period at room temperature. all the treatments led to loss in fruit weight during the entire storage period up to 75 days (table 1). at 30 days of storage, highest (18.5%) physiological loss in weight was found in control treatment t0, while, the lowest was recorded in treatments t1 and t5 (8.8 and 9.0%, respectively) in fruit stored at room temperature. at 50c, the highest percentage of weight loss (8.9%) was recorded in control fruits, and the lowest (2.22%) in treatment t1. at 30 days of storage, a similar trend in physiological loss of weight was observed at 80c storage. at 30 days of storage, end of the shelf-life of fruit was observed in control treatment t0. at 75 days of storage, the lowest (11.00%) physiological loss in weight was recorded in treatment t1, followed by that in treatment t5 (11.12%) at 50c. at 75 days of storage, a similar trend of physiological loss in weight was observed at 80c. loss of weight in the stored pomegranate fruit is mainly due to transpiration of water from the fruit, and is apparent as shrivelling. loss in weight was found reduced with application of put. lower weight-loss in put treated fruits can be attributed to stabilization or consolidation of cell integrity and permeability of tissues, and amelioration of ci. the ci induces tissue disruption and the connection between fruit skin and the external atmosphere, allowing transfer of water vapour. besides this, lower respiration rate in put treated fruits may also contribute to lower rate of weightloss (valero et al, 1998). elyatem and kader (1984) also established a strong relation between respiration rate in pomegranate and loss in weight. table 1. effect of polyamines on physiological loss in weight (plw %) in pomegranate fruit stored at room temperature and low temperature treatment storage period (days) room temperature 5oc temperature 8oc temperature 15 30 15 30 45 60 75 15 30 45 60 75 t 1 2.18 8.8 1.35 2.21 6.12 9.84 11.00 1.40 2.40 6.19 9.84 11.07 t 2 3.31 11.23 2.22 3.70 9.10 12.16 14.13 2.29 3.82 9.13 12.17 14.21 t 3 2.91 12.23 2.74 3.97 8.90 11.44 13.86 2.91 3.94 8.90 11.49 14.07 t 4 2.87 11.80 2.83 3.98 9.12 12.20 14.16 2.86 4.01 9.16 12.21 14.24 t 5 2.27 9.00 1.41 2.74 7.14 10.04 11.12 1.64 2.80 7.16 10.08 11.26 t 6 2.92 12.00 2.87 4.01 8.89 11.05 13.92 2.90 3.98 9.10 11.85 14.04 t 0 9.34 18.50 4.30 8.90 00 00 00 4.42 9.09 00 00 00 se± 0.36 0.12 0.026 0.157 0.03 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.08 0.01 0.01 0.04 cd at 5% 1.11 0.38 0.08 0.476 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.03 0.26 0.04 0.03 0.12 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):48-53, 2015 50 respiration rate: respiration rate of fruit increased with advancement in storage period under all treatments tested (fig. 1). up to 15 days of storage, no significant difference in respiration rate was seen in fruits treated with put and spd, at room temperature, 5oc and 8oc. however, a marked difference was recorded in respiration rate at 45 and 60 days of storage under all the treatments used. at 60 days of storage, highest respiration rate (41.80ml co2 kg -1 h-1) was recorded under control, while, the lowest (10.76ml co2 kg -1 h-1) in t1 treatment at 5 oc. comparatively higher respiration rate in the control fruits was mainly due to ci. chilling injury is known to abrade cell membrane and other cell organelles, which leads to higher cell-respiration rate. the above findings are in agreement with macrae (1987) in persimmon. chilling injury: ci developed in pomegranate fruits from 45th day of storage at 50c and 80c (table 2). symptoms appeared as skin-browning, and its intensity increased with storage duration prolonged to 75 days. highest ci was recorded in the control fruits (40.00%). however, application of put and spd led to significant reduction in ci and skinbrowning. at the end of the experiment, fruits treated with t1 showed 55% lower symptoms of ci compared to the control fruits. chilling injury could be considerably reduced by the sole application of put or spd. in addition, adaptation or cold acclimation has been proposed to cause an increase in the proportion of unsaturated membrane lipid, and, this is considered to be a critical factor for maintenance of cellular integrity under chilling conditions (campos et al, 2003). here, the control fruits failed at cold-acclimation/adaptation, thus leading to ci. polyamines play a very significant role in alleviating chilling injury symptoms in fruits. when polyamines are applied exogenously, they seem to induce cold-acclimation, which could help maintain membrane fluidity at low temperatures, and in thus, responsible for reducing electrolyte-leakage and skin-browning. polyamines, due to their antioxidant property, prevent mainly lipid peroxidation, thus protecting membrane lipids from conversion in physical state (mirdehghan et al, 2007). table 2. effect of polyamines on chilling injury (%) in pomegranate fruit stored at room temperature and low temperature treatment storage period (days) 5oc temperature 8oc temperature 30 45 60 75 30 45 60 75 t 1 00 14.06 (16.97) 21.20 (12.23) 00 27.20 (15.78) 29.20 (16.98) 39.22 (23.08) t 2 00 21.73 (12.55) 29.20 (8.085) 39.40 (23.20) 00 30.20 (17.75) 34.06 (19.91) 45.50 (27.06) t 3 00 19.22 (11.08) 31.05 (18.08) 37.06 (21.75) 00 30.32 (17.68) 32.22 (18.79) 45.30 (26.93) t 4 00 24.66 (14.29) 32.33 (18.86) 39.33 (22.86) 00 30.22 (17.52) 32.06 (18.70) 44.19 (26.22) t 5 00 18.30 (18.54) 26.60 (15.42) 00 28.30 (16.44) 30.10 (17.51) 41.03 (24.22) t 6 00 17.32 (19.76) 18.40 (10.60) 39.06 (22.99) 00 34.20 (20.00) 44.07 (26.23) t 0 00 28.30 35.00 40.00 00 30.25 36.00 46.00 se± 0.75 0.011 0.015 0.010 0.029 0.37 cd at 5% 2.28 0.034 0.046 0.031 0.088 0.14 *figures in parentheses indicate transformed value fig. 1 effect of polyamines on respiration rate in pomegranate fruit stored at room temperature and low temperature waskar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):48-53, 2015 51 juice recovery: juice recovery decreased in all the treatments (fig. 2). however, the decline was much higher in control (arils from untreated fruit) compared to treatment with put and spd. at 30 days of storage, this trend was found to be reverse, where, juice recovery increased in control fruits. but, this surge was observed much later, at 45 days of storage in putand spdtreated fruits. regardless of the treatment, juice recovery depleted after 45 days of storage. however put treatment proved to be better over the control. in the present investigation, application of put and spd gave positive results going by the higher juice recovery over control. owing to its antisenescence property, put retards respiration rate and activities of enzymes responsible for cell-wall degradation. further, the role of pas in reducing ci and associated activities of cell-wall degrading enzymes have been reported by several workers (fernández-trujillo et al, 1998). thus, in the control pomegranate fruits, increase in juice recovery after 30 days of storage may be attributed to ci-mediated activity of cell-wall degrading enzymes such as pectinmethylesterase and polygalacturonase. effect of polyamines on chemical composition of fresh pomegranate fruit total soluble solids (tss): the total soluble solids increased with increase in storage period (table 3). at 15 days of storage, the lowest (15.37%) tss was recorded in treatment t4, at room temperature. the highest (15.49%) tss was recorded in treatment t1, followed by that in treatment t5 (15.47%). at 60 days of storage, a similar trend was observed too. at 75 days of storage, highest tss was recorded in control treatment t0 (17.01%), at 5 0c, while, the lowest was recorded in treatment t4 (16.17%), followed by treatment t1 (16.18%). titrable acidity: titrable acidity decreased with increase in storage period (table 4). at 15 days of storage, highest (0.61%) titrable acidity was recorded in control treatment t0. the lowest (0.36%) titrable acidity was recorded in treatment t1, followed by treatment t5 (0.37%). at 60 days of storage, a similar trend was observed. at 75 days of storage, highest titrable acidity was recorded in control treatment t0 (0.39%), while, lowest titrable acidity was recorded in treatment t1 (0.29%), followed by treatment t5 (0.33%). previous work on plum (serrano et al, 2003) fig. 2. effect of polyamines on juice recovery in pomegranate fruit stored at room temperature and low temperature table 3. effect of polyamines on total soluble solids (%) in pomegranate fruit stored at room temperature and low temperature treatment storage period (days) room temperature 50c temperature 80c temperature 0 15 30 0 15 30 45 60 75 0 15 30 45 60 75 t 1 15 15.49 15.74 15 15.5 15.76 16.21 16.41 16.18 15 15.50 15.71 16.17 16.37 16.37 t 2 15 15.37 15.73 15 15.42 15.62 15.84 15.95 16.16 15 15.42 15.60 15.81 15.90 15.90 t 3 15 15.36 15.72 15 15.41 15.58 15.64 15.90 16.15 15 15.41 15.62 15.71 15.81 15.81 t 4 15 15.37 15.70 15 15.41 15.68 15.54 15.85 16.10 15 15.41 15.56 15.61 15.71 15.75 t 5 15 15.47 15.77 15 15.46 15.71 16.14 16.35 16.17 15 15.46 15.66 16.12 16.35 16.35 t 6 15 15.39 15.70 15 15.40 15.70 16.17 16.20 16.07 15 15.40 15.65 16.11 16.16 16.16 t 0 15 15.42 15.60 15 15.39 15.56 16.23 16.50 17.01 15 15.39 15.53 16.22 16.47 16.60 se± 0.007 0.005 0 0.005 0.008 0.005 0.005 0.005 0 0.005 0.01 0.006 0.005 0.005 cd at 5% 0.023 0.015 0 0.015 0.026 0.017 0.17 0.17 0 0.015 0.03 0.019 0.017 0.017 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):48-53, 2015 effect of polyamines on storability and quality of pomegranate 52 and pomegranate (mustapha et al, 1995) also confirm these findings. conclusion exogenous application of polyamines like putrescine and spermidine showed improvement in storability of pomegranate at 5oc, which otherwise would lead to chilling injury and compromised quality. treatment with putrescine reduced respiration rate and physiological loss of weight, and enhanced total soluble solids content, amount of reducing sugars, and decreased acidity of the fruit. thus, shelf-life can be extended in pomegranate fruits stored at low temperatures (5oc) for upto 75 days. as demonstrated by us, application of 1mm putrericine could be effective in alleviating chilling injury symptoms during long duration, lowtemperature storage of pomegranate fruits. however, further studies are necessary on combined use of putrescine with other treatments in alleviating chilling injury and possible mechanisms of action for increasing post-harvest life of the fruit. references artés, f., marín, j.g. and martínez, j.a. 1996. controlled atmosphere storage of pomegranate. eur. food res. technol., 203:33–37 ben-arie, r., segal, n. and guelfat-reich, s. 1984. the maturation and ripening of the ‘woderful’ pomegranate. j. am. soc. hortl. sci., 109:898–902 campos, p.s., quartin, v., ramalho, j.c. and nunes, m.a. 2003. electrolyte leakage and lipid degradation account for cold sensitivity in leaves of coffea sp. plants. j. pl. physiol., 160:283–292 elyatem, s.m. and kader, a. 1984. post-harvest physiology and storage behavior of pomegranate fruits. sci. hortic., 24:287–298 fernández-trujillo, j.p., cano, a. and artés, a. 1998. physiological changes in peaches related to chilling injury and ripening. postharvest biol. technol., 13:109–119 kumar, a., altabella, t., taylor, m.a. and tiburcio, a.f. 1997. recent advances in polyamine research. trends pl. sci., 2:124–130 macrae, e.a. 1987. development of chilling injury in new zealand grown fuyu persimmon during storage. new z. j. expt’l. agri., 15:333–344 malik, a.u. and singh, z. 2005. pre-storage application of polyamines improves shelf-life and fruit quality of mango. j. hortl. sci. biotechnol., 80:363–369 mcdonald, r.e., miller, w., mccollum, t.g. and brown, g.e. 1991. thiabendazole and imazalil applied at 53oc reduce chilling injury and decay of grapefruit. hort sci., 26:397–399 mirdehghan, s.h. and rahemi, m. 2005. effects of hot water treatment on reducing chilling injury of pomegranate (punica granatum) fruit during storage. acta hort., 682:887-892 mirdehghan, s.h., rahemi, m., martínez-romero, d., guillen, f., valverde, j.m., zapata, p.j, serrano, m. and valero, d. 2007. reduction of pomegranate chilling injury during storage after heat treatment: role of polyamines. postharvest biol. technol., 44:19– 25 mustapha, a., al-mughrabi, mohamed, a.b. and abdelsalam, o.a. 1995. effect of storage temperature and duration on fruit quality of three pomegranate cultivars. j. king saud. univ., 7:239– 248 nanda, s., rao, d.v.s. and krishnamurthy, s. 2001. effects of shrink-film wrapping and storage temperature on the shelf-life and quality of pomegranate fruits cv. ganesh. postharvest biol. technol., 22:61–69 table 4. effect of polyamines on titrable acidity (%) in pomegranate fruit stored at room temperature and low temperature treatment storage period (days) room temperature 5oc temperature 8oc temperature 0 15 30 0 15 30 45 60 75 0 15 30 45 60 75 t 1 0.36 0.36 0.36 0.36 0.32 0.31 0.30 0.30 0.29 0.36 0.34 0.33 0.33 0.32 0.30 t 2 0.36 0.40 0.39 0.36 0.37 0.36 0.35 0.35 0.33 0.36 0.36 0.35 0.34 0.33 0.32 t 3 0.36 0.51 0.50 0.36 0.36 0.36 0.35 0.35 0.34 0.36 0.70 0.36 0.35 0.34 0.34 t 4 0.36 0.56 0.55 0.36 0.37 0.40 0.39 0.39 0.38 0.36 0.43 0.42 0.41 0.40 0.35 t 5 0.36 0.37 0.36 0.36 0.36 0.35 0.34 0.34 0.33 0.36 0.30 0.35 0.34 0.30 0.32 t 6 0.36 0.46 0.45 0.36 0.41 0.36 0.35 0.35 0.35 0.36 0.36 0.36 0.35 0.34 0.31 t 0 0.36 0.61 0.58 0.36 0.42 0.41 0.40 0.40 0.39 0.36 0.38 0.37 0.36 0.36 0.36 se± — 0.008 0.008 — 0.007 0.006 0.007 0.006 0.006 — 0.007 0.007 0.007 0.007 0.003 cd at 5 % — 0.027 0.0027 — 0.02 0.02 0.022 0.02 0.02 — 0.021 0.022 0.0023 0.024 0.012 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):48-53, 2015 waskar et al 53 pérez-vicente, a., martínez-romero, d., carbonell, a., serrano, m., riquelme, f., guillén, f. and valero, d. 2002. role of polyamines in extending shelf-life and the reduction of mechanical damage during plum (prunus salicina lindl.) storage. postharvest biol. technol., 25:25–32 raganna. 1986. hand book of analysis and quality control for fruits and vegetables. p 9 serrano, m., martínez-romero, d., guillen, f. and valero, d. 2003. effects of exogenous putrescine on improving shelf-life of four plum cultivars. postharvest biol. technol., 30:259–271 smith, t.a. 1985. polyamines. annu. rev. pl. physiol., 36:117–143 valero, d., romero, d.m., serrano, m. and riquelme, f. 1998. influence of post-harvest treatment with putrescine and calcium on endogenous polyamines, firmness, and abscisic acid in lemon (citrus lemon l. burm cv. verna). j. agril. food chem., 46:2102– 2109 wild, b.l. and hood, c.w. 1989. hot dip treatments reduce chilling injury in long-term storage of ‘valencia’ oranges. hort. sci., 24:109-110 (ms received 07 march 2014, revised 24 march 2015, accepted 13 april 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):48-53, 2015 effect of polyamines on storability and quality of pomegranate lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle) is one of the important fruits of citrus group, acidic in nature and excellent source of vitamin c. india produces 15.42 thousand tonnes of lime per year, raw fruit is freshly consumed and also utilized in preparation of value added products like squash, cordial, syrup, marmalade, pickle, salted lime and dried peel. however, very less work has been done on preservation of lime juice for long duration. since ancient times, ginger (zingiber officinale rosc.) has been used as a spice and medicine in india. the total production of ginger is 359 thousand tonnes during 2004-05 (anonymous, 2005). ginger can be used in ginger ale, ginger beer, dried pickle, paste and candied ginger. as lime and ginger juices are health benefitting and refreshing, the ready-to-serve juice of lime, ginger and their blends are very important. blending not only improves quality and nutrition of basic raw material, but also offers for development of newer product (nath and yadav, 2005). very little work has been done on lime and ginger rts as well as blended rts of lime and ginger. therefore, the present investigation was carried out at post-harvest laboratory of department of horticulture, i.g.k.v., raipur, during the year 2007-08. lime and ginger juices were extracted from mature well-ripened lime and fresh ginger procured from local market. healthy lime fruits and ginger rhizomes were short communication studies on effect of chemical preservatives on physico-chemical changes of beverages in lime and ginger juice with their combinations ravishankar lanjhiyana, pravin kumar sharma and n. shukla department of horticulture, college of agriculture indira gandhi agricultural university raipur, chhattisgarh – 492006, india. e-mail: fresh007-no@yahoo.com abstract the physico-chemical character of lime and ginger rts and blended rts were evaluated after addition of potassium meta-bi-sulphite (kms) and sodium benzoate stored at ambient temperature up to 150 days. lime and ginger rts preserved with kms (0.1%) retained more ascorbic acid and acidity as compared to other treatments. during storage, total soluble solids, reduction and total sugars showed an increasing trend with increasing period of storage under ambient condition in kms (0.1%) as compared to other treatments. among the various treatment rts prepared from ginger juice with kms 0.1% could be stored for extended period of time for sensory characteristics. key words: lime, ginger, potassium, meta-bi-sulphite, sodium benzoate, rts, storage selected and washed thoroughly in running tap water to remove dirt and dust particles. lime juice was extracted by lime squeezer and filtered with muslin cloth to obtain clear fruit juice free from juice vesicles. in case of ginger, after removal of the peel, rhizomes were cut into pieces with the help of knife and ground in mixer and filtered through muslin cloth to obtain fiber-less juice. after the juice extraction 10% of blended juice of lime and ginger were used for rts preparation. tss of 17% and acidity of 0.3 % were maintained by addition of calculated amount of sugar, citric acid and water for all treatments. fifteen treatments were prepared by combination of different concentration of lime juice (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%), ginger juice (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%), and chemical preservatives (sodium benzoate 0.1%, potassium meta bisulphate 0.1% and sodium benzoate 0.05% + potassium meta bisulphate 0.05%). the bottles of rts beverages were kept at ambient condition for further studies up to 150 days. stored rts were evaluated at 0, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 days of storage for various physico-chemical parameters analysed by using completely randomized design. stored rts were evaluated for ascorbic acid, acidity, tss, reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar, total sugar, sugar: acid ratio and sensory characteristics. tss was recorded by using hand refractometer. the ascorbic acid was determined by using 2-6 dichlorophenol-indophenol dye. the acidity per cent was analysed by titrating the fruit and j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 151-154, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 152 rhizome juice with n/10 naoh using phenolphthalein as an indicator. the reducing sugar, non reducing sugar and total sugar were also determined as per ranganna (1997). sensory evaluation of the rts beverages was done by the panel of ten judges at 30 days interval following the hedonic rating test as described by ranganna (1997). the ascorbic acid and acidity were decreased in lime and ginger rts but tss and sugar: acid ratio showed an increasing trend with increase in storage period (table 1). maximum ascorbic acid and acidity retention was observed in case of rts preserved with kms (0.1%). the loss in ascorbic acid might be attributed to the oxidation of irreversible conversion of l-ascorbic acid into dehydroascorbic acid oxidase caused by trapped or residual oxygen in the glass bottles. the decrease in acidity in rts during storage might be attributed to the chemical interaction between organic constituents of the juice induced by temperature and action of enzymes. deka (2000) and deka et al (2004) reported similar finding with lime-aonla blended rts and nath and yadav (2005b) with ginger-kinnow squash. the increase in tss in rts/ blended rts, during storage was probably due to conversion of polysaccharides, like pectin, cellulose, starch etc., into simple sugars. sugar: acid ratio in rts/ blended rts showed an increasing trend with increasing period of storage (table 2). the finding of singh et al (2005) for bael/ blended bael rts beverages are in close conformity with these results. reducing sugar and total sugar increased with the increase in storage period in lime and ginger rts/ blended table 1. effect of different preservatives on ascorbic acid (mg/100ml) of stored lime and ginger rts/ blended rts beverages treatments storage period (in days) 0 30 60 90 120 150 t 1 27.63 27.53 25.30 20.30 10.50 9.50 t 2 27.50 25.16 22.41 18.23 8.43 6.43 t 3 27.60 25.85 24.46 19.23 9.43 7.96 t 4 3.25 3.21 2.30 1.46 1.15 1.03 t 5 3.13 2.58 2.20 1.16 0.95 0.89 t 6 3.16 2.86 2.23 1.36 1.00 0.93 t 7 26.50 26.33 24.30 18.36 9.43 8.86 t 8 26.13 25.43 22.35 15.36 7.56 6.46 t 9 26.36 26.06 24.25 17.36 9.10 8.43 t 1 0 25.36 25.30 23.21 17.36 9.30 8.76 t 1 1 25.33 25.10 22.26 15.46 8.03 7.06 t 1 2 25.40 25.26 23.16 16.70 9.16 8.50 t 1 3 27.36 27.10 25.05 17.36 10.36 9.50 t 1 4 27.20 25.06 22.10 14.60 7.50 6.43 t 1 5 27.30 25.76 24.36 17.26 9.36 8.60 sem ± 0.07 0.12 0.16 0.13 0.12 0.14 cd(p=0.05) 0.19 0.32 0.46 0.36 0.31 0.39 notation detailst 1 lime juice + kms 0.1% t 2 lime juice + sb 0.1% t 3 lime juice + kms 0.05% + sb 0.05% t 4 ginger juice + kms 0.1% t 5 ginger juice + sb 0.1 t 6 ginger juice + kms 0.05% +sb 0.05% t 7 lime juice 50% + ginger juice 50% + kms 0.1% t 8 lime juice 50% + ginger juice 50% sb 0.1% t 9 lime juice 50% + ginger juice 50% + kms 0.05% + sb 0.05% t 10 lime juice 75% + ginger juice 25% + kms 0.1% t 11 lime juice 75% + ginger juice 25% + kms 0.1% t 12 lime juice 75% + ginger juice 25% + kms 0.05% + sb 0.05% t 13 lime juice 25% + ginger juice 75% + kms 0.1% t 14 lime juice 25% + ginger juice 75% + kms 0.1% t 15 lime juice 25% + ginger juice 75% + kms 0.05% + sb 0.05% table 2. effect of different preservatives on tss (%), acidity (%) and sugar: acid ratio of stored lime and ginger rts/ blended rts treatment tss (%) acidity (%) sugar: acid ratio storage period (in days) storage period (in days) storage period (in days) 0 30 60 90 120 150 0 30 60 90 120 150 0 30 60 90 120 150 t 1 17.00 17.33 17.33 17.47 17.54 17.60 0.30 0.29 0.28 0.26 0.24 0.22 56.60 59.31 61.89 67.19 73.08 80.00 t 2 17.00 17.20 17.30 17.38 17.47 17.56 0.30 0.29 0.26 0.22 0.20 0.16 56.60 59.31 66.53 79.00 87.35 109.75 t 3 17.00 17.20 17.31 17.40 17.48 17.58 0.30 0.28 0.27 0.24 0.22 0.17 56.60 61.42 64.11 72.50 79.45 103.41 t 4 17.00 17.10 17.14 17.21 17.30 17.34 0.30 0.29 0.29 0.28 0.26 0.24 56.60 58.96 59.00 61.46 66.53 75.25 t 5 17.00 17.10 17.12 17.21 17.25 17.30 0.30 0.29 0.28 0.28 0.26 0.22 56.60 58.96 61.14 61.46 66.34 78.36 t 6 17.00 17.10 17.12 17.20 17.29 17.33 0.30 0.29 0.29 0.28 0.26 0.23 56.60 58.96 59.03 61.42 66.50 75.34 t 7 17.00 17.20 17.34 17.38 17.45 17.52 0.30 0.29 0.28 0.27 0.25 0.22 56.60 59.31 61.92 64.37 69.80 79.63 t 8 17.00 17.20 17.30 17.38 17.38 17.45 0.30 0.29 0.27 0.25 0.23 0.18 56.60 59.31 64.07 69.52 75.56 96.94 t 9 17.00 17.20 17.31 17.32 17.43 17.48 0.30 0.28 0.27 0.26 0.24 0.19 56.60 61.42 64.11 66.61 72.02 92.00 t 1 0 17.00 17.20 17.34 17.46 17.54 17.56 0.30 0.28 0.27 0.26 0.24 0.20 56.60 61.42 64.22 67.15 73.08 87.80 t 1 1 17.00 17.20 17.30 17.39 17.47 17.54 0.30 0.27 0.25 0.23 0.21 0.17 56.60 63.70 69.20 75.60 83.19 103.17 t 1 2 17.00 17.20 17.31 17.42 17.50 17.55 0.30 0.29 0.27 0.26 0.24 0.22 56.60 59.31 64.11 66.96 72.19 87.75 t 1 3 17.00 17.20 17.34 17.42 17.50 17.56 0.30 0.29 0.28 0.27 0.25 0.22 56.60 59.31 61.92 64.51 70.00 79.81 t 1 4 17.00 17.20 17.31 17.33 17.40 17.50 0.30 0.27 0.25 0.23 0.21 0.17 56.60 63.70 61.92 75.34 82.85 102.94 t 1 5 17.00 17.20 17.30 17.42 17.47 17.52 0.30 0.28 0.27 0.25 0.23 0.21 56.60 61.42 69.24 69.68 75.95 83.42 sem ± 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.15 0.09 0.15 0.26 cd 0.16 0.16 0.15 0.15 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.43 0.26 0.44 0.77 (p=0.05) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 151-154, 2010 ravishankar lanjhiyana et al prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 153 table 3. effect of different preservatives on reducing sugar (%), non reducing sugar (%) and total sugar (%) of stored lime and ginger rts/ blended rts treatment reducing sugar (%) non-reducing sugar (%) total sugar (%) storage period (in days) storage period (in days) storage period (in days) 0 30 60 90 120 150 0 30 60 90 120 150 0 30 60 90 120 150 t 1 6.62 6.79 6.96 7.13 7.28 7.45 1.36 1.30 1.20 1.14 1.08 1.02 7.98 8.09 8.16 8.27 8.36 8.47 t 2 6.62 6.74 6.84 6.95 7.13 7.25 1.36 1.25 1.16 1.07 0.90 0.80 7.98 7.99 8.00 8.01 8.03 8.05 t 3 6.62 6.77 6.92 7.07 7.22 7.37 1.36 1.27 1.18 1.10 0.93 0.86 7.98 8.03 8.05 8.10 8.15 8.20 t 4 6.11 6.28 6.45 6.62 6.79 6.96 1.12 1.06 1.00 0.94 0.88 0.82 7.23 7.34 7.45 7.56 7.67 7.78 t 5 6.11 6.24 6.36 6.49 6.61 6.73 1.12 1.00 0.90 0.79 0.69 0.59 7.23 7.24 7.26 7.28 7.30 7.32 t 6 6.11 6.26 6.41 6.56 6.70 6.85 1.12 1.02 0.92 0.82 0.72 0.62 7.23 7.28 7.33 7.38 7.42 7.47 t 7 6.50 6.67 6.84 7.01 7.18 7.35 1.24 1.18 1.12 1.06 1.00 0.94 7.74 7.85 7.96 8.07 8.18 8.29 t 8 6.50 6.60 6.75 6.88 7.02 7.14 1.24 1.15 1.02 0.91 0.79 0.68 7.74 7.75 7.77 7.79 7.81 7.83 t 9 6.50 6.65 6.80 6.95 7.07 7.20 1.24 1.14 1.04 0.94 0.84 0.73 7.74 7.79 7.84 7.89 7.91 7.93 t 1 0 6.37 6.54 6.71 6.88 7.05 7.21 1.30 1.24 1.18 1.12 1.05 0.98 7.67 7.78 7.89 8.00 8.10 8.19 t 1 1 6.37 6.50 6.64 6.75 6.90 6.97 1.30 1.18 1.07 0.97 0.85 0.77 7.67 7.68 7.70 7.72 7.74 7.75 t 1 2 6.37 6.52 6.67 6.82 6.97 7.12 1.30 1.20 1.10 1.00 0.90 0.81 7.67 7.72 7.77 7.82 7.87 7.93 t 1 3 6.23 6.40 6.57 6.74 6.92 7.09 1.18 1.12 1.06 1.00 0.93 0.86 7.41 7.52 7.63 7.74 7.85 7.95 t 1 4 6.23 6.33 6.48 6.63 6.80 6.94 1.18 1.10 0.98 0.84 0.70 0.58 7.41 7.43 7.46 7.48 7.50 7.52 t15 6.23 6.38 6.53 6.68 6.84 6.98 1.18 1.08 0.98 0.88 0.78 0.67 7.41 7.46 7.51 7.56 7.62 7.65 sem ± 0.07 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.09 0.09 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.03 cd 0.19 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.27 0.26 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.05 0.09 (p=0.05) table 4. effect of different preservatives on overall acceptability scores of stored lime and ginger rts/ blended rts treatments overall acceptability storage period (in days) 0 30 60 90 120 150 t 1 8.0 7.7 7.5 7.4 7.2 6.6 t 2 8.0 7.6 7.4 7.3 7.0 5.2 t 3 8.0 7.8 7.6 7.5 7.2 6.2 t 4 8.6 8.4 8.3 8.2 7.4 6.8 t 5 8.6 8.4 8.2 8.1 6.2 5.4 t 6 8.4 8.2 7.9 7.7 7.0 6.4 t 7 7.8 7.5 7.3 7.2 6.8 6.4 t 8 7.8 7.5 7.3 7.1 5.4 5.0 t 9 7.7 7.4 7.2 6.9 6.6 6.0 t 1 0 8.4 8.0 7.6 7.3 7.0 6.4 t 1 1 8.3 8.0 7.4 7.1 5.8 5.2 t 1 2 8.1 7.7 7.5 7.2 6.8 6.4 t 1 3 8.2 7.8 7.4 7.1 6.8 6.4 t 1 4 8.1 7.7 7.3 6.9 5.6 5.2 t 1 5 8.2 7.7 7.4 7.0 6.4 6.0 rts but, non-reducing sugar decreased with increase in storage period (table 3). maximum change in sugar content in lime and ginger rts/ blended rts, was observed in rts preserved with (kms 0.1%) whereas, minimum change was recorded with rts preserved with (sb 0.1%). the increase in reducing sugar as well as total sugar were related to the increase in total soluble solids and ultimate decrease in nonreducing sugar in the beverage during storage period. the variation in different fraction of sugar might be due to hydrolysis of polysaccharides like starch, pectin and inversion of non-reducing sugar into reducing. the increase level of total sugar was probably also due to conversion of starch and pectin into simple sugar. the similar findings reported by deka (2000) and deka et al (2004) for lime-aonla blended rts and tiwari (2000) for rts beverages prepared from guava-papaya. the organoleptic score reflects the acceptability of the produce to the consumer. the rts/blended rts showed decrease in overall acceptability score with increasing storage period up to 150 days under ambient condition (table 4). the treatment t 4 (ginger juice 100% + kms 0.1%) had a highest overall acceptability score followed by the t 6 (ginger juice 100% + kms 0.05% + sb 0.05%) and t 5 (ginger juice 100% + sb 0.1%). however, the rts of treatment t 9 (lime juice 50% + ginger juice 50% + sb 0.05%) and t 8 (lime juice 50% + ginger juice 50% + sb 0.1%) were least acceptable by the evaluators. references: anonymous, 2005. national horticulture board. ministry of agriculture, gurgaon, haryana http:// www.nhb.com/area lime and production overview 2.html deka, b.c. 2000. preparation and storage of mixed fruit juice spiced beverages. ph.d. thesis, iari, new delhi deka, b.c., sethi, v., suneja, p. and sriastava, v.k.2004. physico-chemical changes of lime-aonla spiced j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 151-154, 2010 effect of chemical preservatives in rts beverages prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 154 beverage during storage. j. food sci. tech., 41 : 329-332 jain, s.p., tripathi, v.k. and ram, h.b. 1984. studies on storage behavior of orange, lemon and bael squashes. indian food packer, 38 :33-32 nath, a. and yadav, d.s. 2005a . standardization of ginger – kinnow, a blended beverage from kinnow mandarin juice. j. food sci. tech., 42 :520-522 nath, a. and yadav, d.s. 2005b. standardization of ginger – kinnow, a blended beverage from kinnow mandarin juice. indian j. citriculture, 189-192 palaniswamy, k.p. and muthukrishnan, c.r. 1974. studies on the physico-chemical characters of lemon juices and squashes during storage. indian food packer, 28 : 37-40 ranganna, s. 1997. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products. tata mcgraw hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi singh s., godara r.k., saini, r.s. and sharma, j.r. 2005. standardization of processing technology for bael/ blended bael (aegle marmelos) ready-to-serve beverages. haryana j. hort. sci., 34 : 263-265. tiwari, r.b. 2000. studies on guava and papaya pulp for rts beverage. indian food packer, 68-72 (ms received 31 may 2010, revised 26 october 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 151-154, 2010 ravishankar lanjhiyana et al prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no effect of sprigging density and foliar nitrogen on the growth of bermuda grass (cynodon dactylon l. pers. x cynodon transvaalensis) d. dhanasekaran department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, annamalai nagar, tamil naduindia-608002 email:dhansflora@rediffmail.com abstract turf grasses have been utilized by humans to enhance their environment for more than 10 centuries. aesthetically, lawns enhance the quality of life, contribute to social harmony and community pride, increase property values and compliment other landscape plants. the beauty of any garden largely depends on the greenness of the lawn. the first and foremost criteria for a well establishment and a satisfactory lawn are selection of suitable grass species and methods of its establishment. hence, an experiment was laid out to study the effect of different sprigging density and foliar nitrogen on the growth and establishment of bermuda grass (cynodon dactylon l. pers. x cynodon transvaalensis) in floriculture unit of the department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, tamil nadu during the year 2013-2015. bermuda grass sprigs were planted in different spacing levels and foliar spray of urea with twelve treatment combinations comprising of different levels viz., 10 x 10 cm with 1%, 1.5% and 2%; 15 x 15 cm with 1%, 1.5% and 2%; 20 x 20 cm with 1%, 1.5% and 2%; 25 x 25 cm with 1%, 1.5% and 2%, in factorial randomized block design with three replications. from the results, it was found that the earliest spread and ground cover were observed in planting sprigs at closer spacing of 10 x 10 cm in combination with foliar application of nitrogen in the form of urea as 2 % for two times at seven and fifteen days after planting. keywords : bermuda grass, spacing, foliar nutrition introduction a lawn is more than just a patch of grasses which under proper planting and aftercare can be proved as a beauty spot. it is one of the important features of landscape garden. lawn is an inevitable component in gardens as because it serves as an important aid to beauty for the landscapes. the beauty of any garden largely depends on the greenness of the lawn. the success of a lawn largely depends on the selection of right type of grasses suitable to the climatic and soil conditions, besides appropriate cultural practices and management skills. the first and foremost criteria for a well establishment and a satisfactory lawn are selection of suitable grass species and methods of its establishment. a proper planting method ensures good ground cover in a short span of time. hence, selection of appropriate method suitable for selected grass species is of greater importance in establishment of lawn. however, establishment is made based on the growth pattern of grass species. since, bermuda grass is a stoloniferous type of grass, the spread and ground cover is more rapid. the faster spread is largely depends on the distance between sprigs planted. on the other hand, nutrition played a major role in establishment and greenness of lawn. nitrogen is an essential element for all living things and the mineral element needed in larger quantities for lawn grasses. although nitrogen fertilization is essential for healthy lawn, the quantity and method of application determines the growth rate of lawn grasses. it is evident that foliar spray of nitrogen showed better results (baldwin et al., 2009). foliar spray of urea is not so easier due to the scorching effect of leaf lamina of lawn if the dosage is increased even to micro level. hence standardizing the dosage of application of urea as foliar spray to bermuda grass is a timely need for many landscapers. hence, an experiment was formulated to study the effect of different spacing levels and foliar nitrogen on the growth and establishment of bermuda grass. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 172-177, 2018 172 original research paper 173 sprigging density of bermuda grass j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 172-177, 2018 material and methods bermuda grass springs were planted at four different spacing levels viz., 10 x 10 cm, 15 x 15 cm, 20 x 20 cm and 25 x 25 cm and foliar spray of urea (7 and 15 days after planting) with urea as nitrogen sources @ 1%, 1.5% and 2% in the floriculture unit of the depa r tment of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, annamalai nagar, tamil na du dur ing 2015. the experiment wa s conducted with 12 treatment combinations in factorial r a ndomized block design (frbd) a nd thr ee replication. observations were recorded during 15, 30, 45 and 60 days after planting for percent ground cover, number of runner, length of runner and shoot density, root length, shoot length, root / shoot ratio, leaf area and number of leaves per clipped shoot at 60 days after planting. the data were statistically analyzed by using panse and sukhatme (1978). results and discussion significant differences were noticed among the treatments (table 1). among the spacing levels, maximum ground cover percentage was observed in closest spacing s4 (8.68 %, 84.23%, 96.75 % and 98.61 % at 15, 30, 45 and 60 days after planting respectively. the least ground cover percentage was recorded in wider spacing s1 (51.56 %, 74.46 %, 85.16 % and 86.12 % at 15, 30, 45 and 60 days after planting respectively. among the various nitrogen levels, maximum ground cover percentage was recorded in the n3 (55.36 %, 79.59 %, 91.52 %, and 92.67 % in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. the least values was recorded in n1 (52.82 %, 76.03 %, 87.05 % and 88.12 % in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. the data on interaction of spacing x nitrogen showed that maximum ground cover per cent was recorded in s4n2 (60.07 %, 86,26 %, 99.15 % and 101.21 %) and the least ground cover per cent was recorded in s1n1 (49.94 %, 72.05 %, 82.35 % and 83.01 % in 15, 30,45 and 60 dap respectively. this might be due to the fact that the formation of stolon above the soil is quite rapid in closer spacing (10 x 10 cm) which expands and spreads the empty spaces with more number of runner and increased density of the shoot leading to quick coverage of areas in this treatment which ensured the highest ground cover per cent in addition to the impact of foliar nitrogen. this might be due to the absorption of nitrogen through leaves in ionic form and translocation in plants without any loss and significant increase in the above characters. this is in accordance with the findings of deleuran et al (2009) in perennial rye grass; stiglbauer et al. (2009) in zoysia grass, han et al. (2013) in brome grass, david et al. (2003) guertal and evans (2006) in bermuda grass. maximum number of runners was observed in medium spacing s4 (10.08, 14.13, 19.25 and 26.88 in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. however, lowest number of runners was recorded in wider spacing s1 (5.35, 9.58, 15.26 and 21.07 in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively among the spacing levels. among the various nitrogen levels, maximum number of runners was recorded in n3 (8.37, 12.46, 17.7 and 24.7 in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively). the least values was recorded in n1(6.81,11.08,16.62 and 22.96 in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively). the data on interaction of spacing x nitrogen showed that maximum number of runners was recorded in s4n3 (11.20, 15.31, 20.08 and 28.12 in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively). however, least number of runners was recorded in s1n1 (4.56, 8.91, 14.75 and 20.16) at 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. the data on length of runners showed significant variations among the treatments. among the spacing levels, the longest runner was noticed under wider spacing s1 (7.13 cm, 14.85 cm, 17.04 cm and 20.22 cm) at 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. the least values were recorded in closest spacing s4 (4.76 cm, 13.06 cm, 15.44 cm and 18.70 cm at 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. among the various nitrogen levels, lengthy runner was recorded under n3 (7.96 cm, 16.20 cm, 18.30 cm and 21.02 cm) at 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. however, the shortest runner was noticed under n1 with 3.94 cm, 11.93 cm, 14.39 cm and 18.47 cm at 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively. the data on interaction of spacing x nitrogen showed that, maximum length of runner was recorded in s1n3 (9.20 cm, 17.50 cm, 19.50 cm a nd 21. 80 cm a t 15, 30, 45 a nd 60 dap respectively). however, the shortest runner was recorded in s4n1 (2.55 cm, 10.85 cm, 13.41 cm and 17.81 cm in 15, 30, 45 and 60 dap respectively). this might be due to the fact that enough space available for the runners to grow due to less competition of nutrients which in turn produced maximum length of runners. further, each node produced a considerable amount of root which adhered to the soil and involved in the uptake of nutrients. this might be the reason for the enhancement in the length of runners in this treatment. similar results were also observed by wijitphan et al. (2009) in napier grass and deleuran et al (2010) in festuca grass. 174 dhanasekaran var ious levels of spacing had significa nt differences in the shoot and root length (table.2). among them, medium spacing (s3) recorded highest shoot length of 11.19 cm and root length of 7.84 cm. the lowest shoot and root length was recorded in wider spacing s1(6.60 cm and 6.45 cm) respectively. among the nitrogen levels, maximum shoot length (10.90 cm) was recorded in n3. similarly, the same treatment n3 recorded for the maximum root length (7.87 cm). the lowest shoot length (6.46 cm) and root length (6.33 cm) was recorded in n1. interaction effect of spacing and nitrogen also had significant effect on shoot and root length. maximum shoot length (13.76 cm) and root length (8.70 cm) was recorded in s3n3. however, lowest length of shoot and root was recorded under s1n 1 with 4. 80 cm a nd 5. 69 cm respectively. maximum values in the medium spaced treatment and optimum dosage of nitrogen showed positive influence due to the role in cell division as well as protein synthesis. bowmann et al.(2002) and boyer et al.(2014) reported favourable effects on length of runners in bermuda grass; bilgilli and acikgoz (2005) for shoot length in kentenky blue grass and totten et al.(2007) for root length in creeping bent grass with the increased dose of nitrogen. the data pertaining to root/shoot ratio showed that, s2 and s3 recorded the highest value (0.26) and both was on par with each other. the lowest value was recorded in s1 and s4 with 0.24. however, under various nitrogen levels, the highest root shoot ratio was recorded in n3 (0.27). the lowest value was noticed in n1(0.23). maximum root/shoot ratio (0.29) was observed in s3n3 and the lowest root/shoot ratio (0.22) was recorded in s1n1 in the interaction effect of spacing and nitrogen. maximum shoot density was noticed in closest spacing s4 (1244.63 m2) and the lowest density was recorded in s 1 (828.38 m2) observed under spacing levels. similarly, the treatment n3 recorded the maximum shoot density (1140.55 m2) and the lowest value was noticed in n1 (901.52 m2). however, in the interaction effect, maximum values was obtained in s4n3 (1404.00 m2) and minimum density was noticed in s1n1 (732.76 m2). the shoot density progressively increased with the increment in n levels and recorded maximum in 2% urea spray. this might be due to the absorption of nitrogen through leaves in ionic form and translocation in plants without any loss. this might have induced higher metabolic activity and significant increase in the shoot density. the results of johnson et al.(1987); white (1987); rodriguez et al.(2001);kopp et al.(2002); david et al.(2003); guertal and evans (2006) in bermuda grass and ledeboer and skogley (1973) in lolium perenne; fry and dernoedon (1987); carroll et al (1996) in zoysia japonica are in consonance with the results of this experiment. maximum leaf area of 0.59 cm2 and 0.53 cm2 was noticed in s4 and n3 among the spacing levels and nitrogen levels respectively. however, minimum values of 0.39 cm2 and 0.41 cm2 was observed under s2 and n1 at spacing and nitrogen levels respectively. in the interaction of spacing x nitrogen, maximum leaf area was recorded in s4n3 with 0.67 cm 2 and minimum value was noticed in s2n1 with 0.28 cm 2. application of various levels of spacing on number of clipped shoot recorded maximum values in s4 (12.34) and minimum va lue wa s r ecor ded under s 1 with 8.24.among the nitrogen levels, maximum number of leaves per clipped shoot is observed in n3 (12.13) and minimum value was recorded in n1 (8.18). the data on interaction of spacing x nitrogen showed maximum values in the treatment s4n3 with 14.50 and minimum values in s2n1 with 6.53. the increased leaf area and number of clipped shoot in closest spacing treatment might be because of the rapid growth and production of more number of leaves and the sprigs produced lengthy stolen in the treatment. interestingly, the data on maximum leaf area (0.67 cm2) and more number of leaves (14.50) was recorded in the treatment s4n3 (10 x 10 cm and 2 % urea). this may be due to the fact that the closely planted sprigs attributed for maximum shoot density which ensured the highest ground cover per cent in a ddition to the impa ct of foliar nitrogen. the application of foliar nitrogen rapidly increased the absorption mechanism and might have enhanced the photosynthetic rate. these results corroborate the findings of guertal and evans (2006) in bermuda grass and razmjoo and kaneko (1993) in perennial rye grass; razmjoo et al.(1996) in creeping bent grass and zhao et al.(2008) in tall fescue grass. from the above results, it was clearly evident that early ground cover, number if runners, leaf area, number of leaves are the positive characters of a good quality lawn which is exhibited by the treatment s4n3 (10 x 10 cm spacing and 2% foliar spray of urea) established through sprigging method. even though the treatment s3n3 exhibited maximum values for shoot length, root length and root shoot ratio, more considerations were given for the visual quality which attributed through per cent ground cover, shoot density, number of runners, leaf area and number of leaves per clipped shoot. hence, it could be concluded that the best quality of bermuda grass turf can be established at the earliest duration by planting sprigs at closer spacing of 10 x 10 cm in combination with foliar application of nitrogen in the form of urea as 2 % spray for two times at seven and fifteen days after planting. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 172-177, 2018 175 per cent ground cover (%) number of runners length of runners (cm) treatment 15 30 45 60 15 30 45 60 15 30 45 60 dap dap dap dap dap dap dap dap dap dap dap dap s1n1 49.94 72.05 82.35 83.01 4.56 8.91 14.75 20.16 5.28 12.32 14.72 18.70 s1n2 50.04 73.50 83.97 84.91 5.29 9.49 15.23 20.97 6.92 14.74 16.90 20.16 s1n3 54.06 77.85 89.16 90.46 6.21 10.36 15.82 22.09 9.20 17.50 19.50 21.80 s2n1 51.04 73.79 84.36 85.26 5.48 9.78 15.50 21.28 4.45 12.75 15.15 18.95 s2n2 52.53 75.82 86.76 87.86 6.40 10.65 16.25 22.40 7.11 15.35 17.33 20.41 s2n3 51.43 74.08 84.75 85.61 7.32 11.52 17.00 23.52 8.06 16.55 18.63 21.23 s3n1 52.92 76.11 87.15 88.26 9.16 13.26 18.50 25.76 3.50 11.08 14.28 18.44 s3n2 58.58 84.28 96.75 98.61 10.08 14.13 19.25 26.88 7.30 15.60 17.76 20.66 s3n3 55.90 80.17 91.95 93.41 8.97 12.97 18.23 25.45 8.25 16.12 18.20 20.98 s4n1 57.39 82.20 94.35 96.01 8.05 12.39 17.75 24.64 2.55 10.85 13.41 17.81 s4n2 54.41 78.14 89.55 90.81 8.24 12.10 17.48 24.33 5.40 13.70 16.02 18.20 s4n3 60.07 86.26 99.15 101.21 11.20 15.31 20.08 28.12 6.35 14.65 16.89 20.09 sed 1.10 0.99 1.05 1.09 0.60 0.56 o.60 0.26 0.49 0.43 0.31 0.44 cd 2.28 2.05 2.18 2.26 1.26 1.18 1.25 0.55 1.02 0.89 0.65 0.93 (p=0.05) s mean s1 51.56 74.46 85.16 86.12 5.35 9.58 15.26 21.07 7.13 14.85 17.04 20.22 s2 51.66 74.56 85.29 86.24 6.40 10.65 16.25 22.40 6.54 14.88 17.03 20.19 s3 54.41 78.14 89.55 90.81 8.42 12.48 17.82 24.80 6.35 14.50 16.74 20.02 s4 58.68 84.23 96.75 98.61 10.08 14.13 19.25 26.88 4.76 13.06 15.44 18.70 sed 0.63 0.57 0.61 0.63 0.34 0.32 0.34 0.15 0.28 0.24 0.18 0.26 cd 1.32 1.18 1.26 1.30 0.72 0.68 0.72 0.31 0.59 0.51 0.37 0.53 (p=0.05) n mean n1 52.82 76.03 87.05 88.12 6.81 11.08 16.62 22.96 3.94 11.93 14.39 18.47 n2 54.41 77.92 89.25 90.54 7.50 11.59 17.05 23.64 6.68 14.84 17.00 19.85 n3 55.36 79.59 91.52 92.67 8.37 12.46 17.70 24.7 7.96 16.20 18.30 21.02 sed 0.55 0.49 0.52 0.54 0.30 0.28 0.30 0.13 0.24 0.21 0.15 0.22 cd 1.14 1.02 1.09 1.13 0.62 0.58 0.62 0.27 0.51 0.44 0.32 0.46 (p=0.05) table 1. effect of spacing and foliar nitrogen of bermuda grass (cynodon dactylon l. pers. x cynodon transvaalensis) sprigging density of bermuda grass j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 172-177, 2018 176 shoot length root length root/shoot shoot density leaf area number of treatment (cm) (cm) ratio (m2) (cm2) leaves per clipped shoot s1n1 4.80 5.69 0.22 732.76 0.39 6.94 s1n2 6.26 6.62 0.25 828.38 0.43 8.02 s1n3 8.55 7.05 0.26 924.00 0.40 9.77 s2n1 5.01 6.12 0.23 734.66 0.28 6.53 s2n2 7.51 7.12 0.27 830.28 0.36 8.69 s2n3 9.01 8.27 0.28 925.90 0.55 11.26 s3n1 7.30 6.98 0.24 1021.52 0.47 9.10 s3n2 12.51 7.84 0.26 1308.30 0.63 13.42 s3n3 13.76 8.70 0.29 1115.24 0.52 13.01 s4n1 8.76 6.55 0.24 1117.14 0.51 10.18 s4n2 11.26 7.41 0.25 1212.76 0.59 12.34 s4n3 12.30 7.48 0.25 1404.00 0.67 14.50 sed 0.47 0.43 0.16 1.51 0.10 0.78 cd 0.98 0.89 0.03 3.14 0.21 1.61 (p=0.05) s mean s1 6.60 6.45 0.24 828.38 0.40 8.24 s2 7.10 7.17 0.26 830.28 0.39 8.82 s3 11.19 7.84 0.26 1148.35 0.54 11.84 s4 10.77 7.48 0.24 1244.63 0.59 12.34 sed 0.27 0.24 0.009 0.87 0.59 0.45 cd 0.56 0.51 0.019 1.81 0.12 0.93 (p=0.05) n mean n1 6.46 6.33 0.23 901.52 0.41 8.18 n2 9.38 7.24 0.25 996.66 0.50 10.61 n3 10.90 7.87 0.27 1140.55 0.53 12.13 sed 0.23 0.21 0.008 0.75 0.05 0.39 cd 0.49 0.44 0.017 1.57 0.10 0.80 (p=0.05) table 2. effect of spacing and foliar nitrogen of bermuda grass (cynodon dactylon 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(ms received 25 november 2018, revised 01 december 2018, accepted 27 december 2018) sprigging density of bermuda grass j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 172-177, 2018 introduction guava (psidium guajava l.) is an important tropical and commercial fruit rich in dietary fibre, calcium, phosphorus and iron. the fruits are used for table and processing purposes (rathore, 1976). guava bears crop two to three times a year. the economic returns are also higher with few inputs. judicious management is required to produce a profitable crop and that includes optimum fertilization of the orchard. else, fruiting, yield and fruit quality are all affected adversely. nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, being the essential major elements, are required by plants in relatively large quantities for building their infrastructure. these are especially responsible for maximising physiological activities of the plant and for plant, water and soil relationships, which ultimately affect fruiting and quality until the fruits attain physiological maturity (nijjer, 1996). requirement for nutrients and their absorption by the plant vary with the cultivar, apart from physical and chemical composition of the soil and availability of nutrients. in recent years, efforts have been made to widen the genetic base of guava by developing new varieties. a new selection of guava has been made at g.b.p.u.a &t., pantnagar and named pant prabhat (tiwari et al, 2003). in view of the role of major elements in optimum fruiting and quality, a fertilizer trial was laid out with cv. pant prabhat to work effect of n, p & k on fruiting, yield and fruit quality in guava cv. pant prabhat pankaj kumar, j. p. tiwari and raj kumar department of horticulture, g.b.p.u.a &t pantnagar 246 123, india e-mail: pundeerpankaj@indiatimes.com abstract response of various combinations of npk on fruiting, yield and fruit quality were studied in guava cv. pant prabhat in a field experiment, over two years. treatments comprised of three different levels of nitrogen (0, 75 and 150g/plant/year), phosphorus (0, 50 and 100g p 2 o 5 /plant/year) and potassium (0, 75 and 150g k 2 o/plant/ year) in all the possible 27 combinations. treatments with higher nitrogen level attained maximum yield and fruiting compared to treatments with lower nitrogen levels, in combination with phosphorus and potassium. maximum yield of 69.64, 60.72 kg/plant and 22.66, 26.35 kg/plant, and, fruit set of 73.23%, 75.07%, 34.73% and 35.65% were recorded with 150g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 75g k 2 o/plant/year in the rainy and winter seasons in both years, respectively, while treatment combinations with high potassium level recorded higher ascorbic acid and sugar content in the fruit. key words: guava, fertilization, npk, ‘pant prabhat’ out ideal n p k levels for maximizing economic returns. material and methods the experiment was carried out at the horticulture research centre, patherchatta, g.b. pant university of agriculture & technology, pantnagar, during 2004 2006 on five year old guava plants of cv. pant prabhat. all the plants were subjected to standard cultural practices except for fertilization. the orchard soil is derivative from calcarious alluvial soil with sandy-loam texture at ph 7.6 and the available n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o were 276, 30.24 and 136.92 kg/ha, respectively. experimental treatments comprised of 27 treatment combinations of n (0, 75 and 150g plant/year), p (0, 50 and 100g plant/year) and k (0, 75 and 150g plant/year) and laid were out in a randomized block design, replicated thrice having two trees as a treatment unit. half dose of nitrogen as urea and full doses of phosphorus as single super phosphate, and, potassium as muriate of potash, were given in the first week of may. the remaining dose of nitrogen was applied in the first week of december in both the years. observations on yield per tree (in kg) were worked out by average fruit weight of ten fruits and multiplied by the total number of fruit. fruiting parameters recorded were per cent fruit set, fruit drop and fruit retention, by selecting four branches randomly from all directions of a tree for the rainy and winter season crops during both the years. ascorbic acid, total sugars, reducing j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 43-47, 2008 page 43 44 sugar and non-reducing sugars in the fruit pulp were estimated by the method of lane and eyon (ranganna, 1986) and the results were analysed statistically. results and discussion fruiting and yield : maximum fruit set of 73.23%, 75.07% and 34.73%, 35.65% was recorded with 150g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 75 g k 2 o in the rainy and winter season in both years, respectively (table 1). fruit drop percentage of 70.21 and 39.85 in rainy and winter seasons during 2004-05, and, 69.99 and 39.10 during 2005-06, were found to be maximum with 0g n, 0g p 2 o 5 and 0 g k 2 o and 0g n, 0g p 2 o 5 and 75 g k 2 o, respectively (table 1). minimum fruit drop percentage was recorded with 150g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 0 g k 2 o in both the seasons during both years. the combination of npk achieved significant fruit retention percentage in 2004-05 and 2005-06. treatments with 150g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 0 g k 2 o, and, 150g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o exhibited maximum fruit retention of 43.25%, 73.09%, and, 47.15%, 73.15% in rainy and winter seasons, respectively, during the years of study (table 2). in general, treatments having higher nitrogen dose reported higher fruit set and yield. during both the years maximum yield of 69.64, 60.72 kg/plant (rainy season) and 22.66, 26.35 kg/ plant (winter season) was recorded with 150g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 75 g k 2 o/plant/ year. significant improvement in the number of fruits that set per shoot, and yield, by applying different levels of nitrogen to guava cv. sardar was also recorded by tasser et al (1989) and best results were observed with 400g n dose. similar findings on fruit set and fruit drop percentage in sapota were observed by singh et al (2003), where, per cent fruit set increased and fruit drop decreased significantly with increasing levels of nitrogen. chemical attributes: treatment with 150g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o was observed to induce maximum ascorbic acid content (169.67 mg/ 100 mg of pulp) during the rainy season of 2004-05, while, in the winter season 150g n, 0g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o was observed to induce maximum ascorbic acid content (276.63 mg/100 mg of pulp). during 2005-06, maximum fruit ascorbic acid content was recorded in rainy season with 150g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o, and, in the winter season with 150g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 150 g table 1. effect of npk dose on fruit set and fruit drop in guava treatment fruit set (%) fruit drop (%) combination 2004-05 2005-06 2004-05 2005-06 rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter n 0 p 0 k 0 45.48 18.38 52.96 19.39 67.14 37.38 59.48 33.27 n 0 p 0 k 1 53.95 20.21 48.74 19.78 68.18 38.36 69.99 39.10 n 0 p 0 k 2 57.52 21.08 49.19 22.51 70.21 39.85 68.31 37.70 n 0 p 1 k 0 58.69 22.42 56.21 24.52 69.44 38.06 67.30 40.71 n 0 p 1 k 1 59.54 23.47 51.69 21.34 67.82 36.70 69.59 37.14 n 0 p 1 k 2 58.97 25.35 59.24 23.23 69.37 35.43 70.12 38.59 n 0 p 2 k o 56.65 23.70 54.00 25.62 65.81 35.36 65.59 38.62 n 0 p 2 k 1 53.19 21.03 49.45 20.62 67.47 37.06 68.47 36.71 n 0 p 2 k 2 52.79 23.13 59.46 24.26 66.21 37.56 66.39 36.39 n 1 p 0 k 0 69.27 25.13 65.73 27.49 64.19 26.44 63.33 34.67 n 1 p 0 k 1 63.81 26.67 68.42 29.99 62.15 35.52 61.64 35.21 n 1 p 0 k 2 63.38 25.44 61.12 28.79 62.29 34.63 62.33 33.43 n 1 p 1 k 0 64.38 26.53 67.79 29.13 63.23 35.29 63.43 34.48 n 1 p 1 k 1 67.59 27.82 70.85 33.01 62.55 33.35 60.13 36.35 n 1 p 1 k 2 67.51 26.42 70.18 30.38 63.36 34.47 64.07 33.53 n 1 p 2 k 0 67.96 28.40 66.41 26.50 60.66 32.36 61.29 34.26 n 1 p 2 k 1 69.75 25.62 59.37 29.64 61.32 33.37 62.62 31.38 n 1 p 2 k 2 61.33 24.85 67.58 27.16 59.30 32.51 57.74 30.17 n 2 p 0 k 0 64.26 29.92 70.52 30.49 60.35 30.98 57.58 30.70 n 2 p 0 k 1 72.85 30.82 69.71 34.26 58.87 31.02 58.38 30.35 n 2 p 0 k 2 67.59 32.37 72.32 35.11 61.35 31.63 59.75 33.40 n 2 p 1 k 0 71.17 33.42 73.41 33.19 58.13 29.41 61.14 29.45 n 2 p 1 k 1 73.23 34.73 75.07 35.65 60.43 28.17 55.68 32.36 n 2 p 1 k 2 68.25 33.22 70.31 33.01 57.34 28.51 59.57 30.41 n 2 p 2 k 0 65.39 31.78 68.29 32.41 55.24 26.41 50.34 26.54 n 2 p 2 k 1 68.03 30.77 62.48 28.75 56.33 29.35 56.00 29.38 n 2 p 2 k 2 62.37 29.50 63.00 29.50 57.43 27.56 53.39 27.99 c.d (p=0.05) 6.53 3.21 8.91 7.32 6.91 8.82 7.24 5.86 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 43-47, 2008 pankaj kumar et al 45 table 2. effect of npk dose on fruit retention and yield in guava treatment fruit retention (%) yield (kg/plant) combination 2004-05 2005-06 2004-05 2005-06 rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter n 0 p 0 k 0 32.68 62.34 36.13 66.42 14.68 3.20 16.50 4.11 n 0 p 0 k 1 31.52 61.36 32.47 60.55 24.40 7.29 18.45 4.88 n 0 p 0 k 2 29.65 60.45 31.27 62.28 15.54 5.68 24.93 6.39 n 0 p 1 k 0 30.34 61.37 32.29 60.33 30.52 9.49 22.70 5.93 n 0 p 1 k 1 32.41 63.16 33.36 62.26 31.38 6.96 31.05 7.10 n 0 p 1 k 2 30.62 64.34 30.06 61.28 28.70 6.43 28.19 6.76 n 0 p 2 k 0 33.33 64.28 34.29 61.56 23.47 8.35 21.42 5.78 n 0 p 2 k 1 32.19 62.69 32.55 63.06 16.97 7.53 19.45 5.05 n 0 p 2 k 2 33.60 62.49 33.39 63.15 25.13 4.02 21.50 6.11 n 1 p 0 k 0 35.63 66.54 36.68 65.01 49.39 9.50 54.45 14.11 n 1 p 0 k 1 37.48 64.49 38.45 64.50 33.71 10.40 43.77 14.65 n 1 p 0 k 2 37.36 65.17 37.50 66.16 55.48 11.21 45.47 13.87 n 1 p 1 k 0 36.36 64.79 36.56 65.32 52.11 10.59 41.84 11.72 n 1 p 1 k 1 37.43 66.49 39.43 63.58 54.65 11.91 46.47 14.20 n 1 p 1 k 2 36.57 65.22 36.09 66.37 52.03 13.32 45.40 14.16 n 1 p 2 k 0 39.15 67.23 38.59 65.18 45.98 9.43 40.69 11.34 n 1 p 2 k 1 38.17 66.27 37.28 68.91 42.43 11.33 37.15 13.38 n 1 p 2 k 2 37.47 67.50 42.29 69.62 36.00 9.95 42.61 12.61 n 2 p 0 k 0 40.52 68.39 42.22 69.59 61.64 15.98 55.49 20.28 n 2 p 0 k 1 41.31 69.30 41.68 69.22 59.64 17.28 58.69 23.53 n 2 p 0 k 2 38.31 69.36 40.20 66.00 55.42 15.90 56.41 19.72 n 2 p 1 k 0 41.52 70.40 45.04 70.29 66.75 14.12 57.68 22.52 n 2 p 1 k 1 39.59 71.50 41.33 67.63 69.64 22.66 60.72 26.35 n 2 p 1 k 2 42.69 71.26 47.15 73.15 57.30 13.73 57.78 23.62 n 2 p 2 k 0 43.25 73.09 44.41 69.63 64.44 19.55 52.34 20.60 n 2 p 2 k 1 40.22 70.84 43.40 70.49 51.64 14.51 50.70 20.37 n 2 p 2 k 2 38.27 68.24 42.62 67.48 41.50 11.06 53.71 19.64 c.d (p=0.05) 6.11 6.73 5.66 6.85 6.34 3.82 8.95 4.12 table 3. effect of npk dose on ascorbic acid and total sugar content in guava treatment ascorbic acid (mg/100 g pulp) total sugars (%) combination 2004-05 2005-06 2004-05 2005-06 rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter n 0 p 0 k 0 139.66 232.00 137.00 234.33 7.78 8.75 7.32 8.89 n 0 p 0 k 1 142.67 235.67 141.66 236.65 8.18 8.86 7.82 9.25 n 0 p 0 k 2 146.33 240.35 145.62 238.60 8.35 10.16 8.16 10.44 n 0 p 1 k 0 141.23 233.67 140.33 234.66 8.09 9.24 7.50 9.00 n 0 p 1 k 1 143.00 236.00 144.66 238.66 8.37 10.14 7.99 9.62 n 0 p 1 k 2 145.66 239.30 147.00 240.29 8.54 10.43 8.54 10.52 n 0 p 2 k 0 143.32 233.36 138.30 235.61 8.13 9.38 7.71 8.92 n 0 p 2 k 1 145.33 239.65 144.29 239.00 8.41 10.34 8.34 9.65 n 0 p 2 k 2 150.00 239.34 150.00 240.66 8.71 10.58 8.84 11.00 n 1 p 0 k 0 161.00 253.28 163.28 251.50 8.33 9.45 7.65 9.20 n 1 p 0 k 1 163.00 253.66 165.58 256.00 8.41 10.55 8.41 9.98 n 1 p 0 k 2 163.00 259.38 169.66 257.00 8.65 10.76 8.40 10.71 n 1 p 1 k 0 159.67 256.00 164.00 251.64 8.16 9.80 8.17 9.28 n 1 p 1 k 1 161.67 257.60 165.00 254.30 8.59 10.27 8.63 9.99 n 1 p 1 k 2 165.65 260.32 170.64 259.35 8.73 10.87 9.03 11.12 n 1 p 2 k 0 161.33 255.40 161.66 254.33 8.23 9.86 7.80 9.34 n 1 p 2 k 1 167.00 259.66 167.33 256.38 8.44 10.48 8.39 9.96 n 1 p 2 k 2 167.60 261.66 171.57 259.68 8.59 10.91 8.98 11.10 n 2 p 0 k 0 166.35 267.00 159.67 253.59 8.18 9.72 8.08 9.14 n 2 p 0 k 1 168.00 273.00 167.00 257.33 8.38 10.27 8.48 9.73 n 2 p 0 k 2 169.33 276.63 170.67 267.33 8.66 10.57 8.89 10.60 n 2 p 1 k 0 165.34 260.66 164.34 257.36 8.23 9.49 7.96 9.11 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 43-47, 2008 effect of npk on fruit parameters in guava 46 table 4. effect of npk dose on reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars in guava treatment reducing sugars (%) non-reducing sugars (%) combinations 2004-05 2005-06 2004-05 2005-06 rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter n 0 p 0 k 0 4.79 5.59 4.34 5.33 3.00 3.16 3.02 3.53 n 0 p 0 k 1 5.09 6.21 4.65 5.73 3.04 3.30 3.15 3.82 n 0 p 0 k 2 5.24 6.75 4.93 6.02 3.07 3.42 3.32 4.43 n 0 p 1 k 0 5.02 5.93 4.45 5.54 3.06 3.28 3.04 3.44 n 0 p 1 k 1 5.51 6.31 4.81 6.03 3.17 3.84 3.16 3.57 n 0 p 1 k 2 5.33 6.56 5.20 6.42 3.23 3.87 3.33 4.12 n 0 p 2 k 0 5.01 6.11 4.62 5.33 3.11 3.24 3.11 3.57 n 0 p 2 k 1 5.16 6.88 5.11 5.91 3.26 3.42 3.22 3.75 n 0 p 2 k 2 5.32 7.11 5.38 6.50 3.32 3.75 3.39 4.51 n 1 p 0 k 0 5.14 6.11 4.54 5.57 3.10 3.29 3.10 3.61 n 1 p 0 k 1 5.26 6.95 5.08 6.10 3.14 3.57 3.31 3.87 n 1 p 0 k 2 5.42 7.15 5.28 6.64 3.26 3.63 3.41 4.06 n 1 p 1 k 0 5.12 6.42 5.01 5.51 3.02 3.34 3.09 3.75 n 1 p 1 k 1 5.37 6.73 5.24 5.93 3.10 3.53 3.37 3.96 n 1 p 1 k 2 5.48 7.03 5.50 7.00 3.16 3.55 3.50 4.14 n 1 p 2 k 0 5.17 6.53 4.76 5.70 3.02 3.33 3.07 3.66 n 1 p 2 k 1 5.34 6.89 5.18 6.08 3.06 3.57 3.21 3.88 n 1 p 2 k 2 5.47 7.23 5.48 7.13 3.14 3.68 3.47 3.99 n 2 p 0 k 0 5.11 6.33 5.07 5.44 3.04 3.35 3.01 3.71 n 2 p 0 k 1 5.25 6.78 5.24 5.81 3.10 3.48 3.23 3.94 n 2 p 0 k 2 5.50 7.01 5.48 6.04 3.15 3.53 3.40 4.56 n 2 p 1 k 0 4.94 6.13 4.48 5.49 3.09 3.37 3.15 3.62 n 2 p 1 k 1 5.36 7.04 4.83 6.25 3.11 3.43 3.26 3.99 n 2 p 1 k 2 5.41 7.18 5.09 6.43 3.16 3.52 3.41 -4.17 n 2 p 2 k 0 5.18 6.30 4.43 5.54 3.00 3.20 3.07 3.57 n 2 p 2 k 1 5.28 6.62 4.74 6.04 3.08 3.43 3.24 3.82 n 2 p 2 k 2 5.31 7.37 5.15 6.39 3.19 3.47 3.42 3.98 c.d (p=0.05) 0.33 0.86 0.39 0.49 0.07 0.26 0.09 0.34 table 3. (contd.) effect of npk dose on ascorbic acid and total sugar content in guava treatment ascorbic acid (mg/100 g pulp) total sugars (%) combination 2004-05 2005-06 2004-05 2005-06 rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter rainy season winter n 2 p 1 k 1 167.00 269.65 169.00 261.66 8.50 10.50 8.07 10.25 n 2 p 1 k 2 169.67 270.68 171.62 267.67 8.57 10.68 8.50 10.57 n 2 p 2 k 0 163.59 261.00 160.33 255.00 8.20 9.48 7.53 9.10 n 2 p 2 k 1 167.00 265.66 168.37 262.58 8.40 10.03 7.99 9.83 n 2 p 2 k 2 169.30 268.33 175.28 267.33 8.47 10.17 8.62 10.37 c.d (p=0.05) 8.79 8.51 12.57 11.81 0.32 1.10 0.37 0.39 k 2 o (table 3). in general, treatments having higher nitrogen content in combination with higher potassium, attained higher ascorbic acid content (table 2). the maximum values of total sugars 8.73% and 9.03% in rainy season and 10.87% and 11.12% in winter season were recorded with 75g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o during both the years. in rainy season fruits, the maximum reducing sugars at 5.50% each were recorded with 150g n, 0g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o, and 75g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o during 2004-05 and 200506, respectively; while, in the winter season fruits, reducing sugars at 7.37% and 7.13% were recorded with 150g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o, and, 75g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o during the two years, respectively. the maximum non-reducing sugar content of 3.325 and 3.50% in rainy season fruits in both the years was recorded under the treatment 0g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o, and, 75g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o, respectively; while, in the winter season, treatments with 0g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o, and, 150g n, 0g p 2 o 5 and 150 g k 2 o gave maximum amounts of non-reducing sugars (3.87% and 4.56%) during the years of study (table 4). the minimum values of reducing and non-reducing sugars were recorded with 0g n, 0g p 2 o 5 and 0 g k 2 o (table 4). similar findings were also recorded by singh et al (2004) in pineapple and j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 43-47, 2008 pankaj kumar et al 47 (ms received 11 january 2008, revised 15 april 2008) umashanker et al (2002) in guava cv. sardar. treatment combinations with higher nitrogen content were found to be superior in yield and fruiting attributes, while, treatments with high potassium attained higher ascorbic acid and sugar content in guava, and were at par with treatments of medium level potassium. this may be due to the enhancing effect of nitrogen on growth and sufficient availability of phosphorus and potassium already present in the soil. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the director, experimental station, g. b. pant university of agriculture & technology, pantnagar, for providing necessary facilities for the investigation. references nijjer, g. s. 1996. nutrition of fruit trees. kalyani publishers, new delhi, ludhiana. pp. 6-9. ranganna, s. 1986. mannual of analysis of fruit and vegetable products, new delhi, tata mcgraw hill publishing company, ltd. rathor, d. s. 1976. effect of season on the growth and chemical composition of guava (psidium guajava l.) fruits. j. hortl. sci., 51: 41-47. sharma, j. r. panwar, r. d. kaushik, r. a. and suleman, m. 2003. effect of different levelsof n, p and k on growth and flowering of phalsa (grewia subinaequalis d.c.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 32: 40-41. singh, d. b. and singh, v. 2004. growth and development in pineapple var. kew as influenced by nitrogen and phosphorus levels. prog. hort., 36: 44-50. singh, g., singh, a. k. and singh, v. k. 2002. review and refinemnt of nutrient recommendation for guava. in: nutrient status, needs and recommendation for major fruit crops of uttar pradesh and uttaranchal. r. k. pathak, d. k. tandon, v. k. singh and k. n. tiwari (eds.). proceeding of the workshop held on december 10-11, cish, lucknow, pp. 38-43. singh, r., singh, devi, siddiqui, s. and godra, r. k. 2003. effect of npk on chlorophyll content, fruit set, fruit drop and mineral composition of fruit and leaf of sapota. haryana j. hortl. sci., 32: 185-186. tassar, koj, tiwari, j. p. and lal, shant. 1989. effect of different levels of nitrogen on leaf nutrient status, fruit yield and quality of guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. sardar. prog. hort., 21: 51-55. tiwari, j. p., bisen, brijpal and mishra, d. s. 2003. improvement of guava using indigenous s t r a i n s . procs. national seminar on role of indigenous germplasm in improvement of horticulture crops, g.b. pant univ. of agri. and tech., pantnagar pp. 227-234 uma shankar pathak, r. a. pathak, r. k. and ojha, c. m. 2002. effect of npk on the yield and fruit quality of guava cv. sardar. prog. hort., 34: 49-55. j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 43-47, 2008 effect of npk on fruit parameters in guava introduction gujarat is endowed with a diverse agroclimate conducive for growing different flower crops throughout the year. gujarat has made rapid strides in floriculture, evident from 61% increase in area from 7,118 ha (2005-06) to 11,473 ha (2008-09) and over 100% increase in flower production from 42,182 tonnes in 2005-06 to 85,216 tonnes in 2008-09 (anon., 2009). major flowers grown in the state are roses, spider lily, marigold, jasmine and tuberose. among these, tuberose is valued by the aesthetic world for its beauty, elegance and pleasant fragrance. long flower spikes are excellent cut flowers for table decoration. individual florets are much in demand for preparation of artistic garlands, floral ornaments, bouquets and for button holes. the ‘concrete’ and ‘absolute’ prepared from tuberose florets are valuable perfumery products. in fact, india is the second largest producer and exporter of tuberose concrete to the world market. though tuberose is cultivated on a commercial scale in gujarat, there are no standard recommended packages of practices available for the saurashtra region of gujarat. it is well established that flower and bulb production in tuberose is strongly influenced effect of spacing and crop duration on growth, flowering and bulb production in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cv. double v.r. malam, s.p. singh, t.r. ahlawat1, r.k. mathukia and giriraj jat department of horticulture junagadh agricultural university, junagadh-362 001, india e-mail: tahlawat4@gmail.com abstract field experiments were conducted at junagadh during 2002-05 to study the response of spacing (45 x 45, 45 x 30, 45 x 15, 30 x 30 and 30 x 15 cm) and crop duration (first year crop, first ratoon and second ratoon) on growth, flowering, cut flower yield and bulb production in tuberose cv. double. the widest spacing (45 cm x 45 cm) registered the highest values for plant height (46.18 cm), number of leaves per clump (67.25), spike length (89.64 cm), spike diameter (0.95 cm), diameter of open flower (4.6 cm), rachis length (34.8 cm), number of spikes per clump (4.1), number of florets per spike (48.2), number of bulbs per clump (18.40) and number of bulblets per clump (31.60). it also induced early spike emergence and flowering. a planting distance of 30 x 30 cm realized the highest cut flower yield (2.72 lakh ha-1) and that of 30 cm x 15 cm recorded the highest bulb production (22 lakh ha-1). ratoon crops showed higher plant height, number of leaves, bulbs, bulblets and spikes per clump and cut flower yield as well as bulb production over the first year crop. early spike emergence and flowering was also noted in ratoon crops compared to the first year crop. however, spike and flower quality was inferior to that of first year crop with regard to spike length and diameter, number of florets per spike, diameter of open flower and rachis length. key words: tuberose, spacing, crop duration, growth and flowering by planting density and crop duration, besides other factors. keeping this in mind, the present experiment was undertaken to evaluate the response of spacing and crop duration on growth, flowering, cut flower yield and bulb production in tuberose. material and methods the present investigation was undertaken at the jambuvadi fruit research station, department of horticulture, junagadh agricultural university, junagadh. the effect of five different spacings (45 x 45, 45 x 30, 45 x 15, 30 x 30 and 30 cm x 15 cm) on growth, cut flower yield and bulb production in tuberose was evaluated in a randomized block design with four replications. medium sized bulbs (1.8 to 2.4 cm in diameter) of tuberose cultivar ‘double’ were planted in the first week of june 2002 and retained for the next three years [first year crop, second year crop (first ratoon) and third year crop (second ratoon)]. the experimental field was brought to a fine tilth by ploughing and harrowing. the gross plot size was 2.70 m x 2.70 m. however, net plot size varied with the spacing employed (table1). 1aspee college of horticulture and forestry, navsari agricultural university, navsari – 396 450 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 134-137, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 135 well decomposed farm yard manure @15 t ha-1 was uniformly applied and thoroughly mixed with the soil. the crop was fertilized with 150 kg n, 25 kg p 2 o 5 and 25 kg k 2 o ha-1. half dose of nitrogen as urea, and full doses of phosphorus as single super phosphate and potassium as muriate of potash, were applied at the time of planting. the remaining half of nitrogen was applied in two equal splits at 45 and 90 days after planting. the same dose of fertilizers was repeated for ratoon crops, as well. five plants were selected randomly from the net plot in each treatment and replication and tagged for recording observations. plants were grown under uniform cultural practices. observations were recorded on fourteen plant characters, viz., plant height, number of leaves per clump at first flower emergence, number of bulbs, bulblets and spikes per clump at final harvest, days to first spike emergence and first flower opening from the date of planting, spike length and diameter (cm), number of florets per spike, diameter of open flower (cm) and rachis length (cm). cut flower and bulb yield (lakh ha-1) were calculated on per hectare basis to reflect the yield per unit area. plant height (cm) was measured from the ground level to the tip of the longest leaf at harvest. data obtained were tested for critical difference (cd) among various treatments (gomez and gomez, 1984). results and discussion vegetative growth parameters data presented in table 2 reveal that different spacings and crop duration had significant influence on growth of tuberose in the first year crop and ratoon crops. table 1. planting density and net plot size under different spacings sl. no. spacing (cm) planting density net plot (number of plants/ha) size (m) s 1 45 x 45 49383 1.80 x 1.80 s 2 45 x 30 74074 2.10 x 1.80 s 3 45 x 15 148148 2.40 x 1.80 s 4 30 x 30 111111 2.10 x 1.80 s 5 30 x 15 222222 2.40 x 2.10 growth parameters, viz., plant height and number of leaves per clump increased with increase in spacing. the widest spacing of 45 cm x 45 cm was at par with 45 cm x 30 cm and recorded the highest values for plant height (46.18 cm) and number of leaves per clump (67.25). this may be due to greater available space to every plant for availing sufficient nutrients, soil moisture and solar radiation, factors which may have restricted the plants in closer spacings. this is in accordance with findings of malik et al (2009). these attributes progressively increased in ratoon crops compared to the first year crop. this could be ascribed to formation of bulblets in the first year crop that could develop into bulbs in the ratoon crop which, in turn promoted plant growth during the ratoons. flowering traits flowering traits also differed significantly under various plant spacings and crop durations in the first year crop as well as in ratoon crops (table 3). however, days to spike emergence, days to first flower opening and spike diameter were not affected by spacing in the second ratoon crop. it was also observed that days to spike emergence and days to first flower opening decreased with increase in spacing. on the other hand, spike length, spike diameter, diameter of open flower and rachis length increased with increase in spacing. wider spacings, viz., 45 cm x 45 cm and 45 cm x 30 cm were on par and induced early spike emergence with higher spike length and diameter as compared to closer spacings (45 cm x 15 cm and 30 x 15 cm). earliest spike emergence (205.75 days) and maximum spike length (89.64 cm) and diameter (0.95 cm) were observed under a spacing of 45 cm x 45 cm. better growth and subsequent differentiation may have contributed to improved spike characters under wider spacing. similar results were obtained by tyagi et al (2008). early spike emergence was recorded in ratoon crops compared to the first year crop. this might be due the well established root system in ratoon crops. nevertheless, spikes had smaller diameter in both ratoon crops compared to the first year crop. wider spacings also resulted in early opening of flowers, with higher diameter of open flower and rachis length. the spacing of 45 cm x 45 cm registered minimum days to flower opening (229.2 days) and maximum diameter of open flowers (4.6 cm) and rachis length (34.8 cm). better leaf growth under wider spacing may have accelerated photosynthesis during the vegetative period and its translocation of photosynthesis to various metabolic sinks during the reproductive period could be responsible for table 2. influence of spacing and crop duration on vegetative growth parameters in tuberose cv. ‘double’ spacing(cm) plant height (cm) no. of leaves per clump first ratoon crop first ratoon crop year firs year second first second crop ratoon crop ratoon ratoon ratoon s 1 (45 x 45) 46.18 52.63 58.82 67.25 82.70 98.00 s 2 (45 x 30) 44.15 49.30 56.82 60.75 74.95 91.70 s 3 (45 x 15) 35.76 42.86 43.74 46.95 60.00 76.10 s 4 (30 x 30) 41.72 48.99 55.79 57.80 69.60 87.80 s 5 (30 x 15) 30.09 33.66 33.45 36.60 46.15 57.50 cd (p = 0.05) 5.36 5.40 4.53 8.36 12.75 11.91 effect of spacing in tuberose j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 134-137, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 136 improvement in floral attributes. these results are in line with those reported by kumar and singh (1998). early flowering was observed in ratoon crops compared to that in the first year crop. however, flower quality (with regard to diameter of open flowers and rachis length) was inferior to the first year crop. cut flower yield and bulb production an appraisal of data furnished in table 4 indicates that cut flower yield and associated traits were significantly affected by planting distance and crop duration in the first year crop and ratoon crops. number of spikes per clump and number of florets per spike increased with increase in spacing. maximum number of spikes per clump (4.1) and number of florets per spike (48.2) were obtained in bulbs planted at a spacing of 45 cm x 45 cm. ratoon crops recorded higher number of spikes per clump than the first year crop, whereas, the first year crop registered higher number of florets compared to the ratoon crops. cut flower yield increased with decrease in spacing and highest cut flower yield (2.72 lakh/ha) was recorded under a spacing of 30 x 30 cm, which was at par with 45 cm x 15 cm spacing in both the first year crop and in ratoon crops. these results are in agreement with earlier findings of kadam et al (2005). higher cut flower yield was observed in ratoon crops as compared to the first year crop. bulb production also varied significantly with different spacings and crop durations in the first year crop and ratoon crops (table 5). number of bulbs and bulblets per clump increased with increase in spacing. the widest spacing of 45 x 45 cm was at par with 45 cm x 30 cm and the highest number of bulbs (18.40) and bulblets (31.60) per clump. number of bulbs and bulblets per clump under each spacing were correspondingly higher in ratoon crops compared to the first year crop. bulb yield increased with decrease in spacing. highest bulb yield (22.00 lakh/ha) was obtained with a spacing of 30 cm x 15 cm. this is in close conformity with observations of singh (2003). ratoon crops showed a progressive increase in bulb yield for each successive spacing compared to the first year crop. this may be ascribed to the fact that well established clumps had higher number of daughter bulbs which in turn produced more number of spikes thereby resulting in higher cut flower yield and bulb yield compared to the first year crop. table 3. influence of spacing and crop duration on flowering traits in tuberose cv. ‘double’ trait spacing (cm) s 1 (45 x 45) s 2 (45 x 30) s 3 (45 x 15) s 4 (30 x 30) s 5 (30 x 15) cd (p = 0.05) 1. days to spike emergence first year crop 205.7 210.2 225.0 215.2 234.7 19.71 first ratoon crop 189.0 194.0 208.5 198.7 216.2 18.67 second ratoon crop 178.7 183.7 193.7 189.7 200.7 ns 2. days to first flower opening first year crop 229.2 235.0 257.0 240.2 268.7 25.01 first ratoon crop 216.2 222.0 239.2 228.2 249.2 14.79 second ratoon crop 203.0 210.5 221.7 216.2 228.5 ns 3. spike length (cm) first year crop 89.6 87.0 74.9 84.2 66.4 7.08 first ratoon crop 82.4 77.2 62.3 70.8 53.0 7.15 second ratoon crop 68.4 64.5 50.9 62.1 39.7 6.72 4. spike diameter (cm) first year crop 0.95 0.92 0.87 0.90 0.82 0.06 first ratoon crop 0.83 0.78 0.72 0.75 0.65 0.04 second ratoon crop 0.67 0.66 0.64 0.65 0.61 ns 5. diameter of open flower (cm) first year crop 4.6 4.4 4.0 4.3 3.9 0.6 first ratoon crop 3.3 3.0 2.4 2.7 2.2 0.18 second ratoon crop 2.6 2.8 2.1 2.5 1.5 0.14 6. rachis length (cm) first year crop 34.8 33.0 30.4 32.1 28.9 3.2 first ratoon crop 27.2 24.9 19.5 21.7 17.8 1.58 second ratoon crop 21.7 21.0 17.3 20.5 11.2 1.32 malam et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 134-137, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 137 table 4. influence of spacing and crop duration on yield parameters in tuberose cv. ‘double’ spacing(cm) no. of spikes/clump number of florets/spike cut flower yield (lakh/ha) first ratoon crop first ratoon crop first ratoon crop year first second year first second year first second crop ratoon ratoon crop ratoon ratoon crop ratoon ratoon s 1 (45 x 45) 4.1 4.6 5.0 48.2 40.7 35.0 1.99 2.21 2.46 s 2 (45 x 30) 3.1 3.5 4.0 46.2 37.1 32.5 2.27 2.57 2.94 s 3 (45 x 15) 1.5 2.0 2.1 40.7 30.9 25.8 2.26 2.93 3.05 s 4 (30 x 30) 2.9 2.9 3.0 44.3 33.3 31.7 2.72 3.24 3.25 s 5 (30 x 15) 0.9 1.0 1.1 34.0 26.3 17.6 1.94 2.16 2.38 cd (p = 0.05) 0.33 0.31 0.39 5.01 3.10 2.84 0.52 0.38 0.51 table 5. influence of spacing and crop duration on bulb production in tuberose cv. ‘double’ spacing(cm) no. of bulbs/ clump no. of bulblets/clump bulb yield (lakh/ha) first ratoon crop first ratoon crop first ratoon crop year first second year first second year first second crop ratoon ratoon crop ratoon ratoon crop ratoon ratoon s 1 (45 x 45) 18.40 24.05 28.10 31.60 38.80 44.00 09.09 11.88 13.88 s 2 (45 x 30) 16.55 21.95 25.10 28.15 34.90 39.40 12.26 16.26 18.59 s 3 (45 x 15) 12.05 15.65 17.65 23.20 28.10 30.40 17.85 23.19 26.15 s 4 (30 x 30) 14.20 18.85 21.00 26.00 31.85 34.85 15.78 20.94 23.33 s 5 (30 x 15) 9.90 12.45 14.15 18.50 21.95 23.90 22.00 27.67 31.44 cd (p = 0.05) 1.89 2.78 3.68 5.67 3.97 5.75 2.74 4.45 5.66 ratoon crops registered higher cut flower yield and bulb production over the first year crop owing to better vegetative growth and higher number of spikes per clump. however, flower quality was inferior which can hinder better price realization in the increasingly quality conscious markets. tuberose plants, when spaced at a distance of 30 cm x 30 cm, yielded maximum number of cut-flowers without any detrimental effect on flower quality. from the present investigation it may be therefore inferred that for higher cut flower yield, planting distance of 30 cm x 30 cm and for higher bulb yield 30 cm x 15 cm be adopted for planting tuberose cv. ‘double’ in the saurashtra region of gujarat. it is further recommended that fresh crop be planted for ensuring superior quality cut flowers. references anonymous. 2009. district-wise area and production of horticultural crops in gujarat state. directorate of horticulture, gandhinagar, government of gujarat, india gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research (2nd ed)., john wiley and sons, inc., new york, usa kadam, m.b., dumbre patil, s.s. and ambad, s.n. 2005. effect of spacing and bulb size on cut flower production of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa linn). j. maharashtra agril. univ., 30:229-230 kumar, s. and singh, r.p. 1998. effect of nitrogen, bulb size and plant density on growth, flowering and yield of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) j. orn. hort., new series, 1:6-10 malik, s., yadav, r.b., kumar, m. and vivek. 2009. effect of plant geometry and bulb size on growth, flowering and post harvest characters of tuberose. in: proceedings of national conference on “floriculture for livelihood and profitability iari, new delhi (india), pp 111-112 singh, k.p. 2003. effect of plant spacings on flower and bulb production in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivar ‘shringar’. haryana. j. hortl. sci. , 32:79-80 tyagi, a.k., sharma, r.k. and yadav, s.k. 2008. effect of bulb size, spacing and depth of planting on growth and flowering of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivar ‘single’. prog. agri., 8:281-282 (ms received 3 february 2010, revised 6 september 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 134-137, 2010 effect of spacing in tuberose prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 417 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 417-423, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction capsicum (capsicum annum var. grossum sendt) also called as bell pepper is an important vegetable crop. it is known for its nutritional aspects and also for nation’s foreign exchange. india contributes one fourth of the world production of capsicum with an average annual production of 1.9 mt from an area of 1.82 mha with the productivity of 1.28 t/ha. karnataka stands second in area with 89 thousand ha and production of 158 thousand tons (anon., 2015). among the various biotic constraints in the production of bell pepper, viral diseases play a major role. bell pepper is highly susceptible to natural infection by a large number of viruses in addition to being susceptible to several other diseases. out of 42 viruses so far reported in bell pepper, 22 ar e found to occur naturally, while the rest are known to infect on artificial inoculation. among these, potyviruses viz., potato virus y (pvy), pepper veinal mottle virus (pvmv), pepper vein banding virus (pvbv), chilli veinal mottle virus (chivmv), pepper mottle virus (pmv), tobacco etch virus (tev) are more prevalent (caranta et al.,1996). among these, chilli veinal mottle virus (chivmv) is the major prevalent virus with the incidence of 50 per cent that reduce yield by 50 per cent worldwide (hussain et al., 2008). further, the chivmv is transmitted mechanically and also through aphid vector (aphis gossypii) and found to infect several plant species and induces characteristic systemic mottling symptoms within 7 to 14 days of inoculation. sever a l a biotic a nd biotic str esses a ffect the productivity of chilli pepper crop worldwide. more than 45-65 viruses have been reported infecting the crop worldwide (green and kim, 1994; anon., 2001). among pathogenic diseases, viruses are the most devastating agents of chilli pepper, causing serious losses by reducing both fruit quality and quantity (kang et al., 1973; villalon, 1975; ong et al., 1980; yoon et al., 1989; chew and ong, 1990). viruses epidemiology of chivmv and loss assessment in capsicum (capsicum annum var. grossum sendt) praful m.v.1, reddy b.a.2, ramachandra r.k.2, reddy m.k.3 and anjanappa m.1 1 college of horticulture, university of horticultural sciences, bengaluru 560 065, karnataka, india 2 horticulture research and extension center, hogalagere, srinivasapura 563138, karnataka, india 3 icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka india *corresponding author email : arb_agri@yahoo.co.in, ajreddyb007@gmail.com abstract the survey was conducted during rabi season (2021) to determine the incidence of mosaic disease of capsicum in major capsicum growing districts namely, chikkaballapura, kolar, bengaluru rural and ramanagar. the per cent incidence of mosaic disease based on symptoms in field was recorded, highest in ramanagar (54.85%) and the least incidence of mosaic disease was observed in chikkaballapura (26.85%). transmission and host range studies under glasshouse conditions revealed that chivmv is transmitted mechanically. among 16 host plants tested, 7 plant species (nicotiana tabacum cv. samsun, n. glutinosa, n. occidentalis, datura metel, physalis floridana, s. nigrum, capsicum annum) were infected with the chilli veinal mottle virus disease and the symptom could be seen in 20-25 days. the per cent transmission of chivmv by aphid aphis gossypii was studied. the results showed that chivmv can be transmitted by a. gossypii. however, five aphids per plant showed highest per cent transmission (100%). the effect of different dates of inoculation on different plant growth parameters was also studied, the highest per cent disease transmission was observed in t1: inoculation 15 days after sowing (100.00%). keywords: aphis gossypii, capsicum, chivmv, mosaic 418 praful et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 417-423, 2022 produce various types of disease syndrome like mosaic, mottling, leaf distortion, vein etching, yellowing, stunting and narrowing of leaves (green, 1991; hameed et al., 1995; anon., 2001). chilli veinal mottle virus (chivmv) is the major virus infecting chilli pepper reducing yield losses up to 50% (joshi and dubey, 1973; ong et al., 1980). materials and methods survey a roving survey was conducted during rabis season to determine the incidence of mosaic disease in major ca psicum gr owing districts of souther n kar nataka (chikkaba llapur a, kolar, bengaluru rural and ramnagar). plants were observed for the t yp ic a l s ymp t oms v i z . , yellowin g, mos a ic symptoms, mottling etc. during the survey, type of symptoms was recorded a t different fields a nd samples were collected. for each one acre of field five sites were randomly selected (10m 10m) and the average disease incidence was calculated using the following formula. per cent disease incidence (pdi) = number of infected plants × 100 total number of plants observed serological survey the samples brought from the field were subjected to serological assay using cmv and chivmv antiserum adopting the dac-elisa procedure (hobes et al., 1987). host range to identify the natur al reservoirs of the virus different hosts viz., tomato, brinjal, chilli, potato, n i c o t i a n a t a b a c u m c v. s a m s u n , n i c o t i a n a g l ut i n os a , n i c ot i a na o cc i d en t a li s , s o l an u m nigrum, and other s like chenopodium quinoa, datura metel, d. stromanium, physalis minima, physalis floridana and gomphrena globosa and also the other weed hosts were sown in polythene bags of 3 x 6" size and seedlings were raised with standard agronomic practices and seedlings of 2530 days old were used for sap inoculation. the host plants were inoculated by following the procedure described by (noordam, 1973) and the inoculated plants were observed for symptom expression under insect proof cages for upto 30 days. vector transmission the experiment was carried out to know the aphid transmissibility of chivmv using aphis gossypii, as per the procedure explained by damiri et al. (2013). the healthy aphid (a. gossypii) colony was first raised on the cotton host plant under greenhouse conditions (25-27oc). the vector aphids were carefully collected in plastic petri plates and starved for 60 min. in petri plates lined with black paper on both sides. later allowed for 5 min. acquisition feeding on chivmv infected capsicum leaves, followed by brief inoculation feeding period of 1-3 min. on healthy capsicum plants. after that aphids were killed by spraying with systemic insecticide and the plants were then placed in insect proof conditions in greenhouse at 25-27°c and observed for symptom expression upto 30 days and a set of uninoculated plants were maintained as control. loss estimation to know the impa ct of chivmv on per cent transmission, plant growth and yield. the experiment on loss estima tion wa s ca r r ied out using the susceptible capsicum var. indra. the experiment was conducted in green house conditions using crd design with nine treatments and three replications with standard agronomic practices using the pots of 9 x 12" cement pots. the artificial sap inoculation was done at fifteen days intervals viz., t1: inoculation 15 days after sowing, t 2: inoculation immediately after planting, t3: inoculation 15 days after planting, t4: inoculation 30 days after planting, t5: inoculation 45 days after planting, t6: inoculation 60 days after planting, t7: inoculation 75 days after planting, t8: inoculation 90 days after planting, t9: control. the observations on per cent transmission growth and yield par ameter s viz. , pla nt height (cm), number of branches, number of fruits, fruit weight and per cent disease transmission were recorded at the time of harvest, the data was analyzed statistically. results and discussion survey in random survey carried out in south karnataka, in kolar district of 32.99 average per cent disease incidence was recorded, and it ranged from 14.85 to 47.42 per cent. in chikkaballapura district the average per cent disease incidence was 20.25 and it ranged from 7.99 to 26.85 per cent and in ramanagar district the average per cent disease incidence was 27.42 and 419 epidemiology of chivmv and loss assessment in capsicum it ranged from 26.28 to 54. 85 per cent and in bengaluru rural district the average per cent disease incidence was 29.24 and it ranged from 27.42 to 36.56 (table 1). this difference may be attributed to different climatic factors, vectors activity, different cultivars and different cultivation practices followed. it may also be due to variation in plant protection practices followed by the farmers, low quality seeds (hameed et al., 1995), and similar work carried laxminarayana reddy (2006), conducted survey and reported the chivmv incidence ranged from 5.3 to 81.5 per cent in karnataka, 7.6 to 31.7 per cent in andhra pradesh, 5.7 to 47.6 per cent in tamil nadu, 5.9 to 25.3 per cent in kerala and 7.5 to 37.8 per cent in maharashtra. therefore, the natural incidence of chilli veinal mottle virus disease would vary from field to field in the surveyed area. host range to identify the natural reservoirs and those susceptible to virus, the host range study of the virus was conducted. out of sixteen different plant species used in the study (table 2). seven plant species viz., nicotiana tabacum cv. samsun, nicotiana glutinosa, nicotiana occidentalis, daturametel, physalis floridana, solanum nigrum, capsicum annum were infected with the chivmv and the symptoms could be seen in 20-25 days (table 2). the infection was confir med by dac-elisa. simila r work wa s conducted by siriwong et al. (1995) reported that host range of chivmv is restricted to solanaceae family. the present results are in accordance to those reported by moury et al. (2005) i.e., three isolates of chivmv induced systemic mosaic symptoms on n. occidentalis, n. glutinosa but none infected solanum melongena. brunt et al. (1996) reported that n. glutinosa is diagnostically not a susceptible host but our findings show that this host species was susceptible and developed mosaic symptoms and was found positive in dac-elisa. similar results have also been reported by ong et al. (1979). brunt (1996) reported that gomphrena globosa and nicotiana glutinosa is diagnostically not a susceptible host but in our case nicotiana glutinosa became susceptible and developed mosaic symptoms and was dac-elisa positive. vector transmission to find out the vector transmissibility and per cent transmission of chivmv by aphid a. gossypii was used for the transmission of chilli veinal mottle virus using susceptible capsicum cultivar indra. t he r es u lt s s howed t ha t c hivm v c ou ld b e transmitted by a. gossypii. further, five aphids per plant showed highest per cent transmission (100 %) followed by four aphids per plant (80 %), three and two aphids per plant (60 %) and one aphid per plant (40 %) (table 3). the chilli veinal mottle virus was readily transmitted by sap inoculation and also by aphid vector namely a. gossypii, which resembled potyvirus, reported by mariyappan et al. (1973) and bida ri (1982). jeyarajan and ramkrishnan (1969) reported a. gossypiias the sole vector of potyvirus on bell pepper and chilli. this virus, on young leaves of capsicum produced green veinbanding, leaves are smaller and distorted, stunted and have dark-green streaks on their stems and bra nches. the symptoms were similar to those produced by potyvirus on chilli and bell pepper as reported by earlier workers (prasad rao, 1979; bidari, 1982 and pandurangegowda, 1989). the c hivm v wa s r ea dily t r a ns mit t ed b y s a p inoculation to chilli and other herbaceous hosts. the virus wa s also tr ansmitted in a non persistent manner by the aphids na mely, a. gossypii , a. cr ac ci vo ra a nd my zu s per si ca e a nd no s eed tra nsmission wa s obser ved (sa tya pr aka sh and singh, 2006). table 1 : average per cent disease incidence of capsicum mosaic disease in different districts in southern karnataka district per cent disease incidence average range kolar 32.99 14.85-47.42 chikkaballapura 20.25 7.99-26.85 ramanagar 27.42 26.28-54.85 bengaluru rural 29.24 27.42-36.56 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 417-423, 2022 420 table 2 : host range of mosaic disease caused by chivmv under laboratory conditions host no of symptoms elisa elisa plants absorbance reaction inoculated (+/-) nicotiana tobacum cv. samsun 5 necrotic lesion 3.08 + nicotiana glutinosa 5 severe mosaic 3.40 + nicotiana occidentalis 5 mild mosaic & 2.87 + vein banding datura metel 5 severe mottling & 3.51 + rat tail physalis floridana 5 sever mottling 3.02 + solanum nigrum 5 mild mosaic 2.45 + capsicum annum 5 mild mosaic 2.32 + solanum melongina 5 nil 0.42 solanum tuberosum 5 nil 0.38 solanum lycopercicum 5 nil 0.23 chenopodium quinoa 5 nil 0.25 datura stromonium 5 nil 0.52 physalis minima 5 nil 0.34 gomphrena globosa 5 nil 0.65 stachy terpeta 5 nil 0.42 passiflora foetida 5 nil 0.53 chivmv 1.53 (positive check) healthy 0.56 table 3 : vector transmission of chivmv by using the aphidaphis gossypii no. of no. of no. of per days required aphids plants plants cent for symptom per plant inoculated infected transmission expression 1 10 4 40 20-21 2 10 6 60 19-20 3 10 6 60 19-20 4 10 8 80 19-20 5 10 10 100 19-20 control (uninoculated) 10 0 0 0 loss estimation to know the impact of stage of inoculation on per cent transmission and on plant growth and yield, the plants were inoculated artificially as explained in the material and methods. it revealed that the dates of inoculation on plant growth parameters such as plant height and number of branches and per cent transmission differed significantly over different dates of inoculation (table 4). the maximum reduction of plant height was observed in t1 (22.06 cm) and maximum height was praful et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 417-423, 2022 421 found in t9 (55.22). similarly, maximum reduction in number of branches found in t1 (0.66) maximum number of branches was found in t9 (4.23) (table 4 and fig.1). there was significant difference with respect to number of fruits per plant observed among the treatments (table 4). maximum reduction of fruits per plant were noticed in t1 (0.00) and maximum number of fruits per plant was found in t9 (8.04) (table 4 and fig.1). data pertaining to average fruit weight differed significantly over different dates of inoculation and similar trend was observed in t9 (133.13) (table 4 and fig.1). fig. 1 : effect of different dates of inoculation on growth and other characters per cent transmission highest per cent disease transmission was observed in t1 (100.00 per cent) followed by t2 and t3 (99 per cent each), t4 (98.66 per cent), t5 (91.33 per cent), t6 (72 per cent), t7 (71.33 per cent) and t8 (44.66 per cent) and the rate of transmission and the impact was decreased with the increase in age of the plant and they differ significantly (fig.1). the infection occurs at later stages, the extent of reduction in yield and plant height was less. sastry and singh (1976) reported that tolcv infected plants produced very few fruits when infected within 20 days after planting and resulting up to 92.30 per cent yield loss. while plants infected at 35 and 50 days after transplanting resulted in 82.9 and 74.0 per cent yield loss, respectively. similar results were reported by reddy et al. (2010). conclusion it is concluded that since the infected plants cannot be cured and the early infection leads to severe reduction both in yield and quality, early-stage protection of the crop both in nursery and in the main field is important in order to reap the better yields. references reddy, b.a. , patil, m. s. and ra ja sekara m, t. 2010.effect of tomato leaf curl virus infection epidemiology of chivmv and loss assessment in capsicum table 4 : loss estimation in capsicum due to chivmv under polyhouse conditions plant no. of no. of average per cent treatment height branches/ fruits/ fruit weight disease (cm) plants plants (g) incidence t1 15das 22.06 0.66 0.00 0.00 100.00 t2 30das 25.83 1.73 1.66 7.93 99.00 t315 dat 33.56 2.60 1.86 22.93 99.00 t430 dat 51.10 3.46 2.37 45.83 98.66 t545 dat 49.87 3.60 2.60 61.63 91.33 t660 dat 50.37 3.40 4.13 79.67 72.00 t775 dat 52.64 3.53 4.27 100.43 71.33 t890 dat 54.06 4.13 6.06 101.26 44.66 t9uninoculated 55.22 4.23 8.04 133.13 0 (control) s.em ± 0.74 0.08 0.16 0.62 1.05 cd @ 5% 2.21 0.26 0.48 1.86 3.14 note: dasdays after sowing, datdays after transplanting j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 417-423, 2022 422 on plant growth and yield in tomato. k. j. agric. sci., 23(5): 806 anonymous.2001. proceedings of the south asia vegetable research network (savernetii) final workshop 3-8 june 2001, bangkok, t ha ila nd. asia n vegetable resea r ch and d evelop ment cent er, sha nhua , ta ina n, taiwan. bidari, v. b. 1982. distribution and epidemiology of chilli viruses in karnataka. ph. d. thesis, uni. agric. sci., bangalore. brunt, a. a., crabtree, k., gibbs, m. j., watson l. and zurcher, e. j. 1996. plant viruses online: description and lists from vide. http://biology.anu.edu. au/group/mes/vide. caranta, c. and palloix, a. 1996. both common and specific genetic factors are involved in phylogenic resistance of pepper to several potyviruses. theor. appl. genet., 92: 15-20. chew, b.h. and ong, c.a., 1990. genetics and b re e d i n g f o r c h i l l i v e i n a l m o t t l e a n d cucumber mosaic virus resistances in hot pepper. malaysian plant protection society. damiri, b. v., al-shahwan, i. m., al-saleh, m. a., abdalla, o. a. a nd amer, m. a. 2013. identification and characterization of cowpea aphid-borne mosaic virus isolates in saudi arabia. j. pl. pathol., 95(1): 79-85. green, s.k. 1991. guidelines for diagnostic work in plant virology. asian vegetable research and development center. tech. bulletin, no. 15, second edition. green, s.k. and kim.j.s.1994. source of resistance t o vir u s es of p epp er ( c a ps i c um s p p. ) : acatalog. avrdc tech. bulletin, p. 20-64. hameed, s., shah, h., ali, h., and khalid, s. 1995. prevalence of chilli viruses in pakistan. fifth national congress of pl. sci., 28-30 march, narc, islamabad. hussain, s., tahira, y.fahim, m., shahid, h., and haque, m.i. 2008. transmission and host range studies of pakistani isolate of chilli veinal mottle virus. pak. j. bot. , 40(6): 2669-2681. jeyarajan, r. and ramakrishnan, k.1969. potato virus y on chilli (capsicum annuum l.) in tamil nadu. madras agric. j., 56: 761-766. joshi, r.d. and dubey, l.n. 1973. assessment of losses due to cmv on chilli. sci. cult., 39: 521-522. kang, k.y., choi, j.i. and la, y.j. 1973. isolation and identification of viruses affecting pepper (capsicum annuum) in korea. j. kor. soc. horti. sci., 13: 35-43. la xmina r a ya na reddy, c. n. 2006. molecula r characterization of chilli veinal mottle virus infecting chilli (capsicum annum l.), ph. d.(agri.) thesis, uas, bengaluru, p. 136. m a r ia p p a n, v. , g ovinda s wa my, c . v. a nd ramakrishnan, s. 1973. studies on the role of weed plants in spread virus diseases. ii role of solanum nigrum in spreading chilli mosa ic vir us a str a in of pota to virus-y. madras agric. j., 60: 120-122. moury, b., palloix, a., caranta, c., gagnalons, p., souche, s., gebre, s. k. and marchoux, g. 2 0 0 5 . s er ologic a l, mole c u la r a nd pathotype diversity of pepper veinal mottle v i r u s a nd c h i l l i v e i n a l m o t t l e v i r u s . phytopathol., 95: 227-232. noordam, d.,1973. dilution end-point determination in: identification of plant viruses: methods and experiments. published by pudoc, center for agricultural publishing and documentation, wageningen, netherlands. ong, c. a., varghese, g. and poh, t. w. 1979. an etiological investigation on a veinal mottle virus of chilli (capsicum annuum l.), newly recorded from peninsular malaysia. malaysian agric. res. dev. inst. (mardi) res. bull., 7: 78-88. ong, c.a.,varghese, g. and poh, t.w.1980. the effect of chilli veinal mottle virus on yield of chilli (capsicum annuum l.). mardi res. bulletin, 8: 74-79. ong, c.a., va rghese, g. and tingwen, p. 1979. aetiological investigation on a veinal mottle virus of chilli (capsicum annuum l.) newly recorded from peninsular malaysia, mardi res. bulletin., 7: 278-288. praful et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 417-423, 2022 423 pandurangegowda, k. t. and reddy, h. r. 1989. aphid transmitted viruses infesting chilli. curr. res., 18: 71-72. prasad rao, r. d. v. j. and yaraguntaiah, r. c. 1979. a key for diagnosis of some chilli mo saic vi ruse s. my sur u j . a gri c. sci . , 13: 442-445. sastry, k. m. s. and singh, s. j. 1976. assessment of losses in tomato caused by tomato leaf curl virus. indian j. mycol. pl. pathol., 3: 50-54. sa t ya pr a ka sh a nd s ingh, s . j. 20 06. insect tr ansmitted viruses of peppers. veg. sci. 33(2): 109-116. siriwong, p., kittipakam, k. and lkega ru, m. 1995. characterization of chilli vein banding m o t t l e v i r u s is ola t ed f r om p ep p er in thailand. pl. pathol., 49: 710-727. villalon, b.1975. virus diseases of bell pepper in south texas. pl. dis. rep., 59: 858-862. yoon, j.y., green, s.k., tschanz, a. t., tsou, s.c.s. and chang, l.c.1989. pepper improvement for the tr opics, pr oblems a nd the avrdc approach. in: tomato and pepper production in the tropics. (eds.) s.k. green, t.d. griggs and b.t. mclean, b.t.: proceeding of the inter na tiona l symposium on integr a ted management practices 21-26 march 1998, tanian, taiwan, pp. 86-98. epidemiology of chivmv and loss assessment in capsicum j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 417-423, 2022 (received : 04.11.2021; revised : 27.11.2022; accepted : 04.12.2022) page 109 combining ability studies in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) rukam s. tomar and m. k. bhalala main vegetable research station anand agricultural university, anand, gujarat, india e-mail: rukam@rediffmail.com abstract the parent hara madhu in e 1, amm-01-18 and amm-02 -26 in e 2 and amm-01-18, amm-02-26 and hara madhu on pooled basis exhibited positive and significant gca effects for fruit yield per plant. thus these three parents appeared to be good general combiners for fruit yield. out of these parents amm-01-18 had a good combining ability for fruit yield per plant, number of primary branches, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, moisture content, total soluble solids, acidity and total soluble sugars on pooled basis. specific combining ability effects for fruit yield and yield attributing traits revealed significant and positive sca effects in fourteen crosses for number of primary branches per plant, nine for fruit length, twelve for fruit girth, ten for fruits per plant, eleven for fruit weight, nine for fruit yield per plant, eleven for flesh thickness, nine for moisture content, twenty for total soluble solids, twenty for acidity and fifteen for total soluble sugars data in the desired direction in pooled analysis. however, some crosses like amm-01-18 x amm-02-26, hara madhu x rm-50 and amm01-18 x dm-1 exhibited significant sca effects for fruit yield per plant over environments along with some of the component traits in different environments. key words: gca, sca introduction muskmelon, cucumis melo l. with diploid chromosome number, 2n = 24 belongs to the family cucurbitaceae. persia and the transcaucasus are believed to be the main centres of origin and development of muskmelon with a secondary centre including the northwest provinces of india and afghanistan. although truly wild forms of cucumis melo have not been found, several related wild species have been observed in those regions. the early travellers introduced it to europe from where it moved the usa. at present, muskmelon is being cultivated throughout the world under both tropical and subtropical climatic conditions. in breeding high-yielding varieties of crop plant the breeder is often faced with the problem of selecting parents and crosses. combining ability analysis is one of the powerful tools available, which gives an estimate of combining ability effect and aids in selecting desirable parents and crosses for further exploitation. the common approach of selecting parents on the basis of per se performance does not necessarily lead to fruitful results (allard, 1960). selection of the best parents for hybridization has to be based on complete genetic information. knowledge of combining ability estimates gives information about the genetic architecture of the parents. with this aim in view, the present investigation was undertaken to identify the best combiners among the existing germplasm in 10 x 10 diallel set to facilitate the formulation of a sound breeding programme of this crop. material and methods ten varieties of muskmelon, viz., punjab sunehri, pusa madhuras, amm00-25, amm00-11, amm0118, dm-1, amm02-26, pmm96-20, hara madhu and rm-50 were crossed in all possible combinations, excluding reciprocals. the resulting 45 f 1 hybrids alongwith their parents were grown in randomized block design with three replications at a spacing of 150 cm (row to row) and 90 cm (plant to plant) in plots of size 6m x 4.5 m. observations were taken on 10 selected plants from each plot in two environments created by different sowing dates (e 1 =15th october, 2003 and e 2 =15th february, 2004). all the recommended cultural practices were followed during experimentation. observations were recorded on number of the node on which the first female flower appeared, j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 109-115, 2006 page 110 days to first open female flower, number of primary branches per plant, days to first harvest, fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), number of fruits per plant, fruit weight (g), fruit yield per plant (kg), flesh thickness (cm), moisture content (%), total soluble solids (tss %), acidity (%) and total soluble sugars (mg g-1). data were statistically analysed for the study of combining ability, by method 2, model 1 of griffing (1956). table 1. parental lines and their source variety/genotype source punjab sunehri pau, ludhiana pusa madhuras iari, new delhi amm00-25 aau, anand amm00-11 aau, anand amm01-18 aau, anand dm-1 iari, new delhi amm02-26 aau, anand pmm96-20 pantnagar hara madhu pau, ludhiana rn-50 durgapura results and discussion mean squares due to gca and sca were found significant for all the traits across environments except gca mean square for fruit yield per plant in e 1 . these results suggest the importance of both additive and non-additive gene action for different traits studied during the two different seasons. further, the variance ratio of gca : sca indicated that non-additive gene action was greater for all the traits under study. the potence ratio of both the components of genetic variance was below one (unity) for all the characters except fruit girth and moisture content in e 1 which suggests that specific combining ability effects were more pronounced for inheritance of most traits. the predictivity ratio of variance was estimated below 0.5 for all the characters in each environment indicating that variance due to specific combining ability was predominant for genetic control for all the traits. general combining ability effects for fruit yield and yield components were estimated between the environments as well as over the environments for parents (table 2). the top three good combiners for fruit yield and yield attributing traits with respect to mean performance in each environment were identified and are presented in table 3. the consideration of per se performance of parents in combination with their gca effects was reported to provide a better criteria for choice of superior parents in hybridization programs. in the present investigation, per se performance of the parents for different characters was generally related to the gca effects for the number of the node on which first female flower appeared, number of primary branches, days to first harvesting, fruit girth and number of fruits per plant. in muskmelon, fruit yield is a complex trait, hence direct selection for this trait is not usually effective. several workers (swamy, 1985; randhawa and singh, 1990) have reported that the number of fruits, average fruit weight, number of the node on the main stem, number of primary branches and fruit shape index are the important component traits of fruit yield in muskmelon. these component traits are expected to have greater variability, heritability and a positive association with fruit yield. selection based on these important traits may be effective in improving this complex trait of fruit yield. general combining ability of parents for the characters studied are presented in table 2, a perusal of which indicates that none of the parents were good general combiners for all the characters in an individual environment and in pooled analysis. further, table 2 revealed that the parents hara madhu in e 1, amm-01-18 and amm-02 -26 in e 2 and amm-01-18 and amm-02-26, on pooled basis, exhibited positive and significant gca effects for fruit yield per plant. thus, these three parents were observed to be good general combiners for fruit yield. parent amm-01-18 was a good combiner not only for fruit yield per plant but also for number of primary branches, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, moisture content, total soluble solids, acidity and total soluble sugars on pooled basis. similarly, parent hara madhu was also a good combiner for the number of node on which first female flower appeared, days to first harvesting, number of fruits per plant, acidity and total soluble sugars. however, parent amm-02-26 was a good combiner for fruit yield peer plant but was average or poor combiner for the remaining traits in pooled analysis. in addition to this, parent amm-00-11 also seems to be a good combiner for days to first open female flower, number of primary branches, total soluble solids, moisture content, acidity and total soluble sugars. in a crosspollinated crop like muskmelon, specific combining ability effects are of great importance because they are mostly related to dominance gene effects which could be utilized for the development of hybrid varieties. moreover, if a cross combination having at least one parent as a good general combiner exhibits high sca effect in addition to high per se performance, it is expected that such a cross combination would throw up desirable transgressive segregants in later generations. in muskmelon, such type of combinations could be utilized for the development of improved cultivars. further, cross combinations involving j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 109-115, 2006 tomar & bhalala 110 page 111 parent days to first harvesting fruit length fruit girth e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p punjab sunehri 2.17 ** -0.14 1.02 ** -0.28 -0.59 * -0.70 ** -1.49 ** -2.45 ** -1.97 ** pusa madhuras 0.53 0.26 0.40 0.53 ** -0.49 0.02 2.39 ** -1.54 ** 0.42 amm-00-25 -0.38 -0.61 ** -0.50 * 0.78 ** 0.39 0.58 ** 0.95 ** 1.82 ** 1.38 ** amm-00-11 0.23 0.36 * 0.29 -0.28 0.74 ** 0.23 -0.90 ** -0.14 -0.52 * amm-01-18 0.03 0.80 ** 0.42 0.19 -0.66 * -0.24 -0.84 ** 1.15 ** 0.15 dm-1 -0.11 -0.35 * -0.23 0.47 * -0.13 0.17 1.31 ** -0.36 0.47 * amm-02-26 -0.80 0.02 -0.39 -0.49 ** 0.77 ** 0.14 -0.60 ** 0.81 0.11 pmm-96-20 -1.08 * -0.45 * -0.77 ** 0.38 * -0.39 0.00 0.83 ** 0.16 0.50 * hara madhu -1.13 * -0.15 -0.64 * -0.33 * -0.36 * -0.35 * -0.57 ** -0.24 -0.40 rm-50 0.53 0.26 0.40 -0.44 * 0.73 ** 0.15 -1.07 ** 0.80 -0.14 se (g i ) ± 0.48 0.18 0.25 0.19 0.28 0.17 0.18 0.43 0.23 se (g i – g j ) ± 0.39 0.27 0.38 0.29 0.42 0.25 0.28 0.65 0.35 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.94 0.35 0.49 0.37 0.55 0.33 0.35 0.84 0.45 c.d. (p=0.01) 1.24 0.46 0.65 0.49 0.72 0.44 0.46 1.11 0.59 parent number of fruits per plant fruit weight fruit yield per plant e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p punjab sunehri 0.33 * -0.35 ** -0.01 -47.37 ** -31.29 * -39.33 ** -0.01 -0.31 ** -0.16 ** pusa madhuras -0.34 * -0.03 -0.19 ** 25.10 * -36.31 * -5.60 -0.05 -0.13 -0.09 * amm-00-25 -0.43 * -0.17 * -0.30 ** 18.10 13.80 15.95 -0.07 -0.08 -0.07 amm-00-11 0.16 -0.10 0.03 -28.38 ** 23.80 -2.29 -0.04 -0.02 -0.03 amm-01-18 0.30 0.10 0.20 * 1.40 51.97 ** 26.69 * 0.07 0.23 ** 0.15 ** dm-1 -0.08 0.10 0.01 -8.43 -38.42 * -23.42 * -0.05 0.01 -0.02 amm-02-26 -0.21 0.32 ** 0.06 -9.51 35.08 12.79 -0.06 0.34 ** 0.14 ** pmm-96-20 0.15 -0.04 0.05 -1.95 28.45 13.25 0.06 0.01 0.03 hara madhu 0.29 0.23 ** 0.26 ** 30.62 ** 0.69 15.66 0.17 ** 0.12 0.14 ** rm-50 -0.17 -0.06 -0.11 20.42 -47.78 ** -13.68 0.00 -0.17 * -0.09 * se (g i ) ± 0.17 0.07 0.09 10.48 18.35 10.57 0.05 0.07 0.04 se (g i – g j ) ± 0.25 0.11 0.13 15.62 27.36 15.75 0.08 0.11 0.07 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.33 0.14 0.18 20.54 35.97 20.72 0.10 0.14 0.08 c.d. (p=0.01) 0.44 0.18 0.23 27.04 47.34 27.27 0.13 0.18 0.10 *, ** significant at 5 and 1 per cent levels, respectively e 1 = 15th october, 2003 e 2 = 15th february, 2004 p = pooled j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 109-115, 2006 combining ability studies in muskmelon 111 table 2. estimates of general combining ability (gca) effects of parents for various characters in muskmelon parent number of the node on which first days to first open female flower number of primary branches female flower appears per plant e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p punjab sunehri 0.19 * -0.26 * -0.04 0.83 ** -0.75 * 0.04 -0.30 ** -0.11 -0.20 ** pusa madhuras 0.06 -0.31 ** -0.12 0.38 -0.60 -0.11 -0.40 ** -0.33 ** -0.37 ** amm-00-25 -0.20 * -0.37 ** -0.28 ** -0.60 ** -0.34 -0.47 * -0.27 ** -0.55 ** -0.41 ** amm-00-11 -0.21 ** 1.14 ** 0.46 ** -0.85 ** -0.77 * -0.81 ** 0.14 0.54 ** 0.47 ** amm-01-18 0.04 0.26 * 0.15 * -0.42 ** 1.98 ** 0.78 ** 0.50 ** 0.48 ** 0.49 ** dm-1 0.19 * -0.24 * -0.02 -0.18 0.92 ** 0.37 * 0.25 ** 0.36 ** 0.31 ** amm-02-26 0.06 0.34 ** 0.20 ** -0.03 1.06 ** 0.51 ** -0.04 -0.12 -0.08 pmm-96-20 0.15 -0.38 ** -0.11 -0.02 0.10 0.04 0.09 0.09 0.09 hara madhu -0.01 -0.50 ** -0.25 ** 0.71 ** -0.82 * -0.06 -0.31 ** -0.50 ** -0.40 ** rm-50 -0.28 ** 0.31 ** 0.02 0.18 -0.79 * -0.30 0.07 0.13 0.10 se (g i ) ± 0.08 0.11 0.07 0.20 0.32 0.19 0.09 0.11 0.07 se (g i – g j ) ± 0.12 0.17 0.10 0.29 0.48 0.28 0.14 0.16 0.10 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.16 0.22 0.14 0.39 0.63 0.37 0.18 0.22 0.14 c.d. (p=0.01) 0.21 0.28 0.18 0.52 0.83 0.49 0.23 0.28 0.18 page 112 good x good combiners and exhibiting significant sca effects indicate a major role of additive type of gene effects, which are fixable. however, two good general combiners may not necessarily throw up good segregants. similarly, in the segregating progenies of superior crosses involving both poor general combiners, very little gain is expected from such cross combinations because the high sca effects obtained may be due to dominance and epistatic gene effects which dissipate the progress towards fixation of heterosis. a critical study of the gca effects of the parents for crosses exhibiting significant desirable sca effects for fruit yield per plant on pooled basis revealed maximum number of elite hybrids to be of good x good, average x average/poor type of combinations (62.5 per cent). in e 1, 60 per cent of the cross combinations registered average x average type of combination, while 50 per cent of the crosses showed average x average type of combination in e 2 . gurav et al (2000) also reported that crosses showing significant sca effects evolved parents with good x good, good x poor and poor x poor combining ability suggesting the presence of additive as well as non-additive gene action in the expression of characters. specific combining ability effects for fruit yield and yield attributing traits revealed that fourteen crosses for the number of primary branches per plant, nine for fruit length, twelve for fruit girth, ten for fruit per plant, eleven for fruit weight, nine for fruit yield per plant, eleven for flesh thickness, nine for moisture content, twenty for total soluble solids, twenty for acidity and fifteen for total soluble depicted significant sca effects in the desired direction in pooled analysis. however, out of these, only eight crossess exhibited significant and positive sca effects for the number of primary branches per plant, two crosses each for fruit length, fruit girth, fruit yield per plant and flesh table 2. contd… parent flesh thickness moisture content total soluble solids e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p punjab sunehri 0.01 -0.02 -0.01 -0.24 -0.39 ** -0.32 ** -1.51 ** 0.15 -0.68 ** pusa madhuras 0.08 * -0.01 0.03 -1.31 ** -0.26 * -0.79 ** 0.78 ** -0.43 ** 0.18 amm-00-25 0.06 -0.01 0.03 0.28 0.01 0.14 0.79 ** -0.34 * 0.23 amm-00-11 0.06 -0.11 ** -0.03 -0.60 ** -0.14 -0.37 ** 0.20 1.23 ** 0.72 ** amm-01-18 -0.04 -0.07 * -0.05 -0.71 ** -0.19 -0.45 ** 0.20 0.35 * 0.27 * dm-1 0.07 0.10 ** 0.08 ** -0.83 ** -0.32 ** -0.58 ** 0.77 ** 0.26 0.52 ** amm-02-26 -0.04 0.06 * 0.01 -0.23 0.03 -0.10 0.35 -0.09 0.13 pmm-96-20 0.01 -0.12 ** -0.05 0.85 ** -0.02 0.42 ** -0.16 -0.27 * -0.22 hara madhu -0.12 ** 0.12 ** 0.00 1.37 ** 0.17 0.77 ** -0.52 * 0.05 -0.23 rm-50 -0.08 * 0.06 * -0.01 1.43 ** 1.11 ** 1.27 ** -0.90 ** -0.92 ** -0.91 ** se (g i ) ± 0.04 0.03 0.03 0.21 0.11 0.12 0.24 0.14 0.14 se (g i – g j ) ± 0.06 0.05 0.04 0.31 0.16 0.17 0.36 0.21 0.21 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.08 0.06 0.06 0.41 0.22 0.24 0.47 0.27 0.27 c.d. (p=0.01) 0.10 0.08 0.08 0.54 0.28 0.31 0.62 0.36 0.36 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 109-115, 2006 tomar & bhalala 112 parent acidity total soluble sugar e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p punjab sunehri -0.01 -0.02 * -0.02 ** 0.07 0.31 * 0.19 * pusa madhuras 0.00 -0.01 0.00 0.00 0.14 0.07 amm-00-25 0.02 * 0.02 * 0.02 ** -0.14 -0.19 -0.17 * amm-00-11 -0.06 ** -0.04 ** -0.05 ** 0.43 ** 0.47 ** 0.45 ** amm-01-18 -0.02 * -0.02 * -0.02 ** 0.21 0.21 0.21 ** dm-1 0.02 * 0.01 0.02 ** -0.22 * -0.17 -0.20 * amm-02-26 0.04 ** 0.03 ** 0.04 ** -0.24 * -0.42 ** -0.33 ** pmm-96-20 -0.04 ** -0.03 ** -0.04 ** 0.15 0.32 * 0.23 ** hara madhu -0.02 * -0.02 * -0.02 ** 0.36 ** 0.17 0.26 ** rm-50 0.08 ** 0.08 ** 0.08 ** -0.62 ** -0.83 ** -0.72 ** se (g i ) ± 0.01 0.01 0.007 0.11 0.13 0.08 se (g i – g j ) ± 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.16 0.20 0.13 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.22 0.25 0.16 c.d. (p=0.01) 0.03 0.03 0.02 0.28 0.34 0.21 *, ** significant at 5 and 1 per cent levels, respectively e 1 = 15th october, 2003 e 2 = 15th february, 2004 p = pooled page 113 table 3. top three parents with respect to their per se performance and gca effects in desirable direction for various traits in muskmelon characters e 1 e 2 p per se gca per se gca per se gca performance effects performance effects performance effects number of node on which rm50 rm50 punjab sunehri hara madhu amm-00-25 amm-00-25 first female flower appears amm-00-25 amm-00-11 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 punjab sunehri hara madhu pusa madhuras amm-00-25 amm-00-25 amm-00-25 pmm-96-20 pusa madhuras days to first female amm-00-25 amm-00-11 pmm-96-20 hara madhu pmm-96-20 amm-00-11 flower open pusa madhuras amm-00-25 punjab sunehri rm50 punjab sunehri amm-00-25 punjab sunehri amm-01-18 amm-02-26 amm-00-11 amm-00-25 rm50 number of primary branches amm-01-18 amm-01-18 amm-01-18 amm-00-11 amm-01-18 amm-01-18 per plant amm-00-11 dm-1 amm-00-11 amm-01-18 amm-00-11 amm-00-11 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 dm-1 pmm-96-20 dm-1 days to first harvesting hara madhu hara madhu pmm-96-20 amm-00-25 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 punjab sunehri pmm-96-20 hara madhu hara madhu amm-00-25 dm-1 dm-1 punjab sunehri amm-00-25 fruit length amm-01-18 amm-00-25 rm50 amm-02-26 dm-1 amm-00-25 pusa madhuras pusa madhuras dm-1 amm-00-11 rm50 dm-1 dm-1 hara madhu rm50 hara madhu fruit girth pusa madhuras pusa madhuras rm50 amm-00-25 dm-1 amm-00-25 dm-1 dm-1 amm-00-25 amm-01-18 pusa madhuras pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 dm-1 rm-50 dm-1 number of fruits per plant amm-00-11 punjab sunehri dm-1 amm-02-26 pusa madhuras hara madhu pmm-96-20 hara madhu hara madhu punjab sunehri amm-01-18 punjab sunehri pusa madhuras hara madhu fruit weight amm-01-18 hara madhu pmm-96-20 amm-01-18 amm-02-26 amm-01-18 amm-02-26 pusa madhuras dm-1 pusa madhuras pmm-96-20 amm-01-18 amm-00-25 fruit yield per plant pmm-96-20 hara madhu dm-1 amm-02-26 amm-02-26 amm-01-18 pusa madhuras hara madhu amm-01-18 rm50 amm-02-26 punjab sunehri pusa madhuras pmm-96-20 hara madhu flesh thickness dm-1 pusa madhuras rm50 hara madhu pusa madhuras dm-1 punjab sunehri hara madhu dm-1 amm-02-26 pmm-96-20 amm-02-26 amm-02-26 rm50 rm50 moisture content pusa madhuras pusa madhuras punjab sunehri punjab sunehri amm-00-25 pusa madhuras punjab sunehri dm-1 dm-1 dm-1 punjab sunehri dm-1 amm-01-18 amm-01-18 amm-01-18 pusa madhuras hara madhu amm-01-18 total soluble solids dm-1 amm-00-25 punjab sunehri amm-00-11 amm-01-18 amm-00-11 pmm-96-20 pusa madhuras pusa madhuras amm-01-18 hara madhu dm-1 pusa madhuras dm-1 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 amm-01-18 acidity amm-00-25 amm-00-11 amm-00-25 amm-00-11 amm-01-18 amm-00-11 pmm-96-20 pmm-96-20 pusa madhuras pmm-96-20 amm-00-11 pmm-96-20 pusa madhuras amm-01-18 amm-02-26 amm-01-18 amm-02-26 amm-01-18 hara madhu hara madhu hara madhu total soluble sugars amm-00-25 amm-00-11 amm-00-25 amm-00-11 amm-01-18 amm-00-11 pusa madhuras hara madhu pusa madhuras pmm-96-20 amm-00-11 hara madhu amm-02-26 pmm-96-20 punjab sunehri amm-02-26 pmm-96-20 e 1 = 15th october e 2 = 15th february p = pooled j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 109-115, 2006 combining ability studies in muskmelon 113 page 114 thickness, five crosses for moisture content, nine for total soluble solids, fourteen for acidity and ten for total soluble sugars in individual environment and when averaged over environments. the relative ranking of three best crosses over environments on the basis of sca effects and per se performance (table 4) indicating that crosses exhibiting high sca effects would not necessarily give either the highest mean values and vice-versa. further none of the cross combination showed consistently high sca effects for all the characters over environment. however, some crosses like amm-01-18 x amm-02-26, hara madhu x rm-50 and amm-01-18 x dm-1 exhibited significant sca effects for fruit yield per plant over the environments along with some of the component traits in different environments. from the perusal of table 4, it is clear that hybrids hara madhu x rm-50 and amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 are high yielding. hence, these two hybrids were identified as potential hybrids for widespread cultivation and commercial exploitation. the hybrid hara madhu x rm-50 involved parents with good x poor combiners and hybrid amm-0118 x amm-02-26 involved both parents with good table 4. top three hybrids with respect to their sca effects in desirable crosses for various traits in muskmelon on pooled basis character per se performance sca effects number of the node on which first female flower appears amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 p. madhuras x hara madhu amm-00-11 x pmm-96-20 p. madhuras x amm-01-18 p. madhuras x amm-00-11 days to first open female flower amm-01-18 x rm-50 amm-00-11 x rm-50 dm-1 x hara madhu dm-1 x hara madhu amm-00-25 x pmm-96-20 amm-00-25 x rm-50 number of primary branches per plant amm-00-11 x dm-1 dm-1 x rm-50 dm-1 x rm-50 p. madhuras x dm-1 dm-1 x pmm-96-20 amm-00-11 x dm-1 days to first harvesting amm-00-25 x dm-1 amm-00-25 x dm-1 amm-00-25 x amm-02-26 p. sunehri x p. madhuras amm-00-25 x amm-01-18 amm-00-25 x amm-01-18 amm-00-25 x amm-02-26 fruit length amm-00-25 x rm-50 amm-00-25 x rm-50 amm-02-26 x rm-50 amm-02-26 x rm-50 p. madhuras x amm-01-18 p. sunehri x pmm-96-20 fruit girth amm-00-25 x rm-50 amm-01-18 x hara madhu amm-01-18 x hara madhu amm-00-25 x rm-50 amm-01-18 x dm-1 p. sunehri x amm-00-25 number of fruits per plant pmm-96-20 x hara madhu pmm-96-20 x hara madhu amm-01-18 x hara madhu pmm-96-20 x amm-01-18 amm-01-18 x dm-1 amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 fruit weight p. sunehri x amm-00-11 hara madhu x rm-50 hara madhu x rm-50 amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 amm-00-25 x rm-50 amm-00-25 x pmm-96-20 fruit yield per plant hara madhu x rm-50 amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 p. madhuras x amm-00-11 hara madhu x rm-50 p. madhuras x amm-00-25 amm-01-18 x dm-1 flesh thickness amm-00-11 x dm-1 amm-01-18 x pmm-96-20 p. madhuras x pmm-96-20 amm-01-18 x hara madhu p. madhuras x amm-01-18 amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 moisture content dm-1 x rm-50 amm-00-11 x dm-1 p. sunehri x dm-1 amm-00-25 x hara madhu p. sunehri x amm-01-18 amm-00-11 x rm-50 total soluble solids p. madhuras x amm-00-25 p. sunehri x amm-02-26 pmm-96-20 x rm-50 amm-00-11 x pmm-96-20 p. sunehri x pmm-96-20 amm-00-25 x hara madhu acidity p. madhuras x hara madhu dm-1 x pmm-96-20 p. madhuras x rm-50 amm-01-18 x dm-1 pmm-96-20 x rm-50 p. madhuras x hara madhu total soluble sugars p. madhuras x hara madhu dm-1 x pmm-96-20 p. madhuras x amm-00-25 amm-01-18 x dm-1 amm-00-11 x hara madhu amm-01-18 x pmm-96-20 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 109-115, 2006 tomar & bhalala 114 page 115 combiners for fruit yield per plant indicating the role of additive x additive type of gene action and hence, there is good scope for isolation of high yielding homozygous lines in advanced generations. references allard, r.w. 1960. principles of plant breeding. john wiley and sons inc., new york griffing, b. (1956). the concept of general and specific combining ability in relation to diallele crossing system. austr. biol., 9: 463-493 gurav, s.b. wavhal, k.n. and navale, p.a. 2000. heterosis and combining ability in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). j. agrl. univ., 25: 149-152 randhawa, k.s. and singh, m.j. 1990. assessment of combining ability, heterosis and genetic variance for fruit quality characters in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). indian journal of genetics and plant breeding, 50: 127-130 swamy, k.r.m. 1985. studies on improvement for qualitative and quantitative characters in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). mysore j. agril. sci., 19: 283 (ms received 20 may 2006 revised 30 september 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 109-115, 2006 combining ability studies in muskmelon 115 introduction common bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.), native to central and south america, is widely cultivated in the temperate and subtropical regions of the globe. it is the most important food legumes in the world; its dry seed contains 21.1% protein, 69.9% carbohydrates, 1.7% fat, 381mg calcium, 425mg phosphorus and 12.4mg iron per 100g edible part (ali and kushwaha, 1987). moreover, it serves as a functional food, as, it contains several bioactive compounds like enzyme inhibitors, lectins, phytates, oligosaccharides and various phenolic substances (diazbatalla et al, 2006). medicinally, it is used for controlling diabetics, certain cardiac conditions, it is a good natural cure for bladder burn and has both carminative and reparative properties against constipation and diarrhoea, respectively (duke, 1981). common bean is considered third in importance after soybean and peanut, but tops in direct consumption by humans (broughton et al, 2003). nutritionally, beans are often called the “poor man’s meat” as these are rich in proteins and minerals (especially iron and zinc), and vitamins (beebe et al, 2000). in humans, iron is essential for preventing anemia, while, zinc is essential for adequate growth, sexual maturation, resistance to gastroenteric and respiratory infections, especially in children (bouis, 2003). morpho-agronomic diversity in pole-type common bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) landraces from lushai hills of north-east india s.k. dutta, s.b. singh, t. boopathi, a.r. singh and y. ramakrishna icar-rc neh region, mizoram centre kolasib 796 081, india e-mail: sudipiari@rediffmail.com abstract the present study was based on morphological and agronomical characterization of 23 pole-type common bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) landraces collected from lushai hills of north-east india. extensive variation in plant and seed traits was found in 16 morphological and agronomical characters. cluster analysis based on euclidean distance grouped the genotypes into five main branches, reflecting their growth type and reproductive traits. significant positive or negative correlation was observed among important traits. principal component analysis was used for assessing patterns of variation by accounting for all the 10 quantitative and six qualitative variables together. ordination among accessions showed that the first five principal components had eigen values greater than one, and cumulatively accounted for 72% of the variation. characterization based on quantitative and qualitative traits enabled separation of accessions into various groups representing landraces with distinct characters. key words: common bean, pole-type, north-east india, landraces, principal components, morphological characterization in india, common bean is known by names like ‘rajma’ and ‘french bean’ (green bean), and is grown mainly in north-western himalayan region comprising parts of himachal pradesh and jammu & kashmir, bearing a great diversity of agro-morphological traits like, seed size and colour (kumar et al, 2008). a huge diversity in poletype common bean landraces exists in hilly states of northeast india, particularly in mizoram, cultivated from a long time. in mizoram, beans are primarily grown in the backyard and kitchen gardens for their green pods used as fresh vegetable, and, dried seeds as pulse or for seed purpose. the foliage is used as fodder and to restore soil fertility. in this state, a large pool of common bean landraces was found in farmers’ fields and forest areas. nevertheless, these landraces were being lost to replacement by: high-value crops, drought, jhum fire, and human interference such as deforestation, etc. therefore, a need is felt to characterize, conserve and maintain these landraces to serve as a source of desired traits for future breeding programme, and, to check further genetic erosion. thus, a detailed description of accessions based on morpho-agronomical characters has tremendous bearing on conservation and genetic improvement in this crop. until now, there have been no adequate studies on genetic diversity of pole-type common bean landraces in mizoram, which provides ample scope j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):177-182, 2015 178 for studying variation in morphological and economic traits to be used for improvement of this crop. therefore, the present investigation was aimed at studying vegetative and reproductive variation among pole-type common bean landraces from the north-eastern state of mizoram, india. material and methods twenty three pole-type common bean landraces (table 1) were collected from different districts of mizoram during august-september, 2013. seeds were multiplied and plants were evaluated for qualitative and quantitative traits during september – december 2013. the study was carried out in the experimental field of icar rc neh region, mizoram centre, kolasib district (24.2304°n, 92.6761°e) of mizoram, india, in completely randomized block design, with ten replications. twenty seeds of each genotype were sown at a depth of 3-4cm after field preparation, at a spacing of 40cm (between plants) and 90cm (between rows). irrigation was applied at two-day intervals. mineral fertilization included 50kg n, 75kg p2o5 and 75kg k2o per hectare. ipgri (1982) descriptor for phaseolus vulgaris was used for morphological description, and the traits assessed are listed in table 2. the quantitative variables evaluated were: number of flowers per plant, leaf length, leaf breadth, pod length, number of pods per plant, pod yield, number of seeds per pod, days to flowering, no. of nodes on main stem from base to first inflorescence, and number of flower buds per inflorescence. qualitative variables studied were: colour of freshly-opened flower, pod colour, pod crosssection, pod curvature, seed-coat colour, and seed shape. statistical analysis was based on descriptive analysis (sas 9.3), hierarchical cluster analysis (using the method of mean linkage in upgma with which dendogram was constructed). correlation analysis and principal component analysis (pca) was done using princomp procedure of sas 9.3. results and discussion twenty three landraces of common bean were collected from across the state of mizoram including backyards of farmers and roadside markets. of all the landraces, mzfb-43 and mzfb-47 were rare in occurrence and distinct, with purple coloured pods (fig. 1). pod yield ranged between 118.43 g/plant (mzfb-29) and 49.47 g/ plant (mzfb-28). descriptive statistics of 10 quantitative table 1. french bean landraces from mizoram, their source, frequency of occurrence and yield s. accession source frequency yield no. (g/plant) 1. mzfb-27 roadside market frequent 91.37 2. mzfb-28 roadside market frequent 49.47 3. mzfb-29 roadside market frequent 118.43 4. mzfb-32 backyard of farmer frequent 87.50 5. mzfb-36 roadside market frequent 67.37 6. mzfb-38 roadside market frequent 66.93 7. mzfb-40 backyard of farmer frequent 83.23 8. mzfb-41 backyard of farmer frequent 91.90 9. mzfb-42 backyard of farmer frequent 106.20 10. mzfb-43 sel. from ic-595238 rare 108.70 (purple colour pod) 11. mzfb-44 backyard of farmer frequent 53.40 12. mzfb-45 roadside market frequent 89.67 13. mzfb-47 sel. from ic-595238 rare 98.77 (purple colour pod) 14. mzfb-48 backyard of farmer frequent 84.97 15. mzfb-49 roadside market frequent 96.03 16. mzfb-50 backyard of farmer frequent 60.20 17. mzfb-51 backyard of farmer frequent 65.10 18. mzfb-52 backyard of farmer frequent 53.37 19. mzfb-53 roadside market frequent 65.43 20. mzbf-70 backyard of farmer frequent 93.97 21. mzfb-74 roadside market frequent 60.37 22. mzfb-76 backyard of farmer frequent 86.70 table 2. list of morphological traits assessed during vegetative growth (assessment done in accordance with ipgri recommendations, with some modification) sl. trait score code-descriptor state no. 1. nf: number of 20-40=1; 40-60=2; >60=3 flowers per plant 2. ll: leaf length 10-15=1; 15-20=2 3. lb: leaf breadth 6-8cm=1; >8cm=2 4. pl: pod length 5-8cm=1; 8-11cm=2; >11cm=3 5. np: number of 5-15=1; 15-25=2 pods per plant 6. py: pod yield 40-60g/plant=1; 60-80g/plant=2; >80g/plant=3 7. ns: number of 4-6=1; 6-8=2; 8-10=3; >10=4 seeds per pod 8. df: days to flowering <45 days=1; 46-60 days=2 9. nb: no. of nodes on 3-4=1; >5=2 the main stem from base to 1st inflorescence 10. fbi: no. of flower 1-2=1; 3-4=2; >4=3 buds/inflorescence 11. cf: colour of white=1; lilac=2; white with freshly opened flower red stripes=3; purple=4 12. pc: pod color dark purple=1; purple stripe on green=2; normal green=3 13. pcs: pod cross-section pear shaped=1; round/elliptic=2 14. pcu: pod curvature slightly curved=1; curved=2 15. sc: seed-coat color black=1; brown (pale to dark)=2; pale creamy=3 16. ss: seed shape cuboid=1; kidney shaped=2 dutta et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):177-182, 2015 179 flowering, number of nodes on the main stem from the base to the first inflorescence, pod curvature, seed-coat color, etc. cluster ii consisted of a single landrace, mzfb-29, having the highest recorded leaf length (18cm), leaf breadth table 3. descriptive statistics of 10 quantitative parameters in 23 common bean landraces variable mean variance minimum maximum t value pr > |t| nf 43.50 138.79 20.33 61.33 17.70 <.0001 ll 15.40 2.94 12.00 18.00 43.10 <.0001 lb 10.41 0.99 8.00 12.77 49.97 <.0001 pl 11.24 3.27 8.13 14.63 29.82 <.0001 np 13.02 17.25 7.67 23.67 15.04 <.0001 py 80.59 372.96 49.47 118.43 20.01 <.0001 ns 5.69 1.91 4.17 10.77 19.75 <.0001 df 49.43 7.34 43.00 54.00 87.46 <.0001 nb 5.25 0.56 3.80 6.70 33.42 <.0001 fbi 3.42 0.25 2.70 4.20 32.47 <.0001 nf= no. of flowers per plant, ll= leaf length, lb= leaf breadth, pl= pod length, np= no. of pods per plant, py= pod yield, ns= no. of seeds per pod, df= days to flowering, nb= no. of nodes on the main stem from the base to the first inflorescence, fbi= no. of flower buds/ inflorescence fig. 1. distinct pod, flower and seed, respectively, of mzfb-43 (a, b and c) and mzfb-47 (d, e and f) parameters among the 23 common bean landraces revealed that all the parameters had a highly significant (p< .0001%) variation among them (table 3). number of flowers averaged 43.5 and ranged from 20.33 (mzfb-52) to 61.33 (mzfb-45). leaf length averaged 15.4cm, with a range of 12cm (mzfb-74) to 18cm (mzfb-29). average leaf breadth was 10.41cm, and ranged from 8cm (mzfb-74) to 12.77cm (mzfb-29). pod length averaged 11.24cm, with a range of 8.13cm (mzfb-43) to 14.63cm (mzfb-29). average number of pods per plant was 13.02, and ranged from 7.67 (mzfb-51 and 52) to 23.67 (mzfb-38). pod yield averaged 80.59g/plant, and ranged from 49.47g/plant (mzfb-28) to 118.43g/plant (mzfb-29). number of seeds per pod averaged 5.69, and varied from 4.17 (mzfb-45) to 10.77 (mzfb-29). average days to flowering were 49.43, and ranged from 43 (mzfb-45) to 54 days (mzfb-51 and 52). number of nodes on the main stem from the base to the first inflorescence averaged 5.25, and varied from 3.8 (mzfb-28) to 6.7 (mzfb-40). number of flower buds/ inflorescence averaged 3.42, and ranged from 2.7 (mzfb43) to 4.2 (mzfb-30, 44 and 74). in fig. 1 are depicted the distinct pod, flower and seed, respectively, of mzfb-43 (a, b and c) and mzfb-47 (d, e and f). our results prove that landraces of common bean, grown by farmers in the lushai hill region of northeast india, are valuable sources of genetic variation for breeding in this crop. this variation is due to inherent genetic differences among landraces grown throughout this area. morphologically, common bean differs in its growth habit (singh, 1982), vegetative characters, and flower, pod and seed traits (singh et al, 1991a, b) useful in selection in breeding programmes. besides, this result was expected, as, landraces are a result of decades of natural and artificial selection by the farmer for a better adaptation to the local growing conditions, with different types being preferred by farmers in various regions (harlan, 1976). similar findings were reported by stoilova et al (2013), where landraces were evaluated for 16 morphological characters, and considerable variation was found among genotypes. a majority of landraces had white seed-colour, but some also had cream, purple, and white with red colour around the hilum. the predominant seed-shape was long, but three accessions had round seeds. based on euclidean distance, five clusters were formed which, in turn, fell into sub-groups, as depicted in fig. 2. number of genotypes in the clusters varied from one (cluster ii) to eight (cluster iv). cluster i was predominant in landraces with similar number of days to fig. 2. grouping of common bean landraces on the basis of morphological traits: prior to clustering data, variable rescaling was done for comparability; hierarchical cluster analysis: distance calculation method “euclidean”, hierarchical cluster analysis method “ward”; based on euclidean distance (7.856), 5 clusters were formed j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):177-182, 2015 morpho-agronomic diversity in pole-type common bean 180 (12.77), pod yield (118.43 g/plant) and number of seeds per pod (10.77). cluster iii grouped three accessions with similar traits like normal, green pod-color, pear-shaped pod crosssection, and brown (pale to dark) seed-coat color. cluster iv was dominated by kidney-shaped seeds and whitecoloured freshly-opened flowers. slightly curved pod, pod length 8-11cm and 4-6 seeds per pod were the dominant traits in cluster v. traits that showed highest difference among clusters were those related to reproduction, like pod yield, number of flowers per plant, number of pods per plant, etc. characterization based on qualitative traits enable separation of the accessions into various groups representing accessions from different geographical areas of the country (beyene, 2013). consequently, our results can give an index for identifying characters helpful for characterizing common bean. pearson correlation coefficients of quantitative variables in 23 common bean landraces are presented in table 4. a significant (p <0.05%) positive correlation was found between number of flowers per plant and pod yield, while, a significant (p <0.05%) negative correlation was found between number of flowers per plant and days taken to flowering. leaf length exhibited a highly significant (p <0.01%) positive correlation with leaf breadth, pod length and number of seeds per pod, while, number of pods per plant showed a significant (p <0.05%) negative correlation for this trait. leaf breadth showed a highly significant (p <0.01%) positive correlation with pod length and number of seeds per pod. pod length and number of seeds per pod, number of pods per plant, pod yield, pod yield and number of seed per pod exhibited a highly significant (p <0.01%) positive correlation. a strong correlation between these traits allows selection of the related trait/s interchangeably in a breeding programme. if two strongly correlated traits are desired, both can be selected simultaneously, based on one of the traits (okii et al, 2014). miko (2008) reported strongly correlated traits to be possibly under the influence of the same genes or showed pleiotropic effects. principal component analysis was used for assessing patterns of variation, by accounting for all the 10 quantitative and 6 qualitative variables together. also, eigen vectors, eigen values, differences, proportions and cumulative percentages of variation were explained by the principal components. ordination among accessions showed the first five principal components as having eigen values greater than one, and these cumulatively accounted for 72% of the variation (table 5). the first component alone explained 21% of the total variation and was mainly associated with characters such as pod length, number of seeds per pod, leaf length, leaf breadth and pod yield. the second principal component explained 19% of the variation and was associated with number of pods per plant and number of flowers per plant. the third principal component explained 12% of the variation, and was associated with pod curvature, pod color, number of nodes on the main stem from the base to the first inflorescence, and seed-coat color. the fourth and fifth principal components together explained 20% of the variation, and were associated with seed shape, pod curvature, number of nodes on the main stem from the base to the first inflorescence, and seed-coat color. our study revealed that the first five principal components had eigen values greater than one, and cumulatively accounted for 72% of the variation. the first component explained 21%, second 19%, third 12%, and, fourth and fifth combined 20% of the total variation. principal component analysis has been applied for studying germplasm collections in several species, table 4. pearson correlation coefficients of quantitative variables in 23 common bean landraces nf ll lb pl np py ns df nb fbi nf 1 0.11 0.07 0.27 0.37 0.52* 0.25 (-0.48)* 0.17 0.30 ll 1 0.83** 0.62** (-0.43)* 0.13 0.54** 0.25 -0.20 -0.02 lb 1 0.54** -0.33 0.09 0.60** 0.14 -0.36 -0.11 pl 1 -0.35 0.41 0.55** 0.18 -0.03 0.11 np 1 0.53** 0.02 (-0.42)* 0.35 0.25 py 1 0.59** -0.16 0.25 0.42* ns 1 0.24 -0.07 0.19 df 1 -0.15 -0.03 nb 1 0.05 fbi 1 nf= no. of flowers per plant, ll= leaf length, lb= leaf breadth, pl= pod length, np= no. of pods per plant, py= pod yield, ns= no. of seeds per pod, df= days to flowering, nb= no. of nodes on the main stem from the base to the first inflorescence, fbi= no. of flower buds/ inflorescence *significant at 5%, **significant at 1% dutta et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):177-182, 2015 181 including horticultural and arboreal species (iezzoni and pritts, 1991; pe´rez-gonza´lez, 1992; badenes et al, 1998; mars and marrakchi, 1999; leguizamo´n and badenes, 2003). principal component analysis allows better comprehension of relations, correlations and significance among the variables studied; applied to the germplasm collections, it shows the structure of a collection by identifying the most relevant variables, relationship among accessions, and, identification of possible mistakes. to assess the score of individual landraces, principal component 1 and principal component 2 are plotted in fig. 3. landraces mzfb-27, mzfb-30, mzfb-38, mzfb-40, mzfb-42, mzfb-45 and mzfb-48 occupied the right top corner of the plot, indicating higher scores for principal component 1. these clustered genotypes have positive scores for pod length, number of seeds per pod, leaf length, leaf breadth and pod yield. also, landraces mzfb-28, mzfb-32, mzfb36, mzfb-51, mzfb-43 and mzfb-70 occupied the left top corner of the plot, indicating higher scores for principal component 2 with similar number of pods per plant and number of flowers per plant. characterization based on quantitative and qualitative traits enables separation of accessions into different groups representing landraces with distinct characteristics. therefore, the present finding can help identify characters necessary to characterize common bean landraces. a broad genetic diversity of common bean landraces exists in mizoram state of india. the germplasm clustered into five major groups, with the most variations attributed to days to flowering, node number on the main stem from the base to first inflorescence, pod curvature, seed-coat colour, pod yield, number of seeds per pod, etc. these traits can be used for characterization; conservation and breeding in common bean landraces. similarity in clustering and correlation information on phenotypic traits can be used for parent selection in breeding programmes. these results show the use of morpho-agronomic information for characterization of common bean landraces of mizoram. references ali, m. and kushwaha, b.l. 1987. cultivation of rabi rajmah in plains. indian farming, 31:20-23 badenes, m.l., martý´nez-calvo, j. and lla´cer, g. 1998. analysis of apricot germplasm from the european eco-geographical group. euphytica, 102:93-99 beebe, s., gonzalez, a.v. and rengifo, j. 2000. research on trace minerals in the common bean. food nutr. bull., 21:387-391 beyene, t.m. 2013. morpho-agronomical characterization of taro (colocasia esculenta) accessions in ethiopia. plant, 1:1-9 bouis, h.e. 2003. micronutrient fortification of plants through plant breeding: can it improve nutrition in man table 5. component scores, eigen values, differences, proportions and cumulative percentage of variation explained by the first five principal components (pc) in common bean landraces trait pc 1 pc 2 pc 3 pc 4 pc 5 lb 0.371 -0.296 -0.044 -0.066 0.190 pl 0.432 -0.141 0.055 0.113 0.019 np -0.037 0.452 0.193 -0.186 0.044 nf 0.281 0.350 0.025 -0.117 0.261 ll 0.383 -0.301 0.067 0.021 0.165 py 0.337 0.284 0.198 -0.154 -0.233 ns 0.396 -0.093 0.269 -0.225 -0.125 df 0.002 -0.343 0.192 -0.115 -0.266 nb -0.027 0.257 0.365 0.394 -0.119 fbi 0.160 0.215 0.122 0.008 -0.337 cf 0.217 0.254 -0.437 0.159 -0.166 pc -0.300 -0.221 0.380 -0.148 0.087 pcs -0.092 0.100 0.210 -0.499 0.152 pcu -0.007 -0.090 0.417 0.433 -0.286 sc 0.043 0.142 0.313 0.104 0.527 ss 0.040 0.021 0.032 0.441 0.420 eigen value 3.47 3.15 1.95 1.83 1.25 difference 0.31 1.19 0.12 0.57 proportion 0.21 0.19 0.12 0.11 0.09 cumulative 0.21 0.41 0.53 0.65 0.72 lb= leaf breadth, pl= pod length, np= no. of pods per plant, nf= no. of flowers per plant, ll= leaf length, py= pod yield, ns= no. of seeds per pod, df= days to flowering, nb= no. of nodes on the main stem from the base to the first inflorescence, fbi= no. of flower buds/ inflorescence, cf= colour of freshly-opened flower, pc= pod color, pcs= pod cross-section, pcu= pod curvature, sc= seed-coat color, ss= seed shape fig. 3. representation of common bean landraces in a space defined by the first two principal components (principal components 1 vs. principal components 2) morpho-agronomic diversity in pole-type common bean j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):177-182, 2015 182 at low cost? procs. nutr. soc., 62:403-411 broughton, w.j., hernandez, g., blair, m.w., beebe, s.e., gepts, p. and vanderleyden, j. 2003. beans (phaseolus spp.): model food legumes. plant soil, 252:55-128 díaz-batalla, l., widholm, j.m., fahey, g.c. jr., castañotostado, e. and paredes-lópez, o. 2006. chemical components with health implications in wild and cultivated mexican common bean seeds (phaseolus vulgaris l.). j. agril. food chem., 54:2045-2052 duke, j.a. 1981. handbook of world economic importance. usda, beltsville, maryland, plenum press, new york and london harlan, j.r. 1976. our vanishing genetic resources. science, 188:618-621 iezzoni, 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gepts, p. 2014. morphological diversity of tropical common bean germplasm. afr. crop sci. j., 22:59-67 pe´rez-gonza´lez, s. 1992. associations among morphological and phenological characters representing apricot germplasm in central mexico. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 117:486-490 singh, s.p. 1982. a key for identification of different growth habits of frijol, phaseolus vulgaris l. annual report, bean improvement cooperative, u.s.a., 25:92-95 singh, s.p., gepts, p. and debouck, d.g. 1991a. races of common bean (phaseolus vulgaris, fabaceae). econ. bot., 45:379-396 singh, s.p., gutierrez, j., molina, a., urrea, c. and gepts, p. 1991b. genetic diversity in cultivated common bean. ii. marker-based analysis of morphological and agronomic traits. crop sci., 31:23-29 stoilova, t., pereira, g. and tavares-de-sousa, m. 2013. morphological characterization of a small common bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) collection under different environments. j. centr. europ. agr., 14:1-11 (ms received 27 november 2014, revised 18 may 2015, accepted 02 july 2015) dutta et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):177-182, 2015 horticulture crop sector comprising of fruits, vegetables, ornamental and medicinal plants, mushrooms and plantation crops has emerged as a key sector of indian economy in the recent past. with two-fold increase in area coupled with four-fold increase in production, fruits and vegetables have shown that these could add value not only to the nutritional security but also to the income and employment security of rural population. however, increased production of horticultural produce has resulted in increased marketable surplus and hence resulted in increased market arrivals and associated market lead risks. horticultural crops, especially fruits, vegetables and flowers being highly seasonal and perishable, pose difficulties in their disposal and often lead to frequent market gluts and associated distress sale for producers. market information system for horticultural crops: web application development for interactive graphs m.k. chandra prakash, reena rosy thomas1, sudha mysore, g. vadivel and rasika thaker section of economics and statistics indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india email: mk_chandraprakash@yahoo.com abstract marketing information service has been recognized as key for success in marketing of perishable commodities. effort has been made to improve access to market information to all stakeholders involved in marketing of horticultural crops. current study is an attempt in this direction to review various modes of such information support and also to highlight the effort made by premier institution like indian institute of horticultural research. web application has been developed for market information to display the data as interactive graphs. data for the study includes the month-wise arrival and price information of different horticultural commodities from different markets for a period of ten years. this is collected from primary sources such as district -wise, marketwise and secondary sources such as nhb, nhrdf etc., the data were tabulated and uploaded to microsoft sql server database through customized cms module. further, the price arrival data has been translated to the interactive charts by programs developed using microsoft visual studio. net technologies, which is a relatively new addition to iihr website. interactive charts are used for drilling down for more information on price and arrivals. it consists of several interactive components like zoom, compare etc. zoom component of the chart enables the user to zoom the graph to read the price trend prevailed in market in detail, which cannot be possible on basic chart. the compare option allows user to compare price data with several other markets. the farmers and traders will get the advantage of taking precise decisions regarding choice of time and place for sale of their produce using this information system. further, lean, peak stabilization periods prevailing in various markets enable farmers to schedule the cultivation plans. key words: horticulture, competitiveness, comparative advantage, interactive chart, price, arrival and markets realizing the need to provide access to markets and to help producers for higher share in consumers’ rupee, efforts have been made to create requisite market infrastructure closer to production centres. effort has also been on to improve access to market information to all stakeholders involved in marketing of horticultural crops. day to day price fluctuations for some of the vegetables like tomato are so steep that often makes it uneconomical for producers even to harvest the produce. while much has been accomplished in augmenting the production risks in case of horticultural crops through improved technologies and other package of practices, marketing is still in the hands of few exploitative traders and middlemen. in a market network, flow of physical goods is in the forward direction, while the flow of money and information is in opposite 1project co-ordinator (tropical fruits) cell, iihr, bangalore short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 77 direction. a typical marketing network of horticultural crops is thus dominated by pre-harvest contractors and commission agents, who not only assist the marketing process through assembling and forwarding, but also hold key information about the arrivals and price movements there by managing a hold on the entire marketing transaction. the marketing networks of horticultural crops are long with a number of market intermediaries, each adding cost and claiming margin, there by reducing the producers share in final consumers’ rupee. access to market information, often referred to as market intelligence or marketing information service, has been recognized as the key for success in marketing of perishable commodities. the data for this study was collected from different markets for a period of ten years (1993-94 to 2006-07) from primary and secondary sources including nhb, nhrdf besides primary market centres. the month wise arrival and price data, thus collected were then uploaded to ms sql database through customized content management module, in market-wise, month-wise and crop-wise. the advantage of ms sql server database is it can accommodate millions of records and easily be retrieved. the sql stored procedures are embedded in website’s market information system module, which enables the data retrieval as text and graph as well, using component art software. market information graphical display, primarily uses two major files, one for forms and objects and other for program codes. program modules were developed using microsoft visual studio.net‘s c# (c sharp) programming language. in appropriate location, component art modules were also called as sub-program to enable the graphical display. database connection has been established using data bind modules, while label style and high speed rendering for graph display were developed using component art’s label style and geometric engine, respectively. similarly for drawing graph, comparing graphs zooming a graph, table view for predefined periods separate modules were developed and embedded in appropriate controls to execute the same. the entire graph in this module has been used with two dimensional projection systems component art charting software has been used for developing the market information system (mis). it is a comprehensive set of charting components designed to deliver highly interactive visualization of business data, featuring brilliant rendering, interactive drill-downs, with built-in zooming & scrolling. the software is also equipped to handle extremely large datasets and integration with the powerful calcengine data processing control. bar & column charts has been used for plotting discrete (or ‘discontinuous’) data, providing an effective visualization for a sequence of values. bar charts are displayed in horizontal orientation for depicting into various markets, while columns or line graphs in vertical orientation for price movement. line charts have been used to capture the trends in data over different time intervals; for the nature of the pattern being followed line graphs are appropriate. extensive designtime capabilities of the software are programmed within microsoft’s visual studio ide. all controls include custom design ui panels, enables quick customization and designtime preview. programmes have been developed to support embedded visualizations and gridview’s data panel, and dynamic visualizations of tabular data. by utilizing virtualized rendering, gridview maintains optimal performance as its data set grows. scroll through tens of thousands of rows, and sort or group them, without compromising the usability of the application. the software had the ability to handle very large datasets. the charting controls has been leveraged to handle extremely large amounts of data – measured in millions of records – through a highly effective wcf web service communication layer. in addition, all controls are capable of handling tens of thousands of records of sql database. status and efforts so far into market information systems access to markets by the producers has been well recognized. in view of the prevailing malpractices in agricultural markets, a task force has been set up to bring about market reforms. as a result of concerted efforts agricultural/horticultural crops have witnessed several market reforms. these include the establishment of markets close to production areas, infrastructure, proper weighment and other facilities at the markets have been accomplished. market regulation has also been enforced at different markets. besides these, the need to impart access to market information has been felt especially in case of horticultural commodities. web-based market information system for horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 78 the impact of it on the agricultural supply chain has largely been ignored in the information systems empirical literature. initiatives have the potential to affect the lives of billions of people that live on the other side of the digital divide, their effectiveness is often unclear and many are skeptical that the benefits actually reach the rural communities; the other potential area is policy formulation, such as the nature and magnitude of the benefits from online platforms (banker and mitra, 2005). the general price level of an agricultural commodity, whether at a major terminal, port, or commodity futures exchange, is influenced by a variety of market forces that can alter the current or expected balance between supply and demand. (randy schnepf, 2006). in the recent past, ministry of agriculture and several state governments started providing the arrival and price details for different agricultural commodities on line for access by different stakeholders much of this information could be made as practical value for the producers. the portal www.agmarknet.nic.in which belongs to directorate of marketing & inspection (dmi), ministry of agriculture, government of india provides easy access to commodity-wise, variety-wise daily prices and arrivals information in respect of various wholesale markets spread across the country. prices and arrivals trend reports for important commodities are also published regularly. besides, future prices from national multi-commodity exchange of india ltd www.nmce.com are being reflected online on the portal. linkages are available for food and agriculture organization (fao) http://www.fao.org and asian & pacific coconut community (apcc) http://www.apccsec.org for accessing international commodity price trends. the arrival and prices of different agricultural commodities as received from the agricultural produce market committee (apmcs) of different states are uploaded at agmarknet portal for information. the market information on the portal is as reported by the respective markets. the portal is designed, developed and maintained by national informatics centre, contents provided by directorate of marketing & inspection (dmi), ministry of agriculture. state agricultural marketing boards / directorates agriculture being a state subject, development of the agricultural marketing system in the respective states is primarily being taken care by the state agricultural marketing boards and directorates. the activities, schemes and state specific initiative are accessible through the linkages provided to their websites (madhya pradesh, karnataka, punjab, orissa, delhi, tamil nadu, andhra pradesh, meghalaya etc). karnataka state agricultural marketing department/ board: www.maratavahini.kar.nic.in, its objective is to coordinate functioning of all the market committees with the help of information service obtained by both national and international markets the rajasthan state agricultural marketing board (http://rsamb.rajasthan.gov.in) has devoted itself to the development of agricultural marketing since its inception in 1974. the activities of the marketing board are now not limited to construction of market yards-godowns and village link roads, but cover the entire gamut of post harvest management and agricultural marketing developmental activities in the wake of the liberalization of the economic policy of the country. the rajasthan state agricultural marketing board has taken up the task to export main commodities of the state to other countries with an object to not only boost up production and productivity but also quality of agro produce in the state. the government of meghalaya has set up two secondary regulated markets in the state http:// megamb.gov.in. the first one was set up in mawiong in east khasi hills district and the second at garobadha, west garo hills district. moreover, there are daily markets in shillong (iewduh), jowai, tura, williamnagar etc. farmers can bring their agricultural produce to regulated market (apmc) to get remunerative prices. free temporary storage of the farmers’ unsold produce may be provided in the market yard till the farmer gets a favourable price in order to prevent distress sales. madhya pradesh state agricultural marketing board http://www.mpmandiboard.org provides daily rates (rs per quintal) on paddy, wheat, jawar and maize. academic institutions on agricultural marketing academic institutions and agricultural institutes viz. national institute of agricultural marketing, national institute of agricultural extension management, institute of rural management etc are imparting training and consultancy on agri-business management, agricultural marketing, cochandra prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 79 operative marketing etc. also provides market related information. national institute of agricultural marketing http:// www.ccsniam.gov.in focuses on agricultural marketing system in states, post harvest loss reduction aspects, information technology application in agricultural marketing, future and forward markets and commodity exchanges food safety, quality certification & standardization etc. the manage (http://www.manage.gov.in) vests with the responsibility to develop linkages between state, regional, national and international institutions concerned with agricultural extension management. it also, focuses on agricultural extension management systems and policies, collaborative linkages with national and international institutions. related marketing organizations in agricultural sector market organization viz. nhb, apeda, ncdc, nafed and nhrdf also provide information relating to agricultural marketing schemes implemented by government departments. central agencies viz. commerce, food and public distribution, food processing industries, consumer affairs, health national dairy development board, national horticulture board, national horticultural research and development foundation, coconut development board, agricultural processed food products development authority, marine products exports development authority etc also provide data for effective marketing. national horticulture board (nhb) (http://nhb.gov.in) the national horticultural board (nhb) ever since its inception has been publishing the market arrivals and prices for different commodities for important markets across the country. the nhb also started faxing this data on request to different organizations as and when required. its role to strengthen market intelligence system by developing, collecting and disseminating horticulture database, it provides price and arrival statistics. daily arrivals and prevailing minimum, maximum and nodal price data have been compiled for different horticultural commodities at different market yards. the market committees also record the daily information, compile into weekly and monthly data and compile the same for the district as a whole and publish it periodically. the agricultural and processed food products export development authority (apeda): (http:// www.apeda.gov.in) was established by the government of india under the agricultural and processed food products export development authority with objective for improving of marketing of the scheduled products outside india, promotion of export oriented production and development of the scheduled products viz., fruits, vegetables and their products, meat and meat products, poultry and poultry products, dairy products, confectionery, biscuits and bakery products, honey and sugar products, cocoa and its products cereal and cereal products floriculture and floriculture products apeda is also mandated with the responsibility of collection of statistics from the owners of factories or establishments engaged in the production, processing, packaging and marketing. the national cooperative development corporation (ncdc) (http://www.ncdc.in) supports fruit and vegetable marketing and processing cooperatives. it is a unique organization, which not only plays a developmental role but also provides financial assistance for creating infrastructure for marketing, processing and storage of agricultural produce in the cooperative sector. national agricultural cooperative marketing federation of india ltd (nafed) (http://www.nafedindia.com): the objectives of the nafed shall be to organize, promote and develop marketing, processing and storage of agricultural, horticultural and forest produce, distribution of agricultural machinery, implements and other inputs, undertake inter-state, import and export trade, wholesale or retail as the case may be and to act and assist for technical advice in agricultural production for the promotion and the working of its members and cooperative marketing, processing and supply societies in india. national horticultural research and development foundation: (http://www.nhrdf.com): this site contains in-depth information pertaining to production and postharvest technology, data on area, production, export, market arrivals, and prices of onion, garlic and potato. agriwatch.com: (http://www.agriwatch.com) is a private enterprise by indian agribusiness systems pvt. ltd. (iasl). the agribusiness sector lacks quality of information and analysis about demand, supply, prices, market trends for various agri-commodities. the company primarily aims at filling out the information and communication gap that exists web-based market information system for horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 80 in various sub-sectors of the agricultural economy and commodities trade in particular. the company is making use of the latest developments in information technology. the objective of the company is to achieve a perfect flow of information, analyses, communication and e-commerce. the company also provide information for various participants in the agribusiness sector such as the farmers, traders, processors of agricultural outputs, suppliers of agricultural inputs etc. it provides analyses to the trade participants that will enhance their decision taking abilities in trade. the site provides commodity trading trends on various markets on grains, pulses, vegoils, oilseed, oil meal, sugar, cotton, spices, plantation crops. it provides market intelligence reports, spot market comments etc. it also provides exchange quotes viz. commodity exchange packages: oil complex, soy complex, vegoils, oilseeds, mustard seed. individual exchanges: cbot, klce, nbot, hapur, hissar and external exchanges quotes viz. nbot delayed, jakarta exchange, tocom – tokyo, nymex, cbot projections (soy oil), cbot projections (soy meal), cbot projections (soy bean). though all the above mentioned database, website, portal provides information, the main drawback is translating such information to knowledge. even if the producers do have access they may not be able to use this information effectively due to lack of tools to translate the data to meaningful conclusions. in this context mis has been developed to translate the data into interactive graphs, where price movement in markets, arrival and comparison of markets can be viewed as graphical charts where the user absorbs much easily than textual data. the human brain has the ability to easily absorb graphical representation than text. market information system on iihr website: http:// www.iihr.ernet.in/frmmarketinformation.aspx access methods and highlights: market information system (mis) developed and placed on iihr website (fig. 1) is unique in the sense it is a static data set that provides a dynamic access and utility to all users. the information seeker has an option to select the commodity, different periods of time and different markets, which results in a graphic representation of the data set. below the main graph is zoom component, which when moved highlights the selected portions on graph providing a detailed trend of price movements. the special feature of the mis is its ability to provide comparative picture of price movement in two selected markets for the selected commodity in a graphic form. such a representation provides ready and easy comparison for the information seeker. the fact that the data set sought for is also depicted in a table format below the graph itself is an additional advantage of this system. this data set can be selected, copied and pasted and printed as per the requirement of the information seeker. the data on area production and productivity of horticultural commodities at district level is a very useful and essential feature for several r& d and other government and non government organizations and researchers. such a voluminous data, easily accessible and available as graph is also first of its kind and has been presented in mis of iihr website. above all, having created the web page, the authors are confident of replicating such access to other commodities and markets as well. mis features: the market selection box (fig. 2) enables the user to choose a market. a similar selection box is provided below for comparing price prevailed at both the markets. by default, the data provided is for ten years. further to enable the user, choose predefined periods; 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, options are provided. also, the date range selection box is provided to select the specific periods, to display the data within the range. the compare options enable the comparison of two markets as line graph. the graphical comparison the enable fig 1. market information system on iihr website: displays dynamic interactive graphs of price and arrival data for horticultural crops of various markets chandra prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 81 fig 2. the selection box displayed with red borders enables the user to choose markets to view price and arrival data and compare as well the user to absorb the relative price difference between markets, this would be advantageous if the markets are accessible with the same logistic cost. the better market with price advantageous could be chosen for disposal of the produce. for example, fig. 3 shows a comparison of market prices in chennai and bangalore for a selected commodity. chennai price seems higher than bangalore market price for most period, but a sudden steep rise is seen in bangalore fig 3. compare options-price comparison of two markets chennai and bengaluru for the brinjal crop on clicking compare graph button, displays the price movement in both the markets price. this could be taken as an arbitrage advantage, as both the markets may be easily accessible for the producers located in the nearby regions and take advantage of the higher prices prevailing in a specific market. further, the graph also provides the prevailing price trends in different markets for ready reference. similarly for other crops can also be visualized for the price trend, peaks, lean and stability periods. zoom: a zoom component is provided just below the primary graph display region which enables the user to expand and contract the zoom component, (fig. 4) which in turn zoom the primary graph display area. the users are able to visualize the peaks with much clarity by zooming the date range. the years and prices are displayed in ‘x’ and ‘y’ axis, respectively. the peak price could be viewed from y axis. however, the exact data point could be obtained from the text data display box beneath the zoom component, by default, 10 years price is displayed. users can expand up to maximum data range and contract to minimum of few months. the zoom object could be moved horizontally across the 10 years to view price data of specific year too. by zooming in and out the large set of sql data translated to dynamic graph during run time, thus the user view the graph with out date range input. grid view: the grid view data panel displays tabular data that consist of crop name, month, price arrival and year. the advantage of this table view is that the data points fig. 4. zoom component a zoom object with horizontal scroll bar enables the user to zoom graphical display area by expanding and contracting the zoom object. web-based market information system for horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 82 displayed in graph with text data. the data retrieved from large set of sql database, the fig. 5 above displays table view of onion price data. it is observed that the trend of onion price is at its peak at year end around november, december and lowest at middle of the year around may, june months. the trend repeats itself year after year for the last ten years.. it clearly depicts the price trend from which the producers can schedule their cultivation and decide on the best period and market for disposal of their produce.. thus, the mis with interactive graphical charts display is first of its kind developed by the authors for horticultural commodities. the information presented in graphic format is more easily understood by one and all. the fact that the data sets provide comparison of different markets in graphical view is an added advantage as this information may be of immense use for all stakeholders involved in marketing of horticultural produce. the producer or market intermediary can compare two markets for prices and arrivals of a selected crop over the years and make decision on accessing the market which is beneficial to him. this interactive graphical chart could be further extended to statistical indicators such as simple moving averages and trend analyzing tools etc. this could be embedded with the interactive charts to make charts more dynamic. acknowledgement the authors wish to thank the naip coordinator and pi, naip agroweb project for providing funds from fig. 5. grid view data panel displays the exact text data of onion crop of bengaluru market to view data points displayed in graphs. naip project for financing this project, development of website and this paper as well, also thankful for icar and indian institute of horticultural and research, nhb and nhrdf for technical support. references agmarknet 2000 an e-governance portal connecting the farmers to their markets, microsoft sql server customer solution case study, sharad joshi, former chairman, high level task force on agriculture, govt of india, p. k. suri, national project manager, agmarknet. microsoft sql server customer solution case study, document published january, 2006, microsoft corporation. page 1-5. banker, r.d and mitra,s. 2005. impact of information technology on agricultural commodity auctions in india. twenty-sixth international conference on information systems. december 9-12, 2004, washington dc usa, page 97-107 randy schnepf, 2006. specialist in agricultural policy resources, science, and industry division, price determination in agricultural commodity markets: a primer, for background information on the underlying nature of the different commodity markets. crs report rl33204 january 6, 2006. websites/portals referred: http://www.agmarknet.nic.in/: directorate of marketing & inspection (dmi), min. of agriculture, govt of india. http://www.apccsec.org asian & pacific coconut community (apcc) http://www.fao.org food and agriculture organization (fao) http://www.nmce.com national multi-commodity exchange of india ltd (nmce) http://www.maratavahini.kar.nic.in, karnataka state agricultural marketing department/board http://rsamb.rajasthan.gov.in/ the rajasthan state agricultural marketing board http://megamb.gov.in/: the government of meghalaya has set up two secondary regulated markets in the state. http://www.mpmandiboard.org/: the madhya pradesh state agricultural marketing board. http://www.ccsniam.gov.in/: national institute of agricultural marketing http://www.manage.gov.in/: national institute of agricultural extension management http://nhb.gov.in/: national horticulture board http://www.apeda.gov.in the agricultural and processed food products export development authority (apeda) chandra prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 83 http://www.ncdc.in/: the national cooperative development corporation (ncdc) http://www.nafed-india.com: national agricultural cooperative marketing federation of india ltd (nafed) http://www.nhrdf.com: national horticultural research and development foundation http://www.agriwatch.com: agriwatch.com databases referred and data sources: indian horticulture database by national horticulture board (nhb), govt. of india ‘area, production and yield of principal crops in india’, directorate of economics and statistics, ministry of agriculture “faostat” online database from food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao) agricultural produce market committee, bijapur, hubli, dharwad and bangalore, karnataka agricultural produce market committee, madurai tamilnadu directorate of economics and statistics department, karnataka and tamilnadu directorate of horticultural department, karnataka and tamilnadu (ms received 17 march 2010, revised 16 june 2011) web-based market information system for horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):76-83, 2011 light trap, an effective component of integrated management of tuta absoluta(lepidoptera : gelechiidae) on tomato v. sridhar*1 and g. senthil kumaran2 1division of entomology and nematology, 2division of post-harvest technology and agricultural engineering, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru – 560 089 *e-mail: sridhar.v@ icar.org.in abstract the effectiveness of mass trapping the moths of tuta absoluta was evaluated using light traps in tomato polyhouse at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during march june, 2018. various colours of light sources were evaluated for their efficacy in attracting the moths. of different coloured light sources evaluated, yellow and white (bluish) were found relatively effective for attraction of the moths. the efficacy of mass trapping was further evaluated and incandescent yellow bulb of 60 w was found most efficient in attracting both sexes of tuta moths. thus light traps can be an effective tool for ipm of this pest on tomato, under polyhouse conditions. key words: tuta absoluta, light trap, mass trapping short communication introduction insect attraction to different light sources is a known fact and light trapping is an ideal method for surveying nocturnal moth population. light trap collections provide a significant clue to understand the diversity of nocturnal insects which differ in their affinity to varied wavelengths of light (southwood and henderson, 2000). as an alternative to chemical based pest management, light traps have been used in dif f er en t c ou nt r ies in p es t ma na gement (srivastava et al., 1992; oliveira et al., 2008; ma et al., 2009). in india, tuta absoluta (lepidoptera: gelechiidae) has been reported from karnataka and maharashtra during 2014 and has further spread to all the ma jor tomato-growing r egions/states (sridhar et al., 2014;swathi et al., 2017). the pest can cause up to 100% crop loss in both greenhouse and open field cultivated tomato. the leaf-mining habit of this pest makes chemical or biological control more difficult. as an alternative, mass trapping could be useful in the management of t.absoluta. light traps are advantageous over pheromone traps as they attract both male and female moths (cocco et al., 2012). information on type of light source effective against t. absoluta is scanty. hence, the present study was conducted to identify the visible range for the maximum attraction of t. absoluta adults. the trials were conducted in a tomato polyhouse located at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during march – june 2018. initially, different light sources in the visible spectrum (wavelength of 390 – 700 nano meters) were screened for attracting tomato moth, t. absoluta during march 2018.based on initial evaluation results, different bulbs viz., led 8w; incandescent bulb (15w, 40w, 60w) and cfl 10w which attracted relatively more moths of t. absoluta were installed in the tomato polyhouse. the tomato crop was 50 days old after transplanting and was in flowering stage when the light traps were installed. the observations/counts on number of moths trapped were taken daily for 5 days to assess the best source of light attracting maximum number of tuta moths. the number of males and females attracted to the light source were differentiated based on the size and wing colour pattern and also based on genetalia. incandescent (yellow) bulb was found most effective followed by white (bluish) in attracting tuta moths. of all the bulbs under study, incandescent (yellow) 60 w bulb attracted maximum number of tuta j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 126-128, 2018 126 127 sridhar and senthil kumaran j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 126-128, 2018 adults i.e., 2953 catches within 5 days when compared to other sources of light tested (table 1, fig. 1 & 2). of the total catch, up to 46 per cent catch of the moths constitutes females and thus use of light traps can be an effective tool in the integrated management of t. absoluta. light traps have been effectively used for the management of pests in cotton and rice (srivastava et al., 1992; ma et al., 2009). as the light traps can also attract some of the natural enemies, there is a need to study the peak activity of the pest, so that timer based automated (switch on and off) light traps can be designed, which can minimise trapping of natural enemies. table 1. relative catches of t. absoluta moths in different light traps source of day 1 day 2 day 3 day 4 day 5 males females light/bulb* (12/5/18) (13/5/18) (14/5/18) (15/5/18) (16/5/18) total (%) (%) led 8 w (bluish 170 770 492 454 318 2204 54 46 white) incandescent 15 w 130 250 225 410 201 1216 55 45 (yellow) incandescent 40 w 150 350 330 390 140 1360 55 45 (yellow) incandescent 60 w 260 892 671 820 310 2953 54 46 (yellow) cfl 10 w 130 495 352 410 158 1545 58 42 (milky white) *per cent female catches in these light traps ranged from 42 46 %. fig 1. light trap installed in tomato polyhouse fig 2. tuta moths attracted to 60 w yellow incandescent light from the present study, we conclude that, incandescent (yellow) 60 w bulb can be used as an efficient tool/component in ipm for management of t. absoluta on tomato, under polyhouse condition. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the director, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru for providing facilities. 128 light traps for tuta management j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 126-128, 2018 references (ms received 06 june 2018, revised 17 june 2018, accepted 29 june 2018) southwood, t. r. e. and henderson, p. a. 2000.ecological methods. blackwell science, uk, p 269 292. sridhar, v., chakravarthy, a. k., asokan, r., vinesh, l. s., rebijith, k. b. and vennila. s. 2014. new record of the invasive south american tomato leaf miner, tuta absoluta(meyrick) (lepidoptera: gelechiida e) in india . pest manag. hort. ecosys.,20:148-154. srivastava,v.k., diwakar, m. c. and pawar, a. d. 1992. light trap and rice pest management. plant prot. bull.(faridabad),44: 39–41. swathi, p., swathi, b., das, s.b., sridhar, v., giribabu, o., g. snehalatha, g., neelesh raypuriya. 2017. first report of south american tomato leaf miner, tuta absoluta (meyrick) from madhya pradesh, india. pest manag. hort. ecosys., 23:92-93. cocco, a., deliperi, s. and delrio, g. 2012. potentia l of ma ss tr a pping f or tuta absol uta management in greenhouse tomato crops using light and heromone traps. integrated control in protected crops, mediterranean climate. iobc-wprs bul., 80: 319-324. ma, c.s., ma, g., chang, x.q. and yang, h.p. 2009. environment-friendly methods for controlling cotton bollworm moths, helicoverpa armigera. chin. j. environ. entomol.,31: 220–226. oliveira, a.c., veloso, v.r., barros, r.g., fernandes, p.m. and souza, e.r. 2008. capture of tuta absoluta (meyrick) (lepidoptera: gelechiidae) with light trap in tomato crop. pesq. agropec. trop.,38: 153–157. banana is a major fruit crop of gujarat state making up 17% of the total area under fruit crops and accounts for about 53% of the total fruit production in the state (anon., 2007). many varieties of banana are under cultivation in this region but no systematic studies have been conducted to screen them for high yield. therefore, the present study was undertaken to evaluate improved cultivars of banana for their suitability for cultivation in saurashtra region of gujarat. the present investigation was undertaken during the period 2000-06 at the lalbagh fruit research station, department of horticulture, junagadh agricultural university, junagadh. six varieties of banana viz., basrai, harichal, robusta, gros michel, gandevi selection and lacatan were evaluated in a randomized block design with three replications at a spacing of 1.8 x 1.8 m. plants were grown with uniform cultural practices. five plants of each variety in each replication were used for recording data on growth characters, duration of the crop, yield and quality performance of banana cultivars in gujarat d.v. delvadia, t.r. ahlawat, r.s. chovatia and a.v. barad department of horticulture junagadh agricultural university, junagadh-362 001, india e-mail: tahlawat@jau.in abstract field experiments were conducted for three years to assess the performance and select the cultivar ideally suited to saurashtra region in gujarat. the cultivars evaluated were basrai, harichal, robusta, gros michel, gandevi selection and lacatan. of these, gandevi selection proved superior, with regard to growth parameters, yield characters and its attributes. it also yielded the highest benefit cost ratio. key words: evaluation, banana, cultivars, growth, yield parameters and statistically analyzed. the tss was estimated using a hand refractometer and values were expressed in obrix. the pooled analyses of data of three season’s trials are presented in table 1, 2 and 3. significant differences were observed among the different varieties for all characters studied except fruit girth. significant variation in growth and yield of banana varieties was reported earlier by singh et al (1996). the data on growth, flowering and maturity characters of different varieties of banana are given in table 1. the results revealed that the maximum plant height (2.08 m) was recorded in gandevi selection which was on par with gros michel (2.07 m) while, the lowest plant height (1.71 m) was recorded in basrai. similarly, the highest stem girth (81.98 cm) was registered in gandevi selection which was again at par with gros michel (79.06 cm). the lowest stem girth (54.07 cm) was observed in lacatan. number of leaves per plant ranged from 24.43 in gandevi selection to 20.73 in lacatan. lacatan also table 1. growth, flowering and maturity characters of different varieties of banana varieties plant height (m) stem girth (cm) no. of leaves/plant days to flowering days to maturity basrai 1.71 65.04 20.74 307.25 398.00 harichal 1.77 69.18 21.02 327.00 421.75 robusta 1.90 71.56 21.72 303.08 404.92 gros michel 2.07 79.06 22.83 336.42 443.08 gandevi sel. 2.08 81.98 24.43 395.00 522.92 lacatan 1.90 54.07 20.73 300.83 388.58 cd (p=0.05) 0.12 4.99 1.70 4.26 5.93 cv % 4.83 6.42 5.63 7.68 4.78 y x t ns ns ns n s ns ns: non-significant short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 166-168, 2008 167 registered minimum number of days to flowering (300.83) and days to maturity (388.58). at the other end of the spectrum, gandevi selection recorded the highest number of days to flowering (395) and days to maturity (522.92). evaluation of varieties for yield parameters (table 2) revealed that gandevi selection recorded the highest yield (72.53 t/ha), heaviest bunch weight (23.50 kg), maximum number of hands (10.89 per bunch) and number of fingers (178.66 per bunch). the higher fruit yield in gandevi selection was due to heavier bunch weight and more number of hands and fingers. these results are in general agreement with earlier findings. vijayaraghavakumar et al (1984) reported that number of fingers influenced the yield of banana directly. kurian et al (1985) reported a strong positive correlation of fruit yield with number of hands, number of fingers, number of leaves per plant, stem girth and total duration of the crop. on the contrary, basrai recorded the lowest yield (42.25 t/ha), bunch weight (13.04 kg) and minimum number of fingers (85.67/bunch) as compared to other varieties. studies on fruit characters (table 3) indicated that robusta recorded the highest fruit weight (138.33 g) and length of fruit (21.67 cm) while, gandevi selection recorded the lowest fruit weight (117.88 g) and fruit length (18.59 cm). fruit girth was found non-significant. evaluation of varieties for quality characters revealed maximum pulp to peel ratio and tss (3.46 and 19.15%) in gros michel (table 3). pulp to peel ratio was the least (2.99) in robusta and tss was lowest in harichal. the minimum (15.31%) weight loss due to ripening was observed in basrai and the maximum (17.35%) was observed in gros michel. the economics of cultivation under different varieties indicated that gandevi selection recorded the highest yield (72.53 t/ha) with the cost of cultivation of rs.78,693/ha. the net income was rs.1,38,897/ha, with a bcr of 1:2.77 which was the highest amongst all the varieties (table 4). table 2. performance of different varieties of banana with respect to fruit yield and its attributes varieties yield weight of no. of hands no. of fingers (ton/ha) bunch (kg) /bunch /bunch basrai 40.20 13.04 7.77 85.67 harichal 49.44 16.02 8.22 116.08 robusta 46.85 15.18 7.62 104.68 gros michel 59.64 19.28 8.58 130.17 gandevi sel. 72.53 23.50 10.89 178.66 lacatan 46.29 15.00 7.73 112.24 c d (p=0.05) 6.69 2.176 0.581 10.996 cv % 6.86 6.673 8.688 5.364 y x t n.s. ns n. s. n.s. ns: non-significant table 3. fruit and quality characters of different varieties of banana varieties av. fruit fruit length fruit girth weight loss pulp skin ratio tss weight(g) (cm) (cm) due to ripening (%) (%) basrai 133.83 20.47 13.05 15.31 3.13 18.78 harichal 124.10 18.82 12.94 16.11 3.08 18.48 robusta 138.33 21.67 13.05 15.96 2.99 19.01 gros michel 128.73 20.14 13.28 17.35 3.46 19.15 gandevi sel. 117.88 18.59 12.45 15.58 3.21 18.74 lacatan 128.44 20.71 13.36 16.48 3.14 18.54 cd (p=0.05) 7.54 0.77 n. s. n.s. 0.21 0.42 cv % 4.48 4.66 4.35 2.45 3.80 2.17 y x t ns ns ns ns ns ns ns: non-significant table 4. economics of different varieties of banana sl. no varieties yield of banana(t/ha) total cost(rs./ha) gross income(rs/ha) net income(rs/ha) cbr 1. basrai 42.25 74064 126750 52686 1:1.71 2. harichal 49.44 74064 148320 74256 1:2.00 3. robusta 46.86 74064 140580 66516 1:1.90 4. gros michel 59.46 74064 178380 104316 1:2.41 5. gandevi sel. 72.53 78693 217590 138897 1:2.77 6. lacatan 46.30 74064 138900 64836 1:1.88 * the cost of planting materials, labour, fertilizers, irrigation, cultivation and other expenditure was considered to be rs.24/plant * the market price of banana fruits was considered as rs.3000/ton performance of banana cultivars in gujarat j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 166-168, 2008 168 (ms received 14 march 2008, revised 17 november 2008) based on trials conducted over a period of three years, it could be inferred that gandevi selection was superior to the other varieties in terms growth characters, fruit yield and associated traits. gandevi selection also recorded the highest benefit cost ratio and therefore may be recommended for cultivation in the saurashtra region of gujarat. references anonymous. 2007. district-wise area and production of horticultural crops in gujarat state. directorate of horticulture, gujarat state, gandhinagar kurian, t.m., prabhakaran, p.v. and varkey, p.a. 1985. path coefficient analysis in nendran variety of banana. south ind. hort., 33:1-5 singh, d.b., sharma, t.v.r.s. and suryanarayana, m.a. 1996. evaluation of banana cultivars under rainfed condition in andamans. south ind. hort., 44:90-92 vijayaraghavakumar, george, k.c. and krishan nair, n. 1984. comparative study of the contribution of biometric characters on yield in desert varieties of banana. agric. res. j. kerala, 22:155-160 delvadia et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 166-168, 2008 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 166-173, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction the demand for processed tropical fruit products is increasing in domestic and international markets, however less tha n 15 fr uits a re commer cially processed. as these fruits are seasonal and perishable in nature, their seasonal surpluses in different regions a re wasted in bulk due to impr oper ha ndling, distribution, marketing, and inadequate storage facilities. for this reason, fruits in excess need immediate processing for value-added products to minimize postharvest losses, which are about 30–35% according to national horticultural board. (nhb 2016). the bael is increasingly becoming an important crop in functional food production and is of economic importance. although the pulp is mainly consumed fresh, the juice prepared from bael fruit was rich in bioactive compounds such as carotenoids, phenols, alkaloids, coumarins, flavonoids, terpenoids and other antioxidants (thakur, 2014). fruit beverages are processed food products that are conveniently used and liked by all age group consumers. they also provide a better chance of meeting the daily requirement of nutrients in a healthy diet. there are many different product variants marketed in india, such as sweetened carbonated soft drinks, clarified juice beverages, pulpy beverages, and soda water. among these non-alcoholic beverages, the share of fruit-based beverages is pr esently very sma ll as compa red to synthetic carbonated beverages. consumers are now gradually shifting towards the consumption of natural fruit-based bever ages because of their nutritional qua lity, medicinal importance, and good calorific value over synthetic beverages). the advantage of rts beverage is that there is no need to dilute it further with a required quantity of water, unlike other concentrated beverages such as squash, or syrup, which are diluted judiciously with water before consumption. at present, bael is an underutilized fruit in india and has a limited shelf life in fresh form. therefore, there is a need for processing it into a value-added product like rts beverage with extended storage life so that the product can be consumed throughout the year and consumers may relish its unique taste and flavour and quench their thirst. the demand for natural fruit-based beverages with high nutritional value and other health-imparting attributes are immense in the global market. development and evaluation of ready to serve (rts) beverage from bael (aegle marmelose correa.) udayakumar k.p.1*, kanupriya chaturvedi2, swamy g.s.k.1 anuradha sane2, pritee singh2 and suresh g.j.1 1department of fruit science, college of horticulture, bengaluru 560 065, india 2division of fruit crops, icar-iihr, bengaluru 560 089, india *corresponding author e-mail : udaypkumar2897@gmail.com abstract a research study was carried out to develop a rts beverage by exploiting the nutritional and organoleptic properties of bael fruit pulp. six treatment combinationsof bael rts with 10, 15 and 20% of pulp concentration and 10 and 15°b of tss were prepared based on the review of literature. the biochemical and organoleptic properties of the prepared rts were evaluated during storage. the ph, ascorbic acid and antioxidant activity of the rts decreased with the storage, while acidity and total sugars increased. results of the sensory evaluation showed that there was a significant difference between treatments in terms of color, flavor, taste, body and overall acceptability. from the results of quality assessments, the formulated bael rts beverage with 15% pulp and 15°b tss was found to be superior and suitable for consumption up to 12 weeks without any significant changes in the quality characteristics. keywords: bael, beverage, biochemical, nutritional, organoleptic properties and rts 167 ready to serve beverage from bael j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 166-173, 2022 bael (aegle marmelose correa.) is one of the ancient, nutritious minor fruit crops that belongs to the family rutaceae. indo-malayan region is believed to be the centre of origin of this tree and it is found growing in many south east asian countries including sri lanka, pakistan, nepal, bangladesh, myanmar, vietnam, thailand, cambodia, malaysia, philippines, java and fiji. the tree grows up to 6-8m height, leaves are trifoliate and deciduous in nature, fruits are aromatic, bark is thick, branches are spiny in some varieties and lower branches are drooping. young leaf of the tree is glossy shiny and pinkish maroon in color, the flowers are bisexual, 4 curved fleshy petals with green outside and yellowish inside, fragrant having sweet aroma, cluster blooming (4-7), and stamens are 50 or more in number. fruits are hard-shelled berries, greenish yellow inearly immature stage and turn yellow when mature. it consists of thin or hard woody or soft rind dotted with oil glands, a hard central core with triangular segments and dark orange walls. segments of fruit are filled with aromatic pale orange, pasty, sweet resinous, more or less astringent pulp, seeds are embedded in the pulp, have round-oblong structure bearing woolly hairs and each enclosed in a sac of adhesive, transparent mucilage that solidifies on drying. the shape and size of the fruit varies with varieties and round, pyriform, oval, or oblong fruit shape having 5-20 cm diameter have been reported. the bael is well-known for its organoleptic properties with special reference to its unique flavour and color. the pulp is highly nutritious and very good source of vitamins, minerals, fiber and pectin (table 1). further, the bael fruit was found to be antispasmodic, diuretic, antiseptic, sedative, and analgesi. epidemiological studies revealed that increased consumption of bael could lead to lower the risk of developing chronic degenerative diseases (reddy et al., 2010). studies indicate that consumption of bael have a significant effect on blood glucose and lipid parameters and bael can alleviate the symptoms of diabetes in a natural manner (sharma et al., 2016). therefore, the present study was focused with an objective to optimize the process conditions for the preparation of rts beverage from bael fruit and to eva lua te the physicochemica l a nd sensor y characteristics during storage period. materials and methods preparation of rts beverage of bael fruit the ripe bael fruits were collected from the iihr field gene bank and washed with tap water in the laboratory. the fruits were opened by hitting with hammer due to its hard outer shell. the fruit pulp along with seeds and fiber was scooped with the help of stainless-steel spoon manually. amount of water equal to the weight of pulp was added. the mixture was heated up to 70°c for 1min and cooled. the pulp was then passed through stainless-steel sieve (800µm) to separate seeds and fibres. the beverage was prepared by varying the pulp concentration and tss. acidity was maintained at 0.3% and kms was added at 120ppm in all the treatmentsas per the formulations given bellow. experimental formulations for rts preparation t110% bael fruit pulp + 10°b tss with sugar syrup. t210% bael fruit pulp + 15°b tss with sugar syrup. t315% bael fruit pulp + 10°b tss with sugar syrup. t415% bael fruit pulp + 15°b tss with sugar syrup. t520% bael fruit pulp + 10°b tss with sugar syrup. t620% bael fruit pulp + 10°b tss with sugar syrup. the requisite amount of sugar and citric acid were dissolved in requisite amount of water to prepare sugar syrup in heating condition and then mixed with bael fruit pulp in rts beverage. it was removed from the gas burner and was allowed to cool for 10 min at room temperature of 28 30°c. subsequently, 70 ppm of kms was added and mixed well with the solution. just after addition of kms, hot filling was done into already oven sterilized (160°c for 45 min) glass bottles and caped with stopper immediately. the sealed bottles were put on the hot water bath at 80°c for 30min for pasteurization. then bottles were removed from the hot water bath and allowed to cool. determination of sensory properties sensory evaluation was conducted to evaluate the organoleptic properties of the rts by semi-trained panelists. the color, taste, flavor, body and overall acceptability was evaluated using 9 points hedonic scale. samples were evaluated between 10.00 to 11.00am for morning session and 2.00 to 3.00 pm for evening session for effective assessment by the panelists. each panelist was asked to evaluate the 168 udayakumar et al samples which were arranged randomly to judge the organoleptic properties. the samples were served to the panelist at 10°c as this temperature is commonly used for serving rts. quality analysis of ready to serve (rts) ph the ph of the sample was taken using a ph meter (model: eutech instruments-ph tutor, singapore). twenty ml of the rts beverage sample was taken to dip the calibrated electrode of the ph meter and the observations were recorded in triplicate for each sample. titratable acidity acidity was determined by titration method (aoac, 942.15, 2000). homogenized sample of 5 g was mixed with distilled water, squeezed through a muslin cloth and volume was made up to 50 ml. a known volume of the filtrate (25 ml) was titrated against 0.01n naoh using 0.5% phenolphthalein (3 to 4 drops) as indica tor. acidity wa s ca lculated a s percentage of citric acid equivalent using citric acid standard curve. tv. (ml) × n naoh × volume(ml) × eq. wt. (citric acid) titratable acidity (%) = ×100 sample weight (g) × aliquot taken (ml) × 1000 ascorbic acid ascorbic acid content wa s deter mined by 2, 6dichlorophenol indophenol method (aoac, 967.21, 2006). about 5ml of sample was mixed with 4% oxalic acid solution and volume was made up to 50 ml and was then estimated by titrating a 25ml of the extract a gainst dcpip. vitamin c content was calculated as mg of ascorbic acid per 100ml rts using a standard curve of l-ascorbic acid. total sugar total sugar was estimated by the standard method of aoac (1980). the sugar extract was hydrolysed with concentrated hydrochloric acid and titrated against 10ml of mixed fehling’s solution (5ml fehling a + 5ml fehling solution b) using methylene blue as indicator. results were expressed as per cent total sugar. total antioxidant activity 2, 2 – diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (dpph)assay was done according to the method of williams et al. (1995) with some modifications. the dpph stock solution was prepared by dissolving 19.7 mg of dpph in 100 ml of 80% methanol. rts (200 µl) was allowed to react with 50 µl of dpph solution for 30 min in dark conditions. readings were taken at 517 nm. the calibration curve was linear from 50 to 500 µl of trolox. the results were expressed in µm trolox equivalents (µm t e/g dr y weight). additiona l dilutions were made when the values obtained from the samples were outside the linear range of the calibration curve. sensory evaluation (9-point hedonic scale) samples of appetizers were presented to a panel of 8 judges. for evaluating the rts, nine-point hedonic scale was used. the samples were served at room temperature. statistical analysis biochemical and quality analysis data were subjected to statistical analysis, level of significance (los). cr itical differ ence (cd) at 5 per cent level of pr oba bility wa s used for compa r ison a mong treatments. the results were presented by way of tables. analysis of quantitative data (biochemical and quality analysis) was done in statistical tool opstat, statistical software. results and discussion qualitative analysis of ready to serve (rts) beverage from fruit pulp of bael ph there was a significant decrease in ph during storage (table 1). this might be due to increase in acidity, as acidity and ph are inversely proportional to each other. it was observed that the maximum ph (3.38) was recorded in t2 (10% pulp + 15°brix). the decrease in ph was due to increase in titrable acidity which affects the organoleptic quality of juice. similar effect of ingredients on ph of the value-added product of fruit was observed by jain and nema (2007), elbelazi et al. (2015). titratable acidity there was a significant increase in acidity content dur ing stora ge (table 1). it was observed that maximum acidity (0.53%) was recorded in t5 (20% pulp + 10° brix). the minimum increase (0.36%) in acidity was observed in t1 treatment which might be due to addition of citric acid. similar effect of ingredients on titratable acidity of value-added product of fruit was observed by jain and nema (2007), elbelazi et al. (2015), asghar et al. (2016). j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 166-173, 2022 169 table 1. influence of pulp level and tss on physio-chemical attributes of bael rts. titrable ascorbic total total antioxidant treatments ph acidity acid sugar activity (%) (mg/100 ml) (%) (mg aeac/100ml) t1: 10% pulp + 10°brix 3.35 0.28 30.54 22.18 81.58 t2: 10% pulp + 15°brix 3.38 0.31 32.42 22.59 82.60 t3: 15% pulp + 10°brix 3.22 0.34 34.50 23.20 83.52 t4: 15% pulp + 15°brix 3.23 0.38 37.60 23.54 84.52 t5: 20% pulp + 10°brix 3.05 0.45 44.50 24.05 86.90 t6: 20% pulp + 15°brix 3.00 0.42 41.50 24.34 85.50 mean 3.21 0.36 36.84 23.32 84.10 sem± 0.070 0.008 0.817 0.074 0.768 cd at 5% 0.211 0.024 2.447 0.221 2.301 4 weeks after storage t1: 10% pulp + 10°brix 3.32 0.30 30.00 22.90 81.08 t2: 10% pulp + 15°brix 3.34 0.34 31.95 23.34 82.13 t3: 15% pulp + 10°brix 3.21 0.37 33.94 23.90 83.03 t4: 15% pulp + 15°brix 3.20 0.41 37.15 24.28 84.04 t5: 20% pulp + 10°brix 3.02 0.48 43.98 24.75 86.42 t6: 20% pulp + 15°brix 2.98 0.45 40.97 25.04 84.97 mean 3.178 0.392 36.332 24.036 83.612 sem± 0.067 0.008 0.764 0.501 1.741 cd at 5% 0.199 0.024 2.287 n/a n/a 8 weeks after storage t1: 10% pulp + 10°brix 3.29 0.33 29.54 23.65 80.54 t2: 10% pulp + 15°brix 3.30 0.36 31.46 24.15 81.64 t3: 15% pulp + 10°brix 3.17 0.40 33.39 24.65 82.51 t4: 15% pulp + 15°brix 3.18 0.45 36.65 25.00 83.56 t5: 20% pulp + 10°brix 3.00 0.50 43.48 25.40 85.94 t6: 20% pulp + 15°brix 2.95 0.47 40.48 25.81 84.45 mean 3.149 0.419 35.833 24.777 83.107 sem± 0.065 0.009 0.752 0.516 1.731 cd at 5% 0.196 0.026 2.252 n/a n/a 12 weeks after storage t1: 10% pulp + 10°brix 3.25 0.36 28.03 24.19 80.02 t2: 10% pulp + 15°brix 3.27 0.39 30.89 24.90 81.06 t3: 15% pulp + 10°brix 3.15 0.43 32.85 25.35 82.00 t4: 15% pulp + 15°brix 3.16 0.48 35.98 25.78 83.08 t5: 20% pulp + 10°brix 2.98 0.53 42.94 26.18 85.48 t6: 20% pulp + 15°brix 2.92 0.49 39.95 26.52 83.97 mean 3.122 0.447 35.107 25.487 82.602 sem± 0.065 0.009 0.739 0.531 1.719 cd at 5% 0.195 0.027 2.212 n/a n/a ready to serve beverage from bael j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 166-173, 2022 170 ascorbic acid content the ascorbic acid (vitamin c) content of the juice decreased during storage with the advancement of storage period, which was probably due to the fact that ascorbic acid being sensitive to oxygen, light and heat gets easily oxidized in presence of oxygen by both enzymatic and non-enzymatic catalyst. maximum ascorbic acid content (44.50 mg/100 ml juice) was recorded in t5 initially, and decreased to 42.94 mg/100 ml juice at the end of the storage. each ingredient used in preparation of rts has its own organic acid composition which affect the ascorbic acid of rts. jain and nema (2007) and abhangrao et al. (2017) also reported the similar effect of ingredients on ascorbic acid content of the fruit-based value-added product. total sugars the results revealed that the total sugars content wa s significantly affected a s a result the total sugars content in the juice increased apparently during storage (table 1), which might be due to hydrolysis of polysaccharides into monosaccharide a nd oligos a ccha r ides. t he minimu m incr ea se (24.19%) in total sugar content was recorded in t 1 treatment. the change in total sugar content of beverage was almost negligible during storage, the different ingredients used for rts preparation vary in their total sugar content which affects the total sugar content of rts. the effect of ingredients on total sugar of other value-added products was also reported by asghar et al. (2016) in functional bael jam and chauhan et al. (2016) in bael vermouth. total antioxidant activity decreased antioxidant activity in the juice was observed during storage (table 1), which might be due to increase in pulp content. the maximum total a ntioxida nt a ctivity r ecor ded in t 5 (86. 90 mg aeac/100ml); the minimum tota l a ntioxidant activity recorded in t1 (81.58 mg aeac/100ml). the different pulp concentration used for rts preparation vary in their antioxidant activity which affects the total antioxidant content of rts. similar effect of ingredients on antioxidant activity of the value-a dded product of fr uit wa s observed by asghar et al. (2016), bhatt and verma (2016), chauhan et al. (2016), and bisen et al. (2017). sensory evaluation sensory assessment is a scientific discipline that uses the concepts of exper imenta l design a nd statistical analysis to evaluate consumer products through the use of human senses (sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing). it necessitates the use of human assessors, who test the product and keep track of the r esults. it is ther efore feasible to genera te insights and judgments about the products under test by using statistical approaches to the results acquired from human assessors. it is the final judge of a p r odu ct ’s qu a lit y f r om t he c ons u mer ’s per s pect ive, a nd it is a significa nt f a c tor in determining quality. it’s all about the product’s c olou r, f la vou r, t a s t e, t ex t u r e, a nd over a ll acceptability. rts sensory evaluation is described in depth in the following sections (table 2). table 2. influence of pulp level and tss on sensory evaluation (9-point hedonic scale) scores of bael rts. treatments colour flavour taste body overall acceptability t1: 10% pulp + 10°brix 6.45 6.40 6.45 6.10 6.60 t2: 10% pulp + 15°brix 6.65 6.65 6.70 6.90 7.05 t3: 15% pulp + 10°brix 6.80 6.25 6.10 6.65 6.85 t4: 15% pulp + 15°brix 7.60 7.30 7.6 7.10 7.70 t5: 20% pulp + 10°brix 7.60 7.00 7.20 7.05 7.30 t6: 20% pulp + 15°brix 7.65 6.90 6.85 6.95 7.15 mean 7.13 6.75 6.81 6.79 7.10 sem± 0.065 0.062 0.142 0.141 0.148 cd at 5% 0.196 0.185 0.425 0.423 0.443 udayakumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 166-173, 2022 171 a thing that can sense when it is in the mouth. taste is impor tant for accepta bility of a ny pr oduct. similar effect of ingredients on the bael based value added product was reported by liyanaduragc et al. (2007), kaur and kochhar (2017), body body differed significantly among the treatments with mean value of 6.79 (table 2). maximum body recorded in t4 (7.1) which was on par with t5 (7.05), t-6(6.95) and t-2(6.9). the minimum value for an attribute body was recorded in t1 (6.1). body is another important sensory parameter to judge the quality of product. the body parameters are perceived with the sense of touch or either when the product is picked up by hand or placed in the mouth a nd swirled. simila r effect on body of different bael based value added product was found by liyanaduragc et al. (2007), pingale and dighe (2015), overall acceptability overall acceptability differed significantly among the treatments with mean value of 7.1 (table 2). maximum overall acceptability recorded in t4 (7.7) which was on par with t5 (7.3). the minimum overa ll a ccepta bility r ecor ded in t 1 (6.6). the colour and appearance decides the first purchase of the product but ultimately the overall acceptability of the product is the most important factor for its further future purchase. a similar effect on overall acceptability of different bael based value added product was found by liyanaduragc et al. (2007), pingale and dighe (2015), conclusion this research was designed to utilize the bael fruit pulp to formulate rts beverage. the range of pulp and sugar concentration used for the development of rts beverage was in combination of 10, 15 and 20% pulp and 10 and 15ºb tss. rts beverage formulation with 15% pulp and 15ºb having ph 3.23, acidity 0.38%, ascorbic acid 37.60 mg/100g, total sugar 23.54%, and total antioxidant activity of 84.52 mg aeac/100ml was found best. the rts beverage t4 with 15% pulp and 15ºb showed highest overall acceptability (7.7) along with colour 7.60, flavour 7.30, taste 7.6 and body 7.10. appearance/colour appearance/colour differed significantly among the treatments with mea n va lue of 7.13 (table 2). maximum appearance/ colour recorded in t6 (7.65) which was on par with t4 (7.6) and t5 (7.6). the minimum a p pea r a nc e/ c olour r ecor ded in t 1 (6.45).the colour attracts the consumers towards the product and can help in impulse purchases. at the p oint of pur cha se, consumer s use mostly a ppea r ance fa ctor a s a n indica tion of qua lity. colour is derived from the natural pigments present in fruits. the primary pigments which impart colour are the fat-soluble chlorophylls (green), carotenoids (orange, yellow and red) and the water-soluble anthocyanins (red, blue), flavonoids (yellow), and betalains (red). an effect of ingredients on colour of product was reported by kaur and kochhar (2017), thukral (2017) and ullikashi et al. (2017). t he best p r oduct with r espec t to c olour wa s obtained when 50% level of aonla pulp and 50% of bael pulp were used for preparation of mixed fruit leather by uttarwar et al. (2018). flavour flavour differed significantly among the treatments with mean value of 6. 75 (table 2). maximum flavour was recorded in t4 (7.3) and the minimum flavour was recorded in t 3 (6.25). flavour is a mingled but a unitary experience which includes sensations of taste, smell, and pressure. flavour is typically described by aroma and taste. similar findings on effect of ingredients on flavour of bael based value added product was reported by kaur and kochhar (2017), thukral (2017) and ullikashi et al. (2017). similar effect was also reported by uttarwar et al. (2018) in preparation of mixed fruit leather and the highest score obtained from 50% level of aonla pulp and 50% of bael pulp with respect to flavour. taste taste differed significantly among the treatments with mean value of 6.81 (table 2). maximum taste recorded in t4 (7.6) was on par with t5 (7.2). the minimum taste wa s r ecor ded in t 3 (6. 1). t he sensation that is perceived in the mouth and throat on contact with a substance is called as taste. it includes the sweet, sour, salty and bitter quality of ready to serve beverage from bael j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 166-173, 2022 172 reference a.o.a.c., 1980. official methods of analysis. edn. 1 3 . as s oc i a t ion of o ff ic ia l ana lyt ic a l chemist, washington, d. c. abhangrao, a.k., naidu, a.k., deshmukh, m., yadlod, s.s. and deshmukh, s., 2017. effect of recipes and cultivars on standardization of guava r.t.s. int. j. curr. microbio. and app. sci.,6(4): 1335-1341. asghar, n., imran, m., mushtaq, z., ahmad, r.s., k ha n, m . 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(received: 30.12.2021; revised: 04.02.2022; accepted: 04.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 190-198, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) is an important and widely grown crop in the philippines (philippine sta tistics author ity, 2019). toma to fr uit is a climacteric fruit, and its stages of maturity or ripeness are measurable through its color from green mature to red stage (quinet et al., 2019). ripening of tomato is also associated with the fruit maturity stage and physico-chemical properties such as firmness, fresh weight loss (tilahun et al., 2017a), polyphenol content, and antioxidant scavenging activity (anton et al., 2017). maintaining the good postharvest quality of tomatoes during storage is a big problem in developing tropical countries. tomato fruit metabolizes faster at high temperatures during the postharvest stage leading to shortened shelf life (liberty et al., 2017). the evaporative cooling system uses a process that can maintain a low temperature and higher relative humidity storage conditions as heat is removed from the ambient environment with evaporation (vanndy et al., 2008). this storage system has been tested on tomato varieties in combodia and laos (vanndy et al., 2008); and sweet pepper in the philippines (bayogan et al., 2017; majomot et al., 2019). the above studies have demonstrated the promising effects of the evaporative cooling storage system on the maintenance of the postharvest qualities of some crops. the brickwalled evaporative cooler (bec) is a simple type of evaporative cooling system. the bec is made up of a double wall of clay bricks with a moistened jute sack-covered wooden frame over the structure (vanndy et al., 2008). the double-walled bec has a 10-20 cm space between the walls filled with sand or sawdust being kept moist during use. this brick-walled evaporative cooling technology is known to be costefficient and easy to construct. the study aimed to evaluate the quality of tomatoes using the brick-walled evapor ative cooler a s a stora ge system and to determine the cost and benefit of its use relative to ambient storage. the use of brick-walled evaporative cooler for storage of tomato bayogan e.r.v.*, secretaria l.b., lequigan d.b. and abad r.g. university of the philippines mindanao, college of science and mathematics mintal, tugbok district, davao city 8022, philippines *corresponding author e-mail : evbayogan@up.edu.ph abstract a cost-effective alternative to cold storage is the brick-walled evaporative cooler (bec). the effects of bec on mature green and breaker ‘diamante max’ tomatoes were assessed. two trials were carried out at ambient conditions with (i) 27.13±0.78 °c and 80.89±4.47%rh; (ii) 26.93±0.87 °c and 80.05±5.20% rh and with bec (i) 25.49±0.58 °c and 99.90±0.10% rh; (ii) 25.42±0.90 °c and 97.75±3.25% rh. bec-stored tomatoes showed 10.36% lesser weight loss, lesser decay incidence, redder color and better visual quality compared to control fruit. the higher l* and hue of around 90 in ambient-stored tomatoes indicated a lighter color as fruit turned to yellow compared to a lower l* and hue in bec indicating a darker red color. an increased chroma was recorded as fruit turned from green or breaker to yellow, orange, or light red while the values of a* became negative. the bec maintained the firmness and total soluble solids, especially in mature green tomatoes. after 49 days of storage, 61.8% of the fruit stored in the bec were marketable compared to 23.3% in ambient conditions. the bec system showed 27.16% higher annual benefit over cost than the ambient storage conditions. thus, the bec system can potentially maintain the quality of ‘diamante max’ tomatoes. keywords: brick-walled evaporative cooler (bec), color, quality, solanum lycopersicum and storage 191 brick-walled evaporative cooler for storage of tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 190-198, 2022 material and methods experimental materials newly harvested tomatoes (cv. diamante max) were procured from a commercial farm in calinan, davao city. fruits of uniform and good quality at two maturity stages, mature green and breaker, were used in the experiment. storage and quality evaluation were done at the postharvest biology laboratory, university of the philippines mindanao (up mindanao) in mintal, tugbok district, davao city from november 2018 to january 2019, and january 2020 to march 2020 for the first and second trials, respectively. t he br ick-wa lled eva por a tive cooler (bec) construction was done at the up. the bec has dimensions of 76 in l x 32 in w x 26 in h outer brick wall, 70 in l x 26 in w x 26 in h inner brick wall, and a 3 in space between the two walls which is filled with sand. the faucet connected to the pipes was slightly turned on for 30 min for twice a day to moisten the sand. the covering of bec at the top was made of a jute sack framed with bamboo. the dimensions of the cover for bec was 78 in l x 30 in w. the sand and jute sack covering were moistened regularly during the use of the bec. two trials were conducted to assess the quality of tomato at two maturity stages, mature green and breaker, and stored in the bec or ambient room conditions. a total of 800 medium tomatoes of uniform quality were selected. a total of 400 fruit were used for each storage condition at 200 tomatoes per maturity stage. in the second trial, 86.4 kg of mediumsize tomatoes of uniform quality were used. sample tomatoes at 945±33 g were packed in a net bag for the various data parameters. a total of 24 net bags were used for each maturity stage and stored in bec or ambient conditions. in both trials, fruit samples were disinfected with 200 mg/l naocl solutions for 3 min and air-dried before holding in the bec or ambient conditions. data collection the relative humidity (rh), temperature in bec and ambient storage conditions were recorded using digital data loggers. the digital data loggers used were tinytag ultra 2 tgu-4500 (gemini data loggers ltd., england) and elitech usb temperature data logger (rc-5, uk. ltd.). fruit weights were taken at 0, 7, 14, 21, 35, 42, and 49 da ys a fter tr ea tment. weight cha nges wer e measured using a digital high precision balance (bh2600, fuji). percentage weight loss was calculated using the formula: the decay incidence was determined every 7 d for 49 d through a 5-point scale visual observation of the degree of decay of the sample: 1 = no visible infection; 2 = slight infection (1-10%); 3 = moderate infection (11-25%); 4 = moderately severe infection (26-50%); 5 = severe infection (>50%). the fruit was nonmarketable when it reached a of decay rating of 3. the value was further expressed as the accumulated percentage of the total number of fruit decayed divided by the initial number of fruit stored (arthur et al., 2015). the visual quality rating (vqr) of tomato was measured using a 5-point scale (1 = excellent, fresh appearance, 2 = very good, slight defects, 3 = good, defects progressing, limit of saleability, 4 = fair, useable but not saleable, and 5 = poor). the fruit was non-marketable when it reached vqr of 3. the changes in color of the tomatoes were evaluated based on the maturity stages of the fruit from 1 to 6 (1 = mature green, 2 = breaker, 3 = turning, 4 = pink, 5 = light red, 6 = red). in the second trial, nix pro color sensor (nix sensor ltd., ontario, canada) was used to measure the l* a* b*, hue and chroma. the l* value corresponds to the brightness or luminosity; a* va lue shows the redness (+a*) or greenness (a*); b* value indicates the yellow (+b*) or blue (b*). the chroma corresponds to the saturation of the color while hue indicates the red (0 or 360), yellow (90), green (180) or blue (270) (barreiro et al., 1997). the firmness of fruit was measured using a fruit penetrometer (fruit tester ft 327 pressure tester, wagner instruments, usa). a digital refractometer (atago pal-1 (3810) digital hand-held pocket refractometer, atago co., ltd. japan) was used to measure the total soluble solids (tss).the costs and benefits of the use of the bec and ambient conditions were identified and quantified (rolfe, 2014). 192 bayogan et al experimental design and statistical analysis a sample size of 50 pieces was used per replication in each maturity stage at each storage condition in the first trial. each treatment was replicated four times. a sample of 3.8 kg of tomato per maturity stage and storage condition in the second experiment. each experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design. data were analyzed using two-way anova and treatment means were compared using lsd at p<0.05. results and discussion temperature and relative humidity (rh) t hr oughout the stor a ge per iod in tr ia l 1, a temperature of 27.13±0.780c and relative humidity (rh) of 80.89±4.47% were recorded in ambient storage while 25.49±0.580c and 99.90±0.10% rh were recorded in the brick-walled evaporative cooler, bec (fig. 1). the temperature and rh differences between the two storage conditions were 1.64oc and 19.01%, respectively. in the second trial, 26.93±0.87 ! and 80.05±5.20% rh were recorded in ambient storage while 25.42±0.78oc and 97.75±3.25% rh were recorded in bec (fig. 2). bec showed a slightly lower temperature by 1.510c and higher rh by 18.06% and 17.7% in the second trial. a lower temperature (0.41oc) difference from ambient conditions was reported during the storage of sweet pepper in a cabinet evaporative cooler, yet it allowed maintenance of fruit quality longer due to the relatively higher rh (majomot et al., 2019). in south sulawesi, indonesia, an underground zero-energy cool chamber made of bricks (without produce in it) registered a relatively lower temperature (26.2°c) and higher rh (87.2%) compared to the outside conditions of the chamber (dirpan et al., 2017). however, the bec used in the present study provided a slightly lower temperature (25.49±0.58°c and 25.42±0.78°c) and higher rh (99. 90±0. 10% a nd 97. 75±3. 25%) compared with the zero-energy cool chamber used in the previous study (dirpan et al., 2017). percentage weight loss weight loss of tomato in bec was consistently lower at 2.36 % (figure 3a) and 5.63% at the end of the stor a ge per iod for the fir st a nd second tr ia ls, respectively, compared to ambient conditions. weight loss was 10% lower in tomatoes stored in bec than those in ambient room conditions. at 42 days of storage, weight loss in tomatoes stored at the breaker stage was higher relative to tomatoes stored at the mature green stage (fig. 3a). decay incidence bec storage conditions reduced the decay incidence among stored tomatoes by 29.5% (figure 3b). fig. 2. temperature and relative humidity in ambient and brick-walled evaporative cooler (bec) conditions during january 2020 to march 2020. fig. 1. temperature and relative humidity in ambient and brick-walled evaporative cooler (bec) conditions during november 2018 to january 2019. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 190-198, 2022 the dates of the figures for temperature should be the same witht he relative humidity (see graph below) 193 at 49 days after storage, the cumulative decay incidence in samples stored in bec ranged from 19 to 28.5% only compared to 36.5 to 53.5% in ambient conditions. tomatoes stored at the breaker stage showed a higher percentage of fruit decay than fruit stored at the mature green stage. as the fruit ripens, metabolic activity and fruit degradation tend to escalate (quinet et al., 2019) and makes the fruit more prone to decay as obsorved in fruit stored at the advanced maturity stage. further, the higher temperature(i.e., 21 to 30oc) in ambient conditions is a favorable condition for microorganism growth and development (da cruz cabral et al., 2019). however, sweet pepper stor ed in the ca binet evaporative cooler system showed higher decay due to excessive surface moisture (majomot et al., 2019). fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity cause condensation or surface moisture (islam et al., 2019). given that the temperature and rh recorded in the bec have been relatively stable, especially in the first experiment, surface moisture was relatively low resulting in a lower incidence of decay. visual quality and shelf life regardless of maturity stage, samples stored in bec ha d better appea rance due to lower deca y a nd shriveling than fruit stored in ambient conditions (figure 3c). a lower visual quality rating of fruit in ambient conditions indicated a higher degree of fruit deterioration. fruit stored in the bec showed a longer shelf life and was highly marketable for an extended duration both in the first (figure 3d) and second trials (data not shown). t he lower temper a tur e a nd higher rh in the evaporative cooler extended the shelf life of sweet pepper (majomot et al., 2019). likewise, in the present study, the conditions in the bec with lower temperature and higher rh helped maintain better quality of tomato during storage compared to ambient conditions. the storage conditions slowed down the respiration and transpiration that preserved the quality of tomatoes (da cruz cabral et al., 2019). peel color in the first trial, tomatoes stored in bec developed color faster than those in ambient storage starting at day 14 with a peel color of 4.75 (pink with some starting to turn light red), while tomatoes stored in ambient conditions had the mean color of 4.47 (pink) (table 1). tomatoes in bec were redder than fruit held in ambient conditions that were more yelloworange. fig. 3. weight loss, visual quality, incidence of decay and percentage of marketable fruit of mature green and breaker ‘diamante max’ tomatoes stored at ambient or in brick-walled evaporative cooler (bec) conditions. bars refer to lsd values at p < 0.05. brick-walled evaporative cooler for storage of tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 190-198, 2022 194 the color change was confirmed in the second trial as indicated by the l*, a* b*, hue and chroma values (figure 4). the results showed that tomatoes were redder in the stor age condition wher e the temperature was slightly lower (i.e., in the bec), compared to yellow and lighter pink fruit color in ambient room conditions. the l* was consistently higher in ambient-stored fruit indicating a lighter color as fruit turned yellow compared to lower l* in fruit stored in bec (figures 4a). a redder color of tomato stored in bec was indicated by higher positive a* values compared to fruit in ambient conditions (figure 4b). the higher b* (figure 4c) and the hue of around 90 (figure 4d) indicated fruit were more yellow when stored in ambient than in bec. the vividness of fruit color increased as shown by increasing chroma (figure 4e). climacteric fruits like tomatoes continue to mature even after being removed from the main plant. as the fruit continues to mature, its color changes from green to red due to the degradation of chlorophyll and the synthesis of lycopene (tilahun et al., 2017a; he et al., 2019). however, inhibition of lycopene synthesis was reported at temperatures below 12°c and above 30°c, which favored other carotenoids responsible for the yellow to the orange color of fruit (tilahun et al., 2017b). the present agreed with the previous study wherein the use of the bec for the storage of tomatoes resulted in a more uniform bright red color compared to fruit stored in a mbient conditions (babarinsa and omodara, 2016). firmness and total soluble solids (tss) regardless of maturity stage, tomatoes stored in bec were firmer compared to fruit stored under ambient conditions (figure 5a). on the other hand, mature green tomatoes stored in bec had lower tss than fruit stored in ambient conditions (figur e 5b). regardless of the maturity stage, tss in fruit stored in ambient conditions were higher than those tomatoes table 1. peel color of ‘diamante max’ tomatoes stored at mature green and breaker stages under ambient and brick-walled evaporative cooler (bec) conditions. peel color indexz treatment time of storage (day) 7 14 21 28 35 42 49 storage ambient 4.26a 4.47b 4.71b 4.66b 4.68b 4.75b 4.77b brick-walled ec 3.59b 4.75a 4.98a 4.99a 5.02a 5.05a 5.03a maturity stage mature green 3.36b 4.50b 4.78b 4.76b 4.79b 4.89a 4.90a breaker 4.49a 4.72a 4.91a 4.88a 4.92a 4.91a 4.91a per storage period, means in a column with a common letter are not significantly different using lsd at 5% level of significance. fig. 4. color changes, l*, a*, b*, hue and chroma, of mature green and breaker ‘diamante max’ tomatoes stored at ambient or in brick-walled evaporative conditions. bars refer to lsd values at p < 0.05. bayogan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 190-198, 2022 195 stored in bec at 28 days. the low temperature in bec could have delayed the ripening in mature green tomatoes the temperature has been reported to affect the firmness of tomatoes in which storage at lower temperature delayed the reduction of firmness while a sharp decrease was observed after transfer in room conditions (najat et al., 2018). changes in fruit firmness or softening during postharvest occur due to moisture loss and ripening-related cell wall metabolism or cell wall-modifying enzymes (lara et al., 2019). the present results validate the previous finding that tomatoes stored in an evaporative cooler were firmer than those stored in ambient conditions (adekanye et al., 2019; manyozo et al., 2018). tss in fruit is associated with starch degradation into sugar as the fruit ripens (adjouman et al., 2018). hence, there was higher tss in tomatoes at the breaker stage than fruit stored at the mature green stage. the increase in carbohydrate hydrolysis into soluble sugars at higher temperatures and reduced rh of a mbient conditions r esulted in a higher accumulation of tss in tomatoes. cost-benefit analysis the cost-benefit analysis of using the brick-walled evaporative cooling (bec) storage system showed that an estimated 168.42 kg of the stored tomatoes is expected to be marketable at the end of the storage period compared to the ambient storage with only 108.72 kg of fruit. the benefit over cost value of the bec, assuming eight months (dry months) a year of use, was 27.16% higher than the ambient storage system (table 2). fig. 5. firmness and total soluble solids content of mature green and breaker ‘diamante max’ tomatoes stored at ambient or in brick-walled evaporative cooler (bec) conditions. bars refer to lsd values at p < 0.05. moreover, monthly income from produce stored in bec could potentially increase compared with ambient storage. the bec system could last longer than a year, further lowering the maintenance costs. after one year of usage, the producers can earn more profit for the succeeding years since the only cost they need to pay is the water usage and disinfection of the bec system. the evaporative cooler made of bricks, or the zeroenergy brick cooler, was reported to be the cheapest evaporative cooler than other evaporative cooling technologies such as charcoal cooler and pot-in-pot cooler, hence, recommended for smallholder farmers (manyozo et al., 2018). conclusion t he b r ic kwa lled eva p or a t ive c ooler ( be c ) recorded a lower temperature and higher relative humidity (rh) compared to ambient conditions. the mean temperature differences between the two storage conditions in the two experiments were 1.64oc and 1.51oc, while the differences in rh were 19.01% and 17.70% for the first and second trials, respectively. percentage weight loss was consistently lower in bec and showed 10.36% lesser weight loss compared in ambient conditions after 49 days. decay incidence was lower in bec and green tomatoes compared to fruit stored in ambient conditions and fruit stored in advanced stage. fruit stored in bec had better visual quality and longer shelf life. fruit can be stored in the bec for up to 49 days in which 61.8% of the initial fruit remained marketable compared to only 23.2% of fruit in the ambient storage system. storage of fruit in bec resulted in a redder fruit than those in brick-walled evaporative cooler for storage of tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 190-198, 2022 196 table 2. cost-benefit analysis of tomato storage in ambient and brick-walled evaporative cooling storage systems for one month computed for use for eight months per year. quantity price/unit total total (usd) (usd) (usd) for for brickambient walled storage evaporative cooler (bec) benefit monthly income 108.72 kga 1.4047 152.72 236.59 with marketable produce 168.42 kgaa monthly benefit 152.72 236.58 annual benefitb 1,221.76 1,892.64 cost sanitizer 8 set-ups 1.00/set-up 8.00 8.00 container 8 pieces 3.01/crate 24.08 24.08 newspaper lining 1/2 kg 0.50/kg 4.00 4.00 construction of bec 1,100 pcs of 362.17 362.17 bricks, labor and transportation water 60l/day 0.19/ 1.52 consumption month x 8** labor costsc 2-man days 6.42/md 92.47 102.72 (md)/200 kg x 8 set ups total annual cost, usd b 128.55 502.49 annual benefit minus annual cost, usd 1,093.21 1,390.15 advantage of bec over ambient, % 27.16 atwo hundred (200) kg of very good quality mature green or breaker tomato are stored in ambient in 8 plastic crates; after one month of storage, 40.81% were non-marketable = 118.38 kg are marketable/month; with 8.16% weight loss after 1 month= 108.72 kg/month (based on results at 28-day of storage). aatwo hundred (200) kg of very good quality mature green or breaker tomato are stored in bec in 8 plastic crates; after one month of storage, 17.05% were non-marketable = 165.90 kg/month; with 1.52% weight loss after 1 month= 168.42 kg/month (based on results at 28-day of storage). bfor 8 months/cycles of storage per year. clabor costs include sorting, wiping/cleaning of tomatoes, air-drying, sanitizing of plastic crates, putting in crates, loading/unloading, monitoring of tomato quality, disposal of culls, and sanitizing of bricks for bec. *price of tomatoes per kg based on philippine statistics authority (2018). **usd 0.007/day*28days = usd 0.19/month. conversion rate= usd 1= php49.83 ambient room conditions which was confirmed by l*, a* b*, hue and chroma values. tomatoes stored in bec were firmer and had low total soluble solids (tss). the higher tss of tomatoes in ambient conditions indicated faster ripening of fruit. the b enef it ove r c os t va lu e of t he b r ic kwa lled evaporative cooling storage system was 27.17% higher than the ambient storage system showing more profit. in general, the bec storage system ma intained the qua lity of tomatoes better than ambient storage. acknowledgment the authors gratefully acknowledge the funding s u p p or t f r om t he agr ic u lt u r a l c ent r e f or international agricultural research on “improved postharvest management of a fruit and vegetables in austr alia and southern philippines (aciar hort/2012/098)”. bayogan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 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bayogan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 190-198, 2022 (received: 16.11.2021; revised: 03.03.2022; accepted: 04.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf onion (allium cepa) is an important commercial vegetable crop of india. it is grown predominantly in kharif and rabi seasons in the country. the onion is grown under 0.76 million hectares with a production of 12.16 million tonnes and productivity of 16.1 tonnes hectare-1 (nhb, 2010). productivity of this crop is quite low in the country, which could be attributed to improper and inadequate nutrient management, higher disease incidence, non availability of critical inputs, particularly water, lack of adoption of new improved production technologies, etc. (saxena et al, 2008). over the last few years, emphasis has been laid on enhancing productivity by applying irrigation water and fertilizer. in india, it is a common practice to use surface irrigation for an irrigated onion crop. water productivity or irrigation efficiency in surface irrigation is low (< 44%) due to higher percolation, distribution and evaporation losses (locascio, 2005). modern systems of irrigation such as through drip and sprinklers ensure better irrigation and water use efficiency. sprinkler irrigation system has become popular under undulating topography, particularly, for light textured soils in a variety of horticultural crops. this system is ideally suited for closely spaced vegetable crops as it maintains optimum soil moisture for shallow rooted crops like onion (satyendra kumar et al, 2006). for intensive and effect of microsprinkler fertigation on growth and yield of rabi onion m. prabhakar, s.s. hebbar and a.k. nair division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hessarghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india e-mail:mpkar@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field experiment was conducted during rabi 2005-2006 at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, to study the performance of onion cv. arka niketan as influenced by microsprinkler fertigation using different sources and levels of fertilizers. results indicated that crop growth in terms of leaf production, plant height, radial and equatorial diameter was not significantly influenced by the treatments. fertigation treatments were superior for marketable bulb yield as compared to soil application of fertilizer. also bulb yield through soil application of fertilizer increased by changing over from surface-irrigation to microsprinkler irrigation. however, bulb yield did not significantly decrease by applying just 75% of the recommended npk fertilizers, using common or water soluble fertilizers supplied through fertigation. for achieving maximum yield, however, it is recommended to apply 100% recommended dose of fertilizers through sprinkler fertigation using water soluble fertilizers. key words: onion, microsprinkler, fertigation, growth and yield economical crop production, and for achieving higher yield with quality bulbs in onion, the best solution is fertigation, as both water and fertilizers are delivered in time and in small amounts to growing crops through micro irrigation system (neeraja et al, 1999). fertigation also saves time and lobour, making it profitable. experiments have proved that this system economizes use of fertilizer and water to a tune of 40-60 per cent. information on combined use of fertilizers with sprinklers is limited in a closely spaced crop like onion in our country. hence, a trial was conducted to study the effect of various fertilizers applied through fertigation using sprinklers in onion crop. the experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2005-2006 at indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake, bangalore. mean annual temperature range of hessaraghatta was 27-35oc and 14-20oc during day and night with annual average rainfall of 850 mm. the soil was well drained sandy loam with an initial organic carbon (0.55%), ph (6.75), available n (160 kg/ha), available p (88 kg/ha), available k (280 kg/ha) and electrical conductivity (0.23 dsm-1). the available water holding capacity was 153 mm for one meter soil depth. seedlings (35 days old) of cultivar arka niketan were planted at a spacing of 15 x 15 cm during the first week of november. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):66-68, 2011 67 the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with eleven treatments and three replications. a uniform dose of fertilizer at the rate of 125:75:125 kg n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o per hectare was applied through different treatments, along with a basal application of farm yard manure (25 tonnes hectare-1.) in soil application treatments (t 1 and t 2 ), the entire amount of p, and half of n and k were given as basal dose and the remaining half was side dressed 30 days after transplanting. in n and k fertigation (t 3 to t 7 ) treatments, all the p was applied to the soil as basal dose. all fertigation treatments, were applied through a fertilizer pump at weekly intervals starting three weeks after transplanting, for twelve weeks. micro sprinkler irrigation was done on alternate days to replenish 90 per cent of the pan evaporation losses. all other recommended practices were followed for crop growth and plant protection. treatment details are given under table1. there were no significant differences among treatments with reference to crop growth characters like plant height, number of leaves and leaf dry weight per plant. however, application of 100-0-100 per cent fertigation using common fertilizers (t 7 ) and 100-0-100 per cent fertigation using specialty fertilizers (t 6 ) recorded the highest (57.7cm) and lowest (54.1cm) values respectively for plant height (table 2). treatment t 6 recorded the highest value (10.4) for number of leaves per plant. though application of 100 per cent npk fertigation using common fertilizers (t 9 ) recorded lower number of leaves per plant (9.6), it recorded higher leaf dry weight per plant (5.9 g) compared to other treatments. this may be attributed to vigorous growth of leaves available on the plant. the same treatment recorded significantly higher (233.9 cm2) leaf area per plant than t 1 , t 3 , t 10 and t 11. application of common fertilizers to soil with furrow irrigation (t 1 ) recorded the lowest (191cm2) leaf area per plant. different treatment combinations did not differ significantly with respect to radial and equatorial bulb diameter among yield and yield attributing characters studied. however, t 9 and t 2 recorded higher values than other treatments for radial (6.59 cm) and equatorial (6.14 cm) diameter, respectively. application of 75% npk fertigation using specialty fertilizers (t 10 ) recorded minimum radial (6.05 cm) and equatorial (5.76 cm) diameter. treatment, t 9 recorded significantly higher total soluble solids (11.8obrix) than most of the other treatments except t 5 , t 6 , t 8 and t 10 , while, the minimum was recorded with t 1 and t 2 (10.7o brix). similarly individual bulb weight (84.1g) was significantly higher in t 9 compared to t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 11 treatments. second highest bulb weight (82.4 g) was table 1. treatment details for onion cultivar arka niketan under fertigation treatment treatment details t 1 application of common fertilizer to soil with furrow/bed irrigation t 2 application of common fertilizer to soil with microsprinkler irrigation t 3 50-0-50% fertigation using urea and muriate of potash t 4 50-0-50% fertigation using water soluble solid fertilizers (specialty fertilizers*) t 5 50-0-50% fertigation using specialty fertilizers t 6 100-0-100% fertigation using specialty fertilizers t 7 100-0-100% fertigation using common fertilizers t 8 100% npk fertigation using specialty fertilizers t 9 100% npk fertigation using common fertilizers t 1 0 75% npk fertigation using specialty fertilizers t 1 1 75% npk fertigation using regular fertilizers * specialty fertilizers used were 19:19:19 npk, potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate table 2. effect of sprinkler fertigation on crop growth and yield in rabi onion treatment plant no.of leaf area leaf dry radial equatorial tss bulb marketable height (cm) leaves per per plant weight diameter diameter (obrix) weight (g) bulb yield plant (cm2) per plant (g) (cm) (cm) (t/ha) t 1 55.5 9.7 191.0 5.3 6.27 5.92 10.7 74.7 25.8 t 2 57.2 9.8 211.3 5.4 6.21 6.14 10.7 77.3 29.5 t 3 56.6 9.7 210.0 5.6 6.08 5.82 10.8 78.3 30.3 t 4 57.3 9.7 212.9 5.5 6.24 6.11 11.0 76.7 31.1 t 5 55.0 9.4 218.9 5.5 6.33 5.98 11.2 81.2 31.8 t 6 54.1 10.4 223.8 5.7 6.14 5.92 11.3 82.4 33.8 t 7 57.7 9.9 225.9 5.7 6.43 6.05 11.0 82.0 32.7 t 8 56.3 10.0 226.5 5.8 6.08 5.79 11.6 81.8 32.2 t 9 54.2 9.6 233.9 5.9 6.59 6.08 11.8 84.1 33.9 t 1 0 54.7 9.6 209.4 5.4 6.05 5.76 11.6 80.4 31.5 t 1 1 54.8 9.7 205.9 5.1 6.21 5.79 11.0 78.3 30.6 s.em± 1.4 0.3 7.9 0.2 0.7 0.5 0.2 1.9 1.5 cd (p=0.05) ns ns 22.7 ns ns ns 0.7 5.4 4.3 microsprinkler fertigation in onion j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):66-68, 2011 68 recorded with t 6 , while t 1 had lowest bulb weight of 74.7 g. there were significant differences for marketable bulb yield among almost all fertigation treatments, recording higher bulb yield compared to soil application treatment with furrow irrigation treatment. sprinkler irrigation also gave higher bulb yield as compared to furrow irrigation. treatment t 9 recorded significantly higher mean bulb weight (84.1g) and higher bulb yield (33.9 t ha-1). this may probably be due to higher leaf area, resulting in greater photosynthetic surface, leading to higher carbo-hydrate synthesis and translocation to the sink, coupled with marginally higher total soluble sugars. higher bulb yields obtained with fertigation compared to soil application could result in saving in fertilizer (25 %) and higher nutrient productivity. this is in conformity with earlier findings of murali krishnasamy et al (2006). from the present study, it can be inferred that 100% application of recommended dose of nitrogenous, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers (125:75:125 kg ha-1) via fertigation through microsprinklers has a positive effect on plant growth characters and improves marketable bulb yield in onion. hence, fertigation using microsprinklers can be recommended for onion to attain improved growth and marketable bulb yield in locations where it is traditionally grown under irrigation. references national horticulture board. 2010. indian horticulture database, ministry of agriculture, government of india locascio, s.j. 2005. management of irrigation for vegetables, past, present and future. hort. tech., 15:477-481 murali krishnasamy,s., veerabadram, v. krishnsamy,. s. kumar and s. sakthivela. 2006. microsprinkler irrigation and fertigation in onion (allium cepa). 7th international micro-irrigation congress, 13-15 september, kualalumpur, malaysia neeraja, g, reddy, k.m,.reddy, i.p. and reddy,y.n. 1999. effect of irrigation and nitrogen on growth, yield and yield attributes of rabi onion (allium cepa) in andhra pradesh. veg. sci., 26:64-68 satyendra kumar, ashwini kumar and goutam mandal. 2006. effect of irrigation scheduling and fertigation on storability of onion (allium cepa) under microsprinkler irrigation regime.ind. j. agril sci., 76:401-404 saxena, a.k, sobaran singh, ajay srivastava and poonam gautam. 2008. yield target approach under integrated nutrient management for assessing fertilizer requirements of onion in mollisols of uttarakhand. ind. j. hort., 65:302-306 (ms received 04 november 2010, revised 15 febuary 2011) prabhakar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):66-68, 2011 page 138 evaluation of spur and colour mutant cultivars of apple (malus domestica borkh.) for their suitablity under mid hill conditions of uttaranchal pankaj kumar1, m. p. gangwar and d. c. dimri department of horticulture, college of forestry and hill agriculture, gbpua&t, hill campus, ranichuari-249199, uttaranchal, india abstract out of 9 apple cultivars belonging to spur and colour mutants, red spur exhibited the largest fruit size (6.38 cm x 7.69cm) followed by red chief (6.37 cm x 7.11 cm) and vance delicious (5.95 cm x 6.68 cm). the maximum value of average fruit weight (170.4 g) and fruit volume (193.1 ml) were observed in red spur. maximum value for firmness (1.35 kg/cm2) and t.s.s. (12.50°b) were observed in red chief with the lowest acidity in vance delicious (0.23%). the highest value for total sugars (8.45%) was recorded in vance delicious and for reducing sugars (6.98%) in red chief . on the basis of these characteristics, spur type cultivars red chief and red spur, with maximum yield/tree of 27.4 kg and 24.3 kg respectively, and the colour mutant cultivar, vance delicious with an yield of 25.1 kg were suitable for cultivation under mid-hill conditions of uttaranchal. key words: apple, spur, colour mutant, evaluation presently, a major area of apple cultivation in india is under standard cultivars of the delicious group. most of these cultivars, when grown in the mid -hills and in valleys produce low yield and exhibit a tendency to biennial bearing due to high chilling requirement. in the recent past, introduction of colour strains, viz., top red, vance delicious, skyline supreme delicious, etc. have shown good performance in himachal pradesh and j&k (chadha, 1993). these strains develop fruit colour early and also have a higher yield potential. spur-type cultivars like red chief, oregon spur, etc. were introduced in to india during 1985-86 from usa and italy. these are prolific bearers with better colour development hardiness against insect pests, diseases and adverse environmental conditions and require low pruning (kanwar, 1991). these colour mutant and spur type strains have shown promise under the agro-climatic conditions of himachal pradesh and j&k. therefore, the present investigation was undertaken to evaluate economic feasibility of these apple strains under humid temperate midhill conditions of uttaranchal. the investigation was carried out at the horticulture research block, g.b. pant university of agriculture & technology, hill campus, ranichauri (tehri garhwal) during 2002 on nine apple cultivars belonging to the spur type and the colour mutants. nine year old, uniform trees of apple on seedling rootstocks maintained under uniform 1present address : ta (farm manager), kvk, vcsg college of horticulture, bharsar, via chipalghat, pauri garhwal, uttaranchal 246123 orchard management practices were selected for the study. a single tree was used for each treatment, replicated thrice in randomized block design. a composite sample of ten fruits from each treatment was drawn and subjected to various physical and chemical analysis. titrable acidity and sugars were estimated as per the procedure of ranganna (1986). all the apple cultivars under study showed significant variation in fruit length and diameter, which varied from 3.92 cm (tydeman’s early worcester) to 6.38 cm (red spur) and 4.77 cm (golden spur) to 7.69 cm (red spur), respectively (table 1). jindal et al (1992) also measured the variation among different spur, standard and colour mutants in a range of fruit dia meter 5.90 cm (vance delicious, golden spur) to 7.80 cm (hardeman, starking delicious). in addition, farooqui et al (1986) recorded fruit diameter in the delicious group of apple cultivars ranging from 6.52 cm to 8.24 cm. observations on fruit weight and volume also showed significant variation ranging from 118.1 g (tydeman’s early worcester) to 170.4 g (red spur) and 136.89 ml (tydeman’s early worcester) to 193.13 ml (red spur). in agreement with the present findings, farooqui et al (1986) also noticed great variation, with maximum weight (224.18 g) and volume (120 ml) in cultivar ambri. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 138-140, 2006 short communication page 139 fruit weight ranging from 142.0 g (tydeman’s early worcester) to 186.3 g (hardeman) was also estimated by jindal et al (1992). variation in fruit size (length and diameter), weight and volume in different apple cultivars is attributed to intervarietal differences associated with genetic make-up of the cultivars and is governed by the cell size and intercellular spacing of fruit tissues. fruit firmness indicated maximum values of 1.35kg/cm2 in red chief, followed by starkrimson (1.33kg/cm2) as against the minimum value of 1.04kg/cm2 in golden spur, which was at par with red spur and tydeman’s early worcester. change in fruit firmness is primarily attributed to breakdown of the insoluble proto-pectin to soluble pectin compounds which ultimately affects cell wall consistency. a close perusal of data showed that all the quality attributes differed significantly in different apple cultivars. maximum total soluble solids of 12.50° brix were recorded in red chief and a minimum of 10.25° brix in tydeman’s early worcester. various apple cultivars also showed marked difference in total acidity which varied from 0.23% (vance delicious) to 0.39% (tydeman’s early worcester and golden spur). the highest value of total sugars was found in vance delicious (8.45%), while, the least value in cultivar oregon spur (7.41%). however, both the reducing and non-reducing fractions of the total sugars were recorded to be maximum in cultivars red chief (6.98%) and starkrimson (2.19%), respectively, while their respective values were minimum in starkrimson (5.57%) and oregon spur (0.82%). farooqui et al (1986) also observed that total, reducing and non-reducing sugars varied from 7.80% (ambri) to 11.36% (golden delicious), 6.20% (ambri) to 7.5% (golden delicious x ambri) and 0.75% (golden delicious x ambri) to 5.17% (golden delicious), respectively. jindal et al (1992), on the other hand recorded reducing sugars in the range of 4.91% (starking delicious) to 6.89% (top red) and total sugars from 6.05% (starking delicious) to 9.01% (top red). the extent of variation in sugars in different apple cultivars is obviously due to leaf fruit ratio, abundance of chloroplasts and a highly variable amount of starch in young fruits. the average yield/tree revealed that the cultivar red chief gave the maximum yield (27.4 kg), closely followed by vance delicious (25.1 kg) and red spur (24.3 kg), while, the minimum yield/tree of 15.6 kg and 15.4 kg was observed in the cultivars golden spur and tydeman’s early worcestor, respectively. top red also recorded significantly higher yield/tree (21.2 kg) than stark spur gold and golden spur. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the dean, college of forestry and hill agriculture, and director, experiment station, g. b. pant university of agriculture & technology pantnagar for providing necessary facilities. references chadha,t.r. 1993. improvement of apple. in: advances in horticulture. vol 1 fruit crops. (eds. k l. chadha and o.p. pareek), malhotra publishing house, new delhi. pp. 25-33 farooqui, k.d., dalal, m.a. and ahanger, h.u. 1986. genetic upgrading of apple. prog. hort. 18 : 19-23. jindal, k.k. karkara, b.k., sharma, v.k. and uppal, d.k. 1992. evaluation of spur types and colour strains of apple. n.h.b. tech. comm. bull. pp.29-42 table1. physico-chemical parameters of fruit in various apple cultivars cultivar mean fruit mean fruit mean fruit fruit fruit t.s.s acidity total reducing nonyield/ length diameter weight volume firmness (0brix) (%) sugars sugars reducing tree (cm) (cm) (g) (ml) (kg/cm2) (%) (%) sugars (%) (kg) spur type red spur 6.38 7.69 170.40 193.13 1.04 11.17 0.26 7.61 6.55 1.06 24.30 stark spur gold 6.14 6.62 159.21 173.61 1.20 11.18 0.34 8.21 6.72 1.49 16.20 golden spur 4.31 4.77 132.22 151.05 1.04 10.34 0.39 7.95 5.86 2.09 15.60 red chief 6.37 7.11 164.40 181.43 1.35 12.50 0.31 8.27 6.98 1.29 27.40 oregon spur 4.50 5.71 149.53 163.17 1.27 11.60 0.28 7.41 6.59 0.82 20.10 starkrimson 4.91 5.88 152.71 167.28 1.33 11.31 0.32 7.76 5.57 2.19 20.90 colour mutant vance delicious 5.95 6.68 161.30 178.65 1.13 11.60 0.23 8.45 6.32 2.13 25.10 top red 4.28 5.12 134.50 151.76 1.19 11.32 0.29 8.23 6.40 1.83 21.20 tydeman’s early worcester 3.92 4.80 118.10 136.89 1.07 10.25 0.39 7.51 5.87 1.64 15.40 cd (p=0.05) 2.00 1.93 11.79 14.60 0.23 1.96 0.05 0.86 4.39 0.46 2.10 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 138-140, 2006 evaluation of apple cultivars 139 page 140 kanwar, s.m. 1991. apple : production technology and economics. tata mcgraw hill publishing company ltd., new delhi. pp.51-153 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 138-140, 2006 pankaj kumar et al 140 (ms received 4 may 2006, revised 11 september 2006) ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control of fruit and vegetable products 2nd ed. tata mcgraw hill publishing company, calcutta, pp. 279-309 final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 251 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus blackeye cowpea mosaic strain (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k.1*, kumar p.l.2, kwoseh c.3 ogunsanya p.2, akromah r.3 and tetteh r.1 1csir-plant genetic resources research institute, p. o. box 7, bunso, eastern region-ghana 2international institute of tropical agriculture (iita), oyo road, pmb 5320, ibadan, nigeria 3department of crop and soil sciences, faculty of agriculture, kwame nkrumah university of science and technology, p.m.b., university post office, kumasi, ghana *corresponding author email : ffffulera@yahoo.com abstract antigen-coated plate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (acp-elisa) and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rt-pcr) were used to detect the presence and seed transmissibility of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic (bcmv-bicm) in farmretained cowpea seed lots obtained from 46 locations, including markets and farms in major cowpea growing areas in the ashanti and brong ahafo regions of ghana. in the growout tests, virus symptomatic plants were observed in seedlings of 19 of the 46 seed lots tested under insect-proof screen-house conditions. all the symptomatic plants tested positive to polyclonal antiserum raised against bcmv-bicm in acp-elisa. the seed transmission rates based on symptoms ranged from 0 to 37.8 %. rt-pcr with primer pair designed to amplify the potyvirus cylindrical inclusion (ci) region resulted in an expected 720 bp dna segment in 19 seed lots as a further confirmation of virus in the seed lots. the remaining 27 lots were asymptomatic and tested negative to bcmv-blcm in both acp-elisa and rtpcr. the findings of this study revealed seed as the source of primary inoculum in the farmers’ fields and may aid in the implementation of control strategies such as discouraging farmers from retaining their own seeds for subsequent sowing and encouraging them to take appropriate measures in obtaining virus-free cowpea seeds from other sources. key words: bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic, cowpea, vegetable legume, elisa, potyvirus, rt-pcr, virus detection virus-seed transmission introduction cowpea (vigna unguiculata (l.) walp) is the most widely cultivated tropical vegetable legume in subsaharan africa (ssa). it is predominantly produced by smallholder farmers because of its tolerance to drought and ability to thrive in zero or low input farming. it provides affordable protein for humans and animals in ssa, asia, and latin america (bashir and hampton 1993; tarawali et al., 2002; boukar et al., 2013) and also serves as a cover crop in soil nitrogen fixation a nd the contr ol of er osion a nd weeds (hutchinson and mcgiffen, 2000). cowpea has the potential to enhance food security and reduce poverty in west africa, provided both socio-economic and biological constraints such as poor application of appropriate cultural technologies, infestation by weeds and insect pests, and infection by diseases are adequately tackled (jackai and adalla, 1997; quin, 1997; coulibaly and lowenberg – deboer, 2002; boukar et al., 2013). in ghana, cowpea is second to groundnut in terms of area under cultivation and quantity produced and consumed annually (egbadzor et al., 2013). an average of 143,000 mt is produced annually on about 156,000 ha making ghana the fifth-highest producer of cowpea in africa (icrisat, 2012). the guinea savannah zone of ghana, which includes the northern and upper west regions, is the major production area in the country (al-hassan and diao, 2007). other 252 adams et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 production areas include the sudan savannah zone (upper ea st r egion) a nd some districts in the transitional zones of brong ahafo and ashanti regions (haruna et al., 2018). bean common mosaic virus – blackeye cowpea mosaic (bcmv-bicm) is an important seed-borne virus reported in almost all cowpea growing areas worldwide (cabi/eppo, 2010; hema et al., 2014). cowpea fields can suffer substantial yield losses from seed-borne pathogens (bankole and adebanjo, 1996). sowing infected seeds increase germination failure, seedling mortality, and diseased plants, leading to lower yields. additionally, diseased crops may increase seed infection levels in young plants (manyangarirwa et al., 2009). seed transmission offers an effective means of introducing viruses into crop fields at an early stage, giving r a ndomized foci of pr ima r y infections throughout the season, which serves as the primary inoculum source for further virus spread by insect vectors (booker et al., 2005). viruses may persist in cotyledons and embryo axes of matured seeds for long periods (sekar and sulochana, 1988), enabling scope for long distances virus spread through contaminated seed lots. t he r ole of fa r mer-sa ved seeds in transmitting cowpea diseases was analyzed in northern nigeria (biemond et al., 2013), and seed to plant transmission of seed-borne pathogens in farmer-saved cowpea wa s investiga ted in zimba bwe (manyangarirwa et al., 2009). these studies have shown that farmer-saved cowpea seeds were heavily infected, with a ra nge of seeda nd soil-borne pathogens. t he latter empha sizes the negative influence on germination and potential crop losses. infections caused by seed-borne viruses reduce seed quality and the potential yield of crops. booker et al. (2005) reported seed transmission rates from less than 1 to 100% depending on the virus and host. yield reductions from expected 2500kg/ha to 50kg/ha were also reported in fields infected with bcmv-bicm in india (puttaraju et al., 2000a). further, cowpea varieties inoculated with bcmv-bicm at the primary leaf stage showed 92-100% infection at first trifoliate lea f (http://cr opgenebank. sgr p. cgia r. org/ da te accessed: 16/07/2019). the virus is readily transmitted mechanically and in a non-persistent manner by the aphids aphis craccivora, a. gossypii, and myzus persicae (orawu, 2007). a survey conducted on cowpea fields in the forest and transitional zones of ghana revealed the presence of bcmv-blcm among other six viruses, namely, cowpea aphid-borne mosaic virus (cabmv, genus potyvirus), cowpea mottle virus (cpmov, genus carmovirus), southern bean mosaic virus (sbmv, genus sobemovirus), cowpea mild mottle virus (cpmmv, genus carlavirus), cowpea yellow mottle virus (cymv, genus comovirus) and cucumber mosaic virus (cmv, genus cucumovirus) with bcmv-bicm being the most prevalent (adams et al., 2020). according to the study, farmers in the forest and transitional zones of the brong-ahafo and ashanti regions adopt production practices such as high cropping density as a result of random sowing methods, recycling of seeds from season to season, the closeness of fields to each other with different planting and pesticide application periods as well as preference for and cultivation of susceptible local cowpea cultivars which increases the incidence and severity of viruses on fields in those areas (amaza et al., 2010; adams et al, 2016). during the 2015 growing season, vir al disease symptoms, similar to those caused by the bcmvblcm, were observed on cowpea fields in the ashanti and brong ahafo regions of ghana. seeds collected from farmers in these areas were mostly shriveled. this study was conducted to confirm the virus identity in the symptomatic plants observed in the farmers’ fields and virus seed transmission in the seeds lots harvested from the 46 farmers’ fields and seed markets in ghana. materials and methods seed sample collection a total of forty-six (46) cowpea seed lots were collected from randomly selected farms and markets in the ama ntin-atebubu (17 lots), ejur a sekyeredumasi (13 lots), and nkoranza (16 lots) districts. seed lots were obtained from 24 farm locations (15 in amantin-atebubu, and 9 in ejurasekyeredumasi) and 22 market locations (16 in nkoranza, 2 in amantin-atebubu, and 4 in ejurasekyeredumasi) (table 1). seeds sourcing from farmers was done by selecting cowpea farms separated by at least 0.5 km in each district. in each farm, seed lots were obtained by collecting and bulking seeds from 30 plants randomly selected in an ‘x’ transect, 253 seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain with 15 plants per diagonal axis. for market-sourced seeds, lots were obtained by randomly collecting seeds from different market women during the main market days in each district. seed samples were kept in labeled sample bags with naphthalene balls. a gps device was used to record coordinates and altitudes of the field and market locations. grow-out test from each sampled seed lot, 100 seeds were sown in trays filled with two liters of steam-sterilized topsoil in an insect-proof screen house. cowpea seedlings were visually examined for any symptoms. the total number of plants germinated and the number of symptomatic plants was counted in each try to estimate the percent symptomatic plants. at the three-week sta ge, a pica l lea ves of both symptoma tic a nd asymptomatic plants were sampled for bcmv-blcm indexing by antigen-coated plate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (acp-elisa). symptomatic and asymptomatic plants were tested separately. in the case of asymptomatic plants, ten apical leaves, one from each plant, were collected, and they were together as one composite sample for virus indexing. this was repeated for all the seed lots. acp-elisa for bcmv-bicm detection to test each plant, a sterile cork borer was used to obtain 5 mm diameter pieces of all leaves in each of the 46 groups of leaf samples. about 100 mg of leaf tissue from each sample was grounded in the carbonate coating buffer (0.015 m na 2co3 and 0.0349 m nahco3) with dieca at 100 mg/ml buffer (1:10 w/v). one hundred microlitres of the extract were added to each well of a microtitre plate. infected, healthy plant sap and buffer were used as controls. plates were incubated in a humid chamber for 1 hour at 37oc and then washed with three changes of phosphate-buffered saline with tween 20 (pbs-tween 20), allowing three minutes for each wash. plates were emptied and tapped dry on a layer of paper towel. wells were blocked with 200 µl of 3% dried skimmed milk in pbs-tween 20. plates were incubated at 37oc for 30 minutes, and then tapped dry. healthy cowpea leaf extract in p bs t po ( 1 :1 0 w/ v) wa s u s ed t o c r os s a dsor ption of the bcmvbicm a ntiser u m a t 1:5000 µl. the mixture was incubated at 37oc for 30 minutes. one hundred microlitres of the crossadsorbed antisera was dispensed in each well and plates were incubated at 37oc for 1 hour. plates were washed and tapped dry as described above. one hundred microlitres of goat anti-rabbit alkaline phosphatase (alp) conjugate diluted in conjugate buffer (ovalbumin, polyvinyl pyrrolidone and pbstween 20) (1: 15,000) were dispensed into each well and incubated for 1 hour at 37oc. plates were washed and tapped dry. one hundred microlitres of 0.5 mg ml-1 p-nitrophenyl phospha te substr a te in substr a te buffer (diethanolamine and distilled water) were added to each well and incubated in a dark room for 1 hour. absorbance values were measured, and plates were kept in a refrigerator at 4oc overnight. quantitative mea sur ements of the p-nitr ophenyl substr a te conversion resulting in yellow colour were made by determining the absorbance at 405 nm (a405) in an elisa plate reader at 1 and 6 hours. the mean absor ba nce readings of nega tive controls were determined, and twice the values were used as the positive thresholds. reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (rt-pcr) the rt-pcr protocol described by gillaspie et al. (2001) was used for the detection of bcmv-blcm in the 46 seed lots to confirm the acp-elisa result. total nucleic acid was extracted using the cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (ctab) method described by dellaporta et al. (1983). cylindrical inclusions forward (ci-f; 5’cgi vig tig giw sig gia art cia c-3’) and reverse (ci-r; 5’-aci ccr tty tcd atd atr tti gti gc-3’) primers designed by ha et al. (2008) were used for rt-pcr amplification and the rt-pcr products were resolved on a 1.5% agarose gel along with 100 bp dna ladder as a size marker (cat nos n0467s, quick-load, biolabs inc., ipswich, ma, usa). the gel was viewed under a uv trans-illuminator (biorad gel doc xr, california, usa), and the virus-specific band in the samples were identified based on the presence of an expected amplicon size of 720bp. results among the 46 seed lots of cowpea subjected to a grow-out test in the screen-house, 19, made up of six lots obtained from atebubu-amantin, five from ejurasekyeredumasi, and eight from nkoranza, showed mottling and mosaic (fig. 1) on leaves. j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 254 all the symptomatic plants of 19 seed lots also gave positive reactions to bcmv-blcm in acp-elisa (table 1). bcmv-blcm transmission based on symptoms among the lots ranged from 0 to 37.8 % (table 2). some of the infected seed lots recorded low germination rates. for instance, of the 100 seeds of each seed lot planted, 51 of “nkoranza-14” and 30 of “amantin-15,” which were positive to bcmvbicm, germinated. all asymptomatic plants tested negative to bcmv-blcm in acp-elisa (table 1). all the 19 seed lots that had symptomatic plants and tested positive to bcmv-blcm have also tested positive to the virus in rt-pcr (amplified a 720 bp amplicon) (fig. 2). amplification was not detected in the remaining 27 asymptomatic seed lots (fig. 4), confirming the results obtained using bcmv-blcm antiserum in acp-elisa. discussion grow-out tests, acp-elisa and rt-pcr have confirmed bcmv-blcm seed transmission in the 19 of 46 seed lots assessed in this study. aliyu et al. (20 12) pr evious ly detected bcmv-bi cm among other seed-borne viruses infecting cowpea in nigeria, using acp-elisa. like the results obtained in this study, several authors (hampton et al., 1997; shanker et al., 2009; ittah and binang, 2 0 1 2 ) ha ve a t va r iou s t imes p r oved s eed transmission of the virus. shanker et al. (2009) reported bcmv-blcm as a serious pathogen on cowpea worldwide, to which field plants succumb to infections from virulent strains. booker et al. (2005) also reported the detrimental effect of the virus on cowpea production, causing stunting and plant deformation in the early growth stage and not allowing the plants to reach their full potential. mottling and interveinal chlorosis observed on the primary leaves of the plants in the grow-out test were consistent with symptoms reported to be associated with infections caused by bcmv-blcm (aliyu et al., 2012). the bcmv-blcm incidence in farmers’ fields and the corresponding seed transmission rates were given in table 3. some seed lots obtained from markets recorded seed transmission rates as high as 36.3% (nkoranza-6) in the grow-out test. some seed lots collected from farmers’ fields with high bcm v-blcm incidences r ec or ded zer o seedtransmission (amantin-2, -7, -13, -14 and ejura3) while a few other lots recorded very low seed transmission values (amantin-1, -11, ejura-8 and -13). amantin-6, ejura-9, amantin-5, and ejura-4 recorded 100, 90, 87 and 83% field incidences, respectively, with corresponding seed transmission rates of 21.3, 37.8, 16.7 and 16.3%, respectively (table 3). low germination rates recorded in some infected seed lots may be attributed to infection by the bcmv-bicm. ittah et al. (2010) reported in a previous study that seed-borne viruses such as bcmv-bicm, cabmv, cmev, and sbmv may cause some infected cowpea lines to lose their fig. 1. mottle mosaic symptoms of seed-borne bcmvblcm on grow-out cowpea plants in a screen house fig. 2. agarose gel electrophoresis showing amplification of rt-pcr products key; m = dna marker, h = healthy control, b = buffer, d = positive control nkoranza samples: 1-16; amantin samples: 17-33; ejura samples: 34-46 adams et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 255 samples bcmv-blcm samples bcmv-blcm samples bcmv-blcm nkoranza 1 3.175* amantin 1 2.658* ejura 1 0.287 nkoranza 2 0.253 amantin 2 0.349 ejura 2 2.658* nkoranza 3 0.225 amantin 3 0.367 ejura 3 0.204 nkoranza 4 0.222 amantin 4 0.288 ejura 4 3.370* nkoranza 5 3.438* amantin 5 3.383* ejura 5 0.345 nkoranza 6 3.446* amantin 6 2.851* ejura 6 0.282 nkoranza 7 3.645* amantin 7 0.247 ejura 7 0.281 nkoranza 8 3.445* amantin 8 0.416 ejura 8 3.457* nkoranza 9 0.139 amantin 9 0.373 ejura 9 3.285* nkoranza 10 0.249 amantin 10 3.396* ejura 10 0.224 nkoranza 11 0.193 amantin 11 2.962* ejura 11 0.282 nkoranza 12 3.174* amantin 12 0.568 ejura 12 0.283 nkoranza 13 3.381* amantin 13 0.316 ejura 13 3.322* nkoranza 14 3.275* amantin 14 0.471 nkoranza 15 0.517 amantin 15 3.140* nkoranza 16 0.285 amantin 16 0.410   amantin 17 0.419 positive control out out out negative control 0.268 0.36 0.36 buffer 0.21 0.28 0.28 *absorbance value (a405 nm) is >2x of negative control regarded as the virus positive. “out” indicates an out-of-range value (a405 >4) table 1. acp-elisa result for bcmv-blcm seed transmission table 2. seed transmission rates of bcmv-blcm among accessions seed transmission rate (%) number of seed lots 0 27 0.1 5.0 6 5.1 10 0 10.1 20 4 20.1 30 4 30.1 37.8 5 ability to germinate. fawole et al. (2006) also analyzed the effect of seed-borne fungi infection of cowpea seed on germination rate and found reduced germination rate because of infection by the fungi. further, manyangarirwa et al. (2009) reported that f a r mer pr odu ced c owp ea s eeds wer e hea vily infected with a r a nge of seeda nd soil-bor ne pathogens in zimbabwe, emphasizing the negative influence on germination. however, in contrast to the above findings, biemond et al. (2013) found that natural infection of cowpea seeds with some seed-borne pathogens increased germination. alt hou gh bc mvbi c m ha s b een p r eviou sly detected in cowpea seeds in ghana (zettler and evans, 1972), according to the literature available, most previous detections were limited to grow-out test , host r a nge, a nd r ea ct ivity t o polyclona l a ntibodies. ojueder ie et al. (2009) suggested stringent screening methods such as rt pcr to be used in screening for the presence of seed-borne viruses in a ddition to elisa, which employs reactivity to polyclonal antibodies since samples which appear nega tive with the latter could be positive when tested with rt pcr. the study confor ms with the a bove r ec ommenda tion a s bcmv-blcm was assessed with acp-elisa, and the results were confirmed with rt-pcr. bcmv-blcm was identified to be seed-borne in cowpea collected fr om fa r ms a nd ma r kets in seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 256 cowpea seed total total total % field transmission seed lots source sown germinated symptomatic incidence rate (%) nkoranza 1  market 100 53 18 * 34 nkoranza 2  market 100 42 0 * 0 nkoranza 3  market 100 93 0 * 0 nkoranza 4  market 100 58 0 * 0 nkoranza 5  market 100 63 14 * 22.2 nkoranza 6  market 100 80 29 * 36.3 nkoranza 7  market 100 91 28 * 30.8 nkoranza 8  market 100 65 10 * 15.4 nkoranza 9  market 100 36 0 * 0 nkoranza10  market 100 71 0 * 0 nkoranza11  market 100 89 0 * 0 nkoranza12  market 100 87 18 * 20.7 nkoranza13  market 100 80 19 * 23.8 nkoranza14  market 100 51 16 * 31.4 nkoranza15  market 100 68 0 * 0 nkoranza16  market 100 50 0 * 0 amantin 1  farm 100 60 1 63 1.7 amantin 2  farm 100 68 0 50 0 amantin 3  farm 100 52 0 30 0 amantin 4  farm 100 42 0 33 0 amantin 5  farm 100 78 13 87 16.7 amantin 6  farm 100 94 20 100 21.3 amantin 7  farm 100 63 0 70 0 amantin 8  farm 100 69 0 38 0 amantin 9  farm 100 82 0 38 0 amantin 10  farm 100 96 12 87 12.5 amantin 11  farm 100 100 4 60 4 amantin 12  farm 100 73 0 45 0 amantin 13  farm 100 76 0 87 0 amantin 14  farm 100 65 0 57 0 amantin 15  market 100 30 1 * 3.3 amantin 16  farm 100 83 0 30 0 amantin 17  market 100 33 0 * 0 ejura 1  farm 100 42 0 43 0 ejura 2  market 100 86 2 * 2.3 ejura 3  farm 100 62 0 63 0 ejura 4  farm 100 80 13 83 16.3 ejura 5  farm 100 82 0 30 0 ejura 6  market 100 72 0 * 0 ejura 7  farm 100 71 0 17 0 ejura 8  farm 100 92 1 50 1.1 ejura 9  farm 100 90 34 90 37.8 ejura 10  market 100 66 0 * 0 ejura 11  market 100 57 0 * 0 ejura 12  farm 100 63 0 40 0 ejura 13  farm 100 80 1 53 1.3 *denotes unknown (seed lots sourced from markets) table 3. bcmv-blcm incidence in farmers cowpea fields and respective seed transmission rates observed in grow-out test adams et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 257 nkoranza, amantin, and ejura. a study conducted by biemond et al. (2013) showed that farmerproduced cowpea seeds were heavily infected with a r a nge of s eed a nd s oilb or ne p a t hogens . transmission rates based on symptoms ranged from 0 to 37.8 %. ladipo (1977) and ng and hughes (1998) estimated that the rate of seed-transmission of virus in cowpea may range from 0 to 90%, which aligns with the seed transmission rates observed in this study and a previous study by zettler and evans (1972) that showed the frequency of seed transmission of bcmv-blcm at about 30.9% in cowpea. seed transmission rates of bcmv-blcm did not necessarily correspond with infection levels observed in fields from which the collections were made. although some lots obtained from fields with high disease incidence recorded correspondingly high transmission rates in the grow-out test, others recorded either zero or very low rates. low transmission rates of bcmv-blcm in seed lot s ob t a in ed f r om f ields wit h h igh dis ea s e incidences c ould b e du e t o s ever a l r ea s ons , including infection after flowering to the presence of virus in seed coat but not in the embryos (gupta et al., 1985). shanker et al. (2009) showed that sowing cowpea seeds with the incidence of bcmvblcm a s low as less than 1% might result in significant virus spread with a major influence on grain yield. puttaraju et al. (2004b) also reported a 65-100% bcmv-blcm transmission resulting from sowing cowpea seeds with a bout 4-10% infection rate. thus, even with the relatively low seed transmission rates observed in the current study, there is cause for concern. according to shanker et al. (2009), a threshold level below 2% infection for cowpea seeds is recommended as suitable to avoid the risk of economic losses due to the spread of bcmv-blcm in cowpea. seed-borne vir uses can pr esent a cha llenge to ma na ging v ir a l dis ea s es in t he f ields a nd complicate the transfer of seeds by trade and other met hods of s eed ex c ha nge b et we en f a r mer s (manyangarirwa et al., 2009; ittah et al., 2010; biemond et al., 2013). recycling farmers’ seeds for subsequent planting, as in the present study areas, may result in high virus incidence and significant yield loss (owolabi et al., 1988). in conclusion, this study demonstrated a high risk of seed-borne virus threat in the farmer-saved seed. it showed a need to improve awareness among farmers and extension agents about the risk of seedborne virus infections and discourage farmers from reusing their seeds for long periods, particularly those harvested from infected fields. this study also calls for an increase in the supply of certified seed production that will serve as a sustainable solution to reduce the risk of bcmv-blcm threat to cowpea production in ghana. acknowledgements authors acknowledge the west african agriculture productivity program (waapp-ghana) who funded the research work in ghana, and the international institute for tropical agriculture (iita), ibadan, nigeria, for supporting virus diagnostics research. authors appreciate funding from cgiar research program on dryland cereals and legumes. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 references ada ms , f. k . , k u ma r, l . , k wos eh, c . a nd akromah, r. 2020. occurrence of cowpea viruses in the forest a nd sa va nna h a gr oecological zones of ghana. african crop science journal, 28(3):443-450. adams, k. f. 2016. survey of cowpea viral disease symptoms and detection of associated viruses in selected cowpea growing areas in ghana. mphil thesis, knust, ghana. al-hassan, r. m. and diao, x. 2007. regional dispa r ities in gha na : policy options and p u blic inves tment imp lica t ions . g ha na st r a t egic s u p p or t p r ogr a mme . ht t p :/ / www.ifpri.org/ themes/gssp/gssp.htm. aliyu, t. h., balogun, o. s. and kumar, l. 2012. s u r vey of t he s ymp t oms a n d vir u s es associated with cowpea in the agro ecological zones of kwara state, nigeria. ethiopian j ou r na l o f e n vi ron me n ta l st ud i es an d management, 4(5):2 258 amaza, p.s., udo, e.j., abdoulaye, t., kamara, a.y. 2010. analysis of technical efficiency among community-based seed producers in the savannas of borno state, nigeria. j. food agric. environ., 8:1073-1079. bankole, s.a. and adebanjo, a. 1996. biocontrol of b r own b lot c h of c owp ea c a u s ed b y colletotrichum truncatum with trichoderma viride. crop protection, 15:633-636. bashir, m. and hampton, r. o. 1993. natural occurrence of five seed-borne cowpea viruses in pakistan. plant disease, 77: 948-951 biemond, p. c. , ogunta de, o. , kuma r, p. l . , stomph, t.j., termorshuizen, a. and struik, p. 2013. does the infor ma l seed system t hr ea t en c owp ea s eed h ea lt h? c ro p protection, 43:166-174. booker, h. m., umaharan, p. and mcdavid, c. r. 2005. effect of cowpea severe mosaic virus on crop growth characteristics and yield of cowpea. plant disease, 89:515-520. boukar, o., bhattacharjee, r., fatokun, c., kumar, p. l. a nd gueye, b. 2013. cowpea , in: genetic and genomic resources of grain legume improvement. elsevier, sing, m. and bisht, s. i. 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(eds.). iita/jircas. seka r, r. a nd suloc ha na , c. b. 1988. seed transmission of blackeye cowpea mosaic vir us in two cowpea va rieties. current science, 57(1):37-38 shanker, u. c. a., nayaka, s. c., kumar, h. b., shetty, h. s. and pra kash, s. h. 2009. detection and identification of the blackeye cowpea mosaic str a in of bea n common seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 260 (received on 24.11.2021, revised on 09.12.2021 and accepted on 11.01.2022) adams et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 251-260, 2021 mosaic virus in seeds of cowpea in southern india. phytoparasitica, 37:283-293 tarawali, s. a., singh, b. b., gupta, s. c., tabo, r., harris, f., nokoe, s., fernandez-rivero, s., bationa, a., manyong, v. m., makinde, k. and odion, e. c. 2002. cowpea as a key factor for a new approach to integrated croplives t oc k s ys t ems r es ea r c h i n t he dr y savannas of west africa. in: challenges and opportunities for enha ncing susta inable c owp ea p r odu c t ion. wor l d c owp ea c onf er ence p r oc eedings (i i ta) ib a da n, nigeria. p 233-251. zettler, f. w. and evans, i. r. 1972. blackeye cowpea mosaic virus in florida. host range a nd incidence in certified cowpea seeds. fl o r i d a st a t e h o r t i c u l t u r a l s o c i e t y proceedings, 85:99-101. 00 contents.pdf 14 adams.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf influence of some pesticides on entomopathogenic fungus lecanicillium ( = verticillium) lecanii (zimm.) zare & gams a. krishnamoorthy, p. n. ganga visalakshi, a. manoj kumar1 and m. mani division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore560 089, india e-mail: akmurthy@iihr.ernet.in abstract an in vitro study was conducted to determine the interaction effect of ten pesticides tested at field recommended dose on conidial germination, vegetative growth and sporulation of lecanicillium lecanii(zimm.) zare & gams. compatibility of l. lecanii to different pesticides was found to be varied. conidial germination was 99.3 and 85.7% in pongamia oil and acephate, whereas, it was totally inhibited by the presence of chlorothalonil, iprodion + carbendazim, carbendazim and thiophanate methyl indicating that these pesticides were highly toxic. dinocap recorded as moderately toxic while endosulfan, abamectin and ethion were least toxic based to the germination of conidia. so also iprodion + carbendazim did not and carbendazim allow l. lecanii to put forth mycelium growth in their presence. thiophanate methyl, pongamia oil, acephate, endosulfan, ethion and chlorothalonil were observed to be innocuous pesticides registering growth of mycelium upto 2.33, 2.23, 2.23, 2.03, 2.03 and 2.00 cm dia., respectively, from 0.6 cm dia. held in the center of petri plate on 14th day after treatment. as far as sporulation is concerned, pongamia oil alone recorded the maximum yield of 47.2x106 conidia/ml followed by 18x106 conidia/ml, in chlorothalonil as against 20x106 conidia/ml in control, which means that the pongamia oil exhibited synergistic effect on l. lecanii, yielding more conidial spores. thus, based on in vitro interaction study, pongamia oil alone was found to be safe to the entamopathogenic fungus l. lecanii in nature and iprodion + carbendazim and carbendazim were found to be highly toxic. key words: botanicals, pesticides, lecanicillium lecanii introduction the entomopathogenic fungus, lecanicillium (=verticillium) lecanii (zimm.) zare & gams naturally infects a wide range of sucking pests such as thrips, whiteflies, aphids, etc. the effect of entomopathogenic fungi depends not only on the strain and favourable environmental conditions, but also on their interaction with other factors such as sprays of pesticides, micronutrients, hormones, etc. used by man in his attempt to increase productivity. it was demonstrated that verticillium lecanii zimm. caused over 90% mortality in whiteflies (schaaf et al, 1990) and coffee green scale, coccus viridis (green) (reddy et al, 1997) and produced excellent control of thrips in greenhouse grown crops (gillespie, 1986; meyer et al, 2002). sprays of synthetic insecticides, botanical insecticides, fungicides, etc. used for the control of other pests and diseases in the same ecosystems may have better chances to interact with l. lecanii present in nature and possibly bring down its efficacy on the target pest. therefore, a study on the compatibility of l. lecanii with some pesticides that are under use in the same environment was conducted under in vitro conditions to investigate the effect of interaction in terms of conidial germination, growth and conidial production. material and methods the commonly used pesticides in horticultural crops, viz., endosulfan, acephate, abamectin, ethion, pongamia oil (pongamia glabra vent. jard. malm.), chlorothalonil, iprodion + carbendazim (a combination of two fungicides, marketed as quintol), carbendazim, thiophanate methyl and dinocap were tested to determine the influence of pesticides on l. lecanii. the fungus, l. lecanii, originally isolated from thrips, thrips palmi karvy, was used for the study (ganga visalakshy et al, 2004). conidial germination, mycelial growth and conidial production in l. lecanii was determined by calibrating i) per cent germination of conidial spores ii) rate of growth of mycelium and iii) yield of conidial spores after the vegetative phase. initially potato deextore agar (pda) was autoclaved at 1 atmospheric pressure for 20 min. and 1 present address: department of crop physiology, uas, gkvk, bangalore560 065 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 53-57, 2007 pesticides were added at recommended doses (table 1) at approx 45°c under aseptic conditions and mixed thoroughly by shaking the conical flask. the medium was then poured into sterilized petri plates (90mm dia.) under aseptic conditions for solidification (antonio batista filho et al, 2001). un-amended pda medium served as the control. preparation of conidial suspension the fungus, l. lecanii, was cultured on pda for two weeks in a bod incubator at 27°c, 65% rh and a photoperiod of l16:d8. conidia harvested from this using sterile distilled water were held in sterilized vials. the conidial load was adjusted to 3x103 conidia/ml by serial dilution with sterile distilled water using sterile micro-tip pipette, with the help of a haemocytometer. inoculation of conidia the surface of the pesticide amended and unamended medium in petri plate was uniformly smeared with 0.1ml of freshly prepared conidial suspension (ca. 300 conidia). two days after the smear, total number of germinated conidia in each petri plate was counted under a stereomicroscope. based on conidial germination, the pesticides were grouped under four categories viz. (i) no germination: highly toxic, (ii) 1-35% germination: moderately toxic, (iii) 36-70% germination: least toxic and (iv) 71 – 100% germination: safe. each pesticide was considered as a treatment and each treatment was replicated five times. a total of eleven treatments was used in completely randomized design (crd). square root transformation was used to analyze difference in the germination of spores. rate of growth of mycelium the medium with the isolate of l. lecanii cultured on pda (stock culture) for two weeks was cut into 6mm dia. discs (with spores) using a sterile cork borer. cut blocks were inverted and transferred to the center of pesticide + pda amended petri plates using a sterilized inoculum loop and placed gently on the surface of the media. a disc of l. lecanii at the center of the unamended medium petri plate was served as the control. all the treated petri plates were incubated at 27±1°c and 65 % rh in a bod incubator with a photoperiod of l16:d8. conidial spores that spilled from the stock culture on the surface while transferring onto the treated medium were ignored for study (like germination, mycelial growth, etc). further, the rate of growth and the total growth of l. lecanii (in diameter) from the transferred block at 1st and 2nd week from inoculation of l. lecanii was determined. the rate of growth was calculated by the distance the fungus to which had actually grown (radial distance – initial radial distance) and dividing it by the number of days after inoculation. per cent inhibition of mycelial growth over the control was calculated using the formula given by vincent (1927). based on per cent inhibition of mycelial growth, pesticides were grouped as non-toxic to very highly toxic, with six levels of categorization. a rating with 0% mycelial inhibition denotes that the pesticide in question can be used either alone or can be combined with an entomopathogenic fungus. a rating with 1-20% inhibition denotes that there is less interaction and therefore less compatibility and can be considered as least toxic. a rating with 21-40% inhibition denotes that the interaction resulted in low toxic effect on mycelial growth of l. lecanii. a rating with 41-60% and 61-80% inhibition denotes that the interaction resulted in moderately toxic and highly toxic effect, respectively, on mycelial growth of l. lecanii. a rating with 81-100% inhibition denotes that the interaction resulted in very highly toxic effect on mycelial growth of l. lecanii, where there is no chance of revival of the fungus. the resultant data were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) using sas (1996) package. yield of conidia the conidial yield obtained from mycelia grown in the above study on rate of growth of mycelium, was recorded using improved neubauer double ruled haemocytometer and phase contrast microscope on 14th day after inoculation. results were expressed a number of conidia per milliliter to determine the overall table 1. effect of various pesticides on germination of conidial spores of lecanicillium lecanii pesticide dose/l mean no. of per cent germinated germination conidia * endosulfan 2.00ml 118.7d 39.6 acephate 0.75g 256.7b 85.7 abamectin 0.60ml 169.4c 56.5 ethion 1.00ml 126.3d 42.1 pongamia oil 2.00ml 297.7a 99.3 chlorothalonil 2.00ml 0.0 0.0 iprodion + carbendazim 2.00g 0.0 0.0 carbendazim 2.00g 0.0 0.0 thiophanate methyl 1.00g 0.0 0.0 dinocap 1.00ml 94.2e 31.4 control 299.7a 99.9 cv (%) 2.32 cd (p=0.05) 0.73 * mean of five replications means in the same column with same alphabet are not significantly different krishnamoorthy et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 53-57, 2007 54 effect. compatibility was finally decided based on mean diameter of the colony and number of conidia produced after a fortnight of incubation (loureiro e de et al, 2002). results and discussion per cent germination of conidia results on the effect of different pesticides on germination of conidia of l. lecanii under in vitro conditions are presented in table 1. the fungicides, viz., chlorothalonil, iprodion + carbendazim, carbendazim and thiophanate methyl were found to be highly toxic and they completely inhibited conidial germination. majchrowicz and poprawski (1993), similarly, reported with different pesticide , zineb + copper oxychloride and metalaxyl, that these completely inhibited germination of metarhizium anisopliae (metsch) sorokin and verticillium lecanii (zimm.) viegas. dinocap was found to be moderately toxic as there was 31.4% germination. endosulfan, ethion and abamectin allowed conidia to germinate to a large extent and, therefore, they appeared to be the least toxic. conidial germination was not much affected in acephate and pongamia oil and these two pesticides alone were found to be safe to l. lecanii as there 85.7 and 99.3% germination, respectively. germinated conidia continued to produce radial growth of mycelium in all the above treatments. thus, acephate and pongamia oil alone were found to be safes and compatible with l. lecanii as far as germination of conidia is considered. rate of growth of mycelium data in table 2 show that the pesticides produced varied levels of inhibitory effect on fungal mycelial growth. during the first week, mycelia of l. lecanii grew to a maximum colony dia of 1.73 cm. in pongamia oil amended medium, which is however, significantly less than the control ie., 2.03 cm dia. abamectin, acephate, ethion, dinocap and thiophanate methyl recorded 1.40 1.53 cm diameter of mycelial growth, which is on par and significantly affected the fungus resulting in less rate of mycelial growth of 0.06 0.07 cm per day than in the control at 0.1 cm per day. the interaction of endosulfan and chlorothalonil with the fungus resulted in very less rate of mycelial growth of 0.06 and 0.04 cm, respectively. however, carbendazim and iprodion + carbendazim were found to be the most toxic chemicals, recording no increase in mycelial growth. however, in the second week, although the maximum mycelial growth in terms of cumulative growth of colony diameter of 2.33 cm was observed in thiophanate methyl, it was significantly less than 2.73 cm recorded in the control (table 2). this was followed by 2.23 cm mycelial radial growth in acephate and pongamia oil, 2.03 cm in ethion and endosulfan and 2.00 cm in chlorothalonil; but all were on par with each other. toxicity of abamectin appeared to continue even in the second week, registering a colony diameter of 1.90 cm. also, during the second week, interaction of dinocap with the fungus was so severe that there was very less mycelial growth, measuring colony diameter of 1.53 cm and was found to be significantly different from other treatments. the rate of growth of 0.03cm per day indicated that the fungus could not overcome the toxic effect although it registered growth. iprodion + carbendazim and carbendazim remained at very high level of toxicity and did not allow the mycelium to grow further (table 2). machowicz et al (1981) also reported that carbendazim limited the growth of v. lecanii more than thiophanate methyl. the above data show that there was significant interaction among pesticides with the entomopathogenic fungus, which resulted in inhibition of l. lecanii growth. among fungicides, iprodion + carbendazim and carbendazim interaction produced significantly lethal effect table 2. effect of different pesticides on growth of lecanicillium lecanii pesticide dose/l rate of growth total mycelial ‘cm’ per day growth of colony (diameter in ‘cm’)# 7th 14th at 7th at 14th day day day day (cumulative growth) endosulfan 2.00ml 0.05 0.05 1.33cd 2.03bc acephate 0.75g 0.06 0.06 1.43c 2.23bc abamectin 0.60ml 0.07 0.05 1.53bc 1.90c ethion 1.00ml 0.06 0.05 1.43c 2.03bc pongamia oil 2.00ml 0.08 0.06 1.73b 2.23bc chlorothalonil 2.00ml 0.04 0.05 1.13d 2.00bc iprodion + 2.00g 0.00 0.00 0.60e* 0.60e* carbendazim carbendazim 2.00g 0.00 0.00 0.60e* 0.60e* thiophanate 1.00g 0.06 0.06 1.40cd 2.33b methyl dinocap 1.00ml 0.06 0.03 1.43c 1.53d control 0.10 0.08 2.03a 2.73a cv (%) 12.79 11.22 cd (p=0.05) 0.28 0.33 cd (p=0.01) 0.38 0.45 * initial disc diameter plated at inoculation # mean of five replications means in the same column with same alphabet are not significantly different influence of pesticides on lecanicillium lecanii j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 53-57, 2007 55 on l. lecanii, so much so that even after two weeks of association, 100% inhibition of mycelial growth was observed (fig 1). similar observations were made by loureiro e de et al (2002) with iprodione used alone. therefore, these fungicides are considered to be the most toxic and incompatible. further, as there was no production of spores due to interaction (fig 2), the pathogen had of no chance revival. during the first week, chlorothalonil, although highly toxic, registering 62.93% inhibition of mycelial growth (fig 1), became low toxic to the fungus during the second week, indicating that the fungus was able to overcome the toxic effect due to degradation of the fungicide. degradation of the fungicide was observed in terms of increased mycelial growth, from 1.3 to 2.0 cm. insecticides such as acephate and endosulfan, the acaricide ethion and fungicides such as dinocap and thiophanate methyl were moderately toxic, inhibiting 41.95 to 48.95% of mycelial growth during the first week. all these pesticides, however, became low toxic during the second week except dinocap, which remained moderately toxic, registering cumulative inhibition of 56.33%. abamectin and pongamia oil were low toxic to l. lecanii during the first and second weeks of interaction. the above chemicals, with exception of dinocap, thus had low toxicity and did not overly affect mycelial growth in l. lecanii. as there was an increase in mycelial growth in the second week due to degradation of pesticides, it may be surmised that there was sporulation after two weeks. yield of conidia significant difference was observed in conidial yield (fig 2). pongamia oil recorded the maximum yield of 47.2x106 conidia/ml, followed by 18x106 conidia/ml in chlorothalonil as against 20x106 conidia/ml in the control, which means that pongamia oil exhibited a synergistic effect on l. lecanii leading to higher yield of conidial spores. l. lecanii yielded 9.37x106 and 3.45x106 conidia/ ml in endosulfan and ethion. least conidial production was observed in dinocap and abamectin with 1.0 and 0.63x106 conidia/ml, respectively, followed by 0.50x106 conidia/ml in thiophanate-methyl. conidial germination was found to the totally inhibited in the presence of chlorothalonil, iprodion + carbendazim, carbendazim and thiophanate-methyl and, fig 1. per cent inhibition (over control) of mycelial growth of l. lecanii due to pesticides fig 2. conidial spore yield l. lecanii due to interaction with pesticides on 14th dai. krishnamoorthy et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 53-57, 2007 56 therefore, these chemicals are highly toxic to l. lecanii. as there was, however, low rate of mycelial growth (from the inverted cut block) in chlorothalonil and thiophanatemethyl, these two fungicides can be recommended for needbased application. thrips, one of the major pests that affect yield and quality of table grapes, is susceptible to l. lecanii. therefore, these sprays in the field, affect the vegetative phase of the fungusless and inoculum of the fungus remains in the ecosystem either for enzootic or epizootic appearance when other conditions are favourable. the above observation is, however, dissimilar from that of khalil et al (1985) who reported that thiophanate-methyl had little effect on conidial germination at both the recommended and sub-lethal concentrations. of the pesticides investigated for their compatibility, based on interaction effects on l. lecanii during the vegetative phase, only pongamia oil and chlorothalonil can be used along with l. lecanii, either alone or in combination with v. lecanii for control of pests and diseases. endosulfan and ethion can be used sparingly because of their low toxicity on mycelium of l. lecanii. also, the fungus yielded at least 50% of conidia as that in control. batista filho et al (2001), similarly, observed low toxicity of endosulfan to several entomopathogenic fungi including l. lecanii. other treatments such as abamectin, thiophanate-methyl and dinocap resulted in very low production of conidia of l. lecanii,and hence were considered to the incompatible. based on interaction of pesticides with germination of l. lecanii conidia, vegetative growth of mycelia and final conidial spore production (which ultimately determines vailability of the inoculum in subsequent generations), it can be considered that the fungus can be best combined with pongamia oil, and followed by chlorothalonil. the fungicides iprodion + carbendazim and carbendazim produced very severe toxic effect on the entomopathogenic fungus and are hence considered incompatible. acknowledgement the authors are 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(ms received 4 may 2006, revised 2 february 2007) influence of pesticides on lecanicillium lecanii j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 53-57, 2007 57 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction potato (solanum tuberosum l.), the fourth most important vegetable crop, serves as an important raw source for starch extraction and applications in food industry. potato starch can form thick visco-elastic gel unlike millet starches due to its composition of phosphate ester groups on amylopectin, larger granule size, longer amylose and amylopectin chain length, and higher purity (singh et al.,2003). its major application in food industry is limited by properties such as low shear resistance, thermal decomposition and thermal r esista nce, a nd its higher tendency towa r ds retr ogra da tion (avula a nd singh 2009). t hese limitations can be easily overcome by modification of extracted starch using extraction methods to meet the demands of final product (liu et al.,2003). changes in methods of extraction affect yield and recovery, cost, product pur ity, desir ed physico-chemica l properties, and mechanical properties of starch. potato starch is unique compared to cereal starches (corn, wheat, rice, etc.) because of its wider granule size and purity, longer amylose and amylopectin chain length, presence of phosphate ester groups on amylopectin, ability to exchange certain cations with corresponding effects on viscosity behaviour, ability to form a thick viscoelastic gel upon heating and subsequent cooling in water, and poor thermal as well as shear stability of this gel (singh et al., 2003). pre-treatments such as curing have also been reported to affect yield and amylose content of starch. this investigation was thus performed out with an aim to characterize the morphological and physiochemical characteristics of potato starch extracted by control and combined method (extraction with ambient water 30oc + 0.25% naoh + 2% w/v sds: me + 5.25% naocl + 0.15% cellulase enzyme) from fresh and cured tubers of five cultivars to identify varieties of potato with highest starch content so as to aid the farmers and industry. materials and methods plant material the fresh harvested potato tuber (solanum tuberosum l.) of kufri chipsona-4 (v1), kufri badshah (v2), kufri pushkar (v3), kufri bahar (v4) (white flesh morphological, physiochemical and colour characteristics of fresh and cured starch in potato varieties neeraj1*, siddiqui s.1,2, dalal n.1, bindu b.3 and srivastva a.1,4 1centre of food science and technology, ccs haryana agricultural university, hisar 125 004, india 2school of agricultural sciences, sharda university, greater noida 201 310, u.p., india 3department of food nutrition and food technology, lady irwin college, new delhi, india 4 icar, directorate of mushroom research, solan, h.p., india *corresponding author e-mail : phogatneeraj23@gmail.com abstract the present study was conducted to study the morphological, physicochemical and colour characteristics of potato starch extracted by control and combined methods from potato varieties viz., kufri chipsona-4, badshah, pushkar, bahar and sindhuri (fresh and cured). among these varieties, kufri chipsona-4 exhibited maximum percent of small size (< 30 µm) particles (48%). kufri sindhuri showed highest starch purity (87.1%) but lowest whiteness (92.2%) whereas, highest whiteness (95.4%) was recorded in starch extracted from kufri badshah. among starch extraction methods, combined method showed significantly lower starch moisture content (11.8%), fat (0.28%), protein (0.31%), ash (0.28%) and crude fibre (0.15%) whereas; starch purity (87.2%), percentage of small size particles (45%) and starch whiteness (96.3%) were observed higher than control methods in all varieties. keywords: curing, starch purity, starch whiteness and tuber 228 neeraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 varieties) and kufri sindhuri (v5) (pink flesh variety) were procured from vegetable farm, ccs haryana agricultural university, hisar.they were sorted and cured without packaging in a bod (biological oxygen demand) incubator at ~22 oc temperature and 90% relative humidity in the dark for 18 days. extraction of starch fresh and cured potato tubers were used for starch extraction. for control extraction, starch was extracted a s descr ibed by peshin (2001) with slight modifications. for combined extraction, a combined method of phogat et al., (2020) (extraction with water at 30oc +0.25% naoh + 2% w/v sds:me + 5.25% naocl + 0.15% cellulase enzyme) was used. the starch was analysed for the following parameters: physico-chemical properties potato starch was analysed for moisture, crude protein, fat, ash, and crude fibre content by the aoac (2006) method. starch yield (%) or crude starch content was calculated by the following formula: starch purity (%) was calculated with the following formula: purity (%) = [100 – (moisture + fatty materials+ crude protein+ ash + crude fibre)] colour of starch: whiteness value [l* (whiteness or blackness), a* (redness or greenness) and b* (yellowness or blueness)] was measured by hunter lab colorimeter (colour flex, usa). whiteness = 100 [(100-l)2+ a2 + b2 ]1\2 morphological properties the shape and size of extracted starch particles were ascertained using an inverted compound microscope (olympus, ja pa n; model: cx-41with 10× magnification) equipped with a digital camera. starch particle size was measured using calibrated ocular scale fitted on the microscope lens. statistical analysis the factorial crd was used with three replications for analysis using opstat software (sheoran et al.,1998). means were separated by critical difference (cd) at 5% significance level. principal component analysis (pca) was performed with past-3 software. results and discussion physico-chemical properties va r ieties, cur ing a nd extr a ction methods ha d significant effect on physico-chemical properties of starch. moisture content was varied from 11.7 to 12.6% (table 1). combined extraction method had lower starch moisture content.v5 had least (11.7%) starch moisture content and it was maximum (12.6%) in v2. the starch fat content ranged from 0.33 to 0. 43% (ta ble 1). combined tr ea tment ha s significa ntly lower fa t content. t her e was no significant difference in starch fat (%) extracted from 5 varieties, except v5 which exhibited significantly lower fat content (table 3). the starch protein (%) of potato varieties ranged from 0.35 to 0.48% (table 1). combined treatment has significantly lower protein content. it was recorded minimum (0.35%) in v5 and maximum (0.48%) in v4 (table 4). for all the varieties, there was nonsignificant effect of curing on starch moisture, fat and protein content (table 2, 3 and 4). the starch ash content ranged from of 0.32 to 0.36% (table 1). variety and curing did not significantly affect ash content (table 5). the starch crude fiber content ranged from 0.15 to 0.23% (table 1). combined tr ea tment extr a cted sta r ch ha d significa ntly lower a sh and crude fiber. it was minimum (0.15%) in v3 and it was maximum (0.23%) in v1 (table 6). curing had non-significant affect in crude fiber. the slight difference with respect to moisture content could be the result of extraction method, varieties, and curing (table 2). kim and co-workers (1995) reported differ ences r anging from 7.2-16. 70% in star ch moistur e contents a mong 42 pota to va r ieties. karmakar et al., (2014) compared the moisture content of potato with taro and corn starch and pointed that starch moisture content also depends on the extent of drying. similar was the observation by abegunde et al., (2013). the lower fat (table 3) and protein content (table 4) in starch extracted by combined treatment attributed to the action of alkali and sds used during extraction. naoh, an alkali solvent, can easily solubilize major proteins enclosing the starch and thus soften-up the protein-starch matrix. kaur and co-workers (2007) observed that the kufri sindhuri had highest ash content and kufri chandarmukhi the lowest. starch purity the starch purity varied between 86.0 to 87.1% (table 1). variety and curing did not significantly affect the starch purity (table 7). the starch purity for all the potato varieties was observed significantly higher 229 starch morphological, physiochemical and colour characteristics ta bl e 1. s um m ar y st at is tic s of s ta rc h ch ar ac te ri st ic s of p ot at o va ri et ie s. st ar ch c ha ra ct er is ti cs m in m ax s. d . sk ew ne ss k ur to si s c oe ff . v ar m oi st ur e co nt en t (% ) 11 .7 0 12 .6 0 0. 34 -0 .2 8 -0 .0 9 2. 81 fa t (% ) 0. 33 0. 43 0. 04 -1 .8 1 3. 25 10 .4 7 pr ot ei n (% ) 0. 35 0. 48 0. 06 -0 .2 4 -2 .9 1 14 .4 9 a sh ( % ) 0. 32 0. 36 0. 01 0. 55 0. 87 4. 39 c ru de f ib re ( % ) 0. 15 0. 23 0. 03 0. 61 -0 .6 8 17 .4 4 pu ri ty ( % ) 86 .0 0 87 .1 0 0. 45 0. 38 -1 .1 4 0. 52 w hi te ne ss ( % ) 92 .2 0 95 .4 0 1. 41 0. 45 -2 .5 9 1. 50 sm al l si ze p ar tic le s (% ) 41 .0 0 48 .0 0 2. 86 0. 31 -1 .5 4 6. 48 ta bl e 2. m oi st ur e co nt en t (% ) of s ta rc h as i nf lu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed k uf ri c hi ps on a4 (v 1) 13 .4 ±0 .5 4 12 .2 ±0 .5 1 12 .8 10 .4 ±0 .4 7 12 .5 ±0 .6 4 11 .5 11 .9 12 .4 12 .1 k uf ri b ad sh ah ( v 2) 11 .7 ±0 .6 8 13 .3 ±0 .7 8 12 .5 11 .4 ±0 .4 1 13 .9 ±0 .7 6 12 .7 11 .6 13 .6 12 .6 k uf ri p us hk ar ( v 3) 12 .5 ±0 .8 8 11 .7 ±0 .7 4 12 .1 12 .7 ±0 .8 1 11 .4 ±0 .3 9 12 .0 12 .6 11 .6 12 .1 k uf ri b ah ar ( v 4) 13 .5 ±0 .7 1 12 .8 ±0 .6 4 13 .2 11 .7 ±0 .8 5 11 .7 ±0 .5 9 11 .7 12 .6 12 .3 12 .4 k uf ri s in dh ur i (v 5) 12 .5 ±0 .5 8 12 .4 ±0 .6 2 12 .5 11 .4 ±0 .6 1 10 .5 ±0 .6 0 11 .0 12 .0 11 .5 11 .7 m ea n 12 .6 11 .8 12 .1 12 .3 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = 0. 54 c ur in g (c ) = n s m et ho ds ( m ) = 0. 35 v ×m = 0 .7 8 v ×c = 0 .7 8 m ×c = n s v ×m ×c = 1 .1 1 m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 230 ta bl e 3. f at c on te nt ( % ) of s ta rc h as i nf lu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed k uf ri c hi ps on a4 (v 1) 0. 59 ±0 .1 5 0. 58 ±0 .1 1 0. 58 0. 28 ±0 .0 8 0. 24 ±0 .0 5 0. 26 0. 44 0. 41 0. 42 k uf ri b ad sh ah ( v 2) 0. 48 ±0 .0 6 0. 53 ±0 .0 3 0. 50 0. 22 ±0 .0 6 0. 36 ±0 .0 7 0. 29 0. 35 0. 44 0. 40 k uf ri p us hk ar ( v 3) 0. 47 ±0 .1 1 0. 60 ±0 .0 5 0. 53 0. 34 ±0 .0 9 0. 34 ±0 .0 8 0. 34 0. 40 0. 47 0. 43 k uf ri b ah ar ( v 4) 0. 56 ±0 .0 6 0. 57 ±0 .1 6 0. 56 0. 29 ±0 .0 4 0. 30 ±0 .0 9 0. 29 0. 43 0. 43 0. 43 k uf ri s in dh ur i (v 5) 0. 47 ±0 .0 5 0. 43 ±0 .0 9 0. 45 0. 17 ±0 .0 5 0. 25 ±0 .0 7 0. 21 0. 32 0. 34 0. 33 m ea n 0. 53 0. 28 0. 39 0. 42 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = 0. 07 c ur in g (c ) = n s m et ho ds ( m ) = 0. 04 v ×m = n s v ×c = n s m ×c = n s v ×m ×c = n s m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t ta bl e 4. p ro te in c on te nt ( % ) of s ta rc h as i nf lu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed k uf ri c hi ps on a4 (v 1) 0. 48 ±0 .0 8 0. 53 ±0 .0 8 0. 51 0. 34 ±0 .1 7 0. 38 ±0 .0 5 0. 36 0. 41 0. 46 0. 43 k uf ri b ad sh ah ( v 2) 0. 55 ±0 .1 5 0. 61 ±0 .1 1 0. 58 0. 35 ±0 .1 8 0. 36 ±0 .1 9 0. 35 0. 45 0. 48 0. 47 k uf ri p us hk ar ( v 3) 0. 46 ±0 .0 7 0. 41 ±0 .0 3 0. 44 0. 29 ±0 .0 9 0. 27 ±0 .0 4 0. 28 0. 37 0. 34 0. 36 k uf ri b ah ar ( v 4) 0. 70 ±0 .0 1 0. 67 ±0 .1 2 0. 68 0. 30 ±0 .0 6 0. 25 ±0 .1 3 0. 28 0. 50 0. 46 0. 48 k uf ri s in dh ur i (v 5) 0. 38 ±0 .0 6 0. 49 ±0 .0 5 0. 43 0. 28 ±0 .1 4 0. 26 ±0 .0 4 0. 27 0. 33 0. 37 0. 35 m ea n 0. 53 0. 31 0. 41 0. 43 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = 0. 09 c ur in g (c ) = n s m et ho ds ( m ) = 0. 06 v ×m = 0 .1 3 v ×c = n s m ×c = n s v ×m ×c = n s m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t neeraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 231 ta bl e 5. a sh c on te nt ( % ) of s ta rc h as i nf lu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed k uf ri c hi ps on a4 (v 1) 0. 32 ±0 .0 6 0. 37 ±0 .0 6 0. 35 0. 30 ±0 .0 5 0. 31 ±0 .0 5 0. 31 0. 31 0. 34 0. 33 k uf ri b ad sh ah ( v 2) 0. 39 ±0 .0 4 0. 41 ±0 .0 9 0. 40 0. 27 ±0 .0 4 0. 31 ±0 .0 2 0. 29 0. 33 0. 36 0. 34 k uf ri p us hk ar ( v 3) 0. 36 ±0 .0 5 0. 40 ±0 .0 5 0. 38 0. 31 ±0 .0 3 0. 21 ±0 .0 5 0. 26 0. 34 0. 30 0. 32 k uf ri b ah ar ( v 4) 0. 42 ±0 .0 3 0. 39 ±0 .0 6 0. 41 0. 26 ±0 .0 2 0. 28 ±0 .0 4 0. 27 0. 34 0. 33 0. 34 k uf ri s in dh ur i (v 5) 0. 36 ±0 .0 3 0. 47 ±0 .0 7 0. 42 0. 34 ±0 .0 6 0. 26 ±0 .0 3 0. 30 0. 35 0. 37 0. 36 m ea n 0. 39 0. 28 0. 33 0. 34 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = n s c ur in g (c ) = n s m et ho ds ( m ) = 0. 03 v ×m = n s v ×c = n s m ×c = 0 .0 4 v ×m ×c = 0 .0 8 m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t ta bl e 6. c ru de f ib re c on te nt ( % ) of s ta rc h as in flu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed k uf ri c hi ps on a4 (v 1) 0. 26 ±0 .0 9 0. 30 ±0 .0 8 0. 28 0. 15 ±0 .0 4 0. 20 ±0 .0 5 0. 17 0. 21 0. 25 0. 23 k uf ri b ad sh ah ( v 2) 0. 17 ±0 .0 3 0. 24 ±0 .0 6 0. 20 0. 16 ±0 .0 4 0. 22 ±0 .0 7 0. 19 0. 17 0. 23 0. 20 k uf ri p us hk ar ( v 3) 0. 19 ±0 .0 4 0. 15 ±0 .0 4 0. 17 0. 11 ±0 .0 4 0. 13 ±0 .0 4 0. 12 0. 15 0. 14 0. 15 k uf ri b ah ar ( v 4) 0. 28 ±0 .0 6 0. 16 ±0 .0 7 0. 22 0. 15 ±0 .0 7 0. 13 ±0 .0 6 0. 14 0. 21 0. 14 0. 18 k uf ri s in dh ur i (v 5) 0. 17 ±0 .0 5 0. 25 ±0 .0 9 0. 21 0. 10 ±0 .0 3 0. 11 ±0 .0 4 0. 11 0. 14 0. 18 0. 16 m ea n 0. 22 0. 15 0. 18 0. 18 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = 0. 04 c ur in g (c ) = n s m et ho ds ( m ) = 0. 03 v ×m = n s v ×c = 0 .0 6 m ×c = n s v ×m ×c = n s m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t starch morphological, physiochemical and colour characteristics j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 232 ta bl e 7. p ur ity ( % ) of s ta rc h as i nf lu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed k uf ri c hi ps on a4 (v 1) 85 .0 ±0 .9 8 86 .0 ±0 .9 5 85 .5 88 .5 ±0 .8 3 86 .4 ±0 .6 6 87 .4 86 .7 86 .2 86 .5 k uf ri b ad sh ah ( v 2) 86 .7 ±0 .4 1 84 .9 ±0 .7 4 85 .8 87 .5 ±0 .8 5 84 .9 ±0 .5 1 86 .2 87 .1 84 .9 86 .0 k uf ri p us hk ar ( v 3) 86 .0 ±0 .7 9 86 .7 ±0 .7 3 86 .4 86 .3 ±0 .3 9 87 .7 ±0 .8 2 87 .0 86 .2 87 .2 86 .7 k uf ri b ah ar ( v 4) 84 .5 ±0 .9 2 85 .4 ±0 .5 8 85 .0 87 .3 ±0 .8 0 87 .3 ±0 .5 5 87 .3 85 .9 86 .4 86 .1 k uf ri s in dh ur i (v 5) 86 .1 ±0 .7 7 85 .9 ±0 .6 9 86 .0 87 .7 ±0 .8 5 88 .6 ±0 .4 4 88 .1 86 .9 87 .2 87 .1 m ea n 85 .7 87 .2 86 .6 86 .4 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = n s c ur in g (c ) = n s m et ho ds ( m ) = 0. 38 v ×m = 0 .8 5 v ×c = 0 .8 5 m ×c = n s v ×m ×c = 1 .2 0 m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t (87.2%) when starch was extracted by combined treatment. pure starch had lower protein, fat, and ash content. thus, the non-significant differences observed in purity of starches from different varieties was due to the nonsignificant differences in fat and ash contents of their starches (table 5 and 6). abegunde and coworkers (2013) reported that starch purity was reasonably high (>91%) in sweet potato cultivars due to low starch impurities (moisture, fat, protein, ash, and crude fibre). in the present study starch purity was maximum in v1 because it had less impurities (table 7). combined extraction resulted in significantly lower crude fibre, fat, protein and ash contents of starch hence combined treatment had lower impurity content in starch and thus produced starch with higher purity. starch paste thought to be clear and did not contain any off colouration, especially if it’s to be used in food application. kordylas (1990) reported that impurities in form of moisture, fat, protein, ash and crude fibre content decrease the starch whiteness value. principal component analysis (pca) pca wa s per for med keeping in mind the characteristics of starch among the potato varieties. the eigenvalue, variance contribution rate of pcs and the cumulative variance are presented in table 10. the first three pcs with eigen values >1.0 accounted for 92.71 % of variation among potato varieties. other pcs were not interpreted since they had eigen values <1.0.t he fir st pc, explained 56.56 % of total variation. eigen vector of the first principal component had high loading values for starch moisture content (0.41), protein content (0.41), purity (-43) and whiteness (0.38). second principal component which r epresented 21. 47 % of total var ia tion mainly represented the starch ash (0.56), fat (-44) content and starch small size particles (-0.53). third principal component explained mainly crude fibre (0.64). the biplot between pc1 and pc2 (fig 2) compares the potato varieties based on their starch characteristics. starch whiteness starch whiteness ranged from 92.2 to 95.4 (table 1). va r ieties, extr a ction methods a nd cur ing ha d significantly affected starch whiteness value. it was minimum (92.2) in v5 and it was maximum (95.4) in v2. for all the varieties, combined extraction method had significantly higher starch whiteness value and curing of potatoes resulted in significantly lower whiteness value of extra cted star ch (table 8). neeraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 233 combined method extracted starch had significantly higher starch whiteness because of bleaching action of chemicals or by decreased moisture content, protein, fat, ash, and crude fibre contents which act as impurity. colour is an important criterion for starch quality, especially for use in various types of food products. minimum whiteness value was recorded in starch extracted from kufri sindhuri (92.2) due to its pink flesh and maximum (95.4) in v2 (table 8). curing resulted in lower starch whiteness. abegunde a nd co-worker s (2013) a lso repor ted differ ent whiteness values of starches extracted from varieties of sweet potato using multiple extraction methods to remove pigments from starch. this is in agreement with the reports of hu and co-workers. (2011) who observed that starch colour isolated from two-day old root was slightly grey. morphological properties the percentage of small size particles (< 30 µm) in different potato varieties ranged from 41% to 48%. curing and method of extraction non significantly affected the percentage of small size particles. minimum number of small size particles was observed in v2 (41%) and v5 (42%) and maximum in v1 (48%). in the present investigation, minimum number of small size particles was observed in v2 (41%) and v5 (42%) and maximum in v1 (48%) (table 9& figure 1). minimum number of small size particles was observed fig. 2. segregation of the potato varieties based on their respective starch traits as determined by pca. in v2 (41%) and v5 (42%) and maximum in v1 (48%) (table 9). this may be attributed to difference in temperature of the locations during tubers growth. singh and singh (2001) documented small and large sta r ch gr a nules of 15-20 µ m a nd 20-45 µ m respectively, with shapes r anging from oval to irregular or cuboidal, which may be attributed to difference in tubers growth. further, it has also been r epor ted tha t sta r ch gr a nule size is dir ectly proportional to the weight of a potato tuber (liu et al., 2003). during tuber development, the membranes and physical characteristics of plastids differ among potato varieties and this in turn lead to difference among shape of starch granules among varieties (lindeboom et al., 2004). physicochemical properties of starch had been linked to difference in its granule shape and size. skewness and kurtosis skewness and kurtosis were calculated to analyse the genetic difference among potato varieties. the positive skewness was obtained for starch small size particles, yield, ash content, crude fibre, purity and whiteness whereas negative skewness was found for starch moisture content, fat and protein. the starch fat and ash content showed platykurtic distribution (positive) pattern. leptokurtic distribution (negative) was followed by starch small size particles, crude fibre, purity, whiteness, peak viscosity, moisture, and protein content (table 1). starch morphological, physiochemical and colour characteristics j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 234 ta bl e 8. c ol ou r va lu e (w hi te ne ss ) of s ta rc h as i nf lu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed k uf ri c hi ps on a4 (v 1) 94 .4 ±0 .5 1 90 .9 ±0 .6 4 92 .6 97 .4 ±0 .6 7 97 .0 ±0 .8 6 97 .2 95 .9 93 .9 94 .9 k uf ri b ad sh ah ( v 2) 95 .8 ±0 .6 4 91 .1 ±0 .7 8 93 .5 97 .9 ±0 .5 3 96 .8 ±0 .5 1 97 .4 96 .9 94 .0 95 .4 k uf ri p us hk ar ( v 3) 90 .8 ±0 .8 7 88 .7 ±0 .7 7 89 .7 95 .3 ±0 .7 2 96 .0 ±0 .8 4 95 .7 93 .0 92 .4 92 .7 k uf ri b ah ar ( v 4) 91 .8 ±0 .8 4 90 .1 ±0 .4 9 91 .0 95 .2 ±0 .7 7 95 .4 ±0 .6 5 95 .3 93 .5 92 .8 93 .1 k uf ri s in dh ur i (v 5) 88 .6 ±0 .7 9 88 .2 ±0 .5 8 88 .4 95 .8 ±0 .6 0 96 .1 ±0 .6 1 95 .9 92 .2 92 .1 92 .2 m ea n 91 .0 96 .3 94 .3 93 .0 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = 0. 56 c ur in g (c ) = 0. 36 m et ho ds ( m ) = 0. 36 v ×m = 0 .8 0 v ×c = 0 .8 0 m ×c = 0 .5 0 v ×m ×c = n s m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t ta bl e 9 pe rc en t of s m al l s iz e (< 3 0 µm ) pa rt ic le s of s ta rc h as in flu en ce d by v ar ie tie s, c ur in g an d ex tr ac tio n m et ho ds . e xt ra ct io n m et ho ds c ur in g o ve ra ll v ar ie ti es c on tr ol m et ho d c om bi ne d tr ea tm en t m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed m ea n f re sh c ur ed v 1 45 49 47 47 51 49 46 50 48 v 2 39 40 40 41 43 42 40 42 41 v 3 42 43 43 44 45 45 43 44 44 v 4 43 46 45 46 48 47 45 47 46 v 5 40 42 41 42 44 43 41 43 42 m ea n 43 45 43 45 c d a t 5% v ar ie tie s (v ) = 4 c ur in g (c ) = n s m et ho ds ( m ) = n s v ×m = 6 v ×c = 6 m ×c = 4 v ×m ×c = 6 m ea n± sd ; n s – no nsi gn if ic an t neeraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 235 table 10. principal component (pc) loadings for quality variables of the potato starch. starch characteristics pc1 pc2 pc3 moisture content (%) 0.41 0.20 -0.36 fat (%) 0.36 -0.44 -0.25 protein (%) 0.41 0.25 0.00 ash (%) -0.24 0.56 0.23 crude fiber (%) 0.33 0.09 0.64 starch purity (%) -0.43 -0.20 0.23 starch whiteness (%) 0.38 0.23 0.28 small size particles (%) 0.18 -0.53 0.46 eigen value 4.52 1.72 1.17 % variance 56.56 21.47 14.67 cumulative variance (%) 56.56 78.04 92.71 fig. 1. particle of starch from potato varieties as effected by curing (inverted compound microscope (olympus, japan; model: cx-41) equipped with digital camera facility at 10 x power lens.) in the present study, biplot indicates that starch crude fibr e, moistur e, pr otein a nd sta r ch whiteness correspond more to kufri badshah and kufri bahar whereas, starch fat (%), and small size particles values correspond more to kufri chipsona-4 (fig. 2). the starch purity was more associated with the kufri sindhuri and kufri pushkar. the angle size between two or more traits in the biplot is directly proportional to correlation between those characters. a high positive correlation was discerned between the starch crude fibre, moisture, protein and starch whiteness value whereas, high negative correlation was discerned by starch purity with starch protein, moisture, crude fibre content, and starch whiteness. the biplot reflected diversity among potato varieties based on variables measured. projection of the variables on the factors plane exhibits an independent group consisting of starch characteristics and the pca analysis revealed several remarkable variations that exist among potato varieties. kong et al., (2009) extracted four principal components (using 17 variables) that accounted for 88% of the total variance of starches properties, both physiochemical and functional, isolated from 15 amaranth grain cultivars. starch morphological, physiochemical and colour characteristics j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 236 conclusion characteristics of starch extracted varied with potato variety, curing and, extraction method. least moisture and protein content and highest starch purity was observed in kufri sindhuri. kufri sindhuri also resulted in least starch fat content and starch colour values. the percentage of small size particles was maximum in kufri chipsona-4 and minimum in kufri badshah. starch extracted by combined method had lower starch moisture content, fat, protein, ash and crude fibre and higher starch purity, percentage of small size particles, yield, and starch colour values. curing resulted in lower starch yield, starch whiteness value, higher peak viscosity. it can be thus concluded that it is profitable to extract starch by combined method fr om fr esh tuber s of va r iety kufr i chipsona 4. acknowledgement this work was supported by the centre of food science and technology, ccs haryana agricultural university, hisar, india under the student research work for ph.d. references a.o. a.c. (2006): official methods of methods of an alysis. associa tion of offici al anal ytical chemists. washington, d. c. abegunde, o.k., mu, t.h., chen, j.w. and deng, f.m, 2013. physicochemical characterization of sweet potato starches popularly used in chinese starch industry. food hydrocolloids.33(2):169177. avu l a , r. y. a n d si n gh , r. k , 2 00 9 . f un c t i on a l properties of potato flour and its role in product development-a review. food.3:105-112. hu, w., jiang, a., jin, l., liu, c., tian, m. and wang, y, 2011. effect of heat treatment on quality, thermal and pasting properties of sweet potato starch during yearlong storage. journal of the science of food and agriculture.91:1499-1504. ka r m a k a r, r. , ba n , d. k . a n d gh osh , u, 2 01 4. com par a t i ve st udy of n a t ive a n d m odi fi ed s t a r c h e s i s ol a t e d fr om c on ve n t i on a l a n d nonconventional sources. international food research journal.21: 597-602. kaur, a., singh, n., ezekiel, r. and guraya, h.s,2007. physicochemical, thermal and pasting properties of sta rch es separ a ted from di fferent pot at o cultivars grown at different locations. food chemistry.101:643-651. kim, y.s., wiesenborn, d.p., orr, p.h. and grant, l.a,1995. screening potato starch for novel p r op e r t i e s u s i n g d i ffe r en t i a l s c a n n i n g calorimetry. journal of food science.60:10601065. kong, x., ba o, j. a n d cor ke, h, 2009. ph ysica l p r op e r t i e s of a m a r a n t h u s st a r c h . f o o d chemistry.113:371-376. kordylas, j.m, 1990. processing and preservation of t ropical an d sub-tr opi cal foods, macmi l la n publishers, 414-426. lindeboom, n., chang, p.r. and tyler, r.t, 2004. analytical, biochemical and physicochemical aspects of starch granule size, with emphasis on small granule starches: a review. starch.56:89-99. liu, q., weber, e., currie, v. and yada, r, 2003. physicochemical properties of starches during potato growth. carbohydrates polymer.51:213-221. phogat, n., siddiqui, s., dalal, n., srivastva, a. and bindu, b, 2020. effects of varieties, curing of tubers and extraction methods on functional characteristics of potato starch. journal of food measurement and characterization. 14:3434– 3444. peshin, a, 2001. characterization of starch isolated from potato tubers (solanum tuberosum l.). journal of food science technology.38:447-449. sheoran, o.p., tonk, d.s., kaushik, l.s., hasija, r.c. and pannu, r.s. 1998. statistical software package for agricultural research workers. recent advances in information theory, statistics & computer a ppl i cat i ons by d. s. hooda & r. c. ha si ja department of mathematics statistics, ccs hau, hisar, 139-143. sin gh , j. a n d si n gh , n, 2001. st udi es on th e morphological, thermal and rheological properties of starch separated from some indian potato cultivars. food chemistry.75:67-77. singh, n., singh, j., kaur, l., sodhi, n.s. and gill, b.s, 2003. morphological, thermal and rheological properties of starches from different botanical sources. food chemistry.81:219-231. neeraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 227-236, 2022 (received: 16.01.2022; revised: 17.02.2022; accepted: 02.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction preservation of vegetables in brine of higher salt concentration as salt-stock is one of the traditional methods commercially practised in several countries (costilow and ubersax, 1982; fleming, 1982; daeschel and fleming, 1984). however, fermentation of vegetables in low salt brine by natural flora or by pure cultures of lactic acid bacteria is known to produce stable products. this technique of low-salt fermentation is gaining greater importance in recent years as the finished product contains optimum level of salt and obviates cumbersome de-salting process. several reports indicate possibility of preserving vegetables such as cucumber, cabbage, carrot, french bean, okra, turnip, etc. by fermentation (pederson and albury, 1969; gordona et al, 1973; fleming et al,1978; kozup and sistrunk, 1982; fleming et al, 1983, yamini, 1993). reduction in ph due to lactic acid production and removal of sugars from vegetables during fermentation prevents growth of pathogenic microorganisms, thereby, providing prolonged shelf-life that extends over a year. the relative advantage of lower ph value (below 3.5) enables vegetables to be preserved as such by a simple heating process. microbiological and physico-chemical changes occurring during fermentation are of great importance in terms of development of shelf-stable brined vegetables by lactic acid fermentation e. r. suresh division of post harvest technology indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: ers@iihr.ernet.in abstract preservation of vegetables, viz., bitter gourd, carrot, capsicum, cucumber, french bean and gherkin by lactic acid fermentation was attempted. properly prepared vegetables, packed in brine containing 2.5% equilibrated salt with additives, were allowed to undergo fermentation by their natural flora and this was compared with pure culture fermentation by lactobacillus plantarum. fermented vegetables had 0.5 to 1.31% lactic acid, with ph values ranging from 2.97 to 4.02, at the end of 4 weeks of fermentation at 20 ± 2oc. in general, fermentation by l. plantarum resulted in a slightly faster rate of acid production compared to that by natural flora. mustard powder at 1% concentration was found to be useful as alternate preservative in vegetable fermentation. fermented vegetables had acceptable quality in terms of colour, texture, flavour, taste and were microbiologically stable for six months of storage at room temperature (25 ± 8 oc). key words: vegetables, lactic acid fermentation, natural flora, lactobacillus plantarum storage stability and quality of the fermented vegetable. it is well-established that raw vegetables improve in taste, aroma and flavor due to fermentation, resulting in a more palatable product (fleming and mc feeters, 1981). although fermented cabbage (sauerkraut), cucumber (pickle), carrot and mixed vegetable ‘korean kimchi’ are popular and commercially produced in several countries, these products are not common in india. a few attempts have been made to develop lactic fermented vegetables in this country (anand and das lakshmi, 1971; kohli and kulkarni, 1973; sethi and anand, 1984; ramdas and kulkarni, 1987; sethi, 1990; suresh et al, 1996; desai and seth, 1997). these fermented vegetables have a good potential for use in pickling, salads and various culinary preparations, with or without addition of spices, condiments, etc. in traditional pickle products, spices are used as an essential ingredient and a few of these even exert inhibitory action against selected microorganisms (pruthi, 1980). mustard is a common ingredient in many indigenous, pickled products and its use in vegetable fermentation is suggested (sethi and anand, 1984). the present investigation deals with lactic fermentation of some vegetables by natural flora l. plantarum and use of mustard as an alternate preservative for vegetable fermentation. j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 150-155, 2008 151 material and methods microbial culture: a standard culture of lactobacillus plantarum obtained from the microbiology department of michigan state university, east lansing, u.s.a., and maintained in our laboratory was used in this study. a loopful of culture grown in de man rogosa sharpe (mrs) agar medium was transferred to mrs broth (himedia, mumbai) containing 2% sodium chloride and incubated at 30 oc. at 48h of growth, cells were harvested by centrifugation at 10,000 rpm for 15 min, washed and the pellet was suspended in normal saline. concentration of the cells in suspension was adjusted to 106 / ml and used as inoculum at 2% (v/w) for vegetable fermentation. preparation of vegetables: freshly harvested vegetables were collected from the local market and from experimental fields of the institute at hessaraghatta, bangalore. they were thoroughly washed under running tap water and subjected to specific pre-treatments. carrot skin was removed by scraping and cut into small, longitudinal pieces of 2-3 cm. in the case of french bean, both the ends of the pod were trimmed and the bean pod cut into 3 to 4 pieces. similarly, in gherkin, ends were trimmed off and the cucurbit was cut into two longitudinal slices. the stem and seeds of capsicum were removed and the vegetable cut into slices 1 cm wide. trimmed bitter gourd and cucumber were sliced longitudinally, their seed and placenta portions removed and made into small pieces of 1-2 cm. duplicate lots (1 kg. each) of all these prepared vegetables meant for l. plantarum fermentation were blanched at 80 °c for 5 min and rapidly cooled in water. unblanched lots were used in studies on fermentation by natural flora. brining and fermentation: prepared vegetables were packed in brine containing 2.5% each of sodium chloride, calcium chloride, acidifying agent acetic acid, texture improver and preservative, potassium sorbate, with a packout ratio of 1:1. ph of the brine was adjusted to 4.5 with sodium hydroxide to maintain buffering capacity wherever needed. fermentation was carried out by natural flora or by inoculation with l. plantarum for 4 weeks at 20 ± 2 oc. in experiments with mustard, vegetables viz., carrot, cucumber and french bean were fermented in brine by l. plantarum as described above in the presence of 1% mustard powder and were compared with treatments of 0.1% potassium sorbate, a common preservative used in vegetable fermentation. preservation: at the end of 4 weeks, fermented vegetables were rinsed in water, re-packed in hot-filtered mother brine and stored at room temperature (25 ± 8 oc). analysis: changes in brine acidity and ph were measured using standard methods at weekly intervals during one month of fermentation (ranganna, 1986). visual observations on colour, retention of texture, softening and microbial growth were recorded. data obtained were subjected to anova following crd, and the means were compared at 1 and 5% levels of significance. results and discussion the build-up of lactic acid and changes in ph during progression of fermentation in various vegetables by natural flora and by l. plantarum are illustrated in fig. 1. in general, all vegetables (except carrot and gherkin) showed a slightly increased production of lactic acid due to fermentation by l. plantarum, as compared to that by natural flora. fermented carrot and french bean had high acidity, i.e., above 1.3%, and low ph of 3.0 to 3.1 compared to that in other vegetables. lowest acidity was recorded in bitter gourd (table 1). there was significant variation in acidity due to fermentation methods used the type of vegetable as well as interaction between fermentation method and the vegetable. significant variation in ph value was also observed. however, the effect of fermentation method used was not significant. these variations can be attributed to the specific vegetable used, in fermentation. however, acidity and ph levels attained at the end of fermentation period was sufficient to make the product shelf-stable. traditional methods of vegetable fermentation depend mainly on activity of the natural flora viz., lactic acid bacteria and yeast. in this study, unblanched and blanched vegetables were used for fermentation by natural flora and l. plantarum, respectively. blanching treatment eliminates yeast and homoand hetero-lactics naturally present in vegetables, and encourages growth of the inoculated culture i.e., l. plantarum only. salt used in the brine inhibits growth of pathogens and other destructive micro-organisms. pure culture fermentations are known to result in better and uniform quality of the product and are generally preferred over natural fermentation (fleming et al, 1978, daeschel and fleming, 1984). the present study revealed that vegetables fermented with l. plantarum had special flavour and a pleasant aroma. however, both natural as well as l. plantarum inoculated fermentation resulted in product of acceptable quality. incomplete utilization of sugars in the vegetable makes the product susceptible to secondary fermentation by yeast. hence, it is essential to set up suitable environment lactic acid fermentation for brined vegetables j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 150-155, 2008 152 natural fermentation: acidity; ph. l. plantarum: acidity; ph. fig 1. changes in acidity and ph during fermentation of vegetables suresh j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 150-155, 2008 153 around the vegetable to allow desirable microflora to proliferate and predominate in the course of fermentation. neutralization of brine acidity by adding sodium acetate or sodium hydroxide (for assuring complete fermentation) in cucumbers was reported earlier (etchells et al, 1973; fleming et al, 1978). in this study too, adjustment of brine ph to 4.5 and maintenance of buffering capacity (by adding alkali) resulted in stability of the products. usefulness of calcium chloride/calcium acetate for retention of firmness in fermented vegetable has been reported earlier (fleming et al, 1978; thompson et al, 1979; buescher et al. 1979, buescher and burgin, 1988). based on this information, calcium chloride as an additive was incorporated into the brine solution, and this helped retain firm texture in fermented products during storage. microbial stability of fermented and stored vegetables was ascertained by absence of gas formation or visual microbial growth, supplemented with no changes in acidity and ph at the end of 6 months of storage. hence, this study indicated the possibility of preserving seasonal vegetables by fermentation, due to which these can be made available throughout the year. traditional pickled products of individual or mixed vegetables are popular in different parts of our country. use of raw vegetables, as such, in pickles results in loss of texture and colour during storage. table 2. effect of potassium sorbate/mustard on changes in ph and acidity of vegetables fermented by l.plantarum vegetable fermentation 0.1% potassium sorbate 0.1% mustard powder period acidity (%) ph acidity (%) ph in days) carrot 0 0.19 ± 0.01 4.75 ± 0.03 0.13 ± 0.01 4.94 ± 0.04 7 0.86 ± 0.01 3.42 ± 0.03 0.92 ± 0.02 3.35 ± 0.02 14 1.12 ± 0.05 3.24 ± 0.01 0.97 ± 0.02 3.23 ± 0.02 21 1.17 ± 0.05 3.21 ± 0.02 1.11 ± 0.03 3.22 ± 0.03 28 1.20 ± 0.05 3.19 ± 0.01 1.04 ± 0.04 3.12 ± 0.02 cucumber 0 0.09 ± 0.01 4.95 ± 0.02 0.15 ± 0.03 4.81 ± 0.01 7 0.70 ± 0.02 3.45 ± 0.03 0.72 ± 0.02 3.31 ± 0.01 14 0.85 ± 0.01 3.30 ± 0.01 0.81 ± 0.01 3.26 ± 0.02 21 0.93 ± 0.02 3.22 ± 0.03 0.87 ± 0.01 3.22 ± 0.03 28 0.94 ± 0.02 3.15 ± 0.01 0.82 ± 0.02 3.24 ± 0.02 french bean 0 0.15 ± 0.02 4.86 ± 0.01 0.14 ± 0.01 4.76 ± 0.02 7 0.92 ± 0.02 3.64 ± 0.02 0.73 ± 0.02 3.46 ± 0.29 14 1.13 ± 0.02 3.34 ± 0.01 0.81 ± 0.01 3.44 ± 0.01 21 1.18 ± 0.05 3.11 ± 0.02 0.87 ± 0.01 3.41 ± 0.01 28 1.13 ± 0.05 3.20 ± 0.01 0.91 ± 0.03 3.35 ± 0.03 sd value ± table 1. changes in brine acidity and ph during lactic fermentation of vegetables sampling period bitter gourd capsicum carrot cucumber french bean gherkin mean acidity (% lactic acid) initial 0.29 0.13 0.14 0.07 0.13 0.23 0.17 natural (4 weeks) 0.50 0.75 1.31 0.63 0.97 0.73 0.82 l. plantarum(4 weeks) 0.60 0.87 1.02 0.67 1.03 0.64 0.80 mean 0.55 0.81 1.17 0.65 1.00 0.69 cd (p=0.05) method (m) 0.01 s.em ± 0.00 cd (p=0.01) vegetable (v) 0.03 s.em ± 0.01 cd (p=0.01) interaction (m x v) 0.04 s.em ± 0.01 ph initial 4.5 4.71 4.68 5.17 4.97 4.8 4.81 natural(4 weeks) 4.02 2.98 3.16 3.31 3.22 3.32 3.33 l. plantarum (4 weeks) 3.88 2.97 3.11 3.23 3.21 3.50 3.32 mean 3.95 2.97 3.13 3.27 3.22 3.41 cd (p=0.05) method (m) ns s.em ± 0.01 cd (p=0.01) vegetable (v) 0.05 s.em ± 0.01 cd (p=0.01) interaction (m xv) 0.07 s.em ± 0.02 ns= non significant lactic acid fermentation for brined vegetables j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 150-155, 2008 154 hence, it is suggested that these fermented vegetables can be a good replacement for raw vegetables in pickle production. in pure culture fermentation of vegetables, use of the preservative potassium sorbate is essential to ensure growth of the introduced culture by suppressing competing microbial groups naturally present in vegetables. since mustard is commonly used in traditional pickles, its use as a substitute for potassium sorbate in fermentation of some vegetables, viz., carrot, cucumber and french bean was tested. it is evident from table 2 that there is only a marginal difference in acidity and ph of the vegetables during fermentation done in the presence of potassium sorbate or mustard. no difference in the quality of these fermented vegetables was noticed, except for a faint flavour wherever mustard was used. mustard powder is reported to stimulate acid production during fermentation by lactic acid bacteria (zaika and kissinger, 1979). no such clear-cut observations were recorded in the present study. sethi and anand (1984) recommended the use of mustard in cauliflower fermentation. based on results of this study, it is concluded that microbiologically stable, fermented vegetables of acceptable quality can be derived either by natural flora or l. plantarum fermentation. mustard can replace potassium sorbate as a selective preservative in vegetable fermentation stimulating the growth of lactic acid bacteria. acknowledgement the author is thankful to director, i.i.h.r., hessaraghatta, bangalore, for providing facilities and to mr. c. lokesh for technical assistance. references anand, j.c. and das lakshmi. 1971. effect of condiments on lactic fermentation of sweet turnip pickle. j. fd. sci. 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of carrots. ind. fd. packer, 41:40 48 sethi, v. 1990. evaluation of different vegetables for lactic fermentation. ind. j. agril. sci., 60:638 640 suresh j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 150-155, 2008 155 sethi, v. and anand, j.c. 1984. effect of mustard and its components on the fermentation of cauliflower. ind. fd. packer, 38:451 -466 suresh e.r., rajashekhara, e. and ethiraj, s. 1996. selection of lactic acid bacterial cultures for vegetable fermentation. ind. j. microbiol., 36:185 188 thompson, r.l., fleming, h.p. and monroe, r.j. 1979. effect of storage conditions on firmness of brined cucumbers. j. fd. sci., 44:843-846 yamini, m.i. 1993. fermentation of brined turnip roots using lactobacillus plantarum and leuconostoc mesenteroids starter cultures. world j. microbiol. biotech., 9:176 179 zaika, l.l. and kissinger, j.c. 1979. effect of some spices on acid production by starter cultures, j. fd. protection., 42:572 -576 (ms received 7 november 2007, revised 27 november 2008) lactic acid fermentation for brined vegetables j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 150-155, 2008 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 41 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction br injal (solanum melongena l.) is among the foremost important and popular vegetables consumed globally as well as in india. it consists of a significant amount of anthocyanin pigments (purple types), phenols, amide proteins as well as free reducing sugars. brinjal is widely utilized for its medicinal properties and has also been prescribed for diabetic patients and liver complaints (sabolu et al., 2014). although brinjal is one of the prime members of the solanaceae family, minimal breeding attempts have been undertaken for the development of potential hybrids/hybrid as well as for crop improvement by the exploitation of local germplasm in comparison to the remaining solanaceous crops. yield being a highly complex trait gets fluctuated by genetic as well as environmental factors, (foolad and lin, 2001) and applied agro technical methods (kaşkavalci, 2007). the selection of suitable parental material is of utmost importance during crop improvement program to a chieve the inher ent yield potentia l of a cr op (koutsika-sotiriou et al., 2008). in brinjal, the number of marketable fruits per plant, the number of branches, and the average fruit weight are the major yield attributing traits. in brinjal, yield per plant directly correlates with average fruit weight and number of fruits (kaffytullah et al., 2011; angadi et al., 2017); and these traits are highly influenced by several genetic and environmental components (karki et al., 2020). t he extent of the success a chieved in a cr op impr ovement pr ogr a m r elies solely upon the accessibility to the information concerning nature as well as the measure of gene action governing the traits of commercial significance. yield being a complex trait relying upon several other parameters along with their interactions, understanding the alliance of these traits with fruit yield will supplement the selection procedure genetics of growth and yield attributing traits of brinjal (solanum melongena l.) through six generation mean analysis barik s., naresh p., acharya g.c.*, singh t.h., kumari m. and dash m. central horticultural experiment station, icar-indian institute of horticultural research bhubaneswar, india. *corresponding author e-mail : gobinda.acharya@icar.gov.in abstract understanding gene action of different traits is of utmost importance for formulating successful breeding programs. the population was developed involving arka neelachal shyama and cari-1 to inquire the gene actions controlling the inheritance of several growth as well as yield attributing parameters through six-generation mean analysis. three parameter model revealed the insufficiency of the simpler additive dominance model for the evaluated traits, referring to the existence of inter-allelic interactions. six parameter model was implemented to better understand gene actions. most of the yield and attributing traits under study except number of branches showed a high estimate of dominance as well as environmental variance, disclosing a lower extent of heritability. the number of branches was observed to be controlled by duplicate epistasis. hence, for the fixation of this trait, the best strategy is to exercise minimal selection during advance generations, followed by intense selection during later generations (f4­ population onwards). the preponderance of the narrow sense type of heritability revealed that dominant effects were predominantly accountable for the existing genetic variation. hence, recurrent selection followed by bi-parental mating and selection during the later stage of generations is advised to increase the occurrence of favorable alleles and accumulation of desirable genes. keywords: brinjal, gene action, genetics, six-generation mean analysis and yield. 42 barik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 with enhanced accuracy and precision (deb and khaleque, 2009). keeping the above-mentioned points in view, the extent of hybrid vigour and inbreeding depression as well as the gene action governing various growth and yield attributing characters in brinjal was assessed though six generation mean analysis, as this is highly efficient technique providing the accurate evaluation of chief genetic components governing the manifestation of the quantitative traits (mather and jinks, 1982). materials and methods experimental site the present research work was commenced during the period from 2018 2020 at ches, iihr-icar, bhubaneswar, india. the experimental soil was red laterite soil with very low ph (4.4) containing organic car bon in a medium a mount. t he soil contained be 296 kg/ha, 39.2 kg/ha, and 157kg/ ha of nit r o gen, p hos p hor u s a nd p ot a s s iu m, respectively. plant materials for development of the population, two parents viz, arka neelachal shyama (large, round, green with purple stripes) and cari-1 (large, oblong, light green) were selected. arka neelachal shyama was used as female parent, while cari-1 was used as pollen parent. the two parents were artificially c r os s ed f or t he p r odu c t i on of f 1 hyb r id. subsequently, f1 generation plants were selfed to obtain f2 generation seeds as well as backcrossed with arka neelachal shyama (p1) and cari-1(p2) to obtain b1 and b2 generations respectively. evaluation of populations under field growing conditions the seeds of six generations including two parents, their f 1 hybr id, segr egating f 2 popula tion a nd backcross populations with each of the parents were sown and proper nursery management practices were followed. during the tra nsplanting of the seedlings, a spacing of 60 x 60 cm2 was adopted. the number of plants evaluated differed according to the gener a tion. for the a s sessment of t he inheritance of growth and yield attributing traits, 30 plants each of female and pollen parents and their f1’s, 259 plants of f2 population, 50 plants of b1 population and 58 plants of b2 population wer e pla nted in the open field. recommended package of practices such as fertilizer application, intercultural operations, crop protection measures a nd ir r iga t ion wer e ca r r ied out for r a ising a successful crop. freshly harvested and marketable fruits of individual plants were utilized for genetic inheritance study. the mode of inheritance of various traits including plant height, number of branches, number of fruits and yield per plant, as well as average fruit length, girth, and weight were recorded. statistical analysis in the current experiment, the scaling test was per formed on means of each gener ation as per mather and jinks, 1982. the joint scaling test along with χ2 test were utilized for the determination of the sufficiency of the additive-dominance model (ca valli, 1952; fowler et al., 1998; singh and chaudhary, 1977). similarly, the χ2 values for all the tr a its wer e checked to fit into the thr eeparameter model (m, d, h) and significant values implica ted the epista tic gene inter a ct ion. by exer cising the s ix-pa r a meter model, six gene components including mean (m), pooled additive component (d), dominance component (h), additive × additive component (i), additive × dominance c omp onent ( j ) , a nd domina nc e × domina nc e component (l) were calculated (jinks and jones, 1958).the magnitude of scales was estimated by the formulae: a=2b1 p1 f1=0; b=2b1 p2 f1 =0; c=4f2 2f1 p1 p2 = 0 and d = 2f2 b1 b1 =0. significance of any of these scales indicated the involvement of epista sis in gover ning the respective traits (mather and jinks, 1982). the estimate of heterosis over parents as well as midpar ent value was calcula ted as % incr ease or decrease of f1 mean over the parental and midparental means, respectively. heritability (narrowsense) wa s ca lculated by method suggested by warner (1952). potence ratio was estimated as per smith (1952) to analyze the extent of dominance, which is given below: 43 genetics of growth and yield attributing traits of brinjal where, p = +1, suggest complete dominance, -1<p<+1 suggest partial dominance, except p=0, which suggests non-existence of dominance. when potence ratio exceeds ±1; it indicates over dominance. the signs (+/ -) of the parents indicate the direction of dominance. op-stat softwa re was used for all the above statistical analysis (sheoran et al., 1998). results heterosis and inbreeding depression heterosis over the mid-parent i.e., relative heterosis (table 1) was found to be significantly negative for all the traits. only vegetative traits under study exhibited positive relative heterosis i.e., 72.09 % in case of plant height and 2.82 % for the number of br a nches. rela tive heter osis (-13. 41%) a nd heterobeltios over p1 (-18.39 %), along with positive inbreeding depression (33.55 %) were recorded for fr uits per pla nt in this popula tion. t he higher magnitude of heterobeltiosis/over p2 (-31.64 %) as well as relative heterosis (-17.80 %) in the negative direction was observed for fruit yield per plant. in the current study, negative relative heterosis for both fruit length (-19.36 %) and fruit girth (-6.24 %) were observed in this population. negative relative heterosis (-6.24 %) as well as heterobeltiosis/over p2 (-25.76 %) was observed for fruit weight. similarly, inbreeding depression ranged from 0.12 % (fruit length) to 40.60 % (yield per plant). gene action for the assessment of inheritance pattern and gene actions gover ning gr owth a nd yield attributing t r a it s , s i x gener a t ion mea n a n a lys is wa s implemented and the findings are presented in table 2. significant variability among the populations were recorded implicating the appropriate choice of the parents. the significance estimates of three parameter model associated with joint scaling test for the means of generation of each parameter are shown in table 3. owing to the significant χ2 value for all the traits, this test disclosed the constraints of the additive a s well as domina nce gene actions to des c r ib e t he t r a it ’s inher it a nc e. h owever, it expressed their cumulative effects on interaction. hence, for the better interpretation the gene actions six pa r a meter model wa s ut iliz ed ( ta ble 4) . nonetheless, the inheritance of the studied traits could not be adequately elucidated through the normal additive-dominance model after obtaining the significant estimate of individual scales (a, b, c , or d ) f or t he mea ns of gener a t ions. t he existence of epista sis was concluded upon the significant estimate of either of ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’ or ‘d’ components of the scaling test for all the traits under study. plant height the highest and lowest plant height were recorded in f1 (55.50 cm) and p1 (29.10 cm), followed by f2 (51.96), b2 (47.07 cm) and b1 (43.48 cm). significant value of mean (m) was recorded, however additive (d) along with dominant (h) estimates appeared to be insignificant(table 4). the additive x additive (-i) component contributed significantly towards the plant height similar to additive x dominance (j) component. table 1. estimates of genetic parameter for plant vigor, yield and yield attributing traits in the cross between arka neelachal shyama (p1) and cari-1 (p2) traits heterosis (%) inbreeding depression (%) over p1 over p2 over mid parent plant height (cm) 90.72 56.78 72.09 6.38 number of branches per plant 10.98 -4.21 2.82 21.89 yield per plant (g) 3.07 -31.64 -17.80 40.60 number of fruits per plant -18.39 -7.79 -13.41 33.55 fruit length (cm) -1.81 -31.59 -19.36 0.12 fruit girth (cm) -4.25 -8.15 -6.24 3.89 fruit weight (g) 27.22 -25.76 -6.24 9.46 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 44 table 2. generation means (+/-se) for fruit traits and yield per plant from the arka neelachal shyama x cari-1 derived population characters population p1 p2 f1 f2 b1 b2 plant height (cm) 29.10 35.40 55.50 51.95 43.48 47.06 ±1.36 ±1.62 ±2.22 ±0.61 ±2.10 ±1.17 number of branches per plant 8.20 9.50 9.10 7.10 5.14 6.91 ±0.38 ±0.76 ±0.33 ±0.16 ±0.27 ±0.26 number of fruits per plant 8.70 7.70 7.10 4.71 4.98 4.53 ±0.36 ±0.26 ±0.34 ±0.14 ±0.30 ±0.23 yield per plant (g) 1472.00 2219.50 1517.25 901.28 1000.75 958.70 ±61.78 ±87.26 ±86.31 ±30.16 ±66.23 ±63.81 fruit length (cm) 9.65 13.85 9.47 9.46 9.76 10.27 ±0.23 ±0.31 ±0.30 ±0.10 ±0.21 ±0.20 fruit girth (cm) 23.55 24.55 22.55 21.67 21.40 21.98 ±0.39 ±0.39 ±0.35 ±0.14 ±0.39 ±0.34 fruit weight (g) 169.27 290.08 215.34 194.97 200.45 210.23 ±1.61 ±11.88 ±9.49 ±3.80 ±8.80 ±7.40 table 3. joint scale test with three parameter model (m, d and h) for various traits in the cross of arka neelachal shyama and cari-1 population plant number of number of yield per fruit fruit fruit height branches fruits per plant plant length girth weight m 34.77 6.68 6.91 1488.26 11.17 23.08 188.20 ±0.92** ±0.28** ±0.19** ±46.59* ±0.17** ±0.23** ±28.17** d 3.06 0.51 -0.25 184.70 1.52 -0.50 -60.40 ±0.94** ±0.27 ±0.19 ±45.75* ±0.16** ±0.24* ±5.99** h 25.91 0.48 -3.02 -834.46 -2.75 -2.04 -19.35 ±1.76** ±0.50 ±0.38** ±92.35* ±0.33** ±0.44** ±9.82** χ2 52.13** 100.83** 155.01** 188.79* 49.63** 39.81** 26.52** *and **significant at p “0.05” and “0.01”, respectively the dominance x dominance (l) estimate showed superiority over additive × dominance (j), dominance (h) and additive × additive (i) estimates. the potence ratio of -7.381 was observed indicating overdominance in inheriting this trait. number of branches p2 (9.50) exhibited the highest number of branches, while b1 exhibited the least number of branches (5.14), followed by f1 (9.10), f2 (7.11) and b2 (6.91). besides mean (m), a significant estimate of the additive (-d), dominance (-h), additive x additive (-i), and dominance x dominance (l) components was noticed (table 4).the estimate of dominance x dominance (l) component exhibited superiority over the additive × dominance (j), dominance (h) and additive × additive (i) estimates. number of fruits per plant plants of p1 produced the highest average number of fruits, while the minimum fruit count was noticed in b2 (4.53), accompanied by p2 (7.70), f1 (7.10) and b1 (4.98). the mean (m) was shown to be significant, however non-significant value was recorded for additive (d) along with dominance (h), additive x barik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 45 additive (i) as well as additive x dominance (j) estimates (table 4). in the current study, dominance x dominance (l) played key role in the governance of this trait. the estimate of dominance x dominance (l) was higher than dominance (h), additive × dominance (j) and additive × additive (i) estimates. yield per plant the highest yield from individual plant was obtained from p2 (2.22 kg), while the minimum yield per plant was procured from f2 (0.90 kg), accompanied by f1 (1.52 kg), p1 (1.47 kg) and b1 (1.00 kg). the mean (m), additive x dominance (j) in addition to dominance x dominance (l) components were recorded to be significant (table 4), while non-significant values was reported for additive (d), dominance (h), additive x additive (i) components. the higher estimate of domina nce x domina nce (l) wa s obser ved in comparison with the additive × dominance (j), additive × additive (i), as well as dominance (h). the potence ra tio of 0.87 was estima ted suggesting par tial dominance in the inheritance. fruit length fr uit tr a its including fr uit skin color va r ied significantly across the population (fig 1). the mean maximum length was exhibited by the fruits of p2 (13.85 cm) and the lowest fruit length was observed for f2 (9.46 cm), succeeded by b2 (10.27 cm), b1 (9.76 cm) and p1 (9.65 cm). the mean (m) was found to be significant, however non-significant estimates wer e obser ved for a dditive (d), domina nce x dominance (l) as well as dominance (h) components (table 4). besides additive x additive (i) estimate, a significant estimate of additive x dominance (j) components was also found for fruit length. the magnitude of additive × dominance (j), was greater as compared to additive × additive (i), dominance x dominance (l) as well as dominance (h). the potence ratio of 1.083 was found stipulating overdominance in the trait’s inheritance. fruit girth the highest and lowest fruit girth were recorded in p2 (24.55 cm) and b1 (21.40 cm), followed by p1 (23.55 cm), f1 (22.55 cm) and b2 (21.99 cm). except the mean (m) and dominance x dominance (l) components, the r emaining estima tes wer e estima ted to be nonsignificant (table 4). in the current study, the estimate of dominance x dominance (l) was greater than additive × additive (i), additive × dominance (j), and dominance (h). for fruit girth, the potence ratio of 3.00 was recorded referring towards overdominance in inheriting this trait average fruit weight the greatest and lowest individual fruit weight were exhibited by p2 (290.08 g) and p1 (169.27 g), followed by f1 (215.3 g), b2 (210.23 g) and b1 (200.45 g). the significant value of mean (m) was recorded. the additive x dominance (j) component was found to be significant, unlike the additive (d), additive x additive (i), dominance (h) as well as dominance x dominance (l) components(table 4). the additive × dominance (j) estimate was shown to be more in comparison with the additive × additive (i), dominance x dominance (l) and dominance (h) components. the potence ratio of 0.237 was observed indicating partial dominance in the inheritance of this trait. discussion heterosis and inbreeding depression the parameters pertaining to growth and vigor showed significantly positive relative heterosis. the greater estimates of positive heterotic effects and minimal inbreeding depression for plant height revealed that crop improvement programs through heterosis could be successfully implemented for growth and vigor in brinjal (roy et al. 2009; mistry et al. 2018). relative heterosis as well as heterobeltiosis over p1 in the negative direction recorded for fruits per plant in this population. plant yield being a highly complex trait, is the sum total of various basic yield constituents. the greater estimate of heterobeltiosis/over p2 along with relative heterosis in the negative direction suggested that instead of heterosis breeding, selection at the later stage of the segregating population may be the best way to obtain higher yield per plant in the population studied (sao and mehta, 2011; patel et al., 2013; bagade et al., 2020). fruit length as well as fruit girth are regarded as essential characters considering the diversity observed in consumer preference especially in india, where eastern region prefer large round types as opposed to south region preferring long types hence, negative heterosis for these traits especially fruit length is desired. in the current study, desirable negative relative heterosis for both fruit length and fruit girth were observed in this population, which will have advantage in development of round type fruits. genetics of growth and yield attributing traits of brinjal j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 46 c ha ra ct er s pl an t he ig ht n um be r of n um be r of y ie ld p er p la nt fr ui t le ng th fr ui t gi rt h fr ui t w ei gh t br an ch es fr ui ts p er p la nt a -9 .4 0± 3. 32 ** 7. 02 ±0 .7 4* * 5. 84 ±0 .7 9* * 98 7. 75 ±1 69 .7 4* * -0 .4 0 ±0 .5 7 3. 29 ±0 .9 4* * -1 6. 28 ±2 0. 06 b 2. 83 ±4 .3 0 4. 77 ±0 .9 8* * 5. 73 ±0 .6 4* * 18 19 .3 3 ±1 77 .0 6* * 2. 78 ±0 .5 9* * 3. 12 ±0 .8 7* * 84 .9 6± 21 .2 2* * c -3 2. 33 ±4 .8 2* * 7. 46 ±1 .2 6* * 11 .7 2± 1. 00 ** 31 20 .8 6± 23 6. 20 ** 4. 59 ±0 .8 2* * 6. 50 ±1 .0 6* * 11 0. 16 ** ±2 7. 11 d 12 .8 8± 2. 76 ** 2. 16 ±0 .4 9* * -0 .0 7 ±0 .4 8 -1 56 .8 8 ±1 09 .9 9 -1 .1 0± 0. 35 ** -0 .0 4 ±0 .5 9 -2 0. 73 ±1 3. 78 m ea n (m ) 51 .9 5± 0. 78 ** 7. 10 ±0 .1 6* * 4. 71 ±0 .1 4* * 90 1. 28 ±3 0. 16 ** 9. 46 ±0 .1 0* * 21 .6 7± 0. 14 ** 19 4. 97 ±3 .8 0* * a dd iti ve ( d) 2. 96 ± 2. 27 -1 .7 7± 0. 37 ** 0. 44 ± 0. 38 42 .0 4 ±9 1. 96 -0 .5 0 ±0 .2 9 -0 .5 8 ±0 .5 2 -9 .7 8± 11 .5 0 d om in an ce ( h) -2 .5 1± 5. 81 -4 .0 7± 1. 13 ** -0 .9 4 ±1 .0 4 -1 4. 72 ± 24 2. 28 -0 .0 6± 0. 80 -1 .4 0± 1. 27 27 .1 4± 29 .7 7 a dd iti ve × a dd iti ve ( i) -2 5. 76 ±5 .5 2* * -4 .3 2± 0. 99 ** 0. 15 ± 0. 96 31 3. 77 ± 21 9. 98 2. 21 ±0 .7 1* * 0. 09 ± 1. 18 41 .4 7± 27 .5 7 a dd iti ve × d om in an ce ( j) 12 .2 3± 5. 01 * -2 .2 4 ±1 .1 4 -0 .1 0 ±0 .8 9 83 1. 58 ±2 12 .7 5* * 3. 18 ±0 .7 0* * -0 .1 6 ±1 .1 8 10 1. 25 ±2 5. 94 ** d om in an ce × 19 .1 9± 10 .2 8 16 .1 1 ±1 .9 7* * 11 .4 1 ±1 .8 4* * 24 93 .3 1± 43 7. 17 ** 0. 17 ± 1. 43 6. 31 ± 2. 34 ** 27 .2 1± 53 .4 0 do m in an ce ( l) d+ h 0. 45 -5 .8 4 -0 .4 9 27 .3 1 -0 .5 7 -1 .9 8 17 .3 6 l+ i+ j 5. 66 9. 54 11 .4 6 36 38 .6 7 5. 56 6. 24 16 9. 93 m ag ni tu de o f g en e e ff ec t l> j> h> i l> j> h> i l> i> j> h l> j> i> h j> i> l> h l> i> j> h j> i> l> h e pi st as is d up lic at e po te nc e ra tio ( f 1 ) -7 .3 8 -0 .3 8 -2 .2 0 0. 87 1. 08 3. 00 0. 23 *a nd * *s ig ni fi ca nt a t p “0 .0 5” a nd “ 0. 01 ”, r es pe ct iv el y. ta bl e 4. e st im at es o f ge ne e ff ec ts f or v ar io us t ra its in t he c ro ss b et w ee n a rk a n ee lc ah al s hy am a x c a r i1 de ri ve d po pu la tio n us in g si x pa ra m et er m od el barik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 47 these results are consistent with the result obtained by timmapur et al., (2008), chowdhury et al., (2010), sahajahan et al., (2016) and sujin and karuppaiah (2018). nega tive r ela tive heter osis a s well a s heterobeltiosis/over p2 were observed for fruit weight. the pronounced negative heterosis for fruit weight revealed dominance of negative alleles contributed by the lower scoring parent (patil et al., 2001; das et al., 2009). east (1908) and shull (1909, 1910) demonstrated that a decrease in heterozygosity results in a corresponding decline in vigour due to inbreeding (crow, 1952), which also fully satisfies the dominance hypothesis. inbreeding depression was resulted to the extent of 40.60 % (fr uit yield per pla nt) in our br inja l population. however, the inbreeding depression reports of this research work is also supported by the findings of recent research workers like sao and mehta (2010), singh and rai (1990) and kumar and pathania (2003), who reported positive inbreeding depression for a number of traits of brinjal. gene action significant variability among the means of populations were recorded suggesting that the choice of parents was appropriate. plant height: additive x additive (-i) component contributed significantly towards the plant height similar to additive x dominance (j) component, which suggested the pr eponder a nce of non-a dditive components; hence should be considered immensely in fig 1. segregation of fruit traits in populations derived from cross between arka neelchal shyama x cari-1 the crop improvement programs. the magnitude of dominance x dominance (l) was higher than additive × dominance (j), dominance (h) and additive × additive (i), suggesting heterosis breeding is the best strategy to for improvement programs for enhancing plant height. non-additive gene action governing the plant height trait in brinjal was also recorded by singh et al. (2002) as well as patel (2003). number of branches: the significant value of the additive (-d), dominance (-h) as well as additive x additive (-i) components pointed towards the existence of additive and non-additive gene actions controlling this trait. the contrasting signs of h and l showed the existence of duplicate epistasis interaction among the alleles. the estimate of dominance x dominance (l) component was superior to the additive × dominance (j), dominance (h) a nd a dditive × a dditive (i) components. significa nt estima te of a dditive component in negative direction was observed, hence revealed that the trait could not be fixed via simple selection. the involvement of non-additive gene action in governing number of branches in brinjal was reported by dharwad et al. (2011), reddy and patel (2014) and sujin and karuppaiah (2018). however, in our study, association of additive along with nonadditive gene actions suggested that the population improvement through reciprocal recurrent selection should be considered as the best breeding scheme to increase the accumulation of fa vora ble alleles (ramalho et al., 2001). again, duplicate class of interallelic interrelationship is operating (patel, 2003; genetics of growth and yield attributing traits of brinjal j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 48 mistry et al., 2016) indicating the reduction in variability in segregating generations which obstruct the selection activity (kumar and patra, 2010). hence, mild selection during earlier generations, followed by bi-parental mating and intense selection in the later generations should be done for improving the trait. number of fruits per plant: in the current study, dominance x dominance (l) was playing major role in the governance of this trait. for the given trait, additive gene action (dixit et al., 1982; joshi and chadha, 1994) and non-additive gene action (rao 2003; aswani and khandelwal 2005) have been reported. the estimate of dominance x dominance (l) was higher than additive × additive (i), dominance (h) and additive × dominance (j).thus, recombination breeding and hybridization accompanied by selection during early generations could be performed for the improvement of this trait. non-significant value was recorded for additive (d) along with dominance (h), additive x additive (i) as well as additive x dominance (j) components. yield per plant: additive x dominance (j) in addition to dominance x dominance (l) components were recorded to be significant. the higher estimate of domina nce x domina nce (l) wa s obser ved in comparison with the additive × dominance (j), additive × additive (i), as well as dominance (h). thus, additive along with non-additive interactions were involved in governing the trait. hence, trait improvement strategy consisting of recurrent selection as well as bi-parental mating could be highly fruitful for the accumulation of the favorable genes and/or to remove the existing undesirable and unfavorable linkages (mistry et al., 2016). shafeeq et al. (2013) in their study involving genetic inheritance of yield and yield attributing traits found the similar report concluding the fruit yield per plant to be governed by both additive and non-additive gene actions. non-significant value was found for additive (d), dominance (h), additive x additive (i) components. fruit length: predominance of additive gene action was concluded towing to the significance of additive x additive (i) and additive x dominance (j) components. the magnitude of additive × dominance (j), was grea ter as compared to additive × additive (i), dominance x dominance (l) and dominance (h). hence, selection would be the best strategy in the improvement of fr uit length. t his finding however wa s in contradiction to mistry et al. (2016) who reported the fruit length trait to be governed by additive-dominance interaction. the non-significant estima tes were observed for additive (d), dominance x dominance (l) and dominance (h) components. fruit girth: in the current study, only dominance x dominance (l) components were observed to be significant and the estimate of dominance x dominance (l) was higher than additive × additive (i), additive × dominance (j), and dominance (h). for fruit girth, both additive gene action and non-additive gene action have been reported by the researchers (kumar and ram, 1987; vaghasiya et al., 2000; rao, 2003; patel, 2003).thus, due to the involvement of the non-additive gene action, recombination breeding and hybridization accompanied by selection during later generations could be performed for the improvement of this trait (mistry et al., 2016). the non-significant estimate of additive (d), additive x additive (i), dominance (h) and additive x dominance (j) were recorded. fruit weight: the additive x dominance (j) component was found to be significant. the additive × dominance (j) estimate was shown to be more in comparison with the additive × additive (i), dominance x dominance (l) and dominance (h) components. hence, reciprocal recurrent selection can be adopted. meanwhile, selection process needs to be delayed until required homozygosity is achieved in the inbred lines (mistry et al., 2016).the additive (d) component in addition to additive x additive (i), dominance (h) as well as dominance x dominance (l) components, were recorded to be non-significant. conclusion in the current study, the growth and yield attributing traits were identified/reported to be governed by additive and non-additive gene action along with the preponderance of combination of both the gene actions. a higher order of non-allelic interaction (involvement of more than 2 genes) was exhibited by most of the traits except number of branches in which duplicate type of epistasis was recorded. due to the existence of a higher estimate of interactions, the frequency of the non-fixable gene effects was more as compared to the fixable gene effects. of all the traits, only fruit length was reported to be governed by additive gene action, which can be fixed by simple selection. however, for the r ema ining tr a its combination of recurrent selection/ hybridization and bi-parental mating can be adopted followed by intense selection at later stage of segregating population. barik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 49 references angadi, p., indiresh, k.m. and rao, a.m. 2017. correlation studies for fruit yield and its attributing characters in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). int. j. curr. microbiol. app. sci., 6 (12): 1007-1012. aswani, r.c. and khandelwal, r.c. 2005. combining ability studies in brinjal. ind. j. hort., 62:37– 40. bagade, a.b., deshmukh, j.d., and kalyankar, s.v. 2020. heterosis studies for yield and yield traits in brinjal. the pharma innov. j., 9 (11):205208 cavalli, l. 1952. an analysis of linkage in quantitative inheritance. in: reeve, e.c.r., waddington, c.h. 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(4): 379-383. timma pur, p.h. , dha rmatti, p. r. , patil, r. v. , kajjidoni, s.t. and naik, k. 2008. heterosis for yield in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). karnataka j. agril. sci., 21(3): 476-478. vaghasiya, m.h., kathiria, k.b., bhalala, m.k. and doshi, k.m. 2000. gene action for yield and its components in two cr osses of brinjal (solanum melongena l.). ind. j. gen., 60 (1): 127–130. wa r ner, j. n. 1952. a method for estima ting heritability. agron. j., 44: 427–43. barik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 41-50, 2022 (received: 14.11.2021 ; revised: 18.01.2022; accepted : 05.02.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf editor’s exordium diversified experimentation in horticulture “i haven’t failed. i’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” (the fabulous drone, 1967, thomas edison) this issue yet again marks a compendium of articles on diverse crops and aspects in horticulture. this multifariousness or the absence of monotony is indeed a mark of dynamism in science experimentation, especially and specially in the field of horticulture. in vegetables, varalakshmi et al have investigated into the determination of the variability, heritability, genetic advance and correlation of fruit yield and yield contributing characters in bottle gourd (lagenaria siceraria (mol. stadl.)), emphasizing the importance of indirect selection. gupta et al have utilized a bioinformatics approach to identify micrornas from partial genome sequence data in okra by next generation sequencing (ngs) technology and identified two mirnas and their cognate target rnas. kurian et al, in their study, have explored the predisposing factors leading to the occurrence of inflorescence blight and pod rot in dolichos bean (dolichos lablab l.) and yard long bean, and the pathogen identified as choanephora infundibulifera. anitha et al studied the effects of weed management practices on seed yield and quality of bitter gourd (momordica charantia), in terms of weed control efficiency, mulching effects, germination and vigour indices. higher seedling lengths and fresh weights were sweetly recorded, of course. nasiyabeegum and subramanian evaluated cowpea accessions for resistance to the spotted pod borer, maruca vitrata (fab.; lepidoptera: crambidae) by examining calyx configurations and sepals while indicating that tight calyx could possibly deter entry of freshly hatched first instar larval instars. surya et al investigated the quality performance of coriander leaves under open and rain shelter conditions in terms of herbage, biomass yield, vitamin c content, volatile oil content and total chlorophyll contents. anyways, the smooth lingering aroma of fresh coriander leaves in indian kitchen needs no emphasis. in fruits, shikhamany et al conducted a nutritional survey to study the quadratic relationship and influence of variety and rootstock on various cation interactions in grapes. the soil na+, k+ and ca++ had varied absorption and interaction dynamics in different grapes rootstock and scions. covering the post harvest aspects in fruit crops, muralidhara et al assessed the post harvest changes in bioactive phytonutrients and total antioxidant activity during ripening of mango cv. amrapali, through the analysis of total antioxidants, total phenols, total flavonoids and total carotenoids while noticing the profound effects of ripening on the post harvest composition of nutraceuticals. ranjitha et al screened strains of lactobacillus helveticus, l. rhamnosus and saccheromyces boulardii towards the development of ready-to-serve probioticated mango beverages. i j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : i-ii, 2018 interestingly, hic!, l. helveticus probioticated mango beverage showed improved acceptability and higher nutrients. pushpa chethan kumar et al prepared moringa, a tree-vegetable hybrid, infusions along with some herbs/flavouring agents such as tulsi, ginger and lemon grass for green tea and evaluated the organoleptic properties. this desi/traditional/heirloom crop and concoction combination, potent i must say, offers a new coffee table book recipe! menon and shibana evaluated the performance of two garlic (allium sativum l.) genotypes in the plains of kerala in terms of bulb weight and number of cloves per bulb, the two main yield components and suggesting the possibilities of garlic cultivation in the new niche with some refinements in the agrotechniques. dhanasekaran studied the effects of different sprigging densities and foliar nitrogen on the growth and establishment of bermuda grass (cynodon dactylon l. pers. x cynodon transvaalensis), with not surprisingly, the usual urea at 2% proved better. i n f l o r i c u l t u re , s a t h a p p a n st u d i e d t h e p e rf o rm a n c e o f g e n o t y p e s o f t u b e ro se (polyanthes tuberosa l.) and identified genotypes with high heritability and in terms of various yield traits, suitable for the coastal region and future breeding programs. praveen et al, through a purposive sampling survey, revealed the existence of powdery mildew in gerbera crop grown under protected and open conditions, on the scenic hilly tracts of wayanad, kerala. characterization of pathogens, golovinomyces cichoracearum and podosphaera sp., indicated differential disease incidence and severity. dhanasekaran also examined the influence of growth regulators on jasmine (jasminum sambac ait.) in terms of flowering attributes and inferred that the good old gibberellic acid can enhance growth and flower yield. in this issue, papers on fruits (3), vegetables (6), spices (2) and flower (3) crops and one weed, have dwelled on genetic (2), post harvest (2), pest (1), disease (2), quality (1), agronomic (6) and biochemical (1) studies, thus again reassuring you, the readers, that indeed this issue, also is as diversified in its content, as its previous brethren. on behalf of the executive council and the editorial board, i humbly thank and acknowledge all the referees et al for critically reviewing the submitted manuscripts, for both the issues. i also request the readers and potential contributors to mainly consider online manuscript submission route. this is the only unfailing way, to respect edison as in the opening quotable quote! vageeshbabu s. hanur editor in chief journal of horticultural sciences ii j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : i-ii, 2018 83 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 79-82, 2019 short communication mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india dalamu*, j. sharma, s. kumar, v. sharma, s.k. luthra, a.k. sharma and v.k. dua icar-central potato research institute, shimla, himachal pradesh-171 001 *email : dalamu04@gmail.com abstract potato tuber colour is an important factor that influences consumer preferences. eastern plain region of india contributes about 50% of total potato acreage and production. consumers in this region generally prefer red skinned varieties. growing awareness for nutrient rich food can create a niche market for nutritious potatoes. potato is crop of choice for mineral biofortification owing to better mineral bioavailability due to its high ascorbic acid and minimal phytate content. iron and zinc are the essentially required minerals for good health. considering the nutritional importance of these elements and wider prevalence of their deficiency in indian sub-continent, thirteen eastern regions red skinned advanced hybrids and varieties were evaluated to find the genetic diversity for iron and zinc content. a significant wide range of contents was observed for both the elements. high heritability of both mineral suggests feasibility of selecting genotypes for breeding nutrient rich varieties. identified genotypes can be utilised as parental lines for future breeding programme and can be released as nutrient rich potato variety. key words: potato, eastern india, mineral, genetic diversity introduction potato is a nutritious crop that has proven capacity of providing food security and mitigating poverty. this crop yields quick and better nutritious produce per unit area and fits well into different cropping pattern. the iron content of potatoes is comparable to most other vegetables and is better than white rice while it is humble source of zinc. the average iron content in whole potato is 0.78 mg /100 g fresh weight (fw) while average zinc content is 0.29 mg / 100 g fw. presence of promoters and inhibitors components is essentia l pa r a meter s for a ny biofortification activity. potato has minimal phytate content that inhibits the nutrient bioavailability while known source of ascorbic acid, an important factor for better nutrient absorption. iron and zinc deficiency are major risk factors affecting global population especially the poor people. in india 79 % of children (<3 years), 55 % women and 24% men are iron deficient (nfhs-3) while 25% of the india n population is at risk of zinc deficiency. globally india is the second largest producer of potato after china. per capita consumption of potato in india is 20 kg and this will increase to 50 kg by 2050. with the incr ea sing tr end for pota to consumption and wider population coverage there is a need to discover the nutritional composition of varied potato genotypes as it will affect the health of common mass. breeding of any crop involves selection of new parental lines based on the results of characterisation of germplasm for trait of interest and developing new cross combinations. identification of high and low iron and zinc containing potato genotypes can be used in breeding program as parental material and for introgression of high fe and zn controlling genes or qtls. thirteen advanced hybrids and varieties were raised under uniform field and management conditions at the icar-cprs, patna, india during 2015-16 in plots of 4.8 m2 with inter and intra row spacing of 60 cm by 20 cm. freshly harvested unblemished 10 tubers were cleaned with tap water followed by rinsing in high purity 0.1 n hcl and finally with double distilled water. air dried samples in triplicate were peeled with stainless steel peeler, sliced lengthwise and oven dried at 70 oc. the acid digest grinded samples were used in atomic absorption spectrometer 84 dalamu et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 79-82, 2019 for determination of iron and zinc content. statistical analyses were performed by means of tnaustat software (manivannan, 2014). the mean values were compared by one-way anova. t hirteen a dvanced sta ge hybr ids a nd va rieties (table 1) were evaluated for iron and zinc content. analysis of variance depicted significant variations (p<0.01) for the content of both the elements. table 1. pedigree of coloured skinned advanced hybrids and varieties the iron contents ranged from 19.28-63.94 ppm dry weight basis and the mean value was 33.03 ppm (table 2). the highest performing genotype was the rajendra-ii containing 3 times more iron than the lowest ranking advanced hybrid ps/9-09. the iron content is reported up to 11.2 mg /kg fw (rivero et al, 2003). with the average dry matter content of 20 % the content varies to 56 ppm and the iron content of us varieties and advanced breeding selections (17 to 62 ppm dry weight basis; brown et al, 2010) were comparable to our study. in earlier analysis of indian potato genotypes the iron content varies between 21 to 53 ppm in tuber flesh on dry weight basis (trehan and sharma, 1996). genotypes parentage genotypes parentage ps/7-7 kufri arun × desiree ps/9-09 j/96-84 × cp 2132 ps/5-75 cp 2376 × kufri kanchan ps/6-88 kufri arun × cp 3192 rh-3 kufri pukhraj × cp 3192 ms/08-88 cp1923 × jn 2207 p-7 kufri arun × cp 3192 ps/8-31 kufri arun × prt-19 ps/78-1 prt 17 × cp 3192 ps/6-24 cp 2376 × d-150 p-14 ms/89-1095 × cp 3290 rajendra-ii clonal selection of pc 46 rajendra-iii clonal selection of pc 676 in the present study the zinc content varied between 7.03-39.20 ppm on dry weight basis. advanced hybrid p/6-24 had the highest zinc content followed by rajendra-ii. zinc content in potato germplasm has been reported to be in range of 0.22 (tuberosum gp; rivero et al, 2003) -0.76 (andigena gp) mg/100g fw of tuber (andre et al, 2007). considering an average 20 % dry matter, the zinc content (11-38 ppm dry weight basis) in these studies corroborates to that of results of our study while zinc content of united states genotypes and previous reports of indian genotypes was on lower side ie 12 to 18 ppm (brown et al, 2011) and 10 to 18 ppm (trehan and sharma, 1996), respectively on dry weight basis. genotype iron content (mg/kg dw/ppm) zinc content (mg/kg dw/ppm) rajendraii 63.94 30.62 ps/5-75 36.10 16.6 ps/7-7 29.72 12.06 ps/9-09 19.28 7.03 ps/6-88 30.19 18.51 rh-3 32.68 19.88 p-7 29.00 16.96 ms/08-88 30.38 19.90 ps/8-31 32.48 9.71 table 2. iron and zinc content in coloured skinned advanced hybrids and varieties 85 mineral content red skinned potatoes ps/78-1 21.02 12.39 rajendraiii 22.67 17.79 p-14 43.04 19.57 p/6-24 38.93 39.20 mean 33.03 18.48 range 19.28-63.94 7.03-39.20 std. error 2.80 2.88 std. deviation 4.98 5.00 phenotypic and genotypic variance estimates depict the extent of variation in the present germplasm. genotypic va r ia nce wa s high for both t r a it s indicating sufficient variability in the genotypes (table 3). the better variability magnitude of the present germplasm may be due to varied pedigree of each genotype thus broadening the genetic base. broadsense heritability is the ratio of genotypic variance/ phenotypic variance that provides an estimate of the proportion of total transmissible variation. it predicts the changes affected to the trait by virtue of selection. high estimates of heritability (broad sense) wer e ob ta ined for both the c ha r a ct er s studied depicting feasibility for improvement of these characters through direct selection (table 3). similarly, brown et al, 2010 recorded high iron content in red-skinned clones with high heritability while high zinc variability and heritability was obser ved in r usset potato clones (brown et al, 2011). heritability estimates along with genetic advance are useful in selection of individuals. heritable variation can be found out with greater degr ee of accur acy when studied with genetic advance. the genetic advance was moderate for iron and zinc content but this may be compensated by the high heritability values and indicates additive gene a c t ion gover ning t hes e tr a it s a nd t heir s u it a b ilit y of dir ec t s elec t ion f or f u r t her improvement. correlation between iron and zinc content was moderate (r=0.65) in contrast to weak correlation (r = 0.35) observed by (andre et al, 2007) while highly significant (r=-0.70 to 0.84, p<0.01) to non significant correlations obtained by brown et al, 2011. the bioavailability of potato iron is higher than those of cer ea ls a nd leguminous cr ops due to higher ascorbic acid content. in the present study the correlation estimate revea led no significant relationship between iron and ascorbic acid content (data not shown). brown et al., (2010) also did not observe significant relationship between iron and ascorbic acid. the suitable genotypes identified will be used as parental lines for specialty potato breeding programme and the advanced hybrids can be released as nutrient rich potato variety. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 79-82, 2019 table 3. variance, heritability and genetic advance for iron and zinc content iron zinc genotypic variance 123.60 64.52 phenotypic variance 131.93 72.85 heritability 93.68 88.56 genetic advance 22.16 15.57 genetic advance (% of mean) 67.10 84.26 86 andre, c.m., ghislain, m., bertin, p., oufir, m., del rosario herrera, m., hoffmann, l., hausman, j.f., larondelle, y. and evers, d. 2007. andean potato cultivars (solanum tubersum l.) as source of antioxidants and minerals micro nutrients. j. agril. food chem. 55:36678 brown c. r., haynes, k.g., moore, m., pavek, m.j., hane, d.c., love s.l., novy, r.g. and miller jr j. c. 2011. stability a nd broa d-sense heritability of mineral content in potato: zinc. am. j. pot. res. 88:238-44 brown c. r., haynes, k.g., moore, m., pavek, m.j., hane, d.c., love s.l., novy, r.g. and miller jr j. c. 2010. stability and br oa d-sense heritability of mineral content in potato: iron. am. j. pot. res. 87:390-96 maniva nna n, n. 2014. t naustat-sta tistica l package. https://sites.google.com/site/tnaustat. national family health survey-3. 2005-06 rivero, r. c., suarez hernanuez, p., rodrýguez rodrýguez, e.m., darias martýn, j., dýaz romero, c., 2003. mineral concentrations in cultivars of potatoes. food chem. 83, 247-53 trehan, s.p. and sharma r.c.1996. mineral nutrient content in peels and flesh of tubers of some potato genotypes. jipa, 23: 139-143 references j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 79-82, 2019 dalamu et al (ms received 30 march 2019, revised 17 may 2019, accepted 23 june 2019) 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. short communication introduction brinjal is one of the most important solanaceous vegetables next to tomato, potato and chilli. brinjal is enriched with high net content of nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, and edible good fats, along with some minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and seconda r y meta bolites. e ggp la nt is b a sica lly originated from india during 300 b.c. to 300 a.d. and distributed all across the country. brinjal is economically grown as annual crop though it is a perennial plant. eggplant mainly bears gradient violet big solitary flower but some cultivars or species bears clustered inflorescence with variable tinge color with five peta ls, five sepa ls, five stamens and variable length of stigma i.e., long styled, medium styled and short styled flowers. eggplant is hardy crop and even sustains prolonged stress periods but many studies have been reported there was decrease in fruit yield upon increased moisture deficiency. in eggplant upon increased drought there would be sequential decrease in fruit length, circumference, width, average fruit weight, p la nt height , da ys f or f lower init ia t ion a nd increased number of fruits and branches (faizan et al., 2021c) which would be drought susceptible t r a it s . w her ea s , inc r ea s ed lea f chlor op hyll, membrane stability index, relative tissue water, epiculticular wax, root length, volume and number of seconda r y r oots would be dr ought tolera nt character for genotype selection (faizan et al., 2 0 2 1 b ) mor e over u p on dr ou ght indu c t ion cytological and molecular changes will also occur like certain gene expressivity (faizan et al., 2021a). screening genotypes based on particular trait or a character can be done on its genetic values like phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variance, broad sense heritability as well genetic advance over mean that would help breeder to understand or find out material genetic variability and study influence of environment over trait exhibition while select ing elite genotypes. as f r u it yield is a dependent trait majorly governed by additive gene a ction with the association of differ ent tr aits. therefore, it was directed that association studies of yield and yield components is an elementary protocol to find out elite genotypes upon correlated t r a it or c ha r a c t er. c ha r a c t er a s s oc ia t ion or correlation analysis is an appropriate statistical method to quantify the degree, range and explain na t u r e of r ela t ions hip s ha r ing b et ween t wo variables based on its intensity of association. phenotypic trait association studies in brinjal upon drought stress faizan m.*a, harish babu b.n.b, lakshmana d.a, ganapathi m.a and rakshith m.a adepartment of genetics and plant breeding, college of horticulture, mudigere, bzonal agricultural and horticultural research station, hiriyur, university of agricultural and horticultural sciences, shivamogga, karnataka, india. *corresponding author email : faizanscf@gmail.com abstract eggplant is popularly known as poor man’s vegetable. with respect to present situation of climatic challenges, fruit yield of eggplant is reduced due to drought or moisture stresses. in view of this condition, an experiment was aimed to study character association between yield and yield components in eggplant. the resultant outcome from correlation analysis computed among nine eggplant characters indicated that traits like plant height and total plant length at harvesting, fruit length and number of fruits per plant significantly correlated with fruit yield per plant. whereas, traits like plant height and total plant length observed at harvesting stage, number of days for flower initiation, number of primary branches, fruit length and average fruit weight were significantly associated with fruit yield per plant under moisture stressed condition. keywords: brinjal, drought, fruit yield, moisture stress and phenotypic correlation. 2 faizan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 our primary aim was to study the effect of moisture str ess on physiologica l, r oot, yield a nd yield components and evaluation of genetic values present in research incurred material for experiment. in addition to these, in this experiment we are aiming to exhibit yield component association or relationship towards fruit yield. country wide collected fifty eggplant genotypes (table 1) were sown in portray after treating with carbendazim and etiolated for three days and after 30 days of sowing seedlings were transplanted into pots. experiment was designed with factorial completely random design which includes two factors viz., (a) drought conditions (normal moisture condition/control table 1. list of eggplant genotypes used in the present experiment sl. name of the sources of no. genotype collection 1. pusa upkar iivr, varanasi, 2. arka kranti uttar pradesh 3. bhagyamati 4. pusa ankur 5. pusa bindu 6. punjab sadabahar 7. aruna 8. shobha 9. swarna manjari 10. ch-215 11. jawahar brinjal-8 12. jawahar brinjal-69 13. r-2580 vegetable research 14. r-2594 station kalyanpur, 15. r-2591 uttar pradesh 16. malapur local 17. l-2232 18. r-2581 19. l-2230 20. m4 college of 21. m21 horticulture, 22. m17 mudigere 23. mattigulla 24. ramdurga 25. melavanki 26. m19 27. very green long zonal research 28. iihr-322 station, chianky, 29. pant samrat palamu, jharkhand 30. iihr-7 31. long green 32. swarna pratibha 33. swarna mani 34. early round market hiriyur local 35. rampur local collection 36. hebbal gulla (chitradurga, 37. round green karnataka) 38. ic354140 nbpgr, 39. ic90785 new delhi 40. ic99676long 41. ic99676round 42. ic90691 43. ic354597-round 44. suvarna gp098 suvarna seeds pvt. ltd. 45. vijaya arbh98 vijaya seeds pvt. ltd. 46. co-2 tnau, coimbatore, tamil nadu 47. solanum macrocarpon college of horticulture, bangalore 48. solanum indicum 49. solanum torvum 50. solanum mammosum 3 phenotypic trait association studies in brinjal upon drought stress fig. 1. heatmap for comparative mean performance of eggplant genotypes over growth and yield parameters. x1plant height @ 90 dat (cm), x2total plant length @ 90dat (cm), x3number of days for flower initiation, x4number of primary branches/plants, x5fruit length (cm), x6fruit circumference (cm), x7average fruit weight (g), x8number of fruits per plant, x9fruit yield (g/plant); smoisture stress condition, nnormal moisture condition 4 faizan et al ta bl e 2. e st im at es o f ph en ot yp ic c or re la tio n co ef fic ie nt s fo r 12 d iff er en t ch ar ac te rs in eg gp la nt g en ot yp es u nd er n or m al m oi st ur e an d m oi st ur e st re ss t ra it s m oi st ur e x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 c on di ti on x 1 r n 1. 00 0 0. 76 8* ** 0. 29 9* ** 0. 16 1* -0 .3 32 ** * -0 .1 96 * -0 .1 6* -0 .0 09 -0 .3 72 ** r s 1. 00 0 0. 66 9* ** 0. 18 1* 0. 04 3 0. 01 9 -0 .1 63 * -0 .3 08 ** * 0. 14 5 -0 .2 94 ** * x 2 r n 1. 00 0 0. 26 7* ** -0 .0 32 -0 .3 23 ** * -0 .1 7* -0 .1 77 * 0. 00 4 -0 .3 18 ** * r s 1. 00 0 0. 31 5* ** 0. 09 6 -0 .1 32 -0 .2 43 ** * -0 .3 73 ** 0. 17 * -0 .4 12 ** * x 3 r n 1. 00 0 -0 .0 74 -0 .3 71 ** * 0. 05 3 -0 .0 7 0. 06 1 -0 .1 52 r s 1. 00 0 0. 05 7 -0 .1 44 -0 .0 29 -0 .1 7* 0. 12 7 -0 .3 16 ** * x 4 r n 1. 00 0 -0 .0 62 -0 .0 83 -0 .1 49 0. 14 1 -0 .0 44 r s 1. 00 0 -0 .3 86 ** * 0. 02 5 -0 .1 94 * 0. 15 8 -0 .2 63 ** * x 5 r n 1. 00 0 0. 11 8 0. 25 8* ** 0. 01 7* 0. 40 9* ** r s 1. 00 0 0. 08 9 0. 16 5* -0 .2 82 * 0. 27 2* ** x 6 r n 1. 00 0 0. 65 1* ** -0 .4 26 ** 0. 14 7 r s 1. 00 0 0. 52 7* ** -0 .4 81 ** 0. 14 1 x 7 r n 1. 00 0 -0 .5 07 ** 0. 13 8 r s 1. 00 0 -0 .5 92 ** 0. 39 2* ** x 8 r n 1. 00 0 0. 53 3* ** r s 1. 00 0 0. 03 6 x 9 r n 1. 00 0 r s 1. 00 0 * si gn if ic an ce @ 0 .5 ( r> 0. 16 ), * * si gn if ic an ce @ 0 .0 1 (r >0 .2 09 ), * ** s ig ni fi ca nc e @ 0 .0 05 ( r> 0. 22 8) , ** * si gn if ic an ce @ 0 .0 01 ( r> 0. 26 6) ; r n: c or re la tio n fo r no rm al m oi st ur e pl an ts ; r s : c or re la tio n fo r m oi st ur e st re ss ed p la nt s. x 1 p la nt h ei gh t @ 9 0 d at ( cm ), x 2 t ot al p la nt l en gt h @ 9 0d at ( cm ), x 3 n um be r of d ay s fo r flo w er i ni tia tio n, x 4 n um be r of p rim ar y br an ch es /p la nt s, x 5 f ru it le ng th ( cm ), x 6 f ru it ci rc um fe re nc e (c m ), x 7 a ve ra ge f ru it w ei gh t (g ), x 8 n um be r of f ru its p er p la nt , x 9 f ru it yi el d (g /p la nt ). 5 phenotypic trait association studies in brinjal upon drought stress and moisture stress condition); (b) 50 eggplant genotypes with three replications. moisture stress was induced for about 15 days during two critical stages of eggplant i.e., flower initiation and fruit initiation stage. furthermore, drought level was monitored by tensiometer r egula ted a t 85 centiba r s. upon experimentation, traits like number of days taken for flower initiation, plant height, total plant length, number of primary branches per plants, fruit length, fruit circumference, average fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant were recorded. phenotypic correlation coefficient was done for moisture stress (rs) and normal moisture condition (rn) with the help of windowstat v.7.2. the phenotypic correlation coefficient was calculated by using mean data (fig. 1) obtained from fifty eggplant genotypes after analyzing for variation. significant variation was observed for all the eight traits except for the number of days for flower initiation. plant yield is a complex trait and direct selection for this character based on genetic estimates alone is not enough. fruit yield is dependent on various other indirect component traits like plant height, number of branches, fruit length, fruit circumference, average fruit weight, etc. an acquaintance on the relationship between these traits helps in attaining the improved yield. a phenotypic correlation coefficient is an important appliance for the breeder which helps in selection of genotype for a complex trait through the selection of simpler traits. in this aspect, several studies reported significant relationships among the different pairs of the assorted characters of eggplant (abd-el-hadi et al., 2004, melad et al., 2005). the phenotypic correlation of coefficient for both normal moisture (rn) and moisture stress condition (rs) has been presented in table 2. fruit yield per plant in normal moisture has recorded a significant association with four traits viz., negative association with plant height at harvesting stage (rn= -0.372), total plant length at harvesting stage (rn= 0.318) and positive association with fruit length (rn= 0.409) and number of fruits per plant (rn= 0.533). whereas, in case of moisture stress condition, six characters viz., negative association with plant height at harvesting stage (rs=-0.294), total plant length at harvesting stage (rs= -0.412), number of days for flower initiation (rs= -0.316), number of primary branches (rs= -0.263) and positive association with fruit length (rs= 0.272) and average fruit weight (rs= 0.392) had significant correlation with fruit yield per plant. under normal moisture condition, fruit yield per plant had a non-significant association with number of days for flower initiation, number of primary branches per plants, fruit circumference and average fruit weight. wherea s, under moisture stress condition fruit circumference and number of fruits per plant are nonsignificantly associated with fruit yield per plant. under normal moisture, fruit yield per plant had significant association with plant height and total plant length at harvesting, fruit length and stage number of fruits per plant. this explains that fruit yield per plant increases upon increase in degree of the traits and these traits are having strong inherent association with fruit yield per plant. however, under moisture stress, plant height and total plant length at harvesting stage, number of days for flower initiation, number of primary branches, fruit length and average fruit weight showed significant association with fruit yield per plant. this explains that throughout moisture stress fruit yield increases upon decreased rate plant height and total plant length at harvesting stage, number of days for flower initiation and number of primary branches. whereas, fruit length and average fruit weight increased upon moisture stress condition this because of material which incurred for experimentation constitutes of maximum drought tolerant germplasm. the positive significant association between fruit length, average fruit weight and number of fruits per plant with fruit yield per plant is in conformity with the findings of kranthi and celine (2013); singh and kumar (2004); nayak and nagre (2013); akter and rahman (2019). however, the negative significant correlation between plant height and total plant length at harvesting stage, number of days for flower initiation and number of primary branches with fruit yield per plant is similar with the resulted reported by gobu (2015); dhaka and soni (2014); thirumurugan (1997), reddy (2003) and murugavel (2006). references abd-el-hadi, a.h., el-adl, a.m., el-diasty, z.m. and el-zaghauy, e.a. 2004. estimation of heterosis, inbreeding depression and genetic parameters associated with them on some economica l tr a its of eggpla nt (solanum 6 faizan et al melongena l.). zagazig j. agric. res., 31(5): 2207-2222. akter, a. and rahman, h. 2019. genetic diversity studies of eggplant (solanum melongena l.) genotypes. res. & reviews: j., 8(1): 42-57. dhaka, s.k. and soni, a.k. 2014. genotypic and phenotypic cor r ela tion study in br inja l genotypes. ann. plant soil res., 16(1): 53-56. fa iza n, m. , har ish ba bu, b.n. , fakrudin, b., lakshmana, d. and rakshith, m. 2021a. in silico identification and annotation of drought responsive candidate genes in solanaceous plants. international journal of creative research thoughts. 9(1):2320-2882. faizan, m., harish babu, b.n., lakshmana, d., ga na pa thi, m. and rakshith, m. 2021b. physiological and root growth response of eggplant genotypes upon drought stress and assessment of genetic parameters at different developmental stage. int. j. eco. environ. sci., 3(4):22-33. faizan, m., harish babu, b.n., lakshmana, d., ganapathi, m. and rakshith, m. 2021c. investigation on response of growth and yield characters of eggplant over moistures stress and dissection of genetic parameters. int. j. chem. stu., 9(5): 08-14. gobu, r. 2015. studies on genetic variability in eggplant (solanum melongena l.) genotypes for drought tolerance and yield, m. sc., thesis, university of agricultural and horticultural sciences, shivamogga. kranthi, r.g. and celine, v.a. 2013. correlation and path analysis studies in round fruited brinjal. veg. sci., 40(1): 87-89. melad, h.z., saleeb, f.s. and salama, g.m. 2005. combining ability and correlation between yield a nd differ ent cha r a cter s in eggpla nt for producing high quality of local hybrids. j. agric. sci., 30(1): 513-532. murugavel, m. 2006. studies on genetic divergence in eggplant (solanum melongena l.) m.sc. (ag.) thesis, annamalai univ., annamalai nagar, india. nayak, b.r. and nagre, p.k. 2013. genetic variability and correlation studies in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). int. j. appl. biol. pharma. tech., 4(4): 211-215. reddy, n.g. 2003. studies on genetic variability and corr elation in segrega ting gener ations of eggplant (solanum melongena l.). m.sc. (ag.) thesis, annamalai univ., annamalai nagar. singh, o. and kumar, j. 2004. correlation and path analysis in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). veg. sci., 31(2): 161-163. thirumurugan, t. 1997. studies on genetic divergence in eggplant (solanum melongenal.). m.sc. (ag.) thesis, annamalai univ., annamalai nagar. rose is the most popular garden plant and cutflower in the world. due to its importance, rose breeding and improvement programmes have received great attention throughout the world. wild species have always played greater role in present day roses in many ways. therefore, there is a great deal of interest in studying variability existing among various species, their characterization and adaptability for effective use in improvement programmes. rosa species grow wild in several regions of the world and most are of ornamental value only. temperate climate generally encourages growth and fruiting in rosa species. majority of the species are found in the wild in china, myanmar (burma), himalayan region, central europe and north east asia. the species gradually spread from the northern hemisphere from alaska and siberia, south to mexico, india, the philippines and ethiopia. rose hips are the enlarged floral cups (receptacles) which surround numerous small, hard dry fruits (achenes) commonly called seeds. rose hips are bright orange and oval and become fleshy, but are not true fruits. apart from having ornamental value, rose hips have attained great importance for their various economic uses. rose hip dry pulp is exported mainly to european countries. the dry pulp is used in herbal teas and marmalades and as a pigment for laying hens and broiler chickens (burgos, 1976; cortés, 1976; larraín, 1978). it variability in hip characters in rosa species t. janakiram and thomas debner1 division of ornamental crops indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore-560089, india e-mail: tolety07@gmail.com abstract the reddish ‘fruit’ of rose is commonly known as its hip. rose hips are formed when the tip of a rose stem swells up after a flower has faded. species roses, shrub roses, ramblers and other roses that are “close to nature” (r. gallica, r. rugosa) are the most likely to have noticeable hips. twenty three rose species were evaluated for hip characters. rose hips were very variable among the species. average hip length and diameter varies between 0.5 to 2.8 cm and 0.1 to 2.7 cm, respectively. hip shape viz., sub-globose, urn-shaped, ellipsoid and spindle-shaped were observed among the species. the range for number of hips was found to be 5 to 45 per cluster. rosa rugosa recorded larger hip size. majority of the species showed orange and deep red hip color. r. moyesii (blue-green foliage and bright to orange hips), r. glauca (bright scarlet hips), r. pimpinellifolia (tiny, red-black hips) with attractive hips having ornamental value can be utilized in landscaping and for garden purposes. keywords: rosa species, hips, ornamental, variability 1 department head, institute of plant genetics-molecular plant breeding herrenhacusen strz hannover, germany contains large amounts of vitamin c (1000-2000 mg/100g), riboflavin, pectin, nicotinic acid and malic acid (israel and benado, 1977). the objective of this study was to evaluate differences in hip characteristics, viz., size, colour and shape of rose hips under ahrenburg, germany conditions. sixty rosa species are maintained at the institute for ornamental plant breeding, ahrensburg, germany. twenty three hips from each of the species r. acicularis, r. alba, r. arvensis, r. glutinosa, r. helenae, r. macrantha, r. macrophylla, r. majalis, r. mollis, r. moyesii, r. multiflora, r. nitida, r. nutkana, r. pendula r. pimpinellifolia, r. roxburghii, r. rubinigosa, r. rubrifolia, r. rubus, r. rugosa, r. rugosa alba, r. tomentosa and r. wichuriana were collected and observations were made on hip characters viz., size, number, color and shape according to the rose description guide. a great variation is observed in size, shape and colour amongst rose hips (table 1 and plate 1). rose hips were highly variable among species. average hip length and diameter varied between 0.5 to 2.8 cm and 0.1 to 2.7 cm, respectively. rosa pimpinellifolium had tiny hips. the range for number of hips was found to be 5 to 45 per cluster. rosa rugosa recorded larger hip size. hip shape viz., subglobose, urn-shaped, ellipsoid and spindle were observed short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 169-171, 2008 170 among the species. majority of the species showed orange and deep red hip color. similarly, in chile, variability for hip size, pulp thickness and ascorbic acid was observed among rose hips collected and evaluated from 60 different locations. morphological differences are evident in the wild material, indicating that more than one species (and probably several sub species and ecotypes) have developed table 1. qualitative and quantitative characters in hips rosa species species shape of hip length of hip diameter of hip color of hip vestiture of hip number of (cm) (cm) achenes r. glutinosa spindle 1.3 0.7 orange red hispid 18 r. macrophylla oblong 2.1 1.0 orange red hispid 6 r. micrantha spindle 2.0 1.0 orange hispid 5 r. multiflora round 0.7 0.5 orange red glabrous 6 r. nitida globose 1.4 0.9 orange red glabrous 10 r. rubinigosa oblong 1.4 0.1 orange red glabrous 18 r. rubrifolia round 1.4 1.1 orange red hispid 16 r. rugosa globose 2.8 2.7 orange red glabrous 10 r. tomentosa round 1.1 0.9 orange red glabrous 6 r. wichuriana round 0.8 0.8 orange red glabrous 10 r. acicularis urn 1.0 0.5 dark red glabrous 15 r. alba oval 0.8 0.5 red glabrous 16 r. arvensis oval 0.5 0.3 red glabrous 18 r. helenae oval 0.7 0.6 orange red hispid 22 r. majalis round 1.4 1.3 scarlet glabrous 24 r. mollis spindle 1.5 1.2 red glabrous 20 r. moyesii urn 2.3 2.0 orange red glabrous 40 r. nutkana round 1.4 1.3 red hispid 8 r. pendula pear 2.5 2.0 red glabrous 20 r. pimpinellifolia oval 0.5 0.3 red black glabrous 45 r. rubus oval 0.5 0.4 orange red glabrous 19 r. roxburghii round 0.8 0.7 red hispid 20 se 0.14 0.13 2.26 s.d (s) 0.67 0.63 10.60 cv 51.14 66.31 64.24 since introduction (joublan et al, 1996). rosa moyesii (blue-green foliage and bright to orange hips), rosa glauca (bright scarlet hips), r. pimpinellifolia (tiny, red-black hips) with attractive hips having ornamental value can be utilized in landscaping and for garden purposes. janakiram and debner j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 169-171, 2008 plate 1. variability for hip characters in rosa species 171 (ms received 15 february 2008, revised 11 august 2008) acknowledgement the senior author is thankful to indian national science academy, new delhi, india, and deutsche forshungs gemeinschaft, germany for providing visiting scientist fellowship. references burgos, g.a. 1976. uso de la rosa mosqueta (rosa aff. rubiginosa l.) como pigmentante en raciones para ponedoras en jaula. tesis ing. agr. univ. concepción cortés, j.c. 1976. uso de la rosa mosqueta (rosa aff. rubiginosa l.) como pigmentante en raciones para broilers. tesis ing. agr. univ. concepción israel, j.m. and benado, t.s. 1977. aspectos preliminares del aprovechamiento de la rosa mosqueta (fructus cynosbati) en chile. alimentos, 2: 5-8 joublan, j.p., berti, m., serri, h., wilckens, r., hevia, and figueroa. i. 1996. wild rose germplasm evaluation in chile. p. 584-588. in: j. janick (ed.), progress in new crops. ashs press, arlington, va larraín, j.f.j. 1978. uso de la cascarilla de mosqueta rosa aff. rubiginosa como fuente pigmentante en raciones para ponedoras en jaulas. tesis ing. agr. univ. concepción variability in hip characters in rosa species j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 169-171, 2008 introduction rajasthan is a leading producer of seed spices, mainly coriander, and contributes 62% of india’s total production. it is grown mainly in the south and south-eastern plains of rajasthan comprising kota, bundi, baran and jhalawar districts, and accounts for the entire production in rajasthan. however, productivity of coriander is low compared to its potential yield. farmers face numerous problems in an effort to realize the full potential of coriander production. lack of suitable high-yielding varieties and poor knowledge of improved production technologies are ascribed as major reasons for this. productivity of coriander per unit area or time can be increased by adopting feasible, scientific and sustainable management practices by selecting a suitable variety. with this in view, frontline demonstrations were held at farmers’ fields, in a systematic manner, to showcase the worth of high-yielding varieties, to convince them about the potential of improved production technologies for enhanced productivity in coriander. material and methods the study was conducted in bundi district of rajasthan during 2008-09 to 2011-12. during this period, a total of 88 frontline demonstrations on coriander variety rcr 436 were conducted at the farmers’ fields in the service area of our kvk to convince farmers about the potential of this improved variety. all the demonstrations were conducted on mediumyield and economic viability of coriander under frontline demonstration in bundi district of rajasthan b.l. dhaka, m.k. poonia1, b.s. meena1 and r.k. bairwa krishi vigyan kendra post box no. 4, bundi-323 001, india e-mail: maheshkpoonia@gmail.com abstract a study was conducted in bundi district of rajasthan to analyze yield and economics of coriander under frontline demonstration. results of the study revealed that yields in coriander were substantially higher over the local check (control), fetching the participating farmers a higher price for their produce. a majority of the respondent farmers expressed high (44.32%) to very high (37.50%) level of satisfaction with extension services and performance of the technology under the demonstration. key words: coriander, farmer, frontline demonstration, yield black soils, under an area of 0.5 ha each. the participating farmers were trained in all the aspects of coriander production management. yield data was collected from all the 88 participating farmers, and economic viability calculation was based on the prevalent market price of the produce and inputs. technology gap, extension gap and technology index were calculated using the following formulae (samui et al, 2000): technology gap = potential yield – demonstration yield extension gap = demonstration yield – farmers’ yield technology index = potential yield – demonstration yield/potential yield ×100 further, satisfaction level of the respondent farmers was measured based on various dimensions like training of the participating farmers, timeliness of the services, supply of the inputs, solving field problems, and extending advisory services, fairness of the scientists, performance of the variety demonstrated and, overall impact of the flds. satisfaction level of the farmers was measured using an index prepared by kumaran and vijayaragavan (2005), upon necessary modification. a total of 15 statements were scored on a five-point continuum, viz., strongly agree (5), agree (4), undecided (3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1). possible highest score obtainable was 75, and the lowest 15. the respondents selected were interviewed personally 1krishi vigyana kendra, borkhera, kota 324 001, rajasthan, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):226-228, 2015 227 yield and economic viability of coriander in rajasthan on a pre-tested and well-structured interview schedule. responses were summed up to get the score on satisfaction. satisfaction index was calculated as follows: individual score of the farmer farmer’s satisfaction index = ×100 maximum score the respondents were classified into five categories, from very-low to very-high, by dividing the score into five classes of equal intervals. results and discussion a comparison of the productivity level between frontline demonstrations and local checks is shown in table 1. it is evident from results that under the demonstration plot, performance of coriander (yield) was substantially higher than that in the local check in all the years of study (2008-09 to 2011-12). yield in coriander under demonstration ranged from 1575-1800kg/ha, compared to the local checks (1217-1628kg/ha) during the period under study. technological intervention, thus, enhanced yield to a tune of 31.88%, 32.35%, 12.50% and 10.20%, respectively, over the local check. fluctuations in yield observed over the years were mainly on account of variation in soil moisture availability, rainfall, soil type and pest attack, besides a change in the location of the trials each year. similar enhancement in yield in different crops under frontline demonstrations was documented by mishra et al (2009), dhaka et al (2010), and kumar et al (2010). yield in frontline demonstrations and the potential yield of the crop was compared for estimating yield gaps. these gaps were further categorized as technology and extension gaps. technology gap indicates a gap in demonstration-yield over the potential yield, and this was 395, 425, 200 and 206kg ha-1 during 2008-09, 2009-10, 201011 and 2011-12, respectively (table 2). the technology gap observed may be attributed to dissimilarities in soil fertility, salinity, and to an erratic rainfall and other vagaries of weather in the demonstration area. hence, to narrow down the gap between the two types of yield in different varieties, location-specific recommendations may become necessary. extension gap ranged from 166 to 388kg ha-1 during the period under study (table 2). a wide extension gap emphasizes the need to educate farmers using various means to facilitate adoption of improved production technologies, to reverse this trend. greater use of the latest, improved production technologies applied to high-yielding varieties can subsequently bridge this extension gap between demonstration yield and potential yield. new technologies, may, eventually lead farmers into discontinuing obsolete varieties. technology index refers to the feasibility of a variety at farmers’ field. a lower value for technology index indicates greater feasibility. table 2 reveals that technology index values obtained were 19.75, 21.25, 10.00 and 10.30 during 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12, respectively. this finding corroborates results of hiremath and nagaraju (2009) and dhaka et al (2010). the economics of growing coriander under frontline demonstrations were estimated and results are presented in table 3. economic analysis of yield performance revealed that besides higher production, participating farmers in fld realized a higher price of their produce compared to that in the control (local checks) during the period under study. this was so because of a better quality of the produce. frontline demonstrations recorded higher gross returns (rs. 61793, 54968, 73800 and 80730 ha-1), and net returns (rs. 45743, 38218, 56000 and 61630 ha-1), with higher benefit:cost ratio (2.85, 2.28, 3.15 and 3.23) compared to the local checks in our study, respectively. these results are in line with findings of gurumukhi and mishra (2003), sawardekar et al (2003), and hiremath et al (2007). farmers’ satisfaction satisfaction level of the respondent farmers with the extension services and performance of frontline demonstrations was measured, and results are presented in table 2. yield gap and technology index in frontline demonstration year no. of technology extension technology flds gap gap index (kg ha-1) (kg ha-1) (%) 2008-09 10 395 388 19.75 2009-10 27 425 385 21.25 2010-11 36 200 200 10.00 2011-12 15 206 166 10.30 fld: frontline demonstrations table 1. productivity of coriander under frontline demonstration year no. of yield (kg ha-1) additional % flds fld local yield over increase check local check over local (kg ha-1) check 2008-09 10 1605 1217 388 31.88 2009-10 27 1575 1190 385 32.35 2010-11 36 1800 1600 200 12.50 2011-12 15 1794 1628 166 10.20 fld: frontline demonstrations j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):226-228, 2015 228 table 4. a majority of the respondents expressed high (44.32 %) to very high (37.50 %) level of satisfaction at the extension services offered and performance of the technology under demonstration; whereas, a meagre (18.18) per cent of respondents expressed a medium level of satisfaction. highto very-high level of satisfaction at the services rendered, linkage with farmers and technologies demonstrated, indicated a stronger conviction, and, physical and mental involvement in frontline demonstration. this, in turn, could lead to higher adoption of the technologies, which would prove the relevance of frontline demonstrations. it is concluded that frontline demonstration of improved technology reduces technology gap to a considerable extent, thus leading to increased productivity of coriander in bundi district of rajasthan. this also improved linkages between the farmers and scientists, and built confidence for adoption of the improved technology. productivity enhancement under fld over farmers’ practices of coriander cultivation created a greater awareness, and motivated other farmers not growing coriander to adopt improved technologies in this spice crop. references dhaka, b.l., meena, b.s. and suwalka, r.l. 2010. popularization of improved maize production table 4. extent of farmers’ satisfaction with extension services (n=88) satisfaction level class number per cent very low 15-30 0 0.00 low 16-30 0 0.00 medium 31-45 16 18.18 high 46-60 39 44.32 very high 61-75 33 37.50 table 3. economics of frontline demonstration variable demonstration local check additional gain in demonstration over local check 08-09 09-10 10-11 11-12 08-09 09-10 10-11 11-12 08-09 09-10 10-11 11-12 cost of cultivation (rs ha-1) 16050 16750 17800 19100 14500 15100 16300 17600 1550 1650 1500 1800 sale price (rs. q-1) 3850 3490 4100 4500 3610 3140 3950 4370 240 350 150 130 gross returns (rs. ha-1) 61793 54968 73800 80730 43934 37366 63200 71144 17859 17602 10600 9586 net returns (rs. ha-1) 45743 38218 56000 61630 29434 22266 46900 53544 16309 15952 9100 7786 benefit:cost ratio 2.85 2.28 3.15 3.23 2.03 1.47 2.88 3.04 10.52* 9.67* 6.07* 4.33* *incremental benefit:cost ratio technology through frontline demonstrations in southeastern rajasthan. j. agri. sci., 1:39-42 gurumukhi, d.r. and mishra, s. 2003. frontline demonstration a success story. agri. extn. rev., 15:22-23 hiremath, s.m. and nagaraju, m.v. 2009. evaluation of frontline demonstration trials on onion in haveri district of karnataka. karnataka j. agril. sci., 22:10921093 hiremath, s.m., nagaraju, m.v. and shashidhar, k.k. 2007. impact of frontline demonstrations on onion productivity in farmers’ field. in: national seminar on appropriate extension strategies for management of rural resources, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, kranataka, india, december 18-20, 2007, p. 100 kumar, a., kumar, r., yadav, v.p.s. and kumar, r. 2010. impact assessment of frontline demonstrations of bajra in haryana state. indian res. j. extn. edn., 10:105-108 kumaran, m. and vijayaragavan, k. 2005. farmers’ satisfaction of agricultural extension services in an irrigation command area. indian j. extn. edn., 41:812 mishra, d.k., paliwal, d.k., tailor, r.s. and deshwal, a.k. 2009. impact of frontline demonstrations on yield enhancement of potato. indian res. j. extn. edn., 9:26-28 samui, s.k., maitra, s., roy, d.k., mondal, a.k. and saha, d. 2000. evaluation of frontline demonstration on groundnut (arachis hypogea l.) in sundarbans. j. indian soc. coastal agril. res., 18:180-183 sawardekar, s.v., dhane, s.s. and jadhav, b.b. 2003. frontline demonstration performance of salt-tolerant rice varieties in coastal saline soils. irrn, 28:73-74 (ms received 14 august 2013, revised 16 may 2015, accepted 05 june 2015) dhaka et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):226-228, 2015 33 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 standardisation of agro-techniques for flower quality parameters in ornamental sunflower (helianthus annus l.) kirtimala b. naik, s. k. nataraj , d. p. kumar, y. g. shadakshari, g. b. seetharamu, r. venugopalan and k.v. jayaprasad college of horticulture, gkvk, campus, bengaluru, uhs, bagalkot e-mail: kirtiflori@gmail.com abstract an experiment was carried out on standardisation of agro-techniques for flower quality parameters in ornamental sunflower during 2012-13 at gkvk, campus, college of horticulture, university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot. in three way interaction effect longest stalk length (36.33) was in the treatment combination of mulching i.e m1 (with mulch) with a spacing of s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) at the fertilizer rate f1 (40:60:40 npk kg ha-1). stalk girth was maximum with mulching treatment of m1 (with mulch) at a spacing of s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with the fertilizer rate of f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) and without mulch at the spacing of s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with fertilizer rate of f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha 1) recording 0.49 and 0.46 cm respectively. mulching i.e m1 (with mulch) at spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with fertilizer rate if f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) produced plants with largest flower head diameter (13.24 cm). the treatment combinations of m1 (with mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) 4.65 cm recorded broadest flower disc diameter. considering the results ornamental sunflower can be grown best without mulching, at a spacing of 60 x 30 cm or 60 x 40 cm with optimum to higher fertilizer dose to give best flower quality in ornamental sunflower. key words: ornamental sunflower, mulching, spacing, fertilizers, quality introduction sunflower (helianthus annuus l.) is native to north america and belongs to the family asteraceae. the term helianthus comes from the greek word ‘helios’ meaning sun and ‘anthos’ meaning flower. initially the americans used sunflower for food and medicinal purposes. in later years, sunflower became a very important oil seed crop around the world due to the industrial value of its oil. in the early ninetees, sunflower regained popularity as a cut flower crop. historically sunflower was first used as a garden plant, then as a flowering pot plant. this crop is very easy to grow and has wide adaptability. in india the area under cultivation of sunflower as garden crop or cut flower is negligible, as it is often grown for oil extraction purpose in india. in any crop, genotypes, soil, cultural practices and their interactions exert profound influence on productivity and quality of crops. however, it is not possible to manipulate the environment for better crop growth, but one can manipulate the micro climate of the field to certain extent by adopting suitable cultural practices. in the present study an attempt was made to study the impact of agrotechniques on quality parameters in ornamental sunflower. crop production and the resultant yield is a complex phenomenon interacted by several fa ctors. the yield can be manipulated by taking advantage of their combined actions. hence three factors viz., plastic mulching, spacing and fertilizer levels were used in the present experiment. material and methods an ex p er iment wa s c a r r ie d ou t on standardisation of agro-techniques for flower quality parameters in ornamental sunflower during 201213 at gkvk, campus, college of horticulture, university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot. the promising genotype m-17r was used to standardize original research paper 34 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 naik et al agro-techniques for flower yield and post harvest quality. split split plot design was followed by adopting fisher ’s method of analysis of variance technique as given by panse and sukhatamane (2002) by using sas package v9-3 available at statistical cell, iihr, bengaluru. the experiment c ons is t ed of thr ee r ep lica t ions a nd eighteen trea tments. the exper iment consisted of main factor, sub factor and sub sub factor. main factor: mulching 1) plastic mulch 50 (µ) (m1) 2) without mulch (m2) sub factor: spacing (cm) 1) 60 cm x 40 cm (s1) 2) 60 cm x 30 cm (s2) 3) 60 cm x 20 cm (s3) sub-sub factor: fertilizers (npk kg/ha) 1) 40:60:40 kg/ha (f1) 2) 60:75:60 kg/ha (f2) 3) 80:90:80 kg/ha (f3) the experiment was laid out with the above stated factors into plots measuring 6.72 m2 each with 4 rows in each plot of 2.8 meter length and 2.4 meter width with 37.33 plants in each plot. minimum distance of 60 cm was maintained between the plots. there were totally 54 plots. basal dose of 50% nitrogen in the form of urea + full dose of phosphorous (ssp) & pota ssium (mop) wer e applied at the time of sowing and top dressing of 50% nitrogen was taken up at 30-35 days after sowing. after sowing, plastic mulch (25 µ) was applied to the plots whereever mulching treatment was applicable. irrigation was provided 2 days before sowing and immediately after sowing and thereafter at 8-10 days interval and 45 days after sowing earthing-up was done. results and discussion individual effect of mulching, spacing and fertilizer levels on quality parameters mulching treatment m1 (with mulch) and m2 (without mulch) had no significant effect on flower stalk length, flower stalk diameter, number of petals, disc diameter. but m1 (with mulch) plants produced largest flower head diameter (11.55 cm) while m2 (without mulch) plants produced smallest flower head diameter (11.17 cm) (table 1).these results are in conformity with yathindra (2009) in china aster. wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) produced highest stalk length (32.77 cm) and stalk girth (0.42 cm). the results are in conformity with sloan et al. (2004) in ornamental sunflower variety ‘sunbright supreme’. spacing of the plants at s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) followed by s3 (60 cm x 20 cm) increased the f lower hea d dia met er 1 2 . 0 9 a nd 11 . 1 8 c m, respectively. while, s2 (60 cm x 30 cm) spaced plants induced lowest flower head diameter (10.81 cm). widest flower disc was recorded in plants spa ced a t wider spa cing s 1 (60 cm x 40 cm) recording 4.29 cm. the higher flower diameter in plants grown at wider spacing might be due to the utilization of more nutrients by plants. similar results were reported by deepa (2007) and munikrisnappa (2011) in china aster (table 1). fertilizer application with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) and f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) produced longest flower stalk length (31.4 and 31.09 cm, respectively). application of f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) followed by f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) increased the flower stalk girth (0.42 and 0.40 cm respectively. it may be due to the utilization of higher amount of nutrients which increases the stalk length and diameter of the flower stalk. similar results were obtained by gireesh (2004) and munikrisnappa (2011) in china aster. the three fertilizer levels registered no significant difference with respect to number of ray florets per flower. application of plants with higher level of fertilizers f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) followed by optimum level of fertilizers f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) produced maximum flower head diameter (11.62 and 11.32 cm, respectively) while minimum flower head diameter (11.14 cm) was registered with f1 (40:60:40 npk kg ha -1) level of fertilizers. application of higher level of fertilizers f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) and optimum level f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha-1) produced maximum flower disc diameter (4.28 and 4.16 cm, respectively). similar results were reported by sowmyamala (2007) in gaillardia and munikrishnappa (2011) in china aster. two way interaction effect of mulching, spacing and fertilizers on quality parameters mulching at wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) followed by m2 (without mulch) plants at s1 (60 cm x 40 cm), m2 (without mulch) plants at s3 (60 cm x 20 cm) and m2 (without mulch) plants at s2 (60 cm x 30 cm) induced longest flower stalk length (34.67, 30.87, 35 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 agro techniques for flower quality in ornamental sunflower ta bl e 1. in di vi du al e ff ec t o f m ul ch in g, sp ac in g an d fe rt ili ze r l ev el s o n flo w er q ua lit y pa ra m et er s. 36 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 naik et al 30.49 and 29.38 cm respectively). the combination of m1 (with mulch) at wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) induced maximum stalk girth (0.45 cm). most of the treatment combina tions induced non-significant difference with respect to increased stalk girth. it is due to response of plant density levels to the behaviour of yield and growth characters. similar results were observed by venugopal (1991) in everlasting flower and munikrishnappa (2011) in china aster with different spacing levels (table 2). maximum number of ray florets per flower, was registered with m2 (without mulch) at s2 (60 cm x 30 cm) and s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) spacing levels (34.91 and 34.76 ray florets per flower, respectively and m2 (without mulch) s3 (60 cm x 20 cm) with (33.87) ray florets per flower, respectively. spacing without mulch gave maximum number of ray florets per flower which is an important character in ornamental cut flowers. generally number of petals is a genetic character and mulching or spacing plays a very little role to increase or decrease the character. m1 (with mulch) plants at all the three spacing levels registered highest flower disc diameter (4.45, 4.24 and 4.20 cm, respectively). this might be because sunflower is basically a drought tolerant crop, and performs better when it is not stressed for water. if all the resources needed for optimum growth and flowering parameters are supplied adequately there is no need of additional treatments in this crop (marc and palmer, 1976). while in mulching with fertilizer levels, m2 (without mulch) with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) and f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) increased stalk length of 32.64 and 31.36 cm respectively and m1 (with mulch) f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) 30.82 cm (table 3). the increase in stalk length may be due to adequate supply of nutrients and water to the crop. similar results were also recorded by gavhane et al. (2004) in marigold. overall treatment combinations of mulching and fertilizers levels recorded non significant influence on the number of ray florets per flower. flower head diameter was highest in m1 (with mulch) plants applied with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) (12.25 cm). the combination of m1 (with mulch) f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) and m2 (without mulch) f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha 1) produced maximum flower disc diameter (4.44 and 4.23 cm, respectively). the results are in conformity with gavhane et al. (2004) in marigold and yathindra (2009) in china aster (table 3). wider spaced plants at s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1), f1 (40:60:40 npk kg ha -1) and f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) levels of fertilizers produced plants with increased flower stalk length (34.93, 31.87 and 31.50 cm, respectively (table 4). similar results were also reported by karuppaiah and krishna (2005) in marigold. spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) produced maximum flower stalk girth 0.48 cm. the treatment combinations of spacing and fertilizers levels showed non significant influence on the number of ray florets per flower. the wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) supplied with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) increased the flower head diameter (12.52 cm). while s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) produced flower s with maximum disc diameter (4.60 cm). these results are in conformity with the findings of rangawala (1987) in tuberose. three way interaction effect of mulching, spacing and fertilizers on quality parameters longest stalk length (36.33) was recorded in the treatment combination m1 (with mulch) plants at wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with lower level of fertilizer f1 (40:60:40 npk kg ha -1). stalk girth was maximum with m1 (with mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) and m2 (without mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 n p k k g ha -1) r ec or ding 0 . 4 9 a nd 0 . 4 6 c m, respectively (table 5) sloan et al. (2004 reported that spacing in ornamental sunflower depends on the desired plant population, length and thickness of the stem and the size of the inflorescence. the most popular spacing range is 15-30 cm in between the plants and 45-91 cm between rows. similar results were also reported by hemalatha (2010) in gomphrena globosa. the number of ray florets per flower was not significantly influenced by the treatment combination of mulching, spacing and fertilizer levels. the treatment combination m1 (with mulch) s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) produced plants with largest flower head diameter (13.24 cm). the treatment combinations of m1 (with mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) 4.65 cm recorded broadest flower disc diameter which was at par with m 2 (without mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1), m1 (with mulch) + s3 (60 cm x 20 37 agro techniques for flower quality in ornamental sunflower j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 ta bl e 2. e ff ec t o f d iff er en t l ev el s o f m ul ch in g w ith sp ac in g le ve ls o n flo w er q ua lit y pa ra m et er s. ta bl e 3. e ff ec t o f d iff er en t l ev el s o f m ul ch in g w ith fe rt ili ze r l ev el s o n flo w er q ua lit y pa ra m et er s. 38 ta bl e 4. e ff ec t o f d iff er en t l ev el s o f s pa ci ng w ith fe rt ili ze r le ve ls o n flo w er q ua lit y pa ra m et er s. naik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 39 agro techniques for flower quality in ornamental sunflower j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 ta bl e 5. in te ra ct io n ef fe ct o f d iff er en t l ev el s o f m ul ch in g x sp ac in g x fe rt ili ze r le ve ls o n flo w er q ua lit y pa ra m et er s. 40 naik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1), m1 (with mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f1 (40:60:40 npk kg ha -1) and m2 (without mulch) + s2 (60 cm x 30 cm) + f1 (40:60:40 npk kg ha-1) registering 4.54, 4.53, 4.43 and 4.43 cm, respectively. this may be attributed to the wider spacing with or without mulching which may have provided with optimum space for growth and development of the flowers. the results are in c onfor mit y wit h shekha wa t e t al . ( 2 00 8 ) in sunflower. conclusion mulching at wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) produced longest flower stalk length. m1(with mulch) at wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) induced maximum stalk girth. maximum number of ray florets per flower, was with m2 (without mulch) at s2 (60 cm x 30 cm) and s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) spacing levels. mulching with fertilizer levels, m2 (without mulch) with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) and f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) increased stalk length. flower head diameter was highest in m 1 (with mulch) plants applied with f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha 1) (12.25 cm). the combination of m1 (with mulch) f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) and m2 (without mulch) f2 (60:75:60 npk kg ha -1) produced maximum flower disc diameter. while the three way interaction effect of mulc hing, s p a c ing a nd fer tiliz er s on qua lit y pa r ameter s r evealed longest sta lk length with treatment combination m1 (with mulch) plants at wider spacing s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with lower level of fertilizer f1 (40:60:40 npk kg ha -1). stalk girth was maximum with mulch) at s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) and m2 (without mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1). the treatment combination m1 (with mulch) s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) with f 3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha -1) produced plants with largest flower head diameter (13.24 cm). the treatment combinations of m1 (with mulch) + s1 (60 cm x 40 cm) + f3 (80:90:80 npk kg ha-1) 4.65 cm recorded broadest flower disc diameter. 41 references deepa, s., 2007, studies on the influence of plant density and nutrition on growth, seed yield, quality and storability of china aster cv. poornima (callistephus chinensis (l) nees.), m.sc. thesis, univ. agri. sci. bengaluru. gavhane, p. b., kore, v. n., dixit, a. j. and gondhali, b. v., 2004, effect of graded doses of fertilizers and polythene mulches on growth, flower quality and yield of marigold (tagetes erecta l.) cv. pusa narangi gainda. the ori. j. of hort., 32(1): 35-37. gireesh, s. r., 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on the effect of plant density and nitrogen in groth and flower production in everlasting flower (helichrysum bracteatum andr.). m.sc. thesis, univ. agric. sci. dharwad. yathindra, h. a., 2009, effect of plastic mulching and fertigation on growth, yield and flower quality of china aster (callistephus chinensis nees), ph.d. thesis, univ. agric. sci. bengaluru. agro techniques for flower quality in ornamental sunflower j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 33-41, 2017 (ms received 26 july 2016, revised 07 april 2017, accepted 30 june 2017) 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 1 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review moringa (moringa oleifera l.): an underutilized and traditionally valued 1-13 tree holding remarkable potential jattan m., kumari n., raj kumar, kumar a., rani b., phogat d.s., kumar, s. and kumar, p. original research in papers characterization and evaluation of mountain sweet thorn 14-25 (flacourtia montana j. grah) collections tripathi p.c., ganeshan s., radhika v. and shetti d.l. optimization of methodology for the extraction of polyphenolic compounds 26-35 with antioxidant potential and á-glucosidase inhibitory activity from jamun (syzygium cumini l.) seeds arivalagan m., priyanka d.r. and rekha a. genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) 36-44 agadi a.h., kolakar s., lakshmana d., nadukeri s. and hanumanthappa m. morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to 45-52 iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c., dutt s., sharma j., raveendran m. and sudhakar d. responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water 53-63 deficit conditions ayub q., khan s.m., hussain i., naveed k., ali s., mehmood a., khan m.j., haq n.u., shehzad q. induced variability for yield and its attributing traits in cluster bean 64-68 [cyamopsis tetragonoloba (l. ) taub] through gamma irradiation lavanya h.n., mishra s., sood m., aghora t.s., anjanappa m., rao v.k. and reddy a.b. in vitro multiplication protocol for curcuma mangga : studies on carbon, 69-76 cytokinin source and explant size waman a.a., bohra p., karthika devi r. and pixy j. effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life 77-90 of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m., bhandari n. and dhital m. post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and 91-102 antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h., saucedo v.c., guerra r.d., suarez e.j., soto h.r.m. lopez j.a., garcia c.e. and hernandez r.g. soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient 103-113 management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour and d. kalaivanan effect of spectral manipulation and seasonal variations on cut foliage production 114-120 and quality of philodendron (philodendron ‘xanadu’) sujatha a. nair, laxman r.h. and sangama short communications studies on mutagenic sensitivity of seeds of pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) 121-124 sankaran m., kalaivanan d. and sunil gowda d.c. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from 125-129 garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v., vasudeva r., hemanth b., nischita p., sthapit b.r., parthasarathy v.a. and rao v.r. 103 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 original research paper soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour*1 and kalaivanan d.2 1ministry of agriculture, directory of agriculture and agrarian reform, lattakia, syria 2division of natural resource management, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru *corresponding author e-mail : baraaalmansour@yahoo.com. abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of integrated nutrient management practices on the microbial community dynamics of soils under sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) at icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during kharif season of 2015 and 2016. there were nine treatments replicated thrice in randomized complete block design. the results indicated that integrated application of fym (10 t/ha) + 100% recommended n through fym + bio-fertilizer i.e., t2 recorded the highest population of heterotrophic free-living n2 fixers (40.66 and 63.33 cfu ×10 3/ g), phosphate solubilizing bacteria (5.6 and 6.6 cfu ×103/ g) and fungal (6.4 and 5.33 cfu ×103/ g) while t9 with application of npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + fym (10 t/ha) recorded the highest population of actinomycetes (29.93 and 44.56 cfu ×103/ g) in soil during 2015 and 2016, respectively. application of recommended dose of fym (10 t/ha) in t7 resulted in reduction in population of heterotrophic free-living n2 fixers (26.13 and 34 cfu ×10 3/ g) and actinomycetes (20 and 30.5 cfu ×103/ g) whereas, the application of recommended dose of chemical fertilizer in t8 recorded the lowest population of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (3.9 cfu ×10 3/ g) and fungal (3.6 and 2.5 cfu ×103/ g) during 2015 and 2016, respectively. highest organic carbon (0.63 and 0.66 %) content in the post-harvest soil samples was recorded with application of npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + fym (10 t/ha) while, the lowest organic carbon value (0.52 and 0.53%) was recorded in t8 during 2015 and 2016, respectively. application of recommended fym (10 t/ha) along with recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha) in t9 recorded maximum herbage yield in the main crop (41.59 and 38.31 t/ha) and ratoon (20.97 and 17.77 t/ha) during 2015 and 2016, respectively. the results obtained from this study clearly demonstrated that integrated nutrient management can maximize soil microbial community dynamics which is considered as driving force behind regulating soil processes that support sustainable sweet basil cultivation. keywords : chemical fertilizers, bio-fertilizer, farm yard manure, soil microbial community and sweet basil. introduction soil biota refers to the organisms both animals (fauna/ micr o-fauna) and plants (flora /microflora) that determines overall quality, fertility and stability of the soils. further, the process of soil formation, structural stabilization, nutrient cycling is largely regulated by these soil organisms. hence, they are most important in achieving the soil sustainability. the fact is that soil contains a vast number and wide range of organisms which are important in the myriad of biochemical reactions and intricate biological processes that take place within the soil (bajracharya, 2011). koopmans and smeding (2008) state that learning how to manage beneficial soil biological processes as the key step towards developing sustainable agricultural systems. maintenance of soil fertility reflects positively on the crop yield (mbonigaba, 2007). this can be achieved by practicing integrated nutrient management including application of organic manures that results in a general improvement in the soil organic matter (som) which r epr esents the ma in r eser voir of ener gy for this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 104 al-mansour and kalaivanan j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 microorganisms and nutrients supply for plants (almansour et al., 2019). microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi and other micro fauna representatives are responsible for the energy and nutrients cycling (bot and benites, 2005). so it represents important component in the evaluation of soil quality and can be used as biological indicators for production systems (fr a nchini, 2007) a nd it ha s str ong correlation with the soil organic matter, which in turn reflects in crop yield (gundale, 2005). increase in the microbial population have been linked to increase in soil carbon and ecological buffering capacity and in response to organic management, as well as various organic amendments application such as livestock manure (ling et al., 2014). a 19-year long-term experiment conducted to evaluate the effects of fertilization regimes on soil organic carbon (soc) dynamics indicated that the soc content in the top 20cm soil layer remained unchanged over time under the unfertilized control plot whereas it significantly increased under both organic, bio and npk fertilizers and combined manure treatments (yang et al., 2011). regular/recommended application of organic manures such a s fym that incr ease soil a ggr egation is therefore vital because most soils rely on aggregation of particles to maintain favorable conditions for soil microbial and faunal activity, plant growth and yield (yu et al., 2012). an experiment was conducted to study the effect of fym, bio-fertilizers, mineral npk fertilization on vegetative growth, oil production and chemical composition of basil plant. the results obta ined by (zeina b, 2005) indica ted that the application of fym at high level (25t/ha) significantly increased the studied parameters compared with other fertilization including the control. the interaction between the main-plots (fym treatments) and subplots (bio, and npk treatments) had significant effect on the yield parameters. the rise in agricultural systems studies concerning soil quality and microbial properties are a reflection of the importance of soil to the understanding of agricultural sustainability. how management practices impact the soil is fundamental in evaluating the sustainability of an agricultural system. more than just a substrate for suppor ting root structur e, the soil ha s its own complexes ecosystem in which microorganisms are the dominant form of life and are responsible for performing functions vital to soil productivity. sweet ba sil (ocimum basilicum l.) belonging to the lamiaceae fa mily, cultiva ted around the world (baritaux et al., 1992) is considered as an important source for food and medicine (palada et al., 2002). however, the studies on integr a ted nutr ient management in basil are meager. hence, the study was conducted with different combination of inorganic fertilizers, organic manure (fym) and biofertilizer to find out their effect on dynamics of soil microbial population and organic carbon in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation. material and methods experimental location and treatment details field experiments were conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications in an exper imental field of icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore during the kharif season of 2015 and 2016. the experimental station is situated at an altitude of 890 m above mean sea level and 13o58" north latitude and 77o29" east longitudes. the nine treatments of the experiment consisted of different combinations of organic manure (fym), bio-fertilizers and chemical fertilizers (npk) : t1(fym (10 t/ha) +100% recommended n through fym), t2 (fym (10 t/ha) + 100% recommended n through fym + arka microbial consortium @ 5 kg/acre), t3 (fym (10 t/ha) + 75% recommended n through fym), t 4 (fym (10 t/ha) + 75% recommended n through fym + arka microbial consortium @ 5 kg/acre), t5 (fym (10 t/ha) + 50% recommended n through fym), t6 (fym (10 t/ha) + 50% recommended n through fym + arka micr obia l consor tium @ 5 kg/a cr e), t 7 (r ecommended fym (10 t/ha ) only), t 8 (recommended npk(160:80:80 kg/ha) only), and t9 (recommended fym (10 t/ha) + recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha). estimated n content of fym used in this experiment was 0.64%. arka microbial consortium (amc) is a carrier-based product which contains n fixing, p & zn solubilizing and plant growth promoting microbes as a single formulation. after 15 days of transplanting, recommended dose of amc @ 5 kg/acre was applied at 2 cm deep to individual plants in treatments t2, t4, t6 and immediately covered by soil. similar method of application was followed for ratoon crop after harvest of main crop. land preparation the land was brought to a fine tilth by ploughing and harrowing. the experimental site was divided 105 soil microbes and integrated nutrient management in sweet basil into plots having dimensions of 4.8 m long and 4.0 m wide with the spacing of 40 cm between the plants and 60 cm between the rows. there was a space of 0.5 meter between plots and 0.5 meter between replications. basil seeds were sown in two nursery beds of 6.0 m in length with 0.1 m in width and 10 cm height. forty days old (40 days) healthy and uniformly rooted seedlings of sweet basil were t r a ns pla nted to t he f ield. weeding wa s done manually and drip irrigation was given daily for half an hour during the early stages of the crop and subsequently irrigation was given depending on the soil moisture condition. estimating the fresh herbage yield five plants were randomly selected from each plot for recording the observations and the crop was harvested at full bloom stage before setting the seed. fresh herbage harvested from each plot was weighed a n d c onver t ed t o p er h ec t a r e a nd expressed in tonnes (t). microbial population of the soil microbial population of the soil under different treatments was enumerated by standard plate count t ec hnique. tota l b a ct er ia l c ount in s oil wa s determined by serial dilution method. for the study, initia l soil sa mples pr ior t o t he s t a r t of the experiment and after harvest were collected from the surface layer (0-15 cm) according to different treatments with three replications. exactly 5 gm of soil sample was taken into 50 ml of sterile distilled water and shaken for 15 minutes. a series of 9 fold dilutions were prepared and 0.1 ml of each dilution was spread on media plates. to enumerate fungal, azotobacter, phosphate solubilising bacteria and actinomycetes population, potato dextrose agar (pda), jensen’s media , pikovska ya aga r a nd kenknight media were used, respectively. after 35 days of incubation microbial population was counted following the spread plate technique and expressed as cfu ×103/ g of soil. organic carbon estimation (% ) t he or ga nic c a r b on c ont ent of t he s oil wa s estimated by walkley and bla ck wet oxidation method as described by jackson (1973). statistical analysis t he data gener a ted fr om the exper iment wer e analyzed using sas 9.3 version of the statistical package (sas institute inc, 2011). analysis of var ia nce (anova) wa s per for med using sas proc anova procedure. means were separated using fisher ’s protected least significant difference (lsd) test at a probability level of p<0.01 results and discussion populat io n o f he te r ot ro phic fr ee liv ing n 2 fixers the data in table 1 indicated significant difference among the treatments with respect to population of heterotrophic free-living n2 fixers (cfu ×10 3/g of soil). while, maximum population of the colonies in the soil after cropping (40.66 and 63.33 cfu ×103/ g) was recorded in t 2 with application of fym (10 t/ha) +100% recommended n through fym + arka microbial consortium @ 5kg/acre during 2015 and 2016, respectively. whereas, the treatment i.e. t7 recorded the lowest counts (26.13 and 34 cfu ×103/ g) during first and second year, r espectively. t he a ddition of orga nic ma nur e greatly influences the microbial populations which expected to cause changes in the organic matter content of soil that directly influenced microbial dyna mic s of s oil ( d ef or es t e t a l . , 2 0 1 2 ) . application of bio-fertilizer stimulates the native s oil mic r o or ga nis ms a nd r ea c t iva t es t he biogeochemical cycles leading to increase in the organic material that significantly increases the bacterial populations. the results are on line with watts et al., (2010), krishnakumar et al. (2005) and lalfakzuala et al., (2008). population of phosphate solubilizing bacteria the data on the population of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (cfu ×103/ g of soil) after cropping given in table 1 indicated that there was no significant difference between the treatments during first year (2015). the application of fym (10 t/ha) + 100% recommended n through fym + arka microbial consor tiu m @ 5kg/a cr e i. e. , t 2 r ecor ded t he highest population of psb (5.6 cfu ×103/ g) while, the lowest psb (3 cfu ×103/ g) was recorded in t8. however, there were significant differences among the treatments in respect to population of j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 106 phosphate solubilizing bacteria in the soil after cropping was observed during second year (2016). similar to first year, application of fym (10 t/ha) + 100% recommended n through fym + arka microbial consortium @ 5kg/acre recorded the highest population of psb (6.6 cfu ×103/ g) in soil while, the application of recommended dose of chemical fertilizer recorded the lowest population of psb (3.9 cfu ×103/ g). g r owth of p solub ilizing mic r oor ga nisms is generally accompanied by decrease in ph of the soil ( mishr a , 19 85). reduct ion in ph due to application of fym along with bio-fertilizer is a result of the production of organic acids which include citric, gluconic, fumaric, malic, oxalic, lactic, 2ketogluconic, malonic acids etc. (vassilev, 1996). although chemical fertilization has resulted in increases in crop yield, this application was not sufficient in triggering a significant improvement in the soil microbial properties. similar results were obtained by wang et al., (2011). the addition of fertilizers enriched the soil microbial biomass and soil enzymes by enha ncing t he soil phys ic ochemic a l p r oper ties a nd s oil orga nic ma t ter, especially thr ough the a ddition of fym. root exudates augmented the soil microbes in general by the crop growth and that could expla in the inc r ea s e of s oil p op u la t ion a t h a r ves t t ime comparing with the initial soil. population of fungi fungal population in the soil after cropping in two years of the experiment was affected significantly by the treatments involving different levels of organic manure with and without bio-fertilizers and inor ga nic f er tiliz er s . as s howed in table 2 application of fym (10 t/ha) +100% recommended n through fym + arka microbial consortium @ 5 kg/ a c r e (t 2) r ecor ded t he ma x imum fu nga l population (6.4 and 5.33 cfu ×103/ g) in the soil while, the application of recommended dose of chemical fertilizer (t8) recorded the lowest fungal population (3.6 and 2.5 cfu ×103/ g) in the soil after cropping in 2015 and 2016, respectively. microbial population size and community structure are sensitive to changes in chemical properties of the surrounding soil (pansomba t et al., 1997). f u ngi c ons t it u t e a n es s ent ia l c omp onent of biologica l c ha r a cter istic s in soil ecos ystems. organic carbon level in the soil and precipitation play pivotal role in fungal growth and sporulation. greater microbial populations in fym treated plots along with bio-fertilizer as compared to chemically amended plots due to enhancing the organic carbon in the soil. similar kind of results was reported by venka t es wa r lu a nd s r iniva s a r a o, ( 2 0 0 0 ) . application of farm yard manure can be viewed a s a n exc ellent wa y to r ecycle nutr ients a nd provide a steady source of organic c to support the microbial community resulting in higher fungal populations compared to npktreated plots. lower fungal population in soil with application of chemical fertilizers alone is attributed to lack of organic amendment input. the microbial population dynamics is governed by interactions between plant type, climate, and management practice. so that, the low tempera ture that pr eva iled in the fir st season could have influenced the proliferation of fungi, which require low temperature for their gr owt h; s ong e t a l . ( 2 0 0 7 ) ind ic a t ed t ha t difference in the establishment of field leads to alteration of microbial communities. population of actinomycetes the data in table 2 on actinomycetes population of the soil after cropping (cfu ×103/ g of soil) indic a ted s ignifica nt dif fer enc es bet ween t he t r ea t ment s . t he highes t p op u la t ion of actinomycetes (29.93 and 44.56 cfu ×103/ g of soil) wa s r ecor ded in t 9 with a pplica tion of recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha) + fym (10 t/ha) during 2015 and 2016, respectively, while application of recommended dose of fym (10 t/ ha) in t7 resulted in minimum population (20 and and 30.5 cfu ×103/ g of soil) during 2015 and 2016, respectively. ac t inomyc e t es a r e one of t he p r edomina nt members of soil microbial communities and they have beneficial roles in soil nutrients cycling and agricultural productivity (elliot and lynch, 1995). o r ga nic ma t t er, s a linit y, r ela t iv e mois t u r e, temper ature, ph a nd vegetation a r e impor tant factors which control abundance of actinomycetes in soil (mcarthy and williams, 1992). the density of actinomycetes is opposite to the hydrogen ion concentra tion, that could justify increasing its population with application of npk along with al-mansour and kalaivanan j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 107 ta bl e 1: h et er ot ro ph ic f re eliv in g n 2 fix er s an d ph os ph at e so lu bi liz in g ba ct er ia p op ul at io n (c fu × 10 3 / g of s oi l) as i nf lu en ce d by d iff er en t le ve ls o f n t hr ou gh f y m , bi ofe rt ili ze rs a nd i no rg an ic f er ti liz er so il m ic ro bi al p op ul at io n tr ea tm en ts h et er ot ro ph ic fr ee li vi ng ph os ph at e so lu bi liz in g n 2 f ix er ba ct er ia t1 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 10 0% r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 34 .9 6a b c 41 c 4 5. 48 a b c t2 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 10 0% r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + b f 40 .6 6a 63 .3 3a 5. 6 6. 6a t3 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 75 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 31 .8 3b c d 36 .8 3c 3. 6 4. 8b c d t4 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 75 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + b f 36 .4 2a b c 54 .5 b 4. 5 5. 6 a b t5 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 50 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 29 .5 c d 39 .4 c 3. 3 4. 08 c d t6 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 50 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m +b f 34 a b c 40 c 4 4. 9b c d t7 r ec . f y m ( 10 t/ ha ) o nl y 26 .1 3d 34 c 3. 7 4. 06 c d t8 r ec .n pk (1 60 :8 0: 80 k g /h a) 36 .2 6a b 35 c 3 3. 9d t9 r ec . n pk (1 60 :8 0: 80 k g /h a) + r ec . f y m (1 0 t/h a) 39 a 55 b 4. 5 5. 32 a b c g en er al m ea n 34 .2 6 44 .6 7 4. 04 4. 99 cv % 10 .9 9 10 .3 3 26 .5 4 17 .0 7 ls d a t 5 % 6. 52 7. 99 n s 1. 47 soil microbes and integrated nutrient management in sweet basil j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 108 ta bl e 2: f un ga l a nd a ct in om yc et ye s po pu la tio n (c fu × 10 3 / g of s oi l) as i nf lu en ce d by d iff er en t le ve ls o f n t hr ou gh f y m , bi ofe rt ili ze rs an d in or ga ni c fe rt ili ze r so il m ic ro bi al p op ul at io n tr ea tm en ts fu ng al a ct in om yc et ye s a fte r th e ex pe ri m en t 20 15 20 16 20 15 20 16 t1 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 10 0% r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 6. 26 a b 5. 16 a b 24 .3 3 34 .0 0 a b t2 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 10 0% r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + a m c (5 kg /a c) 6. 4a 5. 33 a 26 .6 7 36 .3 3 a b t3 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 75 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 4. 1c d 3c d 22 .6 7 31 .6 7b t4 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 75 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + a m c ( 5k g/ ac ) 4. 7 c d 3. 65 c d 25 .8 5 35 .0 7 a b t5 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 50 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 4. 3c d 3c d 21 .6 7 30 .6 7b t6 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 50 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + a m c (5 kg /a c) 5. 3b c 4b c 24 .6 7 32 .5 0b t7 r ec . f y m ( 10 t/ ha ) o nl y 3. 7d 2. 66 d 20 .0 0 30 .5 0b t8 r ec .n pk (1 60 :8 0: 80 k g /h a) 3. 6d 2. 5d 28 .3 3 41 .8 3 a b t9 r ec . n pk (1 60 :8 0: 80 k g /h a) + r ec . f y m (1 0 t/h a) 5. 1b c 4b c 29 .9 3 44 .5 6 a g en er al m ea n 4. 80 3. 70 24 .3 3 35 .2 4 cv % 1. 26 1. 26 16 .7 4 12 .5 ls d a t 5 % 15 .2 0 19 .7 2 n s 7. 47 al-mansour and kalaivanan j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 109 fym (alexa nder, 1977) while, increasing the colony’s in the second season comparing to first one due to a relatively low level of moisture, this property of actinomycetes might be due to their sporulation capability under stress conditions (eltarabily and sivasithamparam, 2006). organic carbon the treatments effect on organic carbon per cent in the soil are presented in table 3. application of fym (10 t/ha) +100% recommended n through fym + arka microbial consortium @ 5kg/acre i.e., t2 recorded the maximum organic carbon (0.63 a nd 0.66 %) in the post-ha rvest soil sa mples collected dur ing 2015 a nd 2016, respectively. while, the minimum value (0.52 and 0.53%) was recorded in t8 with application the recommended dose of inorganic fertilizer (160:80:80 kg /ha) during 2015 a nd, 2016, r espectively. organic carbon per cent is fine indicators of soil quality which influence soil function in specific ways (e.g., immobilization–mineralization) and are much more sensitive to change in soil management practices (saviozzi et al., 2001). the results showed the positive influence of higher level of n through fym and bio-fertilizer in increasing the organic carbon content that could be beca use of the effect of fym a nd biofer tilizer in stimula t ion of soil microbial activity, therefore increasing the c output. similar results were also found by halvorson et al., (2002); su et al. , (2006) a nd lou et al. , (2011). fresh herbage yield t he f r es h h er b a ge yield of b a s i l dif f er ed significantly between the treatments during two year s of the experiment. it is evident from the table 4 that the application of npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + fym (10 t/ha) i.e., t9 recorded significantly the highest herbage yield in the main crop (41.59 and 38.31 t/ha) and ratoon (20.97 and 17.77 at/ha) during kharif 2015 and 2016, respectively. the lowes t f r es h her b a ge yield p er hec t a r e wa s recorded with recommended dose of fym alone in the main crop (28.36 and 17.49 t/ha) and in ratoon (12.59 and 8.93 t/ha) during first and second year, respectively. similar trend was also reflected in total herbage yield of basil. application of npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + fym (10 t/ha) i.e., t9 recorded significantly the highest total herbage yield (62.56 and 56.08) while, the lowest value (40.95 and 26.42 t/ha) was recorded in t7 during individual years. treatments organic carbon (%) before the experiment 0.5 after the experiment 2015 2016 t1 fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym 0.61 ab 0.65a t2 fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym + amc (5kg/ac) 0.63 a 0.66 a t3 fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym 0.58abc 0.62 a t4 fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym + amc (5kg/ac) 0.61ab 0.65 a t5 fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym 0.56 abc 0.60ab t6 fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym+ amc (5kg/ac) 0.58 abc 0.64 a t7 rec. fym (10 t/ha) only 0.55 abc 0.57abc t8 rec.npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) 0.52 0.53c t9 rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha)+ rec. fym (10 t/ha) 0.54bc 0.54bc general mean 0.58 0.60 cv% 5.09 6.13 lsd at 5% 0.02 0.03 table 3: organic carbon content (%) in the soil as influenced by different levels of n through fym, bio-fertilizers and inorganic fertilizer j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 soil microbes and integrated nutrient management in sweet basil 110 tr ea tm en ts fr es h he rb y ie ld (t h a1 ) f ir st y ea r (2 01 5) se co nd y ea r (2 01 6) a fte r th e ex pe ri m en t m ai n cr op r at oo n to ta l y ie ld m ai n cr op r at oo n to ta l y ie ld t1 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 10 0% r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 33 .3 1c 17 .0 3d 50 .3 4 e 25 .9 4c 11 .3 3c 37 .2 7 c t2 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 10 0% r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + a m c (5 kg /a c) 37 .8 4b 18 .5 9c 56 .4 3 c 27 .7 3c 12 .3 1b 40 .0 4 c t3 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 75 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 32 .4 0c 15 .6 3e 48 .0 3 e 21 .7 3d 10 .1 9d 31 .9 2d e t4 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 75 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + a m c ( 5k g/ ac ) 36 .1 9b 17 .1 2d 53 .3 1 d 22 .8 4d 11 .2 7c 34 .1 1 d t5 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 50 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m 29 .9 3d 13 .5 7g 43 .4 7 f 21 .0 2d 9. 51 e 30 .5 3 e t6 fy m (1 0 t/h a) + 50 % r ec . n th ro ug h fy m + a m c ( 5k g/ ac ) 33 .0 8c 14 .9 6f 48 .0 4 e 22 .3 2d 10 .1 1d 32 .4 3 d e t7 r ec . f y m ( 10 t/ ha ) o nl y 28 .3 6d 12 .5 9h 40 .9 5g 17 .4 9e 8. 93 e 26 .4 2f t8 r ec .n pk (1 60 :8 0: 80 k g /h a) 40 .3 9a 19 .5 9b 59 .9 8 b 33 .2 8b 14 .9 2b 48 .2 b t9 r ec . n pk (1 60 :8 0: 80 k g /h a) + r ec . f y m (1 0 t/h a) 41 .5 9a 20 .9 7a 62 .5 6 a 38 .3 1a 17 .7 7a 56 .0 8 a g en er al m ea n 34 .7 9 16 .6 7 51 .4 6 27 .0 5 10 .8 2 37 .4 4 cv % 3. 15 2. 21 2. 19 5. 72 3. 83 4. 58 ls d a t 5 % 1. 89 0. 63 1. 95 2. 54 0. 71 2. 88 t ab le 4 : f re sh h er b yi el d (t /h a) o f ba si l (o ci m um b as il ic um l .) a s in fl ue nc ed b y di ff er en t le ve ls o f n t hr ou gh f y m , bi ofe rt ili ze rs an d in or ga ni c fe rt ili ze r j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 al-mansour and kalaivanan 111 application of inorganic fertilizers are expected to release greater quantity of nutrients particularly n, p, k at a faster rate and higher level and there by gr eater upta ke by the pla nts which resulted in higher growth and yield parameters. on the other hand a pplication of fym along with inorganic fertilizer release nutrients after mineralization. such c ont r olled b ut r egula ted s u pp ly of nu t r ient s increased uptake n, p, k which in turn, brought about higher growth and yield. increase in the yield par a meter s with combined use of or ga nic and inorganic application reported in earlier reports of joy et al. (2005) in black musli, kothari et al. (2005) in spila nthus a cmella , ra jendr a n a nd gnanavel (2008) in aloe vera and ravikumar et al. (2012) in coleus. organic amendments show a s lower nut r ient r elea se pa tt er n t ha n miner a l fertilizer but facilitate an increased soil organic matter (som) content (pinitpaitoon et al., 2011). although vanlauwe and giller (2006) claim that or ga nic r esour ces a re not sufficient enough to supply c r ops with the r equir ed nutr ients, the increased som is enhancing productivity due to the improved soil properties (watson et al., 2002). similar results were obtained by mohamad et al. (2014) and asieh (2012). conclusion t he ex per iment a l r esu lts c onc luded tha t the c onju nc t iv e u s e of f ym ( 1 0 t / ha ) + 1 0 0 % recommended n through fym + arka microbial consortium @ 5kg/acre is found to ha ve best microbial population dynamics and organic carbon content. however, the highest fresh herbage yield of sweet basil was recorded with integrated use of recommended fym (10 t/ha) and recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha). further, the study evidently emphasis that the appropriate utilization of manures and bio-fertilizers within the nutrient management systems can enhance the soil microbial activity and diversity that reflected on yield sustainability. alexander, m., 1977. introduction to soil microbiology, 2nd edition, krieger publishing ompany, usa. al-ma nsour ba r a a , ka la iva na n d. a nd suryanarayana m.a., 2019. effects of organic and inorganic fertilizers on soil fertility, nutrient uptake and yield of french basil. medicinal plants international 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(received on 7.09.2020; revised on 15.05.2021; accepted on 13.06.2021) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 103-113, 2021 soil microbes and integrated nutrient management in sweet basil introduction banana is the major fruit crop of kerala cultivated by marginal and poor farmers. it grows well under a wide range of agro-climatic situations and cropping systems. it can be well fitted in crop rotations, multiple cropping, intercropping and companion cropping (varkey and pushkaran, 1992). among the different cultivars of banana, “njalipoovan” (musa ab group) is one of the popular varieties cultivated in the homesteads of kerala.this variety assumes significance in view of its high export potential mainly due to its edible and keeping quality. banana is a soil exhaustive crop which requires adequate quantity of nutrients throughout its growth period. a judicious application of fertilizers not only gives high yield but also improves the quality of the produce. under onattukara conditions, the nutrient requirement of any of cultivars of banana especially “njalipoovan” has not been standardized. the present investigation was therefore, taken up to study the effect of different levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on the growth, yield and quality and to formulate an economic nutrient management schedule for banana cv. “njalipoovan” in onattukara soil. standardization of npk requirement in banana cv. “njalipoovan” (musa ab group) in onattukara soil of south kerala m. indira and c. s. nair1 onattukara regional agricultural research station kayamkulam-690 502, india e-mail: indirasuresh@gmail.com abstract banana cv. “njalipoovan” (musa ab group, syn. ney poovan) is one of the popular varieties cultivated in the homesteads of kerala. this variety has high export potential due to its edible and keeping quality. eventhough fertilizer requirement was worked out for different varieties; no attempt has been made to standardize the nutrient requirement of banana cv. “njalippovan”, especially in the loamy sand soils of onattukara. field experiments were conducted for two years (1998-2000) at onattukara regional agricultural research station, kayamkulam to study the influence of three levels each of n (100, 200 and 300 g plant-1), p 2 o 5 (100, 200 and 300 g plant-1) and k 2 o (200,400 and 600 g plant-1) with one absolute control (n o p o k o ) on growth, yield, quality and economics of cultivation. increasing the rate of application of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium improved the growth and yield. total soluble solids (tss), total sugars and reducing sugars increased with increasing levels of nitrogen and potassium. fruit acidity decreased at higher rate of n and k 2 o. applied phosphorus had no effect on quality of fruits. application of n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at 200:200:400 g plant-1 proved to be ideal for maintaining higher yield and benefit: cost ratio. key words: njalipoovan, growth, yield, quality, economic returns material and methods the field experiment was conducted in the garden land of the farm attached to onattukara regional agricultural research station, kayamkulam for two seasons (1998-99 and 1999-2000). the experimental site had soils of the class isohyperthermic ustic quartzi psamments, with ph of 5.27 and low content of organic carbon (0.27%), available n (184.58 kg ha-1), available p 2 o 5 (9.70 kg ha-1) and exchangeable k 2 o (77.02 kg ha-1). the experiment was laid out in confounded 33 factorial rbd. three levels each of n (100, 200 and 300g plant -1), p 2 o 5 (100,200 and 300g plant -1) and k 2 o (200,400 and 600g plant -1) with one absolute control (n 0 p 0 k 0 ) constituted the treatments. urea (46% n), mussoorie rock phosphate (20% p 2 o 5 ) and muriate of potash (60% k 2 o) were used as the source of n, p and k, respectively. banana suckers were planted at a spacing of 2.13 mx 2.13 m in plots of size 10.70m x 8.50m (20 plants plot-1) during the month of may 1998 and 1999. fertilizers at the calculated amount were applied in two equal splits at two and four months after planting to supply different levels 1present address: retired dean, college of agriculture, vellayani, thiruvananthapuram j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 127-131, 2008 128 of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium as per the treatments. general crop recommendations for banana varieties other than “nendran” were followed (kau, 1996). four plants in each plot were marked as observational plants and growth characters such as height and girth of pseudostem, number of functional leaves and leaf area index (lai) were recorded six months after planting. leaf area was computed using the formula lx bx 0.8 (murray, 1960) where ‘l’ is the length of the lamina and ‘b’ the breadth of the lamina. leaf area index was determined using the formula, leaf area per plant (cm2)/land area occupied by the plant (cm2) (watson, 1947). yield and yield attributes viz., number of hands bunch-1 and number of fingers bunch-1 were recorded at harvest. quality analysis of the fully ripe fruits such as total soluble solids (tss), total sugars, reducing sugars, acidity and shelf life were done following standard procedures (aoac, 1977 and ranganna, 1977). the data were statistically analysed by applying the techniques of analysis of variance for confounded rbd (panse and sukhatme, 1967). total cost of cultivation and gross returns were calculated from average input cost and average market price of the produce during the period of investigation and benefit: cost ratio was computed as follows: benefit: cost ratio (bcr) = gross income / cost of cultivation results and discussion growth attributes application of n at the highest level (300 g plant -1) significantly increased the height and girth of pseudostem, number of functional leaves and lai in both the years (table 1). stimulation of vegetative growth at higher rates of applied n has been reported earlier in banana cv. palayankodan (sheela, 1982) and in “nendran” (geetha and nair, 2000). large leaf size combined with more number of functional leaves retained per plant at higher levels of n resulted in higher lai. it is a proven fact that adequate supply of nitrogen promotes vegetative growth and helps to retain leaves for a longer time (tisdale et al, 1995). the influence of different levels of phosphorus in increasing the plant height is indicative of the role of phosphorus in improving the vegetative growth. the height and girth of pseudostem was maximum with the highest level of k (600 g plant-1). the influence of medium rate of k (400 g plant -1) in increasing the number of functional leaves and retaining up to harvest indicates the significant role of k in promoting vigorous healthy crop growth. potassium at higher rates significantly influenced the lai. the higher number of functional leaves and greater leaf size might have contributed to the higher lai at higher levels of k supply. crop duration application of nitrogen at 300 g plant-1 markedly reduced the total duration of the crop in both the years (table 2). applied nitrogen exerted its effect on total crop duration mainly by influencing the days to shooting. there was a reduction of 22-29 days in the total crop duration when nitrogen level was increased from 100 to 300 g plant-1. nitrogen reduced phyllochron and increased the leaf area in a short span of time thereby helping the plant to attain early physiological maturity. thus shooting occured early which in turn reduced the total crop duration (geetha, 1998). potassium applied at 400 g plant-1 profoundly reduced duration of the crop. this might be due to the enhanced vigour of the plant and increased vegetative table 1. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on growth attributes main effects pseudostemheight (cm) pseudostemgirth (cm) no. of functional leaves lai 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 n 1 119.67 117.39 31.89 31.00 8.61 6.50 0.74 0.68 n 2 139.50 142.17 44.44 41.33 10.94 9.61 1.23 1.13 n 3 174.94 166.44 47.83 44.94 11.83 10.78 1.77 1.61 cd (p=0.05) 1.677 2.437 1.535 1.285 0.57 0.65 0.043 0.065 p 1 142.00 139.00 39.44 37.39 10.22 8.33 1.11 1.03 p 2 144.83 141.78 41.72 39.50 10.22 9.06 1.28 1.15 p 3 145.28 145.22 43.00 40.39 10.94 9.50 1.35 1.24 cd (p=0.05) 1.677 2.437 1.535 1.285 0.57 0.65 0.043 0.065 k 1 135.78 133.83 36.44 33.89 9.61 8.06 1.00 0.98 k 2 147.67 143.83 42.56 40.94 10.39 9.22 1.33 1.18 k 3 150.67 148.33 45.17 42.44 11.39 9.61 1.41 1.26 cd(p=0.05) 1.677 2.437 1.535 1.285 0.57 0.65 0.043 0.065 details of treatments are given in the text indira and nair j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 127-131, 2008 129 growth. higher levels of potassium might have contributed much to early flowering. this view was corroborated by jumbulingam et al (1975) who observed earlier flowering and maturation with potassium application above 360 g plant-1. similar results were reported by peters (1997) in banana cv. nendran in a red loam soil. yield attributes applied nitrogen markedly influenced the yield attributing characters particularly number of hands and fingers bunch-1 (table 3). nitrogen applied at 300 g plant1 produced more number of hands and fingers bunch-1. phosphorus applied at 200 and 300 g plant-1 exerted similar effect on number of hands bunch-1 and number of fingers bunch-1 during 1999-2000. adequate supply of phosphorus with n and k favoured the root proliferation and penetration, covering very large root volume resulting in high uptake of the nutrient. these factors might have contributed to the favourable condition in the soil for growth and development of the plant and thereby exerting positive effect on the yield attributing factors. number of table 3. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on yield components and yield main effects no. of hands bunch-1 no. of fingers bunch-1 weight of bunch(kg) 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 n 1 7.06 7.33 111.78 111.94 7.69 6.66 n 2 8.50 8.44 131.39 128.89 11.68 9.68 n 3 9.33 9.11 142.56 138.50 12.11 11.03 cd(p=0.05) 0.328 0.510 3.283 6.093 0.244 0.255 p 1 7.83 7.78 120.83 118.72 9.52 8.37 p 2 8.33 8.50 129.94 128.72 10.81 9.39 p 3 8.72 8.61 134.94 131.89 11.05 9.61 cd(p=0.05) 0.328 0.510 3.283 6.093 0.244 0.255 k 1 7.72 7.83 121.44 119.72 9.64 8.29 k 2 8.39 8.39 130.28 128.50 10.82 9.24 k 3 8.78 8.67 134.00 131.11 10.99 9.83 cd(p=0.05) 0.328 0.510 3.283 6.093 0.244 0.255 details of treatments are given in the text table 2. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on crop duration main effects days from plantingto shooting days from shooting to harvest total crop duration(days) 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 n 1 291.72 297.11 110.44 109.50 402.17 406.06 n 2 281.11 283.89 106.44 106.17 387.56 390.06 n 3 274.17 273.00 106.11 104.11 380.28 377.11 cd(p=0.05) 2.537 1.839 2.521 2.514 2.711 2.587 p 1 283.89 286.89 107.83 107.72 391.72 394.61 p 2 281.50 285.11 107.61 106.61 381.11 391.72 p 3 281.61 284.43 107.56 105.44 389.17 389.88 cd (p=0.05) ns 1.839 ns ns ns 2.587 k 1 284.78 286.11 107.78 107.94 392.56 394.06 k 2 282.33 284.392 107.50 106.22 389.83 390.06 k 3 279.89 83.50 107.72 105.61 387.61 389.11 cd(p=0.05) 2.537 1.839 ns ns 2.711 2.587 details of treatments are given in the text hands and fingers bunch-1 was highest with the highest level of potassium during 1998-1999. during the subsequent year the increase was significant upto 400 g k 2 o plant-1. the effect of potassium in improving the yield attributes in banana was confirmed by many workers (sheela, 1982; mustaffa, 1987 and baruah and mohan, 1992). yield nitrogen at 300 g plant-1 significantly increased the bunch weight (table 3). increased availability and uptake of nutrients at higher levels of n might have led to the better expression of growth and yield attributes which ultimately resulted in higher yield. positive effect of phosphorus in improving the yield was noticed up to 200 g p 2 o 5 plant-1. bunch weight increased with increasing rate of potassium up to 600 g k 2 o plant. earlier reports also indicate positive yield response of banana cv. palayankodan to higher levels of k (sheela, 1982). the interaction of nitrogen with phosphorus and potassium was significant in 1998-99 and 1999-2000 (table 4). application of n , p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at 300:300:600 g plant-1, standardization of npk requirement in banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 127-131, 2008 130 300:300:400 g plant-1, 300:200:600g plant-1, 300:200:400 g plant-1, 200:300:600g plant-1, 200:300:400g plant-1 200:200:600g plant-1 and 200:200:400g plant-1 produced almost the same yield. application of n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at 300:300:600g plant-1 showed a modest yield increase over the treatment combination of n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at 200:200:400 g plant-1. so application of moderate dose of n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at 200:200:400g plant-1 year-1 is found to be optimal for banana cv. “njalipoovan”. the response of crops to fertilizer application depends on the status of available plant nutrients in the soil and a low rating means that crops on such soil should respond very readily to nutrient application (bains and bhardwaj, 1976). in the present study the soil nutrient status was low which explains the better response to applied fertilizers. applied nutrients increased the availability of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients which resulted in favourable growth condition in soil. quality attributes increase in the level of nitrogen significantly table 5. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on quality attributes main effect tss (%) acidity (%) total sugars (%) reducing sugars (%) shelf life(days) of factors 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 19992000 1998-99 1999-2000 1998-99 1999-2000 n 1 17.16 17.11 0.33 0.33 12.91 12.69 9.45 9.33 5.80 5.83 n 2 17.75 17.39 0.26 0.26 14.97 14.79 11.22 11.07 6.47 6.48 n 3 18.03 17.87 0.23 0.22 16.13 15.9 12.18 12.13 5.88 5.89 cd(p=0.05) 0.029 0.084 0.010 0.006 0.024 80.022 0.016 0.016 0.026 0.064 p 1 17.62 17.38 0.28 0.29 14.58 14.41 10.89 10.80 6.04 6.09 p 2 17.64 17.45 0.27 0.27 14.65 14.47 10.94 10.83 6.05 6.04 p 3 17.65 17.49 0.27 0.26 14.77 14.58 11.02 10.90 6.06 6.06 cd(p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns k 1 17.57 17.34 0.29 0.29 14.59 14.42 10.89 10.80 6.00 6.01 k 2 17.67 17.48 0.26 0.27 14.69 14.51 10.96 10.85 6.02 6.03 k 3 17.71 17.55 0.25 0.26 14.73 14.54 10.99 10.88 6.13 6.11 cd(p=0.05) 0.029 0.084 0.010 0.006 0.024 0.022 0.016 0.016 0.026 0.064 details of treatments are given in the text increased the tss, total sugars and reducing sugars (table 5). maximum values were recorded by the application of nitrogen at 300g plant-1. but the acidity of ripe fruit tends to decrease with the increasing rates of nitrogen. shelf life increased with increase in the level of nitrogen up to 200g plant-1 beyond which there was a decrease. effect of different levels of potassium was also significant in the case of tss, total sugars, reducing sugars and shelf life. tss increased with the application of potassium up to 400g plant -1during 1999-2000. fruit acidity decreased with the increasing level of potassium up to 400g plant -1. adequate supply of n and k might have ensured optimal functioning of sucrose synthatase and suppression of hydrolytic enzymes leading to build up of greater quantity of sugars in proplastids (nitsos and evans, 1969). the applied phosphorus had no significant effect on tss, acidity, total sugars, reducing sugars and shelf life of ripe fruits. economic analysis application of n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at the rate of 200:200:400 g plant-1 proved profitable and showed maximum bcr (1.96 and 1.84 for the first and second year respectively) due to lower cost of cultivation and high yield obtained (table 6). the treatment combination of n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at lower levels recorded lowest economic returns. the substantial increase obtained in bunch weight due to treatment effects resulted in maximum returns thereby enhancing bcr. in conclusion, the present study reveals that application of n, p 2 o5 and k 2 o at the rate of 200:200:400 g plant-1 is appropriate for higher yield in banana cv. “njalipoovan” in the loamy sand soils of onattukara. table 4. influence of n x p x k interaction on yield p × k yield (kg plant-1) interaction 1998-1999 1999-2000 n 1 n 2 n 3 n 1 n 2 n 3 p 1 k 1 7.10 10.00 10.35 6.25 7.95 9.30 p 1 k 2 7.30 10.25 11.20 6.60 8.05 9.75 p 1 k 3 7.65 10.45 11.35 6.65 9.25 11.50 p 2 k 1 7.50 9.95 11.30 6.15 8.20 10.45 p 2 k 2 7.75 12.95 12.95 6.90 12.15 12.20 p 2 k 3 8.10 13.05 13.30 7.00 12.25 12.35 p 3 k 1 7.50 11.25 11.80 6.55 9.00 10.75 p 3 k 2 8.05 13.00 13.30 6.65 11.85 11.90 p 3 k 3 8.25 13.00 13.40 7.15 12.25 12.60 cd (p=0.05) 0.731 0.765 details of treatments are given in the text indira and nair j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 127-131, 2008 131 references aoac. 1977. official and tentative methods analysis, eleventh edition. association of official and analytical chemists, washington, u.s.a., 53-126 bains, s.s. and bhardwaj, b.l. 1976. fertilizer management for efficient crop production. soil fertility theory and practice (ed. kanwar, j.s). indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, p. 503 baruah, p.j. and mohan, n.k. 1992. effect of k on yield and yield attributing characters of dwarf cavendish banana (musa aaa group, cavendish sub-group) in assam. banana newsletter, 15: 24-25 geetha, k. 1998. integrated plant nutrition system (ipns) for maximizing yield in banana, musa (aab group) ‘nendran’. ph.d thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, p. 149 geetha, k. and nair, r.r. 2000. integrated plant nutrition system (ipns) for banana. ann. agril. res., 21: 499-503 jambulingam, a.r., ramaswamy, n. and muthukrishnan, c.r. 1975. studies on the effect of potassium on robusta banana. potash rev., 27: 4-6 kau.1996. package of practices recommendations: crops 1996. directorate of extension agricultural university, thrissur, pp. 179-185 murray, d.b. 1960. the effect of deficiencies of the major nutrients on growth and leaf analysis of banana. trop. agri., 37: 97-106 mustaffa, m.m. 1987. growth and yield of robusta banana in relation to potassium nutrition. j. pot. res., 3: 129-132 nitsos, r.e. and evans, h.j. 1969. effect of univalent cations on the activity of particulate starch synthatase. pl. physiol., 44: 1260-1266 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers, second edition. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, p. 381 peters, d. 1997. maximization of productivity by rescheduling the nutrient application in banana (musa ab group nendran). m.sc. (ag) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, p. 117 ranganna, s. 1977. manual of analysis of fruits and vegetable products. tata mcgraw hill publishing company ltd., new delhi, p. 94 sheela, v.l. 1982. potassium nutrition in rainfed banana musa (aab group) palayankodan. m.sc. (hort) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, p.109 tisdale, s.l., nelson, w.l., beaton, j.d. and havlin, j.l. 1995. soil fertility and fertilizers, fifth edition. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, p. 638 varkey, p.a. and pushkaran, k. 1992. banana cultivation. kerala agricultural university, thrissur, p. 54 watson, d.j. 1947. comparative and physiological studies on the growth of field crops i. variation in net assimilation rate and leaf area between species and varieties and within and between use. ann. bot., 11: 41-76 (ms received 22 january 2008, revised 14 september 2008) table 6. influence of n x p x k interaction on benefit: cost ratio p × k benefit: cost ratio interaction 1998-1999 1999-2000 n 1 n 2 n 3 n 1 n 2 n 3 p 1 k 1 1.14 1.58 1.61 1.18 1.25 1.45 p 1 k 2 1.14 1.58 1.71 1.03 1.24 1.49 p 1 k 3 1.17 1.58 1.70 1.06 1.40 1.72 p 2 k 1 1.18 1.54 1.72 0.96 1.27 1.59 p 2 k 2 1.19 1.96 1.94 1.06 1.84 1.76 p 2 k 3 1.22 1.94 1.95 1.05 1.82 1.81 p 3 k 1 1.15 1.71 1.77 1.01 1.36 1.61 p 3 k 2 1.21 1.93 1.95 1.00 1.76 1.75 p 3 k 3 1.22 1.90 1.93 1.06 1.79 1.81 cd (p=0.05) 0.112 0.146 details of treatments are given in text standardization of npk requirement in banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 127-131, 2008 the sapota or chiku (achras sapota l.) is one of the most delicious, sweet, pulpy fruits, grown extensively in 24-parganas (north and south) and purba midnapur districts of west bengal. due to its tropical nature, the crop is also found to grow well in the drier tracts of west bengal, like paschim midnapore. there is a good demand for planting material of this crop not only in west bengal, but also in the neighboring states of jharkhand, bihar and orissa. the crop is mainly propagated by grafting on to khirnee (manilkara hexandra l.) rootstock. although inarch grafting or approach grafting is universally practised, the method is laborious, time-consuming and also expensive. currently, an alternative to approach grafting, softwood method of grafting in polythene bags, is becoming very popular. however, its success depends mainly on season of operation and varietal reaction to this method, which need to be standardized for west bengal conditions. this information is particularly lacking for the western part of west bengal where the weather is somewhat different from that in other parts of the state. the study was undertaken in the nursery of mps farm at paschim midnapore where adequate nursery facilities and mother plants are available. the investigation was conducted in 2007 and 2008 following randomized effect of cultivars and season on grafting success in sapota under paschim midnapur conditions of west bengal s.n. ghosh, b. bera1, s. roy1 and b.c. banik department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya mohanpur – 741 252, nadia, india e-mail: profsnghosh@yahoo.co.in abstract two sets of experiments were carried out during 2007-08 to assess incompatibility of sapota cultivars to softwood grafting, and to find out the best time for softwood grafting, in a private orchard at jhargram of paschim midnapore, west bengal. considerable variation in success of softwood grafting among sapota cultivars was observed. among ten cultivars studied, co-2 showed highest compatibility with khirnee rootstock to softwood grafting, followed by cricket ball and dsh-2. there was a total failure in graft-take in cultivars co-1, dsh-1 and guthi. softwood grafting success was highest in sapota when carried out on 1st july (72%) followed by 15th august (70%), 5th june (62%) and 15th june (56%). key words : sapota, softwood grafting, khirnee, cultivars, incompatibility, season block design using ‘cricket ball’ as the scion. to identify the best time of operation for large-scale production of sapota grafts, grafting was made on 1-year old khirnee rootstock seedlings, during june to october. fifty grafts with three replications were made each time. to study varietal response to softwood grafting, scions of ten cultivars, viz., cricket ball, co-1, co-2, co3, dsh-1, dsh-2, guthi, h7/1, kalipati and pkm-2 were grafted on khirnee rootstock on 1st july of 2007 and 2008. fifty grafts with three replications in each combination were made. the terminal portion of sapota shoot having grayish coloured wood (6-8 mm thick and 6-8 cm in length) was used as scion. each graft was tied and covered with white polythene (pepsicap) for creating higher humidity around the scion. grafted plants were kept under partial shade for better success. plant growth was recorded 90 days after grafting. data presented in table 1 reveal that sapota cultivars responded significantly to softwood grafting, with different degree of success. the highest successful grafts were obtained in co-2 (85%) variety, followed by ‘cricket ball’ and ‘dsh-2’ (65%). but, there was total failure of graft in co-1, dsh-1 and guthi varieties. other cultivars like co-3, h-7/1, kalipatti and pkm-2 also showed poor response to softwood grafting. the results clearly indicates 1mps farm, dahijuri, paschim midnapore, west bengal, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 138-139, 2010 short communication prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 139 that graft-incompatibility phenomenon exists between stock and scion of sapota cultivars, which may be attributed to varied woody nature of tissues, differential active-movement of sap, presence of growth promoting/inhibiting factors at the site of graft union hampering cambial activity between stock and scion. differential response of sapota cultivars to softwood grafting has also been reported by kulwal et al (1988) and shirol et al (2005). incompatibility in softwood grafting in cultivars was also reported in fruit crops like cashew (ghosh, 1995) and custard apple (ghosh and tarai, 2005). another interesting observation in this experiment was that cultivars, co-2, cricket ball and dsh-2 [that gave the highest percentage of success (85 to 65%) under paschim midnapore, west bengal condition], showed less success in softwood grafting under dharward conditions of karnataka (shirol et al., 2005). this finding indicates that propagation technique needs to be standardized in each variety for each locality. growth of the grafted plants in respect of height and leaf production was better in cultivars with higher grafting success compared to that cultivars those performed poorly in softwood grafting. it is clear from data in table 2 that success in softwood grafting is significantly influenced by time of grafting. highest success (70 to 72%) was recorded when grafting was carried out on 1st july and 15th august, followed by 5th and 15th june. higher grafting success during the early part of monsoon (5th june to 1st july) was mainly due to favourable weather conditions (high humidity and atmospheric temperature) which could have resulted in maximum cambial activity in both stock and scion. besides, the scion seemed to be in a physiologically active condition for better sap flow at that time. although early and middle part of the rainy season (15th august) was found to be better under paschim midnapore condition of west bengal, in dharwad (karnataka), the months of april and may were the best suited for softwood grafting in sapota with graft success of 47 to 62% (sulikeri et al, 1997). in navsari (gujarat) january and february were congenial for approach-grafting (bhuva et al, 1990) in sapota. growth of grafts in terms of leaf production was higher in grafts prepared during the early part of rainy season (5th june to 15th july) and leaf number progressively decreased in grafts prepared after 15th july. references bhuva, h.p., katrodia j.s. and chundawat b.s. 1990. influence of environment on success of sapota propagation. the hort. j., 3:6-9 ghosh, s.n. 1995. studies on graft incompatibility in cashew. cashew bull., 32:8-9 ghosh, s.n. and ranjan tarai. 2005. effect of two rootstock species on success of grafting in nine types of custard apple. south ind. hort., 53:221-223 kulwal j., yayde g.s. and deshmukh, p.p. 1988. a simple method of grafting in sapota. shetkari, 1:26-29 shirol, a.m., kanamadi, v.c. and thammaiah, n. 2005. response of different sapota cultivars to softwood wedge grafting. the karnataka j. hort., 1:41-43 sulikeri, g.s., patil v.s., madalgeri m.b. and mokashi, a.n. 1997. standardization of softwood grafting technique in sapota. in. research and development in fruit crops in north karnataka, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, 40-42 table 1. response of sapota cultivars to softwood grafting after three months cultivar success (%) plant number of height (cm) leaves/graft (extended new growth) cricket ball 65 (53.73) 2.8 15.4 co-1 0 (0.00) 0.0 0.0 co-2 85 (67.21) 6.0 19.0 co-3 25 (30.00) 1.4 10.0 dsh-1 0 (0.00) 0.0 0.0 dsh-2 65 (53.73) 3.2 17.6 guthi 0 (0.00) 0.0 0.0 h-7/1 30 (33.21) 2.6 8.8 kalipatti 25 (30.00) 1.1 8.2 pkm-2 20 (26.57) 2.4 8.0 sem ± 1.5 0.3 0.7 cd (p=0.05) 4.4 0.8 2.2 figures in parantheses indicate angular transformed values table 2. effect of season on success of softwood grafting in sapota after three months date of operation success (%) number of leaves/graft 5th june 62 (51.94) 13.8 15th june 56 (48.45) 14.0 1st july 72 (58.05) 12.0 15th july 45 (42.13) 14.8 1st august 15 (22.79) 8.0 15th august 70 (56.79) 9.6 1st september 20 (26.57) 7.0 15th september 10 (18.43) 6.0 1st october 0 (0.00) sem ± 1.6 cd (p=0.05) 4.8 1.6 figures in parantheses indicate angular transformed values (ms received 19 august 2009, revised 15 july 2010) effect of season and cultivar on grafting in sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 138-139, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) is one of the most important vegetable crops cultivated in the wor ld. i t is u s ed a s s a la ds a nd a lso cooked vegetable in the preparation of curries. processed items su ch a s toma to p ur ee, ketchup, pickle, chutney, whole peeled tomatoes, and tomato powder are also consumed considerably. tomatoes are also an important source of vitamins and minerals. they are an excellent source of phosphorus, iron and vitamin a, b and c (cobley and steele, 1976). they also contain small amounts of the b complex vitamins; thiamin, niacin and riboflavin (naika et al., 2005). they are loaded in minerals, vitamins, essential amino acids, sugars and dietary fibers. most importantly, tomatoes are rich in carotenoids, especially lycopene (beecher, 1998). lycopene and other flavonoids in tomato serve as good source of antioxidants (agarwal and rao, 2000). tomato occupies 5.05 million hectares with a productivity of 37 t/ha in the world. in india it is cultivated in an estimated area of 0.81 million hectares with productivity of 25.3 t/ha (fao stat 2020). one of the major reasons for low productivity in india is due to prevalence of various biotic and abiotic stresses. white fly (b. tabaci) transmitted tomato leaf curl disease, bacterial wilt (r. solanacearum) and early blight (a. solani) cause economic yield losses in the major tomato growing areas of the country and elsewhere in the world (lukyanenko, 1991). though india is the second largest producer breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance to tomato leaf curl disease, bacterial wilt and early blight sadashiva a.t.$*, oberoi h.s., singh t.h., prasanna h.c., madhavi reddy k. krishna reddy m., ravishankar k.v. and nayana r.s.** icarindian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, india $present address nethra crop sciences pvt., ltd, bengaluru, karnataka, india **university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : atsbrs@gmail.com abstract india is the second largest producer of tomato with 11 per cent global share and cultivated on an estimated area of 0.76 million hectares with productivity of 24 tonnes per hectare. less than 1% of the produce is processed when compared to 26% in other major producing countries. of the estimated more than 41 million tonnes of tomato processed globally, only 130,000 tonnes were processed in india and domestic demand for processed tomato products is expanding at an estimated 30% annually. at present traditional fresh market tomato cultivars are being processed though such cultivars are unsuitable for processing. processors in india are looking for high yielding tomato cultivars with high total soluble solids (5-6 º brix), acidity not less than 0.4%, ph less than 4.5 and uniform red colour with a/b colour value of at least 2. in addition, firm fruited tomato cultivars with joint less pedicel (j2) which facilitate mechanical harvesting or rapid hand picking. icar-indian institute of horticultural research has recently developed two high yielding f1 hybrids in tomato viz: arka apeksha and arka vishesh suitable for processing. on evaluation for three years, both the hybrids recorded good level of total soluble solids (4.5-5º brix) and colour value of 2. further, both the hybrids had high yield potential (80-90 tonnes / hectare) with triple disease resistance to tomato leaf curl disease, bacterial wilt and early blight. arka apeksha and arka vishesh were also bred with jointless pedicel making them suitable for mechanical harvesting. our experimental studies on vine storability revealed that all the fruits were intact on plants even 110 days after transplanting in the main field facilitating once over harvest. 279 breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 of tomato with 11 % global share, less than 1% of the produce is processed when compared to 26% in other major producing countries of the estimated more than 41 million tonnes of tomato processed globally, only 130,000 tonnes are processed in india a nd domes t ic dema nd f or p r oc es s ed t oma t o products is expanding at an estimated 30% annually (subramaniam, 2016). at present traditional fresh market tomato cultivars are being processed though suc h cult iva r s a r e u nsuit a ble f or pr ocessing. processors in india are looking for high yielding tomato cultivars with high total soluble solids (56º brix), acidity not less than 0.4%, ph less than 4.5 and uniform red colour with a/b colour value of a t lea st 2 (stevens a nd rudich, 1 978). in addition, firm fruited tomato cultivars with joint less p edicel (j2 ) which f a c ilita te mecha nic a l harvesting or rapid hand picking. tomato breeding p r ogr a mme a t i c ar i ndia n i ns t it u t e of horticultural research, bengaluru has resulted in the development of high yielding dual purpose f1 hybrids with triple disease resistance to tomato leaf curl disease (tolcd), bacterial wilt (bw) and early blight (eb) suitable for both fresh market and processing. materials and methods development of triple disease resistant lines and f1 hybrids back cross breeding method was adopted during 2005 to pool genes carrying resistance to tolcd, bw and eb. an advanced breeding line iihr-2202 (cln-2123-dc1f1-111-17-21-2-12) with combined r esista nce to tolcd +bw received fr om the world vegetable center (wvc) was crossed with eb r esista nt line iihr-1816 (ncebr1). t he resultant f1 was backcrossed to iihr-1816 and further advanced up to bc1f7 to develop seven a dva nc ed b r eeding line s wit h t r ip le dis ea s e resistance to tolcd+bw+eb (fig. 1). all the seven advanced breeding lines were resistant to tolcd (ty 2), bw and eb had high potential with good fruit quality attributes like deep red and firm fruits. all the seven lines were crossed with eight advanced breeding lines received from the world vegetable center, taiwan in a line x tester design to develop 56 hybrids with triple disease resistance. two hybrid combinations viz., iihr2834 (tlber-12-21-43-1) x iihr-2833 (cln2498d) later named as arka rakshak and iihr2835 (tlber-38-7-4-27) x iihr-2832 (cln2498e) later named as arka samrat were resistant to tolcd+bw+eb with high yield potential & exc ellent fr u it qu a lit y a tt r ib ut es . bot h ar ka ra ksha k a nd ar ka sa mr a t wer e identified a t institute level for commercial cultivation during 2010 (fig. 2). results and discussion development of dual purpose f1 hybrids in tomato with triple disease resistance breeding for dual purpose tomato was initiated during 2016. our aim was to develop high yielding triple disease resistant f1 hybrids suitable for both f r es h ma r ket a nd p r oces s ing f or yea r r ou nd cultivation under open. several hybrid combinations were attempted involving the triple disease resistant parent iihr-2834 which had jointless (j2) pedicel which facilitates mechanical harvesting. iihr-2834 was crossed with two advanced breeding lines viz., iihr-2918 (tolcvres4-f3-21-9-1) and iihr29 17 ( tolc vr es4 -f 318 81-1 ) whic h wer e resistant to tolcd (ty 3) and bw and later named as arka apeksha (h-385) and arka vishesh (h391) respectively (fig. 3). performance of dual purpose f1 hybrids: arka apeksha (h-385) and arka vishesh (h-391) a total of eighteen f1 hybrids including two hybrids viz., h-385 (iihr-2834 x iihr-2918) and h-391 (iihr-2834 x iihr-2917) were evaluated for two years viz., 2017 (rainy season), 2017-18 (winter iihr-2202 (combined resistant to tolcv + bw) x iihr-1816 (moderately resistant to eb)  f1 x iihr-1816  bc1f1 (triple disease resistant recombinants selected underartificial conditions and advanced)  bc1f7 (seven advanced breeding lines viz; tlber-712-15-28, 7-12-15-29, 7-4-11-29, 7-4-11-34, 38-74-27, 38-7-41-43 and 12-21-43-1 with triple resistance were selected) fig. 1 : flow chart detailing the development of triple disease resistant tomato lines 280 fig. 2 : triple disease resistant f1 hybrids developed at icar-iihr arka rakshak arka samrat iihr-2833 iihr-2832 iihr-2834 iihr-2835 sadashiva et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 281 arka apeksha (h-385) arka vishesh (h-391) fig. 3 : arka apeksha and arka vishesh dual purpose tomato f1 hybrids sea son) and 2018 (r ainy season) a nd 2018-19 (winter sea son) r espectively under open field conditions. five commercial f1 hybrids viz., arka rakshak, arka samrat, abhinava, lakshmi and shivam were also included as checks. during rainy sea son (2017), h-397 wa s the highest yielder followed by h-391 (94 t/ha), h-387 (84 t /ha) & h-385 (83 t /ha) (table 1). during winter season (2017-18), h-391 (44 t/ha) was the top yielder followed by h-387 (34 t/ha) and h-397 (33t/ha) (table 2). during rainy season (2018), h-397 (51.88t/ha), h-387 (46t/ha), h-391 (28 t/ha) and h-385 (25 t/ha) (table 3) were the top yielders among the processing type. during winter season (2018-19) both h-391 (31 t/ha) and h-385 (30t/ha) were also high yielders (table 4). mean yield over all the seasons revealed that h385 (46 t/ha) &h-391 (43 /ha) (table 5) expressed high yield potentia l over the commer cia l dua l purpose hybrid abhinava (40 t/ha). both these two hybrids also recorded average fruit weight of 70g90g with high tss (50brix) and deep red firm fruits (8 kg/cm2) which meet present day market demand. during rainy season (2018), both the hybrids viz., h-385 and h-391 were triple disease resistant to tolcd+bw+eb, whereas commer cial hybrids expressed moder ate resista nce and susceptible r ea c tion to tol cd a nd bw (ta b le 6) . four season’s data revealed that h-385 and h-391 had high yield potential & commercially acceptable fruit quality attributes with triple disease resistance to tolcd, bw and eb. pooled analysis for yield per hectare over three years confirmed yield stability of arka apeksha and arka vishesh (table 7) breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 282 h yb ri d e st im aa ve ra ge n o of f ru it f ru it p er ic ar p t ss f ru it n o. sh el f f ru it f ru it te d yi el d f ru it fr ui t/ le ng th w id th th ic kn es s (0 b ri x) fi rm ne ss of l if e co lo ur sh ap e (t /h a) w ei gh t kg ( g) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (k g/ cm 2 ) lo cu le s (d ay s) h -3 85 83 .0 0 81 .2 3 12 .3 1 6. 25 4. 50 0. 10 5. 00 8. 25 2. 00 h -3 87 84 .0 0 92 .8 5 10 .7 7 5. 55 5. 00 0. 50 5. 10 9. 75 3. 00 18 r sq . r ou nd h -3 91 (a rk a v is he sh ) 93 .1 7 10 1. 11 9. 89 5. 90 5. 00 0. 75 5. 50 7. 00 3. 00 19 r sq . r ou nd h -3 97 11 2. 83 91 .6 6 10 .9 1 4. 90 6. 00 0. 70 5. 00 8. 00 6. 00 12 r o bl -r d h -4 23 52 .5 0 95 .2 4 10 .5 0 6. 10 5. 50 0. 55 4. 70 8. 25 3. 00 h -5 01 79 .5 0 93 .9 8 10 .6 4 5. 15 6. 00 0. 70 5. 00 7. 75 4. 00 14 r o bl -r d h -5 02 89 .5 0 80 .4 5 12 .4 3 4. 35 5. 80 0. 65 4. 00 8. 25 4. 00 h -5 04 72 .2 5 95 .1 5 10 .5 1 5. 10 5. 90 0. 50 4. 80 6. 75 6. 00 h -5 05 74 .6 7 10 1. 42 9. 86 5. 10 6. 00 0. 60 5. 00 9. 50 4. 00 h -5 06 98 .3 3 11 3. 38 8. 82 5. 15 6. 60 0. 90 4. 10 6. 75 5. 00 13 r o bl -r d ph -1 02 1 88 .8 3 13 4. 41 7. 44 5. 35 6. 00 0. 60 4. 70 8. 75 6. 00 8 r o bl -r d ph -1 02 5 89 .0 0 12 7. 23 7. 86 5. 75 6. 00 0. 70 5. 10 7. 25 6. 00 9 r o bl -r d ph -6 32 1 92 .2 3 12 0. 05 8. 33 6. 00 7. 30 0. 65 4. 15 7. 50 5. 00 9 r o bl -r d a rk a r ak sh ak 90 .1 7 72 .9 4 13 .7 1 5. 90 5. 00 0. 55 4. 40 8. 75 3. 00 18 d r o va l a rk a sa m ra t 10 3. 33 89 .9 3 11 .1 2 5. 10 6. 20 0. 80 4. 90 9. 00 4. 00 19 d r o bl -r d l ak sh m i 10 2. 33 63 .6 9 15 .7 0 5. 25 4. 80 0. 55 4. 25 6. 25 4. 00 13 d r o bl at e sh iv am 99 .8 3 86 .4 3 11 .5 7 4. 65 5. 65 0. 50 4. 80 6. 75 5. 00 13 d r o bl at e a bh in av 88 .3 3 90 .9 1 11 .0 0 5. 50 4. 60 0. 60 4. 35 8. 25 2. 00 13 d r o va l c d @ 5% 27 .8 3 18 .2 1 2. 08 0. 32 0. 15 0. 10 0. 73 0. 78 0. 15 c v ( % ) 19 .1 7 8. 21 11 .0 7 2. 30 0. 95 5. 25 5. 47 3. 70 2. 26 ta bl e1 : p er fo rm an ce o f to m at o f 1 h yb ri ds a t ic a r -i ih r , b en ga lu ru ( r ai ny s ea so n, 2 01 7) sadashiva et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 283 h yb ri d e st im at ed a ve ra ge n o of f ru it f ru it p er ic ar p t ss f ru it n o. o f yi el d f ru it fr ui t/ le ng th w id th th ic kn es s (0 b ri x) fi rm ne ss lo cu le s (t /h a) w ei gh t (g ) kg (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (k g/ cm 2 ) h -3 85 ( a rk a a pe ks ha ) h -3 87 34 .0 0 85 .8 6 11 .6 5 6. 83 6. 33 0. 67 5. 17 8. 00 3. 00 h -3 91 ( a rk a v is he sh ) 43 .6 7 89 .5 6 11 .1 7 7. 17 6. 17 0. 90 4. 83 7. 17 2. 00 h -3 97 33 .3 3 10 5. 30 9. 50 6. 33 7. 17 0. 77 5. 17 7. 17 4. 00 h -4 23 h -5 01 16 .0 8 12 5. 00 8. 00 6. 50 7. 67 0. 97 5. 20 7. 00 6. 00 h -5 02 24 .8 3 10 9. 01 9. 17 6. 67 7. 33 0. 70 4. 83 7. 50 5. 00 h -5 04 h -5 05 34 .3 3 97 .6 4 10 .2 4 5. 17 6. 17 0. 67 5. 00 9. 00 3. 00 h -5 06 34 .8 3 10 5. 30 9. 50 5. 17 6. 33 0. 50 5. 00 6. 00 4. 00 ph -1 02 1 29 .1 7 12 0. 37 8. 31 6. 00 6. 67 0. 63 5. 17 8. 33 4. 00 ph -1 02 5 32 .3 3 13 2. 28 7. 56 7. 00 7. 50 0. 70 4. 83 8. 00 4. 00 ph -6 32 1 38 .1 7 11 2. 04 8. 93 6. 67 6. 77 0. 73 5. 17 8. 00 3. 00 a rk a r ak sh ak 40 .0 0 93 .9 4 10 .6 5 6. 67 6. 83 0. 83 4. 17 7. 50 4. 00 a rk a sa m ra t 40 .1 7 86 .7 5 11 .5 3 6. 17 7. 00 0. 80 5. 00 8. 00 3. 00 l ak sh m i 39 .8 3 88 .3 8 11 .3 1 6. 83 6. 17 0. 83 5. 00 8. 00 2. 00 sh iv am 37 .8 3 72 .1 2 13 .8 7 6. 50 6. 17 0. 53 5. 17 7. 00 5. 00 a bh in av 32 .3 3 92 .9 8 10 .7 6 4. 50 6. 00 0. 60 5. 00 6. 17 4. 00 c d @ 5% 15 .6 2 30 .3 7 2. 12 0. 65 0. 49 0. 10 0. 40 0. 39 0. 31 c v ( % ) 6. 78 6. 81 2. 21 1. 29 2. 00 7. 49 2. 87 1. 45 2. 14 ta bl e 2 : pe rf or m an ce o f to m at o f 1 h yb ri ds a t ic a r -i ih r , b en ga lu ru ( w in te r se as on , 20 17 -1 8) breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 284 h yb ri d e st im at ed a ve ra ge n o of f ru it f ru it p er ic ar p t ss f ru it n o. o f yi el d f ru it fr ui t/ kg le ng th w id th th ic kn es s (0 b ri x) fi rm ne ss lo cu le s (t /h a) w ei gh t (g ) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (k g/ cm 2 ) h -3 85 ( a rk a a pe ks ha ) 24 .6 7 66 .6 7 15 .6 7 5. 63 5. 27 0. 70 5. 00 8. 20 3. 33 h -3 87 46 .0 9 10 0. 00 10 .0 0 5. 03 4. 90 0. 70 4. 33 8. 17 3. 00 h -3 91 (a rk a v is he sh ) 28 .0 7 68 .7 0 14 .6 7 5. 33 5. 60 0. 97 4. 83 9. 17 3. 00 h -3 97 51 .8 8 81 .2 0 12 .3 3 4. 93 6. 30 0. 97 4. 17 6. 63 6. 00 h -4 23 22 .6 7 83 .3 3 12 .0 0 6. 20 5. 30 0. 80 5. 17 7. 37 3. 00 h -5 01 21 .0 4 12 0. 37 8. 33 5. 33 6. 03 0. 87 5. 00 6. 50 5. 00 h -5 02 2. 81 * 93 .9 4 10 .6 7 4. 00 5. 90 0. 91 5. 17 7. 33 5. 67 h -5 04 1. 04 * 91 .4 1 11 .0 0 4. 03 4. 90 0. 47 5. 73 6. 50 5. 00 h -5 05 9. 79 96 .9 7 10 .3 3 4. 50 4. 80 0. 50 4. 77 8. 33 4. 33 h -5 06 22 .1 9 10 0. 67 10 .0 0 5. 23 6. 23 0. 77 4. 23 6. 17 6. 00 ph -1 02 1 27 .6 0 12 0. 37 8. 33 5. 03 6. 20 0. 57 5. 37 7. 50 5. 00 ph -1 02 5 17 .8 1 12 0. 37 8. 33 5. 23 5. 90 0. 30 4. 60 8. 17 5. 00 ph -6 32 1 40 .6 3 11 6. 67 8. 67 5. 17 6. 03 0. 60 5. 10 10 .3 3 5. 00 a rk a r ak sh ak 52 .7 1 91 .4 1 11 .0 0 6. 17 5. 83 0. 93 5. 17 10 .3 0 3. 00 a rk a sa m ra t 40 .7 3 12 0. 37 8. 33 4. 97 5. 73 0. 83 5. 33 8. 70 5. 00 l ak sh m i 4. 38 * 84 .9 2 12 .0 0 5. 10 5. 33 0. 70 4. 17 7. 50 5. 67 sh iv am 25 .5 2 81 .2 0 12 .3 3 3. 93 6. 00 0. 53 5. 23 7. 67 6. 00 a bh in av 25 .8 3 10 3. 70 9. 67 6. 10 4. 87 0. 90 4. 50 8. 50 2. 00 c d @ 5% 18 .5 0 15 .1 2 2. 17 0. 31 0. 45 0. 18 0. 79 0. 48 0. 42 c v ( % ) 9. 30 0. 96 2. 45 0. 46 3. 12 2. 82 0. 65 1. 99 1. 26 ta bl e 3 : pe rf or m an ce o f pr om is in g to m at o hy br id s du ri ng r ai ny s ea so n (2 01 819 ) sadashiva et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 285 h yb ri d e st im at ed f ru it f ru it p er ic ar p t ss f ru it n o of yi el d le ng th w id th th ic kn es s (0 b ) f ir m ne ss lo cu le s (t /h a) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (k g/ cm 2 ) h -3 85 (a rk a a pe ks ha ) 30 .0 6. 8 6. 1 0. 7 5. 3 7. 5 2. 3 h -3 87 28 .8 6. 9 5. 6 0. 7 4. 5 7. 0 3 h -3 91 ( a rk a v is he sh ) 31 .4 6. 5 5. 6 0. 7 4. 7 6. 6 2. 7 h -4 23 28 .9 7 5. 6 0. 7 4. 4 7. 3 3. 3 h -5 01 24 .8 5. 5 7 0. 4 4. 8 6. 0 5. 3 h -5 02 28 .1 4. 5 6. 7 0. 6 5. 4 5. 7 5. 7 h -5 04 28 .6 4. 2 5. 8 0. 5 5. 5 6. 1 5. 0 h -5 05 26 .1 5. 8 6. 8 0. 7 5. 3 6. 9 5. 7 h -5 06 28 .0 5. 3 6. 5 0. 8 4. 6 6. 9 5. 3 ph -1 02 1 28 .3 5. 4 5. 8 0. 5 5. 4 7. 7 5. 7 ph -1 02 5 25 .3 6. 6 7 0. 5 5. 2 5. 9 6. 3 ph -6 32 1 32 .3 5. 7 5. 7 0. 6 5. 5 6. 0 6. 3 a rk a a bh ed 28 .9 5. 4 6. 1 0. 7 5 6. 7 6. 0 a rk a r ak sh ak 26 .6 6. 1 5. 4 0. 7 5. 2 6. 7 2. 7 a rk a sa m ra t 23 .7 6. 2 6. 2 0. 5 5. 5 6. 0 4. 0 l ak sh m i 22 .9 4. 4 5. 8 0. 5 5. 8 5. 8 4. 0 sh iv am 21 .6 4. 6 5. 5 0. 6 4. 8 6. 0 4. 7 a bh in av 30 .7 6. 3 5. 2 0. 7 5 7. 8 2. 0 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 5. 35 0. 25 0. 45 0. 2 0. 65 0. 86 1. 58 c v ( % ) 2. 4 0. 53 0. 88 3. 91 1. 4 1. 61 3. 99 ta bl e 4 : pe rf or m an ce o f to m at o hy br id s du ri ng w in te r se as on ( 20 18 -1 9) breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 286 h yb ri d e st im at ed y ie ld a ve ra ge f ru it t ss f ru it f ir m ne ss % i nc re as e in (t /h a) w t (g ) (0 b ri x) (k g/ cm 2 ) yi el d ov er a bh in av h -3 85 ( a rk a a pe ks ha ) 46 .0 0 95 .1 4 5. 15 7. 85 15 h -3 87 41 .7 5 77 .5 6 4. 70 7. 80 h -3 91 ( a rk a v is he sh ) 43 .1 9 69 .8 8 4. 90 7. 20 7. 5 h -3 97 47 .4 6 74 .4 3 4. 60 7. 30 h -4 23 31 .2 0 82 .9 6 4. 40 6. 90 h -5 01 33 .4 9 10 1. 55 5. 35 6. 40 h -5 02 33 .8 3 83 .7 6 5. 10 6. 90 h -5 04 31 .3 8 88 .1 7 5. 30 6. 75 h -5 05 33 .8 0 94 .9 5 4. 75 7. 90 h -5 06 40 .0 4 88 .9 7 4. 90 7. 00 ph -1 02 1 36 .9 2 10 8. 80 5. 15 7. 05 ph -1 02 5 39 .3 4 92 .5 7 5. 15 6. 90 ph -6 32 1 42 .9 6 88 .1 2 4. 90 7. 65 a rk a r ak sh ak 43 .7 8 72 .0 7 4. 90 7. 80 a rk a sa m ra t 42 .5 6 75 .8 2 5. 30 7. 30 l ak sh m i 35 .8 8 65 .6 8 5. 15 6. 55 sh iv am 38 .0 0 72 .8 9 4. 95 6. 55 a bh in av 39 .7 7 72 .8 8 4. 80 7. 70 ta bl e 5 : m ea n pe rf or m an ce o f se le ct ed t om at o f 1 h yb ri ds f or y ie ld a nd q ua lit y pa ra m et er s sadashiva et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 287 h yb ri d r ea ct io n to t ol c b v d is ea se b ac te ri al w ilt r ea ct io n r ea ct io n d is ea se s ev er it y sc or e r ea ct io n in ci de nc e to to 30 dp i 60 dp i (% ) e b ( p d i) l b ( p d i) h -3 85 ( a rk a a pe ks ha ) 0. 44 ±0 .2 2 1. 00 ±0 .1 9 h r 2 (r ) 05 ( h r ) 97 ( h s) h -3 87 0. 67 ±0 .1 9 0. 89 ± 0. 29 h r 2 (r ) 10 ( h r ) 92 ( h s) h -3 91 (a rk a v is he sh ) 0. 33 ± 0 .1 9 0. 67 ± 0. 00 h r 1 (r ) 10 ( h r ) 10 0 (h s) h -3 97 0. 00 ± 0. 00 0. 44 ± 0. 19 h r 0 (h r ) 05 ( h r ) 0 (h r ) h -5 01 0. 22 ± 0 .1 1 0. 44 ± 0 .1 1 h r 0 (h r ) 20 ( r ) 94 ( h s) h -5 06 0. 22 ± 0. 11 0. 67 ± 0. 00 h r 2 (r ) 15 ( r ) 92 ( h s) a rk a r ak sh ak 1. 78 ± 0. 11 2. 44 ± 0. 19 m r 6 (r ) 15 ( r ) 10 0 (h s) a rk a sa m ra t 2. 00 ± 0. 19 2. 78 ± 0. 19 m r 8 (r ) 20 ( r ) 10 0 (h s) a bh in av a 1. 11 ± 0. 11 1. 67 ± 0 .1 9 m r 9 (r ) 30 ( m r ) 98 ( h s) l ak sh m i 0. 67 ± 0. 19 2. 17 ± 0 .1 1 m r 5 8 (h s) 30 ( m r ) 10 0 (h s) sh iv am 0. 83 ± 0. 19 3. 00 ± 0 .1 1 s 45 ( s) 05 ( h r ) 93 ( h s) pu nj ab c hu ha ra 1. 75 ± 0. 09 4. 00 ± 0 .0 0 h s c d @ 5% 0. 65 2 0. 65 0 14 .1 1 c v % 36 .3 2 22 .3 2 6. 89 n ot e: d pi = da ys o f po st i no cu la tio n, h r = h ig hl y r es is ta nt , m r = m od er at el y r es is ta nt , r = r es is ta nt , s= s us ce pt ib le a nd h s= h ig hl y su sc ep tib le ta bl e 6 : r ea ct io n of t om at o f 1 h yb ri ds t o to l c b v, b w , e b a nd l b d ur in g ra in y se as on ( 20 18 ) breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 288 assessment of arka apeksha (h-385) and arka vishesh (h-391) for processing qualities processing qualities in fine pulp were estimated in arka apeksha and arka vishesh at icar-iihr, bengaluru. both the hybrids exhibited higher values for tss (>50brix), lycopene (>12 mg/100g) and colour index (47) (table 8). processing qualities in tomato puree was also estimated in arka apeksha and arka vishesh. arka vishesh recorded the highest tss (11.200 brix) when compared to commercial puree marketed by popular processing industries such as dabur, kisan and morton (table 9). both the hybrids also exhibited higher values for lycopene (> 13 mg/ 100g). higher values were also observed for tss (>270brix) & lycopene (>14 mg/100g) in tomato paste in both the hybrids (arka apeksha & arka vishesh) (table 10). in order to assess the processing qualities and suitability of arka apeksha (h-385) and arka vishesh (h-391), fruit samples were supplied to four commercial processing industries located in the different states in the country viz., sahyadri foods, na shik, ma ha r a shtr a sta te, sun-sip foods, sr iniva sa pur a , ka r na ta ka sta te, ja dli foods, krishnagiri, tamil nadu state and cremica food industries ltd., phillaur, punjab state. sahydri foods analysed fruit samples of four entries viz., arka apeksha, arka vishesh, abhinav and arka ashish (a pure line selection from uc82b) for hunter lab colour value, lycopene, acidity, tss, ph and total solids in the initial pulp and puree (table 11). colour value was more than 2 in the puree in all the samples. arka apeksha and arka vishesh recorded tss 40 brix and >120 brix in the initial pulp and puree respectively which was slightly more than dual sadashiva et al table 7 : pooled analysis for estimated yield per hectare hybrid yield (t/ha) 2017 2018 2019 h-385 (arka apeksha) 83.0 24.7 30.0 h-387 84.0 46.1 28.8 h-391 (arka vishesh) 93.2 28.1 31.4 h-397 112.8 51.9 28.9 h-423 52.5 22.7 28.9 h-501 79.5 21.0 24.8 h-502 89.5 2.8 28.1 h-504 72.3 1.0 28.6 h-505 74.7 9.8 26.1 h-506 98.3 22.2 28.0 h-1021 88.8 27.6 28.3 h-1025 89.0 17.8 25.3 h-6321 92.2 40.6 32.3 arka rakshak 90.2 52.7 26.6 arka samrat 103.3 40.7 23.7 laxmi 102.3 4.4 22.9 shivam 99.8 25.5 21.6 abhinav 88.3 25.8 30.7 cd (p=0.05) 10.86 cv (5%) 24.58 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 289 hybrids tss ph acidity vit-c lycopene colour tomato (°brix) (%) (mg/ (mg/ value colour 100g) 100g) index abhinav 10.2 4.1 0.66 36.56 11.90 0.99 42.18 h-397 10.80 4.1 0.67 22.26 13.91 1.20 45.65 arka vishesh (h-391) 11.20 4.1 0.83 28.75 13.03 1.36 47.21 arka apeksha (h-385) 8.80 4.1 0.81 27.54 13.41 1.28 47.99 h-387 10.33 4.0 0.72 24.06 13.38 1.34 50.46 dabur old 9.8 3.9 0.59 13.42 14.02 1.21 45.22 dabur new sample 10 3.8 0.60 14.66 13.92 kisan 8.9 4.0 0.62 26.47 10.65 1.31 47.10 morton 9.0 4.0 0.634 19.74 10.72 1.14 45.38 table 9 : processing qualitiestomato puree table 10 : processing qualities-tomato paste hybrid tss acidity colour tomato vitamin lycopene tomato (°brix) (%) value as colour c (mg/ (mg/ colour per index 100g) 100g) index formula abhinav 28.0 1.95 1.20 47.72 47.13 12.85 28.0 h-397 27.5 1.31 1.73 53.36 32.08 14.16 27.5 arka vishesh (h-391) 27.0 1.72 1.38 48.98 38.97 14.13 27.0 arka apeksha (h-385) 26.2 1.43 1.40 50.65 36.58 14.15 26.2 indira 28.0 1.12 1.21 45.22 32.33 14.08 28.0 table 8 : processing qualities attribute for fine pulp hybrid tss total juice ph acidity vit-c lycoptomato (°brix) solids yield (%) (mg/ ene (mg/ colour (%) (%) 100g) 100g) index abhinav 5.68 7.54 74 4.2 0.38 27.84 10.26 44 h-397 5.66 6.86 67 4.1 0.33 17.52 12.19 45 arka vishesh (h-391) 5.40 6.60 70 4.3 0.54 15.83 12.97 47 arka apeksha (h-385) 5.33 6.88 74 4.2 0.54 20.15 13.41 47 h-387 5.00 7.26 74 4.1 0.52 13.85 11.95 47 purpose commercial hybrid abhinav and processing variety aka ashish. but arka ashish (476) recorded highest lycopene (c/2 scale) followed by abhinav (473), arka apeksha (469) and arka vishesh (442). acidity was less than 0.26 in arka ashish and abhinav. ph was less than 4.3 in all the entries. arka apeksha recorded the highest total solids (86.35%) (table 11) in the puree. both arka apeksha and arka vishesh had acceptable processing qualities. sun-sip foods analysed fruit samples in arka apeksha, arka vishesh and abhinav for process time, brix, acidity, ph, colour value and number. of pouches filled. all the parameters were on par with each other in the initial pulp and the final product, where as arka apeksha (2 hr 12 min) took less time compared to arka vishesh (2 h 25min ) & abhinav (2 h 27 min) breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 290 ta bl e 11 : p ro ce ss in g qu al ity p ar am et er s of s el ec te d hy br id s p ar am et er h -3 91 (a rk a v is he sh ) a bh in av h -3 85 ( a rk a a pe ks ha ) a rk a a sh is h in it ia l p ul p 12 b ri x pu re e in it ia l p ul p 12 b ri x pu re e in it ia l p ul p 12 b ri x pu re e in it ia l p ul p 12 b ri x pu re e h un te r o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n o n l ab c ol ou r c /2 d 65 /2 c /2 d 65 /2 c /2 d 65 /2 c /2 d 65 /2 c /2 d 65 /2 c /2 d 65 /2 c /2 d 65 /2 c /2 d 65 /2 va lu e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e sc al e l 32 .9 2 31 .2 7 23 .7 4 23 .1 32 .3 8 31 .1 5 24 .3 23 .5 32 .7 5 30 .5 4 23 .6 5 22 .7 7 32 .7 7 31 .1 2 23 .1 7 22 .3 7 a 34 .3 6 31 .4 5 27 .8 9 26 .4 7 34 .0 4 31 .8 5 30 .8 6 29 .1 8 33 .2 6 30 .0 5 29 .4 8 28 .1 6 34 .0 9 31 .9 1 30 28 .4 b 16 .7 5 15 .3 13 .5 5 12 .1 8 15 .7 14 .1 9 14 .1 6 12 .9 6 17 .2 5 15 .3 3 13 .6 4 12 .6 17 .0 3 15 .3 7 13 .7 12 .4 9 a/ b 2. 05 2 2. 05 5 2. 05 8 2. 17 3 2. 16 9 2. 24 4 2. 17 9 2. 25 1 1. 92 8 1. 96 2. 16 2 2. 23 4 2. 00 2 2. 07 6 2. 18 9 2. 27 3 ly co pe ne c /2 44 0 n a 44 2 n a 47 1 n a 47 3 n a 40 9 n a 46 9 n a 42 8 n a 47 6 n a b ri x 4 12 .2 4 12 4 12 .2 3. 2 12 .1 a ci di ty 0. 3 0. 94 0. 25 0. 63 0. 35 0. 62 0. 26 1. 07 ph 4. 1 3. 93 4. 14 4. 1 4. 12 4. 09 4. 14 4. 16 to ta l s ol id s (% ) 95 .2 2% 85 .3 8% 94 .7 6% 85 .9 1% 95 .1 5% 86 .3 5% 96 .1 3% 84 .7 8% c ou rt es y: m r. sa ch in , s ah ya dr i fo od s, n as hi k, m ah ar as ht ra p ar am et er a rk a v is he sh ( h -3 91 ) a rk a a pe ks ha ( h -3 85 ) a bh in av n et f ru it w ei gh t (k g) 6 5. 85 6 pr oc es s t im e 2 h rs 2 5 m in 2 h rs 1 2 m in 2 h rs 2 7 m in r ea di ng s in iti al fi na l in iti al fi na l in iti al fi na l b ri x 4. 05 12 .1 2 4. 28 12 .2 1 4. 41 12 .3 1 a ci di ty % 0. 28 0. 89 0. 28 0. 85 0. 31 0. 89 ph 4. 16 3. 51 4. 01 3. 71 4. 0 3. 85 c ol ou ra/ b 1. 75 1. 98 1. 9 1. 97 1. 9 1. 98 n o of p ou ch es f ill ed 2 n o’ s 2 n o’ s 2 n o’ s c ou rt es y: m r. h em an th , su nsi p fo od s, s ri ni va sa pu ra , k ar na ta ka ta bl e 12 : p ro ce ss in g qu al ity p ar am et er s of s el ec te d hy br id s sadashiva et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 291 ta bl e 13 : p hy si ca l, ch em ic al , o rg an ol ep tic a na ly si s of f re sh f ru its p ar am et er a bh in av a rk a v is he sh ( h -3 91 ) a rk a a pe ks ha ( h -3 85 ) t .s .s . 4. 2o b ri x 4. 2o b ri x 4. 2o b ri x a c id it y (% a s c /a ) 0. 27 % 0. 33 % 0. 38 % se e d s pe r c e n ta g e v e r y l e ss v e r y l e ss v e r y l e ss c o l o u r d e e p r e d d e e p r e d d e e p r e d ta st e n a t u r a l & c h a r a c t e r st ic s n a t u r a l & c h a r a c t e r st ic s n a t u r a l & c h a r a c t e r st ic s o f r ip e t o m a t o o f r ip e t o m a t o o f r ip e t o m a t o fl u sh g o o d /d e e p r e d g o o d /d e e p r e d g o o d /d e e p r e d fl a v o r t y pi c a l r ip e t o m a t o f l a v o r t y pi c a l r ip e t o m a t o f l a v o r t y pi c a l r ip e t o m a t o f l a v o r a pp e a r a n c e so u n d & g o o d so u n d & g o o d so u n d & g o o d h yb ri d t .s .s . ph a ci di ty h un te r co lo r va lu e on v is co si ty ( 30 s ec .) v is ua l (0 b ri x) (% ) c 2 ill um in at io n b o st w ic k ob se rv at io n a rk a v is he sh (h -3 91 ) 4. 05 4. 39 0. 36 l =3 2. 56 a =3 5. 37 b =1 6. 67 a b= 2. 12 14 .0 0 l es s ju ic y, s of t sk in , le ss s ee d 4. 00 4. 44 0. 32 l =3 5. 80 a =3 4. 89 b =1 7. 96 a b= 1. 94 14 .0 0 3. 94 4. 42 0. 35 l =3 0. 19 a =3 4. 45 b =1 6. 16 a b= 2. 13 14 .2 0 m ea n 4. 00 4. 41 0. 34 a/ b= 2. 06 14 .0 0 a rk a a pe ks ha ( h -3 85 ) 4. 15 4. 36 0. 38 l =3 2. 52 a =3 5. 12 b =1 6. 84 a b= 2. 09 12 .0 0 h ar d sk in , le ss s ee d 4. 10 4. 43 0. 33 l =3 6. 51 a =3 5. 75 b =1 8. 09 a b= 1. 98 12 .5 0 4. 05 4. 42 0. 35 l =3 2. 94 a =3 5. 87 b =1 7. 43 a b= 2. 06 12 .5 0 m ea n 4. 1 4. 4 0. 35 a/ b= 2. 04 12 .3 3 c ou rt es y: c re m ic a, p hi lla ur , p un ja b ta bl e 14 : p ro ce ss in g qu al ity c ha ra ct er is tic s of h yb ri ds ; a rk a v is he sh ( h -3 91 ) an d a rk a a pe ks ha ( h -3 85 ) breeding tomatoes suitable for processing with triple disease resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 292 table 15 : processable characteristics for arka vishesh (h-391) and aka apeksha (h-385) parameter h-391 h-385 parameters desired by processing industry tss (degree obrix) 4-4.6 4-4.7 4.2 or higher (higher the better) colour value 1.98-2.12 1.96-2.09 > 1.95 acidity (%) 0.32-0.36 0.34-0.38 <0.40 ph 4.21-4.41 4.12-4.40 < 4.40 texture/ firmness 4.09-5.41 4.05-4.30 > 4 lycopene (mg/100g fresh weight) 8.5-10.5 11.12-11.42 >8.0 lycopene in tomato paste 14.14 14.15 >14 (mg/100g fresh weight) viscosity (bostwick, cms/30 sec) 14-14.20 12-12.50 7-14 (table 12). jadli foods carried out physical, chemical and organoleptic analysis of fresh fruits. all the parameters in arka apeksha and arka vishesh were on par with commercial hybrid abhinav (table 13). cremica analysed both arka apeksha and arka vishesh for tss (40brix), ph (4.4), acidity (0.35), colour value (>2) and viscosity (12-14) (table 15). conclusion values obtained for all the parameters revealed that both the hybrids in arka apeksha and arka vishesh were suitable for processing. the processing qualities analysed by four commercial processing industries were in the acceptable range as desired by the processing industry in india. however, there is a need to breed tomato varieties / f1 hybrids with higher tss (5.5-60 brix). references agarwal, s. and rao, a. v., 2000, tomato lycopene and its role in huma n health and chr onic diseases. cmaj, 163(6): 739-744. beecher, g. r. 1998, nutrient content of tomatoes and tomato products, proc. soc. exp. biol. med., 218: 98-100. cobley, l. s and steele, w. m., 1976, an introduction to the botany of tropical crops. elbs and longman, london, p. 267-272 faostat: http://faostat3.fao.org/home/e). accessed on 21st march 2022. lukyanenko, a. n., 1991, disease resistance in toma to. in genetic impr ovement of tomato. springer, berlin, heidelberg, p. 99-119. naika, s., juede, j.,goffau, m.,hilmi, m. and dam, v., 2005, cultivation of tomato production, processing and marketing. agromisa/cta, agrodokseries no. 17. stevens, m. a. and rudich, j., 1978, genetic potential for overcoming physiological limitations on adaptability, yield, and quality in the tomato. hortic. sci., 13(6): 673-677. subramanian r. 2016. india processing tomato segment: cur r ent sta tus, tr ends a nd opportunities for engagement. world vegetable center, taiwan. sadashiva et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 278-292, 2022 (received : 21.03.2022; revised : 01.12.2022; accepted : 12.12.2022) introduction alpha-crystallin domain (acd) belongs to the class of small heat-shock proteins (shsps) functioning as a molecular chaperone, preventing undesired protein-protein interactions and assisting in refolding of denatured proteins (liberek et al, 2008). the term ‘molecular chaperone’ is normally used for describing the function of alpha-hsps, as, these bind to and stabilize misfolded conformers of proteins, and, facilitate refolding of proteins in vivo (parsell and lindquist, 1993). to protect irreversible disaggregation of proteins, the chaperone activity of alpha-shsps is limited to binding unstable intermediates (jorg and elizabeth 1994). most acds have some common structural and functional features, including the molecular chaperone activity. alphacrystallins merge into a highly synergistic and adaptable multi-chaperone network to secure protein-quality control in the cell (franz, 2002). productive delivery and refolding in silico analysis of whole-genome of solanum lycopersicum for alpha-crystallin domains associated with heat stress tolerance m.k. chandra prakash, reena rosy thomas and papiya mondal section of economics & statistics icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, india e-mail: mk_chandraprakash@yahoo.com abstract living organisms alter their gene-expression patterns to withstand stressful conditions. drought, salinity, heat and chilling are potent abiotic stresses causing an alteration in gene expression. among these, high temperature stress stimulates heat shock transcription factors (hsf) which activate heat shock promoters, thus turning on the heat shock genes. heat shock proteins are, therefore, products of heat shock genes and are classified as per their molecular weight, including small heat shock proteins (shsps). hsps are chaperones playing an important role in stress tolerance. these consist of a conserved domain, flanked by nand c-terminal regions termed the alphacrystallin domain (acd), and are widely distributed in living beings. their role as chaperones is to help the other proteins in protein-folding and prevent irreversible protein aggregation. the conserved domains in shsps are essential for heat-stress tolerance and for their molecular chaperone activity, enabling plant survival under increasing temperatures, leading to adaptations needed for coping with extremes climatic conditions. the present study focusses on identification of acds in the whole-genome of solanum lycopersicum. a multinational consortium, international tomato annotation group (itag), funded in part by the eu-sol project, provides annotation of the whole genome of s. lycopersicum available in the public domain. we used several in silico methods for exploring alpha-crystallin domains in all the chromosomes of s. lycopersicum. surprisingly, these acds were found to be present in all the chromosomes excepting chromosome 4; these are highly conserved in shsps and are related to heat tolerance. key words: solanum lycopersicum, alpha-crystallin domain (acd), small heat shock proteins (shsps), in silico, heat stress j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):143-146, 2015 of misfolded proteins into their native state demands close cooperation with other cellular chaperones. further, alphahsps have a significant role in stabilizing the cell membrane. acds are conserved regions found in shsps of all the three domain of life (bacteria, archaea and eukarya), suggesting their wide importance. there are different classes of acd proteins comprising classical shsps and, likely, chaperones. the α-crystallin domains are fundamental building blocks for most shsps, consisting of several beta strands accountable for dimer formation arranged into two beta-sheets (tariq et al, 2010). mostly, varying the shsps acquires less conserved nand c-terminal extensions, whereas, greater sequence similarities can be seen in conserved acds (eisenhardt, 2013). unfortunately, very little information is available on acds. however, some examples indicate that this family is of great significance. recently, in arabidopsis, one acd protein was reported 144 to be an essential element of a specific resistancemechanism against systemic spreading of the tobacco etch virus (whitham et al, 2000). it was reported that both shsps and α-crystallins show atp-independent molecular chaperone activity and, under heat stress, interact with partially unfolded polypeptides to prevent unspecific aggregation of protein substrates (jakob et al, 1993 and tyedmers et al, 2010). the tomato genome: tomato genome consortium started its work in the year 2003. genome of the tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) was sequenced completely and published in 2012 (ftp://ftp.sgn.cornell.edu/genomes/ solanum_lycopersicum/annotation/). size of the tomato genome is 950 megabases (mb), divided into 12 linear molecules, each containing different chromosomes. the shortest is chromosome 6, with 46,041,647 nucleotides; the longest is chromosome 1, with 90,304,255 nucleotides. average length of the chromosome is 65 million nucleotides of dna sequence. in the present study, acds available in whole-genome of s. lycopersicum have been explored. in computational biology, genes can be detected by comparing genomes of related species. these detect evolutionary pressure for conservation, especially identification of conserved regions (including markers) as, these are conserved evolutionarily across species, and include solanaceous crops (reena et al, 2013). conservedness relies heavily on sequence-similarity, whose run-time grows with square of the number and length of the aligned sequence, demanding noteworthy computational resources (nagar and hahsler 2013). material and methods identification of conserved domains in genes is one of the important steps in understanding the genome of any species. sequence-similarities provide evidence for functional and structural conservation, along with evolutionary relationships, between sequences. specifically, shsp sequences are highly conserved across species, despite evolutionary pressure (chandraprakash et al, 2013). comparative analysis is a key method by which functional elements are identified. ligand-binding sites of proteins and active sites of enzymes are the most highly conserved protein sequences. to identify conserved elements in a desired gene, the same sequence from several species should be aligned and common areas should be identified. in our work, several in silico methods were used for showing the presence of conserved domains, especially acds belonging to shsp of s. lycopersicum. published shsp sequences were used for comparative analysis to identify similar regions in the whole-genome of s. lycopersicum. the identified, similar regions in tomato genomic sequences were obtained. these sequences were uploaded onto ncbi batch cd search program in an appropriate format to be processed as batch files. ncbi batch cd search program is one of the programs used for searching the input sequences against conserved domain database (cdd). the output generated (cdd) is a tabdelimited list of conserved-domain hits, found on each protein, against input query sequences of s. lycopersicum. from the output file, matching sequences of α-crystallin domain were clustered chromosome-wise. these acds were found to be highly conserved and available in almost all the chromosomes in multiple copies. results and discussion generally, highly-conserved proteins are needed in fundamental cellular functions, stability or reproduction. conservation of the protein structure is indicated by presence of functionally equivalent amino acid residues (not necessarily identical) and structures between analogous parts of the protein structure. chandraprakash et al (2013) reported hsps to be evolutionarily conserved in solanaceous crops. defined by conserved alphacrystalline domains, a sequence of 90 amino acid residues (approximately) constitutes small heat shock proteins (also known as αhsps) (macrae, 2000). most multiple α-hsps translated in plants are housed in different cellular compartments, to prevent them from interacting with each other (franz, 2002). however, engineering a single transcribed gene is not of much use, as, more than one stress-responsive genes may be necessary for survival of a plant under extreme conditions. at the genomic level, understanding the expression of a specific protein under a particular abiotic stress can provide a base for recognizing genes (reena et al, 2013). expression of shsps is seen in response to various kinds of abiotic stresses, including extreme temperatures, oxidative stress, osmotic stress, etc. in the present study, published sequences matched against the available s. lycopersicum database revealed 61 alpha-crystallin domains to be widely distributed throughout the whole-genome of s. lycopersicum, except in chromosome 4. a genome-wide analysis for presence of acds revealed these to be conserved in shsps. a chromosome-wise distribution of acds in the whole-genome of s. lycopersicum is shown in fig. 1. chandra prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):143-146, 2015 145 in silico analysis in wheat had shown the presence of alpha crystalline domain (kumar et al, 2012). in the human genome, α-crystallin–related small heat shock proteins are dispersed over nine chromosomes (kappé et al, 2003). chromosome-wise distribution of alpha crystallin domains (acds) in s. lycopersicum, along with the nature of protein and matching similarity-values, is presented in table 1. genome-wide, this acd is sited maximally in chromosomes 2 and 9, followed by chromosomes 12, 8, 7, 6, 11, 3, 1, 10 and 5, with the exception of chromosome 4. acds in chromosome 6 had maximum matching similarity. genome-wide analysis of acds revealed these genes to be enriched on several chromosomes, majorly, 15% in chromosomes 2 and 9. acds are unusually abundant and cover a segment in heat stress induced proteins termed small heat shock proteins, ranging in size from ~ 17 to 30 kda. these are highly conserved sequences of around 90 amino acids, found extensively in all the domains of life. representation of a typical acd structure with two conserved regions that form a sandwich of two β pleated-sheets is shown in fig. 2. the ubiquitous nature of acds implies that these domains are of great significance and help plants combat heat-stress and render longevity. acknowledgement the authors wish to thank centre for agricultural bioinformatics, and, pi of cab-in project for funding this work. they are also thankful to icar-indian institute of horticultural research and iasri, for technical support. references chandraprakash, m.k., reena rosy thomas, krishna reddy, m. and sukhada mohandas. 2013.molecular evolutionary conservedness of small heat shock protein sequences in solanaceae crops using in silico methods. j. hortl. sci., 8:82-87 eisenhardt, b.d. 2013. small heat shock proteins: recent developments. biomol. concepts,4:583-595 franz narberhaus. 2002. alpha-crystallin-type heat shock proteins: socializing minichaperones in the context of a multichaperone network. microbiol. mol. biol. rev., 66:64-93 jakob, u., gaestel, m., engel, k. and buchner, j. 1993. small heat shock proteins are molecular chaperones. j. biol. chem., 268:1517-20 jorg becker and elizabeth a. craig. 1994. heat-shock proteins as molecular chaperones. european j. biochem., 219:11-23 kappé, g., franck, e., verschuure, p., boelens, w.c., leunissen, j.a.m. and de jong, w.w. 2003. the human genome encodes 10 α-crystallin-related small heat shock proteins: hspb1-10. cell stress chaperones, 8:53-61 kumar, r.r., singh, g.p., sharma, s.k., singh, k., goswami, s. and rai, r.d. 2012. molecular cloning of hsp17 gene (shsp) and their differential expression under exogenous putrescine and heat shock in wheat fig. 1. distribution of alpha-crystallin domains (acd) in solanum lycopersicum chromosomes table 1. distribution of ααααα-crystalline domains (acd) in the wholegenome of solanum lycopersicum sl. chromosome total number nature of hit-value no. no. of acds protein range 1 chr 1 3 shsp 599-734 2 chr 2 9 shsp 523-959 3 chr 3 4 shsp 649-765 4 chr 4 5 chr 5 2 shsp 507-1033 6 chr 6 5 shsp 667-8824 7 chr 7 6 shsp 597-1101 8 chr 8 7 shsp 791-948 9 chr 9 9 shsp 616-1007 10 chr 10 3 shsp 520-780 11 chr 11 5 shsp 595-933 12 chr 12 8 shsp 625-941 fig. 2. quaternary structure of a typical acd in silico analysis of whole-genome of tomato for heat stress j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):143-146, 2015 146 (triticum aestivum). african j. biotech., 11:16800 -16808 liberek, k., lewandowska, a. and zietkiewicz, s. 2008. chaperones in control of protein disaggregation. embo j., 27:328-335 macrae, t.h. 2000. structure and function of small heat shock/alpha-crystallin proteins: established concepts and emerging ideas. cell mol. life sci., 57:899-913 nagar, a. and hahsler, m. 2013. fast discovery and visualization of conserved regions in dna sequences using quasi-alignment. bmc bioinformatics, 14 suppl., 11:s2 parsell, d.a. and lindquist, s. 1993. the function of heat shock proteins in stress tolerance: degradation and reactivation of damaged proteins. annu. rev. genet., 27:437-497 reena rosy thomas, chandraprakash, m.k., krishna (ms received 31 march 2015, revised 15 november 2015, accepted 18 november 2015) reddy, m., sukhada mohandas and riaz mahmood. 2013. microsatellite identification in solanaceae crops associated with nucleoside diphosphate kinase (ndk) specific to abiotic stress tolerance through in silico analysis. j. hortl. sci., 8:195-198 tariq mahmood, waseem safdar, bilal haider abbasi and saqlan naqvi, s.m. 2010. an overview on the small heat shock proteins. african j. biotech., 9:927-939 tyedmers, j., mogk, a. and bukau, b. 2010. cellular strategies for controlling protein aggregation. nat’l. rev. mol. cell biol., 11:777-788 whitham, s.a., anderberg, r.j., chrisholm, s.t. and carrington, j.c. 2000. arabidopsis rtm2 gene is necessary for specific restriction of tobacco etch virus and encodes an unusual small heat shock like protein. pl. cell, 12:569-582 chandra prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):143-146, 2015 introduction ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) is a hardy fruit crop and its fruits are a good source of vitamin c and minerals like calcium, phosphorus and iron. it is an ideal fruit for cultivation in the arid and semi-arid zones of northern india, because of its very low irrigation requirement in the hot and dry months of may and june, when it sheds its leaves and enters into a period of dormancy. due to high economic returns, improved budded varieties of ber are being cultivated on a commercial scale in punjab, haryana, rajasthan and uttar pradesh. ber can thrive well under adverse conditions, viz., salinity, drought and waterlogging. however, high post-harvest losses are a major constraint in developing the ber fruit industry in the country. ber fruits are perishable in nature and cannot be stored for long periods under ambient conditions (salunkhe and kadam, 1995). calcium compounds are known to extend the shelf-life of several fruits by maintaining firmness, minimizing the rate of respiration, protein breakdown and disease incidence (gupta et al, 1980). growth regulators also increase the post harvest life of fruits by retarding of ripening, senescence, by minimizing the rate of respiration and by reduction in weight loss (huang, 1974). the ber industry can take a further leap if its post-harvest life is effect of post-harvest treatment on storage quality in ‘umran’ ber fruit s. k. jawandha, j. s. randhawa, p. p. s. gill and jagjit singh department of horticulture punjab agricultural university, ludhiana – 141 004, india email: punjabbeauty2000@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of post-harvest sprays of cacl 2 (@ 0.5%, 1.0% & 2.0%), ca(no 3 ) 2 (@ 0.5%, 1.0% & 2.0%), ga 3 (@ 20, 40 and 60 ppm) and bavistin (0.1%) on storage quality of ‘umran’ ber’. fruits of uniform size were harvested at physiological maturity and treated with various chemicals. treated fruits were placed in cfb boxes and placed in cold storage (3-5 °c and 85-95% rh). stored fruits were evaluated at 10, 20 and 30 days from storage for palatability rating, tss, acidity, vitamin c and total sugars. after 30 days from storage, the highest palatability rating was recorded in ga 3 (60 ppm) treated fruits, followed by cacl 2 (2.0%). both tss and total sugars showed a similar trend of increase upto 20 days from storage, followed by a decrease. however, acidity and vitamin c content of fruits decreased continuously with advancement of storage period. at the end of storage, maximum tss, total acidity vitamin c and total sugars were observed in ga 3 (60 ppm) treated fruits, followed by cacl 2 (2.0%). studies revealed that ga 3 (60 ppm) treated ber fruits maintained very good quality at 20 days of cold storage. key words: ber, ga 3 , calcium, post-harvest treatment, cold storage extended without significant deterioration in fruit quality. the present study was, therefore, undertaken to study the effect of post-harvest treatments with various chemical compounds on the quality of ber fruit during cold storage. material and methods the present study was conducted in the department of horticulture, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana during the years 2002 and 2003. uniform sized fruits of ‘umran’ cultivar were harvested at optimum maturity from the marked trees. the fruits were dipped in aqueous solution (at 20°c) of different compounds, viz., as cacl 2 (0.5, 1.0 & 2.0%), ca(no 3 ) 2 (0.5, 1.0 & 2.0 %), ga 3 (20, 40 & 60 ppm) and bavistin (0.1%) for five minutes. treated fruits were then air dried in shade, packed in netlon bags (1.0 kg) and placed in cfb boxes (30.0 x 21.5 x 21.5 cm) of 5% perforation with paper lining. thereafter, these boxes were kept in cold storage (3-5°c and 85-95% rh). the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design with eleven treatments and three replications. each replication comprised of one kilogram fruit. fruit samples were analysed for physico-chemical changes like palatability rating (pr), tss, acidity, vitamin c content and total sugars at 10, 20 and 30 days of storage. palatability j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 48-52, 2008 page 48 49 rating (pr) was recorded on the basis of a score card viz., 1-poor; 2-fair; 3-good; 4-very good and 5-excellent (dhanrai et al, 1980). total soluble solids (tss) were determined with the help of hand refractometer from the juice of fruit and the values were corrected at 20°c. fruit acidity was estimated by titrating the juice against standard 0.1 n sodium hydroxide solution using phenolphthalein as indicator and represented as per cent. vitamin c content was determined by titrating the juice against 2, 6dichlorphenol indophenol dye solution to a light pink colour, which persisted for 15 seconds. results were expressed as mg/100 g of fruit flesh. total sugars were estimated by titrating boiling fehling solution (5 ml a + 5 ml b) against aliquot using methylene blue as the indicator (a.o.a.c., 1980). results and discussion palatability rating (pr) of fruits decreased significantly with advancement of storage period regardless of the post harvest treatment (table 1). at the end of storage, fruits treated with ga 3 (60 ppm) showed maximum pr (3.16 & 3.25). prolongation of fruit life due to growth regulators is probably due to effectiveness of these chemicals in retardation of ripening and senescence and reduction in weight loss (huang, 1974). likewise, various calcium treatments significantly increased pr as compared to control. increase in calcium content of the fruits has been associated with reduced softening (haggag, 1987), decreased incidence of physiological disorders and improved storage life (raese, 1986). similar results were also reported by chahal and bal (2003) in ber fruits. tss content of fruits increased upto 20 days of storage in all the treatments, except the control, which recorded increase in tss content only upto 10 days of storage (table 2). but, at 30 days of storage, decrease in tss content was noticed in all the treatments. jawanda et al (1980) also reported inconsistent trend in tss of ber fruits during cold storage. among the different treatments, ga3 (60 ppm) recorded the maximum tss at the end of storage, closely followed by cacl 2 (2.0%) treatment. this might be due to reduction in metabolic activities like respiration and senescence by ga 3 (60 ppm) and cacl 2 (2.0%) treatments. during the course of investigation, there was an initial rise in tss content of fruits till it reached the peak, followed by a gradual decline after 30 days of storage. the initial increase in tss may be due to hydrolysis of starch into mono-and di-saccharides, and, on complete hydrolysis of starch, no further increase occurred. subsequently, a decline was observed because of utilization of the primary substrate for respiration (wills et al, 1980). fruit acidity showed a general decline in all the treatments as storage period progressed (table 3). such a decrease in acidity might be attributed to conversion of acids to sugars and then utilization in the respiration process (pool et al, 1972). sandbhor and desai (1991) also reported a gradual decrease of acid content in ber fruit during storage. after 30 days of cold storage, lowest acidity was recorded table 1. effect of post-harvest treatment on palatability rating in ber fruits during cold storage palatability rating treatment 2002 2003 days after storage days after storage 10 20 30 mean 10 20 30 mean cacl2 0.5% 4.58 3.25 2.30 3.38 4.40 3.15 2.40 3.32 cacl2 1.0% 4.66 3.30 2.40 3.45 4.50 3.41 2.50 3.47 cacl2 2.0% 4.80 3.70 3.00 3.83 4.80 3.60 3.10 3.83 ca(no 3 ) 2 0.5% 4.41 3.00 2.15 3.19 4.30 3.00 2.20 3.17 ca(no 3 ) 2 1.0% 4.60 3.15 2.20 3.31 4.38 3.00 2.33 3.24 ca(no 3 ) 2 2.0% 4.50 3.40 2.50 3.46 4.58 3.50 2.75 3.61 ga 3 20 ppm 4.60 3.20 2.30 3.37 4.50 3.33 2.50 3.44 ga 3 40 ppm 4.75 3.50 2.75 3.67 4.70 3.60 2.85 3.72 ga 3 60 ppm 4.80 4.00 3.16 3.97 4.83 3.75 3.25 3.94 bavistin 0.1% 4.00 3.00 2.00 3.00 4.25 3.10 2.00 3.12 control (untreated) 3.75 2.50 1.60 2.62 3.83 2.60 1.62 2.68 mean 4.50 3.27 2.40 4.46 3.28 2.50 cd (p=0.05) treatments (a) = 0.213 0.183 storage days (b) = 0.111 0.196 interaction (a x b) = 0.302 0.210 post-harvest storage quality in ber j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 48-52, 2008 50 in untreated fruits, whereas highest acidity was observed with ga 3 (60 ppm) followed by cacl 2 (2.0%) treatment. this might be due to low respiration rate in ga 3 (60 ppm) and cacl 2 (2.0%) treatments. data pertaining to vitamin c content in the fruit are presented in table 4. significant decrease in vitamin c content was noted with advancement of storage period in all the treatments. these findings were in accordance with the results of bal et al (1978) who reported a decrease in vitamin c content with prolongation of storage period. reduction in vitamin c content might be attributed to its oxidation in the presence of molecular oxygen by ascorbic acid oxidase (mapson, 1970; tarkase and desai, 1989). at the end of storage, minimum vitamin c content was found in control fruits, whereas, it was maximum in ga 3 (60 ppm) treated fruits, followed by cacl 2 (2.0%) treatment, which may be a result of low respiration transpiration rates and delayed senescence (huang,1974; faust and shear, 1972). total sugars showed an increasing trend up to 20 days of storage in all the treatments except in control, but decreased after 30 days of storage. similar results were also reported by jayachandran et al (2005) in gauva fruits. stahl and camp (1971) reported certain cell wall materials such table 2. effect of post-harvest treatment on total soluble solids in ber fruits during cold storage tss% treatment 2002 2003 days after storage days after storage 10 20 30 mean 10 20 30 mean cacl2 0.5% 13.66 14.40 12.50 13.52 13.53 14.30 12.60 13.48 cacl2 1.0% 13.53 14.20 12.66 13.46 13.40 14.20 12.70 13.43 cacl2 2.0% 13.46 13.80 12.86 13.37 13.35 13.80 12.94 13.36 ca(no 3 ) 2 0.5% 13.80 14.80 12.30 13.63 13.60 14.40 12.46 13.49 ca(no 3 ) 2 1.0% 13.70 14.40 12.45 13.52 13.60 14.20 12.60 13.46 ca(no 3 ) 2 2.0% 13.60 14.00 12.70 13.43 13.50 14.00 12.80 13.43 ga 3 20 ppm 13.60 14.40 12.60 13.53 13.60 14.20 12.70 13.50 ga 3 40 ppm 13.40 13.93 12.80 13.38 13.42 13.80 12.85 13.36 ga 3 60 ppm 13.40 13.70 13.00 13.37 13.20 13.73 13.13 13.35 bavistin 0.1% 13.66 14.60 12.33 13.53 13.70 14.40 12.40 13.50 control (untreated) 14.80 13.80 12.10 13.57 14.80 13.86 12.00 13.55 mean 13.69 14.18 12.57 13.61 14.08 12.65 cd (p=0.05) base value = 13.20 base value = 13.10 treatments (a) = 0.072 0.008 storage days (b) = 0.088 0.010 interaction (a x b) = 0.029 0.033 table 3. effect of post-harvest treatment on acidity in ber fruits during cold storage treatment acidity (%) 2002 2003 days after storage days after storage 10 20 30 mean 10 20 30 mean cacl2 0.5% 0.154 0.144 0.128 0.142 0.157 0.143 0.132 0.144 cacl2 1.0% 0.157 0.144 0.130 0.143 0.160 0.150 0.137 0.149 cacl2 2.0% 0.164 0.152 0.140 0.152 0.170 0.156 0.142 0.156 ca(no 3 ) 2 0.5% 0.152 0.139 0.122 0.137 0.155 0.140 0.130 0.142 ca(no 3 ) 2 1.0% 0.157 0.140 0.126 0.141 0.160 0.150 0.134 0.148 ca(no 3 ) 2 2.0% 0.164 0.146 0.134 0.148 0.164 0.148 0.138 0.150 ga 3 20 ppm 0.160 0.148 0.136 0.148 0.164 0.152 0.138 0.151 ga 3 40 ppm 0.167 0.150 0.138 0.151 0.174 0.152 0.140 0.155 ga 3 60 ppm 0.170 0.156 0.142 0.156 0.174 0.159 0.148 0.160 bavistin 0.1% 0.152 0.140 0.124 0.138 0.157 0.146 0.132 0.145 control (untreated) 0.140 0.132 0.120 0.130 0.150 0.138 0.118 0.135 mean 0.157 0.144 0.131 0.162 0.148 0.135 cd (p=0.05) base value = 0.173 base = 0.176 treatments (a) = 0.0034 0.0032 storage days (b) = 0.0018 0.0017 interaction (a x b) = ns ns jawandha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 48-52, 2008 51 as pectin and hemicellulose to be converted into reducing substances during prolonged storage. at the end of the storage, maximum total sugars content were recorded in ga 3 (60 ppm) and cacl 2 (2.0%) treated fruits, whereas untreated fruits registered minimum total sugars content (table 5). it might be due to low respiration rate and delayed senescence in ga 3 and cacl 2 (2.0%) treated fruits. gupta et al (1984) stated that calcium compounds significantly thickened middle lamella of the fruit cells owing to increased deposition of calcium pectate, thereby maintaining the cell wall and cell wall material. table 4. effect of post-harvest treatment on vitamin c content in ber fruits during cold storage treatment vitamin c (mg/100 g fruit flesh) 2002 2003 days after storage mean days after storage mean 10 20 30 10 20 30 cacl2 0.5% 82.76 62.80 53.68 66.41 83.25 63.45 55.03 67.24 cacl2 1.0% 84.32 67.08 57.63 69.67 87.20 67.12 57.83 70.72 cacl2 2.0% 90.87 71.42 60.88 74.39 92.86 71.79 63.92 76.19 ca(no 3 ) 2 0.5% 82.80 60.40 52.29 65.16 82.40 60.93 54.49 65.94 ca(no 3 ) 2 1.0% 85.98 63.84 55.62 68.48 84.80 66.41 56.34 69.18 ca(no 3 ) 2 2.0% 86.72 65.27 58.26 70.08 88.32 67.44 59.74 71.83 ga 3 20 ppm 88.44 67.35 56.82 70.87 90.40 68.36 57.62 72.13 ga 3 40 ppm 91.59 70.23 59.83 73.88 93.82 72.62 62.03 76.16 ga 3 60 ppm 95.10 73.48 62.39 76.99 96.56 79.46 64.48 80.16 bavistin 0.1% 80.82 61.13 55.10 65.68 82.34 62.10 52.80 65.75 control (untreated) 77.73 56.02 50.69 61.48 79.20 57.26 49.87 62.11 mean 86.10 65.36 56.65 87.38 66.99 57.65 cd (p=0.05) base value = 96.79 base value = 98.93 treatments (a) = 1.224 1.018 storage days (b) = 0.639 0.532 interaction (a x b) = 2.121 1.764 table 5. effect of post-harvest treatment on total sugars in ber fruits during cold storage treatment total sugars (%) 2002 2003 days after storage mean days after storage mean 10 20 30 10 20 30 cacl2 0.5% 10.08 10.38 9.00 9.82 10.01 10.30 9.02 9.78 cacl2 1.0% 9.92 10.27 9.02 9.74 9.89 10.26 9.10 9.75 cacl2 2.0% 9.84 10.00 9.22 9.69 9.70 10.07 9.29 9.68 ca(no 3 ) 2 0.5% 10.16 10.67 8.80 9.87 10.10 10.35 8.93 9.79 ca(no 3 ) 2 1.0% 10.10 10.37 8.92 9.80 10.10 10.26 9.02 9.79 ca(no 3 ) 2 2.0% 9.90 10.17 9.09 9.72 9.90 10.17 9.16 9.74 ga 3 20 ppm 9.90 10.38 9.02 9.76 9.92 10.28 9.10 9.76 ga 3 40 ppm 9.82 10.10 9.18 9.70 9.77 10.10 9.20 9.69 ga 3 60 ppm 9.78 9.90 9.30 9.66 9.68 9.92 9.40 9.66 bavistin 0.1% 10.10 10.65 8.82 9.86 10.14 10.37 8.90 9.80 control (untreated) 10.69 10.15 8.73 9.86 10.60 9.90 8.84 9.78 mean 10.02 10.27 9.01 9.98 10.18 9.08 cd (p=0.05) base value= 9.71 base value = 9.60 treatments (a) = 0.061 0.059 storage days (b) = 0.092 0.072 interaction (a x b) = 0.030 0.040 references a.o.a.c. 1980. official methods of analysis of analytical chemists. association of the official analytical chemists, washington, d.c. bal, j. s. singh, p. and singh, r. 1978. preliminary observations on the storage behaviour of ber at room and refrigerated temperature. j. res. punjab agri. univ., ludhiana 25: 396-99. chahal, s. and bal, j. s. 2003. effect of post-harvest treatments and packaging on shelf-life of ‘umran’ ber at cool temperature. j. res. punjab. agri. univ., 40 : 363-370. post-harvest storage quality in ber j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 48-52, 2008 52 dhanraj, s., ananihakrishna, s. m. and govindrajan, v. s. 1980. apple quality: development of descriptive quality profile for objective sensory evaluation. j. food qual. 4 : 83-100. faust, m. and shear, c. b. 1972. the effect of calcium on respiration of apples. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 97 : 437-439. gupta, o. p. jindal, p. c and singh, b. p. 1980. effect of pre-harvest spray of calcium nitrate on the storage behaviour of grapes cv. perlette. j. res. haryana agri. univ., 10: 204-206. gupta, o. p. singh, b. p. singh, s. p. and chauhan, k. s. 1984. effect of calcium compounds as pre-harvest spray on the shelf life of peach cv. sharbati. punjab hort. j., 24 : 105-110. haggag, m. n. 1987. effects of pre-harvest and post-harvest calcium treatments on storage behaviour of leconte pears. alexandra j. agri. res., 32 : 175-188. huang, c. c. 1974. maintaining freshness of pineapple fruits for export. taiwan agril. quarterly, 10: 103-11. jayachandran, k. s., srihari, d. and reddy, y. n. 2005. pre-harvest sprays of different sources of calcium to improve the shelf-life of guava. ind. j. hortl. sci., 62: 68-70. jawanda, j. s., bal, j. s., josan, j. s. and mann, s. s. 1980. studies on storage of ber fruit ii. cool temperature. punjab hort. j., 20 : 56-61. mapson, l.w. 1970. vitamins in fruits: stability of l(ms received 3 september 2007, revised 19 april 2008) ascorbic acid. in: biochemistry of fruits and their products. vol. i (ed., a.c. hulme). academic press, london 376-377. pool, k. m. weaver, r. j. and kliewer, k. m. 1972. the effect of growth regulators on changes in fruits of thompson seedless during cold storage. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 97: 67-70. rasese, j. t. 1986. nitrogen and calcium important in determining yield, fruit quality and disorders of ‘anjou’ pears. in. proc. pac. northwest tree fruit short course. pp. 155-168. salunkhe, d. k. and kadam, s. s. 1995. handbook of fruit science and technology pp 387. marcel dekker inc., new york. sandbhor, d. r. and desai, u. t. 1991. influence of post harvest treatment on the shelf life of ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) cv. umran. mah. j. hort., 5: 2428. stahl, a. c. and camp, a. f. 1971. citrus fruits. in the biochemistry of fruits and their products (ed., hulme a c). 2: 107-169. tarkase, e. g. and desai, u. t. 1989. effects of packaging and chemicals on storage of orange cv. mosambi, j. mah. agri. univ., 14: 10-13. wills, r. b. h. babmbridge, p. a. and scott, k. j. 1980. use of flesh firmness and their objectives tests to determine the consumer acceptability of delicious apple. aust. j. agri. anim. husb., 20: 252-256. j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 48-52, 2008 jawandha et al 43 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 43-47, 2019 original research paper sweet cherry cultivars influencing the growth and productivity under hdp k.k. srivastava*, dinesh kumar and p. barman icar-central institute foe temperate horticulture, old air field, srinagar, j&k 190 007. *e-mail: kanchanpom@gmail.com abstract in a field experiment, to identify the best sweet cherry varieties for high density orcharding, maximum canopy volume (18.94 cm3) was recorded in variety ‘steela’ and minimum in ‘lambert’ while, ‘bigarreau napoleon’ had maximum tcsa (213 cm2). trees grown under hdp have lower tcsa in comparison to normal density. primary and secondary branch girth were maximum in ‘bigarreau napoleon’ whereas, annual extension growth and shoot thickness were high in ‘steela’. yield, yield efficiency and cumulative yield efficiency were registered maximum in ‘bigarreau napoleon’ and ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ cultivars. largest fruit weight, fruit length and fruit diameter were found maximum (10.16 g/fruit), (25.51 mm) (25.20 mm) respectively in ‘bigarreau napoleon’. total soluble solids were found maximum in ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ (17.30 0brix) among the studied cultivars. correlation matrix showed that tcsa had positive correlation with canopy volume, primary branch girth and secondary branch girth and fruit weight showed positive correlation with fruit length and fruit diameter. key words: sweet cherry, prunus avium, high density planting, tcsa, quality attributes, yield efficiency introduction sweet cherry (prunus avium l.) an important stone fruit growing world-wide in temperate zone. fruits are harvested in may-june, when no fresh fruits are available in the market, so it is sold at premium price. sweet cherry fruits are consumed fresh as well as for processing purpose. the fruit has high medicinal properties and offers a good source of antioxidants. total world’s sweet cherry production was 2.25 mt out of it turkey produced almost 20% of the world sweet cherry, whereas, highest sour cherry produced by russia (1.98 mt), other important sweet cherry pr oducer s ar e usa, ir a n, spa in, ita ly, chile, romania, uzbekistan, russia, greece (anonymous, 2014). india produces 2.92 t ha-1 sweet cherry, which is far below than world average. jammu and kashmir is leading sweet cherry producer in india, accounting 2835 hectare area and 8282 mt production (20162017) (anonymous, 2016). it is mainly grown in srinagar, ganderbal and shopian, and sizeable area in baramulla, budgam, anantnag in jammu and kashmir.. cherry fruits are mainly used for table purpose and only 10% produce are used for processing purpose. sour cherry fruits are smaller in size and bears 1-2 fruit per spur with acidic in taste. it is abundantly found at higher altitudes of jammu and kashmir, himachal pradesh and uttarakhand. the fruits are used for processing purpose and seeds for raising rootstock. the rootstock raised from the sour cherry have deep well developed tap root system, suitable for establishing orchard at adverse soil conditions where, clonal rootstocks won’t do well. most of the sweet cherry orchards in india have been raised on seedling r ootstock of sour cher r y (prunus pseudocerasus), hence, they are heterozygous in nature. with the introduction of clonal rootstocks, most of the new plantations are coming up on high density system. rootstock has impact on growth, yield and quality attributes of the tree and hence, selecting a suitable rootstock is imperative for success of orchard. dwarf trees have a greater proportion of well illuminated ca nopy, low spr a y solution a nd higher la bor efficiency. rootstock influenced the tree growth (cantin et al., 2010; blazkova and hlusickova, 2007), yield performance (moreno et al., 2001), fruit quality (whiting et al., 2005, usenik et al., 2010, lanauskas 44 srivastava et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 43-47, 2019 et al., 2012). sansavini et al., (2001), reported, when ‘burlat 1’, ‘durone compatta di vignola’, ‘lapins’ and ‘van’ grafted on 20 clonal rootstock and planted in hdp system, bearing starts 4-5 years after planting and tree attained full bearing (10 kg tree-1 ) after 7-8 years. the short statured trees are prone to frost damage. semi dwarf rootstock gave best result rather dwarfing rootstock in apple. apple cultivars ‘golden reinders’, ‘jonagored’, ‘staymared’, ‘braeburn’ and ‘fuji’ on m.9 rootstocks planted under hdp, orchard under hdp began early cropping, than low density (guglielmo et al. , 1997 and similar view wa s expressed by wertheim et al (2001), that high density allows greater early productivity and earlier return on capital investment. high early productivity in hdp is partly based on the fact that, greater leaf area per unit land area r eceived gr ea ter light inter ception of photo synthetically active radiation (par), compared to lower density (jackson, 1989). tree height and canopy shape also influenced the light interaction and light penetration within the canopy. the present experiment was carried out with an aim to identify the best sweet cher r y cultiva r s for intensive orcharding. materials and methods present experiment was carried out on 6-7 years old sweet cherry orchard at icar-central institute of temperate horticulture, srinagar, j&k, during 2011 to 2013. the orchard was established in early spring 2003-04 on sour cherry (prunus reases) rootstock. well feathered grafted plants of ‘van’, ‘lambert’ ‘steela’, ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ and ‘bigarrean napoleon’ were planted at 3 x 3m (1111 trees ha-1 ) at north-south row orientation, trained on modified central leader. dormant pruning was carried out in february-march regularly for making balance in tree growth and flowering. trunk girth was recorded 20 cm above union and primary and secondary branch girth, annual shoot thickness, annual shoot extension growth were recorded at cessation of tree growth by digital vernier caliper of 0-6 inch capacity. for recording total yields (t ha-2), individual tree was ha r vest a nd weighted the yield on tr ee ba sis calculated. yield efficiency and cumulative yield efficiency were determined as per the methods descr ibed by fior a va nço et al. (2016). yield efficiency (ye) = average yield per tree (kg)/ average t csa (a rea of tr unk cr oss section (cm2) a nd cumulative yield efficiency (©ye) = sum of annual yield, area of trunk cross section (average of 3 years). trunk cross sectional area was calculated by using standard formulae, tcsa=girth2/4π (westwood 1970). canopy volume (v) was determined from individual measurements of tree height (h) and width in parallel (dl) and perpendicular (dr) directions to the tree row, assuming that the tree shape was one half prolate spheroid, using the formulae: v = (pi/6) × h × dl × dr (zekri, 2000). other routine cultural practices were performed uniformly in all the trees. fruits were harvested at proper maturity and twenty fruits were taken randomly for recording the fruit length (mm) and fruit breadth (mm) using digital vernier caliper. weight of the fruit (g) was recorded as mean of 20 fruits using digital electronic balance. total soluble solids contents (0brix) were assessed with hand refractometer at 200 c. experiment were la id out in r a ndomized block design with 4 replications and each replication comprised 2 trees. data recorded were subjected to statistical analysis using o p stat software for drawing the conclusion. results and discussion significant variations were observed on the canopy volume, maximum volume ( 18.94 m3 ) was recorded in ‘steela ’ which wa s sta tistica lly on pa r to ‘bigarreau, noir grossa’ and ‘bigarreu napolean’, minimum volume (5.39 m3 ) noted in lambert. as expected high tcsa (0.213 cm2) were recorded in ‘bigarreau napoleon’ and ‘steela’ (0.213 cm2), whereas, minimum tcsa (0.086 cm2) in lambert. variations in tree canopy volume and tcsa with respect to cultivars may be due to difference in genetic constituents of the cultivars. higher the planting density lower the trunk cross sectional area (t csa), as the tr ee density incr ea ses, t csa decreases because of the competition among the closely pla nted tr ees (musacchi et al. , 2015). melosevic et al., (2014) reported similar variation with respect to tcsa in different sweet cherry cultivars on semi dwarf and vigorous root stocks. primary and secondary branch girth were found maximum in ‘bigarreau napoleon’ (49.61 and 33.14), which was on par to ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ and ‘steela’, and it was minimum (27.43 cm) and (15.44 cm) in lambert (table 1). aeg, tree canopy and annual shoot 45 sweet cherry performance under hdp thickness (ast) have direct effect on tree canopy growth. aeg and ast were found maximum in ‘steela’. 79.17 cm and 8.47 cm and minimum 35.08 and 4.08 cm respectively found in ‘van’. overall results showed that the cultivars which are vigorous in nature have higher aeg and ast. tree growth parameters variety canopy primary secondary annual volume (m3) tcsa (m2) branch girth branch girth aeg (cm) shoot (cm) (cm) thickness (cm) van 7.41±0.23 0.103±0.003 39.52±1.12 19.79±0.44 35.08±0.78 4.08±0.12 lambert 5.39±0.31 0.086±0.002 27.43±0.88 15.44±0.90 52.11±0.61 6.32±0.27 steela 18.94±5.36* 0.208±0.003 48.40±1.71* 55.68±20.25 79.17±1.32* 8.47±0.17* bigarreau noir grossa 13.43±0.86 * 0.164±0.003 45.73±0.59 27.06±0.57 68.30±3.80 7.65±0.24 bigarreau napoleon 12.84±0.20 * 0.213±0.003* 49.61±0.80* 33.14±0.33 46.44±1.11 6.01±0.17 sem ± 2.43 0.006 1.25 1.84 0.23 lsd (p= 0.05) 7.30 0.002 3.66 ns 5.47 0.69 table 1. tree growth parameters of sweet cherry varieties under hdp (3 years pooled data) it is obvious from table 2 that maximum yield (10.83 t ha-1) was recorded in ‘bigarreau napoleon’ followed by ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ (7.18 t ha-1), which was statistically on par to ‘steela’ and minimum yield (4.42 t ha-1) was registered in lambert. this indicated that ‘bigarreau napoleon’, ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ and ‘steela’ are most suitable cultivars for growing under hdp so for as yield attributes are concerned. the responses to yield efficiency and cumulative yield per tree was significantly affected by cultivars (table 2) being highest in ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ (43.27 kg cm-2 tcsa) which was statistically on par to ‘bigarreau napoleon’ and ‘van’. the cumulative yield efficiency, more or less followed the pattern of yield efficiency over the years. ‘bigarreau noir gr ossa ’ exhibited highest (129. 80 kg cm-2) cumulative yield efficiency which was on par to ‘biga rreau napoleon’ and ‘van’, ‘steela ’ a nd ‘lambert’ showed minimum ye and cumulative yield efficiency (table 3). quality parameters showed significant variations, maximum fruit weight (10.16 g/fruit), fruit length (25.51 mm) and fruit diameter (25.20mm) were noticed in ‘bigarreau napoleon’, while as total soluble solids were found maximum in ‘bigarreau noir grossa’. correlation matrix showed that tcsa had positive correlation with canopy volume, primary branch girth and secondary branch girth. aeg a lso exhibited significant positive corr elation with ast a nd fr uit weight showed positive cor relation with fruit length and fruit diameter. fruit weight has negative correlation with tss as fruit weight increase tss decreases (table 4). these results are in consonance with the findings of szot and meland (2001) and kappel et al. (1996). similarly manolova and kolev (2013) observed that high density of sweet cherry he observed that hdp exhibited greater precocity, high annual yield per unit area along with faster financial returns. similar results were reported in some previous studies by radunic et al., 2011, aglar et al., 2016; in contrary srivastava et al. (2017 ) noticed low ye in hdp apple having 1600 trees ha-1 and high ye in 952 trees ha-1. it can be concluded that steela exhibited maximum canopy volume, annual extension growth and annual shoot thickness over the yea rs; however, yield efficiency, cumulative yield efficiency and tss were found maximum in ‘bigarreau noir grossa’. larrgest fr uits were pr oduced by ‘bigar rea u napoleon’ cultivar. the ‘steela’, ‘van’, ‘bigarreau noir grossa’ and ‘bigarreau napoleon’ can be selected for high density planting on the basis of tree growth, yield and quality attributes. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 43-47, 2019 46 variety yield (t/ ha) ye (kg/cm2) ©ye (kg/cm2) van 5.39±0.11 43.08±1.88* 129.23±5.63* lambert 4.42±0.16 31.93±1.28 95.78±3.85 steela 7.05±0.39 31.27±2.30 93.80±6.91 bigarreau noir grossa 7.18±0.23 43.27±2.15* 129.80±6.45* bigarreau napoleon 10.83±0.45* 43.13±1.57* 129.38±4.73* sem ± 0.31 2.03 6.10 lsd (p= 0.05) 0.93 6.04 18.13 note: value represents mean ± s.em; * indicates significant difference at lsd (p d” 0.05) table 2. yield attributes of sweet cherry varieties under hdp (3 years pooled data) factor canopy tcsa pbg sbg aeg ast yield fruit fruit fruit t.s.s volume (cm2) (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) (t/ ha) length diameter weight (0 brix) (m3) (mm) (mm) (g) canopy volume (m3) 1.00 tcsa(cm2) 0.90* 1.00 pbg (cm) 0.84 0.91* 1.00 sbg (cm) 0.95* 0.83 0.72 1.00 aeg (cm) 0.78 0.52 0.36 0.72 1.00 ast (cm) 0.75 0.57 0.36 0.69 0.98* 1.00 yield (t/ ha) 0.54 0.85 0.81 0.43 0.06 0.17 1.00 fruit length (mm) -0.14 0.32 0.20 -0.13 -0.49 -0.33 0.72 1.00 fruit breadth (mm) -0.12 0.33 0.22 -0.10 -0.49 -0.34 0.73 1.00* 1.00 fruit weight (g) 0.08 0.50 0.31 0.08 -0.24 -0.06 0.81 0.96* 0.96* 1.00 t.s.s (0 brix) 0.31 0.14 0.47 0.07 0.21 0.11 0.05 -0.46 -0.47 -0.48 1.00 note: * and ns indicate significant and non-significant difference at lsd (p d” 0.05) table 3. pearson’s correlation matrix for tree growth and yield attributes variety fruit length fruit diameter fruit wt. t.s.s (mm) (mm) (g) (° brix) van 21.99±0.26 21.49±0.33 5.00±0.07 15.11±0.28 lambert 22.50±0.08 21.89±0.14 6.44±0.20 11.11±0.44 steela 21.25±0.28 20.75±0.32 5.70±0.15 13.73±0.50 bigarreau noir grossa 21.54±0.06 20.80±0.10 5.50±0.19 17.30±0.13* bigarreau napoleon 25.51±0.14* 25.20±0.08* 10.16±0.46* 12.68±0.36 sem ± 0.21 0.25 0.23 0.35 lsd (p= 0.05) 0.65 0.75 0.69 1.03 table 4. fruit quality attributes of sweet cherry varieties under hdp (3 years pooled data) srivastava et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 43-47, 2019 47 aglar e, yildiz k and long l e. 2016. the effect of root stocks and training system on the early performance of ‘0900 ziraat’ sweet cherry. notulae botanicae horti agrobotanici clujnapoca. 44 (2):573-578. anonymous. 2016-17. district wise estimated area production of ma jor hor ticultura l cr ops. department of horticulture, j&k, srinagar india. pp 1-2. anonymous. 2014. faostat, stastics division r etr ieved 12 th sep 2017 fr om htt p// www.fao.org. blazkova, j., and hlusickova, i., 2007. results of an orchard trial with new clonal sweet cherry rootstocks established at holovousny and evaluated in the stage of full cropping. hortic. sci., 2:54-64 cantin celia, j.p., pinochet j., gogorcena y., moreno, m. a. 2010. growth, yield and fruit quality of van and star k hardy giant sweet cherry cultivars as influenced by grafting on different root stocks. scientia hort., 123: 329-335. fioravanço j c , czermainski a. b. c. and de oliveira p. r .d. 2016. yield efficiency for nine apple cultivars grafted on two rootstocks. ciência rural, 46(10): 1701-1706. guglielmo costa, emilio, beltrame, zerbinipaola eccher and pianezzola, alberto. 1997. high pla nted a pple or cha r d effect on yield performance and fruit quality. acta hort. 451:505-508. kappel k., fisher-fleming, b, hoghe e. 1996. fruit characteristics and sensory attributes of an ideal sweet cherry. hort sci. 31:443-446. lanauskas j., uselis n., kviklys, d., kvikliene n. and buskiene l. 2012. rootstock effect on the performance of sweet cherry cv. lapins. hort. sci., 39:55-60 manolova v and kolev k, 2013. economics results from growing cherry in differ ent level of intensification. acta hort. 981:719-723. milosevic tomo, milosevic nebojsa, milivojevic jelena, glisic ivan and nikolic radmila. 2014. experience with mazzard and colt sweet cherry rootstocks in serbia which are used for high density planting system under heavy and acidic conditions. sci. hort.. 176: 261-270. moreno, m.a., adrada, r., aparicio, j., betran, j.a. 2001. performance of sunburst cherry grafted on differ ent r ootstocks. j. hortic. sci. biotechnol., 76:167-173. jackson, j.e. 1989. world-wide development of high density planting in research and practice. acta hort. 243: 17-28 musacchi s, gagliardi f, serra s. 2015. new training systems for high density planting of sweet cherry. horticultural sci.. 50: 59-67. radunic m, jazbec a, pecina m, cosic t and pavicic n. 2011. growth and yield of the sweet cherry (prunus avium l) as affected by training system. african j. bot. 10 (24): 49014906. sansavini s, luglis, grandi m, gaddoni m,correale r(2001). impianto ad altadensita di ciliegi llevati a v: confronto fra portinesti nanizzanti. rivista di frutticoltura n.3:63-73. srivastava k.k., singh d.b., kumar dinesh, singh s r, sharma o c and lal s. 2017. effect of planting densities and varieties on yield and yield associated characters of apple (malus domestica) on semi-dwarfing rootstock. indian j. agri. sci. 87(5):593-6. szot i and meland m.2001 . influence of root stock on size distribution and fruit quality of sweet cherry cultivars. int. agrophysics. 15: 207214. wertheim, s. j., wagenmaker, p. s., bootsma, j. h., groot, m. j. 2001. orchard system for apple and pear: condition for success. acta hort., 557: 209-227 westwood m n a nd rober ts a n. 1970. t he relationship between trunk cross sectional area and weight of apple tree. j. amer. soc. hort. sci. 95:28-30. whiting md, la ng g. a nd ophar dt, d. 2005. rootstock and training system affect sweet cherry growth, yield and fruit quality. hort sci., 40 (3): 582-586 zekri m. 2000. citrus rootstocks affect scion nutrition, fr uit quality, growth, yield and economical return. fruits, 55: 231–239. references (ms received 16 march 2019, revised 15 may 2019, accepted 20 june 2019) sweet cherry performance under hdp j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 43-47, 2019 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 dry storage of flowers in water-retentive plastic sleeves has been considered useful for long term storage (goszczynska and rudnicki, 1988; singh et al, 2001a). during dry storage, metabolic activity of the stem remains low which subsequently results in a long vase life in storage (gosczcynska and rudnicki, 1988). among various polymeric film sleeves evaluated for dry storage of gladiolus spikes, polypropylene (pp) sleeve (25 µ thick) was found to be the most suitable, as it retained optimally high co 2 and low o 2 levels inside the package (grover et al, 2006). singh et al (2000) earlier reported aluminium sulphate solution to effectively suppress sucrose-induced bacterial growth in vase water of the gladiolus spikes. studies have also revealed that sucrose promotes opening of immature florets of gladiolus (nowak and rudnicki, 1990; singh et al, 2001b). due to lack of organized marketing system for flowers in our country, there is a need to develop efficient storage systems to overcome glut, especially, in periods of over production and lean demand. studies were, therefore, made on the effect of pre-storage pulsing of gladiolus spikes with ga 3, in combination with sucrose and aluminium sulphate, on keeping quality. spikes of gladiolus cv. white prosperity (90 cm long) were harvested at the tight bud stage, i.e., when the colour was visible in the basal 1-2 florets, and were pulse-treated with 20% sucrose + aluminium sulphate [al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o] @ 400mg/l + gibberellic acid (ga 3 ) @100 mg/l (t1) and 20% sucrose + al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o @ 400mg/l (t2) for 24h effect of pre-storage ga 3 pulsing on keeping quality of gladiolus spikes kushal singh, ranjit singh and ramesh kumar department of floriculture and landscaping punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141004, india e-mail: kushal_flori@rediffmail.com abstract pre-storage pulsing of gladiolus spikes with a solution containing 20% sucrose and 400 mg/l aluminium sulphate [al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o] significantly improved vase life, floret size and per cent opening of florets. the effect was significantly enhanced with addition of ga 3 @ 100 mg/l. spikes pulse-treated with ga 3 could be stored for 14 days with an acceptable vase life of 5.44 days. these spikes also exhibited 49.65 per cent opening of florets even at 21 days from onset of storage. on the other hand, spikes pulse-treated with a solution containing 20% sucrose and aluminium sulphate [al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o] @ 400 mg/l or water (control) showed no opening of florets after 21 days of storage. key words: pulsing, gladiolus, spikes, vase life at 23±2oc, 60-70% rh and 16h illumination of 1000lux intensity, provided by 40w white, fluorescent tubes. control spikes were similarly treated with water (t3). the spikes were then grouped into bundles of 3 each, loosely tied at the base with a rubber band and inserted into polypropylene (pp) sleeves of 25µ thickness. the sleeves were sealed hermetically with an electrical sealing machine and stored vertically under refrigerated conditions in a cold store (3.54oc, 85-90% rh) for 7, 14 and 21 days. after storage, 2cm basal ends of the spikes were recut under water to remove surface blockages and the keeping quality was evaluated in an air-conditioned laboratory at 23±2oc, 60-70% rh and 1000lux light intensity (cycle of 16h light and 8h dark). observations were recorded for vase life, floret size (size of second floret from the base) and per cent opening of florets in the vase. vase life of the spikes was evaluated from the day one basal floret was open till there were five open florets left on the spike. spikes which exhibited opening of less than five florets with wilting of the basal floret, were taken as an index for termination of vase life. the data presented are a mean of three replications each representing, three spikes. data presented in table 1 show that vase life was maximum in spikes treated with 20% sucrose + al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o @ 400mg/l + gibberellic acid @ 100mg/l (6.14 days), followed by pulsing with 20% sucrose + al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o @ 400mg/l (4.59 days), and, was minimum (3.33 days) in control. vase life decreased with increase in short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):69-70, 2011 70 duration of storage (table 1). decrease in vase life following storage was reported earlier in freesia refracta (zencirkiran, 2002) and gladiolus (singh et al, 2003; grover et al, 2006). floret size also decreased with increase in storage duration (table 1) but was maximum (9.25cm) in spikes pulse-treated with 20% sucrose + 400 mg/l al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o, + ga 3, and was minimum in control (6.70cm). per cent opening of florets was maximum in freshly-harvested control spikes (60.81) and continued to decrease with increase in storage duration, and was 53.88, 45.03 and 16.55% after 7, 14 and 21 days of storage, respectively (table 2). among the three treatments imposed, spikes pulse-treated with a solution containing sucrose + al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o+ga 3 showed maximum opening of florets (61.03%), followed by those treated with 20% sucrose + al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o (42.63 per cent). per cent opening of florets was, however, minimum in non-pulsed control flowers. in the present study, ga 3 was seen to synergize the effect of sucrose + al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o. the present study also shows that spikes pulse-treated with a combination of sucrose, al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o and ga 3 could be stored for upto 14 days, with an acceptable vase life of 5.44 days. even after 21 days of storage, pulse-treated spikes showed 49.65 per cent opening of florets. on the other hand, florets in t2 and t3 failed to open after 21 days of storage. references goszczynska, d.m. and rudnicki, r.m. 1988. storage of cut flowers. hort. rev., 10:3562 grover, j.s., gupta, a.k., singh, k., kumar, a. and singh, p. 2006. studies on passive modified atmosphere storage of gladiolus spikes. adv. hort. sci., 20:175180 nowak, j. and rudinicki, r.m. 1990. post harvest handling and storage of cut flowers, florist greens and potted plants. chapman and hall, london. pp. 209 singh, k., arora, j. s. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 2001a. postharvest management of cut flowers. tech. bull. no. 10, all india coordinated research project on floriculture, iari., new delhi, pp. 39 singh, k., singh, p. j and arora, j. s. 2003. studies on dry refrigerated storage of gladiolus spikes. j. orn. hort., new series, 6:107-09 singh, k., singh, p.j., arora, j.s. and mann, r.p.s. 2000. studies on postharvest management of gladiolus. j. orn. hort., new series, 3:107-110 singh, k. singh, p.j., arora, j.s. and mann, r.p.s. 2001b. effect of vase solutions on keeping quality of different grades of gladiolus j. orn. hort., new series, 17: 23-25 zencirkiran, m. 2002. cold storage of freesia refracta ‘cordula’. new zealand j. crop and hort. sci., 30:171-174 (ms received 07 september 2009, revised 15 april 2011) table 1. effect of pre-storage pulsing treatments with sucrose, al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o and ga 3 on vase life and floret size in gladiolus cv. white prosperity duration storage vase life (days) floret size (cm) of (days) t1 t2 t3 mean t1 t2 t3 mean 07 6.67 6.22 5.33 6.07 10.32 9.96 9.42 9.90 14 5.44 4.56 2.89 4.30 8.73 7.93 7.37 8.01 21 3.56 0.00 0.00 1.19 7.45 2.48 control(0 day) 8.89 7.56 5.11 7.19 10.51 10.17 10.01 10.23 mean 6.14 4.59 3.33 9.25 7.02 6.70 cd (p=0.05) treatment 0.41 treatment 0.20 storage duration 0.47 storage duration 0.24 interaction 0.82 interaction 0.41 table 2. effect of pre-storage pulsing treatment with sucrose, al 2 (so 4 ) 3 .16h 2 o and ga 3 on per cent opening of florets in gladiolus cv. white prosperity duration floret opening (%) storage of (days ) t1 t2 t3 mean 07 63.61(52.88) 54.78(47.73) 43.25(41.07) 53.88(47.23) 14 57.45(49.29) 54.37(47.50) 23.27(28.72) 45.03(41.84) 21 49.65(44.78) 0.00(0.00) 0.00(0.00) 16.55(14.93) control 73.41(58.94) 61.38(51.60) 47.64(43.62) 60.81(51.39) (0 day) mean 61.03(51.47) 42.63(36.71) 28.54(28.35) cd (p=0.05) treatment 2.13, storage duration 2.46, interaction 4.26 * figures in parentheses are transformed values singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):69-70, 2011 page 116 synergistic use of hypocotyl explants and high bap preconditioning for enhanced transformation frequency in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) vageeshbabu s. hanur, d. p. prakash, b. s. deepali, r. asokan, y. l. ramachandra1 riaz mahmood1 and lalitha anand division of biotechnology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: vageesh@iihr.ernet.in abstract poor regeneration is one of the limiting factors in the development of transgenic crops since agrobacterium as a plant pathogen can disturb the fragile in vitro conditions with wounding and infection regimes. we have tried to optimize the transformation system in two important varieties of brinjal after agrobacterium infection to the explants. the effect of explant was studied and hypocotyls were found to be better than cotyledonary leaves. high bap during the preconditioning period was found to further enhance the regeneration rate. therefore, use of hypocotyls and high bap during preconditioning can improve the regeneration of transformed cells and recovery of transformants in vegetables especially brinjal. key words: solanum melongena, transformation, hypocotyl, bap, preconditioning. introduction brinjal (eggplant, solanum melongena l.) is one of the most important vegetable crops in india and southeast asia. crop improvement through breeding has substantially addressed many problems associated with yield and quality in brinjal. the most important factor that is responsible for severe reduction in yield and marketable quality of the crop which needs to be addressed is the damage caused by the brinjal shoot and fruit borer (leucinodes orbonalis guenee) (pyralidae: lepidoptera). no source of stable genetic resistance is available in brinjal germplasm and this has necessitated the use of bt transgenic technology (kumar et al, 1998). successful development of transgenics in brinjal depends on the availability of standardized in vitro regeneration and agrobacterium mediated genetic transformation systems (collonnier et al, 2001; rotino and gleddie, 1990; kumar and rajam, 2005). the success of agrobacterium mediated genetic transformation of plants generally depends on several plant, bacterial and in vitro factors such as genotype, explant type, physiological state and age of donor plant, agrobacterium virulence, conditions for inoculation of the tissue with agrobacterium, growth of agrobacterium with respect to the transformed plant cells and plant tissue necrosis caused by agrobacterium (sharma and rajam, 1995; lin et al, 1994). a major problem with any transgenic development is the severe reduction in the transformation frequencies even after optimizing the regeneration conditions. this is because agrobacterium is basically a plant pathogen and upon wounding and cocultivation with the explant, the bacterium may elicit defense responses. agrobacteriuminduced responses may be similar to abiotic responses, nonpathogenic bacteria and/or unique to agrobacterium only (robinette and matthysse, 1990; ditt et al, 2001; hanur, 2004). recent studies have unraveled the roles of some of the host factors in agrobacterium-host plant interactions (ditt et al, 2001; gelvin, 2000). deliberate infection and cocultivation of the explant with virulent agrobacterium during routine transformation experiments thus affects the established redifferentiation and morphogenetic pathways in the cultured tissues, causing break down of the in vitro conditions standardized before transformation. one efficient way of increasing the regeneration of transformed cells is to optimize the regeneration protocol during and after agrobacterium challenge and under selection pressure. this method not only takes into consideration routine requirements of optimum regeneration conditions but also helps in identifying factors that can be used to regenerate transformed cells vis-à-vis untransformed j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 116-119, 2006 1 department of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta, shimoga, india page 117 cells in the cultured tissue. moreover, unlike in the case of routine regeneration protocols where non-transgenic regenerants are generated, using this protocol, the regenerants are (mostly) transformants that are useful. we report here a simple way of increasing frequency of transformed regenerants by manipulation of two parameters, choice of explant type and preconditioning with higher levels of the cytokinin hormone, 6-benzylaminopurine (bap) in two popular varieties of brinjal, arka keshav (purple long type)and manjarigota (synonym manjarikota) (striped round type). material and methods seeds of brinjal cvs. arka keshav and manjarigota were surface sterilized using 70% ethanol for 45-60 sec followed by two washes with sterile distilled water and treatment with sodium hypochlorite (approximately 4% available chlorine) for 5 min. the seeds were germinated aseptically on 0.5x murashige skoog (ms) (murashige and skoog, 1962) basal medium containing 3% sucrose and 0.8% agar. cotyledonary leaf explants and single hypocotyl explants excised from 7-10 day old seedlings were used as explants. for regeneration experiments, the ms medium was supplemented with different levels of bap and anaphthalene acetic acid (naa) (shoot induction medium, sim). in the experiment involving hypocotyl explants, the sim treatments included 1, 2 or 3 mm bap and 0.05 or 0.1 mm naa while for cotyledonary leaf explants, the sim included 10 or 12.5 mm bap and 1, 3 or 5 mm naa. for the experiment involving different levels of bap, the level of naa was kept constant at 0.05 mm. the ph of the medium was adjusted to 5.7-5.8 prior to autoclaving at 121°c for 20 min. aseptic seed germination and culture incubation were carried out at 26±1°c under 16 h photoperiod. a minimum of 8-10 explants was inoculated onto the 100 mm sterile glass petri plates containing respective media. for preconditioning, the explants were maintained on the sim for 2 days. for high bap preconditioning experiment, the cultures were placed on the sim with different (0, 2, 10, 20, 30 and 40 mm) bap levels (and 0.05 mm naa) for 2 days and later shifted to the sim with 2 mm bap and 0.05 mm naa during cocultivation and subculture. for the experiment involving explant selection, the total numbers of explants were 658 for cotyledonary leaves and 1061 for hypocotyls (three replications) and for the experiment involving challenging hypocotyls with agrobacterium, the total number of explants was 879 (three replications), using both varieties. for the experiment involving varying levels of bap in arka keshav, the total number of explants was 470 (four replications). after every 8-10 days, subculturing was done onto fresh sim or shoot elongation medium (sem, ms medium supplemented with only 2 mm bap). kanamycin (kancinò, 100 mg l-1) was used for selection in the medium after cocultivation and during subsequent subcultures of the explants. cefotaxime (taximò, 500 mg.l-1 for the first subculture and 250 mg l-1 for subsequent cultures) was used in the medium to arrest agrobacterium growth. a. tumefaciens a208 host cells containing pbinbt modified binary vector (kumar et al, 1998a, b) with a cassette containing camv35s promoter, synthetic cry1ab coding region, paocs terminator and nptii selectable marker, were used for challenging hypocotyl explants in the experiments using bacterial treatment and different levels of bap. agrobacterium was grown on agrobacterium minimal medium (abmm) broth containing kanamycin (50-100 mg l-1) at 28°c for 6-8 h. actively growing midlog phase culture was centrifuged, washed with fresh abmm broth and concentration adjusted to an o.d. of 0.10.3. hypocotyl explants were cocultivated with this agrobacterium suspension for 10 min and then transferred to the sim plates. after 2 days, the cultures were transferred to the sim with kanamycin. elongated and welldifferentiated shoots were excised from callus mass after 15-25 days and transferred onto the sim, sem or rooting induction medium (ms medium supplemented with 5 mm naa). table 1. regeneration response in arka keshav and manjarigota cultivars of brinjal using different explants and agrobacterium treatment explant cultivar mean no. of mean no. of explants regeneration explants cultured±se showing regeneration±se response (%) cotyledonary leaves arka keshav 129.3±8.5 (388)* 5.32±4.1 (16) 4.1 manjarigota 90.0±0.0 (270) 12.6±3.7 (38) 14.1 hypocotyls arka keshav 250.1±32.5 (752) 185.6±16.2 (557) 74.1 manjarigota 103.0±33.8 (309) 48.3±21.6 (145) 46.9 hypocotyls treated with agrobacterium arka keshav 133±14.9 (399) 29.6±13.7 (89) 22.3 manjarigota 160.0±28.3 (480) 39.0±9.1 (117) 24.4 *numbers in parantheses indicate total no. of explants j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 116-119, 2006 enhancing transformation frequency in brinjal 117 page 118 results and discussion the present study showed that hypocotyl explants were better for regeneration response compared with cotyledonary leaf explants, which are routinely considered as the explant of choice in many crops including tomato and other vegetables (allichio et al, 1982; magioli et al, 1998; magioli and mansur, 2005). the use of hypocotyls as explants has not been much investigated (magioli et al, 1998). our initial observations indicated that hypocotyls were better (with an average of 61%) than cotyledonary leaves (with an average of 9%) in both varieties of brinjal (table 1) with respect to regeneration per se. while hypocotyl explants produced more shoots, leaf explants only showed more callus and rooting (plate 1). arka keshav gave a better regeneration response (74%) than manjarigota (47%) when hypocotyls were used as explants. hypocotyl explants in control (those that were not challenged by cocultivation with agrobacterium) and agrobacterium treatment differed considerably in regeneration averaging 61% and 23.3% responses, respectively. within the varieties also the reduction was noticeable, albeit with differing magnitudes. reduction in regeneration was from 74% to 22.3% in arka keshav and from 47% to 24.3% in manjarigota. these results vindicate our view on the effect of agrobacterium infection on regeneration in brinjal (billings et al, 1997). in the experiment involving preconditioning of the hypocotyl explants, in arka keshav variety, higher levels of bap before agrobacterium cocultivation and selection (i.e., during preconditioning), resulted in significant differences in the number of regenerants selected on kanamycin medium (table 2). the frequencies ranged from 16.8% to 27.2% as compared to 19.7% in the treatment without any bap (negative control) preconditioning with 40 mm bap definitively produced highest frequency of regeneration (27.2%). previous studies have indicated that the population of competent cells increases by adequate pre-culture period facilitating improved transformation (hamza and chupeau, 1993; lipp-joao and brown, 1993; mchughen et al, 1989). extending the duration of pre-culture period increases the proportion of competent cells. our results are in agreement with the results of earlier preconditioning experiments but with the additional information that higher bap of 40 mm during preconditioning can be beneficial even to the explants challenged with agrobacterium. plate 1. typical regeneration response in brinjal using cotyledonary leaves (a) and hypocotyls (b) on shoot induction medium. hypocotyls were better for shoot induction. transgenic crop production via agrobacterium mediated gene transfer is dependent, among other factors, on the successful interaction between the agrobacterium and specific plant tissue types, which are competent for in vitro regeneration along with certain treatments like preculture (freitas et al, 1997). our studies have shown that the type of explant and preconditioning treatments can considerably improve the frequency of regeneration of bt gene transformed tissues in brinjal and this may be applicable in other crops also. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the national agricultural technology project (natp), icar, for the financial assistance in the form of a competitive grants programme to the senior author. thanks are also due to dr. p. ananda kumar, nrcpb, iari, for providing agrobacterium and construct, dr. pious thomas, division of biotechnology, iihr, for technical suggestions and the director, iihr, for encouragement. references allichio, r., del grosso, e . and boschieri, e. 1982. tissue cultures and plant regeneration from different j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 116-119, 2006 vageeshbabu et al 118 table 2. regeneration response using agrobacterium treated hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. arka keshav to preconditioning with different levels of bap bap conc (mm) + total no. of mean no. of 0.05 mm naa regenerantsa (%) regenerants±se 0 17/86b (19.7) 18.2±7.0 2 14/83 (16.8) 15.7±4.7 10 8/68 (11.7) 11.6±4.4 20 14/80 (17.5) 16.8±4.1 30 15/76 (19.7) 19.3±5.6 40 21/77 (27.2) 26.4±7.4 adata of 4 replications; bno. of explants shooted/total no. of explants inoculated; c.d (p=0.01) : 0.23; se: standard error page 119 explants in six cultivars of solanum melongena. experientia, 38: 449-450. billings, s., jelenkovic, g., chin, c. k. and eberhardt, j. 1997. the effect of growth regulation and antibiotics on eggplant transformation. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 122:158-162. collonnier, c., fock, i., kashyap, v., rotino, g. l., daunay, m. c., lian, y., mariska, i. k., rajam, m. v., servaes, a., ducreux, g. and sihachakr, d. 2001, applications of biotechnology in eggplant. plant cell tissue organ cult., 5: 91-107. ditt, r. f., nester, e. w. and comai, l. 2001. plant gene expression response to agrobacterium tumefaciens. proc. natl. acad. sci., usa, 98: 10954-10959. freitas, v. g., lacorte, c., sachetto-martins, g., krul, w. r., oliveira, d. e., neves, l. j. and mansur, e. 1997. identification of competent cells for agrobacteriumtransformation and in vitro regeneration in peanut leaf and cotyledon explants. r. bras. fisiol. veg., 9: 157-167. gelvin, s. b. 2000. agrobacterium and plant genes involved in t-dna transfer and integration. annu. rev. plant. physiol. plant. mol. biol., 51: 223-256. hamza, s. and chupeau, y. 1993. re-evaluation of conditions for plant regeneration and agrobacteriummediated transformation from tomato. j. exp. bot., 44: 1837-1845. hanur, v. s. 2004. genetic transformation of human cells by a soil phytopathogen presents common molecular strategies. curr. sci., 87: 856-857. kumar, p. a., mandaokar, a. d. and sharma, r. p. 1998a. genetic engineering for the improvement of eggplant (solanum melongena l.). agbiotech news inform., 10: 329-332. kumar, p. a., mandaokar, a., sreenivasu, k., chakrabarti, s. k., bisaria, s., sharma, s. r., kaur, s. and sharma, r. p. 1998b. insect-resistant transgenic brinjal plants. mol. breed., 4: 33-37. kumar, s. v. and rajam, m. v. 2005. enhanced induction of vir genes results in the improvement of agrobacte-rium-mediated transformation of eggplant. j. plant biochem. biotechnol., 14: 89-94. lin, j. j., assad-garcia, n. and kuo, j. 1994. improved regeneration of plant tissues: a novel medium format and membrane based liquid culture system. focus, 16:72. lipp-joao, k. h. and brown, t. a. 1993. enhanced transformation of tomato co-cultivated with agrobacterium tumefaciens c58c1 rifr::pgsfr1161 in the presence of acetosyringone. pl. cell rep., 12: 422-425. magioli, c. and mansur, e. 2005. eggplant (solanum melongena l.): tissue culture, genetic transformation and use as an alternative model plant. acta bot. bras., 19: 139-148. magioli, c., rocha, a. p. m., de oliveira, d. e. and mansur, e. 1998. efficient shoot organogenesis of eggplant (solanum melongena l.) induced by thidiazuron. pl. cell rep., 17: 661-663. mc-hughen, a., jordan, m. and feist, g. 1989. a preculture period prior to agrobacterium inoculation increases production of transgenic plants. j. plant physiol., 135: 245-248. murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised method for rapid growth and bioassays with tissue cultures. physio.l plant., 15: 473-497. robinette, d. and matthysse, a. g. 1990. inhibition by agrobacterium tumefaciens and pseudomonas savastanoi of development of the hypersensitive response elicited by pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola. j. bacteriol., 172: 5742-5749. rotino, g. l. and gleddie, s. 1990. transformation of eggplant (solanum melongena l.) using a binary agrobacterium tumefaciens vectors. plant cell rep., 9: 26-29. sharma, p. and rajam, m. v. 1995. genotype, explant and position effects on organogenesis and embryogenesis in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). j. exp. bot,, 46: 135-141. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 116-119, 2006 enhancing transformation frequency in brinjal 119 (ms received 12 april 2006 , revised 29 november 2006) effect of pruning intensity on leaf tissue micronutrient status in three mango (mangifera indica l.) cultivars under high density planting sanjay kumar singh1 and s.k. singh division of fruits and horticultural technology, indian agricultural research institute, new delhi -110 012, india e-mail: sanjayhor@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of pruning on leaf micro nutrient (cu, zn, fe and mn) status in nonfloral and floral shoots of three mango cultivars (‘amrapali’, ‘mallika’ and ‘dashehari’) under high density planting during 2005-2007. all the three cultivars differed significantly in cu, zn, fe and mn content in leaves of nonfloral as well as floral shoots. pruning showed marked influence only on cu and zn content in the leaves of nonfloral and floral shoots. leaf nutrient status in terms of fe and mn also varied in cultivars irrespective of pruning intensity, and pruning did not have significant impact on fe and mn status in leaf tissue. non-floral shoots had greater concentration of cu and zn than floral shoots in both the years of experiment. highest cu, fe and mn content was recorded in ‘mallika’ mango, while, zn content was highest in ‘dashehari’ mango. severe pruning (90 cm from apex) improved cu and zn content in leaves of non-floral shoots as well as floral shoots. the lowest amount of cu and mn was noted in ‘dashehari’ leaves, while, ‘amrapali’ had the lowest zn and fe content in both non-floral and floral shoots. severely pruned ‘mallika’ trees registered the highest amount of cu, while lightly pruned ‘dashehari’ trees had highest zn content in their floral and non-floral leaves. moderate pruning in’ mallika’ enhanced mn content in leave of non-floral and floral shoots. no-pruning in ‘dashehari’ trees led to lower cu content but zn content was the least in lightly pruned ‘amrapali’ trees. severe pruning in ‘dashehari’ trees drastically reduced mn content. thus, severe pruning in old mango trees may be advisable to improve micronutrient status in floral and non floral shoots. key words: mango, mangifera indica, pruning, micronutrients, cu, zn, fe, mn introduction mango (mangifera indica l.), member of the family anacardiaceae, is the most important fruit crop of both subtropical and tropical regions of the world. there is ample scope for enhancing production and productivity of mango through pruning under high density planting (hdp). pruning is also practised to avoid overlapping/ intermingling of branches, improve light interception, increase photosynthetic rate, reduce relative humidity within the plant canopy, etc. (lal et al, 2000). not much work has been reported on determining optimum pruning intensity in close spaced orchards compared to wider spaced (traditional) ones. the practice of mango pruning is followed immediately after harvest (heading back branches) which encourages shoot growth just beneath the site of the first bud break (sauco, 1996). these shoots [newly emerged] have different physiological responses post-pruning, i.e., changes in biochemical, physiological and nutritional status, which subsequently affect overall performance of the trees in the long run. pruning decreases yield in the initial years due to simulative growth of shoots, while minerals absorbed by roots are readily available to a few fruits only (mika, 1986). root shortening coupled with stem pinching, followed by spray of pbz or tiba on shoots is the most effective treatment enhancing root and shoot branching and also for increasing leaf content of n, ca, mg, fe and zn (helail and eissa, 1997). hence, the present work was carried out to study effect of pruning intensity on micronutrient status in leaf tissues of mango obtained from non-floral (vegetative) and floral (reproductive) shoots, which may reflect futurie performance of trees, especially under high density planting. material and methods the field experiment was conducted at the main orchard of the division of fruits and horticultural technology, iari, new delhi, during 2005-2007. three mango cultivars, viz., ‘amrapali’ (23-year-old), ‘mallika’ (24-year-old) and ‘dashehari’ (26-year-old) were selected 1 present address: central institute for arid horticulture, bikaner 334 006 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 120-123, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 121 pruning intensity on leaf micronutrients in mango for the present study. these cultivars were planted under high density with spacings of 2.5m x 2.5m, 3.0m x 4.0m and 3.0m x 2.0m for cvs. amrapali (v 1 ), mallika (v 2 ) and dashehari (v 3 ), respectively. trees were provided with uniform agronomic and cultural practices during the course of investigation. pruning was done in mid august, 2005 and pruning intensities were: i0 (control): un-pruned, i1 (light): 30 cm from the apex, i2 (moderate): 60 cm from the apex, and i3 (severe): 90 cm from the apex. each cultivar had three replications with four levels of pruning intensities. thus, the total number of treatment combinations was 12, with one tree per replication. balanced pruning was performed in all directions by removing the inner and a few peripheral branches of the canopy that were dense and overcrowded. the control trees were maintained without pruning. as a result of pruning, trees did show some flowering and fruiting during 2006, i.e. the first year (presumed to be an ‘off’ year) and the second year (2007, the ‘on’ year). the leaves (7-8 month old) from non-flowered (vegetative), flowered (reproductive) shoots were collected from all directions and immediately shifted to the laboratory where these were washed quickly and rinsed with distilled water. the samples were air dried, cut into small pieces and oven dried at 700c for 48h in paper bags until gaining constant weight and milled to a powder in a stainless steel grinder. the powder was stored in paper bags at room temperature. the powdered plant material (500 mg) was digested in 20 ml di-acid mixture [nitric acid (hno 3 ):perchloric acid (hclo 4 ) 3:1] and the volume was made up to 100 ml with distilled water. micronutrient concentration was determined on an atomic absorption spectrophotometer directly from the di-acid digest, using an air-acetylene flame. content of cu, fe, mn and zn was measured at 386 nm (lamp current 7 ma), 22.6 nm (lamp current 3 ma), 403.1 (lamp current 5 ma) and 213.9 nm (lamp current 5 ma) wavelength, respectively. the sensitivity was 0.05, 0.008, 0.02, and 0.025 µg/ ml for fe, zn, mn and cu, respectively. final concentration (in ppm) was calculated by multiplying the concentration with a suitable dilution factor. experimental data were subjected to statistical analysis in factorial randomized block design and two years data from nonfloral and floral shoots were analyzed as per methods suggested by gomez and gomez, 1984. interpretation of results was based on ‘f’ test and critical difference (cd) at p=0.05 was worked out for comparing means. results and discussion role of micronutrients in plant nutrition is vital because several deficiency symptoms occur in plants due to which performance of the entire tree declines markedly. although micronutrient deficiencies produce characteristic symptoms, the symptoms are very confusing under field conditions, especially, when more than one nutrient is deficient. mango cultivars, irrespective of pruning intensity, had significantly different concentrations of cu, zn, fe and mn in the leaves in the ‘off’ as well as the ‘on’ year of our experiment. highest concentration of cu and mn was observed in ‘mallika’, and lowest in ‘dashehari’ (table 1) which may be due to the biennial nature of ‘dashehari’ mango (thakur et al, 1981). it was also noted that in the ‘on’ year, cu and mn content leaves was lower than in the ‘off’ year (thakur et al, 1973) because fruiting terminals numbered more in the ‘on’ year than in the ‘off’ year which acted as a sink for mineral nutrients (thakur et al, 1981). similarly, pruning intensity showed marked influence on cu and zn content in mango leaves. severely pruned trees (i 3 ) had the highest cu content, followed by moderately pruned (i 3 ) trees and the least cu content was observed in unpruned trees (i 0 ), as, pruning destabilizes the root:shoot ratio. in addition, defoliation along with root pruning and stem pinching invariably increases cu content in shoots as noted by helail and eissa, 1997. in contrast, mn content in leaves did not differ significantly (table 1). content of zn in mango leaves improved after severe pruning (i 3 ), followed by light pruning while, moderate pruning reduced zn level in mango leaves of both non-floral and floral shoots. the interaction effect of cultivar and pruning intensity also affected cu (except flowered shoots in the ‘off’ year), zn and mn content in leaves of non-floral and floral shoots. cu and mn content were highest in severely (v 2 i 3 ) and moderately pruned ‘mallika’ (v 2 i 2 ) trees, respectively, while the lowest cu concentration was estimated in un-pruned ‘dashehari’ mango. in contrast, severely pruned ‘dashehari’ had the lowest mn in leaves (table 2). cultivar ‘mallika’ encouraged greater vegetative growth (and produced substantial number of non-fruiting terminals in the beginning) /and non-fruiting terminals had higher cu and mn content (thakur et al, 1979). un-pruned trees had slow growth (less number of new shoots), thus resulting in deficiency of cu. among the three cultivars, ‘dashehari’ leaves had highest zn content (kumar et al, 1985), while ‘amrapali’ had the lowest concentration of both zn and fe due to continuous production of fruiting terminals in both the years of experiment (thakur et al, (1981). on the other hand, severely pruned tree had the lowest zn content (26.66, 23.25; 25.64, 22.35 ppm) probably due to higher number of new j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 120-123, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 122 t ab le 1 . e ff ec t of c u lt iv ar a n d p ru n in g in te n si ty o n m ic ro n u tr ie n t co n te n t in l ea ve s of t h re e m an go c u lt iv ar s u n d er h ig h d en si ty p la n ti n g t re at m en ts † c u ( p p m ) z n ( p p m ) f e (p p m ) m n ( p p m ) 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s a m ra pa li ( v 1 ) 18 .7 8 15 .5 8 16 .0 0 13 .0 7 19 .4 4 16 .4 0 18 .5 9 15 .5 9 20 1. 11 12 6. 50 16 2. 78 14 6. 86 10 0. 50 95 .8 4 88 .6 2 85 .1 0 m al li ka ( v 2 ) 22 .8 0 18 .9 2 20 .0 2 16 .8 0 22 .1 2 19 .3 9 21 .3 9 18 .6 2 23 8. 62 21 8. 92 21 5. 05 19 6. 02 11 3. 45 11 0. 27 10 2. 33 10 1. 57 d as h eh ar i (v 3 ) 14 .3 0 10 .7 2 12 .2 7 8. 83 30 .9 0 26 .9 1 29 .6 0 26 .0 1 20 2. 85 18 1. 36 17 4. 75 15 6. 44 76 .4 2 73 .7 5 67 .1 8 63 .6 2 s e m ± 0. 41 0. 29 0. 32 0. 97 0. 80 0. 74 0. 82 0. 79 11 .8 5 12 .0 2 13 .3 1 13 .6 4 5. 09 5. 00 5. 45 5. 12 c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 1. 18 0. 86 0. 93 0. 80 2. 31 2. 14 2. 37 2. 20 34 .0 5 34 .3 3 38 .2 2 45 .2 4 14 .6 4 14 .6 0 15 .6 0 14 .7 1 u n -p ru n ed ( i 0 ) 17 .1 7 13 .5 6 14 .2 7 11 .2 3 23 .6 7 20 .3 4 22 .4 2 19 .7 1 20 8. 46 18 3. 96 17 4. 96 15 6. 84 92 .1 4 88 .8 3 80 .9 1 81 .2 4 30 c m ( i 1 ) 18 .1 3 14 .4 0 15 .2 0 12 .1 0 25 .3 3 21 .9 7 24 .0 8 20 .8 3 19 6. 25 17 5. 94 17 2. 21 13 4. 20 10 2. 07 99 .2 6 92 .1 4 88 .8 3 60 c m ( i 2 ) 18 .5 2 15 .0 2 16 .2 1 13 .0 0 20 .9 5 18 .0 3 20 .6 2 17 .4 1 23 7. 23 21 6. 13 19 7. 53 18 2. 88 96 .0 7 91 .8 5 83 .0 5 79 .2 0 90 c m ( i 3 ) 20 .7 2 17 .3 2 18 .7 2 15 .2 1 26 .6 6 23 .2 5 25 .6 4 22 .3 5 21 3. 54 19 2. 04 19 2. 00 17 1. 79 96 .8 8 93 .2 1 88 .0 7 84 .2 0 s e m ± 0. 47 0. 34 0. 37 0. 32 0. 93 0. 86 0. 95 0. 92 13 .6 9 13 .8 8 15 .3 6 15 .7 5 5. 88 5. 87 6. 30 5. 91 c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 1 .3 6 0 .9 9 1 .0 7 0 .9 2 2 .6 7 2 .4 7 2 .7 4 2 .6 4 n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s * ‘ o ff ’ y ea r; * * ‘ o n ’ y ea r n f s = n o n -f lo ra l sh o o ts ; f s = f lo ra l sh o o ts † f o r d et ai ls o f th e tr ea tm en ts , p le as e se e te x t t ab le 2 . in te ra ct io n e ff ec t of c u lt iv ar a n d p ru n in g in te n si ty o n m ic ro n u tr ie n t co n te n t of l ea ve s in t h re e m an go c u lt iv ar s u n d er h ig h d en si ty p la n ti n g t re at m en ts † c u ( p p m ) z n ( p p m ) f e (p p m ) m n ( p p m ) 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * 2 0 0 5 -0 6 * 2 0 0 6 -0 7 * * n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s n f s f s v 1 i 0 18 .5 6 15 .1 6 13 .6 6 12 .8 3 23 .2 3 19 .5 3 21 .1 6 18 .8 6 20 2. 90 17 6. 13 15 9. 13 14 4. 60 88 .3 0 84 .6 6 76 .7 6 72 .8 0 v 1 i 1 16 .8 0 13 .2 6 13 .8 3 10 .5 6 17 .0 8 14 .2 0 17 .0 6 13 .0 20 0. 03 18 0. 66 16 7. 00 14 9. 68 10 8. 90 10 5. 43 98 .6 6 95 .3 3 v 1 i 2 19 .0 3 15 .9 0 16 .3 6 13 .4 0 17 .5 6 15 .4 3 17 .4 6 14 .7 6 22 6. 20 20 2. 23 17 3. 90 16 1. 96 86 .1 0 73 .6 6 67 .6 0 64 .2 3 v 1 i 3 20 .7 3 18 .0 0 18 .1 6 15 .2 6 19 .9 3 16 .4 3 18 .6 6 15 .7 3 17 5. 33 14 7. 00 15 1. 13 13 1. 26 11 8. 73 11 4. 60 11 2. 06 10 8. 06 v 2 i 0 21 .6 0 17 .9 0 18 .1 0 15 .3 3 22 .6 3 20 .2 3 22 .5 6 19 .6 0 21 8. 10 19 3. 60 18 5. 63 16 7. 16 97 .0 0 92 .6 0 82 .1 3 90 .2 0 v 2 i 1 23 .4 0 19 .4 6 20 .2 0 17 .4 3 21 .4 3 18 .4 0 19 .9 0 17 .3 3 20 6. 16 18 2. 86 19 0. 33 16 8. 93 11 7. 73 11 5. 56 10 9. 30 10 6. 20 v 2 i 2 21 .0 6 16 .9 6 18 .4 0 15 .1 0 21 .3 3 18 .5 6 20 .7 3 17 .9 0 26 7. 60 25 1. 13 24 4. 96 22 8. 13 13 4. 46 18 1. 80 12 2. 66 11 0. 56 v 2 i 3 25 .1 6 21 .3 6 23 .4 0 19 .3 6 23 .1 0 20 .3 6 22 .3 6 19 .6 6 26 2. 63 24 6. 16 23 9. 30 21 9. 86 10 4. 63 10 1. 13 95 .2 2 91 .3 3 v 3 i 0 11 .3 6 7. 63 9. 06 5. 53 25 .1 6 21 .2 6 23 .3 3 20 .6 6 20 5. 90 18 3. 16 18 0. 16 15 8. 76 91 .1 3 89 .2 3 84 .4 3 80 .7 3 v 3 i 1 14 .2 0 10 .4 6 11 .5 6 8. 30 37 .3 3 33 .3 3 35 .6 0 32 .1 6 19 2. 56 16 4. 30 15 9. 30 14 4. 16 79 .6 0 76 .8 0 68 .4 6 64 .9 6 v 3 i 2 15 .4 6 12 .2 0 13 .8 6 10 .5 0 23 .9 6 20 .1 0 23 .6 6 18 .5 6 21 7. 90 19 5. 03 17 3. 73 15 8. 56 67 .6 6 65 .1 0 58 .9 0 54 .8 0 v 3 i 3 16 .2 6 12 .6 0 14 .5 6 11 .0 36 .9 6 32 .9 6 35 .3 0 31 .6 6 20 2. 66 18 2. 96 18 5. 83 16 4. 26 67 .3 0 63 .9 0 56 .9 3 53 .2 0 s e m ± 0. 82 0. 60 0. 64 0. 55 1. 61 1. 49 1. 65 1. 59 23 .7 1 24 .0 4 26 .6 1 27 .2 9 10 .1 9 10 .1 7 10 .9 1 10 .2 4 c d (p = 0 .0 5 ) 2. 36 n s 1. 85 1. 59 4. 63 4. 29 4. 74 4. 57 n s n s n s n s 29 .2 0 29 .2 1 31 .3 6 29 .4 3 * ‘ o ff ’ y ea r; * * ‘ o n ’ y ea r n f s = n o n -f lo ra l sh o o ts ; f s = f lo ra l sh o o ts † f o r d et ai ls o f tr ea tm en ts , p le as e se e te x t j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 120-123, 2010 sanjay kumar singh and singh prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 123 (ms received 23 march, 2010, revised 17, november 2010) leaves and perhaps due to zn regulating enzymes synthesized after pruning and then rapid translocation due to high activity of cytokinins in leaves. the lowest level of zn in moderately pruned trees (i2) may be due to existence of old leaves and fruiting leading to exhaustion of nutrients (table 1). the rest of the treatments were at par. lightly pruned ‘dashehari’ recorded maximum zn content (37.33, 33.33, 35.60 and 32.16 ppm) due to varietal characters, while lowest was seen in lightly pruned ‘amrapali’ (17.08, 14.20, 17.06 and 13.0 ppm) may be due to a higher number of fruiting terminals (table 2) (thakur et al, 1981). during the ‘on’ year, zn and fe content decreased in mango leaves compared to the‘off’ year (mishra and dhillon ,1978; thakur et al, 1979). highest fe content was noted in leaves of ‘mallika’, while the minimum in ‘amrapali’. effect of pruning intensity and its interaction with cultivar on fe content was non-significant, which could be due to the several factors regulating nutrient composition in plant tissues. it is also clear from the data (tables 1 and 2) that ‘on’ year had low levels of all the micronutrients studied in leaves than in the ‘off’ year. similarly micronutrient content declined during the reproductive stage compared to the vegetative stage. the result of this study indicates that severe pruning in old mango trees may be preferred to improving micronutrient status, especially cu and zn, in flowering and non-flowering shoots. references gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research (2nd edition), john wiley and sons, inc., new york, usa helail, b.m. and eissa, m.a. 1997. effect of some cultural practices and growth regulator treatment on growth of mango seedlings. ann. agril. sci., 35:883-894 lal, b., rajput, m.s., rajan, s. and rathore, d.s. 2000. effect of pruning on rejuvenation of old mango trees. ind. j. hort., 57:240-242 mika, a. 1986. physiological response of fruit trees to pruning. in: hort. rev., janick, j (ed.), avi publishing. house, west port, connecticut, 88:337-338 mishra, k.a. and dhillon, b.s. 1979. level of endogenous gibberellins in the healthy and malformed panicles of mango (mangifera indica l.). ind j. hort, 37:3540 sauco, v.g. 1996. horticultural practices of mango. acta hort., 455:391-400 thakur, r.s., samra, j.s. and chadha, k.l. 1973. assessment of micronutrient status in the foliage of mango trees around malihabad, lucknow. ind. j. hort., 37:120-123 thakur, r.s., samra, j.s. and chadha, k.l. 1981. the nutrient levels in fruiting and non-fruiting terminals of three mango cultivars. sci. hort., 15:355-361 pruning intensity on leaf micronutrients in mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 120-123, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no page 141 genetic divergence for yield and yield-contributing traits in cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) h. r. sharma and deepa sharma dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry horticultural research station kandaghat, district solan, himachal pradesh 173 215 india e-mail: hrs_kgt@yahoo.com abstract the cluster analysis grouped the thirty one genotypes of cucumber, collected from different sources in india, into seven clusters. the genotypes jorji local, bengal 60, jjl and derabassi local were promising with respect to yield per plant and fruit length, while gyn-2, gyn-3 and gyn-4 were superior for number of fruits per plant. however, genotypes chakkimore local, farukabad local, chamoli local and chamba local were promising for average fruit weight and fruit breadth. key words: cluster analysis, cucumber, genetic divergence, cucumis sativus l. cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) is an important vegetable crop that has its origins in the indian subcontinent. a lot of diversity in this crop exists in the country. but, most of the farmers grow their own land races to fulfil their domestic or local market demands. a huge portion of the diversity is, thus, still restricted to kitchen gardens or individual farms. hence, efforts were made to collect this diversity from farmers’ fields or kitchen gardens from all over india and to use it in active crop improvement programmes. in this study, the non-hierarchical clustering approach was employed to evaluate and assess genetic divergence among genotypes/land races and to select elite ones for further crop improvement. the experimental material comprised of 31 genotypes/land races of cucumber collected from different sources in india. the experiment was laid out at dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, horticultural research station, kandaghat, solan (himachal pradesh) during kharif, 2005.the experimental site is situated at an altitude of 1270m above mean sea level, lying between latitude 30o52’ north and longitude 77o11’ east. it falls under the mid hill zone of himachal pradesh. the climate ranges from sub-tropical to sub-temperate. sixteen plants of each genotype were transplanted at the recommended spacing of 1.5 x 1.0 m. standard cultural practices to raise the cucumber crop in mid hills were followed as per recommendations of package of practices developed by the university. the observations on number of fruits per plant, yield per plant, average fruit weight, fruit length and fruit width were recorded on 10 randomly selected competitive plants from each plot. mean values in each replication for all the traits were subjected to statistical analysis. genetic divergence analysis was performed using non-hierarchical euclidean cluster analysis (spark, 1973). the performance of 31 genotypes of cucumber with respect to fruit yield and fruit traits is given in table 1. cluster analysis grouped the genotypes of cucumber into seven clusters. the maximum number of genotypes (7 genotypes) were grouped in cluster i followed by cluster v and cluster vii (5 genotypes each), cluster ii and cluster vi (4 genotypes each), and, cluster iii and cluster iv (3 genotypes each). the composition of the clusters is given in table 2. intra-cluster distances (table 3) revealed that the maximum divergence was present in cluster ii (1.319), followed by cluster vi (1.135) and cluster vii (1.127). the lowest value of intra-cluster distance (0.769) was observed for cluster iii indicating limited genetic divergence in this group. the maximum inter-cluster distance (4.875) was observed for cluster ii and cluster iii, followed by cluster j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 141-143, 2006 short communication page 142 table 1. performance of cucumber genotypes for fruit yield traits genotype number of fruit yield average fruit fruit fruit fruits per plant per plant (kg) weight (g) length (cm) width (cm) sex form fruit colour k-75 12.0 3.6 300.0 17.5 7.1 monoecious light green k-90 13.0 4.1 320.0 20.1 7.6 monoecious light green gyn-1 18.0 4.5 250.0 13.5 6.0 gynoecious dark green gyn-2 19.0 4.7 250.0 17.0 8.0 gynoecious light green gyn-3 20.0 5.5 275.0 21.5 7.5 gynoecious dark green gyn-4 19.0 5.7 300.0 20.0 8.5 gynoecious light green mncc 01 11.0 2.7 250.0 12.5 6.2 monoecious light green mncc 02 12.0 3.0 250.0 13.0 6.5 monoecious light green mncc 03 12.0 3.7 312.5 13.5 7.0 monoecious light green ec 173931 8.0 3.4 425.0 26.0 6.4 monoecious green ec 173940 9.0 2.5 277.7 20.5 6.8 monoecious green ec 173971 7.0 2.8 407.1 19.2 7.3 monoecious green poinsett-76 8.0 2.0 250.0 12.9 5.7 monoecious dark green market more 10.0 3.6 366.0 19.5 6.8 monoecious green sheetal 11.0 3.0 280.0 23.4 7.6 monoecious light green orissa local 9.0 3.1 350.0 21.8 6.9 monoecious dark green sanech local 6.0 3.6 600.0 22.5 6.5 monoecious light green subathu local 7.0 2.8 407.1 19.7 7.0 monoecious light green jorji local 14.0 5.9 425.0 29.0 7.5 monoecious light green chakkimor local 9.0 4.5 500.0 25.0 8.5 monoecious light green faizabad local 8.0 3.6 450.0 17.8 6.3 monoecious green hisar local 7.0 3.3 471.4 19.5 6.4 monoecious green farukabad local 12.0 5.2 433.3 22.5 9.0 monoecious light green bengal 60 14.0 6.1 439.2 18.0 7.5 monoecious dark green kanpur local 7.0 3.2 464.2 20.5 7.0 monoecious dark green chamoli local 8.0 3.8 475.0 22.0 9.0 monoecious green pilibhit local 6.0 2.8 475.0 17.0 6.4 monoecious green jjk 10.0 6.2 625.0 25.0 8.0 monoecious light green derabassi local 11.0 5.9 536.3 22.0 7.5 monoecious light green chamba local 6.0 3.9 650.0 19.5 8.5 monoecious green himangi 13.0 4.4 338.4 15.5 7.5 monoecious white mean 10.4 4.1 392.0 19.5 7.2 iii and cluster vi (4.703), cluster i and cluster iv (4.251), and cluster iii and cluster iv (4.221). parents selected from these clusters may, thus, provide a broader genetic base for crop improvement programmes and may produce heterotic hybrids or transgressive segregants in later generations. similar findings have also been reported earlier in some genotypes of cucumber (prasad et al 1993, 2001; more and seshadri 2002; rao et al, 2003; xu et al 2003). they too adopted the clustering approach to identify parents for crop improvement programmes. cluster means (table 4) for different traits indicated that maximum number of fruits per plant (19.3) was produced by members of cluster iv, whereas, yield per plant and fruit length were maximum for cluster ii (6.0 kg and 23.5 cm, respectively). however, maximum average fruit weight (514.5 g) and fruit breadth (8.7 cm) were observed for cluster vi. the genotypes jorji local, bengal 60, jjl and derabassi local are promising with respect to yield per plant and fruit length while, gyn-2, gyn-3 and gyn-4 are superior for number of fruits per plant. however, genotypes chakkimore local, farukabad local, chamoli local and table 2. composition of clusters in cucumber cluster number of genotypes genotypes i 7 ec 173971, sanech local, subathu local, faizabad local, hisar local, kanpur local, pilibhit local ii 4 jorji local, bengal 60, jjk, derabassi local iii 3 mncc 01, mncc 02, poinsett-76 iv 3 gyn-2, gyn-3, gyn-4 v 5 ec 173931, ec 173940, market more, sheetal, orissa local vi 4 chakkimor local, farukabad local, chamoli local, chamba local vii 5 k-75, k-90, gyn-1, mncc 02, himangi j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 141-143, 2006 sharma & sharma 142 page 143 table 3. intra and inter cluster distance values in cucumber cluster i ii iii iv v vi vii i 0.831 ii 3.162 1.319 iii 2.760 4.875 0.675 iv 4.251 2.914 4.221 0.769 v 1.461 3.074 2.659 3.450 0.959 vi 2.729 2.152 4.703 3.626 2.807 1.135 vii 2.508 3.130 2.058 2.267 2.048 3.325 1.127 table 4. cluster means for five characters in cucumber cluster number of yield per average fruit fruit fruits plant fruit length width per plant (kg) weight (g) (cm) (cm) i 6.8 3.1 467.8 19.4 6.7 ii 12.2 6.0 506.4 23.5 7.6 iii 10.3 2.5 250.0 12.8 6.1 iv 19.3 5.3 275.0 19.5 8.0 v 9.4 3.1 339.7 22.2 6.9 vi 8.7 4.3 514.5 22.2 8.7 vii 13.6 4.0 304.1 16.0 7.0 table 5. promising genotypes for different traits trait genotypes number of fruit gyn-2, gyn-3, gyn-4 per plant yield per plant jorji local, bengal 60, jjk, derabassi local average fruit chakkimor local, farukabad local, weight chamoli local, chamba local fruit length jorji local, bengal 60, jjk, derabassi local fruit width chakkimor local, farukabad local, chamoli local, chamba local (ms received 30 september 2006, revised 29 november 2006) chamba local are the promising ones for average fruit weight and fruit breadth (table 5). references more, t.a. and seshadri, v.s. 2002. studies on genetic divergence in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). j. mah. agri.univ., 27: 127-131 prasad, v.s.r.k., jain, b.p., verma, s.p.p. and ganguly, d.k. 2001. diversity pattern and choice of parents for hybridization in slicing cucumber (cucumis sativus l.). j. res. birsa agri. univ., 13: 33 39 prasad, v.s.r.k., singh, d.p. and singh, r.p.. 1993. biological divergence in the land races of indian cucumber (cucumis sativus l.). ind. j. hort., 50: 57-63 rao, e.s., verma, v.k. and munshi, a.d.2003. breeding potential of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) genotypes using d2 analysis. ind. j. hort., 60: 53-58 spark, d.n. (1973) euclidean cluster analysis. algorithm as 58. appl. stat., 22:126-130 xu qiang liu jinsheng, chen xuehao, li lingli , go shaogui chen zhiming, xiao jiang, cao beisheng, xu q.a., liu j.s., chen, xh li ll go sg,chen. z.m., xiao, j.a. and cao, b.s. 2003. principal component and cluster analysis of quality characters of pickling cucumber (cucumis sativus l.). j. yangzhou univ. agric. life sci., 24:78-81 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 141-143, 2006 genetic divergence in cucumber 143 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction coconut (cocos nucifera l.) belonging to family arecaceae is an important plantation crops of india providing livelihood to a substantial number of farm families. the versatile palm popularly known as ‘king of palms’, ‘tree of heaven’, ‘tree of life’, ‘tree of abundance’, as well as ‘god’s gift to mankind’, is grown in more than 93 countries within an area of 12.8 million hectares and production of 10.9 m mt (copra equivalent) in 2001. the total area and the production in asian pa cific coconut committee (apcc) countries are estimated at 11.4 mha and 9.2 m mt respectively, which is 90 and 84 per cent of world area and production (rethinam and taufikkurahman 2002). in india, coconut palms are grown in an area of 2.17 million hectares with a production of 20,308.70 million nuts and a productivity of 9345 nuts/ha annually (cdb, 2019-20). kerala ranks first in terms of area and production followed by tamil nadu, karnataka and andhra pradesh, while, tamil nadu ranks first in the productivity followed by andhra pradesh and kerala. morphological and molecular diversity of ganoderma spp. causal agent of basal stem rot of coconut in southern dry tracts of karnataka palanna k.b.1*, koti p.s.2, basavaraj s.3, boraiah b.4 and narendrappa t.3 1icaraicrp on small millets, pc unit,uas, gkvk, bengaluru-560065, 2the university of trans-disciplinary health sciences and technology, bengaluru, india, 3department of plant pathology, uas, gkvk, bengaluru-560065 4zonal agricultural research station, uas, gkvk, bengaluru-560065, karnataka, india. *corresponding author email : kbpalanna@gmail.com abstract morphological and molecular diversity of ganoderma species causing basal stem rot of coconut in southern dry tracts of karnataka, india was carried out during 2016-17. a total of 20 isolates were isolated from chitradurga, chikamagalore, hassan and tumkur districts of karnataka and were identified based on morphological and molecular characteristics. sporocarps and diseased root bits were found as good source for isolation of ganoderma. in all the isolates there were high variability in cultural, morphological and molecular characteristics. the dendrogram generated from the cultural and morphological characteristics showed clear variations among ganoderma isolates and formed two main clusters, one cluster consisted of 13 isolates and another cluster consisted of 7 isolates. several isolates showed 100 per cent similarity in the morphological characters regardless of their geographical origin. all the ganoderma isolates amplified a fragment of 650 bp with fungal universal primers (its1 and its4). the its gene sequences of five isolates viz., cg1 (mk 681870), cg7 (mk681871), cg11 (mk681872), cg14 (mk681873) and cg20 (mk681874) were deposited in ncbi gene bank. taxonomic comparison of the isolates with ncbi database proved that the isolates were genetically related to ganoderma spp. with 80-100 per cent identity. however, all the tested isolates could not amplify g. lucidum species specific markers which indicate its absence in the region. the phylogenetic analysis of the ganoderma isolates (its1 and its4) of coconut with other known species of ganoderma from genbank emphasized the close relationship with india, china and sri lanka isolates. the isolate cg1 grouped with ganoderma carnosum (kr 733545.1) with 98.97 per cent identity which is isolated from sri lanka and cg14 and cg20 grouped with g. applanatum (mf 072395.1) and g. gibbosum (om 350473.1) with 98 to 99 per cent identity and cg7 and cg11 isolates of coconut grouped into distinct sub cluster and clearly indicated the species diversity in ganoderma infecting coconut in southern karnataka. keywords: coconut, dna sequence, ganoderma wilt, its, phylogeny and variability 2 palanna et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 coconut palms are normally affected by various biotic and abiotic str esses resulting in dr astic reduction in yields. among the va rious biotic stresses that affect coconut production in india, basal stem rot (bsr) or ganoderma wilt caused by ganoderma applanatum pers and g. lucidum (leys). karst. is a major constraint in coconut production, especially in dry tracts of southern karnataka. the disease is reported from various places all over the tropical world viz., india, sri lanka, west indies, seycheles, guam etc., though the disease was first recorded by dr. butler in the b eginnin g of 2 0 t h c ent u r y a nd la t er b y venkatanarayan (1936) from karnataka, a severe outbreak occurred in 1652 in thanjavur district of tamil nadu and hence named as thanjavur wilt. the disease is also reported from andhra pradesh, k er a la , m a ha r a s ht r a , g u ja r a t a nd o r is s a (bhaskaran, 1994; wilson et al, 1987). ganoderma s p ec ies a r e imp or t a nt wood dec a ying f u ngi occurring throughout the world. they are diverse in the tropics affecting plantation crops such as coconut, arecanut and oil palm by causing basal stem rot (flood et al., 2000 and pilotti, 2005) and they also a ffect or namental and forest trees in tropical and temperate areas causing disease and wood rots of timber (lee, 2000). the taxonomy of basidiomycetes has traditionally been based on the morphological features of the b a s idioc a r p s . i dent if ic a t ion b a s ed on t he basidiocarp features, however, is prone to problems such as absence of basidiocarps during certain times of the year, their morphological plasticity and p r es enc e of c r yp t ic s p ec ies ( m o nc a lvo a nd ryva rden, 1997; gottlieb a nd wr ight, 1999). however, studies had shown that ganoderma species were genetically heterogeneous since wide range of genetic variation were reported and caused by out crossing over genera tions and different geographical origins (miller et al., 1999; pilotti et a l . , 2 0 0 3 ) . t h is lea ds t o va r ia t io n in t heir morphological characteristics even within same species (hong et al., 2001). for these reasons, contemporary taxonomists employ morphological studies, mating tests, analyses of biochemical and dna sequence information or combina tions of these for identification of the pathogen. recently, molecular approach has been adapted to identify ganoderma species such a s thr ough multiplex polymerase chain reaction (pcr) which is a more rapid and precise approach (idris et al., 2010; wong et al., 2012). disease management is an importa nt aspect to sustain the pa lm industr y. accur a te identification of the pa thogen is pr e requisite for designing mana gement strategies. h enc e, t he p r es ent s tu dy wa s u nder ta ken t o investigate the diversity of ganoderma species isolated from bsr infected coconut palms in terms of t heir molec u la r a nd mor p hologic a l characteristics. materials and methods collection of diseased root samples/stem bit and sporocarps of coconut from different places of southern karnataka differ ent pa r ts of the coconut pa lms such a s diseased root bits/stem bits affected by ganoderma wilt showing typical symptoms and sporocarps were collected from infected palms from various pla ces of souther n kar na ta ka (ta ble 1). t he samples were labeled and packed in polythene bags for the purpose of isolation of the causal organism. isolation and designation of the causal organism isolates infected roots/ stem bits collected from infected palms were washed thoroughly with sterile water and cut into small bits/pieces and were surface sterilized in 1 per cent sodium hypochlorite solution for 30 seconds and rinsed with sterile distilled water thr ice serially to remove the tra ces of sodium hypochlorite. after surface sterilization, diseased specimens were kept in sterilized bags along with wet cotton under room temperature for about 8 to 10 days. after 8 to 10 days of incubation period, slight mycelial growth was observed and that was tr a nsf er r ed into p ot a to dex tr os e a ga r ( pd a) medium. the inoculated plates were incubated at room temperature (28 °c ± 2 °c) for 3-5 days to facilitate growth of the fungus. later, the bit of fungal growth was transferred to pda slants. the p ur e cu ltu r e of t he f u ngu s wa s obt a ined b y following hyphal tip culture technique under aseptic conditions. the isolated ganoderma isolates of coconut were designated as cg1, cg2, cg3, cg4, cg5, cg 6, cg 7, cg8, cg 9, cg 10, cg 11, cg 12, cg13, cg14, cg15, cg16, cg17, cg18, cg19 and cg20. 3 morphological and molecular diversity of ganoderma spp. causal agent maintenance of pure cultures the isolated fungus was sub-cultured on pda slants and allowed to grow at 28 °c ± 2°c temperature for 8-10 days. the cultures so obtained were stored in refrigerator at 4°c for further studies and they were cultured periodically once in 2 to 3 months. study on variability of ganoderma isolates of coconut twenty ganoderma isolates of coconut isolated during course of investigation were used in variability study. cultural morphological variability of ganoderma isolates growth on potato dextrose agar twenty ganoderma isolates [cg1, cg2, cg3, cg4, cg5, cg6, cg7, cg8, cg9, cg10, cg11, cg12, cg13, cg14, cg15, cg16, cg17, cg18, cg19 and cg20] of coconut collected from different geographic locations were cultured on pda. the morphological characters like colony diameter/growth, biomass production, colony colour, colony margin, mycelial density, appearance of zones, reverse pigmentation etc were studied. mycelia plug (6 mm) from seven days old active culture was transferred onto the centre of a standard 9 cm pda plate and incubated for 7 days at an ambient temperature (idris et al., 2000). the test for a ll isola tes with thr ee r eplica tions wa s r un simultaneously to avoid bias due to external factors. the diameter was measured daily and the number of days required for maximum growth of mycelium was also recorded. the colony texture, appearance of zone, reverse pigmentation colour, type of colony margin and mycelial density were recorded after seventh day of incubation. table 1 : identity and designation of ganoderma isolates of coconut and their source of collection sl. source place of collection designation of ganoderma no. forisolation isolates 1 sporocarp karekodihally, arsikere tq. hassan dist. cg1 2 root sample haranahally, arsikeretq. hassan dist. cg2 3 sporocarp vittalapura, arsikeretq. hassan dist. cg3 4 sporocarp nagenakoppalu, cr pattana tq. hassan dist. cg4 5 root sample badarahally, channarayapattana tq. hassan dist. cg5 6 root sample belagralli, tiptur tq. tumkur dist. cg6 7 sporocarp hindiskere, tiptur tq. tumkur dist cg7 8 sporocarp thimmanahali, c.n.halli tq. tumkur dist. cg8 9 sporocarp anesidri, hiriyur tq. tumkur dist. cg9 10 root sample dharmapura(h), hiriyur tq. chitradurga dist. cg10 11 root sample venglapura, hosdurga tq. chitradurga dist. cg11 12 sporocarp shettihalli, hosdurga tq. chitradurga dist. cg12 13 root sample thirumalapura holalkere tq. chitradurga dist. cg13 14 sporocarp thalakatta, hosdurgatq. chitradurga dist. cg14 15 sporocarp vaderahalli, holalkere tq. chitradurga dist. cg15 16 root sample doddanaramangala, tumkur tq. tumkur dist. cg16 17 root sample kodipalya, tumkur tq. tumkur dist cg17 18 sporocarp shettikere, c.n.halli tq. tumkur dist. cg18 19 sporocarp hullekere, turvekere tq. tumkur dist. cg19 20 sporocarp thyagaturu, gubbi tq. tumkur dist. cg20 note: cg-coconut ganoderma 4 growth on liquid media the flasks containing 100 ml of sterilized potato dextrose broth (pdb) were inoculated with the 0.6 cm mycelial discs of ganoderma isolates of coconut. three replications were maintained for each treatment. t he inoculated fla sks wer e incubated at r oom temperature (28±2 °c) for 10 days, and then mycelial mat was harvested on a previously weighed whatman no.4 filter paper and dried at 60 °c in a hot air oven till constant weight was obtained. the dry mycelial weight was recorded and expressed in mg 100 ml-1 broth and results were analysed statistically. qualitative data of cultural characteristics on solid media and bio mass were transformed into code and a numerical data matrix was generated (table 2). the da ta wa s subjected to cluster a na lysis using multivariate statistical package (mvsp version 3.13). similarity matrices were calculated using the simple matching coefficient and a dendrogram was generated using the unweighted pair group method of arithmetic averages (upgma) (pilotti et al., 2004). characters description code days for full plate < 8 1 8-9 2 10-11 3 > 11 4 biomass (g/100 ml-1) < 1 5 1-1.25 6 > 1.25 7 colony colour white 8 creamy white 9 mycelia texture smooth 10 leathery 11 fluffy 12 concentric rings present 13 absent 14 reverse pigmentation no pigmentation (white) 15 pale yellow 16 yellowish 17 yellow 18 pinkish 19 mycelia density thin 20 dense 21 thin at center & dense at corner 22 dense at center 23 margin filamentous 24 even 25 undulate 26 erose 27 lobate 28 table 2 : cultural morphological characters and their corresponding codes used to describe ganoderma isolates for assessment of cultural morphological characteristics palanna et al 5 molecular characterization of ganoderma the isolates of ganoderma species were identified through its (internal transcribed spacer) region using universal primers its1 and its4 amplification. reagents and chemicals all the chemicals were of analytical grade (m/s sigma ltd. and m/s merck ltd.). the following buffers and solutions were prepared : extraction buffer (100 mmm tris-hcl (ph 8); 20 mm edta (ph 8); 2 m nacl; 3 % ctab (w/v); 1 % pvp; 2 % β-mercaptoethanol (v/v); phenol : chloroform (24:1); potassium acetate 7.5 m; proteinase k, 0.05 mg ml-1 ; wash solution [15 mm ammonium acetate in 75 % (v/v) ethanol ]; te buffer [10 mm tris-hcl (ph 8), 1mm edta (ph 8)]. fungal genomic dna extraction fungal mycelia (100 mg) were ground to fine powder using liquid nitrogen. pre-warmed extraction buffer (1 ml) was added to the samples and it was ground once more in the buffer. all the samples were transferred to 2.0 ml eppendorf tubes and 5 µl proteinase k (10 mg ml-1) was added. the tube was incubated in 37 °c for 30 min and then at 65°c for another 30 min with frequent swirling. samples were centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 10 min at rt and the supernatant was tr a nsfer r ed to fr esh eppendor f tube. to the supernatant, 100 µl of 7.5 m potassium acetate was added and incubated at 4°c for 30 min. the samples were centrifuged at 13,000 x g for 10 min at rt; the supernatant was transferred to fresh tube, an equal volume of chloroform: isoamyl alcohol was added and mixed by gentle in version 30-40 times. the samples were centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 10 min at rt. the supernatant was transferred to a fresh tube and precipitated with 2/3 volume of isopropanol. the precipitated nucleic acids were collected and washed twice with the wash solution. the nucleic acid pellet so obtained was air dried until the traces of ethanol was removed and dissolved in an appropriate amount of te buffer (50-70 µl). the nucleic acid dissolved in te buffer were treated with ribonuclease (rnase 10 mgml-1), incubated at 37 °c for 30 min and stored at -20°c until further use. the experiment was repeated thrice and the results described as the mean of three independent experiments (sambrook and russel, 2001). qualitative and quantitative analysis of dna the quality and quantity of dna was analyzed by running 2 µl of each sample mixed with 2 µl of 10x loading dye in one per cent agarose gel. the dna from all the isolates produced clear sharp bands in one per cent agarose gel indicating good quality of the dna. the dna has been quantified by comparing with the 1 kb size marker (genei, bangalore) and by spectrophotometer (nanodrop nd 1000). pcr amplification of internal transcribed spacer (its) region the ribosomal dna (rdna) unit contains genetic and non-genetic or spacer r egion. each repeat unit consisted of a copy of 18s, 5.8s and 28s like rdna and its spacer like internal transcribed spacers (its) and inter-genic spacers (igs). the rdna has been employed to analyze evolutionary events because it is highly conserved whereas its rdna is more variable. hence, it has been used for investigating the species level relationships. the primers for amplification were custom synthesized at bangalore genie pvt. ltd., bangalore and supplied as lyophilized products of desalted oligos. pcr was carried out in poly propylene tubes using univer sa l pr imer s it s 1 (5' aacgttaccaaactgtta-3') and its 4 (5' aagttcagcgggtattcct-3') and g. lucidum specific primers gsf (5' -ccctaaacctctcaaa gtca-3') and gsr (5' -tatcgtacaggttct cgtg -3). pcr amplification was performed in 25 µl reaction mixture containing 10× reaction buffer supplied by the manufacturer, 100 ng of fungal dna, each dntp at a concentration of 0.5 mm, 20 pico moles of each primer and 1 u of taq dna polymerase (neb, usa). thermo cycling conditions were 94o c for 5 min, followed by 30 cycles of 94o c for 30 sec, 56o c for 1min and 72o c for 1min and a final elongation step of 72o c for 5min. separation of amplified products by agarose gel electrophoresis agarose gel electrophoresis was performed to resolve the amplified product using 1.4 per cent agarose in 1x tbe (tris borate edta) buffer, 0.5 mg ml-1 of ethidium br omide a nd loa ding buffer (0. 25 % bromophenol blue in 40 % sucrose). four µl of the loading dye was added to 5 µl of pcr product and loaded to the agarose gel. electrophoresis was carried at 65 v for 1.5 hrs. the gel was observed under uv light and documented using gel documentation unit. morphological and molecular diversity of ganoderma spp. causal agent 6 sequencing of its region: the its region was sequenced from isolates of ganoderma species to confirm the organism and to know the variability present in them. homology search was done using blast algorithm (basic local alignment search tool). results cultural and morphological variability/ characteristics of ganoderma isolates of coconut t he r esults r evea led tha t ther e wer e cultur a l mor phologica l va r ia tions between isola tes of ganoderma isolated from infected palms of coconut in southern dry tracts of karnataka. the colony diameter on 5th, 7th and 9th day after inoculation was significantly varied, where radial growth ranged from 1.87 to 8.53 cm on 5th day after inoculation. similarly on 7th and 9th day after inoculation it ranged from 2.63 to 9.00 cm and 4.75 to 9.00 cm respectively. the number of days taken to cover full plate ranged from 7 to 18 days and most of the isolates covered entire plate in 7 days as noted in cg4, cg7, cg10, cg11, cg12, cg13, cg14 and cg20. however, some of isolates taken <10 days to cover entire plate. the bio mass production also varied significantly between different isolates and it ranged from 0.56 to 1.46 g/ 100ml. there were lot of variations observed with respect to colony/ mycelial characteristics viz., concentric rings. reverse pigmentation, density of mycelium and colony margin. however, there was not much variations were observed with respect to colour and texture of the colony (fig.1 & 2 and table 3) fig. 1 : dendrogram showing relationships of ganoderma isolates of coconut based on similarity matrix of cultural/morphological characteristics fig. 2 : cultural morphological variability ganoderma isolates. a1-a4, ) ganoderma isolates on pda and b) ganoderma isolates on pdb palanna et al 7 r ad ia l gr ow th ( cm ) c ol on y/ m yc el ia l ch ar ac te rs is ol at es 5 d a i 7 d a i 9 d a i d ay s b io m as s c ol ou r/ re ve rs e te xt ur e/ c on ce nt ri c m ar gi n ta ke n g/ 10 0m l pi gm en ta ti on d en si ty r in gs c g 1 6. 16 7. 75 9. 00 9 1. 27 ( 6. 48 ) w hi te / w hi te fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 2 7. 08 8. 68 9. 00 8 1. 17 ( 6. 14 ) w hi te /w hi te fl uf fy /d en se e ve n c g 3 7. 63 8. 95 9. 00 8 1. 36 ( 6. 69 ) w hi te /p al e ye llo w fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 4 8. 36 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 09 ( 5. 98 ) w hi te /w hi te fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 5 2. 50 4. 75 6. 25 14 1. 01 ( 5. 75 ) c re am y w hi te /p al e ye llo w sm oo th /d en se e ve n c g 6 2. 67 4. 33 6. 00 11 0. 77 ( 5. 05 ) w hi te / pa le y el lo w fl uf fy /th in e ve n c g 7 8. 53 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 46 ( 6. 94 ) w hi te /y el lo w is h fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 8 7. 89 8. 64 9. 00 8 0. 87 ( 5. 33 ) w hi te /y el lo w is h fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 9 6. 58 8. 22 9. 00 9 1. 16 ( 6. 18 ) w hi te /w hi te fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 10 8. 39 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 14 ( 6. 12 ) w hi te / pa le y el lo w fl uf fy /th in fi la m en to us c g 11 8. 34 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 20 ( 6. 28 ) w hi te /y el lo w fl uf fy /th in fi la m en to us c g 12 8. 22 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 07 ( 5. 95 ) w hi te / pa le y el lo w fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 13 8. 34 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 05 ( 5. 86 ) w hi te / pa le y el lo w fl uf fy /d en se fi la m en to us c g 14 8. 26 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 32 ( 6. 58 ) w hi te / pa le y el lo w fl uf fy /d en se + fi la m en to us c g 15 2. 64 5. 58 7. 00 14 0. 95 ( 5. 53 ) w hi te /y el lo w l ea th er y/ de ns e + e ve n c g 16 2. 47 5. 50 7. 50 11 1. 30 ( 6. 54 ) w hi te / ye llo w is h fl uf fy /th in u nd ul at e c g 17 2. 08 4. 08 6. 25 17 0. 71 ( 4. 81 ) w hi te / y el lo w fl uf fy /d en se u nd ul at e c g 18 3. 08 6. 08 8. 00 15 0. 87 ( 5. 36 ) w hi te / pa le y el lo w fl uf fy /d en se + e ve n c g 19 1. 87 2. 63 4. 75 18 0. 56 ( 4. 26 ) w hi te /w hi te fl uf fy /th in e ro se c g 20 8. 08 9. 00 9. 00 7 1. 27 ( 6. 45 ) w hi te / p al e ye llo w fl uf fy /d en se + fi la m en to us se m ± 0. 08 6 0. 15 5 0. 01 4 0. 22 6 c d ( p= 0. 01 ) 0. 85 0 1. 12 0. 39 5 1. 34 8 c v ( % ) 4. 99 8 5. 27 3 1. 71 9 7. 97 8 n ot e: + p re se nt ; a bs en t; d a id ay s af te r in oc ul at io n *m ea n of t hr ee r ep lic at io ns ta bl e 3 : c ul tu ra l a nd m or ph ol og ic al c ha ra ct er is tic s/ va ri ab ili ty o f g an od er m a is ol at es o f co co nu t morphological and molecular diversity of ganoderma spp. causal agent 8 t he dendr ogr a m gener a ted fr om the cultur a l morphological characteristics showed clearly the variations among ganoderma isolates and dendrogram formed two main groups (fig.1). the isolate cg14 and cg5 are distinct. the complete similarity (100%) was found in several isolates of ganoderma regardless of their geographical origin. all the isolates used under study showed high va r ia bility in cultur a l a nd morphological characteristics. rakib et al. (2014) who had studied the genetic morphological variability of forty six isolates of ganoderma causing basal stem rot and upper stem rot in oil palm stated that, there wer e significant variations within and between ganoderma species in terms of their cultur a l morphology and basidiospore characteristics and they also reported that, cluster analysis of the cultural morphology and scattered plot of basidiospore features indicated that there was no distinct relationship within and between species, disease types or geographical origins of ganoderma species. t he wide r ange of va r ia tion in mor phologica l characteristic can be related to the heterogeneity of ganoderma species. the cultural characteristic that appeared to distinguish g. zonatum from g. boninense and g. miniatocinctum wa s the str ongly wa vy characteristic of the colony in g. zonatum. however, this characteristic also varied and was not present in all of the g. zonatum isolates. furthermore, the cultural appearances of fungi are also highly dependent on several factors such as type of media, ph and temperature (adaskaveg and gilbertson, 1989). although simila r (100 % simila r ity) cultur a l morphological features were observed between g3 and g4, g15 and g33, g19 and g27, and g30 and g31 based on the dendr ogr a m gener a ted, they wer e still genetica lly differ ent ba sed on the soma tic incompatibility between the isolates. this showed that different genotype in ganoderma species may express similar morphological features (phenotype). the dendrogram also showed same species of ganoderma may be separated by up to 40 per cent dissimilarity, while different species of ganoderma may have up to 92 per cent simila r ity. t his indica tes tha t ganoderma species in an oil palm plantation could not be separated according to their species, disease type or geographical origins based on their cultural morphological features. more precise tool such molecular techniques/tools should be used to identify the ganoderma species accurately. molecular characterization of ganoderma isolates genomic dna of different isolates of ganoderma was isolated by ctab method and the size was determined by resolving on one per cent agarose gel. the concentration of dna was determined using nanodrop equipment which was 75µg/µl. amplification of its1 and its4 region of rdna the full length its rdna region was amplified with its region with fungal universal primers (its1 and its4) and g. lucidum specific primers from the total genomic dna of a ll the five isola tes of ganoderma.dna amplicon was 600-650 bp in length in universal primers (fig.3) and dna was not amplified with g. lucidum specific primers and results revealed that, the g. lucidum species was absent in coconut isolates tested. further, the species identity was confirmed with dna sequencing. dna sequencing and specific amplification of ganoderma isolates the its rdna fragments of ganoderma isolates sequences were sequenced and dna amplification from ganoderma was observed at good specificity for the genus ganoderma and approximately 600-650 bp product was exclusively amplified in all the isolates tested with fungal universal primers. dna sequences of selected isolates of coconut was compared using bioinformatics tool like ncbi (national centre for bioinformatics) blast programme. based on the sequence comparison, the identification of ganoderma isola tes wa s confirmed and all the its r dna sequences of the isola tes wer e confir med a s ganoderma sp. with 80-100 per cent identity. the genbank accession number for the its sequences for the isolates cg1, cg7, cg11, cg14 and cg20 were mk681870, mk681871, mk681872, mk681873, mk681874. and phylogenetic tree of ganoderma constructed with its region sequences is shown in fig. 4. the phylogeny of the ganoderma isolates of coconut r evea led tha t, the isola te cg 1 gr ouped with ganoderma carnosum (kr 733545.1) which is originated from sri lanka and cg14 and cg20 grouped with ganoderma sp. (kr154930) and ganoderma sp. (km229652). these species were originated from india and cg7 and cg11 isolates of coconut grouped into distinct sub cluster and indicated the species palanna et al 9 diversity and dissimilarity of ganoderma in southern karnataka. abundance and uniform distribution of genetic markers in any pathogen is necessary for applications like diversity analysis at various levels. almost unlimited in number, they are widely and evenly distributed in the genome. unaffected by other genes and environment, the genotype of any individual of a population with respect to dna based markers can be determined unequivocally at any stage of the development non-destructively. in addition, it is possible to genera te ma r ker s to suite specific applications without altering the genotype of the individuals. it is difficult to distinguish these species using traditional morphological and physiological differences. to understand existence of variation among the isolates of pathogens, pcr based technique with g. lucidum specific markers and its sequence was used in the present investigation. var iations in mor phologica l char a cteristics of ganoderma have led many taxonomists to introduce biochemical and molecular methods to differentiate ganoderma species. dna a mplifica tion fr om ganoderma was observed at good specificity for the genus ganoderma and approximately 600-650 bp product was exclusively amplified in all the isolates tested with fungal universal primers. however, dna amplification was not amplified with g. lucidum specific primers in the isolates tested. the sequencing a nd phylogenetic ana lysis of selected isolates ganoderma infecting coconut r evea led the ganoderma species diversity in dry tracts of southern karnataka. nuclear rdna, including the small and large subunits, 5.8s, and the internal transcribed spacer (its) region, proved an ideal target for specific pcr primers, as each sequence is variable at the family, legend: lane m = 100bp ladder; lane 1-5 = ganoderma isolates of coconut; lane n = negative control fig. 3 : gel picture showing pcr amplification of rdna of ganoderma isolates of coconut with its1, its4 and g lucidum primers its primers g. lucidum specific primers morphological and molecular diversity of ganoderma spp. causal agent fig. 4 : phylogenetic relationships of ganoderma isolates of coconut inferred from the sequences of the its region 10 genus, or species level. internal transcribed spacer (its) regions have been successfully used to generate specific primers capable of differentiating closely related fungal species. amplification of target dna thr ough pcr with ta xon-specific pr imers is a potentially more sensitive and accurate approach than conventional microscopic techniques. nucleotide sequences from certain regions of the dna reflect phylogeny at various taxonomic levels. such regions need to be evolving at an appropriate rate in order to supply enough consistent differences to separate the taxa into statistically supported monophyletic groups. these regions must be present as a single copy in the genome or evolve as a single copy region in order to avoid comparisons of different copies in different species (paralogous comparisons) if the region exists as multicopy. also, the region should have the same function in all organisms (mitchell et al., 1995). the ribosomal rna (rrna) genes, certain ribosomal elongation factors, and genes from the nuclear and the mitochondrial genomes have been useful for dna sequence analysis in fungi (tan and niessen, 2003; moreau et al., 2006). consequently, nucleotide sequence information from relatively conserved genes/ dna segments such as the its (moncalvo et al., 1995a, b; smith and sivasithamparam, 2000a), the mitochondrial small subunit (mtssu) (hong and jung, 2004), and nuclear large subunit (lsu) (lee et al., 2006) rdna have been widely used in the taxonomy and phylogeny of ganoderma species. this is because the variability of these regions, which is harboured mainly in the introns, provides sufficient resolution at various taxonomic levels. gottlieb et al. (2000) adopted rdna analysis (its i and ii of 5.8s rdna) to identify south american isolates of ganoderma and elfvingia and found molecular and morphological agreement at the sub generic level, however this relationship was difficult to visualize at the species level. singh et al. (2003) characterized 61 accessions using dna finger printing technique and rapd/ aflp analysis which revealed highly significant genetic variability among g. lucidum isolates collected from coconut gardens in coimbatore. phylogenetic analysis of the its sequence data was used to resolve australian ganoderma isolates into five terminal clades, and showed that a number of isola tes ha d been misna med (smith a nd sivasithamparam, 2000a). based on the phylogenetic analysis of the its and 5.8s sequence, latiffah et al. (2002) showed that ganoderma isolates from infected oil palm and coconut stumps belong to the same group as classified by pcr-rflp. gottlieb et al. (2000) also used its-based phylogenetic analysis together with pcr-rflps to elucidate the taxonomy of ganoderma species in south amer ica. t hey r epor ted tha t molecular and morphological data agree at the subgeneric level, but that it was difficult to determine relationships at the species level. e a r lier s t u dies b a s ed on mor p hologic a l identification a sserted that north american g. lucidum and european g. resinaceum belong to the same biological species (adaskaveg and gilbertson, 1986). based on phylogenetic relationships and nu c leot ide s equ enc e va r ia t ions of t he i t s (moncalvo et al., 1995a, b) as well as the mtssu (hong and jung, 2004), these two species were shown to be differ ent. the gene phylogeny by moncalvo et al. (1995b) has indicated that isolates that were morphologically identified as g. lucidum did not cluster together, neither did those identified as g. tsugae or g. resinaceum. in the phylogenetic a na lysis of ganoderma species using mtssu s equ enc e d a t a b y h ong a nd j u ng ( 2 0 0 4 ) , g a n o d e r m a s p ec ies wer e divided i nt o s ix monop hyletic gr ou ps ( g. co lo s su s gr ou p, g. applanatum gr oup, g. tsugae gr oup, asian g. lucidum gr oup, g. meredithiae gr oup, a nd g. resinaceum group) that included different species t ha t wer e identified b a sed on mor p hologica l char a cter s. species tha t wer e identified as g. lucidum were scattered over three of the groups, the asian g. lucidum group, the g. resinaceum group and the g. tsugae group. also, isolates that were identified as g. oregonense and g. oerstedii did not group together. these two studies indicate that s ome is ola t es wer e mis ident if ie d b a s ed on morphological characters since isolates that were identified as one thing do not form a monophyletic group. from the preceding discussion it is clear that dna sequence analysis of the ribosomal dna region has provided an alternative approach to elucidate the taxonomy of ganoderma. these techniques have pla yed a n impor ta nt r ole in the ta xonomy of ganoderma, and have proved to be more reliable than other techniques that have been used for the same purpose. misidentification and species synonyms based on morphological identification have been reduced using the molecular techniques. among 5 isolates sequenced, isolate cg14 and cg20 are grouped palanna et al 11 in same cluster both in morphological and molecular phylogeny. however, other isolates viz., cg7 and cg11 which are genetically 100 per cent similar and grouped in same cluster are morphologically different as evidenced by grouping in different clusters in morphological phylogeny. in this study, a combination of cultur a l/mor phologica l cha r a cter istics a nd molecular techniques allowed identification of groups within ganoderma isolates of coconut and results indicated existence of morphological and molecular variability of ganoderma isolates of coconut causing bsr in dry tracts of southern karnataka. further, molecular characterization with g. lucidum species specific markers and fungal universal primers also indicated species diversity in ganoderma causing basal stem rot/ ganoderma wilt in coconut. in the present study based on phylogenetic analysis isolate cg1 was identified as g. carnosum with 98.97 per cent identity and isolates cg14 and cg20 showed ma ximum (98. 96 to 99. 46 %) identity with g. gibbosum and g. applanatum species and indicating the different species associated with ganoderma wilt of coconut in dry tracts of southern karnataka. however, the species identity has to be confirmed by systematic investigation with polyphasic taxonomic a ppr oa ch to unr a vel the species diver sity of ganoderma causing basal stem rot in coconut in karnataka. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge icar-aicrp on palms, agriculture research station, arsikere and department of horticulture, government of karnataka for providing base line information on coconut cultivation and department of plant pathology, univer sity of agr icultur a l sciences, gkvk, bengaluru for providing facilities to carry out this work. references adaskaveg, j. e. and gilbertson, r. l.1986. cultural studies and genetics of sexuality of ganoderma lucidum and g. tsugae in r ela tion to the taxonomy of g. lucidum complex. mycologia 78: 694-705 adaskaveg, j. e. and gilbertson, r. l. 1989. cultural studies of four north american species in the ganoderma lucidum complex with comparisons to g. lucidum and g. tsugae. mycol. res.92: 182-191 bhaskaran, r.1994. biofertilizers for the management of basal stem rot disease of coconut. indian coconut j.25: 7–11 flood, j., hasan, y., turner, p. d. and ogrady, e. b. 2000. the spread of ganoderma from infective sources in the field and its implications for management of the disease in oil palm. in ganoderma diseases of perennial crops, j. flood, p.d. bridge and m. holderness, (eds.), cab international, oxon, uk. pp 101-113 gottlieb, a. m., ferrer, e. and wright, j. e. 2000. rdna analyses as an aid to the taxonomy of species of ganoderma. mycological research., 104: 1033-1045 gottlieb, a.m. and wright, j. e. 1999a. taxonomy of ganoderma from southern south america: subgenus ganoderma. mycological research,103: 661-673 hong, s. g. and jung, h.s. 2004. phylogenetic a na lysis of ganoderma ba sed on near ly complete mitochondrial small subunit ribosomal dna sequences. mycologia, 96: 742-755 hong, k. k., geon, s. s. and hong, g. k.2001. comparison of characteristics of ganoderma lucidum according to geographical origins: consideration of morphological characteristics. micobiology,29: 80-84 idris, a. s., ariffin, d., swinburne, t. r. and watt, t. a. 2000. the identity of ganoderma species responsible for basal stem rot (bsr) disease of oil pa lm in ma la ysia – mor phologica l characteristics. malaysian palm oil board inform. series, 102, mpob tt no. 77a idris, a.s., rajinder, s., madihah, a. z. and wahid, m. b. 2010. multiplex pcr-dna kit for early detection and identification of ganoderma species in oil palm. malaysian palm oil board inform. series, 531, mpob ts no.73 latiffah, z., harikrishna, k., tan, s. g., tan, s. h., abdullah, f. and ho, y. w. 2002. restriction analysis and sequencing of the its regions and 5.8s gene of rdna of ganoderma isolates from infected oil palm and coconut stumps in malaysia. association of applied biologists, 141: 133-142 lee, j. s., lim, m. k., cho, k. y., chang, s.y. a nd na m, d. h. 2006. identifica tion of medic ina l mu s hr oom s p ec ies b a s ed on morphological and molecular diversity of ganoderma spp. causal agent 12 nuclear large subunit rdna sequences. the journal of microbiology,44: 29-34. lee, s. s. 2000. the current status of root diseases of acacia mangium willd. [in “ganoderma diseases of perennial crops” (j. flood, p. d . br i d g e an d m . h o l d e r ne s s , (eds.)], cab international, oxon, uk. pp 71-79. miller, r. n.g., holderness, m., bridge, p. d., chung, g. f. and za kar ia , m. h. 1999. genetic diversity of ganoderma in oil palm plantings. plant pathol.,48: 595-603 mitchell, j.i., roberts, p. j. and moss, s.t. 1995. sequence or structure? a short review on the a p p lic a t i on of nu c leic a c id s equ enc e information to fungal taxonomy. mycologist, 9: 67-75 monca lvo, j. m. a nd ryva r den, l. 199 7. a nomencla tur e s tudy of t he ganod erma taceae donk. sinopsis fungorum,11: 1-14 moncalvo, j. m., wang, h. h. and hseu, r. s. 1 9 9 5 a . p h ylogenet ic r ela t io ns hip s in g a n o d e r m a inf er r ed f r om t he int er na l transcribed spacers and 25s ribosomal dna sequences. mycologia,87: 223-238 moncalvo, j m; wang, h. and hseu, r s 1995b. gene phylogeny of ganoderma lucidum complex based on ribosomal dna sequences. 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diversity of ganoderma species isola ted from infected oil pa lms ( elaeis guineensis). int. j. agric. biol., 16: 691 699 rethinam, p. and taufikkurahman, l. 2002. global scenario of coconut oil. indian coconut j.33(7): 1–8 sambrook, j. and russell, d. w. 2001. molecular cloning: a laboratory manual, cold spring harbor laboratory press, new york. p. a3.1a3.10 singh, s. k., yadav, m. c., upadhyay, r. c., shwetkamal, r. d. and tewari, r. p. 2003. molecula r cha r a cter iza tion of specia lty mushr oom ger mpla sm of the na tiona l mushroom repository. mushroom research, 12: 67-78. smith, b. j. and sivasithamparam, k. 2000. internal transcribed spacer ribosomal dna sequence of five species of ganoderma from australia. mycological research 104(8): 943-951. tan, m. k. and niessen, l. m. 2003. analysis of rdna its sequences to determine genetic relationships among, and provide a basis for simplified diagnosis of, fusarium species causing crown rot and head blight of cereals. mycol res., 107: 811–821 venkatarayan, s. v. 1936. the biology of ganoderma lucidum on a r eca a nd coconut pa lms. phytopathology, 26: 153–175 wilson, k. i., rajan, k. m., nair, m. c. and bhaskaran, s. 1987. ganoderma disease of coconut in kerala. international symposium on ganoderma wilt disease on palms and other perennial crops, tnau, coimbatore (abstract) pp 4-5 wong, l., bong, c. f.j. a nd idris, a.s. , 2012. ganoderma species associated with basal stem rot disease of oil palm. american journal of applied sciences, 9(6), pp.879-885. palanna et al india stands third in papaya production, after brazil and nigeria with a 12% share of the total global production (f.a.o., 2004). the total area under papaya cultivation in india is about 73,000 ha and the total production is about 0.26 million tonnes (anon, 2004). it is cultivated chiefly in uttar pradesh, gujarat, maharashtra and tamil nadu. cultivation of papaya is beset with a number of problems like poor seed viability, sexual propagation, instability in sex ratio, sensitivity to water logging, frost, hot winds and susceptibility to fungal and viral diseases. papaya being a highly cross pollinated and polygamous fruit species, produces large variability with effect of γγγγγ irradiation on germination, growth, sensitivity and survivability of papaya cv. kesar king murlee yadav, m. s. kushwah, d. b. singh, r. k. roshan and nongallei pebam department of horticulture allahabad agricultural institutedeemed university allahabad – 211 007, india e-mail: murli_y@yahoo.com abstract an experiment was laid out in a 4x2 factorial design, with 4 levels of γγγγγ-irradiation (0,5,10 & 15 krad) and two dates of sowing (15th september and 15th october) on papaya cv. kesar king. the results indicated that germination percentage, survival percentage and plant growth increased with the increased in γγγγγ-irradiation upto 10 krad. early sowing of seed (15th september) showed better germination (73%), survival (70%) and plant growth as compared to late sowing (15th october). interaction between γγγγγ-irradiation of 10 krad and early sowing of seed (15th september) was found superior to all the other treatment combinations to obtain optimum germination percentage, survival percentage and plant growth. key words: γ-irradiation, papaya respect to plant characters. it is also very difficult to maintain the purity of variety and uniformity in plants. papaya seeds exhibit poor seed viability and germ inability in stored seeds. presently, there is a huge demand for healthy and productive seedlings among papaya farmers. mutation by γ-irradiation is used for improvement of fruit crops, particularly in papaya. the present investigation was carried out during 2006–2007 in the department of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute deemed university, allahabad. the experiment was laid out in a 4 x 2 factorial crd, comprising of four levels of γ-irradiation (0, 5, 10 and 15 krad.) and table 1. effect of different levels of γγγγγ-irradiation and date of sowing on germination percentage and survival percentage of papaya (carica papaya l.) germination percentage survival percentage date of sowing (d) mean (r) date of sowing (d) mean (r) γ-irradiation (r) d 1 (15th sep.) d 2 (15th oct.) d 1 (15th sep.) d 2 (15th oct.) no irradiation 59.40 55.00 57.20 57.33 52.00 54.67 5 krad 65.00 62.00 63.50 60.20 60.00 60.10 10 krad 73.20 70.00 71.60 70.00 65.00 67.50 15 krad 67.50 66.00 66.75 64.00 63.50 63.75 mean (d) 66.27 63.25 64.76 62.88 60.13 61.50 r s rxs r s rxs s.em ± 0.33 0.46 0.46 0.54 0.77 0.77 cd (p=0.05) 0.70 0.99 0.99 1.17 1.65 1.65 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 68-71, 2008 page 68 69 two dates of sowing (15th september and 15th october) on papaya cv. kesar king. observations on germination percentage, survivability, and growth parameters namely, plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf spread, diameter of stem, and petiole length were taken at 15 days interval. the data pertaining to germination percentage and survival percentage of papaya, as influenced by different level of γ-irradiation and dates of sowing are presented in table 1. a significant increase in germination and survival percentage was recorded with γ-irradiation of 10 krad (r 2 ). however, the minimum germination and survival percentage were recorded with no irradiation (r 0 ). seeds sown on 15th september (d 1 ) recorded significantly higher percentage of germination (73.20%) and survival percentage (70%) as compared to (70% and 65%, respectively) 15th october sowing. interaction effect of γ-irradiation of 10 krad and 15th september seed sowing (r 2 d 1 ) recorded the highest percentage of germination (73.20%) and survival (70%), whereas the lowest germination (55%) and survival (52%) were observed with no irradiation in 15th october sowing. bankapur and habib (1979) reported that 5-15 krad doses of γ-irradiation increased the germination, survival and number of male and female flowers and hafiz et al (2005) also found maximum germination (87.50%) with 2.5 krad of γ-irradiation. the data with respect to plant height recorded at 15 days intervals is presented in table 2. effect of γirradiation and date of sowing were non-significant at 15 days after sowing (das). plant height was significantly influenced by γ irradiation and date of sowing from 30 das. the maximum plant height at 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 das was recorded in 10 krad (r 2 ), whereas minimum plant height was observed with no irradiation (r 0 ). interaction effect of γ irradiation of 10 krad and sowing date of 15th september recorded the maximum plant height. however, minimum plant height was observed with the interaction between no irradiation (r 0 ) and 15th october sowing. the data presented in table 2 revealed that number of leaves per plant was significantly influenced by different level of γ-irradiation and dates of sowing from 30 das. the maximum number of leaves per plant 16.06,24.00,34.33 at 60, 75, 90 das was recorded in 10 krad (r 2 ) on 15th september sowing whereas it was minimum 8.23, 17.88, 21.68 with no irradiation (r 0 ) on 15th october sowing. interaction effect of γ irradiation of 10 krad and sowing date of 15th september was found to have maximum number of leaves per plant at all intervals. however, minimum numbers of leaves per plant was observed with the interaction between no irradiation (r 0 ) and sowing date of 15th october at all interval. the data pertaining to leaf spread at 15 day intervals is presented in table 3. effect of γ-irradiation and date of sowing was found non-significant with leaf spread at 15 das. the leaf spread was significantly influenced by γ irradiation and date of sowing from 30 das. the maximum leaf spread at 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 das was recorded in 10 krad (r 2 ) at 15th sept. sowing while minimum leaf spread was observed with no irradiation (r 0 ). interaction effect of γ irradiation of 10 krad and 15th september sowing was found maximum in leaf spread at all interval i.e., 60, 75, 90 das. while it was minimum with interaction between no irradiation (r 0 ) and 15th october sowing at all interval. hafiz et al (2005) also found maximum germination (87.50%) with 2.5 krad of γ irradiation. the data in respect of stem diameter at 15 day intervals is presented in table 3. effect of γ-irradiation and date of sowing was found non-significant in stem diameter at 15 das, while it was significantly affected 30 days after sowing. the maximum stem diameter at 60, 75, 90 das were recorded in 10 krad (r 2 ) at 15th sept. sowing whereas minimum with no irradiation (r 0 ). interaction effect of γ irradiation of 10 krad and 15th september sowing showed maximum stem diameter at all intervals. however, minimum stem diameter was observed with the interaction between no irradiation (r 0 ) and 15th october sowing. the data presented in table 4 revealed that petiole length was significantly influenced by different level of γ-irradiation and dates of sowing from 30 das. the maximum petiole length at 60, 75, 90 das was recorded in 10 krad (r 2 ) on 15th september sowing whereas it recorded minimum with no irradiation (r 0 ). interaction effect of γ-irradiation of 10 krad and 15th september sowing on petiole length was maximum at all the interval. however, it was minimum with the interaction between no irradiation (r 0 ) and 15th october sowing. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to the head, deptt. of horticulture, aai-du for providing research facilities for the work. effect of γ-irradiation on papaya plant j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 68-71, 2008 70 t ab le 2 . p la n t h ei gh t an d n u m b er o f le av es p er p la n t as i n fl u en ce d b y d if fe re n t le ve l of γγγγ γ i rr ad ia ti on a n d d at es o f so w in g p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) n u m b er o f le av es p er p la n t 6 0 d a s 7 5 d a s 9 0 d a s 6 0 d a s 7 5 d a s 9 0 d a s ãir ra d ia ti o n d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) ( k ra d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 0 5 .2 9 4 .6 2 4 .9 6 9 .4 4 8 .8 1 9 .1 3 1 2 .2 0 11 .7 0 11 .9 5 1 2 .2 0 8 .2 3 1 0 .2 2 1 8 .4 3 1 7 .8 8 1 8 .1 6 2 3 .6 0 2 1 .6 8 2 2 .6 4 5 6 .2 4 6 .1 5 6 .2 0 1 3 .6 0 11 .1 7 1 2 .3 9 1 4 .2 0 1 5 .0 0 1 4 .6 0 1 4 .7 3 1 4 .5 0 1 4 .6 2 2 0 .6 9 1 9 .8 3 2 0 .2 6 2 5 .7 3 2 4 .8 0 2 5 .2 7 1 0 1 3 .8 1 1 3 .3 0 1 3 .5 6 1 7 .5 7 1 7 .1 4 1 7 .3 6 2 1 .2 3 2 1 .1 6 2 1 .2 0 1 6 .0 6 1 5 .9 7 1 6 .0 1 2 4 .0 0 2 2 .0 7 2 3 .0 3 3 4 .3 3 2 8 .7 7 3 1 .5 5 1 5 1 3 .1 2 1 2 .1 1 1 2 .6 2 1 6 .0 2 1 5 .6 9 1 5 .8 5 2 1 .1 2 2 0 .4 7 2 0 .7 9 1 5 .4 7 1 5 .0 0 1 5 .2 3 2 1 .0 5 2 0 .7 8 2 0 .9 2 2 7 .9 0 2 7 .3 8 2 7 .6 4 m ea n ( d ) 9 .6 2 9 .0 5 9 .3 3 1 4 .1 6 1 3 .2 0 1 3 .6 8 1 7 .1 9 1 7 .0 8 1 7 .1 3 1 4 .6 2 1 3 .4 3 1 4 .0 2 2 1 .0 4 2 0 .1 4 2 0 .5 9 2 7 .8 9 2 5 .6 6 2 6 .7 7 r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s s .e m ± 0 .1 5 0 .1 0 0 .2 1 0 .2 9 0 .2 1 0 .4 1 0 .0 7 0 .1 0 0 .0 5 0 .6 5 0 .4 6 0 .9 2 0 .1 8 0 .1 3 0 .2 6 0 .6 9 0 .4 9 0 .9 7 c d (p = 0 .0 5 ) 0 .3 1 0 .2 2 0 .4 4 0 .6 3 0 .4 4 0 .8 9 0 .1 5 0 .2 1 0 .1 1 1 .3 9 0 .9 9 1 .9 7 0 .3 9 0 .2 7 0 .5 5 1 .4 8 1 .0 4 2 .0 9 t ab le 3 . l ea f sp re ad ( cm 2 ) a n d s te m d ia m et er ( cm ) as i n fl u en ce d b y d if fe re n t le ve l of γγγγ γ i rr ad ia ti on a n d d at es o f so w in g l ea f sp re ad ( cm 2 ) s te m d ia m et er ( cm ) 6 0 d a s 7 5 d a s 9 0 d a s 6 0 d a s 7 5 d a s 9 0 d a s ãir ra d ia ti o n d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) d at e o f m ea n ( r ) ( k ra d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) so w in g ( d ) d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 0 11 .7 3 1 0 .3 9 11 .0 6 2 1 .4 3 2 1 .1 0 2 1 .2 7 2 6 .2 7 2 5 .3 3 2 5 .8 0 0 .8 4 0 .8 4 0 .8 4 1 .1 3 1 .1 2 1 .1 3 1 .5 9 1 .4 8 1 .5 3 5 1 2 .3 7 1 2 .1 7 1 2 .2 7 2 5 .1 3 2 3 .8 3 2 4 .4 8 2 9 .5 7 2 8 .7 3 2 9 .1 5 0 .8 6 0 .8 5 0 .8 6 1 .2 2 1 .2 1 1 .2 2 1 .7 6 1 .6 4 1 .7 0 1 0 4 5 .0 0 4 1 .1 7 4 3 .0 8 5 8 .7 5 5 8 .3 7 5 8 .5 6 7 7 .3 7 6 9 .3 7 7 3 .3 7 1 .0 5 0 .9 0 0 .9 8 1 .3 2 1 .2 5 1 .2 8 1 .8 5 1 .8 3 1 .8 4 1 5 4 1 .0 0 3 7 .8 0 3 9 .4 0 5 4 .0 3 5 1 .5 3 5 2 .7 8 6 9 .3 3 6 9 .0 7 6 9 .2 0 0 .9 0 0 .8 9 0 .9 0 1 .2 4 1 .2 3 1 .2 3 1 .8 3 1 .7 6 1 .8 0 m ea n ( d ) 2 7 .5 3 2 5 .3 8 2 6 .4 5 3 9 .8 4 3 8 .7 1 3 9 .2 7 5 0 .6 3 4 8 .1 3 4 9 .3 8 0 .9 1 0 .8 7 0 .8 9 1 .2 3 1 .2 0 1 .2 1 1 .7 6 1 .6 8 1 .7 2 r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s r s r x s s .e m ± 0 .6 0 0 .4 3 0 .8 6 0 .3 9 0 .2 8 0 .5 5 1 .3 8 0 .9 8 1 .9 5 0 .0 1 0 .0 1 0 .0 1 0 .0 1 0 .0 1 0 .0 1 0 .0 1 0 .0 1 0 .0 2 c d (p = 0 .0 5 ) 1 .3 0 0 .9 2 1 .8 3 0 .8 4 0 .5 9 1 .1 8 2 .9 6 2 .0 9 4 .1 9 0 .0 2 0 .0 1 0 .0 2 0 .0 2 0 .0 2 0 .0 3 0 .0 3 0 .0 2 0 .0 4 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 68-71, 2008 murlee yadav et al 71 table 4. petiole length (cm) as influenced by different level of γγγγγ irradiation and dates of sowing petiole length (cm) 60 das 75 das 90 das ã-irradiation date of sowing (d) mean (r) date of sowing (d) mean (r) date of sowing (d) mean (r) (krad) d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 d 1 d 2 0 1.91 1.84 1.88 4.47 3.65 4.06 7.40 5.40 6.40 5 5.40 3.11 4.25 6.87 5.74 6.30 10.50 8.30 9.40 10 8.71 8.33 8.52 12.67 10.73 11.70 14.65 13.87 14.26 15 7.43 6.37 6.90 10.43 10.11 10.27 13.27 12.67 12.97 mean (d) 5.86 4.91 5.39 8.61 7.56 8.08 11.46 10.06 10.76 r s rxs r s rxs r s rxs s.em ± 0.16 0.11 0.22 0.16 0.11 0.23 0.19 0.13 0.26 cd(p=0.05) 0.34 0.24 0.48 0.34 0.24 0.49 0.40 0.28 0.57 references anonymous, 2005. national horticulture board. horticulture data base. bankapur, v. m. and habib, a. f. 1979. mutation studies in papaya (carica papaya). mysore j. agril. sci., 13:113-116. hafiz, i. a., naveed, anwar, abbas, n. a. and asi, a. a. 2005. effect of various doses of g-radiation on the seed germination and seedling growth of mangosarad. j. agri., 21 : 63-567. (ms received 28 september 2007, revised 5 february 2008) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 68-71, 2008 effect of γ-irradiation on papaya plant 119 assessment of chilli varieties in salem district for higher productivity p.s. kavitha1, a. sudha2 and s. srividya3 1horticultural college and research institute for women, trichy, tamil nadu, india 2forestry college and research institute, mettupalayam tamil nadu, india, 3regional research station, paiyur, tamil nadu, india. 1e-mail: oviya232@yahoo.com abstract chilli is an important spice which is grown throughout india. chillies are integral and the most important ingredient in many different cuisines around the world as it adds pungency, taste, flavour and color to the dishes. chilli is grown in kolathur block of salem district in an area of nearly 879 ha. the farmers are mainly growing the local varieties and private hybrids in kolathur block. during the farmers and scientist conference conducted at kvk, sandhiyur (2013), the growers opted for new varieties (high yield, lengthy fruit, good pungency, and colour retention during storage). an onfarm trial was conducted in pannavadi village of kolathur block. in this study three varieties (lalima, lca 625 and kovilpatti 2) were assessed for yield, pest disease tolerance and quality parameters. lca 625 gave an average yield of 6.2-6.8 t / ha, fruit length of 9-11 cm, good pungency and good colour retention during storage compared to other two varieties. the colour of dry chilli during storage was orange compared to lalima with bright attractive red colour. hence in the market lalima fetched more price than the other two varieties. hence, it is suggested for the researchers that lca 625 may be refined for marketable colour. keywords : on farm trial, pungency, lca 625, shrinkage, marketable colour introduction chillies are native to the tropics of central a nd south amer ica a nd a r e a mong the oldest cultivated crops on this continent. basically chilli is a crop of tropical and subtropical region. india is the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter of chilies in the world (crop reports, 2015). india produces about 1.298 mmt of chillies from an area of 0.806 mha with an average productivity of 1611 kg/ha (ncpah, 2017). t he impor ta nt sta tes gr owing c hi lli a r e andhr a p r a de s h, o r is s a , maharashtra, west bengal, karnataka, rajasthan and tamilnadu. it requires annual rainfall of 25-30 inches. chillies can be grown in a wide range of soils whereas ideal soil ph is 5.5 – 6.8. chillies grow well in areas where the average temperature is 24 °c for at least 4 to 5 months of the year. chillies are used as ingredients to add flavour and colour to most dishes. they are high in vitamin a and c, calcium and iron and can be used as a medicine to treat asthma, coughs and sore throats. commercial cultivation of chillies is more successful and one can expect decent profits in chilli farming du e t o it s ma r ket va lu es in loc a l a r ea s a nd inter na t iona l ma r ket s (p a ndey et a l. , 2 00 8) . kolathur block of salem district covers an area of nearly 879 ha for cultivation of chillies. the farmers are mainly concentrating on the local varieties and private hybrids in kolathur block. during the farmers a nd s cient is t confer enc e c ondu ct ed a t k vk , sa ndhiyur (2013), the gr ower s opted for new va r ieties with high yield, lengthy f r uit, good pungency, a nd colour retention dur ing stor age (kumar et al., 2006). based on their request, a field survey was conducted by kvk scientists during 2013-14. p r ima r y da ta wa s c ollec ted on va r iou s aspects of chilli cultivation. an on farm trial was conducted at 5 locations in pannavadi village of kolathur block. in this trial three varieties (lalima, lca 625 and kovilpatti 2) were assessed for yield, short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 119-121, 2018 120 assessment of chilli varieties j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 119-121, 2018 and quality parameters. lalima was the farmers grown local check, kovilpatti2 (k 2) was used as reference variety and lca 625 was the variety r elea sed by l am r es ea r ch sta tion, gu nt ur, andrapradesh horticultural university (aphu). lca 625 gives an average yield of 6.2-6.8 t / ha, fruit length of 9-11 cm, good pungency and good colour retention during storage. hence this variety was chosen for the performance in kolathur block. seeds of lca 625 were purchased from the lam station, guntur and distributed to farmers. farmers were given training on protray nursery raising, improved package of practices and value addition in chilli. in addition to this planofix and arka veget a b le b oost er wer e a lso given f or f olia r spraying to increase the fruit set and quality (mehraj et al., 2014). observations on crop duration, day of first flowering, green chilli and red chilli yield, no. of fruits, fruit length, pungency, total yield, net income and bcr were studied (singh et al., 2009). average and standard deviation was calculated and the pooled da ta of the above pa r ameter s at 5 locations are presented as results. observations were recorded periodically in all the five fields at pannavadi village and tabulated (table 1.). the results indicated that the maximum fruit set was observed in lca 625 than the other two varieties, fruit length was observed to be higher (9.78 cm) in lalima than lca 625 (8.44 cm). the crop duration was found to be 207days for lca 625 and 210 days for the other two varieties with high yield of 12.6 t/ha of green chilli in lca 625 and 12.46t/ha in lalima, whereas the reference variety yielded only 3.42 t/ha of green chilli (maurya et al., 2015). further dry chilli yield of 4.82 t/ha in lca 625, 4.32 t/ha in lalima and 1.8t/ha in kovilpatti 2 (chakrabarthy et al., 2017) (fig. 1 and 2). table 1. assessment of morphological and fruit characters in chilli varieties treatments particulars crop duration fruit length green chilli dry chilli duration for (days) (t/ha) (t/ha) drying of fruits (days) to 1 local lalima 265 ± 5.0 9.78 ± 0.5 12.6 4.32 ± 0.3 10-11 to 2 tnau 210 ± 0.0 6.86 ± 0.2 3.42 1.80 ± 0.2 10-11 kovilpatti 2 tnau to 3 lca 625 207 ± 4.5 8.44 ± 0.4 12.46 4.82 ± 0.3 8-9 with the net return of rs. 79,120 and bcr of 3.04 lca 625 performed well compared to net return of rs 71,740 and bcr of 2.9 in lalima and rs. 32,120 and 1.94 in k 2. table 2. cost economics of the assessed varieties technology assessed gross cost gross net return (profit) bc in rs. / unit ratio technology option 36200 ± 1461.1 107940± 7541.1 71740± 6821.5 2.981± 0.2 1 lalima technology option 34340± 909.9 66460± 2463.3 32120± 1825.4 1.9348±0.1 2 k2 kovilpatti 2 tnau technology option 38740± 1357.5 117860± 6315.6 79120± 5221.3 3.041± 0.1 3 lca 625 121 kavitha et al fig 1. lca 625 and lalima fig 2. field observation on standing crop of lalima, while the other two varieties are short duration chilli var ieties tha t wer e studied in this experiment showed variations in crop duration, fruit length, green chilli yield, dry chilli yield and duration of drying of fruits (chowdhury et al., 2015). with the assessment made in 5 locations it was observed that though in most of the parameters lca 625 excelled other two varieties, the colour of dry chilli during storage was orange compared to lalima with bright attractive red colour. hence in the market, lalima fetched more price than the other two varieties. however the pungency was more and the shrinkage of skin was less in lca 625 compared to other varieties (table 2). hence it is suggested for the resea rchers that lca 625 may be refined for marketable colour. acknowledgements authors are highly grateful to those peoples and organizations who were helpful for the conduct of this research. chakrabarthy, s. and aminul islam, a.k. 2017. selection criteria for improving yield in chilli (capsicum annuum). advances in agriculture volume 2017   https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/ 5437870 chowdhury, m. s. n., hoque, f., mehraj, h. and jamal uddin, a. f. m. (2015). vegetative growth and yield performance of four chilli (capsicum frutescens) cultivars. american-eurasian j. agric. & environ. sci. 15(4): 514-517 kumar s, kumar r, singh j 2006. cayenne/ american pepper (capsicum species). in: handbook of herbs and spices, peter kv (ed), vol 3. woodhead publ, cambridge, uk. p 299-312. maurya, a.k., yadav, s.k. and sunita kushwaha. 2015. growth, flowering and yield of chilli, capsicum annuum l as influenced by age of references seedlings. inter na tional journa l of far m sciences 5(1) : 14-16. mehraj, h., tamima, m. h., chowdhury, m. s. n., ferdous, m. h. and jamal uddin, a. f. m. 2014. study on morpho-physiological characteristics and yield performance of four chilli lines. j. biosci. agric. res. 2(1): 1-7 pandey jyoti, singh jagdish, verma ajay, singh ak , rai mathura, kumar sanjeet. 2008. evaluation of chilli (capsicum annuum l) genotypes for some quality traits. j food sci technol, 2008, 45(5), 463–465. singh, y, sharma, m. and sharma, a. (2009). genetic variation, association of characters, and their dir ect a nd indir ect contr ibutions for improvement in chilli peppers. international journal of vegetable sciences. 15: 340–368. (ms received 22 february 2018, revised 10 may 2018, accepted 27 june 2018) j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 119-121, 2018 j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 68-70, 2006 statistical modelling for pre-harvest forecast: an illustration with rose k. s. shamasundaran and r. yenugopalan section of economics and statistics indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: sham@iihr.emet.in abstract crop yield forecast plays a vital role in arriving at pre-harvest yield estimate of a standing crop and to identify the stage at which reliable forecasting could be made before final harvest. in this paper, an attempt has been made to apply the regression technique for prediction of yield in rose. rose, is an important flower crop not only for internal market but is also intended for export, and since it shrivels, estimation of yield of a standing crop before its actual harvest is essential. based on results a model was developed, which showed that information from the first two pickings of a standing crop could be used to forecast rose yield to an extent of 77% two months before final harvest. it is also suggested to have a minimum sample size of 20 % to develop such a forecast model. key words: goodness of fit statistics, statistical modelling, yield forecast introduction commercial cultivation of roses has gained importance in recent years in india due to a growing demand for these flowers in both domestic and export markets. india, blessed with diverse agro-climatic conditions, has an immense potential to increase the productivity and, in turn, yields maximum return, in overseas market for this crop. this can be achieved by developing a suitable model to predict the actual yield of a standing crop and subsequently identify the stage within which forecasting could be made to the desired extent. to this end, it is imperative to develop a model through which growers and policy makers could frame suitable management strategies for maximizing crop productivity and net return. in this regard, statistical modelling plays a vital role in developing appropriate forecast models, on a strong scientific footing, for crop yield prediction. shamasundaran and singh (2003) made a beginning in this direction. in the present study, an attempt has been made to develop multiple regression models for obtaining a preharvest estimate of yield of rose based on information pertaining to several pickings. goodness of fit of the models developed was carried out by statistically testing the computed regression coefficients and working out measures model adequacy. material and methods an investigation was carried out at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore during 199495 for yield prediction in rose cv. happiness. two hundred and fifty six samples were used in this study. all the recommended cultural practices with a spacing of 75 cm x 75 cm were followed uniformly for the entire plot. data on yield in terms of number of flowers/plant from several pickings were recorded and consolidated. the first picking was made eleven months after planting. subsequent pickings were made at an interval of 45 days. linear correlation coefficient among harvests done during several pickings and total yield were computed and statistically tested. further, multiple regression models were developed by regressing harvest pertaining to different pickings with the cumulative yield by utilizing the principle of least squares (lewis-beck, 1993). the following measures of goodness of fit statistics were used to judge the adequacy of the model developed (agostid'no and stephens, 1986): mean squared error (mse) a m s e = [ e ( y t y t ) ^ / n ] coefficient of determination (r )̂ r^= l [ 2 : ( y t y ) 2 / [ 2 : ( y t y t ) ^ ] where ŷ represents the harvest/yield at time t. however, while fitting regression models to the data considered, it mailto:sham@iihr.emet.in shamasundaran and venugopalan may be noted that even an addition of one more independent variable to the model would result in increase in r̂ value (kvelsth, 1985). hence, to test the significance of the added variable, regression coefficients were subjected to t-test statistic analysis (lewis-beck, 1993). results and discussion linear [simple(r) and multiple(r)] correlation among yield (total) and individual pickings yield were computed are presented in tables 1 and 2. results revealed that there existed a highly significant relationship in almost all the pickings at 1 % level, either individually or in combination with total yield. further, it was noticed that the first picking gave rise to r̂ of 70% followed by others and the least was noticed with the fifth picking. when multiple correlation and regression was carried out, it revealed that all the pickings, individually or in combination, had significantly higher association with total yield ranging from 0.3889 to 0.9060. it was found that more than 80% of r̂ noticed with all the pickings together followed by first three and first four pickings. the first two pickings and the same along with four pickings; the first five pickings except second gave rise to an r̂ of more than 77% yield prediction. further, as discussed earlier, inclusion of additional information about the harvest obtained in every pickings, r̂ value tends to increase further. to this end, regression coefficients derived by including an additional variable were tested for its statistical significance. results presented in table 3 indicate that inclusion of x^ variable into the model yielded non-significant regression coefficient, as indicated by t-statistic value of 1.04, which falls outside the acceptance region. similarly, it may be further observed table 1. results of correlation (r) among individual pickings and total yield dv iv r 6 ) 0.84** 2 0.51** 3 0.53** 4 0.39** 5 0.15 ** significant at 1% a 2.5487 -0.0172 -0.4903 0.0992 0.4205 dvdependent variable iv-lndependent variable 1-first picking (x,) 2-second picking (x^) 4-fourth picking (x )̂ 5fifth picking (x5) b, 0.3682 b, 0.0759 3-third picking (x,) 6.total yield (x,) table 2. results of multiple correlation (r) among pickings and total yield dv iv r 6 1,2 0.88** 1,3 0.72** 1,4 0.81** 1,5 0.79** 2,3 0.72** 2,4 0.75** 2,5 0.57** 3,4 0.74** 3,5 0.51** 4,5 0.39** 1,2,3 0.89** 1,2,4 0.88** 1,2,5 0.84** 2,3,4 0.81** 2,3,5 0.73** 3,4,5 0.74** 1,2,3,4 0.91** 1,2,3,5 0.90** 1,3,4,5 0.89** 2,3,4,5, 0.85** 1,2,3,4,5 0.91** a -1.6575 3.4425 3.2340 1.6152 6.2107 7.0901 7.9559 5.8523 8.5244 9.7716 -1.1389 2.7167 1.2488 4.5190 5.9351 5.8802 -0.8506 0.6815 1.1059 4.3604 -0.8571 b , 1.7039 1.2992 1.2362 1.4667 1.4853 1.0018 1.2886 1.2582 1.1200 1.1847 1.2599 b, 1.9354 3.3277 1.3168 1.2598 2.0963 0.9228 0.7775 2.4385 1.3418 1.8455 0.8992 3.4531 1.8408 b, 0.2385 b, 0.8668 1.1362 1.4238 1.3072 0.3648 1.3419 1.4194 0.5842 1.0148 0.8509 1.3611 0.5831 b. 0.1139 b. 1.0299 1.5209 1.8123 1.2908 1.1600 1.3873 0.6845 0.8678 1.5174 0.6835 b, 0.0387 b, 1.2010 1.0325 1.0150 0.1404 1.2007 1.0604 1.1987 0.9536 1.0970 0.0043 rm%) 69.83 25.96 27.80 15.12 2.20 r̂ (%) 77.43 60.09 65.85 62.56 52.37 58.90 32.11 54.60 25.68 15.25 79.30 77.92 71.28 66.33 53.97 54.64 82.08 81.78 79.58 71.72 82.08 ** significant at 1"; dvdependent variable 1-first picking (xj) 4-fourth picking (x^) iv-lndependent variable 2-second picking (x )̂ 5fifth picking (x,) 3-third picking (x )̂ 6.total yield (x )̂ / hon sci. vol. 1(1): 68-70, 2006 69 statistical modelling for pre-harvest forecast table 3. results of goodness of fit statistics along with the selected models iv r2 mse model and (t-statistic) significant iv ,2 ,2,3 ,2,3,4 ,2,3,4,5 0.88 0.89 0.82 0.82 6.05 6.01 5.69 6.52 y = -1.66+1.7x,+1.93xj (5.44) (2.09) y = -1.14+1.48x,+2.09x2+0.36x3 (3.95) (2.24) y = -0.85+1.26x,+1.84x2+0.58x3+0.68x, (3.1) (1.98) (1.54) (1.3) y = -0.85+1.26x,+1.8x2+0.58x3+0.68x,+0.004x5 (1.1) (0.005) x,,x, x,,x, x „ x , x, figures in parentheses indicate t-statistic values dvdependent variable iv-independent variable 1-first picking (x,) 2-second picking (x^) 4-fourth picking (x^) 5fifth picking (x5)\ 3-third picking (xj) 6.total yield (x^) that inclusion of an additional variable into the model results in non-significant regression estimates. thus, results indicate that information from two pickings could predict the yield to an extent of 77 %. further, corresponding regression coefficients were significant as indicated by the t-statistic values, which fall inside the acceptance region of 1.96. moreover, the mean square error in reduction also strengthens our conclusion for identifying a model based on the first two pickings. hence, the model developed showed that information from the first two pickings of a standing crop could be used to forecast rose yield considerably two months before final harvest. it may also be stressed here that as reported by shamasundaran et al (2003), a minimum sample size of 20% of the population is required to get a good estimate to develop such a forecast model. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore for providing all facilities to conduct this investigation. references agostid'no, r.b. and stephens m.a.1986. goodness of fit techniques. marcel dekker, new york 576p lewis-beck, s. m.1993. regression analysis. sage publ., new york. 433p kvelseth,t.o 1985. cautionary note about r .̂ the amer. stat., 39:279-85. shamasundaran, k. s. and.singh, k. r 2003. yield forecasting in tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa linn.) as effected by association of various characters. j. om. hort., 6:372-75. shamasundaran, k. s. venugopalan, r and singh, k. r 2003. optimum sample size for yield estimation in certain commercial crops. j. orn. hart., 6:2aa-a1 (ms received 16 february, 2006 revised 6 june, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 68-70, 2006 70 introduction gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus l.), generally called “glad”, is the second most important cut flower grown from storage organs. gladiolus belongs to the family iridaceae, and has originated in the tropical region of south africa. centre of origin of the genus is located in cape florist region where most species were discovered. gladiolus was introduced to cultivation during the 19th century in india. it is mainly cultivated in karnataka, west bengal, maharastra, punjab, haryana, uttar pradesh, tamil nadu, jammu and kashmir, uttarakhand, delhi, sikkim, himachal pradesh and odisha. in odisha, it is cultivated over an area of 2350 ha, with production of 2329 lakh spikes (oas, 2011). success in plant breeding depends upon existing genetic variability within the breeding material. it is well-known that larger the variability, greater the scope for selection and improvement. genotypic variability, more specifically additive variance, is the most important for a plant breeder, as, it determines genetic gain through selection. before aiming at improvement in yield, it is necessary to be equipped with information on genetic variability and heritability in respect of important characters associated with yield. analysis of variance (anova) for quantitative traits revealed highly significant differences among the 29 performance of gladiolus genotypes: growth, flowering and corm production sanghamitra pattanaik, amitava paul1 and pravu charan lenka2 krishi vigyan kendra orissa university of agriculture and technology shyamakhunta, mayurbhanj 757 049, india e-mail: dina_neha@yahoo.co.in abstract variance analysis was made for 20 quantitative traits in 29 genotypes of gladiolus. high variation in terms of range was recorded for almost all the traits except days to sprouting, number of leaves, flowering duration, number of florets/spike, floret diameter, number of cormels/plant, number of corms/plant, and number of spikes/corm. tallest plants (159.25cm) were recorded in the variety windlin, early spike-initiation was recorded in ‘intrepid’ (45.5 days), and the highest number of florets per spike was recorded in ‘hunting song’ (20). maximum floret diameter was recorded in ‘senset jubilee’ (7.28cm), while spike yield was highest in ‘ballerina’ (139.05 q/ha). maximum number of corms per plant was recorded in ‘hunting song’ (3.0). key words: gladiolus, flowering, corm j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):194-198, 2015 genotypes for all the traits under study. this variation can be utilized by adopting a suitable selection scheme for improvement in these traits in gladiolus. existence of genetic variation is of paramount importance for starting a judicious plant breeding programme. in gladiolus, genetic variability for growth, flower and corm production was studied under different agroclimatic conditions. soorianathasundaram and nambisan (1991) studied gladiolus cultivars for genetic variability and observed higher heritability values for spike weight and spike length. mahanta and paswan (1995) reported maximum heritability for weight of the corm, followed by number of cormels per plant, and diameter of the cormel. sheikh et al (1995) observed a high genetic advance in the case of plant height, days to flower and spike length, and, heritability estimates were high for all the characters studied. pratap and rao (2006) observed highest gcv for characters like plant height, number of florets/ spikes, and days to flowering. high genetic advance was noticed for traits like plant height, number of spikes and days to flowering. significant differences among genotypes and their interaction effects warranted grouping of the genotypes to identify those that were genetically diverse, to ensure success in breeding programmes. therefore, the present study was planned to obtain information on the range of variability present for various, important economic traits. 1department of cihab, palli siksha bhavan (institute of agriculture), viswa bharati, sriniketan, odisha, india 2department of fruit science, orissa university of agriculture and technology, bhubaneswar, odisha, india 195 material and methods the present investigation was carried out in the experimental field of krishi vigyan kendra, mayurbhanj (north central plateau agro-climatic zone), odisha, during two consecutive post-rainy seasons of 2009-10 and 201011. krishi vigyan kendra, mayurbhanj, which falls under orissa university of agriculture and technology, bhubaneswar, is located at 21o16' to 22o34' n latitude and 85o40' to 87o11' e longitude, at an altitude of 592m above mean sea level. mayurbhanj district experiences a subtropical climate, with average annual rainfall of 1648.2mm, distributed mainly from june to october. annual maximum and minimum temperatures are 39oc and 14oc, respectively, and relative humidity ranges from 70% to 90%. soil at the experimental site is clay-loam, with 5.3% organic carbon and is acidic (ph 5.42) in nature. genotypes under the present study were collected from bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, west bengal, and directorate of horticulture, government of odisha, mayurbhanj. the experiment was conducted in randomized (complete) block design (rbd), with two replications, during the two growing seasons (i.e., post-rainy seasons of 2009-10 and 2010-11) to assess the performance of 29 gladiolus genotypes. bulbs were planted at a spacing of 30cm row-to-row, and 20cm plant-to-plant. all the recommended package of practices and plant protection measures were duly followed during the crop growth period for raising a healthy crop. data were recorded for yield and twenty (20) contributing traits thereof, viz., days to sprouting, plant height (cm) at 30 and 60 days after planting (dap), number of leaves, days to spike initiation, days to floret initiation, flowering duration, spike length (cm), rachis length (cm), number of florets per spike, floret diameter (cm), spike weight (g), number of corms per plant, number of cormels per plant, corm diameter (cm), corm weight (g), number of spikes/corm, number of spikes per m2, spike yield (q/ha), and corm yield (q/ha). ten plants, at random, from each sub-plot were earmarked for recording experimental data, excluding the bordering plants. statistical software windostat version 8.6 from indostat services was used for data analysis. results and discussion correlation coefficient analysis measures mutual relationships between various plant characters and determines component characters upon which selection can be based for genetic improvement in yield. phenotypic and genotypic variance was calculated from the total variance and used for determining phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variability. coefficient of variation indicates only the extent of variability present in different characters, but does not indicate their heritable portion. estimates for phenotypic coefficient of variation ranged from 8.52% for number of leaves, to 50.92% for corm weight (q/ha); whereas, for genotypic coefficient of variation, this was 7.99% to 50.52%, exhibited by the same two characters (table 1). estimates for phenotypic co-efficient of variation performance of gladiolus genotypes: growth, flowering and corm production table 1. genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variability, heritability and genetic advance for 20 quantitative traits in gladiolus trait range grand coefficient of variation (%) heritability genetic genetic min. max. mean pcv gcv % advance % advance as % of mean days to sprouting 6.00 8.75 7.06 11.25 8.18 52.93 0.87 12.26 plant height (cm) at 30 days 37.45 90.27 61.62 20.57 20.56 99.88 26.08 42.32 plant height (cm) at 60 days 57.00 159.25 105.76 17.16 17.12 99.47 37.20 35.17 no. of leaves 6.00 8.75 7.62 8.52 7.99 88.01 1.18 15.44 days to spike initiation 45.50 82.00 62.56 16.33 16.28 99.33 20.90 33.41 days to floret initiation 61.00 91.00 72.59 13.69 13.62 99.01 20.26 27.91 flowering duration (days) 17.00 28.25 22.30 12.81 12.52 95.59 5.62 25.22 spike length (cm) 39.50 82.00 63.66 14.19 14.14 99.28 18.47 29.01 rachis length (cm) 8.25 31.50 21.32 29.52 29.27 98.36 12.75 59.80 no. of florets/spike 9.50 20.00 14.91 18.53 17.89 93.26 5.31 35.59 floret diameter (cm) 4.05 7.28 5.45 17.12 16.53 93.22 1.79 32.88 spike weight (gm) 18.25 65.85 40.32 31.41 31.35 99.64 25.99 64.46 no. of corms/plant 1.00 3.00 1.83 25.60 23.60 84.95 0.82 44.80 no. of cormels/plant 0.00 2.50 1.43 45.42 38.03 70.12 0.94 65.60 corm diameter (cm) 6.50 28.80 14.36 44.01 43.63 98.31 12.80 89.12 corm weight (gm) 6.20 46.63 19.63 50.55 50.02 97.92 20.02 101.96 no. of spikes/bulb 0.90 1.81 1.30 23.41 22.00 88.30 0.56 42.59 no. of spikes/m2 14.40 28.96 20.84 23.41 22.00 88.30 8.88 42.59 yield of corms (q/ha) 7.95 59.68 25.24 50.92 50.52 98.44 26.06 103.26 yield of spikes (q/ha) 28.48 139.05 69.90 48.36 47.36 95.91 66.80 95.55 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):194-198, 2015 196 were high (>40%) for number of cormels per plant, corm diameter (cm), individual corm weight (g), corm weight (q/ ha), and, low (< 20%) for days to spike emergence, days to first floret opening, flowering duration (days), spike length (cm), number of florets per spike, etc. values for genotypic coefficient of variation were high (> 40%) for corm diameter (cm), corm weight (g) corm weight (q/ha), spike weight (q/ ha), and, low (< 20%) for days to spike emergence, days to first floret opening, flowering duration (days), spike length, and number of florets per spike. pcv for all the characters studied indicated that the variation was due to the genetype, and not due to environmental factors. maitra and staya (2004) recorded higher gcv than pcv in gladiolus for most of the characters studied, but, there was close relation between gcv and pcv in some of the characters. gcv was highest for characters like corm weight, spike weight and corm diameter. balaram et al (2000) reported both pcv and gcv to be high for characters like spike length, spike weight, weight of daughter corm, and number of cormels per corm. pratap and mohan rao (2006) reported maximum gcv for characters like number of florets per spike, and days to flowering. bichoo et al (2002) reported high gcv for number of cormels per plant. the high value of pcv, along with gcv, indicates a greater variability for characters like corm weight (q/ha) and spike weight (q/ha). in the present study, genotypic and phenotypic correlations showed a similar trend, but, genotypic correlation was a higher magnitude than phenotypic correction in most of the cases. heritability estimate is used for determining that portion of the phenotype which is due to the genotype. estimate for genetic advance are also very important for an insight into the speed of genetic gain through selection. among the quantitative characters studied, estimates for heritability were very high for plant height, days to spike emergence, days to floret opening, spike length, spike weight, flowering duration, corm weight, and spike weight. corm weight and spike weight showed high heritability (98.44 to 95.91%), along with high genetic advance, as percentage of mean at 103.26% and 95.55%, respectively. early generation selection could be practical for improving these characters due to the reliability of additive gene action for selection. high heritability was over 90% in days to spike emergence, and days to first floret opening along with genetic advance; over 100% in corm weight gives an indication for scope of improvement in these crops. the present findings are in accordance with balaram et al (2000) and balamurugan et al (2002). pratap and manohar rao (2006) also reported high heritability and high genetic advance for number of cormels and corm weight. mahanta and paswan (1995) reported maximum heritability (99.38%) for corm weight, followed by number of cormels and diameter of the cormel. results on pcv, gcv, heritability and genetic advance revealed that selection for corm weight, spike weight, number of corms per plant, and number of spikes per m2 could be effective for improvement in spike yield and corm yield. the range of variance for plant height was 57cm to 159.25cm (table 2). ‘windlin’ was significantly superior to all the other varieties; lowest height was recorded in ‘moralo’. the range for days to spike emergence was 45.50 to 82.0, with a mean of 62.56 days. early spike-emergence was recorded in ‘intrepid’, while maximum days taken to spike emergence was seen in ‘blue frost’. days to first floret opening varied from 61.0 to 91.0, with a grand mean of 72.59 days. values for days taken to first floret opening were lowest in ‘american beauty’, and highest in ‘blue frost’. number of florets per spike varied from 9.50 to 20.0, with a grand mean of 14.91. maximum numbers of florets per spike were recorded in ‘hunting song’, while ‘moralo’ recorded minimum number of florets per spike. spike weight (g) varied from 18.25g to 65.85g, with 40.32g as the mean value. maximum spike weight was recorded in the genotype ballerina, and, minimum in ‘moralo’. number of spikes per corm varied from 0.90 to 1.81, with a mean value of 1.30. the genotype peter pears recorded maximum number of spikes per corm; whereas, the genotype venutrie recorded minimum corm yield (q/ha), which varied from 7.95 to 59.68q, with a mean value of 25.24q. ‘red beauty’ recorded maximum corm weight (q/ha), while, the genotype novalux recorded minimum value of co-efficient of variation; it was observed that variability was highest in the number of cormels per plant (35.11), followed by number of corms per plant (14.04) and spike yield (13.84). considerable variability for weight of cormels produced per corm, number of cormels per corm, and weight of corm was earlier reported by negi et al (1982). soorianthasundaram and nambisan (1991) reported considerable amount of genotypic variability in gladiolus for characters like spike weight, spike length, number of florets, number of cormels, and daughter corm weight. mahanta and paswan (1995) reported a good amount of genotypic variability for weight of corm, and number of cormels per plant. sanghamitra et al (2014) reported that path analysis (with corm yield as dependent variable) indicated that characters like days to first floret sanghamitra pattanaik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):194-198, 2015 197 ta bl e 2. m ea n pe r se p er fo rm an ce o f 29 g en ot yp es f or 2 0 qu an ti ta ti ve t ra it s in g la di ol us g en ot yp e d ay s to p la n t n o. o f d ay s to d ay s to fl ow er in g s pi ke r ac hi s n o. o f f lo re t s pi ke n o. o f n o. o f c or m c or m n o. o f n o. o f c or m s pi ke sp ro ut in g he ig ht le av es / sp ik e fi rs t du ra ti on le ng th le ng th fl or et s/ di am et er w ei gh t co rm s/ co rm el s/ di am et er w ei gh t sp ik es / sp ik es / yi el d yi el d at 60 pl an t em er ge nc e fl or et (d ay s) (c m ) ( cm ) sp ik e (c m ) (g ) pl an t pl an t (c m ) (g ) co rm m 2 (q /h a) (q /h a) d a p * op en in g ( cm ) c an di m an 7. 75 7 0 8. 00 69 .5 8 5 .5 0 2 1 .0 0 55 .5 2 3 .0 0 1 5 .0 0 5. 50 6 0 .5 0 2. 00 1. 00 1 3 .2 5 1 6 .5 8 1. 79 2 8 .6 8 2 1 .2 3 13 8. 86 h un ti ng 7. 75 9 9 8. 00 5 7 6 8 .2 5 1 9 .0 0 4 1 2 4 .2 5 2 0 .0 0 6. 07 2 8 .0 0 3. 00 1. 00 1 2 .3 5 2 0 .4 5 1. 28 2 0 .4 8 2 6 .1 8 4 5 .8 8 so ng pi se il la 6. 75 6 8 8. 00 7 6 8 5 .0 0 2 5 .7 5 6 1 2 9 .0 0 1 4 .5 0 4. 30 4 9 .0 0 2. 00 1. 50 2 5 .6 5 3 0 .0 0 1. 20 1 9 .2 0 3 8 .4 0 7 5 .2 4 v en ut ri e 8. 00 1 2 1 8. 75 5 5 .2 5 6 5 .5 0 1 9 .5 0 5 9 .7 5 2 0 .5 0 1 4 .0 0 5. 75 3 0 .0 0 1. 00 2. 00 2 0 .5 0 2 7 .2 5 0. 90 1 4 .4 0 3 4 .8 8 3 4 .5 8 c hi pp er 6. 50 11 6. 25 7. 75 5 6 6 4 .5 0 2 0 .7 5 7 0 2 3 .2 5 1 7 .2 5 5. 95 4 9 .7 5 2. 00 1. 00 1 0 .9 0 1 9 .5 0 0. 95 1 5 .2 0 2 4 .9 5 6 0 .5 1 e dg ew on de r 8. 75 10 5. 75 8. 00 5 4 .7 5 6 5 .0 0 1 9 .2 5 65 .5 2 4 .5 0 1 9 .7 5 5. 22 4 0 .7 5 2. 00 1. 00 2 1 .5 8 2 8 .7 0 1. 40 2 2 .4 8 3 6 .7 2 7 3 .8 9 b al le ri na 7. 00 1 0 5 .5 8. 00 52 .5 6 3 .5 0 2 3 .0 0 65 .5 3 1 .5 0 1 0 .5 0 5. 75 6 5 .8 5 2. 00 1. 00 8. 20 1 2 .5 0 1. 65 2 6 .4 8 1 6 .0 0 13 9. 05 fr ie nd sh ip 7. 25 1 1 9 8. 00 5 4 .2 5 6 4 .0 0 2 0 .0 0 7 4 .7 5 2 6 .2 5 1 7 .0 0 5. 15 4 0 .9 0 1. 00 2. 00 1 0 .2 5 1 4 .0 0 1. 13 1 8 .0 0 1 7 .9 0 5 8 .9 1 m ay ur 8. 75 10 7. 25 7. 00 7 1 8 2 .5 0 2 2 .7 5 70 .5 2 5 .2 5 1 9 .0 0 7. 00 5 1 .0 0 2. 00 2. 00 1 8 .1 5 2 4 .1 3 1. 35 2 1 .6 8 3 0 .8 8 8 8 .4 9 su ns et 6. 00 1 1 0 7. 00 5 0 6 2 .5 0 2 2 .7 5 66 .5 2 9 .2 5 1 8 .0 0 7. 28 4 3 .0 5 1. 50 2. 00 1 5 .8 5 2 0 .8 5 1. 23 1 9 .6 8 2 6 .7 0 6 7 .6 7 ju bi le e in tr ep id 7. 00 99 .5 7. 00 45 .5 6 2 .0 0 2 5 .5 0 70 .5 2 6 .2 5 1 6 .5 0 4. 05 3 5 .5 5 2. 00 1. 00 1 0 .1 5 1 9 .0 5 1. 24 1 9 .9 2 2 4 .3 8 5 6 .7 3 a m er ic an 7. 00 1 0 4 8. 00 48 .5 6 1 .0 0 2 0 .0 0 5 9 .2 5 2 5 .2 5 1 5 .5 0 5. 05 4 2 .3 0 2. 00 2. 00 2 1 .7 3 3 5 .9 5 1. 04 1 6 .7 2 4 6 .0 2 5 6 .5 1 b ea ut y w ed di ng 7. 00 10 1. 25 6. 50 5 8 .2 5 6 7 .5 0 2 0 .0 0 6 0 1 9 .5 0 1 4 .0 0 6. 95 4 1 .3 0 2. 00 2. 00 2 4 .3 8 3 3 .3 0 1. 00 1 6 .0 0 4 2 .6 3 5 2 .8 6 b ou qu et m or al o 6. 75 5 7 7. 00 5 5 .7 5 6 9 .0 0 1 8 .5 0 39 .5 1 9 .2 5 9. 50 4. 15 1 8 .2 5 1. 50 2. 00 1 4 .7 5 2 2 .4 2 1. 22 1 9 .4 8 2 8 .7 0 4 1 .0 3 a pp al as e 7. 00 1 1 5 7. 25 5 3 6 1 .5 0 2 1 .5 0 7 0 .2 5 2 9 .7 5 1 2 .0 0 5. 68 2 9 .7 5 2. 25 2. 25 2 3 .9 8 3 3 .2 5 1. 39 2 2 .2 0 4 5 .7 7 5 2 .7 6 m el od y 6. 00 10 4. 25 6. 00 5 4 .7 5 6 1 .5 0 2 3 .5 0 76 .5 2 4 .5 0 1 7 .0 0 5. 72 4 0 .6 5 2. 00 1. 75 1 8 .8 8 2 3 .5 8 1. 15 1 8 .4 8 3 0 .2 0 6 0 .0 7 sp ic a nd 6. 75 10 2. 25 7. 00 66 .5 7 7 .2 5 2 2 .0 0 6 2 .7 5 1 6 .2 5 1 2 .5 0 6. 25 3 9 .0 5 2. 00 2. 00 7. 75 9. 65 1. 58 2 5 .2 0 1 2 .3 5 7 9 .0 0 sp an r os e 6. 75 10 6. 75 8. 00 70 .5 7 9 .5 0 2 8 .2 5 5 8 .7 5 2 2 .0 0 1 3 .0 0 4. 40 5 5 .1 5 2. 00 2. 50 7. 35 6. 55 1. 70 2 7 .2 0 8. 40 12 0. 02 s up re m e o sk ar r ed 6. 00 1 0 5 7. 00 6 4 7 4 .2 5 2 5 .2 5 6 2 .2 5 1 7 .5 0 1 3 .0 0 4. 15 5 0 .8 8 2. 00 1. 00 1 2 .2 5 1 2 .6 0 1. 15 1 8 .4 8 1 6 .1 5 7 5 .0 4 pe te r pe ar s 6. 50 1 0 9 8. 00 6 7 .7 5 8 0 .0 0 1 8 .5 0 6 5 .2 5 2 4 .0 0 1 5 .5 0 6. 10 4 6 .2 0 2. 25 1. 75 1 0 .7 5 1 5 .3 0 1. 81 2 8 .9 6 1 9 .5 8 10 7. 06 n ov al ux 6. 00 1 0 9 8. 00 7 1 .7 5 7 9 .2 5 2 4 .7 5 7 1 2 0 .0 0 1 5 .0 0 5. 15 6 1 .5 8 2. 00 1. 00 6. 50 6. 20 1. 75 2 7 .9 6 7. 95 13 7. 71 r ip li ng 6. 50 11 9. 25 8. 00 6 2 6 6 .2 5 2 5 .5 0 7 2 1 0 .5 0 1 2 .0 0 6. 05 3 3 .2 5 1. 00 1. 00 1 4 .0 0 1 8 .1 5 1. 45 2 3 .2 0 2 3 .2 5 6 1 .5 7 w at er g re en ba y 6. 75 10 8. 75 8. 00 5 8 6 4 .7 5 2 1 .2 5 5 7 .7 5 1 2 .0 0 1 6 .5 0 6. 00 3 7 .5 0 2. 00 1. 00 1 0 .1 0 1 4 .6 3 1. 59 2 5 .4 4 1 8 .7 0 7 6 .2 0 w in dl in 7. 00 15 9. 25 8. 50 5 8 6 5 .7 5 2 5 .7 5 8 2 2 6 .7 5 1 8 .5 0 4. 63 2 2 .2 5 1. 00 0. 00 7. 60 7. 38 1. 00 1 6 .0 0 9. 45 2 8 .4 8 p se ta ti no us 6. 75 9 8 .7 5 7. 25 6 6 7 5 .7 5 2 5 .0 0 6 2 2 0 .5 0 1 2 .5 0 4. 15 5 4 .0 0 1. 50 1. 75 7. 50 6. 35 1. 37 2 1 .9 6 8. 13 9 4 .9 0 b lu e fr os t 8. 00 11 9. 75 8. 00 8 2 9 1 .0 0 1 7 .0 0 6 1 8. 25 1 4 .0 0 4. 13 2 5 .5 0 1. 00 1. 00 1 1 .8 5 1 3 .9 0 1. 00 1 6 .0 0 1 7 .7 7 3 2 .6 4 g re en s ta r 8. 50 1 1 1 8. 00 7 8 8 7 .5 0 2 4 .0 0 5 8 .2 5 9. 00 1 2 .0 0 6. 00 2 4 .5 0 2. 00 0. 00 9. 63 1 0 .8 8 1. 23 1 9 .7 2 1 3 .9 5 3 8 .6 0 w h it e 7. 00 1 1 1 .5 8. 00 79 .5 8 5 .5 0 2 1 .2 5 6 6 .2 5 1 6 .0 0 1 6 .0 0 6. 25 2 5 .2 5 2. 00 1. 00 1 1 .9 5 1 9 .6 0 1. 20 1 9 .2 0 2 5 .0 8 3 7 .7 6 p ro sp er it y r ed b ea ut y 7. 00 1 0 4 7. 00 7 8 .2 5 8 9 .7 5 2 5 .5 0 6 1 1 4 .2 5 1 2 .5 0 5. 10 2 7 .5 0 2. 00 2. 00 2 8 .8 0 4 6 .6 3 1. 00 1 6 .0 0 5 9 .6 8 3 5 .2 0 g ra nd m ea n 7. 06 10 5. 76 7. 62 6 2 .5 6 7 2 .5 9 2 2 .3 0 6 3 .6 6 2 1 .3 2 1 4 .9 1 5. 45 4 0 .3 2 1. 83 1. 43 1 4 .3 6 1 9 .6 3 1. 30 2 0 .8 4 2 5 .2 4 6 9 .9 0 se (m ) ± 0. 38 0. 93 0. 15 0. 59 0 .7 0. 42 0 .7 0. 56 0 .5 0. 17 0. 53 0. 12 0. 25 0. 58 1. 01 0. 07 1. 18 1. 13 4. 83 c d (p = 0. 05 ) 1. 09 2. 64 0. 45 1. 67 1. 98 1 .2 1. 98 1. 61 1. 43 0. 48 1. 52 0. 36 0. 71 1. 64 2. 86 0. 21 3. 34 3. 21 13 .7 c v 1 0 .9 1 1. 76 4. 17 1. 89 1. 93 3 .8 1. 93 5. 34 6 .8 6 .3 2. 67 1 4 .0 4 3 5 .1 1 8 .1 1 0 .3 1 1 1 .3 3 1 1 .3 3 8. 98 1 3 .8 4 *d ay s af te r pl an ti ng performance of gladiolus genotypes: growth, flowering and corm production j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):194-198, 2015 198 opening, number of corms per plant, no. of cormels per plant, and corm weight had a positive direct effect, maximum positive direct effect was seen in corm weight, followed by number of corms/plant. in view of the relative contribution of traits in determining spike yield and corm yield, and per se performance of the genotypes mayur, windlin and peter pears, these are promising and may be used as parents in future hybridization programmes. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to vice-chancellor, visva bharati and vice-chancellor, ouat, for extending facilities and moral support. references balamurugan, r.p. and arijmugam, t. 2002. variability studies in gladiolus, j. orn. hort., 5:38-39 balaram, m.v., janakiram, t., vasantha kumar, e., choudhary, m.l., ramachandran, n. and ganeshan, s. 2000. genetic variability among gladiolus genotypes: exploring the gladiolus in india, procs. nat’l. conf. gladiolus, pp. 17-33 bichoo, g.a., jhon, a.o. and wani, s.a. 2002. genetic variability in some quantitative characters of gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 5:22-24 govt of odisha, area of production under floriculture, odisha agriculture statistics, 2011, p. 15 mahanta, p. and paswan, l. 1995. studies on variability and heritability of some quantitative characters in gladiolus. south indian hort., 41:166-168 maitra, s. and satya, p. 2004. studies on genetic parameters of some off-season planted gladiolus genotypes in humid sub-himalayan region. j. orn. hort., 3-4:5761 negi, s.s., sharma, t.v.r., raghava, s.p.s. and srinivasan, v.r. 1982. variability studies in gladiolus. indian j. hort., 39:269-272 pratap, m. and manohar rao, a. 2006. assessment and variability studies in gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 9:145147 sanghamitra, p., amitava, p. and pravu charan, l. 2014. path analysis and correlation studies on corm yield in gladiolus cultivars. asian j. hort., 9:368-371 sheikh, m.q., john, a.q., siddique, m.a.a. and paul, t.m. 1995. genetic variability in gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 3:2325 soorianathasundaram, k. and nambisan, k.m.p. 1991. studies on variability and certain genetic parameters in gladiolus. south indian hort., 39:207-209 (ms received 15 july 2014, revised 26 may 2015, accepted 15 june 2015) sanghamitra pattanaik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):194-198, 2015 variation in the interactions among soil k+, ca++, mg++ and na+ ions as influenced by the variety and rootstock in grape s.d. shikhamany*, j.n. kalbhor, t.s. shelke and t.s. mungare r & d unit, maharashtra grape growers’ association, manjri farm, pune 412 307 *e-mail: sdshikhamany@gmail.com absract a nutritional survey was conducted to study the influence of variety and rootstock on interaction among k+, ca++, mg++and na+ ions in grape during 2012-14. soil cation contents did not correlate with their respective contents in petioles indicating a strong antagonism among them. quadratic relationship of soil cations with the absorption (ratio of petiole content to soil content) of other ions revealed that the antagonism among cations was observed in case of soil k+ with ca++ and na+ absorption on 110r and dog ridge rootstocks, soil ca+ with k+ and mg++ and na+ in sonaka variety and na+ in own rooted vines, soil mg++ with ca++ and na+ also in own rooted vines; and na++ with ca++ and mg++ respectively in 2a clone and dog ridge. contrarily, increased absorption of k+ by soil ca++ on 110r, na+ and k+ by soil mg++ respectively in sonaka and 110r, and ca++ by soil na+ on dog ridge was also observed. all the soil cations together influenced k+ absorption most in sonaka followed by mg++ absorption in 2a clone, but ca++ absorption on dog ridge followed by k+ on 110r. keywords: cations, interactions, grape, variety, rootstock introduction antagonism among k, na, ca and mg ions is well esta blished (robson a nd pitma n, 1983; shikhamany et al., 1988; wilkinson et al., 1999; fageria, 2001). cation content in the plant tissue is dependent on the physico-chemical characteristics of the soil (abrol et al., 1988; sumner and yamada, 2002; fisarakis et al., 2005; shikhamany and sharma, 2008; shikhamany et al., 2017), both the availability of a particular cation and the presence and absence of other cations (emmert, 1959; bergman et al., 1960) and their relative abundance in the growth medium (epstein, 1972). generally an excess of one cation in the medium reduces the uptake of other cations to maintain the cation equilibrium in the soil-plant system (dibb and thompson, 1985). further, the cation composition of the plant tissue was found to vary with the variety, based on its physiological need (jacobson and ordin, 1954; barbar and russell, 1961) and the rootstock due to affinity of their roots to particular ion ( downton, 1977; anna and lajos, 2008; antonio and carlos, 2009; marco et al., 2011). the vineyard soils of maharashtra, where more than 80 per cent of the area under grapes in india exists, are saline alkali with wide variation in soil physico-chemical characteristics and available nutrient status. thompson seedless and its clones, namely 2a and sonaka are grown on their own roots as well as on dog ridge and 110r rootstocks. in this background, these investigations were aimed at bring out the variation in the influence of dominant cations in the absorption of other cations in a given stionic combination and guide in fertilizer practices. material and methods a survey was conducted to study the variation in bloom time petiole nutrient contents of thompson seedless and its clones namely, 2a and sonaka grown on their own roots, dog ridge or 110richter rootstocks in pune and sangli districts of maharashtra during 201214 fruiting seasons. six vineyards in each stionic combination (three varieties x three roots) were selected for the study. all the vineyards were in the age group of 4-6 years and received varying levels of nutrients. the soils of the vineyards surveyed belonged to the order ‘vertisols’ with the following characteristics. all the vines selected for the study were planted at 2.7 x 1.8 m, trained to extended y trellis and pruned j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 178 original research paper 179 cation interactions in grape j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 to have 30±2 canes/vine. one hundred petioles of leaves opposite to flower clusters were collected at full bloom in november 2013 from each vineyard and soil samples from 15-30 cm depth at 60 cm away from the vine stem at back pruning before the application of fertilizers. cations from soil samples were extracted using 1.0 n neutral ammonium acetate in 1:5 (w/v) ratio. oven dried petiole samples were wet digested with hno3: hclo4 (9:4 v/v). potassium and sodium contents in soil as well as petiole samples were determined by flame photometer, while calcium and ma gnesium contents by a tomic a bsor ption spectrophotometer. all the contents were expressed as me/100 g dry weight. linear, quadratic and multiple regression equations were fitted to elucidate the variation in the interaction of soil cation contents (independent variable) with petiole contents (dependent variable) among the varieties and rootstocks. threshold levels of soil cations were determined by the formula -b/2c in the quadratic equation y= a + bx + cx2 in negative correlations. it is the level of x at which the negative relationship between x and y parameters turns positive. it is inverse to the x-optimum in a positive correlation. results and discussion interaction among cations: cor relations among the major cation nutrients in the petioles revealed positive relationship of mg with ca and na across all the varieties and rootstocks (table 1). on the other hand, in contrast to the observations of bayers (1951), emmert (1959) and bergman et al. (1960), no significant relationship between the soil and petiole contents of any ion was observed except the negative r ela tionship between k + cont ents (table 2). since the uptake of nutrient ions is directed by the variety (jacobson and ordin, 1954; barbar and russell, 1961) and rootstock (smith and wallace, 1956; general characteristics of the vineyard soils (mean of 54 samples) om ph ec caco3 esp available available available available (dsm-1) (%) (%) k ca mg na (mg/kg) (mg/kg) (mg/kg) (mg/kg) mean 2.57 7.76 0.604 15.79 7.7 110.8 456.0 141.4 70.4 sd 1.08 0.52 0.428 4.21 1.82 54.2 118.8 29.5 17.4 cv(%) 27.8 14.9 70.9 26.7 32.6 48.9 26.1 20.9 24.7 cook and lider, 1964; downton, 1977); and different varieties and rootstocks were involved in these cor r ela tions, va r iety-wise a nd r ootstock-wise regression analysis could reveal better picture of the interactions among the cations in different varieties and rootstocks. simple correlations revealed that soil contents of k, ca or na were not correlated with their respective contents in the petioles of any variety or rootstock, but mg content alone was correlated in the variety sonaka. petiole k and na contents were also influenced by the soil ca in this variety. among the rootstocks, soil na influenced the petiole ca on dog ridge, while soil ca influenced the petiole k on 110r (table 3). interaction among cations was also dependent on their relative abundance in the root medium (bayers, table 1. correlation matrix among petiole nutrient contents ________________________________________________________ k ca mg na_______________________________________________________ k 1.000 ca -0.0029 1.000 mg 0.0019 0.2989* 1.000 na 0.0409 0.1638 0.3475* 1.000 ___________________________________________________________ table 2. correlations between soil and petiole cation contents ___________________________________________________________ x parameter y parameter r___________________________________________________________ soil k petiole k -0.291* soil ca petiole ca -0.004 soil mg petiole mg -0.083 soil na petiole na -0.118 ___________________________________________________________ 180 shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 table 3. linear relationship of soil nutrients with petiole contents in grape varieties and rootstocks correlation coefficients (r) varieties rootstocks soil petiole thompson 2a sonaka own root dog ridge 110 r nutrient content seedless clone k k 0.045 -0.382 -0.359 -0.283 -0.285 -0.399 ca 0.077 -0.330 -0.089 0.313 -0.077 -0.443 mg 0.032 0.319 -0.089 0.054 0.063 -0.235 na 0.032 0.000 -0.095 0.376 -0.366 -0.352 ca ca -0.095 -0.032 0.288 -0.316 -0.044 0.418 k 0.045 0.055 0.588* -0.333 0.095 0.567* mg -0.167 -0.167 0.195 -0.212 0.138 0.173 na 0.326 0.055 -0.515* 0.359 0.089 0.333 mg mg -0.182 -0.504* 0.288 -0.207 0.045 0.134 k 0.045 0.170 0.431 -0.363 0.465 0.435 ca -0.239 -0.184 0.167 -0.385 0.237 0.071 na 0.167 0.000 -0.032 0.279 0.212 0.416 na na -0.167 -0.032 -0.406 0.373 -0.352 -0.418 k -0.032 -0.173 -0.032 0.122 -0.247 -0.348 ca -0.084 0.452 0.210 0.000 0.510* 0.170 mg 0.179 0.361 -0.214 0.000 0.439 0.341 *significant at p=0.0 1951; emmert, 1959; bergman et al., 1960) and was found to be synergistic under low levels but antagonistic under high levels (fageria, 1983). hence interactions were assessed in a quadratic relationship. quadratic functions reflected the interactions among cations better tha n the linea r functions with higher determination coefficients (table 4). regression equations for the significant quadratic relationship among soil and petiole contents of cations with their determination co-efficient and the threshold levels of soil cations associated with the lowest contents of other ions in petioles, are presented in table-4 and the graphical presentation of the variation in the petiole contents in relation to the increasing levels of soil cation contents in figure 1. interaction among cations was complex in this study. a soil cation was found to influence more than one ion in the petiole; differently in different varieties and rootstocks. interaction of soil k+: increasing levels of soil k up to 1.59 me/100 g were associated with its increased contents in petioles in sonaka and reduced on dog ridge rootstock up to 3.95 me/100 g. the threshold levels of soil k, beyond which the ca content in the petiole on 110r rootstock and na contents on dog ridge rootstock increased, were respectively 6.3 and 4.38 me/100 g. soil k accounted for 22.9 per cent variation in the petiole k in sonaka while for 39.6 per cent on dog ridge rootstock. it also accounted for 31.0 per cent variation in petiole ca on 110r rootstock and 24.5 per cent in petiole na on dog ridge rootstock. absorption of k by sonaka was independent of other cation contents in the soil. physiological demand for k seems to be more in sonaka, irrespective of the root affinity for any cation in any rootstock. optimum level of soil k seemed to be 1.59 me/100 g for this variety. negative relationship of soil k with petiole k and na on dog ridge rootstock suggests its higher affinity for other cations than k and dominant antagonism between na and k on this rootstock. 181 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 cation interactions in grape variety/ soil ion petioleion regression r2 threshold rootstock (x) (y) equation level (me/100 g) sonaka k k 35.4+ 33.5x10.56x2 0.229* 1.59 dog ridge k k 131.2550.52x+ 6.39x2 0.396** 3.95 110r k ca 115.4723.17x+ 1.84x2 0.310* 6.30 dog ridge k na 74.3923.41x+ 2.67x2 0.245* 4.38 sonaka ca k 120.988.12x+ 0.233x2 0.429** 17.42 110r ca k 22.68+ 1.52x+ 0.002x2 0.322* -608.3 2a clone ca ca 449.7327.29x+ 0.47x2 0.403** 29.03 sonaka ca mg 142.42x9.79x+ 0.231x2 0.263* 21.19 sonaka ca na 59.391.7x+ 0.015x2 0.266* 56.67 own root ca na 110.366.51x+ 0.146x2 0.365** 22.29 110r mg k -29.89+ 11.37x0.32x2 0.222* 17.76 own root mg ca 242.6926.53+ 0.99x2 0.223* 13.40 sonaka mg mg 93.4110.19x+ 0.47x2 0.340* 10.84 sonaka mg na -25.64+ 10.17x+0.436x2 0.272* -11.66 own root mg na 113.7815.13x +0.75x2 0.253* 10.09 2a clone na ca 169.382.44x+ 15.87x2 0.368** 2.60 dog ridge na ca -27.91+ 34.86x1.53x2 0.260* 11.39 dog ridge na mg 260.6-145.18x+ 23.8x2 0.300* 3.05 *significant @p=0.05 **significant @p=0.01 table 4: quadratic relationship of the significant correlations of soil cations with petiole contents in grape varieties and rootstocks interaction of soil ca++: increasing levels of soil ca were not associated with increase in petiole ca in any variety or on any rootstock, but contrarily resulted in its quadratic reduction in 2a clone. the threshold level of soil ca, beyond which its content increased was 29.03 me/100 g. increasing levels of ca in soil up to 17.42 me/100 g resulted in reduced contents of k in petioles in sonaka but in steadily increasing k contents in a linear fashion on 110r. they were also found to reduce the petiole na contents in sonaka and in all varieties on their own roots. the threshold levels of soil ca above which it was associated with increasing levels in petiole na were 56.67 and 22.29 me/100 g respectively for sonaka and own rooted vines of other varieties. increasing levels of ca in soil up to 21.19me/ 100 g were associated with reduced content of mg in the petioles of sonaka, above which, mg contents increased. soil ca was found to determine its content in petiole by 40.3 per cent in 2a clone. it accounted for variation in petiole k by 42.9 per cent in sonaka, and 32.2 per cent on 110r rootstock. it also accounted for 26.3 per cent variation in petiole mg. soil ca was also found to determine the petiole na contents by 26.6 and 36.5 per cent respectively in sonaka and own rooted vines. reduction in petiole ca with increasing levels of soil ca was due to either less physiological need by 2a clone or strong antagonism of other cations in the soil. soil ca at higher levels was synergistic to k in sonaka and on 110r and to mg in sonaka. it was antagonistic to na in sonaka but synergistic at higher levels on own root. thus, sonaka proved to be a better bet for the utilization of available soil k and mg; and restricting the sodium absorption in soils with high available ca (> than 20 me/100 g). higher absorption of na by own rooted vines of all variety suggests the 182 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 shikhamany et al fig.1: relationship of soil cations with petiole contents (yaxis) in me/100 g in grape varieties /rootstocks 183 use of either dog ridge or 110r rootstock; particularly 110r for better utilization of k in such soils. interaction of soil mg++: increasing levels of soil mg up to 10.84 me/100 g were found to reduce its contents in sonaka but not in any other variety or on any root stock. higher levels of soil mg up to 17.76 me/100 g were associated with higher petiole contents of k on 110r rootstock. increasing levels of soil mg up to 13.4 me/100 g reduced the petiole ca in vines on their own roots. they increased the petiole na steadily in a linear fashion in sonaka. increasing levels of soil mg up to 10.09 me/100 g were associated with reduced contents of na in the petioles of vines on their own roots. soil mg was found to determine the petiole mg by 34.0 per cent in sonaka only but not in other varieties or on any rootstock. it also accounted for 22.2 per cent variation in petiole k on 110r rootstock and 22.3 per cent in the petiole ca in own rooted vines. soil mg determined the petiole na content by 27.2 per cent in sonaka and 25.3 per cent in vines on their own roots. reduction in petiole mg with its increasing soil levels; and strong synergism of soil mg with petiole na in sonaka imply that either the physiological needs are less or its roots have less affinity for mg and more affinity for na. synergism of soil mg with petiole k on 110r rootstock can be attributed to its root affinity. positive relationship between two cations is possible, when a third dominating one simultaneously suppresses their absorption. such phenomenon was observed by shikhamany and satyanarayana(1972) in grape. strong antagonism of soil mg with petiole ca and na points out that management of available soil mg is crucial in balancing the absorption of ca and na in vines of any variety on their own roots. interaction of soil na+: higher levels of soil na up to 2.6me/100 g were associated with reduced petiole ca content in 2a clone. soil na up to 11.39/100 g increased the ca contents steadily, but reduced the mg contents up to its level of 3.05me/100 g on dog ridge. soil na accounted for variation in the petiole ca by 36.8 per cent in 2a clone and 26.0 per cent on dog ridge rootstock. it also accounted for30.0 per cent variation in petiole mg on dog ridge. the negative relationship of soil na with petiole mg but positive one with petiole ca on dog ridge rootstock indicates the greater affinity of its roots for j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 cation interactions in grape ca than mg in soils with high available na content. soil na at its lower levels although reduced the absorption of ca, increased it at higher levels in 2a clone. interaction with petiole contents: individual cation contents in the petioles were influenced by many soil cations; differently in different varieties and rootstocks. their co-efficient of determination by all the four soil cations together in different varieties and rootstocks is presented in table 5. individual effects of soil cations (table 4) were masked by their mutual interactions in their combined effect. the normalized petiole contents in relation to their respective soil contents in varieties on different rootstocks are presented in table 6. interaction with k: petiole k was influenced by soil k as well as ca in sonaka with their respective determinations of 22.9 and 42.9 per cent as against 57.2 per cent by all the soil cations together. soil ca was found to influence the petiole k more than soil k. soil ca and mg had synergistic effect, whereas na had strong antagonism on the absorption of k. thus soil na reduced the absorption of k by antagonizing with soil k, ca and mg in sonaka. petiole k contents were also influenced by soil ca and mg on 110r rootstock. they respectively accounted for 32.2 and 22.2 per cent variation in the petiole k content as against 44.0 per cent by all the soil cations together. antagonistic effect of soil na on reducing the synergistic effect of soil ca and mg on k was evident on 110r rootstock also. petiole k content was also found to be determined by 39.6 per cent by soil k on dog ridge rootstock, as against 28.5 per cent by all the soil cations together. in addition to antagonizing k, soil na suppressed the synergistic effect of soil mg in k absorption. this was how, the relatively higher absorption of k by sonaka and on 110r rootstock; and less absorption on dog ridge rootstock (table-6). interaction with ca: petiole ca varied differently with soil ca and na levels in 2a clone. they respectively accounted for 40.3 and 36.8 per cent variation in petiole ca, as against 32.4 per cent by all the soil cations together. soil k and mg antagonized 184 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 shikhamany et al table 5. multiple regression equations for the relationship of nutrient ion contents (me/100 g) of petioles(y) and soil (x) in grape varieties and root stocks. variety y parameter regression equation r2 thompson petiole k y= 42.25 +0.409k +0.079ca +0.193mg -0.615na 0.005 seedless petiole ca y= 98.05 +2.844k +0.976ca -5.767mg -0.509na 0.083 petiole mg y= 28.69 +1.96k -0.258ca -1.341mg +8.026na 0.108 petiole na y= 42.2 -0.596k +1.075ca -0.722mg -6.426na 0.179 2a clone petiole k y=105.11 -17.84k -0.174ca +0.798mg -5.545na 0.223* petiole ca y=103.99 -19.08k +0.702ca -3.56mg +11.55na 0.324* petiole mg y= 58.22 +2.78k +0.78ca -4.02mg +5.77na 0.431** petiole na y= 34.55 +0.97k +0.29ca -0.37mg -0.32na 0.006 sonaka petiole k y=5.13 -1.75k +2.55ca +1.84mg -6.96na 0.572** petiole ca y=60.49 -13.76k -0.23ca +1.0mg +11.41na 0.154 petiole mg y= 30.78 -2.79k +0.53ca +1.25mg -3.09na 0.291* petiole na y= 46.15 +2.1k -0.93ca +0.81mg -3.48na 0.379** rootstock own root petiole k y=66.95 -2.87k -0.36ca -1.53mg +7.25na 0.463** petiole ca y=119.2 +8.8k -1.42ca -3.77mg +2.4na 0.368** petiole mg y=58.72 +0.64k -0.38ca -0.61mg +1.8na 0.087 petiole na y= 20.4 -2.11k +0.42ca +0.18mg +2.17na 0.209 dog ridge petiole k y=30.84 -2.27k -0.66ca +4.1mg -3.33na 0.285* petiole ca y=-73.25 -0.25k -2.26ca +7.65mg +32.48na 0.507** petiole mg y=-19.52 +0.75k +0.11ca +1.22mg +14.82na 0.220* petiole na y= 60.08 -3.71k +0.25ca -0.02mg -7.07na 0.239* 110 r petiole k y=65.32 -2.03k +1.27ca -0.18mg -8.41na 0.440** petiole ca y=70.47-4.59k +2.16ca -4.0mg +3.8na 0.374** petiole mg y=19.08 -0.62k +0.13ca +0.29mg +4.74na 0.175 petiole na y= 37.02 -1.18k -0.002ca +0.56mg -4.268na 0.360** ca and na in reducing their synergistic effect on ca absorption. petiole ca contents were also influenced by soil mg on own roots; soil k on 110r and soil na on dog ridge. while soil mg explained the variation in petiole ca by 22.3 per cent, all the soil cations together did 36.8 per cent. ca absorption was antagonized by mg, but soil k and na increased it in own rooted vines. soil k accounted for 31.0 per cent variation in petiole ca on 110r rootstock, as against 37.4 per cent by all the soil cations together. while soil k and mg antagonized, na increased the absorption of ca on this rootstock. soil na was found to explain the variation in petiole ca by 26.0 per cent on dog ridge rootstock as against 50.7 per cent by all the soil cations together. soil mg enhanced the favourable effect of na in ca absorption. thus these cation interactions contributed for less absorption of ca by 2a clone and 110r rootstock; and further less in 2a clone on dog ridge rootstock, but more in own rooted vines of sonaka and thompson seedless (table-6). interaction with mg: petiole mg was influenced by ca and mg levels in soil accounting respectively for 26.3 and 34.0 per cent variability in petiole mg 185 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 cation interactions in grape variety/ petiole contents soil contents ratio of petiole/ rootstock (mean of 6 samples) (mean of 6 samples) soil contents k+ na+ ca++ mg+ + k+ na+ ca++ mg+ + k+ na+ ca++ mg+ + thompson 30.6 50.4 88.0 48.6 4.81 3.39 24.4 11.2 6.36 14.9 3.61 4.33 seedless/ own root thompson 39.2 28.3 64.9 48.5 3.88 3.31 21.5 11.0 10.1 8.55 3.03 4.43 seedless/ dog ridge thompson 48.1 22.2 51.8 35.9 5.07 3.33 19.5 10.3 9.48 6.65 2.65 3.49 seedless/ 110r 2a clone/ 58.7 44.5 70.8 54.6 2.26 3.06 25.5 12.1 26.0 14.5 2.78 4.53 own root 2a clone/ 53.5 41.2 66.1 53.4 2.0 3.0 26.2 12.7 26.8 13.9 2.52 4.21 dog ridge 2a clone/ 63.1 29.6 82.6 40.6 1.7 3.1 27.4 14.3 36.3 9.60 3.02 2.84 110r sonaka/ 52.3 36.0 70.7 47.1 1.4 1.8 17.6 10.2 38.4 20.0 4.02 4.60 own root sonaka/ 46.7 28.0 70.9 37.2 2.6 3.3 19.7 11.1 18.1 8.56 3.58 3.36 dog ridge sonaka/ 68.3 28.3 75.9 41.7 1.9 3.3 23.7 13.3 35.9 8.51 2.21 3.14 110r mean 51.2 34.3 71.3 45.3 2.8 3.1 22.8 11.8 23.1 11.7 3.05 3.88 sd± 11.7 9.30 10.5 6.75 1.4 0.8 5.94 2.46 12.5 4.35 0.59 0.67 cv % 22.9 27.2 14.7 14.9 48.7 24.7 26.0 20.2 54.3 37.3 19.3 17.3 table 6: cation composition of soil and petioles (me/100 g) of vineyards content, while all the soil cations together for 29.1 per cent in sonaka. this was due to the suppression of mg absorption by soil k and na. petiole mg was also influenced by soil na on dog ridge. while all the soil cations together accounted for 22.0 per cent variation in petiole mg, soil na alone for 30.0 per cent. soil na contributed more than soil mg in the absorption of mg by this rootstock. absorption of cations, including na, was highest in sonaka on its own r oots. na absorption wa s reduced by the rootstocks in this variety (table-6). since absorption of mg was favoured by soil na on dog ridge, this r ootstock is better for the management of mg nutrition in sonaka in soils with high levels of available na. int eract ion with na: ab sor p tion of na wa s influenced by soil ca and mg in sonaka. they were found to determine the petiole na by 26.6 and 27.2 per cent respectively as against 37.9 per cent by all soil cations together. soil k had synergistic effect on soil na in the absorption of na in this variety. soil ca and mg also influenced the absorption of na by vines on their own roots. they accounted respectively for 36.5 and 25.3 per cent variation in the petiole na contents, while all the soil cations t oget her a c c ou nt ed f or 2 0 . 9 p er c ent only. favourable effect of ca and mg on the absorption of na was suppressed by soil k in own rooted vines. soil k influenced na absorption on dog ridge rootstock with a determination of 24.5 per cent as 186 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 178-187, 2018 shikhamany et al against 23.9 per cent by all the soil cations together. soil ca reduced the suppressing effect of soil k in the absorption of na by dog ridge rootstock. these interactions suggested the use of rootstocks for sonaka and application of higher doses of potash to vines on their own roots or dog ridge rootstock to limit the absorption of na. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the office bearers and the chairman, central research committee of the maharashtra grape growers’ association for facilita ting the conduct of the survey; 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(ms received 17 november 2018, revised 17 december 2018, accepted 30 december 2018) 08 rms 23 (18).pdf off-season mango production is predominant in tropical countries, mainly thailand, philippines, indonesia, and some parts of peninsular india especially, kanyakumari and areas of tamil nadu, due to the prevalent high temperature and relative humidity. demand for off-season mango fruits is gaining prominence in the international markets of asia and north america. productivity of offseason fruits is negligible compared to the main-season mango under indian conditions. the benefit of off-season mango production is higher profits to the farmer by avoiding a market glut. in off-season mango production, cv. royal special is the only variety bearing fruits during septemberoctober (considered off-season) and in may-june, which is the main-season under south indian conditions, owing to its multiple flushing and flowering pattern. round fruits, yellowish-red in color, with a thick skin, abundant fiber, good total soluble sugar (tss) content (16.80brix), with average fruit weight of 197.5g are the desirable traits in ‘royal special’ mango (dinesh et al, 2012). several authors have reported beneficial properties of the fruit such as lycopene, carotenoids, curcumins, phenolics, flavonoids and sugars, including their chemopreventive role (lakshminarayana et al, 1970; kubo and chemical constituents during the main and off-season in mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. royal special s.r. shivu prasad, y.t.n. reddy, k.k. upreti1 and v. srilatha division of fruit crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail: nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract evaluation and quantification of fruit quality parameters like carbohydrates, phenolics, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, titrable acidity, total soluble solids (tss), carotenoids and lycopene content was done in fruits of mango cv. royal special, at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india, during the off-season (october, 2012) and main-season (june, 2013), respectively. ‘royal special’ is a typical off-season bearing cultivar, often characterized by multiple flushing and flowering under south indian conditions. major phytonutrients such as total sugars, reducing sugars, starch, total carotenoids, lycopene, total phenols, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, tss, titrable acidity and average fruit yield per plant, were recorded during the offand mainseasons. results indicated that fruits from off-season were higher in the major chemical constituents studied compared to the main-season crop, except for fruit yield per plant. this may be attributed to poor competition for nutrients among the developing fruits which act as a sink, besides fluctuating environmental conditions during the off-season, compared to the main-season. key words: mango, cv. royal special, off-season, fruit yield, carbohydrates, pigments, total phenols, flavonoids matsumoto, 1984; lechaudel and joas, 2007; ojewole, 2005; rodeiro et al, 2007). most table-varieties exhibit an average tss of 7.5-28.00brix (dinesh et al, 2012) under various climatic conditions. in addition to several other components, total carotenoids and ascorbic acid contribute are high in the mango pulp (ross, 1999). malundo et al (2001) reported that an ideal sugar:acid blend makes it favorable for flavonoid perception in ripe fruits. pulp of haden, tommy atkins and uba varieties is a good source of total carotenoids, phenolics and ascorbic acid – components with antioxidant properties (varakumar et al, 2011). potential nutritional and health benefits of mango have gained great importance in fruit quality and marketing strategy of the fruit. as for fruit quality parameters, most of the earlier studies are restricted to the main-season, and information on off-season fruit quality parameters is scanty. therefore, we aimed at a comparative study of off-season and main-season fruit quality parameters such as ascorbic acid content, total carotenoids, lycopene, total phenols, flavonoids, titrable acidity (ta), tss, total sugars, reducing sugars, starch and fruit yield/plant in cv. royal special. the study was conducted at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india, on 21-year old, short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):229-232, 2015 1division of plant physiology & biochemistry, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089, india 230 uniformly-grown mango trees of cv. royal special, planted at 10m × 10m spacing having average canopy diameter of 8.0m. the experimental farm is located at 914.4m above mean sea level, with average temperatures ranging from 13.3 -32.40c during the year. the soil is sandy loam with available soil-nutrients n:250 kg/ha, p:30 kg/ha, k:300 kg/ ha, at ph 7.2, average silt 9% and clay 21.5%. the trees were raised under rainfed conditions. six trees were selected randomly for sampling fruits. samples of five mature fruits from each tree were drawn during early october, 2012 and late june, 2013. these were ripened at room temperature in both the seasons. during the fruit ripening, the average maximum and minimum temperature was 27.8/ 19.4oc and 30.1/20.8oc and ripening duration 5 and 8 days in october and june, respectively. appearance of desired skin colour in the fruit peel, and olfactory perception of fruit aroma, were employed as indices of fruit ripening for laboratory analysis. ripe fruits were then completely peeledoff, pooled, sliced, the kernel removed, weighed and samples subjected to further analysis for fruit pulp traits. tss was estimated using a hand-held erma refractrometer, while ta was estimated as per association of official analytical chemists (aoac) method, using phenolphthalein as an indicator. total sugars in fresh samples were estimated following hansel and moller (1975). reducing sugar content was determined by somagyi (1952) method, and amount of reducing sugars calculated using a glucose standard. non-reducing sugars were estimated by subtracting reducing sugars from the total sugar content. starch content in fresh samples was determined using anthrone reagent, as per hedge and hofreiter (1962). for determining the content of total phenols and flavonoids, 1.0g fresh pulp was finely ground with 5.0ml 80% ethanol, centrifuged at 10000rpm for 10 min, supernatant collected and volume readjusted to an initial volume with 80% ethanol. total phenols were estimated spectrophotometrically using folin-ciocalteu reagent (bray and thorpe, 1954) with gallic acid as the standard. the values were expressed as mg/ 100g fresh weight. total flavonoid content was estimated using catechin as the standard, and the values were expressed as mg/100g fresh weight (zhishen et al, 1999). total carotenoids and lycopene content was estimated spectrophotometrically (jensen, 1978; ranganna, 1976). molar extinction coefficient of 2500m-1 cm-1 at 450nm for total carotenoids, and 1.72x105 m-1 cm-1 at 503nm for lycopene was used for calculating their respective content. ascorbic acid was estimated by extracting the fruit pulp in 5% metaphosphoric acid, and titrated with 0.05% aqueous 2,6-dichlorophenol-indophenol as per harris and olliver (1942). data were statistically analyzed using anova, and significance (p>0.01) was determined for comparing treatments. total sugar content increased up to 50% during the off-season, at 132.95 mg/g in october, 2012, and 81.98 mg/ g in june, 2013. significant variation was observed in the content of reducing sugars during off-season (63.09mg/g), while, during the main-season, 26.45mg/g was recorded (table 1). analogous to total and reducing sugars, the nonreducing sugars, the starch and tss were found to be significant. maximum content recorded was 69.89mg/g, 28.3mg/g and 210brix, respectively, while minimum content recorded was 55.53mg/g, 17.2mg/g and 14 0brix, respectively, during off-and on-seasons, respectively. differences among carbohydrate and starch content can be attributed to differences in competing growth-aspects in the developing /ripening fruits. increase in carbohydrate content can be correlated with increase in tss in the fruit, noticed in the present study. fruit development during september-october was perhaps facilitated optimally due to less fruit-load on the trees. these trees had been affected by the previous year’s crop-load. in simple terms, more the crop-load, higher the competition among developing fruits, and vice-versa. on the contrary, burdon et al (2007) reported that carbohydrate status in avacado fruit was the same, irrespective of the season, under new zealand conditions. in our studies earlier, non-reducing sugars were monitored at various stages in mango (reddy et al, 2014). there is an added complication in fruit crops, especially in mango, in interpreting carbohydrate status of the fruit, due to asynchronous flowering. titrable acidity (ta) had no determining role during either the main or the off-season. however, higher titrable acidity was recorded (0.32%) during off-season, and table 1. carbohydrates, tss and ascorbic acid content in mango fruit season total sugars reducing non-reducing starch tss ascorbic acid titrable (mg/g) sugars (mg/g) sugar (mg/g) (mg/g) (obrix) (mg/100g) acidity (%) off-season 132.95±0.577 63.09±0.578 69.89±0.057 28.3±0.173 21±1.173 0.87±0.011 0.32±0.057 main-season 81.98±0.562 26.45±0.259 55.53±0.303 17.2±0.577 14±1.154 0.67±0.011 0.25±0.056 (p significant >0.01, n=3) shivu prasad et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):229-232, 2015 231 minimum ta (0.25%) was recorded in the main-season crop. ascorbic acid content was 0.87mg/100g in off-season, and 0.67mg/100g in the on-season. ascorbic acid content was 20% higher in off-season fruits. higher content of phenolics and flavonoids was recorded during off-season (table 2). the difference seen in flavonoid content between seasons can be directly correlated with sugar:acid blend. in support of our findings, a study by malundo et al (2001) states that sugars and acids enhance human perception of specific flavor-notes in mango, including the aromatics. on the other hand, lower tss:acid ratio is directly related to higher sourness (lechaudel and joas, 2007). total carotenoid and lycopene content increased in off season fruits compared to the on-season ones, at a maximum of 4.47mg/100g and 1.01mg/100g, respectively while, minimal content recorded was 2.33mg/100g and 0.45mg/100g during the offand onseason, respectively. these results were found to be significant (table 3) increase in content of carotenoids and lycopene during the off-season can be directly correlated with fluctuating environment (stress), viz., temperature, light intensity, leaf photosynthetic capacity and rainfall, along with poor competition for nutrition demand in a growing fruit on the tree. also, lower day temperatures were often seen to be associated with higher pigmentation in apple (solovchenko et al, 2006). we too observed this in our study. average fruit yield per plant reduced considerably during the off-season. maximum fruit yield (40kg/plant) and minimum fruit yield (5kg/plant) was recorded in the onand off-season, respectively, and these differences were significant. the present study revealed that differences in crop yield during the onand offyears influenced biochemical factors in the fruit, especially carbohydrates, along with others like phenolics, flavonoids and carotenoids. prior to this study, none of the research works on mango have shown clear-cut accumulation pattern and development of fruit quality parameters during main and off season grown mango fruits especially, in cv. royal special, which is erratic in flowering. from this study, it can be inferred that fruits grown in the off-season are richer in phytonutrients than those grown during the main-season crop. it is worthwhile to promote off-season production in mango cv. royal special. table 2. total flavonoids and phenols in mango fruit season phenols flavonoids (mg/100g) (mg/100g) off-season 0.817±0.009 0.481±0.047 main-season 0.653±0.003 0.123±0.013 (p significant >0.01, n=3) table 3. carotenoids, lycopene content and average fruit yield in mango season carotenoids lycopene average fruit (mg/100g) (mg/100g) yield (kg/plant) off-season 4.47±0.288 1.01±0.144 5.0±2.603 main-season 2.33±0.191 0.45±0.025 40.0±5.773 (p significant >0.01, n=3) fig. 2. ripe fruits of mango cv. royal special fig. 1. ‘royal special’ mango tree in different stages of growth chemical constituents in mango during the main and off-season j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):229-232, 2015 232 acknowledgement the authors are thankful to director, icar-iihr, for providing facilities and grateful to naip, icar new delhi, india, for financial support. thanks go out to national coordinator-4 for providing encouragement in the course of the study. active support of h.l. jayaram, technical officer, t.n. nagaraj, field technician, h.s. naveen, skilled assistant and j. varun, naip project is gratefully acknowledged. references aoac. 1990. official methods of analysis. association of official analytical chemists, washington d.c., usa bray, h.g. and thorpe, w.v. 1954. analysis of phenolic compounds of interest in metabolism. methods biochem. anal., 52:1-27 burdon, j., lallu, n., haynes, g., pidakala p., willcocks, p., billing, d., mcdermott, k., voyle, d., and boldingh, h. 2007. carbohydrate status of late-season ‘hass’ avocado fruit. new zealand avocado growers’ association ann. res. rep., 7:97-102 dinesh, m.r., vasugi, c. and reddy, y.t.n. 2012. mango catalogue. ic no; 391846, pp. 282 hansel, j. and moller, i. 1975. percolation of starch and soluble carbohydrates from plant tissue for quantitative determination with anthrone. anal. biochem., 68:87-94 harris, l.j. and olliver, m. 1942. vitamin methods: the reliability of the method for estimating vitamin c by titration against 2:6-dichlorophenolindophenol. 1. control tests with plant tissues. biochem. j., 36:155182 hedge, j.e. and hofreiter, b.t. 1962. in: methods in carbohydrate chemistry, vol. 17, whistler, r.l. and be miller, j.n. (eds), academic press, new york, usa jensen, a. 1978. chlorophylls and carotenoids. in: hellebust, a. and crargie, j. (eds), handbook of phytological methods, cambridge university press, london, pp. 59-70 kubo, i. and matsumoto, a. 1984. molluscicides from olive, olea europea, and their efficient isolation by countercurrent chromatogrphies. j. agri. food chem., 32:687-688 lakshminarayana, s., subhadra, n.v. and subramanyam, h. 1970. some aspects of developmental physiology of mango fruit. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 45:133-142 lechaudel, m. and joas, j. 2007. an overview of pre-harvest factors influencing mango fruit growth, quality and post-harvest behaviour. brazilian j. pl. physiol., 19:287-298 malundo, t.m.m., shewfelt, r.l., ware g.o. and baldwin, e.a. 2001. sugars and acids influence flavour properties of mango (mangifera indica). j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 126:115-121 ojewole j.a. 2005. anti-inflammatory, analgesic and hypoglycemic effects of mangifera indica linn. (anacardiaceae) stem-bark aqueous extract. methods find expt’l. clin. pharmacol., 27:54754 ranganna, s. 1976. manual of analysis of fruits and vegetable products, tata mcgraw hill publishers, new delhi, pp. 634 reddy, y.t.n., shivu prasad, s.r. and upreti, k.k. 2013. effect of paclobutrazol on fruit quality attributes in mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. totapuri. j. hortl. sci., 8:236-239 rodeiro, i., donato, m.t., jimnenez, n., garrido, g., delgado, r. and gomez-lechon, m.j. 2007. effects of mangifera indica l. aqueous extract (vimang) on primary culture of rat hepatocytes. food chem. toxicol., 45:2506-2512 ross, i.a. 1999. medicinal plants of the world. vol.1. human press, new jersey, usa, pp. 199-200 solovchenko, a.e., avertcheva o.v. and merzlyak, m.n. ý2006. elevated sunlight promotes ripening-associated pigment changes in apple fruit. postharvest biol. technol., 40:183-189 somagyi, m. 1952. notes on sugar determination. j. biol. chem., 195:19-23 varakumar, s., sudheer kumar, y. and reddy, o.v.s. 2011. carotenoid composition of mango (mangifera indica l.) wine and its antioxidant activity. j. food biochem., 35:1538-1547 zhishen, j., mengcheng, t. and jianming, w. 1999. the determination of flavonoid content in mulberry and their scavenging effects on superoxide radicals. food chem., 64:555-559 (ms received 20 january 2015, revised 27 august 2015, accepted 08 september 2015) shivu prasad et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):229-232, 2015 molecular characterization of phytophthora nicotianae associated with diseases of horticultural crops by rflp of pcr internal transcribed spacer region of ribosomal dna and aflp fingerprints. p. chowdappa1 central plantation crops research institute regional station, vittal574 243, india e-mail: pallem @iihr.ernet.in abstract molecular characterization of phytophthora isolates from tobacco, tomato, carnation, gerbera, crossandra and periwinkle was carried out using internal transcribed spacer(its) regions of rdna gene repeat and amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp). all the isolates of phytophthora were identical in morphology and itsrflp patterns, indicating p. nicotianae and p. parasitica are synonymous. however, based on aflp, four sub groups were evident within population of p. nicotianae (p. parasitica): group i, includes isolates from tomato, tobacco and periwinkle. isolates from carnation represents group ii. isolates from gerbera falls under group iii. the crossandra isolates formed a group iv. thus, present study showed the existence of four molecular sub groups within population of p. nicotianae (p. parasitica) in india. key words: phytophthora nicotianae, aflp, its-rflp 1present address: division of plant pathology, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore – 560 089, india introduction phytophthora parasitica ( sensu dastur,1913) and p. nicotianae (sensu waterhouse, 1963), are pathogenic to a wide range of hosts ranging from tree crops to herbaceous plants(oudemans and coffey, 1991). phytophthora nicotianae has been reported as causal agent of diseases of tobacco, crossandra, carnation, gerbera and periwinkle and p. parasitica on tomato in india (mehrotra and aggarwal, 2001). these species were mainly identified based on morphological features (stamps et al, 1990; sarma et al, 2002)morphological criteria have limitations in understanding genetic diversity and genetic distance between isolates of p. nicotianae and p. parasitica. protein patterns (erselius and de vallavielle, 1984), serological analysis (morton and dukes, 1967), dna rflp patterns (forster and coffey, 1991) and isozyme patterns (oudemans and coffey, 1991) were found to be useful in understanding genetic divergence between isolates belonging to p. nicotianae and p. parasitica. endonuclease restriction digestion analysis of the its region of ribosomal dna (its-rflp) (cooke and duncan,1997; crowford et al, 1996; chowdappa et al, 2003a, b, c; chowdappa and sarma, 2003) and aflp finger prints were successful to separate species and also differences. the objective of the present study is to understand molecular diversity of phytophthora isolates from tobacco, tomato carnation, gerbera, crossandra and periwinkle in india based on its-rflp and aflp fingerprinting. material and methods fungal isolates phytophthora nicotianae isolates from tobacco, tomato, perwinkle, gerbera (05 isolates each), carnation and crossandra (04 isolates each) collected from bangalore, mysore, tumkur and hassan districts of karnataka were used in this study. reference cultures of p. nicotianae (imi 3406160 and imi 235604) were also included for comparison. morphological studies colony morphology of isolates, on carrot agar medium(ca) after three days of incubation in the dark at 24 ± 1ºc, was studied. sporangia were produced on ca using mycelium-agar-disk-in-water method (alhedaithy and tsao,1979). observations were made on length and breadth of sporangia, presence of papilla, caducity and shapes. observations on chlamydospore production were made on ca following incubation at 18ºc in the dark. the mating types of isolates were determined by taking 5 mm dia. discs from advancing margins of 3dayold cultures of opposite mating types and placed them 20 mm apart on ca. the inoculated plates were incubated j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 58-62, 2007 at 20oc in the dark for 15-20 days. the influence of temperature on vegetative growth on ca was determined in the dark at temperature ranging from 6 to 39ºc with an increment of 3oc. molecular studies the fungal mycelium was grown in 100 ml of v8 juice in a 250 ml flask for 3 days at 25°c on orbital shaker at 100 rpm. dna was extracted from freeze dried vegetative mycelium following a method of raeder and broda (1985). pcr amplification of the its region was performed using with universal primer pair its1 and its 4 (white et al ,1990). each 50 µl reaction mixture contained 100 ng of dna, 50 pmol of each primer, 200 mm each dntp, 5 µl of 10 x pcr buffer and 10 units of taq dna polymearse enzyme. pcr was carried out with following cycling parameters. a 4 minute denaturation at 94°c, followed by 34 cycles of 60s at 94°c, 60s at 55°c, and 1.5 min at 72°c and then a 5 min extension at 72°c. pcr products (5µl ) were electrophoresed in a 2 % agarose gel with tris-borateedta (tbe) buffer, stained with ethidium bromide and visualised under uv illumination. pcr product was digested with restriction enzymes namely hinf i, msp i, alu i, hae iii, rsa i, taq i and ecor v. restriction digestions were performed in 10 µl reaction containing 5 µl pcr product, 1 µl 10 x restriction buffer, 3.6 µ l pcr grade water, 0.1 µl bovine serum albumn and restriction enzyme (3 u/reaction) at 37°c for overnight (16h). digestion products were electrophoresed in 2.5% le agarose. the size of restriction fragments was determined by comparison of fragments migration with that of known marker fragments (100bp molecular size ladder). amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp) analysis was carried out as per the method of muller et al (1996). fungal genomic dna ( 500 ng) was digested by pst (20 units), ligated to pst adaptor at 37°c for 4h and preamplification was carried out at 94ºc for 4 min for initial denaturation followed by 34 cycles of denaturation for 1 min at 94oc, annealing for 1 min at 60ºc, extension for 1.5 min at 72ºc and a final extension step of 5min at 72ºc. pre amplified pcr products were then diluted 1:100 in te buffer and amplified with five aflp primers, a(5’gactgcgtacatgcaggt3’,b(5’gactgcgta catgcagga3’), c,5’gactgcgtacatgcaggc3’), d (5’gactgcgtacatgcagac3’), e(5’gactgcgt acatgcagcg-3’) each with two selective bases at its 3’ end underlined, adopting above thermal cycling parameters. the pcr products were electrophoresed in 2% agarose gels in tris-borate-edta (tbe) buffer and visualized under uv after staining with ethidium bromide results and discussion phytophthora nicotianae isolates isolated from tobacco, tomato, periwinkle, carnation, crossandra and gerbera displayed no distinctive colony morphology (dense whitish aerial mycelium). most isolates produced spherical, ovoid, ellipsoid and persistent sporangia on irregular / loose sympodial sporangiophore (fig1). sporangial sizes ranged from 36.70 to 46.50 x 24.92 to 32.25 µ m (table1). l:b ratios of sporangia ranged from 1.31 to 1.53. chlamydospores were produced readily by all isolates on ca incubated in the dark at 18°c. chlamydospores were single, spherical, terminal or intercalary and pale yellow in colour (fig 1). the mean chlamydospores diameter ranged from 20 to 30 µ m (table 2). none of the isolates produced sexual structures. when paired with isolates of p. capsici of known mating types, all isolates produced sexual table 1. sporangial measurement in p. nicotianae isolates isolate no length*(µm) breadth (µm) l/b ratio(µm) mating type tobacco oh 37 41.50 ± 1.21 29.50 ± 0.77 1.40 ± 0.77 a2 oh 38 43.07 ± 0.93 31.92 ± 0.61 1.33 ± 0.02 a2 oh 39 41.00 ± 1.08 30.20 ± 0.71 1.37 ± 0.02 a2 oh 40 36.70 ± 1.21 24.92 ± 0.54 1.47 ± 0.36 a2 oh 41 40.93 ± 1.91 27.80 ± 0.69 1.41 ± 0.04 a2 tomato oh 42 38.50 ± 1.67 28.50 ± 1.14 1.30 ± 0.06 a2 oh 43 42.50 ± 0.86 32.25 ± 0.74 1.30 ± 0.02 a2 oh 44 40.00 ± 1.30 29.57 ± 0.83 1.37 ± 0.05 a2 oh 45 40.50 ± 0.77 29.00 ± 0.63 1.39 ± 0.03 a2 oh 46 39.00 ± 1.71 25.50 ± 1.00 1.38 ± 0.08 a2 periwinkle oh 47 41.66 ± 1.45 28.54 ± 1.23 1.43 ± 0.03 a2 oh 48 42.75 ± 1.14 30.25 ± 0.96 1.41 ± 0.06 a2 oh 49 41.25 ± 1.53 28.75 ± 0.78 1.43 ± 0.02 a2 oh 50 41.66 ± 1.63 30.41 ± 1.09 1.36 ± 0.03 a2 oh 51 39.58 ± 1.81 27.91 ± 1.37 1.41 ± 0.06 a2 carnation oh 52 38.61 ± 1.52 27.22 ± 1.32 1.41 ± 0.02 a2 oh 53 38.50 ± 1.67 28.50 ± 1.14 1.30 ± 0.06 a2 oh 54 44.44 ± 1.39 30.55 ± 1.51 1.46 ± 0.06 a2 oh 55 38.75 ± 1.39 27.25 ± 1.20 1.45 ± 0.48 a2 oh 56 46.50 ± 2.74 31.50 ± 1.53 1.46 ± 0.03 a2 crossandra oh 57 43.25 ± 1.17 28.75 ± 1.28 1.53 ± 0.06 a2 oh 58 45.00 ± 1.32 31.11 ± 1.42 1.46 ± 0.05 a2 oh 59 40.00 ± 1.23 27.00 ± 0.93 1.48 ± 0.04 a2 oh 60 46.38 ± 2.28 30.31 ± 1.34 1.53 ± 0.05 a2 oh 61 40.55 ± 1.70 27.77 ± 1.32 1.46 ± 0.05 a2 gerbera oh 62 45.50 ± 1.88 30.25 ± 1.24 1.49 ± 0.04 a2 oh 63 41.66 ± 1.63 30.41 ± 1.09 1.36 ± 0.03 a2 oh64 41.25 ± 1.53 28.75 ± 0.78 1.43 ± 0.02 a2 oh 65 44.07 ± 1.00 30.47 ± 0.90 1.44 ± 0.04 a2 oh 66 42.91 ± 1.49 28.33 ± 1.27 1.51 ± 0.05 a2 *mean of 100 sporangia; ± standard deviation j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 58-62, 2007 59 fig 1. morphology of p. nicotianae isolates, top left, sporangia, top right, chlamydospores, bottom left, oogonia, bottom right, oospores table 2. dimensions of chlamydospores , oogonia and oospores of p. nicotianae isolates isolate chlamydospores oogonia oospores (µm) (µm) (µm) tobacco oh 37 24.38 ± 1.75* 28.34 ± 2.10 25.90 ± 2.00 oh 38 22.78 ± 2.30 27.26 ± 1.90 26.24 ± 1.75 oh 39 28.20 ± 2.60 28.75 ± 2.00 25.34 ± 2.30 oh 40 23.34 ± 3.24 25.20 ± 1.95 24.37 ± 2.30 oh 41 23.28 ± 1.95 27.32 ± 2.60 25.20 ± 2.60 tomato oh 42 27.34 ± 2.02 29.75 ± 2.72 26.37 ± 2.27 oh 43 28 .28 ± 2.78 27.14 ± 2.02 25.40 ± 2.50 oh 44 23.38 ± 2.50 27.30 ± 2.50 26.32 ± 2.71 oh 45 26.72 ± 2.31 28.14 ± 2.60 26.37 ± 2.80 oh 46 24.32 ± 1.31 27.20 ± 1.90 25.27 ± 1.70 periwinkle oh 47 20.24 ± 1.32 28.14 ± 2.60 25.32 ± 2.75 oh 48 26.32 ± 2.34 28.20 ± 2.80 26.97 ± 2.60 oh 49 26.78 ± 2.14 27.20 ± 1.97 24.32 ± 2.32 oh 50 28.24 ± 3.21 27.30 ± 2.30 25.84 ± 2.00 oh 51 24.32 ± 2.20 27.10 ± 2.02 26.80 ± 2.72 carnation oh 52 28.45 ± 2.10 28.32 ± 2.00 27.40 ± 1.72 oh 53 30.25 ± 1.78 27.20 ± 1.80 26.68 ± 2.34 oh 54 28.75 ± 2.24 27.45 ± 2.20 27.35 ± 2.40 oh 55 25.62 ± 3.14 28.47 ± 2.15 26.40 ± 1.80 oh 56 25.34 ± 2.45 27.90 ± 2.70 25.21 ± 2.30 crossandra oh 57 26.25 ± 2.41 29.30 ± 1.60 24.00 ± 2.26 oh 58 20.35 ± 2.35 26.40 ± 2.30 25.34 ± 1.60 oh 59 20.75 ± 2.48 25.30 ± 1.60 26.73 ± 1.70 oh 60 24.34 ± 1.82 28.17 ± 1.20 27.40 ± 1.20 oh 61 25.75 ± 2.35 26.30 ± 2.00 24.37 ± 1.78 gerbera oh 62 27.32 ± 1.32 27.34 ± 2.06 26.75 ± 1.80 oh 63 26.31 ± 2.71 26.48 ± 2.68 25.30 ± 2.07 oh 64 28.25 ± 2.24 27.84 ± 2.50 25.24 ± 2.01 oh 65 26.32 ± 2.18 26.34 ± 1.85 25.70 ± 2.07 oh 66 22.35 ± 2.14 27.84 ± 2.00 26.87 ± 2.80 *mean of 100 reproductive structures ± standard deviation structures (fig 1). size of oogonia ranged from 26 to 29 µm and oospores varied from 24 to 27 µm (table 2). minimum temperature for growth of all isolates was 9°c; optimum was 24 30°c; and maximum was 33°c. thus, the present study showed that sporangial, chlamydospore, oogonial and oospore characteristics of p. nicotianae isolates from periwinkle, carnation, gerbera, tobacco and crossandra are similar to those of p. parasitica isolates from tomato. waterhouse (1963) created two morphological varieties; p. nicotianae var. nicotianae and p. nicotianae var. parasitica, which were based on ashby (1928) microspore and macrospora, respectively. further morphological studies of ho and jong (1989) in isolates from tobacco and other hosts clearly showed that var. nicotianae and var. parasitica could not be differentiated. separation of the varieties nicotianae and parasitica based on morphological criteria was also questioned (gallegly,1983). oudemans and coffey (1991) and hall (1993) reported that oogonia , oospore and sporangial dimensions are similar among two groups. when dna was amplified with universal primer pair (its1 and its4), there was single band of 920 bp (fig 2) for all isolates of p. nicotianae and reference cultures of p. nicotianae (imi 3406160 and imi 235604). all isolates had identical its rflp patterns when pcr product was digested with enzymes hinf 1, msp i, alu i, hae iii and rsa i (fig 3). restriction fragment sizes of the its region of rdna digested with different enzymes are also identical. fig 2. pcr amplification of its region of r dna lane1, marker, 100bp ladder, lane2, periwinkle, lane 3, gerbera, lane,4,carnation, lane,5, crossandra 600bp j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 58-62, 2007 60 chowdappa fig 3. its-rflp patterns generated with hinf i (lane 2-5)and taqi(lane 6-9). lane 1and 10, marker (100bp) lane2 and 6,periwinkle, lane 3and 7, gerbera, lane,4 and 8,carnation, lane,5 and 9, crossandra protein profiles (erselius and de vallavielle,1984), serological reactions (morton and dukes, 1967), rflpdna patterns ( forster and coffey,1991) of p. nicotianae isolates from tobacco were almost identical to those of p. nicotianae isolates from other crops. itsrflp data obtained in the present study also showed that p. nicotianae isolates from tobacco, tomato, periwinkle, carnation, gerbera and crossandra were identical. as varieties nicotianae and parasitica are identical based on morphological and molecular criteria, many researchers proposed (ho and jang,1989; oudemans and coffey,1991; hall,1993) that the name p. nicotianae be eliminated and that all isolates from tobacco and other hosts should be merged under the name p. parasitica. among the isolates of p. nicotianae, four aflp finger print groups were evident based on the combined results of five primers (a,b,c,d and e). the aflp finger prints generated with primer e is shown in fig 4. group i includes isolates from tomato, tobacco and periwinkle. isolates from carnation represents group ii. isolates from gerbera falls under group iii. the crossandra isolates formed a group iv. although there was no intra specific its variation among isolates of p. nicotianae, host specialized groups from tobacco, tomato, periwinkle, gerbera, carnation, and crossandra were found based on aflp fingerprints. there is considerable amount of evidence to show that some isolates of p. nicotianae are host-specific. for instance, isolates from okra and sesame were host specific, while isolates from peperomia obtusifolia and saintpaulia ionatha had different host ranges (ho and jong,1989). isolates from carnation and tomato were more virulent on fig 4. aflp finger prints of phytophthora nicotianae isolates lane 1, bp ladder(size marker), lane2,periwinkle, lane 3, gerbera, lane,4,carnation, lane,5, crossandra carnation and tomato respectively than other hosts. thus, the present study clearly indicated that p. nicotianae isolates from tobacco, periwinkle, carnation, gerbera and crossandra and p. parasitica isolates from tomato were identical. the aflp finger prints were useful in identifying host specialized groups within p. parasitica (p. nicotianae). while screening the accessions for disease resistance, host specialized aflp molecular groups should be used rather than morphologically defined isolates. acknowledgement the author is grateful to the indian council of agricultural research, new delhi for financial assistance in the form of national network project on phytophthora diseases of horticultural crops. he is also thankful to dr. n. ramachandran, head, division of plant pathology, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for phytophthora cultures from gerbera, carnation and crossandra, and, to dr. m. m. shenoi, head, ctcri regional station, hunsur, for phytophthora infected samples of tobacco. references al-hedaithy, s. s. a. and tsao, p. h.1979. sporangium pedicel length in phytophthora species and the consideration of its uniformity in determining sporangium caducity. trans. brit. mycol. soc.,72: 1-13. ashby, s. f.1928. the oospores of phytophthora nicotianae br.de.haan with notes on the taxonomy of p.parasitica dastur. trans. brit. mycol. soc., 13: 86-95 600bp 600bp j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 58-62, 2007 61 molecular characterization of phytophthora chowdappa, p., brayford, d., smith, j. and flood, j. j.2003a. molecular discrimination of phytophthora isolates on cocoa and their relationship with coconut, black pepper and bell pepper isolates based on r dna repeat and aflp finger prints. curr. sci., 84: 1235 – 1238. chowdappa, p., brayford, d., smith, j. and flood j. j. 2003b. identification of phytophthora species affecting plantation crops by rflp of pcr amplified its region of ribosomal rna. curr. sci., 85: 34-36. chowdappa, p., brayford, d., smith, j. and flood, j. j. 2003c. identity of phytophthora associated with arecanut and its relationship rubber and cardamom isolates based on rflp of pcramplified its region of r dna and aflp fingerprints. curr.sci., 85: 585587. chowdappa, p. and sarma, y. r. 2003. application of molecular markers for resolving taxonomic complexities in phytophthora . j. plantn. crops.,31: 1-12 cooke, d. e. l . and duncan, j. m. 1997. phylogenetic analysis of phytophthora species based on its1 and its2 sequences of the ribosomal rna gene repeat. mycol.res.,101: 667-677 crowford, a. r., bassam, b. j., drenth, a., maclean, d. j. and irwin, j. a. g . 1996. evolutionary relationships among phytophthora species deduced from r dna sequence analysis. mycol. res., 100: 437-443. dastur,j. f.1913. phytophthora parasitica n.sp, a new disease of castor oil plant. mem. dep. agric. bot. ser., 5: 177-231. erselius, l. j. and de vallavieille, c. 1984. variation in protein profiles in phytophthora : comparision of six species. trans. brit. mycol. soc., 83: 463-472 forster, h. and coffey, m. d. 1991. approaches to the taxonomy of phytophthora using polymorphisms in mitochondrial and nuclear dna. p164-183. in: phytophthora. leucas, j.a. shattock, r.c. shaw.d.s. and cooke, l.r.(ed.) cambridge uni. press, cambridge, uk gallegly, m. e. 1983. new criteria for classifying phytophthora and critique of existing approaches.p167-172. in: phytophthora: its biology, taxonomy, ecology and pathology. erwin, d.c. bartnicki-garcia, s. and tsao, p.h.(ed.) american phytopathological society, st. paul. hall, g. 1993. an integrated approach to the analysis of variation in phytophthora nicotianae and a redescription of the species. mycol. res.,97 :559-574. ho, h. h and jong, s. c.1989. phytophthora nicotianae (p. parasitica). mycotaxon, 36 : 243-276. mehrotra, r. s. and aggarwal, a. 2001.phytophthora diseases in india. smps, dehradun, p 322 morton, d. j. and dukes, p. d.1967. serological differentiation of pythium aphanidermatum from phytophthora parasitica var.nicotianae and phytophthora parasitica. nature, 213: 923. mueller, u. g., lipari, s. e. and milgroom, m. g. 1996. amplified fragment length polymorphism finger printing of symbiotic fungi cultured by fungusgrowing ant cyphomyrex minutus. mol. ecology, 5: 119-122. oudemans, p. and coffey, m. d. 1991. a revised systematics of twelve papillate phytophthora species based on isozyme analysis. mycol. res., 95: 10251046 raeder, u. and broda. p. 1985. rapid preparation of dna from filamentous fungi. lett. appl. microbiol., 1: 17-20. sarma, y r., chowdappa, p. and anandaraj. m. 2002. phytophthora disease of plantation crops in india.p149-187. in: ipm system in agriculture: key pathogens and diseases .vol. 8. upadhyay, r.k. arora, d. k. and dubey, o. p. (ed.). aditya books pvt. ltd., new delhi stamps, d. j., waterhouse, g. m., newhook, f. j and hall, g. s .1990. revised tabular key to the species of the phytophthora, mycological papers 162, cab international mycological institute, kew, london, p 28 waterhouse, g. m. 1963. key to the species of phytophthora de bary; mycological papers (cmi), 92 : 1-22 white, t. j., bruns, t., lee, s. and taylor j. 1990. amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal rna genes for phylogenetics. p 315-322. in:pcr protocolsa guide to methods and applications .innis, m a. gelfand, d. h. sninsky, j. j. and white, t. j(ed. ). academic press, san diego. (ms received 3 november, 2006, revised 2 june 2007) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 58-62, 2007 62 chowdappa standardization of stage-wise requirement of nutrients in banana cv. grande naine (aaa) t.n. balamohan, j. auxilia1 and r. sudha2 department of fruit crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore – 641 003, india e-mail: rsudhahort@yahoo.co.in abstract a field trial was conducted during 2009-2010 at college orchard, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, to standardize stage-wise requirement of nutrients in banana cv. grand naine (aaa). treatment t16 where application of 100% rdf (165:52.5:495g npk plant -1) at 4 critical growth stages, i.e., 40:52.5:25, 30:0:35, 30:0:25 and 0:0:15% at the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th months after planting (map), respectively, recorded maximum plant height, pseudostem girth and leaf area index. maximum bunch weight of 32.15kg was recorded in t16. higher yield was attributed to more number of (i) hands per bunch, (ii) fingers per hand and (iii) per bunch, besides the higher average weight of the finger. better quality fruits, with higher tss, total sugars, low acidity and better sugar:acid blend, were obtained in t16. in treatment t16, where 100% rdf was applied, increased n, p, and k content were seen in the index leaf of the crop. lower soil-available nutrients, viz., n, p, k, at the higher level of split-application at critical stages of the crop revealed, that, the nutrients applied were utilized efficiently. this was reflected in the better yield and quality obtained. economics were worked out which indicated t16 as giving the highest cost:benefit ratio (1:3.97). key words: banana, grande naine, stage-wise nutrient requirement, yield, quality, cost:benefit ratio j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):165-171, 2015 introduction banana, the second largest fruit crop in the world in terms of cultivation, produced in the tropical and subtropical regions, is recognized as the fourth most important food commodity in terms of gross value next only to paddy, wheat and milk products. india is the largest producer of banana in the world, accounting for about 25% of the global output. its availability round-the-year at a reasonable cost, and its ready acceptance by all sections of the society, make it a very popular fruit. peninsular india, especially the states of tamil nadu, kerala and karnataka, constitute an area of great diversity of both the banana and the plantain. over five lakh smalland mediumfarmers depend on banana cultivation for livelihood in our country. though the farmers spend huge amounts on fertilizer, only 50% of the potential crop yield is realized owing to poor fertilizer use efficiency. with a growing population and enhanced awareness among public about health and nutritional aspects of banana, the country’s requirement in the next 20 years is expected to go up to 25 million tonnes. this volume of production can be achieved through increased productivity while ensuring better fertilizer use efficiency. banana is a voracious feeder of nutrients; therefore, addition of mineral fertilizer stands to have a major effect on yield potential. banana requires high amounts of k than n or p to ensure high yield and quality. it is estimated that a crop of 50 tonnes of banana in one hectare removes 320kg n, 32kg p2o5 and 925kg k2o every year. hence, it is of paramount importance to maintain a high degree of soil fertility by timely and judicious application of npk for achieving good fruit yield and quality in banana. in tamil nadu, nutrients are applied in three split doses during the 3rd, 5th and 7th month after planting (map) @ 110:35:330g/npk/plant/year; but, under tropical conditions, soil nutrients are leached/ lost rapidly due to various factors. therefore, it is important to apply nutrients at the critical stages of crop growth in small doses, at shorter intervals, to minimize loss of nutrients and cost of production. though extensive information is available on nutrient requirement in banana, very little work has been done on stagewise nutrient requirement in this crop. this necessitates research on application of nutrients at various stages of crop growth to derive maximum benefit from a given quantity of 1horticultural college and research institute, tnau, periyakulam, tamil nadu, india 3central potato research station, muthorai, ooty, the nilgiris, tamil nadu, india 166 the nutrient. with this background, the present study was undertaken to standardize stagewise nutrient requirement in banana cv. grand naine under coimbatore conditions to achieve improved yield and quality. material and methods soil parameters a field experiment was conducted at the college orchard, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, during 2009-2010. soil type in the experimental field was clayey-loam, and its initial status revealed that it was alkaline (ph 8.41), medium in ec (0.32 dsm-1), available n (216.7kg ha-1), available k (453.60kg ha-1) and low in available p (18.32kg ha-1). the experiment was laid out using tissue-culture derived banana cv. grand naine (aaa). drip irrigation was provided to the experimental plot. experiment details the treatments consisted of three nutrient levels (l1: 60% recommended dose of fertilizer, l2: 80% recommended dose of fertilizer, and l3: 100% recommended dose of fertilizer) and four stages of nutrient application (3rd month, 5th month, 7th month and 9th month after planting). per cent nutrients applied at each stage are given hereunder: treatment per cent nutrient level / stage of growth 3 map* 5 map 7 map 9 map (vegetative (flower-bud (pre-flowering/ (flowering/ stage) initiation flowering bunch stage) stage) stage) n k 2o n k 2o n k 2o n k 2o s1 10 10 40 20 30 30 20 40 s2 20 15 30 25 30 30 20 30 s3 30 20 20 30 30 30 20 20 s4 40 25 30 35 30 25 0 15 s5 50 30 20 40 20 30 10 0 s6 50 20 30 40 20 40 0 0 *map: months after planting a total of 19 treatments, viz., t1 l1s1, t2 l1s2, t3 l1s3, t4 l1s4, t5 l1s5, t6 l1s6, t7 – l2s1, t8 l2s2, t9 l2s3, t10 l2s4, t11 l2s5, t12 l2s6, t13 l3s1, t14 l3s2, t15 l3s3, t16 l3s4, t17 l3s5, t18 l3s6 and t19 – control (recommended dose of fertilizer @ 165: 52.5: 495g of npk/plant/year in 4 splits at 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th map) and phosphorus was applied as a single dose, i.e., at 3rd map. the above-stated treatments were tested in randomized block design, with four replications. each treatment was spread over a net area of 12.96m2, enclosing nine plants. all the recommended agronomic practices and plant protection measures were applied for raising the crop. data analysis observations on morphological characters, viz., pseudostem height and girth, leaf area index, and bunch characters, viz., bunch weight, number of hands and fingers, and, average weight of finger, were recorded as per standard procedures. total soluble solids (tss) were determined by using a hand refractometer. total sugars, total acidity and vitamin c were estimated using standard methods (aoac, 1960). for soil nutrient analysis, soil samples were collected before planting and at harvest. available nitrogen in the soil was estimated by the alkaline permanganate method (subbiah and asija, 1956), available phosphorus in soil estimated using klett summerson colorimeter with a red filter (olsen et al, 1954), and, available potassium in the soil was estimated upon extraction with neutral n ammonium acetate using a flame photometer (hanway and heidal, 1952). for plant nutrient analysis, functional leaves were used at different stages of growth. nitrogen content was estimated by microkjeldahl method (piper, 1966) and phosphorus content in the leaf was estimated using triple acid extract by vanadomolybdate phosphoric yellow colour method (jackson, 1973). potassium content was estimated by flame photometry (jackson, 1973). statistical analysis of the data was done as per gomez and gomez (1984). results and discussion morphological parameters potential yield in banana can be achieved only by applying adequate doses of fertilizer at critical stages of plant growth. banana crop requires a larger quantity of potassium, moderate quantity of nitrogen and a relatively lower dose of phosphorus for optimal growth and yield (norris and ayyar, 1942). data on the influence of different levels of nutrients applied during various growth stages on growth characteristics in our study are presented in table 1. progressive increase in plant height and girth of the pseudostem from 3rd map up to shooting was observed in all the treatments. among the treatments, t16 (with 100% of rdf at four different stages) registered maximum plant height and girth at 7th, 9th map, and at harvest. increases in plant height and girth may be attributed to an increase in utilization of nutrients, more specifically, nitrogen. improved nitrogen absorption ultimately led to balamohan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):165-171, 2015 167 formation of complex nitrogenous substances like amino acids and proteins for building new tissues (childers, 1966). application of n at the critical growth stages, viz., early vegetative stage, flower-bud initiation and differentiation stage, and, post-shooting stage had a great influence on growth and development, plant health and yield. increases in plant height and girth from application of nitrogen and potassium is commonly noticed in banana (basagarahally, 1996; shakila and manivannan, 2001; nalina, 2002); while, phosphorus increased the girth when applied along with k (jagirdar and ansari, 1966). lowest plant height and stem girth were observed in treatment t1. this could be due to an insufficient supply of nitrogen and potassium at the initial stages of plant growth. reddy et al (2002) reported that increases in plant height and girth may be largely due to a regular supply of higher doses of nitrogen and potassium. though banana requires nutrient supplementation throughout its growing period, application of n and k prior to shooting, especially, during flower-bud initiation (4th-6th map) ensures uninhibited growth, and has a greater influence on bunch-size, number of fingers and hands per bunch, and ultimately, the yield (simmonds, 1982). leaf area index (lai) is critical for maximum utilization of photosynthetically active radiation (par). in banana, optimum lai should be 4 to 4.5. lai was higher when the plants were under t17 at 3 rd map; t18 at 5 th map, and t16 at 7 th, 9th map and at harvest. rapid development in leaf area was associated with higher accumulation of most of the nutrients applied. in the present study too, lai increase was rapid between the 7th and 9th map as a result of 100% rdf applied at the four critical stages (t16). baruah and mohan (1991) showed that higher potassium application increased lai considerably in banana cv. jahaji (aaa group). yield parameters influence of various levels of nutrients applied at different growth stages on yield and quality is presented in table 2. among the treatments, t16 (npk @ 165:52.5:495g per plant at four stages of growth) registered maximum bunch-weight (32.15kg), followed by t14 (27.96 kg) and t13 (27.77 kg). increase in yield may be attributed to improved morphological traits such as plant height, girth and number of functional leaves. better lai, faster rate of leaf production and higher nutrient-uptake by plants were also observed in this treatment (t16). this is in conformity with shakila (2000) and nalina (2002). increased yield in treatment t16 could be due to application of optimum quantity of fertilizers, well-spread at the four different critical stages of crop growth. this may lead to an increase in dry matter table 1. effect of various levels of fertilizer at different growth stages on growth parameters in banana cv. grande naine treatment plant height (m) plant girth (cm) leaf area index 3 5 7 9 a t 3 5 7 9 a t 3 5 7 9 a t map* m a p m a p m a p harvest m a p m a p m a p m a p harvest m a p m a p m a p m a p harvest t 1 0.76 1.64 1.78 1.86 1.87 25.21 49.25 57.188 65.42 66.72 0.46 2.43 2.56 4.39 2.75 t 2 0.79 1.74 1.81 1.92 1.95 26.42 50.61 59.683 66.63 69.21 0.48 2.48 2.69 5.04 2.82 t 3 0.78 1.72 1.79 1.92 1.96 26.19 50.37 59.467 66.63 67.63 0.48 2.48 2.60 5.00 2.81 t 4 0.77 1.71 1.82 1.89 1.92 25.98 49.98 59.271 66.50 67.25 0.48 2.45 2.59 4.76 2.77 t 5 0.82 1.75 1.83 1.94 1.97 26.77 50.94 59.717 67.25 69.63 0.49 2.53 2.71 5.13 2.84 t 6 0.83 1.78 1.87 1.95 1.98 27.06 51.45 60.292 68.21 70.21 0.49 2.55 2.73 5.17 2.88 t 7 0.83 1.83 1.88 2.04 2.04 27.35 51.91 60.717 68.96 70.92 0.49 2.70 2.82 5.41 2.94 t 8 0.84 1.84 1.95 2.03 2.05 27.67 52.34 60.758 70.58 71.46 0.50 2.71 2.82 5.43 2.94 t 9 0.83 1.82 1.89 2.01 2.04 27.19 51.83 60.642 68.46 70.58 0.49 2.61 2.75 5.40 2.93 t 1 0 0.84 1.87 1.91 2.03 2.06 27.71 52.38 61.096 70.92 71.46 0.51 2.72 2.84 5.55 2.95 t 1 1 0.85 1.92 1.99 2.06 2.08 27.90 53.19 61.396 71.50 71.83 0.51 2.79 2.95 5.71 3.14 t 1 2 0.85 1.93 1.98 2.05 2.07 28.02 55.57 61.396 71.33 71.54 0.52 2.86 2.91 5.68 3.14 t 1 3 0.85 1.95 2.03 2.06 2.10 28.15 55.98 62.588 71.83 72.25 0.52 2.95 3.12 5.92 3.15 t 1 4 0.85 1.96 2.06 2.07 2.15 28.90 56.63 62.833 72.17 72.46 0.53 2.97 3.13 5.93 3.17 t 1 5 0.85 2.01 2.02 2.06 2.10 29.40 57.31 62.202 71.63 72.17 0.54 3.00 3.05 5.80 3.15 t 1 6 0.86 2.01 2.13 2.16 2.18 29.83 57.36 64.117 74.75 75.25 0.54 3.02 3.19 6.50 3.26 t 1 7 0.92 2.02 2.05 2.07 2.09 30.27 59.90 62.846 72.88 72.68 0.58 3.05 3.14 6.05 3.22 t 1 8 0.87 2.08 2.09 2.12 2.12 30.17 62.39 63.108 73.33 73.30 0.56 3.14 3.15 6.26 3.25 t 1 9 0.85 1.91 1.97 2.05 2.06 27.77 53.10 61.292 70.96 71.46 0.51 2.73 2.86 5.57 3.02 sed 3.74 11.48 9.61 4.91 0.10 1.38 4.31 1.50 2.54 0.04 0.05 0.27 0.24 0.58 0.24 cd 7.49 23.01 19.26 9.85 0.20 2.78 8.65 3.00 5.09 0.08 (ns) 0.54 0.49 1.17 0.47 (p=0.05) *map: months after planting nutrient requirement in banana cv. grand naine j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):165-171, 2015 168 at harvest, contributing ultimately to suoerior bunch and finger characters. another plausible explanation is the timely availability of required amounts of nutrients for flower-bud initiation, a finding corroborated by basagarahally (1996). in the present study, a low yield obtained at lower levels of nutrients applied (t1) is probably due to lower uptake of nutrients, consequently lower dry-matter production, as banana requires large amounts of potassium before and during the reproductive stage, application of 60% rdf is adequate for accelerating growth and development. kholi et al (1985) reported that application of nitrogen increased biomass production in the leaves, rachis and flower buds, whereas, lack of n supply confined biomass production to the rhizome and pseudostem. in the present investigation, lower nutrient levels led to reduced leaf size, delayed flowering, reduced fruit number per bunch and fruit size. highest yield in terms of bunch weight (32.15kg plant-1) was observed in t16. this increase was also associated with a corresponding increase in number of hands per bunch (10.18) and number of fingers per bunch (191.09). in any production system, the primary objective is to attain maximum fruit yield per unit area without affecting fruit quality. fruit quality in banana is judged mainly by sugar content and acidity in the pulp. a marked effect on fruit quality was observed with application of adequate amount of nutrients. higher levels of tss (17.20%), ascorbic acid (15.07mg/100g), total sugars (20.23%), sugar/ acid ratio (183.90) and lower acidity (0.11%) were recorded in fruits under t16. higher fruit-quality, especially sugar content, can be explained on the basis of the role of nutrients, particularly potassium, involved in carbohydrate synthesis, breakdown and translocation of starch, synthesis of protein, and, in neutralization of physiologically important organic acids (tisdale and nelson, 1966). several investigations have more firmly established the involvement of k + in carbohydrate synthesis and its absolute requirement for the activity of the enzyme, starch synthetase (greenberg and preiss, 1965). increased level of potassium reduced the acidity in the pulp. this may be due neutralization of organic acids from a high k+ level in the tissues (tisdale and nelson, 1966; ram and prasad, 1988). leaf nutrient content leaf nutrient concentration in the banana plant provides information on plant nutrient status, and reflects the optimum leaf concentration of major nutrients aiding in growth and development in the banana crop. the present study, maximum n content was registered in treatment t16 at the 7th (3.46%), t13 at the 9 th (3.49%) map and at harvest (table 3). this may be due to an optimum availability of n table 2. effect of various levels of fertilizer at different growth stages on yield and fruit quality in banana cv. grande naine treatment bunch no. of no. of no. of average tss acidity ascorbic total sugar/ weight hands fingers in fingers finger (%) (%) acid sugars acid (kg) (bunch-1) 2nd hand (bunch-1) weight (g) (mg 100 g-1) (%) ratio t 1 24.06 8.75 17.21 162.63 147.36 12.30 0.22 11.56 15.80 71.81 t 2 25.62 9.13 18.67 169.45 157.51 15.10 0.19 12.04 16.30 85.78 t 3 24.29 9.13 18.17 165.89 154.19 14.90 0.20 11.93 16.27 81.35 t 4 25.11 8.92 17.33 163.12 150.38 14.40 0.21 11.62 16.00 76.19 t 5 25.63 9.21 19.25 169.60 158.88 15.20 0.18 12.37 16.67 92.61 t 6 25.65 9.33 19.67 170.23 159.96 15.50 0.18 12.43 16.83 93.50 t 7 26.65 9.46 19.71 180.00 161.15 15.60 0.17 12.69 17.50 102.94 t 8 26.73 9.54 19.83 180.59 161.99 15.70 0.17 12.93 18.20 107.05 t 9 26.32 9.33 19.71 170.52 161.10 15.50 0.18 12.57 17.22 101.87 t 1 0 26.73 9.67 19.96 173.39 165.00 15.85 0.17 13.62 15.73 126.46 t 1 1 27.66 9.79 20.21 181.10 176.19 16.50 0.16 14.36 17.20 135.78 t 1 2 27.56 9.75 20.13 177.07 171.13 15.90 0.16 14.05 16.73 101.87 t 1 3 27.77 9.83 20.63 184.11 181.65 16.50 0.15 14.85 18.97 126.46 t 1 4 27.96 9.96 21.04 184.83 185.79 16.75 0.14 14.89 19.01 135.78 t 1 5 27.67 9.79 20.63 181.79 176.19 16.50 0.15 14.49 18.90 126.00 t 1 6 32.15 10.18 21.50 191.09 190.00 17.20 0.11 15.07 20.23 183.90 t 1 7 28.18 10.00 21.13 185.98 186.87 16.90 0.14 14.92 19.10 136.42 t 1 8 30.27 10.33 21.50 186.01 188.25 16.90 0.13 14.92 19.97 153.61 t 1 9 27.31 9.75 20.04 176.31 170.08 15.90 0.18 14.02 18.43 102.38 sed 0.76 0.33 1.45 0.28 4.13 0.02 0.007 0.023 0.05 7.86 cd (p=0.05) 1.52 ns 2.91 0.56 8.29 0.04 0.015 0.046 0.10 16.45 balamohan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):165-171, 2015 169 in the soil, favouring higher absorption and translocation by roots. lower content of n in the higher dose of applied fertilizer, viz., t1 to t6, could be due to the osmotic effect, which may have hindered uptake of n and supply of nitrogen converted from the nitrate to the ammoniacal form. also, per cent dose of fertilizer applied was lower than in t16. phosphorus content in various plant parts at different growth stages in banana cv. grand naine revealed that in leaves, this nutrient increased linearly until shooting. this may be due to an increased physiological activity in the plant as development proceeded. decrease in p content in leaves at harvest could be related to mobilization of stored assimilates to the fruit. p content was maximum in leaf lamina at the shooting stage. this indicates that p absorbed during earlier stages accumulates in the midrib and leaf lamina, thereby serving as a source during peak vegetative stages for higher photosynthetic activity. p content in the leaves decreased at harvest showing that metabolites containing p were translocated to the fruit. a higher demand for p at the early stages and at flowering (veerannah et al, 1976) and reduction in p at harvest (twyford and walmsley, 1974) have been reported. in the present investigation, k content in leaves at different stages indicates that this nutrient accumulated in the vegetative parts until shooting, highlighting that k concentration increased with increased physiological activity during the developmental processes. decrease in k content during harvest was probably due to an increased catalytic activity of k in reproductive parts for mobilizing metabolites from the vegetative part (despite substantial post-shooting uptake from the soil). veerannah et al (1976) reported similar results in banana cv. robusta. among the treatments, t16 recorded highest k content at the 5th (4.10%) and 7th (4.21%) map. this may be due to an increase in the available form of k in the soil solution. soil nutrient status in the present investigation, available n, p and k were estimated at planting and at harvest to study soil nutrient status under various treatments (table 4). initial soil n status was found to be 216.70kg/ha. available n in the soil at harvest under different treatments was significantly variable. treatment t1 (572.55kg/ha), followed by t4 (486.65kg/ha), recorded high amounts of available n, as, 20% was applied at the 9th map which was perhaps not fully utilized by the plant (since, at 9th map, no vegetative growth occurs, and only bunch-development and fruit-filling takes place). lesser amount of soil n was recorded in t16 (118.15kg/ha) due to application of n upto the pre-flowering stage (7th map). thus, the plant was able to utilize n optimally for production of the vegetative parts. treatment t16 recorded higher bunch yield and had 509kg ha-1 available n (which had been applied table 3. effect of various levels of fertilizer at different growth stages on leaf nutrient concentration in banana cv. grande naine treatment nitrogen (%) phosphorus (%) potassium (%) 5 7 9 a t 5 7 9 a t 5 7 9 a t map* m a p m a p harvest m a p m a p m a p harvest m a p m a p m a p harvest t 1 2.46 2.53 2.97 2.97 0.172 0.497 0.635 0.137 3.41 3.67 4.42 3.75 t 2 2.62 2.78 2.91 2.82 0.184 0.509 0.649 0.141 3.54 3.74 4.39 3.73 t 3 2.12 2.83 2.89 2.81 0.181 0.504 0.642 0.140 3.42 3.69 4.20 3.69 t 4 2.71 2.91 2.76 2.59 0.179 0.498 0.639 0.138 3.55 3.69 4.34 3.71 t 5 2.85 2.83 2.87 2.76 0.189 0.509 0.651 0.145 3.55 3.81 4.24 3.67 t 6 2.86 2.96 2.62 2.73 0.192 0.511 0.653 0.147 3.42 3.81 4.18 3.72 t 7 2.97 3.05 3.25 3.14 0.196 0.514 0.657 0.149 3.60 3.87 4.53 3.83 t 8 2.99 3.06 3.21 3.11 0.197 0.514 0.657 0.151 3.61 3.92 4.56 3.84 t 9 2.89 3.06 3.19 3.09 0.194 0.514 0.654 0.149 3.56 3.82 4.51 3.79 t 1 0 3.01 3.15 3.11 3.03 0.198 0.516 0.657 0.151 3.72 3.96 4.47 3.78 t 1 1 3.04 3.12 3.18 3.06 0.211 0.517 0.663 0.155 3.81 4.03 4.43 3.78 t 1 2 3.07 3.16 3.09 3.05 0.213 0.517 0.662 0.153 3.67 4.01 4.46 3.79 t 1 3 3.09 3.22 3.49 3.37 0.213 0.519 0.671 0.156 3.84 4.11 4.52 3.81 t 1 4 3.12 3.23 3.42 3.29 0.213 0.520 0.674 0.156 3.85 4.11 4.63 4.04 t 1 5 3.14 3.25 3.39 3.23 0.214 0.518 0.664 0.156 4.02 4.09 4.59 3.91 t 1 6 3.18 3.46 3.29 3.15 0.215 0.524 0.698 0.164 4.10 4.21 4.58 4.10 t 1 7 3.21 3.32 3.39 3.22 0.215 0.521 0.678 0.158 3.68 4.17 4.69 3.89 t 1 8 3.24 3.39 3.29 3.17 0.217 0.521 0.684 0.159 4.09 3.97 4.58 3.84 t 1 9 3.16 3.39 3.26 2.73 0.204 0.516 0.659 0.151 4.10 4.17 4.58 3.87 sed 0.005 0.004 0.004 0.005 0.002 0.0009 0.002 0.002 0.005 0.004 0.004 0.003 cd (p=0.05) 0.012 0.009 0.008 0.009 (ns) (ns) (ns) (ns) 0.009 0.008 0.008 0.006 *map: months after planting nutrient requirement in banana cv. grand naine j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):165-171, 2015 170 in three splits). this may be due to utilization of n, by the plant during its critical stages of growth, in three split applications. this may have facilitated optimum n concentration in the soil for the entire cropping period. therefore, residual nutrients in the soil may be subjected to lower loss. phosphorus estimated at the initial stages and at harvest revealed that available p in the soil showed a decreasing trend, which may be due to a continuous uptake of this nutrient by the plant. however, differences among treatments were not significant. uptake of p was also influenced substantially by potassium application. application of fertilizers also altered available k in the soil. available k in the soil at harvest showed a decreasing trend with time, and the quantity applied. among the various treatments, available k in soil was lower in t5 (475.6kg/ha) and t6 (457.89kg/ha) at 60% rdf; in t11 (385.78kg/ha) and t12 (385.85kg/ha) at 80% rdf, and, in t18 (295.78kg/ha) at 100% rdf at harvest. k content in soil in t16 treatment was lower than in treatment t19 (in which the same dose of fertilizer was applied in four equal splits). higher application of potassium in the early stages improved growth, yield and quality attributes. as, the time of application and stage of plant growth determines uptake and translocation of k, application of this nutrient at four critical stages may have provided optimal availability of k in the soil, throughout the growth period, and facilitated better growth. similarly, higher k uptake for bunch-development and finger-filling also resulted in lower levels of k in soil at harvest. application of 100% rdf in t16 (165:52.5:495 g npk plant-1 at 4 critical growth stages, i.e., 40:100:25, 30:0:35, 30:0:25, 0:0:15% at 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th map, respectively) recorded highest cost:benefit ratio (1:3.97). the highest gross and net returns realized were because of highest yield. as, the cost of cultivation was also equal to that in the control, application of fertilizer this way was found to be economically more viable. references a.o.a. c. 1960. official methods of analysis. a.o.a.c., washington d.c., usa basagarahally, r. 1996. micropropagation and nutritional studies of tissue cultured banana cv. grand naine. ph.d. thesis, university of agricultural science, bangalore, karnataka, india baruah, p.j. and mohan, n.k. 1991. effect of potassium on leaf area index, phyllochron and number of leaves of banana cv. jahaji. banana newslett., 14:21-22 childers, n. f. 1966. fruit nutrition. horticulture publication, new brunswick, new jersey, usa gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research. an irri book, wiley interscience publication, john wiley and sons, new york, usa, p. 680 greenberg, e. and preiss, j. 1965. biosynthesis of bacterial glycogen. ii. purification and properties of the adenosine diphosphoglucose glycogen transflucosylase of arthrobacter species. j. biol. chem., 240:2341-2348 hanway, j. and heidal. 1952. soil analysis methods as used in lowa state college. agri. bull., 57:1-13 jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, pp. 1-498 jagirdar, s.a.p. and ansari, a.r. 1966. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on the growth and production of cavendish banana (musa cavendishii lamb.). in: procs. agri. symp. atomic energy centre, dacca, bangladesh, pp. 71-80 kohli, r.r., reddy, y.t.n. and iyengar, b.r.v. 1985. effect of nitrogen on biomass distribution in robusta banana. gartenbauwissenschaft, 50:117-120 nalina, l. 2002. standardization of fertilizer requirement table 4. effect of various levels of fertilizer on soil npk (kg/ha) during harvest in banana cv. grande naine treatment nitrogen phosphorus potassium (kg/ha) (kg/ha) (kg/ha) t1 572.55 121.67 626.64 t2 453.65 112.57 497.46 t3 460.25 114.71 532.75 t4 486.65 118.63 573.70 t5 381.76 108.36 475.6 t6 375.48 105.45 457.89 t7 286.38 98.62 430.23 t8 276.89 97.83 429.48 t9 345.89 104.23 453.76 t10 265.70 97.20 420.76 t11 221.65 91.67 385.78 t12 228.45 93.30 385.85 t13 183.45 87.57 372.83 t14 176.65 83.27 358.70 t15 198.32 89.61 372.94 t16 118.15 76.25 270.6 t17 169.97 82.56 343.67 t18 168.35 78.56 295.78 t19 249.75 96.81 419.53 sed 2.34 0.24 1.63 cd (p=0.05) 4.66 n 3.27 balamohan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):165-171, 2015 171 (ms received 09 june 2014, revised 08 june 2015, accepted 20 june 2015) for tissue cultured banana cv. robusta (aaa). ph.d. thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india norris, r.v. and ayyar, c.v.r. 1942. the nitrogen and mineral requirement of the plantain. agri. j. india, 20:463-467 olsen, s.r., cole, c.v., watanabe, f.s. and dean, l.a. 1954. estimation of available phosphorus in soils by extraction with sodium bicarbonate. united states department of agriculture, circular no. 939, washington d.c., usa piper, c.s. 1966. soil and plant analysis, hans publishers, bombay, india, pp. 7-299 ram, r.a. and prasad, j. 1988. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on fruit quality of banana cv. campierganji local. south indian hort., 36:290292 reddy, b.m.c., shrinivas, k., padma, p. and raghupathi, h.b. 2002. response of robusta banana to n and k fertigation. indian j. hort., 59:342-348 shakila, a. 2000. studies on nutrition for in vitro propagated banana cv. robusta. ph.d. thesis, annamalai university, annamalai nagar, tamil nadu, india shakila, a. and manivannan, k. 2001. response of in vitro raised banana cv. robusta to different levels of n and k application. south indian hort., 49:362-364 simmonds, n.w. 1982. bananas. 2nd edn., longman group limited, london and new york subbiah, b.v. and asija, g.l. 1956. a rapid procedure for estimation of available nitrogen in soils. curr. sci., 25:259-260 tisdale, s.l. and nelson, w.n. 1966. soil fertility and fertilizer. macmillan co., london, uk, p. 81 twyford, i.t. and walmsley, d. 1974. the mineral composition of the robusta banana plant. iii. uptake and distribution of mineral constituents. plants and soil, 41:471-491 veerannah, l., selvaraj, p. and azhakia manavalan, r.s. 1976. studies on the nutrient uptake in robusta and poovan. indian j. hort., 33:203-208 nutrient requirement in banana cv. grand naine j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):165-171, 2015 effect of blending, additives and storage conditions on the quality of watermelon nectar harshata pal, ashis kumar banik and nuchhungi faculty of horticulture department of post harvest technology of horticultural crops bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur-741252, india e-mail: harshata_sonai@yahoo.co.in abstract the impact of blending of nectar with coconut water, fortification with ascorbic acid and tocopherol and subsequent storage at low temperature (4-5oc) and room temperature (15-33oc) on the quality of nectar was evaluated. in most of the treatments, total soluble solids and reducing sugar content of the nectars increased during storage, whereas the total titratable acidity and lycopene content decreased. blending and addition of tocopherol did not show improved effect on quality. low temperature storage recorded better stability. key words: watermelon nectar; total soluble solid, reducing sugar, lycopene, titratable acidity, blending, additives, storage introduction watermelon (citrullus lanatus) is an important cucurbitaceous crop, which is widely grown in our country and is highly relished due to its cool and thirst quenching property. the edible portion of the fruit forms about 60% of the whole fruit and juice is the major product for which the fruit is processed (teotia et al, 1988). watermelon juice contains a fair amount of vitamin ‘c’, vitamin ‘a’ precursor (lycopene) and a high content of potassium, which is believed to have valuable diuretic properties (gusina and trostinskaya, 1974). because of its high juice content, beverages such as nectars are the obvious choice, which will satisfy thirst, supplement nutritional requirements as well as help in stabilizing the market price. blending of juice add variety in terms of flavour as well as nutritional value, and may result in product that possess the combined advantage of two or more fruits. coconut water can be utilized in the processing industry for blending. tender coconut water and pineapple juice, blended beverage can form an ideal health drink (illaiaskutty et al, 2002). teotia et al (1997) also observed that fortification of muskmelon rts with ascorbic acid improved the quality of the beverage. in light of the above, the present study was carried out to prepare a stable beverage product from watermelon fruit. material and methods the experiment was conducted at the department of post harvest technology of horticultural crops, faculty fig 1 steps followed for processing of watermelon nectar of horticulture, b.c.k.v., mohanpur, nadia, west bengal. the nectars were prepared during the months of may and september 2006. recipe the following different recipes were used for preparing watermelon nectars (table 1) with different treatments so as to ascertain that the final product should contain 20% juice, 15% tss and 0.3% acidity as per the fruit products order specification for nectars. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 38-43, 2007 table 1. different receipes used for preparing watermelon nectar ingredients watermelon nectar watermelon juice and without blending coconut water blended (50:50) nectar watermelon juice 200 ml 100 ml coconut water — 100 ml sugar 129.6 g 134.7 g citric acid 3 g 3 g water 667.4 ml 662.3 ml finished product 1 litre 1 litre treatments control or ascorbic control or ascorbic acid (0.25%)2.5 g/l acid (0.25%)2.5 g/l of finished product or of finished product or tocopherol400 mg/l of tocopherol400 mg/l finished product of finished product table 2. effect of blending, additives and storage condition on the total soluble solids (0brix) content of watermelon nectar blending additives storage storage period (months) (watermelon juice: condition coconut water) 0 3 6 9 effect of blending (watermelon juice: coconut water) 100 : 0 — — 16.9 17.0 17.0 17.1 50 : 50 — — 16.6 16.6 16.7 16.8 s.em ± 0.027 0.015 0.015 0.021 cd (p=0.05) 0.079 0.044 0.044 0.063 effect of additives — ascorbic acid — 16.4 16.5 16.6 16.5 — tocopherol — 16.5 16.6 16.7 16.9 — control — 17.4 17.5 17.4 17.5 s.em ± 0.033 0.018 0.018 0.026 cd (p=0.05) 0.096 0.052 0.054 0.077 effect of storage condition — — rt 16.8 16.9 16.9 17.1 — — lt 16.8 16.8 16.8 16.9 s.em ± 0.027 0.015 0.015 0.021 cd (p=0.05) ns ns 0.044 0.063 effect of interaction 100 : 0 ascorbic acid rt 16.8 17.0 17.2 17.0 100 : 0 ascorbic acid lt 16.8 16.8 16.8 16.9 100 : 0 tocopherol rt 16.4 16.6 16.7 16.9 100 : 0 tocopherol lt 16.4 16.4 16.5 16.6 100 : 0 — rt 17.8 17.8 17.6 17.7 100 : 0 — lt 17.8 17.8 17.7 17.7 50 : 50 ascorbic acid rt 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.2 50 : 50 ascorbic acid lt 16.0 16.1 16.1 16.0 50 : 50 tocopherol rt 16.8 16.7 16.8 17.2 50 : 50 tocopherol lt 16.8 16.9 16.7 17.0 50 : 50 — rt 17.0 17.2 17.3 17.6 50 : 50 — lt 17.0 17.0 0.037 17.2 s.em ± 0.067 0.037 0.108 0.053 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.108 0.108 ns rt = room temperature (150-310c) lt = low temperature (40-50c) ns = non-significant j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 38-43, 2007 39 stable beverage product from watermelon tss content of extracted watermelon juice 10.2°brix tss content of watermelon juice: coconut water mixture 7.5°brix acidity of watermelon juice 0.02% acidity of watermelon juice: coconut water mixture 0.02% total soluble solids was determined using an erma hand refractometer. titratable acidity, reducing sugar and lycopene content were estimated following aoac (1984). statistical analysis was carried out according to gomez and gomez (1983). completely randomized design was followed for data interpretation. sensory evaluation the samples were evaluated by a panel of ten judges for three quality parameters viz., colour, taste and flavour with a possible scores of 40, 30 and 30, respectively. results and discussion total soluble solids (tss) tss content during storage increased (table 2) more prominently in the nectar blended with coconut water compared to the unblended samples. storage under low temperature condition (4°-5°c) showed less change in tss content as compared to the room temperature (15°-33°c) stored samples. the unblended watermelon nectars fortified with ascorbic acid and stored under low temperature condition (4°-5°c) showed minimum change in tss content during storage whereas the unblended watermelon nectar with tocopherol treatment and stored under room temperature condition (15°-33°c) showed maximum change in tss content during the nine months of storage. the increase in soluble solid content of the nectars during table 3. effect of blending, additives and storage condition on the reducing sugar content (%) of watermelon nectar blend additives storage storage period (months) (watermelon juice: condition coconut water) 0 3 6 9 effect of blending (watermelon juice : coconut water) 100 : 0 — — 8.26 8.41 8.57 8.73 50 : 50 — — 8.05 8.20 8.40 8.58 s.em ± 0.019 0.006 0.021 0.003 cd (p=0.05) 0.057 0.018 0.062 0.009 effect of additives — ascorbic acid — 8.22 8.32 8.49 8.58 — tocopherol — 7.66 7.88 8.11 8.28 — control — 8.59 8.72 8.86 9.10 s.em ± 0.024 0.007 0.026 0.004 cd (p=0.05) 0.071 0.022 0.076 0.012 effect of storage condition — — rt 8.17 8.37 8.63 8.86 — — lt 8.14 8.25 8.34 8.45 s.em ± 0.019 0.006 0.021 0.003 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.018 0.062 0.009 effect of interaction 100 : 0 ascorbic acid rt 8.69 8.83 8.78 9.24 100 : 0 ascorbic acid lt 8.69 8.71 8.28 8.82 100 : 0 tocopherol rt 7.80 8.04 8.02 8.51 100 : 0 tocopherol lt 7.80 7.98 8.82 8.17 100 : 0 — rt 8.21 8.58 8.24 9.22 100 : 0 — lt 8.21 8.35 8.14 8.47 50 : 50 ascorbic acid rt 7.76 7.92 7.97 8.28 50 : 50 ascorbic acid lt 7.76 7.82 8.08 8.02 50 : 50 tocopherol rt 7.52 7.81 7.90 8.43 50 : 50 tocopherol lt 7.52 7.71 9.24 8.08 50 : 50 — rt 8.89 9.02 9.07 9.53 50 : 50 — lt 8.89 8.95 0.052 9.20 s.em ± 0.048 0.015 ns 0.008 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.043 0.024 rt = room temperature (150-310c) lt = low temperature (40-50c) ns = non-significant storage may be attributed to partial hydrolysis of complex carbohydrates (awan et al, 1980). similar observation in storage of squashes of orange, lemon and bael fruits were reported by jain et al (1984). reducing sugar the reducing sugar content of watermelon nectars showed an increasing trend during storage irrespective of the treatments and storage conditions (table 3). however, this change was slightly higher in the blended watermelon nectars as compared to the unblended materials. fortification with ascorbic acid showed lesser change in reducing sugar as compared to those fortified with tocopherol or without fortification (control). the change in reducing sugar was also comparatively slower under low temperature storage than under room temperature storage j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 38-43, 2007 40 harshata pal et al table 4. effect of blending, additives and storage condition on the titratable acidity (%) of watermelon nectar blend additives storage storage period (months) (watermelon juice: condition coconut water) 0 3 6 9 effect of blending (watermelon juice : coconut water) 100 : 0 — — 0.45 0.43 0.38 0.34 50 : 50 — — 0.41 0.39 0.36 0.31 s.em ± 0.002 0.003 0.005 0.002 cd (p=0.05) 0.006 0.007 0.016 0.006 effect of additives — ascorbic acid — 0.45 0.42 0.40 0.36 — tocopherol — 0.39 0.37 0.33 0.27 — control — 0.45 0.43 0.38 0.35 s.em ± 0.002 0.003 0.007 0.303 cd (p=0.05) 0.006 0.007 0.020 0.008 effect of storage condition — — rt 0.43 0.40 0.36 0.30 — — lt 0.43 0.42 0.39 0.35 s.em ± 0.002 0.003 0.005 0.003 cd (p=0.05)! ns 0.007 0.016 0.007 effect of interaction 100 : 0 ascorbic acid rt 0.45 0.42 0.38 0.32 100 : 0 ascorbic acid lt 0.45 0.44 0.42 0.41 100 : 0 tocopherol rt 0.40 0.38 0.29 0.24 100 : 0 tocopherol lt 0.40 0.39 0.34 0.28 100 : 0 — rt 0.51 0.48 0.41 0.37 100 : 0 — lt 0.51 0.49 0.44 0.40 50 : 50 ascorbic acid rt 0.46 0.41 0.38 0.32 50 : 50 ascorbic acid lt 0.46 0.44 0.42 0.38 50 : 50 tocopherol rt 0.39 0.35 0.32 0.26 50 : 50 tocopherol lt 0.39 0.37 0.35 0.30 50 : 50 — rt 0.40 0.38 0.34 0.29 50 : 50 — lt 0.40 0.38 0.35 0.33 s.em ± 0.005 0.006 0.014 0.006 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns 0.017 rt = room temperature (150-310c) lt = low temperature (40-50c) ns = non-significant which is in agreement with the findings on watermelon juice made by chahal and saini (1999) and also on mango nectar by sahni and khurdiya (1989). increase in reducing sugar during storage was observed in watermelon juice by bawa and bains (1977) and also in muskmelon rts (teotia et al, 1997). the increase in reducing sugars during storage may be attributed to hydrolysis of non-reducing sugars to reducing sugars, and a higher storage temperature and acidity accelerated the process of hydrolysis (sahni and khurdiya, 1989). among all the treatments, there was minimum increase in reducing sugar content in the unblended watermelon nectar which was fortified with ascorbic acid and stored under low temperature (4°-5°c). maximum increase in reducing sugar content was recorded in the watermelon nectar blended with coconut water and fortified with tocopherol and stored at room temperature (15°-33°c). total titratable acidity the total titratable acidity of the watermelon nectars decreased throughout the period of storage for six months irrespective of the treatments and storage conditions (table 4). the decrease in acidity of the nectars during storage was more rapid in the nectars with coconut water than in unblended samples. there was a significant difference in acid levels during storage with addition of different additives. the addition of ascorbic acid showed a slower lower change in the acid content as compared to the control and the tocopherol treatment showed a rapid increase in acidity during storage. low temperature storage (4°-5°c) a significantly reduction in acid content as compared to the room temperature storage (15°-33°c). least change in total titratable acidity was recorded in the unblended watermelon nectar with ascorbic acid fortification and storage under low temperature for nine j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 38-43, 2007 41 stable beverage product from watermelon months. bawa and bains (1977) also observed a slight decrease in acidity of stored watermelon juice. lycopene content the lycopene content of the watermelon nectars decreased during storage for nine months both under low temperature (4° 5°c) and room temperature (15° 33°c) conditions (table 5). the rate of decrease in lycopene content was slightly lower in the unblended watermelon nectars than those blended with coconut water. the nectars under room temperature storage (15° 33°c) also showed slightly higher rate of decrease in lycopene content as compared to the nectars under low temperature storage (4° 5°c). gowda and jalali (1995) also reported decrease in lycopene content of watermelon juice in storage. lycopene is the dominant pigment found in watermelon juice which is responsible for the red colour (huor et al, 1980). table 5. effect of blending, additives and storage condition on the lycopene content (mg/100 ml) of watermelon nectar blend additives storage storage period (months) (watermelon juice: condition coconut water) 0 3 6 9 effect of blending (watermelon juice : coconut water) 100 : 0 — — 564 517 457 423 50 : 50 — — 396 363 326 293 s.em ± 0.373 0.479 0.497 0.437 cd (p=0.05) 1.086 1.396 1.447 1.274 effect of additives — ascorbic acid — 488 453 394 367 — tocopherol — 463 418 375 344 — control — 487 449 405 362 s.em ± 0.456 0.587 0.608 0.536 cd (p=0.05) 1.329 1.711 1.771 1.561 effect of storage condition — — rt 479 444 388 354 — — lt 479 436 394 361 s.em ± 0.373 0.479 0.497 0.437 cd (p=0.05) ns 1.396 1.447 1.274 effect of interaction 100 : 0 ascorbic acid rt 581 549 408 402 100 : 0 ascorbic acid lt 581 543 517 486 100 : 0 tocopherol rt 538 492 441 403 100 : 0 tocopherol lt 538 481 432 397 100 : 0 — rt 572 523 481 425 100 : 0 — lt 572 517 464 423 50 : 50 ascorbic acid rt 396 357 331 291 50 : 50 ascorbic acid lt 396 363 321 289 50 : 50 tocopherol rt 388 361 324 299 50 : 50 tocopherol lt 388 341 303 278 50 : 50 — rt 403 385 345 302 50 : 50 — lt 403 372 331 297 s.em ± 0.919 1.174 1.217 1.071 cd (p=0.05) ns 3.422 3.546 3.121 rt = room temperature (150-310c) lt = low temperature (40-50c) ns = non-significant sensory quality data presented in table 6 revealed that the sensory quality of watermelon nectars of different treatments maintained acceptable quality during the entire period of storage for nine months at low temperature condition (4o 5o c). however, under room temperature condition (15o to 33o c) the quality was maintained upto six months of storage only. the quality rating of watermelon nectars of different treatments decreased with increase in duration of storage. the unblended watermelon nectar with ascorbic acid treatment stored under low temperature condition showed maximum quality rating of 91 at nine months of storage. the watermelon nectar with different treatments maintained higher scores of quality ratings i.e., above 70 at nine months of storage at low temperature. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 38-43, 2007 42 harshata pal et al thus, the total soluble solids and reducing sugar content of nectars increased during storage, whereas the total titratable acidity decreased. on the other hand, the lycopene content of the nectars decreased during storage irrespective of the storage condition. blending watermelon with coconut water juice and supplementation with toopherol did not improve quality. acknowledgement we are thankful to dr. a. k. banik, chairman of my advisory committee and other associates in the project. references a. o. a. c. 1984. official methods of analysis, 14th edition. association of official agricultural chemistry, washington d.c. pp 16. awan, j. a., folaye, c. a. and okaka, j. c. 1980. effect of bottle colour and storage conditions on the quality of soursap (annona muricata). j. food sci. technol., 17: 251-53. bawa, a. s. and bains, g. s. 1977. integrated processing of watermelons for juice and seed. ind. food packer, 31: 12-15. chahal, g. s. and saini, s. p. s. 1999. storability of juice from new hybrid watermelon variety. ind. food packer, 53: 12-17. gomez, k. a. and gomez, a. a. 1983. statistical procedures table 6. effect of blending, additives and storage condition on sensory quality scores of watermelon nectar blend additives storage scores of sensory quality at different storage period (watermelon juice: condition (months) coconut water) 0 3 6 9 100:0 ascorbic acid rt 97 95 88 48 100:0 ascorbic acid lt 97 97 95 91 100:0 tocopherol rt 96 90 87 43 100:0 tocopherol lt 96 96 93 85 100:0 rt 97 92 85 47 100:0 lt 97 97 94 83 50:50 ascorbic acid rt 83 77 72 24 50:50 ascorbic acid lt 83 83 82 71 50:50 tocopherol rt 84 75 70 43 50:50 tocopherol lt 84 84 81 70 50:50 rt 84 77 70 29 50:50 lt 84 84 81 71 rt = room temperature (150-310c) lt = low temperature (40-50c) for agricultural research. an irri book, john wiley and sons, new york. gowda, i. n. d. and jalali, s. 1995. studies on juice making from watermelon fruits. ind. food packer, 49 : 33-41. gusina, g. b. and trostinskaya, l. o. 1974. watermelon juice with pulp. konserv. i ovoschesuch. prom., 3: 17-18. huor, s. s., ahmed, e. m. and carter, r. d. 1980. concentration of watermelon juice. j. food sci., 45: 718-719. illaiaskutty, n., ukkuru, m. and thomas, g. v. 2002. value added products from tender coconut. indian coconut j., 33 : 10-12. jain, s. p., tripathi, v. k. h. b. and singh, s. 1984. effect of storage condition on the keeping quality of fruit squash, part i, ind. food packer, 38: 33-39. sahini, c. k. and khurdiya, d. s. 1989. effect of ripening and storage temperature on the quality of mango nectar. ind. food packer, 43: 5-11. teotia, m. s., kaur, s. and berry, s. k. 1997. utilization of muskmelon (c. melo) ready – to – serve beverage from enzyme classified juice. ind. food packer, 51: 1114 teotia, m. s., kaur, s. and berry, s. k. 1988. recent advances in chemistry and technology of watermelon. ind. food packer, 42: 17-40. (ms received 7 november 2006, revised 2 june 2007) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 38-43, 2007 43 stable beverage product from watermelon soil and seed borne diseases constitute a major constraint in crop production. seed-borne pathogens are carried externally and / or internally through seeds and it is essential to treat the seed with protectants for early control of pathogens and to raise healthy plant stand. this can be achieved through chemical and or biological means. trichoderma viride is a potential biocontrol agent against several soil and seed borne pathogens (papavizas, 1983). owing to its antagonistic effect on inimical organism, it ranks as one of the most successful agents for biological control of pathogens (gupta, 2004). as some fungicides are effectively used as seed-dressing, it is necessary to study compatibility of these with the commonly used bioagent, t. viride. further, pesticides applied as foliar spray or soil drench ultimately reach the soil and affect beneficial nontarget mycoflora, including fungi. hence, knowledge of compatibility of t. viride with important pesticides may help opt for better plant-protection measures. tolerance to commonly-used pesticides enhances the efficacy and expands the scope of application of biocontrol agents such as t. viride. hence, a laboratory study was made to assess compatibility of some commonly-used, commercially available pesticides on growth and sporulation of t. viride. trichoderma viride was isolated from soil by dilutionplate technique and efficiency of the isolates was tested against fusarium solani (isolated from chillies in dual cultures). the best isolate was maintained on potato dextrose agar for further studies. compatibility of biocontrol agent trichoderma viride with various pesticides g. bindu madhavi, s.l. bhattiprolu and v. bali reddy regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur -522 034, india e-mail: gopireddy_bindu@yahoo.co.in abstract compatibility of trichoderma viride with 25 pesticides was evaluated in vitro. among six seed-treatment chemicals tested, t. viride showed a high compatibility with the insecticide imidacloprid (7.6cm mycelial growth), followed by mancozeb (6.3cm) and tebuconazole (3.7cm). contact fungicides, viz., pencycuron and propineb were found to be fully compatible with t. viride. among the 10 herbicides also tested, the fungus was highly compatible with imazathafir (9.0cm) followed by 2,4-d sodium salt (8.9cm) and oxyfluoforen (6.5cm) while being totally incompatible with systemic fungicides like carbendazim, hexaconazole, tebuconazole and propiconazole. key words: trichoderma viride, compatibility, pesticides six seed-treatment chemicals, viz., carbendazim (0.1%), mancozeb (0.25%), captan (0.3%), tebuconazole (0.15%), captan+hexaconazole and imidacloprid (0.5%); five systemic-fungicides, viz., hexaconazole (0.2%), propiconazole (0.15%), tebuconazole (0.15%), difenconazole (0.05%), benomyl (0.1%); three contact fungicides, viz., pencycuron ( 0.2%), copper oxychloride(0.3%), propineb (0.2%); one combination product, viz., carbendazim+mancozeb (0.2%), and 10 weedicides, viz., quizalopop ethyl 5% ec , pyrithiobac sodium 10%ec, oxyfluoforen 3.5%ec, cyhalopop butyl 10%ec, glyphosate+ammonium sulphate, pendimethalin, 2,4-d sodium salt 80%wp, imazithaphir 10%ec, atrazine 50%wp and glyphosate 41%sl were evaluated for compatibility with t.viride, in vitro, by poisoned-food technique (nene and thapliyal, 1993). mycelial discs 0.5cm in diameter were cut out, using a sterile cork borer, from actively growing 7 day old culture of the fungus and placed in the centre of a petri dish containing pda supplemented with various pesticides. inoculated petri dishes were incubated at room temperature (28+2oc), and observations on radial growth of colony (mm) were recorded after 4 days when the growth of t. viride in the check plates was full. three replications were made for each treatment, including, the check. data was statistically analyzed. trichoderma viride showed a high compatibility with the insecticide imidacloprid (7.6cm mycelial growth), short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):71-73, 2011 72 followed by mancozeb (6.3cm) and tebuconazole (3.7cm), respectively. mycelial growth was inhibited in the presence of captan and captan+heaxaconazole 2.1cm and 1.6cm, respectively (table 1). t. viride isolate was totally incompatible with the systemic fungicide carbendazim, which showed no mycelial growth. on the other hand, t. viride was highly compatible with pencycuron, showing a radial growth of 8.9cm, followed by propineb (8.0cm). lower compatibility was recorded in copper oxy chloride and carbendazim+mancozeb (0.2%) amended medium (3.3cm and 2.9cm; table 2). it was least incompatible with hexaconazole, tebuconazole, propiconazole and benomyl, respectively, by showing very scanty growth. among the ten herbicides tested, t.viride was highly compatible with imazathafir (9.0cm), followed by 2,4-d sodium salt (8.9cm) and oxyflorofen (6.5cm) (table-3). moderate compatibility was observed with glyphosate, glyphosate+ammonium sulphate, cyhalopop butyl 10%ec and pyrithiobac sodium salt where it showed radial growth ranging from 2.8cm to 5.7cm. it was incompatible with quizalopop ethyl 5%ec, followed by atrazine and pendimethalin, by exhibiting almost no growth. growth response of t. viride, ranging from inhibitory, stimulatory to neutral with the above chemicals observed in this study, is in agreement with earlier reports (mondal et al, 1995; sharma et al, 1999). various seed-treatment chemicals positively affected growth of t. viride, while carbendazim had an inhibitory effect. however, high compatibility of t. viride with mancozeb and moderate compatibility with captan and 2,4-d sodium salt confirmed finding in the earlier reports (gounder et al, 1999); gupta, (2004). earlier, sharma et al (2001) suggested that coc fungicides were not compatible with trichoderma spp., while, compatibility of coc with t. viride was reported by karpagavalli (1997) and bhattiprolu (2007). in the present study, fytolan showed 62.9% inhibition of growth of t. viride. similar observations were reported by shanmugam (1996). the slight difference observed may be due to geographical separation of t. viride isolates. based on these studies, it is concluded that t. viride can be safely incorporated into idm of seed and soil borne diseases. references bhattiprolu, s.l. 2007. compatibility of trichoderma viride with fungicides. ind j. pl. prot., 35:357-358 table 1. compatibility of trichoderma viride with seed-treatment chemicals s.no. treatment dose of diameter of inhibition chemical fungus (cm) (%) 1 carbendazim 50%wp 0.10% 0.50 94.4 2 mancozeb 75%wp 0.25% 6.30 28.9 3 captan 50%wp 0.30% 2.10 59.4 4 tebuconazole 9.55% 0.105% 3.70 75.8 5 captan 70% 0.20% 1.60 84.7 + hexaconazole 5%wp, 6 imidacloprid 0.05% 7.60 14.8 70%sd 7 check 8.90 sem 0.088 sed 0.124 cd(p=0.05) 0.271 table 2. compatibility of trichoderma viride with fungicides s. no. treatment dose of diameter inhibition chemical of fungus (%) (cm) 1 hexaconazole 5%ec 0.20% 0.5 94.4 2 propiconazole 250ec 0.10% 0.6 93.0 3 tebuconazole 430sc 0.15% 0.5 94.4 4 difenconazole 25%ec 0.05% 1.5 83.0 5 pencycuron (contact) 0.20% 8.9 0.0 6 copper oxychloride 0.30% 3.3 62.9 (contact) 50%wp 7 carbendazim12% 0.20% 2.9 67.4 +mancozeb 64%wp 8 benomyl 50%wp 0.10% 0.7 92.0 9 propineb (contact) 0.25% 8.0 10.1 25%wp 10 check 8.9 sem 0.048 cd(p=0.05) 0.141 cv 2.3% table 3. compatibility of trichoderma viride with various herbicides s.no. treatment dose of diameter inhibition chemical of fungus (%) (cm) 1 quizalopop ethyl 5%ec 0.20% 0.5 94.4 2 pyrithiobac sodium 10%ec 0.125% 2.8 68.8 3 oxyfluoforen 3.5%ec 0.12% 6.5 27.7 4 cyhalopop butyl 10%ec 0.22% 3.5 61.1 5 glyphosate+ammonium 0.62% 4.7 47.7 sulphate71 6 pendimethalin 20%ec 0.62% 1.1 87.7 7 2,4-d sodium salt 80%wp 0.22% 8.9 1.1 8 imazithaphir 10%ec 0.152% 9.0 0.0 9 atrazine 50%wp 0.62% 0.5 94.4 10 glyphosate 41%sl 12% 5.7 36.6 11 check 9.0 0.0 sem 0.088 cd(p=0.05) 0.259 cv 3.2% bindu madhavi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):71-73, 2011 73 gounder, s.b., kulkarni, s. and kulkarni, s. 1999. compatibility effect of antagonists and seed dressers against fusarium udum the causal agent of pigeon pea wilt. karnataka j. of agril. sci., 12:197-199 gupta, v. 2004. compatibility of biocontrol agent trichoderma harzianum with pesticides. j.mycol. pl. pathol., 34:504-505 karpagavalli, s. 1997. effect of different fungicides on the growth of trichoderma. ind. j. plant prot., 25: 82-83 mondal, g., srivastava, k.d. and agrawal r. 1995. antagonistic effect of trichoderma spp. on ustilago segetum var. tritici and their compatibility with fungicides and biocides. ind. phytopath., 48: 466-470 nene, y.l. and thapliyal p.n. 1993. fungicides in plant disease control. oxford and ibh, new delhi, pp 691 papavizas, g.c. 1983. trichoderma and gliocladium their biology, ecology and potential of biocontrol. ann. rev. phytopath., 23:23-54 shanmugham, v. 1996. biocontrol of rhizome rot of ginger (zingiber officinale) by antagonistic microorganisams. m.sc.(ag.) thesis, kerala agricultural university, vellanikkara, thrissur, kerala, p. 72 sharma, d.d., gupta v.p. and chandrasekhar, d.s. 1999. compatibility of certain biocontrol agents with chemical pesticides and fertilizers. ind. j. sericulture, 38:79-82 sharma, s.d., mishra, a., pandey, r.n. and patel, s. j. 2001. sensitivity of trichoderma harzianum to fungicides. j. mycol. pl. pathol., 31:251-253 (ms received 09 march 2010, revised 11 january 2011) compatibility of trichoderma with various pesticides j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):71-73, 2011 introduction the immense horticultural, agricultural and biological diversity has made chilli globally important as a fresh and processed vegetable, and as a source of ingredients for sauces and powders besides its use as a food colorant (boseland vatava 2000). lately, a demand for value-added products prepared from chilli like dried pods, flakes, powder, color oleoresin, pungent oleoresin, etc. has been steadily increasing. there is a wide range of chilli products, based on whole or ground chilli, entering world trade. most of these products are traded on the basis of their level of pungency. one attribute, typical of chillies, is its pungency, resulting from a direct effect of its capsaicinoid compounds on pain receptors in the mouth and throat (gibbs and yahia, 2006). quantification of these pungent compounds is an important index of pepper quality (contreras-padilla et al, 1998). the primary capsaicinoid in chilli pepper is capsaicin, followed by dihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin, homodihydrocapsaicin and homocapsaicin. capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin, the two most potent capsaicinoids, account for approximately 90% of the capsaicinoids in chilli pepper fruit (bernal et al, 1993). considerable variation in capsaicin content has been reported by cherian (2000); with the amount increasing in the order of: green fruit < ripe fruit < sundried fruit (ahmed et al, 1987). however, this content cultivar variation for capsaicinoid content in some processed products of chilli m. bhagawati and a. saikia1 horticultural research station guwahati-781017, india e-mail: mandakiniaau@rediffmail.com abstract determination of capsaicinoids content in various products from seven chilli cultivars was made. capsaicin, the major element among capsaicinoids, is found primarily in the fruit of capsicum to which it provides spicy flavor. extraction of capsaicin in the present study was done using acetonitrile as the solvent, and high performance liquid chromatography was used for its quantification. whole dried-fruits of ‘bhut red’ (capsicum chinense) showed the highest concentration of capsaicin (2.59%) and level of pungency (4,40,000 shu), whereas, salted mash of ‘lemon drop’ (capsicum baccatum) had the lowest capsaicin concentration (0.07%) and pungency level (12,000 shu). as capsaicinoids are important in food and pharmaceutical industries, developing products from selected cultivars of chilli with high pungency and high capsaicinoid content will prove useful in order to ensuring health security. key words: capsaicinoids, capsaicin, high performance liquid chromatography, hplc, shu j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):210-215, 2015 decreases with the degree of drying, as well as during storage (gbolade et al, 1997). the content may vary from 0.34 to 0.78% whole fruit on dry-weight basis (gibbs et al, 2006). govindarajan and ananthakrishna (1974) found 0.12% capsaicin in ‘mysore’ variety of chilli, and 0.7% in ‘guntur’ variety. in another experiment, 32 accessions of hot chillies were evaluated for capsaicin content, all of which had a high capsaicin content ranging from 1.20 to 3.74% (manju and shreelathakumary, 2002). the first reported, reliable measurement of chilli pungency was scoville organoleptic test (scoville, 1912). this test used a taste panel of five individuals who evaluated a chilli sample and recorded its heat level. the samples were then diluted until pungency could be no longer detected orally. this dilution is measured in terms of scoville heat unit (shu). there are five levels of pungency classified as: non-pungent (0-700 shu), mildly pungent (700-3,000 shu), moderately pungent (3,000-25,000 shu), highly pungent (25,000-70,000 shu), and very highly pungent (ã 80,000 shu) (weiss, 2002). however, with time, the scoville organoleptic test (sot) has been replaced with various instrumental methods. among these hplc provides an accurate and efficient analysis of content and type of capsaicinoids present in a sample (collins et al, 1995). 1assam agricultural university, jorhat, assam, india 211 capsaicinoid content variation in processed products of chilli cvs. material and methods collection of plant material seeds of ‘bhut red’, ‘bhut chocolate’, ‘mem jolokia’, and ‘khorika jolokia’ were collected from the fields of local farmers in the north eastern part of india. seeds of ‘shillong cherry’ were collected from the shillong market. those of ‘lemon drop’ and ‘goronong’ were received from pepper king, lise-meitner-str. 5, 38268 broistedt, germany. seedlings of the stated chilli types were raised in a nursery during rabi season (2007-2008) and, subsequently, planted in the open condition at experimental farm, department of horticulture, assam agricultural university, jorhat, india. each variety was raised in a 6m2 plot, at a spacing of 75cm x 60cm. the crop received timely management practices as per recommended package of practices devised by assam agricultural university. fresh, mature fruits from five plants, in each cultivar were selected randomly and placed in polythene bags for transport under refrigerated conditions to quality control and post-harvest technology laboratory, assam agricultural university, for further analysis. product preparation five products, namely, whole dried-pods, flakes, powder, natural paste and salted mash, were prepared from different cultivars of chilli. (a) whole dried-pods: fresh, ripe pods were collected from the field and dried in a unither cabinet dryer at 60°c for about 8 hours. dried pods were then packed into polypropylene bags and then kept under dark at ambient condition. (b) flakes: dried, ripe pods were first destalked, and then crushed with seeds in a willey mill. size of the flakes prepared was about 8-10mm. (c) powder: dried, ripe pods were destalked and powdered in an electrical grinder. using an 80 mesh sieve, the ground powder was sieved, collected and packed in polypropylene pouches and placed under ambient conditions. (d) natural paste: ripe chilli fruits were collected from the field, washed well and air-dried. pods were destalked and ground to a fine paste in an electrical grinder. the paste thus prepared was filled into retortable pouches and processed in an autoclave under 15lb pressure at 121°c for 30 minutes. (e) salted mash: ripe fruits were at first destalked, washed well and made into a paste. salt @ 15% (non-iodized) was added to the paste and mixed. the product was then sterilized in glass bottles under anaerobic conditions and allowed to mature. moisture content moisture content in each product was determined by oven-drying at 120p c as per aoac (1984). the samples were weighed in an aluminum pan, and weight of the dry sample was recorded. dry weight was calculated as: moisture content (dry basis) = initial weight-final weight x 100% final weight scoville heat test one gram of the material was weighed and mixed in 50ml of ethyl alcohol. the mixture was allowed to stand for 24 hours, with occasional shaking. serial dilution of the clear supernatant was made with 5% solution of sugar in distilled water. then, 5ml of the diluted solution was swallowed by individual judges, and presence or absence of a distinct pungency in the throat or mouth was noted (scoville, 1912). degree of dilution indicated pungency of the pepper, and rating was done in scoville units. heat level is based on this dilution, rated in multiples of 100 shu. sample extraction about 25g of whole dried-pods and flakes in each cultivar were ground together with seeds into a powder. then, 2g of the powder was mixed in 25ml of ethanol in a 50ml conical flask. the mixture was refluxed in a round bottom flask for 3 hrs, with a water condenser, vertically. the solution was cooled, filtered and diluted to 100ml in a volumetric flask with ethanol, and used for further analysis. as for salted mash and paste, 2g of the sample was extracted in ethanol, using sohxlet extraction, for 30min. at 60p c. the supernatant was then filtered through 0.45mm ptfe membrane and the volume made up to 100ml with ethanol. a 10µl aliquot was used for each hplc injection. the chilli extract was compared to standard capsaicin solutions (krishnamurthy et al, 1999) estimation of capsaicinoids by high performance liquid chromatography (hplc) capsaicin content was determined using hplc (high performance liquid chromatography) as per aoac official method 995.03 (1995) with a uv detector. 8methyl-n-vanillyl-6-nonenamide standard (65% purity) was taken as standard capsaicin (sigma chemical company). separation of capsaicinoids was accomplished on waters j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):210-215, 2015 212 hplc–empower system equipped with waters 600 pump, c18 column of size 300x4.5mm packed with 5µm particles, waters 2489 dual absorbance detector, detection made at 280nm. an isocratic mobile phase, consisting of 1% acetic acid in water and acetonitrile in 60:40 ratio (v/v), was used. the elution was allowed at a flow-rate of 1.5ml/min with injection volume of 20μl of the sample solution, at ambient temperature. scoville heat unit conversion capsaicin content was converted into scoville heat units by multiplying dry-weight capsaicin content per gram of pepper, by the coefficient of heat value for capsaicin (which, from literature, is 16) (todd et al, 1977). chemicals used all standard solutions were prepared in analytical grade type i water (milli-q synthesis, millipore, bedford, ma, usa). capsaicin (8-methyl-n-vanillyl-trans-6nonenamide) (97%), and, acetonitrile and acetic acid were of hplc grade purchased from qualigen fine chemicals, mumbai, spectrochem pvt. ltd., mumbai, and himedia laboratories pvt. ltd., mumbai, respectively. statistical analysis completely randomized design (crd) was planned for this experiment, with three replications. mean difference at 5% significance was carried out by duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt). graph were prepared in microsoft excel (ms office version 2003) results and discussion the aim of our work was to assess capsaicinoid content and pungency level of various value-added products of seven economically important chilli cultivars. retention of desirable qualities in the processed product makes the product acceptable in the market. however, along with these, an optimum level of moisture is necessary for safe storage. lee and howard (1999) reported that moisture content in dried chilli ranged from 10% to 14%. product evaluation in table 1 reveals variable moisture content, where, very high moisture content was recorded in the paste and salted mash, compared to that in dried fruits, flakes or powder. moisture content in the products ranged from 8% to 10% in dried fruits, 4%-6% in powder, 6%-8% in flakes, 58%-67% in paste and 46%-64% in the salted mash. these moisture variations were a critical factor in determining product quality in terms of pungency level. most chilli products are valued on the basis of level of their pungency, resulting from a direct effect of capsaicinoid compounds. quantification of these compounds is an important index of quality. in our study peaks were identified by comparing retention time of each component to standard components. diverse pungency levels were found among the products. as per results in tables 2 and 3, scoville heat units (shu) and the corresponding capsaicinoid content in different cultivars were significantly affected by the product from chilli cultivars. shu is a traditional organoleptic method for pepper evaluation, as, it provides a better indicator of the level of pungency, but is considered less precise (collin et al, 1995). our results indicated significant variation among different products in their pungency level. all the cultivars, excepting lemon drop, were classified as ‘very highly pungent’, with their pungency level ã 80,000 shu (table 2). among the products developed, whole dried-fruits and the powder of ‘bhut red’ recorded highest pungency level (4,40,000 shu), which was at par with that of ‘bhut chocolate’ while, shu was much lower in the paste and salted mash. salted mash of ‘lemon drop’ contained least amounts of shu (12,000 shu). table 1. moisture content (%) in various processed products of chilli cultivars (dry-weight basis) cultivar moisture content (%)db* whole powder flakes paste salted dried-fruit mash bhut red 9.0 4.5 7.2 64.6 55.5 bhut chocolate 9.3 5.1 8.3 63.3 54.8 mem 9.5 6.8 6.5 59.5 49.3 khorika 8.3 6.1 6.0 58.7 46.8 shillong cherry 10.3 5.4 8.1 60.3 51.2 goronong 8.9 6.3 8.3 66.7 61.1 lemon drop 9.3 6.9 8.8 65.0 63.7 s.em. (±) 0.9 0.3 0.4 1.5 0.9 cd (p=0.05) 1.9 0.8 0.8 3.2 1.9 * db= dry-weight basis table 2. scoville heat unit values in some processed products of chilli cultivars cultivar scoville heat unit (shu) whole powder flakes paste salted dried-fruit mash bhut red 4,40,000 4,40,000 4,10,000 3,15,000 3,00,000 bhut chocolate 4,30,000 4,35,000 4,00,000 3,10,000 3,00,000 mem 1,40,000 1,40,000 1,30,000 1,00,000 90,000 khorika 95,000 95,000 85,000 70,000 60,000 shillong cherry 90,000 90,000 75,000 60,000 55,000 goronong 65,000 65,500 60,000 35,000 32,500 lemon drop 25,000 25,000 20,000 15,000 12,000 s.em. (±) 4764.31 4764.31 2432.14 2458.61 2059.6 cd (p=0.05) 9528.61 9528.61 5864.27 5325.48 4231.2 bhagawati and saikia j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):210-215, 2015 213 results obtained from organoleptic test were further confirmed by hplc analysis. generally, apart from genetic differences, quantity of capsaicinoids may vary with the processing method (zewdie and bosland, 2001). hplc chromatogram of the capsaicin standard is shown in fig. 1. retention time for the constituents is 8 min for nordihydrocapsaicin, 8.8 min for capsaicin, and 13.4 min for dihydrocapsaicin. it is seen from table 3 that whole table 3. total capsaicinoid content in processed products of some chilli cultivars cultivar n c d total shu mg g-1 shu mg g-1 shu mg g-1 shu mg g-1 whole dried-fruit bhut red 11310.4 706.9 414504.0 25906.5 141372.8 8835.8 565489.6 35343.1 bhut chocolate 14068.8 879.3 410816.0 25676.0 139550.4 8721.9 562515.2 35157.2 mem 6040.0 377.5 144952.0 9059.5 50329.6 3145.6 201321.6 12582.6 khorika 5217.6 326.1 97299.2 6081.2 33912.0 2119.5 136428.8 8526.8 shillong cherry 2094.4 130.9 86019.2 5376.2 36153.6 2259.6 124665.6 7791.6 lemon drop 849.6 53.1 24428.8 1526.8 9913.6 619.6 35403.2 2212.7 goronong 2246.4 140.4 52412.8 3275.8 19467.2 1216.7 74875.2 4679.7 s.em(±) 1854.4 cd (p=0.05) 3977.4 powder bhut red 10760.0 672.5 392758.4 24547.4 134507.2 8406.7 538025.6 33626.6 bhut chocolate 133972.8 873.3 385846.4 24115.4 137811.2 8613.2 537054.4 33565.9 mem 6219.2 388.7 149249.6 9328.1 51822.4 3238.9 207291.2 12955.7 khorika 5289.6 330.6 92563.2 5785.2 34380.8 2148.8 132233.6 8264.6 shillong cherry 2574.4 160.9 86838.4 5427.4 39337.6 2458.6 128752.0 8047.0 lemon drop 705.6 44.1 24342.4 1521.4 10230.4 639.4 35278.4 2204.9 goronong 2227.2 139.2 54920.0 3432.5 17068.8 1066.8 74216.2 4638.5 s.em(±) 1709.1 cd (p=0.05) 3665.6 flakes bhut red 12254.4 765.9 375785.6 23486.6 127644.8 7977.8 510577.6 31911.1 bhut chocolate 12755.2 797.2 371150.4 23196.9 126324.8 7895.3 510230.4 31889.4 mem 5825.6 364.1 139798.4 8737.4 48540.8 3033.8 194164.8 12135.3 khorika 4912.0 307.0 85942.4 5371.4 31921.2 1995.1 122774.4 7673.4 shillong cherry 2400.0 150.0 82747.2 5171.7 34777.6 2173.6 119923.2 7495.2 lemon drop 614.4 38.4 21169.6 1323.1 8897.6 556.1 30681.6 1917.6 goronong 2131.2 133.2 53976.0 3373.5 16344.0 1021.5 71057.6 4441.1 s.em(±) 1182.8 cd (p=0.05) 2536.9 paste bhut red 7254.4 453.4 271859.2 16991.2 83371.2 5210.7 362484.8 22655.3 bhut chocolate 7249.6 453.1 268412.8 16775.8 81612.8 5100.8 357274.2 22329.7 mem 2651.2 165.7 59211.2 3700.7 26512.0 1657.0 88376.0 5523.5 khorika 1014.4 63.4 32972.8 2060.8 16740.8 1046.3 50728.0 3170.5 shillong cherry 913.2 57.7 29676.8 1854.8 15065.6 941.6 45656.0 2853.5 lemon drop 905.6 56.6 nd nd 11972.8 748.3 12944.0 809.0 goronong 1208.0 75.5 29796.8 1862.3 9260.8 578.8 40267.2 2516.7 s.em(±) 2541.3 cd (p=0.05) 5298.6 salted mash bhut red 7484.8 467.8 280691.2 17543.2 86078.4 5379.9 374256.0 23391.0 bhut chocolate 9358.4 584.9 280729.6 17545.6 84219.2 5263.7 374307.2 23394.2 mem 3788.8 236.8 66310.4 4144.4 24628.8 1539.3 94728.0 5920.5 khorika 2097.6 131.1 35137.6 2196.1 15209.6 950.6 52444.8 3277.8 shillong cherry 987.2 61.7 32060.8 2003.8 162776.8 1017.3 49315.2 3082.2 lemon drop 372.8 23.3 10940.4 683.8 4219.2 263.7 15628.8 976.8 goronong 1267.2 79.2 31238.4 1952.4 9708.8 606.8 42214.4 2638.4 s.em(±) 1175.4 cd (p=0.05) 2521.0 n – nordihydrocapsaicin, c – capsaicin, d – dihydrocapsaicin, shu-scoville heat unit, nd-not detected capsaicinoid content variation in processed products of chilli cvs. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):210-215, 2015 214 dried-fruits of ‘bhut red’ contained the maximum total capsaicinoid content (5,65,489.6 shu), closely followed by ‘bhut chocolate’ (5,62,525.2 shu). other cultivars like ‘mem’, ‘kharika’ and ‘shillong cherry’ contained slightly lesser amounts of capsaicinoid viz., 2,01,321.6, 1,36,428.8, and 1,24,665.6 shu, respectively. like whole dried-fruits, powder of ‘bhut red’ also contained the highest levels of capsaicinoids (5,38,025.6 shu) than in the other cultivars. on the other hand, the paste of ‘lemon drop’ had the least capsaicinoid content (12,944 shu), while, the maximal content was recorded in ‘bhut red’ (22,655.3 shu). in salted mash, ‘bhut chocolate’ was found to be highly pungent, with 3,74,307.2 shu. among the individual components quantified, the highest amount of nordihydrocapsaicin was recorded in whole dried-fruits of ‘bhut chocolate’ (14,068.8 shu), while capsaicin (4,14,504 shu) and dihydrocapsaicin (1,41,372.8 shu) were highest in dried fruits of ‘bhut red’. mincing fresh chilli pods diminishes their capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin and nordihydrocapsaicin content, as reported by orak and demirci (2005). this could be of relevance in our results where least amounts of nordihydrocapsaicin (372.8 shu), dihydrocapsaicin (4219.2 shu) and capsaicin (10,940.4 shu) were recorded in salted mash of ‘lemon drop’. table 4. capsaicin content in some processed products (%) in chilli cultivars cultivar capsaicin content (%) whole powder flakes paste salted dried-fruit mash bhut red 2.59 2.45 2.35 1.70 1.75 bhut chocolate 2.57 2.41 2.32 1.68 1.75 mem 0.91 0.93 0.87 0.37 0.41 khorika 0.61 0.58 0.54 0.21 0.22 shillong cherry 0.54 0.54 0.52 0.19 0.20 lemon drop 0.15 0.15 0.13 nd 0.07 goronong 0.33 0.34 0.34 0.19 0.20 *% capsaicin = shu of capsaicin x 100 16x 106 fig. 1. hplc chromatogram showing separation of the standards of various capsaicinoids (0.01mg/ml) capsaicin percentage for different products varied with the cultivar. from table 4, it can be observed that capsaicin content in the products ranged from 0.15% to 2.59% in dried fruits, 0.15%-2.45% in the powder, 0.13%2.35% in the flakes, 0.19%-1.70% in the paste and 0.07%1.75% in the salted mash, respectively. whole dried-fruits of ‘bhut red’ were the most pungent, with a capsaicin content of 2.59%, whereas, even traces of this compound could not be detected in the paste of ‘lemon drop’. a small amount of capsaicin (0.07%) was found in the salted mash of ‘lemon drop’. similar variation in capsaicin content (1.20%-3.74%) in different peppers has been previously reported by manju and shreelathakumary (2002). the present investigation concludes that products of chilli cultivars retain their level of pungency irrespective of moisture content. more specifically, ‘bhut red’ and ‘bhut chocolate’ (capsicum chinense) obtained from assam were the most pungent among the chilli cultivars studied. all the products prepared from these two cultivars may be classified as ‘very highly pungent’ as their scoville heat unit (shu) values exceeded 80,000. this implies that, with the exception of ‘lemon drop’, all the products of chilli cultivars, especially ‘bhut red’ and ‘bhut chocolate’ can serve as potential sources of capsaicin in both the domestic and international markets. references ahmed, n., khot, a.b., krishnappa, k.m. and upperi, s.n. 1987. pungency of chilli as influenced by variety and maturity. curr. res., 16:161-162 aoac. 1984. official methods of analysis, 14th edn., association of official analytical chemists, washington d.c., usa aoac. 1995. official methods 995.03. analyzing the heat level of spicy foods using ultra c18 hplc column. https://www.chromtech.net.au/pdf2/59199_anff_analyzing%20the%20heat %20 level%20of% 20spicy%20foods%20using% 20an%20ultra% 20c18% 20hplc%20column.pdf bernal m.a., calderon a.a., pedreno m.a., muñoz, r., ros barceló, a. and merino de caceres, f. 1993. capsaicin oxidation by peroxidase from capsicum annuum (var. annuum) fruits. j. agri. food chem., 41:1041-1044 bosland, p.w. and votava, e.j. 2000. peppers: vegetables and spice capsicums. crop prod. sci. hort., 12:204 cherian, e.v. 2000. genetic variability in capsicum chinense jacq. m.sc. thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, kerala, inda, p. 82 bhagawati and saikia j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):210-215, 2015 215 collins, m.d., mayer-wasmund, l. and bosland, p.w. 1995. improved method for quantifying capsaicinoids in capsicum using high performance liquid chromatography. hort. sci., 30:137-139 contreras-padilla, m. and yahia, e.m. 1998. changes in capsaicinoids during development, maturation, and senescence of chile peppers and relation with peroxidase activity. j. agri. food chem., 46:20752079 gbolade, a.a., omsbuwajo, o.r. and soremekun, r.o. 1997. evaluation of the quality of nigerian chillies for pharmaceutical formulations. j. pharma. biomed. annal., 15:545 -548 gibbs, h.a.a. and o’garns, l.w. 2004. capsaicin content of west indies hot pepper cultivars using colorimetric and chromatographic techniques. hort. sci., 39:132135 govindarajan, v.s. and ananthakrishna, s.m. 1974. paper chromatographic determination of capsaicin. flav. indus., 5:176-178 krishnamurthy, r., malve, m.k. and shinde, b.m. 1999. evaluation of capsaicin content in red and green chillies. j. sci. & indus. res., 58:629-630 lee, k.y. and howard, h.m.m. 1999. changes in sugar, vitamin c, capsaicinoids and flavonoid contents and antioxidant activities during maturation of pepper (capsicum annuum l.) fruit. paper presented at the ift annual meeting 24-28 july 1999, chicago, usa, manju, p.r. and shreelathakumary, i. 2002. quality parameters in hot chilli (capsicum chinense jacq.). j. trop. agri., 40:7-10 orak, h.h. and demiri, m. 2005. effect of different blanching methods and period of frozen storage on enzyme activities and some quality criteria of hot and sweet peppers (capsicum annuum. l.). pak. j. biol. sci., 8: 641-648 scoville, w.l. 1912. note: capsicum. j. amer. pharm. assoc., 1:453-454 todd, p.h., bensinger, m.g. and biftu, t. 1977. determination of pungency due to capsicum by gasliquid chromatography. j. food sci., 42:660-665 weiss, e.a. 2002. spice crops. cabi publishing international, new york, usa, p. 411 zewdie, y. and bosland, p.w. 2001. capsaicinoid profiles are not good chromotaxonomic indicators for capsaicin species. biochem. systematics ecol., 29:161-169 (ms received 21 december 2013, revised 14 september 2015, accepted 19 september 2015) capsaicinoid content variation in processed products of chilli cvs. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):210-215, 2015 introduction in guava, a crop grown successfully in a variety of soils with ph ranging from 5.5 to 8.0, deficiency of both major and micronutrients is reported extensively (pathak and pathak, 1993). besides, in india, the crop is scarcely fertilized. incipient deficiency or hidden hunger is causing considerable damage to guava crop, resulting in economic losses (singh and singh, 2007). in order to avoid yield loss, nutrient management strategies need to be evolved for this crop based on comprehensive nutrient diagnostic norms. several approaches are adopted for identification of nutrient imbalances, a recent one being the compositional nutrient diagnosis (parent and dafier, 1992). cnd norms are multivariate norms that give due weightage to all the elements, including unmeasured factors and, therefore, have higher diagnostic sensitivity. the present investigation was carried out to develop multivariate diagnostic norms using cnd to improve diagnostic precision and to understand interaction among different nutrients governing yield and quality of the guava crop. compositional nutrient diagnosis norms (cnd) for guava (psidium guajava l.) k. anjaneyulu, h. b. raghupathi and m. k. chandraprakash division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: anjaney@iihr.ernet.in abstract multivariate nutrient diagnostic norms were developed for guava using compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) through leaf nutrient concentration vs. yield data bank. cnd norms for n (v n ), p (v p ) and k (v k ) were 2.48, 0.23 and 2.13, respectively. norms for n and k were much higher compared to p, indicating higher requirement of these two nutrients. cnd norms are multivariate norms that consider all elements, including unmeasured factors and, therefore, has higher diagnostic sensitivity. among micronutrients, fe requirement was much higher than all other nutrients. interaction among different nutrients was explained by principal component analysis conducted on log-transformed data which produced four significant pcs, explaining about 73.66% of the variance. the four eigen values added up to 8.1 denoting the four significant pcs. the first pc was positively correlated with p, zn and r (residue, which is a reflection of dry matter accumulation in the plant) and negatively correlated with ca, mg, s and fe, indicating that p and zn behaved in one direction and the other elements in opposite direction. in the second pc, antagonistic effect of n, fe with p and cu was evident. in pc3, p and mg were negatively correlated with mn and cu. in pc4, n and s showed their behaviour in the same direction. diagnostic norms developed were used for identification of yield-limiting nutrients in low-yielding orchards. thus, diagnostic norms and nutrient interactions help evolve nutrient management strategies for guava to realize higher yields and better quality. key words: nutrients, diagnosis, norms, cnd, pca, guava material and methods sampling during july-august, a survey was conducted in guava orchards cultivating ‘allahabad safeda’ in and around bangalore and kolar (mostly alfisols) in karnataka, and, 280 leaf samples were collected to develop nutrient diagnostic norms. samples were collected from 70 orchards (around 15 years of age) by selecting the 3rd pair of leaves from apex, which provides the index leaf (recently matured leaf) in guava. from each orchard, 25 to 30 trees were selected and 50 leaves per plant were collected randomly at chest height from all sides of the tree to form a composite and representative sample (bhargava and chadha, 1993). the leaf samples were decontaminated by washing in a sequentially with tap water, 0.2% detergent solution, n/10 hcl and, finally, with double distilled water. leaf samples were dried at 65-70oc for 48 h. the samples were then powdered in a cyclotec mill and analyzed for different nutrients by digesting 1g tissue in di-acid mixture (9:4 ratio of nitric acid and perchloric acid) using standard analytical j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 132-135, 2008 133 methods (jackson, 1973). phosphorus was analyzed by vanado-molybdate method, k by flame-photometer and s by the turbidity method. ca, mg, fe, mn, zn and cu were analyzed using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (perkin-elmer-a-analyst-200). n was separately estimated by micro-kjeldhal method. thus, nutrient ‘concentration vs. yield’ data bank was established for developing nutrient diagnostic norms. compositional nutrient diagnosis cnd norms were developed by adopting the procedure outlined by parent and dafir (1992). full composition array for nutrient proportions (d) in plant tissues was described by the following simplex (sd) contained to 100%: s d=[(n, p, k,… r): n>o,p>o,k>o,…,r>o; n+p+k+…+r =100%] — 1 where, 100% is dry matter content (i.e., the invariable sum of all the components or full relative composition of the diagnostic tissues); n, p, k are nutrient concentrations and r is filling value between 100% and sum of the nutrient concentrations. the value of r is, thus, composed of undetermined components as well as experimental error, and was required to linearize compositional data. bounded sum constraint to 100% of compositional data was alleviated by correcting nutrient concentrations by geometric mean (g) of all the d components, including r. g = [ n x p x k x ….. x r]1/d —— 2 row centered log-ratios were generated for v n to v zn as follows: v n = ln (n/g),…..,v zn = ln (zn/g) —— 3 expressions such as n/g,… zn/g are multi-nutrient ratios, since, each nutrient is divided by the geometric mean of all components (the nutrients determined and the filling value). row-centered log-ratios are linearized (undistorted) estimates of the original components fully compatible with pca. v* n to v* zn and sd* n to sd* zn are cnd norms (indicated by asterisks), i.e., mean and standard deviation of each row-centered log ratios in the high-yielding population. the standardized variables (v n v n *) / sd* n to (v zn v* zn ) / sd* zn are cnd nutrient indices. i n = (v n v* n ) / sd* n ,… i zn = (v zn v zn *) / sd* zn — 4 independent values for v n to v zn were introduced in the equation for diagnostic purpose. principal component analysis (pca) pca application could lead to greater understanding of nutrient interactions in the plant. pca reduces the number of interdependent variables to a smaller number of independent pcs that are linear combinations of original variates. therefore, pca was performed on logtransformed data of the original nutrient concentrations, prior to statistical computation that followed normal distribution. selection criteria to be declared significant, pcs must have eigen values >100/p, where p is the total number of varieties under diagnosis. alternatively, pcs showing eigen values <1 were considered not significant. pc loadings in eigen vectors having values greater than selection criterion (sc) only are considered significant. selection criterion was computed as follows: sc = 0.50 / (pc eigen values) 0.5 results and discussion nutrient concentration range the mean n concentration was 1.91% and ranged from 1.33 to 2.48% (table 1). maximum yield in guava was reported when n concentration in the leaf ranged between 1.40 and 2.0% (singh and rajput, 1981). the mean p concentration was 0.20% and varied from 0.14 to 0.26%, which was comparable to the values (0.18 to 0.24%) published earlier by khanduja and garg (1980). the mean k concentration was 1.35% and varied widely between 0.90 and 1.85%. higher range of ca concentration (1.50 to 2.60%) was observed, whereas, a majority of the samples were in the optimum range with regard to mg (0.30 to 0.75%). the mean s concentration was 0.37% and was comparable to the earlier report. concentrations of fe and mn ranged from 104 to 197 and 25 to 98 ppm, respectively. the mean zn concentration was 56 ppm. table 1. mean and range of nutrient concentration for guava nutrient unit mean minimum maximum n % 1.91 1.33 2.48 p % 0.20 0.14 0.26 k % 1.35 0.90 1.85 ca % 1.14 0.53 2.41 mg % 0.43 0.33 0.57 s % 0.38 0.21 0.53 fe ppm 148.90 104.00 197.00 mn ppm 56.86 25.00 98.00 zn ppm 31.66 21.00 47.00 cu ppm 8.37 4.30 13.60 cnd norms for guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 132-135, 2008 134 cnd norms cnd norms for n (v n ), p (v p ) and k (v k ) for guava were 2.48, 0.24 and 2.13, respectively. cnd norms are multivariate norms with due weightage to all the other elements, including unmeasured factors. sum of the tissue components is 100% and, therefore, the sum of row-centered log ratios (including filling value) is zero (table 2). cnd norm values developed were difficult to comprehend compared to nutrient concentrations, expressed as % or ppm. however, cnd norms have higher diagnostic precision compared to the bivariate values, as in the case of diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (walworth and sumner, 1987). the ca norm (1.91) was twice as high as that of mg (0.99). among micronutrients, fe had higher norm value of –2.377 and, therefore, its requirement was much higher, compared to mn, zn or cu. principal component analysis pca conducted on log-transformed data produced four significant pcs and four eigen values added up to 8.10 explaining about 73.66% of variance (table 3). since pcs are the linear contrasts among nutrients, interpretation of pcs considers the sign of the variate. the first pc was positively correlated with k, fe, zn and r (residue, which is a reflection of dry matter accumulation in the plant) and was negatively correlated with ca, mg, and s indicating that k, fe, and zn behaved in one direction and the rest of the elements in an opposite direction. in the second pc, antagonistic effect of n and fe with p and cu was evident. in pc3, p and mg were negatively correlated to mn. in table 2. compositional nutrient diagnosis norms for guava cnd variate cnd norm sd v n 2.480 0.120 v p 0.236 0.140 v k 2.131 0.191 v ca 1.906 0.319 v mg 0.987 0.117 vs 0.844 0.164 v fe -2.377 0.172 v mn -3.383 0.311 v zn -3.932 0.201 v cu -5.291 0.283 v r 6.394 0.083 table 3. principal component analysis (pca) loading performed on logtransformed data nutrient pc1 pc2 pc3 pc4 n 0.196 0.572* 0.322 0.547* p 0.242 -0.414* 0.591* 0.026 k 0.800* -0.127 -0.034 0.354 ca -0.837* 0.145 0.117 -0.139 mg -0.598* 0.099 0.631* -0.274 s -0.714* 0.045 0.058 0.556* fe 0.431* 0.635* 0.091 -0.358 m n 0.002 0.349 -0.795* -0.139 zn 0.677* -0.280 -0.028 0.077 cu -0.094 -0.813* -0.123 -0.142 residue 0.712* 0.198 0.432* -0.268 eigen values 3.46 1.852 1.713 1.075 % variance 31.49 49.32 63.89 73.66 selection criteria 0.268 0.367 0.382 0.482 * significant over selection criteria anjaneyulu et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 132-135, 2008 table 4. cnd indices for selected, low-yielding orchards of guava n p k ca mg s fe mn zn cu r -0.80 1.23 1.44 0.53 -0.28 0.95 -0.61 -0.45 -0.07 -0.77 -1.53 2.24 -0.53 -0.52 0.92 2.32 -0.08 0.00 1.70 -0.61 -0.77 0.16 -0.32 -0.35 0.76 -0.38 -0.88 -0.21 0.10 -0.25 1.27 0.16 -0.01 -1.09 -1.07 -0.85 -0.05 -1.49 -0.87 -0.33 0.75 1.22 1.40 -0.06 0.90 0.70 0.29 -0.61 -0.57 -0.86 -0.81 1.58 1.03 2.15 -0.11 2.83 -1.22 1.25 -0.58 -1.12 -0.54 0.05 0.40 -0.96 -1.35 1.08 -0.02 0.17 1.86 -0.73 -1.21 -1.28 0.24 -0.19 1.27 0.42 1.49 -0.08 0.21 2.18 -0.79 -1.55 -0.48 0.64 -1.07 1.66 -0.27 0.97 -0.21 -0.55 1.57 1.94 0.21 -0.29 -0.82 0.47 -0.64 2.01 0.85 0.53 1.21 1.38 2.20 -0.58 -0.78 0.56 1.56 2.52 0.67 1.57 -0.74 0.12 1.10 -1.52 -0.15 -1.24 0.36 -1.38 2.02 1.73 0.89 -0.41 1.51 -1.19 1.76 2.04 0.58 -1.29 -0.70 -0.63 -1.64 -0.19 0.64 1.48 1.62 1.05 -1.01 2.10 0.07 1.55 -0.10 0.32 -1.07 -1.66 0.09 1.01 -1.09 -2.38 -2.69 -0.63 2.15 1.47 1.17 -1.09 -2.46 0.30 1.16 -0.61 -1.61 -1.63 -0.43 1.45 1.38 0.43 -0.74 2.29 -0.71 -0.14 1.13 -1.32 0.72 0.69 1.81 1.23 2.07 -0.66 -0.27 -2.06 -1.05 1.49 0.36 1.44 -0.41 0.23 -0.32 -0.36 -1.91 1.37 -3.19 -0.64 0.82 -0.86 2.29 -0.53 0.27 -0.04 0.41 -2.38 r = residue pc4, n and s were isolated (raghupathi et al, 2002). these nutrient interactions need to be considered for correction of nutrient deficiencies and for evolving nutrient management strategies for guava for realizing higher yield and better quality. 135 cnd indices independent values were introduced from lowyielding orchards for the purpose of diagnosis of a nutrient that limits the yield. among the eighteen low-yielding orchards studied, n was found to limit yield in as many as ten orchards, whereas, p was low in nine and k in six orchards. the micronutrients were also found to be either low or deficient, as reflected by the indices (table 4). however, no single nutrient was found solely responsible for low yield. correlation among indices indicated that n indices correlated with none of the nutrient indices, whereas, there was an overwhelming negative correlation between k and ca indices, indicating their antagonism. indices for zn were negatively correlated with s and positively correlated with fe. multi-nutrient diagnosis developed through cnd and nutrient interactions elucidated through pca were found to have higher precision in diagnosing nutrient imbalance in guava and, are thus helpful in evolving nutrient management strategies. references bhargava, b.s. and chadha, k.l. 1993. leaf nutrient guides for fruit crops. in: advances in horticulture-fruit crops, vol. 2. pp 973-1030. chadha, k. l. and pareek, o. p. (eds), malhotra publ. house, new delhi jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india, new delhi, p 408 kanduja, s.d. and garg, v.k. 1980. nutritional status of guava (psidium guajava l.) trees in north india. j. hortl. sci., 55:433–435 parent, l.e. and. dafir, m. 1992. a theoretical concept of compositional nutrient diagnosis. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 117:239-242 pathak, r.a. and pathak, r.k. 1993. guava nutrition. in: advances in horticulture-fruit crops, vol. 2. pp 867878. chadha, k.l. and pareek, o.p. 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and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 271 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for mechanical harvesting yella swami c.*1, senthil kumaran g. 1, naik r.k.2, reddy b.s.3 and rathina kumari a.c.1 1division of post harvesting technology and agricultural engineering icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore 2department of farm machinery and power engineering, svcaet&rs, igkv, raipur 3icar-central research institute for dryland agriculture, hyderabad *corresponding author email : yellaswami@gmail.com abstract the plants and its produce characteristics are the basis to design a crop specific harvester. the objective of this study was to determine the physical, morphological and mechanical properties of chilli plant and fruits, that can be used in the design of harvester machine. the observations and data were collected by taking measurements at harvesting stage of three chilli cultivars. the fruit bearing behavior of plants was solitary with fruit position erect in demon f1 and pendent in arka meghana and mahyco tejaswini. the plant height ranged between 81.76 to 84.87 cm depending on cultivars number of fruits per plant were 170.25, 158.96 and 156.15 in tehaswini, arka meghana and menon respectively. it was observed that the length and diameter at shoulder of fruits was in the range of 4.97 to 10.44 cm and 0.8 to 1.25 cm, respectively. the moisture content reduced in leaves, stems and fruits as the maturation changed from matured green fruits bearing of plants to semi dry condition. the detachment force of fruits from plants increased as the fruits colour changed from matured green to fully ripened red and there after decreased. keywords: chillies, erect, detachment force, mechanical harvester and pendent chilli is a seasonal vegetable that is part of the spicy food culture in india. chilli (capsicum annuum l.) belongs to the solanaceae family (farhan et al., 2014). it is well known for its edible, colourful, juicy and crispy flesh, as well as for its nutritious contents. red chilli is an important commercial crop used as a condiment, culinary supplement or as a vegetable, physiological matured greens, ripened red color and red dried fruits. in india, among the spices consumed, dried chilies contribute a major share and grown in different agro-ecological zones and is the largest producer in the wor ld. during 2019-20, india produced approximately 17.52 lakh tonnes of chillies from an area of 7.03 lakh ha and the productivity was 2.49 tonnes ha-1 as per the report of spice board of india. chilli harvesting is not mechanized in the country and it depends entir ely on the ma nua l wor k for ce prolonging the extended period of field operation. the chilli fruit harvesting period occurs during the hot summer season, and the labour costs are very high, because the population residing in rural areas is decreasing and it is difficult to supply sufficient workforce to harvest in a timely manner. therefore, mechaniza tion of chilli ha rvesting is an urgent requirement to reduce the cost due to labour employed partly, faster operations at reduced drudgery and other production difficulties (nam et al., 2018). to reduce mechanical damage due to harvest and postha r vest oper a tions r equir es studies on the morphological, physical and mechanical properties of plants as well as fruits to design a harvesting machine. to optimize ma chines design a nd development par a meter s for oper ations such a s ha rvesting, handling, cleaning and conveying, the morphological, physica l a nd mecha nica l a ttr ibutes a nd their introduction 272 yella swami et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 relationships play a major role (rokayya and khojah, 2016). physical characteristics of agricultural crops, products are the most important para meters to determine the proper standards of grader design, conveying, pr ocessing a nd pa cka ging systems (tabatabaeefar and rajabour, 2005). several studies were conducted on pepper varieties in different countries, like turkey (ozgur et al., 2011; kadri and murat, 2010), nigeria (ilori et al., 2010), thailand (toontom et al., 2012), germany (romano et al., 2012), spain (vega-galvez et al., 2008), india (nidhi et al., 2016) and malaysia (noryati and revathi, 2006). previous studies on chilli varieties and cultivars revealed that great variations existed in plant growth, other qualitative attributes and yield under different agro-climatic zones. in country like india, a large diversity in chilli with different quality factors and other traits is expected due to different agro ecological zones. any developments in chilli harvesters should consider domestic cultivars and cropping systems because these are entirely different from exotic chilli varieties. hence, more studies are required to collect data and standardize the design parameters pertinent to harvesting and post-harvest operational machines. so, the a im of the present work was to study morphological, physical attributes and mechanical properties of chilli plants and fruits of three most popular cultivars (hybrids) grown in southern states at different stages pertinent to harvesting, cleaning and grading machines. materials and methods the chilli cultivars selected for the present study were arka meghana, mycho tejaswini and demon f1 and cultivated as per the recommended agronomical practices at icarindian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. the observations and pertinent data collection study were carried out between 125 to 150 days after transplanting, at which the crop reached to full growth, maximum fruiting and harvestable ripped red fruits were present in considerable number. in the identified crop rows, 50 randomly selected plants from each cultivar were tagged and from each plant 100 fruits were plucked covering all directions and from fruit bearing lower to top branches. the instruments used in this study to measure linear dimensions were steel rule, digital caliper with an accuracy of 0.01 mm and fruits weight using a digital electronic balance with an accuracy of 0.01 g. plant growth and morphological attributes t he pla nt gr owth ha bits a nd fr uit bea r ing characteristics qualitative information was collected from reliable secondary sources of literature and characterization descriptors of ipgri (1995). the plant growth attributes were measured when 100 per cent of the plants had at least certain proportion of fully ripped fruits. these attributes include plant height (cm), plant canopy spread across (cm) and along the row (cm), stem diameter (cm), stem length (cm), height of the lower most (cm) and upper most chilli fruit (cm) from ground. plant height was measured from the ground surface to the uppermost tip of the plant using the steel rule. plant stem girth measured at ground level and stem length was measured from the soil surface to the first internode of primary branch. the total number of fruits per plant was calculated by noting down harvested fruits at every picking from selected 50 plants. the moisture contents of three major portions of plants namely leaves, stems and fruits at different stages of fruits ripeness was collected randomly and estimated as per the standard laboratory drying procedure. geometrical and physical properties of fruits the geometrical and physical properties of fruits measured were length, diameter just below the calyx part where fruit is maximum in diameter and weight of 1000 fruits. fig. 1. measurement standard for chilli plant and fruits 273 physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for mechanical harvesting moisture content of plant parts as t he f r u i t s a nd veget a b les c h a nges f r om physiological maturity to full ripeness, the moisture content of various plant parts like leaves, stems and branches may change in addition to changes in textural property. this property plays a major role in harvesting, especially fruits moisture content has profound effect beyond harvesting operation. the moisture contents were measured using oven dry method at different ripeness stages of fruits by collecting sa mples fr om differ ent p la nt p a r ts randomly. the moisture content was determined by using standard procedure of aoac (1970). detachment force/ pulling force of chilli fruit the force of detachment or pulling force of fruit to separate from the chilli plants was measured using digita l for ce gauge (fig. 2), which ca n measure maximum 50 newton (n). the digital force gauge used for the experiment was model no. sf-50, maximum load 50n and the least count of the instrument was 0.01n. the push and pull type digital force gauge was held with one hand one side hook and the other side hook was connected to the chilli fruit pedicle and the applied maximum force was noted from the display on the screen. for each cultivar detachment force of fruits was measured at four sta ges (i. e.) green, semi red, red/ fully ripped, partly dry and full dry condition (fig.3). the statistical analysis was carried out for the each obser ved cha racter under the study using msexcel. the mean values of data were subjected to analysis of variance as described by (gomez and gomez, 1984). fig. 2. images showing fruit detachment force with digital force gauge green semi-red red semi-dry dry fig. 3. image shows different stages of arka meghana cultivar j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 274 results and discussion plant growth characteristics the three cultivars selected for the study were dual purpose (i.e.) useful as green vegetable and as well as dried red chilli. the arka meghana had branches spr ea ding gr owth type a nd r est of two semispreading in nature either sparse or intermediate dense (table 1). the stem shape was found to be round for all three. the fruits shape was determined based on comparison with the shapes proposed in the list of descriptors of the ipgri (1995), the arka meghana and mahyco tejaswini possess elongate shaped fruits and demon f1 erect narrow fruits. based on fruit position the cultivars fall in two groups viz., demon f1 erect position fruits and remaining two in pendent position. as per the fruit bearing characteristic all the three falls in solitary behaviour. the plant gr owth, br anching pa tter n, physica l structure of fruits and other biological features have a s ignif ic a nt imp a c t on ma c hine ha r ves t ing efficiency. low plant structure and small branch angles make positive impact on machine harvesting efficiency. high canopy density vegetable crops need vigor ou s s ha king of t he b r a nc hes b y harvesting devices, which causes the high quantity of foreign material like tender branches, twigs in the harvested produce. this cause makes the quality produce separation process more energy intensive, because of necessary additional strength required for the mechanism to separate and transmit the unwanted material out of the harvesting machine. table 1. plant growth characteristics of selected three cultivars of chilli characteristics arka meghana tejaswini demon f1 utility green / dual purpose dual purpose dual purpose dried red / dual purpose plant growth habit medium height and medium height and medium height and spreading semi spreading semi spreading branching habit dense sparse intermediate stem shape round round round fruit shape elongate elongated erect narrow fruit position pendent pendent erect fruit bearing solitary solitary solitary fig. 4. fruit shape and fruit position of different cultivars of chilli yella swami et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 arka meghana tejaswini demon f1 275 chilli cultivars morphological attributes the distance from the ground level to the upper most tip of the plant is measured as the height of the plant. the average height of the plants was found as 82.20 cm, 84.87 cm and 81.76 cm for arka meghana, mahyco tejaswini and demon f1, respectively (table 2). the height of the plants varied from 64 to 115 cm and maximum height 115 cm observed in demon f1 and minimum of 64 cm in arka meghana. plant canopy width across and along the rows the minimum and maximum distances between the tips of the lengthiest branches spread in the tagged plant samples across the row (canopy width in eastwest direction) ranged from 59 to 98 cm and along the row (ca nopy width in north south direction) from 56 to 93 cm in mahyco tejaswini. generally, in crops sown in rows, the harvesting machine being operated along the rows, so the spread width of canopy across the row plays a critical role in deciding the harvester head size to cover entir e ca nopy f or ma ximum ha r vesting efficiency. plant stem length, stem diameter and number of fruits per plant the stem lengths of the chilli cultivars varied from 2 cm to 13 cm and the mean value of stem lengths recorded varied from 5.44 to 8.99 cm. the higher mean stem length to first bifurcation was recorded in d emon f 1 .t he st em dia meter of t he chilli cultivars varied from 1.82 to 2.16 cm. the plant stem diameter is higher 2.16 cm in arka meghana and lower in 1.82 cm in demon f1. the minimum and maximum number of fruits per plant ranged from 61-343 number for demon f 1with lowest mean value of 156.15 number of fruits per plant. among the three cultivars, a maximum mean value 170.25 fruit per plant was recorded for the mahyco tejaswini. table 2. morphological characteristics of different chilli cultivars characteristics plant across along plant stem number height of height of height row row stem dia of fruits the lower the upper (cm) ew ns length meter per most fruit most fruit (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) plant (cm) (cm) arka meghana mean 82.20 79.55 76.18 6.35 2.16 158.96 21.46 84.71 minimum 64.00 63.00 59.00 3.00 1.60 76.00 10.00 62.00 maximum 108.00 97.00 93.00 13.00 2.72 243.00 31.00 100.00 standard deviation 9.28 7.46 7.90 1.90 0.63 39.91 4.24 10.43 standard error 0.92 0.74 0.79 0.19 0.06 3.97 0.80 1.97 mahyco tejaswini mean 84.87 75.16 72.17 5.44 1.90 170.25 20.83 67.66 minimum 69.00 59.00 56.00 2.00 1.06 73.00 12.00 65.00 maximum 108.00 98.00 93.00 11.00 2.52 234.00 32.00 98.00 standard deviation 14.98 11.35 1.99 1.99 0.34 36.47 4.71 18.14 standard error 1.50 1.14 1.10 0.23 0.04 4.27 0.87 3.37 demon f1 mean 81.76 73.40 63.89 8.90 1.82 156.15 28.11 98.56 minimum 65.00 60.00 57.00 4.00 1.44 61.00 17.00 90.00 maximum 115.00 92.00 88.00 13.00 2.68 343.00 36.00 112.00 standard deviation 9.52 9.47 9.67 1.85 0.31 50.28 6.29 7.02 standard error 0.94 0.93 0.95 0.18 0.03 4.93 2.10 2.34 physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for mechanical harvesting j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 276 height of the lower most and higher most fruits bearing branches though there is not much considerable variation in the mean plant heights among the three cultivars, but considerable variation was observed in fruits bearing canopy zone lengths. the fruits bearing canopy spread height was maximum (70.45cm) for demon f1 and the least 46.83cm for mahyco tejaswini. the average height of the lowermost chilli fruits bearing was observed 20.83 cm in mahyco tejaswini and highest value 28.11 cm in demon f1. fruits geometrical and physical properties the size and shape of fruits play major role in separation of unwanted biomass and also immature harvested ones from the quality produce and otherwise more prone to storage disease in crop like chillies. the fruit shape description of chilli grown for dual purpose use in india is difficult, however in general it is triangular in shape with obtuse truncated shape pedicel attachment portion and blunt sunken at blossom end portion. maturation is indicative of the fruit being ready for harvest and after full maturation, there will not be much change in fruit size and shape, since the edible part of the fruit or vegetable is fully developed. dependence on colour parameter alone to harvest the matured vegetables at green colour stage may mislead in certain vegetables. rather than decision taken based on fruit size, shape and colour may yield best results. apart from that, fruits and vegetables geometrical parameters like length, width, thickness or diameter will give us an idea to design and develop sieve set to separate the discard able biomass from produce and graded marketable produce based on size. in chilli the total fruit length and diameter at shoulder are two geometrical dimensions, based on which the separation and grading of produce equipment could be planned. the fruit length measured without pedicle for the selected chilli crops ranged from 2.60 to 14.70 cm and for the same the mean length values varied 4.97 to 10.44 cm. the maximum mean fruit length was observed in arka meghana (10.44 cm) and minimum value 4.97 cm in demon f1. fruit diameter and 1000 fruits weight in cer tain fruits the sha pe ca n cha nge during maturation and can be used as a characteristic to determine harvest maturity. as the fruit or vegetable matures on the plant the relationship between the shoulders of the fruit and the point at which the stalk is attached may change. the shoulders of immature ones slope away from the fruit stalk and on full maturity the shoulders become level with the point of attachment, and in certain cases the shoulders may be raised above this point also. as per the forgone discussion, in chilli the size of fruits is maximum at shoulder s, so the diameter was measured at this point. for the selected chillies, overall fruit diameter varied from 0.51 to 1.58 cm and the mean values were ranged from 0.80 to 1.25 cm (table 3). the maximum values in all respects were observed in arka meghana and minimum in demon f1. the weight of 1000 ripened chilli fruits widely ranged from minimum 1.24 kg to maximum 9.21 kg. the mean weight of 1000 ripped fruits was 1.96 to 6.97 kg. the maximum 1000 chilli fruits weight was recorded in arka meghana 6.97 kg and minimum value in case of demon f1 (1.96 kg). table 3. ripened chilli fruits geometrical and physical properties cultivars arka meghana mahyco tejaswini demon f1 properties fruit fruit 1000 fruit fruit 1000 fruit fruit 1000 length dia fruits length dia fruits length dia fruits (cm) meter weight (cm) meter weight (cm) meter weight (cm) (kg) (cm) (kg) (cm) (kg) mean 10.44 1.25 6.97 7.74 0.92 3.81 4.97 0.80 1.96 minimum 6.20 0.81 4.13 4.30 0.69 2.40 2.60 0.51 1.24 maximum 14.70 1.58 9.21 9.80 1.18 5.43 10.50 1.05 2.98 standard 2.00 0.16 1.02 1.30 0.09 0.64 1.06 0.11 0.30 deviation standard 0.20 0.02 0.10 0.13 0.01 0.08 0.10 0.01 0.03 error yella swami et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 277 moisture content the moisture contents data of different plant parts at different ripeness stages was presented in table 4. at full matured green stage of fruits, the moisture content of the leaves was about 72% (db) and fruits possessed considerably higher amount of moisture about 80%.as the fruits maturation changes from physiological mature green colour to full red and beyond, all the plant parts namely leave, stems and fruits moisture contents decreased. when compared to other parts, the per cent of moisture loss was more rapid in leaves followed by stems and minimum gradual reduction was observed in fruits. the moisture content trend is more or less same in all the three cultivars. moisture content is an influential factor in all the crop processing operations and greatly influences other physical and mechanical properties (ilori et al., 2010). in harvesting stage of crops, excessive loss of moisture may lead to the structural parts of the plant to become softer. the softer plant parts cling to the rotating or oscillating or jolting components which shake or vibrate or comb or push the plant branches reducing its effectiveness thus reducing harvesting efficiency of the fruits and vegetables. in certain species, reduced moisture contents in plant parts result in excessive detachment of leaves, twigs in considerable quantity thus increasing energy expenditure in cleaning and grading unit of harvesting machine. table 4. moisture content of plant parts at different maturity stages of different cultivars plant part green semi-red red semi-dry dry arka meghana leaf 71.33±2.08 54.04±0.47 40.78±0.64 33.63±0.64 20.53±0.87 stem 68.90±0.87 66.54±0.76 49.15±0.31 46.15±0.75 39.71±1.27 fruit 81.29±2.85 84.35±0.81 77.86±0.31 79.77±0.78 72.70±0.82 mahyco tejaswini leaf 72.17±2.13 62.96±2.63 48.66±1.16 33.33±1.53 18.23±1.09 stem 63.69±2.29 54.45±1.27 53.83±2.40 53.16±1.04 38.05±2.10 fruit 77.86±0.31 76.72±0.46 74.85±0.17 74.76±1.57 72.17±1.02 demon f1 leaf 71.78±1.65 54.16±2.13 45.59±0.94 33.30±1.20 18.21±1.20 stem 60.85±1.57 58.83±1.22 52.87±1.57 44.12±0.58 37.12±1.50 fruit 77.58±0.59 76.96±0.93 74.79±1.40 72.49±0.69 71.04±1.72 detachment force of chilli fruits at different stages of ripeness the principles dictating at what stage of maturity the fruits or vegetable should be harvested are crucial to its subsequent drying /storage and marketable life and quality. post-harvest physiologists distinguish different impor ta nt sta ges in the life spa n of fruits a nd vegetables namely maturation (green), semi – ripeness, ripened, semi dried, dried and crop senescence (ageing) itself. all these stages have its own importance depending on how and where the produce being used a nd str a tegies being followed in collection, transportation, storing and marketing. ripening follows or overlaps maturation, rendering the produce edible, as indicated by colour and taste in majority of fruits and vegetables. in certain crops plant senescence (ageing) also considered as indicative of crop harvest. senescence is the last stage, characterized by natural degradation of the plants, as in loss of texture, colour, etc. in case of certain fruits and vegetables colour and moisture content are two majorly determining factors to harvest the produce that are to be dried to preserve for round the year use as it is or in size reduction form with or without pre-treatment. ripening stage has an important effect on the force required for removal or detachment of fruits or vegetables or nuts from the branches of plants or trees and on relative susceptibility to mechanical damage. some researchers reported that the holding force of fruits and vegetables to pedicle decreased as the fruit physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for mechanical harvesting j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 278 matured, due to cork that is formed in the stem holding place. the detachment force required to pluck the fruits of selected cultivars of chillies at various stages of ripeness is presented in table 5. the results indicates that, the detachment force increased as the fruits maturation increased from green to full red and there after it decreased. this may be due to the fact that up to full maturation of fruits, pedicle contains more fibre content compared to remaining stages and at dry stage pedicle contain less fibre content. it was observed that, the average force required to pluck the chillies at green stage for arka meghana, mahyco tejaswini and demon f1 was found to be 3.45± 2.11 n, 2.43±1.53 n and 5.19± 2.31 n, respectively. similarly, in fully ripped red stage maximum plucking force noted, 5.85± 2.80n, 4.92± 2.23n and 8.58± 2.07n, respectively. the data also indicates that, specifically the cultivars having pendent position fruits have recorded lower plucking force than erect position. these observations concur with the findings of funk and walker (2010), pendant fruit position with minimum fruit attachment force in gr een chilli genotypes aides for better mechanical harvesting. when mechanical harvesting components designs involving working principles such as rotating, oscillating, push-pull, combing and jolter actions are employed to harvest fruits and vegetables; fruit/ vegetable detachment force, size properties, mass and puncture property against mechanical damages must be known. polat et al., (2010) reported that for pistachio nut the pod detachment force decreased from 436 to 118 n within 100 days prior to harvesting to harvest date of partially dried nuts. conclusions red chilli is an important commercial crop, besides its wide spread use in indian food culture. however, the fruits harvesting still being carried manually at incr ea sed ha rvesting costs a nd in hot wea ther conditions. so, important morphological attributes, p hys ic a l a nd mec ha nic a l p r op er t ies of t hr ee popularly grown cultivars were studied to provide a n idea a bout these for ha r vester developer s, r es ea r c her s . t he r es u lt s ha ve r evea led t he importance of the difference among cultivars, while designing and ma nufacture of machines. t hese properties are highly useful in harvesting machine development and as well as post harvesting like cleaning and grading equipment. table 5. force (n) required to detach chilli fruit at different growth stages different arka meghana mahyco tejaswini demon f1stages green semi red semi dry green semi red semi dry green semi red semi dry (n) red (n) dry (n) (n) red (n) dry (n) (n) red (n) dry (n) (n) (n) (n) (n) (n) (n) mean3.45 4.07 5.85 2.36 1.08 2.43 2.11 4.92 1.52 0.87 5.19 6.39 8.58 1.98 0.98 minimum 0.78. 1.04 1.90 0.39 0.75 0.99 0.45 1.23 0.50 0.69 1.18 1.02 1.20 0.93 0.78 maximum 9.86 11.30 17.49 6.21 1.43 8.79 5.80 13.18 4.47 1.13 13.82 12.21 15.65 5.95 1.32 standard 2.11 2.19 2.80 1.51 2.32 1.53 0.93 2.23 0.80 0.95 2.31 2.21 2.07 1.15 1.76 deviation standard error 0.19 0.22 0.28 0.15 0.19 0.15 0.09 0.22 0.08 0.14 0.21 0.22 0.21 0.11 0.34 references aoac. 1970. official methods analysis of the association of official analytical chemists, washington d. c.pp.211. bozokalfa, k.m. and murat, k. 2010. mathematical modeling in the estimation of pepper (capsicum annuum l.) fruit volume. chilean j of agri res, 70: 626-632. farhan, a. khan, mahmood, t., ali, m., saeed, a. a nd ma a lik, a. 2014. pha r ma cologica l impor ta nce of a n ethnobota nica l plant: capsicum annuum l., natural product research, 28:1267-1274. funk, p.a and walker, s.j. 2010. evaluation of five green chille cultivars utilizing five different harvest mechanisms. applied engineering in agriculture, 26(6), 955-964 yella swami et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 279 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research (2 ed.). john wiley and sons, new york, 680p. ilori, t, raji, a, kilanko, o. 2010. some physical properties of selected vegetable. j of agri and veterinary sci, 2: 100-109. ipgri, avrdc and catie 1995. descriptors for capsicum (capsicum spp.). international plant genetic resources institute, rome, italy; the asian vegetable research and development center, taipei, and the centro agronómico tropical de investi-gación y enseñanza, turrialba, costa rica; 1995. nam, j., heebyun, j., kim,t., kim, m., and kim, d. 2018. measurement of mechanical and physical properties of pepper for particle behavior analysis. j biosyst engi, 43 (3): 173– 84.  nidhi, s., ankita, c., koustav, c. 2016. cytotoxic effect on mg-63 cell line and antimicrobial and antioxidant properties of silver nanoparticles synthesized with seed extracts of capsicum sp. rec nat prod, 10(1): 47-57 noryati, i: revathi r. 2006. studies on the effects of blanching time, evaporation time, temperature and hydrocolloid on physical properties of chili (capsicum annum varkulai) puree. lwt, 39: 91-97. ozgur, m., ozcan, t., akpinar-bayizit, a. 2011. functiona l compounds a nd a ntioxida nt properties of dried green and red peppers. afri j of agri res, 6: 5638-5644. polat,r., acar, i., bilim h.i.c., saglam, r. and erol. a. k. b. 2011. determination of spring r igidity a nd fr uit deta chment for ce with respect to harvesting technique in pistachio nut trees.afri j. agri rese, vol. 6(3): 532537. pruthi, j.s. 1998. chillies or capsicums. in: major spices of india crop management and post ha r vest technology; india n c ou ncil of agricultural research, krishi anusandhan bhavan: new delhi, p. 180–243. roka yya , s. a nd khoja h, e. 2016 . physica lmechanical estimation of pepper (capsicum annuum l.) fruit varieties. j. northeast agri university, 23(3): 61-69. romano, g., argyropoulos, d., nagle, m. 2012. combination of digital images and laser light to predict moisture content and colour of bell pepper simultaneously during drying. j food engi, 109: 438-448. tabatabaeefar a and rajabipur a, 2005. modeling the mass of apples by geometrical attributes. j. scienta, 105(3), 0-382 toontom n, meenune m, posri w. 2012. effect of drying method on physical a nd chemica l qu a lit y, hot nes s a nd vola t i le f a vou r characteristics of dried chilli. international food research journal, 19: 10231031. vega-galvez a, lemus-mondaca r, bilbao-sainz c. 2008. effect of air-drying temperature on the quality of rehydrated dried red bell pepper (cv. lamuyo). j. food engi, 85: 42-50. (received on 10.11.2021, revised on 15.12.2021 and accepted on 31.12.2021) physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for mechanical harvesting j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 271-279, 2021 00 contents.pdf 16 yella swami.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf pests and diseases are major limitations for successful cultivation of grapes. as many as 94 species of insects and mites have been reported on grapes in india (tandon and verghese, 1994). among various sucking pests, thrips are considered serious on grapes (anon., 2000). rhipiphorothrips cruentatus hood and scirtothrips dorsalis hood (thysanoptera: terebrantia: thripidae) were recorded infesting leaves and berries in india (ananthakrishnan, 1971, butani, 1979, verghese and kamala jayanti 2001). the scab caused by thrips on fruit reduces quality and marketability. the present study was taken up to assess and status of different thrips species on foliage, inflorescence and at different stages of berry development. location of survey and cultivars: bijapur (karnataka) and sangli (maharashtra), about 122 km away from bijapur categorized under hot tropical region (between 150 and 200 n longitude) are known for grape cultivation. hence, these places were surveyed for thrips species between january 2005 and january 2006. all vines were pruned in septemberoctober and subjected to different insecticides and fungicide treatment. eight orchards during january, march and thrips species composition on grapes in karnataka and maharashtra h.r. ranganath, n.k. krishna kumar and vikas kumar division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore -560 089, india e-mail: hrr@iihr.ernet.in abstract a survey was undertaken to document species composition of thrips on grape foliage, inflorescence and different stages of berry development such as mustard size (2 mm), sorghum size (4 mm), pea size (8 mm) and beyond pea size (> 8 mm) berries at bijapur in karnataka and sangli in maharashtra during january 2005 to january 2006. cultivars sampled were thomson seedless, sonaka, sharad seedless, tas-a-ganesh, 2a and b5 clones of thomson seedless. scirtothrips dorsalis hood constituted over 90% of total thrips sampled from new flushes, inflorescence and berries in different stages during january, february, march and december 2005 at bijapur followed by thrips palmi karny (14.3%); thrips hawaiiensis (morgan) a hitherto unknown thrips species on grape dominated inflorescence (98.0%) on cv. sonaka during december 2005 in the same area. similar trend was observed in the vineyards of sangli. number of thrips, which was more on inflorescence declined as the berry matured. least number of thrips was observed on berries > pea size. as recorded in bijapur, t. hawaiiensis was dominant species on inflorescence of 2a (98.6%) and b5 (99.4%) clones of thompson seedless. in other cultivars s. dorsalis was dominant that formed 92.8 -100% of total thrips collected. thrips palmi constituted 0.8-1.7% of thrips collected from different parts of grape vine. other unidentified thrips constituted 0.9-7.2%. key words: inflorescence, scirtothrips dorsalis, thrips hawaiiensis, grapevine december 2005 and 11 orchards in february 2005 were surveyed at bijapur (thomson seedless, sonaka, sharad seedless). in sangli 13 orchards were surveyed during january 2006 (thomson seedless, tas-a-ganesh, 2a & b5 clones of thomson seedless) sample: in january and december 2005 (bijapur), fresh foliage, inflorescence and maturing fruit bunches (mustard size (2mm), sorghum size (4 mm), pea size (8 mm) and beyond pea size (> 8 mm berries) were sampled. in february 2005, out of 11 orchards 10 orchards had fruit bunches with pea size and > pea size berries and remaining one had sorghum size, pea size and > pea size berries. during march grape vines had bunches only with berries > pea size, fresh foliage/ inflorescence (bloom)/ fruit bunch in five randomly selected vines in each location were tapped twice over black paper using a stick (50 cm long). while sampling fruit bunches, bunches with mustard size (2 mm), sorghum size (4 mm), pea size (8 mm) and > pea sized berries (> 8 mm) were separately sampled. thrips fallen on the black paper placed below were collected using a fine brush and transferred into 2 ml vials containing a mixture of 70% ethyl short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 172-175, 2008 173 alcohol, acetic acid (9:1 v/v) and 0.5ml triton x 100. each vial was labeled (sampling date, locality, cultivar sampled, part sampled etc.). thrips in each vial were counted under a stereo-binocular microscope and slide mounts were prepared. process consisted of clearing thrips (after giving a slant cut on the first two segments of the abdomen) in naoh 5% for 7-8 h depending upon pigmentation, washed in distilled water, dehydration using grades of ethyl alcohol, clearing in terpineol and mounting on clean slides (2 mm thick) using canada balsam (natural) mountant. species were determined as per key provided by vikas kumar (2004) in january 2005 and december 2005 at bijapur all surveyed orchards had all stages of the crop. while february and march showed maturing berries (different stages), mainly pea size (8 mm). at sangli, orchards had stages from inflorescence to berries beyond pea size during january 2006. results revealed that s. dorsalis dominated new flushes, inflorescence, and all stages of berries in a fruit bunch. however, fruit bunches beyond pea size harboured thrips in low number (1-28 thrips/bunch) and the number declined as the berries matured. bijapur: scirtothrips dorsalis constituted over 90% of total thrips sampled from new flushes, inflorescence and berries in different stages during january, february, march and december 2005, followed by t. palmi karny (14.3%) (tables 1, 2 and 3). thrips hawaiiensis hood a hitherto unknown thrips species on grape was observed to dominate inflorescence on cv. sonaka during december 2005. thrips hawaiiensis formed 98.0% of total thrips counted on inflorescence (table 4). however, sampling inflorescence of other cultivars during december did not show t. hawaiiensis, which needs to be rechecked. number of thrips was maximum on inflorescence that declined as the table 1. incidence of grape thrips at different locations in bijapur (january 2005) no. of thrips collected out of 2 tapings location variety area(acre) new foliage inflor. millet size sorghum size pea size > pea size thidugundi ts 5 16.7 87.2 12.5 12.7 6.0 2.5 kadlivada ts 10 27.2 118.1 27.3 10.4 12.0 10.2 kadlivada ss 4 36.5 127.2 47.1 29.4 10.0 8.2 segunasi ts 2 37.3 112.7 60.2 32.6 23.1 18.5 bableshwar ts 2 48.1 93.6 44.2 12.6 10.1 3.2 a. tanda ts 5 21.7 86.6 31.2 27.1 18.6 4.3 zalki ts 2 18.2 14.2 96.8 41.6 37.1 10.5 galagali road ts 3 23.8 56.7 61.9 72.3 45.6 12.6 tsthomson seedless, sssharad seedless s. dorsalis ranged from 90-98.4% of total thrips collected in all plant parts sampled table. 2 incidence of grape thrips at different locations in bijapur (february 2005) no. of thrips collected out of 2 tapings location variety area(acre) new foliage inflor millet size sorghum size pea size > pea size kadlivada ts 10 6.3 —— —— —— 2 0 kadlivada ss 4 12.2 —— —— —— 6 1 bableshwar ts 2 8.6 —— —— —— 16 3 bableshwar ts 2 14.8 —— —— 8.9 4 0 bijapurts 2 6.5 —— —— —— 7 4 aurangabad road a. tanda ts 2 18.4 —— —— —— 4.3 zalki ts 3 17.5 —— —— —— 1 tajpur ts 2 11.2 —— —— —— 18 galagali road ts 4 23.6 —— —— —— 47 aliabad ts 2 7.8 —— —— —— 28 ts 3 3.1 —— —— —— 22.5 tsthomson seedless, sssharad seedless species of thrips identified: new foliage: scirtothrips dorsalis, thrips palmi inflorescence: scirtothrips dorsalis, t. palmi millet size berry s. dorslis sorghum size berry s. dorslis pea size berry s. dorsalis thrips species on grapes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 172-175, 2008 174 table 3. incidence of grape thrips at different locations in bijapur (march 2005) no. of thrips collected out of 2 tapings location variety area(acre) new foliage inflor millet size sorghum size pea size > pea size bableshwar ts 2 8.7 —— —— —— —— 2.6 bableshwar ts 1 2.7 —— —— —— —— 0 aliabad ts 1 7.6 —— —— —— —— 0 trikota ts 2 12.5 —— —— —— —— 2 thidugundi ts 2 3.7 —— —— —— —— 2.5 a. tanda ts 1 8.3 —— —— —— —— 5.2 kadlivada ts 10 2.5 —— —— —— —— 2.6 kadlivada ss 4 6.8 —— —— —— —— 1.5 tsthomson seedless, sssharad seedless species of thrips identified: new foliage: scirtothrips dorsalis, thrips palmi inflorescence: scirtothrips dorsalis, t. palmi millet size berrys. dorslis sorghum size berrys. dorslis pea size berrys. dorsalis table: 4. incidence of grape thrips at different locations in bijapur (december 2005) no. of thrips collected out of 2 tapings location variety area(acre) new foliage inflor millet size sorghum size pea size > pea size bableshwar ts 5 52.2 82.7 21.2 27.8 5.8 6.2 bableshwar sk 2 26.0 42.8* 27.6 10.3 2.0 — ayeri ts 2 46.5 16.2 6.2 — a. tanda ts 5 23.4 66.4 50.8 32.1 10.2 thidugundi ts 2 21.5 42.6 36.8 21.7 16.2 6.3 thidugundi ts 1 17.2 96.5 54.2 36.4 14..8 jumnal ts 2 22.5 58.2 45.5 39.6 8.8 segunasi ts 2 16.9 76.3 32.7 221.5 — — tsthomson seedless, sksonaka dominant species of thrips identified: new foliage: scirtothrips dorsalis, thrips palmi inflorescence: scirtothrips dorsalis, t. palmi millet size berry s. dorsalis sorghum size berry s. dorsalis pea size berrys. dorsalis * thrips hawaiiensis constituted 98 % of the thrips collected on inflorescence berries matured. other unidentified thrips formed 0.5 to 7% of the thrips collected from january to march and december 2005. sangli: similar trend was observed in the vineyards of sangli. number of thrips was maximum on inflorescence that declined as the berry matured. as observed in bijapur, t. hawaiiensis was dominant species on inflorescence (cv. sonaka) (table 5). the same species shared 98.6% and 99.4% of thrips collected on inflorescence but on 2a and b 5 clones of thomson seedless, respectively in 2 different orchards at tasgaon. in other cultivars viz, thompson seedless and tas-aganesh, s. dorsalis was dominant that formed 92.8 -100% of total thrips collected. thrips palmi constituted 0.8-1.7% of thrips collected from different parts of grape vine. other unidentified thrips constituted 0.9-7.2%. harish (2000) observed that number of s. dorsalis was maximum in the vegetative and flowering stages (cv. bangalore blue) as compared to berry maturation period in winter and summer pruned vines. however, number of thrips declined as the berry matured. in the present study also the number of thrips was maximum at inflorescence stage (bloom) and declined as the berry matured on different cultivars. schwartz (1988) recorded maximum number of t. tabaci lindeman in blossom stage in south africa. similarly, ripa et al (1993) reported colonization of t. tabaci during anthesis and nymphs fed on pollen and internal tissues of calyptra. ananthakrishnan (1971) observed infestations of s. dorsalis on flower bunches and young berries of grapes resulting in reduced fruit set and development of corky layers and cracks on the surface of fruits. rose is widely grown in sangli. rose flowers sampled in adjoining fields of grape orchards at two locations, tasgaon and savlaz showed severe infestation by t. ranganath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 172-175, 2008 175 table 5. survey for thrips of grapes in sangli (january 2006) no. of thrips collected out of 2 tapings location variety area(acre) new foliage inflor millet size sorghum size pea size > pea size kawlapur ts 2 12.6 30.7 23.6 7.3 10.6 3.2 kawlapur sonaka 1 52.3 74.2 tas gaon ts* 1 10.6 87.4 10.2 8.6 3.6 tas gaon ts* 2 22.6 45.6 27.1 18.2 11.6 savlej ts 4 23.1 58.6 27.1 18.6 20.6 11.3 savlej tag 1 6.7 25.6 11.5 12.7 savlej ts 3 43.2 56.2 35.5 savlej ts** 1 23.5 85.2 69.6 48.1 khanapur tag 426.5 19.2 17.6 khanapur sonaka 4 18.7 43.4 24.6 biranwadi tag 2 38.6 25.4 12.8 balaudi ts 5 88.5 136.2 87.5 87.2 41.2 manerajouri ts* 2 79.3 116.7 79.4 66.5 47.8 ssonaka, tsthomson seedless, ts*2a clone of thomson seedless, ts** b5 clone of thomson seedless, tagtasaganesh * t. hawaiiensis constituted 98.6% of the total thrips counted in inflorescence ** t. hawaiiensis constituted 99.4% of the total thrips counted in inflorescence (ms received 19 august 2008, revised 1 december 2008) hawaiiensis. it is likely that t. hawaiiensis, a polyphagous pest has moved to adjoining grape orchards to infest bloom. however, it is important to establish the role of t. hawaiiensis if any, in scaring/ scabbing of berries as damage inflicted at “bloom” brings down the quality of grapes. further, it needs to be found out by extensive survey whether t. hawaiiensis cross over to cultivars other than sonaka and clones of thompson seedless. acknowledgement we wish to express our sincere thanks to dr. g. s. prakash, principal scientist & head, division of fruit crops, i.i.h.r, bangalore for critically going through the manuscript. we thank the director, i.i.h.r, bangalore for encouragement. first author acknowledges the financial assistance provided by department of horticulture, government of karnataka under the project bio-ecology of thrips vectors of watermelon bud necrosis (wbnv). references: ananthakrishnan, t.n. 1971. thrips (thysanoptera) in agriculture and forestrydiagnosis, bionomics and control. j. sci. ind. res., 30:113-146 anonymous, 2000. grapes, agriculture, center for monitoring indian economy, pvt., ltd., mumbai, pp. 303-306 butani, 1979. insects and fruits, periodical export book agency, new delhi, pp. 190-194 harish, 2000. species complex, biology and management of thrips on grapes, thesis submitted to university of agricultural sciences, bangalore for partial fulfillment of master degree in agricultural entomology. pp 115 ripa, s. r., rodriguez, a. f. and vargas, m. r. 1993. relationship between thrips (thrips tabaci lindeman and frankliniella cestrum moulton) on grapes during flowering and scarring at harvest. agri. tecnica santiago, 53:16-22 schwartz, a. 1988. population dynamics of thrips tabaci lindeman (thysanoptera: thripidae) on table grapes. south african j.enology and viticulture, 9:19-21 tandon, p.l. and verghese, a. 1994. present status of insect and mite pests of grapes in india, drakshavritta souvenir, 149-158 verghese, a. and kamala jayanti, p.d. 2001 integrated pest management in horticultural ecosystems. (eds) p. parvatha reddy, abraham verghese and n. k. krishna kumar, capital publishing company, new delhi, pp 291 vikas kumar, 2004. taxonomic studies on thysanopteraterebrantia of delhi. thesis submitted to university of delhi for doctorate degree. pp 259 thrips species on grapes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 172-175, 2008 carrot (daucus carota l.) of the family apiaceae is a cool-season crop grown across the world in spring, summer and autumn in the temperate countries, and during winters in the tropical and subtropical countries. it has a fleshy, edible tap root botanically designated as a conical root. carrot is classified into two groups: asiatic (tropical) and european (temperate) types. world-wide consumption of carrot has increased over the past years, and, it is now one of the most popular vegetable crops. asiatic carrots are generally red in colour owing to anthocyanin pigments. the european types are orange due to carotene, a precursor of vitamin a. in india, asiatic types are the ones mostly grown, probably due to their appealing red colour. carrot improves the quantity of urine and helps eliminate uric acid. chopra et al (1933) reported carrot as curing diseases of the kidney, and dropsy. dietary supplement of a combination of carrot and orange juices has been found to reduce oxidation of low-density lipoprotein in habitual cigarette smokers. the nilgiris district of tamil nadu is unique in being all hilly, 90% area of which is covered by horticultural crops, viz., plantation crops, vegetable crops, flower crops, etc. potato and carrot are the two major vegetable crops occupying a substantial area, the latter cultivated in about 2,677 ha, with a production of 75,818.64 metric tonnes, evaluation of carrot (daucus carota l.) hybrids at mid-elevation and higher in the nilgiris v.p. santhi* and p.a. priya horticultural research station tamil nadu agricultural university udhagamandalam – 643 001, tamil nadu, india *e-mail: santhihortvip@yahoo.co.uk abstract investigations were made on yield and quality in six hybrids of carrot spanning two seasons under nilgiri hill conditions during the year 2012-2013. the hybrids were evaluated for per se performance, genotypic coefficient of variance, heritability and genetic advance. a high estimate for genotypic coefficient of variation was observed in root-splitting percentage, total chlorophyll, root carotenoids, leaf carotenoids and root-forking percentage in the hybrids, indicating a potential for improvement of these traits by simple selection, in kharif and summer. leaf and root carotenoid content, total chlorophyll, number of leaves and root weight exhibited higher values for heritability, coupled with a high genetic advance, revealing these traits to be under the control of gene action. simple selection can, therefore, effect improvement in these characters. key words: genetic variability, hybrids, heritability, genetic advance j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):83-87, 2016 short communication and productivity of 28.17 mt/ ha. hence, developing highyielding hybrids with resistance to physiological disorders is of great importance. selection of desirable genotypes needs to be performed with reliable estimates. genetic parameters like coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance provide a clear insight into the extent of available variability and gives a relative measure of efficiency of selection of a genotype based on its phenotype in a highly variable population. therefore, the present study was carried out assess genetic parameters for yield, quality and resistance to physiological disorders under nilgiris’ conditions. the present study on evaluation of carrot (daucus carota l.) hybrids for high yield and for quality suited to the nilgiri conditions was conducted at nanjanad farm of horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural university, udhagamandalam, and at a farmer’s field at muthorai palada, udhagamandalam, during the year 20122013. the land was brought to a fine tilth by repeated ploughing and harrowing. clods were broken and debris removed. the soil was levelled and made into 30cm high raised beds with plot size of 2x1m2. the experimental field was divided into 24 plots. the experiment was laid out in randomized blocks design. six hybrids, namely, alamada f1, century f1, ns 854 f1, clause nant into f1, takii no. 84 555 f1 and vivek f1 were replicated four times. seeds were sown at row-to-row spacing of 15cm and plant-to-plant spacing of 10cm, at a depth of 1cm and covered with a thin layer of soil. thinning was done at 45 days after sowing. five plants were selected at random from each plot for recording observations at 90 days after sowing, and, at harvest. estimates for genetic parameters phenotypic and genotypic variance phenotypic and genotypic variance was estimated as per lush (1940). (ms1 ms2) a) genotypic variance (σ2g) = ---------------------------r where, ms1 = mean sum of squares for genotypes ms2 = mean sum of squares for error r = number of replications b) phenotypic variance (σ2ph) = σ2g+ σ2e where, σ2g = genotypic variance σ2e = error variance phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation was estimated as per burton (1952) and expressed in percentage. a) phenotypic coefficient of variation (per cent) (phenotypic variance) ½ pcv = ---------------------------------------------------------------x 100 general mean b) genotypic coefficient of variation (per cent) (genotypic variation) 1/2 gcv = --------------------------------------------------------------- x 100 general mean estimates for pcv and gcv were categorized on the scale given below (sivasubramanian and menon, 1973): category range low < 10 per cent moderate 11 to 20 per cent high > 20 per cent heritability (h2) heritability in the broad sense was calculated as per lush (1940) and expressed in percentage. vg heritability in broad sense (h2) = ---------------------------x 100 vph where, vg = genotypic variance vph = phenotypic variance range of heritability was categorized as per johnson et al (1955) category range low 0-30 per cent moderate 30-60 per cent high 61 per cent and above genetic advance (ga) genetic advance was worked out as per the formula of johnson et al (1955). vg genetic advance (ga) = ---------------------------x k (vph)1/2 where, vg = genotypic variance vph = phenotypic variance k = 2.06 (selection differential at 5 per cent selection intensity) ga b) genetic advance as per cent of mean = -------------------x 100 grand mean the range of genetic advance as per cent of mean was classified as per johnson et al (1955). category range low 0-10 per cent moderate 11-20 per cent high 21 per cent and above phenotypic and genotypic variance was estimated as per lush (1940). range of heritability and genetic advance were categorized as per johnson et al (1955) and panse (1957). genotypic coefficient of variation, phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance as per cent mean in kharif, summer and pooled mean data are presented in tables 1, 2 and 3, and in fig 1 and 2. highest genotypic coefficient of variation was observed during kharif for total chlorophyll (38.84), followed by root carotenoids (35.71), root-splitting percentage (23.00) and leaf carotenoids (22.78). however, low genotypic coefficient of variation was noticed for plant height (5.90), leaf width (5.32), root length (0.67), root santhi and priya j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):83-87, 2016 85 diameter (8.47), inner-core diameter (5.66), root-to-top ratio (2.97) and yield per hectare (8.13). in our study, high heritability values were noticed for root carotenoids content (99.94), leaf carotenoids (99.91), total chlorophyll (98.32) and root-splitting percentage (60.99). the lowest estimates of heritability were observed for plant height (23.67), leaf width (19.34), root length (0.92), inner-core diameter (12.29) and root-to-top ratio (3.17). expected genetic advance (expressed as percentage of mean) was relatively high for characters like total chlorophyll (79.35), root carotenoids (73.55), leaf carotenoids (46.91), root-splitting percentage (37.01) and root-forking percentage (28.07) in summer, the highest genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for total chlorophyll (40.51), followed by root carotenoids (36.06), root-forking percentage (22.97) and leaf carotenoids (22.53). however, low genotypic coefficient of variation was noticed for traits like plant height (4.55), number of leaves (9.68), leaf width (7.30) and root-to-top ratio (7.39). in the present study, high heritability values were noticed for plant height (99.96), number of leaves (99.98), leaf width (99.98), root length (83.86), root weight (81.72), root-to-top ratio (61.23), root diameter (85.23), total chlorophyll (97.97), leaf carotenoids (99.96) and root carotenoids (99.93). lowest estimates of heritability were observed for root-splitting percentage (16.94) and root-forking percentage (27.94). expected genetic advance (expressed as percentage of mean) was relatively high for characters like root length (23.83), root weight (22.51), root diameter (24.52), root-forking percentage (25.01), total chlorophyll (82.61), leaf carotenoids (46.41) and root carotenoids (74.26). table 1. variability, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean for different parameters in carrot hybrids for 14 characters during kharif character genotypic phenotypic heritability genetic coefficient coefficient (%) advance of variation of variation as per cent (gcv %) (pcv %) of mean plant height (cm) 5.90 12.13 23.67 5.91 number of leaves 10.95 15.43 50.37 16.01 leaf width (cm) 5.32 12.09 19.34 4.82 root length (cm) 0.67 7.04 0.92 0.13 root weight (g) 14.24 20.97 46.14 19.93 root diameter 8.47 12.11 48.93 12.21 (cm) inner-core 5.66 16.16 12.29 4.09 diameter (cm) root-to-top ratio 2.97 16.69 3.17 1.09 root splitting % 23.00 29.45 60.99 37.01 root forking % 18.41 24.87 54.78 28.07 total chlorophyll 38.84 39.18 98.32 79.35 (mg/g) leaf carotenoids 22.78 22.79 99.91 46.91 (mg/g) root carotenoids 35.71 35.73 99.94 73.55 (mg/g) yield/ha (tonnes) 8.13 12.42 42.87 10.97 table 2. variability, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean for different parameters in carrot hybrids for 14 characters during summer character genotypic phenotypic heritability genetic coefficient coefficient (%) advance of variation of variation as per cent (gcv %) (pcv %) of mean plant height (cm) 4.55 4.55 99.96 9.38 number of leaves 9.68 9.68 99.98 19.94 leaf width (cm) 7.30 7.30 99.98 15.04 root length (cm) 12.63 13.79 83.86 23.83 root weight (g) 12.08 13.37 81.72 22.51 root diameter 12.89 13.96 85.23 24.52 (cm) inner-core 11.31 15.92 50.52 16.56 diameter (cm) root-to-top ratio 7.39 9.45 61.23 11.92 root splitting % 18.99 46.13 16.94 16.10 root forking % 22.97 43.46 27.94 25.01 total chlorophyll 40.51 40.93 97.97 82.61 (mg/ g) leaf carotenoids 22.53 22.54 99.96 46.41 (mg/ g) root carotenoids 36.06 36.07 99.93 74.26 (mg/ g) yield/ha (tonnes) 11.35 20.67 30.18 12.85 fig 2. genetic advance, variability and heritability as per cent of mean in carrot hybrids for 14 characters during kharif fig 1. genetic advance, variability and heritability as per cent of mean in carrot hybrids for 14 characters during summer cultivation of carrot hybrids in nilgiris j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):83-87, 2016 86 in pooled analysis, highest genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for total chlorophyll (37.85), root carotenoids (34.18), leaf carotenoids (22.66) and rootforking percentage (20.36). however, low genotypic coefficient of variation was noticed for traits such as plant height (5.54), number of leaves (9.77), leaf width (6.41), root length (7.36), root diameter (9.89), inner-core diameter (8.55), root-to-top ratio (2.26) and yield per hectare (8.64). in this study, high heritability values were recorded for root carotenoids content (99.94), leaf carotenoids (99.93), total chlorophyll (97.53), root length (81.61), root diameter (76.56), root-forking percentage (75.99), number of leaves (74.76) and root weight (69.06). lowest estimates of heritability were observed for root-splitting percentage (28.76) and root-to-top ratio (12.48). genetic advance (expressed as percentage of mean) was relatively high for characters like total chlorophyll (77.01), root carotenoids (70.39), leaf carotenoids (46.67), root-forking percentage (36.56) and root weight (23.14). improvement in crop yield depends upon the magnitude of genetic variability available in the breeding material, and the extent to which major yield component traits are heritable from generation to generation. genetic variability can, thus, be a choice for selecting suitable parents. however, quantitative characters are prone to environmental influence, necessitating the partitioning of overall variances as heritable and non-heritable components, for efficient breeding programme (hiremath and rao, 1974). the present study reveals the extent of variability available in the six hybrids collected by us from various sources. the scope for selection through heritability and genetic advance estimates, and, results obtained are discussed hereunder. analysis of variance (anova) revealed significant differences among the six hybrids studied for all the traits under consideration. the results support a selection programme for high root-yield. absolute variability in various characters cannot be considered as a critical factor for deciding upon a character showing the highest degree of variability. relative values of phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation, therefore, give an idea of the magnitude of variability present in a population. as the estimates of genotypic variance, heritability and expected genetic advance are useful for yield improvement, the above values were estimated to assess the scope of improvement in yield in the carrot hybrids studied. measurement of genotypic coefficient of variation is necessary to understand the role of environmental influences on various traits. in the present investigation, the six genotypes exhibited considerable variability for all the fourteen traits studied. variability highest genotypic coefficient of variation was observed during kharif for root-splitting percentage, followed by total chlorophyll, root carotenoids, leaf carotenoids and root-forking percentage. in summer, highest genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for total chlorophyll, followed by root carotenoids, rootsplitting percentage, root-forking percentage and leaf carotenoids. this is in accordance with findings of amin and singla (2010). phenotypic variance or phenotypic coefficient of variation was slightly higher than genotypic variance or genotypic coefficient of variation for all the characters studied, indicating environmental influence to some extent in expression of these characters. similar results were obtained by tewatia and dudi (1999) in carrot, rabbani et al (1998) in radish, and tewatia et al, 2000. low estimates for genotypic coefficient of variation were observed for plant height, root length, inner-core diameter, root diameter and root-to-top ratio in kharif, and, plant height, root length, inner-core diameter, root diameter and root-to-top ratio during summer. in this experiment, our results are in accordance with amin and singla (2010), ullah et al (2010), and tewatia and dudi (1999). table 3. pooled analysis for variability, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean for different parameters in carrot hybrid for 14 characters character genotypic phenotypic heritability genetic coefficient coefficient (%) advance of variation of variation as per cent (gcv %) (pcv %) of mean plant height (cm) 5.54 7.69 52.02 8.24 number of leaves 9.77 11.30 74.76 17.40 leaf width (cm) 6.41 8.56 56.06 9.88 root length (cm) 7.36 8.15 81.61 13.70 root weight (g) 13.51 16.26 69.06 23.14 root diameter (cm) 9.89 11.31 76.56 17.84 inner-core 8.55 13.32 41.27 11.32 diameter (cm) root-to-top ratio 2.26 6.39 12.48 1.64 root splitting % 12.34 23.02 28.76 13.64 root forking % 20.36 23.36 75.99 36.56 total chlorophyll 37.85 38.33 97.53 77.01 (mg/ g) leaf carotenoids 22.66 22.67 99.93 46.67 (mg/ g) root carotenoids 34.18 34.19 99.94 70.39 (mg/ g) yield/ha (tonnes) 8.64 14.20 37.01 10.83 santhi and priya j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):83-87, 2016 87 heritability and genetic advance genotypic coefficient of variation does not give any idea of the total variation heritable. further, it may not be feasible to determine the amount of heritable variation, or the relative degree to which a character is transmitted from a parent to the offspring, by the estimate of heritability. heritability estimate in the broad sense, alone, does not serve as a true indicator of genetic potential of a genotype, since the scope is restricted by the crop’s interaction with the environment. hence, it is advisable to consider the predicted genetic advance as per cent of mean, along with heritability estimate, as a reliable tool in selection programmes (johnson et al, 1955). hence, both heritability and genetic advance (as per cent of mean) are determined, to get a clear picture of the scope for improvement in various characters through selection. in the present study, high heritability was observed for leaf carotenoids, root carotenoids, root weight, innercore diameter, plant height, leaf width, total chlorophyll, number of leaves and root diameter. high heritability in the broad sense indicated that a large proportion of the phenotypic variance was attributable to genotypic variance. differences among genotypes were real, and showed that the above-mentioned traits with high heritability values, were less under the influence of environment. the above findings are in close conformity with brar and sukhija (1981) and tewatia and dudi (1999) who reported a high heritability for leaf length and root weight. high heritability for characters controlled by polygenes could be useful to plant breeders for making an effective selection. genetic advance (expressed as percentage of mean) was relatively high for carotene content in root. these results are in line with findings of amin and singla (2010). low heritability was observed for root length and root-to-top ratio during both the seasons, and genetic advance (expressed as percentage of mean) was relatively low for characters like plant height, root length, root-to-top ratio and inner-core diameter. these results are in line with findings of amin and singla (2010) and ullah et al (2010), and, yadav et al (2009) for root length alone. as the genetic coefficient of variability, phenotypic coefficient of variability and heritability estimates determine the component of heritable variation, and, genetic advance measures the extent of its suitability under selection all the above parameters should be considered simultaneously to bring about effective improvement in yield and other characters in carrot. references amin, a. and j. singla. 2010. genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance studies in carrot (daucus carota var. sativa l.). electronic j. pl. breed., 1:1504-1508 brar, j.s. and sukhija, b.s. 1981. studies on genetic parameters in carrot (daucus carota l.). punjab agri. univ. j. res., 18:281-291 burton, g.w. 1952. quantitative inheritance in grasses. proc. 6th international grassland congress, 1:277283 chopra, r.n. 1933. indigenous drugs of india. the art press, calcutta, india hiremath, k.g. and rao, m.p.g. 1974. genetic variability and correlation studies in solanum melongena l. mysore j. agril. sci., 8:197-202 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soyabean. agron. j., 7:314-318 lush, j.l. 1940. intra series correlation and regression of offspring as a method of estimating heritability characters. proc. amer. soc. anim. prod., 33:295-302 panse, v.g. 1957. genetics of quantitative characters in relation to plant breeding. indian j. genet., 47:318328 rabbani, n.a., murakami, y., kuginuki, y. and takayanagi, k. 1998. genetic variation in radish (raphanus sativus l.) germplasm. genetic resources and crop evolution, 45:307-316 sivasubramanian, s. and menon, p.m. 1973. genotypic and phenotypic variability in rice. madras agril. j., 60:1093-1096 tewatia, a.s. and dudi, b.s. 1999. genetic variability and heritability studies in carrot (daucus carota l.). anna. agril. biol. res., 4:213-14 tewatia, a.s., dudi, b.s. and dahia, m.s. 2000. correlation and path coefficient analysis in carrot at different dates of sowing. haryana j. hortl. sci., 29:217-220 ullah, m.z., hasan, m.j., rahman, a.h.m.a. and saki, a.i. 2010. genetic variability, character association and path coefficient analysis in radish (raphanus sativus l.). the agriculturists, 8:22-27 yadav, m., tirkey, s., singh, d.b., chaudhary, r., roshan, r.k. and pebam, n. 2009. genetic variability, correlation coefficient and path analysis in carrot. indian j. hort., 66:315-318 cultivation of carrot hybrids in nilgiris (ms received 21 february 2015, revised 19 november 2015, accepted 07 january 2016) j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):83-87, 2016 introduction lime fruits are important as these find several uses in culinary, beverage, industry and medicine. the high acceptability is due to their attractive colour and distinctive flavour, and the fact that they are a rich source of vitamin c and also contain vitamin b, pectin, organic acids, minerals and other nutritive substances, required for human health. fruits are perishable and get spoiled in times of a glut in the market. inadequate infrastructure for storage, improper handling of the produce during packaging, transport, storage and marketing also cause considerable losses. thus, retention of quality in fruits for a longer period is one of the most important aspects of post harvest handling and storage. various viable technologies such as use of gamma irradiation, growth retardants, anti transpirants, wax emulsion and oil coating have been used to increase longevity of harvested fruits. in places where refrigeration and storage facilities are not available, protective skin coating is one of the methods for increasing storage life of fresh fruits. keeping the above in view, an experiment was designed to test the effect of post harvest treatments on chemical composition and sensory qualities of kagzi lime fruits. material and methods the present investigation was carried out at the fruit preservation laboratory of the department of effect of post harvest treatment on biochemical composition and organoleptic quality in kagzi lime fruit during storage a. bisen and s. k. pandey department of horticulture college of agriculture jawaharlal nehru krishi vishwavidyalaya, jabalpur – 482 004, india e-mail: abhay_horti@yahoo.co.in abstract the present investigation was carried out to test the efficacy of various post harvest treatments using gamma irradiation, growth retardants and coatings on quality and sensory parameters of kagzi lime under ambient conditions. among various treatments, pure coconut oil coating was very effective as higher tss, acidity, vitamin c, juice content, flavour, appearance and taste were retained during storage. pure coconut oil coated fruits maintained natural light-green colour upto 24 days of storage, which was acceptable to consumers. key words: oil coating, consumer acceptability, organoleptic, kagzi lime, shelf-life, storage period horticulture, college of agriculture, jabalpur. freshly harvested kagzi lime fruits were procured from fruit research station, imalia, jabalpur. fruits were harvested at the physiological mature stage, which was decided on the basis of colour turn in the skin. fresh, fully ripe and uniform fruits were selected, thoroughly washed in tap water and subjected to different treatments, after initial quality analysis and organoleptic evaluation. fruits treated with five doses of gamma radiation (50, 100, 200, 300 and 400 gy), six treatments of growth retardants (mh-250 ppm, 500 ppm, 750 ppm, ccc-250 ppm, 500 ppm, 750 ppm) and three treatments of coating (mustard oil 100%, coconut oil 100%, and, liquid paraffin 100%). observations were recorded at 6, 12, 18 & 24 days of storage. total soluble solids were measured by zeis hand refractometer and values obtained were corrected at 200c. acidity and ascorbic acid content were measured as described by a.o.a.c. (1970). juice content was calculated on volume basis and expressed as per cent. the appearance, taste, flavour and colour of each sample was evaluated by panel of five judges on a scale of 10 marks. the experiment consisted of 15 treatments replicated thrice and laid out in complete randomized design. results and discussion data presented in table 1 clearly indicate that the tss of lime juice was not significantly influenced by different post harvest treatments. tss of the fruit increase j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 53-56, 2008 page 53 54 during storage upto 18 days, and thereafter a slight decline was noticed in all the treatments. increase in tss during storage may be due to water loss in the fruits. the minimum value (8.0%) of tss was observed with mustard oil coating. this may be due to cell death and highly concentrated oil penetration in the nuclei of cells resulting in lower tss percentage in fruits receiving mustard oil coating. similar findings were reported by sindhu and singhrot (1996) in baramasi lemon. maximum (9.9%) tss was recorded in coconut oil coated fruits followed by those coated in liquid paraffin (9.8). this could be due to delay in ripening and senescence. results are in conformity with ei. monem et al (2003) in custard apple and choudhary et al (2004) in kinnow mandarin. data given in table 1 reveal that pure coconut oil coating significantly influenced percentage of juice content as compared to control and all other treatments. although storage period was enhanced to 24 days, it was found that the juice content of fruits decreased in all the treatments. maximum (47.98%) juice content retention in fruits was observed under coconut oil coating, followed by (45.27%) liquid paraffin coating. this may be due to lower water loss. similar findings were made by bhullar (1983) in kagzi lime. the least juice content was found with pure mustard oil coating. this may be due to continuous transpiration from surface of the fruits as a result of higher dehydration and drying of juice due to skin injury. acidity of the fruits increased initially in all the treatments up to 18 days, but thereafter, it decreased up to 24 days of storage (table 1). this decrease in acidity with increasing storage period may be due to utilization of acids during metabolism. minimum acidity (7.01%) was observed in mustard oil coating due to dilution effect of the hydrolysis of acids. maximum acidity (7.25%) was recorded in pure coconut oil followed by liquid paraffin (7.22%) coated fruits after 24 days of storage at room temperature. higher acidity of lime fruits retained under coconut oil coating, followed by liquid paraffin coating may be due to lesser availability of oxygen to fruits in later stages of storage. it appears that an organic acids which participates in the respiratory process is not oxidized, and therefore, their levels remained high. similar result was also obtained by jagadeesh et al (2001) in guava fruits. vitamin c content showed an increasing trend up to 18 days. thereafter, it started decreasing in almost all the treatments (table 1). these results are in conformity with earlier findings of singhrot et al (1987) in baramasi lemon. maximum retention of vitamin c content (35.23 mg/100 ml juice) was recorded in pure coconut oil coating, followed by (33.95 mg/ 100 ml juice) liquid paraffin, which was significantly higher than control. minimum (29.10mg/100ml juice) vitamin c content was recorded under mustard oil coated fruits. coconut oil and liquid paraffin coating helped in reducing the rate of respiration table 1. effect of post harvest treatment on biochemical composition of kagzi lime fruit treatment tss (%) juice content (%) acidity (%) vitamin c (mg/100ml juice) dat dat dat dat 6 12 18 24 6 12 18 24 6 12 18 24 6 12 18 24 control 8.5 8.7 8.9 8.4 35.88 34.46 32.25 31.08 6.48 6.60 7.12 7.03 28.49 29.28 30.46 29.94 50gy 8.6 9.0 9.1 8.5 37.93 35.82 33.94 32.20 6.52 6.62 7.15 7.06 28.51 29.42 30.77 29.98 100 gy 9.7 10.0 10.1 9.5 50.32 47.34 45.64 41.25 6.67 6.83 7.31 7.21 30.88 31.60 34.10 33.64 200 gy 9.4 9.7 9.8 9.3 44.64 41.18 40.39 38.10 6.55 6.67 7.21 7.10 29.40 30.10 32.20 29.75 300 gy 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.3 34.57 32.07 31.12 29.57 6.45 6.58 7.11 7.04 28.60 29.57 31.23 30.19 400 gy 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.2 32.98 31.57 29.06 27.19 6.43 6.55 7.09 7.03 28.26 29.12 30.17 29.56 ccc 250 ppm 9.2 9.6 9.7 9.1 39.24 34.43 35.18 33.94 6.56 6.64 7.20 7.08 28.94 29.50 31.46 30.58 ccc 500 ppm 9.5 9.7 9.9 9.4 46.93 42.67 41.08 39.18 6.60 6.78 7.27 7.18 30.27 30.34 33.33 32.50 ccc 750 ppm 8.9 9.3 9.4 8.8 42.12 40.20 37.63 35.94 6.57 6.70 7.23 7.13 29.76 30.23 32.80 31.40 mh 250 ppm 8.7 9.2 9.3 8.6 40.87 38.75 36.54 35.20 6.53 6.63 7.18 7.07 29.12 29.88 31.76 30.98 mh 500 ppm 9.6 9.8 9.9 9.4 48.45 44.57 42.38 40.37 6.65 6.80 7.20 7.19 30.74 31.10 33.94 32.88 mh 750 ppm 9.1 9.5 9.6 9.0 43.19 40.12 38.94 37.14 6.51 6.74 7.25 7.15 30.56 30.94 33.66 32.75 mustard oil coating 8.1 8.3 8.4 8.0 31.37 29.59 27.42 25.10 6.40 6.55 7.08 7.01 27.92 28.74 29.80 29.10 (100% pure) coconut oil coating 10.1 10.4 10.6 9.9 56.61 54.23 50.78 47.98 6.75 6.93 7.39 7.25 32.49 33.80 36.92 35.23 (100% pure) liquid paraffin 9.9 10.2 10.4 9.8 52.93 50.07 48.34 45.27 6.69 6.87 7.35 7.22 31.32 32.13 34.84 33.95 coating (100%pure) sem+ 0.751 0.766 0.764 0.750 0.572 0.446 0.352 0.577 0.283 0.285 0.290 0.288 0.617 0.515 0.415 0.416 cd at (p=0.05%) ns ns ns ns 1.652 1.291 1.018 1.667 ns ns ns ns 1.783 1.488 1.200 1.201 ns = non significant ;dat= days after treatment j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 53-56, 2008 bisen and pandey 55 and ripening, which resulted in dissipation of ascortic acid into dehydro ascorbic acid during storage. the present findings are in conformity with nagar et al (2004) in kagzi lime fruits. relatively better physical appearance of fruits (9.6%) was observed 18 days storage period with coconut oil coating. at storage period of 24 days, appearance of the fruits was affected adversely in all treatments (table 2). however, maximum appearance acceptability of fruits (8.8%) was obtained under coconut oil coating at 24 days of storage period. this might be due to delay in ripening as well as uniform colour development in fruits under coconut oil coating at this period of storage. similar results were reported by mahajan et al (2005) in kinnow fruits. whereas, minimum acceptability regarding appearance of fruits (2.8%) was observed under mustard oil coating after 24 days of storage. this may be due to wrinkling and softening of fruit tissues by skin injury, which is caused by application of pure mustard oil coating. the highest organoleptic scoring for flavour was recorded under coconut oil coating followed by liqu id paraffin coating under every stage of storage. it might be due to delay in ripening of fruits, which retain the flavour for longer period of time and release pleasant flavour in those fruits were coated with coconut oil. while natural flavour decreased under mustard oil coating. some differences in appearance and flavour were also noted by dalal et al (1987) in baramasi lemon. maximum consumer acceptability for fruit juice was noted under coconut oil coating at 6, 12, 18 and 24 days storage, respectively, followed by liquid paraffin coating. whereas, satisfactory taste of lime juice was not retained under mustard oil coating. when the storage period was increased more than 12 days, it was observed that taste of fruit juice gradually deteriorated under all treatments. on the basis of the findings (table 2) more acceptable taste was noted with coconut oil coating at all the stages of storage period. retention of better taste is due to content of more acidity. these results are in conformity with the findings of naik and rekhade (1994) in ber fruits. coconut oil and liquid paraffin coating of fruits was found to be more effective in maintaining natural light green colour of fruits upto 24 days of storage, and this was acceptable to consumers. it might be due to retardation of senescence process and less degradation in the colour pigments (chlorophyll), which slowed the change in external colour under these treatments. similarly result was obtained by das and medhi (1996) in pineapple fruits, whereas, dark brown colour of fruits was observed with pure mustard oil coating at 24 days of storage. this may be due to skin injury caused by higher concentration of mustard oil coating further causing tissue softening and destruction of colour pigments, leading to a change in external colour of the fruits. similar findings were also reported by dalal et al (1987) in baramasi lemon. table 2. effect of post harvest treatment on organoleptic quality in kagzi lime fruit treatment appearance flavour taste external colour dat dat dat dat 6 12 18 24 6 12 18 24 6 12 18 24 6 12 18 24 control 5.8 6.4 6.7 5.5 5.4 5.8 4.4 3.8 5.4 5.8 4.4 3.8 yg+lg ly+yg lg+lb yb+db 50gy 6.0 6.5 6.9 5.8 5.7 6.0 4.7 4.0 5.7 6.0 4.7 4.0 yg+dg lg+yg dy+yb lb+yb 100 gy 8.5 8.7 8.9 7.8 7.1 7.6 6.9 6.0 7.1 7.6 6.9 6.0 lg+dg ly+yg ly+yg ly+lb 200 gy 7.5 7.9 8.2 6.8 6.7 7.2 6.2 5.2 6.7 7.2 6.2 5.2 yg+dg lg+yg ly+yg ly+lb 300 gy 6.2 6.0 5.6 4.5 5.3 4.7 4.0 3.3 5.3 4.7 4.0 3.3 lg+yg ly+yg lb+ly db 400 gy 5.6 5.2 4.8 3.9 4.9 4.5 3.5 3.0 4.9 4.5 3.5 3.0 lg+yg ly+yg lb+ly db ccc 250 ppm 6.3 6.8 7.1 6.1 5.8 6.1 4.9 4.1 5.8 6.1 4.9 4.1 yg+lg ly+lg ly+lb ly+db ccc 500 ppm 7.8 8.3 8.6 7.2 6.5 7.0 6.4 5.4 6.5 7.0 6.4 5.4 yg+dg ly+yg dy+ly ly+lb ccc 750 ppm 6.7 6.9 7.6 6.5 6.2 6.5 5.5 4.7 6.2 6.5 5.5 4.7 ly+lg lg+yg ly+lb ly+yb mh 250 ppm 6.5 7.0 7.3 6.3 6.0 6.2 5.1 4.4 6.0 6.2 5.1 4.4 yg+lg ly+lg ly+lb ly+db mh 500 ppm 8.2 8.0 8.7 7.5 6.9 7.4 6.7 5.6 6.9 7.4 6.7 5.6 lg+dg ly+yg dy+ly ly+lb mh 750 ppm 6.9 7.2 7.9 6.7 6.4 6.8 5.9 5.1 6.4 6.8 5.9 5.1 ly+lg lg+yg ly+lb ly+yb mustard oil 5.4 4.9 4.1 2.8 4.5 4.1 3.6 2.8 4.5 4.1 3.6 2.8 yg+lb ly+lb lb+db db coating (100% pure) coconut oil 9.1 9.3 9.6 8.8 7.8 8.3 7.3 6.7 7.8 8.3 7.3 6.7 lg+dg lg+dg lg+dg lg+ly coating (100% pure) liquid paraffin 8.8 9.1 9.3 8.4 7.5 7.9 7.1 6.3 7.5 7.9 7.1 6.3 lg+dg lg+dg lg+yg lg+ly coating (100% pure) db= dark brown dg= dark green lg= light greenlb= light brownyg= yellowish green yb= yellowish brown dat= days after treatment j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 53-56, 2008 post harvest treatment and kagzi lime quality 56 references a.o.a.c. 1970. methods of the association of official agricultural chemists. washington, d.c. bhullar, j. s. 1983. storage behaviour of kagzi lime fruits. haryana j. hortl. sci., 12; 5255. chaudhary, m. r., dhaka, r. s. and fageria, m. s. 2004. effect of wax emulsion and gibberellic acid on shelf life and quality of kinnow mandarin fruit during storage. j. udyanika hortl. sci., 10:6-9. dalal, y. b., eipeson, w. e. and singh, n. s. 1987. effect of skin coating emulsion on shelf life of baramasi lemon. proc. fla. sta. hort. society, new york,. pp 205206. das and medhi, 1996. physio-chemical changes of pineapple fruit under certain post-harvest treatments. south ind. hort., 44: 5-7. el. monem a., mestafa and ei-mageed m. a. a. 2003. effect of some post harvest treatments on the storage quality of annona and on its volatile components. ann. agril. sci., cairo., 48 : 757-775. jagadeesh, s. l., rokhade, a. k. and lingaraju, s. 2001. influence of post harvest treatments on storage behaviour of guava fruits cv. sardar. j. mah. sci., 26: 297-300. mahajan, b. y. c., dhatt a. s. and sandhu k. s., 2005. effect of different post harvest treatments on the storage life of kinnow. j. food & tech., 42: 296299. nagar, b. l., dashora l. k. and dhaka, r. s. 2004. effect of different post harvest treatments on shelf life and quality of kagzi lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle). udyanika, 10: 11-17. naik, k. r. and rekhade, a. k. 1994. effect of post harvest treatments on keeping, quality of ber fruits. j. mah. agri. univ., 19:180-183. sindhu, s, s. and singhrot, r. s. 1996. effect of oil emulsion and chemicals on shelf life of baramasi lemon (citrus limon burm). haryana j. hortl. sci., 25: 67--73. singhrot, r. s., sharma, r .k. and sandooja, j. k. 1987. effects of some chemicals enhance shelf life of baramasi lemon. haryana j. hortl. sci., 16: 25-30. j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 53-56, 2008 bisen and pandey (ms received 11 june, 2007, revised 27, november 2007) mango (mangifera indica l.) is one of the most important tropical fruits of india. it is known as king of fruits. it is the premier and choicest fruit of india. in mango production, india ranks first in the world with respect to area (2.20 m.ha) and production (13.79 m.t) with productivity of 6.3 t/ha (indian horticulture database, 2008). mango shares 38 % in area and 21.7% in production of total fruit production of india and this offers bright prospects for boosting the exports. chhattisgarh is one of the important mango growing states of india. most of the area of chhattisgarh is rainfed and has an immense potential to improve the mango production. under chhattisgarh conditions, north indian varieties mature 15 to 20 days earlier, which results in better market price. most of the areas are under mango grown as rainfed; it is therefore proposed to find out the optimum water requirement under drip irrigation for mango and to evaluate its effect on fruit yield & quality. increasing demand for highly efficient irrigation system calls for the use of drip irrigation, which has also been found suitable under adverse conditions of climate, soil and irrigation water (singh et al., 1989). keeping the above in mind, the study was carried out to understand the response of mango to drip irrigation with and without polythene mulch. effect of drip irrigation and polythene mulch on the fruit yield and quality parameters of mango (mangifera indica l.) hemant kumar panigrahi, narendra agrawal, r. agrawal, saket dubey and s.p. tiwari precision farming development centre department of horticulture, indira gandhi krishi vishwavidyalaya raipur – 492 006, india abstract a field experiment was carried out at horticultural research farm, precision farming development centre, department of horticulture, indira gandhi krishi vishwavidyalaya, raipur, chhattisgarh during the year 20092010 in randomized block design with three replications and ten treatment combinations ( 100%, 80%, 60%, and 40% water through drip irrigation system with and without polythene mulch + basin irrigation with and without mulch). fruits characters, yield and yield attributing parameter were higher under drip irrigation with 0.6 v volume of water + polythene mulch (t8) and the same characters were lowest under control (basin irrigation with vvolume of water). application of black plastic mulch with drip irrigation system can conserve moisture, check the growth of weeds and improve the fruit yield and quality. water use efficiency was higher under drip irrigation with 0.6 v volume of water + polythene mulch and low under basin irrigation with v volume of water. the net income and benefit cost ratio was also higher under the treatment t 8 as compared to surface method of irrigation. key words: mango, drip irrigation, mulching layout of experiment the study was a part of field experiment designed to compare drip and conventional method of basin irrigation at precision farming development centre, department of horticulture, indira gandhi krishi vishwavidyalaya, raipur, chhattisgarh during the year 2009-2010. the experiment consisted of using treatments i.e., 100%, 80%, 60% and 40% of water (percentage in respect to water requirement of crop) through drip irrigation system having with and without plastic mulch (100 micron) and a control. the distance between lateral-to-lateral was fixed as 10 m and four emitters of different lph in each plant is placed according to recommended spacing of mango plants (10 m row to row and plant to plant spacing). experiment was conducted on fifteen years old trees of mango cultivar dashehari. the treatments were replicated three times in randomized block design. the soil of experimental field was clay-loam which is locally known as dorsa in the region in which available n, p & k were 321.27, 30.83 and 200.02 kg/ha and soil ph was 7.31. the fertilizer doses of n: p: k 200:200:200 (g/tree/year) was applied through irrigation water (fertigation) in two split doses whereas, for surface irrigation system the fertilizer was sprayed after mixing with water in two split doses. standard cultural practices were j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 140-143, 2010 short communication prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 141 also followed for mango cultivation. the observations on yield and physico-chemical parameters of mango were recorded to know the effect of drip irrigation and mulch. the details of ten treatments are given below: t 1 : basin irrigation with 1.0 v-volume of water (control) t 2 : basin irrigation with 1.0 v-volume of water + polythene mulch t 3 : drip irrigation with 1.0 v-volume of water t 4 : drip irrigation with 1.0 v-volume of water + polythene mulch t 5 : drip irrigation with 0.8 v-volume of water t 6 : drip irrigation with 0.8 v-volume of water + polythene mulch t 7 : drip irrigation with 0.6 v-volume of water t 8 : drip irrigation with 0.6 v-volume of water + polythene mulch t 9 : drip irrigation with 0.4 v-volume of water t 10 : drip irrigation with 0.4 v-volume of water + polythene mulch where v = irrigation water requirement estimation of emission uniformity field emission uniformity takes into account the uniformity of emitter discharge through the system. keller and karmeli (1975) defined the emission uniformity as: average of lowest ¼ flow emission uniformity = —————————— x 100 average of all emitter flow estimation of irrigation water requirement (v) the depth of irrigation water for different treatments was calculated depending on the potential evaporation. reference crop evapotranspiration (et 0 ) was calculated using modified penman method (doorenbos, and pruitt, 1977). the crop co-efficient (kc) for different growth stages of mango was selected. the actual crop evapotranspiration was estimated by multiplying the reference crop evapotranspiration, crop co-efficient, area under each plant and wetting fraction. the quantity of water to be applied was estimated by using the following equation: v = eto x kc x ap – (ap x re) where, v = net depth of irrigation (litre/day/plant) eto = reference crop evapotranspiration (mm/day) kc = crop co-efficient ap = a x w = effective area to be irrigated (sq.m) a = area allocated to each plant, 36 sqm apprx. w = wetting fraction (0.3-0.5 for fruit crop) re = effective rainfall (mm/day). drip irrigation was scheduled on alternate days; hence total quantity of water delivered was cumulative water requirement of two days minus effective rainfall (if rain occurred). the duration of delivery of water to each treatment was controlled with the help of gate valves provided at the inlet of each lateral. in case of basin irrigation, irrigation was scheduled at weekly interval. the cumulative depth of water required for seven days was estimated and supplied to each plant. the water (through surface method of irrigation) was directly applied in the basin with the help of pvc pipes. benefit-cost analysis benefit-cost analysis was carried out to determine the economic feasibility of using the drip irrigation. the interest rate and repair and maintenance cost of the system were 12% and 1% per annum of the fixed cost respectively. the useful life of drip system was considered to be 8 years. the cost of cultivation includes expenses incurred in field preparation, cost of grafted plants, fertilizer, weeding, crop protection, irrigation water and harvesting charges. the income from produce was estimated using prevailing average market price as rs. 2000 /quintal for drip irrigated with polythene mulch, rs. 1500/ quintal for drip irrigated without mulch and rs. 1200/ quintal for surface irrigated, the difference in rates was due to better quality of produce found through drip with mulch as compared to without mulch and surface irrigation. the benefit–cost ratio, from mango cultivation over 1 ha was estimated. the data were analysed statistically as per standard procedure. fruit yield and quality data on yield with different irrigation treatments are presented in table –1. drip irrigation with 60 % v-volume of water + mulch (t 8 ) recorded the maximum yield (59.92 q/ha) as compared to other treatments and the yield was lowest in control (26.95 q/ha). the yield effect of drip irrigation and polythene mulch on mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 140-143, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 142 increase was 122.26% over control. this could be due to the water stress the plant has to undergo before the next irrigation. but in case of drip irrigation water is made available in the root zone there by reducing the water stress pressure directly near (bankar et al, 1993). the variation in water applied for different treatments was due to the variation in pan evaporation and rainfall pattern, as the quantity of water applied was based on pan evaporation. it was observed from the table-1, that drip irrigation treatments with replenishing 60% of water requirement or the depth of water (18.67cm) given to the plant was optimum for the growth and fruit yield as compared to the surface irrigation. water required for drip irrigation was lower than that of surface irrigation. water use efficiency the irrigation water use efficiency for different treatments was computed from fruit yield and water applied (table–1). the irrigation water use efficiency in drip irrigation treatments with 0.6 v-volume of water with polythene mulch was maximum (3.21 q/ha-cm) followed by drip irrigation with 0.4 v (1.75 q/ha-cm), 0.6v (2.29 q/ha-cm) and 0.8 v (1.65 q/ha-cm) volume of water. the water use efficiency was lowest in control treatment (0.98 q/ha-cm). the irrigation water use efficiencies of 60% water through drip with black polythene mulch was nearly 3.27 times the water use efficiencies of surface irrigation treatment. srivastava et al (1999) reported that with the highest water application it recorded the lowest water use efficiency. the emission uniformity was highest under drip irrigation with 0.6 vvolume of water + polythene mulch (95.35%) and lowest in basin irrigation with v-volume of water (85.10%). fruit quality attributes the tss, pulp and moisture content were highest under drip irrigated treatment of 0.6 v volume of water with black polythene mulch and lowest in control. but the peel, stone and acidity were lowest in the same treatment and highest in control, which is better in reference to quality for any fruit crop. patel and patel (1998) reported that the increase in yield was mainly because of better growth, bigger size and more juice content in the fruits under drip-irrigated plants. similarly the weed control percentage was higher under treatment t 8 (90.20%) and lowest in control (13.67%). economic-feasibility maximum net returns of rs. 88,709/ha with b: c ratio of 2.84 was recorded when mango crop were irrigated with 0.6 v-volume of water through drip irrigation + polythene mulch (table–3). however, in drip irrigated polythene mulch treatments t 4, t 6 and t 10, the net returns of rs. 58,709/ha, rs. 74,769/ha and rs. 45,069/ha were obtained with b: c ratio of 1.88, 2.40 and 1.45 respectively. while in case of surface irrigation without mulch the net return of rs. 12,340/ha was lowest with b: c ratio of 0.61. table 1. effect of irrigation levels on the yield and yield parameters of mango treatments water length of breadth no. of av. fruit yield (q/ha) increase water use emission applied fruits of fruits fruits/ weight(g) in yield (%) efficiency uniformity(%) (cm) (cm) (cm) plant (q/ha-cm) t 1 27.50 6.81 4.53 194.31 138.70 26.95 0.98 85.10 t 2 27.28 6.95 4.95 222.67 142.15 31.65 17.43 1.16 85.25 t 3 26.32 6.98 4.04 360.27 125.68 45.27 67.99 1.72 87.24 t 4 25.67 8.71 5.13 293.14 153.25 44.92 66.60 1.75 90.25 t 5 23.95 7.07 4.68 278.71 146.12 40.72 51.12 1.70 90.80 t 6 23.12 8.82 5.24 328.53 161.18 52.95 96.47 2.29 93.12 t 7 23.32 8.01 4.90 239.30 148.19 35.46 31.53 1.52 92.72 t 8 18.67 8.89 5.82 366.17 163.65 59.92 122.26 3.21 95.35 t 9 25.70 8.14 4.45 225.23 141.55 31.88 18.27 1.24 91.43 t 1 0 23.09 8.04 4.85 262.08 145.39 38.10 41.37 1.65 93.40 cd at (p=0.05) 0.954 0.378 0.210 27.96 4.41 1.12 0.102 0.962 table 2. effect of irrigation levels on physico-chemical composition of fruits treatments pulp tss peel stone acidity weed (%) (brix) (%) (%) (%) control (%) t 1 64.25 17.50 19.25 20.32 0.268 13.67 t 2 65.98 19.50 14.68 19.31 0.210 54.35 t 3 67.98 18.50 12.98 19.04 0.230 34.56 t 4 70.33 20.25 14.08 19.00 0.209 65.39 t 5 68.24 19.98 14.70 19.10 0.228 29.62 t 6 71.58 22.65 13.10 15.32 0.190 85.98 t 7 67.95 21.05 13.02 17.06 0.223 32.10 t 8 72.60 23.35 12.95 14.38 0.178 90.20 t 9 64.00 18.98 15.68 16.50 0.216 30.73 t 1 0 61.72 20.98 15.68 15.54 0.226 68.32 cd at 1.42 0.840 0.903 0.945 ns 12.29 (p=0.05) hemant kumar panigrahi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 140-143, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 143 acknowledgement authors are thankful to the national committee on the use of plasticulture application in horticulture (ncpah), department of agriculture and cooperation, ministry of agriculture, government of india for providing the necessary funds to conduct this research. references banker, m.c., mane, m.c., khade, k.k. and kanjle, s.t. 1993. comparative performance of drip vs conventional method of irrigation on banana. procs. all india symposium on sprinkler and drip irrigation, 9-10 iei: 89-92 doorenbos, j. and pruitt, w.o. 1977. guidelines for predicting crop water requirements. fao, irrigation and drainage, paper no. 24, rome, italy keller, j. and karmeli, d. 1975. trickle irrigation design rain bird sprinkler manufacturing company. california, usa patel, n.m. and patel, m.m. 1998. water requirement of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cv. ganesh for better yield under resources limited situations. national seminar on new horizons in production and post harvest management of tropical and subtropical fruits, delhi, dec. 8-9 table 3. cost analysis of mango s.no. particular/treatment t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6 t7 t8 t9 t10 1. fixed costa. cost of system 27,000 27,000 27,000 27,000 27,000 27,000 27,000 27,000 b. life (yrs.) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 c. depreciation 3375 3375 3375 3375 3375 3375 3375 3375 d. interest cost@ 12 % 3240 3240 3240 3240 3240 3240 3240 3240 2. operation coste. repair 2700 2700 2700 2700 2700 2700 2700 2700 & maintenance @ 1 % 3. total operational cost (rs.) 9315 9315 9315 9315 9315 9315 9315 9315 4. a. cost of mulching 7816 7816 7816 7816 7816 b. cost of cultivation 14,000+6,000* 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 14,000 5. total cost of cultivation 20,000 21,816 23,315 31,131 23,315 31,131 23,315 31,131 23,315 31,131 (rs.) 3+4(a+b) 6. yield (q/ha) 26.95 31.65 45.27 44.92 40.72 52.95 35.46 59.92 31.88 38.10 7. selling price (rs./q.) 1200 1200 1500 2000 1500 2000 1500 2000 1500 2000 8. income from produce (rs.) 32,340 37,980 67,905 89,840 61,080 1,05900 53,190 1,19,840 47,820 76,200 9. net return (rs.) 12,340 16,164 44,590 58,709 37,765 74,769 29,875 88,709 24,505 45,069 10. b: c ratio 0.61 0.74 1.91 1.88 1.62 2.40 1.28 2.84 1.05 1.45 * in surface irrigation without mulch labour charges are extra for weeding, fertilizer application etc. singh, s.d. and singh, 1978. value of drip irrigation compared with conventional irrigation for vegetable production in hot and arid climate. agron., 70 : 23-27 singh, r.k., sulieman, a.d. and karim 1989. movement of salt and water under trickle irrigation and its field evaluation. j. agric. engg., 26: 49-51 sivanappan, r.k. 1993. increased production and income in banana crop through drip irrigation-a case study. technical journal, all india symp. on spriakla and drip irrigation iei, 21 jan: 105-106, 112 srinivas, k. and hedge, d.m. 1990. drip irrigation studies in banana. procs. xi international congress. pp. 151-157 subramanian, p., krishnaswamy, s. and devasagayam, m.m. 1997. studies on the evaluation of drip irrigation in comparison with surface irrigation in coconut. south ind. hort., 45: 255-58 srivastava, p.k., parikh, m.m., sawani, n.g. and raman, s. 1999. response of banana to drip irrigation, mulches and irrigation scheduling in south gujarat. agril. engg. today, 23 : 29-38 *wolf, p.1982. zwei jahrzehnte tropfbewasserungeiner zwishenbilanz, zeitshrift far, bewasserungswirtschaft, 17: 3-16 (ms received 10 august 2010, revised 22 december 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 140-143, 2010 effect of drip irrigation and polythene mulch on mango prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color 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cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no problems and prospects of banana breeding in india n. kumar department of fruit crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, periyakulam-625 604, tamil nadu, india e-mail : kumarhort@yahoo.com abstract banana breeding programme in india involves maintenance of various genetic resources of banana, of which triploids constitute the maximum share over diploids or tetraploids. rapd studies conducted in these clones exhibit many distinct genotypes. during a hybridization programme, although many crosses were made, seed set and seed germination were relatively poor in many crosses. male fertility in banana hybrids could be assessed by pollen output per anther; pollen viability and pollen size, which vary from cross to cross, and also from ploidy to ploidy. ploidy levels in hybrids are estimated by phenotypic appearance (scoring technique) and confirmed either by stomatal density, size and number of chloroplast per guard cell pair or root tip mitosis. however, flow cytometry appears to be the most reliable method in many disputed cases. generation of parthenocarpic hybrids depends largely upon selection and utilization of parents with parthenocarpic pedigree in a breeding programme. evaluation of hybrids and parents indicated the nature of inheritance with respect to plant height and suckering habit but no definite trend could be ascribed to the traits of bunch orientation. diploid x diploid breeding approach has led to identification of a superior triploid hybrid, nph 02-01, while triploid (with ab) x diploid approach has led to the development of a promising diploid hybrid h.212 and a triploid hybrid h.96/7 (abb). similarly, the triploid x diploid breeding programme resulted in development of many potential tetraploids that need further improvement. innovative breeding approaches through in vitro mutation breeding and in vitro polyploidazation resulted in the development of many potentially useful variants. breeding for resistance against biotic stresses such as fusarium wilt and nematodes holds promise in banana, and, biochemical mechanisms for resistance in resistant genotypes / hybrids have been elucidated. key words: banana, breeding, india, problems, prospects introduction banana is one of the most important fruit crops of india grown over an area of about 0.49 million hectares, annually producing about 11 million tonnes which account for 44.35 % of the total national fruit production. poovan (mysore -aab), cavendish cultivars (robusta and dwarf cavendish – aaa), silk (rasthali-aab), karpooravalli (pisang awak-abb) and virupakshi (aab), ‘nendran’ (plantain aab) and ney poovan (ab) are the important cultivars grown commercially in india. as banana production is limited by threat from pests and diseases, banana breeding was also started in india in line with that in other countries such as honduras, cameroon, brazil, etc. the breeding programme initiated at the then central banana research station, aduthurai, during 1949 in tamil nadu state, was the earliest among systematic banana improvement efforts in india. the tamil nadu agricultural university (tnau) at coimbatore, since its formation in 1971, is vigorously and actively pursuing musa improvement programmes. similarly, banana research station (brs), kannara, kerala agricultural university (kau) is also engaged in banana improvement and is concentrating on the improvement of ‘nendran’. besides, national research centre on banana (nrcb) (icar), trichy, established in 1994, is also involved in crop improvement in banana. in this paper, problems and prospects of banana breeding in india are highlighted. genetic resources in musa the breeding programme started as early as 1949 at aduthurai did not yield desirable results. however, a lot of cytogenetical information useful for formulating better strategies for musa improvement programmes was j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 focus accumulated (anon, 1968). detailed investigations on morphological characters and taxonomic status of south indian banana were earlier published by venkataramani (1949) and jacob (1952). several south indian banana were found to be more closely related to m. balbisiana than m. acuminata as revealed by the metroglyph (raman et al, 1968). bhakthavatsaulu and sathiamoorthy (1979) and sathiamoorthy et al (1979) also elaborated upon the genomic status and breeding potential of many south indian banana. many centres in india maintain the various genetic resources (table 1), which reveal that many clones available are triploid, and that too, under ‘aab’ category. as many synonyms exist for each clone and are differently named at various regions, much confusion prevails on the nomenclature of banana clones. in this situation, molecular characterization helps to identify clones unambiguously. molecular characterization of different clones has been attempted by various authors in india. jagannath et al (2003) characterized many aa and ab diploids using rapd markers. an overall similarity of 63% was found among the diploid cultivars. greater diversity was seen within the aa group than within the ab group. many natural mutants, such as ‘ambala kadali’, ‘erachi vazhai’, ‘thattila kunnan’, ‘vennetu kunnan’ and ‘rasa kadali’ showed significant variation from their parental genotypes (fig 1). rekha et al (2004) made an attempt to study the variability between the 17 ab cultivars available at indian institute of horticulture research, bangalore by using rapd markers. of the 80 primers that were screened, 16 table 1. musa genetic resources available at various centres in india (%) aa 9 7 15 9 1 5 8 ab 7 10 25 8 2 5 8 bb 6 2 20 1 4 2 aaa 14 10 16 21 12 12 aab 25 28 13 30 36 24 40 abb 25 30 20 28 31 22 21 aaaa 1 1 5 2 2 3 others 13 12 2 6 3 32 6 number of accessions 942 125 69 51 75 74 121 fig 1. dendrogram of diploid cultivars of banana j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 78 genome kau, kannara gau, gandevi, gujarat rau, pusa, bihar brs, kovvur (ap) iihr, bangalore tnau, coimbatore nrcb, trichy showed polymorphism. scorable polymorphic bands were analysed using cluster analysis and principal component analysis. results showed that there were two distinct clusters separating the ney poovan types and kunnan types. variability, attributed to somaclonal variation and natural mutations, was also observed in each group. menon et al (2003) assessed genetic diversity in 35 morphologically distinct indigenous banana cultivars representing five genomic groups, viz., aa, ab, aaa, aab and abb available at the genebank of kannara (kau), employing rapd analysis and found that the cultivars were grouped in clusters that generally represented the taxonomic classification based on morphological characters. cluster analysis among ‘b’ genome rich accessions of banana at nrcb, trichy (annual report, 2004-05) was done with bluggoe (abb), monthan (abb) and peyan (abb) and two sub-clusters were observed under each type. crossing technique pollinations are generally carried out between 7.00 and 10.00 a.m. undehisced anthers from male flowers are collected and twisted gently to force them to dehisce. using a soft sable hair brush, pollen grains are prised out and smeared gently over the stigmatic surface of those female flowers that open on the day of pollination. pollinated flowers are covered with a soft-cloth bag. seed set and germination unlike in other crops, seed set is very low in many varieties of banana. on hybridization the seed yield is reported to be influenced by time of pollination, fertility variations between basal and distal hands, the apical bias within a fruit (shepherd, 1960) and genomic make up (simmonds, 1962). most of the seeds (74.9%) are found in the distal one-third of the fruit bunch, 20.9 % in mid onethird and the rest (4.2%) in the proximal or basal one-third. using ‘matti’ as the female parent and seven diploids as male parents, 368 crosses were made but only 66 hybrids were obtained (sathiamoorthy, 1987). krishnamoorthy (2001) on the other hand crossed 7830 flowers and obtained a total seed yield of 1096 of which 91.5 % were good seeds while the rest were empty floats or bad (as designated by shepherd, 1960). among the various combinations such as aa x aa, ab x aa, and 3x x 2x crosses, he found that, in general, ab x aa crosses yielded more seed compared to the rest of the cross combinations, and, very low seed set in aa x aa crosses. this might be due to the fact that increase in balbisiana genome increased seed yield and factors for seed sterility increased with acuminata genome. climatic factors are also known to decide success of pollination and seed set in banana. krishnamoorthy (2001) observed that one of the reasons for obtaining relatively higher number of hybrids in his study might be the time of germination i.e., february to march under coimbatore conditions since, during this season, bright sunny weather and cooler nights prevail. seeds can be mechanically extracted from ripe fruits. the seeds are soaked in water for a week before sowing in seed pans kept in a mist chamber. germination is low and erratic, both during winter and warmer months (may-june). pollen fertility pollen fertility is an important factor for a clone to be used as the male parent in a hybridization programme. male fertility in banana clones / hybrids is assessed by pollen output per anther, pollen viability and pollen grain size. studies on pollen production and male fertility status of several clones by sathiamoorthy (1973, 1987) revealed the diploid aa cultivars ambalakadali, erachivazhai, pisang lilin and tongat to be more polleniferous than the triploids aaa, aab and abb. krishnamoorthy (2002) assessed male fertility in many newly developed hybrids and found that diploid progenies generally produced good pollen grains with stainability and germinability and were good enough to be considered as potential parents. further, he also found that lack of pollen production identified in some ab and aa hybrids was due to meiotic aberrations, confirming that male sterility in musa is not exclusive to triploids. damodaran (2004) assessed male fertility in ‘peykunnan’ derived hybrids and found that ‘peykunnan’ had poor male fertility but high female fertility, whereas, the reverse was true in the case of pollen parents pisang lilin and erachi vazhai. hence, the presence of high female and male fertility in ‘peykunnan’ derived crosses might be due to inheritance of these traits from their female and male parents respectively. sathiyamoorthy et al (1979) and krishnamoorthy (2002) found no consistence relationship between stainability and germinability values. it is obvious that acetocarmine staining of pollen is not a reliable index of fertility, since acetocarmine stains only the cytoplasm of the pollen grains as living or dead (vakil, 1958). evaluation of male fertility status of bananas based j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 banana breeding in india 79 on pollen size would be of considerable importance, as, the potential of a male parent depends on the quantum of fertile haploid spores it can produce. dodds (1943) reported, based on darlinton’s (1937) ratio of haploid, diploid and tetraploid spores, that in a banana the pollen diameter of 129.00 µm or less is haploid, 147.60 µm is diploid and 230.00 to 240.00 µm is tetraploid, whereas, sathiamoorthy (1987) arrived at the mean diameter of haploid, diploid and tetraploid pollen grains as 122.10, 139.20 and 222.22 µm, respectively, under coimbatore conditions. this brings out the fact, that in banana, pollen diameter is influenced by environment too. krishnamoorthy (2002) found that diploid hybrids produced 56.65 % pollen grains with a mean diameter of 101.12 µm, and 96.88 % of pollen grains had a diameter of 65.20 to 121.70 µm and these correspond to the haploid size mentioned by sathiamoorthy (1987). diploid hybrids / parents produced the maximum percent of haploid pollen grains (table 2) indicating their potential for use as male parents. table 2. haploid, diploid and tetraploid spores produced (%) by banana clones (based on darlington’s ratio) (sathiamoorthy, 1987) clone type haploid diploid tetraploid wild species 61.7 – 70.3 – – diploid cultivars 22.1 – 61.0 4.0 – 26.2 – triploids (aaa) 7.3 – 32.0 5.8 – 16.5 1.2 – 4.0 (aab) 10.0 – 20.0 12.0 – 20.0 2.7 – 13.3 (abb) 4.0 – 28.0 3.5 – 12.0 0 – 4.5 tetraploids 1.7 – 9.5 11.0 – 28.3 – krishnamoorthy (2002) also found that some synthetic triploid hybrids produced more than 50 % haploid pollen grains as; these can be used as male parents in future programmes. he also found that some tetraploid hybrids derived from ‘karpooravalli’ as female parent produced more than 90 % diploid pollen grains offering greater scope for use as the male parent in crossing programmes. ploidy assessment of hybrids studying ploidy levels of hybrids obtained from different cross combinations is a must in banana breeding because of potential production of diploid, triploid, tetraploid, hyperploid and aneuploid hybrids. ploidy levels are estimated by phenotypic appearance and confirmed either by root tip mitosis or stomatal density, size and number of chloroplast per guard cell pair. sathiyamoorthy (1973) and vandenhout et al (1995) classified banana clones into diploids, triploids and tetraploids based on stomatal density and stomatal size, respectively, as indicated below: ploidy level stomatal density stomatal size (mm2) sathiamoorthy (1973) vandenhout et al (1995) diploid 40.0 – 50.0 1250 triploid 30.0 – 40.0 1250 – 1840 tetraploid 9.0 – 15.2 1840 krishnamoorthy (2002), while assessing the ploidy status in his hybrids, found that stomatal density in different ploidy levels did not concur with the reports of sathiamoorthy (1973). hence, the range of stomatal density of respective ploidy parents was taken as the criterion for ploidy assessment. based on this criterion, all the diploid hybrids were found to fall in the range of parental diploids, whereas a few diploids, triploids and tetraploids exceeded the range. hence, stomatal size as well as number of chloroplast per guard cell pair was also taken as criteria. however, stomatal size in the exceeded diploid, triploid and tetraploids was found to be in the ranges observed in parental diploid, triploid as well as tetraploids. but, in respect of chloroplast number per guard cell pair, most of the diploids fell within the range of diploid parents or triploid parents. vandenhout et al (1995) observed that a high density of small stomata correlated with low ploidy level. besides stomatal size and density were also influenced by genotype effect within the same ploidy level. similarly, the chloroplast numbers in guard cell pair was influenced by ploidy level i.e, it increased with increase in ploidy level. root tip mitosis study is considered as one of the reliable methods or confirming ploidy status in banana. krishnamoorthy (2002) carried out root tip mitosis in all the 36 parthenocarpic hybrids to confirm the ploidy of each hybrid assessed by stomatal characters. the ploidy level of 34 hybrids was in accordance with ploidy level assessment based on stomatal characters. one of the hybrids, h-02-01, which had stomatal characters similar to that of tetraploids, had only 22 chromosomes, i.e., a diploid. another hybrid, h-02-21, did not fall under any of the ploidy ranges of parental cultivars-either triploid or tetraploid-but root mitosis confirmed it as a tetraploid. this serves as a caution to banana breeders to confirm the ploidy of any new hybrid by root mitosis as well. flow cytometry analysis is considered as the most superior and reliable method to confirm ploidy status, especially, in the case of most disputed cases, because of its precision, rapidity and it does not require dividing cells. precision is higher here because of analysis of the nuclear dna itself, which is least disturbed by environmental factors (dolezel et al, 1997). young cigar leaves of selected j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 80 hybrids are analysed for their ploidy level by measuring the size of nuclear genome by this high-throughput method. the cigar leaves were cut using a sharp sterile blade for a length of 15-20 cm, cleaned gently with sterile distilled water and wrapped with partially wetted sterilized whatman no. 3 filter paper. the samples were then packed in zipped polyethylene covers and sent to the laboratory of molecular cytogenetics and cytometry, czech republic, for ploidy analysis. flow cytometry ploidy assay involved preparation of suspensions of intact nuclei from small amounts of leaf tissue and the analysis of fluorescence intensity after staining with dapi. chicken red blood cell (crbc) nuclei were included in every sample as an internal reference standard. ploidy of individual plant was estimated based on the ratio of peaks corresponding to g1 nuclei of musa and crbc. damodaran (2004) employed this method for the first time in banana hybrids in india to confirm ploidy status of some hybrids. results indicated that two hybrids, viz., nph-02-01 and h-02-08, of doubtful ploidy status, were confirmed as triploids (aab), instead of diploids, as evident through stomatal density analysis and morphological scoring (fig 2, table 3). at nrcb, trichy , too, this method was employed to confirm ploidy status of 36 ambiguous accessions of banana. evaluation of hybrids for parthenocarpy although success in banana breeding depends on production of seed upon crossing, hybrids should be parthenocarpic to find acceptance as edible banana. sathiamoorthy (1987) evaluated 66 hybrids and found that only 23 were parthenocarpic and observed that a high degree of parhenocarpy, to an extent, suppresses seed set, although parthenocarpy and fertility are reported to be genetically independent characters. krishnamoorthy (2002) and krishnamoorthy and kumar (2005) subjected all the hybrids to assessment for parthenocarpy by bagging the female flowers. out of 312 seedlings evaluated, only 36 hybrids were found to be parthenocarpic (table 4). among these 36 hybrids, higher rates (by number) of parthenocarpic hybrids were obtained from diploid x diploid and triploid x triploid crosses. in crosses between h 201 and aa diploids (i.e., diploid x diploid), many hybrids were found to be nonparthenocarpic by krishnamoorthy (2002) indicating the table 3. confirmation of ploidy through flow cytometry hybrid / parent parentage ploidy status determined by morphological scoring stomatal density flow cytometry nph.02.01 h.201 x anaikomban 42 (aab) 3x 55.53 (2x) aab (3x) h.02.08 h.201 x erachi vazhai 46 (ab) 72.30 (ab) aab (3x) h.03.11 h.02.32 x pisary lilin 54 (aabb) 4x 46.05 (aabb) 4x 4x h.03.13 peykannan x erachi vazhai 56 (aabb) 4x 13.16 (aabb) 4x 4x h.03.15 h.02.32 x pisang lilin 42 aab (3x) (12.76 (aab) (3x) 3x banana breeding in india 81 nph 02-01 h-02-08 fig 2. flow cytometry analysis of selective banana hybrids for ploidy confirmation relative dna content n u m b er o f n u cl ei j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 influence of female parent, which is highly female fertile because of the influence of b genome contained in it. from the pedigree of hybrid h 201, when traced back, it was evident that one of its parents, cv. barelichina (abb) used as female parent, had contributed to the non-parthenocarpic nature. in this background, it may be inferred that the parthenocarpic hybrids obtained from crosses involving h 201 and diploid parents, or, in other crosses involving diploid parents, might be due to a series of complementary dominant genes which were derived from edible natural diploids, which are variously heterozygous in their genetic composition for these genes. from the breeding point of view, it is an important consideration, as, parthenocarpic progenies could be readily sorted out in a population from crosses involving these diploid parents. in the case of triploid x diploid crosses, out of four parthenocarpic hybrids (table 4), one (h-02-16) was found to be triploid with aab while all other hybrids were found to be tetraploid with aabb genome. the triploid hybrid could have arisen from an egg containing ab genome from ‘karpooravalli’ and one ‘a’ genome from pisang lilin, while, rest of the tetraploids could have arisen from unreduced gametes of abb combining with one ‘a’ genome from the male parent. in the case of triploid ´ triploid crosses (excepting h-02-20 and h-02-24), all were found to be tetraploids with aabb genome, thus again revealing the ability of ‘karpooravalli’ to produce unreduced gametes/egg cells to combine with ‘a’ genome from the triploid (red banana / robusta). puskaran (1991) also obtained 32 tetraploid hybrids using ‘karpooravalli’ as the female parent with pisang lilin, indicating the ability of ‘karpooravalli’ to produce unreduced egg cell during megasporogenesis. damodaran (2004), on the other hand, found that all the hybrids were parthenocarpic. selection and utilization of parents with parthenocarpic pedigree in the breeding programme might have contributed to enhanced parthenocarpy occurrence as he used all the parthenocarpic hybrids of krishnamoorthy (2002) for further improvement. it also confirms the role of dominant genes in controlling parthenocarpy (simmonds, 1953). two of the 25 hybrids, viz., nph-02-01 and nph02-02 which were found to be non-parthenocarpic in phase i generation by krishnamoorthy (2002) were, however, found to be parthenocarpic in phase ii evaluation by damodaran (2004). this suggests the possibility of reversion of non-parthenocarpy to parthenocarpy in some cases. reversion of gene for parthenocarpy to nonparthenocarpy in the first vegetative generation was earlier reported by simmonds (1953). this peculiar phenomenon should serve as a caution to banana breeders to carefully consider potential non-parthenocarpic hybrids lest they revert to parthenocarpy in subsequent vegetative generations. evaluation of hybrid seedlings apart from parhenocarpiness, hybrids need to be evaluated for desirable horticultural traits. the evaluation consists of phase i (seed to harvest stage) and phase ii (sucker to harvest stage). the full inherent potential of hybrids cannot be derived from the phase i as it is seed propagated and, therefore, it takes relatively more time for corms to develop from seeds. hence, evaluation of the phase ii sucker propagated hybrids is essential to assess the plant’s fullest potential (sathiamoorthy, 1987; krishnamoorthy, 2002). krishnamoorthy (2002) observed that hybrids involving dwarf parents, such as h 201 and or pisang lilin, were also dwarf. this indicates that the gene for dwarfness was derived either from h 201 or pisang lilin. it is also interesting to note that h 201 had one of the parents as pisang lilin and, hence, pisang lilin is the source of dwarf gene. ortiz and vuylsteke (1995) suggested that dwarf hybrids could easily be produced if only dwarf diploid male parents with better horticultural qualities were involved in the breeding programme. the importance of dwarfness as indicated by simmonds (1966) was the advantage conferred by it in terms of higher yields at high densities, enhanced weed control, reduced sucker pruning, less damage from table 4. ploidy distribution in hybrids obtained from various cross combinations name of the cross no. of no. of no. of hybrids parthenocarpic non-parthenocarpic obtained 2x 3x 4x 5x hybrids hybrids diplod x diploid 257 196 (76.27) 55 (21.40) 6 (2.39) 15 (5.84) 242 (94.16) triploid x diploid 12 1 (15.39) 12 (76.92) 4 (30.77) 8 (61.54) triploid x triploid 42 1 35 (83.33) 6 (16.67) 17 (40.48) 25 (59.52) figures in parantheses indicate % hybrid recovery j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 82 no. of hybrids in each ploidy level wind and easy harvest. krishnamoorthy (2002) observed tetraploids to be always very tall (fig 3 ). damodaran (2004) observed the segregation pattern of height of the progenies of h-02-32 (aabb) x pisang lilin (aa) which ranged from as dwarf as 149 cm to as high as 411 cm. this indicated that hybrids segregated for dwarf and tall stature of plants. the possibility of obtaining dwarf hybrids stems from the fact that dwarfism in banana is controlled by a recessive gene (ortiz and vuyletske, 1996) which should have been derived from dwarf parent pisang lilin. in rest of the crosses, the height of the progenies was over 400 cm, indicating tallness to be dominant and the recessive gene from the ‘a’ genome of pisang lilin could not express itself in tetraploid hybrids. in musa, suckering behaviour is influenced by apical dominance. inhibition of lateral bud growth due to growth substances released by the terminal bud has been considered as a limiting factor for perennial productivity (ortiz and vuylsteke, 1996). krishnamoorthy (2002) found that the mean number of suckers per mat in diploid hybrids was more than in triploid or tetraploid hybrids. even in diploid aa x diploid aa crosses, the number of suckers per mat was more (9.00) than in diploid ab x diploid aa crosses (7.00). damodaran (2004), on the other hand, found that the number ranged from two to four in diploids, seven to eight in triploids and five to eleven in tetraploids. this indicates that tetraploids of the present cross combination had higher suckering ability than diploids, a trait otherwise not common among diploids. better suckering ability in tetraploids may be attributed to heterotic vigour manifested in the 3n x 2n crosscombination. the hybrids h-03-07 and h-03-06 produced only one and two suckers, respectively, while the other hybrids from the same parents produced more number of suckers. this might be due to the poor penetration of the “ad” allele or due to the variable expressivity of the allele. the “ad” gene has incomplete penetrance, genetic specificity and variable expressivity (ortiz and vuylsteke, 1994). bunch orientation is an important trait in plantain and banana. pendulous bunches are more symmetrical than sub-horizontal or oblique and horizontal or erect bunches and are, therefore, better suited for transportation. studies by krishnamoorthy (2002) and damodaran (2004) revealed that inheritance of bunch orientation character is a complex trait and needs further systematic investigation (table 5). the duration of hybrids as assessed by days to flowering, filling and harvest varied widely within and between cross combinations in banana. total duration varied from 268 to 716 days in hybrids (krishnamoorthy, 2002). diploids had shorter duration, while tetraploids had a longer duration. wherever a long duration parent viz., ‘karpooravalli’ was involved, hybrids invariably had longer duration. this suggests that to breed varieties for shorter duration, the progenies need to be further backcrossed to shorter duration parents only. diploid breeding banana breeding is essentially a diploid breeding. the long-held conclusion of dodds (1943) that progress is dependent on breeding superior diploids and, then, selecting new commercial hybrids from tetraploids derived from crossing these diploids onto ‘gros michel’, was based on table 5. expression of bunch hang traits in banana hybrids name of the hybrid / genome bunch hang parent bunch hang parent bunch hang parent h.02.027 (aabb) p karpooravalli (abb) o red banana (aaa) p h.02.25 (aabb) h karpooravalli (abb) o red banana (aaa) p h.02.26 (aabb) o karpooravalli (abb) o red banana (aaa) p h.02.06 (ab) p h.201 (ab) h anaikomban o h.02.09 (ab) h h.201 (ab) h pisang 4 lin h h.02.11 (ab) o h.201 (ab) h h.110 h p : pseudoutous orientation, h : horizontal orientation, o : oblique orientation j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 banana breeding in india 83 tetraploid h-02-30 karpooravalli x red banana height : 490 cm girth : 105 cm no. of roots : 288/mat bunch not supported fig 3. a tall statured tetraploid hybrid (aabb) historical limitations of diploid accessions. these accessions (in all the germplasm collections) are agronomically so inferior that there was little expectation that diploids with adequate bunch sizes could be developed from breeding them. the continuous, primary emphasis in breeding has been to develop diploids with desirable agronomic qualities and, then, to cross theses agronomically improved hybrids with disease-resistant clones to synthesize diploids with combinations of agronomic excellence and disease resistance. diploid breeding at tnau, coimbatore, primarily involved the use of vars. anaikomban, namarai, erachi vazhai, pisang lilin and tongat (all aa) as male parents with matti (aa) as the female parent (sathiamoorthy et al, 1979, 1988) led to development of potential synthetic diploid hybrids (table 6). many of the synthetic diploids have been found to have good resistance to burrowing nematode, sigatoka leaf spot and fusarium wilt. cultivar matti showed higher female fertility than other diploids which were generally female sterile. a plausible explanation for high seed fertility of matti could be attributed to its localised cultivation in kanyakumari district of tamil nadu near the foot hills of southern travancore wherein, even now, its wild ancestor m. acuminata sub sp. burmanica could be traced. this wild species is highly female fertile and is self propagated through seeds. matti would have arisen as a clonal selection for parthenocarpic type from this wild species while probably retaining the seed fertility trait. development of potential synthetic diploid hybrid h 201(ab) robusta as male parent has been used almost simultaneously and independently in honduras and india. it readily crossed with both m. acuminata and m. balbisiana. hybrid progenies were also obtained when it was crossed with a synthetic tetraploid of aabb genome (bareli chinia x pisang lilin). except for one diploid, all the progenies consisted of non-parthenocarpic diploids. the parthenocarpic diploid hybrid, designated as h 201, was of the genome ab and was dwarf, non-polleniferous but highly seed fertile and exhibited high resistance to panama wilt, nematodes and sigatoka diseases (sathiamoorthy, 1987). its use in evolving new aab or abb forms appears to be worthwhile. diploid x diploid breeding approaches although extensive inter-diploid crosses were made at tnau, coimbature since 1971, with the primary objective of synthesizing new diploid forms as stated earlier, hybridisation work did not always result in pure diploid progenies. frequently, due to single and double restitution, occurrence of triploid and penta polyploids was also encountered among hybrids the generated (table 4). however, production of triploid hybrids through 2x x 2x breeding approaches will be very useful. krishnamoorthy (2002) crossed h 201 (ab) x anaikomban (aa) to develop new triploid combination viz., nph-02-01 (aab) (fig 4) which is a pome type, parthenocarpic, resistant to fusarium wilt (race 1) and nematodes (fig 5) and possesses desirable horticultural table 6. potential synthetic diploid hybrids developed at tamil nadu agricultural university using matti (aa) as female parent hybrids ploidy height number of bunch tss duration reaction to reaction to level (cm) suckers / mat weight (kg) (%) (days) sigatoka burrowing nematode h 21 2x 302 15.0 105 20.0 339 r hr h 59 2x 280 6.1 19.3 26.3 320 r r h 65 2x 355 9.3 17.8 19.5 327 hr r h 82 2x 301 6.7 8.3 20.5 350 s h 89 2x 301 18.4 12.3 24.0 372 r h 103 2x 303 10.0 16.7 27.1 333 hr h 109 2x 311 17.6 20.7 23.7 369 r r hr: highly resistant, r: resistant, s: susceptible j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 84 h-201 anai komban ank(t)8 nph-02-01 x fig 4. pedigree of hybrid nph 02-01 traits such as better bunch weight (19.00 kg) and 11.00 hands. this hybrid is now under multi-locational testing in different parts of tamil nadu. triploid x diploid breeding approaches the ‘pome’ cultivars are usually grown in cool, mid hill ranges of tamil nadu where they develop their characteristic flavour and taste. an attempt was made to improve a pome cultivar called ‘kallar ladan’. one of the ab hybrids from the cross kallar ladan (aab) x m. balbisiana clone sawai (bb) was used to cross with cultivar kadali (aa) to develop an aab hybrid. this was later released for commercial cultivation as co 1 banana (azhakiamanavalan et al, 1985). this belongs to ‘pome group’ and closely resembles virupakshi (aab), another popular ‘pome’ banana in the hills of tamil nadu. plants of co1 are medium tall (2.7 m). the bunch weighs 10.5 kg on an average with 7 hands and 80-85 fruits. fruits have tss of 22-24°brix. crop duration is 14 15 months. just before full ripening, fruits exhibit acidic taste but become sweet at full ripening. triploid x diploid breeding attempted at kau also led to the release of two hybrids, viz., brs-1 (agniswar x pisang lilin) and brs – 2 (vannan x pisang lilin). brs-1 (aab) is 100 days earlier than rasthali with significant difference in bunch weight. it has been released for homestead cultivation in kerala as it is resistant to sigatoka table 7. performance of triploid and tetraploid hybrids obtained from ‘karpooravalli’ (aab) crosses hybrid male parent bunch wt (kg) no. of fingers tss (obrix) total crop duration reaction to nematodes h 212 pisang lilin (aa) 12.52 160 31.00 363 tolerant h 02-21 red banana (aaa) 18.00 192 19.20 458 resistant h 02-34 red banana (aaa) 15.00 116 18.50 550 resistant leaf spot. brs-2 (aab) is a medium statured hybrid, tolerant to leaf spot and panama diseases, rhizome weevil and nematodes. the average bunch weight is 14 kg, with 8 hands and 118 fruits in a crop duration of 314 days. this suggests that triploid x diploid approach to breeding is a viable method to produce new hybrid combinations. in this direction, krishnamoorthy (2002) took up hybridisation between triploid parents ‘karpooravalli’, ‘red banana’, ‘nendran’ and rasthali with already identified, potential male diploids / synthetic diploids. among the triploid female parents, higher seed-set as obtained with ‘karpooravalli’ while the remaining commercial triploids ‘rasthali’ (aab), ‘red banana’ (aaa) and ‘nendran’ (aab) did not set seed. presence of female fertility in aab genome group of plantains has been reported in some african countries where high rainfall with high relative humidity may have favoured pollen germination and fertilization (swennen and vuylsteke, 1993 and vuylsteke et al. (1993). therefore, the climate of coimbatore where relative humidity is generally not very high may be a possible cause for poor or nil fertility in ‘rasthali’ (aab) and ‘nendran’ (aab). the stigmas in female flowers of these cultivars were dry and completely blackened on crossing, indicating that female flowers are not compatible for hybridisation. similarly, though the stigma of red banana showed stickiness indicating receptivity, it could not set any seed under coimbatore conditions. it may be due to post-pollination incompatibility. in contrast, karmacharya et al (1992) reported maximum seed production in agniswar, a synonym for red banana under kerala conditions. this indicates the influence of climate on fertilization and development of embryos. this poses a challenge to breeders to attempt induce female fertility by some means in clones that are otherwise female sterile. triploid x diploid breeding sometimes produces promising diploids too (table 7). the hybrid h-212 (fig.6), a diplod (ab), resembles ney poovan (ab) and possesses resistance to nematodes and sigatoka leaf spot. hence, this hybrid has been tested with ney poovan (table 8) and found to be promising. hence, this hybrid is also under multilocation testing now. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 banana breeding in india 85 corm damage lesion symptoms nph-02-01 c.s of roots nendran nph-02-01 fig 5. nph-02-01 hybrid corm and roots exhibiting no damage by nematodes table 8. comparative performance of h.212 vs cv. ney poovan trait h-212 ney poovan genome ab ab male parent pisang lilin height (cm) 311 360 girth (cm) 66 85 bunch weight (kg) 13 10 number of fingers 160 130 tss (%) 31 26 total duration (days) 363 335 reaction to nematodes tolerant susceptible further, 3n x 2n breeding programme at tnau resulted in identification of a promising hybrid designated as 96/7 (fig 7). this was evolved by crossing ‘karpooravalli’ x h. 201 (3n x 2n) and its attributes are tabulated (table 9). the fruit colour is bright yellow without any ashy coating. the female parent (karpooravalli) has fruits with ashy coating that masks the brightness of yellow colour. the ploidy and genome were assessed to be abb, similar to female parent. this cultivar is now under small scale field-testing. table 9. comparison of hybrid 96/7 with the female parent ‘karpooravalli’ (abb) sl. characters hybrid 96/7 karpooravalli no. (abb) (abb) 1. plant height (cm) 3.10 3.25 2. plant girth (cm) 98.00 93.50 3. bunch weight (kg) 28.50 24.00 4. hands/bunch 12.00 10.00 5. fruits/bunch 202.00 186.00 6 fruit weight (g) 93.50 84.10 7 total soluble solids (°brix) 21.5 19.0 development of primary tetraploids and their further improvement hybridisation between triploid cultivars and dipoloid cultivars often results in many primary tetraploids. as tripoids are preferred over tetraploids because of superior vigour and yield potential, these primary tetrapoids are subjected to further crossing with potential diploids to develop secondary triploids, as indicated below : damodaran (2004) attempted crossing triploid peykunnan (syn. pisang awak) with many diploids (aa) to develop primary tetraploids (table 10). j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 86 fig 6. bunch traits of hybrid h 212 (ab) karpooravalli x h-201 h-96/7 under now multi location testing for yield potential and resistance to nematodes fig 7. a promising triploid hybrid (abb) these tetraploids need to be further improved by crossing again with diploids to improve bunch weight. one attempt by damodaran (2004) to cross h-02-02 (aabb), hybrid between karpooravalli (abb) and red banana (aaa) with pisan lilin (aa) has resulted in development of h.03-15 (aab), a primary triploid with good bunch weight (14.50 kg) and resistance to wilt and nematodes suggest that extensive hybridization between potential tetraploids and diploids has to be pursued in relatively large numbers so that there are more chances of producing of new triploids with novel genomic background. breeding may not be always successful in this direction. kavitha (2005) crossed a primary tetraploid (h.02.32 – aabb) with pisang lilin (aa) and obtained, again, tetraploid hybrid (aabb) only. this warrants the use of potential tetraploids as male parents (if male fertile) with potential diploids and triploids to develop new triploid combinations. in vitro mutation and selection improvement of commercial triploids like cvs. robusta and rasthali through sexual hybridisation is very difficult as these are female sterile. therefore, mutation breeding was initiated in 1995 with cultivars like robusta (aaa) and rasthali (silk –aab). these were subjected to 3 kr, 4 kr and 5 kr dosage of g irradiation (baskar rajan, 1998). among the three dosages used, 3 kr was found to be optimum (more than 50% of survival was observed). after three subcultures in vitro plants were established, rooted and hardened. plants obtained in vitro were planted in field for further evaluation (baskaran et al, 2000). recently, kumar et al (2004) reported the potential of in vitro mutation breeding with cvs. robusta, rasthali, nendran and poovan through gamma rays and ems (ethyl methane sulphonate) and isolated many economic mutants (table 11). table 11. economic mutants isolated in banana through in vitro mutation breeding mutant desirable attribute observed nendran ne-imvo-5 heavier bunch (13.0kg) larger fruits (269.3g) ne-imvo-7 heavier bunch (14.0kg) ne-imvo-8 good bunch and finger traits heavier bunch (14.5kg) larger fingers (weight : 302g, length : 27.1cm) poovan po-imvo-1 heavier bunch (16.0kg) larger fruits (114.2g) po-imvo-2 heavier bunch (15.5kg) more no. of fingers in the bunch (176) attractive fingers po-imvo-3 heavier bunch (15.5kg) po-imvo-4 lesser plant height (2.2m) po-imvo-7 heavier bunch (16.0kg) po-imvo-10 lesser plant height (2.2m) promising mutants and their desirable attributes robusta ro-imv 4 6-1-1 heavier bunch (30.5kg) ro-imv 4 6-1-2 heavier bunch (30.0kg) ro-imv 4 6-1-3 heavier bunch (28.5kg) ro-imv 4 6-2-1 heavier bunch (30.5kg) ro-imv 4 6-2-2 heavier bunch (29.5kg) lesser plant height (1.73m) rasthali si-imv 4 6-2-4 lesser plant height (1.98m) si-imv 4 6-2-5 heavier bunch (13.0kg) si-imv 4 10-5-1 lesser plant height (1.96m) si-imv 4 10-5-3 lesser plant height (1.90m) si-imv 4 11-6-5 heavier bunch (13.5kg) in vitro polyploidy breeding in vitro ploidy breeding programme was taken up at tnau to improve some potential diploid cultivars which are not amenable to conventional breeding methods due to sterility but are otherwise resistant to many biotic stresses with a good yield potential (ganga, 2001 and ganga et al, j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 banana breeding in india table 10. promising potential tetraploids in banana hybrid parent genome bunch weight (kg) tss(%) male fertility female fertility fusarium wilt nematodes h-02-34 karpooravalli aabb 13.5 20.05 p p r r x red banana h-03-05 karpooravalli aabb 11.0 24.10 p p r r op h-03-13 karpooravalli aabb 16.0 23.50 p p r r x erachi vazhai h-03-17 karpooravalli aabb 13.0 20.15 p p r r x pisang lilin h-03-19 peykunnan aabb 17.5 22.50 p p r r x ev p = present; r = resistant 87 2002). diploid cultivars cultivars viz., sannachenkadali (aa), anaikomban (aa), kunnan (ab) and thattillakunnan (ab) were treated with anti-mitotic agents like colchicine (c 22 h 25 n0 6 ) (fig 8) and oryzalin (3,5-dinitro n 4 -n 4 – dipropylsulfanilamide) (fig 9 ). relatively, oryzalin is found to be effective in producing higher frequency of tetraploids (fig 10). a totall of 41 tetraploids were obtained, 16 each from sannachenkadali and anaikomban, 12 from kunnan and 13 from thattillakunnan. uma et al (2003) evaluated the response of diploid cultivars to induction of tetraploidy and the efficiency of polyploidizing agents at nrcb, trichy. in the first trial, ‘kunnan’ and ‘matti’ shoot tips were soaked in colchicine for 24 h and in oryzalin for 72 h, respectively. in the second trial, these were, respectively, cultured in an initiation medium in which colchicines and oryzalin had been incorporated. ms medium fortified with 3.0 mg/l of bap was used for culture initiation. the same medium with reduced level of bap (2.0 mg/l) was used for monthly subculture. after the third subculture, explants were rooted on ms basal medium without any growth regulator. induction of polyploidy was verified. breeding for resistance to fusarium wilt fusarium wilt caused by fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense causes yield loss in south india from 2-90% (thangavelu et al, 1999). this warranted initiation of breeding for resistance to fusarium wilt at tnau. potential diploids like anaikomban (aa), matti (aa), namarai (aa) and pisang lilin (aa) and new synthetic diploid hybrids such as h-201 (ab) and h-65 (aa), developed at tnau, were screened for resistance to fusarium wilt by gunavathi et al (2003). of the 20 genotypes screened, synthetic diploid hybrids h-65, h-109, h.103 and h-201, the parents ‘anaikomban’, ‘pisang lilin’ and ‘tongat’ and the commercial cultivar ‘robusta’ showed resistance to fusarium wilt, while the others exhibited susceptible reaction. in breeding for resistance to any disease, the basic requirement is availability of an efficient screening technique, which should clearly distinguish resistant genotypes from susceptible ones. at tnau, screening was taken up against the pathogen fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense race 1 employing root inoculation technique (fig 11). (gunavathi, 2000 and damodaran, 2004). in this method, roots are directly exposed to the conidial suspension, which helps in better and easy colonization of j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 88 fig 8. shoot proliferation in colchicine treated cultures fig 9. shoot proliferation in oryzalin treated cultures fig 10. effect of colchicine vs. oryzalin on induction of tetraploidy in banana diploid clones inheritance of resistance genes with modifying effect. vakili (1965) stated that a single dominant gene governs resistance to fusarium wilt while using one homozygous parent as the resistant source. further, recovery of resistance genes from susceptible x susceptible combinations may be due to transgressive segregation and heterozygous nature of the parents. table 12. screening of banana hybrids for resistance to fusarium wilt (race 1) under pot culture by root inoculation technique hybrid parentage genome disease status score h-02-06 h 201 × an ab 5 hs h-02-08 h 201 × ev aab 1 r h-02-09 h 201 × pl ab 1 r h-02-10 h 201 × h 110 ab 1 r h-02-11 h 201 × h 110 ab 3 s h-02-17 kv × pl aabb 5 hs h-02-18 kv × pl aabb 2 s h-02-19 kv × ev aabb 1 r h-02-20 kv × rb aabb 6 hs h-02-36 kv × roo aabb 5 hs nph-02-01 h201 x an aab 1 r nph-02-02 h201 x am ab 2 s parents h201 ab 1 r anaikomban (an) aa 1 r ambalakadali (am) aa 1 r erachi vazhai (ev) aa 2 s pisang lilin (pl) aa 1 r h110 ab 3 s karpooravalli (kv) abb 5 hs red banana (rb) aaa 5 hs robusta (ro) aaa 1 r rresistant: ssusceptible: hshighly susceptible screening of hybrids under in vitro screening by damodaran (2004) confirms beyond doubt the claims of varying degree of resistance/susceptibility of a cultivar under different situations in banana. the major problem encountered in resistance screening programme in pot culture was limited availability of suckers from the field for testing. however, in in-vitro culture, production of multiple shoots from a single sucker enabled easy regeneration and increased sample number for evaluation. breeding musa hybrids resistant to nematodes banana production is severely threatened by many different types of soil nematodes. among the various nematodes, lesion producing nematodes such as radopholus similis and pratylenchus coffeae are considered to be economically important nematode pests of banana (rajendran et al, 1980). sundararaju (1996) reported that the burrowing nematode exhibited severe root rotting, j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 banana breeding in india 89 mother culture of fusarium race i fig.11 root inoculation technique against fusarium in banana culturing pathogen in pda broth root inoculation expression of leaf symptoms corm discoloration multiple shoot production single shoot regeneration plants in double cup ui r s ui : un inoculated, r : resistant, s : susceptible fig .12 in vitro screening of selected phase i & phase ii hybrids by double cup method for fusarium wilt (race 1) resistance inoculated roots the fungus in the susceptible host (sun and su, 1984). apart from pot screening, in vitro screening of hybrids was also attempted to test the utility of double cup method, as described by brake et al (1995) (fig 12). damodaran (2004) screened many hybrids and from these, 15 hybrids exhibited resistance, while others were susceptible. a critical analysis of inheritance pattern of hybrids revealed that resistant diploid, triploid and tetraploids hybrids had either pisang lilin or anaikomban as one of the parents (table 12). this indicates that dominant genes govern resistance. further, when a particular parental combination was taken into account, for example h-201 with anaikomban or pisang lilin, none of the progenies showed resistance although the male parents used were resistant to fusarium wilt. this may be due to the heterozygous nature of the parent or due to the polygenic j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 90 resulting in 25-35% reduction in yield. thus, the foremost aim in banana and plantain improvement is to enhance quantitative and qualitative traits besides developing hybrids with increased resistance/tolerance to major nematodes (kumar and soorianathasundaram, 2002). initial screening carried out at tnau resulted in the identification of potential diploids like anaikomban (aa), matti (aa), namarai (aa) and pisang lilin (aa) (sathiamoorthy and balamohan, 1993). further screening among diploids, showed that cultivars amabalakadali (aa), erachivazhai (aa), venneettu kunnan (ab), adakka kunnan (ab), poomkadali (ab), kadali (ab), ney poovan (ab) had moderate resistance (gowen et al, 1998). screening of banana hybrids/cultivars for resistance to nematodes requires an effective screening technique that should distinguish the genotype as susceptible, tolerant or resistant to various nematodes. the inibap method (fig 13) largely encompasses the ability of the genotype to resist nematode infection based on root and corm damage assessment besides its ability to tolerate a high population of nematodes. though the nematode can live in soil, it cannot enter the roots of resistant hybrids and multiply fast (gowen, 1994). as the nematode population inflicts damage directly to the root system by causing lesions, assessment of root and corm damage is important (speijer and gold, 1996). besides, root number and percent dead roots are considered critical in the assessment of nematode damage as gowen (1993) reported that the rate of root destruction is not directly related to nematode population density in the root system as a whole, but, to the number of individual colonies on the roots. evaluation of banana hybrids by krishnamoorthy (2002) and damodaran (2004) revealed significant difference in the ability of hybrids and parents to produce more number of functional roots (table 13). resistant/ tolerant hybrids produced thick and healthy roots besides more functional roots and the least number of dead roots to overcome nematode infection. however, assessment of soil in their mat showed a considerable amount of nematode population. thus, it is evident from the above facts that these hybrids possessed an inherent ability to overcome the invasion by nematodes. increase in number of functional roots in these hybrids compared to either of the parents was attributed to heterosis. damodaran (2004) observed that resistant x resistant crosses produced both resistant as well as susceptible hybrids. this indicated that resistance to nematodes is under polygenic control and segregation for resistance and susceptibility was expected because of the heterozygous nature of the parents studied. higher resistance in hybrids nph-02-01 and h-0208 may be attributed to triploidy (aab) with the hybrid having inherited the entire genome of ab from h-201 and the resistant ‘a’ genome from anaikomban or erachi vazhai, respectively. fig 13 . screening of banana against nematodes based on root and corm damage inoculated plants in glass house assessment of root damage root lesion percent infected root corm lesion index table 13. variation in root damage caused by nematodes in banana hybrids / parents sl. hybrid / genome resistant total no. of no. of no. of dead feeder root no. parent reaction roots dead roots functional roots roots (%) roots lesion (%) 1. h-02-34 aabb r 8.50 0 8.5 0.00 1.5 10.00 2. h-201 ab r 11.00 0 11.0 0.00 1.5 2.50 3. nph-02-01 aab t 16.50 0 16.5 0.00 1.0 0.01 4. karpooravalli aab t 10.50 3 7.5 28.63 2.0 17.00 5. anaikomban aa t 8.50 1 7.5 12.50 2.0 5.00 6. h-02-32 aabb s 9.00 4 4.5 44.44 3.0 37.50 7. red banana aaa hs 11.00 5.5 5.5 50.00 3.5 38.00 c.d (p=0.01) 1.081 0.78 1.021 19.298 0.661 5.669 in other tetraploid hybrids such as h-03-05, h-0310, h-03-11, h-03-13, h-03-17 and h-03-19, damodaran (2004) observed higher amount of resistance as these had inherited the extra resistant ‘a’ genome from diploid parents pisang lilin or erachi vazhai. in this situation, the tolerant genome abb might have interacted with resistant genome ‘a’ resulting in resistant aabb genome, implying the nonallelic genic interaction. rowe and rosales (1996) indicate that one or more dominant alleles control genetic resistance to burrowing nematode. it is interesting to analyse results in pot culture experiments which clearly showed that many of the hybrids claimed to be resistant under field conditions were found to be tolerant or susceptible under pot culture. this is normally expected, as a high population of nematodes is bombarded in to the root zone for forceful infection (dosselaere et al, 2003). besides, in the pot, nematodes are inoculated in 45 days old seedlings when the roots are young and tender. however, under field conditions a high table 14. biochemical activities in the roots of banana hybrids and parents inoculated with fusarium under pot culture conditions (damodaran, 2004) sl. hybrid / genome category total proline lignin peroxidase polyphenol pal β glucannase no. parent phenols (µg g-1) (%) (∆a min-1g-1) oxidase (nmol (µg min-1 g-1) (µg g-1) (∆a min-1g-1) min-1mg-1) 1. nph 02.01 aab r 620.0 586.0 1.39 4.55 0.75 14.80 312.82 (h2= 1x anaikomban) 2. h.201 ab r 610.5 583.0 1.22 5.55 0.83 15.10 321.68 3. anaikomban aa r 566.5 498.0 1.13 4.40 0.73 12.05 301.89 4. h.02.34 (aabb) (karpooravalli x red banana) aabb r 641.0 608.5 1.28 0.51 0.66 13.93 337.21 5. h.02.32 (aabb) aabb s 414.5 324.9 0.74 1.92 0.23 2.98 231.50 6. karpooravalli abb s 478.7 453.5 0.75 1.62 0.20 4.71 153.39 7. red banana aaa s 184.5 151.5 0.50 1.23 0.22 4.53 147.77 8. h.02.06 (h.2=1 x anaikomban) ab s 241.2 167.0 0.24 0.44 0.12 1.35 164.50 cd (p=0.05) 75.4 6.7 0.04 0.17 0.04 0.61 22.76 population of nematodes is encountered normally only at the time of shooting and harvest (jean et al, 2002), when the plants possess a larger and longer root system, with increased biochemical and enzyme activity, resulting in more resistant reaction to nematodes. this might be the probable reason why some hybrids that exhibit resistance under field conditions become susceptible when inoculated artificially. role of biochemical markers in resistance to fusarium wilt and nematodes when a pathogen infects the host tissue, a small number of specific gene, producing mrna’s that permit synthesis of similar number of specific proteins, are induced (vera conejero, 1989). many of these proteins are enzymes such as phenylalanine ammonia lyase, polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase, b-1-3 glucanase (vidhyasekaran, 1993) that are involved in synthesis of low molecular weight substances such as phytoalexins, phenols and lignin, which table 15. biochemical contents in the roots of banana hybrids and parents inoculated with nematodes under pot culture conditions sl. hybrid / genome category total proline lignin peroxidase polyphenol pal no. parent phenols (µg g-1) (%) (∆a min-1g-1) oxidase (nmol (µg g-1) (∆a min-1g-1) min-1mg-1) 1. h-02-34 aabb r 722.4 421.5 0.35 13.05 0.86 11.60 2. h-201 ab r 605.0 536.5 1.32 6.23 0.87 11.35 3. nph-02-01 aab t 656.7 404.0 1.27 16.45 1.10 12.35 4. anaikomban aa t 636.5 438.5 1.30 6.23 0.72 10.20 5. karpooravalli aab t 444.0 342.5 1.02 4.41 0.30 3.45 6. h-02-32 aabb s 414.4 211.3 0.53 4.22 0.46 5.25 7. red banana aaa hs 139.5 219.0 0.53 3.55 0.22 2.06 c.d (p=0.01) 8.9 2.9 0.06 0.448 0.036 0.536 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 91 banana breeding in india j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 77-94, 2006 kumar 92 are inhibitory to fungal pathogens (bell, 1981; vidhyasekaran, 1993). hence, analysis of these biochemical markers, which provide a mechanism for resistance to fungal pathogens, is very essential. damodaran (2004) established that fusarium wilt resistant hybrids / parents had higher levels of these enzymes than the susceptible ones (table 14) confirming the role of biochemical markers in conferring resistance. similarly, assessment of these biochemical markers (damodaran, 2004) in resistant, tolerant and susceptible hybrids/ parents revealed their significant role in conferring resistance against 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the occurrence of musa balbisaina colla in south india and its importance in banana breeding. madras agri. j., 35: 552-554. vera, p. and conejero, v. 1989. the induction and accumulation of pathogenesis -related p69 proteinase in tomato during citrus exocortis viroid infection and after chemical treatments. physiol. mol. pl. pathol., 34: 323334. vidhyasekaran, p. 1993. defense genes for crop disease management, genetic engineering, tissue culture, and molecular biology for crop pest and disease management (p. vidhyasekaran ed.), daya publishing house, new delhi, pp.17-30. vuylsteke, d., ortiz, r. and swennen, r. 1993. development and performance of black sigatoka resistant tetraploid hybrids of plantain (musa spp., aab group). euphytica, 65: 33-42. 131 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 131-136, 2018 genetic variability, correlation and path analysis in bottle gourd (lagenaria siceraria (mol. standl.) germplasm b. varalakshmi*, m. pitchaimuthu and e. sreenivas rao division of vegetable crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india *email : varalakshmi.b@icar.gov.in abstract the present investigation was conducted to determine the variability, heritability, genetic advance and correlation of fruit yield and ten different yield contributing characters in bottle gourd. wide range of variation was observed for most of the characters like fruit yield/vine, fruit number/vine, fruit weight, fruit yield/ha and node number for first female flower appearance. phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for all the traits studied, indicating environmental influence on expression of these characters. however, high heritability (broad sense) along with high genetic advance was recorded by vine length, branch number, fruit length, fruit width, fruit yield/vine and yield/ha indicating the presence of additive gene effects, hence selection can be employed for the improvement of these parameters. fruit yield/ ha was significantly and positively associated with fruit number/ vine and fruit yield/vine both at genotypic as well as phenotypic levels. fruit number had maximum direct effect (0.812) on fruit yield/ha followed by fruit weight (0.407), fruit length (0.339), fruit width (0.310), fruit yield/vine (0.249), days taken for first female flower appearance (0.224) and vine length (0.173). therefore for the yield improvement in bottle gourd, emphasis may be given for indirect selection through fruit parameters like fruit weight, fruit length, fruit number and fruit yield/vine. key words: bottle gourd, genetic variability, heritability, path analysis original research paper introduction bottle gourd [lagenaria siceraria (mol.) standl.] commonly known as lauki or ghiya in india is one of the most important member of the family cucurbitaceae and believed to be originated in africa (whitaker, 1971). it is commercially grown in all the states of india in both rainy and summer seasons. the immature fruits contain good amount of vitamins and have good medicinal values. yield is a complex trait influenced by genetic fa ctor s inter a cting with environment. success in any breeding programme for improvement depends on existing genetic variability in the base-population and on efficiency of selection. for successful selection, it is necessary to study the nature of association of the trait of interest with other relevant traits and, also the genetic variability available for these. path coefficient provides a better index for selection than mere correlation coefficient, thereby separating the correlation coefficient of yield and its components into direct and indirect effects. therefore, the present study was undertaken to understand the nature and magnitude of variability, heritability, correlation coefficients and path analysis for different quantitative parameters in bottle gourd. the information on such aspects can be of great help in formulating an appropriate breeding strategy for genetic upgradation of this crop. material and methods t he exper iments wer e car ried out a t the vegetable farm, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during rabi-summer seasons of 2012-13 and 2013-14. the experiments were laid out in randomized block design with 35germplasm lines in two replications in both the years. ten plants per replication were raised. two weeks old seedlings were planted at 200 x 60 cm spacing and the plants were trained on single trellis. the recommended agronomical practices were adopted to raise the crop. observations 132 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 131-136, 2018 varalakshmi et al were recorded on five randomly selected plants from each replication on 11 quantitative traits such as node number for first female flower appearance, days taken for first female flower appearance, vine length (m), branch number, peduncle length (cm), fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), fruit number/plant, fruit weight (g), fruit yield/plant (kg) and fruit yield/ha (t). the pooled data of two years were analyzed as suggested by panse and sukhatme (1984) for analysis of variance. the phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation (pcv and gcv), heritability in broad sense a nd genetic advance a s per cent of mean wer e calculated as per the procedures given by burton and de vane (1953) and johnson et al (1955). the correlation co-efficient among all possible character combinations at genotypic (rg) and phenotypic (rp) level were estimated employing the formula given by aljibouri et al (1958) and path coefficient analysis has been done as per dewey and lu (1959). genres statistical software package (genres, 1994) was employed for analysis of variance and estimation of correlation among the traits. results and discussion mean, range and estimates of various genetic pa r a meter s of 11 differ ent cha r a cter s of the 35germplasm lines of bottle gourd are presented in the table 1. the analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the germplasm lines of bottle gourd for all the 11traits studied. wide range of variation was observed for most of the characters like fruit yield/ vine (1.5-8.5kg), fruit number/vine (1.9-6.1), fruit weight (79.8-300.8g), fruit yield/ha (12.0-70.9 t)and node number for first female flower appearance (4.715.2). presence of such high variability for these parameters will form the basis for effective selection of superior lines in bottle gourd. such wide variability in this crop has also been reported by kumar et al (2011), husna et al (2011), anchal sharma and sengupta (2013) and ara et al (2014). the degree of variability shown by different parameters can be judged by the magnitude of gcv and pcv. gcv, which gives the picture of extent of genetic variability present in the population ranged from 9.2 (days taken for first female flower appearance) to 31.2 (fruit yield/vine). similar findings were reported by yadavet al (2008), husnaet al (2011) and araet al (2014) in bottle gourd.a perusal of data in table 1showed that there is considerable difference between pcv and gcv values for all the characters studied (singh et al, 2008). this indicates the presence of higher environmental influence on the expression of all these parameters table 1. means, coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance for eleven different characters in bottle gourd sl.no. character mean range genotypic phenotypic heritability g.a.as %mean coefficient of coefficient of (h2) variation variation (gcv) (pcv) 1 vine length (m) 4.8 2.8-8.9 27.1 29.7 83.3 50.9 2 branch number 12.5 7.3-20.8 20.9 26.9 60.5 33.5 3 nff 7.2 4.7-15.2 23.3 31.6 54.2 35.3 4 dff 56.1 45.5-71.7 9.2 11.5 64.1 15.2 5 peduncle length (cm) 10.6 6.8-14.1 11.0 22.2 24.7 11.3 6 fruit length (cm) 31.8 11.2-48.5 24.9 28.4 77.2 45.2 7 fruit width (cm) 9.0 6.9-13.2 19.8 23.4 71.6 34.6 8 fruit weight (g) 1.3 0.5-2.6 22.5 31.9 49.7 32.7 9 fruit number/vine 3.7 1.9-6.1 26.1 33.8 59.7 41.6 10 fruit yield/vine (kg) 4.2 1.5-8.5 31.2 36.5 73.3 55.1 11 fruit yield/ha (t) 36.2 12.0-70.9 29.7 33.0 80.8 54.9 nffnode number for first female flower appearance, dffdays taken for first female flower appearance 133 genetic studies in bottle guard and selection as such may not be effective for the improvement of bottle gourd. further, the gcv values were low in magnitude compared to pcv values for all the characters studied. this also indicates that the direct selection is not effective for these characters and heterosis breeding can be resorted for further improvement. however, contrary to this anchal sharma and sengupta (2013) reported that the gcv and pcv values were in close proximity for all the traits studied in bottle gourd. with the help of gcv alone, it is not possible to determine the extent of variation that is heritable. thus the estimates of heritability indicate the effectiveness with which selection can be expected to exploit the existing genetic variability. the broad sense heritability was high (>60%) for almost all the traits except node number for first female flower appearance, peduncle length, fruit weight and fruit number. similar findings were reported by kumar et al (2011), husna et al (2011) and anchal sharma and sengupta (2013) in bottle gourd. moderate heritability (40-60%) was observed for node number for first female flower appearance, fruit weight and fruit number (table 1). johnson et al. (1955) reported that the heritability along with genetic advance is more useful than the heritability alone in predicting the resultant effect of selecting best individual genotype as it suggests the presence of additive gene effects. in the present study, high heritability along with high genetic advance was recorded by vine length, branch number, fruit length, fruit width, fruit yield/vine and yield/ha indicating the presence of additive gene effects, hence selection can be employed for the improvement of these parameters in bottle gourd. similar findings were reported by singh et al (2008), yadav et al (2008), husna et al (2011),kumar et al (2011), anchal sharma and sengupta (2013) in bottle gourd. days taken for the first female flower appearance, peduncle length and fruit weight have recorded moderate heritability and genetic advance. this suggests that the environmental effects constitute major portion of total phenotypic variation and hence direct selection for these characters will be less effective. all possible correlation coefficients between fruit yield/ha and its component characters were estimated at genotypic (g) and phenotypic (p) levels and have been presented in table 2. from these associations, it appeared that higher fruit yield/ ha was significantly and positively associated with fruit number/ vine and fruit yield/vine both at genotypic as well as phenotypic levels. in the present investigation, the interrelation between these two yield contributing parameters was also positive and significant. vine length had significantly positive correlation with branch number, node number and days taken for first female flower appearance and positive but non-significant association with fruit width. branch number was also positively correlated with node number and days taken for first female flower appearance and fruit width, but negatively and significantly correlated with fruit weight indicating that the increased branch number reduces fruit weight in bottle gourd. important fruit traits, fruit length and fruit width are significantly negatively correlated. indirect selection for fruit number and fruit yield/vine will improve the fruit yield in bottle gourd. these results are in conformity with the findings of yadav et al (2007), wani et al (2008), husna et al (2011) and ara et al (2014) in bottle gourd. though the correlation analysis can quantify the degree of association between two characters, it does not provide reasons for such association. the simple linear correlation coefficient is designed to detect the presence of linear association between two variables. it cannot be taken to imply the absence of any functional relationship between the two variables. path coefficient analysis reveals this mystery by breaking the total correlation into components of direct and indirect effects. thus path analysis was performed to assess the direct and indirect effects of different characters on fruit yield/ha (table 3). fruit number had maximum direct effect (0.812) on fruit yield/ha followed by fruit weight (0.407), fruit length (0.339), fruit width (0.310), fruit yield/vine (0.249), days taken for first female flower appearance (0.224) and vine length (0.173). the indirect effects of most other parameters through these parameters were also positive as well as negative, but the higher magnitude of positive direct effects nullified the negative indirect effects resulting in the positive direct effect on fruit yield/ha. the positive direct and indirect effects of fruit number and fruit yield/vine have lead to the significant and positive correlation with fruit yield/ha. similarly, wani et al (2008) and husna et al (2011) also reported that fruit traits had maximum direct effect on fruit yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 131-136, 2018 134 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 131-136, 2018 varalakshmi et al c ha ra ct er v in e b ra nc h n ff d ff pe du nc le fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t l en gt h n um be r le ng th le ng th w id th w ei gh t nu m be r/ y ie ld /v in e y ie ld /h a (m ) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (g ) vi ne (k g) (t) v in e l en gt h (m ) (r g) 1. 00 0 0. 58 7* * 0. 68 2* * 0. 71 1* * -0 .3 23 -0 .1 81 0. 28 8 -0 .2 38 -0 .0 19 -0 .0 83 -0 .0 96 (r p) 1. 00 0 0. 40 3* 0. 45 8* * 0. 53 2* * -0 .1 22 -0 .1 56 0. 24 2 -0 .0 90 -0 .0 17 -0 .0 57 -0 .0 53 b ra nc h nu m be r (r g) 1. 00 0 0. 19 5 0. 27 4 -0 .3 33 -0 .1 10 0. 16 6 -0 .4 49 ** 0. 24 0 0. 05 1 -0 .0 52 (r p) 1. 00 0 0. 15 8 0. 24 6 -0 .1 48 -0 .0 65 0. 10 9 -0 .2 18 -0 .0 23 -0 .0 44 -0 .1 10 n ff (r g) 1. 00 0 0. 76 9* * -0 .1 88 -0 .2 66 0. 42 9* -0 .0 51 -0 .2 36 -0 .2 79 -0 .2 83 (r p) 1. 00 0 0. 54 2* * -0 .0 82 -0 .0 63 0. 30 0 0. 03 0 -0 .2 34 -0 .2 03 -0 .1 92 d ff (r g) 1. 00 0 -0 .1 82 -0 .2 88 0. 31 2 -0 .2 38 -0 .2 01 -0 .2 29 -0 .2 52 (r p) 1. 00 0 -0 .0 57 -0 .1 72 0. 28 3 -0 .1 44 -0 .1 12 -0 .1 68 -0 .1 80 pe du nc le le ng th (c m ) (r g) 1. 00 0 0. 19 5 -0 .4 00 * 0. 49 7* * -0 .2 22 0. 05 8 0. 09 2 (r p) 1. 00 0 0. 11 3 -0 .1 40 0. 18 2 -0 .0 63 0. 02 9 0. 03 8 fr ui t l en gt h (c m ) (r g) 1. 00 0 -0 .8 77 ** 0. 23 3 -0 .1 55 0. 01 6 0. 05 7 (r p) 1. 00 0 -0 .6 29 ** 0. 23 4 -0 .1 06 0. 03 4 0. 08 5 fr ui t w id th (c m ) (r g) 1. 00 0 -0 .0 03 -0 .0 63 -0 .0 97 -0 .1 34 (r p) 1. 00 0 0. 01 8 -0 .0 44 -0 .1 29 -0 .1 06 fr ui t w ei gh t ( g) (r g) 1. 00 0 -0 .3 04 0. 13 0 0. 31 5 (r p) 1. 00 0 -0 .2 79 0. 03 8 0. 21 4 fr ui t n um be r/ vi ne (r g) 1. 00 0 0. 88 1* * 0. 79 2* * (r p) 1. 00 0 0. 72 2* * 0. 68 9* * fr ui t y ie ld /v in e (k g) (r g) 1. 00 0 1. 00 3* * (r p) 1. 00 0 0. 87 6* * ta bl e 2. g en ot yp ic ( r g ) an d ph en ot yp ic ( r p ) co rr el at io n co ef fic ie nt s am on g di ff er en t ch ar ac te rs i n bo tt le g ou rd ** s ig ni fic an t a t p = 0. 01 , * s ig ni fic an t a t p = 0. 05 n ff n od e nu m be r fo r fir st f em al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff d ay s ta ke n fo r fir st f em al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e 135 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 131-136, 2018 genetic studies in bottle guard c ha ra ct er v in e b ra nc h n ff d ff pe du nc le fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t g en ot yp ic le ng th nu m be r le ng th le ng th w id th w ei gh t nu m be r/ yi el d/ vi ne co rr el at io n (m ) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (g ) vi ne (k g) v in e l en gt h (m ) 0. 17 3 -0 .0 96 -0 .1 93 0. 15 9 -0 .0 33 -0 .0 61 0. 08 9 -0 .0 97 -0 .0 16 -0 .0 21 -0 .0 96 b ra nc h nu m be r 0. 10 2 -0 .1 64 -0 .0 55 0. 06 1 -0 .0 34 -0 .0 37 0. 05 1 -0 .1 83 0. 19 4 0. 01 3 -0 .0 52 n ff 0. 11 8 -0 .0 32 -0 .2 84 0. 17 2 -0 .0 19 -0 .0 90 0. 13 3 -0 .0 21 -0 .1 92 -0 .0 69 -0 .2 83 d ff 0. 12 3 -0 .0 45 -0 .2 18 0. 22 4 -0 .0 19 -0 .0 98 0. 09 7 -0 .0 97 -0 .1 63 -0 .0 57 -0 .2 52 pe du nc le le ng th (c m ) -0 .0 56 0. 05 5 0. 05 3 -0 .0 41 0. 10 2 0. 06 6 -0 .1 24 0. 20 2 -0 .1 80 0. 01 4 0. 09 2 fr ui t l en gt h (c m ) -0 .0 31 0. 01 8 0. 07 5 -0 .0 65 0. 02 0 0. 33 9 -0 .2 72 0. 09 5 -0 .1 26 0. 00 4 0. 05 7 fr ui t w id th (c m ) 0. 05 0 -0 .0 27 -0 .1 22 0. 07 0 -0 .0 41 -0 .2 97 0. 31 0 -0 .0 01 -0 .0 51 -0 .0 24 -0 .1 34 fr ui t w ei gh t ( g) -0 .0 41 0. 07 4 0. 01 4 -0 .0 53 0. 05 1 0. 07 9 -0 .0 01 0. 40 7 -0 .2 47 0. 03 2 0. 31 5 fr ui t n um be r/ vi ne -0 .0 03 -0 .0 39 0. 06 7 -0 .0 45 -0 .0 23 -0 .0 53 -0 .0 19 -0 .1 24 0. 81 2 0. 21 9 0. 79 2* * fr ui t y ie ld /v in e (k g) -0 .0 14 -0 .0 08 0. 07 9 -0 .0 51 0. 00 6 0. 00 5 -0 .0 30 0. 05 3 0. 71 5 0. 24 9 1. 00 3* * ta bl e 3 . d ir ec t an d in di re ct e ff ec ts o f di ff er en t ch ar ac te rs o n fr ui t yi el d/ ha a t ge no ty pi c le ve ls i n bo tt le g ou rd ** s ig ni fic an t a t p = 0. 01 , * s ig ni fic an t a t p = 0. 05 d ire ct e ff ec ts a re in b ol d fig ur es o n m ai n di ag on al . n ff n od e nu m be r fo r fir st f em al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff d ay s ta ke n fo r fir st f em al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e 136 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 131-136, 2018 varalakshmi et al in bottle gourd. whereas node number for first female flower appearance and branch number had negative direct effect on fruit yield/ha. the positive direct and indirect effects of fruit length, fruit weight, fruit yield/ plant, fruit number have lead to the significant and positive correlation with fruit yield/ha. this indicates that the positive selection for these parameters is going to contribute to higher fruit yields in bottle gourd. therefore for the yield improvement in bottle gourd, emphasis may be given for indirect selection through fruit parameters like fruit length, fruit weight, fruit number and fruit yield/plant. references al-jibouri, h.h., miller, p.a. and robinson, h.f. 1958.genotypic and environmental variances and covariances in upland cotton crosses of interspecific origin.agron. j., 50: 633-37. anchal sharma and s.k. sengupta.2013. genetic diversity, heritability and morphological cha r a cter iza tion in bottle gour d (lagenariasiceraria (mol. ) sta nd). the bioscan.8(4): 1461-1465. ara z.g., zakaria, m., uddin, m.z., rahman, m.m., rasul, m.g. and kabir, a.f.m.r. 2014. correlation matrix among different parameters of bottle gourd genotypes int. j nat. soc sci.1:48-51. issn: 2313-4461 burton, g.w. and de vane, e.w. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festucaarundinacea) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-81. dewey, d.r. and lu, k.h. 1959. a correlation and path coefficient analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agron. j.,51:515-18. genres. 1994. data entrymodule for genres statistical software pascal int’l. software solution, version 3.11 husna, a., mahmud, f., islam, m.r., mahmud,m.a.a. a nd ra tna , m. 2011. genetic va r ia bility, correlation and path co efficient analysis in bottle gour d (lageneriasicereria(mol. ) stand).ad.bio. res. 5(6): 323-327. johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soybean.agron. j., 47:314-18. kumar, a., singh, b., kumar,m. and naresh,r.k. 2011.genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance for yield and its components in bottle gourd (lageneriasicereria(mol.) stand).ann. of horti.4(1): 101-103 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1984. statistical methods for agr icultural workers.indian council of agricultural research, new delhi. singh,k.p., choudhury,d.n., mandal,g. and saha,b.c. 2008. genetic va r iability in bottle gour d (lagenaria siceraria (molina) standl.).j. interacademicia. 12(2): 159-163 wani, k.p., ahmed, n., hussain, k., mehfuza-habib and kant, r.h. 2008.correlation and path coefficient a na lysis in bottle gour d (lagenariasiceraria l.) under tempera te conditions of kashmir valley.environment and ecology.26(2a): 822-824 whitaker, t.w. 1971.men across the sea. kelley jc, pennigton cw and rauds rl (eds.) pp. 320-27. yadav, a., srivastava, j.p., yadav, j.r., shukla, i.n., mishr a , g. , kuma r, s. a nd pa r iha r, n. s. 2007.correlation and path coefficient analysis in bottle gourd [lagenariasiceraria (molina) standl.].prog. res.2(1/2): 165-166 yadav, j.r., yadav, a., srivastava, j.p., mishra, g., parihar, n.s. and singh,p.b. 2008. study on variability heritability and genetic advance in bottle gourd [lagenariasiceraria (molina) standl.]. prog. res.3(1): 70-72 (ms received 22 june 2017, revised 15 november 2018, accepted 20 december 2018) 371 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction potted plants are an important segment in commercial floriculture occupying the second place after cut flowers with the demand increasing over the years @ 20-25%. global flower pots and planters’ market is expected to reach usd 2,208.3 million by the end of 2024 from usd 1,869.6 million in 2018 (anon., 2019). rapid urbanization and shrinking land area for conventional gardening and emergence of many highrise buildings in the city landscape has led to a huge market demand for flowering and foliage potted plants. potted plants are displayed in outdoor spaces, in spaces that are the extension of the house and indoors to improve indoor air quality. it has been reported that potted-pla nts can r educe total volatile organic compound loads, a major class of indoor pollutants, by 75% (<100 ppb) and also co and co2 contents. flowering potted plants like rose, chrysanthemum, aster, carnation, marigold etc. are in good demand for their aesthetic appeal beside other associated positive benefits. china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) ness.], a member of the family asteraceae, is a commercial flower crop of india grown mainly for loose and cut flower purpose over an area of 3500 ha in ka rna ta ka, ta mil na du, tela nga na, andhra pradesh, maharashtra and west bengal (kumari et al., 2018). this crop can also be grown in containers. china aster var. arka archana released from icariihr, bengaluru is an early bloomer, with spreading plant type, bearing semi double white flowers, the plant form and floriferous nature makes it a suitable candidate for potted plant production. most of the consumers prefer eco-friendly products considering the health benefits while using these in indoor closed spa ces. flower ing potted pla nt production mainly relies on the selection of appropriate containers, potting media and optimum nutrition, which tends to influence the cr op ca nopy and standardization of container type, substrate and nutrition for potted plant production of china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) ness.] var. arka archana smitha g.r.1*, sujatha a. nair1 and kalaivanan d.2 1division of flowers and medicinal crops; 2division of natural resources icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru 580 089 *corresponding author email : g.smitha@icar.gov.in abstract a study was conducted at the icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru for three consecutive seasons during 2019-20, to standardize the container type, substrate combination and nutrition for potted plant production of china aster var. arka archana. the treatments comprised of two type of containers (plastic and coir), three substrates {red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v), arka fermented cocopeat (afc), afc + vermicompost (1:1 v/v)} and four nutrition concentration (160:30:180 ppm n:p: k, 128:24:144 ppm n:p: k, 96:18:108 ppm n:p: k and jeevamrutha @ 3% ) laid out in factorial completely randomized design with three replications. plant height at flowering (33.12 cm), number of primary branches (12.4), plant spread (536.64 cm2), number of flowers/plant (26.47), flower size (5.26 cm) and uptake of major, secondary and minor nutrients were maximum in the plants grown in 6" plastic pots using the substrate combination of soil +sand +fym (1:1:1 v/v/v) along with the weekly application of nutrient solution of 96:18:108 ppm npk/plant. this production protocol resulted in a dense canopy and highly floriferous potted plants. the benefit cost ratio of potted china aster production was 1.70. this technology can be adopted by the nurserymen for large-scale commercial potted plant production. keywords: containers, substrate, china aster, nutrients, floriferousness, potted plant 372 smitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 floriferousness. alternate containers like coir pots are gaining popularity with certain section of consumers. an ideal potting substrate must possess unique physical and chemical cha racteristics fa voring maximum water retention between irrigations while being well drained in order to avoid drought and root asphyxia (caron and nkongolo, 1999). application of balanced nutrients to the potted plants, its solubility, availability, frequency of application is some of the factors that require standardization. the present study was undertaken to determine the effects of type of containers, substrate and nutrient levels on quality potted plant production of china aster var. arka archana. materials and methods the study on potted plants of china aster var. arka archana was done at the icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, karnataka, india. the pot plant experiment was conducted for a period of three seasons, i.e., february – may, 2019, july – october, 2019 and november 2019 – february, 2020 (fig. 1). the pots were kept under open condition with full sunlight. physical and chemical properties of initial and post-harvest media composition were analysed. the treatment details are as follows; factor a: type of pots (p1: 6" plastic pot; p2: 6" coir pot); factor b: substrate (s1: red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v), s2: arka fermented cocopeat (afc), s3: afc + ver micompost (1:1 v/v)}; factor c: nutr ition concentration (n1160:30:180 ppm, n2128:24:144 ppm, n3 96:18:108 ppm n:p:k; n4 jeevamrutha @ 3% (organic source). for treatments n1, n2 and n3, secondary and micronutrients applications were kept uncha nged. nutr ient solution a pplica tion wa s scheduled at weekly intervals @ 50 ml / pot. the experiment was conducted in factorial crd design with three replications and ten pots per replication. one month old seedlings at 4-6 leaves stage were transplanted in the centre of each pot @ one seedling/ pot and watered. thereafter regular need-based watering was done, depending on the media and season. the texture and porosity of the growing medium were important considerations in deciding the frequency of irrigation. pots containing substrate with cocopeat, cocopeat + vermicompost retained moisture for longer period compared to soil + sand + fym media . pinching wa s done one month a fter transplanting. prophylactic sprays of plant protection chemicals ensured no severe infestation of pest and diseases during the period of experimentation. the substrates arka fermented cocopeat (afc), soil and fym were characterized as per the standard procedures. soil physical and chemical properties were estimated by following standard procedures (jackson, 1973). for nutrient uptake studies, nitrogen (n) contents in the plant samples were analyzed after mineralization with sulfuric acid by kjeldahl method (jackson, 1973). phosphorus (p), potassium (k), calcium (ca), magnesium (mg), iron (fe), manganese (mn), zinc (zn) and copper (cu) were estimated digesting with a triacid mixture (9:4:1 hno3: hclo4: h2so4) as described by jackson (1973). observations were recorded at flowering stage on the vegetative and flowering parameters viz., plant height (cm), number of pr imary branches, number of secondary branches, plant spread (cm2), leaf area (cm2), internodal length, number of flowers plant-1, flower diameter (cm) and duration of flowering. economic analysis of potted plant production of china aster was done considering the market price ranging from rs. 45-70 per pot, depending upon the type of pot (plastic or coir), appearance and display life for computing gross returns from economic produce. pooled analysis of the data for three seasons on different growth and yield parameters was done using sta tistical softwar e wasp 2.0 (web agri sta t package, icar-central coastal agricultural research institute, goa). results and discussion vegetative parameters: plant height was recorded at the time of flowering varied significantly for the factors container type, substrate and nutrient doses (table 1) and for their interaction effect (table 2). maximum plant height was observed in plastic pots, p1 (26.32 cm) whereas; it was minimum in coir pots (p2). among different types of substrates used, maximum plant height (31.22 cm) was observed in s1 (red soil + sand + fym), followed by s3 (afc + vermicompost) and minimum (21.30 cm) was recorded in s2 afc alone. among different nutrient levels used, ma ximum pla nt height wa s observed in a pplica tion of 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k n 3 (26.45cm) and minimum was in jeevamrutha n4 (23.33 cm). among the interaction effects, plants grown in plastic pots using red soil + fym + sand media with the application of 96:18:108 ppm npk 373 standardization of production techniques for potted china aster ta bl e 1 : in flu en ce o f ty pe o f po t, su bs tr at e an d nu tr ie nt s on g ro w th a nd y ie ld p ar am et er s of c hi na a st er v ar . a rk a a rc ha na p ot te d pl an t at flo w er in g (p oo le d m ea n of t hr ee s ea so ns ) p la nt n o. o f n o. o f a v. p la nt in te rn od al l ea f f lo w er n o. o f d ur at io n of t re at m en t h ei gh t pr im ar y se co nd ar y sp re ad le ng th ar ea si ze fl ow er s/ fl ow er in g (c m ) br an ch es br an ch es ar ea ( cm 2 ) (c m ) (c m 2 ) (c m ) pt (d ay s) t yp e of p ot s p 1 p la st ic p ot 26 .3 2 6. 96 2. 96 25 1. 61 2. 58 15 .5 9 4. 68 16 .2 4 32 .4 0 p 2 c oi r po t 25 .2 6 5. 82 2. 54 23 8. 42 2. 22 14 .0 6 4. 54 13 .4 0 29 .0 8 se m ± 0. 40 0. 20 0. 12 8. 53 0. 1 0. 39 0. 77 0. 26 0. 62 c d @ 5% 1. 05 0. 52 0. 31 20 .9 0 n s 0. 95 0. 19 0. 68 1. 50 t yp e of s ub st ra te s 1 r ed s oi l +f y m + 31 .2 2 8. 37 3. 10 29 5. 78 2. 46 15 .8 0 4. 95 17 .4 6 32 .7 5 sa nd ( 1: 1: 1 v/ v) s 2 a rk a fe rm en te d 21 .3 0 4. 49 2. 47 20 2. 56 2. 11 14 .0 9 4. 29 11 .5 7 29 .0 5 co co pe at ( a fc ) s 3 a fc + v er m ic om po st 24 .8 4 6. 30 2. 67 23 6. 72 2. 63 14 .6 0 4. 58 15 .4 4 30 .4 1 (1 :1 v /v ) se m ± 0. 50 0. 25 0. 25 9. 84 0. 16 0. 26 0. 10 0. 32 0. 71 c d @ 5% 1. 29 0. 64 0. 66 25 .5 9 n s 0. 67 0. 24 0. 83 1. 73 n ut ri en t co nc en tr at io n n 1 16 0: 30 :1 80 p pm 24 .0 7 6. 21 2. 67 23 6. 12 2. 31 14 .4 5 4. 58 14 .8 8 30 .0 7 n 2 12 8: 24 :1 44 p pm 26 .7 7 6. 30 2. 64 26 6. 76 2. 2 14 .9 4 4. 65 15 .0 3 30 .2 2 n 3 96 :1 8: 10 8 pp m 26 .4 5 6. 84 2. 87 24 6. 55 2. 79 15 .3 8 4. 72 15 .2 6 31 .9 2 n 4 je ev am ru th a 25 .8 6 6. 21 2. 80 23 0. 65 2. 31 14 .5 4 4. 49 14 .1 3 30 .7 5 @ 3 % w ee kl y dr en ch in g se m ± 0. 57 0. 28 0. 29 11 .3 7 0. 19 0. 22 0. 12 0. 37 0. 79 c d @ 5% 1. 49 0. 74 0. 76 29 .5 5 n s 0. 57 0. 28 0. 96 1. 93 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 374 smitha et al (p1s1n3) recorded maximum plant height (37.11 cm) and it was minimum in plants grown in plastic pot using red soil + fym + sa nd media with the application of jeevamrutha drenching@ 3% (p1s1n4) and pot using afc media with the application of nutrient combination of 160:30:180 (p1s2n1). number of primary and secondary branches was significant for individual factors (table 1) and their interaction (table 2). maximum number of primary and secondary branches was observed in plastic pots, p1 (6.96 and 2.92, respectively), red soil + fym + sand medium s1 (8.37 and 3.10, respectively) and nutrient combination of 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k – n 3 (6. 84 a nd 2. 87, r esp ectively). among the interaction effect, significantly highest number of primary branches was obtained using plastic pots using red soil + fym + sa nd media with the application of nutrient combination of 160:30:180 ppm of n:p:k p 1s1n1 (12.73). the number of secondary branches was found maximum (3.8) in plastic pots, red soil + fym + sand medium with the application of 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k (p1s1n3). plant spread area was significant for individual factors (table 1) and their interaction (table 2). maximum plant spread was recorded in plastic pots p1 (251.61 cm2) substrate containing red soil + sand + fym s1 (295.78 cm2) and supplied with nutrients, 96:18:108 ppm of n: p: k n3 (266.76 cm 2). among the interaction effect, maximum plant spread was in plastic pots, red soil + fym + sand medium with the application of 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k p 1s1n3 (380.05 cm2). internodal length of pooled mean showed non-significant differences for all the three factors and their interaction (table 1 & fig 3). leaf area was found to be significantly different among the treatment combinations (table 3). maximum leaf area wa s obser ved in p 1 (15.59 cm 2). in substr a te combination, red soil + fym + sand media (s1) reported maximum leaf area of 15.85 cm2. application of nutrient 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k (n3) resulted in maximum leaf area of 15.38 cm2. among interaction effect, p1s1n3 recorded maximum leaf area of 16.79 cm2 (table 1 and 3). in potted pla nt pr oduction pla nt gr owth a nd appearance plays an important role, not only to incr ease its ma r keting va lue by impr oving its appearance but also to improve the floriferousness. in this study, plant growth parameters like plant height, number of primary and secondary branches and plant spread was found ideal in plants grown in plastic pots using substrate containing red soil + sand + fym along with the application of the nutrients, 96:18:108 ppm of n: p: k. this increment of growth parameters could be attributed to the great input of nutrients provided by the media combination and balanced fertilizer dose which supplied the required quantity of major, secondary and micronutrients. the importance of potting media a nd nutr ient a pplica tion for ornamental plant production has been highlighted by jayasinghe (2012) and our findings are also in line with his findings. floral parameters: number of flowers per plant was found to be significant for all the three factors (table 1) and their interaction (table 3). among factor a, maximum number of flowers per plant for pooled mean of three harvests was observed in plastic pots (p1) (16.24) compared to coir pots (13.4). among different substrates used, maximum number of flowers was observed in s1 (17.46), followed by s3 (15.44) and minimum was in s2 (11.57). among nutrients, application of 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k (n3) recorded ma ximum number of flower s (15.26). among interaction treatment p 1s1n3 recorded maximum number of flowers (21.85). flower size is an important aspect of potted plant production. bigger the bloom indicates better display quality and attractiveness. flower size was significant for two individual factors (table 1) and interaction of three factors (table 3). maximum flower size was observed in plastic pots (4.68 cm) grown in red soil + fym + sand media (4.95 cm) with the application of 96:18:108 n:p:k n3 (4.72 cm). among interaction effect, treatment combination of plastic pot+ red soil + fym + sand along with application of 96:18:108 (p1s1n3) recorded maximum flower size of 5.26 cm. flower ing dura tion plays an impor ta nt r ole in analyzing the display life of the pot plant. in the pr esent study, the flower ing dur a tion showed significant differences for individual factors and their interaction (table 1 & 3). flowering duration was maximum in plants grown in plastic pots (32.4 days), consist of red soil + fym + sand media (32.75 days) and with the application of nutrient of 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k (31.92 days). among interaction effect, interaction of all these factors (plastic pots, red soil + fym + sand media and nutrient of 96:18:108 ppm j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 375 standardization of production techniques for potted china aster fig. 2 : best performing treatments of the china aster pot plant experiment fig. 1 : general view of china aster var. arka archana potted plant experiment j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 376 smitha et al t ab le 2 : i n te ra ct io n of t yp e of p ot , su bs tr at e an d nu tr ie nt s on p la nt g ro w th p ar am et er s in p ot p la n t of c h in a as te r va r. a rk a a rc h an a (p oo le d m ea n o f fo r th re e se as on s) tr ea tm en t p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) n um be r of p ri m ar y br an ch es n o. o f se co nd ar y br an ch es p la nt s pr ea d (c m 2 ) p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 n 1 27 .2 3 18 .2 2 27 .3 5 26 .9 3 20 .4 5 24 .2 7 8. 46 4. 12 6. 77 7. 62 4. 51 5. 77 2. 82 2. 20 2. 98 2. 49 2. 33 3. 17 30 7. 73 16 8. 44 24 9. 98 25 0. 74 15 5. 62 26 9. 04 n 2 32 .5 5 22 .7 3 25 .1 0 31 .9 6 21 .0 9 25 .3 0 8. 22 4. 73 6. 48 7. 29 4. 41 6. 69 3. 18 2. 44 2. 54 2. 60 2. 43 2. 66 32 2. 82 20 6. 61 22 1. 04 26 3. 74 21 6. 65 24 8. 45 n 3 37 .1 1 23 .0 3 23 .2 4 29 .4 9 22 .4 7 25 .2 5 12 .7 3 4. 46 6. 97 6. 38 5. 00 5. 52 3. 80 3. 21 3. 07 2. 58 1. 70 2. 85 38 0. 05 24 0. 79 20 9. 83 28 6. 23 24 2. 70 25 6. 07 n 4 35 .2 0 20 .7 5 23 .2 6 29 .2 9 21 .6 7 24 .9 7 9. 69 4. 76 6. 11 6. 60 3. 96 6. 11 3. 36 2. 87 2. 99 2. 71 2. 57 2. 33 28 9. 72 22 4. 14 19 8. 23 24 8. 60 16 2. 43 26 0. 78 se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) n 0. 43 1. 05 0. 21 0. 52 0. 22 0. 54 8. 50 20 .9 0 p 0. 52 1. 29 0. 26 0. 64 0. 27 0. 66 10 .4 0 25 .5 9 s 0. 61 1. 49 0. 30 0. 74 0. 47 n s 12 .0 1 29 .5 5 p x s 0. 74 1. 82 0. 37 0. 90 0. 38 0. 93 14 .7 2 36 .2 0 p x n 0. 85 2. 10 0. 42 1. 04 0. 51 n s 19 .8 n s s x n 1. 04 2. 57 0. 52 1. 27 0. 54 1. 32 20 .8 1 51 .1 9 p x s 1. 48 3. 64 0. 73 1. 80 0. 76 1. 86 29 .4 3 72 .3 9 x n fa ct or a : t yp e of p ot s (p 1: pl as tic p ot ; p 2: c oi r po ts ); f ac to r b : s ub st ra te ( s 1 : r ed s oi l + f y m + s an d (1 :1 :1 v /v ), s 2 : a rk a fe rm en te d co co pe at ( a fc ), s 3 : a fc + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1 v/ v) }; f ac to r c : n ut rit io n co nc en tr at io n (p pm ) (n 1 1 60 :3 0: 18 0, n 2 1 28 :2 4: 14 4, n 3 96 :1 8: 10 8 n :p :k ; n 4 o rg an ic s ou rc e (j ee va m ru th a @ 3 % w ee kl y dr en ch in g) t ab le 3 : i nt er ac ti on o f ty pe o f po t, s ub st ra te a nd n ut ri en ts o n yi el d an d qu al it y pa ra m et er s in p ot p la nt o f c hi na a st er v ar . a rk a a rc ha na (p oo le d m ea n of f or t hr ee s ea so ns ) tr ea tm en t l ea f ar ea ( cm 2 ) n o. o f fl ow er s/ pl an t f lo w er s iz e (c m ) d ur at io n of f lo w er in g ( da ys ) p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 n 1 16 .7 1 16 .7 3 14 .5 6 15 .0 4 14 .5 3 16 .6 0 17 .0 3 12 .1 7 17 .5 3 17 .0 2 11 .9 5 13 .5 6 4. 33 4. 85 5. 27 5. 18 3. 75 4. 07 34 .8 29 .5 32 .3 30 .1 26 .3 27 .4 n 2 16 .1 5 15 .5 1 14 .4 8 11 .9 9 13 .8 4 14 .5 3 17 .4 3 15 .2 8 15 .8 1 16 .5 0 11 .0 7 14 .8 2 4. 46 5. 19 5. 02 4. 96 3. 84 4. 62 33 .2 30 .2 31 .2 30 .7 27 .6 28 .4 n 3 16 .7 9 16 .7 2 13 .1 6 12 .4 9 13 .8 0 15 .0 0 21 .8 5 12 .2 9 13 .4 1 16 .6 2 13 .2 8 13 .3 5 5 .2 6 4. 56 4. 10 5. 08 3. 93 5. 14 35 .9 31 .5 34 32 .4 28 .2 29 .5 n 4 16 .9 0 14 .3 2 15 .1 1 15 .0 7 12 .5 2 13 .3 2 15 .4 7 11 .8 2 12 .9 8 17 .9 1 13 .0 1 13 .5 7 5. 08 4. 38 3. 41 5. 06 3. 85 4. 75 33 .7 30 .7 31 .8 31 .2 28 .4 28 .7 se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) n 0. 38 0. 95 0. 28 0. 68 0. 08 0. 19 0. 62 1. 50 p 0. 27 0. 67 0. 34 0. 83 0. 10 0. 24 0. 71 1. 73 s 0. 23 0. 57 0. 39 0. 96 0. 11 0. 28 0. 79 1. 93 p x s 0. 38 n s 0. 48 1. 18 0. 14 0. 34 0. 93 2. 26 p x n 0. 45 1. 12 0. 55 1. 36 0. 16 0. 39 1. 05 2. 55 s x n 1. 09 2. 74 0. 68 1. 67 0. 20 0. 48 1. 24 3. 02 p x s 1. 23 3. 08 0. 96 2. 36 0. 28 0. 67 1. 68 4. 08 x n fa ct or a : t yp e of p ot s (p 1: pl as tic p ot ; p 2 : c oi r po ts ); f ac to r b : s ub st ra te ( s 1 : r ed s oi l + f y m + s an d (1 :1 :1 v /v ), s 2 : a rk a fe rm en te d co co pe at ( a fc ), s 3 : a fc + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1 v/ v) }; f ac to r c : n ut rit io n co nc en tr at io n (p pm ) (n 1 1 60 :3 0: 18 0, n 2 1 28 :2 4: 14 4, n 3 9 6: 18 :1 08 n :p :k ; n 4 o rg an ic s ou rc e (j ee va m ru th a @ 3 % w ee kl y dr en ch in g) j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 377 standardization of production techniques for potted china aster of n:p:k) recorded maximum display life of 35.90 days. it was minimum in plants grown in coir pots, afc media with the application of 160:30:180 ppm of n:p:k (26.30 days). in the present study, plant growth parameters (plant height, number of primary br anches, plant spread) at flowering a nd yield parameters (number of flowers/plants, flower size) and uptake of nutrients were maximum in the plants grown in 6" plastic pots compared to coir pots of the same size. the coir pots maintained the shape for 3-4 months, ther ea fter sta r ted degr a ding. simila r observations were made in poinsettia potted plants grown in containers made of 100% biodegradable polyester for breakage problems during the handling of the marketing phase (castronuovo, 2015). the coir pots required frequent irrigation compared to plastic pots which was also reported by evans et al. (2015) in vinca (catharanthus roseus). beeks and evans (2013) a lso analyzed the beha vior of nine bio containers in comparison with a traditional petroleumbased plastic containers for the production of cyclamen (cyclamen persicum l.) cv. ‘rainer purple’ and pointed out those most plantable containers are not suitable for this purpose. analysis of substrate composition: the substrate afc had the following characteristics: bulk density 0.16 mg m-3; porosity 67.8%; ph 6.75; electrical conductivity 0.5 dsm-1; total carbon 36.1%; total n 0.98%; total p 0.07%; total k 2.20% and na 0.35%. the average concentration of macronutrients was estimated at 0.58% n, 0.26% p2o5 and 0.60% k2o in fym. physical and chemical characteristics of the soil were: bulk density 1.28 mg m-3; porosity 51.3%; ph 6.97, electrical conductivity 0.26 dsm-1; organic carbon 7.8 g kg-1; available n 0.13 g kg-1; 18 mg kg-1 olsen’s p, ammonium acetate (ch3coonh4) extractable nutrients as follow: 0.90 g ca kg-1, 0.174 g mg kg-1 and 0.15 g k kg-1 and dtpa extractable micronutrients as follow: 10.3 mg kg-1 fe, 5.70 mg kg-1 mn, 2.24 mg kg-1 cu and 1.35 mg kg-1 zn. plant production in growth media includes materials that contain soil or soilless media (savvas et al., 2013). plant faces two basic challenges for root growth in the containerized plant production system. the first one is the very shallow root growth area in the container envir onment which quickly becomes saturated after watering as compared to normal soil profile having limitless area for drainage. the second one is the limited water storage capacity between the irr igation interva ls due to small volume of the container (bunt, 1988). the physical structure must maintain equilibrium between air and water over the entire crop cycle, which is few months for annuals to prolonged time for perennials. the potting substrate physical properties are usually assessed by its particle size and shape, texture and physical organization (bilderback et al., 2005). selection of an ideal substrate, either soil or soilless is one of the important keys for success of potted plant production. our studies have revealed that the substrate combination of soil + sand + fym (1:1:1 v/v) have recorded compact plant growth, yield and quality parameters compared to afc + vermicompost and afc alone. addition of organic matter as compost or manure (green manure, farm yard manure, poultry manure) is a common practice for growing potted plants. in addition to supplying plant nutrients, it provides a favourable physical and biological environment for plant roots in the growth medium (kumar and goh, 2000). therefore, an ideal potting substrate must possess unique physical and chemical characteristics favoring maximum water retention between irrigation while being well drained in order to avoid drought and root asphyxia (nkongolo and carol, 2006). thus, the potting substrate is a pivotal advancement in plant production system providing grower with the full control over air, water and nutrients delivery as well as pathogen free environment to plant roots (raviv et al., 2002). on a commercial scale, there is a need of bulk quantity raw constituents for the production of soilless growing media (carlile et al., 2015). the growing substrate should also be economical and practical enough to be used for commercial purposes. nutrient uptake: the plant nutr ient upta ke as influenced by pot types, substrates and nutrient levels are given in figure 4. nutrient uptake was found to be non-significant for type of pots. among the substrate combinations, red soil + sand + fym recorded highest plant nutrient uptake for most of the nutrients {n (0.19 g/pt), ca (0.15 g/pt), mg (0.06 g/ pt), fe (4.45 mg/pt), mn (0.67 mg/pt) and zn (0.55 mg/pt)} followed by afc + vermicompost and all these pa ra meters were found minimum in pots containing afc alone. with respect to nutrient levels, the highest nutrient uptake {n (0.21 g/pt), k (0.35 g/ pt), ca (0.14 g/pt), mg (0.06 g/pt), s (0.01 g/pt), fe (4.04 mg/pt), mn (0.68 mg/pt), zn (0.59 mg/pt), cu (0.63 mg/pt)} was recorded with application of 96, j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 378 smitha et al 18 and 108 ppm of n:p:k (n3). this was followed by n2 (128:24:144 ppm of n:p:k) and found to be on par with jeevamrutha @ 3% weekly drenching (n4). the lowest nutrient uptake was recorded with application of higher levels of nutrient application (n1160:30:180 ppm of n: p:k). plant nutrition plays a pivotal role especially when it is grown in container. in this experiment among three levels of nutrient a pplica tion a nd one orga nic combina tion jeeva mr utha , weekly a pplica tion of lower concentrations of nutrient solution of 96:18:108 ppm n:p:k/plant (arka sasya poshak ras) has given better plant growth, flower yield and quality parameters. similar studies on adenum obesum ‘red’ under low nutrient supply was found to relocate more biomass into r oots (mcbr ide, 2014). however, tabernaemontana pachysiphon staph treated with three levels of osmocote, two water regimes, and two light intensities indicated that increasing nutrient supply had a positive effect on growth (hoft et al., 1996). mandevilla vogue varieties were shown to be moderate feeders, responding best to use of a balanced fertilizer at a rate of 100 to 200 mg l-1 and it was recommended that a low to medium rate of a standard slowrelease fertilizer should be added at planting (mart, 2012). plumeria rubra grown in pure silica sand in 4-l containers were treated with a low and high nutrient level (2.4 g and 24.0 g, respectively, of 14n–14p–14k of osmocote) revealed that more biomass was produced under high nutrient supply, whereas more biomass was allocated to the roots in low nutrient supply (huante et al., 1995). vinca (catharanthus roseus l.) seedlings benefitted from high concentrations of n (up to 32 mm) in the fertilizer, wherea s only low concentr a tions of phosphorus and potassium (0.25 mm) were needed (van iersel et al., 1999). the ideal potting substrate must also deliver an appropriate environment for proper plant nutrient availability. nutrient availability is very much dependent on the chemical properties including ph, cation exchange capacity, electrical conductivity of the substrate etc. economic analysis: economic indicators have been worked out considering the cost of inputs (pots, substrate and nutrients), labour and maintenance cost (fig 5). the three-season study suggested that pot plant production of china aster var. arka archana was profitable in plants grown in plastic pots using red soil + fym + sand media with the a pplica tion of fig. 3 : interaction effect of type of pots, substrate and media combination on internodal length of china aster var. arka archana fig. 5 : b:c ratio of different treatments of china aster var. arka archana pot experiment factor a: type of pots (p1: plastic pot; p2: coir pots); factor b: substrate (s1: red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v), s2: arka fermented cocopeat (afc), s3: afc + vermicompost (1:1 v/v)}; factor c: nutrition concentration (ppm) (n1160:30:180, n2128:24:144, n3 96:18:108 n:p:k; n4 organic source (jeevamrutha @ 3% weekly drenching) fig. 4 : nutrient uptake by china aster var. arka archana plants under pot experiment j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 379 term greenhouse crops in an ebb-and-flood irrigation system. hort. sci., 48(6): 732-737. bilderback, s.l., warren, j.s. owen, jr., and albano j.p.2005. hort. tech. 15: 747-751. br umfield, r. g., devincentis, a. j., wa ng, x., fernandez, r.t., nambuthiri, s., geneve, r.l., koeser, a.k., bi, g., li, t., sun, y., niu, g., cochran, d., fulcher, a. and stewart, j.r. 2015. economics of utilizing a lter native containers in ornamental crop production systems. hort. tech. 25(1): 17-25. carlile, t.m. and amon, a.  2008.  meiosis  i  is es t a b lis he d t hr ou gh divis ion s p ec if ic t r a ns la t i ona l c ont r ol of a c yc lin. cell: 133: 280-291. caron, j. and nkongolo, v.k.n. 1999. aeration in growing media: recent developments. acta hortic. 481: 545-552. castronuovo, d., picuno, p., manera, c., scopa, a., sofo, a. and candido, v. 2015. biodegradable pots for poinsettia cultivation: agronomic and technical traits. sci. hortic., 197: 150-156. evans, m.r., koeser, a.k., bi, g., nambuthiri, s., geneve, r., lovell, s.t. and stewart, r.j. 2015. impact of biocontainers with and without shuttle trays on water use in the production of a containerized ornamental greenhouse crop. hort tech. 25(1): 35-41. hoft, m.r. verpoorte and beck, e. 1996. growth and alkaloid content in leaves of tabernaemontana pachysiphon stapf (apocynaceae) as influenced by light intensity, water and nutrient supply. oecologia 107: 160-169. huante, p.e., rincon, and acosta i. 1995. nutrient availability and growth rate of 34 woody species from a tropical deciduous forest in mexico. funct. ecol. 9: 849-858. jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india private ltd., new delhi. jayasinghe g. y. 2012. synthetic soil aggregates as a potting medium for or na menta l pla nt production. j. plant nutr., 35(10): 1441-1456. mcbride, k., henny, r.j., chen, j. and mellich, t.a. 2014. effect of light intensity and nutrition level on growth and flowering of adenium standardization of production techniques for potted china aster 96:18:108 ppm of n:p:k (p1s1n3) with a b:c ratio of 1.70. this might be due to the lower cost of production and better display life of the potted plant grown in this treatment. in general plants grown in plastic pots recorded better b:c ratio in the range of 1.02 to 1.70, whereas, coir pots due to higher cost of pots recorded lower b:c ratio range of 0.37 to 0.59. an alternative to the use of plastics in potted plant production could be the use of biodegradable pots instead of plastic pots (sartore et al., 2013). however, the technica l per for ma nce a nd suita bility for agricultural applications, of these biodegradable materials, that can be easily degraded by naturally occurring microorganisms must be ensured (lucas et al., 2008). the cost of bio pots is too high than traditional ones to make them utilizable by growers on large scale (brumfield et al., 2015) and it is about twice the cost the traditional ones according to minuto et al. (2008). this aspect is even more important for annual crops like potted china aster wherein the production costs should be considered as it is a short duration crop. conclusion from the results of the study, it is evident that in pot plant production of china aster var. arka archana, plant growth parameters like plant height (33.12 cm), number of primary branches (12.4), plant spread (536.64 cm2) at flowering and yield parameters like number of flowers/plant (26.47), flower size (5.26 cm) and uptake of nutrients were maximum in the plants grown in 6" plastic pots by using the substrate combination of red soil + sand + fym (1:1:1 v/v) along with the weekly application of nutrient solution of 96:18:108 ppm npk/plant (arka sasya poshak ras). the same treatment is profitable with the highest b:c ratio of 1.70. this technology can be adopted for large-scale commercial potted plant crop production as flowering potted plants are a way to bring in a visually pleasing effect, soften the hard lines of the living spaces that give health benefits. references anonymous, 2019. flower pots and planters market insights, trends, opportunity & forecast. https://www.fastmr.com/report/41/flower-potsand-planters-market. beeks, s. a. and eva ns, m. r. 2013. physica l properties of bio containers used to grow longj. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 380 obesum ‘red’ and ‘ice pink’. hort science 49(4): 430-433. kumar k. and goh k.m. 2000. crop residues and management practices: effects on soil quality, soil nitrogen dynamics, crop yield, and nitrogen recovery. adv. agron., 68: 197-319. lucas, n., bienaime, c., belloy, c., queneudec, m., silvestre, f. and nava-saucedo, j.e., 2008. polymer biodegradation: mechanisms and estimation techniques. chemosphere 73: 429442. mart, m. 2012. strike a pose: mandevilla vogue. grower talks 76: 1-8. minuto, g., minuto, a., pisi, l., tinivella, f., guerrini, s., versari, m., pini, s., capurro, m. and amprimo, i., 2008. use of compostable pots for potted ornamental plants production. acta hortic., 801: 367-372. nkongolo n.v. and caron, j., 2006. pore space orga niza tion a nd pla nt r esponse in pea t substrates: ii. dendrathemum morifolium ramat. sci. res. essays. 1(3): 93-102. kumari, p., rajiv kumar, t.m. rao, bharathi, t.u., m.v. dhananjaya and bhargav, v. (2018). cr ossa bility studies in china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees]. int. j. curr. microbiol. appl. sci., 7: 2169-2175. raviv, m., wallach, r., silber, a. and bar-tal, a., 2002. substrates and their analysis. hydroponic production of vegetables and ornamentals pp. 25-105. sa r tor e, l. , vox, g. a nd schettini, e. 2013. pr epa r a tion a nd per for ma nce of novel biodegradable polymeric materials based on hydrolyzed proteins for agricultural application. j. polym. environ., 21(3): 718-725. van iersel, m.w.r.b., beverly, p.a., thomas j.g. and mills, h.a. 1999. nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium effects on pre-and post-transplant growth of salvia and vinca seedlings. j. plant nutr. 22: 1403-1413. smitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 371-380, 2022 (received : 26.07.2022; revised : 02.11.2022; accepted : 30.11.2022) page 120 integrated management of the yellow mite, polyphagotarsonemus latus (banks), on sweet pepper grown under polyhouse s. g. eswara reddy1 and n. k. krishna kumar2 department of entomology university of agricultural sciences, gkvk, bangalore 560 065, india e mail: ereddy2001@yahoo.com abstract different ipm modules were evaluated for the management of yellow mite, polyphagotarsonemus latus (banks) on sweet pepper grown under protected cultivation at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. results indicated that application of module 1(spray of abamectin followed by ethion and abamectin) or module 2 (spray of abamectin followed by profenophos and abamectin) was significantly more effective (3.91-6.58 mites/ leaf) than module 3 (spray of dicofol followed by pongamia oil and neem seed kernal extract (5.79 -6.95 mites/ leaf) in the first two trials (sept. 2002mar. 2003 and june – dec.2003). ipm modules like module 4 (spray of dicofol followed by release of amblyseius tetranychivorus and spray of verticillium lecanii and module 5 (spray of dicofol followed by release of a. tetranychivorus and spray of pongamia oil (9.25-15.53 mites/leaf) were marginally effective during the first two trials. however, in the third trial (mar. sept., 2004) all the revised modules, viz., abamectin followed by dicofol (m 1 ), dicofol-fenazaquin (m 2 ), fenazaquin-pongamia oil (m 3 ) and organic module oxymetrin-neem soap (m 4 ) were effective (2.30-3.03 mites/leaf) against the yellow mite. key words: ipm, polyhouse cultivation, polyphagotarsonemus latus, sweet pepper introduction protected (polyhouse) cultivation is gaining popularity in india and is recognized as a useful technology to augment production of high quality vegetables. sweet pepper, capsicum annuum l., is one of the vegetables commercially suited for polyhouse cultivation, yielding 100 to 120 t ha-1 compared to 20 to 40 t/ha in open field (prabhakara et al, 2004). among different pests reported on sweet pepper, the yellow mite, polyphagotarsonemus latus (banks) is a major pest causing yield loss upto 96.4% in north karnataka (borah, 1987) and 25% in west bengal (ahmed et al, 1987) under open field is reported. adults and nymphs suck the sap from terminal leaves, auxiliary shoots and developing fruits. affected leaves become narrow and twisted resulting in downward curling (eswara reddy, 2005). information on yield loss due to p. latus infestation and its management on sweet pepper grown under protected cultivation is lacking in the tropics. hence, a study was carried out to study the effect of various ipm modules against p. latus on sweet pepper. material and methods experiments were conducted under a polyhouse (30 x 7 m) during september 2002 march 2003, june december 2003 and march september 2004 at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. thirty five day old, indeterminate, hybrid sweet pepper seedlings raised under polyhouse (indra, syngenta india ltd.) was transplanted as recommended (prabhakara et al, 2004). experiments were carried out in a randomized block design (rbd) to evaluate six pest management modules in the first two trials. the third trial consisted of five modules. there were four replications and the plot size was 1.75 sq m. modules were revised during the third season to accommodate one more variable with no chemicals/ pesticides or botanicals. treatment sprays were imposed as soon as the first infestation of yellow mite, p. latus, was noticed (first spray was given 22 weeks after planting, second and third sprays) 23 and 25 weeks after plantings respectively in the first trial. correspondingly, it was 12, 15 and 17 weeks in the second trial and 6 and 9 weeks in the third trial. all pesticide sprays were applied with n adjuvant (teepol, 0.5 ml/l) using a high volume sprayer. observations on the incidence of p. latus were recorded a day prior to treatment and 7 and 14 days after j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 120-123, 2006 1present address: entomologist, e.i.d. parry (india) ltd., research & development centre, # 145, devanahalli road, off old madras road, bangalore–560 049 2 division of entomology and nematology, indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, karnataka, india page 121 each spray. the number of nymphs and adults of p. latus were counted under a stereo-binocular microscope from two terminal leaves/plant on 5 randomly selected plants/ treatment. mature, green sweet pepper fruits were harvested 60 days after planting in all the trials and repeated at regular intervals. data on incidence of mites were subjected to square root transformation and subjected to analysis of variance (anova). module details for the experiments are presented in the tables 1 and 2. rationale of module selection the selected ipm modules were basically derivatives of similar modules evaluated for management of tetranychus urticae on ornamental crops. this was necessary in the absence of similar work on vegetables. the main logic was to compare the efficacy of the most effective molecule (abamectin) for management of p. latus and gradual, stepwise replacement of this molecule with moderately effective but less expensive (dicofol) molecules and, if possible, to develop a module using only botanicals and predators. predatory mite information regarding phytoseiid mite adults, amblyseius tetranychivorus (gupta), was supplied by m/s. bio-control research laboratories (bcrl), bangalore, in plastic vials (200 mites/vial) containing artificial diet and bran. the predator was released by sprinkling the bran containing mites on leaves @ 20 mites/plant. results and discussion among the modules evaluated against p. latus on swet pepper, module 1 (abamectin followed by ethion and abamectin), module 2 (abamectin followed by profenophos and abamectin) and module 3 (dicofol followed by pongamia oil and neem seed kernel extract) were more effective in controlling p. latus (3.91-6.95 mites/leaf) (tables 3, 4). module 4 (dicofol followed by amblyseius tetranychivorus and verticilium lecanii) and module 5 (dicofol followed by a. tetranychivorus and pongamia oil) recorded moderately high infestation (13.99 -15.53 mites/ leaf). release of a. tetranychivorus following application of dicofol did not significantly reduce the infestation of p. latus. similarly, a comparison of module 4 and module 5 indicates that application of pongamia oil was more effective in suppressing p. latus numbers than the application of v. lecanii (table 3, 4). the efficacy of module 1 and 2 can be attributed to the effect of abamectin on p. latus. our results are in agreement with the findings of honnamma rani (2001) who table 1: modules evaluated against p. latus on sweet pepper under polyhouse (september 2002-march 2003 and june-december 2003) module spray sequence m 1 abamectin 0.00095% ethion 0.05% abamectin 0.00095% m 2 abamectin 0.00095% profenophos 0.05% abamectin 0.00095% m 3 dicofol 0.037% pongamia oil 1% neem seed kernel extract 4% m 4 dicofol 0.037% -amblyseius tetranychivorus verticilium lecanii 0.30% m 5 dicofol 0.037% a. tetranychivorus – pongamia oil 1% m 6 control (no spray) table 2: modules evaluated against p. latus on sweet pepper in polyhouse (march -september 2004) module spray sequence m 1 abamectin 0.00095% dicofol 0.037% m 2 dicofol 0.037% fenazaquin 0.01% m 3 fenazaquin 0.01% pongamia oil 1% m 4 oxymetrin 0.0009%neem soap 1% m 5 control (no spray) table 3: effect of various modules on management of p. latus on sweet pepper under polyhouse (september 2002march 2003) mean number of mites/leaf (days after spray) module i spray ii spray iii spray mean pre-count 7 14 pre-count 7 14 7 14 m 1 46.55 (6.85) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 24.55 (4.99) 0.00 (0.71)a 2.83 (1.82)a 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 3.91 (1.96)a m 2 47.55 (6.92) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 28.58 (5.34) 4.68 (2.27)c 5.08 (2.35)c 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 5.48 (2.28)b m 3 35.75 (6.01) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 33.43 (5.77) 1.85 (1.53)b 3.53 (2.00)b 0.30 (0.89)b 1.45 (1.40)c 5.79 (2.61)c m 4 36.98 (6.10) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 26.38 (5.16) 23.00 (4.84)e 19.88 (4.51)e 16.50 (4.11)d 12.15 (3.54)d 13.99 (3.89)e m 5 40.93 (6.40) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 24.03 (5.29) 20.43 (4.57)d 18.48 (4.35)d 0.48 (0.98)c 1.33 (1.35)b 9.25 (3.06)d m 6 41.63 (6.48) 73.25 (8.59)b 71.45 (8.48)b 41.00 (6.38) 51.05 (7.18)f 41.93 (4.07)f 24.15 (4.96)e 21.23 (4.66)e 46.29 (7.01)f sem± 0.11 0.01 0.01 0.20 0.05 0.06 0.04 0.03 0.03 cd (p=0.05) 0.02 0.03 0.10 0.14 0.09 0.08 0.18 figures in parentheses indicate “x+0.5 transformations figures in columns followed by the same letter are not significantly different j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 120-123, 2006 integrated management of yellow mite 121 page 122 reported that dicofol (0.05%), abamectin (0.0007%), ethion (0.1%) and wettable sulphur (0.2%) were more effective against p. latus on chilli and potato under the field condition. green and dybas (1990) onkarappa (1999) and mallik et al (2002) also reported effect of the same molecules against tetranychus urticae on rose in polyhouse. abamectin is also the acaricide of choice in india for control of mites in ornamentals and vegetables grown under protected and open field cultivations. the efficacy of abamectin persists for 35 to 40 days, while other molecules retain their efficacy for 10 to 15 days only. several reports indicate that dicofol, ethion, profenophos and fenazaquin are also effective acaricides for the management of t. urticae and p. latus on a number of crops (khalid ahmed et al, 2000; honnamma rani, 2001; jhansi rani, 2001; mallik et al, 2001; mallik et al, 2002; anon, 2005). efficacy should be viewed from the point of reduction in pest population as well as persistence (of the efficacy). thus, while dicofol may not meet the stringent requirement for export of roses where zero tolerance is advocated, it can be a very important component of ipm in the management p. latus on sweet pepper as this crop is not exported. hence, use of abamectin may be more advantageous to the floriculture industry whereas the use of dicofol, ethion or pongamia oil is pragmatic for management of p. latus on sweet pepper grown under polyhouse. it is not surprising that in our trials, module 4 (dicofol followed by amblyseius tetranychivorus and verticilium lecanii) and module 5 (dicofol followed by a tetranychivorus and pongamia oil) were not effective as predators when released 30 days after the first application of dicofol. a number of workers have observed that a etranychivorus is an effective bio-control agent for control of t. urticae on rose under protected cultivation (mallik et al, 1998; jhansi rani, 2001). further, dicofol is highly toxic to the predatory mite, a. tetranychivorus, even at nine days from spray (krishnamoorthy, 1983). hence, it is likely that the potential of predatory mites is reduced in the presence of dicofol. all revised modules viz., abamectin followed by dicofol (m 1 ), dicofol fenazaquin (m 2 ), fenazaquin – pongamia oil (m 3 ) and organic module oxymetrin neem soap (m 4 ) during the third trial were significantly superior (2.30 -3.03 mites/leaf) (table 5). one of the reasons for choosing polyhouse cultivation is to grow crops with higher yields besides being qualitatively superior. however, there is value addition if the produce is pesticide residue -free or is organically grown. module 4 (spray of oxymetrin followed by neem soap) shows promise in this direction and may turn out to be extremely useful. table 4: effect of various modules on management of p. latus on sweet pepper under polyhouse (june december 2003) mean number of mites/leaf (days after spray) module i spray ii spray iii spray mean pre-count 7 14 pre-count 7 14 pre-count 7 14 m 1 69.60 (8.35) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 25.55 (5.07) 0.65 (1.07)a 1.65 (1.46)c 15.30 (3.95) 0.45 (0.97)a 0.50 (1.00)a 5.51 (1.87)a m 2 72.60 (8.52) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 26.40 (5.09) 0.80 (1.14)b 1.05 (1.24)a 23.10 (4.83) 0.63 (1.06)b 0.63 (1.06)a 6.58 (1.98)a m 3 73.70 (8.97) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 29.30 (5.44) 0.70 (1.09)a 1.35 (1.36)b 21.33 (4.67) 1.23 (1.31)c 1.70 (1.48)b 6.95 (2.10)b m 4 77.23 (8.80) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 27.75 (5.31) 19.55 (4.47)d 16.98 (4.18)e 22.80 (4.81) 21.15 (4.65)d 18.98 (4.41)d 15.53 (3.61)d m 5 76.90 (8.78) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.00 (0.71)a 26.90 (5.19) 16.15 (4.08)c 16.03 (4.06)d 24.33 (4.93) 1.20 (1.30)c 6.35 (2.61)c 10.70 (2.88)c m 6 75.28 (8.69) 94.18 (9.72)b 30.65 (5.57)b 21.90 (4.69) 23.45 (4.89)e 23.08 (4.85)f 25.15 (5.01) 31.10 (5.62)e 48.65 (7.00)e 37.89 (5.98)e sem± 0.39 0.09 0.07 0.17 0.03 0.03 0.12 0.03 0.04 0.03 cd (p=0.05) 0.19 0.15 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.09 0.17 figures in parentheses indicate “x+0.5 transformations figures in columns followed by the same letter are not significantly different table 5: effect of various modules on management of p. latus on sweet pepper under polyhouse (march september 2004) mean number of mites/leaf (days after spray) module i spray ii spray mean pre-count 7 14 pre-count 7 14 m 1 61.59 (7.87) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.38 (0.94)a 8.05 (2.88) 0.00 (0.71)a 3.05 (1.88)a 2.30 (1.42)a m 2 53.15 (7.32) 0.00 (0.71)a 1.60 (1.45)a 9.68 (3.15) 0.00 (0.71)a 2.38 (1.69)a 2.73 (1.54)a m 3 49.37 (7.04) 0.00 (0.71)a 1.28 (1.33)a 9.83 (3.16) 1.18 (1.29)a 3.23 (1.93)a 3.10 (1.68)a m 4 41.25 (6.36) 0.00 (0.71)a 0.63 (1.06)a 9.15 (3.07) 1.78 (1.51)a 3.58 (2.02)a 3.03 (1.67)a m 5 53.41 (7.33) 90.85 (9.51)b 26.25 (5.17)d 17.20 (4.20) 16.30 (4.10)c 11.45 (3.45)b 32.41 (5.29)b sem± 0.19 0.42 0.18 0.15 0.14 0.08 0.17 cd (p=0.05) 2.53 1.11 1.00 0.87 0.47 1.04 figures in parentheses indicate “x+0.5 transformations figures in columns followed by the same letter are not significantly different j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 120-123, 2006 eswara reddy & krishna kumar 122 page 123 effect of module on yield fruits harvested from polyhouse grown sweet pepper were completely free from feeding scars. marketable fruit yield in different modules during the first and second trials indicated that module 1 (abamectin followed by ethion and abamectin) recorded significantly higher yield (97.17116.71 t ha-1) and was on par with module 2 (abamectinprofenophosabamectin) (93.84-95.58 t ha-1) and module 3 (dicofol-pongamia oil-nske) (93.02-97.69 t ha-1), followed by module 4 (dicofola. tetranychivorus -v. lecani) and module 5 (dicofol-a. tetranychivoruspongamiaoil). control recorded significantly low yield (57.16-69.29 t ha-1). all the revised modules during the third trial viz., abamectin-dicofol (m 1 ), dicofol-fenazaquin (m 2 ), fenazaquin-pongamia oil (m 3 ) and oxymetrin-neem soap (m 4 ) were significantly superior (99.29-109.79 t ha-1) to control which recorded less yield (74.36 t ha-1) (table 6). resistance to insecticides under polyhouse cultivation has been documented earlier (anon, 2005). intensive polyhouse cultivation is practiced round the year and resistance can easily surface in mines under repeated selection pressure. modular approach for the management of mites can contribute to greater selection pressure. need based chemical application is a better approach in ipm of vegetables than a modular approach that is better suited for export in floriculture. based on efficacy, economics and persistence, dicofol application followed by pongamia oil and nske, or, fenazaquin followed by pongamia oil, or, oxymetrin followed by neem soap, can be recommended for control of p. latus on sweet pepper grown under polyhouse. acknowledgements authors are thankful to world bank aided natpmm project on “protected cultivation of vegetables and flowers in plains and hills” for providing funds. our thanks to director, indian institute of horticultural research (icar), for providing the facilities. we are grateful to m/s bio-control research laboratories (bcrl), bangalore, for providing the predatory mite and verticilium lecanii for the study. references anonymous, 2005. annual report, indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore. anonymous, 2005. technical folder, all india network project on agricultural acarology (icar), department of entomology, uas, bangalore, karnataka, india. ahmed, k., mohamed, m. g. and murthy, n. s. r. 1987. yield loss due to various pests in hot pepper. sweet pepper news letter. no. 6: 83-84. borah, d. c. 1987. bio-ecology of polyphagotarsonemus latus (banks) and scirtothrips dorsalis (hood) infesting chilli and their natural enemies. ph.d. thesis, uas, dharwad. eswara reddy, s. g. 2005. comparison of pest incidence and management strategies on capsicum and tomato grown under protected and open field cultivation. ph.d. thesis, uas, bangalore. honnamma rani, r. 2001. bio-ecology and control of yellow mite, polyphagotarsonemus latus (banks) infesting potato and chilli. m.sc. (agri.) thesis, uas, bangalore. jhansi rani, b. 2001. efficacy of phytoseid predator, amblyseius longispinosus evans, against the spotted spider mite, tetranychus urticae koch, on carnation. 7: 64-65. khalid ahmed, purna chandra rao, p. and rao, n. h. p. 2000. evaluation of new insecticides against yellow mite, polyphagotarsonemus latus (banks), in chillies. pestology 24: 54-57. krishnamoorthy, a. 1983. effect of some pesticides on the predatory mite, amblyseius tetranychivorus (gupta), (acari: phytoseiidae). entomon 8: 229-234. mallik, b., anil, k .n. onkarappa, s., shaila, h. m. and puttaswamy 2002. management of acarine and other pests of horticultural plants grown under controlled conditions. international symposium on hitech horticulture, bangalore, 240-246. prabhakara, b. s, prabhakar, m., hebbar, s. s., krishna kumar, n. k., krishna murthy, p. n., girija ganeshan, sreenivasa murthy, d., srinivas, v., eswara reddy, s. g. and anjula, n. 2004. greenhouse production of capsicum. technical bulletin 22, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 120-123, 2006 integrated management of yellow mite 123 table 6: effect of various modules on yield for management of p. latus on sweet pepper under polyhouse module yield (t ha-1) sept. 02 –mar. 03 june-dec.2003 mar.-sept 2004 m 1 97.17a 116.71 a 109.79a m 2 93.84ab 95.58ab 105.00a m 3 93.02ab 97.69ab 102.63a m 4 83.22c 86.71b 99.29a m 5 91.33b 82.01b 74.36b m 6 69.28d 57.16c —— s. em ± 0.88 8.78 2.71 c.d (p=0.05) 5.32 18.72 16.38 figures in columns followed by the same letter are not significantly different (ms received 27 february 2006 , revised 22 december 2006) 363 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction chr ysa nthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.), commonly known as ‘pot mums’ belonging to the family ‘asteraceae’ ranks third in world cut flower trade and has retained first position in china and japan, being its primary centers of origin (datta and janakiram 2015). in india, chrysanthemum is cultivated in 28.32 thousand ha with an average annual production of 537.56 thousand mt (loose flowers) and 18.52 lakh (cut stems) (anonymous 2022). t he production of qua lity cut stems of chrysanthemum depends on several cultural practices, the most influential being the nitrogen (n) nutrition and availability of optimum space for the plants to manifest its vigorous vegetative and reproductive growth stages. chrysanthemum, being a heavy feeder requires n application in splits for the first seven weeks of its vegetative growth, that is essential for adequate accumula tion of n in br anches and leaves for utilization at later stage during reproductive phase (crater, 1992). the analysis of mature leaf samples revealed 4.6-6.0% n, which is considerably less then accounted during the active growth period (muniz et al., 2009; stern et al., 2008). most of the ornamental plants utilize either or both n-nh4 +and n-no3 " depending upon their stage of growth and development (bernstein et al., 2005). the quality of chrysanthemum cut stems can be influenced by the n-nh 4 +/nno3 "ratio that affect postharvest behaviour of cut stems (ramos et al., 2013). the availability of optimum space for proper growth and development of chrysanthemum is a key factor determining the quality and productivity of cut stems. an ideal planting geometry influence several factors such as the density of plants per unit area, light interception within the plant canopy, resource utilization, ease in performing various cultural operations, optimum ground to canopy ratio, suppression of weed growth and most important being the productivity of the crop.optimum utilization of resources is the need of the hour to safeguard and effectively utilize the available resources for successful production of high value and low volume flor icultur e cr ops, in pa r ticula r chrysanthemum. optimization of nitrogen application and planting geometry for production of cut chrysanthemums (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) singh m.1, bala m.2* and singh s.2 1 punjab urban planning and development authority (puda), punjab, india 2 department of floriculture and landscaping, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india *corresponding author email : madhu-flori@pau.edu abstract nutrition and planting geometry are the two key factors affecting the production and quality of cut stems in chrysanthemum. the present investigation was undertaken to standardize the nitrogen nutrition and planting geometry for chrysanthemum var. “yellow star” cultivated for cut flowers. the data revealed the proportionate increase in plant height, chlorophyll content, days to bud appearance and days to 50% inflorescence anthesis and length of cut stem with increase in nitrogen dose and row spacing. however, flower diameter, number of flowers per stem, cut stem diameter, vase life, and water absorbed by cut flower decreased proportionately with increase in nitrogen dose and row spacing. application of n@100 kg ha-1 to chrysanthemum planted at 20x10 cm spacing produced cut stems of acceptable length, more number of flowers of bigger size and optimum postharvest longevity. the amount of nitrogen can be reduced to 1/3rd to grow cut chrysanthemums planted at twice the row spacing for longer cut stems of appreciable vase life. keywords: chrysanthemum, fertilization, nitrogen, planting geometry, yellow star 364 singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 however, information regarding n-nutrition and planting geometry in cultivation of cut chrysanthemum needs to be determined under the subtropical climatic conditions of india. the study is deemed as significant for the small and marginal flower growers, to yield maximum productivity of quality cut stems from limited land-holdings. therefore, the present needbased investigation was undertaken to standardize the n nutrition and optimum planting geometry for cultivation of chrysanthemum var. “yellow star” for cut stems under subtropical conditions of north india. materials and methods the experimental was conducted at the research farm (33o55' n latitude; 75o54' e latitude; 247m above msl receiving 700 mm annual rainfall), department of floriculture and landscaping, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during the year 2018. the relative humidity ranged between 63.0-76.0%. the mean minimum evaporation during the period of crop growth was recorded during november (2.1 mm) and maximum during july (129.9 mm). the soil texture was classified as sandy loam with ph 7.75, 7.79 and 7.82 recorded from 15 cm, 30 cm and 45 cm soil depth respectively. the chrysanthemum variety “yellow star” was selected for the study as it is popular and commercially cultivated by flower growers for yielding cut flowers and for exhibition purpose. the flowers are yellow, with compact decorative type of inflorescence. healthy disease free rooted cuttings of uniform height (3 inches) and age (25 days old) with well developed root system were planted during first week of august. the treatments for planting geometry were designed at 3 spacing levels: s1 (10×10 cm), s2 (15×10 cm) and s3 (20×10 cm) accommodating 100, 66 and 50 pla nts per squa re meter ar ea r espectively the treatments for n-doses comprised 4 differential applications: n1 control (0 kg n ha -1), n2 reduced fertilizer (100 kg ha-1), n3 conventional fertilizer (200 kg ha-1), n4 excessive fertilizer (300 kg ha 1). t he experiment comprised of 12 treatments executed in factorial r a ndomized block design (frbd), replicated thrice. the straight fertilizers viz. ur ea, single super phosphate (ssp) a nd muriate of potash (mop) were taken as the sources of n, p2o5 and k2o, respectively. entire dose of p and k were applied each @ 200 kg ha-1 as basal dose and graded levels of n were applied in two splits doses. two splits doses one 30 days after transplanting and other 45 days after transplanting. various growth characteristics such as plant height (measured at 30, 60 and 90 days after transplanting), leaf area and total chlorophyll content were recorded. total chlorophyll content of leaves was determined using method purposed by witham et al. (1971): total chlorophyll (mg/g) = 20.2 (a645) + 8.02 (a663) final volume of dmso 1000  weight of tissue the floral characters such as days to flower bud appearance, days to 50 % flowering, flower diameter, number of flowers per stem, cut stem diameter and length of the cut stem were recorded and the average values were computed for data analysis. data was subjected to statistical analysis by spss v. 22 (ibm) software. results and discussion plant height, leaf area and total chlorophyll content the mean plant height recorded at 30, 60 and 90 dap with respect to differential application of n-levels showed pr ogr essive incr ea se with subsequent application of n, compared to control (table 1). the mean plant height was recorded least in control, however, the percent increment in plant height with increasing n-levels was more pronounced in plants during first 30 dap. the highest percent increment (40.6%) of plant growth during first 30 dap can be attributed due to ample availability of space and sunlight for the plants to grow that were supplemented with higher doses of n-levels. nitrogen is considered as an important factor for building plant biomass through photosynthesis and subsequent translocation of carbohydrates for vegetative growth (evans and clarke, 2019).the subsequent percent increase in plant height decreased relatively (29.1% and 22.4%) at 60 and 90 dap respectively. the availability of space and competition for air and sunlight tend to become a limiting factor, resulting in decrease in plant growth during later period (woodson and boodley 1983). the n requirement of chrysanthemum is highest during first 7 weeks after transplanting (fernandes et al., 2012), and n uptake thereafter tend to decrease (yoon et al., 2000). the further n requirement is pooled mostly from the accumulated nitrate in stems and the petioles (macdonald et al., 2013). conversely, the mean plant height decreased progressively in the plants 365 optimization of nitrogen application and planting geometry for chrysanthemum production planted at narrower to wider spacing. however, the percent decrease in plant height was more pronounced at 30 dap as compared to observations recorded at later monthly quarters. the plants planted at narrow spacing tend to compete for sunlight, as a consequence began to outgrowin length and appear taller compared to the plants planted at relatively wider spacing (lavhaji, 2007). the total chlorophyll content measured from the ma ture leaf tissue showed a significant 29. 5% increment at the highest n-level (n4) compared to control. similarly plants grown at wider spacing recorded 13.0% increase in chlorophyll content compar ed to plants grown a t na rr ow spacing. nitrogen, is an essential element for synthesis of amino acids and proteins, besides structurally important component of chlorophyll, and is considered essential for transportation of metabolites for synthesis of chlorophyll (tucker, 2004). the leaf area per plant was significantly influenced by the application of different n-levels and varying plant spacing (table 2). the maximum leaf area/plant (1435.37 cm2) was recorded in plants supplemented with n2 fertilizer treatment, and the minimum (992.67 cm2) leaf area was measured in control. further, planting distance also exhibited a significant effect on leaf area per plant. the plants planted at s3 spacing showed mean maximum leaf area (1266.80 cm2) while the minimum leaf area (1172.69cm2) was observed in plants planted at s1 spacing, irrespective of the nlevels. however, the interaction between n-level and spacing revealed non-significant differences for leaf area. flowering characteristics chrysanthemum plants delayed by 2.3 days to bud appearance with subsequent increase in n-levels (table 3). however, the mean days taken to bud emergence at highest n-level was found insignificant compared to control plants. plants planted at twice the row spacing showed 3.0 % delay in days to bud appearance compared to plants that were planted at narrower spacing. with the onset of short days, the accumulated leaf n is remobilized to developing buds to show color (macz et al., 2007). it has been proposed that n is not a decisive factor in initiation and development of floral primordia, but may alter (delay) the timing of its emergence (withrow, 1945). nitrogen affect the reproductive development of photosensitive short day plants (sdps) that initiate buds with the onset of sds, however, the split applications of n may slightly prolong the vegetative phase with the continuous synthesis and availability of accumulated photosynthates in the plant tissues which is utilized for flower bud growth and ultimately initiation of flowering. with subsequent increase in application of n-levels, the mean number of days taken to 50% flowering were found delayed by one week at highest n-level, but was found insignificant compared to control (table 3). however, plants planted at narrower spacing showed earliness in days to 50% flowering compared to plants at wider spacing. the application of higher n-level during early period of onset of sds and cool nights delayed flower bud initiation, and subsequent stages of inflorescence anthesis indicating the potential affect of exogenous n in timing of transition of vegetative to reproductive phase rather than inhibiting the onset of flowering. the plants planted at wider spacing also exhibited delayed flowering due to less competition for space, sunlight, water and nutrients in soil, that aid in prolonging the vegetative phase and delayed flowering (nagaraja, 2013). the flower diameter showed 19.1% decrement at highest n-level, however, differed significantly with the mean diameter of flower that was recorded least in plants under control treatment. chrysanthemum plants planted at twice the row spacing showed 9.23% increment in diameter of the flower compared to the plants that were planted at narrower spacing. the results present a contradictory observation to the synergistic effect of increasing n-level on flower diameter. the plants devoid of n dose (control) mea sur ed lea st flower dia meter which wa s in accordance with the findings of nell et al. (1989) and adams et al. (1970) who reported reduction in flower diameter in chrysanthemum with lower n-levels. the average number of flowers per stem recorded a s ignifica nt dec r ea s e (4 4. 7% ) in t he p la nt s subjected to highest n-level. the contr ol plots showed least number of flowers per stem which were found at par at highest n-level. however, the plants planted at wider spacing showed a significant 30.0% increment in number of flowers per stem compared to the plants planted at narrower spacing. the higher n doses likely induce succulence in plants with weak stems, causing reduction in flower j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 366 nu mb er. t he r es ult s a r e in a c cor da nc e wit h observations made by vijayakumar et al. (1988), recording greater number of china aster flowers at lower (300 kg n ha-1) n doses. the diameter of cut stem recorded 22.3% decrement a t higher n level, tha t diff er ed significa nt ly compared to control measured with least diameter of the cut stem (table 4). plants raised at wider spa cing showed 11. 57% incr ea se in cu t stem diameter, however, the increment was found nons ignifica nt comp a r ed t o t he p la nts gr own a t narrower spacing. the n application increased the diameter of cut stems that tend to become heavily lignified resulting in higher girth of stems (withrow, 1945). post-harvest characteristics the mean length of cut stem was measured least in plants under control (no n application). the stem length showed 7.58% increment in plants at highest n-level a nd wa s found statistically significa nt compared to stem lengths recorded in plants under control treatment. however, the mean length of stems showed a significant reduction (6.99%) in the plants that were grown at wider spacing. the higher n-levels resulted in more cell elongation and differentiation of the vascular tissues that caused increase in length of cut stems. the cut stems harvested from plots applied with n2-fertilizer dose reported mean 45.6% increase in vase life compared to the control pot recording mea n minimu m va se life (1 4. 8 da ys) (f ig1 ). however, the cut stems taken from plants grown at different spacing revealed improvement (15.5%) in mean vase life (fig 2). the higher n increased the c onduc t a nc e tha t is a det er mining f a c tor in enhancing the longevity of the cut stems (roude et a l . , 1 9 9 1 ) . h i gher c ondu c t a nc e r es u lt ed in damaging of the root system thereby limiting the water uptake. adequate availability of n during growth period maintains the level of carbohydrates that determines the post harvest longevity of cut s tems ( dr ü ge, 2 0 00 ) . h owever, ex ces s n is detrimental for the post harvest longevity of cut stems due to accumulation of excess sa lts and production of endogenous ethylene (roberts et al., 1984) that reduced the vase life of cut stems. total water absorbed by cut stem showed 34.6% decrement with subsequent additions of n. the cut stems harvested from plants devoid of n showed least uptake of water, that was less (18.2%) than the water absorbed by the cut stems at highest n nutrition. the interaction effect of n and plant spacing enhanced the water absorption, the highest wa t er a b s or p tion wa s r ecor ded in c ut s t ems harvested from chrysanthemum plants raised at wider spacing. the water absorbed by the cut stems is proportionate to their longevity. however, as st a ted a b ove, t he wa ter u pta ke by cut stems decr eased due to build up of excess salts with subsequent higher applications of n, supported from the findings of nell et al. (1989); proposed to terminate n fertilization in chrysanthemum 3 weeks prior to flowering to reduce the conductance and increase the longevity of cut stems. singh et al fig. 1 : response of n nutrition on vase life of cut stems *error bars represent standard error (se±0.071) fig. 2 : response of plant spacing on vase life of cut stems *error bars represent standard error (se±0.1) j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 367 ta bl e 2 : r es po ns e of v ar yi ng n -le ve ls a nd p la nt s pa ci ng o n ch lo ro ph yl l c on te nt a nd le af a re a of c hr ys an th em um n le ve l c hl or op hy ll co nt en t (m g/ g) l ea f ar ea ( cm 2 ) s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n n 1 0. 80 0. 91 1. 03 0. 91 a 94 8. 13 98 6. 33 10 43 .5 6 99 2. 67 a n 2 1. 31 1. 42 1. 55 1. 4 b 11 17 .4 1 11 70 .0 0 12 14 .1 8 11 67 .1 9 b n 3 1. 51 1. 62 1. 71 1. 6 c 12 42 .7 6 12 93 .5 7 13 43 .0 7 12 93 .1 3 c n 4 1. 66 1. 77 1. 84 1. 7 d 13 82 .4 5 14 24 .3 3 14 66 .3 7 14 24 .3 8 d m ea n 1. 32 a 1. 43 b 1. 53 c 11 72 .6 9 a 12 18 .5 6 b 12 66 .8 0 c si gn if ic an ce o f fi xe d fa ct or s n itr og en ( n ) * * sp ac in g (s ) * * n x s n s n s e ac h va lu e re pr es en t a m ea n of n = 3 r ep lic at es .; ns : no t si gn if ic an t; d iff er en t le tte rs w ith in a c ol um n in di ca te s ig ni fi ca nt d iff er en ce s be tw ee n va lu es a t *: p < 0 .0 5 ta bl e 1 : r es po ns e of v ar yi ng n -le ve ls a nd p la nt s pa ci ng o n ve ge ta tiv e ch ar ac te rs o f ch ry sa nt he m um p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) 30 d a t p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) 60 d a t p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) 90 d a t n le ve l s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n n 1 13 .1 11 .7 10 .8 11 .8 a 48 .8 46 .9 44 .4 46 .7 72 .0 66 .6 63 .3 67 .3 a n 2 15 .1 13 .6 12 .1 13 .6 b 53 .0 78 .9 49 .9 51 .6 78 .9 76 .8 72 .5 76 .1 b n 3 16 .7 14 .0 13 .5 14 .7 c 56 .9 54 .3 53 .5 54 .8 81 .3 79 .6 76 .2 79 .0 c n 4 18 .2 16 .4 15 .2 16 .6 d 62 .1 60 .3 58 .6 60 .3 84 .9 82 .7 79 .5 82 .4 d m ea n 15 .7 a 13 .9 b 12 .9 c 55 .2 60 .1 51 .6 79 .2 a 76 .4 b 72 .8 c si gn if ic an ce o f fi xe d fa ct or s n * n s * s * n s * n x s n s n s n s e ac h va lu e re pr es en t a m ea n of n = 3 r ep lic at es .; ns : no t si gn if ic an t; d iff er en t le tte rs w ith in a c ol um n in di ca te s ig ni fi ca nt d iff er en ce s be tw ee n va lu es a t *: p < 0 .0 5 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 optimization of nitrogen application and planting geometry for chrysanthemum production 368 ta bl e 3 : r es po ns e of v ar yi ng n -le ve ls a nd p la nt s pa ci ng o n flo w er in g ch ar ac te rs o f ch ry sa nt he m um n le ve l d ay s to f lo w er b ud a pp ea ra nc e d ay s to 5 0 % f lo w er in g f lo w er d ia m et er ( cm ) n um be r of f lo w er s/ st em s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n n 1 93 .0 95 .3 97 .0 95 .1 a 11 0. 3 11 1. 6 11 2. 0 11 1. 3 a 8. 1 8. 7 9. 0 8. 6 a 4. 6 5. 2 6. 2 5. 3 a n 2 87 .6 89 .3 90 .3 89 .1 b 10 0. 0 10 2. 3 10 3. 6 10 2. 0 b 11 .6 12 .6 13 .2 12 .5 b 10 .2 11 .9 13 .0 11 .0 b n 3 88 .6 90 .6 91 .3 90 .2 c 10 4. 6 10 6. 6 10 8. 3 10 6. 5 c 11 .3 11 .9 12 .2 11 .8 c 8. 3 10 .5 11 .4 10 .1 c n 4 91 .0 93 .0 94 .6 92 .8 d 10 7. 3 10 8. 0 10 8. 6 10 8. 0 d 10 .5 10 .9 11 .1 10 .8 d 7. 6 8. 3 9. 4 8. 4 d m ea n 90 .0 a 92 .0 b 93 .3 c 10 5. 5 a 10 7. 1 b 10 8. 1 b 10 .3 a 11 .0 b 11 .3 b 7. 6 a 8. 9 b 10 .0 c si gn if ic an ce o f fi xe d fa ct or s n itr og en ( n ) * * * * sp ac in g (s ) * * * * n x s n s n s n s n s e ac h va lu e re pr es en t a m ea n of n = 3 r ep lic at es ; ns : no t si gn if ic an t; d iff er en t le tte rs w ith in a c ol um n in di ca te s ig ni fi ca nt d iff er en ce s be tw ee n va lu es a t *: p < 0 .0 5 ta bl e 4 : r es po ns e of v ar yi ng n -le ve ls a nd p la nt s pa ci ng o n po st -h ar ve st c ha ra ct er s of c ut s te m s n le ve l c ut s te m d ia m et er l en gt h of c ut s te m to ta l w at er a bs or be d by w ei gh t of c ut s te m (m m ) (c m ) cu t st em ( m l) (g ) s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n s1 s2 s3 m ea n n 1 3. 1 3. 4 3. 7 3. 4 a 66 .0 60 .7 56 .9 61 .2 a 61 .6 69 .0 73 .9 68 .1 a 48 .2 54 .7 59 .6 54 .2 a n 2 7. 2 7. 4 7. 8 7. 5 b 74 .0 71 .0 70 .0 71 .7 b 11 0. 3 12 4. 5 13 5. 4 12 3. 4 b 80 .7 87 .2 92 .6 86 .8 b n 3 6. 1 6. 4 6. 7 6. 4 c 75 .2 73 .9 71 .5 73 .5 b 86 .4 91 .1 98 .3 91 .9 c 72 .4 76 .6 80 .1 76 .4 c n 4 5. 6 6. 0 6. 2 5. 9 d 78 .7 76 .9 73 .4 76 .3 c 83 .7 87 .0 93 .3 88 .0 d 66 .2 70 .8 75 .2 70 .8 d m ea n 5. 5 a 5. 8 b 6. 1 c 73 .4 a 70 .6 a 67 .9 b 85 .5 a 92 .9 a b 10 0. 2 b 66 .9 a 72 .3 b 76 .9 c si gn if ic an ce o f fi xe d fa ct or s n itr og en ( n ) * * * * sp ac in g (s ) * * * * n x s n s n s n s n s e ac h va lu e re pr es en t a m ea n of n = 3 r ep lic at es .; ns : no t si gn if ic an t; d iff er en t le tte rs w ith in a c ol um n in di ca te s ig ni fi ca nt d iff er en ce s be tw ee n va lu es a t *: p < 0 .0 5 singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 369 conclusion it can be concluded that application of n@100 kg ha-1 to chrysanthemum plants planted at 20x10 cm spacing accommodating 50 plants per square meter yielded best quality cut stems of acceptable length and optimum post-harvest longevity. thus, compared to the conventional practice of n application (300 kg ha-1) adopted by farmers, the amount of n can be reduced to 1/3rd to grow cut stems of chrysanthemums planted at twice the row spacing for optimum growth and flowering. the application of lower dose of n will likely reduce the production cost and lessen the environmental impact of leaching of n without compromising on quality and yield of chrysanthemum for commercial cultivation. references anonymous, 2017. advanced estimation of area and production of chrysanthemum in india.https:// w ww. a p e d a . i n/ a gr i e x c h a n g e/ i n di a % 2 0 production/india productions. aspx? hscode =102 accessed on 2 may 2020. ada ms, p. , gr a ves, c. j. a nd winsor, g. w. , 1970.nutrition of year-round chrysanthemums in peat and sand. annual report of glasshouse crops res. inst., 1969, pp.90-93. bernstein, n., ioffe, m., bruner, m.,nishri, y., luria, g.,dori, i.,matan, e., philosoph-hadas, s., umiel, n. and hagiladi.a., 2005. effects of supplied n form and quality of ranunculus asiaticus flowers. hort. sci., 40: 1879-86. cr ater, d. a. , 1992.potted chrysa nthemums.in introduction to floriculture; 2nd. edition.; larson, r.a. (ed.).; academic press: new york, pp.249-287. datta, s. k. and janakiram, t., 2015. breeding and genetic diversity in chrysanthemum morifolium in india: a review. indian j. agric. sci., 85(11): 1379-1395. drüge, u. 2000. influence of pre-harvest n supply on post-ha r vest beha viour of or na menta ls: impor ta nce of ca r bohydr a te sta tus, photosynthesis a nd pla nt hor mones. gartenbauwissenschaft, 65(2): 53-4. eastwood, t. 1952. forcing créole lilies at different levels of soil nitrate. pr. am. soc. hortic. sci., 59: 531-41. evans, j.r., clarke, v.c., 2019. the nitrogen cost of photosynthesis, j. exp. bot., 70(1): 7-15, fernandes, e. p., rezende, c. f. a., leandro, w. m., frazao, j. j. and barbosa, j. m. 2012. the accumulation of n, phosphorus and potassium in cut chr ysa nthemum (dendranthema grandiflorum) cv. jospithoven. semin. ciênc. agrár., 33: 2939. lavhaji, k. g. 2007 effect of n application and spacing on growth and yield of seasonal chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum coronarium). msc. thesis. mahatma phule krishi vidyapeeth, ahmednagar, india. macdonald, w. n., blom, t. j.,tsujita, m. j. and shelp, b.j., 2013. review: improving n use eff ic ienc y of p ot t ed c hr ys a nt hemu m: strategies and benefits. can. j. plant sci., 93(6): 1009-16 ma cz, o. , pa pa r ozzi, e. t. a nd str oup, w. w. 2007.the effect of n and sulfur application on pot chrysanthemum production and post-harvest per for ma nce. i. lea f n a nd sulfur concentrations. j. plant nutr., (24): 111-29. muniz, m.a., barbosa, j.g.,grossi, j.a.s.,orbes, m.y. and sa, p.g., 2009. production and quality of pot chrysanthemum ferti-irrigated with different nitrate/ammonium relations.bioscience journal, 25: 75-82. nagaraja, c. k., 2013. effect of spacing and nutrition on growth and yield of annual chrysanthemum chrysanthemum coronarium l. m.sc. thesis, university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, india. nell, t.a., barrett, j. e. and leonard, r.t., 1989. fertilization termination influences postharvest performance of pot chrysanthemum. hort. sci., 24 (6): 996-98. roberts, j.a., tucker, g.a. and maunders, m.j., 1984. ethylene and foliar senescence. in: j.a. roberts and g.a. tucker (eds.), ethylene and pla nt development. ea ster school in agr icultur a l science, nottingha m, butterworths, london, pp. 267-273. ramos, l., andreas, b., herrada, b.m.p., arenas, t. l. and becker, s.j., 2013. effects of n form and application rates on the growth of petunia j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 optimization of nitrogen application and planting geometry for chrysanthemum production 370 singh et al and n content in the substrate. commun. soil sci. plant anal., 44: 473-479, 2013. roude, n., nell, t. a. and barrett, e. j., 1991. longevity of potted chrysanthemums at various n and potassium concentrations and nh4: no3 ratios. hortic. sci., 26:163-65. sharma, n. and bala, m., 2020. effect of different holding solutions on post-harvest keeping quality of chrysanthemum cut stems. agric. res. j., 57(3): 379-384. stern, k. r., bidlack, j. e. and jansky, s. h., 2008. introductory plant biology., new york, usa: mcgraw-hill companies. tucker, m., 2004. primary nutrients and pla nt gr owth. in: essentia l pla nt nutr ients (scribd, ed.). north carolina department of agriculturae. vijayakumar, k. t., patil, a. a. and hulmaniet, n.c. 1988.effect of plant density and n on growth characters and flower yield of china a ster (call istephus chinen sis nees) cv. ostrich plume mixed. south ind. hort., 36: 318-320. witham, f.h., blaydes, d.f. and devlin, r.m., 1971. experiments in plant physiology, van nostrand, new york. withrow, a.p., 1945. interrelationship of nitrogen and photo-period on the flowering, growth, and stem anatomy of certain long day and short day plants. butler univ. bot. studies, 7(1): 5. woods on, w. r . , & boodley, j. w. ( 1 98 3 ) . accumulation and partitioning of nitrogen a nd dr y ma t t er du r ing t he gr owt h of chrysanthemum. hortscience, 18(2): 196197. yoon, h. s., goto, t. and kageyama, y., 2000. mineral uptake as influenced by growing seasons and developmental stages in spray chrysanthemums grown under a hydroponic syst em. j . ja p an es e s oc . h or ti c. sc i. , 69: 255-60. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 363-370, 2022 (received : 11.09.2021; revised : 25.10.2021; accepted : 25.07.2022) page 144 heterosis studies in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) rukam s. tomar and m. k. bhalala national research centre for groundnut post bag no.5, ivanagar road, junagadh – 362 001, gujarat, india e-mail : rukam@rediffmail.com abstract ten parental lines and 45 f 1 hybrids of muskmelon obtained from half dialleles were studied to investigate the extent of heterosis in muskmelon. heterotic effects over the better parent were observed to be higher for number of the node on which first female flower appeared, fruits per plant, fruit weight, fruit yield per plant, moisture content and total soluble sugars in e 2 than in e 1 . the hybrids amm-01-18 x amm-02-26, hara madhu x rm50, amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 and amm-01-18 x dm-1 were found to be high-yielding and heterotic in both the seasons studied and even when averaged over the two environments, with other yield attributes and quality traits. hence, after sufficient evaluation, these hybrids were identified as potential hybrids for widespread cultivation and commercial exploitation. key words : heterosis, muskmelon, yield, quality traits, f1 hybrids muskmelon (cucumis melo l., 2n = 24) is the most common dessert vegetable crop grown all over the world. it is highly relished because of its flavour, sweet taste and refreshing effect. it is a good source of dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. in spite of the wide range of genetic variability available in muskmelon, very little attention has been paid to exploit heterosis. observations showed that f 1 hybrids of muskmelon yield higher than the standard cultivars. there is, thus, a good scope for improvement of yield and other desirable traits through heterosis breeding. therefore, the present work was conducted to study the extent of heterosis for desirable attributes. the experiment was carried out at the main vegetable research station, anand agricultural university, anand, during 2003-04. ten varieties of muskmelon, viz., punjab sunehri, pusa madhuras, amm00-25, amm0011, amm01-18, dm-1, amm02-26, pmm96-20, hara madhu and rm-50 were crossed in all possible combinations, excluding reciprocals. the resulting 45 f 1 hybrids along with their parents were grown in randomized block design with three replications at a spacing of 150 cm (row to row) and 90 cm (plant to plant) in plots of 6 x 4.5 m size in two environments created by sowing dates (e 1 = 15th october, 2003 and e 2 = 15th february, 2004). all the recommended cultural practices were followed during experimentation. observations were recorded on 10 selected plants from each plot on the positional number of the node on which the first female flower appeared, days to opening of the first female flower, number of primary branches per plant, days to first harvest, fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), fruits per plant, fruit weight (g), fruit yield per plant (kg), flesh thickness (cm), moisture content (%), total soluble solids (tss in %), acidity (%) and total soluble sugars (mg g-1). heterosis was calculated in the favourable direction over the better parent and over the best parental line/s for each character. in the present investigation, parents and hybrids were found to show significant differences for all the traits studied except for the number of the node on which first female flower appeared and days to first female flower opening in both the environments, number of primary branches/plant and flesh thickness in e 2 and fruit weight and moisture content in e 1, indicating the existence of a considerable heterosis for these traits. the extent of heterosis observed was variable for other traits in different seasons, probably due to the presence of significant genotype x environment interaction as indicated by the significant and high value of its variance except for the number of primary branches per plant, acidity and total soluble sugars. heterotic effects over mid-parent in desirable direction were, in general observed to be marginally higher j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 144-147, 2006 short communication page 145 during e 1 compared to e 2 for all traits except fruit length, fruit girth and acidity. similarly, heterotic effects over the better parent were observed to be higher for number of the node on which first female flower appeared, days to first female flower opening, number of primary branches/plant, days to first harvest, number of fruits/plant, fruit weight, fruit yield/plant, flesh thickness, moisture content, total soluble solids, and total soluble sugars during e 1 compared to e 2 . relative heterosis for fruit yield/plant was observed to extent of 207.39 and 194.65% during e 1 and e 2 , respectively. similar high levels of relative heterosis for fruit yield/plant is reported earlier by several workers (chadha and nandpuri, 1977; randhawa and singh, 1990; singh and randhawa, 1990). heterobeltiosis effects for fruit yield/plant were 322.55% in e 1 and 190.89% in e 2 . appreciable levels of heterobeltiosis for fruit yield/plant were also reported earlier by pandey and kalloo (1976), nandpuri et al, (1974), chadha and nandpuri (1977), kalb and davis (1984), randhawa and singh (1990), singh and randhawa (1990), munshi and verma (1997) and chaudhary et al (2003). a perusal of table 1 reveals that heterosis over midparent was the highest for total soluble solids followed by fruit yield/plant, fruit length and acidity, while, the maximum number of hybrids showing heterobeltiosis was observed for total soluble solids, followed by fruit yield/ plant and total soluble sugars. for yield/plant, 22 hybrids in e 1 , 36 in e 2 and 37 on pooled basis displayed significant heterosis over the mid-parent. for heterobeltiosis, twentyfour, thirtyfive and thirtyeight hybrids registered significant heterosis in e 1 , e 2 and on pooled basis, respectively. out of these, five hybrids, namely, hara madhu x rm-50, amm-01-18 x amm-02-26, amm-00-25 x amm-00-11, amm-01-18 x dm-1 and amm-02-26 x rm50 showed significant heterobeltiosis on pooled basis. data on yield contributing traits of the five most heterotic crosses for fruit yield/plant in each environment and on pooled basis is presented in table 2. none of the hybrids exhibited significant and positive heterosis over the mid-parent as well as over better parent in both the environments and even when pooled over the two environments, indicating non-consistency of hybrids across the environments. on the basis of pooled data, out of the five most heterotic hybrids for fruit yield/plant, four hybrids viz., hara madhu x rm-50, amm-01-18 x amm-02-26, amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 and amm-01-18 x dm-1 showed heterosis for number of fruits/plant, fruit weight, total soluble solids, acidity and total soluble sugars over the mid-parent and the better parent. in addition, significant relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis for flesh thickness was seen in the hybrid hara madhu x rm-50; for number of the node on which first female flower appeared, number of primary branches, days to first harvesti, fruit length and fruit girth in the hybrid amm-01-18 x amm-02-26; for fruit length, fruit girth and flesh thickness in amm-00-25 x amm-00-11; for days to first female flower opening, number of primary branches, fruit length, fruit girth and moisture content in amm-01-18 x dm-1. hybrids showing heterosis for fruit yield/plant also showed heterosis for the number of fruits/plant and fruit weight. thus, total fruit yield could be a result of combinational heterosis. these results are similar to those table 1. number of hybrids with significant heterosis in the desirable direction for different traits in muskmelon character heterosis over mid-parent heterosis over better parent e 1 e 2 p e 1 e 2 p number of the node on which first female flower appeared 13 18 16 15 19 17 days to first open female flower 19 17 15 24 17 18 number of primary branches per plant 34 15 20 25 12 17 days to first harvest 36 10 32 30 13 28 fruit length (cm) 26 32 35 28 24 32 fruit girth (cm) 24 26 29 26 20 29 number of fruits per plant 24 37 28 26 34 30 fruit weight (g) 14 30 28 15 31 28 fruit yield per plant (kg) 22 36 37 24 35 38 flesh thickness (cm) 20 21 21 19 18 20 moisture content 13 27 18 20 26 26 total soluble solids (%) 37 29 38 37 35 39 acidity (%) 35 31 35 36 32 36 total soluble sugars (%) 29 30 30 31 32 33 e 1 = 15th october, e 2 = 15th february, p = pooled j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 144-147, 2006 heterosis in muskmelon 145 page 146 table 2.manifestation of relative heterosis (%) and heterobeltiosis (%) for different characters of the five most heterotic crosses for fruit yield per plant in individual environment and on pooled basis in muskmelon cross fruit yield / number of days to first number of days to fruit fruit plant the node on open female primary first length girth which first flower branches/ harvest female flower plant appeared relative heterosis amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 e 1 38.79 ** -8.93 ** -4.51 ** 27.71 ** -7.49 ** 9.65 ** 6.02 ** e 2 194.65 ** -55.79 ** 9.31 ** 11.76 ** 1.58 ** 18.20 ** 27.36 ** p 140.81 ** -40.68 ** 3.91 ** 18.97 ** -2.72 ** 14.31 ** 18.38 ** amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 e 1 100.41 ** 13.33 ** 6.95 ** 20.70 ** -1.99 13.95 ** 18.78 ** e 2 119.79 ** 7.63 ** -1.79 * 2.81 0.59 19.89 ** 6.73 ** p 112.05 ** 9.43 ** 1.48 ** 11.04 ** -0.62 17.34 ** 11.60 ** hara madhu x rm-50 e 1 207.39 ** -23.08 ** 3.96 ** -2.36 4.76 ** 3.02 1.48 e 2 60.98 ** -7.26 ** -0.60 -18.23 -3.62 ** -4.63 * -3.77 * p 104.20 ** -12.92 ** 1.21 -11.16 ** 0.22 -1.42 -1.43 amm-01-18 x dm-1 e 1 96.00 ** -7.69 * -9.11 ** 35.23 ** -13.33 9.44 ** -0.55 e 2 106.96 ** -32.85 ** 3.63 ** 23.87 ** 0.49 22.35 ** 31.93 ** p 104.20 ** -23.91 ** -1.30 * 29.14 ** -6.17 ** 16.37 ** 17.45 ** amm-00-25 x amm-01-18 e 1 31.41 * 10.00 ** 0.15 32.92 ** -10.04 ** -0.97 11.17 ** e 2 97.86 ** -11.49 ** 0.84 25.56 ** -1.42 ** 20.38 ** 24.52 ** p 75.80 ** -4.52 * 0.58 29.02 ** -5.47 ** 10.34 ** 18.85 ** heterobeltiosis hara madhu x rm-50 e 1 322.55 ** 8.11 8.77 ** -1.64 0.00 4.98 * 0.86 e 2 70.79 ** -11.28 -1.82 ** -17.74 ** -4.01 ** -6.34 ** -6.90 ** p 132.28 ** -5.95 * 2.24 ** -10.57 ** -2.13 ** -1.69 -3.58 ** amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 e 1 25.75 ** -1.92 -3.64 ** 37.54 ** -6.90 ** 19.85 ** 9.99 ** e 2 190.89 ** -44.68 ** 12.89 ** 18.75 ** 2.08 ** 9.56 ** 19.45 ** p 130.61 ** -29.45 ** 6.33 ** 27.17 ** -2.17 ** 13.82 ** 15.70 ** amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 e 1 72.28 ** 2.00 1.25 -0.86 -3.48 ** 20.90 ** 19.88 ** e 2 132.11 ** -17.93 ** -0.25 -22.89 ** 0.43 18.33 ** 7.02 ** p 105.52 ** -12.33 ** 0.33 -13.25 ** -1.41 ** 19.39 ** 12.20 ** amm-01-18 x dm-1 e 1 154.43 ** -5.26 -10.19 ** 59.82 ** -15.10 ** 12.33 -8.72 ** e 2 82.44 ** 0.28 2.79 ** 54.83 ** 1.26 ** 11.38 ** 21.12 ** p 95.88 ** -2.19 -2.24 ** 57.22 ** -6.73 ** 11.80 ** 7.81 ** amm-02-26 x rm-50 e 1 101.26 ** 78.38 ** 8.58 ** 31.97 ** -9.96 ** -1.71 1.47 e 2 71.02 ** -4.72 2.94 ** 5.96 -0.65 38.84 ** 7.42 ** p 78.39 ** 18.14 ** 5.10 ** 17.54 ** -5.02 ** 22.08 ** 5.07 ** j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 144-147, 2006 tomar & bhalala 146 cross number of fruit flesh moisture total soluble acidity total soluble fruits/ plant weight thickness content solids sugars relative heterosis amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 e 1 64.84 ** -13.41 ** -4.86 -1.15 ** 117.28 ** -23.46 ** 58.48 ** e 2 39.09 ** 112.81 ** 2.77 0.87 ** 46.86 ** -33.40 ** 25.41 ** p 51.06 ** 66.74 ** -0.39 -0.11 77.55 ** -27.35 ** 36.07 ** amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 e 1 51.79 ** 23.90 ** 76.67 3.24 ** 134.38 ** -18.75 ** 26.74 ** e 2 57.34 ** 40.35 ** 11.08 ** 3.04 ** -0.09 -15.13 ** 8.96 ** p 54.02 ** 35.02 ** 37.31 ** 3.14 ** 49.34 ** -17.34 ** 14.84 ** hara madhu x rm-50 e 1 -4.79 219.92 ** 2.78 -0.19 7.69 -12.78 ** 34.19 ** e 2 31.82 ** 22.37 ** -31.57 ** -0.70 ** 29.58 ** -17.92 ** 16.53 ** p 14.65 ** 86.08 ** -18.96 ** -0.45 * 19.39 ** -14.82 ** 22.29 ** amm-01-18 x dm-1 e 1 135.27 ** -11.55 ** -13.37 -0.86 ** 19.30 ** -43.15 ** 110.41 ** e 2 54.21 ** 34.19 ** 18.61 ** -1.88 ** 118.24 ** -70.05 ** 72.40 ** p 85.43 ** 18.49 ** 3.64 -1.38 ** 65.37 ** -53.97 ** 84.16 ** amm-00-25 x amm-01-18 e 1 72.91 ** -24.49 ** 22.19 ** -0.13 100.51 ** -4.31 ** 6.62 e 2 43.23 ** 38.46 ** 5.31 * 0.59 ** 26.38 ** -7.61 ** -1.42 p 57.26 ** 15.94 ** 12.26 ** 0.24 57.18 ** -5.61 ** 1.14 page 147 reported by nandpuri et al (1974), altaf et al (1979), randhawa and singh (1990), munshi and verma (1998) and chaudhary et al (2003). however, it was seen that not all the yield contributing traits contributed equally to heterosis for fruit yield/plant. this was because the component characters competed for the sum total of metabolic substances produced by the plant and conditions which favoured development of one component may have adversely affected the other component. therefore, to obtain maximum yield in a selection programme, desired levels of each component need to be known. the hybrids amm-01-18 x amm-02-26, hara madhu x rm-50, amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 and amm01-18 x dm-1 were found to be high-yielding and heterotic in both the seasons and even when averaged over the environments with other yield attributes and quality traits. hence, after sufficient evaluation, these hybrids were identified as potential hybrids for widespread cultivation and commercial exploitation. references altaf, h.; abdul, m. z. and abd-ul, m. z. 1979. studies on hybrid vigour in muskmelon crosses and determination of some best combinations for commercial crop production of muskmelon. procs. xxvi-xxvii pakistan sci. conf., lahore. part iii. abstracts, 16a-17a. chadha, m.l. and nandpuri, k.s. 1977. estimation of top cross performance in some muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) varieties. j. of hort., 34: 40-43. chaudhary, b.r., dhaka, r.s. and fageria, m.s. 2003. heterosis for yield and yield related attributes in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). ind. j. genet .& pl. breed., 63: 91-92. hayes, h. k.; immer, f.r. and smith, d.c. 1955. methods of plant breeding. mcgraw hill book company inc., new york, london, toronto. pp. 329-332. kalb, t.j. and davis, d.w. 1984. evaluation of combining ability, heterosis and genetic variance for fruit quality characteristics in bush muskmelon j. amer. soc. horti. sci., 109: 411-415. munshi, a.d. and verma, v.k. 1997. studies on heterosis in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). veg. sci., 24: 103106. munshi, a.d. and verma, v. k. 1998. a note on gene action in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). veg. sci., 25: 93-94. nandpuri, k.s., singh, s. and lal, t. 1974. study on the comparative performance of f 1 hybrids and their parents in muskmelon. j. res. punjab agricultural university, 11: 230-238. pandey, s.c and kalloo, g. 1976. line x tester analysis for the study of heterosis and combining ability in muskmelon. recent advances in plant sciences. session 1. plant breeding and genetics abstr. p. 10 randhawa, k. s. and singh, m.j. 1990. assessment of combining ability, heterosis and genetic variance for fruit quality characters in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). ind. j. of genet. and pl. breed., 50: 127-130. singh, m.j. and randhawa, k.s. 1990. assessment of heterosis and combining ability for quality traits in muskmelon. ind. j. hort., 47: 228-232. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 144-147, 2006 heterosis in muskmelon 147 (ms received 20 may 2006, revised 30 september 2006) heterobeltiosis hara madhu x rm-50 e 1 9.33 280.52 ** 0.19 -0.08 7.69 -12.59 ** 29.36 ** e 2 39.24 ** 23.40 ** -32.96 ** -0.77 ** 37.93 ** -16.45 ** 14.47 ** p 25.93 ** 97.32 ** -20.76 ** -0.43 23.38 ** -14.11 ** 19.38 ** amm-01-18 x amm-02-26 e 1 47.26 ** -12.21 ** -0.81 -1.68 ** 151.43 ** -20.44 ** 36.65 ** e 2 35.20 ** 116.53 ** -11.59 ** 0.53 ** 50.68 ** -26.86 ** 16.55 ** p 40.99 ** 69.43 ** -7.62 ** -0.54 * 91.64 ** -22.87 ** 23.36 ** amm-00-25 x amm-00-11 e 1 18.07 * 43.38 ** 52.88 ** 2.67 ** 134.38 ** -25.49 ** 36.49 ** e 2 66.63 ** 41.40 ** 14.50 ** 3.23 ** 1.66 -24.09 ** 18.19 ** p 34.24 ** 41.99 ** 31.49 ** 2.96 ** 50.99 ** -24.93 ** 24.28 ** amm-01-18 x dm-1 e 1 171.29 ** -3.56 -23.90 -1.02 * 0.00 -41.78 ** 98.52 ** e 2 37.76 ** 32.60 ** 4.37 * -1.68 ** 137.82 ** -69.16 ** 67.89 ** p 81.50 ** 20.98 ** -8.88 ** -1.36 ** 55.31 ** -52.76 ** 77.57 ** amm-02-26 x rm-50 e 1 30.83 * 48.47 ** 4.07 -0.57 105.13 ** -6.47 ** -1.40 e 2 19.13 ** 43.12 ** -8.01 ** -2.28 ** 62.74 ** -4.02 -5.37 p 24.44 ** 44.66 ** -3.57 -1.45 ** 83.13 ** -5.51 ** -4.06 e 1 = 15th october, e 2 = 15th february, p = pooled table 2 (continued) introduction organic farming is becoming increasingly popular, with a rapidly growing global demand for organic products. it offers considerable benefits over conventional farming systems particularly with respect to sustainable yield, better quality and health hazard free produce. fruits, often eaten raw, are more vulnerable to contamination with chemicals due to the latter’s residual toxicity as compared to cereals and pulses. thus, organic production of fruits is gaining popularity over that of other crop groups. papaya is grown in an area of 98,000 ha with production of 36.29 lakh tons in india (national horticultural board, 2009). since papaya bears fruits and flowers round the year, it is likely to respond well to organic production systems compared to other perennial fruit crops. in almost all the states, area under papaya is increasing, and limited information is available on organic production system in this crop. hence, the present investigation is very important in crops like papaya. material and methods a field trial was conducted during 2005-2007 at the experimental farm of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. the soil in the experimental plot was red loam with ph 6.12, 0.73% organic carbon, 158 kg effect of organic nutrition practices on papaya (cv. surya) fruit yield, quality and soil health y.t.n. reddy, reju m. kurian, a.n. ganeshamurthy1 and p. pannerselvam1 division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail:nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field experiment was conducted during 2005-07 at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, on papaya cv. surya with six organic treatments along with recommended dose of fertilizers and no manure/fertilizer application. results indicated that crop growth and fruit yield were higher in inorganic fertilizer treatment (55 t ha1) compared to organic treatments (26.9 to 38 t ha-1). there was no significant variation in average fruit weight and tss, but shelf life of the fruit was significantly higher in organic treatments (6.2 to 7.9 days) as compared to inorganic fertilizer treatment (5.1days). among the treatments, application of 7 kg urban compost plant-1 or 10 kg fym plant–1 was found to be ideal for improving soil health in terms of microbial population, and biochemical reaction compared to other treatments. key words: papaya, organic practices, fruit yield, quality, shelf life 1 division of soil science and agricultural chemistry available nitrogen/ha, 13 kg phosphorus/ha and 196 kg potash/ha. there were 8 treatments details of which are as follows; t 1 : recommended dose of npk fertilizers (250g n + 250 g p 2 o 5 + 500 g k 2 o plant-1year-1), t 2 : 10 kg fym plant-1 year-1 t 3 : 7 kg urban compost plant-1 year-1 t 4 : 20 kg sun hemp + 150 g rock phosphate plant-1 year-1 t 5 : 2 kg neem cake + 0.5 kg wood ash plant-1 year-1 t 6 : 18 kg rural compost plant-1 year-1 t 7 : 2.5 kg vermi compost + 12.5 kg sun hemp plant-1 year-1 t 8 : no manure or fertilizer nutrient content of organic manures used in the experiment is as follows: organic manure used percentage n p k fym 0.91 0.166 0.88 rural compost 1.22 0.304 0.98 urban compost 0.86 0.284 0.80 vermicompost 1.41 0.299 0.55 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 124-127, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 125 standard procedures soil samples were collected at 2 years from experimentation for nutrient and microbial analysis. microbial properties and soil enzymes were estimated as per standard procedures. vegetative parameters such as plant height, plant girth and number of leaves were recorded at 6 month intervals. fruit yield was recorded periodically. fruit quality attributes such as tss and keeping quality of fruits were also recorded as per standard procedures. statistical analysis of data was done based on methods given by panse and sukhatme (1985). plant spacing was 1.8 m×1.8 m in the trial. results and discussion vegetative characters : vegetative parameters such as plant height, plant girth and number of leaves at 24 months from planting were affected by various nutrient treatments (table 1). maximum plant height, girth and number of leaves were recorded in the recommended dose of fertilizer treatment, whereas, no manure or fertilizer treatment recorded the least. similar results were reported by singh and sharma (1996) reddy et al (1986), purohit (1977), awada and long (1978), jauhari and singh (1971), and kumar et al (2006). increased growth in recommended fertilizer dose treatment was mainly attributed to sufficient availability of all the nutrients during different growth stages of the plant, compared to other treatments fruit yield: fruit yield in terms of number of fruits and their weight were found to be significantly different among various treatments (table 2). maximum fruit yield was table 1. vegetative characters, fruit yield and quality of ‘surya’ papaya as influenced by various treatments (24 months after planting) treatment plant plant no. of height girth leaves (m) (cm) plant-1 t 1 : recommended 2.49 52.0 25.8 dose of npk fertilizers (250 g n + 250 g p 2 o 5 + 500g k 2 o plant-1year-1) t 2 : 10 kg fym 2.27 40.6 19.9 plant-1 year-1 t 3 : 7 kg urban 2.32 46.5 23.9 compost plant-1 year-1 t 4 : 20 kg sun hemp + 2.27 47.9 20.5 150 g rock phosphate plant-1 year-1 t 5 : 2 kg neem cake + 2.10 36.0 20.3 0.5 kg wood ash plant-1 year-1 t 6 : 18 kg rural 2.24 44.6 21.5 compost plant-1 year-1 t 7 : 2.5 kg vermin 2.06 42.4 19.7 compost + 12.5 kg sun hemp plant-1 year-1 t 8 : no manure 1.68 33.3 16.1 or fertilizer sem ± 0.01 0.30 0.38 cd (p=0.05) 0.04 0.90 1.12 table 2. fruit yield and quality of ‘surya‘ papaya as affected by various treatments treatment fruit yield fruit quality no. of fruit no. of fruit average tss shelf fruits yield fruits yield fruit (obrix) life plant-1 (kg plant-1) ha-1(000) (t ha-1) weight (g) (days) t 1 : recommended dose of npk fertilizers 37.9 17.8 116.8 55.0 472.6 11.1 5.1 (250 g n + 250 g p 2 o 5 + 500 g k 2 o plant-1year-1) t 2 : 10 kg fym plant-1 year-1 19.9 9.7 61.3 30.0 498.2 11.4 7.6 t 3 : 7 kg urban compost plant-1 year-1 25.2 11.8 77.7 36.5 476.5 11.3 6.6 t 4 : 20 kg sun hemp + 150g rock phosphate 30.0 12.6 92.5 38.7 427.7 12.2 7.1 plant-1 year-1 t 5 : 2 kg neem cake + 0.5 kg wood ash 20.0 9.9 61.6 30.6 495.3 11.3 6.2 plant-1 year-1 t 6 : 18 kg rural compost plant-1 year-1 27.0 11.5 83.2 35.5 430.0 11.6 6.6 t 7 : 2.5 kg vermi compost + 12.5 kg sun 18.7 8.7 57.7 26.9 473.8 11.4 7.0 hemp plant-1 year-1 t 8 : no manure or fertilizer 12.0 5.7 39.4 17.5 441.3 12.2 7.9 sem ± 4.6 1.9 14.4 5.9 28.5 0.28 0.66 cd (p=0.05) 13.7 5.6 42.4 17.3 ns ns 0.91 recorded under recommended dose of fertilizer treatment, and the least with control treatment. similar results were reported by kumar et al (2006), reddy et al (1986) and singh & sharma (1996). the increased fruit yield was attributed to better plant growth compared to that in other effect of organic practices on papaya j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 124-127, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 126 organic treatments or control. although yield was higher in inorganic treatment (recommended dose of fertilizer) soil quality improvement was not noticed in terms of soil microflora and soil enzymes. fruit yield reduction was 3051% in organic treatments as compared to inorganic treatment at two years from experimentation. this may be due mainly to higher and quick availability of nutrients for growth and development under inorganic fertilizer treatment. in addition, pest and disease problem too may have resulted in reduced fruit yield in organic treatments (although progressive nutrient built up was seen in the soil due to addition of organic manures). fruit quality attributes: fruit quality attributes like average fruit weight and tss were found to be non significant but shelf life was found to be significantly different among various treatments (table 2). maximum shelf life was (7.9 days) seen in control, whereas, minimum shelf life (5.1 days) was noticed in recommended dose of fertilizer treatment. the finding is quite interesting but needs to be confirmed at different locations. soil health: results on soil microbial population indicated that in general bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes and total diazotrophos were significantly higher in all the organic treatments compared to no manure and recommended dose of fertilizers (table 3). the organic treatments recorded significantly higher soil respiration and mineralizable nitrogen content compared to recommended dose of fertilizer and table 3. microbial population, soil respiration and mineralizable nitrogen in organic papaya (c.v.surya field treatment bacteria fungi actionomycetes total soilrespiration soil (108cfug-1) (104 cfug1) (105 cfug-1) diazotrophs (mg c kg-1soilhr-1) mineralizable (104 cfu g-1) nitrogen (mg n kg-1 of soil) t 1 : recommended dose 98.4 6.0 8.3 6.3 7.19 10.5 of npk fertilizers (250 g n + 250 g p 2 o5 + 500 g k 2 o plant-1 year-1) t 2 : 10 kg fym plant-1 year-1 141.8 18.3 16.0 21.0 8.57 46.25 t 3 : 7 kg urban compost 139.6 16.4 17.8 19.4 7.26 47.25 plant-1 year-1 t 4 : 20 kg sun hemp + 116.4 8.4 14.0 16.5 10.10 42.00 150 g rock phosphate plant-1 year-1 t 5 : 2 kg neem cake + 0.5 kg 119.6 11.0 14.8 15.0 9.70 45.50 wood ash plant-1 year-1 t 6 : 18 kg rural compost 136.4 18.0 16.4 23.2 8.70 56.00 plant-1 year-1 t 7 : 2.5 kg vermi 127.3 11.6 13.6 19.1 9.85 43.75 compost + 12.5 kg sun hemp plant-1 year-1 t 8 : no manure or fertilizer 80.2 5.4 9.2 7.9 5.60 14.00 sem ± 5.70 0.61 0.66 0.79 0.40 3.55 cd (p=0.05) 11.67 1.25 1.34 1.63 0.81 7.28 control treatment. the finding clearly indicated an increase in microbial population in organic treatments, which may have improved soil respiration and mineralizable nitrogen content. reduction in soil microorganisms in inorganic fertilizer treatment could be due to toxicity from metal contaminants found in inorganic fertilizers (marschner et al, 2004), in the present study, treatments that resulted in higher organic carbon content in soil had higher microbial population. similar results were reported by chang et al (2007). the results on soil enzyme activity (table 4) indicated that among various treatments, dehydrogenase and glusosidase activity was significantly higher in 7 kg urban compost plant–1 treatment, whereas acid phosphatase and urease were significantly higher in 20 kg sunhemp plus 150 g rock phosphate plant-1 treatment compared to control and inorganic fertilizer applied treatments. these results reveal that treatments that received fym or compost had greater microbial population, which may have increased soil enzyme activity compared to inorganic fertilizers alone or control. higher levels of enzyme activity have been reported by many researchers in soils treated with vermicompost and organic manure compared to inorganic fertilizers (krishna kumar et al, 2005; chang et al, 2007). results clearly revealed that organic nutrition practices in papaya production significantly improve soil health in terms of soil microbial and biochemical properties j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 124-127, 2010 reddy et al prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 127 table 4. soil enzyme activity in organic papaya field (24 months after planting) treatment soil enzyme activity urease4 dehydroβglucoacid.phosgenase1 sidase2 phatase3 t 1 : recommended 27.4 69.2 86.1 29.4 dose of npk fertilizers (250g n + 250 g p 2 o 5 + 500 g k 2 o plant-1year-1) t 2 : 10 kg fym 83.5 169.3 106.8 66.5 plant-1 year t 3 : 7 kg urban 102.4 226.2 109.2 60.2 compost plant-1 year-1 t 4 : 20 kg sun hemp + 78.9 147.7 121.0 79.8 150 g rock phosphate plant-1 year-1 t 5 : 2 kg neem cake + 69.6 141.1 112.1 63.0 0.5 kg wood ash plant-1 year-1 t 6 : 18 kg rural 83.7 225.4 107.5 46.9 compost plant-1 year-1 t 7 : 2.5 kg vermicompost + 74.7 177.5 112.3 39.9 12.5 kg sun hemp plant-1 year-1 t 8 : no manure 39.8 68.7 94.4 28.6 or fertilizer sem 3.39 7.32 4.96 2.50 cd (p=0.05) 6.95 14.98 10.15 5.12 1. µg tpf released g-1 of soil h-1, 2. µg g-1 soil h-1, 3. µg p-nitrophenol released g-1 soil h-1 4. µg nh 4 formed g-1 soil h-1 compared to application of inorganic fertilizers alone. among the treatments, application of 7 kg urban compost plant-1 or 10 kg fym plant-1 was found to be ideal for improving soil qualities, but fruit yield was significantly higher under recommended dose of fertilizers compared to that under organic treatments. references anonymous, 2009. indian horticulture, database 2009, national horticulture board pp 6 awada, m. and long, c. 1978. relation of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization to fruiting and petiole composition of ‘solo’ papaya. j. amer, soc. hortl. sci., 103:217–219 chang, e.h., chung, r.s. and tsai, y.h. 2007. effect of different application rates of organic fertilizer on soil enzyme activity and microbial population. soil sci. pl. nutrition, 53:132–140 jauhari, o.s. and singh. d.v. 1971. effect of n, p and k on growth, yield and quality of papaya var. coorg honey dew, prog. hort., 2:81–89 kumar, n., meenakshi, n., suresh, j. and nosov, v. 2006. effect of potassium nutrition on growth, yield and quality of papaya. ind. j. fert., 2:43–47 krishnakumar, n., saravanan, a., natarajan, s.k., veerabadran, y. and mani, s. 2005. microbial population and enzymatic activity as influenced by organic farming. res. j. agril. biol. sci., 1:85-88 marschner, p., crowley, d. and yang, c.h. 2004. development of specific rhizosphere bacterial communities in relation to plant species, nutrition and soil type. pl. and soil, 261:199–208 panse, y.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985 statistical methods for agricultural workers. iv edn, icar, new delhi, p 327 purohit, a.g. 1977. response of papaya to nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. ind. j. hort., 34:350– 353 reddy, y.t.n., kohli, r.r. and bhargava b.s. 1986. effect of n, p and k on growth, yield and petiole composition in papaya cv. coorg honey dew. singapore j. primary industries, 14:118–123 singh, i.p. and sharma. c.k. 1996. response of papaya to n and p applications on tilla land, tripura. j. hill. res., 9:96–98 (ms received 15 february 2010, revised 13 august 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 124-127, 2010 effect of organic practices on papaya prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 statistical genomics and bioinformatics prem narain 29278 glen oaks blvd. w. farmington hills, mi 48334 usa e-mail: narainprem@hotmail.com abstract some important and interesting topics in the newly emerging disciplines of statistical genomics and bioinformatics have been discussed briefly in relation to plants with possible references to fruit crops. this paper is therefore divided into two parts relating to the two disciplines, respectively. in the first part, mapping of quantitative trait loci (qtl), association mapping, mapping of gene expression transcripts (eqtl), marker-assisted selection, and a systems approach to quantitative genetics have been dealt with. in the second part, generation of databases, annotation, annotated sequence databases, and sequence similarity search have been described. key words: statistical genomics, bioinformatics, fruit crops, eqtl, annotated sequence databases, sequence similarity search i. statistical genomics introduction most of the traits of economic importance in plants have an underlying genetic basis involving several genes, and, are subject to modification by environmental factors. statistical considerations have been predominant in dissecting such complex traits into estimable components (narain, 1990). heritability of a trait, as a proportion of the phenotypic variation that is attributed to genetic causes, has been a prime indicator helpful in taking decisions for genetic improvement of economic traits. prediction of response to artificial selection (based on intensity and accuracy of selection) and the existence of genetic variability have been successful across several crop plants. however, relationship between the phenotype and the genotype has been like a black box where inferential approach has been the only way to look into it. this scenario is now changing with advent of the modern technologies of gene sequencing, microarray experiments and the enormous advances made in attempts to understand gene and protein expression within the cell of an organism. in this context, information on molecular markers has been extremely helpful in identifying regions on chromosomes (qtl) that bring about variation in a trait, thereby providing tools that can lead to far more accurate selection procedures for genetic improvement. saturated genetic maps of markers, giving their order along a chromosome and relative distances between them, have been developed. gene transcript data from microarray experiments can be integrated with molecular marker information to map expression traits (eqtl) that can possibly lead to causal networks. the network approach connecting data on genes, transcripts, proteins, metabolites, etc. indicates emergence of a systems quantitative genetics (narain, 2009, 2010). mapping of quantitative trait loci (qtl) genomic techniques like restriction fragment length polymorphism (rflp), random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd), amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp), variable number of tandem repeats (vntr) that consist of micro satellites (short sequences) termed as short tandem repeats (str) or simple sequence repeats (ssr) and mini satellites (long sequences) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (snp) have been developed that help in identification of qtls by correlation between a trait and its specific dna markers (narain, 2000). the first problem is, therefore, to construct a linkage map that indicates the position and relative genetic distances between markers along the chromosomes. map distance is based on the total number of cross-overs between the two markers, whereas, physical distance between them is denoted in terms of nucleotide base pairs (bp). a centi-morgan (cm), corresponding to a cross-over of 1%, may span 10 kbs to 1,000 kbs and can vary across species. prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 86 since marker genotypes can be followed for their inheritance through generations, these can serve as molecular tags for following the qtl, provided they are linked to the qtl. this requires detecting the marker-qtl linkage and, if established, estimating the qtl map position on the chromosome. however, these problems depend on whether we have data on experimental populations obtained from controlled crosses, as in plants, or on natural populations like humans where controlled crosses cannot be made. the most popular method, given by lander and botstein (1989), is that of simple interval mapping (sim). it involves formation of intervals by pairing of adjacent markers and treating them as a single unit of analysis for detection and estimation purposes. it is based on joint frequencies of a pair of adjacent markers and a putative qtl flanked by the two markers. suppose markers a and b are linked with recombination fraction r and qtl q is located between them with r 1 recombination from a and r 2 from b. then, r = r 1 +r 2 -2r 1 r 2 ≅ r 1 +r 2 , on the assumption of no interference and r so small that no double cross-overs can be assumed. in the classical back-cross design with three loci each with two alleles, a-a, b-b, and q-q, the expected frequencies for the eight marker-qtl genotypes can be used to obtain conditional probabilities of the qtl genotypes, given the marker genotypes. by setting up a linear regression model between the trait (y) and the indicator variable (x) taking the value 1 if the qtl is qq and –1 if it is qq, one can estimate a regression coefficient that defines the allelic substitution effect of this qtl. in such a model, the qtl genotype for a given individual is unknown. x is then a random indicator variable with conditional probabilities of obtaining qq or qq at the qtl. this means the observed value is modelled as a mixturedistribution with mixture ratios as the conditional probabilities. we have, therefore, a situation often referred to as a linear regression with missing data. the problem of estimation then involves the use of em algorithm. by assuming that the character is normally distributed within each of the eight marker-qtl classes with equal variance σ2, one can set up a likelihood function in terms of unknown parameters, and develop a log likelihood ratio ( λ ) for testing the hypothesis that the qtl is not located in the interval where the log likelihoods are evaluated using the maximum likelihood estimates of the genotypic values for the two qtl genotypes, the variance σ2 and the recombination fraction r 1 between marker a and the putative qtl using iterative procedures based on em algorithm. this statistic is distributed as χ2 with 1 d.f. the associated lod score for the interval mapping is then (½) (log 10 e) λ. this statistic is evaluated at regularly-spaced points; say 1 or 2 cm distance, covering the interval as a function of the presumed qtl position. repeating this procedure for each interval along the chromosome and plotting the lod score curve against the interval gives a qtl likelihood map that presents evidence for the qtl at any position in the genome. presence of a putative qtl is assumed if lod score exceeds a certain threshold t and the maximum of the lod score function in the map gives an estimate of the qtl position and gene effects. mapping of qtl by interval method is widely used in practice. analysis is done through the software mapmaker/qtl. although sim is the method for qtl mapping most widely used with advantage in several practical situations, it ignores the fact that most quantitative traits are influenced by numerous qtls. this is overcome either by adopting a model of multiple qtl mapping (mqm) or by combining sim with the method of multiple linear regression, a procedure known as composite interval mapping (cim). in all these methods, one uses the approach of maximum likelihood that produces only point estimates of the parameters such as the number of qtls, their location, and effects. the corresponding confidence intervals are required to be determined separately by re-sampling methods. further, the correct number of qtls is difficult to determine using traditional methods. their incorrect specification leads to distortion of the estimates of locations and effects of qtls. to address these problems, a bayesian approach is often adopted wherein the joint posterior distribution of all the unknown parameters given their prior distributions and the observed data is computed. for details of these various aspects, one can refer narain (2003a, 2005). the first application of interval mapping in plant breeding was to an inter-specific backcross in tomato. the parents for the back-cross were the domestic tomato lycopersicon esculentum (e) with fruit mass 65 g and a wild south american green-fruited tomoto l. chmielewskii (cl) with fruit mass 5 g. a total of 237 back-cross plants were assayed for continuously varying characters like fruit mass, soluble-solids concentration and ph, and, 63 rflp and 20 isozyme markers spaced at approximately 20 cm intervals were selected for qtl mapping. a threshold t=2.4, giving a probability of under 5% that even a single falsepositive will occur anywhere in the genome, was used. this corresponds approximately to significance level for any single test as 0.001. the resulting qtl likelihood maps revealed multiple qtls for each trait (6 for fruit weight, 4 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 prem narain prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 87 for concentration of soluble solids and 5 for fruit ph) and estimated their location to within 20-30 cm. fruit crops fruit crops differ from most of the agronomic/forest crops in that they have large plant size, long intergeneration period due to their extended juvenile phase, asexual propagation, high heterozygosity and polyploidy. these practice outcrossing and have a long life. they are mostly woody perennials and their products are usually perishable. the major temperate fruit crops belong to rosaceae family. the most important genera of this family are prunus, malus, pyrus, fragaria, and rosa. important members of the genus prunus are peach, cherry, plum, apricot, almond and of the genus malus is apple. they have been slow to respond to new technologies in breeding, until recently. characters like yield, blooming, harvesting time and fruit quality have been studied with the help of molecular markers in several fruit crops. long period from seed to fruiting in such crops is a major problem in breeding studies involving crosses. vegetative reproduction, on the other hand, allows every population to be immortalized and one can study a given character for as many years and in as many different environments as one wants. interspecies crosses are possible and most of them have small genomes. for instance peach, the best characterized among prunus species, has a haploid genome size of 164 mbp only. most of the prunus species are diploid, with 8 pairs of chromosomes whereas, apple and pear are allotetraploid with 17 pairs of chromosomes. saturated linkage maps with transferable markers, rflps, and microsatellites have been developed to provide basic tools for studies on qtls and marker-assisted selection in fruit tree breeding. as a result of a european project, a saturated linkage map of 246 markers (235 rflps and 11 isozymes) constructed from an f 2 progeny derived from almond (cv. texas) x peach (cv. earlygold) cross – termed txe mapindicated 8 linkage groups (g1 to g8) with a total distance of 491 cm. this led to a prunus reference map with 652 markers and a further set of 13 maps constructed with a sub-set of these markers has enabled genome comparisons among seven prunus diploid species (almond, peach, apricot, cherry, prunus ferganensis, prunus davidiana, and prunus cerasifera). these have helped establish the position of 28 major genes affecting various agronomic characters in different species of prunus crops (dirlewanger et al., 2004). the first linkage map in apples was constructed by a european consortium based on f 1 progeny derived from the cross cv. prima x cv. fiesta (fxf map). there were a total of 290 markers consisting of rflps, ssrs, isozymes, rapd etc., distributed over 17 linkage groups. a more saturated map was constructed with the f 1 progeny derived from the cross cv. fiesta x cv. discovery (fxd map) using 840 markers that included 129 ssrs. these maps have been helpful in qtl studies on apple. a comparison between apple and prunus maps suggests a high degree of synteny between these two genera. qtls for blooming, ripening and fruit quality have been found in peach and apple. some of these qtls were found to be located in regions of the genome where major genes were earlier mapped. for instance, in peach a major gene responsible for low fruit acidity was in the same region as qtls affecting fruit quality, a quantitative trait. in apple too, a major gene coding for malic acid content is located in the same region as qtls for fruit quality. various populations of peach x prunus davidiana crosses with different levels of introgression of the prunus davidiana genome into the cultivated peach viz. f 1 , f 2 or bc2 were used to discover the positions of respective qtls. about 13 qtls explained up to 65% of the total phenotypic variation for powdery mildew resistance in plants exposed to the disease in different times and environments. candidate gene approaches have been adopted for finding associations between genes involved in relevant metabolic pathways and major genes or qtls in fruit trees. several resistance gene analogs (rgas) were mapped in prunus that are at similar genomic positions as genes or qtls which determine ‘sharka‘ resistance in apricot or rootknot nematode resistance in peach and plum. linkage disequilibrium or association mapping the mapping of qtls in plants based on data collected from pedigrees of populations formed by crossing inbred lines is on a coarser scale, so that a qtl detected is likely to refer to several genes in a chromosomal region. the approach of population-based association mapping that involves linkage disequilibrium (ld) between markers and the genes underlying complex traits leads, on the other hand, to more accurate mapping of genes. the key idea is that a disease mutation assumed to have arisen once on the ancestral haplotype of a single chromosome in past history of the population of interest is passed on from generation to generation, together with markers at tightly linked loci, resulting in ld. the use of this approach in horticultural crops, though widely prevalent in human genetics, is limited. j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 statistical genomics and bioinformatics prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 88 advantages of the two approaches can be combined by detecting qtl initially using linkage mapping with moderate number of markers, followed by a second-stage of highresolution association mapping in qtl regions that capitalizes on a high-density marker map. benefits of linkage and association mapping have recently been combined in a single population of maize by adopting a nested association mapping (nam) approach. the maize nam population was derived by crossing a common reference sequence strain to 25 different maize lines. individuals resulting from each of the 25 crosses were self-fertilized for four further generations to produce 5,000 nam recombinant inbred lines (rils). this population was first used for initial detection of qtl using the linkage mapping approach. subsequently, within each diverse strain, high-resolution association mapping was adopted with a high-density marker map. it is significant to note that within each ril, all individuals are genetically nearly identical. this means we can estimate true breeding value of each line far more accurately by averaging phenotypic measurements of a given trait taken on several individuals with the same genotype. in a recent experiment, genetic architecture of flowering time in zea mays (maize) was dissected using nam. about 1 million plants were assayed in eight environments to map the qtls. about 29 to 56 qtls were found to affect flowering time. these were small-effect qtls shared among the diverse families. the analysis showed, surprisingly, absence of any single large-effect qtl. moreover, no evidence was found of epistasis or environmental interactions. flowering time controls adaptation of plants to their local environment in an outcrossing species like zea mays. a simple, additive genetic model predicting accurately flowering time in this species is, thus, in sharp contrast to that observed in several plant species which practice self-fertilization (buckler et al., 2009). mapping qtls for gene expression profile (eqtl) the advent of dna chip technology in the form of cdna and oligonucleotide microarrays has provided huge and complex data-sets on gene expression profiles of different cell lines from various organisms. such gene expression profiles have recently been combined with linkage analysis, based on qtl mapping, through molecular markers in what has been termed ‘genetical genomics’ (jansen and nap, 2001). gene expression, in terms of transcript levels, for each individual of a segregating population are phenotypes that are correlated with markers, genotyped for that individual, to identify qtls and their location on the genome to which the expression trait is linked. such expression quantitative trait loci (eqtl) studies are similar to traditional multi-trait qtl studies, but with thousands of phenotypes. it is also important to note that, underlying the gene expression differences, there are two types of regulatory sequence variation. one is cis-regulatory that affects its own expression and the other is trans-acting or protein coding that affects expression of other genes. the first attempt where transcript abundance was used to study the linkage with qtls was on budding yeast (brem et al, 2002) based on a cross between a laboratory strain and a wild strain, the parents being haploid derivatives. heritability estimation was based on haploid segregants and the linkage with a marker was tested by partitioning the segregants into two groups, according to marker genotypes, and comparing expression levels between groups, with wilcoxon-mannwhitney test. they found 8 trans-acting loci, each affecting expression of a group of 7 to 94 genes of related function. since then, several eqtl studies have been published in species like mice, maize, humans, rats and arabidopsis thaliana. apart from study of the eqtl in yeast, foss et al. (2007) investigated protein qtl in the same population of the yeast using mass spectrometry. comparison between genetic regulation of proteins and that of the transcripts revealed that loci that influenced protein abundance differed from those that influenced transcript levels, much against expectations. marker–assisted selection (mas) molecular markers such as those provided by rflp have not only made it possible to detect and estimate effects of qtls, but can also be used as a criterion of indirect selection for genetic improvement of a given quantitative trait – a procedure of selection which has come to be known as marker-assisted selection (mas). the underlying basis of mas is the correlation between a trait and the marker genotype, which gets generated due to linkage disequilibria between the qtl and marker loci. the fact that such information can be integrated with those of artificial selection on individual and/or collateral basis, to increase the efficiency of selection, was demonstrated by the work of lande and thompson (1990). they showed that relative efficiency of the selection index, combining phenotypic and molecular information optimally, is a function of heritability (h2) of the trait and the proportion (p) of additive genetic variance of j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 prem narain prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 89 the trait that is associated with marker loci. this efficiency is always one when h2=1, the phenotype being a perfect indicator of its breeding value. but, for a character with low heritability, the efficiency can be substantially high, provided p is high. this means the value of maker information can be very great if a larger proportion of additive genetic variance is associated with the markers. efficiency is maximum when p=1 and is (1/h), that becomes infinitely large for extremely small h. in that case, all of the weight in selection index is put on molecular information. if we select only on the basis of marker information, the efficiency, relative to individual selection with the same intensity, would be. this shows that when p>h2, selection based on marker information alone would be more efficient than individual phenotypic selection. increased efficiency of mas, however, is accompanied by increased cost involved in sample collection, dna extraction and typing of individuals in the sample, compared to that involved in taking simple measurements of the trait. cost reduction for mas can be achieved in several ways. marker technologies such as those based on polymerase chain reaction (pcr) may reduce the cost of mas. selective genotyping of the extreme progeny, as advocated by lander and botstein (1989), is another way. yet another way could be to bring in auxiliary information from other traits that are correlated with the main trait, and are cheaper to measure. this idea has been used in the past by several workers to increase the efficiency of individual and family selection itself, by including in the index one or more auxiliary traits in conjunction with the main trait. as a matter of fact, molecular information in mas is itself a sort of auxiliary information, but obtained at a higher cost. narain (2003b), therefore, showed how the efficiency of mas behaved if information on one or more auxiliary traits with the corresponding molecular scores was combined with that on the main trait, in an optimal manner. fruit crops in fruit crops, molecular markers are used for screening and selecting the best seedlings several years before the characters are evaluated in the field. it saves space and time so important in woody perennials. markerassisted selection in such crops is, however, mostly based on major genes, since several characters like disease resistance, flower/fruit/nut quality are found to be controlled by major genes that follow a simple inheritance pattern. markers tightly linked to such genes are searched for early selection. they are primarily used for characters that cannot be evaluated till the plant has reached the adult stage, such as fruit characters or self-incompatible genotypes. for instance, gametophytic self-incompatibility in almond, apricot and cherry is one such trait that is encoded by a highly polymorphic locus (s/s) located in the distal part of g6 linkage group. with determination of the sequences of the polymorphic s-rnase gene at this locus, a number of species-specific and allele-specific dna markers were discovered that were used for early and more accurate selection of self-incompatibility or self-compatibility alleles. markers close to the two genes of resistance to root-knot nematodes are used for selection of resistant prunus rootstocks. the resistance gene ma/ma from myrobalan plum and located on g7 linkage group, and another one from peach cv. nemared (mi/mi) located on g2 linkage group, have been screened with markers in a search for rootstocks that pyramid both resistance genes in a three-way progeny obtained from peach, almond and myrobalan plum. marker-assisted selection for disease resistance is quite widespread in apple as a means of early selection, and, to pyramid resistance genes. systems approach as we know, the central dogma of molecular biology stipulates that sequence information flows from dna to rna to protein but not in the reverse direction. but, kimchi-sarfaty et al (2007) reported data that indicate that a protein’s three-dimensional structure is not necessarily determined by its amino acid sequence that has been specified by the dna sequence. an mrna, if subjected to translational braking, can generate a protein with a structure different from that specified by the dna sequence. this has been termed ‘translation-dependent folding’ (tdf) hypothesis (newman and bhat, 2007). differential gene expression resulting in transcripts as sub-phenotypes could, then, lead to different proteins and give results similar to those obtained in the yeast experiment, as reported by foss et al (2007). genes and proteins are, therefore, required to be considered simultaneously to unravel the complex molecular circuitry operating within a cell. one has to have a global perspective of genotype-phenotype relationship, instead of individual components like dna or protein in a cellular system. it seems the interplay of genotype-phenotype relationship for quantitative variation is not only complex but also needs a closer look at how we view this relationship – whether purely at the dna-rna level (as in the reductionist approach) or at the level of cell as a whole j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 statistical genomics and bioinformatics prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 90 (where dna-rna are just parts of the cellular system with other contextual forces present in the micro-environments of the cell, also playing their own important roles). such situations have also been noticed in agricultural experimentation where a dialectical approach has been advocated (narain, 2006, 2008). in the grain production process, it is also important to study how this process affects soil health and the ecosystem surrounding the plant, as is studying the effect of inputs on production. in the dialectical approach, this relationship between the plant and its environment is studied both ways – input to output as well as output to input, a sort of feedback. a similar possibility seems to exist in the genotype and phenotype relationship within a cell. the protein as a phenotype is determined by a dna sequence as the genotype, but the reverse phenomenon of protein affecting the dna could also take place at the expense of violating central dogma. in fact, studies are on to explore biochemical signaling pathways that regulate function of living cells through regulatory networks having positive and negative feedback loops, though it is unclear how genetics can be incorporated into it. these feedback loops are basically cybernetic concepts that are inherent in the dialectical approach. this approach takes into account dynamics of the system over time as well, in which, development is a consequence of opposing forces. this is based on the concept of contradiction inherent in the meaning of dialectics. things change because of the action of opposing forces on them, and things remain what they are because of temporary balance of the opposing forces. opposing forces are seen as contradictory in the sense that each taken separately would have an opposite effect, but their joint action may be different from result of either acting alone. these forces are, however, part of selfregulation and development of the object is regarded as a network of positive and negative feedback loops, incorporation of which (in the genetic context) would violate the central dogma. genes, transcripts, proteins, metabolites, physical components, etc., can be regarded as ‘parts’ of the cellular system and the ‘whole’ is regarded as a relation of these parts that acquire properties by virtue of being parts of a particular whole. as soon as the parts acquire properties by being together, they impart to the whole new properties that are, in turn, reflected in changes in the parts, and so on. parts and whole, therefore, evolve as a consequence of their relationship, and the relationship itself evolves. genes are fixed, but their expression-the transcript-is not. at any given moment of time, genes are expressed as per requirement of the cell and through information contained in its dna. at this moment of time, the cellular system is said to have a particular state of the system. at the next moment of time, the same genes may be expressed, but differently, depending upon the then requirement of the cell and based on the feedback, if any, from the system’s state at the previous time point, assuming that the process is markovian. this gives the next state of the system, which might or might not be different from the previous state. and, the process goes on continually, modifying the relationship between different parts of the system based on interactions and feedbacks. it seems that a dialectical approach could provide the clue for understanding how ‘parts’ of a system and the ‘whole’ system behave in the context of genetics. ii. bioinformatics introduction genomic research is creating quantities of data at unprecedented scales by looking at either all genes in a genome, or all transcripts in a cell, or else all metabolic processes in a tissue in several species, in general, and in agriculture in particular. very soon new genomic technologies will enable individual laboratories to generate terabyte or even petabyte scales of data. to handle these data, to make sense of them and render them accessible to biologists, is the task of a newly emerging field of bioinformatics existing at the interface of biological and computational sciences computer based analysis of large biological data sets. the data sets usually pertain to macromolecular sequences (dna, rna and protein sequences), protein structures, gene expression profiles and biochemical pathways. it has three components. firstly, it involves development of databases to store and search data. secondly, it deals with statistical tools and algorithms to analyze and determine relationships between data sets. lastly, it involves application of the tools for analysis and interpretation of various types of genomic data. for a brief discussion on these aspects, reference may be made to narain (2005). here, we discuss primarily those aspects that relate to plant genomes. generation of databases dna sequences stored in databases are of three types: genomic dna, cdna and recombinant dna. genomic dna, taken directly from the genome, contains genes in their natural state which, in eukaryotes, include introns, regulatory elements and a large amount of surrounding inter-genic dna. cdna is reverse-transcribed from mrna and corresponds to only expressed parts of the genome, there being no introns. it gives direct access to genes that represent only a small percentage of the entire sequence. recombinant dna comes from the laboratory, j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 prem narain prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 91 being artificial dna molecules – sequence of vectors such as plasmids, modified viruses and other genetic elements used in the laboratory. high quality sequence data is generated by performing multiple reads on both dna strands. sequence data of lower quality can, however, be generated by single reads – single pass sequencing on a much larger scale, quickly and cheaply. expressed sequence tags (ests) are generated by single-pass sequencing of random clones from cdna libraries and are used to identify genes in genomic dna as well as to prepare large clone sets for dna microarrays. most rna sequences are deduced from the corresponding dna sequences, or, from a cdna sequence. the latter is more informative due to it being extensively processed during synthesis. for example, introns are spliced out of a primary transcript to generate mature mrna. plant sequence data are generated through (i) whole genome sequencing, (ii) sample sequencing of bacterial artificial chromosomes (bacs), (iii) genome survey sequencing (gss), and (iv) sequencing of expressed sequence tags (ests). an integrated database and suite of analytical tools to organize and interpret these data, has been developed and is known as plantgdb (vide the website http://www.plantgdb.org/). annotation annotation means obtaining useful biological information (structure and function of genes and other genetic elements) from raw sequence data. since prokaryotes and eukaryotes differ in their structure and genome organization, their annotations involve different problems. prokaryotes have high gene-density with virtually no introns, but in eukaryotes, gene-density is low and the genome has greater complexity. we have two groups of annotation structural annotation and functional annotation. in the former, we are concerned with finding genes and other genetic elements in genomic dna. in the latter, we assign functions to the discovered sequences. annotated sequence databases the following three repositories and resources for primary sequence data are available where each entry is extensively annotated. they can be accessed freely over the world wide web (www). (i) gene bank of the national centre for biotechnology information (ncbi) (ii) nucleotide sequence database of european molecular biology laboratory (embl) (iii) dna databank of japan (ddbj). new sequences can be deposited in any of the databases, since, these exchange data on a daily basis. the main sequence databases have a number of subsidiaries for storage of particular types of sequence data. for example, dbest is a division of gen bank which is used to store expressed sequence tags (ests). other divisions of gen bank include dbgss, dbsts used to store sequence tagged sites (stss) and several others. these large database providers, however, do not give non-redundant and curated records, so that detailed analysis cannot be performed at the resource site by the user. a database like plantgdb, which downloads raw plant genomic data from gen bank, overcomes such difficulties and provides curated records with detailed and updated information. it organizes est sequences into contigs that represent tentative unique genes. they are duly annotated and linked to their respective genomic dna. the data-base gives the basis for identifying genes common to particular species by integrating a number of bioinformatics tools that help in gene prediction and cross-species comparison the goal of comparative genomics. besides plantgdb database, there are speciesspecific databases like the arabidopsis information resource (tair), maizegdb, gramene, a tool for grass genomics, and the stanford microarray database. the plantgdb genome browsing capabilities for arabidopsis are made possible by a. thaliana genome database (atgdb; http://www.plantgdb.org/atgdb/). this database stores est and cdna spliced alignments along with current arabidopsis genome annotation. as we know arabidopsis thaliana, which is a small mustard species – eukaryotic and self-pollinating – is already playing an important role as a model organism in development of plant molecular biology, by way of providing increased knowledge and understanding of the plant’s functional and developmental processes. it has a rapid life cycle and can be easily grown in laboratory in large numbers. its entire genome, that is highly compact and consists of about 130 mb with little interspersed repetitive dna, has been sequenced. many thousands of arabidopsis plants can be grown on a bench to search for particular mutants which can then be isolated and genes cloned for use in other crops. it is related to many food plants like rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, millets, etc., and can, therefore, provide a j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 statistical genomics and bioinformatics prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 92 focus from which genome content of other higher plants can be extrapolated. fruit crops in regard to horticultural crops, an international consortium led by albert abbott at clemson university (clemson, sc), developed databases on prunus genome. using rflps on the txe map and a bac library of peach cv. nemared, a physical map was assembled. a growing collection of ests from peach and almond, based on cdna libraries, was released to public databases and more than 3,800 peach putative unigenes were detected. about 2,000 of these unigenes were assigned to specific bac that contain them. recently, a rosaceae database (www.genome.clemson.edu/gdr) has been developed that includes apple, peach, cherry, plum, apricot, pear, etc. sequence similarity searches due to molecular evolution, macromolecule sequences share a common ancestor resulting in similarity in their sequences, structure and biological functions. on the other hand, any pair of sequences will share a certain degree of similarity, due to chance alone. for example, dna sequences are constructed from an alphabet of only four letters, viz., a, t g and c. any sequence that consists of a mixture of these letters will show some similarity to any other similarly-constructed sequence. we need to distinguish between such a chance similarity and similarity resulting from real evolutionary and/or functional relationship. this requires use of appropriate statistical methods. sequences are first aligned in terms of their letters. when identical letters get aligned, we say that these letters were part of the ancestral sequence and have remained unchanged. when non-identical letters get aligned, we say that a mutation has occurred in one of the sequences. it may also happen that some letters in a particular sequence lack an equivalent in the other sequence, resulting in a gap. this could be due to insertion or deletion of letter/s in one of the sequences, with respect to the ancestral sequence. dynamic programming algorithms – computational methods can calculate the best alignment of two sequences. the algorithm takes two input sequences and produces the best alignment between them as the output. well-known algorithms are smith-waterman algorithm (local alignment) and needleman-wunsch algorithm (global alignment). to quantify similarity, a simple alignment score measures the number or proportion of identically matching residues. gap penalties are subtracted from such scores to ensure that alignment algorithms produce biologically sensible alignments, without too many gaps. gap penalties may be constant, i.e., independent of the length of the gap or be proportional to the length of the gap, or else may be affine, i.e., containing gap-opening and gap-extension contributions. we have often a query sequence about which we need to predict the structure and/or the function. we perform sequence similarity searches of databases in which the query sequence is aligned (compared) to each database sequence in turn and then rank the database sequences with the highest scoring (most similar) at the top. this can be achieved by the dynamic programming method with smith-waterman algorithm but the procedure is very slow, taking hours, for searching large databases. on the other hand, algorithms like blast (best local alignment search tool) and fasta provide very fast (about five to fifty times faster) searches of sequence databases. they are however less accurate than the dynamic programming method which provides the best possible alignment to each database sequence. each of the blast and fasta operates by first locating short stretches of identically or near-identically matching letters (words) –assumed to lead to high scoring alignment that are eventually extended into longer alignments. acknowledgements this work was supported by the indian national science academy, new delhi, under their programme “insa honorary scientist”. references brem, r.b., yvert, g., clinton, r. and kruglyak, l. 2002. genetic dissection of transcriptional regulation in budding yeast. science, 296: 752-755 buckler, e.s., holland, j.b., bradbury, p.j., acharya, c.b., brown, p.j., browne, c., ersoz, e., flint-garcia, s., garcia, a., glaubitz, j.c., goodman, m.m., harjes, c., guill, k., kroon, d.e., larsson, s., lepak, n.k., li, h., mitchell, s.e., pressoir, g., peiffer, j.a., rosas, m.o., rocheford, t.r., romaij, m.c., romero, s., salvo, s., villeda, h.s., da silva, h.s., sun, q., tian, f., upadyayula, n., ware, d., yates, h., yu, j., zhang, z., kresovich, s. and mcmullen, m.d. 2009. the genetic architecture of maize flowering time. science, 325: 714-718 dirlewanger, e., graziano, e., joobeur, t., garriga-caldere, f., cosson, p., howad, w. and arus, p. 2004. comparative mapping and marker-assisted selection j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 prem narain prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 93 in rosaceae fruit crops. pnas, 101: 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hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 85-93, 2010 statistical genomics and bioinformatics prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 215 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 215-221, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction bitter gourd is an economically important vegetable crop and considered as one of the most nutritious gourds, grown for its fruit and leaves. it is a good source of phytonutrients like carbohydrates, minerals like iron, calcium, phosphorus and vitamin b, vitamin c, and also contains vitamin a (behera et al., 2010). the primary centre of diversity is india, and china is considered as the secondary centre of diversity. it is grown widely throughout india. the primary breeding goal for bitter gourd is to increase fruit yield and qua lity. t his gynoecious sex for m ha s been commercially exploited worldwide in cucumber for increased number of fruits, earliness, uniformity and mechanical harvesting. it is mostly useful for hybrid development as it avoids manual emasculation and pollination. so simply by isolating from other genotypes and with a desirable parent we can go for hybrid development. yield is a complicated trait influenced by polygenes with small but cumulative effects. therefore, detailed understanding of the genetics and inheritance that underpins yield and its component traits is required in order to achieve the actual yield potential by adopting appropriate breeding and selection strategies. generation mean analysis has proven to be a useful tool for estimating various genetic parameters. hayman (1960) proposed the concept of generation mean analysis for estimating various genetic components. this method gives data on several genetic parameters as well as epistatic inter actions. it is beneficia l to ha ve a pr ecise understanding of the nature and magnitude of gene action of various characters to maximise the use of genetic potential by choosing of effective breeding methods. generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi1, varalakshmi b.1, rao e.s.1, pitchaimuthu m.1 and hima bindu k.2 division of vegetable crops, division of flower and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india. corresponding author email : swaminibhoi29@gmail.com abstract generation mean analysis study in bitter gourd was undertaken using six basic generations viz. p1, p2, f1, f2, b1 and b2 population were developed from gynoecious (iihrbtgy491) × monoecious (iihr sel -19 -1 and iihr sel-78-4) crosses. the gynoecious parent was superior for node for first female flowering, number of fruits and yield/plant whereas the monoecious parents were superior for fruit length, fruit diameter and fruit weight. f1 showed superior performance over mid parent for number of fruits, fruit length, fruit weight and yield per plant. f2 plants were significantly diverse. b1 and b2 population exhibited mean value closer to their recurrent parents. significance of one or more scaling tests, i.e. a, b, c and d in most of the traits revealed the presence of epistasis in both the crosses except for node bearing 1st male flower. days to 1st female flower opening, node bearing 1st female flower, fruit diameter and yield showed presence of duplicate epistasis whereas days to 1st male flower opening, number of fruits per plant, fruit length and fruit weight showed complimentary epistasis in iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel -19 -1 cross. node bearing 1st female flower, fruit length, fruit diameter and yield showed presence of duplicate epistasis whereas days to 1st female flower opening, days to 1st male flower opening, number of fruits and fruit weight showed complimentary epistasis in iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel-78-4 cross. additive gene action may be predominant for inheritance of node bearing 1st male flower. key words: bitter gourd, epistatic interactions. gene action and scaling test. 216 swamini et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 215-221, 2021 materials and methods the sib-mated seeds of gynoecious bitter gourd germplasm, iihrbtgy–491 and two monoecious lines iihr sel -19 -1 and iihr sel-78-4 used as parents to develop, f1, f2 and back cross generations during 2018–2021 at vegetable research block viii of division of vegetable crops, icar–indian institute of hor ticultur a l resea r ch, benga lur u. t he iihrbtgy–491gynoecious plant was maintained by sib matting and through the pollens from silver nitrate 250 ppm induced hermaphrodite flower s in the gynoecious plant. the data was recorded on 10 competitive plants in parents and f1, 100 plants in f2 and 20 plants in backcrosses laid out in a randomized complete block design in three replications. the obser va tions wer e r ecor ded for 9 economica l characters viz., days to first female flower opening, character cross p1 p2 mp f1 f2 b1 b2 days to 1 29.10 ± 37.23 ± 33.16 37.96 ± 35.25 ± 33.66 ± 38.00 ± 1st female 0.73 0.93 0.84 0.43 1.62 0.90 flower 2 28.93 ± 38.13 ± 33.53 39.10 ± 34.47 ± 30.10 ± 36.66 ± opening 0.67 0.85 0.71 0.43 0.67 1.02 days to 1 0.00 ± 29.23 ± 14.61 27.53 ± 24.25 ± 17.63 ± 31.06 ± 1st male 0.00 0.68 0.75 1.49 5.71 0.60 flower 2 0.00 ± 28.93 ± 14.46 25.20 ± 25.07 ± 15.56 ± 33.16 ± opening 0.00 0.83 0.48 1.46 5.03 0.75 node 1 0.00 ± 5.80 ± 2.90 4.33 ± 3.77 ± 2.50 ± 5.26 ± bearing 0.00 0.47 0.26 0.24 0.82 0.32 1st male 2 0.00 ± 6.96 ± 3.48 5.33 ± 4.25 ± 2.60 ± 5.83 ± flower 0.00 0.30 0.24 0.26 0.85 0.26 node 1 4.26 ± 12.40 ± 8.33 9.83 ± 9.40 ± 8.46 ± 13.00 ± bearing 0.31 0.74 0.72 0.37 1.09 0.53 1st female 2 4.26 ± 13.26 ± 8.76 11.86 ± 9.95 ± 7.73 ± 13.33 ± flower 0.31 0.86 0.44 0.38 1.20 0.50 number 1 42.10 ± 26.56 ± 34.33 37.73 ± 37.57 ± 41.96 ± 29.56 ± of fruits 1.53 1.03 1.19 0.77 3.11 0.85 per 2 42.10 ± 24.49 ± 33.29 35.43 ± 38.01 ± 46.26 ± 30.56 ± plant 1.53 0.83 1.09 0.78 1.83 0.94 fruit 1 12.23 ± 22.91 ± 17.57 17.70 ± 14.42 ± 13.53 ± 21.15 ± length 0.33 0.28 0.26 0.47 0.21 0.37 (cm) 2 12.23 ± 17.89 ± 15.06 16.57 ± 12.14 ± 13.13 ± 18.52 ± 0.33 0.30 0.47 0.46 0.38 0.30 fruit 1 4.18 ± 4.57 ± 4.37 4.31 ± 4.26 ± 4.09 ± 4.63 ± diameter 0.11 0.15 0.15 0.04 0.14 0.15 (cm) 2 4.18 ± 5.02 ± 4.61 4.39 ± 4.39 ± 4.12 ± 4.72 ± 0.11 0.08 0.12 0.04 0.11 0.13 fruit 1 79.56 ± 106.00 ± 92.78 96.63 ± 98.19 ± 77.93 ± 103.46 ± weight 1.38 2.04 3.55 3.39 1.82 1.27 (g) 2 79.56 ± 117.34 ± 98.36 109.43 ± 103.21 ± 83.69 ± 120.63 ± 1.38 3.18 3.81 3.41 1.24 1.42 yield/ 1 3.54 ± 2.72 ± 3.13 3.26 ± 3.10 ± 3.28 ± 2.18 ± plant 0.12 0.13 0.21 0.16 0.26 0.11 (kg) 2 3.54 ± 2.87 ± 3.18 3.22 ± 3.06 ± 3.31 ± 2.37 ± 0.12 0.18 0.21 0.16 0.35 0.29 1: iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel -19 -1; 2: iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel -78-4 table 1. generation means for different characters 217 generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd days to 1st male flower opening, node bearing 1st male flower, node bearing 1st female flower, number of fruits per plant, fruit length (cm), fruit diameter (cm), single fruit weight (g) and fruit yield/ plant (g). data from three replications was pooled to calculate mean values for all of the attributes investigated for the parents (p1 and p2), f1’s (p1 × p2), f2’s (f1’s selfed) and their firstgeneration backcrosses (b1’s = f1 ×p1 and b2’s = f1 ×p2). the abcd scaling tests of mather and jinks (1982) were employed to detect the presence of nonallelic interactions before calculating the different parameters. in addition to scaling test data was further subjected to joint scaling (deb and khaleque 2009). the parameters for the various gene effects employed in this investigation are the same as those used by hayman (1960) namely, mean (m), additive (d), dominance (h), additive × additive (i), additive × dominance (j) and dominance × dominance (l). the opstat software was used to perform the generation mean analysis. result and discussion the information regarding gene action, interaction and inheritance study is the key factor for designing appropriate breeding strategy for improvement of any crop. the gynoecious parent iihrbtgy – 491 was superior for node for first female flowering, number of fruits and yield/plant whereas the monoecious parents were superior for fruit length, fruit diameter and fruit weight. the mean performance of f 1 surpassed the mid parent for number of fruits, fruit length, fruit weight and yield per plant (table 1) in both the crosses (iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel -19 1 and iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel-78-4). the superior performance of f1 over mid parent indicated that these traits can be exploited through heterosis breeding. these findings are consistent with the findings of dey et al. (2012) and mishra et al (2015). the reduction in mean performance of f2 population than f1 for fruit length and yield in both crosses was observed, implying influence of inbreeding depression. rathod et al. (2021) also obtained similar results in bitter gourd. days to 1st female flower opening in iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel -19 -1cross, c scale was significant (4.25) (table 2) and dominance component (h ) was also significant (7.12) (table 3). the opposite sign of h (7.12) and l (-3.38) indicates presence of duplicate epistasis. mishra et al (2015) reported similar gene interaction for the trait days to first flowering in the cross of dbgy 201 × pusa do mausami indicating selection at later generation. however, in iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel-78-4 all four scales were significant which indicate the inadequacy of simple additive-dominance model to estimate the gene effects. the similar sign of h (2.20) and l (16.09) indicates presence of complementary epistasis. kumari et al. (2015) reported additive gene effect and rani et al. (2014) reported presence of dominance and epistasis for the trait. days to 1st male flower opening in iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel-19-1 cross, b (2.63) and c (3.27) scale and dominance component (21.29) were significant. the similar sign of h (21.29) and l (2.52) indicates presence of complementary epistasis. similarly, in iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel-78-4 cross, a (4.06) and b (-2.20) scales were significant which indicate the inadequacy of simple additive-dominance model to estimate the gene effects. the similar sign of h (17.89) and l (4. 70) indicate presence of complementary epistasis. kumari et al. (2015) and thangamani (2016) reported additive gene effect for days to 1st male flowering. node bearing 1st male flower in both the crosses all the scaling tests, namely, a, b, c and d were insignificant for node bearing 1st male flower. it was determined that the additive–dominance model is sufficient to expla in the effects. the sufficiency of the simple additive–dominance model implies that nonallelic interaction is absent and generation means are solely dependent on the additive– dominance effect of the gene. additive gene action may be predominant for inheritance and selection should be delayed to later generations for this trait. similar result reported by thangamani (2016). node bearing 1st female flower in iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel -19 -1 cross, c (4.72) and d (-2.66) scale and dominance (9.82) component were significant. non-additive component has a significant role in the inheritance of this trait. the opposite sign of h (9.82) and l (-5.92) indicates pr esence of duplica te epista sis. simila r ly, in iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel-78-4 cross, c (3.44) and d (-2.15) scales were significant. the opposite sign of h (8.40) and l (-5.17) indicates presence of duplicate j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 215-221, 2021 218 table 2. scaling test character cross a b c d days to 1st 1 -0.26 ± 1.98 -0.80 ± 1.27 4.25 ± 1.54** -1.16 ± 1.18 female flower opening 2 7.83 ± 0.96** 3.90 ± 1.34** 7.37 ± 1.44** 2.18 ± 0.86** days to 1st 1 0.26 ± 6.61 2.63 ± 0.91** 3.27 ± 3.57** -0.18 ± 3.73 male flower opening 2 4.06 ± 5.81** -2.20 ± 1.03** -0.97 ± 3.47 1.42 ± 3.39 node bearing 1 -0.66 ± 0.96 -0.40 ± 0.48 -0.61 ± 0.70 -0.22 ± 0.58 1st male flower 2 0.13 ± 0.99 0.63 ± 0.37 0.63 ± 0.69 0.06 ± 0.59 node bearing 1 0.16 ± 1.34 -0.76 ± 0.86 4.72 ± 1.29** -2.66 ± 0.82* 1st female flower 2 -0.33 ± 1.42 -0.53 ± 0.81 3.44 ± 1.14** -2.15 ± 0.87* number 1 8.90 ± 3.76** 8.16 ± 1.34** 13.82 ± 2.50** 1.62 ± 2.06 of fruits per plant 2 1.00 ± 2.38 11.76 ± 1.35** 14.36 ± 2.42** -0.80 ± 1.49 fruit 1 2.75 ± 0.34* 6.19 ± 0.48** 12.63 ± 1.17** -2.84 ± 0.60* length (cm) 2 2.54 ± 0.55* 1.52 ± 0.47 10.79 ± 1.22** -3.36 ± 0.60** fruit 1 -0.02 ± 0.20 -2.10 ± 0.21* -3.15 ± 0.23** 0.01 ± 0.13 diameter (cm) 2 0.04 ± 0.16 2.49 ± 0.17* 4.66 ± 0.19** -0.06 ± 0.11 fruit 1 47.32 ± 3.04** -11.63 ± 2.88** 24.03 ± 8.95** 5.82 ± 4.13** weight (g) 2 43.12 ± 3.15** -5.00 ± 3.30** 30.41± 9.25** 3.85 ± 4.16** yield/ 1 2.61 ± 0.34* 0.63 ± 0.20 2.79 ± 0.46* 0.73 ± 0.25 plant (kg) 2 2.44 ± 0.34* 0.80 ± 0.21 3.93 ± 0.46** 0.65 ± 0.25 *, ** significant at 5 and 1% probability respectively 1: iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel 19 1; 2: iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel 78 4 epistasis. similar result obtained by mishra et al. (2015) and additive gene action for the trait reported by thangamani (2016). number of fruits per plant in both the crosses, b and c scales were significant and dominance component, dominance × dominance components were significantly higher compared to additive component which indicate the inadequacy of simple additive-dominance model to estimate the gene effects. the similar sign of h and l indicates presence of complementary epistasis in both the cross. similar result reported by mishra et al. (2015) in dbgy 201 × pusa do mausami cross and complementary epistasis observed in dbgy 201 × s-2 cross. shukla et al. (2014) reported insignificant 2 value for number of fruits/plant, internodal length, seeds/fruit and yield/ plant in gy333 × drar-1 cross indicating the absence of non-allelic interaction. fruit length in iihrbtgy 491 × iihr sel -19 -1 cross, all the scaling tests, namely, a, b, c and d were significant and dominance component was higher compared to additive component. the similar sign of h (3.71) and l (5.26) indicates presence of complementary epistasis. however, in iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel-78-4cross, a, c and d scales were significant and dominance, additive × additive components were in positive direction indicating their significant role in inheritance swamini et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 215-221, 2021 219 table 3. estimates of components of generation mean for different yield related character in bitter gourd character cross m d h i j l epistasis days to 1 35.25 ± -4.33 ± 7.12 ± 2.32 ± -0.53 ± -3.38 ± d 1st female 0.24 1.07** 2.44** 2.36* 2.25 4.56** d flower 2 34.47 ± -6.56 ± 2.20 ± -4.36 ± -3.93 ± 16.09 ± c opening 0.25 0.70** 1.81* 1.73** 1.55** 3.18** c days to 1 24.25 ± -13.43 ± 21.29 ± 0.37 ± 2.36 ± 2.52 ± c 1st male 0.87 3.31** 7.49** 7.43 6.64* 13.74* c flower 2 25.07 ± -17.60 ± 17.89 ± -2.84 ± -6.26 ± 4.70 ± c opening 0.84 2.93** 6.79** 6.78* 5.89** 12.24** c node 1 3.77 ± 2.77 ± 1.89 ± 0.45 ± 0.27 ± -1.52 ± bearing 0.14 0.50* 1.18 1.16 1.05 1.09 1st male 2 4.25 ± 3.23 ± 1.72 ± -0.13 ± 0.50 ± 0.90 ± flower 0.15 0.51* 1.20 1.19 2.17 2.15 node 1 9.40 ± -4.53 ± 9.82 ± 5.32 ± -0.93 ± -5.92 ± d bearing 0.21 0.70** 1.72** 1.65** 1.48 3.10** d 1st female 2 9.95 ± -4.60 ± 8.40 ± 4.30 ± -0.20 ± -5.17 ± d flower 0.21 0.75** 1.78** 1.74** 1.59 3.22** d number 1 37.57 ± 3.82 ± 10.40 ± -3.24 ± -0.73 ± 20.30 ± c of fruits 0.44 1.86** 4.22** 4.13** 3.87 7.85** c per 2 38.01 ± 4.25 ± 15.70 ± 1.60 ± 10.76 ± 11.16 ± c plant 0.45 1.19** 3.10** 2.99 2.59** 5.35** c fruit 1 14.42 ± -3.62 ± 3.71 ± 3.68 ± 3.44 ± 5.26 ± c length 0.27 0.24** 1.22** 1.21** 0.55** 1.53** c (cm) 2 14.14 ± -5.39 ± 6.19 ± 6.73 ± -1.02 ± -2.66 ± d 0.26 0.28** 1.24** 1.20** 0.62 1.66* d fruit 1 4.26 ± 2.05 ± 2.26 ± -1.02 ± -2.07 ± -5.10 ± d diameter 0.02 0.12* 0.28* 0.26 0.27* 0.54** d (cm) 2 4.35± -1.20 ± -3.15 ± 2.13 ± 4.44 ± 11.40 ± d 0.71 0.10 0.24** 0.23* 0.21** 0.44** d fruit 1 108.19 ± -48.21 ± 7.19 ± -11.65 ± -58.96 ± 47.34 ± c weight 1.95 1.33** 8.55** 8.27** 3.03** 10.43** c (g) 2 107.21 ± -54.70 ± 1.52 ± -7.71 ± -48.12 ± 45.84 ± c 1.97 1.33** 8.67 8.32** 3.34** 10.68** c yield/ 1 4.10 ± -0.90 ± -4.48 ± -1.46 ± -1.97 ± 4.71 ± d plant 0.09 0.17 0.52** 0.50 0.35 0.82** d (kg) 2 4.06 ± -0.90 ± -3.67 ± -1.31 ± -1.63 ± 4.56 ± d 0.09 0.17 0.52** 0.50 0.36 0.82** d *, ** significant at 5 and 1% probability respectively 1: iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel -19 -1; 2: iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel -78-4 c: complementary epistasis, d: duplicate epistasis of the trait. presence of duplicate epistasis is noticed. similar result obtained by mishra et al. 2015 for fruit length in both dbgy 201 × s-2 and dbgy 201 × pusa do mausami) whereas incomplete dominance effect for fruit length reported by kumari et al. (2015). fruit diameter in both the crosses, b and c scale were significant. in iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel -19 -1 cross additive (2.05) and dominance (2.26) components were significant while in iihrbtgy 491× iihr sel -78generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 215-221, 2021 220 4 cross dominance × dominance (11.40) component was significant. the opposite sign of h and l indicates presence of duplicate epistasis in both the crosses. in such circumstances, available populations must be carried to future generations in order to arrive at the best-fit model (mather and jinks 1982). the opposite signs of h and l neutralize each other, resulting in reduced heterosis for the trait. similar result obtained by mishra et al. (2015). fruit weight in both the crosses, all the scaling tests, namely, a, b, c, d were significant and dominance × dominance (l) component was significantly higher. non-additive component has significant role in the inheritance of this trait. the similar sign of h and l indicates presence of complementary epistasis. in contrary to the result, duplicate epistasis with predominance of additive × dominance gene action reported by mishra et al. (2015) in both the crosses i.e dbgy 201 × s-2 and dbgy 201 × pusa do mausami and thangamani (2016) reported presence of additive gene action for fruit weight. yield/plant in both the crosses, a and c scales were significant and dominance × dominance (l) component was higher a nd in positive dir ection. non-a dditive component has a significant role in the inheritance for yield per plant. the opposite sign of h and l indicates presence of duplicate epistasis. similar result obtained by mishra et al. (2015) in both the crosses namely dbgy 201 × s-2 and dbgy 201 × pusa do mausami and shukla et al. (2014) in cross gy323 × drar-1. the opposite signs neutralize each other. it also shows reduced variability in segregating generations, which prevents the selection and makes them challenging to use in breeding programmes (parihar et al. 2016). conclusion the mean performance of f1 surpassed the mid parent for number of fruits, fruit length, fruit weight and yield per plant in both the crosses indicating that these traits can be exploited through heterosis breeding. the reduction in mean performance of f2 population than f1 for fruit length and yield in both crosses was observed which apparently indicated influence of inbreeding depression. significance of one or more scaling tests, i.e. a, b, c and d in most of the traits revealed the presence of epistasis in both the crosses except for node bearing 1st male flower where additive gene action was predominant. characters showing complimentary epistasis have the possibility of considerable amount of heterosis for the trait and characters showing duplicate epistasis have the possibilities of obtaining transgressive segregants in later generations in the particular cross. reference behera, t. k., behera, s., bharathi, l. k., john, k. j., simon, p. w., and staub, j. e. 2010. bitter gourd: botany, horticulture, breeding. horticultural reviews, 37, 101. deb, a. c. and khaleque, m. a. 2009. nature of gene action of some quantitative traits in c hic kp ea ( c i c e r a r i e t i n u m l . ) . wo r l d journal of agricultural sciences, 5(3), 361368. dey, s. s., behera, t. k., munshi, a. d., rakshit, s. and bhatia, r. 2012. utility of gynoecious sex form in heterosis breeding of bitter gourd and genetics of associated vegetative and f lower ing t r a it s . i n d i a n j o u r n a l o f horticulture 69(4): 523–29. hayman, b. i. 1960. the separation of epistatic from additive and dominance variation in generation means. heredity 12: 371–90. kumari, m., behera, t. k., munshi, a. d., and talukadar, a. 2015. inheritance of fruit traits and generation mean analysis for estimation of horticultural traits in bitter gourd. indian journal of horticulture, 72(1), 43-48. mather, k. and jinks, j. l. 1982. introduction to biometrical genetics. 3rd edition. chapman and hall ltd., london, 396pp. mishra, s., behera, t. k., munshi, a. d., bharadwaj, c. , & ra o, a. r. 2015. inher ita nce of gynoecism and genetics of yield and yield contributing traits through generation mean analysis in bitter gourd. indian journal of horticulture, 72(2), 218-222. parihar, a. k., dixit, g. p. and singh, d. 2016. gene interactions and genetics for yield and its attributes in grass pea (lathyrus sativus l.). journal of genetics, 95(4), 947-956. swamini et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 215-221, 2021 221 rani, k. r., reddy, k. r. and raju, c. s. 2014. inheritance of yield and its related traits in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). molecular plant breeding, 5. rathod, v., behera, t. k. and munshi, a. d. 2021. genetic analysis for yield and its attributes in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). indian journal of agricultural sciences, 91(1), 68-73. (received on 05.11.2021, revised on 06.01.2022 and accepted on 18.01.2022) shukla, a., singh, u., rai, a. k., bharadwaj, d. r. and singh, m. 2014. genetic analysis of yield a nd yield a ttr ibuting tr a its in bitter gourd. vegetable science, 41(1), 37-41. thangamani, c. 2016. genetic analysis in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l. ) for yield and component cha ra cter s. asian journal of horticulture, 11(2), 313-318. generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 215-221, 2021 00 contents.pdf 10 swamini.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 1 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review moringa (moringa oleifera l.): an underutilized and traditionally valued 1-13 tree holding remarkable potential jattan m., kumari n., raj kumar, kumar a., rani b., phogat d.s., kumar, s. and kumar, p. original research in papers characterization and evaluation of mountain sweet thorn 14-25 (flacourtia montana j. grah) collections tripathi p.c., ganeshan s., radhika v. and shetti d.l. optimization of methodology for the extraction of polyphenolic compounds 26-35 with antioxidant potential and á-glucosidase inhibitory activity from jamun (syzygium cumini l.) seeds arivalagan m., priyanka d.r. and rekha a. genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) 36-44 agadi a.h., kolakar s., lakshmana d., nadukeri s. and hanumanthappa m. morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to 45-52 iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c., dutt s., sharma j., raveendran m. and sudhakar d. responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water 53-63 deficit conditions ayub q., khan s.m., hussain i., naveed k., ali s., mehmood a., khan m.j., haq n.u., shehzad q. induced variability for yield and its attributing traits in cluster bean 64-68 [cyamopsis tetragonoloba (l. ) taub] through gamma irradiation lavanya h.n., mishra s., sood m., aghora t.s., anjanappa m., rao v.k. and reddy a.b. in vitro multiplication protocol for curcuma mangga : studies on carbon, 69-76 cytokinin source and explant size waman a.a., bohra p., karthika devi r. and pixy j. effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life 77-90 of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m., bhandari n. and dhital m. post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and 91-102 antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h., saucedo v.c., guerra r.d., suarez e.j., soto h.r.m. lopez j.a., garcia c.e. and hernandez r.g. soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient 103-113 management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour and d. kalaivanan effect of spectral manipulation and seasonal variations on cut foliage production 114-120 and quality of philodendron (philodendron ‘xanadu’) sujatha a. nair, laxman r.h. and sangama short communications studies on mutagenic sensitivity of seeds of pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) 121-124 sankaran m., kalaivanan d. and sunil gowda d.c. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from 125-129 garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v., vasudeva r., hemanth b., nischita p., sthapit b.r., parthasarathy v.a. and rao v.r. 125 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 125-129, 2021 short communication garcinia indica choisy (thouars; family clusiaceae), is a perennial tree. g. indica is commonly known as a br indonia tallow tr ee or ‘kokum butter ’ tree in english. kokum has many uses in cuisines a nd an important ingr edient in locally prepared medicines. the seeds are a rich source of kokum butter, which is nutritive, demulcent, agent for smoothening, softening a nd used for cosmetic, confectionery, culinary purposes. raw fruits, young lea ves and bark are also used as medications against several disorders. the fruit rind is a rich source of hydroxy citric acid (hca) that prevents accumulation of fat in the human body cells. therefore, g. indica has become the natural source for production of anti-obesity drugs. (ba liga et a l. , 20 11) . ga rc in ia s pecies a r e endemic and distributed in tropical rain forests of the western ghats. perceiving the threat of over exploitation, frlht (foundation for revitalization of l oc a l h ea lt h tr a dit ions ) a nd i uc n (international union for conservation of nature) have recognized this species as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘threatened’ category respectively (hareesh and vasudeva, 2010). a few studies examined diversity in this species using general dna markers like rapd and issr markers (thatte et al. 2012; palkar and sellappan, 2019). however, so far there are no efforts to develop species specific, highly r epr odu cib le micr os a tellite ma r ker s or s sr markers in this species. keeping this in view, an attempt has been made to develop microsatellite or ssr markers using next generation sequencing this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v.*1, vasudeva r.2, , hemanth b.1, nischita p., sthapit b.r.3 parthasarathy v.a.4 and rao v.r.5 1icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089 india 2department of forest biology and tree improvement, college of forestry sirsi 581 401 university of agricultural sciences (dharwad), india, 3 regional project coordinator (unep-gef), bioversity international, pokhara, nepal, 4 national project coordinator (unep-gef), icar-indian institute of horticultural research , bengaluru, india 5bioversity international, rome *corresponding author e-mail : kv_ravishankar@yahoo.co.in, ravishankar.kv@icar.gov.in abstract garcinia indica popularly known as ‘kokum’ or murugalu”, is a medium sized evergreen tree found in western-ghats of india. this tree species is highly exploited to produce anti-obesity drugs and culinary purposes. its population is threatened by over exploitation and loss of habitat. development of microsatellite markers would help in understanding genetic structure and further to develop appropriate conservation strategies. in this study, using next generation sequencing platform illumina hiseq 2000, we have sequenced partial genome of g. indica and identified 3725 microsatellites. forty-eight microsatellite markers were analyzed using 30 accessions. polymorphism information content (pic) values ranged from 0.718 to 0.968 with a mean value of 0.922. allele per locus ranged from 3 to 33 per locus. probability of identity values ranged from 0.00329 to 0.30489. cross species amplification ssr primers in the related species, showed a moderate transferability from 12.5 % (for g. morella) to 18.7%(for g. gummigutta) key words : cross-species amplification garcinia indica; microsatellite markers and next-generation sequencing (ngs) 126 ravishankar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 125-129, 2021 t ec hnology. t he develop ment of molec u la r mar kers would help in studying its diver sity, analyzing the genetics of traits, and further help in evolving conservation strategies and improvement. t he p la nt ma t er ia l wa s ob t a ine d f r om t he germplasm collection of the college of forestry, s ir s i ( univer s it y of agr icu lt u r a l s c ienc es , dharwad), karnataka state, india. total genomic dna was isolated from the leaves of g. indica genot yp es u s ing modif ied c ta b met hod (ravishankar et al., 2000). genomic dna was sequenced using illumina hiseq2000 platform at m/ s genotypic pvt. ltd, bengaluru facility following manufactures instructions. high quality sequence data was used for assembly into contigs. de novo assembly of reads into contigs was per formed using soapdenovo2-src-r240 software (luo et al., 2012). this has resulted in 92125 contigs. the total assembled size of the contigs is approximately 25.6 mbp. an ssr survey of genomic sequences u s ing m i s a s of t wa r e ( ht t p :/ / p gr c . ip kgatersleban.de/misa), showed that 3590 contigs contained at least one microsatellite (ravishankar et al. 2015). a total of 3725 microsatellite was identified. a total of 1374 microsatellites (esm1) pr imers wer e designed using pr imer3 softwa re (http://bioinfo.ut.ee/primer3-0.4.0/; untergrasser et al., 2012). from these, randomly 50 loci were selected for initial scr eening. fina lly, 48 ssr primers were selected for genetic analysis based on c lea r a mp lif ic a tion of p cr pr odu cts . we employed thirty genotypes of garcinia indica for assessing polymorphism at each locus. the fluorescence based m13 ta iled pcr method of schuelke (2000) wa s followed to amplify the microsatellites in a quick, accurate and efficient manner. pcr was carried out in the 20µl reaction volume containing 2µl of 10x reaction buffer, 2.0µl of 1 mm dntps, 0.9µl (5 pmol) of forward, 0.9µl reverse primers (5 pmol), labeled m13 probe 1.2µl (5 pmol), 5.0 µl (50-75 ng) of template genomic dna, 0.8 µl (2 u) of taq dna polymerase and 7.2 µl of nuclease free water. the pcr cycling profile was: initial denaturation at 94°c for 2 min, followed by 35 cycles of 94°c for 30sec., 55°c for 30 sec., 72°c for 1 min and a final extension at 7 2 ° c f or 5 min. amp lif ied p r o du c t s wer e s ep a r a t ed on 9 6 c a p illa r y au t oma t ed d n a sequencer (applied biosystems, abi 3730 dna analyzer) at m/s eurofin facility, bengaluru. t he r a w da t a gener a t ed wa s a n a lyz ed a nd comp iled us ing pea k sc a nner v1. 0 soft wa r e (applied biosystems, usa) for estimating the allele size in bp. the allele size data was used for genetic analysis using cervus 3.0 software (kalinowski et a l . 2 0 0 7 ) . we ha ve c a lc u la t ed ob s er ved het er oz ygo s it y, ex p ec t ed het er oz ygos it y, p olymor p hic inf or ma t i on c ont ent ( p i c ) . t he probability of identity (pi) was calculated using identity1.0 software (http://www.uni-graz.at/ ~sefck/: wagner and sefc, 1999). genetic analysis of 48 ssr loci, showed pic values ranging from 0.718 to 0.968 with a mean value of 0.922. the mea n va lu es of ob s er ved a nd ex p ec t ed heter ozygosity are 0.2813 (table 1) and 0.933 respectively (table 1 and 2). the allele per locus ranged from 13 to 41 with a mean of 16.395. the probability of identity (pi) values ranged from 0.00329 to 0.304896 with a mean of 0.03506. the total probability of identity is 8.132729x 10-80. in cross species amplification, out of 48 ssr primers, 6 amplified in g. morella , accounting 12.5 per cent transferability and 9 amplified in g. gummigutta accounting 18.8 percent transferability (esm2). this relatively low cross-species transferability c omp a r ed t o wha t ha s been obs er ved in g. gummigutta species (ravishankar et al., 2017). t his is t he f ir s t r ep or t of s s r ma r ker s f or garcinia indica, where 3725 microsatellites were identified and pr imers were designed for 1374 microsatellites. the genetic analysis showed that the majority of the ssr primers developed have high pic values indicating high heterozygosity in the species. the low probability of identity values of ma ny s s r loc i is u s ef u l f or molec u la r characterization. finally, the ssr developed will be useful in studying genetic diversity, mapping and finger pr inting of garcinia indica a nd r ela ted species. 127 microsatellite markers from garcinia indica l oc us f or w ar d se qu en ce r ev er se s eq ue nc e r ep ea t n um be r a lle le s iz e o bs er ve d e xp ec te d p ol ym or ph ic p ro ba bi lit y 5i  3i 5i  3i ty pe of a ll el e ra ng e h et er oz yg os it y h et er oz yg os it y in fo rm at io n of i de nt it y (k ) (b p) (h o) (h e) c on te nt ( p ic ) (p i) g i_ k v r a5 77 t t t g g c g a g g g t g t t g g t g a g t a c a c g t g ta g g c t g a c a c c a a c c (g t )6 20 14 023 0 0. 34 5 0. 92 4 0. 90 2 0. 01 28 28 g i_ k v r a6 14 t g t g a g t t g t t t g g c at g g g t g a g g a g g g t g a g c a a a t c a c a g c t c a (t g )2 2 26 19 729 0 0. 18 5 0. 96 2 0. 94 1 0. 00 52 54 g i_ k v r a6 15 t g t g a g g g g t g a g g t t g a g g c t a c a a a c g c at c c c c a c t c t c g g (a t )6 27 28 337 9 0. 25 9 0. 95 3 0. 93 3 0. 00 68 29 g i_ k v r a6 51 t g g g t g g c a a a t t t g g g a g g a a a t g c c g c c c a a g g a g a g a g g a a a (a c )8 24 18 527 7 0. 2 0. 97 1 0. 95 0. 00 66 22 g i_ k v r a7 23 t g c a c c a g g a g g g t c a c a g a c t a c a a c g a g g c c t t c c a a c a g g a (a c )1 0 21 41 248 8 0. 14 3 0. 92 6 0. 90 4 0. 01 19 16 g i_ k v r a7 47 t g a c a g a t c g a c a g g c ta g a c t c g a a t c g c c c c c g tc ta t g ta tc a g t c (a t )6 25 43 253 1 0. 19 2 0. 96 2 0. 94 1 0. 00 65 35 g i_ k v r a7 48 t g a a t g c c g a g a g c a a t t g t g c c t c a c a t c a c a a g g c t t g c t c a a a c a (t a )6 33 14 021 4 0. 51 9 0. 97 9 0. 96 0. 00 32 90 g i_ k v r a8 34 g t g c a c a t g t c g c c a ta a a g at g g a a c c ta c c c c tc c at a a c at g c c t t (a t )6 16 10 518 0 0. 13 3 0. 85 3 0. 82 8 0. 03 68 97 g i_ k v r a8 61 g g c c c at g g c c t c c t c t c at a c a a t g g g g a a g g a c a a t ta a g t c g g g a (t a )6 15 10 318 5 0. 13 8 0. 72 1 0. 69 5 0. 08 74 01 g i_ k v r a8 62 g g c a c a t g t g t c ta c a c c g c a c t g t g g a c a g g ta g g g t c a c a g g t (a t )7 9 23 329 4 0. 14 3 0. 85 5 0. 81 9 0. 03 73 16 g i_ k v r a9 61 c c a c a c a c a a a at g c c a c a a t t c c a t g t g c g t g t g t g g t t g a c a g g t (c a )6 14 99 -1 24 0. 28 6 0. 84 7 0. 81 6 0. 03 62 13 g i_ k v r b0 69 a g a c a t c c g t c a c c g g g c t c at t g c c at t tg ta t g tg t tg t tg g c g g (c a )7 10 99 -1 25 0. 21 4 0. 87 3 0. 84 1 0. 02 98 37 g i_ k v r b1 30 a c c c g c at t c a c a at g c a c at a c a g t g g c g c ta t t g g g a a at g a g ta c a (c a )7 8 23 334 1 0. 00 0 0. 86 0. 82 3 0. 03 36 81 g i_ k v r b1 31 a c c c c ta a c g g t g g g t t c g t c a t c g a g g g t c c t t g a g t t c t c c c c t (a t )6 13 99 -1 90 0. 14 8 0. 90 5 0. 87 9 0. 01 76 89 g i_ k v r b1 32 a c c c c ta a c g g t g g g t t c g t c a t g g c c t tc g g tt g a g t t g tc c c (a t )6 10 11 715 7 0. 42 9 0. 77 4 0. 73 3 0. 06 76 68 g i_ k v r b1 74 a c a c c g g ta a g g t g g t g a g a a g g a a c a c a c a g a g ta c c c c at at a c g c a c a (t g )7 12 10 114 8 0. 25 0. 78 3 0. 74 9 0. 05 49 54 g i_ k v r b1 75 a c a c c g g ta a g g t g g t g a g a a g g a a c a c a g a g ta c c t c a c at a c g c a c a (t g )7 18 10 016 5 0. 51 7 0. 91 5 0. 89 1 0. 01 63 65 g i_ k v r b1 76 a c a c c c g at c c c at t c c g a c c t a c a c c a a c c a c g c t c c c t t c c t (t a )7 24 45 352 4 0. 27 6 0. 94 5 0. 92 5 0. 00 82 23 g i_ k v r b2 00 a a c ta c c a t c a a a c a t c a c c a a c a c g a t g g a a g g t g t t g a g g t c g g c c a (c a )6 22 43 051 4 0. 32 0. 95 7 0. 93 4 0. 00 90 77 g i_ k v r b2 01 a a c g g c ta g c t tt t c a a c t g a c t g t t g g ta a g t c g at t g t t g g g c t t c g (t a )6 17 11 617 9 0. 16 0. 91 3 0. 88 7 0. 01 78 50 g i_ k v r a9 75 c a c c c c at a c a c a a c c a c at t c c c g g t g ta t g t g c c t g g at a a a t g a a g g t (c a )6 23 20 128 5 0. 10 3 0. 93 8 0. 91 8 0. 00 92 12 g i_ k v r a9 76 c a c at c c t ta c at g ta c a c g g t c c a c c t g a c c g g c ta a a c a ta c a a g t t c c a (t a )7 20 31 639 7 0. 08 3 0. 92 6 0. 90 1 0. 01 67 75 g i_ k v r a9 77 c a c a ta a g g a a c a a c a a c a a g g c c t c a g c c g g a g g c c g ta c a at t g t g t t (a t )7 24 99 -1 71 0. 43 3 0. 85 6 0. 83 5 0. 03 19 96 g i_ k v r a9 78 c a at c t c at t c c ta g a c a a c c t g c a c a a g t t g a t c c a g g a t t t g g c g a g g g t (a c )6 20 99 -1 48 0. 41 4 0. 93 3 0. 91 2 0. 01 12 02 g i_ k v r a9 79 c a a g g c t g c t c g g a c g t c g a a t a t c c c a c c g g c t c g a g c a a g a a (c t )6 23 42 858 2 0. 28 6 0. 90 5 0. 88 3 0. 01 55 18 g i_ k v r a9 80 c a a c at g c t t c a a c c a a g c a c a ta c a a t g c ta c ta c c t ta g g a g a c a t g c at c a (t g )1 1 21 11 219 8 0. 44 4 0. 94 2 0. 92 0. 00 92 96 g i_ k v r a9 81 c a a c a a a g g g c a t t c a t g c a c a c a t t g g g g g a g g a a c c a a g c a a g t (a t )6 24 31 339 9 0. 63 3 0. 95 5 0. 93 6 0. 00 68 17 g i_ k v r b0 47 a g c g a g g a c a a g g g a a a g g a c g t g g c g g at at g t g t g c t t g g c g (t a )7 19 32 336 5 0. 36 0. 91 1 0. 88 5 0. 01 81 87 t ab le 1 : g en et ic a na ly si s of m ic ro sa te lli te m ar ke rs d ev el op ed f or g ar ci ni a in di ca j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 125-129, 2021 128 ravishankar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 125-129, 2021 g i_ k v r b0 48 a g c g a a t g c a t g c g t g ta g c g a a c g a t c a c c t t g g g g a c g c t c a (a t )6 19 47 252 7 0. 26 1 0. 87 1 0. 84 6 0. 03 17 85 g i_ k v r b2 04 a a c c c a g t g a g t g ta a t g c g a at t g t t g t t g t t g g c t ta ta g c c g a at g t g a (c a )7 21 10 219 5 0. 10 7 0. 94 8 0. 92 7 0. 00 77 28 g i_ k v r b2 05 a a c c c a at g a g t g ta at g c c a g t t g t a c t g t g g t t g g c t ta t g g c c t g a (c a )6 21 10 319 7 0. 5 0. 91 9 0. 89 8 0. 01 52 33 g i_ k v r b2 06 a a c a g g a c c g g t g t g c g g t t g a t c c g c a c at g t g t c c a c a c c a a (t a )8 21 20 134 1 0. 42 3 0. 90 9 0. 88 5 0. 01 63 89 g i_ k v r b2 07 a a c a c g t g g c a g a c g c t c a a g g t g g t g a g g t c g g t c c a a a c a g g a (a t )6 8 11 717 8 0. 23 3 0. 79 3 0. 75 7 0. 07 08 82 g i_ k v r b2 08 a a c a c g c g c g a g g a c a ta c t g c c c a a g c c tc c tc tc c c at tt g tg c (t a )6 7 15 417 1 0. 67 9 0. 77 4 0. 72 0. 07 75 86 g i_ k v r b2 09 a a c a c c t g c a c g g g t t t c g t g g a c t t t c c at c tc g a c c a c g c c g (t a )7 10 33 041 3 0. 00 0 0. 89 0. 86 0. 02 37 26 g i_ k v r b2 13 a a a g g a c c g g c g a a g a a a g c g g c c c a g c t c a a a c c g a t g c c c a a (a g )6 10 13 425 0 00 .0 00 0. 88 1 0. 85 0. 02 60 89 g i_ k v r b2 14 a a a g a g a g g t c a t c t ta g t g a g g g g g t g t t g g c t t g g t c g ta a c g g c t (g t )6 6 15 025 1 0. 14 8 0. 79 2 0. 74 2 0. 06 27 89 g i_ k v r b2 19 t g t t g g g a a g ta a a a g g a g g g a g c a t g a c c ta g g c at c c at c t c c c c t (t g t) 5 7 11 317 8 0. 5 0. 78 5 0. 73 3 0. 06 31 97 g i_ k v r b2 20 t g t g g g g a t g g c a a a t g a g g t g a t g c c at t c g g t t g g g g c at a c t (c a c )5 10 14 317 3 0. 11 5 0. 82 9 0. 78 8 0. 04 43 38 g i_ k v r b2 34 t g g c g t g c a g tt c t tc c t c c c a g g g at c g c at c c a a c at t c at t t c c a (c a a )5 3 17 321 5 0. 15 4 0. 33 5 0. 30 3 0. 30 48 96 g i_ k v r b2 42 t g c a a c a a c a g g c t c a g g c a c a t g g t g g a g g c a c g g g t t g a a c a (c c a )5 15 18 921 5 0. 5 0. 90 7 0. 88 1 0. 01 80 89 g i_ k v r b2 43 t g a g c g a c c g t g c c t g at g t t g a g g g c tc c c tc a c c c t c ta c c tt a (c a g )5 13 14 117 1 0. 36 0. 86 4 0. 83 0. 03 20 98 g i_ k v r b3 41 a c a a g c a t g c c a a a c g ta g c c g a t g a a g a a g t g c c c a a c c c c a c t (t g g )5 12 13 617 0 0. 51 7 0. 78 0. 74 1 0. 07 12 13 g i_ k v r b3 52 a a g a c g g g t g g c g g t g g a g a a a a g a a g c g a a c c c t c t c c t c c t g a (t ct )8 13 36 240 3 0. 55 2 0. 86 6 0. 83 5 0. 03 36 09 g i_ k v r b3 57 t g a c a at a c g t g g g g a g a t c c g t t g t t c a g g c tc a at c c c tt c g tg c (a at a )7 16 11 519 1 0. 00 0 0. 88 6 0. 86 1 0. 02 13 33 g i_ k v r b3 68 t c c g t g c c a at t c c c t g g c a a c t g a c c t g t c g c c tt a g c ta c c c t (a a a a t )5 17 24 931 0 0. 19 2 0. 92 5 0. 9 0. 01 40 54 g i_ k v r b3 73 a g c ta g g g g g c a a c c t g ta c c a t g c ta t t g a at t c g t g t t g g t g g t g a (c a at a c )5 8 15 116 8 0. 48 1 0. 81 8 0. 77 8 0. 04 80 49 g i_ k v r a0 11 tc c g tc c at c c g t tc g tc c g tt a c c g g a t g g g a t c c a g c g a t g t (c g tc ) 12 10 013 6 0. 17 2 0. 75 0. 72 2 0. 07 46 75 6c gt t (c g t c )7 t ab le 1 c on td ... . t ab le 2 : su m m ar y of g en et ic a na ly si s m ea n r an ge po ly m or ph ic in fo rm at io n c on te nt (p ic ) 0. 84 16 0. 30 3 0 .9 6 o bs er ve d h et er oz yg os ity ( h o) 0. 28 13 0. 00 0 0 .6 79 e xp ec te d h et er oz yg os ity (h e) 0. 87 01 0. 33 5 0 .9 79 a lle le p er lo cu s 16 .3 95 3 3 3 pr ob ab ili ty o f i de nt ity ( pi ) 0. 03 50 6 0. 00 32 9 0 .3 04 89 6 to ta l n um be r of a lle le s : 7 87 to ta l p ro ba bi lit y of id en tit y : 8 .1 32 72 9e -0 80 129 baliga, m. s., bhat, h. p., pai, r. j., boloor, r., and palatty, p. l. 2011. the chemistry and medicinal uses of the underutilized indian fruit tree garcinia indica choisy (kokum): a review. food res. inter., 44:1790-1799. hareesh, t. s. and vasudeva, r. 2010. regeneration pattern of garcinia indica choisy. in the western ghats of uttara kannada. national symposium on garcinia genetic resources: linking diversity, livelihood and management (eds.) vasudeva, r., b.s. janagoudar, b.m.c. reddy, bhuwon 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40: e115 wagner, h.w. and sefc k.m., 1999. identity 1.0 centre for applied genetics. university of agricultural sciences, vienna. austria. http://www.boku.ac.at/zag/forsch/identity.htm. microsatellite markers from garcinia indica j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 125-129, 2021 (received on 12.02.2020, revised on 15.04.2020, accepted on 14.05.2021) references acknowledgement au thor s a cknowledge fina ncia l s upp or t fr om unep/gef regional project “conservation and sustainable use of cultivated and wild tropical fruit diversity: promoting sustainable livelihoods, food security and ecosystem services” final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper comparative effect of different sugars instigating non-enzymatic browning and maillard reaction products in guava fruit leather nayaka v.s.k.1*, tiwari r.b.4, narayana c.k.1, ranjitha k.1, shamina azeez3, vasugi c.2, venugopalan r.4, bhuvaneswari s.1 and sujayasree o.j.1 1division of post-harvest technology & agricultural engineering, icar-iihr, bengaluru 2division of fruit crops, icar-iihr, bengaluru 3division of basic sciences, icar-iihr, bengaluru 4division of social sciences & training, icar-iihr, bengaluru *corresponding author email: karthiknayaka1@gmail.com abstract browning is a major quality deterioration process affecting both visual colour and nutritional value of guava leather. the aim of the study was to determine the role of different sugars viz., sucrose, fructose, glucose and sorbitol in non-enzymatic browning and antioxidant activity of guava fruit leather. the total free amino acids, ascorbic acid and antioxidant activities were at significantly lower levels in glucose and fructose treated guava leather, while the sorbitol added samples had all of above parameters at the highest level; while a reverse trend was observed in browning index and non-enzymatic browning. among the browning intermediate products, hydroxymethylfurfural was present at higher concentration (12.80-32.32 ng/g) than furfural (0.29-0.95 ng/g) in guava leather samples. among the treatments, hydroxymethylfurfural was found lowest in sorbitol (12.8 ng/g) and highest in fructose (32.3 ng/g). in brief, this paper describes a novel effort in bringing the in-vitro studies related to sugars and total free amino acids, influencing the biochemical and nutritional attributes which are responsible for browning in guava fruit leather. keywords: total free amino acids, ascorbic acid, browning, furfural, hydroxymethylfurfural, non-enzymatic and sugars introduction guava (psidium gujava l.) a species of myrtaceae family is cultivated widely around tropical and subtropical regions. it is known for pleasant flavour, refreshing taste and nutritional value. guava is abundant in vitamins, especially vitamin c (ascorbic acid) other vitamins include vitamin a, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and pyridoxine (kumari et al., 2017). dietary fibres a nd bioa ctive compound contribute to prevention of chronic degenerative diseases (blancas-benitez et al., 2015). the fruit is also rich in considerable amounts of minerals i.e., phosphorus, calcium, iron (kumari et al., 2017). guava fruits are often consumed fresh and are also suitable for processing into jelly, jam, juice, nectar, wine a nd fr uit lea ther a mong other pr oducts (kumari et al., 2017). guava fruit leather is one among the popular processed products. fruit leather is a dehydrated fruit-based confectionery dietary product which is often eaten as a snack or dessert. fruit leathers are made by combining fruit puree with other ingredients such as sugar, pectin, acid, glucose syrup, colour, and potassium metabisulphite, then dehydrating them under controlled conditions. browning is an important biochemical reactions taking place during processing and storage of fruit leather. browning not only affects the sensory attributes (colour; off flavour) but also deplete the nutritional quality. decline in quality and color due to browning was the major hindrance in production of guava fruit leather (singh et al., 2019). similar claims were done for apple leather (demarchi et al., 2013). nonenzymatic browning is primarily caused by the maillard reaction, caramelization, and ascorbic acid degradation at the product development stage by production of hydroxymethylfurfural (hmf) and 175 effect of sugars on non-enzymatic browning in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 furfural (fur) (akyildiz et al., 2021). hmf and fur could be used as the non-enzymatic br owning indicators in dehydrated products (kus et al., 2005). specific sugars and amino acids, as well as their concentrations, play an important role in the maillard reaction, determining the severity of browning, which is a reflection of the product’s nutritional quality (murata, 2021). in this regard, the role of different sugars (sucrose, fructose, glucose, and sorbitol) and their interactions with biomolecules in determining non-enzymatic browning in guava fruit leather was investigated. materials and methods raw material this study employed firm ripe guava (cv. arka poorna) fruits produced from a guava plantation at the icar-indian institute of horticultural research in bengaluru. preparation of leather the selected guava fruits were washed thoroughly using potable water. fruits were subjected to manual peeling, cut into halves, pulp was extracted in a laboratory grade pulper and seeds were removed by passing the pulp through a sieve. the extracted pulp without pasteurizing was incorporated directly with 15% sugars viz., sucrose, fructose, glucose and sorbitol in separate lots (treatments) followed by addition of 0.3 % citric acid and 700 ppm potassium metabisulphite to maintain the desirable acidity and as a preservative respectively. further, the mixture was stirred gently for five minutes. the mixtures were spread on a tray and dried at 60 ± 5 °c in a cabinet dryer. the drying process continued till the moisture content reached ~15%. the guava leather sheets were cut into 8 x 4 cm bars and later subjected to various analyses. physico-chemical analysis moisture content was analyzed in a thermo-ventilated oven gravimetrically to obtain a consistent weight consecutively in three measurements at 12 h interval. water activity was measured using an electric water activity meter (rotronic hydrolab, uk) at 25±2 °c. titratable acidity was estimated by titrating against 0.1n naoh with phenolphthalein as an indicator (aoac,1990). reducing and total sugars were estimated as suggested by lane and eynon (1923) as reported by ranganna (1986). nonreducing sugars was calculated from the difference between of total sugars and reducing sugars. total free amino acid was estimated using ninhydrin reagent (moore and stein, 1948) and expressed as mg leucine/100g. the 2, 6dichlorophenol indophenol dye technique was used to determine the vitamin c content suggested by johnson (1948) and described by ranganna (1986). the total phenolic content was estimated as per folin ciocalteu spectrophotometric method and expressed in gallic acid equivalent (mg gae/100g) (yilmaz et al., 2017). ferric reducing antioxidant potential (frap) was used to determine antioxidant activity (ndou et al., 2019) and expressed in ascorbic acid equivalents (mg aae/100g). non-enzymatic browning was recorded by submerging the samples in 60 per cent ethanol overnight and reading the od values at 440 nm (ranganna, 1986). color the color (l* a* b* c* h°) was measured using colorimeter (model: colour reader, cr-10, konica minolta, japan). browning index was calculated based on l*a*b* co-ordinates. the browning index is generated using the following equation to capture this variance in a single index that is associated to a brown color. (pathare et al., 2013) bi = 100 x = furfural and hydroxymethylfurfural to extract furfural (fur) and hydroxymethylfurfural (hmf), 2g of material was homogenized in 15 ml of hplc grade water. the extract was filtered using 0.45 µm nylon filters. the hplc studies were carried out on a shimadzu series lc-20at system (shimadzu, kyoto, japan), which included a liquid chromatograph coupled to a uv-vis detector (spd-10a), binary pump (lc-10at), auto sampler (sil-20a ht), and lc solution workstation software, kinetex, column of dimension 250 x 4.6 mm, 5m c18 (phenomenex, usa) was used, along with a security guard column made of the same material. samples were injected using the auto sampler. at 32°c, the column and guard column were thermostatically controlled. the flow rate was 1 ml/min, and the mobile phase was 0.3 176 nayaka et al percent tetrahydrofuran. the instrument was operated in isocratic mode and elutants were detected at 280 nm. the retention time for hmf was 10.80 minutes, whereas the retention time for fur was 11.64 minutes (zhong-fu et al., 2016). the values were expressed in ng/g. statistical analysis the analysis was done in triplicates and the results were presented in mean ± se (standard error). oneway anova was used to determine the cd of means and variance among different sugars. duncan multiple range test (dmrt) was performed at α = 0.05 level of significance of using r software. results and discussion physico-chemical composition of guava pulp the moisture content and water activity did not show any significant (p>0.05) difference among guava leather developed using different sugars (table 2). the moisture content and water activity was ~15 and ~0.6 respectively. moisture content in guava leather was in agreement with food safety and standards regulations, 2011 i.e., not more than 20%. that moisture contents at15% and water activity of 0.6 is found to be safe with respect to microbiological activity and adverse biochemical and deteriorative reactions (suna et al., 2014). in this regard the guava leather developed had acceptable moisture content and water activity levels. titratable acidity the titratable acidity in guava leathers did not vary significantly among different sugars (p > 0.05). the values ranged from 1.62 ± 0.02 % to 1.70 ± 0.03% (table 2). sugar the sugar composition of guava leather is presented in table 2. total sugars values in guava leather ranged from 29.15 ± 0.31 to71.30± 1.19%. the highest total sugar was on par in sucrose (71.12 ± 0.84%), fructose (70.26 ± 0.57%) and glucose (71.30 ± 1.19%), and the lowest was found in sorbitol (29.15± 0.31%). as sorbitol is a sugar alcohol its addition even at 15% did not contribute to the total sugar content (choi et al. , 2013). reducing suga r s content va r ied significantly (p > 0.05) in guava leather as the base material used was different sugars. guava leather with fructose (41.99± 0.86%) reported to have a highest reducing sugar which was statistically on par with glucose (41.21± 0.21%) and the lowest was recorded in sorbitol (13.07 ± 0.60%). reducing sugars are capable of producing reactive carbonyl species (rcs) which aid in development of maillard reactions products (picouet et al., 2009) which further cause non-enzymatic browning. the highest non-reducing sugar was found in guava leather with sucrose (53.79 ± 0.49%) and the lowest in sorbitol (16.08± 0.51%). sucrose has an acetal structure with anomeric carbons combined together by a glycosidic bond. this is a stable structure that cannot be oxidised. total free amino acids incorporation of different sugar in guava leather had a significant (p>0.05) impact on total free amino acids (tfaa) (table 2). guava leather with sorbitol (2.91± 0.02 mg/100g), which was on par with sucrose l* 57.07 a* 3.20 colour b* 12.48 c* 12.89 h° 75.61 moisture (%) 84.15 water activity 0.824 tss (°brix) 12.5 titratable acidity (%) 0.4 reducing sugar (%) 5.53 total sugar (%) 9.77 non-reducing sugar (%) 4.24 total free amino acids (mg leu/100g) 1.06 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 206.62 total phenols (mg gae/100g) 591.67 antioxidant activity (mg aae/100g) 1574.19 table 1. physico-chemical composition of fresh guava pulp the physico-chemical composition of the fresh guava (cv. arka poorna) pulp is given in table 1. effect of different sugars on the properties of guava leather moisture content and water activity j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 177 (2.86±0.05mg leu/100g), had the highest tfaa, while fructose (2.26± 0.02 mg leu/100g), which was on par with glucose (2.32± 0.09 mg leu/100g), had the lowest. the decline in tfaa was found to be higher in guava leather incorporated with fructose and glucose; this is due to differential reaction between amino acids and rcs, resulting in the production of a variety of maillard reaction products depending on the affinity and reactivity of individual amino acids. among the amino acids, leucine, glutamic acid, tryptophan and lysine contributed more for maillard reaction. leucine, alanine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and glycine was comparatively found high in guava fruit (chen et al., 2007). ascorbic acid ascorbic acid (vitamin-c) plays an important role in human nutrition due to its antioxidant nature (cruz et al., 2009). it is thermo-labile and considered as a quality indicator in dehydration process (ali et al., 2016). guava leather developed using different sugars showed significant (p>0.05) difference in of ascorbic acid levels (table 3.) the highest ascorbic acid level was found in sorbitol (136.13 ± 3.27mg/100g) which was statistically on par with sucrose (132.47± 2.38 mg/100g), while the lowest was found in fructose (116.7± 1.50mg/100g) and glucose (119.64± 0.60 mg/ 100g). ascorbic acid would have been degraded to dehydroascor bic acid, then hydr olyzed to 2,3diketogulonic acid, and lastly polymerized as a result of the maillard reaction product, which is catalysed by multiple oxidation and reduction pr ocesses involving reducing sugars (chuah et al., 2008) mango juices with the highest glucose: fructose ratio showed decreased ascorbic acid concentration (pithava and pandey, 2018). furthermore, amino acids have the ability to act as catalytic agents in the decomposition of ascorbic acid (shinoda et al., 2005). according to yu et al. (2017), the interaction of ascorbic acid with lysine, arginine, and histidine was more important in the synthesis of browning pigments. total phenols the total phenols content of guava fruit leathers showed significant (p >0. 05) difference among different sugar source (table 3). the highest total phenols were found in sorbitol (436.23 ± 12.2 % mg gae/100 g) and sucrose (427.95 ± 6.61 mg gae/ 100g). whereas, fructose, and glucose significantly reported low values for total phenol content of 392.09 ± 2.85and 410.87 ± 2.11mg gae/100g respectively. the degradation of total phenols was high in samples with fructose and glucose. phenols are also common substrates for maillard reaction (amaya-farfan and rodriguez-amaya, 2021). this browning reaction also involves various oxidation and reduction process which will degraded the total phenol content severely. in addition to this, the rcs formed by reducing sugars bind to phenols a nd ma ke them biologica lly unavailable. antioxidant activity varying the sugar forms had significantly different antioxidant activity in guava fruit leathers (p>0.05) (table 3). sorbitol (1,146.20± 41.02 mg aae/100g) had the highest antioxidant activity, which was on par with sucrose (1,086.35 ± 35.13 mg aae/100g). the samples with fructose (935.97 ± 9.81 mg aae/100g) a nd glucose (949. 36 ± 6. 30mg aae/100g) significantly deprived the antioxidant activity. ascorbic acid and phenolics contr ibute the lion share of antioxidant activity (eyiz et al., 2020). it can be inferred that guava leather processed using fructose and glucose resulted in highest degradation of ascorbic acid and loss of phenols and thus adversely affected the antioxidant activity of the guava leather. color: l* a* b* the colour values of guava fruit leather are presented in ta ble 4. t he lightness (l*) va lues va r ied significantly among the different guava lea ther developed using different sugar sources. the highest lightness was reported in samples containing sorbitol (61.40± 0.78) and the lowest values were reported in sucrose (58.90±0.72), which was on par with glucose (58.70 ± 0.66), and fructose (58.27± 0.35). the decrease in the l* values indicates the product is comparatively darker, this occurred in the samples with reducing sugars (fructose and glucose) and the highest luminance was reported in guava leather containing sorbitol. the redness (a*) values varied significantly among the different guava lea ther developed using different sugar sources. redness indicates the occurrence of browning in the product. t he highest r edness wa s r epor ted in sa mples containing fructose (4.63± 0.46) and the lowest values were reported in sorbitol (3.13 ± 0.12). the highest yellowness (b*) was reported samples containing fructose (34.37± 0.25) which was found on par with effect of sugars on non-enzymatic browning in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 178 ta bl e 2. p hy si co -c he m ic al c om po si tio n of g ua va le at he r t re at m en t m oi st ur e w at er r ed uc in g su ga r n on r ed uc in g to ta l s ug ar t it ra ta bl e to ta l fr ee a m in o (% ) ac ti vi ty (% ) su ga r (% ) (% ) ac id it y (% ) ac id s (m g l eu /1 00 g) su cr os e 15 .2 3a ± 0 .2 2 0. 67 2a ± 0 .0 1 17 .3 2b ± 0 .1 3 53 .7 9a ± 0 .8 6 71 .1 2a ± 0 .8 4 1. 62 a ± 0. 04 2. 86 a ± 0. 05 f ru ct os e 15 .3 8a ± 0 .1 2 0. 67 7a ± 0 .0 1 41 .9 9a ± 0 .8 6 28 .2 7b ± 1 .4 3 70 .2 6a ± 0 .5 7 1. 65 a ± 0. 02 2. 26 b ± 0. 02 g lu co se 15 .0 8a ± 0 .1 7 0. 66 5a ± 0 .0 1 41 .2 1a ± 0 .3 6 30 .0 9b ± 1 .1 9 71 .3 0a ± 1 .1 9 1. 70 a ± 0. 05 2. 32 b ± 0. 09 so rb it ol 15 .2 8a ± 0 .0 3 0. 67 5a ± 0. 01 13 .0 7c ± 0 .6 0 16 .0 8c ± 0 .5 1 29 .1 5b ± 0 .3 1 1. 65 a ± 0. 35 2. 91 a ± 0. 02 c .d . n s n s 1. 07 2. 01 1. 52 n s 0. 18 se (m ) 0. 09 0. 00 4 0. 32 0. 61 0. 46 0. 10 0. 05 n ot e:  m ea n  va lu es  f ol lo w ed  b y  di ff er en t  le tte rs  i n  th e  sa m e  co lu m n  di ff er s  si gn if ic an tly  ( α  =  0 .0 5  le ve l) . ta bl e 3. f un ct io na l a tt ri bu te s of g ua va le at he r t re at m en t a sc or bi c a ci d (m g/ 10 0g ) to ta l p he no ls ( m g g a e /1 00 g) a nt io xi da nt a ct iv it y (m g a a e /1 00 g) su cr os e 13 2. 47 a ± 2. 38 42 7. 95 a ± 6. 61 1, 08 6. 35 b ± 35 .1 3 f ru ct os e 11 6. 70 b ± 1. 50 39 2. 09 c ± 2. 85 93 5. 97 c ± 9 .8 1 g lu co se 11 9. 64 b ± 0. 60 41 0. 87 b ± 2. 11 94 9. 36 c ± 6. 30 so rb it ol 13 6. 13 a ± 3. 27 43 6. 23 a ± 12 .2 1, 14 6. 20 a ± 4 1. 02 c .d . 4. 16 13 .7 2 52 .7 1 se (m ) 1. 26 4. 14 15 .9 2 n ot e:  m ea n  va lu es  f ol lo w ed  b y  di ff er en t  le tte rs  i n  th e  sa m e  co lu m n  di ff er s  si gn if ic an tly  ( α  =  0 .0 5  le ve l) . t re at m en t c ol or n e b l a b c h b ro w ni ng i nd ex su cr os e 58 .9 0a ±0 .7 2 3. 43 b ± 0 .1 5 34 .2 0a ± 0. 26 34 .0 0a ± 1. 75 84 .5 3a ± 0. 47 84 .6 1b ± 1 .9 7 0. 19 3c ± 0 .0 1 f ru ct os e 58 .2 7a ± 0 .3 5 4. 63 a ± 0. 46 34 .3 7a ± 0 .2 5 34 .4 3a ± 0. 58 83 .0 0b ± 0. 36 90 .5 8a ± 0 .8 2 0. 23 2a ± 0 .0 1 g lu co se 58 .7 0a ± 0. 66 3. 83 b ± 0 .0 6 34 .1 3a ± 0. 41 34 .2 7a ± 0 .4 6 84 .0 7a ± 0. 25 89 .4 0a ± 0 .9 8 0. 21 1b ± 0 .0 1 so rb it ol 61 .4 0b ± 0. 78 3. 13 bc ± 0. 12 33 .0 7b ± 0. 15 32 .9 3b ± 0. 21 84 .4 7a ± 0. 23 77 .7 2c ± 1 .7 4 0. 18 1d ± 0 .0 1 c .d . 1. 24 0. 48 0. 54 1. 01 0. 66 1. 99 0. 01 1 se (m ) 0. 37 0. 15 0. 16 0. 30 0. 20 0. 60 0. 00 3 n ot e: m ea n va lu es f ol lo w ed  b y  di ff er en t  le tte rs  i n  th e  sa m e  co lu m n  di ff er s  si gn if ic an tly  ( α  =  0. 05  l ev el );  b ro w ni ng  i nd ex  w as  e st im at ed  u si ng  a ve ra ge  v al ue s  of  l *,  a *,  b * ta bl e 4. c ol or ( l * a* b * c * h° ) an d no nen zy m at ic b ro w ni ng ( n e b ) in g ua va le at he r nayaka et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 179 sucrose (34.20 ± 0.26) and glucose (34.13 ± 0.41) and lowest values were reported in sorbitol (33.07 ± 0.15). lower l* values and high a* and b* values will indicate the intensity of browning. decreasing l* values in combination with decreasing b* values, indicating the occurrence of mild browning due to nonenzymatic browning (korley et al., 2015). in guava leather yellowness indicate the undesirable colour change towards browning. in addition to it a* values a lso significa ntly contribute to non-enzyma tic browning. c*and h° chroma values indicate the purity of color, in guava leather fructose had the highest value indicating more browning attributes (low-lightness; high-redness; highyellowness). t he chr oma (c*) va lues va r ied significantly among the different guava lea ther developed using different sugar sources (table 4). the highest chroma was reported samples containing fructose (34.43±0.58) which was found on par with sucrose (34.00 ±1.75) and glucose (34.27± 0.46) and lowest values were reported in sorbitol (32.93±0.21). the hue (h°) values varied significantly among the different guava leather developed using different sugar sources. the highest hue value was reported in samples containing sucrose (84.53±0.47) which was found on par with sorbitol (84.47±0.23) and glucose (84.07±0.25) and lowest values were reported in fructose (83.00± 0.36). lower hue value indicates redder colour of the product (korley et al., 2015). the shift in hue values from 90 to 0° indicate change in color from yellow to red, which was predominant in fructose followed by glucose containing samples. hue a ngle ~90°suggests tha t the product has mor e yellowness than redness (pedisic et al., 2009) browning index (bi) to determine the change in visual quality, colour coordinates (l* a* b*) were utilized to derive browning index. bi aid in determining the degree of brown colour occurred during dehydration. bi changed between 77.72 ± 1.74and 90.58 ± 0.82 with different sugars (table 4). the highest bi in leather was recorded in sample containing fructose (90.58 ±0.82) and glucose (89.40 ± 0.98). as discussed earlier and supported by literature, reducing sugars play an important role in determining the colour of the final product as they are the potential source of reactive carbonyl species which contribute significantly to maillard reaction (fu et al., 2020; calin-sanchez et al., 2020). the total free amino acids also decreased in guava leather containing fructose (2.26 ± 0.02) and glucose (2.32 ± 0.09) (table 3). as a result, these reactive carbonyl species and amino acids are likely to have interacted to form various maillard reaction products, resulting in greater bi in fructose and glucose sa mples. fur ther mor e, a scor bic a cid degradation in guava leather has contributed to the creation of hmf, which in turn produces maillard reaction product which caused the browning. yu et al. (2017) reported that the degree of browning was only related to the total amount of l-ascorbic acid in the reaction system. similar results were observed in citrus and apple juices (burdurlu et al., 2006). non-enzymatic browning (neb) the absorbance at 440 nm is commonly used to determine the degree of browning in a non-enzymatic browning reaction, often caused by maillard reaction (paravisini and peterson, 2016). neb indicates the intensity of browning in processed product through spectrometric od values. neb values were reported between 0.232 ± 0.01 and 0.181± 0.01in guava fruit leather (table 4). among different sugars investigated, highest neb values wer e recor ded in fr uctose (0.232±0.01) and glucose (0.211±0.01) treated samples and the lowest was reported in sorbitol (0.181±0.01) and sucrose (0.193±0.01). degradation of ascorbic acid (table 3) and production of reactive carbonyl groups from the reducing sugars (table 2) contributed to higher neb values in guava leather. browning is complex biochemical reaction which involves numerous biological compounds to take part in the reaction to yield varied degree of browning in processed products. our results were in confirmation with, paravisini and peterson, (2016) who reported decomposition of sugars under acidic conditions to form reactive intermediates. major mechanisms, being ascorbic acid degradation, acid-catalyzed sugar degradation, and mailla rd reactions, have been identified as the main reaction pathways responsible for neb (bharate and bharate, 2014). maillard reaction rate is highest in intermediate moisture foods with water activity range of 0.5 0.7 (malec et al., 2002). the physico chemical composition of guava leather mentioned in table 2, 3 and 4 shows that in this pr oduct a ll a bove mentioned fa vor a ble environment for browning reactions were present. effect of sugars on non-enzymatic browning in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 180 furfural and hydroxymethylfurfural maillard reaction products such as furfural (fur) and hydroxymethylfurfural (hmf) are considered as the biochemica l ma rker s for non-enzymatic browning (ertekinfiliz and seydim, 2018). among the two maillard products, hmf (32.3 -12.8 ng/g) content was found to be higher than fur (0.950.29 ng/g) in all guava leather samples (fig. 1; table 5). hmf production occur in product high in r edu cing suga r i. e. , fr u ctos e a nd glucos e, wher ea s fur pr oduction occur in xylose a nd arabinose rich product (machado et al., 2016). among the treatments, guava leather with fructose and glucose reported remarked higher hmf of 32.3 and 29.3 ng/g respectively than sucrose (14.32 ng/ g) and sorbitol (12.8 ng/g) treated samples. the ascorbic acid degradation in guava fruit leather containing fr uctose and glucose (table 3) a nd production of rcs for maillard reaction has also contributed to hmf formation (chen et al., 2022). similar results were found in apple leather (ruiz et al., 2012) reporting degradation of ascorbic acid c a us ed higher levels of h m f whic h in tu r n produced brown pigments (helyes et al., 2006). besides being identified a s therma l processing indicator, hmf is instrumental in imparting certain typical flavors to the food products. however, the toxicity of compound has been much discussed as a carcinogen (severin et al., 2010). the estimates of hmf for human daily intake range from 2 to 150 mg/person (capuano and fogliano, 2011). it is understood from this study that hmf generation couples with loss of nutrients such as ascorbic acid and so the antioxidant activity of the guava leather. t her efor e, it is a dvis a ble to t r ea t hmf a s a nutritional quality indicator in guava leather and to la y down a p er mis s ib le limit a s a p a r t of implementation of food standards. conclusion this study revealed the effects of different sugars (fructose, glucose, sucrose and sorbitol) and their role in non-enzymatic browning and antioxidant activity in guava leather. the application of different sugars during the product development affected the colour (l*, a*, b*, c*, h°, browning index), total free amino acids, ascorbic acid, total phenols, antioxidant activity, neb, furfural and hydroxymethylfurfural. highest losses in nutritional attributes such as total free amino acids, ascorbic acid, total phenol and antioxidant activity was found in guava leather incorporated with fructose and glucose and the least in sorbitol which wasfollowed by sucrose. while, the colour values i.e., highest l*and h°, lowest a* b*, and c*values, lowest browning index and lowest neb were found superior in sorbitol and sucrose followed by fructose and glucose. among the biochemical markers for neb, hmf was found to be predominant than fur and was found in high level in fructose followed by glucose, sucrose and sorbitol. therefore, from this study it was evident that sugar composition and its concentration nayaka et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 table 5. biochemical markers of non-enzymatic browning in guava leather treatment furfural hydroxymethylfurfural (ng/g) (ng/g) sucrose 0.33 14.32 fructose 0.95 32.3 glucose 0.73 29.3 sorbitol 0.29 12.8 note: the values presented are mean values of two replicates fig. 1. chromatogram showing hydroxymethylfurfural (10.32) and furfural (11.38) as biochemical markers in neb in guava leather 181 effect of sugars on non-enzymatic browning in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 174-183, 2022 in guava leather play a significant role in nonenzymatic browning. use of optimal non reducing sugar, least reducing sugar and their combinations will aid in minimizing the browning and pr eserving functional attributes of dehydrated product. acknowledgments the support received from ministry of tribal affairs, goi through nfst for carrying out the work is duly acknowledged. authors are also thankful for the support and guidance received from dr. v.k. rao, principal scientist, division of 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(received: 24.03.; revised: 21.04.2022; accepted: 26.04.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction with rapid pace of urbanization, the percentage of india’s population living in cities almost doubled to 27.8 % in 2001 from 14% at the time of independence. this is expected to accelerate even further and, by 2021, over 40 % of all indians will be living in urban areas. the scale of urbanization in india can be seen in 6 mega cities (>5 million), 29 metro cities (>1 million), 500 cities (>100,000). by 2011, urban india will contribute over 65% to indian gdp. indian cities provide a setting for economic growth and, at the same time, face enormous challenges, particularly, environmental pollution and health-related problems. pollution is defined as “introduction by man into the environment of substances or energy liable to cause focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 environmental risks associated with heavy metal contamination in soil, water and plants in urban and periurban agriculture a. n. ganeshamurthy, l. r. varalakshmi and h. p. sumangala1 division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: angmurthy@rediffmail.com abstract the india’s population living in cities and urban areas has doubled to 27.8% since independence. our cities face enormous challenges of environmental pollution and health related problems. city authorities have often been reluctant to accept urban and periurban agriculture because of perceived health risks. nevertheless, in most cities the world over, periurban agriculture is practiced on a substantial scale, despite prohibitive laws and regulations. non-degradable pollutants added to the system through anthropogenic activities like heavy metals in air, soil, water and crops bother us more than others as these tend to bioaccumulate. throughout history, heavy metal contamination has long plagued mankind undermining intelligence and causing debasing behaviour. toxicity of some of the heavy metals even leads to deficiency of essential metals like zn, cu, etc. in both human and animals. climate, nutritional status, genetic predisposition, type of work and exposure level influence the intensity of impact on health. permissible levels prescribed by different organizations differ because of differences in tolerance levels of people of different origins and differences in threat perception of the people. with our current level of knowledge a permanent and foolproof method to stop entry of heavy metals into the food chain is impossible. however, methods are available to reduce intensity of the effects. alternative land use with crops not directly consumed by humanbeings and animals offers a better remedy to contain heavy metal entry into food chain. india has a wide ranging set of environmental laws that lay down norms for air, water, soil, wastes, etc. legislative frame work has been developed in the belief that a policing model is sufficient. it does not go beyond that. regulatory mechanisms may not be effective in isolated cases but are essential drivers to augment other approaches, by putting a “cap” on the level of degradation that is socially acceptable, as well as creating space for other, cleaner and more acceptable alternatives to be “viable”. key words: environmental risk, heavy metal contamination, periurban agriculture. 1division of ornamental crops hazards to human and animal health, living resources and ecological systems, damage to structures or amenity or interference with the legitimate use of environment” (holdgate, 1979). contamination, on the other hand, refers to anthropogenic accumulation of substances which may or may not inflict harm. thus, pollution is an extreme case of contamination where toxicity-damage has already occurred. pollution in cities and other industrial pockets has a profound influence on agricultural lands in urban and periurban areas and consequential effect on the health of human residing in such areas. several pollutants affect human and animal health. however, non-degradable pollutants like heavy metals bother us much more than others. throughout history, heavy metal contamination has plagued mankind undermining page 1 2 intelligence and inducing debasing behaviour. only now we are beginning to understand how heavy metals damage the brain. toxicity of some of the heavy metals leads to deficiency of essential metals like zn, cu, etc. in both human and animals. for example excess molybdenum induces cu deficiency in animals. this paper reviews the current status of heavy metal pollution in urban and periurban areas. urban and periurban agriculture (upa) upa refers to the production of a range of food crops, fodder, vegetables, aromatic plants, medicinal plants, flowers, ornamental plants, fruit trees and mushrooms, rearing of fish, poultry, meat and dairy animals grown mainly in intensive production systems with high levels of inputs located in the city or at its close periphery where there is competition for access to land between agricultural and other human activities, the products of which are consumed in the city (ganeshamurthy, 2007). the acute shortage of water for irrigation gives rise to use of alternative sources in upa. in urban areas, city wastewater is the main source for irrigating upa lands. city solid wastes and sewage sludge are often used as manure in upa. effluents and sludge contain concentrations of metals and other organic toxic substances that may impact human health, due to ingestion of food produced in areas receiving sewage sludge and irrigated with waste-water or contaminated surface waters. there are many studies on the possible effects of chemical substances on human through laboratory experiments in animals and information is available on incidence of cancer by prolonged exposure to toxic substances. experiments in plants and insects (drosophila), demonstrate that toxic substances of chemical origin induce genetic mutations and chromosome aberrations (maria luisa de esparza, 1998). these experiments demonstrate that there does exist a risk, which is not simple to extrapolate to human beings. theoretically, waste-water of industrial origin should not be used for this purpose, but in many countries, formal and clandestine industries dispose off effluents into municipal sewerage with or without authorization and without any treatment. this exposes the population, perpetually to relatively small quantities of metals, chemical compounds and may produce chronic intoxication with serious consequences. another health hazard posed by inadequate disposal of waste-water is that sediments are used for soil improvement and these may contain toxic elements which may accumulate. environmental impact of chemical residues in waste-water and solid wastes used in upa and the prediction of their effects on human health is a very complex matter. in addition, it should be recognized that standards of safe levels in developed countries do not apply to areas with different characteristics. factors that influence nature and intensity of the impact on health are: climate, nutritional status, genetic predisposition, type of work and exposure level. racial differences in tolerance are anybody’s guess. identification/confirmation of adverse effects of upa is difficult because epidemiological studies last long, populations migrate, and exposure time is unknown. in addition, chronic diseases can have various causes and, in many cases, these are not classified correctly. unfortunately, there is no statistical information on trends and causes of diseases owing to ingestion of chemical substances from agricultural and livestock products. however, several studies have demonstrated absorption of heavy metals by plants and these can affect the consumer (who, 1992). the nature of human health hazards caused by exposure to heavy metals and other toxic chemical compounds varies considerably. it is long known that heavy metal contamination has plagued mankind, undermining intelligence and causing debasing behaviour. in general, it increases birth defects, abortions and some forms of cancer and decreases average weight of children at birth. only now we are beginning to understand how heavy metals damage the brain. the relationship between the so called life style diseases (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, fatigue to small physical work, hair loss, etc) in urban populations and consumption of contaminated vegetables and fruits produced in upa is an area that has not received adequate attention of researchers. it is essential to address health risks associated with upa for two main reasons (flynn 1999): i) to protect consumers from contaminated foods and farm workers from occupational hazards; and ii) to secure support of municipal and national authorities for sustainable urban food production. city authorities have often been reluctant to accept upa because of perceived health risks. nevertheless, in most cities the world over, urban agriculture is practiced on a substantial scale despite prohibitive laws and regulations. rather than general laws that prohibit upa and which are largely ineffective, policies are needed to actively manage health risks related to upa. health risks associated with upa birley and lock (1999) extensively reviewed literature on health issues related to upa. the main health risks associated with urban agriculture can be grouped into following categories: ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 3 a. contamination of crops by uptake of heavy metals from contaminated soil, air or water b. occupational health risks to farmers in upa and workers in the food-production and food-processing industries c. contamination of crops and/or drinking water by residues of agrochemicals d. contamination of crops with pathogenic organisms (e.g. bacteria, protozoa, viruses or helminthes) due to irrigation water drawn from polluted streams, or, inadequately treated waste-water or organic, solid waste products e. human diseases transferred from disease vectors attracted by agricultural activity f. transmission of disease from domestic animals to people (zoonosis) during animal husbandry, processing or meat consumption g. human diseases associated with unsanitary postharvest processing, marketing and preparation of locally produced food review of available literature indicates that although insight into potential health risks of upa is growing, detailed information on actual health impact of upa is scant. this review concentrates only on issues of heavy metal pollution. unlike other contaminants, contamination of crops by uptake of heavy metals from contaminated soils, air or water is of special interest because once these heavy metals enter the system, these remain forever without undergoing any change. these are further dangerous as they tend to bioaccumulate. bioaccumulation refers to an increase in concentration of a metal in a biological organism over time, compared to its concentration in the environment. metals accumulate in living beings any time they are ingested and stored faster than they are excreted, and, are reported to be exceptionally toxic (ellen et al, 1990). heavy metals these are generally defined as “a group of toxic metals and metalloids associated with pollution and toxicity, having density of more than 6 mg m-3 and having atomic weight more than that of iron (alloway, 1990). there are 35 metals that concern us because of occupational or residential exposure; 23 of these are heavy elements or “heavy metals”: antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, cerium, chromium, cobalt, copper, gallium, gold, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, platinum, silver, tellurium, thallium, tin, uranium, vanadium, and zinc. interestingly, small amounts of these elements are common in our environment and diet and are actually necessary for good health, but large amounts of any of them may cause acute or chronic toxicity (poisoning). health hazards associated with heavy metals by definition, many of the human and plant essential elements fall under the group of heavy metals. all the micronutrient cations zn, cu, fe, mn and ni are classed as heavy metals and, depending upon their levels in plant and animals, they exhibit either deficiency or toxicity. in addition pb, cd, cr, hg, se and as are the other heavy metals and metalloids which exhibit only toxicity (not deficiency) in human beings, animals and plants. heavy metals become toxic when they are not metabolized by the body and accumulate in soft tissues. oliver (1997) compiled data (table 1) on permissible levels of heavy metals in human diet, along with impact of both deficiency and toxicity on human health. the danger lies in the fact that once heavy metals enter into the soil-plantanimal continuum, their removal is extremely difficult and expensive. lead (pb) lead accounts for most of cases of pediatric heavy metal poisoning (roberts, 1999). it is a very soft metal and was used in pipes, drains, and soldering materials for many years. millions of homes still contain lead (e.g., in painted surfaces), leading to chronic exposure from weathering, flaking, chalking and dust. vegetables and fruits grown in areas adjacent to highways and in periurban areas and those receiving pb containing pesticides accumulate pb. target organs are bones, brain, blood, kidneys and thyroid gland. chronic exposure to pb may result in birth defects, mental retardation, autism, psychosis, allergies, dyslexia, hyperactivity, weight loss, shaky hands, muscular weakness and paralysis (beginning in the forearms). children are particularly sensitive to lead (absorbing as much as 50% of the ingested dose). mercury (hg) mercury is generated naturally in the environment from degassing of earth’s crust from volcanic emissions. it exists in three forms: elemental, organic and inorganic mercury. mining operations, chloralkali plants and paper industries are significant producers of mercury (goyer, 1996). atmospheric mercury is dispersed across the globe by winds and returns to the earth in rainfall, accumulating heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 4 in soil, aquatic food chains and fish in lakes (clarkson, 1990). mercury compounds were added to paint as a fungicide until 1990. these compounds are now banned; however, surfaces painted with these old supplies still exist. the organic form is readily absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract (90-100%); lesser but still significant amounts of inorganic mercury are absorbed by the gastrointestinal tract (7-15%). target organs are brain and kidneys (asami 1981, roberts 1999). symptoms of acute exposure are cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, metallic taste in the mouth, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, headache, weakness, visual disturbance, tachycardia and hypertension. chronic exposure to mercury may result in permanent damage to the central nervous system (ewan et al, 1996) and kidneys. mercury can also cross the placenta from the mother’s body to the fetus (levels in the fetus are often double those in the mother) and accumulate, resulting in mental retardation, brain damage, cerebral palsy, blindness, seizures and inability to speak. symptoms in adults and children include tremors, anxiety, forgetfulness, emotional instability, insomnia, fatigue, weakness, anorexia, cognitive and motor dysfunction and kidney damage. those who consume more than two fish meals a week have been known to show very high levels of mercury in serum. cadmium (cd) cadmium is a by-product of mining and smelting of lead and zinc. it is used in nickel cadmium batteries, pvc plastics and paint pigments. it can be found in soils because insecticides, fungicides, sludge and commercial fertilizers containing cadmium are used in agriculture. cadmium may be found in reservoirs containing shellfish. cigarettes also contain cadmium. lesser-known sources of exposure are dental alloys, electroplating, motor oil and exhaust. inhalation accounts for 15-50% of absorption through the respiratory system; 2-7% of ingested cadmium is absorbed in the gastrointestinal system. target organs are liver, placenta, kidneys, lungs, brain and bones (roberts, 1999). symptoms of acute cadmium exposure include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and breathing difficulty. chronic exposure to cadmium can result in chronic obstructive lung disease, renal disease, fragile bones, table 1. limits of deficiency and toxicity of metals in human and their impact on human health element recommended safe impact on health toxic limits impact on health due to intake due to deficiency toxicity arsenic 15-25 µg d-1 (adult) 3 mg d-1 for 2-3 weeks cancer of skin and internal organs, hyperkeratosis, hyperpigmentation, black foot, rashes cadmium maximum tolerable intake — 220 µg kg-1 renal tubular disfunction, 70 µg d-1 fresh weight proteinuria, glucosuria, aminoaciduria, itai-itai children 2-25 µg d-1 disease adults 15-50 µg d-1 chromium 50-200 µg d-1 cardiovascular disease — — copper children 40µg d-1 hypocupremic anaemia children 150 mg d-1 — neutropenea, leucopenia infants 80 µg d-1 hypopigmentation of hair and adults 12 mg d-1 adults 2 µg d-1 skin, coronary heart disease, arthritis lead children 9278 µg d-1 — ≥500 µg d-1 encephalopathy(damage to brain), failure in adults 20-282 µg d-1 concentration in blood in reproduction, metabolic children 250-500 µg l-1 disorder, neurophysical deficit in children, affects the haematologic and renal systems selenium 100-200 µg d-1 kashin beck disease 9 mg d-1 persistant adverse clinical keshan disease signs developed with as high as 50% morbidity zinc deficient 0.2-0.3 mg d-1 hypogonadism, dwarfism, 150 µg d-1 interference with safe intake 15 µg d-1 hepatosplenomegaly, reproduction, growth of recommended upper geophagia, anaemia, embryo impaired limit 45 µg d-1 premature birth, anorexia ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 5 alopecia, anemia, arthritis, learning disorders, migraines, growth impairment, emphysema, osteoporosis, loss of taste and smell, poor appetite and cardiovascular disease. chromium (cr) cr (vi) compounds are emitted into the air, water and soil by a number of different industries. in the air, chromium compounds are present mainly as fine dust particles that eventually settle over the land and water and finally enter the plants. workers who breathe hexavalent chromium compounds at their jobs for many years may be at increased risk of developing lung cancer. breathing high levels of hexavalent chromium can irritate or damage the nose, throat and lungs. irritation or damage to the eyes and skin can occur if hexavalent chromium contacts these organs in high concentrations or for a prolonged period of time. nickel (ni) it enters the human body through inhalation, ingestion of drinking-water and food, and through skin contact. tobacco smoking is also an important source of nickel exposure. the relative amounts of nickel absorbed by an organism are determined not only by the quantities inhaled, ingested, or administrated, but also by physical and chemical characteristics of the nickel compound. solubility is an important factor in all routes of absorption, following the general relationships: nickel carbonyl absorption> soluble nickel compounds absorption> insoluble nickel compounds absorption. nickel carbonyl is the most rapidly and completely absorbed nickel compound in both animals and human. nickel and nickel compounds have a strong sensitizing potential on the skin, which is manifested by irritation, eczema and allergic contact dermatitis. oral intake of low doses of nickel may provoke allergic dermatitis in sensitized individuals. besides the carcinogenic effect on lung and nasal cavities associated with an exposure to nickel, many other respiratory effects have been described. frequent clinical findings include fever with leukocytosis, electrocardiographic abnormalities suggestive of myocarditis and chest x-ray changes (atsdr, 1997). iron (fe) consuming food containing toxic levels of iron or ingesting dietary iron supplements may acutely poison young children (e.g., as few as five to nine 30-mg iron tablets for a 30-lb child). ingestion accounts for most of the toxic effects of iron because iron is absorbed rapidly in the gastrointestinal tract. the corrosive nature of iron seems to further increase absorption. other sources of iron are drinking water, food, iron pipes and cookware. target organs are liver, the cardiovascular system and kidneys (roberts, 1999). arsenic (as) though not a heavy metal, it is the most common cause of acute poisoning in adults. it is released into the environment by smelting process of copper, zinc and lead as well as by manufacture of chemicals and glass. arsenic gas is a common by product in manufacture of pesticides that contain arsenic. arsenic may also be found in water supplies worldwide. other sources are food produced on water containing high ‘as’, paints, rat poisoning, fungicides and wood preservatives. target organs are blood, kidneys and central nervous, digestive and skin systems (roberts, 1999). exposure to ‘as’ occurs mostly in the workplace, near hazardouswaste sites, or, in areas with high natural levels. symptoms of acute ‘as’ poisoning are sore throat from breathing, red skin at contact point, or severe abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea, often within 1h after ingestion. other symptoms are anorexia, fever, mucosal irritation and arrhythmia. cardiovascular changes are often subtle in the early stages but can progress to cardiovascular collapse. chronic or low levels of exposure can lead to progressive peripheral and central nervous changes, such as sensory changes, numbness/tingling and muscle tenderness. a symptom typically described is a burning sensation (“needles and pins”) in hands and feet. neuropathy (inflammation and wasting of the nerves) is usually gradual and occurs over several years. there may also be excessive darkening of the skin (hyper pigmentation) in areas that are not exposed to sunlight, excessive formation of skin on the palms and soles (hyperkeratosis), or white bands of ‘as’ deposits across the bed of the fingernails (usually 4-6 weeks after exposure). birth defects, liver injury and malignancy are possible. (‘as’ has also been used in homicides and suicides). aluminum (al) it is not a heavy metal and the information on entry of al through foods grown on contaminated soils is not available. studies on effect of al on human health are relatively new (two decades) and are inconclusive. a possible connection with development of alzheimer’s disease is proposed as researchers found, what they considered to be significant amounts of, aluminum in the brain tissue of alzheimer’s patients. although aluminum was also found in the brain tissue of people who did not have alzheimer ’s disease, recommendations to avoid heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 6 sources of aluminum received widespread public attention. as a result, many organizations and individuals reached a level of concern that prompted them to dispose of all their aluminum cookware and storage containers and to become wary of other possible sources of aluminum, such as soda cans, personal care products and even their drinking water (anon., 1992). however, who (1998) concluded that although there were studies that demonstrated a positive relationship between aluminum in drinking water and alzheimer’s disease, who had reservations about a causal relationship (because the studies did not account for total aluminum intake from all possible sources). although there is no conclusive evidence for or against aluminum as a primary cause of alzheimer’s disease, most researchers agree that it is an important factor in the dementia component and most certainly deserves continuing research efforts. therefore, at this time, reducing exposure to aluminum is a personal decision. target organs for aluminum are the central nervous system, kidney and digestive system. in the home, we are in constant contact with aluminum in foods and in water; from cookware and soft drink cans; from consuming items with high levels of aluminum (e.g., antacids, buffered aspirin, or treated drinking water; or even by using nasal sprays, toothpaste and antiperspirants) (anon.,1992). citric acid (e.g., in orange juice) may increase aluminum levels by its leaching activity. interestingly, aluminum-based coagulants are used in purification of water. however, beneficial effects of using aluminum in water treatment have been balanced against potential health concerns. water purification facilities follow a number of approaches to minimize level of al in “finished” water (who, 1998). symptoms of aluminum toxicity include memory loss, learning difficulty, loss of coordination, disorientation, mental confusion, colic, heartburn, flatulence and headache. classical examples of heavy metal toxicity epidemiological evidence was found in toyama, japan, where the population was affected by ingestion of cadmium contained in rice; the origin of this element lay in a nearby mine that contaminated irrigation water. typical examples of heavy metal toxicity to human beings include itai-itai disease and minamata disease reported again from japan, due to excessive dietary intake of cd and hg by human (de and anil kumar, 2000). among animals, a typical example is excess cu induced mo deficiency in fodder. animals feeding on such plants suffer from molybdenosis. hence, heavy metals are classified as dreaded pollutants, which have the potential of affecting human and animal health via soil solid soil solution plant roots edible parts animal continuum. a typical diagram of heavy metal cycle in the environment is shown in figure 1. some of the other, most important disasters with heavy metals are given below: * 1932 minamata: sewage containing mercury is released by chisso’s chemical works into the minimata bay in japan. mercury accumulated in sea creatures, leading eventually to mercury poisoning in the population. * 1952 minamata syndrome: in 1952, the first incidents of mercury poisoning appear in the population of minimata bay in japan, caused by consumption of fish polluted with mercury, bringing over 500 fatalities. since then, japan has had the strictest environmental laws in the industrialized world. * 1986 sandoz: water used to extinguish a major fire carried 30 t fungicide containing mercury into the upper rhine. fish were killed over a stretch of 100 km. the shock drew many fea projects forward. * 1998-2004 spanish nature reserve contaminated after environmental disaster. toxic chemicals in water from a burst dam belonging to a mine contaminated the coto de donana nature reserve in southern spain. 5 million mt of mud containing sulphur, lead, copper, zinc and cadmium flew down the rio guadimar. experts estimate that europe’s largest bird sanctuary, as well as spain’s agriculture and fisheries, will suffer permanent damage from the pollution. potential sources of heavy metals in upa there are two major sources of heavy metals in upa: anthropogenic and geogenic. while geogenic cases are rare in upa (not discussed in this review), anthropogenic cases are common in cities all over the world. fig 1. heavy metal cycle in the environment ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 7 anthropogenic accumulation air, water and soils are polluted with heavy metals through several anthropogenic activities like smokegenerating industries, effluent-generating industries, sewage, sludge, municipal solid and liquid wastes, fossil fuel burning, etc. nriagu (1998) made an estimate of global emission of trace metals into the atmosphere, water and soil (table 2). he measured it in terms of quantity of water needed to dilute such waters to drinking water standards and stated that toxicity of all the metals being released annually into the environment far exceeded the combined total toxicity of all radioactive and organic wastes. this emphasizes the seriousness of heavy metal pollution compared to other pollutants and needs special attention to prevent or minimize entry of heavy metals into the environment. soil the natural variability of heavy metal content in soils is very high. to ascertain contamination of any soil with heavy metals, one should have a reference level of each metal beyond which soil can be considered as contaminated. unfortunately, reference levels for different soils are not available, or rather, are not feasible. the normal range of some of the heavy metals in soils reported by two different authors shows a very high degree of variability (table 3). however, the extent of contamination due to anthropogenic activities can be judged far better by comparison with adjacent, non-polluted soils. accumulation in soil the ultimate destination of pollutants is the soil, where they accumulate. pollutants so accumulated are disseminated through plants or ground water into the food chain. soils are highly buffered. hence, any small and shortterm application of sewage sludge and effluents containing heavy metals in low concentrations may not cause serious accumulation of heavy metals in bio-available forms. therefore, plants grown on such soils may not absorb dangerous levels of heavy metals. however, long-term applications, as it happens in urban and periurban areas, river beds, industrial pockets and other such areas, may lead to accumulation of heavy metals in soil to levels exceeding permissible limits. levels of heavy metal accumulation in soils of upa in different cities of india are summarized in table 4. variability in the content of heavy metals in these soils is so wide that it is difficult to draw any conclusion from this information, as, their initial levels are not available. the variability is due to several factors like i) amount and period of addition of wastes ii) heterogeneity in the type of material added to the soil, like industrial effluents, sewage effluent, sludge, city garbage iii) type of soil like, light-textured or heavy soil and iv) climate (heavy rainfall or low rainfall, extreme temperatures or moderate temperatures). however, one conclusion that can be drawn from these data is that in many such cases, the levels of heavy metals have not exceeded permissible levels for soils, proposed by pfa (tables 4 and 5). once heavy metals enter the soil system, they may undergo several changes depending upon physical, chemical and biological properties of the soils. bioavailability of these heavy metals is very important as this is a gateway for entry of heavy metals into the food chain. current information on the effect of long term application of sewage and industrial effluents, sludge, garbage etc on the available heavy metal status of soils in different upa areas is presented in table 6. again there is wide variability in the bioavailable fractions of heavy metals in these soils attributed mainly to the nature of waste material applied, period of application and soil type. however, one point that emerged from these data is that application of domestic origin sewage water which contains low concentration of table 2. global emission of trace metals into atmosphere, water and soil (000 metric tones/ year) element air water soil zinc 132 226 1372 copper 35 112 954 manganese 38 262 1670 molybdenum 3.3 11 88 cadmium 7.6 9.4 22 lead 332 138 796 nickel 56 113 325 mercury 3.6 4.6 8.3 arsenic 18.8 41 82 antimony 3.5 18 26 selenium 3.8 41 41 vanadium 86 12 132 table 3. normal range of heavy metals in soil author pb cd ni as se zn cu mo bowie and 10-150 <1-2 2-100 <5-40 <1-2 25-200 2-60 <1-5 thornton, 1985 jorgensen, 1979 <10 <0.06 na na na <5 <20 na na = not analysed/not available heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 8 micronutrients and very low concentration of heavy metals may not lead to accumulation of these metals in soils. build up in soil receiving heavy metals from different sources depends upon the period of its application. longer the period, greater is the accumulation. however, information on relationship between initial concentration of heavy metals in the source, period of application and rate of build-up in soils receiving different kinds of waste material are very scanty. in one such study, bansal et al. (1992) reported that build-up was more in soils, which received industrial effluent from ludhiana city for a period of five years as compared to only two years. whereas, palaniswami and sriramulu (1996) reported build-up of fe in 15 year effluent treated plots as compared to 2 year irrigated plots (fig 2). zn content remained unaltered and cu increased only marginally. one general point that emerged from such studies is that mn content of soil depleted with increase in table 4. heavy metal content (total) in soils of upa in different cities in india source zn cu fe mn cd pb co ni cr bangalore(varalakshmi, 2005) 71.8 3.52 na na 0.35 35.2 na na na kolkata (adhikari et al, 1997) 1300 160 212 16 4.0 170 na na 126 durgapur (barman and lal, 309 41.5 na na 6.11 180 na na na 1994 ) varanasi (sharma et al, 2007) 87.9 33.5 na 145.7 2.7 18.3 na 15.6 79.3 ludhiana (azad et al,1986) na na na na 1.1 na 24.1 43.9 na coimbatore (malarkodi 397.4 157.1 na na 8.1 175.5 na 171.4 114.9 et al, 2007) hyderabad (jeevanrao and 2.9 4.3 386 39 0.4 8.1 5.0 1.4 6.0 shantaram, 1993) pfa standard 300-600 135-270 na na 3-6 25-50 na 75-150 na na = not analysed/not available table 5. permissible level of heavy metals (mg l-1) in water, soil and plants as recommended by various organizations fe mn cu zn ni cr co cd pb as drinking water usph standards 0.3 0.05 1.0 na na 0.05 na 0.01 0.05 0.05 who standards 1.0 0.50 1.5 na na 0.05 na 0.01 0.10 0.05 sewage water pes cod,1992 na 0.2 0.2 2.0 2.0 0.1 na 0.01 0.5 na fao,1979 na na na na 2.0 1.0 na 0.05 2.0 na the environmental 3.0 2.0 3.0 5.0 3.0 2.0 na 2.0 2.0 na protection rules, 1986, india soil pfa, india na na 13530075na na 3-6 250na 270 600 150 500 austria na na 100 300 100 100 50 5 10 na canada na na 100 400 100 75 25 8 200 na poland na na 100 300 100 100 50 3 100 na japan na na 125 250 100 na na na 400 na great britain na na 100 300 50 50 na 3 100 na germany na na 50 300 100 200 na 2 500 na vegetables and food pfa na na 30 50 1.5 0.2 na 1.5 2.5 1.1 na = not analysed / not available fig 2. effect of period of application of effluents on accumulation of heavy metals ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 9 table 6. bioavailable heavy metal status of soils treated with different sources of wastes source zn cu fe mn cd pb co ni cr as hg indo-gangetic plain-alluvial soils iari (newdelhi) 5.0 3.3 23.3 12.1 na 2.2 na 0.4 na na na (datta et al, 2000) 2.2 1.1 6.7 9.8 na 1.7 na 0.2 na na na domestic sewage tubewell jalanandhar (delhi) (rattan et al, 2002) 14.7 4.20 39.7 18.9 na na na 1.27 1.72 2.09 na sewage effluents 2.9 0.99 13.8 14.3 na na na 0.56 0.81 1.87 na tubewell keshopur(delhi) 6.77 5.42 40.30 5.17 0.15 2.34 na 0.91 na na na (rattan et al, 2002) 1.92 1.79 9.22 5.69 0.14 1.65 na 0.36 na na na sewage effluents tubewell ludhiana( punjab) sewage effluents (arora et al, 1985) 4.38 5.5 36 10.9 0.07 1.88 na 0.37 0.57 1.02 0.51 malerkotla(punjab) (arora et al, 1985) sewage effluents 5.56 2.5 11 7.9 0.04 1.41 na 0.32 0.36 0.56 0.38 samrala(punjab) (brar et al, 2000) non-sewage effluents 1.67 2.2 17 8.9 0.06 1.24 na 0.42 0.39 0.77 0.61 varanasi (u.p.) (singh and singh 1994) sewage effluents 15.63 30.41 82.79 229.3 3.8 22.48 na na 4.25 na na patna (bihar) (sakal et al, 1992) sewage sludge 11.4 14.5 54.9 19.4 0.21 10.2 na na na na na ganga delta-alluvial soils howrah (som et al, 1994) sewage effluents 19.4 na na na 0.02 0.18 na na 0.60 na na kolkata (mitra and gupta, 1999) sewage effluents 281 36 115 24 0.45 104.3 1.8 9.45 12.5 na na non-sewage effluents 3.5 2.25 53.5 21.6 0.006 4.25 0.9 4.40 3.15 na na deccan plateau-red soils bangalore (varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy, 2007) sewage effluents 0.03 0.101 na na tr 0.73 na 0.01 0.10 na na hyderabad (rao et al, 1994) fresh garbage 6.8 10.9 16.2 16.0 0.14 10.5 0.40 0.46 0.34 na na control 1.0 0.9 6.5 9.0 nd 0.04 0.04 0.05 nd na na avaniyapuram (tamilnadu) (jayabaskaran and sriramulu, 1996) sewage effluents 10.6 6.9 32.3 37.0 0.20 5.7 0.4 6.9 2.7 na na sakkimangalam (tamilnadu) (jayabaskaran and sriramulu, 1996) sewage effluents 5.9 5.7 32.3 39.0 0.10 3.7 0.20 4.9 2.9 na na ukkadam (jayabaskaran and sriramulu, 1996) sewage effluents 10.4 9.7 28.5 37.0 0.20 6.30 0.50 14.6 3.8 na na na = not analysed/not available, nd = not detected, tr = traces heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 10 duration of irrigation. perhaps this is due to leaching of reduced forms of mn from such soils. texture of soil has profound influence on the pattern of heavy metal accumulation. light textured soils accumulated lower levels of heavy metals than heavy soils under similar conditions. however, no direct study on such effects has been conducted anywhere. it has been found that bioavailability of heavy metals in light-textured soils of sakkimangalam and avanigapuram were more or less similar in sites that received sewage water for eight years or 50 years (jayabaskaran and sriramulu, 1996). but, ukkadam sewage farm on clay soils contained higher bioavailable heavy metals after 40 years of sewage water irrigation than the silty clay loam soils of avanigapuram after 50 years of sewage irrigation (table 6). heavy metals are immobile in soil. as a result, these accumulate mainly in surface soils which are, unfortunately, the zone of prime root activity in crops. profile analysis of soils collected from sewage and effluent irrigated areas showed no build-up of heavy metals below 45 cm depth (table 7). a majority of the cities and towns in india is located on the banks of rivers, rivulets and streams. the number of cities on the banks of ganga alone is 27. river beds in all these cities and towns are put under cultivation of vegetables and fodders. unfortunately, these river bed soils are among the most polluted soils because of their frequent inundation with heavy metal rich water during monsoon. the most worrying feature of such sites is that a large proportion of accumulated heavy metals remains in highly mobile and leachable form, which is directly available for absorption by plants. dry river beds of kharaai river in the industrial city of jemshedpur had 8400 ppm fe, 10 ppm ni, 7 ppm pb, 200 ppm cu, 90 ppm cr and 5 ppm co, all above permissible levels (sinha et al, 2002). analysis of dry river bed soils of periurban kanpur, where the ganga flows through the heart of the city, showed (fig. 3) that a major part of accumulated heavy metals was in the leachable form (farooq et al, 1999). leafy and succulent vegetables of short duration mainly are grown on such soils, as they find immediate market in the adjacent urban areas. this is a matter of serious concern as these crops are heavy accumulators (varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy, 2007) favoured by high availability of heavy metals in soils and short duration crops. protected cultivation of vegetables in periurban areas is on the increase. cultivation in polyhouses is generally done on artificial beds created within by dumping organic manures of varying types. the source of such organic manures may vary but, being in the vicinity of cities, organic manures are likely to get mixed with sewage sludge and other city solid wastes. data on extent of heavy metals in the bed material and in crops grown in such polyhouses are not available. this is a point which calls for attention of researchers. water source of heavy metals in water urban and industrial waste-water acts both as source and carrier of heavy metals in the upa. rapid industrialization and urbanization have been generating huge amounts of effluents and other urban liquid wastes in india and the situation is likely to worsen further. a population of 6 million in bangalore city alone is generating about 800 million liters of waste-water a day. the total waste-water generated in urban india is of the order of 200 table 7. profile distribution of heavy metals in soils treated with industrial effluents soil ukkadam farm, tamil nadu periurban patna depth (jeyabaskaran and sriramulu,1996) (mean of 11 sites)(sakal et al, 1992) (cm) zn cu fe mn zn cu fe mn pb cd 0-15 15 16 50 70 4.19 5.21 40.98 13.93 3.95 0.075 15-30 11 9 25 40 2.30 1.85 24.36 9.94 2.50 0.047 30-45 5 3 9 15 1.87 1.08 15.76 8.89 2.20 0.043 45-60 2 1 2 3 1.75 0.88 14.17 8.06 1.99 0.038 fig 3. proportion of various heavy metals in river bed soils present in soluble form ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 11 mm3d-1. these waste-water contain a wide spectrum of inorganic and organic material and heavy metals (chonkar et al, 2000a, 2000b; ganeshamurthy, 2007). the major contributors of heavy metals in these wastes include leather tanneries (cr), distilleries, paper mills, refineries, textile industries, thermal plants, smelters (zn, fe), automobiles (pb, cd), paints (pb, cr), metalliferrous mines, electroplating industries (zn, sn, ni, cr), ceramic industry (pb, cd), lignitebased power plants, aluminum industry, electronics industry (pb, hg, cd, cr), metallurgical industry, etc. india produces about 80 million pieces of hides and 133 million pieces of skins annually. these are handled by about 3000 tanneries and 680 leather finishing industries located in various cities for producing semi-finished and finished leather goods. a kg of skin or hide needs about 40 l of water for the process. in the case of finished leather it is about 50 l kg-1. both vegetable and chrome tanning is used in india. while vegetable tanning is relatively safer, effluent from chrome tanning contains dangerous levels of chromium and other heavy metals (table 8). effluents from tanneries are mainly discharged into nearby rivers, streams or other water bodies. jajmau tannery near kanpur, in uttar pradesh, discharges about 9000 m3 of effluent per day directly into the river ganga. it contains high concentrations of chromium (chandalia and rajagopal, 1992). tanneries are concentrated on the banks of palar, periyar and cauvery rivers in tamil nadu. untreated effluents from these tanneries are discharged into neighboring fields, irrigation tanks which finally reach palar, periyar and cauvery rivers. there are, at present, about 515 units engaged in manufacture of paper, paperboards and newsprint in india. present production of paper and paperboard is six million tonnes and is expected to go up to eight million tonnes by 2010 (business line, 2005). at present, about 60.8 % of the total production is based on non-wood raw material and 39.2 % is based on wood. a ton of paper produces approximately 6000 gallons of effluent. at this rate, effluent discharged by paper mills is approximately 36000 million gallons. a sample data on heavy metal content in paper mill waste-water and sediments from russia (labunska et al, 2001) is presented in table 9. although patel et al (2004) reported lower concentration of heavy metals in paper mill effluents (table 8) from gujarat authenticated data on heavy metal content of paper mill effluents from india are not table 8. heavy metal concentration in waste-waters from different sources (ppm) type of waste-water zn cu fe mn cd pb co ni cr reference tannery effluent,vegetable 2.56 tr tr 0.67 na 0.23 na na na karunyal et tanning,chrome tanning na na na na na na na na 97-5125 al.,1972; sakthivel and sampath 1990 distillery effluent 4.61 3.65 34.8 12.7 0.48 na 0.08 na 0.64 patil, 1994 paper mill efluent 0.48 0.34 7.50 0.27 0.01 0.17 0.04 0.11 0.67 patel et al,2004 textile industry na tr tr tr na na na na tr mohmed and ashan, 1985 refinery effluent 0.33 0.23 3.77 0.55 na 0.86 na 0.23 na singh et al,1991 zinc smelting effluent 10.6 0.05 0.68 na na 0.05 na na na totawat 1991 electro plating industry na na na na na na na 3.0 2.5 tiwana et al, 1987 sugar industry-spent wash 1.17 0.78 61.3 4.0 0.06 0.68 na 0.70 na zalawadia et al,1997 fertilizer industry 0.25 0.12 6.34 0.29 0.03 0.17 0.15 0.55 1.10 patel et al,2004 tr = traces, na = not analysed/not available table 9. heavy metal analysis results in cepruss pulp and paper mill, kaliningrad area, russia, 2001 sample waste-water waste-water waste-water sediments sediments number bt01010 bt01011 bt01008 bt01009 bt01012 concentration µg/l µg/l µg/l µg/kg dry weight µg/kg dry weight cadmium <10 <10 <10 1 2 chromium <20 <20 <20 19 17 cobalt <20 <20 <20 10 7 copper <20 <20 <20 356 108 lead 59 <30 <30 143 30 manganese 298 325 476 541 154 mercury <1 <1 <1 0.928 0.1 nickel <20 <20 <20 12 13 zinc 14 16 23 557 212 heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 12 available. however, concentration of heavy metals like cu, pb, zn, ni, co, and cd in coconut water, root and leaf irrigated with effluents from paper mills, was higher than limits suggested by world health organization (sharif fazeli, 1991) giving an indication that effluents contained heavy metals above permissible levels. textile industries also generate huge quantities of waste-water containing heavy metals. these industries, including both mechanized and hand processing units, are distributed throughout the country in small and medium towns, but, mechanized units are mainly located in ahmedabad, mumbai, surat, coimbatore and chennai. for example, buckingham and carnatic textile mills in tamil nadu produce about 20,000m3 d-1 of waste-water while 760 hand processing units in pali town in rajasthan produce about 18000 m3 d-1 (gupta et al, 1992). untreated effluents from textile units in pali, jodhpur and badmer are discharged into seasonal rivers bundi, jojri and luni, respectively. pali has been identified as one of the most polluted cities in india. data on heavy metal content of these waste-waters are not available. mohmed and ashanullah (1985) reported that the effluent from modi textile industry in u.p. was below detectable limits (table 8). however, various chemicals and dyes used in textile industries contain both heavy metals and harmful chemical which ultimately reach irrigation water and soil. distilleries are another major source of waste-water containing heavy metals. india produces 2.7 billion liters of alcohol annually from 285 distilleries, mostly concentrated in the three sugarcane producing states of maharashtra, uttar pradesh and karnataka (aida 1995, joshi et al, 1996). the proportion of alcohol to spent wash (waste-water) is 1:15. at this rate, spent wash produced in india is estimated at 4050 m m3(40.5 billion liters). an example of heavy metal content of the distillery waste-water is given in table 8. effluents from refineries, smelting industries, paint industries, plating industries and many such sources contain heavy metals to varying degrees (table 8). data on heavy metal content of such small but potential sources of heavy metals are scanty. in the fertilizer industry sector, total chrome content in the effluent of nh 3 -urea unit was assessed at 43 t y-1, in addition to 256 t of chrome sludge and 19.5 t of as sludge. however, due care is taken by these units before discharging wastes into the environment (swaminathan, 1993). accumulation of heavy metals in water city sewage effluents are generally a mixture of industrial and domestic waste-waters. they are potential sources of heavy metals in upa. typical concentrations of heavy metals in city sewage effluents and tube wells are presented (table 10). lower concentration of heavy metals table 10. heavy metal content in sewage effluents and wells from different cities in india source zn cu fe mn cd pb co ni cr reference agra sewage 560 450 4770 660 na 750 na 190 na tubewell tr 50 1790 90 na 190 na tr na singh et al, 1991 howrah sewage 61.6 na na na 22.0 35.6 na na 7.2 adhikari, 1993 jalandhar sewage 1990 400 16400 350 na na na 190 2720 brar et al, 2000 sewage+leather 2510 420 24200 440 na na na 350 14030 ground water 70 10 130 4 na na na 50 6 kolkata sewage 356 85.2 449 68.3 4.9 7.0 10.5 11.3 20.3 mitra and gupta, tubewell 17.6 3.6 80.6 22.5 <1 <2 <2 2.6 2.0 1999 ludhiana sewage 710 6412 307 307 2.3 53.1 357 132 na arora et al, 1985 control 260 70 140 140 0.55 9.3 75 1.5 na ahmedabad sewage 6.0 0.13 3.77 0.18 0.01 0.13 0.02 0.09 0.13 patel et al, 2004 bangalore sewage 179 17 1305 tr 0.2 13 tr 18 7 lokeshwari, and chandrappa,2006 coimbatore sewage 4.13 1.87 38.73 11.90 2.77 35.42 tr 8.76 8.42 doraisami et al, 2003 varanasi sewage 0.23 0.04 na 0.15 0.01 0.08 na 0.03 0.04 rajendra prasad et al, 1985 udaipur sewage 39.1 11.1 48.0 81.8 33 943 na 410 na malla and totawat, 2006 na = not analysed/not available ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 13 table 11. seasonal variability in heavy metal content in city sewage water source zn cu fe mn cd pb co ni cr reference bangalore monsoon na na na na 0.001 tr na 0.101 0.272 varalakshmi and winter na na na na 0.004 0.030 na 0.016 0.114 ganeshamurthy, summer na na na na 0.04 0.136 na 0.045 0.096 2007 kolkata monsoon 321 70.9 656 45.2 1.3 2.9 6.0 57.8 11.7 winter 356 85.2 449 68.3 4.9 7.0 10.5 113 20.3 coimbatore monsoon 2.5 2.68 30.1 16.2 2.15 23.65 na 6.35 1.46 duraisamy et al, winter 9.75 1.97 56.0 11.6 4.25 55.25 na 17.12 7.08 2000 summer 4.83 1.50 33.8 8.58 3.25 45.70 na 9.66 9.80 na = not analysed/not available in ground water indicated that metals accumulated mostly in the surface soils and only a small proportion leached down and reached the ground water (jayabaskaran and sriramulu, 1996; sakal et al, 1992). the concentrations of metals varied with source of their origin and with season. varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy (2007) reported lower concentrations of cd and pb during monsoon in bangalore city sewage and attributed it to dilution effect. higher concentration of cr and ni in monsoon season is attributed to run off and erosion caused by rainfall and the consequent entry of contaminated soil and silt from nearby plating industries which otherwise do not reach the main drains during summer (table 11). in some cases, there is no significant relationship between concentrations of heavy metals in different seasons i.e., winter, summer or monsoon, as heavy metals in waste-water have a continuous anthropogenic source from industries. however, higher concentration of metals in a particular season, besides seasonal factors, may be due to intensity of an industrial activity in a particular season. it may also be due to the fact that samples were gathered from drains in industrial premises, a direct anthropogenic discharge resulting from industrial activity. surface water bodies like rivers, rivulets, streams and lakes are the first to receive heavy metals generated by various industries and waste producing sources. they act as transporters disseminating pollutants into the environment. both treated and untreated effluents from industries and city municipal wastes are directly discharged into rivers and other water bodies. data available on heavy metal concentration of some rivers and water bodies are presented in table 12. variability in concentration of heavy metals in different rivers, and within a river, at different locations was directly related to the amount of heavy metal containing wastes added at different locations. however, most of these river waters contained heavy metals well above permissible levels both for drinking and irrigation purposes (table 5). drinking water bodies and other aquifers near agricultural lands receiving irrigation from polluted waters of rivers and streams get contaminated. surface water contains higher concentrations than ground water. analysis of water samples within a radius of 1 km from the carpet industry in gopalgunj and bhadoni in uttar pradesh varied from 0.11 to 0.84 ppm cr (singh et al, 2001). similarly, well waters adjoining streams around zinc smelters in dabari (discharge rate = 4000 m3 d-1) contained 0.0-0.72 ppm zn, 0.0-0.93 ppm cd, 0.1-0.6 ppm fe (totawat, 1993). coimbatore city having more than 30,000 small, medium and large industries does not have a facility for treatment of industrial, municipal, hospital and domestic waters. the open type drainage lets these waters into lakes, wetlands and the river noyyal. analysis of water from different lakes (table 12) in coimbatore city showed heavy metal concentrations above permissible levels for drinking and irrigation. although water here is not for drinking, livestock, poultry, fish and other aquatic species do depend on these waters, and wetlands around these water bodies accelerate bioaccumulation of heavy metals in crops. similarly, water of hussain sagar lake and ground water in nearby areas in hyderabad (400 units of industries including paints, drugs, chemicals, etc. on its bank) also contain, a high degree of metal contamination. electronic waste (e-waste) as a source of heavy metals e-waste comprises of waste electronic goods which are no longer fit for their originally intended use. these range from household appliances such as, cellular phone, personal stereo and consumer electronics to computer, refrigerator, air conditioner, etc. e-waste contains several different substances and chemicals, many of which are toxic and likely to create adverse impact on the environment and heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 14 table 12. heavy metal concentration in some rivers and water bodies in india river/sampling site zn cu fe mn cd pb co ni cr reference rivers brahmani 180 40 1170 40 na na na na 290 panda et al, 1991 ganga sinha et al, 2002 rishikesh 72 3.5 40 35 nd 0.92 1.5 1.5 5.2 haridwar 61 7.8 150 54.9 nd 0.98 2.9 3.5 7.5 sultanpur 69.5 9.8 175 89.7 nd 1.30 2.5 5.8 10.5 bhopa 68.3 11.5 189 135.9 0.15 1.20 1.9 5.3 12.2 parichhatgarh 270 30.2 414 198 0.6 4.5 9.5 9.0 27.5 garhmukteshwar 311 49.5 721 211 0.75 6.5 12.5 10.2 32.5 anupshahr 135 8.5 209 98.5 0.12 2.7 6.5 3.0 11.5 ramgarh 140 9.5 195 109 0.17 2.5 5.7 3.2 15.9 kharkal jamshedpur 16 3.0 64 24 na 16 na na na som et al, 1994 other water bodies lake gopalgunj na na na na na na na na 0.11-0.84 singh et al, 2001 lake bhopal 0.03 0.012 0.413 0.156 0.087 0.041 0.087 0.07 0.011 srivastava et al, 2003 lake (coimbatore) 493 177 8080 1257 10 375 na 6.94 387 mohanraj et al, selvachintamani 95 44 520 255 1 26 na 23 52 2000 singanallur 34 18 1425 55.2 0.5 10.5 6.4 29.8 ukkadam 53 30.3 1736 71 0.5 4.5 na 8.6 43 perur 99.5 24.5 640 346.2 2 25.5 24.9 48.5 valankulam 101 44.1 3285 63.6 0.5 4.5 na 11.8 42.4 ammankulam 52.5 26 3405 82.9 0 15.5 na 11.5 37.4 selvampatti 69 28.2 1165 54.5 0 14.5 na 6.1 61.9 kumaraswamy na = not analysed/not available health, if not handled properly. however, classification of e-waste as a hazard or otherwise depends upon the extent of presence of hazardous constituents in it. chemicals such as beryllium, found in computer motherboards, and cadmium in chip resistors and semiconductors, are poisonous and can lead to cancer. chromium in floppy disks, lead in batteries and computer monitors, and, mercury in alkaline batteries and fluorescent lamps also pose severe health risks. the end effects of electronic junk (generated from obsolete computers and discarded electronic components) are disastrous to our environment and populace. second-hand computers from the west are dumped in india, most of it done illegally, by gray market operators. home to more than 1,200 foreign and domestic technology firms, bangalore figures prominently in the danger list of cities faced with e-waste hazards. as many as 1,000 tons of plastics, 300 tons of lead, 0.23 tons of mercury, 43 tons of nickel and 350 tons of copper are annually generated in bangalore through e-wastes. more than 300 small industrial units operate in metal extraction from waste and dumped computers. the waste generated from metal extraction is mostly let into sewage or stormwater drains. most of the industries, especially the information technology companies, are only vaguely aware of the problems caused by e-waste heavy metal content in crops plants absorb nutrients from soil through several mechanisms like mass flow from soil solution along with water, through exchange of ions on root surface with those adsorbed on the soil exchange complex etc. generally while absorbing, plants do not differentiate between nutrient and non-nutrient elements. because of this, crop plants grown on polluted soils become major sinks and become a gateway for entry of heavy metals into the food chain. the magnitude of absorption is largely decided by their concentration in soil, physico-chemical condition in soil and ability of plant roots to absorb. in upa, the general trend in selection of crops is in the following order: vegetables, fodder, cereals and millets, ornamental crops and fruits, of which, vegetables and fodders occupy a major area. among vegetables, shortduration leafy and succulent vegetables, root vegetables occupy the first place followed by fruit vegetables. however, food crops are least accumulators and vegetables and fodders are the highest accumulators of heavy metals. another paradox is that a major part of nutrient absorption ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 15 by crop plants is in the first half of their life cycle. hence, leafy vegetables that are harvested in the first half of their life cycle pose a potential danger with respect to heavy metal circulation in the food chain (ganeshamurthy, 2007). there is a wide variability in heavy metal content in vegetable and other crops grown on polluted soils in urban and periurban areas. the content of heavy metals in vegetables depends mainly upon concentration in soil and water, type of vegetable, season, soil type, etc. permissible levels of heavy metals in different vegetables prescribed by different agencies are given in table 5. there are significant differences in permissible levels prescribed by various organizations. reasons for such differences are not clear. however, this may be due to differences in tolerance levels of people of different origin, differences in threat perception of people, racial differences in tolerance levels, etc. levels of heavy metals generally found in common vegetables grown on different sources of wastewaters are presented in table 13. the content of metals varied with source of sewage water. city sewage and dry river bed soils helped in absorption of higher concentration of metals than did domestic sewage. however, vegetables grown using any of these waters accumulated heavy metals above the permissible levels prescribed by pfa. factual data on heavy metal content of vegetables grown on domestic sewage water are not available. the domestic source data presented in table 13 is not really of domestic campus waste-water in indian agricultural research institute, new delhi, as it might contain the waste-water generated from some labouratories of iari. hence content of heavy metals here was higher than expected. however, true domestic sewage water may not result in higher heavy metal content in vegetables. therefore, waste-water generated in small towns, if industrial activities are not high, may be used for cultivation of vegetables and other crops. among the crops grown, vegetables and fodders accumulated more heavy metals than cereals, pulses and fruits (table 14). among vegetables, leafy and root vegetables accumulated higher concentrations of metals than fruit vegetables. further data suggest that no crops grown for direct consumption by human are safe. there is a need to generate data on crops other than those eaten by human like flowers, bio-fuel plants, mulberry, timbers, etc. this would enable us to develop an entirely different land-use strategy for contaminated areas that is economically viable and socially acceptable so that entry of heavy metals into the food chain may be contained (ganeshamurthy, 2007). table 13. heavy metal content in vegetables grown on soil irrigated with various sources of waste-water vegetable kolkata sewage bangalore sewage dry river bed domestic sewage (mitra and gupta, 1954) (varalakshmi and (farroq et al, 1999) (datta et al, 2000) ganeshamurthy, 2007) cd pb ni cr cd pb ni cr cd pb ni cr cd pb ni cr cauliflower tr 70.0 tr na na na na na na na na na na na na brinjal 0.76 1.20 2.40 13.52 15.1 9.26 chilli 0.96 0.52 2.36 22.60 10.7 8.90 palak tr 68.8 9.4 2.20 4.12 6.92 28.32 5.2 34.5 13.2 13.0 radish 1.2 12.5 1.2 1.20 3.40 3.64 10.40 1.7 3.7 10.1 11.7 2.5 7.8 bottlegourd tr 0.4 na tr 0.44 2.08 4.36 9.64 8.2 107.8 1.1 2.9 19.2 8.7 pfa standard: cd = 1.5, pb = 2.5, ni = 1.5, cr = 0.1 na = not analysed/not available; tr=traces table 14. heavy metal content in different vegetable, fodder, cereal and fruit crops grown on sewage water irrigated areas of periurban bangalore metal vegetable fodder cereal `pulse fruit leafy root fruit napier rice ragi redgram citrus fe 62 1828.0 1288.0 1115 116 189 480 280 mn 38 284.0 15.0 33 35 29 150 25 cu 318 190.0 19.0 20 8 10 128 1 zn 35.0 48.0 27.0 10 26 58 28 2 pb 29 28.0 10.9 32 nd 0.5 54 98 cd 2.40 1.72 1.8 nd nd 16 nd nd cr 17.12 108.0 5.0 2 nd nd nd nd ni 5.16 12.0 56.0 15 nd 18 16 22 nd = not detected heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 16 analysis of vegetables grown in different seasons showed that pb, ni and cr content was higher in the rainy season (table 15). this was due to a higher concentration of these metals in the sewage water of bangalore during the rainy season (table 15). several species of gourd and melon are grown on dry river beds along the length and breadth of the country during the dry season. the frequency and quantum of irrigation in these crops on sandy river beds is very high. if the river water near the cities is contaminated with heavy metals, as in the case of the ganga river beds (table 12), these crops accumulate very high concentrations of heavy metals, and, special attention should be paid to monitor heavy metal content in vegetables and fruits coming to the market from such sources. just as crop species differ in their capacity to absorb heavy metals, cultivars within a given crop also differ in their ability to absorb heavy metals. this difference can be exploited to identify cultivars having low absorption capacity. however, work done in this field is very limited. varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy (2007) found that the local cultivar of amaranth accumulated lower level of cd (table 16) than did cv. arka arunima. similarly, cv. arka nishanth of radish accumulated lower level of cd than cultivar pusa chatki. there is a need to intensify work to find out donor plants with lower heavy metal absorption capacity which can then be used for breeding. remediation with our current level of knowledge a permanent and foolproof method to stop entry of heavy metals into the food chain is impossible. however, methods are available to reduce intensity of the effects. heavy metal pollution can be tackled at two stages: i. treating the pollutants before their entry into the environment. ii. treating the pollutants after their entry into the environment. however, primary and secondary treatment of waste material before disposal/discharge drastically reduces the content of heavy metals in waste. raw sewage emanating from howrah was analysed before and after primary and secondary treatments (som et al, 1994) and has been found that secondary treatment considerably reduced the toxic hazards (fig 4). options are limited for containing heavy metals after their entry into the environment. pockets of highly contaminated sites like large dumpings in a small area or accidental spillage sites, childrens’ playgrounds, etc. can be cleaned up through physical excavation of soil, washing with a suitable method to remove heavy metals and by table 15. seasonal average heavy metal content of vegetables collected from periurban bangalore vegetable summer rainy season cd pb cr ni cd pb cr ni amaranth 12.52 9.04 7.96 5.40 1.12 11.60 20.68 11.32 palak 9.56 11.04 9.52 6.20 0.76 8.28 22.52 13.20 coriander 12.80 4.24 10.10 5.68 1.00 11.68 25.72 14.36 fenugreek 9.68 7.89 6.98 5.12 0.68 7.32 19.13 12.15 carrot 10.60 5.04 5.28 7.28 0.76 4.69 18.36 10.24 radish 11.40 4.92 10.56 3.08 1.00 8.80 17.64 9.92 tomato 4.52 2.72 2.52 2.72 0.36 3.52 12.20 7.16 beans 6.16 3.40 11.80 5.20 0.52 6.96 16.20 13.08 pfa standard 1.5 2.5 1.5 0.2 na na na na na = not analysed/not available table 16. cultivar differences in cd absorption capacity in some vegetables cultivar cadmium concentration (ppm) amaranth arka arunima 0.74 arka suguna 0.36 local 0.29 radish pusa chatki 1.19 japanese white long 0.93 arka nishanth 0.90 fig 4. reduction in concentration of heavy metals after primary and secondary treatment ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 17 replacement or disposal after making these areas fit for re use (usepa, 1991). use of such technologies for cleaning polluted urban and periurban agricultural soils is impossible as the volume of soil or water involved is too big and prohibitively expensive. in situ technologies would be suitable for remediation to improve soil health, contain heavy metal levels to satisfy compliance requirements and / render heavy metals unavailable for plant uptake. thus, plants grown on such soils (after treatment) would be fit for human / animal consumption, socially acceptable and economically feasible. certain amendments that alter soil ph or chelate heavy metals or precipitate/transform heavy metals into insoluble/unavailable/non-toxic form may be effective in preventing heavy metal entry into the food chain. application of lime, organic amendments like use of fym, vermicompost and heavy doses of phosphatic fertilizers and oxides of mn and fe would reduce transfer of heavy metals from the soil into plant. this lowers the concentration of heavy metals in the food and reduces phytotoxic effect on plants (hyun et al, 1998 ; impens et al, 1991; singh et al, 1989). such work is rarely found in the indian context (rattan et al, 2002). in a field study liming proved effective in decreasing the concentration of cd from 10.9 to 5.0, cu from 11.7 to 4.6, ni from 20 to 0.8 and zn from 408 to 2.8 mg kg-1 in soils that has received a one-time heavy application of sewage sludge 16 years earlier (brallier et al, 1996). liming reduced the uptake of cd, ni and zn in plants grown on such treated soils and was also useful in improving crop yield. effectiveness of liming depends upon initial soil ph, soil type and crop species. heavy metals react with phosphorus from applied phosphatic fertilizers, forming insoluble phosphates. for example, added p precipitates cd as cd 3 (po 4 ) 2 (lindsay, 1979). using this concept, phosphate rock has been used to immobilize pb on several pb contaminated soils (ma and rao, 1999). however, the quantity of phosphate rock required is abnormally high and, more so, as the ph of the soil increases. as an alternative, they suggested field application of a mixture of water soluble p with phosphate rock to reduce the requirement. mench et al (1994) showed that application of hydrous manganese oxides was more effective than lime, basic slag and hydrous iron oxides in reducing the transfer of cd and pb from contaminated soil to soil-solution and further restricted their entry into food chain via plant uptake. in a greenhouse experiment, singh et al (1989) showed that addition of lime and fym together significantly reduced dtpa extractable cd in a fatehpur loamy sand alkaline soil (table 17). this resulted in reducing the toxic effect of cd and improved the yield of wheat. two points emerge from these studies: i) as seen from the work of singh et al (1989), there is limit beyond which application of lime or fym or a combination is not effective in containing cd level to a safe limit. ii) since heavy metals remain in the system in an inactive form, it is a temporary relief and, sooner or later, the immobilized heavy metals become available for plant uptake. in the absence of data on long-term effects of such amendments, it is difficult to suggest such remedies for containing heavy metals in soils. alteration in the ratio of different cations in soil may help reduce uptake of heavy metals by plants. for example, lepp (1981) suggested that maintenance of zn : cd ratio of 100:1 in cd containing wastes helped in exclusion of cd from the food chain. garai (2000) further showed that application of zn to boro rice drastically reduced cd uptake by rice. however, care should be taken to see that while altering the ratio to reduce the uptake of one heavy metal, it should not lead to accumulation of the other. utilization of less water to produce unit biomass would reduce heavy metal input into the soil-water system from heavy metals contaminated waste-waters and their subsequent uptake by crop plants. hence, increasing water use efficiency of crops will reduce heavy metal content in crops. garai (2000) showed that judicious, intermittent pounding rather than continuous flooding injected less ‘as’ in soil because less water was used for raising the crop on ‘as’ contaminated soils in west bengal. bioremediation in recent times, interest has stirred up for finding a biological solution to the problem of heavy metal pollution. certain organisms and plants have the ability to absorb heavy metals in exceptionally large proportions compared to others. utilization of such organisms/plants to remove accumulated heavy metals from soil, water and other growth table 17. effect of lime and fym on dtpa extractable cd on alkaline soil applied cd soil amendment mg kg-1 control caco 3 fym caco 3 +fym mean 0 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.3 12.5 8.1 3.5 6.4 5.5 5.9 25 13.9 9.3 13.8 12.6 12.4 50 25.3 18.0 31.6 21.6 24.1 100 61.7 43.3 60.6 47.1 53.2 mean 21.9 14.9 22.6 17.4 cd(p = 0.05)cd = 2.6, amendment= 2.3, cd x amendment = 5.2 heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 18 media is termed bioremediation. this phytotechnology using plants for clean-up of contaminated site, soil or water is known as phytoremediation. some aquatic plants absorb heavy metals from contaminated waste-waters and marshy lands (chigago et al, 1982; selvapathi and sreedhar, 1991; wolverton and mcdonald, 1978). panda (1996) showed accumulation of 5320 and 7850 mg ni kg-1 in water hyacinth and water lettuce, respectively. the corresponding values for zn were 14420 and 18040 mg kg-1(fig 5). zinc is preferentially absorbed by both the plants, with water hyacinth being more effective. vajpayee et al (1995) showed that cr rich tannery effluents can be treated with mixed cultures of some aquatics to reduce the load of cr in the effluent before discharge. some examples of aquatics that are super absorbers of cr are bacopa monnieri, hydrilla verticillata, nymphaea albahave and spirodela polirrhiza. monocultures were able to remove cr to an extent of 50 % from cr rich effluent. mixed cultures of hydrilla verticillata and spirodela polirrhiza removed 40.2, 43.0 and 45.0% from 75, 50 and 25% diluted tannery effluents in a period of 14 days (vajpayee et al,1995). if we calculate the removal of cr in absolute terms, the mixed cultures removed more cr than monocultures. phytoremediation of contaminated soils reclamation through removal of heavy metals from contaminated soils using accumulator plants is the goal of phytoremediation. as already stated, phytoremediation depends upon the ability of certain plants to absorb heavy metals in larger proportions than other plants, such that their cultivation on contaminated soils should remove heavy metals (baker et al, 1994, brown et al, 1994, 1995a, 1995b; blaylock et al, 1997; carey, 1996; chaney et al, 1997; cunningham and ow, 1996; cunningham et al, 1996; dushenkov et al, 1995; moffat, 1995; nanda kumar et al, 1995; raskin et al, 1994; rouhi, 1997; salt et al, 1995). phytoremediation requires that the target metal must be (1) available to the plant root, (2) absorbed by the roots, and (3) translocated from the root to the shoot. the metal is removed from the site by harvesting the plant material. after harvesting, the biomass is processed to either recover the metal or further concentrate the metal to facilitate disposal. plants absorb heavy metals by the same mechanisms as they absorb nutrient elements. characteristically, plants exhibit a remarkable capacity to absorb what they need and exclude what they don’t need. but most vascular plants absorb toxic and heavy metals through their roots to some extent, though to varying degrees ranging from negligible to substantial. sometimes, absorption occurs because of chemical similarities between nutrient and toxic metals. some plants utilize exclusion mechanisms, where there is a reduced uptake by the roots or restricted transport of the metal from root to shoot. but, hyperaccumulator plants absorb and concentrate metals in both roots and shoots (baker, 1981). some plant species endemic to metalliferrous soils accumulate metals in % concentrations in the leaf dry matter (brooks et al, 1977). the term ‘hyperaccumulator’ was introduced by brooks et al (1977) for plants growing on serpentine sites that are capable of concentrating ni to more than 1000 ìg g-1 (0.1 %) in their leaves on a dry matter basis. a concentration of 1000 ìg g-1 has also been used to delineate exceptional uptake of cu, co, and pb. the delineation level is raised to 10,000 ìg g-1 (1.0 %) for zn and mn because of greater background concentrations of these metals in soil. chaney et al, (1995) proposed that a viable phytoremediation technology would require breeding for improved cultivars of hyperaccumulators and development of improved agronomic practices. for species like thlaspi, for which yield is too low to support phytoremediation, bioengineering may be necessary to develop high biomass hyperaccumulating plants. they concluded that hyperaccumulator fig 5. removal of zn and ni from solution culture by water hyacinth and water lettuce ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 19 plants could be developed to remedy soils contaminated with heavy metals, and that in the near future, commercial phytoremediation will compete with engineering approaches for remediation of contaminated soils. entry et al (1996) proposed that the concentration of radionuclides in the ash of incinerated hyperaccumulators would be a more desirable outcome than mechanical methods currently employed. the concept of using hyperaccumulator plants to decontaminate industrially zinc contaminated soil was first tested at a farm managed by rothamsted experiment station in england (mcgrath et al, 1993). ten plant species were tested over four seasons. these were: thlaspi careulescens, thlaspi achroleucum, cadominopsis halleri, reynoutria sachalinense, cochlearia pyrenaica, alyssum lesbiacum, alyssum murale, raphanus sativus (radish), and brassica napus (spring rape). highest zn uptake was obtained with thlaspi careulescens, which had the potential to remove equivalent of over 40 kg zn ha-1 yr-1. baker et al (1991) conducted a pot study with soils from long-term field plots, using metal-tolerant (including hyperaccumulators) and normal plants. they concluded that phytoremediation using certain species could offer a low cost, low technology alternative to current clean-up technologies. ernst (1988) harvested plants from natural stands on several contaminated sites and came to a different conclusion. he measured relative abundance in and metal uptake by various plant species and concluded that phytoremediation was not a viable remediation technology. although hyperaccumulator plants were present on contaminated sites, these were not harvested because of their low growth and rosette characteristics. hyperaccumulation is often associated with plants with relatively slow growth rate. some plant species have lower shoot concentrations of metals but greater biomass production. for example, the natural growth pattern of thlaspi is problematic for mechanical harvesting. but silene, which accumulates metals less than thlaspi, grows more rapidly and vigorously. silene is also more capable of colonizing a contaminated site because of its seed and rhizome production. these factors would favour establishment and harvesting of silene over thlaspi (baker et al, 1994). fundamental to the environmental and economic success of phytoremediation is existence of plant genotypes that hyperaccumulate metals. to maximize metal concentration in the biomass, it will be necessary to use a combination of improved soil management inputs (e.g., optimized soil ph and mineral nutrition, minimal concentrations of interfering elements, introduction of agents that increase concentration and diffusion of metals in the soil), improved genotypes with optimized metal uptake, translocation and tolerance, and improved biomass yield (e.g., > 20 t ha-1). individualized (customized) practices may need to be developed for specific sites. distribution of hyperaccumulator plants hyperaccumulator plants are geographically distributed, are found throughout the plant kingdom and approximately 400 taxa (table 18) include representatives of many families, ranging in growth habit from annual herbs to perennial shrubs and trees. hyperaccumulator plants have been identified on all the continents, both in temperate and tropical environments. natural occurrence of hyperaccumulators for ni is recorded in new caledonia, cuba, southeast asia, brazil, southern europe and asia minor; for zn and pb in northwest europe; and cu and co in south-central africa. some families and genera are particularly well documented for ni accumlation [brassicaceae (alyssum and thlaspi), euphorbiaceae (phyllanthus and leucocroton) and asterceae (seeio and pentacalia)], for zn brassicaceae (thlaspi), and for cu and co (lamiaceae, scrophulariaceae) (baker et al, 1991; baker and brooks, 1989). there are not many cr hyperaccumulators in nature, but there are numerous ni hyperaccumulators (table 18). few cr hyperaccumulators have been identified, partly, because in nature, cr exists predominantly in the +3 oxidation state and is very insoluble, much less available for plant uptake. multi-metal accumulators the ability of a plant to hyperaccumulate any one metal may confer some ability to that plant to accumulate other metals (reeves and baker, 1984; baker et al, 1994). some metals may interact competitively for accumulation (e.g., zn and ni in calamine and serpentine soils). the number of ni hyperaccumulator taxa are over 300 in 35 table18. number of metal hyper accumulator plants metal concentration no. of taxa no. of families (% in leaf dry matter) cd >0.01 1 1 co >0.1 26 12 cu >0.1 24 11 pb >0.1 5 3 ni >0.1 >300 35 mn >1.0 8 5 zn >1.0 18 5 source: baker and brooks, 1989; hossner et al., 1998 heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 20 families. these commonly have 3-4% ni in leaf dry matter but this may range as high as 25%. alyssum betolonii, which is endemic to serpentine soils, is known for its high concentration of ni (> 10,000 mg kg-1 in leaf). the fact that serpentine (ultramafic) soils also contain other elements such as cr has led to the assumption that preferential accumulation of ni in many species of alyssum is due to a selective uptake mechanism. gabbrielli et al, (1991) showed, in controlled experiments, that excised roots of alyssum bertolonii seedlings did not show selectivity for uptake of any specific metal. plant roots tend to accumulate ni, co and zn without discrimination and with the same saturation trend, demonstrating absence of competitive action between these three elements. clones of salix viminalis were also found to have high concentrations of heavy metals (cd, cu and zn) in their shoots. baker et al (1994) suggested common mechanisms of absorption and transport of several metals by thlaspi species. they observed high uptake by roots for all the metals studied. zn, cd, co, mn and ni were readily transported to the shoot, whereas, aluminum (al), cr, cu, iron (fe) and pb were predominantly immobilized in the root. reeves and baker (1984) showed that hyperaccumulator plants growing naturally in calcareous soils were able to tolerate serpentine soil and absorb elements other than ni. it was observed that when a population of thlaspi goesingense ‘halacsy’, taken from a calcareous soil, was grown on a serpentine soil, extremely high concentrations of ni, zn, co, and mn accumulated in its above-ground dry matter. absorbed metal concentrations were similar to those observed in thlaspi growing naturally in serpentine soils. indian mustard has been identified as one of the super accumulators and is extensively tested for phytoremediation (ebbs and kochian,1997; su dc wong, 2004). a large number of brassica species are grown in india. these species are of short duration and put forth a large biomass in a short period. screening of brassica species for phytoremedial properties showed that toria (brassica sp) is better than indian mustard (sumangala et al, 2007). using toria as an example we hypothetically calculated the time required for cleaning up a soil contaminated with cd and pb (table 19). the time required to reduce the cd level in the soil to safe level as recommended by pfa (5ppm cd kg-1 soil) varied from 284 years for soil having initial cd level of 50 mg kg1 soil to 2036 years in soil having initial cd level of 1000 mg kg-1 soil. similarly, it requires 50 years to clean up a soil contaminated with pb to a level of 500 mg kg-1 soil to 138 years in soil having pb concentration of 1000 mg kg-1 soil. thus, a very long period is required to clean up contaminated soils with this technology. further, the time required may still be more than estimated because uptake of metals by a plant may not remain constant as the elemental concentration keeps getting reduced. in the present calculation, moreover, only surface soil was taken into account. if subsurface soil were also to be considered, the time taken would increase further. pierzysnski et al (2000) reported that a period of 100 years was required to remove 202.5 kg ni from surface soil alone. if subsurface is also considered, the time needed would be 2-3 folds higher. moreover, handling of such a large biomass and its safe disposal, economic and social considerations will all come in the way of implementing these recommendations. hence, with the present level of knowledge and plant type available, phytoremediation is not a practical way of reducing heavy metal levels in contaminated soils. biotechnological interventions are required to tailor plants for phytoremediation to make it a viable technology. table 19. time required (years) for cleaning cd and pb contaminated soils using toria (brassica sp) level of concentration dry matter no of crops time required concentration dry matter no of crops time cd/pb in of cd in toria yield (t ha-1) to be grown to reduce soil of pb in toria yield (t ha-1) to be grown required soil to reduce soil cd to below to reduce soil to reduce cd to below permissible pb to below soil pb permissible limit permissible to below limit limit permissible limit 50 44.7 2.36 853 284 103 2.44 100 82.2 2.41 959 320 119 2.40 200 122.4 2.03 1570 523 120 2.40 500 357.9 1.18 2344 781 122 2.06 151 50 1000 407.2 0.80 6109 2036 137 1.89 414 138 safe level in soil for cd = 5ppm and pb = 200 ppm ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 21 remediation through meat animals use of biomass produced on contaminated soils to feed meat animals is reported to be a moderately effective screen against entry of heavy metals into the food chain. in a study (johnson et al, 1981), beef animals fed on a diet containing 11.5% (dry matter basis) of moderately high cd sewage sludge was fed to six hertford steers for 106 days to simulate a high sludge intake from sludge-amended soils. the sludge metal content (ppm, dry basis) was: cd, 98; hg, 18; pb, 466; cu, 1,733, and zn, 1,733. addition of sludge increased metal content of the feedlot diet to 30 to 100 times that of the control. retention of heavy metals in the total animal from sludge ingestion averaged 0.09%, 0.06% and 0.3% for cd, hg and pb; no retention was noted from cu and zn. these low fractional retentions increased tissue cd, hg and pb concentrations of liver and kidney by five to 20-fold. estimates of levels that would enter the human diet from average beef tissue consumption, if all feedlot steers were fed with sludge, are presented for cd, hg and pb (table 20). these data indicate that if all feedlot cattle in the united states ingested 1 kg of sludge containing 98 ppm cd every day for 100 days, the average daily cd intake per capita would increase by approximately 2.4 micrograms. present intake estimates, as reviewed by underwood (1977), vary from 26 mg/day from a 1969 united states survey, or 67mg /day from a 1971 canadian survey, to 50 to 15mg / day from a who report on world cd intake. some segments of the population, such as vegetarians, probably consume considerably greater amounts (braude and jelinek, 1977). pb was the only metal (of the five assayed) showing accumulations in both bone and brain tissue. the tissue with the greatest concentration of pb in the control animals was bone, with 5.0 ppm, which agrees with the general values in literature (underwood, 1977). in the sludge-fed cattle, pb concentrations were highest in kidney tissue, averaging 10.8 ppm. nevertheless, total retention or increased body content was still found overwhelmingly (>90%) in the skeleton. entry into the human diet would occur largely through liver and kidney consumption and, on an “all beef fed sludge” basis, would be expected to increase dietary pb by approximately 1.5mg/person/day. underwood (1977) has reported that long-term intake of 100mg/day would be necessary before the first clinical sign would be expected to appear in human. longer and (or) multiple exposure of the united states cow herd could result in greater body burdens than found in these experiments, and it might be argued that concentrations of even 2mg of cd may be of concern. however, data generally indicate that cattle are a moderately effective screen against entry of cd, hg and pb into the human diet. since beef is not the major meat in asian countries, there is need to generate such information for common meat sources like sheep, goat, rabbit, poultry, etc. alternative land use with the current level of knowledge, use of upa land to grow crops that supply food/fodder/vegetables or any other edible crop using any of the remediation methods available today cannot assure prevention of heavy metal entry into the food chain. as the rate of urbanization keeps increasing day after day, so does generation of waste material and pollution becomes aggravated. hence, we must look at other alternatives of using upa lands. several nonfood crops can fit well into the upa and generate remunerative income to farmers and, possibly, reduce entry of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals into the food chain. there is a huge demand for loose flowers like chrysanthemum, marigold, aster, crossandra, jasmine etc in the cities of india. all these flowers can be grown extremely well using city sewage waters and sludges as manures. sumangala et al (2007) evaluated some annual flowers for their performance in heavy metal contaminated soils and found that these plants performed well, even at soil concentrations exceeding 500 ppm of cd and pb, in terms of flower quality and yield. results on marigold crop are presented in table 21. in periurban bangalore, mulberry is grown by several farmers, the leaves of which fed to the silkworm. this has not had any adverse effect on growth of silkworms or quality of silk produced. this is a viable alternative to many indian upa areas as the climate in most of the cities is suitable for sericulture. cultivation of crops like maize, sugarcane, tapioca and others exclusively for alcohol production using effluents and sewage sludge can be promoted as an economically viable alternative to table 20. accumulation of ingested sludge cd, hg and pb in body tissue (milligrams per steer) content above control tissue cd (ppm) hg (ppm) pb (ppm) liver 5.5 0.31 4.74 kidney 2.3 0.34 1.73 bone 0.0 0.00 124.0 spleen 0.09 0.01 0.75 lung 0.35 0.03 0.11 brain 0.0 0.00 0.03 lean separable 1.23 0.47 0.00 total 9.36 1.16 131.5 % retained in tissue 0.09 0.06 0.30 heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 22 increase biodiesel production. other biodiesel plants like jatropha, cimaruba and pongamia also perform well on such soils. however, there is a need to evaluate the performance of such crops in polluted soils. many timber species like sheesham, rosewood, teak, arjuna, neem, etc. can also be grown in periurban polluted soils. these can also serve as multipurpose crops like a green belt to the city, prevention of dust, creating congenial atmosphere for many animals and birds, a study spot for school children and a recreation centre for the urban lot. a detailed scientific investigation is required to evaluate crops that are suitable for upa lands, economically viable, environmentally safe and socially acceptable. environmental policies india has a wide ranging set of environmental laws that lay down norms for air, water, soil, wastes, etc. a dramatic shift in perception and approach to environment from the traditional ways of dealing with problems under various types of nuisance and municipal laws has occurred in the past two decades. people are realizing that the environment is under severe pressure, especially in the current economic development phase. the society has become an important driver and is proactive, despite having little access to information. the mass media is helping citizens to access information. the courts have also interpreted environmental protection as part of fundamental rights besides being very progressive in and cutting through embroiled political process. besides legislation of several new laws, environmental activism has been high with increasing general awareness. interpreting article 21 of the indian constitution on “right to life” to include “right to a clean and healthy environment”, the supreme court has enunciated and activated several other fundamental principles of environmental management, including “polluter pays” and the “precautionary principles” in its various judgments. soon after the stockholm convention of 1972, india embarked upon passing various acts of parliament dealing with environment. beginning with the water act in 1974, and the air act in 1981, the subsequent bhopal gas disaster led to adoption of a broad-based environment protection act (epa) of 1986 that gave the government powers not only to prosecute offenders but also to frame laws and notify standards, as and when required, for environmental conservation and preservation. some attempts at enunciating policy were also made. for example, in 1992, government of india issued the “national policy on pollution abatement” that read more like a wish-list rather than a practicable, actionable document. alongside, under the provisions of epa, several new legislations (dealing with various aspects of environment, both urban and rural ,including coastal regions, forests, industry, urban areas waste, noise) have been notified over the years. several new source standards have been made as minimum national standards, applicable throughout the country without exception. prevention of food adulteration (pfa,1954) is under revision and a revised version will be available in 2008. efforts are on to ratify multilateral environmental treaties to bring national legislation in line with international laws. effectiveness of regulations: the legislative framework is developed on the belief that a policing model is sufficient. however, it does not automatically go beyond that. despite stringent laws, it is commonly felt and accepted that environmental degradation is on the increase, contamination of soil, water and air is rising. contamination of food and ground water with heavy metals and other chemicals is alarming. in a nutshell, citizens feel that despite legislative efforts, environment of the country is in sorry state owing to “lack of implementation” of the laws. our environmental interventions are limited mainly to technical standards and compliance requirements. this approach does not help environmental improvement. table 21. performance of marigold in heavy metal treated soils concentration cadmium (cd) lead (pb) of heavy metal (ppm) no. of flower diameter yield/plant no. of flower diameter yield/plant flowers (mm) (g) flowers (mm) (g) 0 5.10 8.25 23.2 4.60 8.89 24.8 50 4.88 7.13 24.3 4.31 7.75 22.7 100 5.15 7.81 24.3 4.85 7.31 24.3 250 4.32 9.38 25.8 4.77 8.93 22.9 500 4.10 7.81 23.9 4.42 8.25 24.3 1000 5.03 7.50 23.5 4.83 9.75 21.8 ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 23 it needs to be backed up by governance, house-keeping, and education and involvement of the citizens. there is enormous need for capacity-building in this area. involvement of citizenry: environmental decision-making should involve citizenry at every step. however, little effort is made on sharing information, emphasizing transparency and access. the “right to information” act is a step forward in this direction. through this, environmental information may be more accessible, but it is still to be tested out enough. even now, it is extremely difficult for anyone to obtain information on extent and type of pollution from a neighborhood industrial unit. this demonstrates lack of recognition on the part of policy makers on impact of pollution on health of people and also their role in protecting the environment. in developed societies, where strong regulatory approach has been successful, there is a simultaneous information access and availability, which in itself has a salutary effect on keeping pollution in check. hence, in the absence of continuous data generation, monitoring and no voices of citizens being heard by the state, the issue of environmental compliance has become an arbitrary business between the regulator and the regulated leading to corruption and increased judicial and citizens activism to protect themselves from the breakdown. on the ground environmental degradation is the order of the day. new paradigm: in the light of rapid economic development, the state is trying almost literally to do away with the regulatory framework and replace it solely with a system of voluntary action and other instruments like economic and market-based incentives. the draft national policy of august 2004 on environment, which reads more like an environmental economic document, using cost-benefit as the raison d’ etre rather than what has been the trend until now, of environmental protection as an objective in itself, is a reflection of the government’s intention. key legislations which came up for review, like the coastal regulation zone act (crz) and environmental impact assessment (eia) notifications, restrict the land on which industrial activities are banned, severely controlled, or at least need to go through elaborate environmental justification and procedures for clearance. in 2003, the central pollution control board drew up a new charter of social responsibility in an attempt to woo industries to take up environmental measures more “voluntarily” since regulation was impossible. these reviews are being watched by the environmental community with horror. such moves are a reflection of the state’s intention about the industry, environmental protection and its own role in this interaction. in short, this is being read as a dismantling of the existing regulatory framework. regulatory mechanisms may not be effective in isolated cases but are essential drivers to augment other approaches, both by putting a “cap” on the level of degradation that is socially acceptable, as well as creating space for other, cleaner and more acceptable alternatives to be “viable”. they need to be augmented with other instruments and approaches, not discarded. this would imply integrating environmental policies in other sectoral and developmental policies, as well as moving towards more grass root level inputs and guidance into decision making. for example, if vegetables consumed have a high level of heavy metal concentration or pesticide residue, the remedy lies in prevention of contamination of water and soil at source by treating water before it is let into rivers, streams and drains; changing land-use in periurban areas or influencing pesticide spray practices in agriculture, improving food marketing, making hygienic retailing outlets as well as raising consumer awareness, and not in stand-alone environmental policies. also, if local panchayats have a say in such practices, the farmer can be more effectively addressed. the following case study of a problem of recent origin, briefly stated, argues the case: import of second hand computers: computerization is a part of the ‘new economy’ and is lauded as a key to development in the region. the current computer density of <5 per 1000 is likely to rise over >20 per 1000 under the new it policy of 2008. all measures to make this happen, including import of second-hand computers, are being explored and allowed in legislation and policies. as already mentioned earlier, end-of-life computers and electronic products, a major component of e-wastes, are becoming a worrying source of heavy metals and other harmful toxic substances. looking at the danger from e-wastes, europe and other developed countries have taken several policy measures calling for a change in material and ‘producer responsibility’ for recycling and final disposal. utilizing this opportunity, india is becoming a dumping ground for second-hand computers, favoured by governmental policies. regulations in the developed countries are becoming more demanding. added to it, an extremely high obsolescence rate of computers (due to new technology and softwares), falling prices and new features, old computers are sold at the price of junk and grabbed by india, whereas china has banned imports. heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 24 in any legislation to follow, the effort should be to include both a regulatory framework and other objectives. there is also a need to lay special emphasis on inclusion of the existing recycling sector as another factor. such legislation must go beyond mere standards. it must encompass management practices, take back targets which are progressively increasing, efficient collection system and norms and to involve the existing informal recycling sector. such a law may have to be augmented with financial advantage and disadvantages and information transparency mandate for it to be workable. alongside, it must recognize that the role of the municipality is a key in an efficient collection system, such as has been seen in several countries. no doubt this process will take more time to evolve than a purely standard-driven system, and it also needs more negotiations. but as past experience demonstrates, it would have a higher likelihood of success (agarwal, 2006; the hindu, 2008). the key will be to balance ‘standards’ with other options. looking ahead increase in population and maintaining a cleaner environment cannot go together. pollution is bound to increase with increase in population. this is a reality and we must learn to live with it. like survival of the fittest, it is human intelligence which has to show ways to survive such adverse situations. with the present level of knowledge, a foolproof method to contain heavy metal pollution is not available. but the search for remedial measures should not stop. 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soil sci., 45: 767-769 heavy metal contamination in urban and periurban agriculture j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 1-29, 2008 48 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 original research paper heterosis and combining ability for yield and its related traits in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.)roxb.] b. varalakshmi*, m. pitchaimuthu and e. sreenivasa rao division of vegetable crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *e-mail: varalakshmi.b@icar.gov.in abstract line × tester analysis involving three lines and four testers was carried out in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (roxb.) l.]. significant variation was noticed in the mean performance of the parents and hybrids for all the characters studied except for vine length and fruit girth. the results from gca and sca variance indicated the predominance of non-additive gene action for all the traits except fruit girth. significant heterosis of 177.78% over standard check, arka sumeet for fruit weight per plant was expressed by the cross garg-1 × co-1. the best general combiners were garg-1 and pusa nutan among the lines, and jaipur long and co-1 among testers. best specific combining ability effects for fruit length and yield (t/ ha) were recorded by the crosses pusa nasdar × arka sumeet and garg-1 × co-1. key words: heterosis, combining ability, gca, sca, ridge gourd. introduction ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] is a commercially important vegetable crop because it ha s good yield p otentia l a nd good medicina l pr oper ties a s well. ridge gour d ca n be grown throughout the year. it is cultivated from central and eastern asia to south-eastern asia. of late, exploita tion of hybr id vigour a nd selection of par ents on the ba sis of combining a bility ha s become c r uc ia l in cr op imp r ovement. it is a monoecious and cross pollinated crop, thus exhibits considerable heterozygosity, but does not have inbreeding depression. this results in the presence of na tur a l va r ia bility in the popula tion. t his provides sufficient scope for utilization of heterosis on c ommer c ia l s c a le whic h inc r ea s es t he production potential and productivity of ridge gourd. combining ability helps in identifying the best general and specific combiners for yield and yield contributing characters. hence the present study wa s u nder ta ken t o es tima te t he het er os is of different cross combinations and also to estimate the general and specific combining ability to identify t he b es t p er f or ming p a r ent s a nd hyb r ids respectively in ridge gourd. material and methods the experimental material comprised of 7 parents (3 lines and 4 testers) viz; garg-1, pusa nutan, pusa nasdar used as lines and four testers namely arka sumeet, arka sujat, jaipur long and co-1 and twelve f1s produced during 2013 by crossing these parents in line × tester mating design. these hybrids along with seven parents were evaluated for yield and yield related traits in randomized block design with three replications in the vegetable farm, icar-iihr, bengaluru during summer and kharif seasons of 2014-15 and 2015-16. plant to plant spacing was maintained at 50 cm and row to row was 150 cm. data were recorded on five randomly selected plants in each treatment (hybrids and parents) for ten characters viz; node number for first female flower appeara nce, days ta ken for first female flower appearance, vine length, number of branches, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit number/plant, fruit weight, fruit weight/plant and fruit yield/ha. heterosis over better parent and standard check, arka sumeet was calculated for each character and significance was tested. the covariance of half-sibs and full-sibs were used for obtaining the estimates of general and specific combining ability effects as per the procedure outlined by kempthorne (1957). 49 heterosis and combining ability in ridge gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 result and discussion the mean performance of parents and hybrids for various traits has been presented in table 1. the analysis of var iance showed highly significa nt differences for all the characters studied except for vine length and fruit girth (table 2). similarly variance due to parents was also highly significant for a ll t he cha r a ct er s exc ept f or vine length indicating presence of sufficient variability among t he p a r ent s f or t he c ha r a c t er s s t u died. t he variance due to parents versus crosses differed significantly for most of the characters except for vine length, fruit girth and per fruit weight indicating the pr esence of het er osis for t he cha r a ct er s. significant differences were observed among the crosses and line × tester for all the characters except for vine length, fruit length and fruit girth. similarly narasannavar et al (2014b) observed a non-significant variance due to line × tester for vine length in r idge gourd. t he ma gnitude of variance due to sca was higher than the gca variance and also the gca : sca was less than a unity for all the characters except for fruit girth, confirming the predominance of non additive gene action indicating the exploitation of heterosis for all these characters. the findings are in conformation with ladom et al., (2009) and narasannavar et al (2014b). but the gca variance was higher than that of sca variance and also negative for fruit girth. among all the crosses it has been observed that ten crosses for node to first female flower appearance and nine crosses for days to flowering showed negative and significant heterosis over the better parent, similarly kantharaj (2003) and sarkar et al (2015) also reported the negative and significant heterosis for these characters. only one cross each for fruit length, fruit girth and fruit weight showed significant positive heterosis over the better parent value. whereas 11 crosses for number of fruits per plant and all crosses for fruit weight per plant and yield (t/ha) showed significantly positive heterosis over the better parent. these results are in confirmation with narasannavar et al (2014a), mole et al (2001), kumar et al (1999) for number of fruits per plant and fruit weight per plant. however, for vine length and number of branches there is no significant favorable heterosis over the better parent. previously kumar et al (1999) also reported non-significant heterosis for number of branches in bottle gourd. significant heterosis has been observed over the standard check, arka sumeet in ten crosses for node to first female flower appearance, eight crosses for days to first female flower appearance and all crosses for fruit number per plant, fruit weight per plant and yield (t/ha) (table 3) in the favorable direction. for fruit weight per plant and yield (t/ha) the cross garg-1 x co-1 has recorded significant standard heterosis i.e. 177.78% for fruit weight per plant and 173.22% for yield (t/ha) over the standard check arka sumeet (table 4). for node to first female flower appearance (70.61%) and days to first female flower appearance (24.48%) the cross pusa nutan x arka sujat recorded significant heterosis in favorable direction. hence, these hybrids can be exploited for commercial purpose. similarly mole et al (2001) in ridge gourd and kumar et al.,(1999) in bottle gourd reported standard heterosis for node to first female flower appearance, number of fruits per plant and fruit yield per plant. the perusal of the data on gca effects of lines indicated that garg-1 and pusa nutan were found to be best general combiner for node to first female flower appea rance, da ys to fir st female flower appearance, vine length, fruit length, fruit number per plant, per fruit weight and yield (t/ha) (table 5). t hese lines can be utilized in evolving highly productive hybrids. the significant heterotic crosses for various characters in the present study had these lines as one of the parents. among the testers jaipur long and co-1 were proved to be good general combiners for days to first female flower appearance, vine length, number of fruits per plant, per fruit weight and yield (t/ha). heterosis study also indicated the impor ta nce of these tester s beca use of their involvement in majority of the significant heterotic crosses for various characters. promising crosses based on significant sca effects and per se performance revealed that the cross pusa nutan x arka sujat was most promising for days taken for first female flower appearance. the cross garg-1 x jaipur long was promising for vine length (table 6). pusa nasdar x arka sumeet had the high sca along with superior performance for fruit length and per fruit weight (table 6 & 7). for fr uit number per plant only the cr oss 50 varalakshmi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 v in e n um be r of fr ui t fr ui t n um be r fr ui t y ie ld / pa re nt s / h yb ri ds n ff d ff le ng th br an ch es / le ng th gi rt h of fr ui ts / w ei gh t pl an t (c m ) pl an t (c m ) (c m ) pl an t (g ) (k g) g a r g -1 5. 83 54 .3 0 33 5. 00 8. 00 28 .3 0 15 .9 7 3. 33 18 0. 80 0. 60 pu sa n ut an 3. 80 50 .4 0 18 0. 67 7. 67 27 .9 3 15 .2 7 3. 50 15 1. 27 0. 50 pu sa n as da r 10 .8 7 62 .1 0 30 8. 33 7. 00 27 .2 0 13 .2 7 3. 33 18 4. 37 0. 60 a rk a su m ee t 11 .0 0 58 .0 0 28 3. 00 9. 33 34 .8 0 15 .6 0 3. 43 26 7. 90 0. 90 a rk a su ja t 12 .3 3 73 .3 3 28 2. 67 9. 00 27 .3 3 14 .9 3 5. 27 18 3. 10 0. 97 ja ip ur l on g 6. 10 56 .8 3 29 4. 00 11 .0 0 23 .3 3 12 .4 0 6. 93 15 7. 07 1. 13 c o -1 13 .8 3 62 .5 0 32 2. 33 7. 00 28 .6 0 13 .2 0 5. 77 22 4. 53 1. 27 g a r g -1 × a rk a su m ee t 6. 37 49 .8 3 26 4. 67 5. 33 30 .6 0 15 .4 0 14 .4 0 14 9. 87 2. 10 g a r g -1 × a rk a su ja t 6. 17 53 .3 3 28 2. 67 7. 00 26 .8 7 14 .5 3 8. 17 16 5. 90 1. 33 g a r g -1 × j ai pu r l on g 7. 10 53 .6 7 34 9. 00 8. 33 27 .9 3 13 .0 7 11 .0 0 19 2. 70 2. 10 g a r g -1 × c o -1 6. 33 56 .6 0 28 5. 00 6. 33 30 .5 3 14 .5 3 11 .7 3 21 4. 73 2. 50 pu sa n ut an × a rk a su m ee t 5. 77 49 .1 0 23 3. 00 5. 00 32 .5 3 13 .2 7 9. 00 21 1. 07 1. 90 pu sa n ut an × a rk a su ja t 3. 23 43 .8 0 21 7. 00 6. 33 34 .7 3 13 .9 3 10 .2 3 17 6. 73 1. 80 pu sa n ut an × j ai pu r l on g 7. 60 52 .9 7 25 6. 67 7. 67 32 .3 3 14 .1 3 12 .2 7 17 1. 77 2. 10 pu sa n ut an × c o -1 7. 20 53 .0 7 18 3. 33 4. 00 32 .0 0 14 .1 3 9. 87 19 6. 73 1. 93 pu sa n as da r × a rk a su m ee t 7. 90 53 .6 0 25 1. 33 8. 33 36 .8 7 15 .0 7 5. 57 26 1. 77 1. 50 pu sa n as da r × a rk a su ja t 9. 60 58 .8 3 32 4. 33 6. 33 29 .9 3 14 .6 3 6. 07 21 8. 30 1. 30 pu sa n as da r × j ai pu r l on g 7. 53 56 .0 7 26 7. 00 7. 67 29 .7 3 15 .1 7 10 .5 0 18 6. 73 1. 97 pu sa n as da r × c o -1 9. 70 59 .8 3 28 2. 33 8. 33 31 .2 0 15 .7 3 8. 30 22 2. 30 1. 83 m ea n va lu e of p ar en ts 9. 11 59 .6 4 28 6. 57 8. 43 28 .2 1 14 .3 8 4. 51 19 2. 72 0. 85 m ea n va lu e of h yb ri ds 7. 04 53 .3 9 26 6. 36 6. 72 31 .2 7 14 .4 7 9. 76 19 7. 38 1. 86 s. e m + /1. 02 1. 93 40 .0 1 0. 90 2. 19 0. 92 0. 68 13 .4 1 0. 13 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 2. 92 5. 55 11 4. 75 2. 58 6. 28 2. 63 1. 94 38 .4 8 0. 37 n ot e: n ff : no de n um be r fo r fi rs t fe m al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff : da ys t ak en f or f irs t fe m al e fl ow er a pp ea ra nc e ta bl e 1. p er s e pe rf or m an ce o f pa re nt s, t he ir h yb ri ds f or y ie ld a nd r el at ed t ra its 51 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 heterosis and combining ability in ridge gourd ta bl e 2. m ea n su m o f sq ua re s fo r te n qu an tit at iv e ch ar ac te rs i n l × t a na ly si s in r id ge g ou rd   c ha ra ct er s r ep lic at io ns g en ot yp e c ro ss es pa re nt s pa re nt s v s l in es te st er s l x t e rr or c ro ss es   df 2 18 11 6 1 2 3 6 36 1 n ff 0. 56 23 .1 7* * 8. 94 ** 43 .6 7* * 56 .7 1* * 25 .1 3* * 3. 79 n s 6. 12 * 3. 10 2 d ff 21 .8 5 11 8. 45 ** 57 .8 3* * 16 3. 10 ** 51 7. 43 ** 16 2. 08 ** 56 .4 8* * 23 .7 6* 11 .2 3 3 v ei n le ng th ( cm ) 45 11 .9 1 65 04 .5 3n s 59 52 .1 5n s 76 98 .4 1n s 54 17 .4 3n s 17 90 9. 19 ** 36 29 .2 9n s 31 27 .9 0n s 48 01 .6 5 4 n um be r of b ra nc h 1. 91 7. 98 ** 6. 11 ** 6. 30 ** 38 .6 2* * 11 .0 3* * 5. 67 * 4. 69 * 2. 43 5 fr ui t l en gt h (c m ) 30 .4 8 32 .1 4* 22 .4 3n s 34 .6 2* 12 4. 04 ** 49 .9 6* * 19 .3 4n s 14 .8 0n s 14 .3 6 6 fr ui t g ir th (c m ) 6. 82 3. 16 n s 1. 98 n s 5. 82 * 0. 11 n s 5. 00 * 0. 76 n s 1. 59 n s 2. 53 7 fr ui t n um be r/ pl an t 0. 89 34 .2 1* * 19 .2 3* * 6. 49 ** 36 5. 40 ** 44 .5 0* * 14 .5 9* * 13 .1 2* * 1. 38 8 fr ui t w ei gh t ( g) 10 92 .4 3 33 68 .9 3* * 27 70 .7 3* * 49 79 .0 2* * 28 8. 54 n s 57 81 .8 7* * 17 72 .2 6* * 22 66 .2 4* * 53 9. 88 9 fr ui t w ei gh t/p la nt 0. 09 1. 06 ** 0. 36 ** 0. 26 ** 13 .5 7* * 0. 43 ** 0. 71 ** 0. 16 ** 0. 05 10 fr ui t y ie ld ( t/h a) 15 .2 2 18 5. 92 ** 65 .0 1* * 43 .4 2* * 23 70 .9 6* * 76 .3 0* * 12 6. 01 ** 30 .7 4* * 8. 47 n ot e: n ff : no de n um be r fo r fi rs t fe m al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff : da ys t ak en f or f ir st f em al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e 52 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 varalakshmi et al ta bl e 3. h et er ob el ti os is o f th e pr om is in g cr os se s in r id ge g ou rd v in e n um be r of fr ui t fr ui t n um be r of fr ui t y ie ld / fr ui t c ro ss n ff d ff le ng th br an ch es / le ng th gi rt h fr ui ts / w ei gh t pl an t yi el d (c m ) p la nt (c m ) (c m ) p la nt (g ) (k g) (t /h a) g a r g -1 × a rk a su m ee t -4 2. 12 ** -1 4. 08 ** -2 1 -4 2. 86 ** -1 2. 07 -3 .5 5 31 9. 42 ** -4 4. 06 ** 13 3. 33 ** 13 0. 06 ** g a r g -1 × a rk a su ja t -5 0* * -2 7. 27 ** -1 5. 62 -2 2. 22 * -5 .0 7 -8 .9 8 55 .0 6* * -9 .3 9 37 .9 3* 36 .8 8* g a r g -1 × j ai pu r l on g 16 .3 9 -5 .5 7 4. 18 -2 4. 24 ** -1 .3 -1 8. 16 ** 58 .6 5* * 6. 58 85 .2 9* * 91 .5 3* * g a r g -1 × c o -1 -5 4. 22 ** -9 .4 4* * -1 4. 93 -2 0. 83 6. 76 -8 .9 8 10 3. 47 ** -4 .3 7 97 .3 7* * 93 .0 5* * pu sa n ut an × a s um ee t -4 7. 58 ** -1 5. 35 ** -1 7. 67 -4 6. 43 ** -6 .5 1 -1 4. 96 * 15 7. 14 ** -2 1. 21 ** 11 1. 11 ** 10 7. 38 ** pu sa n ut an × a rk a su ja t -7 3. 78 ** -4 0. 27 ** -2 3. 23 -2 9. 63 ** 24 .3 4* * -8 .7 3 94 .3 ** -3 .4 8 86 .2 1* * 87 .5 3* * pu sa n ut an × j ai pu r l on g 24 .5 9 -6 .8 -1 2. 7 -3 0. 3* * 15 .7 5 -7 .4 2 76 .9 2* * 9. 36 85 .2 9* * 92 .9 1* * pu sa n ut an × c o 1 -4 7. 95 ** -1 5. 09 ** -4 3. 12 ** -4 7. 83 ** 11 .8 9 -7 .4 2 71 .1 ** -1 2. 38 52 .6 3* * 49 .8 1* * pu sa n as da r × a rk a su m ee t -2 8. 18 ** -1 3. 69 ** -1 8. 49 -1 0. 71 5. 94 -3 .4 2 62 .1 4* * -2 .2 9 66 .6 7* * 60 .6 6* * pu sa n as da r × a rk a su ja t -2 2. 16 * -1 9. 77 ** 5. 19 -2 9. 63 ** 9. 51 -2 .0 1 15 .1 9 18 .4 1* 34 .4 8* 37 .4 * pu sa n as da r × ja ip ur l on g -3 0. 68 ** -9 .7 2* * -1 3. 41 -3 0. 3* * 9. 31 14 .3 2 51 .4 4* * 1. 28 73 .5 3* * 79 .1 8* * pu sa n as da r × c o -1 -2 9. 88 ** -4 .2 7 -1 2. 41 19 .0 5 9. 09 18 .5 9* 43 .9 3* * -1 44 .7 4* * 42 .2 8* * n ot e: n ff : no de n um be r fo r fi rs t fe m al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff : da ys t ak en f or f irs t fe m al e fl ow er a pp ea ra nc e 53 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 heterosis and combining ability in ridge gourd ta bl e 4. s ta nd ar d he te ro si s of t he p ro m is in g cr os se s in r id ge g ou rd v in e n um be r of fr ui t fr ui t n um be r of fr ui t y ie ld / fr ui t c ro ss n ff d ff le ng th br an ch es / le ng th gi rt h fr ui ts / w ei gh t pl an t yi el d (c m ) p la nt (c m ) (c m ) p la nt (g ) (k g) (t /h a) g a r g -1 × a rk a su m ee t -4 2. 12 ** -1 4. 08 ** -6 .4 8 -4 2. 86 ** -1 2. 07 -1 .2 8 31 9. 42 ** -4 4. 06 ** 13 3. 33 ** 13 0. 06 ** g a r g -1 × a rk a su ja t -4 3. 94 ** -8 .0 5* -0 .1 2 -2 5* -2 2. 8* * -6 .8 4 13 7. 86 ** -3 8. 07 ** 48 .1 5* * 43 .9 9* * g a r g -1 × j ai pu r l on g -3 5. 46 ** -7 .4 7* 23 .3 2 -1 0. 71 -1 9. 73 ** -1 6. 24 * 22 0. 39 ** -2 8. 07 ** 13 3. 33 ** 12 8. 69 ** g a r g -1 × c o -1 -4 2. 42 ** -2 .4 1 0. 71 -3 2. 14 ** -1 2. 26 -6 .8 4 24 1. 75 ** -1 9. 85 ** 17 7. 78 ** 17 3. 22 ** pu sa n ut an × a s um ee t -4 7. 58 ** -1 5. 35 ** -1 7. 67 -4 6. 43 ** -6 .5 1 -1 4. 96 * 16 2. 14 ** -2 1. 21 ** 11 1. 11 ** 10 7. 38 ** pu sa n ut an × a rk a su ja t -7 0. 61 ** -2 4. 48 ** -2 3. 32 -3 2. 14 ** -0 .1 9 -1 0. 68 19 8. 06 ** -3 4. 03 ** 10 0* * 97 .2 7* * pu sa n ut an × j ai pu r l on g -3 0. 91 ** -8 .6 8* -9 .3 1 -1 7. 86 -7 .0 9 -9 .4 25 7. 28 ** -3 5. 88 ** 13 3. 33 ** 13 0. 33 ** pu sa n ut an × c o 1 -3 4. 55 ** -8 .5 1* -3 5. 22 * -5 7. 14 ** -8 .0 5 -9 .4 18 7. 38 ** -2 6. 57 ** 11 4. 82 ** 11 2. 02 ** pu sa n as da r × a rk a su m ee t -2 8. 18 ** -7 .5 9* -1 1. 19 -1 0. 71 5. 94 -3 .4 2 62 .1 4* * -2 .2 9 66 .6 7* * 60 .6 6* * pu sa n as da r × a rk a su ja t -1 2. 73 1. 44 14 .6 1 -3 2. 14 ** -1 3. 99 * -6 .2 76 .7 ** -1 8. 51 ** 44 .4 4* * 44 .5 4* * pu sa n as da r × ja ip ur l on g -3 1. 52 ** -3 .3 3 -5 .6 5 -1 7. 86 -1 4. 56 * -2 .7 8 20 5. 83 ** -3 0. 3* * 11 8. 52 ** 11 3. 93 ** pu sa n as da r × c o -1 -1 1. 82 3. 16 -0 .2 4 -1 0. 71 -1 0. 35 0. 86 14 1. 75 ** -1 7. 02 ** 10 3. 7* * 10 1. 37 ** n ot e: n ff : no de n um be r fo r fi rs t fe m al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff : da ys t ak en f or f irs t fe m al e fl ow er a pp ea ra nc e 54 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 varalakshmi et al ta bl e 5. e st im at es o f ge ne ra l co m bi ni ng a bi lit y ef fe ct s of s ev en p ar en ts f or 1 0 qu an tit at iv e ch ar ac te rs i n l × t a na ly si s v in e n um be r of fr ui t fr ui t n um be r of fr ui t y ie ld / fr ui t pa re nt s n ff d ff le ng th br an ch es / le ng th gi rt h fr ui ts / w ei gh t pl an t yi el d (c m ) p la nt (c m ) (c m ) p la nt (g ) (k g) (t /h a) l in es g a r g -1 -0 .5 5 -0 .0 3 28 .9 7* * 0. 03 -2 .2 9* * -0 .0 8 1. 57 ** -1 6. 58 ** 0. 14 1. 88 ** pu sa n ut an -1 .0 9* -3 .6 6* * -4 3. 86 ** -0 .9 7 1. 63 ** -0 .6 0 .5 8 -8 .3 1* * 0. 07 0 .9 9 pu sa n as da r 1. 64 ** 3. 69 ** 14 .8 9* * 0. 94 0. 66 0. 68 -2 .1 5* * 24 .8 9* * -0 .2 1 -2 .8 7* * se m ± 0. 51 0. 97 20 .0 0 0. 45 1. 09 0. 46 0 .3 4 6. 71 0. 06 0 .8 4 te st er s a rk a su m ee t -0 .3 6 -2 .5 5* * -1 6. 69 ** -0 .5 2. 06 ** 0. 11 -0 .1 10 .1 8* * -0 .0 3 0. 52 a rk a su ja t -0 .7 1 -1 .4 0* 8. 31 ** -0 .1 7 -0 .7 6 -0 .1 -1 .6 ** -1 0. 41 ** -0 .3 9 -5 .0 9* * ja ip ur l on g 0. 37 0. 84 24 .5 3* * 1. 17 -1 .2 7* -0 .3 4 1. 5* -1 3. 65 ** 0. 19 2. 53 ** c o -1 0. 70 3. 11 ** -1 6. 14 ** -0 .5 -0 .0 3 0. 33 0. 21 13 .8 7* * 0. 23 3. 08 ** se m ± 0 .5 9 1. 12 23 .1 0 0. 52 1. 26 0. 53 0. 39 7 .7 5 0. 07 0. 97 n ot e: n ff : no de n um be r fo r fi rs t fe m al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff : da ys t ak en f or f irs t fe m al e fl ow er a pp ea ra nc e 55 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 heterosis and combining ability in ridge gourd ta bl e 6. e st im at es o f sp ec ifi c co m bi ni ng a bi lit y ef fe ct s of 1 2 cr os se s fo r 10 q ua nt ita tiv e ch ar ac te rs i n l × t a na ly si s v in e n um be r of fr ui t fr ui t n um be r of fr ui t y ie ld / fr ui t c ro ss n ff d ff le ng th br an ch es / le ng th gi rt h fr ui ts / w ei gh t pl an t yi el d (c m ) p la nt (c m ) (c m ) p la nt (g ) (k g) (t /h a) g a r g -1 × a rk a su m ee t 0. 24 -0 .9 8 -1 3. 97 ** -0 .9 2 -0 .4 4 0. 91 3. 18 ** -4 1. 12 ** 0. 12 1. 87 g a r g -1 × a rk a su ja t 0. 38 1. 38 -2 0. 97 ** 0. 42 -1 .3 6 0. 25 -1 .5 6 -4 .4 9* * -0 .2 9 -4 .0 6* * g a r g -1 × j ai pu r l on g 0. 24 -0 .5 3 29 .1 4* * 0. 42 0. 22 -0 .9 7 -1 .8 2 25 .5 5* * -0 .1 -1 .3 4 g a r g -1 × c o -1 -0 .8 6 0. 13 5. 81 ** 0. 08 1. 58 -0 .1 8 0. 2 20 .0 6* * 0. 27 3. 54 ** pu sa n ut an × a s um ee t 0. 18 1. 91 27 .1 9* * -0 .2 5 -2 .4 3* -0 .7 1 -1 .2 4 11 .8 1* * 0 -0 .0 1 pu sa n ut an × a rk a su ja t -2 .0 1 -4 .5 3* * -1 3. 81 ** 0. 75 2. 59 * 0. 17 1. 49 -1 .9 4 0. 25 3. 32 ** pu sa n ut an × j ai pu r l on g 1. 28 2. 39 * 9. 64 ** 0. 75 0. 71 0. 61 0. 43 -3 .6 6* * -0 .0 3 -0 .2 6 pu sa n ut an × c o 1 0. 55 0. 23 -2 3. 03 ** -1 .2 5 -0 .8 7 -0 .0 7 -0 .6 8 -6 .2 1* * -0 .2 3 -3 .0 5* * pu sa n as da r × a rk a su m ee t -0 .4 2 -0 .9 4 -1 3. 22 ** 1. 17 2. 87 ** -0 .1 9 -1 .9 4 29 .3 1* * -0 .1 2 -1 .8 6 pu sa n as da r × a rk a su ja t 1. 63 3. 15 ** 34 .7 8* * -1 .1 7 -1 .2 4 -0 .4 2 0. 06 6. 43 ** 0. 04 0. 74 pu sa n as da r × ja ip ur l on g -1 .5 2 -1 .8 6 -3 8. 78 ** -1 .1 7 -0 .9 3 0. 36 1. 39 -2 1. 89 ** 0. 13 1. 6 pu sa n as da r × c o -1 0. 31 -0 .3 6 17 .2 2* * 1. 17 -0 .7 1 0. 25 0. 48 -1 3. 85 ** -0 .0 4 -0 .4 9 se m ± 1. 02 1. 93 40 .0 1 0. 90 2. 19 0. 92 0. 68 13 .4 1 0. 13 1. 68 n ot e: n ff : no de n um be r fo r fi rs t fe m al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e, d ff : da ys t ak en f or f ir st f em al e flo w er a pp ea ra nc e 56 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 varalakshmi et al ta bl e 7. b es t cr os se s ba se d on s c a e ff ec ts a nd p er s e pe rf or m an ce i n ri dg e go ur d   c ro ss sc a pe r se p er fo rm an ce ( m ea n) d ay s to f lo w er in g pu sa n ut an × a rk a su ja t -4 .5 3* * 43 .8 0 v ei n le ng th ( cm ) g a r g -1 × j ai pu r l on g 29 .1 4* * 34 9. 00 pu sa n as da r × a rk a su ja t 34 .7 8* * 32 4. 33 g a r g -1 × c o -1 5. 81 ** 28 5. 00 fr ui t l en gt h (c m ) pu sa n as da r × a rk a su m ee t 2. 87 ** 36 .8 7 pu sa n ut an × a rk a su ja t 2. 59 * 34 .7 3 fr ui t n um be r/ pl an t g a r g -1 × a rk a su m ee t 3. 18 ** 14 .4 0 fr ui t w ei gh t ( g) pu sa n as da r × a rk a su m ee t 29 .3 1* * 26 1. 77 g a r g -1 × c o -1 20 .0 6* * 21 4. 73 pu sa n ut an × a s um ee t 11 .8 1* * 21 1. 07 g a r g -1 × j ai pu r l on g 25 .5 5* * 19 2. 70 fr ui t y ie ld ( t/h a) g a r g -1 × c o -1 3. 54 ** 33 .3 3 pu sa n ut an × a rk a su ja t 3. 32 ** 24 .0 7 57 (ms received 19 march 2019, revised 18 june 2019, accepted 25 june 2019) j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 48-57, 2019 heterosis and combining ability in ridge gourd g ar g 1 x c o 1 ha d high s c a a long wit h superior performance for the yield (t/ha). these crosses can be directly utilized for improvement of t hes e c ha r a c ter s t hr ough t he exp loita t ion of heterosis or can be exploited for the development of bett er t r a nsgr ess ive s egr ega nt s , sinc e the parents pusa nutan, garg-1, jaipur long and co-1 involved in these crosses also exhibited high g c a. s imil a r r es u lt s wer e r e p or t ed b y narasannavar et al (2014b), niyaria and bhalala (2001), mole et al (2001), sarkar et al (2015), lodam et al (2009) and tyagi et al (2010). references kantharaj, n. m., 2003, studies on heterosis and combining a bility in r idge gour d (luffa acutangula (roxb. ) l. ). m. sc. (hort. ) thesis, univ. agr ic. sci. , dha r wa d (india).­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ kempthorne, o., 1957, an introduction to genetic statistics. john wiley and sons., inc., new york, 458-471. kumar, s., singh, s.p. and jaiswal, r. c., 1999. heterosis over mid and top parent under the line x tester fashion in bottle gourd (lagenaria siceraria (molina) standl.). vegetable science 26(1): 30-32. lodam, v.a., desai, d.t., khandelwal, v. and patil, p.p. 2009. combining ability analysis in ridge gourd (luffa acutangula l.). vegetable science 36(1): 113-115 mole, t. j. , nir ma la devi s. , ra ja n, s. a nd sadha nkuma r, p. g. , 2001. heter osis and combining a bility in r idge gour d (luffa acutangula roxb.). vegetable science 28(2): 165-167 narasannavar, a. r., gasti, v. d., shantappa, t., mulge, r., allolli, t. b. and thammaiah, n., 2014. heterosis studies in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.]. karnataka journal of agricultural sciences, 27 (1): 47-51 narasannavar, a., gasti, v. d., sridhar, sheela malghan, & kumara b. r. 2014. gene action and combining ability analysis for yield and yield-related traits in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.]. global journal of science frontier research (d). 14 (10) version 1, online issn: 2249-4626 & print issn: 0975-5896 (page 21-26). niyaria, r. and bhalala, m. k. 2001. heterosis and combining ability in ridge gourd. indian j. plant genet. resour. 14: 101-102. sarkar, m., dinesh kumar singh, mani lohani, abhijit kuma r da s a nd sa nka lpa ojha , 2015. exploitation of heterosis and combining ability for earliness and vegetative traits in ridge gour d [luffa acutangula (roxb. ) l. ]. international journal of agriculture, environment and biotechnology . 8 (1): 153161 tyagi, s. v. s., pankaj sharma, siddiqui, s. a. and khandelwal, r. c., 2010. combining ability for yield a nd fr uit qua lity in luffa. international journal of vegetable science 16:3, 267-277 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) is one of the most popular vegetables grown all over the world. it is a rich source of minerals, vitamins and organic acids and is universally treated as “protective food”. for realizing higher yields and quality produce, soil health is a critical factor. therefore, chemical fertilizers must be integrated with organic manures such as, fym, crop residues and green manures which are renewable and eco friendly to achieve sustainable productivity with minimum deleterious effects of chemical fertilizers on soil health and environment. the yield per unit area can be increased along with the improvement of its quality through the balanced application of organic and inorganic fertilizers in proper combination. therefore the present investigation was undertaken to find out the optimum dose and best combination of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers for obtaining higher yield of tomato. the field experiment was conducted at the vegetable experimental farm of the division of olericulture, sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir, shalimar during kharif 2002 and 2003.the climate at the experimental site is temperate characterized by mild summers and very cold winters. the soil is clay loam having organic carbon (1.724%), ph (7.0), available n (228.0 kg/ ha), available p effect of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers on fruit yield of tomato s. narayan, n. ahmed, r. narayan, shahnaz mufti and rakshanda bhat division of olericulture s. k. university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir shalimar, srinagar-191 121 (j&k), india abstract treatments with organic manure, inorganic fertilizers and their combinations showed significant differences for fruit yield and yield attributing traits. among the treatments, application of 20 t fym/ ha along with full dose of recommended npk i.e. 150:60:60 kg npk / ha recorded the highest fruit yield of 428.32 and 530.55 q/ ha during the year 2002 and 2003, respectively with grand mean fruit yield of 479.43 q/ ha. this treatment was on par with 40 tonnes fym + ½ dose of recommended npk during 2002 and 2003, which recorded mean fruit yield of 456.17 q/ ha. both these treatments were significantly superior to recommended inorganic npk fertilizer treatment (435.57 q/ ha) as well as to application of different doses of organic manure alone such as fym and green manure, indicating that integration of both organic manures and inorganic fertilizers are important for obtaining higher fruit yield in tomato. addition of organic manure besides having favourable effect on crop yield was also found to be better in maintaining soil health and growth of succeeding crop. key words: fruit yield, inorganic fertilizers, organic manures, tomato short communication (20.67 kg/ ha), available k (156.8 kg/ ha) and electric conductivity (0.16 dsm-1). the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications at a spacing of 60 x 30cm. nine treatments of organic manures, inorganic fertilizers and their combinations i.e. fym 40t / ha, fym 20t / ha, green manures with cowpea @ 5t / ha, recommended npk (150:60:60kg / ha), ½ recommended npk, fym 40t / ha + ½ recommended npk, fym 20t / ha + ½ recommended npk, fym 20t / ha + full recommended npk and green manuring + ½ recommended npk were tried on tomato cv. shalimar –ii. the data on growth and yield were recorded from 10 randomly selected plants of each treatment and data analyzed statistically as per standard procedures. treatments exhibited significant differences for fruit yield and yield attributing traits. among the treatments, application of 20t fym along with full dose of recommended npk (150:60:60 kg/ ha) recorded the highest fruit yield of 428.32 and 530.55 q/ ha during the year 2002 and 2003, respectively with the grand mean fruit yield of 479.43q / ha. this treatment was at par with 40t fym + ½ dose of recommended npk during 2002 and 2003 which recorded mean fruit yield of 456.17q / ha. both these treatments were significantly superior to recommended inorganic npk fertilizer treatment (435.57q / ha) as well j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 72-74, 2008 page 72 73 t ab le 1 . r es p on se o f or ga n ic m an u re s v/ s in or ga n ic f er ti li ze rs o n f ru it y ie ld o f to m at o cv . s h al im ar -i i s .n o t re at m en ts p la n t h ei g h t( cm ) n o . o f fr u it s/ p la n t a v. f ru it w ei g h t (g ) y ie ld ( q / h a) t .s .s 0 b ri x 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 m ea n 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 m ea n 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 m ea n 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 m ea n 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 m ea n 0 2 0 3 0 2 0 3 0 2 0 3 0 2 0 3 0 2 0 3 1 . a p p li ca ti o n 3 8 .4 0 3 7 .8 0 3 8 .1 0 2 1 .1 3 1 8 .1 0 1 9 .6 1 3 0 .1 1 3 9 .5 9 3 4 .8 5 3 5 3 .3 5 3 9 8 .1 4 3 7 5 .7 4 4 .1 7 3 .6 6 3 .9 1 o f f y m @ 4 0 t h a1 2 . a p p li ca ti o n 3 7 .4 0 3 4 .0 6 3 5 .7 3 1 9 .9 3 1 0 .8 7 1 5 .4 0 2 9 .1 6 5 3 .0 5 4 1 .1 0 3 2 2 .8 0 3 2 0 .3 7 3 2 1 .5 8 4 .1 7 3 .6 6 3 .9 1 o f f y m @ 2 0 t h a1 3 . g re en m an u ri n g 3 8 .3 7 3 6 .9 3 3 7 .6 5 1 9 .4 7 1 6 .8 7 1 8 .1 7 3 1 .7 1 3 8 .5 3 3 5 .1 2 3 4 2 .9 3 3 6 1 .1 1 3 5 2 .0 2 4 .3 3 4 .0 0 4 .1 6 4 . a p p li ca ti o n 4 1 .2 0 4 7 .4 6 4 4 .3 3 2 1 .4 0 2 0 .2 7 2 0 .8 3 3 3 .8 8 4 1 .6 0 3 7 .7 4 4 0 2 .6 3 4 6 8 .5 2 4 3 5 .5 7 4 .3 3 4 .3 3 4 .3 3 o f r f d n p k (1 5 0 :6 0 :6 0 ) h a1 5 . a p p li ca ti o n 3 9 .2 7 4 0 .3 3 3 9 .8 0 1 8 .9 3 1 4 .1 3 1 6 .5 3 3 0 .0 4 3 6 .3 3 3 3 .1 8 3 1 5 .8 6 2 8 5 .1 8 3 1 8 .5 2 4 .1 7 3 .6 6 3 .9 1 o f ½ r f d n p k 6 . a p p li ca ti o n o f 3 9 .5 3 4 0 .8 0 4 0 .1 6 2 2 .4 0 2 2 .6 7 2 2 .5 3 3 4 .0 4 3 8 .8 2 3 6 .4 3 4 2 3 .4 6 4 8 8 .8 8 4 5 6 .1 7 4 .0 0 4 .0 0 4 .0 0 f y m @ 4 0 t h a1 + ½ r f d o f n p k 7 . a p p li ca ti o n o f 3 9 .0 3 4 0 .0 0 3 9 .5 1 2 1 .2 7 1 9 .4 0 2 0 .3 3 3 2 .1 5 3 8 .3 2 3 5 .2 3 3 7 9 .7 3 4 1 2 .9 6 3 9 6 .3 4 4 .3 3 3 .3 3 3 .8 3 f y m @ 2 0 t h a1 + ½ ½ r f d o f n p k 8 . a p p li ca ti o n o f 4 3 .2 7 5 0 .8 6 4 7 .0 6 2 4 .0 0 2 3 .8 7 2 3 .9 3 3 2 .1 3 4 0 .0 1 3 6 .0 7 4 2 8 .3 2 5 3 0 .5 5 4 7 9 .4 3 4 .1 7 3 .3 3 3 .7 5 f y m @ 2 0 t h a1 + fu ll r f d o f n p k 9 . g re en m an u ri n g + 4 0 .2 0 4 4 .4 6 4 2 .3 3 2 1 .0 0 1 7 .3 3 1 9 .1 6 3 0 .1 8 4 3 .2 8 3 6 .7 3 3 5 1 .9 6 4 1 6 .6 6 3 8 4 .3 1 4 .1 7 3 .3 3 3 .7 5 ap p li ca ti o n o f ½ r f d o f n p k c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 0 .8 5 1 n s 0 .8 5 2 .0 2 2 .0 7 2 .0 4 1 .7 6 2 .3 7 2 .0 6 3 7 .4 9 3 7 .1 4 3 7 .3 1 0 .3 3 0 .4 7 0 .4 0 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 72-74, 2008 effect of sources of nutrients on yield of tomato 74 as to application of different doses of organic manures i.e. fym or green manure, indicating that integration of both organic manures and inorganic fertilizers is important for obtaining higher yield in tomato. the results are in line with the findings of abusaleha and shanmugavelu (1998) in bhindi, and malewar et al (1998) in chillies. organic manures when applied with inorganic fertilizers increases the effectiveness of inorganic manures (robert and stephen, 1953). similarly maximum number of fruits per plant and plant height were recorded with the application of 20t fym / ha and full recommended dose of npk followed by 40t fym / ha and ½ recommended dose of npk. it is obvious that organic form in combination with inorganic form proved better in increasing the number of fruits / plant, plant height and average fruit weight. this could be attributed to a higher c/n ratio and increased plant metabolism. these results are in conformity with abusaleha and shanmugavelu (1988) in bhindi and mellengouda et al (1995) in chillies. the increased vegetative growth and balanced c/n ratio could lead to increased synthesis of carbohydrates which ultimately promoted greater yield. the highest value of total soluble solids in tomato fruit (4.330 b) was observed with the treatment combination of 20t fym / ha + ½ recommended dose of npk during the year 2002, whereas during the year 2003, maximum of 4.330 b was found with the application of recommended npk i.e. 150:60:60 kg npk /ha. these results are in agreement with the earlier findings of mohd rafi et al (2002). from the present study it can be inferred that the application of 20t fym / ha along with full dose of recommended npk (150:60:60 kg / ha) produce higher yields. therefore, the results show that the combination of organic manure and inorganic fertilizers helps to improve yield of tomato. references abusaleha and shanmugavelu, k. g. 1988. studies on the effect of organic v/s inorganic source of nitrogen on growth, yield and quality of okra (abelmoschus esculentus). ind. j. hortl., 45: 312-318. malewar, g. u., ismail, s. and rudraksha, g. b. 1998. integrated nitrogen management in chilli (capsicum annum l.). bull. ind. instt. soil sci., 2: 156-163. mallengouda, b., sulikeri, g. s., murthy, b. g. and prathiba, n. c. 1995. effect of npk, fym and companion crops on growth, yield and yield components of chilli (capsicum annum l.). adv. agril. res. india., 3: 5859. mohd rafi., narwadkar, p. r., prabu, t. and sajindranath, a. k. 2002. effect of organic and i n o r g a n i c fertilizers on growth and yield of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). south ind. hortl., 50: 522-526. robert, a. n. and stephen, r. e. 1953. saw dust and other wood waste as mulch for horticultural crops. tech. pap. orc. agri. expt. stat., 276, pp.8. (ms received 5 february 2007, revised 7 december 2007) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 72-74, 2008 narayan et al ginger (zingiber officinale rose) and coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) are important crops in indian farming. root-knot nematodes, meloidogyne spp., infest several agricultural and horticultural crops all over the world. the estimated overall annual yield loss in the world’s major crops to damage by plant parasitic nematodes is reported to be 12.3% (sasser and freckman, 1987). various species of meloidogyne attack nearly every crop sown where, not only are yields greatly affected but quality is also compromised (sasser, 1980). nematode infestation is one of the most important factors contributing to low productivity of crops (dabur and nandal, 2009). root-knot nematode was observed on the local ginger crop in the field, of mr. manjeet of gharana village located at 300m amsl, and on coriander (cv. khushbu) from the experimental field of chatha farm, located at 296m amsl of jammu district of jammu and kashmir. symptoms included root galling, leaf chlorosis and stunting. on uprooting these plants, numerous, small to very big sized galls/knots were noticed on the roots, resulting in a very poorly developed root system. specific identity of the nematode was determined by the perineal pattern of the females (goodey, 1963). the galled root system from affected plants was washed in water and immersed in a beaker containing boiling 0.1% cotton blue and left overnight for clearing. female nematodes were teased out from the galls and transferred to a drop of lactophenol taken on a clean glass slide. the posterior portion of the females was carefully cut with a sharp razor blade and the body contents were cleaned. the perineal pattern first report of meloidogyne javanica on ginger and meloidogyne incognita on coriander in jammu and kashmir (india) v.k. singh and r.k. gupta* division of plant pathology, s.k. university of agricultural sciences and technology dhiansar 181133, jammu, india e-mail: virendra_singh16@yahoo.com abstract heavy infestation of root-knot nematode was observed on ginger and coriander grown in gharana village and skuast-j chattha farm of jammu district of jammu and kashmir state. identification of the species revealed that this is the first observed occurrence of meloidogyne javanica on ginger and m. incognita on coriander from jammu and kashmir. key words: root-knot nematode, meloidogyne javanica, meloidogyne incognita, coriander, ginger of the females was trimmed and mounted for observation as per taylor et al (1955). for each observation, ten slides containing the perineal pattern were prepared. stylet length, head shape and length of the juvenile nematode were recorded. meloidogyne javanica: female body pear-shaped, without posterior protuberance. perineal pattern rounded, with distinct lateral lines. stylet length ranging from 14.5 to 18.2 µm; knobs ovoid and offset; male head not offset from the body, head cap rounded and set off, usually labial disc not elevated and lateral lips not present; second stage juvenile body 403.5 to 565.6 µm long; tail slender, 48.3 to 61.5 µm in length; hyaline tail part 10.2 to 20.1µm long and tail-tip finely rounded. meloidogyne incognita: female body pear-shaped, without posterior protuberance; perineal pattern usually with relatively high dorsal arch and without lateral lines; stylet ranging in length from 15.3 to 17.1 µm, knobs rounded and offset; male head not offset from the body; head cap with elevated labial disc, usually without lateral lips, head region often with incomplete head annulations; second stage juveniles’ body 352.5 to 452.2 µm long; tail slender, 44.5 to 66.2 µm in length, hyaline tail part 7.1 to 15.2 µm long, anterior regions clearly delimitated, tail-tip rounded. identification of the species was made by comparing characteristics observed in the perineal region with description given by eisenback et a, (1980). thus, based on *division of vegetable science and floriculture short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):74-75, 2011 75 the perineal pattern, stylet length, head shape, and juvenile length studies, the said root-knot nematode species were identified as meloidogyne javanica and. meloidogyne incognita. to our knowledge, this is the first report of m. javanica on ginger and m. incognita on coriander in jammu and kashmir (india). references chitwood, b.g. 1949. root-knot nematode part 1. a revision of the genus meloidogyne goeldi, 1887. proc. helm. soc. wash., 16:90-104 dabur, k.r. and nandal, s.n. 2009.assessment of yield losses due to phytonematodes in india. ind. j. nematol., 39:237 eisenback, j.d., hirshchmann, h. and triantaphyllon, a.c. 1980. morphological comparison of meloidogyne female head structures, perineal patterns and stylets. j. nematol., 12:300-313 goodey, j.b. 1963. laboratory methods for work with soil and plant nematodes. technical bulletin, ministry of agriculture, london, p. 72 jain, r.k., mathur, k.n. and singh, r.v. 2007. estimation of losses due to plant parasitic nematodes on different crops in india. ind. j. nematol., 37:219221 sasser, j.n. 1980. root-knot nematodes: a global menace to crop production. pl. dis., 64:38-41 sasser, j.n. and freckman, d.w. 1987. a world perspective of nematology. the role of society. in: vistas on nematology (veech, j.a. and diskson, d.w. eds.), published. by society of nematologists, u.s.a., pp. 7-14 taylor, a.h., dropkin, v.h. and martin, g.c. 1955. perineal patterns of root-knot nematodes. phytopath., 45: 26-34 fig 1. root-knot nematode infested ginger fig 2. root-knot nematode infested coriander plant roots (ms received 04 august 2010, revised 10 may 2011) meloidogyne spp. on ginger and coriander in j&k j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):74-75, 2011 gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.), of the family asteraceae, is one of the important cut-flowers grown for domestic and export markets. total area under floriculture in india is 255,000 ha, of which cut-flower production stands at 543,000 mt. gerbera is grown under 820 ha with productivity of 17,500 t/ha, amounting to the fourth most important cut-flower in india. demand for gerbera is great, particularly in european markets during the winter season, and almost around the year in india. in view of the importance of the crop, two novel hybrids of gerbera, iihr 3-34 and iihr 8-45 (along with their parents and the check variety) were evaluated for flower quality traits under naturally-ventilated polyhouse. for developing novel gerbera hybrids, hybridization was carried out during the year 2011-12 using the half-sib method of breeding where superior lines, iihr-3 and iihr1, were crossed with pollen mixed from different varieties. during the year 2012-13, f1 hybrids seeds obtained from theses crosses were germinated in vitro on suitable media. during 2013-14, a large number of plants were obtained through tissue culture to initially evaluate for novel traits and flower quality. two hybrids, iihr 3-34 and iihr 8-45, were selected on this basis. both the hybrids, along with their parents and the check variety elite, were evaluated in evaluation of novel gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) hybrids for flower quality traits under naturally-ventilated polyhouse c. aswath*, rajiv kumar, t. manjunatha rao and m.v. dhananjaya division of ornamental crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *e-mail: aswath@iihr.res.in abstract the present study was carried out to evaluate performance of two gerbera hybrids iihr 3-34 and iihr 8-45 along with their parents and check, for flower quality traits under naturally-ventilated polyhouse in randomized block design, in the years 2014-15 and 2015-16. both the hybrids had been developed through the half-sib method of breeding with iihr-3 and iihr-1, respectively, as parents. data for the two years were pooled and analyzed statistically. significant differences were observed in the quality traits studied. in the case of both hybrids iihr 3-34 and iihr 8-45, most of the quantitative traits were found to be on par with the check variety, elite. they had novel flower colour (68d as per rhs colour chart), red purple group (iihr 3-34) and 50a red group (iihr 8-45), with double type of flowers. these are suitable for cut-flower and flower arrangement purposes. these hybrids will prove useful for developing more gerbera hybrids with novel traits. key words: gerbera, evaluation, novel hybrids, cut-flower, polyhouse j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):88-89, 2016 short communication replicated trial under naturally-ventilated polyhouse for two consecutive years 2014-15 and 2015-16. observations were recorded on flower diameter (cm), flower-stalk length (cm), flower-stalk diameter (mm), number of flowers/ month, vase life (days), damage from thrips (% flowers damaged), white fly (fly number on the 3rd leaf), damage from mites (number/ leaf), and rhs colour chart. data for both the years were pooled and analyzed statistically. data presented in table 1 shows that hybrid/ genotype showed significant variation in flower quality traits in iihr 3-34. it recorded flower diameter of 10.85cm, which was on par with the check variety, elite (10.91cm); flower-stalk length (61.06cm) which was significantly higher than the check variety, elite, or the parent; flower-stalk diameter (6.42mm) and number of flowers/ month (3.23) recorded were on par with the check variety, elite. however, data on vase life, damage from thrips, white fly and mites was on par with the parent and the check variety. hybrid iihr 334 recorded novel flower colour (rhs colour chart) 68d, red purple group, with double type of flowers. earlier, rajiv kumar (2013) evaluated 10 gerbera genotypes for flower quality traits under naturally-ventilated polyhouse and found that genotypes ‘kyllian’ and ‘vilassar’ were suitable for cut-flower purpose under bangalore conditions. 89 aswath et al (1997) also studied genetic divergence in gerbera and found wide variation among genotypes. data presented in table 2 indicates that hybrid iihr 8-45 also showed significant variation in flower quality traits. this hybrid recorded flower diameter of 10.43cm, which was on par with its parent and the check variety, elite; flower-stalk length (61.11cm) was significantly higher than in the check variety, and the parent (iihr-1); flowerstalk diameter (5.63mm) was significantly higher than in the parent; and, number of flowers/ month (2.89) recorded was on par with the check variety. however, data on vase life, damage from thrips, white fly and mites was on par with the parent and check. hybrid 8-45 recorded novel flower colour (rhs colour chart) 50a red group, with double type of flowers. aswath and rao (2006), chobe et al (2010) and patil and kulkarni (2015) also studied performance of nine gerbera cultivars under naturallyventilated polyhouse and concluded that the genotypes ‘sunway’ and ‘blessing’ were promising for flower quality traits. patil and kulkarni (2015) also studied performance of nine gerbera cultivars under naturally-ventilated polyhouse. on the basis of two years of evaluation under naturally-ventilated polyhouse, gerbera hybrids iihr 3-34 and iihr 8-45 were found to be promising for novel flower colour and flower quality traits. references aswath, c. and rao, t.m. 2006. breeding of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) lines suitable for open field cultivation. j. ornam. hort., 8(4):260-263 aswath, c., parthasarathy, v.a. and bhowmik, g. 1997. genetic divergence in gerbera. j. maharashtra agri. univ., 22:61-63 chobe, r.r., pachankar, p.b. and warade, s.d. 2010. performance of different cultivars of gerbera under polyhouse condition. asian j. hort., 5(2):333-335 kumar, r. and deka, b.c. 2012. evaluation of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) for vegetative and flowering character sunder cost effective polyhouse. prog. agric., 12(1):180-185 kumar, r., deka, b.c., war, m. and venugopalan, r. 2012. response of exotic gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) under low cost polyhouse and shade net house in subtropical mid hills of meghalaya. indian j. agril. sci., 82(6):543–547 patil, s.r. and kulkarni, b.s. 2015. performance of gerbera cultivars under naturally ventilated polyhouse. acta hort., 1104:63-66 rajiv kumar. 2013. evaluation of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) genotypes for flower quality traits under naturally ventilated polyhouse. asian j. hort., 8(2):680-682 table 1. evaluation of gerbera hybrid iihr 3-34 for flower quality traits under polyhouse hybrid/ genotype flower flower-stalk flower-stalk no. of vase life damage white fly mite rhs diameter length diameter flowers/ (days) from thrips (nos. on damage colour (cm) (cm) (mm) month (% flower 3rd leaf) (no./ leaf) chart damaged) iihr 3-34 10.85 61.06 6.42 3.23 7.30 17.75 7.15 5.35 68d, red purple group iihr-3 (parent) 11.41 49.75 6.74 2.83 7.05 17.05 7.30 5.67 52a, red group elite (check) 10.91 60.38 6.62 2.96 7.47 18.85 7.40 5.27 24a, orange group sem± 0.18 1.85 0.04 0.12 cd (p=0.05) 0.55 5.55 0.16 0.36 ns ns ns ns table 2. evaluation of gerbera hybrid iihr 8-45 for flower quality traits under polyhouse hybrid/ genotype flower flower-stalk flower-stalk no. of vase life damage white fly mite rhs diameter length diameter flowers/ (days) from thrips (nos. on damage colour (cm) (cm) (mm) month (% flower 3rd leaf) (no./ leaf) chart damaged) iihr 8-45 10.43 61.11 5.63 2.89 7.15 17.89 7.31 5.15 50a red group iihr-1 (parent) 10.25 51.98 4.69 2.49 7.00 17.62 7.42 5.35 30a, orange red elite (check) 10.91 61.38 6.63 2.96 7.25 18.85 7.41 5.25 24a, orange group sem± 0.93 0.06 0.14 cd (p=0.05) ns 2.79 0.18 0.39 ns ns ns ns evaluation of novel gerbera hybrids for quality j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):88-89, 2016 (ms received 02 april 2016, revised 22 may 2016, accepted 01 june 2016) analysis of variability for qualitative and quantitative traits in coleus forskohlii briq. c. kavitha, e. vadivel1, k. rajamani and c. thangamani horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641 003, india e-mail: ckavi_2k@yahoo.com abstract thirty seven coleus forskohlii genotypes collected from different regions of tamil nadu and karnataka were subjected to diversity analysis based on nbpgr descriptors. eleven qualitative and fourteen quantitative traits of c. forskohlii were evaluated to assess the morphological variations available among the collected genotypes. for qualitative traits, a large number of genotypes out of 37 clustered together at 74 % similarity in four different groups. the dendrogram contract based on fourteen quantitative traits for the same set of genotypes did not reveal a clear pattern in grouping and the genotypes were grouped into ten different clusters. cluster analysis of various sets of data revealed different groups of genotypes for each of the data set. a poor congruence observed among data sets of qualitative and quantitative traits in the comparison indicated that the morphological traits are not suitable for precise discrimination of closely related genotypes in c. forskohlii. key words: coleus forskohlii, morphological traits, cluster analysis 1 directorate of extension education, tnau, coimbatore – 641 003 introduction coleus forskohlii briq is a root medicinal crop recorded in ancient ayurvedic materia medica under the sanskrit name ‘makandi’ and ‘mayani” (shah, 1996). it belongs to the mint family of plants, lamiaceae. in ayurveda, the tuberous roots of coleus are used as drug for heart diseases, abdominal colic, respiratory disorder, insomnia and convulsions (ammon and muller, 1985). the roots of the plant are a natural source of forskolin, a labdane diterpenoid that increases cellular levels of cyclic adenosine mono-phosphate (camp) thereby influencing several aspects of metabolism.the therapeutic properties of forskolin contributed to the emergence of c. forskohlii as a taxon of importance in modern medicine. the exclusive presence of forskolin and the current recognition of its status as a unique plant species with high medicinal importance internationally, render a high profile for this particular crop. in this indigenous medicinal plant, knowledge on genetic variability within species will greatly help in direct exploitation of variability as cultivars and indirectly as base materials for various breeding programmes. material and methods thirty seven genotypes collected from different regions of tamil nadu (17 genotypes) and karnataka (20 genotypes) were grown in the field in a randomized block design with two replications at the botanical garden, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. the diversity in terms of morphological variations among the collected genotypes was documented following singh et al (2003). observations were taken on five randomly selected plants from each genotype for qualitative and quantitative traits. qualitative traits that depict an array of characters were converted into binary characters (sneath and sokal, 1973) based on the variations present in each trait. the presence or absence of phenotypes was given the score of 1 and 0, receptively. the quantitative data gathered on different traits were standardized to zero mean and a unit variance. sequential agglomerative hierarchical nonoverlapping (sahn) clustering was performed on squared euclidean distance matrix and similarity matrix using dice coefficient for quantitative and binary data respectively utilizing the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (upgma) method. analysis of data was done using ntsyspc version 2.02 (rohlf, 1994). results and discussion observations for eleven qualitative traits from five randomly selected plants of 37 different c. forskohlii genotypes indicated that two traits viz., plant habit and lamina margin did not show any difference between genotypes. the distribution of 37 genotypes based on their phenotype variants for qualitative traits observed is furnished in table 1. for qualitative traits, a large number of genotypes clustered together at 74% similarity in four different groups (fig 1). the extent of genetic diversity assessed based on these eleven qualitative traits with the minimum set of nbpgr descriptors of c. forskohlii revealed no satisfactory measures of diversity. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 44-46, 2007 table 1. number of phenotype variants observed for various qualitative traits across 37 coleus forskohlii genotypes character score phenotype no. of genotypes plant habit 1 annual stem 37 with perennial rootstock 2 biennial 3 perennial mode of reproduction 1 asexual 19 2 sexual 18 plant growth habit 1 erect 16 2 sub erect 21 root/tuber branching 1 profuse 22 2 sparse 15 root/tuber shape 1 straight 18 2 fusiform 19 stem pubescence 0 glabrous 2 3 sparse 16 5 medium 7 dense 19 lamina margin 1 crenate 37 lamina pubescence 3 sparse 2 5 medium 34 7 dense 1 lamina colour 1 pale green 2 2 purple green 3 dark green 35 flower colour* 1 pink-purple 2 pale-purple 2 3 lilac 4 violet 16 susceptibility 1 very low or 34 to biotic stress no visible sign of susceptibility 3 low 4 5 intermediate 7 high 1 9 very high *only flowering genotypes were scored an additional 14 phenotypic quantitative characters were evaluated to enable diversity comparisons. the percentage of variation for individual traits varied from 4.41 (number of roots/tubers per plant) to 10.37 (root/tuber diameter) (table 2). in the fourteen traits observed, the root/ tuber diameter showed the highest variation ranging from 0.38 cm (cf 3) to 0.90 cm (cf 30). leaf yield per plant, number of branches per plant and root/tuber length also showed considerable variation. a minimum of 130.41 g and a maximum of 291.20 g leaf yield per plant were observed in cf 8 and cf 14, respectively. the number of branches was maximum in cf 23 (14.97) and minimum in cf 16 (7.62). the root/tuber length was 5.08 cm and 38.27 cm in cf 15 and cf 13, respectively. the dendrogram construction based on fourteen quantitative traits for 37 c. coefficient fig 1. dendrogram of coleus forskohlii genotypes for qualitative traits using upgma based on dice coefficient table 2. mean, range, coefficient of variation and standard deviation for each of the 14 quantitative traits trait mean range cv (%) sd number of roots/tubers per plant 25.36 16.12 45.77 4.41 1.12 root/tuber length (cm) 23.60 5.08 38.27 7.46 1.76 root/tuber diameter (cm) 0.63 0.38 0.96 10.37 0.07 number of branches per plant 9.55 7.62 14.97 8.57 0.82 stem diameter 1.53 1.05 2.06 7.25 0.11 number of leaves per plant 172.28 94.00 -368.68 6.26 10.79 lamina length (cm) 6.06 4.61 7.62 7.10 0.43 lamina width (cm) 3.76 2.43 5.12 7.18 0.27 petiole length (cm) 1.20 0.86 1.61 4.17 0.05 leaf yield per plant (g) 202.21 130.41 -291.20 8.63 17.45 *days to 50% flowering 84.73 65.00 95.00 7.20 8.49 plant height(cm) 31.07 24.12 49.26 5.86 1.82 *days to fruit maturity 106.25 95 115 8.72 9.27 **forskolin / coleonol content in roots (%) 1.25 1.14 1.40 7.03 0.09 * only flowering genotypes were scored ** only non-flowering (tuberous) genotypes were scored j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 44-46, 2007 45 exploitation of genetic variability in coleus forskohlii forskohlii genotypes did not reveal a clear pattern in grouping and the genotypes were grouped into ten different clusters (fig 2). morphological description can provide unique identification of genotypes, and are being used as descriptors for initial screening (troyer, 1986). however they are not reliable us they reflect not only the genetic constitution of the cultivar, but also the interaction of the genotypes with the environment (patterson and weatherup, 1984). in the present study, cluster analysis of various sets of data revealed dissimilarity in groups of genotypes for each of the data set. a poor congruence among data sets of qualitative and quantitative traits showed in that the morphological traits alone may not be appropriate to assess fig 2. dendrogram of coleus forskohlii genotypes for quantitative traits using upgma based on squared euclidean distance of standardised data mean the genetic diversity in c. forskohli as it is known that multiple genotypes can give phenotypes of similar outward appearance (ravi, 2000).. in the present study, surveys failed to confirm similar patterns of diversity among combinations of qualitative and quantitative traits. g x e interaction effects were found to cause aberrant means for morphological traits. though morphological traits have been used in assessing the genetic diversity of a species, the accuracy of the assessment is questionable. the availability of a limited number of morphological traits, their poor or unknown genetic control, environmental influence on the phenotypic expression, and difficulties in stage-specific identification are major impediments in using these as genetic traits for genetic diversity analysis. thus morphological traits are inexpensive useful indicators for a preliminary, varietal identification. they can be used as a fast and simple general tool for assessing genetic diversity among phenotypically distinguishable cultivars, although they are inefficient on account of the time and cost involved. references ammon, h. p. t. and muller, a. b. 1985. forskolin: from an ayurvedic remedy to a modern agent. planta medica, 46: 473-477. patterson, h. d. and weatherup, s. t. c. 1984. statistical criteria for distinctness between varieties of herbage crops. j. agril. sci., 102: 57-68. ravi, m. 2000. molecular markers based varietal profiling and monitoring in rice (oryza sativa l.). m.sc. thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. rohlf, f. j. 1994. ntsys-pc: numerical taxonomy and multivariate analysis system version 2.2. state university of new york, stonybrook, new york. shah, v. 1996. cultivation and utilization of medicinal plants (supplement), rrl, csir, jammu tawi, pp 385-411. singh, b. m., mahajan, r. k., umesh srivastava and pareek, s. k. 2003. minimal descriptors of agrihorticultural crops. part iv: medicinal and aromatic plants. national bureau of plant genetic resources, pusa campus, new delhi, pp 59-64. sneath, p. h. a. and sokal, r. r. 1973. numerical taxonomy. freeman, san francisco and london. troyer, a. f. 1986. united states patent: inbred corn line. patent no.45948110. u.s.patent office, washington, dc. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 44-46, 2007 46 kavitha et al (ms received 28 october 2006, revised 14 may 2007) organic farming practices for double-sucker planted banana k.r. sheela, r. pushpakumari, g.j. shimi and v.l. geethakumari department of agronomy, college of agriculture vellayani, thiruvananthapuram-695522, india e-mail: kumarsheela58@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted at college of agriculture, vellayani, kerala, during december 2009 to september 2012 to standardize organic farming practices for double-sucker planted tissue-culture raised banana var. nendran. treatments included three nutrient levels, (m1-133, m2-100 and m3-75% of recommended dose for tissue culture banana as *organic), two times of application viz., t1in two splits(basal and 2map), and t2 in three splits (basal, 2 and 4 map) along with the control (integrated nutrient management for double-sucker planted banana, i.e., fym + 250:150:400g npk pit-1). the experiment was laid out in factorial rbd with three replications. results of the study indicated that though 33% of additional nutrients were required for double-sucker planting along with inm, 100% of the dose was sufficient under organic farming for realizing a reasonable yield. pooled analysis of gross income and net income revealed that organic production practices are also profitable in double-sucker planted banana. key words: double-sucker, organic farming, banana, yield short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):233-236, 2015 banana is widely cultivated in india under varying agro-climatic regions and different systems of production. nendran (musa aab) is the most popular commercial cultivar in kerala owing to its adaptability to various environments, its yield stability, excellent fruit quality attributes and for fetching a sustained income. the fruit has multiple uses ranging from that as a valued food for infants and invalids, to culinary and table purposes, besides a diverse range of processed products. high productivity, disease-free nature and uniform harvest in tissue-culture raised plants has enhanced its acceptability among farmers. high-density planting is considered a viable proposition for improving productivity of tissue-culture raised plants. planting two suckers per pit, with wider spacing, enhances total yield and economic returns. double-sucker planting is one of the approaches for reducing cost of cultivation and for increasing productivity without affecting quality of the fruit. an imbalanced and unscientific use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has aggravated environment degradation, making it imperative to focus on ecologically sound, viable and sustainable crop production practices. long-term field experiments in various crops have brought to light the negative impact of continuous use of chemicals on soil health (yadav, 2003). sustainable crop husbandry approaches like organic farming are very important in crops like banana where farmers use a high quantity of fertilizers and plant protection chemicals for yield improvement. banana is grown extensively in the erstwhile paddy fields of kerala. in this context, an experiment was undertaken to standardize organic farming practices for double-sucker planted tissue-culture raised banana variety nendran. the experiment was conducted during december 2009 to september 2012 at the organic farm attached to department of agronomy, college of agriculture, vellayani, kerala. the treatments included three nutrient levels (m1133, m2-100 and m3-75% of recommended dose for tissue culture raised banana as *organic), two times application, viz., t1two splits(basal and 2map) and t2 three splits (basal, 2 and 4 map), along with the control (integrated nutrient management for double-sucker planted banana (fym + 250:150:400g npk pit-1). the experiment was laid out in factorial rbd, with three replications. general practices like use of uniform tissue-culture raised plants, basal application of neem cake @ 1kg pit-1, in situ green manuring with cowpea, and application of fym @ 20kg pit-1 at planting along with 20g azospirillum, were followed irrespective of the treatment. as this is an experiment in organic farming pest and 234 disease management was done organically. prophylatic application of neem oil-garlic mixture (5%) to the pseudostem and leaf axil during third and fourth month was made to manage pseudostem borer. organic treatments were applied through a common organic source: 50% as farm yard manure + 25% as poultry manure + 25% as vermicompost. additional k requirement was met using ash as the source of k. for double-sucker planting, pits were dug at 3m x 2m spacing, and two suckers were planted in each pit with a distance of 15-20cm between suckers in a pit. soil analysis of the experimental site revealed the soil to be moderately acidic, with ph 5.8, high in organic carbon, medium in n and p, and low in k. observations were recorded on yield and yield attributes and economics were worked out. based on results of the first year trial, 133% of the recommended nutrient-level was deleted and the treatments were modified table 1. yield attributes and yield in double-sucker planted organic banana as influenced by nutrient levels and time of application i year treatment no. of hands no. of fingers bunch weight yield (t ha-1) bunch-1 bunch-1 (kg plant-1) m1 (133% rd) 4.42 44.25 7.08 23.58 m2 (100% rd) 4.50 44.42 7.42 24.69 m3 (75% rd) 4.50 45.00 7.71 25.72 f 0.07 0.09 0.89 0.92 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns t1 (2 times) 4.33 44.50 7.14 23.77 t2 (3 times) 4.61 44.61 7.67 25.56 f 1.86 0.01 1.90 1.94 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns m1 t1 4.33 44.67 6.92 23.03 m 1t 2 4.50 43.83 7.25 24.14 m2 t1 4.33 43.83 7.08 23.59 m 2t 2 4.67 45.00 7.75 25.80 m 3t 1 4.33 45.00 7.42 24.70 m 3t 2 4.67 45.00 8.00 26.74 treatment mean 4.47 44.56 7.40 24.67 f 0.07 0.14 0.07 0.07 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns inm (control) 5.00 48.00 8.82 29.36 f (treatment vs. control) 3.84 2.91 7.78 7.61 cd (p=0.05) s ns. s s ii year iii year treatment no. of no. of bunch yield no. of no. of bunch yield hands fingers weight (t ha-1) hands fingers weight (t ha-1) bunch-1 bunch-1 (kg plant-1) bunch-1 bunch-1 (kg plant-1) m1 (100% rd) 4.00 41.17 66.80 22.25 4.67 46.17 7.33 24.42 m2 (75% rd) 3.50 33.67 4.92 16.40 4.33 41.83 6.33 21.09 m3 (50% rd) 3.33 28.00 4.63 15.40 4.00 34.67 4.97 16.54 cd (p=0.05) 0.555 3.802 0.445 1.481 ns 4.077 0.464 1.544 t1 (2 times) 3.56 34.00 5.30 17.65 4.33 40.11 6.32 21.05 t2 (3 times) 3.67 34.56 5.52 18.39 4.33 39.67 6.10 20.31 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns m1 t1 4.00 41.33 6.97 23.20 4.67 47.33 7.47 24.86 m 1t 2 4.00 41.00 6.40 21.31 4.67 45.00 7.20 23.98 m2 t1 3.33 32.67 4.60 15.32 4.33 41.67 6.33 21.09 m 2t 2 3.67 34.67 5.25 17.48 4.33 42.00 6.33 21.09 m 3t 1 3.33 28.00 4.33 14.43 4.00 31.33 5.17 17.21 m 3t 2 3.33 28.00 4.92 16.37 4.00 32.00 4.77 15.88 inm (control) 4.33 46.00 9.00 29.97 5.00 51.33 10.37 20.68 cd (p=0.05) ns ns 0.629 2.095 ns ns ns ns f (treatment vs. control) 6.89 38.68 264.38 264.94 5.76 32.08 326.79 326.76 cd (p=0.05) s s s s s s s s sheela et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):233-236, 2015 235 as 100%, 75% and 50% of the recommended dose for the second and third years of study. first year (2009) yield data revealed no significant variation among treatments. soil analysis made after the first crop indicated high organic carbon (1.9-2.3%), high available n (288-301kg ha-1) and medium p (18-22kg ha-1) and k content (170-190kg ha -1); ph also showed improvement, increasing from 5.8 to 6.2. organic nutrition @ 133% of the recommended dose enhanced the ph to 6.2. based on these results, nutrient levels were modified as 100%, 75% and 50% of the recommended dose, and, the experiment was continued in the second (2010) and third year (2011). results of this two-year study (table 1) revealed that nutrient level had a significant influence on number of fingers bunch-1, bunch weight plant-1, and total bunch yield. 100% of the recommended dose was significantly superior to the other two levels tested. application of manure in two or three splits had no influence on yield parameters and yield. interaction between nutrient level and the number of times of application was found to be significant in the first year only (2010). a comparison of inm and organic practices showed that yield attributes and yield were significantly influenced in both the years, with inm registering the highest value. most of the earlier studies on organic farming have showed such a decline in yield over inm during the initial years. effect of treatments on marketable yield, worked out as 75% of the actual yield, followed the same trend as that in the yield. pooled analysis of marketable yield indicated that 100% of the recommended dose, applied as the organic component, had a definite edge over the other two levels, while, time of application and interaction between nutrient levels and time of application, was observed to be insignificant. pooled analysis (table 2) of economic aspects like gross income and net income revealed that 100% of recommended dose as the organic component was more economical in double-sucker planted banana. the organic sources (farm yard manure, poultry manure and vermicompost) tested at 100% recommended dose can effectively supply nutrients required for the two banana plants in a pit, along with in situ green manuring. a slow release of nutrients from the organic sources, without any nutrient loss, can supply sufficiently to substitute chemical nutrients. use of vermicompost as the organic source, along with incorporation of cowpea as the in situ green manure, table 2. marketable yield and economic returns in double-sucker planted organic banana as influenced by nutrient level and time of application treatment marketable marketable marketable gross net b:c b:c yield (t/ha) yield (t/ha) yield (t/ha) income (rs) income (rs) ratio ratio ii yr iii yr pooled mean pooled mean pooled mean ii yr iii yr m1 (100%rd) 16.69 18.31 17.50 840080 469725 2.17 2.38 m2 (75%rd) 12.30 15.82 14.06 674880 321519 1.67 2.15 m3 (50%rd) 11.55 12.41 11.97 575000 262985 1.67 1.79 cd (0.05) 1.086 1.0693 0.593 28670 428670 0.152 0.147 t1 (2 times) 13.24 15.79 14.51 696667 350803 1.84 2.18 t2 (3 times) 13.79 15.23 14.51 696640 338307 1.83 2.03 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns 0.120 m1 t1 17.40 18.65 18.02 865040 502182 2.30 2.47 m1 t2 15.98 17.98 16.98 815120 437268 2.03 2.28 m2 t1 11.49 15.82 13.68 655440 309576 1.59 2.19 m2 t2 13.11 15.82 14.46 694320 333462 1.74 2.10 m3 t1 10.82 12.91 11.86 569520 240650 1.58 1.88 m3 t2 12.28 11.91 12.09 580480 244280 1.75 1.70 inm (control) 22.48 25.96 24.22 968133 656591 2.89 3.33 cd (p=0.05) 0.887 ns 0.629 ns ns ns ns f (treatment vs. control) 6.89 38.68 264.38 264.94 5.76 32.08 326.79 cd (p=0.05) s s s s s s s cost of cultivation in different treatments (rs ha-1) treatment cost of cultivation treatment cost of cultivation sale price of banana m 1t 1 3,54,858 m 1t 2 3,69,852 inm: rs. 40kg -1 m 2t 1 3,39,864 m 2t 2 3,54,858 organic: rs. 48ha -1 m 3t 1 3,24,870 m 3t 2 3,32,200 inm 3,11,542 organic farming practices for double-sucker planted banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):233-236, 2015 236 for enhancing yield in banana was reported earlier by geetha and nair (2000). although economic returns in organically-grown banana may be less than that in inm, application of 100% recommended dose can yield a b:c ratio of >2 considering that the price of organic produce is accounted as 20% extra over the inm produce. moreover, all the inputs were considered as purchased, for calculating the economics. an organic farmer can be expected to have adequate organic inputs generated in his farm which, in turn, can enhance profit. profitability of organic farming in single-sucker planted nendran banana has already been reported by pushpakumari et al (2009). from our study, it is concluded that although 33% of additional nutrients are required for double-sucker planting with inm, 100% of the dose is sufficient under organic farming. similar to that in inm, organic production practices are seen to be profitable in double-sucker planted banana in our study. references geetha, k. and nair, r.r. 2000. integrated plant nutrition systems (ipns) for banana. ann. agril. res., 21:499-503 pushpakumari, r., sheela, k.r., nandakumar, c. and george, a. 2009. standardization of organic farming practices for banana var. nendran. national seminar on ‘organic farming in horticultural crops’, cpcri, 15-18 october, 2008, kasargod, kerala, india yadav, j.s.p. 2003. managing soil health for sustained high productivity. j. indian soc. soil sci., 51:448-465 (ms received 04 february 2014, revised 19 june 2015, accepted 02 july 2015) sheela et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):233-236, 2015 in recent years, the green shield scale chloropulvinaria psidii (green), has become a serious pest of several medicinal plants in india. severe infestation of c. psidii was observed in june 2003 on withania somnifera and in february 2004 on madhuca longifolia, mimusops elengi and wrightia tinctoria at the iihr farm. the scale insects suck cell sap resulting in loss of vigour in medicinal plants. nymphs and adults excrete ‘honeydew’ resulting in development of sooty mold, thereby hindering photosynthetic activity of the scale-infested plants. although some insecticides have been recommended for control of c. psidii (pawar et al, 1981; visalakshi et al, 1981), it is difficult to achieve perfect control of the green shield scales with conventional insecticides, mainly due to the mealy covering over their bodies (chatterji and datta, 1974). eggs of the scales, protected by a waxy filamentous secretion of the ovisac, are almost impossible to reach with insecticides. on the other hand, scale insects (being sessile in nature) are more amenable to biological control. the australian ladybird beetle, cryptolaemus montrouzieri mulsant, has been reported to the effective against various species of green shield scales (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1997a). the present study was conducted to evaluate the impact of c. montrouzieri in suppression of c. psidii on evaluation of australian ladybird beetle cryptolaemus montrouzieri mulsant against green shield scale chloropulvinaria psidii (maskell) on some medicinal plants m. mani* and a. krishnamoorthy division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore -560 089, india e-mail: mmani1949@yahoo.co.in abstract severe infestation of green shield scale chloropulvinaria psidii (green) was observed during 2003-04 on the medicinal plants namely withania somnifera, madhuca longifolia, mimusops elengi and wrightia tinctoria. the australian ladybird beetle cryptolaemus montrouzieri mulsant was released @ 20 larvae/plant. following the release of c. montrouzieri , the scale population declined from 173.48 to 4.35 /plant on w. somnifera, 30.49 to 1.20/plant on m. longifolia, 90.20 to 3.57/plant on m. elengi and 240.86 to 4.92/plant on w. tinctoria. there was 89.13 to 97.96% reduction in scale population 45-75 days after release of c. montrouzieri on the above medicinal plants. no other natural enemy, except c. montrouzieri, was recorded on c. psidii. there was no correlation between temperature, relative humidity or rainfall and scale population. hence, the reduction in population of green shield scale was attributed mainly to the action of c. montrouzieri. key words: chloropulvinaria psidii, cryptolaemus montrouzieri, withania somnifera, madhuca longifolia, mimusops elengi, wrightia tinctoria the above mentioned four medicinal plants. culture of cryptolaemus montrouzieri cryptolaemus montrouzieri was multiplied on mealy bug infested pumpkin fruits (cucurbita moschata linn.) as described by chacko et al (1978) at 26+2oc and 60-70% rh in the laboratory. selection of experimental area the study was conducted at the iihr farm, bangalore rural district, on four medicinal plants during 2003-04. only plants infested with the green shield scale were selected for the study. field release of c. montrouzieri ants afforded protection to the green shield scale from natural enemies, resulting in increase in the scale population (briese, 1982). in the present study, ants were controlled by applying chlorpyriphos @ 0.05% in the ant holes, as suggested by tumminelli et al (1997). application of insecticides on the medicinal plants was arrested a fortnight prior to the release of c. montrouzieri. larvae of c. montrouzieri @ 20 /plant were released on scaleinfested plants. *present address: national research centre for grapes, pune-412307. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 176-179, 2008 177 sampling and evaluation scale population was recorded at fortnightly intervals on 10 randomly selected plants infested with scales during the study. in each plant, five shoots were selected for counting the green shield scales. activity of locally occurring natural enemies, if any, was studied by collecting the scale infested shoots and keeping the same in cages for emergence. data on weather parameters, viz., maximum and minimum temperature (oc), relative humidity (%) and rainfall (mm) were collected during the period of study. correlation between the green shield scale and weather factors was worked out to determine influence of weather on green shield scale population present on these medicinal plants. results on population trend in green shield scale c. psidii on w. somnifera are presented in table1. prerelease count of 173.48 scales / plant was observed on 22nd june, 2003. the scale population declined to 110.50/plant one month after the release of c. montrouzieri. the population of c. montrouzieri ranged from 4.68 to 9.46 per plant during the study period. plants released with the predator had 4.35 scale insects in the last week of august 2003 as compared to 214.66 on check plants. the coccinellid predator c. montrouzieri was found preying on c. psidii on w. somnifera plants throughout the study period. the trend of scale population on m. longifolia is presented in table 2. pre-release count of 30.49 scales/ plant was observed on 12th february, 2004. the scale population declined to 10.40/plant one month after the release of c.montrouzieri. the population of c. montrouzieri ranged from 2.46 to 6.89 /plant during the study period. plants released with the predator had 1.20 scale insects in the third week of march 2004 as compared to 80.69 on check plants. similar results were obtained on m. elengi. plants released with the predator had 3.57 scales as compared to 172.64 on check plants, two months from release of cryptolaemus (table 3). on w. tinctoria also, the scale population was effectively reduced to 4.92 as compared to 265.40 scales on check plants (table 4). table 1. population of chloropulvinaria psidii and cryptolaemus montrouzieri on w. somnifera date mean population/plant ± s.d. % reduction check biocontrol in scale population c. psidii c. psidii c. montrouzieri in biocontrol 22-06-2003 150.48 ±6.56 173.48±10.24 —— —— 08-07-2003 164.16 ±5.96 162.84±8.64 4.68±3.40 6.16 23-07-2003 185.74± 9.82 110.50±7.80 6.62±2.02 36.30 07-08-2003 180.88 ± 6.43 60.25± 5.94 9.46±5.60 65.27 22-08-2003 214.66±12.38 4.35±2.87 4.28±2.65 97.49 s.d = standard deviation table 3. population of chloropulvinaria psidii and cryptolaemus montrouzieri on mimusops elengi date mean population/plant ± s.d. % reduction check biocontrol in scale population c. psidii c. psidii c. montrouzieri in biocontrol 12-02-2004 80.45 ± 6.24 90.20 ± 10.42 —— —— 27-02-2004 96.17 ± 7.94 86.83 ± 8.45 3.58±2.40 3.74 11-032004 125.65 ± 10.42 65.32 ± 5.28 6.82±3.80 27.58 22-03-2004 158.90 ± 12.94 30.54 ± 4.82 5.50±3.50 66.14 12-04-2004 172.64 ± 10.68 3.57 ± 0.94 4.78±0.95 89.13 s.d = standard deviation table 2. population of chloropulvinaria psidii and cryptolaemus montrouzieri on madhuca longifolia date mean population/plant ± s.d. % reduction check biocontrol in scale population c. psidii c. psidii c. montrouzieri in biocontrol 12-02-2004 42.14 ± 6.36 30.49 ± 6.32 —— —— 27-02-2004 53.85 ± 7.28 26.64 ± 4.64 2.46±1.84 12.62 11-032004 65.27 ± 5.83 10. 40 ± 3.80 6.89±2.85 65.89 22-03-2004 80.69 ± 6.28 1.20 ± 0.68 4.64±1.96 96.06 s.d = standard deviation j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 176-179, 2008 australian ladybird beetle against green shield scale 178 in the present investigation, there was a reduction of 97.49%, 96.06%, 89.13% and 97.96% in the green shield scale population after 60, 45, 60 and 75 days of cryptolaemus release on w. somnifera, m. longifolia, m. elengi and w. tinctoria, respectively. there was no correlation between weather factors like temperature, humidity and rainfall and population of the green shield scale. no other natural enemy, except c. montrouzieri was recorded on c. psidiii during the study period and reduction in the population of green shield scale was attributed mainly to action of the predator c. montrouzieri on all the four medicinal plants studied. cryptolaemus montrouzieri gave control of several species of chloropulvinaria on many crops. cryptolaemus montrouzieri was found to be effective in suppressing chloropulvinaria aurantii (ckll.) and chloropulvinaria floccifera (westw.) (kolotov, 1939), chloropulvinaria polygonata (ckll.) on mango (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1998) and c. psidii on lemon, guava, sapota and fig (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1999; mani and krishnamoorthy, 1990; mani and krishnamoorthy, 1997b; kumar and prakasam, 1984) and chloropulvinaria maxima (valt.) on neem (tirumala rao and david, 1958). acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, iihr, for providing facilities to conduct the study. technical help rendered by mr. g.l. pattar is also gratefully acknowledged. references briese, d.t. 1982. damage to saltbush by the coccid pulvinaria maskelli olliff and the role played by an attendant. j. austr. entomol. soc., 21:293-294 chacko, m.j., bhat, p.k., rao, l.v.a., deepak singh, m.b., ramanarayan, e.p. and sreedharan, k. 1978. the use of the ladybird beetle cryptolaemus montrouzieri for the control of coffee mealybugs. j. coffee res., 88:14-19 chatterji, a. and datta, a.d. 1974. bionomics and control of mango mealy scale, chloropulvinaria (pulvinaria) polygonata (cockerell) (hemiptera: coccidae) ind. j. agril. sci., 44:791-795 kolotov, d.g. 1939. results of the experiment with the application of cryptolaemus for the control of the mealybug in abkhazia. rept. sci. meet. leningrade institute of agriculture, cf rae (1939) p. 454 kumar, m.g. and prakasam, c.b. 1984. the recovery of cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. on the coffee green scale, coccus viridis (green), on the shevroy hills. ind. j. agril. sci., 14:34-35 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1990. evaluation of the exotic predator cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. (coccinellidae, coleoptera) in the suppression of green shield scale chloropulvinaria psidii (maskell) (coccidae, homoptera) on guava. entomon, 15:45-48 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1997a. australian ladybird beetle, cryptolaemus montrouzieri. madras agri. j., 84:237-249 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1997b. biological suppression of the soft green scale, coccus viridis (green), and the green shield scale, chloropulvinaria psidii (maskell), on sapota. pest mgt. hortl. ecosyst., 3:114-116 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1998. biological control studies on the mango green shield scale, chloropulvinaria polygonata (ckll.) (homoptera: coccidae), in india. entomon, 23:105-110 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1999. suppression of green shield scale, chloropulvinaria psidii (maskell), with australian ladybird beetle on lemon. insect envir. 4:116-117 pawar, m.b., teli, u.s. ambekar, j.s. and kalbhoor, s.e. table 4. population of chloropulvinaria psidii and cryptolaemus montrouzieri on wrightia tinctoria date mean population/plant ± s.d. % reduction check biocontrol in scale population c. psidii c. psidii c. montrouzieri in biocontrol 12-02-2004 194.27 ± 8.56 240.86 ± 14.57 —— —— 27-02-2004 210.86 ± 9.46 154.25 ± 7.64 5.00±3.40 35.96 11-032004 234.84 ± 12.60 124.63 ± 8.0 9.40±4.80 48.26 22-03-2004 256.80 ± 10.58 73.24 ± 6.94 8.40±3.86 69.59 12-04-2004 248.95 ± 9.80 43.64 ± 4.26 8.62±3.02 81.88 27-04-2004 265.40 ± 14.40 4.92 ± 1.46 3.68±0.86 97.96 s.d = standard deviation j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 176-179, 2008 mani and krishnamoorthy 179 1981. efficacy of some o r g a n o p h o s p h o r u s insecticides of guava scale pulvinaria psidii maskell on guava. pestology, 5:21-29 tirumala rao, v. and david, l.a. 1958. the biological control of a coccid pest in south india by the use of beetle, cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. ind. j. agril. sci., 28:545-552 tumminelli, r., saraceno, f. and conti, d. 1997. ants in citrus groves. inform. agrar., 53:57-60 visalakshi, a., beevi, s.n., mathai, s. and nair, m.r.g.k. 1981. on the occurrence of pulvinaria psidii maskell (coccidae: hemiptera) as pest of clove. entomon, 6:180 (ms received 16 june 2008, revised 6 november 2008) australian ladybird beetle against green shield scale j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 176-179, 2008 introduction ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) grows excellently in arid and semi-arid regions of the world and is considered the poor man’s apple, being an excellent source of several polyphenols including caffeic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, ferulic acid and p-coumaric acid (dahiru and obidoa, 2008). as phenolics are known for their wide ranging healthprotecting properties as anti-atherogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial, commercial processing of ber into juice rich in phenolics could prove useful. however, extraction of juice from ber is difficult and protracted because of its pulpy nature and high pectin content. enzyme-assisted processing using pectinolytic enzyme is an effective approach for degrading pectineous material to yield freeflowing juice. in addition, the enzyme-catalyzed degradation also helps release phenolics and flavonoids that would otherwise be lost in press residues (sowbhagya and chitra, 2010). several researchers have reported pectinase and cellulase enzyme treatments to significantly enhance recovery of phenolics and to improve functional properties of the juice. in view of the enormous potential of ber as a source of phenolics, the current study was undertaken to examine the effect of enzyme-assisted processing on nutraceutical composition of ber juice. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):54-56, 2015 nutraceutical composition of ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) juice: effect of enzyme-assisted processing v.s. khandare, d.p. waskar, b.m. kalalbandi and t.j. pawar department of horticulture vasantrao naik marathwada krishi vidyapeeth parbhani – 431 402, india e-mail: khandarevs@rediffmail.com abstract an investigation was undertaken to study the effect of pre-press maceration treatment with cell-wall degrading enzyme, pectinase, on antioxidant composition of ber juice, during 2011-2012. enzyme-assisted processing significantly (p<0.05) improved antioxidant composition of ber juice. ber juice extracted using pectinase had richer nutraceutical composition than in the control. there was an overall increase of 43% in juice yield, 30% in total phenolics and 37% in total flavonoids with use of pectinase. in vitro total antioxidant activity (aox) in ber juice was 19.58μmol trolox/ml in ferric reducing antioxidant power (frap) and 13.44μmol trolox/ml in cupric reducing antioxidant capacity (cuprac) assay. there was 41-65% increase in total aox of ber juice extracted with the enzyme overstraight pressed juice. results indicated that tailoring of the enzyme can yield antioxidant-rich juice products. key words: ber, enzyme assisted processing, pectinase and antioxidant activity material and methods the present study was carried out on antioxidant composition of ber juice as affected by enzyme-assisted processing, during the year 2010-2011. mature, ripe fruits of ber (cv. umran), free from blemishes and mechanical injury were obtained from the local market of parbhani and processed at post harvest technology laboratory of department of horticulture, vasantrao naik marathwada krishi vidyapeeth, parbhani. fruits were washed thoroughly in tap water to remove any adhering dirt or dust. whole fruits were then subjected to hot-breaking at 90oc for 20 min to soften them. these were then macerated in a waring blender and, subsequently, passed through a laboratory-scale pulper for extracting a homogeneous pulp and to separate seeds. pulp samples were weighed out into 500ml glass bottles and the enzyme preparation (pectinase ec 3.2.1.1 from aspergillus niger, 1 u/mg from aspergillus sp.) was added at four levels of dose: 0.10, 0.15, 0.20 and 0.25% e/ s. control (straight-pressed) juice samples were incubated without the enzyme under the same conditions. for each concentration, 500ml pulp was taken in three replicates. the bottles were capped and incubated at 50 oc in a thermostatically controlled water bath for 1 h. the macerate was then pressed using a hydraulic press with a nylon filter 55 nutraceutical composition of ber juice bag to extract the juice. juice yield was determined by weighing the juice extracted, which was subsequently heatprocessed at 90oc for 1min, and packed in clean, sterilized glass bottles, upturned and sealed. this juice was then used for analysis. determination of total amount of phenolics, flavonoids and total antioxidant activity total phenolic content of the juice (80% ethanol extract) was estimated spectrophotometrically using folin– ciocalteu reagent, as per singleton et al (1999). results were expressed as mg gallic acid equivalents (gae/100ml). total amount of flavonoids was estimated by the method of zhishen et al (1999) and the results were expressed as catechin equivalents/100 ml. antioxidant activity was measured using two in vitro assays: ferric-reducing antioxidant power (frap), and cupric-reducing antioxidant capacity (cuprac). frap assay was performed as per benzie and strain (1996), and cuprac assay was performed as per apak et al (2004). results were expressed in mmol trolox/ml (te/ml). statistical analysis each experimental unit was replicated three times. data were subjected to analysis of variance, using completely randomized design. results and discussion juice yield data on effect of pectinase enzymes at different doses (0.1–0.25%) on ber juice yield is presented in fig. 1. the pulpy macerate of ber was highly viscous and difficult to press. with conventional straight-pressing (control), the yield averaged 27%, while, with increasing concentrations of pectinase enzyme, juice-yield increased to 70%. enzymeassisted processing accelerated liquefaction of the pulpy macerate, resulting in an 43% increase in juice yield. total amount of phenolics, flavonoids and antioxidant (aox) composition of ber juice enzyme-assisted processing had a significant impact on recovery of total phenolics and flavonoids too in ber juice. compared to the control, percentage increase in recovery of total phenolics was higher in pectinase treatments. total phenolics content increased to 314.36mg gae/100ml at 0.25% pectinase, from an initial 240.48mg gae/100ml (fig. 2). phenolics contained in the vegetable and fruit matrix appear to be entangled with the plant cell wall polysaccharides via tight hydrophilic and hydrophobic bonds. the release of those phenolics can be enhanced via enzyme catalyzed degradation of the cell wall polysaccharides. enzyme facilitated polysaccharide helps in exposing possible cell wall sites for phenolics, resulting in enhanced recovery (pinelo and meyer, 2008). fig 1. effect of pectinase treatment on juice yield in ber cv. umran fig 2. effect of pectinase treatment on total phenol content in ber juice cv. umran fig 3. effect of pectinase treatment on total flavonids in juice of ber cv. umran j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):54-56, 2015 56 total flavonoids content in juice also showed progressive increase with various pectinase treatments (fig. 3). antioxidant activity of ber juice, too, improved dramatically upon enzyme-assisted processing. values for this ranged from 14.47 to 19.82mmol/ml, respectively, in the control and in the juice treated with the enzyme pectinase (fig. 4). overall, there was a significant increase in total aox in the juice over control. an almost identical trend was observed in cuprac assay (fig. 4). high aox in enzyme-assisted juice may be attributed to a high recovery of phenolic compounds observed in the juice. similar results on high phenolic content and antioxidant activity have been reported in bilberry by previous workers (puupponen-pimia et al, 2008). enzyme-assisted processing of ber significantly enhanced nutraceutical composition of the juice, in contrast to straight-pressing. these results could lead to tailoring of the enzyme for obtaining optimum levels of antioxidants in the juice products. the study also indicated that ber, a fruit fig 4. effect of pectinase treatment on antioxidant activity in juice of ber cv. umran rich in nutrceuticals, can be commercially processed into juice rich in phenolics. references apak, r., guclu, k., ozyurek, m. and karademir, s.e. 2004. novel total antioxidant capacity index for dietary polyphenols and vitamins c and e using their cupric ion reducing capabilities in the presence of neocuproine: cuprac method. j. agri. food chem., 52:7970-7981 benzie, i.e.f. and strain, j.j. 1996. the ferric reducing ability of plasma (frap) as a measure of antioxidant power, the frap assay. anal. biochem., 239:70– 76 dahiru, d. and obidoa, o. 2008. evaluation of the antioxidant effects of zizyphus mauritiana lamk. leaf extracts against chronic ethanol induced hepatotoxicity in rat liver. african j. traditition complement altern. med., 5:39–45 pinelo, m. and meyer, a.s. 2008. enzyme-assisted extraction of antioxidants: release of phenols from vegetal matrices. elect. j. env., agri. food chem., 7:3217-3220 puupponen-pimia, r., nohynek, l., ammann, s., oksmancaldentey, k.m. and buchert, j. 2008. enzymeassisted processing increases antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of bilberry. j. agri. food chem., 56:681-688 singleton, v.l., orthofer, r. and lamuela-ranventos, r.m. 1999. analysis of total phenols, other oxidation substrates and antioxidants by means of folinciocalteu reagent. methods enzymol., 299:152-178 sowbhagya, h.b. and chitra, v.n. 2010. enzyme-assisted extraction of flavorings and colorants from plant materials. crit. rev. food nutr., 50:146–161 zhishen, j., mengcheng, t. and jianming, w. 1999. the determination of flavonoid contents in mulberry and their scavenging effects on superoxide radicals. food chem., 64:555-559 (ms received 07 march 2014, revised 29 april 2015, accepted 20 may 2015) khandare et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):54-56, 2015 short communication studies on combining ability in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) k. sundharaiya and k. venkatesan department of vegetable crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641 003, india e-mail: aiya_hort@rediffmail.com abstract combining ability study in eight bitter gourd lines, to identify suitable parents and crosses for further exploitation, indicated that the lines mc 13 (l 1 ) and panruti local (l 2 ) were good general combiners for yield per vine. the lines ayakudi local (l 3 ) and mithipagal (l 5 ) recorded negative general combining ability and lower per se for days to first female flowering and days to fruit maturity. this can be utilized in breeding programme to develop earliness in bitter gourd. the hybrids mc 13 x arka harit (l 1 x t 3 ), panruti local x vk 1 priya (l 2 x t 2 ) and mc 13 x co 1 (l 1 x t 1 ) registered higher per se and specific combining ability for fruit length, individual fruit weight and yield per vine. the study revealed that additive x additive and additive x dominance type of interactions played a major role for days to first female flowering, days to fruit maturity, number of fruits per vine, fruit length, fruit size index, cavity size index, single fruit weight and yield per vine. the lines l 1 , l 2 , l 3 and l 5 expressed higher per se and general combining ability for most of the characters can successfully be utilized for developing superior hybrids in bitter gourd hybridization programmes. key words: line x tester analysis, combining ability, bitter gourd bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) is one of the most important, nutritious vegetables known for its bitter principle. in india, it is grown throughout the country as rainy and summer season vegetable. it is a highly crosspollinated crop and its monoecious nature has resulted in wider variation in several qualitative and quantitative characters. however, it does not suffer from inbreeding depression and it seems that the population structure is similar to that of inbreeders than outbreeders (allard, 1960). in breeding programmes, the common approach of selecting parents on the basis of per se performance dose not lead to fruitful results. hence, potential parents need to be selected based on their genetic architecture and combining ability. the experiment consisted of line x tester analysis involving five lines, viz., mc 13 (l 1 ), panruti local (l 2 ), ayakudi local (l 3 ), long green (l 4 ) and mithipagal (l 5 ) and three testers, viz., co-1 (t 1 ), vk-1 priya (t 2 ) and arka harit (t 3 ). the seeds of the selected parents were selfed for five generations to obtain homozygosity. the selfed seeds were raised in a crossing block and crossing was made in line x tester mating system. in all, 15 f 1 hybrids and eight parental lines were raised for evaluation in a randomized block design (rbd) with three replications. biometrical observations, viz., days to first female flowering, days to fruit maturity, number of fruits per vine, fruit length, fruit size index, cavity size index, individual fruit weight and yield per vine were made on randomly selected plants. data were subjected to statistical analysis, and, general and specific combining ability study for eight characters was carried out as per the model of kempthrone (1957). analysis of variance (anova), due to parents and hybrids, showed significant differences for all the characters studied, and further, indicated presence of sufficient diversity in the lines and testers. parental lines recorded higher significant variance for all the characters (table 1). mean square due to testers recorded significant variance for most of the characters except days to fruit maturity, cavity size index, single fruit weight and yield per vine, while variance due to interaction effect (line x tester) was significant for all the characters. significance of parents can be judged through per se performance and general combining ability (gca) of parents to obtain a desirable recombinant. in the present investigation, among the five lines used, the line l 1 recorded higher per se performance for the characters, namely, fruit j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1):63-66, 2007 length, fruit size index, cavity size index, individual fruit weight and yield per vine. the line l 5 showed lower per se performance for days to first female flowering, days to fruit maturity and it ranked first in the number of fruits per vine. this was followed by line l 3 . higher number of fruits per vine observed in l 5 and l 3 may be due to early flowering and small size of fruits as suggested by richard kennedy et al (1995). among the three testers, t 1 expressed the best per se performance for number of fruits per vine, individual fruit weight and yield per vine, and, lower per se for days to first female flowering and days to fruit maturity. the tester t 2 ranked first for fruit length, fruit size index and cavity size index and second for days to first female flowering, days to fruit maturity, individual fruit weight and yield per vine (table 2). the line l 1 expressed the best gca for fruit length, fruit size index, cavity size index, individual fruit weight and yield per vine. this was followed by the lines l 4 and l 2 . the line l 5 recorded negative significant gca for days to first female flowering and days to fruit maturity and ranked first for number of fruits per vine and was followed by the line l 3 . the tester t 1 recorded negative significant gca for days to first female flowering and days to fruit maturity and higher gca for fruit length, fruit size index, cavity size index and individual fruit weight. the results assumed that a good combiner for any economic character need not be a good combiner for all other characters (haripriya, 1991). high general combining ability effects observed for different characters may be helpful in identifying sorting out outstanding parents with favourable table 1. analysis of variance(anova) source d.f days days to number of fruit fruit cavity individual yield to first female fruit fruits length size index size index fruit per flowering maturity per vine (cm) (cm) (cm) weight(g) vine(g) replication 2 9.17 1.101 13.22 1.56 252.68 33.43 3.63 30812 parent 7 97.33** 52.99** 195.9** 85.47** 14365.76** 1127.62** 2295.94** 412152.9** lines 4 62.56** 78.51** 315.2** 135.9** 33621.44** 281.31** 5958.55** 901694.5** testers 2 84.78** 3.68 34.98** 3.16* 1063.81** 26.86 39.89 36927 line x tester 8 28.87** 4.68* 23.46** 16.33** 3806.5** 225.83** 383.92** 208599.3** hybrid 14 46.49** 25.63** 108.46** 48.45 11993.24** 1231.68** 1927.52** 382101.9** error 44 3.95 1.04 1.95 0.53 126.79 13.67 32.13 11607.2 *significant at 5%, **significant at 1% table 2. per se performance and general combining ability effects (gca) of parents parent days days to number of fruit fruit cavity individual yield to first female fruit fruits length size index size index fruit per flowering maturity per vine (cm) (cm) (cm) weight(g) vine(g) l 1 47.99 23.55 14.89 16.89 213.67 63.24 86.66 1286.11 0.15 2.40 -3.53 4.20 74.19 19.85 21.97 327.77 l 2 47.44 15.00 13.33 12.89 146.66 50.12 56.11 776.66 1.22 2.22 -3.97 1.43 24.83 8.54 21.97 269.73 l 3 38.11 10.55 24.33 5.42 58.01 20.83 17.22 416.66 -1.22 -2.99 4.18 -4.39 -51.19 -18.42 -26.51 -331.01 l 4 50.77 16.66 13.89 13.78 121.22 44.53 45.55 641.66 3.45 1.51 -5.01 2.57 26.37 15.67 11.64 61.03 l 5 36.66 10.00 36.44 5.02 53.08 14.89 11.55 431.99 -3.59 -3.45 8.33 -3.81 -74.19 -25.64 -29.07 -327.53 t 1 46.22 15.99 18.77 17.994 161.65 59.66 78.89 1433.33 -1.95 -0.19 1.76 -0.2 -8.43 -0.48 0.29 48.90 t 2 46.33 16.11 13.33 19.00 249.05 68.94 74.44 952.99 2.65 -0.37 -0.81 -0.29 0.01 -1.03 -1.76 -50.79 t 3 52.99 16.88 14.78 14.33 179.33 45.33 58.89 912.22 -0.70 0.56 -0.95 0.53 8.42 1.51 1.45 1.39 se cd (p=0.05) 1.406 0.724 0.988 0.519 7.963 2.164 4.008 76.175 0.198 0.102 0.139 0.078 1.126 0.369 0.566 10.772 se(gi)+se (gi-gj) + 0.662 0.341 0.460 0.204 3.750 1.232 1.880 35.910 0.513 0.264 0.360 0.189 2.900 0.954 1.460 27.810 *general combining ability values are in italics sundharaiya and venkatesan 64j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 63-66, 2007 alleles for different components of yield. therefore, high general combining ability of the parents seems to be a reliable criterion for prediction of specific combining ability (brar and sidhu, 1977). the negative estimates of gca for days to first female flowering and days to fruit maturity registered by lines l 5 , l 3 and t 1 indicate that these can be utilized in hybridization programmes for developing earliness in bitter gourd it being monoecious with earliness as an important trait (pal et al, 1983). the lines l 1 and l 2 expressing higher per se and gca for most of the yield attributing characters can be successfully utilized for developing superior hybrids where heterosis in the cross involving low x high combiners may be due to dominant x additive type of interaction, which is partially fixable and crosses involving both poor combining parents showing high sca might be due to intra and interallelic interactions. among the 15 f 1 hybrids, l 1 x t 3 , l 2 x t 2 and l 1 x t 1 recorded higher per se performance for fruit length, fruit size index, cavity size index, individual fruit weight and yield per vine. the cross l 5 x t 1 proved to be the best per se performer for days to first female flowering and number of fruits per vine. results indicated the crosses l 1 x t 3 and l 2 x t 2 to be products of high x low combination, and, l 1 x t 1 and l 5 x t 1 to be products of high x high combination, suggesting the role of additive x dominance and additive x additive type of interactions, respectively. it is evident that the best performance of hybrids for specific characters may be due to either one or both parents having high gca for the respective character (choudhury, 1987). the same hybrids also exhibited higher specific combining ability effects for individual fruit weight and yield per vine. l 1 x t 3 was a product of good x good combiner for individual fruit weight. table 3. per se performance and specific combining ability effects (sca) hybrid days days to number of fruit fruit cavity individual yield to first female fruit fruits length size index size index fruit per flowering maturity per vine (cm) (cm) (cm) weight(g) vine(g) l 1 xt 1 49.44 18.11 15.66 19.22 257.44 66.88 71.11 1125.55 2.87* 1.64* -2.32* 1.27* 23.94* -1.07 1.77 75.45* l 1 xt 2 50.33 15.55 14.99 15.55 194.88 59.33 48.77 756.89 -0.83 -0.74* -0.41 -2.34* -47.10* -8.07* -18.50* -344.92* l 1 xt 3 45.33 16.33 17.99 19.77 273.49 79.09 87.22 1573.89 -2.04* -0.89* 2.73* 1.06* 23.16* 9.14* 16.72* 420.38* l 2 xt 1 44.44 15.99 16.66 14.55 176.16 58.79 61.11 1014.99 -3.20* -0.29* -0.88 -0.67* -7.98* 2.15* -8.21* -127.97* l 2 xt 2 57.44 17.11 17.44 15.66 195.37 51.90 82.21 1418.33 5.20* 0.99* 2.48* 0.55* 2.80 -4.19* 14.94* 374.55* l 2 xt 3 46.89 16.33 13.22 15.99 206.15 60.68 63.78 848.88 -2.00* -0.71* -1.61* 0.06 5.17 2.04 -6.72* -246.57* l 3 xt 1 45.33 9.89 25.11 6.22 67.11 20.68 24.44 611.11 0.14 -1.81* -0.56 -3.13* -41.00* -8.99* 3.59* 68.87* l 3 xt 2 46.98 9.99 22.99x 10.88 128.51 35.08 18.33 426.11 -2.31* -0.88* 0.69 1.59* 11.96* 5.95* -0.46 -16.92 l 3 xt 3 49.11 13.89 23.66 11.66 153.99 34.72 18.89 442.78 2.67* 2.07* 0.69 1.55* 29.04* 3.05* -3.13 -51.94 l 4 xt 1 50.99 15.89 15.32 15.66 197.55 63.41 61.11 950.55 1.13* 0.01 -1.18* -0.65* 11.87* -0.35 2.12 16.28 l 4 xt 2 53.89 16.11 14.11 18.11 230.44 73.33 57.77 817.77 -0.56 0.41 0.19 1.85* 36.32* 10.11* 0.83 -17.29 l 4 xt 3 50.55 16.22 14.78 15.88 154.33 55.99 57.22 887.77 -0.56 -0.41 0.99* -1.19* -48.19* -9.76* -2.95 1.01 l 5 xt 1 41.88 10.44 34.78 13.05 98.27 30.72 18.99 663.99 -0.94 -0.18 4.94* -3.13* 13.17* 8.26* 0.71 18.28* l 5 xt 2 46.44 10.66 25.11 8.22 89.55 18.11 19.44 451.11 -0.98 0.22 -2.15* -1.65* -3.99 -3.79* 3.20 4.59 l 5 xt 3 45.99 11.33 24.33 9.22 92.77 19.98 15.55 375.33 1.03* -0.04 -2.79* -1.47* -9.18* -4.47* -3.91* -128.87* se (l x t) 1.406 0.723 0.988 0.519 7.960 2.610 4.008 76.175 cd(p=0.05) 0.198 0.102 0.139 0.078 1.126 0.360 0.566 10.772 se (sca) 1.148 0.591 0.807 0.424 6.501 2.134 3.272 62.200 *significant at 5% **specific combining ability values are in italics combining ability in bitter 65j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 63-66, 2007 this mean that per se performance was reflected in their respective sca effects (munshi, and sirohi, 1991). the hybrid l 5 x t 1 was the best specific combiner for number of fruits per vine, days to fruit maturity and days to first female flower. the cross was a product of good x good combiner for the respective traits. higher gca effect of the parent involved in a cross also confirms superiority of the cross. the above results suggest that crosses with high sca effects for particular traits generally involved one of the parents which had either good or medium combining ability. similar result was also reported by arora et al (1996) in summer squash. perusal of the data on sca effects shows that no specific hybrid combination had significant sca effect for all the characters studied. of the 15 f 1 hybrid combinations, four hybrids recorded significant positive sca for yield per vine. highest sca for yield per vine showed by the crosses l 1 x t 3 and l 2 x t 2 could be exploited for hybrid vigour in bitter gourd. however, this needs further testing before these combinations can be recommended for large scale commercial exploitation. references allard, r. w. 1960. principles of plant breeding. john wiley and sons, inc., new york. arora, s. k., balwant singh and ghat, t. r. 1996. combining ability studies in summer squash. punjab veg. grower, 31: 14-17. brar, j. a. and sidhu, a. s. 1977. heterosis and combining ability for earliness and quality characters in watermelon (citrullus lanatus thumb. mansf.). part ii. j. res., (pau), 14: 272-278. choudhury, s. m. 1987. studies on heterosis, combining ability and correlation in bitter gourd. ph.d. thesis, mahathma phule agricultural university, rahuri, maharastra. haripriya, k. 1991. heterosis and combining ability in watermelon (citrullus lanatus thumb. mansf.). m.sc.(agri.) thesis, tamilnadu agricultural university, coimbatore. kempthrone, o. 1957. an introduction of genetical statistics. john wiley and sons, inc., new york. munshi, a. d. and sirohi, p. s. 1991. genetical studies in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). ph.d. thesis, faculty of horticulture, i.a.r.i., new delhi. pal, a. b., doijode, s. d. and biswas, s. r. 1983. line x tester analysis of combining ability in bitter gourd. south ind. hort., 3: 72-76. richard kennedy, r., arumugam, r. kandasamy g. and suresh, s. 1995. heterosis studies in bitter gourd. madras agril. j., 82: 121-123. (ms received 24 april 2007, revised 27 june 2007) 66j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 63-66, 2007 sundharaiya and venkatesan introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) popularly known as ‘king of fruits’ is the most important native fruit crop of india, showing high heterozygosity and wide genetic variability. the large number of about 1000 varieties available in india has not been fully exploited. brined raw mango slices, various types of pickles and chutneys are the major products commonly made from raw mango (maneepun and yunchalad, 2004). canned slices, beverages, fruit bars, nectars, syrups and aseptically packed pulp are the important processed products of ripe mango fruits (doreyappa gowda and huddar, 2004). currently, various forms of mango products have good export market in south-east-asia, europe and u.s.a. raw tender mango is best suited for pickle production due to its high acidity, texture and characteristic typical mango flavour. several formulated recipes with diversified taste, flavour, aroma and texture have been developed in india both for domestic and international markets. pruthi (1992) summarized the technological developments in unripe mango products. the quality of raw mango pickle depends mainly on the raw material and hence, varietal suitability and maturity stage play an important role in pickling. studies on physicochemical characteristics of some important mango varieties with respect to pickling have been carried out by many workers (jha et al, 2003, kambale et al, 2004; shinde evaluation of unique mango accessions for whole-fruit pickle c. vasugi, k. sekar1, m.r. dinesh and e.r. suresh indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india e-mail: vasuc@iihr.ernet.in abstract studies conducted to evaluate the suitability of nineteen unique mango accessions for preparation of tender whole mango pickles revealed that these varieties were characterized by their acidic taste and rich raw mango flavour, which are most prefered for pickle production. the physical and quality parameters viz. fruit shape, weight, raw mango flavour, firmness, titrable acidity, latex flow, ph, dry matter and vitamin c which are important in pickle quality, showed wide variations among different varieties. based on the sensory evaluation of whole immature green mango pickle prepared by standard fermentation and curing method, the accessions viz., kashimidi, isagoor appe, malange, appemidi, dantimamidi and jeerige were considered to be most suitable for preparation of tender mango pickles. key words: germplasm, raw tender mango, pickle, variability, sensory evaluation, unique accession et al, 2002). suresh et al (1999) studied the suitability of a few acidic mango varieties for brining preservation and recommended ‘kolanka goa and ‘karanjio’ as the most suitable varieties for preparation of pickles. mango germplasm collection at iihr, bangalore has some unique indigenous types from the western ghats and peninsular regions of our country, which are the hot spots for mango industry. these unique types are gaining importance in export market because of its suitability for pickling as whole fruit (tender mangoes) called ‘midi’ in local language (radhakrishna holla, 2007). in order to identify suitable varieties for pickling, nineteen accessions from the germplasm of pickling type mango were evaluated and the results are presented in this paper. material and methods the study was carried out during mango season of 2007 using 19 accessions viz., kana appe 1, isagoor appe, appemidi, kashimidi, adderi jeerige, aruna gowda appe, gaddalalli appe, jeerige, mani bhatta appe, malange, anantha bhatta appe, balekoppa appe, halasage, holekoppada appe, kalkuni, kovesara, muregeer, tatimidi and dantimamidi, maintained in the institute’s field gene bank. fruits were harvested 75 days after flowering at tender green stage before formation of stony endocarp. the fruits were washed thoroughly with tap water and shade dried to remove surface water. physical and quality 1 department of horticulture, annamalai university, annamalai nagar, tamil nadu j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 156-160, 2008 157 parameters were recorded using 10 fruits per accession. the quality parameters like ph, titrable acidity, vitamin c and dry matter content were analysed as described by ranganna (1986). the shape of fruits, raw mango flavour and quantity of latex flow from fruits were also recorded based on visual observations. the firmness was measured using instron universal testing machine model 4201 with 3 mm dia. probe and was expressed as kg/cm2. standard dry salting process was adopted for pickling of raw tender whole mango, about 500g fruits from each variety in triplicate lots were mixed with common salt at the rate of 250g/ kg fruits. tender whole mango and salt were spread in alternate layers in wide mouthed plastic jars of 750 ml capacity and allowed to undergo natural fermentation. at the end of 4 weeks of fermentation period, mango pickle was prepared using a standard spice recipe (anon., 1999) for quality. the quality of freshly prepared pickle was judged by sensory evaluation as described by ranganna (1986). a panel of ten judges evaluated the quality of the finished product with respect to colour, flavour, texture and overall quality using a rating scale of 1 to 5 for individual characters, (5-very good, 4-good, 3average, 2-bad, 1-very bad). statistical analysis was carried out by following standard analysis of variance as described by panse and sukhatme (1985). the accession with maximum overall score was rated as the best. results and discussion the physical and quality characteristics of different mango accessions are presented in table 1. significant differences were observed in these quality parameters. physical characteristics the fruit weight ranged from 17.43 g in kanappe 1 to 191.75g in gaddalalli appe which is attributed to the inherent nature of different accessions and are heritable under all environments. the fruit firmness was in the range of 3.59 to 5.65 kg/cm2 in kashimidi and malange respectively. the accessions mani bhatta appe, isagoor appe and balekoppa appe had better firmness (>5.0) which is a desirable trait for pickling. the fruit shapes recorded were elliptic, oblong and round in various accessions. the raw mango flavour is one of the most reliable traits for preparation of pickle. nine accessions were found to possess rich raw mango flavour (table 1). the latex flow which is also a preferable trait for pickle production was found to be medium to high in all the midi types except kalkuni, kovesara and tatamidi. quality characteristics the acidity in raw mango is one of the most important quality parameters which decides the taste and stability of pickled product. in the present study, wide table 1. physical and quality parameters of mango accessions evaluated for whole fruit pickle sl.no accession fruit raw mango latex fruit firmness titrable shape flavour flow weight of fruit acidity ph dry vit. (g) kg/cm2 (%) matter(%) c (mg/100 g) 1 adderi jeerige oblong medium medium 45.37 3.62 2.72 2.54 17.60 36.60 2 anantha bhatta appe elliptic medium high 61.53 3.95 2.55 2.52 16.82 68.93 3 appemidi elliptic strong high 25.23 4.32 2.67 2.98 14.19 101.30 4 aruna gowda appe elliptic strong medium 57.67 3.68 3.05 2.80 16.20 42.70 5 balekoppa appe oblong strong high 33.41 5.21 3.34 2.32 14.60 54.94 6 danti mamidi round medium medium 149.87 4.75 2.56 2.41 14.62 50.63 7 gaddalahalli appe round medium medium 191.75 4.84 2.45 2.51 19.24 54.92 8 halasage oblong strong medium 34.54 4.19 2.73 2.41 13.85 106.43 9 holekoppada appe oblong medium medium 55.93 4.59 2.42 2.38 15.22 87.23 10 isagoor appe oblong strong high 36.47 5.16 2.85 2.90 18.94 109.6 11 jeerige oblong strong high 36.30 4.86 3.26 2.26 18.88 45.75 12 kalkuni oblong low low 43.32 3.88 2.75 2.75 19.95 51.85 13 kana appe 1 oblong medium high 17.43 3.67 2.32 2.67 15.76 90.28 14 kashimidi oblong strong medium 26.07 3.59 2.66 3.00 17.80 114.10 15 kovesara round low low 54.01 4.42 2.56 2.85 18.98 76.86 16 malange round strong high 30.77 5.65 3.14 2.28 17.94 36.65 17 mani bhatta appe round strong high 173.97 5.57 3.07 2.24 18.65 64.15 18 muregeer oblong medium medium 26.94 4.16 2.89 2.95 20.08 75.03 19 tatamidi oblong low low 31.51 4.08 1.95 3.20 16.00 88.52 cd (p=0.05) 4.65 0.49 0.39 0.38 3.67 13.11 mangoes for whole-fruit pickle j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2):156-160, 2008 158 variations in titrable acidity ranging from 1.95% in tatamidi to 3.34% in balekoppa appe was observed (table 1). the accessions viz., jeerige, malange, mani bhatta appe and aruna gowda appe also recorded higher acidity of above 3%. the ph value ranged from 2.24 in mani bhatta appe to 3.2 in tatamidi. the accessions malange, jeerige, balekoppa appe and holekoppada appe also recorded a ph in the range of 2.26 to 2.38, which is on par with mani bhatta appe (2.24). the dry matter content was in the range of 13.85% in halasage to 20.08% in muregeer, which is on par with kalkuni, gaddalalli appe, mani bhatta appe, kovesara, jeerige, isagoor appe and anantha bhatta appe. the vitamin c content was high (114.1 mg/100g) in kashimidi to low (36.6 mg/100g) in malange and adderi jeerige. all these variations observed in the quality parameters were attributed to the genetic make up of these accessions expressed with respect to their environment where they are grown. based on the above data, it is presumed that the accessions in general possessed desirable traits for preparation of tender mango pickle. the physical and quality parameters of mango accessions after dry salting and fermentation are presented in table 2. significant variations were observed for physical and quality characters among different accessions. the firmness ranged from 1.57 to 3.96 (kg/cm2) in halasage and isagoor appe respectively. maximum retention of firmness (kg/cm2) was recorded in the accessions appemidi (3.94), jeerige (3.40), muregeer (3.22) and kalkuni (3.0). dry salting is the primary step in traditional mango pickling process (bhatnagar and subramanyam, 1973). during the process of fermentation, the fruit firmness reduced significantly among various accessions. the osmotic effect of salt on mango results in shriveling and moisture loss. the softening phenomenon during this process makes the variety unsuitable for pickle making. after fermentation, there was a slight increase in the acidity, decrease in ph and vitamin c content of fruits while the dry matter content increased to a greater extent. the vitamin c content ranged from 14 mg/ 100g in tatamidi to 52.7mg/100g in kashimidi. the loss in vitamin c is attributed to the decomposition by hydrolysis producing fructose (adsule and roy, 1974). since vitamin c is known to possess antioxidant property, its presence is useful in the prevention of browning and colour retention in pickles. the dry matter content was in the range of 36.28% in dantimamidi to 58.4% in mani bhatta appe. these variations could be attributed to the differential response of accessions to salt absorption during fermentation. sensory quality of tender mango pickle the sensory quality scores of tender mango pickles made from different accessions indicated that the accession, malange recorded the highest score for colour (4.17), which is on par with isagoor appe, danti mamidi, mani bhatta appe, etc. this could be attributed to the lower amount of tannins and other oxidizing compounds. the accession mani table 2. physical and quality parameters of mango accessions after dry salting sl.no accession firmness of fruit titrable p h dry vit. c (kg/cm2) acidity(%) weight(%) (mg/100 g) 1 adderi jeerige 2.85 2.91 2.44 47.46 16.50 2 anantha bhatta appe 2.86 2.69 2.38 42.40 22.10 3 appemidi 3.94 2.91 2.45 42.40 40.73 4 aruna gowda appe 2.61 3.28 2.56 46.56 23.40 5 balekoppa appe 2.35 3.53 2.25 39.26 33.50 6 danti mamidi 2.63 2.65 2.32 36.28 17.10 7 gaddalalli appe 2.35 2.57 2.14 47.00 14.80 8 halasage 1.57 2.48 2.36 46.86 34.70 9 holekoppada appe 2.68 2.65 2.24 38.18 39.72 10 isagoor appe 3.96 2.96 2.30 49.44 43.51 11 jeerige 3.40 3.44 2.18 48.86 26.43 12 kalkuni 3.00 2.88 2.41 39.86 37.54 13 kana appe 1 2.57 2.41 2.12 47.56 37.22 14 kashimidi 2.90 2.75 2.63 55.42 52.70 15 kovesara 2.62 2.88 2.55 46.41 19.74 16 malange 1.63 3.20 2.14 45.96 17.74 17 mani bhatta appe 2.46 3.28 2.09 58.40 38.15 18 muregeer 3.22 2.97 2.39 48.20 20.72 19 tatamidi 2.97 2.08 2.65 43.46 14.00 cd (p=0.05) 0.55 0.36 0.34 5.86 7.66 vasugi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2):156-160, 2008 159 bhatta appe recorded the highest score for texture (4.08) and flavour (4.5) mainly due to the presence of higher number of flavouring compounds as indicated by intensive characteristic raw mango flavour. the overall acceptability score (4.16) and average score out of five (4.19) was higher for the accession mani bhatta appe. based on this study it is concluded that high acid mango accession mani bhatta appe produces best quality pickle with better colour, texture and flavour. the accessions viz., kashimidi, isagoor appe, malange, appemidi, dantimamidi and jeerige were also on par with mani bhatta appe. hence, these accessions are considered to be most suitable for preparation of tender whole mango pickles. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the director, iihr, bangalore for providing facilities. the help rendered by mr. dasappa, technician, mr. n. ramachandra, lab. technician and mrs. sarojini jalali, technical officer is gratefully acknowledged. the first author acknowledges the department of horticulture, annamalai university, chidambaram for providing an opportunity to register for doctoral work. references adsule, p.g. and roy, s.k. 1974. studies on some important commercial varieties of mango of north india in relation to canning, freezing and chemical preservation of pulp. j. fd. sci. technol., 11: 257-260 anonymous. 1999. home scale processing and preservation of fruits and vegetables. cftri, mysore, pp 27-28 bhatnagar, h.c. and subramanyam, h. 1973. some aspects of preservation, processing and export of mango and its products. ind. fd. packer, 27: 33-52 doreyappa gowda, i.n. and huddar, a.g. 2004. investigations on processing quality of some mango varieties, hybrids and their blends. j. fd. sci. technol., 41: 154-159 jha, k.k., dwivedi, a.k. and jain, b.p. 2003. association study for pickle purpose mangoes (mangifera indica l.). j. res., 15: 135-136 kamble, a.b., karale, a.r., garad, b.v., shirsath, h.k. and more, t.a., 2004. selection of seedling mango types for pickling characters. j. maharashtra agril. uni., 29: 348-349 maneepun, s. and yunchalad, m. 2004. developing processed mango products for international markets. acta hort., 645: 93-106 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers. fourth edition, icar, new delhi pruthi, j.s. and badekar, s.v., 1963. studies on varietal trials in salting and brining of raw mango slices for subsequent use in chutney and pickle manufacture. punjab hortl. j., 3: 264-271 table 3. sensory evaluation of tender mango pickle sl.no accession colour texture taste overall average score (appearance) (flavour) quality out of 5 1 adderi jeerige 3.50 3.15 3.75 3.45 3.46 2 anantha bhatta appe 3.35 2.55 3.45 3.25 3.15 3 appemidi 3.90 3.75 4.12 3.95 3.93 4 aruna gowda appe 3.90 3.80 3.60 3.83 3.78 5 holekoppada appe 3.30 2.95 3.60 3.21 3.27 6 danti mamidi 4.10 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.03 7 gaddalalli appe 3.48 3.71 3.85 3.81 3.71 8 halasage 3.60 3.10 2.95 3.12 3.19 9 balekoppa appe 3.95 3.42 4.00 3.75 3.78 10 isagoor appe 4.15 3.85 4.25 4.05 4.08 11 jeerige 4.00 3.70 3.85 3.95 3.88 12 kalkuni 3.20 3.70 3.85 3.50 3.56 13 kana appe 1 3.70 3.10 3.80 3.45 3.51 14 kashimidi 4.00 3.90 4.00 4.13 4.01 15 kovesara 3.50 3.51 3.94 3.60 3.64 16 malange 4.17 4.00 4.04 4.04 4.06 17 mani bhatta appe 4.00 4.08 4.51 4.16 4.19 18 muregeer 3.51 3.17 3.44 3.26 3.35 19 tatamidi 4.00 3.55 3.00 3.75 3.58 cd (p=0.05) 0.42 0.33 0.32 0.34 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2):156-160, 2008 mangoes for whole-fruit pickle 160 pruthi, j.s. 1992. simple innovations in mango processing technology. ind. fd. packer, 46: 45-55 radhakrishna holla, 2007. guna, vaishistathegala khajane vanya jaathiya maavu thaligalu-sujatha sanchike, may pp. 17-23 ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products, second edition, tata mc graw hill publishing company ltd., new delhi p. 1 -1112 shinde, a.k., joshi, g.d., waghmare, g.m. and patil, b.p. 2002. development of pickle purpose mango varieties cv. konkan ruchi. maharashtra agril. uni., 26: 300-302 suresh, e.r., rajashekhara, e., yadav, i.s. and dinesh, m.r. 1999. evaluation of high acid mango varieties for brining preservation. beverage fd. world, 26: 41-42 (ms received 15 november, 2007, revised 21 july 2008) vasugi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2):156-160, 2008 introduction onion is the most important bulbous crop grown in india, besides garlic. though it is a vegetable, onion also serves as a spice and provides an aromatic flavour to the dish. onion is a basic flavouring agent / ingredient in the kitchen. when used as a vegetable or spice, it brings out the flavour of other dishes without overpowering them. fresh onion has a pungent, persistent, even irritating taste; but, when sauted, onion becomes sweet and less pungent. minimally processed onion is a ready-to-use onion commodity which offers the consumer a fully usable product with high nutritive value and increased shelf-life without effecting much change in freshness of the produce. use of fresh-cut onion saves labour and time, as, cutting onions is labour-intensive and time-consuming. fresh-cut products are freshly cut, washed, packaged and held under low temperature. even though minimally processed, these remain in a fresh state, ready to eat or cook. preparation of fresh-cut onion involves trimming, peeling, cutting, sanitizing and packing conveniently to offer the consumer 100% usable product, with high nutritive value effect of packaging and storage temperature on shelf-life of minimally processed onion (allium cepa l.) s. bhuvaneswari, c.k. narayana, r. udhayakumar1 and r. veere gowda2 division of post harvest technology icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india email: bhuvana@iihr.ernet.in abstract minimally processed onion is a ready-to-use onion product offering the consumer a fully usable commodity, without much change to freshness of the produce. effect of packaging and storage temperature on shelf-life in minimally processed onion was studied. packaging and temperature play an important role in determining shelf-life in minimally processed onion. onion pieces approx. 8-10mm thick were cut with a plain, sharp knife and subjected to dip-treatment with the firming agent, calcium lactate (2%), for 5 minutes. the samples were surface-dried and packaged in polypropylene bags of size 250 x 125mm, of variable thicknesses (25, 50 or 75μm) and stored at low temperatures and high rh:8±1oc and 83±2% rh; 10±1oc and 82±2% rh; and, 12±1oc and 80 ±2% rh. it was found that onion cv. arka sona sliced with a plain, sharp knife, pre-treated with 2% calcium lactate, surface-dried and packaged in polypropylene bags sized 250x125mm (50μm thick), and stored at 8+1oc and 83±2% rh retained freshness and nutritive value, were microbially safe and acceptable, with a shelf-life of 14 days at storage. key words: minimal processing, onion, calcium lactate, polypropylene bags, shelf-life j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):216-219, 2015 and increased shelf life, without causing much change in freshness. these are prepared for restaurants and massdining functions such as marriages, parties and have gained popularity in urban india in the recent past. due to urbanization and with most of the families having working women, lack of time for cutting onion for cooking is a constraint, and packaged onions fit this need perfectly. mostly, minimally-processed vegetables are stored at low temperatures. packaging and temperature play an important role in the shelf-life of minimally-processed vegetables. with this in view, studies on the effect of packaging and storage temperature on shelf-life in minimally processed onion were made. material and methods onion cv. arka sona, grown at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india, was used in the study. onion was harvested from the field, cured and sorted to remove injured bulbs, and to obtain bulbs of uniform size and colour. the onions were peeled and cut into pieces of approximately 10g each, thickness 8-10mm (approx.) using a sterilized, sharp stainless-steel knife. 1agricultural engineering, faculty of agrl and ah, gandhigram rural institute, gandhigram, tamil nadu, india 2division of vegetable crops, icar-iihr, bengaluru, india 217 shelf-life of minimally processed onion onion pieces approx. 8-10mm thick were cut with a plain, sharp knife and subjected to dip-treatment with the firming agent, calcium lactate (2%), for 5 minutes. the samples were surface-dried and packaged in polypropylene (pp) bags of 250mm x 125mm size, differing in thicknesses, viz., 25µm, 50µm or 75µm thick, and stored at variable low temperatures: 8±1oc and 83±2% rh; 10±1oc and 82±2% rh; and, 12±1 oc and 80 ±2% rh. though the recommended storage temperature is 2-6oc, ready-to-use products are often stored at higher temperatures in normal retail-distribution (carlin et al, 1990) subjective measurements such as visual quality (including freshness, browning, shelf-life decay, aroma and discoloration) measurements were made at regular intervals (every two days) to determine shelf-life of the sample. discolouration, dryness and separation of rings indicated the end of shelf-life of a sample. visual quality was studied as per camelo and cantwell (1999). at end of the shelf-life for each sample, quality parameters such as weight-loss, moisture content, firmness, respiration rate, total and reducing sugars, pyruvic acid content, acidity and total soluble solids, were measured and analyzed. the best package and storage temperature combination, in terms of maximum shelf-life of minimally processed onion, was subjected to microbial analysis by the pour plate technique (downes and lto, 2001). completely randomized design was used in all the experiments and data analyzed statistically using wasp 2.0 software. results and discussion effect of packaging and storage conditions on physicchemical qualities in minimally processed onion at the end of storage a) shelf-life samples packed in polypropylene (pp) bags of 50µm thickness, stored at 8±1°c and 83±2% rh, showed lower dryness, intact rings and less browning at the end of the storage period (14 days) compared to samples packed in pp bags 25µm thick, which showed more browning, had detached rings (due to moisture-loss in the sample), whereas, spoilage occurred in samples packaged in 75µm pp bags, due to moisture condensation. in samples stored at 10±1°c and 82±2% rh, and, 12±1°c and 80 ±2% rh, shelf-life of the samples ended in 11 days and 8 days, respectively. however, as found in 8±1°c and 83±2% rh, observations made were similar in samples packaged in bags 25µm, 50µm or 75µm thick. this shows that lower storage-temperature extended the shelf-life of a product. product degradation intensified with increase in storage temperature, as observed by berno et al (2014) in stored minimally-processed onion. b) weight-loss at the end of storage period, samples packaged at 8±1°c had lower weight-loss in packages of all the three thicknesses (2.75% 2.00%) compared to samples packaged at 10±1°c (3.78% 2.92%) or 12±1°c (4.83% 4.29% ) (table 1). higher the storage temperature, greater the weight-loss in the sample, irrespective of thickness of the film. moreover, it was observed that at all the three storage temperatures, samples packaged in pp bags 25µm thick showed greater dryness due to moisture-loss. samples packaged in 75µm thick bags showed lower weight-loss due to higher film thickness. it was observed that samples packaged in 50µm thick bags superior owing to lower weight-loss and were fresher. c) firmness it is observed from the table 1 that firmness increased with increased storage temperature irrespective of packaging treatment. firmness value was minimum at 8±1°c and 85% rh, which means that the sample had not lost its cell-integrity. further, at 8±1°c and 85% rh, firmness value in 50µm was higher than in 25µm, and lesser than in 75µm pp bag throughout the storage period. however samples packaged in 50µm pp bag were preferred, based on lower dryness and presence of intact rings at the end of the storage period (14 days). d) biochemical parameters biochemical properties of minimally processed onion samples packaged in pp bags of different thicknesses were measured and are presented in tables 2 and 3. samples packaged in pp bag of 50µm thickness had higher tss and acidity to those packaged in pp bag of 25µm thickness (table 2). total sugar content in samples packaged table 1. effect of packaging and storage conditions on weight loss and firmness in minimally processed onion at the end of storage (14 days) treatment weight loss (%) firmness (kgf/cm 2) 8±1°c 10±1°c 12±1°c 8±1°c 10±1°c 12±1°c initial 0 0 0 1.65 1.65 1.65 pp* bag 25µm 2.75 3.78 4.83 1.38 1.48 1.52 pp bag 50µm 2.51 3.35 4.79 1.50 1.59 1.64 pp bag 75µm 2.00 2.92 4.29 1.57 1.68 1.81 cd (1%) 0.56 ns 0.09 0.13 0.12 0.12 *pp: polypropylene; ns: non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):216-219, 2015 218 in pp bags of all the thicknesses decreased compared to that in before bagging samples. similar observations were made by carlin et al (1990) in ready-to-use grated carrot during storage. chunyang et al (2010) observed that onion slices packaged in 70µm thick, high-barrier film, had increased acidity and decreased total soluble solids (tss) during storage. decrease in tss at the end of storage at 10oc in diced onion was observed by hong et al (2000). pyruvic acid content was found to be high in samples packaged in pp bag 50µm thick (7.61µmol/g) at 8±1oc, compared to that in the other treatments (table 3). higher pyruvic acid content helped retain pungency in onion till the end of storage period (14 days). pyruvic acid content was lower in samples stored at 12±1oc, perhaps due to their higher water content which, in turn, leached out pyruvic acid. total sugars were found to decrease with increasing storage temperature, irrespective of the treatment. as storage temperature increased, retention of nutrients decreased. thus, samples packaged in 50µm thick polypropylene bags and stored at low temperature (8±1oc) were found suitable for retaining desirable biochemical qualities in minimally processed onion. e) respiration in minimally processed onion respiration rate in onion cv. arka sona samples packaged in polypropylene bags of 25, 50 and 75µm thickness, stored at 8±1°c and 83±2% rh, which recorded a maximum shelf-life of 14 days, was studied. in fig. 1, it is observed that there is a steep increase in co2 evolution; after reaching a peak over a period of time, the increase was constant until the end of the storage period (14 days) in the sample in all the three types of package. respiration rate may increase gradually over time, until a maximum value is attained and, then, start decreasing again to either a value before wounding, or, to a higher value (gorny 1997; fonseca et al, 1999). similar findings were reported by lakakul et al (1999) where respiration rate in apple slices was found to be 2-3 times that in a whole-fruit. increase in co2 evolution was lower in samples packaged in polypropylene bags of 50µm thickness, compared to samples packed in 25µm thick polypropylene bags. lower the respiration rate, higher was the shelf-life of a sample. shredded iceberg lettuce showed 35-40% increase in respiration rate compared to a quartered lettuce-head (o’beirne, 1995). respiration rate and other characteristics of any produce during storage change over a period of storage or any change in temperature (dash et al, 2013). table 2. effect of packaging and storage conditions on biochemical quality of minimally processed onion at the end of storage (14 days) treatment tss (obrix) acidity (%) 8±1°c 10±1°c 12±1°c 8±1°c 10±1°c 12±1°c initial 10.40 10.40 10.40 0.052 0.052 0.052 pp* bag 25µm 8.90 7.00 6.73 0.050 0.042 0.036 pp bag 50µm 9.50 8.33 7.67 0.042 0.044 0.043 pp bag 75µm 9.80 8.73 8.25 0.047 0.045 0.046 cd (1%) 0.04 ns 0.35 0.001 ns ns *pp: polypropylene; ns: non-significant table 3. effect of packaging and storage conditions on biochemical quality of minimally processed onion at the end of storage (14 days) treatment pyruvic acid (µmol/g) reducing sugars (%) total sugars (%) 8±1°c 10±1°c 12±1°c 8±1°c 10±1°c 12±1°c 8±1°c 10±1°c 12±1°c initial 7.94 7.94 7.94 4.50 4.50 4.50 7.79 7.79 7.79 pp* bag 25µm 6.46 5.49 3.73 2.05 3.76 3.43 7.09 5.14 4.08 pp bag 50µm 7.61 6.48 4.87 2.18 3.92 3.59 7.20 5.45 4.23 pp bag 75µm 6.78 5.77 4.11 2.21 3.94 4.20 7.14 5.46 4.27 cd (1%) 0.13 0.12 0.71 0.07 ns 0.27 ns 0.10 ns *pp: polypropylene; ns: non-significant *pp: polypropylene bags fig. 1. effect of packaging and storage conditions on respiration in minimally processed onion stored at 8±1°c and 83±2% rh bhuvaneswari et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):216-219, 2015 219 f) microbial quality in minimally processed onion microbial analysis showed that samples dipped in a solution of calcium lactate were microbially safe, as, the total colony forming units in 102 dilution were found to be nil at the end of a storage period of 14 days at 8±1°c and 83±2% rh. these findings are similar to those of finn and upton (1997) who observed no pathogens in shredded carrot or cabbage packaged in polypropylene film (35µm thick) stored at 7oc. it was found from our studies that onion cv. arka sona sliced with a plain, sharp knife and pre-treated with 2% calcium lactate; surface-dried and packaged in polypropylene bag sized 250x125mm (50µm thick) stored at 8±1°c and 83±2% rh, retained freshness and nutritive value, was microbially safe and acceptable, with a shelflife of 14 days. references berno, n.d., uliana, j.v.t., dias, c.t.s. and kluge, r.a. 2014. storage temperature and type of cut affect the biochemical and physiological characteristics of freshcut purple onions. post harvest biol. technol., 93:91-96 camelo, a.f.l. and cantwell, m. 1999. quality deterioration of fresh cut onion. hort’l. sci., 34:505 carlin, f., nguyen-the, g.c., hilbert. and chambroy, y. 1990. fig. 2. microbial quality of minimally processed onion at the end of storage at 8±1°c and 83±2% rh modified atmospheric packaging of fresh, ready-touse grated carrots in polymeric films. j. food sci., 55:1033-1038 chunyang, h., yuexiqing, l.f. and sun binxin. 2010. effect of high oxygen modified atmosphere packaging of fresh cut onion quality. in: proceedings of the 17th iapri world conference on packaging, tianjin, china, 10.12-10.15, 2010, e-book pp.124-128 dash, s., abhijit kar. and kalyani gorrepati. 2013. modified atmosphere packaging of minimally processed fruits and vegetables. trends post harvest tech., 1:1-19 downes, f.p. and lto, k. 2001. pour plate technique. in: compendium of methods for microbiological examination of foods. american public health association, washington dc, p. 7.62 finn, m.j. and upton, m.e. 1997. survival of pathogens on modified atmosphere packaged shredded carrot and cabbage. j. food protection, 60:1347-1350 fonseca, s.c., oliveira, f.a.r., brecht, j.k. and chan, k.v. 1999. development of perforation mediated modified atmosphere packaging for fresh cut vegetables. in: f.a.r. oliveira and j.c. oliveira (eds). processing of foods. quality optimization and process assessment. boco ratan, usa, crc press, pp. 389404 gorny, j.r. 1997. modified atmosphere packaging and the fresh cut revolution. perishables handl. newslett., 90:4-5 hong, g., peiser, g. and cantwell, m.i. 2000. use of controlled atmospheres and heat treatment to maintain quality of intact and minimally processed green onions. post harvest biol. technol., 20:53-61 lakakul, r., beaudry, r.m. and hernanadez, r.j. 1999. modelling respiration of apple slices in modified atmosphere packages. j. food sci., 64:105-110 o’beirne, d. 1995. influence of raw material and processing on quality of minimally processed vegetables. in: progress highlight c/95, improvement of the safety and quality of refrigerated ready-to-eat foods using novel mild preservation techniques. air 1-ct92-0125 project group (ms received 17 june 2015, revised 28 september 2015, accepted 03 october 2015) shelf-life of minimally processed onion j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):216-219, 2015 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 71-75, 2006 marketing and post-harvest loss assessment in sapota t. m. gajanana, m. sudha and v. dakshinamoorthy section of economics and statistics indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: gajanana@iihr.emet.in abstract a study was undertaken in the kolar district of karnataka to assess tlie losses in post tiarvest handling and marketing of sapota. the analysis of data collected at the field level, market level, procurement centre of hopcoms and at the retail level indicated post harvest loss (phl) of 15.98% in the wholesale marketing channel (wsm) and about 14.07 per cent in the hopcoms channel. marketing system for sapota was found to be inefficient as the efficiency index was found to be less than 1. however, between wsm and hopcoms, the latter was found to be more efficient in terms of lower marketing cost, higher price realization by farmers and lower margin of the intermediaries. use of mechanical harvester, pre harvest management of fruits against fruit borer and opening of procurement centres of hopcoms in the producing region are suggested in order to reduce the phl and also to improve the efficiency of the marketing system. key words: efficiency, marketing, post harvest loss, sapota introduction sapota is an important fruit crop accounting for about 2% each of area and production of fruits in the country (anon, 2004). the production at national level has been increasing at a compound rate of 6.14% annually. karnataka is one of the major sapota growing states with an area of 21,274 ha. and a production of 2,26,512 (anon, 2(x)5) accounting for about 25% each of area and production of sapota in india. like in other fruits, production of sapota is also subject to losses at different stages of post harvest handling. not much information is available on the marketing and post harvest handling or assessment of post harvest loss (phl) in this fruit crop. very few studies, mainly under experimental conditions have reported the phl in sapota (jagtap and katrodia, 1998). hence, a study was taken up to examine the marketing practices and to assess phl in sapota with the following specific objectives: i) to examine the existing marketing practices for sapota, ii) to assess post harvest losses and to identify causal factors at different stages of handling in different marketing channels and iii) to suggest strategies to reduce phl and to improve the marketing system in sapota. material and methods selection of the study area multistage random sampling was used to select the study area and the sample respondents were selected randomly. in the first stage, kolar district was selected, as, it is the major sapota growing area of the state accounting for about 15% each of area and production in karnataka (anon, 2005). in the second stage, bangarpet, malur and kolar taluks were selected as these are the major sapota growing taluks of the district. a total of 21 respondents/ farmers' fields were randomly selected from among 5 villages. depending upon the marketing channels followed, bangalore wholesale market and the horticultural producers' cooperative marketing and processing society ltd. (hopcoms) were selected for examining the marketing practices and to assess phl at the market level. private retail outlets and hopcoms retail outlets in bangalore city were selected for assessing retail level losses in sapota. details of sampling are given in table 1. estimation of phl keeping in view the stakeholders involved in post harvest handling operations, three stages, viz, field level, market level and retail level were identified for phl assessment. losses at the field level were estimated in 21 sample lots drawn from the harvesting fields at the time of harvest. at the field level, normally, no grading is done but fruits damaged due to mechanical injury, borer attack and bird attack are sorted out and discarded. this category of discarded fruits was treated as loss at the field level. at the mailto:gajanana@iihr.emet.in gajanana et al market level, samples were drawn from the wholesale market at agricultural produce market committee (apmc), singena agrahara and from the procurement centre of hopcoms, bangalore. the loss was assessed at the time of auctioning in the wholesale market and at the time of purchase at hopcoms procurement centre. at the market level, very small and immature fruits, and fruits damaged due to crushing/bruising during transit, are discarded. these discarded fruits were considered to be loss at the market level. the retail level losses were assessed from the sample lots of private and hopcoms outlets. at the retail level, overripe and rotten fruits are discarded and the quantity of such fruits was taken as loss at the retail level. simple averages and percentages were used as analytical tools. estimation of marketing efficiency efficiency of the marketing system is normally analysed using the standard formula of acharya and agarwal (2001). this formula was later modified by sreenivasa murthy et. al. (2004) by including phl as an item of cost. the modified formula used in our study is given below: npp ^ ^ ^ ^ mc + mm + phl where me = marketing efficiency index npp = farmer's net price npp = gpp-{cp+(lpxgpp)}or npp={gpp}-{cp}-{lpxgpp} where npp is the net price received by the farmer (rs/kg) gpp is the gross price received by the farmer (rs/ kg) cp is the cost incurred by the farmer during marketing (rs/kg) lp is the physical loss of produce at field level (kg) mc = marketing cost of the intermediaries mc = c p + c ^ + c ^ where cp is the cost of the farmer in marketing (rs/kg) c^ is the cost of the wholesaler in marketing (rs/ kg) c^ is the cost of the retailer in marketing (rs/kg) mm = marketing margin of the intermediaries mm = mm^+mm^ where mm^ is the marketing margin of the wholesaler mm^ is the marketing margin of the retailer phl = post harvest loss during marketing phl = {lp x gpp}+ {l^ x gp^}+{l^ x gp,} where l^ and gp^ are same as indicated above f f l^ is the physical loss during wholesaling (kg) l^ is the physical loss during retailing (kg) gp^ is the gross wholesale price (rs/kg) gp^ is the gross retail price (rs/kg) results and discussion marketing channels there were three important channels used by the farmers in the study area for marketing sapota: • producer-contractor-distant market wholesalerretailer consumer • producer-commission agent/wholesaler-retailerconsumer • producer-cooperative society (hopcoms) consumer the above channels could briefly be called 1) field sale, 2) wholesale marketing (wsm) channel and 3) hopcoms channel. in all, 66.67% of the farmers marketed 66.48% of the total quantity of sapota at the field level itself (field sale). about 20% of the farmers marketed 19.23% through wholesale market in bangalore and 13.33% of the farmers marketed 14.33% of sapota through hopcoms. marketing practices after harvest, fruits damaged due to injury, bird attack or borer attack are discarded, good fruits are packed in gunny bags @ 75 kg /bag and brought to the wholesale market in tempos (motorized vehicles). sapota is then auctioned off in the wholesale market through commission agents and it then reaches the retailer. in the case of hopcoms, after harvest, sapota is packed in plastic bags @ 35 kg/bag and is brought to the hopcoms procurement centre. bangalore, in tempos. the produce is purchased by hopcoms after careful sorting and discarding very small and immature fruits; ripe, crushed and broken fruits. it is then sent to retail outlets in hopcoms' own vehicle where care is taken while loading and unloading the produce. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 71-75,2006 72 post harvest loss assessment in sapota post harvest loss assessment phl assessment and marketing of sapota was confined to channel ii and channel iii only'. total post harvest loss was observed to be 15.98% consisting of 5.73% at the farmers' field level, 3.15% at the wholesale market level and 7.10% at the retail level in the wholesale marketing channel. in hopcoms channel, the phl was observed to be slightly less at 14.07 per cent consisting of 5.73% at the filed level, 3.92% at the procurement centre level and 4.42% at the retail level. analysis of data collected from farmers' fields at the time of harvest revealed that phl in sapota was around 5.73% (table 2). the main causes of loss were observed to be mechanical (physical) injury (4.15%) due to faulty harvest practices, borer attack (1.35%) and bird attack (0.23%). manual harvesting of sapota caused injury to fruits as some fruits fell to the ground while picking. besides mechanical injury, fruit borer also caused damage to the fruits. it may be observed from table 3 that phl was 3.15% at the bangalore wholesale market. the main causes of loss at the market level were observed to be very small fruits (1.35%), bruises (0.82%), broken fruits (0.49%) crushed fruits (0.37%) and overripe fruits (0.12%). at the hopcoms procurement centre, phl was observed to be 3.92 per cent owing to small and immature fruits (1.02%), bruises (1.14%), crushed fruits (0.55%), overripe fruits (0.41%), borer attack (0.32%) and malformed fruits (0.52%). in the case of hopcoms, careful initial screening and sorting of fruits was the reason for higher phl at this level. the harvested fruits are packed in gunny bags and loaded into the tempos without much cushioning except with leaves. hence, during transit, fruits are bruised and ripe fruits are crushed and broken. the phl at the retail level was 7.10% and 4.42%, respectively, in channel ii and channel iii. loss at this level was mainly due to overripe and rotten fruits in these outlets. careful sorting of ripe, borer attacked and malformed fruits at the time of table 1. sampling details si. no. stages of no. of sample avg. weight of the sample lot (kg) 20.15 73.88 30.60 15.66 10.00 procurement by hopcoms resulted in less loss during the retailing stage as over ripened and rotting fruits are avoided. table 2. post harvest loss assessment at field level 1 2 (i) (ii) 3 (i) (ii) handling field level market level wholesale market hopcoms procurement centre retail level private retail outlets hopcoms outlets lots 21 18 5 14 5 si. no. 1 2 3 (i) (ii) (iii) particulars total quantity of sample fruits quantity of good fruits damaged fruits mechanical injury borer attack bird attack total phl quantity (kg) 422.65 398.46 17.55 5.69 0.95 24.19 percentage (%) 100.00 94.27 4.15 1.35 0.23 5.73 it may be observed from table 4 that field level loss accounted for maximum loss in the hopcoms channel (41%), while, in the wsm channel, retail level losses accounted for 44% of the total phl. mechanical injury, borer attack at the field level and overripe and rotting fruits were the causal factors in both the channels. this calls for development and use of sapota harvester and pre harvest management of sapota for control of fruit borer at the field level. further, rotting of fruits was mainly due to secondary infection caused by borer and compression damage during transit. proper packaging and transportation would reduce this loss. marketing costs and returns in different channels it may be noted from tables 5 and 6 that the producer's share was higher in hopcoms channel compared to wsm channel. further, the farmer could get higher net price (rs.8.64/kg) in this channel than in wsm table 3. post harvest loss (phl) at the market level si. no particulars phl (kg) ws market hopcoms 1 total quantity of sample fruits 2 good fruits 3 damaged fruits (i) small/immature fruits (ii) bruised fruits (iii) broken fruits (iv) crushed fruits (v) ripe fruits (vi) fruits with borer attack (vii) malformed fruits total 1330.00 (100.00) 1228.16 (96.85) 18.00 (1.35) 10.87 (0.82) 6.55 (0.49) 4.86 (0.37) 1.56 (0.12) 41.84 (3.15) 153.00 (100.00) 146.99 (96.08) 1.50 (1.02) 1.74 (1.14) 0.85 (0.55) 0.63 (0.41) 0.49 (0.32) 0.80 (0.52) 6.01 (3.92) note: figures in parentheses are percentages of total 'in channel i (field sale), the movement of the harvested produce could not be traced to its destination due to want of time, resources and non-cooperation of contractor. / hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 71-75,2006 73 gajanana et al table 4. total post harvest loss in sapota particulars field level market level retail level total phl (%) 5.73 3.15 7.10 15.98 wsm share in total 35.79 19.71 44.43 100.00 hopcoms phl (%) 5.73 3.92 4.42 14.07 share in total 40.65 27.86 31.41 100.00 channel (rs.7.08/kg). marketing cost appears to be the same for both the channels. however, the intermediaries' margin was more than the producer's share in case of wsm channel and was much higher (43.65%) than the margin in the case of hopcoms channel.(32.86%). post harvest loss in hopcoms channel was slightly less (14.07%) than the wsm channel (15.98%). it is interesting to note that the marketing system for sapota does not appear to be efficient as the efficiency index was less than 1.00 in both the channels (table 6). however, of the two, hopcoms channel was better than wsm channel. this may be attributed to the higher price realization by farmers, lower intermediary's margin and better handling of the produce. for farmers, the marketing cost was observed to be rs.l.88/kg in hopcoms channel and rs.2.24/kg when sold through commission agents. the marketing cost consisted of harvesting and packing (3137%), transport (25-28%) and deduction towards spoilage in the case of hopcoms (33.51%) and commission in the case of sale through commission agent in wholesale market table 5. price spread in sapota in different channels price spread net price received by farmers marketing cost of farmers phl at field level cost of wholesaler phl margin of wholesaler retailer's cost phl retailer's margin consumer's price wsm rs/kg 7.08 2.24 0.57 0.24 0.52 5.89 0.44 1.63 3.96 22.57 table 6: efficiency of the channels in si. no. efficiency parameters 1 producer's share (%) 2 marketing cost (rs/kg) 4 intermediaries margin (%) 5 post harvest loss (phl) (%) 3 marketing efficiency index % 31.37 9.92 2.53 1.06 2.30 26.10 1.95 7.22 17.55 100.00 hopcoms rs/kg 8.64 1.88 0.64 1.32 1.84 7.01 21.33 marketing sapota wsm 31.37 2.92 (5.64)^ 43.65 15.98 0.60 % 40.51 8.81 3.00 6.19 8.63 32.86 100.00 hopcoms (0.46)** 40.51 3.20 (5.68)* 32.86 14.07 0.91 (0.68)** * indicates marketing cost after inclusion of phl as an item of cost ** indicates marketing efficiency (me) after inclusion of phl as an item of marketing cost (44.20%). marketing of sapota through hopcoms was found to be efficient both in terms of cost (16% less compared to wholesale market sale) and 13 and 29 per cent higher price realization (rs.ll.l6/kg) compared to selling in the wholesale market (rs.9.89/kg) and field sale (rs.8.62/ kg), respectively. further, the net returns realized by the farmers were 31 per cent higher in hopcoms channel (rs.36,909/ha) compared to sale of sapota through commission agent in the wholesale market (rs.28,264/ha). post harvest joss, price spread and efficiency post harvest loss accounts for 11 percent of the consumer's price in case of hopcoms channel and about 12% in case of wsm channel. as phl increases cost of marketing, it also has an impact on marketing efficiency. price spread was observed to be 59.49% which, without the phl, would have been 50.77% in hopcoms channel. in wsm channel the price spread has increased to 68.63% from 61.47% due to inclusion of phl as an item of cost in the marketing system. if phl is also included as a cost of marketing, efficiency of the already inefficient marketing system is further reduced by about 33.82% in hopcoms channel and by 30.43% in wsm channel. hence, it may be inferred that inclusion of phl in the calculation of marketing efficiency will reduce the efficiency. this calls for efforts to reduce loss during post harvest handling of sapota to improve efficiency of the marketing system. based on the foregoing discussion, it may be concluded that development and use of mechanical harvesters, and, suitable pre-harvest management practices for control of fruit borer at the field level, sorting of damaged/borer attacked fruits at an early stage, would reduce the loss at later stages by avoiding secondary infection. use of proper packing material with cushioning could reduce loss in transit due to bruises, compression and crushing of fruits. marketing system for sapota was found to be inefficient due to higher costs and margins of the intermediaries. however, between wsm and hopcoms, the latter was observed to be better and hence, procurement centre of hopcoms at the production regions may be started. this would reduce transport costs and loss in transit. this would also improve the efficiency of the marketing system by reducing the number of handlings and the associated loss. efforts need to be made to reduce phl to increase efficiency index of the marketing system. acknowledgements the authors wish to thank director, iihr, bangalore for providing facility to carry out the work. useful comments of the anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 71-75, 2006 74 post harvest loss assessment in sapota references acharya, s.s. and agarwal, n.l., 2001. agricultural marketing in india, third edition, oxford & ibh publishing company, new delhi. anonymous 2004. horticultural data base 2002-03, national horticulture board, gurgaon, india. anonymous 2005. horticultural crops statistics of karnataka at a glance 2002-03, department of horticulture, lai bagh, government of kamtaka. jagtap, k.b. and katrodia, j.s. 1998. post harvest losses in packaging and transportation of sapota, indian j. hort., 55:48-51. sreenivasa murthy, d., gajanana t.m. and sudha, m. 2004. post harvest loss and its impact on marketing cost, margin and efficiency: a study on grapes in karnataka, indian j. agril. econ., 59:772-786. {ms received 10 april 2006 revised 13, june 2006) j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 71-75,2006 75 introduction sapota, manilkara achras (mill.) is an important fruit crop belonging to the family sapotaceae. deficiency of major and micronutrients causes considerable yield reduction in sapota cv. kalipatti resulting in economic loss. in order to avoid yield loss, its nutrient requirements need to be carefully monitored through soil or leaf analysis for evolving nutrient management strategies. leaf analysis is considered a more direct method of plant nutritional status evaluation than soil analysis, especially, for fruit crops as these differ from seasonal crops in nutrient requirement due to their size, population density, rate of growth and rooting pattern. among several approaches adopted for interpretation of leaf analysis data, diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris) is considered the best as it uses nutrient ratios and simultaneously development of leaf nutrient norms and identification of yield-limiting nutrients using dris in sapota cv. kalipatti b. savita and k. anjaneyulu division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore560 089, india e-mail: anjaney@iihr.ernet.in abstract a survey was conducted in 106 orchards growing sapota cv. kalipatti in raichur, dharwad and belgaum districts of northern karnataka for developing leaf nutrient norms through diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris) for nutrient management. leaf samples collected were processed and analyzed for macro-and micronutrient status and a data bank was established. the entire population was divided into two sub-groups, namely, low-and high-yielding types to derive the norms. fifty-five nutrient expressions were chosen as diagnostic norms using dris, which have shown higher variance and lower coefficient of variation that are found to have greater diagnostic precision viz., n/k (1.731), n/ca (0.928), mg/n (0.360), fe/n (99.89), n/cu (0.104), n/b (0.037), mg/ca (0.329), ca/b (0.040), mg/s (1.103), fe/mg (278.6), mg/zn (0.037), mg/b (0.013), fe/zn (10.39) etc. the nutritional balance index (nbi) indicated an overall imbalance of nutrients based on sum of the indices, irrespective of sign. diagnosis of nutrient imbalance through dris indices indicated that potassium, boron and zinc to be the most common yield-limiting nutrients in the orchards. in addition, five nutrient ranges/ standards were derived using mean and standard deviation as deficient, low, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient, to serve as a guide for diagnostics. optimum leaf n ranged from 1.51 to 2.09%, p from 0.06 to 0.15% and k from 0.83 to 1.44%. the optimum concentration ranged from 1.36 to 2.34% for ca, 0.54 to 0.68% for mg and 0.48 to 0.80 for s. among the micronutrients, optimum fe, mn, zn, cu and b concentrations ranged from 109 to 206 mg kg-1, 49 to 99 mg kg-1, 13.3 to 21.9 mg kg-1, 3.76 to 9.10 mg kg-1 and 34.8 to 66.8 mg kg-1, respectively, for sapota cv. kalipatti. key words: dris, norms, indices, nutrients, sapota, kalipatti identifies imbalances, deficiencies and excesses in crop nutrients, and, ranks them in the order of importance (beaufils, 1973). this methodology has been successfully used to interpret results of foliar analysis in crops such as grape (bhargava and raghupathi, 1995) and papaya (anjaneyulu, 2007). as no established standards are available for sapota cv. kalipatti, an attempt was made to develop leaf nutrient norms/standards using diagnosis and recommendation integration system (dris). material and methods sapota orchards in raichur, dharwad and belgaum districts of karnataka state were surveyed during 2007-08 and leaf samples were collected for developing dris norms from 106 orchards by selecting the 10th leaf from apex, which is an index leaf (recently matured leaf), as outlined j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 136-140, 2008 137 by bhargava (2002). from each orchard, 25 to 30 trees were selected and 50 leaves were collected randomly to form a composite and representative sample. samples were decontaminated by sequential wash with tap water, followed by 0.2% detergent solution and n/10 hcl solution, to remove residues of chemical spray on the leaf. this was followed by washes in single and double distilled water. excess water was removed by pressing the leaves between folds of blotting paper and the samples dried in an oven at 750 c for 72 h. after complete drying, the samples were powdered in cyclotec mill and were analyzed for p, k, ca, mg, s, fe, mn, zn, and cu by taking one-gram of the sample and digesting it in di-acid mixture (9:4 ratio of nitric and perchloric acids) using standard analytical methods (jackson, 1973). nitrogen was estimated by microkjeldhal method, whereas p, k and s were analyzed by vanado-molybdate, flame-photometer and turbidity methods, respectively. calcium, magnesium and the micronutrients, viz., fe, mn, cu and zn were analyzed using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (perkin-elmer-aanalyst-200). boron was estimated by ashing one-gram of leaf sample in a muffle furnace and its extraction using dilute hcl. the analysis was carried out by curcumin method. thus, a data bank was established for the entire population. computation of dris norms dris norms were calculated as described by beaufils (1973). the whole population was divided into two sub-groups, namely low-and high-yielding types, taking 10 tonnes ha-1 as the cut-off yield. the cut-off yield was positioned in such a way that the high-yielding subpopulation reflected conditions that are deemed desirable (beaufils, 1973). nutrient ratios whose variance ratios (variance of low yielding/variance of high yielding population) varied significantly were selected as dris norms. individual nutrients were also considered for computation of dris norms in the same way as the nutrient ratios. altogether, fifty-five ratios involving two nutrients were selected for the eleven nutrients. computation of dris indices and nutritional balance index (nbi) dris provides a means of ordering nutrient ratios into meaningful expressions in the form of indices. the dris indices were calculated as described by walworth and sumner (1987) using the following formula. an example for one nutrient is given below: n = 1/10[f (n/p)-f (k/n) +f (n/ca) +f (n/mg) +f (n/s)-f (fe/n) +f (n/mn)-f (zn/n)+f (n/cu)-f (b/n)] n/p 1000 f (n/p) = —— 1 ——— n/p cv where n/p > n/p n/p 1000 f (n/p) = 1 —— ——— n/p cv where, n/p< n/p where n/p is the actual value of the ratio of n and p in the plant under diagnosis and n/p is the value of the norm, and cv is the co-efficient of variation. similarly, indices for other nutrients were calculated using appropriate formulae. the absolute sum values of nutrient indices generated an additional index called ‘nutritional balance index’ (nbi). this was worked out by taking the actual sum of the dris indices irrespective of sign. leaf nutrient guides/ranges five leaf nutrients guide/ ranges have been derived using mean and standard deviation (sd) as deficient, low, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient. the ‘optimum’ nutrient range is the value derived from “mean – 4/3 sd to mean + 4/3 sd”. the range ‘low’ was obtained by calculating “mean – 4/3 sd to mean – 8/3 sd” and the value below “mean – 8/3 sd” was considered as ‘deficient’. the value from “mean + 4/3 sd to mean + 8/3 sd” was taken as ‘high’ and the value above “mean + 8/3 sd” was taken as ‘excessive’ (bhargava and chadha, 1993). results and discussion leaf nutrients status of the entire population leaf n ranged from 1.36 to 2.31% with a mean value of 1.79% in the whole population but k ranged from 0.65 to 1.55% indicating, that, variation in leaf n concentration was much higher compared to k in sapota. however, leaf p ranged from 0.064 to 0.229%, which is much lower to either n or k. similarly, the concentration dris leaf nutrient norms in sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 136-140, 2008 138 range of ca was much higher than that of k indicating dominance of the divalent calcium over monovalent potassium and, thus, possible antagonism between the two nutrients. wide variation was observed in s concentration ranging from 0.27 to 0.86%. among micronutrients, leaf cu concentration ranged from 4.20 to 15.9 mg kg-1 and wide range was noticed for leaf fe, mn, zn and b (table 1). dris ratio norms for sapota fifty-five nutrient ratio expressions were chosen as diagnostic norms from highyielding population and were presented along with their co-efficient of variations (table 2). as suggested by walworth and sumner (1987), nutrient ratios with lower co-efficient of variation and higher variance were selected as diagnostic norms, as these were found to have greater diagnostic precision. important nutrient ratio expressions were n/k (1.731), n/ca (0.928), mg/n (0.360), fe/n (99.89), n/cu (0.104), n/b (0.037), mg/ca (0.329), ca/b (0.040), mg/s (1.103), fe/mg (278.6), mg/zn (0.037), mg/b (0.013), fe/zn (10.39), etc. maintaining ratios of some expressions at an optimum, when these were with large coefficient of variation, is much less critical for performance of the crop (anjaneyulu, 2007). therefore, nutrients considered as yield-building components need to be kept in a state of relative balance to achieve maximum efficiency of dry matter production. dris indices and nutritional balance index (nbi) dris provides a means of ordering nutrient ratios into meaningful expressions in the form of indices. relative abundance of each nutrient was evaluated by comparing all ratios containing that particular nutrient with dris norms. thus, nutrients were arranged in the order of importance in which they limit yield (table 3). dris simultaneously identified imbalances, deficiencies and excesses in crop nutrients and ranked them in order of importance (walworth and sumner, 1987). as the value of each ratio function was added to one index sub-total, and subtracted from another prior to averaging, all indices were balanced around zero. therefore, nutrient indices summed up to zero indicating an optimum level, negative values showing a relative deficiency and positive values a relative excess of that nutrient (mourao filho, 2004). the absolute sum values of nutrient indices generated an additional index called the “nutritional balance index” (nbi). this indicated an overall imbalance of nutrients in each low-yielding orchard, based on the sum of indices, irrespective of sign. higher the nbi, larger is the plant nutritional imbalance and, thus, lower the yield (mourao filho, 2004). yield-limiting nutrients differed from orchard to orchard, though some nutrients were more prominent. thus, diagnosis of nutrient imbalance through dris indices showed that k was the most common yieldtable 2. dris ratio norms for sapota selected dris cv (%) selected dris cv (%) ratio norm ratio norm n/p 18.55 28 ca/s 3.432 26 n/k 1.731 23 fe/ca 92.080 25 n/ca 0.928 20 mn/ca 26.540 38 mg/n 0.360 11 ca/zn 0.116 23 n/s 3.112 25 cu/ca 3.656 36 fe/n 99.89 19 ca/b 0.040 22 n/mn 0.038 26 mg/s 1.103 19 n/cu 0.104 18 fe/mg 278.600 19 zn/n 3.963 30 mg/mn 0.013 28 n/b 0.037 23 mg/zn 0.037 16 p/k 0.102 40 cu/mg 10.980 28 p/ca 0.055 44 mg/b 0.013 20 p/mg 0.166 37 fe/s 307.300 27 p/s 0.183 42 mn/s 88.590 39 p/fe 0.0006 41 zn/s 30.540 29 p/mn 0.002 42 cu/s 11.990 28 p/zn 0.006 38 s/b 0.012 27 p/cu 0.015 27 mn/fe 0.300 41 p/b 0.002 42 fe/zn 10.390 22 ca/k 1.943 30 cu/fe 0.040 26 mg/k 0.621 23 fe/b 3.667 28 s/k 0.585 31 mn/zn 3.045 40 fe/k 170.5 24 cu/mn 0.149 38 mn/k 49.72 41 mn/b 1.062 40 zn/k 16.72 22 cu/zn 0.407 30 cu/k 6.728 32 zn/b 0.362 27 b/k 49.36 32 cu/b 0.145 37 mg/ca 0.329 14 — — — cv = co-efficient of variation expressed as per cent table 1. range and mean of leaf nutrient concentration in the entire population nutrient unit range mean n % 1.36 2.31 1.79 p % 0.064 0.229 0.109 k % 0.65 1.55 0.99 ca % 1.11 2.89 1.96 mg % 0.46 0.73 0.64 s % 0.27 0.86 0.58 fe mg kg-1 100 278 178 m n mg kg-1 18.4 97.4 51.7 zn mg kg-1 10.0 43.0 17.1 cu mg kg-1 4.2 15.9 7.26 b mg kg-1 21.6 82.7 48.8 savita and anjaneyulu j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 136-140, 2008 139 limiting nutrient among macronutrients, and, b and zn among micronutrients. low availability of micronutrients may be attributed to high ph and presence of high amounts of calcium carbonate in soil in many of the orchards (raghupathi and bhargava, 1998). leaf nutrient standards for sapota optimum n ranged from 1.51 to 2.09% indicating that a minimum of 1.51 % n needs to be maintained in the leaf for better growth and production in sapota (table 4). optimum k concentration ranged from 0.83 to 1.44%, reflecting a wide variation. calcium content in sapota leaves was higher compared to n, p and k nutrients, indicating higher root activity and adequate absorption of ca from a soil rich in ca. physiological role of ca in vital functions of a plant is well-known. it appears that calcium concentration in the plant is largely governed by new flushes and flowering pattern in the case of sapota. optimum leaf mg norms for sapota were 0.54 to 0.68%. raghupathi and bhargava (1998) noticed a similar range for ca and mg in pomegranate growing in bijapur district of karnataka. sulphur content was higher compared that in other fruit crops, and optimum s concentration ranged from 0.48 to 0.80%. optimum fe and mn concentration ranged from 109 to 206 mg kg-1and 49 to 99 mg kg-1, respectively. wider optimum ranges observed might be due to larger variations in available fe and mn in the orchards surveyed. optimum zn, cu and b concentration ranged from 13.3 to 21.9 and 3.76 to 9.10 and 34.8 to 66.8 mg kg-1, respectively. similar, wider optimum ranges have been observed in other fruit crops like papaya and pomegranate (anjaneyulu, 2007; raghupathi and bhargava, 1998). classification of low-yielding orchards classification of the orchards based on leaf nutrient norms is presented in table 5. classification of the orchards indicated that leaf n was at an optimum in 92 % of the orchards surveyed. potassium was found to be the major yield-limiting nutrient as leaf k was optimum only in 31 % of the orchards. among micronutrients, b and zn were the major yield-limiting nutrients as b was optimum only in 33 % of the orchards, whereas zn was optimum in 51 % of the orchards. similar type of classification was reported in papaya (anjaneyulu, 2007). thus, the study indicates that dris system, which is a holistic approach, identified nutrient imbalances in sapota crop and, therefore, proved to be an important technique for evolving nutrient management strategies for realizing higher yields. optimum ranges developed will serve as a guide for quick and routine diagnostic advisory purpose in sapota. table 4. leaf nutrient standards for sapota cv. kalipatti nutrient unit deficient low optimum high excessive n % <1.22 1.22 1.50 1.5 2.09 2.10 2.37 >2.37 p % <0.008 0.008 0.060 0.061 0.150 0.151 0.210 >0.21 k % <0.51 0.51 0.82 0.83 1.44 1.45 1.82 >1.82 ca % <0.87 0.87 1.35 1.36 2.34 2.35 2.83 >2.83 mg % <0.47 0.47 0.53 0.54 0.68 0.69 0.75 >0.75 s % <0.32 0.32 0.47 0.48 0.80 0.81 0.96 >0.96 fe mg kg-1 <61 61.00 108 109 206 207 254 >254 m n mg kg-1 <23 23.00 48 49 99 100 135 >135 zn mg kg-1 <9.00 9.10 13.2 13.3 21.9 22.0 26.2 >26.2 cu mg kg-1 <1.09 1.09 3.75 3.76 9.10 10.0 11.7 >11.7 b mg kg-1 <18.7 18.70 34.7 34.8 66.8 66.9 82.9 >82.9 table 3. dris indices, order of nutrient requirement and nutritional balance index (nbi) for selected low-yielding sapota orchards sl. no. n p k ca mg s fe mn zn cu b nbi order of limiting nutrients 1 -48 1 116 188 121 111 -88 -87 -147 68 -235 1210 b>zn>fe>mn 2 76 252 -109 24 61 -65 87 -14 -103 217 -426 1434 b>k> zn>s 3 19 -25 -183 -105 45 97 -54 -110 39 117 159 952 k>mn>ca>fe 4 -8 51 -145 -2 45 131 126 25 -109 64 -178 884 b>k>zn>n 5 68 -16 -108 -52 -105 135 150 337 -198 -27 -184 1380 zn>b>k>mg 6 -46 10 -125 141 61 84 138 163 -1 -23 -402 1194 b>k>n>cu 7 107 -18 -117 98 95 -14 2 29 -203 -30 51 764 zn>k>cu>p 8 90 -70 -111 77 42 -28 -45 12 -22 -6 62 566 k>p>fe>s 9 142 -54 -92 102 73 -52 -61 -6 -88 -3 39 712 k>zn>fe>p 10 33 -57 -167 149 39 -91 68 -114 -12 18 134 882 k>mn>s>p dris leaf nutrient norms in sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 136-140, 2008 140 (ms received 16 september 2008, revised 28 october 2008) table 5. classification of low-yielding sapota orchards (%) based on leaf nutrient standards element deficient low optimum high excessive n 0 6 92 2 0 p 0 0 81 14 5 k 0 69 31 0 0 ca 0 14 67 19 0 mg 3 3 75 19 0 s 3 31 66 0 0 fe 0 3 72 19 6 m n 3 41 56 0 0 zn 0 49 51 0 0 cu 0 0 81 13 6 b 0 56 33 11 0 references anjaneyulu, k. 2007. diagnostic petiole nutrient norms and identification of yield limiting nutrients in papaya (carica papaya) using diagnosis and recommendation integrated system. ind. j. agril. sci., 77:711-714 beaufils, e. r. 1973. diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris): a general scheme for experimentation and calibration based on principle developed from research in plant nutrition, south african soil sci., bulletin no.1 bhargava, b.s. 2002. leaf analysis for nutrient diagnosis, recommendation and management in fruit crops. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 50:362-373 bhargava, b.s. and chadha, k.l. 1993. leaf nutrient guide for fruit crops. adv. hort., 2: 973-1030 bhargava, b.s. and raghupathi, h.b. 1995. current status and new norms of nitrogen nutrition for grapevine (vitis vinifera). ind. j. agril. sci., 65:165-169 jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india pvt ltd., new delhi mourao filho, a.a. 2004. dris: concepts and applications on nutritional diagnosis in fruit crops. sci. agri. (piracicaba, braz.), 61: 550-560 raghupathi, h.b. and bhargava, b.s. 1998. leaf and soil nutrient diagnostic norms for pomegranate. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 46: 412-416 walworth, j.l. and sumner, m.e. 1987. the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris). adv. soil sci., 6:149-187 savita and anjaneyulu j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 136-140, 2008 the genus epidendrum was named so by carolus linnaeus in the year 1763, referring to its epiphytic growth habit (meaning derived from the greek words, epi-”on” and dendron-”tree”). epidendrum is often considered a mega-genus consisting of around 1500 species from the neotropical. origin (hagsater and arenas, 2005), similar to the genus dendrobium from the old world tropical origin asia and largely spreading from carolina, north louisiana to south argentina, mexico, throughout west indies, andes and brazil. however, many species synonymous with epidendrum have been segregated out and resurrected into more than seventeen genera. these species are generally characterized by their reed-stem, growing like tufts, floriferous, bearing flowers with free and spreading sepals, slit rostellum, fringed lip adnate to the column with colour ranging from white, red, orange, green to yellow. this genus, exceptionally, also consists of a few terrestrials and lithophytes by habitat. epidendrums are popularly called ‘crucifix orchid’ and also ‘poor man’s orchid’, as they are one of the easiest growing orchids and need little attention, unlike the popular cymbidium and phalaenopsis hybrids. need for interspecific hybrids in epidendrum orchids: orchid breeding is carried out mainly by commercial firms and is still in its infancy in india. acclimatization and interspecific hybrid developed in epidendrum orchid from the cross e. radicans pav. ex. lindl. x e. xanthinum lindl. r. devadas, r.p. medhi and s.p. das nrc for orchids, icar, pakyong, sikkim-737 016, india e-mail: r.devdas@gmail.com abstract an interspecific epidendrum hybrid was developed using e. radicans (known as ‘fire star orchid’, ‘ground-rooted orchid’) as female parent and e. xanthinum known as ‘yellow orchid’ as male parent. the selected line (nrcoepidendrum cross/2005-01) was characterized for morphological and floral traits. flower size (3.5 cm x 3.4 cm) of selected line was bigger than both parents, with bright saffron-orange colour (rhs 44a). dorsal sepal size (1.8 cm x 0.6 cm), lateral sepal size (1.9 cm x 0.7 cm), petal size (1.8 cm x 0.6 cm), lip size (2.3 cm x 2 cm) and column size (1.1 cm x 0.2 cm) were bigger than in parents. shape and fimbriated side lobes of lip with deep cleft of anterior margins was similar to the male parent (e. xanthinum), except colour. the f 1 progeny of ‘nrco-epidendrum cross/2005-01’ flowered with different red-orange to yellow shades is categorized broadly into three types: red-orange, orangeyellow and yellow. epidendrums are popularly known as ‘crucifix orchid’ and ‘poor man’s orchid’, have a long flowering period with 2-3 flowerings in a year, and are easy to multiply. these attributes are ideal for popularizing this plant in india as a potted plant as well garden plant. key words: epidendrum hybrids, interspecific hybridization, epiphytes, fimbriated lip, clefted anterior lobe introductions do not suffice for improving plant wealth in india (randhawa and mukhopadhyaya, 1986). epidendrums are easy to multiply, have a long flowering period with 2-3 flowering spells in a year, suited to tropical & sub-tropical conditions. these attributes are ideal for popularizing these orchids in india as potted garden plants. synthesis of hybrids using rare and endangered species for commercial purposes will reduce the pressure on their wild relatives (kishor and sharma, 2009). orchids can also be introduced from other countries for commercial use for developing hybrids, as there is no restriction on this at present as per ‘convention on international trade in endangered of wild flora and fauna’ (cites). variability in commercial epidendrum varieties is very low. with an objective to create variability, hybridization was carried out using e. radicans pav. ex. lindl. and e. xanthinum lindl. as parents, in 1999-2000. the exact origin and collection details of these species were not recorded at this center and there are no scientific reports on introduction of these species in to india, except for a report on e. radicans as an alien species by rao and mohanan (1983). this species, e. radicans, is grown for cut flower and as a potted plant (teob, 1989). hence, attempts have been made j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 144-147, 2010 short communication prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 145 earlier to develop an efficient micropropagation method (chen et al, 2002). hybridization and in-vitro programme: epidendrum radicans, popularly known as the ‘fire star orchid’ and ‘ground-root’ orchid, was used as the female parent (fig. 1) and e. xanthinum (syn. e. secundum, now called e. ellipticum var. flavum lindl.) (fig. 2) known as the yellow orchid, was used as the male parent. hybridization was done by emasculating flowers of the female parent by removing the anther cap and pollinia (that are four in number, with two clusters). then, fresh pollinia collected from the male parent were attached to the stigma of the column for pollination. even though the stigmatic surface is highly sticky pollen bags were used for covering the inflorescence to avoid cross pollination by insects. flower colour turned dark and the floral lip dried up in 3-4 days, when pollination was successful. mature, ellipsoid capsules harvested at 4-5 months. seedlings were raised invitro from seeds contained in capsules, and, flowering was observed after two years planting. observations on flower colour variations among the progeny and clones selected are described below and presented intable 1. morphological characters were recorded at the full bloom stage and colour of flowers was recorded with the help of ‘royal horticultural society colour chart’. description of selected f 1 progeny of ‘nrcoepidendrum cross/2005-01’: the f 1 progeny of ‘nrco-epidendrum cross/2005’ has flowers of red-orange to yellow shades (fig. 3). flower colour variation was categorized broadly into three types: red-orange, orange-yellow and yellow (fig 6 & 7). the data of the selected f 1 line ( n r c o e p i d e n d r u m cross/2005-01) along with it parents are presented in table 1. flower size (3.5 cm x 3.4 cm) of selected line was larger than in both parents, with bright saffron-orange colour (rhs 44a). floral characters like dorsal sepal size (1.8 cm x 0.6 cm), lateral sepal size (1.9 cm x 0.7 cm), petal size (1.8 cm x 0.6 cm), lip size (2.3 cm x 2 cm) and column size (1.1 cm x 0.2 cm) were relatively larger than in either parent, except the width of the dorsal sepal and petal. however, the shape and fimbriated side lobes of the lip and deep cleft of the anterior margins of selected f 1 line were similar to that of the male parent (e. xanthinum) excepting colour. flower colour of the f 1 selected line fell in between colour of the female parent (e. radicans) with orange (rhs 28a/25a) and red colour (rhs 53b) being that of the male parent (e. xanthinum). the mid lobe and disc colour of f 1 hybrid line was similar to that of the female parent with yellow colour (rhs n25d). but, in the male parent, the disc was of the same colour as sepals and petals, except the colour of crested teeth. in the selected line and e. radicans, inflorescence was observed to be a corymbose racemose (fig. 4) and flowers were closely paniculated, whereas in e. xanthinum, the peduncle was as long as the stem recurving and pendulous with sparse flowers (fig. 5). a hybrid, e. xobrienianum (natural cross), derived from e. evectum x e. radicans reported by john veich and sons, (1884-1894) has been recognized by the royal horticultural society, uk, an internationally recognized orchid registration authority. but, e. evectum, shown as e. fig 1. flower of epidendrum radicans fig 2. flower of epidendrum xanthinum fig 3. flower of nrcoepidendrum cross-2005-01 fig 4. corymbose racemose inflorescence of epidendrum radicans interspecific hybrid developed in epidendrum j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 144-147, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 146 fig 5. inflorescence of epidendrum xanthinum e. radicans (female parent) plant height : 24-58 cm, leaves : green, flat & concave, 6-11, 11 cm x 2.7 cm, ovate-oblong, acute-emarginate, less pigmented flower peduncle:slender, terminating into corymbose racemose inflorescence, pedicel straight, yellow in colour; flowers: 20-25, size 3.4 x 3.15 cm, resupinate, dorsal sepal:1.8 x 0.65 cm, orange (rhs 28a/25a), lateral sepals : orange (rhs 28a/25a), 1.75 x 0.68 cm, petals – smaller than sepals, 1.3 x 0.7 cm, orange; lip : 3 lobed, 1.8 x 1.6 cm, yellow (rhs n25d), side lobes fimbriated & slightly darker at margins, mid lobe disc crested with 03 bright yellow teeth, anterior lob moderately clefted, column : short, 2 auricles, semi-terete, 0.8 x 0.2 cm, anthers : 4, yellow & cap yellowish green e. xanthinum (male parent) plant height 41:74 cm; leaves : medium green, 8-12, 8.7 cm x 2.6 cm, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse tip flower peduncle : as long as the stem, curving, terminating into curving and pendulous racemose & loosely paniculated, flowers: 13-15, size 3.5 x 3.3 cm, red (rhs 46b), dorsal sepal:1.8 x 0.6 cm, red (rhs 46b); lateral sepals: 1.6 x 0.6 cm, red (rhs 46b); petals : 1.6 x 0.8 cm, red (rhs 53b); lip : 1.9 x 1.8 cm, flat, 3 lobed, side lobes deeply fimbriated & red, mid lobe crested with 03 bright prominent bright yellow teeth, anterior lob deeply clefted & reflexed; column : moderately long, 0.9 x 0.2 cm;, anthers : 4, yellow & cap yellowish green nrco-epidendrum cross/2005-01 plant height: 32-51 cm; leaves : 9.2 cm x 2.4 cm, dark green colour, more pigmented, ovate oblong, acuteemarginate, flower peduncle:slender, terminating into corymbose racemose inflorescence (fig. 6), pedicel straight, yellow colour; flowers: 15-23, size 3.5 x 3.4 cm, resupinate; dorsal sepal-1.8 x 0.6 cm, orange (rhs 44a); lateral sepals : 1.9 x 0.7 cm, orange (rhs 44a); petals : smaller than sepals, 1.8 x 0.6 cm, orange (rhs 44a); lip : 3 lobed, 2.3 x 2 cm, orange (rhs 44a), side lobes tripartite, fimbriated & colour similar to sepal colour, mid lobe disc yellow (rhs n25d) crested with 03 bright yellow teeth, anterior lobe deeply clefted; column : long with auricles, semi-terete, 1.1 x 0.2 cm, darker orange (rhs 47 b); anthers: – 4, yellow & cap yellowish green * at the time of flowering and based on two years’ data (2005-06 & 2008-09) fig 6. inflorescence of nrcoepidendrum cross-2005-01 fig 7. flower colour variation among f 1 progeny of nrcoepidendrum cross-2005 (from right: 1-maroon-red group, 2 & 3–orange group, 4-yellow group) table 1. morphological characters* of e. radicans, e. xanthinum and their hybrid (selected clone) devadas et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 144-147, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 147 jamiesonis, is a synonym for the former (rhs, uk). however, epidendrum hybrids developed through systematic breeding were not reported after this and efforts in this direction are lacking. hence, this new line developed by us can be useful as germplasm stock, and further improvement can be made through mutation breeding, introgression and by hybridization with its close relatives like cattleya, oncidium etc. acknowledgement the authors thank ms. geetamani chhetri, technical person (under ‘dus testing on orchids’) and shri. k.b. gupta (nrc for orchids, sikkim) for field assistance. references chen, l.r., chen, j.t. and chang, w.c. 2002. efficient production of protocorm like bodies and plant regeneration from flower stalk explants of the sympodial orchid epidendrum radicans. in vitro cell. dev. biol. plant., 38: 441-445 james veich & sons (1887-1994) a manual of orchidaceous plants cultivated under glass in great britain, part vi coelogyne and epidendrum. james veitch & sons, royal exotic nursery, 544, king’s raod, chulesa, s.w. kishor, r. and sharma, g.j. 2009. intergeneric hybrid of two rare and endangered orchids, renanthera imschootiana rolfe and vanda coerulea griff. ex (orchidaceae): synthesis and characterization. euphytica, 165:247-256 (doi 10.1007/s10681-0089755-9) hagsater, e. and arenas, m.a.s. 2005. epidendrum. in: genera orchidaceum. pridgeon a m, cribb p, chase m.w. and rasmussen (eds). v. 4. oxford university press, oxford, pp 236-251 rao, a.v.n. and mohanan, m. 1983. alien orchids in south india. 1. cultivation of epidendrum-radicans in the national orchidarium, yercaud, tamilnadu, india. j. econ. taxon. bot., 4:343-346 royal horticultural society, united kingdom (http:// w w w . r h s . o r g . u k / p l a n t s / r e g i s t e r p a g e s / orchiddetails.asp? id=126444) teoh, e.s. 1989. orchids of asia. times books international publishers, singapore. (ms received 22 september 2009, revised 8 september 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 144-147, 2010 interspecific hybrid developed in epidendrum prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction crop losses in bananas caused by nematodes are very high, with an average annual yield loss estimated at about 20 per cent worldwide (sasser and freckman, 1987). two of the most widespread and important nematode species associated with bananas and plantains are the burrowing nematode radopholus similis and the lesion nematode pratylenchus coffeae. these lesion-inducing nematodes feed, multiply and migrate inside the roots and corm and cause a necrotic and reduced root system. hence, it is important to screen the cultivars or hybrids for their reaction to nematodes. in light of the above, the present study was undertaken at horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india. material and methods banana hybrids used in the present study were evolved in the institute with the main objective of breeding for resistance/ tolerance to nematodes along with good yield traits. the hybrids were assessed for their reaction to lesion nematode, pratylenchus coffeae. the experiments were conducted in a glass house in potted plants which were inoculated artificially. the experiment was laid out in randomised block design and replicated thrice. the hybrids were evaluated along with the reference cultivars viz., rasthali (aab, syn.silk) as the susceptible reference cultivar and pisang lilin (aa) as the resistant reference cultivar. the screening was done based on the root and corm screening of banana hybrids for resistance to pratylenchus coffeae p. s. kavitha, t. n. balamohan, k. poornima , i. van den bergh1 and d. de waele2 department of fruit crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641 003, india e-mail: oviya232@yahoo.com abstract the reaction of twenty-four new synthetic banana hybrids to pratylenchus coffeae was studied under artificially inoculated pot conditions. two banana hybrids, h-04-05 and h-04-06 were found to be resistant and ten hybrids, h-04-01, h-04-03, h-04-04, h-04-07, h-04-09, h-04-11, h-04-16, h-04-19, h-04-21 and h-04-24 were found to be tolerant to the lesion nematode, pratylenchus coffeae and the remaining were rated as susceptible. keywords : resistance, banana, hybrids, pratylenchus coffeae 1 international network for the improvement of banana and plantain asia and the pacific,c/o irri khush hall, los baños, laguna 4031, philippines 2 laboratory of tropical crop improvement, catholic university leuven (k.u. leuven), kasteelpark, arenberg 13, 3001 leuven, belgium damage assessment as followed in inibap technical guidelines 7 (carlier et al, 2003). preparation of plant material suckers of uniform size were pared immediately after detaching from the mother plant, and planted in pots filled with sterilized pot mixture. the soil was watered upto field capacity. four weeks after planting, 8-10 plants of each genotype were inoculated with lesion nematodes (1 nematode per gram of soil), while another set of 8-10 plants were kept as nematode-free control. culturing and extraction of nematodes carrot disc culture surface sterilized carrot was cut into discs and placed in sterile petri dishes. nematodes extracted from the infected roots through baermann-funnel method were surface sterilized and transferred to the carrot discs with a sterile micropipette. small drops of nematode suspension were placed on the margin of the carrot discs. the petri dishes were sealed with parafilm, labelled and stored in an incubator at 28°c. sub-culturing of nematodes on fresh carrot discs was done periodically and the extracted nematodes were used for inoculation in pot culture experiments (carlier et al, 2003). inoculation of nematodes in pots nematode suspension obtained from the above method, containing infective juveniles of pratylenchus coffeae, were inoculated into the pots, forty five days after j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 57-61, 2008 page 57 58 planting, @ 1n/ g of soil, by making three deep holes around each sucker. another set of pots was maintained as uninoculated control. observations on nematode population in soil and root were made on 45th and 90th day after inoculation. the lesion index in roots and corm were observed while terminating the trial, i.e., at 90th day of inoculation (dai). observations in pot culture the plant biometric observations viz., pseudostem height, girth, number of leaves, root fresh weight, number of roots, root length and girth, population of nematodes in both soil and roots, root lesion index and corm grade were assessed while screening the banana hybrids. nematode population in soil was assessed using cobb’s sieving and decanting technique followed by modified baermann funnel technique (cobb, 1918; schindler, 1961). nematode population in roots was determined by the method of carlier et al, 2003. results and discussion significant differences were observed in the root characters of phase i hybrids namely, number of roots, root length, root girth and root weight under pot culture at 90th dai (table 1). among hybrids the maximum reduction of 46.33% was observed in the number of roots in h-04-10 and the lowest reduction of 7.24% was recorded in h-0422 as compared to control. the interaction effect between the genotypes and treatments for number of roots was found to be highly significant. the hybrid h-04-20 registered the maximum reduction of 36.28% for root length and h-0406 registered the minimum of 6.63% among the hybrids. the hybrid h-04-10 recorded the maximum reduction of 33.85% in root weight and h-04-21 recorded the minimum of 5% among the hybrids. there was no significant variation in the interaction of genotype and treatments for both root girth and root weight. table 1. effect of p. coffeae on root characters of phase i hybrids on 90 dai under pot culture s.no. hybrid number of roots root length (cm) root girth (cm) root weight (g) c i % diff c i % diff c i % diff c i % diff. 1. h-04-01 37.00 30.20 -18.38 44.50 39.00 -12.36 1.56 1.40 -10.26 91.00 82.75 -9.07 2. h-04-02 38.16 21.56 -43.50 35.20 26.70 -24.15 1.12 0.75 -33.04 85.50 68.60 -19.77 3. h-04-03 30.45 24.38 -19.93 47.56 44.00 -7.49 1.65 1.51 -8.48 78.00 70.25 -9.94 4. h-04-04 34.74 28.66 -17.50 50.25 46.60 -7.26 1.86 1.70 -8.60 95.40 88.33 -7.41 5. h-04-05 32.00 28.20 -11.88 45.55 41.40 -9.11 1.70 1.61 -5.29 87.66 80.45 -8.22 6. h-04-06 49.40 42.55 -13.87 56.42 52.68 -6.63 1.95 1.88 -3.59 118.00 106.52 -9.73 7. h-04-07 38.25 30.75 -19.61 49.00 44.72 -8.73 1.35 1.22 -9.63 89.08 78.65 -11.71 8. h-04-08 41.49 26.58 -35.94 45.00 34.65 -23.00 1.12 0.76 -32.14 102.72 72.35 -29.57 9. h-04-09 56.50 50.67 -10.32 36.37 31.26 -14.05 1.25 1.16 -7.20 128.44 115.66 -9.95 10. h-04-10 24.00 12.88 -46.33 30.33 22.11 -27.10 1.06 0.70 -33.96 64.25 42.50 -33.85 11. h-04-11 28.25 22.50 -20.35 40.45 35.00 -13.47 1.36 1.28 -5.88 72.00 62.75 -12.85 12. h-04-12 30.75 25.00 -18.70 44.60 40.20 -9.87 1.58 1.46 -7.59 84.90 76.52 -9.87 13. h-04-13 38.62 27.73 -28.20 38.75 30.25 -21.94 1.14 0.70 -38.60 80.63 66.47 -17.56 14. h-04-14 40.00 26.00 -35.00 40.00 32.86 -17.85 1.00 0.65 -35.00 92.40 75.63 -18.15 15. h-04-15 37.75 23.70 -37.22 34.50 25.72 -25.45 0.98 0.60 -38.78 85.29 70.45 -17.40 16. h-04-16 26.20 19.40 -25.95 45.00 42.00 -6.67 1.20 1.05 -12.50 68.50 58.00 -15.33 17. h-04-17 46.10 34.30 -25.60 39.20 30.67 -21.76 1.05 0.78 -25.71 96.00 72.75 -24.22 18. h-04-18 32.65 20.82 -36.23 41.00 34.80 -15.12 1.00 0.74 -26.00 88.60 67.55 -23.76 19. h-04-19 39.23 33.45 -14.73 45.75 40.50 -11.48 1.39 1.28 -7.91 90.64 79.39 -12.41 20. h-04-20 35.00 23.50 -32.86 28.25 18.00 -36.28 1.10 0.68 -38.18 94.36 70.74 -25.03 21. h-04-21 42.75 38.60 -9.71 44.58 40.69 -8.73 1.78 1.70 -4.49 110.00 104.50 -5.00 22. h-04-22 38.00 35.25 -7.24 38.14 35.00 -8.23 1.35 1.25 -7.41 93.18 86.60 -7.06 23. h-04-23 35.33 32.46 -8.12 34.00 30.67 -9.79 1.40 1.32 -5.71 84.00 75.75 -9.82 24. h-04-24 48.70 43.00 -11.70 55.44 49.90 -9.99 1.88 1.79 -4.79 126.50 116.25 -8.10 reference cultivars 1. pisang lilin 30.16 27.37 -9.25 45.08 42.46 -5.81 1.24 1.18 -4.84 62.36 56.44 -9.49 2. rasthali 32.62 20.00 -38.69 37.04 29.63 -20.01 1.00 0.56 -44.00 68.09 42.32 -37.85 sources g t gt g t gt g t gt g t gt sed 1.631 0.452 2.307 1.978 0.548 2.798 0.067 0.018 0.095 4.155 1.152 5.877 cd (p=0.05) 3.236 0.897 4.576 3.923 1.088 ns 0.134 0.037 0.189 8.241 2.285 ns cd (p=0.01) 4.281 1.187 6.055 5.191 1.439 ns 0.177 0.049 0.250 10.904 3.024 ns dai day after inoculation; c control; i – inoculated; % diff – per cent difference over control; ns – non significant. kavitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 57-61, 2008 59 significant differences were observed among the hybrids for root population, soil population and total population of p. coffeae at 90th dai (table 3). the lowest root population of 142 nematodes per 5 g of root was recorded in hybrid h-04-23, which was lower than the reference cultivar pisang lilin (145) and the highest was in h-04-10 (387). the same trend was noticed in soil population also. however, the soil population varied significantly among the hybrids ranging from 100 to 246 in 250 cc of soil. total final root population was found to vary significantly among the hybrids. the hybrid h-04-23 registered the minimum number of 3751 nematodes while a maximum of 8407 nematodes was recorded by the hybrid h-04-13 which was found to be a susceptible one. the resistant hybrid h-04-06 registered lesser number of nematodes than the susceptible hybrids. in some of the tolerant hybrids, the nematode population was higher but the growth of plant was not affected. this could be because, these plants allowed entry of the nematodes and their reproduction, but did not support further growth. this is in line with the findings of janarthani (2002). binks and gowen (1997) also found higher weight in primary roots if resistant cultivars as compared to susceptible cultivars. based on the intensity of lesions on roots and corm, they were assessed for their level of resistance. the per cent necrosis of roots ranged from 6.00 (h-04-06) to 56.00 (h-04-10) (table 3). the hybrids, h-04-05, h-04-06, h04-22 and h-04-23 had no dead roots while 35% of roots were dead in h-04-10. the highest root lesion index scale of 5 was noticed in the hybrids h-04-02, h-04-08, h-0410, h-04-13 and also in rasthali. however, the hybrids h04-05, h-04-06, h-04-12, h-04-21, h-04-22 and h-04-23 recorded the lowest lesion index scale of 1 similar to that of the resistant reference cultivar pisang lilin. the highest corm grade of 4 was found in hybrids. h-04-02, h-04-08, h-04-10 and h-04-13 and the lowest corm grade of 0 was recorded by h-04-06 and h-04-22. among the hybrids, 5 exhibited resistance, 10 exhibited tolerance, 5 were moderately susceptible and 4 were highly susceptible to nematode infestation. among the resistant hybrids, h-04-06 recorded more number of functional roots besides bunch yield. root spread and root thickness was found to be more in h-04-06 than in the other hybrids. this is an important character considered by the breeders in selecting parent materials while breeding for nematode resistance (gowen, 1993). regarding the root fresh weight also, the hybrids h-04-09, h-04-06 and h-04-24 weighed more than the susceptible hybrids. similar findings were reported in field trials conducted by janarthani (2002). though the hybrid h-0405 registered less number of roots, root length and root girth as compared to resistant hybrids, it exhibited tolerance to nematodes due to its higher phenolic content and lignified cells as also confirmed by histological studies. vilchez rojas (1991) observed a negative correlation between radopholus similis population and percentage of functional roots. some resistant cultivars were found to have higher root weights with greater number of primary roots than those which were susceptible (binks and gowen, 1997). jean et al (2002) reported that assessment of root and corm damage will give a better understanding of resistance (or) tolerance of the cultivars under both field and glass house conditions. resistance can be considered as the ability of the plant to suppress development of pests or pathogens, table 2. population build-up of p. coffeae in phase i hybrids on 90th dai under pot culture s.no. hybrid root soil total population population root (5 g) (250 cc) population 1 h-04-01 220 (2.344)* 140 (2.146) 5881 (3.791) 2 h-04-02 356 (2.551) 212 (2.326) 8276 (3.917) 3 h-04-03 235 (2.371) 150 (2.167) 5702 (3.756) 4 h-04-04 165 (2.213) 114 (2.057) 4739 (3.675) 5 h-04-05 148 (2.170) 100 (2.000) 3981 (3.600) 6 h-04-06 156 (2.193) 108 (2.092) 5051 (3.703) 7 h-04-07 227 (2.382) 132 (2.120) 5683 (3.746) 8 h-04-08 344 (2.536) 204 (2.309) 8242 (3.916) 9 h-04-09 256 (2.408) 125 (2.097) 7922 (3.950) 10 h-04-10 387 (2.578) 246 (2.391) 7226 (3.859) 11 h-04-11 272 (2.434) 165 (2.217) 6054 (3.782) 12 h-04-12 174 (2.240) 128 (2.107) 4711 (3.665) 13 h-04-13 370 (2.568) 218 (2.291) 8407 (3.924) 14 h-04-14 298 (2.474) 142 (2.152) 6780 (3.831) 15 h-04-15 316 (2.499) 177 (2.248) 7284 (3.862) 16 h-04-16 238 (2.376) 126 (2.085) 4777 (3.679) 17 h-04-17 283 (2.446) 137 (2.137) 6310 (3.800) 18 h-04-18 295 (2.470) 143 (2.155) 6273 (3.799) 19 h-04-19 230 (2.361) 111 (2.045) 5428 (3.734) 20 h-04-20 273 (2.430) 122 (2.086) 5814 (3.764) 21 h-04-21 149 (2.173) 102 (2.008) 4746 (3.676) 22 h-04-22 157 (2.196) 117 (2.057) 4591 (3.662) 23 h-04-23 142 (2.148) 100 (2.000) 3751 (3.558) 24 h-04-24 234 (2.369) 139 (2.177) 7665 (3.884) reference cultivars 1 pisang lilin 145 (2.161) 98 (1.991) 3205 (3.505) 2 rasthali 382 (2.582) 243 (2.385) 7121 (3.852) sed 10.194 9.877 467.615 cd (p=0.05) 20.457 19.821 938.342 cd (p=0.01) 27.258 26.411 1250.324 analysis done after log 10 (x+1) transformation * values in paranthes are transformed values screening of banana hybrids for resistance to nematode j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 57-61, 2008 60 table 3. root and corm damage assessment in banana hybrids (phase i) on 90th dai caused by p. coffeae under pot culture s.no. hybrids % root necrosis (rn) total total roots de % root lesion corm reaction 1 2 3 4 5 rn % de ok index grade status 1. h-04-01 3 2 3 3 2 13 3 40 6.98 2 2 t 2. h-04-02 10 8 9 7 12 46 8 35 18.60 5 4 hs 3. h-04-03 4 3 2 3 4 16 2 30 6.25 2 2 t 4. h-04-04 2 3 4 1 2 12 2 36 5.26 2 2 t 5. h-04-05 2 3 2 1 8 0 30 0.00 1 1 r 6. h-04-06 2 2 2 6 0 42 0.00 1 0 r 7. h-04-07 4 2 4 4 4 18 2 38 5.00 2 2 t 8. h-04-08 8 11 13 5 6 42 8 41 16.33 5 4 hs 9. h-04-09 5 4 1 5 5 20 3 58 4.92 2 1 t 10. h-04-10 14 12 10 12 8 56 14 26 35.00 5 4 hs 11. h-04-11 3 2 3 4 2 14 2 34 5.56 2 2 t 12. h-04-12 3 2 2 3 10 1 36 2.70 1 1 r 13. h-04-13 10 9 7 8 14 48 10 44 18.52 5 4 hs 14. h-04-14 5 10 12 8 5 40 7 40 14.89 4 3 s 15. h-04-15 13 8 7 6 4 38 8 46 14.81 4 3 s 16. h-04-16 3 4 2 5 5 19 1 28 3.45 2 2 t 17. h-04-17 8 7 6 11 6 38 16 52 23.53 4 3 s 18. h-04-18 6 8 9 12 5 40 6 34 15.00 4 3 s 19. h-04-19 6 5 4 3 18 2 43 4.44 2 2 t 20. h-04-20 11 9 8 4 3 35 7 49 12.50 2 3 s 21. h-04-21 2 2 3 3 10 1 56 1.75 1 1 t 22. h-04-22 2 3 2 1 8 0 27 0.00 1 0 r 23. h-04-23 2 1 2 2 7 0 34 0.00 1 1 r 24. h-04-24 4 4 2 3 5 18 2 54 3.57 2 2 t reference cultivars 1. pisang lilin 1 2 3 2 2 9 1 45 2.17 1 0 r 2. rasthali 10 14 12 9 13 58 12 37 24.49 5 4 hs de dead roots; r resistant; ttolerant; ok functional roots; s-susceptible; hs highly susceptible; whereas tolerance is the ability of the plant to grow well despite infection by a pathogen (bos and parlevliet, 1995). hybrids h-04-05 and h-04-06 were found to be resistant as they suppressed nematode populations both in the soil and in the roots and had relatively low root lesion indices. hybrids h-04-01, h-04-03, h-04-04, h-04-07, h-04-09, h04-11, h-04-16, h-04-19, h-04-21 and h-04-24 were found to be tolerant and not resistant because their population levels in the roots were higher. banana hybrids h-04-05 and h-04-06 were thus found to be resistant and hybrids h-04-01, h-04-03, h-0404, h-04-07, h-04-09, h-04-11, h-04-16, h-04-19, h-0421 and h-04-24 were found to be tolerant to the lesion nematode, pratylenchus coffeae, when screened under artificially inoculated conditions. after assessing the performance of these hybrids for yield and quality parameters under field condition, they can be used either as useful breeding material for further breeding programmes or evaluated in multi-location trials before considering for varietal release. acknowledgement the authors wish to thank and acknowledge the financial support of the flemish office for development cooperation and technical assistance (vvob), belgium and the international network for the improvement of banana and plantain (inibap) obtained through nrc for banana, thiruchirapalli. references binks, r. h. and gowen s. r. 1997. early screening of banana and plantain varieties for resistance to radopholus similis. int’l. nemat. , 7: 57-61. bos, l. and parlevliet j. e. 1995. concepts and terminology on plant / part relationships toward consensus in plant pathology and crop protection. ann. rev. phytopathol., 33: 69-102. carlier, j., de waele d.and escalant, j. v. 2003. global evaluation of musa germplasm for resistance to fusarium wilt, mycosphaerella leaf spot disease and nematodes. performance evaluation (a. vegine and j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 57-61, 2008 kavitha et al 61 c. pig, eds). inibap technical guide lines 7. the international network for the improvement of banana and plantain, montpellier, france. cobb, n. a. 1918. estimating the nematode population of soil. u. s. d. a., agri. tech. circ., 1:1-48. gowen, s. r. 1993. possible approaches for developing nematode resistance in bananas and plantains. in: breeding banana and plantain for resistance to diseases and pests. (j. ganry. ed.), inibap, montpellier, france, pp. 123-128 janarthani, d. 2002. studies on mechanism of resistance in certain banana cultivars (musa spp.) to burrowing and root knot nematodes. m.sc.(hort.,) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. jean carlier, dirk de waele and jean-vincent escalant. 2002. inibap technical guidelines on global evaluation of musa germplasm for resistance to fusarium wilt and mycosphaerella leaf spot diseases and nematodes. edited by anne vézina and claudine picq. publ. by inibap. sasser, j. n. and freckman, d. w. 1987. a world perspective on nematology: the role of the society. pp. 7-14 in : vistas on nematology (veech, j.a. and dickson, d.w., eds). society of nematologists , inc, hyattsville, usa. schindler, a. f. 1961. a simple substitute for a baermann funnel. pl. dis. rept., 45 : 747-748. vilchez rojas, h. 1991. behavioural study of the radopholus similis population in a commercial banana farm in the atlantic zone of costa rica. corbana. ann. rep., 1991-1992, pp.77-70. (ms received 3 july 2007, revised 11 december 2007) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 57-61, 2008 screening of banana hybrids for resistance to nematode page 95 introduction india is the largest producer of banana in the world. it is estimated that 1.5 million tonnes of banana fibre could be potentially extracted from 30 million tonnes of pseudostem waste produced annually each year across the country. the value of banana as a source of fibre has remained grossly underexploited due to lack of systematic research on structural and physical properties of its fibre. as the banana is cultivated round the year, it can provide uninterrupted flow of raw material for industry for production of a range of products like paper, cardboard, tea bags, fibre lining for car interiors, high quality dress material, currency notes, etc. being natural and completely biodegradable, products developed from banana fibre can be expected to be in great demand in the international market. keeping these points in view, the present work was initiated to study the properties of banana fibre extracted from different varieties under commercial cultivationd, and the results are presented. material and methods biomass generation and composition of pseudostem fibre total biomass waste generated and yield of fibre from five commercial varieties of banana, viz., poovan nendran, rasthali, karpuravalli and robusta were determined by destructive analysis upon harvest of bunch. composition and properties of fibre extracted from pseudostem of banana (musa sp.) s. shivashankar, r. p. nachane1 and s. kalpana2 division of plant physiology and biochemistry indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560089, india e-mail: siva@iihr.ernet.in abstract pseudostem waste from five commercial cultivars of banana was used to extract fibre in order to study its properties. fibre was extracted by decortification of sheath either manually or using raspador machine. yield of fibre in cultivars varied from 0.548% to 0.891%. there was no significant difference in the yield of fibre from different layers of sheath although differences among cultivars were significant. cellulose was the major component of the fibre at about 60% while lignin levels were nearly 20%. the strength characteristics of nendran fibre like, mean breaking load, mean breaking extension and tenacity were comparable to those reported for other naturally occurring plant fibres such as pineapple, jute and sisal. the study highlighted the importance of exploiting banana pseudostem after harvest of banana bunch for fibre production on a commercial scale. key words: banana cultivars, pseudostem fibre, mechanical properties cellulose in the sheath and fibre was converted into acetylated cellodextrins by acetolysis with acetic/nitric reagent (4:1) followed by acid hydrolysis into glucose and was estimated following sadasivam and manickam (1996). lignin was determined gravimetrically (aoac, 1975). extraction of fibre fibre was extracted from the pseudostem using manual extractor or semi-automatic machine, raspador, having a drum speed of 700-800 rpm. fibres were freed from non-fibrous material by two methods, namely anaerobic retting and enzymatic retting. in anaerobic retting, fibres were tied at one end and suspended in a drum containing standard slurry (circot, 2003) containing more than one microbe type for two days to undergo degradation. the fibres were then removed, washed thoroughly under running tap water and dried in air. the strands of lustrous fibre with pale grey colour were separated out and stored for analysis. retting of fibre enzymatic retting of fibre was done with two sets of enzymes as described earlier (circot, 2004) in the first set, the fibre was incubated with the enzyme mixture containing pulpzyme and alcalase in a buffered medium at ph of 8.0 for 2 h at 50°c. one ml each of both the enzymes was added to 5g of sample, maintaining the fibre to liquor ratio at 1:25. at the end of incubation period, enzyme j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 95-98, 2006 1 central institute for research on cotton technology, matunga, mumbai 400 019. 2 national research centre for banana, thogamalai main road, thayanur post, podavur, trichy 620 102. page 96 activity was arrested by transferring the fibres to boiling water bath for 10 min. the fibre was washed thoroughly with water and dried (method a). in the second set, retting was carried out at a ph 5.0 using a mixture of three enzymes, namely aquazyme, pectinex and cellulase. one ml each of aquazyme and pectinex and 0.1ml of cellulase were added to 5g of sample and the fibre to liquor ratio was maintained at 1:25. incubation of the fibre was done at 55°c for 2 h. the fibre was washed with excess water and dried in air (method b). testing tensile properties measurement on single fibre tensile tests were carried out on anaerobically retted as well as enzymatically retted fibres as described earlier (circot, 1999). the instron tensile tester (model 1122) was employed to carry out the tests. the gauge length used was 50 mm. the crosshead speed was adjusted such that the fibres split in 20-25 sec. about 50 strands of fibre were randomly chosen irrespective of thickness. these were individually mounted between the jaws of instron tensile tester. distance between jaws was adjusted to 50 mm, which was the gauge length of the fibres tested. one of the jaws was stationary, while, the other jaw moved at a speed of 5 mm/min. extension of fibre was carried out till fibre ruptured. the load developed and corresponding extension at the point of rupture were recorded as the breaking load and breaking extension respectively, using dedicated computer software. then, fibre pieces held in the two jaws were cut out at the jaws and collected. weight of all the fibre pieces so collected was measured. since each fibre was of 50 mm length and 50 such fibres were collected, the weight measured corresponded to fibres of 2500 mm or 2.5 m total length. from this value, weight of 1000m length of fibre, expressed in grams was calculated and expressed as tex of fibre. tex is a measure of linear density of fibres. tenacity, which is a measure of material strength, is defined as the ratio of breaking load by linear density expressed in tex. accordingly, average tenacity of fibres was determined. the mean and cv (%) for all these parameters were worked out. the broken bits were placed between two glass slides and viewed under a projection microscope (magnification 500 x) for measuring diameter. measurements on fibre bundles bundle tenacity was measured at 3.2 mm gauge length using uster stelometer employing standard procedure as described below. a parallelised bundle of about 15 to 20 fibres was clamped in the stelometer jaws with a spacer of 0.32 mm (1/8th of an inch). this bundle was then tested on the stelometer for strength. maximum load developed in breaking the bundle was measured. six bundles per sample were tested. weight of each bundle broken on the stelometer was measured. from the values of breaking load of bundle and its weight, tenacity of the fibre was calculated. results and discussion data on biomass production and fibre yield in five commercial cultivars of banana (table 1) showed that the quantum of biomass left over after harves of bunch varied from 32.75 t/ha in ‘rasthali’ to 38.61t/ha in ‘karpuravalli’. of this, about 40% of pseudostem sheath comprising the outer 3-4 layers could be utilized to extract the fibre. the outer sheath is composed of tightly covered layers of fibre. among the cultivars tested, the variety poovan gave maximum fibre yield of 0.891%, while, ‘karpooravalli’ registered the lowest at 0.548%. fibre content of the outermost three layers of pseudostem sheath did not differ significantly, but, the yield of extractable fibre was significantly different among varieties (table 1). the total quantum of fibre production in these cultivars varied from a low of 15.8 kg/ ha in ‘karpuravalli’ to a high of 32.7 kg/ ha in ‘poovan’ showing, thereby, that it is possible to exploit the pseudostem of all these commercial cultivars for production of fibre, these cultivars being cultivated extensively in different parts of india. banana pseudostem contained 93.2-94.6% moisture. there were significant differences in potassium table 1. biomass generation and fibre yield in commercial cultivars of banana commercial cultivar biomass after whole plant pseudostem fibre extractable fibre bunch harvest(t/ha) weight (kg) weight (kg/plant) sheath weight (kg/plant) yield (%) poovan 37.12 20.4 14.0 8.06 0.891 nendran 36.48 20.1 13.2 7.62 0.758 rasthali 32.75 18.0 13.1 5.88 0.697 karpuravalli 38.61 21.1 13.5 8.13 0.548 robusta 36.01 21.4 14.0 8.40 0.721 c.d (p=0.05) 1.342 0.992 0.314 0.406 0.001 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 95-98, 2006 shivashankar et al 96 page 97 and sodium levels among the cultivars (table 2). high moisture content of the fresh pseudostem actually favoured fibre extraction, and, both the yield and quality of fibre decreased with decrease in the moisture level in the pseudostem during storage. the juice extracted by crushing the sheath was slightly acidic showing significant differences in ph ranging from 5.85-6.69 and acidity values of 0.016-0.019%. ph values ranging from neutral to slightly alkaline are known to be ideal for obtaining fibre of high quality and durability. sikdar et al (1993) reported that slightly alkaline ph of plant sap helped dissolve noncellulosic matter resulting in better fibre quality in jute. due to the slightly acidic ph of banana pseudostem, pre– treatment with dilute alkali was necessary to obtain high quality fibre as shown in sisal by padmavathy and venkata naidu (1998). acidic ph of abaca (musa textiles)) pseudostem was shown to reduce the strength and durability of its fibre (kirby, 1963). lignin content of different varieties did not show significant variation although it ranged from 18.55% in ‘poovan’ to 22.46% in ‘rasthali’. these results showed that banana fibre is more lignified than other soft fibres such as flax, ramie, jute and hemp (kirby, 1963). banana fibre is known to belong to the group of leaf fibres which are in general coarser than bast fibres. cellulose content in banana sheath among accessions belonging to different genomic groups was found to differ significantly (table 3). aab group had mean cellulose content of 22%, while, it was 27.2% in ab, 26.5% in aaa, 28% in bb and 26% in abb groups. the cellulose content of fibre in commercial varieties also varied significantly, from a low of 53.17% in ‘poovan’, to a high of 66.57% in ‘nendran’ (table 3), similar to those reported in jute (60.7%) and mesta (61.6%). cotton fibre is reported to have the highest cellulose content (82.7%), followed by ramie (68.6%), hemp (67.0%) and sisal (65.8%). the cellulose/ lignin content (%) obtained in this study were also found to be similar to that reported for jute, sisal and pineapple fibres (al qureshi, 1999). several studies on fibre composition and morphology have revealed that cellulose content and microfibril angle tend to control mechanical properties of cellulosic fibres (biswas et al, 2001). cellulose is a natural polymer with high strength and stiffness per unit weight and is the building material of long fibrous cells. higher cellulose content and lower microfibrilar angle lead to higher work of fracture in impact testing. being celluloserich, banana fibre is reported to compare favourably with fibres of jute and flax in tensile strength, modulus and failure strain (biswas et al, 2001). data on strength characteristics of banana fibre extracted from cv. nendran are presented in (table 4) and relate to measurements made on single fibre. significant differences were observed in the tenacity of fibre obtained by anaerobic and enzymatic retting methods. other parameters of fibre too differed significantly among fibres extracted by different methods thereby, showing that, anaerobically retted fibre was superior to the enzymatically retted fibre. the bundle tenacity of anaerobically retted fibres showed values of 4.098 kg for breaking load, 2.425% for breaking extension, 1.812 mg for weight of tuft with a tenacity of 34.35 g/tex. the values of tenacity obtained in this study matched favourably with those reported earlier on some cultivars of banana grown in the philippines. it has been reported that the quality of matrix composed mainly of lignin and hemicellulose exerts a strong influence on tenacity (mukherjee and satyanarayana, 1986). results from the present study show that mechanical properties of the fibre extracted from pseudostem of variety nendran of banana compare favourably with that of other natural fibres like that of pineapple, sisal and jute. it may be inferred that fibre from different varieties of banana is also likely to behave similarly table 2. composition of pseudostem in commercial cultivars of banana commercial cultivar moisture (%) ph acidity (%) sodium (mg %) potassium (mg %) poovan 93.4 6.21 0.018 0.20 7.33 nendran 94.6 6.19 0.019 0.30 6.06 rasthali 93.2 6.37 0.017 0.75 5.33 karpuravalli 94.6 6.69 0.017 0.35 6.76 robusta 94.1 5.85 0.016 0.50 6.15 c.d (p=0.05) ns 0.0156 0.005 0.022 0.120 table 3. cellulose and lignin content in commercial cultivars of banana commercial cultivar lignin content (%) cellulose content(%) poovan 18.33 53.17 nendran 20.80 66.57 rasthali 22.40 62.83 karpuravalli 22.03 65.00 robusta 20.23 56.83 c.d ( p= 0.05 ) ns 1.56 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 95-98, 2006 properties of banana fibre 97 page 98 and the extent of differences, if any, could vary depending upon its cellulose and lignin content. thus, variations in cellulose and lignin content among cultivars, which are determinants of fibre quality, could be of value in assigning fibre to specific end uses. it follows, therefore, that it is possible to utilize banana fibre profitably for preparation of several valueadded byproducts. although, traditionally, banana fibre has been used for making ropes, cords and packaging material, it can also be used as reinforcement in polymer composites, replacing more expensive and non-renewable synthetic fibres such as glass. these composites can be a cost effective material for the building and construction industry, for packaging, automobiles, railway coach interiors and storage devices. the use of banana cellulosic fibre in its native condition for reinforcement of different thermoplastic and thermonetting materials like phenol-formaldehyde, unsaturated polyester, epoxy, polyethylene, cement, natural rubber, etc., has also been reported. banana fibre shows better reinforcing efficiency than coir and specific strength properties of the composites are comparable to those of glass-fibre reinforced plastics (al qureshi, 1999). due to the high cost of synthetic fibres like glass, carbon or plastics used in fibre –reinforced composites and the health hazards caused by asbestos fibres, it is important to explore natural fibres like that of banana as possible substitutes. more detailed studies on the properties of banana fibre would help find many value-added applications which could directly contribute to better utilisation of banana pseudostem which would be otherwise wasted. acknowledgements the authors wish to thank the director, nrc for banana, trichy, for providing facilities. encouragement and support provided by the director, iihr, bangalore, is gratefully acknowledged. references al qureshi, h.a. 1999. the use of banana fibre reinforced composites for the development of a truck body. in: proc. 2nd international wood and natural fibre composites symp. june 28-29, 1999, kassel, germany. aoac 1975. official methods of analysis (1975), 12th ed. p. 138. biswas, s., srikanth, g and sangeeta nangia. 2001. development of natural fibre composites in india. in: proc. ann. convention & trade show, composites 2001, held at composites fabricators’ association, tampa, florida, usa , 3-6 oct, 2001. circot 1999. tensile properties of fibres, an insight into ligno-cellulosic fibres structure and properties, technical bulletin published by the central institute for research on cotton technology, matunga, mumbai 400 019, india, pp.11-24. circot 2003. annual report. physicochemical and structural characteristics of banana pseudostem fibre, circot annual report 2002-03, published by the director, central institute for research on cotton technology, matunga, mumbai 400 019, india, p.42. circot 2004. annual report. physicochemical and structural characteristics of banana pseudostem fibre, circot annual report 2003-04, published by the director, central institute for research on cotton technology, matunga, mumbai 400 019, india, p. 53. kirby, r.h.1963. vegetable fibres: world crop series. leonard hill, london, and interscience, new york, usa. mukherjee, p.s. and satyanarayana, k.g. 1986. an empirical evaluation of structure-property relationships in natural fibres and their fracture behaviour. j. materials sci., 21 : 4162-4168. padmavathy, t. and venkata naidu,s. 1998. chemical resistance and tensile properties of sisal fibres. ind. j. fibre and textile res., 23 : 128-129. sadasivam, s. and manickam. a. 1996. biochemical methods. second edition, new age international publishers, p.13. sikdar,b., mukhopadhyay, a.k. and mitra, b.c. 1993. action of weak alkali on jute. ind. j. fibre and textile res., 18 : 139-144. table 4. mechanical properties of single fibre of cv. nendran method of fibre extraction mean breaking mean breaking mean tex tenacity load (kg) extension (%) diameter (mm) (g/tex) anaerobic retting 0.282 2.772 0.110 4.636 60.828 enzymatic retting (method a) 0.281 2.464 0.166 7.984 35.195 enzymatic retting (method b) 0.160 1.818 0.114 4.398 36.380 c.d ( p=0.05) 0.008 0.038 0.008 0.675 1.887 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 95-98, 2006 shivashankar et al 98 (ms received 22 may 2006, revised 16 october 2006) introduction kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa chev.) is a dioecious and deciduous vine, native to china (ferguson, 1984). the kiwifruit has gained enormous popularity in the recent past due to its wide climatic-adaptability, unique blend of taste, and high medicinal value. availability of quality planting material is the first and foremost priority for commercializing any fruit crop. an increasing demand for kiwifruit plants has necessitated development of easier, quicker and economic methods of propagation. although there are various methods of propagation for multiplying fruit crops such as grafting, budding or tissue culture, most are expensive, time-consuming, laborious, and require skill. the most rapid and suitable method of multiplication of fruit crops is through cuttings, especially hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. in general, semi-hardwood cuttings in kiwifruit are known to yield higher rooting-success than hardwood cuttings. higher rooting potential of semi-hardwood cuttings is attributed to production of endogenous auxins (hartmann et al, 1983). effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on rooting of cuttings in kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa chev.) neha sharma, babita* and vishal s. rana department of fruit science dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry nauni-173230, solan, india *e-mail: babitasoniuhf@gmail.com abstract the present study was conducted under a polyhouse with kiwifruit cuttings. the entire programme of the study was divided into two experiments comprising hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. the experiments were laid out in randomized block design, with three replications per treatment. experiment i was carried out on hardwood cuttings of kiwifruit cultivar allison and comprised of nine treatments, viz., t1 (iba 5000ppm), t2 (bacillus subtilis), t3 (bacillus licheniformis), t4 (bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm), t5 (bacillus licheniformis + iba 4000ppm), t6 (bacillus subtilis + iba 3000ppm), t7 (bacillus licheniformis + iba 3000ppm), t8 (bacillus subtilis + iba 2000ppm) and t9 (bacillus licheniformis + iba 2000ppm). in experiment ii, all the above-mentioned nine treatments were imposed on semi-hardwood cuttings of kiwifruit. ttreatment iba 5000ppm recorded best root characteristics (per cent rooted cuttings, number of primary roots secondary roots, length of roots total root length, root biomass); shoot characteristics (shoot length, shoot diameter, shoot biomass) and leaf characteristics (number of leaves and leaf area) in both hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. this treatment also resulted in maximum net benefit per 100 cuttings in comparison to other treatments. among the two types of cuttings studied, hardwood cuttings showed better results on root characteristics. however, semi-hardwood cuttings gave better results on shoot and leaf characteristics. key words: pgpr, kiwifruit, actinidia deliciosa, iba, cuttings j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):159-164, 2015 use of exogenous plant growth regulators for enhancing success rate in cuttings is a very commonly used method in fruit crops (polat and kamiloglu, 2007). indole3-butyric acid (iba) is the best auxin for this purpose, as, it is non-toxic to plants over a wide range of concentrations, and effectively in promotes rooting in a large number of plant species (hartmann et al, 2002). plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (pgpr) is another option for enhancing per cent success in rooted cuttings. pgpr are naturallyoccurring soil bacteria that aggressively colonize plant roots, and benefit plants by providing them growth promotion (cleyet-marel et al, 2001). inoculation of crop plants with certain strains of pgpr at an early stage of development improves biomass production through their direct effect on root and shoot growth. one of the most characteristic effects of pgpr is increased elongation rate, and consequently, enhanced initiation rate of lateral roots, resulting in a more branched root-architecture (kapulnik et al, 1985; lifshitz et al, 1987). with this in view, the present investigation was undertaken to evaluate the effect of plant growth promoting 160 rhizobacteria, alone and in combination with iba, on rooting and growth in kiwifruit cuttings. material and methods the experiments were conducted in the kiwifruit block of department of fruit science, dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan (h.p.), during 2011-2012. the entire study was carried out in two experiments comprising hardwood and semihardwood cuttings. cuttings, with uniform vigour and size were taken from 27-year-old vines of ‘allison’ cultivar of kiwifruit. experiments were laid out in randomized block design, with three replications per treatment. experiment i was carried out on hardwood cuttings and comprised nine treatments, viz., t1 (iba 5000ppm), t2 (bacillus subtilis), t3 (bacillus licheniformis), t4 (bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm), t5 (bacillus licheniformis + iba 4000ppm), t6 (bacillus subtilis + iba 3000ppm), t7 (bacillus licheniformis + iba 3000ppm), t8 (bacillus subtilis + iba 2000ppm), and t9 (bacillus licheniformis + iba 2000ppm). experiment ii, all the above-mentioned nine treatments were imposed on the semi-hardwood cuttings. plant growth promoting rhizobateria pgpr (500ml each of bacillus subtilis and bacillus licheniformis) were used for treating kiwifruit cuttings. bacterial cell suspension (o.d. value 2.0 at 540nm) of 48-hour old culture grown on nutrient agar medium plates @10% was used as the inoculums, which contained viable cells upto a dilution of 108cfu/ml. these cuttings were dipped in pgpr solution for 4 hours, and, were thereafter planted in the experimental field. for combined treatment of iba and pgpr, the cuttings were first treated with iba solution as a quick dip, and then again dipped in pgpr solution for upto 2cm length, for 4 hours. the cuttings were then removed from the solution and planted under a polyhouse. in both the experiments, mature dormant shoots 2530cm long, 0.5-1.0cm thick having at least three healthy, bold buds were selected during mid-january and mid july, respectively. the cuttings were taken from plants under shade. the base of the cutting was given a round cut near the bud, whereas, a slanting cut was made at the top of the cutting to prevent water accumulation and rotting. two to three leaves were retained in semi-hardwood cuttings to reduce transpiration loss and overlapping of leaves during planting of the cuttings in beds. leaf area was reduced by cutting leaves to half their size. the cuttings, after dipping in different solutions as per experimental details, were planted in a bed at 2m x 1m, containing sand, forest soil and fym in 1:1:1 ratio, under polyhouse conditions with shade, ventilation and irrigation arrangement. rooted cuttings obtained from both the experiments were uprooted in the last week of december. data from the present investigation were subjected to statistical analysis as per gomez and gomez (1984). results and discussion root characteristics results revealed that iba alone or in combination with plant growth promoting rhizobacteria exerted significant influence on various root characteristics of cuttings in kiwifruit (table 1). highest percentage of rooted cuttings, i.e., 46.3% and 62.4%, in the case of hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings, respectively, was recorded with iba 5000ppm (t1). this treatment also resulted in the highest number of primary roots (8.5 and 12.6), number of secondary roots (18.3 and 23.7), longest root (20.5cm and 24.6cm), total root length (135.7cm and 141.4cm), fresh weight of roots (12.0g and 13.3g), and dry weight of roots (6.0g and 11.3g) in hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings, respectively, followed by the treatment bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4). hartmann et al (2002) opined that as the annual growth-cycle progresses, endogenous auxin production begins to decrease and, therefore, high levels of exogenous auxins are needed to promote rooting. application of auxin is the most common treatment for enhancing rooting in stem cuttings. in addition to this, auxin affects cell differentiation, table 1. effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on rooting of cuttings in kiwifruit treatment treatment per cent rooted cuttings code hardwood semi-hardwood t 1 iba 5000ppm 46.3 (42.9)* 62.4 (52.2) t 2 bacillus subtilis 7.7 (16.1) 11.5 (19.8) t 3 bacillus licheniformis 5.5 (13.6) 8.5 (16.9) t 4 bacillus subtilis + 44.5 (41.8) 59.7 (50.6) iba 4000ppm t 5 bacillus licheniformis + 38.3 (38.2) 50.5 (42.3) iba 4000ppm t 6 bacillus subtilis + 42.5 (40.6) 54.4 (47.5) iba 3000ppm t 7 bacillus licheniformis + 30.5 (33.5) 42.2 (40.5) iba 3000ppm t 8 bacillus subtilis + 35.2 (36.4) 47.3 (43.5) iba 2000ppm t 9 bacillus licheniformis + 26.7 (31.1) 38.5 (38.4) iba 2000ppm cd (p=0.05) 2.0 1.7 sem (+) 0.67 0.58 cv (%) 3.75 2.40 *figures in parentheses are arc sine transformed values neha sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):159-164, 2015 161 and promotes starch hydrolysis and mobilization of sugars / nutrients to the base of the cutting (das et al, 1997). highest per cent rooted cuttings and number of primary and secondary roots obtained with iba 5000ppm treatment in the present study are supported by rana et al (1999) who reported dormant cuttings treated with iba 5000ppm to express better rooting and survival percentage in five kiwifruit cultivars, namely, monty, bruno, hayward, abbott and allison. data presented in table 2 reveals that the highest (8.5 and 12.6) number of primary roots were recorded with the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1), and this was statistically at par with the treatment bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4), exhibiting 7.9 and 10.8 number of primary roots; the lowest (3.5 and 4.4) number of primary roots were recorded with the treatment bacillus licheniformis (t3), followed by bacillus subtilis (t2), recording on average 4.1 and 4.7 primary roots in hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings, respectively. highest number of secondary roots both in hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings was also recorded with iba 5000ppm (t1), which was statistically at par with bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4). in hardwood cuttings, length of the longest root per cutting ranged between 4.1cm and 20.5cm, whereas, it varied between 6.5cm and 24.6cm in semi-hardwood cuttings. the longest (20.5cm) root was recorded in the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1) in hardwood cuttings, which was followed by the treatment bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4). in the case of semi-hardwood cuttings also, the longest (24.6cm) root was recorded with the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1) (table 2). in the present study, the lowest rooting performance obtained with application of solely bacillus subtilis or bacillus licheniformis may be because strains of the bacteria used under the study were not able to colonize the cuttings of kiwifruit. kapulnik et al (1985) and lifshitz et al (1987) also reported that plant growth promoting rhizobacteria could not initiate rooting, but could only colonize developed roots, and promote their growth. the mechanism of root induction by pgpr is, however, not completely understood; but, it is thought to be due to production of phytohormones, inhibition of ethylene synthesis, and mineralization of nutrients by pgpr (goto, 1990; steenhoudt and vanderlayden, 2000). in hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings, the highest (135.7cm and 141.4cm) value for total root length was recorded with the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1), followed by the treatment bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4) which recorded 127.2cm and 132.4cm total root length per cutting, respectively. it is evident from figures 1 & 2 that the highest fresh and dry weight of roots per cutting was recorded with the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1) in both the hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. these results are in line with siddiqui and hussain (2007) who reported maximum root length in cuttings of ficus hawaii with iba 4000ppm. they also speculated that the higher root length was due to an effect of iba on carbohydrate metabolism and translocation. table 2. effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on root characteristics of cuttings in kiwifruit treatment treatment primaryroots secondary roots longest root (cm) total root length (cm) code hardwood semihardwood semihardwood semihardwood semihardwood hardwood hardwood hardwood t 1 iba 5000ppm 8.5 12.6 18.3 23.7 20.5 24.6 135.7 141.4 t 2 bacillus subtilis 4.1 4.7 6.5 11.2 6.5 10.7 37.4 43.6 t 3 bacillus licheniformis 3.5 4.4 5.3 8.5 4.1 6.5 29.6 34.1 t 4 bacillus subtilis + 7.9 10.8 16.7 21.8 17.9 22.0 127.2 132.4 iba 4000ppm t 5 bacillus licheniformis + 6.8 9.6 12.1 15.7 12.5 16.5 105.7 109.5 iba 4000ppm t 6 bacillus subtilis + 7.3 8.8 13.3 17.4 15.2 18.7 120.9 123.8 iba 3000ppm t 7 bacillus licheniformis + 6.2 6.9 8.3 13.7 9.5 14.5 86.3 92.6 iba 3000ppm t 8 bacillus subtilis + 6.6 7.2 10.0 14.4 11.5 15.9 94.6 96.3 iba 2000ppm t 9 bacillus licheniformis + 5.9 6.8 7.3 12.0 8.0 11.6 77.5 80.7 iba 2000ppm cd (p=0.05) 2.0 2.1 2.3 2.1 1.7 2.8 1.2 1.5 sem (+) 0.68 0.69 0.77 0.71 0.58 0.93 0.39 0.51 cv (%) 18.55 16.24 12.16 7.98 8.65 10.58 0.74 0.93 effect of pgpr and iba on rooting of kiwifruit cuttings j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):159-164, 2015 162 shoot and leaf characteristics highest (23.8cm and 20.5cm) shoot length in both hardwood and semi hardwood cuttings was recorded with the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1), which was statistically at par with bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4), resulting in shoot length of 22.5cm and 19.0cm, respectively. data presented in table 3 shows that the highest (10.6mm and 8.5mm) shoot diameter in hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings was recorded with the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1), which was statistically at par with bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4), respectively. better shoot characteristics seen in cuttings treated with different concentrations of iba alone or in combination with pgpr may be attributed to better rooting performance perhaps consequent to higher carbohydrate production and assimilation. fresh weight of shoot ranged from 8.4g to 25.8g in hardwood cuttings, and from 6.5g to 21.3g in semi-hardwood cuttings in kiwifruit cv. ‘allison’. dry weight of shoot ranged from 3.4g to 15.3g in hardwood cuttings, and from 2.6g to 10.7g in semi-hardwood cuttings. perusal of data presented in figures 3 and 4 reveals that the highest fresh and dry weight of shoots per cutting was recorded in the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1) in both types of cuttings, viz., hardwood and semi-hardwood. it is also evident from table 3 that the highest (15.6 and 12.4) leaf number in both hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings was recorded with iba 5000ppm (t1), respectively. the highest (168.9cm 2 and 166.7cm2) leaf area in both types of cutting was attained with the treatment iba 5000ppm (t1), followed by the treatment bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm (t4) exhibiting leaf area of 155.6cm2 and 150.0cm2, respectively. these results are in conformity with investigations of alam et al (2007) who obtained maximum number of leaves fig. 1. effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on fresh weight of roots per cutting in kiwifruit fig. 2. effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on the dry weight of roots per cutting in kiwifruit table 3. effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on shoot and leaf characteristics in kiwifruit cuttings treatment treatment shoot length (cm) shoot diameter (mm) average leaf area (cm2) leaf number code hardwood semihardwood semihardwood semihardwood semihardwood hardwood hardwood hardwood t 1 iba 5000ppm 23.8 20.5 10.6 8.5 168.9 166.7 15.6 12.4 t 2 bacillus subtilis 8.6 6.5 4.6 3.9 19.8 17.6 7.0 4.9 t 3 bacillus licheniformis 6.0 4.9 3.7 2.6 16.3 15.6 6.0 3.9 t 4 bacillus subtilis + 22.5 19.0 8.8 7.2 155.6 150.0 13.3 10.6 iba 4000ppm t 5 bacillus licheniformis + 16.5 12.1 8.2 4.6 113.4 110.7 9.8 6.1 iba 4000ppm t 6 bacillus subtilis + 20.4 16.7 8.5 5.5 145.6 143.0 11.5 7.2 iba 3000ppm t 7 bacillus licheniformis + 16.7 12.8 7.7 4.4 96.4 90.2 11.0 6.7 iba 3000ppm t 8 bacillus subtilis + 12.5 10.5 7.5 4.3 89.5 87.0 9.8 5.8 iba 2000ppm t 9 bacillus licheniformis+ 12.0 9.5 7.0 4.0 77.5 73.3 9.4 5.0 iba 2000ppm cd (p=0.05) 1.7 2.1 2.1 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.4 1.8 sem (+) 0.58 0.71 0.69 0.38 1.54 0.60 0.80 0.59 cv (%) 6.49 9.79 16.24 13.31 0.89 1.09 13.44 14.57 neha sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):159-164, 2015 163 in kiwi cuttings treated with iba 4000ppm. they attributed their results to development of a better root system which may have played an active role in development of leaves by facilitating supply of water and nutrients to the cuttings from the soil. similar trend was observed with application of auxins in semi-hardwood cuttings of guava, with enhanced leaf number (taiz and zeiger, 2006). effect of season on hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings results in the present study indicated that the season in which cuttings were made also had a significant influence on root, shoot and leaf characteristics in kiwifruit. the best rooting performance in terms of per cent rooted cuttings, number of primary and secondary roots, length of the longest root, total root length, fresh and dry weight of roots and shoots per cutting were recorded in semi-hardwood cuttings prepared in mid-july, whereas, the best results for various shoot and leaf characteristics, viz., shoot length, shoot diameter, shoot biomass, leaf number and leaf area, were noticed with hardwood cuttings prepared in mid-january. the type of wood, stage of growth and the time of year when cuttings are taken are some of the important factors for obtaining satisfactory rooting pattern in plants (hartmann et al, 2002). fouad et al (1990) studied seasonal fluctuations in rooting ability in eight olive cultivars. they reported that the date of cuttings had a great influence on their rooting ability. cuttings prepared in summer, especially in august, gave the highest rooting percentage, while those prepared in january rooted the least. singh et al (2008) also reported that cuttings prepared during the active growthstage gave better results in respect of rooting percentage and number of roots per cutting in olive. results obtained in the present study showed that iba 5000ppm gave the best results in root, shoot and leaf characteristics in both hardwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. however, results obtained on different root characteristics of cuttings treated with bacillus subtilis + iba 4000ppm were statistically non-significant with results obtained with iba 5000ppm. application of bacillus subtilis or bacillus licheniformis solely recorded the lowest values for various root, shoot or leaf characteristics. among the two types of cuttings tested, superior root characteristics were recorded in semi-hardwood cuttings. references alam, r., khalil, u.r., muhammad ilyas, muhammad ibrahim and muhammad, a.r. 2007. effect of iba concentrations on the rooting of kiwi cuttings. sarhad j. agri., 23:293-295 cleyet-marel, j.c., larcher, m., bertrand, h., rapior, s. and ponichet, x. 2001. plant growth enhancement by rhizobacteria. in: nitrogen assimilation by plants: physiological, biochemical and molecular aspects. science publishers, en field (nh, usa), plymouth (uk) pp. 184-197 das, p., basak, u.c. and das, a.b. 1997. metabolic changes during rooting in pre-girdled stem cuttings and airlayers of heritiera. botanical bulletin of academia sinica, 38:91-95 ferguson, a.r. 1984. kiwifruit: a botanical review. hort. rev., 6:1-64 fouad, m.m., fayek, m.a., selin, h.h. and el-sayed, m.e. 1990. rooting of eight olive cultivars under mist. acta hort., 286:57-60 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. in: statistical procedure for agricultural research, 2nd ed., wiley interscience, new york, pp. 304-309 goto, m. 1990. fundamentals of bacterial plant pathology. academic press inc., san diego, usa, 339 p fig. 3. effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on fresh weight of shoots per cutting in kiwifruit fig. 4. effect of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and iba on dry weight of shoots per cutting in kiwifruit effect of pgpr and iba on rooting of kiwifruit cuttings j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):159-164, 2015 164 hartmann, h.t., kester, d.e. and davies, jr. f.t. 1983. anatomical and physiological basis of propagation by cuttings. in: plant propagation: principles and practices. 5th edition, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., 242 p. hartmann, h.t., kester, d.e., davies, jr. f.t. and geneve, r.l. 2002. principles of propagation by cuttings. in: plant propagation: principles and practices. 8th edition, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., pp. 280-414 kapulnik, y., okon, y. and henis, y. 1985. changes in root morphology of wheat caused by azospirillum inoculation. canadian j. microbiol., 31:881-887 lifshitz, r., kloepper, j.w., kozlowski, m., simonson, c., carlson, j., tipping, e.m. and zaleska, i. 1987. growth promotion of canola (rapeseed) seedlings by a strain of pseudomonas putida under gnotobiotic conditions. canadian j. microbiol., 33:390-395 polat, a.a. and kamiloglu, o. 2007. experiment on propagation with cuttings of quince-a andb a 2 9 rootstocks and on budding with loquat cultivar. turkey v. in: the proceedings of national horticulture congress, 4-7 september, erzurum, turkey, 1:169173 rana, h.s., rana, v.s. and bhardwaj, d.r. 1999. vegetative multiplication of kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa chev.) through dormant cuttings. annal. for.,7:56-59 siddiqui, m.i. and hussain, s.a. 2007. effect of indole butyric acid and types of cuttings on root initiation of ficus hawaii. sarhad j. agri., 23:919-925 singh, a., patell, r.k., de, l.c. and babu, k.d. 2008. effect of cutting types, indole butyric acid and shoot pinching on rooting of kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa). indian j. agril. sci., 78:695-698 steenhoudt, o. and vanderleyden, j. 2000. azospirillum, a free-living nitrogen-fixing bacterium closely associated with grasses: genetics, biochemical and ecological aspect. microbiol. rev., 24:487-506 taiz, l. and zeiger, e. 2006. plant physiology, 4th edition, sinauer associates inc. publisher, sunderland, massachusetts, u.s.a., 286p (ms received 26 february 2015, revised 18 august 2015, accepted 23 september 2015) neha sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):159-164, 2015 baccaurea courtallensis (muell.) arg., a member of euphorbiaceae family, is endemic to the western ghats of india. it is popularly known as burmese grape or khattaphal. the plant is a medium-sized tree growing to a height of 8-10m and produces crimson-red edible fruits, sour to sweet in taste when fully ripe. village folk of western ghats of india eat the fruits, and use them in folk medicine besides making pickles out of them (srinivasa mohan, 2009; ratheesh narayanan et al, 2011). the fruit is reported to be a good source of vitamin c and antioxidants. presence of palmitic and oleic acids in the seed oil makes it useful as a lubricant and an additive in industrial preparations (srinivasa mohan, 2009). this tree species has ornamental value as well,as, at full bloom it is a treat to watch. blooms occur during february-march, and fruits mature in mayjune. cauliflory is seen (production of flowers and fruits on the main trunk). when the tree attains maturity, floral primordia appear on the main trunk, from which crimsonred flowers emerge. male and female flowers are produced on separate stalks of the same tree (monoecea). crimsonj. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):76-79, 2016 short communication fruit/seed morphology, seed drying and germination studies in baccaurea courtallensis (muell.) arg., a threatened under-utilized fruit species of western ghats in india h.s. yogeesha*, s. ganeshan, k.s. shivashankara, d.l. shetty and c. anil kumar1 icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, karnataka, india *e-mail: hsy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a study was under taken on fruit and seed morphology, seed drying, seed germination and storage behavior in baccaurea courtallensis, as, this plant is propagated mainly through seeds. its fruit is a berry consisting of an outer, semi-hard but fleshy rind 2-3 mm thick. the cavity inside the rind is normally occupied by a single, arillate seed, but, two seeds are also seen occasionally. fresh rind was found to be rich in antioxidants, with 237mg total phenols and 93mg flavonoids per 100 gram fresh weight, but was poor in vitamin c. a thick, fleshy endosperm is surrounded by the inner seed-coat. the endosperm surrounds the embryo consisting of two papery-thin cotyledons and a minute embryonic axis. germination was highest (96.7%) when seeds were sown immediately after extraction, with moisture content of about 50%. reduction in moisture to below 34% showed a drastic decrease in germination. dried seeds took longer to germinate than did the fresh ones. seeds with 21% moisture recorded about 60% germination whereas, seeds with 10.2% or 8% moisture failed to germinate, indicating a recalcitrant seed. temperature in the range of 25-30°c was found to be optimum. of the two media tested for raising the seedlings, cocopeat medium was superior as, it induced faster growth of the seedlings. seedling root and shoot were considerably longer, with higher seedling survival rate in cocopeat than in the soil-mix medium. seedling establishment was poor when planted out of their natural habitat. key words: baccaurea courtallensis, seed morphology, seed moisture, seed germination red fruits are arranged in racemose type of inflorescence and hang in symmetric clusters. fruit clusters are seen all around the trunk from base upwards. fruits can be seen even on exposed roots. bunches of fruits hang downwards, even touching the ground, hence the name, moottilkkaippan in malayalam. international union for conservation of nature and natural recourses (iucn) has listed this as a threatened species in its red data book, and the tree requires special conservation measures. though propagation of this plant is mainly through seeds, no information whatsoever is available on seed viability or storage. the present investigation was made to study fruit and seed morphology in this species, and also the seed structure, seed germination and storage behaviour. fully mature fruits of baccaurea courtallensis were collected from jawaharlal nehru tropical botanic garden and research institute (jntbgri), palode, trivandrum, in june 2012. the fruits were kept in closed polythene covers at 12°c for 2 days when fruit characters were recorded, 1tbgri, palode, thiruvananthapuram, kerala, india 77 fruit and seed studies in ‘khattaphal’, baccaurea courtallensis viz., shape, size, colour, number of seeds per fruit, internal fruit texture and seed morphology. the rind of the fruit used for making pickles was analyzed for total phenols, flavonoids (kavitha et al, 2014) and vitamin c. seeds were extracted from the fleshy fruits, and, the fleshy tissue surrounding was removed by rubbing between fingers and repeated washings under running water. seeds with no or underdeveloped embryo were removed by the floatation technique. the sinkers were collected and soaked in carbendazim (2.0%) for 15 minutes, and surface-dried. the seeds were further dried for different durations under shade to raise seed lots with varying moisture levels, viz., 51.01% (fresh seed), 34.19% (after 20h of drying), 21.00% (after 26h of drying), 10.37% (after 48h of drying), and 8.00% (after 6 days of drying). these dried seeds (with varying moisture content) were placed in polybags containing moist cocopeat and held at room temperature (ranging between 24-28°c) for germination. seeds that showed radical protrusion of 5mm and more were assumed as germinated, and were transferred to plastic protrays containing cocopeat, for further establishment. at two-leaf stage, the seedlings were transferred to polythene bags containing cocopeat alone. in another experiment fresh (undried) seeds (with 51-53% moisture) were subjected to germination at different temperature regimes. five replications of 25 seeds each were placed between two germination paper towels and subjected to alternate temperatures of 20-30°c, (16h at 20°c and 8 h at 30°c), and constant temperatures of 30°c and 35°c using germinators. one set of seeds was also kept at ambient temperature, fluctuating between 24°c and 28°c. seeds were observed for germination rate at regular intervals. data was analyzed using simple crd and means were compared using critical difference at 1% level of significance. fruits are round, with crimson-red skin colour (plate 1) at an average berry diameter of 2.5cm. the fruit is a berry, consisting of an outer semi-hard but fleshy rind 2-3mm thick and used for pickle making (fresh or dried). the cavity inside the rind is normally occupied by a single, arillate seed (plate 2). two seeds could also be seen in a few fruits bigger in size. the seed is covered completely with a white, juicy, soft tissue called aril. the all is edible and sour to taste. fresh rind was found to be rich in antioxidants, with 237mg total phenols and 93mg flavonoids per 100g fresh-weight. abhishek et al (2011) also reported presence of phenols and flavonoids in the fruit rind. vitamin c content was found to be 2.93mg which is very low, and corroborates with the findings of nazaruddin (2010) who also observed traces of vitamin c in the fruit rind. the seed is broad and flat, ovate and white. it consists of a leathery outer seed-coat and a thin, brown inner seed-coat. outer seed-coat is surrounded by fuzz which can be removed by rubbing against any rough surface. the thick, fleshy endosperm is surrounded by the inner seed-coat. the endosperm surrounds the embryo consisting of two thin, papery cotyledons and a minute embryonic-axis (plate 3). plate 1. crimson-red fruit of baccaurea courtallensis plate 2. various parts of baccaurea courtallensis fruit plate 3. various parts of baccaurea courtallensis seed j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):76-79, 2016 78 germination was highest (96.7%) when seeds were sown immediately after extraction, having a moisture content of about 50% (fig.1). reduction in moisture content from an initial 50% to 34% showed a little decrease in germination (7.5%), but further drying resulted in a drastic reduction in germination. dried seeds took longer to germinate than did fresh seeds. seeds with 50% moisture showed more than 60% germination by the 12th day, whereas, seeds with 34% and 21% moisture took more than 24 and 43 days, respectively, to attain this rate (60%) of germination. seeds with 21% moisture recorded about 60% germination whereas seeds with 10.2% and 8% moisture failed to germinate. this indicates that baccaurea courtallensis seeds are recalcitrant in nature and, thus cannot withstand drying to low moisture, unlike orthodox seeds. critical moisture level below which there is no germination probably around 20% moisture, as, seeds with 21% moisture recorded just above 50% germination. hence, to raise seedlings of baccaurea courtallensis, fresh seeds should be sown, as, seeds with high moisture content cannot be stored for long. results on effect of temperature on seed germination showed that temperatures in the range of 25-30°c registered higher and rapid germination, compared to the alternate temperatures of 20-30°c or a constant 35°c (fig. 2). seeds exposed to room temperature of 24-28°c or a constant 30°c took only 20 days to germinate @ 84-85%, whereas, at the other two temperature regimes, germination was only 5159% at 20 days. however, the final germination count at 43 days from sowing was almost the same across different temperature regimes. accordingly, the speed of germination was higher (7) at room temperatures of 24-28°c and a constant 30°c, than at the alternate temperature of 20-30°c (4.5) or a constant 35°c (4.9) (fig. 3). of the two media tested for raising seedlings, cocopeat medium was found to be ideal, as, it led to faster growth of seedlings. root and shoot were considerably longer in cocopeat than in the soil mix, as also survival rate of the seedlings. at the 80th day from sowing, root length plate 4. baccaurea courtallensis seedlings grown on cocopeat (left) and soil mixture (right) fig 1. effect of seed moisture on germination in baccaurea courtellensis fig 2. effect of temperature on seed germination in baccaurea courtellensis fig 3. effect of temperature on speed of germination in baccaurea courtellensis was 16cm in cocopeat and 12cm in the soil-mix (plate 4). establishment of seedlings was poor when these were planted outside their natural habitat. a preliminary attempt to establish the species outside its niche was partially yogeesha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):76-79, 2016 79 successful and indicated that, with retirement, it may be amenable to conservation, domestication and development as a multi-purpose tree in the tropics (john et al, 2003). references ratheesh narayanan m.k., anilkumar, n., balakrishnan, v., sivadasan, m. ahmed, alfarhan, h. and alatar, a.a. 2011. wild edible plants used by the kattunaikka, paniya and kuruma tribes of wayanad district, kerala, indian j. med. pl. res., 5:3520-3529 http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/jmpr/ article abstract/e590bc120048 srinivasa mohan. 2009. fatty acid composition of baccaurea courtallensis muell. arg. seed oil: an endemic species of western ghats, india. j. amer. oil chem. soc., 86 :1017-1019 https:// www.deepdyve.com/lp/springer-journals/fatty-acidcomposition of-baccaurea courtallensis-muell-argseed-oil-eo3h8q8od4 nazaruddin, a. 2010. nutritional composition of some lesser known fruits used by the ethnic communities and local folks of kerala. indian j. traditional knowledge, 9:398-402 abhishek, r.u., ashwin, r. and mahesh, t.p. 2011. phytochemical analysis and antibacterial efficacy of fruit rind of baccaurea courtallensis muell. arg. medicinal plants, 3:327-330 doi 10.5958/j.09754261.3.4.056 john, k.j., nizar, m.a., velayudhan, k.c., unnikrishnan, m. and abraham, z. 2003. a note on baccaurea courtallensis (muell.) arg., (moottipotti), a wild edible fruit of western ghats. indian j. pl. genetic resources, 16:114-116 kavitha, p., shivashankara, k.s., rao. v.k., sadashiva, a.t., ravishankar, k.v. and sathish, g.j. 2014. genotypic variability for antioxidant and quality parameters among tomato cultivars, hybrids, cherry tomatoes and wild species. j. sci. food agri., 94:993-999, doi: 10.1002/jsfa.6359 fruit and seed studies in ‘khattaphal’, baccaurea courtallensis j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):76-79, 2016 (ms received 12 october 2015, revised 16 march 2016, accepted 24 march 2016) page 148 the spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell (homoptera: aleyrodidae), native to the caribbean islands and central america was first discovered in the city of thiruvananthapuram, south india, in november 1993 (palaniswami et al, 1995). the spiralling whitefly may have been introduced into india from neighbouring countries such as maldives (muniappan, 1993) and sri lanka (ranjith et al, 1996) through plant material. since then, it has been reported from other parts of kerala, karnataka, andhra pradesh, tamil nadu and maharashtra (david and regu, 1995; prathapan, 1996; mani and krishnamoorthy, 1996; sathe, 1999) and lakshadweep islands (ramani, 2000). the spiralling whitefly is a polyphagous pest known to attack about 500 plant species including several ornamentals (srinivasa, 2000). chemical control of a. dispersus is almost impossible owing to its wide host range and heavy wax coating (kajita et al, 1991). however, the natural enemies, chiefly the aphelinid parasitoids encarsia guadeloupae viggiani and encarsia (?) haitiensis dozier, have proved useful in suppressing the spiralling whitefly in the pacific islands and african countries (waterhouse and norris, 1989; d’almeida et al, 1998). the present study was conducted to colonise the parasitoid, e. guadeloupae, on spiralling whitefly infesting ornamentals like rose, poinsettia, hibiscus and acalypha. cassia leaves containing parasitised nymphs (black) were kept in glass vials (15 cm x 2.5cm). adult parasitoids that emerged were collected and the identity of e. guadeloupae was ascertained in the laboratory. these were fed on 50% honey in glass vials prior to release in the field. field releases made on hibiscus rosasinensis l. at u.a.s. farm, hebbal, acalypha hispida burm.f and euphorbia (= poinsettia) pulcherrima willd. at the iihr farm, hessaraghatta and rosa indica lindl. at hessaraghatta village, all located in bangalore north. a colonization of introduced parasitoid, encarsia guadeloupae viggiani, on the exotic spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell, infesting ornamentals m. mani 1 and a. krishnamoorthy division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail : mmani1949@ yahoo.co.in abstract the exotic spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell, was observed to infest several ornamentals including rose, hibiscus, poinsettia and acalypha in and around bangalore. efforts were made to colonize the aphelinid parasitoid, encarsia guadeloupae viggiani, during 2002 2003 on the above ornamentals infested with the spiralling whitefly. a total of five predators, namely, axinoscymnus puttarudriahi kapur and munshi, cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls., anegleis cardoni (weise), mallada astur (banks) and cybocephalus sp. were observed on the spiralling whitefly on these ornamentals during the study but their impact on the spiralling whitefly was negligible. inoculative releases of e. guadeloupae were made on rose (156 adults), hibiscus (179 adults), poinsettia (124 adults) and acalypha (247 adults). encarsia guadeloupae was recovered within a month after its release with 3.43 32.94% parasitism. a steady decline in the population of spiralling whitefly was observed on these ornamentals. encarsia guadeloupae was found to be the only parasitoid encountered throughout the study and the total parasitism steadily increased up to 96.00% on rose, 86.40% on hibiscus, 90.40% on poinsettia and 39.86% on acalypha at six months from release. parasitism by e. guadeloupae was significant and negatively correlated with the population of spiralling whitefly on all the four ornamentals. key words: aleurodicus dispersus, encarsia guadeloupae, biological control, spiralling whitefly, rose, hibiscus, poinsettia, acalypha j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 148-151, 2006 1 present address : national research centre for grapes, p.b. no. 3, manjari farm, solapur road, pune 412 307. short communication page 149 total of 156 adults of e. guadeloupae on r. indica in august 2002, 179 adults on h. rosasinensis during may 2003, 124 adults on p. pulcherrima in july 1998, and 247 adults on a. hispida infested with spiralling whitefly in june 2003, were released. sampling was done for six months on the ornamental plants from the month of release. populations of the whitefly and its natural enemies were estimated at monthly intervals. ten plants infested with spiralling whitefly were randomly chosen for recording observations. in each plant, four shoots were selected and in each shoot, ten leaves (beginning 6 th leaf from top) were collected and populations of adult whiteflies, healthy and parasitised nymphs and the predators if any were recorded on each leaf. the leaves were kept in plastic jars (16 cm x11 cm) and the emergence of natural enemies was recorded. parasitoids emerged making an irregular hole, while, the whiteflies emerged through a ‘t’ shaped slit. correlation analysis was carried out to determine relationship between parasitism and spiralling whitefly population. although more than 40 indigenous predators were found to feed on spiralling whitefly in india (ramani et al, 2002), a total of five species of predators, namely, axinoscymnus puttarudriahi kapur and munishi, cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls., anegleis cardoni (weise), cybocephalus sp. and mallada astur banks were recorded on the spiralling whitefly infesting rose, hibiscus, poinsettia and acalypha during the study period. local predators, observed in negligible numbers did not have any impact on the population of spiralling whitefly as observed in indonesia by kajita et al (1991). results on colonization of e.guadeloupae on the spiralling whitefly infesting different ornamentals are presented in figures 14. rose the population of spiralling whitefly declined from 30.50/ leaf in august 2002 to 2.57 / leaf in february 2003. encarsia guadeloupae was first recovered in september 2002 and found to be causing 21.74% parasitism, which went up to 96.00% in february 2003 (fig 1). correlation analysis revealed that there was significant influence of parasitism (r = -0.943) on the population of spiralling whitefly. fig 1. parasitism by encarsia guadeloupae on rose hibiscus spiralling whitefly incidence was observed in may 2003 on hibiscus at hebbal. the population declined from 52.40 /leaf in may 2003 to 2.90 in november 2003 (fig 2). encarsia guadeloupae was first recovered in june 2003 causing 18.96 % parasitism, which later increased to 86.40% in november 2003. correlation analysis revealed that there was significant influence of parasitism (r = -0.979) on the population of spiralling whitefly. fig 2. parasitism by encarsia guadeloupae on hibiscus poinsettia the spiralling whitefly was observed in severe form in june 2003 on poinsettia at the iihr farm. the parasitoid was recovered in july and recorded a parasitism of 32.94 %. the parasitism went up to 90.40 % in december 2003. the colonization of parasitoid on spiralling whitefly 149j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 148-151, 2006 page 150 population of whitefly declined from 105.42/leaf in june 2003 to 1.52 / leaf in december 2003 (fig 3). correlation analysis revealed that there was significant influence of parasitism (r = -0.954) on the population of spiralling whitefly. fig 3. parasitism by encarsia guadeloupae on poinsettia acalypha on acalypha, the population of whitefly declined from 23.45/leaf in june 2003 to 9.66 / leaf in december 2003 following the release of e. guadeloupae in june 2003. parasitism level increased gradually from 3.43% to 39.86% (fig 4). correlation analysis revealed that there was significant influence of parasitism (r = -0.948) on the population of spiralling whitefly. fig 4. parasitism by encarsia guadeloupae on acalypha very high level of parasitism of 86.40 96.00% by e. guadeloupae was observed on the above ornamental crops, except on acalypha, in the present study. even in acalypha, if observations had been continued for some more months, higher level of parasitism could probably have been observed. geetha (2000) and mani et al (2004) reported 80 % parasitism by e. (?) haitiensis (encarsia meritoria sp. nr.) on spiralling whitefly infesting guava. the activity of parasitoids was observed throughout the study period. parasitism by e. guadeloupae was significant and negatively correlated with the population of whitefly (r = -0.943 to -0.979) in the present study. similar significant correlations between abundance of spiralling whitefly and natural enemies, chiefly e. (?) haitiensis in hawaii, was reported (kumashiro et al, 1983). similarly, chandrasekar (1990) and d’almeida et al (1998) reported that the decline in spiralling whitefly population was mainly due to the action of e. (?) haitiensis and e. guadeloupae in sri lanka and benin, west africa. according to kumashiro et al (1983), a single release of e. (?) haitiensis in 1980 reduced the population of the spiralling whitefly by 7898% around honolulu in hawaii. the population of a dispersus in malaysia remained low mainly due to the presence of e.guadeloupae (h.kajita, pers. commun., 1996). the efficacy of e. guadeloupae in controlling spiralling whitefly (as observed in the present study on ornamental crops) in hawaii, malaysia, india, philippines, togo, ghana, nigeria, tenerife (canary islands) and taiwan (waterhouse and norris, 1989; neuenschwander, 1994; chien et al, 2000; nijhof et al, 2000; mani and krishnamoorthy, 2002) has also been reported on other crops. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge director, iihr, for providing facilities to conduct the study and mr. g.l.pattar for technical assistance in the present investigation. references chandrasekara, d.1990. effect of weather and natural enemies on population variation of the spiralling whitefly (swf), aleurodicus dispersus russell (homoptera, aleyrodidae). research report submitted to the degree of b.sc., university of peradeniya, sri lanka, 26 p. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 148-151, 2006 mani & krishnamoorthy 150 page 151 chien, c. c., chou, l.y. and chang, s.c. 2000. introduction, propagation and liberation of two parasitoids for the control of spiralling whitefly, (homoptera: aleyrodidae), in taiwan. chinese j. ent., 20: 163-178. david, b.v. and regu, k. 1995. aleurodicus dispersus russell (aleyrodidae: homoptera), a whitefly pest new to india. pestology, 19: 5-7. d’almeida y.a., lys, j.a, neuenschwander, p. and ajounu,o. 1998. impact of two accidentally introduced encarsia species (hymenoptera: aphelinidae) and other biotic and abiotic factors on the spiralling whitefly aleurodicus dispersus russell (homoptera: aleyrodidae) in benin, west africa. biocontrol sci. tech., 8: 163-173. geetha, b. 2000. biology and management of spiralling whitefly aleurodicus dispersus(russell) (homoptera: aleurodidae). ph.d thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india, 196 p. kajita, h., samudra, i.m. and naito, a 1991. discovery of the spiralling whitefly aleurodicus dispersus russell (homoptera: aleyrodidae) from indonesia, with notes on its host plants and natural enemies. appl. ent. zoology, 26: 397-400. kumashiro, b.r., lai, p.y., funasaki, g.y. and. teramoto, k.k. 1983. efficacy of nephaspis amnicola and encarsia (?) haitiensis in controlling aleurodicus dispersus in hawaii. procs. hawaiian ent. soc., 24:8. mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1996. spiralling whitefly and its natural enemies on guava in karnataka. insect environ. 2: 12. mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 2002. classical biological control of spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell – an appraisal. insect sci. applic., 22:263-273. mani,m., krishnamoorthy,a.,venugopalan,r. and pattar, g.l. 2004. biological control of exotic spiralling whitefly aleurodicus dispersus russell on guava by encarsia haitiensis dozier and encarsia guadeloupae viggiani in india. pest management in horticultural ecosystems, 10: 29-39. muniappan, r., 1993. spiralling whitefly, the hindu dated august 11, 1993, p.28. neuenschwander, p., 1994. spiralling whitefly aleurodicus dispersus, a recent invader and new cassava pest in africa. african crop sci. j., 2: 419-421 nijhof, b.w., oudman, l.,torres, r and. garrido, c 2000. the introduction of encarsia guadeloupae (hymenoptera: aphelinidae) for control of aleurodicus dispersus and lecanoideus floccissimus (homoptera: aleurodidae) on tenerife. proceedings of the section experimental and applied entomology of the netherlands entomological society, 11: 4147. palaniswami, m.s., pillai, k.s., nair, r.r. and. mohandas, c 1995. a new cassava pest in india. cassava newslett., 19: 6-7. prathapan, k.d.1996. outbreak of the spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell (aleyrodidae, homoptera), in kerala. insect environ., 12 : 36-37. ramani, s. 2000. fortuitous introduction of an aphelinid parasitoid of the spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell (homoptera: aleyrodidae), into the lakshadweep islands with notes on host plants and other natural enemies. j. biol. control. 14: 55-60. ramani, s., poorani, j. and bhumannavar,b.s. 2002.spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell in india. biocontrol news and information, 23: 55-62. ranjith, a.m., rao, d.s. and thomas, j.1996. new host records of the mealy whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus russell, in kerala. insect environ., 2: 35. sathe, t.v. 1999. whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus, a new pest of guava, psidium guajava in kolhapur, maharashtra. ind. j. ent., 61: 195-196. srinivasa, m.v.2000. host plants of the spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus dispersus (hemiptera: aleyrodidae). pest mgt. in hortl. ecosystems, 6:79-105. waterhouse, d.f. and norris, k.r.1989. biological control. pacific prospects supplement 1, aciar monograph, 12,125 p. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 148-151, 2006 colonization of parasitoid on spiralling whitefly 151 (ms received 26 june 2006, revised 22 november 2006) introduction colocasia ( colocasia esculenta l. schott.), commonly known as arvi or taro, is a member of the family araceae and sub-family colocasioidae. it is a wetland herbaceous, monocotyledonous plant and is an important tuber crop. it is believed to have originated in the indomalayan region, but ethno-botanical evidence favours india as its place of origin (plucknett, 1979). it is cultivated throughout the tropics and sub-tropics. it is also called ‘potato of the tropics’. it is believed that the origin of domesticated taro can be traced to the wild type c. esculenta var. aquatilis, either in north east india or south east asia (matthews, 1991). colocasia is popular for its high nutritive value, delicious taste and good flavour. it contains a considerable amount of carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and minerals (like ca, fe and p). tubers are rich in starch; leaves contain provitamin a and vitamin c. (chopra et al, 1956). quality of the corms and cormels depends on their acridity and presence of fibre. good quality colocasia corms are without any raphides, are fibreless, and soft like butter upon cooking. in north-eastern region, it is an important source evaluation of taro (colocasia esculenta l.) cultivars for growth, yield and quality attributes t. angami, a.k. jha, juri buragohain, bidyut c. deka, v.k. verma and amit nath division of horticulture icar research complex for neh region, umiam-793103, india e-mail: thejaangami@yahoo.com abstract a study on varietal evaluation in taro for growth, yield and quality attributes was carried out in a replicated experiment and morphological and chemical analysis was done. significant differences were recorded for all the characteristics studied. ‘panchmukhi’ recorded highest plant height (179.33cm), petiole length (153.11cm), petiole breadth (13.87mm) and leaf size (3095.67cm2), lai (1.14), corm length (152.41mm) and breadth (107.77mm), average corm weight (1500.00g) and corm yield (20.00t/ha). ‘c-3’ recorded maximum (15.00) petiole number and cormel length (85.93mm). cormel yield (15.29t/ha), total yield (25.92t/ha) and number of cormels per plant (30.33) was found to be maximum in cv. white gouriya. ‘ml-2’ recorded maximum (7.33) number of side shoots. highest average cormel weight (72.85g) was maximum in cv. arcol-7, and ‘arcol-5’ recorded maximum (67.43mm) cormel breadth; the least blight incidence percentage (8.00) was recorded in ‘nayabungalow’. as for biochemical constituents, ‘nainital’ recorded the highest (5.85%) total sugars, ‘kandha-5’ exhibited the highest (34.67%) starch content and ‘nadia local’ with showed highest levels of oxalic acid (1.05mg/100g). highest dry matter content (27.50%) was recorded in cvs. kca-1 and panchmukhi, while the highest moisture percentage (82.83) was recorded in ‘ig coll-5’. key words: colocasia, taro cultivars, growth, yield, quality j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):183-189, 2015 of food during the lean period, and constitutes feed for livestock. all the plant parts, i.e., leaves, petiole, corms and cormels of taro are eaten in some or the other part of the region. in its raw form, however, the plant is unpalatable from the presence of calcium oxalate crystals in the corm, cormel and leaf. this is the main cause for its acridity, and can be removed by cooking or steeping in cold water overnight. the north-eastern region of india is known for a diversity of flora and fauna. wide variability can be seen among colocasia cultivars grown in the region (sarma, 2001). this variation among the cultivated types of taro in the region, available in the form of one or the other vegetable, offers a great scope for commercial exploitation. also, it has an immense potential and a good future as raw material for convenience foods (flour), animal feed, and commodity chemicals like starch, vitamins, proteins etc. although colocasia has multiple uses with a great diversity present in the cultivars, it has not been exploited in both new and old world aroids in a range of environments, thus indicating a vast and largely untapped potential for research in this crop. 184 malnutrition and food shortage among the poor rural population is conspicuous. cultivation of crops like colocasia will not only increase food production, but also provide balanced nutrition to the deprived sections of the region. therefore, popularizing taro cultivation and identifying suitable cultivars for nutritional value is important. little work has been done on qualitative evaluation of physico-chemical properties of taro in this part with the above points in view, the present investigation was planned to evaluate and study comparative performance of the cultivar and screen out superior ones for yield and quality, as also to identify suitable cultivars for providing a balanced diet. some colocasia cultivars were collected from various parts of the north-eastern region, while some promising varieties were collected from outside the region, and evaluated under meghalaya conditions. material and methods forty cultivars of colocasia from the north-eastern region, and some promising varieties from outside the region, were collected and planted in march 2009 and march 2010 at the experimental farm, division of horticulture, icar (rc) for neh region, umiam, meghalaya, to evaluate for various physical parameters, corm and cormel characteristics, yield attributes and its chemical properties, under rainfed conditions. morphological parameters were recorded at 120 days after planting, while corm and cormel characteristics and physico-chemical properties were recorded/ analyzed at harvest, i.e., 240 days after planting. the experimental design was rbd, with three replications, in a plot sized 2mx2m. sprouted corms/ cormels were planted 5-7cm deep, at a spacing of 45cm between and within rows, in pits. uniform package of practices was applied throughout the experiment. morphological parameters included plant height (cm), leaf size (cm2), number of side shoots, petiole length (cm) and breadth (mm), number of petioles, leaf blight incidence (percentage), leaf area index (lai), corm length and breadth (mm), average corm weight (g), corm yield (t/ha), cormel length and breadth (mm), average cormel weight (g), cormel yield (t/ha), total yield (t/ha) and number of cormels per plant. moisture and dry-matter content in a sample was determined by oven-drying 10g of the sample at 60°c, till a constant weight was obtained (rangana, 1997). total sugars were estimated by titration, using fehling’s solution and methylene blue indicator (rangana, 1997). amount of starch present in the samples was determined as per rangana (1997). after the sugars present in a sample leached out, the starch was hydrolyzed using acid, and estimated as invert-sugar. % starch = % reducing sugar x 0.9 oxalic acid content (dry weight basis) was determined as per ctcri manual (1979). observations on growth, yield and chemical constituents were recorded and subjected to statistical analysis as per panse and sukhatme (1978). results and discussion morphological traits showed a wide variation among cultivars (table 1). highest plant height (179.33cm) was recorded in var. panchmukhi, followed by ‘bcc1a’ (161.44cm); while, the lowest (96.33cm) was observed in ‘ascol-1’. data on petiole length showed a significant variation among cultivars. ‘panchmukhi’ recorded significantly higher petiole length (153.11cm), followed by bcc1a (137.56cm); lowest (77.89cm) petiole length was observed in ‘ascol-1’, which was statistically at par with ‘c-149’ (78.22cm). in petiole breadth, significant difference was seen among cultivars. maximum petiole breadth (13.87mm) was recorded in ‘panchmukhi’, followed by ‘ml-9’ and ‘bcc1a’ (13.27mm and 13.15mm, respectively). ‘ascol-1’ recorded the lowest (7.60mm) petiole breadth, followed by cv. gouriya (8.68mm). maximum vegetative growth, viz., plant height (cm), petiole length (cm) and petiole breadth (mm) seen in ‘panchmukhi’ may be due to a greater leaf size and leaf area index (lai), leading to higher photosynthesis. this may have resulted in accumulation of more amounts of assimilates, thus increasing plant height (mili, 2001). data on leaf size revealed significant differences among cultivars. ‘panchmukhi’ recorded maximum (3095.67cm2) leaf size, followed by bcc1a (2349.22cm2) and nayabungalow (2345.67cm2), which were statistically at par. the lowest leaf size (549.11cm2) was observed in ‘ascol-1’. greater leaf size (3095.67cm2) in ‘panchmukhi’ may be due to its genetic make-up, geared to produce larger leaves (bora and das, 1998). significant differences were recorded in number of side shoots among cultivars. highest number of side shoots angami et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):183-189, 2015 185 (7.33) was recorded in ‘ml-2’, followed by ‘c-3’ (6.83) and ‘bcc-1’ (6.50), which were statistically at par. the lowest number (1.67) was recorded in ‘meghalaya local’. significant differences in the number of petioles were recorded among cultivars. highest petiole number (15.00) was recorded in ‘c-3; followed by ‘ml-2’ (13.50); whereas, the lowest number of petioles (4.67) was seen in ‘b.k. coll-2’. significant differences were found in terms of disease incidence (percentage) among cultivars. ‘c-137’ was found to exhibit the highest disease percentage (28.00), followed by ‘bcc1a’ (24.00); while, the lowest (8.00) was observed in nayabungalow, followed by ‘ml-2’ and ‘kandha local’ (10.67). data also indicated a significant difference in lai among cultivars. highest lai (1.14) was recorded in ‘panchmukhi’, followed by ‘c-137’ and ‘bcc1a’ (1.09 and 1.08, respectively). the lowest lai (0.62) was recorded in ‘c-149’, which was statistically at par with ‘telia’ (0.63). higher lai in ‘panchmukhi’ indicates that canopy table 1. comparative performance of some colocasia cultivars with regard to morphological traits (2009-2010) cultivar plant leaf no. of petiole petiole number of blight lai height (cm) size (cm2) side shoots length (cm) breadth (mm) petioles incidence (%) ml-1 154.83 1548.83 5.67 119.50 10.37 11.83 12.00 1.02 ml-2 127.50 1132.33 7.33 97.17 10.42 13.50 10.67 0.84 ml-9 130.17 1067.00 5.33 101.83 13.27 12.50 13.33 0.91 arcol-2 130.33 1271.83 5.67 103.00 12.69 11.50 20.00 0.96 arcol-5 126.17 1140.67 3.67 99.83 9.98 11.33 13.33 0.92 arcol-6 122.17 958.50 4.17 93.17 10.81 11.33 20.00 0.90 arcol-8 131.33 1248.33 5.67 105.67 9.86 11.00 12.00 0.93 muktakeshi 111.67 883.33 5.50 89.33 11.95 11.17 12.00 0.83 meghalaya local 135.00 998.17 1.67 108.33 12.15 5.17 20.00 0.95 kandha local 121.00 840.50 4.50 94.83 12.07 10.83 10.67 0.84 bcc-1 117.33 902.67 6.50 93.83 11.98 12.33 12.00 0.87 kca-1 112.00 909.33 3.17 90.33 12.87 7.83 16.00 0.74 c-3 148.50 1546.17 6.83 112.00 10.84 15.00 17.33 0.93 arcol-1 119.44 654.22 5.11 102.44 9.90 10.44 12.00 0.75 arcol-7 137.78 643.00 5.33 119.11 10.69 7.67 16.00 0.97 kandha 140.56 1267.45 3.11 117.11 10.75 7.44 12.00 0.96 kandha-5 147.56 1705.00 4.22 125.11 11.49 9.56 12.00 1.04 b.k. coll-1 116.33 1046.55 4.22 96.33 9.07 9.55 16.00 0.76 b.k. coll-2 111.11 752.45 2.55 88.11 9.42 4.67 12.00 0.73 meghalaya coll-1 138.11 1910.55 3.89 114.22 11.64 7.56 12.00 1.00 meghalaya coll-2 136.78 1640.67 3.33 114.11 10.86 8.11 16.00 0.98 c-137 151.89 1482.89 5.11 128.89 12.51 10.11 28.00 1.09 c-149 100.67 1002.67 4.44 78.22 9.68 8.00 12.00 0.62 nayabungalow 155.00 2345.67 4.89 132.55 12.20 9.22 8.00 1.02 panchmukhi 179.33 3095.67 1.89 153.11 13.87 7.00 12.00 1.14 sunajuli 120.67 1133.45 3.56 98.78 9.64 7.22 16.00 0.72 nainital 128.89 668.78 2.78 107.33 9.69 9.56 16.00 0.91 suryamukhi 133.67 1102.22 3.44 113.89 9.07 9.00 16.00 0.90 gouriya 110.55 1376.22 3.89 87.78 8.68 8.00 12.00 0.84 white gouriya 151.33 1691.00 4.33 128.89 9.56 8.44 12.00 1.02 nadia local 139.22 1185.22 3.78 117.44 11.35 10.22 12.00 0.99 kadina local 140.66 1330.44 5.00 117.55 10.41 11.00 16.00 1.00 telia 129.34 657.78 2.67 106.11 9.53 8.00 16.00 0.63 bcc1a 161.44 2349.22 5.33 137.56 13.15 9.67 24.00 1.08 bcc 11 138.56 1567.22 2.89 114.89 10.95 9.56 12.00 0.91 ascol-1 96.33 549.11 3.55 77.89 7.60 6.56 12.00 0.71 ascol-2 139.22 1413.56 3.56 113.89 10.05 7.00 16.00 0.96 ig coll-5 148.22 2012.22 2.89 126.22 11.72 6.55 16.00 1.04 sj-1 122.89 946.00 4.55 91.67 10.08 8.11 12.00 0.88 tmv-293 123.78 980.33 4.00 102.00 9.70 8.56 16.00 0.78 sem + 3.62 106.33 0.40 3.72 0.98 0.90 2.40 0.08 cd (p=0.05) 11.71 344.35 1.30 12.04 3.19 2.90 7.79 0.26 evaluation of taro cultivars for growth and yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):183-189, 2015 186 development in taro is subject more to internal plant-control, and suggests that the capacity of a variety at attaining a certain lai depends on its ability to express its potential leaf area (pardales, 1986). data on corm length revealed significant difference among cultivars. highest corm length (152.41mm) was seen in ‘panchmukhi’, followed by ‘arcol-7’ (107.91mm); while, the lowest (43.37mm) was observed in ‘bcc1’. data furnished in table 2 reveal that corm breadth varied significantly among cultivars. ‘panchmukhi’ recorded the highest (107.77mm) corm breadth, followed by ‘white gauriya’ and ‘kandha-5’ (83.53mm and 83.36mm, respectively); whereas, the lowest (31.73mm) was recorded in ‘bcc1’. as for average corm weight, significant differences were seen among cultivars. highest average corm weight (1500.00g) was observed in cv. panchmukhi, followed by ‘arcol-7’ (983.33g), while, the lowest (33.33g) was found table 2. corm and cormel characteristics, total yield and number of cormels per plant (2009-2010) cultivar corm cormel total no. of length breadth average yield length breadth average yield yield cormels (mm) (mm) wt. (g) (t/ha) (mm) (mm) wt.(g) (t/ha) (t/ha) per plant ml-1 101.73 46.40 237.50 15.25 85.08 30.39 53.17 6.88 22.13 15.67 ml-2 85.22 43.95 236.67 12.00 60.08 29.83 33.78 6.67 18.67 17.22 ml-9 84.92 61.76 229.17 9.08 64.35 37.19 36.39 10.05 19.13 20.78 arcol-2 71.01 50.23 243.33 5.00 61.88 34.70 43.17 2.75 7.75 11.00 arcol-5 74.40 66.26 232.50 5.63 77.39 67.43 45.23 9.75 15.38 19.33 arcol-6 100.66 66.55 626.67 17.00 62.67 40.55 65.31 5.25 22.25 7.33 arcol-8 64.36 40.11 90.00 8.75 59.50 26.88 17.35 3.00 11.75 7.67 muktakeshi 64.85 62.24 136.50 3.88 60.48 35.73 30.21 9.88 13.76 23.83 meghalaya local 80.53 43.48 481.67 4.25 68.33 18.94 12.04 2.75 7.00 9.67 kandha local 68.35 70.86 153.11 4.08 68.66 37.25 34.00 10.58 14.66 17.56 bcc-1 43.37 31.73 36.11 5.83 30.79 21.00 15.89 6.67 12.50 8.67 kca-1 71.93 73.63 326.67 5.00 71.25 28.36 14.58 6.25 11.25 23.33 c-3 69.61 45.47 773.33 17.33 85.93 33.58 43.11 3.50 20.83 5.00 arcol-1 92.81 72.94 308.33 5.00 50.32 34.84 32.04 0.75 5.75 4.67 arcol-7 107.91 45.98 983.33 17.00 63.91 31.53 72.85 2.50 19.50 5.33 kandha 90.63 65.96 310.83 9.25 65.10 35.04 39.77 10.75 20.00 22.83 kandha-5 78.90 83.36 763.33 8.75 59.71 34.74 27.85 3.75 12.50 13.00 b.k. coll-1 68.04 45.46 122.67 1.50 54.05 35.64 29.08 2.50 4.00 11.00 b.k. coll-2 60.64 48.61 179.33 1.75 68.91 30.14 30.83 3.00 4.75 19.33 meghalaya coll-1 102.07 62.76 399.17 12.38 66.22 28.17 25.75 5.13 17.51 20.00 meghalaya coll-2 66.10 61.51 259.00 5.38 61.70 27.08 32.67 10.38 15.76 23.33 c-137 78.12 61.36 233.33 10.00 58.63 32.49 45.97 5.00 15.00 13.33 c-149 62.50 47.07 160.00 3.00 61.51 27.66 29.95 8.00 11.00 17.00 nayabungalow 73.41 65.40 933.33 17.00 83.79 25.34 17.50 8.50 25.50 16.67 panchmukhi 152.41 107.77 1500.00 20.00 61.99 35.36 17.33 1.75 21.75 9.33 sunajuli 72.74 60.41 173.33 8.75 62.77 33.04 35.50 15.00 23.75 24.33 nainital 63.24 64.36 265.67 6.75 69.48 34.14 29.92 9.25 16.00 21.00 suryamukhi 75.03 62.72 212.17 4.13 53.63 29.30 26.40 10.00 14.13 22.17 gouriya 58.05 43.09 33.33 0.25 59.40 29.06 21.00 3.25 3.50 17.67 white gouriya 93.53 83.53 344.17 10.63 59.48 31.72 31.30 15.29 25.92 30.33 nadia local 78.94 58.18 226.67 4.88 62.88 36.93 42.55 3.63 8.51 17.33 kadina local 62.22 57.47 225.00 7.50 72.64 34.18 56.53 14.00 21.50 22.33 telia 74.51 60.36 224.33 4.25 65.97 39.62 34.20 13.50 17.75 23.33 bcc1a 78.00 35.20 66.67 0.50 53.80 23.78 14.00 1.00 1.50 3.67 bcc 11 90.85 48.22 275.33 2.20 46.98 29.32 20.22 5.00 7.00 26.00 ascol-1 54.09 33.00 41.67 0.25 52.80 18.40 13.34 1.25 1.50 9.33 ascol-2 72.64 55.95 211.00 5.63 68.62 32.07 24.63 8.88 14.51 14.50 ig coll-5 94.67 52.67 362.00 5.75 46.31 29.74 21.67 6.25 12.00 12.00 sj-1 74.41 48.41 241.93 5.25 63.62 29.13 39.07 13.25 18.50 25.03 tmv 66.60 54.13 171.67 3.63 55.32 31.43 37.07 6.88 10.51 15.83 sem + 9.65 5.41 119.40 1.35 6.34 3.24 4.49 1.08 1.92 3.36 cd (p=0.05) 31.25 17.52 386.69 4.36 20.53 10.51 14.55 3.51 6.21 10.96 angami et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):183-189, 2015 187 table 3. comparative performance of some colocasia cultivars with regards to chemical parameters (2009-2010) cultivar total sugars starch oxalic acid dry matter (%) moisture (%) (%) (%) (%) in cormel in cormel ml-1 2.26 18.50 0.69 23.50 76.50 ml-2 4.10 27.96 0.41 25.50 74.50 ml-9 3.95 14.70 0.83 22.33 77.67 arcol-2 5.12 20.56 0.50 20.67 79.33 arcol-5 1.91 16.20 0.72 24.50 75.50 arcol-6 2.85 22.45 0.47 25.50 74.50 arcol-8 2.58 19.19 0.57 21.67 78.33 muktakeshi 5.12 18.09 0.53 25.50 74.50 meghalaya local 2.69 22.68 0.81 21.50 78.50 kandha local 3.04 21.89 0.72 24.83 75.17 bcc-1 2.76 20.03 0.81 21.83 78.17 kca-1 1.79 13.64 0.66 27.50 78.17 c-3 2.77 16.40 0.57 25.67 74.33 arcol-1 2.19 26.89 0.86 21.67 78.33 arcol-7 3.30 20.36 0.68 18.67 81.33 kandha 2.50 17.63 0.63 22.17 77.83 kandha-5 4.31 34.67 0.83 20.17 79.83 b.k. coll-1 2.77 19.47 0.80 20.67 79.33 b.k. coll-2 2.97 14.22 0.44 17.83 82.17 meghalaya coll-1 1.96 17.81 0.84 21.00 79.00 meghalaya coll-2 2.98 16.51 0.75 18.50 81.50 c-137 2.00 27.92 0.56 22.67 77.33 c-149 4.28 21.21 0.75 19.33 80.67 nayabungalow 3.64 30.04 0.80 23.50 77.50 panchmukhi 3.85 21.17 0.71 27.50 72.50 sunajuli 2.15 27.25 0.63 22.83 77.17 nainital 5.85 20.94 0.77 25.50 74.50 suryamukhi 4.20 18.77 0.62 23.67 76.33 gouriya 1.93 17.57 0.93 19.33 80.67 white gouriya 1.92 31.03 0.72 24.33 75.67 nadia local 2.78 24.56 1.05 21.17 78.83 kadina local 1.61 20.44 0.75 20.00 80.00 telia 2.44 21.00 0.77 18.83 81.17 bcc 1a 1.60 21.04 0.74 19.00 81.00 bcc 11 3.55 14.21 0.92 19.17 80.83 ascol-1 2.77 13.81 0.92 18.50 81.50 ascol-2 3.02 13.03 1.04 19.67 80.33 ig coll-5 2.57 24.01 0.95 17.17 82.83 sj-1 2.19 29.61 0.36 20.83 79.19 tmv-293 3.66 14.64 0.74 22.50 77.50 sem + 0.51 2.90 0.12 2.00 2.00 cd (p=0.05) 1.65 9.38 0.39 6.48 6.48 in cv. gauriya, followed by ‘bcc1’ (36.11g). highest average corm weight was recorded in ‘panchmukhi’ which could be due to a greater quantity of dry matter having been translocated to the corm, combined with a higher rate of yield-attributing characters, viz., plant height, lai, etc. throughout growth. similar results were reported by onwueme (1978) and parthasarthy et al (1989) in taro. there was a significant variation in corm yield among cultivars. ‘panchmukhi’ recorded significantly higher corm yield (20.00 t/ha), followed by ‘c-3; (17.33 t/ha). the lowest yield (0.25 t/ha) was recorded in ‘ascol-1’ and ‘gauriya’, which was statistically at par with that in ‘bcc-1a’ (0.50 t/ ha). high corm-yield in ‘panchmukhi’ may be attributed to a better utilization of photosynthates (due to maximum plant height and leaf number), resulting in better sized tubers; it could also be due to higher corm-weight. similar result was obtained by sarmah (1997). there was a significant variation in cormel length among cultivars. ‘c-3’ recorded maximum (85.93mm) cormel length, which was statistically at par with ‘ml-1’ (85.08mm). the lowest (30.79mm) was recorded in ‘bcc1’. evaluation of taro cultivars for growth and yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):183-189, 2015 188 significant variation was seen in cormel breadth among cultivars. ‘arcol-5’ recorded maximum (67.43mm) cormel breadth, followed by ‘arcol-6’ (40.55mm); while, ‘ascol-1’ recorded the lowest (18.40mm) cormel breadth, which was statistically at par with meghalaya local (18.94mm). data presented on average cormel weight, evidently shows a significant difference among cultivars. maximum average cormel weight (72.85g) was recordrd in ‘arcol-7’, followed by arcol-6 (65.31g). the lowest average weight (12.04g) was recorded in ‘meghalaya local’. data on cormel yield show significant differences among cultivars. highest cormel yield (15.29 t/ha) was recorded in ‘white gouriya’, which was statistically at par with ‘sunajuli’ (15.00 t/ha). the lowest yield (0.75 t/ha) was recorded in ‘arcol-1’. significant variation was observed in total yield. highest (25.92 t/ha) total yield was observed in ‘white gouriya’, followed by ‘nayabungalow’ (25.50 t/ha). the lowest yield (1.50 t/ha) was recorded in ‘ascol-1’ and ‘bcc1a’. the high total yield obtained in ‘white gouriya’ may have resulted from rainfed and flooding conditions. similar finding was observed by de la pena and plucknett (1967). data on the number of cormels per plant showed significant difference among cultivars. highest number of side-tubers (30.33) was observed in ‘white gouriya’, followed by ‘bcc-2’ (26.00); the lowest number (3.67) was found in ‘bcc-1a’, followed by ‘arcol-1’ (4.67). higher number of cormels per plant in ‘white gouriya’ may be due to accumulated storage foods, which have a direct bearing on crop yield (bhuiyan and quadir, 1989). data on moisture percentage in tubers shows a significant variation among cultivars. at harvest, cv. cultivar ig coll-5 recorded the highest (82.83) moisture percentage, followed by ‘b.k coll-11’ (82.17%). lowest moisture percentage (72.50) was recorded in cvs. ml-9 and kca1. ‘ig coll-5’ recorded highest moisture percentage which could be due to a combination of factors. moisture content is not a fixed property, and is dependent upon several factors such as cultivar, yield, proportionate amount of chemical constituents, and, environmental factors such as temperature, relative humidity, etc. (sarmah, 1997). as for dry matter content in tuber, there was significant variation among cultivars. ‘panchmukhi’ and ‘kca-1’ recorded maximum dry-matter content (27.50%), followed by ‘c-3’ (25.67%). ‘ig coll-5’ recorded the lowest dry-matter content (17.17%), followed by ‘bk coll-11’ (17.83%). there were significant differences in starch content too, among different cultivars. highest starch percentage (34.67) was recorded in ‘kandha-5’, followed by ‘white gauriya’ (31.03%); while the lowest (13.05%) was found in ‘ascol-2’. ‘panchmukhi’ accumulated the highest amount of dry-matter, whereas ‘ig coll-5’ recorded the lowest. ‘kandha-5’ had the highest starch content, while cv. ascol-2 recorded the lowest. wills et al (1983) also reported varietal variation in starch and dry-matter content in taro. cv. nainital recorded highest total sugars (5.85%), followed by ‘muktakeshi’ and ‘arcol-2’ (5.12%). the lowest value (1.60%) was recorded in cv. bcc-1a, which was statistically at par with ‘kadina local’ (1.61%). significant differences were found in oxalic acid content among cultivars. ‘nadia local’ recorded highest amounts of calcium oxalate (1.05%), followed by ‘ascol-2’ (1.04%); whereas, the lowest (0.36%) was recorded in cv. sj-1. oxalic acid percentage was maximum in cv. nadia local, whereas ‘sj-1’ recorded minimal oxalic acid content. oxalate content is of interest because of its alleged adverse effect on nutrient bio-availability (libert and franceschi, 1987). huang chien-chun et al (2007) also reported variation in calcium oxalate concentration among taro cultivars. further, oxalates do not pose a hazard, since, these are leached out during cooking (taro is not consumed raw/ uncooked). a cultivar may contain higher amounts of calcium oxalate, which causes physical irritation, as may be due to the presence of some other, complex chemical compound/s (tang and sakai, 1983). the wide variations observed in chemical composition of different colocasia cultivars may be due primarily to varietal differences, which ultimately determine nutritional value of a particular crop, since, all the cultivars were grown under similar climate and soil type, under uniform cultivation practices (barooah, 1982). similar observations were made by wills et al (1983) for taro cultivars grown in the highlands of papua new guinea. references barooah, h. 1982. collection, screening and evaluation of some local colocasia (colocasia esculenta l. schott.) and xanthosoma (xanthosoma sagittifolium l. schott.) cultivars of assam. m.sc. 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(agri.) thesis, assam agricultural university, jorhat, assam, india onwueme, i.c. 1978. the tropical tuber crops. john wiley and sons, new york, usa, 199 p. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, india pardales, j.r. 1986. characteristics of growth and development of taro (colocasia esculenta l. schott.) under upland environment. philipp. j. crop sci., 11:209-212 parthasarthy, v.a., medhi, r.p. and rao, v.s. 1989. genotypic and environmental interaction in taro. south indian hort., 31:201-205 plucknett, d.l. 1979. edible aroids. in: evolution of crop plants. simmond, n.w. (ed.), longmans, london, uk, pp.10-12 rangana, s. 1997. handbook of analysis and quality control of fruit and vegetable products, 2nd edition. tata mcgraw hill publ. co. ltd., new delhi, india sarma, b.k. 2001. underutilized crops for hills and mountain ecosystems. in: summer school on agriculture for hills and mountain ecosystem, gb pant institute of himalayan environment and development, almora, uttarakhand, india, pp. 308-314 sarmah, i. 1997. performance of some colocasia under different spacings. m.sc. (agri.) thesis, aau, jorhat, assam, india tang, c.s. and sakai, w.s. 1983. acridity of taro and related plants. in: taro wang, j.k. (ed.), univ. of hawaii press, honolulu, hawaii, pp. 148-163 wills ron, b.h., lim jessie, s.k., greenfield heather and bayliss-smith tim. 1983. nutrient composition of taro (colocasia esculenta l.) cultivars from the papua new guinea highlands. j. sci. food & agri., 34:1137-1142 (ms received 27 august 2014, revised 20 april 2015, accepted 05 may 2015) evaluation of taro cultivars for growth and yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):183-189, 2015 morphological characterization and genetic barcoding of kuttiatoor mango accessions m.r. dinesh*1, k.v. ravishankar2, d.c. sunil gowda1 and m. sankaran1 1division of fruit crops, 2division of biotechnology, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089. *e-mail: drmrdinesh@gmail.com absract a survey conducted during 2013-14 to collect and characterize the kuttiattoor mango accessions from kerala, revealed large unique variability in morphological, biochemical and dna barcode data. all the accessions were polyembryonic with fruit maturity during february-march. the mature fruit length (cm), width (cm) and leaf length (cm) ranged from 5.10 – 9.60 (cm), 4.60 – 8.40 (cm) and 12.4730.40 (cm) respectively. key words: polyembryony, dna barcode, mango, characterization short communication introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) originated from the indo-burma region and the genus mangifera has more than 60 species world-wide, the highest diversity being found in the malayan peninsula, borneo and sumatra (bompard,1993). mango has enormous variability at the levels of wild types and cultivars in india. the updated list now contains the names of 1682 cultivars (pandey and dinesh, 2010). among the seven centres of mango variability including wild and seedling types of m. indica l. in india, humid tropical southern peninsular india is an important one (yadav, & rajan, 1993). a survey was carried out in this region at kuttiattoor, thaliparamba tehsil, kannur district, kerala, during 2013-14 to collect, characterize and document the unique mango grown by the farmers of this village. during the survey, 10 unique mango a ccessions wer e selected r a ndomly ba sed morphological and fruit chara cters which were recorded as per the bioversity international descriptors (1989, table1). large variability was observed to exist among the accessions for 9 leaf characters and 19 fruit characters. the fruits were medium fibrous, juicy and having thin peel. the mature fruit length (cm), width (cm) and leaf length (cm) ranged from 5.10 – 9.60 (cm), 4.60 – 8.40 (cm) and 12.4730.40 (cm) respectively (table 1). all the kuttiatoor accessions were polyembryonic as it is common in mango varieties derived from southeast asian ancestry (iyer, 1991), which bear fruits more heavily and more consistently than monoembryonic varieties. dna barcoding is considered to be a useful tool for identification of plant species and also to study the evolutionary relationship among the species within the genera. the dna barcodes of 10 accessions (fig 1) were different from one another as reported by li et al., (2015). kuttiattoor mango accessions were thus unique with early harvesting and qualify for registration with the protection of plant varieties & farmers’ rights authority. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 122-125, 2018 122 123 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 122-125, 2018 dinesh et al ta bl e 1. m in im um d es cr ip to rs o f k ut tia tt oo r m an go a cc es si on s f ar m er n am e su re nd ra k ar th ya ya ni g op al an g op al an k ut ti at to or p ra bh ak ar an d ee pa k a bd ul a ir r it i k ut ti at to or (p la nt -1 ) (p la nt 2) (p la nt 1) sc ho ol ri sh al ka ya ch ec k po st k ar th ay an i a u p sa m pl e -1 (p la nt 2) (p la nt 1 ) c ha ra ct er is tic s k ut tia tto or -2 ku tti at to or -3 ku tti at to or -4 k ut tia tto or -5 ku tti at to or -7 k ut tia tto or -8 ku tti at to or -9 k ut tia tt oo r10 k ut tia tto or -1 1 k ut tia tt oo r12 y ou ng l ea f: in te ns ity o f an th oc ya ni n co lo ra tio n 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (b ef or e fu ll ex pa ns io n of o ld es t le af o f th e ne w f lu sh ): 1 a bs en t l ea f bl ad e: l en gt h (c m ) 19 .2 0 19 .2 7 12 .4 7 16 .7 0 12 .9 7 15 .4 7 12 .9 0 14 .1 7 30 .4 0 16 .2 7 l ea f bl ad e: w id th ( cm ) 5. 87 7. 67 4. 17 5. 47 3. 23 4. 43 4. 10 5. 20 8. 97 5. 60 l ea f bl ad e: r at io l en gt h/ w id th : 5 3 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 3 3 sm al l & 5 m ed iu m l ea f bl ad e: s ha pe : 3 o va te & 7 o bl on g 7 3 7 3 3 3 7 7 7 3 l ea f bl ad e: c ol ou r1 l ig ht g re en , 2 m ed iu m 3 2 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 gr ee n, 3 d ar k gr ee n l ea f bl ad e: t w is tin g: 1 a bs en t 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 l ea f bl ad e: s ha pe o f ba se : 2 o bt us e an d 3 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 2 3 r ou nd ed l ea f bl ad e: s ha pe o f ap ex : 3 a cu te 3 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 pe tio le : le ng th ( cm ) 3. 5 2. 17 1. 67 2. 30 3. 73 3. 00 1. 63 1. 27 5. 50 3. 37 m at ur e fr ui t ch ar ac te ri st ic s l en gt h (c m ) 9. 4 8. 10 7. 40 8. 00 6. 00 5. 10 8. 50 9. 60 6. 10 8. 30 w id th ( cm ) 8. 4 7. 30 6. 80 6. 60 5. 30 4. 60 7. 70 8. 00 5. 50 7. 00 c ol ou r of s ki n: 2 o nl y gr ee n & 3 g re en 2 3 3 2 2 2 2 3 3 2 an d ye llo w d en si ty o f le nt ic el s: 3 s pa rs e, 5 m ed iu m , 5 5 5 7 3 7 5 5 7 3 7 d en se c ol ou r co nt ra st b et w ee n le nt ic el s an d sk in : 5 5 5 7 5 7 5 5 7 5 5 m ed iu m , 7 s tr on g si ze o f le nt ic el s: 5 m ed iu m 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 r ou gh ne ss o f su rf ac e (c or ki ne ss ) ca us ed b y 9 9 9 9 1 9 1 1 9 9 le nt ic el s: 1 a bs en t, 9 pr es en t pr es en ce o f ca vi ty a t st al k: 1 a bs en t , 9 p re se nt 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 d ep th o f ca vi ty a t st al k: 1 sh al lo w 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 pr es en ce o f ne ck :1 a bs en t, 9 pr es en t 1 1 1 1 1 9 9 1 1 1 124 characterization of kuttiatoor mango accessions sh ap e of v en tr al s ho ul de r: 1 r ou nd ed u pw ar d 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 sh ap e of d or sa l sh ou ld er : 1 r ou nd ed u pw ar d 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 pr es en ce o f gr oo ve i n ve nt ra l sh ou ld er : 1 a bs en t 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 b ul gi ng o n ve nt ra l sh ou ld er : 1 a bs en t 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 pr es en ce o f si nu s: 9 p re se nt 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 d ep th o f si nu s: ( 3 sh al lo w ) 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 b ul gi ng p ro xi m al o f st yl ar s ca r: 1 a bs en t 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 po in t a t st yl ar s ca r: 1 a bs en t 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 t im e of f ru it m at ur ity : 1 v er y ea rl y 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (* a s pe r th e d u s g ui de lin es o n m an go , p pv & f r a , 2 00 8) j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 122-125, 2018 f ig .1 . d n a b ar co de s of k ut tia tto or m an go a cc es si on s 125 references bompar d, j. m. (1993). t he genus mangifera rediscovered: the potential contribution of wild species to mango cultivation. acta horti.341, 69-77. iyer, c.p.a. (1991). recent advances in varietal impr ovement in mango. acta hor t. 291, 109–32. li, x., yang yang, robert j. henry, maurizio rossetto, yitao wang and shilin chen.2015. plant dna barcoding: from gene to genome. biol. rev. 90: 157–166.pp doi: 10.1111/brv.12104 (ms received 02 april 2018, revised 24 may 2018, accepted 30 june 2018) pandey, s.n., & and dinesh, m.r. (2010). mango, indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, pp. 30-97. ppv & fra (2008).guidelines for conduct of test for dus mango (mangifera indica l.), protection of plant varieties and farmers right authority, goi, nasc complex, dps marg, new delhi110012, p.17 yadav, i. s., & and rajan, s. (1993). genetic resources of mango. advances in horticulture, vol. 1. fruit, part1, (eds) k.l. chadha and o.p. pareek, eds. malhotra publishing house, new delhi, p.77-93. dinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 122-125, 2018 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 seasonal influence on volatile aroma constituents of two banana cultivars (grand naine and nendran) under kerala conditions k.s. shivashankara*1, k.c. pavithra1, g.a. geetha1, t.k. roy1, prakash patil2 and rema menon3 1division of plant physiology and biochemistry, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india 2project coordinator (fruits), icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india 3icar-aicrp (fruits), banana research station, kerala agricultural university, marakkal, thrissur 680 652, kerala, india *e-mail: shiva@iihr.res.in, shivaiihr@yahoo.com abstract banana is a tropical fruit with a pleasant flavour, widely consumed throughout the world. volatile aroma compounds are responsible for olfactory flavor of banana. however, the development of aroma flavors is affected by the atmospheric temperatures during fruit growth period. in order to get good quality fruits in terms of aroma it is essential to understand the optimum temperature for maximum aroma production. the approach used in this study was to alter the dates of harvest to understand the optimum temperature required for maximum production of volatile compounds under kerala conditions. the results revealed that with increased temperature volatile aroma compounds decreased in cvs. grand naine and nendran. total volatile compounds were higher in cv. grand naine compared to cv. nendran. cultivar nendran recorded increased concentrations of esters, alcohols and decreased aldehydes, ketones, hydrocarbons and acids at high temperatures. phenols and other constituents did not show much variation with respect to the temperature variation in both the cultivars. among esters, isoamyl butanoate and 3-methylbutyl-3-methylbutyrate esters were the most abundant in both the cultivars. ketones, especially 4-methyl-1-penten-3-one was higher in cv. nendran whereas esters were lower compared to cv. grand naine. total area of aroma constituents in cultivars grand naine and nendran were high in october followed by february with mean atmospheric temperature of 30.5ºc and 32.6ºc respectively. in case of cv. nendran, total area of esters and alcohols were maximum at high temperature (34.5ºc) but in cv. grand naine, esters and alcohols decreased with high temperature. results indicated that fruits harvested in october were better in terms of volatile aroma quantity in both the cultivars due to lower atmospheric temperature. seasonal variations affected the two cultivars differentially in terms of percentage of groups of volatile compounds. key words: banana, volatile compounds, atmospheric temperature, spme, gc-ms introduction banana (musa spp.) is one of the most widely distributed and consumed fruits in the world. it is grown extensively in tropical and subtropical regions and is an economically important fruit crop (selli et al, 2012). the fruit aroma is one of the most important factors, which determines the consumer acceptability and the quality of bananas. more than 350 aroma compounds ha ve been identified in ba na na s. most of the components a re ester s, alcohols, and ca rbonyl compounds (berger, 1991). the biosynthetic pathways for production of aroma compounds involved βoxidation, hydroxyacid cleavage (leading to lactones), and lipoxygenase to form aldehydes, ketones, acids, alcohols, lactones, and esters from lipids (heath and original research paper 124 125 reineccius, 1986; dixon and hewett, 2000). esters of acetate and butyrate have been reported to play an important role in the aroma of fully ripe banana fruit; however, isoamyl acetate and isobutyl acetate have generally been regarded as the key characteristic compound in the aroma of banana fruit (marriot, 1980; el hadi et al, 2013). other researchers have also investigated a roma compounds of banana. t he concentrations of acetates and butanoates increased during ripening of banana fruit (jayanty et al, 2002). in addition, isoamyl alcohol, isoamyl acetate, butyl acetate, and elemicine were detected by olfactometric analyses as characteristics of banana odor (boudhrioua et al, 2003). volatile esters, such as 3-methylbutylacetate and 2-methylbutyl-acetate, also contribute to the characteristic banana flavor of the fruits. fatty acids are major precursors of aroma volatiles in most fruit (sanz et al, 1997). aroma volatiles are affected by abiotic factors such as temperature and humidity (takabayashi et al, 1994; gouinguene a nd tur lings, 2002). high temperatures influence the biosynthesis of volatiles in banana fruit at the transcriptional level and confirm the findings that high temperatures cause stress in bana na fr uit dur ing ripening. in ba nana , high temperature resulted in elevated levels of ethanol, ethyl acetate and other acetate esters. higher expression level of ban bcat was found in pulp which correlated well to volatile production in banana fruit, indicating the role of ban bcat in regulating the formation of branched aroma compounds during banana fruit ripening (yang et al, 2011). wills and mcglasson (1971) concluded that volatile concentrations increase as temperature increases, although production rate is reduced above 32°c. high temperature can cause a dramatic increase in the production of off-flavour aroma compounds during the storage of fruits (liu and yang, 2002; petracek et al, 2002). t he main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of seasonal temperature during fruit growth period on the volatile aroma quality of banana fruits of cvs. grand naine and nendran under kerala conditions. material and methods effect of seasonal temperature on volatile aroma constituents in banana varieties [cv. grand naine (gn), and nendran] grown in kerala region were studied. fruit samples were collected at full maturity stage at quarterly intervals during the period october 2013 to february 2015 from kerala region along with the data on temperature from shooting to harvest period (table 1). harvested fruits were ripened at room temperature. the room temperature during fruit ripening period was recorded and is given in table 2. volatile aroma constituents were analyzed in the fruit biochemistry laboratory of icar-iihr, bengaluru, by headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hsspme) technique using capillary gc and gc-ms/ms. seasonal influence on banana volatiles in kerala months of harvest region varieties 2013-oct 2014-feb 2014-jun 2014-oct 2015-feb kerala grand naine 33.3 34.5 33.8 30.5 32.6 nendran 33.3 34.5 33.8 30.5 32.6 table 1. mean maximum temperature (°c) from shooting to harvest period table 2. mean room temperature (°c) from harvest to ripe period months of harvest region varieties 2013-oct 2014-feb 2014-jun 2014-oct 2015-feb kerala grand naine 28.0 27.2 30.5 29.5 29.4 nendran 28.0 27.2 30.5 29.5 30.0 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 126 shivashankara et al spme extraction of volatiles earlier studies have reported the extraction and analysis of head space volatiles of banana fruits by using spme fiber (facundo et al, 2012; pino and febles, 2013). spme fiber device coated with dvb/ car/pdms (50/30 μm, highly crossed linked) was first conditioned at 250°c for 2 hours. the extraction process for head space volatiles from fresh banana fruit pulp was followed as described by (facundo et al, 2013) with slight modification. a known quantity (50 g) of fresh cut ripe banana fruits was macerated to slurry by using a pre-chilled homogenizer, the slurry was transferred with 100 ml of double distilled water and 0.5 g of solid nacl to the 250 ml flasks with silicon rubber caps. the flasks with slurry were kept on a magnetic stirrer after an incubation period of 20 minutes. the solid phase micro-extraction fibre was inserted into the flask through the silicon rubber stopper and was allowed to adsorb all the volatiles for 2 hrs with continuous stirring. later the fibre was removed a nd injected into a ga s chroma togr a phy-ma ss spectrometry for separation and identification of compounds. gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis subsequently, the spme device was injected into the injector port for gc analysis and was remained in the inlet for 15 min. the gc/ms analysis was carried out using a varian-3800 gas chromatograph coupled to a varian-4000 ion-trap mass spectrometer. the ms column vf-5ms (factor four) (varian, usa) fusedsilica capillary column of 30 m x 0.25 mm id, 0.25 mm film thickness was used for the analysis. the injector temperature was set at 250ºc and all injections were made initially in split (1:20) mode for 0.5 min followed by split-less. the detector temperature was 270°c, and the temperature programmes for column was as follows: 40°c for 3 min at an increment 3°c/min to 190°c, hold for 1 min, then 5°c/min to 220°c and maintaining the constant temperature for 5 min. the mass spectrometer was operated in the external electron ionization mode with the carrier gas helium 1 ml/min; injector temperature, 250°c; trap temperature 180°c, ion source-heating at 190°c, transfer line temperature 260°c, ei-mode was 70 ev, with full scan-range 50-350 amu was used. the total volatile production was estimated by the sum of all gc peak areas in the chromatogram and individual compounds was quantified as relative percent area and the compounds were identified by comparing the retention index which was determined by using homologous series of n-alkanes (c5 to c32) as standard (kovats, 1965) and comparing the spectra using two spectral libraries available as wiley and nist-2007. results and discussion more than 50 major volatile compounds were identified in both the cultivars irrespective of the seasons (table 3). the results revealed that with increased temperature, the quantity of volatile aroma compounds decreased in cvs. grand na ine and nendran. total area of aroma constituents in cultivars grand naine and nendran were high in october month followed by febr uar y with mea n a tmospher ic temperature of 30.5ºc and 32.6ºc respectively (table 4). the various groups of aroma compounds found in banana cultivars were esters, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, acids, phenols, hydrocarbons and few others (table 3). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 table 3. volatile components identified in banana cvs. grand naine and nendran by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis 2013-october 2014-february 2014-june 2014-october 2015-february volatile components ki grand grand grand grand grand naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran (%)* (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) esters ethyl acetate 614 0.17 0.52 0.07 0.68 0.18 0.51 0.18 0.22 0.04 0.22 ethyl butanoate 799 0.06 0.08 0.06 0.11 0.14 methyl 2-propenoate 812 7.45 8.53 7.99 4.45 4.92 1-butyl acetate 813 0.05 0.02 0.27 0.12 0.03 127 seasonal influence on banana volatiles in kerala j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 2013-october 2014-february 2014-june 2014-october 2015-february volatile components ki grand grand grand grand grand naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran (%)* (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)3methyl-2-butenyl formate 867 0.12 0.26 0.22 0.32 0.13 isoamyl acetate 876 0.09 0.05 0.09 0.24 0.04 0.07 0.13 4.54 0.04 0.92 propyl butanoate 897 0.63 0.13 0.91 1.21 0.68 0.79 1.46 0.26 1.65 0.43 propyl pivalate 899 0.29 2.82 0.12 3.80 0.11 3.52 0.03 0.83 0.08 0.74 isopentyl acrylate 910 0.89 1.82 1.73 2.56 0.93 0.76 0.30 0.84 0.39 1.78 propyl isovalerate 949 0.15 0.71 0.54 0.19 0.32 1-butyl butyrate 994 1.22 0.55 2.94 1.62 1.27 0.51 1.14 0.40 0.06 1.06 2-methylpropyl 3-methylbutyrate 1003 0.51 0.25 0.91 1.41 0.46 1.02 0.67 0.99 0.24 0.11 1-butyl isovalerate 1010 0.92 0.84 1.96 1.39 0.80 0.76 0.54 0.76 0.15 0.78 isoamylbutanoate 1056 20.39 9.64 23.02 9.57 22.60 8.47 18.71 5.03 18.90 5.74 1-pentyl butyrate 1094 2.21 1.96 2.26 0.28 2.11 0.59 4.81 0.18 4.47 0.93 3-methylbutyl 3-methylbutyrate 1094 17.74 10.34 18.02 8.97 16.98 9.20 11.58 2.12 10.57 3.75 iso-amyl 2-methyl butyrate 1102 0.53 9.34 0.63 10.32 0.53 9.66 0.50 3.75 0.46 4.15 1-methylbutyl pentanoate 1118 0.06 0.10 0.06 0.08 0.23 amyl valerate 1183 0.37 1.43 0.39 0.50 0.41 butyl hexanoate 1186 1.03 0.50 0.16 0.15 0.95 0.76 1.22 0.06 0.38 0.34 hexyl butyrate 1190 0.13 0.15 0.14 4.71 4.85 butyl sorbate 1199 0.12 0.36 0.06 0.80 0.13 0.41 0.40 0.19 0.14 0.05 isopentylhexanoate 1208 0.77 0.44 0.02 0.01 0.01 heptyiisobutyrate 1218 1.79 0.15 0.83 0.53 1.80 0.13 1.63 0.12 3.32 0.12 cis-3-hexenyl-α-methylbutyrate 1226 5.80 1.24 6.38 1.21 5.77 1.36 2.20 1.01 1.38 0.96 cyclopentylpentanoate 1226 0.17 0.81 0.09 0.17 0.21 hexyl 3-methylbutanoate 1245 5.56 1.80 5.99 1.37 5.81 1.37 2.03 0.83 1.18 0.28 linalyl acetate 1256 0.12 0.35 0.02 0.38 0.10 0.16 0.13 0.16 0.27 0.17 4-pentenyl hexanoate 1272 3.49 1.01 3.50 2.75 3.50 heptylbutanoate 1282 3.17 0.17 1.78 0.13 3.13 0.44 7.28 0.12 9.52 0.15 1-cyclohexyl pentanoate 1345 0.78 0.51 0.88 0.10 0.21 isobutyl decanoate 1545 0.46 0.43 0.30 0.26 0.43 ethyl dodecanoate 1597 0.53 0.67 0.34 0.26 0.72 isoamyllaurate 1844 2.30 0.86 0.89 0.74 0.93 acetic acid,1,4-dimethylpent-4 -enyl esters 0.17 0.20 0.36 0.94 0.14 0.17 0.62 0.37 0.23 0.34 n-hexyl-trans-hexen-2-oate 0.16 0.34 0.01 0.41 0.15 0.48 0.01 0.37 0.04 0.29 alcohols hexynol 778 0.12 0.16 0.29 0.14 0.12 2,3-dimethyl-1-pentanol 832 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 1-hexanol 841 0.09 1.85 0.15 2.74 0.07 1.74 0.04 0.61 0.04 0.50 1-methyl-2-cyclohexen-1-ol 913 0.63 0.78 0.84 0.18 0.21 (3e,6e)-3,6-nonadien-1-ol 1175 0.38 0.24 0.25 0.47 0.82 citronellol 1223 0.47 0.22 0.45 0.29 0.41 10-undecyn-1-ol 1355 1.00 0.16 0.83 0.66 0.22 (8e,10e)-8,10-dodecadien-1-ol 1473 0.95 1.28 2.01 7.14 3.45 1-dodecanol 1473 0.15 1.22 0.40 0.42 0.72 128 shivashankara et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 2013-october 2014-february 2014-june 2014-october 2015-february volatile components ki grand grand grand grand grand naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran (%)* (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)1tridecanol 1569 0.14 0.15 0.22 0.03 0.13 (3z,6z)-dodeca-3,6-dien-1-ol 0.46 0.17 0.44 0.95 0.65 (e)-5-decen-2-ol 0.89 1.78 1.15 0.25 0.35 aldehydes and ketones 3-methylbutanal 654 0.25 1.12 0.34 1.40 0.26 1.31 0.11 1.67 0.06 2.06 4-methyl-1-penten-3-one 680 0.18 11.82 0.24 6.15 0.20 12.31 1.31 22.57 0.76 15.47 (e)-2-hexenal 848 0.55 0.05 0.65 0.16 1.02 2-heptanone 891 0.12 0.11 0.11 0.09 0.03 pulegone 1176 1.24 0.27 1.21 1.43 1.32 0.94 1.16 0.03 0.94 0.08 1-(3-cyclohexen-1-yl)2,2-dimethyl-1-propanone 1212 0.84 0.07 0.67 0.04 0.86 0.06 1.45 1.57 1.48 1.14 6-dodecanone 1350 0.15 1.45 1.54 2.20 1.80 dodecanal 1409 0.44 0.33 0.44 0.33 0.29 7-tridecanone 1449 0.41 0.24 0.02 0.27 0.13 0.51 0.02 1.15 0.16 1.54 trans-β-ionone 1482 1.02 0.68 0.66 0.81 1.45 2-tetradecanone 1597 0.80 0.53 1.01 2.20 2.42 (9z)-9,17-octadecadienal 1997 0.09 5.35 0.03 0.61 0.03 3.07 0.03 1.00 0.02 1.36 acids 4-butoxybutanoic acid 1249 0.53 0.41 0.47 0.17 0.47 0.30 0.43 0.45 0.45 1.72 8-nonenoic acid 1262 2.14 0.34 1.37 0.54 1.77 0.55 5.41 0.54 5.03 1.09 phenols eugenol 1356 0.22 0.35 0.68 0.41 1.19 0.91 0.49 0.20 2.18 0.25 hydrocarbons decane 1015 0.02 2.97 0.02 2.30 0.04 3.29 0.05 6.19 0.01 6.29 cis-1,2-dichlorocyclohexane 1052 0.99 0.66 0.25 0.40 0.28 0.21 0.54 0.30 0.75 0.12 (±)-dictyopterene a 1076 1.41 1.11 1.08 3.76 3.61 3-hexyl-1-cyclopentene 1140 0.54 0.60 0.58 0.69 1.04 naphthalene 1179 0.51 0.04 0.04 0.08 0.06 tetradecane 1214 0.80 2.43 2.19 1.53 1.07 (5e,7e)-5,7-dodecadiene 1230 3.39 0.32 4.10 0.22 3.10 1.10 1.32 0.41 2.92 0.29 (2e,4z)-2,4-dodecadiene 1230 0.42 0.27 0.29 0.09 0.26 (2z)-2-dodecen-4-yne 1239 0.36 0.33 0.18 0.05 0.90 (3z)-3-tetradecen-5-yne 1438 1.00 1.05 0.98 0.28 0.99 α-selinene 1478 1.15 0.61 0.61 0.46 0.69 pentadecane 1512 1.44 1.75 1.28 14.92 14.78 δ-selinene 1532 0.79 0.78 0.69 0.90 1.27 c16 hydrocarbon 1.02 1.75 0.76 0.86 1.10 others 2-amyl furan 989 0.99 0.24 0.53 0.74 0.81 isoelemicin 1568 0.35 2.60 0.36 1.46 0.39 3.11 0.08 1.52 0.15 1.06 2,2-diisopropyltetrahydrofuran 2.59 0.71 1.60 0.18 1.46 0.56 2.29 0.13 2.05 1.62 cis-epoxy ocimeme 4.45 0.66 7.03 0.58 5.51 0.90 2.16 0.52 2.43 1.43 is the relative percentage of compounds 129 seasonal influence on banana volatiles in kerala j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 esters were the most abundant volatile aroma constituents in both the cultivars compared to other group of volatiles (table 4). among esters, isoamyl butanoate and 3-methylbutyl-3-methylbutyrate esters were found most abundant in both the cultivars. similarly, esters were quantitatively the dominant group of volatiles in ripe banana fruits (wyllie and fellman, 2000). esters account for about 70% of the volatile compounds and acetates and butyrates predominate (seymour, 1993). esters were produced from the enzymatic actions on alcohols and acyl coa’s derived from both fatty acid and amino acid metabolism (wyllie and fellman, 2000). berger (1991) reported that 3methylbutyl acetate was considered to be the dominate 2013-october 2014-february 2014-june 2014-october 2015-february volatile components grand grand grand grand grand naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran naine nendran (%)* (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) esters 6511854 471 511 6275480 503 442 6456552 444 040 12559920 391 141 11799107 333 602 (-48.2) (+20.5) (-50.0) (+28.7) (-48.6) (+13.5) (-6.1) (-14.7) alcohols 295 804 345 34 191 349 565 61 376 514 399 58 1808978 270 13 932 449 288 87 (-83.6) (+27.8) (-89.4) (+109.4) (-79.2) (+47.9) (-48.5) (+6.9) aldehydes and ketones 389 894 178 910 264 420 102 606 371 524 183 175 923 857 432 140 897 960 290 595 (-57.8) (-58.6) (-71.4) (-76.3) (-59.8) (-57.6) (-2.8) (-32.8) acids 251 960 64 78 163 553 58 33 208 115 72 62 1155835 129 45 1034967 299 24 (-78.2) (-50.0) (-85.8) (-54.9) (-82.0) (-43.9) (-10.5) (+131.2) phenol s 208 36 30 12 601 84 33 47 110 434 78 21 963 73 25 43 411 324 26 54 (-78.4) (+18.4) (-37.6) (+31.6) (-14.6) (+207.6) (+326.8) (+4.4) hydrocarbons 818 419 784 54 691 594 835 93 609 114 867 07 1358478 332 830 1989832 272 279 (-39.8) (-76.4) (-49.1) (-74.9) (-55.2) (-73.9) (+46.5) (-18.2) others 698 792 425 68 798 430 201 68 683 019 436 23 895 284 379 15 874 552 523 58 (-21.9) (+12.3) (-10.8) (-46.8) (-23.7) (+15.1) (-2.3) (+38.1) total area 8987559 815 467 8445010 775 550 8815272 812 586 18798725 1236527 17940191 1010299 (-52.2) (-34.1) (-55.1) (-37.3) (-53.1) (-34.3) (-4.6) (-18.3) *values mentioned in the parenthesis are percent reduction in volatile components over october 2014 indicates the decrease in volatiles + indicated the increase in volatiles table 4. percent change in area under curve of volatile components when compared to fruits (cvs. grand naine and nendran) harvested during october 2014 which showed maximum area under curve. banana flavor and it was the key odor-impact volatile in ba nana fr uit followed by buta noa te a nd 3methylbutanoate. in our study, with increased seasonal temperature, total area of volatile aroma compounds decr ea sed in cvs. gr a nd na ine a nd nendr a n. isoamylbutanoate (23.02%) and 3-methylbutyl-3methylbutyrate (18.02%) esters were the major esters found high at high temperature (34.5ºc) in cv. grand naine. hexyl butyrate and heptyl butanoate esters were found high at low temperature of 30.5ºc and 32.6ºc where as least was observed during low temperature in both the cultivars. cultivar nendran recorded increased concentrations of esters at high temperatures. wills and mcglasson (1971) concluded that volatile concentrations increase as temperature increases, although production rate is reduced above 32°c. ester concentrations and rates of production of ‘jonathan’ apples increased as temperature increased. the biosynthetic pathway for the formation of volatile esters in ripening climacteric fruits is well-established (arvanitoyannis and mavromatis, 2009). nogueira et al (2003) investigated that the ester (57.2-89.8 mg/ kg) a ppear ed to pla y an importa nt r ole in the characteristics of the composition of volatiles of dwarf cavendish, giant cavendish and robusta banana cultivars. methyl-2-propenoate (8.53%) and iso-amyl2-methyl butyrate (10.32%) were recorded highest in cv. nendran whereas least in cv. grand naine at high 130 shivashankara et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 temperatures. in case of cv. nendran, esters were maximum at high temperature (34.5ºc) but in cv. grand naine, esters decreased with high temperature. results indicated that fruits harvested during october month followed by february were better in terms of esters volatile aroma quantity in both the cultivars due to lower growth temperature. guactagni et al (1971) concluded that the ‘red delicious’ apples had maximum ester production at low temperature; it decreased at 32°c and was inhibited at 46°c indicating that temperature inhibit or inactivate enzymes responsible for producing volatiles. cultiva r nendr a n r ecor ded incr ea sed concentrations of alcohols at high temperatures (34.5ºc) whereas least in cv. grand naine. nogueira et al (2003) recorded that the alcoholic fractions (19.047.7 mg/kg) appeared to play a significant role in the sensorial characteristics of banana fruit. variation in volatiles was affected by abiotic factors such as temperature and humidity (vallat et al, 2005). in our study, 1-hexanol followed by (e)-5-decen-2-ol were found maximum in cv. nendran; similarly, (8e,10e)8,10-dodecadien-1-ol was higher in cv. grand naine irrespective of the seasons (table 3). results indicated that fruits harvested at february month followed by october were better in terms of alcohols volatile aroma quantity in both the cultivars due to lower growth temperature. alcohol concentrations and rates of pr oduction of ‘jona tha n’ a pples incr ea sed a s temperature increased (wills and mcglasson, 1971). volatile production is considered to be proportional to temperature, the higher the temperature, the greater the production of volatiles (fallik et al, 1997). however, the volatile aroma production seems to increase only up to a certain temperature beyond that the production decreases. fatty acids serve as the precursor for alcohols which could be generated through lipoxygenase pathway of unsaturated linoleic and linolenic acids (perez et al, 1999). in many types of fruits, through the action of lipoxygenase isozymes, linoleic and linolenic acids are degraded and produce fatty acid hydroperoxides. hydroperoxide lyase converts these fatty acid hydroperoxides to aldehydes and oxoacids, while alcohol dehydrogenase acts on them to produce the corresponding alcohols (sanz et al, 1997). increased temperature resulted in decreased aldehydes and ketones in cvs. grand naine and nendran. total concentrations of aldehydes and ketones were maximum in cv. nendran (table 4). ketones, especially 4-methyl-1-penten-3-one followed by (9z)-9,17-octadecadienal and 3-methylbutanal were higher in cv. nendran whereas these compounds were lower in cv. grand naine. total concentrations of aldehydes and ketones in cultivars grand naine and nendran were high in october followed by february with mean growth temperature of 30.5ºc and 32.6ºc respectively (table 4). hexanal concentrations of ‘cortland’ and ‘mclntosh’ apples had the same pattern of change, irrespective of temperature (yahia et al, 1990b; yahia et al, 1991). a few hydrocarbons were also identified in the present study (table 4). hydrocarbons were present in high proportions in cv. nendran compared to cv. grand naine. varieties of hydrocarbons have been detected in banana cultivars (shiota, 1991). total concentration of hydrocarbons especially, pentadecane was high in october month (14.92%) followed by february (14.78%) in cv. nendran with mean growth temperature of 30.5ºc and 32.6ºc respectively. but in cv. grand naine, pentadecane was totally absent. decane and tetradecane were also present in high proportions in cv. nendran. similarly, in cv. grand naine, hydrocarbons were high in october with mean growth temperature of 30.5ºc. the concentrations of (5e, 7e)-5, 7-dodeca diene followed by (±)dictyopterene were maximum in cv. grand naine. temperature may also affect production of specific volatiles with some compounds only being produced at certain temperatures by affecting rates of substrate supply and volatile biosynthesis. if this is so then the different biosynthetic pathways producing volatiles may be active at different rates according to temperature (dixon and hewett, 2000). there were two kinds of acids namely; 4butoxybutanoic acid and 8-nonenoic acid were found in cultivars grand naine and nendran (table 3). maximum concentrations of acids were found in cv. gra nd naine compar ed to cv. nendr an a t low temperature where as minimum were recorded at high temperature. fallik et al (1997) concluded that the high temperature (38°c) reduced volatile production in ‘golden delicious’ a pples compa r ed to low temperature. most of the acids were probably derived from β-oxidation of fatty acids. during fruit ripening, fatty acids, more precisely acyl-coa derivatives, are 131 seasonal influence on banana volatiles in kerala arvanitoyannis, i. s. and mavromatis a. 2009. banana cultiva r s, cultiva tion pr a ctices, a nd physicochemical properties. crit. rev. food sci. nutr.,49(2):113-135 berger, r. g. 1991. fruits. in: volatile compounds in foods and beverages (eds, maarse, h.) marcel dekker, ny, pp. 283-304 boudhrioua, n., giampaoli, p. and bonazzi, c. 2003. changes in aromatic components of banana during ripening and air-drying. lebensmwiss technol., 36:633-642 dixon, j. and hewett, e. w. 2000. factors affecting apple aroma/flavour volatile concentration: a review. new zeal. j. crop. hort. sci.,28(3):155-173 el hadi, m. a. m., zhang, f. j., wu, f. f., zhou, c. h. and tao, j. 2013. advances in fruit aroma volatile research. molecules., 18:8200-8229 facundo, h. v. de v., garruti, d. s., dias, c. t. dos s., cordenunsi, b. r. and lajolo, f. m. 2012. influence of different banana cultivars on volatile compounds during ripening in cold storage. food res. int.,49:626-633 facundo, h. v. de v., garruti, d. s., cordenunsi, b. r. and lajolo, f. m. 2013. isolation of volatiles compounds in ba na na by hs-spme: optimization for the whole fruit and pulp. int. j. biosci. biochem. bioinforma., 3(2):110-115 fallik, e., archbold, d. d., hamilton-kemp, t. r., loughrin, j. h. and collins, r. w. 1997. heat treatment temporarily inhibits aroma volatile compound emission from golden delicious apples. j. agri. food chem., 45:4038-404 gouinguene, s. p. and turlings, t. c. j. 2002. the effects of abiotic factors on induced volatile emissions in cor n plants. plant physiol., 129:1296-1307 guactagni, d. g., bomben, j. l. and hudson, j. s. 1971. factors influencing the development of aroma in apple peel. j. sci. food agri., 22:110114 heath, h. b. and reineccius, g. 1986. flavour chemistry and technology. springer, netherlands, pp 442 jayanty, s., song, j., rubinstein, n. m., chong, a. and beaudry, r.m. 2002. temporal relationship between ester biosynthesis and ripening events in bananas. j. am. soc. hort. sci., 127:9981005 kovats, e. 1965. gas chromatographic characterization of organic substances in the retention index system. adv. chrom., 1:229-247 liu, t. t. and yang, t. s. 2002. optimization of solidphase micro extraction analysis for studying change of headspace flavor compounds of ba na na dur ing r ipening. j. agri. food chem.,50:653-657 marriot, j. 1980. banana physiology and biochemistry of storage and ripening for optimum quality. crit. rev. food sci. nutr.,13:41-88 nogueira, j. m. f., fernandes, p. j. p. and nascimento, a. m. d. 2003. composition of volatiles of j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 metabolized to shorter-chain acyl-coas by sequentially losing 2 carbons during each round of the β-oxidation cycle (sanz et al, 1997). a phenol such as eugenol was present in both the cultivars and did not show much variation with respect to the temperature in both the cultivars. other constituents such as isoelemicin were found maximum in cv. nendran similarly cis-epoxy ocimime followed by 2,2-diisopropyltetrahydrofuran were found maximum in cv. grand naine. at high temperature (34.5ºc), other constituents were recorded high in cv. grand naine but in cv. nendran, did not show much variation with respect to the temperature. acknowledgement this work was carried out under the project on “national initiative on climate resilient agriculture (nicra)”, indian council of agricultural research (icar), new delhi. the authors are grateful to the director, iihr, bengaluru for providing the necessary facilities. references 132 ba na na cultiva r s fr om ma deir a isla nd. phytochem. anal.,14:87-90 perez, a. g., sanz, c., olias, r. and olia, j. m. 1999. lipoxygenase and hydroperoxidelyase activities in ripening strawberry fruits. j. agric. food. chem.,47(1):249-53 petracek, p. d., joles, d. w., shirazi, a. and cameron, a. c. 2002. modified atmosphere packaging of sweet cherry (prunusaviuml., ev. ‘sams’) fruit: metabolic responses to oxygen, carbon dioxide, and temperature. postharvest biol. tech., 24:259-270 pino, j. a. a nd febles, y. 2013. odour-active compounds in banana fruit cv. giant cavendish. food chem.,141:795-801 sanz, c., olia,s j. and perez, a. 1997. aroma biochemistry of fruits and vegetables. in: phytochemistry of fruit and vegetables (eds, tomás-barberán, f. a, and robins, r. j.) oxford univ. press, new york. pp 12-55 selli, s., gubbuk, h., kafkas, e. and gunes, e. 2012. comparison of aroma compounds in dwarf cavendish banana (musa spp. aaa) grown from open-field and protected cultivation area. sci. hort.,141:76-82 seymour, g. b. 1993. banana. in:biochemistry of fruit ripening (eds, seymour, g. b., taylor, j. e. and tucker, g. a.), chapman and hall, ny, pp. 83106 shiota, h. 1991. new esteric components in the volatiles of banana fruit (musa sapientum l.). j. agri. food chem.,41:2056-2062 takabayashi, j., dicke, m. and posthumus, m. a. 1994. volatile herbivore-induced terpenoids in plantmite interactions: variation caused by biotic and abiotic factors. j. chem. ecol.,20: 1329-1354 vallat, a., gu, h. and dorn, s. 2005. how rainfall, relative humidity and temperature influence volatile emissions from apple trees in situ. phytochem., 66:1540-1550 wills, r. b. h. and mcglasson, w. b. 1971. effect of storage temperature on apple volatiles associated with low temperature breakdown. j. hort. sci., 46:115-120 wyllie, s. g. and fellman, j. k. 2000. formation of volatile branched chain esters in bananas (musa sapientum l.). j. agric. food chem., 48:3493-3496 yahia, e. m., liu, f. w. and acree, t. e. 1991. changes of some odour-active volatiles in low-ethylene contr olled a tmospher e stor ed a pples. lebensmittel-wissenschaft und technologie., 24:145-151 yahia, e. m., liu, f. w., and acree, t. e. 1990b. cha nges of some odor-a ctive vola tiles in controlled atmospherestored apples. j. food qual., 13:185-202 yang, x., song, j., fillmore, s., pang, x. and zhang, z. 2011. effect of high temperature on color, chlorophyll fluorescence and volatile biosynthesis in green-ripe banana fruit. postharvest biol. tech., 62:246-257 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 124-132, 2017 shivashankara et al (ms received 18 august 2017, revised 22 october 2017, accepted 15 december 2017) j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 152-158, 2018 effect of post harvest ripening on bioactive secondary metabolites and antioxidant activity in mango cv. amrapali *b.m. muralidhara, g.l.veena1, s. rajan2, a.k. bhattacherjee3 and pavan kumar malav4 icar-central institute for sub-tropical horticulture, lucknow, india-226 101 *e-mail: muralidhara.bm@gmail.com abstract mango possesses many bioactive phytonutrients at ripe stage which boost our immune system against many diseases. post harvest ripening plays a major role in changes in those bioactive phytochemicals and their antioxidant activity. hence, the present study was undertaken to assess the changes in bioactive phytonutrients and total antioxidant activity during ripening of mango cv. amrapali. the fruits were analyzed for total antioxidants, total phenols, total flavonoids and total carotenoids from the day of harvest to its deterioration. fruit peel and pulp color was measured with sph850 spectrophotometer on the basis of the cie lab color system (l*, a* and b*). the results revealed that total phenols (36.11 to 66.53mg gae 100g-1), total flavonoids (14.33 to 34.67mg qe 100g-1), total carotenoids (2.23 to 11.47mg 100g-1) and total antioxidant (0.37 to 0.76 mmol trolox 100g-1) activity increased gradually from day one to ninth day after harvest and decreased slightly thereafter up to eleventh day of harvest except total carotenoids, which remained constant. strong correlations between total phenols (0.94), total flavonoids (0.86) and total carotenoids (0.97) with total antioxidant activity were noticed. positive relationship between total carotenoids and l*, a*, b* values in mango peel and pulp during ripening was also observed. it can be concluded that ripening affected the composition of bioactive phytonutrients and their antioxidant activity in mango andmaximum nutraceuticals contents were noticed from seven to nine days after harvest. key words: antioxidant activity, bioactive phytonutrients, mango, ripening, total carotenoids introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) is one of the most popular subtropical fruit which is well known for its nutritional quality due the rich source of many dietary antioxidants like ascorbic acid, carotenoids and phenolic compounds. india is the leading contributor in global mango production (around 40% of worlds production) followed by china, kenya, thailand, indonesia, pakistan, mexico, brazil, bangladesh and nigeria (saxena and gandhi, 2014). indian horticulture database, 2014). mango is a climacteric fruit and its ripening process occurs rapidly after harvest, depending on cultivar, stage of maturity at harvest, and postharvest conditions (v´azquez-caicedo et al, 2004). several biochemical changes occur during mango ripening, among which carotenoids biosynthesis is the most important one (v´azquez-caicedo et al, 2005). carotenoids have been noted as one of the most abundant micronutrients found in cancer-preventative foods (cano and ancos 1994). carotenoids have very diverse roles in biological functions of animals and plants including provitamin a activity, antioxidant activity, cell communication and protection against photo-oxidative damage (van de berg et al, 2000). carotenoids are mainly synthesized during fruit ripening through conversion of chlorophyll (fennema 1996). the edible portion turns from pale yellow to deep or orange yellow during ripening due to the synthesis of carotenoid pigments, which are responsible for imparting yelloworange color of mango mesocarp (v´azquez-caicedo et al, 2005). phenolic compounds possess antiinflammatory, anti-microbial, cardio-protective activities and protect against neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes mellitus (kris-etherton et al, 2002; scalbert et al, 2005). the most commonly occurring polyphenols in fruit include flavonoids and phenolic acids, which are capable of reducing the risks of cardiovascular diseases and atherosclerosis through the prevention of cellular oxidative damage (kelly et al, 2001). original research paper 152 153 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 152-158, 2018 post harvest biochemical changes in mango in the present study revealed that mango variety amr apali ha d higher tota l ca rotenoids content compared to other commercial varieties. it contains approximately 2.5–3.0 times more β-carotene with deep orange red flesh. measurement of color has earlier been correlated with carotenoids estimation in mango cultivars like manila and alphonso (v´azquezcaicedo et al, 2005; ornelas-paz et al, 2008). the fruit color is the first visible quality attribute assessed by the consumer and critical determinant in the a ccepta nce of the fr esh ma ngo fr uit pr ior to consumption. therefore, colorimetric value is an important parameter for ripe fruits. however, the changes in total carotenoids and total phenols during ripening of cultivar ‘amrapali’ mango are unknown. therefor e, the present work was under taken to eva lua te the effect of r ipening sta ge on tota l car otenoids content, total phenolic content and antioxidant activity of the cultivar ‘amrapali’ and to work out the relationship of fruit color with total carotenoids content. material and methods collection of fruit sample fully matured mango fruits were harvested from icar-cish mango orchard. fruits were selected for uniform size (200-300 g) and free from blemishes and defects. fruits were washed with water to remove field heat and other dust particles adhered on the surface. fruits are stored in cfb boxes for ripening gr ouped into 11 treatments (15 fruits for ea ch treatment/box with 3 replications). each day fifteen fr uits/one box of fruits was analyzed for total antioxidants, total phenols, total flavonoids and total carotenoids from the day of harvest (1st day) to its deterior ation (11th da y). the fr uits maintained acceptable quality up to 11 days at normal room temperature from the day of harvest. therefore the analysis was carried out up to 11 days. color measurement in each treatment three fruits were used for recording peel and pulp color. fruit peel and pulp color was measured with sph850 spectrophotometer (colorlite, germany) on the basis of the cie lab color system (l*, a* and b*). in this system l*, a* and b* describe a three dimensional space, where l* is the vertical axis and its value varies from 100 (perfect white) to zero (complete black). values of a* and b* specify the gr een-r ed a nd blue-yellow a xis, respectively. peel color was longitudinally determined on three points of each flat side of the fruit and recorded for six points for each fruit. pulp color was determined longitudinally at three equidistant points on each slice. chemical analysis the content of total phenolics in mango pulp was estimated as per the method suggested by singleton et al, (1999) using folin-cioca lteu r ea gent. the absorbance was recorded at 750 nm in a double beam uv-vis spectrophotometer (labomed inc., usa). gallic acid was used to prepare the standard curve and result was expressed as mg gallic acid equivalent (gae) 100 g-1 fresh weight. the flavonoids concentration was determined colorimetrically according to the method reported by dewa nto et al, (2002). t he a na lysis of tota l carotenoids was conducted with the help of a modified method of ranganna (1997) using acetone and petroleum ether as extraction solvents. total antioxidant activity was analyzed by cuprac (cupric reducing antioxidant capacity) assay developed by apak et al, (2004), which measures the copper (ii) ion reducing ability of polyphenols, vitamin c and vitamin e. statistical analysis da ta were expr essed a s mea ns sta nda r d deviation of three replications. anova (spss version 16.0) and turkey’s post hoc test wer e used to determine the mean difference of different variables at different days after harvest. pearson’s correlation test was used to determine the correlation between different biochemical compounds and color values of pulp and peel. relationship between color of peel and pulp on content of carotenoids was worked out by using regression. results and discussion on the day of harvest the fruits were hard and green in color while pulp was light yellow in color. the fruits started ripening and attained consumable stage on fifth day after harvest with good pulp texture and peel color. the fruits are in good condition up to 9 days after harvest but in 10th and 11th day the firmness 154 muralidhara et al of fruits become weak and black spots were visible on the surface. the fruits were analyzed for different biochemical compounds from the day of harvest to day of fruit deterioration. a significant increase in the contents of total phenols, total flavonoids and total carotenoids along with total antioxidant activity was noticed up to ninth day of ripening (table 1). thereafter these amounts decreased in tenth and eleventh day of ripening when the condition of fruits deteriorated except in total carotenoids content which remained constant. the content of total phenols increased from 36.11 to 66.53 mg gae 100 g-1 during nine days of ripening and then decreased to 54.72 mg gae 100 g-1 at eleventh day after harvest. similarly, total flavonoids content increased gradually from 14.33 mg qe 100 g-1 on the day of harvest to 34.67 mg qe j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 152-158, 2018 table 1. effect of postharvest ripening on bioactive phytonutrients and antioxidants in mango cv. amrapali days after total antioxidants total phenols mg total flavonoids carotenoids harvest µmoltrolox100 g-1 gae mg 100 g-1 mg 100 g-1 mg 100 g-1 1 0.37 36.11 14.33 2.23 2 0.39 38.47 22.33 4.37 3 0.43 41.39 24.33 5.77 4 0.49 47.08 24.67 6.80 5 0.53 48.89 25.00 8.40 6 0.58 58.75 26.00 9.00 7 0.69 62.22 27.33 10.87 8 0.74 64.03 28.67 11.43 9 0.76 66.53 34.67 11.47 10 0.73 56.67 28.67 11.47 11 0.71 54.72 28.33 11.47 cd (p=0.01) 0.01 1.72 1.20 0.11 100 g-1 on ninth day after harvest, when fruits were fully ripen, and then decreased to 28.33 mg qe 100 g1 on eleventh day after harvest. however, the content of total carotenoids increased continuously during nine days of ripening (from 2.23 mg 100 g-1 at first day to 11.47 mg 100 g-1at ninth day) and remained constant thereafter (table 1). the antioxidant activity was minimum (0.37 µmoltrolox 100 g-1) on the day of harvest and maximum on 9th day after harvest (0.76 µmoltrolox 100 g-1). after 9th day of harvest the content was declined non significantly (p=0.01). as the fruit starts ripening, antioxidant activity also increased up to complete ripening of fruit but started decreasing at over ripe stage. an increase or no change of total phenolic content during ripening of mango cultivars alphonso and tommy atkins have also been reported (roblessánchez et al, 2009; kim et al, 2009). the gradual increase in total soluble phenolics during ripening of mango might be due to the conversion of starch to simple soluble sugars by amylase enzyme as reported by gil et al,(2000). the decline in total phenols at later stages of ripening might be related to the senescence or over-ripening of fruits as reported by palafox-carlos et al (2012). another possible reason for the decrease in the total phenols content during over-ripening might be due to the increase in polyphenol oxidase (ppo) activity, which catalyses the oxidation of mono and di-phenols to o-quinones. increase in ppo activity from harvest maturity to half-ripe stage and then decline has been reported in banganpalli, dashehari, fazri and langra varieties of mango (selvaraj and kumar 1989). palafox-carlos et al, (2012) have concluded that ripening does not affect the content of total flavonoids in mango (cv. alphonso) since they were similar in fruits of all four ripeness stages. the increase in total carotenoids and its major constituent -carotene during ripening has been reported in many mango varieties viz. dashehari (kalra and tandon, 1983; verma et al, 1986), chausa, neelam and amrapali (sahni and khurdia, 1989), keitt and tommy atkins (mercadante and rodriguez-amaya, 1998). saltveit (1999) has 155 observed that carotenoids biosynthesis increases in most mango varieties during ripening and is associated with the climacteric increase in respiration initiated by ethylene activity. the carotenoid composition in mango can be affected by many factors such as growth conditions, maturity, cultivar, geographical origin and processing conditions (chen et al, 2007). palafoxcarlos et al (2012) has also reported that in mango variety alphonso, the antioxidant activity has increased up to ripening stage-3 (70 – 80% fruit is yellow in color) and decreased in ripening stage-4 (100% fruit is yellow in color). the authors concluded that total phenolics and total flavonoids contents had greater relationship with total antioxidant activity in mango during ripening. similar observations regarding higher relationship between total phenolics and antioxidant activity have also been reported by kim et al, (2009). colorimetric values the l*, a* and b* values were recorded for pulp and peel colour up to 11 days after harvest (table 2). l* is the measure of lightness, the positive values of a* are in direction of redness and positive values of b* are the vector of yellowness. the negative values of a* is towards greenness and negative values of b* depicts blueness (higby, 1962). the results showed that l* (66.48) values of pulp was maximum at 1st day of harvest and it gradually decreased as the fruit ripens (43.85) but in peel l* values are increased up to complete ripening and little reduction was observed at over-ripe condition. the a* values were increased from day one (8.15 and -6.43) to 11 (19.67 and 10.12) in both peel and pulp, but negative values were observed up to 3 days in case of fruit peel due to greenness in the peel. the b* values were shown increasing trend in both the cases of pulp and peel j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 152-158, 2018 post harvest biochemical changes in mango days after pulp peel harvest l* a* b* l* a* b* 1 66.48 8.15 39.38 44.00 -6.43 15.25 2 59.47 12.52 41.55 46.90 -6.05 16.36 3 49.50 15.35 42.84 51.73 -3.86 21.19 4 47.96 19.2 43.60 53.51 1.93 28.79 5 43.55 20.2 43.83 55.54 3.55 32.75 6 43.91 20.29 44.05 57.00 7.54 32.32 7 42.88 20.68 45.73 57.17 8.10 34.49 8 43.00 20.75 47.22 58.84 8.53 37.35 9 43.85 20.88 47.39 58.30 8.98 37.60 10 45.38 20.62 49.68 57.10 9.07 42.13 11 49.32 19.67 49.11 56.87 10.12 44.22 cd (p=0.01) 3.46 2.29 ns 4.39 2.05 5.09 table 2. effect of post harvest ripening on l*, a* and b* values of mango pulp and peel from day one (39.38 and 15.25) to 11 (49.11 and 44.22) after harvest. it is the indication of increase in yellowness in both fruit peel and pulp, which symbolizes the synthesis of total carotenoids content. there is no significant difference among the treatments for the b* values of pulp. correlation matrix for different biochemical compounds and l*, a* and b* values of mango fruit peel and pulp was analyzed. among the biochemical compounds analyzed, the total antioxidants have positive correlation with total carotenoids (0.973), total phenols (0.939) and total flavonoids (0.857). the correlation between total carotenoids with peel and pulp b* values were 0.96 and 0.94, which indicated that the higher the b* values in peel and pulp, the higher the total carotenoids content. gradual increase in b* values during ethephon induced ripening of dusehari fruits due to the increase in carotenoids biosynthesis has also been reported by gill et al, (2015). relationship between the total carotenoids content of fruit pulp on l*, a* and b* values of fruit peel and pulp on post-harvest ripening was also worked out (fig. 1). the results revealed that the positive relationship was obtained for total carotenoids content 156 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 152-158, 2018 muralidhara et al fig. 1. relationship between carotenoids and l*, a*, b* values of fruit peel and pulp during post harvest ripening of mango cv. amrapali. and peel l* (r2 = 0.916), a* (r2 = 0.941) and b* (r2 = 0.92) values compared to pulp l* (r2 = 0.712), a* (r2 = 0.735) and b* (r2 = 0.886) values. fruit ripening processes influence the content of total carotenoids in cv. amrapali and the fruits were best to consume within 9 days of ripening. the completely ripened fruits have higher amount of antioxidant activity, total phenols and total carotenoids contents as compared to mature and over-ripe fruits. the peel color is the best indicator for estimating total carotenoids content compared to pulp colour. acknowledgment financial assistance from indian council of agricultural research, new delhi is gratefully acknowledged. authors are thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments. 157 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 152-158, 2018 post harvest biochemical changes in mango references apak, r., guclu, k., ozyurek, m. and karademir,s.e. 2004. novel total antioxidant capacity index for dietary polyphenols and vitamin c and e, using their cupric ion reducing capability in the presence of neocuprine: cuprac method. j. agric. food chem.,52:7970-81 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neidhart,s. 2005. accumulation of all-transcarotene and its 9-cis and 13-cis stereoisomers during postharvest ripening of nine thai mango cultivars. j. agric. food chem., 53:4827-4835 verma, r.a., tripathi,m.p.and srivastava,r.k.1986. studies on development of carotenoids during r ipening of ma ngo cv. dasheha ri. prog. hort.,18:39-44 a market survey of vegetables in bangalore for heavy metal contamination in relation to human health l. r. varalakshmi and a. n. ganeshamurthy division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaragtatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: lrvaral @iihr.ernet.in abstract vegetable samples from one of the main whole sale markets of bangalore city were collected over two years and analysed for heavy metals such as cd, pb, cr and ni. heavy metal content of vegetables ranged from 0.24 to 2.54 mg cd kg-1, 2.16 to 10.40 mg pb kg-1 , 3.08 to 16.2 mg cr kg-1and 1.66 to 11.52 mg ni kg-1. leafy vegetables accumulated higher concentration of heavy metals followed by root vegetables. fruit vegetables accumulated the lowest content of heavy metals. but the heavy metal content of all the vegetables crossed the safe limits permitted for human consumption to a far greater extent except that cd content of root and fruit vegetables were within the safe levels. among leafy vegetables, amaranthus and palak accumulated the highest content of all the four heavy metals studied. key words: heavy metals, contamination, market samples and vegetables j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 75-78, 2008 food chain contamination by heavy metals (cd, pb, as, hg, cr, ni, co etc.) is a major cause for concern in recent years from human health point of view since heavy metals as such are stable elements, cannot be metabolized by the body and are bio-accumulative. industrialization, urbanization, improper use of city waste waters and industrial effluents for crop growth, application of sludge and other solid municipal wastes in agricultural lands, indiscriminate application of agro chemicals and pesticides are common in periurban cultivation. the growth rate of bangalore city in the p a s t t w o d e c a d e s i n c r e a s e d g e o m e t r i c a l l y a n d industrialization was very rapid. this led to generation of both industrial effluents and domestic sewage containing several heavy metals and other pollutants. these effluents and pollutants are being led to streams, which carried these wastes out of city limits where these are being continuously used mostly for cultivating vegetables and fodders. because of proximity to the city and great demand for fresh vegetables, the produce is sold in the city. the present study was conducted to identify the type and content of heavy metals (cd, pb, cr and ni) in vegetables produced from a bangalore market to determine their levels with reference to human health. to assess the quality of vegetables consumed by public, regularly sold vegetables from krishna rajendra market (k. r. market), one of the main wholesale markets of bangalore city, have been collected. the following vegetables were collected: stem amaranth (amaranthus tricolor), palak (beta vulgaris var bengalensis), fenugreek (trigonella foenumgraecum), coriander (coriander sativum), dill (anethum graveolens), mint (mentha piperita), chakota (atriflex hotensis), brinjal (solanum melangina), tomato (lycopersicum esculentum), french beans (phaseolus vulgaris), cluster beans (cyamopsis tetragonaloba) bhendi (abelmoschus esculentus), cucumber (cucumis sativus), capsicum (capsicum longifolia), ridge gourd (luffa acutangula), coccinia (momardica charantia), carrot (daucus carota), radish (raphanus sativus), beetroot (beta vulgaris), knolkhol (brassica gongylodes),cabbage (brassica capitata) , cauliflower (brassica botrytis) and potato (solanum tuberosum). three sets of each vegetable sample were collected at random at the arrival point of the k. r. market in bangalore city over two years (2005 and 2006). from the information given by vendors it was understood that vegetables were produced mainly from nearby towns, villages and peri urban areas of the city and are being regularly sold in the market. short communication page 75 76 the collected vegetable samples were washed thoroughly with mild detergent water, 0.1% hcl, distilled water and double distilled water. they were then cut into small pieces, dried at room temperatures for 2 days and later at 65 ±1 °c in an hot air oven. the dried samples were ground in warm condition, 2.5 g of this powdered sample was taken in to a 100 ml conical flask and predigested by adding 10 ml of conc. nitric acid at room temperature, later on digested in a hot plate by adding 10 ml of diacid mixture until the contents of the flask was colourless. after digestion the contents in the flask were made up to 100 ml using double distilled water and filtered with whatman no. 1 filter paper. the heavy metal concentration in this extract was analysed with the help of perkin elmer (model aa analyst 200) atomic absorption spectrophotometer. three replicates of each sample were used for confirmation of quantitative estimation of the metals. the average values for all the heavy metal contents were taken. standard deviation values were calculated for all the results. the heavy metal content of different vegetables is given in tables 1 to 3. the safe limits of heavy metals for human consumption recommended by pfa (1954) are 1.5ppm for cd, 2.5 ppm for pb, 0.1 ppm for cr and 1.5 ppm for ni. cadmium the content of cd in the collected vegetables ranged from 0.24 mg kg-1 in cluster beans to 2.54 mg kg-1 in stem amaranth. among different kinds of vegetables, leafy vegetables accumulated very high concentrations of cd followed by root, fruit and other vegetables. among leafy vegetables (table 1) stem amaranth, palak and fenugreek recorded very high cd concentrations and were crossing safe limits recommended for human consumption. mint recorded the lowest content of cd (0.88 mg kg-1). none of the root, fruit and other vegetables crossed the safe level of cd recommended for human consumption (table 2). among root vegetables, carrot contained maxiumum cd concentration (1.40mg kg-1). among the fruit vegetables (table 3) cluster bean contained lowest cd content (0.24 mg kg-1), whereas tomato and beans recorded the highest content. cauliflower, cabbage and potato recorded 0.64, 0.48 and 0.52 mg kg -1, respectively. cadmium contamination of vegetables occurs in different ways. cadmium is used in nickel-cadmium batteries, pvc plastics, and paint pigments. indiscriminate disposal of these plastics and batteries by public and use of insecticides, fungicides, sludge, and commercial fertilizers containing cadmium particularly continuous use of single super phosphate containing high levels of cd cause soil contamination, which in turn lead to absorption of cd by plants grown on such soils and ultimately lead to food chain contamination (atsdr, 1999a,). low level chronic exposure to cd can cause adverse health effects including gastro-intestinal, hematological, musculoskeletal, renal, neurological and reproductive effects. the main target organ for cd following chronic oral exposure is the kidney (jarup et al, 1998). table 1. heavy metals content of leaf vegetables from bangalore market leaf vegetables **heavy metal content (mg kg-1) cd pb cr ni stem amaranth 2.54 (±0.38) 10.48 (±0.78) 13.44 (±1.14) 9.40 (±1.09) palak 1.76 (±0.57) 6.08 (±0.97) 16.20 (±1.18) 11.52 (±0.80) fenugreek 1.44 (±0.34) 4.80 (±0.43) 9.40 (±0.90) 6.46 (±1.02) coriander 1.12 (±0.23) 6.08 (±0.95) 9.88 (±0.58) 5.40 (±0.95) dill 1.16 (±0.29) 6.00 (±1.05) 9.48 (±1.00) 6.52 (±0.75) mint 0.88 (±0.15) 7.12 (±0.97) 8.60 (±1.32) 6.36 (±0.89) atriflex sps 1.08 (±0.25) 9.20 (±0.91) 15.40 (±0.80) 10.32 (±1.06) values in parentheses are standard deviations. **mean of two years table 2. heavy metals content of root vegetables from bangalore market root vegetables **heavy metal content (mg kg-1) cd pb cr ni carrot 1.40 (±0.42) 5.46 (±0.51) 9.58 (±1.47) 4.50 (±0.65) radish 1.00 (±0.20) 6.80 (±0.74) 10.02 (±0.97) 9.92 (±1.22) beetroot 0.88 (±0.18) 5.64 (±0.49) 14.32 (±1.31) 9.34 (±1.39) knolkhol 0.72 (±0.19) 5.08 (±0.24) 12.72 (±0.82) 8.12 (±0.22) values in parentheses are standard deviations **mean of two years varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 75-78, 2008 77 lead except for coccenia, capsicum and cluster bean, all the vegetables crossed pfa safe limit of 2.5 mg kg-1 for pb content to a far greater extent. all the leafy vegetables accumulated very high concentration of pb, 3-4 folds higher than the safe limits recommended for human consumption. (table1). among root vegetables, radish, beetroot and carrot showed considerable amounts (table 2). among fruit vegetables okra contained highest pb content (5.00 mg kg1) and capsicum contained lowest pb content (2.16 mg kg-1) (table 3). the high concentration of lead in all the vegetables especially leafy and root vegetables are a great cause for concern with regard to human health. naturally the soils contain pb in very low concentrations in the range of 2-200 mg kg-1 (kabata and pendias, 1984). but some soils get contaminated due to addition of lead from industries such as paints, pollution by automobile emissions due to use of leaded fuel etc. similarly the soils near highways and busy road sides contain higher amounts of lead than the soils away from the main roads. the vegetables grown in these contaminated soils accumulate heavy metals to a considerable extent. it is alarming that the pb content in all the vegetables of present study crossed safe levels and it will have adverse effects on health especially of children and pregnant women (atsdr, 1999b). lead gets deposited in the soft tissues of the body and can cause musculoskeletal, renal occular, immunological, neurological, reproductive and developmental effects. (todd et al, 1996). the symptoms like poor memory, irritability, distractibility, lethargy, stomach aches, diarrhoea etc. usually go unnoticed. chromium all the vegetables accumulated cr to a greater extent compared to other heavy metals and cr contents were above safe levels recommended for human consumption. cr accumulation in different vegetables was in the range from 3.08 to 16.2 mg kg-1. the highest concentration of 16.2 mg kg-1 cr was recorded in palak. (table1). mint showed 8.60 mg kg-1 of cr, the lowest among all the leafy vegetables. root vegetables (table 2) such as beetroot, radish and carrot also recorded considerable amounts. among fruit vegetables brinjal (10.3 mg kg-1) and tomato (9.9 mg kg-1) recorded higher concentrations compared to other fruit vegetables (table 3). cr contamination comes from the industries of chrome plating, leather tanning, wood preserving, etc. chromium compounds are known carcinogens. long term exposure to high or moderate levels of cr cause damage to the nose and lungs and may cause lung cancer. skin contact with cr may cause skin ulcers. over exposure may also damage liver and kidneys (dayan and paine, 2001). city sewage waters also contain cr to a considerable extent (sorme and lagerkvist, 2002). nickel nickel (ni) was the second heavy metal that was present in higher concentrations in vegetables after chromium. the concentration ranged from 1.66 mg kg-1 to 11.52 mg kg-1 in different vegetables. palak contained higher concentration of ni followed by atriflex sps and stem amaranth among leafy vegetables (table 1). in root vegetables, radish and beetroot accumulated higher ni content. among root vegetables (table 2) carrot contained table 3. heavy metal content of fruit and other vegetables from bangalore market fruit and other vegetables **heavy metal content (mg kg-1) cd pb cr ni tomato 0.60 (±0.17) 3.64 (±1.32) 9.90 (±1.35) 5.63 (±0.26) brinjal 0.44 (±0.17) 4.56 (±0.80) 10.30 (±1.16) 3.42 (±0.20) okra 0.48 (±0.10) 5.00 (±1.18) 7.40 (±1.11) 3.51 (±0.12) french beans 0.60 (±0.11) 4.00 (±1.12) 7.76 (±1.20) 8.02 (±0.14) cluster beans 0.24 (±0.08) 2.32 (±1.01) 6.00 (±1.09) 3.91 (±0.21) cucumber 0.56 (±0.16) 3.36 (±0.99) 6.32 (±0.92) 3.45 (±0.23) capsicum 0.48 (±0.12) 2.16 (±0.93) 5.20 (±0.98) 8.63 (±0.34) ridge gourd 0.56 (±0.13) 3.48 (±1.26) 6.04 (±1.36) 5.62 (±0.37) coccinia 0.53 (±0.12) 2.24 (±0.70) 3.08 (±0.66) 2.88 (±0.26) cabbage 0.48 (±0.14) 3.65 (±1.73) 5.64 (±1.58) 1.66 (±0.10) cauliflower 0.64 (±0.10) 6.13 (±1.23) 4.76 (±0.57) 8.21 (±0.54) potato 0.52 (±0.06) 3.19 (±0.51) 3.32 (±0.71) 6.32 (±0.27) values in parentheses are standard deviations **mean of two years a market survey of vegetables in bangalore for heavy metal contamination j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 75-78, 2008 78 lowest ni content. in fruit vegetables (table 3) coccinia recorded lowest ni content and capsicum recorded highest ni content. nickel is found in all soils. auto exhausts, fertilizers especially super phosphate, industrial waste, etc. cause nickel contamination of soils. domestic and industrial sewage waters also contain ni, which when applied to agricultural soils, enter food chain. the most common adverse health effect of nickel in humans is an allergic reaction. it also affects the activity of alpha –tocopherol, the common antioxidant of the body (chen et al, 2002). the results of the study showed that vegetables supplied to bangalore market are contaminated with heavy metals such as cd, pb, cr and ni. rahul chakraborthy et al (2004) reported contamination of pb and ni in market samples of shillong city. accumulation pattern of heavy metals were different for leafy, root and fruit vegetables. irrespective of the heavy metal, leafy vegetables accumulated greater amounts of heavy metals than root and fruit vegetables above recommended levels for human consumption. therefore, the farmers should avoid use of road side fields and reduce the use of city generated composts for vegetable cultivation. further, when farmers do not have fresh water sources for cultivating vegetables and if they were to use sewage waters for irrigation, they better grow non-edible crops like flower crops and mulberry. references atsdr. 1999a. toxocological profile for cadmium. united states department of health and human services. public health service. 205-93-0606. atsdr. 1999b. toxocological profile for lead. united states department of health and human services. public health service, 205-93-0606. chen, c. y., su, y. j., wu, o. f. and shyn, m. m. 2002. nickel induced plasma lipid peroxidation and ef f e c t o f a n t i o x i d a n t s i n h u m a n b l o o d : involvement of hydroxyl radical formation and depletion of tocopherol. j. toxicol. environ. health., 28:843-852 dayan, a. d. and paine, a. j. 2001. mechanisms of chromium toxicity, carcinogenicity and allergenicity: review of the literature from 1985 to 2000. hum. exp. toxicol., 42:35-36. jarup, l. berglund, m., elinder, c. g., nordberg, g. and vahter, m. 1998. health effects of cadmium exposurea review of the literature and a risk estimate. scandinavian j. work. environ. health , 24:1-51. kabata-pendias, a and pendias, h. 1984. trace elements in soils and plants. 2nd edition, boca raton, florida, p.365. pfa, 1954. prevention of food adulteration act, 1954 with prevention of food adulteration rules, 1955. international law book company, delhi, 2003, pp.168-174. rahul chakraborthy, sudip dey, dkhar paul, s., clarice thabah, r., myrboh, b., ghosh, d. and sharma, d. k. 2004. determination of few heavy metals in some vegetables from north eastern region of india in relation to human health. poll res., 23:537-542. sorme, l. and lagervist, r. 2002. sources of heavy metals in urban waste in stockholm. sci. total environ., 298:131-145. todd a. c., wetmur j. g., moline j. m., godbold, j. h., levin, s. m. and landrigan, p. j, 1996. unravelling the chronic toxicity of lead; an essential priority for environmental health. environ. health perspect., 104 :141-146. (ms received 12 september 2007, revised 7 june, 2008) varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 75-78, 2008 studies on parental synchronization in flowering for hybrid seed production in onion (allium cepa l.) k. padmini, r.veere gowda1 and l. b. naik section of seed science and technology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: kpadmini@iihr.ernet.in abstract an experiment was conducted at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, in rabi season during 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 to study the flowering of cytoplasmic male sterile lines cms (a) and pollinator lines (c) of onion cv. arka lalima for working out effective synchrony in hybrid seed production. results indicated that days to 100% flowering and days to complete flowering in a plant varied significantly in the parental lines and c line was found to be earlier than a line by 12 days and 25 days, respectively. the duration of flowering in a plant was also less in c line (23 days) than in a line (29 days). due to lack of floral synchrony between parental lines, pollen availability becomes a limiting factor in hybrid seed production in cv. arka lalima. delay in planting of c lines by a week after planting a lines resulted in synchronised flowering of parental lines at peak flowering stage. this also resulted in higher fruit set (80%) and hybrid seed yield (15g/ plant) as against planting of a and c lines simultaneously (29.54% and 0.38g, respectively). key words: cytoplasmic male sterility, flowering, hybrid seed production, onion, synchronization introduction onion is one of the important vegetable crops grown in india under 42 million hectares with a production of 4.21 million tonnes and productivity of 9.9 million tons/ hectare (national horticulture database, 2003). onion is one of the pioneering crops in which heterosis was commercially exploited since early 1930’s (jones and emsweller,1933). in india, cytoplasmic male sterile (cms) based hybrids were developed in onion. synchronisation of flowering of parental lines is absolutely essential in onion hybrid seed production for effecting natural crossing in cms lines (a line ) by pollinators from pollinator lines (c line) ( peters,1990). in any hybrid seed production system using cms hybrids, supply of adequate amount of pollen and its continuous supply by the pollen parent until male sterile lines are in bloom, is important (peters,1990). lack of synchrony in flowering in parental lines of onion hybrids has been reported even under simultaneous planting and identical storage conditions (currah,1981). flowering of onion is initiated by environmental factors (pike,1986). in the light of the above, the present study was undertaken to obtain information on the extent of synchronization possible in respect of various floral traits of male sterile and pollinator lines in hybrid seed production of cms-based onion hybrid arka lalima. material and methods a field experiment was conducted to study flowering behavior in parental lines of onion hybrid arka lalima during the rabi season (december) at the experimental farm of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, in 2001-2002. the seed parent of hybrid arka lalima, namely, cms line (a line) ms-48 and pollinator line (c line), sel-14-1-1 were raised for the study. a bulb-to-seed method of seed production by annual method was followed (yawalkar, 1989). three plots of twenty plants each were maintained in both the parents. onion bulbs weighing 10-20 g and equatorial diameter of 2.5 to 3.5 cm were cut transversely at the top to one third to expose the inner scales for early and uniform flowering. cut bulbs were smeared with copper oxychloride to avoid microbial infection. cut bulbs of both the parental lines were planted simultaneously in 4:1 ratio such that four rows of a line alternated with one row of c line (swarup,1991). closer planting of 30x30 cm between rows j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 47-49, 2007 and plants was adopted as recommended for medium sized onion bulbs. observations were recorded on the number of days taken for first flowering, days to 50% and 100% flowering (to start flowering). for observations on days to complete flowering, duration of flowering in a plant and the number of scapes/plant, twenty plants in each of the parents were selected at random. five umbels from both the parents were randomly selected to record within an umbel, on number of flowers/umbel, duration of flowering in an umbel, days to 5%, 30%, 50%, 80%, and 100% flowering. in addition to this, an experiment was conducted on manipulating date of planting of parental bulbs for effecting floral synchrony (atkin and davis,1954).the methods employed were: t1simultaneous planting of parental bulbs, and, t2delayed planting of c line by one week after planting a line. three plots of twenty plants each were maintained in each parent. observations on per cent plants in flowering (with opened flowers to effect natural crossing of a lines from pollen of c line) at the same time, per cent fruit-set / umbel and hybrid seed yield / plant were recorded. recommended package of practices was followed to raise the seed crop. statistical analysis using a ‘student-t’ test was performed to test the significance between the parental lines of onion hybrid and between the two planting dates of parental bulbs. results and discussion flowering behaviour pooled data on flowering behavior of parental lines of onion hybrid arka lalima (on simultaneous planting of a and c lines) in a population and plant is presented in table 1. perusal of results revealed that there were no significant differences between a and c lines up to 50% flowering from planting. there were also no significant differences in respect of number of scapes / plant and number of flowers / umbel between the parents. however, days to 100% flowering and in the days to complete flowering in a plant varied significantly between the parental lines, which has led to problems in synchronized flowering. the duration of flowering in a plant was also less in c line (23 days) compared to a line (29 days). data on flowering in an umbel in the parental lines of onion are presented in table 2. differences between a and c lines for duration of flowering in an umbel were significant. hence, it is concluded that lack of floral synchrony between parental lines of onion hybrid arka lalima observed at peak flowering stages of a line limited natural crossing in a lines in a situation where onion parental bulbs were planted simultaneously. effect of date of planting of parental bulbs on synchronisation in flowering and hybrid seed yield the effect of planting dates of parental bulbs on synchronisation of flowering and hybrid seed yield has been presented in tables 3 and 4, respectively. synchronisation of flowering at peak flowering was observed in t2: delayed planting of c bulbs by one week after planting a bulbs compared to t1: simultaneous planting of parental bulbs. table 1. flowering behavior of cms and male fertile parental lines in onion cv. arka lalima for hybrid seed production character 2001-2002 2002-2003 pooled mean difference t-test value a c a c a c between a and c days to first flowering ** 64 64 69 84 66.50 74.00 7.50 ns days to 50%flowering ** 92 87 80 86 86.00 86.50 0.50 ns days to 100% flowering ** 140 136 111 88 126 114 12.00 11.03* days to complete flowering in the plant 140 96.54 122 116 131 106 24.73 5.91* duration of flowering in the plant 19.11 21.80 39.06 24.14 29.09 22.97 6.12 3.03* number of scapes/plant 4.50 2.86 2.84 2.55 3.67 2.71 0.96 ns number of flowers/umbel 166 133 314 265 240 199 41 ns ** from planting of bulbs (simultaneously) * p<0.05 ns= non significant table 2. flowering pattern in onion umbel character a line c line difference t-test value days to 5% 5 3 2 2.66* flowering days to 30% 7 5 2 ns flowering days to 50% 9 7 2 ns flowering days to 80% 14 11 3 ns flowering days to 100% 17 14 3 ns flowering duration of 20 25 5 3.47* flowering in the umbel(days) * p <0.05 padmini et al 48j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 47-49, 2007 percentage of plants with open flowers was 100 in both a and c lines at 108 days from planting of a line( peak flowering of both the parental lines) in delayed planting of c bulbs by one week after planting a bulbs. thus, there was lack of flowering synchrony in simultaneous planting of parental bulbs to effect natural cross pollination. similar observation of poor co-ordination of flowering time in synchronous planted bulbs was also table 3. effect of date of planting of parental bulbs on synchronisation of flowering in onion days percentage of plants flowering (with open flowers) from at the same time planting simultaneous planting of delayed planting of parental bulbs c bulbs by one week after planting a bulbs a line c line a line c line 73 23.08 18.18 6.67 0 81 7.69 0 63.33 0 88 7.69 36.36 73.33 0 95 30.76 18.18 81.25 100 108 0 0 100* 100* 115 0 0 62.5 100 122 0 0 0 57.14 129 0 0 0 28.6 136 15.39 9.09 0 28.6 140 15.39 18.18 0 0 * perfect synchronization of flowering in a and c lines table 4. effect of date of planting of parental bulbs on hybrid seed yield in onion planting date fruit set/ hybrid seed yield/ umbel (%) plant (g) t1simultaneous planting 29.54 0.38 of parental bulbs t2delayed planting of 80.00 15.00 c bulbs by one week after planting a bulbs t test value 6.25* 11.12* * p <0.05 reported by currah (1981). with regard to fruit-set per umbel, higher fruit-set was observed in delayed planting of c lines by one week after planting a lines (80%) as against simultaneous planting of parental bulbs (29.54%). hybrid seed yield per plant was also highest in delayed planting of c lines by one week after planting a lines (15g) as against simultaneous planting of parental bulbs (0.38g). the superiority of delayed planting of c lines by one week after planting a lines results in higher fruit-set and seed yield per plant and calls for planned dates of planting and flowering of parental lines for ensuring synchrony at peak flowering time. references atkin, j. d. and davis, g. n. 1954. altering onion flowering dates to facilitate hybrid seed production. bull. calif. agril. exptl. stn., 746:16 currah, l. 1981. onion flowering and hybrid seed production. scientific horticulture, 32: 26-46. jones, h. a . and emsweller, s. l. 1933. methods of breeding onions. hilgardia,7: 625-642. national horticulture database, 2003. www. hortibizindia. org peters, r. 1990. seed production in onions and other allium species. in: onions & allied crops. vol. i. botany, physiology & genetics, pp162-174. pike, l. m. 1986. onion breeding. in m.j. bassett (ed). breeding vegetable crops, avi publishing co. inc. west port, connecticut, pp 357-394. swarup, v. 1991. breeding procedures for cross-pollinated vegetable crops. icar, new delhi, india, p118. yawalkar, k. s. 1989. bulb vegetables. in: vegetable crops of india, second edition, agri. hort. publ. house, nagpur, india, p 370. (ms received 24 november 2006, revised 25 april 2007) hybrid seed production in onion 49j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 47-49, 2007 introduction guava (psidium guajava l.) is an important nutritious fruit marketed in india and accounts for about 4% each of area and production among fruit crops grown in india. like other fruits ( (srinivas et al, 1997; jagtap and katrodia, 1998; wanjari et al, 2002; gajanana et al., 2011), guava is also subject to losses at various stages of handling after harvest. information on economic aspects of marketing, associated costs and returns, and losses that occur at different stages of handling in guava in india is not available at present. therefore, a study was undertaken to examine marketing arrangements and assess post-harvest losses in guava at different stages of handling in karnataka, one of the major guava producing states of india. material and methods karnataka is one of the major guava-producing states in the country producing 135,100 tonnes (5.4%) from an area of 7100 ha (3.23%). allahabad safeda is the most popular variety of guava grown in karnataka. bengaluru (rural & urban) district produces the largest quantity of guava in the state, accounting for 19.7% area and 18.7% production in karnataka (2011-12). therefore, bengaluru district was selected for the study at the first stage of sampling. at the second stage, three taluks, namely, economic analysis of post-harvest loss and marketing efficiency in guava (cv. allahabad safeda) in karnataka t.m. gajanana, d. sreenivasa murthy, a.k. saxena1, d.v. sudhakar rao2, m. sudha and v. dakshinamoorthy section of economics and statistics icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india e-mail: tmgajanana@yahoo.com abstract post-harvest losses (phl) in guava (cv. allahabad safeda) were estimated at the field and retail levels in karnataka, and impact of this loss on marketing efficiency was studied. results indicated that the total phl was 13.29% consisting of field-level loss (9.17%) and retail level loss (4.12%). the producer’s share was 51.52% and phl, when included as an item of cost, reduced the share to 45.80%. phl also reduced marketing efficiency index from 1.06 to 0.88, thereby indicating the importance of phl and scope for minimizing it to improve the efficiency of the marketing system in guava. key words: guava, post-harvest losses, allahabad safeda, economic analysis, marketing efficiency doddaballapur, devanahalli and bengaluru north, were selected and field-level loss was assessed from harvest at 39 sample-farmers’ fields located in the three taluks. retaillevel loss was estimated from 31 retailers spread over the city of bengaluru sourcing their material from k.r. market. estimating marketing efficiency: efficiency of a marketing system is normally analyzed using the standard formula of acharya and agarwal (2001) which was later modified by sreenivasa murthy et al (2004) by including phl as an item under the cost. the modified formula used in our study is given below: npf me = ————————— mc + mm + phl where, me = marketing efficiency index npf = farmer’s net price npf = gpf-{cf + (lf x gpf)} or npf = {gpf}-{cf}-{lf x gpf} where, npf represents the net price received by the farmer (rs./kg) gpf represents the gross price received by the farmer (rs./kg) 1division of plant pathology, 2division of post harvest technology, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, karnataka, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):70-73, 2015 71 economics of post-harvest loss and marketing efficiency in guava cf represents the cost incurred by the farmer in the course of marketing (rs./kg) lf represents the physical loss of produce at field-level (kg) mc = marketing-cost to the intermediaries mc = cf + cr where, cf represents the cost to the farmer in marketing (rs./kg) cr represents the cost to the retailer in marketing (rs./kg) mm = marketing margin of the intermediary mm = mmr where, mmr represents the marketing margin of the retailer phl = post-harvest loss in the course of marketing phl = {lf x gpf} + {lr x gpr} where, lf and gpf are the same as indicated above lr represents the physical loss during retailing (kg) gpr represents the gross retail price (rs./kg) results and discussion marketing practices in guava guava fields under harvest in bengaluru district were visited. marketing practices followed and losses incurred at the field-level were studied. the main marketing channels followed by the guava growers in bengaluru district were: self marketing in the auction at k.r. market, bengaluru, and field sale of guava to contractors besides leasing out the orchard to the pre-harvest contractor (phc). ● producer – commission agent – retailer – consumer (self marketing) ● producer – contractor – commission agent – retailer – consumer (field sale) ● producer – phc – ca – retailer – consumer (phc) after harvest, ripe and green (mature) fruits were graded as large, medium or small. fruits are then packed in bags of 20-22kg or 32-35kg (with a bamboo base) and brought to the market in tempos (vans) or mini-trucks. sale in bengaluru wholesale market, field-level sale and sale to pre-harvest contractors (phc) were the main channels used by guava farmers in the area under study. in all, 56.67% of the farmers marketed 62.95% of the produce through the self-marketing channel. about 20% of the farmers sold 37.05% of their guava product at the field itself. another 23.33% of the farmers leased out guava fields to the phc. marketing cost and price realization farmers were found to incur an expenditure of rs. 2.40/kg towards marketing of guava, which consisted of harvesting, grading and packing (15.19%), packing-material cost (1.26%), transportation (30.38%), unloading (2.53%) and commission (50.63%). farmers realized a net price of rs. 11.34/kg. the retailers realized a gross price of rs. 22.01/kg and, after deducting the cost incurred, their margin worked out to rs. 8.04/kg. in the process, the producer’s share worked out to 51.52% (table 1). post harvest loss (phl) in guava losses during different stages of handling in the selfmarketing channel were assessed in 39 guava fields under harvest and from 31 retailers of guava in bengaluru. total phl was 13.29% which included field-level loss (9.17%) and retail-level loss (4.12%) (table 2). field level loss field level loss in guava consisted of over-ripe fruits (2.93%), bird attack (0.24%), mealy bug (0.54%) and diseases like stylar-end rot (1.32%) and canker (1.29%). further, scratches on surface fruit due to thrips, friction, etc. working out to 2.71% were also observed in our study. over-ripe fruits accounted for 2.93% of field-level loss. table 1. marketing cost, price realized and producer’s share in guava sl. no. particulars amount or % 1 marketing cost of producers rs. 2.4 /kg harvesting, grading and packing 15.19 % packing-material cost 1.26 % transportation 30.38 % unloading 2.53 % commission 50.63 % 2 net price producer rs.11.34 /kg retailer rs. 8.04 /kg 3 producer’s share 51.52 % table 2. post-harvest loss in guava at different levels of handling sl. no. stage/level loss (%) 1 field level (after harvest and before 9.17 marketing grading, sorting for damages) over-ripe fruits, discards 2.93 damage due to bird attack 0.24 damage due to blossom (stylar) end rot 1.32 damage due to canker 1.29 damage due to mealy bug 0.54 others (scratches due to thrips, friction, etc.) 2.71 2 retail market level (damage due to 4.12 pressing & fruits crushed during transit & loading/ unloading) 3 total phl in guava 13.29 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):70-73, 2015 72 hence, select harvest of fruits can reduce the loss due to over-ripe fruits. further, losses occurring at different stages of handling guava due to stylar-end rot, anthracnose, canker, thrips’ attack, etc. need to be addressed. retail-level loss loss at the retail-level was 4.12% and was due mainly to press-damage and fruits crushed in transit, unloading and loading. farmers currently use gunny/plastic bags with a bamboo basket at the base. instead, they could use plastic crates to reduce losses in transit. pathological investigation guava fruits collected from orchards in 12 different localities of bengaluru district were assessed for infection with various diseases. fruits were found to be seriously infected by diseases. disease incidence percentage ranged from 36.67 (locality 4) to 63.33 (locality 6). stylar end rot (phomopsis psidi) was the major disease, causing maximum spoilage of fruits, and varied from 20 % (locality 4) to 33.33 % (locality 10). canker (pestaliopsis psidi) incidence varied from 8.33% (locality 4) to 16.67% (locality 5 & 6). anthracnose (colletotrichum table 3. incidence of disease on guava fruits collected from various localities fruit status locality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 healthy (%) 50.00 56.67 43.33 63.33 43.33 36.67 56.67 60.00 46.67 40.00 53.33 56.67 diseased (%) 50.00 43.33 56.67 36.67 56.67 63.33 43.33 40.00 53.33 60.00 46.67 43.33 disease (%) canker 13.33 13.33 15.00 8.33 16.67 16.67 13.33 8.33 11.67 15.00 10.00 11.67 (pestaliopsis psidi) stylar end rot 28.33 23.33 30.00 20.00 30.00 31.67 21.67 25.00 28.33 33.33 30.00 23.33 (phomopsis psidi) anthracnose 8.33 6.67 11.67 8.33 10.00 15.00 8.33 6.67 13.33 11.67 6.67 8.33 (collectotrichum gloeosporioides) table 4. post-harvest storage losses in allahabad safeda guava fruits stored at rt & at 12°c plw (%) spoilage (%) days after harvest days after harvest at rt 2 3 5 6 2 3 5 6 2.51 3.53 6.35 8.16 0.00 0.00 7.29 17.28 at 12°c 3 7 10 14 3 7 10 14 2.52 4.70 6.29 8.37 0.00 0.00 0.45 1.36 table 5. valuation of post-harvest loss in guava (allahabad safeda) sl. no. stage phl value loss (%) (rs./kg) 1 field level 9.17 1.26 2 retail level 4.12 0.91 total 13.29 2.17 gloeosporioides) incidence varied from 6.67% (locality 2) to 15.00% (locality 6). appropriate, timely or effective pre-harvest disease management schedule was not practiced in these orchards (table 3). post-harvest storage losses in allahabd safeda guava fruits storage losses in allahabd safeda guava were estimated as 3.53 % at 3 days storage at room temperature (24-32°c). this was mainly due to physiological loss in weight (plw). spoilage started after 5 days of storage (7.29%), and reached 17.28% by 6th day of storage. by storing the fruits at low temperature (12°c), total losses at 10 days of storage were reduced to 6.74%. this was due to plw 6.29% and 0.45% to spoilage loss. the total storage losses at 12°c increased to 9.73% when storage was prolonged to 14 days. spoilage in storage at room temperature as well as at 12°c was found to be mainly due to blossom-end rot in allahabad safeda guava variety (table 4). it was observed that at 3 days of storage, guava fruits lost 3-4% weight and, after 5 days, spoilage set in. therefore, care should be taken to dispose of the fruits within five days from harvesting. however, it is possible to delay spoilage by storing the guava fruits at 12oc. valuation of post-harvest loss, price spread and marketing efficiency post-harvest loss is calculated from the price prevalent at different levels of handling, and is presented in table 5. post-harvest loss accounts for 9.85% of the price to the consumer in a marketing channel (table 6 & 7). as phl escalates the cost of marketing, it has an impact on marketing efficiency. price-spread was observed to be 54.2% which, minus the phl, would be 48.48%. if phl is to be included as an item under cost of marketing, efficiency of the marketing system would be reduced (table 7). the producer’s share in the consumer rupee is 51.52% indicating, gajanana et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):70-73, 2015 73 that, a scope exists for improving the marketing system. therefore, it is inferred that inclusion of phl in calculating marketing efficiency reduces the system’s efficiency. this calls for efforts to reduce losses during post-harvest handling of guava, to help improve the efficiency of the marketing system. references acharya, s.s. and agarwal, n.l. 2001. agricultural marketing in india, third edition, oxford & ibh publishing company, new delhi gajanana, t.m., sreenivasa murthy, d. and sudha, m. 2011. field-level loss in guavaguava harvest, sorting and packing in bengaluru guava retailing in bengaluru table 6. price-spread in marketing of guava particulars price spread rs./kg % net price received by the farmer 10.08 45.80 marketing cost of the farmer 2.40 10.90 phl at field level 1.26 5.72 retailer’s cost 0.23 1.04 phl at retail level 0.91 4.13 retailer’s margin 7.13 32.39 consumer price 22.01 100.00 table 7. efficiency in marketing guava and impact of post-harvest loss (phl) sl. no. efficiency efficiency parameter parameter value 1 producer’s share (%) 51.52 (48.8)* 2 marketing-cost (rs./kg) 2.63 (4.80)* 4 intermediary’s margin (%) 36.53 (32.39)* 5 post-harvest loss (phl) (%) 9.85 3 marketing-efficiency index 1.06 (0.88)** *producer’s share, marketing-cost and margin after inclusion of phl as an item of cost ** indicates marketing efficiency (me) after inclusion of phl as an item of marketing-cost post harvest losses in fruits and vegetables in south india – a review of concepts and quantification of losses. indian food packer, 65:178-187 jagtap, k.b. and katrodia, j.s. 1998. post harvest losses in packaging and transportation of sapota, indian j. hort., 55:48-51 sreenivasa murthy, d., gajanana t.m. and sudha, m. 2004. post harvest loss and its impact on marketing cost, margin and efficiency: a study on grapes in karnataka, indian j. agril. econ., 59:772-786 srinivas, r.n., venkatesha reddy, t., ravi, p.c., lalith achoth and chinnappa reddy, b.v. 1997. post harvest losses assessment in totapuri and alphonso mangoes. j of food sci. and tech., xxxiv:70-71 wanjari,v., ladaniya, m.s. and gajanana, t.m. 2002. marketing and post harvest losses of acid lime in andhra pradesh, indian j. agril. marketing, 16:32-39 (ms received 04 june 2014, revised 24 march 2015, accepted 04 april 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):70-73, 2015 economics of post-harvest loss and marketing efficiency in guava final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 83 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 83-87, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction carrot (daucus carota subsp. sativus), an important root tuber vegetable crop of apiaceace family is a diploid species (2n = 2x =18) grown globally for its rich nutritional contents of vitamin a and carotenes. other members of this family include celery, dill, parsley, fennel, cumin, coriander, cilantro and many other vegetables and spices. the objective of carrot breeding programmes is to evolve high yielding and well adapted cultivar with desirable economic traits. edible carrots are thought to have originated in afghanistan before the ninth century, according to historical evidence. eastern carrots, as they were known to ha ve yellow or pur ple r oots. t heir cultivation extended throughout central and north asia, as well as japan (17th century). the near east is often regarded as the second-largest source of variation for cultivated carrot variation. western carrots differ from eastern carrots in that they have fewer pubescent leaves and a reduced tendency to flower early. during the middle ages, yellow and purple carrots were widely grown in europe, but they were gradually replaced by white and then orangerooted varieties, which first appeared in the early seventeenth century, presumably as a result of selection from yellow carrot and hybridization of cultivated carrot and its wild relatives (rubatzky et al. 1999). carrots with orange roots expanded from europe to other continents, eventually becoming the most common commercial crop in the world. carrots with different root colours are more regularly grown in asia, and they have just lately been reintroduced to specialist markets in europe and america (simon et al. 2008). a long history of carrot selection and the use of diver se pa r enta l ma ter ia ls in br eeding programmes throughout the world have resulted in considerable variation in available cultivars. an understanding of the extent and nature of genetic variation within a crop species is required for efficient breeding effort. better understanding of genetic diversity or genetic similarity might aid in the maintenance of long-term selection gain in plants (chowdhury et al. 2002). therefore, the present study was study in tropical carrot genotypes genetic diversity and cluster analysis. materials and methods the present study was conducted a t vegetable research block of division of vegetable crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, genetic diversity study in tropical carrot (daucus carota l.) manisha*, padmini k., veere gowda r. and dhananjaya m.v. division of vegetable crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india. *corresponding author e-mail: mmanisha366@gmail.com abstract genetic diversity study was conducted at icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during 2018-19. in this study, 80 accessions were evaluated for 16 yield and yield attributing traits. the mahalanobis’ d2 analysis grouped these accessions into seven clusters. cluster i was the largest with 69 genotypes followed by cluster iii comprising six genotypes while, the clusters ii, iv, v, vi and vii contained one genotype each. among the traits studied, yield contributed maximum (38.04 %) towards diversity, followed by root weight (26.58%), root color (9.18%) and plant height (6.7%). as far as root weight (g) [d1], leaf weight (g), root weight (g), number of leaves, tss(°brix), leaf weight (g), root diameter (mm), core diameter (mm), and root cracking are concerned, they contributed 3.45, 2.09, 1.77, 1.71, 1.55, 1.52, 1.46, 1.33, 1.01 and 0.82 percent respectively. diversity analysis has given an indication about the genetic variation among the carrot accessions which will prove useful in selection of diverse parents in crop improvement programme. keywords: carrot, cluster analysis, genetic diversity, root weight and yield 84 manisha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 83-87, 2022 hesaraghatta, bengaluru (latitude 13°58' north and longitude 78°45' east and an altitude of 890 meters above mean sea level) during rabi, 2018. eighty accessions were used to study the genetic diversity. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with three replications and observations were recorded on a single plant basis for the following characters viz., plant height (cm), number of leaves, leaf length (cm), root length (cm), root diameter (mm), root weight (g), core diameter (mm), root core color, tss (°brix), root cracking, root color, root fresh weight (g), root dry weight (g), leaf fresh weight (g), leaf dry weight (g) and yield (t ha-1). multivariate analysis was done utilising mahalanobis d2 statistic (mahalanobis, 1936) and genotypes were grouped into different clusters following tocher’s method. results and discussion using the pivotal condensation method, the mean va lues of genotypes wer e tr a nsfor med into standardized uncorrelated mean values. the relative percent contribution of different characters included in the study towards diversity is presented in table 1 and figure 1. yield contributed maximum (38.04 %) towards diversity, followed by root weight (26.58%), root colour (9.18%) and plant height (6.77%). root fresh weight, leaf fresh weight, root dry weight, number of leaves, leaf dry weight, root length, leaf length, root diameter, core diameter and root cracking percent contribution showed 3.45,2.09,1.77,1.74,1.55, 1.52, 1.46,1.33, 1.01 and 0.82 respectively. similar finding was reported by jain et al., (2010) amin and singla (2010), nayak and nagre (2013), madavi et al., (2015), reshmika et al., (2015) tripathy et al., (2017) and tirkey et al., (2018). table 1. relative contribution of 16 characters to genetic diversity in 80 accessions of carrot sl. no. character contribution % times ranked first 1 plant height(cm) 6.77 214 2 number of leaves 1.74 55 3 leaf length 1.46 46 4 root length(cm) 1.52 48 5 root diameter(mm) 1.33 42 6 root weight(g) 26.82 840 7 core diameter(mm) 1.01 32 8 root core color 0.98 31 9 root cracking 0.82 26 10 tss(°brix) 1.71 54 11 root color 9.18 290 12 root fresh weight(g) 3.45 109 13 root dry weight(g) 1.77 56 14 leaf fresh weight(g) 2.09 66 15 leaf dry weight(g) 1.55 49 16 yield (t/ha) 38.04 1202 fig 1. per cent contribution of 16 characters towards diversity in carrot 85 genetic diversity study in tropical carrot characters group no.of list of accessionsaccessions 1 cluster 69 acc-63, acc -69, acc -163b, acc -52b, acc -148, acc -22b, acc -52c, acc -87, acc -56b, acc -77b, acc -21a, acc-72, acc -76b, acc -152b, acc -76c, acc -60a, acc -155, acc -50, acc -22a, acc -40, acc -154a, acc -140, acc -77, acc -777a, acc -21c, acc -54, acc -113a, acc 76a, acc -72, acc -76, acc -70, acc -84, acc -22d, acc -01, acc -135, acc -102, acc -135, acc -88, acc -21, acc -21b, acc -60b, acc -68, acc -106a, acc -153, acc -02, acc -77c, acc -101, acc -113b, acc -144c, acc -56, acc -146, acc -41, acc -152a, acc -145, acc -06, acc -105, acc -54b, acc -85, acc -88, acc -106b, acc -144a, acc -144b, acc 54a, acc -113b, acc -105, acc -20, acc -80, acc -164, acc -156 2 cluster 1 acc -154b 3 cluster 6 acc -52a, acc -163a, acc -51, acc -173, acc -147, acc -63 4 cluster 1 acc -75 5 cluster 1 acc -50 6 cluster 1 acc -150 7 cluster 1 acc -56a the genetic diver sity among 80 genotypes was measured by employing d2 statistics and grouped into six clusters using tocher ’s method given as by rao (1952). distribution of accessions in each cluster is presented in table 2 and figure 2. cluster i was found largest with 69 accessions followed by cluster iii comprising six accessions, cluster ii and iv, v, vi and vii comprising one accessions in each cluster. simila r genetic diver sity studies wer e carried out by many workers in this crop viz., amin et al., 2010, kumar et al., 2021 and meghashree et al., 2018. cluster mean of 16 yield and yield contributing characters were assessed and presented in table 3. along with supplementary data (table s1 and fig. s 1 ) . t he me a n c omp a r is on of t he diff er ent characters indicated considerable differences among the clusters for all the characters. maximum mean f or pla nt height wa s ob s er ved in c lus t er ii i (85.9cm) followed by cluster ii (85.1cm), while minimum cluster means of 53.8 cm were observed in cluster v. there were maximum number of leaves observed in cluster vii which recorded 18.3, followed by cluster iv which recorded 9.6, and c lu s t er i i r ec or ded a minimu m o f 6 . 5 . t he ma ximum mea n for lea f length (72.3 cm) was observed in cluster vii followed by cluster iii ( 6 9 . 5 c m) a nd minimu m mea n ( 47 . 0 c m) wa s observed in cluster v. table 2. clustering pattern of 80 accessions of carrot by d2 analysis the highest mean for the root length was recorded in cluster vii (19.3cm) followed by cluster v (16.3cm) while, lowest mean of 13.0 cm was shown by cluster vi. the highest mean for root diameter was observed in cluster vii (5.3mm) followed by cluster vi (4.7mm) while the lowest mean of 2.6 mm was shown by cluster iv. root weight recorded a maximum mean in cluster iii of 123.7g followed by cluster ii of 116.8g while the minimum mean of 33.3g was observed in cluster iv. the core diameter recorded a maximum mean in cluster vii of 3.7mm followed by ii of 2.7mm while, the minimum mean of 1.5mm was observed in cluster iv. the root core color that is self-core color was yellow (2) in cluster v followed by orange in other vi clusters. root cracking was either obsent or rarely observed in cluster v, i and cluster iii having mean 0, 0.1 and 0.6 percent respectively while other clusters was having root cracking having mean of 1.0 percent. the cluster mean observed in tss (°brix) was highest for cluster vi (14.2) followed by cluster ii (13.8) and it was lowest for genotypes under cluster vii (11.17). root color was very dark in cluster vii, iii. iv and ii having mean of 4.3, 4.0, 4.0 and 4.0 while dark orange color observed in cluster i having a mean of 3.6 and cluster vi was having orange root color with a mean of 2.0. root fresh weight recorded maximum cluster mean in cluster ii (96.6g) followed by cluster iii (95.0g) while j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 83-87, 2022 86 cluster iv depicted minimum mean of 63.3g. cluster iv recorded a maximum mean of 11.3g of root dry weight followed by 10.9 g observed in cluster iii. whereas, minimum mean of 8.0 g was observed in genotypes under cluster ii. the maximum mean for leaf fresh weight (213.3g) was observed in cluster vii followed by cluster iii (59.6g) while minimum mean of 18.5 g was observed in cluster v. with regard to leaf dry weight cluster vii recorded a maximum mean of (leaf dry weight) 40.6g followed by 14.6g observed in cluster ii while minimum mean of 2.2g was observed in genotypes under cluster v. the highest mean for yield was recorded in cluster iv (12.9t ha-1) followed by cluster vi and vii (12.0 t ha-1) while, the lowest mean of 9.0 t ha-1 was shown by cluster iii. similar reports were made by amin et al., 2010, kumar et al., 2021 and meghashree et al., 2018. based on these results, mahalanobis d2 was found t o b e a u s e f u l t ool in gr ou p ing genot yp es p henot ypic a lly a nd geogr a phica lly. f indings revealed that in carrot, there is a vast scope for developing new varieties with greater yield potential a nd t o b et t er ot her a t t r ib u t es of ec onomic importance, using this elite germplasm. in crop improvement programmes, intercrossing among genotypes with outstanding mean performance for these characters would prove to be effective. conclusion genetic divergence has been consider ed a s a n important factor in selecting the genetically diverse parents for efficient and successful hybridization programme in order to get potential transgressive segregants and also provide new recombination of genes in the gene pool. it is desirable to select genotypes from clusters showing high inter-cluster distance cluster vi (acc -150) and cluster vii (acc -56a) for further crop improvement programme. references amin, a. and singla, j. 2010. genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance studies in carrot (daucus carota var. sativa l.). electr. j. pl. breed. 1(6):1504-1508. chowdhury, m. a., vandenberg, v and warkentin, t. 2002. cultivar identification and genetic relationship among selected breeding lines and cultivars in chick pea (cicer arietinum l). euphytica. 127(3): 317-325. jain, v. p., dod, v. n., nagare, p. k. and kale, v.k. 2010. genetic va ria bility in ca r rot (daucus carota l.). tajh. 5(2):514-516. kumar, n., nigam, a. and pathak, a. k. 2021. studies on genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in some cultivated genotypes of car rot (daucus carota l.) under two different seasons. j. pharm. innov. 10(1): 324-335 madhavi, n., mishra, a.c., om prasad, j. and bahuguna n. 2015. studies on variability, heritability and genetic advance in brinjal (s o l a n u m m e l o n g e n a l . ) . pl a n t a rc h . 15(1):277-281. ma ha lonobis, p. c . 193 6. on the gener a liz ed distance in statistics. proc. natl. acad. sci. 2:55-79. meghashree, j.r, hanchinamani, c.n, hadimani, h.p, sandhyarani, n., ramanagouda, s.h. a nd c ha nd r a ka nt , k . 2 0 1 8 . g enet ic variability studies for different attributes in carrot genotypes (daucus carota l.) under k ha r if s ea son. int. j. curr. microbiol. 7(12):3419-3426. n a ya k, b. r a nd n a gr e, p. k . 2 0 1 3. g enet ic variability and correlation studies in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). int. j appl. biol. & pharmaceut. technol. 4(4):211-215. rao, c.r. 1952. advanced statistical methods in biometrical research. johan willy and sons. new york. reshmika, p.k., gasti, v.d., evoor, s., jayappa, j.and mujge, r. 2015. genetic variability studies for gr owth, ea r lines s, yield a nd qu a lity pa r a met er s in br inja l (so lan um melongena l.). ecol. environ 33(2):761766. rubatzky, v.e., quiros c.f. and simon p.w.1999. carrots and related vegetable umbelliferae. cabi, new york manisha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 83-87, 2022 87 genetic diversity study in tropical carrot j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 83-87, 2022 simon, p.w, freeman, r.e, vieira, j.v, boiteux, l.s, briard, m, nothnagel, t, michalik, m. and kwon, y.s. 2008. carrot. in: prohens j, n uez f ( eds ) veget a bles i i : f a ba c ea e, liliaceae, solanaceae, a nd umbellifera e. handbook of plant breeding, vol 2. springer, new york, pp 327–357. tirkey, m., saravana, s. and puspa lata. 2018. studies on variability, heritability and genetic advance for yield and its attributes in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). j. pharmacogn. phytochem. 1181-1183. tripa thy, b., dha na njay, s., jangde, b.p. and bairwa, p.l. 2017. genetic variability and her ita bility studies in br inja l (so lan um melongena l.). j. pharmacogn. phytochem. 10:109-116. (received: 25.03.2022; revised: 19.05.2022; accepted 07.06.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf 49 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 49-53, 2017 effect of n and k fertilizers on growth, yield and quality of pear (pyrus pyrifolia) pps gill, sharanjit kaur and navprem singh punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141004, india, department of fruit science pau ludhiana, punjab, india 141 004 e-mail: parmpalgill@pau.edu abstract the effect of different combined doses of n and k fertilizers on plant growth, fruit quality and foliar elemental composition of pear cv. patharnakh was investigated. experimental plants were supplied with different levels of n (460, 690 and 920 g n /plant) and k (600, 900, 1200 and 1500 g k2o/plant) in the form of urea and muriate of potash (mop) fertilizers. from the results, it was found that nitrogen application increased number of fruits/plant, trunk cross-sectional area (tcsa), shoot length and leaf n content, whereas, k application improved fruit firmness, total soluble solids (tss), and leaf k content. fruits harvested from t4 (460 g n:1500 g k2o /plant) treatment recorded maximum firmness. plants under t9 (920 g n: 600 g k2o /plant) treatment showed the maximum increase in shoot length, and tcsa, whereas, t6 (690 g n : 900 g k2o /plant) resulted in maximum fruit yield. leaf n and k concentrations improved with applications of the respective fertilizer. keywords: pear, fertilization, growth, fruit quality, leaf nutrient content introduction among temperate fruits grown in north western sub-tropics of india, pear occupies maximum acreage with ‘patharnakh’ as the leading cultivar due to its high yield potential. however, fully grown-up plants of this cultivar show variability in fruit yield with small sized fruits which fetch poor market price. improving the marketable yield of good quality fruits has always been a challenge for growers. balanced nutrition of plants along with good cultural practices can help in improving quality fruit with high yields. nitrogen is one of the most important elements for high productivity and growth of fruit plants (titus and kang, 1982) and also promotes fruit and seed development (marschner, 1995). similarly, potassium is considered as a quality improving element in fruit crops. imbalanced use of nutrients or widespread use of n fertilizers alone leads to poor quality of fruits (ganeshamurthy et al, 2011). high rates of n can be utilized by plant only in the presence of required k levels. similarly, potassium (k) is the most aboundant nutrient in the fruit, where it influences the size, firmness, skin color, tss and acidity (brunetto et al, 2015). however, little information is available on the effect of combined application of nitrogen and potassium fertilizers on yield and quality in sub-tropical pears (gill et al, 2012). keeping in view the above, the present experiment was designed to study the effect of different combined doses of n and k fertilizers on growth, fruit yield and fruit quality and leaf nutrient content of patharnakh pear plants. material and methods the present research was carried out at fruit research farm and leaf analysis laboratory of t he d ep a r t ment of f r u it s c ien c e, p u nja b agricultural university, ludhiana during the year 2013-14. the study was conducted on commercially bearing patharnakh pear plants grafted on kainth (pyrus pashia), spaced at a distance of 7x7 m. the experiment was laid out in randomized block d es ign ( r b d ) a nd a ll t he t r ea t ment s wer e replicated thrice. plants were applied with different combined doses of n (urea) as n1460, n2690 and n3-920 g/plant and k (mop) , as k1-600, k2900, k31200 and k4-1500 g k2o/plant. twelve fertilizers combinations include: t1n1k1, t2-n1k2, original research paper 50 table 1. effect of different combined doses of n and k fertilization on fruit yield, number of fruits, increase in tcsa and increase in shoot length of pear cv. patharnakh j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 49-53, 2017 gill et al t3-n1k3, t4-n1k4, t5-n2k1, t6-n2k2, t7-n2k3, t8n2k4, t9-n3k1, t10-n3k2, t11-n3k3 and t12-n3k4. potash fertilizer was applied in december while nitrogen was applied in two split doses; before and after fruit set. a uniform dose of 320 g of p2o5 using single super phosphate (ssp) was applied to all experimental trees. fruit yield per plant was calculated as the average weight of fruits multiplied by the number of fruits and expressed in kg per plant. number of fruits per plant at harvest time were manually counted. the annual increase in t c s a ( c m) wa s r ec or ded wit h t he help of measuring tape at the height of 15 cm above the graft union. for determination of an increase in shoot length, four shoots were tagged around the plant in the dormant season. the increase in shoot length wa s mea s ur ed using a mea sur ing ta p e in the following dormant season and expressed in cm. at harvest, ten randomly selected fruits from each treatment were weighed on the electronic balance and expressed as mean fruit weight in ‘g’. tss ( 0br ix) wa s estima t ed with ha nd held digit a l refractometer (atago, pal -1, japan). titratable acidity (ta) (%) of juice wa s determined by titrating against 0.1 n naoh using phenolphthalein as an indicator. fruit firmness (lbf) was measured with stand mounted penetrometer (model ft-327, usa) as the maximum force required to plunge a spher ical tip into the peeled skin of fruit. for estimation of nutrient content, leaf samples were collected in the month of july, washed with tap water and 0.1 n hcl, rinsed with distilled water, and dried in an oven at 60oc for 72 hours. the dried samples were ground and stored in butter paper bags for further a na lysis of nutrients. for nitrogen estimation kel plus nitrogen estimation system (pelican equipments, india) was used. phosphorus was estimated by vanado-molybdo phosphoric yellow colour method as described by chapman and pratt (1961) and expressed as %. for determination of leaf k%, the flame photometer method (aoac, 1990) was followed. statistical analysis of the experimental data was done using statistical package sas 9.3 (the sas s ys tem for windows, ver sion 9 . 3 , s as institute, cary, nc). data was analyzed for analysis of va ria nce (anova) using the fischer lsd (p<0.05) for significant difference test. results and discussion differ ent combined doses of n a nd k significantly affected the fruit yield of pear plants (table 1). the highest fruit yield was recorded in the t6 (n2k2) treatment which registered a value of 94.5 and 101.2 kg/plant during the years 2013 and 2014, respectively. at higher levels of n, the high yield might be due to increased availability and uptake of nutrients 51 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 49-53, 2017 effect of n and k on pear (dhillon et al, 2011). the minimum fruit yield of 75.3 kg/plant during the year 2013 was recorded from plants under t12 treatment, while, for the year 2014, it was 78.9 kg /plant in t1 (n1k1) treatment. the intermediate levels of n and k dose resulted in better fruit yield of pear plants as compared to lower and higher levels of n and k fertilizers. number of fruits per plant varied with different combined doses of n and k. treatment t10 (n3k2) recorded the maximum of 643 and 691 fruits per plant, whereas, a minimum of 547 and 560 fruits/plant was registered for treatment t8 (n2k4) during the year 2013 and 2014, respectively (table 1). higher dose of n contributes to the greater number of fruits per plant (dhillon et al, 2011). the effect of n and k applications on tcsa is presented in table 1. the maximum increase in tcsa (2.25 cm) of plants was registered in fertilizer combination of the highest dose of n and the lowest dose of k, whereas, minimum tcsa (1.29 cm) was observed for t4 treatment. the maximum increase in shoot length (14.58 cm) during table 2. effect of different combined doses of n and k fertilization on fruit weight, tss, ta and fruit firmness of pear cv. patharnakh table 3. effect of different combined doses of n and k fertilization on leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content of pear cv. patharnakh 52 gill et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 49-53, 2017 the year 2013 was observed for t9 (n3k1) and was statistically at par with treatments t10, t11 and t12 (table 1). similarly, bennewitz et al (2011) reported that potassium application did not have a significant effect on the trunk cross-sectional area of apple trees. however, kumar and chandel (2004) reported that the girth of pear tree cv. red bartlet was significantly increased by both nitrogen and potassium application. higher doses of n resulted in an increase in shoot length, whereas, with the higher dose of k, a slow increment in shoot length was recorded. similar observation of an increase in lateral and terminal shoots of pear was reported by yadav and bist, 2003. fruit weight was significantly affected by dosage of applied n and k fertilizers (table 2). maximum fruit weight of 155.7g and 150.2g was recorded for treatment t7 (n2k3) during the year 2013 and 2014, respectively. increased fruit size in guava fruits with potassium applications was also reported by gill and bal (2010). plants applied with n3k2 fertilizer combination registered minimum fruit weight of 133.7 g during 2013, whereas, for the year 2014, the minimum fruit weight (131.7 g) was observed for t9. different nutrient levels of n and k significantly affected tss content with the maximum of 13.48% registered for treatment t4 (n1k4) during the year 2013, while during following year, fruits from treatment t 3 (n1k3) registered maximum (12.77%) tss content (table 2). similar increase in tss with potassium application was observed in patharnakh pear fruit (prasad et al, 2015). minimum tss content of 11.14% and 11.23% was recorded in t9 (n3k1) treatment during the year 2013 and 2014, respectively. maximum tss was recorded in the fruits of plants applied with the lowest dose of n and higher dose of k. fruits from higher n dose rate had lower soluble solids content in apple cv. ‘golden delicious’ (raese et al, 2007). during the year 2013, ta of fruit juice showed a declining trend with an increase in levels of n and k fertilizers (table 2). raese et al (2007) reported similar results of decreased acid content with increasing n dose in apple. maximum fruit juice acidity recorded for the year 2013 and 2014 was 0.352% and 0.360%, respectively for t1 (n1k1) treatment wherein the applied dosage of n and k was minimum. during 2013, minimum fruit firmness of 14.83 lbf was recorded in plants with the highest dose of n and the lowest dose of k while, during the year 2014 it was recorded as 15 lbf for treatment t 5 (n2k1) treatment. similar decrease in fruit firmness with higher doses of n was reported by okamoto et al (2001). in contrast, maximum fruit firmness of 17.14 lbf and 16.8 lbf, during 2013 and 2014 respectively, was retained by fruits harvested from t4 (n1k4) treatment. a linear increase in fruit firmness with increase in dose of k in combination with different n doses was observed (table 2). a similar increase was observed by gill et al (2012). the effect of n and k fertilizer combinations on leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content of pear cv. patharnakh is presented in table 3. it was observed that the highest dose of n in combination with the lowest dose of k resulted in maximum leaf n content (2.14%). the minimum content of leaf n (1.83%) was recorded for treatment t4 (n1k4) which is a combination of lowest n and highest k dose. higher rates of n fertilizer frequently increased concentrations of leaf n in ‘fuji’ apples (raese and drake, 1997). maximum leaf phosphorus content (0.130%) was observed in the leaf of plants treated with t4 (n1k4) treatment. the highest dose of k result in high potassium content (1.31%) of leaf in treatment t8 (n2k4) and the minimum (0.91%) was recorded in t1 (n1k1) treated plant leaves, where k dosage applied was lowest. the higher leaf n and k contents may be due to enhanced accumulation and translocation of nitrogen (walsch et al, 1989) and potassium (smith, 1962) under higher supply from roots to leaves. thus, it can be concluded that application of 690g of nitrogen and 900g of k2o was effective in improving fruit yield and quality of pear cv. patharnakh. 53 a.o.a.c. 1990. official and tentative methods of analysis. in: association of official agric chemists. 15th eds., washington, dc, usa bennewitz,c.v., cooper,t., benavides, c.,losak, j. and hlusek, j 2011. response of ‘junagold’ apple trees to ca, k and mg fertilization in an andisol in south chile. j soil sci. and plant nutri., 11: 71-81 brunetto, g., melo, g.w.b.d., toselli, m., quartieri, m. and tagliavini, m. 2015. the role of mineral nutrition on yields and fruit quality in grapevine, pear and apple. rev. bras. frutic., 37:1089-1104 chapman, h.d. and pratt, p.f. 1961. methods of analysis for soils, plants and water. university of california, division of agriculture science, berkeley, usa dhillon, w.s., gill, p.p.s. and singh, n.p. 2011. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilization on growth, yield and quality of pomegranate ‘kandhari’. acta hort., 890:327-332 ganeshamurthy, a.n., satisha, g.c. and patil, p. 2011. potassium nutrition on yield and quality of fruit crops with special emphasis on banana and grapes. karnataka j. agric. sci., 24:29-38 gill, p.p.s. and bal, j.s. 2010. effect of pre-harvest applications of nutrient and growth regulators on quality of sardar guava. haryana j. hort. sci. 39 : 193-194 gill, p.p.s., ganaie, m.y., dhillon, w.s. and singh, n.p. 2012. effect of foliar sprays of potassium on fruit size and quality of ‘patharnakh’ pear. ind. j. hort., 69:512-516 kumar, j. and chandel, j. s. 2004. effect of different levels of n, p and k on growth and yield of pear cv. red bartlett. prog. hort., 36: 202-206 references marschner, h. 1995. mineral nutrition of higher plants. 2nd (eds.). academic press, london, pp 889 okamoto, g., jia, h., kitamura, a. and hirano, k. 2001. effect of different fertilizer application levels on texture of ‘hakuho’ peach (prunus persica batsch). j. jpn. soc. hortic. sci., 70:533-538 prasad b., dimri, d.c. and bora, l. 2015. effect of pre-harvest foliar spray of calcium and potassium on fruit quality of pear cv. pathernakh. scientific research and essays, 10:376-380 raese, j.t. and drake, s.r. 1997. nitrogen fertilization and elemental composition effects fruit quality of ‘fuji’ apples. j. plant nutr., 20:1797-1809 raese, j.t., drake, s.r. and curry, e.a. 2007. nitrogen fertilizers influences fruit quality, soil nutrients and cover crops, leaf colour and nitrogen content, biennial bearing and cold hardiness of golden delicious. j. plant nutr., 30:1585-1604 smith, c. b. 1962. mineral analysis of plant tissues. plant physiol., 13: 81-108. titus, j.s. and kang, s.m. 1982. nitrogen metabolism, translocation, and recycling in apple plants. hort. rev., 4:204-246 walsch, c.s., allnutt, f.j., miller, a.n. and thompson, a.h. 1989. nitrogen level and time of mechanized summer shearing influence long term performance of a high density red skin peach orchard. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 114: 373-377 yadav, a. and bist, l.d. 2003. effect of nitrogen on shoot growth, flowering, fruiting and fruit quality in pear cv. bagugosha. ind. j. hort., 60:40-44 (ms received 04 january 2017, revised 05 april 2017, accepted 27 may 2017) effect of n and k on pear j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 49-53, 2017 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf 91 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 91-96, 2018 short communication studies on factors influencing the vegetative propagation in walnut (juglans regia l. ) s. r. singh*, n. ahmed, k. k. srivastava and p. a. shagoo central institute of temperate horticulture, k. d. farm, old air field, p. o. rangreth srinagar, j&k 190 007, india *e-mail: srajparmar@gmail.com abstract the experiment was carried out to examine the effect ofdifferent status of physiologically resting scion wood,environment and grafting time for maximum graft success in walnut. three status of physiologically resting scion wood (apical, subapical and basal), were subjected to grafting on four different grafting time (15th february, 1st march, 15th march and 1st april)placed under three environmental conditions(open field,poly trench and polyhouse).sub-apical portion of resting scion wood resulted in highest sprouting, graft success and plant growth, whereas grafting on 15th march manifested highest graft success. poly house environmental conditions recorded maximum grafting success and plant growth. sub apical status of scion wood with 15th march grafting under poly house conditions recorded highest sprouting, graft success and plant growth of walnut and found ideal for clonal propagation of walnut. keywords: juglans regia l, physiologically resting scion, environmental conditions, grafting time introduction wa lnu t ( j u gl a n s reg i a l . )is one of t he important temperate nut fruit praised for its high proteins, fiber, vitamin-b, minerals and anti-oxidants such as vitamin e and omega-3 fatty acids which helps in lowering the cholesterol levels in human body. due to higher dema nd in domestic a nd international market it plays an important role in national economy with earnings of more than rs. 300 crores annually by exporting to more than 44 countries of the world. most of the walnut orchards of the country are seedling origin and growers are facing the problems of low price of their produce due to the large variability in quality, color, shape and size of nuts and kernels. besides long juvenile period,low productivity and unmanageable size of these plantations are a great concern for walnut growing community of the nation. thus varieties with high nutritive values with superior quality and yield have to be propagated, to make our walnut industry competitive in the international market. the clonal propagation of walnut is a difficult process due to low rate of callus formation in this fruit species (kruniyuki and ford, 1985). this is due to the p r es enc e of high c onc ent r a t ion of p henolic compounds in its tissues and their oxidation by wounding (rangting and pinghai, 1993, coggeshall and beineke,1997).different degree of success in walnut propagation has been achieved by different propa ga tion techniques throughout wor ld with repeatable results at different places (gandev,2007). var ious fa ctors like, envir onmenta l condition, physiological status of scion wood and time of gr a f t ing a ff ec t gr a f t s u c c es s ( g a ndev, 2007).optimum temperature for maximum graft success is 26-27oc (langerstedt, 1979., millikean, 1984) with 80-85% humidity. in walnut grafting, scion woods are prepared from resting single shoots by sectioning the different physiological positions i.e. apical, sub-apical and basal portion. nutrient contents especially carbon nitrogen ratio plays an important role in callusing and union of scion and rootstock of a plant, which varied at different p or t ion even in sa me s c ion shoots . op t ima l carbohydrate helps in new callus development and gr a f t su ccess , wher ea s su pr a opt ima l a mou nt restricts the activities of new callus generation. on other hand optimal threshold of nitrogen is essential for a protein and nucleic acid synthesis which is an essential constituent for cell r egener ation and callusing. thus standardization of ideal physiological 92 resting status of scion wood, optimum environment, and time of grafting is of most importance for maximum graft success of walnut for a particular region. keeping in view the above facts, an attempt has been made to find out the ideal physiological status of resting of scion woods, environmental conditions and grafting time for maximum graft success of walnut. t he ex p e r iment wa s c ond u c t ed a t experimental farm of central institute of temperate horticulture, rangreth, srinagar (j&k) in three factor factorial randomized block designs with three replications.geographic position of the experimental site lies between latitude of 340 05 n and longitude of 74050 e at an altitude of 1640 m above the sea level. t he a ver a ge ma ximu m 19 . 6 3 æ%c a nd minimum 6.52 æ%c temperature, amount of rainfall 1 6 0 . 7 2 mm a nd r ela t ive hu midit y 58 . 3 5 % , evapora tion 2. 45 mm wa s recor ded dur ing the experimentation. there were three physiological status of resting scion wood (apical, subapical and basal), three environmental conditions (open field, poly trench and polyhouse),with four grafting times (15th february, 1st march, 15th march and 1st april). two years old seedling rootstock of juglans regia l. with uniform growth and thickness (1.5-2.0 cm in diameter at 15 cm above the ground level) were selecting for wedge grafting. 400 alkathine strips were used as tying material of graft union which has specialties of gas exchange for respiration but conserves the moisture to keep tissues live for long time. physiologically resting scion woods (apical, sub-apical and basal), taken from one year old shoots with four to five dormant buds were used for wedge grafting. the male flower(catkins) buds were removed at the time of grafting to avoid the loss of nutrient reserves from the scion wood. 100 p la nt s wer e u s ed f or ea c h t r ea t ment . t he exper imenta l a r ea wa s pr ovided with unifor m cultural operations. the temperature under poly house and poly trench was maintained at (25+2oc) with intermittent misting and using 50% shade net during extreme temperature , which also helped in maintaining the humidity level to more than 80%. sprouting percentage was recorded after 45 days of grafting, whereas graft success percentage, plant height and number of leaves/plant were recorded when plants started recessing their growth at the end of growing season. the pooled data of two years was analyzed as method suggested by gomez and gomez (1984) using r software. physiological status of resting scion wood significantly influenced sprouting percentage, graft success a nd pla nt growth irr espective of other factors. subapical portion of resting scion recorded highest sprouting per centage (68.56), gra fting success (56.39%) and plant height (154.86 cm) and number of leaves per plant (121.61). this may be due to better c/n ratio, which is responsible for ma x imum pa r enc hyma cell pr olifer a t ion a nd intermingling of union, which ultimately resulted in better graft union and plant growth (hartmann et al. , 1997). differ ent environmental conditions significantly influenced the graft sprouting, graft success and plant growth success. environment in polyhouse recorded highest sprouting (65.50 %) graft success (54.46%) plant height ( 168.75 cm) and number of leaves per plant (120.06 ) closely followed by poly trench with 61.94% sprouting, 52.17% graft success, 145.56 cm plant height and 119.19 leaves per plant. maximum graft success under polyhouse conditions may be due to the congenial temperature (25+2) and humidity 80-90 % which helps in new pa r enchyma tous ca llus p r olif er a t i on b et ween r oot s t oc k a nd s c ion (hartmann et al.,1997). the active callus formation b et ween r o ot s t oc k a nd s c ion in wa lnu t is temperature specific. grafting time significantly affected the graft sprouting success, graft success and plant growth. g r a f t ing on 1 5 th m a r c h r ec or ded ma x imu m sprouting 71.10% irrespective of other factors. this might due to rapid regeneration cambium tissues of scion and rootstock and their intermingling with a c t iva t ion of s c ion a nd r oot s t o c k on idea l temperature (25+2 oc) which occurs from second for tnight of ma r ch in polyhouse. results a r e corroborative with the findings of porebsiki et al. 2002. interaction effect of physiologically resting scion and grafting time significantly influenced the graft success and plant growth. sub-apical scion with 15th march grafting recorded highest sprouting (80.55%), graft success (64.62%) plant height (171.17cm)and number of leaves /plant (147.67). this may be due to better c/n ratio in sub-apical vegetative propagation in walnut j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 91-96, 2018 93 scion which permits ma ximum r egenera tion of parenchymatous cells in the graft union. interaction of environment and grafting time influenced the graft sprouting percentage graft success and plant growth significantly. highest sprouting (76.48%) graft success (61.80%) was r ec or ded wit h 1 5 t h m a r c h u nder p ol yhou s e conditions. however, maximum plant height (188.94 cm) and maximum number of leaves per pla nt (144.33) was found under open field which was grafted on 15th march and poly trench grafted on 15th of march respectively (table 2). this may be due to naturally active state of scion and stock tissues especially cambium during this period with the ideal temperature and humidity under polyhouse, which permits maximum regeneration of cells in cambium region and maintain their high degree of hydration level resulting the high graft success by permitting the active graft area for large period. these are inconformity with the finding of ebrahimi et al., 2006 who obtained better success under polyhouse condition in walnut grafting. interaction effect of environment conditions and physiological status of resting scion on graft s u c c es s a nd p la nt gr owt h wa s s t a t is t ic a lly significant. sub-apical scion wood recorded highest graft sprouting and success under all environmental conditions. interaction effect of physiological status of scion, environment conditions and grafting time on graft success and plant growth was significant. sub-apical scion under polyhouse condition grafted on 15th march recorded highest sprouting 88.33%, graft success 70.85%, plant height 195.33 cm and number of leaves per plant 174.83. this may be due to better carbohydrate and nitrogen ratio and ideal bud maturity in sub-apical portion of scion, active cell regeneration stage in mid of march, c ondu c ive t emp er a t u r e a nd hu mi dit y u nder polyhouse environment which activates maximum pa r enchyma cell of c a mbiu m la yer a t higher humidity resulting in better union in scion and rootstock and higher growth (bayazit et al. 2005). t he r esults ar e inconfor mity with findings of (ozakan and giimmis 2001). sub-apical status of resting scion wood grafted on 15th of march under polyhouse condition recorded highest success and p la nt gr owt h. t he s t u dies c u lmi na t ed wit h standardization of protocol for clonal propagation of walnut. singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 91-96, 2018 scion type x grafting time sprouting (%) graft success ( % ) plant height (cm ) number of leaves/plant apical x 15th feb 47.40 43.50 132.61 98.39 apical x 1st march 60.37 51.04 144.78 110.39 apical x 15th march 65.18 53.94 154.67 117.61 apical x 1st april 52.59 46.52 146.06 111.56 sub-apical x15th feb 58.89 50.17 143.00 105.22 sub-apical x1st march 71.85 58.14 152.00 115.61 sub-apical x15th march 80.55 64.62 171.17 147.67 sub-apical x1st april 62.96 52.67 153.28 117.94 basal x15th feb 49.26 44.58 144.44 110.11 basal x1st march 60.00 50.84 153.22 116.39 basal x15th march 67.59 55.43 165.50 134.44 basal x1st april 52.59 46.53 149.33 112.17 sem +_ 1.34 0.81 1.68 1.59 cd p= (0.05) 4.03 2.44 5.03 4.78 table 1. interaction effect of physiologically resting scions and grafting times on graft success and plant growth of walnut. 94 environment x scion status sprouting ( %) graft success ( % ) plant height ( cm ) number of leaves/plant poly trench x apical scion 57.10 49.66 123.79 111.00 poly trench x sub apical scion 70.41 57.47 131.92 127.71 poly trench x basal scion 57.50 49.39 131.88 121.46 open field x apical 50.97 45.57 159.29 111.21 open field x sub – apical 61.94 52.03 173.63 122.50 open field x basal 51.66 45.98 173.33 123.88 poly house x apical 60.28 51.01 150.50 106.25 poly house x sub – apical 73.33 59.70 159.03 114.63 poly house x basal 62.91 52.67 154.17 109.50 sem +_ 1.16 0.70 1.68 1.59 cd p= (0.05) 3.49 2.11 5.03 4.78 table 2. interaction effect of environment and of physiologically resting scions on graft success and plant growth of walnut vegetative propagation in walnut j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 91-96, 2018 interaction effect of sprouting (%) graft success (%) plant height (cm) number leaves/plant environment and grafting time poly trench x15th feb 52.22 46.31 119.06 109.00 poly trench x1st march 67.22 55.24 128.00 117.50 poly trench x15th march 72.59 58.79 146.00 144.33 poly trench x1st april 55.74 48.35 123.72 109.39 open field x15th feb 48.33 44.03 152.78 102.39 open field x1st march 57.22 49.20 166.94 116.89 open field x15th march 64.26 53.40 188.94 138.50 open field x1st april 49.63 44.79 166.33 119.00 poly house x15th feb 55.00 47.91 148.22 102.33 poly house x1st march 67.77 55.57 155.06 108.00 poly house x15th march 76.48 61.80 156.39 116.89 poly house x1st april 62.77 52.57 158.61 113.28 sem +_ 1.34 0.81 1.94 1.84 cd p= (0.05) 4.03 2.44 5.81 5.52 table3.interaction effects of environmental conditions and grafting time on sprouting (%), graft success (%), plant height (cm) and number of leaves per plant. 95 singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 91-96, 2018 table 4.interaction effect of physiologically resting scions, environmental conditions and grafting times on sprouting,graft success and plant growth of walnut. treatments sprouting (%) graft success(%) plant height (cm) number of leaves/plant apical scion x poly trench x 15th feb 46.11 42.76 137.83 97.50 apical scion x poly trench x 1st march 65.55 54.09 152.33 109.33 apical scion x poly trench x 15th march 68.33 55.84 152.83 124.33 apical scion x poly trench x 1st april 51.66 45.96 158.00 113.66 sub-apical scion x poly trench x 15th feb 61.66 51.79 150.33 101.66 sub-apical scion x poly trench x 1st march 74.44 59.83 157.00 118.33 sub-apical scion x poly trench x 15th march 81.66 65.08 171.16 145.83 sub-apical scion x poly trench x 1st april 63.88 53.15 157.66 124.16 basal scion x poly trench x 15th feb 48.88 44.37 156.50 108.00 basal scion x poly trench x 1st march 61.66 51.79 155.83 123.00 basal scion x poly trench x 15th march 67.77 55.41 144.16 145.33 basal scion x poly trench x 1st april 51.66 45.95 160.16 119.16 apical scion x open field x 15th feb 45.55 42.42 118.16 104.66 apical scion x open field x 1st march 52.77 46.59 123.50 107.00 apical scion x open field x 15th march 59.44 50.49 131.66 112.00 apical scion x open field x 1st april 46.11 42.76 120.83 113.00 sub-apical x open field x 15th feb 53.33 46.91 120.66 107.83 sub-apical x open field x 1st march 65.55 54.09 132.16 111.00 sub-apical x open field x 15th march 71.66 57.91 147.00 122.33 sub-apical x open field x 1st april 57.22 49.18 127.83 117.33 basal scion x open field x 1st feb 46.12 42.76 118.33 106.16 basal scion x open field x 1st march 53.33 46.92 128.33 106.00 basal scion x open field x 15th march 61.66 51.79 159.33 116.33 basal scion x open field x 1st april 45.55 42.43 121.50 109.50 apical scion x polyhouse x 15th feb 50.55 45.32 141.83 107.56 apical scion x polyhouse x 1st march 62.77 52.43 158.50 114.83 apical scion x polyhouse x 15th march 67.77 55.48 178.50 116.50 apical scion x polyhouse x 1st april 59.99 50.82 158.33 108.00 sub-apical x polyhouse x 15th feb 61.66 51.79 158.00 106.16 sub-apical x polyhouse x 1st march 75.55 60.48 166.83 117.50 sub-apical x polyhouse x 15th march 88.32 70.85 195.33 174.83 sub-apical x polyhouse x 1st april 67.77 55.67 174.33 112.33 basal scion x polyhouse x 1st feb 52.77 46.61 158.50 116.16 basal scion x polyhouse x 1st march 64.99 53.81 175.50 120.16 basal scion x polyhouse x 15th march 73.33 59.06 193.00 141.66 basal scion x polyhouse x 1st april 60.55 51.21 166.33 107.83 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(ms received 19 september 2016, revised 20 march 2018, accepted 21 april 2018) final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 206-214, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench] also known as bhendi or lady’s finger is an important vegetable crop in india, west africa, south africa, brazil, usa and turkey. it belongs to the family malvaceae a nd is mainly gr own in tropics and subtropics of the world (priyavathi et al. 2018). the total okra production in the world was found to be 9.8 million-ton pods with an area of around 2.0 million ha and in india it is 6.1 million ton with an area of around 5.14 lakhs ha followed by nigeria (faostat, 2018). the chromosome number is reported variously for this species as 2n=130 and also 2n=72, invariably the chromosome number was found to be 2n=130 with the genome size of 1.6 gb (joshi and hardas 1956). it was reported that there are two kinds of a. esculentus l. as diploid 2n=60-70 and as a tetraploids 2n=120130, this could be due to ir r egula rities in the chromosome movement during the cell division of mitotic phase (nwangburuka et al. 2011). further this polyploidy level was assessed through the chloroplast dna (cpdna) intronic spacer and revealed that a. esculentus are the closest relatives of two wild species that is a. ficulneus and a. moschatus (ramya and bhat 2012). molecular markers have paved way for the assessment of genetic variations and genetic relationships among and within the species (chakravarthi and naravaneni 2006; yuan et al. 2014, 2015). molecular marker techniques like rflp, rapd, aflp and ssr are ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m.1,3, pitchaimuthu m.2 and ravishankar k.v.1* 1division of basic sciences, 2division of vegetable crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post bangalore 560089, india 3department of biotechnology, centre for post-graduate studies, jain university, bangalore, india *corresponding author email : kv_ravishankar@yahoo.co.in, ravishankar.kv@icar.gov.in abstract okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench] also known as bhindi or lady’s finger is an important vegetable crop in india, west africa, south africa, brazil, usa and turkey. it belongs to the family malvaceae. okra is mainly grown in tropics and subtropics of the world. the studies regarding the molecular marker development are very limited; still there is no ssr marker development from comprehensive transcriptome data in this crop. this study presents the first comprehensive transcriptome data, using rna from different parts of okra such as root, stem, leaf, bud, flower, different stages of developing pod and from twenty days old plantlets of heat, drought and salt stressed. a total of 10,492 ssrs were identified in this study. among these tri repeats (2112) were found to be predominant followed by di (1285), tetra (149), penta (24) and hexa repeats. thirty-four ssrs were standardized for pcr and screened in 36 okra genotypes and accessions. among these, 18 ssr primers were found to be highly polymorphic with the pic values more than 0.5. and the overall results of analysis showed that expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.125 to 0.971 with a mean of 0.593; the values for observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.000 to 0.839 with the mean of 0.203; the number of allele per locus ranged from 1 to 30 and the polymorphic information content (pic) ranged from 0.119 to 0.955 with the mean value of 0.554. the genic ssr markers developed will help in germplasm characterization mapping, genetic diversity studies, molecular assisted breeding and also in gene discovery. key words: abelmoschus esculentus, microsatellite markers, next generation sequencing, rna sequencing and transcriptome introduction 207 ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 206-214, 2021 widely used for genetic characterization and crop improvement (sawadogo et al. 2009). especially in the less researched species, transcriptome analysis plays a vital role for the development of molecular markers (strickler et al. 2012). recently, the first report on genomic ssr marker in okra were developed using next-generation sequencing technology (ngs) which wa s used for the a ssessment of genetic r ela tedness a nd cr oss species tr a nsfer a bility (ravishankar et al. 2018). ssr markers play a key role in many applications of plant genetics and breeding due to its codominant inheritance, multiallelic nature, high reproducibility and good genome coverage (bertini et al. 2006). there are some studies reported on ssr developed using transcriptome through ngs in okra (schafleitner et al. 2013; zhang et al. 2017) and transcriptome data on m. balbisiana and m. acuminate ssp. using illumina ga ii x technology (ravishankar et al. 2015). with the advent of sequencing technology, rna sequencing has become an efficient and convenient technique for the ssr detection (ronoh et al. 2018; xu et al. 2017). however, these studies used transcriptome from one or very few tissues, which may not completely cover genic ssrs in the okra genome. keeping this in view in this study, we present the first comprehensive characterization of combined okra transcriptome from root, stem, leaf, bud and flower, different stages of developing pods and from the abiotic stressed plantlets (drought, heat and salt). here we also report ssr markers which would greatly help in mapping genes and linkage map development. materials and methods plant material and dna isolation thirty-six okra genotypes including, a few varieties from germplasm collection were used in this study (table 1). young leaves were collected from the okra plants which were maintained at indian council of agricultural researchindian institute of horticultural research bengaluru india (icar-iihr), and the total genomic dna was isolated by using the modified ctab method (ravishankar et al. 2000) with the repetition of chloroform: isoamylalcohol (24:1) for three to five times till the mucilage was removed. finally. sdna concentration was determined using nano drop (nabi micro digita l) by taking the absorption at 260 and 280nm. rna isolation and sequencing for the transcriptome sequencing we isolated rna from tissues of root, stem, leaf, bud, flower, different stages of developing pod and from twenty days old seedlings were stressed for heat (400c for 4h), salt (200mm nacl) for two days and drought (five days of dehydration) of accession iihr-299 using by trizol method where 30 mg of the sample were ground into fine powder using liquid nitrogen and 1ml of trizol (takara bio inc. japan) was added to it and centr ifuged a t 12, 500 r pm for 20 min, to the supernatant equal amount of chloroform was added and centrifuged at 12,500 rpm for 15 min and equal amount of isopropanol was added to the supernatant a nd precipita ted at -80 0c for 1hr followed by centrifugation at 12,500 rpm for 15 min and the pellet was washed using 75% ethanol and dried pellet was dissolved using depc water and the rna integrity was examined by gel electrophoresis. rna purity was examined using nano drop (nabi micro digital) and the equal amount of rna from each samples were pooled and sent for rna sequencing. sequencing, quality control and de novo assembly rnaseq was done at sandoor speciality diagnostics pvt. ltd. hyderabad facility using illumina hiseq table 1. genotypes and the accessions used in the study genotypes /accessions 1. pule vimukha 2. azad bendi 3. punjab 7 4. kashi kranthi 5. varsha upahar 6. parbhani kranthi 7. kashi leela 8. pusa sawani 9. shakthi 10. punjab padmini 11. azad bendi 3 12. kashi vibhuthi 13. ic-0600808 14. ic-0602363 15. ic-0128888 16. ic-0282274 17. ic-0469655 18. ic-0043752 19. ic-0282266 20. ic-0128903 21. ic-0128885 22. ic-0085595 23. ic-0397980 24. ic-0282296 25. ic-0282232 26. ic-0128891 27. ic-0069242 28. ic-0433743 29. ic-0069302 30. ic-0433628 31. ic-0043750 32. ic-0600832 33. ic-0397271 34. ic-0560493 35. ic-0282233 36. ic-0600256 208 gayathri et al platform following manufactures instructions. paired end cdna library are from the pooled sample (root, stem, leaf, bud, flower, different parts of developing pods, drought stress, heat stress and salt stress plantlets) to get comprehensive okra transcriptome. then quality control were carried out to filter out the adaptors low quality reads >20% of bases and the unknown nucleotides with >5% reads. the clean reads was used for calculating the proportion of nucleotides with quality value larger than 20 (q20). de-novo assembly was done using trinity software assembly with the default parameters for generating contigs and transcripts (grabherr et al. 2011). the ngs data was submitted to ncbi (srr 13451946). mining of ssr primer and designing the assembled unigenes were further examined for the presence of microsatellites using misa software (suping et al. 2013). a total of 10492 ssr primers were identified and 2532 ssr primers were designed using primer 3.0 software (untergasser et al. 2012). a total of 51 ssr primers were randomly selected and these were used for pcr standa r diza tion a nd amplification of 36 okra genotypes. pcr conditions and genotyping for the amplification of mined ssrs, fluorescent based m13 tailed pcr assay was performed (oetting et al. 1995). and all the primers at 5’ end were labelled with standard m13 tail (schuelke 2000). a total of 51 ssr markers were initially synthesised and screened with pooled okra dna. further the primers which amplified, clear bands were screened over 36 okra genotypes. the pcr conditions employed are as follows initial denaturation at 94oc for 3 min, followed by 35 cycles of dena tur a tion, a nnea ling a nd polymerization steps (94oc for 30s, 50-60oc and 72oc for 1 min) and a final extension of 72oc for 8 min. pcr amplification was carried out in 20 μl volume containing 75-100 ng of okra dna, 2 μl of 10x taq buffer (tris ph with 15mm mgcl2), 1.5 μl of mgcl2 (25mm of mgcl2), 0.5μl of dntps (10mm), 0.5 μl of forward primer m13 tail (5 pm), 1 μl of reverse primer m13 tail (5 pm), 0.5 μl of probes fam,vic, ned and pet (5 pm), 0.2 μl of taq polymerase (5 units per μl) (genei. pvt. ltd bengaluru) and 9.8 μl of nuclease free water. all the pcr reactions were carried out using bio-rad thermal cycler (bio-rad, us). the amplified pcr products were separated on abi3730 genetic analyzer (applied biosystem, usa), at m/s eurofins facility bengaluru. the obtained data were further analysed using peak scanner software (applied biosystems, usa) for determining the exact fragment size in base pair. statistical analysis the fragment size in base pair of the pcr products were used for calculating the expected heterozygosity (he), observed heterozygosity (ho), polymorphic information content (pic) and number of alleles per locus employing cervus 3.0 software (kalinowski et al. 2007). and the dendrogram analysis was performed using neighbour-joining method (nj) employing da r win softwar e (per rier et al. 2003; http:// darwin.cirad.fr/darwin). results sequencing and de novo assembly a total of 3.8gb raw data were obtained using illumina-hiseq platform from comprehensive okra transcriptome analysis (root, stem, leaf, bud, flower, different parts of developing pods, drought stress, heat stress and salt stress plantlets). quality control analysis was performed in order to filter out the reads containing adaptor s, low qua lity reads and the unknown nucleotides. the total number of generated transcripts was 112597 with maximum transcripts length of 20701bp and minimum transcripts length of 201bp and total length of transcripts generated was 72314062bp. the size distributions of the transcripts are given in the table 2. and the sequencing analysis of gc content was found to be 47.1% and at content as 53.9%. table 2. de novo assembly statistics transcriptome assembly transcripts generated : 112597 maximum transcript length : 20701bp minimum transcript length : 201bp average transcript length : 642.2bp total transcripts length : 72314062bp transcripts > 100 bp : 112597 transcripts > 500 bp : 47905 transcripts > 1 kbp : 21670 transcripts > 10 kbp : 722369251 number of reads used total number of reads : 24885138 percentage of reads used : 89.9% j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 206-214, 2021 209 assembly statistics and designing primers all the obta ined unigenes wer e scr eened for identification of ssrs using misa software. the total number of examined sequence was 112597 with a total of 72314062bp and the total number of identified ssrs was found to be 10492 and the number of ssr designed using primer 3.0 software were 2532 (untergasser et al. 2012). number of ssr containing sequence were 9849 and the number of sequence containing more than one ssr is 568 and the number of ssr present in compound formation is found to be 783 (table 3). further the identified ssrs were screened for di, tri, tetra, penta and hexa nucleotide repeat motifs (a total of 1285 di-repeats, 2112 trirepeats, 149 tetra-repeats, 24 penta-repeats, 9 hexarepeats and 783 complex repeats were observed). trirepeats were found to be more predominant class of microsatellite than any other classes like di, tetra, penta and hexrepeats (fig 1). the kind of repeats observed in high frequency among tri was found to be (agt)10 and (cca)10 and di-repeats as (ta)22 and tetra as (tttc)18 and among hexa all repeats were found to present once. table 3. assembly statistics of ssrs total number of sequences examined 112597 total size of examined sequences (bp) 72314062 total number of identified ssrs 10492 number of ssr containing sequences 9849 number of sequences containing more than 1 ssr 568 number of ssrs present in compound formation 783 fig. 1. distribution to different repeat type classes of ssr repeats genetic analysis the allelic data regarding the expected heterozygosity, observed heterozygosity and number of alleles per locus were examined using cervus 3.0 software. and the values for expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.125 to 0.971 with the mean value of 0.593; the values for observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.000 to 0.839 with a mean value of 0.203; the number of a llele per locus r a nged fr om 1 to 30 a nd the polymorphic information content (pic) ranged from 0.119 to 0.955 with the mean pic value of 0.554 and pi (probability of identity) values ranged from 0.0036 to 1.0000 with a mean value of 0.263 (table 4). dendrogram analysis showed that the genotypes used in the study were classified into three major clusters (fig 2). fig. 2. dendrogram analysis showing the genetic relationship among abelmoschus esculentus l. accessions using transcriptome ssr marker data ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 206-214, 2021 210 table 4. genetic analysis of microsatellite loci using 34 ssrs sl. primer primers tm allele no. of ho he pic pino. name size allele/locus value 1 iihr-2434 f: agcttccgtatattttggatt r: ccaaactatccaactatgctt 55 160 18 0.156 0.884 0.861 0.0265 2 iihr-1877 f: tgagattcgtttgatcgttta r: ctttgggtcaaagctgtc 55 151 4 0.200 0.444 0.408 0.3464 3 iihr-817 f: taaatatgcttctcaggcatt r: cgtcttgttacgatttatatgc 55 163 1 0.000 0.324 0.307 1.0000 4 iihr-518 f: tccctcgtactagatcattca r: gtaacaaggatgagcaaaaga 55 150 5 0.143 0.508 0.457 0.2935 5 iihr-205 f: gggaagattttgctaaacttatt r: ccaataggatgtctcagtcaa 57 151 5 0.200 0.414 0.386 0.3727 6 iihr-91 f: tgatcttcgattcatccttat r: agaatggcagcgccaaaag 55 151 3 0.030 0.287 0.250 0.5472 7 iihr-30 f: taaaattttcccatcaatcc r: ggtgtttgttttgtggtgata 60 172 4 0.094 0.424 0.371 0.3861 8 iihr-18 f: tctctttaaaatcaccgctaa r: tttagcaaggaagggagaa 57 152 19 0.152 0.908 0.887 0.0187 9 iihr-353 f: taaaaatcagagccttccttt r: cagatttctgagagcaaagag 55 174 6 0.457 0.701 0.644 0.1429 10 iihr-343 f: gatatgggatggttgaaatc r: gagaaaaccaacggatgat 57 152 5 0.171 0.472 0.439 0.3122 11 iihr-328 f: taggaaaactacagcaaggatt r: ggacttggttctgcaatct 60 150 3 0.000 0.125 0.119 0.7731 12 iihr-319 f: gcacttgatattgcattacatt r: ccaaatcattatcagggagt 55 150 3 0.156 0.347 0.311 0.4641 13 iihr-303 f: taggaggacaatcacagaaaa r: ggtaacccaagtgttgttctt 57 151 22 0.176 0.921 0.902 0.0139 14 iihr-277 f: gctcaagtaagcattaaaacag r: gtcgtgcaaaacttgtctaag 55 162 11 0.000 0.869 0.839 0.0370 15 iihr-267 f: taaggagtccaaactccaact r: tggttgtttaggttccaattt 55 160 11 0.313 0.760 0.724 0.0881 16 iihr-254 f: tgtctgtagtctcgcaacttt r: atacattgacggtacaagtgg 57 152 13 0.794 0.679 0.620 0.1590 17 iihr-244 f: tggggcctaagtaaatacaat r: aaagttagttcaatgcagttttc 57 180 11 0.030 0.759 0.732 0.0792 18 iihr-221 f: acaggtccataaatgctatga r: ccctaatattattgtttttaccc 58 161 7 0.000 0.673 0.605 0.1713 19 iihr-195 f: tcacttaaccccatgaaaaat r: gtttctgagaatccttgctg 55 158 28 0.324 0.957 0.940 0.0060 20 iihr-165 f: ggatgaccaaaacgaagtg r: ctgtcattttctttccttctg 57 151 2 0.000 0.507 0.375 0.3752 21 iihr-154 f: cgccgtagtacctcaatctt r: gcaattaacggtgacgac 55 153 30 0.333 0.971 0.955 0.0036 22 iihr-99 f: tgaaaagaacatgaaagccta r: ccttccttcctagtcatcatc 57 160 15 0.156 0.742 0.707 0.0958 23 iihr-94 f: tatatttgcagcatttgtctgt r: aacagtcggtacttagacagc 57 151 18 0.545 0.891 0.870 0.0228 24 iihr-68 f: gaacttttggaatttgtgtca r: ttcttggagtaggagcttgat 60 153 11 0.061 0.822 0.791 0.0543 25 iihr-50 f: gttcaggatcagagtcgag r: gcggcctcaatattcact 55 150 8 0.032 0.589 0.544 0.2118 26 iihr-36 f: gggacagagttgaaaatgac r: ggatcaggaatgttatcgact 55 150 7 0.065 0.396 0.377 0.3856 27 iihr-27 f: ggaactccggtggagaag r: aagctttatctcaaaaatcc 57 150 7 0.188 0.624 0.589 0.1738 gayathri et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 206-214, 2021 211 28 iihr-11 f: tggaagagaagaagaacaaca r: ttcacgatgaactgacc 55 151 6 0.645 0.556 0.478 0.2741 29 iihr-02 f: aacaacaacaacaacagtcg r: cataaaaagtgtttgcgtctc 55 158 18 0.147 0.879 0.855 0.0295 30 iihr-1463 f: tgacgatcttcacaggctagta r: aagtgaaccaggtagcatgt 57 153 4 0.219 0.584 0.521 0.2342 31 iihr-1506 f: ttgaaactcccactatcaaaa r: taattatggaggtggaggtg 55 150 4 0.839 0.543 0.447 0.3042 32 iihr-1896 f: caatgccagatttctttgtag r: ttccttgctttagttttcctt 55 163 3 0.029 0.140 0.132 0.7494 33 iihr-1835 f: ccattatatcttatccgttcg r: catacacgtcaaaaacatcaa 55 214 5 0.286 0.505 0.467 0.2825 34 iihr-1680 f: ggtggcaacattatccat r: ggaggtggctataacagaaat 55 168 3 0.031 0.294 0.256 0.5386 mean 9.412 0.2037 0.5933 0.5546 0.2639 discussion okra is an important vegetable crop in india, africa and other asian countries and is considered as a minor crop at the genome studies until recently, very little attention was paid towards its genetic improvement and generation of genomic resources. the studies regarding the molecular marker development are very limited, and there is a still no compr ehensive transcriptome data for this crop. this study presents the first comprehensive transcriptome data from different parts of okra such as from root, stem, leaf, bud, flower, different stages of developing pod and from twenty days old plantlets of heat, drought and salt stressed by rna sequencing. rna sequencing is considered as an effective way for obtaining the gene sequences of a non-model crop (strickler et al. 2012) and for developing the ssr markers (zhang et al., 2010; guo et al., 2016& ravishankar et al. 2015). the application and development of molecular marker technology as it detects the genetic differences at the dna level and is commonly used in the evaluation of genetic diversity and mapping (yoder et al. 2018; niemandt et al. 2018 & pan et al. 2017). ssrs are considered as an important marker for application in plant genetics and breeding studies, because of its high reproducibility, codominant, multi allelic nature and good genome coverage. genic ssrs developed from transcriptome data are highly useful as they reflect functional variability. on an average 112,597 unigenes were with an maximum length of 20,701 were obtained through comprehensive okra transcriptome which was little lesser than a study on combined lea f and pod transcriptome of okra which yielded a total of 150,000 unigenes (schafleitner et al. 2013) and higher than studies on okra by ngs using rna sequencing from the lea f sa mples which yielded a total 66, 382 assembled unigenes (priyavathi et al. 2018); 94,769 unigenes with an length of 1921bp were obtained through ngs of transcriptome sequencing in okra to drought stress (shi et al. 2020) and 293971 unigenes with okra transcriptome sequencing of five organs (roots, stem, leaves, flower and fruits) (zhang et al. 2018). in our present study though a large number of unigenes have been produced compound than a study by (schafleitner et al. 2013) and higher than the other studies which indicates that the sequencing depth was not sufficient to represent the whole transcriptome. deeper and increased sequencing would have reduced the redundancy of unigenes annotation. however, r edunda ncy a t cer tain level is a lso due to the allopolyploid of abelmoschus, where the transcripts from different genomes with slightly differ ent sequences a r e pr esent in the tr a nscr iptome (schafleitner et al. 2013). the number of ssrs identified in this study are 10, 492 which is high compared to earlier studies on abelmoschus esculentus 9,574 (priyavathi et al. 2018) and clerodendrum trichotomum which is 6,444 (chen et al. 2019) and among the mined ssrs the tri repeats (2112) are more predominant followed by di (1285), tetra (149), penta (24) and hexa (9) this pattern is similar in earlier studies in abelmoschus esculentus (shi et al. 2020; priyavathi et al. 2018 & schafleitner et al. 2013). the frequency of tri repeats are higher in transcriptome sequencing (schafleitner et al. 2013) because of the shortening or the extension of amino acid in proteins may not cause much alteration in ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 206-214, 2021 212 functions and other type of repeats cause frame shift mutation. but the mechanisms behind the evolution and origin of microsatellite repeats are not very clear. so, the relative dominant occurrence of repeats motifs may be due to their evolution through various selection pressures. it was assumed that replication slippage and unequal crossing over are the few common mutation mechanisms which might come addition or removal of motifs leading to the variation in length (buschiazzo and gemmell 2006; sonah et al. 2011). in the present study, we successfully identified 10,492 ssrs and 34 ssrs were standardized for pcr and screened over 36 okra genotypes and accessions. among these 18 ssr primers were found to be highly polymorphic with the pic values more than 0.5. and the overall statistical analysis revealed that expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.125 to 0.971 with the mean 0.593; the values for observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.000 to 0.839 with the mean of 0.203; the number of allele per locus ranged from 1 to 30 and the polymorphic information content (pic) ranged from 0.119 to 0.955 with the mean value of 0.554. similar kind of work were performed on okra reported polymorphic information content (pic) across all 50 loci values ranged from 0.000 to 0.865 with a mean value of 0.519. the observed and expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.000 to 0.750, and 0.000 to 0.972, respectively. alleles per locus ranged from 1 to 27 (ravishankar et al. 2018). a study for the development and characterization of ssr in cotton with the mean pic of 0.65 (john et al., 2012) and a genetic diversity in cotton with the mean pic of 0.8 (muhammad et al. 2013). dendrogram analysis depicted that all the genotypes used in the study were classified into three major clusters with most of the accessions grouped to cluster i, and the cluster ii & iii with the mixture of genotypes and accessions. the ssr markers developed here will help in genetic diversity studies, mapping, marker assisted breeding and helpful in gene discovery. being gene based ssr markers, these markers would be great help in tagging genes for various traits. acknowledgements we thank the rkvy (rashtriya krishi vikas yojana) for the financial assistance. bertini, c. d., schuster, i., sediyama, t., barros, e. g. and moreira, m. a. 2006. characterization and genetic diversity analysis of cotton cultivars using microsatellites. genet. mol. biol, 29: 321–329. 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(received on 24.08.2021, revised on 27.11.2021 and accepted on 18.01.2022) gayathri et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 206-214, 2021 00 contents.pdf 09 ravishankar.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf micrornas (mirnas) are non-coding rnas (1922 nt) molecules that are derived from one arm of the precursor mirna sequences. these are produced from the non-coding portion of dna and are generally transcribed as independent units. in plants, mirnas bind to proteincoding regions of mrnas and cause mrna degradation (llave et al, 2002) and translational repression at the ‘seed region’ (i.e., 2-8 nts at 5’ end of a mature mirna). in plants, mirnas are processed from transcripts that can fold into a stable hairpin (llave et al, 2002). several mirna sequences have been found to be highly conserved in different species, and, pre-mirnas have a unique secondary structure, which helps identify them through in silico approaches. nomenclature predicted mirnas are named as per mirbase guidelines (griffiths–jones, 2006). name of the microrna consists of the prefix ‘mir’, followed by a dash. for example, osa-mir444 is a mirna where ‘osa’ indicates the name of the species, oriza sativa, ‘mir’ indicates mature sequences, and ‘444’ indicates the order of its discovery. sometimes, both mir444a and mir444b are present. here ‘444a’ indicates that it was discovered before mir444b. sometimes, micrornas are denoted as mir-444-5p or mir-444-3p, which indicates the origin of micrornas from the 3’ and 5’ end, respectively. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):90-93, 2015 a guide to in silico identification of mirnas and their targets v. radhika, kanupriya, r. rashmi and c. aswath division of biotechnology icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india e-mail: vr@iihr.ernet.in abstract micrornas (mirna) are non-coding rna molecules that play a critical role in gene regulation including translational repression in animals and mrna cleavage in plants. micrornas control various cellular, metabolic and physiological processes in living organisms. in this paper, we provide an overview on the significance of mirna, nomenclature, their biogenesis and the pipelines for prediction of mirna and their targets. these tools are important for identification of conserved mirnas in crops where mirnas have not been previously discovered. the newlyidentified mirnas and their targets play an important role in understanding regulation of growth, development and gene silencing in various life forms. key words: mirna, bioinformatics, mirna targets, structure, software tools biogenesis of micrornas microrna genes are found in the intergenic regions of dna sequences. the process of mirna biogenesis starts from the nucleus, and is completed in the cytoplasm. in the nucleus, sequences that contain mature mirna sequences are transcribed by rna polymerase ii (polu ii) into a primary rna. the primary mirna is then processed in the nucleus by endonuclease into a precursor mirna sequence, containing 60-100nts long stem loop structure. the pre-mirna is then cleaved into a mirna:mirna* duplex by a dicer-like enzyme (dcl-1) in the nucleus, and, these sequences are exported from nucleus to the cytoplasm. in the cytoplasm, one of these strands of precursor mirna produces the mature mirna, which is approximately 22nts. this gets associated with the rna-induced silencing complex (risc) to interact with its mrna targets. source of sequences for mirna prediction microirna can be predicted from different sequences, viz., expressed sequence tags (ests) (reddy et al, 2012), genomic survey sequences (gss), new generation sequences (ngs) (kanupriya et al, 2013), or unigenes. these sequences can be generated or extracted from any public repository database and used for the prediction of mirna. known mirna sequences are available in mirbase database (http://www.mirbase.org). 91 a guide to in silico identification of mirnas and their targets prediction of conserved mirnas blastx/ blastn tools help identify query sequences that contain mirna homologs. precursor mirna sequences are extracted from sequences containing mirna homologs by taking into consideration 50 nucleotides upstream and 50 nucleotides downstream from the mature mirna position. secondary structure and mature microrna prediction secondary structure of these pre-mirna sequences is then predicted and the minimum free energy is computed. identification of mature mirna depends on the following parameters (reddy et al, 2012): 1. rna sequences should fold into a complete stemloop hairpin 2. length of mature mirnas should be between 19 and 21 nts 3. predicted mirnas should have ≤ 2 nt mismatches 4. minimum free-energy of the secondary structure should be ≥ 18 kcal mole-1 5. a+u content should be in the range of 30-70% target prediction mirna target genes control biological, metabolic and physiological processes in plants and, hence, identification of their targets is important. they help understand the role and functional importance of mirnas. it has been shown that one mirna can target more than one regulatory gene. functional characterization of a mirna target is essential for providing a biological insight into each mirna-mediated pathway (reddy et al, 2012). in plants, mirnas are important in regulating plant growth and development. a flow-chart depicting various steps in the prediction of mirna and their targets is presented in fig. 1. functional annotation of mirna targets identification of biological information of the coding portion of a sequence is an important aspect. micrornas play an important role in regulating gene expression in a variety of manners, including translational repression, mrna cleavage and deadenylation, in both plants and animals. the role of individual mirnas in an organism, namely biochemical, biological, metabolic, gene expression, and physiological function, can be predicted using gene ontology (go) and kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (kegg) tools. tools for mirna and target prediction various tools, both online and offline, are available for predicting mirna, their secondary structures and targets (table 1); mirauto (lee et al, 2013) is a comprehensible tool for mirna prediction from small rna sequencing data in plant species. mirauto software analyzes the expression retrieval of known mirnas from mirbase retrieval of query sequences from repository database blastx/ blastn query sequences with 0-2 mismatches to known mirnas selection of precursor mirna secondary structure prediction of pre-mirnas selection of potential mature mirnas target prediction functional annotation of targets ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ fig. 1. flowchart for the prediction of mirna and their targets table 1. tools for mirna analysis tool website tools for mirna and target prediction. mirauto http://nature.snu.ac.kr/software/mirauto.htm maturepred http://nclab.hit.edu.cn/maturepred/ mirpara http://www.whiov.ac.cn/bioinformatics/mirpara mirdeep www.australianprostatecentre.org/research/software/ mirdeep-star micropc http://www.biotec.or.th/isl/micropc c-mii http://www.biotec.or.th/isl/c-mii/documentation.php mirtour http://bio2server.bioinfo.uni-plovdiv.bg/mirtour/ psrnatarget http://plantgrn.noble.org/psrnatarget/ tapir http://bioinformatics.psb.ugent.be/webtools/tapir tools for structure prediction rnafold subtiliswiki.net/wiki/index.php/rnafold_webserver unafold http://www.bioinfo.rpi.edu/applications/hybrid/ download.php mfold http://www.bioinfo.rpi.edu/applications/mfold tools for functional annotation go www.geneontology.org kegg www.genome.jp/kegg j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):90-93, 2015 92 of 5’ -end position of compared rnas in reference sequences, to candidate mirnas, for the possibility of presence of mirna fragments. maturepred tool, based on machine learning method, is used for accurately predicting plant mirnas. using this tool, we can extract the position, structure and energy related information from real/ pseudo mirna:mirna* duplex; mirpara (wu et al, 2011) is based on svm, and predicts mature mirna coding regions from genome-scale sequences. in this tool, sequences are classified from mirbase into animal, plant and overall categories, and it uses a support vector machine to train the three models based on an initial set of 77 parameters related to physical properties of the pre-mirna and its mirnas; mirdeep is a non-comparative computational method developed for identification of mirnas from a pool of sequenced rna transcripts, obtained by deep-sequencing experiments (an et al, 2013). this method at first aligns the transcript reads to genomic locations, and selects genomic sequences from locations that can form hairpin secondary structures. micropc (μpc) (mhuantong et al, 2009) is an online tool for predicting and comparing plant mirnas and their targets. it offers three, main interactive pages for comparing, searching and predicting plant mirnas. target-align was proposed for plant mirna target identification, and developed as both web and command line versions. c-mii (numark et al, 2012) is a stand-alone software package, with graphical user interface for identifying, manipulating and analyzing plant mirnas and targets. c-mii tool performs sequence-similarity search, secondary-structure folding, automatic stem-loop identification and manipulation, and, functional and gene ontology (go) annotation. it can be used for plant mirna and target prediction only; mirtour (milev et al, 2011), based on comparative approach, is used for both mirna and target prediction. all the steps of mirna and target prediction like homolog search, mirna precursor, target prediction and annotation, are performed by the same set of input sequences. psrnatarget (dai et al, 2011) is a plant small rna target analysis server, which consists of two important functions: (i) reverse complementary matching between small rna and target transcript using a proven scoring schema, and (ii) targetsite accessibility evaluation by calculating unpaired energy (upe) required to ‘open’ secondary structure around small rna’s target site on mrna. the psrna target incorporates recent discoveries in plant mirna target recognition. tapir (bonnet et al, 2010) is a web server designed for the prediction of plant microrna targets. the server offers a possibility of searching for plant mirna targets, using a fast and a precise algorithm. tools for mirna structure prediction rnafold (zuker and stiegler, 1981) is a tool which reads rna sequences, calculates their minimum free energy and structure, and, returns the structure in bracket notation and its free energy. unafold software (markham et al, 2008) is a collection of several programs that simulate folding, hybridization, and melting pathways for one or two singlestranded nucleic acid sequences. secondary structure prediction for single-stranded rna or dna combines free energy minimization, partition function calculations and stochastic sampling. it is an offline tool. mfold is a web server for prediction of secondary structure of singlestranded nucleic acids. micrornas regulate gene expression in a variety of ways such as translational repression, mrna cleavage and deadenylation in plants. a number of computational tools based on comparative and non-comparative algorithms are available for identification of mature mirna and their targets. in this study, an algorithm for prediction and analysis of mirnas through bioinformatics tools has been presented. references an, j., lai, j., lehman, m.l. and nelson, c.c. 2013. mirdeep: an integrated application tool for mirna identification from rna sequencing data. nucleic acids res., 41:727-37 bonnet, e., he, y., billiau, k. and peer, y.v. 2010. tapir, a web server for the prediction of plant microrna targets, including target mimics. bioinformatics, 26:1566-1568 dai, x. and zhao, p.x. 2011. psrnatarget: a plant small rna target analysis server. nucleic acids res., 39:155-159 griffiths-jones, s. 2006. mirbase: the microrna sequence database. methods mol. biol., 342:129–138 kanupriya, c., radhika v. and ravishankar, k.v. 2013. ‘mining of mirnas in pomegranate (punica granatum l.) by pyrosequencing of part of the genome.’ j. hort’l. sci. biotech., 88:735-742 lee, j., kim, d., park, j.h., choi, i. and shin, c. 2013. mirauto: an automated user-friendly microrna prediction tool utilizing plant small rna sequencing data. molecules and cells, 35:342-347 llave, c., kasschau, k.d., rector, m. and carrington, j.c. 2002. endogeneous and silencing-associated small rnas in plants. pl. cell, 14:1605–1619 radhika et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):90-93, 2015 93 markham, n.r. and zuker, m. 2008. unafold: software for nucleic acid folding and hybridization. methods mol. biol., 453:3-31 mhuantong, w. and wichadakul, d. 2009. micropc (ìpc): a comprehensive resource for predicting and comparing plant micrornas. bmc genomics, 10:366 milev, i., yahubyan, g., minkov, i. and baev, v. 2011. mirtour: plant mirna and target prediction tool. bioinformation, 6:248-249 numnark, s., mhuantong, w., ingsriswang, s. and wichadakul, d. 2012. c-mii: a tool for plant mirna and target identification. bmc genomics, 13:7-16 reddy, d.c.l., radhika, v., bhardwaj, a., khandagalek, s. and aswath, c. 2012. mirnas in brinjal (solanum melongena) mined through an in silico approach. j. hort’l. sci. biotech., 87:186-192 rhoades, m.w., reinhart, b.j., lim, l.p., burge, c.b., bartel, b. and bartel, d.p. 2002. prediction of plant microrna targets. cell, 110:513–520 wu, y., wei, b., liu, h., li, t. and rayner, s. 2011. mirpara: a svm-based software tool for prediction of most probable microrna coding regions in genome scale sequences. bmc bioinformatics, 12:107 zuker, m. and stiegler, p. 1981. optimal computer folding of large rna sequences using thermodynamic and auxiliary information. nucl acid res, 9:133-148 (ms received 07 june 2014, revised 31 march 2015, accepted 07 april 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):90-93, 2015 a guide to in silico identification of mirnas and their targets page 124 impact of gamma rays on turmeric crop (curcuma longa l.) h. usha nandhini devi and n. chezhiyan department of vegetable crops horticultural college & research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003, india e-mail : drushajana@rediffmail.com abstract experiments were carried out during 2000-2003 at the department of spices and plantation crops, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, to assess the impact of gamma irradiation on days to maturity, yield and curing per cent in turmeric (curcuma longa l.). the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design with two replications. three genotypes namely, salem local g 1 (cl144), alleppy finger turmeric g 2 (cl146) and pts 43 g 3 (cl147) were treated with seven doses of gamma rays (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 kr) along with control. the plants matured earlier and yield per plant and curing percentage improved at 2.0 kr, followed by 2.5 kr, whereas, higher doses of gamma rays had a negative effect on yield and curing percentage and these higher doses prolonged maturity. among the genotypes used, g 1 (cl144) was found to show a good response to gamma irradiation. key words : gamma rays, turmeric crop, irradiation, yield, curing percentage introduction turmeric (curcuma longa l.) is one of the important spices grown in india and plays an important role in the national economy. turmeric types can be grouped into three, based on the time taken to harvest, as short, medium and long-duration types. short -duration types are known as kasturi. they mature in seven months. mediumduration kesari types (bontha) mature in eight months. long-duration types mature in nine months and are superior to the above two groups in rhizome yield and other quality parameters. flowering is rare in these types (rao et al, 1975). cultivated turmeric, c. longa is considered to be a sterile triploid with somatic chromosome number of sixty three (2n= 3x=63), while, c. aromatica is a tetraploid (2n=4x=84) and sets seeds. curcuma langa being a sterile triploid, it is flowers fail to set seed. the variable success rate of seed set in ‘prabha’ and ‘prathiba’ (which are open pollinated progenies in turmeric under kerala conditions) by recombination breeding programme has been reported by sasikumar et al (1994). turmeric is asexually propagated with no seed production under tamil nadu conditions, restricting the breeder to rely on clonal selection, which is the major mode for its improvement. the first step in improvement of this clonally propagated crop is to exploit the variability existing among the land races and to create more variability through mutation and somaclonal variation. it being a polyploid (amphidiploid), use of mutagens in turmeric for inducing variability assumes greater significance. success in mutation breeding depends largely on understanding the process of induction and recovery of mutants and screening methods for evaluating desired mutants. in turmeric, systematic attempts for induction of mutation are scanty and methodologies for induction and recovery of mutants are yet to be standardized. an attempt was therefore made to induce variability for days to maturity, yield and curing percentage by irradiation with gamma rays. material and methods the present investigation was carried out during 2000 2003 at the department of spices and plantation crops, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design and replicated twice under open field condition. three genotypes, namely, salem local g 1 (cl144), alleppy finger turmeric g 2 (cl146) and pts 43 g 3 (cl147) were used. gamma ray source was cobalt 60 in 1000 ci, j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 124-128, 2006 page 125 emitting 5000 rads per minute at the time of irradiation. uniform sized finger rhizomes (approximately 10g each) were selected and cut into pieces, having 3 nodes per cutting. these rhizome bits, subjected to seven doses of gamma rays (1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 kr) along with control, were used as the planting material. treated rhizome bits were planted on one side of the ridge at 5 cm depth at 45 x 15 cm spacing. after planting, a basal manurial dose comprising 25 kg n, 60 kg p and 18 kg k ha-1 was applied. it received a top dressing of 25 kg n and 18 kg k ha-1 at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after planting. the field was irrigated before planting. life irrigation was given on the third day of planting. thereafter, irrigation was given at weekly intervals depending on weather and soil conditions. ten plants in each genotype per replication were tagged randomly for recording observations and mean values were subjected to statistical scrutiny. days to maturity the period from planting to harvest was recorded as the days taken to maturity. yellowing and drying of the leaves as well as cracking of the soil were considered as indications of maturity. yield per plant fresh rhizomes harvested from each plant were weighed and the mean was expressed as grame (g) per plant. curing per cent one hundred grames of fresh rhizomes from each treatment plot (comprising 30% mother rhizomes and 70% primary and secondary rhizomes) were boiled in pure water for 45-60 minutes till the rhizomes became soft and emitted the typical turmeric odour (natarajan and lewis, 1980). after boiling, the rhizomes were dried under sun until attaining 8% moisture content (philip and sethumadhavan, 1980). curing per cent of the rhizomes was calculated using the following formula and was expressed as per cent: weight of the cured rhizome curing per cent = ——————————— x 100 fresh weight of the rhizome results and discussion days to maturity vm 0 generation among the different treatments in genotype g 1 (cl144), treatment t 3 (2.0 kr) exhibited earliness in days to maturity (223.11), followed by t 4 (2.5 kr) with 230.92 days. delayed maturity (282.02 days) was seen in t 7 (4.0 kr), whereas, the control (t 0 ) took 235.23 days to mature. in g 2 (cl146), treatment t 3 (2.0 kr), followed by t 4 (2.5 kr), expressed earliness in days taken to mature (219.02 and 221.53, respectively) and t 7 (4.0 kr) showed delayed maturity (268.65 days), while, the control (t 0 ) registered 260.06 days. similarly, in g 3 (cl147), treatment t 3 (2.0 kr) showed earliness in days to maturity (221.83) and t 7 (4.0 kr) recorded delayed maturity (288.10 days), whereas, the control (t 0 ) registered 246.13 days.the treatment combination g 2 t 3 (cl146, 2.0 kr) exhibited earliness in days to maturity (219.02), followed by g 2 t 4 (cl146, 2.5 kr) which required 221.53 days. delayed maturity (288.10 days) was observed in g 3 t 7 (cl147, 4. 0 kr) (table 1) vm 1 generation among the different treatments, t 3 (2.0 kr) of the genotype g 1 (cl144) showed earliness in days to maturity (232.99). this was followed by t 3 (2.0 kr) of g 2 (cl146) which required 233.00 days. delayed maturity (269.97 days) was expressed in t 7 (4.0 kr) of g 3 (cl147) followed by t 7 (4.0 kr) of g 1 (cl144) with 268.00 days, whereas the days to maturity exhibited in the control (to) of g 2 (cl146) was 248.17 days. the treatment combination g 1 t 3 (cl144, 2.0 kr) showed earliness in days to maturity (232.99 days), followed by g 2 t 3 (cl146, 2.0 kr) which required 233.42 days. delayed maturity (269.97 days) was observed in g 3 t 7 (cl147, 4.0 kr) (table 1). yield per plant vmo generation among the different treatments of g 1 (cl144), treatment t 3 (2.0 kr) produced the highest yield per plant (373.75 g) and the lowest yield (137.50 g) was recorded in t 7 (4.0 kr), whereas, the control (t 0 ) registered 301.50 g. in g 2 (cl146), treatment t 3 (2.0 kr) registered increased yield (266.25 g) and t 7 (4.0 kr) obtained decreased yield (63.75 g), while, the yield per plant observed in the control (t 0 ) was 97.88 g. similarly, in g 3 (cl147), higher yield (241.25g) was expressed in t 3 (2.0 kr) and lower yield (127.50g) was seen in t 7 (4.0 kr), while, yield per plant obtained in the control (t 0 ) was 135.00 g. genotype g 1 (cl144) exhibited higher yield per plant (373.75 g), followed by g 2 (cl146) and g 3 (cl147) with 266.25 and 241.25 g, respectively, in t 3 (2.0 kr). increased yield (373.75 g) was noticed in the treatment combination g 1 t 3 (cl144, 2.0 kr), whereas, decreased yield (63.75 g) was observed in g 2 t 7 (cl146, 4.0 kr) (table 2). j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 124-128, 2006 impact of gamma rays on turmeric crop 125 page 126 vm 1 generation among the treatments, t 3 (2.0 kr), t 4 (2.5 kr) and t 5 (3.0 kr) of g 1 (cl144) registered higher yield per plant (381.13, 360.00 and 330.12 g, respectively), whereas, a lower yield of 153.38g was obtained in t 7 (4.0 kr) as against the control (t 0 ) with 300.15 g. in g 2 (cl146), treatment t 3 (2.0 kr) produced the highest yield (260.19 g) and t 7 (4.0 kr) registered the lowest yield (73.15g) as against the control (t 0 ), with 100.02g. in g 3 (cl147), higher yield (250.12g) and lower yield (121.02g) were recorded in t 3 (2.0 kr) and t 7 (4.0 kr), respectively, as against the control (t 0 ) with 130.00g. among the three genotypes, g 1 (cl144) produced an increase in yield (381.13 g), followed by g 2 (cl146) with 260.19 g and g 3 (cl147) with 250.12g in t 3 (2.0 kr), whereas, the control (t 0 ) of g 1 (cl144) obtained 300.15g. the treatment combination g 1 t 3 (cl144, 2.0 kr) produced the highest yield (381.13 g), whereas, the lowest yield (73.15 g) was registered in g 2 t 7 (cl146, 4.0 kr) (table 3). curing percentage vmo generation among the different treatments of g 1 (cl144), t 3 (2.0 kr) followed by t 4 (2.5 kr) registered higher curing percent of 19.44 and 19.00, respectively and t 7 (4.0 kr) expressed a lower curing per cent of 15.22, whereas, the control (t 0 ) recorded 17.45 curing percent of. in g 2 (cl146), the highest curing per cent (19.00) was observed in t 3 (2.0 kr) and the lowest curing per cent (15.54) was obtained in t 7 (4.0 kr), while, curing percentage recorded in the control (t 0 ) was 17.05. in g 3 (cl147), treatment t 3 (2.0 kr) exhibited greater curing per cent (8.21) and t 7 (4.0 kr) showed lesser curing per cent (14.92), whereas, the control (t 0 ) expressed curing percent of 16.00 percent. increased curing per cent (19.44) was obtained in g 1 (cl144), followed by g 2 (cl146) and g 3 (cl 147) with curing percent of 19.00 and 18.21, respectively in t 3 (2.0 kr) (table 2). vm 1 generation among the treatments, t 3 (2.0 kr), followed by t 4 (2.5 kr) of g 1 (cl144) obtained a higher curing per cent of 20.41 and 19.95, respectively. a lower curing per cent of 15.07 was exhibited in t 7 (4.0 kr) of g 3 (cl147). among the three genotypes, g 1 (cl144) exhibited the highest curing per cent (20.41) followed by g 2 (cl146) and g 3 (cl 147) with curing percent of 19.57 and 18.39, respectively, in t 3 (2.0 kr), whereas, the control of g 1 (cl144) registered 18.32 curing percent of (table 3). in the present investigation, treatment combination g 2 with 2.0 kr showed earliness in days to maturity compared to the other combinations. delay in maturity was observed with increase in the dose of gamma rays. delayed maturity at higher doses in the present investigation could be attributed to delay in plant growth caused by gamma rays. physiological damage from gamma rays is generally higher in the initial stages of plant growth than at later stages. induction of mutation generally occurs when dna synthesis and chromosomal reproduction are in progress. table 1. effect of gamma irradiation in turmeric genotypes on days to maturity in vm 0 and vm 1 generation genotype treatment days to maturity vm 0 generation vm 1 generation g 1 (cl144) t 1 (1.0kr) 270.20 251.32 t 2 (1.5kr) 260.88 245.59 t 3 (2.0kr) 223.11 232.99 t 4 (2.5kr) 230.92 233.42 t 5 (3.0kr) 234.13 239.98 t 6 (3.5kr) 271.08 261.88 t 7 (4.0kr) 282.02 268.00 t 0 (control) 235.23 256.63 mean 250.95 248.73 g 2 (cl146) t 1 (1.0kr) 257.11 245.00 t 2 (1.5kr) 249.69 240.09 t 3 (2.0kr) 219.02 233.00 t 4 (2.5kr) 221.53 235.15 t 5(3.0kr) 227.09 235.00 t 6 (3.5kr) 264.09 250.13 t 7 (4.0kr) 268.65 253.88 t 0 (control) 260.06 245.99 mean 245.91 242.03 g 3 (cl147) t 1 (1.0kr) 266.80 263.82 t 2 (1.5kr) 246.01 250.01 t 3 (2.0kr) 221.83 241.97 t 4 (2.5kr) 227.28 242.00 t 5 (3.0kr) 242.28 244.22 t 6 (3.5kr) 269.72 268.12 t 7 (4.0kr) 288.10 269.97 t 0 (control) 246.13 255.93 mean 251.02 254.51 grand mean 249.30 248.17 cv(%) 5.92 4.51 vm 0 generation sed cd(p=0.05) cd(p=0.01) t 8.38 17.33 23.51 g 5.13 10.61 14.40 gxt 14.51 30.01 40.73 vm 1 generation t 6.66 13.78 18.70 g 4.08 8.44 11.45 gxt 11.54 23.87 32.39 t-treatment ; g-genotype ; gxtgenotype x treatment j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 124-128, 2006 usha nandhini devi & chezhiyan 126 page 127 mature or differentiated cells are incapable of responding to mutagenic treatments. earliness in maturity may be attributed to the triggering of metabolic activities by lower doses of gamma rays. the trigger in metabolism would have resulted in changing the source – sink relationship, thereby, breaking the vegetative state at an advanced phase. the fact could be well understood from a study of the anatomy. the rhizome consists of multilayered, thin–walled cells in radial rows forming the cork tissue, with tangential epidermal cells, oblong in shape on the outside and thin walled parenchymatous cells of the cortex on the inside. the central cylinder of parenchymatous cells is separated from the cortex by a thin layer of oblong cells of the endoderm. scattered throughout the parenchymatous tissue are starch granules (the dominant constituent) which are 15 to 30 mm in size, flat or disc shaped bodies, oleoresin cells containing oil and scattered particles of an orange– yellow component. all the important steps involved in the process of growth and development of turmeric rhizome were seriously influenced by growth period (maturity) which, in turn, was affected by an increase in the dose of gamma rays. this is in concordance with earlier reports by jayachandran (1989) in ginger. yield obtained on per plant basis was the highest at 2.0 kr, followed by 2.5 kr. increased yield was noticed in the treatment combination g 1 with 2.0 kr. increased yield at lower doses of gamma rays may be due to an increase in table 2. effect of gamma irradiation in turmeric genotypes on yield per plant (g) and curing per cent in vm 0 generation genotype treatment yield per plant (g) curing per cent g 1 (cl144) t 1 (1.0kr) 302.50 16.23 (23.75) t 2 (1.5kr) 325.00 18.00 (25.10) t 3 (2.0kr) 373.75 19.44 (26.16) t 4 (2.5kr) 353.75 19.00 (25.84) t 5 (3.0kr) 336.25 18.73 (25.64) t 6 (3.5kr) 226.25 15.75 (22.96) t 7 (4.0kr) 137.50 15.22 (23.38) t 0 (control) 301.50 17.45 (24.69) mean 294.56 17.48 (24.69) g 2 (cl146) t 1 (1.0kr) 111.25 16.73 (24.14) t 2 (1.5kr) 130.00 17.54 (24.75) t 3 (2.0kr) 266.25 19.00 (25.84) t 4 (2.5kr) 240.00 18.33 (25.34) t 5(3.0kr) 181.25 17.92 (25.04) t 6 (3.5kr) 93.75 16.02 (23.59) t 7 (4.0kr) 63.75 15.54 (23.21) t 0 (control) 97.88 17.05 (24.38) mean 148.02 17.27 (24.54) g 3 (cl147) t 1 (1.0kr) 160.00 15.67 (23.31) t 2 (1.5kr) 173.75 16.73 (24.14) t 3 (2.0kr) 241.25 18.21 (25.20) t 4 (2.5kr) 221.25 17.83 (24.97) t 5 (3.0kr) 216.25 16.92 (24.28) t 6 (3.5kr) 136.25 15.00 (22.78) t 7 (4.0kr) 127.50 14.92 (22.72) t 0 (control) 135.00 16.00 (23.57) mean 176.41 16.41 (23.87) grand mean 206.33 17.05 (24.37) cv(%) 13.08 4.04 yield per plant (g) curing per cent sed c.d c.d sed c.d c.d (p=0.05) (p=0.01) (p=0.05) (p=0.01) t 14.99 31.01 42.08 0.54 1.12 1.52 g 9.18 18.99 25.77 0.33 0.69 0.93 gxt 25.96 53.71 72.89 0.94 1.94 2.64 t : treatment g : genotype, gxt : genotype x treatment figures in parentheses indicate arc sine transformed values table 3. effect of gamma irradiation in turmeric genotypes on yield per plant (g) and curing per cent in vm 1 generation genotype treatment yield per plant (g) curing per cent g 1 (cl144) t 1 (1.0kr) 312.62 17.04 (24.37) t 2 (1.5kr) 321.43 18.90 (25.77) t 3 (2.0kr) 381.13 20.41 (26.85) t 4 (2.5kr) 360.00 19.95 (26.52) t 5 (3.0kr) 330.12 19.67 (26.32) t 6 (3.5kr) 253.17 16.54 (23.99) t 7 (4.0kr) 153.38 15.98 (23.56) t 0 (control) 300.15 18.32 (25.34) mean 301.50 18.35 (25.34) g 2 (cl146) t 1 (1.0kr) 123.00 17.23 (24.52) t 2 (1.5kr) 142.29 18.07 (25.15) t 3 (2.0kr) 260.19 19.57 (26.25) t 4 (2.5kr) 243.35 18.88 (25.75) t 5(3.0kr) 200.42 18.46 (25.44) t 6 (3.5kr) 98.83 16.50 (23.96) t 7 (4.0kr) 73.15 16.01 (23.58) t 0 (control) 100.02 17.56 (24.77) mean 155.16 17.79 (24.93) g 3 (cl147) t 1 (1.0kr) 171.11 15.83 (23.44) t 2 (1.5kr) 194.22 16.90 (24.27) t 3 (2.0kr) 250.12 18.39 (25.39) t 4 (2.5kr) 248.00 18.01 (25.11) t 5 (3.0kr) 220.73 17.09 (24.41) t 6 (3.5kr) 152.00 15.15 (22.90) t 7 (4.0kr) 121.02 15.07 (22.84) t 0 (control) 130.00 16.16 (23.70) mean 185.90 16.45 (20.96) grand mean 225.90 17.57 (24.76) cv(%) 13.00 4.04 yield per plant (g) curing per cent sed c.d c.d sed c.d c.d (p=0.05) (p=0.01) (p=0.05) (p=0.01) t 15.43 31.93 43.33 0.55 1.14 1.55 g 9.45 19.55 26.53 0.34 0.70 0.95 gxt 26.73 55.30 75.05 0.96 1.98 2.68 t : treatment g : genotype, gxt : genotype x treatment figures in parentheses indicate arc sine transformed values j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 124-128, 2006 impact of gamma rays on turmeric crop 127 page 128 the level of enzymes, which activate metabolism of the cells responsible for translocation of metabolites from source to sink. lower doses of gamma rays may have enhanced the enzymatic processes involved in plant growth and development such as proper stomatal functioning, photosynthetic efficiency in terms of net assimilation rate and partitioning efficiency from the source to the sink, and, in related biochemical reactions. yield per plant decreased as the dose of gamma rays increased. low yield at increased dose obtained in the present investigation can be attributed to reduction plant in growth, leaf area and size and growth of rhizomes, particularly, secondary rhizomes by gamma rays. increased dose adversely affected tiller and leaf production and height of the plant, especially, during the early stages of growth. as the growth period advanced, the plants could, more or less, recover from the adverse effects during early stages noted in the above characters. however, recovery in growth achieved during the later stages of growth did not appear to have sufficient contribution to rhizome development. this may be the reason for the yield that resulted at higher doses of gamma rays, irrespective of the fact that the plants could recover from the shock of gamma ray treatments later in their growth period. similar line of work had been reported by raju et al (1980) who reported weaker and elongated underground rhizomes in ginger with application of 2.0 kr gamma rays. in costus speciosus, gupta et al (1982) observed increased rhizome production at 1.5 kr gamma ray treatment. however, the yield of rhizomes decreased at higher doses of 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 kr. shah et al (1982) observed high yields in turmeric as a result of x-ray irradiation. significant variation was noticed in curing percentage among treatments. curing per cent was higher in the treatment 2.0 kr, followed by 2.5 kr and was found to decrease with increase in the dose of gamma rays. variation in curing percentage among the treatments was chiefly due to genetic factors rather than the type of processing used. expression of low curing per cent at higher doses of gamma rays may be attributed to lesser resource utilization by the rhizomes at the rhizome bulking stage as a result of gamma irradiation. resource utilization was affected due to a lower net assimilation rate, which was mainly characterized by enhanced physiological parameters such as crop growth rate, relative growth rate, photosynthetically active radiation (par) and higher net assimilation rate during the early stages of plant growth and rhizome development upto seven months after planting. present findings are in corroboration with earlier work carried out by subramanian et al (2002) in co 1 and bsr 1 clones of turmeric. higher curing per cent was mainly due to production of slender rhizomes, perhaps due to lower moisture retention at harvest. low curing per cent was mainly due to the fact that feeder roots are present near the soil surface under irrigated conditions, and these absorb more water and ought to have higher moisture content. as a result, the rhizome becomes plump and after curing, the yield gets reduced. this is in accordance with previous work of philip (1983) and reddy et al (1989) in turmeric. references gupta, m.n., lakshmi.v, dixitv. s and srivastava. s.n 1982. gamma ray induced variability in costus speciosus. prog. hort., 14: 193-197. jayachandran, b.k. 1989. induced mutations in ginger. ph.d. thesis submitted to kerala a g r i c u l t u r a l university, vellanikara, trissur. natarajan, c.p. and lewis. y. s. 1980. technology of ginger and turmeric. proc. natl. sem. on ginger and turmeric, calicut, pp. 143-146. philip, j. 1983. studies on growth, yield and quality component in different turmeric types. indian cocoa, arecanut and spices j., 6: 93-97. philip, j. and sethumadhavan. 1980. curing of turmeric. proc. nat’l. sem. on ginger and turmeric, calicut. pp. 198-201. rao, r.m., reddy r. c. k and subbarayudu.m 1975. promising turmeric types of andhra pradesh. ind. spices 12: 2-5. raju, e.c., patel. j. d and shah. j.j 1980. effects of gamma irradiation in morphology of leaf and shoot apex of ginger, turmeric and mango ginger. procs. indian acad. sci., 89: 173-178. reddy, m.l.n., rao. d. v. r and reddy.s.a 1989. screening of short duration turmeric varieties/cultures suitable for andhra pradesh. indian cocoa, arecanut and spices j., 12: 87-89. sasikumar, b., george. j.k and ravindran.p.n 1994. breeding ginger and turmeric. ind. cocoa, arecanut and spices j., 18:10-12. shah, h.a., seemanthini,r, arumugam.r muthuswamy.s and khader.j.b.m 1982. co1 turmeric a high yielding mutant turmeric. south ind. hort., 30: 276-277. subramanian, s., subbiah.a, vijayakumar.m and saraswathy.s 2002. growth and physiological attributes of turmeric varieties (curcuma longa l.) bsr-1 and co1 under coimbatore conditions. in: proceedings of seminar on strategies for production and export of spices, oct’ 24-27. iisr, calicut. p. 18. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 124-128, 2006 usha nandhini devi & chezhiyan 128 (ms received 12 april 2006 , revised 21 september 2006) effect of pheromone lure-distance and direction in trapping brinjal fruit and shoot borer (leucinodes orbonalis guen.) male moths h. s. singh, n. k. krishna kumar1 and b. krishnakumari2 central horticultural experiment station (iihr) p. o. aiginia, bhubaneswar-751 001, india e-mail: singhhs21@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted at bhubaneshwar, orissa, to study the presence of male brinjal shoot and fruit borer (bsfb) outside cropping area and the effect of wind direction on male bsfb trap catches. water traps with 4 mg of synthetic bsfb pheromone lure in rubber septa were placed at 0, 50, 100, 150 and 350 m away from a brinjal field in all four directions i.e., north, south, east and west. water level in the traps was maintained constant and lures were changed at 20 days interval. count of bsfb trapped males and record of wind direction was made every 24 h for 61 days. results indicated that the number of male bsfb moths in distantly located traps (350 m from the brinjal field) was at par with the numbers observed in traps placed in the main brinjal field. traps located at 50 and 100 m from brinjal field attracted less male bsfb moths than those at 0, 150 and 350 m indicating the feasibility of trapping male bsfb moths even in non-brinjal area. trap direction did not significantly influence trap catch. nearly 60% of bsfb male moths were observed in traps placed against direction of the wind. key words: leucinodes orbonalis, pheromone, trap distance, wind direction short communication 1division of entomology and nematology, indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bangalore-560 089, india 2division of organic chemistry, indian institute of chemical technology, hyderabad-500 001, india eggplant (solanum melongena l.) or brinjal is among the most important vegetables in many parts of the world. the shoot and fruit borer (leucinodes orbonalis guen. lepidoptera: pyralidae), is a major pest on brinjal and can destroy entire crop (atwal, 1976). several insecticides were reported to be effective (kuppuswamy and balasubramanian, 1980; singh, 1983; tewari and krishna moorthy, 1983) against l. orbonalis. recently it has been observed that chemical control measures are less effective (krishna kumar et al, 2006) possibly because of development of insecticide resistance. no viable resistance is observed within cultivated s. melongena (dhankar, 1988). natural parasitism is low (srinivasan, 1994) and other alternative control measures such as barrier cropping, use of botanicals (ansari and nair, 1972; ansari and thomos, 1974; peter and govindarajalu, 1994) and bioagents (bustamantae et al, 1994) were not always economically effective. after identifying the major component of female sex pheromone of brinjal shoot and fruit borer (bsfb) (zhu et al, 1987; attygalle et al, 1988), pheromone lure was integrated as a component in the ipm of bsfb (cork et al, 2001). results indicated that more trap catches of male bsfb moths were observed when the traps were placed at the crop canopy level (talekar, 2002). the use of pheromone technology for management of bsfb ipm was evaluated on a large scale in south-east asia (alam et al, 2003). despite its effectiveness in attracting a number of male moths, no significant reduction in fruit borer damage was observed (krishna kumar et al, 2004). the extent of male trapping is influenced by a number of factors. krishna kumar et al (2004) indicated that the orientation of moths to the pheromone lure greatly depended on prevailing weather conditions and is affected by pesticides such as cypermethrin. thus, there is a need to find ways for need-based application of chemical pesticides for management of insect pests without affecting the efficacy of bsfb pheromone. placement of pheromone traps away from the brinjal field is one such method, as, this will also facilitate a community approach to bsfb management. experiments were therefore initiated to study the effect of pheromone luredistance and direction on trapping male bsfb. an experiment was laid out at the central j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1):67-70, 2007 horticultural experiment station, bhubaneswar, a regional station of the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. a local cultivar, long green was raised in the field nursery in september and planted in october, 2004 in 1500 m2 area. all the recommended cultural practices were followed except application of the insecticide. water traps (pest control india ltd.) containing 4 mg of bsfb lure in rubber septa were placed in all four directions of the field at a distance of 0, 50, 100, 150 and 350 m from the crop zone. traps were adjusted periodically to the height of the crop. composition of the vegetation as recorded in the trapping grid is presented in table 1. inside the trapping grid, no brinjal crop was raised except in the experimental plot. outside the grid, there was no brinjal crop up to a distance of 1000 m. water traps with bsfb pheromone lures [synthesized indigenously at the indian institute of chemical technology (iict), hyderabad] were placed in december, 2004. the pheromone vials were changed every 20 days. water level in the traps was regularly maintained and the number of male moths trapped was recorded at every 24 h for 61 days. similarly, direction of the wind was recorded daily at 5 p.m. data on total number of moths trapped were sub-grouped into two categories: windpositive (those trapped in the direction of wind on any particular day) and wind-negative (male moths flying towards the trap against direction of the wind). trap catch data were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) (little and jackson, 1977) after square root transformation. vegetation recorded inside the trapping grid comprised of fruit plants (banana, sapota, mango, cashew, litchi, lime and aonla), bitter gourd and weeds. none of these plants is a host for bsfb (table 2). the synthetic sex pheromone was effective in trapping male bsfb moths. however, number of moths trapped varied form trap to trap and within a trap over time. interestingly, males were seen to be trapped not only within the cropped area but also 350 m away. data indicated that the mean number of moths trapped in traps located at 150m and 350 m from the experimental field (non-host area) was at par with the number trapped within the field (p=0.05), which indicates the possibility of trapping bsfb male moths in non-host area. a possible reason for moths trapped in the non-host area might be influx of males into the trapping grid or their outflux from the brinjal field. either way, this gives an indication that presence or absence of a brinjal crop is of less significance for the orientation of bsfb male moths towards the pheromone lure. this information can be utilized to successfully trap bsfb male moths to implement a community based, area-wide pheromone technology. our results indicating the attraction of male moths to the chemical lure, irrespective of the presence or absence of host plant, provides a window of opportunity to lure the pest, all through the year. furthermore, trapping a significant number of male bsfb moths, especially during the lean season, limits the biotic potential of the pest significantly. table 1. vegetation in trapping grid direction distance (m) of traps (from brinjal crop) and flora in trapping grid 0 50 100 150 300 east brinjal fruit crop nursery plants, lime and weeds aonla and weeds bitter gourd and weeds 500 guava and weeds west brinjal banana, sapota and weeds sapota and weeds litchi and weeds cashew and weeds 1000 north brinjal mango and weeds mango and weeds mango and weeds forest plants and weeds 800 south brinjal fallow, weeds and forest plants guava and weeds guava and weeds forest plants and weeds 900 distance from nearest brinjal field outside the grid (m) table 2. bsfb trap catch in relation to distance from brinjal field and wind direction direction distance(m) direction effect 0 50 100 150 350 north 0.5376(0.6589) 0.0612(0.2019) 0.0952(0.1781) 0.1925(0.4324) 0.6426(0.7819) 0.3050 (0.4506) south 0.6081(0.7444) 0.2027(0.3674) 0.1920(0.3577) 0.2817(0.4871) 0.2159(0.3776) 0.3061 (0.4669) east 0.3798(0.5926) 0.0729(0.2554) 0.1167(0.2628) 0.4039(0.5071) 0.4991(0.6956) 0.2945 (0.4627) west 0.1995(0.4348) 0.0504(0.1829) 0.1419(0.3513) 0.3638(0.5596) 0.1841(0.4136) 0.1878 (0.3884) distance effect 0.4310(0.6077) 0.0968(0.2519) 0.1364(0.2875) 0.3164(0.4965) 0.3854(0.5672) direction effect distance effect interaction s em (±) 0.0574 0.0642 0.1285 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.1840 ns ·figures in parentheses are square root transformed values 68j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 67-70, 2007 singh et al the number of male bsfb moths trapped at 50 m and 100 m from the experimental brinjal field was significantly less (p=0.05) compared to traps placed at 0 m, 150 m and 350 m. the possibly large influx of bsfb males from far and wide may be a reason for increased catches in traps placed at 150 m and 350 m, also indicating that the bsfb males are good fliers. similarly, traps placed at 0 m recorded significantly more moths, possibly as a direct result of fruit infestation, continuously breeding and emerging adult population within the brinjal field. results indicated that male trapping can be done without presence of the host plant, which, in turn, points to the fact that sex stimulus, is the primary factor (though environmental influences can not be ignored). by this, immigrant males could be trapped in the non-host area itself (before these could reach the host area). by placing traps near/ around the brinjal field for targeting the moths, interference from cypermethrin could be avoided. however, results show that trapping of males is required in both brinjal and non-brinjal areas if area-wide management is to be successful. data on trap catches in the four directions are presented in table 3. wind direction for 26 days was from south to north, 10 days from west to east, 16 days from east to west and 9 days from north to south. proportion of the wind negative trap catches (male moths flying towards the trap against the direction of wind) was more than 64 %. this indicate that placement of pheromone traps against wind direction enhanced bsfb trap catches. references alam, s. n, rashid, m. a., rouf , f. m. a., jhala, r. c., patel, j. r., satpathy, s., shivalingaswamy, t. m., rai , s., wahundeniya , i., cork , a., ammaranan, c., talekar, n. s. 2003. ipm strategy for eggplant fruit and shoot borer-final technical report of a dfid-funded project r7465 (c): development of an integrated pest management strategy for the control of eggplant fruit and shoot borer (leucinodes orbonalis) in south asia, asian vegetable research centre, taiwan. pp 1-66 ansari, p. a. r. and thomos, m. j. 1974. on the use of lemon grass leaf infusion for the control of brinjal aphid. agril. res. j. kerala, 12: 77 ansari, p. a. r. and nair, m. r. g. k. 1972. on the control of brinjal pests using deterrents. agril. res. j. kerala, 10: 133-135 attygalle, a. b., schwaraz, j. and gunawardena, n. e. 1988. sex pheromone of brinjal fruit and shoot borer leucinodes orbonalis guenee (lepidoptera: pyralidae). zeitschrift fur naturforschung, 43: 790792 atwal, a. s. 1976. agricultural pests of india and south east asia. kalyani publishers, new delhi, p. 527 bustamantae, r. c, luzaran, p.b., gruber, l.t. and villanueva, e., 1994. field evaluation of different control measures against eggplant shoot and fruit borer. the philippines j. pl. industry, 59: 119-125 cork, a., alam, s. n., das, a., das, c. s., ghosh, g. c., farman, d .i., hall, d. r., maslen, n. r., vedham, k., phythian, s. j., roue, f. m. a. and srinivasan, k. 2001. female sex pheromone of brinjal shoot and fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis (lepidoptera : pyralidae), blend optimization. j. chem. ecol., 27: 1867-1877. dhankar, b. s. 1988. progress in resistance studies in the eggplant (solanum melongena l.) against shoot and fruit borer (leucinodes orbonalis guen.) infestation. tropical pest management, 34: 343-345 krishna kumar, n. k., venugopalan, r., krishna moorthy, p. n., shiva kumara, b. and ranganath, h. r. 2004. influence of weather factors on the attraction of male eggplant shoot and fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis guenee to synthetic sex pheromone in south india. pest mgt. hortl. ecosys., 10: 161-167 krishna kumar, n. k., krishna kumari, b., singh, h. s., ranganath, h. r., shiva kumara, b. and kalleshwarswamy, c. m. 2006. pheromone trapping protocols for brinjal fruit and shoot borer, leucinodes table 3. effect of wind direction on orientation of male bsfb moths and trap catch number of days the wind mean wind positive mean wind negative % trapped as blew in a specific direction population population wind negative direction of wind wind blow days (location of trap) negative positive s n (south) 26 9 0.08 0.23 74.19 n s (north) 9 26 0.11 0.20 64.52 e w (east) 16 10 0.10 0.19 65.52 w e (west) 10 16 0.06 0.12 66.67 mean 67.72 pheromone distance and direction in trapping brinjal fruit borer 69j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 67-70, 2007 orbonalis guenee (lepidoptera: pyralidae): evaluation of trap design, quantity and dispenser. j. hort. sci., 1: 39-42 kuppuswamy, s and balasubramanian, m. 1980. efficacy of synthetic pyrethroids against brinjal fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis guen. south ind. hort., 28: 91-93 little, t. m. and jackson, h. f. 1977. agricultural experimentation design and analysis: anova, john wiley and sons, inc. canada, pp-44 peter, c. and govindarajalu, v. 1994. efficacy and persistence toxicity of certain new insecticides against brinjal pest complex. pestology, 18: 27-30 singh, d. 1983. control of brinjal fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis, with synthetic pyrethroids. pesticide, 17: 14-15 srinivasan, k. 1994. recent trends in insect pest management in vegetable crops. in: g. s. dhaliwal and arora (eds.) trends in agricultural insect pest management. commonwealth publishers, new delhi, pp-345-372. talekar, n. s. 2002. controlling eggplant fruit and shoot borer. international co-operators guide. avrdc publication no. 02:534, taiwan. tewari, g. c. and krishna moorthy, p. n. 1983. effectiveness of synthetic pyrethroids against the pest complex of brinjal. entomon, 8: 365-368. zhu. p., kong. f, yu, n. s., hu, x. and xu, j. 1987. identification of the sex pheromone of egg plant borer, leucinodes orbonalis guenee (lepidoptera: pyralidae). zeitschrift fur naturforschung, 42:13471348. (ms received 25 june 2006, revised 8 may 2007) 70j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 67-70, 2007 singh et al final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 255 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 255-259, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. short communication the coconut palm (cocos nucifera l.) is one of the most beautiful and useful trees in the world and all parts of this ‘wonder palm’ are useful in one way or other. coconut, an out-breeding perennial tree, is seed propagated, exhibits great variation in morphological and agronomic characters. vegetative multiplication of elite coconut palms is a promising possibility for producing uniform planting material with high yield a nd disea se-r esista nce. pr otocols for coconut micropropagation have been developed in various laboratories using different explant sources (nguyen et al., 2015). among various explants, the most extensively studied are the rachillae from inflorescence and plumule from zygotic embryos. flowering is a complex phenomena regulated by both internal and external factors and induction of in vitro flowering is very rare in most of the crops. under natura l conditions, flower forma tion norma lly commences when a plant attains maturity. juvenile phase of a plant is genetically controlled and is species specific which means that a plant flowers only when genetic factors including photoperiodic response are congenial. however, these conditions can often be altered so that the plant can be induced to undergo an early reproductive phase. such an attempt to induce flowering in vitro has been attempted in many plant systems. in vitro cultur e pr ovides a n idea l experimental system for studying the molecular mechanism of flowering. in vitro flowering studies has been conducted in many perennial crops e.g., bamboo (joshi and nadgauda, 1997), red hot pokers (taylor et al., 2005), date palm (allouche et al., 2010), oil palm (nizam and te-chato, 2012) etc. however, in vitro flowering in coconut has not yet been reported. reducing duration of juvenile phase is an advantage especially in coconut with long pre-bearing period of 6-10 years. here, in the process of establishing in vitro regeneration of coconut using immature inflorescence explants, strikingly, a few cases of in vitro flowering in coconut plantlets was observed. this paper aims occurrence of in vitro flowering in coconut (cocos nucifera l.) shareefa m.*, thomas r.j., sreelekshmi j.s. and anitha k* icar-central plantation crops research institute, regional station, kayamkulam, alappuzha-690533, kerala, india icar-cpcri, kudlu p.o., kasaragod-671124, kerala *corresponding author e-mail : hishareefa@gmail.com abstract immature inflorescence with outer spathe length of 5.5 cm size collected from west coast tall cultivar of coconut was used as the explant and rachillae bits were inoculated in y3 media supplemented with 2, 4-d (1 mg l-1). the cultures were incubated in dark for eight months and sub-cultured into the same media at monthly interval. the white shoot like outgrowths formed were sub cultured to ½ ms media fortified with 1 mg l-1 each of naa and bap and subsequently transferred to light condition. after three months, the emerging shoot like structure was transferred to y3 media fortified with naa and bap. upon developing 3 4 leaves, the cultures were transferred to rooting media and root initiation was observed after two months. the transition of vegetative shoot to reproductive state was accompanied by some morphological changes including rapid emergence of long and thin leaves followed by emergence of pearly white inflorescence. unlike normal inflorescence, the inflorescence emerged was terminal and was devoid of spathe. prolonged subculture in the same media might have resulted in ph variation and subsequent reduction in organic and inorganic constituents of the media. the chemical stress experienced by the plantlet might have induced in vitro flowering. key words: cocos nucifera, immature inflorescence, hapaxanthic, prolonged subculture 256 shareefa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 255-259, 2022 to present some observations connected with in vitro flowering of coconut palm and also tries to explain the possible factors involved. the procedure followed by shareefa et al. (2019) was used for immature inflorescence culture of coconut. immature inflor escence expla nts with outer spathe length of 5.5 cm size were collected fr om 25 yea r old west coast tall var iety a nd rachillae bits of 1 mm which were inoculated in y3 media s u p p lement ed wit h 1 mg l -1 2 , 4 dichlor ophenoxya cetic acid (2,4-d). the basal media also contained sucrose 40 g l-1, charcoal 1 g l-1 and agar 6 g l-1. the cultures were incubated in dark condition at 27° ± 2°c and sub cultured in same media. after eight months, cultures were tr a nsf er r ed to ½ mur a shige a nd skoog (ms) medium with 1mg l-1 each of α-naphthaleneacetic acid (naa) and 6-benzylaminopurine (bap). the cultures were initially kept in diffused light for one month followed by incubation in light condition for about 16 hours light (45-60 µmol m-2 s-1 ppfd) provided by white light emitting diode (led) tubes. after 4-6 months in light, the multiple shoots wer e sepa r a ted f r om t he pa r enta l clump a nd transferred for shoot regeneration to y3 media with 1 mg l-1 each naa and bap. after developing 34 leaves, the cultures were transferred to rooting media containing y3 with naa (2 mg l-1) and bap (2 mg l-1) and indole 3-acetic acid (2 mg l-1) along with sucrose 30 g l-1 for root initiation. within one month of dark incubation, the rachillae ex pla nts s welled a nd whit e out gr owths wer e observed in culture initiation media. the cultures when tr ansferr ed to light conditions gr adua lly turned green and developed multiple shoots which could be easily detached from parental clump. the s ep a r a t ed s hoot s wer e t r a ns f er r ed t o s hoot regeneration media for formation of well developed leaves. root initia tion was obser ved a fter two months in the rooting media. in vitro flowering was observed in few plantlets cultured in the rooting media and such plantlets developed had four leaves and few root initials. in order to develop secondary roots, the plantlets were kept in the same media for a period of six months. the onset of in vitro flowering was accompanied by some morphological changes in the plantlets which include rapid emergence of long and thin lea ves befor e the a ppea r a nce of pea r ly white inflorescence. unlike normal inflorescence, the emergence of inflorescence was terminal in the in vitro raised plantlets and the inflorescence was devoid of spathe (figure.1). the ability of explants to form flowers in vitro depends on nu mer ou s inter na l a nd ext er na l, physical and chemical factors and virtually all these factors interact in various complex ways (compton and vielleux, 1992). in the present study, induction of flowering was observed in plantlet cultured on y3 media fortified with naa (2 mg l-1) and bap (2 mg l-1) and iaa (2 mg l-1). the combined effect of auxin and cytokinin on in vitro flower induction has also described in a number of previous studies (handro, 1983; wang et al., 2002; ammar et al., 1987; jeyachandran and bastin, 2013; lin et al. 2005; saritha and naidu, 2007a; sudhakaran and s iva s a n ka r i, 2 0 0 2 ; ta ylor e t a l . 2 0 0 5 ; thiruvengadam and jayabalan, 2001). the role of cytokinins on in vitro flowering has been well documented (wang et al., 2001; saritha and naidu, 2007b). cytokinins alone do not a ppea r to be responsible for floral initiation. it is reported that cytokinins are known to interact with sucrose to cause the shift in the apical mer istem fr om a vegetative phase to a reproductive one (bernier et al. 2002; bernier and pe´rilleux, 2005). sugars are primary sources known for reliable induction and development of flowers in many plant species such as r ose (vu et al. 2006), passiflora suberosa ( s c or z a a nd j a nic k, 1 9 8 0 ) , vi g n a m u n g o (ignacimuthu et al., 1997) indicating that presence of ca r bon s ou r ces on the c ult ur e medium is necessary for floral stimulation. there are many other physico-chemical factors which affected the in vitro flowering mechanism. kolar and senkova (2008) reported that reduced mineral nutrient availability accelerated in vitro flowering in arabidopsis thaliana. the effect of paclobutrazole, leds and sucrose on flowering of euphorbia milli plantlets in vitro was studied by dewir et al. (2007). in tobacco, important factors influencing in vitro flowering were light, growth regulators, carbohydrates and ph of the culture medium (heylen and vendrig, 1988). the most essential part of plant tissue culture is the media which supplies hormones a nd necessa ry nutrients for growth and development. in the present investigation, maintaining cultures for six months in 257 same media resulted in good root growth in plantlets, which also resulted in floral initiation. prolonged culture of rooted shoots in media containing naa and pbz together with higher concentration of sucrose at 7% was reported to induce floral development in oil pa lm (niza m a nd te-cha to, 2012). dela ying subculture may lead to hormone alternation and depletion of nutrients in the culture media. therefore the altered chemical composition might have created a stress due to the increa sed passage time for subculturing. it was interesting to note that in vitro flowering did not r esemble flower ing ex vitro, in tha t the inflorescences in vitro never matur ed a nd they subsequently senesced indicating that other factors, excluding cytokinins and a carbohydrate source, are required for continued normal development of the inflorescences. cytokinins and sucrose therefore seem to act in the initial stages of floral initiation and development, however, full differentiation and maturation of the resulting flower bud requires involvement of other physiological factors. the results of the current study revealed that contrary to natural flower formation, in vitro neoformed inflorescences were completely uncovered, ie., lacking spa the. t her e a re two types of developmenta l processes namely hapaxanthic and pleonanthic, in palms (tomlinson, 1990). in hapaxanthic type, the growth of the axis of palm is determinate due to conversion of the vegetative shoot apical meristem (sam) to the reproductive state, resulting in a short flowering phase and this phenomenon is observed only in less than 5% of palm species. the rest of the palm species are pleonanthic, with an indeterminate sam, in which the vegetative growth continues while producing a reproductive meristem at each leaf axil. according to the tomlinson model, under in vivo conditions, flower ing in coconut is nor ma lly pleonanthic. however, in the present study, in vitro flowering was hapaxanthic as the inflorescence emergence wa s ter mina l r esulting fr om the development of the apical bud which was devoid of any bract, which consequently gave rise to uncovered inflorescences. the flowers were malformed and never matured indicating that optimum interaction of light, temperature, plant growth regulators and nutrients are essential for flowering and normal maturation of flowers. similarly, undersized and malformed flowers have been observed previously in other species (ramanayake et al. , 2001). t he malformation occurrence of in vitro flowering in coconut j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 255-259, 2022 fig.1a. initial stage of in vitro flowering in coconut (arrow) fig. 1b. fully emerged in vitro inflorescence 258 occasionally observed in the flowers produced in vitro may have been partially due to competition and or nutritional deficiencies as reported in pentanema indicum (sivanesan and jeong, 2007). summary in the present study, prolonged subculture in the same media might have resulted in changes in the ph and reduction in concentration of organic and inorganic constituents of the media. the resulting chemical stress might have induced in vitro flowering in coconut. the interesting observation was that in vitro neoformed inflorescences were completely uncovered, lacking spathe and were terminal. the flowers were malformed and never matured indicating that optimum interaction of light, temperature, plant growth regulators and nutrients are essential for flowering and normal maturation of flowers. however, in vitro flowering can be efficiently used to understand the snapshots of physiological, hormonal and molecular regulation of flowering and such information gathered can be used to save time in future genetic improvement programs. acknowledgements we thank indian council of agricultural research, new delhi for supporting the work which was carried out as a part of the institute funded research project. we also thank dr. george v. thomas (former director, icar-cpcri), dr p. chowdappa (former director, icar-cpcri), dr. v. krishnakumar (former head, icar-cpcri, regional station, kayamkulam) and dr. s. kalavathy (acting head, icar-cpcri, regional station, kayamkulam) for providing the necessary facilities for carrying out this study. references allouche, f. m, meziou. b., kriaa, w., gargouri, r., drira, n. 2010. in vitro flowering induction in date palm (phoenix dactylifera l.). j. plant growth regul.,29: 35-43. ammar, s., benbadis, a., tripathi, b. k. 1987. floral induction in date palm seedling (phoenix dactylifera l. var. deglet nour) cultured in vitro. can. j. bot., 65: 137-142. 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and in vitro fruiting of vigna mungo l. hepper. curr. sci., 73: 733735. jeyachandran, r. and bastin, m. 2013. an efficient protocol for in vitro flowering and fruiting in micrococca mercurialis (l.) benth. int. j. appl. nat. sci., 2: 18-22. joshi, m. s. and nadgauda, r. s. 1997. cytokinin and in vitro induction of flowering in bamboo: bambusa arundinacea (retz.) willd. curr. sci., 73: 523-526. kolar, j. and senkova, j. 2008. reduction of mineral nutrient availability accelerates flowering of arabidopsis thaliana, j. plant physiol., 165: 1601-1609. lin, c. s., chen, c. t., hisao, h. w., chang, w. c. 2005. effects of growth regulators on direct flowering of isolated ginseng buds in vitro. plant cell tissue organ cult., 83: 241-244. nguyen, q. t., bandupriya, h. d., lopez, v. a., sisunandar, s., foale, m., adkins, s. w. 2015. tissue culture and associated biotechnological interventions for the improvement of coconut (cocos nucifera l.): a review. planta, 242: 1059-1076. shareefa et al j. 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(received: 01.10.202; revised:06.05.2022; accepted: 02.08.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):107-108, 2015 manipulation of bunch development in banana to ensure uniformity in fruit size and high yield was achieved in different varieties of banana by kotur et al (2012) using direct nutrient-feeding to the de-navelled distal end of rachis after fruit set. using 15n-labelled urea, it was demonstrated earlier (kotur and keshava murthy, 2008) that over 42% of n blended in cow-dung slurry enriched with urea and sulphate of potash (sop) could be mobilized into the bunch, with concomitant inflow of other nutrients present in the enriched cow-dung. improvement in fe and mn content from 53 and 4.8µg g-1, respectively, in the whole banana fruit (pulp + peel) under ‘control’, to 115 and 14.9µg g-1, respectively, was obtained in direct nutrient-feeding with a blend of 7.5g each urea and sop in cow-dung in ‘robusta’ banana (kotur and keshava murthy, 2010). therefore, further enhancement in bunch weight, and fruit biofortification with these micronutrients important for human nutrition (nair and iyengar, 2009; insa, 2011) was attempted by enriching the blend with feso4 (heptahydrate) and mnso4 (monohydrate). ‘control’ bunches retained the male flower until harvest, while, other treatments involved direct nutrient-feeding of the de-navelled distal end of rachis (after shed of 15-18 spathes) with 500g fresh cow-dung enriched with 7.5g each of urea and sop dissolved in 100ml of water. uniform bunches carrying 10 hands (with average number of fingers at 132 ± 6.8) were selected for receiving bio-fortification with iron and manganese for enhanced bunch yield in ‘robusta’ banana through direct nutrient-feeding s.c. kotur division of soil science and agricultural chemistry icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, india e-mail: sckotur@gmail.com abstract enhancement of bunch weight together with bio-fortification with fe and mn was attempted in ‘robusta’ banana by enriching with 0-1.25g bunch-1 each of feso4 (heptahydrate) and mnso4 (monohydrate). bunch yield and content of fe and mn in the pulp substantially increased by direct nutrient feeding of bunches with 7.5g each of urea and sop besides 0.75g each of feso4 and mnso4. the improved technique holds promise for combating anemia in humans by bio-fortification of banana with fe besides supplemental mn in diet. key words: bunch size, direct nutrient feeding, ‘robusta’ banana, musa sp., bio-fortification, fe and mn content of pulp the treatments. the blend was further enriched with feso4 and mnso4 in the range of 0-1.25g each (table 1) used in 3 replications. after harvest, fruit and bunch weight was recorded. pulp from fruits ripening at ambient conditions was sampled, sliced, held in on oven at 70oc to dryness, and powdered. the powder was digested in 9:4 nitric:perchloric acid mixture. iron and manganese in the digest were determined using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. data was analyzed taking the experiment design as a completely randomized unit. table 1. effect of de-navelling and direct feeding of fe and mn blended with urea, sop and cow-dung in ‘robusta’ banana bunch treatment fruit bunch fe m n weight weight content content (kg/bunch) (kg) (μg g-1) (μg g-1) control 13.934 14.685 25.8 1.1 cow dung + urea + sop 19.551 20.621 31.8 2.4 cow dung + urea + sop + 20.702 21.833 35.2 2.8 0.25g each of feso4 and mnso4 cow dung + urea + sop + 22.329 23.496 48.5 3.0 0.50g each of feso4 and mnso4 cow dung + urea + sop + 24.466 25.806 59.9 3.8 0.75g each of feso4 and mnso4 cow dung + urea + sop + 19.413 20.465 58.9 4.3 1.00g each of feso4 and mnso4 cow dung + urea + sop + 17.246 18.194 43.5 3.2 1.25g each of feso4 and mnso4 sem (±) 0.4459 0.4730 1.74 0.21 cd (p=0.05) 1.3013 1.3803 5.08 0.35 108 direct nutrient feeding using cow-dung enriched with urea and sop increased fruit and bunch weight by 40% to 76% over the ‘control’ owing to enrichment with feso4 and mnso4 (table 1). this accounted for 25% enhancement over application of cow-dung enriched with only urea and sop. significant decline in fruit and bunch weight occurred at 1.00 and 1.25g each of feso4 and mnso4, but, fruit and bunch weight was similar to that obtained in just urea + sop blended with cow-dung. with regard to fe and mn content of pulp, significant increase was observed in enriched cow-dung with up to 1.0g each of feso4 and mnso4 per bunch, declining significantly at 1.25g each of the two nutrients. however, these values were smaller than reported earlier (kotur and keshava murthy, 2010), as, only the pulp was studied which has much lower nutrient content relative to the fruit peel. these results indicate that it is possible to increase bunch yield further as also the content of fe and mn in pulp substantially, by direct nutrient-feeding of ‘robusta’ bunches with 7.5g each urea and sop along with 0.75 each of feso4 and mnso4. there is also a scope for adding nutrients other than n, k, s, fe and mn to the blend of cow-dung to optimize the use of direct nutrient-feeding of banana bunch. this can help maximize bunch yield and improve nutrient status in the pulp, to boost the food-value of banana fruit. however, neutraceutical implication in terms of bio-availability of fe and mn to humans remains to be seen through suitable clinical trials. this improved technique holds promise for combating anemia among humans besides supplementing mn in their diet. nair and iyengar (2009) opined that food-based approaches for increasing iron and other haematopoietic nutrient content are important for correction of iron deficiency anemia in humans. references insa. 2011. micronutrient security for india – priorities for research and action. indian national science academy, new delhi, pp. 1-19 nair, m.k. and iyengar, v. 2009. iron content, bioavailability and factors affecting iron status of indians. indian j. med. res., 130:634-645 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2008. enhancing the fruit yield of ‘robusta’ banana (musa×paradisiaca l.) by de-navelling and feeding nitrogen, potassium and sulphur through the distal-end of the bunch. indian j. agril. sci., 78:109-115 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2010. influence of de-navelling and stalk-end nutrient application on nutrient composition of ‘robusta’ banana fruits. j. hortl. sci., 5:148-150 kotur, s.c., ramesh, p.r. and venugopalan, r. 2012. evaluating direct feeding of de-navelled banana bunch with nutrients for enhancing fruit quality yield and nutrient contents. j. hortl. sci., 9:166-171 (ms received 07 december 2013, revised 17 november 2014, accepted 20 november 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):107-108, 2015 kotur guava (psidium guajava l.) is one of the most important commercial fruit crops of india (tandon et al, 1983). the guava fruit is an excellent source of vitamin c ranging from 70 to 350 mg/100 g, and a rich source of minerals like calcium, phosphorus and iron. the fruit also contains substantial quantity of vitamin a, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamin and niacin. the fruits can be processed into various products like jam, jelly, cheese, ketchup, clarified juice, powder, toffee, flakes, nectar and butter paste for domestic market as well as export. the present study deals with the evaluation of four guava varieties for nectar preparation. firm ripe fruits of four guava varieties were selected for the preparation of guava nectar. the fruits were washed, sliced blended with equal amount of warm water in a waring blender and sieved to obtain a fine fruit pulp free from seeds and epicarp. for nectar preparation, 20% pulp was used. the total soluble solids of pulp was adjusted to15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20o brix with the addition of calculated amount of sugar and the acidity at 0.3% in the final product by the addition of required amount of citric acid. the nectar was filtered and the filtrate was filled in to hot sterilized crown bottles of 250 ml capacity with air tight corking. the bottles were pasteurized in boiling water till the temperature of product reached 1000 c and stored at ambient condition for 150 days. tss was determined by hand refractometer. total sugar, reducing and non-reducing sugar, acidity and ascorbic acid were estimated as described evaluation of guava (psidium guajava l.) varieties and standardization of recipe for nectar preparation madan lal choudhary1, s.n. dikshit2, neeraj shukla and r.r. saxena3 department of horticulture college of agriculture, igau, raipur 492006 (c.g.), india e-mail: sndikshit@rediffmail.com abstract the nectar prepared from guava variety l-49 had highest ascorbic acid, ph and non-reducing sugar. the recipe with 20 per cent pulp, 0.3 per cent acidity and 170brix (tss) recorded highest organoleptic score. the acidity, tss, total and reducing sugar of nectar showed an increasing trend during the progress of storage upto five months under ambient conditions. however, these chemical constituents did not change markedly until five months of storage as compared to fresh nectar at the time of preparation. key words: guava varieties, nectar, recipe, storage, ambient condition, organoleptic score 1 college of agriculture, rau, bikaner (rajasthan) 2 corresponding author’s e-mail 3 department of statistics and computer science by ranganna (1997). the ph was measured using digital ph meter. organoleptic scoring was done by a panel of five judges using 9 point hedonic scale (amerine et al, 1965). the data were statistically analysed using completely randomized design with factorial arrangement. the chemical composition of guava varieties is presented in table1. data revealed that among four varieties of guava, the fruits of lucknow-49 had maximum tss, total sugar, reducing and non-reducing sugars as well as ascorbic acid (366.50 mg/100 g). however, the acidity was found medium (0.76%) having slightly acidic ph (5.51). the data pertaining to biochemical changes in guava nectar prepared from the recipe with 20% pulp, 170 brix (tss) and 0.3% acidity during storage of five months are presented in table 2. ascorbic acid the ascorbic acid content in guava nectar showed a decreasing trend during storage period from the time of preparation (0 day) to five months at ambient condition. the nectar of variety l-49 had significantly higher ascorbic acid followed by allahabad safeda, apple colour and r72 in fresh samples at the time of preparation (0 day) to five months of storage. the decrease in ascorbic acid in nectar during storage might be due to oxidation or irreversible conversion of l-ascorbic acid into dehydro ascorbic acid in the presence of enzyme ascorbic acid short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 161-163, 2008 162 oxidase caused by trapped or residual oxygen in the glass bottles. similar reductions in ascorbic acid content have also been reported in guava beverages (baramanray et al, 1995; pandey and singh, 1998; pandey, 2004). acidity the acidity in guava nectar increased in all the varieties during storage. at the end of five months, the nectar of variety l-49 had an acidity of 0.49% followed by allahabad safeda, apple colour and r-72 (0.90%). the increased acidity in nectar during storage may be due to formation of organic acids as well as progressive decrease in pectin content. similar findings have also been reported in the beverages of papaya (kumar, 1990), mango (rabbani, 1992) and guava (baramanray et al, 1995; pandey and singh, 1998; pandey, 2004). total soluble solids (tss) the tss content in guava nectar showed an increasing trend in all the varieties at increasing period of storage upto five months at ambient condition. the nectar of variety r-72 had a higher tss (17.40obrix) followed by apple colour, allahabad safeda and l-49 after five months of storage period. the increased tss in nectar during storage was probably due to conversion of left over polysaccharides into soluble sugars. similar results have been reported in date juice rts (godara and pareek, 1985) and guava beverages (baramanray et al, 1995; pandey and singh, 1998; pandey, 2004). ph of nectar the ph of guava nectar showed a decreasing trend in all the varieties with increasing period of storage from the time of preparation to five months under room temperature. in fresh nectar, the variety l-49 had the maximum ph of 5.89 followed by allahabad safeda, apple colour and r-72. after five months of storage period, the nectar of variety l-49 recorded the maximum ph of 4.65 followed by allahabad safeda. the reduction in ph could be attributed to simultaneous increase in acidity and tss of nectar at storage temperature as reported by sethi (1993) and prasad and mali (2000) in litchi and pomegranate squash, respectively. total and reducing sugars the total and reducing sugar content in guava nectar showed an increasing trend in all the varieties with increasing period of storage upto five months under ambient conditions. the nectar of variety r-72 contained maximum total and reducing sugar followed by apple colour, allahabad safeda and l-49 in fresh samples at the time of preparation as well as at five months of storage. however, the levels of total and reducing sugars in nectar of variety l-49 did not increase much during storage period in comparison to fresh samples. the increased level of total sugar was probably due to conversion of starch and pectin into simple sugars. the increase in reducing sugar as well as total sugar corresponded to the increase in total soluble table 1. chemical composition of guava fruits used for nectar characters tss totalsugar reducing sugar non-reducing sugar ascorbic acid (obrix) (%) (%) (%) (mg/100g) acidity (%) ph varieties apple colour 11.32 9.32 4.73 4.49 241.40 0.64 4.87 allahabad safeda 13.49 10.24 6.46 3.77 332.10 0.49 5.52 lucknow-49 14.52 11.63 6.62 5.05 366.50 0.76 5.51 rewa-72 13.09 10.06 6.52 3.53 135.25 0.94 4.25 table 2. compositional changes in guava nectar with recipe of 20% pulp, 170 brix (tss) and 0.3% acidity during storage parameters fresh sample (0 day) after 5 months (150 days) ac as l-49 r-72 ac as l-49 r-72 tss (0brix) 17.03 17.02 17.00 17.00 17.30 17.15 17.10 17.40 acidity (%) 0.32 0.32 0.32 0.32 0.77 0.65 0.49 0.90 ph 4.41 5.43 5.89 4.31 3.42 4.25 4.65 3.44 total sugar (%) 16.25 16.15 16.05 16.35 16.52 16.45 16.35 16.64 reducing sugar (%) 6.17 5.85 5.75 6.35 8.63 8.40 7.24 10.40 nonreducing sugar (%) 10.07 10.30 10.36 10.03 7.99 8.05 9.11 6.24 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 6.58 6.92 7.58 5.25 4.33 5.08 5.67 4.00 organoleptic score 8.40 8.99 9.00 8.09 6.55 7.21 7.81 6.71 ac: apple colour; as: allahabad safeda; l-49: lucknow-49; r-72: rewa-72 choudhary et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 161-163, 2008 163 solids and ultimate decrease in non-reducing sugar in the nectar during storage period (murari and verma, 1989). non-reducing sugar the non-reducing sugar in nectar showed a decreasing trend in all the varieties with increasing period of storage upto five months. the variation in different fractions of sugar might be due to hydrolysis of polysaccharides like starch, pectin and inversion of nonreducing sugar into reducing sugar, as increase in reducing sugar could be correlated with the decrease in non -reducing sugar (baramanray et al, 1995; shrivastava, 1998). organoleptic evaluation the organoleptic score of guava nectar of all the varieties decreased during storage. the nectar prepared from variety l-49 had a higher score followed by allahabad safeda, apple colour and r-72 in fresh samples and the products of l-49 and allahabad safeda were found to be acceptable upto five months of storage. loss of volatile aromatic substances responsible for flavour and taste of nectar might have decreased organoleptic score as well as acceptability of nectar during storage at ambient condition as reported by baramanray et al (1995) in guava nectar and thakur and barwal (1998) in kiwi fruit squash. references amerine, m.a., pangborn, r.m. and rosseler, e.b. 1965. principle of sensory evaluation of food. academic press, london baramanray, a., gupta, o.p. and dhawan, s.s. 1995. evaluation of guava (psidium guajava l.) hybrids for making nectar. haryana j. hortl. sci., 24: 102-109 godara, r.k. and pareek, o.p. 1985. effect of temperature on storage life of ready to serve date juice beverages. ind. j. agri. sci., 55: 347-349 kumar, s.1990. studies on post harvest technology of papaya fruits. ph.d. thesis, ndua&t, faizabad (u.p.) murari, k. and verma, r.a. 1989. studies on the effect of varieties and pulp extraction methods on the quality of guava nectar. ind. food packer, 42: 11-15 pandey, a.k. and singh, i.s. 1998. studies on preparation and preservation of guava squash. prog. hort., 30: 190-193 pandey, a.k. 2004. study about the storage stability of guava beverages. prog. hort., 36: 142-145. prasad, r.n. and mali, p.c. 2000. changes in physicochemical characteristics of pomegranate squash during storage. ind. j. hort., 57: 18-20 rabbani, a. 1992. studies of post harvest technology of sucking mangoes. ph.d. thesis, ndua&t, faizabad (u.p.) ranganna, s. 1997. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruits and vegetablesp r o d u c t . t a t a mcgraw hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi sethi, v. 1993. changes in physico-chemical characteristics of litchi squash during storage at different temperatures. ind. j. hort., 50: 327-332 shrivastava, j.s. 1998. comparative study of rts drinks prepared from dashehari and banganpalli mangoes. ind. food packer, 52: 38-42 tandon, d.k., kalra, s.k., singh, h. and chadha, k.l. 1983. physico-chemical characteristics of some guava varieties. prog. hort., 15: 42-44 thakur, k.s. and barwal, v.s. 1998. studies on preparation and evaluation of squash from unmarketable kiwi fruit. ind. food packer, 52: 26-29 (ms received 12 march, 2007, revised 4 august 2008) standardization of guava recipe for nectar preparation j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 161-163, 2008 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 220-226, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction mushrooms have been identified as an excellent food source to alleviate malnutrition in developing c ou nt r ies . o ys t er mu s hr oom ha s p r ot eins , carbohydrates, vitamins, calcium, and iron (hilal et al., 2012). it is a good dietary supplements which ca n lower cholester ol (kha tun et al. , 2007). globally, pleurotus is the second largest cultivated mushroom after shiita ke (royse et al., 2017). pleurotus species are popular and widely cultivated throughout the world especially in asia, america a nd europe beca use of their simple, low-cost p r odu c t ion t ec hnology a nd high b iologic a l efficiency. pleurotus species are efficient lignin degraders which can grow on a wide variety of agricultural wastes and acclimatize a wide range of temperatures. the productivity and quality of cultivated edible mushrooms mainly depend on the genetic makeup of the strain (kaur and sodhi 2012). the improvement of pleurotus mushroom production primarily utilizes natural selection. the productivity of the mushroom strain can be improved to some extent by manipulating the environmental and physiological conditions during cultivation. however, genetic manipulation of the ruling mushroom variety can enhance the productivity and quality of the mushroom. genetic manipulation of mushroom can be done by hybridization, protoplast fusion and genetic engineering for strain improvement. selection and mating of genetically diverse parents is an important approach to exploit heterosis through hybridization. the objectives of mushroom breeding are to obtain pleurotus strain with desirable agronomic traits such as high yield, wider substrate utilisation, spore lessness, wide temperature tolerance, good cropping duration and non-rhizomorphic mycelial phenotype of pleurotus djamor woody1 co-segregate in the hybrid progenies sindhu s.1, theradimani m.1, samundeeswari s.1, sobanbabu g.1, renuka r2. and ramamoorthy v.1* department of plant pathology, agricultural college and research institute, madurai tamil nadu agricultural university, tamil nadu, india *corresponding author e-mail : rvrmoorthy@yahoo.com abstract crop duration of the cultivated pleurotus spp. is 45 to 50 days. p. djamor isolate woody-1 was collected as natural selection and was found to be short cropping duration variety with total cropping duration of 30 days but it is less palatable. it produced very thin, loose and non-rhizomorphic mycelia appearing light white color. whereas, other commercial pleurotus varieties such as p. florida and p. djamor mdu1 are long crop duration varieties and palatable producing thick, compact and rhizomorphic mycelia with bright white color. co-segregation of non-rhizomorphic mycelial phenotype and short cropping duration trait of p. djamor woody1 in hybrid progenies was evaluated. hybrid strains viz., h2w12 and h2w14 have thin, loose and non-rhizomorphic mycelium and they produced primordia in 9-10 days after spawning with total cropping duration of 29-32 days. whereas, hybrid strain namely pf1w2 has thick, compact and rhizomorphic mycelial phenotype and it produced primordia in 20 days after spawning with the total cropping duration of 47 days. this study indicated that genes governing short cropping duration and non-rhizomorphic mycelial pattern were tightly linked and co-segregated in the progenies. thus, non-rhizomorphic mycelial phenotype of p. djamor woody1 can be used as a phenotypic marker for selection of hybrid cultivar having short cropping duration with other desired agronomic traits in future breeding strategy. keywords: basidiocarp, hybridization, mycelium and pleurotus 221 cropping duration and non-rhizomorphic mycelial phenotype j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 220-226, 2022 palatability, good texture of the fruiting body and resistance to pest and diseases. recently, p. djamor isolate woody1 was collected as natural selection process and it has short crop duration (30 days) and high biological efficiency. however, it is leathery in sensory while eating, contains less plectenchymatous tissue in the pileus. thus, it is less palatable (praveen et al., 2017). but several ruling pleurotus spp. including p. florida and p. djamor mdu1 are long crop duration varieties with good palatability. in order to transfer the short cropping duration trait into the commercially ruling mushroom cultivar, p. djamor woody1 need to be crossed with any of the ruling oyster mushroom and the suitable hybrid possessing short cropping duration along with desired agronomic traits such as good palatability and high yielding potential has to be selected. there are some sequential steps followed for carrying out successful breeding process (hybridization) between two pleurotus spp. starting with collection and culturing of basidiospores; crossing monokaryotic mycelia and evaluation of successful crosses and finally analysis of the hybrid strain for desired agronomic traits in comparison with parental strains (bar h et al., 2019). pleurotus ha s tetrapolar / bifactorial mating system and requires two compatible mating type for dikaryotic mycelial formation and basidiocarp initiation and need to carry out several crosses to get the dikaryons for obtaining hybrid with desired agronomic traits (raper and raper, 1966; casselton and olesnicky, 1998). several crosses need to be made to find a hybrid ha ving shor t cr op dur a tion tr a it with desir ed agronomic trait or a hybrid with several desirable traits. thus, it would be wise to have additional phenotypic marker that could co-segregate with any one of the desirable trait for screening the hybrid having other desired traits. in our previous studies conducted during 2018 and 2020 on breeding between p. djamor woody1 and p. djamor mdu1 or p. florida resulted in several hybrids having both short cropping duration and long cropping duration (reihana et al., 2018; samundeeswari, 2020). we speculated that short cropping dura tion a nd non-r hizomorphic mycelial phenotypes could co-segregate in the hybrid progenies. keeping these points in mind, cropping duration and mycelial phenotypic characters of three selected hybrid progenies (h2w12, h2w14 and pf1w2) of p. djamor woody1 were analysed upon crossing with p. florida. in this study it was found that non-rhizomorphic phenotypic character co-segregate with the short cropping duration in hybrid progenies. material and methods pleurotus culture and growth medium dikaryotic mycelia isolated from the basidiocarps of different pleurotus spp. viz., p. djamor woody1, p. florida, p. djamor mdu1 and hybrids strains viz., h2w12, h2w14 and pf1w2 (obtained upon crossing between p. djamor woody1 and p. florida) were used in this study. mycelial cultures were cultured on pda medium. spawn production was carried out on sorghum/paddy grains. mushroom cultivation for analysing the primordial formation and cropping duration was carried out on paddy straw. somatic hybridization of different pleurotus spp. collection of basidiospores was carried out by placing healthy pileus in sterilized petri plate in such a way that gills were facing down the bottom plate for an hour to allow shedding of basidiospore from the pileus. then, the basidiospores were collected by adding 10 ml of ster ilized wa ter a nd counted using haemocytometer. the basidiospore stock suspension was serially diluted to the concentration of 300 spores /ml and about 30 to 100 basidiospores were spread plated using sterilized glass l rod and incubated at 28! for 4 to 6 days or until individual small white mycelial colonies appear with the diameter of 3-5 mm. markedly fast growing monokaryotic colonies with typical radial growth were identified and sub cultured on fresh pda plate in a grid form at equi-distance. somatic hybridization was carried out between p. florida and p. djamor isolate woody 1. dual culture technique was employed for pairing monokaryons of two parental strains at possible combinations. small discs of monokaryons from two parental strains were cut and inoculated at two centimeters apart from each other on pda medium at the center of the plate and incubated at 28oc the plates were incubated until two monokaryotic mycelia grow towards each other and the hyphae of two monokaryons were interwoven or fused with each other. a compatible mating consisted of formation of fluffy and vigorous mycelia (with thick and bright white color) at the confrontation zone/merger region of anastomosis/ junction point of two monokaryotic mycelia. from this junction point, the fluffy putative dikaryotic mycelium was taken and 222 sindhu et al sub-cultured onto the new pda plate and incubated for five days. dikaryotic mycelia (crossed/hybrid/ paired mycelia) were further confirmed by the presence of clamp connection under light microscope. assessment of mycelial growth of different pleurotus spp. to assess the radial growth of mycelium and mycelial growth pattern, the dikaryotic mycelia of p. djamor woody1, p. florida, p. djamor mdu1 and hybrid strains viz., h2w12, h2w14 and pf1w2 were inoculated onto the pda medium. the cultures were incubated at 28°c. three replications were maintained for each culture. the radial growth of the mycelium was recorded when anyone of the isolates completely covered the petri plate. mycelial growth patterns such as fluffiness, color and rhizomorphic pattern were noted. spawn preparation the spawn preparation was carried out as described by krishnamoorthy et al. (2005). the paddy or sorghum grains were washed in water thoroughly to remove chaffy and damaged grains. the grains were cooked in vessel for 30 minutes just to soften them. then, the excess water from the cooked grains was drained off and grains were spread evenly over a hessian cloth on a platform to remove the excess water. at 50% moisture level, calcium carbonate (caco3) was applied on the grains (dried grains) @ 40 g /kg of grains. then, the grains were filled in polythene bags up to 3/4th height (approximately 300-330 g / bag), pvc ring was inserted, edges were folded down and the mouth of the bag was plugged tightly with non-absorbent cotton. after plugging with cotton plug, the bag was covered with a piece of paper and tied tightly around the neck with a jute thread or a rubber band. the bags were arranged inside an autoclave and sterilized at 20 lbs for 2 hours. then, the bags were taken after cooling and kept inside the laminar air flow chamber for inoculation. the mycelial culture (10 mm diameter disc) of pleurotus spp. was cut and transferred to a bag. the inoculated bags were incubated in a clean room under room temperature (28±2°c). the spawn running period was recorded. bed preparation paddy straw was used as a substrate for the bed preparation. the substrate was cut into 5 cm long bits, soaked in cold water for 4 hours and pasteurized in hot water for 30 min at 80°c. the transparent polythene bags (30 x 60 cm length and 80-gauge thickness) were used for the cultivation of oyster mushroom. initially, hands were thoroughly washed with alcohol. the bottom end of the bag was tied with a thread and the bag was turned inside out. then, the dried straw was mixed thoroughly to get a uniform moisture level in all areas. the well-grown bed spawn was taken out, squeezed thoroughly and divided into two halves. (two beds are prepared from the single spawn bag). bits of chopped straw (5 cm long) were placed at the bottom of polythene bag to make a layer (10 cm height) on which 40 g of spawn was sprinkled. second layer of straw to a height of 10 cm was placed and 40 g of spawn was sprinkled on top of the second layer. in the same way, five layers of straw and four layers of spawn were kept in the polythene bag and finally the bag was tied at the top. six ventilation holes of one-cm diameter were made at random in the polythene bag. then, these beds were kept in spawn running room where the temperature was maintained at 28oc. the fully spawn run beds were taken to the cr opping r oom in which the temper a tur e wa s maintained at 25±2°c and rh> 80% for initiation of basidiocarp (krishnamoorthy et al., 2005). primordia formation and cropping duration assessment the days required for the primordia formation were recorded after spawning and the days required for the harvest of the first, second and third flushes and total cropping duration of each variety were recorded. the yield and biological efficiency were recorded. results and discussion assessment of mycelial growth pattern of different pleurotus spp. to assess which pleurotus spp. grow actively on the culture media, six isolates of pleurotus spp. viz., p. djamor woody1, p. florida, p. djamor mdu1 and hybrid strains viz., h2w12, h2w14 and pf1w2 were cultured on pda medium. among the various pleurotus spp. tested, p. djamor isolate woody1 grew to the maximum level of 88.67 mm followed by the hybrid strains pf1w2 (86.33), h2w12 (85.67 mm), h2w14 (85.33 mm) and p. djamor isolate mdu1 (77.67 mm). whereas, the minimum mycelia l gr owth wa s r ecor ded by p. florida on pda medium (75 mm) (fig. 1 and table 1). j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 220-226, 2022 223 table 1: phenotypic characters of different pleurotus spp. pleurotus strains radial mycelial mycelial growth pattern growth (mm)* p. djamor woody1 88.67a thin, loose and non-rhizomorphic growth; dull white in color hybrid h2w12 85.67c thin, loose and non-rhizomorphic growth; dull white in color hybrid h2w14 85.33c thin, loose and non-rhizomorphic growth; dull white in color hybrid pf1w2 86.33b thick, compact and rhizomorphic growth; bright white in color p. florida 75.00d thick, compact and rhizomorphic growth; bright white in color p. djamor mdu1 77.67e thick, compact and rhizomorphic growth; bright white in color *mean of three replications in the column, mean values followed by a common letter are not significantly different (pd”0.05, dmrt analysis). fig. 1. colony characters of different pleurotus spp. mycelia of p. djamor woody1 (one of the parental strains used for hybridization) appeared as thin, loose and non-rhizomorphic filament and light white in color. similarly, the hybrid strains such as h2w12 and h2w14 a lso pr oduced thin, loose a nd nonrhizomorphic filament and light white in color. whereas, hybrid strain namely pf1w2 produced thick, compact and rhizomorphic mycelium and appeared bright white in color as that of other parental strain p. florida (fig. 1 and table 1). mostly, the mycelial gr owth phenotype of pleurotus a ppea r s a s rhizomorphic like radial growth with thick and white in color. but, mycelial growth characters of p. djamor woody1 and some of its hybrid progeny appeared as loose, thin and non-rhizomorphic type. this is the important phenotypic and distinguishing character for the identification of this isolate during culturing time. similar type of varied mycelial phenotypic characters in different pleurotus spp. was noticed in different pleurotus spp. mycelia of p. sajor-caju and p. platypus were compact. whereas, mycelia of p. citrinopileatus were highly fluffy. similarly, mycelial pattern in p. fossulatus, p. flabellatus, p. sapidus and p. ostreatus was slightly fluffy (mishra et al., 2015). spawn running period and mycelial pattern days required for spawn development was analysed for different pleurotus cultivars such as viz., p. djamor woody1, p. florida, p. djamor mdu1 and hybrid strains viz., h2w12, h2w14 and pf1w2. days required for spawn development for p. djamor woody1 a nd hyb r id str a ins viz. , h2 w1 2 a nd h2w14 were ranged from12 to 15 days and that for hybrid strain namely pf1w2 and p. florida were 16 to 17 da ys. mycelia l growth pa tter n of p. djamor woody1 and hybrid strains such as h2w12 a nd h2w14 a ppear ed a s thin, loose a nd nonrhizomorphic filament and light white in color on sp a wn s ub st r a t es (s or ghum/ pa ddy gr a ins ) a s observed on pda medium. whereas, hybrid strain namely pf1w2 and other parental strain namely. florida produced thick, compact and rhizomorphic mycelium and appeared bright white in color on spawn substrates as grown on pda medium (table 2). in other studies, it was reported that p. eous covered the spawn within 7 to 20 days on different grains used as spawn substrate (sahu et al., 2014). blue oyster mushroom took spawn 18.5 days for the spawn production when paddy grain was used as a substrate (sumi and geetha, 2017). days required for primordia formation d a ys r equ ir ed f or p r imor dia f or ma tion wa s analysed for different pleurotus cultivars such as p. djamor woody1, p. florida, p. djamor mdu1 a nd hybr id str ains viz. , h2w12, h2w14 a nd pf1w2. days required for primordia formation for cropping duration and non-rhizomorphic mycelial phenotype j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 220-226, 2022 224 p le ur ot us sp aw n d ay s fo r d ay s fo r ha rv es t y ie ld b io lo gi ca l p ile us st ra in s ru nn in g pr im or di a 1s t 2n d 3r d /c ro p (g / be d) e ff ic ie nc y ch ar ac te rs pe ri od fo rm at io n ha rv es t ha rv es t du ra ti on * (% )* (d ay s) * (d ay s) * (d ay s) * (d ay s) * (d ay s) * p. d ja m or w oo dy 1 12 .6 7a 9. 33 a 13 .0 0a 19 .0 0a 30 .0 0a 47 5. 00 ab 95 .0 0a b w av y m ar gi n h yb ri d h 2w 12 14 .3 3b 10 .6 7a b 14 .3 3a b 21 .6 7b 32 .6 7b 45 6. 67 bc 91 .3 3b c sl ig ht ly w av y m ar gi n h yb ri d h 2w 14 14 .6 7b 11 .6 7b 15 .3 3b 22 .0 0b 32 .0 0b 49 9. 33 a 99 .8 7a w av y m ar gi n h yb ri d pf 1w 2 16 .3 3c 20 .0 0c 24 .6 7c 36 .3 3c 47 .0 0c 45 0. 00 bc 90 .0 0b c sm oo th m ar gi n p. f lo ri da 16 .0 0c 21 .0 0c 25 .0 0c 36 .0 0c 48 .0 0c 43 3. 00 c 86 .6 0c sm oo th m ar gi n p. d ja m or m d u 1 17 .0 0c 20 .0 0c 24 .0 0c 35 .0 0c 47 .6 7c 44 0. 00 c 88 .0 0c sm oo th m ar gi n *m ea n of t hr ee r ep lic at io ns in t he c ol um n, m ea n va lu es f ol lo w ed b y a co m m on l et te r ar e no t si gn if ic an tly d iff er en t (p d” 0. 05 , d m r t a na ly si s) . ta bl e 2. a gr on om ic t ra its f or t he d iff er en t p le ur ot us s pp . sindhu et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 220-226, 2022 p. djamor woody1 and that for hybrid strains viz., h2w12 and h2w14 were ranged between 9 to 12 days and that for hybrid strain pf1w2, parental strain p. florida were 20 to 21 days. in general, pr imor dia (p in hea d for ma tion) for ma tion of pleurotus spp. occurs at 20 days after spawning (table 2). ahmed (1998) reported that pinhead formation of oyster mushroom occurred between 23 and 27 days from spawning in different substrates. fan et al. (2000) observed that pinhead formation took place between 20-23 days. patra and pani (1995) also recorded 20-24 da ys ta ken for the pinhead formation on paddy straw substrate. days required for basidiocarp production and total crop duration da ys r equir ed for the f ir st flu sh ba sidioca r p production for p. djamor woody1 and hybrid strains viz., h2w12 and h2w14 were between 13 to 15 days and that for hybrid strain pf1w2 and parental strain p. florida was 24 to 25 days after spawning. simila r ly, da ys r equir ed for the second flush basidiocarp production for p. djamor woody1 and hybrid strains viz., h2w12 and h2w14 ranged between 19 to 23 days and that for hybrid strain pf1w2, parental strains viz., p. florida and p. djamor mdu1 was 35 to 36 days. total cropping duration for the p. djamor woody 1 and hybrid strains viz., h2w12 and h2w14 ranged between 30 to 33 days and that for p. florida and p. djamor mdu1 wa s 47 to 48 days. ma rgin a nd outer surface of basidiocarps of p. djamor woody1 and hybrid h2w14 a ppea red wavy and the hybrid h2w12 appeared slightly wavy. whereas, margin and outer surface of basidiocarps of hybrid pf1w2, p. florida and p. djamor mdu1 appeared smooth. the hybrid h2w14 gave the highest yield of 499.33 g with biological efficiency of 99.87 % followed by p. djamor isolate woody 1 (475.00 g and 95 %), fig. 2. basidiocarp phenotypic characters of different pleurotus spp. 225 hybrids h2w12 (456.67 g and 91.33 %), pf1w2 (450.00g and 90.00 %) and p. djamor var mdu 1 (440.0 g and 88.00 %) and p. florida (433.00 g and 86.60 %). (fig. 2; table 2). baral et al. (2017) developed an intraspecific hybrid of p. flabellatus showing better nutr itional quality, ear liness in pr oduction and higher yield compar ed to their parental strains. interspecific hybrids viz., p1xc9 a nd p 3xc8, ob ta ined b y cr ossing between p. c it ri n op i le at u s a nd p. p ul mo n ar i us , s howed desirable traits such as higher productivity and biological efficiency a nd less offensive ar oma compared to their parental strains (rosnina et al., 2016). thus, this study clearly showed that hybrid strains viz., h2w12 and h2w14 are short crop duration va rieties with non-r hizomorphic mycelial type. whereas, hybrid strain pf1w2 is long cropping duration variety with rhizomorphic mycelial type. the present study clearly showed that short crop du r a t ion p henot yp e a nd nonr h iz omor p hic phenotype co-segregate together in the hybrid strains. thus, from this study, it was concluded that non-rhizomorphic mycelium character can be used as a phenotypic marker to screen and select the shor t dur a tion hybr id str a ins with a dditiona l desirable agronomic traits in the breeding program. pleurotus breeding program involves five steps such as 1. collection of basidiospores 2. culturing of individual basidiospore to form monokaryotic myc eliu m. 3 . c r os s ing/ ma t in g b et ween monokaryotic mycelia of two pleurotus spp. 4. evaluation of successful cross/dikaryon by checking clamp connection and 5. analysis of the hybrid strain for desired agronomic traits by mushroom cultivation (petersen and ridley, 1996). this study showed that only puta tive dika r yotic cr osses/ hybrids having non-rhizomorphic phenotype at the fourth step of breeding program could be further evaluated in the fifth step for screeding/analysis of the hybrid progenies having short crop duration with other desir ed agr onomic traits. t hus, cosegregating phenotypic marker saves the time and speed up the screening process of development of hybrid strain having short cropping duration with desired agronomic traits such as good palatability and high yielding potentia l. hence, having cosegregating phenotypic marker (non-rhizomorphic phenotype) with short cropping duration traits of p. djamor woody1 would facilitate in speeding up b r eeding p r ogr a m wit h ot her c o mmer c ia lly cultivated ruling pleurotus cultivar. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to tamil nadu agriculture university for giving facility and technical help rendered by r. reihana is highly appreciated. references ahmad, i., fuad, i. and khan, z. k. 2015. mycelia growth of pink oyster (pleurotus djamor) mushroom in different culture media & environmental factors. agriculture and food sciences research, 2(1): 6-11. barh, a., sharma, v.p., annepu, s.k., kamal, s., sha r ma , s. a nd p bha tt. 2019. genetic improvement in pleurotus (oyster mushroom): a review. 3 biotech, 9 (9):322. baral, d., roy, a. and thapa, s. 2018. strain improvement in oyster mushroom (pleurotus sp. ) thr ough hybr idization. the pharma innovation journa,l, 7(4): 286-289 casselton, l. a. and olesnicky, n. s. 1998. molecular genetics of mating recognition in basidiomycete fungi. microbiology and molecular biology reviews, 62(1): 55-70. fan, l., pandey, a., mohan, r. and soccol, c. 2000. use of various coffee industry residues for the cultivation of pleurotus ostreatus in solid state fermentation. engineering in life sciences, 20(1), 41-52. hilal, a., dunder, a. and yildiz, a. 2012. effect of using differ ent lignocellulosic wa stes for cultivation of pleurotus ostreatus (jacq.) p. kmm. on mushr oom yield, chemica l composition and nutritional value. afr. j. biotechnol., 8(4): 662-666. ka ur, j, a nd sodhi, h. s. 2012. molecula r characterization of mutant strains of calocybe indica using rapd-pcr. cme 2:4. khatun, k., mahtab, h., khanam, p., sayeed, m. and khan, k. 2007. oyster mushroom reduced blood glucose a nd cholesterol in diabetic subjects. mymensingh medical journal: mmj, 16(1): 94-99. cropping duration and non-rhizomorphic mycelial phenotype j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 220-226, 2022 226 sindhu et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 220-226, 2022 krishnamoorthy, a. s., marimuthu, t. and nakkeeran, s. 2005. mushroom biotechnology. department of plant pathology, tamil nadu agriculture university, coimbatore, p.82. patra, a. and pani, b. 1995. yield response of different species of oyster mushroom to paddy straw. curr agric res, 8(suppl): 11-14. petersen, r.h. and ridley, g.s. 1996. a new zealand pleurotus with multiple-species sexua l compatibility. mycologia, 88 (2):198-207. pr aveen, t., reihana , r., pa rthiban, v.k. a nd ra ma moor thy, v. 2018. “ molecula r characterization and phenotypic study of new pleurotus djamor isolate kkm.” int. j. curr. microbiol. appl. sci. 7 (8):3574-3582. raper, c. a. and raper, j. r. 1966. mutations modifying sexua l mor phogenesis in schizophyllum. genetics, 54(5): 1151-1168. reihana , r., pr aveen, t., pa rthiban, v.k. a nd 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(received: 17.09.2021; revised:04.12.2021; accepted: 15.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction potato (solanum tuberosum l.) is one of the most important food crops both in the developing and the developed countries. potato processing is well advanced in developed countries, but now processing industry in the developing countries is also growing fast. in india, there is an increase in processing activity due to an increase in urban population, preference of the new generation for fast foods, rise in per capita income, and increase in the number of working women (preferring ready-to-cook foods) and an expanding tourism (marwaha, 1997). processing of potatoes solves the problem of storing large quantities of this commodity during periods of glut. a large number of companies, including multinationals, have stepped into the field of potato processing. the processing industry needs potatoes with high dry matter (over 20%), low amounts of reducing sugars (below 0.25% on fresh weight basis), and low amounts of phenols (gaur et al, 1999). in the state of punjab, the main-season crop is grown under short-day conditions beginning in october, and is evaluation of potato genotypes for processing traits in late autumn prabhjot kaur, v.k. vashist and ajay kumar1 department of vegetable science punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141 001, india 1e-mail: ajaykpau@gmail.com abstract the present study was undertaken to evaluate potato genotypes for their suitability for processing when grown under different crop durations, i.e., e1 (80 days’ crop duration), e2 (100 days’ crop duration) and e3 (120 days’ crop duration). among the three durations studied, e3 yielded the highest processing-grade yield (q/ha), followed by e2 and e1. the crop in e3 also exhibited high dry-matter content and low levels of reducing sugars compared to that in the other crop durations, which is desirable for processing. among the cultivars under study, kufri badshah, kufri anand, kufri bahar, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2, kufri ashoka and kufri jawahar gave the highest total tuber-yield. however, for processing-grade yield, cvs. kufri badshah, kufri chipsona-1 and kufri jawahar yielded significantly better than the mean, but cv. kufri chipsona-1 was the one found suitable for processing due to its high dry-matter content (22.07%), while, the other cultivars were found suitable for table purpose alone. though cv. kufri chipsona-1 yielded higher (309.39 q/ha), its performance could not be predicted under various conditions owing to the data on regression coefficient (being less than one), and a significant deviation from regression. cultivars kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2 were found to be suitable for processing, with high tuberand processing-grade yield, high dry-matter content, low amount of reducing sugars and phenols in the crop durations e2 and e3. both these cultivars produced chips of acceptable colour in all three crop durations. key words: potato, genotypes, autumn season, processing quality j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):57-63, 2015 harvested in january/ february. during crop maturation, the average minimum temperature is 4.5°c, which results in relatively low dry-matter content and high levels of reducing sugars (ezekiel et al, 1999). days to harvest also affect processing quality in potato, viz., its dry matter content, sugar content, reducing sugars, phenolic compounds, and specific gravity (marwaha and sandhu, 2002). therefore, identifying suitable varieties for late-autumn planting in the northwestern plains will not only ensure supply of fresh potatoes to the processing industry of north india for a longer period, but also minimize transportation charges, and save on the storage cost of tubers (pandey et al, 2003). material and methods the experimental material comprised ten genetically diverse potato genotypes, viz., kufri badshah, kufri anand, kufri chandramukhi, kufri bahar, kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2, kufri ashoka, kufri jawahar and russet nor x 97-es-33, obtained from central potato research institute (cpri), shimla. these were multiplied at vegetable research farm of department of vegetable 1farm advisory service scheme, amritsar-143001, punjab, india 58 science, pau, ludhiana. all the ten cultivars were evaluated in randomized block design (rbd), with three replications. each plot measured 3.2m x 1.2m, and consisted of 16 plants in each row. seed-sized tubers were planted at row-to-row and plant-to-plant spacing of 60cm and 20cm, respectively. the crop was planted on 16th november 2005. three experiments were laid out for different crop durations, viz., 80, 100 and 120 days. various crop durations are symbolized below: environment-i (e1) – haulm cutting 80 days after planting environment-ii (e2)– haulm cutting 100 days after planting environment-iii (e3)– haulm cutting 120 days after planting each crop was harvested at 10-15 days at haulm cutting. the crop was raised following a package of practices for potato recommended by punjab agricultural university, ludhiana. processing characters like dry-matter content (%), total amount of sugars (yemm and willis, 1954), reducing sugars (mg/100g fresh weight) (nelson, 1944), total amount of phenols (swain and hillis, 1959) and polyphenol oxidase chip colour (score), were all studied. statistical analysis of variance was carried out for randomized block design for each character separately, in each of the three environments (crop duration cycles). phenotypic stability analysis of genotypes was assessed for their stability of performance over environments, using a model suggested by eberhart and russell (1966). the following model was used for describing performance of a variety over a series of environments: yij = μi + βiij + δij where, yij = variety mean of the i th variety at the jth environment (where i=1, 2 …….g, j=1, 2 ……….n) μi = overall mean of the ith genotype over all the environments βi = regression coefficient of i th variety to the varying environments ij = environmental index obtained as the mean of all genotypes at the jth environment minus the grand mean, i.e., ij = where, σj ij = 0 δij = deviation from regression of the i th variety in jth environment g = number of genotypes n = number of environments stability parameters of individual genotypes were calculated as per eberhart and russell (1966). results and discussion cultivars kufri chipsona-1 (161.47 q/ha), kufri chipsona-2 (209.23 q/ha) and kufri ashoka (151.03 q/ha) had significantly higher processing-grade yield than the mean value (124.49 q/ha) in e1. however, in the case of e2, cvs. kufri badshah (200.70 q/a), kufri bahar (169.30 q/ ha), kufri lauvkar (180.57 q/ha), kufri chipsona-1 (174.50 q/ha) and kufri chipsona-2 (189.57 q/ha) yielded significantly higher than the mean (152.85 q/ha). in the third environment (e3), cvs. kufri badshah (325.03 q/ha), kufri chipsona-1 (224.50 q/ha) and kufri jawahar (224.87 q/ha) gave significantly better yield than the mean value (196.16 q/ha) (table 1). analysis of pooled data revealed that cvs kufri badshah and kufri chipsona-2 had significantly higher processing-grade yield (215.47 q/ha and 196.02 q/ha, respectively) than the pooled mean (157.83 q/ha). in the case of environment e1, cvs. kufri chipsona1 and kufri chipsona-2 showed significantly higher drymatter content than the mean value. however, in the case of e2, cvs. kufri anand, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 showed significantly higher dry-matter content than the mean. in e3, cv. kufri chipsona1 alone had significantly higher dry-matter content than the mean value. pooled data analysis indicated that cvs. kufri anand, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 had significantly higher mean value than the pooled mean. kufri chipsona-1 had the highest dry-matter (20.69%), followed by kufri chipsona-2 (19.93%), russet nor x 97-es-33 (19.83%) and kufri anand (19.74%) (table 2). cultivars kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 had a high mean dry-matter content, with regression coefficient less than one (0.74, 0.22 and 0.90, respectively) and a non-significant deviation from regression, showing their suitability for cultivation under diverse environmental conditions. studies of patel et al (2003) and pandey et al (2005) also support the above findings. in environments e1 and e2, cvs. kufri chandramukhi, kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2 and j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):57-63, 2015 prabhjot kaur et al 59 table 2. mean , regression coefficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) for dry matter content (%) in potato during the autumn season 2005-2006 sl. genotype e1 e2 e3 overall bi s 2di no. mean 1. kufri badshah 15.21 17.49 18.96 17.22 1.04 0.03 2. kufri anand 18.58 20.29 20.36 19.74 1.04 0.09 3. kufri chandramukhi 16.04 18.54 21.27 18.62 1.44 0.10 4. kufri bahar 16.25 19.04 18.98 18.09 0.78 1.08* 5. kufri lauvkar 16.81 17.02 18.72 1752 0.51 0.47 6. kufri chipsona-1 19.37 20.63 22.07 20.69 0.74 0.04 7. kufri chipsona-2 19.17 20.74 19.87 19.93 0.22 0.93 8. kufri ashoka 14.44 17.10 21.29 17.61 1.87 0.85 9. kufri jawahar 14.53 17.44 19.87 17.28 1.47 0.00 10. russet nor x 97-es-33 18.04 20.19 21.26 19.83 0.90 0.09 mean 16.84 18.85 20.26 18.65 cd (5%) 1.86 1.32 1.10 0.90 se of bi = 0.24 cv 5.78 4.14 3.41 *significant at 5% table 3. mean , regression coefficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) for total amount of sugars (mg/100g fresh weight) in potato during the autumn season 2005-2006 sl. genotype e1 e2 e3 overall bi s 2di no. mean 1. kufri badshah 975.67 816.33 571.67 787.89 1.59 9435.81* 2. kufri anand 692.67 477.00 369.33 513.00 1.37 56.93 3. kufri chandramukhi 494.67 371.33 326.00 397.33 0.72 21.95 4. kufri bahar 736.67 467.00 356.67 520.11 1.62 16.19 5. kufri lauvkar 487.67 334.00 293.00 371.56 0.85 208.03* 6. kufri chipsona-1 347.67 288.67 268.67 301.67 0.34 10.07 7. kufri chipsona-2 304.67 270.00 232.33 269.00 0.29 156.36* 8. kufri ashoka 748.33 483.33 432.00 554.56 1.39 1268.33* 9. kufri jawahar 668.33 405.67 375.67 483.22 1.31 2197.54* 10. russet nor x 97-es-33 511.00 416.67 390.67 439.44 0.52 70.49 mean 596.73 433.00 361.60 463.78 cd (5%) 16.57 12.10 12.39 54.43 se of bi = 25.92 cv 2.08 1.52 1.56 *significant at 1% table 1. mean , regression coefficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) for processing-grade yield (q/ha) in potato during the autumn season 2005-2006 sl. genotype e1 e2 e3 overall bi s 2di no. mean 1. kufri badshah 120.67 200.70 325.03 215.47 2.85 0.55 2. kufri anand 90.30 147.47 212.70 150.16 1.69 50.02 3. kufri chandramukhi 93.78 48.57 87.68 76.67 0.00 1203.67* 4. kufri bahar 133.68 169.30 197.93 166.97 0.88 68.23 5. kufri lauvkar 105.03 180.57 140.60 142.07 0.38 2482.04* 6. kufri chipsona-1 161.47 174.50 224.50 186.82 0.90 93.30 7. kufri chipsona-2 209.23 189.57 189.26 196.02 -0.26 90.91 8. kufri ashoka 151.03 153.63 219.30 174.66 1.00 391.86* 9. kufri jawahar 69.45 164.07 224.87 152.80 2.11 720.22* 10. russet nor x 97-es-33 110.27 100.20 139.73 116.73 0.45 310.28* mean 124.49 152.85 196.16 157.83 cd (5%) 16.11 14.64 23.73 34.52 se of bi = 0.45 cv 5.95 5.40 8.76 *significant at 1% j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):57-63, 2015 evaluation of potato genotypes for processing traits in late autumn 60 russet nor x 97-es-33, had significantly less amount of total sugars than the mean. cultivars kufri anand, kufri chandramukhi, kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2 had significantly lower amount of total sugars than the mean in e3 (table 3). in pooled analysis of data, four cultivars, viz., kufri chandramukhi, kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2, had significantly lower mean of total level of sugars than did the pooled mean. ‘kufri chipsona-2’ had the lowest mean of total level of sugars (269.00mg), followed by kufri chipsona-1 (301.67mg), kufri lauvkar (371.56mg) and kufri chandramukhi (397.33mg) per 100g on fresh-weight basis. cultivars kufri chandramukhi, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 had lower mean values for total amount of sugars as less than one regression coefficient (0.72, 0.34, 0.29 and 0.52, respectively), and nonsignificant deviation from regression, indicating that performance of these cultivars could not be predicted under unfavourable environments. in this study, none of the cultivars showed regression coefficient equal to one or significant deviation from regression, indicating that no cultivar had average stability for this trait in all the three environments studied. the high amount of total sugars in environments e1 and e2 in our investigation could be attributed to low temperature (4.4°c), along with occurrence of frost during the vegetative phase and tuber development. studies by uppal et al (2003) also indicated that cvs. kufri chipsona-1and kufri chipsona-2 contained the lowest amount of total sugars (362 and 367mg/ 100g fresh weight, respectively). cultivars kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 had lesser amount of reducing sugars than the mean in all the three environments (table 4). persual of pooled data also showed that cvs. kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 had significantly lower quantities of reducing sugars than the pooled mean. ‘kufri chipsona-1’ had the lowest amount of reducing sugars (75.74mg/100g fresh weight), followed by ‘kufri chipsona2’ (81.94mg/100g fresh weight), ‘russet nor x 97-es-33’ (165.88mg/100g fresh weight) and ‘kufri lauvkar ’ (202.90mg/100g fresh weight). kumar et al, (2003) also reported reducing sugars to vary from season to season, and cool weather (1-5°c) led to an increase in sugar levels. this variation could be attributed to variation in crop durations under different environments. cultivars kufri chipsona-1 and kufri lauvkar showed the content of reducing sugars within permissible limits, regression coefficient of less than one, and a non-significant deviation from regression, indicating suitability of these genotypes for cultivation under unfavorable environmental conditions. gaur et al (1999) reported that potatoes grown in north-western plains contained relatively low dry-matter and higher amounts of reducing sugars (which were attributed to the comparatively low temperature prevalent during crop maturation). ‘kufri chipsona-1’ had significantly less amounts of total phenols than the mean value under environment e1. however, in the case of e2, cvs. kufri lauvkar and kufri chipsona-1 showed significantly lower amounts of total phenols than the mean value. in the case of e3, cvs. kufri anand, kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-2 and kufri ashoka table 4. mean , regression coefficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) for levels of reducing sugars (mg/100g fresh weight) in potato during the autumn season 2005-2006 sl. genotype e1 e2 e3 overall bi s 2di no. mean 1. kufri badshah 456.47 433.22 403.48 431.05 0.52 263.99 2. kufri anand 340.54 234.52 238.95 271.34 1.29 240.20 3. kufri chandramukhi 341.08 230.29 212.57 261.31 1.52 3.61 4. kufri bahar 473.99 307.78 312.98 364.92 2.03 537.60* 5. kufri lauvkar 211.36 202.72 194.62 202.90 0.17 17.22 6. kufri chipsona-1 103.22 77.76 46.24 75.74 0.56 293.18 7. kufri chipsona-2 102.08 94.92 48.81 81.94 0.45 820.55** 8. kufri ashoka 320.86 282.79 308.91 304.19 0.27 451.78* 9. kufri jawahar 402.15 298.87 267.36 322.79 1.53 61.12 10. russet nor x 97-es-33 253.82 124.50 119.33 165.88 1.65 147.58 mean 300.56 228.74 215.35 248.21 cd (5%) 30.60 24.99 21.08 24.99 se of bi = 0.26 cv 7.19 5.87 4.95 *significant at 5%; **significant at 1% j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):57-63, 2015 prabhjot kaur et al 61 showed significantly less amounts of total phenols than the mean value (table 5). from pooled analysis, cv. kufri lauvkar alone had a lower mean of total phenols (37.56mg/ 100g fresh weight) than the pooled mean. though some of the cultivars showed a regression coefficient close to one (kufri anand, kufri ashoka and kufri jawahar), deviation from regression in their case was significant, thereby indicating poor stability of these cultivars for this trait. however, these values are higher than those reported by marwaha (1999) in hybrids mp/90-94 (25.6mg), mp/91-g (27.1mg) and mp/90-83 (30.1mg) on per 100g fresh weight basis. in the environment e1, cv. kufri anand (0.06) alone had significantly less activity of polyphenol oxidase than the mean value (0.08). in the case of e2, cvs. kufri badshah and kufri chipsona-2 had significantly less value for polyphenol oxidase activity than the mean value (0.08). however, none of the cultivars showed significantly less value of polyphenol oxidase than the mean value in environment e3 (table 6). analysis of pooled data indicated that cv. kufri chipsona-2 alone had on overall mean (0.06) of polyphenol oxidase similar to the pooled mean (0.06). however, uppal (1999) reported that polyphenol oxidase activity was the highest in tubers of cv. kufri sutlej, and lowest in cv. kufri jawahar. in the environment e1, cvs. kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2 produced chips of acceptable colour (each having a colour score of 2). in environment e2, cvs. kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 produced chips of acceptable colour (2.00, 2.00 and 2.67 score, respectively). however, cvs. kufri lauvkar, kufri chipsona-1, kufri chipsona-2 and russet nor x 97-es-33 table 6. mean , regression coefficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) for polyphenol oxidase (iu) in potato during autumn season, 2005-06 sl. genotype e1 e2 e3 overall bi s 2di no. mean 1. kufri badshah 0.08 0.04 0.05 0.06 1.47 0.00 2. kufri anand 0.06 0.05 0.07 0.06 -0.22 0.00 3. kufri chandramukhi 0.07 0.06 0.05 0.06 0.96 0.00 4. kufri bahar 0.09 0.06 0.06 0.07 1.13 0.00 5. kufri lauvkar 0.09 0.08 0.05 0.07 1.43 0.00 6. kufri chipsona-1 0.09 0.08 0.06 0.08 0.92 0.00 7. kufri chipsona-2 0.08 0.04 0.05 0.06 1.32 0.00 8. kufri ashoka 0.09 0.08 0.05 0.07 1.58 0.00 9. kufri jawahar 0.08 0.09 0.05 0.07 1.39 0.00 10. russet nor x 97-es-33 0.08 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.02 0.00 mean 0.08 0.06 0.05 0.06 cd (5%) 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01 se of bi = 0.67 cv 19.16 27.53 36.70 *significant at 5%; **significant at 1% table 5. mean , regression coefficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) for total amount of phenols (mg/100g fresh weight) in potato during the autumn season 2005-2006 sl. genotype e1 e2 e3 overall bi s 2di no. mean 1. kufri badshah 64.00 39.67 35.00 46.22 1.12 0.86 2. kufri anand 59.33 44.33 27.67 43.78 1.07 62.77** 3. kufri chandramukhi 58.33 38.00 37.33 44.56 0.85 7.65* 4. kufri bahar 74.00 50.00 40.33 54.78 1.25 4.86 5. kufri lauvkar 56.33 26.33 30.00 37.56 1.13 48.22** 6. kufri chipsona-1 54.33 34.33 38.00 42.22 0.72 28.67** 7. kufri chipsona-2 59.67 38.33 29.00 42.33 1.13 5.84* 8. kufri ashoka 59.00 41.67 28.33 43.00 1.07 30.31** 9. kufri jawahar 57.67 40.33 33.33 43.78 0.90 2.57 10. russet nor x 97-es-33 56.00 36.67 37.67 43.44 0.76 13.22** mean 59.86 38.96 33.66 44.16 cd (5%) 4.00 3.00 2.67 6.72 se of bi = 0.23 cv 5.28 3.97 3.53 *significant at 5%; **significant at 1% j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):57-63, 2015 evaluation of potato genotypes for processing traits in late autumn 62 table 7. mean , regression coefficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) for chip colour (score) in potato during the autumn season 2005-2006 sl. genotype e1 e2 e3 overall bi s 2di no. mean 1. kufri badshah 6.33 5.67 5.00 5.67 1.25 0.00 2. kufri anand 5.67 4.67 4.33 4.89 1.25 0.07 3. kufri chandramukhi 5.33 4.67 3.67 4.56 1.56 0.02 4. kufri bahar 5.33 5.67 4.67 5.22 0.62 0.30 5. kufri lauvkar 4.67 3.67 3.00 3.78 1.56 0.02 6. kufri chipsona-1 2.00 2.00 1.33 1.78 0.62 0.07 7. kufri chipsona-2 2.00 2.00 1.33 1.78 0.62 0.07 8. kufri ashoka 5.33 5.33 5.67 5.44 -0.31 0.02 9. kufri jawahar 5.33 4.67 4.00 4.67 1.25 0.00 10. russet nor x 97-es-33 4.33 2.67 2.67 3.22 1.56 0.46* mean 4.30 4.10 3.57 4.10 cd (5%) 1.81 0.92 1.07 0.48 se of bi = 0.43 cv 11.59 13.02 11.77 *significant at 5% produced chips of acceptable colour (score ≤ 3.0) in environment e3 (table 7). potatoes grown in a cool climate, particularly in areas where night-temperature drops below 10°c during the last month before harvest, are found not suitable for processing (ezekiel et al, 1999). pooled data analysis indicated that cvs. kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2 produced chips of acceptable colour. ‘kufri chipsona-1’ and ‘kufri chipsona-2’ produced chips of excellent quality and light colour (score of 1.78 each). pandey et al (2005) reported that in a late-planted crop at modipuram, acceptable quality chips were produced only in cv. kufri chipsona-1. this cultivar produced lightcoloured chips at all the stages of harvest and locations in north-western and west-central indian plains (pandey et al, 2005). among the three environments studied, 120 days’ crop duration (e3) yielded the highest total tuber-yield (q/ ha) and processing-grade yield (q/ha), followed by e2 (100 days’ crop duration) and e1 (80 days’ crop duration) (table 1). besides total tuber-yield, most genotypes in group e3 exhibited high dry-matter content and low levels of reducing sugars, compared to that in the other environments, and, these are desirable attributes for processing. though in the environment e1, cv. kufri ashoka yielded significantly higher (151.03 q/ha) than mean, it had low dry-matter content. therefore, this was unsuitable for processing purposes, but was suitable for table-purpose. in e2, cv. kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2 had high yield, high dry-matter content and low amounts of reducing sugars. therefore, these cultivars are suitable for processing. in the environment e3, cvs. kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2 were found to have high tuber-yield, high dry-matter content, low levels of reducing sugars, and low amounts of total phenols. also, both of these cultivars produced chips of acceptable colour in all the three environments. the potential of cvs. kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona-2 is not fully exploited due to occurrence of frost at the vegetative stage of the crop. kumar et al (2004) documented that 120 days’ crop duration was most suitable for kufri chipsona-1 and kufri chipsona2 in the spring season crop. from stability analysis data, it is concluded that cv. kufri chipsona-2 was stable for total tuber-yield in all the three environments. therefore, cv. kufri chipsona-2 is recommended for cultivation for all the three crop durations to produce potatoes for the processing industry. references eberhart, s.a. and russel, w.a. 1966. stability parameters for comparing varieties. crop sci., 6:36-41 ezekiel, r., verma, s.c., sukumaran, n.p. and shekhawat, g.s. 1999. a guide to potato processors in india. tech. bull., 48, pp. 1-39, central potato research institute, shimla, h.p., india gaur, p.c., singh, s.v., pandey, s.k., marwaha, r.s. and kumar, d. 1999. kufri chipsona-2: a new, high drymatter potato variety for chipping. curr. sci., 76:722724 kumar, d., singh, s.v. and kumar, d. 2003. chemical maturity of potato processing cultivars grown in western uttar pradesh. j. indian potato assoc., 30:225-232 kumar, r., pandey, s.k., uppal, d.s. and marwaha, r.s. 2004. evaluation of potato (solanum tuberosum) varieties for production of chips. indian j. agril. sci., 74:578-582 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):57-63, 2015 prabhjot kaur et al 63 marwaha, r.s. 1997. processing of potatoes: current status, needs, future potential and suitability of indian varieties a critical appraisal. j. food. sci. technol., 34:457-471 marwaha, r.s. and sandhu, s.k. 2002. yield, growth components and processing quality of potatoes as influenced by crop maturity under short and long days. adv. hortl. sci., 16:7987 nelson, n.a. 1944. a photometric adaptation of somogyi method for determination of glucose. j. biol chem., 153:375-380 patel, n.h., patel, r.n., singh, s.v., pandey, s.k., khurana, s.m.p. and kanbi, v.h. 2003. assessment of processing potato varieties for dry matter, yield and storage behaviour at deesa (gujarat). j. indian potato assoc., 30:167-168 pandey, s. k., kumar, d., singh, s.v. and tomar, t.p.s. 2003. staggerered planting a solution for producing chipping potatoes for north-western plains. j. indian potato assoc., 30:89-90 pandey, s.k., marwaha, r.s., singh, s.v. and kumar, d. 2005. sustaining potato processing in india: impact of indigenous varieties. veg. sci., 32:109-113 swain, t. and hillis, w.e. 1959. the phenolic constituents of prunus domestica l.: the quantitative analysis of phenolic constituents. j. food sci. agri., 10:63-68 uppal, d.s. 1999. quality traits and chipping performance of newly released potato varieties. j. indian potato assoc., 26:139-142 uppal, d.s. and khurana, s.m.p. 2003. processing performance of indian and exotic potato cultivars grown in rajasthan. j. indian potato assoc., 30:181182 yemm, e.w. and willis, a.j. 1954. the estimation of carbohydrate in plant extracts by anthrone. biochem. j., 57:508-514 (ms received 11 november 2013, revised 07 february 2015, accepted 16 february 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):57-63, 2015 evaluation of potato genotypes for processing traits in late autumn 63 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction okra or ladies’ finger (abelmoschus esculentus l.) belongs to the mallow family i.e., malvaceae. it is a flowering, hairy, herbaceous annual plant grown for its edible pods. its origin is considered to be at western regions of africa because of the presence of diverse wild species (de candolle, 1886). the development of better-quality vegetables, has a lot higher export potential not only in india but has recently discovered a way to the african and southeastern nations as compared to other field crops (ankita et al., 2021). okra is one of the major vegetable crops grown for its high nutritive content, high export potential and a nt iox ida nt va lu e. o kr a f r u it s a r e edib le constituting a high source of protein and minerals with about 88% moisture, 7.7% carbohydrate, 2.2% protein, 1. 5% ir on, 1. 1% fibr e, 0. 7% minera l ma t t er, 0 . 0 9 % c a lc iu m, 0 . 2 % f a t , 0 . 0 8 % phosphorous and 41 (kcal) calorific values (bhat and bisht, 2006). the vitamin content is 58 iu of vitamin a, 0.06 mg vitamin b, 0.06 mg nicotinic acid, 0.06 mg riboflavin and 16 mg vitamin c per 100 grams of raw okra fruits (usda, 2019). the yield potential is a limiting factor because of poor yielding varieties and the incidence of different pests and diseases (tripathi et al., 2011). crop improvement in okra focuses on plant height, higher yield, early flowering, fruit length and biotic and abiotic stress r esista nce (ranga et al. , 2019). assessment of genotypes for estimating genetic diversity for yield and yield contributing attributes is very essential and the information about the variation present in accessible breeding materials helps in successful selection of parents for further use in crop improvement. the current investigation was undertaken to assess the nature and magnitude of genetic divergence and to identify the potential okra genotypes towards yield and its association with other morphological traits. diversity analysis of phenotypic traits in okra (abelmoschus esculentus l. moench) ranga a.d.1* and darvhankar m.s.2 1department of vegetable science, college of horticulture, dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan, himachal pradesh 173230. 2department of genetics and plant breeding, school of agriculture, lovely professional university, phagwara, punjab 144411. *corresponding author e-mail: aman_ranga94@yahoo.com abstract it is necessary to obtain cultivars which provide high yield by exploiting desirable traits from wild genotypes of okra (abelmoschus esculentus l. moench). okra genotypes were evaluated for phenotypic traits during 2018. high genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) occurred for nine traits and narrow differences between gcv and pcv indicated the influence of environment was negligible. high estimates of heritability, coupled with moderate to high genetic advance as a percent over mean, were recorded for nine traits. thousand seed weight had a positive, significant, correlation with yield per hectare. plant height and number of fruits per plant had direct and positive effects towards the yield per hectare the principal component analysis indicated the first 3 principal components contributed 80.517% of total variation among traits describing genotypes. cluster analysis indicated hybridization of genotypes among inter-cluster i and ii could be used to develop stable, uniform varieties in diverse climatic conditions. ec359637 and iari selection 2 are distantly placed and can be used for overall improvement in further crop breeding. keywords: cluster analysis, gcv, heritability, okra, pcv, principal component analysis and yield. 64 ranga and darvhankar j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 materials and methods planting material the field experiment was at the experimental farm of the department of genetics and plant breeding, school of agriculture, lovely professional university, phagwara, punjab, india, during february – may 2018. the accessions were sourced from the indian council of agricultural research – national bureau of plant genetic resources, new delhi and their details are represented in table 1. field evaluation and data collection the soil of the experimental site was loamy in origin and was ploughed before sowing. the climate of the area represents a tropical condition with semi-arid, hot and subtropical monsoon types. before sowing, farmyard manure and urea were applied as basal doses. the recommended package of practices and plant protection measures to raise a good crop were timely and uniformly applied. the experiment was carried out in a completely randomized block design with three replications. each accession was soaked in water for 8 hours and sown at a spacing of 45×30 cm of 5 m length. the following observations were recorded during plant growth and development stages viz., days to 50% flowering [df], days to 80% maturity [dm], plant height [ph (cm)], first flowering node [ffn], fruit diameter [fd (cm)], fruit length [fl (cm)], number of fruit per plant [fp], number of seed per fruit [sf], 1000 seed weight [tsw (g)], yield per plant [yp (g)] and yield per hectare [yh (t/ha)] from 5 representative plants of each genotype. data analysis data collected were subjected to anova (analysis of variance) to evaluate the presence of statistically significant differences among genotypes for the traits studied (panse and sukhatme, 1954). genotypic coefficient of var iation (gcv) a nd phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) was calculated as per the formula suggested by burton, 1952. genetic advance and heritability were calculated by using the for mula of lush, (1949) a nd alla r d (1960). heritability of more than 80% is considered high. genotypic correlation coefficients, path analysis, principal component analysis (pca) and cluster analysis were calculated using op-stat (sheoran et al., 1998) and past (hammer et al., 2001). yield per hectare was taken as a dependent variable whereas, all other traits were consider ed as independent variables. table 1: fifteen okra (abelmoschus esculentus l. moench) genotypes repatriated from nbpgr used in the study. sl. no. genotype country acquired on cultivar name 1. ec305615 bangladesh 28/05/90 t/b-78/2. ec305740 italy 29/05/90 ors-773/3. ec305768 italy 29/05/90 ors-202/4. ec306696 singapore 08/06/90 ors-1106/esc 5. ec359637 6. ic003769 india 7. ic010265 gujarat, india 09/01/63 8. ic013356 india 9. ic013664 tamil nadu, india 14/09/67 10. ic014018 india 11. ic014026 india 12. ic014600 himachal pradesh, india 31/08/70 13. akola-bahar maharashtra, india 14. iari selection 2 delhi, india 15. ako107 maharashtra, india 65 diversity analysis of phenotypic traits in okra results and discussion analysis of variance and variability parameters the genotypes showed high positive and significant variations for all the traits (table s1). yield per hectare obtained the highest positive and significant variation (73394588.940**) and the lowest was obtained for fruit diameter (0.280**). gondane and lal (1994) a nd alam and hossain (2008) a lso obtained similar results in okra. yield per hectare ranged from 5313.870-33714.430 kg/hectare with a mean of 20056.945 grams per genotype. profitable yield i.e., production of 2500030000 kg per hectare was achieved by ec305615, ec305740, ic013356 a nd ic0104018. in the genetic variability studies (table 2), the phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) was higher than the comparing genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) for every trait with the close relationship between them, therefore, the environment has low impact and subsequently, the phenotypic performance of traits ought to be utilized for selection. moderate and high gcv values were observed for most of the tr a its except fr uit dia meter, da ys to 80% ma t u r it y a nd da ys t o 5 0 % f lowe r ing whic h exhibited the pr esence of a high magnitude of genetic diversity in the population examined. the previous workers also observed a similar trend of greater magnitude of pcv and gcv (ranga et al., 2021; shanthakumar and salimath, 2010; prakash et al. , 2011). nar row differ ences between the phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation in mos t of t he t r a it s indic a t ed t ha t t hey wer e comparatively stable to environmental variation (majumdar et al., 1969). however, fruit diameter and yield per hectare registered wider variation between pcv and gcv. heritability is a good index of transmission of traits from parents to their off-springs (falconer, 1981). among t en tr a its , nine tr a it s disp la yed high heritability (low <30%, moderate 31% to 60% and high >60%) coupled with high genetic advance (low <10%, moderate 11% to 20% and high >20%) as p er c ent ov er mea n. t his f oc u s es on t he predominance of additive gene effects for these traits; thus, crop improvement through selection based on these traits would be beneficial. fruit girth showed low heritability accompanied with moderate genetic advance over mean portraying the role of non-additive effects and hence selection based on table 2. estimates of variability parameters for various traits of okra genotypes. ga as traits mean range gcv pcv h2 ga % of mean df 37.71 28.67-50.33 17.63 18.92 86.79 12.76 33.83 dm 76.60 54.67-100.00 16.17 16.42 97.01 25.14 32.82 ph (cm) 86.39 42.27-154.50 39.10 39.16 99.70 69.49 80.43 ffn 6.01 2.70-11.13 36.88 38.55 91.56 4.37 72.70 fd (cm) 2.00 1.50-2.43 11.35 21.00 29.21 0.25 12.64 fl (g) 14.05 7.90-18.80 21.65 22.23 94.85 6.10 43.44 fp 21.23 6.40-40.60 54.41 56.56 92.56 22.90 107.84 sf 51.24 34.00-89.60 27.31 27.56 98.19 28.57 55.75 tsw (g) 212.33 61.44-422.64 40.93 52.67 60.38 139.11 65.51 yp (g) 271.31 73.37-453.10 38.72 39.01 98.54 214.84 79.19 yh (kg/ha) 20056.94 5313.87-33714.43 17.34 34.96 24.61 3556.47 17.73 (df = days to 50% flowering, dm = days to 80% maturity, ph = plant height, ffn = first flowering node, fd = fruit diameter, fl = fruit length, fp = number of fruit per plant, sf = number of seed per fruit, tsw = 1000 seed weight, yp = yield per plant and yh = yield per hectare, h2: heritability, gcv: genotypic coefficient of variation, pcv: phenotypic coefficient of variation, ga: genetic advance) j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 66 this trait may not be rewarding. high estimates of heritability and genetic advance were also reported by nwangburuka et al, (2012) and hazra and basu (2000). correlation coefficient analysis the correlation is the overall or net impact of the segregating genes; few genes may increase both the traits leading to the positive correlation whereas, the others might increase the one and decrease the other causing the negative correlation (falconer, 1981). thus, to accumulate an optimum combination of yield contributing traits in a single genotype, it is essential to know the implication of the interrelationship of various traits (ranga et al., 2019). in the present investigation, the genotypic a nd phenotypic cor r ela tion coefficient a na lysis is represented in table 3 and fig.1. days to 80% maturity showed a highly significant and positive correlation with days to 50% flowering (0.488**, 0.427**). plant height showed a significant and positive correlation with days to 50% flowering (0.346*, 0.318*). fruit diameter showed a highly significant and positive genotypic correlation with days to 80% maturity (0.517**, 0.314*) and plant height (0.714**, 0.393**), and only genotypic correlation was positive and significant for day to 50% maturity (0.707**). number of fruits per plant showed a highly significant and positive correlation with first flowering node (0.602**, 0.550**). number of seeds per fruit showed a highly significant and positive correlation with plant height (0.693**, 0.684**) and fruit length (0.580**, 0.564**). 1000 seed weight showed a highly significant and positive correlation with fruit length (0.453**, 0.309*). yield per plant showed a highly significant and positive correlation with first flowering node (0.459**, 0.442**), fruit length (0.357*, 0.355*), number of fruits per plant (0.417**, 0.395**) and number of seed per fruit (0.421**, 0.411**). yield per hectare showed a highly significant and positive correlation with 1000 seed weight (0.391**, 0.340*). comparable results for okra yield having a positive relationship were proposed by ranga et al. (2021), reddy et al. (2012), raval et al. (2019) and duggi et al. (2013). yield per pla nt showed a highly significant and negative correlation with days to 80% maturity (-0.635**, -0.627**). yield per hectare showed a significant and positive genotypic correlation with days to 50% flowering (-0.379*). path coefficient analysis path analysis provides information about the cause and effect in understanding the association between two variables. it allows the assessment of the direct effects of different traits on crop yield just as their indirect effects by means of other component traits. hence, it gives a premise for the selection of predominant genotypes from diverse populations (komolafe et al., 2021). the genotypic and phenotypic path coefficient analysis is represented in table 4 and the data revealed that plant height (3.893, 0.239) had the highest direct positive effect towards the yield per hectare and other traits such as days to 80% maturity (0.811, 0.053), number of fruits per plant (2.871, 0.174) had direct effects. traits such as days to 50% maturity (-0.575, -0.267), and yield per plant (-1.868, -0.197) had a direct effect with a negative sign. residual effect (0.475, 0.800) indicated the effect of other possible independent traits, which were not included in the study, on the dependent variable i.e., yield per hectare. the results are in accordance with the findings of ranga et al., (2021); dwivedi and sharma (2017); das et al. (2012). principal component analysis principal component analysis (pca) reflects the importance of the largest contributor to the total variations at each axis of differentiation (sharma, ranga and darvhankar j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 fig. 1. correlation coefficient studies in okra genotypes (df = days to 50% flowering, dm = days to 80% maturity, ph = plant height, ffn = first flowering node, fd = fruit diameter, fl = fruit length, fp = number of fruit per plant, sf = number of seed per fruit, tsw = 1000 seed weight, yp = yield per plant and yh = yield per hectare) 67 t ra it s d f d m p h ( cm ) f f n f d ( cm ) f l (c m ) f p sf t sw ( g) y p (g ) y h ( kg /h a) d f rg 1. 00 0 rp 1. 00 0 d m rg 0. 48 8* * 1. 00 0 rp 0. 42 7* * 1. 00 0 ph rg 0. 34 6* 0. 14 1n s 1. 00 0 (c m ) rp 0. 31 8* 0. 14 1n s 1. 00 0 ff n rg -0 .2 05 n s -0 .2 94 * -0 .2 15 n s 1. 00 0 rp -0 .2 18 n s -0 .2 90 n s -0 .2 05 n s 1. 00 0 fd rg 0. 70 7* * 0. 51 7* * 0. 71 4* * 0. 00 9n s 1. 00 0 (c m ) rp 0. 28 5n s 0. 31 4* 0. 39 3* * -0 .0 85 n s 1. 00 0 fl rg -0 .2 53 n s -0 .4 62 ** 0. 24 4n s -0 .3 53 * -0 .1 50 n s 1. 00 0 (c m ) rp -0 .2 18 n s -0 .4 43 ** 0. 23 7n s -0 .3 40 * -0 .0 64 n s 1. 00 0 fp rg -0 .2 26 n s -0 .4 15 ** -0 .6 27 ** 0. 60 2* * -0 .3 70 * -0 .0 93 n s 1. 00 0 rp -0 .2 10 n s -0 .3 89 ** -0 .6 03 ** 0. 55 0* * -0 .2 08 n s -0 .0 89 n s 1. 00 0 sf rg 0. 08 0n s -0 .0 44 n s 0. 69 3* * -0 .3 23 * 0. 18 3n s 0. 58 0* * -0 .2 95 * 1. 00 0 rp 0. 07 8n s -0 .0 40 n s 0. 68 4* * -0 .3 05 * 0. 11 3n s 0. 56 4* * -0 .2 93 n s 1. 00 0 t sw rg -0 .1 71 n s -0 .0 90 n s 0. 03 6n s -0 .2 44 n s -0 .2 06 n s 0. 45 3* * 0. 06 6n s 0. 11 0n s 1. 00 0 (g ) rp -0 .1 12 n s -0 .0 52 n s 0. 02 2n s -0 .2 49 n s 0. 02 2n s 0. 30 9* 0. 02 6n s 0. 09 8n s 1. 00 0 y p rg -0 .0 64 n s -0 .6 35 ** 0. 26 2n s 0. 45 9* * 0. 09 9n s 0. 35 7* 0. 41 7* * 0. 42 1* * -0 .1 62 n s 1. 00 0 (g ) rp -0 .0 50 n s -0 .6 27 ** 0. 25 9n s 0. 44 2* * -0 .0 02 n s 0. 35 5* 0. 39 5* * 0. 41 1* * -0 .1 44 n s 1. 00 0 y h rg -0 .3 79 * 0. 04 7n s 0. 10 8n s 0. 05 4n s 0. 25 8n s 0. 11 6n s 0. 02 1n s 0. 06 7n s 0. 39 1* * -0 .1 94 n s 1. 00 0 (k g/ ha ) rp -0 .2 01 n s 0. 04 5n s 0. 04 7n s -0 .0 13 n s 0. 10 9n s 0. 04 4n s 0. 00 4n s 0. 03 3n s 0. 34 0* -0 .1 07 n s 1. 00 0 (d f = d ay s to 5 0% f lo w er in g, d m = d ay s to 8 0% m at ur ity , ph = p la nt h ei gh t, ff n = f irs t fl ow er in g no de , fd = f ru it di am et er , fl = f ru it le ng th , fp = n um be r of f ru it pe r pl an t, sf = n um be r of s ee d pe r fr ui t, t sw = 1 00 0 se ed w ei gh t, y p = y ie ld p er p la nt a nd y h = y ie ld p er h ec ta re ; rg = g en ot yp ic c or re la tio n co ef fi ci en t, rp = p he no ty pi c co rr el at io n co ef fi ci en t) ta bl e 3. g en ot yp ic a nd p he no ty pi c co rr el at io n co ef fic ie nt s tu di es i n ok ra g en ot yp es . (b ol d nu m be rs i nd ic at ed p os iti ve a nd s ig ni fi ca nt c or re la tio n be tw ee n tw o tr ai ts ) diversity analysis of phenotypic traits in okra j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 68 1998). pca (table 5 and table s2) was performed to provide partial visualization of the data set in a r edu c ed dimens ion a nd f ir s t t hr ee p r inc ip a l components have eigenvalues>1 and contributed to 80.517 percent variation. from the loading of the variables in pc i, it was found that days to 50% flowering, days to 80% maturity and plant height wer e the dominant fea tures tha t contributed to 36.662 percent of the total variation. in pca ii, plant height, fruit length, number of seed per fruit, yield per plant and yield per hectare exer ted a maximum influence which accounts for 27.862 percent of the total variation. days to 50 percent flowering, days to 80% maturity, first flowering node and fruit diameter were the dominant features in pca iii which accounted for 15.993 percent of the total variation. ranga et al. (2021), ahiakpa et al. (2013) a nd amoa tey et al. (2015) a lso indicated high genetic diversity using pca. few traits viz., fruit length, 1000 seed weight, number of seed per fruit and fruit yield per plant offered mor e towa r ds va r ia t ion a s a c count ed f or b y different scientists in okra (bhardwaj et al., 2021; ahia kpa et a l. , 2 013; amoa tey et a l. , 20 15; nwangburuka et al., 2012). ranga and darvhankar j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 table 4. genotypic and phenotypic path coefficient analysis for various okra genotypes. (diagonal and bold values indicate direct effect of traits on yield per plant) traits df dm ph ffn fd fl fp sf tsw yp correlation (cm) (cm) (cm) (g) (g) of yh (kg/ha) df gp -0.575 0.395 1.347 0.011 -0.701 -0.375 -0.650 -0.120 0.169 0.119 -0.379* pp -0.267 0.023 0.076 -0.013 0.029 0.009 -0.037 0.002 -0.033 0.010 -0.201ns dm gp -0.281 0.811 0.547 0.016 -0.512 -0.683 -1.191 0.065 0.089 1.186 0.047ns pp -0.114 0.053 0.034 -0.018 0.032 0.018 -0.068 -0.001 -0.015 0.123 0.045ns ph gp -0.199 0.114 3.893 0.011 -0.708 0.361 -1.800 -1.038 -0.035 -0.490 0.108ns (cm) pp -0.085 0.008 0.239 -0.012 0.040 -0.010 -0.105 0.017 0.007 -0.051 0.047ns ffn gp 0.118 -0.239 -0.838 -0.053 -0.009 -0.522 1.728 0.484 0.242 -0.858 0.054ns pp 0.058 -0.016 -0.049 0.061 -0.009 0.014 0.096 -0.007 -0.074 -0.087 -0.013ns fd gp -0.407 0.419 2.779 0.000 -0.991 -0.222 -1.064 -0.274 0.203 -0.186 0.258ns (cm) pp -0.076 0.017 0.094 -0.005 0.103 0.003 -0.036 0.003 0.006 0.000 0.109ns fl gp 0.146 -0.374 0.948 0.019 0.148 1.480 -0.267 -0.869 -0.448 -0.666 0.116ns (cm) pp 0.058 -0.024 0.057 -0.021 -0.007 -0.040 -0.015 0.014 0.092 -0.070 0.044ns fp gp 0.130 -0.336 -2.440 -0.032 0.367 -0.138 2.871 0.442 -0.065 -0.778 0.021ns pp 0.056 -0.021 -0.144 0.034 -0.021 0.004 0.174 -0.007 0.008 -0.078 0.004ns sf gp -0.046 -0.035 2.696 0.017 -0.181 0.858 -0.847 -1.499 -0.109 -0.787 0.067ns pp -0.021 -0.002 0.163 -0.019 0.012 -0.023 -0.051 0.024 0.029 -0.081 0.033ns tsw gp 0.098 -0.073 0.140 0.013 0.204 0.670 0.189 -0.165 -0.988 0.303 0.391** (g) pp 0.030 -0.003 0.005 -0.015 0.002 -0.012 0.005 0.002 0.297 0.028 0.340* yp gp 0.037 -0.515 1.021 -0.024 -0.099 0.528 1.197 -0.631 0.160 -1.868 -0.194ns (g) pp 0.013 -0.034 0.062 0.027 0.000 -0.014 0.069 0.010 -0.043 -0.197 -0.107ns gp residual effect: 0.475 pp residual effect: 0.800 (df = days to 50% flowering, dm = days to 80% maturity, ph = plant height, ffn = first flowering node, fd = fruit diameter, fl = fruit length, fp = number of fruit per plant, sf = number of seed per fruit, tsw = 10 00 seed weight, yp = yield per plant and yh = yield per hectare); gp = genotypic path coefficient, pp = phenotypic path coefficient) 69 a biplot was drawn using the values of pc i and pc ii (figure 2). the greater the angle between the traits, the lesser the association between them. placement of genotypes in quadrants signifies variability. accessions are placed in quadrants using vector scores of pc i a nd pc ii. however, no obvious gr ouping of genotypes was observed, and some overlapping occurr ed a mong gr oups the r ela tedness of the genotypes across the collection. in the biplot graph of pca, quadrant i (+,+) consists of zero accessions formed the cluster 1 which were highly influenced by three traits characters viz. fruit length, yield per plant and yield per hectare through genotypes spread towards midway through x and y-planes of quadranti. the cluster ii corresponding to the quadrant ii (,+) contained 5 genotypes, which were influenced by number of seeds per plant, plant height, fruit diameter and days to 50% maturity. similarly, the cluster iii corresponding to quadrant iii (-,-) consisted also of 3 genotypes which were influenced by days to 80% maturity only whereas the cluster iv corresponding to quadrant iv (+,-) also consisted of 7 genotypes which were influenced by first flowering node, number of fruits per plant and 1000 seed weight, respectively. cluster analysis the hierarchical cluster analysis among genotypes for yield and yield contributing traits grouped genotypes into 2 major clusters (figure 3). clustering was not based on a similar geographical origin. cluster i accommodated 5 genotypes (ec359637, ic013664, ec306696, ec305768, ic003768) and cluster ii comprised 10 genotypes (ec305615, ec305740, ic014018, ic010265, ic014600, ic013356, table 5. eigen value and percent variation explained by first 5 principal components and correlations between pc scores and quantitative traits. (bold values indicate traits which are heavy contributors in the particular principal component) sr. no. traits pc i pc ii pc iii pc iv pc v eigen value 1. df 0.221 0.061 0.472 0.528 0.446 4.033 2. dm 0.365 -0.188 0.265 0.168 -0.072 3.065 3. ph (cm) 0.237 0.443 0.173 -0.256 0.077 1.759 4. ffn -0.338 -0.076 0.360 -0.506 0.026 0.781 5. fd (cm) 0.205 0.170 0.499 -0.013 -0.746 0.501 6. fl (cm) -0.056 0.375 -0.430 0.301 -0.383 0.476 7. fp -0.436 -0.148 0.141 0.349 -0.142 0.190 8. sf 0.084 0.484 -0.102 0.187 0.114 0.131 9. tsw (g) -0.436 -0.148 0.141 0.349 -0.142 0.064 10. yp (g) -0.328 0.394 0.177 -0.030 0.127 0.000 11. yh (kg/ha) -0.328 0.394 0.177 -0.030 0.127 0.000 percent of total variance explained 36.662 27.862 15.993 7.100 4.552 cumulative variation 36.662 64.524 80.517 87.617 92.169 (df = days to 50% flowering, dm = days to 80% maturity, ph = plant height, ffn = first flowering node, fd = fruit diameter, fl = fruit length, fp = number of fruit per plant, sf = number of seed per fruit, tsw = 1000 seed weight, yp = yield per plant and yh = yield per hectare) diversity analysis of phenotypic traits in okra j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 fig. 2. biplot between pc1 and pc2 showing contribution of various traits responsible for variability in okra. 70 ranga and darvhankar j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 ic014026, ako107, akola-bahar and iari selection 2). in order to determine diversity among genotypes, and verify genotypes by distance, cluster analysis placed the genotypes in a single group (sokal and sneath, 1973). genotypes that are located far from each other have more variation between them and can be used to obtain improved cultivars. genotypes which distantly placed are more diverse; those which are closer are similar morphologically. the maximum intra-cluster distance was observed for ec359637 and ic003769 in sub-cluster 1 and ec305615 and iari selection 2 in sub-cluster 2 while maximum intercluster distance was observed for ec359637 and iari selection 2. conclusion higher variations were observed for number of fruits per plant, yield per plant, yield per hectare and 1000 seed weight displaying a wide range showing the distinction of genotypes in breeding programs. yield per hectare showed a highly significant and positive correlation with 1000 seed weight. hence, it can be used for developing high-yielding and bold seeded cultivars resistant to biotic and biotic stress. plant height and number of fruits per plant had direct and positive effects on the yield per hectare. the first three principal components accounted for a cumulative variance to be 80.517 % of the total variation and traits viz. fruit length, plant height, days to 80% maturity and days to 50% flowering assorted for more than 50 % phenotypic variations. since ec359637 and iari selection 2 are distantly placed, therefore, they can be used for overall improvement in further breeding programs. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the department of genetics and plant breeding, school of agriculture, lovely professional university, phagwara, punjab for their suppor t of the study a nd india n council of agricultural research national bureau of plant genetic resources, new delhi, for providing planting material. references ahiakpa, j.k., kaledzi, p.d., adi, e.b., peprah, s. and dapaah, h.k. 2013. genetic diversity, c or r ela t io n a nd p a t h a na lys e s of okr a (abelmoschus spp. (l.) moench) germplasm collected in ghana. international journal of development and sustainability, 2 (2): 13961415. ala m, a. k . m . a. a nd h os s a in, m . m . 2 0 0 8 . variability of different growth contributing pa r a meter s of some okr a (abe lmosc hus e s c u l e n t u s l . ) a c c es s io ns a nd t heir interr ela tion effects on yield. journal of ag ric ult ure a nd rur al dev el opm ent , 6 (1&2): 25-35. allard, r.w. 1960. principles of plant breeding. john wiley and sons, inc, new york. 885. amoatey, h.m., klu, g.y.p., quartey, e.k., doku, h.a., sossa h, f. l. , segbefia, m.m. and ahiakpa, j.k. 2015. genetic diversity studies in 29 accessions of okra (abelmoschus spp l.) using 13 quantitative traits. american journal of experimental agriculture, 5 (3): 217-225. ankita, s.p. and guleria, a. 2021. value chain analysis of tomato in himachal pradesh: a case study of kullu district. indian journal of ecology, 48 (2): 411-417. fig. 3. dendrogram showing the genetic relationship among fiteen orka genotypes based on quantitative traits (df = days to 50% flowering, dm = days to 80% maturity, ph = plant height, ffn = first flowering node, fd = fruit diameter, fl = fruit length, fp = number of fruit per plant, sf = number of seed per fruit, tsw = 1000 seed weight, yp = yield per plant and yh = yield per hectare) 71 diversity analysis of phenotypic traits in okra j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 63-72, 2022 bhat, k. and i. bisht. 2006. okra (abelmoschus spp. ), p. 147-183. in: singh, r. j. 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(okra). series of crop specific b iology doc u ment s . h t t p s :/ / biosafety.icar.gov.in/biology-of-abelmoschusesculentus-s-okra/ united states department of agriculture. 2019. okra, raw (sr legacy, 169260). food data central. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdcapp.html#/food-details/169260/nutrients  (received: 05.11.2021; revised:09.03.2022; accepted:10.03.2022) page 99 effect of soil moisture stress on physiological response in grape (vitis vinifera l.) varieties j. satisha, g. s. prakash1, r. m. bhatt2 and p. sampathkumar1 national research centre for grapes p.b. # 3, manjari farm, solapur road pune – 412 307, india e-mail: j.satisha@nrcgrapes.res.in abstract four varieties of grape namely flame seedless, thompson seedless, sharad seedless and tas-a-ganesh were subjected to different levels of moisture stress to study their physiological response. stress was imposed for 14 days by withholding irrigation. observations on relative water content, leaf water potential, leaf osmotic potential and gas exchange parameters like photosynthetic rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance and water use efficiency (wue) were recorded. none of the varieties could survive for 14 days without irrigation (100% stress). flame seedless and thompson seedless at 50% moisture stress maintained higher turgidity as indicated by lesser reduction in relative water content and water potential attributed to better osmotic adjustment. marginal reduction in photosynthesis and greater reduction in transpiration rate in the variety flame seedless may have resulted in higher wue under moisture stress. higher photosynthetic rate, lower transpiration rate, higher water relation parameters and high wue in flame seedless under soil moisture stress indicated its better tolerance to drought. key words: grape varieties, soil moisture stress, water potential, water use efficiency introduction grape is an important fruit crop in india, cultivated in an area of about 60, 000 ha across the country. major grape growing areas are concentrated in maharashtra, andhra pradesh, and karnataka regions. the major constraints in these dry regions are water scarcity and soil salinity. severe drought results in plant water deficit that reduces cell turgor causing stomatal closure and reduction in cell enlargement, thus, reducing both leaf surface and photosynthesis per unit area. among the several adaptive strategies, increasing the efficiency of water use for biomass production is perhaps the most relevant mechanism in drought tolerance (lincoln and eduardo, 2002). though the use of rootstocks to combat adverse effects of soil and water salinity is a common practice in major grape growing regions of the country, raising vineyards their on own roots in commercial varieties, where assured source of irrigation water and excellent soil condition exist, is in practice in some regions. hence, it was considered appropriate to screen grape genotypes for drought tolerance taking into account physiological aspects like photosynthesis rate, transpiration rate, water use efficiency (wue), stomatal conductance, relative water content (rwc), etc. at different levels of soil moisture stress. material and methods experiments were conducted at the experimental plots of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, under open conditions. rooted cuttings of four grape genotypes, viz., flame seedless, thompson seedless, sharad seedless (selection from kishmish chernyi) and tasa-ganesh (selection from thompson seedless) were transplanted into pots of 14" diameter filled with standard potting mixture consisting of farm yard manure (fym), red earth and sand (1:2:1). the potting mixture was porous with water holding capacity of 30%. plants were subjected to uniform cultural practices like irrigation, fertilizer application, weeding and plant protection measures for six months. at six months, the plants were irrigated to field capacity before imposing soil moisture stress. in order to calculate field capacity, pots filled with a known volume of potting mixture were placed in large plastic buckets and irrigated with a known quantity of water and left to stand for six hours to attain field capacity. at six hours, the volume of water drained into the plastic bucket was measured and subtracted from the total amount of water applied. the difference in volume was treated as the quantum of irrigation water needed to be applied to attain field capacity j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 99-103, 2006 1division of fruit crops, 2division of plant physiology & biochemistry, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 560 089, india page 100 (100% irrigation). half the amount of this was considered as 50% irrigation. one set of plants was maintained without irrigation (0% irrigation i.e.,, 100% moisture stem). the above treatments were applied for 14 days and periodic observations recorded for various physiological parameters on the 4th, 9th and 14th day of the stress cycle. irrigation was done manually. relative water content was determined as per the procedure of barrs and weatherly (1962), leaf water potential was measured using water potential system cr7, campbell scientific inc, usa, and leaf osmotic potential was measured using vapor pressure osmometer model 5100 c, wescor. gas exchange parameters, namely, photosynthetic rate (pn), transpiration rate (e) and stomatal conductance (gs) were measured using portable, open photosynthesis system (model lca-3, adc, uk). water use efficiency at the single leaf level (a/e) was calculated using photosynthesis and transpiration rate values. data were computed for statistical analysis taking three replications for each measurement. results and discussion relative water content (rwc) of leaves under controlled conditions (100% irrigation) varied from 90.96 to 79.86% among the varieties on 4th day of stress cycle, while under 50% and 100% moisture stress, it ranged from 83.74 to 79.74% and 76.87 to 52.24%, respectively. considerable reduction in rwc was observed among the varieties at 50% stress. ‘flame seedless’ and ‘thompson seedless’ maintained a higher rwc of 71% at the end of the stress cycle at 50% moisture stress (table 1). water potential varied significantly among the varieties (table 2). at 50% moisture stress, the water potential ranged from –1.66 to –1.99 mpa on the 4th day of stress cycle. as the moisture stress progressed, there was a pronounced decrease table 1. influence of moisture stress on relative water content (rwc, %) in grape varieties variety (v) days after initiation of stress cycle at different levels of stress (s) 4th day 9th day 14th day s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 flame seedless 90.96 82.54 76.73 90.27 81.27 * 87.36 71.94 * thompson seedless 88.74 83.74 76.87 88.26 81.27 * 87.39 71.17 * sharad seedless 87.01 75.70 62.97 87.59 71.63 * 81.98 67.04 * tas-a-ganesh 79.86 70.74 55.24 78.61 65.97 * 80.25 61.64 * v s vxs v s vxs v s vxs s em ± 1.293 1.113 2.231 0.956 0.676 1.356 1.681 5.041 6.954 c.d (p=0.05) 3.772 3.267 6.532 5.867 2.027 4.054 5.041 3.564 ns s1: control (100% irrigation); s2: 50% stress (50% irrigation); s3: 100% stress (no irrigation) table 2. influence of moisture stress on leaf water potential (-mpa) and leaf osmotic potential (-mpa) in grape varieties days after initiation of stress cycle at different levels of stress (s) 4th day 9th day 14th day s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 leaf water potential (-mpa) flame seedless 1.20 1.30 1.66 1.21 1.32 * 1.15 1.31 * thompson seedless 1.34 1.45 1.99 1.38 1.51 * 1.21 1.48 * sharad seedless 1.45 1.51 1.81 1.21 1.29 * 1.28 1.51 * tas-a-ganesh 1.21 1.66 1.85 1.30 1.67 * 1.23 1.64 * v s vxs v s vxs v s vxs s em ± 0.009 0.008 0.166 0.221 0.106 0.323 0.240 0.169 0.332 c.d (p=0.05) ns 0.203 ns ns ns ns ns ns ns leaf osmotic potential (-mpa) flame seedless 1.16 1.23 1.66 0.97 1.30 * 1.48 1.38 * thompson seedless 1.30 1.23 1.67 1.47 1.35 * 1.76 1.48 * sharad seedless 1.06 1.29 1.53 1.19 1.49 * 1.38 1.81 * tas-a-ganesh 1.13 1.46 1.75 1.31 1.59 * 1.25 1.90 * v s vxs v s vxs v s vxs s em ± 0.209 0.002 0.005 0.005 0.003 0.007 0.007 0.050 0.103 c.d (p=0.05) 0.008 0.075 0.450 0.163 0.115 0.230 0.218 0.514 ns s1: control (100% irrigation); s2: 50% stress (50% irrigation); s3: 100% stress (no irrigation) plants died and observations were not recorded j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 99-103, 2006 satisha et al 100 variety (v) page 101 in water potential among the varieties. ‘flame seedless’ recorded maximum leaf water potential of –1.31 mpa at the end of the stress cycle at 50% moisture stress, while, in tas-a-ganesh recorded the least (-1.64 mpa). similarly, considerable reduction in leaf osmotic potential was also such among the varieties as stress progressed. on the 4th day of stress cycle, at no stress, osmotic potential ranged from –1.06 to –1.30 mpa, while, at 50% stress it ranged from –1.53 to –1.75 mpa. on both the 9th and 14th day of stress cycle, ‘flame seedless’ and ‘thompson seedless’ recorded maximum osmotic potential at 50% moisture stress (table 2). none of the varieties survived 14 days without irrigation (100% stress). the rwc data for all the varieties indicated that varieties flame seedless and thompson seedless maintained higher rwc at 50% moisture stress until the 14th day. this indicated their capacity to maintain turgidity even under stress. lowering of leaf osmotic potential in response to soil moistures stress may help maintain the required water relations (during, 1985). in the present study, strong positive correlation was observed between water potential and water use efficiency (r = 0.93) under 50% moisture stress on the 14th day of stress cycle (fig 1). this relationship suggests that water potential of the tissue during stress period a better indicator of its water fig 1. relation between water potential (-mpa) and wue (µ(µ(µ(µ(µ mole / m mole) in grape varieties under 50% moisture stress fig 2. relation between wue (µµµµµ mole / m mole) and rwc (%) in grape varieties under 50% moisture stress table 3. photosynthetic rate and transpiration rate of grape varieties at different levels of moisture stress variety (v) days after initiation of stress cycle at different levels of stress (s) 4th day 9th day 14th day s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 photosynthetic rate (m moles/m2/sec) flame seedless 9.26 8.16 1.00 8.90 7.60 * 10.00 9.10 * thompson seedless 8.86 8.23 1.13 9.33 8.20 * 9.63 8.00 * sharad seedless 9.20 7.56 * 7.86 7.53 * 7.50 7.06 * tas-a-ganesh 7.63 5.70 * 7.80 6.66 * 7.83 5.73 * v s vxs v s vxs v s vxs s em ± 0.365 0.316 0.632 0.238 0.696 0.943 0.348 0.302 0.604 c.d (p=0.05) 1.060 0.923 ns 0.696 0.602 ns 1.080 1.380 ns transpiration rate (m moles /m2/sec) flame seedless 9.60 8.06 7.23 10.40 7.73 * 10.50 6.90 * thompson seedless 9.60 8.63 7.16 10.16 8.23 * 10.40 7.80 * sharad seedless 11.80 10.00 * 10.06 9.03 * 10.33 8.90 * tas-a-ganesh 12.26 9.63 * 11.10 9.59 * 10.76 9.50 * v s vxs v s vxs v s vxs s em ± 0.162 0.140 0.281 0.128 0.111 0.223 0.123 0.110 0.220 c.d (p=0.05) 0.474 0.410 0.821 0.376 0.325 0.651 0.371 0.321 0.643 s1: control (100% irrigation); s2: 50% stress (50% irrigation); s3: 100% stress (no irrigation) plants died and observations were not recorded j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 99-103, 2006 effect of soil moisture stress on grape varieties 101 page 102 status than rwc, as, the correlation coefficient of rwc and wue is 0.58 even though the relation between the two parameters is of a positive nature (fig 2). the reduction in osmotic potential indicates osmotic adjustment and the varies from variety to variety. zhang and archbold (1993) also reported maintenance of higher turgor potential and lower osmotic potential in stressed plants of fragaria chiloensis than in non-stressed plants, but no such reduction was reported in f. verginiana, suggesting cultivar difference in osmotic adjustment. osmotic adjustment was better in ‘flame seedless’ and ‘thompson seedless’ than in ‘sharad seedless’ and ‘tas-a-ganesh’ as indicated by leaf water potential. increased osmotic adjustment has been attributed to increased sugar and other compatible solutes (rodrigues et al, 1993). in the present investigation, it was observed that the increased osmotic adjustment in ‘flame seedless’ could be due to a high potassium content in this variety (data not shown) as it is an effective inorganic osmolyte. morgan et al (1977) also reported that the spectrum and relative contribution of different solutes to osmotic adjustment varied with plant species and leaf age. turgid leaves with high moisture could have helped in normal functioning of ‘flame seedless’ and ‘thompson seedless’ under moisture stress. photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate and instantaneous wue recorded significant difference among the varieties and in stress levels on all days of the stress cycle (table 3 and 4). both ‘sharad seedless’ and ‘tas-a-ganesh’ did not show any photosynthetic activity on the 4th day of stress cycle at 100 % stress. on the 14th day of stress cycle, maximum reduction in photosynthesis was recorded in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ from non-stress to stress conditions. among the varieties, flame seedless recorded maximum photosynthesis of 9.10 mmole / m2/sec at 50% moisture stress. considerable reduction in transpiration rate was recorded on the 14th day of stress cycle from non-stress to 100% stress conditions. on the 14th day of stress cycle, reduction in transpiration rate was higher in ‘flame seedless’ and ‘thompson seedless’ and was least in ‘tas-a-ganesh’. though there was considerable reduction in stomatal conductance with increased soil moisture stress among varieties, ‘flame seedless’ maintained the highest stomatal conductance of 0.41 mmole / m2/sec at 50% moisture stress on the 14th day and it was least in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ (0.36 mmole / m2/sec). water use efficiency increased with increased soil moisture stress on 9th and 14th day of the stress cycle in all the varieties. but, on 4th day of the stress cycle, there was reduction in wue at 100% stress compared to 50% stress. ‘flame seedless’ recorded maximum wue on 9th and 14th day of the stress cycle at 50% stress, while, it was least in ‘tas-aganesh’. the marginal reduction recorded in photosynthesis and greater reduction in transpiration rate may be due to reduced stomatal conductance under moisture stress conditions. lakso (1985) also reported marginal reduction in photosynthesis and maximum reduction in transpiration table 4. stomatal conductance and instantaneous water use efficiency of grape varieties at different levels of moisture stress variety (v) days after initiation of stress cycle at different levels of stress (s) 4th day 9th day 14th day s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 s1 s2 s3 stomatal conductance (ì moles/m2/sec) flame seedless 0.59 0.37 0.19 0.54 0.34 * 0.57 0.41 * thompson seedless 0.50 0.42 0.19 0.50 0.42 * 0.52 0.40 * sharad seedless 0.62 0.46 * 0.53 0.47 * 0.42 0.39 * tas-a-ganesh 0.55 0.41 * 0.43 0.39 * 0.43 0.36 * v s vxs v s vxs v s vxs s em ± 0.003 0.002 0.052 0.013 0.018 0.023 0.014 0.012 0.025 c.d (p=0.05) ns 0.076 0.014 0.013 0.034 0.069 0.042 0.037 0.074 instantaneous water use efficiency (ì mole / m mole) flame seedless 0.96 1.01 0.13 0.84 0.98 * 0.96 1.33 * thompson seedless 0.92 0.97 0.15 0.91 0.99 * 0.91 1.02 * sharad seedless 0.77 0.75 * 0.77 0.52 * 0.72 0.78 * tas-a-ganesh 0.61 0.59 * 0.70 0.69 * 0.72 0.60 * v s vxs v s vxs v s vxs s em ± 0.003 0.030 0.060 0.042 0.036 0.072 0.046 0.039 0.079 c.d (p=0.05) 0.108 0.008 ns 0.121 0.105 0.210 0.134 0.116 0.232 s1: control (100% irrigation); s2: 50% stress (50% irrigation); s3: 100% stress (no irrigation) plants died and observations were not recorded j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 99-103, 2006 satisha et al 102 page 103 in stressed grapevines. maintenance of high wue under moisture stress in ‘flame seedless’ and ‘thompson seedless’ indicated higher reduction in transpiration and maintenance of photosynthesis even under moisture stress. studies on photosynthesis under drought conditions in fieldgrown grapes by flexas et al (1998) revealed no photoinhibition even when stomatal conductance was reduced. the increased wue in these two varieties may be due to larger reduction in transpiration rate and marginal reduction in photosynthesis. this also confirms the findings of allweldt and ruhl (1982) who observed 33-48% reduction in photosynthesis and 45-57% reduction in transpiration rate under stress conditions. similar increase in wue at decreased water potential was reported by behaboudian et al (1986) in pistachio varieties. the increased photosynthetic rate in flame seedless at 50% moisture stress may be due also to increased chlorophyll content (data not shown) in this variety which might have absorbed large spectrum of sunlight to carry out photosynthesis. maintenance of marginal reduction in photosynthesis, lower transpiration rate, better water relations and increased wue suggests the distinction and differential sensitivity levels among varieties under moisture stress. finally, it is concluded that a slight reduction in photosynthetic rate, lower transpiration rate and better water relation in terms of water potential and osmotic adjustment under mild water stress in the varieties flame seedless and thompson seedless suggests their uniqueness and differential sensitivity to soil moisture stress. the other two varieties, viz., sharad seedless and tas-a-ganesh, both being clonal selections (mutants) from ‘kishmish chernyi’ and ‘thompson seedless’ respectively did not respond positively under moisture stress conditions. references allweldt, g. and ruhl, e. 1982. unterschungen zum gaswechcel der rebe. ii. einfluss, ianganhaltemder bodentrockheit auf die leistungsfhig-vrshienender robertson. vitis. 21: 312-324. barrs, h.d. and weatherly, p.e. 1962. a re-examination of the relative turgidity technique for estimating water deficit in leaves. agri. j. biol. sci., 15: 413-428. behboudian, m.h., walker, r.r. and torokfalvy. 1986. effect of water stress and salinity on photosynthesis of pistachio. sci. hort., 29: 251-261. during, h. 1985. osmotic adjustment in grape vines. int’l. symp. on water relation in fruit crops, pisa. acta hort. 171: 315-22. flexas, j.j., escalona, m. and medrano. h. 1998. down regulation of photosynthesis by drought under field conditions in grapevine leaves. aust. j. pl. physiol., 25: 893-900. lakso, a.n. 1985. the effect of water stress on physiological processes in fruit crops. acta hort., 171: 275-90. lincoln, t and eduardo, z. (2002). plant physiology (ii edn.) sinauer associates publishers, sunderband, massachusettes. pp: 792. morgan, j.m. 1977. differences in osmoregulation between wheat cultivars. nature, 270: 234-235. rodrigues, m.l., chaves, m..m, wendler. r, david.m, quick, w.p., leegood, r.c., stitt m. and peretra, p.s. 1993. osmotic adjustment in water stressed grapevine leaves in relation to carbon isotope assimilation. aust. j. pl. physiol., 20: 309-21. zhang, b. and archbold, d.d. 1993. water relations of fragaria chiloensis and f. verginiana selection during and after water deficit stress. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 118: 274-279. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 99-103, 2006 effect of soil moisture stress on grape varieties 103 (ms received 29 june 2006 , revised 26 september 2006) introduction a large number of chemical compounds including fragrances, flavours, pigments, natural sweeteners, antimicrobials and pharmaceuticals are obtained from plants. in most cases, these compounds belong to a broad metabolic group, collectively referred to as secondary products. plant cell cultures can be established from an array of plant species, including most that produce secondary products of commercial value (berlin, 1984). phyllanthus amarus (euphorbiaceae) finds a reputed place, especially, in the indian pharmacopoeia (kamboj, 2000). it has been traditionally used in the treatment of a variety of ailments, including hepatic disorders (nadkarni, 1976). it is a potential diuretic, hypotensive and hypoglycaemic drug (raphael, 2002). it has immense medicinal properties by virtue of containing several phytochemicals, viz., securinine, norsecurinine, epibubbialine and isobbubialine (foo and wang, 1992), lignans like phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin (row et al, 1966), phenolics like gallic acid; polyphenolics like ellagic acid, phenazine and phenazine derivatives (foo, 1995). about 300 million people worldwide are estimated to be carriers of the hepatitis b virus. the plant has therapeutic potential for treating hepatitis b virus by inhibiting polymerase activity and decreased episomal dna content. it has also been shown to exhibit antihepatotoxic activity against carbon tetrachloride and galactosamine in estimation of anti-hepatic viral compounds in phyllanthus amarus in vitro cultures r. chitra, e.vadivel1 and k. rajamani horticulture college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003, india e-mail: chitra.varadharaj@gmail.com abstract phyllanthus amarus schum. and thonn (euphorbiaceae) is recognized commonly as ‘bhumyamlaki’ in the indian system of medicine and has been traditionally used for treating a variety of ailments, including hepatic disorders. anti-hepatic viral compounds such as phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin were evaluated in different types of in vitro cultures of phyllanthus amarus by high performance liquid chromatography (hplc). among the cultures, in vitro plantlets regenerating from the nodal segment recorded higher amounts of phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin. key words: phyllanthus amarus, hplc, phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin 1directorate of extension education, tnau, coimbatore 641 003 primary cultured rat hepatocytes (syamasunder et al, 1985). knowledge about phyllanthus amarus especially on its antiviral property, has elicited a great interest in this plant, and has triggered its large-scale collection from natural flora. availability of this plant is subject to seasonal variations, which leads to uncertainty in supply of the plant material when required (rajasubramanian and pardha saradhi, 1997). in vitro secondary metabolite extraction has been a precision tool for studying organic compounds in plants even when present in trace quantities. the study of cell suspension culture, hairy root culture and other in vitro cultures is an ideal method to investigate the rare compounds and, especially, many active, unknown compounds within a short period. in this background, the study was taken up to explore a lignans from in vitro culture of phyllanthus amarus. in field grown crops, it takes about six months for extraction of these lignans whereas this time lag is just three months in in vitro cultured plantlets. material and methods indirect organogenesis murashige and skoog (1962) medium was used for induction of callus from leaf bits, stem pieces, shoot tips and nodal segments of phyllanthus amarus. sucrose (3.0%), agar (0.8%), cytokinins, viz., kinetin (3.0 mgl-1) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 62-65, 2008 page 62 63 and bap (3.0 mgl-1) and auxins, viz., 2, 4-d (4.0 mgl-1) and naa (0.4 mgl-1) were added to the medium. cultures containing 2, 4-d was inoculated under darkness by covering culture racks with a black cloth and the remaining cultures were incubated at 25±2oc in light: dark cycle of 16:8 h, respectively. direct organogenesis for direct organogenesis by axillary shoot proliferation or by adventitious shoot formation, the explants, viz., shoot tip and nodal segments, were inoculated onto ms basal medium supplemented with bap (2.0 mgl-1) along with ga 3 (1.0 mgl-1). after separating the multiple shoots, each individual shoot was sub-cultured onto half strength ms medium containing two auxins, iaa (0.5 mgl-1) and iba (0.5 mgl-1). the cultures were maintained in a growth room at 24±2oc under 16 h light and 8 h dark photoperiodic regime. estimation of anti-hepatic viral compounds for estimation of lignans, different types of cultures were used as follows: cultures used for estimation of anti-hepatic viral compounds treatment source of culture culture medium on which (nature of culture) the culture was initiated t 1 (multiple shoot shoot tip ms + bap (2.0 mgl-1) + clumps with ga 3 (1.0 mgl-1) basal callus) t 2 (multiple shoot nodal segment ms + bap (3.0 mgl-1) + clumps with ga 3 (1.0 mgl-1) basal callus) t 3 (micro shoots shoot tip ½ ms + iba (0.5 mgl-1) + with roots) iaa (0.5 mgl-1) t 4 (micro shoots nodal segment ½ ms + iba (0.5 mgl-1) + with roots) iaa (0.5 mgl-1) t 5 (green callus) shoot tip ms + bap (3.0 mgl-1) + kin (3.0 mgl-1) t 6 (green callus) nodal segment ms + bap (3.0 mgl-1) + kin (3.0 mgl-1) t 7 (white callus) stem pieces ms + 2,4-d (4.0 mgl-1) + naa (0.4 mgl-1) t 8 (white callus) leaf bits ms + 2,4-d (4.0 mgl-1) + naa (0.4 mgl-1) analysis of anti-hepatic viral compounds the above in vitro grown materials were dried and ground to a fine powder using a mortar and pestle. each powdered sample (1 g) was macerated with lime (300 mg) and hplc grade water (2.5 ml) at room temperature and kept in a shaker for 18 hours. thirty ml of methanol containing 3% potassium hydroxide was added to the macerated material and kept in boiling water-bath for 30 min. the material was filtered the residue washed 3 times with 5 ml methanol and the volume of the combined filtrate and washings was made up to 50 ml. a sample (10 µl) of this solution was injected in to hplc column and the lignans were estimated. a varian chromatographic system comprising of l.c.8a model dual pump and uv detector was employed. a µ bondapak c 18 column (30 cm x 3.9 mm) with isocratic run of solvent system of methanol: water (66:4), v/v at the rate of 1.8 ml/min flow rate and uv detection at 230 nm was used for resolving and analysing phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin. the quantification was carried out using external standards of phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin (sigma aldrich chemicals) and values were expressed as percentage. results and discussion the lignans were detected and quantified in the in vitro cultures of phyllanthus amarus. among the various cultures, in vitro grown plants recorded highest phyllanthin (0.921%) and hypophyllanthin (0.396 %) on ½ ms medium containing iba (0.5 mgl-1) and iaa (0.5 mgl-1) as compared to the field grown plants. phyllanthin (0.709 w/w dry basis) and hypophyllanthin (0.271 w/w dry basis) content was estimated by the method of anupum sharma et al (1993) in fieldgrown phyllanthus niruri. similar finding was also reported by mahalakshmi et al (2006) in phyllanthus amarus genotypes. this was supported by the findings of ara kirakosyan (2003) in hypericum perforatum and sharma tripti, (2006) in artemisia annua. the contents of phyllanthin (0.714 %) and hypophyllanthin (0.261%) was low in leaf-bit derived white callus on ms medium supplemented with 2,4-d (4.0 mg l-1) and naa (0.4 mgl-1). the level of hypericin in hypericum perforatum callus was very low, representing only 0.11% of that found in fieldgrown plants (kirakosayan, 2003). callus initiated from stamens of h. perforatum showed only traces of hypericin or pseudohypericin (kirakosyan et al, 2000). in general, an increase in the level, of auxins such as 2, 4-d in the medium stimulates dedifferentiation of cells and consequently diminishes the level of secondary metabolites. this is the reason that auxins are commonly added to the medium for callus induction, but used at low concentrations or omitted altogether for production of metabolites. zenk et al (1977) reported that cytokinins stimulated alkaloid synthesis which was induced by removing auxin from the medium of a cell line of catharanthus roseus. this was j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 62-65, 2008 estimation of anti-hepatic viral compounds 64 supported by the findings of shiio and ohta (1973) along with takahashi and yamada (1973). they reported that lower concentrations of auxins viz., iaa, naa and 2,4-d promoted nicotine synthesis in tobacco cell cultures while higher concentrations inhibited nicotine synthesis. in the present study, the quantity of phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin was found to be higher in in-vitro grown plants than in the callus. thus, it seems that in many cases morphological differentiation may be necessary to obtain higher yields of secondary metabolites. hiraoka and tabata (1974) investigated the correlation between stage of morphological differentiation and tropane alkaloid producing ability in datura meteloides, and found that roots forming shoots produced higher amounts of tropane alkaloids. dhar and pal (1988) demonstrated that more pyrethrin was being synthesized in chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium in vitro shoots than the roots and its content was even lower in undifferentiated callus culture. chromatographic analysis of the regenerated plants of phyllanthus amarus showed antiviral content higher than that found in field-grown plants, suggesting that an in vitro culture system could be used for this plant which may significantly reduce the cost, time and resources required for field-production of antiviral compounds, as well as enable growers to produce high quality, standard antiviral products. references anupum sharma, r., singh, s., sukhdev, s. handa.,1993. estimation of phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin by hplc in phyllanthus amarus. phytochem. anal., 4: 226-229 berlin, j.1984. plant cell cultures – a future source of natural products. endeavour 8: 5-8 table 1. estimation of anti-hepatic viral compounds from different types of cultures sl.no nature of culture & phyllanthin hypophyllanthin source of culture (%) (%) 1. multiple shoot clumps with 0.745 0.298 basalcallus (shoot tip) 2. multiple shoot clumps with 0.723 0.289 basal callus (nodal segment) 3. microshoots with roots 0.892 0.325 (shoot tip) 4. microshoots with roots 0.921 0.396 (nodal segment) 5. green callus (shoot tip) 0.716 0.294 6. green callus 0.731 0.309 (nodal segment) 7. white callus (stem bit) 0.728 0.314 8. white callus (leaf bit) 0.714 0.261 mean 0.771 0.311 sed 0.027 0.016 cd (0.05) 0.054 0.034 3rd peak hypophyllanthin (retention time 54.33 minutes) 4th peak phyllanthin (retention time 56.87 minutes) fig 1. hplc chromatogram of phyllanthus amarus dhar, k, pal a. 1988. pyrethrin content in unorganized and organized callus cultures of chrysanthemum cineraraefolium vis. fitoterapia lxiv., 336-340 foo, l. y. 1995. amariinic acid and related ellagi tannins from phyllanthus amarus. phytochem., 39: 217-224 foo, l. y., wong, h. 1992. phyllanthusiin d, unusual hydrolysable tannin from phyllanthus amarus. phytochem., 31: 711-713 hiraoka, n., tabata, m. 1974. studies on relationship between productivity of tropane alkaloids and differentiations in datura meteloides. phytochem., 13: 1671 kamboj, v. p. 2000. herbal medicine. curr. sci., 78: 35-39 kirakosayan. a 2003. a comparative study of hypericum perforatum plants of hypericins and hyperforins. j. herbs, spices & medicinal plants., 10: 73-88 kirakosyan, a., vardapetyan, r. r., charchoglyan, a. g., 2000. the content of hypericin and pseudohypericin in cell cultures of hypericum perforatum. russ. j. pl. physiol., 47: 270-273 mahalakshmi, r and rajamani, k. 2006. studies on genetic diversity in phyllanthus amarus. m.sc (hort) thesis submitted in tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore murashige, t., skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. plant., 15: 437-497 nadkarni, k. m. 1976. in indian materia medica. popular prakashan, bombay : 947-949 rajasubramanian, s., paradha saradhi, p. 1997. rapid multiplication of phyllanthus fraternus: a plant with antihepatis viral activity. industrial crops and products., 6: 35 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 62-65, 2008 chitra et al 65 raphael, k. r. 2002. antimutagenic activity of phyllanthus amarus in vitro as well as in vivo. terarog. carcinog. mutagen., 22: 285-291 row, l. c., srinivasulu, c., samantaray, s., das, p., 1966. crstalline constituents of euphorbiaceae.v. new lignans from phyllanthus niruri linn: the constitution of phyllanthin. tetrahedron., 22: 2899-2908 sharma tripti, dixit. 2006. studies on ti-mediated transformed cultures of artemisia annua l. ind. j. pharm. sci., 68: 448-455 shiio, i., ohta, s., 1973. nicotine production by tobacco callus tissues and effect of plant growth regulators. agr. bio. chem., 37: 1857-1864 syamasunder, k. v., singh, b., thakur, r. s., husain, a., kiso, y., hikino, h. 1985 antihepatotoxic principles of phyllanthus niruri herbs. j. ethnopharmacol., 14: 41-44 takahashi, m. and yamada, y. 1973. regulation of nicotine production by auxins in tobacco cultured cells in vitro. agr. bio. chem., 37: 1755-1757 zenk, m. h. 1977. in “plant tissue culture and its biotechnological application”, eds. barz, w., reinhard, e., zenk, m.h., p. 27, springer-verlag, berlin, heidelberg, new york (ms received 24 december 2007, revised 2 april 2008) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 62-65, 2008 estimation of anti-hepatic viral compounds 42 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 42-48, 2017 genetic divergence assessment in kale (brassica oleracea l var. acephala (dc.) alef.) by using the multivariate analysis s r singh, n ahamed, dinesh kumar, k k srivatsava, sabeena yousuf and abid mir icar-central institute of temperate horticulture, old air field rangregth srinagar 190 007, j&k e-mail: srajparmar@gmail.com abstract a total of 87 genotypes collected from different geographical areas of kashmir valley evaluated at one site to determinate genetic variability. considerable diversity was found in different traits of horticultural importance. high coefficient of variation and wide range and mean differences of studied traits indicated the existence of wide genetic variability. three principal component having eigen value more than one and cumulatively accounted for 84.85 percent of total variability of evaluated horticultural traits. the leaf weight, leaf length, leaf width, leaf yield / plant and yield (q/ha) were major contributing traits towards the first principal component. similarly number of number of leaves/plant was impotent contributed traits toward principal component -ii, whereas plant height was main contributing traits to principal component -iii. the maximum inter cluster d2 value (731.04) was observed between cluster iv and cluster -i and followed by between cluster -v and clusteri (677.29) and between cluster ii and i (430.13).it indicated that genotypes belongings with these groups were genetically most divergent and may be use for hybridization to get better segregants. key words: kale, genetic diversity, principal component analysis, single linkage cluster analysis. introduction kale (brassica oleracea l) is one of important leafy vegetable grouped into cooked greens belongs to cole group. this is a preferred and widely grown vegetable of kashmir valley due to cold hardiness, higher yield and better nutritive value. it is only available as a fresh vegetable in valley during extreme cold temperature and snowing period when the area is cut off with rest of the country due to heavy snowfall. the crop is grown in valley since long and have been improved by growers through a selection. some genotypes have become popular in the valley either by the name of grower or by the name of growing locality such as g m dari, khaniyari and cowdari. a wide range of genetic diversity exists due to cross pollinating nature of crop and long growing history. large succulent and curly leaves are characteristics of consumer preference. however, no such commercial variety is available in the region. thus development of high yielding variety with preferable quality is the need of the region.improvement in yield and quality is normally achieved by selecting the genotype with desirable character combinations existing in the nature or by creating the diversity with hybridization. selection of genetically diverse parents in any purposeful breeding programme on basis of divergence would be more promising to get the heterotic f1,s and broad spectrum of variability in segregating generation ( meena and bahadur, 2015). in a varietal breeding for a particular growing conditions, it is essential to know about the local genetic population since their the relationship among the yield component are balanced and are in harmony with climatic and edaphic factors. multiva ria te a nalysis is an effective tool for characterization and classification of plant genetic resources when a large number of accessions are assessed for several traits. principal component analysis (pca), one of multivariate analysis methods, depicts the tr a its which wer e decisive in genotype differentiation(kovacic,1994). it enables an easier *icar-central institute of subtropical horticulture, remankhera, kakori lucknow. original research paper 43 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 42-48, 2017 understanding of impact and relationship among the different traits. however pca alone would not give an adequate character representation in term of relative importance when multiple characters are considered simultaneously (shalini et al,2003). to complement the results of such multivariate analysis, single linkage cluster analysis(slca) is employed to classify the variation. slca is an agglomerative technique which shows the patterns of exact genotype position in population (ariyo and odulaja,1991) by sorting them in distinct groups. t hus, present investigation was undertaken to assess the nature and magnitude of genetic diversity in kale accessions of kashmir valley for different morphological traits which could be utilized in further improvement programme. material and methods eighty seven ka le a ccessions (brassica oleracea l var. acephala) collected from growing spots of kashmir valley and some heterotic selection from kale lines bred at icar-cith were evaluated (table-1) . seeds were sown in nursery in mid of august in each year and 30 days old seedling was transplanted at 45x 60 cm2 apart in 3.0x2.70m2 bed. the experiment was carried out during 2012 and 2013 at experimental farm of icarcentral institute of temperate horticulture, srinagar jammu and kashmir in randomized block design with three replications. geographical position of the experimental site lies between latitude of 34005 n and longitude of 74050 e at an altitude of 1640 m amsl. the average maximum 19.63%c and minimum 6.52%c temperature, annual precipitation 160.72 mm and relative humidity 58.35%, evaporation 2.45mm and soil characteristics viz. ph= 6.81 and ec = 0.36 dsm”1 recorded during the cropping season. recommended uniform agronomic and cultural practices were adopted to obtain better phenotypic expression of the characters. a total of seven quantitative traits representing to vegetative characteristics of plants related to yield and yield table 1. accession used in study along with code number genetic diversity in kale 44 attributes were measured. data collected on the quantitative characters were analysed using the sas microsoft windows 9.2 (sas institute, 2011). genetic diversity was studied following the mahalanobis (1936) generalised distance (d2) extended by rao (1952). average intra cluster distance was calculated by following formula as suggested by singh and choudhry (1985). pca a nd slca wer e used for the determination of genetic variation and percentage similarity within the genotypes. the pca produce eigen – vectors and principal component score were used to assess the relative discriminatory power of its axis and their associated characters. the cluster procedure was used to produce a distinct group of 87 genotypes on the basis of genetic relationship while using the character variation. slca summarized the position of accessions analysed the position of accessions into a dendogramme at an interval of 5% level of dissimilarity starting from 100 % of level of dissimilarity. results and discussion the eighty seven genotypes evaluated varied significantly for all horticultural traits except to average leaf weight (table 2). the phenotypic variability revealed by coefficient variation (%) was highest for average leaf weight followed by leaf yield /plant and q/ha, number of leaves per plant which was also substantiated by wider range and mean difference values. the coefficient of variation varied from 15.12 for leaf length to 33.45 for average leaf weight. high coefficient of variation and wide range and mean differences of studied traits indicated a wide range of genetic variability, which reflects the potential of improvement in kale. similar type of variability in germplasm of kale has been reported by maria et al., 2002. to extract principal factors which do not require the assumption of normal distribution of proportion, principal component analysis was used a nd 8 7 ka le genot yp es b a s ed on degr ee of divergence of seven morphological traits were grouped into three principal components having eigen va lue mor e t ha n one a nd cumu la tively accounted for 84.85 percent of total variability (table 3). the first principal component contributed 44.59 % of total variation and was positively loaded with impotent horticultural traits viz., average leaf weight, leaf length, leaf width, leaf yield /plant and yield (q/ha), where as negatively loaded with number of leaves /plants. the second principal component responsible for 26.93 percent of total multivariate variation was positively loaded with number of leaves/plant, leaf yield per plant and yield (q/ha) where as negatively loaded with pla nt height, number of leaves and leaf width. the principal component iii accounted for 13.32 % of total variation and was positively loaded with plant height ,number of leaves /plant and yield per plant where as negatively loaded with leaf weight, leaf length and leaf width. the positive and negative loading of quantitative characters reflect the positive and negative correlation trend between the components and variables and suggesting that theses principal component may be used to summarize the variables. the characters with largest absolute value closer to unit within the first component influencing the clustering than those to lower absolute value closer table 2.variability for different metric traits in kale genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 42-48, 2017 singh et al 45 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 42-48, 2017 table 3. latent vectors for seven traits of 87 genotypes of kale to zero. thus in present study the differentiation of genotypes in different principal component was because of high contribution of few characters rather than small contribution of each characters. the characters positively in first three principal component could be in consideration while selecting the genotype with appr opriate tr aits a nd yield potential. the principal component analysis has also been used for studying the genetic variability in germplasm of many species (ahmed et al.,2015, singh et al., 2013). the plot of pci versus pc ii indica ted the that some groups of isola ted genotypes clearly define the diversity among the evaluated germplasm. the genotypes cith-kc23, cith-kc-25, cith-sag-24, 2011 klvr-12, new sag27(5), kashmiri local, kc-12, cith kc-6, cith-kc-14, cith-44, and 2011/klvr-5 were most divergent (fig-1). usually it is customary to use one importent variable from theses identified groups for improvement programme. hence pc-i for leaf length , leaf width and leaf yield per plant should be first choice which has a largest positive loadings for these traits. number of leaves per plant for second principal component and plant height for third principal component. the results of study are useful as it furnish the information about the groups where certain traits are more important, allowing to breeder to execute the breeding programme for specific tar get. the biologica l implica tion of principal component analysis can be quantified by contribution of different variables in each pc as revealed by eigen vector. the clustering score a mong the component a xes suggest that some relationship exist among the individuals within the cluster but do not provides the clear position of genotypes . based on single linkage cluster analysis, the genotypes were grouped into five clusters quantifying the share genotypes and cluster mean of all traits (table 4). the maximum number of genotypes (81 nos) were accommodated in cluster i followed by cluster ii (3nos) and cluster iii, iv and v (1 no. in each) contributing 93.24, 3.4, 1.41, 1.14 and 1.14 % respectively. on basis of cluster mean the cluster -iv was important for maximum number of leaves per plant, leaf yield per plant and yield (q/ha) clusterii was important for average leaf weight ,clusteriii, cluster three for plant height and cluster v for leaf length and leaf width. the cluster having high mean values of traits would contribute more positively in their offsprings if used as a parent. rehman and mansur (2009) and ahmad et al, 2015 also suggested that the cluster having highest mean values may be used for hybridization programme to get better segregants. genetic diversity in kale 46 table 4. cluster means values for 7 important horticultural traits along with number and proportion genotypes falling in each cluster singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 42-48, 2017 fig. 1 bi-plot for 1st and 2nd pc for genotypes of kale in relation horticultural traits d 2 va lue estima te of genetic diver gence suggested the resolution for 87 kale genotypes in distinct five clusters with wide range of diversity in experimental material for a majority of traits (table5). the maximum inter cluster d2 value (731.04) was observed between cluster iv and cluster -i and followed by between cluster -v and clusteri (677.29) and between cluster ii and i (430.13). it indicates that genotypes belongings with these gr oups wer e genetically most divergent. the selection of divergent parents based on theses cluster distance may be used in selecting the parents for the hybridization and formulating a comprehensive strategy to get a superior hybrid or superior segregants in kale. the findings are 47 genetic diversity in kale j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 42-48, 2017 in conformity with finding of maria, et al., 2002, singh, et al., 2013 and ahmed et al.,2015 who had also indicated the accessions among the cluster separated by high d2 cluster values used in hybridization programme to obtain a wide spectrum of variation among the segregants. dendogram drawn from the single linkage cluster analysis by using the euclidian distance depicted the relationship and exact position of genotype in the cluster (fig.2) all the genotypes were distinct from each other at 100 % of dissimilarity and farmed 17 cluster at 75% of dissimilarity and farmed 3 cluster at 50% of dissimilarity . the dissimilarity range from 50 to 100 % among the delineated genotypes large enough to suggest the variability for cr op impr ovement (denton and nwangburuka,2011) cith-kc-23,cith-kc-45, cit h-sag-24, 2011 klvr-12, new sag27(5),kashmiri local,kc-12, cith -kc-6, cithkc-14, cithsag-3 and 2011/klvr-5 were most divergent in cluster position and may be use for hybridization to get better segregants. ahmed et al.,2015 also reported such variability by using the single linkage cluster analysis. this genetic diversity analysis would be useful to avoid the selecting parents from genetically homogenous cluster and maintain a broad genetic base for future breeding programme. table 5. average intra and inter cluster distances (d2) of kale genotypes fig 2. dendogram depicting the genetic relationship among the kale genotypes based horticultural traits produced by ash analysis (scale-euclidian distance) 48 (ms received 11 september 2016, revised 20 may 2017, accepted 24 june 2017) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 42-48, 2017 references ahmed,n.,singh,s.r., lal s., mir k. a., asima, a.,habib, k. and salmani, m. 2015. assessment of genetic diversity in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) genotypes using multivariate analysis. indian j. hort. 71:494-498. ario, o. j. and odulaza, a. 1991. numerical analysis of variation among accessions of okra. (a. esculentus l. moench). malvaceae. ann. bot. 67:527-531 denton, o. a. and nwangburuka, c. c. 2011.genetic variability in eighteen cultivars of solanum anguiviam l. using principal component analysis (pca) and single linkage cluster analysis (slca). an of biol. res. 2 :62-67 kovacic, z. 1994. multivariate analysis. faculty of economics, university of belgrade (in serbian) 293 p. mahalanobis, p. c. 1936. on the generalized distance in statistics. proc. nati. inst. sci. india. 2: 49-55. maria, e.c., ana, p., soengas, p. and amando. o . 2002. morphlogical characterization of kale population from north western spain. euphytica: 129:25-32. meena, o. p. and bahadur, v. 2015. breeding potential of indeterminate tomato (solanum lycopersicum l) accessions using d2 analysis. sarrao j. bree. and gen 47(1)49-59. rahman. m. m. and mansur. a. m. 2009. genetic divergence analysis of lime. j. ban. agri. univ. 7: 33–37. rao, c. r. 1952. advanced statistical methods in biometrics research. john wiley and sons, new york, pp. 35769 sas istitute.2011.sas enterprise guide.version9.2sas, institute,cary nc,usa. shalini, m., sharma. s., gupta, m. m., shashi, k. 2003.evaluation of an indian germ plasm collection of medicinal plants bacopa monnieri (l) pennell by use of multivariate aprochess.euphytica.133:255-65. singh, r. k. and choudhry, b. d. 1985. biometrical methods i n quant i tat i ve gene t ic a nal y si s . ka l ya n i publishers, new delhi, p. 318. singh, s. r., ahmed, n., lal, s., ganaie, s. a., mudasir, a., nusarat, j. and asima, a. 2013. determination of genetic diversity in onion (allium cepa l) by multivariate analysis under long day conditions. afri. j. agri. res. 8: 5599-606. singh et al 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf introduction the primary cause of low productivity is an imbalanced use of plant nutrients which may deplete mineral elements in the soil (ganeshamurthy and hegde, 1980). nambiar and abrol (1989) reported that application of n alone increased soil-depletion of other nutrients including ca, mg and s. secondary and micronutrient deficiency in soil increases due to increased application of n, p and k fertilizers (shukla et al, 2009). further, soil factors like organic matter content, texture, ph, ec and drainage, and, interaction of mineral elements, limit the availability of nutrients. to meet the dietary requirements of a growing indian population, efforts have been made to increase crop yields per unit area through release of new varieties/hybrids: these require better nutrition management to obtain optimal yields. tomato is an important vegetable crop cultivated under open or controlled conditions. it serves as a daily component of our diet and is also an important source of minerals, vitamins, iron and antioxidants (grierson and kader, 1986). to obtain high yield levels in new tomato hybrids, advanced precision-farming practices need to be standardized, including nutrient management. tomato is one of the main crops grown in recent years in peninsular india, j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):190-193, 2015 effect of magnesium on plant growth, dry matter and yield in tomato (lycipersicon esculentum l.) b.l. kasinath, a.n. ganeshamurthy and n.s. nagegowda icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail: kasnath@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field experiment was conducted on magnesium nutrition in tomato hybrid arka ananya at icar-iihr, bengaluru, for two years. graded application of magnesium produced significant difference in fruit yield in tomato among treatments. the yield increased upto 50kg mg ha-1 application, and decreased beyond this dose. yield parameters like number of fruits per plant and fruit weight recorded results similar as that of yield. growth parameters like number of branches and plant-height followed a similar trend. growth and yield parameters were found to be well correlated with yield. treatment t3 (50kg mg ha-1) recorded significantly higher plant height, number of branches, fruit number, fruit weight and fruit yield over the control, t1, where no magnesium was applied. yield increase of 29% can be achieved with magnesium application (50kg mg ha-1) in tomato during winter season. key words: tomato, growth parameters, magnesium, dry matter, fruit yield where, alfisols are predominant and are low in ph. lately, in this region, magnesium deficiency in commercial hybrids of tomato has been found to be a major constraint in achieving desirable yields and quality. hybrid tomatoes with a high yield potential have a very high demand for magnesium, and, are vulnerable to magnesium deficiency in soil. reduction in productivity may be due to a reduced biomass production, and lesser biomass allocation to the fruit. effects of mineral nutrients on biomass partitioning help understand the mechanism of their influence on fruit yield. efforts have been made to increase quality and yield through adequate supply of secondary nutrients, especially, magnesium and calcium. in general, greenhouse grown tomatoes with 0.4% mg in leaf dry-matter indicate a critical concentration of this nutrient. mg deficiency in tomato is first noticed in older leaves (which become abnormally thin), and inter-venal chlorosis starts appearing. in advanced stages of deficiency, leaves become purplish-red and brittle, with a tendency to curl upward. rockwool grown tomato (50-80 ppm of mg in the nutrient solution) results in the best yield and quality. in a field experiment, 54kg mg ha-1 increased tomato yield by 27.9% (osman and wilcox, 1985). in soils with exchangeable mg of lower than 0.5c mol (p+) kg-1, magnesium application to soil elicited a good response in many crops (ganeshamurthy and hegde, 1980). so as to 191 magnesium in growth, dry matter and yield in tomato achieve the high yield potential in tomato hybrids, an attempt has been made in the present study, to assess magnesium requirement in the hybrid ‘arka ananya’. material and methods the experiment was conducted at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru, for two years during the winter season of 201011 and 2011-12. initial soil-chemical properties and available nutrient status in the field selected for conducting the experiment were: ph 6.14, ec 0.74 dsm-1, oc 0.74, n 119.88 ppm, p 3.51 ppm, k 731.20, ca 158 ppm and mg 61.6 ppm. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications and five treatments, viz., t1 control (rdf), t2rdf+mgso4 (25kg ha -1), t3 rdf+mgso4 (50kg ha-1), t4 rdf+mgso4 (75kg ha -1) and t5 rdf+mgso4 (100kg ha -1). the recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) for tomato, 180:150:120 kg npk kg ha-1, was applied to all the treatments in the form of ammonium sulphate, single super-phosphate (ssp) and muriate of potash, respectively. full dose of p and k was applied as soil application. only nitrogen was applied in three splits, viz., 50% rdf at planting, 25% at 25 days after transplanting, and the remaining 25% rdf at 50 days after transplanting. magnesium dose was applied in the form of magnesium sulphate (mgso4.7h2o) (table 1). tomato hybrid arka ananya was transplanted at a spacing of 100cm x 60cm. fruits were harvested in 10 pickings, and weight of the fruits from each plant was recorded separately. growth and yield parameters, viz., plant height, number of branches plant-1, total number of fruits, mean fruit-weight (g fruit-1) and fruit yield (t/ha-1) were recorded. total dry matter production was determined by collecting the entire plant; fruits were collected separately at the final harvest-stage. fresh weight was evaluated and the samples were sun-dried, and then again dried in a hot air oven at 65-700c. dry weights of the entire plant and the fruit were recorded individually and expressed as total fresh/ dry matter produced (kg ha-1). data on yield and quality parameters were subjected to statistical analysis as per sundaraja et al (1972). results and discussion growth parameters plant height and number of branches application of different levels of magnesium during the two-year field experiment to tomato resulted in significant changes in plant height and number of branches during all stages of the crop (table 2). at pre-flowering stage, tallest plants (53.45cm) and maximum number of branches per plant (6.43) were found in t3 (50kg mg ha -1), while, the shortest plants (48.98cm) and fewest branches (5.73) were seen in the control (0kg mg ha-1) at pre-flowering. lowest numbers of branches plant-1 (5.54) were observed in the control plot where no magnesium was applied during the flowing stage. at flowering, maximum plant height (67.88cm) was observed in t4 (75kg mg ha -1), and the highest number of branches plant-1 (6.10) was found in t3 (50kg mg ha-1); lowest values were recorded in the control table 2. effect of magnesium in tomato hybrid arka ananya on two-year mean plant height (cm), number of branches and dry matter (kg ha-1) accumulation at various stages of plant growth treatment pre-flowering stage flowering stage harvest stage total biomass (kg ha-1) plant number of plant number of plant number of fresh dry height branches/ height branches height (cm) branches weight weight (cm) plant (cm) t1 (control) (0kg mg ha -1) 48.98 5.73 62.45 5.54 66.00 4.73 5853.34 958.84 t2 (25kg mg ha -1) 51.03 6.05 63.53 5.69 67.20 4.88 6752.17 1225.34 t3 (50kg mg ha -1) 53.45 6.43 66.85 6.10 70.12 5.30 7541.51 1337.50 t4 (75kg mg ha -1) 50.83 6.08 67.88 6.00 69.12 5.22 6666.67 995.50 t5 (100kg mg ha -1) 50.054 6.13 67.43 5.97 69.28 4.96 7373.50 1156.34 s.em± 1.24 0.27 1.77 0.29 1.62 0.29 461.99 100.32 c.d. (p=0.05) 4.03 0.89 5.77 0.95 5.30 0.95 1506.94 325.52 table 1. quantity of mgso4 applied for supplying different doses of magnesium treatment treatment levels of quantity of mgso4.7h2o magnesium (kg ha-1) applied (kg ha-1) t1 (control) 0 0 t 2 25 257 t 3 50 514 t 4 75 771 t 5 100 1028 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):190-193, 2015 192 plot. at harvest, control plot recorded minimum plant height (66cm) and number of branches (4.73). on the other hand, t4 treatment (75kg mg ha -1) showed maximum plant height (70.12cm) and number of branches (5.30). in general, it was application of magnesium increased plant height and number of branches per plant up to 75kg mg ha-1, and these were positively correlated to fruit yield. in a pot culture experiment, agbede and aduayi (1980) found application of 80ppm mg as recording maximum plant height. similar results were found by jean aghofack nguemezi and tatchago (2010) too (table 2). dry matter production (kg/ha) application of graded magnesium to the tomato crop resulted in significant difference in dry matter production (table 2). highest dry matter content (7541.51kg ha-1) was found in t3 (50kg mg ha -1) while, the lowest (5853.34kg ha-1) was observed in the control, t1 (0kg mg ha -1). magnesium application recorded increased dry matter production at all the levels over the control. similar results in tomato were reported by xiuming hao and papadopoulos (2004). yield and yield parameters number of fruits and mean fruit-weight pooled analysis of data for the two years showed that applied mg content significantly increased per plant (table 3). maximum number of fruits per plant was harvested in t3 (50kg mg ha -1) (47.42), while, the lowest number of fruits was harvested in t5 (100kg mg ha -1) (39.53). this indicates that with increase in level of mg up to 50kg mg ha-1, number of fruits per plant increased significantly. further increases in mg level did not influence number of fruits. pooled analysis of data for the two years on mean fruitweight showed that applied mg significantly influenced fruitweight. maximum fruit weight was found in t3 (50kg mg ha-1) (78.91g fruit-1), while, the ccontrol (0kg mg ha-1) recorded lowest fruit weight (60.63g fruit-1). table 3. effect of various levels of magnesium in cultivation of tomato hybrid arka ananya on pooled mean yield attributes treatment total no. mean fruit fruit of fruits weight yield plant-1 (g fruit-1) (t ha-1) t1 (control) (0kg mg ha -1) 39.66 66.63 60.09 t2 (25kg mg ha -1) 42.14 75.93 73.92 t3 (50kg mg ha -1) 47.42 78.91 78.01 t4(75kg mg ha -1) 41.68 77.80 68.12 t5 (100kg mg ha -1) 39.53 76.45 67.80 s.em± 2.41 1.15 1.93 c.d. (p=0.05) 7.86 3.78 6.310 fig. 1. two-year mean yield in tomato as influenced by magnesium levels in soil y = 61.624 +0.5217 x – 0.0048 x2 r2 = 0.8598 kasinath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):190-193, 2015 number of fruits and fruit-weight increased upto application of 50kg mg ha-1, and then, decreased. these yield parameters correlated well with fruit-yield. bombita nzanza (2006) too in a study on ca , k and mg nutrition in tomato observed that the number of fruits decreased at a high ca:mg ratio, with similar results in fruit-weight as well. micaela carvajal et al (1999), in a study on mg nutrition in tomato, also found yield reduction to be associated with number of fruits per plant. similar results were reported by cerda et al (1970). fruit yield total mean-yield of tomato fruits differed significantly among treatments during the two years of experimentation (table 3). mg applied as mgso4 @ 50kg ha -1 significantly enhanced fruit yield. application of higher levels of mg decreased fruit yield, but yield levels here were significantly higher than in plots without mg application (t1-control). lowest tomato yield was observed in the control treatment (60.09t ha-1). on the other hand, highest yield was observed in t3rdf+mgso4 50kg ha -1 (78.01t ha-1), which was on par with t2-rdf+mgso4 25kg ha -1 (73.92t ha-1), followed by t4-rdf+mgso4 75kg ha -1 (68.12t ha -1) and t5rdf+mgso4 100kg ha -1 (67.80t ha-1). tomato responded significantly to mg applied in terms of fruit yield, number of fruits and fruit-weight. as the level of mg applied increased, total yield, number of fruits plant-1 and mean fruit-weight increased, attaining a maximum 193 at 50kg mg ha-1. it then declined. regression equations were developed between mg applied and yield. the best fit equation (y = 61.624 +0.5217 x – 0.0048 x2, r2 = 0.8598) is presented in fig. 1. from this regression equation, it is found that the tomato crop yields maximum at 54.2kg ha-1 applied mg @ 75.6t ha-1. from this study, it is found that application of 50kg mg ha-1 results in increase of tomato fruit yield up to 29% in low-ph sandy soils. upendra et al (2003) observed that application of mg was essential, along with other major nutrients, to obtain economic yields in tomato. osman and wilcox (1985) also obtained significantly higher yields at 56kg mg ha-1 on acidic soil. bose et al (2006) reported tomato yield to increase when potassium and magnesium sulphate (k2so4 and mgso4) were applied, compared to the use of just potassium chloride. hao and papadopoulos (2004) found that for greenhouse grown tomatoes to attain higher yields, application of 80ppm mg was essential. from our present study, it is found that application of 50kg mg ha-1 results in an increase in tomato fruit yield up to 29% in low-ph sandy soils. application of magnesium to tomato increased the yield significantly over the control. further, it was observed that yield of tomato increased up to 50kg mg ha-1. application of higher levels diminished growth parameters like plant height, and number of branches per plant. dry matter showed a similar trend and was very well correlated with fruit yield. yield parameters, viz., number of fruits per plant and fruit weight, also showed a similar trend. it can be concluded, therefore, that magnesium application @ 50kg ha-1 to low acidic alfisols can enhance fruit yield in tomato significantly. references agbede, o.o. and aduayi, e.a. 1980. role of phosphorus and magnesium on some growth components and yield of potted life plum tomato plants in low soil series of south-western nigeria. east african agri. & for. j., 43:246-257 bombita nzanza. 2006. yield and quality of tomato as influenced by differential ca, mg and k nutrition. m.sc. thesis, department of plant production and soil science, university of pretoria, south africa bose, p., sanyal, d. and majumdar, k. 2006. balancing potassium, sulfur and magnesium for tomato and chilli grown on red lateritic soil. better crops, 90:84-89 cerda, a., bingham, f. and labanauskas, c. 1970. blossomend rot of tomato fruit as influenced by osmotic potential and phosphorus concentration of nutrient solution media. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 104:236239 ganeshamurthy, a.n. and hegde, d.m. 1980. soil health and nutritional security: secondary nutrients. indian society of soil science platinum jubilee symposiumproceedings, pp. 1-20 grierson, d. and kader, a.a. 1986. fruit ripening and quality of tomato crop. chapman and hall, london, pp. 240280 hao, x. and papadopoulos, a.p. 2004. effects of calcium and magnesium on plant growth, biomass partition and fruit yield of winter greenhouse tomato. hort. sci., 39:512-515 jean aghofack–nguemezi and valere tatchago. 2010. effects of fertilizers containing calcium and / or magnesium on the growth, development of plants and quality of tomato fruits in the western highlands. cameroon int’l. j. agril. res., 5:821-831 micaela carvajal, vicente martinez and antonio cerda. 1999. influence of magnesium and salinity on tomato plants grown in hydroponic culture. j. pl. nutr., 22:177-190 nambiar, k.k.m. and abrol, i.p. 1989. long-term fertilizer experiments in india: an overview. fert. news, 34: 11-26 osman m. elamin and gerald e. wilcox. 1985. effect of magnesium fertilization on yield and leaf composition of tomato plants. j. pl. nutr., 8:999-1012 shukla, a.k., dwivedi, b.s., singh, v.k. and gill, m.s. 2009. macro-role of micronutrients. indian j. fert., 5:11-30 sundaraja, n., nagaraju, venkataramu, m.n. and jaganath, m.k. 1972. design and analysis of field experiments, u.a.s., bengaluru, karnataka, india upendra, m., sainju, ramdane dris and singh, b. 2003. mineral nutrition of tomato (training report), thailand, pp. 325-327 xiuming hao and athanasios p. papadopoulos. 2004. effects of calcium and magnesium on plant growth, biomass partitioning and fruit yield of winter greenhouse tomato. hort. sci., 39:512-515 (ms received 21 may 2015, revised 14 september 2015, accepted 7 october 2015) magnesium in growth, dry matter and yield in tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):190-193, 2015 chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) is one of the most widely cultivated herbaceous perennial flowering plants belonging to family asteraceae. it is commonly known as autumn queen or queen of east, and is extensively grown all over the world for its beautiful, charming flowers having excellent vase life. in india, chrysanthemum cultivation covers 20.14 thousand hectare, with loose flower production of 202.63 million tonnes and cut-flower production of 1415.79 lakh flowers (anon., 2013). it is one of the most widely cultivated garden flowers with diverse and beautiful range of colours, shades, widely variable flower shapes and range of height (swaroop et al, 2008). these characters make it highly suitable for pot culture, bedding purposes and for production of loose flowers for use in garland making, in worship and for decoration purposes. it also produces long, sturdy stems with good keeping quality, thus making it most suitable for cut-flower and exhibition purposes. loose flower types are more popular in india for as these are used for making venis, garlands, bouquets and for religious offerings. though a large number of chrysanthemum varieties are available in the market, novelty in commercial traits like flower colour, shape, size, growth habit, post-harvest life of the flower, etc., are always valued and preferred by the consumer. there is a perpetual demand for superior varieties evaluation of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) genotypes for morphological traits madhu bala department of floriculture and landscaping punjab agricultural university, ludhiana-141004, india e-mail: madhu-flori@pau.edu abstract thirty small-flowered genotypes of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) were evaluated for various morphological and floral characters at research farm, department of floriculture and landscaping, pau, ludhiana, during 2013-14. all the varieties suitable for different purposes like pot culture, garden decoration, cut flower, loose flower and bedding purposes were evaluated. results revealed that the genotypes differed significantly with each other with respect to plant growth and flowering parameters like plant height, number of branches per plant, plant spread, days taken to bud appearance, and, floral traits like number of flowers per plant, diameter of flower, flowering duration, flower colour and flower type. on the basis of morphological traits, the varieties were grouped into various categories for different purposes, viz., cut flower, loose flower, bedding/garden decoration and pot culture. key words: chrysanthemum, cultivars, quantitative traits, variability over the existing ones. it, thus, becomes necessary to evaluate and categorize available chrysanthemum varieties on the basis of their use. with this in view, investigations were undertaken to evaluate chrysanthemum varieties for various uses. the present study was carried out at research farm, department of floriculture and landscaping, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, in the year 2012-13. ludhiana is situated between 33º55’ north latitude and 75º54’ east longitude at 247m above mean sea level. the soil at the experimental site was sandy-loam with ph 8.3 and good water-holding capacity besides medium fertility. for evaluation, 30 spray-type chrysanthemum varieties were used: ajay, apsara, autumn joy, baggi, banglori, birbal sahni, chidori, crystal fall, garden beauty, kelvin mandarin, kotai-na-katori, naintara, obsession, olympia, otome pink, purnima, ratlam selection, ravi kiran, reagan emperor, reagan white, santi, punjab gold, white bouquet, white staphour, winter queen , wiron, yellow bonsai, yellow chram, yellow delight and yukari. rooted cuttings were transplanted to the main field during the 4th week of july, at a spacing of 30 x 30cm in beds 1.0m wide. recommended package of practices was employed to obtain satisfactory plant growth. the varieties were planted in three replications, and five plants were short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):242-244, 2015 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):237-241, 2015 243 evaluation of chrysanthemum genotypes for morphological traits selected in each variety / replication for making observations. data were analyzed using randomized block design (rbd). pinching operation was performed at two stages – the first at four weeks after transplanting, and the second at seven weeks after transplanting, to encourage emergence of lateral shoots. adequate measures were taken to prevent lodging by staking the plants. data on growth and floral parameters, viz., plant height at first bud appearance (cm), number of branches per plant, plant spread (cm), days taken to first bud appearance, number of flowers per plant, flower diameter (cm), flowering duration (days), flower colour and type, were recorded. data presented in table 1 on plant height at appearance of the first bud shows a difference among varieties. results revealed that reagan white was the tallest at the time of first-bud appearance (88.1cm), followed by reagan emperor (73.13cm), whereas, the variety ‘chidori’ was dwarf compared to all other varieties tested, with the lowest plant height (12.7cm). similar variations among different varieties of chrysanthemum for plant height have table 1. evaluation of chrysanthemum varieties for various morphological and floral attributes variety plant height at number of plant days taken to number flower flowering flower flower first-bud branches spread first-bud of flowers diameter duration colour type appearance (cm) per plant (cm) appearance per plant (cm) (days) ajay 45.06 3.33 39.86 67.33 54.00 4.73 32.00 yellow pompom apsara 55.50 7.66 44.10 71.76 75.33 4.80 30.00 creamish, decorative with purple margins autumn joy 45.93 6.00 40.53 74.80 128.33 9.67 30.00 pink decorative baggi 72.40 10.66 57.10 72.46 123.33 6.40 26.00 white pompom banglori 59.23 6.66 45.60 73.70 82.33 5.40 30.00 yellow pompom birbal sahni 58.20 3.66 36.60 70.49 27.33 5.53 23.00 white pompom chidori 12.70 7.00 20.26 73.36 75.66 2.36 36.67 white and single korean yellow crystal fall 17.13 4.66 14.23 58.34 21.66 3.83 32.00 red decorative garden beauty 65.20 4.33 40.10 70.07 85.00 10.36 32.67 maroon spoon type kelvin mandarin 49.13 5.66 39.53 70.03 54.00 4.60 28.80 deep orange pompom kotoi-na-kaori 16.23 4.66 30.33 61.32 159.33 3.30 41.00 goldenanemone bronze naintara 66.26 6.00 46.96 65.19 187.33 4.46 37.00 yellow decorative obsession 38.86 5.33 24.83 66.67 14.33 7.26 35.80 pink decorative olympia 54.00 5.00 42.10 74.67 61.33 4.70 37.40 orange pompom otome pink 63.10 4.66 39.80 63.73 36.33 8.26 33.40 pink, with double korean deep pink centre punjab gold 37.66 5.00 35.90 69.69 164.33 4.50 36.00 yellow double korean purnima 46.80 5.66 40.70 72.24 46.00 7.60 34.00 white decorative ratlam selection 70.66 11.33 61.20 75.41 150.00 8.83 24.40 creamishdecorative white ravi kiran 58.37 5.33 49.76 65.42 45.33 9.63 30.00 maroon decorative reagan white 88.10 6.66 53.73 55.18 51.66 7.50 36.33 white single korean reagan emperor 73.13 6.33 48.93 75.74 54.66 7.40 29.33 purple-pink single korean santi 46.23 4.66 36.73 72.93 33.66 6.40 39.00 cream decorative white bouquet 38.83 6.33 33.23 62.40 62.66 4.66 38.00 white pompom white staphour 57.00 5.66 45.13 69.93 66.66 8.70 34.00 white anemone winter queen 59.00 5.00 50.90 76.88 78.00 9.76 35.67 pink spoon type wiron 58.03 5.33 40.60 67.34 42.33 5.23 30.00 yellow, with single korean chocolate center yellow bonsai 32.66 5.66 45.33 76.82 319.33 4.33 38.60 yellow single korean yellow chram 15.16 8.00 32.66 59.01 290.00 3.30 25.33 yellow anemone yellow delight 53.16 4.00 37.16 51.68 61.33 4.96 32.20 yellow pompom yukari 16.33 6.33 23.13 65.34 179.33 2.70 34.00 pink single korean cd (p=0.05) 1.84 1.04 4.21 10.69 11.92 0.35 1.49 — — c.v. (%) 2.31 11.00 6.46 9.57 7.73 3.72 2.78 — — sem± 0.79 0.44 1.82 4.62 5.15 0.48 0.64 — — j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):242-244, 2015 244 been recorded earlier by various workers (gaikwad and dumbre patil, 2001; chahal, 2011). highest number of branches per plant (11.33) was recorded in ‘ratlam selection’, followed by baggi (10.66). least number of branches per plant (3.33) was obseved in ‘ajay’ (kumar and chattopadhyay, 2002). swaroop et al (2008) also reported variation among varieties of chrysanthemum for number of branches. maximum plant spread (61.2cm) was observed in ‘ratlam selection’, followed by baggi (57.1cm). minimum plant spread (14.23cm) was recorded in the variety ‘crystal fall’. seventeen chrysanthemum genotypes were also evaluated for vegetative growth, flowering and yield parameters by kulkarni and reddy (2004) who concluded that among the various accessions, harvest home, mutant no. 9, selection-5, kurnool, saraval and chandrika were superior in terms of having fairly good plant-spread, number of branches, leaf area and good flower-yield, compared to the other genotypes. days taken for appearance of the first bud is an important character signifying early or late flowering habit. both these traits are helpful in ascertaining availability of flowers for a longer period. maximum days taken to first bud appearance (76.82) was recorded in ‘yellow bonsai’. ‘yellow delight’ recorded minimum number of days (51.68) to first bud appearance. variation for early and late flowering appears to be a genetically controlled trait in the varieties. similar observations were made by kanamadi & patil (1993) in chrysanthemum. number of flowers per plant was recorded as highest (319) in ‘yellow bonsai’, followed by ‘yellow charm’ (290), while, minimum number of flowers (14.33) were recorded in ‘obsession’. as for flower diameter, ‘garden beauty’ recorded maximum flower diameter (10.36cm), while, ‘chidori’ recorded minimum flower diameter (2.36cm). longest flowering-duration was observed in ‘kotoi-nakaori’ (41.00 days), while the shortest duration of flowering (23 days) was observed in the variety ‘birbal sahni’. flowers of varied hues and shades, along with various flower-type, were observed among the varieties. dilta et al (2005) also reported a wide range of diversity in the number of flowers, flower size and flowering duration in different varieties of chrysanthemum. differences among chrysanthemum varieties have also been reported for several morphological and floral characters by anuradha et al (2000) and rao and pratap (2006). cultivars studied by us can be grouped as per morphological variation in plant height, flower size, and other characters. these varieties can also be categorized for different uses, like, cut-flower, (reagan emperor, reagan white, yellow delight and kelvin mandarin); garden decoration and bedding purpose (garden beauty and winter queen); for loose flower production (birbal sahni, baggi and ratlam selection) and the varieties chidori, yellow charm and punjab gold for pot culture. references anonymous. 2013. http://www.indiastat.com/area and production of chrysanthemum anuradha, m., arora, j.s. and sidhu, g.s. 2000. evaluation of chrysanthemum varieties for pot culture. j. orn. hort., 3:79-82 chahal, s.s. 2011. evaluation of varieties and standardization of media for pot culture of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflorum tzevlev). m.sc. thesis, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, punjab, india dilta, b.s., sharma, y.d. and verma, v.k. 2005. evaluation of chrysanthemum cultivars under sub-tropical region of himachal pradesh. j. orn. hort., 8:149-151 gaikwad, a.m. and dumbre-patil, s.s. 2001. evaluation of chrysanthemum varieties under open and polyhouse conditions. j. orn. hort., 40:95-97 kanamadi, v.c. and patil, a.a. 1993. performance of chrysanthemum varieties in the transitional tract of karnataka. s. indian hort., 41:58-60 kulkarni, b.s. and reddy, b.s. 2004. vegetative growth, flower yield and quality of different chrysanthemum cultivars. j. orn. hort., 7:32-36 kumar, m.a.r. and chattopadhyay, t.k. 2002, evaluation of chrysanthemum varieties for commercial cultivation. environ. ecol., 20:48-51 rao, a.m. and pratap, m. 2006. evaluation of varieties and variability studies on chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzevlev.). j. orn. hort., 9:221-223 swaroop, k., prasad, k.v. and raju, d.v.s. 2008. evaluation of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev.) germplasm in winter season under delhi conditions. j. orn. hort., 11:58-61 (ms received 10 march 2015, revised 20 july 2015, accepted 27 july 2015) madhu bala j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):242-244, 2015 introduction cassava cultivation is amenable for growing intercrops as it is a long duration crop. like many other crops, cassava crop also suffers from competition by weeds for space, light, water and nutrients (davis and gardner, 1985). the early stages of growth are normally susceptible for competition by weeds and hence keeping the crops weed free during this phase is the pre-condition for higher productivity. however, control of weeds in intercropping systems through cultural or mechanical methods is difficult due to narrow inter-row spacing. therefore, the present investigation was undertaken to assess the production potential of intercropping system of cassava with various methods of weed control under rainfed condition. material and methods a field experiment on cassava intercropping in the garden land conditions was conducted in the month of august during 2003-04 and 2004-05 at agricultural college and research institute, madurai. the parameters regarding the soil fertility status of the experimental area were recorded. the ph and ec of the soil were 7.4 and 0.42 m mho/cm respectively. the physical parameters including clay– 25.1%, silt -11.5%, fine sand -37.4%, coarse sand22.8% and bulk density -1.48 g / cc and the chemical weed management studies in cassava (manihot esculenta l.) intercropping systems under irrigated conditions s. padmapriya, r. balasubramanian1 and v.a. sathiyamurthy horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641 003, india e-mail: spadmapriyaa@yahoo.co.in abstract a field experiment was conducted during 2003-04 and 2004-05 to asses the production potential of intercropping of cassava (manihot esculenta l.) with groundnut (arachis hypogea), vegetable cowpea (vigna sinensis) and black gram (vigna mungo) in relation to various weed control practices. intercropping influenced the population of grasses, sedges, blw and total dry matter production of weeds. weed management caused significant improvement in growth, yield and economic returns of cassava system. best results were achieved with intercropping of vegetable cowpea with pre-emergence application of fluchloralin 0.75 kg/ha + one hand weeding 4 weeks after planting followed by application of alachlor @ 1.5 kg/ha + one hand weeding 4 weeks after planting. key words: cassava, intercropping, weed control, yield, economics characters such as available n – 218.3 kg/ha, available p 2 o 5 – 12.74 kg/ha, available k 2 o – 271.82 kg /ha and organic carbon – 0.49% were also recorded. the experiment was conducted in split plot design replicated thrice. the treatments consisted of six intercropping systems, groundnut (i 1 ), vegetable cowpea (i 2 ), blackgram (i 3 ), groundnut followed by blackgram (i 4 ), cowpea followed by blackgram (i 5 ) and pure crop (i 6 ) as main plot and six weed control measures viz., pre-emergence application of pendimethalin 0.75 kg/ha + one hand weeding during 4 wap (w 1 ), pre-emergence application of alachlor 1.5 kg/ ha + one hand weeding during 4th week after planting (w 2 ), pre-emergence application of fluchloralin 0.75 kg/ha + one hand weeding during 4 wap (w 3 ), hand weeding twice during 4 and 15 wap (w 4 ), hand weeding thrice during 4, 12 and 20 wap (w 5 ) and hand weeding four times during 4, 8, 12 and 20 wap (w 6 ) as sub-plot treatments. disease free setts of 20 cm length of cassava variety sree vijaya were prepared and planted at a spacing of 90 x 90 cm and planted at the onset of monsoon. seeds of groundnut, cowpea and black gram were dibbled in lines at a spacing of 30 x 20 cm accommodating two rows of intercrops between the rows of cassava. a fertilizer dose of 90:90:240 npk kg ha-1 was uniformly applied to all the plots. the entire dose of phosphorus, 50% of recommended 1 present address: department of agronomy, ac & ri, madurai-625 104 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 141-145, 2008 142 dose of nitrogen and 50% of k were applied basally at the time of planting and the remaining 50% of the recommended dose of nitrogen and potassium were top dressed in two equal splits at third and fifth month, respectively. the preemergence herbicides used in the study viz., pendimathalin, fluchloralin and alachlor are highly selective in nature to control most annual grasses and certain broadleaf weeds in field corn, potatoes, rice, cotton, soybeans, tobacco, peanuts and sunflowers. incorporated into the soil by cultivation or irrigation is recommended within 7 days following application. cultural operations pertaining to crop production and protection were followed. results and discussion weed flora the weed flora in the experimental field consisted of a mixed population of grasses, viz., cynodon dactylon (l.) pers., sedges cyperus rotundus l. and broad leaved weeds, viz., euphorbia hirta, trianthema portulacastrum and achyranthus aspera as the most dominant species in the experimental plot. weed density, dry matter production and weed control efficiency in general, weed infestation was higher in 200304 than in 2004-05. this was mainly because of even distribution of rainfall over entire period of cropping season in 2003-04 as compared to 2004-05 (fig 1). the results revealed that sedges were found to be dominant followed by grasses and broad leaved weeds. integrated weed management had noticeable effect on population of of weeds compared to hand weeding alone. among the different weed management practices, the lowest weed density of grasses (8.25 no/m2), sedges (14.67 no/m2), blw (7.09 no/m2) and total weed dmp (23.32 g/m2) was recorded with application of fluchloralin (0.75kg/ha) + 1hw (table.1). regarding the weed control efficiency, intercropping with cowpea registered the highest value of 44.5%. similarly, application of fluchloralin (0.75kg/ha) + 1hw resulted in the highest weed control efficiency of 44.6%. panwar et al (1985) also reported that application of fluchloralin at 1 and 2 kg/ha were more effective than two hand weeding on 15 and 30 das. the mode of action and selective mechanism of fluchloralin affects the germination of the weed seeds and physiological growth process thereby reducing the weed population (matsunaka, 1979). with regard to the intercropping practices, significant reduction in the dry matter production (24.80g/m2) was observed with vegetable cowpea compared to other intercrops. the next best treatment was intercropping of cowpea followed by blackgram with the total weed dmp of 25.07g/m2 (table 1). wilson and adeniran (1976) reported that intercropping with legumes ensured better coverage of soil thereby diminishing the light penetration to the soil thus reducing the weed growth. growth and yield attributes of cassava growth attributes of cassava, viz., plant height and dmp revealed highly significant differences due to different weed management and intercropping practices. it could be inferred that the intercrops had definite role on the growth and development of cassava main crop. the mean plant height was the highest (264.95 cm) when vegetable cowpea was sown as intercrop and fluchloralin herbicide combined with one hand weeding at 4 wap registered increased mean plant height (267.25 cm) (table 2). intercropping of cassava fig 1. details of rainfall received during the cropping period padmapriya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 141-145, 2008 143 with cowpea enhanced the plant height and growth attributes of cassava as the quantity of n fixed from the atmosphere by cowpea through microbial symbiosis would have met at least a part of the requirement of cassava which agreed with the results of sheela and mohammed kunju (1988). cassava intercropped with cowpea produced higher dmp, which was comparable to sole cassava. this effect could be attributed to the complementarity of companion crop of cowpea and the better utilization of biologically fixed n by cassava base crop during latter part of its growth. the work of chittapur et al (1994) on maize-legume-intercropping system extends support to the present finding. the application of herbicides viz., fluchloralin combined with hand weeding caused significant improvement of yield attributes. this may be due to their effect on reducing crop-weed competition and hence better utilization by crop plants. the treatment fluchloralin (0.75 kg/ha) +1hw increased tuber length (31.5 cm), tuber circumference (25.7 cm) and mean tuber weight (447.9 g) (table 2). regarding the different intercrops studied, vegetable cowpea increased tuber length, tuber circumference and mean tuber weight. kaushik and gautam (1984) and verma and kumar (1985) also reported improvement in yield components due to elimination of severe crop-weed competition. table 2. effect of intercropping and weed management practices on agronomic traits of cassava treatments plant height dm tuber length tuber mean tuber tuber (cm) p(t/ha) (cm) circumference (cm) weight/ plant (g) yield(t/ha) intercropping groundnut 258.30 13.45 28.7 22.4 434.6 22.8 cowpea 264.95 13.55 30.5 23.7 434.1 23.7 blackgram 254.00 13.30 29.6 20.3 434.1 18.4 groundnut fb blackgram 238.80 13.40 26.2 20.7 431.2 18.6 cowpea fb blackgram 262.55 13.40 29.6 22.6 435.7 23.6 pure crop 262.00 13.80 29.9 24.9 444.1 24.4 cd (p=0.05) 5.40 0.05 0.6 0.5 9.5 0.3 weed management pendi.(0.75kg/ha)+1hw 257.45 14.75 30.2 23.7 438.5 23.8 ala.(1.5kg/ha)+1hw 256.55 14.15 30.1 22.8 439.1 22.4 flu.(0.75kg/ha)+1hw 267.25 15.25 31.5 25.7 447.9 25.4 hw twice 228.85 11.35 26.0 19.4 424.6 18.4 hw thrice 239.85 11.90 27.3 21.0 431.5 20.0 hw four times 248.00 13.45 29.3 22.0 432.1 21.0 cd (p=0.05) 6.20 0.35 0.7 0.6 10.7 0.2 table 1. effect of intercropping and weed management practices on weed density, weed dry matter production and weed control efficiency at 60 days treatments weed density ( / m2) total weed weed control dmp(g/m2) efficiency (%) grasses sedges broad leaved weeds grasses sedges intercropping groundnut 11.75(3.50) 16.58(4.13) 7.75(2.87) 27.37(5.28) 40.1 vegetable cowpea 9.58(3.18) 13.59(3.75) 10.25(3.28) 24.80(5.03) 44.5 blackgram 11.59(3.48) 17.00(4.18) 10.00(3.24) 28.85(5.42) 35.9 groundnut fb blackgram 11.58(3.48) 16.92(4.17) 9.25(3.12) 28.00(5.34) 37.3 veg. cowpea fb blackgram 9.63(3.19) 13.75(3.78) 10.33(3.29) 25.07(5.06) 43.9 pure crop 18.83(4.40) 19.83(4.51) 13.09(3.69) 39.20(6.30) 14.0 cd (p=0.05) 0.05 0.05 0.21 0.10 0.1 weed management pendi.(0.75kg/ha) + 1hw 11.00(3.39) 13.75(3.77) 8.08(2.93) 23.29(4.88) 39.1 ala.(1.5kg/ha)+1hw 10.67(3.34) 11.75(3.50) 7.50(2.83) 22.45(4.79) 44.1 flu.(0.75kg/ha) +1hw 8.25(2.96) 14.67(3.90) 7.09(2.76) 23.32(4.88) 44.6 hw twice 13.92(3.80) 20.34(4.57) 12.42(3.60) 34.17(5.89) 13.5 hw thrice 14.92(3.93) 19.84(4.51) 12.92(3.66) 36.10(6.05) 11.7 hw four times 13.92(3.80) 17.34(4.22) 12.67(3.63) 33.96(5.87) 18.8 cd (p=0.05) 0.07 0.05 0.17 0.12 0.1 transformed values (square root) are within parentheses weed management in cassava j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 141-145, 2008 144 there was a significant influence of weed management and intercropping practices on the tuber yield. the tuber yield per plant ranged from 18.4 to 25.4 t/ha. the highest tuber yield was recorded in sole cassava (24.4 t/ha) followed by cassava intercropped with cowpea, which was comparable with sole cassava. in sole cassava, there was no competition for resources except intra-species competition, which explains the increase in growth and yield parameters and yield. savithri and alexander (1995) reported that there was no significant difference in yield of cassava when intercropped with cowpea which is in agreement with the present findings. pre-emergence application of fluchloralin @ 0.75 kg/ ha + one hand weeding at 4 wap increased the tuber yield of cassava (25.4 t/ha) compared to other weed management practices (table 2). the results are in accordance with the findings of sankaran and balasubramanian (1981) who reported that the pre-emergence application of fluchloralin reduced the weed population leading to reduced crop-weed competition ultimately increasing the crop yield. intercrop yield cassava is usually wide spaced and has slow initial development. hence, intercropping at early stages of crop growth is feasible and usually results in higher total income and reduces soil erosion. the different weed management practices markedly improved the yield of intercrops. increased yield (0.82 t/ha) of groundnut was recorded in the treatment fluchloralin @ 0.75 kg/ha+ one hand weeding at 4 wap (i 1 w 3 ). similarly, in cowpea and blackgram, the same weed management practice resulted in the highest yield of 4.78 t/ha (i 2 w 3 ) and 0.73 t/ha (i 3 w 3 ), respectively (table 3). intercropping with groundnut or cowpea has been used as smother crop in cassava + maize mixture to give good weed control, high mixture yield and land equivalent ratio. (abate, 1992). economics among the different intercropping and weed management treatments, the highest net income (rs.62,165) and benefit cost ratio (3.31) was recorded with cowpea as intercrop combined with spraying of pre emergence application of fluchloralin @ 0.75 kg/ha + one hand weeding at 4 wap (i 2 w 3 ) (table.3). this was closely followed by the treatment i 5 w 3 with a net income of rs.57,765 and a benefit cost ratio of 3.08. the lowest benefit cost ratio (1.58) was recorded in the pure cropping of cassava with hand weeding thrice on 4, 12 and 20 wap (i 6 w 5 ). hence, it could be concluded that among the different intercropping and weed management practices, growing vegetable cowpea along with pre-emergence herbicide application of fluchloralin @ 0.75 kg/ha + one hand weeding at 4 weeks after planting significantly reduced the weed growth, increased the crop growth, yield attributes, yield and economic returns of cassava with high benefit cost ratio. references abate, 1992. effects of groundnut, cowpea and melon on weed control and yields of intercropped cassava and maize. field crops res., 28:309-314 chittapur, b.m., hiremath, s.m. and meli, s.s. 1994. performance of maize and green forage yield of table 3. economics of intercropping and weed management practices in cassava treatments intercrop net income cost benefit yield (t/ha) (rs.) ratio i 1 w 1 0.77 36143 2.21 i 1 w 2 0.72 30462 2.01 i 1 w 3 0.82 41060 2.38 i 1 w 4 0.58 21427 1.70 i 1 w 5 0.54 23188 1.74 i 1 w 6 0.62 22023 1.68 i 2 w 1 4.66 49214 2.82 i 2 w 2 4.54 45465 2.67 i 2 w 3 4.78 62165 3.31 i 2 w 4 3.80 33167 2.20 i 2 w 5 3.56 33330 2.16 i 2 w 6 4.21 34775 2.17 i 3 w 1 0.73 26604 1.97 i 3 w 2 0.61 26738 1.97 i 3 w 3 0.73 33033 2.21 i 3 w 4 0.49 19047 1.68 i 3 w 5 0.45 17301 1.60 i 3 w 6 0.55 19650 1.65 i 4 w 1 0.71 26561 1.87 i 4 w 2 0.68 28271 1.91 i 4 w 3 0.75 38807 2.27 i 4 w 4 0.54 21914 1.70 i 4 w 5 0.49 18894 1.59 i 4 w 6 0.59 20462 1.61 i 5 w 1 4.67 54874 2.97 i 5 w 2 4.51 46382 2.65 i 5 w 3 4.73 57765 3.08 i 5 w 4 3.78 37871 2.34 i 5 w 5 3.39 33519 2.13 i 5 w 6 4.17 36548 2.20 i 6 w 1 30566 2.23 i 6 w 2 28205 2.12 i 6 w 3 42055 2.69 i 6 w 4 19747 1.77 i 6 w 5 15371 1.58 i 6 w 6 21863 1.79 padmapriya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 141-145, 2008 145 legumes in maize + forage legume intercropping system in northern transitional tract of karnataka. fmg. systems, 10:11-15 kaushik, s.k. and gautam, r.c. 1987. effect of nitrogen and phosphorus on the production potential of pearl millet-cowpea on green gram intercropping systems under rainfed conditions. j. agril. sci., cambridge, 108: 361-364 matsunaka, s. 1979. mode of action and selectivity mechanism of herbicides. sixth asian pacific weed sci. soc. conf., jarkarta, 2. pp.525-536 panwar, r.s, bhanand, v.m. and malik, r.k. 1985. weed management studies in summer moong. ind. soc. weed sci., annual conference held at hissar, p.53 sankaran, s and balasubramanian, n. 1981. weed control in pulses. ind. soc. weed sci.,weed science conference held at bangalore, pp. 27-28 savithri, k.e. and alexander, d. 1995. performance of cowpea varieties in cassava-cowpea intercropping system. legume res., 18: 59-60 sheela, k.r. and kunju, u.m. 1988. growth and yield of cassava as influenced by intercropping with cowpea and groundnut under different nutrient levels. j. root crops, 14: 67-69 verma, r.s. and kumar, v. 1985. effect of different tillage practices and weed control measures on growth, yield and weed flora in bajra (pennisetum americanum l.). abstract of paper, annual conference of indian society of weed science. p.31 wilson, g.f and adeniran, m.o. 1976. intercropping of cassava with vegetables. in: intercropping in semiarid areas. monyo, j.h., ker, a.d.r. and campbell, m. (eds.) idrc076 e., int’l. dev. res. centre, ottawa, canada (ms received 25 september 2008, revised 19 november 2008) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 141-145, 2008 weed management in cassava introduction bananas a figure among the ancient fruits cultivated by man. it could be assumed that the fruit has evolved with civilization (krishnamurthi and seshadri 1958). apart from its mention in valmiki’s ramayana, kautilya’s arthashastra and the ancient tamil classic silappadikaram, it also figures in the indus valley as early as 327 b.c. these evidences suggest an early existence of banana in india. edible bananas were considered to be hybrids from two main species: musa acuminata and m. balbisiana (dodds and simmonds, 1948). edibility of mature fruits of diploid m. acuminata (aa) might have come about as a result of two mutation events, female sterility and parthenocarpy (simmonds, 1962). with regard to cytological studies, meiotic data on 17 south indian banana varieties by agrawal (1983) revealed cytological abnormalities. however, meiotic studies in male sterile triploids did not exhibit chromosomal irregularities. (agrawal, 1987). chromosome counts of 20 bihar banana cultivars were reported by roy and sharma (1951). valsala kumari and nair (1990) reported chromosome number of 98 cultivars. somatic chromosomes of 53 musa land races and hybrids were reported by osuji et al (1996) and 16 musa species and land races by dolezel et al (1998). chromosome count and ploidy level was determined in 60 chromosome studies and karyotype analysis of some triploid banana (musa species) cultivars of aaa genomic group a. rekha and s. c. hiremath1 division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india email: arekha@iihr.ernet.in abstract bananas are the highly evolved, oldest fruits known to mankind. the cavendish group cultivars are popular commercial varieties. aaa genomic group cultivars are said to have evolved from the wild aa musa acuminata species by natural hybridization and polyploidization and these vigorous triploids were selected by man for cultivation. basic cytological studies on banana are comparatively few due to the plant’s complex nature. in this report, karyo-morphological studies on five aaa cavendish group cultivars i.e. robusta, dwarf cavendish, grand naine, gros michel and red banana are reported. all the five cultivars had similar karyotype, except cv. robusta. total chromosome length was highest in red banana and lowest in cv. gros michel. key words: cavendish banana, triploid, karyo-morphology musa accesssions, including plantains and somaclonal variants by osuji et al (1996). however chromosome structure and morphology is not reported in any of these studies. efforts have been made in the present study to understand karyo-morphology of aaa triploid cultivars. material and methods plant material triploid aaa cultivars were derived from diploids which, in turn, could be the result of crosses between edible diploids and wild m. acuminata sub-species, resulting in a wide range of aaa phenotypes. these triploids are most vigorous, have larger fruits, and thus replaced the commercial aa diploids of asia. robusta (giant cavendish): also called harichal, bombay green, barjahaji, peddapacha arti, etc., is similar to dwarf cavendish except for its height, bunch shape and fruit curvature. it is an important commercial banana variety. robusta is semi-dwarf. the plants are about 2 2.5m tall, with blackish brown blotches on the pseudostem with a diameter of about 19 20 cm. bunches are fairly large, with a length of 50-75 cm bearing 80-100 fruits in 7-10 hands. female flowers (fruits) are sterile, whereas male flowers have partially fertile pollen. j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 30-34, 2008 1 department of botany, karnataka university, dharwad 580 003 page 30 31 dwarf cavendish: indian synonyms are basrai and jahaji. basrai is cultivated for its dwarf stature and high yield, and is also less susceptible to wind damage. as per simmonds (1962), it was introduced from south china to mauritius in 1826 from where it would have come to the indian subcontinent. dwarf cavendish is said to be a dwarf mutant of robusta. the plants are short, with a height of 1 1.5m. the pseudostem has dark brown blotches. the girth of pseudostem varies between 17 and 19 cm diameter. bunches are smaller than in robusta, with 80-100 fruits per bunch. the bunch length was 40-45cm. the fruits are slightly curved, 60-80 fruits in 6-8 hands. fruits are similar to robusta but smaller. grand naine: this cultivar is intermediate in height between dwarf cavendish and robusta. it has increased commercial importance because of lower height, uniform bunch, finger shape and high yield. the cultivar grand naine is currently leading commercial highyielding cultivar allover the world. red banana: it is also known as lalkela or chen kadali and is called red banana because of its very distinctive colour. the plants too have magenta red pigmentation on the pseudostem and leaf petioles. they are vigorous but poor yielders with a long crop-duration, take about eighteen months from planting to harvest, are tall with 2.5 3 m height. the pseudostem has a diameter of 20-25cm. bunches are small, 30-35 cm long with fewer fruits of about 40-45 per bunch of 4-5 hands. the pulp is deep yellow in colour. the male axis is long and anthers have very little, but fertile, pollen. gros michel: big, very vigorous plants, bear heavy bunches with large fruits. it differs from other cavendish group bananas in strong colouration of its upper sheaths and midribs. it was the most popular clone in central and south america. due to its high susceptibility to fusarium wilt disease, it was replaced by other cavendish cultivars in mid 1960’s. the plants were tall, with a height of 2.5 3 m. the pseudostem had a few blotches of brownish black colour, bunches were of medium size with a length of 4045cm with 70-80 fruits in 6-7 hands. it was found to be both male and female fertile and was widely used in breeding programs. cytological studies root apices of all the accessions were collected from healthy suckers planted in pots. root tips were washed thoroughly and pre-treated with 0.003m 8-hydroxyquinone for two hours at 14-16oc. the pre-treated root tips were fixed in carnoy’s-ii fixative viz., 6:3:1 of absolute alcohol : glacial acetic acid : chloroform. the fixed materials were transferred to 70% alcohol after 24 hours of fixation, and stored. the stored root tips were rinsed with distilled water and hydrolysed with 1 n hcl at 60o c for 5 minutes. the hydrolysed root tips were transferred to lilee’s (1951) or schiff’s reagent after a rinse in distilled water, and stored in the dark for 11/ 2 to 2 hours. schiff’s reagent stains actively dividing meristematic tissue to a deep magenta colour. the stained tips were squashed with a drop of 1% aceto-carmine after removing the root cap. the slides were sealed with gum mastic, and observed under microscope on the same day or the next day. the slides were scanned for well spread metaphase chromosomes; such cells were selected for karyo-morphological studies. three to five slides per accession were prepared and several cells were observed to ascertain chromosome number. it was observed that chromosomes were very small in size, sticky in nature and needed hard tapping to obtain better chromosome spread. hence, it was difficult to obtain good picture of wellspread plates. increase in hydrolysis time resulted in poor staining and moderate quality pictures. chromosomes were measured manually from camera lucida drawings. the measurements were recorded in millimeters (mm) and converted to micrometers (mm), using a conversion factor. observations were recorded on short arm, long arm and satellites separately. homologus chromosomes were paired based on their arm length and arranged in decreasing order of total chromosomal length. the total length of the complement was calculated in microns by adding the average length of each chromosome pair. levan’s (1964) system was followed for description of karyotypes and their classification, which was done based on the arm ratio (long arm/short arm). the chromosomes were categorized as follows: 1. sat-m : chromosome with median centromere having satellite 2. sat-sm : chromosome with sub-median centromere having a satellite 3. sat-st : chromosome with sub-terminal centromere having a satellite 4. m : chromosome with median centromere j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 30-34, 2008 chromosomes of aaa cavendish banana 32 5. sm : chromosomewith sub-median centromere 6. st : chromosomewith sub-terminal centromere in aaa triploids (autopolyploids), the pairing was done in triplets, i.e., a set of three chromosomes formed a complex. results and discussion the present investigations included five cultivars of the genomic group aaa, viz robusta, dwarf cavendish, gros michel, grand naine, and red banana. the chromosome number in all the cultivars was found to be 2n=3x=33 and reported to be triploid in nature (dolezel, 2004). the karyotypic formula of robusta was 2n=3x=3sat-m+21m+9sm. it consisted of three types of chromosomes. there were 3 chromosomes with the median centromere and satellite of 0.42 mm length. twenty-one chromosomes (7 triplets) had the median centromere and 9 chromosomes had the sub-median centromere. the range of chromosome length was 1.47 to 2.49 mm. absolute chromosome length was 21.87 mm (table 1). the karyotypic formula of cultivar dwarf cavendish was 2n=3x=3sat-m+27m+3sm. it consisted of three types of chromosomes. there were three chromosomes with the median centromere and satellite of 0.42 m. the 27 chromosomes had median centromere and 4 chromosomes had sub-median centromere. the length of chromosomes measured 1.54 to 2.31 mm and absolute length was 20.56 mm (table 2). the karyotypic formula of gros michel was 2n=3x=3sat-m+27m+3sm. it consisted of three types of chromosomes. there were 3 chromosomes with satellite measuring 0.42 mm in length and median a centromere. also 27 chromosomes had the median centromere. length of the chromosomes was 1.16 to 2.11 mm. the absolute length was 17.71 mm (table 3). the karyotypic formula of cv. cultivar grand naine was found to be 2n=3x=3sat-m+27m+3sm. it consisted of three types of chromosomes. there were three chromosomes with satellite of 0.42 mm length and a median centromere. it had 27 chromosomes with a median centromere and three chromosomes with a sub-median centromere. the length of chromosomes varied between 1.26 and 2.52 mm and the absolute length was 21.23 mm (table 4). cultivar red banana had karyotypic formula of 2n=3x=3sat-m+27m+3sm. it had three types of chromosomes. one set of three chromosomes had satellite of 0.42 mm and a median centromere. twenty-seven chromosomes had a median centromere and three chromosomes were with a sub-median centromere. chromosomes varied in their length between 1.55 and 2.52 mm. the absolute length was 23.04 mm (table 5). table 1. somatic chromosome measurement in cv. robusta (aaa) chromolong short total position of arm some arm arm length centromere ratio pair (µm) (µm) (µm) 1 1.61 0.88 2.49 sub-median 1.83 2 1.16+0.42 0.84 2.42 sat-median 1.28 3 1.30 1.05 2.35 median 1.24 4 1.09 1.01 2.10 median 1.08 5 1.40 0.67 2.07 sub-median 2.09 6 1.26 0.74 2.00 sub-median 1.70 7 1.05 0.84 1.89 median 1.25 8 0.95 0.84 1.79 median 1.13 9 1.05 0.70 1.75 median 1.50 10 0.95 0.59 1.54 median 1.61 11 0.84 0.63 1.47 median 1.33 table 2. somatic chromosome measurement in cv. dwarf cavendish (aaa) chromolong short total position of arm some arm arm length centromere ratio pair (µm) (µm) (µm) 1 1.40 0.91 2.31 median 1.54 2 1.05 1.05 2.10 median 1.00 3 1.26 0.84 2.10 median 1.50 4 1.33 0.67 2.00 sub-median 1.99 5 1.05 0.84 1.89 median 1.25 6 0.80+0.42 0.63 1.85 sat-median 1.27 7 0.95 0.84 1.79 median 1.13 8 0.91 0.84 1.75 median 1.08 9 0.95 0.67 1.62 median 1.42 10 0.91 0.70 1.61 median 1.30 11 0.84 0.70 1.54 median 1.20 table 3. somatic chromosome measurement in cv. gros michel (aaa) chromolong short total position of arm some arm arm length centromere ratio pair (µm) (µm) (µm) 1 1.37 0.74 2.11 sub-median 1.85 2 0.80 +0.42 0.77 1.99 sat-median 1.04 3 1.05 0.91 1.96 median 1.15 4 0.84 0.84 1.68 median 1.00 5 0.84 0.74 1.58 median 1.14 6 0.88 0.67 1.55 median 1.31 7 0.88 0.63 1.51 median 1.40 8 0.84 0.63 1.47 median 1.33 9 0.84 0.63 1.47 median 1.33 10 0.74 0.49 1.23 median 1.51 11 0.67 0.49 1.16 median 1.37 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 30-34, 2008 rekha and hiremath 33 comparative karyo-morphological data on five aaa group cultivars are given in table 6. all the 4 cultivars except robusta, had similar karyotypes but varied in their absolute length. robusta differed from the others in having 9 chromosomes with a sub-median centromere. cultivar red banana had the highest absolute length of 23.04 mm and cultivar gros michel had lowest absolute length of 17.71 mm. all the cultivars differed in their morphology and also showed variations in molecular profiles (rekha et.al, 2001). differences in the absolute chromosome size between related species or genera might reflect different amounts of gene duplication. other differences are generally due to structural changes, as stated by stebbins (1971). stebbins (1950) also opined that polyploidy, combined with hybridization had a major influence on evolution of higher plants, its effects being conservation. polyploidy stabilizes new genotypes evolved through hybridization by reducing the amount of genetic segregation. such a phenomenon would have taken place in the evolution of bananas, which are able to tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions. wang et.al(1993) studied the karyotypes of banana group aaa and reported that three sets of chromosomes of group aaa were all that homologous. in table 4. somatic chromosome measurement in cv. grand naine (aaa) chromolong short total position of arm some arm arm length centromere ratio pair (µm) (µm) (µm) 1 1.37 1.16 2.53 median 1.18 2 1.64 0.88 2.52 sub-median 1.86 3 1.09 1.05 2.14 median 1.04 4 0.84+0.42 0.84 2.10 sat-median 1.00 5 1.09 0.91 2.00 median 1.20 6 1.22 0.77 1.99 median 1.58 7 1.05 0.84 1.89 median 1.25 8 0.91 0.80 1.71 median 1.14 9 0.95 0.67 1.62 median 1.42 10 0.84 0.63 1.47 median 1.33 11 0.63 0.63 1.26 median 1.00 table 5. somatic chromosome measurement in cv. red banana (aaa) chromolong short total position of arm some arm arm length centromere ratio pair (µm) (µm) (µm) 1 1.75 0.77 2.52 sub-median 2.72 2 1.26 1.22 2.48 median 1.03 3 1.05+0.42 0.91 2.38 sat-median 1.16 4 1.26 1.05 2.31 median 1.20 5 1.26 0.91 2.17 median 1.38 6 1.26 0.88 2.14 median 1.43 7 1.09 1.01 2.10 median 1.08 8 1.09 0.84 1.93 median 1.30 9 1.01 0.84 1.85 median 1.20 10 0.91 0.70 1.61 median 1.30 11 0.88 0.67 1.55 median 1.31 table 6. comparative karyo-morphological data of five cultivars of aaa group bananas sl. acc. name karyotypic formula sat-size range of absolute no (mm) chromosome length (mm) length (mm) 1 robusta 3sat-m+21m+9sm 0.42 1.47-2.49 21.87 2 dwarf 3sat-m+27m+3sm 0.42 1.54-2.31 20.56 cavendish 3 gros michel 3sat-m+27m+3sm 0.42 1.17-2.32 20.24 4 grand naine 3sat-m+27m+3sm 0.42 1.26-2.53 21.23 5 red banana 3sat-m+27m+3sm 0.42 1.55-2.52 23.04 robusta dwarf cavendish gros michel grand naine red banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 30-34, 2008 chromosomes of aaa cavendish banana 34 (ms received 15 november 2007, revised 17 april 2008) the present studies, chromosomes were paired based on arm length and centromere position where high similarity was observed. the chromosomes were found to be highly homologous and, also, there was no set pattern of chromosome complement. variations were observed within and between groups which could also be due to structural differences in the chromosome complement, and may have resulted in the evolution of new cultivars. to conclude, morphological variations observed in the above cultivars appears to be a part of the evolutionary process in this important, vegetatively propagated crop. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to head and the staff of department of botany, karnatak university, dharwad, for their kind help during the above study. references agrawal, p. k. 1983. cytogenetical investigations in musaceae i meiotic studies in south indian bananas. cytologia, 48 : 847-852. agrawal, p. k. 1987. cytogenetical investigations in musaceae ii meiotic studies in eight male sterile triploid banana varieties of india. cytologi, 52: 451-454. dodds, k. s. and simmonds. n. w. 1948. genetical and cytological studies of musa. ix. the origin of an edible diploid and the significance of interspecific hybridization in the banana complex: an addendum on the nomenclature of edible banana. e.e. cheesman (ed). j. genetics. 48: 285-296. dolezel, j. 2004. cytogenetic and cytometric analysis of nuclear genome in musa. www.fao.org. dolezel, j., dolezelova, m., roux n. and vanden hourve. i. 1998. a novel method to prepare slides for highresolution chromosome studies in musa spp. infomusa 7: 3-4. krishnamurthi, s. and seshadri, v. s. 1958. origin and evolution of cultivated bananas. 15: 135-45. levan, a. k., fredga and sandberg. a. a. 1964. nomenclature for centromeric positions on chromosomes. heriditas, 52:201-220. lilee, r. d. 1951. to prepare schiff ’s reagent. stain technology. 26: 163. osuji, j.o., okoli, b.e. and oritz. r. 1996. an improved procedure for mitotic studies of the eumusa section of the genus musa l (musaceae). infomusa 5: 12-14. rekha. a., ravishankar, k.v., anand. l and hiremath, s. c. 2001. genetic and genomic diversity in banana (musa species and cultivars) based on d2 analysis and rapd markers. infomusa, 10: 29-34. roy, r. s. and sharma. g. 1951. chromosome studies of bihar bananas. ind. j. genetics pl. breeding, 11: 211-214. shepherd, k. 1999. cytogenetics of the genus musa. inibap, montpellier. simmonds n. w. 1962. evolution of bananas. longman publications, london. stebbins, g. l. 1950. variation and evolution in plants. columbia university press, n.y. stebbins, g. l. 1971. chromosomal evolution in higher plants. edward arnold, london. valsala kumari, p. k. and nair, p. c. s. 1990. cytotaxonomical studies on banana cultivars. south indian. hortl., 38: 177-182. wang, z., lin, z. and pan, k. 1993. cytogenetical studies in musa (eumusa). in current banana research and development in china (scau), south china agril. univ. p 29-43 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 30-34, 2008 rekha and hiremath manipulation of bunch size of banana to suit market demands is pratcised in south east asian countries. banana plant is supplied with nutrients through soil and foliage, denavelling (removal of male inflorescence for nutrient diversion) and post-shooting feeding nutrients through the distal stalk-end of rachis (venkatarayappa et al, 1976, prasanna kumari amma et al, 1986, ancy et al, 1998 and ancy and kurien, 2000) to achieve high yields. de-navelling serves dual purposes of saving mobilization of food into unwanted sink of banana plant as well as earning additional income when excised male bud is used as a vegetable (singh, 2001). therefore, an attempt was made to enhance the bunch yield by feeding n, k and s through the excised distal stalk-end of rachis after de-navelling and to determine influence of treatments on composition of mineral nutrients in fruits of “robusta” banana. a field experiment was taken-up during 1998-2002 on healthy ‘robusta’ banana (musa sp. aaa) plants at flowering stage. the crop was raised on a red clay loam having ph of 6.5, electrical conductivity of 0.3 ds/m, organic carbon of 1.2%, cation exchange capacity influence of de-navelling and stalk-end nutrient application on nutrient composition of ‘robusta’ banana fruits s.c. kotur and s.v. keshava murthy division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: sckotur@gmail.com abstract the contents of n, p, mg, s, fe and mn in banana fruit increased significantly due to denavelling from 0.32%, 0.086%, 0.12%, 0.024%, 52 ppm and 4.8 ppm, under ‘control’ to 0.37%, 0.085%, 0.13%, 0.027%, 59 ppm and 6.7 ppm, respectively. dipping stalk end of the bunch in fresh cow dung enhanced these above nutrients to 0.40%, 0.086%, 0.14%. 0.028%, 63 ppm and 7.6 ppm, respectively. when cow dung was enriched with ammonium sulphate, the fruits showed 0.50-0.51% of n, 0.081-0.090% of p, 0.16-0.23% of mg, 0.032-0.040% of s, 59-111 ppm of fe and 8.1-17.8 ppm of mn. addition of potassium sulphate further enhanced this effect in respect of k (2.11-2.44%) and fe (74-115 ppm) in fruit. increasing level of ammonium sulphate in the blend significantly decreased ca content of the fruit from 0.24% at 5 g to 0.10% at 25 g. when potassium sulphate was included in the blend, ca content showed further reduction (0.19% at 5 g to 0.10% at 25g). at 15 g of ammonium sulphate and 7.5 g of potassium sulphate the maximum bunch weight of 27.993 kg was obtained (as against 16.724kg under retention of male bud throughout) corresponding to the enhanced nutrient composition of 2.44% of k, 0.12% of ca, 0.18% of mg, 0.033% of s, 115ppm of fe and 14.9ppm of mn that may have nutraceutical implications. key words: de-navelling, external feeding, nitrogen, potassium, sulphur, ‘robusta’ banana, musa sp. (aaa), composition of fruit of 21.4 cmol (p+)/kg, exchangeable k of 1.3 cmol (p+)/kg, 1n kcl exchangeable acidity of 0.5 cmol (p+)/kg and available s of 38 ppm. rachis at distal end of the bunch was excised along with male bud giving a slanted cut immediately after all the pistillate (female) flowers had set fruits and after 4 bracts were shed (about 15 days of flower emergence). half a kilogram aliquots of fresh cow dung were blended to form slurry with required quantity of fertilizer [5-25 g of ammonium sulphate (as) / 2.5 to 12.5 g of potassium sulphate (sop)] and 100 ml of water. cow dung contained about 1.4% of n, 0.5% of p, 0.9% of k, 1.8% of ca, 0.8% of mg, 0.4% of s, 250 ppm of fe, 80 ppm of mn, 64 ppm of zn and 38 ppm of cu. the blend was placed in a polythene bag and tied securely to dip the excised rachis into the slurry. the treatments were: control-1 (the male bud retained till harvest along with the male bud); control-2 (de-navelling by excision of rachis 10 cm after the last hand); control-3 (de-navelling and dipping excised distal end of rachis in the slurry of cow dung and 100 ml water); other 5 treatments receiving 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 g of as blended with cow dung (applied as in control-3); and short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 148-150, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 149 another 5 treatments receiving 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, 10.0 and 12.5 g sop in addition to 5 to 25 g of as blended in cow dung as above (applied as in control-3), respectively. the treatments were arranged in a completely randomized design with 3 replications. the cow dung applied was retained till harvest. uniform bunches carrying 10 hands (having an average number of fingers = 122 ± 2.57) were selected to receive treatments. harvesting was taken-up at maturity (about 100 days after flowering). at harvest the fruit was sampled, cut into pieces, dried in oven at 70oc and powdered for n analysis by kjeldahl method. contents of other nutrients in the digest of the fruit sample in the di-acid (9:4 nitric: perchloric acid) were determined using standard analytical methods (jackson, 1967). the contents of n, p, mg, s, fe and mn increased significantly due to denavelling (‘control 2’) from 0.32%, 0.086%, 0.12%, 0.024%, 53ppm and 4.8ppm, under ‘control 1’ to 0.37%, 0.085%, 0.13%, 0.027%, 59 ppm and 6.7 ppm, respectively (table 1). dipping the stalk end of the bunch in cow dung (‘control 3’) enhanced the contents of these nutrients to 0.40%, 0.086%, 0.14%. 0.028%, 63 ppm and 7.6 ppm, respectively. this effect was pronounced when the cow dung was enriched with ammonium sulphate and the fruits showed 0.50-0.51% of n, 0.080-0.090% of p, 0.160.23% of mg, 0.032-0.040% of s, 59-111ppm of fe and 8.1-17.8ppm of mn. addition of sop further enhanced this effect in respect of k (2.11-2.44%) and fe by showing 74115ppm in fruit. increasing level of ammonium sulphate in the blend significantly decreased ca content of the fruit from 0.24% at 5g to 0.10% at 25 g. between enrichment of cow dung with ammonium sulphate and ammonium sulphate + potassium sulphate, the latter appeared to enhance the composition of p, k, ca, fe and mn. in the case of p and ca the differences were not significant. no changes were discernible for cu and zn as the content of these nutrients in fruit was in traces. in respect of n content of fruit, the improvement was fairly uniform at 0.50-0.51% when ammonium sulphate was blended in the cow dung and at 0.49-0.50% when ammonium sulphate + potassium sulphate were used for enrichment of the cow dung in the entire range of these additions. the highest p content of 0.090% was observed when 10g of ammonium sulphate or 5 g of ammonium sulphate + 5 g of potassium sulphate were added to cow dung. in both ca and mg, the addition of 5 g of ammonium sulphate to cow dung produced the maximum increase of 0.24% and 0.23%, respectively, while these contents were reduced to 0.15% and 0.19% in the presence of potassium sulphate. sulphur content was the highest at 20 g of ammonium sulphate (0.04%) followed by 20 g of ammonium sulphate + 10 g of potassium sulphate (0.038%) addition to cow dung. similarly, the contents of fe and mn peaked at 15 g of ammonium sulphate and/or potassium sulphate (111 and 115 ppm), respectively. no changes were discernible for cu and zn as the content of these nutrients in fruit was in traces. substantial enhancement of bunch weight resulted by de-navelling (19.041 kg) and dipping the stalk end in cow dung only (19.904 kg) and enriched cow dung (21.948-27.993 kg). when 15 g of ammonium sulphate and 7.5 g of potassium sulphate were blended in cow dung and applied the maximum bunch weight of 27.993kg was obtained (as against 16.724 kg under ‘control 1’). table 1. effect of de-navelling and feeding ammonium sulphate and potassium sulphate on composition of ‘robusta’ banana fruit treatment n p k ca mg s fe m n bunch % mg/kg yield (kg) control 1 0.32 0.086 1.73 0.09 0.12 0.024 53 4.8 16.724 control 2 0.37 0.085 1.87 0.10 0.13 0.027 59 6.7 19.041 control 3 0.40 0.086 1.98 0.10 0.14 0.028 63 7.6 19.904 5g as* 0.51 0.081 2.00 0.24 0.23 0.031 87 8.1 23.600 10g as 0.51 0.090 2.19 0.10 0.16 0.034 74 10.4 25.403 15g as 0.51 0.080 2.30 0.14 0.19 0.032 111 17.8 25.791 20g as 0.50 0.082 2.12 0.13 0.17 0.040 73 9.6 24.166 25g as 0.51 0.086 2.10 0.10 0.16 0.034 59 8.2 22.484 5g as + 2.5g sop** 0.49 0.090 2.11 0.15 0.19 0.034 103 13.1 25.545 10 g as + 5.0g sop 0.50 0.081 2.17 0.12 0.15 0.036 86 12.1 25.824 15 g as + 7.5g sop 0.49 0.086 2.44 0.12 0.18 0.033 115 14.9 27.993 20 g as + 10.0g sop 0.50 0.080 2.14 0.10 0.16 0.038 84 12.1 24.837 25 g as + 12.5g sop 0.49 0.085 2.13 0.10 0.15 0.029 74 10.6 21.948 sem (±) 0.005 0.0011 0.028 0.003 0.002 0.0004 1.6 0.021 0.5492 cd ( p = 0.05 ) 0.015 0.0030 0.082 0.010 0.005 0.0012 4.6 0.060 1.6027 *as – ammonium sulphate; ** sop – sulphate of potash nutrient application on de-navelling banana bunch j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 148-150, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 150 removal of male bud caused an increase in the nutrient composition of fruits as also of the weight of the bunch because of: (i) conservation and utilization of energy of nutrients for finger development which would be otherwise lost for opening of the remainder of the flower and (ii) removal of a strong and active competing sink for photosynthates and mineral nutrients despite its smaller size relative to the bunch (kurien et al, 2000; ancy and kurien, 2000; singh, 2001). further, the translocation of nutrients into the infructescence from such exogenous feeding in ‘poovan (ab)’, ‘monthan (aab)’ and ‘nendran (aab)’ varieties has been reported by buragohain and shanmugavelu (1986), sobhana and arvindakshan (1989). substantial response of yield of banana fruits as well as the composition of the fruit may be attributed to the presence of other mineral and bio-chemical ingredients of cow dung. the ripening of the fruits after harvest was normal and the fruit quality was not affected by the treatments. the results indicate that de-navelling and feeding nutrients using enriched cow dung enhanced the mineral composition of banana fruits which can have nutraceutical implications. there is also scope to manipulate the nutrient composition of the fruit further by appropriately modifying the composition of the cow dung blend since the nutrient translocation into the fruits has been demonstrated in this study. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore for encouragement and facilities provided and to shri n.k. kacker, technical officer for technical support rendered. references ancy t.k, kurien, s., augustin, a. and balachandran p.v. 1998. urease activity in banana fruit. j. plt nutr., 21:2127-2140 ancy t.k. and kurien, s. 2000. bunch stalk feeding of urea in banana musa (aab group) ‘nendran’. sci. hort., 84:205-212 buragohain, r. and shanmugavelu, k.g. 1986. studies on the effect of post-shooting application of urea in ‘vayal vazhai’ banana (abb). banana newslett., 9:16-18 jackson, m.l. 1967. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india, new delhi kurien, s., anil b.k., rajeevan, r.k., bharathan and krishnan, s. 2000. phosphorus mobilization to uneconomic tissues and effects of bunch trimming regimes in banana. sci. hort., 82:25-35 prasanna kumari amma. s., babylatha, a.k., pushkaran, k. and kurien, t.k. 1986. studies on the effect of removing terminal hands and male bud on the yield and fruit size of banana, musa (aab group) ‘palayankodan’. south ind. hort., 34:204-209 singh, h.p. 2001. banana. in: handbook of horticulture, chadha, k.l. (ed.). p.152, indian council of agricultural research, new delhi sobhana, a. and aravindakshan, m. 1989.translocation of banana after shooting. j. nucl. agril. biol., 18:243245 venkatarayappa, t., narasham, b. and venkatesan, c. 1976. effect of post-shooting application of urea on development and composition of banana fruit. south ind. hort., 19:109-117 (ms received 5 july 2010, revised 29 november 2010) kotur and keshava murthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 148-150, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 69 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-72, 2019 short communication effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer, maruca vitrata (fab.) (lepidoptera: crambidae) *nasiya-beegum a.n. and madhu subramanian department of agricultural entomology kerala agricultural university, thrissur *email : nasiyakau@gmail.com abstract trichomes are the morphological features present on the surface of plants, which provide resistance to several insect pests. a pot culture experiment with 48 cowpea accessions were conducted to evaluate the effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer, maruca vitrata. significant variation in terms of damage to pods due to spotted pod borer was observed. the number of trichomes per unit area was significantly and negatively correlated (-0.441) with per cent damage. however, the length of trichomes on pods has no significant correlation with per cent damage. key words: trichomes, resistant, cowpea, pod, maruca vitrata cowpea is an important leguminous crop cultivated throughout the tropics and subtropics. the legume pod borer, maruca (testulalis) vitrata (geyer) is a serious pest of grain legumes. this insect is a major constraint in increasing the production and productivity of grain legumes.the pod borer larvae feed on buds, flowers and pods by webbing them. tr ichomes a r e the one of the most impor ta nt morphological characters associated with insect resistance across the plant kingdom. it is a special c ha r a c t er, involving sever a l f a ct or s s uc h a s distribution of the hairs, the density of hair cover, t he lengt h of t he ha ir s , t yp e of ha ir s et c . ovipositional and feeding non-preference, due to t he p r es enc e of s imp le t r ic homes , ha s b een reported to be one of the mechanisms of resistance in c owpea a ga inst m. v it ra ta . tr ichomes on cowpea pods can affect the activity of insects by mechanical means. pubescence or trichome density is one of the most impor ta nt physical cha r acters a ssocia ted with insect resistance across the plant kingdom. it is a complex character, involving several factors like the distribution of the hairs, the length of the hairs, the density of hair cover, disposition of hairs and the t yp e of ha ir s ( ver ma a nd af z a l, 1 9 4 0 ) . ovipositional non-preference, due to the presence of trichomes, has been reported to be one of the mechanisms of resistance of cowpea to m. vitrata. forty eight accessions of cowpea comprising of twenty nine accessions from national bureau of p la nt g ene t ic r es ou r c es ( i c a r n bp g r ) r egiona l st a t ion, j odhp u r, r a ja s t ha n, f ive a c c es s ions f r om univer s it y of a gr ic u lt u r a l sciences (uas), bengaluru, ten varieties released from kau and one accession each from vegetable and fruits promotion council keralam (vfpck), thiruvananthapuram, indian institute of vegetable resea rch (icar iivr), va ra nasi as well a s hor t ic ult ur e c ollege a nd r es ea r ch i nst it ut e, per iya kula m wer e eva lua ted for r esista nce to spotted pod borer. all agronomic practices were f ollowed a s p er p a c ka ge of p r a c t ic es recommendations (kau, 2011). these genotypes constituted the treatments in the experiment. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized d es ign ( c r d ) wit h 4 8 t r ea t me nt s a nd 1 0 replications, with one polybag containing one plant constituting one replication. 70 nasiya-beegum and madhu subramanian j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-72, 2019 table 1. extent of damage by maruca vitrata in cowpea accessions accessions per cent damaged pods trichome length trichome density ic 39922 1.54 0.06 74.67 ic 52107 a 2.67 0.05 185.34 km – 5 8.06 0.06 48.00 c – 152 42.65 0.07 88.60 kanakamony 8.24 0.07 235.34 pkm – 1 15.00 0.07 16.34 ec 100092 0.00 0.04 123.34 ic 2196 1.25 0.08 180.67 ic 39916 2.38 0.18 82.34 ic 26029 5.88 0.12 113.67 palakkadanthandanpayar 0.00 0.23 89.34 ic 26048 0.00 0.11 96.34 anaswara 31.90 0.05 67.34 ic 2196 9.02 0.09 213.00 ic 10810 13.64 0.06 185.00 ic 39870 3.70 0.15 17.67 tvx – 944 2.08 0.07 255.34 ec 300039 1.12 0.09 127.34 ic 52094 15.56 0.08 31.00 ic 39945 0.00 0.08 108.67 it – 3895 – 1 16.42 0.25 72.34 vyjayanthi 17.43 0.11 15.00 ic 20431 5.26 0.04 33.00 sreya 6.25 0.07 186.00 ic 9883 1.34 0.07 114.34 hridya 0.65 0.06 147.67 ic 20720 2.35 0.07 91.00 ic 2918 0.00 0.06 96.34 kbc – 2 0.00 0.07 130.34 ic 19797 10.34 0.05 51.00 mysore local 12.00 0.05 212.00 ic 7832 10.53 0.08 96.67 ic 39921 3.70 0.06 155.00 ic 52105 5.83 0.07 88.67 71 trichomes and borer infestation in maruca kashikanchan 21.84 0.06 66.00 ic 52128 1.09 0.06 50.34 ec 98668 0.00 0.13 123.45 ic 39947 0.00 0.07 91.67 ic 20645 0.00 0.06 32.00 ic 19778 12.99 0.10 31.67 vellayanijyothika 18.28 0.10 39.34 malika 26.61 0.00 0.00 sharika 35.16 0.09 21.67 bhagyalakshmy 47.95 0.07 15.00 ec 101216 1.03 0.07 224.34 ic 52110 0.00 0.05 135.34 ic 52118 0.00 0.07 154.67 lola 47.47 0.25 18.34 correlation 0.183 -0.441* *correlation is significant at 0.05 level (2-tailed) trichome length was measured by leica-ez stereo microscope equipped with leica application suite (las) image analysing software. length of ten trichomes on pods selected at random, the average was worked out. the counts of trichomes on the pod surface was made from an area of 6.25 mm2 using a radical stereo zoom microscope at 35x magnification, after marking out an area of 2.5 x 2.5 mm2 over the excised pod. counts were taken from three different points on each pod and the average was worked out and presented in table 1. based on the density of trichomes, the accessions were classified into: 1. glabrous 0 to 50 trichomes per 6.25 mm2 unit ar ea 2. sparsely pubescent 51 to 100 trichomes per 6.25 mm2 unit area 3. pubescent 101 to 150 trichomes per 6.25 mm2 unit area 4. densely pubescent more than 15 trichomes per 6.25 mm2 unit area t he va riety lola r ecor ded maximum tr ichome lengt h of 0 . 2 5 mm a nd wa s on p a r wit h palakkadanthandanpayar with a mean trichome lengt h of 0 . 2 5 mm a nd 0 . 2 3 mm. bot h t he a cc essions wer e significa ntly super ior to the r ema ining a c c es s ions whic h r ec or ded mea n trichome length of ranging from 0.04 to 0.01mm. the accessions varied significantly in terms of trichome density. the number of trichomes varied from 16.34 per 6.25 mm2 in pkm 1 to 288.67 per 6.25 mm2 in tvx – 944. high trichome density was also observed in kanakamony, mysore local, sreya and anaswara, with 235.34, 212, 186 and 167.34 trichomes per 6.25 mm2 respectively. all these accessions were sta tistically on pa r with ea ch other but differ ed significa ntly fr om the remaining genotypes. pkm 1, which recorded the lowest trichome density of 16.34 per 6.25 mm2 was followed by bhagyalakshmy, lola, ic 52105, ec 300039, ic 20645, ic 20431, vellayani jyothika and palakkadanthandanpayar with trichome density of 17.34, 18.34, 18.67, 27.34, 32, 33, 39.34 and 49.34 trichomes per 6.25 mm2 respectively. all these nine accessions were statistically on par with each other but differed significantly from the remaining genotypes. the remaining accessions except malika had trichome density ranging from 66. 00 to 147. 67 per 6. 25 mm2. ba sed on the j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-72, 2019 72 dens it y of t r ic homes , t he a c c es s ions wer e cla ssified into: densely pubescent, pubescent, sparsely pubescent and glabrous. the length of the trichomes had positive correlation (0 . 18 3) with per c ent da ma ge. however, t he c or r ela t ion wa s not s ignif ic a nt . n u mb er of t r ic homes o n p ods ha d s ignif ic a nt nega t ive correlation (-0.441) with per cent damage due to spotted pod borer. the length of trichomes, which ranged from 0.04 mm in ec 100092 to 0.25 mm in lola, did not show a ny significa nt va r ia tion a mong the dif fer ent a ccessions. a significa nt cor r ela t ion bet ween trichome length and per cent pod damage could not be observed in the study. sunitha et al (2006) however, ha d ob s er ved s ignif ic a nt nega t ive correlation (-0.097) between trichome length on pods and pod borer damage in pigeon pea. trichome density varied from 16.34 per 6.25 mm2 in pkm-1 to 288.67 per6.25 mm2 in tvx – 944. high trichome density ra nging from 167. 34 to 235.34 trichomes per 6.25 mm2 was also observed in k a na ka mony, m ys or e loc a l, s hr eya a nd ana swa r a . t he lowes t t r ichome dens it y wa s recorded in pkm-1 (16.34/6.25 mm2), followed by bhagyalekshmi, lola, ic 52105, ec 300039, ic 2 0 6 4 5 , i c 2 0 4 3 1 , vella ya nij y ot hika a nd palakkadanthandanpayar with 17.34, 18.34, 18.67, 27.34, 32, 33, 39.34 and 49.34 trichomes per 6.25 mm2, r es p ec t ively. a c c es s ions s u c h a s kanakamony, sreya, hridya, mysore local etc., wit h higher p u b es c enc e s u ff er ed lower p es t inc idenc e. i t wa s a ls o not ew or t hy t ha t bhagyalakshmy and lola, with lowest values for trichome density also observed per cent damage 41.04 and 28.99 per cent, the highest in the present study. tr ichomes ar e important components of plant defense against insect attackand contribute to a nt ix enosis in cr op p la nts s uc h a s cott on (dhaliwal and arora, 2001). this was observed in the present instance a lso, with the number of trichomes on pods being negatively correlated with total damage. oghiakhe (1995) also had reported that pubescence in wild and cultiva ted cowpea a dver sely a ffected oviposition, mobility, food consumption and utilization by the legume pod borer. nasiya-beegum and madhu subramanian j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-72, 2019 (ms received 10 september 2017, revised 09 september 2018, accepted 21 february 2019) references dhaliwal, g. s. and arora, r. (2001). integrated pe s t m a n a g e m e n t : c o n c e p t s a n d approaches. kalyani publ., new delhi. sunitha, v., rao g.v.r., lakshmi k.v., saxena, k.b., rao, v.r. and reddy, y.v.r. 2006. m or phologica l f a c tor s a s s oc ia t ed wit h r es is t a n c e t o m a r u c a v i t r a t a ( g eyer ) (lepidoptera: pyralidae) in short duration pigeon. icrisat. 22p. kau (kera la agr icultur al univer sity) (2011). package of practices recommendations: c rop s ( 1 4 t h e d. ) . k er a la agr ic u lt u r a l university, thrissur, 360p. oghiakhe, s.(1995). trichomes and resistance to ma jor insect pests in cowpea , vignaung uiculata(l.) walp. : a r eview. discovery and innovation 9(3/4): 173-178. verma, p.m. and m. afzal. (1940). studies on the cotton jassid (empoasca devastansdistant) in p unja b , iva r ieta l sus cept ib ility a nd development of pest on different varieties of cotton. indian j. agric. sci.10: 914-956. 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):220-225, 2015 effect of plant growth regulators on corm production and vase life in gladiolus t. padmalatha, g. satyanarayana reddy1 and r. chandrasekhar college of horticulture, dr. y.s.r. horticultural university rajendranagar, hyderabad500030, india e-mail: gandhamlatha@yahoo.com abstract influence of plant growth regulator sprays on corm production and post-harvest life of two gladiolus cultivars, darshan and dhiraj, was investigated for two consecutive years, 2008-09 and 2009-10. growth regulators, viz., gibberellic acid (100 and 150ppm), tri-iodo benzoic acid (tiba) (50 and 100ppm), 2-chloro, 4-pyridyl phenyl urea (cppu) (2.5 and 5ppm) and brassinosteroid (br) (5 and 10ppm) were sprayed at the 3rd and 6th leaf stage. cv. darshan recorded maximum number of large cormels per plant and cormel weight, while, cv. dhiraj recorded maximum number of small cormels per plant in treatments of pre-harvest foliar sprays with plant growth regulators. foliar sprays of br (10ppm) and ga3 (150ppm) significantly increased number of corms produced per plant, corm size, corm weight, and propagation coefficient. number of large cormels and total number of cormels per plant were significantly higher in br (10ppm), followed by tiba (100ppm). br (10ppm) and tiba (100ppm) produced maximum number of small cormels per plant. weight of cormels per plant was maximum in br (10ppm) and ga3 (150ppm). post-harvest studies revealed that cv. darshan recorded maximum diameter of second fully-opened floret and higher vase-life than cv. dhiraj with pre-harvest foliar spray of plant growth regulators. pre-harvest foliar spray of ga3 (150ppm), br (10ppm) and cppu (5ppm) induced earliest first-floret opening and recorded maximum value for number-of-floretsopen-at-a-time per spike, diameter of second fully-opened floret, and vase-life. foliar spray of br (10ppm) and ga3 (150ppm) at 3rd and 6th leaf stage can be recommended for large-scale multiplication of quality planting material and longer vase-life of flower spikes, respectively, in gladiolus. key words: gladiolus, corm, vase-life, ga3, brassinosteroids, cppu introduction floricultural experts on various occasions have stated that there is a severe dearth of planting material of elite ornamental cultivars in the country for commercial cultivation, and that there is an acute need to develop comprehensive protocols for clonal multiplication of all such crops. use of quality planting material or seed is the foundation for successful cultivation of all flowers. shortage of quality planting material is a major constraint hindering the progress of floriculture industry in india (choudhury and prasad, 2004). gladiolus, one of the important bulbous cut-flower crops, is commercially propagated using corms. profitability in gladiolus flower-spike production and export is closely linked to cost of the corms. poor multiplication rate of corms and cormels (with each corm producing just 1-2 corms) in gladiolus results in a high cost of the corms, often higher than the sale-price of the flower spike produced by that corm. for many years, achieving a high rate of multiplication and good corm-enlargement under various soil and climatic conditions has been the chief objective in breeding gladioli for corm production. micropropagation protocols, although standardized for gladiolus (hussain et al, 1997), are not followed commercially as the plantlets take 2-3 seasons for producing flower-grade corms. various approaches were tried for increasing the rate of corm multiplication in gladiolus. although leaf and spike removal increases corm and cormel production to some extent (das, 1998), it results in a decrease in spike yield and quality. research on the effect of traditional plant growth regulators like gibberellins and tri-iodo benzoic acid (tiba) for improving corm multiplication rate and corm enlargement in gladiolus has been reported by various workers from different parts of the country (tawar et al, 2007; devi et al, 2007). however, there has been no organized research on the effect of new classes of plant growth regulators, viz., brassinosteroids (br) and 2-chloro 4-pyridyl phenyl urea (cppu) on corm multiplication in gladiolus from india or abroad. 1herbal garden, hyderabad-500030, telangana, india 221 pgrs in corm production and vase life in gladiolus claims have been made that 30-70% of the potential lasting-quality in several flower crops is predetermined at harvest. in gladiolus, pre-harvest application of chemicals and plant growth regulators was found to extend vase-life of cut spikes (raju et al, 2008). similarly, for extending vaselife in gladiolus, use of sucrose in combination with aluminium sulphate [al2(so4)3] as the holding solution is reported by various workers (namita et al, 2006; nelofar and paul, 2008). hence, an investigation for ascertaining the effect of foliar spray of brassinosteroids (br), 2-chloro, 4-pyridyl phenyl urea (cppu) along with gibberellic acid (ga) and tri-iodo benzoic acid (tiba) on corm multiplication and postharvest life in two gladiolus cultivars, darshan and dhiraj, was made at herbal garden, hyderabad, for two consecutive years, 2008-09 and 2009-10. material and methods corms of gladiolus cultivars darshan and dhiraj, resistant to fusarium wilt disease and suitable for growing in and around hyderabad, were used in the study. nine growth regulator treatments were imposed, viz., ga3 (100 and 150ppm), tiba (50 and 100ppm), cppu (2.5 and 5.0ppm), br (5.0 and 10.0ppm) and control (water spray), each replicated thrice in factorial randomized block design. corms were planted at a spacing of 30cm x 20cm and at a depth of 5cm in 1m x 1m size plots, during the month of september, 2008 and 2009. treatments were imposed as foliar sprays at the 3rd and 6th leaf stage. welldecomposed farmyard manure at 10t ha-1 was incorporated into all the experimental plots, uniformly, as basal application. n, p, and k @ 200:200:300 kg/ha were applied in the form of urea, single super phosphate and muriate of potash, respectively. urea was applied in 3 splits, the first dose as basal application and the other two split doses at 30 and 60 days after planting. the entire dose of single super phosphate and muriate of potash was applied at the time of planting, as the basal dose. standard cultural practices were followed during the entire crop period in all the experimental plots. observations on corm attributes, viz., number of corms per plant, corm size (cm), corm weight (g), number of large and small cormels per plant, total number of cormels per plant, weight of cormels per plant (g) and propagation coefficient (%) were recorded. data were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) as applicable to factorial randomized block design. for post-harvest studies, uniform-sized spikes were harvested from all the experimental plots early in the morning (when the basal 1-2 florets showed color-break) and brought immediately to the laboratory in a bucket of water. lowermost leaves of the spikes were removed, and the basal 2cm portion was re cut under water before placing in the holding solution. a solution containing sucrose (4%) in combination with al2(so4)3 (300ppm) was used as the holding solution. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design (crd) with factorial concept. three replications comprised three spikes per replication. observations on days-to-first-floret-opening, number of florets-open-at-a-time per spike, diameter of the second fully-open floret (cm), and vase-life were recorded. data were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) as applicable to factorial completely randomized block design. results and discussion results in the present study (tables 1, 2, 3 and 4) indicated that the two cultivars used did not differ significantly in respect of number, size or weight of corms during the two years of study. however, the varieties differed significantly in respect of number of large and small cormels per plant, weight of the cormels per plant, and propagation coefficient. cv. darshan produced a higher number of large cormels and weight of cormels per plant, whereas, cv. dhiraj was efficient in terms of producing higher number of small cormels, and, a higher propagation coefficient. variation in cultivars on individual gladiolus corm characteristics was earlier reported by several workers (seenivasan, 2001; umadevi, 2002). br (10ppm), followed by ga3 (150ppm) significantly increased number of corms per plant, size and weight of corms per plant and weight of cormels, and thereby, propagation coefficient during both the years of investigation. br (10ppm) also recorded a high number of large and small cormels per plant. these results represent the first demonstration of a clear, favorable effect of br at 10ppm on corm and cormel induction in gladiolus cvs. darshan and dhiraj. this also indicates a potential of br in increasing the number of corms significantly, without impairing quality of the corms, i.e., size and weight of the corms. results obtained with br treatment in respect of corm and cormel production are in line with ramraj et al (1997) who reported a significant increase in potato tuber yield with foliar application of br, and, nunez et al (1998) in onion. thus, it can be concluded that two foliar sprays of br (10ppm) at 3rd and 6th leaf stage increases number of corms and cormels in gladiolus. the increase in corm size and weight of corms/ cormels with application of ga3 (150ppm) can be attributed j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):220-225, 2015 222 table 1. effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators on number of corms per plant and corm size in gladiolus cvs. darshan and dhiraj treatment number of corms per plant corm size (cm) 2008-09 2009-10 2008-09 2009-10 darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean ga3 (100ppm) 1.67 1.60 1.64 1.67 1.60 1.64 4.43 4.51 4.47 4.26 4.54 4.40 ga3 (150ppm) 1.87 1.67 1.77 1.93 1.67 1.80 5.00 4.86 4.93 4.81 4.85 4.83 tiba (50ppm) 1.53 1.37 1.45 1.53 1.40 1.47 4.15 4.68 4.42 4.28 4.72 4.50 tiba (100ppm) 1.47 1.27 1.37 1.43 1.30 1.37 3.84 3.86 3.85 3.91 3.80 3.86 cppu (2.5ppm) 1.53 1.47 1.50 1.60 1.43 1.52 4.30 4.71 4.51 4.37 4.58 4.48 cppu (5ppm) 1.60 1.60 1.60 1.63 1.67 1.65 4.59 4.83 4.71 4.55 4.74 4.65 br (5ppm) 1.63 1.53 1.58 1.53 1.60 1.57 4.39 4.94 4.67 4.52 4.73 4.63 br (10ppm) 1.93 1.72 1.83 1.80 1.85 1.83 4.98 5.17 5.08 4.73 5.30 5.02 control (water) 1.47 1.37 1.42 1.47 1.33 1.40 4.26 4.40 4.33 4.30 4.31 4.31 mean 1.64 1.50 1.65 1.54 4.44 4.66 4.41 4.62 cd (p=0.05) cultivars (c) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. treatments (t) 0.16 0.19 0.44 0.47 interaction (cxt) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.: non-significant table 2. effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators on corm weight and number of large cormels per plant in gladiolus cvs. darshan and dhiraj treatment corm weight (g) number of big cormels per plant 2008-09 2009-10 2008-09 2009-10 darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean ga3 (100ppm) 30.23 33.91 32.07 29.56 36.55 33.06 3.33 2.87 3.10 3.00 2.07 2.54 ga3 (150ppm) 33.80 35.81 34.81 32.89 36.95 34.92 3.67 2.87 3.27 3.67 3.33 3.50 tiba (50ppm) 30.99 32.87 31.93 29.15 33.54 31.34 3.07 2.07 2.57 2.47 2.00 2.23 tiba (100ppm) 27.45 31.05 29.25 27.80 29.72 28.76 4.87 3.53 4.20 5.00 3.00 4.00 cppu (2.5ppm) 31.62 34.55 33.09 30.67 33.60 32.14 3.00 2.40 2.70 3.33 2.00 2.67 cppu (5ppm) 32.75 35.18 33.97 31.99 35.01 33.50 3.67 3.20 3.44 4.33 3.40 3.87 br (5ppm) 33.15 33.49 33.32 32.79 32.37 32.58 3.00 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.33 3.17 br (10ppm) 34.11 36.66 35.39 35.04 36.76 35.90 6.07 4.80 5.44 5.00 4.33 4.67 control (water) 31.46 32.33 31.90 31.94 31.10 31.52 2.67 1.87 2.27 3.27 1.53 2.40 mean 31.73 33.98 31.31 33.96 3.70 2.84 3.66 2.78 cd (p=0.05) cultivars (c) n.s. n.s. 0.34 0.32 treatments (t) 1.28 1.08 0.72 0.66 interaction (cxt) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.: non-significant to the growth regulator’s ability to improve growth which, in turn, increased the amount of photosynthetic assimilates. these assimilates may have been transported to the developing daughter-corms and cormels, thereby effecting an increasing in their size and weight. similar results were reported by vijai kumar and umrao (2007). except in the case of number of large and small cormels per plant, tiba (100ppm) treatment recorded significantly low values for all the corm and cormel characters under study. cppu at 5ppm increased the number of corms per plant and corm size significantly, and was on par with br (10ppm) and ga3 (150ppm). variation in the number of corms per plant may be attributed to a variation in the number of buds sprouted per corm, a parameter governed by the presence of number of active buds in a corm. gladiolus has two sources, corm or cormel, used for planting and these serve as reserve food material in the initial stages of plant development and photosynthesizing leaves take over this function in the later stages. likewise, gladiolus has two competing sinks: flower spike or inflorescence, and the developing corm and cormel. tiba (100ppm) treatment promoted sink activity in developing cormels (devi et al, 2007) which could be the reason for an increase in number of large and small cormels. as for post-harvest attributes (tables 5 and 6), cv. darshan recorded higher diameter in second fully-open floret padmalatha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):220-225, 2015 223 table 3. effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators on number of small cormels and total number of cormels per plant in gladiolus cvs. darshan and dhiraj treatment number of small cormels per plant total number of cormels per plant 2008-09 2009-10 2008-09 2009-10 darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean ga3 (100ppm) 4.67 3.33 4.00 4.87 3.00 3.94 8.00 6.20 7.10 7.87 5.07 6.48 ga3 (150ppm) 3.67 4.67 4.17 3.80 5.33 4.57 7.34 7.54 7.44 7.47 8.66 8.07 tiba (50ppm) 3.00 3.67 3.33 3.07 4.33 3.70 6.07 5.74 5.90 5.54 6.33 5.93 tiba (100ppm) 5.67 6.33 6.00 5.53 6.07 5.80 10.54 9.86 10.20 10.53 9.07 9.80 cppu (2.5ppm) 2.00 3.33 2.67 1.93 3.93 2.93 5.00 5.73 5.37 5.26 5.93 5.60 cppu (5ppm) 4.33 4.00 4.17 4.33 4.20 4.27 8.00 7.20 7.60 8.66 7.60 8.14 br (5ppm) 5.00 6.67 5.84 4.80 6.33 5.57 8.00 8.67 8.33 7.80 9.66 8.74 br (10ppm) 6.00 8.20 7.10 5.93 8.00 6.97 12.07 13.00 12.54 10.93 12.33 11.64 control (water) 3.67 4.33 4.00 4.33 5.07 4.70 6.34 6.20 6.27 7.60 6.60 7.10 mean 4.22 4.95 4.29 5.14 7.92 7.79 7.95 7.92 cd (p=0.05) cultivars (c) 0.59 0.76 n.s. n.s. treatments (t) 1.23 1.28 1.28 1.33 interaction (cxt) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.: non-significant table 4. effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators on weight of cormels per plant and propagation coefficient in gladiolus cvs. darshan and dhiraj treatment weight of cormels per plant (g) propagation coefficient (%) 2008-09 2009-10 2008-09 2009-10 darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean ga3 (100ppm) 4.57 4.45 4.51 5.83 4.36 5.10 131.34 144.78 138.06 133.58 154.37 143.97 ga3 (150ppm) 7.06 4.91 5.99 6.80 4.94 5.87 154.21 153.64 153.93 149.77 158.08 153.92 tiba (50ppm) 5.17 4.82 5.00 5.03 4.78 4.91 136.50 142.22 139.36 128.98 144.58 136.78 tiba (100ppm) 5.94 4.40 5.17 5.86 4.93 5.40 126.08 133.77 129.92 127.02 130.78 128.90 cppu (2.5ppm) 4.00 3.85 3.93 3.77 3.78 3.78 134.44 144.92 139.68 129.95 141.06 135.50 cppu (5ppm) 4.63 4.61 4.62 5.52 4.94 5.23 141.07 150.16 145.61 141.56 150.78 146.17 br (5ppm) 4.89 3.78 4.34 4.86 3.99 4.43 143.53 140.63 142.08 142.08 137.21 139.64 br (10ppm) 6.86 5.19 6.03 7.02 5.55 6.29 154.63 157.93 156.28 158.74 159.64 159.19 control (water) 4.23 4.03 4.13 4.40 3.80 4.10 134.68 137.20 135.94 137.14 131.69 134.41 mean 5.37 4.45 5.44 4.57 139.61 145.03 138.76 145.35 cd (p=0.05) cultivars (c) 0.23 0.32 3.85 4.71 treatments (t) 0.48 0.66 8.08 9.88 interaction (cxt) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.: non-significant and longer vase-life than cv. dhiraj. variation in vase-life among cultivars may be attributed to a differential accumulation of carbohydrates due to dissimilar leaf production profiles and sensitivity of the cultivars to ethylene (kalasareddi et al, 1997). in turn, variations in these aspects may be due to the genetic make-up of the plant (kamble et al, 2004). ga3 (150ppm), followed by br (10ppm) and cppu (5ppm), induced significantly earlier first-floret opening, with greater number of florets-open-at-a-time per spike. perhaps spikes from these treatments had sufficient food material for opening of the florets. diameter of the second fully-opened floret and vase-life were also influenced significantly by pre-harvest spray of plant growth regulators in both the years of investigation. ga3 (150ppm), br (10ppm) and cppu (5ppm) registered maximum diameter of second floret, and longest vase-life. all the post-harvest parameters had the least values with tiba at 100 or 50ppm. increased vase-life with foliar spray of ga3 has been reported by pal and choudhury (1998) in gladiolus. improvement in floret-size by foliar spray of ga3 was reported by nagarjuna et al (1988) in chrysanthemum. halevy and shild (1970) observed that ga3 increased photosynthetic and metabolic activity, resulting in greater transport and utilization of photosynthesis products necessary for growth and development of a flower. maximum diameter of second-floret with foliar application of ga3 can be pgrs in corm production and vase life in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):220-225, 2015 224 table 6. effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators on diameter of second fully-opened floret (cm) and vase life (days) in gladiolus cvs. darshan and dhiraj treatment diameter of second fully-opened floret (cm) vase life (days) 2008-09 2009-10 2008-09 2009-10 darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean ga3 (100ppm) 1.67 2.22 1.95 1.67 2.11 1.89 2.56 2.11 2.33 2.45 2.22 2.34 ga3 (100ppm) 8.74 8.31 8.53 8.71 8.35 8.53 9.00 8.44 8.72 8.89 8.55 8.72 ga3 (150ppm) 9.24 8.83 9.04 9.32 8.87 9.10 9.44 9.33 9.39 9.56 9.33 9.45 tiba (50ppm) 8.43 7.38 7.91 8.38 7.63 8.00 8.50 7.83 8.17 8.39 8.06 8.23 tiba (100ppm) 7.60 7.20 7.40 7.61 7.17 7.39 8.00 7.61 7.81 7.78 7.50 7.64 cppu (2.5ppm) 8.65 8.30 8.48 8.70 8.30 8.50 9.11 8.28 8.70 9.00 8.17 8.59 cppu (5ppm) 8.86 8.55 8.71 8.93 8.54 8.74 9.00 9.11 9.06 9.22 9.11 9.17 br (5ppm) 8.72 8.31 8.52 8.70 8.33 8.52 8.78 8.56 8.67 8.67 8.56 8.62 br (10ppm) 8.94 8.67 8.81 9.04 8.69 8.87 9.22 9.11 9.17 9.44 9.00 9.22 control (water) 8.67 8.00 8.33 8.71 8.03 8.37 8.72 8.11 8.42 8.67 7.78 8.23 mean 8.65 8.17 8.68 8.21 8.86 8.49 8.85 8.45 cd (p=0.05) cultivars (c) 0.28 0.30 0.28 0.32 treatments (t) 0.61 0.65 0.60 0.68 interaction (cxt) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.: non-significant table 5. effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators on days to first-floret-opening and number of florets-open-at-any-time per spike in gladiolus cvs. darshan and dhiraj treatment days to first-floret opening number of florets-open-at-any-time per spike 2008-09 2009-10 2008-09 2009-10 darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean darshan dhiraj mean ga3 (100ppm) 1.67 2.22 1.95 1.67 2.11 1.89 2.56 2.11 2.33 2.45 2.22 2.34 ga3 (150ppm) 1.45 1.56 1.51 1.44 1.56 1.50 3.22 2.67 2.95 3.11 2.89 3.00 tiba (50ppm) 2.44 2.22 2.33 2.33 2.45 2.39 2.22 1.89 2.06 2.11 2.00 2.06 tiba (100ppm) 2.45 2.44 2.45 2.45 2.44 2.45 2.00 1.78 1.89 2.11 1.78 1.95 cppu (2.5ppm) 2.11 2.33 2.22 2.22 2.44 2.33 2.11 2.22 2.17 2.33 2.00 2.17 cppu (5ppm) 1.56 1.89 1.73 1.56 2.11 1.84 2.89 2.33 2.61 2.78 2.33 2.56 br (5ppm) 2.00 2.33 2.17 2.00 2.33 2.17 2.33 2.22 2.28 2.44 2.00 2.22 br (10ppm) 1.44 1.78 1.61 1.44 1.78 1.61 2.67 2.56 2.62 2.78 2.67 2.73 control (water) 2.22 2.33 2.28 2.33 2.33 2.33 2.11 2.33 2.22 2.34 2.22 2.28 mean 1.93 2.12 1.95 2.17 2.48 2.24 2.49 2.24 cd (p=0.05) cultivars (c) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. treatments (t) 0.43 0.51 0.50 0.50 interaction (cxt) n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.: non-significant attributed to increased drawal of photosynthates by the flower as a consequence of intensification of the sink (zieslin et al, 1974). padmapriya and chezhiyan (2002) reported that higher flower diameter in chrysanthemum cv. indira with foliar spray of br could be due to a synergism between br and auxins. br may have altered bio-physical properties of the cell wall, leading to a high energy-conversion for expanding flower diameter. an increase in floret diameter with cppu (5ppm) treatment is perhaps be due to a trigger for cell division and cell enlargement. reduction in floret-size caused by application of tiba is probably due to its anti-auxin activity (preventing the transport of naturally-produced auxins) and, thereby, reduced cell elongation. these results are in line with nanjan and muthuswamy (1975) in rose. reduction in vase-life due to tiba application was reported by umadevi (2002) in gladiolus. in addition to pre-harvest foliar spray of ga3 (150ppm) or br (10ppm) or cppu (5ppm), exogenous supply of sucrose in the holding solution balanced the depletion in carbohydrates, and improved vase-life and quality of the spikes. sucrose also maintained the water balance and osmotic potential, since; sugar has been observed to decrease padmalatha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):220-225, 2015 225 moisture stress in cut-flowers by affecting stomatal closure and preventing water-loss (ranvir singh and sashikala, 2002). al2(so4)3 present in the holding solution helped improve keeping-quality owing to its antimicrobial action. from this study, it can be concluded that foliar spray of br (10ppm) and ga3 (150ppm) at the 3 rd and 6th leaf stage can be recommended for large-scale multiplication of quality planting-material and for longer vase-life in flower spikes, respectively, in gladiolus. references choudhury, m.l. and prasad, k.v. 2004. strategies for improving productivity, post harvest quality of floriculture crops. souvenir, first indian horticulture congress-2004, organized by horticultural society of india, new delhi das, t.k. 1998. corm and cormel production of gladiolus as affected by spike removal and k application. indian j. hort., 55:327-331 devi, d.u., sekhar, r.c. and babu, j.d. 2007. effect of growth regulators on flowering and corm production in gladiolus cv. jacksonville gold. j. res., (angrau), 35:6-14 halevy, a.h. and shild, r. 1970. promotion of growth and flowering of plants with endogenous ga3 in gladiolus plants treated with ccc. physiol. plant., 23:820827 hussain, s.c., geetha, t.c.k., rajeevan, p.k. and valsala kumari, c.k. 1997. plant regeneration from root derived callus in gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 2:36-40 kamble, b.s., reddy, b.s., patil, r.t. and kulkarni, b.s. 2004. performance of gladiolus cultivars on flowering and flower quality. j. orn. hort., 7:51-56 kalasareddi, p.t., reddy, b.s., patil, p.r. and kulkarni, b.s. 1997. effect of time of planting on performance of two cultivars of gladiolus. ii. flowering, flower quality, vase and field life. adv. agril. res. india, 8:45-51 nagarjuna, b., reddy, v.p., rao, m.r. and reddy, e.n. 1988. effect of growth regulators and potassium nitrate on growth, flowering and yield of chrysanthemum. south indian hort., 36:136-140 namita, ramesh kumar and kushal singh. 2006. response of vase solution on keeping quality of cut spikes of gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 9:296-297 nanjan, k. and muthuswamy, s. 1975. growth and flowering responses of edward rose (rosa bouboriana desp.) to certain growth retardant sprays. south indian hort., 23:94-99 nelofar and paul, t.m. 2008. post harvest management of gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 11:69-71 nunez, m., sosa, j.l., alfonso, j.l. and coll, f. 1998. influence of two new cuban bioregulators on plant yield of onion cv. red creole. cultivos tropicales, 19:21-24 padmapriya, s. and chezhiyan, n. 2002. influence of gibberellic acid and certain other chemicals on flowering characters of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzeled.) cultivars. south indian hort., 50:437-443 pal, p. and choudhury, t. 1998. effect of growth regulators and duration of soaking on sprouting growth, flowering and corm yield of gladiolus cv. tropic sea. hort. j., 11:69-77 raju, d.v.s., misra, r.l. and singh, v.p. 2008. effect of pre-harvest spray of thiol compounds on post-harvest life of gladiolus spikes. j. orn. hort., 11:75-76 ramraj, v.m., vyas, b.n., godrej, n.b., mistry, k.b., swami, b.n. and singh, n. 1997. effects of 28homobrassinolide on yields of wheat, rice, groundnut, mustard, potato and cotton. j. agril. sci., 128:405413 ranvir singh and sashikala, b. 2002. post-harvest life of gladiolus as influenced by floral preservatives. j. orn. hort., 8:115-118 seenivasan, n. 2001. effect of plant growth regulators on dormancy and growth of gladiolus. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, acharya n.g. ranga agricultural university, hyderabad, a.p., india tawar, r.v., sable, a.s., kakad, g.j., hage n.d. and ingle, m.b. 2007. effect of growth regulators on corms and cormels production of gladiolus cv. jester. ann. pl. physiol., 21:257-258 umadevi, d. 2002. effect of growth regulators application at three stages of crop growth on production of flowers, propagules and vase life of cut spikes in three cultivars of gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus l.). m.sc. (hort.) thesis, acharya n.g. ranga agricultural university, hyderabad, a.p., india vijai kumar and umrao, v. 2007. effect of gibberellic acid on gladiolus. south indian hort., 55:303-305 zieslin, n., brian, i. and halevy, a.h. 1974. the effect of growth regulators on growth and pigmentation of ‘baccara’ rose flowers. pl. cell physiol., 15:341349 (ms received 24 june 2014, revised 17 may 2015, accepted 22 june 2015) pgrs in corm production and vase life in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):220-225, 2015 focus cashew research in india m.g. bhat, k.v. nagaraja and t.r. rupa directorate of cashew research puttur-574 202, india e-mail: dircajures@gamil.com abstract cashew, after its introduction from brazil during the16th century, has established very well in india. a total of 40 high-yielding varieties have been released so far by the directorate of cashew research, puttur, and various agricultural universities, for cultivation. of these, 13 are hybrids and 27 are selections. research achievements in the area of crop improvement, management, protection and post-harvest technology over the last six decades are reviewed and documented here. as india has been importing raw nuts to the tune of 6.5 lakh tons annually to cater the demand of established processing factories, research priorities have been identified to meet the challenges of enhancing production and productivity of cashew in the country. key words : cashew, research achievements, research priorities introduction cashew is native to brazil. it was introduced into india by portuguese travellers in the 16th century for afforestation and soil conservation. india was the first country in the world to exploit international trade in cashew kernels in the early part of 20th century. cashew is presently grown in an area of 8,93,000 ha. with annual production of 6,95,000 tons of raw cashewnuts. most of the area under cashew is the in east-coast and west-coast regions of the country. in india cashew is grown mainly in maharashtra, goa, karnataka and kerala along the west coast and tamil nadu, andhra pradesh, orissa and west bengal along the east coast. it is also grown to a limited extent in nontraditional areas such as the bastar region of chattisgarh and kolar (plains) region of karnataka, in gujarat, jharkhand and neh region. although andhra pradesh has the largest area under cashew, maharashtra ranks first in production and productivity (table 1). india requires about 12-13 lakh tons of raw cashewnuts to feed the large number of cashew processing units (1800 medium to large, and 1850 on-farm processing units) engaging over 5 lakh workers, especially women. as india produces just 6.95 lakh tons of raw cashewnuts annually, the balance of 6.0 lakh tons of raw cashewnuts is imported annually by india from the african and south east asian countries. india exports 1.1 lakh tons of cashew kernel to over 65 countries in the world. about rs.2,906 crore is earned as foreign exchange through export of cashew kernel, and an additional rs. 24 crore by export of the cashew nut shell liquid (cnsl) (table 2). there is an ever-increasing demand for cashew kernel both in international and domestic markets. countries such as vietnam and brazil compete with india in the international market. since african countries have started processing raw cashewnuts themselves, availability of raw cashewnuts for import by india may gradually decline or altogether stop. a few african countries have already taken steps to ban export of raw cashewnuts. hence, there is an urgent need to increase domestic raw cashewnut production and become self-sufficient. table 1. area, production and productivity of cashew in india in 2008-09 state area production productivity (ha) (tons) (kg/ha) kerala 70,000 75,000 900 karnataka 1,07,000 60,000 720 goa 55,000 30,000 700 maharashtra 1,70,000 2,25,000 1,500 tamil nadu 1,31,000 68,000 710 andhra pradesh 1,82,000 1,12,000 920 orissa 1,37,000 95,000 865 west bengal 11,000 11,000 1,000 gujarat 6,000 4,000 700 ne states 16,000 12,000 750 others 8,000 3,000 460 total 8,93,000 6,95,000 average 900 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 2 table 2. trade analysis in cashew produced during – 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 particulars 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 import of raw cashewnut (quantity) 6.06 lakh tons 6.06 lakh tons 7.53 lakh tons import of raw cashewnut (value) rs.1746.80 crore rs.2631.78 crore rs.3,037.35 crore export of cashew kernel (quantity) 1.14 lakh tons 1.08 lakh tons 1.08 lakh tons export of cashew kernel (value) rs.2288.89 crore rs. 2950.24 crore rs.2905.82 crore export of cnsl* (quantity) 7813 tons 6976 tons 9748 tons export of cnsl* (value) rs.11.97 crore 16.79 crores 24.11 crore foreign exchange earning (kernel + cnsl*) rs.2300.86 crore rs.2967.03 crore rs.2929.93 crore *cnsl: cashew nut shell liquid traditionally, cashew has been an important crop in the coastal region (western and eastern) of the country but has been recently spreading to non-traditional areas as well. there is great scope for expanding area under cashew in the plains of karnataka, chattisgarh and non-traditional areas of gujarat, jharkhand, north eastern hilly region and andaman and nicobar islands (table 3). cashew research in india started way back in 1950s through launch of ad-hoc schemes sanctioned by indian council of agricultural research (icar). cashew research got further impetus through formation of central plantation crops research institute and, later, establishment of an independent national research centre for cashew (nrcc), puttur, in karnataka in 1986. location-specific research programmes in the eight cashew growing states are conducted through all india coordinated research project on cashew (aicrp on cashew) whose headquarters are also located at the directorate of cashew research (dcr) (formerly national research centre for cashew), puttur. there were eight centres and one subcentre under aicrp on cashew, located all over the country till the end of 10th five year plan. in the year 2009 during 11th plan, one centre each in gujarat and jharkand and 3 co-operating centres (arabhavi in karnataka, goa and tura – barapani in meghalaya) were included under aicrp on cashew. table 3. potential area available for expansion of cashew state area(ha) bihar 25,000 goa 10,000 jharkhand 25,000 chhattisgarh 50,000 kerala 25,000 west bengal 25,000 gujarat 25,000 tamil nadu 25,000 neh region 50,000 andhra pradesh 1,00,000 karnataka 1,00,000 orissa 1,00,000 maharashtra 1,50,000 total 7,10,000 with combined efforts of the directorate of cashew research, centres of the aicrp-cashew and saus, over 40 high yielding cashew varieties have been developed and released in the country (table 4). crop production and improvement as cashew is a cross-pollinated crop, propagation by vegetative means was attempted. among the various methods tested, softwood grafting was found to be the best for vegetative propagation (swamy et al, 1993). it has also been shown that softwood grafting is feasible for commercial multiplication. based on these results, india has been producing over 15 million grafts annually under both government and private sectors. germplasm collection and characterization attempts have been made to collect, conserve, evaluate and catalogue all cashew germplasm available in the country. regional cashew germplasm centres have been established, both at dcr and various aicrp cashew centres spread out over the country. germplasm-holding at dcr, cashew, and aicrp cashew centres is presented table 4. cashew varieties released in india centre number variety east coast bapatla 7 bpp-1 to bpp-6 and bpp-8 vridhachalam 4 vri-1, vri-2, vri-3 and vri (cw) 5 bhubaneswar 1 bhubaneswar-1 jhargram 1 jhargram-1 west coast vengurla 7 vengurla-1 to vengurla-7 goa 2 goa-1 and goa-2 madakkathara 8 anakkayam-1, madak-1 (bla-39-4), madak-2 (ndr-2-1), k-22-1, kanaka, dhana, priyanka and amrutha ullal 5 ullal-1, ullal-2, ullal-3, ullal-4, un-50 dcr puttur 3 nrcc selection-1, nrcc selection-2 and bhaskara maidan area chintamani 2 chintamani-1 and chintamani-2 total 40 bhat et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 3 in table 5. cashew germplasm collection in national cashew field gene bank (ncfgb) at dcr, puttur has 527 accessions (fig. 1). a total of 433 cashew accessions have been assigned national collection numbers. a total of 285 accessions have been characterized as per ipgri descriptors. three germplasm catalogues for 255 accessions have been brought out (swamy et al, 1997; 1998 and 2000). further, over 1200 cashew accessions are conserved in regional cashew field gene bank in various centres under aicrp on cashew (fig. 2). hybridization hybridization techniques for breeding varieties in cashew have been standardized by various workers and 13 hybrids have been developed and released for commercial cultivation in the country. bhat et al (1998) showed that the paper-roll method of hybridization was better than other methods. of the 40 improved clones released so far, 13 are hybrids and 27 are selections. screening of cashew varieties for drought, high-density planting (salam, 1997), and for nutrient-deficient soils, has been reported (latha, 2000; latha table 5. cashew germplasm-holding centre number dcr, puttur 527 aicrpcashew centres : bapatla 132 bhubaneswar 98 jhargram 119 vridhachalam 208 madakkathara 130 pilicode 43 vengurla 302 chintamani 128 jagdalpur 65 total 1225 and salam, 2001). anakkayam-1, k-22-1, madakkathara-1 madakkathara-2, kanaka, dhana, priyanka, sulabha, dharasree, amrutha, akshaya, anagha, vengurla-1 to vengurla-7, bpp-01 to bpp-8, vridhachalam-1, 2, 3 and 5, ullal-1 to ullal-4, un-50, nrcc selection-1 and 2, bhaskara, jhargram-1, bhubaneswar-1, goa-1 and 2, chintamani-1 and 2 are some of the improved varieties of cashew in india (abdul salam and peter, 2010). pruning and training pruning provides a definite form and shape to the tree. pruning of dead wood and criss-cross branches can increase yield by 30-40% (khan et al, 1987). training indirectly assists in ease of other operations such as weeding, manuring and hoeing (satpathy, 1988). results of pruning on 28-year old trees revealed that trees with three branches pruned recorded the highest number of panicles/sq.m (39), highest number of flowers/panicle (588.70) and fruit-set to an extent of 14.42%, while unpruned trees recorded only 7.75% increase in yield (panda, 1990). under jhargram conditions, pruning of leader-shoots during july enhanced the number of productive laterals, increased the number of bisexual flowers per panicle, fruits per panicle and yield per tree (chattopadhyay and ghose, 1994). leader-shoot pruning doubled the yield in cashew (mohan and room singh, 1988). pruning treatment increased the number of laterals/leader but did not affect duration of flowering and harvest (mohan and rao, 1995). leader-shoot pruning at least once every 2-3 years helps boost nut yield (nayak, 1996). top-working the technique of rejuvenation of existing, unthrifty cashew plantations by top-working boosts cashew production 3-4 fold in a short span (fig. 3). this technology can also be adopted for mass production of scions since, production can be expected to be almost five times that by conventional methods (khan et al, 1988). top-working trials in red and laterite zone of west bengal showed that beheading of trees (fig. 4) at 1.0 m height was ideal cashew research in india fig 1. bunch-bearing accession at dcr, puttur fig 2. variability in cashewnut and apple fig 3. flush emergence after topworking fig 4. rejuvenation upon beheading j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 4 from the paint of view of sprouting, growth of sprouted shoots and graft success. the month of october was most suitable for beheading and february for grafting, irrespective of age of the tree (ghose, 1991). whereas, under ullal conditions of karnataka, december to february was found to be suitable for beheading and, february to april for grafting (khan et al, 1985). uneconomical cashew trees top-worked with high-yielding ullal-1 variety resulted in a four-fold increase in nut yield per tree within five years (kumar, 1990). wherever populations of cashew stem and root borer (csrb) are maximum, top-working technology may not be suitable, unless regular follow-up action is taken to manage the incidence of csrb (swamy, 1995). biotechnology in cashew work on cashew tissue culture has been in progress on developing multiplication protocols from cashew explants. however, regeneration protocols from mature explants are yet to be developed, although, reports are available on multiplication and field establishment of cashew regenerated from young nodal cuttings (philip, 1984; d’silva and d’souza, 1992; lievens et al, 1989; keshavachandran and khader, 1990; leva and falcone, 1990; nair and mohanakumar, 1993; das et al, 1996; thimmappaiah and shirly, 1999). somatic embryogenesis was induced from nucellar tissue cultured from 2-3 week old immature nuts. so far nucellar tissues from 14 varieties have been tested for embryogenesis. embryogenesis and germination of somatic embryos was achieved in two varieties (thimmappiah, 1997; shirly and thimmappaiah, 2005). attempts have been made to fingerprint cashew using rapd markers. twenty tanzanian accessions (mneney et al, 2001), 90 germplasm accessions at dcr, puttur (dhanaraj et al, 2002) and 19 germplasm accessions (archak et al, 2002) have been fingerprinted. based on this analysis, a moderate range of genetic variability among the accessions analysed in india. about 239 accessions at dcr have been fingerprinted by thimmappaiah et al (2009a). low-level diversity has been observed in 40 elite varieties using rapd, issr and ssr markers at dcr, puttur. moderate diversity has been reported in cashew population using protein isoenzyme electrophoretic analysis (aliyu and awopetu, 2007; maranan and mendiore, 2008; thimmappaiah et al (2009a, b). cashew microsatellites from non-enriched genomic library and sequences of 21 polymorphic ssr markers have been detected and used for multiplex analysis in cashew (croxford et al, 2005). gene cloning studies have been reported (wang et al, 2002). transformation in cashew using agrobacterium tumefasciens strain eha-105 has been reported by kiran et al (2007). neto et al (1995) showed utility of rapd markers in distinguishing dwarf seedlings in cashew. bulk segregant analysis (bsa) in germplasm bulks at dcr, puttur, could identify four rapd markers linked to economic characters like nut weight and plant stature. regeneration from explants of mature origin has met with difficulties due to a high rate of contamination and poor response (thimmappaiah and shirly, 2000; thimmappaiah et al, 2002a, c). micrografting technique was standardised in cashew (mantell et al, 1997; ramanayake and kovoor, 1999, thimmappiah et al, 2002b). embryogenesis was induced in immature cotyledonary segments (hegde et al, 1994; nair and mohanakumar, 1993; sy et al, 1991; thimmappiah, 1997) and nucellar tissue (nair and mohanakumar, 1993; ananthakrishnan et al, 1999; gogate and nadgauda, 2000; cardoza and d’souza, 2002). crop management nutrient studies cashew is often grown on marginal soils and on wastelands mostly unsuitable for other economic crops. nitrogen and p were found to be the most important nutrients during pre-bearing stage. at the bearing stage, k, together with n, is important. application of fertilizers, their dosage, time and schedule under different agroclimatic zones has been standardized (veeraraghavan et al, 1985; sawke et al, 1985; harishu kumar and sreedharan, 1986; ghosh and bose, 1986; kumar et al, 1997; latha et al, 1994; lenka et al, 1998; grundon, 1999; grundon, 2001; shingre et al, 2001; patrick et al, 2002; vishnuvardhana and thirumalaraju, 2002; yadukumar et al, 2003; prasanna kumar et al, 2006; salam et al, 2008; yadukumar et al, 2008; aikpokpodion et al, 2009; o’farrell et al 2010). rootstocks and grafts of cashew supplied with 150:20:100 ppm of n:p:k at the rate of 100 ml/plant/week had higher plant-height, stem-girth and number of leaves (manjunatha, 2001). the ratio 2:1 of n:p is ideal for young cashew trees (shi-wenge et al, 2005). application of mineral nutrients in combination with organic fertilizers significantly increased plant height, dry weight of aerial parts and number of leaves in cashew seedlings (lima et al, 2001). a 30-year old cashew tree removes 2.85 kg of n, 0.75 kg of p 2 o 5 and 1.27 kg of k 2 o (mohapatra et al, 1973) from the soil. leaf n content of 1.51% in the month of april is considered optimum for high nut yield (ghose and bose, 1986). macronutrient removal by cashew nuts and the cashew apple was n > k > mg > p > s > ca and j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 bhat et al 5 k > n > mg > p > s > ca, respectively (fragoso, 1999). use-efficiency of n and k in cashew was 24.7% and 12.37%, respectively (latha, 2000; latha and salam, 2001). foliar sprays of nutrients (urea 2 to 4%; dap 1%; orthophosphoric acid; znso 4 4%; cu 0.3 to 0.6%), at emergence of the flush, panicle initiation and fruit-set stages, ensure better fruit-set and enhanced nut yield (ghose, 1988; ankaiah and rao, 1987; sapkal, 2000). yellow leaf spot occurrence in low soil ph (4.5 – 5.0) could be corrected by foliar sprays of mo salts (subbaiah et al, 1986). foliar spray of growth regulators planofix, nutron, iaa, iba, naa, 2,4-d and ethrel were effective in increasing total number of flowers, hermaphrodite flowers, sex ratio, fruit and yield per panicle and, also improved physico-chemical composition of apples and nuts (ghosh, 1988; singh et al, 1992 and kumar et al, 1994). biofertilizers application of azospirillum, azotobacter and vam increased germination percentage of nuts and plant growth, and reduced the incidence of fungal diseases in the nursery (kumar et al, 1998; ramesh et al, 1999). inoculation of azotobacter resulted in higher root growth (oblisami et al, 1985) and yield (singh, 1997) in cashew. among vam, acaulospora laevis and gigaspora mosseae were better symbionts for inoculating cashew with (lakshmipathy, 2000). anantha krishnan et al (2004) reported that among vam, glomus fasciculatum was superior in terms of increased shoot-length, internode number, number of leaves, stem diameter, root length and root number, under nursery conditions. sivaprasad et al (1992) also reported that gomus fasciculatum to be more effective at enhancing growth and p uptake of cashew plants. vam (25 g/bag) was helpful for better graft-uptake at the time of grafting (sridhar et al, 1990). organic recycling cashew plantations have a vast potential for organic biomass for recycling. availability of cashew leaf-litter from plantations of different age groups (10 to 40 years) ranged from 1.38 to 5.20 t ha-1 (guruprasad et al, 2009). about 5.5 t ha-1 available cashewbiomass waste can be converted into 3.5 tonnes of compost or vermicompost and helps to meet nutrient requirement of cashew plants 50% (yadukumar and nandan, 2005; yadukumar, 2007). abiotic stress cashew cannot grow and yield well in saline soils (marlos et al, 2007). electrical conductivity of irrigation water at 1.48 dsm-1 is threshold tolerance for precocious cashew during its initial growth (carneiro et al, 2002). higher soil-temperature and density resulted in reduction of plant growth and roots (oliveira et al, 2003). flowering in cashew requires mild winters and availability of soilmoisture plays a key role in kernel development (rao et al, 2001). relative humidity during pre-flowering is a key factor in explaining yield variation in cashew (haldankar et al, 2003). cashew can tolerate mild to moderate levels of moisture stress and growth of seedlings is unaffected (latha, 2003; souza et al, 2004). strong and severe water stress resulted in 20 and 22% reduction in the number of scions produced respectively (shingre et al, 2003). soil and water conservation techniques u n d e r medium to steep slopes, ‘terrace with crescent bund’ (fig. 5) and application of 20 kg poultry manure in cashew is beneficial for improving soil moisture content, yield and also reduced runoff and soilloss (yadukumar and rejani, 2006; rejani and yadukumar, 2006; yadukumar and rejani, 2008; asogwa et al, 2008). reduction in peak runoff and increase in recession time and groundwater recharge due to soil and water conservation practices have been reported by several workers (sastry and druvanarayana, 1984; singh et al, 1989; deshmukh et al, 1992). black polythene mulch was helpful in conserving soil moisture (nawale et al, 1985). using coconut coir pith as soil mulch in cashew plantations resulted in 14.15% higher water retention and suppression of weeds upto 73.52% (kumar et al, 1989). badhe and mayar (2004) reported that trapezoidal shaped staggered trenches (230 ha-1) of 4.5 m length, 0.60 m top-width, 0.30 m bottom-width and 0.30 m depth were effective in reducing runoff and for conservation of soil and nutrients. mane et al (2009) demonstrated that continuous contour trench (0.5 m x 0.6 m) was the best soil-conservation practice for cashew on hands with 7 to 8% slope. high density planting it has been reported that high-density planting fig 5. crescent bund for soil and water conservation j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 cashew research in india 6 system in cashew is economical (salam, 1997 and ghosh et al, 2000). maintaining tree-density of 625 ha-1 (4 m x 4 m) for the first 11 years, and diagonal thinning thereafter to reduce the population to 50%, resulted in maximum yield (yadukumar et al, 2001). high-density planting system in cashew doubled nut-yield during the first 10 years of planting (yadukumar et al, 2002). salam (1999) reported that the varieties ‘44/3’, ‘anakkayam-1’ and ‘h-1608’ were suitable for high-density planting. intercropping intercrops like cowpea, french bean, cluster bean, rice bean, red bean, mung bean, soybean and groundnut could be grown along with cashew to get additional profit (gupta, 1999). maize and groundnut can be grown successfully as intercrops in newly-planted and two year-old cashew orchards (abeysinghe et al, 2003). intercropping cashew with pineapple, turmeric or elephant foot yam under normaldensity planting system during the first five years increased net benefit from cashew gardens (yadukumar et al, 2003; fig. 6). weed-suppression was best in plots carrying cashew / cassava and cashew / plantation / cassava mixtures with 50-60% reduction in frequency of weeding per annum (adeyemi, 1998). irrigation it was reported that fertigation saved 50% fertilizer requirement and doubled cashew yield (richards, 1993; yadukumar and mandal, 1994; mishra et al, 2008). irrigation at 200 litres of water tree-1 once in every 15 days after flowering during summer months increased cashew yield. irrigating cashew with 60-80 litres of water tree-1 every four days through drip after flowering until fruit-set and development, in combination with application of 750:187.5: 187.5 g npk tree-1 led to significantly higher yields (yadukumar and rejani, 2008; yadukumar et al, 2009). several researchers have reported superiority of fertigation in terms of higher scion production and nut yield (nawale et al, 1985; yadukumar and mandal, 1994; kumar et al, 1998; blaikie et al, 2001, ingle et al, 2005). response to irrigation varied among cashew genotypes (oliveira et al, 2006). dwarf clones did not respond well to irrigation (oliveira et al, 2003). crop protection cashew is attacked by around 180 species of insect and non-insect pests in india resulting in substantial yield loss (sundararaju, 1993b). the most important pests that limit production are the cashew stem and borer (csrb) and the tea mosquito bug (tmb). in addition, leaf and blossom webber, shoot tip caterpillar, and, apple and nut borer cause damage. cashew stem and root borers csrb (plocaederus ferrugineus l.) (coleoptera: cerambycidae) is the primary species, infesting cashew in all parts of india, and, two other species, viz., p. obesus g. and batocera rufomaculata deg. were also reported in association with p. ferrugineus (abraham, 1958; uthaiah et al, 1989 and rai,1984). symptoms of damage include extrusion of frass, occurrence of gummosis, premature yellowing and shedding of leaves, drying of twigs and, finally, death of the tree. it is essential to adopt two important approaches, viz., a) phytosanitation, to achieve reduction of pest population in a given location, and b) saving the infested trees in the initial stages of infestation itself. to minimize csrb infestation in the plantations, dead trees and trees beyond recovery (those with over 50% damaged barkcircumference and / or showing yellowing of the canopy) should be uprooted and removed from the plantation immediately before and after the monsoon, since these serve as natural inoculum for multiplication and spread of the pest (raviprasad et al, 2009 and sundararaju and bakthavatsalam, 1990). all the trees in the plantation should be examined for csrb at the tree base at monthly intervals, especially, during harvest (january-may). if external infestation is observed, csrb grubs should be removed mechanically by carefully chipping the bark. the injured portion and base of the tree, and any exposed root should be swabbed with / drenched in chlorpyriphos 0.2% solution (raviprasad et al, 2009 and sundararaju and bakthavatsalam, 1994). fig 6. cashew intercropped with pineapple and gooseberry (top), elephant foot yam (left) and brinjal (bottom) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 bhat et al 7 in brazil, progression of gummosis in cashew trunks could be mitigated by application of benomyl either alone, or, in combination with copper oxychloride (cardoso and freire, 1998). entomopathogens like metarhizium anisopliae and beauveria bassiana are known to cause mycosis in grubs of csrb (bhat and raviprasad, 1996). spores of m. anisopliae survive for three months under field conditions. mixing the spawn with organic matter like fym, neem cake and cashew apple, can enhance spore load under field condition. newly-planted grafts should be trained to bear branches at a height of 0.75m to 1.00m from ground level for facilitating inspection and pest management techniques effectively. tea mosquito bug (tmb) under the west coast conditions, three species of tea mosquito bug helopeltis (h. antonii s., h. theivora w. and h. bradyi w.) infest cashew, whereas, in other regions, only one species (h. antonii) attack cashew. however, in all the regions, h. antonii is the dominant species infesting cashew, causing severe damage. both nymphs and adults suck sap from tender shoots and leaves, floral branches and from developing nuts and apples by making a number of feeding lesions. during outbreaks of the pest, the entire flush dries up and trees present a scorched appearance. this pest has a potential to cause 100% loss in yield. however, on an average, yield loss of about 30% is caused as a result of damage by this pest (fig. 7). all the recommended cashew varieties are susceptible to this pest. however, mid season/late season flowering cashew varieties are able to escape from the severity of the pest to some extent. cashew accession, goa 11/6, showed consistent performance with yield of 2 t ha-1 under unsprayed situations, under moderate level of pestincidence. recently this accession has been released as variety ‘bhaskara’ from the directorate of cashew research, puttur (sundararaju et al, 2006). erythmelus helopeltidis gahan (hymenoptera: mymaridae) telenomus sp. (laricis group) (scelionidae) chaetostricha sp. (trichogrammatidae) and gonatocerus sp. nr. bialbifuniculatus subba rao are the egg parasitoids reported on this pest from west coast regions, while, ufens sp is an egg parasitoid reported from the east coast (vridhachalam). the build-up of tmb is naturally regulated through these egg-parasitoids (devashayam, 1989; and sundararaju, 1993a and sundararaju, 1996). however, their activities are naturally promoted under favourable weather conditions (increased minimum temperature and relative humidity) during vulnerable period (november-february). crematogaster wroughtonii forel (formicidae) has been recorded as a predator on nymphs of tmb. several species of spider, hyllus sp., oxyopes sehireta, phidippus patch and matidia sp., five species of reduviid bugs (sycanus collaris (fab), sphedanolestes signatus dist. and endochus inornatus stal., irantha armipes stal. and occamus typicus dist., have also been recorded as predators of the tea mosquito bug. aspergillus flavus and a. tamarii were confirmed to be pathogenic to h. antoni (ambika and abraham, 1979; devashayam and nair; 1986 and sundararaju, 1984). even though all groups of insecticides and several plant products (botanicals) were evaluated against this pest, none exhibited any ovicidal action (raviprasad et al, 2005). however, λ-cyhalothrin (0.003%) and carbaryl (0.1%) showed longest residual action against nymphs and adults (sundararaju et al, 1993). in the endemic areas, it is appropriate to spray three times with any of these insecticides during the most vulnerable periods of crop coinciding with flushing, flowering and fruiting of the crop, based on pest-incidence. spraying recommended insecticides is remunerative if the trees bear economical yield (>2.0 kg tree-1). although cashew is an insect-pollinated crop, spraying these insecticides during the flowering season did not influence fruit-set (pillai et al, 1984; rai, 1984 and sundararaju et al, 1993) leaf and blossom webber, shoot tip caterpillar and cashew apple and nut borer the other insect pests causing considerable damage to cashew are leaf and blossom webbers, shoot tip caterpillars and apple and nut borers, which damage shoots and blossoms, shoot tips, and, apple and immature nuts, respectively. leaf and blossom webber cashew shoots bearing fresh flushes and flowers are attacked by two species of leaf and shoot webbing fig 7. adult tmb (top) and damage caused by it (bottom) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 cashew research in india 8 caterpillars, lamida (= macalla) moncusalis wlk. (lepidoptera: pyralidae) and orthaga exvinaceae hamps. (lepidoptera: noctuidae). of these, moncusalis is a major pest in east coast tracts. symptoms of infestation are presence of webs on terminal portions, with clumped appearance, and drying of webbed shoot/ inflorescences. galleries of silken webs reinforced with plant scraps, and castings, indicate presence of caterpillars. shoot tip caterpillar the tiny, yellowish to greenish-brown larvae of the moth hypotima (=chelaria) haligramma m. (lepidoptera: gelechidae) damage shoot tips and inflorescences. tender shoot tips are bored occasionally upto 25-35 mm, leading to drying-up of shoot tips. this pest is regularly reported from the east coast tracts (mohapatra et al, 1998). apple and nut borers usually, these borers tunnel near the joint of the apple and the nut, and cause shrivelling and premature fall of fruits. damaged fruits can be easily located as the infested fruits have frass at the damaged portion. several lepidopteran species have been recorded as apple and nut borers of cashew. variable degree of damage by the most common species, thylocoptila paurosema m. (pyralidae), has been reported from different cashew-growing tracts. panerotoma sp. (braconidae) and trathala sp. (ichneumonidae), have been recorded as hymenopteran larval parasitoids of t. paurosema. even though incidence of shoot tip caterpillars and apple and nut borers was observed in all the recommended varieties of cashew, fruit-set was only partially affected in varieties that showed early mixed-phase of flowering, with male and hermaphrodite flowers; whereas, in varieties with an early male-phase, damage was severe, resulting in poor fruit-set. three rounds of insecticidal sprays recommended against tea mosquito bug also manage all these minor foliage pests, if infestation levels are low to medium (pillai et al, 1984). however, indiscriminate spraying must be avoided as the above mentioned pests are parasitised by a number of larval parasitoids. repeated spraying can also induce outbreak of secondary pests like mealy bug (ferrisia virgata) and aphids (toxoptera odinae). post-harvest technology cashew requires to be processed to get an edible kernel. various methods such as drum roasting, steam boiling and oil bath roasting have been employed for commercial processing. in recent times, drum roasting and steam roasting methods have been employed for processing. commercial processing by steam roasting involves drying of raw nuts, steam roasting them for 18-20 min, shelling the raw nuts, peeling, grading and packing the kernels under vacuum (ohler, 1979). equilibrium moisture content of cashew kernels has been shown to decrease with increasing temperature, at constant water activity (balasubramanian and narayanan, 2006). physical properties of raw cashew nuts as a function of moisture content has been studied (balasubramanian, 2001). equilibrium moisture content of raw cashewnuts at different levels of relative humidity has been determined. increase in the moisture content with relative humidity exhibits desorption isotherm up to 74.12%, but at 81.33% it follows adsorption isotherm. mould-growth and nut-deterioration took place after 28 days at 81.33% from commencement of the experiment. the data were fitted in the henderson’s equation and, by solving simultaneous equations, values of the constants were found to be 7.09 x 10-4 and 0.865 for c and n, respectively (balsubramanian, 1998). cavalcanti-junior et al (2004) reported that cashew nuts, after harvest, retained high water content. the water content should be reduced to values close to that of the hygroscopic balance. in this study, samples of dried and humid nuts were stored in airy and humid conditions for determining the hygroscopic curve. it was verified that more than 70% of the cashew nut humidity can be explained by relative humidity of the air and that the degree of humidity at the equilibrium points assumes two different values during the year: 11.4% in the dry season, and 13.6% in the rainy season, with an annual average of 12.5%. the device developed by tropical product institute (tpi) has a capacity of 11.5 kg kernels day-1 using cutting and sawing mechanism and the turnout was 76% whole kernels. the cardoso system uses knives to cut the shell into two halves and separates them by a push using a pin. the capacity with this is 240 nuts minute-1. the italian type sima process is based on a shelling machine for each size of graded nuts, with capacity of about 70 kg nuts hr-1. the nuts are cut with semicircular knives that have the same curves as the nut on the longitudinal section. the outturn of whole kernel was 53%. in oltremare system, the shells are cut longitudinally and separated by a pair of gripers, freeing the kernel, with an outturn of 80% whole kernel (hall, 1965). hand-operated shelling units used in thailand has a lever to lower the upper blade to cut the raw nut placed at j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 bhat et al 9 the bottom and, also, to pry open the cut shells. the kernels are then extracted manually using a pin. however, it was found that use of hand for cutting was strenuous and was changed over to the pedal system, as reported by mathew (1995). centrifugal cracking is done in the sicol system (also called tonelli or albators), the jur system and the barbieri system. the nuts are placed in a certain position on a rotating disc and thrown with a speed of 250 km hr-1 against vertical placed knives. the capacity is 870-1200 kg nuts hr-1. the outturn of whole kernels is 67%. design considerations on the manually operated sheller used the new principle of press-twist action of the sheller’s blade, resulting in two versions, viz., manually operated sheller and semi-automatic sheller. cashew kernel packaging has evolved from the days of wooden cases to flexipackaging (fernandez et al, 2003). a comparative analysis was made of packaging of cashew kernels in tin containers and flexi-bags, in terms of cost-effectiveness and eco-friendliness. the additional investment involved in changing over from tin packaging to flexi packaging works out to an amount ranging from rs.4.57 lakh to 11.66 lakh, depending upon capacity of the machine installed. this investment can be recovered within a span of 56 to 96 days, based on the type of machine installed. flexi-packaging is cost-effective to both processor-exported and the importer, and is eco-friendly. lima et al (2004) investigated the effect of packaging and salting on cashew nut kernel stability during storage. cashew kernels with and without salt treatment were packed in flexible plastic bags laminated with aluminium foil, polypropylene (pp) vessels and low density polythylene bags (ldpe) and stored at room temperature (28°c). peroxide and acid values were evaluated on the lipid fraction, while, water activity, sensory acceptance and microbiological quality were evaluated for the kernels. peroxide showed high values at 150 days. microorganism count was lower than 105 for all treatments. salmonella sp., 45°c coliforms and staphylococcus aureus were not detected. sensory changes were observed under pp vessel packaging at 100 days and under ldpe packaging at 200 days. kernels packed in plastic/ aluminium foil laminate did not show sensory changes up to 250 days of storage, indicating higher stability. salting did not affect kernel quality during storage. cashew apple, the pseudo-fruit, is quite nutritious and rich in vitamin c. for every ton of raw-nut produced, 10 tons of apples are produced, which are not commercially exploited. various products such as juice, jam, jelly, pickle, etc. can be prepared from cashew apple. the technology for these has been developed by cftri (mysore), uas (bangalore), kau (madakkathara) and various other agricultural universities. various aspects such as development, nutritive value, value addition and host plant insect interaction in cashew has been reviewed recently (nagaraja, 2007, 2010). future strategies in order to face challenges within the country from other crops like rubber and mango, and to face challenges from countries like vietnam, brazil etc., research strategies need to be reoriented. areas needing emphasis in future research programmes are: crop improvement ● collection, conservation, evaluation and cataloguing of both exotic and indigenous cashew germplasm, especially dwarf and compact plant types ● development of compact and dwarf varieties suitable for high-density planting ● evolving varieties with high-yield, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, better flowering behaviour/ characters (synchronized and staggered), and, better kernel quality for domestic consumption and export ● standardization of protocol for regeneration of cashew from mature (tree) explants ● molecular characterization of germplasm through dna and isozyme markers ● identification of molecular markers linked to economic characters in cashew and construction of genpme maps crop management ● integrated plant nutrient management (ipnm) including nutrient budgeting, orchard management, weed management, irrigation management, micronutrient deficiency management and, soil and water conservation techniques, for achieving high yield ● canopy management and rejuvenation of old cashew plantations/orchards; canopy architecture and management to suit requirement for different plantdensities and system of planting ● detailed studies on high-density planting system to increase productivity of cashew ● integrated cashew-based farming systems research, j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 cashew research in india 10 including cashew-based cropping system (mixed and intercropping) ● organic farming research, including biodynamic farming in cashew for producing quality nuts, especially for the international market ● physiology of flowering and off-season flowering, including studies on hormones ● studies on role of pollinators in cashew for enhancing yield crop protection ● studies on kairomones and pheromones for effective and economic control of tea mosquito bug and cashew stem and root borer ● development of eco-friendly ipm strategies, including entomo-pathogenic nematodes for control of major insect pests ● studies on pest complex at post-harvest and preprocessing stages ● investigation on panicle-drying in the absence of tea mosquito bug ● isolation of pheromones for control of tea mosquito bug ● intensification of survey, both in traditional and nontraditional cashew growing tracts, for identification of accessions with tolerance to pest attack ● conservation of natural enemies of these pests by avoiding indiscriminate use of insecticides ● development of eco-friendly pest-management practices using new molecules post-harvest technology ● development of value-added products from low grade kernels ● developing technologies for alternate use of byproducts of the cashew processing industry, such as cashew kernel rejects, cashew nut shell liquid (cnsl), cashew shell cake and cashew kernel testa ● exploring the possibility of cashew apple utilization for production of industrial alcohol / bio-fuel / syrup on commercial scale ● extraction of nutraceuticals such as natural colours, flavours, pectin and nutritionally beneficial compounds and minerals and crude fibre from cashew apple powder / pomace ● assessment of bio-availability of minerals in cashew ● refinement of on-farm processing machinery ● development of low cost mini cashew processing units, moisture meter for rawnuts ● development of dryers for drying the nuts during the rainy season transfer of technology ● development of farmer-friendly technologies through farmers’ participatory technology development programmes ● extension efforts to bridge the gap between actual yield and potential yield ● developing training methodologies for transfer of technology cashew acknowledgement authors express their sincere thanks to all the scientists of directorate of cashew research, puttur, d.k, karnataka for furnishing detailed information for preparation of this manuscript. type-setting by mr. r. muthuraju is gratefully acknowledged. references abdul salam, m. and peter, k.v. 2010. cashew a monograph. 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yadukumar, n., raviprasad, t.n., nagaraja, k.v., haldankar, p.m., godase, s.k., susanamma, k., gajendran, g., mahalingam, t., lenka, p.c., mohapatra, r.n. and bandyopadhyay, b. 2003. national agricultural technology project. final report on developing integrated production packages for enhancing productivity of cashew. national research centre for cashew, puttur, d.k., karnataka. 95pp yadukumar, n., rejani, r. and nandan, s.l. 2008. studies on green manuring in high density cashew orchards. j. plant. crops, 36:265-269 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 1-16, 2010 bhat et al introduction brinjal (solanum melongena l.) is one of the important vegetable crops of our own country and belongs to the family solanaceae. it features on the menu of virtually every household in india, irrespective of food preference, income level or social status. successful cultivation of the brinjal crop has been hindered by several insect pests and devastating diseases. among the diseases, bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum (yabucchi et al, 1995) is a major limiting factor. this has been the most ubiquitous and serious bacterial disease throughout tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions of the world (hayward, 1991). in india, this disease is of a major concern and is serious in parts of karnataka, kerala, orissa, maharashtra, madhya pradesh and west bengal (rao et al, 1976). yield losses ranging from 65 to 70% have been reported in brinjal (das and chattopadhyay, 1953). the disease is characterized by sudden wilting of the plant at flowering stage, by yellowing of foliage and stunted plant growth (kelman, 1953; rai et al, 1975) and an initial, brownish discoloration of vascular tissues occassionally accompanied by browning and rotting of tissues inside vascular bundles (smith, 1920). evaluation of brinjal genotypes against bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum h.m. santhosha, k.m. indiresh, c. gopalakrishnan1 and t.h.singh1 university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, india 1icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560089, india e-mail: san3070@gmail.com abstract forty brinjal genotypes were screened by artificial inoculation using ralstonia solanacearum inoculum at a concentration of 1.0 x 108 cfu/ml (o.d600 = 0.3). genotypes arka nidhi, haritha, swetha, surya, iihr-3, iihr-555, wcgr, r-2588, wl-2230, l-3261, l-3270, l-3272 and arka anand were found to be resistant to bacterial wilt, whereas, iihr-7, l-3263, l-3268 and l-3269 were moderately resistant. genotypes r-2584, r-2586, r2592, l-3260, l-3262, l-3264, l-3266 and l-3267 were moderately susceptible, and genotypes r-2580, r-2582, r-2587, r-2591, r2593 and r2595 were found to be susceptible. lastly, genotypes r-2581, r2594, r-2589, r-2590, wl-2232, pusa hybrid-6, arka shirish, r-2585 and r-2583 were found to be highly susceptible to bacterial wilt. resistant and moderately resistant genotypes showed longer incubation period. key words: brinjal, bacterial wilt, ralstonia solanacearum, genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):74-78, 2015 for management of bacterial wilt in the field, various control measures like crop rotation (cultural practice), use of antagonistic organisms (biological method) and application of chemicals (chemical control) are suggested. as the pathogen can survive or persist in the soil for several years, it is very difficult to control bacterial wilt by chemical applications, using antagonistic organisms or by cultural practices. therefore, mitigation of the disease using appropriate farming practices needs further development and adaptation (grimault and prior, 1990). therefore, search for resistant sources and incorporating those genes in commercial cultivars is a sound approach to the problem. material and methods the experimental material consisting of 40 genotypes was maintained in a homozygous state at the vegetable block, post-graduation centre, uhs campus, bengaluru. seeds of these genotypes were sown in protrays in the 1st week of august 2011. the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (rcbd), with three replications. a row consisting of 15 plants constituted a replication under each treatment. the 40 genotypes, including resistant (arka anand) and susceptible check (pusa hybrid-6) were 75 subjected to artificial inoculation which made on seedlings in portrays, a day prior to transplantation into the main field. a slight injury was made to the root with a sterile knife before inoculating while withholding irrigation for a day. three ml volume of the inoculum at a concentration of 1.0 x 108 cfu/ml (o.d600 = 0.3) was poured into the root zone. thereafter, the seedlings were transplanted into the main field. ten days after inoculation, symptoms of wilting were seen. observations were made as per the scale suggested by zakir hussain et al (2005). observations on (i) days to 50% bacterial wilt, (ii) bacterial wilt at different stages of plant growth, and (iii) cumulative bacterial wilt incidence at 50 days after inoculation were recorded. observations were recorded at intervals of 10 days, with the last observation made at 50 days after inoculation. results and discussion any breeding programme, including any that involves host-plant resistance to a pathogen, must begin with an extensive screening of germplasm. success in finding resistance to bacterial wilt is directly related to availability of resistant genotypes in the germplasm. development of varieties/ hybrids with suitable horticultural traits is a slow process, despite availability of sources of resistance. this is due to the unstable nature of resistance under different environmental conditions, which has necessitated the breeder to explore better sources of resistance in the cultivated brinjal for breeding bacterial wilt resistance. the 40 genotypes were screened against race-i, biovar 3. genotypes arka nidhi, haritha, shwetha, surya, iihr-3, iihr-7, iihr-555, wcgr, r-2588, r2592, wl2230, l-3260, l-3261, l-3262, l-3263, l-3268, l-3269, l3270, l-3272 and arka anand (resistant check) showed no 50% wilt even at 50 dai. however, most genotypes like pusa hybrid-6, l-3267, r-2581, r-2589, r2593 and r2583 took the least number of days to show 50% wilt incidence. genotypes r-2586, l-3266 and r-2584 took the maximum number of days to express 50% wilt. least number of days taken to express 50% wilt in a genotype shows occurrence of a shorter incubation period, and, such genotypes were highly susceptible to ralstonia solanacearum under field conditions; while, in some genotypes, no 50% wilt even at 50 dai shows occurrence of a longer incubation period. therefore, these genotypes are able to withstand attack from ralstonia solanacearum under field conditions, without any great loss in economic yield. results of the present study are in agreement with those of zakir hussain et al (2005) (table 1). genotypes pusa hybrid-6 (at 0-10 and 11-20 dai), followed by r2595 (at 0-10 dai), r2593 (at 11-20 dai) and r-2591 (at 11-20 dai) recorded comparatively higher wilt incidence, indicating that it was the stage that was critical for genotypes becoming susceptible to bacterial wilt. compare this to the genotypes shwetha, surya, iihr-3, iihr-7, iihr-555, wl-2230, l-3261, l-3270 and wcgr, where none, or very low, wilt-incidence was recorded. at 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50 dai, most genotypes showed medium to low level of wilt. most of the susceptible genotypes showed a susceptible reaction in their early stages of growth (0-10 and 11-20 dai). similarly, hoque et al (1981) recorded higher incidence of wilt in tomato in the early stage of crop growth, i.e., the first symptom of wilt was observed by them on the 15th day from inoculation. data on wilting collected by them at 43 days after inoculation varied from 13.3% to 100%. significant difference was observed for cumulative bacterial wilt incidence at 50 dai among the eggplant genotypes studied. highest incidence was recorded in wl2232, followed by r-2590, arka shirish and pusa hybrid-6. lowest incidence was recorded in the genotypes surya, iihr-3 and l-3270. in the present study, during screening of the genotypes, air temperature and relative humidity recorded were 19-28°c and 51-94%, respectively. these factors, together with impact from soil moisture and soil temperature, may have influenced resistance reaction of the genotypes. among the various genotypes used in this trial, only arka nidhi, haritha, shwetha, surya, iihr-3, iihr-555, wcgr, r-2588, wl-2230,l-3261, l-3270, l-3272 and arka anand were resistant to bacterial wilt; iihr-7, l-3263, l3268 and l-3269 were found to be moderately resistant. vasse et al (2005) reported that resistance exhibited by various genotypes may be due to the secondary metabolism of polyphenols, and the higher concentration of steroidal glycoalkaloids present in resistant plants, thereby preventing bacterial movement into the vicinity of the plant system (by their action as a repellent). further, prior et al (1994) reported that inhibitor extracts, tyloses and gums in resistant plants act like filters, thereby preventing bacterial movement within a plant system. among the genotypes used in our experiment, arka nidhi, haritha, shwetha, surya, iihr-3, iihr-555, wcgr, r-2588, wl-2230, l-3261, l-3270, l-3272 and arka anand graded as resistant to bacterial wilt, whereas, iihr-7, lj. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):74-78, 2015 evaluation of brinjal genotypes against bacterial wilt 76 table 1. reaction of eggplant genotypes at different stages of plant growth to bacterial wilt pathogen (%) under field conditions sl. genotype days bacterial wilt incidence (%) cumulative disease no. to 50% 0-10 dai 11-20 dai 21-30 dai 31-40 dai 41-50 dai bacterial reaction bacterial wilt wilt incidence at 50 dai (%) 1 arka 5 (12.63) 2.5 (9.09) 5 (12.92) 2.5 (9.09) 0 15.00 (22.73) resistant nidhi 2 haritha 2.5 (9.09) 0 0 12.5 (20.63) 1.66 (4.31) 16.67 (23.93) resistant 3 shwetha 0 0 0 5 (12.92) 0 5.00 (12.92) resistant 4 surya 0 0 0 0.83 (3.03) 1.66 (4.31) 2.50 (7.34) resistant 5 iihr-3 0 0 0 0 2.5 (9.09) 2.50 (9.09) resistant 6 iihr-7 0 0 0 15 (22.59) 10 (18.04) 25.00 (29.91) moderately resistant 7 arka 18 36.04 (36.86) 25 (29.97) 13.63 (21.60) 0.83 (3.03) 12.5 (20.63) 88.00 (70.17) highly shirish susceptible 8 iihr-555 0 0 0 0 20 (26.44) 20.00 (26.44) resistant 9 wcgr 2.5 (9.09) 0 2.5 (9.09) 0 0 5.00 (12.92) resistant 10 r-2580 26 5 (10.45) 25 (29.91) 25 (29.91) 15 (22.59) 2.5 (7.34) 72.50 (58.89) susceptible 11 r-2581 12 35 (36.22) 37.5 (37.74) 7.5 (15.89) 0 2.5 (9.09) 82.50 (65.59) highly susceptible 12 r-2582 24 20 (26.53) 27.5 (31.60) 15 (22.73) 1.66 (4.31) 0 64.17 (53.23) susceptible 13 r-2585 18 27.5 (31.60) 35 (36.26) 20 (26.44) 2.5 (9.09) 0.83 (3.03) 85.83 (68.63) highly susceptible 14 r-2583 15 22.62 (28.36) 33.28 (35.20) 13.79 (21.73) 12.04 (19.19) 0 81.74 (63.94) highly susceptible 15 r-2584 36 0.93 (3.20) 27.59 (31.66) 19.48 (26.15) 5.52 (13.34) 0 53.52 (47.01) moderately susceptible 16 r-2586 50 2.5 (9.09) 15 (22.73) 10 (18.43) 17.33 (24.43) 5 (12.92) 49.83 (44.89) moderately susceptible 17 r-2587 19 7.38 (15.61) 42.62 (40.73) 14.06 (21.97) 0 0 64.06 (53.15) susceptible 18 r-2588 7.5 (15.23) 5 (12.63) 0 0.83 (3.03) 0 13.33 (20.75) resistant 19 r2592 3.57 (6.36) 7.04 (15.29) 21.47 (27.57) 10.23 (18.56) 0 42.33 (40.54) moderately susceptible 20 r-2589 14 35 (36.26) 27.5 (31.60) 15 (22.78) 2.5 (9.09) 1.66 (4.31) 81.67 (64.63) highly susceptible 21 r-2590 16 26.49 (30.93) 23.18 (28.76) 26.49 (30.95) 6.29 (14.40) 5.62(13.36) 88.07 (69.88) highly susceptible 22 r-2591 19 5.29 (13.00) 47.02 (43.27) 8.77 (17.09) 0 14.73(22.50) 75.82 (60.65) susceptible 23 r2593 14 12.5 (20.70) 50.34 (45.17) 9.46 (17.81) 6.08 (14.14) 0 78.38 (62.29) susceptible 24 r2594 30 12.5 (20.63) 25.34 (30.20) 15 (22.78) 15 (22.73) 13.5 (20.63) 81.33 (63.68) highly susceptible 25 l-3261 0 5 (12.63) 0 0 0 5.00 (12.63) resistant 26 r2595 20 38.25 (38.19) 15.75 (23.37) 11.08 (19.23) 1.5 (4.08) 1.85 (4.54) 68.44 (55.84) susceptible 27 wl-2230 0 7.5 (15.74) 5 (12.63) 5 (10.45) 0 17.50 (24.07) resistant 28 wl-2232 18 28.12 (32.05) 35.09 (36.28) 11.25 (19.54) 17.54 (24.72) 0 92.09 (73.78) highly susceptible 29 l-3260 2.9 (9.80) 17.53 (24.71) 0 14.9 (22.65) 11.25(19.39) 46.59 (43.02) moderately susceptible 30 l-3262 5 (12.92) 17.5 (24.68) 10 (18.04) 10 (18.04) 5 (12.63) 47.50 (43.54) moderately susceptible 31 l-3269 2.54 (7.40) 15.4 (23.04) 7.63 (15.88) 0.86 (3.09) 5.03(12.69) 31.46 (34.10) moderately resistant 32 l-3263 5 (12.63) 20 (26.55) 0.83 (3.03) 0 0.83 (3.03) 26.67 (31.07) moderately resistant 33 l-3264 26 22.5 (28.28) 25 (29.97) 5 (12.92) 1.66 (4.31) 0.83 (3.03) 55.00 (47.85) moderately susceptible santhosha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):74-78, 2015 77 3263, l-3268 and l-3269 graded as moderately resistant to bacterial wilt. however, further research is needed to evaluate level of resistance of the genotypes under different agro-climatic zones of the country, to study the stability of resistance to various races of ralstonia solanacearum. acknowledgement santhosha, h.m. is grateful to department of science and technology, govt. of india, new delhi, for awarding inspire fellowship (2010–2013) to pursue this work at college of horticulture (bengaluru campus), university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot references grimault, v. and prior, p. 1990. approach des mecanismes de resistance a fletrissement bactarian (pseudomonas solanacearum e.f. smith) chez la tomato. in: society franchaise de phytopahologie, zenus congress de la sfp, montpellier, pp. 28-30 das, c.r. and chattopadhyay, s.b. 1953. bacterial wilt on eggplant. indian phytopathol., 8:130-135 hayward, a.c. 1991. biology and epidemology of bacterial wilt caused by pseudomonas solanacearum. annu. rev. phytopathol., 29:65-87 hoque, m.o., ho, m.l. and chowdhury, b.c. 1981. screening tomato varieties for resistance to bacterial wilt. bangladesh j. agril. res., 6:55 kelman, a. 1953. the bacterial wilt caused by pseudomonas solanacearum: a literature review and bibliography. north carolina agril. expt. stn. technical bulletin, 99:194-197 prior, p., grimault, v. and schmit, j. 1994. resistance to bacterial wilt (pseudomonas solanacearum) in tomato: present status and prospects. in: hayward, a.c., hartman, g.l., (eds.). bacterial wilt: the disease and its causative agent, pseudomonas solanacearum. cab international, wallingford, 209 p. rai, p.v., shivappasetty, k.k.a. and vasanthasetty, k.p. 1975. bacterial wilt of petunia and its source of inoculum. curr. res., 4:173-174 rao, m.v.b., sohi, h.s. and vijay, o.p. 1976. reaction of some varieties of brinjal to pseudomonas solanacearum. veg. sci., 3:61-64 smith, e.f. 1920. brown rot of pseudomonas solanacearum. an introduction to bacterial diseases table 1. contd... sl. genotype days bacterial wilt incidence (%) cumulative disease no. to 50% 0-10 dai 11-20 dai 21-30 dai 31-40 dai 41-50 dai bacterial reaction bacterial wilt wilt incidence at 50 dai (%) 34 l-3266 42 13.38 (21.42) 26.25 (30.80) 6.52 (14.72) 4.45 (11.84) 2.39 (8.89) 52.99 (46.70) moderately susceptible 35 l-3267 12 27.5 (31.60) 31 (33.81) 0 1.13 (3.54) 0 59.63 (50.55) moderately susceptible 36 l-3268 1.94 (4.64) 14.56 (22.38) 11.58 (19.82) 0 0 28.09 (31.89) moderately resistant 37 l-3270 0 2.5 (9.09) 0 0 0 2.50 (9.09) resistant 38 l-3272 2.5 (9.09) 5 (12.92) 0.83 (3.03) 0 2.5 (9.09) 10.83 (19.18) resistant 39 arka 5 (12.63) 2.5 (9.09) 0 0 0 7.50 (15.74) resistant anand (resistant check) 40 pusa 11 47 (43.26) 38.25 (38.18) 2.56 (7.46) 0 0 87.81 (69.69) highly susceptible hybrid-6 (susceptible check) level of ** ** ** ** ** ** significance sem± 1.14 0.93 1.22 0.93 0.56 2.03 cd @ 5% 3.21 2.64 3.45 2.64 1.58 5.72 cv (%) 12.21 7.35 16.59 18.65 15.66 8.47 dai – days after inoculation; figures in parentheses are angular transformed values j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):74-78, 2015 evaluation of brinjal genotypes against bacterial wilt 78 of plants. w.b. saunder co., phildelphia, u.s.a., pp. 177-201 vasse, j., danoun, s. and trigalet, a. 2005. microscopic studies of root infection in resistant tomato cultivar hawaii 7996. in: allen, c., prior, p. and hayward, a.c. (eds.). bacterial wilt disease and the ralstonia solanacearum species complex. aps press, st. paul, minnesota, usa, 285 p. yabucchi, y., ikuya, y., hisako, h. and yukiko, n, 1995. transfer of two burkholderia and an alacaligenes species to ralstonia genome. microbiol – immunol., 39:897-904 zakir hussain, m., rahman, m.a. and bashar, m.a. 2005. screening of brinjal accessions for bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum. bangladesh j. bot., 34:53-58 (ms received 12 april 2014, revised 18 may 2015, accepted 26 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):74-78, 2015 santhosha et al / . hott. sci. vol. 1 (1): 61-63, 2006 influence of morphological characters on the yield of apricot {prunus armeniaca l.) a statistical approach p. k. mahajan and m. thakur department of basic sciences dr. y. s. parmar university of horticulture & forestry nauni (solan) 173230, india e-mail:pawan_uhf@yahoo.com abstract discriminate analysis was carried out to formulate the categorization rule for allocating the apricot tree to "high yielder group" and "low yielder group". factor analysis method was also applied to extract the basic factors underlying the observed morphological characters of apricot for both the high and low yielder groups. the study brought out five basic factors explaining 69.35% of the total variation in the case of high yielder population and six factors explaining 74.14% of the total variation in the case of low yielder population, respectively. the first factor in both the populations contains the same variables viz. stem girth, number of branches and leaf area which indicate that these variables play an appreciable/significant role in increasing the yield of apricot (21 % in the case of high yielder and 16.33% in the case of low yielder population). key words: apricot, morphological character, yield introduction apricot {prunus armeniaca l.) is an important fruit crop of temperate regions of the world. in india, it is one of the most remunerative fruit crops cultivated in the mid hill zone of himachal pradesh. for improvement in productivity of a crop having enriched qualitative properties, the genetic selection of desirable traits is of utmost importance. impact of morphological characters of a fruit crop on yield is desirable for its crop improvement programme and this can be achieved through multivariate statistical techniques. moore (1965), for the first time, reported the use of multivariate analysis for quantifying yield component interactions in a horticultural crop. ramachander et al (1979) used factor analysis in onion and reported two basic factors representing indices of plant vigour and flowering responsible for increasing the yield of onion. schrevens et al (1995) used principal component analysis. factor analysis and biplots to characterize the quality evaluation of tomatoes during shelf life in relation to specific treatments. in this paper, an attempt has been made to bring out the basic factors (linear combination of morphological characters) contributing significantly towards the yield by using discriminant and factor analyses. the techniques are described in detail in standard statistical books such as anderson (1958) and kendal and stuart (1968). material and methods the data for the present investigation were taken on the 'new castle' variety of apricot, growing in the research farm of the department of pomology of the dr y s parmar university, solan during the year 2003. the optimum sample size (n = 30) of trees was determined by following a two step approach proposed by stein (1945) and cox (1952). thereafter, thirty apricot trees were selected using simple random sampling technique (without replacement) from an orchard having one hundred trees of 25 years old plantation. from each of these thirty trees, four branches were chosen randomly from each of the four directions as per the practice in vogue and observations on the following characters were recorded: xj: number of spurs per branch x^: length of spurs (cm) x3 : number of flowers per branch x^: number of fruits per branch xj : fruit weight (g) x^: stem girth (cm) xg: height of tree x^: number of branches xjg : leaf area (cm) x : spread of tree xg: annual shoot extension growth (cm) discriminate analysis was carried out to define a mailto:pawan_uhf@yahoo.com mahajan and thakur systematic and statistically valid procedure for categorizing the trees as 'low' and 'high' yielder. to bring out the basic factors associated with the above referred morphological characters of apricot, the data of two populations-high yielder (population i) and low yielder (population ii)-were subjected to factor analysis. results and discussion observations were first divided into two groups on the basis of previous year's data. thereafter, a discriminant function was fitted by considering the above referred eleven characteristics and was found to be d = -5.023+0.648x,+0.016x, 4 5 this equation reveals that the characters of fruit weight (xj) and number of fruits (x )̂ play a significant role to discriminate the two groups. to test the statistical hypothesis of no difference in mean vectors {[i^ and î̂ ) of eleven characters for these two groups, the value of wilk's lambda (a) was obtained to be 0.214. in turn, the computed value of chi-square (x^) was 151.887 and hence the hypothesis of equality of group mean vectors was rejected. having found that the groups differ statistically, the table 1. rotated factor matrix population i (high yielder) individuals/trees were assigned to group i (high yielder) if d > m otherwise to group ii (low yielder), where m=0.359 is the average of groups centroids. the groups formed on the basis of this allocation rule were subjected to factor analysis and population wise the results are discussed below: population i (high yielder) the rotated factor matrix and communalities are given in table 1. this table reveals that the first five factors be retained and the sixth factor corresponding to an eigen value x = 0.945 is ignored (guttman's lower bound principle according to which any ^<1 should be ignored). ignoring the non-significant correlations, the orthogonal factors extracted can be expressed as: factor f, = 0 . 7 5 x 5 + 0 . 6 8 x ; q + 0 . 6 1 x , f, = 0 . 7 6 x , + 0 . 7 5 x , f3=0.71x,+0.57xg_+0.51x5 f^ =0.71x2+0.45x7 f5 = 0.58x3+0.39x,+0.35x5 variance explained (% of total) 21.00 14.91 13.90 09.81 09.73 variables number of spurs (x,) length of spur (x )̂ no. of flowers per branch (xj) no. of fruits per branch (x )̂ fruit weight (x^) shoot extension (x )̂ stem girth (x,) height of tree (x^) no. of branches (x,) leaf area (x^^) spread of tree (x,,) eigen values f. 0.545 -0.350 -0.354 0.234 -0.088 0.074 0.613 -0.350 0.748 0.682 0.412 2.310 *variable's highest loading is underlined table 2. rotated factor matrix variables number of spurs (x,) length of spur (x )̂ no. of flowers per branch (x3) no. of fruits per branch (x^) fruit weight (xj) shoot extension (x^) stem girth (x,) height of tree (x^) no. of branches (x,) leaf area (x ĵ) spread of tree (x^^) eigen values f. 0.383 0.243 -0.276 0.066 0.531 0.763 -0.023 -0.465 0.748 -0.181 -0.486 1.640 f, 0.042 -0.205 -0.273 0.719 0.512 0.197 0.043 0.571 -0.346 -0.343 0.376 1529.000 population ii (low yielder) f. 0.316 -0.194 -0.158 0.239 0.105 -0.162 0.715 0.326 0.544 0.781 -0.118 1.796 f, 0.439 -0.018 0.435 -0.099 -0.408 0.100 0.404 0.583 -0.507 0.201 -0.252 1.436 f, 0.350 0.248 -0.113 0.700 0.502 -0.033 -0.106 0.402 -0.100 0.044 0.406 1.396 f. -0.377 0.706 -0.152 0.267 -0.086 -0.054 0.455 -0.177 -0.220 0.214 -0.007 1.079 f. -0.346 0.533 -0.328 -0.060 0.333 0.504 0.430 0.120 -0.168 -0.025 -0.410 1.355 f, -0.389 -0.179 0.575 0.385 0.348 0.014 -0.203 -0.378 0.175 0.259 -0.005 1.069 f, -0.371 -0.445 0.388 0.362 0.269 0.142 -0.139 0.298 0.246 0.007 -0.299 1.122 f. 0.272 0.348 0.108 -0.099 0.388 -0.395 -0.091 -0.229 0.060 -0.339 0.490 0.945 f. 0.118 -0.450 -0.018 -0.197 0.144 0.767 -0.031 -0.078 -0.074 0.142 0.388 1.051 communalities 0.833 0.840 0.930 0.915 0.879 0.847 0.713 0.906 0.875 0.789 0.805 communalities 0.703 0.892 0.919 0.842 0.838 0.911 0.892 0.794 0.660 0.759 0.880 •variable's highest loading is underlined / hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 61-63, 2006 62 morphological characters on the yield of apricot in the present case, the first factor (f,) is a combination of number of branches (x^), leaf area (xĵ ) and stem girth (x^). this factor signifies plant vigor, which indicates the general health of the plant. the second factor (f )̂ is the combination of the annual shoot extension growth (xg) and number of branches (x^). if we ignore the relative low weighting 0.53 of fruit weight, the second factor (f )̂ signifies plant growth. the third factor (f3) is the combination of number of fruits (x^), height of tree (x-^) and fruit weight (x^). this factor signifies yield factor. the fourth factor (f )̂ is the combination of length of spurs (xj) and stem girth (x^). this factor signifies volume and spur of plant and the fifth factor (f^) is combination of fruit weight (x^), number of fruits per branches (x )̂ and number of flowers per branches (x3). this factor may be regarded as fruitfiilness or fruiting. population ii (low yielder) as per eigen values (table 2), six factors extracted along with the contributing variances are given below: factors variance explained (% of total) 16.33 13.05 12.69 12.32 10.20 09.55 f, = 0.78x,„+0.72x^+0.54x5 f^ = 0.58xg+0.44x,+0.43x3 f, = 0.70x,+0.50x, 3 4 5 f, = 0.53x,+0.50x,+0.43x, 4 2 6 7 r = 0.39x,+0.36x, 5 3 4 f = 0.77x,+0.39x„ o o 11 in this case, first factor (fj) is the combination of leaf area (x^ )̂, stem girth (x )̂ and number of branches (x(,). this factor signifies the plant vigour, which indicates the general health of a plant. the second factor (f )̂ may be interpreted as the plant vigour and fruitfulness factor. third factor (fj) is the combination of the number of fruits (x )̂ and weight of fruits (x^). this factor signifies the yield factor. fourth factor (f )̂ is the combination of length of spurs (xj), annual shoot extension growth (x^), stem girth (x )̂ and spread of tree (xj,). this factor signifies the plant growth. fifth factor (f,) is the combination of the number of flower per branch (x3) and number of fruits (x^). it refers to the fruitfulness or fruiting. sixth factor (f^) is the combination of annual extension growth (x )̂ and spread of tree (xj,). this factor again signifies the plant growth. thus, the factor analysis has brought out the basic factors (after ignoring non significant correlations at 5% level of significance) associated with the morphological characters of the apricot for low yielder and high yielder populations. it is evident from the results that in the case of high yielder population stem girth, number of branches and leaf area are the variables that form part of the first factor. this factor accounts for 21 % of the total variation towards yield. the same variables were found to be responsible in forming the first factor which contributes 16.33% of the total variation towards yield in the case of low yield population. similar inference can be drawn from the remaining factors for both populations as detailed in the population wise discussion. it may be added that without resolution of the rotated orthogonal matrix to oblique axis, it would not have been possible to bring out the meaningful factors for apricot. references anderson, t.w. 1958. an introduction to multivariate statistical analysis. john wiley & co., london. 374p. cox, d.r. 1952. estimation of double sampling, biometrika, 39:217-27. kendal, m.g. and stuart, a. 1968. the advanced theory of statistics. vol. iii. charles griffin. moore, c.s. 1965. inter-relations of growth and cropping in apple trees studied by the method of component analysis. j. hort. sci.,. 40:133-49. ramchander, rr., biswas, s.r., singh, d.p. and pathak, c.s. 1979. factor analysis in onion (allium cepa l.). curr. sd.. 48:137. schrevens, e., neyens, k., verreydt, j., baerdemaeker, j.d.e., and portier, k. 1995. quality evaluation of fruit by means of multivariate analysis on nondestructive parameters. acta hort., 379:569-578. stein, c. 1945. a two sample test for a linear hypothesis whose power is independent of the variance. ann. math. statist., 16:243-258. (ms received 15 march 2006 revised 14 july 2006) j. hon sci. vol. 1(1); 61-63, 2006 63 effect of radiation interception and canopy temperature on growth, yield and quality in banana cv. grande naine (aaa) under different planting densities lanuakum, graceli i. yepthomi and c.s. maiti* department of horticulture school of agricultural sciences & rural development nagaland university, medziphema campus, medziphema-797 106, india *e-mail: csmaiti@yahoo.co.in abstract a study was made to test the effect of radiation interception and canopy temperature under different planting densities [t11.5m x 1.5m (4,444 plants/ha); t22m x 2m (2500 plants/ha); t31.5m x 2.5m (2666 plants/ha); t42m x 2.5m (2000 plants/ha); t52.5m x 2.5m (1600 plants/ha)] on growth, yield and quality in banana cv. grande naine. with an increase in planting density, plant height increased significantly. pseudostem was tallest in the closest spacing, viz., 1.5m x 1.5m (t1), and was shortest in the widest spacing, 2.5m x 2.5m (t5). t1 treatment (1.5m x 1.5m) recorded the least average-canopy-temperature (25.80oc/day) from the flowering to the harvest. t5 recorded the maximum average-radiation-interception, with a value of 432.16 lux/8 hr/day; whereas, t1 recorded minimum average-radiation-interception of 219.58 lux/8 hr/day. significant influence of spacing was seen on yield /ha. plants grown under higher density yielded comparatively higher yield (82.65 t/ha) under a spacing of 1.5m x 1.5m (t1). it is thus seen that growth parameters (pseudostem height and number of leaves) and yield/ha in banana was superior at a higher density (1.5m x 1.5m); whereas, in terms of quality of fruit (tss and total sugar content) spacing of 2.5m x 2.5m was superior. this indicates a positive influence of radiation interception and canopy temperature in banana production. key words: banana, grande naine, radiation interception, canopy temperature, high-density planting j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):172-176, 2015 introduction banana is one of the most common fruit crops in the world. its production is more highly industrialized than any other fruit crop. it is a fruit that can be planted any time excepting in the winter months (<10oc temperature), with appropriate spacing. however, choice of the right planting density is very important for bridging the gap between actual yield and potential yield per unit area in banana. effect of planting density on plant canopy temperature and light interception is crucial for vegetative growth, especially during flowering, and up to fruit maturity and harvest. this is so because banana requires abundant solar energy and light; therefore, productivity largely depends on efficient utilization of solar radiation. for optimal harvesting of solar radiation, planting density should be determined judiciously. similarly, canopy temperature in a plantation has significant effect on growth, development and production of individual plants. light is an important factor in fruit production. light plays a role in flower induction and fruit development through carbohydrate synthesis. robinson (2007) opined that radiation transmission to the floor of a plantation can be used as a good indicator of optimal planting density. however, he also concluded that the criterion for radiation transmission to the orchard floor for determining optimal plant density cannot be universal, and needs to be determined for a particular cultivar under locally prevailent conditions. as such, information is inadequate on banana cultivation under foothill conditions of the far-northeastern states of india. feasibility of different planting densities in banana needs to be worked out so that economic yield per unit area can be increased. with this view, the present investigation was made to assess the effect of radiation interception, canopy temperature, and planting density on growth, yield and quality in banana cv. grande naine. material and methods planting material used in the present study consisted of tissue culture banana cv. grande naine, planted at the four-leaf stage, at horticultural experimental farm of sasrd, nagaland university. the site is located at 173 radiation interception and canopy temperature in banana cv. grande naine 25o45’43’’n latitude and 93o53’04’’e longitude at an altitude of 310m above msl at the foothills of nagaland. it enjoys a humid, subtropical climate, with average rainfall ranging from 200cm to 250cm. mean summer temperatures range from 20oc to 35oc, and, the temperature ranges from 8oc to 15oc in the winter months. pits of 60cm3 size were dug at different spacings as per treatments, viz., t11.5m x 1.5m (4,444 plants/ha); t22m‘x 2m (2500 plants/ha); t31.5m x 2.5m (2666 plants/ha); t42m x 2.5 m (2000 plants/ha); and, t52.5m x 2.5m (1600 plants/ha). the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, consisting of five treatments with four replications. five plants from each treatment per replication were selected randomly for observations on various growth parameters. average canopy temperature was recorded (using a multi-functional infrared thermometer) at intervals of five days. average radiation intercepted by the plants was recorded using a digital light meter, calibrated at 20,000 x 10lux, in the morning (10 am) and the afternoon (3 pm) at intervals of five days. observations on yield attributes (inflorescence emergence, days to first bract-splitting, number of hands/bunch, number of fingers/bunch, number of fingers/hand; fruit weight, length of fruit, breadth of fruit, days to maturity, yield/plant and yield/ha) were recorded using standard methods. quality attributes of the fruit (total soluble solids, ascorbic acid, titratable acidity and total sugars) were determined as per aoac, 1984. mean difference and analysis of variance (anova) for the randomized block design were calculated as per panse and sukhatme (1995) to test the level of significance among treatments. all the cultural operations, fertilization, irrigation, etc. were applied as per standard recommendation for banana cultivation. results and discussion growth parameters effect of spacing on plant height was significant (table 1). this is in concordance with findings of mandal and sharma (1999). with increase in plant population (density), plant height increased significantly. pseudostem height was highest in the closest spacing (1.5m x 1.5m) (t1), and was lowest at the widest spacing (2.5m x 2.5m) (t5). results of the present findings are in conformity with observation of several workers (apshara and sathiamoorthy, 1999; nalina et al, 2000; badgujar et al, 2004; kesavan et al, 2002). increase in plant height may primarily be due to mutual shading of plants, resulting in a competitive growth for interception of available light. on the other hand, with increase in plant population (density), pseudostem girth decreased (table 1). this could be due to a competition between the closely-spaced plants for nutrients, moisture and light. noticeable, but not significant, effect of different spacings on length of the petiole at flowering was seen. number of leaves per plant varied significantly under differing planting densities. maximum number of leaves was recorded at a spacing of 1.5m x 1.5m (t1), while the minimum was seen at 2.5m x 2.5m (t5). all high-density treatments resulted in improved vegetative characters such as leaf number (nalina et al, 2000). spacing had little / minimal influence on number of suckers/plant at flowering. however, a slight increase in the number of suckers trended as the spacing increased. shading effect under close planting may have reduced the number of suckers produced, and their growth rate. effect of planting density on canopy temperature and radiation interception average canopy temperature at different densities tended to decrease with higher planting density (table 2). t1 (1.5m x 1.5m) recorded the least average canopytemperature (25.80oc/day) from flowering to the harvest; whereas, t5 (2.5m x 2.5m) recorded maximum average canopy-temperature (28.35oc/day). a similar trend was observed by robinson et al (1993). this may be due primarily to the development of a dense canopy, thereby altering the microclimate (around the canopy), leading to a table 1. effect of plant density on growth and yield in banana treatment pseudostem pseudostem length of no. of no. of fruit fruit fruit yield yield height at circumference petiole at leaves suckers at weight length breadth (kg/plant) (t/ha) flowering (cm) flowering flowering (g) (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) t1 (1.5m x 1.5m) 87.13 27.93 26.23 11.25 3.25 120.25 15.33 12.05 18.60 82.65 t2 (2m x 2m) 79.60 30.00 25.75 11.00 3.50 128.00 16.20 12.15 18.90 47.25 t3 (1.5m x 2.5m) 85.28 28.33 25.98 11.00 3.50 126.25 15.75 12.10 18.65 49.72 t4 (2m x 2.5m) 76.88 30.08 25.65 10.75 3.50 133.00 16.43 12.25 19.13 38.05 t5 (2.5m x 2.5m) 74.90 31.70 24.55 10.25 3.75 142.75 16.73 12.65 22.53 36.04 c.d (p=0.05) 4.42 1.35 ns 0.38 ns 1.67 0.36 0.24 1.36 3.97 ns= non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):172-176, 2015 174 decrease in temperature. the negative, significant association between canopy temperature and various yield and quality attributes seen under different plant densities implies that temperature had a significant role in improving the yield in banana. average radiation-interception by the plant from flowering to harvest was markedly influenced by planting density (table 2). t5 recorded maximum average-radiationinterception (432.16 lux/8 hr/day), whereas t1 recorded the least average-radiation-interception (219.58 lux/8 hr/day). a decrease in average radiation intercepted by the plants may be due to the fact that at closer spacing, light incident at the ground level is low, with increasing size of the plantcanopy and plant age. this finding is also supported by nalina et al (2000) and ajitpal et al (2005). they reported high plant density as having a lower light-transmission-ratio than plants at a wider spacing. on the contrary, thippesha (2008) reported that solar radiation (in terms of light intensity) below the canopy, and percent light-interception by the crop canopy, were higher at higher planting density. morphological and yield traits in banana under various plant densities showed good correlation with the incident solar radiation. flowering and yield attributes t1 resulted in maximum number of days (323.50 days) taken to flowering, compared to t5 (289 days) (table 2). t5 gave maximum fruit weight (142.75g) (table 1). reduction in fruit weight under closer spacing may be a consequence of increasing planting density. it was also observed that plants grown under wider spacing resulted in maximum fruit length as well as maximum fruit breadth (16.73cm & 12.65cm, respectively). t5 also gave the highest yield/plant compared to the other treatments. significant results were obtained on influence of spacing on yield/ha: plants grown under higher population density yielded comparatively higher (82.65 t/ha) under a spacing 1.5m x1.5m (t1). several workers have shown that the highest yield per hectare in banana was obtained at the highest plant density studied (mustaffa, 1988; raveendra et al, 2004). increase in yield with increasing plant density can be ascribed to the higher number of fruits, leading to higher yield. fruit quality attributes fruit quality (tss, ascorbic acid, titratable acidity and sugar content) was significantly affected by planting density (table 3). tss was significantly influenced by plant density. plants under wider spacing (2.5x 2.5m) (t5) had maximum tss (23.73ob) compared to those grown under a closer spacing (1.5x1.5m) (t1) showing tss content of 20.98 ob. this is in concordance with findings of athani and hulamani (2000), and, nalina et al (2003) who reported tss content as decreasing with increasing plant density. experimental evidence confirmed that sugar content and ascorbic acid content in the fruit were significantly affected by plant density (table 3). a similar trend in increase in ascorbic acid content, with increasing plant density, was obtained by mustaffa (1988), and nalina et al (2003), respectively. correlation coefficient for various variables with mean canopy-temperature and average radiationinterception correlation coefficient (table 4) was higher, and either positive or negatively significant, except for number of suckers, bunch weight and tss. this indicated a strong table 2. influence of plant density on canopy temperature, radiation interception and flowering in banana treatment canopy radiation days to days to no. of no. of no. of days to temperature interception inflorescence first bract hands/ fingers/ fingers / maturity (flowering to (flowering to emergence splitting bunch bunch hand harvest) harvest) (oc/day) (lux/8hr/day) t1 (1.5m x 1.5m) 25.80 219.58 323.50 6.00 7.75 139.00 16.75 136.50 t2 (2m x 2m) 27.00 286.89 306.25 5. 25 8.25 147.00 17.25 118.50 t3 (1.5m x 2.5m) 26.70 266.28 312.00 5.50 8.25 146.75 17.25 129.25 t4 (2m x 2.5m) 27.90 385.96 297.25 5.25 8.50 154.74 17.25 110.75 t5 (2.5m x 2.5m) 28.35 432.16 289.75 5.00 8.50 158.25 18.25 101.25 c.d (p=0.05) 0.42 13.16 2.32 ns ns ns ns 2.41 ns= non-significant table 3. effect of planting density on fruit quality in banana treatment total ascorbic acidity total soluble acid (%) sugars solids (mg/100g) (%) (obrix) t1 (1.5m x 1.5m) 20.98 87.50 0.16 3.72 t2 (2m x 2m) 21.28 87.50 0.14 3.81 t3 (1.5m x 2.5m) 21.25 87.50 0.14 3.75 t4 (2m x 2.5m) 21.80 62.50 0.08 4.76 t5 (2.5m x 2.5m) 23.73 50.00 0.06 4.88 c.d (p=0.05) 0.17 17.44 0.02 0.07 lanuakum et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):172-176, 2015 175 association between the various traits studied under the influence of canopy temperature and radiation interception. canopy temperature was significantly and positively associated with number of fingers per bunch, fruit weight and fruit acidity. negative, significant association in traits like plant height, number of leaves and days to inflorescenceemergence was observed with canopy temperature and plant density. a negative association between canopy temperature and various yield attributes implies that temperature and plant density influence yield in banana. most of the economic characters were negatively correlated with the radiation intercepted. for most of the characters studied, the correlation coefficient values were higher, indicating an influence of solar radiation for enhancing various yield and quality attributes, either negatively or positively. number of fingers per bunch, and fruit weight, had a strong and positive correlation with radiation interception. this positive association suggests that influence of solar radiation can help realize higher yields. correlation of radiation interception with plant height, number of leaves, days to inflorescence emergence and fruit acidity were negatively significant, indicateing that plant density and solar radiation influence yield and quality attributes in banana cv. grande naine. table 4. correlation coefficient for various variables with mean canopy temperature and average radiation interception variables correlation correlated coefficient x y mean canopy height of the plant (cm) -0.958** temperature (oc) number of leaves -0.933* number of suckers 0.895*ns days to inflorescence emergence -0.997** number of fingers/bunch 0.995** bunch weight (g) 0.749ns fruit weight (g) 0.963** tss (obrix) -0.487ns acidity (%) 0.951** total sugars (%) -0.862ns average radiation height of the plant (cm) -0.944** interception number of leaves -0.952** (lux/8 hr/day) number of suckers 0.854ns days to inflorescence emergence -0.976** number of fingers/bunch 0.982** bunch weight (g) 0.801ns fruit weight (g) 0.968** tss (o brix) -0.547ns acidity (%) -0.987** total sugars (%) -0.824ns ns: non-significant, *significant at 5%, **significant at 1% it may be concluded that growth parameters (pseudostem height and number of leaves) and yield/ha in banana was superior at a higher density of spacing 1.5m x 1.5m (t1 treatment). in terms of fruit quality, (tss and total sugar content) a spacing of 2.5m x 2.5m (t5) was found superior, which indicated a positive influence of radiationinterception and canopy-temperature in banana production. references a.o.a.c. 1984. official methods of analysis. association of official analytical chemists, 14 th edn., washington d.c., usa ajitpal singh, dhaliwal, g.s. and hundal, s.s. 2005. effect of planting distance on radiation interception behavior of guava (psidium guajava l.) j. agrometeorology, 7:220-224 apshara, s.e. and sathiamoorthy, s. 1999. effect of planting density and spacing on growth and yield of banana cv. nendran (aab). south indian hort., 47:1-3 athani, s.i. and hulamani, n.c. 2000. influence of plant density on quality parameters and yield in rajapuri banana. karnataka j. agril. sci., 13:224-227 badgujar, c.d., dusane, s.m. and deshmukh, s.s. 2004. influence of plant spacing on growth, maturity and yield of grand naine (aaa) banana. south indian hort., 52:13-17 kesavan, v., hill, t. and morris, g. 2002. the effect of plant spacing on growth, cycling time and yield of bananas in sub-tropical western australia. in: procs. int’l. symp. trop. & sub-trop. fruits, cairns, northern territory, australia, 26th nov-1st dec 2000, acta hort., 575:851-857 mandal, b.k. and sharma, s.b. 1999. growth and yield responses of robusta banana (aaa) at high densities. progressive hort., 31:138-143 mustaffa, m.m. 1988. effect of spacing and nitrogen on growth and fruit yield of robusta banana grown under rainfed conditions. south indian hort., 36:228-231 nalina, l., kumar, n. and sathiamoorthy, s. 2003. studies on high-density planting in banana cv. robusta (aaa). ii. influence on bunch and fruit quality traits. indian j. hort., 60:307-311 nalina, l., kumar, n. and sathiamoorthy, s. 2000. effect of high-density planting on light transmission and weed growth in banana cv. robusta (aaa). south indian hort., 48:93-95 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1995. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, india radiation interception and canopy temperature in banana cv. grande naine j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):172-176, 2015 176 raveendra, b.h., amaresh, y.s. and divatar, a.b. 2004. studies on the effect of planting density on crop duration and yield in robusta banana. adv. pl. sci., 17:725-728 robinson, j.c., fraser, c. and eckstein, k. 1993. ultrahigh densities for banana at burgershall. inlighting bulletin no. 252, pp.9-10 robinson, t.l. 2007. effect of tree density and tree shape on apple orchard performance. acta hort., 732:405414 thippesha, d. 2008. effect of high-density planting systems on light interception in banana cv. robusta (aaa) with different levels of nutrition and spacing. envir. & ecol., 26:318-321 (ms received 15 november 2014, revised 06 may 2015, accepted 02 june 2015) lanuakum et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):172-176, 2015 marigold is one of the most popular flowering annuals cultivated in india. it is one of the commonly grown flowers, and is used extensively in religious and social functions in different forms. it has gained popularity among gardeners and flower dealers on account of ease of cultivation. in the recent past, the enterprise has become highly remunerative to traditional floriculture in india on account of various commercial uses of this flower. marigold is often referred to as the versatile crop with golden harvest. flower yield is mainly dependent on the number of flower-bearing, branches which can be manipulated by arresting vertical growth of the plant and by encouraging side shoots to develop, with apical-bud pinching. such side shoots have a better chance of bearing flowers and, in turn, lead to higher flower yield. similarly, application of growth retardants in horticultural crops has a marked broad-range of effects, both morphological and physiological. effect of growth retardants varies with plant species, variety, concentration, method of application, frequency of application and various other short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):109-111, 2015 effect of pinching and growth retardants on growth and flowering in african marigold cv. pusa narangi gainda k. sasikumar, v. baskaran* and k. abirami division of floriculture and landscaping icar-indian agricultural research institute (iari) new delhi – 110012, india *e-mail: vbaski01@gmail.com abstract a study on the effect of pinching and application of growth retardants on growth and flowering in african marigold cv. ‘pusa narangi gainda’ was carried out in the experimental field of division of floriculture and landscaping, indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. treatments comprised pinching, ccc applied at 1000ppm, 1500ppm or 2000ppm, mh at 500ppm, 1500ppm or 2000ppm; b-9 at 500ppm, 750ppm or 1000ppm, and a control (no pinching). ccc at 2000ppm recorded minimum plant height (46.0cm), maximum plant-spread (56.0cm) and maximum number of branches (19.0), whereas, maximum plant height (67.0cm), minimum plant-spread (29.66cm) and minimum number of branches (5.33) were recorded in control (non-pinching). as for flowering and yield, application of ccc at 2000ppm recorded maximum flowering-duration (25.33 days), number of flowers per plant (40), single-flower weight (119.46g), flower yield per plant (408.10g), flower yield per unit area (17.83t/ha) and seed yield per plant (17.80 g), maximum flower diameter (7.93cm) was recorded with application of ccc 2000ppm, whereas, minimum was recorded with pinching (6.2cm). spray of growth retardants enhanced flower yield compared to that in control (no pinching). maximum shelf-life of flower was recorded with ccc 2000ppm (3.66 days), whereas, minimum was recorded with pinching and non-pinching (2.33 days). thus, application of ccc at 2000ppm is superior to other treatments tested for increasing flower yield in marigold. key words: marigold, pinching, non-pinching, growth retardants factors influencing uptake and translocation of nutrients. in view of its importance in commercial flower production, the present investigation was initiated with an objective to develop suitable agro-techniques for enhanced flower production in african marigold cv. pusa narangi gainda. an experiment was conducted at the research farm of division of floriculture and landscaping, icar-indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. eleven treatments were imposed viz., chloremequat chloride (ccc) at 1000ppm (t1), 1500ppm (t2), 2000 ppm (t3); malic hydrazide (mh) at 500ppm (t4), 1000ppm (t5), 1500ppm (t6); alar (b-nine) at 500ppm (t7), 750ppm (t8), 1000ppm (t9); pinching (t10), and non-pinching [control] (t11). the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications. seedlings were transplanted at a spacing of 45cm x 45cm. meristematic bud was pinched three weeks after transplant. freshly-prepared growth retardants were sprayed at different concentrations. the first spray was *present address: central island agricultural research institute (ciari), port blair, andaman and nicobar islands, india 110 applied three weeks after transplanting, while the second spray was scheduled at five weeks after transplanting. five plants were randomly selected in the net plot area and tagged with labels in each treatment to record observation on growth and yield. crop management practices like nutrient irrigation weed management and plant protection measures were included as per requirement of the crop. data on various parameters were recorded and subjected to statistical analysis. data presented in table 1 reveal that pinching and application of different growth retardants at various levels influenced growth, flowering and yield significantly in marigold. the treatments were effective in suppressing plant height compared to control. ccc at 2000ppm recorded minimum plant height (46.0cm), maximum plant-spread (56.0cm) and maximum number of branches (19.0), whereas, maximum plant height (67.0cm), minimum plantspread (29.66cm) and minimum number of branches (5.33) were recorded in the control (non-pinching). these findings are in accordance with jay et al (1991), girwani et al (1990), narayana gowda and jayanthi (1991), and dutta and ramadas (1997) in chrysanthemum. this response may be due to inhibition of ga synthesis and breakdown of apical dominance, thereby resulting in auxin balance and enhanced differentiation of branching caused by ccc, as proposed by ninnemann et al (1964). early flowering (50.33 days) was recorded in non-pinching (control). late flowering was recorded with ccc 2000ppm and mh 1000ppm (66.66 days). these results are in congruence with narayana gowda and jayanthi (1991) and parmar and singh (1989) in chrysanthemum. delay in flowering may have been due to inhibition of ga synthesis. as for flowering and yield parameters, application of ccc at 2000ppm recorded maximum flowering-duration (25.33 days), number of flowers per plant (40), single-flower weight (119.46g), flower yield per plant (408.10g), flower yield per unit area (17.83t/ha) and seed yield per plant (17.80g), whereas, minimum flowering-duration (21 days), flower number per plant (17.0), flower weight (19.55g), flower yield per plant (243.23g), flower yield per unit area (10.03 t/ha) and seed yield (7.33g) were recorded in control (non-pinching). maximum flower diameter (7.93cm) was recorded with ccc at 2000ppm. results of the present study are in agreement with leena et al (1992) in gladiolus, dutta and ramadas (1997) and takuldar and paswan (1994) in chrysanthemum, and, syamal et al (1990) in marigold and china aster. this may probably be due to suppression of apical dominance, resulting in increased number of flowers table 1. effect of pinching and growth retardants on growth and flowering in marigold treatment plant plant no. of days to flowering number of flower single flower flower seed shelf-life height spread branches first duration flowers diameter flower yield per yield per yield per of flower (cm) (cm) per plant flowering per plant (cm) weight plant unit area plant (g) (days) (g) (g) (t/ha) t1-ccc 46.83 50.00 16.67 63.66 22.61 33.33 7.56 101.27 361.66 16.50 15.61 2.00 1000ppm t2-ccc 48.00 50.66 17.00 64.33 24.33 34.33 7.60 104.60 376.10 16.96 16.86 3.00 1500ppm t3-ccc 46.00 56.00 19.00 66.66 25.33 40.00 7.93 119.46 408.10 17.83 17.80 3.66 2000ppm t4-mh 48.00 35.66 14.66 63.66 21.66 26.66 6.63 101.83 350.00 16.53 16.18 3.00 500ppm t5-mh 48.00 44.00 15.66 66.66 22.66 27.33 7.00 107.23 341.03 14.53 16.86 3.33 1000ppm t6-mh 49.00 47.33 17.66 60.00 23.33 30.33 7.46 101.73 345.70 15.03 17.03 2.66 1500ppm t7-b-nine 48.00 37.33 10.66 61.66 22.00 31.33 7.10 94.87 385.46 16.56 17.73 3.00 500ppm t8-b-nine 54.33 39.83 14.00 56.00 22.33 30.00 7.40 98.13 378.90 14.96 17.48 3.00 750ppm t9-b-nine 56.33 44.66 16.33 62.00 22.66 28.33 7.60 104.73 382.43 15.16 16.78 3.00 1000ppm t10-pinching 52.33 34.00 9.33 60.00 23.00 24.00 6.20 93.90 388.30 13.13 13.01 2.33 t11-non 67.00 29.66 5.33 50.33 21.00 17.00 6.23 90.55 243.23 10.03 7.33 2.33 pinching (control) cd (p=0.05) 16.15 6.02 2.96 4.22 2.99 5.31 0.42 10.68 38.91 1.98 0.76 0.75 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):109-111, 2015 sasikumar et al 111 per plant and, ultimately, increased flower yield per hectare. our results clearly showed that spray of growth retardants enhanced flower yield compared to that in control (nonpinching). maximum shelf life of flower was recorded in ccc 2000 ppm (3.66 days) .similar results were obtained by raju dantuluri, (2000) who reported improved shelf life of flowers in asiatic hybrid lily cv. corrida with ccc treatment. the minimum shelf life of flowers was recorded in pinching and non pinching (2.33 days). thus, the present investigation revealed that application of ccc at 2000ppm was superior among the treatments tested for increasing flower yield in marigold. references dutta, j.p. and ramdas, s. 1997. growth and flowering response of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) to growth regulator treatments. orissa j. hort., 25:81-86 girwani, a., srihari babu, r. and chandrasekhar, r. 1990. response of marigold (tagetes erecta) to growth regulators and zinc. indian j. agril. sci., 60:220222 jay holcomb, eorse, d. turkey and mark a. rose 1991. effect of ga on inflorescence in u n i c o n a z o l e treated chrysanthemums. hort. sci., 26:312 leena ravidas, rajeevan, p.k. and val salakumari, p.k. 1992. effect of foliar application of growth regulators on the growth, flowering and corm yield of gladiolus cv. friendship. s. indian hort., 40:329-335 narayana gowda, j.v. and jayanthi, r. 1991. effect of cycocel and maleic hydrazide on growth and flowering of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.). prog. hort., 23:114-118 ninnemann, h., zeevart, j.a.d., kendy, h. and lacy, a. 1964. the plant growth retardant ccc as an inhibitor of gibberellin synthesis in fusarium moniliformae. planta, 61:229-235 parmar, a.s. and singh, s.n. 1989. effect of plant growth regulators on growth and flowering of marigold (tagetes erecta l.). s. indian hort., 31:53-54 raju dantuluri, v.s. 2000. effect of plant growth regulators and disbudding on growth and development of asiatic hybrid lily cv. corrida. m.sc. thesis, indian agricultural research institute, new delhi, 44p syamal, m.m., rajput, c.b.s., upadhyay, r.k. and singh, j.n. 1990. effect of ga3 and mh on growth, flowering and seed yield of marigold and china aster. indian j. hort., 47:439-441 talukdar, m.c. and paswan, l. 1994. effect of ga3 and ccc on growth and flowering of chrysanthemum (dendranthezma grandiflora tzvelev.) cultivar turmvuli. hort. j., 7:141-144 (ms received 08 july 2014, revised 25 may 2015, accepted 29 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):109-111, 2015 factors affecting growth and flowering in african marigold j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 164-171, 2018 screening of probiotic strains for development of readyto -serve probioticated mango beverage k. ranjitha, harinder singh oberoi*, k.k. upreti, k. redappa division of post harvest technology and agricultural engineering, icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india. *email: harinder.oberoi@icar.gov.in; hari_manu@yahoo.com abstract out of the thirteen probiotic strains procured from different sources or isolated from the commercially available sachets, seven isolates showed growth in the ready to serve (rts) mango beverage. among the seven strains, only three strains, i.e., lactobacillus helveticus mtcc 5463, l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 and saccharomyces boulardii showed significant growth in the mango beverage. these three strains were further evaluated for population build-up, physico-chemical and sensory evaluation parameters in the fermented mango beverage. based on the results of sensory scores, minimum threshold population required for classification as probioticated beverage and physico-chemical characteristics, l. helveticus was used for probiotication of the rts mango beverage. mango beverage fermented with l. helveticus mtcc 5463 showed an average score of 7.34 on a hedonic scale of 9 for overall acceptability, had an acidity of 0.29%, sugar concentration of 7.6% and ph of 4.4. probioticated mango beverage also had about 20 and 13% higher phenolics and flavonoids, respectively, compared to uninoculated rts mango beverage. this study has shown that the rts mango beverage inoculated with l. helveticus mtcc 5463 has potential for developing probioticated mango beverage. key words: probiotics, mango beverage, lactobacillius helveticus, non-dairy probiotics; cell population; sensory scores introduction fruit and vegetable beverages are healthy and refreshing foods consumed globally. probiotication is a means for further value addition to these products. probiotics are microbes known to impart health benefits and probiotication refers to fortification of foods with sufficiently high population of probiotics. intake of different probiotic organisms has been shown to have clinical benefits in various physiological or pathological situations. probiotics exert a positive effect on health through modulation of intestinal microbiota and stimulation of immune system. high content of vitamins, mineral salts, dietary fibres and antioxidants together with the absence of competing starter cultures render the fruit beverages as good matrices for the addition of probiotics (antunes et al., 2013; yoon, et al 2005, yoon et al, 2006). development of fruit and vegetable-based probiotic foods also presents a great prospect for the development of low cholesterol, animal derivatives and milk allergens free foods (céspedes, et al, 2013). furthermore, the huge availability of different types of fruits and vegetables in india could permit the production of variety of beverages, satisfying the variety of consumer’s preference. because of their pleasant taste and acceptability among consumers, probioticated fruit juices hold promise in providing health benefits to the consumers in addition to their sensory attributes. research on development of nondairy based products has surged largely, because of the increase in the population of lactose intolerant individuals and allergies associated with the milk based products. india ranks first among the world’s mango producing countries, accounting for 54.2% of the total mangoes produced worldwide (tharanathan et al. 2006). it is the most important commercial fruit crop grown in india with diverse genotypes with a wide variation in the size, shape, peel colour, pulp colour, 164 original research paper 165 strain selection for mango beverage probiotication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 164-171, 2018 ta ste fla vour a nd other physico-chemica l characteristics.  ripe fruits generally are processed into canned and frozen slices, pulp, concentrate, nectar, jam, leather, bars, juices, puree, mango cereal flakes, toffee and various osmo-dried products. however, there is only a limited literature available on development of probioticated fruit beverages (kumar et al 2015; panghal et al 2017; reddy et al 2015). although the probioticated fruit beverages have distinct health benefits mentioned previously, the major impediments in developing probiotic fruit based products are low shelf life of the product even under refrigerated conditions, largely due to r eduction in ph and accumulation of organic acids; typical organic acid flavours generally not appreciated by the consumers and maintenance of the population of probiotic strains. probiotic viability is one of the important factors affecting the maintenance of the desired population levels of the selected probiotic strain. karimi et al (2011) suggested consumption of at least 100 g/ ml of probiotic food so as to achieve a population of 109 cfu per serving. in order to improve the growth and population of the probiotics, researchers have studied the effect of addition of prebiotics, such as oat flour, brewer’s yeast autolysate and cellulose in the fruit juices (perricone et al, 2015). commercially available products from companies like pepsico and danone are generally prepared from the juice concentrates through reconstitution or the mixture of different fruit purees to combat the impediments, mentioned in this paper. therefore, an attempt was made in this study to screen different probiotic strains and evaluate the potential of the screened isolate for development of ready-to-serve (rts) mango beverage. materials and methods sixstrains used in this study (lactobacillus fermentum mtcc1745 , l. brevis mtcc 1750, l. rhamnosus mtcc 1423, l. plantarum mtcc 1407, l. plantarum 9510 and l. fermentum mtcc 8711) were procured from microbial type culture collection (mtcc), imtech, chandigarh, india. the strains were sub-cultured on the medium as per the instructions from imtech, chandigarh. four strains namely, l. helveticus mtcc 5463, l. rhamnosus mtcc 5462, l. rhamnosus mtcc 5945 and l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 were procured from anand agricultural university, anand, gujarat, india. these four strains were maintained on the mrs medium. the yeast strain sacchharomyces boulardii was isolated from a commercial formulation (econorm), while the bacterial strain (bacillus clausii) was isolated form enterogermina sachets purchased from a medical store in bengaluru, india .the contents from the econorm sachet were suspended in the autoclaved yeast extract peptone dextrose (yepd) broth and the inoculum from the broth was plated on to the yepd medium plates, one millilitre from enterogermina vial was suspended into the sterilized nutrient broth and the inoculum was plated on to the nutrient agar medium plates. the broth and the plates used for isolating the yeast and bacterial strain were incubated at 30 °c. all the dehydrated media were procured from hi-media pvt ltd, mumbai, india while all the other chemicals used during analytical work were procured from sisco research laboratories (srl), mumbai, india. preparation of rts mango beverage ready to serve (rts) mango beverage was prepared using the mango pulp . mango pulp was extracted from the sorted, washed, ripe mango fruits (variety alphonso) harvested from the research fields of icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bengaluru, india in june 2018. small cuts were made at the top and bottom and longitudinal cuts were made on either side of the fruit for removal of the stone. the fruits after preliminary operations were subjected to pulping in the pulper having 1 hp motor (dharma technologies, tumkuru, karnataka, india), and the pulp extracted was sieved through 1/16 sieve. subsequently, the kernel along with the pulp adhering to it was subjected to pulping. pulp collected from both the operations was mixed and passed through 1/32 sieve to obtain fine pulp. ready to serve beverage was prepared using 20% pulp with total sugar concentration made to 15% (w/w) using refined sulphur free sugar (madhur sugar obtained from shree renuka sugars ltd, belgaum, karnataka, india) and potable water (treated using reverse osmosis process). initial sugar concentration in the mango pulp was estimated using the lane and eynon method as mentioned by ranganna (1995). acidity in the final beverage was adjusted to 0.2% using citric acid. the beverage was bottled in 200 ml transparent glass bottles which were cleaned with potable water, followed by detergent wash and again potable water wash. the glass bottles with cotton plugs and aluminium foil were suspended in boiling 166 ranjitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 164-171, 2018 water and maintained for 10 minutes in the boiling water. the crowns for the bottles were placed in a beaker which was also immersed in the same crucible as were the glass bottles. the prepared beverage was bottled in the bottles which were crowned a nd pasteurized at 85 °c for 15 minutes, cooled and stored under ambient conditions for the preparation of probiotic beverage. screening of the probiotic strains in order to ensure a uniform colony count before screening, a loopful of inoculum from all the thirteen cultures was suspended in 100 ml pre-sterilized ringer solution in 250-ml conical flasks separately. inoculum (0.1 ml) from each of the flasks was pour plated on to the pre-sterilized media plates aseptically. the flasks after inoculation were stored in the refrigerator. lactobacilli were plated on to the mrs medium plates, while the inoculum fr om the fla sks ha ving saccharomyces and bacillus cultures was plated on to the yepd and na medium plates, respectively. the plates were incubated at 30 °c in an incubator and removed from the incubator after 48h of incubation. colony count from each plate was observed using the colony counter. the strain that showed the least growth was taken as a base and the dilutions were made for the remaining 12 flasks stored in the refrigerator, so that the cfu/ml was nearly same for all the strains. thus, the inoculum from all the conical flasks having ringer solution was equilibrated and used for screening of the strains in rts mango beverage. evaluation of the population dynamics of the probiotic strainsin mango beverage ma ngo bever a ge pr epa red pr eviously a s described elsewhere in this paper was inoculated with 0.2 ml inoculum from each of the stored ringer solution flasks containing the inoculum. absorbance of the inoculated beverage at 600 nm was recorded using uv-vis spectrophotometer (shimadzu, japan) at regular intervals of two days until eight days. for preliminary screening, an increase in od was p os it ively cor r ela ted with t he gr owt h of the organism. the uninoculated mango beverage was treated as control. enumeration of probiotic population in mango beverage out of the 13 strains, only three strains showed an appreciable increase in the od600 values during incubation (mentioned elsewhere in this paper). therefore, the selected three strains based on the increase in od at 600 nm were inoculated into mango juice after equilibration using the procedure mentioned previously @ 104 cells per 200 ml beverage in triplicates. the bottles were incubated at 30 °c. the population build up was monitored at regular intervals until 8 days by serial dilution and pour plating on mrs agar for lactic acid bacteria and yeast extract peptone dextrose agar for saccharomyces boulardii and the colony forming units (cfu) were enumerated after 48 h of incubation. uninoculated mango beverage served as control. sensory analysis of the probioticated rts mango beverage the probioticated beverages which permitted the build up of >108 cfu/ml were tested for their sensory acceptance by a panel of 15 semitrained judges on a 9point hedonic scale. the parameters considered for hedonic ranking were colour, taste, flavour & overall acceptance. biochemical characteristics of probioticated rts mango beverage: the ph of uninoculated juice and probioticated beverages was analyzed using a ph meter (elico ltd, new delhi, india), and total acidity was measured by titrating against 0.1n sodium hydroxide. total sugars were estimated by nelson somogyi method (nelson, 1944). total carotenoids, ferric reducing antioxidant capacity (frap) and total phenols were estimated spectr ophotometr ica lly by sta nda r d methods (ranganna, 1986), benzie & strain, (1996) and singleton & rossi (1965), respectively. results and discussion screening of strains in the rts m ango beverage increase in absorbance is an easy method used traditionally to screen microbial growth in a medium. although seven strains showed an increase in their 167 fig 1. change in absorbance values of mango beverage after inoculation with different probiotic strains j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 164-171, 2018 strain selection for mango beverage probiotication population as is evident from the results of fig.1, only three strains showed an od of 0.15 or above. the remaining six strains did not show any growth even after eight days of incubation. it is therefore clear that out of the thirteen strains used in this study, only three could grown in the rts mango beverage, while all of the thirteen strains earlier had shown population buildup in the selective media. this could largely be due to the (i) acidity build up in the beverage during growth (ii)nutrient limitation and (iii) absence of proper evaluation of population dynamics of the screened strains as mentioned previously, three strains i.e., l. helveticus mtcc 5463, l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 and s. boulardii were inoculated separately in the rts mango beverage. they were evaluated for population build-up, acidity, total sugar concentration and ph in the beverage. it is clear from the results presented in table 1 that l. helveticus, mtcc 5463 and l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 attained a population level of >log 8 cfu/ml on the second day of incubation, while the yeast s. boulardii needed three days to reach a similar population level. different growth potential of bacterial strains to grow in fruit juice media conditions for growth of the cells. it is also evident from fig.1 that there was a steep fall in the od values after four days of incubation. this could be correlated with an increase in the acidity in the beverage or exhaustion of nutrients or both. similar results have been reported previously by brizuela et al (2001). on the basis of the results of fig.1, only three strains, i.e., l. helveticus mtcc 5463, l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 and s. boulardii were used for further studies. has been reported previously and reasons for the difference in levels of survival and growth was attributed to the sensitivity of the strains to natural antimicrobials in plant based foods (sheehan et al. 2007 & sagdic et al 2011) . mango pulp is a rich source of different phytochemicals like phenolics, flavonoids, terpenoids etc (masibo and he, 2009) and phenolics and flavonoids are known for their antimicrobial characteristics. the results in table 2 suggest that the acidity build up in the beverage prepared using l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 a nd s. boulardii wa s substantial in comparison to that in the beverage inoculated with l. helveticus mtcc 5463 after four days of incubation. it is a well established fact that higher acidity and lactic acid odour alter the sensory 168 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 164-171, 2018 ranjitha et al parameters of the beverages. increase in acidity could also be directly correlated with the fall in the ph levels in the beverage. compared to control (uninoculated beverage), drop in the total sugar concentration ranged between 34 and 43% approximately for the three strains evaluated in this study. however, the sugar consumption by the three strains varied by about 9% among the strains (table 2). it is also clear from the results of table 2 tha t the lactobacilli str ains consumed and metabolized sugars more efficiently in comparison to s. boulardii. kumar et al (2015) reported a decrease of more than 40% in total sugar concentration and increase up to 0.66 in acidity levels after 72 h of incubation of mango juice inoculated with l. plantarum ncdc lp 20. it is noteworthy to mention here that the sugar-acid ratio is one of the important parameters having a profound effect on the sensory attributes of any beverage. therefore, it is table 1. population build up of probiotic strains in mango rts beverage strain population (cfu/ml) incubation period (days) 2 4 6 l. helveticus mtcc 5463 8.25±0.21 9.07±0.5 9.1±0.32 l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 10.82± 0.03 10±0.20 10.11±0.12 s.boulardii 53.2±0.21 8.04±0.38 9.36±0.14 values represented are for mean ±sd for n-3 table 2. physico-chemical analysis of mango juice probioticated with two lactobacillus and a s. boulardii strains probiotic strains sensory score ph acidity (% lactic acid) total sugar (%) control 8 4.5±0.2 0.20 (as citric acid) 13.5±0.7 l. helveticus mtcc 5463 8 4.4±0.2 0.29±0.00 7.6±0.2 l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 5 3.2±0.0 1.03±0.08 8.1±1.0 s. boulardii 5 3.4±0.1 0.68±0.03 8.9±0.6 values represented are for mean ±sd for n-3 important to maintain an ideal sugar-acid blend throughout the shelf life of the product for consumer acceptance. the results of our experiment also emphasise the need for a precise strain selection for endurance in fruit media and interaction with the different food matrices. sensory evaluation of the probioticated mango beverage organoleptic quality of a product is the stimulus to popularise a novel product in food market. mango beverage inoculated with s. boulardii showed a typical odour and flavour of ethanol and hence was not liked by any of the panelists. therefore, it was decided to carry out the comparative evaluation of the beverage probioticated with the two lactobacillus strains. the results in table 3 show a significant difference in the overall acceptance parameters among the mango bever a ge pr obiotica ted with two differ ent lactobacillus strains. though the panelists rated both the beverages comparable for the colour, scores for flavour and taste were significantly different. it is clear from the results of table 3 that the organoleptic quality of the beverage prepared using l. helveticus mtcc 5463 was acceptable, whereas, the one prepared using l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 was mor e towar ds una ccepta blity (table 3). better orga noleptic properties may be correlated with a better balanced higher sugar –acid ratio. panghal et al (2017) obtained a score of 7 on a 9 point hedonic scale for probioticated beetroot drink prepared using l. rhamnossus, l. delburcki a nd l. plantarum. ba sed on these observations, it was decided to use l. helveticus mtcc 5463 for probiotication of rts mango beverage. antioxidant properties of the rts mango beverage inoculated with l. helveticus mtcc 5643 were compared with that of the uninoculated beverage. 169 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 164-171, 2018 strain selection for mango beverage probiotication antioxidant properties of the probioticated mango beverage the results of ta ble 4 clear ly indicate a significant increase in the total phenol and flavonoid content in the probioticated mango beverage, compared to control. this could largely be due to the release of phenolics and flavonoids from the dietary fibre present in the complex form in the fruit juices, through the action of secondary metabolites (enzymes) and by the table 3. mean sensory scores for probioticated mango beverage prepared using lactobacilli strain colour flavour taste overall acceptability l. helveticus mtcc 5463 7.38±0.76 7.19±0.90 7.30±0.75 7.34±0.68 l. rhamnosus mtcc 5946 7.42±0.81 5.38±1.32 5.38±1.50 5.65±1.24 s.no. assay control probiotic rts (uninoculated beverage) mango beverage 1. total carotenoids (mg/100ml) 0.23 0.20 2. β-carotene (mg/100ml) 0.20 0.18 3. total phenols (µg/ml) 140.07±3.15 169±2.01 4. flavonoids (µg/ml) 45.81±1.09 51.17±2.02 5. frap (mg/ml) 0.09 0.09 6. dpph  (mg/ml) 0.17 0.15 values represented are for mean ±sd for n-3 table 4. antioxidant properties of mango beverage probioticated with lactobacillus helveticus mtcc 5463 acids produced by the fermenting microbial strains. there have been reports about the production of phenolics by the lactobacillus strains. coupled with the release of phenolic compounds due to the action of enzymes a nd acids as mentioned previously, pr oduction of phenolic compounds by the lactobacillus stra ins could have led to higher concentration of phenolics in the probioticated beverage (table 4). fras et al (2014) reported production of volatile phenolic compounds in red wine inoculated with l. plantarum. a decline in the total carotenoid and βcarotene concentration in the probioticated beverage could be due to their oxida tion a t incuba tion temperatures. chen et al (2018) also reported a decline in the car otenoid and vitamin c content in the probioticated papaya juice. no significant difference in the antioxidant concentration was observed between the control and the probioticated sample as is evident from the frap and dpph values (table 4). mousavi et al (2013) reported a significant increase in the antioxidant values for probioticated pomegranate juice, compared to uninoculated juice. panghal et al (2017) reported an increase in the dpph values in the probioticated beetroot juice. however, chen et al (2008) reported a decline in the antioxidant activity during fermentation with lactobacillus acidophilus, whereas the same authors reported an increase in the antioxidant activity during fermentation with l. plantarum. we are now evaluating the different characteristics of probioticated rts mango beverage during its storage. conclusions this study has shown that inoculation of ready to ser ve ma ngo bever a ge with lactobacillus helveticus mt cc 5463 ha s the potentia l for development of probiotica ted ma ngo beverage. compared to the other probiotic strains used in this study, lactobacillus helveticus mtcc 5463 showed an appreciable population build-up, an insignificant increase in the acidity levels and a good sugar-acid blend in the fermented beverage. mango beverage fermented with the screened l. helveticus strain showed good sensory attributes for colour, taste and 170 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 164-171, 2018 ranjitha et al flavour. in addition to good sensory attributes, fermented beverage showed higher concentration of phenolic compounds and flavonoids after fermentation of the mango beverage, compared to control. further studies are needed to evaluate the shelf life of probioticated mango beverage prepared using l. helveticus mtcc 5463 for cell population, acidity, sugar concentration, phenolic and flavonoid profile during regular intervals during its storage. antunes, a.e.c., liserre, a.m., coelho, a.l.a., menezes, c. r., moreno, i., yotsuyanagi, k. andazambuja, n.c. 2013. acerola nectar with added microencapsulated probiotic. lwt food sci. technol., 54: 125-131 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ozturk, i., cankurt, h. and tornuk, f. 2011. interaction  between  some  phenolic c omp ou nds a nd pr obiotic b a c ter iu m in f u nc t iona l ic e c r ea m p r odu c t ion. fo o d bioproc. techol. 5: 2964–2971. sheehan, v.m.,ross, p. andfitzgerald, g.f. 2007. as s es s ing t he a c id t oler a nc e a nd t he technological robustness of probiotic cultures f or f or t i f ic a t ion in f r u i t ju ic es . innov. food sci.emerg. technol., 8: 279284 singleton, v.l. and rossi, j.a. 1965. colorimetry of totalphenolics with phosphomolybdicphosphotungsticacid reagents. am. j. enol. vitic., 16: 144-158 tharanathan, r.n,, yashoda, h.m. and prabha, t.n. 2006. mango (mangifera indica l.) , “the king of fruits” an overview. food rev int. 22: 95-123 yoon, y.k.,woodams, e.e. and hang, y.d. 2005. fer mentation of beet juice by beneficia l lactic acid bacteria. lebensm.wiss. technol. 38: 73-75. yoon, y.k., woodams, e.e. and hang, y.d. 2006. production of probiotic cabbage juice by lactic acid bacteria. bioresour. technol., 97:1 banana is the leading fruit crop of india at nearly 32.56% of the total fruit production in the country. in india, banana ranks third in terms of area (0.776 million ha) and first in terms of production (26.51 million tonnes) among fruit crops (anon., 2013). banana is a very popular fruit due to its low price, year-round availability, varietal range, taste, medicinal value and nourishment, among all the fruits. in the banana crop, it is essential to induce quick growth and produce more leaves with a larger leaf area. it is a gross feeder of nutrients and responds well to nitrogen and phosphorus. indian soils are deficient in nitrogen (n) and phosphorous (p) and these two plant nutrients, together with organic manure, play an important role in getting good crop returns (datt and sundharam, 2005). dosage and type of nutrient to be applied depends up on the cultivar, inherent soil-fertility, stage of plant growth, climate, etc. a better vegetative growth ensures better bunch development. high fertilization-requirement in banana is due mainly to its rapid and vigorous growth, and high fruit yield. banana as a crop is new to punjab, therefore, requisite information on nutrient influence of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization on fruiting and yield characteristics in ratoon crop of banana (musa spp. aaa) cv. grande naine k.s. navaneethakrishnan, h.s. dhaliwal, m.i.s. gill and j.s. brar department of fruit science, punjab agricultural university ludhiana-141 004, india e-mail: dhaliwal_mandhali@pau.edu abstract in ratoon crop of banana cv. grande naine, date of shooting could be advanced by 35 days with application of 200g n in 5 splits + 60g p2o5 (86 days), compared to 300g n in 5 splits + 60g p2o5 (121 days). subsequently, date of harvest also got advanced by 53 days, and fruits were harvested on 9th december in the same treatment. higher dose of n fertilization delayed shooting and harvesting period, taking 121 days for shooting and 145 days from shooting to harvest in the treatment 300g n (5 split doses) + 90g p2o5. various n and p treatments affected bunch weight and number of hands per bunch significantly. although n and p combination-treatments had no significant effect on bunch weight or number of hands per bunch, application of 200g n in 5 splits and 60g p2o5 per plant gave maximum bunch weight (18.11kg) and number of hands per bunch (10.61). minimum bunch weight (15.37kg) and the least number of hands per bunch (7.08) were obtained with 150g n in 5 splits + 90g p2o5. hand-weight (2.20kg), number of fingers per hand (19.75), and finger length (20.30cm) was highest with application of 200g n in 5 splits + 60g p2o5 per plant. least hand-weight (1.64kg), number of fingers per hand (15.77), and finger-length (17.92cm) was recorded with 150g n in 5 splits + 90g p2o5. bunch weight, number of hands per bunch, hand-weight and number of fingers per hand too was affected significantly with sole application of nitrogen or phosphorus. key words: banana, fertilization, nitrogen, phosphorus, yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):80-82, 2016 short communication management for optimal growth and fruiting needs to be generated. thus, an urgent need was felt for gathering this valuable information for optimal production of banana under the sub-tropical conditions of punjab. therefore, the present investigations were carried out to study the effect of n and p on fruiting and yield characteristics in banana cv. grande naine under punjab conditions. the investigation was carried out at fruit research farm of department of fruit science, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana. nitrogen and phosphorus-containing fertilizers were applied to the ratoon crop of banana cv. grande naine. the plants were subjected to uniform cultural practices, excepting fertilizer treatments. these included two p treatments, viz., 60g and 90g per plant and six n treatments, viz., 150g (5 split doses), 150g (4 split doses), 200g (5 split doses), 250g (4 split doses), 250g (5 split doses), 300g (5 split doses); twelve n and p combinationtreatments were also tested, viz., t1150g n (5 split doses) + 60g p2o5; t2150g n (5 split doses) + 90g p2o5; t3200g 81 effect of n and p fertilizer on yield in banana ratoon crop n (4 split doses) + 60g p2o5; t4200g n (4 split doses) + 90g p2o5; t5200g n (5 split doses) + 60g p2o5; t6200g n (5 split doses) + 90g p2o5; t7250g n (4 split doses) + 60g p2o5; t8250g n (4 split doses) + 90g p2o5; t9250g n (5 split doses) + 60g p2o5; t10250g n (5 split doses) + 90g p2o5; t11300g n (5 split doses) + 60g p2o5; and t12300g n (5 split doses) + 90g p2o5. for supplying nitrogen, urea was applied in four, and five, split doses in the months of may, june, july and august, and, in the months of may, june, july, august and september, respectively. phosphorus was applied in the form of single-super-phosphate at the time of planting, along with farm yard manure. the date of shooting, i.e., the first distinguishing feature between the vegetative and reproductive apex (involving production of the bract primordium with thinner base) was noted in each plant. number of hands per bunch was recorded, and, the average of eight plants was pooled; number of fingers per hand was recorded as an average of three hands selected randomly, i.e., upper, lower and middle, finger length of randomly selected hands was measured with a scale, weight of the 2nd and 3rd hand of the bunch was recorded in kilograms; bunch weight in each plant was recorded and date of harvest noted for each of the experimental plants as per criteria given by dhillon et al (2002). date of shooting was observed to be affected by different doses of n, p and combinations thereof. maximum number of days (121) taken to shooting was recorded in the treatment t12 (300g n in 5 split doses+ 90g p2o5), whereas, it took minimum number of days (86) in the treatment t5 (200g n in 4 split doses + 60g p2o5), thus, there was a delay of 35 days in t12 compared to t5 (table 1). similarly, table 1. effect of various combinations of n and p fertilizers on shooting and date of harvest in the ratoon crop of banana cv. grand naine treatment date of days date of days bunch no. of hand no. of finger-length shooting taken to harvest taken weight hands weight fingers (cm) shooting from (kg) per (kg) per shooting bunch hand to harvest t1-150g n(5 split doses)+60g p2o5 sept.19 98 jan. 3 106 15.88 7.19 1.66 16.51 18.25 t2-150g n(5 split doses)+90g p2o5 sept. 25 104 jan. 6 102 15.37 7.08 1.64 15.77 17.92 t3-200g n(4 split doses)+60g p2o5 sept. 10 89 dec. 14 95 17.57 10.08 2.04 19.19 19.24 t4-200g n(4 split doses)+90g p2o5 sept. 20 98 dec. 24 95 17.17 9.41 2.01 18.80 18.74 t5-200g n(5 split doses)+60g p2o5 sept. 7 86 dec. 9 92 18.11 10.61 2.20 19.75 20.30 t6-200g n(5 split doses)+90g p2o5 sept. 13 91 dec. 19 96 17.65 9.98 2.08 19.40 19.40 t7-250g n(4 split doses)+60g p2o5 sept. 23 102 jan. 5 129 16.83 9.09 1.96 18.14 19.00 t8-250g n(4 split doses)+90g p2o5 oct. 4 114 feb. 22 140 16.51 8.50 1.84 17.92 18.36 t9-250g n(5 split doses)+60g p2o5 oct. 3 113 feb. 23 142 16.08 7.51 1.76 16.98 17.85 t10-250g n(5 split doses)+90g p2o5 oct. 9 112 mar. 4 145 15.79 7.30 1.64 16.07 17.59 t11-300g n(5 split doses)+60g p2o5 oct. 9 119 mar. 2 143 16.42 8.11 1.88 17.74 18.55 t12-300g n (5 split doses) +90g p2o5 oct.11 121 mar. 6 145 16.12 7.62 1.78 17.21 17.98 cd (5%) ns ns ns ns ns table 2. effect of various doses of applied n fertilizer on bunch weight (kg) and number of hands per bunch in the ratoon crop of banana cv. grand naine treatment bunch no. of handno. of fingerweight hands weight fingers length (kg) per (kg) per (cm) bunch hand n1-150g n 15.63 7.13 1.65 16.14 18.08 (5 split doses) n2-150g n 17.37 9.75 2.02 18.99 18.99 (4 split doses) n3-200g n 17.88 10.29 2.14 19.58 19.85 (5 split doses) n4-250g n 16.67 8.80 1.90 18.03 19.68 (4 split doses) n5-250g n 15.93 7.40 1.70 16.52 17.72 (5 split doses) n6-300g n 16.27 7.86 1.83 17.47 18.26 (5 split doses) cd (p=0.05) 0.22 0.35 0.05 0.37 0.37 date of harvest was also affected by fertilizer application. maximum number of days (145) from shooting to harvest was recorded in the treatments t10 and t12 (250g n in 5 splits + 90g p2o5, and 300g n in 5 splits + 90g p2o5, respectively); whereas, harvesting was advanced by 53 days in the treatment in t5 (200g n in 5 splits + 90g p2o5) which took just 92 days to harvest. delay in harvest at higher dose of fertilization may be due to the increased vegetative growth stimulated by n application. however, babu and bujarbaruah (2001) reported that application of n stimulated early shooting and reduced the number of days taken to maturity. sole application of n (table 2) or p (table 3) influenced bunch-weight significantly as also the mean number of hands per bunch; but, in combined application, j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):80-82, 2016 82 these nutrients did not affect bunch-weight or number of hands per bunch significantly. in the case of n treatments, maximum bunch-weight (17.88kg) and number of hands per bunch (10.29) was seen in n3 treatment (200g n in 5 splits), followed by n2 treatment (200g n in 4 splits). similarly, hand-weight, number of fingers per hand, and finger-length were also significantly higher in n3 treatment (200g n in 5 splits). in p treatments, bunch-weight (16.81), number of hands per bunch (8.76), hand-weight (1.92kg) and number of fingers per hand were significantly higher in p1 treatment (60g p2o5), than in p2 (90g p2o5). increased bunch-weight with n application may be attributed to increased growth, consequently more number of fingers per hand and more number of hands per bunch (perhaps due to increased availability of the nutrient at critical stages of growth, which may have enhanced photosynthates that led to accumulation of more carbohydrates and other metabolites, and, ultimately translocation to the fruit tissue) (harold and george, 1960). phosphorus also increased growth and improved the foliar status of the plant, thus enhancing atp formation and providing physiological efficiency. this may indirectly increase the yield (parida et al, 1994). singh and suryanarayana (1999) also reported highest bunch weight, number of hands per bunch and highest number of fingers per hand with application of 200g n per plant in 4 split doses in banana cv. dwarf cavendish. yield-attributing characters like bunch weight, number of hands per bunch and number of fingers per hand markedly increased upon treatment with 300g n, 200g p2o5 and 250g k2o per plant in 5 split applications in banana cv. dwarf table 3. effect of two different doses of applied p fertilizer on handweight (kg), number of fingers per hand, and finger-length (cm) in the ratoon crop of banana cv. grand naine treatment bunch no. of handno. of fingerweight hands weight fingers length (kg) per (kg) per (cm) bunch hand p160g p2o5 16.81 8.76 1.92 18.05 18.86 p2 90g p2o5 16.43 8.31 1.83 17.53 18.33 cd (p=0.05) 0.32 0.02 0.01 0.82 ns cavendish (tirkey et al, 2003). naresh and sharma (2004) also reported an increase in the yield of banana cv. jahajee with application of 240g n. in conclusion, it can be inferred that application of 200g n in 5 split doses (may, june, july, august and september) and 60g p2o5 (in the month of may) per plant in banana cv. grande naine proved was the best among all treatments tested, in terms of bunch formation and fruit yield. references anonymous. 2013. national horticulture board database (www.nhb.gov.in) babu, n. and bujarbaruah, k.m. 2001. effect of nitrogen and potassium on growth and yield of banana. proc. national seminar on sustainable horticulture production in tribal region, ranchi, july 25-26, 2001 dhillon, w.s., kamboj, j.s. and bal, j.s. 2002. maturity indices and harvesting of fruit crops. post harvest handling of fruit and vegetables, pau, ludhian, p. 26 datt, r. and sundharam, k.p.m. 2005. indian economy. naya udyog, 1:529-30 harold, j.e. and george, g.s.1966. role of mineral elements with emphasis on univalent cations. annu. rev. pl. physiol., 17:47-76 naresh, b. and sharma, a. 2004. effect of different nitrogen doses and their split applications on growth, yield and quality of jahajee banana. south indian hort., 52:35-40 parida, g.n., ray, d.p., nath, n. and dora, d.k. 1994. effect of graded levels of npk on growth of robusta banana. indian agri., 83:43-50 singh, d.b. and suryanarayana, m.a. 1999. respone of ‘cavendish’ banana to different nitrogen levels and their split application. j. appl. hort., 1:122-24 tirkey, t., pandey, s.d. and agrawal, s. 2003. studies on the response of nitrogen levels and split application of n, p, k on growth, yield and quality of tissue culture raised banana cv. dwarf cavendish. orrisa j. hort., 31:45-50 navaneethakrishnan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):80-82, 2016 (ms received 19 june 2014, revised 16 november 2015, accepted 08 january 2016) 93 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 93-96, 2020 short communication evaluation of novel gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) hybrids for flower quality traits under polyhouse condition aswath c. and rajiv kumar division of floriculture & medicinal crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, india email : aswath.c@icar.gov.in abstract the present study was carried out to evaluate the performance of two gerbera hybrids iihr15-7 and iihr16-8 along with their parents and a commercial check, for flower quality traits under polyhouse condition in completely randomized block design, during 2016-17 to 2018-19. the hybrids iihr15-7 and iihr16-8 had been developed through the half-sib method of breeding with iihr9 and arka ashwa, respectively, as parents. data for three years were pooled and analyzed statistically. in both hybrids iihr15-7 and iihr16-8, all the quantitative traits were found to be on par with the respective commercial checks. they had novel flower colour (as per rhs colour chart) i.e. nn155a, white group for iihr 15-7 and 65a red purple group for iihr16-8, with semi-double and double forms of flowers, respectively. these hybrids are suitable for cut-flower and flower arrangement purposes. further, these hybrids will be useful for developing new gerbera hybrids with novel traits. key words: cut-flower, evaluation, gerbera, novel hybrids, polyhouse introduction gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.),of the family asteraceae, is one of the important cutflowers grown for domestic and export markets. the total area of floriculture in india is 275000 ha and cut flower production of 783000 mt. gerbera grown under 870 ha with productivity of 21300 t/ha, and stands fourth most important cut flower in india. highest production of gerbera comes from uttarakand with 7.80 (000’ mt), while share of karnataka is 6.2 (000, mt) (anon., 2017). there is a great demand for gerbera, particularly in european markets during the winter season and almost around the year in india. in view of importance of the crop and to bring down the high cost of imported gerbera, two indigenously gerbera hybrids i.e. iihr15-7 and iihr16-8 were developed and evaluated with their parents and commercial check for flower quality traits under polyhouse condition. half sib method of crossing was employed to develop novel gerbera hybrids involving parents iihr9 and arka ashwa during 2014-15 which were crossed with mixed pollen of different varieties. the hybrid seeds thus obtained were raise in vitro. the plants obtained from these single seeds were sub-cultured many times till the sufficient suckers are produced in vitro. the hardened plants were planted in polyhouse with 50% shade for evaluation. two hybrids, iihr15-7 and iihr16-8, were selected on the basis of flower quality traits. both the hybrids, along with their parents and the respective commercial check varieties susan and bismar k, wer e eva lua ted in r eplica ted tr ia l in completely ra ndomized block design under naturally-ventilated polyhouse for three consecutive years 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. observations were recorded on flower diameter (cm), flowerstalk length (cm), flowers talk diameter (mm), number of flowers/plant/month, vase life (days),flower colour from rhs colour chart and flower form. data of three years were pooled and analyzed statistically using opstat. da ta presented in table 1 showed tha t hybr id iihr15-7 found to be on par with parent iihr9 and this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 94 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 93-96, 2020 commercial check susan for flower quality traits. it recorded flower diameter of 11.89 cm, which was on par with the parent iihr9 (11.46 cm), arka ashwa (11.86 cm) and commercial check susan (12.04 cm); flower stalk length (61.39 cm) which was on par with parent iihr9, arka ashwa and commercial check susan; flower stalk diameter (5.79 mm) and number of flowers/plant/month (2.87) recorded were on par with the parent iihr9 (2.43), arka ashwa (2.56) and commercial check susan (2.69). the hybrid iihr 157 recorded vase life of 7.74 days which was also on pa r with the pa r ent iihr9, ar ka ashwa a nd commercial check susan. hybrid iihr 15-7 recorded novel flower colour (rhs colour chart) nn155a, white group, with semi-double form of flowers. kumar (2013), singh et al. (2017) and soni and godara (2017) evaluated ten genotypes under naturally ventilated polyhouse at differ ent locations a nd recommended kyllian, vilassar, partrizia, szantal, feliks and dana ellen for getting better cut flower yield and quality flowers. evaluation of novel gerbera hybrids table 1. evaluation of gerbera hybrid iihr 15-7 with parent and commercial check for flower quality traits under polyhouse (pooled data of three years) hybrid/ flower flower flower no. of vase flower flower genotype diameter stalk stalk flowers/ life colour form (cm) length diameter plant/ (days) (rhs colour (cm) (mm) month chart) iihr15-7 11.89 61.39 5.79 2.87 7.74 white group seminn155a double iihr9 (parent) 11.46 61.19 5.80 2.43 7.29 red purple semigroup 69a double arka ashwa 11.86 61.10 6.64 2.56 7.42 red purple semi(check) group 68d double susan 12.04 62.81 6.62 2.69 7.59 white group semi(commercial nn155c double check) sem± 0.47 0.44 0.38 0.49 0.51 c.d. at 5% ns ns ns ns ns da ta presented in table 2 showed tha t hybr id iihr16-8 also found to be on par with parent arka ashwa and commercial check bismark for flower quality traits.the hybrid iihr 16-8 recorded flower diameter of 12.89 cm,which was on par with its parent arka ashwa (11.86 cm) and the commercial check bismark (12.12 cm); flower stalk length (65.64 cm) was also found to be on par with parent arka ashwa (61.10 cm) and commercial check bismark (62.93 cm); flower stalk diameter (5.77 mm) was on par with pa r ent ar ka ashwa (6. 64 mm) a nd the commercial check bismark (6.21 mm) and, number of flowers/plant/month (2.85) recorded was on par with the parent arka ashwa (2.56) and commercial check bismar k (2. 73). t he hybr id iihr 16-8 recorded vase life of 7.00 days which was also on par with the parent arka ashwa and commercial check bismark. the hybrid iihr16-8 also recorded novel flower colour (rhs colour chart) 65a red purple group, withdouble form of flowers. aswath et al. (2016) also evaluated two novel gerbera hybrids with check for flower quality under naturally ventilated polyhouse. mahender et al. (2017), deepa et al. (2019) and jangde et al. (2019) evaluated different gerbera varieties for flower quality traits and found that cultivars marinella, bonnie, ambra, sciella and fredi recorded more number of flowers per plant under polyhouse condition. on the ba sis of thr ee yea r s of eva lua tion undernaturally-ventilated polyhouse, gerbera hybrids iihr15-7 and iihr 16-8 were found to be promising for novel flowercolour, flower form and flower quality traits. 95 table 2. evaluation of gerbera hybrid iihr 16-8 with parent and commercial check for flower quality traits under polyhouse (pooled data of three years) hybrid/ flower flower flower no. of vase flower flower genotype diameter stalk stalk flowers/ life colour form (cm) length diameter plant/ (days) (rhs colour (cm) (mm) month chart) iihr16-8 12.89 65.64 5.77 2.85 7.00 red purple double group 65a arka ashwa 11.86 61.10 6.64 2.56 7.42 red group semi(parent and group 68d check) bismark 12.12 62.93 6.21 2.73 7.26 red purple semi(commercial 45b double check) sem± 0.50 0.47 0.43 0.41 0.52 c.d. at 5% ns ns ns ns ns j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 93-96, 2020 aswath et al. iihr 16-8 (arka pink)iihr 15-7 (arka white) references anonymous. 2017. area and production statistics of horticultural crops. national horticulture board, new delhi. aswath, c., kumar r., rao, t.m. and dhananjaya, m.v. 2016. evaluation of novel ger ber a (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) hybrids for flower quality traits under naturallyventilated polyhouse. j. hortl. sci., 11(1): 8889. deepa, m.s., sudarshan, g.k. and keerthishankar, k. 2019. eva lua tion of ger ber a (gerbera jamesonii) cultivars for growth, flowering and yield under different growing structure. int. j. chem. stud., 7(1): 1138-1140. jangde, t., sharma, g., jangde, b. and banjara, n.c. 2019. eva lua tion of ger ber a (gerbera jamesonii) cultivars under naturally ventilated polyhouse in chha ttisga r h pla in. j. pharmacogn phytochem., 8(3): 2112-2114. 96 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 93-96, 2020 evaluation of novel gerbera hybrids kumar, r. 2013. evaluation of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) genotypes for flower quality traits under naturally ventilated polyhouse. asian j. hort., 8(2): 680-682. mahender, b., ashwini, d. and sreeja, k. 2017. evaluation of different cultivars of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) under naturally ventilated polyhouse in northern telangana region. agric. update,12(techsear-3): 867-868. singh, p., bhardwaj, a., kumar r. and singh, d. 2017. evaluation of gerbera varieties for yield a nd qua lity under pr otected environment conditions in bihar. int. j. curr. microbiol. app. sci., 6(9): 112-116. soni, s.s. and godara, a.k. 2017. evaluation of ger ber a va r ieties for gr owth a nd flor a l characters grown under greenhouse condition. int. j. curr. microbiol. app. sci., 6(5): 27402745. (received on 12.12.2019 and accepted on 30.05.2020) final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 157 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 157-165, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction dragon fruit (hylocereus sp.) also known as pitaya belongs to the family cactaceae. it has originated from mexico and spread to central and south america (britton and rose, 1963). pitaya is considered a super fruit due to its rich nutraceuticals and high economic value. a variety of colours exist in dragon fruit such as white pulp with red and yellow peel, red and violetred pulp with red peel colour (grimaldo-juarez et al., 2007). the red pulp fruit is rich in betalains which is a natural food colour and an excellent source of antioxidants (le bellec et al., 2006; baker et al., 2013; mello et al., 2015). presently, the area under dragon fruit production is expanding rapidly. vietnam is the leading producer (shares 51% of the world production) of dragon fruit followed by china india produces about 12113 metric tons of dr agon fruit a nnua lly fr om a n ar ea of approximately 3084 ha (merten, 2003; wakchaure et al., 2020). harvesting fruits at their optimum maturity provides the utmost quality to consumers and better profit to growers. fruits should be harvested at an appropriate time and developmental stage for the highest fruit quality. harvesting prior to full maturity is a common pr actice to get a n extended stor age life in the international trade of several fruit crops. this often leads to compromise on the potential quality of the concerned fruit in the interest of trade. although maturity standards exist for dragon fruit, they vary with location and growing conditions. the stage of optimum maturity can be determined using destructive and non-destructive methods. destructive methods include physiochemical and mechanical parameters such as total soluble solids (tss), titratable acidity, and tss: acid ratio. physical parameters such as fruit weight, external peel colour, days after flowering to harvest and specific gravity are extensively used as non-destructive methods for indices of maturity in many fruits (wanitchang and jarimopas, 2008; fawole and opara 2013; kapilan and anpalagan 2015). dragon fruit is a recently introduced crop in india and its demand has been increasing due to its high nutritional and economic values. harvesting fruits at optimum matur ity helps in better post-ha rvest management of fruits. the maturity of fruits depends on edaphic factors such as soil, climate, temperature, rainfall etc. the aim of this study was to understand the growth and development pattern of red and white maturity determination of red and white pulp dragon fruit deep lata1*, narayana c.k.1, karunakaran g.2, sudhakar rao d.v.1 and anuradha sane2 1division of postharvest technology and agriculture engineering, 2division of fruit crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru560089 *corresponding author email: deeplata21@gmail.com abstract there is a huge potential for dragon fruits grown in india but insufficient information may hamper its production and postharvest handling. the aim of this study was to investigate the right harvest time and maturity indices for red and white pulp dragon fruit. growth and developmental studies were undertaken using destructive (total soluble solids (tss), titratable acidity and tss: acid ratio) and non-destructive methods (fruit weight, specific gravity, peel colour and heat units). fruits were collected at seven intervals (7, 14, 21, 26, 31, 36 and 41 days after flowering) to assess the right maturity. all these methods were used to standardize the optimum maturity and right time for the harvest of red and white pulp dragon fruit. harvesting dragon fruits between 31-36 days after flowering (daf) was found ideal for optimum maturity and quality. both red and white pulp fruits harvested at 31 daf showed better quality in terms of physic-chemical and sensory attributes. keywords: dragon fruit, heat units, maturity and physico-chemical properties 158 lata et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 157-165, 2022 pulp dragon fruit for optimum maturity and harvest time in the region of bengaluru, karnataka, india. materials and methods w hit e ( h y l o c e re u s u n d a t u s ) a nd r ed p u lp (hylocereus polyrhizus) dragon fruit cultivars were selected from the experimental block of research f a r m, h ir eh a lli, i c ar i i h r , h es s a r gha t t a , bengaluru, karnataka, india. it is situated at the longitude 77o11’ east and latitude 28o38’ north at an altitude of 845 meters above mean sea level and about 40 km from icar-iihr campus, bengaluru in south india. it falls under a tropical humid climate and is characterized by pleasant summer, moderate rainfall and mild winter. f or t he ex p er iment , f our yea r -old a nd wellmaintained plants were selected. both cultivars were tagged at the time of bud initiation and at flowering. the fruits were harvested between the 7 and 41 days after flowering (daf) from may to june 2019.the fruit samples were collected at 7, 14, 21, 26 , 31, 36 a nd 41 daf to study the ma turity pa tter n. at each interval, fr uits were ha r ves t ed a nd immedia t ely b r ou ght t o t he laboratory for further analysis. collection of weather data weather data for growing conditions were collected fr om the wea ther sta tion of ka r na t a ka st a te natural disaster monitoring centre, yelahanka, bengaluru, karnataka. temperature, rainfall and relative humidity (rh) were taken from1st may to 30th june 2019 for calculating heat units (fig. 1). non-destructive parameters physical parameters such as average days after flowering (daf), fruit weight, specific gravity, and heat units were used for the determination of maturity. weight of each fruit was weighed by electronic balance (sartorius gpa 5202, germany). specific gravity was calculated by measuring the volume of the individual fruit by water displacement method (mohsenin, 1986). degree days accumulated were calculated using following formula given by mcmaster and wilhelm (1997) : degree days = sum of (maximum temperature + minimum temperature) / 2base temperature peel colour of fruits was recorded by colorimeter (minolta rs232c, japan) and represented by ‘l’, ‘a’ and ‘b’ values. the l value represents brightness and its value ranges between 0 (black) to 100 (white). green colour of peel is indicated by negative or smaller value of ‘a’ whereas positive or higher ‘a’ value denotes red colour. the b value represents variations from blue (-b) to yellow (+b). for each colour pa r ameter, two va lues fr om opposite sides of individual fruit were recorded and averaged. redness of peel colour was calculated using l*, a* and b* values as per minolta (2019). redness index was calculated by this formula: destructive parameters physiochemical parameters such as total soluble solids (tss), titratable acidity (ta) and tss: acid ratio was measured by destructive methods. fruits were cut into pieces and then squeezed to extract the juice. juice was used to measure tss through a digital refractometer (atago pal-3, japan). titratable acidity was estimated by juice of white pulp and titrated against 0.1 n naoh till light pink colour a s end point (aoac, 2000). red pulp extract was titrated against 0.1 n naoh till ph 8.1 using microprocessor-based ph system (esico rs232pc, india)(zahid et al., 2012). sensory properties a panel of semi-trained and trained judges was selected for the sensory evaluation. fruits harvested at 31, 36 and 41days intervals were cut into uniform pieces and served for sensory evaluation. different sensory attributes of red and white pulp dragon fruit such as fruit colour, texture or crispiness, taste and fig. 1. weather data (temperature, relative humidity and rainfall) during the study on growth, development and maturity of dragon fruit. 159 maturity determination of dragon fruit overall acceptance were taken using a nine-pointheadonic scale (1 = extremely dislike a nd 9 = extremely like) (stone et al., 2012). statistical analysis data were analysed using software windostat 9.3 version as per factorial randomized block design (frbd) with two factors (colour and interval of harvesting days) having four replication sand eight fruits in each. results and discussion non-destructive parameters growth pattern and days after flowering the growth rate increased rapidly during early stages of fruit development and slowed down after full maturity. both red and white pulp types followed a sigmoid growth pattern (fig. 2). previous studies suggested that both red and white pulp followed a sigmoid growth pattern (nerd et al., 1999; jamaludin et al., 2011; magalhaes et al., 2019). it was observed that 80% of fruit development such as fresh weight and pulp percentage was completed before colour break stage. colour break stage to full red colour stage was found crucial for development of optimum biochemical attributes (tss and acidity). after full red colour development in the peel, variation in fruit shape and size was almost stopped (nerd et al., 1999). in dragon fruit, bud initiation was started from the last week of march and continued till last week of august. both hylocereus spp. required 17-20 days for bud initiation to flowering (table 1). for optimum fruit maturity, red pulp fruits needed 29-31 daf and white pulp needed 31-33 daf. a previous study done by merten (2003) represented immature (23-27 daf), mature (28-30 daf) and over-mature (31-40 daf) stages of dragon fruit in usa condition. similar type of results were found in a study done in thailand (wanitchang et al., 2010). kishore (2016) studied the growth and development of dragon fruit in orissa (bhubaneshwar), india and found that it is a fastgrowing crop and takes only a month for attaining optimum ma tur ity. previous studies ha ve a lso confirmed the similar maturity period of pithaya (to et al., 2002; centurion-yah et al., 2008; martinezchavez, 2011). determination of optimum maturity based on daf was observed as a crucial parameter in many fruit crops (fawole and opara, 2013: patel et al., 2014; kapilan and anpalagan, 2015). heat units heat units denote the heat requirement of fruits for reaching a particular developmental stage during their growth and development (lysiak, 2012; matzneller et al. 2014). the heat units accumulated during the period from flowering to optimum maturity was 731.6 (at 29 daf, data not presented) and 782.2 heat units (31 daf) in red and white pulp types, respectively (table 2). red colour type required lesser heat units for optimum maturity than white pulp fruits. further studies are required as no reports are available on heat units required during optimum maturity of dragon fruit in india or any other country. fruit weight fig. 2. growth curve drawn using fruit weight of dragon fruit harvested at seven intervals (7,14,21,26,31,36 and 41 daf). presented values are mean± sem of four replications. table 1. days required from flower bud emergence to flowering in red and white pulp dragon fruit. days required from bud emergence to flowering red pulp white pulp days after bud emergence 18.02 19.31to flowering se (m)± 0.045 cd (0.05) 0.213 fruit weight of white pulp was more than red pulp fruit at all harvesting intervals. in white pulp, fruit weight increased from116.44 to 467.37 g and in red pulp it was 56.31 to 367.23 g. a considerable increase in fruit weight was noticed up to 31 daf in both red and white pulp. whereas rate of increase in fruit weight was least and almost constant during 36 to 41 days of harvest (table 1).therefore, both colour types j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 157-165, 2022 160 gained optimum fruit weight up to 31 daf and recorded 348.44 g in red pulp and 465.5 g in white pulp type at optimum maturity. many studies have reported a significant increase in fruit weight of dragon fruits and then growth was almost ceased after full maturity (centurion yah et al., 2008; martinez chavez, 2011; ortiz and takahashi, 2015). red pulp fruits had significantly lower fruit weight than white pulp. this result was in accordance with nerd et al. (1999). specific gravity the photosynthates (soluble solids) accumulates from source to sink during growth and development of fruits (zhang et al., 2005). the specific gravity showed a significant difference between colour types and different harvesting intervals (table 2). a sharp increase in specific gravity was recorded till 31 daf and it was almost stable during last intervals of harvest. it was maximum on 31st day for both red and white pulp types1.08 and 1.12 g/ cc, respectively. this finding was in accordance with wanitchang et al., (2010) and fawole and opara, (2013). peel colour the brightness of peel colour was shown by l*value which gradually declined up to full maturity and then somewhat constant at last harvest (table 3). the value of a* ranged from 10 (green colour) at immature stage to 46 (red colour) in over-mature red pulp fruit and 12 (immature) to 38 (over-mature) in white pulp (table 2). the b* value was relatively constant up to 26th daf and suddenly decreased on 31 daf then remained constant till over-mature stage. redness index increased significantly as maturity progressed and found higher at 31 daf and it was at par with 36 and 41 daf. these values indicated that optimum red colour development in peel occurred on 31 daf in both red and white pulp fruits. red pulp fruits had a significantly higher redness index of peel than white pulp fruits (table 3). manifestation of red colour in the peel initiated after 26 days of flowering in both pithaya species. this result was in accordance with centurion yah et al. (2008). both cultivars took 4–5 days to develop full red colour from colour break stage. fruit peel colour was found as a crucial parameter for determining the table 2. changes in fruit weight, specific gravity and heat units during growth and development of dragon fruit harvested at seven days intervals. harvest days fruit weight specific gravity heat units days intervals red pulp white pulp red pulp white pulp red pulp/white pulp 7 56.31 116.44 0.58 0.68 166.85 14 135.04 238.43 0.79 0.79 346.85 21 176.12 252.73 0.87 0.92 534.80 26 231.15 288.74 0.98 1.02 659.40 31 348.44 465.50 1.08 1.12 782.20 36 361.42 468.04 1.10 1.15 897.65 41 367.23 467.37 1.11 1.14 1015.05 c.d. (0.05) colour 28.22 0.025 days 52.78 0.046 colour*days na na s.em± colour 9.83 0.009 days 18.38 0.016 colour*days 26.00 0.023 lata et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 157-165, 2022 161 maturity in plum (usenik et al., 2009), citrus (singh et al., 2017), sweet cherry (chelpinski et al., 2019), tomato (goisser et al., 2020) and apple (pourdarbani et al., 2020). destructive parameters total soluble solids and titratable acidity a significant rise in tss was recorded during fruit maturity (table 4). tss was higher in red pulp than white pulp fruits. tss values ranged from 4.5 to 14.3ob and 4.1 to 13.4ob in red pulp and white pulp fruits during different maturity stages (7 to 41 daf). it remained increasing till optimum maturity and started decreasing during over-mature stages (table4). tss recorded highest on 31 daf in red (14.2ob) and white pulp fruits (13.2ob). rise in tss during maturity indicated that it was a suitable indicator of optimum maturity of dragon fruit (nerd et al., 1999). many studies have reported that tss ranged from 10 to 17ob in differ ent genotypes of dra gon fruits (marquez-guzman et al., 2005; livera-munoz et al., 2010). ta of both hylocereus spp. had likely to increase and reached highest on 26th daf (0.6% in red and 0.7% in white) and then suddenly decreased on 31st day. acidity was constantly decreasing in overmature fruit and reached to a minimum at 41 daf (table 4). optimum acidity (0.23% in red pulp and 0.31% in white pulp) was recorded on 31 daf. the increasing trend of ta before the colour development of immature fruits and then decline in acidity is associated with the commencement of maturity (arevalo-galarza and ortiz-hernandez, 2004;ortiz and takahashi, 2015). the optimum concentration of ta imparts a good flavor and blend in dragon fruit. similar pattern of changes in ta during fruit maturity has been reported in various studies (sornyatha and anprung, 2009; osuna-enciso et al., 2011; kienzle et al., 2011; babu et al., 2017; bakshi et al., 2018). nerd et al. (1999) had found that highest acidity was less than 1% in mature fruits of red and white pulp pithaya. tss: acid ratio for a better palatability, tss: acid ratio of fruits is important. the tss: acid ratio of both red and white pulp dragon fruit exhibited an increasing trend during fruit maturity. tss/acid ratio was lowest at immature stage (18.2 and 12.5) and significantly higher at mature (61.3 and 41.9) and over mature stages (76 and 55) in red and white pulp fruits respectively (table 4). the percentage increase in tss/acid ratio was highest at 31 daf (64 and 69%) in red and white pulp fruits, respectively. at immature stages tss was less and acidity was more while at mature stage it was vice-versa. the higher tss: acid ratio at 31 daf was harvest l* value a* value b* value redness index days intervals red white red white red white red white pulp pulp pulp pulp pulp pulp pulp pulp 7 50.71± 51.18± 10.46± 9.58± 31.18± 32.88± 0.00 0.00 2.51 1.49 1.23 0.30 1.81 1.67 14 47.19± 50.61± 10.96± 10.21± 29.01± 33.89± 4.16± 1.32± 1.21 1.05 0.38 0.76 0.92 0.28 0.12 0.07 21 46.41± 49.28± 12.23± 11.66± 27.73± 31.83± 5.57± 3.01± 0.99 1.45 0.52 0.34 1.22 1.33 0.19 0.11 26 44.73± 48.75± 13.02± 6.37± 29.37± 30.32± 5.89± 4.78± 1.72 1.67 0.83 2.07 1.34 1.93 0.14 0.15 31 36.82± 41.34± 43.70± 36.92± 9.94± 9.94± 40.02± 37.02± 1.73 0.85 3.58 3.32 2.31 0.87 2.06 1.41 36 35.03± 39.51± 44.23± 37.71± 9.79± 10.28± 42.24± 37.93± 1.80 0.89 2.47 1.20 0.71 1.03 1.42 1.33 41 36.88± 37.93± 46.08± 38.08± 9.10± 10.38± 44.13± 38.66± 0.24 0.90 1.78 2.19 0.43 1.45 1.93 2.41 table 3. changes in peel colour (l*, a*, b* value and redness of peel index) during growth and development of dragon fruit harvested at seven days intervals. maturity determination of dragon fruit j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 157-165, 2022 162 a result of decline in acidity and rise in tss (martinez chavez, 2011; osuna-enciso et al., 2011).this result concurred with the findings of centurion-yah et al. (2008), martinez chavez (2011) and ortiz and takahashi(2015). sensory properties the sensory scores given for different attributes such as fruit appearance, pulp colour, texture and taste are summarized in fig. 3. evaluation of sensory quality of red and white pulp dragon fruit indicated that fruits ha rvested on 31 daf ha d ma ximum consumer acceptance followed by 36 daf in both colour types. sensory attributes scored highest at optimum mature stage (31daf) and least at over mature stage (41 daf). sensory properties are important for deciding the optimum maturity of fruits as each attribute is related to fruit quality (shahbaz et al., 2014; taiti et al., 2017). days after flowering (daf) to optimum maturity the optimum maturity was considered to have reached when the incr ementa l fr uit gr owth r a te wa s significantly lower. all the physico-chemical and sensory parameters were considered to calculate the days required from flowering to optimum maturity. red pulp fruits required comparatively less duration for attainment of optimum maturity compared to white pulp. above parameters showed that both colour types needed 31 daf for attaining the optimum maturity. harvest tss (ob) titratable acidity (%) tss: acid ratio days intervals red white red white red white pulp pulp pulp pulp pulp pulp 7 4.55 4.15 0.25 0.33 18.20 12.57 14 5.57 5.15 0.31 0.34 17.96 15.14 21 8.85 7.90 0.43 0.55 20.58 14.36 26 11.56 10.15 0.50 0.62 23.12 16.37 31 14.20 13.20 0.23 0.31 61.30 41.93 36 14.30 13.40 0.20 0.28 68.09 47.85 41 13.70 13.20 0.18 0.24 76.11 55.00 c.d. (0.05) colour 0.12 0.019 3.32 days 0.21 0.036 6.21 colour*days 0.31 0.051 8.78 sem± colour 0.04 0.007 1.16 days 0.08 0.013 2.16 colour*days 0.11 0.018 3.06 table 4. changes in tss, titratable acidity and tss: acid ratio during growth and development of dragon fruit harvested at seven days intervals. fig. 3. changes in fruit colour, texture, taste and overall acceptability during growth and development of dragon fruit harvested at seven days intervals. presented values are mean of fifteen replications. lata et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 157-165, 2022 163 over-mature fruits were prone to cracking, postharvest losses and had lesser shelf life. fruit cracking was more prevalent in red pulp than white pulp fruits. conclusion dragon fruit is an exotic fruit crop having rich nutr aceutical properties. this crop has a great potential in both domestic and export market. harvest at optimum maturity is an important factor for improving quality and shelf life of fruits. results of the study reported that physicochemical parameters were helpful to predict the optimum maturity of red and white pulp dragon fruits. growth and development of both hylocereus spp. followed a sigmoid growth pattern. the results showed that all the parameters were highest or optimum on 31daf in both colour types. red pulp fruits needed comparatively lesser time (29-31 daf) than white pulp fruits (31-33 daf) for optimum maturity. at optimum maturity, tss was higher in red pulp and acidity, fruit weight and specific gravity was higher in white pulp fruits. sensory attributes scored highest in optimum mature fruits (31daf) and lowest in over mature fruits (41 daf). fruit weight, specific gravity, tss, acidity and days after flowering can be used as important maturity indices for determining the optimum maturity of dragon fruit. acknowledgement the authors thankfully acknowledge the icar-indian institute of horticultural research (icar-iihr), outreach campus of indian agricultural research institute, 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(received: 14.01.2022; revised: 19.03.2022; accepted: 21.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf mango (mangifera indica l.) belongs to the family anacardiacea, and is native to the indo-myanmar region (mukherjee, 1953). in india, there exist hundreds of mango cultivars (chadha and pal, 1986), and gujarat figures in the mango belt of the country. in particular, the southern part of gujarat is well-suited for mango cultivation and is home to several indigenous coloured varieties, owing to a favourable tropical climate. today, there is a good demand in international markets for varieties with attractive peel colour. although numerous studies have been conducted on mango in the region, there is dearth of information on coloured mango varieties. these are distinct from each other in terms of gradation, intensity of colour and other attributes (pleguezuelo et al, 2012). in view of the popularity and importance of coloured mango varieties globally, the aim of the present study was to assess physico-chemical and other characteristics of coloured mango fruits, especially, locally grown varieties in south gujarat. this study will help identify suitable parents and potential mango varieties for further evaluation, conservation and utilization in crop improvement programmes. in the long run, this could prove important to guage consumer preference and emerging marketexpectations. the present study was carried out at germplasm evaluation block, regional horticultural research station, short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):94-98, 2015 studies on fruit and yield traits in indigenous coloured varieties of mango (mangifera indica l.) in south gujarat, india h. rymbai1, c.r. patel, t.r. ahlawat, and n.l. patel navsari agricultural university, navsari– 396 450, india e-mail: rymbaihort@gmail.com abstract an investigation on fruit descriptors and yield in twelve mango varieties was conducted under south gujarat conditions. maximum fruit length was recorded in cv. totapuri (16.23cm). vanraj showed the highest values for fruit width (11.67cm), fruit circumference (37.37cm), fruit weight (729g), fruit volume (575.59cm3) and fruit pulp (78.93%). maximum tss (21.20%), acidity (0.42%) and fruit firmness (7.00 rating) was observed in cvs. deshi-1, deshi-3 and makaram, respectively. ‘totapuri’ had maximum total shelf-life (21.33 days), number of fruits per tree (383.00) and fruit yield (236.80kg/tree). the varieties had green to yellow ground-colour of peel. all the varieties had red-blush peel colour, excepting cvs. dadamio, makaram and swarnarekha which were purplish-red. similarly, pulp colour ranged from light yellow to light orange. based on overall performance, cvs. alphonso, deshi-1, deshi-2, kesar, khandesi borasio, totapuri and vanraj proved to be superior to the other varieties. key words: colour, indigenous, varieties, mango aspee college of horticulture and forestry, nau, navsari, during the fruiting season in year 2012. varieties selected for this study were: alphonso, batli, dadamio, deshi-1, deshi-2, deshi-3, kesar, khandesi borasio, makaram, swarnarekha, totapuri and vanraj. age of the trees used in this experiment was 20-30 years. plants were maintained under uniform conditions as per the recommended package of practices of navsari agricultural university. fully mature mango fruits were harvested and collected randomly (as and when the fruits matured on the tree). after uniform ripening at room temperature, 15 fruits per variety were used in the study. fruit description, viz., fruit length, fruit width, fruit circumference, fruit weight and fruit volume were recorded as per standard methods at ready-to-eat, ripe stage. fruit pulp percentage was calculated as per peter et al (2007). total shelf-life was noted under room temperature for both preand post-ripening period in fruits starting with the day of harvest. physiological loss in fruit weight was determined at 3-day intervals using standard formulae and was expressed in percentage (aoac, 1994). fruit firmness was rated as per dus, with rating of low firmness (3), medium (5) and high firmness (7) (dus, 2008). fibre attachment to stone was observed and different ratings were given (dus, 2008). a panel of five judges scored each variety, and the average score was taken as the final rating for the variety. number of fruits per tree was recorded at 95 fruit and yield traits in indian mango varieties harvest. fruit yield in term of kg per tree was obtained by multiplying average fruit-weight with number of fruits per tree. total soluble solids (tss) were determined with a digital hand-refractometer (hi 96801) at three different points on the fruit, i.e., shoulder, middle and distal end of the fruit, after thorough mixing. the values were expressed as percentage (ranganna, 1986). titratable acidity was estimated as per ranganna (1986). fruit parameters, viz., peel and pulp colour, pulp fibre, lenticel density and nature, depth of sinus, fruit shape, fruit apex and depth of fruitstalk cavity, were determined by five judges who used dus guidelines (dus, 2008). the experiment was laid out in randomised block design (rbd), with three replications, with three trees per replication. data on various parameters were analyzed using analysis of variance (anova) employing statistical package for agricultural workers (stat op sheoran). differences among individual means were tested using least significant difference (lsd) test at p< 0.05 level. result showed that physico-chemical characteristics of the fruit were highly significant (p< 0.05) for differences among varieties (table 1). maximum fruit length was observed in cv. totapuri (16.23cm), while this was minimum in deshi-3 (9.43cm). ‘vanraj’ recorded maximum fruit-width (11.67cm), while, cv. makaram recorded the least (7.00cm). fruit circumference was highest in ‘vanraj’ (37.37cm), and lowest in makaram (23.20cm). several workers have reported mango cultivars to differ in fruit length and width, according to their genetic make-up (jilani et al, 2010). highest fruit-weight was recorded in cv. vanraj (729.03g). in contrast, ‘makaram’ had lowest fruit-weight (235.73g). the remaining varieties had fruits ranging in weight from 300 to 363g. maximum fruit volume was noted in ‘vanraj’ (739.33cm3), while, the minimum was recorded in ‘makaram’ (240.00cm3). sarkar et al (2001) also reported variation in fruit-weight among different mango cultivars, which could be due to genetic or physiological factors (uddin et al, 2006). a distinct variation was observed in pulp content in different varieties (table 1). maximum pulp percentage was obtained in ‘vanraj’ (78.93). this is in accordance with kulkarni and rameshwar (1981) among varieties evaluated by them. similarly, pulp colour ranged from light-yellow to light-orange. these findings fall in the range reported by several researchers in mango (sarkar et al, 2001; jilani et al, 2010). fruit-firmness, as indicated in table 2, rated maximum in ‘makaram’ (7.00) and minimum (3.00) in ‘alphonso’. tss content and acidity are also considered as a measure of fruit quality (shafique et al, 2006). tss recorded maximum in cv. deshi-1 (21.20%), and minimum in cv. totapuri (15.63%). highest acidity was recorded in ‘totapuri’ (0.42%), and least in ‘deshi-1’ (0.24%) and kesar (0.25%). variation in chemical constituents among varieties too has been reported by researchers earlier (syed, 2009). data on ripening behaviour in various mango varieties showed highly significant differences (table 2). maximum table 1. fruit and yield descriptors in mango variety pulp colour fruit shape fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit tss acidity number yield length width circumweight volume pulp (%) (%) of fruits (kg/tree) (cm) (cm) ference (g) (cm3) (%) per tree (cm) alphonso medium yellow ovate oblique 10.53 8.30 26.77 331.34 351.00 77.18 19.67 0.27 307.67 113.22 batli light yellow ovate oblong 13.43 7.83 24.60 363.10 378.00 69.12 18.50 0.36 187.67 112.99 dadamio light yellow ovate 10.30 8.70 26.73 358.23 372.67 66.29 17.63 0.38 210.33 124.52 deshi-1 medium yellow ovate 10.93 8.77 24.27 315.90 335.67 76.15 21.20 0.24 329.33 106.07 deshi-2 medium yellow ovate 10.50 8.47 23.70 301.23 312.00 71.43 20.40 0.28 292.33 95.61 deshi-3 light orange ovate 9.43 7.83 24.17 236.27 241.00 64.46 17.50 0.42 108.33 44.78 kesar medium yellow oblong 12.13 7.97 24.80 319.67 326.33 72.23 18.80 0.25 273.33 97.80 khandesi light orange ovate oblong 9.80 7.60 24.23 302.83 340.00 76.30 20.70 0.35 311.67 113.67 borasio makaram medium yellow oblong 12.60 7.00 23.20 235.73 240.00 60.14 16.70 0.37 119.33 45.95 swarnarekha light orange ovate oblong 12.90 9.20 24.77 424.27 458.33 75.36 17.67 0.30 262.67 163.40 totapuri medium yellow oblong with 16.23 9.10 24.53 618.77 630.67 67.91 15.63 0.42 383.00 330.27 pointed tip vanraj medium yellow ovate oblique 15.07 11.67 37.37 729.03 739.33 78.93 17.23 0.33 172.67 399.39 cv 4.51 3.94 4.14 41.21 34.66 3.49 1.61 11.73 6.06 3.86 ± sem 0.32 0.19 0.62 13.96 11.74 1.18 17.00 0.20 3.06 2.03 cd (p=0.05) 0.93 0.57 1.82 6.39 5.15 2.87 0.01 0.07 8.15 5.27 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):94-98, 2015 96 number of days taken to ripen after harvest was observed in ‘totapuri’ (8.67), while this was minimum in ‘vanraj’ and ‘deshi-3’ (4.67). similarly, ‘totapuri’ recorded longest postripening life (12.67 days), the shortest was observed in ‘dadamio’ and ‘deshi-3’ (6.33 days). total post-harvest life significantly higher in ‘totapuri’ (21.33 days), and lowest in ‘deshi-3’ (11.00 days). these finding are in accordance with herianus et al (2003). variation in post-harvest life in mango varieties could be due to their unique genetic make-up. the physiological weight-loss in fruits differed significantly with variety (table 3). at three days after harvest (dah), least physiological weight-loss was noticed in ‘batli’ (5.26%), while maximum weight-loss was recorded in ‘dadamio’ (7.96 %). however, ‘totapuri’ recorded minimum physiological weight-loss. ‘deshi-3’ showed maximum physiological weight-loss at all intervals of observation, with an exception at 3 dah (7.03%). reduction in weight is attributed to physiological loss in weight due to respiration, transpiration of water through the peel tissue and due to other biological changes occurring in the fruit (rathore et al, 2007), depending upon the genetic constitution of variety (rymbai et al, 2014). good appearance of mango fruit has the highest phenotypic acceptability in consumers (uddin et al, 2006). among various varieties, green ground colour of mango peel was observed in cvs. dadamio, makaram and swarnarekha, yellow colour in cvs. alphonso, batli, deshi-1, deshi-2, deshi-3, kesar and totapuri, while, only ‘khandesi borasio’ showed greenish-yellow colour. all the varieties had redblush peel colour, except cvs. dadamio, makaram and swarnarekha, which showed purplish-red colour (table 4). pulp fibre was scarce in cvs. alphonso, deshi-1, deshi-2, kesar, khandesi borasio and totapuri medium in cvs. batli, dadamio, swarnarekha, and abundant in cvs. deshi-3 and makaram. lenticel density ranged from sparse in cvs. alphonso and swarnarekha, to dense in cvs. dadamio, deshi-1, deshi-2, kesar, khandesi borasio and totapuri. cultivars batli, deshi-3 and makaram had medium lenticelsdensity. varieties deshi-1, deshi-2, khandesi borasio and swarnarekha are the only ones with prominent lenticels. sinus was absent in ‘deshi-3’, very shallow in cvs. batli and dadamio, and shallow in all other varieties. fruit in cv. alphonso was ovate-oblique, kesar and makaram cvs. had oblong fruit, batli, khandesi borasio and swarnarekha had ovate-oblong fruits, totapuri fruit was oblong with a pointed tip, and the rest were ovate. fruit apex of all the varieties was obtuse, except in ‘dadamio’ and ‘totapuri’ where it was round and acute, respectively. depth of fruit stalk cavity was shallow in cvs. alphonso, deshi-1, deshi-2 and swarnarekha, but the cavity was absent in all other varieties. variation in external appearance among varieties may be attributed to genetic make-up, as, each genotype is unique. differences in fruit yield among varieties were highly significant (table 1). number of fruits per tree varied from as low as 108.33 in ‘deshi-3’, to as high as 383.00 in ‘totapuri’. eight of the 12 varieties studied had more than table 2. ripening and shelf-life in mango fruits after harvest variety time posttotal fruit taken to ripening postfirmness ripening life harvest (rating) (days) (days) life (days) alphonso 7.67 8.67 16.33 3.00 batli 6.67 7.67 14.33 4.33 dadamio 6.00 6.33 12.33 5.00 deshi-1 5.67 8.00 13.67 3.00 deshi-2 6.67 7.67 14.33 3.67 deshi-3 4.67 6.33 11.00 6.33 kesar 7.33 7.67 15.00 3.00 khandesi borasio 5.33 6.00 11.33 3.00 makaram 5.67 9.00 14.67 7.00 swarnarekha 7.33 7.67 15.00 5.00 totapuri 8.67 12.67 21.33 3.67 vanraj 4.67 6.67 11.33 3.67 cv 11.74 11.38 7.16 2.14 ± sem 0.43 0.51 0.56 0.35 cd. (0.05) 1.27 1.52 1.67 1.06 table 3. physiological weight loss (%) in mango fruits at various intervals after harvest variety 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 dah dah dah dah dah dah dah alphonso 5.87 10.17 14.83 17.03 19.14 batli 5. 26 11.58 16.52 18.40 20.94 dadamio 7.96 14.05 16.82 19.36 23.48 deshi-1 6.07 11.35 15.15 19.50 21.17 deshi-2 7.34 11.72 16.48 19.19 21.06 deshi-3 7.03 15.63 19.06 23.86 25.63 kesar 6.28 11.06 15.15 18.08 19.94 khandesi 6.94 15.20 18.23 21.85 23.74 borasio makaram 5.63 11.67 15.03 17.72 19.57 swarnarekha 6.00 11.38 15.33 17.27 20.13 totapuri 5.66 9.66 13.27 16.07 18.05 18.63 20.05 vanraj 6.47 12.69 18.26 21.72 23.86 cv 0.53 2.45 0.67 1.35 2.69 ± sem 0.02 0.17 0.06 0.15 0.33 c.d. (0.05) 0.06 0.5 0.19 0.44 0.98 dah: days after harvest; (-), not determined, as, 91.67% of varieties lost their post-harvest life, with exception of ‘totapuri’ rymbai et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):94-98, 2015 97 200 fruits per tree. similarly, highest fruit-yield (kg per tree) was recorded in ‘totapuri’ (236.80kg/tree), while, ‘deshi3’ had the lowest yield (25.56 kg/tree). this is in line with findings of sarkar et al (2001). exceptional results obtained in ‘totapuri’ may be attributed to unique genetic features of an individual variety. the present investigation concludes that of the 12 mango varieties studied, fruits of alphonso, deshi-1, deshi2, kesar, khandesi borasio, totapuri and vanraj were superior in various fruit parameters, as well as yield. of these, cvs. deshi-1 and deshi-2 are promising, local genotypes. these varieties can be studied in-depth for further evaluation and use in mango breeding programmes, to help assess consumer preference and emerging marketexpectations. acknowledgement the authors are highly thankful to head, department of fruit science, aspee college of horticulture & forestry, nau, for providing facilities required for the study. references aoac. 1994. association of official analytical chemists. official methods of analysis. 1111 north 19th street, suite 20, 16 edi. arlington, virginia 22209, usa chadha, k.l. and pal, r.n. 1986. mangifera indica l. in: crc handbook of flowering. halevy, a.c. (ed.). crc press, boca raton, florida. vol. 5, pp 211-230 dus. 2008. guidelines for the conduct of test for distinctness, uniformity and stability on mango (mangifera indica l.). protection of plant varieties and farmers’ rights authority (ppv & fra), table 4. secondary descriptors in mango fruits variety peel colour pulp lenticel fruit depth ground blush fibre density nature sinus apex of fruitstalk cavity alphonso yellow red scarce sparse less prominent shallow obtuse shallow batli yellow red medium medium less prominent very shallow obtuse absent dadamio green purplish-red medium dense less prominent very shallow round absent deshi-1 yellow red scarce dense prominent shallow obtuse shallow deshi-2 yellow red scarce dense prominent shallow obtuse shallow deshi-3 yellow red abundant medium less prominent absent obtuse absent kesar yellow red scarce dense less prominent shallow obtuse absent khandesi borasio greenish-yellow red scarce dense prominent shallow obtuse absent makaram green purplish-red abundant medium less prominent shallow obtuse absent swarnarekha green purplish-red medium sparse prominent shallow obtuse shallow totapuri yellow red scarce dense less prominent shallow acute absent vanraj greenish red red medium medium less prominent shallow obtuse shallow government of india, pp. 8-16 herianus, j.d., singh, l.z. and tan, s.c. 2003. aroma volatiles production during fruit ripening of ‘kensington pride’ mango. postharvest biol. & technol., 27:323-336 jilani, m.s., bibi, f., waseem, k. and khan, m.a. 2010. evaluation of physico-chemical characteristics of mango (mangifera indica l.) cultivars grown in d.i. khan. j. agril. res., 48:201-207 kulkarni, v. and rameshwar, a. 1981. biochemical and physical composition of fruits of some important indian mango cultivars. progr. hort., 13:5-8 mukherjee, s.k. 1953. origin, distribution and phylogenetic affinities of the species of mangifera indica l. j. linn. soc., 55:65–73 peter, m., leonard, f., bernard, c., joyce, k., victor, g. and kaswija, m. 2007. physical and chemical characteristics of off-vine ripened mango (mangifera indica l.) fruit (dodo). african j. biotechnol., 6:2477-2483 pleguezuelo, c.r.r., zuazo, v.h.d., fernández, j.l.m. and tarifa, d.f. 2012. physico-chemical quality parameters of mango (mangifera indica l.) fruits grown in a mediterranean subtropical climate (se spain). j. agril. sci. & technol., 14:365-374 ranganna, s. 1986. analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products. tata mcgraw-hill publishing company ltd., new delhi, india, pp. 1111 rathore, h.a., masud, t., sammi, s. and soomro, a.h. 2007. effect of storage on physico-chemical composition and sensory properties in mango (mangifera indica l.) variety dasehari. pakistan j. nutr., 6:143-148 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):94-98, 2015 fruit and yield traits in indian mango varieties 98 rymbai, h., laxman, r.h., dinesh, m.r., john sunoj, v.s., ravishankar, k.v. and jha, a.k. 2014. diversity in leaf morphology and physiological characteristics among mango (mangifera indica) cultivars popular in different agro-climatic regions of india. sci. hort., 176:189–193 sarkar, s.k., gautham, b., neeraja, g. and vijaya, n. 2001. evaluation of mango hybrids under telangana region of andhra pradesh. hort. j., 14:13-21 shafique, m.z., ibrahim, m., helali, m.o.h. and biswas, s.k. 2006. studies on the physiological and biochemical composition of different mango cultivars at various maturity levels. bangladesh j. sci. & indus. res., 41:101-108 syed, s.a. 2009. evaluation of mango cultivars for productive and commercial plantation under punjab conditions of pakistan. acta hort., 820:147-152 uddin, m.z., rahim, m.a., alam, m.a., barman, j.c. and wadud, m.a. 2006. a study on the physical characteristics of some mango germplasms grown in mymensingh condition. int’l. j. sustainable crop prod., 1:33-38 (ms received 03 october 2013, revised 16 april 2015, accepted 22 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):94-98, 2015 rymbai et al focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):107-112, 2014 introduction hybrid cultivars of onion are considered to be superior to open-pollinated varieties due to higher uniformity and expressed heterosis. onion populations possess deleterious recessive alleles, and due to inbreeding depression, breeding lines can be selfed for only up to two or three generations in this biennial crop. thus, with conventional breeding it is difficult to obtain homozygous inbreds for complete genetic and phenotypic uniformity in the resultant hybrid. doubled haploid (dh) production is an alternative strategy for complete homozygosity and phenotypic uniformity to obtain inbred lines in onion (bohanec, 2002). spontaneous development of haploid plants was first described in datura stramonium (blakeslee et al, 1922), followed by tobacco, wheat and several other species (forster et al, 2007). in situ induction of maternal haploids has been possible by pollinating with pollen of the same species (maize), irradiated pollen (cucumber, melon, squash, watermelon, apple, mandarin, blackberry, european plum, sweet cherry, kiwifruit, pear, carnation, rose, petunia, sunflower and nicotiana), pollen from a wild relative (barley, potato), or unrelated species (wheat). induction of in vitro gynogenesis using un-pollinated flower parts has also been successful in several species like cucumber, squash, gerbera, production of doubled haploids in onion: a review a.s. dhatt and prerna thakur department of vegetable science punjab agricultural university, ludhiana -141 004, india e-mail : ajmerdhatt@gmail.com abstract onion suffers from high inbreeding depression and, as a result, inbreds that are developed lack genotypic and phenotypic uniformity. gynogenesis has emerged as a potential strategy to address this drawback. efforts have been made since the 1980s for identifying highly-responsive genotypes and for overall improvement of the protocol for bettering gynogenic frequency in onion. besides improving media composition, identification of responsive explants and increasing the chromosome efficiency has remained a major area of focus over the years. this article purports to review progress made thus far in the induction of gynogenic haploids in onion, and challenges / opportunities associated with it. key words: onion, allium cepa, gynogenesis, haploid, chromosome doubling sunflower, wheat, barley, onion and sugar beet (murovec and bohanec, 2012). haploidy has a great potential in onion breeding, as, hybrids are derived mainly from partial inbred lines. partial inbred lines also require 14-16 years to be developed due to the biennial life cycle of the crop. therefore, induction of di-haploids can greatly reduce the time and resources required for developing inbreds (bohanec et al, 1995). the major factors affecting haploid induction include genotype, physiological condition of donor plants, developmental stage of the gametes (microspores, megaspore), pre-treatment, composition of culture medium, and physical factors during tissue culture (murovec and bohanec, 2012). haploid plants may be obtained from male or female gametic cells. however, species differ in their ability to induce haploids via androgenesis or gynogenesis (bohanec, 2002). it has been observed that response of anther to haploid induction is not successful in onion (keller and korzum, 1996). haploid induction via un-pollinated flowers or ovaries is under practice for the last 20 years, after the first discovery by muren (1989). a high rate of success in onion through gynogenesis was observed by bohanec et al (1995), luthar and bohanec (1999) and bohanec (2009). induction of maternal haploids, called gynogenesis, can be achieved with 108 in vitro culture of various parts from un-pollinated flower such as ovules, placenta with ovules attached, ovaries, or whole flower-buds as discussed hereunder: choice of explant, developmental stage and sterilization-protocol in onion, a large number of anther culture experiments failed to generate haploids (keller and korzun, 1996). however, gynogenic haploid induction could be achieved through culture of un-pollinated ovules/ ovaries/ whole flower-buds (bohanec, 2002). keller (1990) observed that ovule culture was the most laborious and yielded the lowest number of embryo regenerants. therefore, this is no longer used for haploid induction in onion (bohanec, 2002). flower bud culture is the simplest way of inducing gynogenic haploids in onion and has been used in many recent studies by various workers. bohanec (2002) and bohanec and jakse (1999) estimated that extraction of ovaries from pre-cultured flower buds vis-a-vis whole-flower culture required more labour, while, gynogenic response of ovary vis-a-vis flower culture was often similar. also, wholeflower culture was found to have the disadvantage of growth of basal callus (not so in ovary cultures), resulting in production of low-quality haploid embryos. flower culture has been reported to show a possibility of somatic regeneration from callus, though this was genotypedependent. currently, the most efficient method is to plate whole onion flowers, without sub-culture, to induce haploid plants from cells of the female gametophyte (bohanec et al, 2003). according to muren (1989), flower buds 3-5 days prior to anthesis were superior to either older or younger ones. michalik et al (2000) concluded that small young buds of 2.8-3mm length produced significantly fewer embryos than older ones of 3.5-4.5mm length, while displaying genotype specificity. alan et al (2004) collected unopened flowers of all sizes (2-5mm) and separated them into three size groups, viz., small (<2-2.5mm), medium (2.25-4.5mm) and large (>4.5mm) before culturing them in plates. small flower buds responded poorly, whereas medium-sized buds gave the best results. musial et al (2001) reported that in onion, small and large flowers containing megaspore mother cells and mature embryo sacs, respectively, were less responsive than medium-sized flowers having 2-4 nucleate embryo sacs. before placing in culture, flowers were surfacesterilized with 96% ethanol for 1 min, followed by treatment with 10% sodium hypochlorite (60g/dm3 active chlorine) containing a few drops of tween 20 for 15 min, and then rinsed thrice in sterilized water (ponce et al, 2006). bohanec et al (1995) and jakse et al (1996) reported dissecting the flowers, followed by sterilization for 10 min in 5% (v/v) solution of sodium hypochlorite with a few drops of tween 20 added in. rinsing in sterile water followed this, after which the largest unopened flowers were selected and inoculated. geoffriau et al (1997) reported washing of the excised umbel in 96% ethanol for 1 min, sterilization in 0.5% sodium hypochlorite solution for 15 min, and rinsing thrice in sterilized distilled water. pre-treatment the principal benefits of optimizing pre-treatment for stock plants was to eliminate variation arising from external factors, thus maximizing gynogenic responsiveness in cultured flower-buds of onion across its flowering season. pre-treating the stock plant has been shown to significantly affect frequency of gynogenic embryogenesis from whole flower-bud cultures in a range of onion genotypes (puddephat, 1999). stress treatment is the most common factor affecting embryogenesis, where cold or heat shock, or starvation treatments are commonly used. without imposing stress, a change from gametophytic to the sporophytic phase is very difficult. pre-treatments can be applied to different types of explants, with varying severity and duration, resulting in different regeneration efficiencies as well (chen et al, 2010). puddephat et al (1999) observed that pre-conditioning of stock ovaries significantly influenced gynogenic embryogenesis. also, high illumination was found to be beneficial in onion. flower buds excised from stock plants maintained at 15ºc were ten times more responsive than those taken from plants raised under glasshouse conditions, or held at 10ºc. it has been established that lowering donor-plant growth temperature in the final phase/s of flower development improves the efficiency of gynogenesis in edible onion. alan et al (2004) also reported that flower buds (3-5mm) from stalks of plants stored at 10ºc remained responsive to induction of gynogenesis and were comparable to fresh, large flower-buds. bohanec et al (1995) reported the use of parafilm for sealing petri dishes and exposed them to 16-hr light/8-hr dark photoperiod at an illumination of 78µe m-2s-1 at 25±1ºc. jakse et al (1996) exposed sealed petri dishes to 16/8hr photoperiod at 23-25 ºc and illumination of 78 µmol m-2s-1. geoffriau et al (1997) cultured flowers at 20ºc night and 22ºc day temperature under a 16h photoperiod of 100 µmol/s/m2 photosynthetically active radiationpar (400-700 nm) supplied by fluorescent dhatt and thakur j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):107-112, 2014 109 tubes (58w). bohanec and jakse (1999) exposed parafilmsealed petri dishes to 16/8 hr photoperiod at 21-23ºc and 80µmol m-2s-1 illumination. media composition basal mineral composition: the three most-often used combinations of macroand micro-elements have been reported as b5 (gamborg et al, 1968), bds (dunstan and short, 1977) and ms (murashige and skoog, 1962). chen et al (2010) mentioned that organic-nitrogen source, carbohydrates and growth regulators are the most-often modified components. generally, gynogenesis spans two or more stages, and each stage may have distinct nutritional requirements. during induction, ovaries require low levels of growth regulators and are then transferred to a medium with higher concentrations of growth regulators. ponce et al (2006) compared regeneration of gynogenic embryos at gellan-gum concentrations of 7g/dm3 and 3 g/dm3, and, the higher concentration was found to be more effective. bohanec et al (1995) tested a 2-step culture procedure for generating gynogenic plants using flower pre-culture, followed by ovule or ovary culture method of campion and alloni (1990). further, bohanec and jakse (1999) found a single-step culture less time-consuming and three times more efficient than the two-step ovary culture. alan et al (2004) compared the single-step culture (bds medium) and twostep culture (bds/b1 medium) for induction of gynogenic plants, and concluded that, single-step strategy was more convenient for large-scale induction of haploids. use of polyamines: polyamines have been reported as essential for growth and development of living tissues, by ponce et al (2006). martinez et al (2000) showed that putrescine and spermidine induced the onset of embryogenesis in onion and enhanced the number of gynogenic embryos / plantlets obtained. embryo induction was greatest with a combined treatment of 2mm putrescine and 0.1mm spermidine. addition of putrescine alone did not give any significant effect, whereas, use of spermidine after 15 days of culture promoted further embryo maturation and plantlet formation. ebrahimi and zamani (2009) reported production of highest number of gynogenic embryos in media supplemented with 0.01 mm ba, 0.01 mm 2,4-d, 2mm putrescine and 0.1mm spermidine in onion flower buds. ponce et al (2006) found putrescine to be inhibitory at high concentration 0.16g/dm3 in all the genotypes studied. ccc (2-chloroethyltrimethyl ammonium chloride) at a concentration 0.1 g/dm3 was found to increase gynogenic embryo production rate more than thrice when compared to control. genotype-specificity of medium influencing production rate of embryos was also observed. various doses of growth regulators in different media combinations required for successful gynogenesis are tabulated below: growth concentration reference/s regulator/s in induction used medium (mg/l) 2,4-d + bap 2+2 muren,1989; campion et al, 1992; bohanec et al, 1995; jakse et al,1996; geoffriau et al, 1997 iba + bap 2.03+1.25 keller, 1990 tiba+aba 0.2+1 campion and alloni, 1990 2,4-d+bap; 2+0.12,1+0.12 campion et al, 1992 naa+bap paa+bap 100+2 jakseet al, 1996 2,4-d+bap 2+2 jakseet al, 2010; bohanec and jakse, 1999 2,4d+ba+ 0.01mm+ ebrahimi and zamani, 2009 putrescine+ 0.01mm+ spermidine 2mm+0.1mm ba+2,4-d 2+2 puddephat, 1999 growth concentration reference/s regulator/s in regeneration medium (mg/l) 2ip+ iaa, 2+1.5, 2+1 puddephat, 1999 2ip+ naa iba 1 muren, 1989 naa+2,4d+ 1+0.4+1,5+2+2 campion and alloni, 1990 iaa+bap+2ip tdz 2, 2 bohanec et al, 1995; jakse et al, 1996 naa + ga3; 1+1,1+2 campion and alloni, 1990 naa + bap naa+ 2ip 1+2 campion and alloni, 1990; bohanec et al, 1995 iaa+bap; 1,5+2; 1,5+2; campion and alloni, 1990 iaa+2ip; 1,5+1; 0,4+2; iaa+ga3; 0,4+2;1+2+1; 2,4d+bap; 2,4d 1+2+1;2+1+0.2 +2ip; naa+2ip+ aba;naa+ bap+ga3; bap+ga3+tiba iba+bap+ga3 2+0,1,2+3,5 keller, 1990; campion et al, 1992 effect of genotype genetic make-up of donor onion plant and growth conditions play the most important roles to succeed at gynogenesis. theoretically, for haploid induction in onion, a maximum of 600% frequency can be expected. however, in practice, yields are low (bohanec et al, 2001). geoffriau et al (1997) tested variable genetic material from different regions across the world. they found that only two out of production of doubled haploids in onion j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):107-112, 2014 110 18 onion cultivars showed a high gynogenic potential. in a similar study conducted by bohanec and jakse (1999), accessions from europe, japan and north america were analyzed, and they found the highest yield in north american cultivars. very high variability was found among cultivars, and even within inbred lines. michalik et al (2000) reported a maximum of 10% embryo yield in a breeding line out of 11 polish cultivars and 19 breeding lines studied. bohanec and jakse (1999) demonstrated that, crossing responsive with non-responsive onion lines, resulted in increased gynogenic ability in the hybrid progeny. jakse et al (2010) proposed an integrated method, wherein, the final proportion of haploid donors that regenerated dh plantlets doubled at the least, and reached up to 80%. geoffriau et al (1997) reported that among genetic structures, inbreds regenerated significantly better than synthetics. regenerants from inbreds were the most vigorous, whereas, synthetics were confirmed to be good donor material for quality embryos. determination of ploidy level and homozygosity different methods have been used for analyzing ploidy level. chromosome count was performed on root tips (muren, 1989; campion and alloni, 1990; keller, 1990; bohanec et al, 1995; campion et al, 1995) or shoot tip cells (campion et al, 1995). bohanec et al (1995) performed chromosome analysis of root tips by staining in vitro grown hydrolyzed (70ºc, 3 min) root tip cells with acetocarmine (arrested in metaphase with 45mg/ 100ml 8hydroxyquinoline). martinez et al (2000) and ebrahimi and zamani (2009) determined chromosome number in root tip cells obtained from plantlets after treatmentw thn 0.1% colchicine for 3h, fixed in 3:1 ethanol: glacial acetic acid, digested in 1n hcl at 60ºc for 8 min and squashing in 45% acetic acid. for microscopic inspection of the karyotype, root tips were stained with 1% haematoxiline or 2% acetocarmine. flow cytometry using leaf tissue has been a predominant method (cohat, 1994; bohanec et al, 1995; campion et al, 1995; jakse et al, 1996; geoffriau et al, 1997; javornick et al, 1998; bohanec and jakse, 1999; alan, 2004). a protocol for flow cytometry was developed by bohanec et al (1995) and the samples were analyzed on a fac-sort flow cytometer. bohanec and jakse (1999) used this method to analyze ploidy level of regenerants. to release the nuclei, leaves were chopped with a razor blade in 1 ml 0.1m citric acid containing 0.5% tween 20, and the suspension was filtered through 50µm nylon gauze filter. a three-fold volume of dye solution containing 5.25µg/ ml 4,6diamidino-2-phenylindole in 0.4m disodium hydrogen phosphate was added to the filtered suspension. flow cytometry measurements were performed with partec pas-iii flow cytometer equipped with a 100w high-pressure mercury lamp. partec ploidy analyzer was also used for ploidy analysis (anon., 2007). in diploid species, spontaneous diploids are very useful in plant breeding, as, these are more stable than dihaploid generation through haploids treated with colchicines. however, homozygosity of the regenerants needs to be proved (geoffriau et al, 1997). jakse et al (1996) submitted regenerated plantlets to isozyme electrophoretic analysis to establish the frequency of homozygous / heterozygous origin. bohanec et al (1995) used a modified electrophoresis technique, where, approximately 200mg fresh weight of leaf tissue (young leaves sprouted from donor plant bulbs, or, in vitro grown leaves) was crushed in 200µl of extraction buffer consisting of 15% (w/v) sucrose, 50mm tris-hcl (ph 7.1) in 0.5% (v/v) triton x-100. the extract was then centrifuged at 26500x g for 5 min at 4ºc; the supernatant was immediately loaded onto the gel. stacking gel (2cm) consisted of 24.6 g/l acrylamide and 6.15g/l bisacrylamide, 4.0g/l triton x-100, 0.7g/l ammonium persulphate, 0.6ml/l temed in 0.07m tris (ph 7.8); and, the resolving gel consisted of 57.8g/l acrylamide and 2.2g/l bisacrylamide, 0.37g/l ammonium persulphate, 0.37ml/l temed, 2.0g/l triton x-100 in 0.07m tris (ph 7.8). as electrode buffer, 1g/l tris and 5.52 g/l barbitone (ph 7.3) was used. electrophoresis was carried out at 10ºc for 3h at a constant voltage of 225 v. this method was used again by bohanec and jakse (1999), who had used another method of rapd analysis earlier (bohanec et al, 1995). genome-doubling procedures the spontaneous doubling of gynogenic plants is a rare event in the bulb-onion (bohanec, 2002). the major problem in genome doubling in onion is inaccessibility of the apical meristem of adult field-grown plants. therefore, chromosome doubling of haploid onion plantlets should be attempted during in vitro propagation. jakse et al (2003) mentioned that an efficient method for chromosome doubling should take into account survival rate and chromosomedoubling efficiency. alan et al (2004) studied various parameters in chromosome doubling experiments with 100400mg/l dose of colchicine, in liquid and solid media, for 24 and 48 hours. for high rate of recovery of diploids, exposure of basal explants from 2-4 month old in vitro haploid plants to 200-400 mg/l colchicine in liquid medium for 48h was dhatt and thakur j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):107-112, 2014 111 suggested, wherein, 10% survival of explants with apm (amiprofos-methyl) treatment was reported. geoffriau et al (1997) compared the efficiency of colchicine and oryzalin, and the best results were obtained with either 2.5mm colchicine (up to 65.7% diploids) or 50µm oryzalin (up to 57.1% diploids). both the chemicals induced mixoploids and affected plant regeneration, but better plant-quality was obtained with oryzalin. grzebelus et al (2004) reported oryzalin, trifluralin and apm as better agents than colchicine for in vitro chromosome doubling in onion tissue. however, apm is recommended due to its low toxicity. bohanec and jakse (1997) tested the effect of oryzalin and colchicine on halved basal shoots. diploidization with oryzalin (67%) was better than with colchicine (21%). jakse et al (2003) reported that the 2-day treatment in liquid media supplemented with 50µm apm gave the highest percentage of diploids (36.7%), but the survival rate was reduced to 52.5% that in the non-treated control. alan et al (2007) compared the efficiencies of three antimitotic agents (apm, colchicine and oryzalin) and recommended apm (100 or 150µm) due to its low toxicity and ability to yield results comparable to that with colchicine (750 or 1000µm). thus, it can be concluded that complete homozygosity through dh approach can be attained in less time than traditional 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(ed.). intech, europe, p87-106 musial, k., bohanec, b. and przywara, l. 2001. embryological study on gynogenesis in onion (allium cepa l.). sex. pl. repr., 13:335-41 ponce, m., martinez, l. and galmarini, c. 2006. influence of ccc, putrescine and gellan gum concentration on gynogenic embryo induction in allium cepa. biol. plant., 50:425-428 puddephat, i.j., robinson, h.t., smith, b.m. and lynn, j. 1999. influence of stock plant pre-treatment on gynogenic embryo induction from flower buds of onion. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 57:145-148 (ms received 28 january 2014, revised 01 may 2014, accepted 17 june 2014) dhatt and thakur j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):107-112, 2014 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction jasmine (jasminum spp.) is one of the remuneratively prized and significant traditional flower crops of india. it belongs to the family oleaceae and is one of the aromatic flowers cultivated since times immemorial and is considered as the most revered flower in our country for its attractive and fragrant flowers. jasmine flowers are popularly used in preparation of garlands, hair adornments for women, used in religious and ceremonial occasion and also for extracting perfumery oil (sanchita et al., 2018) which is used in the cosmetic and perfumery industries. india is the largest exporter of jasmine oil in the world accounting for over 40 per cent of total world export. it has extensive application in aromatherapy as jasmine fragrance is effective in treating depression, nervous exhaustion and stress. it is also widely used in the medicinal and pharmaceutical industries (green and miller, 2009). exceptional increase in the consumption of jasmine flowers by the indian population settled in middle east countries and the united states of america has led to the augmentative export demand for flower strings of j. sambac (jawaharlal et al., 2012). the genus jasminum is reported to comprise of around 200 species (bailey 1958). the commercially cultivated jasmine species in tamil nadu, karnataka, andhra pradesh, uttar pradesh and some parts of bihar and west bengal are j. sambac, j. grandiflorum, j. auriculatum and j. multiflorum. exclusive of these commercially important species, lesser-known species namely, j. nitidum, j. calophyllum and j. flexile also acquire economic importance as they produce flowers which are suitable for use as loose flower, besides being ideal garden plants (raman, 1969; ganga et al., 2015). hybridization leads to the development of new adaptive traits allowing the expansion of new habitats (johnston et al., 2004), fitness enhancement (burke et al., 1998), or the origin of new hybrid lineages impact of pollination strategies on fruit set and fruit growth attributes in jasmine usha s.1*, ganga m.1, rajamani k.2, manonmani s.2 and gnanam r.3 1 department of floriculture and landscape architecture, 2 centre for plant breeding and genetics, 3 centre for plant molecular biology and biotechnology, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003, tamil nadu, india corresponding author e-mail: usha.annapoorna@gmail.com abstract jasmine occupies predominant position among the flower crops in india in terms of area, production and productivity. the demand for jasmine flowers is growing day by day owing to its wide range of uses and there is a pressing need for improving the crop by exploring strategies to evolve diverse genotypes. the present study focuses on the hybridization of jasminum spp with the objective of introgression of desirable traits that would aid in creation of wider genetic variability. pollination is the basis in any hybridization programme. the main aim of this research study was to determine the suitable pollination methods among self, open and cross pollination and to assess the effect of the pollination methods on the fruit set and fruit characteristics. the results of the study revealed that the overall response of j. auriculatum was found effective with maximum fruit set percentage. j. auriculatum cv parimullai yielded the highest fruit set of 76.43% under open pollination and the least fruit set rate of 2.14% under self-pollination. among the possible cross combination involving j. auriculatum and j. grandiflorum cultivars as seed parents with various pollen parents, j. flexile showed considerable results. cross combination of j. auriculatum x j. flexile recorded maximum fruit set revealing best cross compatibility while crosses involving j. sambac resulted in no fruit set indicating the prevalence of fertilization barriers that hinder hybridization. keywords: fruit set, fruit growth, jasmine and pollination 74 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 (grant, 1981; arnold, 1997). hybridization can also reinforce reproductive bar riers through natural selection for conspecific gene flow (arnold, 1992), the creation of stable hybrid zones (barton and hewitt, 1985), or the for mation of introgressive ra ces. hybridization is not the general outcome whenever congeneric species come into contact because there often are preand post-mating barriers that prevent hybridization. pollination is the result of pollen being transferred from the anther to the stigma of another flower. landing of pollen on stigma is no guarantee for seedset. failure of fertilization after self-pollination in selfsterile or self-incompatible plants may also be due to the inability of the pollen to germinate on its own stigma. pollination in many crops has manifested a major influence on the number of fruit set, fruit length, fruit girth and fruit shape (nirmalaruban et al., 2020). jasmine varieties released till date are only clonal selections and mutants. hence there is a dire necessity to evolve hybrids in jasmine using commercial and under-utilized species. prior attempts at hybridization ha ve fa iled beca use of the compa tibility a nd fertilization barriers present among the species. considering the above, the present study focuses on the method of pollination and its potency on fruit set in jasmine. materials and methods the study was carried out at the department of floriculture and landscape architecture, horticultural college a nd resea r ch institute, ta mil na du agricultural university, coimbatore during 20192021. ten-year-old plants of j. auriculatum cultivars co. 1 mullai, co.2 mulla i, pa rimullai a nd j. grandiflorum cultivars co.1 pitchi and co.2 pitchi wer e selected as female pa r ent a nd ja sminum genotypes like j. auriculatum cv co.1 mullai, j. grandiflorum cv co. 1 pitchi, j. sambac, j. multiflorum, j. nitidum, j. calophyllum and j. flexile were used as the pollen source. the experimental layout was a complete randomized design with three replications of each crossing combination. the pollen from the previously bagged flowers was collected from the male parents during 6:00 to 8:00 am in the morning of the succeeding day. similarly in the female parent, fully opened flowers and mature buds at pre anthesis stage were emasculated between 7.00 to 10.00 am. the pollen collected from the pollen source was dusted on the stigmatic surface of the respective emasculated female parent and the flowers were bagged with butter paper cover and then labelled. for the self-pollination treatment hundred flowering shoots were randomly selected on the plants and one third of the flowering bunches were bagged without any emasculation. the remaining flowering shoots (five per plant) were tagged and the flower bunches on each shoot were thinned to five buds (approx. 24 h before anthesis) for open pollination the flowers were left untreated without any bagging. the observations on days to fruit initiation, fruit set percentage, duration of fruit retention, shape of the fruit, colour of the fruit, fruit intensity and season of fruit set were recorded. colour was assessed for each fruit using rhs colour chart. for the analysis of embryo viability, the longitudinally dissected fruits were treated with 2, 3, 5 triphenyl tetrazolium chloride and after 3 hours of incubation the stained embryos were examined for viability. fruit set and fruit quality characters were evaluated by variance analysis using spss 28.0 software. results and discussion evaluation of the best possible cross combination with the varied method of pollination is the base factor that decides the success of a hybridization programme. the method of pollination plays a significant role in the fruit set of the plant and is influenced by various factors such as morphology of the flower, pollen-pistil interaction, nutrients and environmental parameters. as observed from the data (table 1), among the possible cross combinations of pollen parents with completely opened flowers of j. auriculatum cultivars, the cultivar co.1 mullai as female parent recorded good response with male parent j. flexile by recording the earliest fruit set (38 dap), highest number of fruits set at 60 dap (52), fruit set at maturity (31), highest fruit set (38.75%) and maximum fruit retention in the plant (30 days). similarly, co.2 mullai produced best results as female parent when crossed with j. flexile with maximum fruit set (46.25%) but recorded delayed fruit set (47 days). the cultivar parimullai as female parent also responded with j. flexile as pollen parent showing maximum fruit set of 48.75% and the duration of fruit retention clocked up to 33 days. the results furnished (table 1) signify the best cross combination for the bud pollination of j. auriculatum cultivars with various pollen parents. co.1 and co.2 mullai as female parents exhibited best results with usha et al 75 h an d po lli na ti on o f co m pl et el y op en f lo w er s b ud p ol lin at io n c o .1 m ul la i m al e pa re nt n o. o f in it ia ti on n o. o f n o. o f f ru it d ur at io n n o. o f in it ia ti on n o. o f n o. o f f ru it d ur at io n fl ow er s of f ru it fr ui ts fr ui ts se t of f ru it bu ds of f ru it fr ui ts s et fr ui ts se t of f ru it po lli na te d se t (d a p ) se t at at (% ) re te nt io n p ol lin at ed se t (d a p ) at 6 0 at (% ) re te nt io n 60 m at ur it y (d ay s) d a p m at ur it y (d ay s) d a p j. g ra nd ifl or um 11 5 45 93 28 24 .3 4 24 12 5 36 11 4 62 49 .6 0 32 cv . c o .1 pi tc hi j. s am ba c 60 10 0 j. m ul tif lo ru m 10 0 52 79 34 34 .1 0 30 15 0 32 12 3 52 34 .6 7 30 j. n iti du m 15 0 38 83 38 25 .3 4 24 15 0 36 11 9 58 38 .6 7 35 j. c al op hy llu m 10 0 46 64 27 27 .1 0 28 80 30 68 33 41 .2 5 30 j. f le xi le 80 38 52 31 38 .7 5 30 80 37 72 42 52 .5 0 32 c o .2 m ul la i j. g ra nd ifl or um 11 5 41 96 25 21 .7 3 27 12 5 38 11 8 67 53 .6 1 33 cv .c o .1 pi tc hi j. s am ba c 60 10 0 j. m ul tif lo ru m 10 0 55 82 36 36 .1 0 28 15 0 30 13 4 56 37 .3 4 32 j. n iti du m 15 0 49 86 40 26 .6 7 24 15 0 38 12 9 63 42 .1 3 35 j. c al op hy llu m 10 0 41 66 28 28 .1 0 30 80 32 74 38 47 .5 0 30 j. f le xi le 80 47 54 37 46 .2 5 30 80 39 78 45 56 .2 5 33 p ar im ul la i j. g ra nd ifl or um 11 5 48 10 2 27 23 .4 7 29 12 5 34 11 6 73 58 .4 0 35 cv . c o .1 pi tc hi j. s am ba c 60 10 0 j. m ul tif lo ru m 10 0 55 87 38 38 .1 0 30 15 0 30 12 7 61 40 .6 7 34 j. n iti du m 15 0 40 92 43 28 .6 7 25 15 0 34 12 2 68 45 .3 4 38 j. c al op hy llu m 10 0 49 70 30 30 .1 0 32 80 29 74 31 38 .7 5 32 j. f le xi le 80 41 57 39 48 .7 5 33 80 35 70 42 52 .5 0 35 ta bl e 1. i nt er s pe ci fic o f j. a ur ic ul at um c ul tiv ar s w ith v ar io us p ol le n pa re nt s j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 impact of pollination strategies on fruit set and fruit growth attributes in jasmine 76 h an d po lli na ti on o f co m pl et el y op en f lo w er s b ud p ol lin at io n c o .1 p it ch i m al e pa re nt n o. o f in it ia ti on n o. o f n o. o f f ru it d ur at io n n o. o f in it ia ti on n o. o f n o. o f f ru it d ur at io n fl ow er s of f ru it fr ui ts fr ui ts ` = se t of f ru it bu ds of f ru it fr ui ts s et fr ui ts se t of f ru it po lli na te d se t (d a p ) se t at at (% ) re te nt io n p ol lin at ed se t (d a p ) at 6 0 at (% ) re te nt io n 60 m at ur it y (d ay s) d a p m at ur it y (d ay s) d a p (m al fo rm ed ) j. au ri cu la tu m cv . 13 5 22 10 6 98 72 .5 9 48 15 0 25 13 8 12 4 82 .6 7 51 c o .1 m ul la i j. s am ba c 10 0 10 0 j. m ul tif lo ru m 15 0 34 13 7 11 8 57 .3 4 52 15 0 32 13 3 12 5 83 .3 4 57 j. n iti du m 12 0 28 93 86 76 .6 7 39 15 0 24 12 7 11 4 76 .1 2 45 j. c al op hy llu m 80 25 62 43 53 .7 5 41 80 24 67 57 71 .2 5 47 j. f le xi le 80 22 71 64 80 .1 0 57 80 20 74 68 85 .2 1 62 c o .2 p it ch i j. au ri cu la tu m cv . 13 5 28 12 6 10 9 80 .7 4 45 15 0 20 12 6 11 9 79 .3 4 50 c o .1 m ul la i j. s am ba c 10 0 10 0 j. m ul tif lo ru m 15 0 30 12 9 11 4 76 .1 6 58 15 0 29 13 7 13 2 88 .1 4 54 j. n iti du m 12 0 30 11 6 93 77 .5 0 45 15 0 22 13 1 11 8 78 .6 7 49 j. c al op hy llu m 80 24 66 45 56 .2 5 46 80 24 72 54 67 .5 3 53 j. f le xi le 80 22 75 67 83 .7 5 45 80 21 75 66 82 .5 4 60 d a p – d ay s af te r po lli na tio nta bl e 2. i nt er s pe ci fic h yb ri di za tio n of j . g ra nd if lo ru m c ul tiv ar s w ith v ar io us p ol le n pa re nt s j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 usha et al 77 the combination of j. flexile as pollen parent while parimullai responded well with the pollen parent j. grandiflorum co.1 pitchi. the results emphasize the fact that the pollen source and quantity influence the fruit set. aggregated results from the table 1 indicate that there is significant amount of fruit set failure from the fruit set at 60 dap till maturity. the failure in fruit development or the malformation of fruits accounts to the low fertilization rate (koubouris et al., 2010) or loss of pollen viability (deng et al., 2017) or inadequate nutrient availability (nyomora et al., 1999). competition between fruits for assimilates and growth regulators are the factors that are responsible for different fruiting behaviour of the assessed cultivars. in crosses involving j. grandiflorum cultivars as female parents, co.1 pitchi and co.2 pitchi evinced best results with j. flexile as the pollen donor. maximum fruit set (80.10 and 83.75% respectively in co.1 pitchi and co.2 pitchi) with the earliest fruit set initiation of 22 days were recorded for the crosses effected with hand pollination of open flowers. for the bud pollination, co.1 pitchi had best compatibility with j. flexile while co.2 pitchi proved the best results with the combination that entailed j. multiflorum as the pollen parent (table 2). the major drawback in the crosses involving j. grandiflorum as seed setting parent is the abnormal fruit set. the initiation of the fruit set is expressed by the bulging of the ovary proving the development of the fruit but as time progresses the ovary fails to develop completely causing misshapen fruits further arresting the growth of the embryo resulting in the loss of fruit set. existence of pre-fertilization barriers like low pollen viability, early senescence of pistil cells and low pistil receptivity are the possible barriers in hybrid set (deng et al., 2016). early and rapid senescence of pistils is harmful for pollen adhesion and germination resulting in the arrest of pollen tube growth after it enters the stigma. hybrid sterility can also be accounted due to the structural changes in the chromosomes (sharma and sharma, 1958). none of the crosses involving j. sambac as male parent resulted in fruit set both in hand pollination and bud pollination implying that prevalence of prefertilization barriers hinders the fruit set. low pollen fer tility, pistil r eceptivity a nd pollen-stigma compatibility, ovule sterility (deng et al., 2010; sua ŕez et al., 2012) have been enumerated as major reasons responsible for the hampered hybrid set. with respect to open pollination j. auriculatum cv parimullai recorded maximum fruit set of 76.43% with the earliest fruit initiation of 32 days and retained the fruits up to 28 days (table 3.) while j. grandiflorum cv co.2 pitchi proved best with the highest fruit set (83.40%), earliest initiation of fruit set (38 days) and longest duration of fruit retention(55 days) although malformation of the fruits occurred during their growth stage. the favourable fruit set in j. auriculatum may be a ttr ibuted with a s the a bsence of embr yo antagonism (veluswamy et al., 1981) and better source-sink relationship supporting the nutrient availability (keshavarz et al., 2011). failure in the fruit development and maturity can also be caused due to the abnormalities in the endosperm. irregularities in the endosperm result in embryo starvation leading to distorted embryo sac (veluswamy et al., 1981). along with pre-fertilization barriers, obstructions post fertilization also poses a threat in hybridization. data in table 3 are pertinent to self-pollination in j. auriculatum and j. grandiflorum. the cultivars co.2 mullai, co.1 mullai and parimullai of j. auriculatum recorded fruit set rates of 20.86 %, 8.16 % and 2.14 % respectively. thus, the results revealed that j. grandiflorum exhibited better self-pollina tion efficiency in comparison with j. auriculatum but the fruit malformation in j. grandiflorum stands as a stumbling block the hybridization attempts involving this species. data furnished in table 4 demonstrated that fruits evolved from crosses involving j. multiflorum and j. nitidum exhibited oblate shape while those from the crosses involving j. grandiflorum cv co.1 pitchi, j. calophyllum and j. flexile expressed spherical shape. fruit intensity was profuse for most of the cross combinations in bud pollination when compared to hand pollination of the open flowers. peak season of fruit set concurred with june to november under both the pollination methods. j. flexile and j. multiflorum as pollen parents responded well with parimullai as female parent in terms of fruit growth (table 5). colour of the fruit varied from light green to yellow green and medium green and turns black on maturity. fruits of j. auriculatum yielded from open pollination performed better in terms of growth as well as the intensity of the fruit set while self-pollinated fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 impact of pollination strategies on fruit set and fruit growth attributes in jasmine 78 table 3: open and self-pollination of j. auriculatum and j. grandiflorum cultivars cultivars no. of initiation no. of no. of fruit duration flowers of fruit fruits fruits at set of fruit pollinated set set at maturity (%) retention (dap) 60 (days) dap open pollination j. auriculatum co.1 mullai 250 46 164 138 55.20 28 j. auriculatum co.2 mullai 235 41 183 169 71.91 24 j. auriculatum parimullai 250 32 217 191 76.43 28 j. grandiflorum co.1 pitchi 235 45 204 189 80.42 52 j. grandiflorum co.2 pitchi 235 38 228 196 83.40 55 self-pollination j. auriculatum co.1 mullai 150 43 38 12 8.16 26 j. auriculatum co.2 mullai 115 40 76 24 20.86 24 j. auriculatum parimullai 150 42 91 30 2.14 25 j. grandiflorum co.1 pitchi 115 42 97 74 64.34 57 j. grandiflorum co.2 pitchi 115 40 103 81 70.43 58 dapdays after pollination proved better in terms of fruit growth with bolder fruits though the fruit set was poor. the efficiency of the fruit set depends upon the flowers that have pollenladen anthers that appear to set fruit far better when crosspollinated than when fertilized with their own pollen (ortega et al., 2006). despite the lack of complete fruit development in j. grandiflorum, peak season of the fruit set was observed during february to april. the fruits were conical in shape and yellowgreen in colour (table 6). in terms of method of pollination, open pollination contributed the most for the successful fruit set followed by bud pollination (fig 1.). results pertaining to fruit growth and quality parameters (fig 2.) revealed that bud pollination followed by ha nd pollina tion of open flower s ensured significantly superior fruit set. fig. 1. effect of various pollination methods on fruit set in jasminum spp fig. 2. effect of various pollination methods on fruit intensity in jasminum spp among all the possible cross combinations j. flexile cor r esponded well with all the cultiva rs of j. auriculatum and can be considered as the best pollen donor parent for the successful hybridization of the crop. j. auriculatum cv. parimullai provided best results among all the cultivars in terms of fruit set and intensity , thus proving to be an elite female parent amongst the cross combinations. this study j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 usha et al 79 h an d po lli na ti on o f co m pl et el y op en f lo w er s b ud p ol lin at io n c o .1 m ul la i m al e pa re nt f ru it se as on sh ap e c ol ou r f ru it f ru it f ri t se as on sh ap e c ol ou r f ru it f ru it in te ns it y of f ru it of t he of t he le ng th gi rt h in te ns it y of f ru it of t he of t he le ng th gi rt h se t fr ui t fr ui t (c m ) (c m ) se t fr ui t fr ui t (c m ) (c m ) j. g ra nd ifl or um v er y sp ar se ju nn ov sp he ri ca l m ed iu m 1. 06 1. 45 m od er at e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l m ed iu m 1. 16 1. 35 cv .c o .1 pi tc hi gr ee n gr ee n j. m ul tif lo ru m m od er at e ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 12 1. 28 m od er at e ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 21 1. 38 gr ee n gr ee n j. n iti du m sp ar se ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 09 1. 31 m od er at e ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 11 1. 31 gr ee n gr ee n j. c al op hy llu m sl ig ht ly ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 04 1. 28 m od er at e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 06 1. 28 sp ar se gr ee n gr ee n j. f le xi le m od er at e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 17 1. 30 pr of us e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 15 1. 32 gr ee n gr ee n c o .2 m ul la i j. g ra nd ifl or um v er y sp ar se ju nn ov sp he ri ca l m ed iu m 1. 03 1. 24 pr of us e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l m ed iu m 1. 16 1. 35 cv . c o .1 pi tc hi gr ee n gr ee n j. m ul tif lo ru m m od er at e ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 16 1. 28 m od er at e ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 21 1. 38 gr ee n gr ee n j. n iti du m sp ar se ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 08 1. 25 sl ig ht ly p ro fu se ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 11 1. 31 gr ee n gr ee n j. c al op hy llu m sp ar se ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 12 1. 28 sl ig ht ly p ro fu se ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 06 1. 28 gr ee n gr ee n j. f le xi le m od er at e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 21 1. 42 pr of us e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 15 1. 32 gr ee n gr ee n ta bl e 4. a na ly si s of fr ui t ch ar ac te ri st ic s fo r cr os s co m bi na tio n of j . a ur ic ul at um c o .1 a nd c o .2 m ul la i c ul tiv ar s w ith v ar io us p ol le n pa re nt s j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 impact of pollination strategies on fruit set and fruit growth attributes in jasmine 80 h an d po lli na ti on o f co m pl et el y op en f lo w er s b ud p ol lin at io n p ar im ul la i m al e pa re nt f ru it se as on sh ap e c ol ou r f ru it f ru it f ri t se as on sh ap e c ol ou r f ru it f ru it in te ns it y of f ru it of t he of t he le ng th gi rt h in te ns it y of f ru it of t he of t he le ng th gi rt h se t fr ui t fr ui t (c m ) (c m ) se t fr ui t fr ui t (c m ) (c m ) j. g ra nd ifl or um sl ig ht ly ju nn ov sp he ri ca l m ed iu m 1. 09 1. 37 pr of us e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l m ed iu m 1. 16 1. 35 cv . c o 1 p itc hi sp ar se gr ee n gr ee n j. s am ba c n il n il j. m ul tif lo ru m m od er at e ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 15 1. 47 m od er at e ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 21 1. 38 gr ee n gr ee n j. n iti du m sp ar se ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 06 1. 42 sl ig ht ly ju no ct o bl at e l ig ht 1. 11 1. 31 gr ee n pr of us e gr ee n j. c al op hy llu m sp ar se ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 12 1. 28 sl ig ht ly ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 06 1. 28 gr ee n pr of us e gr ee n j. f le xi le m od er at e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 21 1. 42 pr of us e ju nn ov sp he ri ca l y el lo w 1. 15 1. 32 gr ee n gr ee n ta bl e 5. a na ly si s of f ru it ch ar ac te ri st ic s fo r cr os s co m bi na tio n of j . a ur ic ul at um c v. p ar im ul la i a s fe m al e pa re nt w ith v ar io us p ol le n pa re nt s j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 73-82, 2022 usha et al 81 table 6: analysis of fruit characteristics for open pollinated and self-pollinated j. auriculatum and j. grandiflorum cultivars cultivars fruit season shape colour fruit fruit intensity of fruit of the of the length girth set fruit fruit (cm) (cm) open pollination j. auriculatum co.1 mullai profuse jun-nov spherical medium green 1.09 1.31 j. auriculatum co.2 mullai profuse jun-nov spherical light green 1.12 1.35 j. auriculatum parimullai profuse jun-nov spherical medium green 1.18 1.46 j. grandiflorum co.1 pitchi highly feb-apr conical yellow green 0.53 0.31 profuse j. grandiflorum co.2 pitchi highly feb-apr conical yellow green 0.51 0.46 profuse self-pollination j. auriculatum co.1 mullai moderate jun-oct oblate light green 1.16 1.28 j. auriculatum co.2 mullai sparse jun-oct oblate light green 1.08 1.25 j. auriculatum parimullai sparse jun-nov spherical yellow green 1.12 1.28 j. grandiflorum co.1 pitchi moderate jun-nov spherical yellow green 1.21 1.42 j. grandiflorum co.2 pitchi moderate jun-oct oblate light green 1.16 1.28 indicates the failure of fruit set and fertilization barrier prevailing in jasmine upon hybridization. understanding the type of the barriers prevailing in jasmine facilitates the integration of conventional approaches with biotechnological tools to overcome the complications and obtain interspecific hybrids with desirable traits. acknowledgement the financial support extended by dus testing scheme on jasmine funded by ppv&fra, govt. of india, new delhi to ca r ry out the resea rch is obliged and also the author expresses gratitude to the staff of the department of floriculture and l a nds c a p e ar c hit ec t u r e a nd ta mil n a du agricultural university for their immense support to implement this research work. references arnold, m. l. 1992. natural hybridization as an evolutiona r y pr ocess. annual review of ecology and systematics, 24: 521-524. arnold, m. l. 1997. natural hybridization and evolution. oxford university press, new york, new york, usa. bailey, l.h. 1958. manual of cultivated plants. pub: macmillan and co., new york. bar tolini, s. , viti, r. and guerriero, r. 2000, september. observations on the fertilization process in self-pollinated flowers of cultivar “leccino”. in iv international symposium on olive growing. 586: 521-524. barton, n. h., and g. m. hewitt. 1985. analysis of hybrid zones. annual review of ecology and 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(received: 09.03.2022 ; revised:11.07.2022; accepted:09.08.2022 ) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf root activity distribution and inter-plant root competition in ‘robusta’ banana (musa sp., ‘aaa’) under high-density planting determined by tracer technique s.c. kotur and v. ramachandran1 isotope laboratory icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089, india email: sckotur@gmail.com abstract by applying soil injection technique using carrier-free 32p as a tracer in ‘robusta’ banana (musa sp. ‘aaa’) planted at 1.5m x 1.5m spacing, during the 8th leaf stage of growth, 52.04 and 62.96% of active roots were present at 25cm across and 15cm depth, respectively. at the 16th leaf stage, only 40.5% of active roots were traced at 25cm across, and root activity increased at wider distances and deeper layers. at flower-initiation stage, a significant gain in root activity was seen at 45cm depth. distance-wise distribution, however, did not change appreciably. at the shooting stage, 46.89% and 43.98% of the active roots were present closest to the pseudostem (25cm distance) and soil surface (15cm), respectively. however, the greatest depth (45cm) gained active roots (38.51%) at shooting-stage, creating an hour-glass pattern of root distribution, mainly owing to migration of roots from the surface (15cm deep) soil. however, a strong presence of active roots persisted close to the base of the plant, and in the surface-soil. a small proportion (<1%) of phosphorus applied to the main plant was absorbed by the orthogonal neighbour located at 1.5m distance, indicating practically insignificant competition with its closest neighbour. none of the diagonal neighbours located farthest (at 2.1m distance from the main plant) showed any activity of the tracer indicating that the root competition with the main plant was absent. results indicate that a spacing of 1.5m × 1.5m in high-density planting of ‘robusta’ banana raised in sandy-loam is optimum, with practically no untoward competition from the root for nutrients applied to each plant. key words: banana, high-density planting, inter-plant root competition, tracer technique, 32p short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):250-253, 2015 tracer technique has been successfully employed to determine spatial and temporal root-activity distribution in a variety of fruit crops like citrus, grape, mango and guava (kotur and keshava murthy, 1998), papaya (kotur and keshava murthy, 2001), pomegranate (kotur and keshava murthy, 2003) and annona (kotur, 2009). this information is useful for refining nutrient and water application, and planting density, to optimize input use efficiency (bojappa and singh, 1973). severe plant-to-plant competition and increased variability was observed under high-density planting in banana beyond 2,222 plants ha-1 (robinson and nel, 1989). a definite recovery of 32p applied in neighbouring banana plants was observed by kurien et al (2002) due to inter-plant root competition. therefore, root-activity distribution was studied under high-density planting (1.5m × 1.5m, at 4,444 plants/ ha) in ‘robusta’ banana (musa sp., ‘aaa’) from the early vegetative to the fruiting stage, with emphasis on inter-plant competition for root-activity among neighbouring plants. soil injection technique was applied, using carrierfree 32p as a tracer. the crop was raised on red sandyloam soil (typic haplustalf), with ph 5.9, organic carbon 0.3% and cation exchange capacity 8.4cmol (p+)/kg. the crop was planted using apparently uniform suckers, during november 2007. observations were made at four stages of growth: 8-leaf (50 days after planting, feb. 2008); 16leaf (100 days, may 2008); flower initiation (150 days, august 2008) and at shooting (210 days, november 2008). the treatment included all the combinations of three depths (15, 30 and 45cm from the surface) and three lateral distances (25, 50 and 75cm from the base of pseudostem). the isotope (1.01 to 2.07 mci/ plant, depending upon the age of plant) was injected equally into pre-installed pvc pipes placed concentrically around the plant (8 holes at 25cm, 16 holes at 50cm and 24 holes at 75cm radial distance). root-activity distribution (%) was calculated from the activity of 32p in leaf (dpm/g dry matter) as a ratio of the activity of 32p at any given location and the activity of 32p at all the locations 1division of nuclear agriculture and biotechnology, bhabha atomic research centre, trombay, mumbai-400 085, india 251 high-density planting and rooting behavior in banana was expressed as percentage. to arrive at a quantitative measure of inter-plant root competition for nutrient supplied to each plant by its neighbouring plants, the same tracer was tagged with specific activity of 0.5014, 0.8333, 0.7667 and 1.3364µci/mg of p in the solution, using potassium dihydrogen orthophosphate as a carrier in the injection given from the 1st to the 4th stage, respectively. phosphorus (the tracer) derived (pdft, %) by the orthogonal or diagonal neighbour from the phosphorus applied was calculated as a ratio of the specific activity of phosphorus at a given location, and the specific activity of phosphorus at all locations, and was expressed as percentage. activity of 32p in the lamina of the 3rd open leaf was monitored at 20 day interval upon injection of the isotope. the leaf sample was dried in an oven at 70oc, powdered and digested in a diacid mixture (9:4 nitric acid: perchloric acid). radioactivity of 32p was determined by cerenkov counting in a liquid scintillation analyzer (lsa). root activity was calculated as a ratio of radioactivity at a given location to that of the total of all the locations, and was expressed as percentage. results of the sample taken at 40 days after injecting the tracer are presented. root-activity distribution results showed that at the 8th leaf stage, active roots were predominated to an extent of 52.04 and 62.96% at 25cm lateral distance and 15cm depth, respectively (table 1). as the lateral distance and depth increased, percentage of active roots declined sharply, as, the plant was still in its early vegetative growth. there appeared to be three phases of root activity at the 8th leaf stage. high (36.26%) root activity was present closest to the base of the plant, at a lateral distance of 25cm and a surface depth of 15cm. moderate distribution of 10.69-13.78% was evident at 50cm and 75cm distances at 15cm depth, as well as at 25 and 50cm lateral distance at 30cm depth. in the rest of the locations at a farther distance/depth from the base of the plant during early stage of root growth, presence of active roots was low (2.76-5.09%). at the 16th leaf stage (which represents a vigorous stage of growth), distribution of active roots was similar to that at the 8th leaf stage, in terms of depth-wise distribution. distance-wise, however, active roots showed a definite lateral expansion. this was highly pronounced at 15cm depth, which showed a fairly uniform presence of 19.59-21.94% active roots at different distances. there was a slight gain in root-activity at 25cm distance and at 30cm depth, while, the rest of the locations at 45cm depth continued to show lower root-activity. at the flower initiation stage, root activity showed a pronounced presence at both 15cm depth (62.86%) and 25cm lateral distance (54.28%), favouring 25cm and 50cm distances at 15cm depth. a substantial gain of active roots was seen at 25cm distance and 45cm depth, but, root activity decreased concomitantly at 75cm distance and 15cm depth. remainder of the locations showed low root-activity. at the shooting stage, a change was observed in the pattern of root activity, especially in terms of soil depth. the greatest soil depth (45cm) at all the lateral distances studied, gained active roots which led to an hour-glass pattern of root activity distribution, depth-wise. this may reflect a tendency of banana roots to explore deeper layers of the soil in a quest for nutrients which may be needed at this critical stage of growth. laterally, a total of over half of the active roots were found at 50cm and 75cm distances. from the presence of over 1/3rd of the active roots closest to the trunk (25cm distance and 15cm depth) at the early vegetative stages, roots were observed to extend continuously (both sideways and deep) into the soil. table 1. root activity distribution (%) in ‘robusta’ banana plant (40 dai) during various stages of plant growth depth (cm) distance (cm) 25 50 75 total 8th leaf stage 15 36.26 13.78 12.92 62.96 30 10.69 11.73 3.46 25.88 45 5.09 3.31 2.76 11.16 total 52.04 28.82 19.14 100.00 sem (±) 0.595 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.768 16th leaf stage 15 21.94 19.59 20.14 61.67 30 13.27 7.54 4.20 25.01 45 5.32 5.24 2.76 13.32 total 40.53 32.37 27.10 100.00 sem (±) 0.410 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.226 flower initiation stage 15 30.28 20.37 12.21 62.86 30 12.49 4.31 1.40 18.20 45 11.51 2.07 5.36 18.94 total 54.28 26.75 18.97 100.00 sem (±) 0.555 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.650 shooting stage 15 17.61 13.79 12.58 43.98 30 8.57 3.38 5.56 17.51 45 20.71 8.56 9.24 38.51 total 46.89 25.73 27.38 100.00 sem (±) 0.709 c.d. (p=0.05) 2.108 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):250-253, 2015 252 however, over 50% of the active roots were concentrated close to the base of the plant (25cm distance) and to the soil surface (15cm depth), right upto the flower initiation stage of growth. at the shooting stage, however, active roots extended upto 75cm laterally and at a depth of 45cm, leading to fairly uniform root-activity distribution in the entire rooting volume. at the shooting stage, a change in the pattern was observed, especially, in terms of soil depth. the greatest depth of 45cm at all the distances gained active roots at the expense of the surface layer, at 25 and 50cm lateral distances. phosphorus uptake by neighbouring plants absorption of the tracer element was evident in the orthogonal nieghbour located closest to the main plant, at 1.5m distance (although, the tracer was not discernible in some of the replicates indicating, that, the plants did not compete for phosphorus applied to the main plant on a definite basis). similar recovery of the tracer by the neighbouring plants was reported by kurien et al (2002), although it was not quantified. however, in this study, pdft was very small (<1%), indicating that inter-plant competition for root activity was of a very small order. at all the growth stages, pdft was highest at 15cm depth, compared to that in deeper layers (table 2). at the 8th leaf stage, total pdft at different growth stages showed a decline, with increasing depth. in the rest of the growth stages, pdft at 30cm depth was lowest among the three depths studied. distance-wise, maximum pdft was observed midway at 50cm across (except at the 16th leaf stage), while, at the closest distance (25cm), least pdft was evident. none of the diagonal neighbours located the farthest (at 2.1m distance from the main plant) showed any activity of the tracer indicating that the root competition with the main plant was absent. this may be due to the reduced length of large roots under high density planting due to inter-plant competition (mohan and rao, 1984). in conclusion, it may be surmised ‘robusta’ banana under high-density planting attained fairly uniform rootactivity distribution in the soil volume studied, though a strong presence of active roots persisted close to the base of the plant and in the surface-soil. a small proportion (<1%) of phosphorus applied to the main plant was absorbed by the orthogonal neighbour, indicating practically no competition from its closet neighbour. root competition from diagonal neighbours located the farthest (at 2.1m distance from the main plant) was not evident. results indicated that a spacing of 1.5m × 1.5m in high-density planting of ‘robusta’ banana raised in sandy-loam was optimal, with no untoward root competition for nutrients applied to the plant. however, this needs to be verified in other soil types and banana cultivars where high-density planting is practiced. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to board of research in nuclear sciences (brns), department of atomic energy, govt. of india, new delhi, for financial help, and to shri n.k. kacker, technical officer, for technical assistance. references bojappa, k.m. and singh, r.n. 1973. studies on the root activity and soil feeding zone of mango (mangifera indica l.) using 32p. newsletter, indian soc. nucl. tech. agril. biol., 2:112-123 kotur, s.c. 2009. spatial and temporal distribution of root activity of annona squamosa (‘sugar apple’) and a. reticulata (‘bullock’s heart’) seedlings and their grafts with ‘arka sahan’ scion using isotopic table 2. phosphorus derived from isotope (pdft, %) applied to the main plant of the orthogonal neighbour during various stages of plant growth in ‘robusta’ banana (40 dai) depth (cm) distance (cm) 25 50 75 total 8th leaf stage 15 0.073 0.191 0.109 0.373 30 0.000 0.173 0.128 0.301 45 0.043 0.021 0.052 0.116 total 0.116 0.385 0.289 0.790 sem (±) 0.0049 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.0147 16th leaf stage 15 0.052 0.116 0.162 0.330 30 0.016 0.031 0.073 0.120 45 0.080 0.033 0.043 0.156 total 0.148 0.180 0.278 0.606 sem (±) 0.0041 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.0123 flower initiation stage 15 0.100 0.140 0.127 0.367 30 0.015 0.019 0.037 0.071 45 0.000 0.021 0.126 0.147 total 0.062 0.096 0.067 0.585 sem (±) 0.0056 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.0165 shooting stage 15 0.030 0.034 0.077 0.141 30 0.024 0.000 0.003 0.027 45 0.016 8.56 0.000 0.113 total 0.070 0.117 0.080 0.287 sem (±) 0.0071 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.0211 kotur and ramachandran j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):250-253, 2015 253 technique. indian j. agril. sci., 79:422-425 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 1998. root activity distribution studies in citrus, grape, mango and guava using isotopic techniques. karnataka j. agril. sci., 11:651-657 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2001. spatial and temporal root activity distribution in papaya (carica papaya) determined by isotopic technique. indian j. agril. sci., 71:571-575 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2003. spatial distribution of root activity of ‘ganesh’ pomegranate (punica granatum) plants. j. nucl. agril. biol., 32:60-62 kurien, s., kumar, p.s., kamalan, n.v. and wahid, p.a. 2002. nutrient cycling from the musa mother plant to various physiological stages as affected by spacing and sucker retention using tracer technique. fruits, 57:143-151 mohan, n.k. and rao, v.n.m. 1984. the effect of plant density on banana root system. s. indian hort., 32:254-257 robinson, j.c. and nel, d.j. 1989. plant density studies with banana (cv. william) in a sub-tropical climate. ii. components of yield and seasonal distribution of yield. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 64:211-222 (ms received 18 january 2014, revised 21 august 2014, accepted 27 november 2014) high-density planting and rooting behavior in banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):250-253, 2015 sph -jhs coverpage 15-1 june 2020 single 1 9 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 review groundwater decline and prolonged drought could reduce vigour, enhance vulnerability to diseases and pests and kill perennial horticultural crops: needs urgent policy intervention ganeshamurthya.n., kalaivanan d., rupa t.r. and raghupathi h.b. division of natural resource management icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089. email : angmurthy@gmail.com abstract perennial horticulture in india has undergone a change from rainfed system to drip fertigation systems and from isolated hedge and bund trees to high intensity orchard systems with enhanced number of trees per unit area. in several parts, particularly in the deccan plateau, the system has now become completely dependent on water pumped from tube wells. severe competition for water from tube wells makes farmers to devote more water for cash rich annual crops and even sell water for city dwellers nearby. as a consequence, the groundwater level in the past three decades has fallen from few feet to above thousand feet. at several places it has crossed the “peak water”. frequent and prolonged exposure of fruit trees and nuts to drought coupled with ground water depletion has led to soil profile drying leading to reduced vigour and enhanced vulnerability to diseases and pests. this has led to withering of fruit and nut trees. perennial crops are likely to become increasingly maladapted to their environment, particularly in the earlier period of climate change they are more likely to be attacked by diseases and insects. coconuts, areca nuts and mango trees have died in several places and the government constituted committees have recommended compensation to the farmers. as a country, we have dramatically increased our reliance on groundwater. 175 million indians are now fed with food produced with the unsustainable use of groundwater. this increase has dried up rivers and lakes, because there is a hydrologic connection between groundwater and surface water. yet the legal rules governing water use usually ignore the link between law and science. the issue needs thorough examination and needs policy interventions to come out of this vicious circle. keywords: drought, fruit trees, groundwater depletion, peak water, perennial crops, policy issue introduction perennial horticulture in arid and semi-arid regions of india was a rainfed system since beginning. with time, the area under perennial horticulture has shown enor mous incr ea se a nd with a dva ncement in technology perennial horticulture along with annual horticultural crops and agriculture started receiving irrigation both through surface irrigation and through drip fertigation systems. also, both number of trees per unit area and the intensity of cultivation have increased. of late in arid and semiarid regions, particularly in the southern, central and north-western states, very large number of tube wells have been dug and put to use for irrigation. such tube wells were sunk in highly unscientific way and are resulting in increase in tube well depth and deteriorating quality of water. the system now has become completely dependent on water pumped from tube wells. in the past two to three decades the groundwater levels are falling steeply. occurrence of prolonged drought, early withdrawal of monsoon, and reduced number of r ainy days spr eading over short periods are exposing the trees to severe moisture stress and symptoms of declining tree vigour could be felt. in the past five years, several incidences of tr ees wither ing like coconut and ar eca nuts, mango, this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 10 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 ganeshamurthy et al. pomegranate etc. are being reported. government has constituted committees to look into the causes and compensations are being given to the farmers for the loss of trees. there is hence a need to scientifically look and rethink on perennial horticulture in the wake of emergence of these situations. impact of prolonged drought on perennial horticultural crops distribution of trees in arid and semi-arid lands depends mainly on ra infall, sur face water, and groundwater and air moisture. change in climate of the given region (rainfall, temperatures, wind) further affects the distribution of trees. soil quality and extent of its deterioration decides the future of existing population and scope for further expansion. each tree species is adapted to certain conditions and is located in its “niche”. when optimal conditions are widely distributed, forests or shrubs may cover large areas. the natural distribution of vegetation has long been a lter ed by huma n activities like unsustaina ble cropping systems. for example, by growing fruit trees, nuts and other perennial crops by exploiting the ground water in such places where its over drawing is unsustainable and can cause havoc. conversion of forest lands to agricultural use in the past and more recently from agricultural use to unsusta inable perennial systems are among the major causes of soil degradation in arid and semi-arid areas. furthermore, global warming is expected to result in rainfall decrease throughout most of the arid and semi-arid zones, which will lead to more severe water scarcity and increased desertification risks. some of the semia r id r egions sta r ted showing symptoms of desertification like kolar and chikkaballapur districts of karnataka, anantapur and madanapalli in andhra pradesh etc. occasionally, fruit tr ees decline and often die. diseases affecting the leaves, fruit, and twigs of fruit trees usually do not cause the trees to die, with exceptions for such diseases which causes death of trees like coconut wilt and bud rot, citrus and guava wilts and recently pomegranate wilt and nodal blight, wilt in many perennial crops. leaf, fruit, or twig diseases weaken the tree, interrupt normal bearing, and reduce fruit quality, but the trees usually survive. the cause of death for most fruit trees is damage to the root, trunk, or the crown. drought, flooding, crown and root diseases, and borers, winter cold, frosts, can cause injury to these parts but not lethal to the trees. frequently, a combination of two or more of these is the cause of death. the most severity being r epor ted a nd becoming mor e common tha n exceptions is the soil profile drying in arid and semiarid regions caused due to drought coupled with over exploitation of groundwater and drought alone usually will not kill healthy fruit trees, unless the drought is prolonged and severe coupled with decline in water table due to over draft of ground water. but gradual exposure of trees to drought weakens the trees which predisposes trees to insect pests and diseases. a gradual decline in tree health as a consequence of limiting moisture is a common problem for many trees, more so, underclose spacing mono cropping, intensively managed orchard systems. symptoms may include stunted growth, premature leaf drop, late spring leaf development, sparse foliage, light green or yellow foliage, twig and branch die-back and many other abnormal symptoms like flowering but not bearing fruits to the expected crop load. as mentioned above, usually there is no single reason for tree decline. often, a combination of factors, linked to one another, reduces a tree’s vigour. stress on a tree can make it vulnerable to additional problems. diseases and insects often capitalize on the tree’s low vigour and accelerate its decline. trees survive str ess temporarily by using stored food and water reserves, but once these reserves are used up, symptoms of decline begin to appear. because trees are so efficient at storing food and water reserves, it may take 2 or 3 years after a stress episode before decline symptoms appear. one of the most common causes of stress is planting orchards tr ee species not suited for a particular site. many species have specific site requirements. site characteristics that influence tree growth in limited moisture situations include soil moisture holding capacity, soil moisture availability, soil resource base erosion, mainly the organic front and drainage. all these come under land use planning which is sur pr isingly ignor ed while pla nning perennial crops entrepreneurships. declining trees as a consequence of prolonged drought and overdraft of groundwater leading to profile dryness make trees weak and susceptible to insect pests and diseases. certain insects and diseases can cause defoliation leading to further stress. most healthy trees can survive some defoliation, but 11 groundwater decline and perennial horticultural crops defoliation year after year can cause decline and even death. mango foliage damage caused by hoppers, loppers, beetles etc. in the very initial stage of leaf emergence is a typical example in southern and western part of india. apple scab and anthracnose of shade trees are examples of diseases that cause infected leaves to fall prematurely. the stem and root borers take the opportunity of tree weakness and overtake the tree health and intensify the attack. a typical example is the spurge in the stem borers of arabica coffee in coorg and mango in south india. leaf diseases like powdery mildew and anthracnose and other diseases cause severe damage to foliage, inflor escence a nd fr uits. tr ee wilts due to ceratocystis are emerging in mango in recent years which normally happen during trees exposed to long period of moisture stress. cli mate cha nge effe cts on i nsec ts a nd pathogens under horticultural ecosystems increase in summer temperature will generally activate insect development rates. some insects may shift from completing a generation every two years (semivoltism) to completing one generation per year (univoltism), a factor that contributes to large-scale outbreaks. warmer winters could also lead to more successful survival. outbreaks may also increase in entirely new areas crossing the limits of host species due to wa rming temperatures r elative to their current distribution. the indirect effects of climate change on insects are more complex; therefore, they are more difficult to predict. because trees are likely to become incr easingly ma la dapted to their envir onment, particularly in the earlier period of climate change they are more likely to be attacked by insects. clima te change will a ffect the developmenta l sequence of insects and their predators. natural insect enemies of defoliator and borer species depend on climatic factors to maintain their life processes and synchronicity with their insect host and the habitat in which they live. key parasitoids and predatory species population may dwindle due to over use of chemicals or even as a consequence of climate change and can further be a primary driver in causing the outbreaks. however, such predictions are difficult due to their complexity and variability. in general, the projected change in climate coupled with poor tree vigour as a consequence of increasing moisture deficit conditions, will promote pest and pathogen activity due to low moisture availability following prolonged drought, higher temperature and reduced mor ta lity in winter s. however, the complex inter a ctions a mong hosts, pa thogens a nd environmental conditions make scientific prediction difficult. a warmer and dry climate may change some pathogens and pests and decline in others. emergence of stem borers as a serious pest is a consequence of progressive exposure of intensively managed orchards to drought. progressive foliage loss in mango due to complex insect damage may also be a consequence of this. however, short periods of hot, dry weather put severe stress on weak or injured trees and may cause them to die. death most frequently occurs in the early summer, during or just following the first heat wave. a heat wave puts a severe strain on a weakened tree. weak trees frequently leaf out in the spring, bloom profusely, and set a heavy crop of fruit but fail to retain the crop load. although in mango the trees leaf out, the leaves usually are smaller than normal, are pale-green to yellowish green in colourand are severely affected by foliage pests and or diseases even before the leaves turn green from the initial copper colour. consequences are seen in recent years of loss of coconut trees, arecanut trees, mango trees and other perennial trees in some of the groundwater over exploited a r ea s like chitr a durga , tumkur, chikkaballapur, bangalore, hassan, anantapur, madanapalli, solapur, theni, virudhunagar and other districts and arabica coffee in coorg and chikmagalur distr icts of ka r na ta ka . over ma tur e tr ees progressively lose their resilience to climatic stress, so that a single climatic event can destroy a whole area of those species. for example, over aged coconuts and areca nuts in southern karnataka died few years back. water and land resources degradation the united nations conference on environment and development (unced, 1992) defined desertification as “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry subhumid areas resulting from various factors, including clima tic va r ia tions a nd huma n a ctivities”. desertification is not an advance of existing deserts but is rather the effect of localized degradation of the land. it r a pidly follows deforesta tion and soil exhaustion. exposed to the sun, the wind and the rains, exhausted soils lose their organic matter and j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 12 their structure while nutrients are leached away. fine elements are blown into dust storms and sand grains become mobile. overexploitation of forest, tree, bush, grazing land and unsustainable cropping systems by overexploitationas of soil resources and ground water has been increasing desertification. recent report of icrisat under nicra project has shown that in the past 50 years there has been a shift from dry subhumid climate of some region to semiarid climate and tr ends in semia r id r egions becoming a r id regions(nicra, 2014). fruit trees are occupying larger areas in such locations in dry sub-humid and semi-arid regions under irrigation from tube wells which are over drawn leading to a steep gradient of dry profile down from surface soil. a poor monsoon spread over short period, too low number of rainy days, early withdrawal of monsoon coupled with groundwater over draft predisposes fruit trees to wither. natural resources, particularly surface and ground water, are important for sustainable development and achieving higher economic growth. efficient and scientific utilization of these resources ensures the ecological balance of an ecosystem. the contribution of natural resources to local economy is outside the market framework, which are both its strength as well as weakness. strength in the sense of social justice, that it supports rural families. weakness lies in unsustainable exploitation of these resources, which would result in the tragedy of these resources. further, unsustainable exploitation leads to scarcity of resources that would then be beyond the reach of the poor. consequences of groundwater overexploitation groundwater depletion is by far the most widely deba ted issue in the r esour ce economics literature.groundwater depletion problems are related to the question of resource management and the coalition of powerful property owners protecting their interests, under a capitalist society. overexploitation of ground water and its social consequences are the result of certain processes of development in irrigated agriculture that occurs at the cost of depletion of aquifers and sustainable farming systems (raghupathi and ganeshamurthy, 2013). the state intervened initially through agrarian reforms, and later by providing credit facilities and supporting marginalized groups to have irrigation facilities by implementing million well schemes, ganga kalyanyojana and politically influenced free power supply etc. all these led to rise in groundwater structures, shifting cropping pattern towards water intensive crops as well as resource abuse by overexploitation of the aquifer. the distinctive impact of irrigation, in general, and groundwater irrigation, in particular, on farming begins to emerge more clearly and recognizably where irrigation permits extension of cultivation to additional seasons (rao, 1978). this allows farmers to benefit from surplus production which otherwise would not have been possible. as a result, groundwater became a chief source of irrigation primarily in dry sub-humid, semi-arid and arid areas and at the same time several problems like those mentioned above emerge due to heavy pumping. counter argument trees consume water. the more the aerial system of trees is developed, the more water they transpire. the desirability of tree planting in arid lands is debated because trees may consume more water than they provide to the water cycle. some countries, such as south africa, have imposed a tax on the water consumed by forests. in certain circumstances where trees consume all the rainwater, it may be judged better to harvest this water through a bare watershed, store it in a reservoir and use it to irrigate high-value agricultural crops. for example, in yatir, israel, where average precipitation is only 270 mm per year, more tha n 3000 ha of rainfed pinus halepensis were planted in the ea rly 1960s under a lar ge-sca le afforestation project. although the forest provides carbon sequestration benefits and contributes to the livelihoods of nearby communities (particularly through fuel wood and non-wood forest products such as resins, fodder and medicinal and aromatic plants), it uses all the precipitation water. furthermore, the forest has altered the biodiversity of the region, as new predation dynamics threaten endemic species. rueff and schwartz (2007) reported that the water that the watershed would have provided if it had not been afforested would have alleviated poverty better if it had been used for agriculture. they suggested that afforestation on a smaller scale, such as on farmers’ plots, may yield similar benefits with fewer drawbacks, as combining tree planting and agriculture is less disturbing to the environment, improves agricultural yields, conserves water and soils and provides fuel wood for farmers. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 ganeshamurthy et al. 13 peak water and future threat groundwater contributes 42%, 36% and 27% of water used for irrigation, households and manufacturing, respectively. in regions with extensive surface water irrigation, such as indo-gangetic plain, net abstractions from groundwater are negative, i.e. groundwater is recharged by irrigation. the opposite is true for areas dominated by ground water irrigation such as southern plateau regions covering karnataka, andhra pradesh and tamil nadu where net abstraction of surface water is negative because return flow of withdrawn gr oundwa ter r echa r ges the sur fa ce wa ter compartments first and then excess flow downwards (raghupathi and ganeshamurthy, 2013). the nationa l academy of agricultural science (naas) in its meeting on phosphorus in 2013 discussed about “peak phosphorus” going to threaten future food security. but the real threat is the “peak wa ter”. we may produce some food with low phosphorus supply, but we cannot produce food without water. human beings on an average require four litres of water per day. but the water required for producing each day food per person is around 2,000 litters. this is 500 times as much compared to direct consumption of water by man. we must now understand that getting enough water to drink is relatively easy, but finding enough to produce the ever-growing quantities of food, fruits, vegetables, fodder and other requirements is a matter of serious concern. for example, it is a common scene seeing water tankers carrying water from tube wells from the farm land heading towards cities as a consequence of unplanned city expansions like those seen in bangalore, hyderabad, chennai and pune. there is concer n that the sta te of pea k water is being approached in many areas. some areas are suffering from peak renewable water, where entire renewable flows are being consumed for human use, peak nonrenewable water,  where groundwater aquifers are being over pumped (or contaminated) faster than nature recharges them and peak ecological water, where ecological and environmental constraints are overwhelming the economic benefits provided by water use (gleick and palaniappan, 2010, 2011) if present trends continue. in a short span of two to three decades the extraction of water began to exceed the recharge of aquifers from precipitation, and water tables began to fall. and then wells begin to go dry. for example, in the district of chikkaballapur in karnataka, madanapalli in andhra pradesh, the farmers draw water worth 18002000 mm rainfall for rowing tomato after tomato, whereas the average precipitation is only 750-800 mm. in effect, over pumping creates a water-based food bubble, one that will burst when the aquifer is depleted and the rate of pumping is necessarily reduced to the rate of recharge. definitely regions such a s this ha ve cr ossed the pea k nonrenewable water. a world bank study estimates that 15% of india’s food supply is produced by mining groundwater. stated otherwise, 175 million indians are now fed with grains produced with the unsustainable use of water. as early as 2004, fred pearce reported in new scientist that “half of  india’s  traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up, bringing a spate of suicides among those who rely on them. electricity blackouts are reaching epidemic proportions in government where half of the electricity is used to pump water from depths of a kilo meter and above.” the excessive “mining” of our aquifers is causing environmental degradation on a potentially enormous scale (raghupathi and ganeshamurthy, 2013). as a country, we have dramatically increased our reliance on groundwater. this increase has dried up rivers and lakes, because there is a hydrologic connection between groundwater and surface water. yet the legal rules governing water use usually ignore this link. this disconnection between law and science is a major cause of the problem. so too is our refusal to recognize the unsustainability of our water use. significant reformsare necessary if we are to save our trees, prevent further degradation of our rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and estuaries. a final consequence of ground water pumping is its impact on surface water, including lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks, streams, springs, wetlands, and estuaries. t hese consequences r a nge fr om minima l to catastrophic. an example of the latter is the arkavati and vrishabha vatirivers and a chain of 65 lakes in bengaluru. two lakes viz., hessaraghatta lake and tippagodanahalli lake provided sufficient good qua lity dr inking wa ter to metr opolita n city “bengaluru”. it is more than two decades these very important water bodies have dried-up. once a verdant riparian system with a lush canopy provided j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 groundwater decline and perennial horticultural crops 14 by several tree species and big gardens, groundwater pumping has lowered the water table, drained the rivers and lakes of their flow, devastated vegetation and driven away the local birds and wildlife. the rivers and lakes have become an oxymoron–a dry river and lake-a pathetic desiccated sandbox. other lake cities, bhopal and udaipur are in the verge of reaching the state of bengaluru in near future if corrective measures are not taken. how do water bodies go dry? groundwater and surface water are not separate categories of water. the designations groundwater and surface water merely describe the physical location of the water in the hydrologic cycle. indeed, groundwater and surface water form a continuum. virtually all groundwater was once stream flow that seeped into the ground. the converse is also true but not obvious. groundwater pumping essentially interrupts the water cycle by removing water, directly or indirectly, that would otherwise discharge from aquifers to rivers, streams, and other surface water bodies. as groundwater pumping lowers the water table, the direction of the flow of rivers streams and lakes changes. once the water table is below the elevation of the rivers, streams and lakes, water flows from the water bodies towa rd the aquifer. t his is wha t groundwater pumping did in areas where perennial fruit and nut trees are drying. groundwater pumping literally sucked water from the rivers, streams and la kes a nd pr oduced hor r ible envir onmenta l consequences. first, of course, the flow in the rivers and streams gets reduced and lakes dried and waterdependent species like areca nut, coconuts and mangos suffered heavily and areca nut and coconut trees withered and mango trees are in the queue. in considering other examples of environmental problems caused by groundwater pumping, the first thing to note is that the impact of groundwater pumping on the environment is not confined to any given region. like karnataka and other southern states, the central indian states also have similar problems. but the peak has reached in south and may take little more time for the other regions. in the north and indo-gangetic plain, the problem is similar but for the well supplied water from himalayan river systems. we use groundwater to grow all kinds of things, even when there is no need to do so. until rather recently, many of our farms were “dryland” farmed. however, as the demand increased farmers shifted from dryland to irrigation farming. in places where only highly drought resistant crops like ragi and horse grams were grown, farmers shifted to highly water dependent crops like tomato, watermelons etc. with almost threefold increase in cropping intensities, all through exploitation of ground water. we require 200 to 225 litres of water to produce one kilogram of tomato. we export this tomato to other countries at the rate of approximately rs. 20/per kg. are we not foolish to do this and farmers suffering many a times from tomato glut? such over pumping of water irrigates the surface layers of soil in annual crops like tomato and other vegetables. but the perennial crops in the region, particularly in areas like srinivasapura in kolar district in karnataka and nuzvid area in andhra pradesh under mango and tumkur and hassan districts in coconut and areca nut undergo severe stress due to continued profile drying. another pitiable example is our newfound fascination with bottled water. it is a scene even plaguing the rural areas. the domestic bottled water market (including organised and unorganised players) is estimated at rs 8,000 crore. the bottled water market which has been growing at a cagr of 19%, is expected to continue its growth momentum and grow over four -folds to rs 36, 000 cr or e by 2020 (mukherjee, 2012). the industry is heavily dependent on ground water (onelitre bottled water = 1.8 litre of ground water) has become a competitor with the irrigation system. the urgent need for reforms the impact of groundwater pumping on agriculture in general and perennial horticulture in particular, is an example of what biologist garrett harden called “the tragedy of the commons.” the legal rules governing groundwater use is not strong and the law makers are yet to understand the ground reality. we have failed to eliminate the gap between law and science. in lieu of legal reform, we have shown limitless ingenuity in devising technological fixes for water supply problems. these so-called solutions have altered the hydrologic cycle in order to sustain existing usage. as our water use spirals upward, we must begin to rethink the economic structure by which we value our water j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 ganeshamurthy et al. 15 resources. at the same time, we must act to protect our rivers, springs, lakes, estuaries and wetlands from groundwater pumping. there is considerable urgency. because groundwater moves so slowly, it may take years or decades of groundwater pumping before the effect on the environment is apparent. the hidden tragedy is that groundwater pumping which has a lr ea dy occur r ed will ca use ir r emedia ble environmental damage. to control the impact of groundwater pumping on the environment, we must combine a command-andcontrol model of government rules and regulations with the market forces of transferable rights and price incentives. any meaningful reform must do two things: protect the rights of existing users by creating quantified water rights that are transferable and therefore valuable; and break free of the relentless cycle of increasing use by placing restrictions on individual freedom to pump groundwater. the law makers must take cognizance of the following issues to save the environment, orchards, water bodies and our future generations.  government rules and regula tions deserve a prominent place in our reform efforts as we a ttempt to pr otect the envir onment. t he government should undertake a number of very specific reforms.  even though water is a scarce commodity, most of us have not yet fa ced the condition tha t economists call scarcity, which occurs when people alter their consumption patterns in response to price increases. our habits of water use will not change until the cost of water rises sufficiently to force an alteration. therefore, we must increase water rates so that all users pay the replacement value of the water, which includes environmental impact cost. economists agree that significant price increases would create incentives for all users to conserve. all farmers, businesses, or industrial and other users could then decide which uses of water to continue and which to curtail. rate increases would encourage the elimination of marginal economic activities and the movement of water toward more essential and productive uses.  the government should carefully craft water conservation standards. however, the experience of some western government with conservation sta nda r ds sends a mixed messa ge. if the government attempt to impose elaborate and detailed conservation standards, the regulated groups will fight tooth and nail over every sentence in the proposed regulation. this process can consume enormous amounts of time, energy, and money. the lesson for government is that it is better to embrace simple conservation standards that are easy to administer and implement. they are likely to have the most practical effect in terms of actually saving water and will avoid prolonged political struggle.  the government should establish minimum stream flows and protect those flows from pumping of hydr ologica lly connected gr oundwater. t he legislature should authorize the state departments of environment and forestry, agriculture and horticulture to establish minimum water levels for streams and lakes to protect water resources. the minimum levels become appropriations within the prior appropriation system and offer protection against subsequent groundwater pumping.  the government should prohibit the drilling of new wells in areas that are hydrologically connected to surface flows. generally speaking, the farther a well is from a watercourse, the less significant the impact of groundwater pumping from that well will be. government has two options to solve this problem: they can make the ban on wells near watercourses turn on a hydrologic analysis of the particular region, or ban on drilling wells within, for example, a mile of the river.  both the state governments and panchayats should commit resources to purchasing and retiring groundwater rights to protect critical catchments, wa ter sheds a nd ha bita ts. for exa mple, the catchment a rea of cr itical water bodies like ba da ta la b of bhopa l or hessa ra ghatta a nd tippagodanahalli lakes in bengaluru, sukna lake in chandigarh, pichola, fatehsagar, jaisamand and ra jsa ma nd la kes of uda ipur, husa in a nd himayathsagar in hyderabad.  government should foster a market in water rights by allowing the easy transferability of rights from existing users to newcomers. enormous quantities of groundwater are used for extremely low-value economic activities. state law must facilitate the movement of water from these uses to highervalue ones by establishing a water rights market as the mechanism for accomplishing this shift. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 groundwater decline and perennial horticultural crops 16  the government should impose an extraction tax on water pumped from any well within a certain distance of a river, spring, or lake. this tax would have two benefits: it would encourage existing pumpers to conserve water, and it would create an incentive for new pumpers to locate wells farther away from watercourses.  the government should not allow land developers to drill wells in an aquifer already under stress and land developers should not be allowed to source water from agricultural areas.  the government, especially through panchayats, should use financial incentives as a significant part of water policy. quite simply, we are not paying the true cost of water. when homeowners or businesses receive a monthly water bill from the utility, that bill normally includes only the extraction costs of drilling the wells, the energy costs of pumping the water, the infrastructure costs of a distr ibution a nd stor a ge system, a nd the administrative costs of the water department or company. water rates, with rare exceptions, do not include a commodity charge for the water itself. the water is free.  unplanned urbanization has forced cities to depend on rural areas for sourcing water supplies. the flow of water from rural tube wells to urban areas for meeting domestic a nd industr ia l wa ter requirements of cities must be stopped  several crops which need huge quantity of water are grown for export like sugarcane, gherkins, tomatoes, capsicum, scented rice etc. these crops are exporting water more than the produce. the actual cost of water is not calculated while working out the economics. growing crops for export purpose using groundwater is not justified when local populations are going to suffer from severe shor tage of wa ter. such a ctivities must be restricted.  the government certainly has powers to impose location specific regulations on groundwater pumpers, yet there are two good reasons why it should not do so. first, it would provoke a bruising political battle. the political capital expended to win that fight could be better spent elsewhere. second, the impa ct of groundwa ter pumping on the envir onment is nua nced a nd site-specific, depending enormously on the particular hydrologic characteristics of an aquifer. imposing a uniform template on the nation is likely to exclude some pumping that should be regulated and to include some pumping that poses no serious risk of harm.  the impact of gr oundwater pumping on the environment is enormous. and it is getting worse. as the drought that frequently grips the country, farmers, cities and individual homeowners are scrambling in search of additional water supplies. they have often focused on groundwater; indeed, well-drilling businesses around the country are booming. the drought has prompted the media to pay remarkable a ttention to water issues. a massive campaign to save water is the need of the hour. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 9-16, 2020 ganeshamurthy et al. references gleick, p.h. and palaniappan, m. 2010. peak water: conceptual and practical limits to freshwater withdrawal and use. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america 107(25): 11155-11162. gleick, p. h. and pala niappan, m. 2011. on the waterfront. water resources 2, 4149. nicra. 2014. annual report of national initiative on climate resilient agriculture, icrisat centre, crida, hyderabad, india. rao, v. m. 1978. linking irrigation with development: some policy issues. economic and political weekly 13 (24): 993-97. raghupathi, h.b. and ganeshamurthy, a.n. 2013. deterioration in irrigation water quality. current science 105(6): 764-766. rueff, h. and schwartz, m. 2007. the contribution of dryland forests to livelihoods the case of the yatir forest. pr esented a t theinter na tiona l conference on afforestation and sustainable forests as a means to combat desertification held during 16-19 april, 2007 at jerusalem, israel. mukherjee, r. 2012. bottled water market grows at compound annual growth rate of 19%. times of india on june 25, 2012. unced. 1992. m anaging fragile ec osyste ms : combating desertification and drought. in: report of the united na tions conference on environment and development held during 3-14 june 1992 at rio de janeiro, brazil. (received on 19.11.2019 and accepted on 17.06.2020) 02 ganeshamurthy groundwater.pdf final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 51 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction squash (cucurbita pepo l.) is an economically important species of the cucurbitaceae family that r epr esents one of the most pr imitive gener a (cucurbita) in the plant kingdom (tadmor et al., 2005). squash is monoecious vegetable crop and familiar with its different traditional name like zucchini (italy); cucuzza (saudi arabia), courgette (america); marrow (ireland and britain) and baby marrow (south africa). it is grown throughout the temperate, sub-tropical, and tropical regions, native to eastern united states and mexico and also cultivated worldwide for its fruits (bisognin, 2002). the major economic value of this crop is based mainly on the culinary use of immature fruits which have relatively high nutritional and medicinal value as compared to other vegetable crops. its nutritional profile consists of various organic compounds, nutrients, vitamins and minerals, that are responsible for providing all its impressive health benefits (kulczynski and gramzamichałowska, 2019). it is also a very good source of carotenoids, important anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds (deppe, 2015) and because of its low caloric value treated as weight loss diets (fageria et al., 2012). so, keeping its importance in mind, increase the global production is one of the important ways to ensure food security. bangladesh is one of the most densely populated country in the world having over 160 million people and based on its current growth trends a projected population will be over 200 million by 2050 (usaid, 2017). to meet up the food demand for its uprated population, increasing the crop production in per unit areas of land is the most effective ways to ensure the food security. squash is one of the important vegetable crops which can assure the nutritional security from its present nutritional shortage (per capita deficiency of vegetables 158 g) in bangladesh (anon., 2018). topographically, bangladesh has diverse land area assessing the genetic diversity of squash (cucurbita pepo l.) genotypes based on agro-morphological traits and genetic analysis sajid m.b., sarker k.k., monshi f.i., sultana s., monika m.a. and bhuiyan m.s.u.* department of genetics and plant breeding, faculty of agriculture sylhet agricultural university, sylhet 3100, bangladesh *corresponding author e-mail: bhuiyanmsu.gpb@sau.ac.bd abstarct an experiment was conducted to estimate the genetic variability of 15 indigenous and exotic squash genotypes assessing 18 quantitative and 8 qualitative traits. results showed that the accessions have high variability in qualitative traits like fruit size, fruit shape, fruit skin colour, lustre and fruit productivity, which allowed selection for considerable gains in these characteristics. the quantitative traits such as fruits yield per plant, fruit weight, length, diameter and total yield per hectare showed the greater phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) along with higher heritability which can helps to identify desirable genotypes. the obtained significant and positive correlation between fruit yield with number of leaves, nodes, fruit length, weight and number could assist in selection to improve this crop. cluster analysis resulted in the formation of 4 groups, confirming the genetic variability among the studied genotypes. eventually, the attained pca analysis result revealed that the number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant, fruit length and days to first female flowering are the most discriminating traits which are accelerating the variability in squash genotypes. on the basis of the yield and its attributing traits, first runner is the best genotype suited in this environment. keywords: genetic analysis, genetic variability, heritability, morphological traits and squash 52 sajid et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 which is favorable for the crop diversification and production, however, squash can grow easily in any types of soil even in unproductive and marginal land areas. in addition, more economic growth can be achieved by producing vegetables like squash which will ultimately uplift the socio-economic condition of the farmers. thus, there is urgent need to initiate research on squash especially for its vertical expansion and var ieta l improvement. although, squash is becoming important vegetable crop in bangladesh, ther e is little infor ma tion a va ila ble a bout its improvement and till date only a single variety has been recommended for winter season. in bangladesh, few researchers have taken initiatives for studying its growth and effects of fertilizers on it (akhter et al., 2018; baby et al., 2021) but genetic variability study has not been taken up yet. breeding for high-yielding crops require information available on the germplasm and the relationship among the agronomic traits as well as the degree of environmental influence (el-hadi et al., 2014). for its crop improvement, determining the extent of genotypic and phenotypic variability among geographical areas is important (muralidhara and narasegowda, 2014). quantitative and qualitative determination (morphological characterization) of the degree of var iation of traits present in genetic resources is important for vegetable breeding programs (ba lka ya et al. , 2010; gomes et al. , 2020). morphological characterization is the first step followed by quantitative traits in the description and classification of genetic resources (balkaya et al., 2010). however, only a few studies have focused on variability analysis in relation to morphological and yield contributing quantitative traits with squash accessions. therefore, the present research has been underta ken for the impr ovement of squash by assessing its genetic variability traits. in bangladesh, squash cultivation in summer season is challenging because of the severe attack of pests and diseases, excessive light and temperature, high rainfall and high labour cost etc. meanwhile, a very few resear ch works r elating to its ada ptability a nd va riability have been conducted in bangladesh especially in sylhet region where huge amount of land has remained fallow (14% of the total land) for a long time (bbs, 2018). so, there is a great opportunity to increase squash production in this region to meet up the vegetable and nutritional requirement of the country. considering the above points of view, the present study has been under taken to know the extent of genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance for different traits of squash genotypes in sylhet region. materials and methods the experiment was conducted at the research field of the department of genetics and plant breeding, faculty of agriculture, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh during the period october 2019 to january 2020. fifteen indigenous and exotic genotypes (table 1) of squash were used in this experiment that were collected from the different parts of bangladesh as well as from the other countries. the exper iment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (rcbd) with thr ee replications. the experiment was divided into three blocks and each consisted of 15 plots. each unit plot size was 1 x 2.3 m2. altogether, there were 45 unit plots in experiment and required 300 m2 land. both row to row and plot-to-plot distances were 0.5 m. the treatments were randomly assigned to each of the block. each unit plot had 5 pits and in each pit 2 seeds were sown. after germination only one plant was allowed to grow. the land was prepared by ploughing and cross ploughing and different inter cultural oper a tions wer e a ccomplished a ccor ding to recommended bari squash variety (bari, 2018). the data were recorded based on 18 quantitative yield contributing traits i.e. plant height in cm at first harvest (ph), stem diameter in cm at first harvest (sd), number of leaves at first harvest (nl), number of nodes at first harvest (nn), days to flower bud initia tion (dfbi), days to first male flowering (dfmf), days to first female flowering (dfff), number of male flowers from flowering to last harvest (nmf), number of female flowers from flowering to last harvest (nff), viable pollen in percentage (vp), days to first harvest (dfh), nodes at first fruit harvest (nffh), fruit length in cm (fl), fruit diameter in cm (fd), fruit weight in g (fw), number of fruits per plant (nfpp), fruit yield per plant in kg (fypp), total yield in t/ha (ty) and 8 qualitative traits i.e. plant vigor, pubescence, stem shape, flower color, fruit size, fruit shape, fruit skin color and luster. the recor ded data on various parameters were analyzed to find out the statistical significance of the experimental results. mean and standard deviation were calculated using microsoft excel software 2010. 53 assessing the genetic diversity of squash genotypes the significance of the difference between treatment means, coefficient of variation (cv) was calculated by the least significance difference (lsd) test for the interpretation of the results (gomez and gomez, 1984). then the tabulated results were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (anova) and statistical differences between the means were estimated using duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt) at 1% or 5% or 0.1% probability with the help of statistical “r” software. estimation of genetic parameters estimation of genotypic and phenotypic variances: genotypic and phenotypic variances were estimated according to the formula given by johnson et al. (1955). estimation of coefficient of variability (genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation): both phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of va riability for a ll characters w estimated using the formula of burton (1952). pcv and gcv were classified into three categories viz., low (< 10%), moderate (10-20%) and high (> 20%) as suggested by sivasubramanian and madhavamenon (1973). heritability in broad sense (h2bs): the broad sense heritability (h2bs) was estimated for all characters as table 1. name and source of the squash genotypes used in the experiment genotypes name of the genotypes origin remarks g1 first runner south korea indigenous g2 alaska australia indigenous g3 blossom house netherlands indigenous g4 balam house usa indigenous g5 cheonlima south korea indigenous g6 hungnong squash south korea indigenous g7 runner usa indigenous g8 sq-001 australia exotic g9 sq-002 australia exotic g10 sq-003 australia exotic g11 sq-004 australia exotic g12 sq-005 australia exotic g13 sq-006 australia exotic g14 sq-007 australia exotic g15 sq-008 australia exotic the ra tio of genotypic var ia nce to the total of phenotypic variance as suggested by hanson et al., (1956). heritability estimates in cultivated plants could be placed in the categories viz. as low (0-30%), moderate (30-60%) and high (>60%) as suggested by robinson (1966). genetic advance (ga): the expected genetic gain or advance for each character was estimated by using the method suggested by johnson et al., (1955). genetic advance was classified as high (>20%), moderate (1020%) and low (<10%). further the genetic advance as per cent of mean was computed by using the formula which was given by burton (1952). genetic advance as per cent mean was categorized into groups viz., low (< 10%), moderate (10-20%) and high (> 20%) as suggested by johnson et al. (1955). correlation estimation simple correlation coefficient (r) among 12 important parameters of squash accessions was estimated according to singh and chaudhury (1985). again, cluster analysis (ca) was carried out according to mahalanobis (1936). it divides genotypes into groups on the basis of a data set into some number of mutually exclusive groups. furthermore, principal component analysis (pca) was computed from j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 54 correlation matrix and genotype scores obtained for the first components with roots greater than unit (jeger et al., 1983). it provides two dimensional plots, which helps in separating different populations involved. contribution of the different characters towards variability was discussed from the latent vectors of the first three principal components. however, mean data for each character was subjected to multivariate analysis techniques viz., principal component analysis (pca), cluster analysis (ca) and also the simple correlation coefficient analysis were done by computer using the stata 14.0 software. results and discussion mean performance or genotypes for vegetative characters in this experiment, fifteen indigenous and exotic squash genotypes have been characterized according to morphological traits and genetic analysis. although morphological characteristics depends on its external factors but it is parallelly important to support these morphological variations along with their genetic studies. results of mean performance of different squash genotypes based on different agronomic and yield contributing traits indicated that there was a significant difference in mean performance among all the genotypes. this difference could be resulted from the genetic variation a mong the studied squash genotypes which is also supported with the results of other previous studies on squash (gomes et al., 2020; tsivelikas et al., 2009; villanueva-verduzco et al., 2020). a wide genetic diversity was also reported in the experimental results of egusi-melon (olaniyi et al., 2011) and cucumber (arunkumar et al., 2011). in case of vegetative characters, results showed a great significant variation for all the characters among the squash genotypes (table 2). the highest plant height at first harvest was found in sq-002 (36.05 cm) and the lowest was in balam house (32.17 cm). diameter of stem during first harvest was highest in first runner (13 cm) and the lowest was in balam house (9.21 cm). number of leaves, considered as an important parameter for fruit yield, was the maximum in two genotypes i.e., cheonlima (25) and sq-001 (25). additionally, the maximum number of nodes per plant was recorded in first runner (14.3) and the minimum was recorded from balam house (11.53). different types of leaves, flowers and fruits were observed in studied squash genotypes those are presented in figure 1. therefore, it was observed that, the squash genotypes showed a wide range of variation in their growth-related morphological traits. variation in morphological (ozturk et al., 2021) as well as anatomical features (balkaya et al., 2010) is a common phenomenon among different cucurbita species. additionally, esho and jasim (2020) found a wide range of variability for number of nodes for the first female flower in squash. moreover, considering the reproductive (flowering) characters, the results showed a significant variation on days to flower bud initiation, days to first male and female flowering, number of male and female flowers and viable pollen rate for all the squash genotypes (table 3). the genotype runner took minimum days to first flower bud initiation (19.29 days) while the genotypes first runner took the lowest day to first male flowering (30.54 days) and the genotype runner was the earliest genotypes to first female flowering (35.73 days). in most of the genotypes, female flowers were emerging before ma le flowers with some exceptions (table 3). significant difference for days to female flowering was also reported by nahar et al., (2016) in sweet gourd genotypes. in addition, the male flower numbers outnumbered the female flower numbers during the experimental period for all the genotypes. both the male and female flowers formed simultaneously right from the outset. additionally, pollen viability was of special interest to see the degree of influence it exerts upon fruit and seed setting. the percentage of pollen viability helps us in selecting the parents for crossing in a hybridization program. the mean va lues of fertile (viable) pollen showed statistically almost similar results for all the 15 genotypes (table 3). this result indicated a high possibility of cross pollination among the genotypes and this could lead a high level to of genetic variability in squash genotypes. some other yield contributing traits considering the fruiting characters i.e., days to first harvest, number of nodes at first harvest, length and diameter of fruit per plant, fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant and total yield showed a significant variation among the genotypes (table 4). the days to first harvest ranged from 54 to 62.67 days in runner and balam house respectively with a mean value of 58.3 days. low variation was observed among the genotypes with respect to number of nodes at first fruit sajid et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 55 fig. 1. variation in leaves, flowers and fruits of fifteen squash genotypes harvest (range: runner 5.03 to blossom house 6.5; mean: 5.78). the maximum fruit length was seen in the genotypes first runner (45.58 cm), hungnong squash (45.42 cm) and cheonlima (44.1 cm) while the minimum length of fruit was observed from sq007 (27.62 cm). similar findings of significant variation on days to first harvest, number of nodes at first harvest and fruit length were also reported by esho and jasim (2020) in squash, mohsin et al. (2017) in pumpkin and nahar et al. (2016) in sweet gourd. significant variation in fruit diameter (range: alaska 17.47 cm to sq-003 38.11 cm) was found among squash genotypes. significant variation was also observed by balkaya et al. (2010) in winter squash from the black sea region of turkey. the individual fruit of first runner (1165.5 g) had the highest weight followed by sq-001 (1013.03 g) and hungnong squash (1002.08 g). the lowest single fruit weight was recorded in runner (742.24 g). the variation of fruit weight could be due to the genetical, physiological and environmental influence. abdein et al. (2021) reported similar results in respect of single fruit weight in summer squash. number of fruits per plant was the maximum in case of runner (10.2) proceeded to first runner (10) and sq-001 (9.53). accession balam house produced the minimum number (6.2) of fruits per plant. rana et al. (2016) also observed significant va riation in number of fr uits per plant a mong cucumber genotypes. the yield of fruits per plant eventually contributes the total yield of fruit for each genotype. among the studied squash genotypes, total fruit yield was varied significantly. the maximum total yield of fruit was obtained in first runner (89.43 t/ ha) preceded to sq-001 (74 t/ha) and cheonlima (63.48 t/ha) which was statistically different from other accessions, whereas the minimum total yield of fruit was obtained in case of balam house (35.78 t/ ha). these results corroborated with the findings of akhter et al. (2018) in squash and abdein et al. (2017) in sweet gourd. uddain et al. (2019) also observed significant variation among the different genotypes of zucchini squash in respect of weight of fruits per plant. assessing the genetic diversity of squash genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 56 genotypes plant height stem diameter number of number of (cm) (cm) leaves nodes g1=first runner 34.13bcde 13a 24.6ab 14.3a g2=alaska 33.33def 12.13b 22cde 12.93bcd g3=blossom house 33.68cdef 11.45cde 22.2cde 11.73ef g4=balam house 32.17f 9.21j 20.27f 11.53ef g5=cheonlima 33.61cdef 11.6bcd 25a 14.27a g6=hungnong squash 32.51ef 11.63bcd 23.27bcd 12.07def g7=runner 34.69abcd 11.89bc 23.87ab 13.53abc g8=sq-001 35.11abcd 10.9efg 25a 14ab g9=sq-002 36.05a 11.29cde 21.2ef 13.93ab g10=sq-003 34.31abcde 11.36cde 21.67ef 11.87def g11=sq-004 35.92ab 10.03hi 23.47abc 11.47f g12=sq-005 34.59abcd 11.05def 21.47ef 11.87def g13=sq-006 35.23abc 10.48fgh 21.8def 12.6cde g14=sq-007 34.03cde 9.75ij 21.07ef 13.6abc g15=sq-008 34.61abcd 10.38jhi 21ef 12.93bcd mean 34.27 11.08 22.52 12.84 sd 0.99 0.32 0.75 0.54 lsd 1.81 0.66 1.57 1.09 means followed by the same letter (s) in a column do not differ significantly table 2. mean performance of squash genotypes for vegetative characters at first harvest table 3. mean performance of squash genotypes for various flowering characters days to days to days to number number viable genotypes flower bud first male first of male of female pollen initiation flowering femal flowers flowers (%) g1=first runner 20.86def 30.53f 35.80h 18.73defg 13.13b 91.1abc g2=alaska 22.20bcd 32.47ef 37.73g 18.4fg 12.87bc 89.75bc g3=blossom house 23.69ab 31.73ef 40.20cde 18.53efg 10.67ef 87.13d g4=balam house 24.58a 33.87e 41.80b 18.93defg 10.67ef 84.47e g5=cheonlima 22.70bc 32.26ef 40.33cde 19.33bcdef 12.8bc 89.89abc g6=hungnong squash 22.89abc 33.13e 41bcd 20.6a 10.6ef 89.11cd g7=runner 19.29f 37.73cd 35.73h 20.13ab 14.13a 90.28abc g8=sq-001 21.49cde 36.53d 39.93def 18.40fg 12.93bc 90.42abc g9=sq-002 20.05ef 42.87a 43.06a 20.06abc 12cd 89.88abc g10=sq-003 22.67bc 43.47a 36h 19.73abcd 11e 92.36a g11=sq-004 22.08bcd 42.33a 41.2bc 19.6abcd 12.8bc 89.99abc g12=sq-005 21.99bcd 42.40a 39.06f 19.06cdef 12.53bc 91.02abc g13=sq-006 22.59bc 39.27c 41.27bc 19.46bcde 12.8bc 91.79ab g14=sq-007 21.67cde 39.53bc 36.27h 18.73defg 9.87f 89.91abc g15=sq-008 22.48bcd 41.80ab 39.53f 17.93g 11.27de 89.86abc mean 22.08 37.33 39.26 19.18 12 89.80 sd 0.92 0.52 0.53 0.53 0.48 1.28 lsd 1.71 2.33 1.07 1.06 0.99 2.54 means followed by the same letter (s) in a column do not differ significantly sajid et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 57 table 4. mean performance of squash genotypes for various fruit characters genotypes days to nodes fruit fruit fruit no of fruit total first at first length diameter weight fruits yield yield harvest fruit (cm) (cm) (g) per per plant (t/ha) harvest plant (kg) first runner 58.47cde 5.53cde 45.58a 19.67ef 1165.50a 10.2a 11.92a 89.43a alaska 58.33cde 5.58bcd 34.43b 17.47f 797.60gh 8.90de 7.14efg 53.53ef blossom house 61.80a 6.50a 31.30de 20.06ef 816.70efg 7.00h 5.73h 42.98h balam house 62.67a 6.34ab 31.10de 19.39ef 810.10fgh 6.20i 4.77i 35.78i cheonlima 58.87cd 5.77abc 44.10a 19.72ef 948.90bc 8.90def 8.46c 63.48c hungnong squash 59.8bc 5.90abcd 45.42a 19.19ef 1002.80b 7.93g 7.99cde 59.98cd runner 54.00h 5.03e 27.62f 21.19e 742.24h 10.00ab 7.22efg 54.13ef sq-001 55.80g 5.19de 32.2cd 25.48cd 1013.00b 9.50bc 9.95b 74.00b sq-002 61.07ab 5.8abcd 34.4b 21.02e 909.30cd 9.10cd 8.31cd 62.33cd sq-003 55.93fg 6.06abc 11.84g 38.11a 921.10bcd 8.13g 7.47def 56.05de sq-004 57.73de 6.28abc 34.48b 24.59d 896.90cde 8.30fg 7.47def 56.05de sq-005 56.87efg 6.16abc 30.06e 20.99e 822.30efgh 8.27g 6.80fg 51.0fg sq-006 60.00bc 5.92abc 34.10bc 18.85ef 863.90defg 8.93d 7.90cde 58.88cd sq-007 55.60gh 5.06e 11.43g 23.77b 873.50defg 7.00h 6.34gh 47.55gh sq-008 57.53def 5.55bcd 31.7de 27.42c 987.18bc 8.50ef 8.21cd 61.55cd mean 58.29 5.78 31.97 22.93 904.74 8.46 7.71 57.78 sd 0.84 0.43 0.97 1.18 49.66 0.28 0.55 4.18 lsd 1.69 0.79 1.92 2.65 93.10 0.55 0.92 6.88 means followed by the same letter (s) in a column do not differ significantly variability of yield contributing characters the identification and utilization of an extensive germplasm is the prerequisite for improvement of a specific crop by adapting an appropr iate plant breeding program. regarding these, precise and exhaustive descriptions of the genotypes with the patterns of their genetic diversity can promote the introgression of current squash genetic base. in varia bility studies, high value of coefficient of variation (%cv) was found in number of nodes per plant at first harvest (5.11%), fruit yield per plant (7.13%), fruit diameter (6.89%), and fruit weight (6.14%). on the other hand, the lowest cv value was recorded in days to first female flowering (1.63%). the estimated genotypic variance (σ2g) was higher than their corresponding environmental variances (σ2e) for all the traits, except for plant height and number of nodes at first harvest that was very negligible (table 5). among the 15 accessions, the high magnitude of genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) along with phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) were recorded for fruit diameter followed by the fruit yield per plant, total yield/ha and number of female flowers per plant. very low level of gcv along with pcv was found in case of viable pollen percentage along with plant height at first harvest. most of the characters had low gcv values than pcv values indicated consider a ble influence of envir onment in the expression of all the traits (table 6). high gcv indicates the presence of exploitable genetic variability for the tr a its, which ca n fa cilita te selection (muralidhara and narasegowda, 2014; yadav et al., 2009). heritability estimation gives an insight into the extent of genetic control to express a particular trait and phenotypic reliability in predicting its breeding value (ndukauba et al., 2015, nahar et al., 2016). the heritability in combination with genetic advance (ga) assessing the genetic diversity of squash genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 58 table 5. estimates of genetic parameters for various characteristics in squash genotypes parameters mean mss cv % σ2g σ 2 ph σ 2 e plant height (cm) 34.27 3.67** 3.16 0.83 2.01 1.17 at first harvest stem diameter (cm) 11.08 2.90*** 3.55 0.91 1.07 0.16 at first harvest number of leaves 22.52 7.26*** 4.17 2.13 3.01 0.88 at first harvest number of nodes 12.84 3.19*** 5.11 0.92 1.35 0.43 at first harvest days to flower bud 22.08 5.26*** 4.64 1.40 2.45 1.05 initiation days to first male 37.33 65.33*** 3.73 21.13 23.07 1.94 flowering days to first female 39.26 17.29*** 1.63 5.63 6.04 0.41 flowering number of male 19.18 1.71*** 3.29 0.44 0.84 0.40 flowers number of female 12.00 4.56*** 4.95 1.40 1.76 0.35 aflowers viable pollen (%) 89.80 10.80*** 1.69 2.83 5.14 2.31 days to first harvest 58.30 18.23*** 1.74 5.73 6.76 1.03 nodes at first 5.78 0.63* 8.24 0.14 0.36 0.23 fruit harvest fruit length (cm) 31.97 96.72*** 3.59 31.8 33.12 1.32 fruit diameter (cm) 22.93 92.99*** 6.89 30.17 32.67 2.50 fruit weight (g) 904.74 34814*** 6.14 10573 13668 3095 number of fruits 8.46 3.74*** 3.87 1.21 1.32 0.11 per plant fruit yield per 7.71 8.57*** 7.13 2.76 3.06 0.30 plant (kg) total yield (t/ha) 57.78 477.72*** 7.12 153.6 170.5 16.93 * significant at 5% level of probability; ** significant at 1% level of probability and; *** significant at 0.1% level of probability. increases the intensity of selection in a breeding program. high heritability indicates less environmental influence in the observed variation (abdein et al., 2017). thus, genetic advance measures the difference between the mean genotypic values of the original population from which these are selected. almost all the attributes showed high heritability except nodes at first harvest (38.89%) and plant height (41.49%). the highest estimates of genetic advance (in percent of mean) were determined for total yield/ha, fruit yield per plant, fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter and number of fruits per plant (table 6). correlation analysis (table s1), the trait plant height had significant positive correlation with days to first male flowering, number of female flowers, number of fruits per plant, and fruits yield per plant. other attributes such as number of leaves at first harvest was negatively and significantly correlated with the days to first male flowering. the number of nodes at first harvest showed positive and significant correlation with number of female flowers, single fruit weight, number of fruits per plant and yield of fruits ton per hectare. the number of female flowers per plant had significant and positive correlation with number of sajid et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 59 table 6. estimation of heritability and genetic advance (ga) in squash genotypes parameters gcv pcv ecv heritaga ga (% bility (5%) mean) plant height (cm) at first harvest 2.67 4.14 1.47 41.49 1.21 3.53 stem diameter (cm) at first harvest 8.61 9.34 0.73 85.05 1.81 16.34 number of leaves at first harvest 6.48 7.71 1.22 70.76 2.53 11.23 number of nodes at first harvest 7.47 9.05 1.58 68.15 1.63 12.70 days to flower bud initiation 5.36 7.10 1.73 57.14 1.84 8.33 days to first male flowering 12.31 12.87 0.56 91.58 9.07 24.28 days to first female flowering 6.04 6.26 0.22 93.21 4.72 12.02 number of male flowers 3.46 4.78 1.32 52.38 0.99 5.16 number of female flowers 9.86 11.04 1.18 79.73 2.18 18.14 viable pollen (%) 1.87 2.53 0.65 55.05 2.57 2.86 days to first harvest 4.11 4.46 0.35 84.76 4.54 7.79 nodes at first fruit harvest 6.47 10.38 3.91 38.89 0.48 8.31 fruit length (cm) 17.64 18.00 0.36 96.01 11.38 35.61 fruit diameter (cm) 23.95 24.93 0.98 92.35 10.87 47.42 fruit weight (g) 11.37 12.92 1.55 77.36 186.31 20.59 number of fruits per plant 13.00 13.58 0.58 91.67 2.17 25.64 fruit yield per plant (kg) 21.55 22.69 1.14 90.2 3.25 42.16 total yield (t/ha) 21.45 22.60 1.15 90.07 24.23 41.93 assessing the genetic diversity of squash genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 fruits per plant. fruit length had significant and positive correlation with fruit weight, number of fruits per plant and fruit yield per plant and also significantly and negatively correlated with fruit diameter. one of the most impor ta nt tr a its of fr uit weight wa s significantly and positively correlated with fruit yield per plant. highly significant and positive association of fruit yield per plant was recorded with the plant height, number of leaves per plant, number of nodes at first harvest, fruit length, fruit weight and number of fruits per plant. similar findings were noticed by gomes et al. (2020) in brazilian germplasm of winter squash and mohsin et al. (2017) in pumpkin. in cluster analysis (ca), the cluster means of 15 accessions of squash showed that the mean values of the cluster s varied in magnitude for ma ximum characters (table s2. the cluster ii showed the highest total yield value along with the second highest fruit length and fruit diameter value, the highest number of fruits per plant value and the highest yield per plant value, which could contribute to total yield. from the clustering comparison of the means, it was found that cluster ii expressed the best agronomic quantitative yield contr ibuting tr a its a nd yield potentia ls. comparing the means of all clusters it was showed that first runner from cluster i, cheonlima and sq001 from cluster ii, sq-008 from cluster iv and sq006 from cluster iii expressed the best quantitative and qualitative traits and yield potentials which could be effective for the improvement of yield of squash (fig. s1). gomes et al. (2020) reported similar results in brazilian germplasm of winter squash. ene et al. (2016) also reported similar findings in cucumber genotypes. this suggests that the genotypes of squash of the same origin have diverse and broad genetic basis. principal component analysis (pca) is an important multivariate technique used to examine associations between cha r a cter s a nd mea sur es the genetic variability of genotypes (balkaya et al., 2010; ene et al., 2016). the three principal components (pc1, pc2 and pc3) can be retained to describe the variability among the squash genotypes (table s3). the first three components explain 63% of the total genetic variation 60 sajid et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 51-62, 2022 while the first two principal components accounted for 53% and first component accounted for 32.4% of the total genetic variation among the 18 a ttributes describing 15 different genotypes. the first component (pc1) described 32.4% of the total variation, second component (pc2) explained 20.6% of the total variability and the third component (pc3) evaluated only 10.02% of the total variation. the pc1 was positively and strongly associated with the plant height (0.18), stem diameter (0.29), number of leaves (0.29), number of nodes (0.28), number of female flower (0.30), viable pollen percentage (0.25), fruit length (0.13), fruit weight (0.21), number of fruits per plant (0.39) and fruit yield per plant ( 0.36). the pc2 was positively and highly associated to days to first harvest (0.36) and fruit length (0.47). in case of pc3, it was strongly associated with plant height (0.47), days to first male flowering (0.39), days to first female flowering (0.49), number of male flower (0.31), number of female flowers (0.24) and fruit length (0. 16). wher ea s, mor phologica l (qua lita tive) characterization showed that limited variability present in the genotypes in respect of some characters viz., plant vigor, stem and leaf pubescence, and flower colour. significant variability was observed in case of fruit shape, fruit size, fruit skin color and luster respectively. this finding corroborated with the findings of el-hadi et al. (2014) in squash and partly agrees with the results by khawla et al. (2019) in tunisian squash and nahar et al. (2016) in sweet gourd. qualitative characterization selection of qualitative traits is also very important in successful crop breeding program. significant variation was found under this research in relation to different qualitative traits of squash accessions. most significant variation was found in fruit size, fruit shape and fruit skin color followed by lustre (table s4). the fruit colour, size, shape was morphologically different because of the genetic makeup present in the studied genotypes (fig. 1). a similar morphological variation of qualitative traits was reported by uddain et al. (2019) in zucchini squa sh, mur a lidha r a a nd narasegowda (2014) in pumpkin, nahar et al. (2016) in sweet gourd and ene et al. (2016) in cucumber. conclusion high heritability coupled with high genetic advance observed for total yield/ha, fruit yield per plant, fruit weight, fruit length and fruit diameter in this set of germplasm indicated that, these traits will be the main contributing factors for further crop improvement programme. significant and positive association of fruit yield per plant with number of leaves per plant, number of nodes at first harvest, fruit length, fruit weight and number of fruits per plant suggested that, these tr aits were inter-related a nd collectively contributed to the final yield of squash. the principal component analysis showed that number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant, fruit length and days to first female flowering were the most discriminating factors that accounted for the genetic diversity of squash and would be considered for squash improvement program. considering yield performance, it can be recommended that first runner is the highest yielding genotype 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(received: 24.112021; revised: 06.03.2022; accepted :10.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction papaya (carica papaya l.), belonging to the family caricaceae, is one of the important fruit crops in tropical and subtropical regions due to its economic, nutritional, industrial, pharmaceutical and medicinal values, both for local and export markets. many diseases in papaya are economically important, the most important being the papaya ring spot virus (purcifull, 1972). management of prsv by roguing out infected plants, quarantine regulation for restricting plant movement, use of insecticides against insect vectors and, cross protection, have generally not been effective in controlling the disease. naturally occurring resistance to prsv-p has not been identified in any papaya cultivar to date. thus, developing prsv resistant papaya is considered to be the best strategy for long-term control of this virus. several species from a related genus, vasconcellea, exhibit complete resistance to prsv-p, and present a valuable resource for developing new prsv-p resistant papaya varieties. crossing tolerant varieties with susceptible highyielding commercial varieties has imparted some tolerance and improved yield under infectious conditions (chan, 2004). numerous efforts have been made to incorporate resistance molecular diversity analysis in f3 intergeneric population of papaya (carica papaya l.) r. sudha1, t.n. balamohan2, k. soorianathasundaram and n. manivannan3 dept. of fruit crops, horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore – 641003, india e-mail: rsudhahort@yahoo.co.in abstract attempts were made to estimate molecular diversity present in f3 populations of intergeneric crosses between carica papaya l. (var. pusa nanha and cp 50) and vasconcellea cauliflora. molecular studies revealed that pcr amplification using five issr primers in 40 f3 progenies yielded 53 reproducible amplified bands. of the 53 bands, 44 were polymorphic (83.02%). polymorphic information content (pic) value ranged between 0.90 (issr 807 x 810) and 0.66 (issr 834 x 810). similarity coefficients based on five issr markers ranged from 0.05 to 0.96. maximum similarity was observed for genotypes 1, 4 and 6 of pusa nanha x vasconcellea cauliflora (0.96). minimum similarity was observed between genotypes 3 and 14 of cp 50 x vasconcellea cauliflora (0.04). this higher genetic diversity of papaya progenies stands to contribute to development of new varieties and, using the data, further hybridization and selection can be planned. key words: carica papaya, vasconcellea cauliflora, intergeneric hybridization, molecular diversity j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):1-4, 2014 1central potato research station, muthorai, ooty, the nilgiris, tn. 2horticultural college and research institute for women, navalur kuttapattu, trichy, tn. 3dept. of oil seeds, centre for plant breeding and genetics, tnau, coimbatore, tn. genes from other genera present in the caricaceae family, namely, vasconcellea cauliflora, v. quercifolia, v. stipulata and v. pubescens. intergeneric hybrids between papaya and prsv resistant species have been produced by a number of investigators with the aid of embryo rescue techniques (horovitz and jimenez, 1967; khuspe et al, 1980). however, not much progress is evident in this direction. therefore, intergeneric hybridization was initiated by us between carica papaya and vasconcellea cauliflora to incorporate resistance gene from the latter into cultivars of papaya. molecular markers are a useful complement to morphological and physiological characterization of cultivars as these are plentiful, independent of tissue, age or environmental effects, and allow for cultivar identification early in plant development. thus, for genetic assessment, molecular markers are often considered advantageous over morphological markers. issrs are a versatile tool and are used extensively in plant breeding and evolutionary studies because of their high fidelity for showing diversity among cultivars (levi and roland, 1997). in the present study, attempts were made to assess molecular diversity in f3 populations of intergeneric hybrids of carica papaya and vasconcellea cauliflora using issr markers. 2 sudha et al material and methods the present study, undertaken during 2009-2010 at horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india, involves evaluation of molecular diversity among f3 generation of intergeneric populations of carica papaya (vars. pusa nanha and cp50) and vasconcellea cauliflora. intergeneric hybridization was made using carica papaya as the female and vasconcellea cauliflora as the male parent, to transfer genes desirable for prsv resistance. sibmating was made in selected plants of the f2 population to develop f3 population in pusa nanha x vasconcellea cauliflora and cp50 x vasconcellea cauliflora. in all, 25 progenies of the cross pusa nanha x vasconcellea cauliflora, and 15 progenies of cp50 x vasconcellea cauliflora were used in this study. seeds obtained from selected combinations of f2 population and their parents were sown in nursery bags. screening of f3 population was done by mechanical sap inoculation, followed by observations on disease intensity as per the disease score scale developed by dhanam (2006). healthy seedlings showing uniform growth were planted at a spacing of 1.8 × 1.8m. standard package of practices was followed for the period under study. leaf samples of intergeneric hybrids were collected from the experimental field of college orchard, horticultural college and research institute, coimbatore. leaf samples collected were stored at -80oc for dna extraction. genomic dna was isolated from young leaves using hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (ctab) (aitchitt et al, 1993). quality and quantity of genomic dna extracted was determined using gel electrophoresis (0.7% agarose gel). dna concentration for pcr amplification was estimated by comparing band intensity of a sample with band intensity of known dilutions of lambda dna/ ecori+hindiii marker (fermentas, #sm0191). based on the band intensity, dna was further diluted to required concentration (25-50ng) using double-distilled water. pcr reaction was performed using five issr primers, viz., ubc 807, ubc 808, ubc 810, ubc 817 and ubc 834. pcr reaction was carried out in a total volume of 10μl in 96-tube pcr plates. the master mix of solutions for each reaction included 1.0μl of 10x taq buffer + mgcl2 (15mm), 1.0μl of dntp (2mm ), 1.0μl (0.5μl each for combination) primers 10μm, 0.1μl of taq polymerase (3 iu / μl), 4.9μl of sterile double-distilled water and 2μl of template dna10ng/μl. touchdown protocol was followed for all the primers; cycling profile was: initial denaturation at 94oc for 3 min, denaturation at 94oc for 30 sec (-0.5oc), annealing (19 cycles) at 63°c for 30 sec, extension at 72oc for 1 min, denaturation at 94°c for 15 sec, annealing (19 cycles) at 55oc for 30 sec, extension at 72oc for 1 min, final extension at 72oc for 10 min, and final hold at 4°c. electrophoresis was performed in 1.5% agarose at 120v for 2 hours. page electrophoresis was carried out using an improved staining method, a combination of different steps proposed by benbouza et al (2006). data generated for 40 genotypes with five issr primers were subjected to statistical analysis. polymorphic bands were scored visually for presence or absence for each primer. scores were obtained in the form of a matrix with ‘1’ and ‘0’, which indicates presence or absence of the bands in each genotype, respectively. it is the sum total of polymorphism information content (pic) values for all the markers generated by a particular primer. pic value was calculated using the formula pic = 1-σpi2, where pi is frequency of the ith allele (smith et al, 1997). binary data scoring was used for constructing a dendrogram. genetic association between accessions was evaluated by calculating jaccard’s similarity coefficient for-pair wise comparisons based on the proportion of shared bands produced by primers (jaccard, 1908). similarity, the matrix was generated using simqual programme of ntsyspc software, version 2.02 (rohlf, 2000). these similarity coefficients were used for cluster analysis, and the dendrogram was constructed using unweighted pair-group method (upgma) (sneath and sokal, 1973). results and discussion molecular markers are a useful complement to morphological and physiological characterization of cultivars as these are plentiful, independent of tissue, age or environmental effects, and allow for cultivar identification early in plant development. thus, for genetic assessment, molecular markers are often considered advantageous over morphological markers. molecular markers based on differences in dna sequence between individuals generally detect more polymorphisms than morphological and protein based markers, and constitute a new generation of genetic markers (mignouna et al, 1998; tanksley et al, 1989). amplification of inter simple sequence repeats (issr) is a relatively j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):1-4, 2014 3 recent technique and has proved to be a powerful, rapid, simple, reproducible and inexpensive way for assessing genetic diversity or to identify closely-related cultivars in several species. it is a dominant marker, though occasionally exhibiting codominance. this marker reveals a far larger number of fragments per primer than does rapd analysis (bajpai et al, 2008). in the present investigation, 40 f3 genotypes of pusa nanha x vasconcellea cauliflora (25 genotypes) and cp50 x vasconcellea cauliflora (15 genotypes) were used for identifying closely-related progenies, using five issr primers. pcr amplification using these five primers in 40 f3 progenies yielded 53 reproducible amplified bands. the number of bands amplified varied from 5 (issr 834) to 16 (issr 807x810). of the 53 bands, 44 were polymorphic (83.02%). average number of bands and number of polymorphic bands per primer was 10.6 and 8.8, respectively. polymorphism information content (pic) values were calculated for issr markers to characterize the capacity of each primer for revealing or detecting polymorphic loci among genotypes. pic value, as a relative measure of level of polymorphism ranged between 0.90 (issr 807 x 810) and 0.66 (issr 834 x 810). a higher pic value indicated informativeness of the primer. among the primers used in our study, two primers, viz., 808 and 807x810, exhibited pic value ranging from 0.90 to 0.87. these primers can provide a basis for papaya dna profile system (table 1). presence of 44 polymorphic bands in papaya progenies indicated a presence of genetic polymorphism in these progenies, which may be used in planning hybridization in papaya. moreover, occurrence of specific bands only in some of the progenies indicates presence of specific loci in the progenies. molecular data for 40 f3 progenies were analyzed using sequential hierarchial and nested (sahn) clustering methods of ntsys-pc program version 2.02 (rohlf, 2000) based on jaccard’s similarity coefficient, with unweighted pair group method with arithmetic average (upgma). maximum similarity was observed in genotypes 1, 4 and 6 of pusa nanha x vasconcellea cauliflora (0.96). minimum similarity was observed between genotypes 3 and 14 of cp50 x vasconcellea cauliflora (0.04). based on the similarity index, a dendrogram was constructed for 40 f3 genotypes which grouped into seven clusters at 0.56 coefficients (fig.1). cluster i was found to be the largest, with 27 genotypes. cluster ii was the second largest, with four genotypes. clusters iii and iv contained both genotypes and were observed to have close similarity. clusters v and vii had only one genotype. cluster vi contained three genotypes. the present study indicates clearly that wider variability was created using the crosses pusa nanha x vasconcellea cauliflora and cp50 x vasconcellea cauliflora in f3 populations. the present study revealed an average genetic similarity of 56% in f3 table 1. per cent polymorphism and polymorphic information content (pic) value for issr primers s. no. issr sequence (5’-3’) total number number of pic value primer no. of bands polymorphic (ubc code) bands 1 808 aga gag aga gag aga gt 15 14 0.87 2 834 aga gag aga gag aga gc 5 5 0.78 3 807 vs 810 gag aga gag aga gag at 16 15 0.90 4 834 vs 807 cac aca cac aca cac aa 8 4 0.72 5 834 vs 810 aga gag aga gag aga gyt 9 6 0.66 total no. of bands 53 44 average number of bands per primer 10.6 8.8 fig 1. molecular diversity study among f3 progenies of pusa nanha x vasconcellea cauliflora and cp 50 x vasconcellea cauliflora using issr markers molecular diversity analysis in f3 population of papaya j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):1-4, 2014 4 progenies, indicating a presence of greater genetic difference among these populations. using dna markers of different nature could help differentiate papaya progenies, and their genetic variation can be evaluated. molecular data can provide more information and clear discrimination between progenies. in addition, interspecific hybridization showed greater diversity and distinctness, providing information for prsv resistance breeding programmes for inducing genetic variation in the progeny. references aitchitt, m., ainsworth, c.c. and thangavelu, m. 1993. a rapid and efficient method for the extraction of total dna from mature leaves of the date palm (phoenix dactylifera l.). pl. mol. biol. repr., 11:317-319 bajpai, a., srivastava, n., rajan, s. and chandra, r. 2008. genetic diversity and discrimination of mango accessions using rapd and issr markers. indian j. hort., 65:377-382 benbouza, h., jacquemin, j.m., baudoin, j.p. and mergeai, g. 2006. optimization of a reliable, fast, cheap and sensitive silver staining method to detect ssr markers in polyacrylamide gels. biotechnol. agron. soc. environ., 10:77-81 chan, y.k. 2004. field performance of papaya lines selected for tolerance to ring spot virus disease. j. trop. agri. fd. sci., 31:128-137 dhanam, s. 2006. studies on papaya ring spot disease. m.sc. (plant pathology) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore horovitz, s. and jimenez, h. 1967. cruzameintos interspecificos intergenericos en caricaceas ysus implcaciones fitoecnicas. agron. trop., 17:323-343 jaccard, p. 1908. nouvelles rescerches sur la distribution florale. bull. soc. vaud. sci. nat., 44:233-270 khuspe, s.s., hendre, r.r., mascarenhas, a.f., jaganathan, v., thombre, m.v. and joshi, a.b. 1980. utilization of tissue culture to isolate intergeneric hybrids in carica l. in: rao, p.s., heble, m.r. and chadla, m.s. (eds). plant tissue culture, genetic manipulation and somatic hybridization of plant cells. bhabha atomic research centre, trombay, bombay, india, pp.198-205 levi, f.r. and roland, g.w. 1997. versatile tools used in plant breeding programme by using issr markers. agronomia-esoamericana, 8:121-125 mignouna, h.d., ikca, n.q. and thottapilly, g. 1998. genetic diversity in cowpea as revealed by random amplified polymorphic dna. j. genet. breed., 52:151-159 purcifull, d. 1972. cmi/aab descr. pl. viruses, 84:3 rohlf, j. 2000. ntsyspc: numerical taxonomy and multivariate analysis system. version 2.1. users guide, exeter software, setauket, 38, new york smith, j.s.c., chin, e.c.l., shu, h., smith, o.s., wall, s.j., senior, m.l., mitchell, s.e., kresovich, s. and zeigle, j. 1997. an evaluation of the utility of ssr loci as molecular markers in maize (zea mays l.): comparisons with data from rflps and pedigree. theor. appl. genet., 95:163-173 sneath, p.h.a. and sokal, r.r. 1973. numerical taxonomy: the principles and practice of numerical classification. w.f. freeman and co., san francisco, california, usa, p. 573 tanksley, s.d., young, n.d., paterson, a.h. and bonierbale, m.w. 1989. rflp mapping in plant breeding: new tools for an old science. biotechnol., 7:257-264 (ms received 08 january 2013, revised 26 june 2014, accepted 28 june 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):1-4, 2014 sudha et al introduction guava (psidium guajava l.) is an important fruit crop grown throughout the tropics and sub-tropics of the world. it is a very hardy plant, a prolific bearer and highly remunerative fruit crop. it can also be grown satisfactorily under adverse soil and climatic conditions. productivity of guava can be further enhanced by increasing planting density and by better canopy management. therefore, high density plantation with a managed canopy, that has balanced vegetative and reproductive growth, is the need of the hour to achieve high productivity per unit area. in the absence of dwarfing rootstocks in guava, techniques that restrict vegetative growth and promote reproductive growth are important in orchard management. therefore, apart from pruning and training of roots and shoots, certain growth retardants (alone or in combination) may be exploited. although a flowering and fruit set under normal planting system is not a problem, there is a wide scope for enhancing the productivity potential of guava plants, particularly under reduced plant spacing. as guava tree responds well to canopy modification with respect to role of paclobutrazol and ethephon in reproductive growth of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava (psidium guajava l.) plants at different spacing j.s. brar1 and j.s. bal regional research station, punjab agricultural university bathinda – 151 001 (punjab), india e–mail: jsbrar74@rediffmail.com abstract a study on 4-year ‘allahabad safeda’ guava plants was made to assess the influence of paclobutrazol (pp 333), [(2rs, 3rs)-1-(4-chlorophenyl)-4,4-dimethyl-2-(1,2,4 triazol-1-yl) pentan-3-ol], a gibberellin-inhibitor, and ethephon [(2-chloroethyl) phosphonic acid], a vegetative growth inhibitor and a ripening promoter, on reproductive growth of plants. treatments in the form of foliar application at 500 and 1000 ppm were applied consecutively during march 2007 and 2008 on plants at 6m x 2m, 6m x 3m, 6m x 4m and 6m x 5m spacing. maximum flowering and fruit set was recorded in paclobutrazol treated plants in both rainy and winter crops. ethephon reduced flower bud density (fbd) and fruit set during both the cropping seasons. however, ethephon treated plants exhibited slightly higher fruit retention. ethephon advances fruit maturity by upto a week during rainy season and two weeks during winter season. paclobutrazol treated plants exhibited significantly higher fruit number, fruit yield, yield efficiency, fruiting density compared to ethephon treated and control plants. reproductive growth of plants at wider spacing of 6m x 5m and 6m x 4m significantly improved compared to closer spacings of 6m x 2m and 6m x 3m during both cropping seasons. plants at wider spacing responded better to paclobutrazol applications with respect to flowering and fruiting. key words: guava, paclobutrazol, ethephon, flowering and fruiting vegetative and reproductive growth (singh and chanana, 2005), modification of canopy through pruning and use of certain growth regulators in high density orchards may be required to enhance production efficiency. some growth regulators like paclobutrazol and ethephon may also be very useful in high density planting, as paclobutrazol helps make the plants dwarf by a retarding effect on vegetative growth of the tree while increasing the number of flower buds. ethephon acts as a ripening hormone and enhances the ripening process besides having a growth retarding effect. paclobutrazol @ 500 ppm improved fruit set in winter season crop of guava (singh and bal, 2006). similarly, jain and dashora (2007) also recorded highest yield under 500 ppm pbz treatment. material and methods the present investigation, relating to reproductive growth of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava (psidium guajava l.) plants at different spacings with paclobutrazol and ethephon treatments, was carried out in the new orchard, department of horticulture, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during the years 2007-2009. plants of guava cv. 1department of horticulture, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana-141 004, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 128-133, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 129 ‘allahabad safeda’ were planted in march, 2003 at different spacings viz., 6m x 2m, 6m x 3m, 6m x 4m and 6m x 5m, with three replications. experimental plants were sprayed with paclobutrazol and ethephon in both the years @ 500 and 1000ppm, while control plants were sprayed with water, during the month of march. observations were recorded on fruiting characters, i.e., flower bud density, fruit set, fruit retention, fruit maturity, yield per tree and yield efficiency for both the rainy and winter season crops in may-july and september-december, during both years of study. for calculation of flower bud density, three tertiary shoots (one meter) of medium vigour each in the upper, middle and lower parts of the tree canopy of every plant were randomly selected and tagged. number of flowers on each shoot was counted and the average worked out. fruit set was recorded by counting the number of fruits that had set on tagged shoots after the petal-fall stage and per cent fruit set was calculated. similarly, fruit retention was calculated by counting the number of fruits left on each tagged shoot 8-10 days before harvest, which was expressed as per cent fruit retention. fruit maturity was recorded by noting the number of days taken from fruit set to maturity, by counting mature fruits in all the parts of the tree canopy during both the cropping seasons. maturity was judged on the basis of parameters like colour break, total soluble solids, acidity, firmness and tss/acid ratio. fruit yield per tree under each treatment was recorded at harvest and yield efficiency was determined by dividing average fruit load on a tree by canopy volume and was expressed in percentage. data were analyzed in this randomized block design with split plot. results and discussion flower bud density (fbd) : the highest flower bud density for rainy season crop was noted in plants sprayed with pbz 1000 ppm (35.87 flowers/shoot), followed by 30.74 in plants treated with pbz 500 ppm. ethephon 1000 ppm treated plants exhibited the least fbd of 26.9 flowers/meter shoot (table 1). however, in the winter season guava, fbd was found to be highest (8.53) in ethephon 500 ppm treated plants and the least (6.32) in untreated plants. reduction in fbd under higher doses of ethephon may be due to ethephon induced leaf shed, causing reduced transfer of the stimulus necessary for induction of flower buds. however, higher fbd in paclobutrazol treated plants may be due to enhancement of reproductive growth at expense of vegetative growth, reduced by the gibberellin inhibiting effect of paclobutrazol. manivannan and bharthikannan (2005) also found positive a response with respect to number of flowers produced, days to first flower bud appearance, size and yield of fruits, at 1500 ppm paclobutrazol. in earlier investigations on mango (winston, 1992, tongumpai et al, 1997, singh, 2000) and lychee (manzel and simpson, 1990), improvement was reported in flowering, with pbz application. similarly, mohammed et al (1984) and castelen and becerril (1994) reported that ethephon was appreciably effective in increasing flower bud production in guava. the mean maximum number of flower buds/1m shoot during rainy season was observed to be 35.93 at 6m x 5m, and 32.31 flowers per meter shoot at 6m x 4m spacing. plants at closer spacings of 6m x 2m and 6m x 3m produced minimum average number of flower buds/shoot, i.e., 22.44 and 29.4, respectively. during winter, the highest fbd of 14.12 was noted in plants at 6m x 5m spacing, and the least (4.38) in 6m x 3m spaced plants. fbd in the winter season was quite low due to overbearing during the rainy season, i.e., metabolic reserves required for induction of flowering may have got reduced due to heavy flowering in april-may, thereby affecting fbd in augustseptember in the winter season crop. reduction in fbd with decrease in plant spacing may be attributed to reduced radiant energy received table 1. effect of paclobutrazol and ethephon on flower bud density of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava planted at different spacings treatment (ppm) spacing (m) rainy season winter season 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean paclobutrazol 500 24.18 32.45 38.28 28.06 30.74 4.10 4.75 6.44 17.48 8.19 paclobutrazol 1000 24.20 34.71 39.92 44.66 35.87 4.58 4.70 8.15 15.39 8.21 ethephon 500 22.70 27.82 23.87 38.00 28.10 4.88 4.63 8.92 15.68 8.53 ethephon 1000 21.15 28.85 29.02 28.59 26.90 5.00 3.83 6.69 11.81 6.83 control 19.96 23.19 30.47 40.36 28.50 5.37 3.97 5.69 10.26 6.32 mean 22.44 29.40 32.31 35.93 30.02 4.79 4.38 7.18 14.12 7.62 cd (p=0.05) treatment (a): 6.16 treatment (a): 1.20 spacing (b): 5.51 spacing (b) : 1.07 interaction: a x b: 9.64 interaction: a x b: 1.5 ns = non-significant paclobutrazol and ethephon in guava reproductive growth j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 128-133, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 130 and, also, reduced substrate level with a reduction in shoot growth. the present results are in conformation with those of lal et al (1996), who also found guava trees at closer spacing (2m x2m) producing lower number of flower buds compared to higher spacing (8m x 8m). similarly, singh (2003) also recorded an increase in flower bud density with increased plant spacing in guava. fruit set: fruit set in both the seasons improved significantly with pbz application (table 2). average fruit set during the rainy season was found to be maximum when plants were sprayed with pbz 1000ppm (56.89%) followed by 51.07% in pbz 500ppm treated plants. the least fruit set (47.8%) was recorded in ethephon 1000ppm treated plants. in winter season too, pbz enhanced fruit set. maximum mean fruit set was found with pbz 500ppm (71.66%), followed by 70.84% in pbz 1000ppm treated plants. minimum average fruit set (67.72%) was noted in ethephon 1000ppm sprayed plants, followed by 69.56% in untreated plants. lim and nualsri (1992) also observed improvement in fruit set of neck orange with pbz treatment. similarly, singh (2000) reported increase in fruit set in mango with pbz treatment. fruit set in plants sprayed with ethephon, particularly at higher dose, was recorded to be low; this may be due to ethephon induced leaf shed thus causing an uncongenial microclimate in the tree canopy, which may be responsible for reduced fruit set. on the other hand, pbz was found to increase fruit set, by channelizing energy available for the vegetative growth to reproductive growth. during rainy season, the maximum mean fruit set of 56.96% and 53.3% was recorded in the wider spacings of 6m x 5m and 6m x 4m, respectively. the minimum average per cent fruit set of 43.28% was recorded in the close spacing of 6m x 2m. however, in the winter season crop, fruit set was found to be higher than in the rainy season crop due the low number of flowers in winter season. maximum fruit set (76.86%) was observed in plants at 6m x 5m spacing and the least average fruit set was observed in close spacing of 6m x 2m (63.52%). low fruit set at close spacing may be due to less spread of trees, and to lower light and air penetration into the canopy. data in winter season crop are in line with observation of lal et al (1996) who reported lower fruit set in close spacing (2m x 2m) compared to a wider spacing (8m x 8m). however, results of this study are in contradiction to those of singh (2006), who recorded maximum fruit set at close spacing. fruit retention: growth regulators had significant effect on fruit retention in both rainy and winter season crops of guava. in rainy season guava fruit retention recorded in plants treated with ethephon 500 and 1000 ppm was 47.66 and 44.36%, respectively and lowest fruit retention (39.62%) was observed in pbz 500 ppm treated plants (table 3). in the winter season guava, similar trend of fruit retention was observed. maximum mean fruit retention was recorded in plants treated with ethephon 500 ppm (62.56%) and least retention was noted in pbz 500 ppm (53.73%) and untreated (53.74%) plants. higher retention in ethephon treated plants may be due to low fbd and fruit set, resulting in low fruit load on the trees, thereby, enabling plants to hold higher number of fruits owing to higher availability of translocates. average per cent fruit retention was not significantly affected by various different spacings during both seasons. however, mean fruit retention was maximum (43.5%) at 6m x 4m, and 59.11% at 6m x 5m spacing. however, the least average per cent fruit retention (41.64 and 55.17%) was observed in 6m x 2m and 6m x 3m spacings during rainy and winter crop seasons, respectively. retention of winter season fruits in both cultivars was higher than in the rainy season fruits. this may be due to very low fruit count during winter season, there by resulting in higher allocation of nutrients and translocates to fruits on the plants. fruit maturity : the treatments had significant effect on table 2. effect of paclobutrazol and ethephon on fruit set (%) of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava planted at different spacings treatment (ppm) spacing (m) rainy season winter season 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean paclobutrazol 500 45.00 53.48 59.39 48.94 51.70 64.86 66.51 75.19 80.08 71.66 paclobutrazol 1000 45.00 55.75 61.03 65.78 56.89 65.49 68.26 71.38 78.21 70.84 ethephon 500 43.78 48.70 44.68 59.11 49.07 64.06 67.00 71.69 76.92 69.92 ethephon 1000 41.93 49.79 49.96 49.51 47.80 61.20 65.71 69.57 74.41 67.72 control 40.70 43.99 51.44 61.48 49.40 62.00 68.49 73.07 74.69 69.56 mean 43.28 50.34 53.3 56.96 50.97 63.52 67.19 72.18 76.86 69.94 cd (p=0.05) treatment (a): 2.68 treatment (a): 1.85 spacing (b): 3.00 spacing (b) : 2.07 interaction: a x b: ns interaction: a x b: ns ns = non-significant brar and bal j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 128-133, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 131 fruit maturity in both rainy and winter season crops. rainy season fruits took relatively less number of days to maturity (table 4) when sprayed with ethephon 500 ppm (65.9 days), followed by 66.5 days in ethephon 1000 ppm treatment. similarly, in the winter season, fruit maturity was attained earlier, i.e., 105.9 and 106.3 days, with ethephon 1000 and 500 ppm sprays, respectively. therefore, ethephon treatment induced advance maturity by approximately 5-6 days (i.e., earlier) in the rainy season and 10-12 days in the winter season compared to paclobutrazol treated and control plants. this might be due to ethephon inducing early ripening, as it is the key plant hormone responsible for fruit ripening. further, partial leaf shedding due to ethephon, particularly at the higher dose, may be another factor which enabled lightpenetration and a rise in temperature, resulting in early fruit ripening. maturity of rainy and winter season crops was not significantly affected by different spacings. however, fruit maturity in widely spaced plants was slightly earlier than in the closer spacing, probably due to higher solar radiation penetration and canopy temperature. fruit yield : per plant fruit yield was maximum (34.79 kg/ plant) in plants sprayed with pbz 1000 ppm, followed by 31.55 kg/plant in pbz 500 ppm treated plants during the rainy season. pbz 1000 ppm sprayed plants also gave the highest yield of 18.71 kg/plant during the winter season. lowest per plant yield during rainy season was 23.54 kg and 13.42 kg/plant in winter season (table 5) in untreated plants. benjawan et al (2006) also reported increase in ‘kaew’ mango fruit yield with pbz treatment. overall yield, primary crop yield and number of primary clusters were seen to be significantly reduced in ‘chenin blanc’ grapevine treated with ethephon upto two weeks after bloom (szyjewicz and kliewer, 1983). yadav et al (2001) also recorded minimum yield in ‘sardar’ guava plants treated with ethrel compared to control plants. however, suleman et al (2006) found that ethephon application during may reduced the yield of rainy season guava crop significantly over control, and subsequently increased the yield of winter season crop. highest yield was obtained from plants at the widest (6m x 5m) spacing during rainy and winter crop seasons, i.e., 35.3 and 28.65 kg/plant, and, lowest yield of 18.56 and table 3. effect of paclobutrazol and ethephon on fruit retention (%) of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava planted at different spacings treatment (ppm) spacing (m) rainy season winter season 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean paclobutrazol 500 39.12 38.63 40.37 40.37 39.62 54.23 51.96 52.92 55.80 53.73 paclobutrazol 1000 38.11 39.52 41.40 41.00 40.01 51.96 51.80 54.70 57.62 54.02 ethephon 500 46.38 47.40 49.23 47.63 47.66 59.86 62.05 63.01 65.30 62.56 ethephon 1000 43.21 43.59 45.97 44.65 44.36 58.00 59.25 58.34 63.13 59.68 control 41.37 41.25 40.54 41.73 41.22 51.81 54.11 55.33 53.71 53.74 mean 41.64 42.08 43.50 43.08 42.57 55.17 55.83 56.86 59.11 56.74 cd (p=0.05) treatment (a): 3.10 treatment (a): 1.34 spacing (b): ns spacing (b) : 1.50 interaction: a x b: ns interaction: a x b: 1.90 ns = non-significant table 4. effect of paclobutrazol and ethephon on fruit maturity (days) of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava planted at different spacings treatment (ppm) spacing (m) rainy season winter season 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean paclobutrazol 500 76.5 69.5 72.0 67.8 71.5 115.5 116.8 111.2 119.5 115.8 paclobutrazol 1000 72.6 72.3 70.5 68.5 71.0 114.8 114.2 110.5 113.2 113.2 ethephon 500 69.2 65.5 66.5 62.5 65.9 108.6 106.5 105.0 105.2 106.3 ethephon 1000 68.5 66.8 67.5 63.2 66.5 107.0 106.7 106.5 103.2 105.9 control 74.2 70.2 71.3 71.2 71.7 114.0 113.8 109.8 110.7 112.1 mean 72.2 68.9 69.6 66.6 69.3 112.0 111.6 108.6 110.4 110.6 cd (p=0.05) treatment (a): 0.94 treatment (a): 0.96 spacing (b): ns spacing (b) : ns interaction: a x b: ns interaction: a x b: ns ns = non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 128-133, 2010 paclobutrazol and ethephon in guava reproductive growth prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 132 9.45 kg/plant was recorded in plants at the closest spacing of 6m x 2m, respectively. similar results were reported by chundawat et al (1992), kalra et al (1994), lal et al (2000) and bal and dhaliwal (2003) in guava. however, singh et al (2007) also recorded highest yield in guava at 3m x 1.5m spacing from rainy and winter season crops, respectively, and the minimum at 6m x 6m spacing. yield efficiency : yield efficiency of plants under different treatments (table 6) was influenced significantly during both seasons. during the rainy season, maximum average yield efficiency (80.5%) was noted in pbz 500 ppm treated plants, followed by 79.6% in pbz 1000 ppm treatment. treatments with ethephon significantly reduced yield efficiency during the rainy season. lowest efficiency of yield (43.7%) was observed in untreated plants. in the winter season, ethephon 500 and pbz 1000 ppm sprays gave the highest yield efficiency of 43.3 and 42.8%, respectively, while, untreated plants exhibited the least yield efficiency of 24.9%, followed by 33.9% in ethephon 1000 ppm treated plants. yield efficiency significantly increased with increase in plant spacing. maximum average efficiency of yield (77.2%) was recorded in 6m x 4m spacing, followed by 74.8% in 6m x 5m spacing. least yield efficiency (45.4%) table 5. effect of paclobutrazol and ethephon on fruit yield (kg/tree) of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava planted at different spacings treatment (ppm) spacing (m) rainy season winter season 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean paclobutrazol 500 20.47 32.06 42.88 30.77 31.55 6.83 8.95 11.93 38.00 16.43 paclobutrazol 1000 19.30 29.96 48.06 41.85 34.79 8.96 11.71 19.50 34.66 18.71 ethephon 500 19.73 23.15 23.78 40.67 26.83 12.93 10.40 16.00 33.35 18.17 ethephon 1000 18.21 24.46 27.80 28.06 24.63 11.68 7.53 16.90 21.00 14.28 control 15.07 18.05 25.87 35.15 23.54 6.83 13.36 17.25 16.22 13.42 mean 18.56 25.54 33.68 35.30 28.27 9.45 10.39 16.32 28.65 16.20 cd (p=0.05) treatment (a): 4.50 treatment (a): 2.51 spacing (b): 4.64 spacing (b) : 2.24 interaction: a x b: ns interaction: a x b: 3.17 ns = non-significant table 6. effect of paclobutrazol and ethephon on yield efficiency (%) of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava planted at different spacings treatment (ppm) spacing (m) rainy season winter season 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 mean paclobutrazol 500 55.7 84.1 113.6 69.8 80.5 18.6 23.5 31.6 86.2 41.9 paclobutrazol 1000 50.4 71.6 95.8 94.2 79.6 23.4 28.0 38.9 78.0 42.8 ethephon 500 47.2 51.1 64.9 100.5 65.4 30.9 23.0 43.6 82.4 44.3 ethephon 1000 44.6 60.0 72.7 57.5 58.4 28.6 18.5 44.2 43.0 33.9 control 32.2 32.9 46.8 60.2 43.7 14.6 24.3 31.2 27.8 24.9 mean 45.4 57.8 77.2 74.8 64.3 23.1 23.5 37.4 60.7 36.8 cd (p=0.05) treatment (a): 26.52 treatment (a): 7.10 spacing (b): 23.88 spacing (b) : 13.92 interaction: a x b: 23.20 interaction: a x b: 5.85 ns = non-significant was obtained in plants at 6m x 2m spacing. similarly, in winter season, maximum mean yield efficiency (60.7%) was noted in 6m x 5m spacing, and the lowest average yield efficiency of 23.1% was recorded in the close spacing of 6m x 2m. references bal, j.s. and dhaliwal, g.s. 2003. high density planting studies in guava. haryana j. hortl. sci., 32:19-22 benjawan, c., chutichudat, p., boontiang, k. and chanaboon, t. 2006. effect of chemical paclobutrazol on flower development, quality and fruit yield of kaew mango in northeast thailand. pakistan j. biol. sci., 4:717-22 castelan, e.m. and becerril, r.a.e. 1994. physiology of production in psidium guajava l. procs. amer. soc. trop. hort., 38:152-55 chundawat, b.s., kikani, k.p., verma, l.r. and jadav, r.g. 1992. studies on hedge row plantation in ‘allahabad safeda’ guava. ind. j. hort., 49:134-37 jain, m.c. and dashora, l.k. 2007. growth, flowering, fruiting and yield of guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. sardar as influenced by various plant growth regulators. int‘l. j. agril sci., 3:4-7 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 128-133, 2010 brar and bal prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 133 kalra, s.k., sidhu, p.s., dhaliwal, g.s. and singh, r. 1994. effect of different spacings on yield of guava cv. allahabad safeda. ind. j. hort., 5:272-74 lal, s., tiwari, j.p. and misra, k.k. 1996. effect of plant spacing and pruning intensity on flowering and fruiting of guava. ann agril. res., 17:83-89 lal, s., tiwari, j.p. and misra, k.k. 2000. effect of plant spacing and pruning intensity on fruit yield and quality of guava. prog. hort., 32:20-25 lim, m. and nualsri, c. 1992. effect of paclobutrazol on fruit setting and fruit quality of neck orange (citrus reticulata blanco) thai agril. res. j., 10:68-72 manivannan, k. and bharthikannan, k. 2005. influence of paclobutrazol (pp333) on growth and yield of guava (psidium guajava l.) 1 st international guava symposium, cish, lucknow p59 (abstr.) menzel, c.m. and simpson, d.r. 1990. effect of paclobutrazol on growth and flowering of lychee (litchi chinensis) australian j. exptl. agri.130:131 mohammed, s., wilson, l.a. and prendergast, n. 1984. guava meadow orchard : effect of ultra high density planting and growth regulator on growth, flowering and fruiting. trop. agri., 61:297-301 singh, a. 2003. light interception behaviour of guava and its effects on vegetative growth, fruit yield and quality. ph.d. thesis, pau, ludhiana, punjab,india singh, g. and chanana, y.r. 2005. influence of pruning intensity and pruning frequency on vegetative and reproductive attributes in guava cv. l-49 abstract: 1 st international guava symposium, cish, lucknow p52 (abstr.) singh, g., singh, a.k. and mishra, d. 2007. high density planting in guava. acta hort., 735: 2235-41 singh, h.j. and bal, j.s. 2006. effect of pruning and growth regulators on physico-chemical characters of guava during rainy season planted at different spacing. int’l. j. agril. sci., 2:533-537 singh, r. 2006. high density planting studies in sardar guava (psidium guajava l.) m.sc. thesis, pau, ludhiana, punjab,india singh, z. 2000. effect of (2rs, 3rs) paclobutrazol on tree vigour, flowering, fruit set and yield in mango. acta hort., 525:459-462 suleman, m., sharma, j.r., kumar, r., gupta, r.b. and singh, s. 2006. effect of different chemicals on cropping pattern, and quality of guava cv. sardar. haryana j. hortl. sci., 35:226-227 szyjewicz, e. and kliewer, w.m. 1983. influence of timing of ethephon application on yield and fruit composition of chenin blanc grapevines. amer. j. enol. and viticult., 34:53-56 tongumpai, p., chantakulchan, k., subhadrabandhu, s., and ogata, r. 1997. foliar application of paclobutrazol on flowering of mango. acta hort., 455:175-179 winston, e.c. 1992. evaluation of paclobutrazol on growth, flowering and yield of mango cv. kensington pride. australian j. of exptl. agri., 32:97-104 yadav, s., bhatia s.k., godara, r.k. and rana, g.s. 2001. effect of growth regulators on the yield and quality of winter season guava cv. l-49. haryana j. hortl. sci., 30:133-137 (ms received 4 february 2010, revised 28 june 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 128-133, 2010 paclobutrazol and ethephon in guava reproductive growth prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):64-69, 2015 survey of nematode-destroying fungi from selected vegetable-growing areas in kenya p.m. wachira, j.n. muindi and s.a. okoth university of nairobi, p.o. box 30197, nairobi, kenya email: pwachira@uonbi.ac.ke abstract plant-parasitic nematodes cause severe damage to a wide range of economic crops, causing upto 5% yield losses globally. in kenya, vegetables are affected, among other pests, by parasitic nematodes, causing upto 80% loss in yield. nematode control is very difficult and relies heavily on use of chemical nematicides. use of these chemical nematicides leads to biological magnification, and elimination of natural enemies of other pathogens, thus creating a need for greater application of pesticides, increased production costs, and development of insecticide-resistance. these factors have led to a growing interest in search for alternate management strategies. the objective of this study was, therefore, to document nematode-destroying fungi in selected, major vegetable-growing areas in kenya as a step towards developing a self-sustaining system for management of plant-parasitic nematodes. soil samples were collected from five vegetable-production zones, viz., kinare, kabete, athi-river, machakos and kibwezi, and transported to the laboratory for extraction of nematode-destroying fungi. the soil-sprinkle technique described by jaffee et al (1996) was used for isolating the nematode-destroying fungi from soil, while, their identification was done using identification keys described by soto barrientos et al (2001). from this study, a total of 171 fungal isolates were identified as nematodedestroying. the highest population was recorded in kabete, at 33.9% of the total, followed by machakos, kibwezi, athi-river, with the least in kinare, at 24.6, 22.2, 11.7 and 7.6% of the total population, in that order. arthrobotrys was the most frequent genus, with mean occurrence of 7.3, followed by monacrosporium with 6 and stylophage with 5.2. a. dactyloides was significantly (p=0.002) affected by the agro-ecological zone, with the highest occurrence recorded in kabete, and the least in athi-river. kibwezi recorded highest diversity index, with a mean of 1.017, while, athi-river recorded the least, with a mean of 0.333. kibwezi had the highest species richness, recording a mean of 3.4, while, the least mean of 1.6 was recorded in athi-river. mean species richness of 2.2 was recorded for both kabete and machakos, and 1.8 for kinare. from the three genera recorded, arthrobotrys was more effective at trapping nematodes compared to monocrosporium and stylopage. the genus arthrobotrys had the highest number of trapped nematodes, with a total population of 57, followed by monacrosporium, the least being stylopage, with 45 and 36, respectively, in a period of 104 hours. from the study, it is evident that agricultural practices affect occurrence and diversity of nematodedestroying fungi, and, arthrobotrys can be used as a bio-control agent for managing plant-parasitic nematodes. key words: artabotrys, biological control, plant-parasitic nematodes introduction horticultural crops, both for local consumption and export, are important in kenya. one-tenth of the vegetables in kenya are grown for export. they are recognized for their health and nutritional benefits, and provide cash income and employment for close to two million people in kenya (dobson et al, 2004). production of vegetables in kenya, especially for an expanding domestic market, is even now limited by major pests and diseases (dobson et al, 2004). plant-parasitic nematodes have been identified as a major production constraint, affecting vegetable production, resulting in reduced yield quality and quantity (nchore et al, 2010). they are responsible for upto 80%, on vegetable production (kaskavalci, 2007). vegetable production in kenya is characterized by high chemical input for pest and soil fertility management (mutsotso et al, 2005). these practices have been associated with increase in soil-borne diseases and decline in beneficial soil micro-organisms (wachira et al, 2008). specifically, vegetable damage by root-knot nematode has been reported in kenya, with infected plants rendered unacceptable to international markets (nchore et al, 2010). the root knot nematode increases wounding of the root system, thus providing points of ingress of the pathogen. the nematode may also modify the tissue in a way that it becomes more amendable to bacterial colonization (hayward, 1991). globally, it is 65 nematode-destroying fungi in vegetable farms in kenya estimated that us $ 500 million is spent on root-knot nematode control strategy (keren-zur et al, 2000; pinkerton et al, 2000), including use of nematicides, organic-manure amendment and use of resistant cultivars (akhtar & malik, 2000). overall, though nematicides are effective in managing root-knot nematode and other plant-parasitic nematodes, they are expensive and become environmental pollutants when not applied at the right time, in the right manner and in the right dosage. this increases cost of production to the farmers, reducing their profit (republic of kenya, taita district development strategies 2002-2006). use of nematicides is also curtailed by their threat to groundwater, soil biodiversity, as well as long waiting-periods between use, harvesting and marketing of a crop (bridge, 1996). alternatively, soil beneficial microorganisms can be used as an alternative, thereby helping reduce application of chemicals to the soil. this entails the use of natural enemies to control nematode pests. beneficial microorganisms are non-polluting and, thus, environmentally safe and acceptable. usually, these are species-specific to the target pest, therefore with no chances of affecting nontarget species (unlike chemicals, which are broad-spectrum in their action (hein et al, 2007). nematode-destroying fungi are one such group of beneficial microorganisms for use in control of plant-parasitic control of plant-parasitic nematodes. these micro-fungi are natural enemies of the nematodes. they naturally capture, kill and digest nematodes present in the soil (rodrigues et al, 2001; nordbring-hertz et al, 2002). they comprise three main groups: the nematode trapping fungi, the endoparasitic fungi, and the egg-and cystparasitic fungi (nordbring-hertz et al, 2002; masoomeh et al, 2004). after trapping the nematodes, the fungi penetrate their cuticle, invade their entire body-cavity and, then, digest them completely. this group of fungi has drawn much attention due to their potential as biological control agents for plant-parasitic nematodes (jansson et al, 2000; sanyal, 2000; masoomeh et al, 2004). about 70% of the fungal genera and 160 species are associated with nematodes, but, only a few can be used as biological control agents for nematodes (elshafie et al, 2006). this study was, therefore, aimed at documenting occurrence and diversity of nematodedestroying fungi and testing their efficacy on plant-parasitic nematodes, to harness their potential as bio-control agents against plant-parasitic nematodes. material and methods soil samples were collected from five different vegetable-growing areas in kenya, viz., kinare, kabete, athi-river, machakos and kibwezi, in the order of altitude and temperature. kinare was a high-altitude area and the coldest, with kibwezi being the lowest and hottest. vegetable gardens in each zone were dominated mainly by spinach, kale, tomato, cabbage and pepper, among other vegetables. from each of the study areas, five farms under intensive vegetable-production were selected randomly for this study. from each of the farms, five different vegetable gardens were sampled. from each vegetable garden in turn, five soil samples were collected and mixed together in a bucket to make a composite sample. one kilogram of soil was then re-sampled from the composite sample in the bucket, put into plastic bags, labelled and placed in a cool box. soil sampling was done using a soil auger sterilized using ethanol after every sampling, to avoid cross-contamination. all the samples were later transported to the laboratory for isolating nematode-destroying fungi. isolation of nematodes-destroying fungi was done using the soil-sprinkle technique described by jaffee et al (1996) where, tap water agar (twa) was prepared by dissolving 20g agar in one litre of tap water. the medium was autoclaved and cooled before use after amending it with 0.1g per litre of streptomycin sulfate under a laminar air flow cabinet. one gram of soil sample was sprinkled on the medium in the petri dish, and a suspension of meloidogyne species consisting of approximately 1000 nematodes, was added to the petri dishes as bait (christina et al, 1999). the plates were then incubated at room temperature and observed daily from the third week, up to the sixth week, under a dissecting microscope. the examination was focussed on trapped nematodes, trapping organs and conidia of the nematode-destroying fungi (wachira et al, 2008). taxonomic classification of the nematode-destroying fungi was done using the ‘slide culture technique’ where slides were observed under a microscope, while identification of the genus was done using identification keys described by soto barrientos et al (2001). after identification of nematode-destroying fungi, pure cultures of the three mostfrequent fungal isolates were made for the experiment on efficacy. a 5mm mycelial block was inoculated into pda in a petri dish and allowed to grow for five days, before approximately 50 plant-parasitic nematodes were added. efficacy of the fungal isolates was monitored for a period of 3-6 weeks. trapped nematodes were counted for five days after 3 weeks of incubation. all the data in this study was analyzed by analysis of variance (kindt & coe, 2005) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):64-69, 2015 66 results and discussion from this study, 171 fungal isolates were identified as nematode-destroying. they grouped into three genera and five taxa. the three genera were: arthrobotrys, monacrosporium and stylopage. arthrobotrys was a frequently-encountered genus. the genus arthrobotrys was represented by a. oligospora, a. dactyloides and a. longispora, the genus monocrosporium was represented by m. cionopagium, while the genus stylopage was represented by s. grandis. a. oligospora had the highest frequency of occurrence, followed by a. dactyloides, m. cionopagium, s. grandis; the least frequent was a. longispora with occurrence of 46.20, 45.61, 5.85, 1.17 and 1.17%, decreasing in that order (fig. 1). fungal isolates were recovered from all the vegetableproduction zones. excepting a. dactyloides, all the isolates were not significantly (p> 0.05) affected by the agroecological zone. frequency of occurrence of a. dactyloides was significantly (p=0.002) affected by the agro-ecological zone. the highest occurrence of a. dactyloides was recorded in kabete, while the least was recorded in athiriver, with a total record of 40 and 4, respectively. the species was also recorded in machakos, kibwezi and kinare, with occurrence of 19, 10 and 5, respectively, in decreasing order. among the isolates, only a. oligospora and a. dactyloides were found to occur in all the agro-ecological zones. m. cionopagium occurred in all the zones except kinare, while, s. grandis was present in both kibwezi and kinare. a. longispora was recorded in kibwezi only (table 1). the highest number of nematode-destroying fungi was recorded in kabete, followed by machakos, kiwezi, athi-river and, finally kinare, with total mean abundance of 11.6, 7.6, 7.4, 4.0, and 2.6 in that (decreasing) order. kibwezi recorded the highest diversity index, with a mean of 0.930, followed by machakos with 0.637, while kabete recorded the least diversity index mean of 0.411. mean richness and abundance varied between vegetableproduction zones. the highest mean species richness was recorded in kibwezi, while the least was recorded in athiriver. all the agro-ecological zones differed significantly (p = 9.587 x 10-4) in terms of species abundance. kabete had the highest species abundance with a mean of 11.6, and, the least was seen in kinare with species mean abundance of 2.6 (table 2). more nematode-destroying fungi were detected with increase in the number of the soil samples under study. it is evident that all the possible isolates of nematode-destroying fungi were recorded in this study, from the samples collected. collecting and processing additional samples may not have significantly increased the number of isolates (fig. 2). there was a significant (p=0.003) difference on efficacy between the three most-frequent nematodedestroying fungal species. arthrobotryrs oligospora was the most efficient nematode-destroying fungus, with a mean of 7.3, followed by monacrosporium; the least was stylopage, with mean records of 5.9 and 5.1, respectively. nematode-destroying fungi were isolated from all the selected vegetable-production zones. these occurred at different frequencies and diversity. the study demonstratedfig. 1. percentage occurrence of nematode-destroying fungi in some vegetable-producing areas of kenya table 1. occurrence of nematode-destroying fungi in major agroecological zones of kenya zone a. a. a. m. s. total dactyloides oligospora longispora cionopagium grandis kabete 20 17 0 1 0 58 machakos 19 22 0 1 0 42 kinare 5 7 0 0 1 13 kibwezi 10 20 2 5 1 38 athi-river 4 13 0 3 0 20 p value 0.002 0.395 0.062 0.165 0.062 table 2: mean shannon, species richness and abundance of nematode-destroying fungi in different vegetable-growing areas in kenya zone n mean mean mean shannon richness abundance kibwezi 5 0.930 3.4 7.6 machakos 5 0.637 2.2 7.4 athi-river 5 0.483 1.6 4.0 kinare 5 0.482 1.8 2.6 kabete 5 0.411 2.2 11.6 p value 9.587 x 10-4 wachira et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):64-69, 2015 67 the occurrence of diverse nematode-destroying fungi in nature, especially, in vegetable-production zones. these findings agree with previous reports on nematode-destroying fungi that indicate that these are wide-spread in all habitats, but, at different densities and diversities (birgit et al, 2002; wachira et al, 2008). arthrobotrys oligospora was the most abundant species of nematode-destroying fungi in the area under study. other studies on nematode-destroying fungi report the same observation. it has never been clear why this is the most frequently encountered fungus. wachira et al (2008) had suggested that farming practices like weeding could be the cause of such high occurrence. it has also been suggested that it is due to the ability of the fungus to exist both as a saprophyte and a plant-parasitic nematode feeder (sobita and anamika, 2011). due to this high occurrence, this fungus has attracted several other interesting studies (niu and zhang, 2011). it was expected that the highest divergence of fungi would be isolated from areas under low temperature (kinare). however, this was not the case. kinare had the least variety of fungi. this was attributed to the high use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, since, all the vegetables were aimed for the market. in a study on long-term effects of manures and fertilizers on soil productivity and quality, it was reported that chemically fertilized soils had lower content of organic matter and fewer numbers of microfauna than manured soils (edmeades, 2003). the highest number of nematode-destroying fungi was recovered from kabete. soils in this area had been collected from the farm at university of nairobi to which animal manure had been frequently applied. this may explain the high number of nematode-destroying fungi here, since, these are associated with increase in beneficial micro-organisms in the soil (wachira and okoth, 2009). in our study, a high fungal population was found in areas where manure had been applied, and low fungal population in areas where chemical fertilizer was applied. temperature is an important factor in regulating microbial activity and shaping soil microbial communities. it determines moisture level in the soil, which is key to fungal spore germination and growth. high temperatures lead to low soil-moisture, which leads to low fungal-spore germination. a study by haugen and smith (1992) reported that at high temperatures, there was low germination of fungal spores, leading to low fungal population, while, under low temperatures there was high fungal germination, leading to a high fungal population. this was found to be in reverse in our study. although machakos and kibwezi experience high temperatures, a high population of nematode-destroying fungi was seen here by us. this could be attributed to the irrigation activities undertaken at the farm which ensured moist conditions throughout the growth season. this soil enhanced moisture, coupled with high temperature, improved fungal spore germination (as, fungal spores germinate better under moist and warm conditions). efficacy test showed that the genus arthrobotrys was most effective in trapping plant-parasitic nematodes. previous studies on fungi of this genus have consistently showed that it is able to trap 90% of all the nematodes in petri dishes and liquid cultures in 16-40 hours (rajeswari and sivakumar, 1999). therefore, due to its high occurrence, this fungus can be used in management of plant-parasitic nematodes, and its potential for this ability should be investigated. the investigation should focus on finding suitable carrier/s for the fungus and its mode of application. this would reduce over-reliance on chemical nematicides and help develop a self-regulating system in the soil for control of soil borne pests. conclusion additional evidence has been provided by this study that nematode-destroying fungi naturally occurr in agricultural habitats. it is also evident that agricultural activities targeting high crop-production, like, application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, directly affect soil biodiversity adversely. results from this study can be used in further research for establishing the potential of nematodedestroying fungi in regulation of plant-parasitic nematode population. fig. 2. a total-species cumulative curve for nematode-destroying fungi in some vegetable production zones of kenya number of samples j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):64-69, 2015 nematode-destroying fungi in vegetable farms in kenya 68 acknowledgement university of nairobi is acknowledged for providing laboratory equipment and space. we also wish to thank the small scale farmers of five different vegetable-production zones under study for their cooperation and for providing free access to their farms. references akhtar, m. and malik, y. 2000. roles of organic soil amendments and soil organisms in the biological control of plant-parasitic nematodes: a review. bioresource tech., 74:35-47 birgit, h., hans, b.j. and anders, y. 2002. nematophagous fungi. encyclopedia life sci., 101.1038/ npg.els.0004293.nematodes. revista de biologia tropical. 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(2011). in-vitro predatory activity of nematophagous fungi from costa rica with potential use for controlling sheep and goat p a r a s i t i c nematodes. rev. biol. trop., 59:37-52 wachira, p.m and okoth, s.a. 2009. use of nematodedestroying fungi as indicators of land disturbance in taitataveta, kenya. trop subtrop agroecosystems, 11:313-321 wachira, p.m., kimenju, j.w., okoth, s., mibey, r.k. and mungatu, j. 2008. effect of land-use on occurrence and diversity of nematode-destroying fungi in taitataveta, kenya. asian j. pl. sci., 7:447-453 (ms received 29 june 2013, revised 17 march 2015, accepted 25 march 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):64-69, 2015 nematode-destroying fungi in vegetable farms in kenya page 129 effect of npk and zn on growth, flowering and bulb production in tulip under polyhouse conditions in kashmir f. u. khan, a. q. jhon, f. a. khan1 and m. m. mir division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants s.k. university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir, shalimar campus srinagar-191121 (j&k), india e-mail: fukhanskuastk@rediffmail.com abstract healthy and uniform bulbs of tulip cv. ‘apeldoorn’ were planted in two consecutive growing seasons under polyhouse conditions in frbd design to study the effect of nutrient management on growth, flowering and bulb production in tulip in the kashmir valley. experimental treatments comprised of three levels of nitrogen (0,75 and 150 kg ha-1) and two levels of phosphorus (0 and 50 kg ha-1), potassium (0 and 50 kg / ha) and zinc (0 and 5 kg ha-1). except for bulb survival, nitrogen @ 75 kg ha-1 significantly improved all the parameters. however, further increase in dose of nitrogen (150 kg ha-1) influenced only a few parameters like scape length, wrapper leaf area, vase life and bulblet weight per plant. application of phosphorus, potassium and zinc also resulted in better growth, flower quality and bulb production. application of different nutrients caused increased concentration of nutrients in leaf tissue, which resulted in better performance of the plant. combined application of n, p, k and zn @ 75, 50, 50 and 5 kg ha-1, respectively, was found to be the most suitable dose for obtaining better growth, quality flower and bulb production. key words: tulip, nutrition, flowering, bulb production, polyhouse introduction tulip (tulipa spp.) is known throughout the temperate world and is considered an aristocrat of the pot, garden, a field or forest. it is the leading ornamental bulbous plant in the world and has gained popularity due to its beauty and economic value. tulips are excellent for cut flower, garden display and pot culture. it is the top most flowering geophyte of the netherlands and occupies the fourth position among the top ten cut flowers in the global floriculture trade. the largest area under any true bulb crop in the world is that of tulipa, followed by narcissus, iris, hyacinthus and lilium (rees, 1972). in india, tulips are grown chiefly in the state of jammu and kashmir. however, there is great scope of growing tulips for various purposes in temperate zones like himachal pradesh, uttranchal and other, similar hilly regions of the country. efforts on promoting commercial floriculture in our country have started and protected cultivation of cut flowers opens up newer avenues for quality production and export to earn valuable foreign exchange. due to its high aesthetic appeal, tulips are in great demand, especially during christmas, valentine’s day, mother’s day and other festive occasions. ‘apeldoorn’ is one of the most suitable cultivars of tulip for cut flower production under polyhouse (jhon and khan, 2003). however, different aspects of production technology need to be developed for getting higher quality/yield of flower as well as bulb to fetch attractive returns. work on different aspects of production technologies, viz., planting time (jhon et al, 2004), growth environment (jhon et al, 2005a) and suitable media (jhon et al, 2005b) has been conducted. nutrients play an important role in growth and development of any plant. however, information on this aspect in tulip is scanty. therefore, the present investigation was carried out to study the effect of nutrients on growth, flower quality and bulb production in tulip cv. ‘apeldoorn’ under polyhouse conditions. material and methods the experiment was conducted at the division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, skuast (k), shalimar (located at an altitude of 1585 m amsl) during two consecutive years, 2002 to 2004, under polyhouse conditions. a polyhouse with steel pipe framework clad with twin layer uv stabilized plastic sheet of 200 µm was used to create modified environment. 10 cm dead space j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 129-134, 2006 1plant physiology section, division of post harvest technology page 130 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 129-134, 2006 khan et al 130 t ab le 1 . e ff ec t of n u tr ie n ts o n g ro w th , f lo ra l p ro d u ct io n a n d b u lb p ro d u ct io n c h ar ac te rs i n t u li p u n d er p ol yh ou se c on d it io n s t re at m en t b u lb s u rv iv al ( % ) s te m t h ic k n es s (m m ) w ra p p er l ea f d ay s to s ca p e le n g th t ep al d ia m et er v as e li fe n o . o f b u lb s b u lb le tw ei g h t/ a re a (c m 2 ) f lo w er ( d a p ) (c m ) ( m m ) (d ay s) p er p la n t p la n t (g ) 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 2 0 0 2 -0 3 2 0 0 3 -0 4 n ( k g h a1 ) n 0 = 0 8 8 .2 1 9 3 .1 2 6 .3 4 6 .7 1 1 2 5 .8 6 1 3 1 .6 3 1 2 4 .6 5 1 2 1 .0 5 3 6 .0 5 3 4 .2 6 8 .2 9 8 .3 5 6 .6 3 6 5 9 0 .8 8 1 .0 3 4 .9 9 5 .3 9 n 1 = 7 5 8 5 .7 6 9 0 .8 1 6 .9 7 7 .2 9 1 3 5 .7 0 1 4 0 .7 6 1 2 7 .3 0 1 2 3 .3 1 3 8 .5 3 3 9 .2 6 8 .9 6 8 .9 8 7 .0 7 7 .2 7 1 .0 2 1 .1 9 7 .0 1 7 .0 6 n 2 = 1 5 0 8 8 .2 8 9 3 .5 4 6 .9 6 7 .2 5 1 3 4 .9 1 1 4 2 .6 0 1 2 6 .7 4 1 2 3 .7 2 4 0 .1 1 4 1 .1 7 8 .9 6 9 .0 1 6 .7 6 7 .0 2 0 .9 9 1 .1 7 6 .6 2 7 .4 0 c .d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) n s 2 .3 1 5 0 .1 3 0 .0 8 1 .5 7 0 .8 6 1 .3 8 0 .6 8 0 .5 3 0 .1 9 0 .0 7 0 .1 2 0 .2 9 0 .2 1 0 .2 1 0 .0 5 0 .0 5 0 .3 1 p ( k g h a1 ) p = 0 8 6 .4 8 9 1 .1 5 6 .5 2 6 .8 8 1 2 9 .8 0 1 3 5 .4 7 1 2 7 .1 8 1 2 3 .5 5 3 6 .9 9 3 6 .4 7 8 .5 9 8 .5 9 6 .5 9 6 .6 5 0 .8 9 1 .0 5 5 .6 6 6 .2 1 p 1 = 5 0 8 8 .3 5 9 3 .8 3 6 .9 9 7 .2 8 1 3 4 .5 1 1 4 1 .1 9 1 2 5 .2 8 1 2 1 .8 3 3 9 .4 7 3 9 .9 9 8 .8 8 8 .9 7 7 .0 5 7 .2 6 1 .0 4 1 .2 1 6 .7 6 7 .0 3 c .d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) n s 1 .8 9 0 .1 0 0 .0 6 1 .2 8 0 .7 0 1 .1 3 0 .5 5 0 .4 4 0 .1 6 0 .0 6 0 .1 0 0 .2 4 0 .1 7 0 .0 1 0 .0 5 0 .0 2 0 .2 6 k ( k g h a1 ) k 0 = 0 8 6 .8 9 9 2 .0 5 6 .6 5 7 .0 1 1 3 1 .3 9 1 3 6 .5 5 1 2 8 .4 4 1 2 4 .1 6 3 7 .0 1 3 7 .2 1 8 .6 3 8 .7 1 6 .4 4 6 .7 6 0 .9 5 1 .1 2 6 .1 2 6 .4 0 k 1 = 5 0 8 7 .9 3 9 2 .9 3 6 .8 7 7 .1 6 1 3 2 .9 2 1 4 0 .1 0 1 2 4 .0 1 1 2 1 .2 3 3 9 .4 5 3 9 .2 5 8 .8 4 8 .8 5 7 .2 0 7 .1 5 0 .9 8 1 .1 4 6 .2 9 6 .8 3 c .d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) n s n s 0 .1 0 0 .0 6 1 .2 8 0 .7 0 1 .1 3 0 .5 5 0 .4 4 0 .1 6 0 .0 6 0 .1 0 0 .2 4 0 .1 7 0 .0 1 n s 0 .0 2 0 .2 6 z n ( k g h a1 ) z 0 = 0 8 7 .0 8 9 2 .6 2 6 .6 7 7 .0 1 1 3 2 .4 4 1 3 6 .8 8 1 2 6 .8 9 1 2 2 .9 3 3 7 .2 7 3 7 .4 6 8 .6 8 8 .7 2 6 .9 7 6 .8 9 0 .9 5 1 .1 1 6 .0 5 6 .3 3 z 1 = 5 8 7 .7 5 9 2 .3 6 6 .8 5 7 .1 5 1 3 1 .8 7 1 3 9 .7 7 1 2 5 .5 7 1 2 3 .4 6 3 9 .1 9 3 9 .0 0 8 .7 9 8 .8 4 6 .8 5 6 .9 4 0 .9 8 1 .1 5 6 .3 6 6 .8 9 c .d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) n s n s 0 .1 0 0 .0 6 n s 0 .7 0 1 .1 3 n s 0 .4 4 0 .1 6 0 .0 6 0 .1 0 n s n s 0 .0 1 n s 0 .0 2 0 .2 6 n s : n o n s ig n if ic an t t re at m en t b u lb s u rv iv al (% ) s te m t h ic k n es s (m m ) w ra p p er l ea f ar ea ( cm 2 ) d ay s to fl o w er in g s ca p e le n g th (c m ) t ep al d ia m et er (m m ) v as e li fe (d ay s) n o . o f b u lb s / p la n t b u lb le t w ei g h t / p la n t (g ) page 131 was ensured between plastic layers. the polyhouse was additionally fitted with two high-pressure exhaust fans each on the east and west, whereas four ventilators each were provided on the north and south. experimental treatments comprised three levels of nitrogen (0, 75 and 150 kg ha-1) and two levels each of phosphorus (0 and 50 kg ha-1), potassium (0 and 50 kg ha-1) and zinc (0 and 5 kg ha-1). healthy and uniform bulbs of tulip cv. ‘apeldoorn’ with 10 to 12 cm circumference were planted in beds of 0.54 m2 size each year on 30th october as per the factorial rbd concept. there were two replications and eight representative plants constituted one replication unit. growth media containing soil + dal weed + sand in the ratio of 2:1:1 at ph 6.8 was used for growing the plants. uniform cultural practices were followed throughout the experimentation. observations were recorded on bulb survival (effective sprouting), stem thickness, wrapper leaf (lower most leaf) area, days to flower (days after planting), scape length, tepal diameter, vase life, bulb number and weight of bulblets per plant. leaf n, p and k analysis was done as per the method of jackson (1973). data were statistically analyzed as per procedure given by panse and sukhatme (1978). results and discussion different nutrients and their levels had significant effect on all the parameters studied (table 1). bulb survival was not affected by any individual treatment of nutrients during the first year (2002-03) of experimentation. however, it was found to be significantly influenced by increased doses of nitrogen and phosphorus during the second year (2003-04) of experimentation. the reason for the non-significant effect of nutrients on bulb survival may be absence of adequate root system at the initial stage of growth to absorb applied nutrients from soil. nonsignificant effect of nutrient application on bulb survival has earlier been reported by kumar and singh (1998) in tuberose. stem thickness was found to be significantly influenced by addition of different levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and zinc in both the years. similarly, wrapper leaf area also differed markedly with these nutrient treatments, except with zinc during the first year of experiment. similar results on vegetative growth with nitrogen have also been reported by rani et al (2005) in lilium. increased plant growth with nitrogen application table 2. interaction effect of various nutrients on growth, flower quality and bulb production in tulip treatment wrapper leaf area days to flowering scape length vase life no. of bulbs/plant bulblet (kg ha-1) (cm2) (dap) (cm) (days) weight/plant (g) 2002-03 2003-04 2002-03 2003-04 2002-03 2003-04 2002-03 2003-04 2002-03 2003-04 2002-03 2003-04 n 0 p 0 k 0 z 0 123.26 129.36 126.83 123.38 34.63 31.64 6.08 6.12 0.88 1.00 3.80 4.25 n 0 p 0 k 0 z 5 121.27 130.50 124.08 121.50 35.00 34.23 6.17 6.25 0.82 1.00 3.75 4.20 n 0 p 0 k 50 z 0 127.46 131.15 123.00 120.50 37.50 34.68 6.83 6.75 0.76 0.95 4.37 4.45 n 0 p 0 k 50 z 5 126.95 132.58 125.58 122.00 36.50 33.22 6.83 6.62 0.76 0.92 4.62 6.30 n 0 p 50 k 0 z 0 128.85 130.35 124.00 121.25 33.88 30.66 6.58 6.50 0.88 1.00 4.62 4.75 n 0 p 50 k 0 z 5 128.18 131.56 125.50 122.25 36.63 36.45 6.08 6.12 1.08 1.17 6.37 6.55 n 0 p 50 k 50 z 0 126.85 133.50 124.58 119.50 35.75 35.75 7.08 7.12 0.88 1.05 5.87 6.01 n 0 p 50 k 50 z 5 123.76 134.00 123.58 118.00 38.50 37.46 7.33 7.25 1.01 1.18 6.50 6.60 n 75 p 0 k 0 z 0 130.24 135.00 134.17 120.50 35.00 36.21 6.58 7.12 0.88 1.00 6.37 6.50 n 75 p 0 k 0 z 5 132.11 137.20 130.00 126.50 36.25 35.83 6.67 6.75 0.94 1.11 6.37 6.52 n 75 p 0 k 50 z 0 136.48 136.30 124.17 121.75 37.50 37.11 6.83 6.50 0.94 1.11 6.25 6.45 n 75 p 0 k 50 z 5 131.17 142.15 126.08 124.50 37.50 37.96 6.92 7.00 0.94 1.09 6.62 6.75 n 75 p 50 k 0 z 0 137.20 141.65 131.83 128.00 38.50 39.46 6.75 7.25 1.07 1.28 7.12 7.25 n 75 p 50 k 0 z 5 141.59 143.95 129.75 125.25 39.25 42.35 6.75 7.25 1.07 1.25 7.87 7.78 n 75 p 50 k 50 z 0 136.98 143.50 121.42 120.50 40.00 41.69 7.92 8.00 1.13 1.31 7.37 7.48 n 75 p 50 k 50 z 5 139.83 146.35 121.00 119.50 44.25 43.48 8.17 8.25 1.19 1.37 8.12 7.75 n 150 p 0 k 0 z 0 130.40 131.95 132.50 129.00 37.00 39.23 6.00 7.50 0.94 1.10 7.12 7.05 n 150 p 0 k 0 z 5 127.46 135.80 128.00 125.25 36.63 37.14 6.25 6.25 0.88 1.06 6.87 7.25 n 150 p 0 k 50 z 0 135.65 141.25 126.25 125.00 37.50 38.50 6.92 6.50 0.88 1.05 5.62 7.20 n 150 p 0 k 50 z 5 134.84 142.36 125.50 122.75 42.88 41.89 7.00 6.50 1.01 1.18 6.12 7.55 n 150 p 50 k 0 z 0 137.63 144.00 129.42 125.25 38.50 40.46 6.67 6.75 1.07 1.30 6.87 7.20 n 150 p 50 k 0 z 5 138.22 147.32 125.25 121.75 42.88 42.88 6.67 7.25 0.94 1.17 6.25 7.50 n 150 p 50 k 50 z 0 137.93 144.60 124.40 120.50 41.50 44.13 7.25 7.62 1.07 1.16 6.75 7.50 n 150 p 50 k 50 z 5 137.11 153.50 122.50 120.25 44.00 45.13 7.33 7.75 1.13 1.33 6.87 7.95 c.d (p=0.05) ns 2.43 ns 1.91 1.51 0.54 ns 0.58 0.03 ns 0.07 0.88 ns: not significant j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 129-134, 2006 mineral nutrition & growth in tulip under polyhouse 131 page 132 may be attributed to this nutrient’s role in protein synthesis. it is also an important part of chlorophylls, which are involved in photosynthesis, and thus, in promoting plant growth. phosphorus is also an important constituent of many essential compounds, and, is involved in various physiological processes including cell division, development of meristematic tissues, in photosynthesis, respiration, etc. (marschner, 1986). phosphorus also promotes root growth which, in turn, facilitates uptake of other nutrients and results in improved growth. growth accelerating effects of potassium may be attributed to its role as an activator of many enzymes and a major contributor of plant osmotic relationship, essential for stomatal movement and cellular growth (salisbury and ross, 1986). beneficial effects of zinc on physiological activities might be the reason for improved plant growth. it is an essential part of tryptophan, and thus, biosynthesis of auxin which is known to promote cell elongation and root initiation. zinc is also an important constituent of several vital enzymes that play a significant role in carbohydrate synthesis (marschner, 1986). zinc also plays an important role in the uptake of phosphorus and calcium and in the availability of nitrogen (shear, 1984). application of nitrogen caused significant increase in days taken to flower, whereas phosphorus, potassium and zinc resulted in significant decrease in days taken to flowering compared to the control in both the years. this finding is in accordance with the observation of earlier workers (sharma and singh, 2001; rani et al, 2005). higher doses of nitrogen may have caused excessive vegetative growth adversely affecting days taken to flower. in many species, days to flowering has been found to be closely associated with nitrogen and phosphorus, as excess nitrogen delays and abundant phosphorus hastens it. contribution of potassium and zinc in reducing days to may be due to faster growth of the plant with application of these nutrients and early completion of the vegetative phase (khan, 2000; talukdar et al, 2003). scape length is an important quality parameter in maintaining the post harvest life of cut flowers, whereas, flower diameter is a parameter that influences aesthetic appeal in a quality conscious world. application of different nutrients to soil individually exerted significant effects on both scape length and tepal diameter in both the years of experiment. possible reasons for these effects might be better nutrient uptake facilitated by phosphorus and zinc and higher assimilation of food reserves through an enhanced assimilatory surface. scape length and flower size have also been found to be positively correlated with nitrogen dose in tuberose (kumar and singh, 1998). kumar and arora (2000) reported higher spike length in gladiolus with zinc application. addition of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium caused significant increase in vase life in cut tulip in distilled water but zinc was unable to increase vase life in both the years of experiment. increase in vase life due to nutrient treatment may be attributed to a healthy scape and leaves which may have more food reserves to be utilized during the vase period when the natural source of food is cut off from the plant consequent to harvest. a healthy scape may also facilitate better water uptake essential for maintaining turgor, and thus, freshness of cut flowers. high potassium level in the tissue may also have contributed directly to maintaining turgor and thus resulted in increased vase life. like growth and flowering, bulb production attributes were also influenced markedly by application of various nutrients. the number of bulbs per plant was significantly influenced by all the nutrients during the first table 3. effect of n, p, k and zn interactions on leaf n, p and k content in tulip under polyhouse conditions treatment nutrient concentration (%) (kg ha-1) nitrogen phosphorus potassium 2002-03 2003-04 2002-03 2003-04 2002-03 2003-04 n 0 p 0 k 0 z 0 3.18 3.19 0.160 0.190 3.60 2.60 n 0 p 0 k 0 z 5 3.09 3.12 0.180 0.200 3.50 2.65 n 0 p 0 k 50 z 0 3.50 3.55 0.190 0.210 3.50 2.70 n 0 p 0 k 50 z 5 3.53 3.60 0.170 0.200 3.50 2.70 n 0 p 50 k 0 z 0 3.65 3.68 0.220 0.250 3.60 2.90 n 0 p 50 k 0 z 5 3.89 3.92 0.210 0.270 3.80 3.00 n 0 p 50 k 50 z 0 3.65 3.71 0.250 0.250 4.10 3.20 n 0 p 50 k 50 z 5 3.77 3.74 0.250 0.280 4.20 3.30 n 75 p 0 k 0 z 0 4.06 4.10 0.220 0.260 3.80 3.00 n 75 p 0 k 0 z 5 4.37 4.39 0.230 0.290 3.60 3.20 n 75 p 0 k 50 z 0 4.09 4.11 0.196 0.210 3.90 3.30 n 75 p 0 k 50 z 5 4.69 4.70 0.240 0.290 3.90 3.25 n 75 p 50 k 0 z 0 4.97 4.99 0.253 0.280 3.50 3.10 n 75 p 50 k 0 z 5 5.07 5.09 0.297 0.310 3.60 3.11 n 75 p 50 k 50 z 0 4.49 4.50 0.270 0.300 4.00 3.30 n 75 p 50 k 50 z 5 5.06 5.10 0.290 0.320 4.40 3.40 n 150 p 0 k 0 z 0 4.07 4.10 0.210 0.270 3.70 3.20 n 150 p 0 k 0 z 5 4.30 4.35 0.190 0.200 3.80 3.25 n 150 p 0 k 50 z 0 4.86 4.90 0.187 0.220 3.70 3.15 n 150 p 0 k 50 z 5 4.95 4.97 0.230 0.280 4.07 3.30 n 150 p 50 k 0 z 0 4.90 4.95 0.197 0.260 3.80 3.20 n 150 p 50 k 0 z 5 4.33 5.38 0.330 0.350 4.00 3.30 n 150 p 50 k 50 z 0 5.05 5.10 0.287 0.330 4.30 3.45 n 150 p 50 k 50 z 5 5.24 5.21 0.310 0.340 4.80 3.60 c.d (p=0.05) ns 0.35 0.05 ns ns ns ns : not significant j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 129-134, 2006 khan et al 132 page 133 year while, during the second year, although nitrogen and phosphorus showed significant effects, potassium and zinc did not. all the nutrients had significant influence on the weight of bulblets per plant. application of nitrogen and zinc has also been found to increase bulb production in tuberose (kumar and singh, 1998) and dahlia (khan, 2000), respectively. a marked increase in both the number of bulbs and bulblet weight per plant may be attributed to better availability of phosphorus, which is required in particularly for bulb growth. reduced bulb growth may be due to a limitation of source because most of the photosynthates tend to mobilize first towards the major sink i.e., flower. therefore, an increased assimilatory power might have resulted in greater supply of photosynthates to the bulb, thus, increasing its production. combined application of nutrients did not show any marked impact on bulb survival per cent in both the years (table 2). interaction treatments also failed to exert any significant effect on stem thickness trials in both the years, while wrapper leaf area was significantly influenced during the 2nd year. maximum wrapper leaf area (153.50 cm2) was recorded with n 150 p 50 k 50 z 5 followed by n 150 p 50 k 0 z 5 , while, minimum was observed in n 0 p 0 k 0 z 0 (129.36 cm2) . like wrapper leaf area, days taken to flowering also showed significant influence when nutrients were applied in combination, but only during the 2nd year of trial. the minimum days taken to flower was 118.0 days in treatment n 0 p 50 k 50 z 5 followed by n 75 p 50 k 50 z 5 against the maximum (129.0) number of days in n 150 p 0 k 0 z 0. combined treatments of nutrients also altered the scape length significantly in both the years but did not exert any marked influence on tepal diameter. maximum scape length was recorded in n 75 p 50 k 50 z 5 (44.25 cm) and n 150 p 50 k 50 z 5 (45.13 cm), whereas, the minimum scape length was seen with n 0 p 50 k 0 z 0 (33.88 cm and 30.66 cm) in first and second year, respectively. interaction effects of these nutrients on vase life were non-significant during the first year, whereas, there it differed significantly during the subsequent year with maximum in n 75 p 50 k 50 z 5 (8.25 days) followed by n 75 p 50 k 50 z 0 (8.00 days) and minimum in n 0 p 0 k 0 z 0 (6.12 days). combination of different nutrient treatments affected the number of bulbs per plant during the first year of trial but did not show any marked variation in the subsequent year. treatment n 75 p 50 k 50 z 5 recorded the highest number of bulbs per plant, (1.19) followed by n 75 p 50 k 50 z 0 , while, it was minimum (0.88) in n 0 p 0 k 0 z 0. however, both years of experiment recorded a significant increase in bulblet weight per plant due to combined effects of nutrients. the maximum bulblet weight per plant observed was 8.12 g (n 75 p 50 k 50 z 5 ) and 7.95 g (n 150 p 50 k 50 z 5 ), and, of 3.75 g and 4.20 g (n 0 p 0 k 0 z 5 ) during the first and second year of experiment, respectively. nutrient analysis in leaf (fig 1) revealed that addition of nitrogen to soil significantly increased leaf nitrogen content in both the years of experiment. however, significant increase in phosphorus in the first year and potassium level during the second year was observed. addition of phosphorus resulted in a marked increase in leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content which indicated that phosphorus was helpful in increasing uptake of other nutrients from the soil. phosphorus promotes root growth, which in turn, facilitates improved uptake of other nutrients (marschner, 1986). potassium application to the soil also increased leaf nitrogen content significantly during the first year of trial whereas increase in leaf nitrogen due to potassium application in the subsequent year was not j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 129-134, 2006 mineral nutrition & growth in tulip under polyhouse 133 fig 1. effect of n, p, k and zn application on leaf nutrient content in tulip fig 2. month-wise relative humidity and temperature under polyhouse conditions page 134 significant. increase in leaf potassium content due to application of potassium in the soil is obvious because of greater availability and uptake. combined application of nutrients exerted significant variation in leaf nitrogen and phosphorus content during the 2nd and 1st year, respectively, whereas potassium content of leaf remained unaffected (table 3). slight variations in the results of both years’ study may be attributed to the differences in relative humidity and temperatures during the growing periods of crops in both years (fig 2). acknowledgements this research was supported by the indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, under the national agricultural technology project (code no. c21183). references jackson, m. l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi. jhon, a. q. and khan, f. u. 2003. evaluation of tulips under polyhouse and open conditions. j. orn. hort., 6: 42-45. jhon, a. q., khan, f. u. and mir, m. m. 2004. standardization of planting time of tulips under polyhouse conditions. international seminar on recent trends in hi-tech. horticulture and post harvest technology, csaua&t, kanpur, feb. 4-6, 2004, p 136. jhon, a. q., khan, f. u., bhat, r.a., rouf, a. and qadri, z. a. 2005b. flowering and bulb production of tulip as influenced by media amendment under polyhouse conditions. j. orn. hort., 8 : 143-145. (ms received 20 may 2006, revised 28 september 2006) jhon, a. q., khan, f. u., rouf, a., bhat, r.a. and nazki, i. t. 2005. effect of growing environments on flowering and bulb production in tulip. j. orn. hort., 8 : 112-114. khan, f. u. 2000. effect of micronutrients on dahlia. j. orn. hort., 3 : 122-123. kumar, p. and arora, j. s. 2000. effect of micronutrients on gladiolus. j.orn. hort., 3 : 91-93. kumar, s. and singh, r. p. 1998. effect of nitrogen, bulb size and plant density on growth, flowering and yield of tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa l). j.orn. hort., 1 : 6-10. marschner, h. 1986. mineral nutrition of higher plants. academic press inc. london, uk. panse, v. g. and sukhatme, p. v. 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi. rani, n., kumar r. and dhatt, k. k. 2005. effect of nitrogen levels and growing media on growth, flowering and bulb production of lilium cultivars. j.orn. hort., 8 : 36-40. rees a. r. 1972. the growth of bulbs. academic press, london. salisbury, f.b. and ross, c.w. 1986. plant physiology. cbs publishers & distributors, new delhi, pp. 96-113. sharma, s. and singh, d. b. 2001. response of nitrogen fertilization on gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 4 : 128. shear, g. m. 1984. zinc and boron deficiency in virginia orchard. virginia fruits, 36: 105-132. talukdar, m. c., baruah, n. and mahanta, s. 2003. response of graded levels of npk on yield and quality of tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa linn.) cv. single. j.orn. hort., 6 : 335-340. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 129-134, 2006 khan et al 134 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 124-130, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction litchi (litchi chinensis sonn.), belonging to the family sapindaceae is an evergreen, subtropical fr uit and popula r ly known a s ‘queen of subtropical fruits’, ‘pearl of india’ for its excellent aromatic flavour and sweet aril taste (nakasone and paull, 1998). litchi flowers are of three types, st a mina t e or pu r ely ma le f lower s, f ema le or her ma p hr od it e f u nc t ioning a s f ema le a nd her ma phr odite flower functioning a s ma le or pseudo-hermaphrodite (chaudari, 1940, mustard et al., 1953 and menzel, 1984). litchi is very specific to its climatic requirement and requires seasonal temper a tur e va r ia tion for best flower ing a nd fruiting (garcia-perez and martins, 2006). it is considered as the essential sub-tropical fruit crops and requires diurnal variation for flowering and fruiting. litchi cultivation is successful in areas having average minimum temperature of 10oc from december to february and 32oc in april to june is considered more congenial. climate is the most important limiting factor in the expansion of area under this fruit. the role of growing degree days (gdd) or heat units are often used to predict the growth stages including the date when a flower will bloom or a crop will reach to the maturity. heat units or growing degree days is the number of temperature degrees above a certain threshold base temperature within consecutive 24 hours period. the heat unit varies among the crops or even within cultivars of the same crop (kanzaria et al., 2015). heat units have an important role in horticultural crops and it helps in estimating the growth stages of plants, deter mines ha rvesting index. it also assesses the suitability of a region for growing a crop to estimate the length of various phenological s t a ges a nd t o p r edic t ma t u r it y a nd qu a lit y c ha r a ct er is tics of f r u it s (k ha n et a l. , 20 07 ; shinohara, 2013; koshita, 2014). the effect of temper a tur e on the phenological development, flowering and fruiting performance was studied by the different workers for predicting the growth stages, yield and physiological maturity (swan et al.,1989, singh et al., 2007). the prevailing agroclimatic condition in the sub-hima la ya n tera i region is suitable for litchi cultivation. however, the information regarding the influence of heat units on flower bud development, panicle emergence, flowering and fruiting characteristics of litchi is very limited in literature. keeping in view the utmost importance of heat units, the present study was designed to determine the effect of heat units and performance of different litchi cultivars in the foothills of eastern indian sub-himalayan terai region of west bengal. heat unit requirement and performances of litchi under sub-himalayan terai region of west bengal subba s. and bhowmick n.* department. of pomology and post-harvest technology uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, pundibari, cooch behar, west bengal-736165, india *corresponding author e-mail : nilesh@ubkv.ac.in abstract to determine the heat unit requirement and assess its subsequent effects on flowering and fruiting characteristics, a field experiment was conducted during 2018-19 with seven cultivars of litchi viz., calcuttia, elaichi, bedana, bombai, china, shahi and muzaffarpur in randomized block design. bedana showed better result in terms of maximum fruit weight (17.88g), lowest seed content (10.84%), maximum fruit diameter (3.01 cm), maximum fruit volume (18.70 ml), highest tss (15.870 brix), total sugar (15.96%), reducing sugar (12.61%), and ascorbic acid (29.47 mg/100g) content. keywords: bud break, flowering, fruiting, growing degree days and panicle. 125 heat unit requirement and performances of litchi j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 124-130, 2022 materials and methods to determine the heat unit requirement and assess its subsequent effects on flowering and fruiting cha r a c ter ist ic s of litc hi, the ex per iment wa s conducted at instructional farm under the dept. of pomology and post-ha rvest technology, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, pundibari, cooch behar, west bengal, situated in the foothills of ea s t er n i nd ia n h ima la ya s . s even imp or t a nt commercial litchi cultivars (t 1calcuttia, t 2 – elaichi, t3 – bedana, t4bombai, t5china, t6sha hi a nd t 7muza ffa r pur ) wer e selected a s treatments and the experiment was carried out in randomized block design with three replication and two plants per replication. heat unit was calculated by taking the average of the daily maximum and minimu m t e mp er a t u r es c omp a r ed t o a b a s e temperature, t base (usually 10°c). the formula applied for calculation of heat unit is (t max+tmin)/ 2tbase(monteith, 1984; rai et al., 2002). the heat unit s for diff er ent p honologic a l pha ses wer e recorded. the different parameters for flowering and fruiting characteristics were recorded as per the standard methodology. the bio-chemical parameters were determined following ranganna (1986) and a.o.a. c. (1984). for statistical analysis the mean separation for different parameter were performed using least significant difference (lsd) test (pd” 0.05).normality of residuals under the assumption of anova was tested using kolmogrov-smirnov, shapiro-wilk, cramer-von mises and anderson darling procedure using proc-univariate procedure of sas (version 9.3). results and discussion response of heat unit requirement on flowering of litchi the heat unit requirement of different phenological phases in litchi cultivars were recorded (table-1). the heat unit requirement for bud break to panicle appearance was maximum in cv. china (144.03oc), which was statistically at par with cvs. bombai, calcuttia, shahi and lowest in elaichi (94.580c). subsequently, it was observed (table-2a) that cv. bombai required maximum number of days (17.83 da ys ) f or b u d b r ea k t o p a nic le emer genc e, statistically at par with cv. china (17.27 days), while the cv. elaichi recorded the minimum number of days (12.47 days). for panicle appearance to flowering, the heat unit requirement was maximum in cv. bombai (400.16oc) which was statistically a t pa r with cvs. ela ic hi (37 1. 3 1 o c), beda na (340.20oc), muzaffarpur (335.26oc) and calcuttia (329.24oc), whereas, cv. shahi required lowest (312. 38 o c) heat unit (ta ble-1). however, the duration of panicle emergence was not significant a mong t he diff er ent cu ltiva r s (ta ble2a ) b ut ma x imum nu mb er of da ys (3 5. 1 0 da ys ) wa s required in cv. elaichi and lowest (29.52 days) in cv. sha hi. t her e wa s no s ignifica nt va r ia tion observed during flowering to fruit set stage for heat u nit r eq u ir ement , howev er, it wa s r e c or ded ma ximum in cv. muza ffa r pur (347.78 o c) a nd minimum (326.83oc) in cv. calcuttia. the duration of flowering to fruit set was recorded maximum in c v. m u z a ff a r p u r ( 2 8 . 9 8 da ys ) whic h wa s statistically at par with all other cultivars except for cv. bombai (23.95 days). the litchi varieties ex hibited signif ica nt va r ia tion f or hea t units requirement during fruit set to harvesting stages and cv. beda na r egister ed the ma ximum hea t unit requirement (1133.80oc) which was at par with cv. china (1076.33 oc), whereas, the cv. shahi required the minimum (950.74oc). flowering parameters it is believed that litchi needs a period of vegetative dormancy to initiate floral buds (das et al., 2004). the maximum length of panicle (19.00 cm) was observed incv. muzaffarpur, while the minimum length (16.16 cm) was recorded in cv.bedana.the flowering duration was statistically similar for different cultivars and cv. muzaffarpur exhibited the maximum flowering duration (25.83 days).the ma ximum number of flower s per pa nicle wa s produced by the cv. shahi (593.87) while it was minimum for cv. bombai (422.80). number of hermaphrodite flowers as functional male showed significa nt va ria tion and r a nged fr om 59. 19% (bomabi) to 67.18 %(muzaffarpur). the highest percentage of hermaphrodite flowers as functional female (21.26%) was recorded in the cv. bombai while china r ecor ded t he lowes t p er c enta ge (17.94%) of hermaphrodite flowers as functional female. bedana recorded the highest percentage of male flowers (19.60%) and muzaffarpur registered the lowest percentage of male flowers (14.46%) (table 2b). 126 subba and bhowmick table 1. heat unit requirement by different litchi cultivars bud break to panicle flowering fruit set to treatments panicle appearance appearance to to fruit set harvesting (oc) flowering (oc) (oc) (oc) t1 (calcuttia) 128.72 abc 329.24ab 326.83a 1012.48b t2 (elaichi) 94.58 c 371.31ab 329.67a 957.37b t3 (bedana) 104.50 bc 340.20ab 334.68a 1133.80a t4 (bombai) 136.85 ab 400.16a 336.35a 1010.06b t5 (china) 144.03 a 322.33b 347.08a 1076.33a t6 (shahi) 121.44 abc 312.38c 347.72a 950.74b t7 (muzaffarpur) 100.24 c 335.26ab 347.78a 962.54b s.em. (±) 11.80 23.94 10.54 20.41 l.s.d (pd”0.05) 36.35 73.77 ns 62.90 means followed by same alphabet are not significantly different treatments total no of hermaphrodite hermaphrodite male flowers per panicle male (%) female (%) (%) t1 (calcuttia) 476.52 cd 64.41a 19.67(4.43)ab 15.84(3.98)bcd t2 (elaichi) 457.35 de 65.70a 18.33(4.28)ab 17.20(4.15)abcd t3 (bedana) 518.92 bc 59.64b 20.09(4.47)ab 19.60(4.42)a t4 (bombai) 422.80 e 59.19b 21.26(4.61)a 18.11(4.24)abc t5 (china) 528.83 b 63.67a 17.94(4.23)b 18.96(4.35)ab t6 (shahi) 593.87 a 64.83a 19.52(4.42)ab 15.56(3.93)cd t7 (muzaffarpur) 593.83 a 67.18a 18.48(4.30)ab 14.46(3.80)d s.em.(±) 16.97 1.30 0.12 0.12 l.s.d (pd”0.05) 52.03 4.01 0.36 0.38 means followed by same alphabet are not significantly different (value in parenthesis is the square root transformed value) table 2b. flowering parameters of different litchi cultivars table 2a. flowering parameters of different litchi cultivars days taken for duration of length of duration of treatments bud break to panicle panicle flowering panicle emergence emergence (days) (cm) (days) t1 (calcuttia) 12.67 c 29.55a 17.42bc 24.48a t2 (elaichi) 12.47 c 35.10a 16.69cd 24.12a t3 (bedana) 14.83 bc 30.20a 16.16d 23.58a t4 (bombai) 17.83 a 31.47a 17.99ab 22.90a t5 (china) 17.27 ab 29.55a 16.39cd 24.13a t6 (shahi) 13.95 c 29.52a 17.32bcd 25.38a t7 (muzaffarpur) 13.65 c 30.02a 19.00a 25.83a s.em.(±) 0.84 2.41 0.40 1.21 l.s.d (pd”0.05) 2.59 ns 1.23 ns means followed by same alphabet are not significantly different j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 124-130, 2022 127 fruiting characteristics duration of fruit set, fruit set percentage and fruits per panicle was statistically similar for all the cultivars under study. calcuttia variety showed the maximum duration (11.97 days) for fruit set and was observed minimum in cv. bombai (10.68 days). t he fr u it set p er c ent a ge va r ied f r om 3 . 41 % (mu za ffa r p ur ) t o 4 . 7 9% (bomb a i), wher ea s , number of fruits per panicle was observed from 18.08 (bedana) to 23.22 (shahi). physio-chemical properties of fruits were significantly varied among the different cultivars studied under this experiment. h igher fr u it weight ( 17 . 8 8 g) , fr uit dia meter (3.01cm) and fruit volume (18.70ml) were observed in cv. bedana. small fruit of litchi was observed in cv. china (11.23g). the maximum fruit length (3.17 cm) was observed in cv. bombai; however, the higher peel content (29.94%) and seed content (27.90%) makes the variety with high waste index (1.51). the fruit pulp content was highest in cv. muzaffarpur (62.09%) and it was statistically at par with cvs. calcuttia, elaichi, bedana and shahi. seed content was lowest in cv. bedana (10.84%). the seed size (30.65%) and peel content (28.50%) were higher in cv. china resulting maximum waste index (1.66g) among the different varieties studied under this experiment. the minimum fruit length (2.71 cm) was recorded in bedana. the data on fr uit diameter showed tha t the ma ximum fr uit dia meter (3. 01 c m) wa s r ec or ded in beda na , whereas, muzaffarpur recorded the minimum fruit diameter (2.33 cm). the maximum specific gravity (1.07) was observed in elaichi while the minimum specific gra vity (0. 84) wa s recorded in shahi. highest pulp content (62.09%), and lowest waste index (0.64g) was recorded in muzaffarpur. china recorded the maximum waste index (1.66g), seed c ont ent ( 3 0 . 6 5 % ) . p er c ent a ge o f ju ic e wa s ma ximum (55. 08%) in sha hi while ma ximum peel (29.94%), minimum juice (30.03%) and was recorded in bombai (table 4b). bio-chemical characteristics litchi cv. bedana was recorded with maximum total soluble solids (tss) content (15.87 obrix), total sugar content (15.96%), reducing sugar (12.61%) a nd a s c or b ic a c id content ( 29 . 47 mg/ 10 0 g) , whereas, cvs. elaichi, china, muzaffarpur, and shahi recorded with lowest amount of tss (13.930 brix) and total sugar (11.45%), reducing sugar (9. 68 %), a nd a s cor b ic a cid (19. 72 mg/10 0g) content, respectively (table 5). there was a variation among the litchi cultivars for different parameters studied under this experiment which indicates the genotypic differences. higher heat unit requirement of cv. bedana and china for fruit set to harvesting indicates it late maturity in heat unit requirement and performances of litchi j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 124-130, 2022 table 3. fruiting characteristics of different litchi cultivars date of duration of duration of percent fruits treatments first fruit flowering to fruit setting fruit set per setting fruit set (days) (days) (%) panicle t1 (calcuttia) 22 nd march 27.08ab 11.97a 4.25 (2.06)a 19.83a t2 (elaichi) 22 nd march 26.77ab 11.53a 4.29 (2.06)a 19.03a t3 (bedana) 26 th march 26.58ab 11.02a 3.56 (1.88)a 18.08a t4 (bombai) 2 nd april 23.95b 10.68a 4.79 (2.18)a 19.83a t5 (china) 25 th march 27.55ab 11.17a 3.86 (1.97)a 20.27a t6 (shahi) 23 rd march 28.90a 11.57a 3.85 (1.95)a 23.22a t7(muzaffarpur) 22 nd march 28.98a 11.90a 3.41 (1.85)a 19.75a s.em.(±) —1.24 0.45 0.11 2.29 l.s.d (pd”0.05) —3.83 n.s. n.s. n.s. means followed by same alphabet are not significantly different (value in parenthesis is the square root transformed value) 128 table 4a. physical characteristics of fruits of different litchi cultivars treatments fruit fruit fruit fruit specific weight (g) length (cm) diameter (cm) volume (ml) gravity t1 (calcuttia) 17.30 ab 3.14ab 2.70b 17.63ab 0.99ab t2 (elaichi) 13.85 bc 2.86bcd 2.43c 13.07c 1.07a t3 (bedana) 17.88 a 2.71d 3.01a 18.70a 0.96abc t4 (bombai) 13.32 c 3.17a 2.48bc 13.87c 0.97abc t5 (china) 11.23 c 3.06ab 2.35c 13.30c 0.87bc t6 (shahi) 12.43 c 3.01abc 2.47bc 15.03bc 0.84c t7 (muzaffarpur) 11.78 c 2.78cd 2.33c 13.70c 0.88bc s.em.(±) 1.26 0.09 0.09 1.11 0.05 l.s.d (pd”0.05) 3.89 0.27 0.26 3.43 0.14 means with the same letter are not significantly different table 4b. physical composition and waste index of litchi fruits treatments juice (%) peel (%) pulp (%) seed (%) waste index (g) t1 (calcuttia) 46.12 ab 17.80c 59.98a 22.22bc 0.79bc t2 (elaichi) 44.48 b 22.16c 58.73a 19.11c 0.92bc t3 (bedana) 44.11 b 29.82a 59.34a 10.84d 0.70bc t4 (bombai) 30.03 c 29.94a 42.16b 27.90ab 1.51a t5 (china) 37.44 bc 28.50ab 40.85b 30.65a 1.66a t6 (shahi) 55.08 a 23.14bc 52.84a 24.02bc 1.19ab t7(muzaffarpur) 40.65 b 18.75c 62.09a 19.16c 0.64c s.em.(±) 3.41 1.81 3.43 2.08 0.18 l.s.d (pd”0.05) 10.50 5.58 10.57 6.42 0.54 means followed by same alphabet are not significantly different table 5. biochemical properties of litchi fruits treatments tss total reducing acidity tss:acid ascorbic acid (obrix) sugar (%) sugar (%) (%) ratio (mg/100g) t1(calcuttia) 14.63 bc 13.15abc 11.55b 0.42b 34.80bcd 23.83b t2 (elaichi) 13.93 d 14.71ab 10.87c 0.42b 33.11cd 28.82a t3 (bedana) 15.87 a 15.96a 12.61a 0.54a 29.86d 29.47a t4 (bombai) 15.20 b 12.60bcd 12.41a 0.40b 38.36bc 20.37c t5 (china) 14.37 cd 11.45b 10.62cd 0.52a 27.89d 23.62b t6 (shahi) 14.87 bc 12.30a 10.95cd 0.32c 47.41a 19.72c t7(muzaffarpur) 14.80 bc 11.72b 9.68d 0.36bc 41.34ab 23.40b s.em.(±) 0.21 0.17 1.02 0.03 2.50 0.40 l.s.d (pd”0.05) 0.63 0.53 3.16 0.08 7.71 1.24 means followed by same alphabet are not significantly different subba and bhowmick j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 124-130, 2022 129 this agro-climatic situation. the wide variation in heat unit may be due to the varied maturity period of different cultivars indicates that each genotype needs certain amounts of accumulation of heat units for completion of different phenopha ses which cause the variation in maturity period (rai et al., 2003). flowering span might be differed in case of climatic condition, but flowering span of particular variety is over only when the required heat units are accumulated (byrne and bacon, 1992). the flowering parameters result shows similar trends as obser ved by baner jee a nd cha udhar y (1944), mustard et al (1953), chadha and rajpoot (1969), pivovar o (1974) and kuma r (2000). t he data indicated that the maximum titrable acidity (0.54%) was recorded in bedana while the minimum titrable a c idit y c o nt ent ( 0 . 3 2 % ) wa s r ec or ded in shahi.tss:acid ratio was maximum (47.41) in shahi and the minimum tss:acid ratio (27.89) was recorded in china. the differences of fruit physiochemica l p r oper ties indic a te t he r ela t ionship between cultivars and heat unit requirement. conclusion there was a varietal difference regarding the heat unit requirements for different phonological phases r esult ing va r ia t ion on flower ing a nd fr uiting characteristics. bedana required maximum heat unit (1133.80oc) for attaining the harvesting stage from fruiting cultivar and it was lowest in cv. shahi (950.74oc). litchi cv. bedana exhibited promising results in terms of flowering, fruiting and quality pa r a meter s with r es pec t t o high fr u it weight (17.88g), fruit diameter (3.01cm), fruit volume (18.70 ml), tss (15.87obrix), total sugar content (1 5. 96 %) , r educ ing su ga r content ( 12 . 6 1% ), ascorbic acid content (29.47 mg/100g) and may be recommended as promising cultivar in terms of better-quality characters under the sub-himalayan terai region of west bengal condition. acknowledgement authors ar e thankful to the authority of uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya for supporting to conduct the experiment. references a. o. a. c. 1984. official methods of analysis, 14th edition, association of official agriculture chemist, washington, d.c. banerjee, j. and chaudhary, k.l. 1944.a contribution to the life history of litchi chinensis sonn. proc. indian acad. sect, 19:19-27. byrne, d.h. and bacon, t. 1992. chilling estimation: its impor ta nce a nd estima tion. texas horticulturist, 18(8-5): 8–9. chaudari, j.k. 1940. a note on the morphology and chromosome number of litchi chinensis sonn. current science, 9: 416. chadha, k.l. and rajpoot, m.s. 1969. studies on floral biology, fruit set, and its retention and quality of some litchi varieties. indian journal of horticulture, 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kochetov. abiotic stress biology in horticultural plants. springer, japan, pp 44–58. heat unit requirement and performances of litchi j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 124-130, 2022 130 subba and bhowmick j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 124-130, 2022 kumar, a. 2000. effect of foliar spray of multi-k on yield, quality and shelf life of litchi (litchi chinensis sonn.) cv. rose scented. thesis, m . s c . ag. 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(1984): the pattern and control of reproductive development in lychee. a review sci. hort., 22(4): 333-345. monteith, j.l. 1984. consistency and convenience in the choice of units for agriculture science. exptl agric., 20: 105-117 nakasone, h.k. and paull, r.e. 1998. tropical fr u i t s . p p 4 4 5 . c ab i nt er na t iona l, wallingford uk pivovaro, s.z. 1974. studies on the floral biology and the influence of growth regulators on fruit set, size and drop of litchi chinensis sonn. thesis, m.sc. ag., hebrew university of rehovot, pp39 rai, m., nath, v. and das, b. 2002. heat unit summa tionan index for predicting fruit maturity in litchi (litchi chinensis sonn.). indian j. hort., 59 (1): 34-38. ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of a nalysis and qua lity cont r ol f or f r uit a nd veget a ble p r odu c t s ( 2 n d ed) ta t a m c g r a w h ill publishing company ltd new delhi. shinohara, t. usui, m., higa, y., igarashi, d. and i nou e, t. 20 1 3. eff ec t of a c cu mula ted minimum temperature on sugar and organic acid content in passion fruit. journal of international society for southeast asian agricultural sciences,19: 1–7. singh, i. a., rao, u. v. m., singh, d. and singh, r. 20 07. st udy on a gr omet eor ologic a l indices for soybean crop under different gr owing envir onment. jour nal of a grometeorology, 9:81-85 swa n, j. b. , schneider, e. c. , moncr ief, j. e. , pa ulson, w.h. and peterson, a. e. 1989. estima ting crop gr owth yields a nd gra in moistur e from gr owing degree da ys a nd residue cover. agronomy journal, 79:53-60. (received: 28.10.202; revised: 05.02.2022; accepted: 05.02.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf 45 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 45-51, 2020 original research paper variability and genetic divergence in vegetable cowpea germplasm of goa thangam m.1, ramachandrudu k.2, ashok kumar j.3, safeena s.a.4 and priya devi s.1 1icar –central coastal agricultural research institute, ela, old goa 403 402, goa, india 2 icar directorate of oil palm research, pedavegi 534 450, west godavari, andhra pradesh 3 icar central institute of brackishwater aquaculture, chennai 600 028, tamil nadu 4icardirectorate of floricultural research, shivajinagar, pune, maharashtra, india email : thangamgoa@gmail.com, thangam.m@icar.gov.in abstract vegetable cowpea or yard long bean [vigna unguiculata var. sesquipedalis l. (walp)] is a warm season leguminous crops grown especially for vegetable purpose along the west coast of india. in goa, pole type varieties are preferred over bushy types as they offer multiple harvests with comparatively longer pods. there is wide variability found for different morphological and other traits in the local types cultivated in the state of goa. exploration of genetic variability in the available germplasm is a prerequisite for initiation of any successful breeding programme. twenty nine genotypes of vegetable cowpea including three improved varieties collected from different parts of goa state were evaluated for twelve quantitative characters including yield. high variability was observed for pod yield/plant, number of pods/plant and pod length. the high variability for pod yield per plant is apparent as the pod yield ranged from 315.25 to 2070.45 g/plant with an average of 827.48 g per plant. pod yield depends on number of pods per plant, pod length and pod weight. number of pods per plant ranged from 36.65 to 147.80. pod weight depends on pod length, number of seeds per pod and hundred seeds weight. wide variation was observed for all these characters in the present study. the gcv value was maximum for pod yield per plant (g) followed by pod weight (g) and number of pods per plant. low values of gcv were observed for days to first flowering, days to first harvest and number of seeds per pod. in the present study, the twenty nine genotypes could be grouped into fourteen clusters based on genetic distance. high coefficient of variation was observed for pod yield per plant, pod weight, number of pods per plant and pod length indicating their significant contribution in determining the inter cluster distances. key words: correlation coefficient, genetic divergence, quantitative character, vegetable cowpea introduction vegetable cowpea popularly known as yard long bean (vigna unguiculata va r. sesquipedalis) is a n important leguminous vegetable crop of south india. vegetable cowpea is an important vegetable grown as intercrop in different cropping systems. (khanpara et al., 2016). in vegetable cowpea, a mong the different parts analyzed shells were rich in dietary fiber. seeds were nutrient dense as compared to pods and shells, but more in antinutrients (tiwari et al., 2019). in goa, pole type cowpea with indeterminate growth habit producing long green fleshy pods are preferred and fetch premium price in the market through out the year. there are many varieties released in case of bush type of cowpea but the availa bility of impr oved va rieties in pole type vegetable cowpea is rather scanty. not much work has been carried out on the genetic improvement of pole type vegetable cowpea. there is wide variability found for different morphological and other traits in the loca l types cultivated in the state of goa . exploration of genetic variability in the available germplasm is a prerequisite for initiation of any successful br eeding programme. in spite of its popularity and importance very little effort has been this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 46 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 45-51, 2020 thangam et al. made to upgrade the genetic makeup of this crop. hence, the present investigation was carried out systematically to evaluate the local accessions to estimate the extent of genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance and genetic divergence in the locally collected germplasm of vegetable cowpea. materials and methods twenty nine genotypes of vegetable cowpea collected from different parts of goa including three released varieties were evaluated in a randomized block design with two replications during rabi seasons starting from 2012-2016 in paddy fallow land. the soil is sandy loam with a ph of 5.1 with medium phosphorous and potassium availability. recommended package of practices were followed to raise a good crop (anon. 2004). obser vations wer e r ecor ded on twelve important quantitative characters, viz., plant height (cm), number of primary branches, leaf length (cm), leaf width (cm), days to first flowering, days to first harvest, pod length (cm), pod weight (g), pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, 100 seeds weight (g) and pod yield per plant on five randomly selected plants/genotype/replication. the analysis of variance was carried out as suggested by panse and sukhatme (1985). the genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation was calculated as per the formula suggested by comstock and robinson (1952). heritability (broad sense) and genetic advance were worked out as per the procedure given by burton and de vane (1953) and allard (1960). results and discussion among the twelve quantitative characters studied, the twenty nine vegetable cowpea genotypes exhibited highly significant differences for all the characters indicating high variability in the cowpea accessions (table 1). wide range of variation was observed for all the characters studied. highest variation was observed for pod yield/plant, number of pods/plant and pod length (table 2). such a high variability for the above characters was also reported earlier by de mooy (1985), resmi (1998) and narayanankutty et al. (2003). in the present study, all the characters exhibited narrow differences between the value of pcv and gcv. this indicated low impact of environment on the expression of all the quantitative characters. the same was reported earlier by narayanankutty et al. (2005). the gcv value was maximum for pod yield per plant (g) followed by pod weight (g) and number of pods per plant. low values of gcv were observed for days to first flowering, days to first harvest and number of seeds per pod (table 2). shobha and vahab (1998) and narayanankutty et al., (2003) reported high gcv for yield per plant and pod weight in vegetable cowpea. low gcv values for days to first flowering and number of seeds per pod has been reported by sreekumar et al., (1996). the results of analysis of variance for different traits are given in table 3. the high variability for pod yield per plant is apparent as the pod yield ranged from 315.25 to 2070.45 g / plant with an average of 827.48 g per plant. pod yield depends on number of pods per plant, pod length and pod weight. number of pods per plant ranged from 36.65 to 147.80. pod weight depends on pod length, number of seeds per pod and hundred seeds weight. wide variation was observed for all these characters in the present study. similar findings have been reported by other workers (de mooy(1985), resmi (1998), shobha and vahab(1998) and narayanankutty et al.,(2005) with the help of variability and subsequent gcv alone, it is not possible to determine the amount of genetic variation that is heritable to the further generations. burton and de vane (1953) suggested that gcv combined with estimates of heritability would give the best results of genetic advance to be expected from selection. in the present study, heritability values were high (>90%) for all the characters studied except number of seeds per pod. high values of heritability for quantitative characters have also been reported by earlier workers, sobha and vahab (1998) and narayanankutty et al. (2003). the accurate value for heritable variation can be estimated when heritability is combined with genetic advance. in the present study, high heritability coupled with high genetic advance was observed for pod yield per plant (g) and pod weight (g). this may be due to the preponderance of additive gene action for these characters there by indicating the advantages of selection for their 47 variability and genetic divergence in vegetable cowpea germplasm of goa j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 45-51, 2020 s .n o. a cc es si o n p la n t n o of l ea f l ea f d ay s to d ay s to p od p od p o d s n o of 10 0 p od n u m b er h ei g h t 1o le n g th w id th 1s t 1s t le n g th w ei g h t p er se ed s p er s ee d s yi el d p er b ra n ch es fl o w er in g h ar ve st p la n t po d w ei g h t p la n t 1 v c g 1 4. 49 6. 60 13 .4 8 9. 68 43 .0 0 57 .6 0 35 .1 7 10 .5 8 77 .0 0 14 .6 1 17 .3 2 82 0. 50 2 v c g 2 5. 29 8. 25 11 .3 9 8. 25 50 .4 0 71 .1 5 40 .7 7 12 .3 6 77 .6 5 14 .7 0 27 .2 3 95 0. 50 3 v c g 3 4. 85 5. 25 10 .6 3 7. 77 51 .3 0 71 .0 0 47 .3 5 13 .9 0 74 .4 0 13 .7 6 25 .6 5 10 30 .4 5 4 v c g 4 6. 29 4. 10 12 .5 4 9. 56 46 .4 0 60 .0 0 64 .7 0 35 .5 2 58 .3 5 13 .1 9 19 .2 2 20 70 .4 5 5 v c g 5 3. 46 5. 60 9. 98 6. 47 52 .2 0 69 .7 0 40 .8 5 9. 26 54 .5 0 17 .3 4 25 .2 5 50 5. 50 6 v c g 6 4. 37 5. 85 11 .2 9 8. 67 56 .1 5 69 .9 0 39 .4 2 9. 00 50 .4 5 16 .9 7 19 .8 2 45 5. 40 7 v c g 7 3. 90 5. 25 11 .1 3 9. 33 48 .5 0 62 .9 0 37 .5 3 8. 47 67 .1 5 15 .1 5 14 .9 0 56 5. 65 8 v c g 8 4. 26 4. 60 12 .2 1 9. 14 43 .5 0 60 .0 0 37 .9 0 11 .5 8 14 7. 80 15 .6 3 18 .4 7 17 10 .6 5 9 v c g 9 4. 35 4. 85 11 .9 4 9. 34 45 .2 0 60 .9 0 36 .6 9 9. 80 92 .4 5 14 .5 2 22 .5 0 91 0. 40 1 0 v c g 10 4. 41 6. 65 10 .8 4 7. 97 50 .6 0 66 .9 0 40 .3 2 11 .1 3 72 .5 0 14 .7 7 13 .4 5 81 0. 00 1 1 v c g 11 4. 99 4. 40 11 .8 8 7. 40 46 .4 0 64 .2 0 41 .2 4 10 .8 9 78 .5 0 15 .8 8 20 .1 1 85 0. 45 1 2 v c g 12 4. 64 4. 80 11 .0 8 7. 27 51 .9 0 77 .1 0 43 .0 1 9. 60 58 .4 0 16 .5 5 15 .3 9 55 5. 40 1 3 v c g 13 3. 72 5. 05 11 .7 8 8. 29 54 .5 0 74 .3 0 40 .5 5 12 .8 4 51 .5 0 17 .9 1 20 .3 1 66 0. 25 1 4 v c g 14 4. 31 4. 15 13 .7 3 9. 93 44 .2 0 61 .2 0 41 .1 9 9. 74 65 .0 5 15 .5 1 20 .5 1 63 5. 25 1 5 v c g 15 4. 38 5. 00 12 .7 8 10 .6 6 43 .6 0 60 .0 0 39 .0 2 10 .6 8 85 .3 5 15 .9 7 19 .2 9 91 0. 45 1 6 v c g 16 4. 75 4. 85 12 .2 4 9. 58 45 .3 0 60 .7 0 27 .9 7 6. 22 83 .6 0 15 .2 6 20 .9 3 52 0. 65 1 7 v c g 17 4. 08 4. 70 13 .0 0 9. 80 51 .6 0 62 .8 0 31 .5 4 10 .6 1 59 .1 0 15 .9 9 22 .3 3 62 5. 20 1 8 v c g 18 4. 46 4. 25 13 .6 0 9. 93 55 .2 0 67 .0 0 33 .3 6 8. 66 36 .6 5 16 .1 1 20 .1 1 31 5. 25 1 9 v c g 19 3. 39 5. 05 10 .5 4 10 .3 9 42 .1 0 66 .0 0 46 .1 3 12 .0 8 44 .1 5 15 .7 5 15 .0 4 52 7. 30 2 0 v c g 20 4. 64 4. 85 11 .4 2 9. 05 44 .4 0 71 .9 0 51 .9 5 12 .0 3 52 .2 0 14 .9 7 17 .5 5 60 6. 20 2 1 v c g 21 4. 43 5. 55 11 .8 9 9. 24 44 .0 0 71 .6 0 48 .1 4 11 .1 3 86 .4 5 13 .0 3 20 .0 5 90 8. 45 2 2 v c g 22 4. 95 6. 25 12 .0 7 10 .2 1 46 .1 0 70 .2 0 59 .5 0 19 .1 3 72 .5 0 16 .8 6 22 .2 9 13 74 .1 5 2 3 v c g 23 4. 10 6. 15 11 .7 4 9. 87 44 .0 0 65 .6 0 55 .6 4 10 .5 7 10 5. 50 16 .0 4 20 .3 9 11 83 .5 5 2 4 v c g 24 4. 72 5. 30 11 .1 4 9. 61 51 .8 0 78 .4 0 46 .8 7 13 .3 1 91 .6 0 13 .0 6 23 .5 6 12 62 .4 5 2 5 v c g 25 4. 86 4. 95 12 .3 3 9. 10 51 .0 0 77 .6 0 48 .7 7 14 .0 9 48 .8 0 13 .6 1 20 .6 1 69 7. 50 2 6 v c g 26 3. 95 4. 65 13 .1 3 11 .2 0 48 .7 0 62 .5 0 51 .0 1 13 .9 4 64 .1 0 13 .6 1 19 .8 4 78 3. 10 2 7 v ij ay an th i 2. 90 6. 15 11 .1 3 10 .9 5 50 .7 0 72 .0 0 47 .2 3 10 .7 5 50 .7 0 12 .9 4 23 .2 1 40 8. 60 2 8 a g ar im a 1. 00 5. 20 10 .0 0 10 .8 9 42 .9 0 64 .6 0 51 .4 0 10 .9 5 71 .3 0 12 .2 0 21 .9 6 70 7. 80 2 9 a s um an 1. 05 5. 10 9. 39 10 .0 9 45 .9 0 65 .0 0 54 .2 8 12 .0 7 65 .2 0 13 .0 5 19 .9 4 63 5. 45 c d (0 .0 5) 0. 61 6. 60 0. 82 0. 71 3. 06 3. 98 3. 36 1. 63 7. 36 1. 92 1. 62 12 3. 72 t ab le 1 . m ea n pe rf or m an ce o f ve ge ta bl e co w pe a ge rm pl as m o f g oa 48 thangam et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 45-51, 2020 ta bl e 2. r an ge , m ea n, p c v , g c v, h er it ab ili ty a nd g en et ic a dv an ce f or t w el ve q ua nt it at iv e ch ar ac te rs i n ve ge ta bl e co w pe a c ha ra ct er s m ea n ± se m r an ge p he no ty pi c g en ot yp ic pc v g c v h er it ab ili ty g en et ic va ri an ce va ri an ce (% ) ad va nc e (% ) pl an t he ig ht 4. 17 0± 0. 21 0 1. 00 6 .2 9 2. 31 2. 22 36 .4 5 35 .7 4 96 .1 9 72 .2 1 n o of 1 o br an ch es 5. 29 ±0 .2 4 4. 10 8 .2 5 1. 59 1. 47 23 .8 1 22 .9 5 92 .9 2 45 .5 8 l ea f le ng th 11 .7 3± 0. 29 9. 39 1 3. 73 2. 41 2. 25 13 .2 4 12 .7 9 93 .2 8 25 .4 4 l ea f w id th 9. 29 ±0 .2 5 6. 46 1 1. 19 2. 69 2. 57 17 .6 4 17 .2 5 95 .5 5 34 .7 3 d ay s to 1 st f lo w er in g 47 .9 8± 1. 06 42 .1 0 56 .1 5 33 .8 8 31 .6 4 12 .1 3 11 .7 2 93 .4 0 23 .3 4 d ay s to 1 st h ar ve st 66 .9 9± 1. 38 57 .6 0 78 .4 0 67 .7 2 63 .9 5 12 .2 8 11 .9 4 94 .4 3 23 .8 9 po d le ng th 44 .1 2± 1. 16 27 .9 7 64 .6 9 14 2. 48 13 9. 79 27 .0 6 26 .8 0 98 .1 2 54 .6 9 po d w ei gh t 12 .0 9± 0. 56 6. 22 3 5. 52 51 .4 8 50 .8 5 59 .3 1 58 .9 4 98 .7 7 12 0. 67 n o of p od s/ pl an t 70 .4 5± 2. 54 36 .6 5 14 7. 80 96 7. 57 95 4. 66 44 .1 7 43 .8 6 98 .6 7 89 .7 5 n o of s ee ds /p od 14 .9 9± 0. 66 12 .2 0 17 .9 1 4. 48 3. 60 14 .1 1 12 .6 6 80 .4 3 23 .3 8 10 0 se ed w ei gh t 20 .2 5± 0. 56 13 .4 5 27 .2 3 20 .5 0 19 .8 8 22 .3 6 22 .0 2 96 .9 6 44 .6 7 y ie ld p er p la nt 82 7. 48 ±4 2. 72 31 5. 25 2 07 0. 45 30 34 98 .4 5 29 98 49 .3 8 66 .5 8 66 .1 8 98 .7 9 13 5. 49 ta bl e 3. a na ly si s of v ar ia nc e fo r d if fe re nt t ra it s in v eg et ab le c ow pe a ge rm pl as m o f g oa so ur ce s of d. f. m ea n su n of s qu ar es v ar ia ti on p la nt n o of l ea f l ea f d ay s to d ay s to po d po d p od s n o of 10 0 po d he ig ht br an ch es le ng th w id th 1s t 1s t le ng th w ei gh t pe r se ed s se ed s yi el d pe r fl ow er in g ha rv es t p la nt pe r po d w ei gh t pl an t t re at m en ts 28 .0 0 64 .6 7* 44 .4 2 67 .5 3 75 .3 1 94 8. 59 * 18 96 .2 4 39 89 .5 5* 14 41 .3 9* 27 09 1. 81 12 5. 41 97 95 6. 69 57 4. 08 * r ep lic at io ns 1. 00 0. 47 0. 08 0. 07 0. 05 0. 03 0. 38 1. 32 0. 65 0. 02 1. 07 13 83 .7 7 0. 21 r es id ua l 28 .0 0 2. 47 3. 15 4. 54 3. 35 62 .5 8 10 5. 70 75 .1 9 17 .7 2 36 1. 41 24 .5 5 21 74 .0 8 17 .4 8 *s ig ni fic an t at 1 % l ev el 49 variability and genetic divergence in vegetable cowpea germplasm of goa j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 45-51, 2020 ta bl e 4. c lu st er in g pa tt er n of v eg et ab le c ow pe a ge no ty pe s t ra it s p la nt n o of 1 o l ea f l ea f d ay s to d ay s to po d po d n o of n o of 10 0 y ie ld he ig ht br an ch es le ng th w id th 1s t 1s t le ng th w ei gh t po ds / se ed s/ se ed pe r fl ow er in g ha rv es t pl an t po d w ei gh t pl an t pl an t he ig ht 1. 00 0 -0 .1 76 * 0. 68 8* * 0. 34 5* 0. 15 0* * 0. 06 0 -0 .0 76 0. 36 0* 0. 10 4 0. 23 9 0. 00 8 0. 42 3* n o of 1 o br an ch es 1. 00 0 -0 .3 73 -0 .2 86 0. 06 1 0. 20 1 0. 08 4 -0 .1 30 0. 08 3* -0 .0 93 0. 21 9 -0 .0 46 l ea f le ng th 1. 00 0 0. 82 9 0. 03 3 -0 .1 41 -0 .2 97 0. 04 7 0. 06 4 0. 25 8* * -0 .0 22 0. 13 5 l ea f w id th 1. 00 0 -0 .1 64 -0 .1 57 -0 .0 73 0. 06 3 0. 05 0 -0 .0 22 -0 .0 24 0. 10 9 d ay s to 1 st f lo w er in g 1. 00 0 0. 56 7* * -0 .2 29 -0 .0 80 -0 .4 69 0. 28 0* 0. 24 2* -0 .3 18 * d ay s to 1 st h ar ve st 1. 00 0 0. 23 7* -0 .0 39 -0 .3 26 0. 01 3 0. 22 0* -0 .1 95 po d le ng th 1. 00 0 0. 70 0* * -0 .0 77 -0 .3 90 ** 0. 05 5 0. 48 9* po d w ei gh t 1. 00 0 -0 .0 83 * -0 .2 67 0. 04 4 0. 73 7* * n o of p od s/ pl an t 1. 00 0 -0 .0 99 0. 07 2* 0. 59 6* * n o of s ee ds /p od 1. 00 0 -0 .1 39 ** -0 .2 03 * 10 0 se ed w ei gh t 1. 00 0 0. 09 6 * si gn ifi ca nt a t 5 % l ev el ; ** s ig ni fic an t at 1 % l ev el ta bl e 5. p he no ty pi c co rr el at io n co ef fi ci en t am on g di ff er en t qu an ti ta ti ve c ha ra ct er s in v eg et ab le c ow pe a c lu st er n o. n um be r of g en ot yp es c on st it ue nt g en ot yp es i 5 v c g 1, v c g 2, v c g 3, v c g 9, v c g 15 ii 2 a s um an , a g ar im a ii i 2 v c g 6, v c g 13 iv 2 v c g 18 , v c g 17 v 2 v c g 11 , v c g 14 v i 2 v c g 25 , v c g 20 v ii 2 v c g 10 , v c g 12 v ii i 2 v c g 7, v c g 19 ix 2 v c g 24 , v c g 21 x 2 v ija ya nt hi , v c g 26 x i 2 v c g 23 , v c g 22 x ii 2 v c g 5, v c g 16 x ii i 1 v c g 4 x iv 1 v c g 8 50 thangam et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 45-51, 2020 improvement. high heritability coupled with high genetic advance for above characters in vegetable cowpea has been reported by resmi (1998) and narayanankutty et al. (2003). other characters viz., days to first flowering, days to first harvest, number of seeds per pod and leaf length has recorded high heritability of more than 90 per cent but their genetic advance is very low (<30%) indicating the non additive gene action for these traits. this implies improvement of above traits by pyramiding desirable genes through suitable hybridization programmes. the success of any hybridization programme depends on the genetic diversity present in the parents. in the present study, the twenty nine genotypes could be grouped in to fourteen clusters based on genetic distance (table 4). the cluster i was the largest comprising of five genotypes and remaining clusters had two genotypes each except thirteen and fourteen that had one genotype each. the clustering pattern in the present study did not follow any uniform pattern. the clustering pattern was irregular and the same type of distribution was earlier r epor ted by pa til a nd bha pka r (1987) a nd narayanankutty et al. (2005). the correlation studies provide reliable information on the nature and extent of relationship for bringing about improvement in yield and other traits. the estimates of correlation coefficients is presented in table 5. characters showing positive and highly significant correlation with yield per plant were pod weight (0.737) and number of pods per plant (0.596). on the other hand, yield ha d nega tive and significant correlation with days to first flowering (-0.318) and number of seeds per pod (-0. 203). t his is in accordance with the results of narayanankutty et al. (2005). in the present study, high coefficient of variation was observed for pod yield per plant, pod weight, number of pods per plant and pod length indicating their significant contribution in determining the inter cluster distances. hence, selection of parents differing in traits such as pod weight, pod yield per plant , number of pods/plant and pod length will be more useful in future breeding programmes. references allard, r.w. 1960. principles of plant breeding. john willey and sons; inc., new york. pp. 83-108. anon 2004. crop varieties developed by dbs konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli. directorate of research, dr.b.s.konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli, ratnagiri (m.s.), india. burton, g.w and de vane, e.h. 1953. estimating her ita bility in ta ll fescue (festuca arundinaceae) from replicated clonal material. agron. j. 43: 478-81. comstock, r.e and robinson, h.f.1952. genetic parameters, their estimation and significance. proc. vi intl. grassland congress. 1: 284-91. de mooy. 1985. variability of different characteristics in botswana cowpea germplasm. tropical grain legume bull. 31: 1-4. tiwari d., dutta a., singh y.v., raghuvanshi r.s., shukla p. , kha n r. , tila r a s. (2019) physicochemica l a nd or ga noleptic characteristics of different parts of vegetable cowpea [vigna unguiculata(l. ) wa lp]. indian j.of agri. res. 53 (6) : 662-668. khanpara s.v., jivani l.l., vachanni j.h. and kachchadia h. (2016) genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance studies in vegetable cowpea [vigna unguiculata (l.) walp.]. electronic journal of plant breeding 7(2) : 408-413 narayanankutty c., mill r. and jaikumaran u. 2003. variability and genetic divergence in vegetable cowpea. j. maharashtra agric. univ., 28: 2629. narayanankutty c., sunanda c.k and jaikumaran u. 2005. genetic diver gence in pole type vegetable cowpea. indian j. hort. 62: 354-57. panse v.g and sukhatme p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers. fourth 51 variability and genetic divergence in vegetable cowpea germplasm of goa j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 45-51, 2020 (received on 22.11.2019 and accepted on 05.01.2020) edition, indian council of agricultural research, new delhi. patil r.b and bhapkar d.g. 1987. genetic divergence among 49 cowpea strains. j. maharashtra agric. univ. 12: 283-85. resmi p.s. 1998. genetic variability in yard long bean (vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis (l) ver dcour t). m. sc. (ag. ) thesis, ker a la agricultural university, thrissur, 116p. shobha p.p. and abdul vahab m. 1998. genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in cowpea (vigna unguiculata (l) walp.). j. trop. agric. 36: 21-23. sreekumar k.k., inasi k.a., antony a. and nair r.r. 1996. genetic variability, heritability and correlation studies in vegetable cowpea (vigna unguiculata var. sesquipedalis). south ind. hort. 44: 15-18. introduction dolichos bean ( lablab purpureus. l.) is an important vegetable legume crop grown throughout the country. india is the centre of diversity for dolichos bean, and a large numbers of indigenous strains are available in northern india. although this crop originated in india, very little work has been done for its genetic improvement. a great range of variation exists for plant and pod characters among the accessions grown all over the country. planning and execution of a breeding programme for improving quantitative attributes depends, to a great extent, on the magnitude of genetic variability available. several of the plant traits are governed by polygenes, greatly influenced by environmental conditions. there is a need to partition the overall variability into heritable and non-heritable components. knowledge on genetic diversity, its nature, degree of variability and interrelationship between traits is useful in selecting suitable parents to initiate a j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):147-153, 2015 variability, heritability, correlation and genetic divergence studies in dolichos bean (lablab purpureus l.) t.s. dhillon and ajay kumar department of vegetable science punjab agricultural university ludhiana-141001, india e-mail: ajaykpau@gmail.com abstract variability, heritability, correlation and genetic divergence were studied in 30 strains of dolichos bean (lablab purpureus l.) for various growth and yield attributing parameters. high phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation was found in number of flowers per cluster, fresh green pod yield per plant, green pod yield per hectare, and mineral content. high heritability and expected genetic advance was found in number of flowers per cluster, vine length, weight of 10 green pods, fresh green pod yield per plant, and green pod yield per hectare. genotypic correlation was higher than phenotypic correlation. yield per plant was positively and significantly correlated with number of branches per plant, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, weight of 10 green pods, number of clusters per plant, and number of flowers per cluster. for genetic divergence studies, the genotypes were grouped into 11 clusters on the basis of relative magnitude of d2 values. maximum intercluster distance was recorded between clusters vii and i, indicating a wide diversity among these two clusters. minimum intercluster distance was observed between clusters ix and viii, indicating their close relationship. thus, clusters vii and i were generally the most divergent from the other clusters. intra-cluster value was highest for cluster ix. intra-cluster distance was least for clusters vi and x. among the genotypes, sc-5, sc-7, sc-11, sc-16 and sc-17 were the best in traits related to yield compared to the check, ps-2. key words: dolichos bean, genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance, genetic divergence successful breeding programme. therefore, the present investigation was carried out to elucidate genetic variability, genetic gain, heritability and interrelationship using correlation, in a collection of strains of dolichos bean (lablab purpureus l.). material and methods the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications, at the department of vegetable science, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana. each entry comprised 20 plants, at a spacing of 1.25m from ridge-to-ridge, and 0.45m from plant-to-plant. data were recorded on all the characters pertaining to the study. five plants selected randomly from each treatment were selected for different agronomic traits, viz., days taken to 50% germination, days to flowering, days to first-pod set, days to first picking, number of branches per plant, number of flowers per cluster, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, number of clusters per plant, vine length 148 (cm), length of pod (cm), breadth of pod (cm), weight of 10 green pods (g), fresh green-pod yield per plant (kg), greenpod yield per hectare (q/ha), protein content (%), and dry matter content (%). genotypic coefficient of variation was estimated as per burton and devance (1953). heritability and genetic advance were calculated as per allard (1999) and correlation was estimated as per al-jibouri et al (1958). all the biochemical parameters were determined as per a.o.a.c. (1970). mahalanobis d2 statistic, as detailed by rao (1952) was applied to assess genetic divergence between genotypes. results and discussion analysis of variance (anova) revealed significant differences among various characters under study, indicating a high degree of variability in the material (table 1). daysto-first-picking were minimum in sc-29, and maximum in sc-19. number of pods per cluster was highest in ps-2 and lowest in sc-21. highest number of pods per plant was seen in sc-11, and, the lowest in sc-24 and sc-25. length and breadth of the pod was maximum in sc-9, while, it was minimum in sc-15. least breadth of pod was seen in sc14. fresh green-pod yield was maximum in sc-17, and minimum in sc-13. crude protein content was maximum in sc-17, and minimum in sc-25. highest soluble protein content was recorded in sc-30, and lowest in sc-29. dry matter content was highest in sc-8, and the least in sc-25. genetic variability a wide range of variation was observed for all the characters under study (table 2). phenotypic coefficient of variation ranged from 17.67 to 47.37. highest phenotypic coefficient of variation existed for number of flowers per cluster (47.37), followed by fresh green-pod yield per plant (46.47) and green-pod yield per hectare (46.47). highto moderate-phenotypic variability for pod yield per plant was table 1. mean performance of some genotypes of dolichos bean sl. dolichos days number number length breadth fresh crude soluble dry mineral no. strain to first of pods of pods of pod of pod green-pod protein protein matter content (genotype) picking per per (cm) (cm) yield per (%) (%) content (%) cluster plant plant (kg) (%) 1 sc-1 119.62 6.58 196.67 11.66 1.58 0.58 14.69 17.50 12.64 1.36 2 sc-2 103.27 6.33 151.89 8.25 2.82 1.57 17.63 15.03 19.26 0.10 3 sc-3 102.93 7.25 155.00 8.72 2.32 1.38 15.67 14.30 16.80 0.74 4 sc-4 101.93 5.00 107.67 10.67 2.94 0.75 14.95 14.10 16.28 2.00 5 sc-5 103.73 9.08 240.64 6.79 2.16 1.33 21.35 20.93 23.35 2.66 6 sc-6 110.60 6.92 231.87 8.37 1.53 0.90 18.89 21.37 18.33 0.74 7 sc-7 101.60 9.13 288.56 9.29 2.03 1.30 20.54 20.97 23.36 1.36 8 sc-8 98.60 9.10 240.22 6.86 2.36 0.80 21.37 20.47 23.77 2.34 9 sc-9 108.8 4.37 109.83 12.66 3.03 0.73 13.26 12.53 12.36 2.66 10 sc-10 92.07 7.97 333.33 7.00 1.45 1.14 12.66 14.13 12.31 2.34 11 sc-11 90.20 7.72 370.42 8.44 1.52 1.35 13.27 11.93 13.32 2.66 12 sc-12 88.73 6.87 309.53 8.25 1.50 1.06 18.03 12.27 16.40 2.00 13 sc-13 87.40 7.00 115.60 6.67 1.41 0.28 13.76 18.53 12.74 1.36 14 sc-14 86.40 5.33 238.70 7.33 1.34 0.60 12.91 19.13 12.62 0.74 15 sc-15 88.87 9.48 275.20 5.74 1.52 0.91 19.08 16.17 20.65 1.36 16 sc-16 106.80 5.23 158.50 7.58 1.82 1.30 16.14 13.00 17.50 2.00 17 sc-17 116.40 5.93 253.56 8.29 2.22 2.24 21.46 15.67 22.71 1.36 18 sc-18 132.73 5.75 136.67 6.57 1.62 0.63 14.18 21.43 16.13 0.74 19 sc-19 154.60 5.77 145.25 6.65 1.90 0.57 16.11 12.10 16.87 0.74 20 sc-20 152.60 10.63 140.00 7.13 1.84 0.70 18.90 12.00 22.81 2.34 21 sc-21 148.60 2.77 100.00 6.36 1.78 0.50 17.20 14.30 17.29 0.74 22 sc-22 144.87 4.50 166.67 7.00 1.91 0.61 16.48 15.10 16.19 0.74 23 sc-23 139.20 4.08 123.33 6.57 2.04 0.67 15.67 13.37 16.57 2.66 24 sc-24 150.00 3.00 93.33 7.09 2.23 0.43 18.76 12.00 19.35 1.36 25 sc-25 151.93 4.17 93.33 7.19 2.05 0.39 12.02 12.33 11.77 1.36 26 sc-26 143.60 7.52 146.67 10.40 2.14 0.67 13.74 12.77 14.01 2.00 27 ps-2 107.40 12.57 160.00 11.23 1.99 1.19 17.13 21.13 15.47 2.66 28 sc-28 136.27 7.17 175.00 10.06 2.06 0.96 12.75 13.03 12.48 2.66 29 sc-29 51.60 10.17 271.67 9.08 1.57 1.04 16.17 11.10 15.81 2.34 30 sc-30 111.73 5.42 223.33 11.33 1.72 1.16 14.32 23.00 12.60 2.66 cd (p=0.05) 1.54 1.12 32.17 0.52 0.14 0.18 1.19 1.40 1.27 0.69 dhillon and ajay kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):147-153, 2015 149 reported by kabir and subir (1987) and vashi et al (1999). phenotypic variation alone does not reveal the relative amount of variation; hence, different aspects of genetic parameters were worked out. in our experimental material, genotypic variability for characters under study ranged from 17.09 to 44.86. maximum genotypic coefficient of variation was observed for number of flowers per cluster (46.31), followed by fresh green-pod yield per plant, and green-pod yield per hectare (44.86 each). similar results were reported by borah and shadeque (1992) and uddin and newaz (1997). selection is favoured when a major proportion of the large amount of phenotypic variability is a tributable to heritable variation. burton and devance (1953) stated that heritability alone was not enough to make efficient selection in the segregating generation, unless heritability was accompanied by a substantial amount of genetic advance. in the present investigation, number of flowers per cluster, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, vine length, weight of 10 green pods, fresh green-pod yield per plant, and green-pod yield per hectare accounted for higher heritability (99.45% to 92.42%) and higher genetic advance (93.26% to 75.38%). these results are in conformity with singh et al (1979), uddin and newaz (1997) and bendale et al (2004). correlation it is important to study inter-relationships between various characters. as most traits of economic importance in crop plants depend upon one or the other trait, the degree of expression of one trait increases or decreases with an increase or decrease in the other character. a trait such as yield is dependent on more than one contributing traits. it is important to learn of the association between yield and its components, as, this provides valuable information on a correlated response to selection. highly significant and positive phenotypic correlation (table 3) was observed between pod yield per plant and six other yield-related components, viz., number of branches per plant, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, weight of 10 green pods, number of clusters per plant and number of flowers per cluster. also, yield per plant was significantly and positively correlated to protein content and dry matter content. therefore, selection for yield and its positivelycorrelated characters, should result in a correlated response table 2. general mean, range and components of variance for 17 characters in dolichos bean character general range genotypic phenotypic coefficient heritability h2 expected genetic mean coefficient coefficient of variation (%) genetic advance of variation of variation gain (%) days taken to 6.63 4.33 9.33 17.25 20.37 10.83 71.73 2.00 30.10 50% germination days to flowering 90.88 34.73 127.47 25.57 25.62 1.51 99.65 47.80 52.59 days to first-pod set 99.02 41.20 133.40 22.88 22.92 1.28 99.69 46.61 47.07 days to first picking 114.44 51.60 154.60 22.43 22.44 0.82 99.87 52.84 46.17 number of branches 15.16 10.87 19.27 17.30 18.22 5.71 90.19 5.13 33.85 per plant number of flowers 14.43 3.02 25.05 46.31 47.37 9.97 95.57 13.46 93.26 per cluster number of pods 7.30 2.00 12.57 38.06 39.60 10.90 92.42 4.75 75.38 per cluster number of pods 191.75 93.33 370.42 39.47 40.79 10.27 93.66 150.89 78.69 per plant number of clusters 23.72 14.08 45.58 35.15 36.66 10.41 91.93 16.47 69.43 per plant vine length (cm) 344.98 70.83 580.67 38.38 38.49 2.85 99.45 272.03 78.85 length of pod (cm) 8.31 5.74 12.66 22.01 22.34 3.87 97.00 3.71 44.65 breadth of pod (cm) 1.95 1.34 3.03 22.55 22.96 4.35 96.41 0.89 45.60 weight of 10 green 50.66 24.59 103.33 39.52 40.48 8.73 95.35 40.27 79.50 pods (g) fresh green-pod yield 0.93 0.28 2.24 44.86 46.47 12.13 93.19 0.83 89.20 per plant (kg) green-pod yield (q/ha) 157.32 48.34 380.80 44.86 46.47 12.12 93.19 140.34 89.21 protein content (%) 16.30 12.02 21.46 17.09 17.67 4.48 93.56 5.55 34.05 dry matter content (%) 16.73 11.77 23.77 22.39 22.87 4.65 95.87 7.55 45.17 variability, heritability and related studies in dolichos bean j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):147-153, 2015 150 table 3. phenotypic (rp) and genotypic (rg) correlation coefficient between various pairs of characters in dolichos lablab character days taken days days to days number of number number of number of to 50% to first-pod to first branches of flowers pods per pods per germination flowering set picking per plant per cluster cluster plant days to rg 0.0874 flowering r p 0.0773 days to rg 0.1340 0.9716 first-pod set r p 0.1193 0.9700** days to rg 0.0800 0.9598 0.9929 first picking r p 0.0706 0.9579** 0.9911** number of rg 0.0036 0.5089 0.5226 0.5329 branches r p 0.0308 0.4812** 0.4951** 0.5060** per plant number of rg -0.2768 -0.6388 -0.6539 -0.6320 0.5571 flowers per r p -0.2210* -0.6206** -0.6354** -0.6154** 0.5048** cluster number of rg -0.4606 -0.4139 -0.4094 -0.4057 0.3493 0.6984 pods per r p -0.3940** -0.3955** -0.3955** -0.3892** 0.3291** 0.6562** cluster number of rg -0.3132 -0.6856 -0.6688 -0.6398 0.6900 0.6934 0.3951 pods per r p -0.2246* -0.6622** -0.6460** -0.6174** 0.6801** 0.6490** 0.3643** plant number of rg -0.3431 0.1604 0.1380 0.1511 0.2550 -0.0178 0.2626 0.0945 clusters r p -0.2946** 0.1532 0.1321 0.1438 0.2287* -0.0019 0.2454* 0.1094 per plant vine length rg 0.0041 0.6797 0.6974 0.6780 0.2545 -0.6486 0.2852 0.4127 (cm) r p -0.0023 0.6761** 0.6935** 0.6754** 0.2404* -0.6328** 0.2758** 0.3994** length rg 0.1446 0.1618 0.1255 0.1474 -0.1582 0.0756 0.0855 -0.0407 of pod (cm) r p 0.1343 0.1587 0.1235 0.1440 -0.1586 0.0675 0.0839 -0.0252 breadth of rg 0.4004 0.2292 0.2184 0.1956 -0.0241 -0.3791 -0.125 -0.4696 pod (cm) r p 0.3186** 0.2224* 0.2127* 0.1909 -0.0267 -0.3760** 0-0.1067 -0.4509** weight of rg 0.3497 0.1634 0.1172 0.0542 0.2212 -0.1642 0.0368 -0.3042 10 green r p 0.3093** 0.1580 0.1117 0.0532 0.2118* -0.1493 0.0395 -0.2898** pods (g) fresh rg 0.0494 -0.3415 -0.3701 -0.3978 0.7318 0.4544 0.3447 0.5210 green-pod r p 0.0740 -0.3297** -0.3590** -0.3827** 0.7156** 0.4311** 0.3296** 0.5324** yield per plant (kg) green-pod rg 0.0496 -0.3413 -0.3699 -0.3976 0.7316 0.4543 0.3466 0.5208 yield (q/ha) r p 0.0743 -0.3295** -0.3588** -0.3825** 0.7154** 0.4310** 0.3294** 0.5323** protein rg -0.3419 -0.0110 -0.0767 -0.0532 -0.3503 0.3604 0.3631 0.2076 content (%) r p -0.2757** -0.0056 -0.0759 -0.0511 -0.3192** 0.3382** 0.3330** 0.1953 dry matter rg -0.2406 -0.0757 -0.0002 -0.0226 -0.2782 0.3080 0.3679 0.1323 content (%) r p -0.1784 -0.0725 -0.0013 -0.0223 -0.2500* 0.3017** 0.3350** 0.1287 characters number vine length breadth weight of fresh green-pod protein of clusters length of pod of pod 10 green green-pod yield content per plant (cm) (cm) (cm) pods (g) yield per (q/ha) (%) plant (kg) days to rg flowering r p days to rg first-pod set r p days to rg first picking r p number of rg branches r p per plant continued dhillon and ajay kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):147-153, 2015 151 table 3. continued... character number vine length breadth weight of fresh green-pod protein of clusters length of pod of pod 10 green green-pod yield content per plant (cm) (cm) (cm) pods (g) yield per (q/ha) (%) plant (kg) number of rg flowers per r p cluster number of rg pods per r p cluster number of rg pods per r p plant number of rg clusters per r p plant vine length rg 0.2425 (cm) r p 0.2349* length of rg -0.1121 0.0620 pod (cm) r p -0.1021 0.0606 breadth of rg 0.2702 0.2709 0.3706 pod (cm) r p 0.2625* 0.2668* 0.3585** weight of rg -0.3444 0.1616 0.2786 0.6803 10 green r p -0.3134** 0.1580 0.2618* 0.6519** pods (g) fresh rg 0.3070 0.1823 0.1756 0.1789 0.6233 green-pod r p 0.2622* 0.1756 0.1679 0.1632 0.6198** yield per plant (kg) green-pod rg 0.3069 0.1821 0.1758 0.1791 0.6234 1.0000 yield (q/ha) r p 0.2622* 0.1754 0.1681 0.1633 0.6199** 1.0000** protein rg -0.4900 -0.2698 0.2852 0.1560 0.1881 0.4091 0.4090 content (%) r p -0.4536** -0.2581* 0.2625* 0.1423 0.1772 0.3787** 0.3785** dry matter rg -0.4097 -0.1992 0.3846 0.2307 0.2375 0.3766 0.3765 0.9600 content (%) r p -0.3905** -0.1956 0.3736** 0.2219* 0.2332* 0.3609** 0.3607** 0.9174** *significant at 5% level of significance; **significant at 1% level of significance for increase in yield. these positive correlations between yield and its contributing characters show simple, indirect selection criteria for developing high-yielding cultivars. similar results were reported by nandi et al (1997) and uddin and newaz (1997). genotypic correlation between yield and other traits was slightly higher in magnitude and similar in direction to the corresponding phenotypic correlation. other characters like vine length and length and breadth of the pod, had a positive but non-significant phenotypic correlation with pod yield. this shows that these characters cannot be treated as indices of higher pod yield. such as association could be due to environmental factors, and cannot be used on its own. pod yield was found to have a negative and significant correlation with days to flowering, days to first-pod set, and days to first picking. highest amount of phenotypic variation and coefficient of variation was recorded for mineral content. highest amount of genotypic variation was recorded in fresh greenpod yield per plant. this suggests a high variability in the material and can be exploited further in improvement programmes. lowest amount of phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation was seen in crude protein content; the lowest amount of coefficient of variation was found in days to first picking, indicating lesser variation in the material; thus, it cannot be exploited further in improvement programmes. highto moderatephenotypic variability estimate was earlier reported by joshi (1971), biju et al (2001), bhatt (1970), kabir and subir (1987), vashi et al (1999) and lal et al (2005). pandey and dubey (1972) reported a narrow range of variation in protein content there were narrow differences between phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation in all the characters studied, except mineral content, indicating a low environmental influence in expression of these characters. variability, heritability and related studies in dolichos bean j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):147-153, 2015 152 this implies that phenotypic variability is a reliable measure of genotypic variability. therefore selection for improvement in the trait is possible and effective on a phenotypic basis. genetic divergence based on d2 values, 30 genotypes of dolichos bean grouped into eleven clusters (table 4). constellation of the genotypes into clusters was done as per tocher’s method (rao, 1952). the range of d2 values obtained in the present material was 70.95 to 27774.01. the lowest end of this d2 range falls between sc-10 and sc-11, with the upper end in d2 values falling between sc-25 and sc-29. in the present study, genotypes collected from same place did not group together in the same cluster, viz., ps-2 table 4. clustering pattern in 30 genotypes of dolichos bean cluster genotype/s frequency no. i sc-21, sc-23, sc-24, sc-25, sc-26 5 ii sc-2, sc-16 2 iii sc-3, ps-2, sc-28, sc-30 4 iv sc-1, sc-15 2 v sc-5, sc-7 2 vi sc-17 1 vii sc-12, sc-29 2 viii sc-6, sc-8, sc-14 3 ix sc-4, sc-9, sc-18, sc-19, sc-20, sc-22 6 x sc-13 1 xi sc-10, sc-11 2 table 5. interand intracluster (underlined) average d2 and distance (√√√√√d2) values in 30 genotypes of dolichos bean cluster i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi no. i 337.93 (18.38) ii 326.05 68.98 (18.06) (8.30) iii 181.08 169.99 215.02 (13.46) (13.04) (14.66) iv 359.96 165.15 236.94 110.21 (18.97) (12.85) (15.39) (10.50) v 333.81 122.72 168.24 128.96 50.72 (18.27) (11.08) (12.97) (11.36) (7.12) vi 384.64 186.23 215.50 293.51 173.72 0.00 (19.61) (13.65) (14.68) (17.13) (13.18) vii 518.90 255.61 374.78 164.28 222.42 348.47 70.34 (22.78) (15.99) (19.36) (12.82) (14.91) (18.67) (8.39) viii 243.25 175.81 125.22 140.07 119.30 260.22 287.30 141.65 (15.60) (13.26) (11.19) (11.83) (10.92) (16.13) (16.95) (11.90) ix 188.28 169.79 124.53 183.95 192.47 297.00 341.69 119.17 382.42 (13.72) (13.03) (11.16) (13.56) (13.87) (17.23) (18.48) (10.92) (19.55) x 468.08 280.76 383.90 194.16 309.61 450.69 221.08 305.76 290.45 0.00 (21.63) (16.76) (19.59) (13.93) (17.60) (21.23) (14.87) (17.49) (17.04) xi 326.52 238.93 187.65 223.31 132.81 213.08 312.43 145.80 250.42 413.18 51.81 (18.07) (15.46) (13.70) (14.95) (11.52) (14.60) (17.68) (12.07) (15.82) (20.33) (7.20) and sc 29 (from new delhi) grouped into cluster iii and vii, respectively. genotype ps-2 (from new delhi) and sc-3 and sc-28 (from punjab) grouped in cluster iii; genotypes sc-12, sc-13, sc-14 and sc-15, were all from bengaluru, but grouped into different clusters. genotypes collected from punjab were scattered from cluster ii to vii. these findings suggest that the pattern of clustering of genotypes is independent of their geographical origin. the same findings (distribution of genotypes into different groups being independent of the place of their collection/ development) were reported by bhatt (1970), biju et al (2001), and lal et al (2005). this implies that genetic material from the same geographical region may provide a substantial diversity. this also indicates that forces other than ecogeographical differentiation (such as natural and human selection-pressure) can exert a considerable influence on genetic divergence. interand intracluster average d2 values and distance (√d2 values) among 30 genotypes of dolichos bean are presented in table 5. maximum inter-cluster distance was recorded between clusters vii and i (d2 value = 518.90), indicating a wide diversity between these two clusters; while, minimum inter-cluster distance (d2 value 119.17) was observed between clusters ix and viii, indicating their close relationship. thus, clusters vii and i were generally the most divergent from other clusters. intradhillon and ajay kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):147-153, 2015 153 cluster values ranged from 382.42 (19.55) for cluster ix, to zero for cluster vi and x. of the clusters comprising more than one genotype, minimum intra-cluster value of 50.72 (7.12) was recorded for cluster v. genotypes sc-17, sc-2, sc-3, sc-11 and sc-5 had a high pod-yield potential and other desirable economic traits, and thus, need to be tested extensively. however, a high expression of various characters was seen in different genotypes. maximum expression for pod yield and protein content was seen in sc-17, while, that for number of branches per plant and number of pods per plant was maximum in sc-11, sc-10, sc-12, sc-7 and sc-15. genotype sc-2 outnumbered all the others in respect of green-pod weight, while, sc-9 was rated as the best on the basis of pod length and pod breadth. genotype sc-29 was the earliest to mature and of a bushy type, followed by sc12, sc-13 and sc-14; while, sc-19, sc-20 and sc-25 were late-maturing genotypes. this indicated that a high expression of all these characters in a single genotype can be achieved through hybridization and selection. among the genotypes tested, sc-5, sc-7, sc-11, sc16 and sc-17 were the best in terms of traits related to yield, over the check, ps-2. references al-jibouri, h.r., miller, p.a. and robinson, h.f. 1958. genotypic and environment variances in upland cotton crosses of interspecific origin. agron. j., 50:633-637 a.o.a.c. 1970. official methods of analysis. association of official agricultural chemists, 9th edn., prentice hall of india, washington, d.c. allard, r.w. 1999. principles of plant breeding. john wiley and sons inc., new york, usa bendale, v.w., topare, s.s., bhave, r.g., mehta, j.k. and madav, r.r. 2004. genetic analysis on yield and yield components in lablab bean (lablab purpureus l. sweet). orissa j. hort., 32:99-101 biju, m.g., prasanna, k.p. and rajan, s. 2001. genetic divergence in hyacinth bean. veg. sci., 28:163-164 bhatt, g.m. 1970. multivariate analysis approach to selection of parents for hybridization aiming at yield improvement in self-pollinated crops. aust. j. agril. res., 21:1-7 borah, p. and shadeque, a. 1992. studies on genetic variability of common dolichos bean. indian j. hort., 49:270-273 burton, g.w. and devance, c.h. 1953. estimating heritability in tall (festuca arundinacea) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:514-518 joshi, s.n. 1971. studies on genetic variability for yield and its components in indian bean (dolichos lablab). madras agri. j., 58:367-371 kabir, j. and subir, s. 1987. studies on genetic variability and heritability in dolichos bean. amer. agril. res., 8:141-144 lal, h., rai, m., verma, a. and vishwanath. 2005. analysis of genetic divergence of dolichos bean (lablab purpureus) genotypes. veg. sci., 32:129-132 nandi, a., tripathy, p. and lekha, d. 1997. correlation, coheritability and path analysis studies in dolichos bean. aciar food legume newslett., 25:1-2 pandey, r.p. and dubey, k.c. 1972. studies on variability in dolichos lablab. jnkvv res. j., 6:145-148 rao, c.r. 1952. advanced statistical methods in biometric research and education. john wiley & sons, inc., new york, usa singh, s.p., singh, h.n., singh, n.p., and srivastava, j.p. 1979. genetic studies on yield components in lablab bean. indian j. agril. sci., 49:579-582 uddin, m.s. and newaz, m.a. 1997. genetic parameters and the association among flower and pod characteristics of hyacinth bean. legume res., 20:8286 vashi, r.d., prayabali, r.m. and vashi, p.s. 1999. heterosis in india (dolichos lablab l.) gujarat agri. univ. res. j., 14:36-38 (ms received 11 november 2013, revised 03 august 2015, accepted 13 august 2015) variability, heritability and related studies in dolichos bean j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):147-153, 2015 introduction guava (psidium guajava l.) is an important fruit crop of india. it has gained considerable prominence on account of its high nutritive value, availability at moderate prices, pleasant aroma and good flavour. it is one of the commonest fruits liked by the rich and the poor alike and is popularly known as ‘apple of the tropics’. it is one of the hardiest fruit trees, adaptable to a variety of soil and climatic conditions. it grows well even under neglected conditions and, in fact, is even sometimes considered of a weed in fiji and hawaii. it is the fifth most widely grown fruit crop of india. the area under guava is about 0.178 million hectares, producing 1.83 mt of fruit. popular varieties of guava in india are allahabad safeda, lucknow-49, nagpur seedless, dharwar, etc. bihar is the leading state in guava production, with 0.26 mt, followed by maharashtra, uttar pradesh, karnataka, west bengal, punjab, andhra pradesh, gujarat, orissa and tamil nadu. at present, it is grown throughout the length and breadth of the country night from sea level to 1300m altitude, and is so acclimatized that it seems like a focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 guava improvement in india and future needs m.r. dinesh and c. vasugi division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research, hessarghatta bangalore-560089, india e-mail: mrdinesh@iihr.ernet.in abstract guava (psidium guajava l; myrtaceae) is an important fruit crop of india. high heterozygosity and frequent cross pollination resulted in the present day variability in seedling populations from which promising genotypes have been selected. as of now, there are about 160 cultivars available in india, among which ‘allahabad safeda’ and ‘sardar’ varieties are widely cultivated. crop improvement work attempted in india resulted in release of several superior selections / hybrids. also, interspecific hybrids resistant to guava wilt were developed at cish, lucknow which are graft compatible with commercial varieties of p. guajava. the use of new biotechnological tools like dna fingerprinting to study the extent of genetic variation among cultivars, rapid multiplication through in vitro shoot-tip culture needs to be employed extensively. attempts need to be made to spot genetic markers for wilt resistance to improve efficiency in developing wilt resistant clones and rootstocks. survey to identify superior genotypes with allahabad safeda traits and high density planting characters like early bearing, compact plant type, favourable response to pruning, good branch angle to minimize branch breakage even under heavy bearing, and, with a high fruit : shoot ratio need to be paid due attention. work on aneuploidy breeding, development of autotetraploids and in vitro genetic manipulation of somatic cells needs to be intensified. key words: guava, improvement, varieties/hybrids, psidium sp. native of india. guava is a rich source of vitamin c and pectin. guava fruit contains 82.5% water, 2.45% acids, 4.45% reducing sugars, 5.23% non-reducing sugars, has 9.73 % tss, 0.48% ash and 260 mg vitamin c/100g fruit (which differ with cultivar, stage of maturity and season). guava fruit is relished when mature or ripe, or, when freshly plucked from the tree. it is also used in making many commercial products like jelly, fruit butter, juice, etc. origin and distribution the guava is said to have originated in tropical america (hayes, 1953). de candolle (1904) stated that it originated in mexico, while purseglove (1968) opined that it originated in brazil. it is widely distributed over equatorial regions growing in tropical and sub-tropical climates. it was introduced in to india during the 17th century. in spanish, the tree is known as guayabo or guayavo, the fruit guayaba or guyava. the french call it goyave or goyavier; the dutch, guyaba, goeajaaba; the surinamese, guave or goejaba; and the portuguese, goiaba or goaibeira. hawaiians call it guava or kuawa. in guam, it is abas. in malaya, it is generally known either as guava or prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 95 jambu batu, but has also numerous dialectal names as it does in india, tropical africa and the philippines where, the name bayabas, is often applied. various tribal names – pichi, posh, enandi, etc., are employed among indians of mexico and central & south america. species status the genus psidium belongs to the family myrtaceae and has a basic chromosome number of x=11. all the cultivars of indian guava belong to a single species, psidium guajava l. hayes (1953) reported the genus to contain about 150 species, though only a few have been studied in detail. bailey (1919) reported that the two species, pyriferum and pomiferum mentioned by linnaeus are nothing but trees with pear shaped and round shaped fruits. subsequently, other species were recognized and documented. the wild species of guava are of considerable importance in breeding programmes. p. cattleianum var.cattleianum (sabine) syn: p.littorale (raddi) var. longipes (berg.) it is a wild subtropical species closely related to guava. it can adapt to many soil types and is quite cold resistant. it is a small tree or shrub with a smooth bark. leaves are obovate elliptic and glabrous. fruits are round, about 2.5 cm in diameter and very fragrant. the skin is thin, pulp is soft with numerous seeds. it has a sweet flavour and good aroma. it is also known as ‘strawberry guava’ because of the sweet aroma reminiscent of strawberry. since this lacks muskiness of the common guava, it is preferred among certain tribals (normand, 1994). p. cattleianum (sabine) var. lucidum syn: p. littorale (raddi) var. littorale (berg). it is a relatively hardy subtropical species. the fruits are small, globose, juicy, acidic and sulphur yellow in colour. it is also called ‘lemon guava’. p. guineense (sw). syn: p. molle (bertol), p. araca (raddi), p. schiedeanum berg. it is also called brazilian or castilian guava. it is a slow growing shrub, about 1 to 3m long and withstands short periods of drought. the leaves are oblong, scantily hairy on the upper side but coated beneath with pale or rusty hairs and distinctly dotted with glands. the fruits are round with yellow skin, pale yellow pulp surrounding the white central pulp. it contains numerous hard seeds (mortan 1987). p. friedrichsthalianum (niedenzu) it is a tall tree about 7-10m high. the branches are slender and smooth. leaves are oval or oblong/oval, smooth, almost glossy above and pubescent below. fruits are globose, small and sour. the fruits are good for jelly making because of their high acidity. reported to be wilt and nematode (m. incognita) resistant, it is also called chinese guava or costa rican guava. p. montanum (swartz) it is generally found in the mountains of jamaica. the branchlets are four angled, leaves oblong to oval, glabrous, fruits are round, pulp white with more number of seeds. it produces fruits of poor quality. p. araucanum (soares-silva and proenca) a large tree with membranous leaves, brochidodromous venation, long petioles and peduncles, flowers solitary, axillary or ramiflorous or in short racemes, with two pairs of flowers. fruits globose or pear shaped, thin pericarp, fruits yellowish green when mature, seeds angular or lenticulate. p. acutangulum dc the shrub or tree ranges in height from 26 to 40 ft. its branchlets are quadrangular and winged near the leaf base and the new growth is finely hairy. leaves are elliptical with very short petioles. fruits are round to pear shaped, pale yellow to yellowish white acidic pulp but well flavored pulp containing few hard, triangular seeds. the fruits are mixed with honey and eaten or, made into acid drinks or preserves. cytology in guava, most of the commercial varieties are reported to be diploids, the chromosome number being 2n = 22, except the seedless types which are triploids (kumar and ranade, 1952). cytological studies made on structure and behavior in different varieties of p. guajava by several workers indicated that meiosis was normal with formation of 11 bivalents at diakinesis, and normal distribution of chromosomes at later stages (raman et al., 1969). the chromosome number of p. friedrichsthalianum niedenzu was reported to be 2n = 22 (srivastava, 1977). a natural triploid with somatic chromosome number of 2n = 33 was reported by kumar and ranade (1952). the same chromosome number was reported by raman et al (1971) in a seedless variety of p. guajava suggesting that triploidy is the cause of seedlessness in guava. shafaat mohammed j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 guava improvement in india prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 96 (1975) studied breeding behaviour of the aneuploids in guava (psidium guajava l.) such as trisomic, tetrasomic and higher aneuploids. he observed that reciprocal crosses between aneuploids and diploids indicated less than 100% crossability. the aneuploids, when used as the male parent, crossed less frequently than as female parents and some aneuploids crossed more readily than others. differences were observed in fruit size, fruit weight, and seed number in reciprocal crosses. the extra chromosome was found to be transmitted through both the egg cell and the pollen. however, frequency of transmission was greater through the egg cell than the pollen. as high as 26% transmission of extra chromosomes were obtained through the egg cell. there was no clear cut difference between trisomics and higher aneuploids with regard to frequency of transmission of the extra chromosomes. in guava, where large number of seeds is a disadvantage, aneuploidy breeding appears to be beneficial. floral biology the knowledge of flower bud development, time of anther dehiscence and anthesis, extent of fruit set and degree of cross pollination are a pre-requisite for planned hybridization for crop improvement. in guava, flower buds are borne in leaf axil on current season’s growth, either singly or in cymose of two or three (braganza, 1990). guava is reported to require about 30 days in northern india from flower bud differentiation to complete development upto the calyx cracking stage (singh and sehgal, 1968). however, under bangalore conditions, braganza (1990) reported that the period varied from 45 to 51 days. the flowers consist of a superior calyx with five lobes and the corolla consists of 6 to 10 petals arranged in one or two whorls. the androecium consists of 160 to 400 thin filaments carrying bilobed anthers, closely packed together. the gynoecium consists of an inferior ovary, syncarpous, with axillary placentation and subulate style. the style is smooth and bearded at the summit. three flowering seasons, viz., ‘ambe bahar’, ‘mrig bahar’ and ‘hatti or hasta bahar’ have been reported in the peninsular regions of india (cheema et al 1954). however, some workers reported only two flowering seasons (sehgal and singh, 1967; sachan et al, 1969; srivastava, 1974; syamal et al, 1980; ojha et al, 1986). in guava, it has been observed that the flowering season does vary between regions. generally, three flowering seasons are recognized in the tropical south india and only two seasons in the subtropical north india. in guava, peak anthesis was found to be between 6 and 7.30 a.m. under north indian conditions (singh and sehgal, 1968). dehiscence of anthers was observed to take place 15 to 30 minutes after anthesis and continued upto 2hrs (balasubramanyam, 1959). pollen fertility has been generally found to be high in guava (78 to 91%) in diploid varieties. balasubramanyam (1959) found 4% sucrose solution to be the best medium for artificial germination of pollen. the pollen is reported as round with large grains (srivastava, 1974). stigmatic receptivity, as studied by fruit set following controlled pollination, was observed to be maximum on the same day as anthesis. stigma was found to be receptive two days before dehiscence, extending upto 4 days (singh and sehgal, 1968). varieties varietal description and nomenclature of different guava varieties grown in india are greatly confusing. some varieties were named according to shape of the fruit, skin colour and pulp colour, while, several other varieties were named after in the place of origin. pandey (1968) made detailed studies in different cultivars of guava and classified them into the white pulp group and the red pulp group. guava is largely a self-pollinated crop, but crosspollination also does occur. this results in a large variability in the seedling population from which promising genotypes have been selected in different agro-climatic regions of the country. promising cultivars of different indian states are given below: state cultivars andhra pradesh allahabad safeda, anakapalli, banarasi, chittidar, hafsi, sardar, smooth green and smooth white assam amsophri, madhuriam, safrior payele bihar allahabad safeda, chittidar, hafsi (red fleshed), harijha, seedless gujarat nasik, seedless, sindh karnataka allahabad safeda, arka mridula, sardar, navalur maharashtra dharward, dholka, kothrud, lucknow-24, sardar tamil nadu anakapalli, banarasi, bangalore, chittidar, hafsi, nagpur seedless and allahabad safeda uttar pradesh allahabad safeda, apple colour, chittidar, red fleshed, banarasi surkha, sardar, mirzapur seedless west bengal bariampur and cvs. of uttar pradesh about 160 genotypes, including some psidum spp., are available in indian collections and are maintained at several centres within the country in field gene banks. nomenclature of the cultivars of guava grown in india is not yet well established. some of the varieties have been j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 dinesh and vasugi prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 97 named according to shape, colour, and smoothness of skin or by the place of their origin. characters like plant growth, yield and physico-chemical composition of different guava varieties were reported by several workers. varietal evaluation was carried out by many workers who reported performance of these varieties under different agro-climatic conditions (golberg and levy, 1941; teaotia et al, 1962; srivastava and srivastava, 1965; singh et al, 1979; chadha et al, 1981; dinesh and reddy, 2001). characteristic features of some of the important guava cultivars grown in india are given below: allahabad safeda : it is the most popular variety in india and has acquired large variations due to seed propagation. this is the progenitor of many indian varieties and occupies the largest area under cultivation. fruits are round, large in size, skin with smooth, light yellow on ripening, pulp white, firm, excellent in quality with high tss and vitamin c, pleasant flavour and a few, soft seeds. anakapalli: fruits are medium sized with red pulp. seeds are soft and plenty. fruits are slightly oval. apple colour: the trees are medium in vigour and are moderate yieldes. fruits are medium sized, with apple coloured skin; cool temperature is required for good colour development. the pulp is white and firm, sweet to taste. bangalore: fruits are medium to large in size, pulp is white with good taste and flavour. chittidar: this variety is very popular in western uttar pradesh. the fruits are characterized by numerous, red dots on skin. fruits are sub globose, with white pulp, high tss and vitamin c content of 240 mg /100g pulp. hafsi: fruits are spherical in shape with thin skin and medium size. the pulp is red with good taste and flavour. seeds are comparatively less in number, but hard. red fleshed: fruits are medium sized with red pulp, round, smooth skinned, seeds are plenty and medium soft. fruits possess sweet flavour, are rich in vitamin c (386 mg /100g pulp). sardar (lucknow 49): it is a selection from allahabad safeda made at poona during 1927. the plant has a spreading nature. the tree is dwarf with open, rounded crown. the fruits are medium to large and contain a crisp, soft and creamy pulp; it is a heavy bearing variety. the fruit has a slightly acidic flavour, attractive aroma, with many seeds, and good keeping quality. smooth green: fruits are round and medium sized. skin is glossy and greenish yellow when mature. pulp is white, good in taste and flavour. nasik: fruits are medium sized, round, with white pulp, sweet with good flavour. banarsi surkha : trees are medium sized (5.1m) with a broad crown, fruit shape is round and surface smooth, skin colour golden yellow, pulp colour pink, seed number very high, seed texture very hard. seedless: the plants are very vigorous. there are different varieties, like, saharanpur seedless, nagpur seedless, sringeri seedless, etc., which are nearly identical. two types of fruits, viz., long, big sized with warty surface, and yellow, thin skin with swollen calyx end and round; small, with very few seeds. the pulp is white, good to taste and has aroma, contains moderate to high levels of vitamin c (240 mg / 100g pulp). navalur: it is a variety grown in dharwad district of karnataka. it is hardy in nature, drought tolerant and resistant to canker. the important cultivars are: ciw-2 (channappa itigatti white), ciw-3, ciw-4, ciw-5, gr 1 (ghatage’s red number one), gr 3, gw-1 (ghatage’s white number), gw-4, sr-1 (shivammanavar red number one), sr-2, sw2 (shivammanavar white), swy-1 (shivammanavar white yalakki). apart from these prominent commercial cultivars, other cultivars grown in localized areas are: pear shaped, apple colour, banarasi surkha, sangam, seedless, dholka, sindh, karela, mirzapuri seedling, superior, pourtgal, spear acid, superior sour licidium, white fleshed, behat coconut, smooth white, amsophri, madhuriam, bariampur, harijha, j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 guava improvement in india prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 98 dharwar, safri or payera, soh-pryiam, am-sophri, kaffree, supreme, white supreme, bangalore, bhavnagar, gwalior27, kafri (pear shape), kafri (round shape), rewa-72, hazi sahib, kohir, etc. crop improvement in india, during the early days, guava plants were generally propagated by seeds from limited varieties available with nurserymen and pomologists. the seedling population obtained by open pollination gave rise to considerable variation in the form and size of fruit, the nature and flavour of pulp, seediness and other morphological characters such as spreading or erect growth habit of trees (naik, 1949). cheema et al., (1954) observed all the cultivars of guava to be highly heterozygous. commercial producers utilized the variation thus obtained for selection of desirable genotypes and propagated them vegetatively. assessment of genetic diversity and relationship among psidium spp was carried out by sharma et al (2007). they observed a high genetic similarity between chinese guavas grouped with psidium guajava cultivars. it has been observed that only a few named varieties are under cultivation. most of these varieties suffer from one defect or the other. hence, guava improvement by breeding was started mainly with the following objectives for developing new cultivars: i) dwarf plant habit suitable for high density planting ii) fruits with uniform shape, size, good colour, firm and thick pulp, good aroma, few and soft seeds, high tss and high pectin iii) long shelf life iv) resistance to fusarium wilt plant introduction most of the guava varieties have evolved as selections from seedling variants. variability has come about because of open pollination from highly heterozygous parents. several introductions of promising genotypes have been made in guava growing countries. in india, many introductions made from hawaii, brazil, thailand, etc. are being cultivated and used in breeding programmes. similarly, introductions of indian cultivars like allahabad safeda and sardar have given excellent results in other parts of the world (gonzaga et al, 1999). although introduction is a potential tool in any crop improvement programme as it considerably saves time, there is also the danger of new diseases getting introduced. it has been our observation that some of the introduced exotic acidic types like beaumont were prone to ‘stylar end rot’ caused by phomopsis psidii. this character was inherited even by hybrids. hence, utmost care needs to be taken while introducing varieties. unless these are observed under plant quarantine, further multiplication or usage on field scale should not be made. selection at ganeshkhind fruit experimental station, pune, india, guava improvement work was initiated in1907, primarily with collection of seeds of varieties grown in different places, to isolate superior strains. one strain from open pollinated seedlings of ‘allahabad safeda’ collected from lucknow was selected and released as ‘lucknow49’ (cheema et al, 1954) which became very popular and has now been renamed as ‘sardar’ (phadnis, 1970) after trials at saharanpur (singh,1953) and kodur (rangacharlu, 1954 ). the plant has a spreading nature. the tree is vigorous, dwarf with open rounded crown. fruits are medium to large and contain a crisp, soft and creamy pulp. it is a heavy bearing variety. fruits have a slightly acidic flavour, attractive aroma, with many seeds and good keeping quality. at the fruit research station, saharanpur, one superior selection, viz., s-1, with good fruit shape and quality, few seeds, sweet taste and high yield was isolated (singh, 1959). at faizabad, seedling selections were made from ‘allahabad safeda’ and many selections were made under ‘faizabad selection’ (pathak and dwivedi, 1988). at cish, lucknow, four seedling selections of guava, namely, cish-g-1, cish-g-2, cish-g-3 (lalit), cish-g-4 (swetha) have been released and their performance was studied by marak and mukunda (2007). cish-g-1: it is a selection from local red fleshed type, with attractive fruits having deep red skin, firm pulp with high tss, soft seeds. cish-g-2: selection from local red fleshed type, crimson colored attractive fruit, stripes in groove, seeds soft. cish-g-3 (lalit): it is a selection from a high yielding variety, responsive to primary and high density planting. fruits are round, weighing 150g, pink pulp suitable for both table and processing purposes. cish-g-4 (swetha): plants are semi vigorous, medium in height and are prolific bearers. fruits are round, weighing 225g, with white pulp with good keeping quality. j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 dinesh and vasugi prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 99 at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, out of 200 open pollinated seedlings of the variety ‘allahabad safeda’ (collected from uttar pradesh), one seedling selection, ‘selection-8’, was found to be promising and was released as ‘arka mridula’. this variety has been reported to have also performed well with respect to yield and quality under rainfed conditions of bihar (ramkumar, 1998). the plants are semi-vigorous and spreading in nature. fruits are round in shape and weigh about 180g. fruit are yellow in colour with smooth skin.the pulp is white, firm, sweet with few soft seeds. the tss is 12.0ob, 100 seed weight is 1.6g. keeping quality is good. pectin content is 1.04 %. the variety is good for jelly making. at allahabad agricultural institute, allahabad, a selection from the local red pulp type has been released as ‘allahabad surkha’. the plans are vigorous, dome shaped and compact. trees are high yielding, producing upto 120kg per plant. the fruits are round with uniform, pink skin and deep pink pulp, sweet, strongly flavoured and with few seeds. at bulakihar (malihabad), lucknow, a selection has been made as ‘g. vilas pasand’. the trees are vigorous, wide spreading with bushy, low growing habit. fruits are round to ovoid, skin texture is course to smooth, fruit skin pale yellow to golden, colour of flesh is creamy white texture creamy soft, very large (400g to 800g) fruit, less seeds, very productive throughout the year. high content of vitamin c makes it stand out among guava varieties. at aurangabad and bihir districts of marathwada, three promising selections, viz., abd3, bhr3 and bhr5 were made out of the 12 strains collected (thonte and chakrawar,1981). at narendra dev university of agriculture and technology, faizabad (up), of the 23 strains collected from a survey of guava growing regions, 3 seedlings of allahabad safeda (as1, as2 and as3) and 2 of faizabad selection (fs 1 and fs 2) were found to be promising with respect of fruit quality and yield (pathak and dwivedi, 1988). at gbpua&t, pantnagar (uttaranchal), a selection was made as ‘pant prabhat’ for commercial cultivation. plant growth in this line is upright; with broad leaves, the tree is highly productive (100 -125kg). fruit skin is smooth and light yellow in colour, fruits medium sized with average fruit weight of 150-172g , pulp is white, seeds are small and medium soft, the fruit has a sweet taste with pleasant flavour, ascorbic acid content varies from 125mg (rainy season) to 300mg/ 100g fruit weight (winter season). tss varies from 10.5 to 13.50b. at the fruit research station, kuthulia, rewa, a selection from an old, seedling orchard was made as ‘dhareedar’. the trees are vigorous, medium tall with erect and upright branching and a flat crown. fruits are medium to large sized, roundish ovate in shape with 5-7 raised lines on the surface of mature fruits, the peel in greenish yellow, the pulp soft and sweet (tss 11.70 brix). hybridization technique in guava, flowers that are chosen for crossing are emasculated when at the ‘calyx break stage’, a day before opening. pollen from the pollen parent is brought from an unopened flower, at preferrably at calyx break stage. the stigmatic surface is gently smeared with the pollen and flowers are bagged. under bangalore condition pollination carried out during the morning hours between 10 am to 12 noon has given better results. intervarietal hybridization in general, intervarietal crosses in guava are successful, having no crossability barriers. however, varietal cross incompatibility in guava is reported in crosses made between ‘behat coconut’ and ‘sardar’, ‘behat coconut’ and ‘apple colour’. in india, breeding work for guava improvement has been going on at several research institutions. at hetc, basti, a number of cross combinations of ‘seedless’ x ‘allahabad safeda’, ‘seedless’ x ‘l-49’, ‘allahabad safeda’ x ‘patillo’, ‘apple colour’ x ‘red fleshed’ and ‘apple colour’ x ‘kothrud’ were made. none of the 55 hybrids obtained from these crosses were found to be promising (chadha, 1998). at the fruit research station, sangareddy, a.p., two hybrids, ‘safed jam’ and ‘kohir safeda’ were selected out of crosses of ‘allahabad safeda’ x ‘kohir’ and ‘kohir’ x ‘allahabad safeda’, respectively, and released. these hybrids are particularly recommended for semi arid tropical areas. these have also been found to be suitable for the preparation guava juice (mitra and bose, 1985; shanmugavelu et al, 1987). at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, ‘arka amulya’ a hybrid was released through intervarietal hybridization involving ‘allahabad safeda’ and ‘triploid’ (subramanyam and iyer, 1998; anon., 1996). at the fruit research station, anantharajupet, andhra pradesh, out of 6 hybirds, two (h1 and h6) were j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 guava improvement in india prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 100 found promising with regard to fruit quality and precocious bearing (rama rao and dayanand, 1977). at rajendra agricultural university, sabour, bihar, 210 f 1 hybrid seedlings were raised from various intervarietal crosses. a hybrid from the cross ‘apple colour’ x ‘sardar’ had maximum fruit weight, vitamin c and pectin content (singh and hoda, 1994). chaudhary charan singh haryana agricultural university, hisar, released two guava hybrids, namely, hisar safeda (allahabad safeda x seedless) and hisar surkha (apple colour x banarasi surkha). traits of some of the guava hybrids released recently are given below: safed jam: this is a hybrid between the cross ‘allahabad safeda’ x ‘kohir’ developed at frs, sangareddy. the tree is medium in height and a heavy yielder. fruits are round in shape, large in size with a thin peel, good taste and few, soft seeds. kohir safeda: it is a cross between a selected, heavy yielding line of kohir x allahabad safeda. the tree is vigorous, fairly large in size and dome shaped. fruits are large, with few, soft seeds and white pulp. arka amulya: as stated above, this is from the cross ‘allahabad safeda’ x ‘triploid’ developed at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. plants are semi-vigorous and spreading type. fruits are medium sized (180-200g), weight of 100 seed is 1.8g, pulp is white, with high tss (12.5°b), fruits have good keeping quality. arka kiran: it is from the cross ‘kamsari’ x ‘purple local’. plants are semi vigorous, amenable to high density planting. the fruits are sub globose, weighing about 200-230g .the pulp is deep pink, thick and has good flavour. the seeds are medium soft (9.0 kg cm-2), with high lycopene content (7.45 mg /100g) and tss of 12.0 to 12.5°b. hisar safeda: it is from the cross ‘allahabad safeda’ x ‘seedless’, developed at ccshau, hisar. plants are upright, trees have a compact crown. fruits are round, with a smooth surface, creamy yellow skin; average fruit weight is 92g, creamy white pulp, few soft seeds high tss (13.4%). hisar surkha: it is from the cross ‘apple color’ x ‘banarasi surkha’. the tree crown is broad to compact. fruits are round, skin yellow with red dots, average fruit weight 86g, pulp pink, seed count medium, tss high (13.6%). autopolypoloidy: from several parts of our country, seedless varieties have been reported. at poona, kumar and ranade (1952) reported a triploid guava variety with 33 chromosomes, and suggested it to be autotriploid. the chromosome status of seedless varieties available at iari and saharanpur was studied by majumder and singh (1964) and were found to be autotriploids. iyer and subramanyam (1971) were of the opinion the production of any more triploids was futile since fruit shape in triploids is highly irregular with mis-shapen fruits because of differential seed size. a natural autotetraploid in p. guajava was reported by naithani and srivastava (1966). tetraploidy in guava has been induced too with colchicine treatment (janaki ammal, 1951; ram kumar, 1975). aneuploidy: at the indian agricultural research institute, new delhi, with a view to evole a variety with fewer seeds and high yield, crosses were made between seedless (triploid) and seeded (diploid) ‘allahabad safeda’. of the 73 f 1 hybrid seedlings raised, 26 were diploids, 9 trisomics (2n+1), 5 double trisomics (2n+1+1) and 14 tetrasomics (2n+2). they showed distinct variation in tree growth habit and, leaf and fruit characters. three tetrasomic plants had dwarf habit and, normal shape and size of fruits, with less number of seeds (majumder and mukherjee, 1972a,b; mukherjee, 1977). in the progeny of open pollinated triploid, and triploid with diploid (mohammad, 1974), 30 trisomics, 2 double trisomics, 1 tetrasomic and higher aneuploids were obtained. reduction in growth and size of leaf distinguished aneuploids from diploids. aneuploids, particularly trisomics, had promising qualities and may prove useful in developing plants with reduced seediness and, possibly, in providing dwarfing rootstocks. sharma (1982) identified a promising tetrasomic dwarfing rootstock (aneuploid no. 82), through selection, out of 48 aneuploid seedlings at iari, new delhi. studies conducted on the effect of aneuploid no. 82 rootstock on growth and yield of ‘allahabad safeda’ showed that the aneuploid induced substantial dwarfing in allahabad safeda in terms of plant height, plant spread and tree volume. overall yield/unit volume of the plant was highest in aneuploid j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 dinesh and vasugi prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 101 no. 82, which indicated its strong potential for use as dwarfing rootstock on a commercial scale, for increasing production and profitability of guava orchards (sharma et al, 1992). mutation: according to cheema and deshmukh (1927), naturally occurring mutations are not rare in guava. brar and bal (2003) investigated the effect of gamma rays (1,2,3,4 and 5 kr) on buds of guava cv. sardar. after the treatment, these were budded onto lucknow-49 rootstock. variability for plant height, internodal length and stem diameter was maximum in 2 kr treatment; while, for number of branches, number of leaves and breadth of leaves, maximum variability was noted in 4, 1 and 3 kr treatments, respectively. mutagenic treatments had no significant effect on stomatal size. in vitro mutagenesis, followed by micropropagation via axillary bud proliferation of shoot tips in guava, was carried out by zamir et al (2003). shoot tips irradiated with gamma rays at 15-90 gy and cultured in murashige and skoor ’s (ms) medium containing 3% sucrose, 6benzylaminopurine (benzyladenine) (bap) and l-glutamine. optimum shoot proliferation was recorded in ms medium supplemented with 1.0mg bap and 250mg l-glutamine/litre. rooting of cultured shoots was observed in half-strength ms medium supplemented with iaa and iba. ld 50 was observed at 45 gy. rates of more than 75 gy were lethal to explants. biotechnological techniques biotechnological techniques can be useful chiefly in breeding for disease resistance and in germplasm storage using tissue culture techniques. use of tissue culture and micropropagation of superior guava cultivars has been discussed by several researchers (amin and jaiswal, 1988; jaiswal and amin, 1987; loh and rao, 1989; papadatou et al, 1990). jaiswal and amin (1992) felt that somatic cell genetics could be useful in guava breeding for specific objectives. a technique for successful in vitro propagation of guava germplasm using shoot-tip explants from mature trees was reported by jaiswal and amin (1987). these workers also demonstrated that adding activated charcoal to the medium enhanced rooting of explants and vegetative growth of established plantlets. risterucci et al, (2005) constructed a library of microsatellite-enriched (ga)n and (gt)n and, 23 nuclear simple sequence repeat (ssr) loci were characterized in the guava species psidium guajava l.). all the ssr loci were found to be polymorphic after screening for diversity in different cultivars, and acrosstaxa amplification tests showed potential transferability of most ssr markers in three other psidium species. first to be published for p. guajava, this new ssr resource will be a powerful tool for genetic studies in guava, including cultivar identification and linkage mapping, as well as potentially, for, interspecific genetic studies within the genus psidium. rapid multiplication of seedling plants of guava through in vitro shoot-tip culture and subsequent plant establishment also has been successful (papadatou et al, 1990). somaclonal variation, which normally occurs in several tissue cultures (larkin et al, 1985; evans and sharp, 1988; lee and philips, 1988) could be useful for selecting guava plants resistant to the wilt disease. an efficient protocol for plant regeneration from callus culture would also be helpful in selecting plants resistant to disease or environmental stresses. recovery of plants of haploid origin from anther/pollen culture of guava could offer advantages in breeding (jaiswal and amin, 1992). chandra et al (2004) attempted embryogenesis and plant regeneration from mesocarp of psidium guajava l. (guava) and developed a protocol for induction, maturation and germination of somatic embryos from this tissue. explants were cultured on modified ms medium fortified with 2,4-d (2.0 mg/l), ascorbic acid (100 mg/l), l-glutamine (400 mg/l) and sucrose (6%). embryogenic proliferating tissue was induced, which was found to be translucent, mucilaginous and it differentiated into many, small somatic embryos. the somatic embryos were retained in the same medium, where simultaneously differentiation of new somatic embryos and their conversion into plantlets was observed. thus, embryogenesis in guava can be perpetuated and could be used in the future for carrying out cellular selection against wilt causing organism. phylogenetic affinity, usefulness of wild species and interspecific hybridization utilization of wild species for crop improvement has been one of the ways to introduce certain gene(s) for specific purposes like hardiness, disease and pest resistance, etc. however, in perennial crops, because of the long time gap, efforts have not been made to their full potential. exploitation of wild species requires extensive knowledge of taxonomy, reproductive biology & cytogenetics, genetics, crossability barriers and fertility of the hybrids. although success obtained in fruit crops is low, many desirable traits with great potential for crop improvement are found in the j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 guava improvement in india prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 102 wild species. interspecific crosses in many fruit crops, between cultivars and species, have resulted in hybrids that are partially sterile due to ploidy level differences genomic incompatibilities and cytoplasmic imbalances. in order to develop a rootstock tolerant/resistant to guava wilt and to test the possible role of different species, studies have been initiated on interspecific hybridization, in the genus psidium. phylogenetic studies carried out in psidium species utilizing differences in flavonoid patterns showed a close affinity between p. guajava and p. molle. two species, p. molle and p. guineense were found to be morphologically similar with minute differences in their chromatographic pattern (das and prakash, 1981). these workers also found a close affinity between p. guineense, p. pumilum and p. chinensis. it was observed that p. guajava and p. chinensis were crossable. however, p. guajava and p. molle are cross incompatible when p. guajava is used as the female parent (subramanyam and iyer, 1982). leslie et al (1995) and edward & shankar (1964) reported that psidium friedrichsthalianum niedenzu to be resistant to guava wilt. the other species reported to be resistant to the wilt are p. cumuni, p. cattleianum var. lucidum, p. molle, and p. guineense. however, singh et al (1977) reported that p. cattleianum var lucidum, p. corecium, p. cajuvalis, p. guineense and p. friedrichsthalianum developed wilt infection. hence, intensive work is needed to develop useful interspecific hybrids resistant to wilt using the resistant species in breeding programmes. the contribution of wild species to crop improvement and management programmes mainly involves their utilization as rootstocks for regulation of vigour, yield, fruit quality and, disease and pest resistance. pathak and ojha (1993) enumerated their potential uses: p. cujavalis, p. molle, p. cattleianum and p. guineense can be used as rootstock. chinese guava (p. friedrichsthalianum) and philippine guava are compatible rootstocks and have been reported to be resistant to the wilt disease. ‘allahabad safeda’ trees grafted on to p. pumilum had a dwarfing influence. p. cujavallis produced the largest trees but with non-uniform and rough skinned fruits. singh et al (1976) observed that fruits of ‘allahabad safeda’ contained higher sugar content on to p. pumilum while, higher ascorbic acid content was recorded in these grafted on p. cujavallis. high yields were obtained using p. cattleianum rootstock. other species reported to be resistant to the wilt are: p. cumunii, p. cattleianum var. lucidum, p. molle and p. guineense. however, singh et al (1977) reported that p. araca, p. cattleianum var lucidum, p. corecium, p. cujavalis, p. guineense and p. friedrichsthalianum developed infection. at the central institute for subtropical horticulture, lucknow, uttar pradesh, interspecific hybridization was carried out between p. molle and p. guajava. the interspecific hybrids have been found resistant to guava wilt and are graft compatible with commercial varieties of p. guajava (anon., 2003-04). inheritance studies genetic studies conducted in guava at iihr, bangalore, indicated that red pulp colour was dominant over white and that this character was governed monogenically. many cultivated red fleshed varieties were found to be heterozygous for this character. bold seeds were found to be dominant over soft seeds and this was also found to be determined monogenically. linkage was also found between flesh colour and seed size, i.e., red flesh with bold seeds (subramanyam and iyer, 1982). mitra and bose (1985) have reported heterosis in guava. studies conducted at coimbatore by raman et al, (1969 and 1971), have shown that triploidy and genetic factor(s) are responsible for female sterility and, that; variation among triploids is due to their independent origin from a distinct diploid variety. iyer and subramanyam (1971) opined that seedless varieties of guava were triploids, grew vigorously and bore fruits that were irregular in shape with ridges, because of irregular distribution of seeds of various sizes. dinesh and yadav (1998) carried out half-sib analysis in progenies of the variety ‘apple colour’. they observed that genotypic variance was lower than the phenotypic variance, and heritability was moderately high for all the characters implying, that, selection may be practiced for improvement of fruit characters. hence, hybridization among less seeded diploids can be adopted in an improvement programme. it is our observation on inheritance pattern using ‘purple guava’ and ‘arka mridula’ as parents that hybrids segregate in a ratio of 3:1 for green leaf types and purple leaf types. characterization and evaluation cluster analysis was carried out using fifteen morphological characters in 29 varieties and 5 species. the cluster diagram showed four main clusters (fig. 1). in the first cluster, the species p. cattleianum, p. friedrichsthalianum and p.molle are placed. the second cluster consists of 8 varieties and one species, viz., bangalore local, benaras, dharwad, karela, kamsari, spear acid, surka chitti, surka chitti neputani and p. quadrangularis. j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 dinesh and vasugi prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 103 in the third cluster, 10 varieties are grouped, viz., chittidar, ec 147039, 147037, hafsi, nasik, pati, portugal, sindh, superior sour lucidum and white flesh. in the fourth cluster, behat coconut, chakaiya ruthmanagar, ec 147306, ec 147036, ec 147034, ec 162904, florida seedling, g-6, l49, mirzapur seedling, p.chinensis and smooth green are grouped together. the cluster means indicate that fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit length and width are greater more in cluster ii and low in cluster i. members of cluster i are mainly species that usually bear small sized fruits, except p. quadrangularis. the mean vitamin ‘c’ content and fruit / seed ratio was maximum in cluster iv, which indicates that hybridization involving these accessions would be expected to result in maximum hybrid vigour. mean acidity ranged over 1.00 to 1.65 % and total sugar was about 7.23 to 7.86g among different clusters. crosses between cluster i and cluster ii crosses may result in desirable combinations leading to development of varieties with good processing traits. principal component (fig. 2) analysis shows that the species p.molle, p. friedrichsthalianum and p. cattleianum var. lucidum are closely related and are away from varieties of p. guajava and the species, p. chinensis. due to the edible nature of p. chinensis, it is closely related to p. guajava. although p. quadrangularis is not placed with the species group,it is different from p. guajava varieties as well. fruits of p. quadrangularis are not edible, but because of fruit size, it is placed with the p. guajava varieties. seeds of p. quadrangularis are unusually large compared to psidium guajava varieties or any other species. the cluster analysis clearly shows that the species are different from cultivated psidium guajava varieties and considerable diversity is present for various characters within the species of p. guajava for breeding varieties with good fruit size, fewer number of seeds or for dwarfness. p. quadranqualaris superior sour lucidum florida seeding p. chinesis p. cattleianum p. friedrichsthalianum p. molle fig 1. tree diagram for 29 varieties and 5 species j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 guava improvement in india prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 104 classification of guava varieties based on fruit shape globose: allahabad safeda, apple colour, arka amulya, arka mridula, benaras, behat coconut, chittidar, dharwad, ec 147037, hafsi, local 2, mirzapur seedling, nasik, p. cattleianum var. lucidum, p. chinensis, p. friedrichsthallianum, p. molle, p. quadrangularis, phili (pink), philippine guava, red flesh, sindh, smooth green, surka chitti, superior sour lucidum, dhareedar, aneuploid 2, lalit subglobose: chakaiya ruthmanagar, 7-12 ec 147036, 935 ec 147036, ec 14089, ec 162904, kamsari, karela, local 1, lucknow 42, pati, portugal, sardar, gr-1, spear acid, abu ishakwala pyriform: bangalore local, g-6, white flesh ovate: florida seedling, surka chitti neputani oblong: oblong, aneuploid-1, 7-39 ec 147034, nagpur seedless, seedless triploid, thailand 2, lucknow 42 based on fruit weight small (16-100g) aneuploid 1, apple colour, ec 14039, ec 147037, g-6, hafsi, local 1, local 2, nagpur seedless, psidium cattleianum var. lucidum, p. chinensis, p. friedrichsthalianum, p. molle, pati, philippine guava, portugal, seedless (triploid), sindh, gr1 medium (100-140g) allahabad safeda, arka amulya, arka mridula, bangalore local, chittidar, 7-39, ec 147034, 7-12 ic 147036, 9-35 ec 147036, ec 162904, florida seedling, lucknow 42, mirzapur seedling, nasik, phili (pink), red flesh, sardar, smooth green, spear acid, surka chitti, surka chitti neputani, white flesh large (>140g) abu ishakwala, benaras, behat coconut, chakaiya ruthmanagar, dharwad, kamsari, karela, p. quadrangularis, superior sour lucidum based on skin colour white: abu ishakwala, allahabad safeda, aneupoloid 2, apple colour, arka amulya, arka mrudiula, behat coconut, benaras, chakaiya ruthmanagar, chittidar, dharwad, florida seedling, hafsi, karela, local 1, llocal 2, lucknow 42, mirzapur seedling, nagpur seedless, nasik, p. chinensis, sardar, seedless (triploid), singh, smooth green, superior sour lucidum, surka chitti, surka chitti neputani, white flesh 0. 6 0 .4 0 .2 0 -0 .2 0. 4 -0 .6 -0 .8 fig 2. principal component analysis guava varieties based on shape, colour and weight variety : lalit 0.4 0.2 0 -0.2 -0.4 -0.6 0.6 4 0.7 0 .76 0 .82 0 .88 0 .94 1 f a cto r 3 fa cto r 1 factor 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 dinesh and vasugi prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 105 variety: purple local shades of red: aneuploid 1, 7-39, ec 147034, 7-12 ec 147036, 9-35 ec 147036, ec 147039, ec 163904, ec 147037, gr-6, kamsari, p. chinensis, pati, phili (pink), portugal, red flesh, gr1 shades of yellow: spear acid, bangalore local, p. cattleianum var. lucidum, p. quadrangularis purple: purple local probable gene donors probable donor parents were identified for various horticultural traits as follows: character accession name dwarfness apple colour, aneuploid, psidium molle, p. chinensis, p. friedrichsthalianum seedless seedless good yielder benaras, 7-39 ec147034, ec 162904, behat coconut, globose fruit shape smooth green, allahabad safeda, apple colour, arka amulya, arka mridula, benaras, behat coconut, hafsi, sindh, mirzapur seedling, dharwad purple pericap phillippine guava processing 7-12, ec 147036, 7-39 ec 147034 big sized fruit one kg guava, behat coconut, benaras, kamsari, dharwad, chaikaiya ruthmanagar high tss dhareedar, allahabad safeda, arka mridula, seedless, sindh, hafsi, bangalore local, surka chitti, behat coconut high vitamin c mirzapur seedling, p. chinensis, ec 162904, g-6, chakaiya ruthmanagar, dhareedar suckering habit p. chinensis the accessions were screened for their variable reactions to insect pests and the least susceptible sources were identified: pest least susceptible varieties fruitfly ec 147037, ec147039, kamsari, red flesh, superior sour lucidum tea mosquito bug ec 147036, ec 147039, hafsi, superior sour lucidum spiralling whitefly arka amulya, benaras, spear acid, psidium chinensis, p . friedrichsthalianum ,ec 147039 utilization of germplasm the accessions allahabad safeda and seedless were used in our breeding programme for developing varieties like arka amulya (allahabad safeda x seedless) and arka mridula (selection from allahabad safeda). interspecific hybridization was carried out using the wild species psidium chinensis with p. guajava cv. beaumont to produce rootstocks resistant to wilt disease. ‘apple colour’ and ‘sardar’ were also used in various combinations. ‘red flesh’ and ‘philippine guava’ are under use in the breeding programme for imparting red/purple colour to the progenies. future needs priority needs to be given to developing good fruit quality, since, there is little merit in improving yield and disease resistance if not accompanied by high quality. high quality should include high tss, good sugar-acid blend, good aroma, attractive skin pulp colour and soft seeds; processing quality, which includes juice colour, high vitamin c content, higher lycopene content, good pectin content and good flavour. while selecting new varieties, keeping quality may be accorded adequate importance. in this connection, flavour and firmness of the pulp, (that could contribute towards better keeping quality) of the ‘apple colour’ guava as the gene donor could be attempted to improve other commercial cultivars. hence, attempts to hybridize these genotypes with ‘allahabad safeda’ and other commercial cultivars should be intensified and selections may be made of progenies without apple colour, provided they have all the other desirable characteristics. in the recent past, efforts have been intensified to develop apple coloured cultivars to make them attractive for local as well as export markets. however, deep red colour has been found to be a very unstable character, the skin colour changing from deep red to yellowish white from season to season, as well as within the same tree. hence, ‘stable’ types need to be identified and great care should be taken while selecting hybrids from a large population. the cultivar ‘allahabad safeda’ possibly represents a population of guava trees grown extensively in uttar pradesh (india) rather than being descendent from a single clone. hence, enormous variation has been observed in this so-called cultivar. it is for horticulturists to make rigorous screening of the population to identify superior genotypes, keeping specific objectives in mind. a survey to locate such genotypes is certainly required, especially in uttar pradesh. while breeding or selecting superior types suitable for high density planting characters like early bearing, compact plant type, favourable response to pruning, good branch angle to minimize branch breakage even under heavy bearing, and with a high fruit-shoot ratio need to be given variety: kamsari j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 guava improvement in india prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 106 due attention. aneuploidy breeding should be intensified to develop high yielding, high quality varieties with fewer and soft seeds, and to develop dwarfing rootstocks. autotetraploids of less-seeded, superior diploid varieties may be developed. induction of mutation by physical and chemical mutagens may be attempted where improvement in a specific character is required in an otherwise acceptable variety. since guava cultivation in many locations is threatened by wilt (fusarium spp), work on interspecific hybridization to develop wilt resistant rootstocks should be intensified. efforts should also be made to develop wilt resistant scion varieties, of which, self-rooted plants could be used for commercial cultivation. the philippine guava (purple type) has shown some promise as a wilt-resistant rootstock but needs extensive experimentation. as this species segregates into the purple and white types on crossing with p. guajava cultivars, there is a need to look for possible linkages between purple leaf types and resistance to wilt. extensive screening of other related psidium species needs to be made for assessing their resistance to wilt. in this connection, reliable pathological screening techniques need to be standardized to hasten the process of disease resistance breeding in guava. varietal introduction, though, becomes an essential part of any crop improvement programme and needs to be made with great caution and with strict, customary plant quarantine measures. to quote some examples of caution, the ‘beaumont’ variety of guava, when introduced in to india, was found to be severely infected with ‘stylar end rot’ (phomopsis psidii) although it is not a severe problem in its original habitat. similarly, the ‘giant thailand guava’ when introduced in to bangladesh, was found to be highly susceptible to several insect pests. such examples are many and should be borne in mind. molecular characterization of germplasm needs to be accelerated with a view to work out genetical distance so that good recombinants can be arrived at by crossing suitable parents. biotechnological tools need to be employed extensively. dna fingerprinting and similar tools may be used to study extent of variation, even with in ‘allahabad safeda’ cultivar. attempts to spot genetic markers for wilt resistance may be made to improve efficiency for developing wilt resistant clones and rootstocks. references amin,m.n.and jaiswal,v.s. 1988. micropropagation as an aid to rapid cloning of a guava cultivar. scientia hort., 36:89-95 anonymous. 1996. research programmes and progress, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, pp. 10-11 anonymous. 2003-04. annual report, central institute for subtropical horticulture, lucknow, pp. 10-11. balasubramanyam, v.r. 1959. studies on blossom biology of guava (psidium guajava l.), ind. j. hort., 16:69-75 bailey, l.h. 1919. standard encyclopaedia of horticulture. macmillan, new york, usa pp. 2847-2849 braganza, m.a. 1990. floral biology studies and varietal evaluation in genus psidium. m.sc. (ag). thesis submitted to university of agricultural sciences, bangalore brar, h.s. and bal, j.s. 2003. studies on the use of gamma rays on the performance of guava budlings. ann. agribio res., 8:213-217 chadha, k.l. 1998. improvement in tree fruit and plantation crops. ind. j. hort. 55:265-296 chadha, k.l., harmail, s. and tandon, d.k. 1981. a varietal trial of guava. national symposium on tropical and sub-tropical fruit crops, bangalore, p.17 chandra., r.a., bajpai, soni gupta and tiwari, r. k. 2004. embryogenesis and plant regeneration from mesocarp of psidium guajava l. (guava) ind. j. biotech., 3:246-248 cheema, g.s. and deshmukh, g.b. 1927. culture of guava and its improvement by selection in western india. bull. dept. agri., bombay, no. 148 cheema, g.s., bhat, s.s. and naik, k.c. 1954. commercial fruits of india. macmillan & co., new york, usa. dass, h.c. and prakash, d. 1981. phylogenetic affinities in psidium spp. as studied by flavonoid patterns. national symposium on tropical and sub-tropical fruit crops, bangalore, p15 de candolle, a.p. 1904. origin of cultivated plants. kegal paul, london dinesh, m.r. and reddy, b.m.c. 2001. evaluation of psidium guajava accessions and some other psidium species for fruit characters. j. appl. hort., 3:41-43 dinesh, m.r. and yadav. i.s. 1998. half-sib analysis in guava (psidium guajava). ind. j. hort., 55:20-22 edward, j.c. and shankar, g.1964. rootstock trial for guava (psidium guajava l.). allahabad farmer, 38:249-50 evans, d.a. and sharp, w.r. 1988. somaclonal variation and its application in plant breeding. feature article. iaptc newslett. 54:2-10 golberg, l. and levy, l. 1941. the vitamin c content of fresh, canned and dried guava. nature, 148:286. (cited j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 dinesh and vasugi prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 107 from s.k.mitra and t.k.bose,1990. nature, guava. in : fruit : tropical and sub tropical. t.k.bose and s.k.mitra (eds.). nayaprokash, calcutta-6, pp:280-303) gonzaga, n. l., bezerra, j.e.f and montano, j.c. 1999. introduction and evaluation of indian varieties of guava in the region of submedio san francisco. pesquisa em andamento da embrapa semi arido, 95:3 hayes, w.b. 1953. fruit growing in india. kitabistan, allahabad iyer, c.p.a. and subramanyam, m.d. 1971. problems with triploidy in guava. sabrao newslett., 3(1):31-33. jaiswal, v.s. and amin, m.n. 1987. in vitro propagation of guava from shoot culture of mature trees. j. pl. physiol., 130:7-12 jaiswal,v.s and amin, m.n. 1992. guava and jackfruit. biotechnology of perennial fruit crops. hammerschlag, f.a., litz, r.e. eds., 421-431 janaki ammal, e.k.j. 1951. chromosomes and horticulture: tetraploids in guava. j. royal hort. soc., 76: 236-239 kumar, l.s.s. and ranade, s.g. 1952. autotriploid in guava (psidium guajava l.). curr.sci., 21:75-76 larkin, p.j., brettell, r.i.s., ryan, s.a., davis, p.v., pallotta, m.a. and scowcroft, w.r. 1985. somaclonal variation: impact on plant biology and breeding. in: biotechnology in plant science: relevance to agriculture in the eighties. zaitlin, m., day, p. & hollaender, a. eds, academic press, new york, usa, pp. 83-100 lee, m. and phillips, r.l. 1988. the chromosomal basis of somaclonal variation. ann. rev. pl. physiol. pl. mol.biol.,39:413-437 leslie, r.w. landrum, dennis clark, p. william and jeff brendecke. 1995. hybridization between psidium guajava and p. guineense (myrtaceae), econ. bot. 49:153-161 loh, c.s. and rao, a.n. 1989. clonal propagation of guava (psidium guajava l.) from seedling and grafted plants and adventitious shoot formation in vitro. sci. hort., 39:31-39 majumder, p.k. and mukherjee, s.k. 1972 a. aneuplody in guava. i. mechanism of variation in number of chromosomes. cytologia, 37:541-548 majumder, p.k. and mukherjee, s.k. 1972b. aneuplody in guava. ii. the occurrence of trisomics, tetrasomics and higher aneuploids in the progeny of triploid. nucleus, 13:42-47 majumder, p.k. and singh, r.n. 1964. seedlessness in guava (psidium guajava l.). curr. sci. 33:24-25 marak, j.k. and g.k.mukanda. 2007.studies on the performance of open pollinated seedling progenies of guava cv. ‘apple colour’. acta horti. 735 pp: 79-84 mitra, s.k. and bose, t.k., 1985, guava. fruits of indiatropical and sub-tropical ed. by bose naya prokash, calcutta mohammad, s. 1974. aneuploidy in guava. biol. plant., 16:382-388 morton, j. 1987. guava. in: fruits of warm climates. julia f. morton, miami, fl.,usa, pp. 356–363 mukherjee, s.k. 1977. improvement of mango, grapes and guava. in: fruit breeding in india. nijjar, g.s. (ed.), oxford & ibh, new delhi, pp. 15-20 naik, k.c. 1949 south indian fruits and their culture, varadachary and co., madras, 448-50 naithani, s.p. and srivastava, h.c. 1966. autotetraploidy in psidium guajava l. naturwissenchaft., 8: 205-206 normand, f. 1994. strawberry guava, relevance for reunion. fruits 49:217-27 ojha, a.p., tiwari, j.p. and mishra, k.k. 1986. studies on growth, flowering and yield of guava (psidium guajava l.) under terai condition of u.p. prog. hort., 8:205-06 pandey, s.d., 1968. the guava of uttar pradesh: a classification. hort. adv., 7:72-98 papadatou, p., pontikis, c., ephtimiadou, e and lydaki, m. 1990. rapid multiplication of guava seedlings by in vitro shoot-tip culture. sci. hort. 45:99-103 pathak, r.a. and dwivedi, r. 1988. report, fruit research workshop subtropical and temperature fruits. rajendra agricultural university, pusa,pp.76-77 pathak, r.k. and ojha, c.m. 1993. genetic resources of guava. in: advances in horticulture (vol i). chadha, k.l and 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color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no promising guava hybrids of anantharajupet. andhra agri. j. 24:53-54 raman, v.s., sri rangaswamy,s and manimekalai, f. 1971. triploidy and seedlessness in guava (psidium guajava l). cytologia, 36:392-399 raman, w.m., manimekalai,g and ramalingam, r.s. 1969. observation on seedlessness, fruit development and cytology of varieties of guava. madras agri. j., 56:255-61 rangacharlu, v.s. 1954. guava, the apple of tropics. andhra agri., j. 1:105-109 risterucci, a.m., duval, m.f., rohde, w., and billotte. n. 2005. isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci from psidium guajava l. molecular ecology notes doi:10.1111/j.1471-8286 sachan, b.p., pandey, d. and shankar, g. 1969. influence of weather on chemical composition of guava fruits (psidium guajava l.) var. allahabad safeda. punjab hort. j., 9:119-23 sehgal, o.p. and singh, r. 1967. studies on blossom biology of guava (psidium guajava l.) i. flowering season, flowering habit, floral bud development, anthesis and dehiscence. ind j. hort., 24:118-26 shafaat mohammed.1975. investigations on the breeding behaviour of aneuploids of guava. thesis submitted to the division of fruits and horticultural technology, iari, new delhi shanmugavelu, k.g. selvaraj, m. and thamburaj, s. 1987. review of research on fruit crops in tamil nadu. south ind. hort. 35:1-3 sharma, y.k. 1982. rootstock investigation in guava (psidium guajava l.). thesis submitted for the award of ph.d. degree to meerut university, meerut. sharma, y.k., goswami, a.m. and sharma, r.r. 1992 effect of dwarfing aneuploid guava rootstock in high density orcharding. ind. j.hort. 49:31-36 sharma, a.s., sehrawat, s.k. singharot, r.s. and boora, k.s. 2007 assessement of genetic diversity and relationship among psidium spp. through rapd analysis acta. horti.,735 singh, i.s., singh, h.k. and gupta, a.k., 1979. effect of post harvest application of ethephon on quality of guava (psidium guajava) cultivar lucknow 49. haryana j. hort. sci .8:12 16 singh, l.b. 1959. s1, a new promising selection of guava (psidium guajava l.). annual report, fruit research station, saharanpur, pp. 58-60. singh, r. and sehgal, o.p. 1968, studies on blossom biology of psidium guajava l. (guava). ii. pollen studies, stigma receptivity, pollen and fruit set. ind. j. hort., 25:52-59 singh, r.l. 1953. annual report, fruit research station, saharanpur, 1950-53. singh, s. and hoda, m.n. 1994. report on fruit research at sabour, rajendra agril. univ. pusa (india), pp. 74-77 singh, u.r., pandey, i.c., upadhyaya, n.p. and tripathi, b.m. 1976. effect of different rootstocks on the growth yield and quality of guava. punjab hort. j. 16:121-28 singh, v.r., dhar, l., and singh. g., 1977. note on the performance of guava cultivars and psidium species against wilt disease under natural field conditions. haryana j. hort. sci. 6(3-4): 149-50 srivastava, h.c. 1977. cytological studies in psidium friedrichsthalianum n. cytologia, 42:395-400 srivastava, o.p. 1974. studies on the flowering habit, blooming period, anthesis, dehiscence and pollen grain of psidium guajava l. varieties apple colour, chittidar and red flesh. prog. hort., 6:71-77 srivastava, r.p and srivastava, r.k. 1965. physicochemical studies on safeda allahabad and red fleshed guavas. punjab hort. j., 5:12-15 subramanyam, m.d. and iyer, c.p.a. 1982. improvement of guava by breeding. report, fruit workshop, nagpur. pp. 117-118 subramanyam, m.d. and iyer, c.p.a. 1998. report, fruit research workshop on tropical and subtropical fruits. rajendra agril. univ., pusa india, pp. 81-84. syamal, m.m., singh r.k. and chhlonkar, v.s. 1980. studies on growth and flowering in guava, psidium friedrichsthalianum 37:243-45 teaotia, s.s., pandey, i.c. and agnihotri, b.n. 1962. study of some guava varieties (psidium guajava l.) of uttar pradesh. ind. agriculuturist, 6:47-53 thonte, g.t. and chakrawar, v.r. 1981. the variablility and correlation studies of guava strains. national symposium on subtropical fruit crops, bangalore, p. 17 zamir, r., khattak, g.s.s., mohammad, t., shah, s.a., khan, a.j. and ali, n. 2003. in vitro mutagenesis in guava (psidium guajava l.). pakistan j. bot. 35: 825-828 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 94-108, 2010 dinesh and vasugi prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 1 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review moringa (moringa oleifera l.): an underutilized and traditionally valued 1-13 tree holding remarkable potential jattan m., kumari n., raj kumar, kumar a., rani b., phogat d.s., kumar, s. and kumar, p. original research in papers characterization and evaluation of mountain sweet thorn 14-25 (flacourtia montana j. grah) collections tripathi p.c., ganeshan s., radhika v. and shetti d.l. optimization of methodology for the extraction of polyphenolic compounds 26-35 with antioxidant potential and á-glucosidase inhibitory activity from jamun (syzygium cumini l.) seeds arivalagan m., priyanka d.r. and rekha a. genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) 36-44 agadi a.h., kolakar s., lakshmana d., nadukeri s. and hanumanthappa m. morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to 45-52 iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c., dutt s., sharma j., raveendran m. and sudhakar d. responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water 53-63 deficit conditions ayub q., khan s.m., hussain i., naveed k., ali s., mehmood a., khan m.j., haq n.u., shehzad q. induced variability for yield and its attributing traits in cluster bean 64-68 [cyamopsis tetragonoloba (l. ) taub] through gamma irradiation lavanya h.n., mishra s., sood m., aghora t.s., anjanappa m., rao v.k. and reddy a.b. in vitro multiplication protocol for curcuma mangga : studies on carbon, 69-76 cytokinin source and explant size waman a.a., bohra p., karthika devi r. and pixy j. effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life 77-90 of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m., bhandari n. and dhital m. post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and 91-102 antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h., saucedo v.c., guerra r.d., suarez e.j., soto h.r.m. lopez j.a., garcia c.e. and hernandez r.g. soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient 103-113 management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour and d. kalaivanan effect of spectral manipulation and seasonal variations on cut foliage production 114-120 and quality of philodendron (philodendron ‘xanadu’) sujatha a. nair, laxman r.h. and sangama short communications studies on mutagenic sensitivity of seeds of pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) 121-124 sankaran m., kalaivanan d. and sunil gowda d.c. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from 125-129 garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v., vasudeva r., hemanth b., nischita p., sthapit b.r., parthasarathy v.a. and rao v.r. 91 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 original research paper post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h.*1, saucedo v.c.1, guerra r.d.2, suarez e.j.1, soto h.r.m.1, lopez j.a.1, garcia c.e.1 and hernández r.g.1 1 colegio de postgraduados. carretera méxico-texcoco km. 36.5, montecillo, texcoco 56230, estado de méxico. 2 universidad autónoma chapingo. km. 38.5 carretera méxico – texcoco chapingo, texcoco 56230, estado de méxico. *corresponding author e-mail : gonzalez.paulina@colpos.mx abstract postharvest quality, quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity of peel, pulp and juice of fruits of three prickly pears (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill.) cultivars of colegio de postgraduados in méxico, were measured. the red and orange cultivars showed outstanding features of postharvest quality (size, texture, tss and pulp and juice content), highest content of betalains and phenolic compounds. therefore, highest antioxidant activity. in general, highest content of bioactive compounds was detected in peel, besides the content in pulp and juice did not show statistically significant differences. phenolic content is very high in comparison with other fruits. antioxidant activity was measured by three assays: frap, abts and dpph. three cultivars showed high correlation between antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds. the methodologies used in this work are a very useful tool for the quantification of bioactive compounds in o. ficus-indica fruit tissues. keywords : betalains, flavonoids, opuntia ficus-indica, phenolic compounds and prickly pear introduction prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill.) is the species of ca cti with the gr ea test economic importance in the world (bravo, 1978); (kiesling, 1999); (griffith, 2004); (feugang et al., 2006). it is cultivated in several continents, but is native to america, where, there are more than 93 species of opuntia (hunt, 1999). in the southern highlands of mexico, there are more than 243 varieties, used as fodder, vegetables and fruit. most of the prickly pear cactus is collected from the wild, since there are only approximately 20,000 commercial plantations of prickly pear cactus. the semiarid regions of central mexico hosted the greatest genetic diversity, as well as the largest cultivated area of prickly pear cactus in the world. variability is found in both cultivated and wild populations. prickly pear has become an important fruit crop in the semi-arid lands of mexico, wher e it pla ys a str a tegic r ole in subsistence agriculture (pimienta, 1994). the prickly pear has been recognized for its numerous nutritional virtues, nutritional and functional properties. recent data have r evea led the high content of some chemica l components, which can give added value to this fruit. high levels of betalains, taurine, calcium, magnesium and antioxidants stand out. in addition, some of the components show promising characteristics in terms of functionality (piga, 2004). the diversity of betalains found in these prickly pear cultivars, indicate the potential value of opuntia cactus pear fruit, as a good source of pigments, and their potential industrial exploitation for drinks and food products. therefore, consumption of cactus pear fruit may provide nutritional and health benefits (castellanos & yahia, 2008). flavonoids have been reported by several authors (feugang et al., 2006); (garcía et al., 2019). also, kuti (2000) reported about the presence of phenolic compounds in fresh prickly pear fruits. (lee et al., 2002) also reported the antioxidant effects of opuntia extracts. there is few information on the quantification of betalains and this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 92 gonzalez et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 phenolic compounds in different fruit tissues, and juice of opuntia ficus-indica cultivars. the purpose of the following work was to evaluate the postharvest quality, quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity of fruit tissues of three prickly pears (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill.) cultivars grown at colegio de postgraduados. materials and methods plant material three o. ficus-indica cultivars colors red, white and orange developed in the fruticulture experimental field of colegio de postgr a dua dos, loca ted in montecillo, state of mexico (coordinates 19°272 513 n 98°542 153 o, altitude 2250 msnm), high altitude, temperate climate, the driest of the sub-humid, with rainfall in summer, precipitation 572. 25 mm and mean annual temperature of 15.3 ºc (garcía, 1988) were selected for the study according to flesh color, identified as cp1 (red), cp3 (white) a nd cp4 (orange). for fruit harvesting, the criteria established were the fla ttening of the floral ca vity and the moment when the glochids or thorns fell (cantwell, 1995). color characteristics the fruit color was measured by cielab system. the epicarp color was measured on two opposite sides of the equatorial zone of the fruit, with a hunter-lab model d-25 reflection color imeter (reston, virginia, usa); cielab parameters l*, a*, b* were recorded and the hue angle (°h=tan-1(b*/a*) and saturation index (chroma (c) (a2+b2) 1/2 ) were calculated (mcguire, 1992). postharvest quality a total of 50 fruits per cultivar were harvested and measured for size, structural components (peel, pulp and seeds), epicarp (peel) color, texture, juice content, total soluble solids, juice ph, betalains, flavonoids, phenols contents and antioxidant capacity. size was determined based on longitudinal and equatorial diameter, measured with a trupper-14388 digital vernier on a total of 15 fruits; data were reported in millimeter s (mm). t he str uctur a l components evaluated were the proportion of peel, pulp and seeds, determined on a weight basis with an ohaus scoutpro electronic balance with a sensitivity of 0.1 mg and the percentage of peel, pulp and seeds was calculated; in addition, the number and area (mm2) of seeds was determined using an epson scan scanner with winseedle tm 2013 software. firmness was measured based on the deformation of the fruit when a force of 1 kg was applied with a cha ntillon texturometer (wagner force five model fdv-30) with a flat strut; the results were expressed in newtons/cm2 (n/cm2). juice extraction to deter mine the juice content, the juice wa s extracted from a total of 15 fruits separately with an oster ® fpstje317 centrifugal extractor; for the calculations, the equation % juice= (juice weight/pulp weight) x100 was applied. total soluble solids (%) and ph were measured according to the methods of the (aoac, 1990) using a portable refractometer palette atago, pr-320 (0-.32%) and a corning model 12 potentiometer, ny, usa, respectively. obtaining prickly pear tissues samples of the epicarp (30g), mesocarp and endocarp (30 g), as well as juice from the pulp (15 ml) were obtained separa tely by ha nd using a n oster ® fpstje317 centrifugal extractor. all samples were kept in ultrafreeze at -65°c and subsequently freezedried for 3 days at -45°c and 1.3 × 10-3 mpa in a labconco freezone 2.5 l equipment. the freezedried samples were homogenized using a nutribullet nb-101b to obtain a fine particle. finally, they were preserved in airtight aluminum bags for storage at 18°c until analysis. extraction procedure of freeze-dried prickly pear tissues extraction was performed by placing 1 g of freezedried prickly pear sample in 50 ml of methanol: water (80/20, v/v) and mixed by vortex for 3 min, subsequently ph was adjusted to 3 with hydrochloric acid, and put in an ultrasonic bath (bransonic™ cpxh series) for 15 min. after that, the samples were rotated for 30 min at 150 rpm and 27°c. finally, they were centrifuged for 15 min (3500 rpm) and the supernatant was separated. the extracts were stored at -18°c in dark for further analysis. spectrophotometric quantification of total betalains and phenolic compounds for the determination of total betalains and phenolic compounds, the prickly pear extracts mentioned above were used. betalain content was measured 93 post-harvest quality and anti-oxidant activity in prickly pear according to the method of (castellanos & yahia, 2008) using a sinergy 2 microplate multidetector equipped with gen 5 data analysis software (biotek instr uments inc. , winoosky, vt usa). t he absorption spectrum was obtained from 200 to 700 nm to obtain the absorption maximum and an od <1. readings were obtained for each extract in triplicate. the betalain content was expressed as: µg betanin equivalents for betacyanin content (bc) and µg indicaxanthin equivalents for betaxanthin content (bx). the calculation was made using the following formula: bc or bx (mg/g) = [a(df)(mw)(vd)/ ε(l)(wd)] where a is the absorption value at the a bsor ption ma ximum of 535 a nd 483 nm for betacyanins and betaxanthins, respectively, df is the dilution factor, vd is the dried pulp solution volume (ml), wd is the dried pulp weight (g), and l is the path-length (0.38 cm) of the cuvette. the molecular weight (mw) and molar extinction coefficient (ε) of betanin [mw) 550 g/mol; ε) 60,000 l/(mol cm) in h2o] wer e a pplied in or der to qua ntify the betacyanins. quantitative equivalents of the major betaxanthins (bx) were determined by applying the mean molar extinction coefficient [ε) 48,000 l/(mol cm) in h2o]. in all cases, water extracted the highest level of pigments. the total flavonoid determination was conducted according to the colorimetric method defined by chang et al. (2002) with modifications. the prickly pear extract was mixed with 100 µl of potassium acetate, 100 µl of 10% aluminum chloride and 4.7 ml of distilled water. after incubation at room temperature for 30 min in darkness, the absorbance of the reaction mixture was measured at 415 nm in a microplate multidetector mentioned in section 2.7 placing 200 µl of sample and reagent blank in respective microwells. the amount of 10% aluminum chloride was substituted by the same amount of methanol: water (80/20, v/v) in blank. quercetin (0.4 – 1.6 µg/ml) was used to make the calibration curve and the results were expressed as mg quercetin equivalents per g dry weight (mg eq/ g dry weight). the total phenolic determination was expressed as µg gallic acid equivalents per g of dry weight (mg gae g dry weight), according to the folin-ciocalteau assay which detects electron transfer by measuring the reducing capacity of the sample and can therefore also be considered as antioxidant activity assay (cano et al. 2017). antioxidant activity the antioxidant activity of each cultivar of prickly pear was determined using three assays: frap, abts and dpph which have been widely applied in the analysis of food samples (re et al., 1999). the frap assay was performed according to the methodology (benzie & strain, 1996) with some modifications. the frap solution includes 10 ml of 300 mm acetate buffer at ph 3.6, 1 ml of 10 mm tptz and 1 ml of 20 mm fecl36h 2o. the prickly pear extracts (20 µl) were allowed to react with 180 µl of frap solution and 60 µl of distilled water for 10 minutes in dark conditions. readings were taken at 595 nm. the calibration curve was linear between 50 and 600 µm trolox. results were expr essed in µm trolox equivalents (µm te)/g dry weight. for abts assay, the procedure of (re, 1999) was followed with some modifications. the abts-+ radical solution included 7.4 mm abts-+ and 2.6 mm sodium persulfate solution. the working solution was prepared by mixing the two stock solutions in equal quantities and allowing them to react in the dark for 16 hours. the solution was then diluted by mixing 600 µl of abts-+ solution in 9.4 ml of methanol. the prickly pear extracts (20 µl) were allowed to react with 180 µl of abts solution for 10 minutes in dark conditions. readings were taken at 734 nm. the calibration curve was linear from 50 to 500 µm tr olox. results are expressed in µm trolox equivalents (µm te/g dry weight). dpph assay was done according to the method of williams et al. (1995) with some modifications. the dpph stock solution was prepared by dissolving 19.7 mg of dpph in 100 ml of 80% methanol. prickly pear extracts (200 µl) were allowed to react with 50 µl of dpph solution for 30 min in dark conditions. readings were taken at 515 nm. the calibration curve was linear from 50 to 500 µl of trolox. the results were expressed in µm trolox equivalents (µm te/g dry weight). additional dilutions were made when the values obtained from the samples were outside the linear range of the calibration curve. statistical analysis the compositional data were expressed as mean ± standa rd devia tion of at least five independent determinations. significant differences between results were calculated by one-way analysis of variance j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 94 (anova), followed by a post hoc tukey’s test. a level of p < 0. 05 was considered a significant difference. to investigate the relationship between main phytochemicals, a bilateral pearson correlation analysis was performed with a significance of p < 0.01 and p < 0.05. all statistical analyses were executed with sas institute, inc 9.4. results and discussion morphological characterization the morphological and physical characteristics of three prickly pear cultivars are directly influenced by selection (table 1). fruit length averages (mm) were significantly different among them, with cp4 and cp3 obtaining the highest and lowest values (97. 15 a nd 73.2 mm, respectively). regar ding diameter, no significant differences were found between selections with averages of 52 and 55 mm respectively. the values of both lower and upper limits are very similar to those reported by parish and felker (1997) with average ranges of 73 to 88 mm for length and 56 to 57 mm for diameter. cerezal & duarte (2005) evaluated prickly pears har vested in the andea n highla nds of the 2nd region of chile, reporting average length values of 62 t o 78 mm a nd 4 6 to 5 2 mm in dia meter. karababa et al. (2004) reported fruit length values ranging from 66 to 71 mm and diameter values from 45 to 52 mm for a variety harvested in five loca tions in tur key. on the other ha nd, singh (2003) reported length and diameter values lower than those found in this study for prickly pear clones from the usa and introduced to india with average ranges of 55 to 76 mm in length and 33 to 46 mm in diameter. cp1 and cp4 had values of epicarp firmness of 32 and 36.5 n/cm2 respectively, higher than cp3 ( 2 6 . 6 n / c m2) . we ight of f r u it of c p 3 wa s significantly lower (124 g) compared to cp1 and cp4 (160 and 164 g respectively). there are other published works about the size of fruit, weight, tss, ph and number of seeds (cerezal & duarte, 2005); (karababa et al., 2004); (parish & felker, 1997); (singh, 2003). cp1 (red) cp3 (white) cp4 (orange) size of fruit (mm) 87.18±6.64b 73.19±8.72c 97.15±6.62a diameter (mm) 55.39±2.95a 54.02±6.7a 52.22±4.24a firmness (n/cm2) 31.99±9.54a 26.63±6.94b 36.51±6.98a total weight of whole fruit (g) 159.91±23.81a 123.95±33.55b 154.26±17.67a peel content (%) 37.19±4.15b 40.9±3.33a 39.67±3.51ab pulp content (%) 62.3±4.18a 57.57±5.2b 60.54±2.93ab tss of pulp (%) 15.53±1.22a 12.59±1.73b 11.4±0.78ab juice content (%) 74.99±5.36a 66.57±7.11b 67.72±5.64b ph 7.31±0.16a 6.55±0.15c 7.03±0.13b tss of juice (%) 13.52±0.86a 12.86±2.33a 11.91±0.54a seed content (%) 2.74±0.17ab 2.08±0.61b 3.09±0.60a weight of seeds (g) 4.18±0.86a 3.11±0.39b 4.12±0.69a number of seeds 329.67±61.8a 188.11±32.65bc 231.56±50.7c average area of seeds (mm2) 15.75±0.7c 18.41±0.68b 19.592±1a *values are the mean of 15 independent determinations ± standard deviation. *different letters indicate statistically significant differences (pd” 0.05) between columns. table 1: morphological, physical and physico-chemical characteristics of fresh fruits of three prickly pear cultivars (opuntia ûcus-indica l. mill.) gonzalez et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 95 in contrast with studies of barbera et al. (1994) the biggest fruit (cp4) don´t have the high quantity of seeds, in this case the fruit of cp1 had high quantity of seeds. the cultivar with less number of seeds was cp3 (white), it has been cultivated to produce prickly pear for many years. so, it has had a selection process. el behi et al. (2015); barbera et al. (1994); mejía & cantwell (2003) mention in their studies that the relationship between fruit size and seed content is highly variable and influenced by factors such as genotype, crop load and fruit position within the canopy. firmness is a mechanical property gives post-harvest quality in fresh fruits. a loss of firmness is caused by loss of cell turgor due to aging or dehydration. both thinning and softening of the peel contribute to increased susceptibility to physical damage and deter ior ation of prickly pea rs during ha ndling (cantwell, 1995). however, this characteristic is also due to genetic and nutritional issues of the crop. guerrero (2018) reports firmness values for white prickly pear opuntia amyclaea green mature (36.28 n/cm2) and mature (26.48 n/cm2). in this study we obtained values between 23.63 n/cm2 for cp3 and 36.51 n/cm2 for cp4. red cultiva r (cp1) wa s cha r a cter ized by the significantly higher content of pulp (62.3%), tss of pulp (15.53 brix) and juice (13.52%), juice content (74.99%), and lower content of peel (37.19%). significant differences in the ph of the three cultivars were observed with values between 6.55 (cp3) and 7.31 (cp1). this values were higher than reported by andreu et al. (2018) in six cultivars of prickly pears grown in spain, who showed values of ph between 5.2 and 6.06. regarding seed content, cultivars cp1 (red) and cp4 (orange) showed higher seed weight (4.18 and 4.12 g respectively), and higher seed quantity (329 and 231 seeds respectively) tha n cp3 (white). however, cp1 (red) has significantly smaller seeds (15.75 mm) than cp3 and cp4. color table 2 shows that the three cultivars had l* values less than 50, the cp3 (white) was the closest with (l= 47.5), so it is the one with the least dark color. between cp1 (red) and cp4 (orange) cultivars, no significant differences were observed for lightness. hue values suggest that there are three types of shades; white with high hue values (112.27), red with intermediate value (25.72) and orange with low hue values (7.49). the highest chroma values were also presented by cp3 (white) (21.88), cp1 (red) and cp4 (orange) obtained very close values (16.17 and 15.32) respectively. table 2: color of fruit or three prickly pear cultivars (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill.) cp1 (red) cp3 (white) cp4 (orange) l* 35.19±2.76b 47.5±3.96a 34.33±1.86b a 6.2±2.5 b -8.3±2.3 c 9.6±2.1 a b 9.3±3.0 b 19.8±1.5 a 11.4±1.2 b hue 25.72±9.59b 112.27±5.52a 7.49±7.49c chroma 16.17±3.97b 21.88±2.4286a 15.32±1.7b * values are the mean of 15 independent determinations ± standard deviation. * different letters indicate statistically significant differences ( 0.05) between columns. quantification of betalains betalains are water soluble compounds present in a restricted number of families of plants from the caryophyllale family. they are classified in two chemical families: betacyanins and betaxanthins with 540 and 480 nm absorption maxima. betalains are powerful radical eliminators in chemical system and act as an efficient antioxidant in biological models (cano et al., 2017). betalain content was measured in cp1 (red) and cp4 (orange) cultivars, in the peel, pulp and juice of prickly pear. the cp1 cultivar showed higher betacyanins (bc) and betaxanthins (bx) content than cp4 (orange) with values of 1181 and 1137 µg/g d.w in peel, respectively for cp1 (red) and values of 161 a nd 408 µ g/g d. w in peel for cp4 (or a nge), respectively. these compounds are responsible for the red and orange shades respectively. betacyanins appear to be in higher concentration in the peels of both prickly pear cultivars (red and orange), however, betaxanthins are observed evenly distributed in both peel, pulp and juice in the cp4 (orange) cultivar. this is consistent with the findings of (cano et al., 2017). on the other hand, no significant differences are shown between bc and bx content in pulp and juice j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 post-harvest quality and anti-oxidant activity in prickly pear 96 for both selections (table 3). in this sense, we could assume that no significant betalain content is lost during the juice extraction process. table 3: betalain content in two prickly pear cultivars (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill.) cp1 (red) cp4 (orange) bc1 peel 1181.67±151.3aa 161±6.08ba pulp 496±30.51ab 69.67±0.58bb juice 472.33±12.74ab 65.67±5.69bb bx2 peel 1137.67±169.82aa 408±2.65ba pulp 552.67±26.65ab 435.33±58.77aa juice 398±19ab 457±21.07aa * values are the mean of 3 independent determinations ± standard deviation. * lowercase letters indicate statistically significant differences ( 0.05) between cultivars of the same tissue for each given compound. * uppercase letters indicate statistically significant differences ( 0.05) between cultivars of the same tissue for each given compound. bc1: betacyanins expressed as µg of betanin equivalents per gram of dry weight. bx : betaxanthins expressed as µg of indicaxanthin equivalents per gram of dry weight. castella nos & yahia (2008) reported values of betacyanins of 5290 µg/g dw in camuesa cultivar, followed by 2060 µg/g in roja pelota, 2040 µg/g dw in cardona and much lower contents in the reyna variety (50 µg/g dw). betaxanthins were f ou nd in t h e yellow p r ic kly p ea r va r iet ies naranjona, 2651 and 21441 with values of 160, 140 and 120 µg/g dry weigt, respectively. these values differ greatly from those found in this work. garcía et al. (2019) reported betacyanin values of 1670 µg/g d.w and 450 µg/g and betaxanthin values of 730 a nd 370 µg/g in the pulp of mexica n va r iet ies o f p u r p le a nd r ed p r i c kly p ea r, respectively. the values reported for red tuna are more consistent with what was found in this study. quantification of total phenols (tp) and total flavonoids (tf) some of the published wor ks on the chemica l composition of prickly pear showed information about the main compounds with antioxidant activity (fernández et al., 2010). phenolic compounds are known as bioactive or functional compounds that s er ve a s pr ot ec tor s a ga ins t c er t a in dis ea s es ( bu t er a e t a l . , 2 0 0 2 ) , whi c h a r e ma inly characterized by their antioxidant activity (andreu et al., 2018). table 4 shows the content of total phenols in the peel, pulp and juice of the three cultivars evaluated. cp1 (red) and cp3 (white) presented the highest total phenols content (tp) in peel (7225.67 and 7486.67 µg gae. g-1 dw, respectively), which was significantly differ ent for cp4 (or ange), which obtained 59.39% with respect to the cp3 (white) cultivar. no significant differences were found in the total flavonoid content in the peel of the three selections studied (2505, 2114 and 2239 µg qe g1 d.w.) respectively. the total flavonoids content (tf) in pulp and juice of the three cultiva rs did not show significa nt differences with average values of 2121, 1422.5 and 1911 µg gae. g-1 dw for cp1, cp3 and cp4, respectively). garcía et al. (2019) found values of 2067 µg gae. g-1 dw for red prickly pear fruit pulp and 3501 µg gae. g-1 dw in peel. this value is close to that we found in this study for the orange selection (4446 µg gae. g-1 p.s.). tp a nd t f were found in 70 a nd 83% higher concentrations in peel than in pulp and juice in cp1 (red). in 82 and 83% in cp3 (white) and 62 and 93% in cp4 (orange). this corresponds with the findings of several authors, giving clear evidence that the highest antioxidant contents are present in the peel of the fruit (andreu et al., 2018); (garcía et al., 2019); (morales, 2009). cp1 presented the highest content of tp and tf in pulp (2149 µg gae. g-1 dw and 558 µg qe g-1 dw respectively). in addition, cultivars cp1 and cp4 had the highest tp in juice (2092 and 2138 µg gae. g-1 dw and cp3 had the highest tf in juice (555.33 µg qe g-1 dw). the content of total phenols in prickly pear is very high compared to other fruits. the tp ranges (µg gae. g-1 dw) are 140 to 1020 in nectarines, 210 to 110 in peaches and 420 to 1090 in plums (gil et al., 2002). on the other hand, the results are close to other fruits with high antioxidant capacity such as guava, which obtained values of 1700 to 3000 µg gae. g-1 dw in a study carried out on pinkfleshed clones (thaipong et al., 2006). gonzalez et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 97 on the other hand, other species such as xoconostle (opuntia matudae) have shown higher values of these compounds (tp) with values of up to 8590 and 9180 µg gae. g-1 dw in pulp and peel (morales, 2009). similarly, values from 4950 to 9800 µg gae. g-1 dw have been reported in blueberry (wada, 2002) and from 526 to 6819 µg gae. g-1 dw at different maturity stages in garambullo (felix, 2018). antioxidant activity (aoa) antioxidant activity, is one of the main mechanisms in which vegetables and fruits provide health benefits to humans (andreu et al., 2018). several studies have established inverse correlations in the consumption of fr uits a nd vegeta bles a nd ca r diova scula r, inflammatory, cancer and age-dependent diseases (willet, 2001). the use of a single technique to determine antioxidant activity may prove to be unrealistic and not as useful, however there are a large number of published techniques that pur port to measure antioxidant a ctivity in vivo (wua ng et al. , 2005). t he measurement of antioxidant activity in prickly pear fr uits wa s eva lua ted ba sed on thr ee spectrophotometric assays; dpph, abts and frap. the results are shown in table 4. as with total phenols and flavonoids, the highest antioxidant activity was clearly observed for the three assays and three cultivars (cp1, cp3 and cp4) in the fruit peel, except in the peel and pulp of cp1 (red) by abts. for the frap assay, cp1 (red) and cp4 (orange) show higher antioxidant activity (17.6 and 19.13 µmol et g-1 dw) than cp3 (white) in peel. cp3 table 4: content of total phenols, total flavonoids and antioxidant activity (frap, abts y dpph) in three prickly pear cultivars (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill.) cp1 (red) cp3 (white) cp4 (orange) total phenols1 peel 7225.67±198.07aa 7486.67±461.24aa 4446.67±295.5ba pulp 2149.33±211.05ab 1529.67±163.09bb 1683.33±54.37bb juice 2092.67±132.08ab 1315.33±155.58bb 2138.33±127.45ab total flavonoids2 peel 2505.33±194.54aa 2114.67±78.56aa 2239.67±176.52aa pulp 558±55.51ab 249±21.52bc 168±5.57bb juice 425.67±68.38bb 555.33±25.66ab 148.67±2.08cb frap3 peel 17.68±0.74aa 14.94±0.48ba 19.13±0.35aa pulp 8.63±0.75ab 6.83±0.84ab 7.71±0.32ab juice 7.48±0.49ab 5.23±0.16bb 8.14±0.17ab abts4 peel 20.61±0.74aa 20.49±0.32aa 19.08±0.35aa pulp 18.34±1.34aa 7.39±0.45bb 7.65±0.32bb juice 14.38±1.21ab 6.09±0.19cc 8.09±0.17bb dpph5 peel 16.03±4.23ba 32.38±1.61aa 19.82±5.65aa pulp 8.96±0.74aab 6.56±0.89bb 2.41±0.24cb juice 5.05±0.37ab 2.89±0.15bc 2.38±0.22bb * values are the mean of 3 independent determinations ± standard deviation. * lowercase letters indicate statistically significant differences (p 0.05) between cultivars of the same tissue for each given compound. * uppercase letters indicate statistically significant differences (p 0.05) between cultivars of the same tissue for each given compound. 1 expressed as µg of gallic acid equivalents per gram of dry weight. 2 expresado as µg of quercetin equivalents per gram of dry weight. 3,4,5 expressed as µmol de trolox equivalents per gram of dry weight. *dpph (2,2-difenil-1-picrilhidrazilo), abts (ácido -3 etilbenzotiazolino-6-sulfónico) y frap (ferric reducing antioxidant power). j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 post-harvest quality and anti-oxidant activity in prickly pear 98 shows the lowest antioxidant activity in this assay in the three tissues (14.9, 6.8 and 5.2 µmol et g-1 dw) in peel, pulp and juice, respectively. in the abts assay, cp1 (red) showed higher antioxidant activity in pulp and juice with values of 18.34 and 14.38 µmol et g-1dw, respectively. there are no significant differences in the antioxidant activity of the three cultivars in peel. in dpph, cp3 (white) a nd cp4 (or a nge) s howed higher a nt ioxida nt activity in peel 32.3 a nd 19.8 µmol et g-1dw, respectively. on the contrary, cp1 (red) showed higher antioxidant activity in juice and pulp than the other cultivars with values of (8.96 and 5.05 µmol et g-1dw), respectively. frap technique estimates the reducing activity of fe(iii), which is not necessa r ily r eleva nt for calculating its antioxidant capacity (ou, et al., 2002). taking into account that not all antioxidants reduce fe(iii) as fast as required (pulido et al., 2 0 0 0 ) , t hei r a nt iox ida nt c a p a c i t y c ou ld b e underestimated. the abts technique is considered to be highly sensitive (kuskoski et al., 2005), however, the working solution for this technique needs to be kept in the da r k for 12 hour s to generate free radicals. as the reacting solution is not a lwa ys of the sa me a ge, this ca n lea d to dif f er enc e s in va lu es dep end ing on t he determination times (thaipong et al., 2006). the dpph assay has been a widely used method to detect the ability of compounds to scavenge free radicals or the antioxidant activity of extracts (hou, e t a l . , 2 00 3 ) . s a nchez s u ggest ed t ha t 2 , 2 diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (dpph) is an easy and a cc u r a t e method t o mea su r e t he a nt iox ida nt capacity in fruit and vegetable extracts (sánchez, 2002). as concluded by frankel and meyer, these assays differ fr om ea ch other in ter ms of substr ates, probes, r ea ction conditions a nd qua ntifica tion methods, making it very difficult to compare the results obtained between them (frankel & meyer, 2000). a single method is not sufficient to determine the antioxidant capacity of plant extracts; more than one type of aoa deter mination is r equired to r ep r es ent t he dif f er ent modes o f a c t ion of a ntioxida nts. t he methods used a re ba sica lly classified into two types: assays based on hydrogen atom transfer (hat) and assays based on electron transfer (et) (dudonné et al., 2009). in this study, aoa was determined by two hat-type assays: abts and dpph, as well as fe reduction capacity, using the frap assay. t he presence of phenolic compounds in plant extracts contributes significantly to their antioxidant potential (dudonné et al., 2009). part of this aoa comes fr om fla vonoids, low molecula r weight polyphenolic compounds distributed in fruits and vegetables (hertog et al., 1992). for their part, betalains are powerful free radical scavengers that act as efficient antioxidants in biological models (cano et al., 2017). antioxidant capacity varies considerably from one type of fruit to another. (wuang et al., 2005) and c owor ker s c ondu c t ed a s t u dy in whic h t he antioxidant capacity of 12 fruits and 5 commercial juices was measured by orac assay, resulting in st r a wb er r y ha ving the highes t ao a (1 5. 36 ), followed by plum (9.49), or ange (7. 50), gra pe (7.39), kiwi (6.02) and melon (0.97 µmol et g-1 fresh fruit). (andreu et al., 2018) and coworkers reported high levels of antioxidant capacity in prickly pear fruits of different cultivars for peel and pulp showing higher values than those found in this study in the thr ee met hods. by the abt s technique, t hey reported the lowest aoa value in peel for cultivar na (14.7) and the highest value for cultivar na (14.7 µmol et g-1 dw). in pulp, the lowest value was obtained by cultivar nj (6.4) and the highest value by nt (30 µmol et g-1 dw). by the dpph technique, the lowest aoa va lue in peel wa s obtained by cultivar ne (54.8) and the highest value in cultivar fr (60 µmol et g-1 dw). in pulp, the lowest value was obtained by cultivar no (57.4) and the highest value by nt (60 µmol et g-1 dw). finally, measured by frap, the lowest value of aoa in peel was obtained by cultivar ne (40.2) and the highest value by cultivar na (116 µmol et g-1 dw). in pulp, the lowest value was obtained by cultivar na (15) and the highest value by fr (32 µmol et g-1 dw). this exceeds the r esults found for a ntioxida nt capacity in this study for the three selections, with gonzalez et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 99 the highest values found by the dpph technique for cp3 peel (32.3) and for cp1 pulp by the abts technique (18.3 µmol et g-1 dw). some authors have reported results consistent with this study, finding a higher antioxidant capacity in fruit peel than in the pulp of pomegranate (calín et al., 2013), guava (marquina et al., 2008) and berries (oszmiański  et al., 2016). correlation between tests to determine the linear relationship between the antioxidant capacity methods performed and the phenolic compounds a nd beta la ins, pea r son’s correlation coefficient was ca lculated. ta ble 5 shows high correlations between the three methods and phenolic compounds (phenols and flavonoids). the correlation coefficient between total phenols a nd fla vonoids a nd the aoa mea sur ed by the frap assay was 0.85 and 0.93, respectively. the correlation between total phenols and flavonoids and aoa measured by abts was 0.79 and 0.81 and by dpph was 0.85 and 0.77, respectively. t he c or r ela t ion c oef f ic ient s of b et a la ins (betacyanins and betaxanthins) and aoa by frap wer e lower, wit h va lu es of 0 . 4 1 a nd 0 . 4 8 , respectively, 0.67 and 0.51 by abts and 0.50 and 0.466 by dpph. all t echniqu es used for t he deter mina tion of a nt iox ida n t c a p a c it y ( ao a) s ho wed a high correlation with tp and tf for three evaluated cultiva r s (cp1, cp3 a nd cp 4). t his ma y be because phenolic compounds, known as hydrophilic antioxida nt compounds, ar e the most abundant secondary metabolites in plants (gil et al., 2002). this corresponds with what has been found by other authors such as (thaipong et al., 2006) in guava extracts (r=0.97) using the frap technique a nd by (dudonné et al. , 2009) in pinus ba r k (r=0.96) using the abts technique. in addition, high correlations have been reported between total phenols and antioxidant activity by frap in fruit juices (gardner et al., 2000). kuti also reports similar correlations to those found in this work between t ota l fla vonoids a nd the a ntioxida nt ca pacity of four varieties of prickly pea r with values ranging from 0.76 to 0.88 using the orac technique (kuti, 2000). table 5: pearson correlation matrix frap abts dpph bc 0.415* 0.670** 0.504* bx 0.489* 0.516* 0.466* ft 0.854** 0.798** 0.853** fl 0.938** 0.811** 0.775** *,**= significant ( 0.05 y 0.01 respectively). bc: betacyanins, bx: betaxanthins. tp: total phenols, tf: total flavonoids. frap= total antioxidant capacity determined using cu (iii) complex as oxidant. abts= total antioxidant capacity determined with the 2, 2'-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline6-sulfonic radical (abts•+); dpph= total antioxidant capacity determined with the radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydracil (dpph •). the high correlation shown by both tp and tf, as determined by the three techniques, indicates that both compounds are important contributors to the antioxidant activity of prickly pear fruit. in the case of betalains, low correlations were found with the three techniques, ranging from 0.41 to 0.67: the lowest correlation was by the frap technique and the highest by abts. this may be attributed to the assays used, considering the fact that individual antioxidants may, in some cases, act by multiple mecha nisms depending on the reaction system (fernández et al., 2010). cano and collaborators reported a negative correlation of total betalain content and antioxidant capacity determined by the dpph technique (-0.08) (cano et al., 2017). the body’s defense system is composed of several antioxidant components. supplementation with one or few antioxidants may not be as effective. fruits contain a group of natural antioxidants that could have not only high antioxidant activity, but also a good combination or mixture of antioxidants (wuang et al., 2005). conclusions t he p r es ent s t u dy p r ovides inf o r ma t ion on physicochemical characterization and antioxidant pr oper ties of thr ee selections of pr ickly pea r (opuntia ficus-indica mill) grown at the colegio de postgraduados, mexico. the results show that prickly pear has considerable levels of phenolic compounds that play an important role against oxidation. the highest content of these compounds is found in the peel of the fruit and there are no significant differences between the content in pulp j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 post-harvest quality and anti-oxidant activity in prickly pear 100 and juice. therefore, prickly pear peel has a great potentia l for ob ta ining bioa ctive compou nds, antioxidants. these natural antioxidants can be formulated to give nutraceuticals, which can help prevent oxidative damage from occurring in the body. i n r ela t ion t o qu a lit y a nd p hys ic oc hemic a l characteristics, cp1 (red) and cp4 (orange) were outstanding in aspects of size, weight, gr eater resistance to deformation, higher total soluble solids content, greater quantity of pulp and juice, and smaller seed. all these a spects ma ke the cp1(r ed) a nd cp4(orange) selections interesting materials for both fresh and processed products. further research is needed to find alternatives to take full advantage of the compounds found in all parts of the fruit, as well as to understand the role played by betalains in the antioxidant activity of the fruit. acnowledgment author paulina haydeé gonzalez fierro wishes to a cknowledge the fina ncia l suppor t r eceived from consejo nacional de ciencia y tecnología of mexico (conacyt). references andreu, l., nuncio, j. n., carbonell, b. á., and hernández, f. 2018. antioxidant properties and chemical characterization of spanish opuntia ficus indica mill. cladodes and fruits. j. sci. food agric, 98: 1566-1573. aoac. 1990. official methods of analysis of the association of official analytical chemists. washington, dc: 2 vols. 15th ed. barbera, g., inglese, p., and la mantia, t. 1994. seed content and fruit characteristic in cactus pear (opuntia ficus indica mill. ). scientia horticulturae, 58 (1-2): 161-165. benzie, i. f., & strain, j. j. 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schuster: . williams, b. w., cuvelier, m. e. and berset, c. 1995. use of fr ee r a dica l method to eva lua te antioxidant activity. lebensmittel wissenschaft und technologie, 28:25–30. wuang, h., cao, g. and prior, r. l. 2005. the chemistry behind antioxidant capacity assays. j. agric. food chem., 53: 1841–1856. gonzalez et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 91-102, 2021 (received on 26.05.2021, revised on 20.06.2021, accepted on 28.06.2021) direct nutrient-feeding to ‘ney poovan’ banana (musa sp. ab) bunch under organic or conventional farming for yield, fruit quality and profitability s.c. kotur division of soil science and agricultural chemistry icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, india e-mail: sckotur@gmail.com abstract three types of direct nutrient-feeding methods [applying 500g fresh cow-dung and 100ml water enriched with (i) 2.5g each of urea + sop; (ii) 100ml of panchangavya; and (iii) 100ml of cow urine] were evaluated in ‘ney poovan’ banana grown under organic or conventional farming. plants grown under conventional farming were more robust in girth and length of their pseudostem and number of leaves retained on the plant at harvest. conventional farming produced 62.6% and 59.0% higher fruit and bunch weight than plants grown under organic farming. quality-wise, fruits from organic farming were superior in pulp:peel ratio and pulp total soluble solids (tss). conventional farming significantly increased p, s, fe, mn and zn content of the pulp over organic farming. benefit:cost ratio was significantly higher at 3.61 under conventional farming, while, it was 2.15 under organic farming. all the methods of direct nutrient-feeding of banana bunch tested were significantly superior to ‘control’ where the male bud was retained on the bunch until harvest. increase in fruit and bunch weight was in the following order of blend: urea + sop > panchangavya > cow urine, with fresh cow dung. improvement in pulp:peel ratio and benefit:cost ratio was maximum when direct nutrient-feeding was done using cow-dung blended with urea + sop, while, tss of the pulp declined to 24.0ob from 25.1ob when pancahgavya was used. results indicated that conventional farming with adequate organic manuring, and, adopting direct nutrient-feeding of the banana bunch using cow-dung slurry enriched with 2.5g each of urea and sop, achieved high bunch yield, pulp:peel ratio, and was profitable. key words: bunch size, direct nutrient-feeding, ‘ney poovan’ banana, musa sp. ab, organic farming, conventional farming, fruit quality, benefit:cost ratio introduction development of uniform-sized fingers in a banana bunch is important for meeting market demands. in all varieties of banana, the lower hands invariably develop poorly, reducing the bunch weight, yield and marketability. despite nutrient supplementation through soil/ foliage, the phenomenon persists. direct nutrient-feeding of the bunch has succeeded in overcoming this shortcoming (venkatarayappa et al, 1976; prasanna kumari amma et al, 1986; ancy et al, 1998). however, the technique suffered from blackening and rotting of fruits when fed with urea at >50g (ancy and kurien, 2000), and, was therefore not accepted by growers. however, in ‘robusta’ (musa sp. aaa, kotur and keshava murthy, 2008), and in ‘ney poovan’ banana (kotur and keshava murthy, 2010), this technique was refined using enriched cow-dung slurry. this needed lesser quantity of urea and was augmented with sulphate of potash (sop). currently, the technology is widely accepted across the country. in view of the increasing market-demand for organically grown banana, it is timely to compare direct nutrient-feeding technique in banana raised under organically vis-a vis conventionally grown ‘ney poovan’ banana. material and methods ‘ney poovan’ banana (musa sp. ab) was grown on red sandy-loam (alfisol) in the farm of shri h.y. ramaiah of udarahalli village, ramanagar district, karnataka, india. the soil was maintained organically by repeated greenmanuring with horse gram and sun hemp. tissue culture grown plants of banana were planted at 1.8×1.8m spacing, with each pit receiving 10kg fym and 500g neem cake. panchagvya was prepared by mixing 500g of ghee (clarified butter), 5kg fresh cow-dung and 1kg black gur (jiggery/ molasses) in five litres of water. the blend was j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):44-47, 2015 45 direct nutrient-feeding to banana bunch stirred daily for five days and supplemented with five litres of cow-urine, 2 litres of sour curd, 2 litres of milk and tender coconut water of one nut. the slurry was stirred thrice daily and cured for a month. each plant received 1 litre of dilute panchagavya (1:40 panchagavya:water) applied at fortnightly intervals. the experiment was laid out in splitplot design, with two main treatments: (i) organic farming and (ii) conventional farming. in the latter treatment, n:p:k dose of 110:25:250g/plant was applied (in four equal splits of n and k, and two splits of p, along with 1st and 2nd split applications made at 50,100,150 days after planting, and at shooting). there were four sub-treatments: (i) ‘control’, in which the male bud was retained on the bunch until harvest; (ii) direct feeding of the bunch with nutrients using 500g fresh cow-dung and 100ml cow-urine; (iii) direct feeding of nutrients with 500g fresh cow-dung and 100ml panchagavya; and, (iv) direct feeding of nutrients with 2.5g each of urea (blended with 100ml water) and 500g fresh cow-dung. there were six replications of one plant each, forming a treatment unit. direct nutrient-feeding was done by de-navelling the bunch after 15-20 bracts/spathes dropped off in the male bud, leaving a distal rachis of about 15cm length beneath the youngest hand of the bunch. at the time of harvest (about 100 days after flowering), girth of the pseudostem at the base, height of the pseudostem, and number of green leaves, were recorded as a measure of plant vigour. pulp:peel ratio and total soluble solids in the pulp (tss, determined using a refractometer) were recorded in uniformly edible-ripe fruits. pulp samples drawn at quality-determination were sliced, dried in an oven at 70°c, and powdered for chemical analysis using standard procedures. soil samples were drawn at harvest from the top 22.5cm length and analyzed for chemical properties using standard procedures (table 1). for calculating benefit:cost ratio, all the costs (including fixed and variable costs) were taken into account (which amounted to rs. 72.50/plant under organic farming and rs. 84.50 under conventional farming) in banana. the prevailing wholesale price was rs. 26.25/ kg of fruit. results and discussion yield, fruit quality and profitability conventional farming produced distinctly robust banana plants compared to organic farming. diameter at the base, and height of the pseudostem, as also number of green leaves present at harvest, were higher (22.2 ± 1.52cm; 345.0 ± 28.42cm and 10.8 ± 1.04 leaves, respectively). corresponding values under organic farming were lower: 19.8 ± 0.72cm; 298.0 ± 18.91cm and 7.5 ± 1.16 leaves, respectively. as a result, fruit and bunch weight were significantly higher under conventional farming (by 62.6% fruit weight and 59.0% bunch weight) (table 2). qualitytable 1. composition of soil, cow dung, urine, panchagavya and their contribution in direct nutrient feeding of ‘ney poovan’ banana bunch property* soil properties cow cow panchagavya organic conventional dung urine farming farming moisture (%) 22.0 95.5 82.5 p h 7.32 7.15 5.8 5.7 5.2 organic carbon 0.65 0.45 (%) cation 13.5 12.9 exchange capacity nitrogen 348 215 1.50 3.11 2.51 phosphorus 30 28 0.089 0.076 0.058 potassium 84 86 1.10 0.32 1.20 calcium 3.6 4.06 0.211 0.156 0.194 magnesium 1.12 1.36 0.045 0.076 0.036 sulphur 41 18 0.45 0.83 0.57 iron 15 14 233 68 31 manganese 27 21 56 29 312 zinc 2.0 1.7 0.541 0.029 0.679 copper 1.6 1.4 0.149 0.077 0.141 *properties (unit): soil, ph (1:2.5 soil:water); organic carbon (%); cation exchange capacity (cmol kg-1): available n (mg kg-1); available (bray-1) p (mg kg-1); available k (mg kg-1); exchangeable ca (cmol kg-1); exchangeable mg (cmol kg-1); available s (kg ha-1); dtpa extractable fe, mn,zn and cu (ìg g-1); other materials, moisture (%); ph, whole; n, p, k, ca, mg and s (total, %), fe, mn, zn and cu (total, ìg g-1), on oven dry basis table 2. effect of direct nutrient feeding of bunch on yield and quality in ‘ney poovan’ banana raised under conventional or organic farming treatment fruit bunch pulp:peel tss benefit: weight weight ratio (brix, %) cost (kg) (kg) ratio type of farming organic farming 7.805 8.641 5.54 24.9 2.15 conventional farming 12.694 13.737 4.60 24.5 3.61 sem (±) 0.2057 0.2076 0.099 0.12 0.025 cd (p=0.05) 0.5956 0.6013 0.289 0.34 0.071 type of direct nutrient feeding control 9.200 10.074 4.23 24.8 2.52 cow dung + 10.210 11.140 4.67 24.7 2.91 cow urine cow dung + 10.412 11.347 5.32 25.1 2.98 panchagavya cow dung + 11.179 12.194 6.05 24.0 3.25 urea + sop sem (±) 0.2909 0.2940 0.140 0.17 0.028 cd (p=0.05) 0.8423 0.8503 0.406 0.48 0.080 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):44-47, 2015 46 wise, fruits from organic farming showed significantly superior pulp:peel ratio and pulp tss. benefit:cost ratio of banana cultivation under conventional farming was 3.61, which was significantly and substantially higher due to 62% increase in fruit yield under the former, compared to that in organic farming (2.15). all modes of direct nutrient feeding of the banana bunch tested caused significant increase in fruit yield and bunch weight, in the order of blend: urea + sop > panchagavya > cow-urine with cow-dung. increase observed due to blending cow-urine and panchagavya was at par, just as was blending panchagavya with urea + sop. pulp:peel ratio indicates the relative edible-portion of the banana fruit indicating fruit quality. higher value is preferred in fruits. pulp:peel ratio increased significantly owing to direct nutrient-feeding compared to ‘control’ due to enhanced pulp growth over that of the peel. best improvement in pulp:peel ratio was observed when direct nutrient-feeding was done with cow-dung blended with urea + sop. direct nutrient-feeding with cow-dung enriched with urea + sop reduced tss to 24.0°brix compared to that in the other methods. as for profitability, direct nutrient-feeding increased benefit:cost ratio significantly from 2.52 in ‘control’ to 2.91 and 2.98 under nutrient-feeding with cowdung blended with cow urine or panchagavya, respectively. blending urea + sop with cow-dung, however, showed highest benefit:cost ratio (3.25). nutrient composition of banana pulp conventional farming significantly increased s, fe mn and zn content in the pulp compared to that in organically cultivated banana fruits (table 3). among various methods of direct nutrient-feeding, two contrasting trends were observed. as for n, p, k, ca, mg and s, direct nutrientfeeding increased the content of these nutrients significantly in the pulp compared to that in ‘control’. maximum increase was seen in direct nutrient-feeding with cow-dung enriched with urea + sop. perhaps, n, k, and s contained in the fertilizers, in addition to nutrients inherently present in the cow-dung (as presented in table 1), caused this improvement. as regard micronutrients, the opposite was true, and maximum reduction was observed in the direct nutrient-feeding with urea + sop. this may be attributed to dilution of the nutrients by improved pulp development in fruits under direct nutrient-feeding. substantial response of fruit and bunch yield may be attributed to notable amounts of n, k, s and other mineral nutrients (table 1) present in cow-dung, cow-urine and panchagavya besides other biochemicals. for instance, 500g fresh cow-dung and 100ml cow-urine used in direct nutrient-feeding contained 1.79g n, 1.22g k and 0.54g s. contribution from 100ml panchagavya was 2.08g n, 1.42g k and 0.60g s. inclusion of 2.5g each of urea and sop, however, increased the levels of these nutrients to 2.8, 2.34 and 0.95g, respectively, and resulted in maximum development of fruit and bunch. unorthodox movement of nutrients from the distal stalk-end into the bunch may be attributed to the fact that a developing bunch is a strong sink for nutrients available in the cow-dung slurry acting as a source in source-sink relationships. this was conclusively demonstrated by a significant movement of 15n from the cow-dung slurry to fruits, by kotur and keshava murthy (2008). this was to an extent of 44.1% of applied n in ‘robusta’ and 41.5% in ‘ney poovan’ banana (kotur and keshava murthy, 2010). inclusion of urea in the slurry has been reported to enhance urease activity, which may facilitate hydrolysis of urea to nh3, for easy absorption and table 3. effect of different types of direct nutrient-feeding of bunch on composition of ‘ney poovan’ banana pulp under organic and conventional farming treatment n p k ca mg s fe m n zn cu (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (μg g-1) (μg g-1) (μg g-1) (μg g-1) type of farming organic farming 1.25 0.12 1..27 0.54 0.19 0.04 30.5 7.6 8.6 3.7 conventional farming 1.25 0.11 1.39 0.56 0.18 0.16 102.9 38.2 11.2 3.4 sem (±) 0.045 0.001 0.031 0.010 0.004 0.007 2.47 2.01 0.26 0.12 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.003 0.896 0.030 0.012 0.020 7.14 5.83 0.75 ns type of direct nutrient feeding control 1.19 0.10 1.16 0.29 0.15 0.14 83.3 30.7 12.0 3.2 cow dung + cow urine 1.04 0.11 1.39 0.62 0.19 0.09 81.8 19.8 10.3 3.6 cow dung + panchagavya 1.31 0.11 1.41 0.64 0.19 0.09 74.7 27.4 9.9 3.3 cow dung + urea + sop 1.46 0.12 1.37 0.65 0.21 0.07 27.1 14.0 7.3 4.1 sem (±) 0.185 0.002 0.044 0.015 0.06 0.010 3.49 2.84 0.37 0.17 cd (p=0.05) 0.398 0.005 0.127 0.042 0.016 0.029 10.11 8.24 1.06 0.50 kotur j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):44-47, 2015 47 assimilation of n, thereby enhancing bunch yield (ancy et al, 1998). de-navelling per se saves the plant from unnecessary expense of energy and nutrients when male buds are retained on plants until harvest. direct nutrient feeding through the distal-end after de-navelling adds further to bunch development (singh, 2001). improvement in the composition of fruit pulp with regard to p, k, ca and mg may be attributed to similar translocation of nutrients present in the slurry. decrease in the content of micronutrients in pulp may be due to a dilution caused by an enhanced biomass. soil used for organic farming showed a relatively high ph, organic carbon, available n and s than did soil from conventional farming, while, differences between the rest of the nutrients was negligible (table 1). however, additional nutrients from fertilizer received by the crop in conventional farming led to a significantly higher plant, fruit and bunch growth. supply of nutrients and other biochemicals contained in panchagavya besides maintenance of a good organic regime further facilitated superior crop performance under conventional farming. significance of the variation seen in tss (between 24.0 and 25.1°brix) needs to be studied organoleptically. improved nutrient content in the pulp may have beneficial nutraceutical consequences of relevance in promoting nutritional security of the fruit, in general. results show that it is remunerative to grow high quality ‘ney poovan’ banana under conventional farming by adopting green-manuring, applying adequate amount of farm yard manure and panchagavya, supplemented by fertilizer application and, above all, direct nutrient feeding of banana bunch with 2.5g each of urea and sop blended in fresh cow-dung slurry. for growers practicing organic banana production, direct nutrient-feeding by a blend of panchagavya with cow-dung slurry after de-navelling, is profitable. acknowledgement the author is grateful to director, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, for providing the facilities; shri h.y. ramaiah, progressive farmer of udarahalli village, ramanagar district, for sparing the crop for the trial, and shri n.k. kacker, technical officer, for his technical assistance in this study. references ancy, t.k., kurien, s., augustin, a. and balachandran, p.v. 1998. urease activity in banana fruit. j. pl. nut., 21:2127-2140 ancy, t.k. and kurien, s. 2000. bunch-stalk feeding of urea in banana musa (aab group) ‘nendran’. sci. hort., 84:205-212 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2008. enhancing the fruit yield of ‘robusta’ banana (musa×paradisiaca l.) by de-navelling and feeding nitrogen, potassium and sulphur through the distal-end of the bunch. indian j. agril. sci., 78:109-115 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2010. enhancing fruit yield in ‘ney poovan’ banana (musa paradisiaca l.) by de-navelling and feeding n, k and s through distal stalk-end of the bunch. j. hort. sci., 5:53-56 prasanna kumari amma, s., babylatha, a.k., pushkaran, k. and kurien, t.k. 1986. studies on the effect of removing terminal hands and male bud on the yield and fruit size of banana musa (aab group) ‘palayankodan’. south indian hort., 34:204-209 singh, h.p. 2001. banana. in: handbook of horticulture, chadha, k.l. (ed.) p. 152, indian council of agricultural research, new delhi venkatarayappa, t., narasham, b. and venkatesan, c. 1976. effect of post-shooting application of urea on development and composition of banana fruit. south indian hort., 19:109-117 (ms received 07 december 2013, revised 17 november 2014, accepted 22 november 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):44-47, 2015 direct nutrient-feeding to banana bunch introduction bitter gourd fruits are highly nutritious (gopalan et al, 1982). the tender and immature fruit is a rich source of calcium (20 mg/100 g), phosphorus (55 mg/100 g), iron (1.8 mg/100 g), vitamin a (219 iu/100 g) and vitamin c (88 mg/100 g). the roots, vines, leaves, flowers and seeds of bitter gourd are also used in medicinal preparations (morton, 1967). success in plant breeding depends upon the existence of genetic variability present in the breeding materials. it is proved that larger the variability, greater is the scope for selection and improvement. it is the genotypic variability and more specifically the additive variances, which is most important for a plant breeder as, it determines the genetic gain through selection. before aiming at an improvement in yield, it is necessary to have information on genetic variability and heritability, in respect of important characters associated with yield. therefore, the present study was taken up to obtain information on the range of variability for different important economic traits. material and methods the experiment was conducted at vegetable research farm, deptt. of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute-deemed university, allahabad during the year 2003 and 2004. twenty eight accessions were genetic variability in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) murlee yadav, d. b. singh, rashmi chaudhary and devi singh department of horticulture allahabad agricultural institute-deemed university allahabad, india e-mail: murli_y@yahoo.com abstract the variance analysis for 17 plant characters showed significant differences. maximum vine length was recorded in ic-85635a. significantly higher number of primary branches per vine and internodal length were observed in ic-85639. maximum number of nodes was observed in jmc-4. significantly minimum number of days for first appearance of male flower and maximum fruit length, fruit width, yield per vine, yield per plot, yield/ha were recorded in mc-84. highest number of fruits per vine was recorded in gy-i and minimum powdery mildew infestation was observed in jmc-22. key words : genetic variability, germplasm, bittergourd grown in a randomised block design with three replications at 1 x 1.5 m2 spacing. observations were recorded on five randomly selected plants for vine length (cm), number of primary branches per vine, number of nodes per vine, internodal length (cm), days to first appearance of female flower, days to appearance of male flower, first effective node, length of fruit (cm), width of fruit (cm), weight per fruit (g), number of fruits per vine, number of fruits per plot, yield per plant (kg), and yield per plot (kg), yield (q/ha). the data were analysed statistically. results and discussion significant differences were recorded among the genotypes for all the characters studied (table 1). highest vine length was recorded in ic-85635a followed by mc84, jmc-4, co-1 and minimum in tza 1 . such variation in vine length of bitter gourd have also been reported earlier (ramchandran and gopalkrishnan, 1979; mangal et al, 1981; chaudhary et al, 1967; reddy et al, 1995; yadav et al, 2004), which might be due to the specific genetic constitution, inherent character and vigour of different genotypes. highest number of primary branches per vine was noted in ic-85639 (37.67) followed by mc-84 (32.67), improved jaunpuri (37.67) and s-17 (31.00) whereas, the last number of primary branches per vine was recorded in dvbt-g-5 (10.67). maximum internodal length was j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 35-38, 2008 page 35 36 from sowing to first appearance of female flower is an important character, which helps in the occurrence of early flush of the crop. lower number of nodes was required for the formation of first effective node in vrbt-6-9 (5.33), jmc-22 (6.33), tza (7.00) and higher number of node in co-1 (35.00), ic-85648 (32.33) and ic-85612 (29.67). the first effective node plays an important role in determining the yield of the crop. maximum fruit length was recorded in mc-84 (20.50 cm) followed by jmc-4 (19.33 cm), s-17 (19.00 cm) and minimum in tza 1 and dvbt-g-5 (7.33 cm) and tza (8.33 cm). highest fruit width was found in mc-84 (9.91 cm) followed by ic-85639 (9.83 cm), s-17 (9.42 cm) and lower in ic-85648 (2.33 cm) and ic-85636 (3.08 cm) and ic-85612 (3.83 cm). these observed differences might be due to fruit length, number of fruits per vine and number of effective nodes. highest weight per fruit was found in s-17 (175.00 g), followed by ndbt15 (160.00 g), vrbt-94 (133.33 g), and minimum in tza 1 (28.33 g), tza (33.33 g) and gy-i (42.33 g). the genotype observed in ic-85639 (10.00 cm) followed by bg-11 (9.33 cm), tza (8.33 cm) and vrbt-14 (7.50 cm) and the minimum were recorded in vrbt-6-9 (4.50 cm). highest number of nodes was recorded in jmc-4 (85.33) followed by ic-85639 (84.00) and mc-84 (72.00) and the minimum number of nodes were recorded in dvbt-g-5 (30.33). the number of days recorded for first appearance of male flower was maximum in ic-85612 and pdm (35.00 days), followed by vrbt-14 (34.67 days) jmc-22 (29.33 days) and s-17 (29.67 days) and the least in mc-84 and tza 1 (27.00 days). the number of days taken for first appearance of male flower plays an important role in deciding the earliness of crops and the variation in this character might be due to internodal length, number of nodes and vigour of the crop. the number of days recorded for first appearance of female flower was the maximum in co-1 (42.33 days) followed by pdm (38.67 days), preethi (38.67 days) and minimum days in tza 1 (25.33 days), vrbt-6-9 (29.00 days), jmc22 (29.22 days) and gy-i (30.00 days). the number of days j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 35-38, 2008 murlee yadav et al table 1. performance of bitter gourd germplasm accessions genotype vine no. of no. of internodal length primary nodes length (cm) branches/ (cm) vine ic-85635a 5.65 27.33 60.33 4.67 dvbt-g-5 2.74 10.67 30.33 5.67 vrbt-89 2.59 20.33 42.33 6.00 vrbt-94 3.03 23.67 40.33 6.17 s 17 5.25 31.00 67.67 5.50 mc 84 5.42 32.67 72.00 5.00 ic-85648 4.22 26.33 66.00 6.33 pdm 3.48 35.67 60.33 6.00 vrbt 14 3.85 16.33 52.00 7.50 ic-85612 3.10 15.33 51.67 5.67 ic-85648a 2.62 16.00 40.00 6.67 ic-85636 4.12 22.00 46.33 7.00 mc 56 3.07 19.33 46.00 6.30 co 1 4.95 22.00 62.67 6.00 jmc 4 5.32 23.00 85.33 5.83 tza 3.52 16.33 60.67 5.17 mc 84 (1) 3.75 13.67 33.00 4.63 gy i 2.73 23.00 35.33 6.60 gy ii 2.50 19.00 40.00 5.83 preethi 4.72 20.33 55.33 6.50 jmc 22 3.15 21.00 61.00 5.17 immproved jaunpuri 3.50 31.67 63.67 5.33 ndbt 15 3.32 24.33 42.67 5.50 vrbt 6 9 4.22 24.00 68.00 4.50 jmc 21 3.37 26.00 66.67 6.00 bg 11 1.92 18.00 32.00 9.33 ic-85639 4.78 37.67 84.00 10.00 tza 1 1.12 17.33 20.67 8.33 s. em. ± 0.95 0.71 1.54 0.44 c. d (p=0.05) 1.92 1.43 3.01 0.90 days to first days to first first fruit appearance appearance effective length of male of female node (cm) flower flower 33.00 36.33 11.00 14.33 33.67 36.00 7.33 7.33 33.67 33.33 14.00 14.17 34.33 34.67 11.33 14.17 29.67 33.67 20.67 19.00 27.00 33.33 9.67 20.50 31.67 35.00 16.00 11.00 35.00 38.67 22.33 16.00 34.67 34.33 25.67 15.00 35.00 33.67 29.67 13.67 33.00 36.00 32.33 11.67 34.67 36.33 17.33 14.33 32.67 36.33 15.00 11.00 40.00 42.33 35.00 10.33 34.67 38.67 11.33 19.33 33.00 33.33 7.00 8.33 32.33 32.33 15.67 12.33 0.00 30.00 9.33 11.00 0.00 32.00 10.67 13.00 34.67 38.67 17.33 15.67 29.33 29.33 6.33 10.67 29.67 31.67 10.33 12.67 29.67 35.67 12.00 14.00 30.33 29.00 5.33 14.33 31.00 35.00 8.67 11.00 31.00 33.33 13.00 9.67 31.67 35.33 15.67 16.67 27.00 25.33 9.67 7.33 0.49 1.37 1.10 0.29 0.96 2.60 2.20 0.58 37 gy-i had maximum number of fruits per vine (49.67) followed by tza 1 (25.33), mc-56 (24.00), tza (21.33), mc-84 (20.33) and minimum number of fruits per vine was recorded in co-1 (6.00), ic-85639 (9.00) and ic-85648a (10.33). the variation in number of fruits per vine might be due to fruit set percentage, sex ratio and vine length. the highest number of fruits per plot were recorded in gyi (170.67) followed by tza 1 (107.33), mc-56 (96.00), tza (85.33) and mc-84 (84.33) and significantly less number of fruits per plot were noted in ic-85635a (20.00), co-1 (24.00) and ic-85639 (36.00). maximum yield per vine was recorded in mc-84 (2.68 kg) followed by s-17 (2.21 kg), vrbt-6-4 (1.95 kg) and ndbt-15 (1.89 kg). the yield per vine was lower in co-1 (0.57 kg), tza (0.71 kg), tza 1 (0.72 kg) and dvbt-g-5 (0.74 kg). the significant variation in yield per vine might be due to fruit set percentage, sexratio, fruit length, number of fruits per vine, fruit weight and fruit width. these findings were supported by shrivastava and shrivastava (1976), singh et al (1977), ramchandran and gopal krishnan (1979), indiresh (1982) table 1. (contd.) performance of bitter gourd germplasm accessions genotypes fruit fruit no. of no. of yield / width weight fruits/ fruits / vine (cm) (g) vine plot (kg) ic-85635a 7.14 80.00 11.00 20.00 0.88 dvbt-g-5 6.97 47.67 15.33 61.33 0.74 vrbt-89 6.83 95.00 15.00 53.33 1.45 vrbt-94 7.17 133.33 14.33 50.67 1.86 s – 17 9.42 175.00 12.67 50.67 2.21 mc 84 9.91 130.00 20.33 81.33 2.68 ic-85648 6.17 80.00 15.67 58.67 1.25 pdm 2.33 101.60 11.00 44.00 1.12 vrbt 14 5.33 60.00 15.33 48.00 0.92 ic-85612 3.83 80.67 11.67 42.67 0.95 ic-85648a 6.93 85.00 10.33 41.33 0.88 ic-85636 3.08 98.33 11.33 42.67 1.11 mc 56 5.67 58.33 24.00 96.00 1.39 co – 1 5.50 93.33 6.00 24.00 0.57 jmc 4 6.67 80.00 14.67 49.33 1.17 tza 5.58 33.33 21.33 85.33 0.71 mc 84 (1) 7.18 78.33 13.67 54.67 1.07 gy – i 5.50 42.33 42.67 170.67 1.81 gy – ii 6.50 46.67 17.67 70.67 0.82 preethi 4.83 118.33 11.00 48.00 1.30 jmc 22 6.17 120.00 14.33 57.33 1.70 immproved jaunpuri 6.67 98.33 13.67 54.67 1.34 ndbt 15 7.33 160.00 12.00 48.00 1.89 vrbt 6 9 6.17 90.00 19.00 76.33 1.70 jmc 21 6.67 126.67 15.33 61.00 1.95 bg – 11 7.33 130.00 11.00 44.00 1.43 ic-85639 9.83 133.33 9.00 36.00 1.28 tza 1 5.67 28.33 25.33 101.33 0.72 s. em. ± 13.29 1.90 1.50 1.50 2.63 c. d (p=0.05) 26.49 3.90 3.10 3.30 5.21 and yadav et al(2004) in bitter gourd and kadam and kale (1987) in ridge gourd. maximum yield per plot was recorded in mc-84 (10.73 kg) followed by s-17 (8.33 kg), jmc-21 (7.80 kg) and ndbt-15 (7.33 kg). significantly lower yield per plot was recorded in co-1 (2.28 kg), tza (2.84 kg) and tza 1 (2.88 kg). the variation in yield per plot might be due to variation in yield per plant, number of fruits per vine, fruit length, fruit width, fruit weight and fruit set percentage. singh et al (1977), parhi et al (1993), thakur et al (1994), and yadav et al (2004) also reported similar findings for yield per plot in bitter gourd. maximum yield was recorded in mc-84 (178.89 q/ha) followed by s-17 (117.11 q/ha), jmc-21 (130.00 q/ha) and ndbt-15 (125.78 q/ha). significantly lower yield was recorded in co-1 (38 q/ha), taz (47.33 q/ha) and tza 1 (47.56 q/ha). maximum vitamin c was found in ic-85648a (170 mg/100 g) followed by vrbt-14 (120 mg/100 g), vrbt-6-9 (99 mg/100 g) and vrbt-94 (95.33 mg/100 g). minimum vitamin c was found in taz (44.67 mg/100 g) s-17 (49.33 mg/100 g) and vrbt-89 (60.67 mg/100 g). lower powdery mildew yield/ yield vitamin c powdery plot (kg) (q/ha) (mg/100 g) mildew infestation (%) 3.51 59.45 78.67 16.33 2.98 49.67 107.67 27.33 5.81 96.89 60.67 12.00 7.45 124.22 95.33 42.67 8.83 147.11 49.33 26.67 10.73 178.89 85.00 33.00 4.99 83.11 84.67 28.67 4.47 74.44 91.00 47.00 3.68 61.33 120.00 12.33 3.79 63.11 87.33 24.33 3.52 58.67 170.00 45.00 4.45 74.22 80.00 33.00 5.57 92.89 86.00 22.67 2.28 38.00 71.67 48.33 4.69 78.22 119.00 46.33 2.84 78.33 44.67 67.33 4.27 71.11 82.67 31.00 7.24 119.00 87.67 45.67 3.29 54.67 90.62 46.33 5.20 87.33 70.00 32.67 6.79 113.11 90.33 9.00 5.37 89.55 90.00 40.00 7.55 125.78 80.33 41.00 6.81 113.56 99.00 12.67 7.80 130.00 81.00 46.33 5.73 95.55 87.67 41.67 5.13 85.55 89.33 38.67 2.88 47.56 79.33 27.67 12.52 1.10 0.75 1.89 25.80 2.20 1.50 3.79 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 35-38, 2008 genetic variability in bitter gourd 38 infestation percentage was recorded in jmc-22, vrbt-89, vrbt-6-9, ic-85635a, mc-56, ic-85612, jmc-4, s-17 and maximum infestation was recorded in co-1 showing that jmc-22 was least susceptible and co-1 was most susceptible to powdery mildew infestation. similar results were reported by akram and khan (1971), khan and khan (1992). acknowledgement the authors are highly thankful to head, department of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute-deemed university, allahabad for providing the facilities of research work. references akram, m. and khan, a. m. 1977. studies on the cucurbit powdery mildews varietal screening of some cultivated cucurbits to sphaerotheca fuliginea. ind. phytopath., 30:121 – 123. arnon 1985. crop production manual, tnau, coimbatore. blatter, e., caius, j. f. and mahaskar, k. s. 1935. indian medicinal plants. 2nd edn. m/s. bishan singh, dehradun, 1130 – 1132. chaudhary, b. 1967. vegetable, 2nd ed. national book trust, india, new delhi, pp. 152-154. chaudhary, m. l. and mandal, g. 1987. correlation and path analysis in cucumber (cucumis sativus l.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 16: 269-273. gopalan, c., ramashastri, b. v. and balasubramanian, s. c. 1982. nutritive value of indian foods. i. c. m. r., hyderabad p 328. indiresh, b. t. 1982. studies on genotypic and phenotypic variability in bitter gourd. univ. agril. sci, bangalore. thesis abstracts. 8: 52. kadam, p. y. and kale, p. n. 1987. genetic variability in ridge gourd. j. maharashtra agri. univ., 12: 242-243. khan, a. u. and khan, a. m. 1992. incidence and severity of cucurbit powdery mildew in uttar pradesh. ind. phytopath., 45 : 190 – 193. mangal, j. l.; dixit, j. and sidhu, a. s. 1981. genetic variability and correlation studies in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). ind. j. hortl. sci., 38 : 94 – 99. morton, j.f. 1967. the balsam pear-an edible medicinal and toxic plant. eco. bot., 212: 57-68. parhi g., mishra, h. n. and thipathy, p. 1993. genetic divergence in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). south ind. hortl, 41: 344-349. ramchandran, c. and gopalakrishnan, p.k. 1979. correlation and regression studies in bitter gourd. ind. j. agril. sci., 49:850-854. reddy, b.s.; thammaiah, n; patil, r. v. and nandihalli, b. s. 1995. studies on the performance of bitter gourd genotype. adv. agril. res. india, 4: 103-108. shrivastava, v. k. and srivastava, l. c. 1976. genetic parameter, correlation coefficient and path coefficient analysis in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). ind. j. hort., 33: 66-70. singh, h. n. srivastava, j. p. and prasad, r.1977. genetic variability and correlation studies in bitter gourd. ind. j. agril. sci., 47: 406-407. sreejayan and rao, m. n. a. 1991. oxygen free radical scavenging activity of m. charantia fruits. fitoterpeda, 62 : 344 – 346. thakur, j. c., khattra, a. s. and brar, k. s. 1994. genetic variability and heritability for quantitative traits and fruit fly infestation in bitter gourd. j. res. punjab agri. univ., 31: 161-166. yadav, m., chaudhary, r., chandra, a. and mehta, a. k. 2004. genetic variability of different genotypes of bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). the allahabad farmer, 2: 70-76. (ms received 28 september 2007, revised 5 february 2008) j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 35-38, 2008 murlee yadav et al editor’s exordium giant strides to reach the memorable issue “nanos gigantum humeris insidentes” (“standing on the shoulders of giants” ) (tribe of gypsies album) “what descartes did was a good step. you have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. if i have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants (sir isaac newton, 1675).” this current issue is the 25th issue. this marks the silver jubilee celebrations in terms of the remarkable sojourn undertaken by the journal. much about it in the closing remarks! in these current tumultuous days of resource crunch, maintaining and enhancing fruit crop productivity while managing the resources sustainably calls for innovative and out-of-box technological considerations. ganeshmurthy et al. have, therefore, exhaustively reviewed various such considerations. in this line, laishram and ghosh have studied nutrient management in jackfruit under rainfed conditions. thangamani et al. have screened wild and cultivated cucurbits against infestations by root knot nematodes to identify potential resistance lines for using as rootstocks for grafting. in the related aspect, sridhar and senthil kumaran have devised a simple light-trap based technique in the management of the newest indian pest guest, tuta absoluta, on tomato. sathappan has studied chemical (growth regulator-mediated) and physical brute force (pinching) methods of altering plant habit in african marigold (tagetes erecta) for improving growth and flower yield. naik et al. have similarly studied effects of pre-harvest foliar spray of growth regulators on preand post-harvest parameters in ornamental sunflower. they have also evaluated ornamental sunflower for value addition, while kavitha et al. have assessed several chilli varieties for higher productivity. in the same breath, ali et al. have continued their studies on feasibility of quality seed potato production technology advantageous to small and marginal farmers. shilpa et al. have studied the influence of bioinoculants and different levels of benzyladenine on the morphophysiological characters of dendrobium var. yellow splash. shikhamany et al. have systematically investigated the methods to increase the efficacy of gibberellic acid sprays towards cluster elongation and berry thinning in tas-aganesh variety of grapes under tropical conditions. going further, rameshkumar has attempted to standardize plants and growing media towards the current urban horticultural concept of vertical garden system. singh et al. report factors that majorly influence the much needed vegetative propagation in walnut. two papers on molecular methods appear in this issue. vidya et al. have undertaken genomewide analysis of heat responsive micrornas in banana during the typical acquired thermo tolerance trait expression while girija et al. attempted to characterize the ever-discombobulating endophytic bacteria, specially associated with phalaenopsis roots, through the use of typical 16s rrna gene-based taxonomic profiling. work by dinesh et al. focuses on the description of a unique mango accession. i j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : i-ii, 2018 there are visible changes in the composition of the journal editorial boards and additions of newer sections including success stories, this time. the journal will consider publishing outstanding new varieties and technologies of sister icar institutes and saus, in the field of horticulture. icar-iihr is conducting a national horticultural fair, during 23-25 january 2019, under the auspices of the society for promotion of horticulture, as depicted in the outer back cover page. the journal heartily invites its readers to this fair. in commemorating the publication of this 25th issue, the editorial board and the society for promotion of horticulture, recognize the selfless services rendered by many giants. in continuation of the opening quotes, we are only dwarfs standing astride on these giants; we see a little more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have a keener vision or a greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic structure, in this pursuit of publication excellence! the cover page of this issue is, therefore, dedicated to represent, symbolically, these silver jubilee celebrations. grand merci and ciao in the fair, 2019! vageeshbabu s. hanur editor in chief journal of horticultural sciences ii j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : i-ii, 2018 introduction cherry tomato (solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) is a botanical variety of the cultivated tomato. it is thought to be the ancestor of all the cultivated tomatoes. it is marketed at a premium price compared to the regular tomatoes. cherry tomatoes are widely cultivated in central america and are distributed in california, korea, germany, mexico and florida. it is a warm-season crop, reasonably tolerant to heat and drought, and grows under a wide range of soil and climatic conditions (anon, 2009a). cherry tomato is grown for its edible fruits which are ideal for making processed products like sauce, soup, ketchup, puree, curry, paste, powder, rasam and sandwich. these also have good nutritional and antioxidant properties. the size of cherry tomatoes ranges from thumb-tip to the size of a golf ball, and, can range from being spherical to slightly oblong in shape (anon, 2009b). hybrid vigour in cherry tomato has not been exploited fully. little attention has been paid by plant researchers on the performance for yield and yieldcomponents in the hybrids of cherry tomato. therefore, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the bestperforming parents and their f1 hybrids in cherry tomato. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):79-82, 2015 evaluation of f1 hybrids and their parents for growth, yield and quality in cherry tomato (solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) renuka muttappanavar1, a.t. sadashiva, t.h. singh* and k.m. indiresh2 division of vegetable crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india *e-mail: thsingh@iihr.ernet.in abstract the present study was carried out to estimate the performance of f1 hybrids and their parents for various yield and yield-attributing traits in cherry tomato, at division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bengaluru, during the year 2010-11. among the seven parents used, three parents, namely, iihr-2866 (yielding 3.03kg/plant), iihr-2864 (2.87kg/plant) and iihr-2865 (2.73kg/plant) were found to be high-yielding. among the 21 f1 hybrids evaluated, three hybrids, namely, iihr-2754 x iihr-2860 (4.27kg/plant), followed by iihr2754 x iihr-2865 (3.97kg/plant) and iihr-2864 x iihr-2865 (3.40kg/plant) recorded higher yield than the check varieties, whereas, three hybrids, viz, iihr-2754 x iihr-2865 (54.38t/ha), succeeded by iihr-2863 x iihr-2866 (46.46t/ha) and iihr-2858 x iihr-2866 (44.79t/ha), recorded higher estimated yield per hectare than the check varieties. hybrid iihr-2754 x iihr-2860 was found promising for most of the traits studied. the best performing parents can be used for breeding further while, the hybrids can be exploited commercially. key words: cherry tomato, high yield, hybrids, parents, breeding material and methods the present study was undertaken at division of vegetable crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), hesarghatta, bengaluru. the experimental field is located at an altitude of 890 meters above msl, at 13038’ n latitude and 780e longitude. the parents and the hybrids were evaluated during july 2011 may 2012. the experimental material consisted of seven parents, viz, iihr-2754 (p1), iihr-2858 (p2), iihr-2860 (p3), iihr-2863 (p4), iihr-2864 (p5), iihr-2865 (p6) and iihr-2866 (p7), three check varieties, viz, iihr-2871 (c1), iihr-2876 (c2) and arka ashish (c3), and 21 f1 hybrids developed through half-diallele mating design, during kharif 2011. spacing between plants was 60cm, while, between rows it was 45cm. all the twenty one hybrids, along with their corresponding parents, were evaluated in randomized block design in three replications, during the summer of 2012. observations on five randomly-selected plants were recorded for various yield-attributing traits to estimate performance of the parents and hybrids. 1m.sc. student, university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, gkvk, campus, bengaluru, india; 2dean, college of horticulture, tandavapura, nanjangud taluk, mysuru -571302, india 80 results and discussion per se performance of parental lines, check varieties and hybrids (table 1) and the three best-performing parents, and hybrids, for various growth, yield and quality parameters are presented in table 2. genotypes differed significantly in plant height which ranged from 98cm (p2) to 140cm (p6) among parents (table 1), from 57.67cm (c3) to 131.33cm (c1) among check varieties, and from 89cm (p2 xp4) to 165.67cm (p1 x p6) among hybrids (table 1). number of primary branches per plant ranged from 3 (p2 and p3 ) to 3.67 (p1 and p5) among parents, from 3 (c2) to 4.33 (c3) among check varieties, and from 3 (p1 x p7) to 3.67 (p1 x p2) among hybrids (table 1). number of secondary branches ranged from 8 (p5) to 11 (p1) among parents, from 6 (c2) to 9 (c1) among check varieties, and from 6 (p5 x p6) to 11.33 (p1 x p5) among hybrids (table 1). a higher number of branches may have resulted in production of more number of leaves and greater size of the leaf. total number of leaves on a plant could perhaps decide the efficiency of photosynthesis, thereby resulting in better growth and yield. these results are in confirmity with deepa and thakur (2008) and arun et al (2004). a significant difference was seen in the number of inflorescences per plant, ranging from 35 (p3) to 48 (p1) among parents, from 25 (c3) to 35.33 (c1) among check varieties, and from 37 (p3 x p5) to 63.33 (p2 x p3) among hybrids (table 1). parents used in the experiment differed table 1. mean performance of parents, f1 hybrids and check varieties for growth, yield and quality traits in cherry tomato sl. parent/ plant no. of no. of no. of average no. of no. of no. of yield/ yield/ no. of fruit pericarp no. f1 height primary secondary inflorefruit fruits/ fruits/ fruits/ plant ha (t) locules/ firmness thickness hybrid / (cm) branches branches scences weight kg cluster plant (kg) fruit (kg/mm2) (mm) check (g) variety parent 1 p1 130.67 3.67 11.00 48.00 10.36 96.67 10.33 498.67 2.20 21.46 2.33 4.40 2.20 2 p2 98.00 3.00 9.00 38.67 14.11 71.00 9.67 374.33 2.50 24.79 3.00 5.00 2.43 3 p3 115.67 3.00 9.33 35.00 14.66 68.33 9.33 326.33 2.20 27.92 2.33 4.20 3.87 4 p4 109.00 3.00 8.67 36.00 12.46 80.33 8.67 312.67 2.57 20.83 2.67 4.53 2.43 5 p5 131.00 3.67 8.00 38.33 31.05 32.33 7.00 269.33 2.87 33.33 2.33 7.20 4.80 6 p6 140.00 3.33 12.67 38.33 13.77 72.67 8.33 318.33 2.73 29.79 3.67 5.00 2.23 7 p7 127.67 3.33 9.67 38.00 13.41 74.67 8.33 316.00 3.03 30 2.33 4.57 4.03 f1 hybrid 1 p1 x p2 117.33 3.67 9.33 44.33 12.83 78.00 9.33 416.67 3.20 38.96 2.67 4.60 2.40 2 p1 x p3 144.67 3.67 10.33 44.67 19.15 52.33 8.00 357.33 4.27 26.46 2.67 3.33 3.10 3 p1 x p4 154.00 3.67 8.67 56.33 16.68 60.00 7.33 414.67 2.70 32.92 2.00 8.20 3.13 4 p1 x p5 140.00 3.33 11.33 38.00 15.90 63.00 6.67 253.33 3.07 44.38 2.67 7.00 4.00 5 p1 x p6 165.67 3.33 9.33 42.33 16.59 60.33 8.33 352.00 3.97 40.63 2.67 6.00 3.20 6 p1 x p7 139.33 3.00 9.67 46.67 13.98 71.67 8.33 391.67 3.33 54.38 2.33 4.40 3.13 7 p2 x p3 115.67 3.00 9.33 63.33 15.41 65.00 9.00 570.00 3.27 32.5 2.00 5.00 3.17 8 p2 x p4 89.00 3.00 8.33 38.67 15.56 64.33 8.33 323.33 2.50 35.83 2.33 5.20 4.00 9 p2 x p5 149.33 3.33 7.67 40.33 20.02 50.00 6.33 256.00 3.37 39.17 2.00 7.20 6.00 10 p2 x p6 144.33 3.00 8.33 44.67 16.68 60.00 8.33 371.00 2.60 32.5 2.33 6.80 4.07 11 p2 x p7 149.00 3.00 8.00 42.67 18.10 55.33 8.33 357.33 3.03 44.79 2.33 7.17 4.20 12 p3 x p4 105.00 3.00 9.33 42.67 18.44 54.33 8.33 355.33 2.57 35.83 2.33 7.27 3.13 13 p3 x p5 141.67 3.67 7.67 37.00 23.68 42.33 6.00 222.00 3.03 42.71 2.33 9.53 5.00 14 p3 x p6 142.33 3.67 11.00 39.33 17.98 55.67 7.33 288.00 3.30 43.75 2.67 6.00 3.20 15 p3 x p7 152.00 3.00 8.67 38.00 15.32 65.33 7.00 266.67 2.93 36.25 2.33 7.80 4.10 16 p4 x p5 156.00 3.00 9.67 50.33 19.76 50.67 6.33 318.67 3.13 37.29 2.00 6.13 3.97 17 p4 x p6 148.67 3.00 7.67 45.00 16.68 60.00 8.00 360.00 3.20 36.88 2.67 4.80 3.20 18 p4 x p7 144.00 3.00 6.67 44.00 16.43 61.00 8.33 366.00 3.00 46.46 2.33 7.97 3.93 19 p5 x p6 127.67 3.00 6.00 40.33 15.24 65.67 6.67 268.33 3.40 38.33 3.00 5.97 4.07 20 p5 x p7 131.67 3.00 7.33 42.33 18.10 55.33 7.67 325.33 3.07 36.04 2.67 6.20 4.20 21 p6 x p7 140.33 3.00 10.00 38.33 14.79 67.67 8.33 319.33 2.90 39.38 3.33 8.00 3.20 check 1 c1 131.33 3.67 9.00 35.33 17.68 56.67 8.00 282.66 2.10 23.12 2.00 5.80 3.00 2 c2 118.00 3.00 6.00 34.33 16.69 60.00 7.33 252.00 1.93 33.54 2.33 5.80 2.80 3 c3 57.67 4.33 6.33 25.00 91.41 11.00 4.67 117.67 3.10 21.46 3.33 8.20 7.40 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):79-82, 2015 renuka muttappanavar et al 81 significantly among themselves for average fruit-weight which ranged from 10.33g (p1) to 31.05g (p5). fruit weight ranged from 16.69g (c2) to 91.41g (c3) among check varieties, and from 12.83g (p1 x p2) to 23.68 (p3 x p5) among hybrids (table 1). average fruit weight contributed directly towards fruit yield per plant. this is in agreement with the findings of deepa and thakur (2008) and shivakumar (2000). the genotypes under study differed significantly among themselves for number of fruits per kg which ranged from 32.33 (p5) to 96.67 (p1) among parents, from 11 (c3) to 60 (c2) among check varieties, and from 42.33 (p3 x p5) to 70 (p1 x p2) among hybrids (table 1). number of fruits per cluster ranged from 7 (p5) to 10.33 (p1) among parents, from 4.67 (c3) to 8 (c1) among check varieties, and from 6.33 (p2 x p5 and p4 x p5) to 9.33 (p1 x p2) among hybrids (table 1). the genotypes differed significantly among themselves for number of fruits per plant which ranged from 269.33 (p5) to 498.67 (p1) among parents, from 117.67 (c3) to 282.66 (c1) among check varieties, and from 222 (p3 x p5) to 570 (p2 x p3) among hybrids (table 1). increased fruit-set observed may be due to a higher rate of anther dehiscence and better pollen viability. similar results were reported earlier by shivanand (2008). any deviation in results with the findings of others could be attributed to differences table 2. three best-performing parents (lines and check varieties) and hybrids in cherry tomato for growth, yield and quality traits trait parent (lines and check variety) f1 hybrid i ii iii i ii iii plant height p6 (140) c1(131.33) p5(131.00) p1 x p6 (165.67) p4 x p5 (156.00) p1 x p4 (154.00) (cm) no. of primary c3(4.33) p1,p5 and c1(3.67) p2, p3 and p4 (3.00) p1 xp2 (3.67) p1 x p5 (3.33) p1 x p7 (3.00) branches no. of secondary p6(12.67) p1 (11.00) p7 (9.67) p1 x p5 (11.33) p3 x p6 (11.00) p3 x p6 (10.33) branches no. of p1 (48) p2(38.67) p5 and p6(38.33) p2 x p3 (63.33) p1 xp4(56.33) p4 x p5 (50.33) inflorescences average fruit c3 (91.41) p5 (31.05) c1 (17.68) p3 x p5 (23.68) p2 x p5 (20.02) p4 x p5 (19.76) weight (g) no. of fruits/ kg p1 (96.67) p4 (80.33) p7(74.67) p1 x p2 (78.00) p1 x p7 (71.67) p5 x p6 (65.67) no. of fruits/ p1 (10.33) p2 (9.67) p3 (9.33) p1 x p2 (9.33) p2 x p3 (9.00) p1 xp6 (8.33) cluster no. of fruits/ p1 (498.67) p2 (374.33) p3 (326.33) p2 x p3 (570) p1 x p2 (416.67) p1 x p4 (414.67) plant yield/ plant (kg) c3 (3.10) p7 (3.03) p5 (2.87) p1 x p3 (4.27) p1 x p6 (3.97) p5 x p6 (3.40) yield/ ha (t) c2 (33.54) p5 (33.33) p7 (30.00) p1 x p7 (54.38) p4 x p7 (46.46) p2 x p7 (44.79) no. of locules/ p6 (3.67) c3 (3.33) p2 (3.00) p6 x p7 (3.33) p5 xp6 (3.00) p1 xp2 and p1 x p3 (2.67) fruit fruit firmness c3 (8.20) p5 (7.20) c1 and c2 (5.80) p3 x p5 (9.53) p1 x p4 (8.20) p6 x p7 (8.00) (kg/mm2) pericarp thickness c3 (7.40) p5 (4.80) p7 (4.03) p2 xp5 (6.00) p3 x p5 (5.00) p2 xp7, p5 x p7 (4.20) (mm) in genotypes under study, environmental conditions and stage of fruit harvest. as for yield per plant, genotypes differed significantly, ranging from 2.20kg (p1 and p3) to 3.03kg (p7) among parents, from 1.93kg (c2) to 3.10kg (c3) among check varieties, and from 2.50kg (p2 x p4) to 4.27kg (p1 x p3) among hybrids (table 1). genotypes differed significantly among themselves for estimated yield which ranged from 20.83 tonnes per hectare (p4) to 33.33 tonnes per hectare (p5) among parents, from 21.46 tonnes per hectare (c3) to 33.54 tonnes per hectare (c1) among check varieties, and from 26.46 tonnes per hectare (p1 x p3) to 54.38 tonnes per hectare (p1 x p7) among hybrids (table 1). hybrid p1 x p7 showed highest yield per plant and estimated yield per hectare. these results are in consonance with findings of madalageri and dharmatti (1991). genotypes differed significantly among themselves in number of locules per fruit which ranged from 2.33 (p1, p3, p5 and p7) to 3.67 (p6) among parents, from 2(c1) to 3.33(c3) among check varieties, and from 2.00 (p1 x p4, p2 x p3, p2 x p5 and p4 x p5) to 3.33 (p6 x p7) among hybrids (table 1). variation in fruit firmness depends upon stage of harvest, and at mature stage this ranged from 4.20 kg/mm2 (p3) to 7.20 kg/mm 2 (p5) among parents, from 5.8kg/mm 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):79-82, 2015 evaluation of cherry tomato f1 hybrids and their parents 82 (c1 and c2) to 8.20kg/mm 2 (c3) among check varieties, and from 3.33kg/mm2 (p1 x p3) to 9.53 kg/mm 2 (p3 x p5) among hybrids (table 1). thus, hybrid p3 x p5 may be best suited for long-distance transport and for processing. genotypes differed significantly among themselves for pericarp thickness (mm) which ranged from 2.20mm (p1) to 4.80mm (p5) among parents, from 2.80mm (c2) to 7.40mm (c3) among check varieties, and from 2.40mm to (p1 x p2) to 6.00 (p2 x p5) among hybrids (table 1). these results are similar to the findings of thakur et al (2005), hazarika and phookan (2005) and shivakumar (2000). fruit firmness and pericarp thickness are important fruit-quality parameters. the three best overall performing parents (lines and check varieties) and hybrids are presented in table 2 for different traits studied in cherry tomato. in this study, parents iihr-2866, iihr-2864 and iihr-2865 performed well for various traits under study. as such, these could be exploited further in various breeding programmes. promising hybrids, iihr-2754 x iihr-2866 (p1 x p7) and iihr-2754 x iihr-2860 (p1 x p3), can be subjected further to selection for isolating desirable genotypes in cherry tomato. references anonymous. 2009a. botanical classification of cherry tomato. http://www.lose-weight-with-us.com/cherrytomato-nutrition.html anonymous. 2009b. cherry tomato nutritional information. usda national nutritional database for standard reference. http://www.lose-weight-with-us.com/ cherry-tomato-nutrition.html arun, j., amit, v. and thakur, m.c. 2004. studies on genetic variability, correlation and path analysis for yield and physico-chemical traits in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). prog. hort., 36:51-58 deepa, s. and thakur, m.c. 2008. evaluation of diallele progenies for yield and its contributing traits in tomato under mid-hill conditions. indian j. hort., 65:297301 hazarika, t.k. and phookan, d.b. 2005. performance of tomato cultivars for polyhouse cultivation during spring-summer in assam. indian j. hort., 62:268271 madalageri, b.b. and dharmatti, p.r. 1991. a new tomato cv. l-15 for north karnataka. j. agril. sci., 4:150-153 shivakumar, k.c. 2000. evaluation of tomato hybrids for growth, yield and quality parameters under bengaluru condition. m.sc. thesis, uas, gkvk, bengaluru, india shivanand, v.h. 2008. evaluation of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) hybrids under eastern dry zone of karnataka, m.sc. thesis, uas, gkvk, bengaluru, india thakur, a.k. and. kohli, u.k. 2005. studies on genetics of shelf-life in tomato. indian j. hort., 62:163-167 (ms received 17 august 2013, revised 02 january 2015, accepted 28 january 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):79-82, 2015 renuka muttappanavar et al guava (psidium guajava l.) is known as the apple of the tropics and is grown throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of india. it is a rich source of vitamin c and minerals, viz., calcium, phosphorus and iron, necessary for human health. the guava fruit, and its juice, is popularly consumed for its great taste, nutritional benefits and nutrient content. clarified guava juice is more acceptable and is used in the manufacture of clear guava-nectar or jelly, guava powder, or mixed-fruit juice blend. however, extraction of juice from guava is difficult and protracted owing to the gritty texture of its pulp and its pectineous nature. enzymeassisted processing with pectinolytic enzymes is an effective approach for degrading the pectinaceous material, to yield a free-flowing juice. several researchers have reported recently that pectinase and cellulase enzyme treatments can significantly enhance recovery of phenolics and improve its functional properties (collin et al, 1998). black carrot has been in the focus as a source of natural food colorants (collins et al, 1998), and high content of its anthocyanin pigments is being used for blending it with guava juice. considering the enormous potential of guava as a source of phenolics, the objective of the current study was to study the effect of enzyme-assisted processing and blending of guava rts with black-carrot juice, and to evaluate its functionality for imparting color appeal and antioxidant activity. the present study was carried out for preparation of short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):112-115, 2015 antioxidant composition of guava (psidium guajava l.) beverage blended with black-carrot juice v.s. khandare, d.p. waskar, b.m. kalalbandi and s.m. panpatil department of horticulture vasantrao naik marathwada agriculture university parbhani413 402, india e-mail: khandarevs@rediffmail.com abstract an investigation was undertaken to study guava beverage blended with black-carrot juice, during 2011-2012. enzyme-assisted processing of guava significantly improved the juice yield, total soluble solids, titratable acidity ph, ascorbic acid and sugars by using pectinase enzyme. the blending of guava beverage with black carrot juice significantly improved the functional properties of the guava rts. anthocyanin and ascorbic contents of blended guava rts with black-carrot juice decreased with advancement of storage condition and period. key words: guava, enzyme-assisted processing, functional quality, black carrot clarified guava juice using pectianase enzyme, and to utilize it for preparation of guava rts (ready-to-serve juice) blended with black-carrot juice. fully mature, ripe guava fruits (cv. l-49) free from blemishes and mechanical injury were procured from the local market. the location of the study was department of horticulture, vasantrao naik marathwada krishi vidyapeeth, parbhani. fruits of guava were washed thoroughly in tap water and cut into thin slices using a stainless-steel knife, and subjected to hot-breaking at 80oc for 20 min, for softening the fruit pieces. these were subsequently passed through a laboratory-scale pulper for extracting a homogeneous pulp without seeds. pulp samples were weighed out in 500ml glass bottles and the enzyme preparation (pectinase ec 3.2.1.1 from aspergillus niger, 1 u/mg from aspergillus sp.) was added at four concentrations: 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2% e/s. control (straightpressed) pulp samples were incubated without the enzyme under the same conditions. for each concentration, 500ml of the pulp was taken in three replicates for analysis. the bottles were capped and incubated at 50 oc in a thermostatically controlled water-bath for 1 hour. the pulp was then pressed using a hydraulic press with a nylon filterbag to extract the juice. the filtrate was centrifuged at 5000rpm for 10 min to obtain the clarified juice (whose yield was determined by weighing the juice extracted, subsequently heat-processing it at 90oc for 1 min, and packing it in clean, sterilized glass-bottles finally upturned 113 antioxidant composition of guava beverage blended with black-carrot juice and sealed). the clarified juice was then used for preparation of guava rts by adding sugar and water. the rts was standardized by conducting preliminary trials with the juice; tss, acidity and more combinations were used for preparing the rts beverage. rts was blended with black-carrot juice at 5%, 10%, 15% or 20% concentrations. the blended rts was heated at 90oc for 1 min, and packed in clean and sterilized bottles, upturned, sealed and stored under ambient conditions or at 7oc for use in analysis. anthocyanin content was determined by ph differential method (spectrophotometeric method) described by (wrolstad et al, 2005). each experimental unit was replicated thrice. data were subjected to analysis of variance, using completely randomized design. physico-chemical composition of guava fruit and pulp data presented in table 1 reveal fresh guava fruit as recording 10% tss, 4.1 ph, 0.54% titrable acidity, 200.5 mg/100g ascorbic acid, 10.6% total sugars, 6.23% reducing sugars, and 4.37% non-reducing sugars; whereas, guava pulp recorded 9% tss, 4.1ph, 0.64% titrable acidity, 198.7mg/100 ml ascorbic acid, 4.21% reducing sugars, 1.37% non-reducing sugar, and 5.58% total sugars. results on total acidity, total soluble solids, ph, ascorbic acid and sugar content in guava are in agreement with earlier findings of kumar and honda (1994), chatterjee et al (1992), tondon and kalra (1984), tiwari (2000), and gowda (1995). effect of enzyme-assisted processing on juice yield in guava data on effect of pectinase enzyme in varying concentrations (0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% or 2.0%) for liquefication of guava juice, and enzymatically obtained clarified juice, compared to the juice in control (without enzyme) as per cent juice-yield, are presented in fig. 1. significant increase in juice-yield was seen in enzyme-assisted processing. juice yield in the control sample t0 was 71.3%, while, with increasing concentration of pectinase enzyme, the juice-yield increased to 94% in treatment t4, followed by that in t3 (88%), t2 (85.80%) and t1 (79%). overall, 22.7% increase in juice-yield was seen as a result of degradation pectinase catalyzed in the plant cell-wall matrix. these results confirm the findings of tiwari (2000) in guava. effect of enzyme-assisted processing on physicchemical composition of guava juice data presented in table 2 reveal that maximum tss percentage (12.5), ph (4.66), titrable acidity (0.72), ascorbic acid content (25.15 mg/100g) and sugar content were recorded in treatment t4, over the control. physico-chemical composition of the juice, viz., total soluble solids, ph, titrable acidity, total sugars, reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars and ascorbic acid content increased with pectinase concentration over the control (untreated). physio-chemical composition of guava rts blended with black-carrot juice data presented in table 3 reveal that tss of blended guava rts ranged from 11.10% to 12.03%. lowest value (11.10%) of tss was recorded in treatment (t4) fig. 1. effect of pectinase concentration on juice yield in guava table 1. physico-chemical composition of guava fruit traits fresh fruit fruit pulp tss (%) 10.0 9.0 p h 4.10 4.1 titrable acidity (%) 0.54 0.64 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 200.5 198.7 reducing sugars (%) 6.23 4.21 non-reducing sugars (%) 4.37 1.37 total sugars (%) 10.60 5.58 table 2. effect of enzyme-assisted processing on physico-chemical composition of guava juice treatment tss p h titrable ascorbic sugars (%) (%) acidity(%) acid (mg/100g) reducing non-reducing total t1 (0.5%) 9.40 4.06 0.65 20.02 4.23 1.37 5.60 t2 (1.0%) 11.00 4.36 0.67 22.36 4.23 1.38 5.61 t3 (1.5%) 12.00 4.50 0.70 24.94 4.25 1.40 5.66 t4 (2.0%) 12.50 4.66 0.72 25.15 4.26 1.42 5.68 t0 (control) 9.00 3.80 0.64 19.86 4.22 1.36 5.58 se m+ 0.05 0.12 0.004 0.33 0.005 0.003 0.012 cd (p=0.05) 0.16 0.37 0.015 1.05 0.018 0.012 0.038 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):112-115, 2015 114 guava rts blended with 20% black-carrot juice, compared to the t0 control (12.03%). highest titrable acidity was recorded in the control (0.32%) guava rts, while the lowest was recorded in treatment (t4) guava blended rts with 20% black carrot juice (0.25). highest ascorbic acid content was recorded in the control treatment t0 (9.76mg/100 ml), whereas, the lowest ascorbic acid content was recorded in guava rts blended with 20% black-carrot juice (8.81mg/ 100 ml). a similar trend was observed in total sugar content, reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars in guava rts blended with black-carrot juice. the highest total anthocyanin content was recorded in treatment (t4) guava rts blended with 20% black-carrot juice, followed by treatment (t3) that blended with 15% black-carrot juice, (t2) 10% black-carrot juice and (t1) 5% black-carrot juice, in that order. these results are in agreement with bhuvaneshwari and doreyappa gowda (2006), and garymain et al (2001). sensory analysis of guava rts blended with blackcarrot juice blending guava rts with black-carrot juice improved organoleptic quality remarkably in guava juice blended with 5 or 10% black-carrot juice (table 4). the highest colour score (8.25), consistency score (8.41), flavour score (7.41), aroma score (7.41) and overall acceptability score (7.86) was recorded in treatment (t1) fallowed by in treatment t2, while lowest colour (6.07), consistency (6.29), flavor (7.06), aroma (7.31) and overall acceptability (6.66) score was recorded in treatment (t0). the product developed had a preponderant flavor of the original fruit used, lack of the earthy, raw flavor or added phytochemical content. the products show a good potential for anthocyanin-rich, healthy drinks for the food industry looking for natural alternatives to synthetic drinks. results obtained by us are in agreement with bhuvaneshwari and doreyappa gowda (2006). storage of guava rts blended with black-carrot juice total anthocyanin content data on anthocyanins in guava rts blended with black-carrot juice at room temperature and at 7oc are presented in figs. 2 and 3. anthocyanin content of guava rts blended with black-carrot juice was found to decrease with advancing storage period, irrespective of the storage conditions. initially, the highest value (29.85 ml/ l) for anthocyanin was recorded in treatment (t4) 20% blackcarrot juice blended with guava rts. no anthocyanin content was found treatment (t0) in the control guava rts. table 3. physico-chemical composition of guava rts blended with black-carrot juice treatment tss p h titrable ascorbic anthocyanin sugars (%) (%) acidity (%) acid (mg/100ml) (mg/l) reducing non-reducing total t1 (5%) 11.86 5.51 0.31 9.52 20.91 2.56 8.23 10.79 t2 (10%) 11.73 5.31 0.28 9.31 24.44 2.55 8.19 10.74 t3 (15%) 11.60 5.11 0.26 9.01 26.45 2.53 8.18 10.71 t4 (20%) 11.10 4.90 0.25 8.81 29.83 2.52 8.15 10.66 t0 (control) 12.03 5.73 0.32 9.76 2.57 8.31 10.88 se m+ 0.005 0.005 0.005 0.005 0.003 0.005 0.006 0.005 cd (p=0.05) 0.018 0.018 0.018 0.018 0.011 0.016 0.019 0.018 table 4. sensory evaluation of guava rts blended with blackcarrot juice (scale 0-9) treatment colour consistency flavour aroma overall acceptability (scale 0-9) t1 (5%) 8.25 8.41 7.41 7.41 7.86 t2 (10%) 7.37 7.44 7.32 7.00 7.28 t3 (15%) 7.30 7.30 6.85 7.11 7.06 t4 (20%) 7.20 7.21 7.20 6.93 7.18 t0 (control) 6.07 6.29 7.06 7.31 6.66 se m+ 0.003 0.005 0.005 0.015 0.005 cd (p=0.05) 0.014 0.017 0.016 0.048 0.18 fig. 2. effect of storage conditions on anthocyanin content guava rts blended with black-carrot juice at ambient temperature fig. 3. effect of storage conditions on anthocyanin content in guava rts blended with black-carrot juice at 7oc khandare et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):112-115, 2015 115 similar trend was observed in 15, 30 or 45 days stored guava rts blended with black-carrot juice, at room temperature. at 60 days, the highest value (24.20ml/ l) for anthocyanin content was recorded in treatment (t4) 20% guava rts blended with black-carrot juice at 7oc. total anthocyanin content during storage at different temperatures decreased in comparison to non-stored juice. these results are in agreement with alighourchi and barzegar (2009). results indicated that use of enzymes for liquefaction prior to pressing can improve the quality of guava juice remarkably, culminating in enhanced juice-yield. blend of guava rts with black-carrot juice enhanced anthocyanin content in the juice, which is directly related to health-promoting capacity; it also contained high anthocyanin content, with a stable and attractive strawberry-red colour. blending of guava with black-carrot juice in the preparation of rts beverage resulted in a product with good organoleptic (colour) properties and can be used as a healthdrink. references alighourchi, h. and barzegar m. 2009. some physicochemical characteristics and degradation kinetics of anthocyanin of reconstituted pomegranate juice during storage. j. food engg., 90:179-185 bhuvaneswari, s. and doreyappa gowda, i.n. 2006. smallscale processing of blended grape rts. beverages food world j., 33:72-72 chatterjee, d., singh, u.p., thakur, s. and kumar, r. 1992. a note on the bearing habits of guava (psidium guajava l.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 21:69-71 collins, p., plumbly, j. and stich, e. 1998. black carrotsestablished raw materials for the manufacture of carantho food color and exberry vegetable juice color: stability and application. 3rd intl. symp. natl. colorants, hamden, sic, hamden. pp 107-120 garymain, mike faupel, justin morries and ronald mcnew. 2001. quality and stability of blueberry juice blended with apple, grape and cranberry juice. j. food qual., 24:111-125 gowda, i.n.d. 1995. studies on blending of mango and papaya pulp for ready-to-serve beverage making. proceedings of national seminar on post-harvest technology of fruits, bengaluru, august 07-09, 1995, pp. 387-494 kumar, r. and honda, m.n. 1994. fixtation of maturity standard of guava (psidium guajava l.). indian j. hortl. sci., 31:140-144 tiwari, r.b. 2000. studies on blending of guava and papaya pulp for rts beverage. indian food packer, 54:6872 tondon, d.k. and kalra, s.k. 1984. chemical evaluation of stored guava pulp in polyethylene pouches. indian food packer, pp 38:57-59 wrolstad, r.e., durst, r.w. and lee, j. 2005. tracking colour and pigment changes in anthocyanin products. trends food sci. technol., 16:423-428 (ms received 07 march 2014, revised 29 april 2015, accepted 20 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):112-115, 2015 antioxidant composition of guava beverage blended with black-carrot juice page 104 correlation and path coefficient analysis in pomegranate (punica granatum l.) m.m. mir, a.a. sofi, d.b. singh2 and f.n. bhat2 central institute of temperate horticulture srinagar (j&k), india e-mail: mirmaqbool_05@yahoo.co.in abstract studies were carried out to find out association between different characters and magnitude of association of different characters with gross fruit yield (kg/plant) in ten cultivars of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) including one local check. data revealed that genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than their corresponding phenotypic ones for most of the characters, implying an inherent relationship among them. fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit volume, juice content, fruit set and number of fruits/plant exhibited highly significant positive correlation. among the characters studied, number of fruits/ plant, fruit weight, fruit volume and fruit set recorded maximum positive direct effect towards gross fruit yield (kg/ plant) at both the levels. this study revealed that both the number of fruits/plant and fruit weight could form a selection criterion for yield improvement in pomegranate. key words: pomegranate, correlation, path analysis introduciton pomegranate (punica granatum l.) is an important fruit in tropical and sub-tropical countries. in india, its cultivation is scattered all over the country, especially in the states of maharashtra, gujarat, andhra pradesh, uttar pradesh, tamil nadu and karnataka. however, no systematic work has been done on improvement of the pomegranate crop. correlation studies help in finding out the degree of inter-relationship among various characters and in evolving selection criteria for improvement, and, path coefficient analysis provides a better index for selection than mere correlation coefficient by separating the correlation coefficients of yield and its components into direct and indirect effects. therefore, the present study was carried out to find out all possible component characters for improvement of this crop through character association and path-coefficient analysis. material and methods the present investigation was carried out at the research farm of central institute of temperate horticulture (cith), srinagar, during 2004. ten pomegranate cultivars, viz., kabuli kandhari, chawla, ganesh, mridula, jyoti, g-137, dholka, bedana, kandhari and one local check were used in the study. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications. five year old plants of uniform vigour were selected and spaced at 2.5m x 2.5m. all the recommended cultural practices were followed. observations were recorded on three randomly selected plants per replication for each cultivar for fifteen important characters, including gross fruit yield (kg/plant). correlations were worked out as per al-jibouri et al (1958) and path coefficient analysis was performed as per the method proposed by dewey and lu (1959). results and discussion in a majority of the characters studied, genotypic correlation coefficient was found to be higher in magnitude than phenotypic correlation coefficient, indicating a strong inherent association among various characters (table 1). the study revealed positive and significant correlation between plant height, plant spread and rind thickness but a negative association with days to first flower opening. plant spread exhibited positive and significant association with fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit volume and juice content, number of fruits/ plant and gross fruit yield only at the genotypic level. highly significant correlation was observed between fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit volume, rind weight, juice content, fruit set, number of fruits/plant and gross fruit yield and between fruit diameter with the same characters of fruit weight. positive association of plant j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 104-108, 2006 1c/o dr. a.q. jhon, emeritus scientist, division of floriculture, skuast-k, shalimar, srinagar191 121 (j&k), india 2dept. of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute deemed university, allahabad, india page 105 correlation and path co-efficient analysis t ab le 1 . g en ot yp ic ( g ), p h en ot yp ic ( p ) a n d e n vi ro n m en ta l ( e ) c or re la ti on co ef fi ci en ts o f so m e im p or ta n t c h ar ac te rs in p om eg ra n at e cu lt iv ar s on g ro ss fr u it y ie ld u n d er t em p er at e cl im at ic c on d it io n s of k as h m ir s l. p la n t p la n t d ay s to f ru it f ru it f ru it r in d r in d t s s a ci d it y t s s / ju ic e f ru it n u m b er g ro ss n o . c h ar ac te r h ei g h t s p re ad f ir st w ei g h t d ia m et er v o lu m e th ic k n es s w ei g h t ( % ) ( % ) a ci d ( % ) se t o f fr u it s f ru it y ie ld (c m ) (c m ) fl o w er ( g ) (c m ) (c m 3 ) (m m ) ( g ) ra ti o ( % ) / p la n t ( k g /p la n t) o p en in g (1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 ) (5 ) (6 ) (7 ) (8 ) ( 9 ) ( 1 0 ) (1 1 ) (1 2 ) (1 3 ) ( 1 4 ) (1 5 ) ( 1 6 ) p la n t h ei g h t g 1 .0 0 0 0 .6 3 2 * -0 .6 9 3 * 0 .0 6 3* 0 .0 6 7 * * 0 .0 3 2* * 0 .7 3 8 * 0 .1 3 2* * -0 .2 4 9 -0 .1 1 0 * -0 .0 11 * * 0 .0 7 8 * * 0 .0 5 9* * 0 .3 1 9 * * 0 .1 4 7 * * (c m ) p 1 .0 0 0 0 .5 9 7* -0 .6 6 5 * 0 .0 6 6* 0 .0 6 3 * * 0 .0 2 1* * 0 .6 5 0 * 0 .1 2 8* * -0 .2 1 3 -0 .1 0 4 * 0 .0 0 2* * 0 .0 7 1 * * 0 .0 4 0* * 0 .2 4 7 * * 0 .1 3 1 * * e 1 .0 0 0 0 .0 5 5* 0 .0 2 2* 0 .2 0 2* 0 .0 6 1 * * 0 .0 8 5* * 0 .0 4 5* 0 .3 1 4* * 0 .4 2 0 -0 .1 2 3 * 0 .2 8 3* * 0 .0 1 6 * * -0 .5 5 8* * -0 .0 2 1 * * 0 .0 0 5 * * p la n t sp re ad g 1 .0 0 0* -0 .6 5 5 * 0 .7 4 9 * 0 .7 0 6 ** 0 .6 7 4 ** 0 .5 5 8* 0 .7 4 5 ** -0 .0 4 9 -0 .2 1 3 * 0 .1 6 9* * 0 .7 4 1 ** 0 .4 7 6* * 0 .8 1 7 * * 0 .7 4 3 * * (c m ) p 1 .0 0 0* -0 .6 3 5 * 0 .6 3 3 * 0 .6 6 9 ** 0 .6 3 7 ** 0 .4 4 4* 0 .6 0 5* * -0 .0 7 2 -0 .1 8 7 * 0 .1 1 5* * 0 .5 8 6 * * 0 .4 6 5* * 0 .5 3 7 * * 0 .5 5 7 * * e 1 .0 0 0* -0 .4 3 1 * -0 .4 7 2 * 0 .1 2 2 * * 0 .0 9 0* * -0 .1 4 2 * 0 .0 0 3* * -0 .2 4 2 0 .2 0 2* -0 .2 2 7* * -0 .3 5 4 * * 0 .3 5 8* * -0 .3 4 3 * * -0 .5 3 1 * * d ay s to f ir st g 1 .0 0 0* 0 .0 0 1* 0 .0 2 8 * * 0 .0 5 6* * -0 .6 7 2 * -0 .2 2 6* * 0 .5 6 0 0 .6 4 4 * -0 .5 7 9* * -0 .1 1 8 * * -0 .0 2 4* * -0 .3 5 3 * * -0 .1 4 6 * * fl o w er o p en in g p 1 .0 0 0* 0 .0 1 8* 0 .0 3 1 * * 0 .0 5 8* * -0 .5 5 9 * -0 .2 2 4* * 0 .5 3 4 0 .6 1 8* -0 .5 0 8* * -0 .0 5 7 * * -0 .0 4 2* * -0 .1 8 6 * * -0 .0 6 2 * * e 1 .0 0 0* 0 .2 2 1* 0 .1 3 7 * * 0 .1 2 3* * 0 .1 1 5* -0 .2 8 1* * 0 .3 4 2 0 .1 3 7* -0 .0 0 8* * 0 .4 0 8 * * -0 .2 5 3* * 0 .4 9 8 * * 0 .5 7 2 * * f ru it w ei g h t (g ) g 1 .0 0 0* 0 .9 0 6 * * 0 .8 0 4 * * 0 .1 1 7* 0 .8 6 8 * * 0 .4 9 2 0 .3 0 5* -0 .2 4 9* * 0 .9 2 1 * * 0 .8 3 9 * * 0 .9 1 0 * * 0 .9 5 6 * * p 1 .0 0 0* 0 .8 1 3 * * 0 .7 6 0 ** 0 .1 0 8* 0 .6 6 2 ** 0 .4 3 0 0 .3 0 0* -0 .2 5 0* * 0 .7 9 0 * * 0 .7 2 7 ** 0 .6 5 1 ** 0 .8 9 4 * * e 1 .0 0 0* 0 .5 4 1 * * 0 .5 5 8* * 0 .3 11 * -0 .2 8 0* * -0 .0 4 0 0 .2 6 9* -0 .2 7 6* * -0 .0 4 5 * * -0 .4 7 2* * -0 .1 6 1 * * -0 .2 11 * * f ru it d ia m et er g 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .9 1 0 * * 0 .0 9 3* 0 .8 7 9 * * 0 .5 1 5 0 .3 3 5* -0 .2 7 5* * 0 .9 0 1 * * 0 .7 9 4 * * 0 .8 6 3 * * 0 .9 2 4 * * (c m ) p 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .8 2 3 * * 0 .1 1 2* 0 .7 4 2 ** 0 .4 7 3 0 .3 3 3* -0 .2 6 4* * 0 .8 0 6 * * 0 .7 4 9 ** 0 .6 4 4 ** 0 .8 2 2 * * e 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .6 0 3* * 0 .5 4 8* -0 .0 2 5* * -0 .0 0 9 0 .4 3 2* -0 .3 2 1* * -0 .0 6 1 * * -0 .1 6 7* * -0 .3 7 9 * * -0 .1 7 8 * * f ru it v o lu m e g 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .0 7 5* 0 .8 7 1 * * 0 .5 3 9 0 .3 5 5* -0 .2 8 8* * 0 .8 7 5 * * 0 .8 2 0 * * 0 .8 7 3 * * 0 .9 4 3 * * (c m 3 ) p 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .0 5 1* 0 .7 3 4 ** 0 .4 9 6 0 .3 5 2* -0 .2 7 5* * 0 .7 8 1 * * 0 .7 7 3 * * 0 .6 4 7 ** 0 .8 3 1 * * e 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .5 3 3* -0 .0 4 4* * 0 .0 0 9 0 .4 3 8* -0 .3 1 2* * -0 .0 8 6 * * 0 .1 6 9* * -0 .4 2 0 * * -0 .2 1 3 * * r in d t h ic k n es s g 1 .0 0 0* 0 .0 5 9* * -0 .5 8 0 -0 .0 4 9 * -0 .1 4 3* * 0 .2 9 5 * * 0 .1 1 2* * 0 .1 9 9 * * 0 .0 8 5 * * (m m ) p 1 .0 0 0* 0 .0 8 6* * -0 .4 5 9 -0 .0 4 0 * -0 .0 8 8* * 0 .2 8 3 * * 0 .0 4 5* * 0 .0 8 3 * * 0 .0 5 5 * * e 1 .0 0 0* 0 .1 6 8* * 0 .0 8 2 -0 .2 8 2 * 0 .1 3 2* * 0 .2 3 8 * * -0 .3 6 1* * -0 .1 8 6 * * -0 .0 5 7 * * r in d w ei g h t (g ) g 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .4 2 5 0 .0 8 9* -0 .0 2 1* * 0 .6 6 0 ** 0 .6 1 6* * 0 .6 7 9 ** 0 .7 4 9 * * p 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .3 4 9 0 .0 4 3* 0 .0 6 1* * 0 .5 4 2 * * 0 .4 8 2* * 0 .5 4 3 * * 0 .6 1 3 * * e 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .0 7 3 -0 .3 2 9 * 0 .3 4 6* * 0 .1 5 2 * * -0 .1 2 7* * 0 .2 7 9 * * 0 .1 7 4 * * t s s ( % ) g 1 .0 0 0 0 .6 6 3 * -0 .5 0 7* * 0 .2 11 * * 0 .6 0 5* * 0 .5 1 4 * * 0 .5 6 1 * * p 1 .0 0 0 0 .5 7 5* -0 .3 0 5* * 0 .2 0 7 * * 0 .4 9 7* * 0 .3 6 9 * * 0 .4 5 7 * * e 1 .0 0 0 -0 .4 0 2 * 0 .7 4 5 ** 0 .1 9 2 * * -0 .3 4 3* * -0 .0 1 4 * * -0 .0 5 4 * * a ci d it y ( % ) g 1 .0 0 0* -0 .9 7 1 * * 0 .1 0 1 * * 0 .3 9 5* * 0 .1 6 2 * * 0 .2 6 2 * * p 1 .0 0 0* -0 .9 3 0 * * 0 .0 8 2 * * 0 .3 8 7* * 0 .1 1 8 * * 0 .2 3 2 * * e 1 .0 0 0* -0 .8 3 9 * * -0 .1 0 2 * * 0 .2 8 0* * -0 .0 6 2 * * -0 .0 1 7 * * t s s / a ci d r at io g 1 .0 0 0* * -0 .0 5 5 * * -0 .2 8 9* * -0 .0 9 5 * * -0 .1 8 7 * * p 1 .0 0 0* * -0 .0 2 7 * * -0 .2 7 5* * -0 .0 5 4 * * -0 .1 5 9 * * e 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .1 0 1 * * -0 .1 9 5* * 0 .0 5 3 * * -0 .0 3 5 * * ju ic e (% ) g 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .7 0 5 ** 0 .6 9 4 ** 0 .7 8 1 * * p 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .5 5 1* * 0 .6 1 8 * * 0 .7 1 0 * * e 1 .0 0 0 * * -0 .4 7 5* * 0 .4 7 6 * * 0 .4 1 4 * * f ru it s et ( % ) g 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .8 3 0 * * 0 .8 7 5 * * p 1 .0 0 0* * 0 .7 5 9 ** 0 .8 4 6 * * e 1 .0 0 0* * -0 .1 0 6 * * -0 .2 4 2 * * n u m b er o f fr u it s/ g 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .9 1 6 * * p la n t p 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .8 7 7 * * e 1 .0 0 0 * * 0 .8 1 8 * * g ro ss f ru it y ie ld g 1 .0 0 0 * * (k g / p la n t) p 1 .0 0 0 * * e 1 .0 0 0 * * * ,* * s ig n if ic an t at 5 % a n d 1 % l ev el , re sp ec ti v el y c h ar ac te r g ro ss fr u it y ie ld (k g /p la n t) n um be r o f fr u it s / p la n t f ru it se t ( % ) ju ic e (% ) t s s / a ci d ra ti o a ci di ty (% ) t s s (% ) r in d w ei g h t (g ) r in d th ic k n es s (m m ) f ru it v al u m e (c m 3 ) f ru it d ia m et er (c m ) f ru it w ei g h t (g ) d ay s to fi rs t fl o w er o p en in g p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) p la n t sp re ad (c m ) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 104-108, 2006 105 page 106 mir et al t ab le 2 . d ir ec t an d i n d ir ec t ef fe ct s (a t th e ge n ot yp ic l ev el ) of i m p or ta n t ch ar ac te rs o n g ro ss f ru it y ie ld i n p om eg ra n at e cu lt iv ar s u n d er t em p er at e cl im at ic c on d it io n s of k as h m ir c h ar ac te r p la n t p la n t d ay s to f ru it f ru it f ru it r in d r in d t s s a ci d it y t s s / ju ic e f ru it n u m b er c o rr el at io n h ei g h t s p re ad fi rs t w ei g h t d ia m et er v o lu m e th ic k n es s w ei g h t (% ) ( % ) a ci d ( % ) se t o f co ef fi ci en t (c m ) (c m ) fl o w er (g ) (c m ) (c m 3 ) (m m ) (g ) r at io ( % ) fr u it s w it h g ro ss o p en in g p la n t-1 fr u it y ie ld (k g /p la n t) p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) 0. 02 8 -0 .0 7 4 -0 .0 7 2 0 .0 3 5 -0 .0 2 0 0 .0 0 6 0 .0 2 4 0 .0 0 5 0 .0 0 2 0 .0 2 0 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 0 5 0 .0 0 8 0 .1 8 7 0 .1 4 7 p la n t s p re ad ( cm ) 0 .0 1 8 -0 .1 1 7 -0 .0 6 8 0 .4 1 4 -0 .2 0 4 0 .1 3 6 0 .0 1 8 0 .0 2 8 0 .0 0 1 0 .0 3 9 -0 .0 1 3 -0 .0 5 0 0 .0 6 2 0 .4 8 0 0 .7 4 3 * d ay s to f ir st fl o w er o p en in g -0 .0 2 0 0 .0 7 6 0. 10 4 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 0 8 0 .0 11 -0 .0 2 2 -0 .0 0 9 -0 .0 0 5 -0 .1 1 7 0 .0 4 5 0 .0 0 8 -0 .0 0 3 -0 .2 0 7 -0 .1 4 6 f ru it w ei g h t (g ) 0 .0 0 2 -0 .1 7 0 0 .0 0 1 0. 55 2 0 .0 8 4 0 .1 11 0 .0 0 3 0 .0 2 2 -0 .0 6 4 -0 .1 3 5 0 .0 1 0 -0 .0 7 4 0 .1 0 9 0 .5 0 1 0 .9 5 6 ** f ru it d ia m et er ( cm ) 0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 8 2 0 .0 0 2 0 .5 5 5 -0 .2 89 0 .2 0 1 0 .0 0 6 0 .0 3 3 -0 .0 1 6 -0 .0 6 0 0 .0 2 1 -0 .0 6 1 0 .1 0 4 0 .5 0 7 0 .9 2 4 ** f ru it v o lu m e (c m 3 ) 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 7 9 0 .0 0 6 0 .5 5 4 -0 .2 8 8 0. 20 2 0 .0 0 3 0 .0 3 2 -0 .0 0 6 -0 .0 6 4 0 .0 2 2 -0 .0 5 9 0 .1 0 7 0 .5 1 2 0 .9 4 3 ** r in d t h ic k n es s (m m ) 0 .0 2 1 -0 .0 6 5 -0 .0 7 0 0 .0 4 8 -0 .0 2 7 0 .0 1 0 0. 03 3 0 .0 0 2 0 .0 0 5 0 .0 0 3 0 .0 11 -0 .0 2 0 0 .0 1 5 0 .1 1 7 0 .0 8 5 r in d w ei g h t (g ) 0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 8 7 -0 .0 2 3 0 .4 7 9 -0 .2 2 1 0 .1 7 6 0 .0 0 2 0. 03 8 -0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 1 6 0 .0 0 8 -0 .0 4 5 0 .1 1 2 0 .3 9 8 0 .7 4 9 * t s s ( % ) -0 .0 0 7 0 .0 0 6 0 .0 5 8 0 .2 7 1 -0 .1 4 9 0 .1 0 9 -0 .0 1 9 0 .0 1 6 -0 .0 09 -0 .1 2 0 0 .0 3 9 -0 .0 1 4 0 .0 7 9 0 .3 0 2 0 .5 6 1 a ci d it y ( % ) -0 .0 0 3 0 .0 2 5 0 .0 6 7 0 .1 6 8 -0 .0 9 7 0 .0 7 1 -0 .0 0 1 0 .0 0 3 -0 .0 0 6 -0 .1 81 0 .0 7 5 -0 .0 0 7 0 .0 5 2 0 .0 9 5 0 .2 6 2 t s s /a ci d r at io 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 2 0 -0 .0 6 0 -0 .1 3 7 0 .0 8 0 -0 .0 5 8 -0 .0 0 5 -0 .0 0 1 0 .0 0 5 0 .1 7 6 -0 .0 77 0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 3 8 -0 .0 5 6 -0 .1 8 7 ** ju ic e (% ) 0 .0 0 5 -0 .0 8 6 -0 .0 1 2 0 .5 0 9 -0 .2 6 1 0 .1 7 7 0 .0 1 0 0 .0 2 5 -0 .0 0 2 -0 .0 1 8 0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 68 0 .0 9 2 0 .4 0 7 0 .7 8 1 ** f ru it s et (% ) 0 .0 0 2 -0 .1 5 2 -0 .0 4 6 0 .4 1 3 0 .0 9 2 0 .1 4 1 0 .0 0 4 0 .0 1 3 -0 .0 5 2 0 .1 4 2 0 .0 2 2 -0 .0 6 0 0. 13 1 0 .5 0 9 0 .8 7 5 ** n u m b er o f fr u it s / p la n t 0 .0 0 9 -0 .1 2 0 -0 .0 3 7 0 .4 0 2 0 .1 1 0 0 .1 5 0 0 .0 0 7 0 .0 1 6 -0 .0 3 9 -0 .1 2 9 0 .0 0 7 -0 .0 4 7 0 .1 0 2 0. 58 7 0 .9 1 6 ** r es id u al e ff ec t = 0 .0 0 2 3 b o ld a n d u n d er li n ed v al u es i n d ic at e d ir ec t ef fe ct s c h ar ac te r p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) p la n t s p re ad (c m ) d ay s to fi rs t fl o w er o p en in g f ru it w ei g h t (g ) f ru it d ia m et er (c m ) f ru it v o lu m e (c m 3 ) r in d th ic k n es s (m m ) r in d w ei g h t (g ) t s s (% ) a ci d it y (% ) t s s / a ci d ra ti o ju ic e (% ) f ru it se t (% ) n u m b er o f fr u it s / p la n t c o rr el at io n co ef fi ci en t w it h g ro ss fr u it y ie ld (k g /p la n t) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 104-108, 2006 106 page 107 correlation and path co-efficient analysis t ab le 3 . d ir ec t an d i n d ir ec t ef fe ct s (a t th e p h en ot yp ic l ev el ) of i m p or ta n t ch ar ac te rs o n g ro ss f ru it y ie ld i n p om eg ra n at e cu lt iv ar s u n d er t em p er at e cl im at ic o n d it io n s of k as h m ir c h ar ac te r p la n t p la n t d ay s to f ru it f ru it f ru it r in d r in d t s s a ci d it y t s s / ju ic e f ru it n u m b er c o rr el at io n h ei g h t s p re ad fi rs t w ei g h t d ia m et er v o lu m e th ic k n es s w ei g h t (% ) ( % ) a ci d ( % ) se t o f co ef fi ci en t (c m ) (c m ) fl o w er (g ) (c m ) (c m 3 ) (m m ) (g ) r at io ( % ) fr u it s w it h g ro ss o p en in g p la n t-1 fr u it y ie ld (k g /p la n t) p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) 0. 00 8 -0 .0 3 7 -0 .0 6 1 0 .0 3 7 -0 .0 2 4 0 .0 0 7 0 .0 1 8 0 .0 0 5 0 .0 0 3 0 .0 0 9 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 0 4 0 .0 0 4 0 .1 6 8 0 .1 3 1 p la n t s p re ad ( cm ) 0 .0 0 5 -0 .0 62 -0 .0 5 8 0 .3 5 3 -0 .2 4 2 0 .1 4 1 0 .0 1 2 0 .0 1 8 0 .0 0 1 0 .0 1 5 -0 .0 0 2 -0 .0 3 4 0 .0 4 6 0 .3 6 4 0 .5 5 7 d ay s to f ir st fl o w er o p en in g -0 .0 0 6 0 .0 4 0 0. 09 2 0 .0 1 0 -0 .0 11 0 .0 1 3 -0 .0 1 5 -0 .0 0 7 -0 .0 0 9 -0 .0 4 9 0 .0 0 9 0 .0 0 3 -0 .0 0 4 -0 .1 2 6 -0 .0 6 2 f ru it w ei g h t (g ) 0 .0 1 0 -0 .1 6 2 0 .0 0 2 0. 55 8 0 .0 3 6 0 .1 0 5 0 .0 0 2 0 .0 2 0 -0 .0 4 7 -0 .0 8 6 0 .0 0 6 -0 .0 6 2 0 .0 7 1 0 .4 4 1 0 .8 9 4 ** f ru it d ia m et er ( cm ) 0 .0 0 2 -0 .0 4 2 0 .0 0 4 0 .5 4 4 -0 .3 61 0 .2 2 0 0 .0 0 3 0 .0 2 3 -0 .0 0 8 -0 .0 2 7 0 .0 0 5 -0 .0 4 7 0 .0 7 3 0 .4 3 4 0 .8 2 2 ** f ru it v o lu m e (c m 3 ) 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 4 0 0 .0 0 5 0 .5 4 3 -0 .3 6 0 0. 22 1 0 .0 0 4 0 .0 2 2 -0 .0 0 9 -0 .0 2 8 0 .0 0 3 -0 .0 4 6 0 .0 7 6 0 .4 3 9 0 .8 3 1 ** r in d t h ic k n es s (m m ) 0 .0 0 6 -0 .0 2 8 -0 .0 5 1 0 .0 6 5 -0 .0 4 0 0 .0 1 7 0. 02 7 0 .0 0 3 0 .0 0 8 0 .0 0 5 -0 .0 0 2 -0 .0 1 7 0 .0 0 4 0 .0 5 3 0 .0 5 5 r in d w ei g h t (g ) 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 3 8 -0 .0 2 1 0 .3 7 0 -0 .2 6 8 0 .1 6 2 0 .0 0 2 0. 03 1 -0 .0 0 6 -0 .0 0 3 -0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 3 2 0 .0 4 7 0 .3 6 8 0 .6 1 3 t s s ( % ) -0 .0 0 2 0 .0 0 5 0 .0 4 9 0 .2 4 0 -0 .1 7 1 0 .1 0 9 -0 .0 1 0 0 .0 11 -0 .0 18 -0 .0 4 6 0 .0 0 6 -0 .0 1 4 0 .0 5 1 0 .2 4 8 0 .4 5 7 a ci d it y ( % ) -0 .0 0 1 0 .0 1 2 0 .0 5 7 0 .1 6 8 -0 .1 1 9 0 .0 7 8 -0 .0 0 3 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 1 0 -0 .0 80 0 .0 1 7 -0 .0 0 5 0 .0 3 8 0 .0 8 0 0 .2 3 2 t s s /a ci d r at io 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 0 7 -0 .0 4 6 -0 .1 4 0 0 .0 9 5 -0 .0 6 1 -0 .0 0 2 0 .0 0 2 0 .0 0 5 0 .0 7 1 -0 .0 18 0 .0 0 6 -0 .0 2 7 -0 .0 3 7 -0 .1 5 9 ju ic e (% ) 0 .0 0 3 -0 .0 3 7 -0 .0 0 5 0 .4 4 1 -0 .2 9 1 0 .1 7 2 0 .0 0 8 0 .0 1 7 -0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 0 7 0 .0 0 1 -0 .0 59 0 .0 5 4 0 .4 1 7 0 .7 1 0 * f ru it s et (% ) 0 .0 11 -0 .1 2 9 -0 .0 2 4 0 .3 0 6 0 .0 7 8 0 .1 3 1 0 .0 0 1 0 .0 1 5 -0 .0 1 9 -0 .0 3 1 0 .0 0 5 -0 .0 3 2 0. 09 8 0 .5 1 4 0 .8 4 6 ** n u m b er o f fr u it s / p la n t 0 .0 0 2 -0 .1 3 4 -0 .0 1 7 0 .3 5 7 0 .1 0 3 0 .1 4 3 0 .0 0 5 0 .0 1 7 -0 .0 1 5 -0 .0 3 8 0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 3 6 0 .0 7 4 0. 61 8 0 .8 7 7 ** r es id u al e ff ec t = 0 .0 0 3 0 b o ld a n d u n d er li n ed v al u es i n d ic at e d ir ec t ef fe ct s c h ar ac te r p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) p la n t s p re ad (c m ) d ay s to fi rs t fl o w er o p en in g f ru it w ei g h t (g ) f ru it d ia m et er (c m ) f ru it v o lu m e (c m 3 ) r in d th ic k n es s (m m ) r in d w ei g h t (g ) t s s (% ) a ci d it y (% ) t s s / a ci d ra ti o ju ic e (% ) f ru it se t (% ) n u m b er o f fr u it s / p la n t c o rr el at io n co ef fi ci en t w it h g ro ss fr u it y ie ld (k g /p la n t) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 104-108, 2006 107 page 108 (ms received 5 august 2006, revised 11 september 2006) height with spread was also noticed in earlier studies conducted by ram asrey and shukhla (2003) and fruit weight with fruit diameter reported by pandey and bist (1998), and, fruit weight with yield in ber by bisla and daulta (1987). fruit volume also exhibited highly positive significant correlation with rind weight, juice content, fruit set, number of fruits/plant and gross fruit yield. significant negative correlation was observed between acidity and tss/ acid ratio. this indicated that increase in tss/acid ratio was associated with reduction in acidity. the trait of juice content showed positive significant association with fruit set, number of fruits/plant and gross fruit yield. highly significant association was observed between fruit set and number of fruits/plant and gross fruit yield and between number of fruits/ plant and gross fruit yield. correlation studies in strawberry by verma et al (2002) showed positive association of fruit weight with fruit diameter and fruit volume. path coefficient analysis was performed to assess direct and indirect effects of different characters on gross fruit yield (table 2). even though correlation analysis can quantify the degree of association between two characters, it does not provide reasons for such an association. thus, a non-significant correlation coefficient value cannot be taken to imply absence of functional relationship between the two variables. path coefficient analysis reveals this by breaking the total correlation coefficient into components of direct and indirect effects. the maximum positive direct effect (table 2) on gross fruit yield was through number of fruits/plant (0.587) followed by fruit weight (0.552), fruit volume increase (0.202), fruit set (0.131) and days to first flower opening (0.104). these results are in consonance with those of baiyeri and ortiz (1995) who reported that yield was more closely related to number of fruits/plant in banana. direct positive effect of fruit weight on yield in ber has been reported by bisla and daulta (1987). fruit weight and rind thickness also exhibited highest and lowest positive direct effects, respectively. these results get support from earlier findings of chaudhary and singh (1998) who also reported similar effects in nut weight and nut thickness on kernel yield in apricot. fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit volume and fruit set had the highest positive direct effects via number of fruits/plant. the traits of fruit diameter, acidity, plant spread and tss/ acid ratio imparted negative direct effect on gross fruit yield. residual effect at the genotypic level was found to be slightly lower than at the phenotypic level. high magnitude of residual effect at phenotypic level indicated limitations of characters included in the present study which needs to be supplemented by more morpho-physiological traits so as to describe the whole range of variation (table 3). keeping in view the estimation of association and path coefficient analysis towards gross fruit yield, selection should be practiced on the basis of number of fruits/plant and fruit weight as it had the highest positive direct effect. results of the present study indicate that fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit volume, juice content, fruit set and number of fruits/plant have significant positive correlation with gross fruit yield. therefore, these main characters contributing towards gross fruit yield are ideal criteria for selection for yield in pomegranate. references al-jibouri, h.a., miller, r.a. and robinson, h.f. 1958. genotypic and environmental variances and covariances in an upland cotton cross of inter-specific origin. agron. j., 50: 633-637. baiyeri, k.p. and ortiz, r. 1995. path analysis of yield in dessert banana. musa africa, 8: 3-5. bisla, s.s. and daulta, b.s. 1987. correlation and path analysis studies on fruit and seed characters in ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.). agril. sci. digest india, 7: 170-172. chaudhary, v.k. and singh, n.b. 1998. investigation on variability, correlation and path analysis between kernel yield and other nut characters in wild apricot. ind. j. agril. res., 32: 149-154. dewey, d.r. and lu, k.h. 1959. correlation and path coefficient analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agron. j., 51: 515-518. pandey, g. and bist, h.s. 1998. variability, correlation and path analysis in pomegranate germplasm. hort. j., 11: 7-12. ram asrey and shukhla, h.s. 2003. salt stress and correlation studies in pomegranate (punica granatum l.). ind. j. hort., 60: 330-334. verma, s.k., singh, r.k. and arya, r.r. 2002. variability and correlation studies in strawberry germplasm for quantitative traits. ind. j. hort., 59: 39-43. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (2): 104-108, 2006 108 mir et al this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.), the second most important vegetable in the world after potato excels a s a good sour c e of vita min a, c, e, conta ins la rge qua ntity of water, calcium and niacin. the crop largely attracts farmers due to its short duration, low input costs and feasibility for cultivation throughout the year. in india, tomato has registered a production of 20.30 million tonnes fr om 830. 75 thousa nd ha a r ea (n hb, 2022). madhya pradesh is the leading producer of tomato with 2970.0 thousand metric tonnes from an area of 1,03,000 hectares. successful crop breeding depends on the variability and genetic diversity in the base population. yield and its components, with their polygenic inher ita nce, a r e vulner a ble to environmental sways. variability present in the base population could be segmented into heritable, and non-heritable, segments with genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv), heritability and genetic advance. gcv and pcv indicates the amount of variability present in the base population, while, heritability a nd genet ic a dva nc e a s s is t in d et er mining environmental influences, and the degree to which improvement is achievable (patel et al., 2013). diver se pa r ents br ing a bout hybr id vigor, consequently, examination of genetic diverseness is necessa r y to deter mine the br eeding str a tegy (ha rr ington, 1940). according to d 2 sta tistics (mahalanobis, 1936), genetic divergence helps in identifying diverse parents which on hybridization yield bumptious transgressive segregants (naveen et al., 2018). bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum have caused havoc in the commercial cultivation of tomato leading to heavy yield losses. it causes 26% loss of fresh fruit production in hybrid tomatoes and yield losses reach up to 90.62% (dharmatti et al. 2009). development of resistant varieties can be employed as alternative to overcome bacterial wilt disease. most of the bacterial wilt resistant sources have only small fruit size due to linkage drag of wilt resistant gene with small fruit size ( wa ng e t a l. , 19 9 8 ). i dent ifying a r es is ta nt genotype with better fruit size will help in easy transfer of resistance into different background. with this foreground, the present study was carried original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 40-45, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2141 genetic diversity and screening for bacterial wilt in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum) athulya m.p.1*, anitha, p.1, pradeepkumar t.1, kutty m.s.1, kurian p.s.2 and sindhumole p.3 1department of vegetable science, 2department of plant pathology, 3department of genetics and plant breeding college of agriculture, kerala agricultural university, thrissur 680656, kerala, india *corresponding author email : athulyamp09@gmail.com abstract thirty-four tomato genotypes from different geographical locations were evaluated for genetic diversity and screened for bacterial wilt (bw) caused by ralstonia solanacearum. results revealed that plant height, fruits per cluster, fruit weight, fruit diameters, locules per fruit, fruit firmness, yield per plant, and quality parameters exhibited high heritability and genetic advance. clustering based on d2 analysis, classified genotypes into four clusters. maximum intra-cluster distance was recorded within cluster i and maximum inter-cluster distance between cluster ii and iv followed by cluster i and iv, indicating existence of wide genetic variability. genotypes in cluster iv (avto 1711, avto 1717 and avto 1718) recorded high fruit weight coupled with high yield. these may be explored as promising donors for developing large sized bacterial wilt resistant tomatoes. the large fruited genotypes in cluster iv can also contribute to the genetic improvement of existing bacterial wilt resistant varieties placed in cluster i. out of 34 genotypes screened for bw disease, 5 genotypes were classified as resistant and 7 as moderately resistant. keywords : bacterial wilt, genetic advance, heritability, humid tropics 41 genetic diversity and screening for bacterial wilt in tomato j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 40-45, 2023 out to analyse the diversity in tomato genotypes and screening for bacterial wilt disease. materials and methods t he pr esent inves tiga t ion wa s a c c omp lis hed emp loying 3 4 t oma t o genot yp es . o u t of 3 4 genotypes, 23 wer e collected from the icarnbpgr, new delhi, 3 fr om wor ld vegetable centr e, taiwa n a nd remaining 8 genotypes (3 a dva nc ed lines a nd 4 va r ieties ) f r om ker a la agricultural university, kerala. two experiments were carried out. in first experiment, 34 genotypes were planted in pots in a completely randomized block design with 2 replications. standards package of practices recommended by kerala agricultural university was followed. data on growth, yield and quality traits were subjected to statistical analysis as per comstock and robinson (1952), johnson et al., (1955), and allard (1961). mahalanobis d 2 a na lysis (ma ha la nobis, 1936) a nd euclidea n clustering (spark, 1973) was used to elucidate divergence and consequent selection of parents for hybridization. second experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design with 2 replications to screen the genotypes for bacterial wilt incidence under field conditions with one susceptible check variety pusa ruby. prior to crop establishment, the soil was tested for pathogen load by serial dilution, which recorded an inoculum load of 61 x 106 cfu/ g soil. plants were observed on daily basis during the entire crop period for bacterial wilt symptom which was confirmed by ooze test. bacterial wilt incidence was recorded and per cent wilt incidence was calculated by the following formula. the genotypes were grouped into different categories based on the per cent disease incidence (pdi) and the reaction of the genotypes to bacterial wilt as described by mew and ho (1976). reaction per cent disease incidence r (resistant) 0-20 mr (moderately resistant) 21-40 ms(moderately susceptible) 41-60 s (susceptible) 61-100 results and discussion heritability, variance components and genetic advance significant variations were recorded for growth and yield traits in the base population (table 1). the pcv was imperceptibly higher than gcv, indicating the environmental impact on the expression of these traits. estimates of gcv and pcv were high for yield per plant, fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, secondary branches per plant, fruit firmness, ascorbic acid acidity, lycopene, and beta carotene. this designated greater magnitude of phenotypic and genotypic variability in the base population. gcv a lone, cannot be depended upon to decide the magnitude of heritable variation, and hence, the knowledge on heritability also is entailed. heritability plays decisive role in breeding, expressing the reliability of phenotype as an indicator of its breeding values. heritability was high (61.31% 97.97%) for most of the traits, suggesting less influence of envir onment fa ctor s, a nd hence, effectiveness in selection. high genetic advance as percentage of mean was observed for all traits except for days to flowering, days to harvest, and total soluble solids (ara et al., 2009), suggesting the predominance of additive gene action. tss recorded high heritability with moder ate genetic a dva nce, while days to flowering and days to harvest recorded low heritability and low genetic advance implying the control by nonadditive gene action. on the basis of d2 analysis, 34 genotypes were gr ou p ed int o f ou r highly diver ge nt c lu s t er s (table 2 and fig. 1). high inter-cluster and low int r a c lu s t er va lu es highlight ed t he c lu s t er divergence. numbers of genotypes in clusters were in the order: cluster i >cluster iii >cluster ii > cluster iv. t he clustering pa tter n showed that accessions from different geographical areas were clubbed in single cluster indica ting tha t ther e existed no parallelism between genetic diversity and geographical origin (meena and bahadur, 2015). similarly, accessions from same geographical origin were distributed into different clusters, indicating that these accessions must have under gone changes for char acter s under selection which could be attributed to selection or genetic drift, creating more diversity rather than genetic distance. this clearly explained that selection of parents for hybridization must be emphasized on genetic diversity rather than geographical diversity (naveen et al., 2018). pdi = x 100 number of plants infected total number of plants observed 42 table 2 : cluster wise distribution of tomato genotypes cluster total number name of accessions no. of accessions i 19 ec-914087, ec-914094, ec-914100, ec-914107, ec-914091, ec-914096, ec-914099, ec-914093, sakthi, mukthi, anagha, manuprabha, ec-914090, ec-914103, ec-914109, ec-914098, ec-914102, ec9140107, ec-914085 ii 4 sln-2 (mukthi x iihr 2195-f2-38-5-1),sln-6 (mukthi x iihr 2195-f2-38-3-6), sln-7 (mukthi x iihr 2196f2-57-4-45),sln-9 (le-1-2 x h24-f2-59-3-20) iii 8 ec-914089, ec-914108, ec-914086, ec-914092, ec-914097, ec-914087, ec-914100, ec-914104 iv 3 avto-1718, avto-1711, avto-1717 athulya et al. table 1 : estimates of variance for yield and yield contributing traits in tomato characters range mean gv pv gcv pcv h2 ga gam (%) (%) plant height (cm) 35.25-76.5 52.9 63.00 102.55 15.00 19.14 61.43 12.82 24.23 days to flowering 47.5-59.5 55.38 4.82 19.08 3.96 7.89 25.27 2.27 4.11 days to harvest 84-98.5 89.94 8.42 19.27 4.90 3.24 43.7 3.95 4.39 primary branch 4.75-10.5 7.46 1.02 1.85 13.53 18.21 55.20 1.54 20.70 secondary branch 7.5-25.75 12.00 11.70 13.58 28.48 30.69 86.11 6.54 54.45 fruits per cluster 2.1-4.7 3.07 0.34 0.55 18.86 24.08 61.31 0.94 30.42 fruits per plant 13.38-69 24.91 191.31 198.85 56.27 57.37 96.21 27.95 113.70 fruit weight (g) 15.15-118.4 50.01 602.55 655.61 49.03 51.15 91.91 48.48 96.83 polar diameter 11.1-21.1 14.40 4.02 4.95 13.92 15.45 81.22 3.72 25.85 (cm) equatorial 9.95-21.7 13.81 4.03 4.92 14.54 16.05 81.99 3.75 27.11 diameter (cm) locules per fruit 2-5 3.67 0.40 0.47 17.17 18.70 84.31 1.19 32.48 fruit firmness 0.52-1.8 1.16 0.15 0.16 33.02 34.34 92.48 0.76 65.42 tss (ºbrix) 4.4-7.15 6.12 0.35 0.48 9.73 11.33 73.62 1.05 17.19 ascorbic acid 8.16-26.53 13.28 26.78 27.34 38.98 39.38 97.97 10.55 79.48 (mg/100g) acidity (%) 0.25-1.21 0.52 0.05 0.06 43.30 47.00 84.87 0.43 82.17 lycopene 1.49-10.74 4.97 5.46 6.14 47.00 49.83 88.97 4.54 91.33 (mg/100g) beta carotene 0.93-7.29 3.32 1.88 2.01 41.32 42.69 93.68 2.73 82.39 (mg/100g) total sugars 1.96-3.26 2.52 0.11 0.12 13.35 13.58 96.58 0.68 27.03 (mg/100g) shelf life (days) 7.25-16.5 10.29 7.19 8.58 26.06 28.47 83.76 5.05 49.13 yield (kg) 0.36-2.42 1.10 0.46 0.48 62.07 63.27 96.25 1.37 125.45 gv-genotypic variance, pv-phenotypic variance, gcv-genetic coefficient of variation, pcv-phenotypic coefficient of variation, h2-heritability, ga-genetic advance, gamgenetic advance as percentage of mean j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 40-45, 2023 43 average inter and intra cluster distance (table 3 and fig. 2) revealed that inter cluster distances were higher t ha n t ha t of int r a c lu s t er dis t a nc es , suggesting homogeneous and heterogeneous nature of the germplasm within and between the clusters, respectively (rai et al., 2017). cluster i recorded the highest intra cluster distance suggesting the p r es enc e o f ma x imu m diver s it y a mong t he genotypes in it. at inter cluster level, minimum distance was recorded between cluster i and cluster iii, while, cluster ii and cluster iv recorded the maximum inter cluster distance. minimum inter cluster distance indicated that these genotypes are closely related, and a higher inter cluster distance fig. 1 : dendrogram showing clustering of tomato genotypes fig. 2 : mahalnobis euclidean distance (not to scale) table 3 : intra and inter cluster distance in tomato genotypes cluster no. i ii iii iv i 23.65 46.93 38.49 76.47 ii 20.45 55.39 83.94 iii 23.30 48.39 iv 20.82 indic a t ed wider genetic diver s it y a mong the genotypes, hence, parents for hybridization must be selected from these clusters, to generate maximum heter otic p r ogenies a nd f or get ting desir a b le transgressive segregants (naveen et al., 2018). t he cluster mea ns of char a cter s indicated the presence of appreciable amount of genetic variation among clusters (table 4). intercrossing among the genotypes with outstanding mea n perfor ma nce (cluster mean) gives heterotic crosses (kumar et al., 2013). the genotypes in the cluster ii recorded high mean values for days to harvest, fruits per clus ter, fr u its per pla nt, t ss, a s cor bic a cid, lycopene, and beta carotene. cluster iii showed ma ximum mea n va lues for pr ima r y bra nches, secondary branches, locules per fruit, and fruit firmness. genotypes from cluster iii could give plants with more branches, and firm fruits when genetic diversity and screening for bacterial wilt in tomato j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 40-45, 2023 44 used in hybridization. plant height, fruit weight, polar diameter, equatorial diameter, yield per plant, acidity, shelf life recorded maximum cluster mean values in cluster iv, and minimum value for days to first flowering. when breeding for earliness, high fruit weight, yield, acidity, and improved shelf life, genotypes from clusters iv, could be effectively utilized (meena and bahadur, 2013). screening for bacterial wilt resistance based on the pdi, the genotypes were classified into four groups (table 5). five genotypes i.e., sakthi, mukthi, anagha, manupra bha and avto-1711 appeared as resistant, while, seven genotypes were categorized as moderately resistant to the bacterial wilt, however, five genotypes were rated as moderately susceptible and seventeen were susceptible. character i ii iii iv plant height (cm) 53.78 38.06 53.72 65.25 days to flowering 55.87 54.97 55.95 51.33 days to harvest 90.22 87.09 91.27 88.50 primary branch 7.67 5.81 7.88 7.25 secondary branch 11.51 8.88 15.09 11.08 fruits per cluster 3.13 3.35 2.91 2.77 fruits per plant 20.51 58.75 18.98 23.50 fruit weight (g) 35.92 39.93 66.76 108.03 polar diameter (cm) 13.67 12.19 15.86 18.14 equatorial diameter (cm) 13.03 12.39 14.43 19.08 locules per fruit 3.68 3.85 3.40 4.07 yield per plant (kg) 0.64 2.11 1.23 2.28 fruit firmness (kg/cm2) 1.13 0.93 1.34 1.23 tss (obrix) 6.09 6.38 6.28 5.53 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 12.88 17.54 11.11 15.92 acidity (%) 0.51 0.59 0.48 0.60 lycopene content (mg/100 g) 4.66 7.16 5.21 3.40 beta carotene content (mg/100 g) 3.24 3.97 3.50 2.46 total sugars (%) 2.61 2.21 2.59 2.14 shelf life (days) 10.11 9.88 10.56 11.25 table 4 : cluster wise mean performance of tomato genotypes table 5 : classification of tomato genotypes based on per cent disease incidence (pdi) disease reaction genotype susceptible (61-100 pdi) ec-914085, ec-914087, ec-914088, ec-914089, ec-914092, ec-914093, ec-914095, ec-914096, ec-914097, ec-914098, ec-914099, ec-914101, e c-914102, e c-914103, e c-914105, ec-914107, e c-914109 moderately susceptible (41-60 pdi) ec-914086, ec-914100, ec-914104, ec-914108, sln-9, moderately resistant (21-40 pdi) ec-914090, ec-914091, avto-1718, avto-1717, sln-2, sln-6, sln-7 resistant (0-20 pdi) sakthi, mukthi, anagha, manuprabha, avto-1711 athulya et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 40-45, 2023 45 conclusion significant diversity among tomato genotypes could be effectively exploited in developing promising and high yielding bacterial wilt resistant hybrids. high heritability and genetic advance as percentage of mean were observed for plant height, fruits per cluster, fruit weight, polar and equatorial diameter, locules per fruit, fruit firmness, yield per plant and quality parameters, referring that these traits could be focused for developing promising high yielding tomato hybrids. cluster analysis grouped the exotic large fruited genotypes in cluster iv, and the bacterial wilt resistant genotypes in cluster i, and small fruited bacterial wilt moderately resistant improved genotypes in cluster ii. maximum inter cluster distance was recorded between cluster ii and cluster iv, followed by cluster i and cluster iv, indicated that exotic genotypes from world vegetable centre could be one of the promising parents and the small fruited bacterial wilt resistant improved genotypes as the counter parent for getting maximum heterotic hybrids as they are genetically diverse. the large fruited exotic lines in cluster iv can be used for improving the fruit size of bacterial wilt resistant varieties. references ara, a., narayan, r., ahmed, n. and khan, s.h. 2009. genetic va r ia bility a nd selection parameters for yield and quality attributes in tomato. indian j. hortic., 66(1): 73-78. comstock, r. e. and robinson, h. f. 1952. genetic param­eters, their estimation and significance. proc. 6th int. grassland cong., pp. 284-291. dha r ma tti p. r. , pa til r. v. , reva na ppa a nd mannikeri, i. m. 2009. high yielding bacterial wilt resistant tomato hybrids. karnataka j. agric. sci., 22(1): 158-160. harrington, j. b. 1940. yielding capacity of wheat crosses as indicated by bulk hybrid tests. canadian j. res.,18: 578-584. johnson, h. w., robinson, h. f. and comstock, r. e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47: 314-318. mew, t. w. and ho., w. c. 1976. varietal resistance to bacterial wilt in tomato. plant. dis. reptr., 60: 264-268. kumar, m., buckseth, t., thakur, m. s. and thakur, k. s. 2013. genetic divergence and cluster a na lysis in toma to (solanum lycopersicum). prog. agric., 13(1): 114-117. mahalanobis p. c. 1936. on the generalized distance in statistics. proc. national institute of science india, 2: 49-55. meena, o. p. and bahadur, v. 2013. assessment of breeding potential of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill . ) ger mpla sm using d 2 analysis. the bioscan, 8(4):1145-1148. meena, o. p. and bahadur, v. 2015. breeding potential of indeterminate tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) accessions using d2 analysis. sabrao j. breed. gen., 47(1): 49-59. naveen, b. l., reddy, k. r. and saidaiah, p. 2018. genetic divergence for yield and yield attributes in tomato (solanum lycopersicum). indian j. agric. sci., 88(7): 1018-1023. patel, s. a., kshirsagar, d. b., attar, a. v. and bhalekar, m. n. 2013. study on genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in tomato. int. j. plant sci., 8(1): 45-47. rai, a. k., vikram, a., kumar, m., gupta, m. and dogra, r. k. 2017. genetic divergence and its implica tion in br eeding tomato (solanum lycopersicum) suita ble for mid-hills of himachal pradesh. indian j. agric. sci., 87(5): 657-62. spark, d. n. 1973. euclidean cluster analysis. algorithm ass 58. appl. stat., 22: 126-130. wang, j-f., hanson, p. and barnes, j.a. 1998. worldwide evaluation of an international set of resistance sources to bacterial wilt in tomato. in: p. prior, c. allen and j. elphinstone (eds.), ba cter ia l wilt disea se: molecula r a nd ecological aspects, springer-verlag, berlin, pp. 269-275. (received : 20.06.2022; revised : 30.03.2023; accepted 01.06.2023) genetic diversity and screening for bacterial wilt in tomato j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 40-45, 2023 varietal evaluation for yield and yield parameters of ber under semi-arid region of west bengal r.k. tarai and s.n. ghosh1 krishi vigyan kendra (nayagarh) orissa university of agriculture and technology, panipoila, balugaon e-mail: ranjan_04@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted in a private orchard 5 km away from regional research station, bidhan krishi viswavidyalaya, west bengal, during 2004-2005 to study fruit drop, retention, maturity and fruit yield of ten cultivars of ber. among ten cultivars studied, cv. kaithali took a minimum of 6 days to attain flower bud development while, in cv. jogia, it was 13 days. period from fruit-set to fruit maturity in different cultivars varied from 130 to 160 days. the time of harvest in different cultivars of ber was from third week of december to third week of march. maximum fruit-drop occurred at 15 and 30 days after fruit-set and, subsequently, decreased up to maturity. the total fruit-drop percentage varied from 66.5 (cv. gola) to 92.5 (cv. illaichi). similarly, final fruit-retention in different cultivars varied from 7.5 in cv. illaichi to 33.5% in cv. gola. cultivar jogia produced highest fruit yield (111.4 kg plant1), followed by cv. gola (90.0 kg plant-1) and cv. seb (81.5 kg plant-1). lowest average yield was recorded in cv. mundia (35.3 kg plant -1). key words: ber, zizyphus mauritiana, fruit-drop, fruit retention, maturity, yield introduction ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) belongs to the family rhamnaceae, and is an ideal fruit tree for arid and semi-arid regions. the ber is valued for its nutritional qualities, prolific and regular bearing habit and adaptability to adverse soil and climatic conditions (jawanda and bal, 1978). good productivity and its ability to stand transport and storage makes ber more popular for commercial cultivation than other fruit crops (pareek, 1983). in the western part of west bengal, ber is grown commercially, as, the soil and climate are well-suited. the plant is dormant in summer and escapes the dry spell. in ber, many flowers fail to set fruit and, even among the fruits set, there is some amount of shedding. several studies on floral biology, fruitdrop, fruit retention, period required for fruit maturity and yield in various ber cultivars were made in india by different workers (sharma et al, 1990; neeraja et al, 1995; nath and bhargava, 2002; ghosh and mathew, 2002). to exploit ber for commercial cultivation in west bengal, very little information is available on fruit-set, period for maturity, retention and yield in this region. hence, an attempt was made on these aspects in the present investigation to facilitate breeding for crop improvement in future. appropriate cultural practices that may influence performance of the crop can then be formulated. material and methods the experiment was conducted during 2004-2005 in a drought-prone semi-arid zone (with average annual rainfall of 1100 to1500 mm, of which 80% occurs during julyseptember; bauri and ghosh, 1998). soil at the experimental site located 5 km away from regional research station, jhargran, bidhan chandra krishi viswvidyala, is red laterite with ph 5.4, available n 300 kg ha-1, available p 30.60 kg ha-1, available k 101.0 kg ha-1 and organic carbon 0.57%. buds of ten ber cultivars, viz., banarasi karka, chhuhara, dandan, gola, illaichi, jogia, kaithali, mundia, seb and umran, collected from r.r.s., b.c.k.v.v and top-worked during june, 2001 on 5 yearold rootstock of local ber plants (after heading-back during march, 2001) were maintained at row-to-row and plant-toplant spacing of 6 m x 6 m. randomized block design was adopted, taking three replications and two plants in each replication. the plants were pruned at 25% level during may. plants were fertilized with 40kg fym, 150 g n, 50g p 2 o 5 and 100g k 2 o plant -1 during june and, again with the same 1department of fruits and orchard management, b.c.k.v.v., mohanpur, nadia, west bengal j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 17-20, 2010 18 dose during september plant-1 year-1, in the form of urea (46% n), rock phosphate (24% p 2 o 5 ) and muriate of potash 60% k 2 o), respectively. the manure and fertilizers were applied in a circular trench 30 cm wide at a radial distance of 90 and 120 cm from the trunk. all plants were irrigated thrice at monthly intervals during october, november and december at fruit growth and development stage. to record time required from emergence of flower bud to its opening, 50 flower buds were tagged soon upon their emergence. fruit-drop and fruit retention were recorded at 15-day intervals by tagging 200 just-set fruits, up to maturity, and expressed in terms of percentage. data on fruit weight and fruit size were taken from ten randomly-selected matured fruits in each replication and expressed as g and cm, respectively. the total number of fruits tree-1 was counted and the yield tree-1 was calculated by multiplying number of fruits with mean fruit weight and expressed in kg. data were statistically analyzed following standard procedures as described by panse and sukhatme (1978). angular transformation of data on percentage was done as per snedecor (1959). the significance of difference of different sources of variation was tested by error mean square by fisher-snedecor’s ‘t’ test, at probability level of 0.05. results and discussion different cultivars of ber differed significantly in fruit-set to maturity period, fruit-drop, retention and fruit yield. the period from emergence of flower buds to their opening varied from 6 to 13 days in different cultivars (table 1). ‘kaithali’ took 6 days to flower-bud development, while, it was 13 days in ‘jogia’. however, teaotia and chauhan (1963) and josan et al (1980) observed longer duration of 20-22 days for flower-bud development in different cultivars in north india. short duration of flower-bud development in the present study may be due to higher temperatures prevalent in this agro-climatic zone. cultivars chhuhara, gola and jogia required 130 days for maturity after fruit-set, while, in umran, seb and illaichi, it was 160 days. in other cultivars, viz., banarasi karka, dandan, kaithali and mundia, it was 145 days (table 1). longer period taken for fruit development in cv. seb compared to ‘gola’ under rajendranagar condition has also been reported by neeraja et al (1995). the period of harvesting of gola and chhuhara ranged from third week of december to first week of february, while, in cvs. banarasi karka, dandan, jogia, kaithali, it was from the second week of january to third week of february (table 1). in other cultivars like illaichi, seb and umran, the period of harvesting ranged from the second week of february to third week of march. this result is in line with findings of ghosh and mathew, 2002. irrespective of cultivar, the peak period of maturity fell between last week of november and first week of january (in the southern region) and between january and march (in the northern region) of india (nath and bhargava, 2002). thus, variation in the period of maturity of different cultivars in different regions of the country might be due to cultivation of these cultivars under different agro-climatic conditions. percent fruit-drop was recorded at 15-day intervals from fruit-set up to maturity (table 2). maximum fruit-drop occurred at 15 and 30 days after fruit-set and, subsequently, decreased up to maturity. at 15 days from fruit set, fruitdrop percentage varied from 18.0% (cvs. kaithali and seb) to 62.5% in ‘jogia’. similarly, at 30 days from fruit-set, fruit-drop varied from 23.5% in ‘chhuhara’ to 55% in ‘seb’. heavy fruit drop during early stages of fruit development may be attributed to unsuccessful fertilization or ovule table 1. time required for flower bud development and fruit maturity in ten cultivars of ber grown under irrigated conditions at jhargram variety period required for period required from date of first harvest date of last harvest duration of flower-bud fruit set to harvest(weeks) development (days) maturity (days) banarasi karka 10 145 2nd week, january 3rd week, february 5 chhuhara 12 130 3rd week, december 1st week, february 6 dandan 10 145 2nd week, january 3rd week, february 5 gola 9 130 3rd week, december 1st week, february 6 illaichi 8.5 160 2nd week, february 3rd week, march 5 jogia 13 130 2nd week, january 2nd week, february 5 kaithali 6 145 2nd week, january 3rd week, february 5 mundia 7 145 2nd week, january 3rd week, february 5 seb 10 160 2nd week, february 3rd week, march 5 umran 8 160 2nd week, february 3rd week, march 5 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.42 9.24 ---j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 17-20, 2010 tarai and ghosh 19 degeneration. however, 120 days after fruit-set, this ranged between 0 to 13.5% in different cultivars. total fruit-drop varied from a minimum of 66.5% in ‘gola’ to a maximum of 92.5% in ‘illaichi’. however, under ludhiana conditions in punjab, cumulative fruit-drop ranged between 68.3% in ‘zg2’ to 85% in ‘kaithali’ (singh et al, 1991), while, it ranged between 82.14% in ‘gola’to 87.94% in ‘seb’ under rajendranagar, hyderabad, conditions (neeraja et al, 1995). similarly, final fruit-retention in different cultivars varied from 7.5% in ‘illaichi’ to 33.5% in ‘gola’. this result is in close proximity with findings of sharma et al 1990 who obtained final fruit-retention values in the range of 4% in ‘illaichi’to 20% in ‘tikadi’. fruit weight, which is considered to be one of the important criteria for attracting premium price, varied significantly among the ten cultivars of ber (table 3). heaviest fruit was obtained in ‘jogia’ (28.5 g), closely followed by ‘gola’ (28 g) and ‘seb’ (26.8 g). ‘illaichi’(8.3 g) recorded the lowest fruit weight. it is interesting that all the cultivars studied produced heavier fruits compared to same varieties studied by vashistha, 2001. this may be due to the growth of these varieties under different agro-climatic conditions and to providing irrigation during fruit growth and development. as for fruit length and diameter, cultivars banarasi karka, dandan and jogia produced bigger size table 2. fruit-drop and fruit retention in ten cultivars of ber grown under irrigated conditions at jhargram* variety fruit drop percentage (days after fruit-set) total final fruit 15 dafs** 30 dafs 45 dafs 60 dafs 75 dafs 90 dafs 105 dafs 120 dafs fruit retention drop (%) (%) banarasi karka 21.0 29.0 2.0 2.0 8.5 2.0 2.0 2.0 68.5 31.5 (27.35) (32.58) (8.13) (8.13) (16.95) (8.13) (8.13) (8.13) (55.86) (34.14) chhuhara 40.0 23.5 0 3.0 0 0.5 3.0 6.5 76.5 23.5 (39.23) (29.00) (0.00) (9.97) (0.00) (4.05) (9.97) (14.77) (61.00) (29.00) dandan 35.0 30.0 3.0 0 2.0 2.0 6.0 0 78.0 22.0 (36.27) (33.21) (9.97) (0.00) (8.13) (8.13) (14.18) (0.00) (62.03) (27.97) gola 29.0 26.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 4.5 2.0 0 66.5 33.5 (32.58) (30.98) (8.13) (7.03) (5.74) (12.25) (8.13) (0.00) (54.63) (35.37) illaichi 50.0 35.0 7.5 0 0 0 0 0 92.5 7.5 (45.00) (36.27) (15.89) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (74.11) (15.89) jogia 62.5 24.5 3.0 0 0 0 0 0 90.0 10.0 (52.24) (26.97) (9.97) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (71.57) (18.43) kaithali 18.0 46.5 1.5 3.0 2.0 2.5 2.0 13.5 89.0 11.0 (25.10) (42.99) (7.03) (9.97) (8.13) (9.10) (8.13) (21.56) (70.63) (19.37) mundia 35.0 26.0 1.0 0 0 1.0 2.0 4.0 69.0 31.0 (36.27) (30.66) (5.74) (0.00) (0.00) (5.74) (8.13) (11.54) (56.17) (33.83) seb 18.0 55.0 1.0 5.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0 82.0 18.0 (25.10) (47.87) (5.74) (12.92) (5.74) (5.74) (5.74) (0.00) (64.99) (25.10) umran 18.5 50.0 1.5 2.5 1.5 1.0 2.5 0 77.5 22.5 (25.47) (45.00) (7.03) (9.10) (7.03) (5.74) (9.10) (0.00) (61.68) (28.32) c.d (p=0.05) 2.90 1.70 0.19 0.51 0.15 0.13 0.46 0.65 1.60 1.52 *figures in parentheses are angular transformed values ** dafs = days after fruit set table 3. fruit weight, fruit size, number of fruits and yield per plant in ber cultivars grown under irrigated conditions at jhargram variety average average average average average fruit fruit fruit number yield weight length diameter of fruits per plant (g) (cm) (cm) per (kg) plant banarasi karka 25.7 5.8 3.9 3069 78.7 chhuhara 21.8 4.8 3.8 2308 50.1 dandan 24.9 5.8 3.9 1634 40.5 gola 28.0 4.8 4.5 3207 90.0 illaichi 8.3 3.0 3.0 5034 46.3 jogia 28.5 5.4 3.9 3987 111.4 kaithali 23.7 5.2 4.0 2553 59.4 mundia 21.9 4.9 3.9 1605 35.3 seb 26.8 4.3 4.2 3046 81.5 umran 24.6 4.8 3.9 1791 44.6 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.29 0.29 0.34 91.6 4.56 fruits, while, ‘illaichi’produced fruits with minimum weight and size (table 3). various cultivars of ber showed significant variation in fruit production (table 3). the data showed that ‘jogia’produced highest yield (111.4 kg plant-1) followed by ‘gola’ (90.0 kg plant-1). lowest average yield was recorded in ‘mundia’ (35.3 kg plant-1). highest yield in ‘jogia’in the present study was due to production of maximum fruit number and heavier fruits. pareek and vashistha (1983), however, reported 60 and 80 kg plant-1 from 5year old j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 17-20, 2010 varietal evaluation in ber for yield 20 ‘jogia’trees under irrigated conditions in rajasthan. contrary to this, gupta (1977) reported the highest yield (210 kg plant1) in 20-year old ‘umran’, followed by ‘sanaur’ no.2, zg2 and dandan, which were on par with each other (200 kg plant-1) at hoshangabad, madhya pradesh. such variation in yield could be attributed to age of the trees too. bisla et al (1980) at hissar, haryana, found ‘umran’ and ‘katha bombay’ to be the highest yielders among late cultivars. lowest yield in ‘mundia’ was due to production of lesser number of fruits plant-1 and due to fruit-drop at subsequent stages of fruit development. references bauri, f.k. and ghosh, s.n. 1998. effect of rainwater harvesting on yield and physico-chemical characters of mango fruits cv. himsagar. in: national symposium on mango production and export, june 25-27, 1998, lucknow bisla, s.s., chauhan, k.s. and godara, n.r. 1980. evaluation of late ripening germplasms of ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) under semi-arid regions. haryana j. hortl. sci., 15:175-78 ghosh, s.n. and mathew, b. 2002. performance of nine ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) cultivars on top working in semi-arid region of west bengal. j. applied hort., 4: 49-51 gupta, m.r. 1977. physico-chemical characters of some promising ber cultivars grown at bahadurgarh (patiala). punjab hort. j., 17:131-34 jawanda, j.s. and bal, j.s. 1978. the ber: highly paying and rich in food value. ind. hort., 23:19-21 nath, v. and bhargava, r. 2002. variation in maturity period of ber as influenced by temperature difference and morning relative humidity under arid ecosystem. prog. hort., 34:153-160 neeraja, g., reddy, s.a. and babu, r.s.h. 1995. fruit set, fruit drop and fruiting behaviour in certain ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) cultivars. j. res., 23:17-21 pareek, o.p. 1983. the ber, icar, new delhi panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi, pp. 145-56 sharma, v.p., raja, p.v. and kore, v.n. 1990. flowering, fruit set and fruit drop in some ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) varieties. ann. agril. res., 11:1420 singh, z., dhillon, b.s. and sandhu, a.s. 1991. relationship of embryo degeneration with fruit drop and its pattern in different cultivars of ber. ind. j. hort., 48:251277 snedecor, g.w. 1959. statistical methods. iowa state college press, ames, iowa. soil under orange orchard. j. soils and crops, 11:226-28 (ms received 16 november 2009, revised 12 june 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 17-20, 2010 tarai and ghosh this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction sweet potato [ipomoea batatas (l.) lam] holds immense importance as a staple crop in the tropical and sub-tropical regions across the globe. it is the only domesticated species in the ipomoea genus (ravi et al., 2014). sweet potato is a highly nutritious crop due to its starch-rich storage root that provides a substantial amount of dietary energy and essential nutr ients r equir ed to meet huma n nutr itiona l requirements (van jaarsveld and faber, 2013). this versatile crop offers a range of benefits, including a high carbohydrate content, dietary fiber, bioactive compounds (such as proteins, vitamins, β-carotene, a nthocya nins, a nd miner a ls ), a nd nutr itiona l composition compar a ble to cereals a nd pulses (van jaarsveld and faber, 2013; ravi et al., 2014). additiona lly, sweet pota t o ha s emerged a s a “climate-resilient” and “famine-relief” crop, playing a crucial role in mitigating food shortages during natural calamities, saving numerous lives globally (gurmu et al., 2014; ravi et al., 2014). introduction of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, rich in β-carotene, ha s effectively a ddr essed vita min a-r ela ted malnutrition disorders in pregnant women and young children in developing nations (van jaarsveld and faber, 2013; gurmu et al., 2014). consequently, sweet potato holds immense potential as an essential dietary component for future human populations (gurmu et al., 2014). high-temperature stress has detrimental effects on sweet potato growth, development, and overall yield. studies have shown increased temperatures during early seasons result in fewer tubers and decreased yield, whereas, high temperatures during mid and late seasons promote shoot growth at the expense of root growth, ultimately affecting the final storage root yield (gaja nayake et al. , 2015). moreover, elevated temperatures have been found to impact storage root growth and yield negatively, with potential reductions in sweet potato yield (wijewardana et al., 2018). it original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 53-59, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2131 transcriptome analysis and identification of leaf, tuberous root and fibrous root tissue-specific high temperature stress-responsive genes in sweet potato senthilkumar k.m.1, saravanan r.1*, ravi v.1 and gutam s.2 1icar-central tuber crops research institute, thiruvananthapuram 695 017, kerala, india 2icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : saravanan.raju@icar.gov.in abstract sweet potato is an important food crop, and its production is affected by environmental stresses, including high temperature. the gene expression patterns and molecular responses in different tissues of sweet potato under high temperature stress were studied using microarray data sets. analysis revealed that modulation in the expression of key genes and pathways associated with various proteins including enzymes under high temperature stress in leaf, fibrous root and storage root tissues. tissue-specific responses, with both common and unique cellular responses were observed among the tissues. pathway analysis revealed the differential regulation of genes involved in dna replication, metabolism, transport, signaling, and stress response during high temperature stress. six genes viz., dnaj-domain protein (ipdnaj), nuclear protein (ipelf5), heat shock protein 90.1 (iphsp90.1), abc transporter (ipabc) hydrolase (ipnudx1) and alternative oxidase 1a (ipao1a), were up-regulated in the leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues. these six genes might play an important role in imparting high temperature stress tolerance in the leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues of sweet potato. the information generated provides valuable insights on leaf, tuberous root and fibrous root tissue-specific high temperature stress-responsive genes in sweet potato. these datasets will be helpful in selecting candidate genes and pathways for further functional and genomic analyses, facilitating the genetic improvement of sweet potato with enhanced stress tolerance. keywords : fibrous root, high temperature stress, microarray, sweet potato, tuberous root 54 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 53-59, 2023 senthilkumar et al. has also been observed that high temperatures can depress photosynthetic rates, further affecting yield (ravi et al., 2014). to enhance the resilience of sweet potato crops against heat stress, it is crucial to identify and understand the genes involved explicitly in heat stress responses. by studying these genes, strategies can be developed to improve the crop’s ability to with stand high temperatures and maintain optimal growth and yield. tr anscr iptome ana lysis plays a crucia l role in understanding the dynamic changes in gene expression under abiotic stress conditions (katiyar et al., 2015; sun et al., 2022). comprehensive tissue-specific transcriptome analysis by employing techniques such as microarray, rna sequencing (rna-seq) etc., provides valuable insights into the regulatory programs that govern gene expression during organ development (katiyar et al., 2015; ravi et al., 2020). this approach is particularly relevant in the context of sweet potato, as it allows for the identification and characterization of genes specifically involved in heat str ess r esponses, unveiling tissue-specific gene responses and regulatory networks that contribute to the crop’s adaptation and resilience under hightemperature conditions (sharma et al., 2021). tissuespecific transcriptome analysis has been employed in various plant species to uncover multiple responses to environmental stressors (katiyar et al., 2015; tiwari et al., 2023). transcriptome analysis has provided valuable insights into tissue-specific gene expression profiles and regulatory networks involved in heat stress responses (tao et al., 2012; sun et al., 2022). these studies have revealed specific genes and pathways that are activated or suppressed in response to high temperatures in different plant tissues. hence, in this study transcriptome analysis was performed to identify the high temperature-responsive genes in sweet potato tissues viz., leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues using microarray. analysis revealed that under high temperature stress, certain key genes and pathways a ssocia ted with dna r eplication, meta bolism, transport, signaling, and stress response are modulated in lea f, fibr ous r oot, and stora ge root tissues. interestingly, tissue-specific responses were observed, with both common and unique cellular responses among the different types of tissues. materials and methods plant material and growth conditions the sweet potato var. sree arun was grown in the earthen pots in the natural sunlight conditions with 12 hours sun light per day under 1700 μ mol m2h-1at 30oc ± 2oc during day time and 23oc ± 1oc during night time as described in ravi et al. (2017). high temperature stress was imposed by exposing the plant to 40oc ± 2oc. high quality rna was extracted from the leaf, storage root and fibrous root from 30 days old sweet potato plants (ravi et al., 2017). rna processing and crna synthesis the rna samples of leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root were labeled using agilent quick amp kit as per manufacturers protocol (ravi et al., 2017). 500 ng of rna was reverse transcribed using oligodt primer tagged to t7 promoter sequence for synthesizing cdna. the in vitro transcription step was performed to convert cdna to crna using t7 rna polymerase enzyme and cy3 dye as per manufacturers protocol (ravi et al., 2017). the crna was further cleaned using qiagen rneasy columns (qiagen, cat no: 74106). t he concentra tion and amount of dye incor por a ted wa s measur ed using na no dr op spectrophotometer (thermo scientific, usa). microarray and expression analysis the agilent 60-mer oligo microarray (agilent control grid is62976-8-v2-60k x 8-gx-eqc-201000210) was used for studying the expression pattern of the genes of sweet potato (ravi et al., 2020). for these, 600 ng of labeled crna were hybridized on the array using the gene expression hybridization kit following ma nufa ctur er s instr uction using agilent sur e hybridization chambers at 65º c for 16 hours. hybridized slides were washed using agilent gene expression wash buffers (part no: 5188-5242). g2505c scanner (agilent technologies) was used to scan the slides. sample preparation and microarray expression analysis was performed at the genotypic technology pvt. ltd. , benga lur u, india . t he microarray datasets generated in this study was submitted to ncbi geo: gse51862. the raw data was processed and the expression of the probes was transformed into the log2 ratio. the gene expression with log2 fc >2 was considered as upregulated and gene expression with log2 fc < -2 was considered as downregulated. differentially expressed genes (both upregulated and downregulated) were considered for further analysis. the sequence information of the sweet potato probes were used as a query and a blast search was performed against the arabidopsis and rice genome da ta ba se to identify the r espective 55 transcriptome analysis and temperature-responsive genes in sweet potato orthologous. the gene annotated information and loc details of arabidopsis were used for predicting the gene ontology (tian et al., 2017). results and discussion the present study aimed to investigate the gene expression patterns in different tissues of sweet potato (leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root) in response to high temperature stress. transcriptome analysis using microarray technology revealed the modulation of key genes and pathways associated with various proteins and enzymes in the different tissues of sweet potato under high temperature stress. differential expression analysis differential expression analysis revealed that 967, 1461 and 109 genes were upregulated in the leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues, respectively, whereas, 904, 1264 and 2701 genes were down regulated in the leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues, respectively during high temperature stress (table 1 and supplementary table 1). the details of the p ro b e s / g e n e s , g e n e e x p r e s s io n (f o l d c h a n g e ) , description, etc., are presented in supplementary table 1. the present findings aligned with ravi et al. (2017, 2020), who demonstrated the use of microarray analysis in understanding the molecular responses of tuber development in sweet potato. differential expression analysis identified a substantial number of upregulated and downregulated genes in each tissue, highlighting the tissue-specific response to high temperature stress. furthermore, the study identified common and unique cellular responses among the tissues, as supported by the differential regula tion of pathway genes involved in dna replication, metabolism, transport, signaling, and stress response (tao et al., 2012; sharma et al., 2021; sun et al., 2022). high temperature stress responsive genes in the leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues of sweet potato molecular chaperones viz., heat shock proteins, dnajdomain, etc., protects the native proteins from the stress induced dama ges by r eta ining its native structures (muthusamy et al., 2016). the movement of these proteins across cell organelles was regulated with the help of coordinated function of various transporters such as ran gtpase (choudhury et al., 2021). alternative oxidase (aox) protects the plant mitochondria under high temperature stress (saha et a l. , 2016). in this study, sixty genes wer e differentially regulated in all three tissues viz., leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues under high temperature stress (fig. 1 and supplementary table 2). out of these sixty, six genes, dnaj-domain protein (ipdnaj), nuclear protein (ipelf5), heat shock protein 90.1 (iphsp90.1), alternative oxidase 1a (ipao1a), abc transporter (ipabc) and hydrolase (ipnudx1) were upregulated (table 2), whereas, twenty-six genes were downregulated regulated in the leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues respectively during high temperature stress (fig. 1, supplementary fig. 1 and supplementary table 2). thus, these six genes might play an important functional role in protecting the cellular proteins in leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues under high temperature stress in sweet potato (muthusamy et al., 2017; saha et al., 2016; choudhury et al., 2021). in the present study, 376 were differentially regulated in both leaf and fibrous r oot tissues, whereas, 148 genes wer e differentially regulated in both leaf and tuberous root tissues during high temperature stress (fig. 1 and supplementary table 1). about 250 genes were differentially regulated in both fibrous root and tuberous root tissues under high temperature stress (fig. 1 and supplementary fig. 1). several studies ha ve shown the significa nt modulation in the expression of transcriptome involving important genes/ table 1 : differentially expressed gene (degs) statistics under high temperature stress in sweet potato analysis group total degs upregulated downregulated (log2 fc>2 and log2 fc<-2) (log2 fc>2) (log2 fc<-2) leaf tissue 1871 967 904 fibrous root tissue 2725 1461 1264 tuberous root tissue 2810 109 2701 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 53-59, 2023 56 table 2 : details of the upregulated genes in leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues of sweet potato under high temperature stress gene description/ sweet potato fold change (log2 fc) arabidopsis ortholog function array probe leaf fibrous tuberous (loc id) id root root ipdnaj dnaj chaperone jp117116 3.16 2.23 2.26 at5g03030.1 ipnudx 1 cytosol-localized jp135891 3.83 3.22 2.80 at1g68760.1 nudix hydrolase ipabcc3 abc transporter jp140208 4.09 2.75 2.31 at3g13080.4 family protein ipelf5 nuclear protein jp144908 2.76 2.62 2.46 at5g62640.2 iphsp90.1 heat shock jp146862 3.73 3.14 2.92 at5g56010.1 protein 90 (hsp90) ipao1a alternative jp145717 5.45 4.26 3.90 at3g22370.1 oxidase 1a fig. 1 : venn diagram showing upregulated and downregulated genes in the leaf, fibrous root and tuberous root tissues of sweet potato under high temperature stress in comparison with control condition pathwa ys during high temper ature stress. the pathways/genes including phytohormones, molecular chaperones, signaling kinesis, ros scavenging enzymes, epigenetic modifications, transcription factors, etc., were differently expressed during high temperature stress (sharma et al., 2021; venkatesh et al., 2022). tissue specific molecula r, biochemica l a nd physiologica l r esponse pla y impor tant r ole in regula ting high tempera tur e response in plants (muthusamy et al., 2017; sharma et al., 2021; xiang and rathinasabapathi, 2022). thus, in this study, under high temperature stress, the pathway genes viz., dna replication, galactose metabolism, biosynthesis of nucleotide sugars, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism, starch and sucrose metabolism, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, carbon metabolism, plant hormone signal transduction and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites were modulated in the leaf tissue, whereas, biosynthesis of nucleotide sugars, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism, mrna surveillance pathway and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites were modulated in the fibrous root tissues (fig. 2). similarly, in the tuberous root tissues, ribosome, aminoacyl-trna biosynthesis, oxidative phosphorylation, protein export, abc transporters, nucleocytoplasmic transport, mrna surveillance pathway, plant hormone signal transduction, protein processing in endoplasmic reticulumplant-pathogen interaction and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway genes were modulated. additionally, previous resea rch has elucidated the molecular responses of sweet potato to other stress conditions such as low temperature stress (wijewardana et al., 2018). these studies collectively contribute to understanding of the complex molecular mechanisms underlying stress responses in sweet potato (wijewardana et al., 2018; ravi et al., 2020; j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 53-59, 2023 senthilkumar et al. 57 a. leaf b. fibrous root c. tuberous root fig. 2 : go categories of degs of sweet potato under high temperature stress. transcriptome analysis and temperature-responsive genes in sweet potato j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 53-59, 2023 58 sun et al., 2022; xiang and rathinasabapathi, 2022). thus, present study demonstrates the presence of both collective and individual cellular responses to high temperature stress in the leaf, fibrous root, and tuberous root tissues of sweet potato. conclusion t he study sheds light on the effects of high temperature stress on the gene expression profiles and molecular responses in the leaf, fibrous root, and storage root tissues of sweet potato. the study identified both common and tissue-specific responses to high temperature stress among these tissues through comparative analysis. the findings provide valuable insights for identifying key genes and pathways involved in the response to high temperature stress, facilitating further functional and genomic studies aimed at enhancing the genetic improvement. by better understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the response to high temperature stress, we can develop targeted strategies to enhance stress tolerance and improve the overall resilience of sweet potato. acknowledgement the authors acknowledge the director, icar-ctcri, thiruvananthapuram for providing the facilities. references choudhury, s., mansi, muthusamy, s.k., padaria, j. c. a nd da la l, m. 2021. genome-wide identification of ran gtpase family genes from wheat (t. aestivum) and their expression profile during developmental stages and abiotic stress conditions. funct. integr. genomics., 21: 239250. gajanayake, b., raja reddy, k., and shankle, m. w. 2015. quantifying growth and developmental responses of sweet potato to mid and late season temperature. agron. j., 107(5): 1854-1862. gurmu, f., hussein, s. and laing, m. 2014. the potential of orange-fleshed sweet potato to prevent vitamin a deficiency in africa. int. j. vitam. nutr. res., 84(1-2): 65-78. ka tiya r, a. , smita , s. , muthusa my, s. 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(received : 26.05.2023; revised : 21.06.2023; accepted 24.06.2023) transcriptome analysis and temperature-responsive genes in sweet potato j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 53-59, 2023 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 137 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction dr umstick (moringa oleifera la m. ) is a n underexploited perennial tree species that belongs to the family moringaceae. it is native to the subhimalayan tracts of india, bangladesh, afghanistan and pakistan (makkar and becker, 1997). this fastgrowing tree is a lso known a s benzolive tr ee, horseradish tree, marango, mlonge, moonga, kelor, mulangay, saijhan, sajna or ben oil tree. the crop is grown in homesteads for family use or cultivated commercially in the agriculture field for the market. india stands at first position among the drumstick growing countries with an annual production of 2.20 to 2.40 million tonnes of tender fruits from an area of 38,000 ha with productivity of around 63 tonnes per ha. among the different states, andhra pradesh leads in both area and production (15,665 ha) followed by tamil nadu (13,250 ha) and karnataka (10,280 ha) (sekhar et al., 2018). dr ying is one of the tr a ditiona l methods of preservations, which converts the leafy vegetables into a light weight, easily transportable and storable product. drumstick is used as a foodstuff in different dishes in india, but their nutritional value is not considered due to lack of information. most of the research work on the biochemical characteristics of the drumstick tree are mainly focused on the oil from the seeds due to its antioxidant properties but very little is associated to the nutritional value of other edible products of the plant as a traditional important food commodity to improve economic and health condition of the popula tion. considering the food value, utiliza tion of dried mor inga leaves need to be popularized for consumption by rural as well as urban population. in view of the above, the present study was done with the objective to evaluate the effect of dehydration on nutritive value of drumstick leaves dried under different drying methods along with different pretreatments. effect of dehydration methods on quality parameters of drumstick (moringa oleifera lam.) leaf powder ahmed s.* and langthasa s. department of horticulture, b.n. college of agriculture, aau, biswanath chariali, assam, india *corresponding author e-mail : sahinur1994@gmail.com abstract a study was undertaken to assess the suitable drying methods for retention of quality parameters of drumstick (moringa oleifera lam.) leaf powder. the experiment was laid out in factorial crd involving three methods of drying (t1: sun drying, t2: shade drying and t3: cabinet tray dryer) with three pre-treatments (b1: unblanched, b2: blanched with plain water and b3: blanched followed by kms dip) replicated three times. all the pre-treatments had significant effect on biochemical characteristics of drumstick leaves. among the pre-treatments, unblanched leaves (b1) retained higher nutrient contents compared to other pre-treatments. the results of the investigation revealed that among the three different drying methods, shade dried sample was found to retain better nutritional properties. significantly maximum values for moisture (11.18 %), ascorbic acid (156.27 mg/100g), vitamin-a (22.71 mg/100g), iron (16.54 mg/100g), oxalate (378.66 mg/100g), antioxidant activity (77.11%) and phenol (140.04 mg/100g) were recorded in shade dried sample. the interaction effect between pre-treatment and drying methods showed variation in results. however, the treatment combination t1b1 (unblanched sun dried) was found to retain high protein (26.43 g/100g), magnesium (318.70 mg/100g) and potassium (1378.79 mg/100g) whereas t2b1 (unblanched shade dried) showed higher ascorbic acid (179.47 mg/100g), saponin (3.66 %), oxalate (541.47 mg/100g) and antioxidant (80.33 %) than rest of the treatment combinations. keywords: cabinet tray, nutritional properties, pre-treatments, shade drying and sun drying 138 ahmed and langthasa j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 materials and methods preparation of sample fresh drumstick leaves were collected from the ca mpus of bishwanath college of agr icultur e, biswanath chariali. the twigs containing half matured drumstick leaves were taken to the laboratory. the leaves were separated from twigs, washed thoroughly in clean running water, drained and were spread on clean stainless-steel tray to remove surface moisture. after removal of surface moisture, equal quantity of leaves were weighed to impose different pretreatments such as blanched for 2 min, blanching + kms(0.5%) and control. pretreated drumstick leaves were dried by different drying methods, by spreading drumstick leaves on stainless steel trays under the sun, shade and cabinet tray drier (60°c) until they were crisp. biochemical nalysis biochemical analysis of the drumstick leaf powder was carried out immediately after drying following the standard estimation methods. moisture content moisture content was determined according to aoac (1980) method. the moisture content of the fresh and dried samples was measured by using the hot air oven method. at first, the weight of the crucible was measured using a digital balance. then the sample along with crucible was measured and kept in a hot air oven at 105°c for 24 hours. the crucible was then taken out from the oven and cooled in a desiccator. after attaining the room temperature, the weight of the crucible along with the sample was measured. the moisture content was computed using the following formula: where, a = sample weight before oven drying, b = final weight of the sample. protein estimation of protein was done by lowry’s method (lowry et al.,1951). for the estimation of protein, 500 mg of the sample was weighed and ground well with a pestle and mortar in 5-10 ml of the buffer. the above sample was centrifuged and the supernatant was used for estimation of protein. the working standard solutions of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1 ml were taken in a series of test tubes. again, the sample extracts of 0.1 and 0.2 ml were taken in another 2 test tubes and the volume was made up to 1 ml in all the test tubes. a tube with 1 ml of water served as blank. five ml of alkaline copper solution as reagent was added to each test tube including blank and allowed to stand for 10 minutes. then, 0.5 ml of folin-ciocalteu reagent was added to test tubes and allowed to stand for 30 min at room temperature. the reading was taken in a spectrophotometer at 750 nm wavelength. ascorbic acid ascorbic acid content was determined by the visual titration method using 2,6 dichlorophenol indophenol dye (freed, 1966). ten grams of sample was taken in 100 ml volumetric flask and volume was made up with 4 per cent oxalic acid and filtered. ten ml of filtrate was taken and titrated against the standard dye. ascorbic acid content was calculated by the following formula: *dye factor = 0.5/titre value vitamin a vitamin a was determined in terms of beta carotene. five ml of leaf extract was taken in a separating funnel and 10 ml of acetone and petroleum ether were added and mixed thoroughly. lower layer was discarded and upper layer was collected and made up the volume to 100 ml with petroleum ether. the reading was taken at 452 nm. using petroleum ether as blank. the amount of vitamin a was calculated by the following for mula a nd expr essed in μg/100g (srivastava and kumar, 2007). mineral compositions of leaves calcium (ca) and magnesium (mg) for the estimation of ca and mg, about 1 g of sample was digested by wet ashing method (saini et al., 2012). then 5 ml aliquot was taken in a china clay dish and ph of the aliquot was adjusted to 10 by adding 15 ml nh4cl + nh3oh buffer solution. ten drops of erichrome black-t indicator was added and 139 effect of dehydration methods on quality of moringa leaf powder added and the absorbance of each was measured at 480 nm.the amount of iron present was calculated by the following formula given by saini et al (2012). anti-nutrient analysis of leaves saponin the saponin content of the samples was determined by the double extraction gravimetric method described by harborne (1973). a measured amount (5g) of powdered sample was mixed with 50 ml of 20 per cent aqueous ethanol solution in a flask. the mixture was heated with periodic agitation in water bath for 90 minutes at 55ºc; it was then filtered through whatman filter paper (no. 42). the residue was extracted with 50 ml of 20 per cent ethanol and both extracts were poured together and the combined extract was reduced to about 40 ml at 90ºc and transferred to a separating funnel. about 40 ml of diethyl ether was added to a separating funnel and shaken vigorously. re-extraction by partitioning was done repeatedly until the aqueous layer becomes clear in colour. the saponins were extracted with 60 ml of butanol. the combined extracts were washed with 5 per cent aqueous sodium chloride solution and evaporated to dryness in a preweighed evaporation dish. it was dried at 60ºc in the oven and reweighed after cooling in a desiccator. saponin content was determined by difference and calculated as below: where, w1 = weight of evaporating dish w2 = weight of evaporating dish + sample oxalate oxalate was determined by aoac (2005) method. one gram of the sample was weighed into a 100 ml conical ûask. then, 75 ml of 3m h2so4 was added and the solution was carefully stirred intermittently with a magnetic stirrer for about 1 h and then ûltered using whatman no.1 ûlter paper. the sample ûltrate (extract, 25 ml) was collected and titrated against hot (80-90°c) 0.1 n kmno4 solution to the point when a faint pink colour appeared that persisted for at least 30s. the concentration of oxalate in each sample was titrated with 0.01 n edta solution till the colour changes from red to bright blue. a blank was carried out in the same manner. five ml of naoh solution and 50 mg of murexide indicator were added to 5 ml of aliquot and titrated with 0.01n edta solution till the colour changed from pink to purple. similarly, a blank was also prepared. both the minerals were calculated by the following formula and expressed as follows, for ca + mg, meq. of (ca+mg)/100 g of plant material = (0.01 x v3) x (v/v1) x (100/1) meq. of ca/100g of plant material = (0.01 x v2) x (v/v1) x (100/1) where, v = volume of the plant digest made v1 = volume of the aliquot taken for analysis v2 = volume of edta solution in titration (titre value) v3 =volume of edta solution in titration (titre value) potassium ten ml of aliquot was taken from the pre-digested sample and 25 ml of neutral nh4oac solution was added. the content was then shaken on an electric shaker for 5 minutes and filtered. the filtrate was then fed to the atomizer of the flame photometer. the flame photometer r eading was set zero for the bla nk (nh4oac solution) and at 100 for 40 ppm k solution. a standard curve was prepared by making different concentr a tions of k fr om 5 – 40 ppm. t he concentration of k in the sample was calculated using the standard curve (ward and johnson,1962). iron three test tubes were taken viz. one for blank to which 5 ml water, 0.5ml concentrated sulphuric acid, 2 ml pota ssium per sulpha te a nd 4 ml of potassium thiocyanate were added. in the second test tube for standard, 1 ml standard solution, 4 ml water, 0.5 ml concentr a ted sulphur ic a cid, 2 ml pota ssium persulphate and 4 ml potassium thiocyanate were added and to the third test tube, 5 ml of sample, 0.5 ml concentrated sulphuric acid, 2 ml potassium persulphate and 4 ml potassium thiocyanate were j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 140 obtained from the calculation: 1 ml of 0.1n kmno4 = 0.006303 g oxalate. antioxidant and phenolic compounds antioxidant activity dpph radical scavenging activity of extracts of m. oleifera was measured by the modified method of brand-williams et al. (1995). dpph in ethanol is a stable radical, dark violet in colour. its colour is bleached by its reaction with a hydrogen donor. for analyses, 0.1 ml of each extract was added to 2 ml of 100 μm dpph solution in ethanol. the control was made of 0.1 ml ethanol in 2 ml dpph. the reaction mixture was incubated for 30 min in the dark at 25°c and the absorbance was read at 517 nm, against a r eagent bla nk. t he per centa ge of fr ee r a dica l scavenging activity was calculated according to equation. where abs. is the absorbance at 517 nm. phenolic compounds phenolic compounds were determined by using the method given by malik and singh (1980). sample of 1.0 g was taken and ground it with a pestle and mortar in 10 times volume of 80 per cent ethanol. the homogenate was then centrifuged at 10,000 rpm for 20 minutes and the supernatant was collected. the residue was re-extracted and the collected supernatants were pooled. supernatants were evaporated to dryness and the residue was dissolved in distilled water (5 ml). different aliquots of 0.2 to 2 ml were taken in a series of test tubes and volume was made up to 3 ml with water in each tube. folin-ciocalteu reagent of 0.5 ml was added and after 3 minutes, 2 ml of 20 per cent sodium carbonate solution was added in each tube. the tubes were placed in boiling water for exactly 1 minute, cooled and the absorbance was measured at 650 nm against a reagent blank. the standard curve was prepared using different concentrations of catechol. results and discussion moisture content the initial moisture content of fresh drumstick leaves was 74.50 per cent which decreased significantly from 74.50 to 7.84 per cent irrespective of the drying method. blanching significantly reduced the level of moisture as compared to unblanched sample (9.04 to 10.67%). this might be due to loss of cell wall integrity in blanched sample where bound water loss was at faster rate compared to unblanched sample as reported by waldr on et al. (2003). t he lowest moisture level was found in the treatment combination t3b3 (7.60%) (table1). protein content the protein content of drumstick leaves increased on drying from 6.09 g per 100g to maximum level in sun dried sample (25.12 g/100g) and minimum amount in shade dried sample (24.27 g/100g). removal of moisture leads to an increase in the concentration of nutrients. in the present study, the increase in protein content of dried drumstick leaves compared to fresh leaves as a result of moistur e loss might ha ve influenced dry matter content (oulai et al., 2016). the result was in agreement with the work of osum et al. (2013) who reported that the drying process increased the pr otein content due to moistur e loss. t he unbla nched lea f sample retained higher pr otein (25.67g/100g) than that of the blanched sample. the reduced protein content in blanched sample might be due to leaching loss. the treatment combination of t1b1 (unblanched sun-dried leaves) showed highest protein (26.43g/100g) from rest of the combinations (table 1). vitamins ascorbic acid content ascorbic acid being highly water soluble and heat labile vitamin, was found to decrease significantly on dehydration. however, shade dried sample retained maximum ascorbic acid (156.27 mg/100g). the unblanched sample showed higher ascorbic acid as compared to blanched sample. the reduced level of ascorbic acid might be due to oxidation of ascorbic acid. these results were well supported by gupta et al. (2008) in green leafy vegetables. among the treatment combinations, unblanched shade dried leaves (t2b1) recorded highest amount (179.47 mg/100g) of ascorbic acid (table 2). vitamin-a content vitamin-a is a fat soluble and heat stable vitamin but sensitive to light. the β-carotene content increased on drying from 6.76 mg /100g (fresh leaves) to 19.81 mg /100g in cabinet tray drying, 19.85 mg/100g in sun drying and 22.71 mg /100g in shade drying. the variation in β-carotene content due to different drying ahmed and langthasa j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 141 processes could be attributed to the length of exposure to light, oxygen and heat and also, it has been described as being labile to different drying techniques (convection, sun, vacuum or freeze drying) as reported by soria et al. (2009). thus, more loss in vitamin a was observed in sun drying than other drying methods. the drumstick leaves retained highest vitamin a content in shade dried leaves and lowest in cabinet drying. similar results were also reported by joshi and mehta (2010) that shade drying retained highest vitamin a content followed by oven drying at 60°c. blanching resulted in significant loss of β carotene content of drumstick leaves. the β carotene content of blanched leaves (21.88 mg/100g) was higher than those of their corresponding unblanched leaves (19.51 mg/100g). the carotene content on the plant is bounded with protein, the heat treatment such as steaming, cooking and blanching can release the carotene that bounded (howard et al., 1999). the treatment combination t2b2 (blanched and shade dried leaves) showed highest (23.63 mg/100g) vitamin-a content from rest of the combinations (table 2). minerals content calcium the calcium content of fresh drumstick leaves was 438 mg /100g and it was much lower than the dried lea ves . amo ng t he dr ying met hod s , highes t (2078.73 mg/100g) calcium content was noticed in ca binet tr a y dr ied lea ves t ha n the other t wo met hods . lima n et a l. ( 20 14 ) a ls o obs er ved enhanced mineral nutrients in moringa oleifera leaves dried under moisture analyzer drying method as compared to sun and oven drying. the general increase in mineral content with increase in drying temperature is attributable to concentration factor due to moisture removal, which resulted in higher table 2. effect of pre-treatment and drying methods on ascorbic acid and vitamin-acontent of drumstick leaves ascorbic acid (mg/100g) vitamin a (mg/100g) fresh leaves: 206.67 mg/100g 6.79 mg/100g drying methods pre-treatments mean pre-treatments mean b1 b2 b3 b1 b2 b3 sun dried (t1) 154.53 132.93 131.47 139.64 18.73 21.19 19.62 19.85 shade dried (t2) 179.47 145.60 143.73 156.27 22.02 23.63 22.50 22.71 cabinet tray (t3) 134.67 122.67 123.20 126.84 17.78 20.83 20.81 19.81 mean 156.22 133.73 132.80 19.51 21.88 20.98 cd (p= 0.05) t: 2.24, b: 2.24, txb: 3.87 t: 0.49, b: 0.49, txb: 0.85 b1: unblanched b2: blanched b3: blanched + kms table 1. effect of pre-treatment and drying methods on moisture and protein content of drumstick leaves moisture (%) protein (g/100g) fresh leaves: 74.50 % 6.09 g/100g drying methods pre-treatments mean pre-treatments mean b1 b2 b3 b1 b2 b3 sun dried (t1) 10.00 9.73 9.73 9.82 26.43 25.07 23.86 25.12 shade dried (t2) 13.80 9.93 9.80 11.18 24.97 24.25 23.61 24.27 cabinet tray (t3) 8.20 7.73 7.60 7.84 25.61 24.56 24.45 24.87 mean 10.67 9.13 9.04 25.67 24.62 23.97 cd (p= 0.05) t: 0.31, b: 0.31, t x b: 0.53 t: 0.19, b: 0.19, tx b: 0.32 b1: unblanched b2: blanched b3: blanched + kms effect of dehydration methods on quality of moringa leaf powder j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 142 level of total soluble solid (alakali et al., 2014). the result revealed that drumstick leaves blanched a long with kms dip ha d the highest ca lcium cont ent (20 62. 91 mg/100g) followed by only bla nched (2051.56 mg/100g) while unblanched leaves showed the lowest calcium concentration (2031.79 mg/100g) (table 3). magnesium magnesium occurs abundantly in chloroplast as a constituent of chlorophyll molecule. the fresh drumstick leaves contain 48.36 mg /100g, which increased significantly upon drying to 289.32 mg 100g in cabinet drying, 294.78 mg /100g in shade drying and 315.41 mg per 100g in sun drying. buchaillot et al.(2009) reported that magnesium c ou ld t r a n s f or m int o p yr op heo p hyt in a nd pheophytin because of high temperature. hence, magnesium might have bound in which it inhibited the mineral from leaching when structure of the leaf breaks. the amount of magnesium in drumstick leaves without blanching was found to be much higher (304 mg/100g) than the blanched leaves (table 3). potassium t he r es ult r evea led t ha t out of thr ee dr ying methods, sun dried drumstick leaves had the highest potassium content (1210.06 mg/100g) followed by s ha de dr ying a nd t he lowest p ot a s s iu m wa s observed in cabinet tray dried leaves (1099.87 mg/ 1 00 g) . pr ob a b ly t he r ea son might be due t o potassium being cationic in nature that do not polarize on heating but forms oxides when exposed to light and air. blanching significantly reduced the level of potassium content in leaves. the blanched leaves showed lowest value for potassium while highest potassium content (1242.43 mg/100g) was not ic ed in u nb la nc hed lea ves . t he r edu c ed potassium content of blanched green leafy vegetable indicated the solubility and the leaching of the minerals into the water because of their highly reactive nature of the metal that readily reacts with water (michael, 2006) (table 4). iron the iron concentration of dried drumstick leaves was higher as compared to fresh leaves. present study revealed that there was an increment of iron content dur ing drying of lea ves irrespective of drying procedure. the shade dried leaves showed 16.54 mg / 100g of iron content while cabinet tray dried and sun dried sample exhibited 13.62 and 13.52 mg/100g respectively. however, shade dried leaves significantly retained higher iron content in comparison to sun drying and cabinet tray drying. this might be due to the fact that concentration of solid increases with the removal of moisture from the leaves. a similar trend of iron content in shade dried moringa leaves was reported by emelike and ebere (2016). blanching increased the availability of iron content in leaves. the result revealed that drumstick lea ves blanched and dipped in kms solution r etained highest (16.09 mg/100g) iron content while unblanched leaves recorded the lowest amount (13.04 mg/100g) (table 4). table 3. effect of pre-treatment and drying methods on calcium and magnesium content of drumstick leaves calcium (mg/100g) magnesium (mg/100g) fresh leaves: 438 mg/100g 48.36 mg/100g drying methods pre-treatments mean pre-treatments mean b1 b2 b3 b1 b2 b3 sun dried (t1) 2044.00 2064.67 2082.07 2063.07 318.70 314.43 313.11 315.41 shade dried (t2) 1984.03 2004.57 2023.23 2003.94 298.72 294.16 291.57 294.78 cabinet tray (t3) 2067.33 2085.43 2083.43 2078.73 294.70 277.60 295.67 289.32 mean 2031.79 2051.56 2062.91 304.00 295.40 300.11 cd (p= 0.05) t: 1.87, b: 1.87, tx b: 3.25 t: 1.68, b: 1.68, tx b: 2.92 b1: unblanched b2: blanched b3: blanched + kms ahmed and langthasa j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 143 antinutritional factors saponin saponin, a naturally occurring glycoside that is widely distributed in the plants. it acts as antinutrient and also as antioxidant in human. fresh drumstick leaves contain 5.71 % of saponin, which gets reduced to 0.76 -1.76 % upon dehydration by different methods. all three drying method could reduce saponin content drastically. reduction in saponin content may be attributed to heat induced degeneration involved in drying processs (ademiluyi et al., 2018). saponin content was also influenced by pretreatments. the decrease in the saponin content upon blanching of drumstick leaves was 89.49% in only blanched and 87.74 % in blanched and dip in kms solution. wher ea s unbla nched lea ves showed 62. 87 % r eduction. t he tr ea tment combina tion t 2b 1 (unblanched shade dried leaves) recorded highest (3.66 %) amount of saponin and lowest (0.50 %) in blanched sun-dried leaves (t1b2) (table 5). oxalate the antinutritional constituent oxalate can reduce the bioavailability of some minerals, especially calcium. oxalate occurs naturally in plants. it occurs as soluble salts of potassium and sodium and as insoluble salts of calcium, magnesium and iron. the total oxalate content of drumstick leaves was found to increase on drying. the oxalate present in fresh leaves was 121.56 mg/100g and in dried sample it ranged from 299.84 to 378.66 mg /100g. the result of the present study was in accordance with aditi et al. (2017) who reported increase in oxalate content of moringa leaves. it has been observed that after drying, the oxalate content increased, which may be due to considerable table 4. effect of pre-treatment and drying methods on magnesium and iron content of drumstick leaves potassium (mg/100g) iron (mg/100g) fresh leaves: 254.71 mg/100g 1.07 mg/100g drying methods pre-treatments mean pre-treatments mean b1 b2 b3 b1 b2 b3 sun dried (t1) 1378.79 1124.69 1126.71 1210.06 12.80 13.38 14.37 12.80 shade dried (t2) 1219.79 1121.18 1194.64 1178.54 13.38 16.67 19.61 13.38 cabinet tray (t3) 1128.72 1099.03 1071.86 1099.87 12.96 13.61 14.29 12.96 mean 1242.43 1114.97 1131.07 13.04 14.56 16.09 cd (p= 0.05) t: 0.39, b: 0.39, tx b: 0.68 t: 0.96, b: 0.96, tx b: 1.67 b1: unblanched b2: blanched b3: blanched + kms table 5. effect of pre-treatment and drying methods on saponin and oxalate content of drumstick leaves saponin (%) oxalate (mg/100g) fresh leaves: 5.71% 121.56 mg/100g drying methods pre-treatments mean pre-treatments mean b1 b2 b3 b1 b2 b3 sun dried (t1) 1.54 0.50 0.62 0.89 380.14 265.21 254.16 299.84 shade dried (t2) 3.66 0.74 0.88 1.76 541.47 298.36 296.15 378.66 cabinet tray (t3) 1.15 0.55 0.59 0.76 413.29 265.21 269.63 316.04 mean 2.12 0.60 0.70 444.97 276.26 273.32 cd (p= 0.05) t: 0.10, b: 0.10, tx b: 0.18 t: 3.12, b: 3.12, tx b: 5.40 b1: unblanched b2: blanched b3: blanched + kms effect of dehydration methods on quality of moringa leaf powder j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 144 loss of moisture content, hence other compounds such as oxalate content of dehydrated sample became concentrated and their value was much greater than those of fresh sample (paul et al., 2012). blanching reduced the oxalate content because the concentration of antinutrients was highest on the superficial layer of vegetable and blanching ruptures this layer (albinhna and savage, 2001). in the present findings, oxalate content was at its minimum level in blanched sample (273.32276.26 mg/100g) compared to unblanched sample (444.97 mg/100g). among the treatment combinations, lowest oxalate was found in t1b3 (254.16 mg/100g) (table 5). antioxidant and phenolic compounds antioxidant activity the drumstick leaves were endowed with the added benefits of antioxidants such as vitamin a, c and phenolic compounds. t he result of the present findings showed that antioxidant activities of the drumstick leaves were reduced due to dehydration and blanching. antioxidant activities (dpph) of the leaves ranged from 63.76 to 77.47 % among the drying methods. the leaves dried under shade had the highest radical scavenging power (77.47%) than the other drying methods. cabinet tray dried sample showed lowest activity. the drying process lead to deterioration of antioxidants in leaves. it appears that mainly vitamin c involved in free ra dical scavenging a ctivity while ca rotenoid a nd total phenol are mostly implicated but to a lesser extent in the ion reducing power. during drying, exposure to heat, light and oxygen accelerate the rate of oxidation of vitamin a and c present in vegetables (oulai et al., 2015) blanching had significant influence on antioxidant properties. the scavenging power of drumstick leaves reduced on bla nching while unblanched leaves recorded highest activity. this may be due to leaching out and thermal degradation of heat sensitive compounds, vitamin c and a. bamidele et al. (2017) also observed similar trend in bitter lea ves ( ve r n o n i a a m y g d a l i n a ) a nd f ou nd a significant decrease in reducing power and the dpph scavenging activity of blanched sample. the highest activity was observed in t2b1.(unblanched shade dried) (80.33 %) (table 6). phenolic compounds phenolics are one of the most effective antioxidant constituents of drumstick leaves. the total phenol content of drumstick leaves varies with the drying procedure and pre-treatments. phenol content was found to decrease from 163.42 mg /100g (fresh leaves) to 140.04 mg /100g in shade dried, 136.05 mg / 100g in sun dried and 130.81 mg /100g in cabinet tr ay dr ied lea ves. the decrease in the phenolic contents of the moringa leaves exposed to dr ying processes such as sun a nd cabinet tr ay drying could be due to heat-induced degradation of phenolic compounds (oboh et al., 2010). the maximum (137.32 mg/100g) total phenol content wa s obs er ved in u nb la nched sa mp le a nd the minimum (134.20 mg/100g) was in only blanched sample. table 6. effect of pre-treatment and drying methods on antioxidant activity and phenol content of drumstick leaves antioxidant activity (%) total phenol (mg/100g) fresh leaves: 85.25 % 163.42 mg/100g drying methods pre-treatments mean pre-treatments mean b1 b2 b3 b1 b2 b3 sun dried (t1) 73.80 69.48 71.54 71.61 137.67 134.62 135.86 136.05 shade dried (t2) 80.33 73.52 77.47 77.11 141.89 138.18 140.05 140.04 cabinet tray (t3) 66.07 61.86 63.35 63.76 132.40 129.79 130.23 130.81 mean 73.40 68.29 70.79 137.32 134.20 135.38 cd (p= 0.05) t: 0.24, b: 0.24, tx b: 0.41t: 0.46, b: 0.46, tx b: ns b1: unblanched b2: blanched b3: blanched + kms ns: non-significant ahmed and langthasa j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 137-146, 2022 145 conclusion the result obtained from the present study indicated that out of three drying methods, shade drying was found to have better retention of nutrients. the pretreatments had significant effect on physiochemical characteristics of drumstick leaves. the nutrients s u c h a s vit a min a, c , ir on, a nt i nu t r ient s , a nt iox ida nt a nd p henol r et ent ion a b ilit y of drumstick leaves was better in shade dried samples while protein, calcium, magnesium and potassium r etention was more in sun dr ied samples. the combination of unblanched leaves dried under shade was found superior in terms of retention of nutrients from rest of the treatment combination. considering the above fact, both shade and sun drying may be considered best for preserving nutrient and also from the point of view of cost involvement. references ademiluyi, a. o., aladeselu, o. h., oboh, g. and boligon, a. a. 2 018 . d r ying a lter s t he phenolic constituents, antioxidant properties, α amylase and α glucosidase properties of moringa (moringa oleifera) leaf. food sci. nutr., 6:2123-2133. adit i, p. , p a ul, v. , pa ul, a. , sheikh, s. a nd chattree, a. 2017. nutritional antinutritional a nd a nt iox ida nt a c t 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(received: 25.12.2021; revised: 12.03.2022; accepted: 14.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 272-277, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction tamarind (tamarindus indica l.) is a multipurpose tree belonging to the family leguminosae (fabaceae). it is a tropical fruit tree used primarily for its fruits, either eaten fresh or pr ocessed. in india, it is commonly grown in karnataka, madhya pradesh, bihar, chattisgarh, andhra pradesh and tamil nadu. it is a robust tree which grows well even under different climatic conditions viz., tropical, subtropical and arid. in olden days it was grown from self sown seeds or by sowing seeds of unknown parentage. hence, they exhibit a wide range of variation for morphological and yield traits. this variation may be due to effect of genetic or environmental or both. therefore, it may be worthwhile focusing only on the very best trees in relation to neighboring ones and trees may be selected within the ecological zones. before formulating any selection programme, it is necessary to understand the extent of variation among the genotypes and apply them for an increase in the pod and pulp production (nicodemus et al., 1997). many tamarind trees have been identified which were of seedling origin and they were multiplied vegetatively and maintained in the gene bank. different genotypes which are propagated by vegetative means are being cultivated in different parts of the country. they have to be evaluated for morphological and yield attributing traits. further, the elite lines may be useful in selection programme for the development of new cultivars. materials and methods this study was carried out during 2017-18 at forest resea r ch sta tion, govinkovi, honna li ta luk, davangere district which is situated in the southern characterization and evaluation of morphological and yield traits of tamarind genotypes pooja g.k.1, nagarajappa adivappar3*, shivakumar b.s.1, lakshmana d.2 and sharanabasappa 3 1department of fruit science, 2department of crop improvement and biotechnology, college of horticulture, mudigere 577 132, karnataka, india 3keladi shivappa nayak university of agricultural and horticultural sciences, shivamogga 577 204, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : nagarajappaadivappar@gmail.com abstract the evaluation of morphological and yield traits of tamarind genotypes was carried out during 2017-18 at forest research station, govinkovi, honnali taluk, davangere district. the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with 16 genotypes and three replications. trees were 14-years-old and of grafted origin. all the morphological and yield traits showed significant difference among the selected genotypes indicating the presence of adequate variations. the genotypes recorded morphological variation in terms of tree shape (semi-circle to irregular shape), foliage arrangement (dense to sparse), flowering time (early, mid and late), stem colour (dark brown, brown and light brown), bud colour (greenish white, pink, dark pink), petal colour (yellow and pale yellow), pod colour (greyish brown, brown, light brown and dark brown), pulp colour (light brown, brown and reddish brown), pod shape (straight, slightly curved, curved and deeply curved) and pod size (very big, big, medium and small). the analysis of variance revealed significant difference with respect to tree height, stem girth, pod traits, pod yield per tree (k-9 : 12.80 kg), number of pods per tree (nti-52 : 989.07) and pulp per cent (k-9 : 48.87). among the 16 genotypes, the genotype k-9 was found superior with respect to pod size, pod weight, pulp weight and pod yield per tree. genotype k-9 was found promising and due to perennial in nature further evaluation is required for stability. keywords: pod traits, tamarind and vegetative traits. 273 characterization and evaluation of tamarind genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 272-277, 2022 transitional zone of karnataka at a latitude of 14.165367 a nd longitude of 75.6680832. t he experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications and 16 genotypes viz., k-9, nti-52, k-11, s-7, s-8, s-14, s-3, n-6, d-2, c-4, d-9, nti-89, d-19, s-6, k-10 and k-12. the morphological traits recorded were tree height, stem girth, tree shape, foliage arrangement, flowering time, stem colour, bud colour, petal colour, pod colour, pulp colour, pod shape, pod size and shell detachability along with that yield traits were also recorded. the height of the tree was measured from base to tip of the tree by using a pole and measuring tape, it was expressed in terms of meters. the girth of the tree trunk was measured by using a measuring tape and the reading was expressed in terms of meters. tree shape, foliage arrangement, stem colour, bud colour, petal colour and pod shape were characterized based on visual observations. tree shape was categorized as dome, cone, oval, round, semi-circle and irregular shapes. foliage arrangement was categorized as dense and sparse arrangement. based on the time of flower initiation, flowering time was categorized as early, mid and late flowering. stem colour was categorized as light brown, brown and dark brown. bud colour was categorized as greenish white, pink and dark pink. petal colour was categorized as pale yellow and yellow. pod and pulp colour was classified by using colour chart of royal horticultural society (r.h.s), london. pod shape was categorized as deeply curved, curved, slightly curved and straight. based on the length, width and curvature of the pod, pod size was classified as very big, big, medium and small. based on the ease of separation of shell from the pod, shell detachability was classified as easy, slightly hard and hard. yield traits such as pod yield per tree was recorded at different intervals of harvest and expressed in kilograms. the number of pods per tree was recorded from each harvest and total yield was computed. pulp per cent was calculated by dividing weight of pulp by weight of pod and multiplied by 100. shell per cent was calculated by dividing weight of shell by weight of pod and multiplied by 100. fibre per cent was calculated by dividing the weight of fibre over weight of pod and multiplied by 100. the number of fibres per pod was counted after separating fibres from the pulp and was expressed in numbers. the beak length of each pod was measured with the help of a thread and expressed in terms of centimetres. the experimental data recorded on various traits during the investigation were analyzed statistically using the method of ana lysis of var ia nce (anova) for randomized complete block design (rcbd) as given by gomez and gomez (1984). whenever ‘f’ test was found significant for comparing the means of two treatments, the critical difference (c.d. at 5%) was worked out. results and discussion in the present study the morphological traits showed significant variation (table 1) among the selected genotypes indicating the pr esence of adequate variations. two different shapes of tree were observed viz., semicircle (k-9, s-7, n-6, d-2, d-19, k-10 and k-12) and irregular (nti-52, k-11, s-8, s-14, s-3, c-4, d-9, nti-89 and s-6). the foliage arrangements observed were dense (k-9, nti-52, s-14, n-6, d-2, c-4, d-9, nti-89, d-19, s-6, k-10 and k-12) to sparse(k-11, s-7, s-8 and s-3). early (k-9, nti-52, k-11, n-6, nti-89, k-10 and k-12), mid (s-7, s-8, s-14, s-3, c-4 and s-6) and late flowering (d-2, d9 and d-19) was recorded among the genotypes and pod beak was present in all the 16 genotypes. the variations with respect to the above characters are due to the effect of genotypic character and environmental conditions. variation in tamarind genotypes were also earlier reported by algabal et al. (2012) and bhogave et al. (2018). the colour traits among the genotypes showed wide va riations (table 2), in which the stem colour ranged from dark brown, brown and light brown. bud colour ranged from greenish white, pink and dark pink. the different petal colours recorded were yellow and pale yellow. variation with respect to petal and bud colour is due to genotypic effect. these wide range of colouration in reproductive organs that can serve as an immense breeding value and can be used not only as a morphological marker in progeny testing programme but can also enhance the fruit set by enhancing the pollinators. while, the different pod colour recor ded were greyish brown, light brown, brown and dark brown. the colour of the pulp varied from light brown, brown to reddish brown. the variation with respect to the colour tr a its is due to the distinct fea tur e of different tamarind genotypes and supported by bhogave et al. (2018). 274 pooja et al table 2 : variation in colour of the selected tamarind genotypes table 1 : variation in morphological traits and flowering time of tamarind genotypes trait category genotypes tree shape semi circle k-9, s-7, n-6, d-2, d-19, k-10 and k-12 irregular nti-52, k-11, s-8, s-14, s-3, c-4, d-9, nti-89 and s-6 foliage dense k-9, nti-52, s-14, n-6, d-2, c-4, d-9, nti-89, d-19, s-6, k-10 and k-12 arrangement sparse k-11, s-7, s-8 and s-3 flowering early k-9, nti-52, k-11, n-6, nti-89, k-10 and k-12 time mid s-7, s-8, s-14, s-3, c-4 and s-6 late d-2, d-9 and d-19 genotype stem colour bud colour petal colour pod colour pulp colour k-9 dark brown dark pink yellow brown reddish brown nti-52 brown dark pink pale yellow brown brown k-11 brown dark pink yellow grayish brown brown s-7 light brown pink pale yellow grayish brown light brown s-8 light brown pink yellow brown reddish brown s-14 brown dark pink pale yellow dark brown reddish brown s-3 brown dark pink yellow light brown brown n-6 brown dark pink yellow light brown light brown d-2 brown pink pale yellow brown brown c-4 brown greenish white pale yellow brown brown d-9 light brown pink pale yellow brown brown nti-89 brown greenish white pale yellow brown reddish brown d-19 brown dark pink pale yellow grayish brown reddish brown s-6 brown greenish white pale yellow dark brown reddish brown k-10 light brown pink pale yellow grayish brown brown k-12 light brown pink pale yellow grayish brown brown with respect to the shape of the pod viz., straight, slightly curved, curved and deeply curved were recorded. based on the length, breadth and curvature of the pod, pod size is classified as very big, big, medium and small sized pods. the variation with respect to the above traits (table 3) is due to the effect of genotypic difference among the genotypes. based on the ease of separation of shell from the pod, shell detachability was classified as easy, hard and very ha r d. t his va r ia tion (ta ble 3) is due to the compactness or attachment of seeds to the pulp or shell to the pulp. apart from this, it also depends on shell thickness. the results are also supported by sharma et al. (2015). among 16 genotypes studied, the longest tree height was recorded in k-9 (5.08 m) while, the shortest was recorded in k-10 (3.00 m) and the maximum stem girth was recorded in k-9 (1.01 m) whereas, the minimum was recorded in s-7 (0.48 m). the variation with respect to tree height and stem girth (table 4) is due to the effect of genotypic difference among the genotypes and also due to the differential utilization of resources from the soil. such factors are known to cause mor phological a nd genetic evolutionar y j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 272-277, 2022 275 table 3 : variation in pod shape, pod size and shell detachability of tamarind genotypes. genotype pod shape pod size shell detachability k-9 deeply curved very big very hard nti-52 slightly curved medium easy k-11 slightly curved small hard s-7 deeply curved big hard s-8 slightly curved medium easy s-14 slightly curved medium easy s-3 slightly curved medium easy n-6 curved big easy d-2 slightly curved medium easy c-4 slightly curved medium easy d-9 curved medium hard nti-89 slightly curved big easy d-19 curved medium easy s-6 curved medium easy k-10 straight medium very hard k-12 slightly curved medium very hard characterization and evaluation of tamarind genotypes table 4 : variation in quantitative traits of tamarind genotypes genotype tree height stem girth pod pulp per shell fibre number of (m) (m) yield per tree cent per per cent per cent fibres (kg) pod per pod per pod per pod k-9 5.08 1.01 12.80 48.87 21.47 6.17 4.03 nti-52 4.13 0.85 10.79 40.78 27.06 2.84 4.27 k-11 3.17 0.58 4.77 41.18 23.83 2.16 3.07 s-7 3.67 0.48 5.97 42.10 22.39 3.17 5.00 s-8 3.67 0.53 5.03 46.38 22.07 5.13 3.97 s-14 3.33 0.58 4.55 44.45 15.78 3.24 3.80 s-3 4.23 0.62 3.96 52.03 28.13 3.45 2.90 n-6 4.00 0.77 9.07 42.03 22.21 6.94 7.33 d-2 4.50 0.93 6.88 38.45 25.97 2.96 5.37 c-4 4.17 0.65 4.53 44.50 27.60 3.10 2.97 d-9 4.00 0.60 5.33 38.07 26.15 3.16 4.93 nti-89 4.13 0.57 8.72 42.13 26.03 3.51 4.03 d-19 3.87 0.60 6.84 44.52 17.18 3.94 4.93 s-6 4.10 0.49 4.44 42.15 16.53 4.13 4.37 k-10 3.00 0.60 8.21 40.52 27.53 4.92 7.23 k-12 3.20 0.70 7.38 35.09 28.87 5.48 5.87 s. em ± 0.35 0.06 0.45 1.24 0.75 0.31 0.30 c. d @5% 1.01 0.17 1.30 3.58 2.17 0.90 0.86 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 272-277, 2022 276 fig. 1 : variation in number of pods per tree of tamarind genotypes divergences among the population. the supporting r esults ha ve a lso been r epor ted by ra o a nd subr a ma nya m (2010) a nd diva ka r a a nd rathakrishnan (2011). significant difference in pod traits (table 4) indicates the scope of genetic improvement. the genotype k-9 recorded significantly higher pod yield (12.80 kg/tree) and pulp per cent (48.87 %). the variation is attributed due to the difference in pod length, width, circumference, thickness and difference in the rate of development of vascular tissues (pooja et al., 2018). the highest number of pods per tree was recorded in nti-52 (989.07) and the lowest number of pods per tree was recorded in s-8 (206.48) (fig. 1). the minimum pod yield per tree was recorded in s-3 (3.96 kg/tree). the variation with respect to number of pods per tree is due to the higher number of primary and secondary branches and also inherent genetic makeup of each genotype. apart from this, it also depends on environmental conditions. the highest beak length was recorded in d-19 (0.05 cm) and the lowest was observed in s-7, s-14, n-6, d-9, k-10 and k-12 (0.01 cm) (fig. 2). the maximum number of fibres per pod was recorded in n-6 (7.33) and the minimum was recorded in s-3 (2.90). the difference in fibre number is attributed to the genetic makeup of each genotype. these findings are in line with the views reported by fandohan et al. (2011) and singh and nandini (2014). the highest pulp per cent was recorded in s-3 (52.03 %) which was on par with k-9 (48.87 %) and the lowest wa s observed in k-12 (35. 09 %). t he difference in pulp per cent per pod (table 4) is clearly attributed due to the length, width, thickness and pulp content of the pod and also distinct feature of different genotypes. similar results have also been reported by prabhushankar et al. (2004) in tamarind and usha et al. (2018) in macadamia nut. a significant difference was observed among the genotypes in respect of shell per cent per pod. the maximum shell per cent was recorded in k-12 (28.87 %) which was on par with s-3 (28.13 %) and c-4 (27.60 %) and the lowest was recorded in s-14 (15.78 %) which was significantly lower than all other genotypes. the variation in shell per cent is due to the difference in pod size, shell thickness and shell weight. apart from this, it is inherent genetic makeup of each genotype. similar variations with respect to shell per cent was also observed in tamarind by sivakumar (2000) and kotecha and kadam (2002). the highest fibre per cent per pod was recorded in n-6 (6.94 %) which was on par with k-9 (6.17 %) and the lowest was observed in k-11 (2.16 %). the variation with respect to fibre per cent is due to the difference in the rate of development of vascular tissues in the pod, fibre weight per pod and also distinct feature of the different genotypes. similar variations with respect to fibre per cent were also reported by hanamashetti and sulikeri (1997), mastan et al. (1997) and divakara (2008) in tamarind. conclusion the study revealed existence of considerable variations among the genotypes for all the traits studied. the genotype k-9 was found superior compared to all other genotypes with respect to pod size, pod weight, pulp weight and pod yield per tree. t herefore, genotype k-9 found promising and subjected for further evaluation to ensure consistent results for utilization. acknowledgement authors are thankful to director of research, keladi shivappa nayak university of agricultural and horticultural sciences, shivamogga for financial pooja et al fig. 2 : variation in the beak length of tamarind genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 272-277, 2022 277 assistance through staff research project bearing the number 5.11 during 2017-18. authors are also grateful to officers of research wing of department of forest, shivamogga, karnataka. references algabal, a. q. a. y., pappanna, n., ajay, b. c. and eid, a. 2012. studies on genetic parameters and inter r ela tionships for pulp yield a nd its attributes in tamarind (tamarindus indica l.). int. j. plant breed., 6(1): 65-69. bhogave, a. f., dalal, s. r. and raut, u. a. 2018. studies on qualita tive tr aits va riation in tamarind (tamarindus indica l.). int. j. chem. stud., 6(1): 396-398. divaka ra, b. n. 2008. variation and cha racter association for various pod traits in tamarindus indica l. indian for., 134(5): 687-696. divakara, b. n. and rathakrishnan. 2011. clonal va r ia bility a nd divergence studies in tamarindus indica l.; a multipurpose fruit tree. j. biodivers. ecol. sci., 1(1): 31-41. fandohan, b., assogbadjo, a. e., kakai, r. g. and kyndt, t. 2011. quantitative morphological descriptors confirm traditionally classified morphotypes of tamarindus indica l. fruits. genet. resour. crop evol., 58: 299–309. gomez, k. a. and gomez, a. a. 1984. statistical pr ocedur es for a gr icu ltur a l r esea r ch. a wiley-inter sci., john wiley and sons, new york, pp. 680. hana ma 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sharanabasappa. 2018. evaluation of morphological and quantitative characters of tamarind genotypes. j. farm sci., 31(5): 578-580. pr a bhusha nka r, d. s. , mela nta , k. r. a nd chandregowda, m. 2004. evaluation of elite clones of tamarind. karnataka j. agric. sci., 17(3): 512-514. rao, k. d. and subramanyam, k. 2010. varietal evaluation of tamarind under scarce rainfall zone. agric. sci. digest., 30(1): 42-45. sharma, d. k. alkade, s. a. and virdia, h. m. 2015. genetic variability in tamarind tamarindus indica l. in south gujarat. curr. hortic., 3(2): 43-46. singh, t. r . a nd n a ndini, r . 20 14. g enet ic variability, character association and path analysis in tamarind (tamarindus indica l.) population of nallur tamarind grove. saarc j. agri., 12(1)l 20-25. sivakumar, p. 2000. tamarind a brown gold from dry tracts. spice india, 13(11): 2-4. usha, d. s., adivappar, n., shivakumar, b. s., thippesha, d. and lakshmana, d. 2018. e v a l u a t i o n of  exotic  macadamia ( m a c a d a m i a s p p . ) geno t yp es f or morphological and yield contributing traits. j. farm sci., 31(5): 585-587. characterization and evaluation of tamarind genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 272-277, 2022 (received : 06.12.2021; revised : 07.07.2022; accepted : 13.07.2022) final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 88-94, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction bael (aegle marmelos(l) correa) belongs to the family rutaceae and is an important underutilized indigenous fruit crop of india and has high medicinal and nutritional values. since pre-historic times, it was found as wild in sub-himala yan tract and dry deciduous forests of central and southern indian region. therefore, a large number of landraces are available in different diversity regions (pandey et al., 2013) each tree is genetically different from others as most of them are of seedling origin. traditionally, morphological characters have been used to identify and characterize the bael. however, there is a high level of genetic variability which can sometimes be used accurately to distinguish each tree. when the morphological traits are used for determining diversity and relationships among plant species, they are not sufficient because of environmental influences. thus, the usefulness of molecula r ma rker s ha s been investigated as a means of cha ra cterizing and discriminating against different species more precisely (benharr ant et al., 2002). the introduction of molecular biology techniques, such as dna-based markers, allows for direct comparison of different genetic materials independent of environmental influences. the viability and purity of accessions can be analysed by utilization molecular markers. this process can increase both the quantity and quality of plant (mujeeb et al., 2017) molecular characterization would be more rewarding in terms of accurate identification and characterization of most closely related trees at the intra-specific level. the degree of similarity between the banding patterns provides information about genetic similarity and relationships between the samples studied. the application largely depends on the type of markers employed, distribution of markers in the genome, type of loci they amplify, level of polymorphism and reproducibility of the products (virk et al., 2001 and fernandez et al., 2002). among the molecular markers, rapd and issr markers have been extensively used to study genetic diversity and relationship. these markers can detect polymorphism in a single reaction. the main objective of the study was to characterise bael trees using morphological molecular markers, to evaluate the genetic diversity and relationship. studies on genetic variability and relationship of bael (aegle marmelos (l) correa) using morphological and molecular markers amulya r.n.1*, nagarajappa adivappar2, shivakumar b.s.3 and satish k.m.4 1,2zonal agricultural and horticultural research station, ksnuahs, shivamogga 577 204, karnataka, india 3department of fruit science, college of horticulture, ksnuahs, mudigere 577 132, chikkamagalur district, karnataka, india 4 department of bio-technology, college of agriculture, ksnuahs, navile, shivamogga 577 204, karnataka, india *corresponding author e-mail : amulyahiriyur@gmail.com abstract bael (aegle marmelos (l) correa) is an important underutilized fruit crop of india. a total of 25 bael trees were selected from 356 bael trees of sakharayapattana in chikkamagalur district, karnataka, india based on the fruit morphological traits (fruit weight, pulp weight, skull thickness, seed weight per fruit, no. of seeds per fruit, no. of locules per fruit, no. of seeds per locule, pulp wt. : seed wt.). these 25 trees were evaluated for phenotypic and genotypic variations using random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) and inter-simple sequence repeats (issr) markers. rapd and issr markers showed significant polymorphism among the trees. jaccard’s genetic similarity value of rapd and issr was found in the range of 0.00–0.95 and 0.06–0.56, respectively suggesting a moderate level of genetic diversity. the present study revealed that molecular markers can be successfully utilized for determining genetic diversity and relationship of bael trees for further varietal improvement. keywords: bael, genetic variability, morphology and molecular markers 89 studies on genetic variability and relationship of bael j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 88-94, 2022 materials and methods among 356 trees, 76 fruiting trees were subjected to study of variation in fruit morphological traits like fruit weight, pulp weight, skull thickness, seed weight per fruit, no. of seeds per fruit, no. of locules per fruit, no. of seeds per locule, pulp wt. : seed wt. based on the fruit morphological traits the best 25 trees were selected for molecular marker analysis. plant material (leaves) of 25 bael trees were collected for genomic dna isolation using standardized cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (ctab) extraction protocol (benharrant et al.,2002) and thenthe dna was quantified using a spectrophotometer and the quality of the dna was checked on 0.7% agarose gel. rapd-pcr amplification twelve rapd primers were used for rapd analysis of 25 bael trees. pcr amplification was carried out using 1x taq buffer solution and 1 u taq dna polymerase (bangalore genie pvt. ltd.), 1.25 mm mgcl2, 0.8 mm dntp mix, 5 µm of a single decamer primer and 50 ng genomic dna and the volume made up to 20 µl using sterilized double-distilled water. the a mplifica tion wa s per for med in vwr peqla b thermocycler with initial pre-denaturation at 94 °c for 4 min followed by 40 cycles of denaturation at 92 °c for 2 min, at annealing temperature (table 1.) for 1 min, and extension at 72 °c for 2 min. final extension was performed for 5 min at 72 °c. amplification table 1. list of rapd primers and their annealing temperatures primer marker sequence annealing (5’ to 3’) temperature (°c) opa-02 tgccgagctg 37 opn-03 ggtactcccc 37 opn-12 cacagacacc 37 opm-05 gggaacgtgt 37 opm-06 ctgggcaact 38 opx-17 gacacggacc 36 opm-12 gggacgttgg 38 opm-15 gacctaccac 36 opm-20 aggtcttggg 38 opb-1 gtttcgctcc 36 opa-08 gtgacgtagg 36 opa-1 caggcccttc 38 products were separated by electrophoresis on 1.5 % agarose gel stained with ethidium bromide at 80 v. bands were visualized and photographed in a gel documentation unit. issr-pcr amplification sixteen primers, which gave the best amplification results with the sample dna, were selected for issrpcr analysis. pcr-amplification was carried out using 1x taq buffer solution and 1 u taq dna polymerase (bangalore genie pvt. ltd.), 1.40 mm mgcl2, 0.8 mm dntp mix, 8 µm of a single decamer primer and 50 ng genomic dna and the volume made upto 25 µl using sterilized double-distilled water. the a mplifica tion wa s per for med in vwr peqla b thermocycler 2 min at 94°c, followed by 40 cycles each of 1 min at 94°c (denaturation), 1 min at 55°c (a nnea ling for issr pr imer s), 2 min a t 72°c (extension) followed by one final extension of 7 min at 72°. amplification products were separated by electrophoresis on 1.5 % agarose gel stained with ethidium bromide at 80 v. bands were visualized and photogra phed in a gel documentation unit a nd analyzed. data analysis amplified bands generated from rapd and issrpcr amplification were scored based on the presence (1) or absence (0) of bands for each primer and used to calculate a genetic similarity matrix using software nt sys-pc ver sion 2. 1. cluster a na lysis wa s performed for molecular data using the ‘‘unweighted pair group method using arithmetic means’’ (upgma) a lgor ithm, fr om which dendr ogr ams depicting similarity among trees were drawn and plotted using ntsys-pc software. results and discussion the variations in fruit morphological traits among the trees are depicted in table 2. significant maximum fruit weight was observed in tree sb-353 (320.00 g) and minimum fruit weight was observed in tree sb115 (54.30 g). pulp weight was found significantly ma ximum in tree sb-353 (202.40 g) wher ea s, minimum pulp weight was observed in sb-71 (22.53 g) and it was on par with the tree sb-148. the difference in fruit weight might be attributed to an increase in pulp weight, seed weight, skull weight of trees. the findings are in agreement with the results of earlier researches (pandey et al., 2008, pandey et 90 amulya et al t re e n o. fr ui t w ei gh t ( g) pu lp w ei gh t ( g) sk ul l t hi ck ne ss ( m m ) se ed w ei gh t ( g) n o. o f se ed s / f ru it n o. o f lo cu le s / f ru it n o. o f se ed s / l oc ul e pu lp w t. : s ee d w t. sb -3 53 32 0. 00 20 2. 40 4. 95 19 .8 0 40 .0 0 10 .6 7 3. 75 10 .2 2 sb -3 51 13 6. 00 58 .3 7 6. 82 8. 80 16 .0 0 11 .0 0 1. 46 6. 64 sb -1 47 99 .1 0 36 .5 0 4. 40 7. 70 10 .0 0 8. 00 1. 25 4. 74 sb -9 0 11 0. 30 45 .1 0 6. 92 0. 12 1. 00 9. 00 0. 11 39 2. 17 sb -1 11 14 6. 20 48 .1 0 5. 33 8. 70 44 .0 0 10 .0 0 4. 40 5. 53 sb -3 3 15 3. 50 57 .1 0 3. 96 18 .0 0 56 .0 0 8. 00 7. 06 3. 18 sb -8 0 85 .9 0 27 .7 0 5. 54 13 .2 2 26 .0 0 9. 00 2. 90 2. 10 sb -3 50 91 .2 0 39 .5 0 3. 89 5. 40 40 .0 0 9. 00 4. 49 7. 33 sb -2 88 95 .5 0 30 .8 0 5. 51 3. 50 33 .0 0 10 .0 0 3. 32 8. 81 sb -1 61 12 3. 30 47 .3 0 5. 47 15 .3 0 34 .0 0 8. 00 4. 28 3. 09 sb -2 16 2. 00 46 .0 0 4. 09 12 .0 0 46 .0 0 10 .0 0 4. 64 3. 85 sb -1 48 65 .7 0 22 .6 0 4. 06 2. 40 15 .0 0 7. 00 2. 14 9. 40 sb -1 6 15 7. 20 48 .0 0 4. 48 20 .5 0 62 .0 0 9. 00 6. 89 2. 34 sb -9 1 12 5. 10 46 .0 7 3. 87 0. 15 1. 00 9. 00 0. 11 32 2. 12 sb -6 6 12 7. 30 35 .8 0 7. 10 9. 96 33 .0 0 9. 00 3. 67 3. 59 sb -1 19 0. 90 49 .0 0 5. 60 25 .8 0 84 .0 0 10 .0 0 8. 45 1. 90 sb -7 3 15 9. 60 65 .5 0 4. 89 15 .5 0 26 .0 0 7. 67 3. 40 4. 85 sb -9 75 .7 0 27 .7 0 4. 82 4. 71 13 .0 0 9. 00 1. 46 5. 90 sb -1 15 54 .3 0 10 .4 7 3. 99 5. 38 22 .0 0 10 .0 0 2. 24 1. 92 sb -2 73 96 .2 0 34 .0 0 6. 67 7. 00 17 .0 0 11 .0 0 1. 55 4. 92 sb -2 72 91 .9 0 33 .5 0 4. 23 7. 10 22 .0 0 9. 00 2. 46 4. 72 sb -1 46 10 5. 50 42 .3 0 5. 40 3. 60 9. 00 11 .0 0 0. 83 11 .8 6 sb -7 1 56 .0 0 22 .5 3 4. 02 5. 60 3. 00 7. 00 0. 43 4. 04 sb -3 54 15 0. 00 73 .0 0 4. 18 9. 60 34 .0 0 12 .0 0 2. 83 7. 62 sb -1 75 13 6. 00 53 .4 2 5. 93 5. 20 25 .0 0 10 .0 0 2. 50 10 .3 1 f va lu e ** ** * ** s. e m ± 5. 31 1. 14 0. 06 0. 29 0. 71 0. 43 0. 20 15 c d @ 5 % 15 .0 8 3. 24 0. 18 0. 82 2. 02 1. 21 0. 56 42 .6 1 ** s ig ni fi ca nt @ 5 % a nd 1 % , * si gn if ic an t @ 5 % , n on s ig ni fi ca nt ta bl e 2. f ru it m or ph ol og ic al t ra its o f 25 b ae l t re es j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 88-94, 2022 91 al., 2013 and mitra et al., 2010).the maximum number of seeds per fruit was found in tree sb-1 (84.00) and minimum in sb-90 and sb-91. the difference in seed weight ma y be a ttr ibuted to differences in the number and size of seeds among the trees. the results are in conformity with the earlier findings (pandey et al., 2008, pandey et al., 2013; singh and misra, 2010). pulp weight : seed weight was found maximum in sb90 (392.17) and it was minimum in sb-1 (1.90). the decrease in seed number per locule has a positive correlation with higher pulp content. findings are in agreement with the results of earlier researches (pandey et al., 2013 and singh and misra, 2010). the traits like skull thickness, seed weight per fruit, no. of locules per fruit and no. seeds per locule were observed non-significant among the trees. rapd analysis the simplicity of laboratory assay for rapd markers makes them an attractive method for obtaining intraspecific distinctions. this technique is already used for cultivar identification and genetic variability analysis of several underutilized fruit crops like tamarind (diallo et al., 2007) and bael (nayak et al., 2013). in this study, a set of rapd primers were used for distinguishing the superior trees of bael. the comparatively higher percentage of polymorphic bands detected in the present study indicated that rapd fr a gments a r e moder a tely polymor phic a nd particularly informative in the estimation of the genetic relationship of bael trees studied. the polymerase chain reaction of bael genomic dna using 12 selected rapd primers generated a total of 1,399 amplified bands (table 3.). the highest number of bands was observed with primer opx-17. the size of amplified fragments ranged between 300 and 1800 bp and the lowest number of bands was observed with primer opn-03. the size of amplified fragments ranged between 500-900 bp. comparatively, moderate level of polymorphic information content (0.39 to 0.77) value was seen in selected polymorphic primers. the highest pic value (0.77) was observed for primer opm-12 whereas, the lowest pic value (0.39) was observed for opm-06. it was observed that dna primers showed an average pic value of >0.5, which confirms that the primers are highly informative. the maximum average number of bands across trees was found for primer opx-17 (7.88) while minimum was in primer opn-03 (1.68).the highest genetic similarity coefficient of 0.95 was found between the sb-147 and sb-90 may be due to their same place of origin. the trees sb-175 and sb-66, sb-9 and sb-1 showed the lowest similarity coefficient (0.00). but the molecular diversity was not in agreement with most of the morphological diversity as reported in colocasia esculenta (singh et al., 2012). comparatively high a mplitude of the genetic similar ity coefficient esta blished in the pr esent study confir ms the table 3. list of rapd primers, their sequence and generated bands primer marker sequence range of total no. average no. of pic (5’ to 3’) amplicon size of bands across value (bp) bands trees opa-02 tgccgagctg 200-1400 102 4.08 0.74 opn-03 ggtactcccc 500-900 42 1.68 0.56 opn-12 cacagacacc 100-1000 196 7.84 0.58 opm-05 gggaacgtgt 300-1000 150 6.00 0.45 opm-06 ctgggcaact 300-900 154 6.16 0.39 opx-17 gacacggacc 300-1800 197 7.88 0.47 opm-12 gggacgttgg 300-750 78 3.12 0.77 opm-15 gacctaccac 300-1200 61 2.44 0.61 opm-20 aggtcttggg 600-1000 136 5.44 0.50 opb-1 gtttcgctcc 500-1200 111 4.44 0.58 opa-08 gtgacgtagg 600-1000 55 2.20 0.65 opa-1 caggcccttc 300-1200 117 4.68 0.50 studies on genetic variability and relationship of bael j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 88-94, 2022 92 occurrence of considerable genetic variability among bael trees. however, variation was higher than that reported for 25 cultivars of mango (range 0.69-0.89) (rajwana et al., 2008). a dendrogram (fig 1.) was constructed from values of similarity coefficients generated from rapd data. the trees were divided into six major genotypic groups at a 0.446 similarity coefficient, containing 6 clusters respectively, based on the unweighted pair group method using arithmetic average cluster analysis. the trees sb-2, sb-351, sb161, sb-353 placed in a distinct cluster while other clusters subdivided into sub-clusters. cluster ‘a’ consists of 19 trees, where these trees separated from each other at 0.57 similarity coefficients forming a distinct cluster for sb-175. this cluster was further divided at 0.614 forming a distinct cluster for sb-80. cluster ‘b’ comprised of two trees sb-123 and sb273. it was observed that sb-147 and sb-90 were placed very closely at a similarity co-efficient of 0.95. issr analysis polymerase chain reaction of bael genomic dna using 16 selected issr primers generated a total of 1,496 amplified bands (table 4.). the highest number of bands was observed with primer ubc-807 and the lowest number of bands was observed with primer ubc-890. compa r a tively higher polymor phic information content (0.83 to 0.99) was shown by selected polymorphic primers. the highest pic value (0.99) was observed in primer ubc-888 whereas, lowest pic value (0.83) was observed in ubc-815. average number of bands across trees were found maximum in primer ubc-807 (7.28) while minimum in primer ubc-890 (1.60). the highest genetic fig. 1. dendrogram deviding the 25 trees of bael based on jaccard genetic similarity coefficient from analysis. table 4. list of issr primers, their sequence and generated bands primer marker sequence total no. average no. pic value (5’ to 3’) of of bands bands across trees ubc 807 aga gag aga gag aga gt 182 7.28 0.90 ubc 810 gag aga gag aga gag at 125 5.00 0.88 ubc 811 gag aga gag aga gag ac 59 2.36 0.97 ubc 815 ctc tct ctc tct ctc tg 63 2.52 0.83 ubc 824 tct ctc tct ctc tct cg 97 3.88 0.94 ubc 825 aca cac aca cac aca ct 137 5.48 0.94 ubc 834 aga gag aga gag aga gyt 103 4.12 0.95 ubc 836 aga gag aga gag aga gya 76 3.04 0.96 ubc 840 gag aga gag aga gag ayt 65 2.60 0.98 ubc 841 gag aga gag aga gag ayc 108 4.32 0.92 ubc 842 gag aga gag aga gag ayg 117 4.68 0.94 ubc 859 tgt gtg tgt gtg tgt grc 88 3.52 0.98 ubc 888 bdb cac aca cac aca ca 56 2.24 0.99 ubc 889 dbd aca cac aca cac ac 96 3.84 0.84 ubc 890 vhv gtg tgt gtg tgt gt 40 1.60 0.97 ubc 891 hvh tgt gtg tgt gtg tg 57 2.28 0.96 amulya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 88-94, 2022 93 similarity coefficient of 0.56 between the sb-1 and sb-73may be due to their same place of origin and occurrence of an intense gene flow between these trees. but the molecular diversity was not in agreement with most of the morphological diversity as reported in colocasia esculenta (singh et al. , 2012). comparatively high amplitude of the genetic similarity coefficient established in the present study confirms the occurrence of considerable genetic variability among bael trees. a dendrogram was constructed from values of similarity coefficients generated from issr data. according to the dendrogram (fig. 2.), the trees were divided into nine major genotypic groups at a 0.30 similarity coefficient, containing nine clusters respectively, based on unweighted pair group method using arithmetic average cluster analysis. the trees sb-354, sb-351, sb-175, sb-353 placed in a distinct cluster while other clusters sub divided in to subclusters. cluster ‘a’ consists of five trees, where these trees separated from each other at 0.57 similarity coefficients forming a distinct cluster for sb-175. this cluster was further divided at 0.33 forming a distinct the trees were divided into nine major genotypic groups at a 0.51 similarity coefficient, containing nine clusters respectively, based on unweighted pair gr oup method using arithmetic average cluster analysis. the treessb-353, sb-80, sb-175, sb123, sb-273, sb-161, sb-2, sb-351 placed in a distinct cluster while other clusters sub divided in to sub-clusters. cluster ‘a’ consists of four trees, where these trees separated from each other at 0.59 fig. 2. dendrogram of 25 trees of bael based on jaccard genetic similarity coefficient issr markers analysis. cluster for sb-147. cluster b comprised of two trees sb-350 and sb-288. cluster c comprised of three trees sb-161, sb-2 sb-148. cluster d, e, f comprised of two, six and three trees respectively. at a similarity co-efficient of 0.56, it was observed that sb-1 and sb73 were placed very closely. rapd and issr combined analysis a dendrogram was constructed using values of similarity coefficients generated from rapd and issr data. according to the dendrogram (fig. 3.), fig. 3. dendrogram of 25 trees of bael generated based on combined rapd and issr data similarity coefficients. cluster ‘b’ comprised of three trees sb-350, sb-288 and sb-148. cluster ‘c’ comprised of four trees sb-16, sb-91, sb-272 and sb-146. cluster ‘d’ and ‘e’ comprised of four and two trees respectively. at similarity co-efficient of 0.70 it was observed that sb-1 and sb-73 were placed very closely. conclusion both the molecular markers analysis showed a high degree of variation among the selected bael trees. the present study revealed that both the molecular markers can be successfully utilized for inferring genetic diversity and genetic relationship of bael tr ees. t he simila rity between sb-1 a nd sb-73 confirmed the importance of these ma rkers for distinguishing the bael trees based on environmental and genetic factors. findings of this study indicate that identification of trees from various locations mainly based on morphological characteristics may have encountered the mismatches and mistakes. this indicates the importance of characterisation of trees both at morphological and molecular level for efficient maintenance and exploitation of precious germplasm and to determine groups of high genetic similarity and dissimilarity, which is the key for studies on genetic variability and relationship of bael j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 88-94, 2022 94 es t a b lis hin g b r eeding s t r a t egies in genet ic improvement programme of bael. acknowledgement authors are thankful to the director of research, university of agricultural and horticultural sciences, shivamogga for providing financial assistance under the staff research project no. 5.20. references benha r r at, h. , ver onesi, c. , t heodet, c. a nd thalouam, p. 2002.orobanche species and population discrimination using inter simple sequence repeat (issr). weed res., 42 :470– 474. diallo, b.o., joly, h.i., mckey, d., mckey, m.h. and chevalier, m.h. 2007. genetic diversity of tamarindus indica populations: any clues on the origin from its current distribution. afr. j. biotechnol., 6: 853-860. fernandez, m.e., figueiras, a.m. and benito, c. 2002. the use of issr and rapd markers for detecting dna polymor phisms, tr ee identification and genetic diversity among barley cultivars with known origin. theor. appl. gen., 104 :845–851. mitra, s.k., maity, c.s., mani, d. and ghosh, b. 2010. genetic r esour ces of ba el (aegle marmelos correa) – a potential underutilized fruit. acta hort., 864:49-52. mujeeb, f., bajpai, p., pathak, n. and verma, s.r. 2017. genetic diversity analysis of medicinally important horticultural crop aegle marmelos by issr markers. methods mol. biol., 1620:195211. nayak, d., singh, d.r., sabarinathan, p., singh, s. a nd na ya k, t. 2013. random a mplified polymorphic dna (rapd) markers reveal genetic diversity in bael (aegle marmelos correa) trees of andaman islands, india. afr. j. biotechnol., 12:6055-6060. pa ndey, d. , shukla , s. k. a nd kuma r, a. 2008.variability in bael accessions from bihar and jharkhand. indian j. hort., 65 :226-229. pandey, d., tandon d.k., hudedamani, u. and tripathi, m. 2013.variability in bael (aegle marmelos corr.) trees from eastern uttar pradesh. indian j. hort., 70:170-178. rajwana, i.a., tabbasam, n., malik, a.u. and malik, a.s. 2008. assessment of genetic diversity among mango (mangifera indica l.) trees using rapd markers. sci. hort., 117 :297-301. singh, s., singh, d.r., faseela, f., kumar, n., damodaran, v. and srivastava, r.c. 2012. diversity of 21 taro (colocasia esculenta l. schott) trees of andaman islands. genet. resour. crop evo., 59: 821-829. singh, v.p. and misra, k.k. 2010. analysis of genetic variability and heritability in bael (aegle marmelos correa) germplasm. prog. agric., 10: 132-134. virk, p.s., zhu, j., newburg, h.j., bryan, g.j., jeckson, m.t. and ford-lloyd, b.v. 2001. effectiveness of different classes of molecular markers for classifying and revealing variation in rice germplasm. euphytica, 112: 275–284. amulya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 88-94, 2022 (received: 16.02.2022; revised: 29.05.2022; accepted: 22.06.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) is grown widely throughout the tropics and sub-tropics of india. it has continued to play a major role in fruit production and export. most of the commercial varieties grown in india suffer from one or the other shortcoming, be it susceptibility to pests and diseases, or lack of attractive skin colour. over the past four decades, various workers have bred several hybrids using commercial varieties as parents (iyer, 1991). some of these have performed well in specific areas. diversity in mango has also been studied by attempting to correlate geographic diversity with genetic diversity. karibasappa et al (1999) reported that canonical analysis and cluster analysis using sixty-nine genotypes of mango resulted in eleven clusters. they concluded that geographic diversity was not necessarily related to genetic diversity. one of the drawbacks in mango breeding has been lack of information on inheritance of characters. deriving information on inheritance is also rendered difficult due to genetic variability in some indian mango cultivars and hybrids m.r. dinesh, c. vasugi and r. venugopalan icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesarghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, india e-mail : mrdinesh@iihr.ernet.in abstract mango is a perennial and highly heterozygous plant. therefore, it takes a long time to breed a variety in this crop. information on genetic variability among cultivars and hybrids helps plan meaningful crop improvement programmes. due to the high heterozygosity, complexity of its flowers and poor fruit-set, the progeny population that can be raised from a cross is very meagre. hence, there is a need to choose parents that have good fruit-set and show genetic divergence. it would also be interesting to establish if the hybrids generated are truly open-pollinated progenies, or arise from controlled crossing. basic information thus obtained would help chalk out a potentially successful breeding programme. a study in this direction was carried out by using morphological characters of twelve hybrids and their respective parents. cluster analysis indicated a relationship between the parents and hybrids. two major clusters were observed from the clustering pattern. in the first cluster, varieties dashehari, banganapalli, manjeera, sindhu, janardhan pasand, ratna, rumani, amrapali, neelgoa and alphonso grouped together. the second cluster consisted of vars. arka aruna, neelum, arka puneet, neeleshan, mulgoa, mallika, arka anmol and arka neelkiran. the hybrid, sindhu was observed to be genetically closer to ratna than to alphonso. the sub-clustering pattern also showed a close relationship between parents and their hybrids. the hybrid, arka anmol, was found to distantly placed from the centre (8.54), as also the hybrid, arka neelkiran (7.05). ‘sindhu’ was also found to be closer to the centre (1.55). key words: breeding, characterization, cluster analysis, heterozygosity, genetic variability the high heterozygosity and highly cross-pollinated nature of the crop, besides a difficulty in crossing. however, it is extremely useful to generate information on genetic distance between varieties so that, based on the lineage, as regards their parentage. a programme in this direction was carried out at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, by studying morphological characters of the hybrids and their parents. material and methods the material consisted of twelve hybrids, viz., arka anmol, arka puneet, arka neelkiran, arka aruna, amrapali, mallika, ratna, sindhu, neeluddin, neelgoa, neeleshan, manjeera; and seven parents, viz., alphonso, rumani, mulgoa, neelum, dashehari, banganapalli and janardhan pasand. these were evaluated for fruit, stone, inflorescence, leaf and petiole characteristics, viz., fruit length, fruit breadth, fruit thickness, fruit weight, tss, acidity, pulp content, stone length, stone weight, fiber length, inflorescence length, leaf length, leaf width and petiole length (table 1). observation j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):113-116, 2014 114 on fruit parameters were recorded on ripe fruits. observations on foliage were made with the fourth mature leaf. observations were recorded over a period of three years. the mean of all the fourteen characteristics was subjected to squared euclidean cluster analysis, and a dendrogram was drawn using ward’s method (1963). sas v 9.3 (sas, 2011) package available at iihr, bengaluru, was used for cluster analysis. this method joins up clusters to maximize likelihood at each level of the hierarchy. distance between two clusters was the anova sum of squares between the two clusters, added up over all the variables. at each generation, the within-cluster sum of squares was minimized over all partitions obtainable, by merging two clusters from the previous generation. results and discussion cluster analysis indicated relationship between the varieties (parents) and hybrids (fig. 1). two major clusters were observed in the clustering pattern. in the first cluster, varieties dashehari, banganapalli, manjeera, sindhu, janardhan pasand, arka neelkiran, ratna, rumani, amrapali, neelgoa and alphonso grouped together, based on the morphological characters evaluated. in the second cluster, vars. arka aruna, neeleshan, neelum, arka puneet, mulgoa, mallika, arka anmol figured. it can be seen that the hybrid sindhu and both its parents, alphonso and ratna, grouped under the same cluster. however, ‘sindhu’ was closer to ratna (3.73) than to alphonso (7.10). in the case of manjeera, one of its parents, rumani, grouped with it, the genetic distance being 5.30. in the case of vars. arka neelkiran and amrapali, one each of their parents (alphonso and dashehari, respectively) observed to figure in the same cluster. the hybrid, arka neelkiran, was closer to neelum (5.72). this shows that the hybrids placed closer to their table 1. fruit, floral and foliage characteristics of mango varieties / hybrids under study sl. variety / fruit fruit fruit fruit tss titrable pulp stone stone fiber infloreleaf leaf petiole no. hybrid length breadth thickness weight (ºbrix) acidity (%) length weight length scence length width length (cm) (cm) (cm) (g) (%) (cm) (g) (mm) length (cm) (cm) (cm) 1 arka anmol 11.03 7.75 7.10 350.00 18.60 0.32 78.28 9.40 34.17 15.0 25.3 16.86 3.9 3.7 2 arka aruna 13.80 10.93 9.60 765.67 21.00 0.19 83.06 8.77 35.00 10.0 22.7 14.06 3.1 3.6 3 arka 9.73 8.15 7.60 338.75 18.30 0.19 75.05 7.17 34.17 9.0 19.2 17.00 3.3 5.5 neelkiran 4 arka puneet 9.70 8.00 7,10 283.70 21.10 0.32 72.12 8.17 44.23 9.0 11.0 16.22 3.7 5.0 5 amrapali 10.00 6.10 6.00 186.00 23.20 0.38 72.10 9.03 31.87 17.0 24.5 15.26 3.2 2.1 6 mallika 13.60 8.00 6.60 347.00 27.00 0.18 65.80 9.37 29.43 12.0 28.0 14.22 3.6 2.0 7 manjeera 7.70 7.60 7.50 272.30 18.20 0.57 74.61 5.83 32.97 4.0 16.0 16.34 3.1 1.7 8 neeleshan 12.90 9.30 7.13 394.00 18.50 0.51 59.32 10.63 34.53 8.0 21.5 13.50 3.4 1.3 9 neelgoa 7.70 8.00 8.20 328.00 17.20 0.19 75.61 7.80 27.50 5.0 48.0 16.86 3.7 1.8 10 neeluddin 7.70 6.40 7.00 188.00 22.50 0.96 68.78 6.10 24.00 8.0 30.5 19.16 4.2 2.6 11 ratna 10.50 8.00 6.90 283.70 20.00 0.38 70.90 7.17 30.50 11.0 26.3 18.70 4.3 3.3 12 sindhu 9.40 6.20 6.20 167.00 27.40 0.51 84.92 7.73 7.29 20.0 42.0 24.20 5.4 6.6 13 banganapalli 10.80 8.90 7.70 440.00 18.50 0.12 61.70 7.80 33.93 6.0 25.2 12.16 2.8 1.2 14 dashehari 10.50 6.40 5.60 170.50 19.00 0.11 62.30 7.63 24.70 5.0 28.3 14.30 3.3 1.6 15 janardhan 8.90 6.60 6.60 256.20 14.60 0.44 67.50 7.15 26.00 8.0 30.8 15.10 3.9 1.9 pasand 16 neelum 7.70 6.00 6.70 256.00 20.00 0.40 57.00 6.13 21.87 13.0 26.5 14.30 3.2 1.4 17 rumani 6.90 8.00 8.60 200.00 19.20 0.25 75.40 5.00 20.80 14.0 20.3 14.66 2.8 1.4 18 alphonso 8.80 7.40 7.30 246.20 19.00 0.32 66.90 6.03 22.43 7.0 29.0 17.18 3.8 3.0 19 mulgoa 9.50 8.60 8.30 362.50 20.80 0.27 64.40 8.30 50.17 13.0 18.7 13.80 2.6 1.7 fig. 1. hierarchical clustering by fast ward method dinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):113-116, 2014 115 parents. in the second cluster, it can be seen that among the varieties, amrapali (a hybrid itself) was close to both dashehari and neelum (5.1 and 4.1, respectively). hybrids derived from ‘neelum’ were found to be closer to ‘neelum’ (table 2 and 3). this shows that hybrids and parents, although generated from different locations, are related. the subclustering pattern also showed a close relation between parents and their hybrids, viz., grouping together of the hybrids, alphonso and ratna. ‘neelum’, as one of the parents, is seen as the dominating parent. hybrid ‘arka anmol’ was observed to be placed distantly from the centre, while the variety sindhu was observed to be the closest. hybrid ‘arka aruna’, which resembles its female parent banganapalli morphologically, was closer to the latter (4.56). ravishankar et al (2000) studied genetic diversity in eighteen commercial varieties of mango grown in india, using rapd analysis. they observed two major groups: one group consisted northern, eastern and western varieties; another of southern cultivars. their study also indicated that variety kesar from western region of india associated with neelum and rumani. in our study too, variety ratna, which is from the western region of india, grouped with rumani, a south indian commercial variety. the same result is seen in the case of dashehari, which grouped with banganapalli, along with janardhan pasand. however, in a heterozygous crop like mango, pedigree of the varieties is not clear, which is quite understandable. the present study indicates that the hybrids were closely related, even if one of the parents was common; the other parent could be from altogether a different region. the variety arka aruna, although a hybrid from the parentage banganapalli x alphonso, seemed to be genetically divergent from other varieties. the present study, thus, shows that morphological characterization can be used for working out distance between varieties and for validating parentage of the hybrids. table 2. clustering history variety number distance leader joiner of clusters sindhu 18 1.550062867 18 11 dashehari 17 1.579511642 4 3 rumani 16 2.004343454 18 15 neeluddin 15 2.113115127 19 13 amrapali 14 2.165261418 16 14 neelum 13 2.220924837 4 1 alphonso 12 2.427018483 17 7 janardhan pasand 11 2.697839538 19 8 ratna 10 2.712693496 16 5 manjeera 9 2.944699556 9· 18 arka puneet 8 3.502879488 19 6 banganapalli 7 3.514379316 9 10 neeleshan 6 3.670255392 17 9 neelgoa 5 4.222008230 17 16 mulgoa 4 4.497405724 19 4 mallika 3 4.641642925 19 2 arka neelkiran 2 7.054252685 17 12 arka anmol 1 8.542871487 17 19 table 3. cluster distance between mango varieties v/h 17 7 9 10 16 18 15 12 19 4 3 5 11 14 13 1 8 6 2 17 0.00 3.43 4.78 5.53 4.21 3.51 4.39 8.67 4.85 5.33 4.46 4.94 4.55 5.10 4.88 5.26 6.53 6.82 7.17 7 3.43 0.00 4.68 4.09 4.18 3.01 3.37 8.83 4.56 4.09 3.92 4.76 3.70 4.50 4.58 4.79 5.42 5.91 7.09 9 4.78 4.68 0.00 5.52 5.30 3.38 3.62 8.00 5.64 5.83 4.75 5.51 4.07 4.70 4.73 4.66 5.92 5.78 6.78 10 5.53 4.09 5.52 0.00 4.45 3.73 4.16 6.45 6.75 5.67 5.79 4.96 3.90 5.59 6.92 5.58 6.61 6.59 8.98 16 4.21 4.18 5.30 4.45 0.00 3.15 3.05 8.24 5.29 5.42 5.26 3.59 4.16 3.06 4.83 5.29 5.66 5.86 8.65 18 3.51 3.01 3.38 3.73 3.15 0.00 2.29 7.10 5.06 4.22 3.42 4.18 2.19 3.18 4.32 4.06 5.28 5.05 7.11 15 4.39 3.37 3.62 4.16 3.05 2.29 0.00 7.95 5.29 4.79 4.29 4.07 3.04 2.98 4.46 4.03 4.88 5.65 7.69 12 8.67 8.83 8.00 6.45 8.24 7.10 7.95 0.00 10.02 8.06 7.75 7.12 6.33 8.55 10.18 6.90 9.80 8.67 10.42 19 4.85 4.56 5.64 6.75 5.29 5.06 5.29 10.02 0.00 3.64 4.04 4.65 4.83 5.38 2.99 4.21 3.92 5.21 5.50 4 5.33 4.09 5.83 5.67 5.42 4.22 4.79 8.06 3.64 0.00 2.23 4.28 3.39 5.01 4.55 3.03 4.60 4.84 6.04 3 4.46 3.92 4.75 5.79 5.26 3.42 4.29 7.75 4.04 2.23 0.00 4.71 3.18 4.79 4.11 2.84 5.05 5.18 5.39 5 4.94 4.76 5.51 4.96 3.59 4.18 4.07 7.12 4.65 4.28 4.71 0.00 3.63 3.72 5.24 3.53 5.05 4.95 7.66 11 4.55 3.70 4.07 3.90 4.16 2.19 3.04 6.33 4.83 3.39 3.18 3.63 0.00 3.95 4.73 2.79 4.71 4.76 6.47 14 5.10 4.50 4.70 5.59 3.06 3.18 2.98 8.55 5.38 5.01 4.79 3.72 3.95 0.00 4.11 4.83 4.97 4.29 8.14 13 4.88 4.58 4.73 6.92 4.83 4.32 4.46 10.18 2.99 4.55 4.11 5.24 4.73 4.11 0.00 4.54 3.30 4.12 5.21 1 5.26 4.79 4.66 5.58 5.29 4.06 4.03 6.90 4.21 3.03 2.84 3.53 2.79 4.83 4.54 0.00 4.14 4.87 5.42 8 6.53 5.42 5.92 6.61 5.66 5.28 4.88 9.80 3.92 4.60 5.05 5.05 4.71 4.97 3.30 4.14 0.00 4.0.8 5.72 6 6.82 5.91 5.78 6.59 5.86 5.05 5.65 8.67 5.21 4.84 5.18 4.95 4.76 4.29 4.12 4.87 4.08 0.00 6.24 2 7.17 7.09 6.78 8.98 8.65 7.11 7.69 10.42 5.50 6.04 5.39 7.66 6.47 8.14 5.21 5.42 5.72 6.24 0.00 1. arka anrnol, 2. arka neelkiran, 3. mallika, 4. mulgoa, 5. neelgoa, 6. neeleshan, 7. banganapalli, 8. arka puneet, 9. manjeera, 10. ratna, l1. janardhan pasand, 12. alphonso, 13. neelum, 14. amrapali, 15. neeluddin, 16. rumani, 17. dashehari, 18. sindhu, 19. arka aruna; v/h – variety / hybrid genetic variability in indian mango cultivars and hybrids j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):113-116, 2014 116 references iyer, c.p.a. 1991. recent advances in varietal improvement in mango. acta hort., 291:109-132 karibasappa, g.s., nalawadi, sulikeri, g.s. and hulmani, n.c. 1999. characterization of mango gerrnplasm in north karnataka, india: cluster analysis. indian j. pl. genet. resources, 12:341-347 ravishankar, k.v., lalitha anand and dinesh, m.r., 2000. assessment of genetic relatedness among mango cultivars of india using rapd markers. j. hortl. sci. biotechnol., 13:26-28 sas v 9.3. 2011. statistical analysis system, sas institute inc., cary, north carolina, usa ward, j.h. 1963. hierarchic grouping to optimize an objective function. j. amer. stat. assoc., 58:236-239 (ms received 20 december 2013, revised 27 may 2014, accepted 23 june 2014) dinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):113-116, 2014 introduction carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) is a popular cut-flower, holding an important position among the top ten cut-flowers in the international cut-flower trade. carnations are preferred to roses and chrysanthemums in several exporting countries on account of their excellent keeping quality, wide array of colour and forms, ability to withstand long distance transportation, and remarkable ability to rehydrate after continuous shipping. from the medicinal point of view, carnation flowers are considered to be cardio-tonic, diaphoretic and alexiteric (shiragur et al, 2004). in india, carnation cultivation covers over 600 ha while, in karnataka, it is grown in an area of 40 ha, with production of 51 lakh cut flowers accounting for revenue rs. 85 lakh per annum during 2008-09 (anon., 2009). a clear assessment of association and relative contribution of yield components is of utmost importance in optimizing yield for any crop. it is essential for plant breeders to estimate the type of variation available in a collection of germplasm. also, available information on variability and correlation among traits in carnation is very scanty. hence, the aim of the present investigation was to ascertain the correlation studies in carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) tarannum and b. hemla naik project planning & monitoring cell university of agricultural and horticultural sciences savalanga road, shimoga 577 204, india e-mail: sarasiddiquamdg@gmail.com abstract eight genotypes of carnation were evaluated for phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficient between flower yield and 23 quantitative traits, to understand the association between these characters and their relative contribution to flower yield. the aim was to bring about rational improvement in carnation. genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than phenotypic correlation coefficients for most of the characters studied. flower yield per square meter showed highly significant association with number of branches, nodes per stalk and nodes per plant; stem girth, number of leaves, leaf area, total dry matter and duration of flowering. significant association was found with plant spread, girth of flower and flower length, and, negative correlation was seen with days taken to flower bud initiation, first harvest and peak flowering, at the genotypic level. whereas the number of nodes per plant and duration of flowering exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with yield, only significant correlation was found with plant spread, number of branches, nodes per stalk; stem girth, number of leaves and vase life, at the phenotypic level. these traits may serve as effective selection parameters for carnation improvement. key words: carnation, crop improvement, genotypic correlation, phenotypic, correlation nature and extent of correlation present in vegetative and flowering character in eight genotypes of carnation, and, to identify elite genotype to be used in hybridization programmes to bring about desired improvement in cut-flower yield in this crop. material and methods an experiment was carried out at department of floriculture and landscape architecture, college of horticulture, mudigere, karnataka, from july 2011 to june 2012. the experimental material comprised of eight genotypes of standard carnation, viz., dona, white dona, harish, big mama, soto, liber, golem and big net, procured in pro-trays with coco peat media from m/s florence flora ltd., bengaluru, grown under naturally-ventilated polyhouse. the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (rcbd), with three replications. carnation plants were grown on raised beds of 30cm height, one meter width and a distance of 20cm between rows and 15cm between plants, following standard cultivation practices. data was collected from five randomly selected plants, after 30 days of pinching, from each genotype in each replication on various biometrical parameters and analyzed as per panse j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):38-42, 2014 39 and sukhatme (1967). simple correlation coefficients pertaining to phenotypic and genotypic variation for various characters in carnation genotypes were computed as per singh and choudhary (1979). values for correlation coefficient (r) were calculated and the test of significance was applied as per fisher and yates (1963). observations were made on genotypic and phenotypic correlation between qualitative and quantitative traits in different genotypes of carnation. results and discussion phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficients were computed between character pairs for all the twenty three parameters studied, i.e., flower yield v/s ten vegetative, eight qualitative and four flowering traits in eight carnation genotypes, and results are presented in tables 1, 2 and 3, respectively. correlation coefficient analysis measures mutual relationship between various plant characters, and, determines the component characters on which selection can be based for genetic improvement with reference to a particular character (robinson et al, 1949). positive correlation between desirable characters is favourable to a plant breeder, as, it helps simultaneous improvement in both the characters. in the present study, genotypic correlation coefficient was higher in magnitude than the corresponding phenotypic correlation coefficient for most of the characters studied, indicating a strong, inherent association between various characters, and was masked by the environmental component with regard to phenotypic expression, as reported by johnson et al (1955). in several cases, genotypic and phenotypic correlations were very close, indicating a lesser degree of environmental influence. genotypic correlation for flower yield per square meter exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with number of branches, nodes per stalk and nodes per plant; stem girth, number of leaves, leaf area, total dry matter and duration of flowering, and, significant association with plant spread, girth of flower and flower length, at the genotypic level; whereas, at the phenotypic level, number of nodes per plant and duration of flowering exhibited positive and highly significant association with yield, and, significant association with plant spread, number of branches, number of nodes per stalk, stem girth, number of leaves and vase life, at the phenotypic level. similar results were also obtained by lal et al (1982) in rose for flower diameter, and by sirohi and behera (2000) for vase life in chrysanthemum. hence, selection on the basis of these characters may not be effective, as, these are controlled by non-additive gene action. with respect to qualitative parameters, length of flower stalk exhibited positive and highly significant table 1. genotypic and phenotypic correlation between vegetative and flower yield parameters in different genotypes of carnation trait 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 plant height (cm) g 1 0.84** 0.67* 0.83** 0.83** 0.41 0.67* 0.88** 0.94** 0.87** 0.58 p 1 0.70* 0.59 0.69* 0.76* 0.36 0.63* 0.73* 0.71* 0.85** 0.56 plant spread (cm) g 1 0.94** 0.61 0.81** 0.66* 0.75* 0.98** 1.06** 0.90** 0.75* p 1 0.79* 0.52 0.67* 0.55 0.64* 0.65* 0.67* 0.79* 0.65* number of branches g 1 0.58 0.85** 0.64* 0.80** 0.90** 0.95** 0.89** 0.87** p 1 0.44 0.74* 0.56 0.73* 0.78** 0.76* 0.82** 0.77* number of nodes/stalk g 1 0.91** 0.66* 0.24 0.84** 0.94** 0.79** 0.80** p 1 0.74* 0.59 0.24 0.54 0.55 0.70* 0.72* number of nodes/plant g 1 0.64* 0.56 1.02** 1.10** 0.91** 0.90** p 1 0.59 0.45 0.85** 0.79** 0.85** 0.84** stem girth (mm) g 1 0.09 0.61 0.64* 0.72* 0.82** p 1 0.12 0.55 0.56 0.66* 0.72* internode length (cm) g 1 0.71* 0.66* 0.66* 0.48 p 1 0.59 0.54 0.64* 0.42 number of leaves g 1 0.99** 0.94** 0.94** p 1 0.96** 0.80** 0.72* leaf area (cm2) g 1 1.00 0.97** p 1 0.78* 0.65 total dry matter (g/plant) g 1.00 0.79** p 1.00 0.77 flower yield/m2 g 1.00 p 1.00 *significant @ 5%, **significant @1 % g = genotypic, p = phenotypic correlation studies in carnation j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):38-42, 2014 40 correlation with flower diameter, number of petals and flower length, and, significant association with flower-bud diameter and flower weight, at the genotypic level. however, there was positive and highly significant association with flower diameter and number of petals, and, significant correlation with flower length and weight, at the phenotypic level. girth of flower stalk had positive and significant association with flower length, vase-life and yield, at the genotypic level, whereas, significant association was observed with vaselife at the phenotypic level. flower-bud diameter exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with flower weight and significant correlation with flower diameter, number of petals and flower length at the genotypic level, whereas, significant association was observed with flower weight at the phenotypic level. diameter of flower had positive and highly significant association with number of petals, flower length and flower weight at the genotypic level, and the same character showed significant correlation with the above parameters at the phenotypic level too. number of petals per flower exhibited positive and highly significant association with flower length and flower weight at the genotypic level; whereas, there was positive and significant association of petal number with flower length and flower weight at the phenotypic level. flower length showed positive and highly significant association with flower weight, and significant correlation with yield at the genotypic level, while, significant association was found here with flower weight at the phenotypic level. none of the characters showed significant association with flower weight at both genotypic and phenotypic levels. vase-life exhibited positive and significant correlation with yield at the phenotypic level. these results are in line with findings of shyamal and kumar (2002) in dahlia. days to flower-bud emergence exhibited positive and highly significant association with days to flower opening and days to peak flowering at the genotypic and phenotypic levels, respectively. days to flower opening had positive and highly significant association with days to peak flowering at both genotypic and phenotypic levels. duration of table 2. genotypic and phenotypic correlation between qualitative and flower yield parameters in different genotypes of carnation trait 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 length of flower stalk (cm) g 1 0.23 0.63* 0.91** 1.04** 0.87** 0.77* -0.11 0.32 p 1 0.22 0.57 0.84** 0.81** 0.72* 0.75* -0.11 0.32 girth of flower stalk (mm) g 1 0.11 0.25 0.29 0.65* 0.52 0.75* 0.67* p 1 0.05 0.17 0.25 0.56 0.48 0.64* 0.62 flower bud diameter (cm) g 1 0.78* 0.74* 0.62* 0.85** 0.12 0.32 p 1 0.63 0.47 0.47 0.72* 0.09 0.28 flower diameter (cm) g 1 0.95** 0.90** 0.86** 0.02 0.42 p 1 0.74* 0.72* 0.78* 0.02 0.41 number of petals/flower g 1 0.95** 0.94** -0.21 0.27 p 1 0.62* 0.68* -0.16 0.11 flower length (cm) g 1 0.84** 0.41 0.77* p 1 0.68* 0.35 0.59 flower weight (cm) g 1 0.14 0.46 p 1 0.18 0.44 vase life (days) g 1 0.88 p 1 0.75* flower yield/m2 g 1 p 1 *significant @ 5%, **significant @1 %, g = genotypic, p = phenotypic table 3. genotypic and phenotypic correlation between flowering and flower yield parameters in different genotypes of carnation trait 1 2 3 4 5 days taken to g 1 0.99** -0.63 0.97** -0.83 bud initiation p 1 0.98** -0.61 0.95** -0.81 days taken to g 1 -0.67 0.99** -0.85 flower opening p 1 -0.66 0.93** -0.81 duration of g 1 -0.64 0.94** flowering (days) p 1 -0.64 0.91** days taken for g 1 -0.85 peak flowering p 1 -0.8 flower yield/m2 g 1 p 1 *significant @ 5%, **significant @1 %, g = genotypic, p = phenotypic tarannum and hemla naik j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):38-42, 2014 41 flowering showed positive and highly significant association with yield both at the genotypic and phenotypic levels. none of the characters showed significant association with days taken to peak flowering at both the genotypic and phenotypic levels. these results are in accordance with those of anuradha and narayana (2002) in gerbera. vegetative parameters like plant height exhibited positive and highly significant association with plant spread, number of nodes per stalk and per plant, number of leaves, leaf area and total dry matter; however, these exhibited significant association with number of branches and internodal length at the genotypic level; whereas, plant spread showed positive and highly significant association with number of branches, number of nodes per plant, number of leaves, leaf area, total dry matter, and, showed significant association with stem girth, internodal length and yield, at the genotypic level. number of branches exhibited positive and highly significant association with number of nodes per plant, internodal length, number of leaves, leaf area, total dry matter and yield, whereas, it showed significant association with stem girth. similar heritability estimates were reported by barigidad et al (1992) in chrysanthemum. number of nodes per stalk exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with number of nodes per plant, number of leaves, leaf area, total dry matter and yield, while, it correlated significantly with stem girth, at the genotypic level. number of nodes per plant exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with number of leaves, leaf area, total dry matter and yield at both genotypic and phenotypic levels and had significant correlation with stem girth, at the genotypic level. stem girth showed positive and highly significant association with leaf yield and was significantly correlated to leaf area and total dry matter, at the genotypic level. internodal length exhibited positive and significant correlation with number of leaves, leaf area and total dry matter. number of leaves showed positive and highly significant association with leaf area, total dry matter and yield, at the genotypic level. leaf area exhibited positive and highly significant association with yield, at the genotypic level. however, total dry matter showed highly significant relationship with yield, at the genotypic level. these results are supported by mahesh (1996) in carnation. this reveals that indirect selection for any one of these characters can lead to concomitant increase in cut-flower yield. flower yield per square meter exhibited positive and highly significant correlation for most of the characters, both at the phenotypic and genotypic levels. it had interdependent relationship with vegetative parameters like number of branches, number of nodes per stalk and per plant, stem girth, number of leaves, leaf area, total dry matter production. this may have resulted in production of superior flower quality parameters like flower length, flower girth (thereby, bud and flower diameter), and, number of petals per flower and number of flowers per plant, due to extended duration of flowering. owing to all these positive and significant interrelationships, flower yield per square meter increased. this clearly indicates, that, all the above characters were interrelated and interdependent for enhancing cut-flower yield in carnation. this is evidenced by highly positive and significant correlation observed at the phenotypic and genotypic levels (table 1, 2 and 3). these results were corroborated by findings of banupratap et al (1999) in marigold. flower yield in carnation showed good positive relationship with vegetative parameters like number of branches, nodes per stalk and nodes per plant; stem girth, number of leaves, leaf area and total dry matter production. this may have resulted in production of superior flower quality parameters like flower length and flower girth, thereby, bud and flower diameter and number of petals per flower; and, ultimately, increased number of flowers per plant. hence, selection of the above, stable characters will help improve flower yield. these characters should be accorded emphasis in selection for improvement in carnation. references anonymous. 2009. crop wise statistics of horticultural crops in karnataka state, 2008-2009, horticulture.kar.nic.in/areaprdn.htm anuradha, s. and narayana gowda, j.v. 2002. interrelationship between growth and yield parameters with flower yield in gerbera. j. orn. hort. new series, 5:35-37 banupratap, tewari, g.n. and mishra, l.n. 1999. correlation studies in marigold. j. orn. hort. new series, 2:84-88 barigidad, h., patil, a.a. and nalawadi, u.g. 1992. variability studies in chrysanthemum. prog. hort., 24:55-59 fischer, r.a. and yates, f. 1963. statistical tables for biological, agril. med. res., oliver and boyd ltd., edinburgh, uk johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. correlation studies in carnation j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):38-42, 2014 42 genotypic and phenotypic correlation in soyabean and their implications in selection. agron. j., 47:477-483 lal, s.d., seth, j.n., yadav, j.p. and danu, n.s. 1982. genetic variability and correlation studies in rose. prog. hort., 14:234-236 mahesh, k. 1996. variability studies in carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.). m.sc. thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, pp. 100-174 robinson, h.f., comstock, r.e. and harvey, p.h. 1949. estimates of heritability and degree of dominance in corn. agron. j., 41:353-359 shiragur, m., shirol, a.m., reddy, b.s. and kulkarni, b.s. 2004. performance of standard carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) cultivars under protected cultivation for vegetative characters. j. orn. hort., 7:212-216 shyamal, m.m. and kumar, r. 2002. genetic variability and correlation studies in dahlia. j. orn. hort. new series, 5:40-42 singh, r.h. and choudhary, b.d. 1979. biometrical methods in quantitative genetic analysis. kalyani publishers, new delhi, pp. 50-61 sirohi, p.s. and behera, t.k. 2000. genetic variability in chrysanthemum. j. orn. hort., 3:34-36 (ms received 22 october 2012, revised 30 september 2013, accepted 07 january 2014) tarannum and hemla naik j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):38-42, 2014 though considered drought-hardy, mango (mangifera indica l.) requires watering for orchard establishment and good fruiting, even in heavy rainfall zones like coastal odisha, where soil moisture deficit occurs during february-may. in situ rain-water harvest by building trenches, bunds, circular basins, etc. can increase soil water content by reducing surface runoff (panigrahi et al, 2008). mulching conserves soil moisture and controls weeds (lal et al, 2003). therefore, the present study was undertaken to assess the effect of in situ rain-water harvesting structures and mulching on performance of the mango variety ‘arka neelachal kesri’ under rain-fed conditions. the experiment was conducted at icar-iihrcentral horticultural experiment station, bhubaneswar, odisha, during 2007-2013. the soil at the experimental site is red lateritic, with poor organic matter content (0.2%) and meagre water holding capacity. the orchard of ‘arka neelachal kesri’ mango was developed in situ, on its own rootstock, by sowing seeds at 5m x 5m spacing with onset of monsoon in 2007, and top-grafting the seedlings so-raised a year later. the experiment was laid out in split-plot design, with 12 treatment combinations consisting of four in situ rain-water harvesting structures, viz., half-moon or semicircular basin, full-moon or circular basin, cup-and-plate, and trench system as the main plot, and three levels of short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):99-101, 2015 effect of in situ rainwater harvesting and mulching on growth, yield and fruit quality in mango var. arka neelachal kesri in eastern india deepa samant, s. mandal, h.s. singh, vishal nath1 and reju m. kurian2 icar-iihr-central horticultural experiment station bhubaneswar751 019, odisha, india e-mail: horti.deepa@gmail.com abstract a field study was conducted at central horticultural experiment station (icar-iihr), bhubaneswar, india, during 2007-2013 in a new mango orchard of the variety ‘arka neelachal kesri’ at 5m x 5m spacing, to conserve rain-water and to enhance soil moisture availability during dry periods for augmenting plant growth and fruit production. among the four in situ rain-water harvesting techniques (cup-and-plate, half-moon, full-moon, and trench) evaluated in combination with three types of mulch (no mulch, inorganic mulch, and organic mulch), the cup-and-plate system resulted in maximum annual increment in vegetative growth and fruit yield (4.67kg/plant), while, organic (paddy straw) and inorganic (black polythene, 100μμμμμ thickness) mulches improved vegetative growth, fruit yield and tss in fruit significantly over no mulch. key words: mango (mangifera indica l.), arka neelachal kesri, in situ rain-water harvesting, mulching present address: 1 icar-national research centre for litchi, muzaffarpur-842 002, bihar, india 2 icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru-560 089, karnataka, india mulching (no mulch, organic mulch and inorganic mulch) as sub-plot treatments (table 1) with five replications. the trees were maintained under rain-fed conditions from the inception of the experiment. initial growth parameters, i.e., plant height, canopy diameter, scion girth and primary girth, were recorded during november-december, 2009. thereafter, annual increment in growth was noted for three consecutive years, from 2010 to 2012. fruits were harvested at full maturity and observations were recorded on fruit yield and quality table 1. treatment details with specification of in situ rain-water harvesting structures and measures of mulching treatment specification four in situ rain water harvesting structures as main plot treatments: half-moon semi-circular basin at 1m distance from main trunk full-moon circular basin at 1m distance from main trunk cup-and-plate circular pit of 0.5m width and 0.5m depth around the tree at 1m distance from main trunk trench trench of 2m length, 0.5m width and 0.5m depth at 1m distance from main trunk three levels of mulch as sub-plot treatments: no mulch without cover inorganic mulch uv-stabilized black polythene (100µ thickness) around the tree at 1m radius organic mulch 10cm thick layer of paddy-straw around the tree at 1m radius 100 parameters (pulp, peel and stone details, total soluble solids and titratable acidity) when fruiting started in the year 2012. fruit and its fractions, namely, peel and stone, were weighed and their contents calculated as percentage. tss was determined using a hand-held digital refractometer. acidity was estimated by titrating fresh fruit-juice with 0.1n naoh, using phenolphthalein as an indicator, and was expressed as per cent citric acid equivalents. data generated on various parameters were tabulated and statistically analyzed. annual increase in vegetative growth for three consecutive years, along with pooled data, is presented in table 2. cup-and-plate system of in situ rain-water harvesting resulted in significant increase in plant height, canopy diameter, scion girth and primary girth. this treatment also gave the highest fruit yield (27.91 fruits weighing 4.67kg/tree) (table 3). however, no significant differences were observed with use of various in situ rainwater harvesting structures for average fruit weight and fruit quality (table 3). better growth and yield observed in the cup-and-plate system, may be due to improved rainwater harvest using this structure, and consequent increased soil-water available to the plants for longer duration than with the other structures. mulching had significant influence on vegetative growth (table 2), yield and tss (table 3). maximum annual increase in plant height, canopy diameter and primary girth were recorded in the organic mulch, followed by inorganic mulch. enhanced plant growth observed could be due to availability of sufficient moisture and enhanced lateral growth of roots in the upper layers of soil which, in turn, may have resulted in better nutrient uptake, as reported in citrus (panigrahi et al, 2008). beneficial effects of black polythene table 3. effect of in situ rain-water harvesting and mulching on fruit yield and quality in mango ‘arka neelachal kesri’ treatment fruit yield fruit quality no. of fruits/tree average fruit total weight of pulp peel stone tss acidity weight (g) fruits (kg/tree) (%) (%) (%) (°b) (%) 2012 2013 pooled 2012 2013 pooled 2012 2013 pooled in situ rain-water harvesting structures half-moon 11.33 15.91 13.62 165.72 151.97 158.85 1.87 2.41 2.14 68.32 13.59 18.10 20.01 0.25 full-moon 13.44 18.73 16.09 156.78 169.27 163.03 2.09 3.10 2.59 68.16 14.80 17.05 19.91 0.26 cup-and-plate 23.27 32.55 27.91 164.97 167.98 166.48 3.87 5.46 4.67 67.53 14.11 18.36 19.71 0.27 trench 18.22 27.18 22.7 167.01 157.70 162.35 2.94 4.28 3.61 69.20 13.92 16.89 18.80 0.28 se(m)± 1.46 2.03 1.42 4.69 5.95 3.25 0.23 0.36 0.22 0.78 0.48 0.45 0.35 0.2 cd (p=0.5) 4.54 6.31 4.42 ns ns ns 0.71 1.11 0.69 ns ns ns ns ns mulching no mulch 12.65 17.55 15.10 158.10 158.87 158.48 1.99 2.79 2.39 68.30 14.48 17.23 18.74 0.29 inorganic mulch 18.79 25.88 22.33 165.85 162.81 164.33 3.06 4.17 3.61 69.03 13.40 17.57 19.87 0.26 organic mulch 18.27 27.35 22.81 166.92 163.52 165.22 3.03 4.47 3.75 67.57 14.43 18.00 20.22 0.25 se(m)± 1.69 2.21 1.44 4.58 5.8 4.04 0.28 0.35 0.24 0.83 0.53 0.42 0.28 0.2 cd (p=0.5) 4.90 6.40 4.16 ns ns ns 0.80 1.01 0.69 ns ns ns 0.81 ns table 2. effect of in situ rain-water harvesting and mulching on annual increase in vegetative growth in mango ‘arka neelachal kesri’ treatment annual increase in vegetative growth plant height (cm) canopy diameter (cm) trunk girth (cm) primary girth (cm) 2010 2011 2012 pooled 2010 2011 2012 pooled 2010 2011 2012 pooled 2010 2011 2012 pooled in situ rain-water harvesting structures: half-moon 44.92 40.63 47.88 44.48 52.98 58.8 51.73 54.50 6.97 7.2 6.01 6.73 3.66 5.01 4.14 4.27 full-moon 46.88 40.67 49.53 45.69 52.39 60.59 53.21 55.40 7.33 7.59 6.67 7.20 3.91 5.15 4.42 4.49 cup-and-plate 50.28 54.09 64.46 56.28 60.41 79.22 71.73 70.45 7.81 10.17 9.31 9.10 4.69 7.72 6.86 6.42 trench 53.13 46.46 56.35 51.98 53.31 68.67 62.37 61.45 7.68 8.89 8.06 8.21 4.21 6.36 5.69 5.42 se(m)± 2.38 2.29 2.13 1.05 5.06 2.03 2.59 1.55 0.29 0.37 0.36 0.18 0.35 0.38 0.32 0.16 cd (p=0.5) ns 7.13 6.34 3.26 ns 6.33 8.06 4.83 ns 1.14 1.12 0.58 ns 1.18 1.00 0.51 mulch: no mulch 46.12 40.31 50.19 45.54 50.56 58.75 51.84 53.72 6.76 7.63 6.55 6.98 3.93 5.24 4.43 4.53 inorganic mulch 50.45 47.19 56.13 51.26 56.2 69.22 62.97 62.8 7.84 8.92 8.01 8.26 4.16 6.43 5.63 5.41 organic mulch 49.83 48.89 57.35 52.02 57.57 72.48 64.47 64.84 7.75 8.83 7.98 8.19 4.26 6.51 5.77 5.51 se(m) ± 2.45 1.99 1.8 1.81 3.09 2.44 3.27 1.36 0.36 0.36 0.26 0.14 0.31 0.36 0.24 0.11 cd (p=0.5) ns 5.76 5.21 3.04 ns 7.05 9.47 3.94 ns 1.04 0.74 0.39 ns 1.04 0.69 0.32 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):99-101, 2015 deepa samant et al 101 and straw mulch on plant growth have also been reported in guava by das et al (2010). use of organic mulch resulted in the highest yield, which was at par with yield recorded in the inorganic much treatment. increase in the yield under these mulches was due to a significant increase in number of fruits, over no mulch. average fruit weight under both organic and inorganic mulch was also high, although statistically at par with no mulch. higher yield under mulching due to better conservation and improved availability of soil moisture, suppression of weed growth and decrease in soil temperature (which, in turn, resulted in better fruit retention and reduced fruit-drop) have been reported by shirgure et al (2005) in acid lime, by ghosh and tarai (2007) in ber, and by sharma and kathiravan (2009) in plum. tss in the fruit was significantly influenced by application of organic and inorganic mulch, but not so for the other fruit-quality parameters. improvement in tss by use of mulch may be due to soil moisture conservation which, ultimately, may have caused mobilization of soluble carbohydrates to the fruit (nath and sharma, 1994). improvement in fruit quality with application of mulch was also observed by ghosh and tarai (2007) in ber. cup-and-plate system of in situ rain-water harvesting and mulching either with paddy-straw or black polythene (100µ thickness) could, therefore, be useful for providing better growth, fruit yield and quality in rainfed mango in the humid tropics of eastern india. references das, b.c., maji, s. and roy mulieh, s. 2010. response of soil covers on guava cv. l-49. j. crop weed, 6:1014 ghosh, s.n. and tarai, r.k. 2007. effect of mulching on soil moisture, yield and quality of ber (zyzyphus mauritiana). indian j. soil consn., 35:246-248 lal, h., samra, j.s. and arora, y.k. 2003. kinnow mandarin in doon valley: 2. effect of irrigation and mulching on water use, soil temperature, weed population and nutrient losses. indian j. soil consn., 31:281-286 nath, j.c. and sharma, r. 1994. a note on the effect of organic mulches on fruit quality of assam lemon (citrus limon burm.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 23:46-48 panigrahi, p., huchehe, a.d., srivastava, a.k. and shyam singh. 2008. effect of drip irrigation and plastic mulch on performance of nagpur mandarin (citrus reticulata) grown in central india. indian j. agril. sci., 78:1005-1009 sharma, j.c. and kathiravan, g. 2009. effect of mulches on soil hydrothermal regimes and growth of plum in mid-hill region of himachal pradesh. indian j. hort., 66:465-471 shirgure, p.s., shyam singh, panigrahi, p. and sarkar, r.k. 2005. evaluation of mulches for improving bearing in acid lime. indian j. soil consn., 33:62-66 (ms received 25 november 2014, revised 30 april 2015, accepted 11 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):99-101, 2015 in situ rain-water harvesting and mulching in mango var. arka neelachal kesri microsatellite identification in solanaceae crops associated with nucleoside diphosphate kinase (ndk) specific to abiotic stress tolerance through in silico analysis reena rosy thomas, m.k. chandra prakash, m. krishna reddy1, sukhada mohandas2 and riaz mahmood3 section of economics & statistics indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta bangalore -560089, india email : reenart@hotmail.com abstract abiotic stress often causes a series of morphological, physiological, biochemical and molecular changes that affect plant growth, development and productivity. to cope with abiotic stresses, it is necessary to understand plant responses to stresses that disturb homeostatic equilibrium at the cellular and molecular level. genomic information on capsicum annuum has been explored to identify microsatellite markers associated with abiotic stress tolerance and assign them to cognate functional groups related to specific stress responses. several in silico methods have been used to identify simple sequence repeats associated with stress responsive gene candidates in capsicum annuum. in this study, a microsatellite marker has been identified in capsicum annuum associated with nucleoside diphosphate kinase (ndk) having multiple environmental stress tolerance (oxidative, high temperature and salt stress) and which is also highly conserved in crops of solanaceae. these are house-keeping enzymes that maintain intracellular levels of all nucleoside triphosphates (ntp) with the exception of adenosine triphosphate (atp). these are also involved in phytochrome a response, uv-b signaling, auxin responses and oxidative stress signaling. key words: nucleoside diphosphate kinase (ndk), microsatellite, abiotic stress, solanaceae j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):195-198, 2013 1division of plant pathology, 2division of biotechnology, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 560 089, india 3dept. of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shimoga 577 451 introduction stress conditions such as drought, high salinity and extreme temperatures, are major factors affecting plant growth and crop productivity (boyer, 1982) and are often inter-related. exposure to adverse abiotic environmental conditions causes oxidative stress in plants by rapid and excessive accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ros) in their cells (foyer et al, 1994). reactive oxygen species inactivate enzymes and damage important cellular components. ros are responsible for protein, lipid and nucleic acid modification. as several stress responses are mediated through ros, plants make use of common pathways that allow them to acclimatize to a range of different stresses and some changes in ros metabolism cause enhanced tolerance and sensitivity. therefore, to provide adequate protection against a hazardous environment, a common signaling system has evolved in plants and is known as cross-tolerance (bowler and fluhr, 2000). plants respond to environmental stresses by activating related genes, to increase their tolerance to the latter. however, engineering of an individual stress-response gene has not been effective because many kinds of stress responses are necessary for plants to survive under various adverse conditions. an understanding of plant responses to abiotic stresses at the genomic level provides a foundation for identifying genes, microsatellite markers and associated elements. it has been reported in plants that nucleoside diphosphate kinases (ndks) play a key role in signaling both stress and light. however, little is known about structural elements involved in their function. ndks are ubiquitous enzymes that transfer phosphate groups from triphosphate nucleosides to nucleoside diphosphates (ndps) (parks and agarwal, 1973). these enzymes play an important role in phytochromea response, uv-b signaling, heat stress, and growth (yano et al, 1995). sequence of the ndk has been highly conserved throughout evolution. a single histidine residue is conserved in all known ndk isozymes and is involved in the catalytic mechanism. ndk2 plays a 196 regulatory role in h2o2-mediated mitogen-activated protein kinase (mapk) signaling in plants, indicating that plant ndks also have a diverse array of biological functions (moon et al, 2003). among various ndks expressed in arabidopsis thaliana, ndk2 is known to be involved in phytochrome-mediated signal transduction (yang et al, 2003; im et al, 2004). meterial and methods with whole-genome sequencing initiatives, large amounts of genomic sequence data are available in the public domain that serve as an attractive source of in silico mining of microsatellite sequences. however, finding potentially useful microsatellites that occupy specific genomic regions in plants, still remains a challenge. availability of this information can facilitate discovery of microsatellites associated with abiotic stress tolerance, using in silico methods. capsicum annuum est database, consisting approximately 23000 sequences, has been explored for microsatellites having low-complexity repeats, for identification of markers associated with stress tolerance. of the 23000 est sequences, 2507 non-redundant est sequences having repeats comprising of di, tri, tetra and penta ssrs were located using repeat finder programs. these 2507 est sequences were converted to textual data in fasta format. a computer program developed in microsoft’s visual studio 2010 in windows platform has been coded specifically to read large-size of text files. potential microsatellite markers comprising single, di and tri-nucleotide repeats were located in the text file, based on input data. these sequences were further subjected to in silico analysis for classifying the markers and to assign them to cognate functional groups related to specific stress responses. results and discussion one of the 2507 non-redundant est sequences with a length of 755bp from c. annuum, found to have a marker associated with nucleoside diphosphate kinase (ndk), was subjected to blast analysis. the 755bp sequence of capsicum annuum nucleoside diphosphate kinase mrna sequence with a single nucleotide repeat sequence of 22bp of a repeats is given below: ggcacgagatttgctaactcattcagtaacatcaa agaagcaagaaatggagcaaactttcatcatgatt aagcctgatggtgtccaacgtggcctcgttggtga gattatcggcagatttgaaaagaaaggtttctctt tgaaaggtttgaagctcatcactgtggatcgcgct tttgctgagaagcattatgcagatttgtctgctaag cctttctttaatgggcttgttgagtacattgtttct ggacccgttgtctctatggtctgggaaggtaaggg tgtacttaccactggcaggaagatcattggagcaa ccaaccccttggaatctgctcctggtaccatccgtg gtgattatgctattgacattggcaggaatgtcattc atggaagtgatgctgttgagagtgcaaggaaggaga ttgctctttggttccccgaaggagttgcagagtgg cagagcagccttcactgttggatctacgagtagaaaa gttctatgaaagatttcatggccagcctctttggttg taacttatgagttttgtttgtcatttaagtccagaa gtaacttaagagttttgttcgtcatttaagtccag aagttagatgtttttaagatctactagcggttccct atttgaagaatatttaagttgtggtgttttatctgttg tgttccatgtgttgcaatttctagtaattgagcttcca caattttttagccgtcaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa blast analysis shown in fig. 1 revealed that the nucleoside diphosphate kinase (ndk) sequence is evolutionarily conserved, conferring multiple environmental stress tolerance (oxidative, high temperature and salt stress). further, the associated 22 base pair of single nucleotide ‘a’ repeat is also evolutionarily conserved in most of the solanaceae crops (shown in green colour). this could be a potential microsatellite marker associated with ndk sequence. data in table 1 indicate that c. annuum sequence with a maximum identicality of >90% and e value of 0.0 fig 1. blast analysis result shows that ndk sequence is highly conserved in crops of solanaceae; red color shows high sequence similarity and green colour shows associated marker of single nucleotide a repeats of 22 base pair length j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):195-198, 2013 reena rosy thomas et al 197 table 1. significant hit of nucleotide blast results against c. annuum 755bp ndk sequence description max total query e max accession score score coverage value identity number capsicum annuum nucleoside 1395 1395 100% 0.0 100% af108881.1 diphosphate kinase mrna, complete cds solanum chacoense cytosolic nucleoside 743 743 72% 0.0 91% dq157699.1 diphosphate kinase mrna, complete cds nicotiana tabacum nucleoside diphosphate 719 719 72% 0.0 90% ay962601.1 kinase mrna, complete cds solanum lycopersicum cdna, clone: 676 676 72% 0.0 89% ak320311.1 lefl1007ch03, htc in leaf solanum lycopersicum cdna, clone: 676 676 72% 0.0 89% ak246327.1 fc06dd10, htc in fruit lycopersicon esculentum clone 114282r, 676 676 72% 0.0 89% bt013034.1 mrna sequence solanum lycopersicum nucleoside diphosphate 636 636 68% 9e-179 89% nm_001247245. kinase (loc544095), mrna >emb|x75324.1| l. esculentum (ailsa craig) mrna for nucleoside diphosphate kinase belongs to solanaceae crops. it is also highly conserved in solanum chacoense, nicotiana tabacum, solanum lycopersicum and lycopersicon esculentum. protein sequence similarity protein sequence of ndk also blasted against protein database from ncbi, showed highest similarity with arabidopsis thaliana (fig. 2). putative conserved domains are shown as small, red triangles against c. annuum sequences. it is seen that the sequence belongs to ndpk superfamily which has been highly conserved through evolution. molecular graphic structure of ndk in arabidopsis thaliana is shown in fig. 3. ndk protein sequence of c. annuum, given below, has100% similarity to arabidopsis thaliana. >gi|7643788|gb|aaf65509.1| nucleoside diphosphate kinase [capsicum annuum] meqtfimikpdgvqrglvgeiigrfekkgfslkglkl itvdrafaekhyadlsakpffnglveyivsgpvvs mvwegkgvlttgrkiigatnplesapgtirgdyaid igrnvihgsdavesarkeialwfpegvaewqsslhc wiye fig 2. putative conserved domain and blast hits on protein sequence of c. annuum that shows high similarity with arabidopsis thaliana fig 3. molecular graphic structure of ndk in arabidopsis thaliana j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):195-198, 2013 microsatellites in solanaceae specific to abiotic stress tolerance 198 from table 2, it is evident that c. annuum ndk protein sequence has >98% query coverage and is 80% identical to arabidopsis thaliana sequences. plant ndk plays a prominent role in plant defense mechanisms and involvement of ndk is associated with various stress mechanisms. it was proved that over expression of ndk resulted in tolerance against several environmental stresses such oxidative stress, high temperature and salt stress. c. annuum 755bp sequence having the maximum identicality with nucleotide and protein sequences in solanaceae crops and arabidopsis confirms similar structural and molecular functions. as the sequence of microsatellite marker is evolutionarily conserved across solanaceae crops, this could be useful in selecting parental lines and developing abiotic-stress tolerant crops. references bowler, c. and fluhr, r. 2000. the role of calcium and activated oxygen as signals for controlling crosstolerance. trends pl. sci., 5:241–246 boyer, j.s. 1982. plant productivity and environment. science, 218:443–448 foyer, c.h., descourvieres, p. and kunert, k.j. 1994. protection against oxygen radicals: an important defense mechanism studied in transgenic plants. plant cell environ., 17:507-523 im, y.j., kim, j.i., shen, y., na, y., han, y.j., kim, s.h., song, p.s. and eom, s.h. 2004. structural analysis of arabidopsis thaliana nucleoside diphosphate kinase2 for phytochrome-mediated light signaling. j. mol. biol., 343:659-70 moon, h., lee, b., choi, g., shin, d., prasad, d.t., lee, o., kwak, s.s., kim, d.h., nam, j., bahk, j., hong, j.c., lee, s.y., cho, m.j., lim, c.o. and yun, d.j. 2003. ndp kinase 2 interacts with two oxidative stress-activated mapks to regulate cellular redox state and enhances multiple stress tolerance in transgenic plants. proc. nat’l. acad. sci., usa, 100:358–363 parks, r.e.j. and agarwal, r.p. 1973. nucleoside diphosphokinases. in: the enzymes, boyer, p.d (ed.). academic, new york, usa, pp. 307–334 yang, k.a., moon, h.j., kim, g.t., lim, c.j., hong, j.c., lim, c.o. and yun, d.j. 2003. ndp kinase 2 regulates expression of antioxidant genes in arabidopsis. proc. jpn. acad. ser., b, 79:86–91 yano, a., umeda, m. and uchimiya, h. 1995. expression of functional proteins of cdna encoding rice nucleoside diphosphate kinase (ndk) in escherichia coli and organ related alteration of ndk activities during rice seed germination (oryza sativa l.). pl. mol. biol., 27:1053–1058 table 2. protein blast result of c. annuum ndk protein sequence against arabidopsis thaliana protein sequences description max total query e max accession score score cover value indent nucleoside diphosphate kinase 1 255 255 100% 7e-87 80% np_567346.1 [arabidopsis thaliana] >gb|aee82742.1| nucleoside diphosphate kinase 1 [arabidopsis thaliana] recname: full=nucleoside diphosphate kinase 1; 254 254 100% 9e-87 80% p39207.1 altname: full=nucleoside diphosphate kinase i; short=ndk i; nucleoside diphosphate kinase [arabidopsis thaliana] 250 250 98% 3e-85 80% caa49170.1 unknown protein [arabidopsis thaliana] >gb 242 242 95% 7e-82 80% aak48956.1 |aal66933.1| unknown protein [arabidopsis thaliana] nucleoside diphosphate kinase [arabidopsis thaliana] 223 223 100% 3e-74 74% caa49173.1 chain a, crystal structure of nucleoside diphosphate 196 196 100% 1e-63 60% 1s57_a kinase 2 from arabidopsis> pdb|1s57|b chain b, crystal structure of nucleoside diphosphate kinase 2 from arabidopsis nucleoside diphosphate kinase ia [arabidopsis thaliana] 196 196 100% 1e-63 60% aac14280.1 (ms received 07 february 2013, revised 06 september 2013, accepted 24 september 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):195-198, 2013 reena rosy thomas et al onion ranks as the second highest crop in the world in terms of production, among vegetables. it is extensively used in human diet and has some medicinal properties. it is also exported from india to several countries. onion cultivation in india is at a stage where a large number of varieties and hybrids have been developed, and are under use by the farmer. onion production, productivity and prices fluctuate greatly. low keeping-quality of recently bred varieties / hybrids and their susceptibility to diseases are a major threat to onion cultivation. however, onion production, in general, is very low and unstable. systematic efforts are lacking on genetic improvement of this crop. the phenotype of an individual is determined by its genotype and the environment in which it grows, or is stored, and genotypes may respond differently to various environments. effectiveness of selection as a breeding method depends on the magnitude of genetic variability, association between various characters, and, their direct and indirect effects on yield and heritability. the relative magnitude of these parameters helps us decide upon a breeding programme for achieving maximum advance in the minimum amount of time with available resources. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):237-241, 2015 studies on genetic variability, correlation and path analysis of yield and yield components in onion r. rajya lakshmi horticultural research station venkataramannagudem, west godavari dist. -534101, india email: rajlaxmi_vzm@rediffmail.com abstract evaluation of 11 varieties of onion, viz., n-2-4-1, b-780, aflr, afdr, aw, c-355, pusa red, l-28, arka kalyan, phule samarth and local revealed that pcv was greater than gcv for all the traits. high values for heritability, coupled with moderate-to-high gcv and genetic gain, were noticed for neck thickness, weight and diameter of the bulb and bulb yield, which can be improved by simple selection. moderate-to-high estimates for heritability accompanied by low gcv / genetic gain were observed for plant height and number of leaves, which warrant heterosis breeding for amelioration. genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than the corresponding phenotypic ones for most of the characters, reflecting a predominant role of the heritable factors. yield showed positive association with plant height, neck thickness, weight, length, equatorial diameter of the bulb, both at the phenotypic and genotypic levels. path coefficient analysis revealed a positive direct effect with regard to plant height, neck thickness, weight, length and diameter of the bulb. hence, these are the main characters contributing to yield potential of the onion plant. therefore, it is suggested to lay emphasis on these traits while imposing selection for bulb yield in the onion crop. key words: correlation, genetic advance, heritability, onion, variability yield is a complex trait influenced by several genetic factors that interact with the environment. success in any breeding programme for yield improvement depends on the existing genetic variability in the base population, and on the efficiency of selection. for successful selection, it is necessary to study the nature of association of the trait in question with other relevant traits, as also the genetic variability available for the same. path coefficient provides a better index for selection than mere correlation coefficient, as, it separates the correlation coefficients of yield and yield components into direct and indirect effects. therefore, the present study was undertaken with an objective of evaluating the nature and magnitude of variability, character-association among various traits, heritability, and expected genetic gain in onion. information on such aspects can be of great help in formulating an appropriate breeding strategy for genetic upgradation of this important commercial vegetable crop. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications, during rabi season of 200607, 07-08 and 08-09 at agricultural research station, seethampeta. eleven cultivars of onion, viz., n-2-4-1, b238 780, aflr, afdr, aw, c-355, pusa red, l-28, arka kalyan, phule samarth and local, collected from various sources, were tested. eight-week old, healthy seedlings of each variety were transplanted on flat beds at a spacing of 15cm x 10cm in a plot size of 3.6m x 3.0m. recommended package of practices was adopted to raise the crop successfully. observations were recorded on plant height, number of leaves/plant, neck thickness, polar bulb diameter, equatorial bulb diameter, bulb weight and total soluble solids, from five randomly-selected plants in each plot. bulb yield was accounted for on per plot basis. analysis of variance (anova) was carried out as per to cochran and cox (1950). genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) and phenotypic coefficient variation (pcv) was estimated using the formula of burton and dewane (1952). heritability in the broad sense (h2) and expected genetic advance (ga) were worked out according to allard (1960). analysis of covariance for all the combinations of traits was made and used for estimating correlations. phenotypic and genotypic correlation was worked out as per falconer (1964). path coefficient of various traits under study was calculated as per dewey and lu (1959). mean square estimates were significant for all the traits, indicating sufficient diversity among varieties. the range of variation encountered and the genetic parameters estimated are presented in table 1. the range was highest for bulb yield (165.9-241.4 q/ha), followed by bulb weight (18.33-54.63g) and plant height (29.86-40.83cm); and, this was medium-to-low for number of leaves per plant (7.110.9), tss (17.48-21.14ob), length of bulb (2.18-5.4cm), equatorial diameter of bulb (1.38-4.07cm) and neck thickness (0.32-1.67cm). substantial difference within phenotypic (pcv) and genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) was observed for all the attributes. high pcv and gcv were noticed for neck thickness (26.04, 28.13%), bulb yield (22.4, 24.86%), bulb weight (22.1, 24.21%) and equatorial diameter of bulb (20.83, 22.12%), while, these were moderate for length of bulb (18.19, 20.12%) and number of leaves per plant (9.35, 12.81%). this explains the high phenotypic and genotypic variability among accessions, and responsiveness of the traits for planning further improvement by selection. pcv was higher than the corresponding gcv for all the traits studied, which could be due to an interaction of the varieties with their environment (to some degree) suggesting that environmental factors influence expression of these characters. a high degree of disparity between pcv and gcv for number of leaves per plant and length of bulb depicted the susceptibility of these traits to environment fluctuations. a close correspondence between pcv and gcv for the rest of the traits implied their relative resistance to environmental variation. these results are in conformity with findings of mohanty and prusti (2001). estimates for heritability indicate the effectiveness with which selection can be expected, for exploiting the existing genetic variability (burton and dewane, 1952). in the present investigation, this ranged from 26.91% for tss, to 89.54% for equatorial diameter of the bulb. a high heritability was observed for equatorial diameter of the bulb, neck thickness, weight of the bulb, bulb yield and polar bulb diameter. however, for plant height and number of leaves per plant, moderate heritability was observed. high heritability in the broad sense indicated that a large proportion of phenotypic variance was attributable to genotypic variance, and that the differences observed for these characters among genotypes were real; and, traits were less influenced by the environment, and, selection based on phenotypic performance for these traits would prove table 1. range, mean, variance, coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance for bulb yield and other traits in onion trait mean range genetic phenotypic genetic phenotypic heritability genetic genetic (min – max) variance variance coefficient coefficient (%) advance advance of variation of variation as % of mean plant height (cm) 36.50 29.86 40.83 9.75 12.80 8.55 9.80 76.15 5.61 15.38 no. of leaves 9.68 7.10 10.90 0.82 1.54 9.35 12.81 53.00 1.36 14.06 neck thickness (cm) 1.33 0.32 1.67 0.12 0.14 26.04 28.13 83.52 0.66 49.67 equatorial bulb 3.56 1.38 4.07 0.55 0.62 20.83 22.12 89.54 1.43 40.41 diameter (cm) bulb weight (g) 42.85 18.33 54.63 89.72 107.63 22.10 24.21 83.36 17.81 41.57 polar bulb 4.50 2.18 5.40 0.67 0.82 18.19 20.12 81.52 1.52 33.87 diameter (cm) tss (ºb) 18.91 17.48 21.14 0.48 1.80 3.66 7.09 26.91 0.73 3.89 yield q/ha 175.0 165.9 241.4 15.49 18.93 22.4 24.86 81.84 7.33 41.9 rajya lakshmi j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):237-241, 2015 239 effective. earlier workers have also obtained similar results, viz., high heritability for bulb yield (singh et al, 1995), weight of the bulb (mohanty and prusti, 2001; mahin et al, 2011), neck thickness and diameter of the bulb (gurjar and singhania, 2006; hossain et al, 2008). our study revealed a moderate heritability for number of leaves and plant height. these results are in consonance with gurjar and singhania (2006) and mohanty (2001). heritability is not an absolute parameter, as, heritability can be high even when genetic variance is low. however, the expected genetic gain can be high only if genetic variance is high (allard, 1960). burton advocated that gcv, along with heritability estimates, can furnish a better picture of the amount of progress expected by phenotypic selection. heritability estimates, in conjunction with genetic gain, are more effective and dependable in anticipating improvement through selection (johnson et al, 1955). expected genetic gain was high for neck thickness, bulb yield, bulb weight and equatorial diameter of the bulb; moderate for polar bulb diameter, and low for tss, number of leaves and plant height. similarly, patil et al (1986) and gurjar and singhania (2006) reported high genetic gain for bulb yield and low genetic gain for tss, which is in agreement with our study. high values for heritability, coupled with moderate to high gcv and genetic gain, were noticed for neck thickness, weight and diameter of the bulb, and bulb yield. this may be attributed to additive gene action controlling inheritance of these traits. phenotypic selection for their amelioration can be achieved by simple methods like mass selection or bulk method, after performing hybridization in the early generations (panse, 1957). moderate-to-high estimates for heritability, accompanied by low gcv and genetic gain, were observed for plant height and number of leaves. it can be inferred that these traits were conditioned by non-additive gene action and high genotype-environment interaction. the heritability is expressed due to a favourable influence of the environment rather than the genotype, and, simple selection would be rewarding. however, the genotypes can be improved by developing hybrid varieties or by isolation of transgressive segregates in heterosis breeding programmes. these results support the reports of gowda et al (1988), gurjar and singhania (2006) and mahin et al (2011). estimates for phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficient (table 2) imply that genotypic correlation was of a higher magnitude than the corresponding phenotypic correlation for most of the character combinations, thereby establishing a strong inherent relationship among the attributes studied. the yield showed a positive association with plant height, neck thickness, and weight, length, equatorial diameter of the bulb, both at the phenotypic and the genotypic level (hossain et al, 2008; marey et al, 2012). table 2. phenotypic (p) and genotypic (g) correlation coefficients among various trais in onion no. of neck bulb polar bulb equatorial tss yield leaves thickness weight (g) diameter (cm) bulb diameter (ºb) (t/ha) (cm) (cm) plant height (cm) p 0.5974 0.7774** 0.7399** 0.7518** 0.7530** -0.3466 0.3980 g 0.7674** 0.8117** 0.8761** 0.8222** 0.8283** -0.6715* 0.4253 no. of leaves p 0.7162* 0.6804* 0.6553* 0.7470** -0.4960 0.0121 g 0.8777** 0.8877** 0.8896** 1.0160** -1.0975** -0.0546 neck thickness (cm) p 0.7774** 0.8298** 0.8549** -0.4416 0.1079 g 0.8542** 0.9457** 0.9693** -0.9267** 0.1445 bulb weight (g) p 0.8076** 0.8302** -0.6307* 0.4339 g 0.9310** 1.0037** -1.0263** 0.4849 polar bulb diameter (cm) p 0.8689** -0.5065 0.2822 g 0.9566** -0.8470** 0.2864 equatorial bulb p -0.5323 0.2309 diameter (cm) g -1.1355** 0.2238 tss p -0.2838 (ºb) g -0.3709 *significant at 5%; **significant at 1% genetic variability, yield and yield components in onion j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):237-241, 2015 240 inter-relationship between plant height, neck thickness, and weight, length, equatorial diameter of the bulb, was significant both at the phenotypic and the genotypic level. a negative correlation of bulb yield was observed with tss. earlier studies observed a positive association of bulb yield with plant height, neck thickness, and weight and equatorial diameter of the bulb (raghu ram and singh, 2000; mohanty and prusti, 2001) and negative association with tss (gurjar and singhania, 2006). path coefficient analysis was performed to assess direct and indirect effects of various traits on bulb yield (table 3). even though correlation analysis can quantify the degree of association between two characters, it does not provide reasons for such an association. a simple linear correlation coefficient is designed for detecting the presence of linear association between two variables; it cannot detect any other type of variable association. thus, non-significant correlation coefficient values cannot be taken to imply absence of any functional relationship between two variables. path coefficient analysis unravels this mystery by breaking the total correlation coefficient into components of direct and indirect effects. bulb-weight had the maximum direct positive effect on bulb-yield. plant height and polar bulb diameter had a direct positive effect on bulb-yield at the phenotypic level. neck thickness and equatorial diameter of the bulb showed direct positive effect on bulb-yield, at the genotypic level only. very high and positive direct effect of bulb-weight even after counter-balance by its negative indirect effects via the number of leaves per plant, registered a strong positive table 3. path coefficients in onion plant no. of neck bulb polar equatorial tss correlation height leaves thickness weight bulb bulb (ºb) with bulb (cm) (cm) (g) diameter diameter yield (cm) (cm) plant height (cm) p (0.5755) -0.2443 -0.5450 0.5170 0.0717 -0.0189 0.0420 0.3980 g (-0.4147) -1.8000 0.4929 2.8565 -0.9097 0.3954 -0.1951 0.4253 no. of leaves p 0.3438 (-0.4089) -0.5020 0.4754 0.0625 -0.0188 0.0601 0.0121 g -0.3182 (-2.3455) 0.5329 2.8943 -0.9843 0.4850 -0.3188 -0.0546 neck thickness (cm) p 0.4474 -0.2928 (-0.7010) 0.5432 0.0791 -0.0215 0.0535 0.1079 g -0.3366 -2.0586 (0.6072) 2.7853 -1.0463 0.4627 -0.2692 0.1445 bulb weight (g) p 0.4259 -0.2782 -0.5450 (0.6987) 0.0778 -0.0208 0.0764 0.4339 g -0.3633 -2.0820 0.5187 (3.2606) -1.0301 0.4791 -0.2982 0.4849 polar bulb diameter (cm) p 0.4327 -0.2679 -0.5816 0.5642 (0.0953) -0.0218 0.0613 0.2822 g -0.3409 -2.0866 0.5742 3.0356 (-1.1064) 0.4567 -0.2461 0.2864 equatorial bulb p 0.4334 -0.3054 -0.5993 0.5801 0.0828 (-0.0251) 0.0645 0.2309 diameter (cm) g -0.3435 -2.3830 0.5886 3.2727 -1.0584 (0.4774) -0.3299 0.2238 tss p -0.1995 0.2028 0.3096 -0.4407 -0.0483 0.0134 (-0.1211) -0.2838 (ºb) g 0.2784 2.5742 -0.5627 -3.3464 0.9371 -0.5421 (0.2905) -0.3709 p= phenotypic; g=genotypic (values in parentheses are direct effects) direct effect on yield. on the other hand, number of leaves per plant displayed a negative direct effect on yield at both genotypic and phenotypic levels. earlier workers have reported a direct positive effect of bulb-weight on bulb-yield (mohanty and prusti, 2001; gurjar and singhania, 2006) keeping in view the estimates for correlation coefficients and direct / indirect contribution of component traits to bulb-yield, selection should be done on the basis of bulb-weight, as, it has a positive direct effect and a high indirect effect via several other traits. results of our study indicate that plant height, neck thickness, and weight, polar and equatorial diameter of the bulb, have a positive correlation with bulb-yield. path coefficient analysis revealed a positive direct effect of plant height, neck thickness, and weight, polar and equatorial diameter of the bulb. therefore, these are the main traits, contributing to yield potential in the onion plant. thus, these characters should serve as an ideal criterion for selecting for yield in a crop of onion. this study also revealed that the wealth of variability available in onion offers good prospects for improvement of this crop in the near future. references allard, r.w. 1960. principles of plant breeding. john wiley & sons, inc., new york, pp. 89-98 burton, g.w. 1952. qualitative inheritance in grasses. procs. sixth international grassland congress, ames, iowa, usa, pp. 273-283 cochran, w.g. and cox, g.m. 1950. experimental design. john wiley & sons, inc., new york, usa, pp. 617 dewey, d.r. and lu, k.h. 1959. a correlation and path rajya lakshmi j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):237-241, 2015 241 coefficient analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agronomy j., 51:515-518 falconer, d.s. 1964. introduction to quantitative genetics. oliver and boyd, edinburgh, pp. 312-324 gowda, r.v., singh, t.h. and somkumar, r.g. 1988. genetic variability in onion. pkv res. j., 22:146-148 gurjar, r.s.s. and singhania, d.l. 2006. genetic variability, correlation and path analysis of yield and yield components in onion. indian j. hort., 63:53-58 hossain, m.s., khalekuzzaman, m., rashid, m.h. and rahman, m.s. 2008. variability and interrelationship among yield and yield contributing characters in onion (allium cepa l.). j. bio-sci., 16:85-88 johnson, h.w., robinson, m.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimation of genetic and environmental variability in soybeans. agronomy j., 47:314-318 marey, r.a., abo dahab, a.m.a. and karam s.s. 2012. phenotypic correlation and path coefficient analysis in some onion genotypes grown in upper egypt. j. agril. res. kafer ei-sheikh univ., 38:154-156 mahin, r., alireza, m., nasser, m., habib, d., samaneh, k. and fahimeh, y. 2011. evaluation of genetic variability of six iranian landraces of onion (allium (ms received 24 april 2014, revised 11 may 2015, accepted 29 june 2015) genetic variability, yield and yield components in onion j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):237-241, 2015 cepa l.) for seed yield and yield components. russian agril. sci., 37:385-391 mohanty, b.k. 2001. genetic variability, inter-relationship and path analysis in kharif onion. annl. agril. res., 22:349-353 mohanty, b.k and prusti, a.m. 2001. studies on variability, heritability, correlation and path coefficients in kharif onion. the orissa j. hort., 29:75-78 panse, v.g. 1957. genetics of quantitative characters in relation to plant breeding. indian j. genet, 17:318328 patil, j.d., desale, g.y. and kale, p.n. 1986. genetic variability studies in onion (allium cepa l.). j. maharashtra agril. univ., 11:281-283 raghu ram, n. and singh, n. 2000. studies on genetic variability in onion. nat’l. symp. onion-garlic production and post harvest management challenges and strategies. 19-21 november 2000, nasik, maharashtra, india, pp. 188 singh, j., pandey, u.c. and rana, m.k. 1995. stability parameters for desirable traits in onion (allium cepa l.) cultivars. haryana j. hortl. sci., 24:60-64 introduction the kiwifruit, being a perennial and winter-dormant vine, requires winter chilling for breaking bud dormancy and inducing flowering the following spring. the chilling requirement is reported to cause transition of both vegetative and floral buds of temperate or semi-deciduous subtropical fruit species, including kiwifruit (george et al, 2002). in the event of unavailability of chilling period, dormex (hydrogen cyanamide) has been successfully used for break dormancy in many crops. in addition to increasing and indusing highly synchronized bud-break, hydrogen cyanamide is also known to increase number of flowers per shoot and to synchronize the flowering period (henzell and briscoe, 1986; linsleynoakes, 1989; walton and fawke, 1993). dormex is also found to advance the date of bud-break by 10 to 15 days in kiwifruit (mcpherson et al, 1999). it is found to inhibit action of the enzyme catalase. catalase plays a very important role in plants in detoxifying hydrogen peroxide by catalyzing its breakdown to water and oxygen. when the action of catalase is inhibited by dormex, the plant detoxifies hydrogen peroxide via a sequence of reactions eventually coupled to the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway (ppp). dormex stimulates these reactions which, in turn, lead to increase in turnover rate of ppp. due to stimulation of ppp, a range of substances (rna, dna, pentose sugars etc.) responsible for new growth in a plant are produced at higher rates. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):47-50, 2013 effect of dormex on bud-break, flowering and yield in kiwifruit cv. hayward in mid-hill zone of himachal pradesh babita and vishal s. rana department of fruit science dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture & forestry nauni, solan 173230, india e-mail : drvishal_uhf@rediffmail.com abstract the present investigation was carried out on eight year old hayward kiwifruit vines to study the effect of dormex on bud-break, flowering and yield. treatments included spray of dormex (2 & 4%) on february 10th, 20th and march 2nd. application of 4% dormex on 10th february, i.e., 40 days prior to anticipated date of natural bud-break, resulted in advancement of bud break and floral-bud emergence by seven days, fruit-set by five days and increase in flowering period by five days. key words: kiwifruit, dormex, bud-break, yield the hayward variety of kiwifruit has highest chilling requirement among the commercial varieties (lawes, 1984). this cultivar sometimes produces a poor crop due to lack of chilling and non-synchronized of flowering of male and female cultivars. the present investigation was, therefore, carried out to study the effects of dormex on bud-break, flowering and fruit yield in ‘hayward’ kiwifruit. material and methods the experiment was conducted in dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan (h.p.), located at 30o51’n latitude. temperature prevailent during the experiment was 25oc. eight year old vines of ‘hayward’ kiwifruit, planted at a distance of 4m x 6m and trained on t-bar system were selected for the study which comprised seven treatments, viz., t 1 (dormex 2% on 10th february), t 2 (dormex 2% on 20th february), t 3 (dormex 2% on 2nd march), t 4 (dormex 4% on 10th february), t 5 (dormex 4% on 20th february), t 6 (dormex 4% on 2nd march) and t 7 (control). dormex was applied as foliar spray approximately 30-45 days prior to natural bud-break. the time of bud-break was recorded on ten randomly tagged shoots located at the periphery of each vine when bud-break was distinctly visible. emergence of flower buds was also recorded on these tagged shoots. date of full bloom was recorded when more than 75% flowers opened, and 48 the date of fruit set when all petals dropped after complete fruit set. total fruit yield was determined on the basis of total weight of fruits harvested from a vine under each treatment, and average yield per vine was calculated. yield was expressed as kilograms per vine (kg/vine). fruits harvested from the vines were categorized into three grades on the basis of fruit weight. these grades were: a grade (>80g), b grade (50-80g) and c grade (<50g). per cent fruits of different grades per vine was calculated using the following formula: % yield of grade ‘x’ = yield of grade ‘x’ (kg/vine) x 100 total yield (kg/vine) where, ‘x’ = grade a or b or c data obtained from the investigation were statistically analyzed for randomized block design and differences exhibited by different treatments were tested for significance as per gomez and gomez (1984). results and discussion bud break maximum advancement in time of bud-break i.e., seven days was recorded in vines sprayed with 4% dormex on 10th february, where bud-break was observed on 13th march (fig. 1). vines sprayed with 2% dormex on the same date showed bud-break on 14th march and advanced budbreak by six days over the control. bud-break in untreated vines occurred on 20th march. dormex has been shown to promote early and more uniform bud-break in kiwifruit (linsley-noakes, 1989 and schuck and petri, 1995). dormex penetrates bud scales better and gets absorbed in buds, leading to bud-break (foott, 1987). flowering characteristics it is evident from data presented in table 1 that dormex applied at various time intervals and concentrations influenced blooming characteristics, namely, floral-bud emergence, full-bloom date and duration of flowering in kiwifruit in both the years of study, viz., 2011 and 2012. among different treatments, 4% dormex on 10th february, i.e., 40 days prior to anticipated bud-break advanced flowerbud emergence by seven days, fruit set by five days and increased flowering span by five days. early bud-break, fullbloom and fruit set observed in the present study may be due to advancement of bud-break with dormex application. increase in duration of flowering may be attributed to increased bud-break and higher number of flowers, as reported by mcpherson et al (1999) in kiwifruit. chauliaras et al (1996) also observed that application of dormex 45 days before bud-break advanced blooming and fruit-set by 12 to 14 days in kiwifruit cv. hayward. similarly, pandey (1989) in grapes, powell (1997) in kiwifruit and singh and table 1. effect of dormex on blooming characteristics in hayward kiwifruit treatment details date of flower date of date of duration of bud emergence full bloom fruit set flowering (days) 2011 2012 2011 2012 2011 2012 2011 2012 t 1 (dormex 2% on 10th feb) 18/04 20/04 29/04 01/05 07/05 09/05 20 20 t 2 (dormex 2% on 20th feb) 21/04 22/04 30/04 02/05 09/05 10/05 19 19 t 3 (dormex 2% on 2nd mar) 22/02 24/04 03/05 04/05 10/05 12/05 18 18 t 4 (dormex 4% on 10th feb) 16/04 18/04 28/04 30/05 05/05 07/05 21 21 t 5 (dormex 4% on 20th feb) 20/04 21/04 29/04 01/05 06/05 08/05 16 19 t 6 (dormex 4% on 2nd mar) 22/04 23/04 01/05 03/05 09/05 10/05 17 17 t 7 (control) 24/04 25/04 03/05 04/05 10/05 12/05 16 17 fig 1. effect of dormex on date of bud-break in kiwifruit cv. ‘hayward’ table 2. effect of dormex on fruit yield (kg) in kiwifruit cv. hayward treatment details different grades total a b c t 1 (dormex 2% on 10th feb) 20.83 10.50 2.50 33.83 t 2 (dormex 2% on 20th feb) 19.50 10.17 3.17 32.83 t 3 (dormex 2% on 2nd mar) 11.33 7.67 3.33 22.33 t 4 (dormex 4% on 10th feb) 24.17 11.50 1.33 37.00 t 5 (dormex 4% on 20th feb) 19.17 11.17 3.00 33.50 t 6 (dormex 4% on 2nd mar) 11.33 9.17 2.67 23.13 t 7 (control) 8.33 5.50 3.17 17.00 cd p=0.05 5.59 3.5 ns 8.98 d at e of b u d -b re ak j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):47-50, 2013 babita and rana 49 mann (2002) in pear reported advancement in flowering by 12-13 days, and fruit set by 10 to 12 days with 4% dormex application. fruit yield highest (37kg/vine) fruit yield was recorded in treatment t 4 (dormex 4% on 10th february), and the lowest (17kg/vine) in untreated vines (table 2). these observations are supported by veloso and oliveira (1970) who observed 4% dormex to be most effective in increasing kiwifruit yield due to increase in flower-bud formation and higher fruitset. similar results were obtained by powell (1997) with application of dormex at 4% too, who recorded significantly higher total and ‘a’ grade fruit yields over control. powell et al (2000) reported that dormex at 1, 1.5 and 2% significantly increased fruit yield, recording maximum values when applied 3-4 weeks before normal bud-break. fruit size and overall fruit quality were also good. dormex performed quite well when 600-700 chilling hours were experienced in ‘hayward’ kiwifruit in the test area. huang et al (2003) conducted an experiment in portugal to determine the effect of dormex at 0, 4 and 6% on bud-break and yield of kiwifruit cv. hayward. significant differences were observed between treated and untreated vines for bud-break indices, number offertile buds, flowers and the marketable yield. economic analysis economic analyses of dormex application at various time intervals and concentrations showed that dormex @ 4% on 10th february was the most beneficial treatment. this resulted in highest total yield, with maximum proportion of of ‘a’ grade fruits. market price for ‘a’ grade fruits was higher in comparison to ‘b’ or ‘c’ grade fruits. therefore, income generated from vines treated with dormex (4%) sprayed on 10th february was maximum, thereby more remunerative. results obtained in the present study showed that application of dormex (4%) on 10th february, i.e., 40 days prior to anticipated date of bud-break in ‘hayward’ kiwifruit resulted in an advancement in bud-break and floral-bud emergence by seven days, fruit-set by five days and increased flowering period by five days too. this advancement in blooming characteristics and enhancement in flowering span may lead to better synchronization between male and female cultivars of kiwifruit. further, application of 4% dormex as spray on 10th february resulted in enhanced of fruit yield, with higher proportion of ‘a’ and ‘b’ grade fruits. this treatment resulted in maximum net benefit in comparison to untreated kiwifruit vines. references chauliaras, v., liona, k.s.m. and gerasopoulos, d. 1996. effect of hydrogen cyanamide on bud break, fruit break, fruit weight and maturation of ‘hayward’ kiwifruit. agri. medit., 126:408-411 foott, j.h. 1987. effect of hydrogen cyanamide on bud emergence in wine grapes. calif. agri., 41:19 george, a.p., broadly, r.h. and nissen, r.j. 2002. effect of new rest breaking chemicals on flowering, shoot production and yield of subtropical tree crops. acta hort., 575:835-840 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedure for agricultural research (2nd ed.), john wiley & sons, new york, usa, p. 680 henzell, l.h. and briscoe, m.r. 1986. hydrogen cyanamide: a tool for consistently high kiwifruit production. new zealand kiwifruit special publication, no 1, 8-11 table 3. effect of dormex on net benefit per vine and % increase in net benefit over control in kiwifruit cv. hayward treatment details *cost (rs.) gross chemical + net benefit benefit % increase income labour (gross returnsover in net benefit a b c cost chemicalcost) control over control (rs.) t 1 (dormex 2% on 10th feb) 1333.12 493.50 80.00 1906.62 40.00 1866.62 973.56 109.01 t 2 (dormex 2% on 20th feb) 1248.00 477.99 101.44 1827.43 40.00 1787.43 894.37 100.15 t 3 (dormex 2% on 2nd mar) 725.12 360.49 106.56 1192.17 40.00 1152.17 259.11 29.01 t 4 (dormex 4% on 10th feb) 1546.88 540.50 42.56 2129.94 70.00 2059.94 1166.88 130.66 t 5 (dormex 4% on 20th feb) 1226.88 524.99 96.00 1847.87 70.00 1777.87 884.81 99.08 t 6 (dormex 4% on 2nd mar) 725.12 430.99 85.44 1241.55 70.00 1171.55 278.49 31.18 t 7 (control) 533.12 258.50 101.44 893.06 893.06 *(cost : grade a @rs. 64/kg, grade b @rs. 47/kg and grade c @rs. 32/kg chemical cost : rs. 600/l labour cost : 30min/plant @ rs. 120/man day), other factors being constant j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):47-50, 2013 effect of dormex on bud-break, flowering and yield in kiwifruit 50 huang, h., cho, h.s., park, m.y., park, j.o., park, t.d. and shim, k.k. 2003. comparison of cppu effect on fruit development in several actinidia species. acta hort., 610: 539-541 lawes, g.s. 1984. winter temperatures and kiwifruit bud development. orchardist of n.z., april, p.110 linsley-noakes, g.c. 1989. improving flowering of kiwifruit in climatically marginal areas using hydrogen cyanamide. sci. hort., 38:247-259 mcpherson, h.g., richardson, a.c., shelgar, w.p. and corrie, m.b. 1999. effect of hydrogen cyanamide on bud break and flowering of kiwifruit. n.z. j. crop hortl. sci., 29:473-478 pandey, s.n. 1989. hastening bud-burst and ripening in pusa seedless grapes (vitis vinifera l.) with dormex. indian j. hort., 46:348-352 powell, a.a., himelrick, d.g. and tunnell, e. 2000. effect of hydrogen cyanamide (dormextm) on replacing lack of chilling in kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa). small fruits rev., 1:79-92 powell, a.a. 1997. the effect of dormex on replacing lack of chilling in kiwifruit. hort. fruits , www.acesag.auburrn.edu/department/peachs/ kiwidormex.html schuck, e. and petri, j.l. 1995. the effect of concentrations and application of hydrogen cyanamide on kiwifruit dormancy breaking. acta hort., 395:177-184 singh, h. and mann, s.s. 2002. effect of hydrogen cyanamide and thiourea on bud burst. flowering and fruit set in pear cv. pathernakh. indian j. hort., 59:49-51 veloso, a. and oliviera, m. 1970. effect of hydrogen cyanamide on bud break and yield of kiwifruit in north-west portugal. acta hort., 444:473-478 walton, e.f. and fowke, p.j. 1993. effects of hydrogen cyanamide on kiwifruit shoot flower number and position. j. hortl. sci., 68:529-534 (ms received 13 september 2012, accepted 04 december 2012, revised 17 january 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):47-50, 2013 babita and rana introduction onion (allium cepa) is the most important commercial vegetable crop produced in india for both domestic consumption and export. india accounts for 16% of the world’s area and occupies the second position after china in production with a share of around 14%. karnataka contributes a major area in south india (84,800 ha) and produces 4,86,130 t of onion annually. productivity, however, is much lower in india than the world average. in order to increase the production and quality, its nutrient requirements have to be carefully monitored through soil analysis for efficient fertilizer management programme. as no established standards are available, it was planned to develop soil nutrient standards for onion using diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris), which provides a means of simultaneously identifying imbalances, deficiencies and excesses in crop nutrients and ranking them in the order of importance (beaufils, 1973). beaufils and sumner (1976) developed dris norms for p, k, ca, and mg to be applied to sugarcane culture on south african diagnostic soil nutrient standards and identification of yield limiting nutrients in onion (allium cepa) using dris k. anjaneyulu division of soil science & agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: anjaney@iihr.ernet.in abstract soil samples collected from a survey of fifty onion growing fields in karnataka were analyzed for various macro and micronutrients for establishing a data bank to develop soil nutrient norms. by using diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris), the whole population was divided into two sub-groups namely, low and high yielding and selected nutrient expressions that have shown higher variance and lower coefficient of variation as diagnostic norms, viz k/n (1.229), s/n (0.238), ca/n (20.62), p/zn (37.41), mg/k (0.6.859), fe/ mg (0.004), fe/zn (5.736) etc. in addition, five nutrient ranges have been derived using mean and standard deviation as low, deficient, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient to serve as a guide for diagnostic purpose. the optimum organic carbon ranged from 7.1 to 11.0 g kg-l, n from 115 to 178 mg kg-l, p from 26 to 38 mg kg-l , k from 163 to 217 mg kg-l ,ca from 2199 to 3398 mg kg-l , mg from 802 to 1167 mg kg-l and s from 34 to 43 mg kg-l. among dtpa extractable micronutrients, the optimum iron ranged from 3.40 to 4.34 mg kg-l, manganese from 5.84 to 6.66 mg kg-l, zinc from 0.67 to 1.01 mg kg-l and copper from 1.70 to 2.11 mg kg-l for onion. the diagnosis of nutrient imbalance identified through dris indices indicated that organic carbon, phosphorus and zinc were the most common yield limiting nutrients in onion. key words: nutrients, norms, dris indices, onion soils. similarly, this methodology has been used to interpret the results of soil analysis for fruit crops such as mango and pomegranate (raghupathi and bhargava, 1997) in india. however, there are a few reports in the literature on the use of dris for developing soil nutrient standards for crops like onion. therefore, an investigation was carried out to develop soil nutrient standards for onion using dris. material and methods a survey was conducted in major onion growing districts of karnataka (bellary and chitradurga) and soil samples were collected from fifty fields during the year 2000-01. at each site, ten sub-samples were drawn and pooled. a composite sample was used for measurement of ph, ec, organic carbon, macro and micronutrients for developing nutrient standards. the samples were air dried, processed through 2 mm sieve and analyzed for different nutrients by using standard analytical methods (jackson, 1973). soil ph and ec were measured in 1:2.5 soil:water suspension. organic carbon was estimated by wet j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 39-42, 2008 page 39 40 oxidation method while p was analyzed colorimetrically after extracting in 0.5m nahco 3 (ph 8.5) solution. the exchangeable k, ca and mg were estimated after extracting in 1n neutral ammonium acetate. micronutrients were analyzed after extracting in dtpa solution using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (jackson, 1973). thus, the data bank was established for the whole population. by using dris, the whole population was divided into two sub-groups namely low and high yielding (beaufils, 1973) based on the yield performance of the fields. from the experience of the growers, 20 t/ha was considered as the cut off yield between low and high performing fields. the cut off yield was positioned in such a way that the high yielding sub-population reflects conditions that are deemed desirable (beaufils, 1973). however, letzsch and sumner (1984) have shown that the actual cut off value used has little effect on the norms developed as long as it is not too low. each parameter was expressed in as many forms as possible, e.g. n/p, p/n, nxp etc. mean, variance and standard deviations were calculated for all forms of expressions together with the coefficient of variation. among different forms of expressions, the one showing higher variance ratio (variance of low yielding / variance of high yielding) was selected as norm (walworth and sumner, 1987). the dris indices were calculated by using the formula described elsewhere (anjaneyulu, 2006). five soil nutrient guides/ranges were derived using mean and standard deviation as deficient, low, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient. the optimum nutrient range is the value derived from “mean 4/3sd (standard deviation) to mean + 4/3sd”. the range “low” was obtained by calculating “mean 4/3 sd to mean 8/3sd” and the value below “mean 8/3 sd” was considered as deficient. the value from “mean + 4/3 sd to mean + 8/3 sd” was taken as high and the value above “mean + 8/3 sd” was taken as excessive (bhargava and chadha, 1993). results and discussion soil nutrient concentration range the soil ph for the entire population (table 1) ranged from 7.25 to 8.81, where onion is being grown successfully. the ec ranged from 0.12 to 0.54 dsm-1 and thus, the fields were in the safe range. however, the organic carbon level varied much between 3.3 to 16.8 g kg-l indicating that the content was low in many of the low yielding fields compared to the optimum value. the available p varied from 4.4 to 160.2 mg kg-l showing a wide variation among the fields. the exchangeable calcium and magnesium varied from 1658 to 4062 mg kg-land 453 to 1797 mg kg-1 respectively due to calcareous nature of the soil. among the micronutrients, fe ranged from 3.02 to 6.60 mg kg-1and manganese from 3.30 to 37.50 mg kg-1(table1) indicating a wide variation in manganese compared to iron content. dris norms, indices and nutritional balance index (nbi) a particular nutrient expression should have a high variance and low coefficient of variation to be chosen as norm for greater diagnostic precision (walworth and sumner, 1987). among the nutrient expressions, certain diagnostic norms viz. k/n (1.229), s/n (0.238), ca/n (20.62), p/zn (37.41), mg/k (0.6.859), fe/mg (0.004), fe/ zn (5.736) etc., have shown higher variance ratios compared to others and may have greater physiological rationale. in addition, maintaining the ratios of some expressions at the optimum when coefficient of variation was large was much less critical for the performance of the crop (raghupathi et al. 2004). the nutrient imbalance in plants was diagnosed through dris indices that are given in table 3 for selected low yielding orchards. as the value of each ratio function was added to one index sub-total and subtracted from another prior to averaging, all indices were balanced around zero. thus, the nutrient indices sum to zero indicated an optimum level, negative values a relative deficiency and positive values a relative excess of that nutrient (walworth and sumner, 1987). the absolute sum values of the nutrient indices generate an additional index called nutritional balance index (nbi). the overall imbalance of the nutrient was assessed based on sum of the indices irrespective of sign (table 3). higher the sum value (2644), larger is the plant nutritional imbalance and, therefore, the lower will be the yield. however, the yield cannot be predicted from sum of the indices irrespective of the sign alone, because table 1. mean and s.d. of nutrients in the onion growing soils soil property unit mean s.d. ph 8.36 0.2287 ec dsm-1 0.29 0.1391 oc g kg-l 11.0 0.2962 n mg kg-1 178.53 47.9996 p mg kg-1 38.88 9.9077 k mg kg-1 217.64 41.0786 ca mg kg-1 3398.53 899.8555 mg mg kg-1 1167.03 274.5240 s mg kg-1 43.46 7.3134 fe mg kg-1 4.34 0.7575 mn mg kg-1 6.66 0.6235 zn mg kg-1 1.01 0.2645 cu mg kg-1 2.61 0.8846 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 39-42, 2008 anjaneyulu 41 of the influence of unmeasured factors that affect the yield (sumner, 1977). the yield limiting nutrients were differing from field to field though some of the nutrients were more prominent. the order in which the nutrients were limiting the yield indicated that most often more than one nutrient was limiting the yield. however, the diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in the soils of onion growing tracts of karnataka indicated that the most common yield limiting nutrients are organic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus among the macronutrients and copper and zinc among the micronutrients. optimum soil nutrients’ guide nutrients guide/ranges have been derived using mean and standard deviation as deficient, low, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient and presented (table 4). the optimum ec ranged from 0.11 to 0.29dsm-1 indicating a safe limit for the crop. all the low yielding gardens represented low organic carbon content compared to optimum, which ranged from 7.1 to 11.0 g kg-l in the soil. the optimum p ranged from 26 to 38 mg kg-1 and the low yielding fields were deficient in p as indicated by dris indices in table-3. thus, majority of the soils representing low yielding fields were low in organic carbon and available phosphorus indicating their requirement. in onion the requirement of potassium is higher than nitrogen as it is involved not only in the production but also in improving the quality. ninety per cent of the orchards surveyed were at optimum (163 to 217 mg kg-1) level for available potassium. similarly, many fields recorded optimum to higher calcium, magnesium and sulphur contents in the soil indicating that these nutrients were not yield limiting in onion. among the micronutrients, zinc and copper were found to be low in most of the low yielding fields followed by iron. the optimum zinc concentration ranged from 0.67 to 1.01 mg kg-1 whereas copper ranged from 1.70 to 2.61mg kg-1. however, 87% of the fields recorded optimum levels of manganese indicating that manganese is not a yieldlimiting factor. thus, the possibility of making a successful diagnosis based on soil nutritional status increases as the table 2. dris ratio norms for onion growing soils selected ratios norms cv% selected ratios norms cv% p/n 0.202 46 cu/k 0.016 48 k/n 1.229 22 mg/ca 0.336 30 ca/n 20.62 29 s/ca 0.014 68 mg/n 7.087 35 fe/ca 0.001 25 s/n 0.237 30 mn/ca 0.002 63 fe/n 0.026 30 ca/zn 4673 52 mn/n 0.041 70 cu/ca 0.001 33 n/zn 233.6 42 mg/s 37.45 52 cu/n 0.016 52 fe/mg 0.004 29 k/p 10.45 68 mn/mg 0.006 50 ca/p 189.1 67 mg/zn 1626 71 mg/p 74.69 63 cu/mg 0.002 38 s/p 1.869 51 fe/s 0.139 64 fe/p 0.232 62 mn/s 0.208 70 mn/p 0.491 64 s/zn 55.66 64 p/zn 37.41 27 cu/s 0.094 61 cu/p 0.157 63 mn/fe 1.455 67 ca/k 20.91 43 fe/zn 5.736 25 mg/k 6.859 30 cu/fe 0.598 32 s/k 0.223 52 mn/zn 8.556 70 fe/k 0.025 33 mn/cu 2.456 52 mn/k 0.037 40 cu/zn 3.592 56 k/zn 274.1 43 — — — table 3. dris indices for selected onion growing fields f.no ph ec oc n p k ca mg s fe mn cu zn nbi(sum) 1 52 5 -90 15 -66 31 25 14 74 -6 103 -75 -82 638 2 -1 99 -160 -175 -137 163 204 68 28 46 58 -53 -140 1332 3 150 36 -26 34 -2 -127 206 204 105 -146 111 -241 -304 1692 4 106 28 -101 21 -128 26 104 50 65 41 152 -29 -335 1186 5 62 52 -153 41 -111 -113 195 135 90 -2 26 -2 -220 1202 6 107 -143 -267 203 -347 -347 216 114 262 108 169 143 -218 2644 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 39-42, 2008 dris norms for onion 42 number of nutrient-related yield limiting factors that are due to nutrition is increased. as with foliar diagnosis, the use of dris with soil data also provides the advantage of taking into account nutrient balance and ranking nutrients in terms of abundance relative to optimal levels. references anjaneyulu, k. 2006. development of diagnostic leaf nutrient norms and identification of yield limiting nutrients using dris in rose grown under protected conditions. j. hortl. sci. 1: 28-32 bailey, j. s., beattie, j. a. m. and kilpatrick, d. j. 1997. the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris) for diagnosis of nutrient status of grassland swords.1 model establishment. pl. and soil, 197: 127-135 beaufils, e. r. 1973. diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris). soil science bulletin,1: 1-132. university of natal pitermariburg, south africa beaufils and sumner. 1976. application of the dris approach for calibrating soil, plant yield and plant quality factors of sugarcane. proc. s. afr. sugar tech. assoc., 50: 118-124 bhargava, b. s. and chadha, k. l. 1993. leaf nutrient guides for fruit crops. in: advances in horticulturefruit crops, vol. 2:973-1030, chadha, k. l. and pareek, o. p. (eds), malhotra pub. house, new delhi. jackson, m. l. 1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india, new delhi. p 498 letzsch, w.s. and sumner, m. e. 1984. effect of population size and yield level in selection of dris norms. comm. soil sci. pl. anal. 15:997-1006 mourao filho, f. a. a. 2004. dris: concepts and applications on nutritional diagnosis in fruit crops, sci. agric., (piracicaba, braz.), 61: 550560 raghupathi, h. b. and bhargava, b. s. 1997. preliminary soil fertility norms for ratnagiri alphonso mango. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 45: 534-536 raghupathi, h. b., reddy,y. t. n., kurian reju and bhargava, b. s. 2004. diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in mango by dris and pca approaches. j. pl. nutr. 27:1131-1148 sumner, m. e. 1977. application of beaufils diagnostic indices to corn data published in literature irrespective of age and condition. pl. and soil, 46: 359-363 walworth, j. l. and sumner, m. f. 1987. the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system. adv. soil sci., 6:149-188 (ms received 11 october 2007, revised 10 january 2008) table 4. soil nutrient standards for onion nutrient unit deficient low optimum high excess org. carbon g kg-l <3.1 3.1-7.0 7.1-11.0 11.1-15.0 >15.1 nitrogen mg kg-l <50 51-114 115-178 179 -242 >243 phosphorous mg kg-l <12 13-25 26-38 39 -52 >53 potassium mg kg-l <108 109-162 163-217 218-272 >273 calcium mg kg-l <998 999-2198 2199-3398 3399-4598 >4599 magnesium mg kg-l <434 435-801 802-1167 1168-1533 >1534 sulphur mg kg-l <23 24-33 34-43 44 -53 >54 iron mg kg-l <2.32 2.32-3.33 3.40-4.34 4.35-5.35 >5.36 manganese mg kg-l <5.00 5.00-5.83 5.84-6.66 6.67-7.49 >7.50 zinc mg kg-l <0.31 0.31-0.66 0.67-1.01 1.02-1.36 >1.37 copper mg kg-l <0.77 0.77-1.69 1.70-2.61 2.62-3.52 >3.53 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 39-42, 2008 anjaneyulu introduction composition, flavour and other properties characteristic of grape varieties or hybrids are extremely important in determining wine quality. varietal distinction is further strengthened by soil and microclimate the vineyard grows in (jackson and lombard, 1993). in india, remarkable success has been achieved in grape production, and productivity of fresh grapes is highest in the world. at present, grape is grown over an area of 106,000 ha, with annual production of 881,000 tonnes in india for table grape and raisin production (http://nhb.gov.in/database-2010.pdf). however, recent years have witnessed a spurt in wine making by small-scale wineries due to increasing demand in the domestic market and, also, due to liberalized taxation offered by various state governments. indian wineries have begun small-scale export of wines made from indigenous and exotic varieties cultivated in their own vineyards (http:/ /indianwine.com). intensive efforts for grape improvement over the decades have also resulted in introduction of exotic varieties and development of new hybrids in india (singh et al, 1998). earlier scientific reports based on juice-yield and must-quality parameters show that cultivars shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, zinfandel, sauvignon blanc, ugni blanc, vermentino and garganega are recommendable for commercial wine production in the maharashtra region of india (karibasappa and adsule, 2006). present paper describes the quality of wines prepared from new hybrids evaluation of new grape hybrids and french cultivars for wine production k. ranjitha, b.n.s. murthy1 and e.r. suresh division of post harvest technology icar indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india email: ranjitha@iihr.ernet.in abstract this study aimed at evaluating newly developed hybrids and recently introduced cultivars of french grapes grown in mild tropics of south india for quality wine production. wines produced from french grapes, viz., cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc and ugni blanc scored 15.0 -16.8 in the davis score card for organoleptic analysis. wines from red hybrid 18/10 possessed phenolic content of 2097mg/l, had a brilliant colour and sensory score of 13.1. hybrid 23/2 gave good quality white, dry table wines with a sensory score of 13.4. key words: wine quality, grape variety, hybrid, phenolics, wine colour developed under the grape improvement research programme at indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bengaluru, as also from the classic french wine varieties grown in bengaluru region of south india (12o58’n and 77o38’e, located 920m above msl), a region typified by mild tropical climate. material and methods dry table wines were prepared from berries of various hybrids developed at iihr and french grape cultivars grown in vineyards of the institute. harvested red grapes were washed, de-stemmed and sulfited with potassium metabisulphite (200mg/l) and hand crushed. tss was adjusted to 22°brix using cane sugar. for white wine preparation, the juice was extracted after sulphiting, followed by adjustment of tss. the resultant grape must was inoculated with 48h old starter culture of saccharomyces cerevisiae var. ellipsoides strain montrachet no. 522 @ 2%v/v. fermentation was carried out at 18°c, with occasional stirring of the must or juice, till completion as measured using a brix hydrometer. the young wines were pressed, racked and clarified using calcium bentonite (400mg/ l) and were bottled and stored at 10±2°c for aging for a year. biochemical characteristics of wine such as, ph, acidity, phenolic content, total residual sugars, volatile acidity, alcohol content, hue and chroma were analyzed. sensory attributes of the wines were evaluated on the 20-point davis score card (amerine and ough, 1982). 1division of fruit crops, icar indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):74-77, 2014 75 evaluation of grapes for wine quality results and discussion the new hybrids developed at iihr, bengaluru, and french wine grape varieties grown in mild tropics of south india, were analyzed for quality parameters like tss, ph and total acidity. data are presented in tables 1 and 2. the must from wine grapes is characterized by ph 3-3.5, titratable acidity 0.5-0.7% and tss of over than 20°brix (amerine and ough, 1982). hybrid e28/2 possessed higher must ph than required for wine grapes, while, the other varieties had an optimal must ph ranging from 3.3 to 3.5. tss of all the varieties was satisfactory, with two varieties, viz., e21/31 and e28/2 having a value as high as 24.6obrix. all the red hybrids possessed titratable acidity in the range suitable for wine grapes, while, all the white hybrids had slightly lower titratable acidity than required for wine grapes. it is worthwhile to note that all the hybrids yielded much sweeter berries with lesser acidity than their female parent ‘bangalore blue’ (a local grape cultivar in south india characterized by moderate tss of 18-19°b) and high titratable acidity (0.8-1.0%). these characteristics limit the variety’s suitability for wine production (chadha and shikhamany, 1999). all french wine grape cultivars produced quality berries as indicated by tss, ph and titratable acidity values. this points to a potential of growing these newly-introduced cultivars in south indian viticultural areas for producing high-quality wine grapes. our studies also show that titratable acidity levels in these fall just about in the optimal range. a number of parameters such as light, table 2. grape must quality in french wine grape varieties grown in mild tropical region of south india cultivar tss (obrix) p h acidity (% tartaric acid) cabernet sauvignon 21.0±1.0 3.5±0.1 0.42±0.02 shiraz 22.8±0.6 3.5±0.2 0.54±0.04 pinot noir 21.0±0.8 3.5±0.1 0.74±0.01 sauvignon blanc 24.0±0.7 3.6±0.1 0.64±0.02 chenin blanc 22.5±0.4 3.5±0.2 0.70±0.04 ugni blanc 21.0±1.0 3.4±0.2 0.56±0.09 data given are mean ± standard deviation of triplicates table 1. characteristics of grape hybrids/ french cultivars used in wine making hybrid/cultivar characteristics tss (°brix) p h acidity (% tartaric acid) hybrid 25/11 vines are medium croppers and responds to 21.6±0.8 3.3±0.1 0.53±0.02 (bangalore blue x thompson seedless) spur pruning; berries deep red in colour, seedless, round in shape hybrid18/10 vines are low to moderate in vigour, respond 23.4±0.6 3.4±0.0 0.67±0.01 (bangalore blue x beauty seedless) well to spur pruning; medium croppers; bunches small to medium in size, well filled with dark coloured, round, seeded berries; coming to harvest very early hybrid 19/29 vines are moderately vigorous and are good 23.0±0.6 3.5±0.3 0.53±0.02 (bangalore blue x cheema sahebi) croppers; respond well to spur pruning; bunches medium in size, well filled and winged; berries are round to ovoid in shape, medium sized, seeded and deep tan in colour hybrid 21/31 vines are low to moderate in vigour; a prolific 24.6±0.45 3.4±0.1 0.53± 0.03 (bangalore blue x convent large black) yielder, responding to spur pruning and double cropping; bunches small in size, well filled; berries round, tan coloured and seeded hybrid 22/10 vines are vigorous and prolific bearers; respond 21.6±0.5 3.5±0.0 0.37± 0.02 (bangalore blue x convent large black) well to spur pruning; bunches medium in size and well filled; cylindrical; berries round, seeded, greenish in colour hybrid 28/2 vines are low to moderate in vigour; medium 24.6±0.3 4.3±0.2 0.36±0.03 (black champa x queen of the vineyards) croppers; bunches small to medium in size, well filled; berries ovoid, seeded, greenish in colour; has distinct muscat flavour hybrid 23/2 vines are moderately vigorous; medium 22.4±0.3 3.4±0.1 0.46±0.05 (bangalore blue x queen of the vineyards) croppers; bunches medium in size and well filled; berries round to ovoid, seeded, greenish-yellow in colour; pulp meaty with mild muscat flavour data given are mean ± standard deviation of triplicates j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):74-77, 2014 76 temperature, location, climate, irrigation and fertilization influence wine grape quality. sugar-acid balance in the grapes, however, can be optimized by harvesting the berries at optimal ripening stage (suresh and ethiraj, 1987). acidity of the grape varieties can be improved by adjusting harvest dates. characteristic composition and sensory score of the red wines in various varieties were studied (table 3). red, dry table-wines are characterized by ph 3-3.5, 0.4-0.6% acidity, <1% residual sugar, 10-12% alcohol, 190-3800mg/l phenolics and <0.1% volatile acidity (amerine and ough, 1982). wines all possessed the characteristic composition typical of red, dry table-wines. all the wines were fermented till tss was reduced to zero and the wines devoid of acescent as indicated by alcohol, residual sugar and volatile acidity estimations. highest phenolic content (2097mg/l) was observed in the wines made from hybrid 18/10, a value higher than average phenolic content of red wines (1800mg/ l). wines made from french grapes possessed good hue values, but hybrid 25/11 had the highest value, while, hybrid 21/11 had the lowest value. intensity of colour (chroma) was highest in hybrid 18/10, followed by hybrid 25/11. high brilliance of hybrid 18/10 may be explained by high phenolic content. wine phenolics are important quality components contributing to colour, taste and mouth feel. these form stable, pigmented polymers with anthocyanins giving red wine its long-term color stability (kennedy et al, 2002). among french wines, shiraz possessed the lowest phenolic content, while, cabernet sauvignon had the highest value. among the red wines cabernet sauvignon is reported to be rich in tannic acid (amerine et al, 1980). sensory quality of wines in all french varieties was superior to that in the new hybrids. however, the new hybrids (except hybrid 19/29) too produced standard quality wines without any noticeable defect, as indicated by sensory scores. wines made from bangalore blue grapes are typified by a foxy flavour and high acidity; but, these characteristics were eliminated from wines made from hybrids. sensory panel too pointed to the unique “fruity and floral aroma” of hybrid 18/10 wines, which could be attributed to a perfect mix of the labrusca flavour of bangalore blue with the spicy flavour of ‘beauty seedless’. phenolic content of wines from this hybrid is also quite high compared to other wines. hybrid 25/11 wines possessed ‘grass-floral’ aroma notes. table 3. biochemical composition and sensory score of red, dry table-wines made from new hybrids and french grape cultivars grown in mild tropical region of south india variety wine composition *sensory score p h acidity alcohol residual phenolic volatile hue chroma (% tartaric (%) sugar content acidity value acid) (mg/l) (mg/l) (% acetic acid) hybrid 25/11 3.8 ± 0.0 0.54 ± 0.02 11.3 ± 0.6 250 ± 34 1040 ± 56 0.03 1.00 ± 0.02 0.80 ± 0.00 12.8 ± 2.5 hybrid 18/10 3.7 ± 0.1 0.42 ± 0.05 12.0 ± 0.5 650 ± 58 2097 ± 42 0.03 0.83 ± 0.03 1.14 ± 0.04 13.1 ± 2.0 hybrid 19/29 3.5 ± 0.1 0.48 ± 0.04 11.1 ± 0.1 790 ± 69 1230 ± 69 0.03 0.80 ± 0.54 0.32 ± 0.02 11.2 ± 1.3 hybrid 21/31 3.6 ± 0.2 0.53 ± 0.02 12.0 ± 0.4 190 ± 51 1245 ± 78 0.03 0.32 ± 0.01 0.75 ± 0.03 12.2 ± 1.8 cabernet sauvignon 4.2 ± 0.1 0.43 ± 0.03 12.0 ± 0.5 720 ± 47 1354 ± 25 0.01 0.88 ± 0.02 0.43 ± 0.02 16.7 ± 1.4 shiraz 3.4 ± 0.1 0.48 ± 0.04 11.4 ± 0.5 670 ± 36 735 ± 29 0.01 0.70 ± 0.04 0.30 ± 0.02 16.8 ± 1.5 pinot noir 3.5 ± 0.1 0.70 ± 0.04 11.0 ± 0.2 580 ± 18 1080 ± 36 0.05 0.96 ± 0.04 0.98 ± 0.03 16.2 ± 0.7 data given are mean ± standard deviation of triplicates; *values are mean ± standard deviation of 10 replicates table 4. composition and sensory score of white, dry table-wines prepared from new white hybrids and french cultivars grown in mild tropical region of south india variety wine composition sensory score p h acidity alcohol residual phenolic volatile od at (% tartaric (%) sugar content acidity 450nm acid) (mg/l) (mg/l) (% acetic acid) hybrid 22/10 4.0 ± 0.0 0.48 ± 0.03 11.2 ± 0.6 798 ± 39 265 ± 21 0.02 0.258 ± 0.007 12.1 ± 1.2 hybrid 28/2 4.3 ± 0.1 0.38 ± 0.02 12.0 ± 0.7 768 ± 48 317 ± 32 0.03 0.375 ± 0.008 11.1 ± 1.6 hybrid 23/2 3.8 ± 0.0 0.41 ± 0.03 11.2 ± 0.4 635 ± 24 363 ± 20 0.04 0.251 ± 0.002 13.4 ± 1.3 sauvignon blanc 3.9 ± 0.2 0.49 ± 0.03 12.0 ± 0.5 780 ± 56 460 ± 20 0.04 0.288 ± 0.003 15.9 ± 1.0 chenin blanc 3.8 ± 0.1 0.58 ± 0.04 12.0 ± 0.5 569 ± 68 320 ± 25 0.02 0.186 ± 0.004 16.2 ± 0.8 ugni blanc 4.0 ± 0.1 0.61 ± 0.02 11.3 ± 0.4 900 ± 35 400 ± 23 0.06 0.230 ± 0.002 15.0 ± 1.7 data given are mean ± standard deviation of triplicates ranjitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):74-77, 2014 77 characteristic composition and sensory scores of white, dry table-wines prepared from iihr hybrids and french wine grape cultivars is presented in table 4. hybrid 28/2 possessed high ph, low titratable acidity and lowest sensory score. average phenolic content of white wines is 300mg/l (amerine and ough, 1982). phenolics’ content was lowest (265mg/l) in hybrid 22/10. phenolic content of these wines can be increased by prolonging skin-juice contact time during must preparation, as reported earlier in other varieties (darias-martýìn et al, 2000). sensory scores of the hybrids were also satisfactory, but had a lower rating than in french wines. a distinct muscat flavour in wines from hybrid 23/2 and 28/2 was noted by the judges’ panel in sensory evaluation. in all, the results show a potential for newly-developed grape hybrids developed by indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, as useful in wine-making, besides their use otherwise. further research is needs for evaluating general acceptability, standardizing optimal harvest stage, pressing stage, etc., to enhance sensory properties of the finished wine. results of this study also indicate that french wine varieties produce quality berries and wine under mild tropical conditions of south india. acknowledgement the authors thank dr. a.s. sidhu, director, and dr. s.d. shikhamany, former director, indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, for their encouragement in wine research work, and mr. c. lokesh for helping in laboratory analysis. references amerine, m.a. and ough, c.s. 1982. methods for analysis of musts and wines. wiley interscience publications, new york, p 374 amerine, m.a., berg, h.w., kunkee, r.e., ough, c.s., singleton, v.l. and webb, a.d. 1980. technology of wine making. avi publishing company, connecticut, p 790 chadha, k.l. and shikhamany, s.d. 1999. the grape: improvement, production and post harvest management. s.d. malhotra publishing house, new delhi, p 580 darias-martýìn, j.j., rodrýìguez, o., dýìaz, e. and lamuela-raventós, r.m. 2000. effect of skin contact on the antioxidant phenolics in white wine. food chem., 71:483-487 http://indianwine.com/cs/blogs/about_wine/archive/2006/06/ 25/984.aspx accessed on 15.09.2011 http://nhb.gov.in/database-2010.pdf. accessed on 10.10.2011 jackson, d.i. and lombard, p.b. 1993. environmental and management practices affecting grape composition and wine quality a review. amer. j. enol. vitic., 44:4409-4430 karibasappa, g.s. and adsule, p.g. 2006. evaluation of wine grape genotypes by national research centre for grapes at their farm at pune, maharashtra, india. acta hort., 785:497-504 kennedy, j.a., matthews, m.a. and waterhouse, a.l. 2002. effect of maturity and vine water status on grape skin and wine flavonoids. amer. j. enol. vitic., 53:268-274 singh, r., murthy, b.n.s. and rama, s.t. 1998. ‘arka neelamani’, ‘arka. shweta’, ‘arka majestic’ and ‘arka chitra’: new hybrid grapes. ind. hort., 43:2829 suresh, e.r. and ethiraj, s. 1987. effect of grape maturity on the composition and quality of wines made in india. amer. j. enol. vitic., 38:329-331 (ms received 23 october 2012, revised 12 june 2013, accepted 20 july 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):74-77, 2014 evaluation of grapes for wine quality introduction tuberose (polianthes tuberosa linn., family agavaceae), native to mexico, is one of the most important bulbous ornamental crops. the genus polianthes comprises 12 species of which nine bear white flowers (rose, 1903). p. tuberosa (2n=30) is the only species used for commercial cultivation in india. the flower spikes are used as an ideal cut-flower which emiting a delightful fragrance and, flower buds are a source of tuberose oil which is one of the most sought-after, expensive perfumery raw materials. the yield of concrete from fresh flower ranges from 0.08 to 0.11 per cent, of which 18 to 23 per cent constitutes the absolute. traditionally, morphological and biochemical markers are used for diversity studies and varietal identification, but caetano et al (1991) addressed limitations associated with the morphological and biochemical processes. as in many important horticultural crops, ssrs are not available in tuberose and the cost of developing these is very high. therefore, during the last decade, rapd and issr markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):5-11, 2014 genetic diversity analysis and barcoding in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivars using rapd and issr markers k. khandagale1, b. padmakar, d.c. lakshmana reddy, anuradha sane2 and c. aswath* division of biotechnology icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india *e-mail: aswath@iihr.ernet.in abstract tuberose is one of the most important bulbous ornamentals grown commercially for loose as well as cut flowers. rapd and issr markers used in the study revealed 53% and 73% polymorphism, respectively, among ten tuberose varieties. polymorphic information content (pic) and resolving power (rp) for rapd varied from 0.35 – 0.46 and 0.8 – 3.6, respectively, and that for issr was 0.36 – 0.49 and 0.91 – 4.55, respectively. the dendrogram (upgma), based on jaccards co-efficient as similarity index for rapd and issr, grouped ten varieties into two major clusters, and, combined rapd-issr cluster analysis formed three major clusters based on their genetic relatedness/variation. pca revealed that the spatial arrangement of these 10 cultivars was congruent with dendrogram analysis. mantel’s test indicated very good correlation, with r = 0.86 for combination of issr and rapd-issr. to facilitate identification of tuberose cultivars, a cultivar identification diagram (cid) was developed in which seven issr loci could differentiate all the ten cultivars used in the study. barcodes were developed for five cultivars released by iihr using 57 polymorphic loci generated by 11 issr primers. the size of these loci ranged from 252bp to 2.2kb. these barcodes can be used as a standard reference source for quick identification of cultivars. key words: issr, molecular barcode, pcr, rapd, upgma 1present address: university of pune, pune 411007, india, 2division of plant genetic resources, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru – 5600089, india have been widely exploited by horticulturists as these yield quick results besides being inexpensive. molecular markers have been successfully used for cultivar identification and diversity studies in several bulbous ornamental plants like lilium species (yamanishi, 1995), alstromeria (dobouzet et al, 1998), heliconia (kumar et al, 1998) and gladiolus (takatsu et al, 2001; pathania et al, 2001). very few studies have been reported so far on molecular characterization of bulbous ornamental crops. molecular characterization of tuberose cultivars through dna-based analysis is highly desired, as, there is much confusion in naming genetic material existing in various indian states. these are commonly referred to as ‘single’ and ‘double’ cultivars. till date, there is only one report on diversity analysis in tuberose using rapd markers (sarkar et al, 2010). indian institute of horticultural research (iihr) has released five commercial tuberose varieties; vaibhav, prajwal, shringar, suvasini and arka nirantara. 6 characterization of these cultivars has become imperative, since, it is a requisite for provision of plant breeders’ rights which is, presently, high on the government’s agenda. further, an understanding of the level of genetic variation among cultivars is crucial to hybridization programs for development of new varieties but is currently lacking. in this study, rapd and iisr markers were used for genetic analysis of ten tuberose cultivars. material and methods plant material and genomic dna isolation ten tuberose varieties maintained at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, india, were used in this study (table 1). total dna was isolated from the leaf by optimizing modified ctab method (kanupriya et al, 2011) and integrity of the dna isolated was determined on 0.8% agarose gel. dna quantification was carried out using gene quant uv spectrophotometer (ge health care biosciences ltd., england) and diluted as required. rapd analysis rapd amplification was performed with a total of 100 rapd primers of a, b, c, d, h and k series from operon technologies, usa. each 25µl reaction mixture contained 1x reaction buffer (bioron), 0.12mm each of dntps (genie, bangalore), 0.15pmol/µl of primer and 1 u of taq polymerase (genie, bangalore). pcr amplification was carried out using technetc5000 thermocycler with the following profile: initial denaturation at 940c for 4 min, followed by 35 cycles of denaturation at 940c of 1min each annealing at 350c for 30 sec, extension at 720c for 1min, and, final extension at 720c for 8 min. issr analysis a total of 108 issr primers (university of british columbia, uk) were screened. pcr amplification was carried out using 1x reaction buffer (bioron), 0.24 mm each of dntps (genie, bangalore), 0.2pmol/µl of primer and 1 u of taq polymerase (genie, bangalore) in 25µl reaction. pcr amplification was done using techne tc5000 thermocycler, with the following temperature profile: initial denaturation at 940c for 4 min, followed by 35 cycles of denaturation at 940c of 1min each annealing varying at 4970 0c for 45 sec, extension at 720c for 75 sec, and, final extension at 720c for 8 min. amplified products were resolved on 1.5% agarose gel with 1kb ladder (fermentas, usa) and documented through a gel documentation unit (uvpro, uk) for further analysis. statistical analysis both rapd and issr gel profiles were scored as discrete variables using ‘1’ for presence and ‘0’ for absence of a band. polymorphic information content (pic) was calculated as: 1 – [pi2 (1– pi)2 ], where pi is the frequency of ith allele in the dataset. resolving power (rp) as sum of band informativeness, marker index (mi) and diversity index (di) for both rapd and issr was also calculated. a pair wise matrix of distance between varieties was determined for rapd, issr and rapd-issr data. cluster analysis was carried out using upgma (unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages) method, with darwin5 software. principal component analysis (pca) was done using ntsys pc 2.2 software (rohlf, 2000). estimates of differences between the dendrograms based on rapd and issr, rapd and issr-rapd, issr and rapd-issr marker analyses were obtained by constructing the relative cophenetic matrices for each marker type. product-moment correlation (r) based on mantel z-value was computed to measure the degree of relationship between similarity index matrices produced by any two-marker systems (mantel, 1967) using nysys pc 2.2 software. table 1. tuberose varieties used and their general characteristics sl. no. variety characteristics 1. prajwal single flowers on tall, stiff spikes; cross of shringar x mexican single (developed by iihr) 2. vaibhav double flowers on medium spike, cross of mexican single x iihr-2 (developed by iihr) 3. shringar single flowers on a sturdy spike, a cross between single x double, (developed by iihr) 4. suvasini multi-whorled variety developed from a cross between single x double (developed by iihr) 5. arka nirantara hybrid developed by iihr, single-flower type 6. hyderabad more than three rows of corolla double segment 7. variegated single-flowered type, with silvery white streak in the middle of leaf blade 8. pearl double flowers pure white, with more than three segments of corolla 9. swarna rekha doubled-flower type, with golden-yellow streak along the margin of leaf blade 10. mexican single florets bearing a single segment of corolla khandagale et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):5-11, 2014 7 cultivar identification diagram (cid) and fingerprinting cid was constructed using 11 issr primers which gave 57 highly reproducible polymorphic bands in ten tuberose varieties, with specific sizes to separate the varieties. molecular size of each of the fragments was estimated using uvpro software (uvtech, uk). cid construction is done based on presence (+) and absence (-) of polymorphic loci. cultivars sharing the same banding pattern were clustered into one sub-group and, subsequently, more markers were employed to distinguish cultivars within each sub-group. further, these 11 issr markers were used for developing molecular barcodes to fingerprint tuberose varieties. binary data thus produced is represented as bar for presence and absence of band was kept blank. molecular barcode was generated by using microsoft excel programme (galbacs et al, 2009). results and discussion rapd and issr analysis both rapd and issr markers were used in the study as tools for assessing genetic diversity, to fingerprint and identify different varieties of tuberose. this is the first report on use of rapd and issr markers for diversity analysis and fingerprinting in tuberose. of the 100 rapd primers used 15 gave reproducible results, repeated at least three times for confirmation. amplification of tuberose dna of ten varieties with 15 rapd primers generated 111 fragments, with an average of 7.4 bands per variety. of these, 59 were polymorphic (53.51%). the fragment size varied from 250bp to 2.0kb. pic ranged from 0.46 (opc-20) to 0.35 (opk-19), rp 0.8 (opc-2) to 3.6 (opc-3), di 0.13 (opc-2) to 0.50 (opa1), and gene diversity 0.56 (opb-4) to 0.91 (opa-1) (table 2, fig. 1a). amplification of tuberose dna from ten varieties was done with 20 issr primers. of 132 amplified fragments, 95 were polymorphic (73.53%) and the percentage of polymorphism ranged from 100% (ubc-829. 952, 850) to 33.3% (ubc-817); the fragment sizes were 250bp to 2.3kb. pic ranged from 0.36 (ubc-814) to 0.49 (ubc-836), rp 0.91 (ubc-880) to 4.55 (ubc-815), di 0.3 (ubc-901) to 0.56 (ubc-814), mi 0.45 (ubc-880) to 2.82 (ubc-814), and gene diversity 0.68 (ubc-850) to 0.92 (ubc-814) (table 3, fig. 1b.). issr markers showed a reproducible and polymorphic (73.53%) banding pattern compared to rapd markers table 2. statistics of banding pattern obtained using 15 rapd primers sl. primer no. of n.p.b. % r p pic di m i no. bands p.b. 1. opd-16 11 6 54.54 3.0 0.39 0.38 2.3 2. opc-2 8 3 37.5 0.8 0.45 0.13 0.4 3. opc-3 10 6 60.0 3.6 0.43 0.31 2.2 4. opc-20 6 3 50.0 1.4 0.46 0.23 0.7 5. opk-15 6 4 66.66 1.6 0.43 0.20 0.8 6. opk-16 7 3 42.85 1.0 0.37 0.37 1.1 7. opc-4 10 6 60.0 3.2 0.44 0.33 2.0 8. opa-18 5 4 80.0 1.2 0.36 0.35 1.4 9. opk-13 6 3 50.0 1.8 0.45 0.30 0.9 10. opb14 6 3 50.0 1.4 0.39 0.43 1.3 11. opb-4 8 5 62.50 2.0 0.39 0.17 0.69 12. opk-19 7 3 42.85 1.6 0.35 0.47 1.4 13. opd-3 7 5 71.4 2.4 0.39 0.44 2.2 14. opa-1 7 1 14.25 1.0 0.41 0.50 0.5 15. opa-2 7 4 57.14 2.4 0.45 0.30 0.6 mean 7.4 3.93 53.51 1.89 0.41 0.32 1.23 total 111 59 n.p.b number of polymorphic bands, % p.b. percentage of polymorphic bands; rp resolving power; pic polymorphic information content; di diversity index; mi marker index rapd profile of 10 tuberose varieties on 1.5% agarose using opk-13 p-prajwal, v-vaibhav, sh-sringar, su-suvasini, an-arka nirantara, hd-hyderabad double, va-variegated, pd-pearl double, sr-swarna rekha, ms mexican single, m marker fig .1 amplification profile of rapd and issr markers in 10 tuberose varieties issr profile of 10 tuberose varieties on 1.5% agarose using ubc-867 pprajwal, vvaibhav, shsringar, susuvasini, anarka nirantara, hdhyderabad double, vavariegated, pdpearl double, srswarna rekha, msmexican single, mmarker a. b. genetic diversity analysis and barcoding in tuberose j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):5-11, 2014 8 (53.51%). a possible explanation for the difference in resolution of rapd and issr is that these target different sites in the genome (zietkiewicz et al, 1994). pic, primer resolving power, marker index, diversity index, etc. were found to be greater in issr than in rapd assay. higher the value in the above analysis, better was the primer for diversity studies. therefore, issr marker system was found to be more effective in diversity analysis among closely related individuals. genetic clustering in upgma analysis with rapd, the genetic distance ranged from 0.040 to 0.293. ten tuberose varieties grouped into two clusters (fig. 2a). in the case of issr upgma analysis, the genetic distance ranged from 0.009 to 0.379, with two clusters. ‘pearl double’ and ‘variegated’ were found to be very closely related (genetic distance = 0.009), though these are morphologically distinct in leaf characters (fig. 2b). in the case of rapd+ issr primers, upgma dendrogram based on a total of 243 bands with 154 polymorphic markers, is presented in fig. 2c. the genetic distance was found to range from 0.040 to 0.293. all the 10 varieties grouped into three major clusters. principal component analysis performed with ntsys pc showed the distribution pattern to be congruent with the dendrogram (fig. 3). table 3. statistics of banding pattern obtained from 20 issr primers sl. primer no. n.p.b. % r p pic di m i no. of p.b. bands 1. ubc 813* 8 7 87.5 4.00 0.45 0.36 2.18 2. ubc 814* 6 5 83.3 3.57 0.36 0.56 2.82 3. ubc 815* 7 7 100 4.55 0.44 0.41 2.45 4. ubc 817 6 2 33.3 1.27 0.46 0.32 0.64 5. ubc 821* 7 5 71.42 1.64 0.42 0.32 1.27 6. ubc 827 6 5 83.3 2.18 0.39 0.52 1.55 7. ubc 829* 6 6 100 2.36 0.43 0.30 1.82 8. ubc 836 8 6 75 3.09 0.49 0.31 1.65 9. ubc 840* 7 4 57.14 2.18 0.39 0.32 1.91 10. ubc 841* 6 5 83.3 2.36 0.38 0.48 1.91 11. ubc 850* 6 6 100 2.91 0.44 0.24 1.45 12. ubc 852 5 5 100 2.36 0.48 0.24 1.18 13. ubc 853 4 3 75 1.45 0.45 0.24 0.73 14. ubc 861 8 6 75 4.36 0.43 0.47 2.36 15. ubc 864 5 3 60 1.82 0.41 0.45 1.36 16. ubc 867* 9 6 66.6 2.91 0.45 0.35 1.73 17. ubc 880 6 1 16.6 0.91 0.44 0.45 0.45 18. ubc 899* 10 5 50 2.91 0.41 0.45 1.82 19. ubc 901 6 3 50 1.27 0.41 0.3 0.91 20. ubc 903* 6 5 83.3 2.73 0.46 0.33 1.64 mean 6.6 4.75 72.53 2.54 0.42 0.37 1.59 total 132 95 n.p.b number of polymorphic bands, % p.b. percentage of polymorphic bands; rp resolving power; pic polymorphic information content; di diversity index; mi marker index; * primers used for cultivar identification and fingerprinting fig 2. dendrograms of ten tuberose varieties generated through upgma method of darwin software using jaccard’s coefficient as distance matrix a. rapd s-single, ddouble, m-multiwhorl, sdsingle/double b. issr s-single, ddouble, m-multiwhorl, sdsingle/double c. rapd+issr s-single, ddouble, m-multiwhorl, sdsingle/double khandagale et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):5-11, 2014 9 due to the differential genome coverage by different marker systems, variation is seen in the three dendrograms generated by rapd, issr and rapd-issr. these dendrograms provided valuable information regarding the similarity of these accessions and their genetic background. commercial value of tuberose cultivars depends on floral traits. as these varieties showed a distinct clustering pattern based on floral traits, this information may be useful in identifying molecular markers linked to flower morphology. in our study, the flower type (single, double, etc.) showed distinct clustering pattern in all the three dendrograms. in some clusters, varieties with single and double flowers grouped together. for example, ‘variegated’ is the single type, but it grouped with double type varieties. use of greater number of polymorphic markers in such analysis can throw more clarity on clustering pattern. however, compared to the results in rapd analysis, results in issr analyses were more harmonious with morphology. this distinction between the two molecular techniques has previously been indicated in studies with peanut (raina et al, 2001), astralagus (lin-kai et al, 2009), marijuana (kayis et al, 2010) and bacopa monnieri (tripathi et al, 2012). weak correlation (fig. 2a, 2b) was found between rapd and issr (r = 0.65, p < 0.003), while very good correlation (fig. 2b, 2c) was found between issr and rapd+issr combined marker system (r =0.89, p < 0.003) as per mantel’s test. archak et al (2003) also found that genetic similarity matrices based on rapd and issr markers had a low correlation (r = 0.63) among cashew accessions. cultivar identification diagram (cid) and fingerprinting compared to phylogenetic trees and fingerprints, cid can provide more comprehensive information for varietal identification. india is one of the important ornamental producing countries and has abundant genetic resources which makes the task of distinguishing plant cultivars or varieties very important. owing to a high polymorphism, issr data generated was further used in developing cultivar identification diagram and molecular barcodes. of the 57 polymorphic loci generated by 11 issrs, seven loci were used for construction of cid (fig. 4). primer ubc-850 (0.6kb) separated ten varieties in to two groups of six (+) and four (-). primer ubc-867 (0.4kb) differentiated these six varieties again into two groups, based on band presence (prajwal, shringar and fig 3. three-dimensional plots of principal component analysis (pca) in ten tuberose varieties showing their spatial distribution among three principal components a. rapd b. issr fig 4. cultivar identification diagram for 10 tuberose cultivars obtained with seven issr loci note: (+) band present; (-) band absent genetic diversity analysis and barcoding in tuberose j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):5-11, 2014 10 mexican single) and absence (vaibhav, hyderabad double and pearl double). the band of 0.8kb of ubc-867 is present in prajwal and mexican single, while, it is absent in shringar. further, ubc-901 (1.1kb) differentiated mexican single and prajwal on the basis of the presence and absence of the band, respectively. primer ubc-899 (0.5kb band) separated vaibhav (-) from hyderabad double and pearl double (+); ubc-815, 1.3kb band was present in pearl double and absent in hyderabad double. similarly, the second group of four cultivars was differentiated by primer ubc-813 (1.8kb) in variegated and swarna rekha (+); suvasini and arka nirantara (-). primer ubc-867 (0.7kb) identified variegated (+) and swarna rekha (-). a band of size 0.65kb generated by ubc-840 differentiated arka nirantara (+) and suvasini (-). eventually, all the ten tuberose varieties were successfully differentiated from each other by the combined use of seven issr markers. in molecular barcode, the size of loci ranged from 252bp to 2.208kb. overall, the chance of identification was found to be 3x10-9. it can thus be deduced that the primers employed in our study returned a high degree of confidence in identification. the polymorphic 57 loci are represented as ‘locus’ in the barcode (fig. 5). from this barcode, any two primers in combination can easily identify all the tuberose varieties, as, these gave unique banding patterns. rapd and issr techniques have been used for fingerprinting cashew (archak et al, 2003), brassica (bornet et al, 2004) and eggplant (shiro et al, 2008). the results of our study help in identifying 10 tuberose cultivars with much ease and high precision. seven issr loci, in combination, were able to identify all the ten varieties based on the size of polymorphic band. molecular barcode profile generated with 11 issr markers is a visual representation fig 5. molecular barcodes that act as unique fingerprints contain 57 different loci generated by 11 issr primers in tuberose cultivars. of data, allowing easy detection of genotypic differences. this also helps protect plant breeders’ rights and is useful in detecting fidelity when these varieties are multiplied through micropropagation. thus, this is the first report of molecular studies in tuberose employing issr and rapd markers for analyzing genetic diversity and fingerprinting. dendrogram analysis clearly showed that molecular markers used in this study may be linked to the type and number of whorls of petals, i.e., single and double, which can be further developed into specific markers such as scar or caps. these markers have extensive application in crop improvement through mas. the molecular barcode generated can be effectively utilized for ipr protection of varieties and used as a standard reference system for varietal identification in tuberose. references archak, a., ambika, b.g., diksha, g., rao, e.v.b., swamy, k.r.m. 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97 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 97-103, 2020 short communication studies on fruit development in pink and white types of wax apple (syzygium samarangense merr. & perry) in goa, india priya devi s., shejal a. porob and thangam m. horticulture section, icar central coastal agricultural research institute, goa 403 402, india. email : priyaars@yahoo.com abstract fruit development studies were taken up in white and pink types of wax apple trees aging twelve years old at goa, india. the study was initiated with the onset of flowering in november during the year 2018. after tagging the flowers on anthesis, samples were drawn periodically to record parameters like fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit length and diameter (upper, middle and lower), quality or biochemical parameters like total acids and sugars. relative growth rate (rgr) was calculated for all parameters and graphs were generated. in both the types, fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit length and diameter increased in a sigmoidal pattern. the quality characters like tss, total acids and total sugars also showed a sigmoidal pattern of increase whereas the increase in reducing sugars exhibited a double sigmoidal pattern of increase. it was evident from the curves that there was pronounced peak in growth rate between 21 and 28 days after anthesis for fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit length and diameter, in both pink and white types of wax apple. key words: fruit development, goa, wax apple, white and pink types introduction wax apples (syzygium samarangense merr. & perry) (syn. s. javanicum miq.; eugenia javanica lam. in part; e. alba roxb.) are watery crunchy tropical fruits, found commonly in south east asian countries like, malaysia, indonesia, thailand etc. these fruit trees are called after many vernacular names like, samarang rose apple, djamboesemarang (indonesia); jambuayerrhio (malaya); pinijambu (ceylon); jumr ool, ja mr ul, or a mr ool (india ); chompukao, or chompukio (t hailand); makopa (philippines); cashu di surinam, or curacaoseappel (curacao); wax jambu and water apple, generally. the tree is indigenous from malaya to the andaman and nicobar islands where there are wild trees in the coastal forests. it was introduced into the philippines in prehistoric times and is widely grown throughout islands. it is common in thailand, cambodia, laos, vietnam and taiwan, frequently cultivated in india and in za nziba r a nd pemba , but pr ima r ily a s a n ornamental in earlier days. but now, realizing the scope of the processing potentialities, progressive farmers, and agro-ecotourism units of coastal india are keen in cultivating such exotic fruits. the wax apple is extra-tropical, growing only at the lower altitudes–up to 4,000 ft (1,220m) in india. the waxy fruit, usually light-red, sometimes greenish-white or cream-colored, is pear-shaped, narrow at the base, very broad, and flattened, indented and adorned with the 4 fleshy calyx lobes at the apex. the skin is very thin, the flesh, white, spongy, juicy, sub-acidic to sweet, with ild flavours. there may be 1 or 2 some what rounded seeds, or none. the fruits are reported to have total acids content varying from 0.6 % to 0.9% and tss from 5.6 to 12.8 % (moneruzzama et al. 2015 and rosnah et al, 2012), it has been reported that, in ceylon, the fruits are ripe from march to may; in india, the flowering spans from nov-dec to mar-april and fruits are available from march to june. in java, flowering occurs from april to june and fruiting from june to august (morton 1987). in tripura (north eastern part of india), these trees flower in march-april and fruit in june-july (sankaran et al, 2006). in west coast of india (goa), the trees initiate to flower in october-november and give fruits in summer (i. e.) dur ing feb-apr il. t he spans of flowering and fruiting overlap, due to continuous this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 98 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 97-103, 2020 priya devi et al. flushes of flowering in the tree. even after the peak bearing and harvest in april, the trees put forth some flowers and yield few fruits in june, with the onset of south west monsoons of india. the pattern of fruit development with respect to morphological and biochemical changes during the growth phase has not yet been studied systematically in this r egion. therefore, this study was undertaken in order to study the growth and development of wax apple fruits right from anthesis to harvest. the study was conducted in icar-central coastal agricultural research institute, located at old goa, goa, india. well grown and yielding trees of white (variety krystal taiwan) and pink types (variety pink) of syzygium samarangense, those are twelve years old were selected for the study. the study was initiated in november, when the onset of flowering was noticed. the flower buds open in the morning hours. the freshly opened flower buds were tagged on the day of anthesis. during the fruit development, the samples of minimum ten fruits were drawn once in seven days for analyses. likewise, the samples were drawn till the harvest stage. at every stage (i.e.) on 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63 and 70 daa (days after anthesis) morpho-physical parameters like, fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit diameter (as the fruit is bell shaped, diameter readings were recorded in three places viz., upper, middle and lower designated as d1, d2 and d3 respectively in the graphs) and fruit length were recorded.fruit weight was recorded using electronic balance; fruit volume was measured using water displacement method; diameter readings were measured using vernier caliper. besides, biochemical parameters like, total acids (titration against 0.1 n naoh using phenolphthalein indicator), total sugars (phenol-sulphuric acid method) and reducing sugars (nelson-somyogi method) were also estimated in every stage of development. tss was observed using digital refractometer. growth curves were generated using rgr values using the formula, rgr= (ln2-ln1)/ (tn2-t1), where ln are natural logarithmic values of readings recorded at regular time intervals and t represents the time taken (say seven days in this study) goa experiences monsoon season from june to september or mid-october. only after the complete cessation of monsoons, do the wax apple trees start showing fruit buds on the branches. during the period of study, the flowering phase in the trees under study was recorded from mid-october to mid-february. the period taken from anthesis to harvest was 63 and 70 days in pink and white wax apple respectively. it has been reported that, the formation of flower buds does not mea n ea r ly flower ing in syzygium samarangense. in the dr y sea son, wa x a pple commonly flowers early or late and even protocols have been developed by shu et al (1998) in taiwan to trigger the flowering period depending upon the site of flower panicles appearance viz., leaf axils, shoot tip, new flush etc. usually, shoot growth proceeds in flushes which a r e mor e or less synchr onous, depending on the climate. there are definite flowering seasons, often two, sometimes three in a year, but the timing varies from year to year. wax jambu commonly flowers early or late in the dry season; the flowers appear to be self-compatible and the fruit ripens 3040 days after anthesis (orwa et al. 2009). he has also reported that, flowers fall on the ground in 2-3 days, leaving behind the tiny fruits to mature and ripen in about 2 months. in favourable conditions, a healthy tree can produce abundant fruits and has two fruiting seasons annually, may-september and november to march as reported from kenya. when mature, the tree is considered a heavy bearer and can yield a crop of up to 700 fruits. sankaran et al. (2006) have reported that the wax apple trees have two flushes of flowering during march-april and june-july under climatic conditions of north eastern hill region, especially in tripura. moneruzzaman et al. (2012a), have reported after a detailed study on different varieties of wax apple, that, ‘giant green’ cultivar had creamy white flower colour,‘masammanis pink’ had white colour flower, while ‘jambumadu red’ had the creamy white to light yellow flower andthe number of days between anthesis and the harvest maturity (daa) were as 41, 46, and 55 days for ‘masammanis red’, ‘jambumadu red’ and ‘giant green’ under malaysia climatic conditions. it is observed that the pink or red types take shorter duration for attaining maturity, when compared to green or white types, which is in corroboration with the current study. in a different study moneruzzaman et al. (2015) has reported that ‘masam manis pink’ cultivar had the earliest fruit development and maturity approximately 38 days after anthesis followed by ‘jambumadu red’ cultivar with nearly 45 days. on the other hand, ‘giant green’ cultivar had late maturity with about 50 days to reach harvest stage from anthesis. it has been noted that syzygium pycnanthum required 80-89 days 99 fruit development in pink and white types of wax apple in goa after anthesis to attain harvest stage (mudiana and ariyanti, 2010). in wax apple, variety ‘pink’, the average fruit weight recorded seven daa was 1.28 g, whereas during har vest (70 daa), it was r ecor ded a s 47. 16g .the21stday average fruit weight of 5.59 g spurted to 24.05 g on 28th daa. the fruit volume was negligible on 7 and 14 daa and recorded a value of 2.55 cc on 21st daa, however, increased to 22 cc on 28 daa, in a trend similar to increase in fruit weight. the fruits harvested 70 daa recorded fruit volume of 46.60 cc. increased to 35.07 g during harvest, i.e., 63 daa. the fruit volume values were negligible on 7, 14 and 21 daa, whereas it was found to be 6.20 cc on 28 daa and increased to 34 cc during harvest. the increase in fruit weight was steady from 7 to 21 daa, and later on attained a jump size of 7.87 g. the rgr curve pattern depicting the increase in fruit weight also showed a trend similar to that in pink variety, expressing a well renowned peak 21 daa and a less pronounced peak on 35th daa. the only peak in rgr curve for fruit volume in krystal taiwan, white wax apple coincided the second peak of fruit weight rgr curve (fig. 2). it has been reported by moneruzzamanet al (2012 a) that, ‘giant green’ cultivar had the largest fruit (89 g) weight followed by ‘jambumadu red’ cultivar with a value of 85 g while‘masammanis pink’ cultivar produced the minimum fruit (78 g) weight. in another study by moneruzzaman et al (2012 b), the pink variety wax apples recorded fruit weight of 38 g. in a study conducted on different types of wax apples it was found that, the fruit weight varied significantly among 5 accessions of wax apples, ranging from 50.88 g in thered or dark pink type to 28.35 g in the light pink bell shaped type with a mean value of 35.66 g (risvy, 2013). the fruit weight values recorded in the study are in corroboration with these reports. the related species guava also showed a sigmoidal growth pattern, with one peak flanked by two slag pha ses (mukherjee a nd da tta, 1967), wher ea s salunkhe and desai (1984) have reported in guava a sigmoidal growth pattern but with an unusual behaviour of rapid increase in fruit weight in the initial phase. another fruit species eugenia stipata (hernandez et al. 2007) from the same family myrtaceae also showed single sigmoidal growth pattern similar to the cur r ent study. simila rly, the gr owth cur ve of pomegranate also showed a single sigmoidal pattern (shulman, 1984). in pink variety wax apple, the average initial length seven daa was observed to be 1.50 cm, which increased to 6.60 cm during harvest stage ie.,70 daa. the fruit equatorial diameter was measured upper side (d1), middle (d2) and lower side (d3), as the fruit is nearly pear shaped. d1 was 0.40 cm seven daa and increased to 2.80 cm 70 daa. however, the increase was from 1.03 to 4.00 cm and the rgr curve (fig 1) shows that there was a rapid development from 7th to 35th day and then, the growth rate slowed down towards the 49th daa, which later slightly increased (between 49 and 56 daa) then decreased towards the harvest. the second increase recorded can’t be considered as a peak, whereas the initial or first increase is definitely a peak, therefore depicting a sigmoid curve. in white wax apple, variety ‘krystal taiwan’, the initial fruit weight was recorded to be 0.9 g, which j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 97-103, 2020 fig. 1. rgr for fruit weight and volume in wax apple variety pink fig. 2. rgr for fruit weight and volume in white wax apple variety krystal taiwan 100 1.38 to 4.20 cm for d2 and d3 respectively from 7 to 70 daa. the fruit length increased from 1.50 cm to 6.60 cm during the development. similar previous studies also show that, fruits are pear-shaped and 1.52 inches long(orwaet al. 2009). ‘giant green’ and ‘masammanis pink’ cultivars had bell shaped fruits while ‘jambumadu red’ cultivar had a pear shaped fruit. (moneruzzamanet al, 2012 a). fruit length was 5.23 cm in pink variety wax apple and fruit diameter was nearly 3.5 cmduring harvest. (moneruzzamanet al, 2012 b) were 0.40, 1.00 cm and 1.23 cm respectively seven daa and increased to 2.85, 4.25 and 4.60 cm during harvest i.e., 63 daa.there was a single prominent peak noticed in the rgr curves for d2 and d3 during fruit development between 21 and 28 daa.however, rgr for d3 showed a less pr ominent pea k, coinciding with second less dominant peak in rgr curve for fruit length. the increase of length showed two pea ks during 7-14 daa and 35-42 daa. (fig 4) in general, fruit size is a genetic characteristic of the cultivar s a nd is a lso used for identification of cultivar s. pr evious studies show that the fruit of‘jambumadu red’ cultivar was the longest (8.2 cm) followed by ‘giant green’ cultivar with a fruit length of 6.3 cm, whilst least fruit length was observed in ‘masammanis pink’ cultivar with a value of 5.5 cm. fruit size is an inherent factor associated with different cultivars. ‘masammanis pink’ cultivar had the highest (5.5cm) fruit diameter while, ‘jambumadu red’ cultivar fruit had the least (4.6cm) diameter and ‘giant green’ cultivar was intermediate at about 5.2 cm.they also found that the number of cells per fruit was higher for large fruited cultivars than for small fruited cultivars (moneruzzaman et al. 2012b). in the evaluation study on different cultivars of wax apples conducted by risvy (2013), it was noticed that the length of observed fruits varied significantly and ranged from 7.04 cm to 4.23 cm, with a mean value of 4.92 cm. similarly, the diameter also varied from 4.23 cm to 2.67 cm, with a mean of 3.09 cm. these values are in corroboration with the current study. the length of wax apples increased from 1.5 to 5 cm, the width from 1.2 to 6 cm, fruit weight from 2 to 150 g dur ing 80 days growing per iod fr om anthesis, all following a single sigmoidal growth pattern as reported by shu et al (1998) wax a pples, both pink a nd white ar e ma jorly composed of moisture, sugars and acids. they are crunchy, sweet and relishing for table purpose. in south east asian countries, various products likejam, jelly, candy, syrup, flakes etc are prepared from these fruits. the mild sugar acid blend renders the fruits suitable for value addition. the immature fruits are mildly acrid and acidic and towards maturity, the acidity decreases and sugar concentration increases. in pink variety, the percentage of total titrable acids decreased from 0.42 (7 daa) to 0.11 per centduring fig. 3. rgr for fruit dimension parameters in wax apple variety ‘pink’ fig. 4. rgr for fruit dimension parameters in white wax apple, variety krystal taiwan the rgr curve shows that, there were pronounced peaks during increase in the polar and equatorial diameter (d1 and d3)between 21 and 28 daa. but, the peaks in rgr curves of fruit weight and fruit dia meter d2 occur between 28 a nd 35 daa.therefore, it can be concluded that the fruit growth follows a single sigmoid growth curve in wax apple variety ‘pink’. (fig. 3) in white wax apple, variety ‘krystal taiwan’, the initial average length seven daa was 1.10 cm, which increased to 4.60 cm on 63rd daa. d1, d2 and d3 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 97-103, 2020 priya devi et al. 101 harvest. the rate of decrease in total acids touched a lowest peak 28 to 35 daa and after being stable for one more week, it steadily decreased till harvest stage (70 daa).in white wax apple, the total titrable acids reduced from 1.43 per cent (7 daa) to 0.19 per cent (63 daa) during harvest. the rgr curve showed that, the decrease in acidity was steady and uniform from seven to 35 daa, whereas, it reached a negative peak during 35-42 daa, again followed by a steady decline in acidity percentage till harvest, therefore, depicting a single sigmoidal pattern (fig 5). in similar studies, it was reported that the decrease in fruit acidity coincided with an increase in sugar content of the fruits.the lowest amount of titrable acidity (0.78%) was observed in the ‘jambumadu red’ cultivar, followed by ‘giant green’ (0.83 %) and ‘masam manis pink’ (0.90%). it has also been r ecor ded tha t the soluble solids content in ‘jambumadu red’ was wide-ranging from 5.63 to 12.5% brix (moneruzzaman et al, 2015). in a different study, moneruzzaman et al (2012 c) reported that titrable acidity of wax apple was 0.78 %.while comparing chemical composition changes in two types of wax apples, rosnahet al (2012) found that, the total acidity of kristal taiwan (green white type) ranged between 0.2-0.25%, while the total acidity of semarang rose (pink type) were between 0.07-0.1%. these results are in corroboration with the results of this study. in pink variety, total soluble solids (tss) increased gradually from 5.10 to 13.90obrix (7 to 70 daa). the increase rate was gradual from 7 to 35 daa, and then, there was a spurt in increase from 35 to 49 daa. later on, the raise in tss was gradual up to 60 daa and then, there was a sharp increase towards harvest.in white wax apple, tss increased from 4.1 (seven daa) to 15.6obrix during harvest (63 daa). the rate of increase has a peak value during 35 to 42 daa, coinciding the negative peak of reduction in acidity during fruit development. therefore, it was obser ved tha t dur ing fr uit development, the significant increase in sugars and significant decrease in acids occur from 35 to 42 daa. the abovementioned peak for increase in tss was flanked by one less prominent peak during initial period of development i.e., 14-21 daa and the other one towards the harvest stage i.e., 56-63 daa (fig 6). it has been noted by orwa et al (2009) that, of the different types of wax apples, the reddest fruits are the sweetest and superior varieties of excellent quality available. total soluble solids (tss) percentage significantly varied and ranged from 10.39% to 13.96% with the mean value of 12.05% in five different types of wax apples evaluated in bangladesh (risvy, 2013). on comparing a green and pink type, rosnahet al (2012) has reported the total soluble solid (tss) in kristal taiwan (5.9-9.6obrix) and semarang rose (5.2-9.0obrix). moneruzzaman et al. (2012 b) have reported that pink wax apples have 5.6o brix tss and 3.63 mg/10 g of total sugars. in the present study, the total sugars content in pink variety wax apple increased from 2.11 (7 daa) to 5.95 (70 daa) in a gradual manner. however, the rgr curve showed a pea k in increase in total sugars,49-56 daa followed by a sharp decline in rate and then a final spurt in the concentration of total sugars towards harvest stage (70 daa) in a trend similar to that of increase in tss content of the fruit. the concentration of reducing sugars in the fruit increased from 0.18 % (seven daa) to 1.98 % (70 daa). the trend in increase of reducing sugars also had an initial peak during 35 to 42 daa, followed by a second peak during 49-56 daa, thus showing a double sigmoid curve (fig 6). fig. 5. rgr for quality characters in wax apple variety ‘pink’ fig. 6. rgr for quality characters in ‘white’ wax apple variety krystal taiwan j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 97-103, 2020 fruit development in pink and white types of wax apple in goa 102 in white wax apple variety krystal taiwan, total sugars content in fruit increased from 2.8 per cent (seven daa) to 13.87 per cent (63 daa) at harvest. the rate of increase in total sugars showed a trend just similar to that of tss with a peak during 35 to 42 daa, flanked by one less prominent peak during initial period of development i.e., 14-21 daa and the other one towards the harvest stage i.e., 56-63 daa. the reducing sugars in the white wax apple fruits increased from 0.62 per cent (seven daa) to 9.27 per cent (63 daa) at harvest. the rgr curve showed that the trend in rate of increase in reducing sugars was stable without any peak, except during the initial period i.e., seven to 14 daa. in a study on compositional changes in two cultivars of wax apple in malaysia, it was found that, the fructose content was highest in the water apple juice in the range of 7.05 to 9.15% (kristal taiwan) and 4.77 to 9.25% (semarang rose) indicating that, the fructose content is the major sugar contributing to water apple sweetness followed by glucose and sucrose. the glucose content varied between 6.74 to 8.37% (kristal taiwan) and 3.53 to 8.26% (semarang rose) while the sucrose content varied between 0.19 to 0.36% (kr istal taiwan) and 0.38 to 1.51% (semarang rose). fructose, being sweeter than sucrose and glucose, has a desirable influence on the taste of fruits. (rosnah et al, 2012) sugar concentration of the fruit increased with fruit growth with fructose and glucose as the main components; starch content reached a maximum value of 11 % and decreased towards ripening (shu et al, 1998). similarly, in pomegr anate fruit development, a significant increase in tss, total sugars and reducing sugars was observed 80 daa, with a maximum values on 140 daa. the equilibrium concentration of these biochemical on 100 daa mark optimum maturity and the further increase is during phase of ripening (kulkarni and aradhya, 2005). likewise, in both types of wax apples studied, there was a peak in increase of sugars between 30 and 40 daa and then after 50 daa. t his systema tic study, conducted in syzygium samarangense (pink and white types) indicates that the fruit development, comprising various aspects of the fruit follow sigmoid and double sigmoid growth pattern, which is in corroboration with similar studies conducted in fruits like wax apples in different places like malaysia, taiwan and bangladesh and also in strawberry and apple. hernández, m.s., martínez o., fernández-trujillo j.p. 2007. behaviour of arazá (eugenia stipitata mc vaugh) fruit quality traits during growth, development a nd r ipening. scientia horticulturae. 111(3):220–227 kulkarni a,p., aradhya s.m. 2005. chemical changes and antioxidant activity inpomegranate arils during fruit development. food chemistry. 95: 319-324 moneruzzaman k.m., alebidi a.i. and al-saif a.m. 2012a. assessment of genetic diversity in three cultivars of syzygium samarangense grown in ma la ysia by using mor phologica l a nd physiological parameters. res. j. biotech. 7(3):16-22 moneruzzaman k,m., alebidi a.i., hossain a.s., boyce. 2015. physiological and biochemical properties of three cultivars of wax apple (syzygium samarangense [blume] merrill & l.m. perry) fruits. j. sustain. sci. manage. 10(1): 66-75 moneruzzaman,k,m., boyce a.n., normaniza osman a nd sha r if hossa in abm. 2012 c. physiochemical and phytochemical properties of wax apple (syzygium samarangense [blume] merrill & l. m. perry var. jambumadu) as affected by growth regulator application. the scientific world journal. (728613). p13 moneruzzaman k.m., osman n., hossain a.s. and boyce a.n. 2012b. effects of the phloemic stress on the growth, development and quality of wax apple (syzygium samarangense) cv. jambumadu. sains malaysiana 41(5):553-560 morton, j. 1987. java apple. injulia f. morton (ed.). fruits of warm climates. miami, fl. p. 381-382. mudia na a nd ariya nti. 2010. flower and fruit development of syzygium pycnanthummerr. & l.m. perry. bio diversitas. 11(3): 124-128 references j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 97-103, 2020 priya devi et al. 103 mukher jee, s, k. and m.n.dutta. 1967. physicochemica l cha nges in india n gua va (psidiumguajava l.) during fruit development. curr sci. 36: 675-76. orwa, c., a.mutua, r.kindt, r.jamnadass and anthony, s.2009. agroforestree database: a tree reference and selection guide version 4.0. world agroforestry centre, kenya risvy. a. 2013. morphologica l a nd molecula r characterization of wax jambu (syzygium samarangense). m.sc., diss., department of hor ticultur e, ba ngla desh agr icultur a l university, mymensingh rosnah, s., w.k.wong, m.noraziah, and h.osman. 2012. chemical composition changes of two wa ter a pple (syzygium samarangense). international food research journal 19(1): 167-174 salunakhe, d. k. and b.b.desai. 1984. postharvest biotechnology of fruits. vol. 2. guava. boca raton, florida. crc. press, inc., usa, 148 pp. sa nka r a n, m. , ja i pr a ka sh, n. p. singh, a.sukhlabaidya. 2006. wild edible fruits of tripura. natural product radiance. 5(4):302305 shu, z.h., s.c.lia w, h.l.lin, k. c. lee. 1998. physica l cha r a cter istics a nd orga nic compositional changes in developing wax apple fruits. journal of the chinese society for horticultural science. 44:491-501 shulman,y., l. fainberstein. andlavee,s..1984. pomegranate fruit development of maturation. journal of horticultural science, 59 (2): 265-2740 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 97-103, 2020 fruit development in pink and white types of wax apple in goa (received on 30.07.2019 and accepted on 12.12.2019) effect of potting media on growth and quality in aglaonema s. swetha, t. padmalatha, k. dhanumjaya rao1 and a. siva shankar2 college of horticulture rajendranagar, hyderabad 500 030, india e-mail: gandhamlatha@yahoo.com abstract effect of potting media on growth and quality of ornamental foliage plant, aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite, was evaluated. soil, cocopeat and sphagnum peat, in combination with sand, fym and vermicompost in various proportions, were used as potting media. maximum plant height (71.36cm), number of leaves (16.00), leaf length (60.39cm), leaf width (10.13cm), leaf area (208.36cm2), plant growth index (63.37cm), fresh weight of root (45.00g), dry weight of root (8.53g), visual plant grade (4.50), colour grade (4.58), root grade (4.45), and, n (3.46 %), p (0.95 %) and k content in leaf (1.91%) were recorded with the medium containing cocopeat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1, (v/v) combination at 150 dap. medium containing cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost in 2:1:1:0.5 ratio, (v/v) was found to be on par with cocopeat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1, (v/v) combination with respect to leaf width, dry weight of root, visual plant grade, colour grade, root grade and k content. key words: aglaonema, sphagnum peat, cocopeat, vermicompost, plant grade, color grade, root grade, npk content foliage plants are generally grown for their attractive foliage and can be kept for longer periods under indoor conditions. there is a great demand for foliage plants for both domestic and export markets. among a large number of foliage plants available for interior decoration, aglaonema is an important and popular herbaceous, evergreen ornamental with attractive foliar variegation and tolerance to low light. it belongs to the family araceae and is native to south east asia. potting medium plays an important role in successful growth of foliage plants. though most potted tropical foliage plants are grown in peat-based media, usually sphagnum peat, this is not readily available in the tropical regions. hence, there is a need for new substratecomponents which improve growth of foliage plants or reduce production costs compared to peat-based media. with this in view, an attempt was made to evaluate the effect of different potting media on growth performance and quality in aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite. one-month old plants of aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite, obtained from a nursery located in hyderabad, were used in the experiment. nine treatments were laid out in completely randomized design, and replicated thrice [(t1 soil + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v), t2 soil + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v), t3 soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v), t4 cocopeat + sand + fym short communication 1floriculture research station, rajendranagar, hyderabad-500030, 2college of agriculture, angrau, rajendranagar, hyderabad-500030 (2:1:1, v/v), t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v), t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v), t7 sphagnum peat + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v), t8 sphagnum peat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/ v), and t9 sphagnum peat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v)]. each component of the mixture was added on the basis of volume while preparing the potting mixture which was added to earthen pots of 12" size stopping at 2cm from the top. one-month old plants of aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite, were planted into the pots, and the pots were moved into partial shade. observations on growth parameters, viz., plant height, leaf number/plant, leaf length, leaf width and leaf area were recorded at monthly intervals from 30 dap to 150 dap. data recorded at 150 dap is presented in tables 1, 2 and 3. for calculating plant growth index, height (base to maximum point of canopy) and width (distance between widest two points in canopy) of plants were measured at inception, and again at the termination of the experiment (150dap). plant growth index (pgi) was calculated using the formula of net change in plant height plus net change in plant width (merrow, 1995). various plant parameters, viz., visual plant grade, visual colour grade, fresh weight of roots, dry weight of roots, visual root grade and per cent n, p and k in leaf were recorded at 150 dap. visual plant grade was j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):90-93, 2014 91 determined using 1-5 scale grade system, where 1 = dead, 2 = poor quality, 3 = fair quality, 4 = good quality and 5 = excellent quality. visual colour grade of aglaonema plants was rated according to colour and pigmentation by the grading system by henny et al (2008) as, 1= poor colour, 3= good, light green and 5= excellent dark green & silver contrast. visual root grade was determined using a grading system where 1= 20% soil ball covered with roots, 2= 2040% soil ball covered, 3= 40-60% soil ball covered, 4= 6080% soil ball covered and 5= ≥ 80% coverage. leaf nitrogen per cent was determined by kjeldhal method. phosphorus content was determined as per jackson (1973). potassium per cent was estimated by a microprocessor-based flame photometer, using specific filter and lpg flame. data were statistically analyzed as per panse and sukhatme (1985). observations on plant height, leaf number/plant, leaf length and width, leaf area, pgi and fresh and dry weight of roots recorded at 150 days after planting (dap) under various potting media are presented in table 1. maximum plant height was recorded in t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1 ratio (v/v) (71.36cm), followed by t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost in 2:1:1:0.5 ratio v(/v) (63.53cm). minimum plant height (51.20cm) was recorded in t1 soil + sand + fym in 2:1:1 ratio (v/v). high nitrogen content available to plants grown in cocopeat, sand and vermicompost medium (table 3) could be the reason for greatest plant height. maximum number of leaves (16.00) were recorded in treatment t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1 ratio (v/v), followed by t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost in 2:1:1:0.5 ratio (v/v) (14.75) which was on par with t8 sphagnum peat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1 ratio v/v (13.26). higher number of leaves in cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) medium is related to both cocopeat and vermicompost characteristics, where, cocopeat affords higher total pore space (tps) and water holding capacity (whc) and vermicompost is richer in humic compounds (sahni et al, 2008). maximumt leaf length was recorded in t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (60.39cm), followed by t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (55.15cm). minimum leaf length was recorded in t1 soil + sand + fym (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (41.67cm). high water-holding capacity of cocopeat and high nutrient content of vermicompost may have been responsible for maximum leaf length. tilt et al (1987) demonstrated positive correlation between water-holding capacity and increased top growth in several landscape species. treatment t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) showed maximum leaf width (10.13cm), and t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) was on par (9.61cm) with it. plants grown in cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (t5) produced leaves with maximum leaf area (208.36cm2), followed by t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (192.13cm2). better performance in this medium can be attributed mainly to characteristics of cocopeat and vermicompost. cocopeat has the ability to store and release nutrients to plants for an extended period of time. vermicompost has considerable amounts of humic substances and improves plant nutrition (sahni et al, 2008). maximum pgi (63.37cm) was observed in plants grown in a medium containing cocopeat + sand + table 1. effect of potting media on growth performance in aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite at 150 days after planting treatment plant no.of leaf leaf leaf plant fresh weight dry weight height (cm) leaves length (cm) width (cm) area (cm2) growth index of root (g) of root (g) t 1 51.20 9.00 41.67 7.26 146.86 44.42 30.07 3.26 t 2 57.50 10.22 48.48 8.95 161.40 47.39 33.00 4.08 t 3 58.23 12.71 50.70 8.83 174.00 49.17 36.66 4.45 t 4 59.63 11.71 47.36 8.64 180.46 52.42 40.83 7.45 t 5 71.36 16.00 60.39 10.13 208.36 63.37 45.00 8.53 t 6 63.53 14.75 55.15 9.61 192.13 56.72 42.04 8.08 t 7 55.80 11.38 49.28 8.11 167.20 50.08 37.12 6.81 t 8 60.63 13.26 50.34 8.95 183.20 52.25 40.16 7.65 t 9 60.76 12.24 50.44 8.62 173.50 52.71 38.68 6.61 s.em.± 0.79 0.63 0.50 0.32 2.46 0.83 0.98 0.27 c d (p=0.05) 2.36 1.89 1.49 0.95 7.31 2.49 2.90 0.81 t 1 soil + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) t 2 soil + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) t 3 soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) t 4 cocopeat + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) t 5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) t 6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) t 7 sphagnum peat + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) t 8 sphagnum peat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) t 9 sphagnum peat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) growth and quality studies in aglaonema j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):90-93, 2014 92 vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (t5), followed by t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (56.72cm). cocopeat allows air, nutrients and water to reach the root surface, which may be one of the reasons for the rapid and vigorous growth seen. maximum root fresh weight (45g) was recorded in t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1 ratio (v/v), followed by t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost in 2:1:1:0.5 ratio (v/v) (42.04 g). minimum root fresh weight was observed in t1 soil + sand + fym in 2:1:1 ratio (v/v) (30.07 g). development of more number of leaves on the plant may reflect an earlier growth of root system. thus, production of more leaves with maximum leaf area in this medium largely agrees with improved root development. maximum dry weight of roots was obtained in treatment t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1 ratio (v/v) (8.53g), which was on par with t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost in 2:1:1:0.5 ratio (v/v) (8.08g). cocopeat is very slow to disintegrate compared to peat (cresswell, 1992) which makes it resistant to bacterial and fungal growth. this could be one of the reasons for higher root growth. data on visual plant grade, colour grade and root grade at 150dap aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite grown in different potting media are presented in table 2. significantly higher plant grade was recorded in t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (4.50), which was on par with t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (4.41). cultivars growing in cocopeat-amended medium are shown to have higher production or accumulation of total protein and amino acids in their stem than plants growing in peat-amended media (scagel, 2003). this could be a reason for high visual plant grade. improved nutrition from vermicompost changes biochemical properties of a plant like chlorophyll, enzymes, and protein synthesis (tomati et al, 1995) which could be one of the reasons for high visual plant grade. significantly higher visual colour grade was recorded in t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (4.58), which was on par with t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (4.25). higher nitrogen available to plants in this medium may be the reason for higher colour intensity. these results are in accordance with scagel (2003) where leaf of the plant grown in cocopeat-amended media had higher chlorophyll content than in plants grown on peatamended media. higher visual root grade was registered in treatment t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (4.45), and was on par with t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (4.28). phenolics in cocopeat may have either promoted root development or inhibited loss of roots to disease-causing pathogens (evans and stamps, 1996), resulting in high root grade. data on nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in leaves at 150dap in aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite treated with different potting media (table 3) show that maximum percentage of nitrogen was recorded in treatment t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v) (3.46%), and was on par with t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (3.20%). high cation exchange capacity, low electrical conductivity and acceptable ph of cocopeat (jeyaseeli and samuel paul raj, 2010) could be the reason for high n uptake. maximum phosphorus table 2. effect of potting media on visual plant grade, colour grade and root grade in aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite at 150 days after planting treatment visual plant visual colour visual root grade* grade** grade*** t 1 soil + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) 3.28 3.00 3.53 t 2 soil + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) 3.88 3.33 3.75 t 3 soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) 4.15 3.58 3.91 t 4 cocopeat + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) 4.13 3.66 4.11 t 5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) 4.50 4.58 4.45 t 6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) 4.41 4.25 4.28 t 7 sphagnum peat + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) 4.16 3.66 4.03 t 8 sphagnum peat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) 4.20 4.00 4.20 t 9 sphagnum peat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) 4.08 4.00 4.13 s.em.± 0.09 0.18 0.06 c d (p=0.05) 0.28 0.54 0.18 *plant grade system where 1 = dead, 2 = poor quality, 3 = fair quality, 4 = good quality and 5=excellent quality **colour grade system where 1= poor colour, 3 = good, light green, 5 = excellent, dark green & silver contrast ***root grade system where 1= 20% soil ball covered with roots, 2 = 20-40% soil ball covered, 3 = 40-60% soil ball covered, 4 = 60-80% soil ball covered, 5 = ≥ 80% soil ball covered with roots swetha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):90-93, 2014 93 content (0.95 %) was recorded in t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v), followed by t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (0.84%). higher availability of p in coir-amended medium could be a result of greater p exchange sites or due to a higher activity of p-solubilizing and acid phosphatase producing organisms. maximum potassium content (1.91%) was recorded in t5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1 ratio, v/v), which was on par with t6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5 ratio, v/v) (1.88%). this could be attributed to higher nutrient status provided by vermicompost, and, excellent physical (water retention and aeration) and chemical properties (acceptable ph, low electrical conductivity, high cec) of cocopeat, which would have resulted in higher nutrient uptake. these results reveal that potting media containing cocopeat + sand + vermicompost in 2:1:1 ratio result in best growth parameters and improved quality in aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite among the media studied. references cresswell, g.c. 1992. coir dust – a viable alternative to peat? p. 1-5. in: proc. austral. potting mix manufacturers conf., sydney evans, m.r. and stamps, r.h. 1996. growth of bedding plants in sphagnum peat and coir dust based substrates. j. environ. hort., 14:187-190 henny, r.j., chen, j. and mellich, t.a. 2008. new florida foliage plant cultivar: aglaonema ‘stripes’. university of florida, ifas extension, usa jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india private limited, new delhi, p. 182 jeyaseeli, m.d. and samuel paul raj. 2010. chemical characteristics of coir pith as a function of its particle size to be used as soilless medium. the ecoscan., 4:163-169 merrow, a.w. 1995. growth of two tropical foliage plants using coir dust as a container medium amendment. hort. technol., 5:237-239 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers, 2nd edition icar, new delhi sahni, s., sarma, b.k., singh, d.p., singh, h.b. and singh, k.p. 2008. vermicompost enhances performance of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria in cicer arietinum rhizosphere against sclerotium rolfsii and quality of strawberry (fragaria x ananassa duch.). crop prot., 27:369–376 scagel, c.f. 2003. growth and nutrient use of ericaceous plants grown in media amended with sphagnum moss peat or coir dust. hortl. sci., 38:46-54 tilt, k.m., bilderback, t.e. and fonteno, w.c. 1987. particle size and container size effects on growth of three ornamental species. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 112:981-984 tomati, u., grappelli, a. and galli, e. 1995. the hormonelike effect of earthworm casts on plant growth. biol. fertil. soils, 5:288–294 table 3. effect of potting media on leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content (%) in aglaonema cv. ernesto’s favourite at 150 days after planting treatment nitrogen phosphorus potassium content (%) content (%) content (%) t 1 soil + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) 2.04 0.30 1.26 t 2 soil + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) 2.33 0.39 1.40 t 3 soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) 2.71 0.45 1.59 t 4 cocopeat + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) 2.74 0.52 1.69 t 5 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) 3.46 0.95 1.91 t 6 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) 3.20 0.84 1.88 t 7 sphagnum peat + sand + fym (2:1:1, v/v) 2.73 0.52 1.60 t 8 sphagnum peat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1, v/v) 2.88 0.79 1.78 t 9 sphagnum peat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5, v/v) 2.75 0.65 1.76 s.em.± 0.07 0.02 0.03 c d (p=0.05) 0.21 0.08 0.10 (ms received 20 july 2013, revised 16 november 2013, accepted 17 january 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):90-93, 2014 growth and quality studies in aglaonema j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 488-495, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction plum (prunus spp.) is one of the most commercially important fruit species in iran. plums are temperate zone fruits, but they are widely grown throughout the world, from the cold climate of siberia to the subtropical conditions of the mediterranean region (son, 2010). prunus species such as p. cerasifera, p. domestica, p. institia and p. salicina are widely grown thr oughout the wor ld. t he eur opean plum ( p. domestica) and the japanese plum (p. salicina) are more important in terms of commercial production (ozbek, 1978). grafting is largely used in the production of vegetable and fruit-bearing crops in order to increase uniformity, vigor, and adaptation to biotic and abiotic stresses. the compatibility of rootstock and scion plays a crucial role in establishing highly efficient root systems through grafting (goldschmidt, 2014; warschefsky et al., 2016). however, this trait varies significantly even between closely related species, which necessitates the evaluation of compatibility before grafting a specific scion genotype into the rootstock. for the stone fruit industry that heavily relies on vegetatively propagated cultivars (i.e., individual genotypes) via grafting, the long-term vitality of the union between the rootstock and scion is crucial (lee et al., 2011; guan et al., 2012). graft incompatibility generally occurs at the early sta ge of gra ft development when the va scula r connection is forming. however, symptoms may manifest at large growth stages such as low plant development related to physiological differences in the stem diameter, which impairs the normal flow of photoassimilates and the lignification of grafted tissues (souza et al., 2018), thus decreasing the hydraulic conductivity of the graft union (tworkoski and fazio, 2015). these symptoms appear during the plant fruiting period when the plant is subjected to a high demand for water transport (martinez-ballesta et al., 2010). incompatibility does not permanently become possibility of early detection of graft incompatibility in some commercial plum cultivars by phenolic compounds analysis arghavan s.1, ganji moghadam e.2*, fahadan a.1, zamanipour m.3 1department of horticulture, azad university branch shirvan, north khorasan, iran 2crop and horticultural science research department, khorasan razavi agricultural and natural resources research and education center, areeo, mashhad, iran 3department of agriculture, technical and engineering faculty, velayat university, iranshahr, iran *corresponding author email : eganji@hotmail.com abstract the incidence of incompatibility signs in the grafting point can be delayed, and the analysis of phenols is used as an applicable early sign for the detection of graft incompatibility. accordingly, this study mainly aimed to investigate compatibility/incompatibility in 10 commercial plum cultivars grafted on myrobalan and apricot rootstocks, followed by determining the role of phenols in graft incompatibility. the evaluated cultivars included santarosa, ghatreh tala, shams, dargazi, no. 16, no. 17, laroda, simka, bokhara, and stanley. the results showed significant differences in the stem diameter. the union graft location in shams, laroda, simka, stanley, and ghatreh tala cultivars on apricot rootstock was thicker than the scions and stocks. phenolic compounds in the union graft decreased in all plum cultivars on myrobalan rootstock in comparison with other sites. finally, the most phenolic accumulation belonged to the union graft on santarosa, ghatreh tala, and shams on apricot rootstocks. therefore, it seems that phenolic compounds in plums can be used as a biochemical marker in graft incompatibility. keywords: apricot rootstock, incompatibility, myrobalan rootstock, phenolic content, plum 489 possibility early detection of graf incompatibility in plum cultivars j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 488-495, 2022 apparent immediately after grafting. it may take several years to manifest failure with establishing graft-union leading to major economic losses to growers and nurseries. in addition, the significant delay in the appearance of incompatibility symptoms renders the evaluation and transfer of new fruit tree genotypes to industry time-consuming, expensive, and laborious (gainza et al., 2015; pina et al., 2017). fruit trees are typically formed by a combination of the scion and rootstock. a good union between a scion a nd r ootstock is necessa r y for a successful combination (errea et al., 2001). graft incompatibility symptoms in woody species include bark thickening in the connection region, chlorotic leaves, premature leaf fall, budding delay, vigor differences between the rootstock and scion, excessive stem thickening below, above, or at the point of the graft union. other symptoms a re gr a ft union disr uption, r educed vegetative growth, low productivity, and premature plant death (zarrouk et al., 2010; hartmann et al., 2011). the grafted partners frequently belong to the same species or genus although the use of genetically divergent genotypes is also common. incompatibility repeatedly occurs in the plum when it is grafted on other prunus species such as the apricot graft. different reasons may influence gr aft success, including the inher ent system of cellula r incompatibility, the formation of plasmodesmata, vascular tissue connections, and the presence of growth regulators and peroxidases (usenik et al., 2006). macromolecules (phloem proteins, rna, and hormones) that are present in the sap phloem might also be important during vascular differentiation in the compatibility process (pina and erea, 2005). different methods for an early detection of graft incompatibility have already been used, including in vitro techniques (errea et al., 2001), isozyme analysis (fernandezgarcia et al., 2004; gulen et al., 2002), and phenol analysis (musacchi et al., 2000). such compounds are important to the early growth stages of connections between scion-rootstock combinations since the cell wa lls of xylem tissues a re dynamic str uctures composed of polysaccharides, phenolic compounds, miner a ls, a nd proteins (her r er o et al. , 2014). moreover, the presence of phenolic compounds has been identified as an important marker for the evaluation of graft compatibility between scions and rootstocks (prabpreea et al., 2018). the analysis and recognition of structural phenol diversity are of particular interest because of their physiological roles during the first steps of graft establishment (usenik et al., 2006). the presence of phenols was generally associated with small cells in incompatible combinations, which did not lead to successful unions (er rea et al., 2001). higher concentrations of catechin and epicatechin were found in quince-incompa tibility cultiva r s befor e the appearance of visible incompatibility symptoms (musacchi et al., 2000). in less compatible apricot combination higher level of flavanols, catechin, and epicatechin, was characteristics (errea et al., 2000). in several apricot combinations grafted on prunus rootstocks, graft incompatibility resulted in breakdown of the trees at the union years after planting, therefore an early selection process could help in detecting a comparatively compatible combination. analysis of the phenol content at the graft union can be used as a technique for the estimation of graft incompatibility (dogra et al., 2018). several studies have shown that phenolic compounds in incompatible combinations move from vacuole to cytoplasm and cause inhibition of lignification which is required during early stages of establishment of scion–stock connections. the cell wall of xylem vessels are dynamic in nature composed of phenolic compounds (for exa mple, lignins), miner a ls, polysaccharides and proteins (liu, 2012; herrero et al. , 2014). pla nt hor mones, especia lly a uxins determine the compatibility of a rootstock-scion combination by interacting with phenolic compounds. incompatibility has been associated with increased levels of phenolic compounds above the graft union which adversely affect the auxin transport (errea, 1998). low auxin concentration in incompatible combinations in turn affect the differentiation of vascular tissues and lignification (aloni, 2010; koepke and dhingra, 2013). all these changes will lead to the formation of weak unions which may cause huge economic losses to the growers. more information about the compounds responsible for inducing graft incompatibility is needed (gainza et al., 2015). given the above-mentioned explanations, the current study mainly sought to evaluate the relationship between graft incompatibility and the total phenolic content in some commercial plum cultivars, as well as to determine whether such analysis can be a useful tool for the early detection of graft incompatibility. 490 moghadam et al materials and methods plant material t his r esea r ch wa s conducted a t a t golma ka n horticultural research station (59° 17' n; 36° 32' e), north east of iran/mashhad, with an average altitude of about 1176 m. the mean temperature for growing season was 13. 4°c and tota l seasonal precipitation was 239.7 mm. the nursery soil was sandy loam with low organic matter. drip irrigation was applied in the nursery. the trees were planted at a spacing of 100 × 10 cm (100.000 trees ha-1) and budded (t-budding technique) 10 cm above the gr ou nd leve l. all r oot s t oc ks ( a p r ic ot a nd myrobalan) were seedlings, and the samples were taken from 1-year-old plum trees. the content of total phenols above, below, and at the union graft in 10 plum cultivars (i.e., santarosa, ghatreh tala, laroda, stanley, dargazi, no. 16, no. 17, bokhara, sha ms, and simka) gra fted on myroba la n and apricot seedling rootstocks was analyzed as well. field study trees were used one year after grafting for the study. the stem diameters of scions, stocks, and the graft union were measured using a pair of caliper. the units of measurment was to mm. phenol extraction three trees from each grafting combination were analyzed, and the samples were collected in june. the small sections of the bark above, below, and at the union graft (1 cm above and below the graft union, 1.5 cm in length) were removed with a knife and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen. phloem with cambium was used for analysis. t he s a mp le s wer e ex t r a c t ed wit h a 1 . 5 ml methanol-acetone-water solution (7:7:1 v/v/v). in a mor t a r, 5 0 mg of t he p la nt ma t er ia l wa s homogenized with a 1.5 ml extraction solution. next, the samples were centrifuged at 6000xg for 20 min using a bench centrifuge. then, the solvents were evaporated in rotary at 40 úc, and the residue was dissolved in 5 ml of deionized water. the extracts were stored at -80 úc until the analysis of the total phenolic content (mngomba et al., 2008). the applied chemical reagents were obtained from merck company. total phenolic content analysis the amounts of the total phenol content in pulm cultivar extracts were determined with the folinciocalteau reagent using the method of spanos and wrolastad (1990), as modified by lister and wilson (2001). to this end, 0.5 ml of folin-ciocalteau reagent and 2 ml of na2co3 (7.55/a, w/v) were added to 100 µl of each sample (three replicates) and then incubated at 45 úc for 15 min. the absorbance of all samples was measured at 620 nm using a spectra maxplu5384 uv-vis spectrophotometer. the results were expressed as milligrams of catechol acid equivalent per gram of dry weight (ganji moghadam et al., 2007). statistical analysis the trial was laid out in a factorial experiment based on completely r a ndomized design with thr ee replications where each replication contained 10 trees. factors a contains cultivars in 10 levels (santarosa, ghatreh tala, laroda, stanley, dargazi, no. 16, no. 17, bokhara, shams, and simka), factor b contains rootstock in 2 levels (myrobalan and apricot seedling) and factor c contains 3 levels (above, below, and at the union graft). three replicates of each sample were used for statistical analysis using mstat-c, version 1.42. data were subjected to the analysis of variance, and means were compared by the least significant difference. differences at p<0.05 were considered statistically significant. results and discussion significa nt differences in stem diameters were observed above, below, and at the union graft. the stem diameters below the graft unions were visibly greater than those of above and the union graft on myr oba la n r ootstock and sa nta r osa , da rga zi, bokhara, no. 16, and no.17 cultivars on the apricot rootstock. the unions were thicker than scions and stocks in ghatreh tala, shams, laroda, stanley, and simka on the apricot rootstock (table 1). in the study of the independent effect of the total phenol content in the union graft, the highest total phenolic content was detected in the below graft union while the lowest content was found in the above graft union. above and union graft differences were not significant (figure 1a). based on the evaluation of the effect of the union graft in apricot and myrobalan rootstocks, the highest and j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 488-495, 2022 491 table 1 : thickness (mm) above, below, and at union graft of different plum cultivars grafted on apricot and myrobalan rootstocks graft combination above the union at the union below the union apricot rootstock santarosa 6.82* 11.95a 12.37a ghatreh tala 8.2c 16.08a 11.57b shams 7.24a 9.09a 7.93a laroda 5.8b 11.30a 10.95a dargazi 7.15c 12.98b 16.18a simka 5.16b 11.79a 9.21a bokhara 5.9c 10.27b 11.86a stanely 6.86a 13.72a 11.11a no. 16 6.03b 12.13a 14.41a no. 17 5.03b 11.62ab 18.21a myrobalan rootstock santarosa 6.93b 12.71b 20.55a ghatreh tala 8.41c 11.57b 16.84a shams 6.76b 10.23b 17.74a laroda 7.94c 12.16b 16.38a dargazi 9.53c 13.49b 18.48a simka 8.22c 13.61b 19.02a bokhara 7.00c 9.28b 11.31a stanely 8.41b 13.67a 16.99a no. 16 7.18b 10.88b 19.44a no. 17 6.83b 11.23b 15.11a note : *means with the same letters within a row are not significantly different at p<0.05. the lowest total phenolic contents were observed in the below gr a ft union on myr oba la n a nd a pr icot rootstocks, respectively (figure 1b). the highest total phenolic content was detected in the below graft union of laroda, shams, stanley, santarosa, and dargazi cultivars grafted on the myrobalan rootstock whereas the lowest content was found in the below graft union fig. 1 : effects of independent union graft (a) and interaction rootstocks and graft union (b) on the total phenolic content (mg catechol acid equivalent per g of dry weight) possibility early detection of graf incompatibility in plum cultivars j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 488-495, 2022 492 of shams, laroda, ghatreh tala, and santarosa cultiva rs gr afted on the a pricot rootstock. the compared differences in the total phenol content in the union and below graft demonstrated the significant accumulation of phenol in the union graft in santarosa, ghatreh tala, laroda, stanley, dargazi, bokhara, shams, and simka cultivars grafted on the apricot rootstock while it decreased on myrobalan rootstock (table 2). the stem diameters below the graft unions were visibly greater compared to the above and at union graft on myr oba la n r ootstock and sa nta r osa , da rga zi, bokhara, no. 16, and no.17 cultivars on the apricot rootstock. the unions were thicker than the scions and stocks in ghatreh tala, shams, laroda, stanley, and simka on the apricot rootstock. the highest total phenolic contents wer e detected in myroba la n rootstocks while the lowest contents were found in apricot rootstocks. the composition of phenols depends on the genetic constitution of the plant species, and hence, some plants accumulate more than others. these results are in agreement with those of pina ane errea (2005) indicating that some apricot cultivars grafted onto a plum rootstock demonstrated only some callus differentiation occurred on cambium and vascular tissues while a large portion of the callus never demonstrated a differentiation. this interrupts va scula r connections beca use of the la ck of differentiation that brings discontinuities in the ca mbium a nd the for ma tion of a ba nd of moghadam et al table 2 : the amount of the total phenol content (mg gallic acid equivalent per g of dry weight) in above, below, and at the union graft of different plum cultivars grafted on apricot and myrobalan rootstocks graft combination above the union at the union below the union apricot rootstocks santarosa 1033.79a 1274.88a 441.01b ghatreh tala 1051.14b 1905.93a 430.14b shams 1010.95a 1424.65a 317.81b laroda 810.05a 902.28a 401.82a dargazi 1114.15a 1302.28a 747.94a simka 1166.21a 1513.24a 839.27a bokhara 677.17a 951.59a 555.25b stanely 762.56a 1250.23a 698.63a no. 16 925.15b 1135.16a 1091.33ab no. 17 807.31b 1347.91a 1204.56a myrobalan rootstocks santarosa 611.78b 363.47b 2230.13a ghatreh tala 1421.91a 663.93b 1476.86a shams 805.47b 1112.32b 2413.69a laroda 1378.99b 536.07b 3215.52a dargazi 830.14b 449.31c 1221.46a simka 1053.88b 763.47b 1789.95a bokhara 838.36b 989.04b 1813.69a stanely 1120.59b 1114.15b 2291.33a no. 16 629.23c 1309.59b 1882.19a no. 17 1828.31a 619.18b 2122.51a note : *means with the same letters within a row are not significantly different at p<0.05. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 488-495, 2022 493 parenchymatous cells. based on the findings regarding the evaluation of the independent effect of the total phenol content in the union graft, the highest and lowest total phenolic contents were detected in the below and above graft unions, respectively. the results related to the effect of the union graft on apricot and myrobalan rootstocks, the highest and lowest total phenolic contents belonged to below graft union on myr oba la n r ootstock a nd a pr icot r ootstock, respectively. mngomba et al. (2008) reported that the accumulation of phenol deposits at the place of the graft union might inhibit graft compatibility. usenik et al. (2006) also demonstrated that differences in phenol accumulation below and above the graft union might serve as an indicator of incompatibility. the highest total phenolic content was detected below the graft union of laroda, shams, stanley, santarosa, and dargazi cultivars grafted on myrobalan rootstock whereas the lowest content was found in the below graft union of shams, laroda, ghatreh tala, and santarosa cultivars grafted on apricot rootstock. the comparison of differences in the total phenol content in union and below graft showed the significant accumulation of phenol in the union graft in santarosa, ghatreh tala, laroda, stanley, dargazi, bokhara, shams, and simka cultivars grafted on a pricot rootstock while it decreased on myrobalan rootstock. in apricot/plum combinations, a high concentration of phenolic compounds was observed in undifferentiated callus at the scion-rootstock interface of plants previously categorized as incompatible (pina et al., 2012), and thus they are involved in the processes of differentiation of vascular tissues (usenik et al., 2006), which is in line with our results. the statistically significant accumulation of phenol in the graft union was ascertained in santarosa, ghatreh tala, laroda, stanley, darga zi, bokhar a, shams, and simka cultivars grafted on apricot rootstock when compared with the content below the graft union while phenol above the graft union decreased in plum cultivars on myrobalan rootstock. the highest accumulation of phenol in the union graft that can be used as a biochemical marker of graft incompatibility are observed in ghatreh tala, shams, and santarosa on apricot rootstock, which corroborates with the findings of prabpreea et al. 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revised : 18.03.2022; accepted : 15.09.2022) this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction cashew (anacardium occidentale l) is an important commercial plantation crop of the country, grown in an area of 10.27 lakh ha with a production of 7.25 lakh metric tonnes of raw cashew nuts (anon. 2019). world’s total area under the cultivation of cashew is around 35100 km2 with india sharing 20 per cent and 16 per cent of cashew area and production globally, respectively. however, productivity of indian cashew is very low (772 kg/ha). the present low productivity is attributed to several factors such as establishment of plantation with seedling of nondescript origin, due to poor and irregular flowering because of adverse environmental conditions (parameswaran et al., 1984), poor fruit set and excessive premature fruit drop (patnaik et al., 1985), low hermaphrodite flowers (parameswaran et al., 1984), nutritional deficiency (subbaiah 1983), inefficient pollination (heard et al., 1990) and irregular and prolonged flowering (aliyu, 2005). cashew is an evergreen dicotyledonous woody tropical tree with medium canopy size. on an average the plant attains 5-8 m height. the leaves are alternate, simple, globous, oblong, leathery, often notched at the apex. the size of leaf varies from 6-24 cm in length and 4-15 cm in width based on species and variety. the root system of complete grown cashew tree consists of a taproot surrounded by a well-developed and extensive network of lateral roots, 90% which lie on the 15-32 cm soil depth. the pattern of growth of cashew tree alternates with vegetative and reproductive phases. there are two types of branching in cashew intensive and extensive type (damodaran, 1965). intensive type of growth pattern tends to give bushy appearance to tree whereas extensive type results in spreading tree habit. annually, two or three peak periods of growth are observed in bearing cashew tree with development of stray shoot growth. in bearing trees, from flower flush many shoots develop that give rise to terminal inflorescence/ panicle. the other vegetative flush gives rise to lateral shoots that develop soon after main crop has matured. the cashew flowers are pentamerous, white or light green at the time of opening, later turn to pink. two kinds of flowers viz. hermaphrodite (bisexual/perfect) original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 98-103, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2152 effect of growth regulators and micronutrients on quality parameters in cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) lakshmipathi1, adiga j.d.2, kalaivanan d.1, bhagya h.p.2*, thondaiman v.2, babli mog2, manjesh g.n.2, veena g.l.2, shamsudheen m.2, vanitha k.2 and manjunatha k.2 1icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india 2icar-directorate of cashew research, puttur 574202, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : bhagya509@gmail.com abstract cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) is an important tropical nut crop of social and economic importance worldwide. however, the crop is threatened with the low yield. in the present study, an attempt was made to test the effects of plant growth hormones as well as micronutrients on nut and apple quality of cashew var. bhaskara. significant differences in kernel weight, shelling percentage, carbohydrates and starch content of cashew kernel and juice content of cashew apple were observed with the foliar application of growth hormones and micronutrients. the foliar application of ethrel @ 50 ppm increased shelling percentage (35.8%), carbohydrate content (21.63%), sugar content (6.26%), protein content (32.4%), starch content (31.42%), juice content (78.3%) and total soluble solids (120 brix). further, the foliar spray of zinc sulphate (0.5%) + borax (0.1%) increased shelling (36.13%), protein content (32.15%), starch content (32.03%) among all the treatments tested. furthermore, higher cashew apple juice content (78%) and total soluble solids (120brix) was also recorded with the foliar spray of zinc sulphate (0.5%) + borax (0.1%). keywords : cashew, micronutrients, nut and apple quality, plant growth hormones 99 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 98-103, 2023 and male (staminate) are present in the panicle. the perfect flowers are larger than staminate flowers (damodaran et al., 1965). cashew is considered as andromonoecious species due to presence of both male (staminate) and hermaphrodite (perfect) flowers in the same terminal panicle usually called as inflorescence of cashew. number of panicles per plant, flowers per panicle and distribution of male and hermaphrodite flowers (sex ratio) in each panicle vary among varieties. in flowering panicle, abundance of male flowers is reported higher than perfect flowers (rao and hassan, 1957; bigger, 1990 and damodaran et al., 1965). the yield of cashew is very low owing to the production of low percentage of hermaphrodite flowers, poor fruit set, immature fruit drop and low fruit retention (haribabu, 1982). the cashew produces abundant flowers but only less than 10 per cent of which are hermaphrodite, about 85 per cent of the hermaphrodite flowers are fertilized and only 4-6 per cent of them reach maturity to give fruits, the remaining shed away at different stages of development. the fruit drop in cashew during the early stages of development is attributed to physiological reasons (nothwood, 1966). immature fruit drop is one of the major reasons for reducing yield potential of cashew. the formative effects of growth hormones are gaining its importance for managing canopy, ensuring uniform flowering and enhancing fruit retention and yield under commercial cultivation for perennial fruit trees including cashew (olivier et al., 1990). the application of exogenous plant growth hormones has been reported to induce better root and shoot development, to break seed and bud dormancy and improve flowering and fruiting in many crop plants. foliar spray of gibberellic acid and auxin increased shoot and root growth and total shoot and root biomass in treated cashew seedlings (shanmugavelu, 1985). the better seed germination induced by ga in cashew has also been reported by khan et al., (1957). shanmugavelu et al. (1985) suggested that the natural auxin contained in seeds of tree species might probably regulate the seed germination. the use of cytokinin and auxin improved flowering and fruit set in mango (chen, 1983) and cashew (kumar, 1994). therefore, growth hormones are gaining importance in cashew cultivation for overcoming problems associated with rooting, flowering, fruit set, fruit retention and poor yield. hence, it is evident from studies that the economic importance of hormones is due to their ability to increase nut yield. there have been numerous reports considering increased yield due to the use of hormones especially in the horticultural sector but the use of plant growth regulators on cashew in particular is in its infancy. hence, it is of utmost importance to address this research gap and it is also essential to understand how the endogenous hormones affect or regulate the stages of plant growth in order to make exogenously applied plant growth hormones to play an important role in maximizing cashew nut yield. the productivity of cashew can also be enhanced by adopting proper nutrient managementin addition to application of plant growth hormones. numerous nutritional trials on the crop especially on the major nutrients have been attempted in india as well as in other tropical countries. and, response to applied nutrients has been very favorable. however, the information on role of micronutrients on cashew is limited. further, no attempt has been made so far to study the influence of foliar spray of growth regulators and micronutrient in enhancing the quality parameters of raw cashew nut. in the light of aforementioned, the present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of growth hormones and micronutrients on quality parameters of raw cashew nut. materials and methods site of experiment and plant material the experiment was conducted at experimental farms of icardirectorate of cashew research, puttur, dakshina kannada district, karnataka during 200910 to 2011-12 (latitude: 12.250 north, longitude: 75.40 east), which is situated at 90 meter above mean sea level). the study was carried out on 10 years old plantation (var. bhaskara) by adopting randomized block design (rbd) with 9 tr ea tments a nd 3 replications for plant growth hormones and for micronutrient spray with 6 treatment and 4 replication. the plant growth regulators were sprayed during flushing, flowering and fruiting stages using foot pump paddle sprayer covering the entire canopy (table 1). the growth regulator treatments consits of control (t1), ethrel 50 ppm (t2), 2,4-d 10 ppm (t3), naa 25 ppm (t4), iaa 10 ppm (t5), ba 1000 ppm (t6), ga3 50 ppm (t7), naa 25ppm + ga3 50 ppm (t8) and iaa 100 ppm + ga3 50 ppm (t9). however, micronutrient treatment constitute t1 (control), t2 (borax 0.1%), t3 (borax 0.2%), t4 (zinc sulphate 0.5%), t5 (zinc sulphate 0.5% + borax 0.1%) and t6 (zinc sulphate effect of growth regulators and micronutrients in cashew 100 0.5% + borax 0.2%). observations on kernel weight (g), shelling (%), cho (%), sugar (%), protein (%), starch (%), juice (%), tss (0 brix) were recorded. the micronutrients were sprayed during flushing, flowering and fruiting stages using a foot pump paddle spr a yer covering the entir e ca nopy (ta ble 2). observations on kernel weight (g), shelling (%), cho (%), sugar (%), protein (%), starch (%), juice (%), tss (0 brix) were recorded in all the treatments. fifty whole kernels were weighed and recorded in grams. mean weight of one kernel was calculated by dividing the total weight of kernels by number of kernels. fifty sun dried raw cashew nuts were weighed and weight was recorded in grams. these 50 nuts were shelled by using shelling machine. weight of kernels with testa and shells obtained after shelling these nuts were recorded separately. the weight of kernel with testa and weight of shell of each sample was added up totally with the original weight of 50 nuts. weight of kernel with testa was divided by the weight of nut (weight kernel with testa + weight of shell) and expressed as percentage, which gave the shelling percentage. nuts were shelled and kernels were extracted after removal of testa and the defatted cashew kernel flour was used for the estimation of carbohydrate, protein, sta rch, and sugar content by using the method suggested by sadasivam and balasubramanian (1987). total soluble solids (tss) of cashew apple were estimated using hand refractometer. statistical analysis the data obtained from three successive seasons were pooled and analyzed using sas 9.3 version. anova was applied to evaluate the significant difference in the parameters studied in the different treatments. least significant difference (fisher’s protected lsd) was calculated, following significant f-test (p=0.05). results and discussion effect of growth regulators in the present study, significant increase in kernel weight, shelling percentage, carbohydrates and starch content of kernels and juice content of apple were recorded by the application of ethrel @ 50 ppm followed by naa @ 25 ppm, naa @ 25 ppm + ga3 50 ppm, ga3@ 50 ppm, iaa @100 ppm + ga3 50 ppm, ba @ 1000 ppm, iaa @ 100 ppm and 2,4-d @ 10 ppm (table 1). spraying of ethrel @ 50 ppm also increased the protein percentage (32.20 %) followed by naa @ 25 ppm (32.1 %), naa @ 25 ppm + ga3 50 ppm (32.00 %), ga3 @ 50 ppm (31.4 %), iaa @ 100 ppm + ga3 50 ppm (31.5 %), ba @ 1000 ppm (31.20 %), iaa @ 100 ppm (30.50 %) and 2,4-d @ 10 ppm (30.30 %) compared to untreated trees (29.89 %). kumar et al. (1996) reported that the combined application of ethrel @ lakshmipathi et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 98-103, 2023 treatment kernel shelling carbohy sugar protein starch juice tss weight (%) drate (%) (%) (%) (%) (o brix) (g) (%) control 2.17c 30.00d 20.70b 6.21 29.63c 25.52e 67.40f 11.00 ethrel@50 ppm 2.55a 35.87a 21.63a 6.26 32.40a 31.42a 78.37a 12.00 2,4-d@10 ppm 2.40b 31.50bc 21.47a 6.21 30.43bc 28.50d 68.47e 11.00 naa@25ppm 2.55a 35.58a 21.60a 6.25 32.37a 31.40a 76.40b 11.00 iaa@100 ppm 2.40b 31.17cd 21.47a 6.22 30.50bc 29.00cd 68.53e 11.00 ba @1000 ppm 2.45b 32.50b 21.50a 6.23 31.40ab 29.37cd 70.50d 11.00 ga3@50 ppm 2.54 a 35.50a 21.53a 6.24 31.47ab 30.40b 76.00bc 12.00 naa @25 ppm + 2.54a 35.58a 21.57a 6.25 31.33ab 31.00ab 76.37b 12.00 ga3 50 ppm iaa @100 ppm + 2.54a 35.50a 21.53a 6.24 31.50ab 29.47c 75.50c 12.00 ga3 50 ppm mean 2.46 33.69 21.44 6.23 31.23 29.56 73.06 11.44 se(d) 0.037 0.559 0.089 0.026 0.582 0.416 0.332 0.544 lsd at 5% 0.078 1.186 0.189 ns 1.235 0.882 0.704 ns table 1 : effect of growth regulators on quality parameters of cashew variety bhaskara 101 50 ppm and 500: 250: 250 g npk/plant/year enhanced yield, nut and apple quality in cashew varieties. they also further opined that the increase in total soluble solids and apple yield might be attributed to the positive interaction between growth regulators and nutrients. spraying of growth regulators in all the treatments have given higher nut yield compared to control. it may be because of ethrel and auxin could induce better flowering in cashew (aliyu et al., 2011). auxin is known to induce flowering via ethylene production and also independently (li and xu, 2014). other reasons for more nut yield compared to control are growth regulators/hormone sprayed leaf area mobilizes all the photosynthates and nutrients which will be utilized for flower production and fruit growth (li and xu, 2014). and other reasons might be increased stomatal number increases inflow of carbon dioxide into the mesophyll tissue resulting more photosynthates, latter partitioned towards nut resulted in more nut yield (aliyu et al., 2011). in the present study, gibberellic acid, ga3 @ 50 ppm resulted in better nut and kernel quality in cashew variety bhaskara. application of ga3 @ 50 ppm increased protein content (31.4%), carbohydrate content (21.5%), sugar content (6.4%) and starch content (30.4%) in cashew kernel (table 1). similar results were also reported by murthy et al., (1975) where they studied the free amino acid and total protein content in three developmental stages of kernel in cashew after foliar treatment with 40 ppm and 50 ppm gibberellic acid. treatment with ga3 resulted in a marked increase in protein content of kernel at all stages of development. in ga3 treated cashew kernels, the amino acid contents showed progressive decrease with the growth and maturation of the nut and greater accumulation of protein.similar results were also reported in mango where ga3 treatment enhanced fruit quality of mango trees (muarya and singh, 1981; saski and utsunomiya, 2002 and anila and radha 2003. effect of micronutrients micronutrients perform a n essential role in the production of fruit crops, and their deficiencies largely affect the quality of fruits. in the present study, the influence of micronutrient application on nut and apple quality was studied and presented in ta ble 2. ker nel weight wa s not significa ntly influenced by foliar application of micronutrients. this indicates tha t ker nel weight is more of a genetical factor and least influenced by external factors. higher shelling (36.13%) was found with t he s p r a y o f z inc s u lp ha t e ( 0 . 5 % ) + b or a x (0.1%) compared to untr eated trees (30.13%). micronutrient spray did not significantly influence the ca r bohydr a te and suga r content in ker nel. protein content was higher (32.15%) with the spray of zinc sulphate (0.5%) + borax (0.1%) followed by z in c s u l p h a t e ( 0 . 5 % ) (3 1 .5 %) a n d b o ra x ( 0 . 1 % ) ( 3 1 .3 %) , w h i l e it w a s lo w e r i n u n s p r a y e d tr e e s (29.92%). starch co ntent was highest (32.03 %) with th e s p ra y o f z in c s u lp h a te ( 0 .5 %) + b o ra x (0 .1 %) followed by borax (0.1%) (31.38%), while unsprayed trees recorded lower starch content (25.26%). j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 98-103, 2023 effect of growth regulators and micronutrients in cashew table 2 : effect of foliar spray of micronutrients on quality parameters of cashew variety bhaskara treatment kernel shelling carbohy sugar protein starch juice tss weight (%) drate (%) (%) (%) (%) (o brix) (g) (%) control 2.43 30.13d 20.85 6.20 30.10c 25.26d 67.38e 11.00 borax (0.1%) 2.47 34.13b 21.58 6.24 31.33ab 31.38ab 74.00b 12.00 borax (0.2%) 2.35 31.58c 21.53 6.22 30.15c 28.38c 69.00d 11.00 znso4 (0.5%) 2.40 33.70 b 21.28 6.23 31.50ab 30.35b 70.75c 11.00 znso4 (0.5%) + 2.45 36.13 a 22.10 6.25 32.15a 32.03a 78.00a 12.00 borax (0.1%) znso4 (0.5%) + 2.41 33.38 b 21.48 6.22 30.60bc 28.90c 68.00de 11.00 borax (0.2%) mean 2.42 33.17 21.47 6.22 30.97 29.38 71.19 11.33 se(d) 0.25 0.52 0.49 0.02 0.48 0.49 0.59 0.60 lsd at 5% ns 1.11 ns ns 1.025 1.06 1.26 ns 102 the effect of micronutrient spray on apple quality was also studied (table 2). higher juice content in cashew apple (78%) was found with the spray of zinc sulphate (0.5%) + borax (0.1%) compared to unsprayed trees (67.38%). the role of micronutrients in improving the vegetative growth, fruit quality and yield has been reported in several fruit crops (abdollahi et al. 2012; farid et al., 2020, sanjeela et al., 2021). the present study is in consistent with findings of shafeek et al. (2014), singh et al. (2015) a nd mishr a et al. (2006) where application of micronutrients mainly zinc, boron and iron improved reproductive traits mainly fruiting parameters and quality traits. significant increase in tss was also observed with the foliar spray of zinc sulphate (0.5%) + borax (0.1%) and borax (0.1%). similar results were also reported by sanjeela et al. (2021) where application of boron @ 0.2% increased the tss (8.30brix) in strawberry. the role of boron in sugar translocation helps to improve fruit quality parameters (gauch and dugger, 1953; sathya et al., 2010). moreover, the deficiency of boron aggravatesthe quality of fruit by increasing titrable acidity and its application improves the quality of fruit (haider et al., 2019). conclusion significant differences in nut and apple quality were observed with the foliar application of plant growth hormones and micronutrients. the foliar application of ethrel @ 50 ppm and naa @ 25 ppm + ga3 50 ppm as well as zinc sulphate (0.5%) + borax (0.1%) improved the kernel as well as apple quality traits.the present study represents the first preliminary study on the influence of growth hormones and micronutrients on the nutritional qualities of cashew nuts and apples in the variety bhaskara. this study can be extended to screen other cashew varieties in terms of the nutritional quality of cashew nuts and apples. references abdolla hi, m. , s. eshghi, e. ta f a zol a nd n. moosa vi. 2012. effect of pa clobutr azol, boric acid and zinc sulfate on vegetative and reproductive growth of strawberry (fragaria x ananassa duch.) cv. selva. j. agric. sci. technol., 14: 357-363 aliyu, o. m and awopetu, j.a. 2005. in vitro regeneration of hybrid plantlets of cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) through embryo culture. af. j. biotech., 6: 548-553. anila, r. and radha, t., 2003. studies on fruit drop in mango varieties. j. trop. agric., 41: 30-32. anonymous. 2019. production scenario of cashew. d ir ec t or a t e of c a s hewnu t a nd c oc oa development (dccd). bigger, m. 1990. selenothripsrubrocinctus (grand) a nd t he f lor a l b iology of c a s hew in ta nga nyika , ea st afr ican ag ri. j. , 25 : 229-234 chen, w.s. 1983. cytokinins of the developing mango fruit, plant physiol. 71: 356-362. damodaran, v.k., abraham, j., alexander, k.m. 1965. the morphology and biology of the cashew flower i-flowering habit, flowering season, morphology of the flower and sex ratio. agric. res. j. kerala. 3(1&2): 23-28. farid, m.z., qureshi, k.m., shah, s.h., qureshi, a.a., umair, m. and shafiq, h. 2020. foliar a pp lica tion of micr onut r ients imp r oves gr owth, pr oductivity and fruit qua lity of strawberry (fragaria ananassa duch). j. anim. plant sci., 30(4): 905-912. gauch, h.g. and dugger, w.m. 1953. the role of boron in the translocation of sucrose. am. soc. plant biol., 28: 457-467. haider, z., ahmad, n., danish, s., iqbal, j., ali, m.a. and chaudhry, u.k. 2019. effect of folia r a pplica tion of bor ic a cid on fr uit qua lity a nd yield tr a it s of ma ngo. ad v. hortic. sci., 33(4): 457-465. ha ribabu sri, r. 1982. incr ea sing fruit set in c a s hew by gr owt h s ub s ta nces. ca s hew causerie, 4 (4): 14-15. heard, t. a., vithanage, v. and chacko, e. k. 1990. pollination biology of cashew in the norther n ter ritor y of austr alia. aust. j. agric. res., 41: 1101-1114. khan, a., gross, j.a., smith, d.e. 1957. effect of gibberellins on germination of lettuce seed, science, 125: 645-646. lakshmipathi et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 98-103, 2023 103 kumar, d. p., khan, m. m. and melanta, k. r. 1994. effect of growth regulators on sex expression, fruit set, fruit retention and yield of c a s hew. i n: p r oc eeding s of t he placrosym xi held during 30 november to 3 december 1994 at ca licut, kera la , india. pp. 610-627. kumar, d. p., khan, m. m., melanta, k. r., 1996. effect of nutrition and growth regulators on a p p le c ha r a c t er s a nd yield in c a s hew (anacardium occidentale l.). the cashew, 10(2): 17-24. muarya, a. n. and singh, j. n., 1981. effect of three growth regulators on fruit retention and quality of mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. langra. j. agric. india, 16: 53-56. murthy, k.n., kumaran. p.m. and nayar, n.m. 1975. increasing fruit set in cashew by hormone spraying, j. plantation crops, 3: 81-82. nothwood, p.j. 1966. some observations on the flowering a nd fruit-setting in the cashew (an ac ardi um oc ci de nt al e l . ) . trop ic al agric. (trin.) 43: 35-42. oliveira, e.t. 1989. propagacao vegetative de pinus sp. via cultura de tecido, sao paulo univ. / esalq, diss., piracicaba, sao paulo, brazil. pa r a meswa r a n, n. k. , da moda r a n, v. k. a nd prabhakaran, p.v. 1984. relationship between yield and duration of different phases in flower opening in cashew (anacardium oecidentale l.). indian cashew j., 16(4): 15-19. patnaik, h. p., das, m.s. and panda, j. m. 1985. studies on the fruit set a nd fruit drop in cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) under odisha conditions. indian cashew causerie j., 7(4): 7-8. rao, v.n.m., rao, i.k.s. and hassan, m. 1957. studies on seed viability in cashew, ind. j. agric. sci., 27: 289-294. sa da s iva m. s . a nd ba la sub r a ma nia n, t. 198 7. determination of ascorbic acid. pr actical ma nu a l in bioc hemis t r y, ta mil n a du agricultural university, coimbatore, p. 14. sanjeelasabahat, juliya abbasi, mushtaq ahmad, saima mumtaz, taj naseeb khan, sudheer tariq and muhammad imran. 2021. role of micronutrients in improving fruit quality and yield of str a wber r y cv. cha ndler under microclimatic conditions. pakistan j. agric. res., 34(4): 897. sasaki, k. and utsunomiya, n. 2002. effect of combined application of cppu and ga3 on the growth of “irwin” mango fruits. japanese j. trop. agric. 46 (4): 224-228. s a t hya , s . , m a ni, s . , m a hedr a n , p. p. a nd ar u lmoz hi s elva n, k . 2 0 1 0 . e ff ec t of application of boron on growth, quality and fruit yield of pkm 1 tomato. indian j. agric. res., 44: 274280. shanmugavelu, k.g. 1985. studies on the effect of plant growth regulators in cashew, acta hortic., 108: 35-43. subbaiah, c.c. 1983. fruiting and abscission patterns in cashew. j. agric. sci. (cambridge) 100: 423-427. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 98-103, 2023 effect of growth regulators and micronutrients in cashew (received : 16.11.2022; revised : 14.12.2022; accepted 30.12.2022) 62 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 62-66, 2020 breeding for improvement of high temperature tolerance in garden pea (pisum sativum l.) for off season cultivation susmita c.1*$, aghora t.s.1, mohan n.1and bhatt r.m.2 1 division of vegetable crops, 2divison of plant physiology and biochemisrty icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089. $icar-indian institute of seed science, mau, uttar pradesh 275 101, india. email : susmitha.cherukuri00@gmail.com abstract the present investigation is aimed towards breeding varieties of garden pea for early summer cultivation (march-may) that can tolerate temperatures up to 35 0c. high temperature tolerant accessions ktp-4, arka sampoorna, oregon sugar, magadi local were crossed with arka ajit, arka pramodh, arka priya having superior pod quality, yield and followed by pedigree method of breeding, superior transgressive segregants from these crosses were advanced up to f7 generation. in f7, six selected advanced breeding lines were assessed for their performance in the field with checks during early summer for four years in succession. results revealed significant differences between selected lines and checks wherein all the lines surpassed checks with yield ranging from 5.9-7.6 t/ ha and in checks it was only 2.6-3.1 t/ha. among these six breeding lines, three lines were selected based on high yield (6.7-7.6 t/ha), pod quality characters and identified to be highly suitable for early summer cultivation. key words: breeding, early summer, garden pea, high temperature, stress tolerance original research paper globa lly, vegetable legumes are conventionally identified as indispensable sources of nutrition and health to humankind besides radically influencing agricultural sustainability. garden pea, one among the commercially cultivated leguminous vegetables is a dense source of nutrients and vital source of health promoting antioxidants, minerals, vita mins and phytonutrients (dahl et al. 2012). in india, garden pea is grown in an area of 0.55 million hectares (m.ha) with an annual production of 5.52 million tonnes (m.t) and productivity of 10.03 t/ha (nhb, 2018-19). various factors are known to influence yield of which, abiotic stresses especially temperature, drought and salt stress take away major share in causing severe yield losses by impairing growth and development of plants in majority of the crop species(suzuki et al., 2014). within these factors, tempera tur e stress imposes most protracted effects on plant development and reproduction accompanied with severe reduction in yield potential of many subtle crop species (bita and gerats, 2013). garden pea being extremely sensitive to temperature stress, if subjected to higher introduction temperatures responds in an exacerbated manner resulting in drastic reduction of yield. this strictly hampers summer cultivation of the crop where there exists a great demand for peas during off season. hence, in india it is traditionally cultivated during rabi season when the temperatures fall between 15 to 270c that highly favor crop growth and yield (mohan et al., 2013). summer cultivation of the crop is restricted to high altitude areas where congenial conditions for cr op growth exist and in plains cultivation during summer often influences principal morphologica l, physiologica l, biochemical a nd molecular plant processes in a sequential manner affecting the overall plant growth and productivity remarkably (petkova et al. 2009; todorova et al., 2016). among various growth phases of the crop, reproductive stage is highly vulnerable to elevated temperatures (>300c) affecting pollination, flower shedding, flower abortion, seed loss, pod filling and ultimately lowers the yield (guilioni et al., 2003; bueckert et al., 2015). in the recent years, demand for off season peas has enormously increased and is this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 63 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 62-66, 2020 breeding for improvement of high temperature tolerance in garden pea still anticipated to increase in the coming future owing to its nutritional and health benefits.to meet the ever growing demand for garden pea during off season, peas are often frozen and preserved for months together. since the main growing season of the crop is confined to rabi, at present there are no commercial varieties of garden pea suitable for cultivation at least during early summer. although varieties like magadi loca l are cultivated during early summer on a commercial scale in certain parts of southern india, being a pulse type (arvense group) with small pods its yields are exceedingly low with 2.5 t/ha. the r ea listic a ppr oa ch to sur mount this ba r r ier unequivoca lly includes initia tion of br eeding programmes to develop resilient varieties tolerant to high temperature (up to 350c) that could suit off season cultivation. with this objective, breeding work was started at icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bengaluru, india during 2007 and aimed towards development of high temperature tolerant varieties (33-350c) suitable for early summer cultivation. materials and methods a field experiment was started in 2007 at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india (13.13° n, 77.49° e) located at an altitude of 890 m above mean sea level. initially, 200 pea germplasm lines of ga r den pea wer e scr eened for thr ee consecutive years during summer 2007 to 2009 for identification of lines tolerant to high temperature. avera ge maximum a nd minimum tempera tures recorded during the crop growth period were 350c and 260c respectively. screening and selection of tolerant lines was based mainly on yield related traits such as pods per plant, pod filling, seeds per pod, shelling percent and yield per se. among 200 lines screened, accessions ktp-4, magadi local, arka sampoorna and oregon sugar were identified to be tolerant to high temperature and performed superior in terms of yield and other related traits for three consecutive year s. during 2009, selected high temperature tolerant lines were used as parents and crossed with high yielding varieties arka ajit, arka priya and arka pramodh having average pod yield of 10-12 t/ha to generate f1 population. initially, crosses were attempted between (arka ajit × arka sampoorna) and (arka pramodh × oregon sugar) separately and in the resultant segregating generation f2, superior lines derived from both the crosses were further crossed and advanced upto f7 followed by pedigree method of breeding. simultaneously in another cross, superior f2 transgressive segregants developed from the cross (arka pramodh × oregon sugar) were selected and crossed to arka priya to improve pod filling and advanced up to f7 generation followed by pedigree breeding. from both the crosses [(arka ajit × arka sampoorna) × (arka pramodh × oregon sugar)] and [(arka pramodh × oregon sugar) × arka priya], six advanced breeding lines were selected in f7 generation during 2014 and were evaluated in randomized block design with three replications using three checks viz., magadi local (tolerant to high temperature), arka ajit and arka pramodh (high yielding) during summer for four consecutive years from 2014-2017. standard package of practices was followed and no rainfall was received during the entire crop growth period. the maximum temperature recorded during reproductive and pod setting stages did not exceed 350c. data on plant height, days to 50% flowering, pod length, pod width, 10 pod weight, pods per plant, seeds per pod, pod yield per plant, pod and seed color were recorded from 10 plants in each of the three replications. data obtained was subjected to ana lysis of va r ia nce (anova) using the genstat 9. 1 pa cka ge to a ssess significa nt differences among the breeding lines and checks based on mean performance. results and discussion results of anova revealed significant differences among different advanced breeding lines for various morphological, yield and yield related traits in the present study (table 1). the average plant height in the advanced breeding lines ranged from 64.0 to 127.0 cm. highest plant height of 127.0 cm was recorded in the line iihr 12-3 followed byiihr 1521 with 126.7 cm and least of 57.3 cm was reported in check variety arka ajit. days taken for 50% flowering in the lines ranged from 44.0 to 48.3 as compared to checks with 42.3 to 48.7 days. with respect to this trait, lowest of 42.3 days was reported in check magadi local followed by iihr 15-6 with 44 days and highest of 48.7 days was recorded in arka pramodh. in connection to days to pod maturity, variability in the lines ranged from 60.0 to 65.7 and in checks it was 58.3 to 65.0 days. this clearly illustrates that no significant difference exist between lines and checks for the two traits viz., days to 50% flowering and days to pod maturityand all the selected 64 breeding lines fit into the category of mid-season varieties that can arrive to pod maturity within 60-65 days of flowering. with respect to pod length and width, selected breeding lines had higher pod length ranging from 6.5 to 7.9 cm and width of 1.4 to 1.6 cm in comparison to checks with pod length and width of 4.2 to 6.7 cm and 1.2 to 1.6 cm respectively. in terms of pod length, highest of 7.9 cm was observed susmita et al. in iihr 15-6 followed by iihr 15-21 with 7.0 cm and least of 4.2 cm was found in check magadi local. similar trend was reported in case of pod width wherein iihr 15-6 followed by iihr 1-1 recorded highest pod width of 1.6 cm and 1.5 cm respectively and lowest of 1.2 cm was recorded by check magadi local. table 1. mean performance of selected lines and checks for plant and pod characters during summer (2014-2017) advanced plant days to days to pod pod 10 shelling seeds pods pod & s.no. breeding height 50 % pod length width pod % per per seed lines & checks (cm) flowering maturity (cm) (cm) wt.(g) pod plant colour 1. iihr 15-6 67.7 44.0 60.3 7.9 1.6 63.7 56.0 7.7 16.3 dg 2. iihr 1-2 64.0 48.0 65.0 6.8 1.5 55.7 56.3 6.3 15.0 dg 3. iihr 1-1 65.7 48.3 65.7 6.9 1.5 55.0 57.0 6.3 14.0 dg 4. iihr 15-21 126.7 45.3 64.0 7.0 1.4 57.3 60.0 7.3 17.0 g 5. iihr 12-3 127.0 45.0 60.0 6.5 1.4 37.7 54.0 5.7 17.7 lg 6. iihr 15-15 124.3 45.7 62.3 7.0 1.4 55.7 58.3 6.7 22.3 dg 7. magadi local (c) 122.3 42.3 58.3 4.2 1.2 23.3 57.0 4.3 24.0 lg 8. arka ajit (c) 57.3 46.3 64.0 6.7 1.4 43.0 34.3 3.0 10.0 lg 9. arka pramodh (c) 58.0 48.7 65.0 6.7 1.6 42.3 25.0 2.0 8.0 dg s.e.(m) ± 2.59 1.03 0.82 0.16 0.04 2.14 1.30 0.49 1.05 cd@5% 7.19 2.85 2.27 0.44 0.11 5.92 3.59 1.36 2.90 cv% 4.10 3.17 1.84 3.33 3.45 6.27 3.60 12.59 6.55 dg-dark green, lg-light green, g-green, c-check variety among traits governing yield such as pod weight, shelling percent, number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod significant differences in mean values were observed between checks and selected advanced breeding lines.with respect to 10 pod weight, a ll the selected lines r ecor ded significantly higher pod weight ranging from 37.7 to 63.7 g as compared to checks with 23.3 to 43.0 g. highest pod weight of 63.7 g was recorded in iihr 15-6 and lowest of 23.3 g in check magadi local. all the br eeding lines except iihr 12-3 (37.7 g) performed significantly superior than all the checks for this specific trait. concurrent to this, shelling percent was also found to be high in the selected lines ranging from54 to 60% as compared to checks with 25 to 57%. results from mean of shelling percent revealed highest performance in the line iihr 15-21 (60%) followed by iihr 15-15 (58.3%) and least of 25% was recorded in check variety arka pramodh. further, number of seeds per pod in the selected lines were markedly higher ranging from 5.7 to 7.7 as compared to checks with only 2.0 to 4.3 seeds per pod. for this respective trait, iihr 15-6 followed by iihr 15-15 were found to have more seeds per pod with 7.7 and 6.7 respectively than checks. these results emphasize that pollination in check varieties was critically impaired due to exposure to high temperature eventually leading to seed abortion and lesser number of seeds with sma ller size. t he observed results were in accordance with the findings of few authors who reported lesser seed number and size in case of field pea after exposure to higher temperatures (lambert and linck, 1958; jeuffroy et al., 1990; poggio et al.,2005). in contrast to this, for the trait pods per plant resistant check magadi local reported highest of 24 pods whereas temperature sensitive high yielding check arka pramodh had lowest of 8 pods per plant. elsewhere, in the selected j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 62-66, 2020 65 lines it ranged from 14.0 to 22.3 wherein iihr 15-15 and iihr 1-1 recorded highest of 22.3 pods per plant and lowest of 14.0 pods per plant respectively. the reason behind abruptly low number of pods per plant in case of high yielding checks arka ajit (10.0) and arka pramodh (8.0) could be directly attributed to lack of high temperature stress tolerance. similar trend of decline in yield of heat susceptible cultivars has been r eported in ca se of bean ( phaseolus vulgaris) by exposing pla nts to higher da y temperatures of more than 280c (prasad et al., 2002). although tolerant check is performing superior with respect to this trait, yield was on the higher side in selected a dva nced br eeding lines owing to increased pod weight and more seeds per pod as compared to tolerant check. further, comparison of yield per se between checks and selected breeding lines over average of four years were convincing and disclosed significant differences between checks and breeding lines with selected lines dominating and out yielding all the three check varieties. average pod yield based on mean of four years in selected lines ranged from 5.9-7.6 t/ha in selected lines and in checks it was significantly lower with 2.6 to 3.1 t/ha. among the six advance breeding lines, highest yield of 7.6 t/ha was reported in iihr 15-15 followed by iihr 15-21 with 7.1 t/ha and iihr 15-6 with 6.7 t/ ha(table 2). all the three checks recorded significant reduction in yield levels that could be ascribed to effects of heat stress which potentially evoked flower drop, reduction in reproductive phase, reduced pod filling, abortion of seeds within pods finally lowering yield. in agreement to this, decline in yields of field pea cultivars due to high temperature stress was previously reported by guilioni et al. (1997), vijayla xmi (2013) and buecker t et al. (2015). eventhough all the six selected breeding lines were reported to be superior over checks, three lines viz., iihr 15-15, iihr 15-21 and iihr 15-6 proved to be outstanding owing to minimal reduction in yield when exposed to higher temperatures in comparison to others. further, percent increase in yield over lowest yielding check was reported to be 192.3% (iihr 1515), 173.1% (iihr 15-21) and 157.7% (iihr 15-6) in these three lines. additionally, the three selected breeding lines were also superior in terms of pod qualitycharacteristics such as colour along with other yield attributing traits and released as arka uttam, arka chaitra and arka tapas respectively. table 2. mean performance of selected breeding lines for pod yield (t/ha) during summer 2014 to 2017 iihr 15-6, iihr 15-15 and iihr 15-21 are selected advanced breeding lines identified for release as high temperature tolerant varieties. s l . advanced breeding 2014 2015 2016 2017 per cent no. lines and checks su mmer su mmer su mmer su mmer average increase mean mean mean mean over check 1. iihr 15-6 6.6 6.7 6.6 6.9 6.7 157.7 2. iihr 1-2 6.2 6.0 5.9 6.3 6.1 134.6 3. iihr 1-1 5.9 5.9 5.6 6.0 5.9 126.9 4. iihr 15-21 7.1 7.1 6.9 7.3 7.1 173.1 5. iihr 12-3 7.0 6.9 6.6 6.9 6.9 165.4 6. iihr 15-15 7.6 7.5 7.3 7.8 7.6 192.3 7. magadi local (c) 2.6 2.6 2.4 2.8 2.6 8. arka ajit (c) 3.1 3.0 2.7 2.8 2.9 9. arka pramodh (c) 2.7 3.3 3.0 3.2 3.1 s.e (m)± 0.18 0.15 0.17 0.18 cd@5% 0.51 0.42 0.47 0.49 cv% 4.80 3.90 4.60 4.49 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 62-66, 2020 breeding for improvement of high temperature tolerance in garden pea 66 these findings clearly illustrate that current breeding programme aimed towards incorporation of high temperature tolerance (33-350c) followed by rigorous selection procedures could successfully integrate heat stress tolerant genes into the selected lines as obvious from the results obtained from the study. further, the average yield obtained from the lines during off season cultivation i.e., summer was more than double in comparison to stress tolerant and high yielding checks. even though yield (6.7-7.1 t/ha) obtained is not on par with the actual yields that could be realized from high yielding cultivars (10-12 t/ha) during normal season of cultivation i.e., rabi, existing gap in yield levels can be compensated by the higher prices fetched for summer peas. hence, the three varieties generated from this breeding programme invariably suit for cultivating garden pea in off season preferably during early summer in regions where temperatures donot exceed 350c. further, the breeding material generated from the study tend to serve as base material for accomplishing in depth investigations on physiological and molecular mechanisms involved in regulating tolerance to high temperature in garden pea in the coming future. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the director, indian institute of horticultural research (icar-iihr), bengaluru for kind support. references bita, c.e. and gerats, t. 2013. plant tolerance to high temperature in a changing environment: scientific fundamentals and production of heat tolerance crops. front. plant sci.,4: 273. https://doi.org/ 10.3389/fpls.2013.00273 bueckert, r. a., wagenhoffer,s., hnatowich, g. and war kentin, t.d. 2015. effect of hea t and precipitation on pea yield and reproductive performance in the field. can. j. plant sci., 95: 629-639. https://doi.org/10.4141/cjps-2014-342 dahl, w.j., foster, l.m. and tyler, r.t. 2012. review of the health benefits of peas (pisum sativum l.). br. j. nutr.,108: s3-s10.https://doi.org/10.1017/ s0007114512000852 guilioni, l., wery, j. and lecoeur, j. 2003. high temperature and water deficit may reduce seed number in field pea purely by decreasing plant growth rate. funct. plant biol., 30: 11511164.doi: 10.1071/fp03105. guilioni, l., wery,j. and tardieu,f. 1997. heat stressinduced abortion of buds and flowers in pea, is sensitivity linked to organ age or to relations between reproductive organs? ann. bot.,80: 159168. jeuffroy, m.h., duthion, c., meynard, j.m. a nd pigeaire, a. 1990. effect of a short period of high day temperatures during flowering on the seed number per pod of pea ( pisum sativum l) agronomie, 2: 139-145. lambert, r.g. and linck, a. 1958. effects of high temperature on yield of peas. plant physiol.,33: 347-350. mohan, n., aghora, t.s., wani, m.a. and divya, b. 2013. garden pea improvement in india. j. hortl. sci., 8:125-164. nhb database, national horticultural board 2018-19, 1st advance estimates. petkova, v., nikolova, v., kalapchieva,s.h., stoeva,v., topa lova , e. a nd angelova , s. 2009. physiological response and pollen viability of pisum sativum genotypes under high temperature influence. proceedings iv balkan symposium on vegetables and potato, 830: 665-71. https:// doi.org/10.17660/actahortic.2009.830.96 poggio, s.l., satore, e.h., dethiou, s. and gonzalo, g.m. 2005. pod and seed numbers as a function of photothermal quotient during the seed set period of field pea (pisum sativum) crops. eur. j. agron., 22: 55-69. prasad, p.v.v., boote, k.j., allen, l.h. and thomas, j.m.g. 2002. effect of elevated temperature and carbon dioxide on seed-set and yield of kidney bean (phaseolus vulgarisl.) global change in biol., 8: 710-721. suzuki, n., rivero, r.m.,shulaev, v.,blumwald, e. and mittler, r. 2014. abiotic and biotic stress combinations.new phytol., 203: 32-43. https:// doi.org/10.1111/nph.12797 todorova, d., katerova,z., shopova,e., jodinskiene,m., jurkoniene, s. and sergiev, i.2016. responses of pea plants to hea t str ess and sper mine treatment. zemdirbyste-agric., 103 : 99-106. doi: 10.13080/z-a.2016.103.013 vijaylaxmi. 2013. effect of high temperature on growth, biomass a nd yield of field pea. le g. res., 36: 250-254. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 62-66, 2020 susmita et al. (received on 10.11.2019 and accepted on 10.01.2020) marigold is one of the most important commercially exploited flower crops of india. among crop production technologies, balanced n and p fertilization are essential for better plant-spread and flower yield per unit area. nitrogen and phosphorus are required in adequate quantity to attain ideal growth and to promote flowering (pandey and mishra, 2005). adequate supply of n results in vigorous plant growth, consequently superior yield of flowers of better quality. phosphorus is needed for normal growth and development of the plant due to its vital role in chlorophyll synthesis and physiological / metabolic processes of the plant. nutrient supply needs to be adjusted to specific requirement by the plant during various stages of its growth, to attain maximum yield (mengal, 1969). nitrogen is well known for its influence on plant growth, flower production and quality of bloom in marigold (noggle and fritz, 1979). in the absence of precise recommendations for some areas, growers impose manurial schedules of their own accord, resulting in improper nutrition to the crop. this upsets nutrient balance in the plant and is a major factor for low yield in many flower crops, posing a serious problem in flower production. therefore, an attempt was made to short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):116-119, 2015 influence of nitrogen and phosphorus on flowering in african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) var. cracker jack m. raja naik horticultural research station, anantharajupet dr. y.s.r horticultural university, venkataramannagudem west godavari dist. – 516 105, india e-mail: naik_raja2006@rediffmail.com abstract an investigation was conducted during the year 2000 to study the effect of nitrogen and phosphorus on flowering in african marigold. results revealed that among the four levels of nitrogen tested, highest level of nitrogen (n3) led to minimum number of days for the first flower-bud to become visible (31.66 days), days to flower-break (38.55 days), days to full-flowering (50.66 days). plants receiving n2 recorded significantly high number of flower heads per plant (28.42) and yield (11.11 t/ha). among the three levels of phosphorus tested, days taken to appearance of the first flower-bud, flower-break and full-flowering were significantly earlier in a treatment with no phosphorus (p0). however, number of flower heads per plant was significantly higher in p2 (28.3). as for interaction effect, a combination of the highest level of nitrogen with no phosphorus (n3p0) recorded early flowering. number of flower heads per plant was higher in n3p2 (31.83). highest flower-yield (11.65 t/ha) was recorded in n3p2. thus, it is concluded that nitrogen application advances flowering, while, phosphorus application delays flowering. key words: marigold, nitrogen, phosphorus, flowering improve flowering in marigold by applying various levels of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers to the plant. the experiment was conducted at horticultural garden, sri venkateswara agricultural college, tirupati, during year 2000. soil in the experimental plot was red sandy-loam with good drainage and a low water-holding capacity. soil samples were collected before applying the manure from a depth of 20cm in the experimental area from some randomly selected spots. the composite sample was analyzed for chemical characteristics and content of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. chemical analysis of the soil indicated that it was low in nitrogen and available phosphorus, high in available potash, and was alkaline in nature (table 1). raised nursery beds of 3m and 0.5m size table 1. chemical analysis of soil in horticultural garden at s.v. agricultural college, tirupati particulars quantity p h 7.4 ec 0.39 m. mhos per cm organic carbon low (below 0.5) available nitrogen 201 kg/ha available p2o5 9.2 kg/ha available k2o 130 kg/ha 117 nutrients affecting flowering in african marigold were prepared well in advance for seed sowing. seeds were treated with 0.3% captan prior to sowing on 20-07-2000. two hundred kilograms of farm yard manure was applied as a basal dose and mixed well into the soil at the last ploughing. n and p were applied in the form of urea (46.4%) and superphosphate (16.0% p2o5), respectively. the entire quantity of phosphorus and potash, and 50% of total nitrogen was applied as the basal dose. the remaining 50% of the nitrogen was applied as top-dressing three weeks after transplantation to the main field. thirty-day-old, healthy seedlings of uniform growth were used for transplanting, and, planted at 40cm x 40cm spacing. all the other field operations were performed as per the recommended package of practices. treatments comprised four n levels [0 (n0), 100 (n1), 150 (n2) and 200 (n3) kg n per ha] and three p levels [0 (p0), 100 (p1) and 200 (p2) kg p2o5 per ha]. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design, with three replications. data on days taken to appearance of the first flower-bud, days to flower-break, days to full-flowering, number of flower heads per plant, and yield (t/ha) were recorded. fischers’ (1963) method of analysis of variance was followed for analysis, and data was interpretation. f and t tests were applied and the results were tabulated. days taken to visibility of first flower-bud results revealed significant variation among the four levels of nitrogen for days taken to visibility of the first flower-bud (table 2). number of days taken got progressively and significantly reduced with increasing levels of nitrogen. plants receiving the highest dose of nitrogen (n3) took the least number of days (31.66) for appearance of the first flower-bud, whereas, plants treated with the lowest level of nitrogen (n0) took more number of days (34.66). however, levels of nitrogen were seen to be independent of each other, and were significantly superior over the treatment without nitrogen. as the level of phosphorus increased, time taken for appearance of the first flower-bud also increased. however, treatments p0 and p1 were of the same order and took nearly similar number of days (32.33, 32.58), but were significantly different from p2 treatment. interaction between nitrogen and phosphorus with regard to appearance of the first flower-bud was significant. minimum number of days (30.66) were required for this trait under the treatment of the highest level of nitrogen with no phosphorus (n3p0), closely followed by n2p1, n3p1 and n2p0, which were all of the same order. days to flower-break data presented in table 2 show that control plants (n0) took significantly higher number of days (41.88) than nitrogen treatments for flower-break. with increase in level of nitrogen, time taken for flower-break decreased significantly. however, treatments n3 and n2 were at par, but, significantly different from n1. a contrary influence of phosphorus level was observed on this trait. as the level of phosphorus increased, time taken for flower-break too increased. treatments p0, p1 and p1, p2 were of the same order, but p0 and p2 were statistically different. plants receiving the highest level of nitrogen with no phosphorus (n3p0) showed the earliest flower-break (37.00 days). this was significantly superior to all other treatments. control plants (n0p0) receiving neither nutrient flowered late (42.33 days), closely followed by n0p1 (42.00 days). difference between the early-flowering plants and the late flowering plants was found to be 5 days. table 2. influence of nitrogen, phosphorus and their interactions, on flower characters in marigold var. cracker jack treatment days to days to days number yield visibility flowerto full of flower t/ha of first break flowering heads flower-bud /plant nitrogen n 0 34.66 41.88 53.66 23.04 9.23 n 1 33.66 40.33 52.33 26.20 9.98 n 2 32.44 39.33 51.66 28.42 11.11 n 3 31.66 38.55 50.66 26.02 10.38 s.em 0.19 0.31 0.49 0.11 0.35 cd (p=0.05) 0.58 0.93 1.44 0.34 0.10 phosphorus p 0 32.33 39.58 51.41 24.22 9.60 p 1 32.58 39.99 51.83 25.23 10.12 p 2 34.41 40.49 52.99 28.30 10.80 s.em 0.17 0.27 0.42 0.09 0.03 c.d (p=0.05) 0.5 0.80 1.25 0.29 0.09 nitrogen x phosphorus n0p0 34.00 42.33 53.00 21.43 8.75 n0p1 34.33 42.00 54.00 22.46 9.23 n0p2 35.66 41.33 54.00 25.23 9.71 n1p0 33.00 40.00 51.66 25.33 9.51 n1p1 33.33 40.33 52.00 26.06 9.90 n1p2 34.66 40.66 53.33 27.20 10.52 n2p0 31.66 39.00 51.00 27.96 10.83 n2p1 31.33 38.66 51.33 28.33 11.18 n2p2 34.33 40.33 52.66 28.96 11.31 n3p0 30.66 37.00 50.00 22.16 9.31 n3p1 31.33 39.00 50.00 24.06 10.18 n3p2 33.00 39.66 52.00 31.83 11.65 s.em 0.34 0.54 0.85 0.19 0.061 c.d (p=0.05) 1.00 1.61 2.50 0.58 0.181 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):116-119, 2015 118 days to full flowering a perusal of data (table 2) indicates that among the four nitrogen levels tested, the highest level resulted in the shortest duration (50.66 days) for full flowering, closely followed by next highest n level (51.66 days), which was on par. a similar trend was observed in n2 and n3. highest level (n3) and lowest level (n0) of nitrogen differed significantly in their effect. various levels of phosphorus too exhibited a significant effect. as the level of phosphorus increased, the duration of full flowering reduced significantly. treatments p0, and p1 and p2 were of the same order, but p0 was statistically different from others. highest level of applied nitrogen with no phosphorus (n3p0) significantly reduced the number of days to full flowering (50.00 days), while this was highest in the treatment with the highest level of phosphorus with no nitrogen, and, both were independent. number of flower-heads per plant information in table 2 shows that increase in number of flower heads did not corroborate with increase in levels of nitrogen. highest number of flower heads (28.42) was recorded in plants receiving an intermediate level of nitrogen (n2). the highest dose of nitrogen (n3) resulted in fewer flower heads (26.02). the two were independent of each other. number of flowers was lowest (24.22) under no phosphorus treatment, (p0), and maximum (28.30) under the highest level of phosphorus (p2). production of flowers was significantly influenced by various combination treatments of nitrogen and phosphorus. n3p2 was superior to all other treatments. flower yield highest flower-yield (11.11 t/ha) was recorded in plants receiving an intermediate level of nitrogen (n2), while, the highest dose of nitrogen (n3) produced 10.38 t/ha yield. treatment p2 recorded significantly high flower yield (10.80 t/ha). this was significantly superior to that in the other p treatments. n3p2 was superior to all other treatments with reference to flower yield (11.65 t/ha). effect of nitrogen on flowering table 2 indicates that flowering was earlier in plants receiving nitrogen, compared to those receiving no nitrogen. however, the difference between highest level of nitrogen and nonitrogen was just 3 days and, from a practical point of view, this is not appreciable. number of days taken to appearance of the first flower-bud decreased progressively with increase in nitrogen level. number of days taken to 50% flowering was observed to be reduced with increasing level of nitrogen (0-90 kg n/ha) in marigold on sandy-loamy soil by anuradha et al (1988, 1990). chadha et al (1999) obtained earliest bud-initiation in plants treated with 30 kg n/ha. thus, result of the present experiment is in line with the above findings, however, our results differ from the findings of arora and khanna (1986) who reported delayed commencement of flowering in marigold with application of graded doses of nitrogen (0-40g/m2). no probable explanation for this was given. views are divergent on the effect of nitrogen on flowering. increased vegetative growth may help production of greater amount of photosynthates, leading to flowering stimulus, thus inducing early flowering. increased nitrogen levels stimulating early-flowering may sound contradictory to the general belief that plants normally remain vegetative, thus delaying flowering, due to high nitrogen; but, this does not seem to be true in all the cases. butters (1971) and vijaykumar and shanmugavelu (1978) reported early flowering in chrysanthemum with application of increased levels of nitrogen. table 3. nitrogen and phosphorus content (percentage) of the plant in marigold var. cracker jack as influenced by nitrogen, phosphorus and interaction thereof. treatment nitrogen phosphorus content (%) content (%) nitrogen n 0 1.17 0.22 n 1 2.40 0.25 n 2 2.85 0.26 n 3 3.25 0.28 s.em 0.04 0.006 c.d (p=0.05) 0.13 0.017 phosphorus p 0 2.36 0.24 p 1 2.40 0.25 p 2 2.49 0.26 s.em 0.04 0.005 c.d (p=0.05) 0.11 0.015 nitrogen x phosphorus n0p0 1.06 0.21 n0p1 1.17 0.23 n0p2 1.30 0.22 n1p0 2.16 0.24 n1p1 2.53 0.25 n1p2 2.53 0.26 n2p0 2.72 0.25 n2p1 2.83 0.27 n2p2 3.00 0.27 n3p0 3.20 0.28 n3p1 3.25 0.29 n3p2 3.31 0.28 s.em 0.08 0.01 c.d (p=0.05) 0.23 0.03 raja naik j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):116-119, 2015 119 effect of phosphorus on flowering plants receiving phosphorus took more number of days for appearance of the first flower-bud, flower bud break and full-flowering, while, control plants receiving no phosphorus came to flowering earlier. in other words, application of phosphorus delayed flowering. however, no statistical difference was seen between control plants and plants receiving 100kg p2o5 / ha (p1) with regard to date of appearance of the first flower-bud, flower-break and fullflowering. except for appearance of the first flower-bud, the two levels of phosphorus tested were found to be at par with each other. these observations indicate that application of phosphorus does not favour early flowering in marigold. however, these results are not in line with findings reported by others. for instance, anuradha et al (1990) and dahiya et al (1998) reported that the number of days required for 50% flowering reduced with application of phosphorus in marigold. reasons for early flowering due to phosphorus application, however, were not elucidated by them. interaction between nitrogen and phosphorus for flower induction flowering in marigold responded significantly to treatment combinations of nitrogen and phosphorus. plants treated with the highest dose of nitrogen with no phosphorus (n3p0) were the earliest in the appearance of first flowerbud (30.66 days), closely followed by n3p1, n2p1 and n2p0 which were of equal order statistically, but differed from the other treatments. nitrogen is known to promote vegetative growth and advances the reproductive phase in plants. this may have occurred in the present case too. phosphorus with no nitrogen (n0p2) delayed appearance of the flower-bud (35.66 days), and was of same order as n1p2. days to flower bud-break were the least (37 days) under n3p0, which differed significantly from the others. for full flowering, fewer days were recorded in n3p0 and n3p1 (50 days), while this value was highest (54 days) in phosphorus applied with no nitrogen (nop1 & n0p2). our data indicate that flowering is influenced greatly with treatment combinations having nitrogen; flowering was delayed in the absence of nitrogen, whatever the rate of phosphorus applied. increase in the content of nitrogen and phosphorus, singly or in combination, helped the plant in terms of better growth and production, as ,these two nutrients play a very important role in the plant. yield is the net result of several contributing traits like number of flowers per plant, weight of the flower and the nutrient content in the plant and exhibited a positive correlation (table 3). thus, it is concluded that nitrogen application advances flowering, while, phosphorus application delays flowering in marigold. references anuradha, k., pampapathy, k. and narayana, n. 1990. effect of nitrogen and phosphorus on flowering, yield and quality of marigold. indian j. hort., 47:353357 anuradha, k., pampapathy, k. and sreenivasulu, r. 1988. effect of n and p2o5 on flowering and yield of marigold (tagetes erecta l.) s. indian hort., 36:321-323 arora, t.s. and khanna, k. 1986. effect of nitrogen and pinching on growth and flower production of marigold (tagetes erecta l.) indian j. hort., 43:291-294 butters, r.e. 1971. an experimental programme on yearround chrysanthemum. commercial grower no. 3879:598-9, hort. abstracts, 41:1687 chadha, a.p.s., rathore, s.v. and ganesh, r.k. 1999. influence of n and p fertilization and ascorbic acid on growth and flowering of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) s. indian hort., 47:342-344 dahiya, s.s., narender singh, n. and singh, s. 1998. effect of nitrogen and phosphorus on growth, flowering and yield of marigold (tagetes erecta l.). environ. ecol., 16:855-857 fischer, r.a. 1963. statistical methods for research workers. 14th edn. hafner, oliver & boyd, london, 378p mengal, k. 1969. factors limiting maximum yield: transition from extension to intensive agriculture with fertilizers. international potash institute, berne, switzerland, pp. 27-33 noggle, g.r. and fritz, j. 1979. introductory plant physiology. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, india pandey, r.k. and mishra, a. 2005. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on growth, flowering and seed yield in marigold cv. pusa narangi gainda. prog. hort., 37:341-344 vijay kumar, m. and shanmugavelu, k.g. 1978. studies on the effect of nitrogen and phosphorus on chrysanthemum cv. yellow (chrysanthemum indicum l.). i. flowering and yield. madras agril. j., 65:247-252 (ms received 06 february 2014, revised 18 april 2015, accepted 25 april 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):116-119, 2015 nutrients affecting flowering in african marigold introduction the primary objective of a crop improvement programme is to assess genetic variability existing in that particular crop the extent to which the character to be improved is heritable. critical estimation of variability existing in the base population is a prerequisite for successful crop improvement through various plant breeding methods. burton (1952) pointed out that calculating genetic coefficient of variation (gcv) along with heritability could assess the best picture of amount of advancement to be expected by selection. ramanujan and thirumalachar (1967) suggested that heritability estimate in the broad sense is reliable if accompanied by high genetic advance. johnson et al (1955) and swarup and chaugle (1967) also considered that heritability estimates along with genetic gain were useful and more reliable than heritability estimates alone in predicting selection response. effectiveness of selection variability studies in palayankodan ecotypes (aab genomic group) of banana (musa spp.) c. rajamanickam and k. rajmohan1 department of fruit crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university periyakulam east – 625 604, india e-mail: manickshorti@yahoo.co.in abstract six palayankodan ecotypes of banana belonging to aab genomic group were evaluated for genetic variability among quantitative traits. genetic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance were estimated for eighteen traits that included plant height, pseudostem girth, number of leaves per plant, leaf width, number of suckers per plant, days taken from planting to shooting, total crop duration; length, girth, weight and volume of finger; hand weight, bunch weight, number of fingers per bunch, number of fingers per hand, ripe-fruit weight, sugar/acid ratio and pulp weight. remarkable variability was observed among the collections for these characters. bunch weight, number of fingers per bunch and number of suckers per plant with very high value of pcv, gcv, heritability and genetic advance makes it prime traits for direct selection. plant height, pseudostem girth, total crop duration, sugar:acid ratio, finger length and days taken from planting to shooting with high value of heritability and moderate value of genetic advance. pcv are other important traits which need to be considered for selection. the volume of finger with low values for gcv, pcv, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean implies that it is highly influenced by environment and should not be taken as a criterion for selection. plant height, total crop duration, sugar:acid ratio, finger length, pseudostem girth, number of fingers per bunch and days taken from planting to shooting showed high genetic advance and heritability and important characters to be considered for selection of ecotypes. key words: banana, palayankodan, ecotypes, heritability, genetic advance, pcv, gcv based on phenotypic performance can be more useful and reliable only when selection is based on heritability estimates combined with genetic gain. above all these, knowledge of the extent of variability in germplasm is an essential prerequisite in any breeding programme. banana (musa spp.) is the most important fruit crop grown in the tropical and subtropical regions of india. clones of ‘aab’ genomic group occupy major banana growing area in india. this group comprises several popular desert types, of which, palayankodan (syn. mysore poovan) is the most widely cultivated single clone because of its drought tolerance and suitability for ratooning (rajeevan and geetha, 1982). the vast difference in agroclimatic conditions under which the clone is grown in india, is likely to generate numerous mutants of the clone. however, only one mutant, namely ‘mottapoovan’, has been reported so far. progress of a breeding programme depends upon the extent to which desirable traits are heritable. high heritability estimate is 1 department of pomology and floricluture, college of agriculture, vellayani 695 522, kerala j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 109-113, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 110 used to predict the usefulness of traits in a selection programme. hence, the present investigation was undertaken to study genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in eighteen morphological traits of six palayankodan banana ecotypes. material and methods the present experiment was carried out in the department of pomology and floriculture, college of agriculture, vellayani, thiruvananthapuram, kerala. a total of six palayankodan ecotypes procured from banana research station, kannara, thrissur and college of agriculture, vellayani, thiruvananthapuram, were planted and maintained at the college orchard, college of agriculture, vellayani. six ecotypes of palayankodan banana were raised in completely randomized block design (crd) with five replications as per panse and sukhatme (1985). cultural practices as per the package of practice recommendations were followed (kau, 1996). the six ecotypes of palayankodan banana (all dessert type, having 3x ploidy and aab genomic composition) are as follows: palode palayankodan, pknnr, chandra bale, pisang ceylon, mottapoovan vellapalayankodan. the genetic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance were estimated for eighteen characters which included plant height, pseudostem girth, number of leaves per plant, leaf width, number of suckers per plant, days taken from planting to shooting, total crop duration, bunch weight, number of fingers per hand, number of fingers per bunch, hand weight; length, girth, weight and volume of finger, ripe fruit weight, pulp weight and sugar:acid ratio. biometric data were collected and statistically analyzed following fischer (1960). from the analysis of variance, genetic parameters like phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation (pcv and gcv) (burton, 1952), habitability estimates (burton and de vane, 1953) and genetic advance (allard, 1960) were calculated. results and discussion phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation for eighteen morphological characters of six palayankodan ecotypes were studied. pcv were higher than their respective gcv for all the characters, which reflects influence of environment on phenotypic expression of these characters. significant difference was recorded among ecotypes of banana for various plant parameters studied. results presented in table 1 indicate the range and general mean for each character studied. the highest range of variation was recorded for plant height, total crop duration, days taken from planting to shooting and number of fingers per bunch. the lowest range of variation was recorded for the number of suckers per plant, number of leaves per plant, number of fingers per hand, hand weight, bunch weight, finger length and girth of finger. phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance are presented in table 2. highest pcv was observed for bunch weight (42.07%), followed by the number of suckers per plant (31.99%), hand weight (24.84%) and pseudostem girth (23.62%). lowest pcv value was seen for leaf width (7.18%), followed by ripe fruit weight (7.78%). gcv ranged from 38.14 per cent for bunch weight to 6.27 per cent for volume of finger. highest gcv was recorded for bunch weight (38.13%), followed by number of suckers per plant (27.94%), hand weight (21.18%) and sugar:acid ratio (22.03%). work of rajeevan and geetha (1982) and valsalakumari and nair (1986) also supported this, with high estimates for gcv. table 1. mean, range and coefficient of variation (cv) for eighteen traits in palayankodan ecotypes of banana trait mean ± s.e. range cv (%) plant 311.03 ± 23.3 417.2 – 264.20 17.6 height (cm) pseudostem 65.80 ± 6.3 96.06 – 56.46 23.5 girth (cm) number of 8.53 ± 0.7 11.20 – 6.80 20.3 leaves per plant leaf width (cm) 78.98 ± 2.1 87.64 – 72.92 6.6 number of 9.4 ± 1.5 15.80 – 6.20 39.0 suckers per plant days taken from 227.87 ± 15.6 300.0 – 188.80 16.8 planting to shooting total crop 323.87 ± 17.3 407.0 – 286.80 13.1 duration (days) bunch 16.19 ± 1.9 23.04 – 10.60 28.8 weight (kg) number of 16.90 ± 0.9 18.93 – 14.30 12.2 fingers per hand number of 189.73 ± 15.2 254.20 – 72.20 19.6 fingers per bunch hand 2.03 ± 0.2 2.80 – 1.50 22.0 weight (kg) length of 11.09 ± 0.8 13.60 – 8.36 17.6 finger (cm) girth of 9.76 ± 0.5 10.52 – 8.14 12.3 finger (cm) finger weight (g) 99.38 ± 3.0 109.22 – 90.08 7.4 volume of 92.49 ± 2.8 101.74 – 82.54 7.3 finger (cc) ripe fruit 82.80 ± 2.5 88.78 – 72.74 7.4 weight (g) pulp weight (g) 63.66 ± 2.6 68.30 – 52.32 9.9 sugar:acid ratio 48.01 ± 4.3 68.53 – 37.53 22.2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 109-113, 2010 rajamanickam and rajmohan prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 111 lowest gcv value was observed for volume of finger (6.27%), followed by leaf width (6.47%). rajeevan and geetha (1982) observed high pcv and gcv values for bunch weight, number of fingers per bunch and weight of finger for 40 banana cultivars. valsalakumari and nair (1986) reported highest pcv and gcv for bunch weight, hand weight, number of fingers per bunch, pseudostem girth and finger weight. the vast difference in pcv and gcv and very low estimates for gcv indicate an immense influence of environment on manifestation of this character. similar findings were also made by sreerangaswamy et al (1980) in banana. significant difference between phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation for number of leaves per plant, number of suckers per plant, number of fingers per bunch, bunch weight, finger weight and volume of finger suggests that these characters were not influenced by environment. the estimates of heritability separate genetic variability from phenotypic variability and indicate possibility and the extent to which improvement can be brought about through proper selection. moderate phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation were registered for plant height (17.68% and 17.58%), total crop duration (13.19% and 13.10%), number of fingers per bunch (20.22% and 19.49%), finger length (18.46% and 17.41%), finger girth (14% and 11.84%) and sugar:acid ratio (22.76% and 22.02%), respectively. these characters offer much scope for improvement by selection and hybridization. heritability, in a broad sense, gives the amount of heritable portion of a character. environmental coefficient of variation was high in bunch weight (17.78%) and the lowest in total crop duration (1.58%). characters possessing high heritability can be improved directly through selection, as, these are relatively less affected by environment. the magnitude of heritability indicates effectiveness of selection based on phenotypic performance (johnson et al, 1955). in the present study, all traits exhibited high heritability. this ranged from 72.53% for leaves per plant, to 98.90% for plant height. characters like plant height (98.90%), total cropduration (98.57%), pseudostem girth (98.29%), bunch weight (97.31 %), number of fingers per bunch (92.81%), sugar:acid ratio (93.63%) and length of finger (89.02%) show high heritability. relatively higher values of heritability for these characters imply that a large proportion of phenotypic coefficient of variance (pcv) was attributable to the genotypic coefficient variance (gcv). high heritability values for number of fingers per bunch, plant height, days taken from planting to shooting and number of fingers per bunch obtained in the present study are in agreement with findings of sreerangaswamy et al (1980) in banana. high heritability has also been reported for pulp weight and length of finger (singh and sharma, 1997), pseudostem girth, bunch weight, finger length and number of fingers per bunch (rajeevan and geetha, 1982), plant height, days taken from planting to flowering, finger length, sugar:acid ratio, bunch weight and pesudostem girth (valsalakumari and nair, 1986), crop duration (rosamma and namboodiri, 1990) and bunch weight, plant height and crop duration (uma et al, 2000). katiyar et al (1974) demonstrated that heritability values alone are inadequate to cannot be taken as a tool to calculate the amount of genetic progress achieved by selecting the best individual. ramanujam and thirumalachar (1967) opined that heritability estimates could be reliable if accompanied by a high genetic advance. table 2. phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv), genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv), environment coefficient of variation (ecv), heritability (broad sense) and genetic advance (ga) as percentage of mean for eighteen traits of palayankodan ecotypes of banana trait gcv pcv ecv heritability ga as (%) (%) (%) (broad % of sense) % mean plant 17.58 17.68 1.86 98.90 36.02 height (cm) pseudostem 23.42 23.62 3.09 98.29 47.83 girth (cm) number of 19.69 23.36 10.59 77.56 35.72 leaves per plant leaf width 6.47 7.18 3.11 81.26 12.02 (cm) number of 27.94 32.00 15.59 82.16 38.68 suckers per plant days taken from 16.73 16.97 2.78 76.25 34.01 planting to shooting total crop 13.09 13.19 1.58 98.57 26.77 duration (days) bunch weight (kg) 38.13 42.07 17.77 97.31 71.21 number of 9.77 10.58 4.01 85.38 18.60 fingers per hand number of 19.48 20.23 5.42 92.81 50.26 fingers per bunch hand 21.18 24.84 12.97 72.73 37.21 weight (kg) length of 17.41 18.46 6.12 89.02 33.84 finger (cm) girth of 11.84 14.01 7.47 71.53 20.63 finger (cm) finger 7.24 8.16 3.75 78.88 13.26 weight (g) volume of 6.27 10.42 8.32 36.20 7.77 finger (cc) ripe fruit 7.30 7.78 2.69 88.07 14.11 weight (g) pulp weight (g) 9.73 1.34 3.48 88.63 18.87 sugar:acid ratio 22.03 22.73 5.74 93.63 43.91 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 109-113, 2010 variability studies in aab banana ecotypes prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 112 in the present investigation, there was wide variation among characters for genetic advance. genetic advance as per cent of mean, varied from 7.77% for volume of finger to 71.21% for bunch weight. characters like bunch weight (71.21%), plant height (36.02%), pseudostem girth (47.83%), days taken from planting to shooting (34.01%), number of fingers per bunch (50.26%), sugar:acid ratio (43.91%), hand weight (37.21%), number of suckers per plant (38.68%) and finger length (33.84%) showed higher genetic advance, along with high heritability. this clearly suggests that these characters are mainly of the additive type as reported by johnson et al (1955). lowest genetic advance was obtained for volume of finger (7.77%), leaf width (12.02%), ripe fruit weight (14.11%), number of fingers per hand (18.61%) and pulp weight (18.87%). number of suckers per plant and bunch weight with high value for pcv, gcv and heritability, coupled with genetic advance, indicate that the character is predominantly controlled by additive gene action. this is supported by the hypothesis proposed by panse (1957) suggesting that characters exhibiting high heritability and ga were governed by additive gene effects. similar results were reported by rosamma (1982) and uma et al (2000). this implies that selection of bunch weight, number of fingers per bunch and number of suckers per plant can bring about effective improvement, and may be exploited in breeding programmes. high heritability does not necessarily mean a high genetic advance for a particular character (allard, 1960). heritability, along with genetic advance, is more useful than heritability alone in predicting the result and effect of selecting the best individuals (johnson et al, 1955). uma et al (2000) reported plant height, with very high value of heritability and moderate value of genetic advance, revealed relatively low influence of environment on the trait for silk ecotypes of banana. in a study with 48 banana varieties, falling under different genomic group traits such as weight of finger, number of fingers per bunch and bunch weight, recorded a high estimate of heritability along with high genotypic gain in the crop (rosamma, 1982). in the present study, plant height, with high value of heritability (98.92%) and moderate value of genetic advance (36.02%) revealed relatively low influence of environment on this trait. a study by uma et al (2000) also revealed that plant height had high value of heritability (91.11%) and moderate genetic advance (27.54%). sugar:acid ratio, pseudostem girth, days taken from planting to shooting, number of fruits per bunch and finger length showed high values of heritability, coupled with moderately high genetic advance, indicative the influence of environment on expression of these characters to some extent and, that, rigid selection might bring about improvement in these traits. though ripe fruit weight, number of fingers per hand, leaf width, finger width and finger weight showed moderate estimate of heritability, lower value of genetic advance reflected favourable influence of environment rather than that of the genotype, and simple selection may not be rewarding. thus it may be suggested that improvement is likely to be very effective for these characters in banana. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge kerala agricultural university, thrissur, kerala, india, for providing funds and facilities to carry out the research work. references allard, r.w. 1960. principles of plant breeding. john wiley & sons, inc., new york,usa burton, c.w. 1952. quantitative inheritance in grasses. procs. 6th int’l. grassland congr., 1:277-283 burton, g.w. and de vane, e.h. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-481 fischer, r.a. 1960. the design of experiments. heffner publishing co., inc., new york,usa johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soya beans. agron. j., 47:314-318 katiyar, r.p., mishra, b., singh, s.n. and chauhan, y.s. 1974. genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance of yield and its components in indian mustard. ind. j. agril. sci., 44:291-293 kau. 1996. package of practices recommendation, kerala agricultural university, vellanikkara, thrissur, kerala, india panse, v.g. 1957. genetics of quantitative characters in relation to plant breeding. ind. j. genet., 17:18-27 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers, 2nd edition. icar, new delhi, p 108 rajeevan, p.k. and geetha, c.k. 1982. variability studies in banana. south ind. hort., 34:197-200 ramanujam, s. and thirumalachar, d.k. 1967. genetic variability of certain characters in red pepper (capsicum annuum l.). mysore j. agri., 1:30-36 rosamma, c.a. 1982. biometrical studies in banana. m.sc. (ag) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, kerala,india rosamma, c.a. and namboodiri, k.m.n. 1990. genetic j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 109-113, 2010 rajamanickam and rajmohan prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 113 analysis of yield in banana, agril. res. j. kerala, 28:1-8 singh, d.b. and sharma, t.v.r.s. 1997. genetic variability in banana. ind. j. hort., 54:124-127 sreerangaswamy, s.r., sambandamurthy, s. and murugan, m. 1980. genetic analysis in banana. in: national seminar on banana production technology, tnau, coimbatore, c.r. muthukrishnana and j.b.m. abdulkhader (eds.) swarup, v. and chaugle, d.s. 1967. studies on genetic variability in sorgham. 1. phenotypic variations and its heritable components in some quantitative characters contributing towards yield. ind. j. genet., 22:31-36 uma, s., dayarani, m., singh, h.p., shyam, b. and sathiamoorthy, s. 2000. studies on genetic variability in banana silk sub group (aab). ind. j. hort., 57:106-109 valsalakumari, p.k. and nair, p.c.s. 1986. genetic variability in banana. agril. res. j. kerala, 24:66-72 (ms received 4 may 2009, revised 21 june 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 109-113, 2010 variability studies in aab banana ecotypes prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 479 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 479-487, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction india has a large diversity of mangoes, with more than 1000 varieties (salvi and gunjate, 1988) that are grouped based on the number of embryos in the seed into monoembr yonic and polyembryonic types (mukherjee 1997). most of the commercially grown varieties in india are monoembryonic while the polyembryonic varieties are used as rootstock since their apomictic seedlings arising from nucellus are known to be true to type. each cultivar is distinguished by a unique combination of characters such as plant architecture, fruit size, color, taste, and flavor. correct identification of varieties as well as discrimination of zygotic and nucellar seedlings is very important for crop improvement as well as for clonal rootstocks, even though morphological and molecular assessments have greatly aided in cultivar identification (naik and gangolly 1950, ravishankar et al., 2000, karihaloo et al., 2003, pandit et al., 2007). to complement this work, more reliable variety specific biochemical markers are a desirable attribute. there is a reliable variability in the volatile profile in mango cultivars (andrade et al., 2000). more than 270 aroma volatile compounds have been reported in various mango cultivars, including monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, esters, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, acids, aliphatic hydrocarbons (shibamoto and tang, 1990). each of these volatile substances has its own distinct odour, and the combinations, quantities, and ratios of these molecules impart unique fragrance traits (araguez and valpuesta 2013). mango leaves are a rich source of phenolic compounds such as xanthone-c-glycosides, gallotannins, benzophenones, flavonol glycosides, 5alkyland 5-alkenylresorcinols and many other miscellaneous phenols (barreto et al., 2008) such as comparison of leaf volatile aroma constituents and phenolic acid profiles of the seedling originated polyembryonic mango (mangifera indica l.) genotypes kanade n.m.1, shivashankara k.s.2*, kurian r.m.1 and sankaran m.1 1division of fruit crops, 2division of basic sciences, icarindian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089 *corresponding author email : shivashankara.ks@icar.gov.in abstract in mango, leaf and fruit volatile aroma profiles are variety specific which can be used as fingerprint of a variety. such biochemical markers can also discriminate the nucellar and zygotic seedlings in polyembryonic mango varieties. in order to validate the applicability of volatile as well as phenolic acid profiles as biomarkers, the open pollinated seedlings of three polyembryonic varieties of mango were compared with their mother trees. leaf volatile and phenol acid profiling were done using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (gcms) and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (lcms) methods respectively. the sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were the most abundant in all the genotypes studied. monoterpenoids were the major compounds in cultivars vellaikolumban and olour, while the sesquiterpenoids were the major compounds in cv. turpentine. while terpinolene was the major monoterpenoid compound in vellaikolumban and limonene in cv. olour, the sesquiterpene á-gurjunene was the major compound in cv. turpentine. volatile profiling showed clear differences between the varieties but was similar within a variety. among the 15 phenolic acids quantified in the leaves, p-coumaric acid, gallic acid, and ferulic acids were predominant whereas, vanillic acid, syringic acid, gentisic acid, benzoic acid, and sinapic acids were low in quantity. phenolic acid profile did not show significant diversity among the varieties and therefore cannot be used for identification of varieties. the volatile profiling can be used for the identification and differentiation of polyembryonic mango genotypes. keywords: gcms, lcms, mango, nucellar seedling, polyembryony 480 kanade et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 479-487, 2022 kaempferol, quercetin, catechin, rhamnetin, gallic acid, benzoic a cid, ellagic acid, ta nnins, fla vonols, benzophenone, and their derivatives (mwaurah et al., 2020, dorta et al., 2014). in this study an attempt has been made to study the variability in leaf volatile and phenolic acid profiles of polyembryonic mango genotypes to identify their suitability as biochemical marker to identify the polyembryonic seedlings. materials and methods plant material three weeks old fresh mango leaves (top three) were taken from the op seedlings of polyembryonic genotypes (vellaikolamban, olour, and turpentine) conserved in the field gene bank of icariihr, bengalur u for hs-spme and phenol profiling analysis. the volatile flavor constituents were analyzed by headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hsspme) technique using gc–ms/ms and the phenol profiling were done by lc-ms/ms technique. volatile profiling solid phase micro extraction (spme) of volatiles the adsorption of analytes from the coated phase of fused silica fibre and partitioning of analytes between the stationary phase of the fibre and the extraction medium as gas constitute solid phase micro extraction. it consists of a 1-2 cm long fused silica fiber, coated with a stationary phase such as poly dimethyl siloxane (pdms), divinyl benzene (dvb) and carboxen (car) or the mixture of all the three and bonded to a stainless-steel plunger and holder. these fibres are to be first conditioned at 250°c for 2-3 hours in the injector port of gc with the continued flow of helium gas. in our study, ten grams of the fresh leaf was powdered using liquid nitrogen and taken in 100 ml conical flask along with a magnetic stirrer and then previously conditioned spme fibre (facundo et al., 2013) was inserted to absorb the head-space volatiles for 2 hours. fibre was subsequently injected into the gc-ms for the separation and identification of compounds. gc-ms analysis gc-ms analysis was performed on varian-3800 gas chromatograph coupled with varian 4000 gc-ms/ms ion trap mass selective detector. the ms column was a fused-silica capillary column of 30 cm x 0.25 mm id, 0.25mm film thickness for the analysis. the injector temperature was set at 250ºc and all injections were split-less mode for 0.2 min, detector temperature was 270°c, and the temperature programs for the column was as follows: 40°c for 2 min at an increment of 3°c/min to 190°c, held for 1 min, then 5°c/min to 220°c and maintaining the constant temperature for 5 min. the mass spectrometer was set in the external electron ionization mode (ei) with the carrier gas helium at 1.5 ml/min; injector temperature at 250°c; trap temperature at 180°c, ion source-heating at 190°c, transfer line temperature at 260°c, ei-mode at 70 ev, with full scan-range 50-350 amu (atomic ma ss unit). t he total vola tile pr oduction wa s calcula ted by the individua l peak a reas in the chromatogram, individual compounds identified by comparison of the spectra against the retention index determined using homologous series of n-alkanes (c5 to c32) as standard using two spectral libraries available as wiley and nist-2007, and expressed as relative percent area. profiling phenols by lcms the phenolic acids for lc-ms/ms analysis was extracted using 80% methanol as previously described by weidner et al. (2000) and chen et al. (2001) with slight modification. 10 g sample was homogenized in methanol (80%), centrifuged and made up to 50 ml. 20 ml extract was taken and evaporated near to dryness under vacuum at 45°c and then diluted to 5 ml with water later extracted thrice with petroleum ether then in 40 ml of ethyl acetate using separating funnel. the aqueous layer was discarded and extract was ethyl acetate evaporated to dryness under vacuum at room temperature. to the dry residue, 4 ml of 2n naoh was added and allowed to hydrolyze for overnight. once acidifying to ph 2 using 5 ml 2n hcl, again re-extracted with 50 ml ethyl acetate. ethyl acetate layer was again re-extracted twice with 25 ml of 0.1n nahco3. the ethyl acetate layer which carried the flavonoids was evaporated to complete dryness under vacuum, the residue was dissolved in 2 ml ms grade methanol filtered through 0.2μm nylon filter prior to injection in lcms ms for flavonoids estimation. the aqueous layer was further acidified to ph 2 with 5 ml 2n hcl and extracted thrice with 25 ml ethyl acetate, the ethyl acetate layer was dried completely in rotary evaporator and the residue was dissolved in 2 ml ms grade methanol filtered through 0.2μm nylon filter prior to injection in lcms ms for phenolic acid estimation. 481 lc and ms-ms conditions the phenolic acids were resolved on the analytical column beh-c18 (2.1 x 50 mm, 1.7 μm) from waters india ltd., protected by a vanguard beh c18 (waters, usa) with the gradient flow of organic and aqueous phase with the flow rate of 0.3ml/min. the column temperature was maintained at 25°c during analysis and the sample injection volume was 2μl. the eluted phenolic acids and flavonoids from the uplc column effluent pumped directly without any split into the tqd-ms/ms (waters, usa) system optimized for the a nalysis of the phenolic acid. sta tistica l a na lysis (pea rson cor r ela tion) wa s per for med by the web-b a sed p or t a l o pstat (sheoran et al., 1998). results and discussion volatile profiling in the three polyembryonic seedling originated plants of thr ee varieties, the leaf volatile profile was generated, using gcms/ms. the volatiles varied significantly among the genotypes. the most abundant hydrocarbons were monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes in all the three genotypes. in vellaikolumban and olour genotypes (table 1 and 2), the monoterpenoids were maximum while the sesquiterpenoids were minimum but in cv. turpentine (table 4) sesquiterpenes were ma ximum. among the monoter penoids, the terpinolene was the major volatile compound followed by α-pinene in the 3 seedling originated plants of cv. vellaikolumban while sesquiterpenoids β-elemene, γcadinene and δ-cadinene were found to be the minor table 1 : relative peak area (%) of leaf volatile compounds of genotype vellaikolumban using spme based gc-ms analysis and their correlation among plants volatile compound vp1 vp2 vp3 α-pinene 10.577 7.218 7.195 camphene 1.077 0.729 0.700 β-pinene 3.618 2.817 3.055 sabinene 1.906 2.140 1.628 3-carene 5.541 6.494 5.830 α-terpinene 2.072 2.269 1.034 limonene 2.416 2.359 1.974 cis-ocimene 1.314 1.315 1.115 trans-ocimene 1.870 2.156 1.184 terpinolene 49.423 57.821 50.252 α-copaene 0.585 0.367 0.865 (-)-β-elemene 0.288 0.126 0.449 β-caryophyllene 3.921 3.883 6.805 α-humulene 2.072 1.917 4.313 germacrene d 3.452 0.908 3.499 γ-cadinene 0.369 0.368 0.712 δ-cadinene 0.801 0.612 1.890 pearson correlation matrix vp1 vp2 vp3 vp1 1 vp2 0.995** 1 vp3 0.993** 0.995** 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 479-487, 2022 comparison of leaf volatile aroma constituents and phenolic acid profiles in mango 482 kanade et al table 2 : relative peak area (%) of leaf volatile compounds of genotype olour using spme based gc-ms analysis and their correlation among plants volatile compound op1 op2 op3 trans-2-hexenal 0.208 0.756 0.649 cis-3-hexen-1-ol 0.166 0.389 0.261 α-thujene 0.128 0.182 0.128 α-pinene 19.567 11.412 17.241 camphene 0.329 0.181 0.235 sabinene 0.813 0.399 0.331 β-pinene 2.276 1.554 1.713 trans-ocimene 4.101 4.111 4.447 α-phellandrene 5.417 5.631 5.687 limonene 56.958 62.001 57.140 α-terpinene 0.801 0.754 0.663 terpinolene 0.368 0.378 0.357 nerol 0.029 0.203 0.095 2-methyl-2-bornene 0.277 0.959 0.759 allo-ocimene 0.019 0.034 0.026 4-terpineol 0.016 0.177 0.114 methyl salicylate 0.495 1.229 0.570 )-elemene 0.199 0.261 0.368 germacrene b 2.733 3.478 5.044 (-)-α-cubebene 0.201 0.211 0.372 pearson correlation matrix op1 op2 op3 op1 1 op2 0.988** 1 op3 0.998** 0.993** 1 volatile compounds. the correlation analysis between the volatile compounds (table 1) of three plants of vellaikolumban were found to be significantly and positively correlated to each other (r = 0.9930.995). in olour (ta ble 2), limonene wa s the ma jor monoterpenoid followed by α-pinene and allo-ocimene. the correlation matrix (table 3) indicated that volatiles of all the three plants of cv. olour were highly corr elated to each other (r = 0.988-0. 993). in turpentine (table 3), sesquiterpenoids were the major group with α-gurjunene being the highest followed by β-sellinene in all the three seedling originated plants. volatiles of all the 3 plants were highly correlated with each other (table 4) (r = 0.991-0.998). genotypes can be identified ba sed on the volatile profile. monoterpene and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons are the most abundant volatile components in all mango cultivars, accounting for 70–90% of total volatiles. wetungu et al. (2015) studied the chemical profile of six mango varieties and reported that the mango leaves were rich in monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes. the αpinene, phellandrene, limonene and ocimene were important monoterpene compounds which clearly distinguished the variability among 34 appemidi genotypes a nd sesquiterpenes composition was observed in genotype gaddemara (90.39%) followed by kalwaguda (78.73%). among sesquiterpenes, αhumulene a nd ca r yophyllene wer e the ma jor j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 479-487, 2022 483 comparison of leaf volatile aroma constituents and phenolic acid profiles in mango table 3 : relative peak area (%) of leaf volatile compounds of genotype turpentine using spme based gc-ms analysis and their correlation among plants volatile compound tp1 tp2 tp3 α-pinene 2.61 3.09 2.41 sabinene 0.42 0.25 0.36 α-phellandrene 5.62 3.09 2.36 β-elemene 0.48 0.57 0.52 α-gurjunene 40.12 37.76 38.01 β-caryophyllene 14.57 16.25 15.13 α-humulene 5.94 7.31 6.94 allo-aromadendrene 0.33 0.48 0.41 (+)-9-aristolene 3.12 3.56 4.10 β-sellinene 22.56 23.53 25.69 γ-gurjunene 2.69 2.94 2.58 γ-cadinene 1.21 1.02 1.44 pearson correlation matrix tp1 tp2 tp3 tp1 1 tp2 0.995** 1 tp3 0.991** 0.998** 1 compounds in all the genotypes (veena, 2018). ma et al. (2018) detected α-pinene and terpinolene in mango varieties and these compounds are considered to be important volatiles. cultivars pingguo and guixiang contained the highest level of α-pinene and limonene respectively. moreover, limonene was a predominant component in five mango cultivars, including cuba delicioso, super hadden, ordoez, filipino and la paz (pino et al., 2005). 3-carene was the dominant volatile in cv. boluoxiang, but limonene was not found. sesquiterpene hydrocarbons form the second largest group of aroma volatiles in mango (pandit et al., 2009). significant differences in the composition of total sesquiterpenoids were recorded among genotypes by dona ld (2019) a nd the highest per cent of sesquiter penoids composition was obser ved in genotype rumani (91.48%) followed by h-151 (90.17%), while, the least content was noticed in genotype da sheha r i (26. 22%). in the ca se of sesquiterpenoids, caryophyllene, α-gurjunene and αhumulene contributed the maximum to the leaf volatiles in the genotypes studied indicating that the leaf volatile profile can be used as a fingerprint for varietal identification and could be important for clearly distinguishing the variability among mango genotypes (donald, 2019, veena, 2018, gebara et al., 2011, dzbreveamic et al., 2010, liu et al., 2013). dzbreveamic et al. (2010) reported that the leaves of m. indica was rich in sesquiterpenes (70.3%) and δ3-carene, α-gurjunene, β-selinene and β-caryophyllene were dominant compounds in mango leaf oil. in conclusion, mango cultivars differ in terms of total vola tile concentr a tion, both qua lita tively a nd quantitatively. the volatile profiling of polyembryonic genotype was found to be different between the genotypes, but was strongly correlated with the seedling originated plants within a genotype. the three seedling originated plants of vellaikolumban, olour and turpentine genotypes were also found to be morphologically similar within the group. hence it is proved that the volatile profiling can be successfully used to identify the seedling originated plants of polyembryonic genotype. phenolic acid profiling the phenolic acid profile of mango leaves was deter mined using liquid chromatogra phy-mass spectrometry (lc-ms/ms). fifteen phenolic acids j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 479-487, 2022 484 kanade et al table 4 : phenolic acid (mg/gm) profiling of genotypes viz vellaikolumban, olour and turpentine and their correlation among genotypes phenolic acid vp1 vp2 vp3 op1 op2 op3 tp1 tp2 tp3 vanillic acid 0.05 0.96 4.67 0.09 2.97 4.74 7.66 7.46 9.37 syringic acid 0.18 0.11 0.07 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.05 ferulic acid 541.31 635.65 522.05 306.61 223.91 355.38 272.26 378.66 344.17 caffeic acid 17.90 29.01 5.95 9.24 4.13 6.97 9.02 6.66 15.37 gallic acid 564.95 705.11 383.15 144.47 145.30 272.86 437.98 514.02 742.97 p-coumaric acid 1096.94 1266.06 927.67 872.10 606.84 1657.16 967.13 1088.20 1411.17 o-coumaric acid 72.08 86.21 54.47 83.80 60.77 133.59 67.77 136.14 148.89 2,4-dihydroxy 24.44 18.81 0.68 5.28 3.21 6.60 91.88 85.89 101.45 benzoic acid gentisic acid 57.51 5.90 1.76 7.60 0.00 0.62 40.80 43.60 204.64 protocatechuic acid 27.95 43.01 0.60 0.93 0.00 7.48 178.99 157.59 1.20 p-hydroxy 36.30 28.96 19.79 24.03 26.99 35.94 31.80 29.34 32.63 benzoic acid salycylic acid 59.60 17.16 15.43 22.05 10.01 10.07 34.45 47.56 94.12 benzoic acid 4.74 1.40 9.43 3.93 3.50 1.37 3.01 0.67 0.42 3-hydroxy 49.45 35.74 24.26 30.14 34.16 48.07 40.86 40.13 39.64 benzoic acid sinapic acid 2.51 2.01 0.52 1.80 5.26 3.65 1.92 1.92 3.81 pearson correlation matrix vp1 vp2 vp3 op1 op2 op3 tp1 tp2 tp3 vp1 1 vp2 0.998** 1 vp3 0.992** 0.990** 1 op1 0.946** 0.934** 0.960** 1 op2 0.965** 0.956** 0.974** 0.997** 1 op3 0.927** 0.915** 0.932** 0.991** 0.988** 1 tp1 0.966** 0.964** 0.947** 0.943** 0.955** 0.950** 1 tp2 0.981** 0.980** 0.966** 0.951** 0.966** 0.950** 0.995** 1 tp3 0.967** 0.961** 0.938** 0.926** 0.942** 0.936** 0.974** 0.978** 1 (table 4) were identified in the leaves of all the 3 genotypes. among them, p-coumaric acid, gallic acid and ferulic acids were found to be the major phenolic acids. on the other hand, vanillic acid, syringic acid, gentisic acid, benzoic acid and sinapic acids were minor contributors in phenol profiling. p-coumaric acid was the predominant phenolic acid in all the genotypes followed by gallic acid, ferulic acid in vellaikolumban and turpentine but in olour it was ferulic acid followed by gallic acid. the correlations between the seedlings originated from the same kernel indicated a highly significant correlation (r = 0.9150.998) (table 4). correlations between the genotypes also showed significantly higher values indicating that this parameter is not variety specific. earlier reports indicate that the proportion and profile of polyphenols in mango vary depending on the variety and also plant part (ma et al., 2011). ocampo et al. (2020) reported variations in the phenolic profiles among mango types. gallic, vanillic, syringic, and ferulic acids were all j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 479-487, 2022 485 found in the peels of all mango genotypes, while coumaric and chlorogenic acids were not detected. gallic acid has also been identified as a common phenolic acid present in the mango types keitt, sensation, and gomera 3 (dorta et al., 2014). our results showed that based on phenolic acid profiling, it is not possible to distinguish the genotypes. on the contrary to these findings, ocampo et al. (2020) reported that the phenolic acid profile could be utilised as a marker/fingerprint in the future to correctly identify types such as the carabao mango, which is well-known in the philippines for its flavour. conclusion volatile aroma and phenolic acid profiling from the mango leaf using gcms and lcms/ms techniques indicated that leaf volatile profile is variety specific and can also be used successfully to identify the nucellar seedlings of polyembyonic varieties which are similar to the mother plant. leaf volatiles are stable which gives unique aroma to a particular genotype. however, the phenolic a cid profiling could not differentiate the varieties. acknowledgement the authors thanks to icar-iihr, bengaluru for providing the basic infrastructural facilities to conduct the research. the first author is also grateful for the financial support provided by university grants commission, new delhi. references abbasi, a.m., guo, x., fu, x., zhou, l., chen, y., zhu, y. , ya n, h. a nd 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( ed). vola t ile c ompounds in f ood a nd bever a ges , m a r c el d ekker, new yor k, 389-409. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 479-487, 2022 (received : 11.04.2022; revised : 08.12.2022; accepted : 29.12.2022) comparison of leaf volatile aroma constituents and phenolic acid profiles in mango evaluation of papaya (carica papaya l.) hybrids for yield and papain recovery j. davamani, t.n. balamohan1 and r. sudha2 department of fruit crops horticultural college & research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003, india e-mail: rsudhahort@yahoo.co.in abstract six papaya hybrids, viz., co-1 × pusa nanha, co-2 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha, co-5 × pusa nanha, co-6 × pusa nanha and co-7 × pusa nanha, along with their respective parents, were evaluated for fruit yield and quality. higher fruit yield was recorded in hybrids co-2 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha and co-5 × pusa nanha at first harvest. higher papain recovery was seen in co-2 × pusa nanha and co-5 × pusa nanha and activity of this enzyme was highest in co-5 × pusa nanha. for fruit yield at first harvest, hybrids co-2 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha, co-6 × pusa nanha and co-5 × pusa nanha recorded higher heterosis over midand better parental values. fruit yield at first harvest exhibited high genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation. days to flowering had the least genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation. highest heritability estimates were recorded for plant height at first flowering, ascorbic acid content and titrable acidity. fruit yield at first harvest showed high genetic advance as percentage of mean and the least genetic advance was seen for days to flowering. co-2 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha, co-5 × pusa nanha and co-6 × pusa nanha showed better yield and earliness, and are recommended for further evaluation. key words: carica papaya l., heterosis, heritability, genetic advance, correlation coefficient, path analysis j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):165-171, 2013 introduction papaya (carica papaya l.) is a polygamous diploid species with a small genome of 372 mbp/1c (arumuganathan and earle, 1991). it has nine pairs of chromosomes and is native to tropical america from where it spread to most of the caribbean and asian countries during 16th century. the fruit is highly nutritious and rich in vitamins a, c and in minerals, especially, calcium. papaya pulp is used as a major ingredient in fruit processing industries due to its high pectin levels. papaya is the richest source of carpaine, an alkaloid, and the raw fruit is used for making ‘tutti frutti’. papain, a proteolytic enzyme extracted from papaya latex, is used as a meat tenderizer, in many cosmetics, in pharmaceuticals, fabric weaving and in chill-proofing of beer. papaya seeds are rich in oil and protein. the basic principle in hybridization is to combine desirable characters of the two parents. generally, hybrid evaluation is based on heterotic expression. progress in crop improvement through plant breeding is propelled by better understanding and exploitation of heterosis. heterosis breeding in papaya has been done by several workers earlier to improve yield and papain content (iyer and subramanyam, 1981; chan, 1992; kamalkumar et al, 2010). 1horticultural college & research institute for women, tnau, trichy 620 009, tamil nadu, india 2central potato research station, muthorai 643004, nilgiris, tamil nadu, india in the present study, six hybrids were evaluated along with their parents for yield, yield contributing traits, quality attributes, papain recovery, per se performance, heterosis, and genetic components, viz., phenotypic coefficient of variation, genotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance. material and methods six intervarietal hybrids, viz., co-1 × pusa nanha, co-2 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha, co-5 × pusa nanha, co-6 × pusa nanha and co-7 × pusa nanha, along with their respective parents, were evaluated in randomized block design, with three replications, during 2009-2010 at the college orchard, department of fruit crops, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. hybrid seeds were sown in polybags of 20cm x 10cm size, filled with a mixture of red earth, sand, farm yard manure, in 1:1:1 ratio. polythene bags with 4-5 seedlings 45 days old were transplanted to the main field. irrigation was applied at five day intervals. cultural practices, including weeding and plant protection measures, were improved whenever necessary by adopting the package of practices developed by tamil nadu agricultural 166 university. growth parameters, in terms of plant height, stem girth, number of leaves and first-fruiting height, were recorded as per standard methods. fruit yield was recorded in terms of number of fruits per tree, weight of the fruit, and tree yield at first harvest. data on mean fruit length, fruit mid-circumference, cavity index, flesh thickness and papain recovery per fruit, were calculated from data recorded with five fruits in each experimental unit. for estimation of papain recovery, five unripe mature, uniform-sized fruits 85-90 days old were selected. these fruits were tapped by making 3mm longitudinal incisions on the fruit surface from the fruit-stalk end to the tip of the fruit, between 6.00 and 8.00 am. four cuts were uniformly spaced over the four sides of the fruit. the incisions were repeated 4 times, at three day intervals. latex was collected in specially made aluminum trays. wet latex was dried in shade and dry weight of this crude, unrefined papain was recorded, and expressed in grams. papain activity was estimated as per moore (1984). fruit quality characters like tss, total sugars, acidity, ascorbic acid and carotene content were recorded. total sugars were estimated as per hedge and horreiter (1962), titrable acidity estimated by the a.o.a.c. method (1960), ascorbic acid content was estimated as per rosenberg (1945) and carotene as per roy (1973). average values were subjected to standard statistical procedures, namely, analysis of variance (panse and sukhatme, 1961); genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance as suggested by burton (1952), lush (1940) and johnson et al (1955), respectively. results and discussion mean data on biometrical, yield and quality characters of parents and their hybrids are presented in tables 1 and 2. among the hybrids, co-2 × pusa nanha and co-5 × pusa nanha took minimum number of days to flower. dinesh et al (2000) reported early flowering to be one of the vital characters in papaya production. co-7 × pusa nanha recorded the lowest mean value for first-flowering height. flowering at an earlier node is considered as an index of precocity (chan, 1992). co-2 × pusa nanha and co-1 × pusa nanha recorded minimum plant height and stem girth at flowering. higher number of leaves translates as increased leaf area and increased photosynthesis. among the hybrids, co-2 × pusa nanha registered highest number of leaves and lowest fruiting-height among the hybrids. hybrids co-7 × pusa nanha, co-5 × pusa nanha and co-4 × pusa nanha registered lower mean plant height at first harvest compared to their respective female parents. among the crosses, co-2 × pusa nanha recorded highest stem girth at first harvest and highest number of leaves. in table. 1. mean performance of papaya parents and their hybrids for biometrical, yield and fruit (physical) attributes parents /hybrid days to firstplant stem no. of no. of mean tree fruit fruit cavity pulp harvest fruiting height at girth at leaves at fruits at fruit yield at length circumfindex thickness height first first first first weight first (cm) erence (%) (cm) (cm) harvest harvest harvest harvest (kg) harvest (cm) (cm) (cm) (kg) co-1 273.76 122.94 203.62 32.76 24.66 26.87 1.57 41.88 23.14 41.17 23.70 2.80 co-2 286.29 99.98 187.71 33.54 23.94 23.23 1.69 39.24 26.11 45.82 25.80 2.88 co-4 254.61 112.85 216.00 30.14 18.46 22.40 1.38 30.53 23.10 36.09 25.26 2.66 co-5 258.98 117.14 215.26 28.73 17.51 29.22 1.34 38.86 26.53 37.84 26.49 2.33 co-6 292.53 109.94 193.94 30.29 24.03 22.99 1.56 35.68 23.10 41.92 27.21 2.68 co-7 262.59 117.49 189.89 29.20 16.81 14.01 0.75 10.52 22.83 28.26 24.03 2.36 pusa nanha 261.05 75.06 134.57 27.66 22.85 19.51 1.34 25.86 23.08 42.85 20.80 2.89 co-1 × 272.98 101.73 195.00 31.78 25.73 27.16 1.61 42.75 24.74 42.30 24.67 2.94 pusa nanha co-2 × 254.74 88.14 189.80 33.54 26.38 36.38 2.02 73.46 27.95 45.37 27.36 2.83 pusa nanha co-4 × 262.47 95.35 179.54 30.40 23.37 33.33 1.90 63.45 27.28 45.84 26.28 2.85 pusa nanha co-5 × 275.18 97.74 176.89 29.40 24.00 31.38 1.89 59.16 26.89 43.50 27.85 2.74 pusa nanha co-6 × 268.96 105.24 196.67 31.92 23.17 35.61 1.61 57.23 24.33 43.41 26.67 2.84 pusa nanha co-7 × 255.56 89.24 172.86 29.80 23.25 22.49 0.87 19.12 22.68 30.21 21.15 2.58 pusa nanha mean 267.67 102.53 188.59 30.71 22.63 26.51 1.50 41.37 24.75 40.35 25.17 2.72 sed 10.17 7.44 9.78 1.73 2.48 3.53 0.13 5.51 1.18 2.08 1.92 0.09 cd (p = 0.05) 20.99 15.35 20.19 3.56 5.11 7.29 0.26 11.37 2.43 4.29 3.96 0.19 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):165-171, 2013 davamani et al 167 table 2. mean performance of papaya parents and their hybrids for fruit quality attributes and papain recovery parents /hybrid tss total reducing non-reducing titrable ascorbic carotenes sugar: papain papain (obrix) sugars sugars sugars acidity acid content content acid recovery activity (%) (%) (%) (%) (mg/100g) (mg/100g) ratio (g/fruit) (tu/mg) co-1 10.21 9.93 9.31 0.62 0.09 37.78 3.41 115.49 1.97 83.09 co-2 10.50 10.79 8.53 2.26 0.18 82.23 3.25 31.42 1.96 53.32 co-4 10.16 6.54 4.31 2.23 0.18 43.34 1.97 24.85 0.78 70.80 co-5 10.21 11.65 9.86 1.79 0.13 26.67 2.45 92.02 1.61 98.91 co-6 11.03 9.48 7.61 1.87 0.07 48.89 3.59 137.37 0.73 65.84 co-7 8.30 7.03 6.33 0.70 0.18 43.34 3.81 40.14 0.60 59.60 pusa nanha 10.45 7.84 7.25 0.59 0.17 65.56 1.95 46.98 1.27 144.10 co-1 × 11.58 10.64 9.92 0.73 0.14 60.00 1.57 79.03 1.49 97.36 pusa nanha co-2 × 10.92 10.67 10.09 0.57 0.19 71.12 1.79 55.79 3.25 72.28 pusa nanha co-4 × 9.10 7.96 6.87 1.09 0.10 43.34 1.56 77.83 1.72 49.27 pusa nanha co-5 × 9.10 8.59 7.94 0.65 0.05 54.45 0.94 194.08 2.21 126.30 pusa nanha co-6 × 11.34 12.93 10.25 2.68 0.16 48.89 1.62 64.95 1.57 81.84 pusa nanha co-7 × 8.92 9.14 8.38 0.76 0.12 48.89 2.02 77.13 1.38 88.23 pusa nanha mean 10.17 9.48 8.21 1.27 0.14 51.88 2.30 79.78 1.56 83.91 sed 0.07 0.04 0.03 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 15.21 0.004 0.12 cd (p = 0.05) 0.14 0.09 0.06 0.11 0.01 0.00 0.01 31.38 0.01 0.24 the present investigation, all the hybrids, in general, exceeded their parents for number of fruits at first harvest and fruit yield at first harvest. among the hybrids, co-2 × pusa nanha registered highest fruit length, followed by co-4 × pusa nanha. similarly, co-4 × pusa nanha registered the highest circumference, followed by co-2 × pusa nanha among the hybrids. among the crosses, co-1 × pusa nanha registered highest pulp thickness and total soluble solids. majority of the hybrids excelled their parents for total sugars and reducing sugars. however, higher mean values for these parameters were obtained in the crosses co-6 × pusa nanha, co-2 × pusa nanha and co-1 × pusa nanha. among the hybrids, co-5 × pusa nanha recorded lowest titrable acidity, and co-2 × pusa nanha and co-1 × pusa nanha registered higher mean values for ascorbic acid content. for carotene, co-7 × pusa nanha recorded highest content, followed by co-2 × pusa nanha. highest sugar: acid ratio was seen in co-5 × pusa nanha, among the hybrids. among the hybrids, co-2 × pusa nanha and co-5 × pusa nanha registered higher papain recovery per fruit. kamalkumar (2003) stated that the hybrids pusa dwarf × 9-1(d) and co-5 × 9-1(d) registered higher papain recovery and papain activity, respectively. in the present study, among the hybrids, co-5 × pusa nanha and co-1 × pusa nanha registered higher papain activity, while, among the parents, pusa nanha recorded highest papain activity. chovatia et al (2010) reported that co-6 had better dry weight of latex. relative heterosis (di) and heterobeltiosis (dii) values in papaya hybrids for biometrical, yield and fruit characters are presented in tables 3 and 4. among the hybrids, co-5 × pusa nanha recorded significantly negative heterosis over the better parent for first-flowering height. kamalkumar et al (2010) stated that dioecious hybrids, viz., co-2 × pusa gaint and co-5 × 9-1(d) registered negative heterosis for first-flowering height. among the hybrids, co-5 × pusa nanha registered highly significant and negative heterobeltiosis for first-flowering height. kamalkumar (2003) also stated that hybrid combination, co-2 × co-5, registered highly negative heterosis for this trait. among the parents, pusa nanha, a dwarf variety, when crossed with co-2, a medium tall variety, exhibited very high heterotic effect. highest negative heterobeltiosis was noticed in the cross co-5 × pusa nanha for first-flowering height. among the hybrids, co-4 × pusa nanha registered significantly positive relative heterosis for stem girth at first-flowering. subhadrabandhu and nantaswatsri (1997) also reported increased stem girth in progenies, in their study. the cross co-4 × pusa nanha had maximum significantly positive heterosis over mid-parental values for number of leaves at first-flowering. among the crosses, co-2 × pusa nanha j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):165-171, 2013 evaluation of papaya hybrids 168 table 3. relative heterosis (di) and heterobeltiosis (dii) in papaya hybrids for biometrical, yield and fruit characters character co-1 × co-2 × co-4 × co-5 × co-6 × co-7 × pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha di dii di dii di dii di dii di dii di dii days to flowering -0.09 -0.65 -4.45 -5.54 -2.15 -2.16 -7.32* -8.88# -1.03 -1.75 -3.83 -6.09 first-flowering 20.61# -5.86 28.56# 2.91 20.62# -9.70 3.26 -26.16# 21.33# -7.85 12.34* -14.97* height (cm) plant height at 8.43* -1.02 35.92# 19.91# 29.01# 19.40# 0.39 -17.60# 5.99 -7.50* 11.88# 0.13 first flowering (cm) stem girth at -27.19# -29.17# -0.25 -2.04 9.11* 1.12 -0.63 -0.87 0.86 -0.94 3.28 -2.33 first flowering (cm) number of leaves -7.32 -8.89 9.74 8.43 23.96# 9.10 1.99 1.15 -3.98 -8.08 6.36 2.34 at first flowering days to harvest 2.08 -0.28 -6.92 -11.02# 1.80 0.54 5.83 5.41 -2.83 -8.06* -2.39 -2.68 first-fruiting 2.76 -17.25* 0.71 -11.84 1.48 -15.51* 1.71 -16.56* 13.77 -4.28 -7.31 -24.04* height (cm) plant height at 15.32# -4.23 17.79# 1.11 2.43 -16.88# 1.13 -17.82# 19.73# 1.41 6.55 -8.97 first harvest (cm) stem girth at 5.20 -2.99 9.61 0.00 5.19 0.86 4.27 2.33 10.16 5.38 4.82 2.05 first harvest (cm) number of leaves 8.31 4.34 12.76 10.19 13.14 2.28 18.93 5.03 -1.15 -3.58 17.25 1.75 at first harvest number of fruits 17.12 1.08 70.24# 56.61# 59.06# 48.80# 28.79* 7.39 67.58# 54.89# 34.19 15.27 at first harvest mean fruit 10.65 2.55 33.33# 19.53* 39.71# 37.68# 41.04# 41.04# 11.03 3.21 -16.75 -35.07 weight (kg) tree yield at 26.22 2.08 125.68# 87.21# 125.04# 107.83# 82.82# 52.24# 85.99# 60.40# 5.11 -26.06 first harvest (kg) fruit length (cm) 7.05 6.91 13.64 7.05 18.15 18.10 8.41 1.36 5.37 5.32 -1.20 -1.73 fruit circumference (cm) 0.69 -1.28 2.33 -0.98 16.14# 6.98 7.82 1.57 2.42 1.31 -15.03* -29.50# cavity index (%) 10.88 4.09 17.42 6.05 14.11 4.04 17.78 5.13 11.10 -1.98 -5.64 -11.99 *significant at 5% level, # significant at 1% level table 4. relative heterosis (di) and heterobeltiosis (dii) in papaya hybrids for fruit quality characters and papain recovery character co-1 × co-2 × co-4 × co-5 × co-6 × co-7 × pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha pusa nanha di dii di dii di dii di dii di dii di dii tss (obrix) 12.10# 10.81# 4.25# 4.00# -11.69# -12.92# -11.91# -12.92# 5.59# 2.81# -4.85# -14.64# total sugars (%) 19.75# 7.15# 14.55# -1.11* 10.71# 1.53* -11.85# -26.27# 49.31# 36.39# 22.93# 16.58# reducing sugars (%) 19.81# 6.55# 27.88# 18.29# 18.86# -5.24# -7.19# -19.47# 37.95# 34.69# 23.42# 15.59# non-reducing sugars (%) 20.66* 17.74 -60.00# -74.78# -22.70# -51.12# -45.37# -63.69# 117.89# 43.32# 17.83* 8.57 titrable acidity (%) 7.69* -17.65# 8.57# 5.56* -42.86# -44.44# -66.67# -70.59# 33.33# -5.88* -31.43# -33.33# ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 16.12# -8.48# -3.76# -13.51# -20.40# -33.89# 18.07# -16.95# -14.57# -25.43# -10.21# -25.43# carotene (mg/100g) -41.42# -53.96# -31.15# -44.92# -20.41# -20.81# -57.27# -61.63# -41.52# -54.87# -29.86# -46.98# sugar: acid ratio -2.03 -25.10 23.17 -8.57 68.22 35.06 172.32# 143.39# -48.20# -64.05# 33.11 12.84 papain recovery (g/fruit) -8.02# -24.37# 101.24# 65.82# 67.80# 35.43# 53.47# 37.27# 57.00# 23.62# 47.59# 8.66# papain activity (tu/mg) -14.29# -32.44# -26.78# -49.84# -54.15# -65.81# 3.95# -12.35# -22.03# -43.21# -13.37# -38.77# *significant at 5% level, # significant at 1% level recorded highest negative heterobeltiosis for days to first harvest. in the present investigation, some hybrids were found to be positively heterotic. however, positive heterosis is not a favorable attribute for days to first-harvest. among the hybrids, co-7 × pusa nanha registered highest negative heterobeltiosis for first-fruiting height. the hybrids ‘co-5 × pusa nanha’ and ‘co-4 × pusa nanha’ expressed significantly negative heterosis over their better parent. among the crosses, co-2 × pusa nanha registered highest heterobeltiosis for number of leaves at first harvest. among the crosses, co-2 × pusa nanha, co-6 × pusa nanha and co-4 × pusa nanha are the three important cross combinations to be considered for further advancement, since, these recorded high heterotic vigour over the mid-, and better parental values for number of fruits at first harvest. iyer and subramanyam (1981) and chan j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):165-171, 2013 davamani et al 169 (1992) reported high heterosis for this trait. however, kamalkumar et al (2010) recorded significantly positive heterosis for number of fruits per plant in the cross combinations ‘co-2 × pusa giant’ and ‘9-1(d) × co-5’. among the hybrids, co-5 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha and co-2 × pusa nanha recorded higher heterotic values over the mid-, and better parental values for mean fruit weight. kamalkumar et al (2010) reported similar findings by recording higher heterotic value for this trait in the cross combination co-2 × co-5. in the present study, all the hybrid combinations excelled their parents and the overall mean registered positive heterotic vigour over the mid-parental value for tree yield at first harvest. however, except co-1 × pusa nanha and co-7 × pusa nanha, all other cross combinations expressed heterotic vigour over the midand better parental values. among the hybrids, co-2 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha, co-5 × pusa nanha and co-6 × pusa nanha with their high heterotic effect, may be forwarded to f2 generation for further segregation. suma (1995) recorded higher yield and heterotic vigour in papaya crosses 9-1(d) × co-2, co-6 × co-2 and cp81 × 9-1(d). similar results were obtained by kamalkumar (2003) in dioecious and gynodioecious crosses. among the hybrids, co-4 × pusa nanha is the only hybrid recording higher significant and positive heterosis for fruit circumference over its midparental value and higher positive heterosis for fruit length over its mid and better parental value. higher heterosis for fruit length and fruit circumference has been observed earlier by iyer and subramanyam (1981), chan (1992), and kamalkumar et al (2010). in the present study, none of the hybrids registered significant heterosis for pulp thickness. however, hybrid co-4 × pusa nanha had highly positive relative heterosis for this trait. they also found higher flesh thickness, with maximum heterosis in the cross co-3 × co-7. three of the hybrids, viz., co-1 × pusa nanha, co6 × pusa nanha and co-2 × pusa nanha exhibited positive and significant relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis for total soluble solids. among the hybrids, co-6 × pusa nanha registered higher heterotic values for total sugars, reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars. kamalkumar (2003) observed maximum relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis for total sugars and reducing sugars in the cross combination co-5 × 9-1(d). ‘co-5 × pusa nanha’ recorded highest negative heterosis over midand better parental values for titrable acidity. for heterotic vigour, among the hybrids, co5 × pusa nanha and co-1 × pusa nanha registered higher positive and significant heterosis over midparental values for ascorbic acid content. among the hybrids, co-5 × pusa nanha registered the highest negative heterosis for carotene content. kamalkumar et al (2010) stated that the crosses pusa dwarf × 9-1(d) and iihr 37 × coorg honey dew recorded significant higher heterosis for carotene content. co-5 × pusa nanha exhibited the maximum significant positive heterosis over both midand better parents. kamalkumar (2003) reported that the cross combination co-5 × 9-1(d) registered highest relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis for sugar acid ratio and high mean value for this trait. in the present study, the cross co-2 × pusa nanha registered high heterotic value for papain recovery. except the cross co-1 × pusa nanha, all hybrids registered significant and positive heterosis for papain recovery. among the hybrids, co-5 × pusa nanha registered higher positive and significant heterosis for papain activity over the midparent. kamalkumar et al (2010) stated that hybrids pusa dwarf × 9-1(d) and co-5 × 9-1(d) registered higher heterotic value for papain recovery and papain activity, respectively. heritability and genetic advance as per cent of the mean in papaya hybrids for biometrical, yield and fruit characters are presented in figs. 1 and 2. very low gcv for days to flowering indicated that the study material had a fig 1. genetic data for biometrical and fruit attributes in papaya parents and hybrids 1. first-flowering height (cm) 11. cavity index (%) 2. first-fruiting height (cm) 12. flesh thickness (cm) 3. plant height at first harvest (cm) 13. papain recovery (g/fruit) 4. stem girth at harvest (cm) 14. papain activity (tu/mg) 5. number of leaves at first harvest 15. tss (obrix) 6. number of fruits at first harvest 16. total sugars (%) 7. mean fruit weight (kg) 17. titrable acidity (%) 8. tree yield at first harvest (kg) 18. ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 9. fruit length (cm) 19. carotene (mg/100g) 10. fruit circumference (cm) 20. sugar: acid ratio* g c v pcv ga (%) of mean *parameter p er ce nt ag e j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):165-171, 2013 evaluation of papaya hybrids 170 narrow genetic base. moderate heritability and low genetic advance reported for this trait indicates that the environment had an enormous influence on days to flowering. kamalkumar (2003) also stated very low gcv, with moderate heritability and low genetic advance for this trait. higher heritability and higher genetic advance estimates observed for firstflowering height indicated that selection may yield desirable results in a few breeding cycles. a similar result was obtained by kamalkumar (2003) for firstflowering height when crossing with dioecious parents. however, giacometii (1987) observed that early-flowering plants produced less number of nodes and, as a consequence lower yield. genetic coefficient of variation for plant height at first-flowering was just 11.57%. however, higher heritability estimates and computed genetic advance indicated that selection procedure should be effective for this trait. genetic coefficient of variation noted as very low, with high heritability and moderate genetic advance, for stem girth at firstflowering indicated breeding-worthiness of this trait. high heritability estimates reported for the number of leaves at first-flowering could provide ample opportunities for improving this trait. moderate heritability and low genetic advance observed for days to first harvest indicate the influence of environment on this trait. high heritability and high genetic advance found in first-fruiting height indicate the possibility of improving the trait. high heritability and moderate genetic advance expressed for plant height at first harvest reveals that selection is possible for this trait. similar findings were reported earlier by kamalkumar (2003) and karunakaran et al (2010). moderate heritability estimates and low genetic advance reported for stem girth at first harvest indicates that environment had much influence on this trait. high heritability for stem girth has been earlier reported by cynthia et al (2000) and kamalkumar (2003). moderate heritability estimates and moderate genetic advance found for number of leaves at first-harvest indicates a limited possibility for selection. examination of genetic parameters governing number of fruits at first-harvest indicates that selection is possible owing to prevalence of a high degree of heritability and high genetic advance. high heritability for this trait has been reported earlier by cynthia et al (2000) and singh and kumar, (2010) in papaya. very high heritability estimates and high genetic advance for fruit weight in the present study indicates a scope for improvement of this trait. karunakaran et al (2010) also reported high values of heritability and genetic advance registered for fruit weight. in the present study, examination of genetic parameters governing fruit yield at first-harvest indicates that selection is possible due to presence of a high degree of heritability and genetic advancement, with high expression of genetic coefficient of variation. heritability estimates are true indicators of genetic potentiality of an individual and act as a tool for selection (johnson et al, 1955). mansha ram and akhtar (1993) reported high heritability and genetic advance for fruit length and fruit yield characters in papaya. jana et al (2006) also reported similar results for fruit length, fruit yield and number of fruits per plant in papaya. high heritability estimates and higher genetic advance for fruit circumference and high heritability estimates and moderate genetic advance for fruit length were seen. genotypic coefficients of variation estimates are low for both fruit length and fruit circumference. high heritability and moderate genetic advance for these traits indicate lesser influence of the environment. similar observations have also been reported by jana et al (2006) and karunakaran et al (2010). for cavity index, a narrow spectrum of variability, moderate heritability and genetic advance result in a limited scope for selection. karunakaran et al (2010) observed high heritability and moderate genetic advance for this trait. high heritability estimates and moderate genetic advance were recorded for pulp thickness. genotypic coefficients of variation estimates were low for this trait. high heritability and moderate genetic advance reveal that their trait is not influenced by the environment. high heritability and moderate genetic advance offer better fig 2. genetic parameters of biometrical and fruit attributes in the parents and hybrids 1. first-flowering height (cm) 11. cavity index (%) 2. first-fruiting height (cm) 12. flesh thickness (cm) 3. plant height at first harvest (cm) 13. papain recovery (g/fruit) 4. stem girth at harvest (cm) 14. papain activity (tu/mg) 5. number of leaves at first harvest 15. tss (o brix) 6. number of fruits at first harvest 16. total sugars (%) 7. mean fruit weight (kg) 17. titrable acidity (%) 8. tree yield at first harvest (kg) 18. ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 9. fruit length (cm) 19. carotene (mg/100g) 10. fruit circumference (cm) 20. sugar: acid ratio* *parameter p er ce nt ag e heritability j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):165-171, 2013 davamani et al 171 selection opportunities for tss. kamalkumar (2003) observed highest values for total soluble solids in pusa dwarf × 9-1(d). higher heritability and genetic advance for all the traits, viz., total sugars, reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars, offer a wider base for selection. moderate genotypic coefficient of variation and genetic advance were noticed for ascorbic acid content. high heritability for this trait provided ample chance for selection. higher genetic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance for carotene content and sugar:acid ratio too provided better opportunities for selection. high heritability and high genetic advance were recorded for papain recovery and papain activity. high heritability for these characters reveals that environment had no influence on these traits. based on mean performance for yield and quality attributes, hybrids co-2 × pusa nanha, co-4 × pusa nanha, co-5 × pusa nanha and co-6 × pusa nanha were found to be better among the hybrids evaluated. studying f2 populations of these hybrids will help identify the best hybrid derivatives with 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and nontaswatsri, c. 1997. combining ability analysis of some characters of introduced and local papaya cultivars. sci. hort., 71:203-212 suma, 1995. breeding investigations in papaya (carica papaya). ph.d. thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india (ms received 12 december 2012, revised 16 september 2013, accepted 05 october 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):165-171, 2013 evaluation of papaya hybrids influence of organic manures and fertilizers on nutrient uptake, yield and quality in cabbage-baby corn cropping sequence r. srinivasan1, k. jeevan rao, v. sailaja and d. kalaivanan2 acharya n.g. ranga agricultural university, college of agriculture rajendranagar, hyderabad – 500 030, india e-mail: srinivasan.surya@gmail.com abstract field experiments were conducted at acharya n.g. ranga agricultural university, hyderabad, andhra pradesh, india, during rabi and kharif seasons of 2010 and 2011 to study direct, cumulative, or residual effect of organic manures (farmyard manure, vermicompost, poultry manure, neem cake, and combinations thereof) along with the recommended dose of fertilizers (rdf) and absolute control, on nutrient uptake, yield and quality in cabbage-baby corn cropping sequence system. results showed that application of recommended dose of fertilizers [n, p and k (100:50:50 kg ha-1)] recorded highest yield in cabbage (38.91t ha-1), which was comparable to combined application (2.89t ha-1) of poultry manure and neem cake (37.9t ha-1). in baby corn, maximum yield (6.12t ha-1) was recorded with recommended dose of fertilizers, followed by the combined use of poultry manure and neem cake (5.80t ha-1). among various treatments, residual effect and combined application of poultry manure and neem cake to a preceding cabbage crop, recorded maximum yield in baby corn (4.71t ha-1) over other treatments. similar trend was seen in nutrient uptake by cabbage and baby corn (cumulative and residual). highest protein and ascorbic acid content in cabbage, residual and cumulative baby corn was recorded with application of poultry manure + neem cake (2.89t ha-1), and poultry manure + fym (6.11t ha-1) respectively. key words: manures, cabbage, baby corn, cumulative, residual, nutrient uptake, quality 1national bureau of soil survey and land use planning, regional centre, kolkata-700091 2directorate of cashew research, puttur, d.k., karnataka-574202 introduction cabbage is one of the most popular winter vegetables grown in india. it is cultivated over 0.372mha with a total production of 8.534mt and average productivity of 22.9t/ha (indian horticulture database, 2013). major cabbage producing states are uttar pradesh, odisha, bihar, assam, west bengal, maharashtra and karnataka. cabbage is used as salad, boiled vegetable, dehydrated vegetable, cooked curries, and pickles. cabbage is rich in minerals and vitamin a, b1, b2 and c. cabbage plants thrive well in a relatively cool, moist climate. in the plains, cabbage is grown mainly as a winter crop whereas, in the hills, it is grown as a spring and early-summer crop. sandy-loam soil is generally considered most suitable for an early maturing crop, even through clay-loam or silt-loam soil is suitable too. cabbage does not grow well in highly acidic soils (optimum ph range for growing cabbage ranges between 5.5 and 6.5.) it is a shallow-rooted crop with high nutrient requirement. as nutrients are a major contributing factor, appropriate management practices are essential to achieve optimum yield in this crop. baby corn has gained popularity as a vegetable in delhi, u.p, haryana, maharashtra, karnataka, andhra pradesh and meghalaya. it is used in spicy food preparations, soups, pulav, chinese foods, etc. pickled and canned baby corn ears have a great potential for export to european and american markets. recently, a new market for baby corn ears has emerged in india and around the world. with an assured market for their produce, farmers are finding baby corn an attractive crop to cultivate. it requires well-drained sandy-loam to silty-loam soil for cultivation. it can also be grown in well-drained black soils (agritech, 2010). cabbage-baby corn is one of the emerging cropping systems in india and is a practically feasible, viable, economical and eco-friendly enterprise for sustaining soil fertility and productivity. growing awareness of health and environmental issues associated with the intensive use of chemical inputs has led to interest in alternate forms of agriculture globally. in contrast to this, organic agriculture is the best way and is a good management system for ensuring a healthy agro-ecosystem, including concerns on biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity (fao, j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):48-54, 2014 49 organic manures influencing quality in cabbage baby corn cropping sequence 1999). increased use of inorganic fertilizers in crop production is determined to soil health and quality (yadav, 2003). awareness of crop quality and soil health has accelarated the attention of people towards organic farming (sharma et al, 2008). balanced use of nutrients through organic sources like farm yard manure, poultry manure, vermicompost, green manuring, neem cake and biofertilizers, are prerequisites for sustaining soil fertility and producing maximal crop yields with optimal input levels (dahiphale et al, 2003). organic carbon build-up is appreciable and significant in the case of organic matter applied to soil, and, organic manures leave behind residues sufficient quantity of residues for the next crop in the sequence (singh et al, 1996; baruah et al, 1999). in view of these facts, field experiments were conducted to study the influence of organic manures on yield and quality in cabbage and cumulative and residual effect of organic manures on yield and quality in baby corn in a cabbagebaby corn cropping sequence. material and methods field experiments were conducted during rabi and kharif seasons of 2010 and 2011 at college farm, college of agriculture, acharya n.g. ranga agricultural university (angrau), rajendranagar, hyderabad, located on 17o19’ north latitude and 78o28’ east longitude at an altitude of 535m above msl. the experiments were carried out under field conditions with cabbage in rabi 2010 and baby corn in kharif 2011 seasons. a composite soil sample (15cm) was collected before commencing the study to visualize physicochemical characteristics of the soil. properties of the initial soil sample and composition of different organic manures used in the study are presented in table 1. the experimental soil was sandy clay loam in texture, slightly alkaline in reaction, low in available nitrogen (183kg ha-1), and medium in available p2o5 (25.1kg ha -1) and k2o (213kg ha -1). cabbage var. golden acre was transplanted during rabi 2010 at a spacing of 60cm x 45cm. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications. the experiment consisted of 12 treatments, viz., t1control; t2 recommended dose of fertilizers (rdf); t3 100% rdn (recommended dose of nitrogen) through fym (9.34t ha-1); t4 100 % rdn through vermicompost (8.92t ha-1); t5 100% rdn through poultry manure (2.88t ha -1); t6 100% rdn through neem cake (2.91t ha -1); t7 50% rdn through fym (4.67t ha-1) + 50% rdn through vermicompost (4.46t ha-1); t8 50% rdn through fym (4.67t ha-1) + 50% rdn through poultry manure (1.44t ha-1); t9 50% rdn through fym (4.67t ha -1) + 50% rdn through neem cake (1.45t ha-1); t1050% rdn through vermicompost (4.46t ha-1) + 50% rdn through poultry manure (1.44t ha-1); t1150% rdn through vermicompost (4.46t ha-1) + 50% rdn through neem cake (1.45t ha-1); and, t1250% rdn through poultry manure (1.44t ha-1) + 50% rdn through neem cake (1.45t ha-1). all organic materials were applied to the soil 15 days before planting and mixed thoroughly. organic sources of the nutrients were supplied on the basis of recommended dose of nitrogen for the crops (100kg ha-1). based on nitrogen contents we calculated the total quantity of organic manure required under each treatment (table 5). recommended dose of n, p and k (100:50:50kg ha-1) fertilizers in the form of urea (46% n), single super phosphate (16% p2o5) and muriate of potash (60% k2o) was applied to the cabbage crop. the entire quantum of phosphorus and potassium was applied as a basal dose, whereas, nitrogen was applied in two equal splits as basal dose and then at 30 days after planting. after harvesting cabbage crop, the field was divided into two sectors: one plot was used for growing baby corn with application manures and recommended doses of fertilizers (100:50:50kg ha-1 of n, p and k) as per treatments mentioned above; the other plot was used for assessing residual effect on baby corn, without further applying manures or fertilizers. baby corn var. golden baby was sown at a spacing of 45cm x 20cm during kharif 2011. table 1. properties of the experimental soil and n, p and k content of manures soil properties initial values bulk density (mg m-3) 1.63 textural class sandy clay loam porosity (%) 41.20 water holding capacity (%) 37.02 soil reaction (ph) 8.15 electrical conductivity (ec) (ds m-1) 0.38 cation exchange capacity (cec) (c mol (p+) kg-1) 22.21 organic carbon (g kg-1) 8.2 nitrogen (kg n ha-1) 183.00 phosphorus (kg p2o5 ha -1) 25.18 potassium (kg k2o ha -1) 213.00 iron (mg kg-1) 3.25 manganese (mg kg-1) 2.24 zinc (mg kg-1) 0.48 copper (mg kg-1) 0.49 nutrient composition of different organic manures used type of manure ec (ds m-1) total amount of nutrients (%) n p k fym 1.12 1.07 0.40 0.78 poultry manure 1.62 3.47 1.33 1.12 vermicompost 0.35 1.12 0.40 0.73 neem cake 1.45 3.43 0.30 1.21 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):48-54, 2014 50 plant samples of cabbage and baby corn were collected from the field as per standard procedures at flowering. after recording their dry weight, plant samples were ground in a willey mill and analyzed for n, p and k content. total nitrogen of plant samples was analyzed by the kjeldahl method. total phosphorus was estimated using vanadomolybdate yellow colour method, while total potassium was analyzed using flame photometry (jackson, 1973). ascorbic acid (vitamin c) content was estimated by the dichlorophenol indophenol dye method, and expressed in mg 100g-1 (ranganna, 1986). nitrogen content in the plant samples was analyzed using micro-kjeldahl digestion (walinga et al, 1989), where the samples were converted to their protein content by multiplying the values obtained with 6.25. data generated from the experimental plots were analyzed using sas 9.3 version of the statistical package (sas institute inc, 2011). analysis of variance (anova) was performed using proc anova. means were separated using fisher’s least significant difference (lsd) test at a probability level of p d” 0.05. results and discussion influence of organic manures and fertilizers on cabbage cabbage yield was significantly higher with chemical fertilizers and organic manures compared to the control (table 2). highest yield (38.9t ha-1) was recorded with application of recommended dose of fertilizers and was comparable with application of poultry manure + neem cake (37.9t ha-1). this could be due to rapid availability and utilization of nitrogen for various internal processes in the plant in these treatments. among the manure combinations, poultry manure and neem cake recorded highest yield. similar results were obtained with application of different levels of decomposed poultry manure (dpm) in cabbage by ijoyah and sophie (2009). quality parameters studied in cabbage were significantly influenced by organic manures rather than chemical fertilizers or in the control. however, higher protein (18.17%) and ascorbic acid (35.44mg 100g-1) content was recorded with application of poultry manure + neem cake, and, farm yard manure + poultry manure, respectively. similarly, ascorbic acid content in cabbage heads was shown to be significantly influenced by application of organic manures by mahendran and kumar (1997). absolute control recorded lowest protein (16.1%) and ascorbic acid (31.42mg 100g-1) content. rai et al (2008) and zango et al (2009) also reported earlier that application of fym at 20t ha-1 to cabbage increased its biochemical constituents (vitamin c or ascorbic acid) over application of recommended dose of fertilizer. application of organic manures may have helped improve physico-chemical properties of the soil, imparting favourable soil structure for root growth and soil enzymes (the latter continue to break down organic matter in the soil to release nutrients and make them available near the rhizosphere for absorption by plant roots, thereby improving fruit quality) (chaoui et al, 2003). it can be observed from table 2 that organic manures and chemical fertilizers significantly influence uptake of all major nutrients in cabbage at maturity. higher uptake of n (44.08kg ha-1), p (12.38kg ha-1) and k (39.96kg ha-1) were recorded with recommended dose of fertilizers. among the organic manures, poultry manure + neem cake, and, farm table 2. influence of organic manures and fertilizers on nutrient uptake, quality and yield in cabbage during rabi 2010 nutrient uptake (kg ha-1) fruit quality yield(t ha-1) treatment n p k protein (%) ascorbic acid (mg 100g-1) control 14.7 3.2 15.3 16.1 31.4 18.7 recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) 44.0 12.3 39.9 16.5 32.3 38.9 farm yard manure 30.8 9.1 32.1 17.1 34.1 34.3 vermicompost 26.7 6.4 31.4 17.2 34.3 27.1 poultry manure 36.0 10.0 32.4 17.2 34.6 32.9 neem cake 30.6 7.6 32.9 17.3 34.4 30.3 farm yard manure + vermicompost 26.2 8.2 31.6 17.7 35.2 31.9 farm yard manure + poultry manure 38.8 11.8 35.1 18.0 35.4 35.2 farm yard manure + neem cake 33.3 7.8 33.9 17.8 35.1 32.9 vermicompost + poultry manure 30.3 9.5 28.7 17.8 34.6 29.1 vermicompost + neem cake 28.2 6.4 28.0 17.8 34.0 29.0 poultry manure + neem cake 37.2 10.5 36.1 18.1 34.8 37.9 mean 31.4 8.6 31.4 17.4 34.3 31.5 s.e m± 2.23 0.64 1.65 0.08 0.10 1.56 cd (p ≤ 0.05) 6.53 1.86 4.85 0.22 0.28 4.56 srinivasan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):48-54, 2014 51 yard manure + poultry manure as combinations showed superior n, p and k uptake over other combinations and were statistically at par. application of organic sources may have enhanced availablility of macro and micro nutrients in the soil significantly, consequently improving the uptake of nutrients. vimala et al (2006) reported application of organic manures to have significant effects on n, p and k content of the cabbage crop. significantly lower n, p and k uptake by cabbage was recorded in the control. cumulative and residual effect of organic manures and fertilizers on baby corn yield of baby corn significantly increased with application of organic manures and chemical fertilizers, over the control (table 4). significantly high yield (6.12t ha-1) was obtained with recommended dose of fertilizers applied both to cabbage and baby corn. treatments t8, t9 and t12 were at par with rdf. similar results were also reported by amakinde and ayoola (2009). residual effect of the organic manures and chemical fertilizers, applied to cabbage to study yield, fruit quality and nutrient uptake on the following baby corn cultivation is shown in tables 3 and 4. yield of baby corn markedly increased owing to residual effect of the organic manures applied to the preceding cabbage crop, than in the recommended npk fertilizer and absolute control. the residual effect of poultry manure + neem cake applied to the preceding cabbage crop gave the highest yield in baby corn (4.71t ha-1), which was comparable with farm yard manure + neem cake (4.57t ha-1). the superiority of residual effect of poultry manure + neem cake, and, farm yard manure + neem cake can be attributed to slow decomposition of these manures, which probably table 4. cumulative and residual effects of organic manures and fertilizers on fruit quality and yield in baby corn during kharif 2011 treatment protein content (%) ascorbic acid (mg 100g-1) yield (t ha-1) cumulative residual cumulative residual cumulative residual control 11.3 11.3 12.1 11.9 2.65 2.53 recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) 11.8 11.4 12.2 11.9 6.12 2.62 farm yard manure 14.2 12.2 13.3 12.0 4.84 3.26 vermicompost 14.2 11.8 13.1 11.9 4.16 2.80 poultry manure 14.3 12.3 13.4 12.2 5.14 3.83 neem cake 14.3 12.4 13.3 12.2 4.26 3.91 farm yard manure + vermicompost 15.3 12.8 13.8 12.3 4.78 3.28 farm yard manure + poultry manure 15.6 12.9 14.0 12.4 5.51 4.22 farm yard manure + neem cake 14.9 13.1 13.9 12.4 5.94 4.57 vermicompost + poultry manure 15.0 12.0 13.7 12.3 5.19 3.57 vermicompost + neem cake 14.9 12.1 13.7 12.3 4.73 3.06 poultry manure + neem cake 15.6 13.6 14.0 12.7 5.80 4.71 mean 14.3 12.3 13.4 12.2 4.92 3.53 s.e m± 0.18 0.13 0.17 0.12 0.29 0.27 cd (p ≤ 0.05) 0.52 0.37 0.48 0.36 0.85 0.80 table 3. cumulative and residual effects of organic manures and fertilizers on nutrient uptake (kg ha-1) in baby corn during kharif 2011 treatment nitrogen (kg ha-1) phosphorus (kg ha-1) potassium (kg ha-1) cumulative residual cumulative residual cumulative residual control 64.8 63.6 5.1 5.2 49.8 44.7 recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) 221.0 66.0 15.3 7.9 106.4 55.3 farm yard manure 131.6 94.3 14.3 13.8 88.0 69.8 vermicompost 111.2 77.4 10.3 6.9 86.7 68.8 poultry manure 142.2 114.8 16.1 15.1 100.4 81.1 neem cake 138.1 122.5 14.1 13.9 91.8 83.8 farm yard manure + vermicompost 114.8 92.2 19.3 11.8 93.3 72.3 farm yard manure + poultry manure 183.8 144.9 22.0 17.3 103.8 87.9 farm yard manure + neem cake 183.6 146.6 17.9 13.5 101.8 93.6 vermicompost + poultry manure 126.7 100.3 18.9 16.4 97.9 64.2 vermicompost + neem cake 125.6 103.8 15.7 12.6 90.4 73.2 poultry manure + neem cake 187.1 153.0 18.3 16.3 104.9 94.4 mean 144.2 106.6 15.6 12.5 92.9 74.1 s.e m± 4.59 5.87 1.18 1.30 3.97 4.36 lsd (p ≤ 0.05) 13.5 17.2 3.46 3.81 11.6 12.8 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):48-54, 2014 organic manures influencing quality in cabbage baby corn cropping sequence 52 released nutrients more slowly compared to other organic materials or chemical fertilizers (kavitha et al, 2010). the beneficial residual effect of organic manures on yield could be due also to enhanced supply of nutrients during the entire growing season of baby corn. significant difference was observed in protein and ascorbic acid content in baby corn by application of chemical fertilizers and organic manures. among these, a combination of poultry manure + neem cake, applied both to cabbage and baby corn, recorded higher protein (15.68%) and ascorbic acid (14.08mg 100g-1) content over other manure combinations or fertilizers. application of organic manures at regular intervals has been shown to have a capacity to improve protein content of baby corn crop (mithun saha and mondal, 2006). similar results were observed for protein and ascorbic acid content in baby corn influenced by manures and fertilizers applied to the previous cabbage crop (kumar et al, 2008). padamwar and dakore (2010) reported that application of organic manures viz., vermicompost, farm yard manure and biofertilizers improved protein and vitamin c content of cole crops. most organic manure combinations improved the quality of both cabbage and baby corn (zango et al, 2009). manure-treated plots showed higher residual recovery than fertilizer-treated plots, in both the seasons. similarly, kavitha et al (2010) studied direct and residual effect of organic manures on cabbage and reported organic manures to significantly increase yield and quality of the edible parts (ascorbic acid and protein content, tss of cabbage) compared to the control. influence of cumulative and residual effect of organic manures and chemical fertilizers on nutrient uptake by baby corn is presented in table 3. n, p and k uptake in baby corn sown after cabbage significantly varied with application of organic manures, either alone or in combination, and chemical fertilizers over the control. the higher n and k uptake of baby corn was achieved by applying fertilizers to both cabbage and baby corn, and was at par with combined application of poultry manure and neem cake. this may have been due to a higher and rapid release by fertilizers of the required nutrients (deshpande et al, 2007). application of recommended dose of fertilizers significantly increased plant growth, uptake of n, p and k, and yield in maize (upperi et al, 2011; sunil kumar and dhar rai, 2005). however, higher p uptake in baby corn was accomplished with cumulative application of farm yard manure + poultry manure, to both cabbage and baby corn, over the recommended dose of fertilizers and control. higher p uptake may also be attributed to a possible increase in p supply and its reduced fixation in soil. the solubilization action of organic acids produced during degradation of organic materials perhaps caused better release of native and applied p available to the crop. it propounded that organic manures can not only enhance p uptake, but also increase uptake of other nutrients (vimala et al, 2006). among manure combinations, poultry manure + neem cake and fym + poultry manure improved nutrient uptake in baby corn. significant residual effect of organic manures and chemical fertilizers applied to the preceding cabbage crop was observed on n, p and k uptake in baby corn. organic manure treatments increased n, p and k uptake in baby corn more than did fertilizers, or that observed in the control. among various manure combinations, poultry manure + neem cake recorded higher n and k uptake and this was on par with farm-yard manure and neem cake combination. higher p uptake was seen with application of farm-yard table 5. economics of cabbage –baby corn cropping sequence treatment quantity of cabbage (regular + residual)2010 cabbage–baby corn (2010-2011) manure applied total cost of net b:c total cost net b:c (t ha-1) cultivation returns ratio of cultivation returns ratio (rs) (rs) (rs) (rs) control 111175 113985 1.02 111175 116825 1.05 recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) 115108 274612 2.38 119041 354779 2.98 farm yard manure 9.34 129867 240993 1.85 148557 253303 1.70 vermicompost 8.92 146887 153693 1.04 182601 144699 0.79 poultry manure 2.88 122703 250737 2.04 134223 264197 1.96 neem cake 2.91 143240 212080 1.48 175305 180755 1.03 farm yard manure + vermicompost 9.13 138377 214503 1.55 165579 215501 1.30 farm yard manure + poultry manure 6.11 126285 274815 2.17 141390 285890 2.02 farm yard manure + neem cake 6.12 136548 253772 1.85 161925 259345 1.60 vermicompost + poultry manure 5.90 134795 199715 1.48 158412 210928 1.33 vermicompost + neem cake 5.92 145058 177322 1.22 178947 179693 1.00 poultry manure + neem cake 2.89 132966 302354 2.27 154758 303222 1.95 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):48-54, 2014 srinivasan et al 53 manure + poultry manure. lower n, p and k uptake was recorded with the recommended dose of fertilizers and its control. application of poultry manure (pm) and its combination resulted in higher residual effect on soil chemical composition and increased plant dry matter, yield, nutrient uptake and grain yield in maize significantly (adeniyan and ojeniyi, 2003). recovery of residual nutrients was greater with neem cake and poultry manure combinations. generally, most of the organic manure treated plots gave better results over the control. similarly, sangeeta mohanty and lenka (2007) reported significant increase in residual effect of the organic manures on a subsequent crop than did inorganic fertilizers. residual effect of organic manures was also shown to be evident in available major and micronutrients in the soil (thind et al, 2002). economics pooled data in cabbage and residual effect on baby corn with reference to economics is illustrated in table 5. recommended dose of fertilizers recorded higher net returns (rs. 2,74,612) and benefit:cost ratio (2.38). other manure combinations like t8 and t12 were at par with rdf. lowest b:c ratio was obtained in absolute control (1.02). when the cost of cultivation of both seasons’. cabbage-baby corn sequence was analyzes, highest b:c ratio was obtained in rdf (t2) (2.98), followed by fym + poultry manure (t8) (2.02), and, poultry manure (t5) (1.96). lowest b:c ratio was obtained with vermicompost (t4) (0.79). thus, the highest yields and net returns were obtained with fertilizer treatment. organic manure treatment combinations like neem cake, poultry manure and fym also gave good net returns and b:c ratio, but there were slightly lower compared to the fertilizer treatment. in all, manures performed better than the control. similarly, field experiments of hochmuth et al (1993) on cabbage showed marketable yield to increase with use of recommended dose of fertilizers and poultry manure. beneficial effects of fertilizer treatment due to better availability of nutrients to plants and their uptake was fastest with fertilizer application in the early stages, and from organic sources at later stages. this strategy possibly prolongs the period of nutrient availability to the plant. from the present investigation, it can be concluded that application of recommended dose of fertilizers records higher yield and nutrient uptake in cabbage and baby corn, a value at par with application of poultry manure + neem cake (t12) and farm yard manure and poultry manure (t8). quality parameters in both crops improved with application of organic manures rather than with fertilizers. the residual effect of manures, viz, poultry manure, farm yard manure and neem cake was favourable and resulted in better growth in baby corn. application of fertilizer may be good in the short-term for getting maximum yield and net income to the farmers; but, in the long run, to ensure sustainable crop production with good fruit quality, soil quality, health and economics, a combination of poultry manure with cake (t12) and farm yard manure (t8), is found to be better in the cabbage-baby corn cropping sequence. acknowledgment i am extremely thankful to dr. m. suryanarayan reddy, professor and university head (rtd.) and dr. hussain, associate professor and in-charge of college farm, for facilitating the conduct of field experiments, and to the supporting staff of department of soil science and agricultural chemistry, college of agriculture, rajendranagar, hyderabad, for their help. references adeniyan, o.n. and ojeniyi, s.o. 2003. comparative effectiveness of different levels of poultry manure with npk fertilizer on residual soil fertility, nutrient uptake and yield of maize. moor j. agril res., 4:191197 agritech, advanta limited, 2010. 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(0.276) pc -iv for a grade bulbs (0.436), pc-v for polar diameter of bulbs (0.514), pc-iv negatively loaded with purple blotch (-0.461) and pc-vii for narrow neck thickness (-0.515). plotting pc-i aganist pc-ii differenciated cith-o-13, cith-o-4, cith-o-22, cith-o-19, cith-o-9, cith-o-6 and cith-o2 as most divergent genotype.on the basis of single linkage cluster means cluster-i was most importent for average bulb weight, minimum bolters, high marketble bulb percentage high marketable and total bulb yield whereas cluster -ii was important for maximum nuber of leaves/plant and minimum neck thicknes. highest inter-cluster distance was observed between cluter ii and cluster-i(873.5% ).most divergent genotypes with high inter cluter distance could be the most appropriate parents for crop impovement in onion. key words: genetic diversity, onion, principal component analysis, single linkage cluster analysis introduction onion is an important vegetable crop used by all the sections of people,round the year throughout the world for its distinct flavour and health healing properties. it is a photosensitive crop and forms bulbs at certain day length. long day onion requires 14 hours or more day length to initiate the bulbing. in india, majority of growing area is under short day onion except in hillyregion. long day onion is grown in temperate region of india with productivity ranging from 10 to 23 t/ha.though it covers large temp er a te a r ea fr om ja mmu a nd k a shmir to ar u na c ha l p r a des h b u t ef f or t s o n va r iet a l improvement programme on long day onion are ver y limited. there is no commercial long day variety available for cultivation except some old introductions like yellow globe and brown spanish. f a r mer s u s e t heir own s eed wit h ou t c a r ing isolation distance to maintain the purity which leads to a great variability in shape and size of bulb with inherent low yield. t he ma gnitu de of genet ic diver s ity in onion germplasm is a critical component in breeding for new cultiva r. selection of genetica lly diver se parents in breeding programme on the basis of divergence would be more promising to get the heterotic f1, and to create a broad spectrum of variability in segregating generation (meena and this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 18 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 singh et al. bahadur, 2015). presence of genetic diversity play a vital role in plant breeding for getting higher yield, uniformly disired quality and resitance to b iot ic a nd a b iot ic s t r es s es . a s ys t ema t ic understanding of gentic diversity in different traits is essentia l for ta rgeted br eeding pr ogr amme. t her e a r e nu mer ic a l t a x onomic t ec hniqu es available to classify the variation pattern at inter and intra specific level (ario and odulaza, 1999). mult iva r ia te a na lys is is a n effect ive tool for characterization and classification of plant genetic resources, when a large number of accessions are assessed for several traits (peter and matrinelli, 1989). different type of multivariate analysis such as principal component analysis (pca) and single linka ge c lu st er a na lysis (s lca) a r e u sed to identify groups of accessions that have desirable traits for breeding and assessing the pattern of variation in germplasm collection. pca enables easier understanding of impact and relationship among the different traits. however pca alone wou ld not give a n a dequ a t e c ha r a c t er representation in term of relative importance when multiple characters are considered simultaneously (shalini et al., 2003). to complement the results of such multiva r ia te a na lysis, single linka ge cluster analysis(slca) is employed to classify the varia tion. it is a n a gglomer ative technique which shows t he p a tt er ns of ex a c t genot yp e position in population. (ariyo and odulaza, 1999) by sorting them in distinct group.thus this study is aimed to identify the major characters responsible for variation among the onion genotypes with a view to group accessions and for identifying the potential parental stocks within the group of local germplasm by employing the multivariate analysis. materials and methods thirty four long day onion accessions (allium cepa l.) including two varieties collected from growing hot spot of kashmir valley and conserved at active ger mpla sm sit e of ic arcent r a l ins tit ute of tempera te horticultur e, sr ina ga r (j&k) wer e evaluated (table 1). the seedlings of 45 day old were transplanted in main field during rabi season. ea ch accession was grown in ten rows of two metre length with a spacing of 10x15 cm. the experiment was conducted in randomized block design wit h thr ee r ep lica tions . geogr a phic a l position of the experimenta l site lies between latitude of 34005 n and longitude of 74050 e at an altitude of 1640 msl. the average maximum and minimum temp er a t u r e wer e 1 9. 63 0c , 6. 52 0 c respectively with annual precipitation of 160.72 mm and relative humidity 58.35%, evaporation 2.45mm. the soil characteristics viz. ph= 6.81 and ec = 0. 36 dsm-1 wer e r ecorded dur ing the cr opping sea son. recommended unifor m agronomic and cultural practices were adopted to obtain better expr ession of phenotypic char acters. data was recorded on nineteen quantitative traits. disease severity rating was measured on 0-5 scale (0 grade no disease, 1 grade 1-10%, 2 grade -1120%, 3 grade -21-30%, 4 grade -31-50% and 5 grade -51-100%). whereas, pest (thrips) damage (1-5 scale) (1 -1-20% foliage damage, 221-40 foliage damage, 3-41-60% foliage damage, 4-6180% foliage damage and 5-81-100% foliage. the genotypes with <5% infestation was considered immu ne, 6 1 0 % inf es t a t ion r esis t a nt , 1 0 2 0 infestation moderately resistant, 21-40% infestation moder a t ely s u c ep t b le, 4 1 6 0 % i nf es t a t ion susceptible >60% infestation considered highly susceptible. da ta collected on the quantitative characters were analyzed using sas microsoft windows 9.2 (sas institute, 2011), employing the method outlined by steel and torrie (1980) using statistical xl stat-2011. principal component ana lysis a nd single linkage cluster ana lysis (slca) were used for the determination of genetic var iation and percenta ge simila rity within the genot yp es . e igen vec t or s a nd p r inc ip a l component score were used to assess the relative dis c r imina t or y p ower of it s a x i s a nd t heir associated characters. the cluster procedure was used to produce distinct groups of 34 genotypes on the basis of genetic relationship while using the character variation. average intra-cluster distance wa s c a lc u la ted by t he f ollowing f or mu la a s suggested by singh and choudhary (1985). slca summa r ized the position of a ccessions into a dendogramat an interval of 5% level of dissimilarity s t a r t ing f r om 1 0 0 % level of di s s imila r it y (kendall, 1980). 19 assessment of genetic divergence in long day onion (allium cepa l.) t ab le 1. a cc es si on s w it h th ei r ge og ra ph ic al i nf or m at io n us ed i n st ud y g en ot yp e c ol le ct io n l at itu de l on gi tu de a lti tu de g en ot yp e c ol le ct io n l at itu de l on gi tu de a lti tu de si te (m et er ) si te (m et er ) c it h -o -1 b ud ga m 34 .6 30 74 .0 40 31 99 .9 9 c it h -o -1 7 sr in ag ar 34 .0 80 74 .7 90 15 85 .0 1 c it h -o -2 b ud ga m 34 .6 30 74 .0 40 31 99 .9 9 c it h -o -1 8 b ar am ul la 34 .1 98 0 74 .3 60 15 90 .0 0 c it h -o -3 b ud ga m 34 .6 30 74 .0 40 31 99 .9 9 c it h -o -1 9 b ar am ul la 34 .1 98 0 74 .3 60 15 90 .0 0 c it h -o -4 b ud ga m 34 .6 30 74 .0 40 31 99 .9 9 c it h -o -2 0 b ar am ul la 34 .1 98 0 74 .3 60 15 90 .0 0 c it h -o -5 b ud ga m 34 .6 30 74 .0 40 31 99 .9 9 c it h -o -2 1 b ar am ul la 34 .1 98 0 74 .3 60 15 90 .0 0 c it h -o -6 b ud ga m 34 .6 30 74 .0 40 31 99 .9 9 c it h -o -2 2 b ar am ul la 34 .1 98 0 74 .3 60 15 90 .0 0 c it h -o -7 b ud ga m 34 .6 30 74 .0 40 31 99 .9 9 c it h -o -2 3 b ar am ul la 34 .1 98 0 74 .3 60 15 90 .0 0 c it h -o -8 g an dh ar ba l 34 .2 30 74 .7 80 16 19 .1 0 c it h -o -2 4 sh op ia n 34 .8 10 75 .0 10 20 57 .0 0 c it h -o -9 g an dh ar ba l 34 .2 30 74 .7 80 16 19 .1 0 c it h -o -2 5 sh op ia n 34 .8 10 75 .0 10 20 57 .0 0 c it h -o -1 0 g an dh ar ba l 34 .2 30 74 .7 80 16 19 .1 0 c it h -o -2 6 b ad ip or a 34 .5 00 74 .6 80 15 78 .0 0 c it h -o -1 1 g an dh ar ba l 34 .2 30 74 .7 80 16 19 .1 0 c it h -o -2 7 b an di po ra 34 .5 00 74 .6 80 15 78 .0 0 c it h -o -1 2 g an dh ar ba l 34 .2 30 74 .7 80 16 19 .1 0 c it h -o -2 8 k ul ga m 33 .6 50 75 .0 20 17 38 .8 8 c it h -o -1 3 sr in ag ar 34 .0 80 74 .7 90 15 85 .0 1 c it h -o -2 9 k ul ga m 33 .6 50 75 .0 20 17 38 .8 8 c it h -o -1 4 sr in ag ar 34 .0 80 74 .7 90 15 85 .0 1 c it h -o -3 0 k up w ar a 33 .6 50 75 .0 20 17 38 .8 8 c it h -o -1 5 sr in ag ar 34 .0 80 74 .7 90 15 85 .0 1 c it h -o -3 1 k up w ar a 33 .6 50 75 .0 20 17 38 .8 8 c it h -o -1 6 sr in ag ar 34 .0 80 74 .7 90 15 85 .0 1 c it h -o -3 2 sr in ag ar 34 .0 80 74 .7 90 15 85 .0 1 c or al r ed ic a r -d o g r p un e b ro w n i c a r -d o g r p un e (c he ck ) sp an is h j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 20 results and discussion the genotypes evaluated for all horticultural traits va ried significantly (table 2). the phenotypic variability expressed by range, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation. the plant height ranges fr om 63. 33 to 91. 66 cm. genotype cith-o-9 recorded highestplant height, whereas cith-o-32 recorded lowest plant height (63.33 cm). number of leaves ranged from 6.33 ( cith-o-9 ) to 14.0 cm (cith-o-19. polar diameter of bulb ranged from 5.18cm (cith-o-7) to 11.97cm (cith-o13). equatorial diameterof bulb ranged from 5.87cm (cith-o-5) to 11.08 cm (cith-o-8). polar and equatorial diameter ratio reflects the bulb shape singh et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 table 2. variation in quantitative traits of onion accessions plant height (cm) 63.33 cith-o-32 91.66 cith-o-9 80.09 5.92 12.92 no. of leaves/ plant 6.33 cith-o-9 14.00 cith-o-19 9.87 1.66 23.71 polar diameter (cm) 5.18 cith-o-7 11.97 cith-o-13 7.44 1.23 20.58 equatorial diameter (cm) 5.87 cith-o-5 11.08 cith-o-8 8.52 1.15 20.85 polar equatorial diameterratio 0.55 cith—o-11 2.03 cith—o-4 0.89 0.26 25.82 neck thickness (cm) 0.42 cith-o-7 2.46 cith-o-19 0.96 0.38 30.56 a grade bulb (%) 12.00 cith-o 86.11 cith-o-12 58.71 15.95 37.05 b grade bulbs (5) 0.00 cith-o 34.55 cith-o 13.96 10.39 60.16 c grade bulbs (%) 0.00 cith-o 33.00 cith-o 6.53 8.42 51.04 doubles (%) 0.00 cith-o 34.28 cith-o 16.05 11.48 66.97 tss % 0.36 cith-o-5 16.00 cith-o-29 10.92 4.36 54.51 average bulb weight (gm) 154.51 cith-o-29 470.30 cith-o-9 289.08 82.29 34.99 purple blotch (%) 7.00 brown spanish 30.71 cith-o-29 19.52 50.88 33.13 thrips/plant 7.66 cith-o-17 31.00 cith-o-6 24.26 5.44 35.12 downy mildew (%) 13.48 cith-o-9 30.50 cith-o-2 20.80 4.92 32.25 bolters (%) 0.00 cith-o-9 3.66 cith-o-11 0.91 1.10 60.31 marketable bulbs (%) 48.26 cith-o-9 100.00 cith-o-28 82.35 12.60 25.20 marketable yield (q/ha) 331.28 cith-o-9 1212.56 cith-o-31 765.09 251.74 41.52 total yield (q/h) 494.45 cith-o-9 1505.06 cith-o-31 925.07 263.32 34.99 characters range mean standard deviation cv (%) minimum maximum value genotype value genotype 21 which is an important parameter indirectly related to yield storage life and market preference. the bulbs of genotype having < 1 polar and equatorial dia met er r a t io ( p: e ) cons ider ed a s fla t a nd genotypes having p: e ratio 1 considered globe and those having p: e r atio> 1 were considered as torpedo. genotype cith-o-11, had p: e ratio 1, whereas cith-o-4, cith-o-32 and cith-o-13 have < 1 p: eratio and remaining genotypes were having >1 p: e r atio. neck thickness of bulb affects the storage life. neck thickness ranged from0.42 to 2.46 cm. the minimum neck thickness (0.42 cm) was observed with genotype cith-o7 , wher ea s c i t h o 1 9 ha d ma x imu m nec k thickness (2.46 cm). bulb grade determines the market price and quality. a grade bulb ranged from 12 to 86.11 per cent (table 3). genotype citho-12 recorded highest a grade percentage of bulbs. b grade bulb ranged from 00 to 34.55 per cent. double bulbs which are major drawback in onion production ranged from 00 to 34.28 per cent. total soluble solids important quality trait in onion ranged from 0.36 to 16 per cent. genotype cith-o-29 scored highest tss (16 %) whereas minimum tss (0.36%) was recorded with genotype cith-o-5. average bulb weight which is directly correlated wit h yield, r a nged f r om 1 5 4. 5 1 t o 4 7 0. 3 0g. genotype cish-o-9 recorded the highest average bulb weight (470.30 g) whereas smallest bulb size was recorded with cith-o-29 (154.51 g). foliar disease of onion is major problem in long day conditions.the incidence of purple blotch ranged from 7.00 to 30.71%. genotype cith-0-29 has recorded highest infestation (30.31%) whereas, assessment of genetic divergence in long day onion (allium cepa l.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 table 3. the principal component latent vector for eigen values and proportion of variance accounted for different components with respect of different traits characters pc-i pc-ii pc-iii pc-iv pc-v pc-vi pc-vii plant height (cm) -0.039 0.412 0.045 0.208 0.328 -0.215 0.018 no. of leaves/ plant -0.317 0.147 0.273 -0.001 0.192 -0.043 0.014 polar diameter (cm) -0.037 -0.315 -0.109 -0.262 0.514 -0.072 -0.162 equatorial diameter(cm) 0.354 0.227 0.062 -0.018 -0.075 0.040 0.160 polar equatorial diameterratio -0.204 -0.355 -0.168 -0.138 0.398 -0.108 -0.230 neck thickness (cm) 0.040 0.288 0.283 -0.228 0.096 0.128 -0.515 a grade bulb (%) 0.179 -0.111 0.278 0.436 0.234 -0.187 0.083 b grade bulbs (5) -0.208 0.034 0.346 -0.355 -0.111 0.250 0.081 c grade bulbs (%) -0.027 -0.336 -0.302 0.041 -0.403 -0.090 0.146 doubles (%) -0.243 0.198 -0.267 -0.325 -0.101 0.154 0.177 tss % -0.236 -0.142 0.276 -0.214 -0.135 -0.179 0.146 average bulb weight (gm) 0.401 0.034 -0.029 -0.309 0.104 0.014 0.022 purple blotch (%) 0.055 -0.082 0.198 -0.183 0.021 -0.461 0.376 thrips/plant -0.195 -0.170 0.305 -0.108 0.012 0.057 0.277 downy mildew (%) -0.006 -0.137 0.158 0.221 0.156 0.660 -0.002 bolters (%) -0.039 0.023 -0.331 0.029 0.322 0.280 0.564 marketable bulbs (%) 0.148 -0.410 0.282 0.146 -0.098 0.137 0.030 marketable yield (q/ha) 0.388 -0.192 0.125 -0.199 0.025 0.083 0.063 total yield (q/h) 0.401 0.034 -0.029 -0.309 0.104 0.014 0.022 eigen value 4.698 2.902 2.410 2.072 1.583 1.221 1.051 variability (%) 24.726 15.271 12.686 10.904 8.333 6.424 5.530 cumulative % 24.726 39.998 52.684 63.588 71.921 78.345 83.876 22 least infestation was observed with variety brown spanish (7%). downy mildew infestation ranged fr om 13 . 48 to 30. 50%. t he lowest ( 13. 48%) infesta tion of downy mildew wa s obser ved in genotype cith-0-9 whereas highest infestation of was recorded with cith-0-2 (30.50%). thrips is major damaging insect in long day onion. number of thrips/plant ranged from 7.66 to 31.00 / plant. t he minimum infesta tion of thrips /pla nt wa s recor ded with genotype cith-0-6 (7.66/plant) whereas, maximum number of thrips / plant was observed with cith -0-17 (31.00/plant). premature bolting a burning problem in onion ranged from 0 to 3.66 % among the genotypes evaluated. the highes t p er c ent of b olt ing wa s ob s er ved in genotype cith-0-11 (3.66%), whereas fourteen genotypes recorded 0% bolting. marketable bulb percenta geis a n importa nt tr ait fr om economic point of view. the percentage of marketable bulb r a nged f r o m 4 8 . 2 6 t o 1 0 0 % . t he lowes t ma r ket a b le b u lb p er c ent a ge ( 4 8 . 2 6 % ) wa s recorded with genotype cith-09 whereas cith0 2 8 ha d r ec or ded 1 0 0 % ma r ket a b le b u lb s . ma r keta ble bulb yield r a nged fr om 33 1. 28 to 1212.56 q/ha. the lowest marketable bulb yield was recorded with genotype cith-0-31 (331.28 q/ ha ) wher e a s highes t ma r ket a b l e b u lb wa s recorded with cith-0-8 (1212.56 q/ha). total yield ranged from 494.5 to 1505.06 q/ha. among the genotype evaluated, cith-09 recorded highest tota l yield, where as minimum tota l yield was observed with cith-0-31. the genotype having the highest desirable traits may be utilised for crop improvement programme for a particular tra it. coefficient of variation (%) reflected the extent of variationfor evaluated phenotypic traits was highest for double bulb percentage and b grads of bulbs, t. s. s a nd ma r ket a ble bu lb yield (q/h) . high coef fic ient of va r ia tion a mong st udied tr a its indica ted a n a ppr ecia ble va r ia b ility which is pr er equisite of a cr op impr ovement pr ogr a m. similar type of variability was also reported by arya et al. (2017). the observed variability found among the onion genotypes might be related to genetic makeup of genotype as per kandil et al. (2010). based on degree of divergence 34 genotypes were grouped into 7 principal component having eigen value >1 and cumulatively accounted for 83.87% of tota l va r iability (ta ble 4a and 4b). the pc-i contr ibuted for 24. 73% of tota l va riation wa s positively loaded with bulb weight, marketable bulb percentage, total and marketable bulb yield. it was negatively correlated with number of thrips per plant, downy mildew infestation, (%) bolters and doubles, b and c grades bulbs. the pc-ii reflected 15.27% of total variability and was positively loaded with plant height, neck thickness and negatively with downy mildew infestation. the pc-iii was positively loaded with t. s. s. (%), number of lea ves/pla nt a nd contributed 12.69 % of total variation. the 4 t h principal component contributed 10.90% of total variability was, associated with a grade bulb (%) and negatively correlated with purple blotch disease.the pc-v accounted 8. 33% of tota l va riation wa s positively loaded with polar diameter, polar: equatorial. diameter ratios, bolter percentage and negatively loaded with c grade bulb percentage. principal component-vi contributed 6.42% of total variation and was positively correlated with downy mildew (%) but it was negative associated with purple blotch. pc-vii accounted for 5.53% of total variation was positively loaded with bolter percentage, purple blotch percentage, and number of thrips/plant and was negativity correlated with neck thickness. the positive and negative loading of quantitative traits reflects the positive and negative correlation trend between the components and variables suggesting that these principle components may be used to summarise the variables. the traits with largest absolute value closer to unit within first component influence the cluster more than those to lower absolute value closer to zero. thus in present study the differentiation of genotypes in different principal component was because of high contribution of few characters rather than small contribution of each character. the desirable characters loaded positively and undesirable characters loaded negatively in first seven pc’s could be in consideration while selecting the genotype for appropriate traits and yield potential. the principal component analysis has also been used for showing the genetic diversity in many species (ravindra et al., 2018; singh et al., 2017). the bi-plot of pc-i & pc-ii indicated that the some isolated genotype clearly define the diversity among the evaluated germplasm. the genotype cith-0-13, cith-0-4, cith-0-22, cith-0-19, cith-0-9, cith06, cith-o-2 and variety coral red were most singh et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 23 assessment of genetic divergence in long day onion (allium cepa l.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 divergent (fig 1) usually is customary to select one of the important variable from these identified groups for targeted improvement programme. hence pc-i for higher total yield, pc-ii for plant height, pc-iii for high t.s.s, pc-iv for maximum a grade bulb, pc-v for wider polar diameter of bulb, pc-vi for resistance to purple blotch, pc-vii for thin neck thickness of bulb were ideal for selection . the results of present study are useful as it furnish the information about the group where certain traits are more important, allowing breeder to execute breeding for specific target. biological implication of principal component analysis can be quantified by contribution of different variable in each pc as revealed by eigen vector and cluster scor e at the component axis suggest that some relationship exist among the individuals with the cluster but not provided the exact position of genotypes in groups. based on single linkage cluster analysis genotypes were grouped into five clusters by quantifying their share and cluster means for all the traits (table 4 a,b). t he cluster -i a nd cluster -iii a ccommoda ted maximum number of genotype (9) followed by cluster ii (8), cluster-iv (7) and cluster -v(1) contributing 26.47, 23.53, 20.58 and 2.94%, of total population respectively. on the basis of cluster means, the cluster-i was important for high tss (15.06%), marketable bulbs percentage (92.66%) powdery mildew (8.24%) and purple loch (16.08%) resistance. cluster-ii was important for plant height (83 cm) number of leaves/plant(12), polar diameter (8.54 cm) and p:e ratio (1.54) cluster -iii was important a grade bulb percentage (69.21%)whereas cluster-iv was important equatorial diameter ( 9.48 cm),minimum neck thickness (0.42 cm) thrips resistance (9.33 thrips/ plant). cluster -v was important for average bulb weight (377.76 g) marketable yield (1109.59 q/ha) and total yield (1208.83 q/ha). the genotype of cluster having high means value of particular traits would contribute more positively in their off springs if used as a parent. arya et al. (2017) and singh et al. characters cluster-i cluster-ii cluster-iii cluster-iv cluster-v plant height (cm) 63.33 83.00 79.66 79.33 80.00 no. of leaves/ plant 7.33 12.00 10.33 8.33 11.00 polar diameter (cm) 7.50 8.54 6.55 5.18 7.95 equatorial diameter(cm) 7.16 5.87 9.32 9.48 8.99 polar equatorial diameter ratio 1.05 1.45 0.70 0.55 0.89 neck thickness (cm) 0.98 0.66 1.21 0.42 0.88 a grade bulb (%) 22.00 42.00 69.21 65.69 63.58 b grade bulbs (5) 25.00 6.35 12.28 0.00 20.51 c grade bulbs (%) 25.00 12.40 0.00 15.84 7.69 doubles (%) 28.00 28.05 17.30 16.33 8.20 tss % 15.06 9.50 14.00 2.23 14.10 average bulb weight (gm) 374.06 196.98 310.39 236.69 377.76 purple blotch (%) 8.24 10.26 13.09 8.39 9.10 thrips/plant 24.66 21.33 24.00 9.33 29.00 downy mildew (%) 16.08 19.96 20.16 18.06 17.01 bolters (%) 0.00 1.18 1.21 2.13 0.00 marketable bulbs (%) 92.66 71.94 82.70 83.66 91.79 marketable yield (q/ha) 1109.15 453.47 821.41 633.64 1109.59 total yield (q/h) 1197.01 630.34 993.24 757.40 1208.83 table 4a. cluster means for 19 characters in 34 onion genotypes based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering analysis 24 singh et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 table 4b. grouping of 34 onion genotypes into five clusters based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering analysis characters cluster-i cluster-ii cluster-iii cluster-iv cluster-v number of genotypes 9 8 9 7 1 % of total genotypes 26.47 23.52 26.47 20.28 2.94 position of genotype cith-o-1 cith-o-4 cith-o-5 cith-o-7 cith-o-29 cith-o-2 cith-o-14 cith-o-6 cith-o-13 cith-o-3 cith-o-16 cith-o-10 cith-o-15 cith-o-8 cith-o-21 cith-o-11 cith-o-17 cith-o-9 cith-o-22 cith-o-12 cith-o-19 cith-o-18 cith-o-24 cith-o-20 cith-o-25 cith-o-27 cith-o-30 cith-o-23 cith-o-28 cith-o-32 cith-o-31 cith-o-26 brown spanish coral red fig. 1.: bi-plot for 1st and 2nd pc for genotypes of onion in relation horticultural traits 25 assessment of genetic divergence in long day onion (allium cepa l.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 table 5. average inter and intra cluster distance cluster-i cluster-ii cluster-iii cluster-iv cluster-v cluster-i 0.00 803.47 697.08 509.31 582.56 cluster -ii 0.00 488.05 334.36 435.95 cluster-iii 0.00 305.03 579.48 cluster-iv 0.00 353.09 cluster-v         0.00 fig. 2. dendrogram depicting genetic relationship among 34 genotypes based on horticultural traits produced by complete linkage analysis (scaleeuclidean distance at .05) (2017) also suggest that clusters having high mean value of the traits may be used for hybridization program to get better segregates. proximity matrix obtained, suggest the resolution for 34 onion genotype distributed in five clusters with wide range of diversity for the traits (table 5.) the highest inter cluster distance between cluster ii and cluster i (803.47%) followed by cluster-iii and i (697.8) cluster v and cluster i (582.56). based on convention that distantly related parents give better recombinants and hybrid. it could be expected that hybridization between genotype of these cluster will results high heterotic f1, s and better recombinants in segregating generations. these genotypes of distant clustercould serve useful source of genes for different desirable traits in onion. the findings are in conformity with finding of singh et al. (2017), chattopadhay et al. (2015) and ravindra et al. (2018) who reported that genotypes among the cluster having high distance 26 singh et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 17-26, 2020 when used in hybridization programme will obtain a wide spectrum of variation in sergeants. dendogram obtained from single linkage cluster analysis by using the euclidian distance depicted the clear relationship and exact position of genotype in the clusters. all the genotype were distinct at 100 percent of dissimilarity and formed nine duster at 87% of dissimilarity, and formed five clusters at 57 of dissimilarity (fig ii). the dissimilarity ranged from 57 to 100% among the delineated genotypes enough to suggest the variability for crop improvement in onion. (denton and nwangburuka, 2011). genotypes cith-0-29, cith-0-26, cith—8, cith0-24 and cith-05 were divergent in cluster position on the basis of euclidian distance which reflected higher distance among these genotypes and may be used for hybridization to get the better segregates. singh et al., 2013 and santara et al., 2017 also reported such variability by using the single linkage cluster analysis in onion.this genetic diversity analysis would be useful to avoid the selecting parents from genetically homogenous cluster and maintain the broad genetic base for breeding programme in long day onion. references ario, o. j. and odulaza, a. 1991. numerical analysis of variation among accessions of okra . (a. esculentus l. moench) malvaceae. ann. bot. 67:527-531 arya, j. s., singh, n. arya, p. and kant a.2017. morphological variation and relationship among the onion ger mpla sm for qua ntita tive and qualitative traits at trans himalayas ladakh india. australian j. crop sci.11 (3)229-37. chattopadhay, a. sarangi, a.b., dutta, s., das,s. and deney, m. 2015. genetic relatedness between qualitative and qualitative parameters in onion (allium cepa l). vegetose. an international journal of plant research. 26 (1):151-157. denton, o. a. and nwangburuka, c. c. 2011.genetic variability in eighteen cultivars of wolanum anguiviam l. using principal component analysis (pca) and single linkage lluster analysis (slca). ann. biol. res. 2 : 62-67 kandil, a.a., leila, a.a., mostafa a.k., fathalla, f.h. (2010) study on internal bulb quality of some new egyptian onion cultivars under different irr igation r egime. i nte rnational j. plant production. 1(2) : 205-212 kendall, m.a.1980.multivariate analysis (2ndedn.) charls griffin and co. lonon. meena, o.p. and bahadur, v. 2015. breeding potential of indeterminate tomato (solanum lycopersicum l) accessions using d2 analysis. sarrao j. bree. gen. 47(1) 49-59. peter, j. p. and martinelli, j.a.1989. hierarchical cluster analysis as a tool to manage the variation in germplasm collection. theor. appl. genet. 78:42-48 ravindra, d., amirender, k. and anil, k. 2018.genetic variability, heritability and diversity analysis in short day tropical onion (allium cepa l): santara, p. manna, d., sarkar, h. k. and maithy, t.k. 2017. genetic variability, heritability genetic advance in kharif onion (allium cepa l). journal of crop and weed. 13(1):103-106  sas institute, 2011. sas institute inc., sas 9.1.3 help and documentation, cary, nc: sas institute inc., 2002-2004. shalini, m., sharma., s. gupta, m.m. and sushi k. 2003: eva lua tion of a n indian ger mpla sm collection of the medicinal plant bacopa monnieri (l.) pennell by use of multivariate approaches. euphytica 133 : 255-265. singh, r. k. and choudhry, b. d. 1985. biometrical methods in quantitative geneticanalysis. kalyani publishers, new delhi, p.318. singh, s.r., lal s., ahmed n., srivastava k.k., kumar d., jan n., amin a., and malik a.r. 2013. determination of genetic diversity in onion allium cepa l) using the multivariate analysis under long day conditions. afri. j. biot. 7 (20) 5599-606. singh, s.r., ahmed n. , srivastava k.k., singh d.b., achal, singh, and yousuf s. 2017. genetic divergence assessment in european carrot type. indian j. hort. 74 (1):551-54 steel, r.g, and torrie, r.h. 1980. principles and procedure of statistics. 2nd edition mcgraw-hill, inc. new york. (received on 12.07.2019 and accepted on 17.06.2020) 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() introduction good quality seed can be obtained consistently with efficient use of processing machines, irrespective of seedquality of a harvested seed lot. several seed-processing equipments are available to improve quality of the seed-lot, but, potential of these machines has not been exploited fully. in many of the seed processing plants, just an air-screen cleaner is operated owing to lack of information on other equipment as to how and to what extent seed quality can be upgraded using such equipment. specific-gravity separator is one such equipment which separates seeds based on their density. its potential has not been fully exploited by many involved in seed-processing. many vegetable seed-lots consist of under-developed/chaffy seeds similar in size to normal, well-developed seeds. these are difficult to remove by an air-screen cleaner. during a survey conducted by the authors in ranebennur, karnataka the hub of vegetable seed production activities in india, some seed companies expressed that light and black seeds present in okra seedlots lead to poor germination percentage and these cannot be removed by air-screen cleaning. hence, a study was taken up to assess the feasibility of using specific-gravity separator in okra for separating chaffy seeds from good seeds. seed quality improvement in okra through specific gravity separation h.s. yogeesha, b.l. kashinath, k. bhanuprakash and l.b. naik section of seed science and technology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india e-mail : hsy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a study was conducted to assess the efficiency of specific gravity separator in removing partially filled/chaffy seeds of okra during 2007 and 2008. bulk seed, after extraction, was first subjected to an air screen cleaner with three screens. then, the good seed fraction obtained was subjected to specific gravity separation. three fractions were obtained, viz., heavy, medium and light and they were assessed for quality, along with ungraded seed. test weight, germination percentage, first count, seedling vigour indices i & ii and field emergence were significantly higher in the heavy seed fraction than in ungraded seed. black seed content in heavy seed fraction was significantly low, thereby improving seed quality. rejection percentage in terms of light and medium seed fractions put together was 3.5% and 12% in 2007 and 2008, respectively. by removal of these fractions, percentage of field emergence improved from 63% to 82% in 2007, and 62.8 to 76.4% in 2008, respectively. key words: okra, specific gravity separation, seed quality, black seed j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):70-73, 2013 material and methods fresh seeds of okra cv. arka anamika were produced in kharif season of 2007 and 2008 at iihr, bangalore. after threshing, bulked seeds were subjected to air-screen cleaning (with three screens, westrup model). the goodseed fraction collected here was subjected to specific-gravity separation using westrup gravity separator. seeds were fed into the oscillating deck inclined to a side tilt of 2.5 degrees and rear-end tilt of 3.25 degrees, running on eccentric speed of 450 rpm. this set-up was found to be suitable for okra. the deck had four outlets from. the first outlet (present opposite the inlet) was adjusted such that the deck was completely covered with seeds, with a distinct density gradient. seeds moving upstream of the deck were collected separately at the second outlet and these belonged to the heavy seed-fraction. seeds from the first outlet were combined with this second fraction as these were free of extraneous matter. seeds collected from the lower end of the deck, i.e., fourth outlet, constituted the light seed-fraction. seeds collected from the middle spout, i.e., the third outlet consisted of heavy, medium and light seeds. these were again subjected to gravity separation. this recycling of the middle fraction continued until all the heavy seeds present in this fraction were separated, and were passed through a 71 second outlet meant for the heavy seed-fraction. finally, all three (heavy, medium and light) seed-fractions were collected separately, weighed and subjected to qualityassessment which consisted of 100 seed weight, number of black seeds (%), weight of black seeds (%), first count (%), laboratory germination (%), seedling vigour index i and ii, and field-emergence. normal okra seeds are greenish in appearance. seeds that were black in appearance were counted from a representative sample and expressed, in both number and weight basis, as percentage. seed germination test was conducted as per ista (1976) procedures. five replications of 100 seeds each were tested by the roll paper method. the first count was taken on 4th day, and the final germination on 12th day. seedling vigour index i was calculated by multiplying germination % with seedling length. seedling vigour index ii was calculated by multiplying germination % with seedling dry weight. field-emergence was tested by planting seeds on a raised nursery bed in open field. five replicates of 50 seeds each were planted, and seedling emergence was recorded on 21st day after sowing. data were analyzed using analysis of variance (anova) for completely randomized design, and means were compared using least significant difference (gomez and gomez, 1984). results and discussion test weight of three fractions obtained from specific gravity separation, viz., heavy, medium and light, was 7.79, 6.23 and 4.14g, respectively, in the year 2007. black seed content (by number as well as weight) reduced significantly from about 4% in air-screen cleaned seed to about 1% in the heavy-seed fraction. highest germination (96.4%) was observed in the heavy-seed fraction and was 9.6% higher than ungraded seeds (i.e., good-seed fraction from the airscreen cleaner). hardly any germination was seen in the light-seed fraction, while, only a few seeds (17%) produced normal seedlings in the medium fraction. seed vigour, expressed in as the first count (73.6 %), vigour indices i (3694) and ii (1633) was highest in the heavy-seed fraction than in the air-screen graded seed. total rejection, including medium and light fractions was around 3.5%. by rejecting these seeds, germination rate could be improved from 86.6% to 96.4%, and field-emergence from 63.3% to 82.0% (table 1). the experiment was repeated for confirmation, in the year 2008. test weights of heavy, medium and light seed fractions were 7.34, 5.77 and 4.69 g, respectively (table 2). highest germination rate (89.6%) was observed in the heavy-seed fraction and was 10% higher than in the table 1. various fractions of seeds obtained by specific gravity separation and their effect on seed quality in okra cv. arka anamika, in the year 2007 category of seed proportion no. of wt. of 100 seed first lab. vigour vigour field (%) black black weight count germn. index i* index ii** emergence seeds (%) seeds (%) (g) (%) (%) (%) seed from air screen 100 4.45 3.92 7.47 71.2 (57.5) 86.8 (68.7) 3056 1160 63.3 heavy seed 96.4 1.09 0.96 7.79 73.6 (59.4) 96.4 (79.1) 3694 1633 82.0 medium seed 2.1 8.67 8.54 6.23 15.2 (22.8) 17.2 (24.3) 390 179 10.5 light seed 1.4 61.08 58.03 4.14 7.2 (15.5) 7.2 (15.5) 84 41 1.3 sem ± 0.878 0.788 0.059 2.866 2.041 78.4 23.0 2.19 cd (p=0.05) 2.49 2.24 0.168 8.155 5.808 338.8 90.5 9.46 *germination % x seedling length **germination % x seedling dry-weight figures in parentheses are angular transformed values table 2. seed-quality attributes in different categories of seed obtained after specific-gravity separation in okra cv. arka anamika, in the year 2008 category of seed proportion no. of wt. of 100 seed first lab. vigour vigour field (%) black black wt (g) count germn. index i* index ii** emergence seeds (%) seeds (%) (%) (%) (%) seed from air screen 100 20.5 15.8 7.03 74.8 (60.4) 79.6 (64.3) 2507 7292 62.8 heavy seed 87.6 5.7 4.8 7.34 84.4 (68.2) 89.6 (72.4) 3138 10566 76.4 medium seed 8.1 85.9 84.0 5.77 28.8 (23.3) 34.8 (28.1) 913 1685 22 light seed 4.3 95.1 93.9 4.69 10.8 (8.7) 11.2 (9.0) 187 408 8 sem± 0.716 0.721 0.023 1.93 1.32 49.6 334 0.99 c.d (p=0.05) 3.09 3.11 0.1 8.3 5.7 214 1443 4.3 *germination% x seedling length **germination% x seedling dry-weight figures in parentheses are angular transformed values seed-quality improvement in okra by specific gravity separator j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):70-73, 2013 72 ungraded seed (i.e., good-seed fraction from the air-screen cleaner). black seed content climbed down from 20% to 6% with gravity-separation. black seed content was more in 2008 season than in previous season due to harvest time coinciding with rains. medium and light seed fractions, though showing some germination (35% and 11%, respectively), were significantly lower in seedling vigour expressed in terms of first count and seedling vigour indices, than the heavy-seed fraction. total rejection, including medium and light fractions, was around 12%. by rejecting these seeds, germination was improved from 79.6% to 89.4%, and field-emergence from 63% to 76%. two years’ data revealed that use of specific-gravity separator had significant effect in improving the quality of air-screen cleaned okra seeds. increase in field-emergence percentage observed was from 63% to 82% and from 63% to 76% in 2007 and 2008, respectively; whereas, in the case of laboratory germination, it was from 86.8% to 96.4% in 2007 and 79.6 to 89.6% in 2008. similar findings have been reported by sharma and swaran lata (2005) and pandita et al (2002) in okra; sadhna arora sharma et al (2009) in maize, and by menaka and balamurugan (2008) in amaranthus. impact of specific-gravity separation was greater on field-emergence percentage than on laboratory-germination percentage. laboratory germination improved by 10% in both years, whereas, field-emergence increased by 19% in the year 2007, and 13% in 2008. this shows that even lowvigour seeds germinate and produce normal seedlings under ideal (laboratory) conditions, but not in the field. fieldemergence of air-screen cleaned seeds was just 63% in both the seasons, but germination under laboratory testconditions was 86% and 76% in 2007 and 2008, respectively. this shows that specific-gravity separation is very effective in removing low-vigour seeds, thereby improving fieldemergence rate markedly. high vigour in the heavy-seed fraction obtained by gravity-separation is reflected in vigour index i and vigour index ii in both the seasons. low-vigour seeds constitute black and chaffy seeds, and these were removed effectively by the specific-gravity separator. there was a tendency in stained, defective, germinated and rhizoctonia solani and fusarium infected seeds of french bean to go into the lower spout of the gravity separator (lollato and silva, 1984). in the present study too, black and partially filled/chaffy seeds got separated as light and medium fractions, and this was reflected in the higher number of black seeds and low test-weight in these fractions. deck-inclination and speed of oscillation are very important parameters in a specific-gravity separator to achieve good separation. in the present study, the oscillating deck inclined at 2.50 width-wise and 3.50 length-wise, and oscillating eccentric speed of 450rpm was found ideal for obtaining good separation on the deck. with this set-up, distinct bands of heavy, medium and light seed fractions could be seen on the deck, running from the inlet end to the corresponding outlets. tiwari et al (2008), while working with lentil seed-lot processing, found that deck angle of 1.50 length-wise and 50 width-wise with oscillation speed of 450rpm was ideal for optimum separation. with these parameters in the machine, germination in lentil seed improved from 80% to 94%, and visual appearance improved by reductions in the amount of discoloured seeds from 5.1% to 0.6%. chaffiness, partial filling and occurrence of black seeds in okra could be due to many reasons. washing off of pollen due to heavy rains, non-availability of adequate source (especially during the later stages of the crop) and biotic/ abiotic stresses may lead to chaffiness or partial filling of seeds. such seeds will turn black if the crop is exposed to rains at harvest. lodging or damage to the plants/pods at seed-filling also results in chaffiness or partial filling. total rejection after gravity separation (including medium and light seed fractions) was 3.5% in 2007 and 12% in 2008. though seed recovery declined in specificgravity separation, seed quality significantly improved. sharma and swaran lata (2005) reported significant improvement in seed quality and storability of the heavy seed-fraction in okra by subjecting seeds to gravityseparation. from this study it is concluded that quality in okra seed lots, where cleaning and grading is done using airscreen cleaners, can be improved markedly by subjecting seeds to specific-gravity separation. references gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research. an international rice research institute book, wileyinterscience publication, philippines, pp 207–214 ista. 1976. international rules for seed testing. seed sci. technol., 4:3-49 lollato, m.a. and silva, w.r. 1984. effects of gravity table utilization on seed quality of field beans. da pesquisa agropecuaria brasileira, 19:1483-1496 yogeesha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):70-73, 2013 73 menaka, c. and balamurugan, p. 2008. seed grading techniques in amarathus cv. co.5. plant arch., 8:729-731 pandita, v.k., sinha, j.p. and shantha natagaran. 2002. use of specific-gravity separator for enhancing seed quality in vegetables. seed res., 30:318-321 sadhna arora sharma, d.k., bhatia, s., arora, m. and sehgal, v.k. 2009. effect of specific-gravity separation on seed quality of maize (zea mays l.) during storage.j. res. (pau), 46:176-179 sharma, j.k. and swaran lata, 2005. use of specific gravity separator and packaging material to enhance and maintain seed quality in okra (abelmoschus esculeutus l. moench.). int’l. j. agril. sci., 1:38-40 tiwari, k.b., basediya, a.c., srivastava, s.p. and himamshu vaishya. 2008. performance evaluation of specific gravity seed separator for lentil seed. indian j. trop. biodiv., 15:145-151 (ms received 21 august 2012, accepted 07 december 2012, revised 31 december 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):70-73, 2013 seed-quality improvement in okra by specific gravity separator this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction mango (mangifera indica) is climacteric fruit with high respiration rate and have limited shelf life under ambient conditions. sensitivity of fruits to decay, low temperature injury, perishability of fruits due to ripening and softening affects the handling, transport and storage potential of mangoes (hoa et al., 2002). mango cv. banganapalli is one of the major expor t cultivars in india (ra o and ra o, 2008). increasing consumer demand for quality, safety, variety, seasonal availability and consistency a re crea ting oppor tunities a s well a s possible bar rier s for indian small a nd ma rgina l ma ngo farmers. some of the major issues restricting the international trade and domestic transport of mango fruits are fruit fly infestation, disease incidence, sap b u r n, nonu nif or m r ip ening, c hil ling inju r y development during cold storage, etc. (sivakumar et al., 2011) and pesticide residue. for managing fr uit fly a nd a nt hr a cnos e ( impor t a nt s tor a ge disease), apart from implementing good agricultural p r a c t ic es ( g ap s ) in f ield, p os t ha r ves t disinfestation/ quarantine treatments are mandatory for inter na tiona l exports. hot wa ter tr ea tment (hwt) is one among many quarantine treatments used for mango exports. hwt is a highly efficient, non-chemical, environment friendly and low-cost method (jacobi et al., 1995; anwar and malik, 2007), which can also be adapted in local markets for inter-state transportation, aiming major indian markets. t her e a r e r ecommended time-temper a tur e combinations to disinfect mangoes from fruit fly infestation and anthracnose infection. heat treatments disinfect the commodity by diminishing fruit fly eggs and maggots (paul and chen, 2000). when mango fruits are subjected to thermal treatments, the storage life may be further reduced as heat treatments were reported to enhance the ripening process. hence, it is significant to know how the application of these thermal treatments at recommended levels affects the quality and storage life of mango fruits. the present investigation reveals, whether particular hwts (quarantine and disinfection treatments) affect the quality and shelf life of mango cv. banganapalli when stored under ambient conditions. original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 189-194, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2162 effect of hot water treatments on physiological and biochemical changes in mango cv. banganapalli during storage at ambient temperature anand a.1*, rao d.v.s.2, narayana c.k.2, kurian r.m.3, ranjitha k.2 and shivashankara k.s.4 1&2division of postharvest technology & agricultural engineering, icar-iari outreach programme centre, bengaluru, karnataka, india 3division of fruit crops, 4division of basic sciences, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : anusreehorti@gmail.com abstract mango fruits majorly suffers from anthracnose and fruit fly infestations during storage, transportation and marketing. hot water treatments (hwts) at specific levels have shown to control the incidence of these important threats. application of hwt not only act as a quarantine measure, but also maintains the quality and enhance the marketability of fruits, even at room temperature (rt), leading to its vast applicability in local / international markets. in this study, post harvest application of hwts (48°c for 60 min and 55°c for 10 min) in mango cv. banganapalli recorded reduced ethylene production rate, physiological loss in weight, improved sugar content, ascorbic acid, total carotenoids, phenolics and antioxidants compared to control. combination of hwts (48°c for 60 min followed by 55°c for 10 min) resulted in degradation of some quality parameters compared to individual hwt and control. keywords : antioxidants, hot water treatments, mango cv. banganapalli, phenols, quality 190 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 189-194, 2023 anand et al. materials and methods the cv. banganapalli fruits of green mature stage were harvested and procured from mango orchards of icar-iihr a nd tr a nspor ted ca r efully to the laboratory. fruits were sorted to discard damaged ones and uniform sized and matured fruits were selected. fruits were separated into four lots, three for hwts and one as control (t4). different hwts viz., t1: 48°c for 60 min (recommended quarantine hwt for control of fruit fly), t2: 55°c for 10 min (recommended hwt for contr ol of a nthr a cnose disea se) a nd t 3: a combination treatment of 48°c for 60 min followed by 55°c for 10 min (to control both fruit fly and anthracnose) were used. the experiments were conducted in a rectangular batch type hot water treatment plant with a capacity of 500 kg/batch, developed at icar-iihr. hot water treated fruits and control fruits (water washed and air-dried) were packed in corrugated fibre board (cfb) boxes with three replications, each containing approximately 4 kg fruits, and stored at room temperature (ambient temperature: 28.1° to 32.2°c with 45-50% relative humidity). measurement of physiological and biochemical parameters respiration rate was recorded using checkmate o2/ co2 analyzer and expressed as mg co2/ kg/ h and ethylene evolution was measured using ethylene analyzer and expressed as µl c2h4/ kg/ h (rao and rao, 2008), taking five fruits as five replications per treatment. physiological loss in weight (plw) was calculated cumulatively and expressed as percentage. five fr uits wer e selected a t ra ndom from ea ch treatment for quality attributes analysis. the pulp was extracted from fruits, grinded in a mixer grinder and then homogenized (specific quantity required for individual parameters) using ika t25 digital ultra turarax homogenizer before analysis. tss was measured using hand refractometer calibrated to 25°c (erma inc., tokyo, japan). parameters like acidity (%), ascorbic acid (mg/100 g) and sugars (%) were estimated using standard methods of analysis (aoac, 2000). five gram of mango pulp was grinded in pestle and mortar using a solution of petroleum ether and acetone (3:2) along with acid washed sand to extract the carotenoid pigments and the od values were read in spectrophotometer at 452 nm using petroleum etheracetone solution as blank. total carotenoid content was then calculated with reference to the standard curve prepared with β-carotene and expressed as µg/100 g pulp. tota l phenolic content in the pulp wa s determined by the method of singleton et al. (1999) and was expr essed as milligr am of gallic acid equivalent per 100 g of fresh weight (mg gae/100 g fw). total antioxiant capacity was determined in terms of frap (ferric reducing antioxidant power), using the method of benzie and strain (1996) and values were expressed as mg acetic acid equivalent (mg aae)/100g fw. statistical analysis: the effects of different treatments over the variables were evaluated by two-way analysis of variance based on a completely randomized design. software windostat 9.3 version was employed to analyze the analysis of variance at 5% significance level and statistical significance of differences between the mean. results and discussion respir ation ra te of all hw trea ted fr uits wa s significantly higher than that of control fruits (fig. 1). hea t tr ea tment might ha ve a cceler a ted the physiological metabolism and hastened ripening in these fruits, which was slow in control. a hot water treatment of 54°±1°c for 5 minutes in alphonso fruits accelerated ripening and resulted in higher respiratory climacteric (laksminarayana, et al., 1974). at the last day of reading, highest respiration rate was observed in the combination treatment. the effect of temperature on the respiration rate can be directly related to chemical reactions where the rate of reaction increases exponentially with an increase in temperature (wills et al., 1989). ethylene production rate of hot water treated fruits and control fruits were measured upto 1 week under ambient condition (fig. 2). ethylene peak was seen on the sixth day, where control fruits showed a highest value followed by 48°c for 60 min + 55°c for 10 min, 55°c for 10 min and 48°c for 60 min treatments. among heat treatments, combination treatment had highest ethylene production rate and quarantine hwt recorded lowest. highest ethylene production in control fruits can be attributed to early onset of diseases like anthracnose and soft rot during storage, which was merely present in hw treated fruits. yimyong et al. (2011) reported similar results in room temperature ripening of hw treated mangoes after low temperature storage. hwt eliminated ripening related ethylene rise and suppressed ethylene 191 effect of hot water treatments on physiological and biochemical changes in mango and 48°c for 60 min + 55°c for 10 min treatment fr uits. mor e da ma ge due to secondary disea se development was seen in control fruits at the end of storage. hwt effectively reduced disease and pest development in tr ea ted fr uits a nd ma inta ined marketability even after 1 week. hwt combined with inorganic salts solution dips effectively reduced disease incidence and enhanced quality and storability of fruits till consumer end (dessa legn et al. , 2013). combination treatment, on the contrary, might have suffered more heat stress, leading to surface scald/ heat injury, providing inoculum for the development of diseases and hence, had maximum weight loss among hwts. table 1 represents the changes in chemical attributes viz., tss, acidity, ascorbic acid and total sugars with respect to the treatments. tss was more and acidity was less in hwts, when compared to control. this is because, hw treated fruits ripened faster than that of control resulting in higher tss during initial storage period. there was no negative effect on the ascorbic acid content of treated mango fruits. ascorbic acid was seen highest in t 3 and t 1. being most unstable vitamin, ascorbic acid content is affected by pre and post harvest treatments, heat treatments, storage dur ation etc. (kha der a nd lee, 2000). in this experiment, ascorbic acid content was maintained in hwts and during storage duration. it is the length of high temperature exposure during storage which may cause the loss of vitamin c and high temperature during hw treatment is only for shorter duration and so there was minimum loss of vitamin c. studies fig. 1 : effect of hot water treatments on respiration rate of mango cv. banganapalli stored at rt fig. 2 : effect of hot water treatments on ethylene production rate (µl c2h4/kg/h) of mango cv. banganapalli stored at ambient temperature fig. 3 : effect of hot water treatments on physiological loss in weight of mango cv. banganapalli stored at ambient temperature production during subsequent storage at ambient temperature. plw of fruits recorded upto 12 days of storage has been shown in fig. 3. there was a gradual increase in fr uits’ plw with storage dura tion, irrespective of the treatments. initially, the loss in weight was higher in hot water treated fruits. this might be attributed to the stress developed in those fruits after subjected to heat treatment followed by ambient storage further, the respiration rates of hw treated mangoes were also higher as depicted in fig.1. plw occurs in fruits due to many reasons, where membr ane disruption associated higher ra te of transpiration and water loss being one among them. the weight loss also depends on the temperature and duration of heat treatment (perini et al., 2017; vilaplana et al., 2018). after 9 days, the plw in control fruits rapidly increased and at the end of storage highest plw was observed in control fruits j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 189-194, 2023 192 t ab le 2 : e ff ec t of d if fe re nt h ot w at er t re at m en ts o n to ta l ca ro te no id c on te nt , to ta l ph en ol s an d to ta l an ti ox id an t ca pa ci ty o f m an go c v. b an ga na pa lli s to re d at a m bi en t te m pe ra tu re t re at m en t to ta l ca ro te no id c on te nt m ea n to ta l p he no ls m ea n to ta l a nt io xi da nt c ap ac it y m ea n ( µg /1 00 g) (t ) (m g g a e /1 00 g) (t ) ( m g a a e /1 00 g) (t ) 5 da ys 7 da ys 10 d ay s 5 da ys 7 da ys 10 d ay s 5 da ys 7 da ys 10 d ay s t 1: 48 °c f or 6 0 m in 11 97 .9 22 28 .9 21 39 .7 18 63 .8 42 .4 5 40 .4 6 40 .6 5 41 .1 9 42 .8 1 40 .6 4 39 .2 0 40 .8 8 t 2: 55 °c f or 1 0 m in 12 36 .7 22 06 .1 23 68 .5 19 37 .1 41 .4 8 39 .9 3 41 .1 9 40 .8 7 41 .6 2 40 .0 6 38 .0 1 39 .9 0 t 3: 48 °c f or 6 0 m in 99 1. 7 16 74 .8 22 42 .8 16 36 .5 40 .5 4 37 .4 2 42 .6 6 40 .2 0 37 .6 3 36 .0 7 34 .3 1 36 .0 0 + 55 °c f or 1 0 m in t 4: c on tr ol 12 61 .0 20 63 .0 21 90 .5 18 38 .2 40 .4 3 38 .2 4 34 .0 8 37 .5 8 37 .1 2 39 .2 6 36 .9 8 37 .7 9 (w ith ou t t re at m en t) m ea n (d ) 11 78 20 43 .2 22 35 .4 41 .2 2 39 .0 1 39 .6 4 39 .8 0 39 .0 1 37 .1 2 t d t xd t d t xd t d t xd f te st ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** s. e .m ± 43 .5 7 50 .3 1 87 .1 4 0. 57 0. 66 1. 14 0. 23 0. 27 0. 46 c d a t 5 % 12 7. 18 14 6. 85 25 4. 35 1. 66 1. 91 3. 31 0. 67 0. 78 1. 35 t ab le 1 : e ff ec t of d if fe re nt h ot w at er t re at m en ts o n t s s , ac id it y, a sc or b ic a ci d , to ta l su ga r of m an go c v. b an ga na p al li st or ed a t am bi en t te m pe ra tu re t re at m en t t ss m ea n a ci di ty m ea n a sc or bi c ac id m ea n to ta l su ga rs m ea n (° b ) (t ) (% ) (t ) (m g/ 10 0 g) (t ) (% ) (t ) 5 da ys 7 da ys 10 d ay s 5 da ys 7 da ys 10 d ay s 5 da ys 7 da ys 10 d ay s 5 da ys 7 da ys 10 d ay s t 1: 48 °c f or 6 0 m in 20 .6 7 21 .6 7 21 .6 0 21 .3 1 0. 47 0. 33 0. 25 0. 35 3. 20 5. 60 9. 47 6. 09 14 .8 9 13 .7 8 15 .0 8 14 .5 9 t 2: 55 °c f or 1 0 m in 21 .5 3 22 .0 7 19 .8 7 21 .1 6 0. 54 0. 34 0. 29 0. 39 3. 27 5. 13 6. 73 5. 04 12 .6 8 16 .4 7 15 .3 1 14 .8 2 t 3: 48 °c f or 6 0 m in 22 .1 3 21 .2 7 20 .5 3 21 .3 1 0. 53 0. 42 0. 32 0. 42 4. 27 6. 73 10 .3 3 7. 11 11 .5 1 14 .1 8 15 .8 9 13 .8 6 + 55 °c f or 1 0 m in t 4: c on tr ol 17 .8 3 19 .8 7 19 .4 7 19 .0 6 0. 63 0. 53 0. 50 0. 56 3. 87 5. 60 7. 00 5. 49 12 .8 4 15 .0 5 15 .9 8 14 .6 2 (w ith ou t tr ea tm en t) m ea n (d ) 20 .5 4 21 .2 2 20 .3 7 0. 54 0. 41 0. 34 3. 65 5. 77 8. 38 12 .9 8 14 .8 7 15 .5 6 t d t xd t d t xd t d t xd t d t xd f te st ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** s. e .m ± 0. 23 0. 27 0. 47 0. 01 0. 01 0. 02 0. 18 0. 20 0. 35 0. 18 0. 20 0. 35 c d a t 5% 0. 68 0. 79 1. 37 0. 03 0. 03 0. 06 0. 52 0. 60 1. 03 0. 52 0. 60 1. 04 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 189-194, 2023 anand et al. 193 (djioua et al., 2009) reported the positive correlation between heat treatment and ascorbic acid content, sta ting, hea t tr eatment did not a ffect but a lso maintained the ascorbic acid content. hwts maintained the total sugars in fruits during storage. total sugars were highest in t2 and lowest in t3, which is the combination treatment (table 1). increased exposure to the heat in t3 might have denatured the enzymes responsible for the synthesis of sugars. papaya when immersed in hot water at 49°c for 90 min and 120 min acquired minimum sugar content due to the reduction of xylanal and polygalacturonase activity by reducing their synthesis (benjamin et al., 2018). other important bio-chemical parameters on which the effect of hwts studied includes total carotenoids, phenols and antioxidant capacity (table 2). total carotenoids were higher in t2, followed by t1 and then t4. here, the combination treatment, t3 recorded minimum carotenoids, though it had a higher peel colour. there was an elevated outcome on total phenols and antioxidant capacity in hwts than that of control. less antioxidant activity was seen in t3. the total antioxidant activity, levels of phenolic compounds and ascorbic acid were higher in heat treated-pomegranate (mirdehghan et al., 2005) and strawberries due to the stimulation of protective enzymes against oxidation (viente et al., 2006). conclusion hot wa ter tr ea t ment is one of t he pr omising methods to prevent fruit fly disinfestations and decay in mango during storage, though, there is concern regarding its effect on fruits’ storage life and quality. in the present experiment, hwts did not nega t iv ely a ff ec t t he p hys io logic a l a nd biochemical attributes. recommended hwts for fruit fly and anthracnose control, when applied alone enhanced the biochemical quality viz., higher sugar content and lower acidity, higher carotenoid c ont ent , p henolic s a nd a nt iox ida nt c a p a c it y compared to control fruits. the combination of these treatments did not give any positive results in ter ms of qua lity. sta nda lone h wt ca n be recommended as a potential, safe and non-chemical treatment to manage diseases, fulfil quar antine requirements, improve quality and stora ge life, aiding to quality fruits supply in local as well as international markets. acknowledgment the financial support by government of india, department of science and technology, as dstinspire fellowship, is gratefully acknowledged by the first author. authors also acknowledge icar-iihr for availing the laboratory facility. references anwar, r. and malik, a. u. 2007. hot water treatment affects ripening quality and storage life of mango (mangifera indica l.). pak. j. agric. sci. 44: 304-311. benjamin, y., clement, y. b., edith, n. k. and ka bla n, t. 2018. t he effect of ther ma l treatment (49°c-90 min) coupled with storage at 15°c on the infection rate, physicochemical and nutritional 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(received : 13.01.2023; revised : 27.03.2023; accepted 31.05.2023) j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 189-194, 2023 anand et al. 82 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 82-84, 2017 incidence of cetonid beetles, protaetia alboguttata (vigors) on karonda, carissa carandas p. d. kamala jayanthi1, vivek kempraj1 and b.n.s. murthy2 1division of entomology and nematology, 2division of fruit crops, indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake po, bangalore 560 089 e-mail: jaiinsect@gmail.com abstract severe infestation of cetonid beetles, protaetia alboguttata (vigors) has been noticed on karonda at the experimental station of indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during the year 2013. the mean damage on the ripe fruits was found to be 22.40+2.50% with a range of 15.00 – 30.00%. considering the polyphagy of cetoniids, these beetles can pose direct threat to the cultivation of karonda. key words: expanded host range, fruit pest, severe incidence ka r onda , carissa carandus l. is a n underutilized fruit plant which is gaining popularity as one of the ‘future crops’ to supplement nutritional needs. it is a hardy, evergreen, spiny and indigenous shrub widely grown in india and well suited for marginal lands. it naturally grows in nepal, afghanisthan, myanmar, thailand, peninsular malaysia and sri lanka low land rain forests. in india also it is found wild in the western ghats, konkan area of maharashtra, bihar, and west bengal and throughout the semi-arid regions of south india. nevertheless, regular commercial plantations of karonda are also very common in uttar pradesh, rajasthan, madhya pradesh and elsewhere. till to date there is no serious pest problem in karonda except for digama hearseyana, a defoliator in the early stages and simcronyx roridus, a gall forming weevil which were reported as minor pests (peter, 2007). the cetoniids are popularly called fruit and flower chafers, flower beetles and flower scarabs, belonging to subfamily cetoniinae (coleoptera: scarabeidae) comprising ~4000 species. many species are diurnal and visit flowers for pollen and nectar, or to browse on the petals, such play may have role in pollination. however, some species feed on fruits while some are termitophil. the genus protaetia that originates in asia includes some of a gr icult ur a lly imp or ta nt pest sp ecies viz. , p. acuminata, p fusca, p. orientalis r epor ted a s flower pests in mango, papaya etc. weekly survey in experimental orchards of indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru (12o58’n; 77o35’e), during april – june, 2013 revealed a severe incidence of cetoniid beetle, protaetia albogutta (vigor s) on r ipe ka r onda fr uits, c. carandus. beetles were found congregated and feeding on ripe fruits of karonda causing 15 -30% fruit damage during may-june fruiting period (fig.1). the beetles were found attracted to ripe fruits compared to unripe karonda fruits. the beetles fed on the flesh of the fruit by gouging with the horn in the front of the head and burying 3/4th of mouth parts in to the fruit (fig.1). their feeding damage and faecal matter ruined the fruit (fig. 1). the plants with damaged fruits were found to attract more beetles than plants with undamaged fruits. the field collected beetles were kept under caged conditions to monitor their feeding and breeding activities, by supplying ripe karonda fruits da ily along with moistened soil for egg laying (considering the egg laying habit of cetoniids in soil). inspite of the observed mating activity in the cages, egg laying was not noticed. in related species, p. fusca, studies indicated that oviposition occurred only when suitable substrate was available and resorption of eggs was common in females (simpson, 1990, kumbhar et al., 2012). earlier, occurrence of p. albogutta was reported for the first time from madhya pradesh, india as new r ecor d to the species diver sity of fa mily short communication 83 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 82-84, 2017 protaetia infestation on karonda carabaeidae (kailash chandra et al., 2012). a check list of cetoniidae of the palaearctic region mentioned the other species of genus protaetia viz., p. acanthi (from north east china), p. bellula (from yunnan, china), p. burmanica (from burma), p. cariana (from himalayan region, north india), p. coenosa (from north india), p. delavayi (from yunna n, china), p. laevicostata (fr om centra l china) and p. sakaiana (from northern vietnam) but not p. alboguttata restricting its geographical dis t r ib u t ion t o only i ndia a nd n ep a l ( www. gor o dins ki. r u / c hec klis t c e t o n i i d a e palea rctic. h tml ý; www. gbif. org/sp ecies /10 80673). its distribution on grass and flowering plants was reported by oliver e janson as early as 1905 in the ‘additions to the knowledge of the cetoniidae of br itish india ’ a s a common a nd gener a lly distributed indian species extending into ceylon (= sri lanka). the pestiferous nature of this cetoniid beetle wa s r ec or ded ea r lier on b r inja l, s o l a n u m melongena l. where they fed on the tender shoots, flowers and flower buds in the early morning and damage ranged from 60 – 80% (veeresh et al., 1980). recently, sekhar et al. (2000) found p. alboguttata infesting maize tassels during rainy season with characteristic aggregation habit. our subsequent surveys in nearby orchards showed that these beetles were also found damaging ripe fruits of carambola, averrhoa carambola. in near future, this beetle ca n pose serious thr ea t to ka ronda cultivation in india. acknowledgement authors thank dr v. v. ramamurthy, indian agricultural resear ch institute, new delhi for identifying the specimens and director, iihr for providing research facilities. fig.1. adult beetles of p. guttata moving on karonda plants (a); aggregation and feeding of beetles on ripe karonda fruits (b); typical gouging and feeding posture of beetle (c); damged karonda fruits (d); adult male and fe male beetles in dorsal (e) and ventral (f) views 84 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 82-84, 2017 kamala jayanthi et al references (ms received 01 may 2017, revised 15 may 2017, accepted 17 june 2017) kailash chandra, salma khan and devanshu gupta. 2012. new records to the species diversity of family scar abaeidae a nd hybosori da e (col eopt er a: scarabaeoidea) of jabalpur, madhya pradesh (india). academic journal of entomology 5 (1): 28-36. doi: 10.5829/idosi.aje.2012.5.1.6232 kumbhar, s. m., mamlavya, a. b. patil, s.j. and bhawane, g.p. 2012. biology of chiloloba orientalis. journal of insect science 12: 127. doi: 10.1673/031.012.12701 peter, k. v. 2007. underutilized and underexploited horticultural crops, vol 1, new india publishing, new delhi, 88, pp. 392 sekhar, j. c., sharma, r. k. and singh, n. n. 2000. incidence and distribution of flower eating beetles on maize zea mays l. indian j. entomology 62: 1-4. simpson gb. 1990. immature stages of protaetia fusca (herbst) (coleoptera: scarabaeidae: cetoniinae) with n ot es on bi ology. j ournal of a ust rali an entomological society. 29:67–73. veeresh, g. k., reddy, n. v., rajanna, c. 1980. cetoniid beetles as pests on brinjal (solanum melongena l.) in andhra pradesh. current research 9(3): 45-46. 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):111-113, 2013 short communication gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.), belonging to family asteraceae, is an important cut-flower grown for both domestic export markets. it is used in floral arrangements, flower beds, borders, pots and rock gardens. crop improvement programmes currently focus on developing of hybrid cultivars to boost productivity and profitability. genetic variability among parents is a prerequisite for selecting suitable parents in a breeding programme for various economic characters. several flower traits in gerbera have been examined using quantitative genetic approaches (chobe et al, 2010; anop kumari et al, 2011; rajiv kumar et al, 2012). genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation are useful in detecting the quantum of variability present in genotypes. the main purpose of estimating heritability and genetic parameters that compose heritability estimate is to compare the expected gains from selection based on alternative selection strategies (holland et al, 2003). therefore, information on variability, heritability and genetic advance is very important for selection of traits desired. the present study was undertaken to ascertain magnitude and extent of genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance with regard to quantitative traits for 13 genotypes of gerbera, to help identify potential traits for selection. studies on genetic variability in gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) rajiv kumar division of ornamental crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089 e-mail : rajiv@iihr.ernet.in abstract thirteen genotypes of gerbera were evaluated under naturally-ventilated polyhouse in completely randomized block design during the year 2011-12 to determine genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance for 15 quantitative traits, based on which selection may be made. analysis of variance showed significant differences among genotypes for all the characters studied. results revealed that magnitude of the phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) for all the traits, indicating greater genotype and environment interaction. high (>20%) pcv and gcv was observed for number of leaves/plant and leaf width. heritability estimates ranged from 24.03% (number of suckers/plant/year) to 93.5% (length of ray floret). high heritability (>60%) was observed for all traits except number of suckers/plant/year, flower diameter and flower-stalk diameter. high heritability, coupled with high genetic advance over per cent of mean, was observed for number of leaves/plant, leaf length, leaf width, days to bud-burst, days to first-flower opening, disc diameter, flower-stalk length, number of ray florets per flower head with length and width of ray florets. key words: gerbera, genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance the present study was carried out at division of ornamental crops, indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bangalore during the year 20112012 in completely randomized block design, with six replications. experimental material consisted of 13 genotypes of gerbera, viz., ambeta, amelie, amlet, askye, cocuy, dameblanche, julia, muriel, naike, natasha, nuvola, sonata and top model. the experiment was conducted in a naturally ventilated polyhouse. tissue culture plants of all the genotypes were planted at 40 cm x 30 cm spacing, accommodating six plants/m2. uniform cultural practices were imposed on all the genotypes to ensure good growth of the crop. data were recorded on six plants from each genotype for 15 traits, viz., number of leaves/plant, leaf length (cm), leaf width (cm), plant spread (cm), number of suckers/ plant/year, days to bud-burst, days to first-flower opening, flower diameter (cm), disc diameter (cm), flower-stalk length (cm), flower-stalk diameter (mm), number of ray florets/ flower-head, length of ray florets (cm), width of ray florets (cm) and number of flowers/plant/month. phenotypic and genotypic co-efficients of variation were calculated using the procedure suggested by singh and choudhury (1985). heritability in the broad sense and genetic advance expressed in per cent of mean were calculated as per burton 112 (1952). statistical package ‘biostat iihr, version 1.0’ was used for statistical analysis. extent of variability was measured in terms of mean, range, genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) along with per cent heritability (h2) and genetic advance over per cent mean and is presented in table 1. phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for all the characters, indicating the role of environment in expression of the genotype. anop kumari et al (2011) and rajiv kumar et al (2012) also reported higher pcv than gcv for various traits. however, close correspondence was seen between gcv and pcv for some characters like leaf width, plant spread, days to bud-burst, disc diameter, flowerstalk length, and, length and width of ray florets, indicating little influence of environment on these characters. genotypic coefficient of variation helps to measure genetic variability with regard to a character and, therefore, it is not possible to partition existing heritable variation in a population based solely on this estimate. estimates of heritability in a broad sense give a measure of transmission of characters from one generation to another, thus, giving an idea about the heritable portion of variability which enables the plant breeder to isolate elite selections in the crop. heritability and genetic advance increase efficiency of selection in a breeding programme by assessing influence of the environmental factors, and additive gene action. high heritability (>60%) was observed for all the traits except number of suckers/plant/year, flower diameter and flower-stalk diameter, indicating a possible role of additive gene-action. magnitude of heritable variability is the most important aspect of genetic constitution of a genotype and has a close bearing on the response to selection (panse, 1957). similar findings were also reported by chobe et al (2010) and anop kumari et al (2011). heritability in the broad sense ranged from 24.03% (number of suckers/plant/ year) to 93.5% (length of ray floret). genetic advance (as per cent of mean) ranged between 5.21 (flower diameter) and 42.66% (leaf width). high genetic advance was observed for number of leaves/plant, leaf length, leaf width, days to bud-burst, days to first-flower opening, disc diameter, flower-stalk length, number of ray florets/flower head, and length and width of ray florets. moderate genetic advance was recorded for plant-spread and number of flowers/plant, while, number of suckers/plant, flower diameter and flowerstalk diameter recorded a low genetic advance. gcv and heritability (broad sense) do not suffice when determining the amount of variation that is heritable (burton, 1952). heritable variation can be determined with greater accuracy when heritability is studied along with genetic advance. heritability, along with genetic gain, is a more useful criterion for predicting resultant effects of selecting the best individual (johnson et al, 1955). high heritability, with high genetic advance, means that the character in question is governed by additive gene action (anop kumari et al, 2011). in the present study, number of leaves/plant, leaf length, leaf width, days to bud-burst, days to first-flower opening, disc diameter, flower-stalk length, table 1. mean, range, genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance for 15 traits in 13 genotypes of gerbera character mean ± sem range gcv pcv heritability genetic advance min. max. (%) (%) (%) over per cent of mean number of leaves/plant 10.98 ± 0.77 6.83 15.83 24.84 30.30 67.21 34.42 leaf length (cm) 37.50 ± 0.83 29.83 44.83 12.14 13.26 82.50 20.64 leaf width (cm) 15.00 ± 0.64 10.33 22.16 24.48 26.62 84.59 42.66 plant spread (cm) 62.69 ± 1.32 52.50 74.00 10.10 11.43 78.06 16.25 number of suckers/plant/year 1.50 ± 0.17 1.16 2.00 16.82 34.31 24.03 8.00 days to bud-burst 65.91 ± 1.60 56.16 97.33 15.76 16.86 87.37 28.37 days to first-flower opening 72.10 ± 1.63 62.16 105.33 14.96 16.01 87.29 26.90 flower diameter (cm) 10.74 ± 0.17 9.96 11.93 4.54 6.08 55.87 5.21 disc diameter (cm) 2.95 ± 0.06 2.30 3.78 15.98 16.80 90.49 29.83 flower-stalk length (cm) 57.39 ± 1.28 45.66 66.50 11.88 12.97 84.02 20.57 flower-stalk diameter (mm) 6.06 ± 0.22 5.25 7.05 8.34 12.08 47.63 8.25 number of ray florets/flower head 59.84 ± 2.43 38.83 84.66 17.85 20.30 77.31 28.44 length of ray florets (cm) 4.57 ± 0.06 3.78 5.59 13.49 13.95 93.50 26.03 width of ray florets (cm) 1.06 ± 0.02 0.84 1.44 17.13 17.93 91.29 32.07 number of flowers/plant/month 3.40 ± 0.07 2.80 3.85 9.02 10.71 71.05 13.23 gcv: genotypic coefficient of variation; pcv: phenotypic coefficient of variation j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):111-113, 2013 rajiv kumar 113 number of ray florets/flower head, and, length and width of ray florets showed high heritability with high genetic advance as per cent of mean. high heritability and high genetic advance for number of leaves per plant (anirban and dastidar, 2005; anop kumari et al, 2011), leaf width (rajiv kumar et al, 2012), disc diameter and stalk length (anuradha and gowda, 1999) have also been reported. high heritability with medium genetic advance as per cent of mean was observed for plant-spread and number of flowers/ plant/month, indicating the presence of dominant and epistatic gene effects. it can thus be inferring that these characters can be improved through hybridization. references anirban maji and dastidar, k.k.g. 2005. genetic variability and association of characters in gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) grown under open field condition. j. interacademicia., 9:481-486 anop kumari, patel, k.s. and choudhary, mahesh. 2011. genetic variability studies in gerbera. res. pl. biol., 1:1-4 anuradha, s. and gowda, j.v.n. 1999. quantitative genetic studies in gerbera. mysore j. agril. sci., 33:224227 burton, g.w. 1952. quantitative inheritance in grasses. proceedings of the 6th international grassland congress, pennsylvania, pa, usa, august 1952, 1:277-283 chobe, r.r., pachankar, p.b. and warade, s.d. 2010. studies on genetic variability and heritability in gerbera. asian j. hort., 5:356-358 holland, j.b., nyquist, w.e. and cervantes-martinez, c.t. 2003. estimating and interpreting heritability for plant breeding: an update. pl. breed. rev., 22:109-112 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f.r. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimation of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:314-318 nair, sujatha a. and shiva, k.n. 2003. genetic variability, correlation and path coefficient analysis in gerbera. j. orn. hort., 6:180-187 panse, v.g. 1957. genetics of qualitative characters in relation to plant breeding. ind. j. genet., 17:318328 rajiv kumar, deka, bidyut c. and venugopalan, r. 2012. genetic variability and trait association studies in gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) for quantitative traits. ind. j. agril. sci., 82:615–619 singh, r.k. and chaudhary, b.d. 1985. biometrical methods in quantitative genetic analysis. kalyani publishers, new delhi, p 318. (ms received 30 august 2012, accepted 21 march 2013, revised 23 march 2013) genetic variability in gerbera j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):111-113, 2013 introduction pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir) originated in central mexico and is cultivated in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. it is an important cucurbitaceous vegetable crop of india, constituting a principal ingredient in several indian dishes. pumpkin has received little attention in crop improvement compared to other cucurbitaceous vegetables. in pumpkin, the major problem is its large-sized fruits (4-5kg each). this is not overly preferred by the present nuclear families of three to four members. further, with increase in number of such families recently in india, customers prefer to buy only whole fruits of medium-size pumpkins, instead of cut pieces. further, small fruits are easily packed and transported, without any damage. therefore, developing pumpkin hybrids with small-to medium-sized fruits (2-3kg) is essential. the present study was undertaken to evaluate f1 hybrids for yield and quality for this purpose. material and methods the investigation was carried out at department of vegetable crops, horticulture college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, during 2009-10, with 36 f1 hybrids (obtained by crossing 12 lines and 3 testers through line x tester mating design) along with the standard check, mph-1, from mahyco seeds (p) evaluation of f1 hybrids of pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir) for yield and quality n.a. tamil selvi, p. jansirani and l. pugalendhi1 department of vegetable crops, tamil nadu agricultural university coimbatore 641 003, india e-mail: tamilaaru@gmail.com abstract an investigation was carried out to study the performance of 36 hybrids of pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir) through line x tester mating design. observations were recorded on the traits, viz., vine length, days to first female flower appearance, node number for first female flower appearance, sex ratio, days to first harvest, fruit number per vine, fruit weight, flesh thickness and fruit yield per vine, besides quality traits such as total carbohydrate content, total carotenoid content and crude fibre content in the fruit. among the 36 hybrids of pumpkin studied, the cross ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ excelled in yield per vine, followed by the crosses ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’ and ‘narendra uphar x co-2’, respectively. thus, first generation hybrids can be well-utilized for exploiting hybrid vigour to achieve improved quality. key words: hybrids, pumpkin, evaluation, line x tester j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 ltd. field experiments with the hybrids were laid out in randomised block design, with three replications and seven plants per replication at a spacing of 2.5x2.5m 2. recommended package of practices of tnau was followed to grow a successful crop of pumpkin (anon, 1985). observations were recorded in five randomly selected plants in each replication on important quantitative traits, viz., vine length (m), days to first female flower appearance, node number for first female flower appearance, sex ratio, days to first harvest, fruit number per vine, fruit weight (kg), flesh thickness (cm) and fruit yield per vine (kg) besides quality traits such as total carbohydrate content (g/100g) (hedge and hofreiter, 1962), total carotenoid content (mg/100g) (roy, 1973) and crude fibre content of the fruit (%) (chopra and kanwar, (1976). statistical analysis of data was done to estimate per se values and degree of significance of various traits (panse and sukhatme, 1978). results and discussion in pumpkin hybrids exhibited significant differences for all the characters under study for growth, yield and quality, thus offering scope for selecting high-yielding hybrids with good quality traits. results of per se performance of hybrids are presented in tables 1 and 2. the sca effect of a hybrid denotes deviation from performance prediction based on gca of the parents (allard, 1960). the sca effect seen is 1tapioca and castor research station, yethapur, salem 636 119, india 188 due to dominance, epistasis and environmental influence. under certain favourable conditions, all the non-additive gene functions may be triggered and may result in high sca effect and mean value of a responding hybrid. thus, evaluation of a hybrid for high per se and sca effect is also an important criterion. hybrids with high per se and sca effect were evaluated for selecting the best hybrids. the gca and sca values of parents and hybrids are presented in tables 3 and 4, respectively. vine length is an important parameter for obtaining high fruit yield in crops like the pumpkin. among the 36 hybrids of pumpkin studied, the cross ‘ashoka farm aids x co-2’, followed by ‘karamadai local x avinashi local’ and ‘virudhachalam local x avinashi local’ exhibited high sca and mean performance for vine length. sharma et al (1993) recorded similar results in bitter gourd in the cross ‘pocha seed x pspl’. in these crosses, the parents, ashoka farm aids, karamadai local, virudhachalam local and the testers co-2 and avinashi local exhibited good general combing ability for vine length. a predominant role of nonadditive gene action for vine length in pumpkin was reported by sirohi and ghorui (1993) and nisha (1999). table 1. mean performance of f1 hybrids of pumpkin for growth parameters hybrid vine days to node sex days to no. of length 1st female number of ratio first fruits per (m) flower female flower harvest vine appearance appearance pusa vishwas x arka suryamukhi 2.78 52.87 16.12 18.50 120.75 2.62 pusa vishwas x avinashi local 3.39 52.62 17.75 19.65 127.62 1.37 pusa vishwas x co-2 4.52 50.87 19.62 19.21 125.87 1.25 punjab samrat x arka suryamukhi 2.88 48.12 19.87 17.85 126.50 3.62 punjab samrat x avinashi local 3.57 49.50 22.75 19.35 132.37 4.25 punjab samrat x co-2 4.65 47.12 21.75 19.60 134.25 3.37 narendra abhushan x arka suryamukhi 5.06 45.87 20.62 26.38 107.50 2.50 narendra abhushan x avinashi local 3.31 47.00 22.87 29.90 104.37 1.62 narendra abhushan x co-2 5.64 46.62 17.00 25.88 105.75 2.87 narendra uphar x arka suryamukhi 3.71 49.75 21.25 19.83 107.87 1.37 narendra uphar x avinashi local 2.38 47.37 23.50 19.97 107.12 2.50 narendra uphar x co-2 2.57 48.00 21.12 19.31 106.37 3.37 ambili x arka suryamukhi 3.64 49.87 20.00 24.97 110.62 2.25 ambili x avinashi local 3.27 51.00 21.87 23.95 112.00 2.00 ambili x co-2 5.21 46.12 21.37 23.10 115.75 2.37 virudhachalam local x arka suryamukhi 5.06 50.00 24.62 28.45 128.75 1.37 virudhachalam local x avinashi local 6.39 56.37 23.87 28.85 134.25 1.12 virudhachalam local x co-2 3.57 52.62 23.62 26.38 130.87 1.62 chakor x arka suryamukhi 5.51 55.75 22.75 19.80 119.87 3.37 chakor x avinashi local 4.24 52.75 24.87 20.21 105.87 3.12 chakor x co-2 4.25 48.50 20.87 19.85 112.62 4.37 ashoka farm aids x arka suryamukhi 3.71 46.75 25.62 20.15 122.75 2.87 ashoka farm aids x avinashi local 7.25 48.87 23.62 19.35 104.75 3.50 ashoka farm aids x co-2 8.55 52.00 23.50 20.01 104.12 2.87 vadhalagundu local x arka suryamukhi 3.31 45.50 20.75 18.12 103.87 4.25 vadhalagundu local x avinashi local 2.89 46.75 20.87 19.23 105.62 3.87 vadhalagundu local x co-2 4.36 43.75 15.37 16.30 100.62 8.50 karamadai local x arka suryamukhi 4.17 46.62 22.87 19.23 107.12 4.25 karamadai local x avinashi local 6.27 45.25 22.37 19.45 117.12 5.50 karamadai local x co-2 3.77 46.75 21.12 19.80 111.00 3.87 karwar local x arka suryamukhi 3.50 50.37 23.25 20.95 120.87 2.62 karwar local x avinashi local 5.31 54.50 24.75 21.75 114.75 2.87 karwar local x co-2 5.53 47.87 23.00 19.95 107.87 2.87 kasi harit x arka suryamukhi 3.79 44.62 22.12 18.91 109.12 3.12 kasi harit x avinashi local 5.81 42.00 13.87 13.31 101.75 7.37 kasi harit x co-2 4.97 45.87 22.00 18.75 105.00 4.12 mph-1 6.13 51.25 22.62 20.04 136.50 5.37 mean 4.41 48.78 21.47 21.00 114.26 3.19 sed 0.11 0.88 0.75 0.68 2.47 0.38 cd (p=0.05) 0.22 1.78 1.52 1.38 4.96 0.76 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 tamil selvi et al 189 days taken to first female flower appearance is considered as one of the essential criteria for selecting for earliness in hybrids. among the 36 pumpkin crosses studied, the hybrid ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ was identified as the best. however, the female parent, ‘kasi harit’, only had favorable negative gca value. neeraj sharma et al (2002) recorded similar results in bottle gourd. per se and sca performance for node number for first female flower appearance in the 36 crosses was favorable in ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’, followed by ‘vadhalagundu local x co2’ and ‘pusa vishwas x arka suryamukhi’. further it was also observed that the female parent, vadhalagundu local, also contributed to development of crosses with favourable, and negative and significant sca, for this trait. similar results of earliness in muskmelon were recorded in the hybrids ‘pusa madhuras x iihr-615-5-2’ and ‘rm-43 x durgapur madhu’ by aravindakumar et al (2005). selection of hybrid combinations in cucurbits with low sex ratio is preferable to get high fruit set and high yield. among the 36 pumpkin hybrids under study, hybrid ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ followed by ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’ recorded the lowest mean, coupled with negative table 2. performance of pumpkin hybrids for yield and quality hybrid fruit flesh total total crude fruit weight thickness carbohydrate carotenoid fibre yield (kg) (cm) content content content per vine (g per 100 g) (mg per 100 g) (%) (kg) pusa vishwas x arka suryamukhi 3.60 2.43 0.53 0.98 1.26 9.33 pusa vishwas x avinashi local 4.45 2.08 1.03 0.88 0.64 5.83 pusa vishwas x co-2 4.16 2.62 0.76 0.77 1.02 5.29 punjab samrat x arka suryamukhi 3.57 2.72 1.03 0.92 0.85 10.10 punjab samrat x avinashi local 3.76 2.98 1.73 1.31 0.89 13.44 punjab samrat x co-2 3.06 1.91 1.08 0.71 0.79 6.43 narendra abhushan x arka suryamukhi 2.57 2.22 1.17 0.98 0.98 6.42 narendra abhushan x avinashi local 2.78 2.65 1.25 1.02 0.88 4.49 narendra abhushan x co-2 4.11 3.05 1.20 0.90 1.17 11.02 narendra uphar x arka suryamukhi 3.27 2.18 1.11 0.82 0.99 4.70 narendra uphar x avinashi local 3.71 2.66 2.11 1.37 0.68 9.26 narendra uphar x co-2 4.08 2.10 1.14 0.96 1.19 13.74 ambili x arka suryamukhi 4.74 3.07 1.13 0.84 1.00 10.61 ambili x avinashi local 3.76 2.57 1.52 1.17 1.03 7.54 ambili x co-2 4.07 2.67 0.51 0.44 0.79 10.01 virudhachalam local x arka suryamukhi 4.51 3.08 1.44 0.95 1.01 6.92 virudhachalam local x avinashi local 4.59 3.01 1.66 1.30 0.95 6.16 virudhachalam local x co-2 4.09 2.98 1.19 0.85 0.89 6.74 chakor x arka suryamukhi 3.60 3.40 1.15 1.01 1.04 10.24 chakor x avinashi local 4.41 2.92 1.98 1.27 0.87 12.18 chakor x co-2 4.18 2.83 1.55 1.15 0.93 14.00 ashoka farm aids x arka suryamukhi 4.35 3.42 1.36 0.91 0.72 8.70 ashoka farm aids x avinashi local 3.35 3.52 1.79 1.40 1.30 10.30 ashoka farm aids x co-2 3.73 2.53 1.03 0.89 0.96 6.92 vadhalagundu local x arka suryamukhi 2.50 1.71 1.47 1.22 0.87 8.35 vadhalagundu local x avinashi local 2.58 1.73 2.08 1.78 0.82 6.23 vadhalagundu local x co-2 1.94 3.22 2.56 5.10 0.64 17.51 karamadai local x arka suryamukhi 3.32 2.80 1.95 1.53 0.75 9.46 karamadai local x avinashi local 2.39 2.48 2.93 2.11 0.92 10.03 karamadai local x c2 3.02 3.00 1.65 1.30 1.31 9.21 karwar local x arka suryamukhi 3.66 1.93 1.83 1.60 1.25 6.67 karwar local x avinashi local 2.66 2.50 3.05 3.24 0.93 8.77 karwar local x co-2 3.21 2.47 3.13 2.80 0.86 5.65 kasi harit x arka suryamukhi 2.09 2.46 2.54 2.16 1.17 6.00 kasi harit x avinashi local 2.22 3.55 3.07 3.57 0.77 18.01 kasi harit x co-2 2.40 2.28 2.88 2.68 1.05 8.25 mph-1 3.01 2.38 1.80 3.25 1.32 9.17 mean 3.46 2.66 1.65 1.46 0.94 9.04 sed 0.16 0.24 0.04 0.06 0.04 0.21 cd (p=0.05) 0.33 0.49 0.08 0.13 0.08 0.42 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 evaluation of f1 hybrids of pumpkin for yield and quality 190 ta bl e 3. e st im at io n of g en er al c om bi ni ng a bi lit y (g ca ) ef fe ct s of p ar en ts f or v ar io us t ra it s in p um pk in so ur ce ch ar ac te rs v in e d ay s to n od e no . se x ra tio d ay s to n o. o f fr ui t fl es h to ta l to ta l c ru de fr ui t le ng th 1s t f em al e fo r 1 st 1s t ha rv es t fr ui ts w ei gh t th ic kn es s ca rb oh yd ra te ca ro te no id fib er yi el d fl ow er fe m al e pe r vi ne co nt en t co nt en t co nt en t pe r vi ne ap pe ar an ce fl ow er ap pe ar an ce li ne pu sa v is hw as -0 .8 5 ** 3. 35 ** -3 .6 0* * -1 .8 9 ** 10 .2 1* * -1 .3 8 ** 0. 61 * * -0 .2 8 ** -0 .8 8 ** -0 .5 9 ** 0. 03 -2 .2 0 ** pu nj ab s am ra t -0 .7 1 ** -0 .5 3 0. 02 -2 .0 7 ** 16 .6 3* * 0. 62 * * 0. 01 -0 .1 2 -0 .3 8 ** -0 .4 9 ** -0 .1 1 ** 0. 97 * * n ar en dr a 0. 26 * * -2 .2 8* * -1 .5 2* * 6. 38 * * -8 .5 4* * -0 .8 0 ** -0 .3 0 ** -0 .0 2 -0 .4 5 ** -0 .5 0 ** 0. 06 * * -1 .7 0 ** a bh us ha n n ar en dr a -1 .5 2 ** -0 .4 0 0. 32 -1 .3 0 ** -6 .8 8* * -0 .7 2 ** 0. 23 * * -0 .3 5 ** -0 .2 0 ** -0 .4 2 ** 0. 00 0. 22 * * u ph ar a m bi li -0 .3 7 ** 0. 18 -0 .4 3 3. 00 * * -1 .3 3 -0 .9 2 ** 0. 73 * * 0. 11 -0 .6 0 ** -0 .6 5 ** -0 .0 1 0. 37 * * v iru dh ac ha la m 0. 60 * * 4. 22 ** 2. 61 ** 6. 89 * * 18 .1 7* * -1 .7 6 ** 0. 94 * * 0. 37 * * -0 .2 3 ** -0 .4 4 ** 0. 00 -2 .4 1 ** lo ca l c ha ko r 0. 26 * * 3. 56 ** 1. 40 ** -1 .0 5 ** -1 .6 3 0. 49 * * 0. 61 * * 0. 39 * * -0 .0 9 ** -0 .3 3 ** -0 .0 0 3. 13 * * a sh ok a fa rm 2. 09 * * 0. 43 2. 82 ** -1 .1 7 ** -3 .8 8* * -0 .0 5 0. 35 * * 0. 50 * * -0 .2 6 ** -0 .4 0 ** 0. 04 * -0 .3 7 ** a id s v ad ha la gu nd u -0 .8 9 ** -3 .4 4* * -2 .4 3* * -3 .1 2 ** -1 1. 04 ** 2. 03 * * -1 .1 2 ** -0 .4 4 ** 0. 38 * * 1. 23 * * -0 .1 7 ** 1. 68 * * lo ca l k ar am ad ai 0. 33 * * -2 .6 1* * 0. 69 * -1 .5 1 ** -2 .6 7* 1. 41 * * -0 .5 5 ** 0. 10 0. 52 * * 0. 18 * * 0. 04 * 0. 55 * * lo ca l k ar w ar l oc al 0. 37 * * 2. 14 ** 2. 23 ** -0 .1 2 0. 08 -0 .3 4 * -0 .2 8 ** -0 .3 6 ** 1. 01 * * 1. 08 * * 0. 06 * * -1 .9 9 ** k as i h ar it 0. 45 * * -4 .6 1* * -2 .1 0* * -4 .0 2 ** -9 .1 3* * 1. 41 * * -1 .2 2 ** 0. 10 1. 17 * * 1. 34 * * 0. 05 * 1. 74 * * se d 0. 02 0. 39 0. 33 0. 29 1. 18 0. 16 0. 06 0. 09 0. 01 0. 02 0. 01 0. 03 te st er s a rk a -0 .4 8 ** 0. 06 0. 11 0. 09 -1 .3 0* -0 .2 8 ** 0. 02 -0 .0 4 -0 .2 6 ** -0 .3 1 ** 0. 04 * * -0 .8 9 ** su ry am uk hi a vi na sh i l oc al 0. 10 * * 0. 72 ** 0. 48 ** 0. 24 -0 .2 2 0. 05 -0 .0 7 * 0. 06 0. 36 * * 0. 23 * * -0 .0 6 ** 0. 34 * * c o -2 0. 39 * * -0 .7 8* * -0 .5 9* * -0 .3 3 * -1 .0 8 0. 23 * * 0. 05 -0 .0 2 -0 .1 0 ** 0. 08 * * 0. 02 0. 55 * * se d 0. 01 0. 19 0. 16 0. 14 0. 59 0. 08 0. 03 0. 04 0. 00 9 0. 01 0. 00 9 0. 01 *, * *s ig ni fi ca nt a t 5 % a nd 1 % le ve l, re sp ec tiv el y j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 tamil selvi et al 191 ta bl e 4. e st im at io n of s pe ci fi c co m bi ni ng a bi lit y (s ca ) ef fe ct s of c ro ss es f or v ar io us t ra it s in p um pk in h yb ri d v in e d ay s to n od e no . se x ra tio d ay s fr ui t fr ui t fl es h to ta l to ta l c ru de fr ui t le ng th 1s t m al e fo r 1 st to 1 st no . pe r w ei gh t th ic kn es s ca rb oh yd ra te ca ro te no id fib er yi el d fl ow er fe m al e ha rv es t vi ne co nt en t co nt en t co nt en t pe r vi ne ap pe ar an ce fl ow er ap pe ar an ce pu sa v is hw as x -0 .3 0 ** 0. 69 -1 .8 2* * -0 .7 1 -5 .5 5* 1. 15 * * -0 .4 9 ** 1. 00 * 0. 02 0. 41 * * 0. 24 * * 3. 40 * * a rk a su ry am uk hi pu sa v is hw as x -0 .2 7 ** -0 .2 2 -0 .5 7 0. 29 3. 22 -0 .4 2 0. 45 * * -0 .3 3 -0 .1 0 ** -0 .2 3 ** -0 .2 8 ** -1 .3 3 ** a vi na sh i l oc al pu sa v is hw as x 0. 56 * * -0 .4 7 2. 38 ** 0. 42 2. 33 -0 .7 3 * 0. 05 -0 .6 7 0. 08 * -0 .1 8 ** 0. 03 -2 .0 7 ** c o -2 pu nj ab s am ra t x -0 .3 4 ** -0 .1 8 -1 .6 9* * -1 .1 7 * -5 .8 4* * 0. 15 0. 08 -1 .8 3 ** 0. 01 0. 25 * * -0 .0 3 1. 00 * * a rk a su ry am uk hi pu nj ab s am ra t x -0 .2 3 ** 0. 53 0. 81 0. 18 1. 55 0. 45 0. 37 * * 0. 96 * 0. 09 * * 0. 10 0. 11 * * 3. 11 * * a vi na sh i l oc al pu nj ab s am ra t x 0. 56 * * -0 .3 5 0. 88 1. 00 4. 29 * -0 .6 1 * -0 .4 5 ** 0. 87 -0 .1 0 ** -0 .3 5 ** -0 .0 7 * -4 .1 1 ** c o -2 n ar en dr a a bh us ha n x 0. 87 * * -0 .6 8 -0 .1 5 -1 .0 9 * 0. 32 0. 44 -0 .6 1 ** -2 .8 3 ** 0. 23 * * 0. 32 * * -0 .0 7 * 0. 00 a rk a su ry am uk hi n ar en dr a a bh us ha n x -1 .4 6 ** -0 .2 2 2. 48 ** 2. 27 * * -1 .2 8 -0 .7 5 * -0 .3 0 * 2. 09 * * -0 .3 2 ** -0 .1 8 ** -0 .0 7 * -3 .1 6 ** a vi na sh i l oc al n ar en dr a a bh us ha n x 0. 58 * * 0. 90 -2 .3 3* * -1 .1 8 * 0. 96 0. 31 0. 91 * * 0. 74 0. 09 * * -0 .1 4 ** 0. 14 * * 3. 16 * * c o -2 n ar en dr a u ph ar x 1. 31 * * 1. 32 -1 .2 3* 0. 04 -0 .9 7 -0 .7 6 * -0 .4 4 ** 6. 17 * * -0 .0 8 * 0. 08 -0 .0 0 -3 .6 4 ** a rk a su ry am uk hi n ar en dr a u ph ar x -0 .6 0 ** -1 .7 2* 1. 27 * 0. 03 1. 05 0. 04 0. 09 -2 .9 1 ** 0. 30 * * 0. 09 -0 .2 1 ** -0 .3 1 ** a vi na sh i l oc al n ar en dr a u ph ar x -0 .7 1 ** 0. 40 -0 .0 3 -0 .0 6 -0 .0 8 0. 73 * 0. 35 * * -3 .2 6 ** -0 .2 2 ** -0 .1 7 ** 0. 22 * * 3. 96 * * c o -2 a m bi li x 0. 09 0. 74 -1 .1 1 0. 88 -2 .8 9 0. 32 0. 53 * * 1. 92 * * 0. 34 * * 0. 33 * * 0. 02 2. 11 * * a rk a su ry am uk hi a m bi li x -0 .8 7 ** 1. 32 0. 39 -0 .3 0 -0 .8 6 -0 .2 5 -0 .3 6 ** -3 .2 9 ** 0. 10 * * 0. 12 * 0. 15 * * -2 .1 9 ** a vi na sh i l oc al a m bi li x c o -2 0. 78 * * -2 .6 0* * 0. 72 -0 .5 8 3. 75 -0 .0 7 -0 .1 7 1. 37 * * -0 .4 5 ** -0 .4 5 ** -0 .1 7 ** 0. 07 v ir ud ha ch al am l oc al x 0. 54 * * -3 .0 6* * 0. 48 0. 47 -2 .6 4 0. 28 0. 09 0. 42 0. 27 * * 0. 23 * * 0. 02 1. 21 * * a rk a su ry am uk hi v ir ud ha ch al am l oc al x 1. 29 * * 2. 65 ** 0. 65 0. 72 3. 39 -0 .3 0 0. 26 * 3. 21 * * -0 .1 3 ** 0. 03 0. 06 -0 .7 9 ** a vi na sh i l oc al v ir ud ha ch al am l oc al x -1 .8 3 ** 0. 40 0. 17 -1 .1 8 * -0 .7 5 0. 02 -0 .3 6 ** -3 .6 3 ** -0 .1 4 ** -0 .2 6 ** -0 .0 8 * -0 .4 2 ** c o -2 c ha ko r x 1. 33 * * 3. 36 -0 .1 9 -0 .2 4 5. 78 ** 0. 03 -0 .4 9 ** -0 .6 7 -0 .1 5 ** 0. 18 * * 0. 05 -1 .0 1 ** a rk a su ry am uk hi c ha ko r x -0 .5 2 ** -0 .3 1 1. 56 ** 0. 02 -6 .7 0* * -0 .5 5 0. 42 * * -1 .6 8 ** 0. 06 -0 .1 1 * -0 .0 2 -0 .3 0 ** a vi na sh i l oc al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 evaluation of f1 hybrids of pumpkin for yield and quality 192 c ha ko r x c o -2 -0 .8 0 ** -0 .3 6* * -1 .3 7* 0. 23 0. 92 0. 52 0. 07 2. 35 * * 0. 09 * -0 .0 7 -0 .0 3 1. 31 * * a sh ok a f ar m a id s x -2 .3 1 ** -2 .5 1* * 1. 27 * 0. 23 10 .9 1* * 0. 07 0. 52 * * 0. 04 0. 23 * * 0. 15 * * -0 .3 1 ** 0. 95 * * a rk a su ry am uk hi a sh ok a fa rm a id s x 0. 65 * * -1 .0 6 -1 .1 1 -0 .7 3 -5 .5 7* * 0. 37 -0 .3 9 ** 1. 21 * 0. 03 0. 10 * 0. 37 * * 1. 32 * * a vi na sh i l oc al a sh ok a fa rm a id s x 1. 66 * * 3. 57 ** -0 .1 6 0. 50 -5 .3 3* * -0 .4 4 -0 .1 3 -1 .2 6 * -0 .2 6 ** -0 .2 5 ** -0 .0 5 -2 .2 7 ** c o -2 v ad ha la gu nd u l oc al x 0. 27 * * 0. 11 1. 64 ** 0. 15 -0 .8 0 -0 .6 4 * 0. 14 1. 25 * -0 .3 0 ** -1 .1 7 ** 0. 05 -1 .4 6 ** a rk a su ry am uk hi v ad ha la gu nd u l oc al x -0 .7 2 ** 0. 69 1. 39 * 1. 11 * 2. 47 -1 .3 4 ** 0. 31 * -2 .3 3 ** -0 .3 2 ** -1 .1 5 ** 0. 11 * * -4 .8 1 ** a vi na sh i l oc al v ad ha la gu nd u l oc al x 0. 45 * * -0 .8 1 -3 .0 3* * -1 .2 5 * -1 .6 7 1. 98 * * -0 .4 4 ** 1. 08 * 0. 62 * * 2 .3 2 ** -0 .1 6 ** 6. 26 * * c o -2 k ar am ad ai l oc al x -0 .0 8 0. 40 0. 64 -0 .3 5 -5 .9 3* * -0 .0 1 0. 39 * * -0 .7 9 0. 04 0. 19 * * -0 .2 8 ** 0. 78 * * a rk a su ry am uk hi k ar am ad ai l oc al x 1. 44 * * -1 .6 4* -0 .2 3 -0 .2 8 5. 59 ** 0. 91 * * -0 .4 5 ** -0 .9 9 * 0. 39 * * 0. 23 * * -0 .0 1 0. 13 a vi na sh i l oc al k ar am ad ai l oc al x -1 .3 6 ** 1. 24 -0 .4 1 0. 64 0. 33 -0 .9 0 ** 0. 06 1. 79 * * -0 .4 3 ** -0 .4 2 ** 0. 30 * * -0 .9 0 ** c o -2 k ar w ar l oc al x -0 .7 9 ** -0 .6 0 -0 .5 2 -0 .0 2 5. 07 * 0. 11 0. 46 * * 0. 29 -0 .5 8 ** -0 .6 4 ** 0. 20 * * 0. 53 * * a rk a su ry am uk hi k ar w ar l oc al x 0. 43 * * 2. 86 ** 0. 60 0. 63 0. 47 0. 04 -0 .4 5 ** -2 .0 4 ** 0. 02 0. 46 * * -0 .0 2 1. 40 * * a vi na sh i l oc al k ar w ar l oc al x 0. 36 * * -2 .2 6* * -0 .0 8 -0 .6 0 -5 .5 4* * -0 .1 5 -0 .0 1 1. 74 * * 0. 56 * * 0. 18 * * -0 .1 7 ** -1 .9 3 ** c o -2 k as i h ar it x -0 .5 8 ** 0. 40 2. 68 ** 1. 83 * * 2. 53 -1 .1 4 ** -0 .1 7 -4 .9 6 ** -0 .0 2 -0 .3 4 ** 0. 13 * * -3 .8 6 ** a rk a su ry am uk hi k as i h ar it x 0. 85 * * -2 .8 9* * -5 .9 4* * -3 .9 2 ** -3 .3 2 1. 79 * * 0. 05 6. 09 * * -0 .1 2 ** 0. 54 * * -0 .1 7 ** 6. 92 * * a vi na sh i l oc al k as i h ar it x c o -2 -0 .2 7 ** 2. 49 ** 3. 26 ** 2. 09 * * 0. 79 -0 .6 5 * 0. 12 -1 .1 3 * 0. 15 * * -0 .2 0 ** 0. 04 -3 .0 5 ** se d 0. 05 0. 68 1. 88 0. 50 2. 05 0. 29 0. 11 0. 16 0. 03 0. 04 0. 03 0. 06 *, * *s ig ni fi ca nt a t 5 % a nd 1 % le ve l, re sp ec tiv el y h yb ri d v in e d ay s to n od e no . se x ra tio d ay s fr ui t fr ui t fl es h to ta l to ta l c ru de fr ui t le ng th 1s t m al e fo r 1 st to 1 st no . pe r w ei gh t th ic kn es s ca rb oh yd ra te ca ro te no id fib er yi el d fl ow er fe m al e ha rv es t vi ne co nt en t co nt en t co nt en t pe r vi ne ap pe ar an ce fl ow er ap pe ar an ce ta bl e 4. c on td . j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 tamil selvi et al 193 significant sca values. also, the lines ‘kasi harit’ and ‘vadhalagundu local’ and the tester co-2 rated as the better performing parents for developing hybrids with lower sex ratio values. shivanand hegde (2009) obtained similar results of low sex ratio in ridge gourd. earliness in terms of days to first harvest is an important criteria to select hybrids for commanding a premium price for fruits in the early markets. ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’, followed by the other hybrids, ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’, ‘kasi harit x co-2’ and ‘vadhalagundu local x avinashi local’ could be selected as these best performing hybrids as they proved their superiority through per se and sca values for days to first harvest. similar trend of earliness was observed in ash gourd hybrids by joydip mandal et al (2002). the crosses ‘monsoon miracle x holly green’ and ‘the largest x indian prime’ gave significant and negative sca for days to first harvest in bitter gourd (pal et al, 1983). fruit number per vine is a preferable trait for screening the hybrids for high yield. the hybrids ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’, ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ and ‘karamadai local x avinashi local’ recorded highest per se values coupled with significant gca and sca effects for fruit number per vine. in this cross, as the female parent, ‘kasi harit’, ‘vadhalagundu local’ and ‘karamadai local’ already proved to be good general combiners for this trait. in pumpkin, uma maheshwari and hari babu (2005) reported higher fruit number per vine in ten crosses and five parents in a partial diallele analysis wherein the cross ‘cm-45 x cm-14’ showed highest per se performance and sca for this trait. fruit weight is a primary trait to be considered in any hybrid development programme, as, it directly contribute towards yield. in this study, of the 36 pumpkin hybrids studied, highest fruit weight and sca effect was registered by ‘ambili x arka suryamukhi’ followed by ‘virudhachalam local x avinashi local’. higher fruit weight in hybrids was reported by shivanand hegde (2009) in ridge gourd. however, lately, small-to medium-sized pumpkin fruits of 2-3kg weight each are preferred. in the present study, small to medium sized fruits of 2-3kg were seen in the hybrids ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’, ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ and ‘karwar local x avinashi local’. supporting evidence on less fruit weight of hybrids than their parents has been reported by nisha (1999) in pumpkin hybrid ‘p5 x p4’. however, gca value of ‘arka suryamukhi’ was positive, but non-significant. therefore, transgressive segregants can be identified which helps for cyclic selection. ‘arka suryamukhi’ was a poor combiner as a parent, while, both the female parents were good combiners for fruit weight. similar results were recorded by rao et al (2000) in ridge gourd. in pumpkin, flesh thickness is yet another important character determining market preference. the present investigation revealed that the hybrid ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ possessed highest flesh thickness and sca among the thirty six hybrid combinations. the hybrids ‘ashoka farm aids x avinashi local’ and ‘ashoka farm aids x arka suryamukhi’ also recorded highest per se values coupled with significant sca effect for fruit flesh thickness. this is in accordance with the report of nisha (1999) in pumpkin involving twenty five crosses and five parents in a partial diallele analysis wherein the cross ‘p4 xp3’ showed highest per se performance and sca for flesh thickness. pumpkin is a good source of total carbohydrate content. in the present study, among the 36 hybrids of pumpkin studied, the cross ‘karamadai local’ x avinashi local’ followed by ‘karwar local x co-2’ can be selected as a good combination for developing hybrids with high carbohydrate content, as evidenced by their significant mean, gca and sca effects. suganthi (2008) also recorded similar results with reference to total carbohydrate content in bottle gourd hybrid ‘ic 362430 x punjab long’. exploitation of pumpkin as a source of carotene on an industrial scale is gaining momentum. among the thirty six hybrids under this study, highest per se, gca and sca values for total carotenoid content were observed in ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’ followed by ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ and ‘karwar local x avinashi local’. was found to be best crosses to develop hybrids with high total carotenoids content as adjudged by their mean, gca and sca effects. hazra et al (2007) showed similar results in pumpkin. it was also noticed that both the parents were responsible for developing hybrids with high total carotenoid content. development of superior hybrids with improved carotene content by using the best performing parents was also recorded by moon et al (2006) in muskmelon. presence of crude fibre in pumpkin fruit is a preferred quality trait. quantity of the crude fibre should be optimum at harvestable maturity. among the 36 crosses studied, ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’ and ‘ashoka farm aids x avinashi local’ were found to be the best crosses for developing hybrids with high total crude fibre content, as adjudged by their mean values alone. similar results were observed in ridge gourd by shivanand hegde (2009) where the hybrid, ‘ic 393014 x ic 413592’, gave highest significant mean value for crude fibre content. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 evaluation of f1 hybrids of pumpkin for yield and quality 194 expression of yield to the fullest potential of the crop is the prime trait to be considered in any hybridization programme. based on per se performance and sca of hybrids, the crosses ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ followed by ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’ and ‘narendra uphar x co-2’ proved to be the best specific combiners for yield. these proved their superiority with their per se, gca and sca values. choudhary et al (2006) also obtained similar results crosses ‘ms1 x punjab sunheri’ and ‘ms1 x hara madhu’ which exhibited highest sca effect and recorded highest fruit yield per vine. evaluation of hybrids for per se and sca revealed that the cross ‘kasi harit x avinashi local’ was the best hybrid, since, it recorded highest mean and sca effect for a greater number of traits under study, viz., earliness in terms of early female flowering, early node of female flower appearance, sex ratio, fruit number per vine, flesh thickness, total carotenoid content and total yield per vine. the next best hybrid, ‘vadhalagundu local x co-2’ can also be classified as among the better combinations owing to less node number for first female flower appearance, fruit number per vine, sex ratio, flesh thickness, total carotenoid content and fruit yield per vine. references allard, r.w. 1960. principles of plant breeding. john wiley and sons inc., new york, usa. aravindakumar, j.s., prabhakar, m., pitchaimuthu, m. and gouda, n. 2005. heterosis and combining ability studies in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) for earliness and growth parameters. karnataka j. hort., 1:1219 chopra, r. and kanwar, s.l. 1976. analytical agricultural chemistry. kalyani publishers new delhi, india p:36 choudhary, b.r., fageria, m.s., sudhakar pandey and mathura rai. 2006. combining ability studies for economic attributes in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). veg. sci., 33:185-187 hazra, p. and som, m.g. 2005. vegetable science. kalyani publishers, new delhi, india pp. 5-10 hedge, j.e. and hofreiter, b.t. 1962. in: carbohydrate chemistry 17, whistler r.l. and be miller, j.n. (eds), acadamic press, new york, usa joydip mandal, sirohi, p.s. and behera, t.k. 2002. genetical studies on flowering and fruit maturity in ash gourd [benincasa hispida (thunb) cogn.]. orissa j. hort., 30:40-42 kharitra, a.s., singh, n.j. and thakur, j.c. 1994. studies on combining ability in bitter gourd. veg. sci., 21:158162 maurya, i.b., singh, s.p. and singh, n.k. 1993. heterosis and combining ability in bottle gourd (lagenaria siceraria (mol.) stand l.). veg. sci., 20:77-81 moon, s.s., munshi, a.d., verma, v.k. and sureja, a.k. 2006. heterosis for biochemical traits in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). sabrao j. breed. genet., 38:53-57 neeraj sharma, sharma, n.k. and malik, y.s. 2002. combining ability in long fruited bottle gourd. haryana j. hortl. sci., 31:79-82 nisha, s.k. 1999. genetic studies in pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir.) through diallele analysis. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, tamil nadu agri. univ., coimbatore, tn, india pal, a.b., doijode, s.d. and biswas, s.r. 1983. line x tester analysis of combining ability in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). s. indian hort., 42:1821 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers. i.c.a.r., new delhi, india rao, b.n., rao, p.v. and reddy, y.n. 2000. combining ability studies in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (roxb.) l.]. int’l. j. tropical agri., 18:141-146 roy, s.k. 1973.a simple and rapid method of estimation of total carotenoid pigment in mango. j. food sci. tech., 10:45 sharma, n.k., dhankhar, b.s. and tewaria, a.s. 1993. line x tester analysis for combining ability studies in bottle gourd – a note. haryana j. hortl. sci., 22:324-327 sirohi, p.s. and ghorui, s. 1993. gene effects of certain quantitative characters in pumpkin. veg. sci., 20:158162 shivanand hegde. 2009. studies on heterosis in ridge gourd. m.sc. thesis, tamil nadu agri. univ., coimbatore, tn, india suganthi, m. 2008. line x tester analysis in bottle gourd (lagenaria siceraria m.) m.sc. thesis, tamil nadu agri.univ., coimbatore, tn, india uma maheshwari and hari babu, k. 2005. combining ability for yield and its components in f3 generation of pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir.). madras agri. j., 92:288-292 (ms received 05 october 2012, revised 16 november 2013, accepted 22 november 2013,) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):187-194, 2013 tamil selvi et al introduction ridge gourd [luffa acutangula roxb. (l.)] is one of the most important vegetables grown throughout the year in all the tropical regions of our country, and, in asian and african countries. it is rich in vitamin a, c and iron (fe) (yawalkar, 1985). average productivity (kg/ha) in gourds (9.5t/ha) in india is lower than the world average (12.5t/ ha), falling far below the productivity achieved by developed countries. the main reasons attributed for this is lack of availability of improved varieties/hybrids, quality seeds and improved production technologies. yield is a complex trait influenced by genetic factors and their interaction with the environment. success in any breeding programme depends upon the existing genetic variability in base-populations, and, on the efficiency of selection. for successful selection, it is necessary to study the nature of association of the trait of interest with other, relevant traits, as also the genetic variability available for these. path coefficient analysis provides a better index for selection than mere correlation coefficient, thereby separating correlation coefficient of the yield and its components into direct and indirect effects. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):154-158, 2015 genetic variability, correlation and path analysis in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (roxb.) l.] b. varalakshmi, m. pitchaimuthu, e. sreenivas rao, k.s. sanna manjunath and s.h. swathi division of vegetable crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560 089, india e-mail: bvl@iihr.ernet.in abstract the present investigation was made to determine variability, heritability, genetic advance and correlation of fruit yield with 10 yield-contributing traits in ridge gourd. a wide variability was observed for days taken to first femaleflower appearance, fruit length, fruit number/plant, fruit weight and fruit yield/ha. phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for all the traits studied, indicating environmental influence on the expression of these traits. however, high heritability (broad-sense), along with high genetic advance, was recorded in node number at which first female-flower appeared, number of branches, fruit length, number of fruits/plant and fruit weight, indicating presence of additive gene effects. fruit yield/ha was significantly and positively associated with peduncle length, fruit length, number of fruits/plant (at the phenotypic level), fruit weight and fruit yield/plant. fruit weight had the highest direct effect (0.847) on fruit yield/ha, followed by fruit yield/plant (0.793), fruit number (0.344), peduncle length (0.237) and number of branches (0.216). therefore, for yield improvement in ridge gourd, emphasis may be laid on indirect selection using fruit parameters like fruit weight, number of fruits/plant and fruit yield/plant. key words: ridge gourd, luffa acutangula (roxb) l., genetic variability, heritability, correlation path analysis therefore, the present study was undertaken to assess the nature and magnitude of variability, heritability, correlation coefficient and path analysis for various quantitative parameters in ridge gourd. information generated on these aspects can greatly help formulate appropriate breeding strategies for genetic upgradation of this crop. material and methods the experiments were carried out at vegetable farm, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, during the rabi-summer season of the years 2011-12, 201213 and 2013-14. the experiments were laid out in randomized block design, with 51 germplasm lines in two replications, in all the three years. ten plants per replication were raised. two-week-old seedlings were planted at 150cm x 50cm spacing. recommended agronomic practices were applied to the crop. observations were recorded on five randomly-selected plants in each replication, on 10 quantitative traits (node number for first female-flower appearance, days taken to first female-flower appearance, vine length (m), number of branches, peduncle length (cm), 155 genetic variability, correlation and path analysis in ridge gourd fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), number of fruits /plant, fruit weight (g), fruit yield/plant (kg) or fruit yield/ha (t). pooled data for the three years was analyzed as per panse and sukhatme (1984) for analysis of variance (anova). phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation (pcv and gcv, respectively), heritability in a broad sense, and genetic advance as per cent of mean, were calculated as per burton and de vane (1953) and johnson et al (1955). correlation co-efficient among all the possible character combinations at genotypic (rg) and phenotypic (rp) levels were estimated using the formula of al-jibouri et al (1958) and path coefficient analysis was done as per dewey and lu (1959). genres statistical software package (genres, 1994) was employed for analysis of variance and estimation of correlation among traits. results and discussion mean, range and estimates for various genetic parameters of 10 traits in 51 germplasm lines of ridge gourd studied are presented in table 1. analysis of variance revealed significant difference among germplasm lines for all the 10 traits studied. a wide range of variation was observed for most of the traits like days taken to first femaleflower appearance (37.0-66.4), fruit length (10.5-41.3cm), number of fruits/plant (4.7-33.8), fruit weight (79.8-300.8g), and fruit yield/ha (8.5-37.9 t). high variability present for these parameters can form a basis for effective selection of superior lines in ridge gourd. such wide variability has also been reported by choudhary and suresh kumar (2011) in this crop. the degree of variability seen in various parameters can be judged by the magnitude of gcv and pcv. gcv, which indicates the extent of genetic variability present in a population, ranged from 11.0 (days taken to first female-flower appearance) to 39.8 (number of fruits / plant). similar findings were reported by varalakshmi et al (1995), singh et al (2002) and choudhary et al (2008) in ridge gourd. table 1 shows that a considerable difference exists between pcv and gcv values for all the traits under study. this points to the presence of higher environmental influence on expression of all these parameters, and, selection may not be effective for improvement of ridge gourd. further, gcv values were low in magnitude compared to pcv values for all the characters studied. this also indicates that direct selection may not be effective for these traits, and heterosis breeding may be resorted to for further improvement. with help from gcv alone, it is not possible to determine the extent of variation heritable. thus, estimates for heritability indicate the effectiveness with which selection can be expected for exploiting existing genetic variability. broad-sense heritability was high (>60%) for node number for first female-flower appearance (74.3%), number of branches (80.8%), fruit length (78.6%), number of fruits/ plant (66.7%) and fruit weight (72.8%). similar findings were reported by varalakshmi et al (1995), karuppaiah et al (2002) and singh et al (2002) in ridge gourd. moderate heritability (40-60%) was observed for days taken to first female-flower appearance (49.2%), vine length (58.2%), peduncle length (57.4%), fruit yield/plant (57.7%), and fruit yield/ha (56.8%) (table 1). johnson et al (1955) reported that heritability, along with genetic advance, was more useful than heritability alone in predicting the effect of selecting the best individual genotype, as, it suggests presence of additive gene effects. in the present study, high heritability, table 1. mean, coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance for various traits in ridge gourd sl. trait mean range genotypic phenotypic genotypic phenotypic heritagenetic ga no. variance variance coefficient of coefficient bility advance as % (gv) (pv) variation of variation (h2) (ga) mean (gcv) (pcv) 1 nff 9.8 5.319.9 8.6 11.5 29.9 34.7 74.3 5.2 53.1 2 dff 47.7 37.066.4 27.6 56.1 11.0 15.7 49.2 7.6 15.9 3 vine length (m) 3.9 2.26.5 0.8 1.4 23.6 30.9 58.2 1.4 37.0 4 number of branches 6.9 2.913.3 7.3 9.0 39.0 43.4 80.8 5.0 72.3 5 peduncle length (cm) 8.2 4.912.7 3.1 5.3 21.3 28.1 57.4 2.7 33.3 6 fruit length (cm) 22.5 10.541.3 60.9 77.5 34.7 39.1 78.6 14.2 63.4 7 fruit girth (cm) 11.8 8.116.9 2.8 8.8 14.1 25.2 31.5 1.9 16.4 8 number of fruits /plant 13.6 4.733.8 29.2 43.8 39.8 48.8 66.7 9.1 67.0 9 fruit weight (g) 169.8 79.8-300.8 2915.4 4004.1 31.8 37.3 72.8 94.9 55.9 10 fruit yield/plant (kg) 1.8 0.62.8 0.2 0.4 26.6 35.0 57.7 0.7 41.7 11 fruit yield/ha (t) 23.3 8.537.9 37.3 65.8 26.2 34.8 56.8 9.5 40.7 nff: node number for first female flower appearance; dff: days taken to first female flower appearance j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):154-158, 2015 156 along with a high genetic advance, was recorded in node number for first female-flower appearance, number of branches, fruit length, number of fruits/plant and fruit weight, indicating the presence of additive gene effects. thus, selection can be employed for improvement in these parameters in ridge gourd. fruit yield/plant and fruit yield/ ha recorded moderate levels of heritability and genetic advance. this suggests that environmental effects constitute a major factor for total phenotypic variation, and therefore, direct selection for these traits would be less effective. similar findings were reported by choudhary and suresh kumar (2011) in ridge gourd. all possible correlation coefficients between fruit yield/ha and its component traits were estimated at the genotypic (g) and phenotypic (p) level (table 2). from these associations, it appears that higher fruit yield/ ha was significantly and positively associated with peduncle length, fruit length, number of fruits/plant (at the phenotypic level only), fruit weight and fruit yield/plant. in the present investigation, interrelations among these parameters were also seen to be positive and significant. fruit length exhibited a positive and significant association with fruit weight and fruit yield/plant, and, a negative association with fruit girth and number of fruits/plant. number of fruits/plant had significant positive association with fruit yield/plant, and fruit weight/plant. this implies that indirect selection for all these traits can help improve fruit yield in ridge gourd. these results are in conformity with varalakshmi et al (1995), rao et al (2000), chowdhury and sharma (2002), prasanna et al (2002), choudhary et al (2008), hanumegowda et al (2012) and rabbani et al (2012) in ridge gourd. though correlation analysis can quantify the degree of association between any two characters, it does not provide the reasons for such an association. simple linear correlation coefficient is designed to detect presence of linear association between two variables. this does not imply absence of any functional relationship between the two variables. path coefficient analysis resolves this mystery by breaking the ‘total correlation’ into components of direct and indirect effects. thus, path analysis was performed to assess direct and indirect effects of various characters on fruit yield/ha (table 3). fruit weight had the highest direct effect (0.847) on fruit yield/ha, followed by fruit yield/plant (0.793), number of fruits/plant (0.344), peduncle length (0.237) and number of branches (0.216) (choudhary et al, 2008). indirect effects of most other parameters through table 2. genotypic (rg) and phenotypic (rp) correlation coefficient among various traits in ridge gourd trait nff dff vine number peduncle fruit fruit number fruit fruit fruit length of length length girth of fruits/ weight yield/ yield/ (m) branches (cm) (cm) (cm) plant (g) plant ha (t) (kg) nff (rg) 1.000 0.790** 0.674** 0.513** 0.461** 0.508** -0.280* -0.580** 0.646** -0.135 -0.179 (rp) 1.000 0.522** 0.478** 0.396** 0.311* 0.439** -0.145 -0.590** 0.470** -0.136 -0.180 dff (rg) 1.000 0.500** 0.465** 0.381** 0.372** -0.296* -0.600** 0.519** -0.137 -0.181 (rp) 1.000 0.261 0.346* 0.257 0.265 -0.297* -0.610** 0.348* -0.138 -0.182 vine (rg) 1.000 0.599** 0.717** 0.682** -0.298* -0.620** 0.780** 0.240 0.195 length(m) (rp) 1.000 0.471** 0.471** 0.505** -0.299* -0.600** 0.592** 0.203 0.213 number of (rg) 1.000 0.450** 0.521** -0.300* -0.640** 0.573** -0.028 0.019 branches (rp) 1.000 0.299* 0.399** -0.301* -0.650** 0.480** 0.043 0.078 peduncle (rg) 1.000 0.902** -0.302* -0.660** 0.919** 0.529** 0.503** length (cm) (rp) 1.000 0.755** -0.303* -0.670** 0.682** 0.377** 0.392** fruit length (rg) 1.000 -0.304* -0.680** 0.961** 0.401** 0.391** (cm) (rp) 1.000 -0.305* -0.690** 0.823** 0.277* 0.279* fruit girth (rg) 1.000 -0.700** -0.239 -0.085 -0.186 (cm) (rp) 1.000 0.174 -0.201 0.027 -0.187 number of (rg) 1.000 -0.745** 0.143 0.223 fruits /plant (rp) 1.000 -0.551** 0.282* 0.328* fruit (rg) 1.000 0.292* 0.279* weight (g) (rp) 1.000 0.276* 0.284* fruit yield/ (rg) 1.000 0.948** plant (kg) (rp) 1.000 0.903** fruit yield/ (rg) 1.000 ha (t) (rp) 1.000 **significant at p=0.01, *significant at p=0.05 nffnode number for first female-flower appearance; dffdays taken to first female-flower appearance varalakshmi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):154-158, 2015 157 table 3. direct and indirect effects of various traits on fruit yield/plant at the genotypic level in ridge gourd trait nff dff vine number of peduncle fruit fruit number fruit fruit genotypic length branches length length girth of fruits/ weight yield/ correlation (m) (cm) (cm) (cm) plant (g) plant (kg) nff -0.144 -0.036 -0.211 0.111 0.110 -0.300 0.051 -0.200 0.547 -0.107 -0.179 dff -0.114 -0.045 -0.157 0.100 0.091 -0.220 0.053 -0.206 0.439 -0.272 -0.181 vine -0.097 -0.023 -0.313 0.129 0.170 -0.402 0.049 -0.170 0.661 0.190 0.195 length (m) number of -0.074 -0.021 -0.188 0.216 0.107 -0.307 -0.004 -0.172 0.485 -0.022 0.019 branches peduncle -0.067 -0.017 -0.225 0.097 0.237 -0.532 0.021 -0.210 0.779 0.419 0.503** length (cm) fruit -0.073 -0.017 -0.214 0.112 0.214 -0.590 0.048 -0.221 0.814 0.317 0.391** length (cm) fruit 0.040 0.013 0.085 0.005 -0.028 0.156 -0.181 -0.008 -0.202 -0.067 -0.186 girth (cm) number of 0.084 0.027 0.155 -0.108 -0.145 0.379 0.004 0.344 -0.631 0.114 0.223 fruits /plant fruit -0.093 -0.023 -0.245 0.124 0.218 -0.567 0.043 -0.257 0.847 0.232 0.279* weight (g) fruit yield/ 0.019 0.016 -0.075 -0.006 0.126 -0.236 0.015 0.049 0.248 0.793 0.948** plant (kg) **significant at p=0.01, *significant at p=0.05 figures on the diagonal in bold font indicate direct effect nffnode number for first female-flower appearance; dffdays taken to first female-flower appearance these stated parameters were also positive. similarly, rabbani et al (2012) from bangladesh reported fruit weight and number of fruits as having the maximum direct effect on fruit yield in ridge gourd. rest of the parameters such as node-number for first female-flower appearance, days taken to first-flower appearance, vine length, fruit length and fruit girth exhibited a negative direct effect on fruit yield/ha; indirect effects via these parameters were also negative for several of the traits. positive direct and indirect effects of fruit weight, fruit yield/plant and fruit number lead to the significant and positive correlation with fruit yield/ha. this indicates that the positive selection for these parameters is going to contribute to higher fruit yields in ridge gourd. therefore, for yield improvement in ridge gourd, emphasis is to be laid on indirect selection using fruit parameters like fruit weight, fruit number and fruit yield/ plant. references al-jibouri, h.h., miller, p.a. and robinson, h.f. 1958. genotypic and environmental variances and covariances in upland cotton crosses of interspecific origin. agron. j., 50:633-637 burton, g.w. and de vane, e.w. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-81 chowdhury, d. and sharma, k.c. 2002. studies on variability, heritability, genetic advance and correlation in ridge gourd (luffa acutangula roxb.). hort. j., 15:53-58 choudhary, b.r., pandey, s., bhardwaj, d.r., yadav, d.s. and rai, m. 2008. component analysis for quantitative traits in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (roxb) l.]. veg. sci., 35:144-147 choudhary, b.r. and suresh kumar. 2011. genetic analysis in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (roxb) l.] under hot arid conditions. indian j. arid hort., 6:55-58 dewey, d.r. and lu, k.h. 1959. a correlation and path coefficient analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agron. j., 51:515-518 genres. 1994. data entry module for genres statistical software pascal int’l. software solution, version 3.11 hanumegowda, k., shirol, a.m., mulge, r., shantappa, t. and prasadkumer. 2012. correlation coefficient studies in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (roxb) l.]. karnatka j. agril. sci., 25:160-162 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:314-318 karuppaiah, p., kavitha, r. and senthilkumar, p. 2002. studies on variability, heritability and genetic advance in ridge gourd. indian j. hort., 59:307-312 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1984. statistical methods genetic variability, correlation and path analysis in ridge gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):154-158, 2015 158 for agricultural workers. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, india prasanna, s.c., krishnappa, k.s. and reddy, n.s. 2002. correlation and path coefficient analysis studies in ridge gourd. curr. res., univ. agril. sci., bengaluru, 31:150-152 rabbani, m.g., naher m.j. and hoque, s. 2012. variability, character association and diversity analysis of ridge gourd (luffa acutangula roxb.) genotypes of bangladesh. saarc j. agri., 10:01-10 rao, b.n., rao, p.v. and reddy, b.m.m. 2000. correlation and path analysis in the segregating population of ridge gourd (luffa acutangula (roxb.) l.). crop res., 20:338-342 singh, r.p., mohan, j. and singh, d. 2002. studies on genetic variability and heritability in ridge gourd. agril. sci. digest, 22:279-280 varalakshmi, b., rao, p.v. and reddy, y.n. 1995. genetic variability and heritability in ridge gourd (luffa acutangula). indian j. agril. sci., 65:608-610 yawalkar, k.s. 1985. vegetable crops of india (3rd edition). agri. horticultural publishing house, nagpur 440010, india, pp. 166-170 (ms received 05 june 2015, revised 01 october 2015, accepted 19 october 2015) varalakshmi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):154-158, 2015 introduction the growing interest about potential health-promoting effects of antioxidants in everyday foods, combined with an assumption that a number of common, synthetic antioxidant preservatives may have harmful effects (krishnakumar and gordon, 1996) has led research and development to focus on the field of natural antioxidants. natural antioxidants, particularly from fruits and vegetables, have gained increasing interest among both the consumer and the scientific research community, because, recent developments in epidemiological studies have indicated that frequent consumption of natural antioxidants is associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer (renaud et al, 1998; temple, 2000). different assays have been introduced for measuring antioxidant capacity of foods and a variety of biological samples. the concept of antioxidant capacity first originated from chemistry, and was later adapted to biology, medicine, epidemiology and nutrition (prior and cao, 1999; pellegrini antioxidant activity in pulp and peel of three mango varieties deepa madalageri, p.c. bharati, v.orsat1, v. raghavan1 and udaykumar kage2 department of food science and nutrition college of rural home science university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, india 580005 e-mail: madalagerideepa2@gmail.com abstract the aim of the present study was to estimate the content of total polyphenols and flavonoids and to investigate in-vitro antioxidant potential of methanolic extracts of peel and pulp in three indian mango varieties. antioxidant activity was assessed using [2,2’-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid)] abts+ assay, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (dpph) assay, ferric-reducing ability of plasma (frap) assay, and phosphomolybdate assay for total antioxidant capacity (tac). total phenolic and flavonoid content was also determined, and expressed in gallic acid equivalent (gae) and quercetin equivalent (qe), respectively. results of this study indicated that methanolic extracts of mango peel had significantly higher antioxidant activity compared to that of pulp (29.69 and 3.12), irrespective of the method or variety used. free radical scavenging and antioxidant activity may be attributed to presence of phenolic (24.61mg gae/g dm in the peel and 2.01mg gae/g dm in the pulp) and flavonoid compounds (24.95mg qe/g dm in the peel and 16.15mg e/g dm in the pulp). antioxidant activity determined by abts, dpph and frap assays in mango peel was significantly higher than in the mango pulp (24.95 1.96mg te /g dm, 23.68 versus 4.60mg bha/g dm and 40.52 versus 2.781mg te/g dm), respectively. results for scavenging activity against dpph were 96.18% for the peel and 23.86% for the pulp, while, free radical scavenging activity results using abts+ assay were 99.62% in the peel and 13.46% in the pulp. our study justifies research in processing of mango peel into useful, functional food ingredients (powders or extracts). key words: total polyphenols, flavonoids, bioactive compounds, edible waste, antioxidant activity j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 et al, 2003; floegel et al, 2011). it describes the ability of redox molecules in foods and biological systems to scavenge free radicals. antioxidant capacity of any food is due to a mixture of various antioxidant compounds through different mechanisms; therefore, antioxidant capacity of any food product must be evaluated with a variety of methods (pérezjiménez et al, 2008). in the recent years, a wide range of spectrophotometric assays has been adopted to measure antioxidant capacity of foods, the most popular being 2,2’azino-bis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (abts) and 1,1’-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (dpph) assay, among others (such as oxygen radical absorbance capacity (orac) and ferric reducing ability of plasma (frap) assays) (brandwilliams et al, 1995; van den berg et al, 1999; re et al, 1999; ou et al, 2002; kim et al, 2003; thaipong et al, 2006). most assays employ the same principle: a synthetic, coloured radical or redox-active compound is generated; thereafter, the ability of a biological sample to scavenge the radical or to reduce the redox-active compound is monitored by a spectrophotometer while applying an appropriate standard 1department of bio-resource engineering, 2department of plant science, macdonald campus, mcgill university, qc, canada h9x 3v9 200 to quantify the antioxidant capacity. the most widely-used methods are abts and dpph radicals (kuskoski et al, 2005; ali et al, 2008; almeida et al, 2011). mango is a seasonal fruit processed into various products such as puree, nectar, leather, pickles, canned slices, etc., which have worldwide popularity (loeillet, 1994). during the processing of mango, a huge amount of peel is generated and is considered a waste by-product. also, its disposal is a major problem, causing environmental pollution. the peel constitutes about 15% to 20% of the whole mango fruit. fresh mango-peel contains a number of valuable compounds such as polyphenols, carotenoids, enzymes and dietary fibres (ajila et al, 2007a, b). peels are a major byproduct obtained during processing of various fruits, and these have been shown to be a good source of polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, dietary fibres and other bioactive compounds that possess various beneficial effects on human health (larrauri et al, 1996; larrauri, 1999; wolfe et al, 2003; ajila et al, 2007a; luthria, 2012). some of these compounds exhibit good antioxidant property (ajila et al, 2007b). use of fruits such as mango, as a source of some phytochemicals (carotenoids, phenolics and flavonoids) is health-promoting as, the latter are, natural antioxidants (saxena et al, 2009) by their action against free radicals generated by lipid peroxidation. phenolics play an important role as aroma constituents in fruits (saxena et al, 2009). mango is a good source of many of these beneficial phytochemicals. devising appropriate methods of utilization of this waste (mango peel) can help overcome some of the nutrition-security challenges in developing countries such as india, and help combat many diet-related diseases or to overcome malnutrition. the aim of the present research was to compare the efficiency of abts, dpph, frap and phosphomolybdate assays for estimating antioxidant activity in mango and their correlation with total phenolics and total flavonoids in the pulp and peel of three varieties. material and methods reagents and standards all the chemicals used in the study were of analytical grade. abts, (+)-catechin, dpph, folin–ciocalteu’s phenol reagent, gallic acid, trolox, quercitin and bha were purchased from sigma–aldrich chemical co. (st. louis, mo, usa). ascorbic acid was obtained from fischer scientific (fair lawn, nj, usa). 2,2-azo-bis (2-amidinopropane) dihydrochloride was purchased from wako chemicals inc. (richmond, va, usa). standard solutions were prepared with distilled deionized water obtained through simplicitytm water purification system (millipore, usa). sample collection for this study, ripe mangoes of alphonso, kesar and totapuri varieties were procured from the wholesale traders of uas, dharwad, karnataka, india. mangoes were washed in water and their peel was removed using a sharp knife. the underlying pulp was removed by gently scraping with the knife’s blunt edge. the pulp was homogenized using a hand-held blender, whereas, the peel was cut into small pieces before both were dried using a cabinet drier maintained at 55±2r”c for 12 h. following drying, the peel was ground to a fine powder, packed in a polyethylene bag and stored at -20r”c for further chemical analysis. sample extraction sample extraction was done in department of bioresource engineering, macdonald campus, mcgill university, montreal, canada. approximately 1.5g of mango pulp and peel powders were transferred to 50ml graduated centrifuge tubes and mixed with 25ml methanol. the extraction was carried out by placing the tubes in an incubator shaker (benchmark company) for 24h at 31oc. filtration and recuperation was done using whatman no. 4 filter paper and methanol solution, making the final volume to 25ml and stored at -20oc for further analysis. determination of antioxidant constituents total phenolics quantification total phenolic content in mango peel and pulp extracts was determined using folin-ciocalteu reagent (spectrophotometric method), using gallic acid as a standard. a slight modification was made in the method of singleton and rossi (1965) and waterhouse (2002). briefly, 320µl of the extract was mixed with 1280µl folin ciocalteu reagent, to which 800µl of 7.5% sodium carbonate solution was added along with 800µl deionized water. this solution was mixed well, incubated at 40oc for 30 minutes and the absorbance was measured using the reagent blank at 765nm with a spectrophotometer (ultraspec1000, amersham pharmacia biotech, nj, usa). total flavonoid quantification total flavonoid content in mango pulp and peel extracts was determined using the method developed by zhishen et al (1999). deepa madalageri et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 201 antioxidant activity quantification abts assay: (2, 2-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazolin6sulphonic acid): for abts assay, methods of arnao et al (2001) and re et al (1999), with some modification, were followed. fresh abts solution was prepared on the day of the experiment. mango pulp or peel extract or standard trolox solution (150µl) were allowed to react with 2850µl abts solution for 2h in the dark at room temperature. then, absorbance was measured at 734nm using a spectrophotometer. dpph (2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) assay: dpph assay was carried out as per ohnishi et al (1994) with some modification. a solution of 0.1mm dpph was prepared in 50ml methanol. the 270µl standard bha (butylated hydroxyanisole) or mango pulp or peel extract were mixed with 1620µl dpph solution and incubated for 20 minutes in the dark (covered with aluminium foil) and absorbance read at 517nm using a spectrophotometer (ultraspec1000, amersham pharmacia biotech, nj, usa). % scavenging = [(ab-ae) ×100]/ab where, ab is absorbance of the blank solution with dpph, and ae is absorbance of the extract solution with dpph. frap (ferric reducing ability of plasma) assay frap assay was done as per benzie and strain (1996), with some modification. to evaluate the antioxidant activity, mango pulp and peel extracts or trolox standard (150µl) were allowed to react with 2850µl frap solution for 30 minutes at room temperature under dark conditions. absorbance of the coloured solutions (ferrous tripyridyltriazine complex) was then read at 593nm using a spectrophotometer (ultraspec 1000, amersham pharmacia biotech, nj, usa). statistical analysis each assay of antioxidant activity, total polyphenols, total flavonoids, tac and scavenging activity was made in triplicate in each sample extract to ensure reproducibility. analysis of variance (anova) was used for testing any difference in antioxidant activity resulting from using these methods. duncan’s new multiple range test was used for determining significant difference. correlations among the data obtained were calculated using pearson’s correlation coefficient. these statistical analyses were carried out using spss software, version 16.0. results and discussion antioxidant constituents in this study, antioxidant activity of three popular mango varieties, viz., alphonso, kesar and totapuri of south india, were compared using different, standard chemicalantioxidant activity protocols. polyphenols and flavonoids are secondary metabolites in plants and are widely distributed in fruits and vegetables, beverages and plant-derived foods. phenolic compounds and flavonoids are a major groups of compounds contributing to antioxidant activity in fruits, vegetables, cereals and other plant-based materials. these bioactive compounds are heat-sensitive or thermomobile, as, high temperature may cause their degradation and decomposition (garau et al, 2007). in this study, 50°c was fixed as the maximum temperature for drying the samples to conserve these valuable bioactive compounds. solvent extraction is the most common method used for extraction of bioactive compounds. different solvent-extraction methods are used currently, of which hot water bath extraction (de rijke et al, 2006; søltoft et al, 2009), soxhlet extraction (bhushan et al, 2008) and microwave extraction are the most commonly used for extraction of bioactive compounds. total polyphenols phenolic compounds are known, powerful chainbreaking antioxidants (shahidi et al, 1994; wanasundara and shahidi, 1998; shahidi and wanasundara, 2002) and are very important plant constituents owing to their scavenging ability attributed to their hydroxyl groups (hatano et al, 1992). total polyphenol content in our study was significantly higher in mango peel (21.613mg gae/g dm) compared to that in the mango pulp (2.013mg gae/g dm) irrespective of the variety. among varieties, in both peel and pulp, significant difference in total polyphenol content was observed (table 1). kesar peel and alphonso pulp had the highest total polyphenol content at 35.144 and 2.249mg gae/g dm, respectively. during the development of the mango fruit, total phenols have been found to be higher in the peel than in the flesh, at all the stages of fruit development (lakshminarayana et al, 1970). earlier, larrauri et al (1996) reported total polyphenol content in aqueous methanol extract of ripe peel of ‘hayden’ variety of mango to be 70mg/g. this value falls within the range reported in the present study. similar results (54.64mg/g gae) were reported by ajila et al (2010a, b) stating that gallic acid, syringic acid, mangiferin, ellagic acid, gentisyl-protocatechuic acid and quercetin were the phenolic compounds present in ripe antioxidant activity in pulp and peel of mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 202 mango peel. (abdul aziz et al, 2012) reported total phenolics content in ripe mango peel and pulp to be 70.20 and 14.57mg gae/g dm, respectively. mango peel extract was reported to contain 9mg gae/g dm polyphenols (gondi et al, 2014), 19.06mg gae/g (ashoush and gadallah, 2011), 96.2mg gae/g in mango peel powder (mpp) (ajila et al, 2008; ajila and prasada rao, 2008; ajila et al, 2010a). phenolic content in mango has been reported to vary from 15.3 to 266mg gae/100g fresh weight (fw) (wu et al, 2004; noratto et al, 2010). the slight variation reported in polyphenol content may be attributed to a difference in the variety, region or agroclimatic conditions. total polyphenol content decreased with peel browning during cold storage (chidtragool et al, 2011). total polyphenol content in ‘langra’ and ‘chausa’ mango varieties was 116.80 and 122.60mg gae/g dm, respectively (sultana et al, 2012). higher phenolics content can contribute potentially to improved antioxidant activity (gonzalez aguilar et al, 2008). total flavonoids flavonoids are capable of effectively scavenging reactive oxygen species because of their phenolic hydroxyl groups and are, therefore, considered to be potent antioxidants (cao et al, 1997). flavonoids have been demonstrated to have antioxidant activity and to exert a positive effect on prevention of cardiovascular disorders and diseases caused by free radicals (yao et al, 2004). besides, these also exhibit several other biological effects such as anti-inflammatory, anti-hepatotoxic, anti-ulcer, antiallergic, anti-viral and anti-cancer activity (umamaheswari and chatterjee, 2008). total flavonoid content was significantly higher in mango peel (24.948mg qe/ g dm) compared to that in the mango pulp (16.150mg qe/g dm), and, a significant difference was observed among varieties (table 1). total flavonoid content was significantly higher in ‘kesar’ peel (34.897mg qe/g dm) and ‘alphonso’ pulp (13.89mg qe/g dm). similar results on total flavonoid content were reported by abdul aziz et al (2012) in ripe mango peel at 29.24mg qe/g dm, and the pulp at 5.43mg qe/g dm; whereas, gondi et al (2014) reported 8.5mg qe/ g dm of flavonoids in the mango peel. total flavonoid content in ‘langra’ and ‘chausa’ mango varietes was reported at 90.89 and 92.55mg ce/g dm (sultana et al, 2012). our results showed that flavonoid content in the peel was higher than in the pulp, in accordance with results of li et al (2013). antioxidant activity table 2 shows antioxidant/ antiradical activity of methanolic extract prepared from the peel and pulp of three mango varieties. peel from the three varieties showed variable, but high, antioxidant activity in the three assays tested (frap, dpph and abts). large variations in antioxidant activity were observed when the peel and pulp were tested separately. these variations were statistically significant (p=0.01). according to several authors, content of the antioxidant compounds and related antioxidant activity are particularly high in the peel of some fruits (ajila et al, 2007a, b; vieira et al, 2009). variations in antioxidant activity between and within food groups are well-documented. antioxidant activity exhibited a dose-dependent trend in all the assays used. in our work, the total antioxidant activity in mango peel, evaluated using frap assay, was significantly higher compared to abts or dpph assays. on the other hand, the total antioxidant activity in mango pulp, evaluated with dpph assay, was significantly higher than in the other two assays. among the two mango-fruit parts studied, total antioxidant activity in the peel was significantly higher in all the assays evaluated (abts, dpph, frap) compared to that in the pulp of the mango fruit. ‘kesar’ variety had significantly higher antioxidant activity, irrespective of the antioxidant-activity assay used, or the part of the fruit, followed by that in ‘alphonso’ and ‘totapuri’. abts assay table 2 shows antioxidant activity in abts value measurements of methanolic extracts of the peel and pulp in three mango varieties. the overall abts value averaged 13.373mg te/g dm, and ranged from 1.619 to 24.814mg table 1. total polyphenolics and total flavonoids content in peel and pulp of three mango varieties part of mango variety total polyphenols total flavonoids (mg gae/g dm) (mg qe/g dm) peel alphonso 23.919 ± 0.635b 25.519 ± 1.886a kesar 35.144 ± 0.263c 34.897 ± 0.703b totapuri 14.776 ± 0.442a 14.429 ± 0.228ab mean 24.613 ± 8.844 24.948 ± 8.930 pulp alphonso 2.249 ± 0.205b 13.870 ± 1.886a kesar 1.975 ± 0.130c 9.084 ± 0.468b totapuri 1.815 ± 0.134a 25.557 ± 1.286ab mean 2.013 ± 0.235 16.150 ± 7.436 grand mean 13.313 19.333 sem± cd sem± cd portion 0.114 0.493** 0.359 1.550** variety 0.155 0.669** 0.486 ns portion x variety 0.260 1.124** 0.818 3.533** note: values are the mean of three replications; sem: standard error of mean; cd: critical difference; aae: ascorbic acid equivalent; gae: gallic acid equivalent; qe: quercetin equivalent, **significant @ 1%; values with the same superscript (a, b, c) in the same row are not significantly different (p≤0.01). deepa madalageri et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 203 ta bl e 2. a nt io xi da nt a ct iv it y as d et er m in ed b y th e a b t s, d p p h a nd f r a p as sa ys b as ed o n m et ha no l e xt ra ct io n fr om p ee l a nd p ul p of t hr ee m an go v ar ie ti es m an go a nt io xi da nt a ct iv ity m ea n c v ar ie tie s a b t s (m g t e / g d m ) d pp h ( m g b h a /g d m fr a p (m g t e / g d m ) pu lp pe el m ea n pu lp pe el m ea n pu lp pe el m ea n a lp ho ns o 1. 62 ± 0. 29 24 .7 7 ± 0 .1 0 13 .1 9 ± 12 .6 8 4. 35 ± 0. 28 23 .7 3 ± 0. 09 14 .0 4 ± 10 .6 1 2. 99 ± 0. 12 39 .1 6 ± 1. 48 21 .0 8 ± 19 .8 3 16 .1 1 ± 14 .1 7b k es ar 1. 73 ± 0. 47 24 .8 1 ± 0. 04 13 .2 7 ± 12 .6 5 3. 30 ± 0. 25 23 .7 9 ± 0. 04 13 .5 4 ± 11 .2 2 2. 26 ± 0. 13 57 .2 4 ± 1. 41 29 .7 5 ± 30 .1 3 18 .8 6 ± 20 .3 5a to ta pu ri 2. 54 ± 0. 13 24 .7 6 ± 0. 05 13 .6 5 ± 12 .1 7 6. 17 ± 0. 44 23 .7 0 ± 0. 03 14 .9 3 ± 9. 60 3. 09 ± 0. 51 25 .1 5 ± 0. 46 14 .1 1 ± 12 .0 9 14 .2 3 ± 10 .6 8c m ea n 1. 96 ± 0. 52 24 .7 8 ± 0. 07 13 .3 7 ± 11 .7 5 4. 61 ± 1. 29 23 .7 4 ± 0. 06 4 14 .1 7 ± 9. 88 2. 78 ± 0. 48 40 .5 2 ± 13 .9 7 21 .6 5 ± 21 .6 5 fa ct or a 13 .3 7 ±1 1. 75 c 14 .1 7 ± 9. 88 b 21 .6 5 ± 2 1. 65 a fa ct or b pu lp 3. 11 ± 1. 39 pe el 29 .6 8 ±1 1. 01 se m ± c d fa ct or a 0. 08 4 0. 32 4* * fa ct or b 0. 06 2 0. 24 0* * fa ct or c 0. 08 4 0. 32 4* * a x b 0. 14 2 0. 54 5* * a x c 0. 19 2 0. 74 0* * b x c 0. 14 2 0. 54 5* * a x b x c 0. 32 4 1. 24 4* * n ot e 1: v al ue s ar e th e m ea n of th re e re pl ic at io ns ; s e m : s ta nd ar d er ro r o f m ea n; c d : c ri tic al d if fe re nc e; a b t s2: 2 -a zi no -b is (3 -3 th yl be nz th ia zo lin -6 su lp ho ni c) a ci d; d pp h 2 : 2 di ph en yl -1 -p ic ry lh yd ra zy l; fr a p: f er ri c r ed uc in g a bi lit y of p la sm a, * *s ig ni fi ca nt @ 1 % . v al ue s w ith th e sa m e su pe rs cr ip t ( a, b , c ) i n th e sa m e ro w a re n ot s ig ni fi ca nt ly d if fe re nt (p ≤0 .0 1) ; v al ue s w ith th e sa m e su pe rs cr ip t ( a ,b ,c ) i n th e sa m e co lu m n ar e no t s ig ni fi ca nt ly d if fe re nt (p ≤0 .0 1) ; f ac to r a : b et w ee n as sa ys (a b t d , d pp h , f r a p) , f ac to r b : b et w ee n po rt io ns ( pu lp , p ee l) ; f ac to r c : b et w ee n va ri et ie s (a lp ho ns o, k ea sr , t ot ap ur i) antioxidant activity in pulp and peel of mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 204 te/g dm. when the means of total antioxidant activity evaluated by abts assay were compared, mango peel had 24.782mg te/g dm (99.128µmol te/g dm) which was significant higher than in the mango pulp at 1.964mg te/g dm (7.856µmol te/g dm)). among the three varieties studied, no significant difference was observed in antioxidant activity either the peel or the pulp as evaluated by abts assay. le (2012) reported abts scavenging activity of dehydrated mango as varying from 46.7 to 73.8µmol te/g dm. antioxidant activity of dried mango pulp was reported as 27.1µmol/g db ascorbic acid equivalent, using abts assay (soong and barlow, 2004). antioxidant property of dried mango samples varied from 50.7 to 103.8µmol te/g db (sogi et al, 2014). values obtained in our study for antioxidant capacity as trolox equivalent fall within a close range of previously reported results. dpph assay dpph antioxidant activity is shown in table 2. dpph values in methanolic extracts of the peel and pulp in three mango varieties varied. overall dpph value averaged 14.17mg bha/g dm, and ranged from 3.29 to 23.73mg bha/g dm. antioxidant activity in dpph assay in the mango peel (23.68mg bha/g dm) was significantly higher than in the pulp (4.60mg bha/g dm), irrespective of the variety. this significantly higher level of antioxidant activity in mango peel is attributed to a higher level of total polyphenols and total flavonoids, and is comparatively lower in the pulp (table 1). among the varieties tested, significant difference was not observed in peel or the pulp. mango samples extracted from the peel part showed strong scavenging effects compared to the mango pulp. these results are in agreement with previous reports (ajila et al, 2007, 2007a; abdul aziz et al, 2012) who reported mango peel and pulp as having antioxidant activity in dpph assay of 43.30 and 9.82mg te/g dm, respectively. our results are in agreement with these findings. dpph radicalscavenging activity varied from 36.5 to 52.0µmol te/g dm in dried ‘tommy atkins’ mango flesh (le, 2012). dpph antioxidant values varied from 34 to 88.6µmol te/g dm in dehydrated mango powder (sogi et al, 2014). frap assay as with the other two assays, methanolic extracts from the peel and pulp of three mango varieties were tested and results presented in table 3. frap antioxidant activity ranged from 2.258 ± 0.126 to 57.244 ±1.405 (mg te/g dm), with an overall average of 21.650mg te/g dm. the antioxidant activity in frap assay for mango peel (40.518 ± 13.973mg te/g dm) was significantly higher than that in the pulp (2.781 ± 0.477mg te/g dm). among the different assays, frap indicated significantly higher antioxidant activity, with 21.650mg te/g dm, compared to abts or dpph (13.373mg te/g dm and 14.172mg bha/g dm, respectively). several authors have reported antioxidant activity by frap assay in different parts and varieties of mango. abdul aziz et al (2012) reported antioxidant activity using frap assay in mango peel and pulp as 65.92 and 15.30mg/g, respectively. antioxidant compounds like the polyphenols may be more efficient as reducing agents for ferric iron, but will certainly not be effective in scavenging dpph freeradicals (wong et al, 2006). an inverse correlation was observed between peel-browning and total antioxidant capacity measured using frap assay (chongchatuporn et al, 2013). frap values varied from 41 to 81µmol te/g dm in dried mango powder (sogi et al, 2014). radical scavenging activity a free radical is an atom or molecule containing one or more unpaired electrons, making it highly reactive (halliwell and gutteridge, 1990; halliwell et al, 1995). free radicals such as trichloromethyl (ccl3), superoxide (o2), hydroxyl (ho), peroxyl (roo), and nitric oxide (no) are known to be produced metabolically in living organisms. in addition, some non-radical derivatives of the oxygen molecule [hydrogen peroxide (h2o2) and hypochlorous acid (hocl)] can be generated in foods and in biological systems. all these reactive oxygen species (ros) participate in a chain reaction of free radicals. thus, tests on ability of a substance to scavenge radical species may be relevant in evaluating their antioxidant activity (halliwell and gutteridge, 1989; halliwell and gutteridge, 1990; halliwell et al, 1995). free radical scavenging activity in mango peel and pulp was 97.89 and 18.66%, respectively, irrespective of the variety or assay used by us for determining it (abts and dpph), as presented in table 3. abts radical scavenging activity abts activity was quantified in terms of percentage inhibition of abts+ radical cation by antioxidants in each sample. significant variation was seen in percentage inhibition in mango peel and pulp (12.12 to 99.65% inhibition), as presented in table 3. overall inhibition of abts assay was 56.54%, whereas, mango peel had significantly higher free radical scavenging activity (99.62%) than mango pulp (13.46%), irrespective of the variety. deepa madalageri et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 205 dpph radical scavenging activity radical scavenging ability of extracts measured by dpph is an important indicator of the anti-oxidative activity. this is highly correlated with total phenolics content in a sample. results obtained in our study reveal dpph radical scavenging activity in mango peel to be significantly higher than in the pulp (table 3). the increase observed in free radical scavenging activity is probably due to a presence of bioactive compounds or natural antioxidants in mango, which, in turn, is attributed to their hydrogen-donating ability (ajila et al, 2008). dpph radical inhibition activity in mango ranged from 18.89 to 96.28%, with an overall average of 60.02%. dpph radical scavenging activity was significantly higher in mango peel compared to that in mango pulp, irrespective of the variety. among the varieties tested, significant differences were observed, with ‘alphonso’ and ‘kesar’ showing significantly higher radical scavenging activity than ‘totapuri’ variety, in both peel and the pulp. mango peel powder extract in earlier studies has exhibited free radical scavenging activity of 79.6% (ajila et al, 2008, 2010) and 93.89% (ashoush and gadallah, 2011). correlation between antioxidant activity and antioxidant constituent table 4 presents pearson’s correlation among the methods used, and, between the method and the antioxidant constituent. significant and strong correlation is noticed. total antioxidant capacity, total polyphenolics and total flavonoid content were strongly and, significantly and positively, correlated with the three different antioxidant activity assays: whereas, only total antioxidant capacity (tac) was significantly and negatively correlated with all the three antioxidant activity assays, and with total polyphenolics and total flavonoids, as reported by others (chun et al, 2003; kim et al, 2003). these findings, taken together, suggest that total phenolics and flavonoids are major bioactive compounds that act as and perform antioxidant activity in these foods. however, this is presumably due not only to flavonoids, but also non-flavonoid phenolics. phenolics, commonly found in fruits, have been reported as exhibiting antioxidant activity due to reactivity of the phenol moiety, and have the ability to scavenge free radicals via hydrogen donation or electron donation (shahidi et al, 1992). a causative relationship has been demonstrated between total phenolic content and antioxidant activity (jayaprakasha and patil, 2007). among the different assays used for analysis of antioxidant activity (abts, dpph and frap), results obtained from abts and dpph assay were comparable. frap technique showed a high reproducibility, was simple, could be rapidly performed, and showed the highest correlation with total polyphenolics and flavonoids. therefore, frap can be recommended as an appropriate technique for determining antioxidants in mango pulp and peel extracts. similar results were reported earlier in guava fruit (thaipong et al, 2006). table 3. comparison of radical scavenging activity in three mango varieties in peel and pulp using two different assays portion variety scavenging activity (%) of fruit abts dpph mean pulp alphonso 18.89 ± 1.20 12.59 ± 1.74 15.74 ± 3.70 kesar 22.86 ± 1.07 12.12 ± 1.07 17.49 ± 5.96 totapuri 29.83 ± 2.01 15.657 ± 0.67 22.74 ± 7.88 mean of pulp 23.86 ± 4.97 13.26 ± 1.98 18.66 ± 6.49 peel alphonso 99.65 ± 0.11 96.28 ± 0.05 97.97 ± 1.85 kesar 99.65 ± 0.06 96.22 ± 0.05 97.94 ± 1.88 totapuri 99.56 ± 0.06 96.03 ± 0.11 97.79 ± 1.94 mean of peel 99.62 ± 0.08 96.18 ± 0.13 97.90 ± 1.78 mean of assay 61.74 ± 44.35 57.42 ± 37.36 58.28 ± 40.46 mean of variety alphonso kesar totapuri 56.85 ± 43.03b 57.71 ± 42.22b 60.27 ± 39.58a sem ± cd assay 0.113 0.445** portion 0.126 0.500** variety 0.152 0.603** assay x portion 0.232 0.916** assay x variety 0.257 1.015** portion x variety 0.257 1.015** assay x portion x variety 0.431 1.706** note : values are the mean of three replications; sem: standard error of mean; cd: critical difference; abts-2: 2’-azino-bis (33thylbenzthiazolin-6sulphonic) acid; dpph-2: 2-diphenyl-1picrylhydrazyl; *significant @ 5%,** significant @ 1% table 4. pearson’s correlation of antioxidant activities, total polyphenolics and flavonoid content trait abts dpph frap tac tpp tf1 tf2 abts 1 .997** .897** -.155 .887** .787** .589* dpph 1 .895** -.208 .884** .781** .602** frap 1 -.117 .999** .909** .793** tac 1 -.108 -.151 -.255 tpp 1 .912** .796** tf1 1 .694** tf2 1 abts: 2,2’-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid; dpph: 1,1’-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl; frap: ferric reducing antioxidant power; tac-total antioxidant capacity; tpp-total polyphenols, tf1 -total flavonoids method 1, tf2total flavonoids method 2. *,** correlation significant at 0.05, 0.01 levels respectively (2-tailed) antioxidant activity in pulp and peel of mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 206 the peel is considered an edible tissue of the unripe mango fruit. using unripe mango fruit with its peel, chutneys and pickles are prepared. on the other hand, peel of the ripe mango fruit, due to its leathery texture, is not too acceptable taste-wise; therefore, the peel is generally removed and discarded. thus, in the food processing industry, mango peel ends up generally as a waste by-product. our study revealed that methanolic extracts of mango peel had significantly higher antioxidant activity than the pulp, which is attributed to higher content of total polyphenols and flavonoids in the peel. thus, mango peel is rich in bioactive compounds that represent a potential source of natural antioxidants. mango peel powder, rich in bioactive compounds, can therefore be used as a sprinkle or incorporated into a variety of food preparations to enhance nutraceutical value of the food. development and utilization of such functional and nutritional products can provide health benefits by preventing degenerative diseases. acknowledgement this study was supported by inspire fellowship, dst, government of india, new delhi. the first author thanks bioresource engineering, mcgill university, canada, for providing laboratory facilities. references abdul aziz, n.a., wong, l.m., bhat, r. and cheng, l.h. 2012. evaluation of processed green and ripe mango peel and pulp flours (mangifera indica var. chokanan) in terms of chemical composition, antioxidant compounds and functional 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antioxidant activity in pulp and peel of mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):199-209, 2015 banana (musa spp.) is the fourth most important food crop in the world in terms of gross value, exceeded only by paddy, wheat and milk products. banana is a rich source of carbohydrates and minerals, particularly, potassium. india is the largest producer of banana in the world, contributing over 25% to the total global production. among fruit crops, banana ranks first in production and productivity at the national level. gujarat is the third largest producer of banana in the country next only to tamil nadu and maharashtra producing about 40,47,767 metric tonnes of banana from an area of 65,029 hectares. of this, south gujarat alone accounts for about 56% of total production and 54% of total area under banana in the state (anonymous, 2013). basrai was until now the leading banana variety in south gujarat. of late, banana growers have turned to grand naine owing to its earliness, synchronous maturity, superior quality and export potential. banana from gujarat is marketed all over the country. maturity is an important factor affecting banana marketability. the stage at which fruits need to be harvested is often dictated by distance to the destined market. duration required for attaining maturity varies depending on soil and climatic conditions. though the duration for maturity has been worked out at different locations in india, information on grand naine pertaining to gujarat is not available. therefore, there is a need to generate information regarding effect of maturity and storage temperature on shelf-life and quality of banana cv. grand naine a.p. gonge, n.l. patel, t.r. ahlawat and s.j. patil aspee college of horticulture & forestry navsari agricultural university, navsari-396 450, india e-mail : amolgonge@gmail.com abstract a study was undertaken at regional horticulture research station, nau, navsari, during 2008-2009 to assess the effect of maturity stage and storage temperature on shelf-life and quality of banana cv. grand naine. the experiment was evaluated in completely randomized ddesign based on the factorial concept, and comprised of three maturity stages (75, 90 and 100% maturity) and four storage temperatures (12°c, 14°c, 16°c & ambient temperature). fruits harvested at 75% maturity and stored at 12°c recorded maximum green-life and better overall shelf-life, whereas, yellow-life was highest when fruits at 75% maturity were stored at 14°c. best colour and texture was seen in fruits harvested at 100% maturity and stored at 16°c. key words: banana, maturity, shelf life, quality j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):95-98, 2013 short communication the effect of different maturity grades on shelf-life and quality of ‘grand naine’ banana under gujarat conditions. secondly, post harvest losses in banana are as high as 3040% (patil and hulmani, 1998). these losses are mainly due to improper handling practices and lack of storage facilities. to reduce these losses, information on critical storage temperature is essential. with an objective of curtailing post-harvest losses in banana and extending availability of the fruit, it was decided to study the effect of different maturity stages and storage temperatures on shelflife and organoleptic quality in banana cv. grand naine. the experiment was carried out at regional horticultural research station and post harvest technology centre, aspee college of horticulture and forestry, navsari agricultural university, navsari, during 2008–2009. thirty six healthy inflorescences were selected randomly just after their emergence. stage of harvest was determined on the basis of number of days taken to maturity after inflorescence emergence. based on the above criteria, in the cv. grand naine, 100 days from shooting (flowering) to harvest was determined as the time required for full maturity and the value was fixed as 100% maturity. accordingly, 90 and 75 days after shooting were considered as the duration required to attained 90% and 75% maturity stage. the hands were separated and kept in cold storage (12°, 14° and 16°c temperature and 90% rh) and under ambient conditions 96 (34°c temperature and 70% rh.) days taken to colour break (from green to yellow stage) was considered as the green-life of the fruit. the period of development of yellow colour to the stage at which fruits showed signs of senescence was considered as yellow-life of the fruits. a total of the green-life and yellow-life was considered as overall shelf-life of the fruits. organoleptic evaluation for assessing flavour, taste, colour of skin, colour of pulp, texture and overall acceptability was made on fruit ripening by a panel of five judges, using a 10 point scale. pulp:peel ratio was calculated by dividing pulp weight by the respective peel weight for each finger. data was analyzed in this completely randomized design, based on the factorial concept. significant differences were observed in green-life (table 1), yellow-life (table 2) and overall shelf-life (table 3) of banana fruits owing to varying maturity levels and storage at different temperatures. fruits harvested at 75% maturity recorded highest green-life (23.25 days), yellowlife (8.25 days) and overall shelf-life (31.5 days); whereas fully mature (100%) ‘grand naine’ fruits had 16.92 days of green-life, 5.83 days of yellow-life and 22.75 days of overall shelf life. this difference may be due to the fact that fruits harvested at 100% maturity exhibit rapid change in colour (chlorophyll breakdown) compared to those harvested at 75% maturity. it could also be due to higher tannin content in the fruits harvested early. this is in close conformity with findings of narayana and mustaffa (2007). green-life of fruits was maximum (29.89 days) at storage temperature of 12°c and minimum (8.11 days) at ambient temperature. shelf-life in fruits is associated with rate of respiration. the rate of respiration is slow in fruits stored at lower temperatures than in those stored at ambient temperature (gane, 1936). similar results were obtained by deka et al (2006). yellow-life of fruits was observed to be maximum (9.78 days) at 14°c and minimum (3.56 days) at ambient temperature, whereas, this was intermediate (8.78 days) at 12°c. this can be attributed to a slow-down in physiological processes within the fruit at lower temperatures. early senescence was observed in fruits stored at ambient temperature, for, the temperature was high and, therefore, rate of the physiological processes was probably fast. desai and deshpande (1975) reported similar results with various storage temperatures in banana. combination of the green and yellow life of fruits was considered as the overall shelf-life of fruits. fruits stored at 12°c had a shelf-life of 38.67 days, while those stored at table 1. effect of maturity and storage temperature on green life of banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 35.00 27.67 21.00 9.33 23.25 m 2 28.67 24.33 16.00 8.33 19.33 m 3 26.00 21.00 14.00 6.67 16.92 mean 29.89 24.33 17.00 8.11 source m t m x t s. em± 0.12 0.14 0.24 cd (p=0.05) 0.34 0.40 0.69 cv% 2.06 table 2. effect of maturity and storage temperature on yellow-life of banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 10.00 12.00 7.00 4.00 8.25 m 2 8.33 10.33 6.00 3.33 7.00 m 3 8.00 7.00 5.00 3.33 5.83 mean 8.78 9.78 6.00 3.56 source m t m x t s. em± 0.13 0.15 0.25 cd (p=0.05) 0.37 0.43 0.74 cv% 6.27 table 3. effect of maturity and storage temperature on overall shelf life of banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 45.00 39.67 28.00 13.33 31.50 m 2 37.00 34.67 22.00 11.67 26.33 m 3 34.00 28.00 19.00 10.00 22.75 mean 38.67 34.11 23.00 11.67 source m t m x t s. em± 0.13 0.15 0.25 cd (p=0.05) 0.37 0.43 0.74 cv% 1.64 ambient temperature had a shelf-life of 11.67 days. these observations corroborate findings of muthuswamy et al (1971) and patil and magar (1976). interaction between maturity stage and storage temperature was found to be significant for green-life, yellow-life and overall shelf-life. fruits harvested at 75% maturity and kept at 12°c had maximum green-life (35 days) and shelf-life (45 days), whereas, highest yellow-life (12 days) was observed in fruits harvested at 75% maturity and stored at 14°c. lowest green-life (6.67 days), yellow-life (3.33 days) and overall shelf-life (10 days) was observed in fruits harvested at 100% maturity and stored under ambient conditions. at different maturity levels, variation in colour, texture and taste were found to be non-significant, except flavour, j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):95-98, 2013 gonge et al 97 which was maximum (7.18) in fully mature fruits (table 4). flavor in banana is imparted by amyl esters and its frutiness is attributable to butyl esters (mc carthy et al, 1963). concentration of these volatile compounds increases as ripening progresses and, therefore, better flavour is noticed in 100% mature fruits. as far as storage temperature is concerned, significantly high score for flavour (7.5), colour (7.85), texture (7.59) and taste (7.58) was recorded in fruits ripened at 16°c (tables 4-7). in an earlier study, peacock (1980) examined colour-quality and eating-quality in ‘cavendish’ banana ripened at 13-33°c. he observed better colour and taste development when these were ripened between 13 to 24°c. higher scores for sensory parameters in ‘grand naine’ banana can be attributed to uniform ripening at 16°c compared to that at lower temperatures or storage at ambient temperature. this is a varietal trait dictated by genetic composition of a particular genotype. interaction effect between maturity stage and storage temperature was found to be significant for colour and texture. higher scores for colour and texture were recorded when fruits of 100% maturity were stored at various low temperatures (m 3 t 1 , m 3 t 2 and m 3 t 3 ). data presented in table 8 indicates significant effect of maturity level and storage temperature on pulp:peel ratio. maximum pulp:peel ratio (3.39) was observed in fully mature fruits, and the minimum (2.37) in 75% mature fruits. with advancing maturity, percentage of pulp:peel ratio increased, with a concomitant decrease in peel weight. this could be due to migration of moisture from the peel to the pulp during the process of ripening. as the fruit ripens, water is lost from the peel to the pulp in response to changes in osmotic potential (stratton and von loesecke, 1931). these results are in accordance with reports of desai and deshpande (1975) and tripathi et al (1981) at full maturity of the fruit. with regard to temperature, maximum pulp:peel ratio (3.02) was observed in fruits stored at ambient conditions compared to those placed in cold storage. pulp:peel ratio increased with increase in temperature. pulp:peel ratio is related to accumulation of moisture in the pulp derived from breakdown of carbohydrates, and osmotic transfer of water from the skin to the pulp (charles and tung, 1973). this is in line with findings of saeed ahmad et al (2006) in banana stored at different temperatures. interaction between maturity stage and storage temperature was found to be non-significant for pulp:peel ratio during the course of our experimentation. bananas are harvested while green, and transported to markets where they are ripened. there is a need to table 4. effect of maturity and storage temperature on flavour at ripening in banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 6.66 6.87 7.21 6.67 6.85 m 2 6.47 7.33 7.63 6.75 7.04 m 3 6.81 7.50 7.67 6.75 7.18 mean 6.65 7.23 7.50 6.72 source m t m x t s. em± 0.06 0.07 0.13 cd (p=0.05) 0.19 0.21 ns cv% 3.13 ns = non significant table 5. effect of maturity and storage temperature on colour at ripening in banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 6.76 6.47 7.50 6.80 6.88 m 2 6.52 7.40 7.88 5.96 6.94 m 3 7.04 7.40 8.17 5.79 7.10 mean 6.77 7.09 7.85 6.18 source m t m x t s. em± 0.08 0.09 0.16 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.27 0.47 cv% 3.96 ns = non significant table 6. effect of maturity and storage temperature on texture at ripening in banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 7.04 7.20 7.43 6.87 7.14 m 2 6.85 7.40 7.43 6.96 7.16 m 3 7.14 7.87 7.92 6.29 7.30 mean 7.01 7.49 7.59 6.71 source m t m x t s. em± 0.07 0.08 0.13 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.22 0.39 cv% 3.19 ns = non significant table 7. effect of maturity and storage temperature on taste at ripening in banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 7.15 7.53 7.54 6.93 7.29 m 2 7.14 7.60 7.58 7.08 7.35 m 3 7.09 7.47 7.62 7.32 7.37 mean 7.13 7.53 7.58 7.11 source m t m x t s. em± 0.08 0.07 0.12 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.21 ns cv% 2.93 ns = non significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):95-98, 2013 shelf-life and quality of banana cv. grand naine 98 transport the fruit in the green state. based on the above investigation, it may be concluded that for distant markets, fruits of banana cv. grand naine banana should be harvested at 75% maturity and stored at 12°c. for nearby markets, fruits can be harvested at 90% maturity and stored at 14°c. for local markets, it is recommended to harvest fruits at 100% maturity, followed by their storage at 16°c. references anonymous. 2013. district-wise area and production of horticultural crops in gujarat state. directorate of horticulture, government of gujarat, gandhinagar, gujarat charles, r.j. and tung, m.a. 1973. physical, rheological and chemical properties of banana during ripening. j. food. sci., 38:456-459 deka, b.c., choudhury, s., bhattacharyya, a., begum, k.h. and neog, m. 2006. postharvest treatment for shelf life extension of banana under different storage environments. acta hort., 712:841-850 desai, b.b. and deshpande, p.b. 1975. chemical transformation in three varieties of banana (musa paradisiaca linn.) fruits stored at 20oc. mysore j. agril. sci., 9:634-643 table 8. effect of maturity and storage temperature on pulp:peel ratio at ripening of banana cv. grand naine level of maturity storage temperature (t) mean t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 m 1 2.27 2.30 2.40 2.49 2.37 m 2 2.52 2.65 2.74 3.00 2.73 m 3 3.36 3.37 3.26 3.56 3.39 mean 2.72 2.77 2.80 3.02 source m t m x t s. em± 0.03 0.03 0.06 cd (p=0.05) 0.08 0.10 0.17 cv% 3.52 ns = non significant gane, r. 1936. study of respiration of banana. new phytol., 35:383–402 lodh, s.b., ravel, p., selvaraj, v. and kohli, r.r. 1971. biochemical changes associated with growth and development of dwarf cavendish banana. ind. j. hort., 28:38-45 mccarthy, a.i., palmer, j.k., shaw, c.p. and anderson, e.e. 1963. correlation of gas chromatographic data with flavor profiles of fresh banana fruit. j. food sci., 28:379-384 muthuswamy, r., sadashivam, j.s., sunderraj and vasudevan, v. 1971. storage studies on ‘dwarf cavendish’ banana. j. agril. sci., 41:479-484 narayana, c.k. and mustaffa, m.m. 2007. influence of maturity on shelf–life and quality changes in banana during storage under ambient conditions. ind. j. hort., 64:12-16 patil, d.l. and magar, n.g. 1976. physicochemical changes in banana fruits during ripening. j. mah. agri. univ., 1:95-99 patil, s.n. and hulmani, n.c. 1998. effect of post-harvest treatments on the storage life of banana fruits. karnataka j. agril. res., 11:134-138 peacock, b.c. 1980. banana ripening effect of temperature on fruit quality. queensland j. agril animal sci., 37:39-45 saeed ahmad, pervez, m.a., chatha, z.a. and thompson, a.k. 2006. improvement of banana quality in relation to storage humidity, temperature and fruit length. int. j. agri. biol., 8:377-380 stratton, f.c. and von loesecke, h. 1931. changes in osmotic pressure of bananas during ripening. pl. physiol., 6:361-365 tripathi, v.k., ram, h.b., jain, s.p. and surjeet singh. 1981. changes in developing banana fruit. prog. hort., 13:45-53 (ms received 28 march 2011, accepted 22 september 2012, revised 25 march 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):95-98, 2013 gonge et al 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() guava (psidium guajava l.) is one of the most common and major fruit crops of india. it is the fourth most important fruit crop in terms of area and production after mango, banana and citrus. in india, it occupies nearly 2.68 lakh ha, with a production of 36.68 lakh tonnes and a productivity of 13.7 t/ha fruit per year (nhb, 2015). the fruit is rich in minerals like phosphorus (23-37mg/100g), calcium (14-30mg/100g), iron (0.6-1.4mg/100g) and vitamins like ascorbic acid, niacin, pathotenic acid, thiamine, riboflavin and vitamin a (bose et al, 1999). it is a climacteric fruit which ripens rapidly after harvest and, therefore, has a short shelf-life. guava fruit is highly perishable and loses its texture and quality within 3-4 days of harvest, at ambient temperature. post-harvest diseases develop during handling and grading. packing and transportation adversely affect fruit quality. deterioration in quality caused by fungal pathogens may include a wide range of symptoms of spoilage. in tropical and subtropical regions of india, about 25-40% of fruits harvested are damaged from faulty post-harvest handling and infection with fungal diseases. with this backdrop, the present study was undertaken to investigate fruit quality in guava cv. allahabad safeda as affected by post-harvest fungal pathogens. effect of post-harvest fungal pathogens on fruit quality in guava cv. allahabad safeda nabakishor nongmaithem department of plant protection sam higginbottom institute of agriculture technology and sciences allahabad -211 007, india e-mail: nabaaaidu@yahoo.com abstract fruits of guava cultivar ‘allahabad safeda’ at mature yellowish-green stage were collected from allahabad fruit market. nine post-harvest fungal pathogens were isolated from these fruits. of these, two isolates with highest incidence, namely, pestalosia psidii (fruit canker causing pathogen) and gloeosporium psidii (anthracnose causing pathogen) were used in the study. fruits inoculated with the pathogens and control (a lot of fruits with no treatment) were stored at ambient temperature. the fruits were analyzed for various quality attributes at different storage intervals for upto 15 days. data revealed that fruits in all the treatments showed a lower fruit-weight loss compared to the untreated fruits. tss, acidity (%) and ascorbic acid content (mg/100g) were also found to decrease in relation to the control at 5, 10 or 15 days of storage. the least plw was recorded in gloeosporium psidii-treated fruits, followed by those treated with pestalosia psidii. but for the bio-chemical changes (also due to post-harvest fungi) gloeosporium psidii-treated fruits had higher tss, acidity (%) and ascorbic acid content (mg/100g) than pestalosia psidii-treated fruits. key words: guava, allahabad safeda, fungal pathogens, post-harvest, fruit quality short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):254-257, 2015 the diseased parts from infected fruits were cut into small pieces (2-3mm) and surface-sterilized with 0.1% mercuric chloride solution for 30 seconds. these pieces were then washed three times in sterilized distilled water and aseptically transferred onto clean, sterilized petri-dishes containing solidified potato dextrose agar medium. the petridishes were incubated in an inverted position at 28±1oc and observed after 3-4 days. fungal hyphae growing out from the infected fruit pieces associated with post-harvest disease in guava were identified using a microscope, as per biligrami et al (1981 and 1991), burnett and hunter (1999) and subramanian (1971), followed by purification on pda slants. pure culture was maintained by periodic subculture as per aneja (2003). all the nine post-harvest fungal pathogens, viz., pestalotia psidii, gloeosporium psidii, rhizoctonia solani, fusarium sp., alternaria alternata, cladosporium sp., geotrichum candidum, mucor sp. and trichothecium sp., were isolated from the guava fruit. of the nine pathogens, the two most-frequently detected pathogens, pestalotia psidii, the fruit-canker causing fungal pathogen (fig. 1a, 1b and 1c) and gloeosporium psidii, and anthracnose causing fungal pathogen (fig. 1d, 1e and 1f) were used for further study. 255 post-harvest fungal pathogens and fruit quality in guava fresh and mature, green coloured guava fruits of uniform size free of pests or mechanical injury were collected from the fruit market in allahabad. the fruits were washed in distilled water, dried and surface-sterilized using 0.1% mercuric chloride for 30 sec. wounds were made in guava fruits with the help of a sterilized cork-borer (6mm) and inoculated with pathogen pestalotia psidii (t1) and gloeosporium psidii (t2) containing a spore load of 1x104 conidia/ml (granger and horne, 1924). the injured fruits were then wrapped in sterilized paper and stored at ambient temperature for 15 days. observations were made regularly on various physico-chemical characters to assess storage quality as affected by the two pathogens, at intervals of 5 days. physiological loss in weight (plw) of the fruit was calculated on initial-weight basis and expressed as per cent. total soluble solids (tss) in the fruit were determined using a hand-held refractometer and, expressed as per cent. acidity was determined by titrating guava fruit juice against 0.1n naoh and expressed as per cent citric acid (ranganna, 1977; shankar, 1999). ascorbic acid was determined using reduction of 2,6-dichlorophenol by ascorbic acid (sadasivan and manikan, 1996) and expressed in mg/ 100ml juice. the data was statistically analyzed through analysis of variance using crd, as per fisher and yates (1968). a perusal of the data indicates that physiological loss in weight (plw) in guava fruit increased with advancement in storage period (fig. 2). during different storage-interval periods, fruits treated with pestalotia psidii (t1) showed maximum weight loss, i.e., 14.30% on the 5th day, 21.78% on the 10th day and 33.14% on the 15th day, followed by fruits infected with gloeosporium psidii (t2), which ranged between 11.95 to 19.64% from 5 to 15 days of storage, respectively, compared to that in control (where minimum physiological loss in weight was ranged between 10.2114.51% during the same time interval). difference in plw may be due to the continuous moisture loss by evaporation and respiration in fruits. infected guava fruits were associated with greater enzymatic activity by pathogens, thus resulting in higher plw. these results are similar to findings of chundawat et al (1976) and mayer et al (1960). acidity in guava fruits showed a linear decline during storage (fig. 3). loss in acidity during storage was more rapid in fruits artificially inoculated with pathogens, compared to that in the non-inoculated ones. at 15th day of storage, acidity in guava under the two treatments was significantly different. acidity of 0.49% was recorded in the control, followed by t2 (0.28%) and t1 (0.20%). fig 1. post-harvest diseases of guava: 1a and 1b. fruit canker of guava and pure culture of the pathogen, 1c. conidia of pestalotia psidii; 1d and 1e. anthracnose of guava and pure culture of the pathogen, 1f. conidia of gloesporium psidii fig. 3. effect of inoculation of pestalotia psidii (t1) and gloeosporium psidii (t2) on acidity (%) of guava fruit after 5, 10 and 15 days of storage. fig. 2. effect of inoculation of pestalotia psidii (t1) and gloeosporium psidii (t2) on physiological loss in weight (%) of guava fruit after 5, 10 and 15 days of storage. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):254-257, 2015 256 tss of fruits inoculated with pestalotia psidii and gloeosporium psidii during storage was significantly reduced at 5th, 10th and 15th day of storage compared to the control (fig. 4). tss in gloeosporium psidii (t2) infected fruits was found to be 8.10, 6.50 and 4.20% at 5th, 10th and 15th day of storage, respectively; whereas, pestalotia psidii (t1) treated fruits showed tss values of 7.70, 6.10 and 3.50% at the same intervals of storage, respectively. maximum tss was recorded in the noninoculated fruit (8.40%, 7.10% and 5.30% at 5th, 10th and 15th day of storage, respectively). during storage, tss in both inoculated and un-inoculated fruits showed a decreasing trend; however, the rate of decline was faster in the infected fruits compared to the control. this may be attributed to a higher degradation of metabolites by the fungal pathogens. this result is in agreement with singh et fig. 5. effect of inoculation of pestalotia psidii (t1) and gloeosporium psidii (t2) on ascorbic acid content (mg/100g) in guava fruit at 5, 10 and 15 days of storage fig. 4. effect of inoculation of pestalotia psidii (t1) and gloeosporium psidii (t2) on total soluble solids in guava fruit at 5, 10 and 15 days of storage al (1981). as with tss, ascorbic acid content (mg/100g) in the fruit also decreased with advancement in storage period (fig. 5). ascorbic acid content in the fruit during storage at ambient temperature varied significantly at all the storage periods studied. gloeosporium psidii (t2) had a detrimental effect on ascorbic acid content in guava fruit (68.75, 53.90 and 34.86 mg/100g at the 5th, 10th and 15th day of storage, respectively) compared to pestalotia psidii (t1) inoculated fruits (58.76, 47.25 and 32.74 mg/100g, respectively) and in the control (81.50, 72.47 and 48.80mg/100g, respectively) at the same interval of storage. our results clearly show that the rate of consumption of ascorbic acid varies with the two fungi in the inoculated fruits. this may be due to the oxidation of ascorbic acid by ascorbic acid oxidase enzyme, or, by some other oxidative enzymes like polyphenol oxidase, cytochrome oxidase or peroxidase as reported by siddiqui et al (1991). it may be concluded that pestalotia psidii, the fruitcanker causing fungal pathogen, and gloeosporium psidii, the anthracnose-causing fungal pathogen, adversely affect the quality of guava fruit during storage. information obtained in this study can be effectively utilized to develop suitable post-harvest management practices for minimizing deterioration in fruit quality and post-harvest loss in guava. references aneja, k.r. 2003. experiments in microbiology, plant pathology and biotechnology. 4th edn., new age international (p) limited publishers, new delhi india, pp. 121-128 bilgrami, k.s., jamaluddin, s. and rizwi, m.a. 1981. fungi of india. part ii. list and references. today and tomorrow’s printers and publishers, new delhi, india biligrami, k.s., jamaluddin, s. and rizwi, m.a. 1991. fungi of india. part iii. list and references. today and tomorrow’s printers and publishers, new delhi, india bose, t.k., mitra, s.k., farooqui, a.a. and sandhu, m.k. 1999. tropical horticulture. 1st ed. nava prokash publication, kolkata, india, p. 297 burnett, h.l. and hunter, b.b. 1999. illustrated genera of imperfect fungi, the american phytopathological society, usa, pp. 99-103 chundawat, b.s., singh, j.p., kamsa, r. and gupta, o.p. 1976. harvest studies on guava fruits. haryana j. hortl. sci., 5:130-136 fisher, r.a. and yates. 1968. statistical methods for research workers. olive and boyd ltd., edinburgh and london, uk, p. 10 granger, k. and horne, a.s. 1924. a method for inoculating nabakishor nongmaithem j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):254-257, 2015 257 apples. annal. bot., 38:213-216 mayer, b.s., anderson, d.s. and bhing r.h. 1960. introduction to plant physiology. d van nastrand co. ltd., london, uk nhb. 2015. indian horticulture database, 2014. national horticulture board, ministry of agriculture, government of india, gurgaon, india ranganna, s. 1977. manual of analysis of fruits and vegetable products, tata mcgraw hill publication company ltd., new delhi, india sadasivam, s. and manickam, a. 1991. biochemical methods, new age international publishers pvt. ltd., new delhi, india, pp. 6-11 shankar, g. 1999. practical manual in horticulture. 4th edn., balyog prakashan publication, allahabad, india, pp. 95-105 siddiqui, s., sharma, r.k. and gupta, o.p. 1991. physiological and quality response of guava fruits to posture during storage. hort. sci., 26:1295-1297 singh, b.p., singh, h.k. and chuahan, k.s. 1981. effect of post-harvest calcium treatment on storage life of guava fruits. indian j. agril. sci., 51:44-47 subramanian, c.v. 1971. hypomycetes: an account of indian species, except cercosporaceae. indian agricultural research institute (iari), new delhi, india (ms received 21 may 2015, revised 04 august 2015, accepted 20 august 2015) post-harvest fungal pathogens and fruit quality in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):254-257, 2015 introduction the cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) is a widely cultivated plant of the gourd family, cucurbitaceae. on account of f1 hybrids of cucumber possessing better quality, high yield, early-maturity, uniformity, etc., these have almost fully replaced traditional, open-pollinated varieties for greenhouse-culture. intensified protected-cultivation of cucurbits leads to conditions favorable to several pathogens, especially, soil-borne diseases. fumigation of soil with methyl bromide to control soil-pathogens was considered as one of the main factors for successful cultivation of cucurbits. with withdrawal of methyl bromide, cucurbits growers are increasingly looking for alternatives to this fumigant. grafting is an asexual plant-propagation method and has become an essential technique for repeated production of crops in greenhouses. grafting of vegetables was first attempted in korea and japan in the late 1920s by grafting watermelons onto gourd rootstocks. lee (1994) reported the gradual increase in use of grafted vegetables in japan, korea and some other asian and european countries, and currently includes melon, cucumber, watermelon, tomato, eggplant and pepper to being grafted before transplantation. grafting vegetables onto compatible rootstocks offers a number of advantages like resistance to soil-pathogens, increase in yield (bletsos et al, 2003) and greater tolerance effects of cucumis and cucurbita rootstocks on vegetative traits, yield and quality in ‘tainan no. 1’ cucumber hsiu-fung chao* and yung-fu yen** department of bio-agricultural science national chiayi university, chiayi, taiwan 600 e-mail : hfchao@mail.tndais.gov.tw abstract ‘tainan no.1’ cucumber, an f1 hybrid, is powdery-mildew resistant and is, therefore, fit for greenhouse-culture. soil-borne diseases in cucurbits have gained increasing importance with intensive cultivation of these crops. in the present experiment, cucumber cv. ‘tainan no. 1’ was grafted onto two rootstocks, viz., cucumis and cucurbita. nongrafted cucumber plants were used as the control. results revealed that both kinds of grafted plants had similar graft-survival rate, and, better vegetative growth than non-grafted ones; however, between the two rootstocks, grafted plants did not differ in vegetative growth or yield. further, plants grafted on cucumis had significant effect on fruit quality. in is therefore recommended that grafting procedure in cucumber greenhouse-culture can be practiced on cucumis. key words: cucumis, cucurbita, cucumber, graft, soil-borne diseases to temperature and salt stresses (ahn et al, 1999; rivero et al, 2003). sakata et al (2008) showed that cucumber could be grafted onto different rootstocks, including cucumis spp., cucurbita spp., cucurbita interspecific hybrids, bottle gourd, wax gourd, fig-leaf gourd and luffa. each rootstock has its specific function. marukawa and takatsu (1969) reported fig-leaf gourd as providing better cold-tolerance and resistance to fusarium wilt while having a high affinity for cucumber, making it the most commonly used rootstock in the crop. a majority of cucumbers grown in taiwan when grafted onto cucurbita spp. cv. heroes, show superior tolerance to soil-borne diseases, but often lack seed formation. cucumis spp. cv. qingpi, originally from an openpollinated variety and primarily used for processing in taiwan, has a high commercial potential. as grafting of herbaceous vegetables continues to gain popularity, plant breeders need to be ready and equipped with rootstock germplasm. grafting is a viable option to growers for managing biotic and abiotic stresses which limit yield and quality (king et al, 2010). the purpose of our study was to compare effects of cucumis and cucurbita rootstocks on vegetative growth, yield and quality in cucumber and identify new rootstocks to replace conventional ones to exploit economic potential of cucumber cultivation. *tainan district agricultural research and extension station, council of agricultural, executive yuan, taiwan 624 **corresponding author j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):51-54, 2013 52 material and methods the present study was conducted at yichu branch station, tainan district agricultural research and extension station, chiayi county, taiwan, during 2009-2010. cucumber (cucumis sativus) cv. ‘tainan no.1’ was grafted onto two rootstocks, viz., cucumis cv. qingpi and cucurbita cv. heroes. approach-grafting is best done when the rootstock and scion both have similar stem-thickness. to obtain an equal stem-diameter in scion and the rootstock, rootstock seeds were planted ten days earlier than cucumber seeds; non-grafted cucumber plants were used as the control. to facilitate graft-union, acclimatization is important, whereby the light was maintained at about 3000 lux, air temperature at 25ºc and relative humidity at 95% for sixteen days. graftsurvival rate was estimated 20 days after grafting and was expressed as percentage of total number of plants grafted. after the graft was firmly established, seedlings were transplanted to soil. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design. each treatment was replicated four times, with twenty plants per replication in the greenhouse at a spacing of 1.5×0.75m. the following vegetative / qualitative traits were recorded: survival rate of grafted seedlings; horticultural traits (including parthenocarpy and gynoecious habit) from planting to harvest, including final main-stem length, scion diameter, rootstock diameter, internode length and number of leaves. fruit weight was estimated and soluble solids content of juice (extracted from the central endocarp) was determined with a hand-held refractometer. data were statistically analyzed. results and discussion most greenhouses in taiwan are subjected to continuous cropping in fruit-bearing vegetable production, which lowers the yield and diminishes quality of the produce. takahashi (1984) reported 68% reduction in continuous vegetable cropping in japan, caused by soil-borne diseases and nematodes. as soil-sterilization is difficult, grafting has become an essential technique for production of repeat crops in greenhouses. many grafting methods are available for different types of fruit-bearing vegetables including tomato. cleft-grafting and cut-grafting are popular in watermelon. oda (1999) reported survival rate in grafted cucurbitaceae plants to be higher when approach-grafting was used. in this experiment, cucumber cv. ‘tainan no. 1’ was grafted by approach-grafting onto two different rootstocks. survival rates when grafted onto cucumis and cucurbita were 80% and 78%, respectively (table 1), i.e., similar graft-success rate. though traka-mavrona et al (2000) reported that difference in stem diameter of rootstock and scion reduced graft-survival rate. however, in this experiment, acclimatization provided good conditions for rootstock/scion union to overcome disparate stem-diameter. moreover, cucumber cv. ‘tainan no. 1’ grafted onto various rootstocks retains all the desired horticultural traits (table 1). vegetative growth of grafted plants differed significantly and indicated superior growth potential compared to non-grafted controls. non-grafted plants suffered from serious soil-borne diseases, including phytophthora blight, gummy-stem blight and fusarium wilt (fig. 1). data on final main-stem length, scion diameter, rootstock diameter, internode length and leaf number are presented in table 2. all the traits under study were affected by rootstock-use. lee and oda (2003) reported grafted plants as showing different vegetative growth responses owing to vigor of the rootstock and rootstock-scion compatibility. longest final main-stem was observed in plants grafted onto cucurbita. however, no significant differences were found in final main-stem length, scion / rootstock diameter, internode length and leaf number among plants grafted onto the two different rootstocks (table 2). however, final main-stem length and leaf number in grafted plants were significantly higher than in non-grafted ones. table 1. effect of rootstock on survival rate and horticultural traits in grafted cucumber rootstock survival gynoecious parthenocarpic rate (%) type type cucumis 80 yes yes cucurbita 78 yes yes non-grafted — yes yes t-test ns ns ns ns = non-significant fig 1. performance of ‘tainan no. 1’ cucumber grafted onto two different rootstocks: cucumis (left), cucurbita (centre) and nongrafted (right) planted on the same date in the greenhouse at yichu branch station j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):51-54, 2013 hsiu-fung chao and yung-fu yen 53 superior vigor and vegetative growth in grafted plants can be explained by their resistance to soil-borne diseases (lee, 1994), better root-system activity in the rootstock (salehi et al, 2009) leading to increased water and plant nutrient uptake, higher endogenous levels of hormones (zijlstra et al, 1994) and tolerance of the rootstock to other unfavorable soilconditions (rivero et al, 2003). it has been stated that grafting onto cucurbita rootstock had an adverse effect on cucumber production in taiwan. in our experiment, though, we could not detect any negative effect on cucumber fruit quality using cucurbita rootstock. in addition, there was no significant difference between the two rootstocks in grafting in terms of fruit length, fruit width or fruit weight (table 3). moreover, grafting resulted in significantly higher soluble solid content and total yield on both the rootstocks, especially when cucumber was grafted onto cucumis. however, total yield did not vary with rootstock (table 3). in this study, higher fruit yield was obtained in plants grafted onto cucurbita rootstock. this may be due to various factors such as increase in uptake of water and nutrients with the widespread root-system of the rootstock (salehi et al, 2009) and due to improved tolerance to soil-borne diseases (miguel et al, 2004). improvement in quality of the vegetable by grafting has been demonstrated in melon grafted onto cucurbita spp. (kamiya and tamura, 1969) and watermelon grafted onto squash (yamasaki et al, 1994). the most obvious reason why rootstocks affect scion fruit quality is rootstock/ scion incompatibility, which induces undergrowth or overgrowth of the scion leading to decreased water and nutrient flow through the graft-union, with resultant wilting (davis et al, 2008). various rootstocks affect cucumber quality negatively, besides causing shortening of fruits (muramatsu, 1981) and decreased soluble solids content (zhu et al, 2006). in our study, cucumber when grafted onto cucumis was seen to be compatible with normal vegetative growth response and good fruit traits. all in all, these results suggest that cucumis is a new rootstock that can replace the existing cucumber production and its economic potential can be exploited. thus rootstock had a significant effect on survival rate, vegetative growth, fruit yield and fruit quality. cucumber grafted onto cucumis rootstock showed good rootstockscion combination, better tolerance to soil-borne diseases, better growth, yield and quality. therefore, it is recommended that cucumis can be used as a new rootstock with economic potential, in cucumber production. references ahn, s.j., y.j., chung, g.c., cho, b.h., suh, s.r. 1999. physiological responses of grafted cucumber leaves and rootstock root affected by low root temperature. sci. hort., 81:397-408 bletsos, f.a., thanassoulopoulos, c., roupakias, d. 2003. effect of grafting on growth, yield and verticillium wilt of eggplant. hort. sci., 38:183-186 davis, a.r., p. perkins-veazie, r. hassell, a. levi, s.r. king and x. zhang. 2008. grafting effects on vegetable quality. hortsci., 43:1670-1672 kamiya, e. and s. tamura. 1964. studies on grafting in muskmelon [in japanese]. bull. shizuoka pref. agri. exptl. stn., 9:79–83 king, s.r., angela r. davis, xingping zhang and kevin crosby. 2010. genetics, breeding and selection of rootstocks for solanaceae and cucurbitaceae. sci hort., 127:106-111 lee, j.m. and m. oda. 2003. grafting of herbaceous vegetable and ornamental crops. hort rev., 28:61-124 lee, j.m, 1994. cultivation of grafted vegetables i. current status, grafting methods and benefits. hortl. sci., 29:240-244 table 3. effect of rootstock on fruit traits in grafted cucumber rootstock fruit fruit fruit total yield length width weight soluble (t/ha) (cm) (cm) (g) solids (°brix) cucumis 22.8±0.8 2.5±0.3 92±1.5 4.6±0.3 8.0±0.8 cucurbita 23.4±1.0 2.6±0.2 94±1.2 3.3±0.2 8.1±0.9 non-grafted 23.5±0.7 2.6±0.3 95±1.5 3.3±0.1 5.9±0.9 t-test ns ns ns * ** ns = non-significant; significant at p d” 0.05 or 0.01 level, respectively table 2. effect of rootstock on vegetative traits in grafted cucumber rootstock final main-stem scion rootstock internode no. of length (cm) diameter(cm) diameter (cm) length (cm) leaves cucumis 220±7 1.3±0.1 1.3±0.2 5.5±0.3 122±15 cucurbita 228±9 1.3±0.3 1.3±0.2 5.6±0.2 124±12 non-grafted 201±5 1.1±0.2 1.1±0.1 4.6±0.3 108±11 t-test * ns ns ns * ns = non-significant; *significant at p d” 0.05 level j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):51-54, 2013 effect of rootstock on yield and quality in cucumber 54 marukawa, s. and takatsu, i. 1969. studies on the selection of cucurbita spp. as cucumber stock. 1. compatibility, ability to tolerate low-temperature conditions and yield of black prickly 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sci. vol. 8(1):51-54, 2013 hsiu-fung chao and yung-fu yen 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. short communication chrysanthemum belongs to the family asteraceae, native of asia and europe (asha et al., 2016), is commercially cultivated in for the exquisite flowers. it is a leading flower in the global market and commonly grown for cut flower, loose flower, pot plant and garden decoration throughout the world. in india, is being commercially grown in 31.40 thousand hectare area with 482.54 thousand metric tons loose flower and 28.73 thousand metric tons of cut flower production (anon., 2022). chrysanthemum flowers have high potential and price because of its variable flower shape, size, forms and distinctiveness for flower hues and shades (kaushal and bala, 2019). there is demand for superior varieties over the existing ones, thus, ther e is need to evaluate a nd categor ize chr ysa nthemum var ieties on the basis of their commercial significance (bala, 2015). the objective of this study was to evaluate diverse standard varieties of chrysanthemum having potential for pot culture, exhibition, a nd cut flower with commer cia l significance. the experiment was conducted with ten standard varieties of chrysanthemum i.e., snow ball, pusa centenary, sonar bangla, thai chen queen, purnima, kikobiory, swan dance, otam blaze, valliant, denise oatridge, in 8 inch pots, replicated thrice in completely randomized block design (crd) at research farm, department of floriculture and landscaping, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during 2018-19. substrate media of soil : leaf mold : sand (2:1:1) was used for pot filling. disbudding was done in september and october to maintain a healthy terminal flower on the single stem. the observations on various growth and flowering parameters such as plant height at bud appearance and at anthesis, number of leaves per plant, days to bud initiation, days to flower opening stage, maturity group (early, medium, late), flower diameter, duration of flowering, flower colour, vase life, flower form and commercial use were recorded. data were subjected to statistical analysis by using cpcs-1 software and comparisons were made at 5% level of significance. all the varieties differed significantly with each other with regard to various vegetative and floral parameters (ta ble 1). t he ma ximum pla nt height a t bud appearance (71.82 cm) and anthesis (77.23 cm) was recorded in variety snow ball which was significantly higher than at bud appearance (68.30 cm) and at anthesis (73.47 cm) in kikobiory, however, the minimum plant height (44.08 cm) at bud appearance and at anthesis (48.10 cm) was observed in purnima. the height of plants should be proportionate i.e., j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 240-243, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2171 morphological characterization of standard chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) abhishek k. and bala m.* department of floriculture and landscaping, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141004, punjab, india *corresponding author email : madhu-flori@pau.edu abstract ten diverse chrysanthemum varieties were evaluated for their suitability as cut flower, flower arrangement and pot plant. the maximum plant height at bud appearance (71.82 cm) and at anthesis (77.23 cm) was recorded in snow ball, while, it was recorded minimum at bud appearance (44.08 cm) and flower opening stage (48.10 cm) in purnima. the longest duration of flowering (33.73 days) was recorded in thai chen queen, whereas, the least flowering duration (23.63 days) was recorded in swan dance. the variety pusa centenary exhibited the longest vase life (22.00 days), however, the least vase life (16.00 days) was recorded in valliant. depending upon the compactness, medium size and vase life, thai chen queen, purnima, pusa centenary, otam blaze and denise oatridge were found suitable for pot culture, cut flower and flower arrangements, whereas, the varieties with big flower such as snow ball, kikobiory, sonar bangla, valliant and swan dance were identified for pot culture and exhibition purpose. keywords : chrysanthemum, evaluation, floral characters, vase life 241 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 240-243, 2023 morphological characterization of standard chrysanthemum 2-2.5 times to the size of pot for its effective display. the seasonal variation pertaining to environmental conditions such as light and temperature also affect the plant architecture (suvija et al., 2016). the variation in plant height could be due to genetic and environmental factors (baskaran et al., 2010). the highest number of leaves per plant (18.50) was recorded in the variety pusa centenary, whereas, the lowest leaf count per plant (10.80) was observed in kikobiory. the diverse genetic makeup of different genotypes along with variable response to prevailing environmental conditions likely resulted in variation in leaf number (suvija et al., 2016). the number of days to bud appearance and flower opening differed significantly among the varieties (fig. 1). the variety swan dance (71.30 days) recorded early bud initiation and it was statistically at par with kikobiory (72.20 days). the variety pusa centenary registered the highest number of days to bud initiation (84.03 days) and was found statistically at par with sonar bangla (83.33 days) to initiate the flower buds. the days to bud initiation to first flower bud appearance is an important parameter reflecting earliness as well as late flowering habit of a variety, and holds a significance pertaining to the availability of flowers in the market (behera et al., 2002). the highest number of days to flower opening (104.87 days) was observed in the variety sonar bangla. the variety swan dance bloomed earliest (94.87 days) to anthesis, which was statistically at par with snowball and kikobiory. the cultivar which bloom early likely to reach or capture the market relatively earlier and could be a decisive factor for the farmer to cultivate plant height (cm) number flower duration floret colour code variety at bud at of leaves/ diameter of floweri(rhs colour appearance anthesis plant (cm) ng (days) chart) denise oatridge 61.27 65.07 13.65 14.33 32.97 purple violet group (n 80 d) kikobiory 68.30 73.47 10.80 15.82 26.87 yellow group (6 a) otam blaze 57.59 60.73 13.20 14.50 26.70 orange red group (31 a) purnima 44.08 48.10 11.37 13.30 30.60 white group (15 n) pusa centenary 61.33 65.80 18.50 14.41 29.57 yellow group (6 c) snow ball 71.82 77.23 13.37 17.69 31.07 white group (155 a) sonar bangla 58.84 62.70 13.03 16.85 25.17 yellow white group (158 c) swan dance 66.94 70.80 14.87 19.50 23.63 white group (155 b) thai chen queen 54.10 58.70 14.67 15.80 33.73 yellow orange group (22 c) valliant 60.13 64.27 13.07 16.73 27.90 red purple group (62 d) sem± 0.47 0.23 0.32 lsd (0.05) 1.40 0.68 0.94 0.77 1.24 table 1 : evaluation of chrysanthemum varieties for vegetative and floral characters fig. 1 : days to bud apperance and flower opening stage 242 abhishek and bala colourful varieties taking into consideration their varying response groups and their optimum stage for marketing (laxmi et al., 2008). the flower diameter is an important floral parameter that determines the likely weight of a flower which can be used as loose flower or for exhibition purpose. the large sized chrysanthemum inflorescence is desired for exhibition purpose and sometimes raised by the growers owing to consumer demand (kireeti et al., 2017). the maximum diameter of flower was observed in swan dance (19.50 cm) followed by ‘snow ball’ (17. 69 cm), while, minimum flower dia meter (13.30 cm) was observed in purnima. simila r variations in diameter of flower have been reported by kumar and polara (2017). considerable variations were recorded for the duration of flowering in different chrysanthemum varieties (table 1). the variety thai chen queen exhibited longest flowering duration (33.73 days), whereas, the shortest duration (23.63 days) was recorded in swan dance. these variations in flower diameter are requisite for the commercial flower market which provides an opportunity to select the varieties with profuse flowering with long blooming period. similar variation in flowering among chrysanthemum varieties have also been reported (srilatha et al., 2015). flower colour of different varieties was observed and the colour codes were designated as per the standard royal horticultural society colour charts (rhscc), london. variations in flower colour were observed among the ten varieties and are categorized into white, yellow, yellow white, orange red, red purple and purple violet group. the variation in flower colour among chrysanthemum varieties may also be due to the distinct genetic makeup and different proportion of pigments present in a particular genotype. the longest vase life (22 days) was observed in ‘pusa centenary’ and the shortest vase life (16.00 days) was observed in variety valliant (fig. 2). the variation in vase life may be due to genetic makeup of cultivars (singh et al., 2017). the varietal differentiation according to the maturity group is important for consumer preference. the variation among maturity and flowering duration is determining factors, especially for pot cultivation of chrysanthemum. the observations revealed that all the ten varieties assessed matured between 8 to 12 weeks, thus have been categorized under the medium maturity group (table 2). wide range of variation with respect to flower form viz., regular incurve, decorative, irregular incurve and spider etc. was observed. the trait such as flower shape and flower form is totally accredited to the genetic factor (behera et al., 2002). all the evaluated varieties can be used for pot culture and exhibition purposes depending upon consumer preferences. table 2 : characterization of chrysanthemum varieties for different maturity groups and commercial utilization flowering maturity flower pot culture/variety season group form exhibition cut flower denise oatridge novembermedium irregular december incurve kikobiory november medium regular incurve × otam blaze november medium decorative purnima november medium decorative pusa centenary november medium decorative snow ball november medium regular incurve × sonar bangla november medium regular incurve × swan dance octoberearly to medium spider × november thai chen queen november medium decorative valliant november medium spider × j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 240-243, 2023 243 therefore, the varieties thai chen queen, purnima, pusa centenary, otam blaze and denise oatridge with medium sized flowers and better keeping quality were found to be most suitable for pot culture, cut flower and flower arrangement, whereas, the varieties snow ball, kikobiory, sonar bangla, valliant and swan dance with bigger sized flowers were found suitable for pot culture and exhibition purpose. references anonymous. 2022. area and production of floriculture in india. https://www.indiastat.com. asha , k. m. sa ne, a. a nd kuma r, r. 2016. cha r a cter iza tion of chr ysa nthemum (dendranthema grandiflora) genotypes as per dus guidelines. indian j. agric. sci., 86: 103112. bala, m. 2015. eva lua tion of chr ysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ra ma t. ) genotypes for morphological traits j. hortic. sci., 10: 242-244. baskaran, v., jayanthi r., janakiram, t. and abiramil, k. 2010. evaluation of post harvest quality of some varieties of chrysanthemum. j. hortic. sci., 5: 81-83. behera, t. k., sirohi, p. s. a nd pal, a. 2002. assessment of chrysanthemum germplasm for commercial cultivation under delhi condition. j. ornam. hortic., 5: 11-14. kaushal, s. and bala, m. 2019. morphological variability of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflorum ramat.) genotypes for pot culture., agric. res. j., 56: 206-212. kireeti, a., ravindrababu, om prasad, m. j., and ra ma devi, p. 2017. eva lua tion of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev) varieties in humid coastal zone of andhra pradesh. int. j. chem. stud., 5: 370372. kumar, a. s. and polara, n. d. 2017. evaluation of chrysanthemum varieties on growth and quality under south saurastra region. int. j. pure app. biosci., 5(4): 1989. laxmi, p. , pra ta p, m. a nd reddy, s.a. 2008. evaluation of yellow coloured chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora l.) varieties for growth, flowering and yield. orissa j. hortic., 36(1): 116-119. singh, d. d., tyagi, s., singh, s and kumar, p. 2017. studies on the per for ma nce a nd flower cha r a cter iza tion of chr ysa nthemum (dendranthema grandiflora l.) genotypes under uttar pradesh conditions. adv. res., 9: 1-7. srilatha, v., kumar, k. s. and kiran, y. d. 2015. evaluation of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev) varieties in southern zone of andhra pradesh. agri. sci. dig., 35:155-157. suvija, n. v., suresh, j., kumar, s. r. and kannan, m. 2016. evalua tion of chr ysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat) genotypes for loose flower, cut flower and pot mums. int. j. innov. res. adv. std., 3:101-104. fig. 2 : vase life (days) of standard chrysanthemum (received : 05.03.2021; revised : 01.02.2023; accepted 03.02.2023) j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 240-243, 2023 morphological characterization of standard chrysanthemum this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction cucumber is a member of the diverse and distinct cucurbitaceae family and is widely grown for both fresh and processing purposes around the world. primary centre of origin was india where both wild and cultivated species exist while, china and near east are secondary centre of origin (telford and renner, 2010). both cultivated and wild species viz., cucumis sativus var. hardwickii render enormous variation for various traits like growth habit, sex expression, fruit size, spines and flesh bitterness. about 70% of the cucumber world production is contributed by asian countries, turkey, iran and russia. in india, cucumber covered an area of 104 thousand hectares with 1603 thousand mt annual production (nhb 2019). cucumber is an ideal model crop for genetic studies due to smaller genome size of approximately 367mb with shorter life cycle (kaur and sharma, 2021). breeding cucumber for enhancing yield, quality, and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance is a major challenge for the breeders, globally (yuan et al., 2008). in spite of huge variability, it has narrow genetic base with only 12% polymorphism which limits the new cultivar development by cross breeding (pandey et al., 2018). there is scope for improvement of the productivity with the use of improved varieties or hybrids of cucumber (pandey et al., 2016). selection of suitable parents for breeding programme depends on the existence of variability in the germplasm. identification of the suitable parents is the most imperative for hybridization. recent progresses in plant genomic offers an opportunity for assessing genetic diversity through use of molecular markers (yang et al., 2015). molecular markers are more advantageous than morphological characters due to more stability under variable environment conditions. different types of molecular markers are random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd), sequence characterized amplified r egions (scar), a mplified fr a gment length polymorphisms (aflp) and simple sequence repeats (ssr) (dar et al., 2017). among all, ssr markers are widely used in plant genomics like gene mapping, quantitative trait loci (qtl), marker assisted selection (mas), evolutionary studies and genetic diversity ssr analysis to assess genetic diversity and population structure in parthenocarpy cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) kaur m.*, sharma p. , sharma a., hemalata and kumar n. department of vegetable science and floriculture, college of agriculture, csk hpkv, palampur 176062 (hp) india *correspondence author email : sidhumanpreetk12@gmail.com abstract the genetic diversity and population relationship was determined in 14 genotypes of parthenocarpic cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) using simple sequence repeats (ssr) markers. in this study, fifty-nine ssr markers comprehensively showed polymorphism among cucumber genotypes. total 252 alleles were identified with an average of 4.27 alleles per locus, while the polymorphism information content (pic) of the primers ranged from 0.34 to 0.84 with a mean value of 0.62. the major allele frequency and heterozygosity ranged from 0.21 to 0.75 and from 0.43 to 0.89, respectively. maximum major allele frequency was reported with primer csfemale-4, whereas the maximum value of polymorphic information content was found with the primer ssr11742. the dendrogram clustered genotypes into two main groups a and b with 8 and 6 genotypes, respectively. jaccard’s similarity coefficient ranged from 0.63 to 0.86 with maximum similarity between genotypes ddpcg3 and plp-1, whereas minimum similarity was observed between ddpcg8 and plp gy-1-08b. the population structure revealed three sub-populations with some admixtures. principal coordinate analysis (pcoa) with ssr markers revealed that the genotypes were uniformly distributed across the two axes in both the plots with 41.76% of cumulative variation. the genetic divergence within indigenous genotypes allow genotypic identification, gene mapping and cloning for improvement in cucumber breeding. keywords : cucumber, genetic diversity, polymorphism, population structure, ssr markers original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 46-52, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2146 47 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 46-52, 2023 analysis (mahajan et al., 2016). ssr markers are used in cucumber for assessment of genetic diversity in cucumber (yang et al., 2015). genetic diversity and population str uctur e is ver y impor ta nt for the maintenance, conservation and improvement in productivity in agriculture. plant genetic diversity can be preserved and stored in the form of plant genetic resources in gene banks and dna libraries for long term conservation. these plant genetic resources could be utilized in future for the crop improvement against various biotic and abiotic stresses to meet global food security (garzon-martinez et al., 2015). due to narrow genetic base and use of limited number of ssr markers for genetic diversity analysis, there is a dire need for studying genetic diversity using ssr markers for bridging the gap in the crop improvement by hybridization. therefore, this study was focused to determine genetic diversity and population structure using ssr markers in cucumber. the findings of this work will aid in the selection of cucumber genotypes with a high genetic diversity of the genes used in crossbreeding, qtl mapping, gene tagging and other imperative genomic studies materials and methods experimental material this study was conducted at research farm of vegetable science, department of vegetable science and floriculture (n 32° 61, e 76° 31), csk-hpkv, palampur. agro-climatically, it is located in the midhill regions having humid sub-temperate climate with 2,500 mm annual rainfall. the experiment material comprised of fourteen genotypes both gynoecious parthenocarpic which were collected from cskhpkv (palampur), pau (ludhiana, punjab) and gbpua&t (pant nagar) (table 1). the genotypes were maintained at experimental farm and molecular biology la bor a tor y of vegeta ble science a nd floriculture department, cskhimachal pradesh krishi vishvavidyalaya, palampur, india during the year 2020-21 to take up genetic diversity analysis. genomic dna extraction and pcr amplification using ssr markers about 5 g of plant tissue was finely ground in liquid nitrogen. the entire genomic dna was extracted from each genotype using the ctab technique (doyle and doyle, 1987). the dna quantification was done using nanodrop spectrophotometer at the od 260/280 value and 0.8% agarose gel-electrophoresis. for pcr, dna was diluted to 50 ng/ul and refrigerated at 4°c, whereas concentrated dna stocks were kept at -80°c for later use. for amplification of genomic dna, a reaction mixture of 15 µl volume was prepared using template dna (50 ng/µl), forward and reverse primer (5µm each), mgcl2 (1.6 mm), 1 x pcr buffer (1 x: 10mm trishcl, 50mm kcl, ph 8.3), dntp mix (0.25 mm) and taq polymerase (0.75 u/µl). the pcr reaction was carried out in thermal cycler with initial denaturation at 94°c at 3-5 min, 35-36 cycles of denaturation of 94°c for 3060 sec, annealing of 50-60°c for 3060 sec, extension of 72°c for 60-80 sec and followed by final extension of 72°c for 5-10 min. the amplified products were resolved in 3 per cent agarose gel with 100 bp ladder and gels were visualized using the geldocumentation unit (bio-rad). statistical analysis for all analyzed genotypes, exclusive dna bands were evaluated as present (1) or absent (0). in the simqual programme of the ntsyspc package (version 2.02), the binary data were used to generate a jaccard’s similarity coefficient through upgma (unweighted pair-group method with ar ithmetic a ver a ges) method which a llowed to design a dendrogra m by genotype clustering. pic value calculates the informativeness of a particular dna marker (spooner et al., 1993). using the software structure version 2.3.4 (pritchard et al., 2000), model-based cluster ana lysis wa s performed to germplasm collection source ddpcg4 cskhpkv, palampur hpk-1 cskhpkv, palampur punjab kheera-1 (pk-1) pau, ludhiana ppc-2 gbpua&t, pant nagar ppc-3 gbpua&t, pant nagar ddpcw1 cskhpkv, palampur ddpcg2 cskhpkv, palampur ddpcg5 cskhpkv, palampur ddpcg6 cskhpkv, palampur ddpcg7 cskhpkv, palampur plpgy-1-08-a (green) cskhpkv, palampur plp gy-1-08-b (white) cskhpkv, palampur ddpcg3 cskhpkv, palampur plp-1 cskhpkv, palampur table 1 : cucumber germplasm and their sources used for diversity analysis ssr analysis to assess genetic diversity and population structure 48 determine the genetic structure and number of clusters in the da ta set. t he number of hypothesized populations (k) varied between 2 and 10 and the analysis was carried out twice and the true k was determined according to the method described by evanno et al. (2005). the run with maximum likelihood was used to assign individual genotypes into groups. popgene was used to calculate a variety of genetic variation parameters. using the darwin softwar e ver sion 5. 0, a neighbor-joining tr ee (unweighted) was constructed from the dissimilarity matrix (per rier and ja cquemoud, 2006). 1000 bootstraps were used to test branch robustness. principal coordinates analysis (pcoa) in genalex 6.5 was used to visualize the genetic relationship patterns in the matrix. structure analysis was done to estimate population str ucture (q matrix) using structure (pritchard et al., 2000; falush et al., 2003) and express as membership probability. to estimate the actual population substructure, ten different ks (from k=1 to k=10, where k is the kinship matrix) were utilized. results and discussion ssr and marker informativeness the gel electrophoresis results for 14 germplasm with primer ssr11742 is presented in fig. 1. the total molecula r var ia bility pa ra meters such a s pic, heterozygosity, major allele frequency, number of alleles and allele size across all 14 germplasm are presented in table 2 (supplimentary file). out of 61 ssr primers, 59 primers exhibited polymorphism. a total of 252 amplicons were created, with sizes ranging from 100 to 380 bp. the total number of alleles from 59 primers observed was 252 with a mean of 4.27 alleles per locus and eight alleles were identified in ssr11742 and ssr04689. major allele frequency varied from 0.21 (ssr04689) to 0.75 (cs-female-4) with an average value of 0.42. the polymorphic infor ma tion content (pic), r a nged fr om 0. 34 (ssr30647) to 0.84 (ssr11742), with an average value of 0.62 per primer. similarly, heterozygosity varied from 0.43 (cs-female-4) to 0.89 (ssr 11742) with an average value of 0.70. genetic diversity assessment and structure analysis fourteen cucumber genotypes were divided into two main clusters (a and b). cluster a was split into two sub-clusters comprising of total of 8 germplasm, while cluster b had contained six genotypes namely, ddpcg6, ddpcg7, plpgy-1-08a, plpgy-1-08b, ddpcg3 and plp-1 (fig. 2). based on upgma analysis, jaccard’s similarity coefficient varied from 0.63 to 0.84 with maximum similarity between genotype ddpcg3 and plp-1 (0. 86), whereas minimum similarity was between ddpcg8 and plpgy-1-08b (0.59). based on neighbor joining analysis, genotypes were grouped into three clusters as depicted using the color codes in fig. 3. cluster i (red), cluster ii (blue) and cluster iii (green) fig. 1 : dna profile of 14 germplasm of cucumber showing polymorphism with primer ssr11742 (m-100 bp ladder) fig. 2 : dendrogram depicting genetic relationships among the cucumber germplasm constructed by ntsys–pc (version 2.02) using upgma method j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 46-52, 2023 kaur et al. 49 fig. 3 : neighbor-joining tree of cucumber germplasm using ssr markers generated by darwin software fig. 5 : genetic structure of 14 cucumber germplasm (red and green) represent the two groups, defined by the k value. cucumber germplasm showing more than one color may have an admixture percentage of variation explained by the first 3 axes axis 1 2 3 % 17.59 14.10 10.08 cum % 17.59 31.68 41.76 fig. 4 : pcoa scatter diagram analysis showing the distribution of 14 cucumber germplasm j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 46-52, 2023 ssr analysis to assess genetic diversity and population structure 50 comprised of two, six and six genotypes, respectively. principal coordinate analysis (pcoa) showed that first three coordinates accounted for 41.76% cumulative variation among 14 genotypes (fig. 4) with the first and second coordinates explaining 17.59% and 14.10% of the total variation respectively. the structure analysis divided the population into two groups. the differentiations at k =2 were nearly equivalent to pedigree knowledge with a few outliers. in group 1 (red) consists of 6 genotypes and group 2 (green) comprises 8 genotypes (fig. 5). the germplasm generated by the ntsys software were confirmed using structure analysis at k = 2. as a result of this, it was established that the germplasm that were separated according to cluster analysis were almost identical to those that were divided according to structure analysis, with a few minor differences. the genetic diversity and population structure in cucumber was investigated for improvement of various traits using crop breeding practices. a limited number of ssr molecular markers were used with indian cucumber genotypes. it has been observed that ssr markers showed high polymorphism in cucumber. in our study, we have determined the genetic diversity using sixty-one ssr markers in 14 genotypes of cucumber compr ising a wider geogr a phica l distribution of genotypes. among 61 ssrs primers, 59 primers showed high polymorphism and a total of 252 alleles were identified with an amplicon size ranging from 100-380 bp. the number of alleles varied from 2-8 with a mean of 4.27 alleles per locus. similarly, dar et al. (2017) and lv et al. (2012) observed an average number of alleles 2.9 and 13.7 per locus, respectively. the polymorphic information content (pic), a mea sur e r ela ted to ma r ker discrimination, ranged from 0.34 (ssr30647) to 0.84 (ssr11742), with a mean of 0.62 per primer. our study revealed similar r esults of pic (0.62) in comparison with previous reports on cucumber i.e., 0.664 and 0.69 (hu et al., 2011; normohamadi et al., 2017) while, pic was lower in indian cucumber (0.310), chinese cucumber (0.388) and cucumber (0.33) (hu et al., 2011; pandey et al., 2013; dar et al., 2017). a range of 0.12-0.44 was observed for pic value for 15 primers with the mean value of 0.21 (someh et al., 2016). ssr11742 and ssr04689 markers were found more polymorphic among 59 ssr markers due to their high pic values. the results were in agr eement with earlier studies on cucumber suggesting the role of ssr markers for identification of genotypes, dna fingerprinting and maintenance of genotypes in the gene banks. based on upgma analysis with jaccard’s similarity coefficient varied from 0.63 to 0.86. similarly, someh et al. (2016) and nor moha madi et al. (2017) reported jaccard’s similarity coefficient ranging from 0.56 to 0.88 and 0.51 to 0.92 in cucumber, respectively. lower range of jaccard’s similarity coefficient viz., 0.01-0.44 and 0.35-0.51 was reported in cucumber by valcarcel et al. (2018) and park et al. (2021). there was no regional distribution trend in the clustering pattern based on upgma and pca. this could be due to regular gene flow through seed exchange between different places, which is most likely due to human interference (garzon-martinez et al., 2015). minimum jaccard’s similarity coefficient was observed in ddpcg8 and plpgy-1-08b showing maximum diversity among genotypes. the genotypes ddpcg8 and plpgy-1-08b were collected from different parts of indian origin the clustering formed by the upgma dendrogram was moderately validated by projecting individua l genotypes into a two-dimensiona l multivariate space in pcoa diagram. as per upgma method the cucumber genotypes were divided into two main clusters a (a1-5 and a2-3) and b (6). similar results were reported by dar et al. (2017) which grouped cucumber germplasm into two main distinct clusters. various clustering methods were employed to assess genetic relationship of different genotypes or germplasm. based on neighbour joining, fourteen genotypes were grouped into thr ee clusters a s represented by using color codes. cluster i consists of 2 genotypes followed by 6 genotypes in cluster ii and iii. pcoa is a multivariate strategy for grouping data ba sed on similarity coefficients or var iance or covariance values that provides more information about main groups, whereas cluster analysis provides higher resolution among closely related populations. pcoa explores correlations between many quantitative variables by constructing a small number of linear combinations (principal components) that retain as much information as feasible from the original data. principal coordinate analysis (pcoa) showed that first three coordinates accounted for 41.76% cumulative variation among 14 genotypes with the first and second coordinates explaining 17.59% and 14.10% of the j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 46-52, 2023 kaur et al. 51 total variation respectively. the population structure analysis grouped the genotypes into 2 groups including genotypes having admixtures. as a result, pedigree information was combined with cluster membership to determine the division of red and green groupings. similar results were reported in cucumber (pandey et al. 2013; dar et al., 2017) and turkish melons (sensoy et al., 2007). the increased variance should be r ecor ded for ger mpla sm pr eser va tion a nd agricultural enhancement breeding strategies. conclusion this study could be used to estimate genetic variation within a group of elite genotypes to employ in cucumber impr ovement in india. a total of 14 cucumber genotypes wer e a ssessed using 59 polymorphic ssr markers. the experiment depicted total number of 252 amplicons, with an overall average of 4.27 alleles per locus. ssr 11742 primer was recorded to have good marker informativeness. based on upgma cluster analysis, ma ximum simila rity (less diverse) was observed between genotype ddpcg3 and plp-1 whereas minimum similarity (more diverse) between ddpcg8 and plpgy-1-08b. the population structure depicted three main populations including admixture genotypes. it may be further utilized in future projects related to qtls identification, genome wide association studies, dna fingerprinting and preservation of cucumber germplasm across india and other countries. references dar, a. a., mahajan, r., lay, p. and sharma, s. 2017. genetic diversity and population structure of cucumis sativus l. by using ssr markers. 3 biotech., 7: 307. doyle, j. j. and doyle, j. l. 1987. a rapid dna isolation procedure for small quantities of fresh leaf tissue. phytochem. bull., 19: 11-15. evanno, g., regnaut. s. a nd goudet, j. 2005. detecting the number of clusters of individuals using the software structure: a simulation study. mol. ecol., 14: 2611-2620. falush, 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pho-physiologica l a nd est-ssr markers. physiol. mol. biol. plants. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 46-52, 2023 ssr analysis to assess genetic diversity and population structure 52 pandey, s., ansari, w.a., pandey, m. and singh, b., 2018. genetic diversity of cucumber estimated by mor pho-physiologica l a nd est-ssr ma rkers. physiol. mol. biol. plants, 24: 135-146. park, g., choi, y., jung, j. k., shim, e. j., kang, m. y., sim, s. c., chung, s. m., lee, g. p. and park, y. 2021. genetic diversity assessment and cultivar identification of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) using the fluidigm single nucleotide polymorphism assay. plants, 10: 395. perrier, x. and jacquemoud, c. 2006. darwin software. pritchard, j. k., stephens, m. and donnelly, p. 2000. infer ence of popula tion str uctur e using multilocus genotype data. genetics, 155: 945959. sensoy, s., buyukalaca, s. and abak, k. 2007. evaluation of genetic diversity in turkish melons (cucumis melo l.) based on phenotypic characters and rapd 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(received : 22.09.2022; revised : 10.12.2022; accepted 12.12.2022) j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 46-52, 2023 kaur et al. this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction papaya (carica papaya l.) is a common fruit crop grown in the southern region of india. the crop is being cultivated in an area of 1,49,000 ha with a production of 57,44,000 mt (anonymous, 2022). fertigation combines the application of water and nutrient required for plant growth and development and allows an accurate and uniform application of nutrients to the wetted area in the root zone. through fertigation, it is possible to supply an adequate quantity and concentration of nutrients to meet the demand of the crop throughout growing season. further, fertigation is the most efficient method of fertilizers application, as it ensures application of the fertilizers directly to the plant roots (rajput and patel, 2002). the scheduling of fertigation for crops will benefit the farmers to increase the yield and improve the quality of produce through efficient use of water and fertilizers. use of fertigation in fruit crops was reported to save 30-50% of fertilizer doses as well as ir r iga tion (shirgur e et al. , 2001; shirgur e and srivastava 2014). further, it is imperative to a chieve the high nutr ient use efficiency a nd reducing the requirement of bulk fertilizers to 25% (malhotra, 2016). fertigation has been substantiated for many crops t hr ou ghout wor ld. i t ha s b een r ep or t ed t ha t efficiency of nitrogenous fertilizers is 95% under drip-fertigation compared to 30-50% under soil application. when a fertilizer is applied to a soil, nearby water begins to move very gradually toward the a rea wher e the fer tilizer has been applied. fertilizer salts begin to diffuse, or move away from the place where they were applied. this dilutes the fertilizer and distributes it throughout a much larger area. if tender plant roots are close to the placement of a fertilizer, water is drawn from these roots, as well as from surrounding soil (rajput and patel, 2002). further, sathya et al. (2008) observed that the availability of n, p and k nutrient was found to be higher in root zone area of drip fertigated plot, while nitrogen and potassium moved laterally from point source up to 15 cm a nd vertica lly up to 15-25 cm and p moved 5 cm both laterally and vertically and thereafter dwindled. nitrogen promotes vegetative growth, flower and fruit set. high level of phosphorus throughout root zone is essential for ra pid root development and good utilization of water and other nutrients by plant. phosphorous has pronounced effect on the flowering, j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2133 standardisation of fertigation in papaya for higher productivity and profitability manjunath b.l.1*, gutam s.2 and raghupathi h.b.3 1division of fruit crops, 2division of basic sciences, 3division of natural resources icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email: manjunath.bl@icar.gov.in abstract a field experiment conducted to standardize the fertigation in papaya (carica papaya l.) variety arka prabhat with 12 treatments in split plot design, indicated that fertigation with 75% recommended fertilizers (250:250:500 g npk/plant/year) through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher fruit yield (47.34 t/ha), fertilizer use efficiency (20.45 kg fruit yield/kg of nutrient applied) and increase in 31% higher yield over soil application. the tss of papaya fruit was although not significantly influenced by both doses and sources of fertigation, significantly lower cavity index (3.12%) was observed when rdf was supplied with organics to the soil. fertigation with 100% rdf through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher soil organic carbon (1.16%). however, fertigation of 75% rdf with inorganic fertilizers was found more economical with higher gross returns (rs.7.10 lakh/ha), net returns (rs.4.7 lakh/ha) and benefit cost ratio (2.96). keywords : benefit cost ratio, fertigation, papaya, productivity, profitability 105 standardisation of fertigation in papaya j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 in combination with n and k improves peel colour, taste, hardiness and vitamin c content and hastens maturity. potassium tends to increase fruit size, fruit quality and rectifies many disorders. it also helps in decreasing incidence of irregular shaped fruits. however, sta nda r disa tion of the schedules of fertigation is crucial to decide both the doses and in coinciding the crop nutrient requirement with different stages of the crop. keeping this in view, a field exper iment wa s ca rr ied out to standa rdize the fertigation in papaya. materials and methods the experiment was conducted during 2020-21 at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, karnataka, which is located at an altitude of 890 m above mean sea level and lies between coordinates of 13° 8' n latitude and 77° 29' e longitude. soil of experimental field was sandy loam with 6.27 ph, 0.16 ds m-1 ec, and 0.78% organic carbon. the soil had an initial nutrient content of 283 kg available n/ha, 42.0 kg available phosphorus/ ha and 246.4 kg available potassium/ha. uniform and well-developed 45 days old seedlings of papaya var. arka prabhat were planted at a spacing of 1.8 m x 1.8 m on raised beds during july 2020 and the tr ea tments wer e imposed with the cr op esta blishment. t he cr op wa s ma na ged with r ecommended pa cka ge of pra ctices except for irrigation. the experiment was carried out in split plot design with 12 treatment combinations consisting of three doses of fertilizers, viz., m0: 100% rdf (250 g n + 250 g p2o5 + 500 g k2o per plant/year), m1: 125% rdf, and m2: 75% rdf as main plot and four sources of nutrients, viz., s0: fertigation through inorganic sources (urea, mkp and sop) s1: fertigation through organic sources (humic acid and vermiwash), s2: soil application of only organic sources (fym, vermicompost, neem cake, sesbania and glyricidia loppings), and s3: soil application of fym+ rdf (ur ea , ssp a nd mop) a s contr ol a s sub-plot treatments. each treatment was replicated four times and each replication had five plants. observations were recorded on various parameters of plant growth and physiology, root growth, soil fertility, yield, and tss and fruit cavity index after 240 days after planting. the physiological parameters were measured using irga portable photosynthesis system. the horizontal and vertical root growth was measured for the longest spread, and the root volume was ca lcula ted ba sed on the displacement of water technique at the end of the crop season on a destructive mode. the dry weight of roots was calculated by carefully uprooting the roots with soil, washing with water and drying with hot air oven. soil samples were collected at the end of the crop from 0-30 cm at 30-40 cm away from the base of the plant. soil chemical and fertility parameters such as ph, organic carbon, available phosphorus (p) and potassium (k) were analysed as per standard procedures described by jackson (1973). the fruit cavity index (%) was calculated by fruit cavity volume divided by fruit volume and multiplied by 100. plant canopy volume was calculated using the formula 2/3πh (a/2 x b/2)], where h stands for plant height, a and b stands for ew and ns plant canopy spread (thome et al., 2002). fertilizer use efficiency was calculated based on the fruit yield obtained and the fertilizer nutrient used in each of the treatment. all the experimental data were statistically analysed as per panse and sukhatme (1985), and the differences in means were compared at 5% level of significance. results and discussion plant growth parameters t he pla nt height in pa pa ya wa s significa ntly influenced by fertilizer doses and fertigation sources (table 1). significantly higher plant height (1.19 m) was recorded with 125 % rdf and among the sources, fertigation with rdf through inorganics recorded higher plant height (1.20 m). number of leaves were significantly higher with 125% rdf (20.63/plant) as compared to other sources, and further application of water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher number of leaves (20.6/plant) differing from other sources. among the interactions, soil application of organic sources meeting 125 % rdf recorded significantly more number of leaves (21.5/plant). the plant girth in papaya differed significantly both due to doses and sources of nutrients although their interactions were non-significant. significantly higher plant girth (26.28 cm) was recorded with application of 75 % of rdf, and among the sources, fer tiga tion with inorganic sources recorded more plant girth (26.92 cm). canopy volume in papaya was not significantly influenced by the fertilizer doses and their interaction with various sources. however, fertigation with water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher (1.64 m3) canopy volume differing from rest of the sources. 106 manjunath et al. treatment plant height no. of stem girth canopy volume (m) leaves/plant (cm) (m3) main plot m0 1.00 15.66 20.56 0.95 m1 1.19 20.63 25.78 1.18 m2 1.10 18.63 26.28 1.16 subplot s0 1.20 20.63 26.92 1.64 s1 1.05 16.67 22.42 1.00 s2 1.03 17.33 22.71 0.81 s3 1.11 18.59 24.79 0.93 interaction m0s0 1.10 21.00 24.75 1.44 m0s1 0.95 13.75 20.00 0.75 m0s2 0.90 12.00 17.00 0.65 m0s3 1.07 15.88 20.50 0.96 m1s0 1.32 21.00 26.75 1.78 m1s1 1.13 19.00 23.38 1.34 m1s2 1.15 21.50 27.50 0.87 m1s3 1.15 21.00 25.50 0.74 m2s0 1.18 19.88 29.25 1.71 m2 s1 1.06 17.25 23.88 0.92 m2s2 1.05 18.50 23.63 0.91 m2s3 1.12 18.88 28.38 1.10 s em ± main 0.02 0.65 0.37 0.07 sub 0.03 0.66 0.80 0.21 main x sub-1 0.05 1.19 1.25 0.32 c.d (p=0.05) main 0.07 2.31 1.30 ns sub 0.08 1.93 2.33 0.60 main x sub-1 ns 3.69 ns ns table 1 : mean plant growth parameters in papaya as influenced by fertilizer doses and fertigation sources physiological parameters in papaya although, the fertigation sources found to have nonsignifica nt impa ct on differ ent physiologica l parameters recorded, the doses of fertilizers influenced the photosynthesis, r espir a tion a nd stoma ta l conductance significantly (table 2). application of either 75% or 100% recommended fertilizers recorded significantly higher photosynthetic rate (16.34 µ mol m-2 s-1 and 16.24 mol m-2 s-1, respectively), the former a lso r ecor ded significa ntly higher stoma ta l conductance (0.14 mol h2o m -2 s-1) and transpiration rate (3.07 mol m-2 s-1). among the interactions, application of recommended fertilizer s through fertigation (m0s0) recorded significantly higher photosynthetic rate (17.53 µ mol m-2 s-1), which was followed by application of 75% rdf with organic sources of fertigation (m2s1), the latter also recording higher transpiration rate (3.14 mol m-2 s-1). application of 75% rdf through fertigation (m2s0) recorded significantly higher stomatal conductance (0.16 mol h2o m -2 s-1) also. better physiological parameters in fertigated plants may be attributed to the higher nutritional status (n, p and k content), leaf n and k contents and physiological efficiency (shirgure et al., 2001), fertigated papaya plants recorded higher physiological efficiency (especially total chlorophyll content), photochemica l efficiency, stoma ta l conducta nce a nd net photosynthesis, water use efficiency and relative water content compared with plants not subjected to fertigation. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 107 table 2 : physiological parameters in papaya as influenced by fertilizer doses and fertigation sources treatment photosynthetic stomatal transpiration rate conductance rate (µ mol m-2 s-1) (mol m-2 s-1) (mol m-2 s-1) main plot m0 16.24 0.09 1.94 m1 12.61 0.07 2.32 m2 16.34 0.14 3.07 sub plot s0 14.70 0.11 2.52 s1 14.25 0.09 2.23 s2 15.82 0.10 2.55 s3 15.48 0.10 2.47 interaction m0s0 17.53 0.11 2.54 m0s1 15.15 0.08 1.85 m0s2 16.26 0.09 1.58 m0s3 16.00 0.08 1.77 m1s0 9.69 0.05 1.91 m1s1 10.35 0.04 1.71 m1s2 16.10 0.09 3.01 m1s3 14.29 0.09 2.67 m2s0 16.88 0.16 3.11 m2 s1 17.26 0.14 3.14 m2s2 15.09 0.11 3.06 m2s3 16.15 0.13 2.97 s em ± main 0.20 0.01 0.15 sub 0.41 0.01 0.15 main x sub-1 0.64 0.01 0.27 c.d (p=0.05) main 0.80 0.03 0.60 sub ns ns ns main x sub-1 1.98 0.04 0.89 root growth the impact of fertigation treatments on root growth parameters indicated that both the lateral and vertical root growth in papaya was significantly influenced by the doses and sources of fertigation although the root volume showed non-significant differences (table 3). the vertical growth of the roots was significantly higher with application of 100 % rdf (84.1 cm) and especially with soil application of organic sources (97.5 cm) both of which differing significantly from other treatments. although, the horizontal growth of roots was significantly influenced both by the fertilizer doses and the fertigation sources, their interaction was nonsignificant. in general, application of 75 % of rdf (163. 8 cm) a nd a mong the sour ces, soil a pplica tion of nutr ients (174. 5 cm) showed significantly higher lateral spread of roots. root dry weight in general was significantly higher with 125 % rdf, and among the sources soil application of rdf shown significantly higher root dry weight (641.2 g plant-1) differing significantly from rest of the fertigation sources. soil fertility the ph of soil was influenced significantly both by the doses and sources of fertigation under papaya. lowering the dose of fertilizers to 75 % rdf recorded ph 6.06 as compared to ph 5.96 in 100 % rdf. among the sources, soil application of fym and rdf recorded relatively better soil ph (6.11), while, among standardisation of fertigation in papaya j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 108 root root root root fresh root dry treatment length breadth volume weight weight (cm) (cm) (cm3 plant-1) (g plant-1) (g plant-1) main plot m0 84.1 109.9 1222.5 1606.9 395.9 m1 65.6 154.8 1530.6 2378.1 594.4 m2 50.0 163.8 1332.5 2556.3 554.8 subplot s0 69.8 131.5 1260.8 1900.0 496.8 s1 70.0 117.0 1215.8 1920.8 408.5 s2 65.8 148.2 1490.8 2158.3 513.6 s3 60.7 174.5 1480.0 2742.5 641.2 interaction m0s0 74.5 105.5 1032.5 1187.5 323.0 m0s1 85.0 86.0 765.0 962.5 162.4 m0s2 97.5 109.5 1460.0 1900.0 477.2 m0s3 79.5 138.5 1632.5 2377.5 621.1 m1s0 85.0 114.0 1340.0 1887.5 677.6 m1s1 77.5 140.0 1612.5 2800.0 609.9 m1s2 52.5 180.0 1750.0 2275.0 501.2 m1s3 47.5 185.0 1420.0 2550.0 589.0 m2s0 50.0 175.0 1410.0 2625.0 489.9 m2 s1 47.5 125.0 1270.0 2000.0 453.2 m2s2 47.5 155.0 1262.5 2300.0 562.6 m2s3 55.0 200.0 1387.5 3300.0 713.7 s em ± main 0.2 2.7 145.9 37.0 20.4 sub 2.0 7.5 281.5 155.7 52.7 main x sub-1 3.0 11.6 446.7 236.4 81.6 c.d (p=0.05) main 0.7 9.5 ns 130.5 72.1 sub 5.8 21.9 ns 454.1 153.7 main x sub-1 8.7 ns ns 693.2 ns table 3 : root growth in papaya as influenced by fertilizer doses and fertigation the interactions, fertigation through organic sources with 75 % of rdf recorded a soil ph of 6.19. the lower ph of soil with recommended fertilizers may be attributed to the addition of acidic fertilizers and the same was relatively better when applied along with fym. the organic carbon content in soil was significantly influenced by doses and sources of fertigation. application of 100 % rdf recorded significantly higher organic carbon (0.93 %) as compared to either 75 % (0.59 %) or 125 % (0.82 %). among the sources, application through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher organic carbon (0.92 %) as compared to other sources and the control. among the interactions, 100% rdf through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher organic carbon (1.16%) differing significantly from rest of the tr ea tment combina tions except the tr ea tment application of 125% rdf through soil application of organics (1.05%). the higher organic carbon content with water soluble fertilizers may be attributed to the better availability of plant nutrients in turn favouring the accumulation of organic carbon in the soil. t he nitrogen content in soil wa s significa ntly influenced by doses and sources of fertigation. application of 100 % rdf recorded significantly higher a va ila ble nitr ogen (150. 7 kg ha -1) a s compared to either 75 % (96 kg ha-1) or 125 % rdf manjunath et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 109 (133 kg ha-1). among the sources, application through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher available nitrogen (148.2 kg ha-1) as compared to other sources and the control. among the interactions, 100 % rdf through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher n (187.1 kg ha -1) differing significantly from rest of the treatment combinations. the available phosphorous content in soil was significantly influenced both by the doses and sources of fertigation. application of 125 % rdf recorded significa ntly higher a va ila ble phosphor ous (40.92 kg ha-1). among the sources, soil application nutr ients thr ough orga nic sour ces r ecor ded significantly higher available phosphorous (47.31 kg ha-1) as compared to other sources and the control. among the interactions, 75 % rdf through organic sources recorded higher available phosphorous content (58.46 kg ha-1) differing significantly from rest of the treatment combinations except application of 125 % rdf through soil application of organic sources (55.91 kg ha-1) and application of 100 % rdf through water soluble fertilizers (54.19 kg ha-1). t he a va ila ble pota ssium content in soil wa s significantly influenced by doses and sources of fertigation. application of 125 % rdf recorded significantly higher soil available potassium (281.3 kg ha-1). among the sources, application through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher available potassium (284.2 kg ha-1) as compared to other sources and the control. among the interactions, 100 % rdf through water soluble fertilizers recorded significantly higher potassium (353.8 kg ha-1) differing treatment ph ec (dsm-1) o.c. (%) n (kg ha-1) p (kg ha-1) k (kg ha-1) main plot m0 5.93 0.20 0.93 150.7 34.12 256.3 m1 5.96 0.16 0.82 133.0 40.92 281.3 m2 6.06 0.17 0.59 96.0 39.20 243.1 subplot s0 5.96 0.22 0.92 148.2 40.59 284.2 s1 5.99 0.15 0.76 122.3 32.16 251.3 s2 5.88 0.21 0.76 123.1 47.31 252.1 s3 6.11 0.13 0.70 112.6 32.26 253.4 interaction m0s0 5.71 0.35 1.16 187.1 54.19 353.8 m0s1 6.03 0.16 0.95 153.1 26.20 261.3 m0s2 5.92 0.15 0.80 128.8 27.56 152.5 m0s3 6.09 0.15 0.83 133.7 28.53 257.5 m1s0 6.08 0.16 0.75 121.5 35.82 243.8 m1s1 5.76 0.13 0.68 109.4 38.46 258.8 m1s2 5.80 0.22 1.05 170.1 55.91 351.3 m1s3 6.19 0.13 0.81 131.2 33.50 271.3 m2s0 6.10 0.14 0.84 136.1 31.77 255.0 m2 s1 6.19 0.17 0.65 104.5 31.83 233.8 m2s2 5.92 0.26 0.44 70.5 58.46 252.5 m2s3 6.04 0.12 0.45 72.9 34.76 231.3 s em ± main 0.06 0.02 0.03 4.5 5.15 ns sub ns 0.05 0.07 11.5 ns ns main x sub-1 ns 0.08 0.11 17.7 ns 71.3 c.d (p=0.05) main 0.02 0.01 0.01 1.3 1.46 12.1 sub 0.08 0.02 0.02 3.9 4.51 13.1 main x sub-1 0.12 0.03 0.04 6.0 6.92 23.1 table 4 : soil fertility and major nutrients of soil in papaya as influenced by fertigation treatments standardisation of fertigation in papaya j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 110 significantly from rest of the treatment combinations except application of 125 % rdf through soil application of organic sources (351.3 kg ha-1). these differences in npk may be attributed to the movement of applied nutrients in the soil both horizontally and vertically as well as concentration of immobile elements (sathya et al., 2008). the easy availability of water-soluble nutrients right at the root zone of the crop through fertigation in a balanced form through rdf might have favoured better availability of plant nutrients favouring their accumulation in the soil. fruit yield the fruit yield in papaya was significantly influenced by fertilizer doses and fertigation sources (table 5). application of 75 % rdf through fertigation recorded significantly higher fruit yield (47.34 t ha-1), which was followed by application of organic sources 125 % rdf (44.37 t ha-1). the increase in yield of papaya was over 31 % with fertigation clearly indicating the relative advantage, which may be attributed to higher nutrient use efficiency resulting in more number of fruits, fruit weight, tss and lower fruit cavity index. jeyakumar et al. (2010) reported that, application of 100 % recommended dose of n and k2o through drip resulted in more number of fruits, fruit weight, tss and low fruit cavity index with soil application of p2o5. although significantly lower cavity index was observed when rdf was supplied with organics to the soil (3.12%), among the fertilizer dosages, relatively lower cavity index (10.51%) was observed with 125% rdf, while, among the sources of nutrients, soil application of only orga nic sources r esulted in marginally lower cavity index (10.44%). no. of individual fruit fruit tss cavity treatment fruits fruit weight yield yield (ob) index plant-1 (kg) (kg plant-1) (t ha-1) (%) main plot m0 9.50 0.87 6.12 21.18 10.28 13.97 m1 21.09 0.69 10.49 32.39 9.61 10.51 m2 20.91 1.14 10.58 32.66 9.86 12.77 subplot s0 21.17 0.66 11.95 36.87 9.66 13.74 s1 13.38 0.92 6.82 21.07 10.44 12.75 s2 15.94 0.75 9.11 28.91 10.57 10.44 s3 18.18 1.27 8.38 28.13 9.00 12.75 interaction m0s0 19.25 0.70 12.73 39.27 10.10 19.06 m0s1 7.88 1.53 5.03 15.53 11.28 21.63 m0s2 3.25 0.71 1.73 7.70 11.30 3.12 m0s3 7.63 0.56 5.00 22.22 8.45 12.08 m1s0 23.50 0.54 7.78 24.00 9.30 11.60 m1s1 17.88 0.52 7.61 23.50 9.80 5.21 m1s2 21.75 0.89 14.38 44.37 9.38 11.23 m1s3 21.25 0.79 12.21 37.69 9.98 14.00 m2s0 20.75 0.73 15.34 47.34 9.58 10.55 m2 s1 14.38 0.72 7.83 24.17 10.25 11.42 m2s2 22.83 0.66 11.23 34.67 11.03 16.96 m2s3 25.67 2.47 7.93 24.48 8.58 12.18 s em ± main 1.33 ns 0.89 2.75 0.37 2.45 sub 1.33 ns 1.17 3.62 0.47 2.19 main x sub-1 2.39 ns 1.97 6.09 0.79 4.10 c.d (p=0.05) main 4.69 0.248 3.14 9.72 ns ns sub 3.87 0.276 3.41 10.57 ns ns main x sub-1 7.44 0.483 5.98 18.53 ns 12.85 table 5 : fruit yield and quality in papaya with different fertilizer doses and fertigation sources manjunath et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 111 t he tr ea t ment combina t ion m 2s 0 (75 % rd f) recorded maximum fertilizer use efficiency (20.45 kg of yield /kg of nutrient applied) (fig. 1). this may be due to the application of nutrients directly to the root zone through fertigation coupled with complete solubility of water soluble fer tilizers increasing the efficiency of the applied nutrients. similar results of 75% n and k when applied through drip recorded on par papaya yield with 100% rdf (sadaraunnisa, 2010). it was attributed to the better yield components like number of fruits/ plant, fruit weight in the treatments where fertilizers wer e a pp lied t hr ou gh dr ip comp a r ed t o soil application of fertilizers. it was also concluded that since there was no significant difference between 100% and 75% n and k treatments through drip regarding yield and yield attributes, the later dosage is economical over the former. t he t ss in pa pa ya fr uits wa s not influenced significantly either by fertilizer doses and the sources of fertigation or their interaction (table 5). however, relatively higher tss was observed when rdf was supplied with organics either through soil (11.30 obrix) or through fertigation (11.28 obrix). t he ca vity index in papa ya wa s significa ntly influenced by the interaction of fertilizer doses and fertigation sources. significantly, lower cavity index was observed when rdf was supplied with organics to the soil (3.12) and it was followed by application fig. 1 : fertilizer use efficiency in papaya as influenced by fertilizer doses and methods table 6 : the economics of papaya cultivation under different fertilizer doses and sources of fertigation fruit gross total net b:c treatment yield returns cost returns ratio (t ha-1) (rs. ha-1) (rs. ha-1) (rs. ha-1) main plot m0 21.18 3,17,734 2,46,228 71,506 1.28 m1 32.39 4,85,820 2,58,475 2,27,345 1.87 m2 32.67 4,89,975 2,34,119 2,55,856 2.08 subplot s0 36.87 5,53,050 2,54,147 2,98,903 2.21 s1 21.07 3,15,990 2,26,582 89,408 1.40 s2 28.91 4,33,675 2,52,532 1,81,143 1.70 s3 28.13 4,21,990 2,51,833 1,70,157 1.67 interaction m0s0 39.27 5,89,125 2,54,148 3,34,977 2.32 m0s1 15.53 2,32,980 2,26,582 6,398 1.03 m0s2 7.70 1,15,500 2,50,032 -1,34,532 0.46 m0s3 22.22 3,33,330 2,54,148 79,182 1.31 m1s0 24.00 3,59,955 2,68,238 91,717 1.34 m1s1 23.50 3,52,425 2,33,782 1,18,643 1.51 m1s2 44.37 6,65,505 2,70,595 3,94,910 2.46 m1s3 37.69 5,65,395 2,61,284 3,04,111 2.16 m2s0 47.34 7,10,070 2,40,055 4,70,015 2.96 m2 s1 24.17 3,62,565 2,19,382 1,43,183 1.65 m2s2 34.67 5,20,020 2,36,970 2,83,050 2.19 m2s3 24.48 3,67,245 2,40,068 1,27,177 1.53 standardisation of fertigation in papaya j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 112 of 125 % rdf through fertigation using organic sources (5.21). the lower cavity index recorded may be attributed to the production of more photosynthates due to more number of leaves and leaf area which might have resulted in better transfer to the sink, the developing fruit with thicker pulp and low cavity index. jeyakumar et al. (2010) also observed that application of 100% recommended dose of n and k2o through drip resulted in lower cavity index in papaya. the economics fertigation of 75% rdf with inorganic fertilizers was found more economical with higher gross returns (rs. 7.10 lakh ha-1), net returns (rs. 4.7 lakh ha-1) and benefit cost ratio (2.96) (table 6). the higher net returns with the treatment (m2s0) may be attributed to the moderately higher papaya yield (47.34 t ha-1). it was followed by soil application of 125 % rdf through organic sources with better gross returns (rs. 6.65 lakh ha-1), net returns (rs.3.94 lakh ha-1) and benefit cost ratio (2.46). in a similar study, jeyakumar et al. (2010) also reported that the increase in number of fruits and fruit weight were attributed for higher fruit yield per tree and the resultant total fruit yield per hectare with high b:c ratio in plants treated with 100 % recommended dose of n & k2o per plant through drip (50 g n and 50 g k2o), in addition to soil application of 50 g p2o5. conclusion the results of field experiment on fertigation in papaya indicated that application of 75% rdf through drip using water soluble fertilizers is beneficial to get higher fruit yield (47.34 t ha-1) with higher nutrient use efficiency and was found economical with higher net returns (rs.4.7 lakh ha-1) and benefit cost ratio (2.96). acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge the financial help rendered by project on consortia research platform on water, coordinated by icar-indian institute of water management research, bhubaneshwar. references anonymous, 2022. area and production of horticulture crops for 2021-22 (advance estima tes), na tiona l hor ticultur a l boa r d. india , www.nhb.gov.in jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, p. 498. jeyakumar, p.r., amutha, t.n., balamohan, j., auxcilia. and nalina, l. 2010. fertigation improves fruit yield and quality of papaya. acta hortic., 851: 369-376. malhotra, s.k. 2016. water soluble fertilizers in horticultural crops-an appraisal. ind. j. agric. sci., 86(10):1245-1256. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agr icultura l wor kers. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi pp. 87-89. rajput, t. b. s. and patel, n. 2002. water soluble fertilizers –opportunities and challenges. in: fai annual seminar pp. 1-9. sadarunnisa, s., madhumathi, c., hari babu, k., sreenivasulu, b. and rama krishna, m. 2010. effect of fertigation on growth and yield of papaya cv. red lady, acta hortic., 851: 395400. sathya, s., g. james pitchai, r. indirani and m. kannathasan, 2008. effect of fertigation on availability of nutrients (n, p & k) in soila review. agric. rev., 29(3): 214-219. shirgure, p.s. and srivastava, a.k. 2014. fertigation in perennia l fruit crops: ma jor concerns. agrotechnol., 3(1):109-115. shirgure, p.s., srivastava, a.k. and shyam s. 2001. effect of drip, micro jets and basin irrigation method on growth, soil and leaf nutrient change in acid lime. ind. j. soil conser., 29: 229-234. thorne, m.s., skinner, q.d., smith, m.a., rodgers, j.d., laycock, w.a. and cerekci, s.a. 2002. evaluation of a technique for measuring canopy volume of shrubs. j. range manag. arch., 55(3): 235-241. (received : 04.01.2023; revised : 21.06.2023; accepted 23.06.2023) manjunath et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 104-112, 2023 standardization of an in vitro regeneration protocol in gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex. hooker f.) koushik dutta and subhendu s. gantait* department of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, cooch behar, west bengal, india *e-mail: ssgflori@gmail.com abstract an experiment was undertaken to develop an improved in vitro regeneration protocol in gerbera. murashige and skoog (ms) medium was supplemented with various growth regulators at different concentrations for callus induction and organogenesis. newly emerging leaves of gerbera cv. rosalin were used as explants. experimental results showed that maximum rate (74.07%) of formation of callus with good growth was recorded on ms m edium supplem ente d with 2.0m gl-1 2,4-d + bap 0.5m gl -1. best s hoot regeneration (57.8 %) with maximum shoot number (12.0) was achieved on with bap 2.0mgl-1 + naa 0.5mgl-1 fortified ms medium. maximum (66.7 %) and earliest (12.3 days) root formation in shoots was recorded on iba 3.0mgl-1 is ½ms media. survival rate of regenerated plantlets was maximum (73.33 %) in the potting mixture containing garden soil, sand and vermicompost (1:1:1). key words: gerbera,gerbera jamesonii, leaf explants, callus, in vitro regeneration introduction gerbera (gerbe ra james onii bolus ex. hooke r f.), also known as transva al daisy or barberton daisy, is one of the important commercial cut flowers in global flower business. gerbera is propagated vegetatively by the division of suckers or clumps. propagation through seeds is not preferred as the plants exhibit heterozygosity and non-uniformity. also, the improved semi-double and double cultivars do not set seed. propagation by division of suckers or clumps gives true-to-type plants, but multiplication rate is very low. many new varieties are being introduced every year. to popularize these varieties and, also, to meet the demand for quality planting material of elite varieties, there is a need to develop a technology for rapid multiplication. micropropagation is used mainly to to clonally propagate gerbera for commercial production of millions of plant-lets each year. gerbera is propa ga te d by dire ct or indire c t in vitro organogenesis using various explants, including stem tips, floral buds, leaf, capitulum, etc. (paduchuri et al., 2010; akter et al., 2012; samanthi et al., 2013). type of explant, different type of explant, growth regulator/ s and combinations thereof and genotype are the main factors for successful in vitro regeneration of gerbera. organogenesis refers to production of organs, either directly from the explant or from callus culture. it relies on the inherent plasticity of plant tissues, and is regulated by altering the components in a medium. bioc he mica l c ha nges tha t pre ce de onse t of organogenesis or embryogenesis can serve as markers for the differentiation processes that bring about morphologic al, de ve lopme nta l and functional specialization (thorpe, 1990). during morphogenesis, certain enzymes and proteins produced are responsible for callus proliferation and differentiation into shoot buds (chawla, 1991). as conventional methods of propagation are inadequate to meet the demand for planting material for commercial production, this experiment was set up to study the effect of some growth regulators to optimize culture media for in vitro regeneration. in this study, individual or combination effects of different growth regulators in ms media have be e n inve stigate d f or induc ing indirec t organogenesis. material and methods the experiment was conducted in tissue culture laboratory of department of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, faculty of horticulture, j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 144 uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, cooch behar, west bengal india, during the years 2011-2014. plant material and culture media murashige and skoog (ms) medium was used as the base medium in all the experiments (murashige and skoog, 1962). for explant source, newly emerging leaves of gerbera cv. rosalin were transferred to ms medium containing 2,4-d (1.0, 2.0 or 3.0mgl-1) and naa (1.0, 2.0 or 3.0mgl-1) singly, or in combination with bap (0.5mgl-1) in for callus formation (table 1). callus initiation and growth were recorded to evaluate indirect organogenesis and for biochemical analysis. three concentrations of bap (1.0, 2.0 or 3.0mgl-1) and kinetin (1.0, 2.0 or 3.0mgl-1), alone or in combination with naa (0.5mgl-1) in ms medium, were used for shoot regeneration from callus (table 2). various levels of naa (1.0, 2.0 or 3.0mgl-1) and iba (1.0, 2.0 or 3.0mgl-1) alone, as supplements in ½ ms medium, were used for root initiation in shoots (table 3). rooted plantlets, after removal from the culture bottle, were washed off any adherent agar and planted in polycups containing different types of hardening media. the plantlets were hardened for 15 days under a mist chamber (80-90% humidity). after primary hardening, the plants were transferred to polybags containing potting medium and placed in a greenhouse for 15 days before transfer to field. per cent callus induction, days to callus induction, intensity and morphology of the callus formed, and fresh and dry weight of the callus were recorded. per cent shoot regeneration, days to shoot regeneration, number and length of shoot; and, fresh and dry weight of shoot was also recorded. root parameters like per cent root formation, days to shoot initiation, number and length of roots, and, fresh and dry weight of roots was recorded. final survivability was recorded after hardening of the plantlets in a greenhouse. the experiments were laid out under completely randomized design, with ten replications (n=10) per treatment. data were analyzed by fisher’s analysis of variance (anova) technique, and results were interpreted. where treatments were found significant in anova, individua l tre atme nt me ans we re compared by leastsignificance difference (lsd) test at p = 0.05. results and discussion exogenous supply of plant growth regulators is required to disturb the established polarity of auxins in explants. leaf explants of cv. rosalin showed maximum rate of callus induction (74.07 %) with good growth of callus, on ms medium supplemented with 2mgl-1 2, 4-d + 0.5mgl-1 bap (table 1, fig. 1). increase or decrease in concentrations of growth regulators affected callus formation and, subsequent, callus growth. paduchuri et al. (2010) found the same result (c allus formation) on ms basal medium supplemented with bap 2mgl-1 + 2,4-d 2.5mgl-1. formation of callus was positively correlated with concentration of growth regulators in the nutrient media. results presented in table 1 illustrate that ms medium fortified with 2,4-d 3mgl-1 + bap 0.5mgl-1 took minimum time (10.3 days) for callus induction. this may be due to a stimulated, unorganized cellgrowth under higher concentrations of the auxins (2,4d and naa), and the cytokinins may have facilitated early cell-division and cell-elongation in the culture. fresh weight of callus increasing concentration of auxin 2,4-d and naa, upto 3.0mgl-1 (table 1). this could be due to the higher concentration of auxins applied exogenously to induce more number of unorganized cells which, in turn, increased cell volume and weight. dry weight of callus increased with increasing fresh weight. similar results on callogenesis were reported by dutta and gantait (2016), paduchuri et al. (2010), son et al. (2011), akter et al. (2012), samanthi et al. (2013) and bhargava et al. (2013). bap 2.0mgl-1 + naa 0.5mgl-1 resulted in highest shoot formation (57.78 %) in callus (table 2, fig. 2 & 3). hasbullah et al. (2011) showed that only a few calli developed shoots when transferred to ms medium supplemented with 2.0mgl-1 bap + 0.5 mgl1 naa, in addition to 3% (w/v) sucrose and 0.8% (w/ v) agar in the medium. number of days required for shoot regeneration decreased as the concentration of bap increased (table 2). higher dose of growth regulators could have forced the plant into early shoot initiation. data presented in table 2 show that number of shoots incr ea se d signific antly with highe r concentration of bap, upto 2.0mgl-1. also, higher cytokinin (bap) concentration advanced shoot regeneration. cytokinin to auxin ratio is critical. it is clear from the above findings that cytokinin (bap) is a potent plant growth regulator for generation of j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 koushik dutta et al 145 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 in vitro regeneration in gerbera 146 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 koushik dutta et al 147 in vitro regeneration in gerbera j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 fig. 1. callogenesis on ms medium supplemented with 2,4-d 2.0mfl-1 + bap 0.5mgl-1 (c, callus) fig. 2. shoot initiation from callus on ms medium supplemented with bap 2.omgl -1 + naa 0.5mgl 1 (sl, shoot initiation) fig. 3. shoot multiplication from callus on ms medium fortified with bap 2.0mgl-1 + naa 0.5mgl-1 (sm, shoot multiplication) fig. 4. root initiation and generated from shoots gerbera on half-ms medium supplemented with iba3.0mgl-1 (ri, root initiation) fig. 5. hardening of in vitro regenerated gerbera plantlets: a. in vitro rooted plantlets ready for transfer to hardening medium, b. primary hardening of regenerated plantlets one week after transfer, c. secondary hardening of plantlets under green-house 148 koushik dutta et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 149 in vitro regeneration in gerbera j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 multiple shoots. these results are in conformity with those of shailaja (2002) who obtained highest multiplication rate in gerbera with 3.0mgl-1 bap. results presented in table 2 show that average length of shoots de cre as ed significa ntly with highe r concentration of cytokinin (bap) when in combination with naa. length of shoots appeared to be inversely proportional to the number of multiple shoots. on ms medium supplemented with bap 3.0mgl-1 + naa 0.5mgl-1, maximum length (2.6 cm) of shoot was observed at 4 weeks after inoculation on shoot induction media. at higher cytokinins levels, shoot of length may get reduced. fresh weight of shoot increased with increasing concentration of the cytokinin bap upto 3.0mgl-1 . similarly, dry weight to increases in relation to an increase in fresh weight. similar result on organogenesis was obtained by paduchuri et al. (2010), son et al. (2011), bhatia et al. (2012) and samanthi et al. (2013). results presented in table 3 reveal that root formation in microshoots increased with higher concentrations of naa or iba in ½ ms media, upto 3.0mgl-1. this enhancement with higher concentrations of naa or iba is expected. akter et al. (2012) observed root induction with iba at the base of in vitro regenerated shoots using fulland halfstrength ms medium. in our study, ½ ms medium with iba 3.0mgl-1 recorded maximum response in rooting (66.67%), followed by iba 2.0mgl-1 (table 3, fig. 4); ½ ms medium with 3.0mgl-1 iba produced longest roots 3.0cm. fresh weight of root increased with conce ntration of a uxins (iba and naa) upto 3.0mgl-1. similar result on rhizogenesis was reported by dutta and gantait (2016), hasbullah et al. (2011), bhatia et al. (2012) and kadu (2013). significantly high survival percentage (73.33%) was recorded in garden soil, sand and vermicompost medium (1:1:1. v/v) over the other hardening potting mixtures tested,while, garden soil and perlite (1:1, v/v) mixture gave a poor result (table 4, fig. 5). medium with vermicompost proved its superiority in a hardening it provided optimum conditions of aeration and a higher water-holding capacity. the primary-hardened plants were transferred to polybags containing potting media and were kept under greenhouse for 15 days. similar result on rhizogenesis was shown by hasbullah et al. (2011) and kadu (2013). our results indicate d that auxin (2,4-d) facilitated good amount of callus formation from leaf explants, and, cytokinin (bap) along with naa was required for shoot regeneration in the callus. the auxin, (iba), facilitated root formation. induction of callus was maximum on ms medium supplemented with 2.0mg l-1 2,4-d + bap 0.5mg l-1, with good callusgrowth. ms medium fortified with 2.0mg l-1 bap + 0.5mg l-1 naa regenerated maximum number of shoots. highest rooting was recorded on ½ ms medium fortified with 3.0mg l-1 iba. regenerated plantlets were recorded as surviving best on a potting mixture containing garden soil, sand and vermicompost (1:1:1). acknowledgement the authors thank dst, ministry of science & technology, new delhi, government of india for providing financial support, viz., inspire fellowship and contingency grant to conduct the experiments. references akter, n., hoque, m.i. and sarker, r.h. 2012. in vitro propagation in three varie ties of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus.) from flower bud and flower stalk explants. pl.tiss. cult. & biotech. 22: 143-152. bhatia, r., singh, k.p. and singh, m.c. 2012. in vitro ma ss multiplic ation of ge rbera ( ge rbera jamesonii) using capitulum explants. indian j. agril. sci.82: 1-6. bhargava, b., dilta, b.s., gupta, y.c., dhiman, s.r. a nd modgil, m. 2013. studies on micr opropaga tion of gerbe ra ( ge rbe ra jamesonii bolus). indian j. appl. res. 3: 111. chawla, h.s. 1991. regeneration potentiality and isoenzyme variation during morphogenesis of barely callus. biologia plantarum, 33: 175-180. dutta, k. and gantait, s.s. 2016. in vitro cormel production and changes in calli composition during morphogenesis in gladiolus. indian j agril. sci. 86:120-6. hasbullah, n.a., saleh, a. and taha, r.m. 2011. establishment of somatic embryogenesis from gerbera jamesonii bolus. ex. hook f. through 150 koushik dutta et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 143-150, 2017 suspension culture. african j biotech. 10: 13762-68. kadu, a.r. 2013. in vitro micropropagation of gerbera using axillary bud. asian j biol. sci. 8: 15-18. murashige, t.s. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiology plantarum. 15: 473-479. paduchuri, p., deogirkar, g.v., kamdi, s.r., kale, m.c. and madhavi, d. 2010. in vitro callus induction and root regene ration studies in ge rbera jamesonii. international j advanced biotech and res. 1: 87-90. samanthi, j.a., kumari, m.p., herath, h.k., shirani, a. and nugaliyadde, m.m. 2013. development of in vitro establishment and multiplication technology from gerbera flower buds. anna. sri lanka dept. agri. 15: 305-09. shailaja, v.p. 2002. studies on in vitro propagation of gerbera jame sonii bolus. m.sc . thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, india. son, n.v., monakshi, a.n., hegde, r.v., patil, v.s. and lingaraju, s. 2011. response of gerbera (ger bera james onii bolus .) va rie tie s to micropropagation. karnataka j agril .sci. 24: 354 – 357. thorpe, t.a. 1990. the current status of plant tissue culture. p1-33. in: plant tissue culture: applications and limitations. bhojwani, s.s. (e d.), els evie r s cie nce publishe r, ne w york,usa (ms received 05 december 2016, revised 18 december 2016, accepted 23 december 2016) mango is one of the most important tropical fruits worldwide in terms of production and consumer-acceptance (fao, 2010). mango (mangifera indica l.) belongs to the order sapindales and the family anacardiaceae, and is cultivated primarily under tropical and subtropical climate. foot hills of himachal pradesh present semi-arid type of a climate but, generally, the whole area around is characterized by a sub-tropical climate. mango is one of the leading fruit crops grown in the low-hill and valley areas of himachal pradesh, with 28927 mt production from 39568 ha under mango cultivation (anon., 2012). despite adequate annual rainfall in the region, drought-like situation is fairly common due to a skewed distribution of rainfall. owing to these suboptimal growth conditions, establishing new plantations and attaining normal vegetative and reproductive growth is an uphill task. fruit growth and fruit maturity in mango grown in these areas coincides with a period of heavy water-stress often resulting in low fruit-set, high fruit-drop, low fruit-size and poor fruit-quality. natural fruit-drop in mango is very high, especially during the initial four weeks of fruit-set. chadha and singh effect of hormonal treatment and mulching on fruit drop and quality in mango sanjeev kumar banyal and deepa sharma dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry krishi vigyan kendra, chamba 176 310, india e-mail: skbanyal@gmail.com abstract an experiment was laid out to assess the effect of hormonal treatment and mulching on fruit drop and quality in cvs. mallika, amrapali and dashehari of mango at the experimental farm bhota of ibes neri, hamirpur, during the years 2010-2012. eight treatments, viz., t1 & t2: 2, 4-d (20 and 40ppm), t3 & t4: naa (25 and 50ppm), t5: 2, 4-d (20ppm) + black polythene mulch, t6: naa (25ppm) + black polythene mulch, t7: black polythene mulch, and t8: control, were applied during the last week of april at the pea stage of fruit development in the years 2011 and 2012. observations were recorded on marked panicles at monthly intervals until harvest. all the hormonal treatments, mulching and combination thereof, showed significant reduction in fruit drop in all the three cultivars under study. fruit retention at harvest in cvs. amrapali, and mallika and dashehari was maximum (5.95, 9.5 and 8.3%, respectively) with t5 (2, 4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch) which was statistically at par with t1 (2, 4-d 20ppm), t7 (black polythene mulch) and t2 (2, 4-d 40ppm). effect of treatments on tss content was non-significant. highest tss content (14.5ob) was noted in cv. dashehari which was significantly higher than in mallika (11.7ob) or amrapali (11.4ob). titratable acidity was significantly low in all the treatments than that in untreated plants. highest acidity (0.53%) was recorded in control. ‘dashehari’ recorded the highest (0.63%) acidity, followed by mallika (0.49%) and amrapali (0.46%). key words: mango, naa, 2,4-d, mulch, fruit-drop, fruit quality short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):102-106, 2015 (1964) reported fruit-drop of 98, 95 and 99% in cvs. langra, dashehari and fazli, respectively, during the ‘on year’. incidence of fruit-drop is more severe during the ‘on year’ in biennial-bearing cultivars. various factors are associated with fruit-drop, such as, lack of cross-pollination, deficient nutrition, self-incompatibility, formation of abscission layer, hormonal imbalance, position of the fruit, and prevalence of pests and diseases (chadha, 1993). various workers have reported that just 0.1% of perfect flowers reach maturity in mango. extent of the fruit-drop varies among cultivars (chadha and singh, 1964). higher fruit-drop is generally associated with low auxin concentration (singh et al, 2005), gibberellins & cytokinins (ram, 1983). the period of heavy fruit drop in mango corresponds with high concentration of growth inhibitors (murti and upreti, 1995). among the control measures, mulching, proper fertilization and hormonal treatments have been found promising by a number of workers. swake et al (1990) reported an increase of 2% in the yield over control using polythene mulch in mango. singh and singh (1976) reported that naa at 10ppm and 2, 4-d at 10 or 15ppm gave the 103 effect of hormonal treatment and mulching in mango highest retention of fruits. therefore, the present study intended to assess the effect of plant hormonal treatments, in combination with mulching, on reducing fruit-drop in mango. an experiment was laid out to assess the effect of hormonal treatments and mulching on fruit drop and quality of mango cultivars mallika, amrapali and dashehari at the experimental farm bhota of ibes neri, hamirpur during the years 2010 -2012. the experimental site lies in hamirpur district representing the sub-mountain region of himachal pradesh. average mean maximum and minimum temperatures here are 31.30c and 12.40c, respectively, and relative humidity is 60.9%. eight treatments, viz., t1 & t2: 2, 4-d (20 and 40ppm), t3 &t4: naa (25 and 50ppm), t5: 2, 4-d (20ppm) + black polythene mulch, t6: naa (25ppm) + black polythene mulch, t7: black polythene mulch, and t8: control, were applied during the last week of april at the pea-size stage of fruits. each treatment was replicated on three mango trees. randomized block design was set up for applying treatments and for data analysis. each treatment was replicated thrice. to record observations on the effect of treatments on fruit-drop, four panicles from all around the tree were marked on each plant. data on initial fruit-set per panicle was recorded in these marked panicles before commencing the experiment. subsequently, fruitretention on the marked panicles was recorded at monthly intervals until harvest. fruit samples, comprising ten fruits per tree, were used for determining physico-chemical characteristics like fruit-length, diameter, fruit-weight, tss and titrable acidity. perusal of data (table 1) revealed that the highest fruit-retention (22.2%) at 30 days after fruit set was found with t4 (50ppm naa) in cv. amrapali, followed by that in the control (21.6%), 2,4-d 40ppm (21.2%), and naa 25ppm (20.6%). in cv. mallika, highest fruit-retention (29.5%) at the same stage was recorded with t1 (2,4-d 20ppm), followed by naa 20ppm, and control. treatment t1 (2,4-d 20ppm) had the highest fruit-retention (23.4%) 30 days after fruit-set in cv. dashehari, which was at par with naa 25ppm (22.5%) and black polythene mulch (22.4%). at 60 days after fruit-set, maximum fruit-retention (13.3%) was noted with t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch), which was statistically at par with naa 50ppm (12.8%) and the control (12.4%). maximum fruit-retention in cv. mallika at this stage was recorded with t7 (black polythene mulch), which was statistically at par with t2 (2,4-d 40ppm), t4 (50ppm naa) and t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch). in cv. dashehari, t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch) recorded the highest fruit-retention (17.5%), whereas, the lowest retention (8.1%) was found table 1. effect of hormonal treatments and mulching on fruit-retention in three cultivars of mango fruit-retention (%) days after fruit-set amrapali mallika dashehari treatment 30 60 90 120 a t 30 60 90 120 a t 30 60 90 120 a t harvest harvest harvest 2,4-d (20ppm) 19.6 10.5 8.2 5.7 5.73 29.5 14.8 9.4 6.7 6.51 23.4 8.1 6.1 5.2 4.41 (4.42) (3.21) (2.83) (2.38) (2.37) (5.43) (3.81) (3.03) (2.56) (2.54) (4.81) (2.82) (2.45) (2.27) (2.10) 2,4-d (40ppm) 21.2 11.6 8.2 5.7 5.28 26.8 16.4 11.3 7.6 6.77 21.3 14.7 9.5 6.3 4.31 (4.60) (3.38) (2.83) (2.38) (2.28) (5.15) (4.02) (3.31) (2.73) (2.59) (4.60) (3.81) (3.06) (2.49) (2.05) naa (25ppm ) 20.6 12.3 9.2 5.6 4.05 27.3 14.9 9.5 6.8 5.19 22.5 13.7 9.5 7.3 4.27 (4.53) (3.48) (3.01) (2.35) (2.01) (5.20) (3.85) (3.06) (2.57) (2.25) (4.72) (3.68) (3.06) (2.68) (2.04) naa (50ppm ) 22.2 12.8 7.9 4.9 4.54 25.6 16.1 10.2 8.3 5.09 20.8 11.77 8.6 6.4 4.54 (4.70) (3.56) (2.80) (2.21) (2.11) (5.03) (4.00) (3.17) (2.86) (2.23) (4.55) (3.41) (2.90) (2.50) (2.13) 2,4-d (20ppm) + 19.6 13.3 9.8 7.4 5.95 26.2 15.8 11.7 9.5 7.15 21.3 17.5 11.6 8.3 5.25 black polythene (4.42) (3.61) (3.11) (2.70) (2.43) (5.10) (3.97) (3.40) (3.06) (2.65) (4.60) (4.15) (3.38) (2.86) (2.27) mulch naa (25ppm ) + 20.4 11.9 8.3 5.6 5.23 23.9 13.3 8.2 5.7 4.68 18.9 11.6 9.3 8.1 4.89 black polythene (4.51) (3.43) (2.87) (2.35) (2.26) (4.86) (3.64) (2.84) (2.36) (2.14) (4.32) (3.39) (3.02) (2.83) (2.20) mulch alone black polythene 19.3 10.2 8.6 5.9 5.35 26.3 17.3 11.6 7.1 4.27 22.4 15.8 11.3 8.9 4.58 mulch (4.39) (3.18) (2.91) (2.40) (2.30) (5.10) (4.12) (3.38) (2.65) (2.04) (4.70) (3.95) (3.35) (2.95) (2.12) control 21.6 12.4 9.2 6.5 3.28 27.2 16.3 11.4 8.4 4.15 20.8 14.5 9.5 7.4 4.12 (4.62) (3.50) (3.01) (2.5) (1.80) (5.18) (4.01) (3.35) (2.86) (2.02) (4.55) (3.78) (3.06) (2.70) (2.01) cd 0.05 1.69 1.38 ns 1.41 1.27 3.25 2.95 1.71 1.28 1.07 3.13 4.90 4.21 2.39 0.43 *figures in parentheses are square-root transformed values j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):102-106, 2015 104 ta bl e 2. e ff ec t of h or m on al t re at m en ts a nd m ul ch in g on f ru it q ua lit y in t hr ee c ul ti va rs o f m an go t re at m en t fr ui t w ei gh t ( g) fr ui t l en gt h (c m ) fr ui t d ia m et er (c m ) t ss (0 b ) a ci di ty ( % ) a m ra m al lik a d as he m ea n a m ra m al lik a d as he m ea n a m ra m al lik a d as he m ea n a m ra m al lik a d as he m ea n a m ra m al lik a d as he m ea n pa li ha ri pa li ha ri pa li ha ri pa li ha ri pa li ha ri 2, 4d 13 5. 21 32 9. 25 24 0. 34 23 4. 20 8. 41 12 .9 5 10 .4 3 10 .5 9 5. 98 7. 11 5. 32 6. 14 11 .4 11 .5 13 .8 12 .2 0. 44 0. 37 0. 52 0. 44 (2 0p pm ) 2, 4d 12 4. 53 32 8. 46 23 8. 35 23 0. 45 8. 39 12 .9 9 10 .5 9 10 .6 6 5. 87 7. 22 5. 36 6. 15 11 .6 11 .9 13 .7 12 .4 0. 39 0. 40 0. 55 0. 45 (4 0p pm ) n a a 13 0. 63 32 3. 78 23 4. 13 22 9. 51 8. 31 12 .7 4 10 .4 5 10 .5 0 5. 84 7. 06 5. 69 6. 20 11 .3 12 .6 13 .9 12 .6 0. 42 0. 53 0. 44 0. 46 (2 5p pm ) n a a 12 1. 27 32 4. 52 24 1. 25 22 9. 01 8. 41 12 .7 5 10 .4 1 10 .5 2 5. 81 7. 15 5. 55 6. 17 11 .8 12 .8 13 .3 12 .6 0. 35 0. 57 0. 56 0. 49 (5 0p pm ) 2, 4 -d 13 9. 46 33 9. 45 24 8. 75 24 2. 55 8. 45 13 .1 9 10 .6 6 10 .7 6 5. 69 7. 36 5. 54 6. 20 12 .1 11 .7 14 .8 12 .8 0. 34 0. 34 0. 48 0. 38 (2 0p pm ) + b la ck po ly th en e m ul ch n a a 13 7. 58 33 7. 75 24 5. 48 24 0. 77 8. 40 13 .3 2 10 .7 4 10 .8 2 6. 19 7. 55 5. 77 6. 50 11 .6 12 .3 14 .6 12 .8 0. 37 0. 46 0. 47 0. 43 (2 5p pm ) + b la ck po ly th en e m ul ch b la ck 12 6. 16 32 3. 45 23 3. 96 22 7. 85 8. 25 13 .1 5 10 .7 1 10 .7 0 6. 01 7. 12 5. 66 6. 26 11 .5 11 .8 14 .3 12 .5 0. 40 0. 44 0. 50 0. 44 po ly th en e m ul ch a lo ne c on tr ol 12 3. 17 32 1. 28 20 6. 74 21 7. 06 8. 22 12 .8 1 10 .0 1 10 .3 4 5. 35 6. 95 5. 29 5. 86 11 .4 11 .7 14 .5 12 .5 0. 46 0. 49 0. 63 0. 53 c d 0. 05 11 .2 3 0. 16 0. 17 n s 0. 09 t re at m en ts 67 .3 5 1. 35 0. 86 1. 26 0. 11 v ar ie ty t xv 93 .5 8 1. 68 1. 04 1. 94 0. 21 banyal and sharma j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):102-106, 2015 105 with 2,4-d 20 ppm. treatment t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch) recorded highest fruit-retention in cv. amrapali (9.8%), followed by mallika (11.7%) and dashehari (11.6%) at 90 days after fruit-set, and was statistically at par with t4 (naa 50ppm) and t7 (black polythene mulch). a similar trend was observed at 120 days after fruit-set where t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch) had highest fruit-retention in all the three cultivars under study. enhancement in (flowering 35 to 50%), fruit retention and minimum fruit-drop with enhanced yield in trees mulched with black polythene was also reported by singh et al (2009) in cvs. langra and chausa of mango. a perusal of data on fruit-retention at harvest revealed that maximum (5.95%) retention of fruits in cv. amrapali was observed with t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch), which was statistically at par with t1 (2,4d 20ppm), t7 (black polythene mulch) and t2 (2,4-d 40ppm). in cvs. mallika and dashehari too, the same treatment, i.e., t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch) resulted in the highest fruit-retention of 9.5% and 8.3%, respectively. chattaha and anjum (1999) also found 2,4-d @ 40ppm to be the most effective treatment in controlling fruit-drop in cv. samar behisht chausa of mango, as compared to naa or 2,4,5-t. during our investigation at harvest, it was noticed that all the hormonal treatments, mulching and combinations thereof, had significant effect on reduction in fruit-drop in all the three cultivars under study. results obtained in the present study are in conformity with ahmed et al (2012) who reported that treating plants with naa, 2,4-d and 2,4,5-t significantly influenced the number of fruits retained at pea, marble, and harvest stages of fruit growth, compared to than in control. kulkarni (1983) also reported that application of 2,4-d @ 25ppm to halfgrown fruits of mango cv. alphonso reduced fruit-drop. 2,4d reduced the fruit-drop by antagonizing adverse effects of growth inhibitors like aba and ethylene. all the treatments tested enhanced fruit-weight over the untreated control (table 2). maximum fruit-weight (242.55g) was recorded with t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch), which was statistically at par with the treatments naa (25ppm) + black polythene mulch, and 2,4-d 20ppm. among the three cultivars, highest fruit-weight (321.28g) was recorded in cv. mallika, followed by dashehari (206.74g) and amrapali (123.17g). treatment t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch) was found to give maximum fruit-length (10.82cm) and fruit-diameter (6.50cm), which was statistically at par with t6 (naa 25ppm + black polythene mulch) and t7 (black polythene mulch alone). lowest value for fruit-length (10.34cm) and fruitdiameter (5.29cm) was recorded in the untreated control. among the cultivars, amrapali had the maximum (12.81cm) fruit-length, and mallika had the largest (6.95cm) fruitdiameter. effect of various treatments on total soluble solids (tss) content was non-significant. highest tss content (14.5ob) was noted in cv. dashehari, which was significantly higher than that in mallika (11.7ob) or amrapali (11.4 ob). titratable acidity was significantly low in all the treatments, than in control (untreated) plants. highest acidity (0.53%) was recorded in the control. ‘dashehari’ recorded the highest (0.63%) acidity, followed by ‘mallika’ (0.49%) and ‘amrapali’ (0.46%). results obtained in the present experiment showed that t5 (2,4-d 20ppm + black polythene mulch) produced the best results in terms of enhanced fruit-retention and improved fruit-size and quality. ahmed et al (2012) also reported similar results in cv. dashehari, where, application of 2,4-d @ 15ppm enhanced fruit-size (in terms of fruitweight) by 8.7% over the control. 2, 4-d (35ppm) recorded significantly higher tss (19.5°b), and, tss to titratable acidity ratio over the control. this confirms the role of application of exogenous auxins in reducing fruit-drop in mango. references ahmed, w., tahir, f.m. and ahmad, i. 2012. comparative evaluation of plant growth regulators for preventing premature fruit drop and improving fruit quality parameters in ‘dusehri’ mango. int’l. j. fr. sci., 12:372-389 anonymous. 2012. horticultural development in himachal pradesh at a glance. http://hpagrisnet.in chadha, k.l. 1993. fruit drop in mango. advances in horticulture, vol. 3 (eds. k.l. chadha and o.p. pareek), malhotra publishing house. new delhi chadha, k.l. and singh, k.k. 1964. fruit-drop in mango: intensity, periodicity and nature of shedding of immature fruits. indian j. hort., 21:1-14 chattha, g.a. and anjum, m.a. 1999. effect of various growth regulators on reducing fruit drop in mango (mangifera indica). int’l. j. agri. biol., 1:288-289 fao. 2010. faostat database collection, agricultural data, food and agriculture organization of the united nations. available at http://faostat.fao.org, accessed january 2011. food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), rome, italy j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):102-105, 2015 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):102-106, 2015 effect of hormonal treatment and mulching in mango 106 kulkarni, p.b. 1983. studies on regulation of vegetative growth, flowering and fruit-drop in mango (mangifera indica l.). thesis abstracts, haryana agriculture university, india, 9:344-345 murti, g.s.r. and upreti, k.k. 1995. changes in some endogenous growth substances during fruit development in mango. pl. physiol. biochem., 22:4447 ram, s. 1983. hormonal control of fruit growth and fruit drop in mango cv. dashehari. acta hort., 143:169178 singh, u.r. and singh, a.p. 1976. control of fruit drop in mango. fruit research workshop, hyderabad, india, 24-28 may 1976, pp. 213-16 singh, v.k., gorakh singh and bhriguvanshi, s.r. 2009. effect of polyethylene mulch on soil nutrient level and root, leaf and fruiting characteristics of mango (mangifera indica l.). indian j. agril. sci., 79:411-417 singh, z., malik, a.u. and davenport, t.l. 2005. fruit drop in mango. hort. rev., 31:111-153 swake, d.p., ramtake, j.r. and deshmukh, m.t. 1990. irrigation and mulching studies in mango. international symposium on natural resource management for sustainable agriculture, 6-10 february, new delhi, p. 101 (ms received 08 may 2013, revised 25 april 2015, accepted 22 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):102-106, 2015 banyal and sharma effects of type of cutting, iba and bioinoculants on rooting in madhunashini (gymnema sylvestre retz.) h.j. akshitha, k. umesha and t.h. shankarappa1 post graduate centre, university of horticultural sciences campus gkvk post, bangalore-560 065, india email: akshi.hosahalli10@gmail.com abstract an experiment was carried out to study the effect of type of cutting, iba and bioinoculants on rooting in madhunashini. among the three types of cuttings, hardwood cuttings registered higher values for fresh (0.790g/cutting) and dry weight (0.650g/cutting) of sprouts, per cent rooting (6.66 %), fresh and dry weight of roots (0.037 and 0.030g/ cutting) and biomass production (0.682g/cutting). among iba and bioinoculant treatments, azotobacter chroococcum recorded higher values for percentage sprouting (26.66 %) and rooting (9.99 %) as also for other root parameters; whereas, maximum fresh weight (0.863g/cutting) and dry weight of sprouts (0.740g/cutting), and, biomass production (0.759g/cutting) was observed in iba 1000ppm treatment. interaction effect of type of cutting, iba and bioinoculants on fresh and dry weight of sprouts (2.438g and 2.084g, respectively) and biomass production (2.123g/cutting) was found superior in hardwood cuttings treated with iba 1000ppm. percentage of rooting (13.33 %) was better in hardwood cuttings treated with azotobacter chroococcum. therefore, among the various treatments tested, hardwood cuttings treated with azotobacter chroococcum are the best for propagation through cuttings. key words: iba, azotobacter chroococcum, madhunashini, vegetative propagation short communication gymnema sylvestre retz. is a medicinal woody climber belonging to the family asclepiadaceae. it is native to the tropical forests of southern and central india. leaves of this species yield acidic glycosides and anthroquinones which have antidiabetic, antisweetener and antiinflammatory activities. leaf extract from the plant is used in india as a stomachic, stimulant, laxative, diuretic and for curing diabetes (alam et al, 1990). the herb stimulates the heart, increases urine secretion and is useful in the treatment of type ii diabetes. madhunashini is propagated through seeds in its natural habitat. but, there are problems like flower-shed, low fruit-set and a very short span of seed viability (chandrasekar et al, 2003). besides overcoming problems in seed propagation, vegetative propagation is helpful for large scale multiplication of the plant during lean periods of seed availability. gymnema is one of the highly traded medicinal plants sourced from the wild, with annual consumption of 5001000t/year (ved and goraya, 2007). there is an urgent need to bring it under cultivation with suitable agro-techniques, as well as for developing propagation methods. therefore, 1assistant professor, department of agricultural microbiology, college of horticulture, kolar, karnataka,india the present study was initiated to standardize propagation methods in this plant through cuttings. the present study was carried out at post graduate centre, university of horticultural sciences (bagalkot), gandhi krishi vignana kendra campus, bengaluru. the experiment was laid out in factorial completely randomized design with three replications. plant material required for the experiment was collected from foundation for revitalization of local health traditions (frlht), bengaluru, and the experiment was spanned january to april. three main treatments were imposed, i.e., type of cutting with 6 sub-treatments, i.e., bio-inoculants and iba. each treatment was replicated thrice; in each replication, 10 cuttings were used. a slant cut was made at the basal end, whereas, a transverse cut was made at the top end of each cutting. softwood cuttings 10-15cm long were prepared and leaves on the lower portion of the cutting were removed, while those on the upper part were retained. semi hardwood cuttings 10-15cm long were prepared by retaining 2-3 leaves at the top. hardwood cuttings were collected from the basal portion of the vine, and cuttings 10-15cm long were prepared by removal of all the leaves. j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):94-97, 2014 95 the basal portion of the cuttings (about 2.5-3cm) was dipped either in bioinoculants or in distilled water (control) for 15 minutes, or, in growth regulator solution for one minute, and air-dried. treated cuttings were planted in seed pans containing rooting media (soil, sand and fym 2:1:2). using a pointed stick, a hole was made in the media and the basal portion of the cutting was inserted into it. cuttings were planted in such a way that one basal node of the cutting was inserted into the media, and medium around the cutting was gently pressed to exclude air pockets. the seed pans with cuttings were placed in the net-house. observations on various shoot and root parameters were collected 90 days after planting. for recording fresh weight of sprouts, cuttings were uprooted at 90 days after planting. fifty per cent of the rooted cuttings, but not more than five cuttings in each treatment and replication, were utilized. the sprouts were separated from the cuttings and weighed. after recording fresh weight, the samples were dried in a hot air oven at 60oc until constant weight was attained. cuttings utilized for recording fresh weight of sprouts were used for recording fresh weight of roots as well. the root system was washed thoroughly in water and roots were separated from the cuttings and air dried. their fresh weight and dry weights were recorded. biomass was calculated by adding dry weights of the sprouts and the roots. data on various shoot and root parameters were tabulated and statistically analyzed using factorial completely randomized design (fcrd). inference was drawn after comparing the f values calculated with table f values at 5% (p= 0.05) level of significance. rooting studies in madhunashini (gymnema sylvestre retz.) cuttings treated with azotobacter chroococcum recorded highest per cent sprouting (40%) (table 1). this may be due to the fact that azotobacter chroococcum is a nitrogen fixing bacterium which also produces the rooting hormone iaa which, in turn, may have helped produce more number of roots, and aided better uptake of water and nutrients. similar results were obtained by karthikeyan and sakthivel (2011) in eucalyptus. hardwood cuttings treated with iba 1000ppm recorded higher fresh and dry weights of sprouts (2.438 and 2.084 g/cutting). higher fresh weight may be related to the higher number of and longer sprouts in these treatments, as in jasminum sambac (singh, 2001). similar response was recorded by singh et al (2003) in long pepper. rooting percentage (13.33%), fresh weight (0.088g) and dry weight (0.064g) of roots were maximum in hardwood cuttings treated with azotobacter chroococcum (table 2). superior rooting and rooting parameters could be due to production of plant hormones that stimulate root initiation. production of iaa, an important hormone for rooting, by azotobacter chroococcum was confirmed by karthikeyan and sakthivel (2011) while working on eucalyptus. earlier studies have also shown that azotobacter chroococcum species are able to produce iaa, ga and cytokinin-like substances, both under culture conditions and in the plant rhizosphere (brown, 1976). this suggests that continuous release of small quantities of iaa can enhance root initiation over a single application of a root hormone. sufficient amount (7.8μg/ml) of iaa, to promote root initiation and elongation, was produced even without supplementation with tryptophan (karthikeyan and table 1. influence of type of cutting, bioinoculants and iba on various shoot parameters in madhunashini (gymnema sylvestre retz.) treatment per cent sprouting fresh weight of sprouts (g) dry weight of sprouts (g) m 1 m 2 m 3 mean m 1 m 2 m 3 mean m 1 m 2 m 3 mean s1control 20.00 13.33 6.66 13.33 0.015 0.037 0.060 0.037 0.012 0.035 0.046 0.031 s2azospirillum lipoferum 26.66 20.00 26.66 24.44 0.049 0.066 1.389 0.501 0.047 0.064 1.020 0.377 s3azotobacter chroococcum 26.66 13.33 40.00 26.66 0.571 0.430 0.648 0.549 0.536 0.368 0.584 0.496 s4pseudomonas striata 13.33 13.33 16.66 14.44 0.195 0.074 0.079 0.116 0.048 0.058 0.062 0.056 s5pseudomonas fluorescence 30.00 16.66 16.66 21.11 0.046 0.162 0.129 0.112 0.040 0.113 0.108 0.087 s6iba 1000ppm 16.66 20.00 16.66 17.77 0.047 0.104 2.438 0.863 0.040 0.096 2.084 0.740 mean 22.21 16.11 20.55 0.153 0.145 0.790 0.121 0.122 0.650 sem± cd f test sem± cd f test sem± cd f test (p=0.05) (p=0.05) (p=0.05) m 1.69 ns 0.114 0.328 * 0.095 0.273 * t 2.40 6.88 * 0.162 0.465 * 0.135 0.387 * m × t 4.15 ns 0.280 0.805 * 0.233 0.670 * *significant at 5% ns non significant m1 – softwood cuttings; m2 – semi hardwood cuttings; m3 – hardwood cuttings j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):94-97, 2014 96 sakthivel, 2011). similar response to azotobacter chroococcum inoculation in mulberry (das et al, 1990) and ocimum sanctum (vinutha, 2005) has been reported. not much difference between fresh and dry weight of sprouts and roots was observed, which may be due to the smallsized, thin sprouts and roots; moisture content was also lower, hence, smaller difference was observed. table 3. dry biomass production (g/cutting) in madhunashini (gymnema sylvestre retz.) cuttings as influenced by different type of cutting, bioinoculants and iba sub-treatment (s) main treatments (m) softwood semi hardwood mean (m1) hardwood (m3) (m2) s1control 0.012 0.035 0.046 0.031 s2azospirillum 0.047 0.064 1.030 0.381 lipoferum s3azotobacter 0.576 0.376 0.648 0.534 chroococcum s4pseudomonas 0.048 0.058 0.079 0.062 striata s5pseudomonas 0.040 0.113 0.158 0.103 fluorescence s6iba 1000ppm 0.049 0.105 2.123 0.759 mean 0.128 0.125 0.681 sem± cd @ 5% f test m 0.100 0.288 * s 0.142 0.407 * m×s 0.246 0.706 * *significant at 5% table 2. influence of type of cuttings bioinoculants and iba on various root parameters in madhunashini (gymnema sylvestre retz.) treatment per cent rooting root fresh weight (g) root dry weight (g) m 1 m 2 m 3 mean m 1 m 2 m 3 mean m 1 m 2 m 3 mean s1control 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) s2azospirillum lipoferum 0.00 0.00 6.66 2.22 0.00 0.00 0.019 0.006 0.00 0.00 0.010 0.003 (0.70) (0.70) (1.07) (0.82) (0.70) (0.70) (0.72) (0.71) (0.70) (0.70) (0.72) (0.71) s3azotobacter chroococcum 6.66 10.00 13.33 9.99 0.044 0.012 0.088 0.048 0.040 0.008 0.064 0.037 (1.07) (1.22) (3.66) (1.98) (0.73) (0.71) (0.76) (0.73) (0.73) (0.71) (0.74) (0.73) s4pseudomonas striata 0.00 0.00 6.66 2.22 0.00 0.00 0.020 0.006 0.00 0.00 0.017 0.006 (0.70) (0.70) (1.07) (0.82) (0.70) (0.70) (0.72) (0.70) (0.70) (0.70) (0.71) (0.70) s5pseudomonas fluorescence 0.00 0.00 6.66 2.22 0.00 0.00 0.053 0.017 0.00 0.00 0.050 0.016 (0.70) (0.70) (1.07) (0.82) (0.70) (0.70) (0.74) (0.71) (0.70) (0.70) (0.74) (0.71) s6iba 1000ppm 6.66 3.33 6.66 5.55 0.013 0.012 0.044 0.023 0.009 0.009 0.039 0.019 (1.07) (0.91) (1.07) (1.01) (0.72) (0.71) (0.74) (0.72) (0.71) (0.71) (0.73) (0.72) mean 2.22 2.22 6.66 0.009 0.004 0.037 0.008 0.003 0.030 (0.82) (0.82) (1.07) (0.70) (0.70) (0.73) (0.71) (0.70) (0.72) sem± cd f test sem± cd f test sem± cd f test (p=0.05) (p=0.05) (p=0.05) m 0.04 0.11 * 0.004 0.013 * 0.003 0.010 * t 0.05 0.16 * 0.006 0.019 * 0.005 0.015 * m × t 0.10 0.28 * 0.010 ns 0.050 ns note: values in the parentheses are square root transformed values *significant at 5% m1 – softwood cuttings; m2 – semi hardwood cuttings; m3 – hardwood cuttings ns non significant interaction of type of cutting and iba treatment had significant influence on biomass production (table 3). hardwood cuttings treated with iba 1000ppm recorded higher biomass (2.123g) than semi hardwood and softwood cuttings with bioinoculant treatment. this study clearly indicates that vegetative propagation in gymnema sylvestre by hardwood cuttings treated with azotobacter chroococcum and iba 1000ppm gives best results, with good rooting and establishment. references alam, m.m., siddiqi, m.b. and husain, w. 1990. treatment of diabetes through herbal drugs in rural india. fitoterapia, 61:240–242 brown, m. 1976. role of azotobacter paspali in association with paspalum notatum. j. appld. bacteriol., 40:341-348 chandrasekar, a., sankaranarayan, r., balakrishnan, k. and balakrishnan, a. 2003. standardization of gymnema (gymnema sylvestre r. br.) propagation. south indian hort., 51:275 – 277 das, p.k., ghosh, a., katiyar, r.s. and sengupta, k. 1990. response of irrigated mulberry to azotobacter and azospirillum biofertilizers under graded levels of nitrogen. j. gen. microbiol., 31:255-261 karthikeyan, a. and sakthivel, k.m. 2011. efficacy of akshitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):94-97, 2014 97 azotobacter chroococcum in rooting and growth of eucalyptus camaldulensis stem cuttings. res. j. microbiol., 6:618-624 singh, a.k., rajesh singh, mittal, a.k., singh, y.p. and shiva jauhari. 2003. effect of plant growth regulators on survival, rooting and growth characters in long pepper (piper longum l.). prog. hort., 35:208-211 singh, a.k. 2001. effect of auxins on rooting and survival of jasmine (jasminum sambac) stem cuttings. prog. hort., 33:174-177 ved, d.k. and goraya, g.s. 2007. in: demand and supply of medicinal plants in india. nmpb, new delhi & frlht, bangalore vinutha, t. 2005. biochemical studies on ocimum species inoculated with microbial inoculants. m.sc. thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore, india (ms received 11 december 2012, revised 10 october 2013, accepted 07 january 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):94-97, 2014 rooting studies in madhunashini (gymnema sylvestre retz.) short communication evaluation of onion varieties under low hill conditions of himachal pradesh deepa sharma, y.r. shukla1 and kumud jarial dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry institute of biotechnology and environmental science neri, p.o. khagal, distt. hamirpur 177001, india e-mail: deepabanyal@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to identify promising varieties of onion suited for cultivation under low hill conditions of himachal pradesh. ten varieties were evaluated at research farm of the institute of biotechnology and environmental science, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, neri, hamirpur, for two consecutive seasons (20102011 and 2011-2012). the farm is located at an altitude of 620m above mean sea level, with average mean maximum and minimum temperatures of 31.30c and 12.40c, respectively, and is a representative site of the low hill region of himachal pradesh. standard package of practices was followed for raising the crop as recommended by the university. observations were recorded on various horticultural traits, viz., plant height, number of leaves per plant, days to harvest, neck thickness, bulb diameter, bulb weight, tss, and total yield. in addition, all the varieties were screened for resistance against purple blotch disease. maximum days to harvest (129.33 days) were seen in the variety holland louis, while, variety agrifound rose showed minimum number of days (109). varieties palam lohit, nasik red, n53 and agrifound dark red recorded significantly higher bulb yield (275.00, 240.67, 239.25 and 232.37 q/ha, respectively) than the other varieties evaluated. none of the varieties was able to resist the disease totally; however, ‘agrifound dark red’ was moderately resistant, exhibiting just 13.78% disease incidence. varieties palam lohit, nasik red and agrifound dark red had medium bulb size and higher yield. these can be advocated for commercial cultivation under low hill conditions of himachal pradesh. key words: onion, varieties, evaluation, yield, purple blotch 1hrs kandaghat, solan, hp onion (allium cepa l.) is an important vegetable and spice consumed by almost all sections of the society round the year. in himachal pradesh, onion is grown over an area of 2.2 thousand hectares, with production of 36.3 thousand metric tons. productivity of onion in himachal pradesh, however, is only 16.5 t/ha (sfacindia.com, 2012). several factors play a significant role in onion production, and genotypes can be considered as one of the important factors. many new hybrids/ varieties of onion have been released by the public and private sectors in the market, but information on their performance, especially under low hill conditions, is lacking. farmers opt for cultivating specific hybrids/varieties solely on recommendation of vendors, which leads to uncertainty in yield and, sometimes, total crop failure. among several other factors, diseases are the most important associated with low productivity in onion. purple blotch, caused by alternaria porri, is one of the serious fungal diseases affecting onion, causing yield losses upto 50% (srivastava et al, 1994). the crop in our region is highly prone to this disease that appears by the end of march (with onset of summer) and results in huge losses of the crop. therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of hybrids/varieties before recommending them for cultivation so that farmers can fetch assured returns on their investment. thus, to identify promising varieties suited to low hill conditions of himachal pradesh, an evaluation trial was conducted during 2010 2012 using 10 onion genotypes. the experimental site is located at an altitude of 620m above mean sea level at latitude 31o682 n and longitude 76o 522 e. the mean minimum and maximum temperature ranged between 12.4oc to 31.3oc. average humidity remained 60.91%. the area experiences annual rainfall of 69.4cm, a majority of it occuring during the monsoon season. the soil in the experimental area was clay-loam, with ph 6.6 and 0.38% organic matter content. soil n and p were low while k was medium. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications in each j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):78-81, 2014 79 evaluation of onion varieties under low hill conditions of himachal pradesh treatment. germplasm obtained from various sources is tabulated hereunder: sl. no. variety source 1. nasik red nhrdf 2. holland louis local market 3. palam lohit palampur 4. agrifound light red nhrdf 5. agrifound white nhrdf 6. nhrdf red nhrdf 7. n-53 nhrdf 8. agrifound dark red nhrdf 9. agrifound rose nhrdf 10. century selection local market seeds of these ten varieties of onion were planted in the nursery bed in october for raising the nursery. eightweek old healthy seedlings were transplanted on flat beds at a spacing of 15cm x 10cm in a plot of 3.0 x 3.0 sq.m. during the last week of december for both years of experimentation. recommended cultural practices were followed to raise the crop successfully. all observations pertaining to crop traits, viz., plant height (cm), no. of leaves/ plant, neck thickness (cm), bulb diameter (cm), bulb size index (cm2), bulb weight (g), days to bulb initiation, days to harvest, total soluble solids (ob), and yield, were made on 10 randomly selected healthy seedlings in each plot. bulb yield was noted on plot basis. data obtained during the two years were analyzed and pooled as per the standard procedure of gomez and gomez (1984). in addition, all the cultivars under study were screened for disease severity to purple blotch on the basis of a 0-4 scale (0no infection, 1-, 2-, 3and 4). per cent disease index was calculated as per mckinney (1923). varieties were rated as resistant to highly susceptible (depending upon level of disease severity exhibited by them) as given below: sl. no. disease disease reaction severity (%) 1 0-5 resistant (r) 2 5-15 moderately resistant (mr) 3 15-25 moderately susceptible (ms) 4 25-40 susceptible (s) 5 > 40 highly susceptible (hs) pooled analysis of variance (table 1) revealed significant mean square estimates for all the characters studied. this not only explained differences observed over the years of testing, but also indicated degree of variability among the varieties. mean performance of the varieties during the two year of study is presented in table 2. variety palam lohit showed maximum plant height (70.33cm), closely followed by ‘century selection’, whereas, table 1. pooled analysis of variance for various traits in onion source of variation d.f. mean sum of squares plant nlpp neck bulb bulb size bulb tss days to days bulb height thickness diameter index weight (ob) bulb to yield (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm2) (g) initiation harvest (q/ha) replication 2 2.25 2.11 0.01 0.10 7.73 18.36 0.10 1.44 6.03 13.37 treatment 9 313.56* 10.75* 0.09* 0.70* 52.45* 1806.77* 6.16* 68.33* 170.89* 2996.31* error 18 30.82 1.90 0.02 0.09 4.82 21.19 2.65 14.27 27.12 131.20 *significant at 5% level table 2. mean performance (pooled) of onion varieties under low hill conditions of himachal pradesh variety traits plant nlpp neck bulb bulb weight tss days to days bulb height thickness diameter size index of bulb (ob) bulb to yield (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm2) (g) initiation harvesting (q/ha) nasik red 62.67 11.00 0.99 5.26 22.62 67.89 12.66 53.33 121.00 240.67 holland louis 64.16 9.33 1.38 6.13 27.15 88.46 11.00 61.33 129.33 215.26 palam lohit 70.33 11.67 0.85 5.56 26.85 70.93 12.33 53.00 115.77 275.00 agrifound light red 57.33 9.00 0.82 5.70 23.20 62.53 10.55 47.66 112.66 220.25 agrifound white 53.00 7.00 1.18 4.43 18.82 54.99 11.33 50.33 113.00 174.67 nhrdf red 57.50 8.00 1.22 4.72 18.54 60.39 11.10 56.66 123.33 185.75 n-53 49.00 12.33 1.10 5.63 22.85 65.92 12.00 49.33 115.00 239.25 agrifound dark red 64.00 8.33 0.94 5.86 25.40 79.64 13.00 51.66 117.00 232.37 agrifound rose 39.00 6.67 1.13 4.25 13.18 40.22 14.16 45.60 109.00 144.75 century selection 65.00 8.00 1.29 5.20 21.00 66.00 11.62 59.00 124.00 192.00 mean 57.11 9.13 1.09 5.27 21.78 65.70 12.85 52.00 118.26 203.41 se(m) ± 4.53 1.13 0.13 0.30 1.79 3.76 1.33 3.09 4.25 9.35 cd (p=0.05) 9.61 2.39 0.28 0.64 3.80 8.97 2.82 6.54 9.01 19.83 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):78-81, 2014 80 ‘agrifound rose’ registered the shortest plants (39.00cm). cultivar n-53 produced maximum number of leaves/plant (12.33), at par with ‘palam lohit’ and ‘nasik red’. on the contrary, ‘agrifound rose’ recorded minimum number of leaves/plant (6.67), followed by nhrdf-red and century selection. thickest neck (1.38cm) was recorded in cultivar holland louis, while, ‘agrifound light red’ registered the thinnest neck (0.82cm). varieties ‘nasik red’ (0.99cm), ‘agrifound dark red’ (0.94cm) and ‘palam lohit’ (0.85cm) also displayed a thinner neck than other varieties. bhonde et al (1992) too found thinner neck in ‘agrifound light red’ in a late kharif season trial, which supports our findings. biggest bulb (6.13cm diameter) was noticed in cultivar holland louis, whereas, ‘agrifound rose’ expressed the lowest bulb diameter (4.25cm). rest of the varieties exhibited moderate bulb diameter. similarly, highest bulbsize index (27.15cm2) was observed in cv. holland louis, which was at par with cultivars palam lohit (26.85cm2) and agrifound dark red (25.40cm2). the heaviest bulb (88.46g) was observed in ‘holland louis’, which was at par with ‘agrifound dark red’ (79.64g). on the other hand, ‘agrifound rose’ possessed the lightest bulb (40.22g), followed by ‘agrifound white’ (54.99g). rest of the varieties showed medium bulb weight. thin neck, coupled with small to medium bulb size was detected in ‘palam lohit’, ‘agrifound light red’ and ‘nasik red’ by patil and kale (1985). minimum days to bulb initiation (45.00 days) were seen in cv. agrifound rose, closely followed by ‘agrifound light red’ and ‘n-53’ (49.33), while, the variety holland louis took maximum (61.33) number of days to bulb initiation. similarly, minimum number of days to harvest (109.00 days) were seen in cv. agrifound rose, which was at par with ‘agrifound light red’ (112.66 days), ‘agrifound white’ (113.00 days), ‘n-53’ (115.00 days), ‘palam lohit’ (115.77 days) and ‘agrifound dark red’ (117.00 days). variety holland louis showed maximum number of (129.33) days to harvest. highest total soluble solids content (14.160b) was observed in cv. agrifound rose, which was statistically at par with cultivars agrifound dark red, palam lohit and n-53. lowest tss was recorded in cv. holland louis. bulb yield among cultivars ranged from 144.75 to 275.00 q/ha. highest yield was obtained in palam lohit (275.00 q/ha), which was significantly higher than yield of other cultivars. cultivars nasik red (240.67 q/ha), n-53 (239.25 q/ha) and agrifound dark red (232.37q/ha), respectively, were observed to be the next best performers. high yield obtained in these cultivars may be attributed to better vegetative growth in terms of plant height and number of leaves per plant, thereby enhancing photosynthetic efficiency of the plant (mohanty and prusti, 2002); whereas, moderate yield of 220.25 and 215.26 q/ha was realized ‘agrifound light red’ and ‘holland louis’, respectively. bhagchandani et al (1972), singh et al (1991) and sharma (2009) also reported better performance in cvs. nasik red, n-53 and agrifound dark red than in the other cultivars. results of the experiment on screening of onion cultivars for resistance to purple blotch disease showed that none of the varieties resisted the disease totally; however, ‘agrifound dark red’ was moderately resistant, exhibiting just 13.78% disease incidence. similar results were obtained by kumari and singh (2012) who reported disease intensity of 6.36% when seedlings of this cultivar were inoculated with spores of the pathogen. rest of the cultivars exhibited moderate to high susceptibility reaction towards the disease. on the basis of observations recorded over two successive years, it is concluded that cultivars palam lohit, agrifound dark red and nasik red perform better over the other varieties in terms of bulb size, total soluble solids and marketable yield under low-hill, subtropical conditions of himachal pradesh. references bhagchandani, p.m., pal, n. and choudhury, b. 1972. you can grow kharif crop of onion in northern india. indian farming, xxii:24-27 bhonde, s.r., srivastava, k.j. and pandey, u.b. 1992. table 3. reaction of onion varieties to purple blotch under natural epiphytotic conditions variety disease disease severity (%) reaction nasik red 70.49 hs holland louis 83.73 hs palam lohit 20.77 ms agrifound light red 32.32 s agrifound white 60.34 hs nhrdf red 43.28 hs n-53 65.67 hs agrifound dark red 13.78 m r agrifound rose 18.23 ms century selection 80.52 hs mr: moderately resistant, ms: moderately susceptible, s: susceptible, hs: highly susceptible deepa sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):78-81, 2014 81 evaluation of varieties for growing “rangda” crop of onion (allium cepa l.) in nasik area of maharashtra. maharashtra j. hort., 6:39-42 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research (2nd ed.), new york, john wiley and sons, inc., 680p. http://www.sfacindia.com. 2012. baseline data for onion and potato. kumari, r. and singh, b.p. 2012. resistance response of onion varieties to purple blotch caused by alternaria porri (ellis). res. j. agril. sci., 3:78-81 mckinney, h.h. 1923. influence of soil temperature and moisture on infection of wheat seedlings by helminthosporium sativum. j. agril. res., 26:195197 mohanty, b.k. and prusti, a.m. 2002. varietal performance of onion in rainy season. indian j. agril. res., 36:222-224 patil, r.s. and kale, p.n. 1985. correlation studies on bulb characteristics and storage losses in onion. j. maharashtra agril. univ., 10:38-39 singh, l., singh, s.p. and mishra, p.k. 1991. evaluation of onion varieties at karnal. aadf newslett., xi:3-4 sharma, a.k. 2009. evaluation of onion varieties in kharif season under submontane low hill conditions of himachal pradesh. annals hort., 2:191-193 srivastava, p.k., bharadwaj, b.s. and gupta, p.p. 1994. status of field diseases and selected pests of onion in india. national horticulture research and development foundation newsletter, 14:11-14 (ms received 23 january 2013, revised 20 december 2013, accepted 10 march 2014) evaluation of onion varieties under low hill conditions of himachal pradesh j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):78-81, 2014 final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 261 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h*., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake po, bangalore 560089, india *corresponding author email: laxman.rh@icar.gov.in abstract capsicum genus comprised of several cultivars is considered as an important spice crop worldwide. roots play a vital role in a plant to mine water from the deeper layers of the soil. although, characterisation for root traits have been made using different containers in many crops, such efforts for phenotyping root characteristics in capsicum species are limited. therefore, the experiment was initiated to find out the influence of container size on root characteristics and also to identify the appropriate container for high throughput phenotyping of capsicum species for desirable root characteristics. nine genotypes belonging to different capsicum spp. were grown in three types of containers having different dimensions. among the three types of containers, the bucket type container with dimension of 32 cm height 30 cm diameter with 23 kg soil media capacity was most suitable for phenotyping root characteristics compared to pvc pipe and pot type. subsequently, 18 genotypes were phenotyped for plant growth and root characteristics in the bucket type container. the genotypes ihr 4517, ihr 3529, ihr 4501, ihr 4550, ihr 4491 and ihr 3241 with better root characteristics were identified. key words: capsicum, container, root characteristics and plant growth introduction the genus capsicum comprises several cultivars that are grown worldwide. in addition to their use as spices and food vegetables, capsicum species have also been used in pha r ma ceutica l industr ies. the genus capsicum has five domesticated species, capsicum annuum l., c. baccatum l., c. chinense jacq., c. frutescens l., and c. pubescens ruiz and pav. however, among them, capsicum annuum l. is distr ibuted world over with greatest economic importance and is part of many dishes mainly because of its spicy taste, pungency, appealing colour and flavor. india is the world’s largest producer and exporter of chilli, contributing about 25% of world’s chilli production (national horticultural board, 2017). several abiotic stresses during critical stages of crop gr owth a nd development sever ely a ffect the productivity of capsicum sp. inadequate water availability is a major abiotic stress which adversely affects growth and productivity of chilli crop (bhutia et al., 2018). the major growing areas in india experience water limiting conditions due to limited water resources. in india in some parts, chilli is grown under rainfed conditions. the sporadic water stress is a common feature that causes considerable reduction in productivity of chilli, through modification in various morpho-physiological and bio-chemical processes (singh, 1994). the antagonistic effects of water deficit stress have been studied by several workers in chilli (cantore et al., 2000; kirnak et al., 2003; antony and singandhupe, 2004; khan et al.,2008; gunawardena and de-silva 2014; r’him and radhouane, 2015; george and sujatha, 2019). some of the plant’s adaptive strategies under deficit water stress situations are; deep root system, higher water use efficiency (wue) and tissue water retention through modifications in leaf, stomatal and cuticular characteristics (basu et al., 2016). these adaptive features help plants to maintain higher tissue water content under deficit moisture stress and facilitate them to delay the imminent adverse effects of water stress. roots play a major role under water deficit conditions by acquiring water from the deeper layers of the soil. 262 raviteja et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 they also communicate with above ground parts thr ough signa ling pa thwa ys. t he gr owth a nd development of plants is controlled through the alter ations in root mor phology a nd physiology. modifications were noticed in root to shoot transport of signaling molecules including hormones, proteins, rnas and mineral nutrients (dovale and neto, 2015). the restricted growth and development of plants by limited water availability could be overcome through root morphological plasticity at different soil moisture levels (forde 2009). under water limited conditions, roots improve the ability of crop plants to maintain water relations by exploring available water in the soil profile. identification of root characteristics that enhance the plant’s capability to mine soil water and sustain productivity is very essential.several workers have attempted studies on various root characteristics and have elucidated the role of root characteristics like deep root system (sashidhar et al.,2000; sinclair and muchow 2001; venuprasad et al., 2002), thick root system (chang et al., 1986), root to shoot ratio (fukai and cooper 1995), enhanced root system (price and tomos, 1997), root penetrating ability (ray et al., 1996) and higher number of roots in the crown region (kinyua et al., 2003). understanding the role of roots in improving tolerance and maintenance of water relations under water limiting conditions is very important. in this direction quantification of the root characteristics and their role in enhancing water stress tolerance is of primary relevance. conventional crop improvement approaches have played a principal role in many crops for enhancing drought tolerance (sreenivasulu et al., 2007). the desirable root characteristics like, deeper root length, large root volume, high root dry weight, and higher root-to-shoot ratio coupled with thick lateral roots were observed to confer water stress tolerance in chilli germplasm iihr 4502 (capsicum chinense) (naresh et al., 2017). since, phenotyping root characteristics under field conditions are highly cumbersome and challenging, researchers have been relying on assessing the desirable root characteristics in container grown plants. studies have also shown relationships between controlled-environment root vigor and field root vigor, indicating that evaluations at early stage are predictive of future root performance (wa sson et al. , 2012). using conta iner s for measurement of root systems reduces the growing medium volume and enables proper removal of the root system as compared to plants grown in field (neumann, 2009). there is a need for identification of suitable container type and size that provide congenial growing conditions for expression of genetic potential and also enable easy extraction of root system to phenotype root characteristics. though studies have been conducted to characterize root characteristics using different containers in many crops, such efforts for phenotyping root characteristics in capsicum species are very much limited (kulkarni and phalke, 2009; naresh et al., 2017). hence, the objective of the study was to identify appropriate container and size for high throughput phenotyping of root characteristics which facilitate selection of genotypes having desirable root characteristics for water mining. material and methods experiment was carried out during 2018-2019 at the division of basic sciences, icar-indian institute of horticultural research (icar-iihr), bengaluru. the experimental site is located at 13o58’ n latitude, 78°e longitude and 890 m above mean sea level. seeds of capsicum sp. genotypes used in the study were obtained from the division of vegetable crops, icarindian institute of horticultural research (icariihr), bengaluru. in order to achieve objectives of the study, two experiments were conducted. first experiment was carried out using three different containers to identify appropriate container for high throughput phenotyping of root character istics. second experiment was conducted to phenotype for desir a ble r oot characteristics using 18 genotypes belonging to different capsicum sp. in the suitable container identified in the first experiment. identification of appropriate container for high throughput phenotyping of root characteristics in order to identify appropriate container for high throughput phenotyping of root characteristics, nine genotypes belonging to different capsicum sp. ihr 3226, ihr 3455, ihr 3575, ihr 4517, ihr 3476 (c. annuum) ihr 3240, ihr 3241, ihr 4491(c. baccatum) and ihr 3529 (c. chinense) were selected. the genotypes were evaluated in three types of containers having different dimensions and soil media holding capacity. the containers used were: (i) bucket type container (empty paint container, 30 cm diameter, 263 effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 32 cm height having capacity to hold 23 kg soil), (ii) pvc pipe container (20 cm diameter, 64 cm height having capacity to hold 26 kg soil) and (iii) pot type container (18 cm diameter, 27 cm height having capacity to hold12 kg soil). the containers were filled with soil, farm yard manure (fym) and sand (2:1:1 v/v). the experiment was laid out in a factorial completely ra ndomized block design with five replications. phenotyping of capsicum sp. genotypes in appropriate container for desirable root characteristics eighteen genotypes belonging to different capsicum sp. were evaluated for root characteristics in the bucket type container (30 cm diameter, 32 cm height having capacity to hold 23 kg soil). the experiment was laid out in a completely randomized block design with five replications. seedling raising and crop care: the seeds of genotypes used in both the experiments were sown in pro trays filled with coco peat as a growing medium. the seedlings were maintained in the shade net nursery for 45 days and recommended cultural practices were adopted to maintain plant health status and population. forty-five-day old seedlings were transplanted into the conta iner s. t he pla nts wer e pr ovided with recommended dose of fertilizer and crop protection measures. the plants were irrigated regularly to maintain 100 per cent field capacity. growth parameters: the observations in both the experiments were recorded at peak flowering stage (50 dat). plant height was measured using graduated scale and expressed in centimeters. the number of primary branches were counted manually at the point of initiation. the plant shoot parts were excised and the leaf and stem portions were separated. the entire root portion was carefully extracted from the soil medium using water jet to clean the soil. soon after extracting the roots, observations on root parameters like root length (using graduated scale), root volume (water displacement method), number of primary roots and fresh and dry weights were recorded. fresh weights of the root and shoot samples were measured immediately after extraction by using a sartorius bsazzas-cw balance. the root, stem and leaf parts were dried in oven separately at 80ºc for 72 h to achieve stable weight. the dry weight was recorded as total biomass accumulated and expressed as gram per plant. to quantify the leaf area, representative sample of 20 leaves from each plant was taken and the leaf area was determined using leaf area meter (biovis, psm-l2000, india). then the leaves were kept in oven at 70ºc for five days and leaf dry weight was measured using sartorius bsazzas-cw balance. the ratio of leaf area to the leaf dry weight was computed as specific leaf area (sla). the leaf dry weight of each plant was multiplied with sla to arrive at the total plant leaf area (tla). root: shoot ratio: it was arrived by dividing root dry matter with shoot dry matter. statistical analysis anova: the data obtained in different experiments was analyzed in factorial completely randomized block design and completely randomized block design for first and second experiment, respectively using two factors statistical package opstat developed by ccshau (sheoran et al.,1998). results and discussion plants manifest physiological and morphological modifications in response to change with soil volume. the container size and type influence root volume and in turn determine the dry matter distribution between above and below ground parts. studies have shown that with doubling in pot size there is an average increase of 43% plant mass (poorter, 2012). container size is known to influence morphologica l and physiological changes in crops like tomato (oagile et al., 2016), bell pepper (weston, 1988), squash (nesmith, 1993) a nd ca bbage (csizinszky a nd schuster, 1993). alterations in container size leads to cha nges in a va ila ble r ooting volume which subsequently affects plant growth. identification of appropriate container for high throughput phenotyping of root characteristics the container size plays a major role in plant root and shoots growth. the root length was not significantly influenced by the container type. however, among the three containers, higher root length was observed in pvc pipe container compared to bucket type and pot type containers. the root volume in bucket type container was 35.8% and 72.4% higher compared to pot type and pvc pipe containers, respectively (figure 1). the studies conducted in bell pepper have shown that the container size has influence on the root volume and plant growth (weston, 1988; nesmith et al.,1992). in this exper iment, a mong the thr ee types of j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 264 containers, the plants grown in bucket type container produced significantly a greater number of primary roots (44.8) compared to pot type (33.1) and pvc pipe (25.4) containers (figure 1). studies conducted by cantliffe, (1993) and kharkina et al., (1999) have shown that there is a strong positive correlation between container size and root biomass. in the present study, significantly higher root fresh weight and dry weights were observed in bucket type container compared to other two types of containers (figure 1). the genotypes ihr 4491, ihr 3241, ihr 4517 and ihr 3529 produced significantly higher root fresh weight as compared to remaining genotypes (figure 1). plants grown in bucket type container recorded 73.14 % (4.32 g) and 40.86% (5.31 g) higher root dry weight compared to pvc pipe and pot type containers (table 1). a b c d figure 1: influence of containers on root length (a), root volume (b), primary root number (c) and root fresh weight (d) of capsicum sp. healthy root system growth promotes better above ground canopy growth. hence, providing appropriate space for adequate root growth is essential. it is observed that the shoot growth is greatly impacted by varying container size and root restriction (poorter, 2012). the plant height was significantly higher in bucket type container compared to remaining types of containers. genotypes, ihr 3241 (68.1 cm) and ihr 3226 (57.2 cm) recorded significantly higher plant height compared to rest of the genotypes (table 2). tomato plants when grown in containers with low volume showed reduction in shoot height and biomass (peterson et al., 1991). hence, providing better rooting space helps the plants to produce higher above ground biomass with increased shoot height. among the three types of containers, plants grown in bucket type produced significantly a greater number of branches compared to remaining two types of containers (table 2). in bell pepper (capsicum annum l.), root restriction caused reduction in number of branches (nesmith et al.,1992). in container grown bell pepper plant, reduction in leaf area was observed mainly due to smaller and fewer leaves per plant (weston, 1988; n es mit h e t a l . , 1 99 2 ) . wit h the inc r ea s e in container size, the leaf area and shoot biomass has increased (cantliffe, 1993). in this experiment, the leaf area was significantly higher in plants grown in bucket type container (5690 cm2) as compared t o pot ( 37 9 7 cm2 ) a nd pvc pip e (2 6 90 cm2 ) containers (table 2). raviteja et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 265 table 1: influence of containers on root dry weight and shoot dry weight in capsicum sp. genotype root dry weight shoot dry weight (g plant-1) (g plant-1) pvc pot bucket pvc pot bucket pipe type pipe type ihr 3226 1.91 3.47 5.28 9.6 15.3 33.0 ihr 3455 3.06 5.49 6.26 15.6 32.9 45.0 ihr 3575 3.30 3.89 5.02 18.2 21.4 26.6 ihr 4517 6.92 7.11 8.60 34.3 39.5 51.1 ihr 3476 1.71 4.04 4.43 6.2 17.1 28.3 ihr 3240 5.14 5.19 6.82 26.2 18.7 49.9 ihr 3241 6.49 7.21 10.44 31.1 44.7 53.5 ihr 4491 5.52 5.31 10.81 27.4 27.1 54.1 ihr 3529 4.79 6.10 9.63 14.8 33.5 51.7 mean 4.32 5.31 7.48 20.4 27.8 43.7 factors g c gxc g c gxc c.d@0.05 0.65 0.38 1.13 3.2 1.85 5.54 se (m) 0.23 0.13 0.4 1.12 0.65 1.95 cv (%) 10.8 11 table 2. influence of containers on plant height, leaf area and number of branches in capsicum sp. genotype plant height leaf area branch number (cm plant-1) (cm2 plant-1) (no. plant-1) pvc pot bucket pvc pot bucket pvc pot bucket pipe type pipe type pipe type ihr 3226 67.7 57 57.3 1363 2221 4526 12 9 13 ihr 3455 40 44.3 54.7 2186 4510 6015 7 9 10 ihr 3575 45.7 41.7 53.3 2706 3179 3977 9 10 12 ihr 4517 49.3 38.3 47 4656 5263 6737 8 5 8 ihr 3476 29.3 25 41.7 1161 3092 4797 3 4 7 ihr 3240 46 52.7 52.3 2901 2209 5240 9 10 10 ihr 3241 54.3 51.5 84.7 4389 6058 8365 9 9 11 ihr 4491 32.3 29 71.3 2074 2040 4089 5 7 10 ihr 3529 25.7 27 55.7 2773 5600 7467 4 5 6 mean 43.4 40.7 57.6 2690 3797 5690 7 8 10 factors g c gxc g c gxc g c gxc c.d. (0.05) 3.17 1.83 5.49 669 386 1159 0.88 0.5 1.52 se (m) 1.11 0.64 1.93 136 235 408 0.31 0.18 0.53 cv (%) 6.8 17.4 10.8 effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 266 ta bl e 3. v ar ia bi lit y in r oo t an d sh oo t gr ow th c ha ra ct er is tic s am on g 18 c ap si cu m s p. g en ot yp es g en ot yp e r l r v p r n r f w r d w sd w r oo t: p h b n l a (c m p la nt -1 ) (c c pl an t-1 ) (n o. p la nt -1 ) (g p la nt -1 ) (g p la nt -1 ) (g p la nt -1 ) sh oo t (c m (n o. (c m 2 ra ti o pl an t-1 ) pl an t-1 ) pl an t-1 ) ih r 3 24 0 38 .0 50 .0 32 54 .0 6. 90 60 .6 0. 11 8 54 .7 10 62 84 ih r 3 24 1 55 .0 10 0. 0 43 69 .2 10 .6 3 51 .2 0. 21 1 79 .7 10 88 37 ih r 4 49 1 39 .3 73 .3 36 88 .6 11 .8 1 48 .2 0. 24 9 75 .6 10 44 55 ih r 4 55 0 54 .3 11 0. 0 45 12 7. 7 15 .3 8 42 .9 0. 41 2 68 .0 6 65 83 ih r 4 50 1 65 .0 12 5. 0 33 11 0. 8 12 .5 6 44 .2 0. 29 68 .0 8 76 30 ih r 3 52 9 48 .7 71 .3 36 76 .0 10 .2 3 36 .9 0. 26 8 54 .7 7 70 12 ih r 4 65 8 42 .3 38 .3 34 49 .9 5. 80 47 .1 0. 12 2 69 .3 9 47 24 ih r 3 98 2 33 .3 18 .3 14 24 .6 2. 01 19 .7 0. 34 6 48 .3 13 38 72 ih r 3 98 3 45 .7 31 .7 29 38 .6 7. 55 46 .1 0. 16 9 95 .3 15 33 02 ih r 3 22 6 35 .0 38 .3 47 30 .5 3. 78 40 .0 0. 09 6 58 .0 12 51 76 ih r 3 45 5 37 .0 32 .7 63 32 .4 5. 17 57 .7 0. 09 1 54 .3 11 69 22 ih r 3 57 5 33 .3 30 .0 41 29 .5 4. 13 25 .2 0. 16 4 52 .0 12 36 89 ih r 4 51 7 44 .0 61 .7 30 75 .1 8. 93 52 .0 0. 17 6 44 .7 10 79 36 ih r 3 47 6 30 .7 35 .0 60 32 .2 4. 45 29 .8 0. 15 41 .3 7 44 63 ih r 3 44 7 28 .0 16 .7 25 20 .1 2. 30 8. 7 0. 26 4 38 .0 10 18 54 ih r 4 10 8 42 .7 44 .0 46 35 .1 3. 40 54 .1 0. 06 5 71 .7 10 49 55 c hi kk ab al la pu r 42 .0 30 .0 19 28 .6 3. 13 15 .8 0. 20 6 52 .0 11 15 17 l oc al g un tu r 42 .3 29 .3 31 41 .0 6. 70 53 .6 0. 12 5 72 .7 14 68 65 l oc al c .d . (0 .0 5) 4. 6 18 .5 6. 5 14 .5 1. 79 12 .4 0. 06 8. 79 2. 35 29 14 se ( m ) 1. 6 6. 4 2. 2 5 0. 6 4. 3 0. 02 1 3. 05 0. 82 10 12 c v ( % ) 6. 5 21 .3 10 .6 16 .1 15 .3 5 18 .2 18 .6 8. 63 13 .8 32 .9 r l : r oo t le ng th , r v : r oo t vo lu m e, p r n : pr im ar y ro ot n um be r, r fw : r oo t fr es h w ei gh t, r d w : r oo t dr y w ei gh t, sd w : sh oo t dr y w ei gh t, ph : pl an t he ig ht , b n : b ra nc h nu m be r an d l a : l ea f ar ea p he no ty pi ng o f c ap si cu m g en ot yp es f or d es ir ab le r oo t ch ar ac te ri st ic s raviteja et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 267 shoot growth is greatly impacted by varying container size and root restriction in tomato (kemble et al., 1994) and soybean (krizek et al.,1985). in this study, among the three types of containers, plants grown in bucket type container produced significantly higher amount of shoot biomass compared to remaining two types of containers. plants in bucket type container produced 57.1% (15.9 g) and 114.2% (23.3 g) higher shoot biomass than plant grown in pot type and pvc pipe containers, respectively (table 1). therefore, the bucket type container with higher soil volume and area enabled the capsicum spp. genotypes to express their genetic potential with higher shoot and root growth. roots, stems a nd lea ves a r e functiona lly interdependent and these three systems maintain a dyna mic ba la nce in bioma ss pr oduction a nd distribution. it is clearly evident from the study that the bucket type container provided enough rooting space for capsicum spp. genotypes to express their genetic potential in terms of shoot and root biomass production. hence, the bucket type container was chosen for further studies on phenotyping capsicum spp. genotypes for desirable root characteristics. the importance of plant phenotyping based on specific root characteristics like root length, number of primary roots and root volume are of practical value for crop improvement (garcia, 2015). genetic potential of a genotype for root characteristics plays a critical role during growth and metabolic aspects of the plants. in this study, to know the genetic potential and behavior of each genotype under optimal moisture condition capsicum sp. genotypes were evaluated for desirable root characteristics and shoot growth. the results clearly indicated that genotypes, ihr 4501, ihr 4491, ihr 3241, ihr 4550, ihr4517, ihr 3529 exhibited desirable root characteristics such as root length, root volume, primary root number, root fresh and dry weight. the genotypes, ihr 3982 and ihr 3447 showed poor root characteristics (table 3). studies have indicated that root length, root volume and root dry weight have strong positive correlation with total dry matter production (lakshmamma et al., 2014). the genotypes which showed higher root length and volume also produced higher biomass because of adequate water and nutrients uptake from deeper layers of the soil and maintained the tissue water potential (khan et al., 2008). under ample supply of water and nutrient, the plant height, leaf area, branch number and shoot biomass production are dependent on the size of the root system (za ka r ia et al. , 2020). our r esults clea r ly demonstrated that genotypes, ihr 3241, ihr 4501, ihr 4491, ihr4517 and guntur local exhibited better shoot growth in terms of plant height, number of branches, lea f ar ea and shoot bioma ss. the genotypes, chikkaballapur local, ihr 3447 and ihr 3982 showed poor shoot growth (table 3). in fact; leaf area determines the light interception capacity of a crop and is often used as a surrogate for plant growth and above ground biomass. from the results it is clear that the genotypes having higher leaf area showed better shoot biomass. concurrently, our results suggested that number of branches in a plant is independent with plant height. the branching pattern in a plant depends on the genetic makeup of each genotype and it is not linked with plant height and other characteristics. similar observations were made in chilli (bijalwan et al., 2018) and tomato (malaker et al., 2016). at optimal moisture condition, shoot and root dry weights are interred linked (brdar-jokanovic et al., 2014). root to shoot ratio is an important index and it reflects the plant health status. in this regard our results confirms that genotypes, ihr 4550, ihr 4501, ihr 3529 and ihr 4491 recorded significantly higher root to shoot ratio compared to other genotypes. the genotypes, ihr 4108, ihr 3455 and ihr 3226 showed significantly lower root shoot ratio (table 3). though enough rooting space was available in the bucket type container only few genotypes had higher shoot and root growth. this could be due to the genetic potential of the genotypes exhibiting higher root and shoot biomass (chowdary et al., 2015). based on the growth pa ttern with respect to root and shoot characteristics, six genotypes, ihr 4517 (c. annuum), ihr 3241 (c. baccatum), ihr 4491 (c. baccatum), ihr 4550 (c. chinense), ihr 3529 (c. chinense), ihr 4501 (c. chinense) were identified having desirable root characteristics and ihr 3447 (c. annuum) a nd ihr 3982 (c. chacoense) wer e identified having poor root characteristics. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 268 references aung, l. h. 1972. root-shoot relationships. in pl. root and its environ.1: 29–61. antony, e. and singandhupe, r. 2004. impact of drip and surface irrigation on growth, yield a nd w ue of c a p s ic u m. a g r i c . watermanag.65(2): 121-132. basu, s., ramegowda, v., kumar, a. and pereira, a. 2016. plant adaptation to drought stress. f1000research, 5, f1000 faculty rev-1554. bhutia k.l., khanna, v.k., meetei, t.n.g. and bhutia, n.d. 2018. effects of climate change on gr owt h a nd develop ment o f c hilli. agrotechnology7: 180. bija lwan, p.s., meghana, s. and madha vi, n. 2018. assessment of genetic divergence in 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(received on 30.00.2020, revised on 28.05.2021 and accepted on 29.05.2021) venuprasad, r., shashidhar, h. e., hittalmani, s. a nd h ema ma lini, g. s . 2 0 0 2 . ta gging quantitative trait loci associated with grain yield and root morphological traits in rice (oryza sativa l.) under contrasting moisture regimes. euphytica 128: 293–300. wasson, a., richards, r., chatrath, r., misra, s., prasad, s. s., rebetzke, g., kirkegaard, j., christopher, j. and watt, m. 2012.traits and selection strategies to improve root systems and wa ter uptake in wa ter-limited wheat crops. j. exp. bot., 63:3485–3498. weston, l. a. 198 8. e ffect of fla t cell siz e, transplant age, and production site on growth and yield of pepper transplants. hort. sci.23: 709-711. z a ka r ia , n . i . , i s ma il, m . r . , awa ng, y. , edaroyati, p., wahab, m and berahim, z. 2020. effect of root restriction on the growth, p hot os ynt hes is r a t e, s ou r c e a nd s ink relationship of chilli (capsicum annuum l.) grown in soilless culture. biomed research international. v: 2020, 14p. raviteja et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 261-270, 2021 00 contents.pdf 15 lakshman.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf studies on macronutrient fertilization in pomegranate under sub-tropical plains p.p.s. gill, m. kumar, n.p. singh and w.s. dhillon1 department of fruit science punjab agricultural university, ludhiana-141004, india e-mail: parmpalgill@pau.edu abstract an investigation was carried out to study the influence of different levels of npk fertilizers on plant growth, fruit yield and quality, and leaf npk content in pomegranate cv. kandhari under sub-tropical conditions. graded doses of nitrogen (0-300g/plant), phosphorus (0-150g/plant) and potassium (0-300g/plant) fertilizers were applied through soil, in addition to a basal dose of fym. control plants were fed fym only. maximum increase in plant growth and fruit yield was recorded in plants receiving npk @ 300:50:100g/plant, while control plants registered least growth and yield. potassium levels improved fruit weight over the control. higher dose of potassium also improved fruit colour and enhanced peel thickness and grain weight. maximum tss:acid ratio was seen with npk @ 200:50:100g/plant. reducing sugars were not affected by any treatment. leaf n, p and k content increased with application of the respective nutrient. key words: pomegranate, macronutrients, growth, yield, quality, leaf analysis 1punjab horticultural post harvest technology centre, ludhiana, india introduction pomegranate (punica granatum l.) is one of the important fruits exported from india. in north-western plains, it is primarily grown as a backyard plant. commercial plantations are limited in number. to boost cultivation its management practices need to be refined and mineral nutrition influences yield and quality of the fruits most. under sub-tropical conditions, pomegranate bears heavily which can exhaust the plant and essential elements in soil needed for proper growth and development. a regular supply of these nutrients needs to be ensured for sustainable production. earlier studies revealed that application of balanced fertilizers improved growth, yield and quality pomegranate (kumar and dhandar 1996 and dhanumjaya and subramanyam, 2009). hence, application of optimum dose of fertilizer is a prime necessity for obtaining higher yields in pomegranate. in view of importance of mineral nutrition in growth and development in pomegranate, an attempt was made to ascertain the requirement of macronutrients in pomegranate grown under sub-tropical plains. material and methods fertilizer application was imposed on seven year old pomegranate cv. kandhari plants spaced at 4x4m distance at new orchard, department of fruit science, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during the year 2010. soil in the experimental plot was alluvial, with sandy-loam texture at ph 7.7, ec 0.092 dsm-1, organic carbon 0.51% and available p 17.3kg/ha and k 205.4kg/ha. single-nutrient application was chosen to conduct this experiment. plants were applied with graded doses of n (0-300g/plant), p2o5 (0-150g/plant) and k2o (0-300g/plant) in the form of urea, single super phosphate and muriate of potash, respectively. half dose of n and full dose of p2o5 and k2o was applied during february, and the remaining half of n dose was applied after fruit-set. when applying a particular nutrient, level of the other two nutrients was kept constant. all the plants (including control) were supplied with fym @ 20kg/plant in december. eleven treatment combinations (table 1) were replicated thrice in randomized block design. for growth traits, plant height and spread were recorded before application of fertilizer during the dormant period. increase in annual growth was calculated by noting observations the following dormant season. fruit weight and fruit yield were recorded in each tree at harvest. fruit colour was rated visually on a scale of 110 by a panel of five judges. peel thickness was estimated by digital vernier callipers (mitutoyo, japan). juice was extracted from grains by sieving through a muslin cloth and juice percentage was calculated on the basis of total fruit weight. for elemental analysis, leaf sampling was done as per bhargava j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):172-175, 2013 173 macronutrient fertilization in pomegranate and chadha (1988). leaf nitrogen was estimated by kjeldahl method, using kel plus system (pelican equipments, india); phosphorus by vanadomolybdo phosphoric yellow colour method, and potassium by flame photometer method. data were analyzed as per standard statistical procedures described by singh et al (1998). results and discussion effect of various npk combinations on plant height and plant spread are presented in table 2. significant increase in plant height was recorded in all fertilizer treatments compared to control, except, in plants under t1 treatment (npk: 0:50:100g/plant). maximum increase in plant height (55.0cm) was recorded in t3 (npk: 300:50:100g/ plant) where highest dose of n and low levels of p and k were applied. data further showed that higher dose each of n, p and k nutrients resulted in increased plant height. nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (being major essential nutrients for plant growth and development) may have resulted in enhanced growth with increased levels of the nutrients. similar findings were earlier reported by dhanumjaya and subramanyam (2009) also in pomegranate. likewise, plant spread in both north-south and east-west directions increased significantly with various n, p and k applications compared to control. maximum increase in plant spread in north-south and east-west directions (0.67m ew and 0.64m n-s) was recorded in t3 (npk 300:50:100g/ plant) and minimum spread (0.41m e-w and 0.43m n-s) in control trees. similarly, phosphorus at all levels significantly increased plant spread in both directions compared to control. among k levels, plant spread increased up to 200g/ plant, and then decreased with increasing levels. these findings are in agreement with chougule (1976) also in pomegranate. fruit yield (table 2) increased linearly with higher levels of nitrogen, and maximum fruit yield (21.74kg/ plant) was registered in t3 (npk: 300:50:100g/plant), followed by t2 (20.69kg/ plant). medium levels of phosphorus and potash recorded better fruit yield over lower or higher levels of these nutrients. minimum fruit yield was observed in t11, where no fertilizer was applied. increase in yield with n and k application has also been reported by bewoor et al (1990) in pomegranate cv. jyoti. data presented in table 3 shows that different combinations of npk increased fruit weight in pomegranate over control. maximum fruit weight (270.65g) was recorded in t9 (npk 100:50:300g/plant) which was statistically at par with t2 (npk 200:50:100g/plant) and t8 (npk 100:50:200g/ plant). minimum fruit weight (221.44g) was obtained in control plants. nitrogen application also helped increase fruit weight and maximum fruit weight was observed when 200g n/plant was applied, but further increase in n levels did not cause increased fruit weight. increased fruit size with potassium application was also reported by dutta and banik (2007) in guava. fruit colour score too was significantly affected by various npk combinations (table 3). data show that highest dose of k (300g/plant) produced superior colored fruits (score of 7.48), followed by application of k @ 200g/plant. improvement in colour with k fertilization could be due to increased carbohydrate accumulation by the fruit (fisher and kwong, 1961). minimum colour rating of 5.83 was observed in fruits under t3 (npk: 300:50:100g/plant), where the highest dose of nitrogen was applied. peel thickness was affected significantly by various npk combinations (table 3). maximum peel thickness (3.5mm) was registered with the highest dose of k (300g/plant). phosphorus doses reduced table 2. effect of various npk combinations on growth and fruit yield in pomegranate cv. kandhari treatment increase increase in plant fruit in plant spread (m) yield height north-south east-west (kg/plant) (cm) t1-n 0p50k100 24.8 0.49 0.47 15.81 t2-n 200p50k100 49.3 0.63 0.60 20.69 t3-n 300p50k100 55.1 0.67 0.64 21.74 t4-p0n100k100 24.8 0.47 0.46 15.40 t5-p 100n100k 100 30.1 0.51 0.53 18.11 t6-p 150n100k 100 35.7 0.55 0.56 17.74 t7-k0n100p50 35.7 0.50 0.51 15.68 t8-k 200n100p50 43.3 0.58 0.58 20.47 t9-k 300n100p50 49.2 0.52 0.54 19.86 t10-n 100p50k 100 32.7 0.56 0.55 17.68 t11-n0p0k0 22.4 0.41 0.43 14.60 (control) cd (p=0.05) 5.07 0.04 0.03 1.01 table 1. treatment details s. no. npk composition (g/plant) t 1 n 0p50k 100 t 2 n 200p50k 100 t 3 n 300p50k 100 t 4 p0n 100k 100 t 5 p 100n 100k 100 t 6 p 150n 100k 100 t 7 k 0n 100p50 t 8 k 200n 100p50 t 9 k 300n 100p50 t 1 0 n 100p50k 100 t 1 1 n0p0k0 (control) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):172-175, 2013 174 peel thickness; minimum peel thickness (2.89mm) was observed in plants supplied with npk @ 100:100:100g. maximum 100 grain weight was seen in npk: 100:50:300g/ plant (31.70g). where higher dose of k (300g/plant) was applied, it was significantly higher than in all other treatments. minimum weight of 100 grains was recorded in plants that received no npk dose. in general, grain weight increased with increasing levels of n, p and k. present findings are in agreement with prasad and mali (2000) who observed seed weight to increase appreciably with increasing dose of nitrogen. various npk combinations had a significant effect on fruit juice percentage. maximum juice percentage (37.95) was seen in t8 (npk 100:50:200 g/plant) and it was statistically at par with the juice content of fruits under t3 (npk: 300:50:100g/plant) and t2 (npk: 200:50:100g/plant) treatments. minimum juice percentage (32.11) was observed in fruits under control. fruit juice percentage increased in linearly as level of nitrogen increased upto 300g/plant. these results are in line with those of bose et al (1988) and sen and chauhan (1983) who reported an increase in nitrogen rate resulting in greater absorption of water and minerals from the soil, resulting in increased juice percent in pomegranate. among various p levels, no significant difference in juice content was observed. npk fertilizer combinations had a varied effect on tss:acid ratio in pomegranate. highest tss/acid ratio was recorded in t2 (npk: 200:50:100g/plant), and minimum in t1 treatment (npk 100:50:100g/plant). similarly, all phosphorus and potassium applications improved tss:acid ratio compared to control. similar results have been reported by arora et al (2012). reducing-sugar content was not significantly influenced by treatments (table 3). however, maximum content of reducing sugars (9.22%) was recorded in t2 (npk 200:50:100g/plant), whereas, lowest value of 8.11% was found in the control. it is evident from data presented in table 4 that different fertilizer combinations significantly influenced leaf n, p and k content. nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content of leaves showed an increasing trend with increasing levels of the respective nutrient. our study showed that foliar npk status of trees supplied with different doses of n, p and k fell within the optimum range (n: 0.44-2.54, p: 0.100.26 & k: 0.20-2.37%) of high-yielding plants as suggested by raghupati and bhargava (1998) in pomegranate. significantly higher leaf nitrogen content (2.23%) was recorded in t3 treatment which had the highest dose of n (300g/plant) and was statistically at par with t2, t4 and t7 treatments. leaf nitrogen content was minimum (1.88%) in t1 where no n was applied. increased rate of nitrogen fertilization was associated with increased nitrogen table 3. effect of varioius npk combinations on fruit quality in pomegranate cv. kandhari treatment fruit fruit colour peel weight of fruit tss/ acid reducing weight (max. 10) thickness 100 grains juice ratio sugars (g) (mm) (g) (%) (%) t1 – n0p50k100 232.19 7.04 3.14 25.53 33.27 (35.21) 19.9 8.39 (16.82) t2 – n200p50k100 265.33 6.48 3.33 27.19 36.53 (37.17) 23.4 9.22 (17.67) t3 – n300p50k100 259.15 5.83 3.27 28.25 37.00 (37.45) 21.2 9.12 (17.57) t4 – p0n100 k100 229.53 6.71 3.16 28.00 34.30 (35.83) 20.3 8.12 (16.53) t5 – p100n100k100 237.46 7.08 2.89 23.58 34.67 (34.06) 21.8 8.58 (17.02) t6 – p150n100k100 236.61 7.10 2.84 29.90 34.70 (36.08) 21.3 8.33 (16.74) t7 – k0n100p50 226.27 6.67 3.26 27.82 32.77 (34.90) 19.8 8.22 (16.64) t8 – k200 n100p50 265.19 7.13 3.32 29.33 37.95 (38.02) 22.0 8.43 (16.86) t9 – k300 n100p50 270.65 7.48 3.50 31.70 36.32 (37.04) 22.9 8.37 (16.79) t10 –n 100p50k100 259.38 6.93 3.37 26.58 34.60 (36.01) 21.1 8.75 (17.19) t11 – n0p0k0 (control) 221.44 6.91 3.04 23.30 32.11 (34.50) 20.0 8.11 (16.53) cd (p=0.05) 18.42 0.47 0.19 0.91 0.97 0.72 ns figures in parentheses indicate arcsine transformed values of percentages; ns = non-significant table 4. effect of various npk combinations on macronutrient content in leaves of pomegranate cv. kandhari treatment leaf n(%) leaf p(%) leaf k(%) t1 – n0p50k100 1.88 (7.88) 0.13 (2.08) 1.63 (7.33) t2 – n200p50k100 2.18 (8.49) 0.12 (2.02) 1.58 (7.22) t3 – n300p50k100 2.23 (8.58) 0.12 (1.99) 1.56 (7.17) t4 – p0n100 k100 2.17 (8.47) 0.09 (1.73) 1.62 (7.31) t5 – p100n100k100 2.11 (8.35) 0.15 (2.20) 1.60 (7.26) t6 – p150n100k100 2.10 (8.33) 0.15 (2.24) 1.57 (7.20) t7 – k0n100p50 2.16 (8.45) 0.12 (1.97) 1.43 (6.87) t8 – k200 n100p50 2.12 (8.37) 0.12 (2.01) 1.63 (7.33) t9 – k300 n100p50 2.00 (8.13) 0.10 (1.83) 1.70 (7.49) t10 –n100p50k100 2.15 (8.43) 0.14 (2.14) 1.62 (7.31) t11 – n0p0k0 (control) 1.91 (7.94) 0.10 (1.83) 1.49 (7.01) cd (p=0.05) 0.123 0.085 0.095 figures in parentheses indicate arcsine transformed values of percentages gill et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):172-175, 2013 175 accumulation as might be expected, while, leaf phosphorus and potassium levels decreased. similarly, leaf p content ranged from 0.09% (t4) to 0.15% (t5 & t6), while, minimum leaf p content was recorded in npk 100:50:200g/ plant combination. leaf k content significantly improved from 1.43% (npk 100:50:0g/plant) to 1.70% (npk 100:50:300g/plant). high n application seemed to have a negative effect on leaf k content. leaf composition of 2.23% n, 0.12% p and 1.56% k was associated with highest fruit yield. references arora, n.k., gill, m.i.s. and navjot, 2012. influence of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers on yield and quality of grapes cv. perlette. hortflora res. spectrum, 1:17-23 bewoor, b.t.n., hulamani, n.c. and sulikeri, g.s. 1990. effect of n and k nutrition on reproductive characters of pomegranate cv. jyoti. punjab hort. j., 30:145149 bhargava, b.s. and chadha, k.l. 1988. leaf nutrient guide for fruit and plantation crops. fert. news, 33:21-29 bose, t.k., mitra, s.k. and sadhu, m.k. 1988. pomegranate. in: mineral nutrition of fruit crops. noya prokash, 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29:186187 raghupati, h.b. and bhargava, b.s. 1998. diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in pomegranate by diagnosis and recommendation integrated system and compositional nutrient diagnosis. commun. soil sci. plant annal., 29:2881-2892 sen, n.l. and chauhan, k.s. 1983. effect of different fertilizers on physio-chemical characters of pomegranate. punjab hort. j., 23:59-63 singh, s., bansal, m.l., singh, t.p. and kumar, r. 1998. statistical methods for research workers. kalyani publishers, new delhi, pp. 310-317 (ms received 30 august 2012, revised 04 september 2013, accepted 11 september 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):172-175, 2013 macronutrient fertilization in pomegranate effect of pre harvest foliar spray of growth regulators on pre and post harvest parameters in ornamental sunflower genotype m-17r kirtimala b. naik*, s. k. nataraj, y. g. shadakshari, d. p. kumar, g. k. seetharamu and k. v.jayaprasad college of horticulture, gkvk, campus, university of horticultural, sciences, bagalkot-587104. *e-mail: kirtiflori@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of pre harvest foliar application of growth regulators on the pre and post harvest flower quality in ornamental sunflower during the year 2012-13, at college of horticulture, gkvk campus, uhs, bagalkot. at 60 das highest plant height was with ga3 @ 150 ppm (154.73 cm) followed by ga3 @ 200 ppm (146.20 cm) and ga3 @ 250 ppm (145.53 cm). sodium silicate @ 250 ppm (4508.77 cm2) registered maximum plant spread at 60 das. foliar application of ga3 @ 150 ppm (25.00) produced highest number of leaves which was at par with sodium silicate @ 250 ppm, ga3 @ 200 ppm and ga3 @ 250 ppm recording 24.87, 24.80 and 24.67 leaves respectively. calcium sulphate @ 200 ppm registered highest leaf area of (4930.30 cm2) which was at par with sodium silicate @ 250 ppm, calcium sulphate @ 300 ppm, chlormequat chloride @ 500 ppm, sodium silicate @ 350 ppm, and chlormequat chloride @ 1000 ppm with 4792.64, 4735.04, 4721.75, 4503.05 and 4430.02 cm2 respectively. key words : ornamental sunflower, growth regulators, quality parameters, vase life original research paper introduction sunflower (helianthus annuus l.) is native to north america and belongs to the family compositae. the term helianthus comes from the greek word ‘helios’ meaning sun and ‘anthos’ meaning flower. historically sunflower was first used as a garden plant, then as a flowering pot plant and more recently as a specialty cut flower. specialty cut flowers can be defined as crops other than roses, carnations and chrysanthemums or other flowers that are present in the market only at a special time of the year. the type of flowers grown for the specialty cut flower market are usually field grown flowers with poor shipping characteristics. several positive and precise results were obtained in the past by the growth regulating chemicals on various flowering annuals. growth regulators have been found useful in overcoming the factors limiting the yield and quality of flowering annuals like marigold, china aster and daisy (patil, 1998). the response exhibited by plants to growth regulators vary with the species, varieties and on the concentration of the chemical used. an attempt was made to study the effect of growth regulators on the pre and post harvest quality parameters of ornamental sunflonwer. the results pertaining to the effect of growth regulators on the pre and post harvest characters of ornamental sunflower genotype m-17r are discussed below. material and methods an experiment was conducted to study the effect of pre harvest foliar application of growth regulators on the pre and post harvest flower quality in ornamental sunflower. the entire experimental area was divided into plots measuring 6.72 sq.mts each, with 4 rows of 10 plants per row. foliar application of different chemicals on leaves was taken up three times at 15 days, 30 days and 45 days after sowing. design followed was rcbd adopting fisher’s method of analysis of variance technique as given by panse and sukhatamane (2002) by using sas package v9-3 available at statistical cell, iihr with three replications and sixteen treatments. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 48-53, 2018 48 49 naik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 48-53, 2018 treatments: t1: gibberellic acid (ga3)@ 150 ppm t10: calcium sulphate (caso4) @ 200 ppm t2: gibberellic acid (ga3)@ 200 ppm t11: calcium sulphate (caso4) @ 300 ppm t3: gibberellic acid (ga3)@ 250 ppm t12: calcium sulphate (caso4) @ 400 ppm t4: benzyl adenine (ba) @ 400 ppm t13: chlormequat chloride (ccc) @ 500 ppm t5: benzyl adenine (ba) @ 500 ppm t14: chlormequat chloride (ccc) @ 1000 ppm t6: benzyl adenine (ba) @ 600 ppm t15: chlormequat chloride (ccc) @ 1500 ppm t7: sodium silicate (nasio3) @ 250 ppm t16: control (no spray) t8: sodium silicate (nasio3) @ 350 ppm t9: sodium silicate (nasio3) @ 450 ppm results and discussion vegetative parameters at 60 das highest plant height was with ga3 @ 150 ppm (154.73 cm) followed by ga3 @ 200 ppm (146.20 cm) and ga3 @ 250 ppm (145.53 cm). while it was minimum with t15 chlormequat chloride @ 1500 ppm (105 cm) and t10 calcium sulphate @ 200 ppm (106.33 cm). it may be because though growth is under genetic control, environmental factors also influence it simultaneously. hence, application of growth regulators play significant role in modifying growth of plants. similar result with regard to ga3 to promote maximum plant height was reported by syamal et al. (1990) leshem (1992); herrera and benedetto (1992), dutta et al. (1993); kamenidou (2005), spitzer et al. (2011) a nd dor a jir a o (2010).sodium silicate @ 250 ppm (4508.77 cm2) registered maximum plant spread at 60 das, followed by chlormequat chloride @ 500 ppm (4209.49 cm2).silicon spray was earlier reported by wroblewska and debicz (2011) to incr ease pla nt sprea d in ornamental plants by stimulating synthates. foliar application of ga3 @ 150 ppm (25.00) produced highest number of leaves which was at par with sodium silicate @ 250 ppm, ga3 @ 200 ppm and ga3 @ 250 ppm recording 24.87, 24.80 and 24.67 leaves respectively. calcium sulphate @ 200 ppm registered highest leaf area of (4930.30 cm2) which was at par with sodium silicate @ 250 ppm, calcium sulphate @ 300 ppm, chlormequat chloride @ 500 ppm, sodium silicate @ 350 ppm, and chlormequat chloride @ 1000 ppm with 4792.64, 4735.04, 4721.75, 4503.05 and 4430.02 cm2 respectively. the activity of sodium silicate may be attributed to its ability to reinforce cell wall and maintaining water status in plants and adequate supply of nutrients as reported by wroblewska and debicz (2011). positive activity of calcium sulphate for growth was also reported by parmeshwar (2010) in sunflower. chlormequat chloride is reported to enhance availability of carbohydrates during growth and development of plant. lokhande et al. (2008); kamenidou et al. (2008) also reported that depending on the source and concentration of silicon supplied, several horticultural traits were improved in greenhouse produced sunflower (table 1). flower quality parameters foliar application of gibberellic acid (ga3)@ 150ppm favoured longest flower stalk length (35.93 cm) followed by ga3@ 200 ppm (35.53 cm). increase in stalk length may be due to increase in cell division and cell elongation. similar results were reported by kore et al. (2003) with ga3 @ 200 ppm in china aster and parmeshwar (2010) with ga3 @ 150 ppm in sunflower. increased flower stalk girth was observed with the foliar application of chlormequat chloride @ 1500 ppm recording 0.46 cm which was at par with sodium silicate @ 250 ppm and calcium sulphate @ 200 ppm (0.44 and 0.43 cm respectively). it might be attributed to the increase in photosynthetic activity and accumulation of more carbohydrates in the flower stalk and enhanced varietal response to application of certain growth regulators. similar results with relation to silicate application were earlier reported by chikkur (2010) in rose and kameniduo et al. (2010) by nasio3 foliar spray in sunflower (table 2). sodium silicate @ 250 ppm significantly increased the flower head diameter (11.37 cm) and was at par with chlormequat chloride @ 1500 ppm, calcium sulphate @ 300ppm, chlormequat chloride @ 1000 ppm and sodium silicate @ 450 ppm recording 11.27, 11.18, 11.11 and 11.06 cm respectively. smallest flower head diameter was observed with the foliar application of ga3@ 200 ppm (6.96 cm) and ga3@ 50 ta bl e 1. v eg et at iv e pa ra m et er s as i nf lu en ce d by a pp lic at io n of d iff er en t gr ow th r eg ul at or s in g en ot yp e m -1 7r sl .n o. pl an t h ei gh t ( cm ) pl an t sp re ad ( cm 2 ) n um be r of le av es l ea f a re a (c m 2 ) d a s d a s d a s d a s 30 45 60 30 45 60 30 45 60 30 45 60 g ib be re lli c ac id ( g a 3) @ 5 0 pp m ( t 1) 33 .0 9 10 5. 00 15 4. 73 18 7. 17 15 60 .2 1 20 87 .4 0 12 .4 0 21 .3 3 25 .0 0 37 0. 60 11 37 .4 4 15 72 .0 0 g ib be re lli c ac id ( g a 3) @ 2 00 p pm ( t 2) 29 .6 0 10 4. 13 14 6. 20 27 0. 51 11 68 .8 0 19 77 .8 6 11 .9 3 21 .1 3 24 .8 0 33 1. 07 11 91 .7 3 16 59 .2 0 g ib be re lli c ac id ( g a 3) @ 2 50 p pm ( t 3) 28 .4 7 97 .4 0 14 5. 53 39 2. 52 20 69 .5 3 28 16 .6 7 11 .3 3 19 .7 3 24 .6 7 38 5. 00 14 86 .3 9 18 06 .1 5 b en zy l ad en in e (b a ) @ 4 00 p pm (t 4) 17 .3 3 55 .8 3 10 8. 67 44 3. 07 18 57 .2 0 29 09 .1 9 6. 87 15 .0 0 19 .0 7 31 9. 00 12 73 .3 2 16 44 .3 7 b en zy l ad en in e (b a ) @ 5 00 p pm (t 5) 16 .4 7 60 .5 3 11 0. 73 40 7. 87 23 55 .8 3 33 65 .3 9 7. 60 14 .4 7 21 .6 7 33 9. 33 16 28 .3 0 23 19 .7 0 b en zy l ad en in e (b a ) @ 6 00 p pm ( t 6) 16 .2 7 55 .0 0 11 6. 33 45 2. 51 20 29 .6 0 25 26 .3 7 10 .4 0 17 .4 7 21 .0 7 35 1. 60 20 39 .4 4 33 62 .1 9 so di um s ili ca te ( n as io 3) @ 2 50 p pm ( t 7) 18 .9 3 73 .6 6 11 2. 27 49 3. 68 28 96 .3 1 45 08 .7 7 12 .2 7 21 .2 7 24 .8 7 48 0. 60 38 00 .1 9 47 92 .6 4 so di um s ili ca te ( n as io 3) @ 3 50 p pm ( t 8) 22 .4 7 60 .5 3 11 0. 00 42 6. 80 18 42 .1 5 27 72 .7 2 12 .1 7 20 .6 7 24 .7 3 48 2. 47 33 37 .7 8 45 03 .0 5 so di um s ili ca te ( n as io 3) @ 4 50 p pm ( t 9) 22 .3 3 56 .4 0 11 5. 33 49 1. 16 18 38 .1 1 24 39 .6 8 8. 40 17 .6 0 21 .7 3 45 6. 93 23 42 .8 3 43 77 .9 1 c al ci um s ul ph at e @ 2 00 p pm ( t 10 ) 19 .8 0 54 .6 3 10 6. 33 27 0. 32 17 34 .5 2 22 10 .4 0 8. 67 17 .3 3 23 .4 7 46 7. 27 23 13 .3 0 49 30 .3 0 c al ci um s ul ph at e @ 3 00 p pm ( t 11 ) 22 .5 1 63 .4 7 11 3. 07 48 5. 24 19 35 .9 5 26 59 .1 1 9. 07 19 .0 0 23 .9 3 45 9. 00 22 38 .5 5 47 35 .0 4 c al ci um s ul ph at e @ 4 00 p pm ( t 12 ) 21 .8 2 61 .3 5 12 3. 40 48 5. 60 20 59 .3 2 24 95 .7 7 9. 53 18 .5 3 23 .2 0 43 5. 40 23 07 .8 4 40 83 .7 7 c hl or m eq ua tc hl or id e (c c c ) @ 5 00 p pm ( t 13 ) 22 .4 0 62 .4 9 12 5. 87 40 2. 6 28 36 .3 9 42 09 .4 9 8. 47 19 .1 3 23 .6 7 48 0. 80 31 71 .2 7 47 21 .7 5 c hl or m eq ua t ch lo rid e (c c c ) @ 1 00 0 pp m ( t 14 ) 20 .5 3 60 .3 2 13 0. 53 43 1. 9 16 39 .1 9 24 55 .9 3 9. 07 17 .2 7 22 .6 7 37 8. 13 27 54 .2 7 44 30 .0 2 c hl or m eq ua t ch lo rid e (c c c ) @ 1 50 0 pp m ( t 15 ) 22 .4 0 54 .5 1 10 5. 00 34 5. 6 26 36 .4 8 39 74 .0 3 8. 93 17 .9 3 20 .0 0 43 2. 40 20 63 .8 1 40 72 .6 1 c on tr ol ( n o sp ra y) ( t 16 ) 15 .0 7 61 .0 0 12 0. 13 41 1. 6 24 49 .0 9 30 85 .1 3 9. 60 18 .5 3 22 .5 3 42 8. 20 16 35 .1 5 38 07 .5 5 m ea n 21 .8 4 67 .8 9 12 1. 51 39 9. 9 20 56 .7 9 29 05 .8 7 9. 79 18 .5 3 22 .9 4 41 2. 36 21 70 .1 0 35 51 .1 4 se m 0. 39 0. 64 0. 54 18 .0 4 73 .1 3 69 .7 5 0. 17 0. 30 0. 23 5. 54 64 .6 7 17 9. 86 c d (p = 0. 05 ) 1. 14 1. 84 1. 56 52 .1 0 21 1. 21 20 1. 45 0. 50 0. 86 0. 67 16 .0 0 18 6. 77 51 9. 48 c v % 3. 13 1. 62 0. 77 7. 81 6. 16 4. 16 3. 06 2. 77 1. 76 2. 33 5. 16 8. 77 ft es t * * * * * * * * * * * * * s ig ni fic an t a t p = 0 .0 5 n s n on s ig ni fic an t a t p = 0 .0 5 effect of growth regulators in ornamental sun flower j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 48-53, 2018 51 naik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 48-53, 2018 150 ppm (7.19 cm). flower disc diameter increased with the foliar application of chlormequat chloride @ 1500ppm (4.47) which was at par with chlormequat chloride @ 1000 ppm, sodium silicate @ 250 ppm and calcium sulphate @ 200 ppm recording 4.32, 4.11 and 4.00 cm respectively. smallest flower disc diameter was produced with the foliar application of ga3 @ 250 ppm and ga3 @ 150 ppm (1.80 and 1.89 cm respectively). flower head diameter in sunflower ranging from 8-15 cm is considered ideal for florist according to sloan and harkness (2006). with the application of growth regulators there is a decrease in apical dominance leading to the development of side buds by diver ting ca r bohydr a tes for flower development. similar results wer e repor ted by lokhande et al. (2008), muhammad et al. (1997), katkar et al. (2003) and kamenidou (2005) by application of various growth regulators (table 2). total number of flower heads per plant was highest with the foliar application of sodium silicate @ 250 ppm (24.93) followed by sodium silicate @ 350 ppm, chlormequat chloride @ 1500 ppm and chlormequat chloride @ 1000 ppm (22.53, 22.40 and 22.13). foliar spray of sodium silicate @ 250 ppm (20.80) followed by sodium silicate @ 350 ppm (19.67) produced more number of marketable flower heads per plant. total number of marketable flowers per hectare increased with the foliar application of sodium silicate @ 250 ppm (11.55) lakh flowers ha-1 followed by sodium silicate @ 350 ppm (10.93) lakh flowers ha-1. it may be because sodium silicate application increased the parameters such as stalk girth, flower diameter and number of petals per flower. similar results with application of silicon were reported by chikkur, 2010 in rose (table 2). while, post harvest cumulative water uptake was highest in the flowers harvested from plants with foliar application of sodium silicate @ 250 ppm, ba @ 600 ppm and ga3 @ 150 ppm recording 40.80, 39.20 and 38.23 g respectively. cumulative water loss was induced in the flowers harvested from plants with foliar application of ga3@ 250 ppm (42.63 g) followed by sodium silicate @ 450ppm, ga3 150ppm and calcium sulphate @ 200 ppm recording 41.40, 41.23 and 40.27 g respectively. while lowest cumulative water loss was observed with foliar application of ba @ 400 ppm and chlormequat chloride @ 1000 ppm recording 34.03 and 34.43 g respectively. similar results with application of ga3 were reported by michalczuk et al. (1989) and torre et al. (1999) in rose and parmeshwar (2010) in sunflower (table 2). sodium silicate @ 250 ppm increased the post harvest vase life of cut flowers (5.90) and was at par with sodium silicate @350 ppm, chlormequat chloride @ 1500ppm and chlormequat chloride @ 1000 ppm recording 5.70, 5.67 and 5.53 days respectively. vase life was enhanced by 2.10 days in comparison to control. this may be because of the contribution of sodium silicate and with respect to pre harvest floral parameters which in turn contributed to maximize post harvest vase life of the cut flowers. similar results were also reported by srikanth (2011) in china aster and parmeshwar (2010) in sunflower (table 2). 52 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 48-53, 2018 ta bl e 2 . fl ow er q ua lit y, y ie ld a nd p os t ha rv es t pa ra m et er s as in flu en ce d by t he a pp lic at io n of d if fe re nt g ro w th r eg ul at or s in g en ot yp e m -1 7r fl ow er fl ow er fl ow er fl ow er n um be r of n um be r of n um be r of n um be r of sl . st al k st al k he ad di sc ra y fl or et s fl ow er m ar ke ta bl e m ar ke ta bl e c w u c w l v as e lif e n o. le ng th gi rt h di am et er di am et er pe r he ad s pe r flo w er h ea ds flo w er h ea ds (g ) (g ) (d ay s) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) fl ow er pl an t p er p la nt (la kh s ha -1 ) t 1 35 .9 3 0. 35 7. 19 1. 89 21 .4 0 15 .0 0 7. 40 4. 11 38 .2 3 41 .2 3 5. 20 t 2 35 .5 3 0. 31 6. 96 1. 97 19 .6 7 11 .6 7 7. 67 4. 25 35 .0 5 39 .1 0 5. 13 t 3 20 .3 3 0. 31 8. 63 1. 80 24 .3 3 14 .4 0 10 .0 7 5. 59 35 .3 3 42 .6 3 5. 13 t 4 31 .3 3 0. 41 9. 43 3. 79 33 .1 3 21 .0 0 14 .9 0 8. 27 32 .3 7 34 .0 3 4. 53 t 5 22 .2 0 0. 39 10 .3 5 3. 51 33 .4 0 20 .0 0 15 .3 3 8. 51 35 .6 0 35 .9 3 3. 80 t 6 27 .3 3 0. 35 9. 29 3. 86 33 .3 3 18 .4 7 13 .3 3 7. 40 39 .2 0 38 .8 7 4. 33 t 7 26 .2 7 0. 44 11 .3 7 4. 11 34 .9 3 24 .9 3 20 .8 0 11 .5 5 40 .8 0 35 .5 3 5. 90 t 8 23 .2 0 0. 39 10 .6 2 3. 61 34 .6 7 22 .5 3 19 .6 7 10 .9 2 36 .8 0 39 .3 7 5. 13 t 9 23 .8 0 0. 37 11 .0 6 3. 75 33 .2 7 15 .4 0 13 .8 7 7. 70 37 .3 3 42 .4 0 4. 87 t 10 25 .7 3 0. 43 10 .4 1 4. 00 34 .3 3 20 .9 3 16 .7 3 9. 29 37 .4 0 40 .2 7 4. 80 t 11 21 .7 3 0. 34 11 .1 8 3. 49 33 .5 3 20 .0 0 16 .6 7 9. 26 37 .0 7 35 .8 7 4. 40 t 12 18 .8 7 0. 33 10 .0 5 3. 36 33 .2 7 18 .2 7 16 .3 3 9. 07 34 .1 0 36 .6 7 4. 60 t 13 24 .0 0 0. 37 11 .0 2 3. 44 33 .2 3 20 .6 0 17 .0 0 9. 44 33 .0 7 37 .1 0 5. 07 t 14 27 .5 0 0. 41 11 .1 1 4. 32 33 .9 3 22 .1 3 17 .5 3 9. 74 31 .0 7 34 .4 3 5. 53 t 15 27 .8 1 0. 46 11 .2 7 4. 47 34 .1 3 22 .4 0 17 .6 7 9. 81 32 .2 7 35 .1 0 5. 67 t 16 30 .0 4 0. 34 10 .4 6 3. 86 33 .4 0 21 .9 8 14 .7 7 8. 20 31 .6 7 35 .1 3 3. 60 m ea n 26 .3 5 0. 37 10 .0 2 3. 45 31 .5 0 19 .3 6 14 .9 8 8. 27 35 .4 6 37 .7 3 4. 86 se m 0. 25 0. 01 0. 11 0. 05 0. 65 0. 64 0. 56 0. 28 1. 09 0. 29 0. 18 c d (p = 0. 05 ) 0. 72 0. 03 0. 31 0. 16 1. 88 1. 85 1. 62 0. 83 3. 15 0. 83 0. 53 c v % 1. 65 4. 07 1. 87 2. 73 3. 59 5. 73 6. 47 5. 99 5. 32 1. 32 6. 55 ft es t * * * * * * * * * * * * si gn ifi ca nt a t p = 0. 05 n s n on s ig ni fic an t at p = 0 .0 5 w h er e: t 1: g ib be re lli c ac id ( g a 3) @ 5 0 pp m t 2: g ib be re lli c ac id ( g a 3) @ 2 00 p pm t 3: g ib be re lli c ac id ( g a 3) @ 2 50 p pm t 4: b en zy l ad en in e (b a ) @ 4 00 p pm t 5: b en zy l ad en in e (b a ) @ 5 00 p pm t 6: b en zy l ad en in e (b a ) @ 6 00 p pm t 7: so di um s ili ca te ( n as io 3) @ 2 50 p pm t 8: so di um s ili ca te ( n as io 3) @ 3 50 p pm t 9: so di um s ili ca te ( n as io 3) @ 4 50 p pm t 10 : c al ci um s ul ph at e @ 2 00 p pm t 11 : c al ci um s ul ph at e @ 3 00 p pm t 12 : c al ci um s ul ph at e @ 4 00 p pm t 13 : c hl or m eq ua tc hl or id e (c c c ) @ 5 00 p pm t 14 : c hl or m eq ua t ch lo ri de ( c c c ) @ 1 00 0 pp m t 15 : c hl or m eq ua t ch lo ri de ( c c c ) @ 1 50 0 pp m t 16 : c on tr ol ( n o sp ra y) c w u : c um ul at iv e w at er u pt ak e c w l : c um ul at iv e w at er l os s effect of growth regulators in ornamental sun flower 53 j. hortl. sci. 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promotes longevity and bud opening in cut rose flowers. israel j. bot., 38: 209-215. muhammad a., sharafat, k., shah, a. h. and khalil, s. a., 1997, response of large flowered incurve chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium) to various concentrations of paclobutrazol. sarhad j. agri., 13(2): 117-122. panse, v.s and sukhatamane, p.v., 2002, statistical methods for agriculture workers, icar, new delhi, pp: 152155. parmeshwar, a. s., 2010, evaluation of sunflower (helianthus annuus l. ) ger mpla sm for ornamental cut flower production. msc. thesis univ. agri. sci., bengaluru. patil, v. s., 1998, standardization of production technology in daisy (aster amellus l.). ph.d. thesis. univ. of agric. sci., dharwad. syamal, m., rajput, c. b. s., upadhyay, r. k. and singh, j. n., 1990, effect of ga3 and mh on growth, flowering and seed yield of marigold and china aster. indian j. hort., 47 (4): 439441. spitzer, t., matusinsky, p., klemova, z. and kazda, j., 2011, management of sunflower stand height using growth regulators. plant soil environ. 57(8): 357–363. srikanth, l. g., 2011, influence of growth regulators on growth, flowering and yield of china aster (callistephus chinensis l. nees). m.sc. thesis, univ. agri. sci. bengaluru. torre, s., borochov, a. and halevy, a. h., 1999, calcium regulation of senescence in rose petals. physiol. plant., 107: 214-219. wroblewska, k. and debicz, r., 2011, the effect of silicon application on the development of season ornamental plants. acta agrobotanica, 64 (4): 107-114. naik et al (ms received 10 september 2017, revised 04 april 2018, accepted 25 june 2018) comparative performance of mango varieties grafted on vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock m.s. gawankar, b.r. salvi, s.a. chavan and n.v. dalvi regional fruit research station, vengurle 416 516, india e–mail: gawankarms@yahoo.co.in abstract research on rootstock in mango is very limited in our country. kalapady was reported to be a dwarfing rootstock. recent trend among mango growers is to high density orcharding with dwarfening nature of the varietie. efforts were made at agriculture research station, mulde, to study comparative performance of ratna, alphonso and kesar mango on vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock i.e., heterozygous seedling stock and the effect of rootstock on a scion under high density of 5m x 5m spacing. results indicated that use of vellaikolamban rootstock reduced plant volume in scion cv. alphonso by 39.1%, followed by 24.9% in ratna and 26.5% in cv. kesar. as volume of the canopy was reduced, it directly influenced fruit yield cvs. alphonso and ratna. however, reduction in canopy volume had a positive influence on yield in cv. kesar. net returns of rs.38,629/per ha were maximum for kesar with the rootstock vellaikolamban. key words: mango, ratna, alphosno, kesar, vellaikolamban, mixed rootstock, polyembryonic, dwarfing, volume, yield introduction konkan region of maharashtra is a traditional belt of mango cultivation particularly, cv. alphonso which occupies an area of 1,64,000 ha. though alphonso is the chief commercial variety of the region, cultivars kesar and ratna are gaining popularity with the concept of high density orcharding. however, the weather of the region favours crop viguor. wide variation in performance of the same variety within an orchard using grafts prepared out of heterozygous seedling stocks restricts establishment of high density orchards. rootstock research work in mango is still in its infantly. good work was done on selection criteria for dwarfness, way back in 1985 at iari (bose, 1985). studies conducted at various places indicated that the varieties kalapady (sen, 1939), olur, ambalavi (jauhari et al, 1972), vellaikolamban (singh and singh, 1976) and belkhas and parikhas (mukherjee and das, 1976) have the potential for imparting dwarfness. avilan et al (1996) reported influence of rootstock on fruit size and shape of the grafted cultivars, showing strong scion/rootstock relationship. singh and singh (1976) recorded maximum reduction in height of dashehari scion when grafted to vellaikolamban rootstock. with this in view, the present study was carried out to study comparative performance of ratna, alphonso and kesar mango varieties on vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock, i.e., heterozygous seedling stock, and, to study the effect of rootstock within a scion variety under a high density orchard with a spacing of 5m x 5m. material and methods the present study on comparative performance of different, leading varieties namely alphonso, ratna and kesar grafted onto vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock under high density viz., 5m x 5m spacing was carried out at agriculture research station, mulde, from september, 1992 to may, 2007. the experimental station is located at 16o2’ latitude, 73o42’ longitude and at 17m above msl in konkan region of maharashtra, which is a coastal region with annual rainfall of 3000mm. soils are well drained sandy loam with ph 6.01. treatment combinations are detailed below: t 1 ratna on vellaikolamban t 2 ratna on mixed rootstock (heterozygous seedling stock) t 3 alphonso on vellaikolamban t 4 alphonso on mixed rootstock (heterozygous seedling stock) t 5 kesar on vellaikolamban t 6 kesar on mixed rootstock (heterozygous seedling stock) t 4 trial was laid out in randomized block design with five replications and two plants per replication as a unit. the experimental material was prepared by stone grafting and one year old grafts were planted at 5m x 5m j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 114-116, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 115 table 1. growth and yield of ‘alphonso’, ‘kesar’ and ‘ratna’ mango varieties grafted onto vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock during 2003 2006 and data pooled over the years treatments pooled pooled over the years (m3) pooled % reduction yield (t/ha) pooled % decrease/ mean 2003 2004 2005 2006 over the in volume 2003 2004 2 005 2006 over the increased in height year yield over (m) (m3) mixed rootstock ratna / 3.6 289.0 263.3 270.6 320.7 285.9 24.9 13.4 4.2 2.8 3.1 5.9 (-) 24.4 vellaikolamban ratna / 3.7 360.8 334.6 329.5 498.0 380.8 13.8 5.8 4.4 6.9 7.8 mixed rootstock alphonso / 3.8 306.1 303.1 270.7 414.2 323.5 39.1 5.1 1.7 3.9 1.0 2.9 (-) 21.6 vellaikolamban alphonso / 4.7 582.6 465.4 483.3 593.9 531.3 7.4 2.6 3.8 1.1 3.7 mixed rootstock kesar / 4.6 512.4 397.2 406.1 599.5 478.8 26.5 17.8 8.0 4.5 3.9 8.6 (+) 10.3 vellaikolamban kesar/ 4.6 679.5 569.0 576.0 781.4 651.5 15.7 8.5 3.6 3.2 7.8 mixed rootstock c.v. 8.2 28.1 27.7 28.7 32.0 44.0 35.3 75.2 50.6 se + 0.17 57.3 48.2 50.0 76.5 27.9 2.4 0.8 1.3 0.7 0.8 cd (p=0.05) 0.5 169.0 142.2 147.4 225.7 78.4 7.1 2.4 n. s. 2.1 2.3 performance of mango varieties on different rootstocks spacing during september, 1992. annual growth (height and spread) was recorded in the month of may every year since 1994. however, data on growth and yield from year 2003 to 2006 only have been used here. low spreading branches upto 60cm height above ground and overcrowded branches in the canopy of the tree were chopped by way of light pruning in the year 2004. plant volume was calculated using the following formula: plant volume (m3) = πr2 x h where h = plant height and r = e w + n s spread 4 data on growth and yield attributes were subjected to statistical analysis (panse and sukhatme, 1989). cost of cultivation was calculated using standard cost concepts applied by gorivale et al (1997) and nikam et al (2004). results and discussion growth and yield observations for the years 2003 to 2006 are presented in table 1. it is evident from the data (table 1) that significant difference between treatments was observed for pooled data on plant height, plant volume and yield. grafts of ratna variety on vellaikolamban showed significantly lower plant height (3.6 m) compared to kesar on vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock (4.6 m), alphonso on mixed rootstock (4.7 m) and was on par with alphonso on vellaikolamban, and ratna, on mixed rootstock. effect of rootstock on plant height within a scion variety was significant only in alphonso variety. alphonso grafts on vellaikolamban showed marked reduction in plant height (3.8 m) over the mixed rootstock (4.7 m). singh and singh (1976) recorded maximum reduction in plant height in dashehari grafted on vellaikolamban rootstock. however, rootstock did not show any effect on plant height in kesar variety. data on average plant volume from 2003 to 2006 and pooled data over the years revealed that ratna grafts on vellaikolamban had reduced plant volume compared to that in other treatments. similarly, grafts of all varieties on vellaikolamban rootstock showed reduction in plant volume over the mixed rootstock. data on average plant volume pooled over the years revealed that ratna variety on vellaikolamban had recorded the lowest plant volume (285.9 m3) compared to the grafts on mixed rootstock and other scion varieties, irrespective of the rootstock. maximum plant volume (651.5 m3) was recorded in ‘kesar’ on mixed rootstock. in the present study, reduction in plant volume was observed in cv. alphonso (39.1%), followed by ‘kesar’ (26.5%) and ‘ratna’ (24.9%) when grafted onto vellaikolamban rootstock. these results are in line with earlier results reported by avilan et al (1996), singh and singh (1976) and reddy et al (2003). vellaikolamban rootstock not only important reduced plant volume to the scion variety, but four year pooled yield data revealed that it also reduced the yield by 24.4% in ‘ratna’ and 21.6% in ‘alphonso’ scions. similar effect of vellaikolamban rootstock on yield of dashehari plants was reported by singh and singh (1976), whereas, reddy et al (2003) reported higher yields with the dwarfing vellaikolamban rootstock. however, j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 114-116, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no vellaikolamban rootstock showed beneficial effect on ‘kesar’ variety, where the yield increased by 10.3% over mixed rootstock. per hectare cost of cultivation of different mango varieties grown on vellaikolamban and mixed rootstock is presented in table 2. data reveale that ‘ratna’ variety on mixed rootstock exhibited 1.32 benefit to cost ratio as against 1.06 in ‘ratna’ on vellaikolamban rootstock. cultivation of ‘alphonso’ on vellaikolamban suffered a loss by recording only 0.93 benefit to cost ratio compared to ‘alphonso’ on mixed rootstock (1.15). maximum net returns (rs. 38,629/ -) per hectare were recorded in ‘kesar’ on vellaikolamban, exhibiting b:c ratio of 1.43 as against that on mixed rootstock with, rs. 28,779 and 1.33 b:c ratio. the present study revealed that plant height, plant volume and yield decreased by use of vellaikolamban rootstock in ‘alphonso’ and ‘ratna’ whereas, vellaikolamban rootstock reduced the plant volume of ‘kesar’ variety with increased per hectare yield under high density planting of 5m x 5m. references avilan, l.f., leal, m., rodariguez, j.r. and marin.c, 1996. mango rootstocks and their influence on fruit shape and size. proceedings of the 5th international mango symposium. acta hort., 455:479–488 bose, t.k. 1985. fruits of india: tropical and subtropical, first edition., p 85 gorivale, p.b. gumaste, a.k. and wadkar, s.s. 1997. profitability of alphonso mango in konkan region of maharashtra state. agriculture banker, july-sept., p. 24-26 jauhari, o.s., teaotia, s.s. and upadhyay, s.k, 1972. acta horti., 24:107-109 mukherjee, s.k. and das, d. 1976. screening of mango seedlings for use as dwarfing rootstock. prog. hort., 8:5-11 nikam, v.v., wadkar, s.s., mulik, s.m. and vaidya, k.p. 2004. betelvine cultivation in thana district of maharashtra; ind. j. arecanut, spices & medicinal plants 6:16-20 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1989. stastical methods for agricultural workers. 5th edn., icar, new delhi reddy, y.t.n., kurian, r.m., ramachander, p.r., singh, g. and kohli, r.r. 2003. long term effect of rootstocks on growth and fruit yielding patterns of alphonso mango (mangifera indica l.). sci. hort., 97:95108 sen, p. k. 1939. annual report, fruit research satation, sabour (bihar), india singh, u.r. and singh, a.p. 1976. rootstock studies in mango (mangifera indica l.). prog. hort., 8:1319 table 2. cost of cultivation (rs./ha) of mango varieties on rootstocks particulars r x v r x m a x v a x m k x v k x m hired labour 21,775 21,775 21,775 21,775 21,775 21,775 manures and fertilizers 18,640 18,640 18,640 18,640 18,640 18,640 plant protection 7,000 7,000 7,000 7,000 7,000 7,000 input cost (rs.) 47,415 47,415 47,415 47,415 47,415 47,415 depreciation on implements 500 500 500 500 500 500 and machinery land revenue & other cesses 50 50 50 50 50 50 interest on working capital 7,682 7,682 7,682 7,682 7,682 7,682 for 12 months @ 13% interest on fixed capital @ 10% 500 500 500 500 500 500 rental value of land (1/6th) 14,700 19,400 9,733 12,400 21,400 19,400 of the gross value. land revenue amortization value 7,482 7,332 7,482 7,332 7,482 7,332 supervision charges @ 10% 4,742 4,742 4,742 4,742 4,742 4,742 of input cost total cost (cost c) 83,071 87,621 78,104 80,621 89,771 87,621 yield (t/ ha) and gross returns 5.88 7.76 2.92 3.72 8.56 7.76 sale price of ‘alphonso @ rs.25/kg 88,200 1,16,400 73,000 93,000 1,28,400 1,16,400 ratha and kesar @ rs.15/kg net returns at total cost 5,129 28,779 (-) 5,104 12,379 38,629 28,779 benefit:cost ratio 1.06 1.32 0.93 1.15 1.43 1.33 r= ‘ratra’, v= ‘vellaikolumban’, a= ‘alphonso’, m= mixed rootstock’, k= kesar (ms received 9 march 2010, revised 26 october, 2010) gawankar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (2): 114-116, 2010 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 67 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 67-71, 2020 original research paper evaluation of hybrids and cultivars of single type tuberose (polianthes tuberosa) jadhav s.b. *, vichare s.v. and katwate s.m. department of horticulture, mahatma phule krishi vidyapeeth rahuri dist. ahmednagar 413 722, maharastra, india email : satishjadhav061321@gmail.com abstract hybrids and cultivars of single type tuberose was evaluated to fulfill the need to develop new hybrids as demanded by commercial growers. evaluation of fifteen genotypes showed significant variation in growth, floral and bulb characters. cultivar arka prajwal was significantly superior over all genotypes, which recorded least number of days for opening of 1st floret (78.55 days) with maximum diameter of spike (1.18 cm), length of floret (6.05 cm), weight of individual floret (3.12 g) and weight of spike (121.43 g).the hybrid genotype l1p4 (variegated x phule rajani) was observed to be superior in terms of rachis length (39.78 cm), inter-nodal length (7.25 cm), length of bulb (8.09 cm), diameter of bulb (3.76 cm) and diameter of bulb-lets (1.85 cm). among the hybrid genotypes l1p4 also recorded maximum plant height (116.39 cm), spike length (109.58 cm), weight of cut spike (105.08 g) and vase life (11.00 days). however, it was foundto be at par for number of florets per spike (57.25), length of floret (5.92 cm) and number of spikes per clump (10.14) with all other cultivars and hybrids tested. from the overall performance, it was found that the cultivar arka prajwal was the best. genotype l1p4 found promising for loose as well as cut flower production because of its number of florets, inter-nodal length and spikes per clump which are important characters considering loose flower for taking maximum number of pickings. however, characters such as rachis length, spike length, vase life and weight of spike which are imperative for cut flowers are also noted superior in genotype l1p4. key words: bulb, flower, growth, hybrid and single type tuberose tuberose (polianthe stuberosa) is one of the most impor ta ntcut and loose flowers in india . it is anornamental bulbous plant, native to mexico from where it has spread to different parts of the world dur ing the 16 th centur y. it belongs to fa mily asper a ga cea e a nd is popula r ly known a s ‘rajnigandha’(ya da v a nd ma ity, 1989). t he nomenclature of different types of tuberose is based on the number of r ows of peta ls ea ch flower possesses. the cultivar with single row of petals is designated as ‘single’ while the one which bears more than three rows of petals is called ‘double’. the cultivar ‘semi-double’ bears flowers with two-three rows of petals. valuable natural aromatic oil is extracted from the flowers for the high cost perfume industry. the flower of single petalled cultivars reported to contain 0.08-0.135 % concrete and yield 0.08-0.11 % essential oil in india (singh, 2006). the serene beauty of flower spikes, bright white flowers, sweetness of blooms and delicacy of fragrance of this ornamental crop transform the entire area into a nectarine and joyous. varieties which perform well in one region may not do well in other locations due to varying climatic conditions. hence, it is important to study morphological variation and performance of genotypes for important yield contributing characters. hence, the present investigation was undertaken to evaluate the single type tuberose for growth, flower and bulb yield for western maharashtra. materials and methods the present study was conducted at the national agricultural research project ganeshkhind, pune7 , m p k v; r a hu r i, du r ing 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 . geographically, pune is situated at 18°32’ north latitude a nd 73°51’ east longitude on decca n pla tea u a t the confluence of mula a nd mutha rivers. the controlled hybridization programme introduction this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 68 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 67-71, 2020 evaluation of hybrids and cultivars of single type tuberose (polianthes tuberosa) using available cultivar of single type of tuberose is already in progress at all india co-ordinated r es ea r c h p r ojec t on f lor ic u lt u r e a t n ar p, ganeshkhind. experimental materials consisted of 15 genotypes of single type tuberose obtained from aicrp on floriculture.seedling selection from hybrid progenies of different crosses identifiedeight new promising single type tuberose genotypes. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications.the land was ploughed to a medium depth. fym was spread evenly @ 25 tonnes per hecta re a nd recommended fertilizer dose 2 00 :1 50 :2 00 k g n p k p er hec ta r e wa s incorporated. 100kg nitrogen was given as basal dose and two split doses 50 kg each at 60 days and 90 days respectively was spread after planting of bulbs. flat beds of 1.8 x 1.5 m plot size were laid and medium sizedbulbsof 2-2.5 cm diameter were planted at a spacing of 30x30 cm which accommodated 30 bulbs per plot. standard cultural p r a c t ic es wer e f ollowed t hr ou ghou t experimentation. the data were recorded on three selected plants from each treatment and replication for vegetative, floral, bulb and bulb-lets characters. results and discussion vegetative characters the mean performance of cultivars for vegetative growth characters (table 1) reflected the variations among the cultivars. the earliest spike emergence was observed in cv. arka nirantara (60.89 days) but the genotype gk-t-c-4 required maximum days for spike emergence (67.89 days). significantly highest plant height was recorded in cv. variegated (138.64 cm) and less in hybrid phule rajani x arka suvasini (61.76 cm) compared to other genotypes. this is in accordance with the results of ranchana et al. (2013).mor e number of lea ves per plant wer e observed in genotype gk-t-c-2 (24.11) and less in cv. local single (17.00). flower bud was initiated at 5.78th node in hybrid phule rajani x arka suvasini while cv. arkaprajwal flower bud started at 12.84th node which wa s noted to be the highest. t he significantly longest spike wa s obser ved in cv. variegated (124.37cm) and shortest in hybrid phule rajani x arka suvasini (56.52 cm). hybrid l1p4 recorded significantly maximum rachis length (39.78 cm) amongst 15 genotypes under study. the variation table 1. performance of different tuberose genotype on vegetative growth characters treatment days to spike emergence plant height (cm) no. of leaves node at which floret started sp ike length (cm) rachis length (cm) no. of florets per spike local single 63.33 94.81 17.00 10.56 89.73 20.49 39.56 arka shringar 65.78 78.86 18.78 9.89 72.81 30.28 52.01 phule rajani 65.44 74.49 20.45 8.84 69.74 33.61 52.84 hyderabad single 66.67 77.47 20.00 9.73 72.46 28.41 47.59 arka nirantara 60.89 95.27 21.89 12.17 86.93 26.77 54.25 arka prajwal 62.78 94.83 23.55 12.84 91.14 32.53 57.56 variegated 62.99 138.64 21.45 11.33 124.37 24.55 45.36 variegated x phule rajani l9p7 65.11 71.33 19.34 10.22 64.93 25.14 57.28 variegated x phule rajani l1p4 62.22 116.39 20.56 11.78 109.58 39.78 57.25 variegated x phule rajani l9p2 66.22 84.51 17.45 9.45 80.56 24.75 34.53 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-1 63.89 76.93 19.56 9.23 70.71 30.62 55.14 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-2 65.89 84.63 24.11 10.89 79.22 25.67 49.45 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-7 67.00 76.56 18.78 8.33 70.83 30.66 58.58 phule rajani x arka suvasini 64.22 61.76 18.89 5.78 56.52 36.72 49.95 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-4 67.89 74.57 17.67 9.45 68.29 27.82 50.92 se(m) ± 1.25 2.03 1.14 0.44 1.65 0.94 1.63 c.d. at 5% 3.63 5.92 3.33 1.29 4.81 2.72 4.76 69 jadhav et al. among different vegetative characters are attributed due to the difference in their genetic makeup. the number of florets recorded to be highest in genotype gk-t-c-7 (58.58). however, less number of florets was recorded in genotype l9p2 (34.53). number of florets is an important character, as single type flowers are mostly used as loose flower. the variation in florets per spike may be due to genetic variability, disparity in storage of food among different cultivars and prevailing environmental condition. flowering characters among the fifteen genotypes evaluated for their floral characters (table 2), the minimum days required for opening of first floret was noted in cv. arka prajwal (78.55days) whereas, significantly maximum days wa s r equir ed in genotype l9p7 (85. 76 da ys). significantly maximum inter-nodal length was noted in genotype l1p4 (7.25cm).cultivar arka prajwal recorded significantly thick diameter of spike (1.18 cm) while it was thin in genotype l9p2 (0.75 cm). the diameter of spike influences the spike strength a nd r eserved food ma terial in it. the existing environmental condition and genetic factors influence the variation in spike thickness among different genotypes under study. patil et al. (2009) and arya et al.(2006) also reported similar results in tuberose. cultivar arka prajwal recorded maximum floret length (6.05 cm) and significantly minimum length of floret was recorded in cv. hyderabad single (4.89 cm). the diameter of floret was noted significantly maximum in hybrid l9p7 (6.34 cm) and minimum was recorded table 2. performance of different tuberose genotype on flowering characters local single 79.22 4.60 0.88 5.29 4.45 64.90 1.47 9.50 7.88 390799 arka shringar 80.77 4.18 0.86 4.90 5.05 88.24 1.79 10.17 9.87 489284 phule rajani 81.33 4.73 0.91 5.12 5.64 96.16 1.97 11.50 9.71 481187 hyderabad single 83.44 3.25 0.95 4.89 5.37 81.53 1.74 10.00 8.13 403027 arka nirantara 79.66 4.50 1.11 5.76 5.79 91.69 2.59 10.00 8.11 402036 arka prajwal 78.55 4.97 1.18 6.05 5.65 121.43 3.12 10.17 9.04 448304 variegated 82.99 4.68 0.87 5.34 5.18 94.41 1.49 9.00 6.85 339409 variegated x phule rajani 85.76 4.21 0.87 6.04 6.34 88.89 2.49 9.00 7.77 385346 l9p7 variegated x phule rajani 83.33 7.25 0.85 5.92 5.67 105.08 1.80 11.00 10.14 502669 l1p4 variegated x phule rajani 81.22 3.60 0.75 5.28 5.08 57.52 1.94 9.17 10.57 523985 l9p2 local single x arka shringar 82.88 4.66 0.81 5.95 5.11 67.10 2.32 8.50 8.93 442520 gk-t-c-1 local single x arka shringar 81.55 3.67 0.91 5.66 5.59 81.10 2.07 9.67 10.06 498538 gk-t-c-2 local single x arka shringar 83.33 4.17 0.83 5.52 5.45 78.56 2.35 8.83 8.35 413933 gk-t-c-7 phule rajani x arka suvasini 80.22 5.79 0.85 5.22 4.52 48.57 1.94 9.17 8.22 407324 local single x shringar gk81.33 4.15 0.86 5.31 4.99 67.15 1.94 9.83 8.90 441033 t-c-4 se(m) ± 1.24 0.27 0.02 0.24 0.26 2.99 0.17 0.52 0.42 c.d. at 5% 3.61 0.77 0.05 0.69 0.76 8.70 0.49 1.52 1.22 treatment days for opening of 1st floret internodal length (cm) diameter of cut spike (cm) length of floret (cm) diameter of floret (cm) weight of cut spike (g) weight of individual floret (g) vase life (days) spike per clump spike per hector j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 67-71, 2020 70 in cv. local single (4.45 cm). this variation among length and diameter of floret may be due to difference in the genetic makeup of cultivars. significantly heavier cut spike (121.43g) and maximum individual floret weight (3.12g) were noted in cv. arka prajwal. the variation in weight of individual and cut spike among different genotype is due to genetic factors, length and thickness of floret and spike respectively. these results are in consonance with findings of mahawer et al. (2013) in tuberose.the longest vase life duration was observed in cv. phule rajani (11.50 days) which was at par with genotype l1p4 (11.00 days) whereas, shortest vase life was observed in genotype gk-t-c-1 (8.50 days). the variation in vase life of cut spike may be due to different genetic makeup of each tuberose genotype with prevailing envir onmental condition, which fina lly a ffects physiological processes like cell turgidity, water uptake through xylem tissues, water loss through transpiration, respiration and breakdown of reserved food material. maximum number of spikes per clump and hectare was recorded in genotype l9p2 i.e. 10.57 and 523985.55 respectively. however, minimum number of spikes per clump and hectare were observed in cv. variegated i.e. 6.85 and 339409.12 respectively. bulb and bulb-lets characters total number of bulbs per clump (11.00) and per plot (329.90) was produced more in genotype l9p2. while, minimum bulbs per clump (7.01) and per plot (210.20) was recordedin cv. variegated. maximum number of bulb-lets per clump was recorded in hybrid table 3. performance of different tuberose genotype on bulb and bulb-lets characters treatment no. of bulb per clump no. of bulb-lets per clump length of bulbs (cm) diameter of bulb (cm) weight of individual bulb (g) weight of bulb-lets (g) diameter of bulb-lets (cm) total bulbs per plot local single 8.33 17.11 6.54 2.64 23.51 7.11 1.47 249.90 arka shringar 10.28 23.44 6.08 3.39 39.13 7.67 1.58 308.30 phule rajani 9.78 25.89 6.21 2.95 35.06 7.77 1.76 293.30 hyderabad single 9.10 22.33 5.97 2.98 31.46 7.63 1.62 273.10 arka nirantara 8.55 13.45 7.08 3.72 59.91 9.16 1.68 256.40 arka prajwal 9.30 12.50 7.55 3.56 56.90 9.43 1.75 279.00 variegated 7.01 21.21 6.18 3.47 40.24 5.40 1.41 210.20 variegated x phule rajani l9p7 8.60 15.89 5.87 3.15 38.73 7.83 1.63 258.10 variegated x phule rajani l1p4 10.78 18.67 8.09 3.76 52.21 9.28 1.85 323.50 variegated x phule rajani l9p2 11.00 25.33 5.87 3.26 43.23 8.39 1.58 329.90 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-1 9.87 17.10 6.04 3.26 34.29 9.86 1.54 296.00 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-2 10.52 16.33 5.46 2.98 43.47 8.43 1.56 315.50 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-7 8.48 24.09 5.65 2.91 28.30 7.05 1.48 254.50 phule rajani x arka suvasini 8.22 28.66 6.02 3.04 35.07 7.67 1.40 247.93 local single x arka shringar gk-t-c-4 9.26 23.78 5.73 3.13 43.31 8.41 1.64 277.80 se(m) ± 0.49 1.63 0.22 0.12 1.89 0.36 0.06 14.45 c.d. at 5% 1.41 4.75 0.66 0.35 5.50 1.05 0.19 42.07 evaluation of hybrids and cultivars of single type tuberose (polianthes tuberosa) j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 67-71, 2020 71 phule rajani x arka suvasini (28.66) whereas, minimum were observed in cv. arka prajwal (12.50). genotype l1p4 exhibited maximum length of bulb (8. 09 cm) while genotype gk-t-c-2 r ecor ded minimum (5.46 cm). the variation in number of bulbs produced per clump might be due to genetic factor which is further modified by prevailing environmental condition and the results are in consonance with finding of chaturvedi et al. (2014) and mahawer et al. (2013) in tuberose.hybrid l1p4 exhibited maximum diameter of bulb (3.76 cm) and bulb-lets (1.85 cm) while minimum diameter of bulb was recorded by cv. local single (2.64 cm). however, heavier bulb was produced by cv. arka nirantara (59.91 g) while it was lighter in cv. local single (23.51 g). genotype gk-t-c-1 recorded maximum weight of bulb-lets (9.86 g). the variation in bulb weight per plant among different genotype at bulb harvesting stage might be due to the distinguished varietal genetic makeup with more leaves to improve photosynthetic activity, source sink relationship to accumulate more carbohydrate and prevailing condition. arya, j.k., singh, p.v. and satyaprakah. 2006. effect of bulb size on flower ing of tuber ose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cv. single. prog. agric. 6(2): 211-212. chaturvedi, a., mishra, t.s., kumar, n. and singh, s.s. 2014. screening of different cultivars of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) under agro climatic condition of allahabad. progressive horticulture. 46(1): 146-148. mahawer, l.n., bairwa, h.l. and shukla, a.k. 2013.field performance of tuberose cultivar for growth, floral and economic characters under sub-humid southern plains and aravalli hills of rajasthan. indian j. hort. 70(3): 411-416. references patil, v.s., munikrishanppa, p.m. and shantappa, t. 2009.performance of growth and yield of differ ent genotypes of tuber ose under tr a nsitiona l tr a ct of nor th ka r na ta ka . j. ecobiol., 24: 327-33. ranchana, p., kannan, m. and jawaharlal, m. 2013. the assessment of genetic parameters: yield, quality traits and performance of single type genotypes of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.). adv. crop sci. tech., 1(3): 111. singh, a.k. 2006. flower crops cultivation and management. tuberose, pp: 357-370. yadav, l.p. and maity, r.g. 1989. tuberose. in: commercial flowers (eds) bose, t.k. and l.p. yadav. p. vedams books pvt. limited, new india. pp. 519-544. jadhav et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 67-71, 2020 (received on 07.11.2019 and accepted on 09.07.2020) mango (mangifera indica l.), the ‘king of fruits,’ is an evergreen fruit crop of the tropical and sub-tropical regions with a great economic potential, for, it fulfils the requirement for nutritional, medicinal, commercial, industrial and religious needs (bihari et al, 2012). in india, it is a part and parcel of life, being connected with all phases of life from birth to death (bose et al, 2001). among fruit crops, it occupies the first place in area in india, occupying 2.29 mha with a production of 151.88 lakh tonnes, constituting 45% of the total world mango production. production has been increasing since independence, contributing 20.3% of the total fruit produced in india, after banana (39.8%). uttar pradesh tops in total production (23.9%), followed by andhra pradesh (22.1%). west bengal, falling also under the major mango-growing belt, contributed about 4.1% of total mango production in india (indian horticulture database, 2011). west bengal too is a major mangoproducing state in india in terms of area and production, and new mango plantations need to be raised every year to supply an increased demand for this fruit. however, indiscriminate application of inorganic fertilizers leads to changes in physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil, besides reducing its fertility and leading to decline in its organic content (singh et al, 2001). also, use of inorganic carbon fertilizers is detrimental to human health and environment (arisha and bardisi, 1999). estrada (2002) effect of integrated nutrient management on vegetative growth and yield in mango cv. himsagar s.r. singh1, b.c. banik and m.a. hasan department of fruits and orchard management, faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi vishwavidyalaya mohanpur, nadia – 741252, west bengal, india 1e-mail: romensenjam@yahoo.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of various combinations of integrated nutrient management schedules on vegetative growth and yield in mango cv. himsagar at regional research station, gayeshpur, b.c.k.v., nadia, west bengal, during the years 2009-2011. maximum total increment in plant height (108.00 cm), plant spread in e-w direction (123.00 cm) and n-s direction (105.00 cm), and tree volume (85.95 m3) was recorded in 500:250:250g npk/tree/year + 50kg fym + 250g azospirillium (t6) compared to that in other treatments. this treatment (t6) also significantly increased total number of fruits (234.12 fruits / tree), average fruit weight (263.10g) and yield (58.56kg /tree). key words: mango, himsagar, biofertilizer, inm short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):120-124, 2015 reported that agricultural lands get impoverished with application of high doses of fertilizer which, in turn, pollute the ecosystem significantly. besides, information on effects of integrated nutrient management on vegetative growth and yield in mango cv. himsagar in the alluvial tract of west bengal is lacking. therefore, the present experiment purported to develop an integrated nutrient management package for mango consisting of organic manure (fym), inorganic fertilizers and biofertilizers for improving growth and yield in ‘himsagar’. the present investigation was carried out at regional research station, gayeshpur, b.c.k.v., nadia, west bengal, during the years 2009-2011. the site of the experiment is situated at 22p 57¹ n latitude and 89p 34¹ e longitude, at an average altitude of 9.75m above mean sea level. the experiment was laid out in randomised block design (rbd) in five replications. age of the trees was seven years, at a spacing of 10m x 10m. the experiment consisted of 10 treatments, viz., t1: 1000:500:500g npk/tree (control), t2: t1 + zn (0.5%) + b (0.2%) + mn (1%) + ca (0.6%) as foliar application, twice (aug & oct); t3: t1 + organic mulching (10cm thick layer of dry leaves); t4: t2 + organic mulching (10cm thick layer of dry leaves); t5: ½ t1 + 50kg fym + 250g azospirillium; t6: ½ t1+ 50kg fym + 250g azospirillium; t7: ½ t1 + 250g azotobacter + 250g 1department of fruit science, college of horticulture & forestry, central agricultural university, pasighat-791 102, arunachal pradesh, india 121 effect of inm on growth and yield in mango azospirillium; t8: ½ t1 + 50kg fym + 250g azotobacter; t9: ½ t1 + 50kg fym + 250g pseudomonas florescence; t10: ½ t1 + 50kg fym + 250g pseudomonas florescence + 250g trichoderma. every plant treated was supplemented with the dose set for each treatment from the month of march after flowering. treatments, along with mulches (dry wheat-straw leaves), were applied at a thickness of 8-10cm and retained in the field for three years for soil moisture conservation and increased organic matter in soil. nutrient fertilizers (n, p and k) were provided in the form of urea (46% n), single super phosphate (16% p2o5) and potassium sulphate (50% k2o), respectively, and applied in two split doses in march (at the marble stage of fruit development) and july (after harvest). vegetative growth parameters were recorded after harvest (in june) and, again, before initiation of the next flowering (december). yield parameters were also recorded. irrigation was applied after the fertilizer and, subsequently, as and when required (depending upon the rainfall). irrigation was stopped 7-10 days before harvest. plant growth parameters showed significant variation under different treatments (table 1, 2, 3 & 4). plants grown under 500:250:250g npk/tree + 50kg fym + 250g azospirillium (t6), showed improved vegetative growth parameters compared to other treatments. however, t2 + organic mulching (10cm thick layer of dry leaves) (t4) caused the maximum total increment in canopy height, closely followed by 500:250:250g npk/tree + 50kg fym + 250g azospirillium (t6). these findings are similar to those of sivakumar (2001) and shulka et al (2009). further, gautam et al (2012) found in mango cv. sunderja, that application of 500:250:250g n:p:k/tree + 50kg fym + 10kg vermicompost registered maximum plant height, canopy height, plant spread (n-s and e-w) and tree volume compared to the control 500:250:250g n:p:k/tree. vegetative parameters were superior in the treatment with nitrogen fixing bacteria, viz., azotobacter and azopirillium. this could be due to the higher nitrogen content in soil, essential for growth of the plant system. subba rao et al (1980) also reported inoculation of azotobacter and azospirillium in several non-legumes crops as contributing table 1. effect of integrated nutrient management (inm) on plant height in mango cv. himsagar treatment dec june increase dec increase june increase dec increase june increase total 2008 2009 (cm) 2009 (cm) 2010 (cm) 2010 (cm) 2011 (cm) increase (m) (m) (m) (m) (m) (m) (cm) t 1 5.02 5.16 14.00 5.31 15.00 5.44 13.00 5.57 13.00 5.73 16.00 71.00 t 2 4.86 5.03 17.00 5.19 16.00 5.36 17.00 5.52 16.00 5.71 19.00 85.00 t 3 4.65 4.83 18.00 4.99 16.00 5.16 17.00 5.31 15.00 5.50 19.00 85.00 t 4 4.95 5.13 18.00 5.30 17.00 5.48 18.00 5.64 16.00 5.82 18.00 87.00 t 5 4.76 4.99 23.00 5.16 17.00 5.34 18.00 5.48 14.00 5.67 19.00 91.00 t 6 5.30 5.52 22.00 5.72 20.00 5.91 19.00 6.08 17.00 6.38 30.00 108.00 t 7 4.78 4.96 18.00 5.13 17.00 5.30 17.00 5.46 16.00 5.65 19.00 87.00 t 8 4.46 4.65 19.00 4.84 19.00 5.02 18.00 5.21 19.00 5.39 18.00 93.00 t 9 5.05 5.23 18.00 5.42 19.00 5.59 17.00 5.76 17.00 5.93 17.00 88.00 t 1 0 4.83 5.02 19.00 5.19 17.00 5.36 17.00 5.52 16.00 5.73 21.00 90.00 se±m 0.15 0.15 0.12 0.15 0.13 0.12 cd (p=0.05) 0.43 0.34 0.34 0.44 0.39 0.35 table 2. effect of integrated nutrient management (inm) on tree volume of mango cv. himsagar treatment dec june increase dec increase june increase dec increase june increase total 2008 2009 (m3) 2009 (m3) 2010 (m3) 2010 (m3) 2011 (m3) increase (m3) (m3) (m3) (m3) (m3) (m3) (m3) t 1 67.30 74.38 7.08 82.98 8.60 92.41 9.43 101.91 9.50 112.88 10.97 45.58 t 2 75.02 85.61 10.59 96.54 10.93 108.60 12.06 121.31 12.71 136.72 15.41 61.70 t 3 57.88 67.26 9.38 77.16 9.90 87.09 9.93 99.98 12.89 113.80 13.82 55.92 t 4 76.07 87.29 11.22 99.46 12.17 117.50 18.04 127.45 9.95 147.36 19.91 71.29 t 5 76.07 92.24 16.17 106.93 14.69 118.20 20.75 135.53 17.33 151.90 16.37 75.83 t 6 99.53 116.09 16.56 132.58 16.49 150.81 15.23 166.68 15.87 185.48 18.80 85.95 t 7 56.02 64.36 8.34 73.46 9.10 83.35 9.89 94.73 11.38 107.63 12.90 51.61 t 8 67.71 78.84 11.13 90.92 12.08 105.29 14.37 118.69 13.40 134.84 16.15 67.13 t 9 81.90 92.93 11.03 105.11 12.18 117.75 12.46 131.93 14.18 146.83 14.90 64.93 t 1 0 70.99 80.92 9.99 91.33 10.41 107.20 15.87 117.50 10.30 131.45 13.95 60.46 se±m 5.72 7.21 — 6.55 — 7.44 — 11.35 — 8.70 — — cd (p=0.05) 16.27 20.5 — 18.61 — 21.14 — 32.24 — 24.73 — — j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):120-124, 2015 122 about 25kgn / ha through fixation in soil, leading to better plant growth and 5-15% higher yield. results also revealed that yield parameters (table 5) such as number of fruits/tree, average fruit weight and yield (kg/tree) increased under different combinations of integrated nutrient management compared to that in control table 3. effect of integrated nutrient management (inm) on plant-spread (north – south) in mango cv. himsagar treatment dec june increase dec increase june increase dec increase june increase total 2008 2009 (cm) 2009 (cm) 2010 (cm) 2010 (cm) 2011 (cm) increase (m) (m) (m) (m) (m) (m) (cm) t 1 5.09 5.24 15.00 5.39 15.00 5.55 16.00 5.75 20.00 5.91 16.00 82.00 t 2 5.29 5.47 18.00 5.66 19.00 5.82 16.00 6.01 19.00 6.21 20.00 0.92 t 3 4.73 4.92 19.00 5.11 19.00 5.26 15.00 5.55 29.00 5.69 14.00 0.96 t 4 4.99 5.17 18.00 5.36 19.00 5.56 20.00 5.75 19.00 5.93 18.00 0.94 t 5 5.5 5.69 19.00 5.87 18.00 6.07 20.00 6.29 22.00 6.49 20.00 0.99 t 6 5.68 5.89 16.00 6.10 19.00 6.29 17.00 6.54 25.00 6.73 19.00 1.05 t 7 5.41 5.57 16.00 5.76 19.00 5.93 17.00 6.14 21.00 6.30 16.00 0.89 t 8 5.30 5.50 20.00 5.70 20.00 5.88 18.00 6.08 20.00 6.29 21.00 0.99 t 9 5.50 5.68 18.00 5.85 17.00 6.02 17.00 6.22 20.00 6.39 17.00 0.89 t 1 0 5.35 5.55 20.00 5.72 17.00 5.90 18.00 6.09 19.00 6.26 17.00 0.91 se±m 0.25 0.26 — 0.25 — 0.25 — 0.27 — 0.26 — — cd (p=0.05) ns ns — ns — ns — 0.78 — 0.76 — — table 4. effect of integrated nutrient management (inm) on plant-spread (east – west) in mango cv. himsagar reatment dec june increase dec increase june increase dec increase june increase total 2008 2009 (cm) 2009 (cm) 2010 (cm) 2010 (cm) 2011 (cm) increase (m) (m) (m) (m) (m) (m) (cm) t 1 4.64 4.82 18.00 4.988 16.00 5.17 19.00 5.34 17.00 5.49 15.00 85.00 t 2 5.15 5.34 19.00 5.524 18.00 5.71 19.00 5.89 18.00 6.10 21.00 95.00 t 3 4.74 4.94 20.00 5.138 19.00 5.39 26.00 5.56 17.00 5.75 19.00 101.00 t 4 5.61 5.84 23.00 6.042 20.00 6.24 20.00 6.43 19.00 6.64 21.00 103.00 t 5 5.52 5.74 22.00 5.892 15.00 6.13 24.00 6.32 19.00 6.54 22.00 102.00 t 6 5.67 5.96 29.00 6.204 24.00 6.48 28.00 6.68 20.00 6.90 22.00 123.00 t 7 4.11 4.31 20.00 4.482 17.00 4.69 21.00 4.86 17.00 5.06 20.00 95.00 t 8 5.02 5.27 25.00 5.488 21.00 5.76 28.00 5.95 19.00 6.16 21.00 114.00 t 9 5.00 5.18 18.00 5.364 18.00 5.57 21.00 5.75 18.00 5.93 18.00 93.00 t 1 0 4.89 5.07 18.00 5.252 18.00 5.51 26.00 5.69 18.00 5.85 16.00 96.00 se±m 0.26 0.24 — 0.26 — 0.26 — 0.27 — 0.27 — — cd (p=0.05) 0.74 0.70 — 0.75 — 0.76 — 0.76 — 0.76 — — table 5. effect of integrated nutrient management (inm) on yield in mango cv. himsagar treatment no. of fruits / tree average fruit weight (g) fruit yield (kgme) 2009 2010 2011 pooled 2009 2010 2011 pooled 2009 2010 2011 pooled t 1 21.00 178.00 158.00 119.00 224.506 231.28 232.38 229.38 5.05 38.58 40.41 28.02 t 2 32.25 267.00 240.00 175.43 233.8 239.30 234.20 235.76 7.51 61.77 53.15 40.81 t 3 80.25 245.20 246.00 180.05 226.35 246.76 248.06 232.57 21.29 63.71 55.29 46.76 t 4 50.00 271.40 246.00 189.13 239.45 245.98 246.94 244.12 10.01 65.97 58.82 44.93 t 5 60.60 262.20 275.00 199.26 222.50 244.08 240.02 235.77 17.74 65.48 62.78 48.66 t 6 74.66 294.00 333.70 234.12 243.00 255.58 290.74 263.10 21.90 71.95 81.85 58.56 t 7 55.00 196.75 216.00 153.91 222.6 239.332 255.98 239.30 13.72 47.57 44.65 35.31 t 8 78.00 280.75 261.75 206.83 244.22 250.62 265.82 253.55 20.81 65.91 63.18 49.97 t 9 25.00 278.00 245.80 177.60 235.15 239.40 255.70 243.41 9.04 62.95 61.77 44.59 t 1 0 51.00 259.00 254.00 194.33 237.00 247.02 260.62 248.27 13.78 68.10 61.38 47.75 se±m 8.40 8.32 10.16 6.49 4.02 5.63 10.25 3.90 2.76 3.60 7.65 1.37 cd (p=0.05) 23.88 23.63 28.87 18.45 11.42 ns 29.11 11.09 7.76 8.70 2.69 3.91 (t1) (1000:500:500g n:p:k/tree). significantly high cumulative yield was obtained in ½ t1+ 50kg fym + 250g azospirillium (t6), followed by ½ t1 + 50kg fym + 250g azotobacter (t8), while significantly lower value was seen in control. these finding are in line with those of patel et al (2005). hasan et al (2009) too observed maximum flowering and fruiting in trees supplied with 50% recommended dose singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):120-124, 2015 123 of nutrients along azospirillium and vam inoculation. further, yadav et al (2011) reported in mango cv. amrapali that the recommended npk + vermicompost + azotobacter + psb + zn + fe + paclobutrazol application recorded optimum yield compared to that in control (recommended npk/tree). similarly, gautam et al (2012) found that application of 500:250:250g n:p:k/tree + 50kg fym + 10kg vermicompost registered maximum number of fruits/tree compared to control (500:250:250g n:p:k/tree). therefore, it can be concluded that integration of inorganic fertilizer with biofertilizers improves vegetative growth and yield in mango, without affecting fruit quality. this can be recommended for sustainable mango production with minimal use of fertilizer under the alluvial zone of west bengal. acknowledgement the authors are obliged to department of fruits and orchards management, faculty of horticulture, bidhan chandra krishi vishwavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia, west bengal for the necessary inputs. references arisha, h.m. and bradisi, h. 1999. effect of mineral fertilizers and organic fertilizers on growth, yield and quality of potato under sandy soil condition. zagazig. fig. 1. observations on girth and plant-spread fig. 2. observations on plant height fig. 3. harvested fruit of mango cv. himsagar under treatment t6 fig. 4. heavy bearing under treatment t6 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):120-124, 2015 effect of inm on growth and yield in mango 124 j. agril. res., 26:391-405 indian horticulture database. 2011. all india area and production of fruits and vegetables. national horticultural board, ministry of agriculture, govt. of india. pp. 3-4. (http.//www.nhb.gov.in) bihari, m., singh, r.k., kumar, a., prasad, a., narayan, s. and pandey, s.k.n. 2012. quality parameters studies on mangifera genus and varieties. indian j. hort., 69:272-276 bose, t.k., mitra, s.k. and sanyal, d. 2001. mango. in: fruits: tropical and subtropical volume 1, 3rd edition. naya udyog, kolkota, west bengal, pp 1108 estrada, c.g. 2004. evaluation of a biofertilizer, clearing and fruit bagging in mango ‘kent’. acta hort., 645:217-221 gautam, u.s., singh, r., tiwari, n., gurjar, p.s. and kumar, a. 2012. effect of integrated nutrient management in mango cv. sunderja. indian j. hort., 69:151-155 hasan, m.a., chowdhury, r.r., mandal, k.k., majumdar, d. and das, a. 2009. effect of organic and inorganic nutrients in improving flowering of mango. crop res., 37:95-100 patel, v.b., singh, s.k., ram, a. and sharma, y.k. 2005. response of organic manures and bio-fertilizer on growth, fruit yield and quality of mango cv. amrapali under high density orcharding. karnataka j. hort., 1:51-56 singh, m., singh, v.p. and reddy, k.s. 2001. effect of integrated use of fertilizer nitrogen and farm-yard manure or green manure on transformation of n, p and s and productivity of rice-wheat system on vertisols. j. indian soc. soil sci., 49:430-435 sivakumar, u. 2001. effect of bacterial inoculation on mango (mangifera indica l.) rootstock. madras agril. j. 88:486-487 shukla, a.c., saralia, d.k., bhavna, k., kaushik, r.a., mahawar, l.n. and bairwa, h.l. 2009. evaluation of substrate dynamics for inm under high density planting of guava cv. sardar. indian j. hort., 66:461464 subba rao, n.s., tilak, k.v. and singh, c.s. 1980. yield response of rice to root inoculation with azospirillium. j. genet. appl. microbiol., 44:365-70 yadav, a.k., singh, j.k. and singh, h.k. 2011. studies on integrated nutrient management in flowering, fruiting, yield and quality of mango cv. amrapali under high density orcharding. indian j. hort., 68:453-460 (ms received 24 june 2014, revised 17 may 2015, accepted 02 june 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):120-124, 2015 singh et al introduction india is the largest producer of mango in the world, with a share of 39.5% of total production (anon., 2010). though a majority of mango producing areas in our country are the tropical and subtropical plains, considerable improvement in acreage under this fruit crop has been noticed in the low-hill and valley region of nw himalayas. mango from this region comes to the market when the crop season is over elsewhere in the country. in himachal pradesh, area under mango has increased from a mere 2,600 hectare in 1971 to 37,840 hectare at present (anon., 2009). ‘dashehari’ is the main cultivar of the region, followed by ‘langra’ and ‘chausa’, besides the rich heritage of local varieties. in himachal pradesh, mango is grown primarily in the subtropical region of kangra, hamirpur, bilaspur, una, solan, sirmour, chamba and mandi districts. owing to high levels of radiative cooling and a varied topographical feature, frost of variable intensity is quite common in the low-hill and valley region of himachal pradesh. this is one of the major factors governing growth restoration studies in frost-affected mango (mangifera indica l.) orchards in sub-himalayan region shashi kumar sharma institute of biotechnology and environmental science dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry neri, p.o. khagal, distt. hamirpur -177 001, india e-mail: shashi_uhf@yahoo.com abstract frost is a major constraint in mango production in the subhimalayan region. to restore growth and productivity in frost-affected dashehari mango orchards, effect of different growth-restoring treatments was studied at highly frost-sensitive, medium frost-sensitive, low frost-sensitive and frost-free locations. foliar application of urea, benzyladenine, gibberellic acid (individually or in combination) was made during the post-spring season. as the cut ends of branches or damaged open area serve as entry points for the propagation of ice crystals through the vascular system in plants, the experiments were also carried out with and without prior winter covering of cut ends of branches with wax or polythene cover. at low and high frost-sensitive locations, 7 and 5.5 number of news shoots emerged, on average, per scaffold when frost-affected trees were sprayed with benzyladenine (ba 20ppm), followed by 2% urea spray after fifteen days. better restoration of reproductive growth was observed with this treatment. pre-winter waxing or polythene covering of the cut ends of branches was very effective in preventing lethal frost-damage (stem injury below 20cm) to the trees. effect of benzyladenine and urea treatments was found to be additive in trees whose cut surfaces were waxed or covered with polythene sheets. key words: frost, benzyladenine, gibberellic acid, urea, corrective pruning, mango productivity of mango in the region. the present level of productivity is quite low (0.9t/ha) compared to national and international productivity averages. a majority of the loss occurs due to radiation and frost (sharma and badiyala, 2008) affecting not only the current season’s growth and productivity, but also the subsequent 2-3 years (the crop can get affected by even a single instance of frost damage). in view of the severity of this problem, agriculture technology management agency, hamirpur (himachal pradesh) treated it as a researchable issue and assigned the responsibility of developing an effective technology for restoration of growth in such orchards to regional horticultural and forestry research station, bhota/ neri, hamirpur, himachal pradesh. material and methods studies were conducted during the years 2006-07 to 2008-09 at four types of location described as: l1highly frost-sensitive low-lying area (0-80m from the lowest point of a micro watershed), l2medium frost-sensitive, lower portion of the sloppy area (80-120m from the lowest point j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):12-17, 2014 13 of a micro watershed), l3low-frost sensitive middle portion of the sloppy area (120-160m from the lowest point of a micro watershed), and, l4least frost-sensitive, upper portion of the sloppy area (above 160m from the lowest point of a micro watershed). three replicates of each location were selected in hamirpur, bilaspur and una districts. selection of locations for frost sensitivity was in accordance with sharma and badiyala (2008). at every location selected, there were four mango orchards of cv. dashehari in the age group of 15 to 20 years, growing on loam to silt loam soils with almost neutral soil reaction, and uniform level of orchard management as per standard package of practices. in each orchard, five trees were selected randomly for recording various observations. the experimental trees were subjected to corrective pruning in mid-february for removal of frost-affected dead parts. immediately after corrective pruning, the trees were sprayed with copper oxychloride (0.3%) as per standard recommendation (anon., 2008). thereafter, the experimental trees were subjected to following set of growth restoring treatments: t10.5% urea spray (low urea dose on tender growth), t2 20 ppm gibberellic acid (ga3) spray, t3 20 ppm benzyladenine (ba) spray [all these treatments (t1 to t3) were given 15 days after corrective pruning], t4 t1 + 2% urea spray, 15 days after t1, t5 t2 + 2% urea spray (higher dose of urea for accelerating vegetative growth), 15 days after t2, t6 t3 + 2% urea spray, 15 days after t3, t7 control (water spray at the time of t1 and t4). observations were recorded on shoot regeneration by counting the number of new shoots that emerged per scaffold at the canopy-top until april-mid. further growth of shoots was measured at the end of september, and was termed ‘shoot extension growth’. for this purpose, ten shoots were tagged per scaffold. treatment effect was also measured for reproductive growth of the tree in terms of proportion of the canopy producing flowers, fruit retention by aprilend (pea stage) and june-end (pit hardening stage). data was pooled for the years 2007 and 2008. it was a pre-experimentation observation that trees were subjected to heavy corrective-pruning (pruning that involved cutting of branches >2" diameter) suffered more if the frost occurred during the subsequent year as well. for preventing of this type of damage, prior to winter onset, the following set of treatments were imposed: c1-pre-winter waxing of cut-ends (>2" diameter), c2pre-winter polyethylene covering of cut-ends (>2" diameter), and c3control (no covering of cut-ends). these trees received growth restoring set of treatments as detailed described above; observations recorded were also similar. data were pooled for all the locations and the years of study i.e., 200708 and 2008-09. randomization, experimental layout and statistical analyses were done as per ‘repeated measurement design (factorial)’ wherein the same experimental units received two sets of treatment at different times, and observations were recorded after applying of the respective set of treatments (freeman, 1959; hoblyn et al, 1954). results and discussions ba + urea treatment (t6) significantly enhanced number of shoots regenerated on the top scaffolds (table 1). influence of location on shoot regeneration was found to be non-significant, though, interaction effect of the treatments and location was significant. effect of the abovestated treatment was highest at a location of low frostsensitivity (l3) and was statistically at par with the least frost-affected sites (l4) (table 1). similar pattern was observed for shoot extension growth: ba + urea outscored the other treatments, though statistically it was at par with ga3 + urea (t5) treatment. location and location-treatment interactions were observed to be non-significant in influencing shoot extension growth. such an effect of benzyladenine (ba) on shoot regeneration and shoot extension growth may be attributed to its known, characteristic effect on protein and rna content in leaves and meristematic regions. this stimulates the anaboloid mechanism in the plant, leading to enhanced shoot regeneration and growth (nailo et al, 2007). further, garner et al (1997) also reported ba as inducing lateral buds by activating epicormic buds on the main branches and the stem in woody species. application of urea yielded effects additive to that of ba owing to urea’s active contribution in protein synthesis (daoudi et al, 1998). effect of location on shoot regeneration can be understood in the light of findings of wisniewski et al (2001) who studied damage to heartwood and lateral meristematic regions of the plant at variable levels of low-temperature exposure. at low frost-sensitive sites (l3), lateral meristematic tissues of the scaffolds may have been rarely damaged; therefore, these plants gained active growth immediately after winters ceased. proportion of the canopy restored to flowering was not influenced significantly by various treatments, although this figure was significantly higher at locations that were less frost-affected (table 2). under highly frosty conditions (l1), proportion of the flowering canopy was lowest j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):12-17, 2014 growth restoration in frost-affected mango in sub-himalayan region 14 (12.11%), as, a majority of the canopy was damaged by frost. count of fruitlets at the end of april, representative of initial fruit-set, was found to be highest with t6 (ba+urea treatment) non-significantly, followed by t4 (urea+urea treatment). positive effects of ba and urea treatments on reproductive behavior of treated plants may be attributed to a lower flower and fruit abscission under these treatments. similar observations were recorded by daoudi et al (1998) and talaie et al (2006) in pistachio nut. location-wise variation in fruit-set was found to be significant only in the case of l4 (least frost affected site) where the variation was lowest. this may be attributed to lower water and fertility regime at the site (sharma and badiyala, 2008). fruit retention by the end of june was considerably higher at l1 (low-lying areas) owing to better water and fertility regimes. effect of the treatments was also significant under this location, although interaction effects were non-significant. variation in fruit yield was not significant with respect to the location under study, primarily due to the opposite order of variation in flowering and fruit retention. for yield, both treatment and treatment x location interactions were found to be significant. ba+urea produced significantly higher fruit yield than other treatments. highest fruit yield was recorded in this treatment at l1. anti-senescence properties of both benzyladenine and nitrogen may have resulted in retention of higher number of fruits and better fertility regime at the location (sharma and badiyala, 2008) thereby, contributing significantly to fruit yield. it is quite clear from the results (fig. 1a) that covering the cut-ends of the scaffolds with wax or polyethylene sheet significantly reduced frost/ freeze induced damage to shoots and stems (damage of upto 6.23cm, 16.9cm and 77.3cm was observed for wax, polyethylene and uncovered treatments, respectively). the effect of spring season’s growth promoting treatments and their interaction effect with cut-end covering treatments was found to be nonsignificant with reference to freeze damage of stem or shoots. these findings was supported by inferences of wisniewski et al (2001) who demonstrated that during a frost event, once the ice nucleation occurs, the ice spreads very fast across the vascular system of the plant, upon its entry into the vascular strands. thus, when the cut-ends were not covered, these acted as entry points for ice propagation through the tree’s vascular system, and resulted in grave damage to the plant system. though regeneration of new shoots significantly improved by cut-end treatment as well as growth promotion treatment (fig. 1b), interaction between the two was found to improve shoot regeneration significantly. highest number of shoots regenerated (8.2) on scaffolds whose cut-ends covered with polyethylene were given a spray of ba+ urea. shoot extension growth recorded highest with wax cover treatments (fig. 1c), and was found at par with polyethylene cover treatment coupled with ba+urea. this may be attributed to a possibility that wax or polyethylene protected table 1. effect of various treatments on growth restorations in frost affected mango orchards at different locations (pooled data for the years 2007 and 2008) location shoots emerged/scaffold (number) shoot extension growth (cm) l1 l2 l3 l4 mean l1 l2 l3 l4 mean treatment t1 1.2 2.6 4.2 4.0 3.00 12.2 11.6 12.4 11.2 11.85 t2 0.6 1.8 3.1 3.2 2.18 11.4 11.2 10.4 9.7 10.68 t3 3.2 3.4 3.2 3.7 3.37 14.2 13.4 13.7 12.9 13.55 t4 2.7 3.2 3.8 3.9 3.40 12.2 9.4 12.3 11.2 11.27 t5 3.4 3.7 3.8 3.6 3.63 18.4 16.7 12.6 16.4 16.02 t6 5.5 6.5 7.0 6.1 6.28 20.7 19.3 11.2 19.1 17.58 t7 2.1 2.9 2.7 2.7 2.60 10.1 10.2 8.1 10.2 9.65 mean 2.67 3.44 3.97 3.88 14.2 13.1 11.5 12.1 cd (p=0.05) l ns l ns t 2.57 t 3.76 l x t-1.48 l x t ns t 1 0.5% urea spray l1 highly frost sensitive area (0-80m from the lowest point of a micro watershed) t 2 20ppm gibberellic acid (ga3) spray l2 medium frost sensitive area (80-120m from the lowest point of a micro watershed) t 3 20ppm benzyladenine (ba) spray l3 low frost sensitive area (120-160m from the lowest point of a micro watershed) t 4 t1 + 2% urea spray 15 days after t1 l4 least frost sensitive area (above 160m from the lowest point of a micro watershed) t 5 t2 + 2% urea spray, 15 days after t2 t 6 t3 + 2% urea spray, 15 days after t2 t 7 control (water spray at the time of t1 and t4) shashi kumar sharma j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):12-17, 2014 15 ta bl e 2. e ff ec t of v ar io us t re at m en ts o n re pr od uc ti ve g ro w th a nd f ru it y ie ld u nd er d if fe re nt lo ca ti on s (p oo le d da ta f or t he y ea rs 2 00 7 an d 20 08 ) l oc at io n c an op y pr op or tio n (% ) n o. o f fr ui ts /p an ic le a t t he n o. o f fr ui ts /p an ic le a t t he a v. f ru it yi el d / re st or ed to fl ow er in g en d of a pr il (p ea s ta ge ) en d of j un e (p it ha rd en in g st ag e) tr ee (k g) l 1 l 2 l 3 l 4 m ea n l 1 l 2 l 3 l 4 m ea n l 1 l 2 l 3 l 4 m ea n l 1 l 2 l 3 l 4 m ea n t re at m en t t 1 8. 4 27 .4 41 .8 41 .6 29 .8 0 7. 2 4. 8 5. 9 4. 2 5. 53 0. 61 0. 23 0. 30 0. 28 0. 35 5 24 .5 26 .2 16 .1 31 .2 24 .5 0 t 2 9. 2 30 .2 54 .2 54 .2 36 .9 5 7. 4 5. 9 6. 9 4. 0 6. 05 0. 42 0. 35 0. 28 0. 19 0. 31 0 19 .1 26 .4 31 .3 39 .6 29 .1 0 t 3 14 .2 28 .6 50 .4 51 .2 36 .1 0 7. 2 6. 4 6. 1 6. 1 6. 95 0. 64 0. 39 0. 30 0. 39 0. 43 0 39 .7 36 .3 28 .5 26 .4 32 .7 2 t 4 13 .2 25 .4 44 .4 42 .4 13 .3 5 7. 6 8. 1 7. 4 6. 4 8. 13 0. 70 0. 38 0. 30 0. 30 0. 42 0 39 .1 31 .4 29 .6 38 .3 34 .6 t 5 10 .4 27 .2 38 .4 51 .6 39 .9 0 8. 7 8. 9 7. 8 6. 1 7. 88 0. 71 0. 42 0. 29 0. 37 0. 44 8 30 .8 34 .2 36 .2 30 .4 32 .9 0 t 6 19 .6 32 .9 49 .9 56 .4 39 .7 0 10 .1 9. 7 9. 3 8. 4 9. 88 1. 03 0. 56 0. 59 0. 67 0. 71 3 62 .8 45 .4 47 .4 44 .8 50 .1 t 7 9. 8 26 .2 44 .4 54 .6 33 .7 5 7. 1 3. 1 3. 8 4. 1 5. 42 0. 21 0. 29 0. 18 0. 26 0. 23 5 25 .8 22 .7 12 .4 11 .5 15 .6 m ea n 12 .1 1 28 .2 7 46 .2 1 50 .2 8 7. 90 6. 70 6. 74 5. 61 0. 61 7 0. 37 4 0. 32 0 0. 35 1 34 .5 31 .8 27 .8 31 .7 c d ( p = 0. 05 ) l 19 .7 5 l 2. 71 l 0. 21 2 l n s t n s t 1. 87 t 0. 28 1 t 9. 82 lx t n s lx t n s lx t n s lx t 21 .7 6 t 1 0. 5% u re a sp ra y l 1 h ig hl y fr os t s en si tiv e ar ea ( 080 m f ro m lo w es t p oi nt o f a m ic ro w at er sh ed ) t 2 2 0p pm g ib be re lli c a ci d (g a 3) sp ra y l 2 m ed iu m f ro st s en si tiv e ar ea ( 80 -1 20 m f ro m lo w es t p oi nt o f a m ic ro w at er sh ed ) t 3 20 pp m b en zy la de ni ne ( b a ) sp ra y l 3 l ow f ro st s en si tiv e ar ea ( 12 016 0m f ro m lo w es t p oi nt o f a m ic ro w at er sh ed ) t 4 t 1 + 2% u re a sp ra y, 1 5 da ys a ft er t 1 l 4 l ea st f ro st s en si tiv e ar ea ( ab ov e 16 0m f ro m lo w es t p oi nt o f a m ic ro w at er sh ed ) t 5 t 2 + 2% u re a sp ra y, 1 5 da ys a ft er t 2 t 6 t 3 + 2% u re a sp ra y, 1 5 da ys a ft er t 2 t 7 c on tr ol ( w at er s pr ay a t th e tim e of t 1 an d t 4) growth restoration in frost-affected mango in sub-himalayan region j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):12-17, 2014 16 cut-ends prevented damage to the meristematic regions of shoots, and these regions supported the plants in early restoration of growth. fruit yield per tree was also influenced significantly by these set of treatments and their interactions. highest fruit yield (42kg/tree) was recorded in trees where the cutend of a scaffold was covered with wax and which had received ba+urea treatment for growth restoration (fig. 1d). wax and polyethylene treatments were statistically at par, which may be attributed to the fact that covering of the cut-ends of scaffolds prevented severe injury to these branches, thereby restoring reproductive growth better than in an uncovered branch. in uncovered branches, photosynthates may have been used up first for recouping vegetative losses rather than restoring yield in the plant system. altered biomass partitioning towards vegetative growth has also been demonstrated earlier by hancock et al (2007) under induced stress. on the basis of results above, it may be concluded that application of benzyladenine, followed by urea (2%) spray after fifteen days enhanced regeneration of vegetative and reproductive growth of frost-affected mango orchards, along with increase in yield over the control. covering tree wounds or cut-end surfaces of branches with wax or polythene sheet protected the trees from severe damage while retaining the vegetative and reproductive growth capacity of shoots. acknowledgement: the author is highly thankful to agriculture technology management agency, hamirpur, for providing financial assistance for the study. references anonymous. 2008. package of practices of fruit crops. directorate of extension education, dr. ysp university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan (hp), india anonymous. 2009. horticultural statistics. dept. of horticulture, govt. of himachal pradesh, shimla, hp, india anonymous. 2010. http//www.business.gov.in/agriculture/ current scenario daoudi, h., ferguson, l. and lovatt, c.j. 1998. urea combined with 6-benzyladenine applied to the foliage of pistachio trees during nut-fill reduced floral bud abscission during the “on” crop year and increased yield the following “off” crop year. hort. sci., 33:497-498 freeman, g.h. 1959. the use of same experimental material for more than one set of treatments. appld. stat., 8:13-20 garner, j.m., keever, g.j., eakes, d.j. and kessler. j.r. 1997. ba-induced offset formation in hosta dependent on cultivar. hort. sci., 32:91-93 hancock, j.e., loya, w.m., giardina, c.p., li, l., chiang, fig 1. effect of scafolds’ cut end covering and growth restoring treatments on frost damaeg, vegetative growth and fruit yield in ‘dashehari’ mango (pooled data for location and years 2008 and 2009) shashi kumar sharma j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):12-17, 2014 17 v.l. and pregitzer, k.s. 2007. plant growth, biomass partitioning and soil carbon formation in response to altered lignin biosynthesis in populus tremuloides. new phytol., 173:732–742 hoblyn, t.n., pearce, s.c. and freeman, g.h. 1954. some considerations in design of successive experiments in fruit plantations. biometerics, 10:503-15 nailo, k., nagumo, s., furuya, k. and suzuki, h. 2007. effect of benzyladenine on rna and protein synthesis in intact bean leaves at various stages of ageing. physiol. plant., 52:343-348 sharma, shashi k. and badiyala, s.d. 2008. prioritization of subtropical fruit plants for the frost prone low hill region of himachal pradesh. natural product radiance, 7:347-353 talaie, a., seyedi, m., panahi, b. and khezari, m. 2006. effects of shoot girdling and urea combined with 6benzyladenine on abscission of inflorescence buds in “ohadi” pistachio cultivar (pistacia vera l.). int’l. j. agril. biol., 8:474-476 wisniewski, m., fuller, m., glenn, d.m., palta, j., carter, j., gusta, l., griffith, m. and duman, j. 2001. factors involved in ice nucleation and propagation in plants: an overview based on new insights gained from the use of infrared thermography. icel. agri. sci., 14:41-47 (ms received 04 may 2013, revised 27 november 2013, accepted 14 march 2014) growth restoration in frost-affected mango in sub-himalayan region j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):12-17, 2014 gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus hort.) is a popular bulbous ornamental flower crop belonging to the family iridaceae, and is aptly known as ‘queen of bulbous flowers’. it is native to the mediterranean region, tropical south africa and asia. it is also cultivated in various states of india, mainly, west bengal, maharashtra, uttar pradesh, karnataka, uttaranchal, punjab, haryana, sikkim, jammu and kashmir, gujarat, himachal pradesh, tamil nadu, madhya pradesh and rajasthan (arora et al, 2002). it is commercially propagated by corms and cormels that have a dormancy period of about three and six months, respectively. the degree of dormancy in gladiolus varies with the cultivar. dormancy of cormels is longer than that of corms (ginzburg, 1973). temperature during storage of corms affects dormancy: higher temperature enhances dormancy while lower temperature reduces it (denny, 1936). thus, the present investigation was undertaken to study the effect of temperature and storage period on dormancy of corms in three gladiolus genotypes and its effect on quality parameters. material and methods the experiment was conducted during the year 20102011 at indian institute of horticultural research, j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):114-117, 2013 short communication effect of temperature and period of storage on breaking dormancy in gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus hort.) corms varun s. amingad, t. manjunatha rao, r. venugopalan1, d.p. kumar2, m.v. dhananjaya and k. bhanuprakash3 division of ornamental crops, indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560 089, india e-mail : varun.amingad@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted in 2010-2011 at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, on three gladiolus cultivars viz., ‘arka amar’, ‘darshan’ and ‘kum kum’ to study effects of storage temperature (4°c and room temperature 27±2°c) and length of storage (50, 70 and 90 days) on dormancy of corms. cv. ‘kum kum’ registered minimum number of days for sprouting (42.71 days), spike emergence (116 days) and days to opening of first floret (128 days). corms stored at 4°c resulted in lowest number of days for-sprouting (45.24 days), days to spike emergence (114.63 days) and days to opening of first floret (126.60 days) and resulted in highest sprouting percentage (58.7%). interaction effects revealed that cv. ‘kum kum’ stored at 4°c for 90 days after harvest took minimum number of days to sprouting (25.07 days), days to spike emergence (90.38 days) and days to opening of first floret (102.38 days) resulting in 100% sprouting. key words: gladiolus, dormancy, storage, corms 1section of economics and statistics, iihr, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089, india 2dept. of horticulture, uas, gkvk, bengaluru-560065, india 3section of seed science and technology, iihr, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089, india hessaraghatta, bengaluru, located at an altitude of 890 metres above mean sea level, latitude 13058' north and longitude 77037' east. three gladiolus genotypes, viz., ‘arka amar’, ‘darshan’ and ‘kum kum’ were studied. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized complete block design (rcbd) with three factors (variety at 3 levels, 2 different storage temperature and different storage duration) and three replications. statistical analysis was done using sas-glm (sas, 2008) v 9.2 available with statistics laboratory, iihr, bengaluru. uniform-sized corms of cultivars arka amar, darshan and kum kum (with diameter ranging from 5.5 to 6.5cm, 5 to 5.5cm and 4 to 4.5cm, respectively) were collected after harvest and stored at either 4ºc or ambient condition (27±2ºc). five corms from each treatment were taken at 50, 70 and 90 days interval and planted, with three replications. plants were grown using recommended package of practices. observations were recorded for fifteen plant characters, viz., sprouting percentage (%), days to sprouting, days to spike emergence, days to opening of first floret, plant height (cm), spike length (cm), rachis length (cm), floret diameter (cm), number of florets per spike, number of marketable spikes per corm (a spike having more 115 breaking dormancy in corms of gladiolus than twelve florets was considered marketable), total number of spikes per corm, number of florets open at a given time, flowering duration (days), spike weight (g) and vase life (days). significant difference was found in parameters for days to sprouting, sprouting percentage, days to spike emergence and days to opening of first floret, whereas, there was no significant difference with respect to plant height and floral characters studied. days to sprouting data presented in table 1 reveal that minimum number of days taken to sprout was recorded in ‘kum kum’ (42.7 days), followed by ‘arka amar’ (58.8 days) and ‘darshan’ (74.6 days). storage at 4°c resulted in earlier sprouting (45.2 days) compared to that at ambient temperature (72.1 days). minimum number of days to sprout was observed in ‘kum kum’ (25.1 days) when corms were stored at 4°c for 90 days. this finding is in accordance with results of jean ming hong et al (1997) and sun yan zhi and yi ming fang (2004) who reported that storage at 5°c improved germination within 21 days. this might be due to storing the corms at low temperature which results in faster breaking on dormancy. minimum number of days to sprout was seen when corms of ‘kum kum’ were stored at 4°c (34.8 days), whereas, corms of ‘darshan’ stored at ambient conditions took maximum number of days to sprout (90.6 days). three-way interaction effects revealed that corms of ‘kum kum’ stored for 90 days at 4°c took the least number of days to sprout (25.0 days). on the contrary, corms of ‘darshan’ stored for 50 days at room temperature took maximum number of days to sprout (97.3 days). significant difference was seen among treatments. days to spike emergence interaction between storage temperature and duration of storage showed significant difference for days to spike emergence (table 1). minimum number of days to spike emergence was seen in ‘kum kum’ (116 days), followed by ‘arka amar’ (130.3 days), maximum number of days to spike emergence was observed in ‘darshan’ (141.7 days). storing corms at 4°c resulted in earlier spike emergence (114.6 days) compared to those at ambient conditions (143.5 days). hsieh and huang (1970) reported that 40 day treatment at 5°c successfully broke dormancy in gladiolus leading to earliness in spike emergence. this may be attributed to the fact that storing corms at low temperature reduces aba content and increases ga 3 content, thus helping overcome dormancy, leading to earlier spike emergence. there was significant difference in time taken to spike emergence when corms were stored for 90 days (110.1 days), followed by 70 days (126.3 days) and 50 days (151.4 days). minimum number of days taken to spike emergence was noticed when corms of ‘arka amar’ were stored at 4°c (107.3 days). whereas, corms of ‘darshan’ stored at ambient conditions took maximum number of days to spike emergence (157.6). three-way interaction effects revealed that corms of ‘arka amar’ stored for 90 days at 4°c took the least number of days for spike emergence (81.6 days). on the other hand, corms of ‘arka amar’ stored for 50 days at room temperature took maximum number of days to spike emergence (171.0 days). days to opening of first floret all the three factors viz., variety, storage temperature and duration of storage were found to be significantly affecting days to opening of first floret (table 1). minimum number of days taken to opening of first floret was seen in ‘kum kum’ (128 days), followed by ‘arka amar’ (142.3 days), whereas, maximum number of days to opening of first floret was observed in ‘darshan’ (153.7). corms stored at 40c were early to first flower emergence (126.6 days) compared to ambient conditions (156 days), differing significantly. suh and kwack (1992) reported that longer the corms stored at 5°c, greater was the effect on breaking dormancy. in the present study, ‘arka amar’ stored at 4°c for three months took less number of days for flowering (93.60 days). three-way interaction effects revealed that corms of ‘arka amar’ stored for 90 days at 4°c took the least number of days to first flower emergence (93.6 days). on the other hand, corms of ‘arka amar’ stored for 50 days at room temperature took maximum number of days for opening of the first floret (183 days). sprouting percentage sprouting percentage ranged between 7.77 and 78.35%. maximum sprouting was recorded in ‘kum kum’, while minimum was observed in ‘darshan’. seenivasan (2001) reported genotypic variation with respect to per cent sprouting. storage at 4°c resulted in maximum sprouting (58.70%) compared to storage at ambient temperature (22.41%). three-way interaction effects showed that corms of ‘arka amar’ and ‘kum kum’ stored at 4°c for 90 days sprouted within 50 days of planting, resulting in 100% sprouting. on the contrary, corms of ‘arka amar’ and ‘darshan’ stored at room temperature for 50 and 70 days failed to sprout within the first 50 days of planting. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):114-117, 2013 116 table 1. effect of variety, storage temperature, storage duration and their interactions on days to sprouting, days to spike emergence and days to opening of first floret in gladiolus treatment combination days to days to spike days to opening sprouting emergence of first floret v 1 t 1 d 1 62.0 137.9 149.9 v 1 t 1 d 2 39.0 102.7 114.7 v 1 t 1 d 3 26.0 81.6 93.6 v 1 t 2 d 1 86.8 171.0 183.0 v 1 t 2 d 2 83.8 158.7 170.7 v 1 t 2 d 3 54.9 129.9 141.9 v 2 t 1 d 1 68.3 142.6 154.6 v 2 t 1 d 2 57.0 119.8 131.8 v 2 t 1 d 3 50.4 114.7 126.7 v 2 t 2 d 1 97.3 167.2 179.2 v 2 t 2 d 2 94.3 161.3 173.3 v 2 t 2 d 3 80.3 144.5 156.5 v 3 t 1 d 1 41.0 142.3 154.3 v 3 t 1 d 2 34.4 99.7 111.7 v 3 t 1 d 3 25.0 90.4 102.4 v 3 t 2 d 1 62.2 148.2 160.2 v 3 t 2 d 2 52.6 116.0 128.0 v 3 t 2 d 3 37.0 99.7 111.7 v v 1 v 2 v 3 v 1 v 2 v 3 v 1 v 2 v 3 58.7 74.5 42.7 130.3 141.7 116.0 142.3 153.7 128.0 t t 1 t 2 t 1 t 2 t 1 t 2 45.2 72.1 114.6 143.5 126.6 156.0 d d 1 d 2 d 3 d 1 d 2 d 3 d 1 d 2 d 3 70.2 60.1 45.6 151.5 126.3 110.1 163.5 138.3 122.1 v 1 v 2 v 3 v 1 v 2 v 3 v 1 v 2 v 3 t 1 42.3 75.2 58.5 107.3 153.2 125.7 119.3 165.2 137.7 t 2 90.6 34.8 50.6 157.6 110.8 121.3 169.6 122.8 133.3 d 1 74.4 61.4 40.5 154.4 130.7 105.7 166.4 142.7 117.7 d 2 82.7 75.6 65.3 154.9 140.5 129.6 166.9 152.5 141.6 d 3 53.6 43.5 31.0 145.2 107.8 95.0 157.2 119.8 107.0 d 1 d 2 d 3 d 1 d 2 d 3 d 1 d 2 d 3 t 1 58.4 43.5 33.8 140.9 107.4 95.5 152.9 119.4 107.5 t 2 82.1 76.9 57.4 162.1 145.3 124.7 174.1 157.3 136.7 cd (p=0.05) v 1.11 1.45 1.45 t 0.91 1.18 1.18 d 1.11 1.45 1.45 v × t 1.57 2.05 2.05 v × d 1.93 2.51 2.51 t × d 1.57 2.05 2.05 v × t × d 2.73 3.55 3.55 v 1 : arka amar t 1 : 40c d 1 : 50 days storage v 2 : darshan t 2 : room temperature (27±2ºc) d 2 : 70 days storage v 3 : kum kum d 3 : 90 days storage amingad et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):114-117, 2013 117 references arora, j.s., misra, r.l., singh, k., singh, p. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 2002. introduction in gladiolus technical bulletin (14). aicrp – floriculture, iari, pusa, new delhi, 1-36 pp. denny, f.e. 1936. storage temperatures for shortening the rest period of gladiolus corms. contributory boyce thompson institute 8:137-140 ginzburg, c. 1973. hormonal regulation of cormel dormancy in gladiolus grandiflorus, j. exptl. bot., 24:558566 hsieh, k.c. and huang, s.t. 1970. a study on measuring the dormant period and breaking dormancy in gladiolus bulbs. taiwan agri. quarterly, 6:92-103 jean ming hong, lin tshenchan, sheng chungteh, wu gwo dean, chen wenhuei, huang tungjui. 1997. the optimal period of constant cold temperature storage for breaking dormancy of gladiolus flower bulbs. report of the taiwan sugar research institute, 156:37-48 sas v 9.2. 2008. statistical analysis systems institute inc., cary, nc, usa seenivasan, n. 2001. effect of plant growth regulators on dormancy and growth of gladiolus. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, acharya n.g. ranga agricultural university, hyderabad suh, j.k. and kwack, b.h. 1992. physiological changes in the course of bulbing and dormancy-breaking of gladiolus (gladiolus gandavensis l.). j. korean. soc. hortl. sci., 33:466-470 sun yan zhi and yi ming fang, 2004. influence of storaging temperatures on breaking corm dormancy and germination of gladiolus. j. agril. univ. hebei, 5:46-50 (ms received 22 october 2011, accepted 15 june 2012, revised 07 february 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):114-117, 2013 breaking dormancy in corms of gladiolus final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 95 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 95-102, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction ginger of commerce is the underground rhizome of zingiber officinale rosc. (2n=22), belonging to the family zingiberaceae and it is originated from southeast asia. it is one of the oldest and most important spices, being cultivated in tropical asia for over 3000 years. it is one of the earliest oriental spices known to europe and is still in large demand today. the rhizomes may be scraped or peeled before drying and are esteemed for their aroma, flavour and pungency. it may also be used in powdered form (purseglove et al., 1981). largest collection of ginger germplasm (675 accessions) is being conserved at icar-indian institute of spices research, kozhikode, kerala which is also nags centre of ginger. most of the varieties have vernacular names and as the crop is propagated vegetatively hence the chances of mixing are very high. generally, ginger genotypes are identified based on morphological traits, but the assessment of these traits is difficult and their evaluation can be subjective considering that most of these cultivars are related. most of the ginger cultivars are not easily differentiated based on rhizome or aerial morphological features, further confounding the confusion to a greater extent. t he development in molecular approaches for identification of plant varieties/genotypes seems to be more effective than the traditional morphological ma rkers because it a llows dir ect access to the her edit a r y ma ter ia l a nd ma kes it p oss ib le to under s ta nd the r ela tionships , bet ween pla nts (williams et al., 1990; paterson et al., 1991). molecular marker technology is the powerful tool f or det er mi ning genet ic va r ia t io n in ginger genotypes as they can reveal abundant difference among genotypes at the dna level, providing a mor e dir ec t , r elia b le a nd eff ic ie nt t ool f or ger mp la s m c ha r a c t er iz a t ion, c on s er va t ion, ma na gement a nd untouched by envir onmenta l influence. although rapd markers are suitable for genetic diver sity a na lysis of clonal organisms ( ba r da kc i, 2 0 0 1 ) , s s r ma r ker s a r e mor e r epr oducible a nd useful in eva lua ting genetic diversity and cultivar identification (goulao and oliveira 2001; pomper et al., 2010; nas et al., 2011). in view of the above, the present study used both rapd a nd s sr ma r ker s to a na lyz e the pr esence of diver sity a mong differ ent ginger genotypes. molecular characterization of ginger genotypes using rapd and ssr markers akshitha h.j.1,3*, prasath d.2, umesha k.1, mohammed faisal p.3 and venkataravanappa v.4 1college of horticulture, uhs campus, bengaluru, karnataka, india 2 icar-indian institute of spices research, kozhikode, kerala, india 3 icar-indian institute of spices research regional station, appangala, karnataka, india 4icar-iihr central horticultural experiment station, chettalli, karnataka, india *corresponding author e-mail: akshi.hosahalli10@gmail.com abstract genetic diversity among ginger genotypes collected from different parts of the country was studied using molecular markers (30 rapd and 55 ssr). compared to rapd primers ssr primers were efficient in distinguishing the genotypes. a total of 86 and 23 polymorphic bands were observed with rapd and ssr primers, respectively. percentage polymorphism observed between rapd and ssr primers was 97.40 % and 56.54 %. grouping of genotypes by using combined data of rapd and ssr primers indicated that irrespective of their place of collection or geographical origin, 30 genotypes were clustered into different groups which showed that, each individual genotype is having wider variability or it might be due to the genetic similarity existing among them. keyword: ginger, molecular markers, monomorphic and polymorphic 96 akshitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 95-102, 2022 material and methods plant material twenty-seven ginger genotypes, one zingiber sp., one curcuma sp. and one kaempferia sp. collected from different parts of the country and maintained at nags centre iisr, kozhikode were used in the study (table s1). genomic dna isolation young leaves from 45-60 days old plants were selected for dna isolation. genomic dna was isolated using the ctab method (syamkumar et al., 2003). one gram of young, clean leaf was ground in liquid nitrogen into fine powder with the help of pestle and mortar. dna was extracted with ctab extraction buffer. dna was purified and quantified by gel (0.8% agarose gel) based quantification. rapd and ssr analysis thirty randomly selected rapd primers were used in the study (table s2). a 25 µl reaction mixture was prepared as follows: 3 µl of dntp (10 mm), 1 µl primer (10 mm), 3.5 µl of 10 x reaction buffer with 15mm mgcl2, 0.5 µl of taq dna polymerase ( 3 u/ μl) a nd 1 . 6 µ l of t empla t e d na. pc r amplification was done in a thermocycler with an initial denaturation of 94 °c for 3 minutes followed by 35 cycles of 94 °c for 45 seconds, annealing at 37 °c for 45 seconds and extension at 72 °c for 1 minute followed by a final extension at 72 °c for 15 minutes. the pcr amplified products were a na lysed on a 1. 5 % agar ose gel sta ined with et hidiu m b r omide. t he gels wer e digit a lly photographed by bio-imaging systems (syngene gbox-chemi, england). a set of 55 ssr primers were used in the present study viz., 22 est ssr primers (anu, 2016), eight ginger genomic ssr primers (lee et al., 2007), 18 genomic ssr primers (siju et al., 2010a) and 7 es t ss r pr imer s (s iju et a l. , 2 01 0b ) f r om curcuma longa (ta ble s3). a 20 µ l r ea ction mixture was prepared as follows: 2 µl of dntp (10 mm), 2 µl primer (10 mm), 2.5 µl of 10 x reaction buffer with 15mm mgcl2, 0.2 µl of taq dna polymerase (3 u/μl) and 1.5 µl of template dna. pcr amplification was done in a thermocycler with an initia l denaturation of 94 °c for 5 minutes followed by 35 cycles of 94 °c for 45 seconds, 45 seconds of annealing temperature (52-65 °c) and extension at 72 °c for 1 minute followed by a final extension at 72 °c for 20 minutes. t he pcr a mplified pr oducts wer e a na lysed on a 3. 0 % agarose gel stained with ethidium bromide. the gels wer e digita lly phot ogr a phed b y bioima ging systems (syngene gbox-chemi, england). data analysis the independent as well as combined data generated for 30 genotypes from rapd and ssr primers were subjected to statistical analysis. rapd and ssr products were scored visually for presence (1) and absence (0) of bands. the scores were used to create a data matrix to analyze genetic relationship using the ntsys-pc program version 2.02 (exeter software, new york, usa) described by rohlf (1990). a dendrogram was constructed based on jaccard’s similarity coefficient (jaccar d, 1908) u s ing the ma r ker da t a fr om t he ginger wit h u nweight ed p a ir gr ou p met hod ( up g m a) . p a r a met er s s uc h a s p i c a nd genot yp ic gene diversity were estimated by using the for mula developed by anderson et al. (1993) and mariette et al. (2002), respectively. results molecular variability of ginger genotypes through rapd using rapd analysis, polymorphic fragments were generated in ginger genotypes. the selection of primers wa s based on clear, scor able a nd r epr oducible amplified banding patterns. out of 30 primers used, 11 rapd primers showed amplification and the number of amplification products obtained was specific to each primer. the size of the amplified products varied from 400 to 2800 bp. of the 11 primers, ten primers viz., opa 09, opa 17, opa 18, opb 08, opd 03, opd 07, opd 18, oph 08, opi 07 and opl 12 were found to show 100 per cent polymorphism which is presented in table 1. of the 88 tota l a lleles obser ved, 86 a lleles wer e polymorphic and maximum numbers of 14 alleles were obtained with primer opl 12, followed by primer opa 09 and opi 07 with 10 alleles. minimum numbers of 3 alleles were generated with primer opd 03. thus, amplifications varied across the primer employed. among the 11 rapd primers, the polymorphism information content (pic) was high in opd 03, opd 07 and oph 08 (0.998) (table 1). 97 molecular characterization of ginger genotypes using rapd and ssr markers table 1. polymorphism among ginger genotypes detected by rapd markers primers total mb pb % % total allele pic genotypic allele mm pm amplicons brange gene diversity opa 09 10 0 10 0 100 55 750-2600 0.981 0.816 opa 17 6 0 6 0 100 80 1000-2500 0.985 0.555 opa 18 8 0 8 0 100 98 400-1800 0.988 0.591 opb 08 6 0 6 0 100 107 500-1500 0.996 0.448 opd 03 3 0 3 0 100 87 1000-2000 0.998 0.275 opd 07 7 0 7 0 100 92 1500-2300 0.998 0.561 opd 18 9 0 9 0 100 169 500-2800 0.993 0.324 oph 08 8 0 8 0 100 70 1200-2700 0.998 0.708 oph 15 7 2 5 28.57 71.43 111 1000-2300 0.997 0.390 opi 07 10 0 10 0 100 175 400-2600 0.993 0.358 opl 12 14 0 14 0 100 253 400-2800 0.988 0.437 total 88 2 86 28.57 1071 10.92 5.463 mean 8 0.18 7.82 2.59 97.40 117.90 0.99 0.50 mb – number of monomorphic bands; pb – number of polymorphic bands; % mm – per cent monomorphism; % pm – per cent polymorphism; pic polymorphism information content each rapd pattern was compared with other patterns and genetic similarity ma trix for all the thir ty genotypes was constructed from binary data of markers using jaccard’s algorithm. the coefficient of genetic similarity ranged from 39 97 per cent. maximum similarity of 95 per cent was noticed between himachal and zaheerabad local. further, the information generated out of rapd banding pattern was used for clustering through unweighted mean pair group arithmetic mean method (upgma) (fig. 1). the genotypes were divided into two main groups, i and ii sharing 39 % similarity which were further subdivided into clusters. among the genotypes, two genotypes (black ginger and mango ginger) were grouped under group i with sharing similarity of 90 % and other 28 genotypes (suravi, iisr rejatha, kau chandra, suruchi, nadia, aswathy, rg 3, acc. 65, suprabha, maran, rio de janeiro, iisr varada, acc. 833, mahim, acc. 578, red ginger, karthika, acc. 219, iisr mahima, gorubathane, sourabh, acc. 247, mohini, athira, bhaise, arunachal pradesh local, himachal and zaheerabad local) were grouped under group ii with sharing similarity of 47 %. group ii consisted of two sub clusters namely a and b sharing similarity of 47 %. cluster a consisted of one genotype viz., arunachal pradesh local. cluster b was sub divided into c and d sharing similarity of 60 %. group c further divided into cluster e and f sharing approximately 65 % similarity. cluster e was subdivided into g and h sharing 70 % similarity. cluster g consisted only one genotype bhaise. cluster h consisted of nine genotypes (acc. 219, acc. 247, ma hima , gor uba tha ne, sour a bh, hima cha l, zaheerabad local, mohini and athira). among the nine genotypes, himachal and zaheerabad local showed 97 % similarity followed by 94 % similarity was observed between mohini and athira as well as acc. 219 and acc. 247. cluster f consisted of three genotypes viz., acc. 578, red ginger and karthika showing 71 % similarity. fig. 1. upgma dendrogram based on rapd markers using jaccard’s similarity coefficient j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 95-102, 2022 98 conducted on ssr banding patterns, indicated that maximum percentage of similarity (100 %) was observed between kau chandra, iisr mahima and mohini; iisr rejatha and nadia; acc 65, suprabha and maran; rio de janeiro and sourabh; suruchi and acc. 833; iisr varada and bhaise. thirty ginger genotypes were used to study their variability through ssr analysis using sixteen primers. the ssr pattern obtained for these genotypes with different primers were defined by the presence or absence of bands. each ssr pattern was compared with each other and euclidean distance matrix was calculated for all the 30 ginger genotypes. the relationship among the genotypes was represented as dendrogram using upgma. the genotypes were divided into two main groups, i and ii sharing 59 % similarity. group i comprised of only one genotype, mango ginger. group ii was further subdivided into cluster a and b with similarity molecular variability of ginger genotypes through ssr out of 55 ssr primers screened, sixteen primers amplified and produced 34 alleles among them 25 were polymorphic bands and 10 were monomorphic bands. ssr fragments ranged from 100 to 1200 bp in size (table 2). maximum number of alleles detected was seven from zom 103 primer. with the average of 62.80 per cent polymorphism produced by sixteen ssr primers, cent per cent polymorphism was detected by the primers zoc 11, zoc 28, zoc 156, zoc 33, zom 064, zom 140 and clest 16. polymorphism information content (pic), a measure of gene diversity was an average of 0.92 with a range of 0.889 by zom 033 to 0.982 by clest 16 primer. jaccard’s similarity coefficients among the thirty genotypes helped to establish genetic relationships (fig. 2). phylogenetic analyses of thirty genotypes, table 2. polymorphism among ginger genotypes detected by ssr markers primers total mb pb % % total allele pic genotypic allele mm pm amplicons brange gene diversity zoc 11 1 1 0 100 0 30 250 0.893 0 zoc 28 3 0 3 0 100 31 150-280 0.923 0.655 zoc 92 1 1 0 100 0 30 190 0.943 0 zoc 98 3 1 2 33.33 66.66 88 250-280 0.952 0.022 zoc 100 2 1 1 50 50 58 150-170 0.922 0.033 zoc 156 3 0 3 0 100 36 150-250 0.897 0.60 zoc 33 1 0 1 0 100 29 180 0.889 0.633 zom 040 2 1 1 50 50 42 190-210 0.921 0.3 zom 055 1 1 0 100 0 30 190 0.921 0 zom 064 1 0 1 0 100 28 250 0.954 0.066 zom 103 7 2 5 28.57 71.43 101 150-1200 0.988 0.545 zom 107 3 1 2 33.33 66.66 32 190-400 0.893 0.644 zom 111 1 1 0 100 0 30 300 0.906 0 zom 140 2 0 2 0 100 58 140-150 0.940 0.033 clest 15 1 1 0 100 0 30 150 0.948 0 clest 16 2 0 2 0 100 56 170-190 0.982 0.066 total 34 11 23 695.23 904.75 709 14.87 3.597 mean 2.12 0.68 1.43 43.45 56.54 44.31 0.92 0.22 mb – number of monomorphic bands; pb – number of polymorphic bands; % mm – per cent monomorphism; % pm – per cent polymorphism; pic polymorphism information content akshitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 95-102, 2022 99 percentage of 74. cluster a consisted of 2 genotypes (acc. 578 and black ginger) sharing similarity of approximately 81 %. cluster b was subdivided into 2 clusters c and d sharing percentage similarity of 84 %. cluster c divided into 2 sub clusters e and f with 89 % similarity. cluster e consisted of 4 genotypes namely red ginger, athira, karthika and zaheerabad local sharing 92 % similarity. cluster f consisted of 8 genotypes viz., suruchi, acc. 833, aswathy, rg 3, iisr varada, bhaise, acc. 219 and gorubathane. among the 8 genotypes suruchi and acc. 833 shared 100 % similarity; iisr varada and bhaise were also 100 % similar to each other. cluster d was subdivided into 2 clusters namely g and h with similarity percentage of approximately 88 %. cluster g consisted of 7 genotypes sharing 91 % similarity, among 7 genotypes acc. 65, suprabha and maran showed 100 % similarity and rio de janeiro and sourabh were also 100 % similar. cluster h consisted 8 genotypes sharing 91 % similarity, among them genotypes kau chandra, iisr mahima and mohini were 100 % similar. similarly, genotypes iisr rejatha and nadia also showed 100 % similarity. molecular variability of ginger genotypes through pooled rapd and ssr markers the data obtained on rapd and ssr primers were pooled to assess the polymorphism. data obtained from pooled analysis of rapd and ssr primers revealed that, the ginger genotypes were divided into 2 main groups i and ii sharing 49 % similarity (fig. 3). group i consisted of only one genotype black ginger. group ii was further subdivided into 2 clusters a and b sharing approximately 50 % similarity. cluster a consisted of only one genotype i.e., mango ginger. cluster b further divided into cluster b and d with 53 % similarity. cluster c consisted of two genotypes (himachal and zaheerabad local) sharing approximately 63 % similarity. cluster d is subdivided into cluster e and f sharing similarity percentage of 68. cluster e was subdivided into g and h with 72 % similarity. cluster g consisted of eight genotypes namely acc. 219, iisr ma hima, gorubatha ne, mohini, athira, acc 247, sourabh and bhaise. among them, acc. 247 and sourabh showed maximum similarity of 90 %. cluster h consisted of three genotypes, acc. 578, red ginger and karthika sharing 77 % similarity. cluster f was divided into 2 clusters, i and j sharing 77 % similarity. cluster i consisted of nine genotypes namely aswathy, rg 3, acc. 65, suprabha, maran, rio de janeiro, iisr varada, acc. 833 and mahim. among them, genotypes suprabha and maran showed 100 % similarity. cluster j consisted of 5 genotypes (suravi, kau chandra, iisr rejatha, suruchi and nadia) sharing approximately 83 % similarity. comparison of rapd and ssr marker systems for their efficacy in assessing genetic diversity of ginger genotypes to compare the utility of the two marker systems, thirty ginger genotypes were analyzed with eleven rapd and sixteen ssr primers. various parameters viz., total number of alleles, number of polymorphic ba nds per a ssa y unit, mea n per centa ge of polymorphism per assay, number of monomorphic bands per assay and polymorphic information content (pic) value were recorded as criteria to differentiate their efficacy and the results are presented in table 3. fig. 2. upgma dendrogram based on ssr markers using jaccard’s similarity coefficient fig. 3. upgma dendrogram based on rapd and ssr markers using jaccard’s similarity coefficient molecular characterization of ginger genotypes using rapd and ssr markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 95-102, 2022 100 the mean number of alleles per assay unit, number of polymorphic and monomorphic bands per assay unit in ssr analysis was 16.0, 1.56 and 0.62 respectively, and in case of rapd primers it was 11.0, 7.82 and 0.18 respectively. mean percentage of polymorphism per assay was 96.97 % in rapd, whereas, it is 62.80 % in case of ssr primers. discussion knowledge of the genetic variation within and among popula tions is a n impor ta nt component for understanding the variability in any crop. therefore, information on population diversity may be used in selection and crop improvement process. molecular methods are much faster, more specific, sensitive and accurate. molecular markers are nowadays widely used to distinguish the genotypes in sever a l horticulture crops (li et al., 2007; karimi et al., 2010 and ansari and singh 2013 and 2014). as ginger is clonally propagated and it is difficult to distinguish between the genotypes using morphological markers, molecula r a ppr oa ches a r e highly useful for characterization of ginger genotypes. in the present study 30 rapd and 55 ssr markers were used to study the genetic variability. rapd dendrogram was not associated with exact geogr a phica l loca lities fr om which the ginger genotypes wer e collected. t he consider a ble polymorphism detected in this study illustrated that, it is possible to find genetic divergence among ginger cultivars of the same origin. these results are in accordance with nayak et al. (2005) and sera et al. (2003), who also reported similar results in ginger and coffee respectively. these results in ginger indicate that, rapd markers were able to provide more reliable information than morphological characters to identify closely related ginger genotypes (nayak et al., 2005 and palai and rout 2007). diversity among the cultivars revealed the presence of genotypic diversity among the genotypes. variability to certain extent might be due to the different environmental conditions. ssrs are widely used as versatile tool in plant breeding programme as well as in evolutionary studies because of their ability for showing diversity among the cultivars (adato et al., 1995). therefore, in the present investigation, out of 55 ssr primers screened, 16 primers amplified and produced 34 alleles among them 23 were polymorphic bands and 11 were monomorphic bands. pandotra et al. (2013); das et al. (2016); jatoi et al. (2006) and lee et al. (2007) also reported the use of ssr markers to study the variability a nd genetic diversity existing at the population level. dendrogram obtained revealed that, irrespective of their place of collection or geographical origin they have grouped into different clusters which showed that, each genotype selected in the study is having wide variability or it may be due to genetic similarity existing among them. ssr primers used were highly efficient in separating curcuma sp. from the zingiber species but those did not distinguish the ginger genotypes ba sed on a ny char a cter or place of collection. jatoi et al. (2006) also reported that clustering pattern within the genus zingiber did not reflect any relationship between genotypic variation and place of collection. similar results were obtained by jaleel and sasikumar (2010) and they reported that, collection of the accessions based on vernacular identity irrespective of the geographical proximity may be the probable reason for this behaviour. it also implies that genes amplified by the markers need not be strictly linked with any agronomic traits. table 3. comparative analysis of banding patterns generated by rapd and ssr components rapd ssr number of alleles per assay unit 11 16 total amplicons 1297 709 total number of alleles 88 34 mean number of alleles per assay unit 8 2.12 number of polymorphic bands per assay unit 7.83 1.43 mean (%) polymorphism per assay 97.40 56.54 number of monomorphic bands per assay unit 0.18 0.68 mean pic per assay 0.99 0.92 akshitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 95-102, 2022 101 conclusion rapd and ssr primers were used to study the diversity among ginger genotypes collected from different agro climatic regions of the country. among 11 rapd primers, ten primers viz., opa 09, opa 17, opa 18, opb 08, opd 03, opd 07, opd 18, oph 08, opi 07 and opl 12 were found to show 100 per cent polymorphism. among the sixteen ssr primers, cent per cent polymorphism was detected by the primers zoc 11, zoc 28, zoc 156, zoc 33, zom 064, zom 140 and clest 16. irrespective of their place of collection or geographical origin, 30 ginger genotypes were clustered into different groups which showed that, each individual genotype is having wider variability or it may be due to the genetic similarity existing among them. references ada t o, a. , s ha r on, d . a nd l a vi , u. 1 9 9 5 . ap p lic a t i on of d n a f inger p r int s f or identification and genetic analyses of mango (mangifera indica) genotypes. j. am. soc. hortic. sci., 120: 259-264. anderson, j. a., churchill, g. a., autrique, j. e., tanksley, s. d. and sorrels, m. e. 1993. optimizing parental selection for genetic linkage maps. genome, 36: 181-186. ansari, a. m. and singh, y. v. 2013. molecular diversity of brinjal (solanum melongena l.) genotypes revealed by rapd marker. j. res. 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final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf 61 genome wide analysis of heat responsive micrornas in banana during acquired thermo tolerance s. m. vidya1,2 , r. h. laxman3, k. v. ravishankar*1 1division of biotechnology, icar-iihr, hesaraghatta, bengaluru 560 089. 2department of biotechnology, centre for post graduate studies, jain university, jayanagar, bengaluru 560 011, india. 3division of plant physiology and biochemistry, icar-iihr, hesaraghatta, bengaluru 560 089, india. *e-mail: kv_ravishankar@yahoo.co.in, kvravi@iihr.res.in abstract micrornas are a class of small regulatory rnas in plants, which play vital roles during various abiotic and abiotic stress conditions including plant processes. in this present study, we examined the expression of mirnas and their predicted target expression levels during heat stress in banana. out of 235 mirna found in musa, 40 mirna showed homology to heat responsive mirnas from other plants. further, 14 targets for mirna were predicted that are potentially regulated by their cognate mirnas and were monitored under three stages of stress viz, induction, induction + lethal alone using qpcr analysis. the results suggest that generally, there is a negative relationship in the expression patterns of mirna and their predicted cognate targets hsp70, hsp90, sap, dnaj genes. these were highly up regulated and their respective mirnas showed lower expression. this is the first report in banana, which demonstrated that during induction stress, various thermo-protective genes are activated at initial stages of stress to achieve thermotolerance through altered mirna expression. the results will help in broadening our understanding acquired thermotolerance and their regulation by mirnas in plants. key words:acquired thermo tolerance, banana, heat stress, mirna,thermo protective genes. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 original research paper introduction micrornas (mirnas) are a class of small nonprotein-coding rnas previously was considered as junk, with a nucleotide length of 20–24 and are involved in regulation ofa broad range of metabolic and physiological processes (bartel, 2004; mallory and vaucheret, 2006; ruiz-ferrer and voinnet 2009) indicating that mirnas also play an important role in plant response to abiotic and biotic stresses.the mir393 and other mirnas are induced by cold stress in arabidopsis and mir169g and mir393 are upregulated under drought stress in rice (zhao and srivastav, 2007). sunkar and zhu (2004) reported that expression of mir393 to be strongly up-regulated by cold, dehydration, and nacl treatments in radish, mir397b and mir402 are slightly up-regulated by all the stress treatments, whereas mir319c appears to be up-regulated by the cold. thus, mirnas can be used as a promising tool to improve our understanding plant response to environmental stresses. differential expression of mirnas was seen in response to heat stress in wheat and banana revealed through high-throughput transcriptome sequencing (xin et al., 2010). they cloned small rnas from heatstressedwheat leaves. among the 32 mirna families identified in wheat, nine conserved mirnas were putatively heat-responsive. in a study on banana roots under salt stress, mirnas and their targets that r esponded wer e identified using tr a nscr iptome sequencing. results indicate that several of the differentially expressed genes (deg) were majorly down-r egulated in mirnas, and incr ea sed the expression of predicted target-genes. the targets were found to participate in diverse signaling and stress defense pathways (lee et al., 2015). plants have an inherent ability to survive at high temperatures (basal thermotolerance) and to acquire thermotolerance (senthil kumar et al., 2003). acquired thermotolerance may be induced by either exposure to short but sub-lethal high temperatures (de klerk 62 banana heat responsive mirnas j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 and pumisutapon et al., 2012), or,by a gradual temperature increase to lethally high levels experienced under natural conditions (larkindale and vierling, 2008), therefore reflecting a natural mechanism contributing to thermotolerance in plants. in bananas (musa spp.), heat stress is a serious threat to yield and affects productivity. in our study, heat-stress related mirna and their targets were predicted; subsequently, their conser vation and expression patterns during acquired thermotolerance were determined. material and methods plant material and stress treatment five to six week old uniform banana seedlings (grand naine) were used for temperature induction responses (tir) experiment. three different stages of stress viz, control (c), induction stress (i), induction + lethal stress (i+l), were employed for heat stress treatment. control plants were maintained at room temperature around 30°c. heat treatment was given in the temperature controlled growth chamber. the plants were kept at 32°c and the temperature was slowly increased to 42°c for 2.5 hrs called “induction” stress, and later the plants were shifted to 55°c for 2 hrs (referred as “induction + lethal” or i+l). after each stress treatment leaf samples were immediately harvested and frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored in 80°c until use (vidya et al., 2017). mirna prediction initial identification of mirnas involved in heat stress, in plants was based on previous studies (reference). mirnas from different plants such as a. thaliana (fujiiet al., 2005) wheat (xin et al., 2010), maize (gonget al., 1997) and cotton (he et al., 2014), which were involved in heat stress were selected in this study. t hey wer e individua lly examined through homology search using blast software (ncbi) against 235 mirnas reported in banana (d’hont et al., 2012). finally, 40 mirna from banana sequences, which showed homology to hea t r es pons ive mir nas wer e chos en f or experimental (supplementary table 1). pr imer s wer e designed using mirpr imer software (balcellset al., 2011), where a primer and primer pair are assigned a score for each of the features that are relevant for the performance in qpcr. the output consists of a list of primer pairs ranked according to score. the best possible 3oend sequence of the primer and then make the primer longer towards the 5o end until a tm of 59°c to 60°c reached were chosen (supplementarytable 1). target gene prediction a web based plant small rna target analysis software psrnatarget (http://plantgrn.noble.org/ psrnatarget; dai and zhao, 2011) was used to predict the mrna target genes for selected heat responsive mirnas (supplementary table 2) with the following default parameters: maximum expectation of 3.0, length for complementarity scoring of 20 bp, target accessibility-allowed maximum energy to unpair the target site (upe) of 25.0, flanking length around target site for target accessibility analysis of 17 bp in upstream and 13 bp in downstream, and a range of central mismatch leading to translation inhibition of 9 to11 nt. in order to validate the target gene association with the mirna, fourteen-target genes expression was examined using quantitative real-time pcr analysis. rna extraction total rna was extracted from the leaf samples following the “pine tree method” (chang, 1993), from three biological replicates for each treatment. rna qua ntifica tion was done using the na no drop (spectramax m2, molecular devices) and 10µg of total rna was treated with rnase free dnase (cat no #am1907, ambion) following the manufacturer ’s instructions.rna integrity was examined on 1.2% agarose gel prior and after dnase treatments. mirna specific cdna synthesis first strand cdna synthesis was performed by using a miscript ii rt kit (qiagen) following the manufacturer’s protocol. further, cdna was diluted to 1:10 concentration and used for further study, qrtpcr was performed using dynamo flash sybr green qpcr master mix (thermo scientific, #218161) using abi7500 (applied biosystem). expression analysis of mirna and targets the total rna was converted to cdna. for mirna, the cdna synthesis kit used was miscript ii rt kit and for target genes cdna was prepared using 63 vidya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 the revert aid rt kit (thermo scientific, #k1622) following manufacturer ’s instructions. qpcr for mirna wa s done using pr imer s listed in supplementary table 1 and target genes primers are listed in supplementary table 2. qpcr was performed using sybr green ma ster mix (rox) using abi7500 (applied biosystem). 2l of cdna template was added to 10l of sybr green master mix (rox) and h2o to a final volume of 20l reaction. thermal profile for qpcr was: 50°c for 2 min, 95°c for 10 min, followed by 39 cycles each consisting of 95°c for 15 sec and 60°c for 1 min, 72°c for 30sec. 25s gene was used as an endogenous contr ol (ling et al. , 2014). t he comparative ct method was used to calculate the fold change of transcript between an experiment and calibrator sample (schefe et al., 2006). statistical analysis data from different treatments were statistically a na lyzed using one-wa y a na lysis of va r ia nce (anova) method using ms-excel.the data were presented as mean values [mean ± standard error (se)]. results identification of heat stress responsive mirna using previously reported heat responsive mirnas from plants wheat (xin et al., 2010), maize (singletary et al., 1994), cotton (he et al., 2014), a. thaliana(sunkaret al., 2007) a comparison was done with banana genome. these mirnas were compared with mirnas of banana through homology search using blastn with the cut off value of e value <1e10 was employed. we found 40 mirnas that were identified as heat responsive in banana genome. the identified mirnas were analyzed through, qpcr in heat stress treatments. validation of heat-responsive mirna t he predicted 40 mirnas wer e initia lly sta ndardized, with 25s gene as a n endogenous reference control by qpcr. later, only14 mirnas were selected for further studies. under heat stress (hs), the variation in the expression of these identified mirna was observed in cultivar grand naine. in order to validate the identified conserved mirnas, all the 14 mirnas sequences (4 up-regulated and 10 downregulated) were subjected to quantitative real timepcr under the differential heat stress conditions. in cultivar grand naine, higher levels of expression were observed in case of mir399, where fold change was 2.1 during induction (i), 4.0 fold in induction + lethal (i+l). similarly, mir156, and mir169 were also up-regulation greater than the reference 2.2, 2.2 folds, and 2.1, 2.0 folds respectively in i, i+l respectively. the majority of mirnas showed down regulation under heat stress, the significant ones such as mir171 having 0.9, 0.7 fold change, mir3970.5,0.6, mir398-0.5,0.4and mir4140.7,0.6, mir854-0.1,0.1 fold change in i and i+l respectively (fig. 1). identification of mirna specific target genes the differentially expressed mirnas were used for the target prediction analysis. in order to identify mirna specific targets, a plant small rna target ana lysis server psrnata rget softwar e, (http:// plantgrn.noble.org/psrnatarget/;dai and zhao, 2011) was used to predict target genes. plant mirnas usually bind to the protein-coding region of their target genes with nearly perfect sequence complementarities, which results in either degradation of their target mrnas or translation (rhoades et al., 2002). based on analysis, we have selected 14 target genes (mrna) for each of the mirnas.the predicted targets were found to be involved in diverse metabolic and physiological processes, transcription factors, signal transduction, disease resistance proteins, cell differentiation and growth. validation of target genes by quantitative real time pcr we have examined the expression of the target genes, using qpcr. the transcript profiling of heat shock protein dnaj was found to have highest level of expression (induction 4.9, i+l 4.8) followed by hsp90 (4.6, 4.8), hsp70 (3.2, 3.8), stress associated protein (3.7, 3.1) respectively. highly down-regulated targets were glutathione synthase (0.1, 0.2), ribosomal protein s8 (0.18, 0.2). discussion heat stress affects growth and development, thus reducing the productivity of crops. plant mirnas 64 banana heat responsive mirnas j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 supplementary table 1:list of primer sequences used in qpcr for mirna sr. no. primer name primer sequences (5’-3’) 1 mir399f ggg gaa aat ggc agg gca att ctc r cca gtt ttt ttttttttt tgc caa agg cca aag 2 mir169f gcc aag gat gac ttg cct gtg tc r ggt cca gtt ttt ttttttttt tag gag agg aga gg 3 mir400f acg cag cgc agt atg aga gta tta taa gt r ggt cca gtt ttt ttttttttt tgt gag tga gtg ag 4 mir854f cgc cgc agg atg agg ata gg r ggt cca gtt ttt ttttttttt tct cct cctcct c 5 mir390f atg ggt aag tag gaa ctt gtg ttc tgt ttg tct aga g r cca gtt ttt ttttttttt tga gta gga tga gta gga tga g 6 mir414f cgc cgc agt cat ctt cat catcat c r gtc cag ttt tttttttttttt gac gga cgg ac 7 mir397f gcc cag cgc tgc act ca r ggt cca gtt ttt ttttttttt tcg tcgtcg t 8 mir156f ttg aca gaa gag agt gag cac aca g r agg tcc agt ttt ttttttttt tta cca cca cc 9 mir159f cgc gcg cag ttt gga ttg aag r cag gtc cag ttt tttttttttttt aag aagaagaagaag aa 10 mir393f caa agg gat cgc att gat cca cac r gtc cag ttt tttttttttttt gag agg aga gga g 11 mir529f gcg cag ctg tac cct ctc tc r gtc cag ttt tttttttttttt gaa gaa gga aga agg aa 12 mir398f cca aag gta gcc aag gac aaa ctt gc r ggt cca gtt ttt ttttttttt tct gct gct gc 13 mir171f acc ttt ttt ctg att gag ccg tgc caa tat ctt ag r cag gtc cag ttt tttttttttttt atg atgatgatgatgatg note: mir156f/r primers were used for two targets. 65 supplementary table 2: sequences for primers used for target genes in qpcr analysis sr. no. predicted targets forward primer (5’-3’) reverse primer (5’-3’) 1 outer envelope protein of 80 kda tgggacaaacagcgtaagag tccatagtctccaaacagcac 2 glutamate synthase ggatgaagtggaacctgctag accagtgttagatt tgcct cc 3 putative pentatricopeptide repeattggataggtttggcgatgtg t ccct caact t taat gcct ct g containing protein. 4 stress-induced protein, ctcgt ctatatcact gccat ct g gtcatgtatcgtcacagt ccag 5 camk includes calcium/calmodulindegtagatatgtggagtcttggcg gagaatggactgcgaaaatgg pedent protein kinases, expressed 6 heat shock protein dnaj cat cgt ct cct tt tgt cctcg t cagcat ccctt t ccagtt c 7 heat shock 70 kda gatgagaaggatgtgagaggg atatt ctccacact caaccct g 8 t ropinonereductase. tcgcctaccctcatctcaag ccatgaagcctacgacagaag 9 gamyb cctggtcgcactgataatgag gct gacaatctgagtttgctg 1 0 serine/threonine-protein kinase receptor. tt gcgaccagtt ctacct tg tggctgtagtcaacgaagtg 1 1 putative squamosa promoter-bindinggat ctgtatgt tcgt ctggtcg t gat tt t ct ct t t cct gcccc like protein 12 1 2 sod cgttgatggagtagctgagg agtggtaaggctgagttcatg 1 3 ribosomal protein s8 aagacccgtatccttgat gtg tccaatctcaaccccgtaatg 1 4 hsp90 cctgagtctctagt tgtggaaatc tcgccgtaaagaacaccaac vidya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 function as a gene regulator through binding to the protein-coding region of their target genes, further to initiate degradation or translational repression of the transcripts (palatniket al., 2003). in case of musa species, 37 mirna families in musaa genome (d’hontet al., 2012) and 42 mirna families in musa b genome (davey et al., 2013) were identified. in this study, through homology search we identified 40 heat responsive mirnas, of which 14 mirnas, and their targets expression were analyzed during various stages of heat stress treatment. the induction stress treated banana plants (32o c42o c for 2 hrs and 30 min), which were later challenged with high temperature (55o c for 2 hrs), showed better recovery. this showed that induced plants, show better tolerance than the non-induced ones through acquired thermotolerance (vidya et al., 2017). in order to investigate the regulation of mirnas and their targets, during thermotolerance, differential expression analysis was done. the mir397 was less expressed under hs, compared to control, in case of cv. grand naine, the mir397 was observed to be down regulated due to heat stress at the induction stage (figure 1a). the down-regulation of mir397, and higher expression of the its predicted target gene hsp70 which is a thermoprotective gene (vidya et al, 2016b). we have also recorded higher expression of hsp70 at induction and i+l stages(yu et al., 2010, vidya et al., 2018). similarly, mir414, mir854, and mir171 expression were down regulated during induction sta ges. t he pr edicted ta r gets a r e dnaj(figure 1b), stress associated proteins (saps) (figure 1c) and heat shock protein 90 (figure 1d) respectively was up regulated during heat stress. in one of the studies, carried out on stress associated protein gene (sap’s) on banana, the expression profiles of musasap1 also showed up regulation at 24 and 48hrs of drought, heat stress which is also in agreement with the results we have observed here (shekhawat et al., 2015). from the earlier studies, it is well known tha t hsp70, hsp90, dnaj, sap a cts a s thermoprotective genes. the alteration in expression pattern of heat responsive mirnas (mir397, mir414, mir854, mir171) thus regulating the expression levels of thermoprotective genes (hsp70, hsp90,dnaj, sap) during heat stress indicates their direct role in tolerance to heat stress. under heat stress, mir398 expression was decreased, and its target superoxide dismutase (sod) (beauclairet al., 2010) expression was up-regulated (figure 1e). mir398 has been reported to be involved in tolerance. heat stress triggers the accumulation of ros, up-regulating the antioxidant activity. similar 66 pattern was observed in arabidopsis (yan et al., 2012) for mir398, under oxidative stress where down regulation of mir398 enhanced the expression of csd1 and csd2 (sunkar et al., 2006). similarly, mir400 was also down regulated during hs. the mir400 regulates pentatricopeptide repeat (ppr) genes (figure 1f). however, the mir400 target pentatricopeptide repeat (ppr), which is involved in plant development and abiotic stress, was up-regulated by heat stress in arabidopsis (park et al., 2014) mir393 targets serine/ threonine-like receptor kinases called receptor-like kinases (rlks) (figure 1g), which are the major class of cell surface receptor. the relative expression of the target gene was down regulated suggesting that the rlks play a vital role under heat stress responses (bhargava et al., 2013). these observations were supported by earlier studies. in a transgenic study on arabidopsis where down regulation of mirna mir398 enhanced the expression of targets, hsp70. the plants were heat tolerant when compared to the wild type (guan et al., 2013). for mir399, mir529 and mir169, the target genes are outer envelope 80kda protein (figure 1h), ribosomal protein (figure 1i) and glutamate synthase (figure 1j) respectively. these mirnas were upregulated by heat stress, correspondingly the target genes were down regulated. the target genes are majorly involved in protein synthesis. the ribosomal protein, membrane proteins are involved in protein synthesis, since it is a highly energy demanding process and protein synthesis is at low level during hs (pillai et al., 2007). it is also observed that the expressions of these mirnas were significantly altered during the induction stress treatment, suggesting that they respond to mild stress. mir169 and mir399 which were most frequently found heat responsive micro rna’s in plant system and were up regulated with their respective targets being down regulated in response to heat stress (chai et al., 2015). the results observed here were consistent with the previous reports that they are responsive to heat stress in both rice and wheat (xin et al., 2010; yu et al., 2010). the remaining mirnas (mir159, mir390) expressions are not altered much in our study. these mirnas have targets gamyb for mir159 (figure 1k), calmodulin for mir390 (figure 1l) and spl for mir156 (figure 1m). calmodulin was upregulated only in induction stress. however, myb was up-regulated in all the stress treatments. in one of the studies on triticum aestivum l, in contrasting cultivars the tagamyb was found to be decreased initially and increased during 2 hrs of heat stress treatment. therefore, we speculate that myb plays an important role in the aspect of plant growth and development, stem elongation and the up-regulation of these genes confirms its role in heat stress.the remaining mirnas studied wa s mir156, ta r get being squamosapromoter-binding like (spl) a nd tropinonereductase (tr) (figure 1n) gene was highly down regulated during lethal conditions compared to mild heat stress i.e induction stress (figure 1m). the spl gene in r ice, wa s obser ved to ha ve complementarity to mir156, was expressed in the leaves and shoots (xieet al., 2006). mir390 was observed to have no alteration in i and i+l due to heat str ess suggesting that the corresponding targets calmodulin-binding proteins which are involved in calcium signaling are regulated (figure 1l). however, ther e wa s r eduction in expression if thestress levels increased when compared to control conditions where the fold change was 0.9. the probable reason for this might be ca2+ signaling was not altered by heat stress in the tolerant cultivar gr a nd na ine. it ha s been demonstr a ted tha t involvement of calmodulin in on heat shock induced thermotolerance in maize seedlings (gong et al., 1997) and possibly similar pathway could be operating in banana these findings indicate that relationships between mirnas and their target genes expression vary and not always one-to-one. the expression patterns of mirnas and corresponding target genes had negative relation as well. a negative correlation between the expression of mirnas and their target genes was also observed that the correspondence between the expression pattern of mirna and their targets can vary between mrnas belonging to the same gene family and even for the same target mrna at different developmental stages (lopez-gomollonet al., 2012). plants have ability to adopt various strategies to optimize their response to thermotolerance. one of them might be the cha nge in pa tter n of mirnaexpression, thus, altering expression of thermoprotective genes is achieved. for example, banana heat responsive mirnas j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 67 figure 1 : expression analysis of mirna and their respective target genes under different heat stress conditions. each column represents the mean±se of three biological replicates. vidya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 68 banana heat responsive mirnas j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 61-71, 2018 69 hsp70, hsp90,dnaj, sap has a direct relevance during thermotolerance and are regulated by mirnas. induction stress activates an array of signal transduction pathways, which helps in adaptation to severe stress (srikanthbabu et al., 2002; lindquist,1986). the results of the present study indicate that changes in expression levels of mirna, which further alters the expression of many thermoprotective genes during induction and i+l. this is further expected to confer tolerance to high temperature their-by acquired thermotolerance. conclusions the role of heat stress related mirnain banana has been demonstrated through this study. significant changes in the pattern of mirna expression in banana indicated the key role of mirnas in the heat stressr esponse. an incr ea se in the expr ession of thermoprotective genes regulated by their respective mirnas was evident. mirnas have been reported to be ma ster r egula tor of pla nt gr owth a nd development, though it constitutes only 1 per cent of the total protein-coding genes of an organism. an increase in the expression of hsps like hsp70, hsp90, dnaj and other stress associated proteins and lower expression of respective mirnas indicated their roles in the heat tolerance. therefore, it appeared tha t mirnas are involved in the regula tion of expression of stress associated genes and metabolic pathway associated genes which can impart the tolerance to heat stress in banana. acknowledgments the authors acknowledge the financial support from indian council of agricultural research (icar), new delhi, 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india *e-mail: bhuvana@iihr.res.in abstract tuberose is one among the important commercial flower crops popular for its pleasant fragrance in domestic as well as export market. packaging material plays an important role in retention of freshness of tuberose flowers. at present, tuberose flowers are packaged in bulk in wet gunny bags and sold in whole sale market. for retail market, polyethylene covers are largely used for packaging of tuberose flowers which is not eco friendly. hence, an attempt is made to standardise alternate eco friendly packages which will retain freshness and extend the shelf life of tuberose flowers. experiments were conducted by packaging loose tuberose flowers (cv. local single) in areca nut sheath cup, banana leaf cup and peepal leaf cup. the samples were stored in both ambient (temp 25-26°c, rh 52%) and low temperature (temp 10p c, rh 86%). periodical observations on colour index, freshness index and fragrance index were done using standard procedures. studies revealed that arecanut sheath cup was found suitable for retail packaging of tuberose with higher freshness (82.26%), fragrance (71.21%), had shelf life upto 2 days in ambient storage condition when compared to flowers packaged in banana sheath cup and peepal cup which had less freshness and fragrance index in similar storage condition. in low temperature storage also tuberose flower packaged in areca nut sheath cup had higher freshness index (87.84), colour index (79.63) and fragrance index (71.21), as compared to flowers packaged in banana sheath cup and peepal leaf cup and shelf life of 7 days. key words: tuberose, eco friendly package, shelf life extension, freshness retention introduction tuberose is one among the important commercial flower crops popular for its pleasant fragrance in domestic as well as export market. packaging material plays an important role in retention of freshness of tuberose flowers. at present tuberose flowers are packaged in bulk in wet gunny bags and sold in whole sale market. tuberose loose flowers are packaged in bamboo basket (around 10-15kg are packaged in each basket) and the baskets covered with wet gunny bags or muslin cloth (safeena et al., 2015). they are transported to the nearby wholesale market for selling. for retail market, polyethylene covers are largely used for packaging of tuberose flowers which is not eco friendly. roy chowdhury et al.(2011) reported the beneficial effect of banana leaf over polyethylene and polypropylene in the packaging of tuberose flowers. an attempt is made to standardise eco friendly packages such as areca nut sheath cup, banana sheath cup and peepal leaf cup which will retain freshness and extend the shelf life of tuberose flowers. experiments were conducted by packaging loose tuberose flowers (cv. local single) in areca nut (areca catechu) sheath cup, banana (musa a c u m i n a t a ) s hea t h c u p a nd p eep a l ( fi c u s religiosa) leaf cup. the samples were stored in both ambient (temp 25-26°c, rh 52%) and low temperature (temp 10pc, rh 86%). periodical observations on plw, colour index, freshness index and fragrance index were done. the plw was short communication 198 199 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 198-200, 2017 eco friendly packages in tuberose computed by subtracting fresh weight of flowers on any day from its weight on the previous day and expressed as percentage. visual observations such as colour retention index, freshness index, fragrance index and shelf life (days) were recorded as sensory evaluation scoring (thamaraiselvi et al., 2010). all t he ex p er i ment s wer e c ondu c t ed wit h f ou r r ep lic a t ions a nd s t a t is t ic a lly a na lyz ed us ing completely randomised design (crd) with wasp 2.0 software (bhuvaneswari et al, 2016) among different packages, freshness index (%) of tuberose flower was higher in areca nut sheath cup (82.26), followed by banana sheath cup (78.38), peepal leaf cup (77.14) at ambient storage condition (table.1). in low temperature storage, freshness index in the areca nut sheath cup and banana sheath cup were on par compared to peepal leaf cup (table 2). ma intenance of maximum freshness in flowers might be due to higher levels of moisture content in the areca nut sheath cup. packaging maintains higher humidity which slows down the process of moisture loss. respiration loss also slows down due to proper balance of co2 and o2 (anzueto and rizve,1985). similarly, fragrance index which is the important quality character was higher in tuberose packaged in areca nut sheath cup (71.21), followed by banana sheath cup (66.67) and peepal leaf cup (66.67) both in ambient and low temperature storage (table 1 and table 2). this may be due to biological nature of areca nut sheath to retain the fragrance without any off flavour development. these results are in accordance with the findings of ka r uppaia h et al. (2006). t he fragrance retention of tuberose was higher in areca nut sheath cup kept in low temperature storage (73.33) even after seven days of storage than in ambient condition. colour index which is used to determine the retention of whiteness of tuberose flower during storage was also higher in the flowers packaged in areca sheath cup both in ambient and low temperature storage when compared to other package. low temperature storage of tuberose in areca sheath cup had good colour retention upto 7 days of storage as compared to those stored at ambient condition for 2 days (fig.1 and 2). higher table 2. tuberose in eco friendly packages at low temperature storage (temp.10p c, rh 83%) after 7 days of storage treatments freshness index colour retention index fragrance index plw(%) peepal leaf cup 86.16 77.05 70.11 5.97 arecanut shealth cup 87.84 79.64 70.33 7.60 banana shealth cup 87.98 78.63 70.51 4.16 c.d. at1% 1.072 1.74 1.071 1.31 table 1. tuberose retail package at ambient storage (temp. 25-26°c, rh 52%) after 48h of storage treatments freshness index colour retention index fragrance index plw(%) peepal leaf cup 77.14 76.51 66.67 8.33 arecanut shealth cup 82.26 78.15 71.21 10 banana shealth cup 78.38 77.18 66.67 8.33 c.d. at1% 2.38 1.42 1.36 4.52 fig. 1. tuberose in different packages at ambient storage (temp. 25-26°c, rh 52%) 200 bhuvaneswari and sangama fig. 2. tuberose in different packages at low temperature storage (temp.10pc, rh 83%) anzueto,g.r and rizve,s.s.h. 1985. individual packaging of apples for shelf life extension. j.food.sci.50: 897-900 bhuvaneswari, s., narayana, c.k., udhayakumar, r. and veeregowda, r. 2016. effect of packaging a nd stor age tempera ture on shelf life of minimally processed onion (allium cepa l.). j.hort.sci. 10(2): 216-219 karuppaiah,p., s. ramesh kumar and m.rajkumar. 2006. effect of different packages on the post harvest behaviour and shelf life of jasmine (jasminum sambac). int.j.agri.sci. 2(2) : 447449 roy chowdhury, n., s. chakrabarty and p. munsi. 2011. influence of packaging material, storage references condition and storage duration on vase life of tuberose ‘calcutta double’. proc. xth is on flower bulbs and herbaceous perennials. acta.hort. 886. pp 359-364 safeena s.a, m. thangam, s. priya devi, a.r.desai and n.p.singh. 2015. ready reckoner on cultivation of tuberose. technical bulletin no:50, icar-central coastal agricultural research institute (indian council of agricultural research), ela, old goa-403 402, goa, india. thamaraiselvi, s.p, m. jawaharlal, m. ganga and n. varadharaju. 2010. packaging technology for long term storage of jasmine (jasminumsambac ait.) flowers. j.orn.hort. 13 (3) :171-181 (ms received 06 october 2017, revised 23 november 2017, accepted 12 december 2017) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 198-200, 2017 relative humidity and lower temperature might have favoured the colour retention of tuberose flower. it was found from the studies that areca nut s hea t h c u p wa s f ou nd s u it a b le ec o f r iendly pa cka ging of tu ber ose with higher f r eshness (82.26%), fragrance (71.21%), had shelf life upto 2 days in ambient storage condition when compared to those packaged in banana sheath cup and peepal leaf. in low temper ature stora ge also tuberose flower packaged in areca nut sheath cup had higher freshness index (87.84), colour index (79.63) and fr agra nce index (71.21), as compared to those packaged in banana sheath cup and peepal leaf cup and shelf life of 7 days. ‘cashew apple’ juice blend with mango, pineapple and sapota for improving quality of rts beverages and economic feasibility thereof anindita roy, b. prasanna kumar*, d.v. swami, p. subbramamma department of fruit science horticultural college & research institute dr. ysr horticultural university, venkataramannagudem tadepalligudem 534 101, west godavari dist., andhra pradesh, india *e-mail: prasanna652002@yahoo.com abstract the present study on value-addition in cashew apple (anacardium occidentale l.) juice by blending it with mango, pineapple and sapota juices for preparation of rts beverage was conducted during the year 2012-2013 at horticultural college and research institute, dr. ysr horticultural university, andhra pradesh, in completely randomized design (crd) with 3 replications and 10 treatments. in the present investigation, ‘cashew apple’ juice extracted from the fruit was blended with fruit juices of mango, pineapple and sapota in various proportions. rts beverages prepared from different blends of cashew apple juice were evaluated for physico-chemical and organoleptic properties at 0, 30 and 60 days of storage, and significant differences were observed. rts beverage prepared from a blend of 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice (t3) recorded a gradual decrease in ph, titrable acidity and ascorbic acid content from 0 to 60 days after storage, whereas, density of the blended juice increased gradually at 0 to 30 days of storage; thereafter it decreased. total soluble solids, reducing sugars and tss/acid ratio gradually increased from 0 to 60 days of storage, followed by 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice (t6). organoleptic score for rts prepared from 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), followed by 50% cashew apple juice + 50% mango juice blend (t2), 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice blend (t6) and 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice blend (t5), were found to be high on quality, viz., colour, taste and overall acceptability, up to 60 days of storage, and were economical for rts preparation. key words: acidity, cashew apple rts, mango, pineapple, reducing sugars, sapota introduction cashew in andhra pradesh was cultivated in the year 2013 in an area of 1.84 lakh hectares with an annual nut production of 1.18 lakh tonnes with an average productivity of 650kg/ha. statistics on production/productivity/area under cultivation are released by directorate of cashewnut and cocoa development (dccd), delhi. the main byproduct of the cashew nut is its peduncle (false fruit) called cashew apple, to which the kidney shaped nut is attached. for every tonne of cashew nut, about 10-15 tonnes of cashew apple is produced, but is not of much use. it is discarded in the orchards under the trees and gets spoiled. wastage of this cashew apple is a great economical loss, both in terms of nutrients and national wealth. it is one of the richest sources of ascorbic acid, and, b-complex and other vitamins. the juice is astringent due to presence of tannins and j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):37-43, 2016 anacardic acid, which causes bitter sensation on both the tongue and the throat when the apples are eaten as such. owing to the very high tannin content, cashew apple juice is clarified by treating it with fining agents. after refining, the cashew apple clarified juice is used for blending it with other fruit juices and rts beverage prepared. the present investigation was carried out to estimate juice content and to standardize rts beverage preparation by blending cashew apple juice with mango, pineapple or sapota juice for quality at different time intervals (days) after storage. material and methods the experiment was conducted in a laboratory of department of post harvest technology, horticulture college and research institute, venkataramannagudem, during the year 2012-2013 in completely randomized design (crd) with 3 replications and 10 treatments. fruits 38 of cashew apple harvested were transported under refrigeration to the laboratory, and were analyzed for physico-chemical properties as well as for preparation of cashew apple juice blends. the other fruits used, viz., mango, pineapple and sapota, were purchased from the local market. cashew apple juice contains a fair amount of tannins, which were strained through a muslin cloth and collected into a wide-mouthed stainless steel container. then, poly vinyl pyrrolidone (pvp) @ 1.4g/l of juice, was added slowly by stirring the juice in a circular motion, till the entire juice formed a curd-like precipitate. the precipitate was allowed to stand for 8 to 12 hours after which the clear supernatant was collected carefully, without disturbing the residue. the clear juice obtained was strained through a muslin cloth and used in differently blended juices as stated by jayalekshmy and salam (2007). treatments were set up in terms of mixing (blending) various juices in different proportions as follows: treatment details t1: 75% cashew apple juice + 25% mango juice t2: 50% cashew apple juice + 50% mango juice t3: 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice t4: 75% cashew apple juice + 25% pineapple juice t5: 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice t6: 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice t7: 75% cashew apple juice + 25% sapota juice t8: 50% cashew apple juice + 50% sapota juice t9: 25% cashew apple juice + 75% sapota juice t10: 100% cashew apple juice the blended juices were then filled in sterilized bottles of 250ml capacity each, crown-corked and heatprocessed in boiling water (65°c for 30 min), cooled and stored (srivastava and sanjeev kumar, 2002). initial physico-chemical properties of blended juices (ph, density, tss and acidity) are presented in table 1 (i.e., before preparation of rts beverage from each of the blends). rts made from treatment 1 contained 10ml of blended cashew apple juice and mango juice @ 75% and 25%, respectively, along with 10g of sugar and 80 ml of water. this made up 100ml of rts beverage. similarly, treatment 2 to treatment 10 were also readied (100ml rts beverage each) and poured (while still hot) into sterilized bottles of 250 ml capacity each, and, crown-corked and heatprocessed in boiling water at 65°c for 30 min. these were then cooled and stored as per srivastava and sanjeev kumar (2002). quality attributes such as colour, taste and overall acceptance were assessed by a panel of 15 judges, by scoring on a 9-point hedonic scale, as per amerine et al (1965). colour of the clarified juices, blended juices and rts beverage was recorded as per the scale in the descriptor catalogue of directorate of cashew research (dcr), puttur, karnataka. results and discussion quality parameters for rts beverage change in the colour of rts beverage at 0, 30 and 60 days of storage was observed, and the best colour that was recorded in mango and cashew apple blends was at 0 day. a gradual change in colour was observed in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3). this could be due to oxidation of the product, leading to the onset of millard reaction, as reported by sastry et al (1963) in cashew apple. the ph of rts juice prepared from different blends recorded a decreasing trend from 0 to 60 days of storage. ph 3.45 was recorded in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3) among various other rts juices at 0 day of storage, and ph 3.11 at 60 days of storage in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3). this could perhaps be due to an increase in titrable acidity, as, acidity and ph are inversely proportional, as per awis jan table 1. physico-chemical parameters of cashew apple blended juices before rts beverage preparation using various treatments treatment ph density total titrable (kg/m3) soluble acidity solids (%) (obrix) t1: 75% cashew apple juice + 3.63 0.83 10.16 0.91 25% mango juice t2: 50% cashew apple juice + 3.47 0.9 9.63 0.92 50% mango juice t3: 25% cashew apple juice + 3.53 1.03 8.53 0.86 75% mango juice t4: 75% cashew apple juice + 3.56 0.9 10.1 0.97 25% pineapple juice t5: 50% cashew apple juice + 3.48 0.9 10 0.93 50% pineapple juice t6: 25% cashew apple juice + 3.44 1.03 11.56 0.85 75% pineapple juice t7: 75% cashew apple juice + 3.58 0.9 11.06 0.95 25% sapota juice t8: 50% cashew apple juice + 3.66 1.03 13.1 0.92 50% sapota juice t9: 25% cashew apple juice + 3.6 1.06 15.7 0.92 75% sapota juice t10: 100% cashew apple juice 3.53 0.8 9.93 0.89 se(m) 0.02 0.02 0.08 0.01 cd (p=0.05) 0.09 0.07 0.25 0.02 anindita roy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):37-43, 2016 39 and dorcus masih (2012). similarly, reduction in ph during storage of cashew apple rts juice is due to an increase in level of sugars by hydrolysis and decrease in level of acidity, as reported by sarvesh rustagi and pravesh kumar (2013) in amla-mango blends (table 1, fig. 1). a study on density of the rts beverage in different treatments showed that in cashew apple and sapota juice blend rts, it ranged between 0.87 and 0.97 kg mg-3; but, the lowest range of 0.92 kg mg-3 was observed in cashew apple and mango rts beverage at 0 day of storage, while, the other treatments showed an increasing trend (minimum 0.90 to 1.08 kg mg-3 at 30 and 60 days of storage). however, a moderate range of density (0.91 to1.01 kg mg-3) was observed in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), which is optimum for the quality of rts beverage, followed by t5 compared of 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice. total soluble solids (tss) studied in various treatments showed that cashew apple and sapota mix rts ranged between 15.40 and 16.40obrix; but, the lowest range table 2. effect of length of storage on colour, ph, density and total soluble solids in rts beverage prepared from cashew apple blended juices treatment colour ph density (kg m-3) total soluble solids (obrix) days after storage days after storage days after storage days after storage 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days t1: 75% cashew light light light 3.63 3.16 3.05 0.9 1.06 1.01 15.1 15.43 15.5 apple juice + yellow yellow yellow 25% mango juice t2: 50% cashew yellow light light 3.52 3.77 3.07 0.92 1.05 0.9 14 14.93 15.12 apple juice + yellow yellow 50% mango juice t3: 25% cashew yellow light light 3.45 3.25 3.11 0.91 1.07 1.01 14.86 15.46 15.7 apple juice + yellow yellow 75% mango juice t4: 75% cashew dull light light 4.36 3.14 3.08 0.9 1.04 1.03 14.96 15.03 15.2 apple juice + white yellow yellow 25% pineapple juice t5: 50% cashew dull light light 3.7 3.26 2.84 0.9 1.06 1.05 15.03 15.13 15.14 apple juice + white yellow yellow 50% pineapple juice t6: 25% cashew dull light light 3.55 3.18 3.11 0.94 1.08 1.02 15.1 15.5 15.66 apple juice + white brown brown 75% pineapple juice t7: 5% cashew dull light light 3.53 3.16 2.73 0.95 1.05 1.02 15.4 15.63 15.96 apple juice + white brown brown 25% sapota juice t8: 50% cashew dull light light 3.58 2.86 3.12 0.87 1.06 1.01 15.8 16.36 16.73 apple juice + white brown brown 50% sapota juice t9: 25% cashew dull light brown 3.52 2.9 2.64 0.97 1.07 1.04 16.4 16.76 17.1 apple juice + white brown 75% sapota juice t10: 100% cashew creamy dusky dusky 3.6 3.24 3.08 0.92 1.07 1.03 15.1 15.66 16.06 apple juice white white white se(m) — — — 0.05 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.08 0.09 0.08 cd (p=0.05) — — — 0.17 0.035 0.02 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.24 0.27 0.27 blending cashew apple juice with other fruits juices j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):37-43, 2016 40 of 14.0 to 15.10obrix was observed in the rts blend of cashew apple and mango at 0 day of storage, while, the other treatments showed an increasing trend of a minimum of 14.00obrix (t2) to 17.10obrix (t9) at 0, 30 or 60 days of storage. however, a moderate range of tss (14.86 to 15.70) was observed in a blend of 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice (t3), followed by 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice (t5) at 30 and 60 days of storage, respectively. this increased level of tss could be due to hydrolysis of sugars and decreased levels of acidity, as reported by pawar et al (2011) in sapota, and by sarvesh rustagi and pravesh kumar (2013) in cashew apple and amla-mango blends (table 1, fig. 2 & 7). titrable acidity among different treatments with cashew apple and sapota blend rts ranged between 0.53 – 0.64; but, the lowest range of 0.48 0.65 was observed in rts juice of cashew apple and mango juice blend at 0 days of storage. the other treatments showed a decreasing trend in titrable acidity ranging from 0.48 to 0.24 at 0, 30 and 60 days of storage. however, a moderate range of titrable acidity (0.56 0.26) in 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice (t5), followed by 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3) was recorded at 0, 30 and 60 days of storage. this decreasing trend could be due to increased levels of sugars by hydrolysis and by the decreased levels of acidity. release of acid by decomposition, hydrolysis or oxidation (which modifies the hydrogen ion concentration), results in changed acidity of the rts beverage, as reported by jain et al (1984) in orange and uma et al (2011) in cashew (table 2, fig. 4). reducing sugars (%) among different treatments constituting cashew apple and pineapple rts beverages table 3. effect of storage period on titrable acidity, reducing sugars, tss/acid ratio and ascorbic acid in rts beverages prepared from cashew apple blended juices treatment titrable acidity (%) reducing sugars (%) tss/acid ratio ascorbic acid (mg/100g) days after storage days after storage 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days t1: 75% cashew 0.55 0.53 0.32 2.13 2.37 2.42 27.54 28.23 51.5 13.48 13.1 12.87 apple juice + 25% mango juice t2: 50% cashew 0.48 0.48 0.31 3.76 3.92 4.28 30.35 31.08 33.6 13.05 12.71 12.47 apple juice + 50% mango juice t3: 25% cashew 0.65 0.59 0.32 2.22 2.59 2.64 22.87 26.82 49.4 12.51 11.76 11.66 apple juice + 75% mango juice t4: 75% cashew 0.55 0.54 0.24 3.07 3.16 3.18 27.66 25.82 63.3 11.51 10.9 10.9 apple juice + 25% pineapple juice t5: 50% cashew 0.56 0.53 0.26 5.1 5.18 5.47 26.63 26.33 58.1 16.25 15.05 14.91 apple juice + 50% pineapple juice t6: 25% cashew 0.58 0.53 0.33 5.04 5.04 5.52 25.56 30.06 49.87 25.25 22.2 20.93 apple juice + 75% pineapple juice t7: 75% cashew 0.53 0.51 0.34 3.73 3.8 4.22 28.57 29.36 50.76 30.65 24.64 23.6 apple juice + 25% sapota juice t8: 50% cashew 0.64 0.61 0.37 3.38 3.56 3.56 25.42 27.1 48 18.79 16.69 16.41 apple juice + 50% sapota juice t9: 25% cashew 0.58 0.56 0.36 3.24 3.49 3.57 27.49 29.44 49.61 26.45 24.09 22.48 apple juice + 75% sapota juice t10: 100% cashew 0.97 0.83 0.5 3.12 3.94 4.24 15.46 19.55 32.86 38.07 35.17 34.38 apple juice se(m) 0.01 0.01 0.04 0.27 0.2 0.09 0.34 0.71 0.18 0.55 0.53 0.81 cd (p=0.05) 0.02 0.02 0.1 0.67 0.6 0.28 1.01 2.11 0.05 1.67 1.61 2.39 anindita roy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):37-43, 2016 41 table 4. effect of storage period on organoleptic score of cashew apple rts beverage prepared from blended juices for colour, taste and overall acceptability treatment colour taste overall acceptability days after storage days after storage days after storage 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days 0 days 30 days 60 days t1: 75% cashew apple juice + 5 6 6 8 6.23 6.66 6.5 6.11 6.33 25% mango juice t2: 50% cashew apple juice + 5 6 5.66 6.66 5.66 6.38 5.83 5.83 6.02 50% mango juice t3: 25% cashew apple juice + 5.1 5.1 5.1 8.66 8.66 8.52 8.33 7.83 7.89 75% mango juice t4: 75% cashew apple juice + 6 5.66 4.9 7 6.16 5.79 6.5 5.91 5.39 25% pineapple juice t5: 50% cashew apple juice + 4.9 5.16 5.16 7.66 6.83 6.9 6.33 5.99 6.03 50% pineapple juice t6: 25% cashew apple juice + 5.66 5.66 5.66 8 7.66 7.6 6.83 6.66 6.63 75% pineapple juice t7: 75% cashew apple juice + 6 6.33 6.33 6.66 5.16 4.76 6.33 5.74 5.54 25% sapota juice t8: 50% cashew apple juice + 5 4.9 5 7.33 6.66 6.68 6.16 5.83 5.84 50% sapota juice t9: 25% cashew apple juice + 5.66 5.66 5.66 7.33 6.5 6.87 6.49 6.08 6.25 75% sapota juice t10: 100% cashew apple juice 8.66 8.5 8.33 8 7.16 7.46 6.83 6.83 6.76 se(m) 0.61 0.61 0.6 0.36 0.24 0.11 0.48 0.42 0.35 cd (p=0.01) 2.02 1.81 1.79 1.08 0.71 0.33 1.54 1.26 1.06 hedonic rating scale: dislike extremely 1 dislike very much 2 dislike moderately 3 dislike slightly 4 neither like nor dislike 5 like slightly 6 like moderately 7 like very much 8 like extremely 9 table 5. cost of production of rts beverage (1000ml) prepared from variously blended juices in different treatments treatment cost of cost of cost of cost of cost of miscellatotal blended preservative bottle labour sugar neous cost juice (rs.) (rs.) (rs.) (rs.) (rs.) (rs.) (rs.) t1: 75% cashew apple juice + 25% mango juice 4.02 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 21.87 t2: 50% cashew apple juice + 50% mango juice 4.45 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 22.3 t3: 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice 4.87 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 22.72 t4: 75% cashew apple juice + 25 % pineapple juice 4.14 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 21.99 t5: 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice 4.7 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 22.55 t6: 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice 5.24 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 23.09 t7: 75% cashew apple juice + 25% sapota juice 3.45 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 21.3 t8: 50% cashew apple juice + 50% sapota juice 3.32 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 21.17 t9: 25% cashew apple juice + 75% sapota juice 3.18 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 21.03 t10: 100% cashew apple juice 3.6 1.35 4 3 4.4 5.1 21.45 ranged between 3.07 and 5.10; but, the lowest range of (2.13 to 3.76) was observed in rts blend of cashew apple and mango at 0 days of storage. all treatments showed an increasing trend in reducing sugars, ranging from 2.37 to 5.52 at 30 and 60 days of storage. however, a moderate range of reducing sugars (2.22 to 2.64) in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), followed by 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice (t5) was recorded at 0, 30 and 60 days of storage. this increasing trend may be due to the conversion of polysaccharides into reducing sugars in the presence of citric acid, and due to the addition of sugars as reported by sakhale (2012) in mango rts beverage and sarvesh rustagi and pravesh kumar (2013) in mango and amla blend (table 2, fig. 5). similarly, tss/acid ratio in all the treatments showed that total soluble solids increased and the acidity was reduced. correspondingly, tss/acid ratio increased blending cashew apple juice with other fruits juices j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):37-43, 2016 42 with increasing days of storage, viz., 0, 30 and 60 days. however, the highest tss/acid ratio (30.35) was seen in 50% cashew apple juice + 50% mango juice blend (t2) at 0 and 30 days; but, at 60 days of storage, 75% cashew apple juice + 25% pineapple juice blend had a ratio of 63.30 (t4). a steady increase was observed in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), followed by that in 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice (t5) at 0, 30 and 60 days of storage. similar results were reported earlier by akinwale (2000) in cashew apple (table 2, fig. 6). ascorbic acid content among different treatments showed that the cashew apple and sapota rts beverage ranged between 18.79 and 30.65 mg/100g; but, the lowest range of 12.51 to 13.48 mg/100g was observed in the rts beverage of cashew apple and mango at 0 days of storage. all the treatments showed a decreasing trend of a minimum of 10.90 to 23.60 mg/100g at 30 and 60 days of storage. however, a moderately lowest decrease was observed in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), followed by 50% cashew apple juice + 50% mango juice (t2) and 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice (t5) at 0, 30 and 60 days of storage. ascorbic acid content of the rts beverage decreased with advancement in storage period, probably due to the fact that ascorbic acid is sensitive to oxygen, light and heat, and was easily oxidized in the presence of oxygen by enzymatic and non-enzymatic catalysts. this has been stated by mapson (1970) and bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow, aonla and ginger blended rts beverages (table 2, fig. 7). organoleptic score for cashew apple rts for taste was highest (8.66) in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3) at 0, 30 days of storage, followed by 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice (t6), and, 75% cashew apple juice + 25% mango juice blend (t1) which were on par with each other. also, at 60 days storage, a score of 8.52 was recorded in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3). overall acceptability was rated highest (8.33) in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), followed by (6.83) 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice (t6), at 0 days of storage. however, organoleptic score for colour, taste and overall acceptability in different treatments decreased with advancing storage period; but, rts beverage prepared from a blend of 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), followed by 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice (t6), was stable. similar results were reported by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow, aonla and ginger blended rts beverages. if the maximum possible quantity of mango or pineapple juice is used in a blend, we can hope to get a higher sensory score and adjust acidity, to yield a good taste to the rts beverage on blending with cashew apple juice (table 3, figs. 8, 9 & 10). economics of ready-to-serve (rts) beverage prepared from cashew apple juice blends cost of production of a unit a quantity of rts beverage in different treatments is presented in tables 4 & 5. the net benefit over cashew apple rts beverage as per prevaling price in the local market was considered (pineapple rts costs rs. 99 per liter, mango rts costs rs. 60 per litre, sapota rts costs rs. 50 per litre, and cashew apple rts costs rs. 40 per litre). the price was estimated for arriving at the net benefit, and the data is presented in table 5. the highest net benefit for rts beverage was rs. 61.16 in 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice (t6), followed by 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice (t5) at rs. 46.95. the lowest net benefit was recorded in 75% cashew apple + 25% sapota juice (t7) over the table 6. economics of rts beverage prepared from various cashew apple blended juices treatment cost estimated net incurred price per benefit per 1000ml 1000ml (rs.) rts (rs.) rts (rs.) t1: 75% cashew apple juice + 21.87 45 23.13 25% mango juice t2: 50% cashew apple juice + 22.3 50 27.7 50% mango juice t3: 25% cashew apple juice + 22.72 55 32.28 75% mango juice t4: 75% cashew apple juice + 21.99 54.75 32.76 25% pineapple juice t5: 50% cashew apple juice + 22.55 69.5 46.95 50% pineapple juice t6: 25% cashew apple juice + 23.09 84.25 61.16 75% pineapple juice t7: 75% cashew apple juice + 21.3 42.5 21.2 25% sapota juice t8: 50% cashew apple juice + 21.17 45 23.83 50% sapota juice t9: 25% cashew apple juice + 21.03 47.5 26.47 75% sapota juice t10: 100% cashew apple juice 21.45 40 18.55 *price was estimated based on the price prevailing in local market of the respective rts, as follows: 1. 1 litre mango rts costs ` 60/2. 1 litre pineapple rts costs ` 99/3. 1 litre sapota rts costs ` 50/4. 1 litre cashew apple rts costs ` 40/anindita roy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):37-43, 2016 43 control, i.e., 100% cashew apple juice (rs. 18.55); the net benefit for other rts beverages was intermediate between treatment combinations, and the data is presented in tables 5 & 6 and figures 15 & 16. similar results were reported by jayalekshmy and salam (2007). however, based on organoleptic score, the rts beverage prepared using mango with cashew apple juice as blend was the best, and as per cost-economics, pineapple with cashew apple juice blend was found to be the best with regard to quality parameters under the study. conclusion ingredient composition of 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), or, 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice blend (t6), followed by 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice blend (t5) revealed increased levels of density, total soluble solids (tss), reducing sugars, tss:acid ratio, and, decreased levels of ph, titrable acidity and lowest decrease rate in ascorbic acid content in treatment t3, followed by t5 and t6. rts beverages prepared from cashew apple and mango-juice blend, and cashew apple and pineapple-juice blend, were suitable for increasing the value of cashew apple rts beverage prepared from various fruit-juice-blends. further, organoleptic score for rts juice blend prepared from 25% cashew apple juice + 75% mango juice blend (t3), followed by 50% cashew apple juice + 50% mango juice blend (t2), 25% cashew apple juice + 75% pineapple juice blend (t6), and 50% cashew apple juice + 50% pineapple juice blend (t5), was superior in quality in terms of colour, taste and overall acceptability up to 60 days of storage; and, these processes were economical for utilization of cashew apple juice blended variously with mango and pineapple juice for rts beverage preparation, thereby imparting value-addition to cashew apple juice. references akinwale, t.o. 2000. cashew apple juice: its use in fortifying the nutritional quality of some tropical fruits. europ. food res. technol., 211:205-207 amerine, m.a., pangborn, r.m. and roessler, e.b. 1965. principles of sensory evaluation of food. in: food science and technology monographs, academic press, new york, usa, pp. 338-339 awsi jan and dorcus masih er. 2012. development and quality evaluation of pineapple juice blend with carrot and orange juice. int’l. j. scientific & res. publications, 2(8):1-7 bhardwaj, r.l. and mukherjee, s. 2011. effects of fruit juice blending ratios on kinnow juice preservation at ambient storage condition. african j. food sci. 5:281-286 hiremath, j.b. and rokhade, a.k. 2012. preparation and preservation of sapota juice. int’l. j. food agri. & veterinary sci., 2:87-91 hemalatha, r. and anbuselvi, s. 2013. physico-chemical constituents of pineapple pulp and waste. j. chem. & pharmaceutical res., 5:240-242 jain, s.p., tripathi, k.v., ram, h.b. and singh, s. 1984. effect of storage conditions on the keeping quality of fruit squashes. indian food packer, 38:33-39 jayalekshmy, v.g. and salam, m.a. 2007. cost of establishment of a cashew apple processing unit and production cost of cashew apple syrup. cashew, 16:29-33 mapson, l.w. 1970. vitamins in fruits. in: the biochemistry of fruits and their products. vol 1. hulme, a.c. (ed.). academic press, london, p. 369 pawar, c.d., patil, a.a. and joshi, g.d. 2011. physicochemical parameters of sapota fruits at different maturity stages. karnataka j. agril. sci., 24:420-421 sakhale, b.k., pawar, v.n. and ranveer, r.c. 2012. studies on the development and storage of whey-based rts beverage from mango cv. kesar. j. food process technol., 3:148 doi:10.4172/2157-7110.1000148 santos, f.h.c., cavalcanti, j.j.v. and silva, f.p. 2010. detection of quantitative trail loci for physical traits of cashew apple. crop breed. appl. biotech., 10:101-109 sarvesh rustagi and pravesh kumar. 2013. to study the storage analysis of developed amla mango blended. adv. biores., 4:109-117 sastry, l.v.l., chakraborty, r.n., pruthi, j.s. and siddappa, g.s. 1963. preservation and storage of cashew apple juice and its blends. indian j. tech., 1:431-433 srivastava, r.p. and kumar, s. 2002 fruit and vegetable preservation: principles and practices. international book distribution company, lucknow, u.p., india, pp. 184-185 uma, t., rama rao vechalapua and khasim beebi shaikb. 2011. preservation and shelf-life extension of cashew apple juice. internet j. food safety, 13:275-280 blending cashew apple juice with other fruits juices j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):37-43, 2016 (ms received 02 january 2015, revised 25 april 2016, accepted 27 april 2016) introduction blending of wines (coupage, assemblage) is frequently used to equilibriate composition of wines and to increase their stability, colour and quality. therefore, it is of great interest to wineries to work out optimum proportions of each component in the blend to achieve perfect quality of the wine. nowadays, there is an increasing interest in studying grape varieties that could yield better blends and coupages, with originalquality-attributes. another objective of blending wines is to optimize use of certain grape varieties to cut production costs (escudero-gilete et al, 2010) most studies in literature on wine blending are based on sensorial attributes (datta and nakai, 1992; monagas et al, 2006; monagas et al, 2007). blending wines is a complex process demanding great rigour. analytical and colorimetric study of original wines and their mixtures may lead to a better knowledge of the influence of the particular phenolic composition of the grape on wine characteristics especially colour (escudero-gilete et al, 2010). polyphenolic compounds are also important sensory components providing colour, taste, bitterness, astringency and microbiological stability (xi zhu-mei et al, 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):74-81, 2013 improvement in quality of wine by blending white and coloured grapes veena joshi, s. amarender reddy1, vinod kumar2 and b. srinivas rao grape research station, dr.ysr horticultural university rajendranagar, hyderabad-500 030, india e-mail : veenahorti@rediffmail.com abstract blending of juices from four white grape varieties viz., thompson seedless, chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc and italia with three coloured varieties, viz., shiraz, ruby red and bangalore blue, was done in 2:1 and 3:1 ratios to assess the effect of blending on wine quality. white varieties blended with bangalore blue recorded maximum titratable acidity (1.23%), while those blended with ruby red showed the least acidity (0.42%), alcohol content in the wine ranged from 8.11% (italia + ruby red, 2:1) to 12.04% (chenin blanc + shiraz, 2:1). the range of values for tannin content (0.007% to 0.044 %) and total phenol content (228mg/l to 571mg/l) indicated that white varieties blended with the coloured cv. shiraz had the lowest content of tannins and total phenols in wine, while, those blended with cv. ruby red showed highest content of these in the blended wines. hence, among different blends, chenin blanc, thompson seedless, sauvignon blanc and italia blended with the coloured variety shiraz, in 2:1 ratio, produced good quality wine. key words: grape, coloured varieties, white varieties, wine, blending 1college of horticulture, dr. ysr horticultural university, rajendranagar, hyderabad 500030, india 2directorate of rice research, rajendranagar, hyderabad 500030, india coloured and white grapes are used for preparing blended grape juice and wine. akopyan (1979) reported that quality of red wines could be improved by blending thereby resulting in reduction of acidity and tannin content. according to pawar (2002), wine from blended juice of ‘ugni blanc’ and ‘sharad seedless’ at 1:3 ratio gave better quality of wine over the other blends. suitability of a grape variety for the purpose is judged by certain criteria which differ from case to case. wine prepared from white varieties is dull-coloured. hence, to overcome this, blending is a method to impart colour, flavour and acceptability. with this objective, wines were prepared by blending juices of white grape varieties (sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, thompson seedless and italia) with coloured varieties (shiraz, ruby red and bangalore blue) in two different proportions, i.e., 2:1 and 3:1 ratios. the study involves analysis of various biochemical properties and organoleptic evaluation of different wine blends. material and methods wine was prepared by blending juices of four white grape varieties (thompson seedless, chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc and italia) with three coloured varieties 75 blending white and coloured grapes for improved wine quality (shiraz, ruby red and bangalore blue) in two proportions (2:1 & 3:1). treatments were replicated thrice. total number of treatments was twenty four. t 1 thompson seedless + shiraz (2:1) t 2 thompson seedless + shiraz (3:1) t 3 thompson seedless + ruby red (2:1) t 4 thompson seedless + ruby red (3:1) t 5 thompson seedless + bangalore blue (2:1) t 6 thompson seedless + bangalore blue (3:1) t 7 chenin blanc + shiraz (2:1) t 8 chenin blanc + shiraz (3:1) t 9 chenin blanc + ruby red (2:1) t 10 chenin blanc + ruby red (3:1) t 11 chenin blanc + bangalore blue (2:1) t 12 chenin blanc + bangalore blue (3:1) t 13 sauvignon blanc + shiraz (2:1) t 14 sauvignon blanc + shiraz (3:1) t 15 sauvignon blanc + ruby red (2:1) t 16 sauvignon blanc + ruby red (3:1) t 17 sauvignon blanc + bangalore blue (2:1) t 18 sauvignon blanc + bangalore blue (3:1) t 19 italia + shiraz (2:1) t 20 italia + shiraz (3:1) t 21 italia + ruby red (2:1) t 22 italia + ruby red (3:1) t 23 italia + bangalore blue (2:1) t 24 italia + bangalore blue (3:1). wine samples were analyzed for titrable acidity, alcohol content, tannins, total phenols, and, organoleptic evaluation, viz., appearance, aroma, flavour, taste, colour and overall acceptability of the wine. wine preparation the following procedure, as outlined by joshi (1995) was followed for reparation of the wine. a. preparation of yeast culture yeast strain saccharomyces cerevisiae var ellipsoideus was used in the present study. fresh grape juice was diluted in the ratio 1:1 (one litre juice with one litre distilled water) and was pasteurized. a little quantity of the pasteurized juice from the container was poured into a test tube containing the yeast culture, under aseptic condition, and mixed. the culture was ready for inoculation after 24h when plenty of bubbling was observed. b. preparation of ‘must’ the berries were washed with water and handcrushed, then filtered through a cheese cloth. the clear juice thus obtained was used for fermentation. tss and ph were estimated and adjusted to 240b and 3.5 respectively. potassium meta-bisulphite was added to the juice @ 100150mg per litre to inhibit growth of wild yeast and other microorganisms causing spoilage, and also to prevent browning due to oxidation. this was treated as ‘must’. c. fermentation must extracted after so 2 treatment was inoculated with 2% (v/v) yeast culture and left at 20+1oc for primary fermentation. nearly 7 days were needed to complete the primary fermentation process for red wine, and 10 days for white wine. fermentation was completed when no more bubbles were released. this was also ascertained by stabilizating tss for two successive days. tss is normally to 7 or 8obrix. d. filtration after completion of fermentation, the supernatant was siphoned off, filtered through a muslin cloth, and placed for cold stabilization for a week. e. clarification after filtration, if the wine was found not clear, it was clarified using clarifying agents such as bentonite (150ppm) to recover wine of crystal-clear finish. f. siphoning/ racking siphoning of clear liquid from the fermented must was done four times at fortnight intervals to get a clear liquid. g. pasteurization after clarification, the clear wine was siphoned off and transferred to fresh sterile bottles, corked and subjected to pasteurization at 820c for 20 minutes. h. maturation after cooling, the bottles were stored for maturation in a bod incubator at 10oc for 90 days. during maturation, the wine was racked regularly. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):74-81, 2013 76 veena joshi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):74-81, 2013 77 biochemical analysis a. estimation of titratable acidity titratable acidity of wine was determined by aoac method (1965) using 0.1n naoh and expressed as % tartaric acid. ml naoh x normality of tartaric acid (g) /100 ml wine = naoh x 0.075 x 100 volume of sample (ml) b. estimation of alcohol alcohol content of wine was estimated using a spectrophotometer at 600nm as (natu et al, 1986) using sulphuric acid and potassium dichromate, and was expressed as % alcohol content. c. estimation of tannins tannins in wine were determined by the method of amerine and joslyn (1951) using indigo carmine as the dye and titrated against potassium permanganate solution (0.1n). % tannins = c x normality of kmno 4 x 0.0416 x 100/volume of wine (ml) d. estimation of total phenols total phenol content in the wine was estimated by the procedure of sadasivam and manickam (1996). phenols react with phosphomolybdic acid in folin-ciocalteau reagent in an alkaline medium and produce a blue-coloured complex (molybdenum blue) measured at 650nm in a spectrophotometer, and is expressed as mg/ml of wine. organoleptic evaluation sensory evaluation of wine was done for appearance, aroma, flavour, taste, colour and overall acceptability after maturation of the wine. a panel of 10 members evaluated wine samples on a 20 point scale. wine samples were graded on a hedonic scale (table 1). all parameters were recorded for two consecutive years. the data was pooled and means were calculated for both the years. statistical analysis was applied as per panse and sukhatme (1967). results and discussion mean data for two years on biochemical properties of wine are presented. titratable acidity grape juice and wine mainly contain organic acids like tartaric, malic and citric acid. these play an important role in quality of a wine, particularly tartness, colour and keeping-quality. data on titratable acidity of wine with various treatments are presented in table 3. significant variation was observed among different blending treatments and time (years). however, interaction between treatments and years showed no significant effect. pooled data indicate that t 12 [chenin blanc + bangalore blue, (3:1)] recorded maximum titratable acidity (1.23%), followed by t 23 , t 24 , t 11 , t 18 , t 17 , t 20 , t 8 and t 19 , which were at par. minimum titratable acidity (0.42%) was recorded in t 3 (thompson seedless + ruby red, 2:1), followed by t 9 , t 10 , t 4 and t 1 . rest of the treatments recorded intermediate values, ranging from 0.66 to 1.01%. it was observed that white varieties blended with bangalore blue recorded maximum titratable acidity while those blended with ruby red showed the lowest acidity. the blends under the study yielded optimum values (standard international wine composition values, 0.40 to 1.5%) for titratable acidity. acidity imparts flavor too to the wine and is a crucial factor in wine making (ethiraj and suresh, 1978). dry table-wines require high acidity (0.6 to 0.9%), while sweet (dessert) wines require 0.5 to 0.6% acidity (bammi, 1968). alcohol content in the present study, alcohol content in blended wines ranged from 8.11 to 12.04% (table 3). wines blended with table 1. hedonic scale used in the study quality hedonic 20 point scale scale score excellent 7 18-20 good 6 15-17 fair 5 12-14 ordinary 4 9-11 poor 3 6-8 bad 2 3-5 very bad 1 1-2 table 2. quality parameters of wine from grapes biochemical standard wine quality in properties international wine different blends of wine composition (a) studied (b) titratable acidity 0.40 1.5% 0.42 1.23% alcohol 7.4 15.5% 8.11 12.04% tannins 0.002 1.40% (white wine) 0.007 0.044% 0.04 3.26% (red wine) total phenols 246-426 mg/l (white wine) 283 570mg/l 9102160 mg/l (red wine) a adil et al,1980; bhalerao, 2001; suresh et al, 1985; pawar, 2002 b results of the present study j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):74-81, 2013 blending white and coloured grapes for improved wine quality 78 ‘shiraz’ recorded higher % of alcohol, while, those blended with ‘ruby red’ recorded a lower content. alcohol content increase when blended with shiraz which may be due to varietal specification, total soluble solids and yeast activity during fermentation (chikkasubbana et al, 1990). other factors which determine the alcohol content in wine include initial sugar content of the juice, amount of by-product formed, amount of sugar utilized by yeast and other microorganisms for their growth, and alcohol lost to evaporation (amerine et al, 1979). tannin content tannins are a complex group of polyphenolic compounds which impart a bitter taste. data on tannin content of wine in various blended wines for both the years are presented in table 4. blended treatments showed significant differences, whereas, years and interaction effect were found to be non-significant. significantly high content of tannins (0.044%) was recorded in t 21 (italia + ruby red, 2:1) and minimum was observed in t 8 (0.007%) (chenin blanc + shiraz, 3:1). interestingly, white varieties blended with the coloured cv. shiraz registered minimum content of tannins in the wine, while, those blended with cv. ruby red showed the maximum tannin content. high tannin content in wine blended with ‘ruby red’ can be attributed to extraction/presence of higher amount of tannins in grape skin and seeds. white varieties contributed less amount of tannins to the wine because must here is fermented without the skin and seeds (sharma, 1987). tannin content decreases upon storage by complexing with proteins (padshetty et al, 1982). tannins polymerize with ageing, leading to low astringency and greater softness in the wine (leslie, 2000). total phenol content phenolic compounds play a vital role in determining wine colour and flavour. for total phenol content, blending treatments were significant while years and interaction were non-significant (table 4). maximum total phenol was recorded in t 21 (570.89mg/l) and minimum (228.32mg/l) in t 8. in both the years, similar trend was observed among treatments wherein maximum content was found in t 21 , and table 3. evaluation of various wine blends for titratable acidity and alcohol content treatment details titratable acidity of wine (%) alcohol content of wine (ob) batch i batch ii mean batch i batch ii mean t 1 thompson seedless + shiraz 2:1 0.55 0.62 0.58 11.59 11.44 11.51 t 2 thompson seedless + shiraz 3:1 0.61 0.72 0.66 10.72 10.38 10.55 t 3 thompson seedless + ruby red 2:1 0.42 0.43 0.42 8.40 8.28 8.34 t 4 thompson seedless + ruby red 3:1 0.46 0.49 0.47 8.83 8.54 8.68 t 5 thompson seedless + b. blue 2:1 0.66 0.68 0.67 9.24 9.15 9.19 t 6 thompson seedless + b. blue 3:1 0.75 0.88 0.81 9.83 9.73 9.78 t 7 chenin blanc + shiraz 2:1 0.92 1.01 0.96 12.11 11.97 12.04 t 8 chenin blanc + shiraz 3:1 1.00 1.12 1.06 10.72 10.67 10.69 t 9 chenin blanc + ruby red 2:1 0.41 0.50 0.45 8.54 8.21 8.37 t 1 0 chenin blanc + ruby red 3:1 0.44 0.50 0.47 9.39 9.27 9.33 t 1 1 chenin blanc + b. blue 2:1 1.13 1.22 1.17 10.30 10.17 10.23 t 1 2 chenin blanc + b. blue 3:1 1.21 1.26 1.23 10.82 10.67 10.74 t 1 3 sauvignon blanc + shiraz 2:1 0.86 1.00 0.93 10.40 10.29 10.34 t 1 4 sauvignon blanc + shiraz 3:1 0.90 1.12 1.01 10.22 10.07 10.14 t 1 5 sauvignon blanc + ruby red2:1 0.79 0.82 0.80 9.20 9.02 9.11 t 1 6 sauvignon blanc + ruby red 3:1 0.88 0.96 0.92 9.43 9.25 9.34 t 1 7 sauvignon blanc + b. blue 2:1 1.04 1.19 1.11 9.42 9.39 9.40 t 1 8 sauvignon blanc + b. blue 3:1 1.06 1.20 1.13 9.71 9.62 9.66 t 1 9 italia + shiraz 2:1 1.00 1.11 1.05 8.69 8.52 8.60 t 2 0 italia + shiraz 3:1 1.05 1.09 1.07 8.41 8.27 8.34 t 2 1 italia + ruby red 2:1 0.61 0.75 0.68 8.20 8.02 8.11 t 2 2 italia + ruby red 3:1 0.71 0.75 0.73 8.33 8.11 8.22 t 2 3 italia + b. blue 2:1 1.17 1.22 1.19 8.54 8.38 8.46 t 2 4 italia + b. blue 3:1 1.07 1.32 1.19 8.49 8.41 8.45 mean 0.82 0.91 0.86 9.56 9.40 9.48 f test sem cd(p=0.05) f test sem cd(p=0.05) treatment * 0.07 0.20 * 0.04 0.12 years * 0.02 0.06 * 0.01 0.04 treatment x years ns 0.03 ns ns 0.06 ns j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):74-81, 2013 veena joshi et al 79 minimum in t 8 . among treatments, it was observed that ‘shiraz’ blended with white varieties registered minimum total phenol content in the wine, while blend of ‘ruby red’ with any white variety showed maximum content of total phenols in the wine. shiraz, when blended with a white variety, resulted in better mouth-feel, colour and astringency compared to the rest of the treatments. singleton and easu (1969) reported higher phenol content in white varieties compared to red varieties. suresh et al (1983) reported that blending of musts result in better quality red wines. organoleptic evaluation blended wines were evaluated by a panel of five members. a 20 point scale was considered based mainly on appearance, aroma, flavour, taste, colour and overall acceptability. significant differences were found among treatments for all the quality attributes studied (table 5). treatment t 7 recorded the highest score for appearance (17.18), aroma (16.25), flavour (16.55), taste (17.30) and colour (17.83). this was followed by t 1 for appearance, aroma and taste; t 12 for flavor and t 4 for colour. lowest score was observed in t 21 and t 23. overall acceptability of wine in t 7 (chenin blanc + shiraz, 2:1) was found to be excellent (with a score of 18.31), followed by t 1 (thompson seedless + shiraz, 2:1) with a score of 17.41. based on average score, wine made from blending shriraz juice can be graded as good (t 7 , t 1 , and t 13 ), while the rest of the blends produced fair quality wine (except t 23 , which showed ordinary quality). hence, blending any white variety with shiraz gave good quality wine in terms of phenolic compounds (total phenols and tannins) and alcohol content within the specified range of composition of standard wine. it can be concluded that blending white varieties (chenin blanc, thompson seedless, sauvignon blanc and italia) with the coloured variety shiraz was found to produce good quality wine, recording the highest average organoleptic score. as regard ratio, 2:1 proportion recorded as superior to 3:1 in terms of wine quality and organoleptic evaluation. table 4. evaluation of various wine blends for tannins and total phenol content treatment details tannin content of wine (%) total phenol content of wine (mg/l) batch i batch ii mean batch i batch ii mean t 1 thompson seedless + shiraz 2:1 0.012 0.017 0.014 486.66 492.63 489.64 t 2 thompson seedless + shiraz 3:1 0.011 0.015 0.013 473.55 481.32 477.43 t 3 thompson seedless + ruby red 2:1 0.018 0.023 0.020 516.23 525.00 520.61 t 4 thompson seedless + ruby red 3:1 0.016 0.019 0.017 501.00 513.12 507.06 t 5 thompson seedless + b. blue 2:1 0.015 0.018 0.016 495.04 509.00 502.02 t 6 thompson seedless + b. blue 3:1 0.014 0.016 0.015 474.00 479.30 476.65 t 7 chenin blanc + shiraz 2:1 0.008 0.012 0.010 251.24 267.67 259.45 t 8 chenin blanc + shiraz 3:1 0.006 0.008 0.007 221.65 235.00 228.32 t 9 chenin blanc + ruby red 2:1 0.028 0.029 0.028 319.32 329.57 324.44 t 1 0 chenin blanc + ruby red 3:1 0.022 0.024 0.023 300.05 305.35 302.70 t 1 1 chenin blanc + b. blue 2:1 0.015 0.018 0.016 301.10 310.12 305.61 t 1 2 chenin blanc + b. blue 3:1 0.010 0.013 0.011 274.31 284.63 279.47 t 1 3 sauvignon blanc + shiraz 2:1 0.017 0.021 0.019 240.33 247.65 243.99 t 1 4 sauvignon blanc + shiraz 3:1 0.015 0.018 0.016 222.33 243.00 232.66 t 1 5 sauvignon blanc + ruby red2:1 0.026 0.030 0.028 270.10 275.66 272.88 t 1 6 sauvignon blanc + ruby red 3:1 0.022 0.025 0.023 258.67 264.02 261.34 t 1 7 sauvignon blanc + b. blue 2:1 0.020 0.022 0.021 254.10 272.00 263.05 t 1 8 sauvignon blanc + b. blue 3:1 0.019 0.020 0.019 237.64 241.35 239.49 t 1 9 italia + shiraz 2:1 0.023 0.025 0.024 480.54 485.24 482.89 t 2 0 italia + shiraz 3:1 0.016 0.021 0.018 453.12 472.60 462.86 t 2 1 italia + ruby red 2:1 0.043 0.045 0.044 553.78 588.00 570.89 t 2 2 italia + ruby red 3:1 0.029 0.032 0.030 535.11 553.00 544.05 t 2 3 italia + b. blue 2:1 0.026 0.029 0.027 513.25 531.66 522.45 t 2 4 italia + b. blue 3:1 0.018 0.021 0.019 487.62 509.37 498.49 mean 0.018 0.021 0.019 380.03 392.34 386.18 f test sem cd (p=0.05) f test sem cd (p=0.05) treatment * 0.003 0.010 * 6.47 19.75 years ns 0.005 ns ns 3.82 ns treatment x years ns 0.002 ns ns 5.48 ns j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):74-81, 2013 blending white and coloured grapes for improved wine quality 80 table 5. organoleptic evaluation of wine in different blended treatments of grape (mean of two years data) treatment organoleptic evaluation appearance aroma flavour taste colour overall mean acceptability max. score 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 t 1 thompson seedless + shiraz 2:1 16.53 15.41 15.73 16.53 16.31 17.41 16.32 t 2 thompson seedless + shiraz 3:1 14.75 13.21 12.63 13.11 14.41 14.46 13.76 t 3 thompson seedless + ruby red 2:1 13.46 10.96 13.66 13.45 15.01 15.56 13.68 t 4 thompson seedless + ruby red 3:1 13.40 14.51 14.56 14.50 16.95 16.40 15.05 t 5 thompson seedless + b. blue 2:1 14.30 12.16 12.86 14.50 14.11 13.20 13.52 t 6 thompson seedless + b. blue 3:1 14.10 14.26 14.63 15.05 14.78 13.91 14.45 t 7 chenin blanc + shiraz 2:1 17.18 16.25 16.55 17.30 17.83 18.31 17.23 t 8 chenin blanc + shiraz 3:1 15.16 13.20 14.51 15.71 15.56 15.40 14.92 t 9 chenin blanc + ruby red 2:1 13.51 10.63 13.15 13.41 13.91 14.35 13.16 t 1 0 chenin blanc + ruby red 3:1 13.95 12.63 14.55 15.69 14.55 14.66 14.33 t 1 1 chenin blanc + b. blue 2:1 14.38 11.25 13.73 13.90 14.33 14.30 13.64 t 1 2 chenin blanc +b. blue 3:1 15.36 14.40 16.08 16.25 15.53 15.41 15.50 t 1 3 sauvignon blanc + shiraz 2:1 15.30 14.53 14.50 14.60 15.36 15.90 15.03 t 1 4 sauvignon blanc + shiraz 3:1 14.38 12.18 14.60 13.65 15.10 15.56 14.24 t 1 5 sauvignon blanc + ruby red2:1 14.58 11.31 11.55 14.20 14.51 12.91 13.17 t 1 6 sauvignon blanc + ruby red 3:1 14.16 13.70 12.23 14.31 14.71 13.58 13.78 t 1 7 sauvignon blanc + b. blue 2:1 14.50 12.86 13.78 12.20 14.90 14.10 13.72 t 1 8 sauvignon blanc + b. blue 3:1 14.70 14.25 14.83 13.98 15.16 14.51 14.57 t 1 9 italia + shiraz 2:1 15.06 14.51 14.66 13.33 13.65 15.85 14.51 t 2 0 italia + shiraz 3:1 13.18 11.15 13.86 12.90 13.23 14.83 13.19 t 2 1 italia + ruby red 2:1 11.66 12.75 12.26 12.01 12.63 11.55 12.14 t 2 2 italia + ruby red 3:1 13.10 14.98 13.66 14.30 13.10 12.23 13.56 t 2 3 italia + b. blue 2:1 12.35 10.26 11.63 12.13 13.16 12.26 11.96 t 2 4 italia + b. blue 3:1 13.28 12.93 12.26 13.51 13.41 12.43 12.97 mean 14.26 13.09 13.85 14.18 14.67 14.54 ftest * * * * * * sem 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.08 0.07 0.12 cd (p=0.05) 0.17 0.21 0.22 0.28 0.19 0.34 *significant ns: non significant hedonic scale: 18-20 excellent, 15-17 good, 12-14 fair, 9-11 ordinary, 6-8 poor, 3-5 bad, 1-2 very bad references adil g. sachde, abdul monam al–kaisy and raad, a.k. norris. 1980. chemical composition with relation to quality of some wine brands produced in iraq. amer. j. enol. vitic., 31:254-256 akopyan, a.a. 1979. improvement in quality of red wines by 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accepted 10 july 2012, revised 31 october 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):74-81, 2013 blending white and coloured grapes for improved wine quality 27 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 original research paper carotenoid content in cherry tomatoes correlated to the color space values l*, a*, b*: a non-destructive method of estimation shilpa pandurangaiah, sadashiva a.t., shivashankar k.s., sudhakar rao d.v. and ravishankar k.v. icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, india email : ravishankar.kv@icar.gov.in abstract cherry tomatoes are rich sources of carotenoids. the carotenoids are known to be precursors of vitamin a and also act as an antioxidant. it is important to visually judge the tomato surface color for higher carotene content since this is the major provitamin aa carotenoid. estimation of carotenoids by hplc (high performance liquid chromatography) and spectrophotometric methods in tomatoes are very expensive and time consuming. therefore, colorimeters can be used to describe the color and determine the carotenoid content in a relatively easy and inexpensive manner. the objective of this study was to determine, if the carotenoid content within cherry tomatoes measured by conventional method could correlate with colorimetric cie (commission international del’eclairage) l*, a*, b* color space values. strong correlations were found between color surface value a* and total carotenoids (0.82) and lycopene content (0.87). we also observed positive correlation for the b* color value with carotene (0.86). the l* value was negatively correlated (-0.78) with an increase in carotenoids. these close associations between color space values l*, a*, b* and carotenoids will help the breeders to quickly screen large germplasm/ breeding lines in their breeding program for improvement in carotenoid content through this time saving, inexpensive and nondestructive method at fully ripe stage. keywords: carotene, carotenoid, lycopene, tomato. introduction color is one of the important quality parameters of fruits and vegetables. the color of tomatoes is the most important quality character to determine the ripeness. the color of tomatoes is the initial external factor that makes them appealing to the consumer’s decision for purchasing them. the complexity of tomato color is due to the presence of a diverse ca r otenoid pigment system with a ppea r a nce conditioned by pigment types and concentrations, and subject to both genetic and environmental regulation (radzevicius et al., 2014). color of tomatoes is an important desired character which can be achieved by genetic improvement of breeding lines with varying concentration of carotenoids. the tomatoes are harvested and consumed at the red ripe stage of ripening, which occurs due to the degradation of chlorophyll at green stage and rapid accumulation of carotenoids particularly lycopene and carotene. in this study, we have assessed surface color differences among the cherry tomatoes and its relation to their total carotenoid, lycopene and carotene content. carotenoid content in fruits can be assessed in laboratory through spectrophotometer measurement of toma to fr uit extra cts, but this method is time consuming a nd tedious (lichtentha ler 1987). colorimeters can be used to determine the carotenoid content in fruits and vegetables in a quick, easy and in a non-destructive manner. in 1931, the commission international del’eclairage (cie) made possible to express color in exact quantitative and numerical this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 28 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 shilpa pandurangaiah et al. terms. an improvement of this system was developed in 1976 by cie, which defines color better related to human perception and where all conceivable colors can be located within the color sphere defined by three perpendicular axes, l* (from white to black),a* (green to red) and b* (blue to yellow). in the present study, an attempt was made to correlate tomato surface color values with actual carotenoids content so as to standardize a fast, inexpensive and nondestructive method. materials and methods plant material: nine different cherry tomato lines such as iihr 2754, iihr 2857, iihr 2858, iihr 2861, iihr 2862, iihr 2863, iihr 2864, iihr 2865, iihr 2866 were grown in the open field at icar– indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india. fruits were harvested in ripe stages and brought to the laboratory for further examination of color and estimation of carotenoids. carotenoid profiling : total carotenoids and lycopene content were analyzed by spectrophotometry method (lichtenthaler 1987). carotenoids were extracted using acetone and partitioned with hexane for the ripe stage.the carotenoids in the extract were estimated by rea ding absorba nce at 470 and 503 nm for estimating total carotenoids and lycopene respectively. thecarotenoid profiling was done using uplc, as per themethod reported by serino et al. (2009) with modifications. color measurement : the surface color (values of l*,a*, b*, c* and hue angle) was measured on fresh tomatoes using a color reader, cr-10 (minolta co. ltd, osaka, japan; measuring area of 8mm with 8/d viewing geometry using cie standard illuminant d65). three different measurements were taken at three equidistant points on the equatorial region of individual fruit. the value l*(lightness) indicates the ratio of white and black color, value a* is the ratio of red and green colors, value b* is the ratio of yellow and blue colors. chroma/chromaticity (c*) is the saturation or vividness of color. as chromaticity incr ea ses, a color becomes mor e intense; a s it decreases, a color becomes more dull. hue angle isthe basic unit of color. both chroma and hue are derived from a* andb* using the following equations: chroma: c* = “ (a*) 2 + (b*) 2and hue angle: h0 = tan– 1 (b*/a*)0 (itle et al., 2009). it should be noted that all color space values l*, c, a* and b* are measured in nbs units, hue angle h° in degrees from 0 to 360°. nbs unit is a unit of usa national standard bureau and corresponds to one threshold of color distinction power, viz. the least distinction in color, which the trained human eye can notice (juskeviciene et al., 2014). statistical analysis : cor r ela tion a na lysis a nd r egr ession a na lysis wa s conducted for tota l carotenoids, lycopene and carotene with color space values using statistical package spss ver. 19 (spss inc., chicago, il, usa) software (wellman 1998). microsoft excel program was used to plot the scatter plot and calculate regression equation. mean cd and standard error was also calculated. results colorimetric measurements: significant differences were observed among the cherry tomato lines for color values l*, a*, b*, c* and hue angle. beginning with the l* value a range from lightness (48.9) to darkness (37.40) was observed in tomato lines evaluated. highest l* value of 48.9 nbs units was observed for iihr 2866 and iihr 2754 showed the least l* value of 37.40. mean color space value a* ranged from 35.43 in iihr 2754 to 18.03 in iihr 2866. the mean color space value b* ranged from 42.99 in iihr 2866 to 21.03 in iihr 2754. c*, chroma/chromaticity ranged from 46.61 in iihr 2866 to 34.46 in iihr 2857. hue angle ranged from 67.250 in iihr 2866 to 30.690 in iihr 2754 (table. 1 & fig. 1). there was a significant difference in the total carotenoid content among the tomato lines. the dark red fruit line iihr 2754 contained highest carotenoid content with 23.80 mg/100g fw. the lycopene content was also more in iihr 2754 with 15.10 mg/ 100g fw and -carotene content was 3.02 mg/100g fw. iihr 2865 contained the least a mount of carotenoids with 8.20mg/100g fw. iihr 2866 contained the lowest lycopene content 0.85 mg/100g fw and highest -carotene content 8.56mg/100g fw (fig. 2). 29 carotenoid content in cherry tomatoes correlated to the color space values l*, a*, b* genotypes l a* b* chroma hue tot car lycopene -carotene angle (h°) iihr 2754 37.40 ± 35.43 ± 21.03 ± 41.21 ± 30.69 ± 23.80 ± 15.10 ± 3.02 ± 0.49 0.62 0.70 1.25 0.98 1.26 0.69 1.25 iihr 2861 39.20 ± 34.93 ± 23.37 ± 42.03 ± 33.78 ± 17.90 ± 11.60 ± 1.23 ± 0.29 1.16 0.54 0.96 1.25 1.54 0.87 0.96 iihr 2857 37.93 ± 25.93 ± 22.70 ± 34.46 ± 41.20 ± 13.70 ± 8.30 ± 1.79 ± 1.08 0.70 1.04 0.69 0.54 2.36 1.06 0.69 iihr 2858 38.77 ± 28.07 ± 24.53 ± 37.28 ± 41.16 ± 12.10 ± 5.20 ± 0.80 ± 0.94 2.98 0.97 0.25 0.85 0.98 1.89 0.25 iihr 2862 39.83 ± 26.73 ± 24.20 ± 36.06 ± 42.15 ± 11.00 ± 6.20 ± 1.63 ± 1.89 1.98 1.37 1.02 1.06 1.06 1.65 1.02 iihr 2863 43.43 ± 28.83 ± 31.80 ± 42.93 ± 47.80 ± 10.70 ± 6.10 ± 1.87 ± 2.36 1.41 1.54 1.26 1.15 1.54 0.84 1.26 iihr 2864 44.60 ± 15.57 ± 35.13 ± 38.43 ± 66.10 ± 9.74 ± 3.30 ± 6.44 ± 1.47 1.47 1.21 0.48 0.75 1.97 1.78 0.48 iihr 2865 48.50 ± 22.30 ± 40.13 ± 45.91 ± 60.94 ± 8.20 ± 2.00 ± 5.65 ± 2.50 1.96 1.58 0.78 1.35 2.01 1.30 0.78 iihr 2866 48.90 ± 18.03 ± 42.99 ± 46.61 ± 67.25 ± 9.50 ± 0.85 ± 8.56 ± 0.69 1.02 0.66 1.36 1.06 1.23 0.56 1.36 table 1. each observation is a mean ±sd of three replicate experiments of color indexes l*, a*, b*, c*, hue angle (h°) and total carotenoids, lycopene and -carotene content in cherry tomato lines. fig. 1. color indexes l*, a*, b*, c* and hue angle in cherry tomato lines. error bars indicate the extent of variation among genotypes. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 30 fig. 2. total carotenoids, lycopene and β-carotene content in cherry tomato lines. error bars indicate the extent of variation among genotypes. the color change in tomato is primarily observed from the immature green stage to the red ripe stage. during the process of ripening chlorophyll gets disappeared and carotenoids start accumulating giving the red or the orange color in tomatoes. color is an important quality attributes in the food and bioprocess industries, a nd it influences the consumer ’s choice a nd preferences (pathare et al., 2013). most of the tomato literature defines color in terms of the achromatic descriptors viz. l*, a*, b*. the color indexes a* and b* are combined and used by various researchers in differ ent mathema tical models to express color changes (lopez camelo et al., 2004) in tomato. in this study, cherry tomato lines were studied for surface color changes associated with carotenoid content in them. the cherry tomato lines used in this study included both red and the orange colored tomatoes. lightness (l*) values ranged from 48.9 to 37.40. we observed that the l* value which indicates lightness was mor e in ora nge fr uited tomatoes compared to the red tomatoes, this is because red colored tomatoes synthesize more lycopene and appear darker than the orange colored tomatoes. the l* value of iihr 2866 was highest (48.9 nbs units) and these tomatoes were lighter than the red colored tomatoes with lower l* values in genotypes such as iihr 2754 (37.40), iihr 2861 (39.2). discussion shilpa pandurangaiah et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 31 we observed that the correlation between l* and total carotenoids was -0.78(p<0.05) (table 2) viz. as the total carotenoids in tomato lines increase, the fruit surface l* color space value decreases. a similar study by itle et al., in 2009 on pumpkins and squashes r eported that ther e was nega tive correlation between l* and carotenoid content. the color space value a* was found to be higher in i i h r 2 7 5 4 ( 3 5 . 4 3 ) t ha t ha d high t ot a l carotenoids and lycopene content. we observed that, as the a* value decreased in different tomato lines t her e wa s c onc omit a nt d ec r ea s e in c a r ot enoids ( ta b le 1 ). t her e wa s a pos it ive correlation between a* value to total carotenoids (0 . 82 ) (p <0. 01) a nd lycop ene content ( 0. 8 7) (p<0.01) where as a nega tive cor relation wa s obs er ved between a * a nd -c a r otene c ont ent (-0.77)(p<0.05). as indicated in the table 1, in red colored tomato lines lycopene constitutes major pa r t of tota l ca r otenoids which a r e r ed color pigments. as higher a * va lues indica t e mor e redness, the tomato lines with higher surface a* values ha d more lycopene pigments indicating positive correlation as reported in (table 2). the orange colored tomatoes showed a* value lower than red tomatoes, as shown in fig 3 that a* value in horizontal axis is negative for green color and gradually increases with a* value becoming positive as there is change in color from orange to orange red and then to red. the b* value was highest in iihr 2866 (42.99) which had highest -carotene of 8.56 mg/100g fw. fig. 3. a three-dimensional representation of cie (l*, a*, b*) color space. the figure shows horizontal oval disk, with four orthogonal axes radiating out from the center of the disk in the horizontal plane. one set of horizontal axis ranges from -a* (greenish) to +a*(reddish).the other set ranges from -b*(blueish) to +b*(yellowish). inside the horizontal disk, the range of perceived colors is shown. an orthogonal vertical axis runs through the center of the disk, this vertical axis portrays the lightness dimension, ranging from l*= 100 for white at the top and l*=0 for black at bottom (cie publication15.2-1986). carotenoid content in cherry tomatoes correlated to the color space values l*, a*, b* j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 32 we observed a positive correlation between b* and -carotene content (0.86) (p<0.01) and there was a negative correlation between b* and total carotenoids (-0.78) (p<0.01) & lycopene content (-0.83) (p<0.01). the surface b* values indicate yellowness and the toma to lines with higher b* values had higher -carotene content giving positive correlation between b* and -carotene. chroma value c showed no significant differences among the genotypes (table 1). it is reported that although chroma sub model has been proposed (thai et al., 1990), it is not a good indicator of tomato ripening because it essentially is an expression of the purity or saturation of a single color (differentcolors may have the same chroma values) (lopez camelo and gomez et al., 2004).in the case of tomato ripening, different colors are present simultaneously since chlorophyll is degraded from green to colorless compounds at the same time that carotenoids are synthesized from colorless precursor (phytoene) to -carotene (pale yellow), lycopene (red),   l* a* b* total lycopene chroma hue carotenoids carotene angle(h°) l* 1 -0.738* 0.993** -0.788** -0.817** 0.840** 0.737 0.913** a* -0.738** 1 -0.780** 0.822** 0.877** -0.772* -0.128 -0.943** b* 0.993** -0.780** 1 -0.789** -0.835** 0.867** 0.709 0.939** total caroten oids -0.788** 0.822** -0.789** 1 0.976** -0.507 -0.245 -0.842** lycopene -0.817** 0.877** -0.835** 0.976** 1 -0.613 -0.286 -0.895** β carotene 0.840** -0.772* 0.867** -0.507 -0.613 1 0.596 0.865** chroma 0.737 -0.128 0.709 -0.245 -0.286 0.596 1 0.438 hue angle 0.913** -0.943** 0.939** -0.842** -0.895** 0.865** 0.438 1 table 2. pearson correlation coefficients (r) (2 tailed) (n = 10) between color space values (l*, a*, b*, chroma, and hue angle) and total carotenoids, lycopene and -carotene content. significant correlations of two-tailed tests are indicated: *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01 -ca r otene (or a nge) a nd xa nthophylls a nd hydroxylated carotenoids (yellow) (giuliano et al., 1993), in a kind of parallel biosynthetic pathway (horton & stark,1969). hue angle, h° was more in iihr 2866 (67.25) and was less in red colored tomato iihr 2754 (30.69). lower hue angle means redness and higher hue angle indicates yellowness. the negative correlation (-0. 84) (p<0.01) observed between hue and total ca rotenoids is perfectly reflected by lower carotenoid readings in tomato lines with higher hue angles. a similar negative correlation was observed by itle et al., (2009) in pumpkins and squashes; they suggest that as hue angle decrease the carotenoid content increase. but we could observe positive cor r ela tion (0. 86) (p<0. 01) between -carotene and hue angle. also, hue angle and b* value strongly correlated (0.93) (p<0.01), as we discussed earlier with increase in -carotene the b*values also increased and showed positive correlation. so, it can be assumed that b* value and hue angle are clearly associated with -carotene content in tomatoes. shilpa pandurangaiah et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 33 conclusion from this study, it is clear that there was a change in a* value due to accumulation of lycopene. the a* value increased as lycopene content increased and b* value increased with increase in -carotene content. in the tomato lines selected in our study we observed the total carotenoid content was more in lines where there was more lycopene content, hence there was positive correlation between a* to total carotenoids and lycopene content. hue angle also showed a strong positive correlation to -carotene content. based on these results from this study, we could identify strong correlations between colorimetric values and the carotenoid content. these results confirmed the feasibility of obtaining precise indirect estimation of lycopene and -carotene content from chromaticity readings. the methodology described here could be useful for large scale selection of tomato lines with fig. 4(a). correlation between a* and lycopene content, 4(b). correlation between b* and carotene content (n=10). improved levels of lycopene without high prices and likewise prevents the residue disposal problems associated with the employment of organic solvents in the standard spectrophotometric methods. the utilization of portable hand held colorimeters for estimation of carotenoids in tomatoes is less clumsy a nd convenient when compa r ed to other methods.therefore, the close association between color and carotenoids established through colorimeter readings can be utilized or applied for breeding purposes to improve the nutritional value of tomatoes in very easy, inexpensive, less time consuming and a non-destructive method. acknowledgement we sincerely thank the department of biotechnology, government of india for the financial support through the project “metabolomics in tomato with special reference to fruit quality” references radzevicius a.,viskelis p., viskelis j ., karkleliene, r.,juskeviciene, d. 2014 tomato fruit color changes during ripening on vine. international journal of biological, food, veterinary and agricultural engineering, vol : 8 (2). radzevicius a., viskelis p., bobinas c. quality and physiologica l pa r a meter s of toma to (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) fruits of lithuanian selection, 2008, biologija. 54 (2):108–111. giuliano g., bartley g.e., scolnik p.a. 1993 regulation of car otenoid biosynthesis during toma to development. the plant cell, 5: 379-387. horton b.d. and stark f.c. 1969 developmental r a tes a nd biosynthesis of ca r otenoids in tomatoes (lycopersicone sculentum mill.) as carotenoid content in cherry tomatoes correlated to the color space values l*, a*, b* j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 34 influenced by two sola r r a dia tion levels. maryland agricultural experimental station bulletin. p(19). cie l*a *b* colour sca le 1996. hunter lab applications note, 8(7): 1-4. itle r.a., and kabelka e.a. 2009. correlation between l*a*b* color space values and carotenoid content in pumpkins and squash (cucurbita spp. ), hort science, 44 (3): 633–637. lichtentha ler, h. k. 1987. chlor ophylls a nd carotenoids: pigments of photosynthetic bio membranes. method enzymol, 148: 350–382. lopez camelo a.f. gómez p.a. 2004. comparison of color indexes for toma to r ipening. horticultura brasileira, 22(3): 534-537. pathare p.b., opara u.l. and al-said f.aj. 2004. mea sur ement a nd ana lysis in fr esh and pr ocessed foods : a review. food bioprocess technol, 6: 36-60. serino s., gomez l., costagliola g., gautier h. 2009. hplc assay of tomato carotenoids : validation of a rapid micro extraction technique. j agric food chem, 57: 8753–8760. thai c.n., shewfelt r.l., garner j.c. 1990. tomato color changes under constant and variable stor age tempera tures : empir ical models, transactions of the asae, 33(2): 607-614. shilpa pandurangaiah et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 27-34, 2020 (received on 13.08.2019 and accepted on 15.02.2020) 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper advancing fruiting season in annona cv. arka sahan through pruning chander s.*$, kurian r.m., satisha j., upreti k.k. and laxman r.h. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, india $punjab agricultural university, rrs, abohar 152116, india *corresponding author email : subhashghorela@pau.edu abstract annona cultivar ‘arka sahan’, an inter-specific hybrid of annona atemoya × a. squamosa comes to harvest during august-september under mild tropical climate, which coincides with monsoon rains resulting in poor fruit quality and high susceptibility to anthracnose and fruit fly. an attempt was made to advance the fruiting in this hybrid through pruning during 201617 and 2017-18. the effect of three pruning levels (25, 50 and 75% of previous season’s growth) at five different times (60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 days after final harvest of previous crop) on flowering and fruiting were compared. early sprouting, flowering and fruit harvest were recorded in trees pruned to 75% of the past season’s growth in both the years. earliest fruits were harvested 271 (3rd week of june) and 268 (2nd week of june) days after pruning in trees pruned during first week of october in 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively (p<0.05). bigger fruits with lesser seeds per 100 g of pulp (p<0.05) were harvested from trees pruned to 75% and 25% levels in the first and second year, respectively, irrespective of pruning time. tree canopy following pruning at 75%level recorded higher light interception and photosynthetic rate (p<0.05). pruning time and levels significantly influenced the biochemical constituents of leaf and shoot. the fruiting in cultivar ‘arka sahan’ could be thus advanced by 8-9 weeks to june from the normal season of august-september with comparable or better fruit quality by pruning 75% of the last season’s growth during october. keywords : annona, biochemical constituents, fruit quality, off-season and pruning introduction sugar apple (annona squamosa l.), also known as sweet sop, sugar apple, sitaphal or sharifa and as custard apple in india is a native of tropical america and west indies, introduced to india. the fruits are generally used fresh, while some products like custard powders and ice-creams are prepared from the fruits. ‘arka sahan’ is an inter-specific hybrid between a. atemoya (var. island gem) × a. squamosa (var. mammoth). it is a vigorous plant. its mature fruits take about 6-7 days to ripe. the creamy white colour flesh is juicy with mild pleasant aroma and tender with fewer seeds (9/100 g pulp) and large segments. the edible pulp is remarkable for its sweetness with 22.8 per cent total sugars and measures more than 300 b as against 240 b in mammoth (jalikop and kumar 2007). flowering in annona occurs on current season growth arising after natural leaf fall during late winter. in annona, flower bud formation is restricted to early shoot development, and is extra-axillary, borne opposite to leaves (george and nissen 1991). the leaf imposed para-dormancy of axillary bud is present in annona (george and nissen 1987). soler and cuevas (2008) reported off-season (winter season) fruit production through shoot pruning followed by tipping the newly emerged shoots in cherimoya. normal fruiting time of ‘arka sahan’ grown under the mild tropical climate is august-september, which coincides with monsoon rains resulting in deterioration of fruit quality due to anthracnose incidence and fruit fly infestation during the rainy period. flowering can be manipulated by modifying the timing of bud break in annona species to get fruit out of season. for this leaf fall is prerequisite to open up the sub-petiolar axillary bud residing under the leaf petiole. we attempted to make the annona hybrid ‘arka sahan’ to flower and fruit early through pruning, which could induce early defoliation, bud sprouting and formation of new shoots and flowers and thus advance fruiting season to 2 chander et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 summer months. t he pr uning techniques wer e standardized in terms of time and severity, keeping in view the flowering and fruiting behavior of the cultivar ‘arka sahan’. materials and methods the experiment was conducted at icar indian institute of horticultur al resear ch, benga luru (karnataka state, india) during two consecutive years, 2016-17 and 2017-18. the experimental material consisted of eight-year-old one hundred and twenty uniform plants of annona cv. arka sahan planted at a distance of 5m × 5m. the treatments comprised of five pruning times (t1, t2, t3, t4 & t5) and three shoot pruning levels (l1, l2, & l3). pruning was performed after 60, 75, 90, 105 or 120 days after final harvest of the previous crop. pruning levels consisted of removal of 25 per cent (one-fourth of shoot length), 50 per cent (half of shoot length) or 75 per cent (twothird of shoot length) of the previous season’s growth. each treatment was replicated four times in a factorial randomized block design. two trees were observed in each replication under each treatment for collection of data. eight trees that were not pruned and giving new shoot growth naturally by the end of march following leaf abscission during late winter served as external check for comparison of treatment effects against natural fruiting as these could not be fitted effectively into the factorial design involving pruning time and intensity. standard package of practices were adopted for ma intena nce of a ll the tr ees dur ing the experimentation. the number of days required for sprouting and flowering was assessed by recording the days taken for the emergence of fir st spr out a nd flower respectively after the treatment imposition. the durations of the first and last harvest were calculated from the date of imposing the treatments to the first fruit harvest and the last fruit harvest respectively. the total fruit yield per tree was recorded at harvest by measuring the weight of fruits harvested and values were expressed in kilogram. fruit weight (g) was recorded using electronic balance. the total soluble solids (tss) were measured using digital refractometer and expressed as degree brix. titrable acidity was estimated by adopting the titrametric method of a.o.a.c (1975) using phenolphthalein indicator and the values were expressed in terms of percentage citric acid equiva lent. pulp content (%) of fr uit was determined using the following formula: the number of seeds per 100 g of pulp was calculated by using the following formula: gas exchange parameters such as net photosynthesis (pn, μmol m -2 s-1), transpiration rate (e, mmolm-2 s-1) and stomatal conductance (gs, mmol m-2s-1) were recorded in three fully expanded leaves of each plant using portable photosynthesis system (lcpro+, adc bioscientific limited, uk) during morning hours of clear and sunny conditions between 09:30 h and 11:30 h at two stages viz., fruit set (march, 2018) and rapid fruit growth (may, 2018) stage in the second year (2017-18) of study. photosynthetically active radiation (par) below the tree canopy was measured using the li-191sa line quantum sensor (li-cor, lincoln, ne) on uniformly overcast days between 12:00 h and 13:00 h at the fruit set and rapid fruit growth stages (fss and rfgs) during 2017-18. the total leaf chlorophyll content was measured at fss using spectrophotometer (uv 1650pc, shimadzu, japan) at wave lengths of 645 and 663 nm as per hiscox and isrealstam (1979). total sugar in shoot was estimated after the harvest of fruits following the method of somogyi, (1952). statistical analysis was done separately for the parameters studied for each year using opstat (sheoran et al., 1998) and discussed at p < 0.05 for significance of difference between their mean values. result and discussion physiological and biochemical characteristics: pruning, especially its levels, significantly influenced the amount of light interception at both fruit set stage (fss) in march and rapid fruit growth stage (rfgs) in may (p<0.05) (table 2). higher light interception in different treatments could be related to longer shoot length and higher number of leaves and leaf area in 75 per cent pruned trees (p<0.05). differential light interception within tree canopies can also influence vegetative growth, flower initiation, fruit set, fruit size and fruit quality (marini and marini, 1983). higher light interception was also associated with higher photosynthetic rate of leaves at both fruit set and rapid fruit growth stage. pruning provided open canopy area and resulted in maximum interception of sunlight for 3 advancing fruiting season in annona cv. arka sahan through pruning higher rate of photosynthesis (singh and singh 2007). similar results were recorded by sharma et al. (2006) that the light interception was significantly influenced by pruning intensity in mango, being higher for pruned trees than for not pruned ones. the highest value of diffuse light availability below the canopy was recorded for severely pruned trees than for trees not pruned. higher photosynthetic rate was recorded in trees pruned to 75 per cent level compared to 50 and 25 per cent levels (p<0. 05) (table 2). higher photosynthetic rate reflects more metabolic activity in these leaves which could be attributed to interception of more light by the leaves. the trees pruned to 75 per cent produced longer shoots carrying more leaves, which harvested more light. similar results were observed by sharma et al. (2006) in mango where higher photosynthetic rate was recorded in leaves of pruned trees than trees not pruned. however, stomatal conductance was not affected much due to pruning in the present study (data not presented). it ranged from 0.07 to 0.18 mmol m-2 s-1 among the treatments. the leaf chlorophyll content is considered as an important index of the metabolic activity of plants. at both fss and rfgs, chlorophyll content exhibited differential pattern in response to different levels of pruning (table 2). accumulation of higher chlorophyll content in leaf could be related to the higher light interception which favoured the synthesis of more chlorophyll. light interception by 75 per cent level pruned trees was higher at both fruit set and rapid growth stages. the lower chlorophyll content in the other treatments may be attributed to limited chlorophyll synthesis for want of conducible environmental conditions (sritharan et al., 2010). although, there was significant influence of pruning time and pruning levels on chlorophyll content at fruit set stage, no consistent results were evident over the years. at fruit set, the amount of chlorophyll content varied from 1.5 to 3.1 mg/g in the first year and from 1.2 mg to 3.2 mg/g in the second year. at rapid fruit growth stage, in the first year, pruning treatments did not influence the chlorophyll content while in the second year, significant influence was recorded with chlorophyll content varying from 2.0 to 2.8 mg/g (p<0.05). sharma and chauhan (2003) reported higher chlorophyll content in leaves of pruned peach tree leaves as compared to trees not pruned. however, total leaf chlorophyll content was recorded similar for both pruned and unpruned mango trees during april and july while during november it was recorded highest in pruned trees (schaffer and gaye 1989). presence of higher amount of sugar in shoots of trees pruned at 25 per cent level in the present study, could be attributed to poor translocation of sugar for the growth of shoot or more towards the developing fruits which was also reflected in terms of relatively, smaller shoot and less number of leaves in 25 per cent pruned trees. however, sugar accumulation in shoot was recorded more in the second year (506.2 mg/100 g) over the first year (457.4 mg/100 g) which could be related to the favourable environmental condition prevailed including higher rainfall (average 2.41 mm per month), relative humidity (average 76.32%) and maximum temperature (average 29.74° c) in the second year (october to july) than the first year (rainfall 1.76 mm & relative humidity 68.47%). shoots that emerged from 75 per cent pruning treatments were longer, which also reflected better translocation and utilization of sugar in the growth of shoot. overall, total sugar content was affected by pruning levels, the results are in conformity with those of bagchi et al. (2008) who observed that pruning up to 10 cm with complete removal of old leaves showed significant effect on increasing reducing sugars (36.7 mg/g) than other treatments and control. growth and yield characteristics: pruning led to leaf fall followed by sprouting of sub petiolar axillary buds on the shoot. irrespective of pruning time, the number of days required for sprouting has become shorter with the increase of pruning levelduring both the years with minimum number of days to sprout for those pruned in december first week and october first week in first and second years, respectively (p<0.05) (table3). early sprouting in trees pruned to 75 per cent level table 1 : details of timing and level of pruning treatments pruning level pruning time t1l1 25% pruning 60 dafh* t1l2 50% pruning (1 st week of t1l3 75% pruning october) t2l1 25% pruning 75 dafh t2l2 50% pruning (3 rd week of t2l3 75% pruning october) t3l1 25% pruning 90 dafh t3l2 50% pruning (1 st week of t3l3 75% pruning november) t4l1 25% pruning 105 dafh t4l2 50% pruning (3 rd week of t4l3 75% pruning november) t5l1 25% pruning 120 dafh t5l2 50% pruning (1 st week of t5l3 75% pruning december) *days after final fruit harvest 4 ta bl e 2 : e ff ec t of p ru ni ng t im e an d pr un in g le ve ls o n lig ht i nt er ce pt io n, p ho to sy nt he tic r at e, to ta l l ea f ch lo ro ph yl l a nd t ot al s ug ar in a nn on a cv . a rk a sa ha n l ig ht in te rc ep ti on ( % ) p ho to sy nt he ti c ra te to ta l le af c hl or op hy ll to ta l su ga r t re at m en ts 20 17 -1 8 (μ m ol m ”2 s” 1 ) (m g g1 ) (m g/ 10 0 g) f ss r f g s 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 t 1l 1 21 .8 65 .1 7. 9 3. 1 3. 2 39 9. 3 48 0. 0 t 1l 2 41 .5 82 .6 7. 7 2. 5 2. 5 35 2. 0 41 5. 0 t 1l 3 58 .8 92 .0 10 .8 2. 9 3. 1 18 1. 5 24 9. 3 t 2l 1 19 .6 66 .3 5. 7 2. 3 2. 2 37 2. 0 41 0. 8 t 2l 2 40 .6 75 .9 5. 8 2. 9 3. 0 42 7. 8 50 4. 0 t 2l 3 55 .7 90 .6 7. 2 2. 3 2. 3 18 2. 5 29 9. 0 t 3l 1 24 .4 71 .9 4. 5 2. 3 2. 4 46 7. 5 53 1. 0 t 3l 2 32 .5 80 .2 4. 8 2. 0 1. 8 40 8. 8 47 2. 0 t 3l 3 59 .4 85 .2 8. 7 2. 2 2. 1 27 8. 8 32 7. 8 t 4l 1 21 .0 70 .4 7. 6 1. 7 1. 2 58 9. 5 69 8. 0 t 4l 2 47 .4 76 .9 8. 0 1. 5 2. 9 57 0. 5 57 3. 0 t 4l 3 58 .4 84 .1 8. 7 2. 0 3. 1 32 6. 5 53 9. 0 t 5l 1 24 .6 73 .4 6. 8 1. 8 2. 6 45 8. 8 41 1. 0 t 5l 2 40 .6 80 .5 6. 4 1. 6 2. 5 42 7. 0 49 8. 0 t 5l 3 58 .7 92 .7 7. 5 1. 9 1. 8 36 4. 0 43 1. 0 e xt er na l c he ck 20 .3 60 .2 7. 6 3. 0 3. 1 35 0 46 5 t c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 3. 00 1. 11 0. 03 0. 04 6. 71 8. 39 l c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 2. 81 2. 33 0. 86 0. 03 0. 03 5. 20 6. 50 t x l c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 6. 28 5. 20 1. 92 0. 06 0. 07 11 .6 2 14 .5 3 t: t im e of p ru ni ng ; l : l ev el o f pr un in g chander et al 5 ta bl e 3 : e ff ec t of p ru ni ng t im e an d le ve ls o n sp ro ut in g, f lo w er in iti at io n, f ru it yi el d an d its p at te rn o f a nn on a cv . a rk a sa ha n sp ro ut in g f lo w er in it ia ti on f ir st h ar ve st f in al h ar ve st f ru it y ie ld p er f ru it y ie ld p er t re at m en ts (d ay s) (d ay s) (d ay s) (d ay s) tr ee ( kg ) t c sa (k g/ cm 2 ) 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 t 1l 1 85 .3 10 4. 7 10 0. 6 13 2. 8 29 7. 5 30 7. 5 30 7. 5 32 0. 0 12 .0 20 .2 0. 10 0. 14 t 1l 2 57 .5 60 .7 75 .7 74 .5 28 5. 0 27 9. 5 30 2. 0 30 6. 3 10 .1 14 .9 0. 07 0. 09 t 1l 3 23 .3 13 .7 42 .9 26 .3 27 1. 0 26 8. 9 29 9. 5 30 2. 5 11 .1 16 .1 0. 09 0. 11 t 2l 1 60 .5 10 4. 6 77 .7 12 6. 1 29 0. 0 29 1. 0 30 5. 0 30 1. 8 10 .2 17 .7 0. 08 0. 13 t 2l 2 28 .0 90 .1 45 .4 10 5. 3 27 7. 5 26 6. 0 29 6. 3 29 5. 0 11 .2 15 .7 0. 09 0. 10 t 2l 3 17 .5 20 .0 35 .3 33 .9 27 1. 0 24 5. 0 28 7. 0 29 5. 0 11 .3 17 .0 0. 08 0. 10 t 3l 1 41 .6 44 .9 54 .2 54 .8 26 9. 0 27 6. 8 27 9. 0 28 5. 5 9. 0 18 .9 0. 08 0. 14 t 3l 2 25 .5 32 .6 42 .9 55 .6 26 9. 8 26 5. 8 27 8. 0 28 4. 5 10 .0 19 .4 0. 09 0. 14 t 3l 3 16 .3 17 .6 48 .2 42 .2 27 1. 3 23 5. 0 28 7. 3 28 1. 0 10 .1 16 .8 0. 09 0. 11 t 4l 1 31 .5 62 .9 44 .4 76 .1 26 9. 0 26 1. 5 28 4. 0 26 6. 8 8. 7 20 .5 0. 07 0. 13 t 4l 2 19 .2 39 .6 33 .8 55 .7 27 0. 8 25 2. 5 28 4. 0 27 6. 0 9. 3 16 .4 0. 07 0. 10 t 4l 3 16 .2 18 .4 56 .8 44 .0 27 6. 3 23 6. 8 28 5. 0 27 1. 5 10 .8 15 .2 0. 08 0. 10 t 5l 1 25 .2 45 .1 38 .5 59 .8 27 0. 0 24 6. 8 28 3. 0 25 8. 3 9. 8 20 .6 0. 07 0. 12 t 5l 2 20 .9 33 .5 37 .8 45 .6 27 1. 0 23 6. 5 28 3. 0 25 5. 0 10 .5 19 .1 0. 07 0. 12 t 5l 3 14 .7 17 .3 50 .8 40 .6 27 4. 5 22 2. 5 28 3. 0 24 4. 8 11 .3 16 .4 0. 08 0. 09 e xt er na l c he ck 11 8 13 5 13 3 14 5 32 1 32 9 33 5 33 8 14 .2 20 .1 0. 09 0. 14 t c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 3. 06 5. 10 4. 39 5. 07 3. 98 2. 55 3. 25 4. 78 0. 21 1. 27 0. 01 0. 01 l c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 2. 37 3. 95 3. 40 3. 93 3. 08 1. 98 2. 52 3. 70 0. 16 0. 98 0. 01 t x l c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 5. 29 8. 84 7. 61 8. 78 6. 89 4. 42 5. 64 8. 28 0. 36 2. 20 t: t im e of p ru ni ng ; l : l ev el o f pr un in g advancing fruiting season in annona cv. arka sahan through pruning 6 could be attributed to very few leaves or no leaf left on such shoots and with less number of buds available on the shoot, the reserve metabolites from trunk could have contributed to early release of these buds. similar results were observed in cherimoya (soler and cuevas, 2008) and guava (shaban and haseeb, 2009), where severely pruned trees gave early sprouting. also, early flowering occurred in trees pruned to 75 per cent level (p<0.05). in a less vigorous cultivar of sugar apple, balanagar, early shoot growth during winter could be induced under similar climatic condition through chemical defoliation (chander et al., 2019). since flowering is on current season growth in annona and concomitant with the shoot growth, early sprouting resulted in early flowering in both the years. however, in the first year, flowering was earlier on trees pruned to 50 per cent level during november and december despite early sprouting in those pruned to 75 per cent level. it was observed that there was continuous vegetative growth in 75 per cent pruned trees. similar results were reported in custard apple (george and nissen, 1987), cherimoya (soler and cuevas, 2008) and atemoya (olesen and muldoon, 2012). pruning treatments significantly influenced the flowering and fruiting period of annona cv. ‘arka sahan’ (table 3). earliest fruits were harvested from the treatments imposed in 1st week of october, at 75 per cent pruning level (t1l3) with minimum days (271) to harvest by 2nd week of june in first year (p<0.05). a consistent result was recorded for early harvest (2nd week of june) with 75 per cent pruned trees in second year for all pruning time. early harvest from 75 per cent pruned trees could be attributed to advanced flowering and fruit set in these trees. observations recorded on final harvest exhibited significant differences with pruning time and pruning level (table 3). in both the years, the final harvest extended longer for the 25 per cent pruned trees (p<0.05). final harvest in case of 75 per cent pruning was completed earlier than 25 per cent or 50 per cent pruning. early harvest in these trees could be attributed to earlier induction of flowering and pollination than the other treatments. the results are in conformity with those reported by vinay et al. (2014) in custard apple and adhikari and kandel (2015) in guava. higher yield was obtained from trees pruned during 1st week of october at 25 per cent level (t1l1) while for rest of the pruning treatments greater yield was recorded from 75 per cent pruned trees in the first year. however, in the second year, maximum yield per tree was obtained from 25 per cent pruned trees (table 3). higher yield in respective years could be attributed to bearing of larger size of fruits and occurrence of prevailing congenial environmental conditions during the fruit growth. also, accumulation of more sugars in the shoot of 25 per cent pruned trees at harvest reflect more availability of assimilates to fruits on these trees. fruits were harvested near to normal season from trees pruned to 25 per cent level which could have advantage of prevailing congenial environmental condition than other treatments. the results are in conformity with kumar et al. (2010) in peaches and choudhary and dhakare (2018) in sugar apple, where heavy pruning (90 cm) gave lesser yield than light or trees not pruned but medium pruning (3045 cm) recorded higher yield per tree. the yield per t csa was not influenced much with pr uning treatments, which could be attributed to lesser effect of pruning treatments on trunk growth (table 3). in the second year, comparatively higher yield per tree wa s r ecor ded a lthough ther e wa s not much improvement in trunk growth. higher yield in second year could be more related to the increase of yield per tree rather than trunk circumference. fruit quality characteristics: there was consistent significant effect of pruning levels on fruit weight and pulp content in both the years (p<0.05) (table 4). higher fruit weight and pulp content in 75 per cent pruned trees could be attributed to the better growth of shoot with higher number of leaves which resulted in higher synthesis of photosynthates in these shoots. the higher amount of accumulated photosynthates could have contributed for bigger size of fruits. similar results were reported in custard apple (olesen and muldoon, 2009; choudhary and dhakare, 2018) and ber (gupta and gill, 2015). however, in the second year, trees pruned at 25 per cent level recorded the maximum fruit weight and pulp content which could be due to a va ila bility of sufficient stor ed carbohydrates, confirmed with the estimation of higher sugar in the developed shoot. similar trend was observed on other fruit quality parameters including fruit volume, fruit length, fruit width and fruit circumference with the pruning treatments imposed over two years (data not presented). results indicated that irrespective of pruning time, comparatively fewer seeds per 100 g of pulp were recorded in 75 per cent and 25 per cent pruning levels in the first and second years, respectively (p<0.05). as the fruit size including fruit weight, volume, and pulp content was recorded more in these treatments this could have lowered the proportion of seed per unit of pulp. similar findings were also observed by chander and kurian (2019) in sugar apple and teaotia and singh (1971) in guava where lesser percentage of seed was recorded in chander et al 7 ta bl e 4 : e ff ec t of p ru ni ng t im e an d pr un in g le ve ls o n fr ui t qu al ity a tt ri bu te s of a nn on a cv . a rk a sa ha n f ru it w ei gh t p ul p co nt en t se ed s pe r 10 0 g of t ss t re at m en ts (g ) (% ) p ul p (º b ) 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 20 16 -1 7 20 17 -1 8 t 1l 1 24 8. 1 43 2. 9 59 .9 80 .1 29 .1 12 .4 36 .3 33 .9 t 1l 2 30 1. 5 35 0. 8 69 .5 70 .5 22 .7 15 .4 35 .2 32 .0 t 1l 3 31 6. 5 36 3. 6 64 .2 76 .2 21 .9 16 .1 34 .5 31 .8 t 2l 1 25 7. 9 39 4. 0 63 .6 80 .3 24 .1 12 .1 37 .0 33 .6 t 2l 2 26 5. 6 36 1. 5 66 .3 75 .2 25 .6 15 .2 35 .4 33 .0 t 2l 3 31 0. 7 42 1. 4 67 .7 73 .3 20 .3 15 .0 32 .8 31 .8 t 3l 1 27 8. 9 46 8. 7 65 .8 79 .0 27 .1 12 .4 35 .5 33 .8 t 3l 2 30 8. 9 45 2. 8 66 .8 78 .6 24 .2 15 .4 36 .7 32 .8 t 3l 3 28 9. 7 39 4. 5 68 .2 66 .2 22 .2 18 .2 35 .0 31 .3 t 4l 1 26 2. 5 45 6. 0 66 .5 80 .0 26 .1 13 .5 36 .3 32 .6 t 4l 2 25 0. 8 40 2. 7 68 .5 77 .4 24 .2 13 .4 36 .1 32 .4 t 4l 3 27 5. 0 38 5. 8 70 .8 74 .3 19 .2 15 .5 35 .3 31 .7 t 5l 1 26 2. 9 45 1. 2 62 .3 79 .1 25 .7 13 .5 36 .0 33 .5 t 5l 2 27 3. 1 40 8. 7 65 .8 69 .7 28 .6 13 .1 35 .7 32 .9 t 5l 3 27 8. 7 44 1. 4 66 .6 73 .9 23 .9 16 .1 35 .9 32 .2 e xt er na l c he ck 30 0 37 5 61 .4 66 .1 23 .2 15 .8 31 .8 30 .2 t c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 36 .7 3 2. 72 0. 60 l c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 18 .2 3 28 .4 5 2. 11 2. 34 2. 62 1. 39 0. 47 0. 54 t x l c .d . ( p =0 .0 5) 5. 22 1. 04 t: t im e of p ru ni ng ; l : l ev el o f pr un in g advancing fruiting season in annona cv. arka sahan through pruning 8 heavier fruit obtained from pruned trees. pruning influences qua lity of the fr uits by r egula ting carbohydrate allocation to the developing fruits (palanichamy et al., 2011). early pruning during october-november resulted in increased level of total soluble solids (tss) of the fruit than the later or trees not pr uned (p<0.05) (table 4). t he prevailing congenia l tempera tur e dur ing fr uit gr owth a nd maturation could have contributed for accumulation of more sugar in the developing fruits as the fruits come to harvest earlier in these pruned trees. in both the years, comparatively higher value of prevailing average maximum temperature (31.11, 31.50°c) was recorded from flowering to fruit maturity (february to june) for october-november pruned trees than the late pruned trees wherein lesser average maximum temperature (30.73, 30.33°c) was recorded from flowering to fruit maturity (april to august). the results are in conformity with those of kadam et al. (2018) in custard apple cv. dharur-6 where fruits from light pruned (20 cm) trees recorded maximum tss content. in contr ast, heavy pr uning resulted in accumulation of more tss in grapes (zabadal et al., 2002) and peach (chitkara et al., 1991). there were no consistent trends of acidity content of fruit pulp although higher level of acidity was observed in trees pruned to 75 per cent level (data not presented). chitkara et al. (1991) and kumar et al. (2010) recorded increased acidity level with the increase of pruning severity in peaches. similar results were obtained by mehta et al. (2012) in guava and kadam et al. (2018) in custard apple cv. dharur-6. induction of off-season crop with better quality is a new technique in sugar apple production that could ena ble the gr ower s to get better ma r ket a nd profitability. fruiting could be advanced by 8-9 weeks to june with pruning at 75 per cent level during october in annonacv. arka sahan from the normal fruiting season of august september. acknowledgement we are thankful for the requisite facility providedby the director, icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru (india). the first author is also grateful for the financial support provided to him by university grants, commission, new delhi (india). references adhikari, s. and kandel, t. p. 2015. effect of time and level of pruning on vegetative growth, flower ing, yield, a nd qua lity of gua va . international journal of fruit science,15(3): 290-301. a.o. a. c. 1975. officia l methods of ana lysis. association of the official analytical chemists, washington d.c. 8th edn. ba gchi, t. b., sukul, p. a nd ghosh, b. 2008. biochemica l cha nges dur ing off-sea son flowering in guava (psidium guajava l.) induced by bending and pruning. journal of tropical agriculture, 8: 64-66. chander, s. and kurian, r. m. 2019. effect of crop load, fruit position and shoot vigour on yield and quality of annona atemoya × annona squamosa in india . the journal of horticultural science and biotechnology, 94(4): 507-512. chander, s., kurian, r. m., satisha, j., upreti, k. k. a nd la xma n, r. h. 2019. chemica l interventions for advancing the fruiting season of sugar apple (annona squamosa l.) cv. balanagar.international journal of chemical studies,7(1): 774-781. chitkara, s. d., arora, r. k. and sharma, r. k. 1991. effect of various levels of pruning on physio-chemical characters of fruit in flordasun peach. haryana journal  of  horticultural  sciences, 20(3): 189–192. choudhary, k. and dhakare, b. b. 2018. influence of pruning intensities on growth, yield and fruit attributes of custard apple. international journal of current microbiology and applied sciences,7: 5311-5315. george, a. p. and nissen, r. j. 1987. effects of cincturing, defoliation and summer pruning on vegetative growth and flowering of custard apple (annona cherimola x annona squamosa) in subtropical queensland. australian journal of experimental agriculture, 27(6): 915-918. george, a.p, nissen, r. j. and campbell, j. a. 1991. pollination and selection in annona species (cherimoya, atemoya and sugar apple). frontier in tropical fruit research, 321: 178-185. gupta, n and gill, m s. 2015. effect of intensity of pruning on yield and fruit quality of ber (ziziphus mauritiana l. ) cv. umr a n. international journal of agriculture, environment and biotechnology, 8(1): 69-73. hiscox, j. d. and israelstam, g. f. 1979. a method for the extraction of chlorophyll from leaf tissue without maceration. canadian journal of botany, 57(12): 1332-1334. chander et al 9 jalikop, s. h. and kumar, r. 2007. pseudo-xenic effect of allied annona spp. pollen in hand pollination of cv. ‘arka sahan’ [(a. cherimola × a. squamosa) × a. squamosa]. hortscience, 42(7): 1534-1538. kadam, s r, dheware, r m. and urade, p s. 2018. effect of different levels of pruning on quality of custard a pple (annona squamosa l. ). international journal of bio-resource and stress management,9(5): 573-575. marini, r. p. and marini, m. c. 1983. seasonal cha nges in specific lea f weight, net photosynthesis, and chlorophyll content of peach leaves as affected by light penetration. journal of the american society for horticultural science,108: 600-605. mehta, s., singh, s. k., das, b., jana, b. r. and mali, s. 2012. effect of pruning on guava cv. sardar under ultra high-density orcharding system. vegetos, 25(2): 192-195. olesen, t. and muldoon, s. j. 2012. effects of defoliation on flower development in atemoya custard apple (annona cherimola mill. × a. squamosa l.) and implications for flowerdevelopment modelling. australian journal of botany,60(2): 160-164. olesen, t. a nd muldoon, s. j. 2009. br a nch development in custa r d a pple (annona cherimola miller× a. squamosa l.) in relation to tip-pruning and flowering, including effects on production. trees, 23(4): 855-862. palanichamy, v., mitra, b., srivastav, m. and singh, s.k. 2011. studies on various grape genotypes through development of bearing zones and pr uning sever ity. journal of pharmacy research, 4(10): 7-10. schaffer, b. and gaye, g. o. 1989. effects of pruning on light interception, specific leaf density and leaf chlorophyll content of mango. scientia horticulturae, 41(1-2): 55-61. shaban, a. e. a. and haseeb, g. m. m. 2009. effect of pruning severity and spraying some chemical substances on growth and fruiting of guava tr ees. american-eurasian journal of agricultural and environmental science, 5(6): 825-831. sharma, d.p. and chauhan, j.s., 2003. october. response of pruning intensities and fertilizer tr ea tments on yield, fr uit qua lity a nd photosynthetic efficiency of peach. in vii international symposium on temperate zone fruits in the tropics and subtropics 662 pp. 237-241. sharma, r. r., singh, r. and singh, d. b. 2006. influence of pr uning intensity on light penetration and leaf physiology in high-density orchards of mango trees. international journal of fruit science, 61(2):117-123. sheoran, o. p., tonk, d. s, kaushik, l.s., hasija, r. c. and pannu, r. s. 1998. statistical software package for agricultural research workers. recent advances in infor ma tion theory, statistics & computer applications by d.s. hooda & r. c. ha sija depa r tment of mathematics statistics, ccs hau, hisar (139143). singh, v k. and singh, g. 2007. photosynthetic efficiency, canopy micro climate and yield of rejuvenated guava trees. acta horticulturae, 735: 326-331. soler, l and cuevas, j. 2008. development of a new technique to pr oduce winter cherimoyas. horttechnology, 18(1): 24-28. somogyi, m. (1952). notes on sugar determination. journal of biological chemistry, 200:245-247. sritharan, n, vijayalakshmi, c. and selvaraj, p. k. 2010. effect of micro-irrigation technique on physiological and yield traits in aerobic rice. international journal of agriculture, environment and biotechnology, 3(1): 26-28. teaotia, s. s. and singh, r. d. 1971. the effect of training on growth, cropping and physicochemical properties of guava cv. allahabad safeda. progressive horticulture, 2: 5-20. vinay, g. m. and chithiraichelvan, r. 2014. induction of off-sea son flower ing in custa rd apple (annona squamosa l.) cv. balanagar. journal of horticultural sciences, 10(1): 13-17. zabadal, t. j., vanee, g. r., dittmer, t. w. and ledebuhr, r.l. 2002. evaluation of strategies for pr uning and cr op contr ol of concor d grapevines in southwest michigan. american journal of enology and viticulture, 53: 20-24. advancing fruiting season in annona cv. arka sahan through pruning 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper growth and yield enhancement of carrot through integration of npk and organic manures kiran m.1, jilani m.s.1, waseem k.1, haq f.2, khan m.s.1, nadim m.a.3* rahman k.1 and hussain k.1 1department of horticulture, 2institute of chemical sciences, 3department of agronomy, gomal university, dera ismail khan, pakistan *corresponding author email : mehwishkiran@gu.edu.pk abstract a pot experiment was conducted at horticulture experimental area, gomal university, dera ismail khan, pakistan to investigate the combined effects of npk and organic manures on growth and yield of carrot, for two consecutive years. the experiment was laid out in crd with six treatments and four replications. five different organic manures such as poultry manure (pm), sewage sludge (ss), farmyard manure (fym), press mud (prm) and goat manure (gm) were applied in combination with npk, each at recommended levels for two successive years. a fertilizer check (control) was also included as treatment where no fertilizer and manure were used. the study revealed significant improvements in almost all growth and yield attributes by combined application of npk and organic manures. among different combinations, npk + pm surpassed all other treatments by giving maximum leaves per plant (8.73 and 8.13), leaf length (38.17 and 36.77cm), root length (29.30 and 24.83cm), root diameter (3.10 and 3.27cm), root weight per plant (142.40 and 142.00g), total biomass per plant (169.33 and 166.67g) and root yield (56.67 and 56.83 t/ha), during both the experimental years. similarly, npk combination with green manure and sewage sludge also produced better results pertaining to carrot growth and production for two consecutive years. it was also observed during the study that control treatment showed poorest findings and placed at lowest levels. keywords: carrot, npk, organic manures, root length, root weight and total biomass introduction carrot is one of the major vegetable crops grown throughout the world (cho et al., 2021) and considered to be an important economical vegetable as it has large yield per unit area (sikora et al., 2020). in pakistan, carrot is one of the cheaply available vegetables and is equally used by poor and rich people (amjad et al., 2013). besides, vitamin a and fiber carrot is also enriched with carbohydrates, protein, minerals, fibers, iron and so on (khomich et al. , 2020). fr om therapeutic point of view carrot is more useful in curing human diseases especially eye sight (nagraj et al., 2020). this root vegetable is used for different purposes in daily human diet and its roots are eaten uncooked in steamed or boiled vegetable salad and can also be used in soup and other food stuff (rahman et al., 2020). according to survey in pakistan (2017-18) the carrot was grown on area of 13.95 thousand ha and its total production was 241.91 thousand tones (noor et al., 2020). the proper application of nutrients increase the soil fertility and crop production (silveria and kohmann, 2020). plants and crops fulfill their nutritional requirements by the uptake of minerals largely through soil (vijayprabhakar et al., 2020). balanced nutrition application is considered as an important factor to boost production. both soil fertility and crop production are adversely affected by misuse of fertilizers without any significant knowledge (pandey et al., 2020). generally, most carrot growers use inorganic fertilizers to realize higher yields. the rising level of inorganic fertilizers adversely affect the human health (toor et al., 2020) soil texture and structure. so, the farmers tried the integrated plant nutrients which significantly increased the fertility of 2 kiran et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 soil and crop production (singh et al., 2020). there are several organic soil amendments which include materials such as chicken manure, cattle manure, cocoa pod husk, compost and solid waste (ameen, 2020). so, the mineral fertilizers can be substituted by organic manures. manure application provides nutrients, enhances water holding ability, soil structure and porosity, moisture retention, bulk density, enhance the microbial growth and crop quality (goel et al., 2020). organic fertilizers are cheaper than inorganic sources, thus farmers can easily afford the cost of organic fertilizers (hafez et al., 2020) in order, to achieve high yield and quality product, the proper use of mineral fertilizers and organic manure are of considerable importance. they also display a vital role in avoiding harmful effects on soil and environment as well (fallah et al., 2020) the effectiveness of the combined application of mineral and organic fertilizers assigned to the increased efficiency of mineral fertilizer and the balanced supply of all the essential nutrients. integrated use of organic and inorganic fertilizers can improve crop productivity and sustain soil fertility (hammad et al., 2020) however, the main important issue is that the organic fertilizers are slowly available to the crops as compared to the inorganic fertilizers. recently, the researchers focused to practice the combination of miner al fer tilizers a nd organic manures. the combination of both the organic and inorganic fertilizer increase the soil fertility, crop production and decrease the level of soil pollution (karmakar et al., 2020). taking into consideration the beneficia l a spect of integr a ted fer tilizer s, a n experiment was conducted to study the response of growth and yield of carrot towards the combined effect of npk dose and organic manures. materials and methods the two years study to investigate the integrated use efficiency of different organic manures in addition to npk on growth and production of carrot was carried out at horticultur e experimental ar ea, gomal university, dera ismail khan, pakistan. experimental site is located between 32º 4’ n (latitude), 71º 2’ (longitude) and 173 m (altitude) above sea level. climatic conditions of the study ar ea are a rid, subtropical, and continental with an average rainfall ranging 180-300 mm. the trial was conducted in pots using crd layout with six treatments (i.e.) t1:control (no fertilizers), t2: npk (100:100:125 kg ha -1) + fym (30.0 t ha-1), t3:npk + pm (10.0 t ha -1), t4:npk + gm (15.0 t ha-1), t5: npk + prm (20.0 t ha -1) and t6:npk + ss (20.0 t ha -1) each treatment replicated four times. all pots were filled with equal and uniform amount (20.0 kg) of river soil along with respective quantities of npk and organic manures. a set of pots without any additives (manures and fertilizers) treated as control. the required quantity of mineral fertilizers (phosphorus and potash) were applied in the form of single super phosphate and sulphate of potash at sowing, while different manures were incorporated well before sowing of seeds (10 days). nitrogen was applied in the form of urea in two splits i.e., before sowing and after one month of sowing. five seeds of carrot (local variety) were sown on 20th october, each year in pots and all cultural practices were performed uniformly. data on various attributes pertaining to plant growth and yield including number of leaves per plant, leaf weight and length, root weight, length, diameter, plant biomass and yield were recorded, and statistical analysis was done as per anova techniques, while means’ comparison was done by duncan’s multiple range (dmr) test. results and discussion application of npk and organic manures significantly influenced number of leaves per plant during both the experimental years (table1). application of npk + pm recorded the significantly higher number of leaves per plant (8.73 and 8.13) during both the years. it was followed by the application of npk + gm (8.17 and 7.60). the study also showed statistically on par number of leaves per plant by applying ss (7.83 and 7.33), fym (7.73 and 7.27) and prm (7.60 and 7.07) in addition to npk. the control treatment recorded the least number of leaves per plant was (4.53 and 3.27). the obtained results showed that the integrated mineral and organic manure increased the number of leaves by providing macro and micro nutrient to plants. the increase in the number of is attributed to the use of variant nature of the organic manures. the obtained results are in accordance to previously reported literature (singh et al., 2007). kirad et al. (2010), also recorded 8.26 and 16.06 leaves per plant. the addition of various organic fertilizers along with npk greatly increased the leaf length of the carrot. the results related to the combined effect of organic fertilizers along with npk on the leaf length are shown 3 growth and yield enhancement in carrot using integrated nutrient management in table 1). among the treatments, the longest leaves (38. 17 a nd 36. 77 cm) wer e pr oduced by the combination of npk + pm, followed by npk + gm (35.17 and 36.50 cm) and npk + ss (34.13 cm). significantly shortest leaves (17.33 and 15.70 cm) were found in control treatment, during two years of experimentation. the results of this experiment are also supported by numerous references already cited in literature (singh et al., 2007, singh et al., 2020 and sunandarani and mallareddy, 2007). data pertaining to weight of ca rrot lea ves (table 1) expressed significant variations by comparing organic manures, as well as comparison over control for two succeeding years. during 1st year, highest and statistically leaf weight per plant (25.00g) was recorded with t3, which remained on par with only t4 (24.33 g) only. during second year significantly higher leaf weight per plant (23.67 g) was recorded in t4, which remained on par with t3 (23.00 g) and t6 (22.67g). the significantly lowest values of 9.0 and 7.67 gm were recorded with t1 during first and second year respectively. it can be concluded from the results that the application of orga nic ma nur es in combina tion with npk substantially increased the weight of carrot leaves. the combined introduction of manures along with npk raised the leaf weight 163.7% to 226.1% over control in the first year, while the same was 144.4% to 162.9% in the next year, higher in npk + pm (first year) and npk + gm (second year), while during both years the minimum increase was noted npk + prm. this might be attributed to the combination of inorganic and organic fertilizers that decreased the loss of nutrients. the proper use of the integrated manures and fertilizers increased the leaf weight by providing higher rate of nutrients availability (toor et al., 2020). the different treatments significantly influenced root length, root diameter, root weight, biomass weight and root yield (table 2). application of poultry manure (pm) in addition to npk produced significantly higher values for root length (29.30 and 24.83 cm), which table 1 : effect of npk and organics manures on leaf characters in carrot in response of npk and organic manures treatment no. of leaves per plant leaf length (cm) leaf weight (g per plant) i year ii year i year ii year i year ii year t1 4.53 3.27 17.33 15.70 9.00 7.67 t2 7.73 7.27 33.87 32.73 22.33 21.33 t3 8.73 8.13 38.17 36.77 25.00 23.00 t4 8.17 7.60 36.50 35.17 24.33 23.67 t5 7.60 7.07 32.70 32.17 22.00 20.22 t6 7.83 7.33 34.77 34.13 23.00 22.67 lsd (0.05) 0.239 0.289 0.670 1.013 0.878 1.434 root root root biomass root treatment length diameter weight weight yield (cm) (cm) (g/plant) (g/plant) (t/ha) i year ii year i year ii year iyear ii year iyear ii year i year ii year t1 12.03 10.80 1.43 1.22 47.33 38.33 56.33 46.00 18.93 15.33 t2 22.00 19.57 2.79 2.50 128.00 114.33 150.33 135.63 51.04 45.73 t3 29.30 24.83 3.27 3.10 142.40 142.00 169.33 166.67 56.83 56.67 t4 26.03 23.87 2.93 2.90 141.33 136.67 166.0 160.00 55.15 51.75 t5 23.77 20.73 2.80 2.67 128.67 120.33 150.73 140.57 53.83 45.90 t6 25.17 21.83 2.83 2.73 130.33 129.37 153.0 152.33 54.37 48.83 lsd (0.05) 1.829 1.157 0.133 0.176 5.116 4.598 2.876 4.608 1.301 1.936 table 2 : effect of npk and organics manures on root characters and yield 4 remained on par with only t4 during the second year of experimentation. among different organic fertilizers, poorest results (22.00 and 19.57 cm root length) were recorded in npk + fym. however, the shortest roots (10.80 cm and 12.03 cm) were found in control treatment. the current study revealed that the use of organic manure in conjunction with npk significantly enlarged carrot roots, thereby advocating positive impact on root growth from the combined use of manures and fertilizers. these results are supported by previously work done in literature (sunandarani and mallareddy, 2007) root length and diameter greatly contributes to carrot weight and yield. amongst different organic manures applied in addition to npk, poultry manure (pm) superseded other treatments by producing maximum root diameter (3.27 and 3.10 cm), respectively for two successive years. it was followed by npk + gm (2.93 and 2.90 cm) and npk + ss (2.83 and 2.73 cm) respectively for two years. the lowest root diameter (1.43 and 1.22 cm) was recorded in control treatment. the study showed that the combined use of organic manures together with npk substantially increased the carrot root diameter. addition of pm proved superior amongst treatments,while fym was least effective that might be due to lower nutrient concentrations in fym as well as its slow release and delayed decomposition. from the obtained results it was concluded that the integrated nutrients increased the root diameter (toor et al., 2020). maximum root weight per plant (142.4 and 142.0 g) was recorded in combined application of npk and pm, which was followed by npk + gm (141.33 and 136.68 g) for two years. addition of fym along with npk resulted in poor root weight (128.00 and 114.33 g) during both the cropping seasons. however, control treatment, where no fertilizers (chemical + organic) were mixed into the soil showed lowest root weight per plant (47.33 and 38.33 g), respectively for two consecutive years. the results of this study showed that the combined use of organic and mineral fertilizers substantially increased the root weight of carrot, which might be attributed to the well solubilization of plant food, contributing to the increased nutrient uptake. these results suggested that combination of organic manures and mineral fertilizers with appropriate ratios ca n significa ntly incr ea se the r oot weight (vijayaprabhakar et al., 2020). perusal of data presented in table 2 indicated that biomass of carrot plants was significantly affected by integrated use of npk and organic manures, during both the yea r s. amongst differ ent tr ea tments, significantly higher biomass per plant (169.33 and 166.67g) was recorded in plants amended with npk + pm than other treatments during two years of cropping. it was followed by the combined use of npk with gm (166.00 and 160.00 g) and ss (153.0 and 152.33 g). the lowest biomass weight (56.33 and 46.00g) was recorded in control treatment. the results revealed that the effectiveness of npk supplied with pm and gm was remarkable, suggesting that these organic sources provided more nutrients to plants. these results are in the agreement with previously report literature (singh et al., 2020). considerable variations existed in carrot root yield due to combined application of inorganic and organic fertilizers, for two years study (table 2). application of npk + pm recorded significantly higher root yield (56.83 and 56.67 t/ha) than all the treatments in both the years. it was followed by npk + gm (55.15 and 51.75 t/ha) and npk + ss (54.3 and 48.83 t/ha). among integrated treatments, npk + fym produced statistically lowest yield (51.04 and 47.73 t/ ha), respectively during both the experimental years. combination of organic and inorganic treatments recorded the higher yield to the tune of 170-200 and 198-269 per cent than the control treatment during both the years. the study exposed that amongst various combinations, npk + pm surpassed rest of the treatments in enhancing root yield. the npk incorporation with manures significantly increased the root yield, which might be attributed to the plant nutrient solubilization leading to increased macro and micronutrients uptake. the advantage of the use of mixture of organic and mineral fertilizers is it increase the efficiency of the fertilizers, minimized the nutrient loss and enhanced the yield of carrot (vijayaprabhakar et al., 2020). conclusion it is concluded that collective application of npk and organic manures has significantly improved vegetative growth and yield of carrot, as compared to control. integration of npk and poultry manure (both at r ecommended levels) has out yielded all other combinations and control in almost all parameters. hence, for getting more root yield of carrot, poultry manure must be incorporated into the soil in addition kiran et al 5 growth and yield enhancement in carrot using integrated nutrient management to npk. moreover, use of goat manure along with npk is also a viable combination for getting higher root yield of carrot. authors’ contribution present research work is part of ph.d. dissertation of the principal author. muhammad saleem jilani was the research supervisor for two consecutive years. kashif waseem and fazl haq conceived the idea and designed experiments. muhammad sohail khan helped in da ta a na lysis. muha mma d amja d na dim contributed during writing up and proofreading of manuscript. khalid rahman and kashif hussain helped in data collection and tabulation. all the authors have read and approved the final manuscript. references ameen, a. 2020. comparison of crop production efficiency of compost leachate with chemical fer tilizer a nd eva lua ting its effect on germination and growth of wheat crop. african journal of biotechnology, 19(5):282-286. amjad, m., ahmad,t., iqbal, q., nawaz, a. and jahangir, m.m. 2013. herbicide contamination in carrot grown in punjab, pakistan. pakistan journal of agricultural sciences 50(1): 1-4. cho, y. , kim, b. , lee, j. a nd kim, s. 2021. construction of a high-resolution linkage map and chromosomal localization of the loci determining major qualitative traits in onion (allium cepa l.). euphytica, 217(1) : 1-12. fallah, s., mouguee, s., rostaei, m., adavi, z., lor igooini, z. a nd sha hba zi, e.2020.productivity and essential oil quality of dracocephalum kotschyi under organic and chemical fertilization conditions. journal of cleaner production, 255: 120189. goel, r., debbarma, p., kumari, p., suyal, d.c., kuma r, s. a nd ma ha pa tr a , b. s. , 2021. assessment of soil chemical qua lity, soil micr obia l popula tion a nd pla nt gr owth parameters under organic and conventional rice–wheat cropping system. agricultural research, 10(2), pp.193-204. hafez,m., popov, a.i. and rashad, m.2020.integrated use of bio-organic fertilizers for enhancing soil fertility–plant nutrition, germination status and initia l gr owth of cor n (zea mays l. ). environmental technology & innovation, 21: 101329. hammad, h.m., khaliq, a., abbas, f., farhad, w., fahad, s., aslam, m., shah, g.m., nasim, w., mubeen, m. a nd ba kha t, h. f. 2020. comparative effects of organic and inorganic fertilizers on soil organic carbon and wheat productivity under arid region. communications in soil science and plant analysis, 51(10): 1406-1422. karmakar, s., bhattacharyya, a., ghosh, b., roy, r., kuma r, s. , ka r, b. a nd sa ha , g. 2020.suitability of coupling application of organic and inorganic fertilizers for crop cultiva tion. ecologica l a nd pr a ctica l applications for sustainable agriculture, springer, pp. 149-177. khomich, l., perova, i., and eller, k.2020.carrot juice nutritional profile. voprosy pitaniia, 89(1): 86-95. kirad, k., swati, b. and singh, d.2010. integrated nutrient management on growth, yield and qua lity of ca r rot. karnataka journal of agricultural sciences, 23(3): 542-543. kushwah, g., sharma, r., kushwah, s. and mishra,s. 2019. effect of organic manures, inorganic fertilizers and varieties on growth, yield and quality of tropical carrot. indian journal of horticulture, 76(3): 451-456. nagraj, g.s., jaiswal, s., harper, n. and jaiswa,a.k. 2020. carrot, in: nutritional composition and antioxidant properties of fruits and vegetables. p.323-337. nisar, f., mufti, s., afroza, b., khan, f., din, s., andrabi, n., saleem, s., shah, l.r. and nabi, j. 2019. effect of integr a ted nutr ient management on growth and yield attributes of black carrot (daucus carota subsp. sativus var. atrorubens alef.), indian journal of chemical studies, 7(4):2019-2022 noor, a. ziaf, k., ghani, m.a., ayub, c.m, ahmad, i. and amjad, m. 2020. plant spacing effects on seed yield and quality of carrot cultivar t29. pure and applied biology, 9(4): 25632570. 6 kiran et al pandey, m., shrestha, j., subedi, s. and shah, k.k. 2020. role of nutrients in wheat: a review, tropical agrobiodiversity, 1(1):18-23. rahman, n., uddin, m.b., quader, m.f.b and bakar, m.a. 2020.optimization of mixed peels from banana, carrot and apple to develop high fiber biscuit. international journal of natural and social sciences, 7(1): 21-5. sikora, j., niemiec, m., tabak, m., gródek-szostak, z. , szelą g-sikor a , . kuboń, a. , m a nd komorowska, m. 2020. assessment of the efficiency of nitrogen slow-release fertilizers in integrated production of carrot depending on fertilization strategy. sustainability, 12(5):1982. silveir a , m. l. a nd kohma nn, m. m. 2020. ma inta ining soil fertility and hea lth for sustainable pastures. in: management strategies for sustainable cattle production in southern pastures, elsevier, pp. 35-58. singh, b., singh, a., singh, t. and singh, n. 2007. integra ted nutrient mana gement in car rot (daucus carota l.). progressive agriculture, 7(1&2): 84-86. singh, s., patel, c.r. and k. paikra. k. 2020. integrated nutrient management: an effective approach for susta ina ble agriculture in chhattisgarh: a review, int. j. curr. microbiol. app. sci, 9(5):1652-1662. sunandarani, n. and mallareddy, k.2007. effect of differ ent orga nic ma nur es and inorganic fertilizers on growth, yield and quality of carrot (daucus carota l.). karnataka journal of agricultural sciences, 20(3): 686. toor, m.d., amin, m.m., khan, b.a., nadeem, m.a.,usman, m., faizan, m., arshad, a., and zafar, k. 2020. consequence of surplus fertilizers and nutrients: a review on effect on plants and humans, international journal of botany studies 5(3): 360-364. vijayaprabhakar, a., hemalatha, m. and joseph, m. 2020. utilization of paddy straw as a source of nutrients for succeeding paddy and its effect on soil available nutrients, nutrient uptake and crop yield. international journal of farm sciences, 10(1): 53-58. this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction minimally processed vegetables, popularly known as ready-to-use or ready to eat or fresh-cut, are raw vegetables that have been sanitized, peeled, sliced, chopped or shredded and packaged to make them readily usable without decline in freshness and quality (siddique et al., 2011). since lettuce is having meager number of calories (10 kcal100-1 g fw), it is often advised for reducing obesity and also minimizing risk of cataracts, heart ailments, cancers and paralysis due to presence of ample amount of β-carotene and lutein contents (mampholo et al., 2016). in recent years, demand for minimally-processed (mp) vegetables is increasing in india and projected to record 6.5% compound annual growth rate (cagr) by 2026 due to their minimal processing, ready to consumption form and high dietary value. lettuce is an important leafy vegetable usually consumed as salads. currently, share of salads has enhanced in diet and, hotels, restaurants and catering services are demanding lettuce in ready to eat form. lettuce is highly delicate and prone to surface browning through enzyme action. minimally processed produce deteriorates more rapidly than whole produce because internal and outer tissues are exposed to external environment. physical damage during the minimal processing elevate metabolic activities, respiration, biochemical conversion and microbial growth, that often result in dilapidation of texture, color, ûavour and affect visual quality as well as marketability of the product. several chemical and physical treatments have been widely tried out to manage fresh-cut lettuce browning. however, most of the methods are commonly constrained by toxic nature, cost and potentially spoiling sensory properties and reduction in nutrient content of the produce. mela tonin is a ha r mless biologica l molecule synthesized naturally in mitochondria and chloroplast of the plants (tan et al., 2013). melatonin works as an antioxidant and augments the post-harvest life of horticultural produce. earlier, post-harvest treatment of mela tonin had found effective in mitiga ting browning and extending shelf-life in strawberry (aghdam and fard, 2017), litchi (zhang et al., 2018), peach (gao et al., 2018), broccoli (zhu et al., 2018) and cut anthurium flowers (aghdam et al., 2019). the objective of this investigation was to assess the impact j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 195-200, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2163 post-harvest melatonin application reduced browning in minimally processed lettuce (lactuca sativa l.) during low temperature storage gurjar p.s.1*, singh s.r.2, verma a.k.2 and mishra m.2 1icar-central institute for arid horticulture, bikaner 334006 rajasthan, india 2icar-central institute for subtropical horticulture, rehmankhera, lucknow 226101, uttar pradesh, india *corresponding author email : pawan.gurjar@icar.gov.in abstract the investigation was carried out to assess the effect of post-harvest dipping of minimally processed fresh cut lettuce with various concentrations (10, 100 and 1000 µmoll-1) of melatonin on shelf-life and sensory quality of lettuce stored at 6±2ºc for 8 days. melatonin treatment was found effective in maintaining freshness and sensory quality of lettuce during storage. browning was reduced by 45% and visual quality index increased by 44.10% compared to control in 100 µmol l-1 melatonin treated samples on the 6th day of storage. maximum total chlorophyll, total phenol and total antioxidants and least activity of browning related enzyme i.e., peroxidase (pod) was observed in 100 µmol l-1 melatonin treated samples during storage. no significant variation was observed between 10 µmol l-1 melatonin treated and control samples. browning index value had significant negative correlation with total chlorophyll, total phenol and total antioxidants whereas pod activity had significant positive correlation. it can be inferred from the present investigation that post-harvest treatment of 100 µmol l-1 melatonin extended shelf-life of minimally processed lettuce for 6 days by preserving phenols, chlorophyll, antioxidants and inhibiting pod activity. keywords : browning, lettuce, melatonin, minimal processing, peroxidase, phenols 196 gurjar et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 195-200, 2023 of post-harvest melatonin treatment on tissue browning and storage quality of fresh-cut lettuce. materials and methods lettuce var. ‘grishma’ grown under a eroponic conditions at vegetable hydroponic centre of icarci sh, lucknow wa s pr oc ur ed. unifor m size healthy heads were selected and wrapper foliage was removed and heads were sanitized with 100 ppm chlorine water. then heads were cut into two halves with sanitized sharp stainless-steel knife. thereafter, cut pieces were treated with aqueous solution of melatonin (cdh, new delhi) (10 µmol, 100 µmol and 1000 µmoll-1) by immersing them for 5 min a nd treated hea ds wer e a ir-dr ied to evaporate surface water. dried cut pieces with sample size of 200 g were packed in zip-n-lock polypropylene bags. packaged samples were stored at 6±2ºc temperature for period of 8 days and observation was recorded on 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 days of storage. physical and biochemical observations were recorded in four samples for each treatment. the appearance and browning index of lettuce were recorded as suggested by tian et al. (2014). five lettuce pieces evaluated for each treatment by 8 pa nelis ts. o ver a ll visu a l qu a lity (o vq) wa s measured on a scale fr om 9 to 1, where 89: excellent (completely devoid of brown spots) 6-8: good (minor defects; not objectionable) and less than 6: poor (moderately to excessive defects) quality. salability limit was restricted to 6 ovq rating. the browning index (bi) was calculated by using following formula: bi=”(browning scale) × (number of lettuce pieces with that browning level)/ (total number of lettuce pieces). sample rated bi mor e tha n 2 . 0 wa s consider ed uns uita ble for marketing. electrolyte leakage (el) was measured by using the method of aghdam et al. (2015). the t ot a l phenols wer e det er mined by t he f olic ceocalteu method using tannic acid as standard. the total chlorophyll was determined using the equation: total chlorophyll (µg/ml) = (20.2 x o.d. at 645 nm) + (8.02 x o.d. at 663 nm) as given by arnon (1949). the antioxidants activity in lettuce wa s mea s ur ed a s f er r ic r educing a nt iox ida nt potential (frap) value (bhattacherjee et al., 2014). the peroxidase enzyme activity was estimated as number of absorbance units per gram fresh weight of lea f. experiment was designed in complete ra ndomized block design (crd) a nd data was analyzed by using web agr i sta t pa cka ge 2.0 (wasp 2.0) statistical software. results and discussion the emergence of brown spots on minimally processed (mp) lettuce leaves increased progressively in all samples during storage period irrespective of postharvest treatment. during first 2 days of storage, browning index (bi) remained below the threshold limit (less than 2) in all samples. however, bi in control and 10 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples was significantly higher compared to 100 and 1000 µmoll1 melatonin treated samples (fig. 1). after 2 days of storage, sharp elevation in bi was observed in control and 10 µmoll-1 melatonin treated lettuce and it exceeded threshold bi limit (less than 2) on 4th day dur ing storage and with values 3.50 a nd 3. 16, respectively. however, bi in 100 and 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin treated leaves was lesser than the threshold limit (below 2) i.e., 1.91 and 1.95, respectively on 6th day of storage. at 6th day of storage, 45% lower bi value was observed in 100 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples compared to control. at 8th day of storage, the lowest bi (2. 45) was noticed in 100 µmol melatonin treated samples followed by 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin treatment (2.51) whereas, significantly higher bi (3.82) was observed in control and 10 µmol melatonin treated lettuce. similar outcomes were reported by aghadam et al. (2015) in cut anthurium where 51% lower browning was noticed in 100 µmol mela tonin treated flower s. zha ng et al. (2018) observed strong suppression of pericarp browning in litchi through post harvest melatonin treatment. membrane damaged during minimal processing fig. 1. browning index score in minimally processed lettuce treated with exogenous application of melatonin during 8 days storage at 6±2ºc temperature. 197 post-harvest melatonin application reduces browning in lettuce oper a tions ca used loss of sub-cellula r compartmentalization, leading to contact between browning inducing-enzymes (ppo and pod) and phenolic substrates, further leading to enzymatic browning in fruits and vegetable produce. in the current investigation, less tissue browning in treated samples compa red to control might be due to suppression of phenol oxidizing enzymes by melatonin. this is supported by the significant positive correlation (r=0.915) between bi and pod activity at the end of storage period (table 2). visual quality of mp lettuce was considerably retained by exogenous post-harvest dip treatment of 100 and 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin. on the 6th day of storage, visual quality index (vqi) was significantly higher i.e., 7.12 (more than threshold limit 6) in 100 µmoll1 melatonin treated samples whereas, in control and 10 µmol melatonin treated lettuce vqi was calculated as 4.78 and 5.02, respectively. on the 8th day of storage, maximum vqi (5.26) was recorded for 100 µmol melatonin treated heads and minimum vqi (3.65) was observed in control (fig. 2). in 100 µmol melatonin treated samples, vqi value was 44.10% higher than the control samples. no considerable visual quality difference was observed in 10 µmol melatonin treated lettuce and untreated samples. simila r ly, 100 µ moll -1 mela tonin tr ea tmentsmaintained freshness in broccoli florets for 7 days storage period (zhu et al., 2018). vqi demonstrated significant negative association with browning index (r= -0.945) and pod activity (r= -0.986) whereas, it displayed significant strong positive correlation with total chlorophyll (r=0.0.963), total phenol (r=0.794) and total antioxidants (r=0.961) (table 2). electr olyte lea ka ge (el) is cor r ela ted with maintenance of membrane integrity during cold storage of fresh produce. an enhancement in el has been used as an indicator of physiological damage in cell membrane during storage. el of mp lettuce leaves increased in control as well as melatonin treated samples during storage. during initial two days of storage, non-significant difference was observed in el among the treatments. however, on 4th, 6th and 8th day of storage considerably lower el was noticed in lettuce dipped in 100 and 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin compared to control (fig. 3). at the end of storage period, 55.77% enhancement in el was noticed in 100 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples whereas 97.92% elevation was noticed in control samples. melatonin treatment slowed down the production of superoxide radicals (o2 –·) and hydrogen peroxide (h2o2) during post-harvest storage which resulted in protection of membrane structure and lower electrolyte leakage (aghda m et al. , 2015). our r esults wer e in concomitant with findings of aghdam et al. (2019) in melatonin treated anthurium cut flowers during cold storage. fig. 2. visual quality index (vqi) score in minimally processed lettuce treated with exogenous application of melatonin during 8 days storage at 6±2ºc temperature. fig. 3. electrolyte leakage (%) in minimally processed lettuce treated with exogenous application of melatonin during 8 days storage at 6±2ºc temperature. chlorophyll in lettuce leaves is a crucial quality parameter with respect to salability and consumer acceptance. total chlorophyll content decreased in mp lettuce during storage irrespective of postha r ves t t r e a t ment . t he r a t e of c hlor op hyll degradation was considerably delayed in 100 and 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin solution dipped samples whereas rapid chlorophyll loss was recorded in untreated and 10 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples (table 1). on the 8th day of storage, 71.61% and 68.16% chlorophyll loss was noticed in control and 10 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples, respectively j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 195-200, 2023 198 whereas in 100 and 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples 44.12% and 42.30% chlorophyll loss was observed. similar, observation were reported by zhu et al. (2018) who recorded 24.15% higher chlor ophyll in 100 µ moll -1 mela tonin tr ea ted broccoli compared to water treated samples on the 6th day of storage. during post-harvest storage of fr esh pr oduce chlorophyll, dilapidation occurs through the continuous reduction of chlorophyll b inding p r o t eins du e t o eleva t e d a c t ion of chlorophylase enzyme (arnao and ruiz, 2008). it may be possible here that melatonin plays a role as antioxidant, prevents the accumulation of free radicals such as ros and lipid radicals and thus delaying the chlorophyll degradation. changes in total phenol content occurred in mp lettuce throughout the storage period. both treated and untreated samples displayed an enhancing trend with respect to total phenols. lettuce dipped in 100 a nd 1 0 0 0 µmoll ”1 mela t onin demons t r a t ed consider a bly incr ea sed levels of tota l phenol compared to untreated samples from day 4 to 8 days of storage, whereas no considerable variation was noticed between untreated and 10 µmol l-1 melatonin treated lettuce (table 1). on the 8th day of storage maximum total phenols (0.268 tae mgg-1 fw) was estimated in 100 µmoll”1 melatonin t r ea t ed s a mp les f ollowed b y 1 0 0 0 µ moll 1 melatonin treatment (0.263 tae mgg-1 fw) with non-significant difference. consistent with our findings, high total phenols retained in melatonin tr eated sa mples of litchi (zhang et al., 2018), strawberry (liu et al., 2018), peaches (gao et al., 2018) and anthurium (aghdam et al., 2019) during low temperature storage has been reported earlier. damage occurs during minimal processing due to induced accumulation of phenols in both untreated and melatonin treated lettuce leaves. phenolics are converted into quinone through oxidation by ppo a nd pod in the pr esence of oxygen which is responsible for browning in fresh produce (pardossi and tognoni, 2005). significantly higher level of total phenols in samples treated with melatonin might be ascribed to the fact that mela tonin is mitigating the action of phenol oxidizing agents such as peroxidase (pod) and polyphenol oxidase (ppo) enzyme. melatonin treatment significantly influenced the antioxidant activity of mp lettuce leaves during storage. gradual enhancement in antioxidant activity was noticed during storage irrespective of post-harvest treatment. at the end of storage period, untreated lettuce leaves exhibited lowest (24.90) antioxidant activity as compared to melatonin pre-treated samples. table 1 : post harvest melatonin treatment effect on total chlorophyll, total phenols and total antioxidants of minimally processed lettuce during low temperature (6±2ºc) storage for 8 (days) biochemical post-harvest storage parameter treatment period (d) d0 d2 d4 d6 d8 mean total control 3.18a 2.90b 2.48b 1.34c 0.91b 2.16 chlorophyll 10 3.11ab 2.91b 2.67b 1.59c 0.99b 2.25 (mg/g fw) 100 3.15ab 3.11a 3.05a 2.45b 1.39a 2.67 1000 3.12b 3.10ab 2.98c 2.89a 1.32a 2.68 mean 3.14 3.05 2.81 2.06 1.15 total phenols control 0.117a 0.168a 0.211a 0.227c 0.236b 0.191 (tae mg/g 10 0.118a 0.155a 0.206b 0.220c 0.250b 0.189 fw) 100 0.116a 0.160a 0.237ab 0.253b 0.268a 0.206 1000 0.117a 0.166a 0.251c 0.237a 0.263a 0.206 mean 0.117 0.162 0.226 0.234 0.254 total control 12.91a 15.73b 19.17c 22.39b 24.90b 19.02 antioxidants 10 12.91a 16.12b 18.15c 23.37b 26.10b 19.33 (mmol/g fw) 100 12.91a 18.31a 23.59b 26.25ac 29.29a 22.11 1000 12.91a 19.54a 22.34a 27.12a 28.56a 22.09 mean 12.91 17.42 20.81 24.78 27.19 *means with same superscript are non-significant. tae=tannic acid equivalent gurjar et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 195-200, 2023 199 among mela tonin tr ea ted sa mples, ma ximum antioxidant activity (19.29) was observed in minimally processed lettuce leaves which were treated with 100 µmoll -1 mela tonin followed by 1000 µmoll -1 melatonin (ta ble 1). however, non-significant difference was noticed in both the treatments. the findings are in concurrence with the previous reports that melatonin treatment preserved antioxidant level in strawberry (liu et al., 2018), litchi (zhang et al., 2018) and anthurium (aghdam et al., 2019). phenolics are well recognized for their antioxidant properties. in lettuce strong positive correlation (r=0.884, table 2) was noticed among total phenols and total antioxidants dur ing stora ge. higher a ntioxidant a ctivity of melatonin treated lettuce might be attributed to higher presence of phenol content accompanied by lower activity of peroxidase (pod) and polyphenol oxidase (ppo). during storage of mp lettuce pod activity was enhanced in the tissues irrespective of post harvest treatments. the augmenting tendency of pod activity was considerably inhibited by melatonin pre-treatment (fig. 4). dur ing initial 2 da ys of stor age nonsignificant variation was observed in pod activity in all treatments. however, it was rapidly enhanced afterwards but remains significantly low throughout the storage period in 100 and 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin treated lettuce compared to control (fig. 4). on the 8th day of storage, pod activity in untreated and 10 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples was 6.60, 6.42 times of the initial value, respectively whereas 100 and 1000 µmoll-1 melatonin treated samples had 5.05and 5.43-fold pod activity compared to initial value. previous researchers also reported lower pod activity in post-harvest melatonin treated broccoli florets (zhu et al., 2018), litchi (zhang et al., 2018) and peach (gao et al., 2018). pod takes part in the oxidation of polyphenols into quinones that contributes in development of the brown pigments in minimally processed fresh produce. slow increases in pod concentration coupled with elevated levels of total phenolics were noticed in treated lettuce signaled that melatonin slowed down the enzyme induced phenolic oxidation and inhibit brown color development in minimally processed lettuce. in present study, pod activity showed strong positive correlation (r=0.915, table 2) with browning index. the results of the present study concluded that postharvest melatonin treatment proved effective in reducing browning, maintaining freshness and quality of minimally processed lettuce for 6 days during storage at 6±2 ºc. comparing to the higher dose (1000 table 2 : correlation between browning index and various physical and biochemical parameters recorded during storage of lettuce trait browning visual electrolyte total total total pod index quality leakage phenol chloroantioxiactivity index phyll dants browning index 1.000 visual quality index -0.945 1.000 electrolyte leakage 0.935 -0.891 1.000 total phenol -0.884 0.794 0.667 1.000 total chlorophyll -0.886 0.961 -0.931 -0.615 1.000 total antioxidants -0.997 0.963 0.921 0.889 -0.898 1.000 pod activity 0.915 -0.986 0.918 -0.693 -0.993 0.931 1.000 fig. 4. peroxidase (pod) activity in minimally processed lettuce treated with exogenous application of melatonin during 8 days storage at 6±2ºc temperature. post-harvest melatonin application reduces browning in lettuce j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 195-200, 2023 200 µmoll-1) and control, lower dose of melatonin at100 µmoll-1 was found highly beneficial for minimizing browning, quality retention and enhancing shelf life of minimally processed lettuce for 6 days. acknowledgement the authors would like to convey their gratefulness to ra str eey kr ishi vika s yoja na (rkvy) for providing financial support. authors also express their gratitude to director, icar-cish, lucknow for providing necessary facilities during study. references aghdam, m. s. and fard, j. r. 2017. melatonin treatment attenuates post-harvest decay and maintains nutritional quality of strawberry fruits fragaria × anannasa cv. selva by enhancing gaba shunt a ctivity. food chem., 221: 1650-1657. aghdam, m. s., naderi, r., sarcheshmeh, m. a. a. and babalar, m. 2015. amelioration of postharvest chilling injury in anthurium cut ûowers by γ-aminobutyric acid (gaba) treatments. postharvest biol. tech., 110: 70-76. aghdam, s. m., jannatijadeh, a., nojadeh, s. m. and ebrahimjadeh, a. 2019. exogenous melatonin ameliorates chilling injury in cut anthurium ûower s dur ing low temper a tur e stora ge. postharvest biol. tech., 148: 184-191. arnao, m. b. and ruiz, j. h. 2008. protective effect of melatonin against chlorophyll degradation during the senescence of barley leaves. j pineal res., 48(2): 234-240. arnon, d. i. 1949. copper enzymes in isolated chlor opla sts. polyphenol oxidase in beta vulgaris. plant physiol., 24: 1-15. bhattacherjee, a. k., tandon, d. k. and dikshit, a. 2014. antioxidant activity and quality of spray dried aonla powder as affected by storage behavior of juice. j. sci. ind. res., 73: 607-612. gao, h., lu, z., yang, y., wang, d., yang, t., cao, m. and cao, w. 2018. melatonin treatment reduces chilling injury in peach fruit through its regulation of membrane fatty acid contents and phenolic metabolism. food chem., 245: 659-666. liu, c., zheng, h., sheng, k., liua, w. and zhenga, l. 2018. eûects of melatonin treatment on the post-ha rvest qua lity of stra wber ry fr uit. postharvest biol. tech., 139: 47-55. mampholo, b. m., martin, m. m., soundy, p. and shivakumar, d. 2016. phytochemicals and overall quality of leafy lettuce (lactuca sativa l.) varieties grown in closed hydroponic system. j. food quality, 39: 805-815. pardossi, d. e. and tognoni, a. 2005. physiological basis of sensitivity to enzymatic browning in ‘lettuce’, ‘escarole’ and ‘rocket’ salad when stored as fresh-cut products. food chem., 104(1): 209-215. siddique, w. m., chakraborty, i., zavala, j.f. and dhua, r. s. 2011. advances in minima l processing of fruits and vegetables: a review. j. sci. ind. res., 70(10): 823-834. tan, d. x., manchester, l. c., liu, x., rosalescorral, s. a., castroviejo, d. a. and reiter, r. j. 2013. mitochondria and chloroplasts as the or igina l sites of mela tonin synthesis: a hypothesis related to melatonin’s primary function and evolution in eukaryotes. j. pineal res., 54: 127-138. tian, w., lv, y., cao, j. and jiang, w. 2014. retention of iceberg lettuce quality by low temperature storage and post-harvest application of 1methylcyclopropene or gibberellic acid. j. food sci. tech., 51(5): 943-949. zhang, y., huber, d. j., hu, m., jiang, g., gao, z., xu, x., jiang, y. and zhang, z. 2018. delay of post-harvest browning in litchi fruit by melatonin via the enhancing of anti-oxidative processes and oxidation repair. j. agri. food chem., 66: 7475-84. zhu, l., hu, h., luo, s., wu, z. and li, p. 2018. melatonin delaying senescence of post-harvest broccoli by regulating respiratory metabolism and antioxidant activity. trans. chinese soc. agri. engineer., 34(3): 300-308. (received : 28.02.2022; revised : 29.04.2022; accepted 03.05.2022) gurjar et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 195-200, 2023 171 effect of integrated nutrient management on dry herbage yield, nutrient uptake and profitability of french basil (ocimum basilicum l.) baraa al-mansour*1, d. kalaivanan2, m. a. suryanarayana3 and a.k. nair 4 1department of plantation, spices, medicinal and aromatic crops, college of horticulture, uhs campus, bengaluru 2division of soil science and agricultural chemistry, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 2division of floriculture and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 4division of vegetable crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru *e-mail: baraaalmansour@yahoo.com abstract field experiments were conducted at ic ar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during kharif season of 2015 and 2016 with nine treatments and three replications in a randomized block design to find out the effect of integrated nutrient management on dry herbage yield, nutrient uptake and economics of sweet basil (ocimum basilicum). the results revealed that the conjunctive use of inorganic fertilizer along with fym increased the dry herbage yield and nutrient uptake of sweet basil. application of recommended fym (10 t/ha) along with recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha) registered the highest dry herbage yield (8.43 and 3.76 t ha1) in the main crop and ratoon, respectively and maximum uptake of nutrient in the main crop as n (155.67 and 113.19 kg/ha), p (43.80 and 32.43 kg/ha) and k (163.33 and 116.16 kg/ha) and in ratoon (56.43 and 26.65 kg ha-1), (16.14 and 14.01 kg ha-1) and (55.65 and 39. 27 kg ha-1) in 2015 and 2016 respectively. highest b: c ratio (5.49) was obtained with application of full dose of recommended npk fertilizer during 2015. while in 2016, the maximum b: c ratio (3.71) was recorded with application of recommended dose of npk (160:80:80 kg/ha) + fym (10 t/ha) keywords: basil, fresh herbage, dry herbage, oil yield, economics, fym, bio-fertilizer j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 phosphorus and potassium are the most important macro nutrient elements that decide the yield level. the nature and the characteristics of nutrient release of chemical, organic and biofertilizers are different, and each type of fertilizer has its advantages and disadvantages in the context of nutrient supply, crop growth and environmental quality. the advantages need to be integrated in order to make optimum use of each type of fertilizer and achieve balanced nutrient management for crop growth. applying of organic manures and biofertilizers such as cattle manure and nitrogen fixing bacteria has led to a decrease in the use of chemical fertilizers and has provided high quality products free of harmful agrochemicals for human safety (mahfouz and sharaf eldin, 2007). cattle manure is the source of n and other nutrients for plants (such as phosphorus, potassium, original research paper introduction basil (ocimum basilicum l.) is an important essential oil bearing crop; grown worldwide as a medicinal and aromatic plant. basil leaves and shoots are used fresh or dried in culinary applications, as an ingredient in western and mediterranean diets. the high economic value of basil oil is due to the presence of a complex mixtur e of vola tile substa nces, monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes and their oxygenated analogs present at low concentrations in plants (taie et al., 2010). the oil yield may vary under different agro climates, soil conditions and nutrient application (duhan and gulati, 1977). ba sil is consider ed a s a species which moder a tely needs for essentia l nutr ients a nd fertilization, among the plant nutrients, nitrogen, 172 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 calcium,, iron, zinc and copper) that can make valuable contributions to soil’s organic matter, can improve physical fertility, and is a center for biological activities of soil and mineral element absorption (salem and awad, 2005), caused more biomass production (darzi, 2012; najm et al., 2012). azotobacter, were found to have not only the ability to fix nitrogen but also the ability to release phytohormones similar to gibberellic acid and indole acetic acid, which could stimulate plant growth, absorption of nutrients, and photosynthesis (mady and youssef, 2014).the effect of organic and bio-fertilizer on root morphology and development, uptake of nitrogen, phosphorous and other minerals and hormone supply to plants have been suggested as factors influencing growth responses (abou el-ghait et al., 2012; gendy et al., 2013); but, considering economics and also physiological potential of varieties, entire dependence on organic sources of nutrients may not be adequate to attain the most productivity (anwar et al., 2005). however, in many situations, the high cost of nutrient sources and the difficulty to supply the necessa r y a mount of or ga nic ma nur e ma kes conventional management of the nutrient as the best strategy to produce herbs. several studies have reported that cattle manure can increase the yield of some medicinal plants such as sage (kaplan et al., 2009); basil (biasi et al., 2009); geranium (araya et al., 2006) and lemon balm (santos et al., 2009). some other studies have reported that nitrogen fixing bacteria such as azotobacter chroococcum and azospirillum lipoferum could cause increased yield in a few medicinal plants such as fennel (azzaz et al., 2009) and davana (kumar et al., 2009). the rigorous management of fertilization must try to ensure both an improved and safeguarded environment; so, a balanced fertilization strategy that combines the use of chemical, organic or biofertilizers must be developed and evaluated. in this context, the present study aimed to show the effect of integrated nutrient management on dry herbage yield, nutrient uptake and profitability of french basil (ocimum basilicum l.) material and methods field exper iments wer e conducted in a r a ndomized complete block design with thr ee replications in the experimental field of icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore during the kharif season of 2015 and 2016. the experimental station is located at an altitude of 890 m above mean sea level and 13058" north latitude and �77 29" east longitudes. the nine treatments of experiment conta in t 1 (fym (10 t/ha) +100% recommended n through fym), t2 (fym (10 t/ha) + 100% recommended n through fym + bio-fertilizer), t3 (fym (10 t/ha) +75% recommended n through fym), t4 (fym (10 t/ha) + 75% recommended n through fym + bio-fertilizer), t5 (fym (10 t/ha) + 50% recommended n through fym), t6 (fym (10 t/ ha ) + 50% r ecommended n thr ough fym + biofertilizer), t7 (recommended fym (10 t/ha) only), t8 (recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha) only), and t9 (recommended fym (10 t/ha) + recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha). initial experimental soil samples (0-30 cm depth) were taken for the nutrient analysis prior to land preparation and analyzed using standard procedures (piper, 1966; jackson, 1973; subbaiah and asija, 1956). physical and chemical properties of the initial experimental soil are presented in table 1. the nutrients were supplied in the form of straight fertilizers like urea (160 kg/ha), single super phosphate (80 kg/ha) and muriate of potash (80 kg/ ha). fifty per cent of nitrogen and full dose of phosphorus and potash were applied as basal and the remaining fifty per cent of n was applied after 45 days of transplanting in t8 and t9 treatments. for biofertilizers, ar ka micr obial consortium (amc) developed by icar-iihr was used in the experiment and it contains n fixing, p and zn solubilizing and plant growth promoting microbes in a single carrier. after 15 days of transplanting, recommended dose of amc @ 5 kg/ha was applied at 2 cm deep to individual plants and immediately covered by soil. similar method of application was followed for ratoon crop after harvest of main crop in t2, t4, and t6 treatments. quantities of added fertilizers are mentioned in table 2. the land was brought to a fine tilth by ploughing and harrowing. the experimental site was divided into plots having dimensions of 4.8 m long and 4.0 m wide with the spacing of 40 cm between the plants and 60 cm between the rows. there was a space of 0.5 meter between plots and 0.5 meter between replications. basil seeds were sown in two nursery beds of 6.0 m in length with 0.1 m in width and 10 cm height. forty days old (40) healthy and uniformly rooted seedlings of sweet basil were transplanted to the field. weeding was done manually and drip irrigation was given daily baraa al-mansour et al 173 inm in french basil table 1. physical and chemical proprieties of initial experimental soil physical properties bulk density (mg m-3) 1.32 particle density ( mg m-3) 2.65 pore space (%) 42 chemical properties ph (1:2.5) 7.75 electrical conductivity (dsm-1) 0.36 organic carbon (g kg-1) 5.0 available n (kg ha-1) 185 available p (kg ha-1) 28 available k (kg ha-1) 200 exchangeable ca (cmol(p+)kg-1) 5.25 exchangeable mg (cmol(p+)kg-1) 0.84 dtpa fe (mg kg-1) 7.5 dtpa mn (mg kg-1) 5.8 dtpa cu (mg kg-1) 1.33 dtpa zn (mg kg-1) 1.22 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 table 2. treatment wise applied quantities of fym, inorganic fertilizer and bio-fertilizers quantity of inputs total nutrient supplied treatments fym npk bf* n p k t ha-1 kg ha-1 kg ha-1 kg ha-1 kg ha-1 kg ha-1 t1:fym (10 t ha -1) +100% rec. 31.5 39.2 224 0 35 n through fym t2:fym (10 t ha -1) +100% rec. 31.5 39.2 224 5 0 35 n through fym + bf t3:fym (10 t ha -1) +75% rec. 25.9 32.2 184 0 28.75 n through fym t4:fym (10 t ha -1) +75% rec. 25.9 32.2 184 5 0 28.75 n through fym + bf t5:fym (10 t ha -1) +50% rec. 20.3 25.2 144 0 22.5 n through fym t6:fym (10 t ha -1) +50% rec. 20.3 25.2 144 5 0 22.5 n through fym+bf t7:rec. fym (10 t ha -1) only 9 11.2 64 0 10 t8:rec.npk (160:80:80 kg ha -1) 80 80 160 rec 0 t9:rec.npk (160:80:80 kg ha -1) + 89 91.2 224 rec 10 rec. fym (10 t ha-1) fym farm yard manure, rec. – recommended and *bf bio-fertilizer 174 for half an hour during the early stages of the crop and subsequently irrigation was given depending on the soil moisture condition. five plants were randomly selected from each plot and the observations were recorded as pooled data of two years in the main crop and ratoon at harvest time. fresh and dry weight from each plot was converted to per hectare and it was expressed in tones (t). dried plant samples were ground to a fine powder and analyzed for determination of total nutrients content by adopting standard methods. the total nitrogen (%) was determined by microkjeldhal method as outlined by piper (1966), total phosphorus wa s estima ted fr om di-a cid extr a ct by vanadomolybdate phosphoric acid yellow colour method (kitson a nd mellon, 1944) using spectrophotometer. total potassium was estimated from di-acid extract by using flame photometer (piper, 1966). total plant nutrient uptake was calculated by following the equation: dry matter yield (kg/ha) × nutrient nutrient uptake (kg/ha) = content (%) 100 gross income, net income, returns to cost ratio were also calculated as per the formulas given below. gross income gross income was calculated based on the prevailing market price of the produce. net income the net income per hectare was calculated on the basis of gross income and cost of cultivation per hectare as follows: net income = gross income cost of cultivation benefit: cost ratio the benefit: cost ratio was worked out using the following formula: benefit: cost ratio = gross income (rs/ha) total costs of cultivation (rs/ha) statistical analysis the data generated from the experiment were analyzed using sas 9.3 version of the statistical package (sas institute inc, 2011). analysis of variance (anova) was performed using sas proc anova procedure. means were separated using fisher’s protected least significant difference (lsd) test at a probability level of p<0.01. results and discussion dry herbage yield (t/ha) the data on dry herbage yield (t/ha) of basil as influenced by different levels of n through fym with and without bio-fertilizers and inorganic fertilizer is given in table 3. application of recommended npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) along with recommended fym (10 t/ha i.e.,t9 registered the highest dry herbage yield (8.43, 3.76 and 12.19 t/ha) whereas the lowest dry herbage yield was observed with recommended fym (10 t/ha) i.e., t7 (4.80, 2.08 and 6.88 t/ha) of main crop, ratoon and cumulative data respectively. among the biofertilizer treatments, application of fym (10 t/ ha) + 100% recommended n through fym + biofertilizer i.e., t2 recorded maximum dry herbage yield (6.97, 3.05 and 10.02 t/ha) in the main crop, ratoon and cumulative data, respectively. more suitable surrounding environment is created by organic manure that enhance root growth and nutrient availability, which lead to increased plant growth and dry matter (scheffer and koehler, 1993). the plants treated by bio-fertilizer can absorb nutrients from soil easily resulting in accumulation of more n, p and k in the leaves (rai, 2006) that lead to increase the yield. these results are on line with the findings of khaliq and janardhanan (1997) in mint, kapoor et al. (2004) in fennel a nd joshee et al. (2007) in scutellaria integrifolia. available macro nutrient in the soil the results of the study presented in table 4 revealed that highest available nitrogen and potassium in the soil after cropping was recorded with application of fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym + bf i.e, t2 (227 and 236.33 kg/ha) and (296.80 and 340.60 kg/ha) during 2015 and, 2016, respectively. while, application of (160:80:80 kg /ha) + fym (10 t/ha) i.e., t9 recorded the highest available phosphorus (42.31 and 58.15 kg/ha) during 2015 and, 2016, respectively. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 baraa al-mansour et al 175 dry herb yield (t ha-1) first year (2015) second year (2016) pooled main ratoon total main ratoon total main ratoon crop yield crop yield crop t1 6.67 d 3.15d 9.82 e 5.50cd 2.30cd 7.8 cd 6.09d 2.73d t2 7.71 bc 3.66c 11.37 c 6.24c 2.45c 8.69 c 6.97c 3.05c t3 6.38 de 2.89e 9.27 e 4.73def 2.07fg 6.8def 5.56ef 2.48e t4 7.33 c 3.32d 10.65 d 4.96de 2.25de 7.21de 6.14d 2.79d t5 5.98 ef 2.65f 8.63 f 4.51ef 1.91gh 6.42ef 5.25f 2.28f t6 6.71 d 2.87ef 9.58 e 4.74def 2.11ef 6.85def 5.72de 2.49e t7 5.54 f 2.34g 7.88 g 4.05f 1.82h 5.87f 4.80g 2.08g t8 8.00 b 3.95b 11.95 b 7.28b 2.76b 10.04 b 7.64b 3.36b t9 8.71 a 4.31a 13.02 a 8.16a 3.21a 11.37 a 8.43a 3.76a mean 7.00 3.24 10.24 5.58 2.32 7.89 6.29 2.78 cv% 4.09 4.15 2.91 8.79 4.26 6.63 3.98 3.32 lsd5% 0.49 0.23 0.51 0.84 0.17 0.90 0.43 0.15 table 3: effect of integrated nutrient management on dry herb yield (t ha-1) of basil (ocimum basilicum ) tr ea tm en ts t1: fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym; t 2: fym (10 t/ha) +100%rec. n through fym + bf; t 3: fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym; t4: fym (10 t/ha)+75% rec. n through fym + bf t5: fym (10 t/ha)+50% rec. n through fym; t6: fym (10t/ha)+ 50% rec. n through fym+bf; t7: rec. fym (10t/ha) only; t8: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha); t9: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha)+(10t/ha). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 inm in french basil treatments n p k 2015 2016 2015 2016 2015 2016 t1 220.15 ab 262.10 36.91 abc 46.37 abc 268.80 abc 281.66 abc t2 227.40 a 277.00 42.10 a 47.98 abc 296.80 abc 340.60 a t3 211.68 abc 246.00 33.33 abc 45.58 abc 242.67 abc 275.67 abc t4 222.57 ab 266.70 38.74 ab 46.25 abc 265.07 abc 315.86 ab t5 203.21 abc 228.00 30.33 bc 39.29 bc 250.13 bc 261.00 bc t6 211.68 abc 246.40 36.41 abc 43.25 abc 259.47 abc 324.53 ab t7 189.91 c 201.40 27.33c 34.17 c 212.80 c 234.90 c t8 195.96 bc 214.20 40.40 ab 53.26 ab 229.60 ab 323.22 ab t9 199.58 abc 222.00 42.31 a 58.15 a 235.20 a 333.33 a mean 209.13 240.42 36.42 46.03 251.17 298.97 cv% 5.09 5.20 11.54 11.08 8.49 8.46 lsd5% 10.46 20.04 4.19 13.91 36.92 43.94 table 4. influence of integrated nutrients practices on macro nutrient availability in the soil (kg/ha) t1 : fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym; t 2 : fym (10 t/ha) +100%rec. n through fym + bf; t 3 : fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym; t4: fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym + bf t5: fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym; t 6 : fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym+bf; t 7 : rec. fym (10 t/ha) only; t 8 : rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha); t9: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + (10 t/ha) 176 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 baraa al-mansour et al the treatment t7 recorded lowest available nitrogen (189.91 and 201.23 kg/ha), phosphorus (27.33 and 34.17 kg/ha) and potassium (212.8 and 234.90 kg /ha) during 2015 and, 2016, respectively. in general, increasing the level of n application through fym leads to increase in the availability of major nutrient. organic acids produced during decomposition of fym had solubilizing action that lead to create good balance between nutrients in the soil solution and improvement of nutrient exchange between soil and plant (bhandari et al. 1992). bio-fertilizer enhances nutrients mobilizing microorganism which helps in increase the levels of extracted minerals a nd ma de it more a va ila ble (sha r ma , (2002); murugan et al. (2011) and gichangi and mnkeni, (2009). treatments n p k ratoon main crop ratoon main crop ratoon main crop t1 82.63 cd 27.06d 29.85bc 12.87 b 99.16cd 33.80de t2 112.69 b 40.24 c 36.76ab 14.53b 124.97 b 44.05bc t3 82.88 cd 26.96 d 27.21 bc 10.47c 108.55bc 33.65de t4 95.72 c 32.92 d 32.49abc 13.67 b 122.89 b 38.94cd t5 68.50 de 20.84 d 22.16c 8.77d 87.02de 27.56e t6 82.23 cd 25.96 d 28.36 bc 8.14d 115.35 bc 30.14 de t7 55.92 e 15.95 d 20.54 c 6.97d 79.55e 24.67 e t8 123.52 b 41.95 b 35.47ab 12.58 b 125.19b 49.15ab t9 155.67 a 56.43 a 43.80a 16.14 a 163.33a 55.56 a mean 83.07 32.04 29.00 11.57 114.00 37.50 cv% 9.15 12.32 16.05 7.63 7.31 10.43 lsd5% 15.13 6.83 8.54 1.52 14.43 4.03 table 5. influence of integrated nutrient practices on macro nutrient uptake of basil (ocimum basilicum l.) during first year of 2015 t1 : fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym; t 2 : fym (10 t/ha) +100%rec. n through fym + bf; t 3 : fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym; t4: fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym + bf t5: fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym; t 6 : fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym+bf; t 7 : rec. fym (10 t/ha) only; t 8 : rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha); t9: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + (10 t/h treatments n p k ratoon main crop ratoon main crop ratoon main crop t1 69.66 cd 17.33 d 24.07 bc 8.65 bc 77.64 cd 24.88cde t2 84.80 b 19.44 c 27.17 ab 12.54 b 85.23c 29.44 bc t3 64.04 cd 15.29 e 17.74cd 7.60 cd 62.31 de 22.07de t4 68.15 c 17.57 d 19.95d 7.79 b 68.69cde 26.63bcd t5 61.36 de 13.80f 15.63 d 5.09 cd 57.20 e 20.02de t6 63.83 cd 15.80 e 17.27 d 9.41 cd 63.03 de 23.40cde t7 53.81 e 13.16f 14.22 d 5.28 d 51.92 e 19.10 e t8 97.35 b 21.69 b 25.36 abc 10.27 b 99.33 b 31.37 b t9 113.19 a 26.65 a 32.43 a 14.01 a 116.16 a 39.27 a mean 75.13 17.86 21.32 8.96 75.72 26.24 cv% 8.15 3.74 12.14 12.29 10.56 10.53 lsd5% 10.6 1.15 4.47 1.66 13.84 4.03 table 6. influence of integrated nutrient practices on macro nutrient uptake of basil (ocimum basilicum l.) during second year of 2016 t1: fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym; t2: fym (10 t/ha) +100%rec. n through fym + bf; t3: fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym; t4: fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym + bf t5: fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym; t6: fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym+bf; t7: rec. fym (10 t/ha) only; t8: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha); t9: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + (10 t/h 177 nutrient uptake by plant the data on nutrient uptake by the plants presented in tables 5 and 6. total uptake of nutrients was significantly influenced by different treatments. among the treatments, t9 with application of npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + fym (10 t/ha) recorded maximum uptake of nitr ogen (155.67 and 113.19 kg/ha), phosphorus (43.80 and 32.43 kg/ha) and potassium (163.33 and 116.16 kg/ha) in the main crop during 2015 and 2016, respectively. similar trend was also observed in ra toon crop that different trea tments varied significantly with respect to nutrient uptake and t9 resulted in the highest uptake of n (56.43 and 26.65 kg/ha), p (16.14 and 14.01 kg/ha) and k (55.56 and 39.27 kg/ha) in 2015 and 2016, respectively. whereas, application of recommended fym (10 t/ha) i.e., t7 recorded lowest uptake of nutrient in the main crop i.e., n (55.92 and 53.81 kg/ha), p (20.54 and 14.22 kg/ ha) and k (79.55 and 51.92 kg/ha). similarly, in ratoon lowest uptake of n (15.95 and 13.16 kg/ha), p (6.97 and 5.28 kg/ha) and k (24.67 and 19.10 kg/ha) was registered in 2015 and 2016 respectively. the gradual mineralization process lead to improvement in nutrient uptake by the plant with application of organic manures, beside to the chelating effect on nutr ients ther eby continued nutr ient availability through the growing period (preetha et al. 2005). similar results were also reported by attia and j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 inm in french basil total cost of cumulative gross income net income b/c cultivation (rs/ha) oil yield (i/ha) (rs./ha) (rs./ha) ratio t no. 2015 2016 2015 2016 2015 2016 2015 2016 2015 2016 t1 55,015 54,526 238.37 141.26 143022.0 84756 88,007 29,741 2.60 1.54 t2 55,515 55,026 294 179.2 176400.0 107520 120,885 52,005 3.18 1.94 t3 51,265 50,776 172.76 103.84 103656.0 62304 52,391 11,039 2.02 1.22 t4 51,765 51,276 232.21 116.82 139326.0 70092 87,561 18,327 2.69 1.35 t5 47,515 47,026 157.58 94.38 94548.0 56628 47,033 9,113 1.99 1.19 t6 48,015 47,526 172.91 100.11 103746.0 60066 55,731 12,051 2.16 1.25 t7 40,015 39,526 133.65 67.76 80190.0 40656 40,175 641 2.00 1.02 t8 35,790 35,790 327.51 220.47 196506.0 132282 160,716 96,492 5.49 3.70 t9 41,790 41,301 356.3 258.27 213780.0 154962 171,990 113,172 5.12 3.71 table 7. cost of cultivation, gross income, net income and b/c ratio as influenced by integrated nutrient management in basil t1: fym (10 t/ha) +100% rec. n through fym; t2: fym (10 t/ha) +100%rec. n through fym + bf; t3: fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym; t4: fym (10 t/ha) +75% rec. n through fym + bf t5: fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym; t6: fym (10 t/ha) +50% rec. n through fym+bf; t 7: rec. fym (10 t/ha) only; t 8: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha); t 9: rec. npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + (10 t/ha) saad (2001) in periwinkle, el-khashlan (2001) in roselle plants and el-latif (2006) in salvia officinalis. economic studies t he economics ha s been wor ked out by comparing costs and returns as influenced by different levels of organic manures along with and without biofertilizers and inorganic fertilization in basil and given in table 7. cost of cultivation under each treatment was estimated by summing the cost of agro inputs, manpower needed for one hectare area, oil extraction, overhead costs and interest per capital. the cost of cultivation for basil crop was maximum with the treatment t2 i.e. fym (10 t/ha) +100% recommended n through fym + bio-fertilizers, which amounted rs. 55,026 and 55,515 /ha in 2015 and 2016, respectively, whereas the application of 100% recommended npk alone (t8) required an investment of only rs 35,790 / ha in each year. the high cost of organic nutrient sources may form an impediment for integrated nutrient management and makes the conventional management “the best” strategy to produce basil herbs. gross income was minimum in treatment t7 i.e. recommended fym (10 t/ha) as it attained rs 80190 178 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 baraa al-mansour et al and 40656 /ha in 2015 and 2016, respectively, whereas, t9 with application of npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + recommended fym (10 t/ha) recorded the maximum gross income of rs 2, 13,780 and 1, 54,962 /ha in first and second year, respectively. net returns from the data reveals that an application of recommended doses of npk (160:80:80 kg /ha) + recommended fym (10 t/ha ) i.e. (t 9) fetched maximum net income of rs 171,990 and 113,172 /ha, whereas the minimum net income of rs 40,175 and 641 per ha was recorded in treatment t7 (recommended fym (10 t/ha) during 2015 and 2016, respectively. benefit cost ratio ranged from 1.99 in t5 i.e. the application of fym (10 t/ha) + 50% recommended n through fym to 5.49 in t8 i.e. the application of 100% recommended dose of npk fertilizer in 2015. while in 2016, the maximum value of b:c (3.71) was realized by the application of recommended dose of npk (160:80:80 kg/ha) + recommended fym (10 t/ ha), i.e. t9. application of nutrients through organic manure along with inorganic fertilizer improved the production of oil yield as well as soil fertility (alizadeh et al., 2010) which lead to increased returns. adoption of a balanced fertilization is the way of enhancing productivity and economic profitability of basil. these finding were supported by sudhakara et al. (2010) and vennila (2014) in coleus a nd pa til (2014) in ashwaganda. conclusion the outcome of the present investigation revealed that the highest dry herbage yield, nutrient uptake, and maximum b: c ratio was obtained with a pplica tion of r ecommended fym (10 t/ha ) + recommended npk (160:80:80 kg/ha) for both main as well as in ratoon basil crop. hence, the incorporation of full dose of recommended fym along with 50 percent of recommended n through inorganic fertilizer as basal and the remaining fifty per cent as top dressing at 45 days after transplanting may be recommended for basil crop to realize maximum dry herbage, nutrient uptake and profitability. abou el-ghait, e.m., gomaa, a.o.,youssef, a.s.m., atiea, e.m. and abd-allah, w.h., 2012. effect of sowing dates, bio, organic and chemical fertilization treatments on growth and production of indian fennel under north sinai conditions. bull. fac., cairo univ., 63: 52-68. araya, h.t., soundy, p., steyn, j.m., teubes, c., learmonth, r.a. and mojela, n.,. 2006. response of herbage yield, essential oil yield and composition of south african r ose-scen t ed ger a n ium (pel ar goni um sp. ) t o conventional and organic nitrogen. j. ess. oil res., 18: 111-115. anwar, m., patra d.d., chand s., alpesh k., naqvi a.a. and khanuja s.p.s., 2005. effect of organic manures and inorganic fertilizer on growth, herb and yield, nutrient accumulation, and oil quality french basil. comm. soil sci. plan., 36 (13/14), 1737–1746. attia, f.a. and saad, o.a., 2001. biofertilizers as partial alternative of chemical fertilizer for catharanthus roseus. j. agric. sci. mansoura univ., 26(11): 71937208. azzaz, n.a., hassan, e.a. and hamad, e.h., 2009. the chemical constituent and vegetative and yielding characteristics of fennel plants treated with organic and bio-fertilizer instead of mineral fertilizer. aust. j. app. sci., 3(2): 579-587. biasi, l.a., machado, e.m., kowalski, a.p.j., signor, d., alves, m.a., lima, f.i., deschamps,c., côcco, l.c. and scheer, a.p., 2009. organic fertilization in the production: yield and chemical composition of basil chemotype eugenol. hortic. bras. 27, 35–39. el-khashlan, s.h., 2001. physiological studies on roselle (hibiscus sabdariffa l.). ph. d. thesis. fac. of agric. kafr el-sheikh tanta univ. el-latif, e.s.m., 2006. effect of chemical, organic fertilizers and spraying with active dry yeast on growth, oil production and plant constituents of sage (salvia officinalis l.) plants. m. sc. thesis, fac. agric., cairo univ., egypt. darzi, m., 2012. effects of organic manure and biofertilizer application on flowering and some yield traits of coriander (coriandrum sativum). intl. j. agri. sci., 4 (3): 103-107. duhan, s.p.s. and gulati, b.c., 1977. chemical weed control st udi es in cit ronella , java type (cy mhopogan winterianus jowitt.) effect of 2, 4-d on control of weeds, herb and oil yield. indian perfumer., 17 : 77-82. gendy, a.s.h., said-al ahl, h.a.h. mahmoud, a.a. and hanaa f.y., 2013. 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and asija, g.l., 1956. a rapid procedure for the estimation of available nitrogen. soil.curr. sci., 25: 259. sudhakara, h., sriramu, m., shivayogappa, g., prabhulin, g. and babu, p., 2010. standardization of organic farming practices for coleus (coleus forskohlii). biomed, 5 (2):98-103. taie, h.a.a., salama z.a.e.r. and radwan s., 2010. potential activity of basil plants as a source of antioxidants and anticancer agents as affected by organic and bioorganic fertilization. not. bot. hort. agrobot. cluj., 38, 119–127. vennila, c., 2014. effect of planting systems and sources of nutrients on productivity of medicinal coleus (coleus forskohlii). int. j. food, agric. veterin. sci., 4 (2): 97101. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 171-179, 2017 inm in french basil (ms received 21 october 2017, revised 29 november 2017, accepted 03 december 2017) introduction yield in grapevine is determined by number of clusters and mean weight of the cluster. number of clusters in a vine, in turn, is determined by the number of canes, and cane-productivity as measured by cluster/cane ratio. earlier studies have revealed that increase in number of canes does not result in proportionate increase in cluster number on a vine. cane density of 5 to 6/m2 was found as optimum in bower-trained ‘thompson seedless’ vines with reference to cane-productivity and number of clusters/vine. higher number of canes/unit area gave a reduced cluster/cane ratio, eventually reduced number of clusters/vine (shikhamany, 1983). cluster/cane ratio is an outcome of the number of fruitful buds on a cane. mutual shading of shoots in a dense vine canopy hampers incident light required for fruit-bud formation in ‘thompson seedless’ which requires over 3600 ft. candles of light (buttrose, 1970). since varietal variation was observed in requirement of light for fruit-bud formation variation in relation between yield and yield attributes in ‘thompson seedless’ grape and its clones s.d. shikhamany, sanjay k. jeughale, kailas n. khapre and r. venugopalan* research and development unit maharashtra state grape growers’ association manjri farm post, pune-411 032, india e-mail: sdshikhamany@gmail.com abstract to study variation in the relationship between yield and yield attributes in ‘thompson seedless’, ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and ‘2a clone’ vines grafted onto dogridge rootstock and trained on the extended y training system, data collected from 120 vines in each variety were subjected to correlation and regression analysis. numbers of clusters per vine was the main contributing factor for yield in all these varieties. it determined the yield by 87.9, 42.0 and 51.5%, respectively, in ‘thompson seedless’, ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and ‘2a clone’, with the optimum number of clusters at 27.3, 43.1 and 46.5, respectively. contrary to that in vars. thompson seedless and tas-a-ganesh, increase in number of canes was associated with higher cluster/cane ratio. yield depended upon cluster weight in ‘thompson seedless’, mediated through number of clusters, but was not a contributory factor as evidenced by a negative correlation between clusterweight and yield. increase in cluster weight was associated with increase in number of berries in all the varieties. increase in berry weight was related to cluster weight in only thompson seedless and tas-a-ganesh. while berry number and berry weight together determined cluster weight by 96.3 and 92.4%, respectively, in vars. thompson seedless and tas-a-ganesh, this value was just 39.0% in ‘2a clone’. these studies provide a clue that for realizing higher yield, cluster size needs to be greater while limiting the number of canes/vine in vars. thompson seedless and tas-a-ganesh. increase in the number of canes would benefit ‘2a clone’ by adopting suitable cultural practices. key words: correlation, variation, yield, yield attributes, thompson seedless, tas-a-ganesh, 2a clone (buttrose, 1969), optimum cane density may be different for tas-a-ganesh and 2a clone, for thompson seedless even, when vines are trained on extended y trellis to afford open canopies. mean cluster weight, the other yield attribute, is determined by number of berries in a cluster and mean berryweight. variation in relation of the above stated yield attributes to yield, in the different varieties studied, can provide guidelines for formulating specific sets of cultural practices for each variety to obtain higher yields, since, all these attributes are amenable to regulation by cultural operations. material and methods the present investigation was carried out on ‘thompson seedless’, ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and ‘2a clone’ in 2013-2014 cropping season in growers’ vineyards around *section of economics and statistics, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):8-12, 2015 9 relation between yield and yield attributes in grape nashik, maharashtra. details of the vineyards selected are given below: thompson seedless vineyards of: 1. shri suresh kalamkar, mohadi 2. shri arun more, pimpalgaon tas-a-ganesh vineyards of: 1. shri ashokrao gaikwad, palkhed 2. shri jagannathrao khapre, kothure 2a clone vineyards of: 1. shri kailashrao bhosale, sarole khurd 2. shri manikrao patil, khedgaon tas-a-ganesh and 2a clone are mutants of thompson seedless. the former was identified by the late vasantrao arve, a progressive grower in 1976, in his vineyard at borgaon, sangli district, maharashtra, the latter was identified at kearney experimental station, uc davis, california, usa. tas-a-ganesh is cultivated widely in maharashtra, whereas, 2a clone was introduced only in 1999, and is gaining popularity. to work out variation in the relation of yield attributes to yield in these varieties, 120 vines (60 from each vineyard, under each variety) were selected at random. all the vines selected were in the age group of 6-7 years, grafted onto dogridge rootstock, spaced uniformly at 2.7 x 1.8m, trained on extended y training system, grown under similar agroclimatic conditions and subjected to similar cultural practices, including sub-cane development; application of ethrel for pre-pruning defoliation, hydrogen cyanamide for bud-break, ga3 sprays for cluster elongation, girdling and dipping in cppu solution for berry sizing. data were collected on the following yield-attributes and yield, separately for each vine: no. of canes/vine: number of canes left on the vine after forward pruning. cluster/cane ratio: this is an index of vine productivity, derived by dividing the number of clusters borne on a vine by the number of canes retained on it. no. of clusters/vine: number of clusters borne on each vine, counted at harvest. cluster weight: mean weight of the cluster was derived by dividing mean yield/vine by mean number of clusters/vine. yield/vine: recorded in kg for each vine at harvest no. of berries/cluster: average number of berries in five bunches selected at random in each vine mean berry weight: average weight of 25 berries selected at random in five selected clusters, at the rate of five berries from each cluster berry diameter: average diameter of 25 berries, measured at middle length of the berry, using callipers statistical analysis: correlation was worked out to assess the relation of yield and cluster-weight to their respective attributes. multiple regression equations for these parameters, with all their respective attributes as independent variables, were also worked out. optimized models and optimum values for the critical attribute for yield, clusterweight and cluster-compactness were derived. results and discussion yield/vine yield correlated positively with number of canes/vine in 2a clone, cluster/cane ratio in ‘thompson seedless’, and number of clusters/vine in all the varieties, but, was negatively correlated with cluster-weight in ‘thompson seedless’ (table 1). among the yield attributes studied, number of clusters/vine correlated significantly with yield in all the varieties. while cane is a unit of vine productivity, cluster/ table 1. correlation between yield and yield attributes correlation correlation coefficient thompson tas-a-ganesh 2a seedless clone 1. yield/vine vs. -0.048 0.160 0.226** no. of canes/vine 2. yield/vine vs. 0.211* -0.042 0.152 cluster/cane ratio 3. yield/vine vs. 0.940** 0.643** 0.696** no. of clusters/vine 4. yield/vine vs. -0.255** -0.001 0.125 cluster weight 5. yield/vine vs. -0.713** -0.479** -0.535** betty tss 6. clusters/vine vs. -0.104 0.185 0.330** no. of canes/vine 7. no. of clusters/vine vs. 0.235* -0.065 0.286** cluster/cane ratio 8. cluster weight vs. 0.204* -0.019 0.081 no. of canes/vine 9. cluster weight vs. -0.221* -0.152 0.052 cluster/cane ratio 10. cluster weight vs. -0.314** 0.073 0.169 no. of clusters/vine 11. cluster/cane ratio vs. -0.234* -0.222* 0.427** no. of canes/vine significance of ‘r’ value at 5% = 0.195, and at 1% = 0.254 (0.361 and 0.463, respectively, at 5% and 1% for yield/vine vs. berry tss) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):8-12, 2015 10 cane ratio is a measure of cane-productivity. an inverse relationship of cane number with cluster/cane ratio was reported, with optimum cane-density of 5/m2, in bowertrained vines of ‘thompson seedless’ (shikhamany, 1983). this was attributed to inadequate intensity of light received by the vines for fruit-bud formation. however, the relation of number of canes to cluster/ cane ratio was not significant in ‘thompson seedless’ or ‘tas-a-ganesh’. this could be due to exposure of the canes to more sunlight in an open canopy in vines trained on extended y training system in the present study, where, increase in cane-density did not impair fruit-bud differentiation and, consequently, cluster/cane ratio. data in table 2 corroborating with vine spacing of 4.9m2 reveals that cane density was 6.7 in ‘thompson seedless’, 5.3 in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and 9.0 in ‘2a clone’. it is pertinent to note that in spite of a higher number of canes/vine and a higher cane-density (9/m2), cluster/cane ratio and number of clusters/vine were highest in ‘2a clone’ compared to the other two varieties. moreover, i) the relationship of number of clusters/vine with number of canes/vine was not significant in ‘thompson seedless’ or ‘tas-a-ganesh’, but was significant in ‘2a clone’, and ii) cluster/cane ratio correlated negatively with number of canes/vine in the two former varieties, but correlated positively and highly significantly in ‘2a clone’ (table 1). number of clusters/ cane ratio, a measure of cane-productivity, depends upon the inherent ability of a variety to develop fruitful buds on the canes under a given set of agro-climatic conditions. despite having higher number of canes/vine, caneproductivity was higher in ‘2a clone’. these results imply that higher cane density of up to 9/m2 is not detrimental to cane-productivity and yield/vine in ‘2a clone’, unlike in ‘thompson seedless’ and tas-a-ganesh. increase in yield/vine was associated with reduced total soluble solids (tss) content in the berry in all the varieties studied (table 1). depressing effect of yield on tss content in berry is a well-established fact in several varieties of grape (chadha et al, 1974; lider et al, 1974; purohit et al, 1979; chittiraichelvan et al, 1985). number of clusters/vine number of clusters/vine is dependent on number of canes/vine and the cluster/cane ratio, and was correlated positively with number of canes/vine in ‘2a clone’ but not in the other two varieties (table 1). probable reason for this variation in relationship is the inherent character of a variety in converting growth into productivity, as explained earlier. number of clusters/vine had a positive relationship with cluster/cane ratio in ‘thompson seedless’ and ‘2a clone’, but not in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ (table 1). from the data presented in table 2, estimated number of clusters/vine (product of number of canes and cluster/cane ratio) is 46.1, 43.5 and 79.82 in ‘thompson seedless’, ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and ‘2a clone’, respectively; whereas, number of clusters observed is 26.3, 32.7 and 47.4, respectively. thus the percentage of observed number of clusters to estimated number of clusters works out at 57.0, 75.2 and 59.4, respectively. this implies that the proportion of productive canes was higher in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ compared to that in the other two varieties. hence, the deviation in relationship. in multiple regression analysis involving seven yieldattributes, it was observed that all these yield attributes could together determine yield by 88.5% in ‘thompson seedless’, but only by 44% in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and 53% in ‘2a clone’ (table 3). number of clusters/vine was the major contributing factor in determining yield in all the varieties. optimized regression model revealed that 87.9% of the yield was determined by number of clusters/vine in ‘thompson table 3. regression of yield attributes on yield in various varieties regression equation variety thompson tas-a2a seedless ganesh clone intercept 2.66 0.59 -5.8 slope of x1(no. of canes/vine) 0.03 0.009 0.045 slope of x2 (cluster/cane ratio) 0.96 -0.091 -0.58 slope of x3 (no. of clusters/vine) 0.29 0.142 0.27 slope of x4 (cluster weight) 0.04 -0.009 -0.003 slope of x5 (berry weight) 0.095 0.08 0.81 slope of x6 (no. of berries/cluster) -0.014 0.04 0.0001 slope of x7 (berry diameter) -0.16 0.313 0.44 determination co-efficient (r2) 0.885 0.44 0.53 table 2. variation in yield attributes attribute thompson seedless tas-a-ganesh 2a clone min. max. mean min. max. mean min. max. mean yield/vine(kg) 1.1 18.8 9.14 5.1 16.5 10.7 4.4 28.0 17.37 no. of canes/vine 17 53 32.7 10 52 25.9 18 62 44.1 cluster/cane ratio 0.8 2.0 1.41 0.4 2.4 1.68 1.2 2.8 1.81 no. of clusters/vine 4 66 26.3 11 62 32.7 11 73 47.4 cluster weight (g) 137.3 791.9 380.3 162.6 534.5 335.5 184.7 580.1 367.4 shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):8-12, 2015 11 seedless’, while, the corresponding values were 42.0 and 51.5%, respectively, for ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and ‘2a clone. values of 27.3, 43.1 and 46.5 clusters/vine were optimum, respectively, for ‘thompson seedless’, ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and ‘2a clone’ (table 4). cluster weight cluster weight correlated positively with number of canes/vine, but negatively with number of clusters/vine, cluster/cane ratio and yield/wine in ‘thompson seedless’, but not in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ or ‘2a clone’ (table 1). the positive relationship observed between number of canes/vine and cluster weight can be explained by a negative relationship of canes/vine with cluster/cane ratio, coupled with the negative relationship of cluster weight with cluster weight with cluster/cane ration (table 1). when cluster/cane ratio simultaneously correlated negatively with number of canes number of cluster/vine and cluster weight, the latter two parameters would correlate positively. while the number of cluster/cane ratio denotes the physiological sink, carbohydrate reserves and the current metabolites in a cane denote the source. similarly number of clusters/vine denote the sink and its corresponding source is the total carbohydrate reserves in a vine. at a given level of source, increasing number of sinks result in a reduced size (weight) of an individual sink (cluster). this is the reason for a negative correlation of cluster weight with number of clusters/vine and number of clusters cane ratio. number of clusters/vine and cluster/cane ratio are attributes of yield and these correlated positively with yield/ vine (table 1). when these correlated negatively with the cluster weight, yield/vine would also correlate negatively. lack of negative correlation of cluster-weight to yield in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and ‘2a clone’ indicates that contribution of cluster-weight in determining yield is much less in these varieties compared to that in ‘thompson seedless’ evidenced by the meagre values of slope of cluster-weight in the multiple regression function of yield in these varieties (table 3). physiologically, this can be explained by variation in source-sink relation among varieties. cluster-size being larger in ‘thompson seedless’, any additional cluster on the cane can reduce cluster-weight more drastically than in the other two varieties (where clusters were relatively smaller). positive correlation of cluster weight with number of canes/vine can be explained in the light of the inverse relationship of yield with clusterweight, and, with the number of canes/vine. when the number of canes increases, yield decreases and there is a simultaneous increase in cluster-weight, resulting in a positive correlation between number of canes/vine and clusterweight. cluster-weight is an important yield attribute in grape, alterable as desired by cultural operations, primarily with use of growth regulators. the main components of cluster weight are: number of berries in a cluster, and, mean berryweight. increase in the number of berries in a cluster was associated with increase in weight of the cluster. correlation here was highly significant in all the varieties studied. clusterweight also varied significantly with mean berry weight in ‘thompson seedless’ and ‘tas-a-ganesh’ but not in ‘2a clone’. number of berries in a cluster and mean berryweight correlated negatively in all the varieties (table 5). although increase in the number of berries reduced mean berry-weight in ‘2a clone’, the reduction seemed to be inadequate in masking the positive effect of number of table 6. variation in cluster attributes cluster attribute thompson seedless tas-a-ganesh 2a clone min. max. mean min. max. mean min. max. mean cluster weight (g) 137.3 791.9 380.3 162.6 534.5 335.5 184.7 580.1 367.4 no. of berries/cluster 30 132 74.5 35 108 68.9 44 128 76.6 berry weight (g) 2.41 8.63 5.21 3.23 7.52 4.97 3.51 6.84 4.86 table 4. determination of yield in various varieties variety per cent yield determination optimum number by no. of clusters/vine of clusters/vine thompson seedless 87.9 27.3 tas-a-ganesh 42.0 43.1 2a clone 51.5 46.5 table 5. correlation between cluster weight and other attributes in various varieties attribute correlation coefficient thompson tas-a2a clone seedless ganesh cluster weight vs. 0.661** 0.754** 0.449** no. of berries/cluster cluster weight vs. 0.477** 0.296** 0.164 mean berry weight mean berry weight vs. 0.316** 0.349** 0.484** no. of berries/cluster significance of ‘r’ value at 5% = 0.195, and at 1% = 0.254 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):8-12, 2015 relation between yield and yield attributes in grape 12 table 7. regression of cluster weight attributes on cluster weight in different varieties regression equation thompson tas-a2a seedless ganesh clone a) intercept -301.78 -213.07 -49.19 b) slope of x1 68.03 57.82 47.61 (berry weight) c) slope of x2 5.14 4.56 3.04 (no. of berries/cluster) determination 0.963 0.924 0.39 coefficient (r2) table 8. determination of cluster weight in different varieties variety per cent determination optimum of cluster weight values number of mean berry berries weight thompson seedless 96.3 85.7 7.32 tas-a-ganesh 92.4 84.5 4.96 2a clone 39.0 104.3 4.32 berries on cluster-weight. this assumption gains support from less variation seen in the number of berries in a cluster, berry-weight and cluster-weight in ‘2a clone’ (table 6). multiple regression function involving berry number and berry weight determined cluster weight by 96.3% in ‘thompson seedless’ and 92.4% in ‘tas-a-ganesh’, but only 39.0% in ‘2a clone’ (table 7). a model optimized for cluster-weight indicated that 85.7 berries/cluster was optimum in ‘thompson seedless’, 84.5 in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ and 104.3 in ‘2a clone’. optimum weight of the berry was 7.32, 4.96 and 4.32 grams, respectively, for the three varieties in that order (table 8). based on variation observed in the relation of yieldattributes to yield in various varieties in the present study, it can be inferred that for obtaining higher yields, cluster-size needs to be increased while limiting number of canes/vine in ‘thompson seedless’ and ‘tas-a-ganesh’; but, an increase in number of canes in ‘2a clone’ by appropriate cultural practices would be useful. acknowlegement the authors are grateful to chairman and office bearers of central research committee of maharashtra state grape growers’ association, pune, for supporting these studies. thanks are also due to shri ashok gaikwad, kailash bhosale, arun more, manik patil, jagannath khapre and suresh kalamkar for facilitating these studies in their vineyards. support provided by shri t.s. mungare and t.s. shelke, and guidance provided by research advisory committee of the association are gratefully acknowledged. references buttrose, m.s. 1969. fruitfulness in grapevines: effects of light intensity and temperature. bot. gaz., 130:166173 buttrose, m.s. 1970. fruitfulness in grapevines: the response of different cultivars to light, temperature and day length. vitis, 9:121-125 chadha, k.l., singh, s., kumar, h. 1974. effect of severity of pruning on time of ripening, yield and quality of kandhari grape (vitis vinifera l.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 3:39-43 chittiraichelvan, r., shikhamany, s.d., chadha, k.l. 1985. contribution of leaf area towards bunch development in thompson seedless grape. indian j. hort., 42:156-160 lider, l.a., kasimatis, a.n. and kliewer, w.m. 1975. effect of pruning severity on the growth and fruit production in thompson seedless grapevines. amer. j. enol. vitic., 26:175-178 purohit, a.g., shikhamany, s.d., prasanna kumar, b. 1979. effect of number of leaves per bunch on growth and quality of tropical grape variety anab-e-shahi (vitis vinifera l.). indian j. hort., 36:36-41 shikhamany, s.d. 1983. effect of time and different doses of n and k on growth, yield and quality of thompson seedless grapes (vitis vinifera l.). ph.d thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore, india (ms received 17 january 2015, revised 18 may 2015, accepted 23 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):8-12, 2015 shikhamany et al in himachal pradesh, tomato is grown in an area of 9.388 thousand ha, with production of 3.177 lakh metric tones, and productivity of 33.84 metric tonnes ha-1 (anonymous, 2006). mid-hills of himachal pradesh are leading suppliers of tomato to the plains. the crop is grown during summer and rainy seasons in the hills, and the entire produce is sent to markets of adjoining states. the farmers, thus, earn good money on account of premium price, as, this crop cannot be grown in the plains during summer months owing high temperatures. performance of any crop depends upon quality of the seed, various environmental factors, type of cultivar and cultural practices. among these factors, optimum age of transplants is one that affects both growth and yield but, generally, this factor is ignored by farmers. optimum seedling age depends on soil, environmental factors (temperature, moisture), location and cultural practices. several investigations have been made to test the effect of transplant age on crop performance. yield of tomato either increased linearly with age of transplants (3 to 6 weeks old) or was not influenced by transplant age (leskover et al, 1991). conflicting results in literature on transplant age may be due to different environmental and cultural conditions that plants were exposed to, both in greenhouse and in the field. effect of age of transplants on fruit and seed yield of tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) y.r. shukla, thuktan chhopal and rajender sharma krishi vigyan kendra, kandaghat 173215, india e-mail : yrshukla@rediffmail.com abstract tomato is a major cash crop of the mid-hill regions of himachal pradesh. among various factors that affect its growth and yield, age of the transplant an important factor is generally ignored by farmers. therefore, the present investigation was undertaken at vegetable research farm, department of vegetable science, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan, himachal pradesh, during the summer of 2008 and 2009 to ascertain optimum age of transplants for maximizing fruit and seed yield in tomato var. solan vajr. the experiment was laid out in rbd, with 3 replications. age of the transplant starting with 15 days, and with subsequent gaps of 3 days each (upto 42 days, i.e., 10 stages) comprised different treatments. among the various treatments imposed, 33-day old (middleaged) transplants performed best with respect to fruit and seed yield than younger or older transplants. this treatment also gave the best results for number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plot (kg), seed recovery (%), seed yield per plot (g), and germination percentage. key words: age of transplant, fruit and seed yield, ‘solan vajr’, seed recovery, germination percentage j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):99-102, 2013 short communication generally, 4-6 week old transplants are recommended for transplanting in mid-hill regions of himachal pradesh, but, this is a very wide range. exact age of transplant would, therefore, be helpful in understanding relationship between physiological state of the transplant, its survival in field and growth response under various cultural systems and environments. hence to reduce the wide gap (4-6 weeks after 50% germination of seed) existing in recommendation of the age of seedlings, the present study was conducted to ascertain optimum age of transplants for maximizing fruit and seed yield in tomato at dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan. the research farm is located at an elevation of 1260 metres above msl. geographical location of the site is latitude 30.52° n and longitude 77.11° e which falls under the mid-hill agro-climatic zone of himachal pradesh. seeds were sown in pro-trays on 20th february 2008. temperature during this period varied from 15-18°c during daytime. all precautions were taken for raising a healthy nursery and seedlings of the required age were transplanted. ten different ages of transplants (table 1), starting with 15 day old, with a gap of three days comprised the treatments. days to 50% seed germination was taken as zero day (18th day) and successive days were counted for determining seedling 100 age. the field experiment was laid out in rbd, with three replications whereas, germination and seedling vigour studies were conducted in the laboratory using crd, with four replications following ista (anonymous, 1985). the variety used was “solan vajr” and was transplanted at a spacing of 90cm x 30cm in plots of 2.7m x 2.1m size. observations were recorded on number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plot (kg), total soluble solids (°b), pericarp thickness (mm), seed recovery (%), seed yield per plot (g), thousand seed weight (g), germination (%), seedling vigour index-i and seedling vigour index-ii. analysis of variance showed significant differences for characters like number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plot (kg), seed recovery (%), seed yield per plot (g) and germination percentage. however, total soluble solids (°b), pericarp thickness (mm), thousand seed weight (g), seedling vigour index-i and seedling vigour index-ii were found to be non-significant among different treatments (tables 2a & 2b). maximum number of fruits per plant (19.5) was obtained in t 7 (33 days) and minimum number of fruits (12.99) was recorded in t 1 (15 days). in the present findings, middle-aged transplants produced higher number of fruits table 2a. effect of age of transplants on horticultural and seed traits in tomato treatment age of the number of fruit yield / fruit yield / total soluble pericarp seed transplant (days) fruits / plant plot (kg) hectare (q) solids (0b) thickness (mm) recovery (%) t 1 15 12.99 14.76 260.32 3.97 5.64 0.486 (0.697)* t 2 18 13.75 15.47 272.84 4.07 5.67 0.516 (0.719) t 3 21 15.01 17.01 300.00 4.03 5.65 0.515 (0.718) t 4 24 16.05 18.29 322.57 4.25 5.66 0.522 (0.723) t 5 27 16.84 19.30 340.39 4.33 5.72 0.544 (0.737) t 6 30 17.50 19.74 348.15 4.26 5.93 0.697 (0.835) t 7 33 19.50 21.08 371.78 4.27 5.96 0.726 (0.852) t 8 36 17.40 19.60 345.68 4.29 6.23 0.692 (0.832) t 9 39 17.06 19.20 338.62 4.25 5.60 0.658 (0.811) t 1 0 42 16.75 18.84 332.28 4.25 5.56 0.515 (0.718) cd (p=0.05) 0.64 0.61 60.13 ns ns 0.079 cv (%) 2.29 1.94 10.84 7.84 sed 0.22 0.21 20.24 0.03 table 2b. effect of age of transplants on horticultural and seed traits in tomato treatment age of the seed yield / thousand seed seedling seedling transplant (days) plot (g) seed weight (g) germination (%) vigour indexi vigour indexii t 1 15 47.49 2.84 58.67 (49.98)** 0.108 619.83 t 2 18 52.83 3.02 76.67 (61.25) 0.111 724.87 t 3 21 57.84 2.97 69.33 (56.39) 0.091 755.29 t 4 24 65.84 3.08 64.00 (53.53) 0.089 767.72 t 5 27 71.42 3.12 62.00 (51.94) 0.109 669.04 t 6 30 76.98 3.06 71.33 (57.63) 0.114 613.37 t 7 33 82.22 3.17 84.67 (67.61) 0.159 913.13 t 8 36 74.48 3.07 66.67 (54.74) 0.133 627.00 t 9 39 73.93 3.03 79.00 (62.75) 0.126 742.13 t 1 0 42 72.52 3.13 70.67 (57.21) 0.119 670.05 cd (p=0.05) 2.95 ns 7.57 ns ns cv (%) 56.40 6.28 sed 0.99 2.55 *figures in parentheses represent square root transformed values ** figures in parentheses represent arc sine transformed values ns: nonsignificant; cv:coefficient of variation; se (diff) :standard error of difference; cd (0.05):critical difference at 5% level of difference table 1. details of treatments imposed treatment age of seedling at transplanting (days after 50% germination of seeds) t 1 15 t 2 18 t 3 21 t 4 24 t 5 27 t 6 30 t 7 33 t 8 36 t 9 39 t 1 0 42 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):99-102, 2013 shukla et al 101 than younger or older transplants. the reason seems to be that in the case of younger seedlings, there is comparatively lower rate of establishment because of limited storage of foods that are needed for vegetative extension; whereas, older shoots are mature enough and have more stored food material and therefore, divert it to production of fruits. however, middle-aged seedlings, on account of extended lateral branches, produced maximum number of fruits per plant than younger or older ones. maximum number of fruits by middle-aged transplants is reported by salik et al (2000). contrary to this, guo et al (1991) reported maximum number of fruits from younger transplants, while renuka and perera (2002) recorded higher number of fruits from older transplants. maximum fruit yield per plant, per plot and per hectare was recorded in t 7 (33 days old) which showed significant difference over the other treatments. second best treatment was t 6 (30 days old) but showed non-significant differences with t 8 (36 days old), t 5 (27 days old) and t 9 (39 days old). minimum fruit yield was observed in t 1 (15 days old). middle-aged seedlings produced maximum yield, followed by older ones. minimum yield was recorded with younger seedlings. a possible reason for maximum yield in middleaged transplants (rather than in younger or older transplants) seems to be that a greater number of marketable fruits was produced per plant here. similar differences were observed by cooper and morelock (1983), zhao rui et al (2000) and salik et al (2000) who obtained maximum yield in middleaged transplants. total soluble solids (tss) content was found to be non-significant among different treatments. however, highest tss (4.33°b) was recorded in t 5 (27 days old), closely followed by t 8 , t 7 and t 6 . lowest tss (3.97°b) was observed in t 1 (15 days old). non-significant effect of age of transplants was noticed in tss of fruits. similar findings are reported by salik et al (2000). pericarp thickness was found to be non-significant among different treatments. however, maximum pericarp thickness was obtained in t 8 (36 days old) (6.23mm), followed by treatments t 7 , t 6 and t 5 . minimum pericarp thickness (5.56 mm) was recorded in t 10 (42 days old). generally, middle-aged transplants produced fruits with greater pericarp thickness. this might be due to the transplants having produced higher yields and well-developed fruits, having a thicker pericarp. this is in conformity with findings of salik et al (2000). maximum seed recovery (0.726%) observed in t 7 (33 days old) was at par with t 6 , t 8 , and t 9 (having seed recovery of 0.697, 0.692 and 0.658 per cent, respectively) and minimum seed recovery 0.486% was recorded in t 1 [at par with five other treatments, i.e., t 10 , t 3 (21 days old), t 2 (18 days old), t 4 (24 days old) and t 5 having seed recovery of 0.515, 0.515, 0.516, 0.522 and 0.544% respectively]. in the present findings, middle-aged transplants had better seed recovery in tomato than in younger transplants. it is seen that transplants that produced more number of fruits and higher yield, also had better % seed recovery than younger transplants. the youngest seedlings may had less food stored needed for vegetative extension. likewise, older seedlings turned mature enough, thus limiting their vegetative extension. it seems that middleaged seedlings, on account of extended lateral branches, produced maximum number of fruits per plant resulting in higher % seed recovery. maximum seed yield (82.22g/plot) observed in t 7 (33 days old) was significantly superior to that in all other treatments. this was followed by t 6 and t 8 with seed yield of 76.98g and 74.48g per plot; while, minimum value (47.49g/ plot) was observed in t 1 . however, maximum seed yield per plot was produced by middle-aged transplants, while, minimum by younger transplants. this may be because of the fact that middle-aged transplants produced more number of marketable, healthy and disease-free fruits (which, ultimately, resulted in better seed yield). osman and george (1984) were also of the opinion that a greater number of ripe fruits produced by plants of middle-aged seedlings were responsible for higher seed yield. germination percentage was found to be significant among different treatments. maximum seed germination (84.67%) was recorded in seeds of treatment t 7 (33 days old). minimum seed germination (58.67%) was recorded in t 1 . in general, maximum germination was recorded using middle-aged transplants than younger or older ones. it appears that plants developed from middle-aged seedlings could establish well early in the season, produced vigorous plants that yielded higher number of good-sized fruits with better seed yield, better test weight and, ultimately, good germination; while, younger transplants may have stored less food needed for vegetative extension, thereby producing non-vigorous plants having low yield and poor quality seeds. almost similar results were reported by salik et al (2000). in general, germination was low in all the treatments as seeds were raised in summer rather than in the rainy season. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):99-102, 2013 age of transplants and fruit/seed yield in tomato 102 both seedling vigour index-i and ii were found to be non-significant among different treatments. however, maximum seedling vigour index-i was obtained in t 7 (33 days old) (0.159), closely followed by t 8 , t 9 and t 10 . minimum seedling vigour index-i (0.089) was recorded in t 4 (24 days old). maximum seedling vigour index-ii (913.13) was recorded in t 7 (33 days old), closely followed by t 4 , t 3 and t 9 ; whereas, minimum seedling vigour index-ii (613.37) was recorded in t 6 . the present results may hold good for summer or early crop, but not for the rainy season crop, as, in the rainy season, nursery is raised during june-july and temperature during this period is generally high compared to that in february (summer or early crop). hence, rate and speed of germination is likely to be high. consequently, seedling growth is also higher at high temperature. as a result, seedlings are ready for transplanting quite early, than at low temperature. it can, thus, be concluded that seed emergence and seedling growth is correlated with temperature and other environmental factors rather than the month or season of cropping. references anonymous. 1985. international rules for seed testing. seed science and technology. 13: 293-353 anonymous. 2006. annual report. department of agriculture, himachal pradesh, shimla-171005, h.p. cooper, p.e. and morelock, t.e. 1983. effect of transplant age on earliness, total yield and fruit weight of tomato. arkanas farm res., 32:6 guo, f., fujime, y., hirose, t. and kato, t. 1991. effects of the number of training shoots, raising period of seedlings and planting density on growth, fruiting and yield of sweet pepper. j. japanese soc. hortl. sci., 59:763-770 leskovar, d.i., cantliffe, d.j. and stoffella, p.j. 1991. growth and yield of tomato plants in response to age of transplants. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 116:416420 osman, o.a. and george, r.a.t. 1984. effect of mineral nutrition and fruit position on seed yield and quality of sweet pepper (capsicun annuum l.). acta hort., 143:133-140 renuka, k.a. and perera, k.d.a. 2002. effect of seedling age and its management on growth and yield of chilli. annals sri lanka, dept. agri., 4:33-38 salik. m.r., muhammad, f. and pervez, m.a. 2000. relationship between age of seedlings on productivity of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum l.) grown under plastic tunnel. pakistan j. biol. sci., 3:12601261 zhao-rui, jian ma and fei li. 2000. study on age of tomato seedlings growing in plug. china vegetables, 6:9 (ms received 08 may 2012, accepted 10 september 2012, revised 08 october 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):99-102, 2013 shukla et al this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction potted plants occupy a sizable share in the floriculture trade both in the global and domestic markets.the indoor plants market was valued at usd 17.93 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach usd 26.23 billion by 2029, at a cagr of 4.87% during the forecast period of 2022-2029 (anon., 2022). besides being a decorative element, potted flowering plants have positive effects on the human psychology and when placed indoors, improves the air quality. popular flowering potted plants include marigold, petunia, geranium, chrysanthemum, orchids, anthurium and so on. french marigold (tagetes patula l.), is one of the, most versatile, low-maintenance and popular flowering plants that can be grown in beds and as containers. production of florifer ous and well ma inta ined attractive canopy is imperative in enhancing the aesthetics and consumer appeal of the potted plants. the container type, potting media and the nutrient dose have a considerable effect on the growth, flowering and quality of the potted plants. among the containers, plastic, ceramic, terracotta, metallic and biodegradable containers like coir pots are used for commercial production. according to anil and roshan (2022), the plastic segment was the highest contributor to the flower pots and planters market size, with $328.1 million in 2020, and is estimated to reach $479.6 million by 2030, at a cagr of 3.6%. conventional potting media in india is comprised of soil, sand and farmyard manure, whereas in other countries, peat and amended peat substrates were widely used. problems of compaction, presence of soil borne pathogens in the soil based media and restriction on harvesting of peat due to environmental concerns has increased the need for alternate substrates. similarly nutrition and in particular, the concentration of each of the major nutrients and the source of nutrients play an important role in the growth and development of the plant. consumer acceptance and willingness to purchase the product is a key factor in successful production and marketing of the potted plants. the production of potted ornamental plants must be based on consumer preferences (megersa et al., 2018). considering all these aspects, the present study was conducted to standardize the three important elements viz., container type, potting media composition and the original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2153 influence of container, potting media and nutrients on production and post-production consumer acceptance of potted marigold (tagetes patula l.) nair s.a.*, smitha, g.r. and kalaivanan d. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru 580089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : sujathaa.nair@icar.gov.in abstract production of potted plants is influenced by factors viz., type of container, potting medium, nutrient dose. a study was conducted to standardize these factors for potted french marigold var. arka pari. the treatments comprised of two type of containers (plastic and coir), three potting media [red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v), arka fermented cocopeat (afc), afc + vermicompost (1:1 v/v)] and four nutrition concentrations (160:30:180 ppm n:p: k, 128:24:144 ppm n:p: k, 96:18:108 ppm n:p:k and 3% jeevamrutha) laid out in factorial completely randomized design replicated thrice. plants grown in potting media combination of arka fermented cocopeat (afc) + vermicompost (1:1 v/v) along with weekly application of nutrient solution (128:24:144 ppm npk) produced maximum number of flowers plant-1 (147.61) and registered highest uptake of nitrogen (2.87 g plant-1), phosphorus (0.53 g plant-1), potassium (3.24 g plant-1), magnesium (0.85 g plant1) and sulphur (0.21 g plant-1). based on the attributes of the potted plants, this treatment combination also registered the highest score (81.2 on a scale of 100), willingness of the consumers to purchase (4.5 on a scale of 5), overall acceptability (2.7 on a scale of 3) and the benefit cost ratio of 1.18. keywords : consumer preference, container type, nutrition, potted marigold, potting media 114 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 nair et al. nutrient dose in potted plant production of marigold and to gauge the consumer preference. materials and methods the study on potted plant production of french marigold var. arka pari, under open field conditions, was conducted at the icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, during 2019 and 2020, to standardize the container type, composition of the potting media, the nutrient doses and to evaluate the consumer acceptance of the containerized plants. french marigold var. arka pari is a short statured plant with spreading habit, bearing orange flowers and flowering duration is 30 to 45 days. the treatments comprised of twenty four combinations laid out in factorial crd design with three replications and ten pots per replication. three factors viz., factor a: type of pots (p1: 6" plastic pot; p2: 6" coir pot); factor b: potting media [s1: red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v), s2: arka fermented cocopeat (afc), s3: afc + vermicompost (1:1 v/v)]; factor c: nutrition concentration (n1160:30:180 ppm, n2128:24:144 ppm, n 3 96:18:10 8 ppm n:p 2o 5:k 2o, n 4 jeevamrutha @ 3% were imposed. secondary and micronutrients wer e applied unifor mly for the treatments n1, n2 and n3. nutrient application was scheduled at weekly intervals @ 50 ml pot-1. one month old seedlings @ one seedling pot -1 were transplanted in the centre of the pot. need based watering was done at regular intervals, taking into consideration the water holding capacity of the media (governed by the texture and porosity of the media) and the prevailing weather conditions. to encourage canopy spread through induction of more lateral branches, first pinch was done one month after transplanting and it was followed by the second pinching of the lateral branches. prophylactic sprays of plant protection chemicals was done to check infestation of pest and diseases. standard procedures were adopted to analyse the physical and chemical properties of the potting media. afc recorded bulk density of 0.16 mg m-3; porosity 67.8%; ph 6.75; electrical conductivity 0.5 dsm-1; total carbon 36.1%; total n 0.98%; total p 0.07%; total k 2.20% and na 0.35%. the average concentration of macronutrients was estimated at 0.58% n, 0.26% p2o5 and 0.60% k2o in fym. physical and chemical characteristics of the soil were recorded as bulk density (1.28 mg m-3); por osity (51. 3%); ph (6. 97), electr ica l conductivity (0.26 dsm-1); organic carbon (7.8 g kg1); available n (0.13 g kg-1); 18 mg kg-1 olsen’s p, a mmonium aceta te (ch 3coonh 4) extra ctable nutrients are as follow: 0.90 g ca kg-1, 0.174 g mg kg-1 a nd 0. 15 g k kg-1 a nd dt pa extr a ctable micronutrients as follow: 10.3 mg kg-1 fe, 5.70 mg kg-1mn, 2.24 mg kg-1 cu and 1.35 mg kg-1 zn. analysis of n, p, k content and uptake by plant were done. nitrogen (n) contents in the plant samples were analysed after mineralization with sulphuric acid by kjeldahl method (ja ckson, 1973). phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese, zinc and copper were estimated after digesting with a triacid mixture of nitric acid, perchloric acid and sulphuric acid (9:4:1 v/v hno3: hclo4: h2so4) as described by jackson (1973). observations were recorded on the vegetative growth, floral parameters and nutrient uptake during the cropping period, pooled and analysed using the opstat statistical package (sheoran et al., 1998). post-production analysis of the potted plants was done with a sample size of 35 respondents, based on attributes such as cultural perfection (dense foliage, typica l colour of cultiva r, a ttr a ctive), for m (symmetrical appearance), plant size (height, spread and fullness), flower number (open flowers and buds), flower colour (true to the cultivar, clear, attractive, and free from blemishes) and distinctiveness (desirable characters) by assigning scores for these out of 30, 15, 15, 20, 10 a nd 10, r espectively (beck et al.,1985). according to zeithaml (1988) the consumers’ willingness to purchase is affected by objective price, perceived quality, perceived value, and product attributes. willingness of the consumer to purchase the product was also ascertained by using the scale of 1-definitely would not; 2-probably would not; 3-might or might not; 4-pr oba bly would; 5-definitely would. the potted plants were also rated on an overall visual yardstick on a scale of 1 to 3 viz., 1-unacceptable; 2-acceptable and 3-visually excellent. the economics of potted plant production for varying container types, potting media and nutrients was calculated and the benefit: cost ratio was worked out. results and discussion the canopy and flowering of the potted plants of marigold was influenced by the container type, potting media, nutrients and the interaction effect of these factors. 115 container type potting media and nutrients : pot type has significant influence on the number of leaves at flowering, internodal length, number of flowers plant-1 and root spread (table 1). plants grown in plastic pots (p1) recorded the highest number of flowers plant-1 (124.54), root spread (18.17 cm), the lowest number of leaves plant-1 (54.75) and internodal length (1.94 cm), whereas coir pots (p2) recorded the highest number of leaves at flower ing (57. 06), internodal length (2.06 cm), the lowest number of flowers plant-1 (112.17) and root spread (15.76 cm). in plastic pots, lesser permeability of the container walls, leading to better water and nutrient retention in the media, might have influenced the rhizosphere environment, contributed to better uptake of water and nutrients and thereby to better growth and development of the plant as compared to coir pots. this is in line with the findings of evan and hensley (2004) in vinca rosea. the number of flowers plant -1 was significantly influenced by the potting media composition (table 1). t he tr ea tment s 3-ar ka fer ment ed cocopea t + vermicompost (1:1 v/v) produced the highest number of flowers plant-1(123.68), whereas, afc alone (s2) recorded the lowest number of flowers plant-1 (113.65). this might be due to the fa ct that the afc + vermicompost medium does not tend to compact, stores and allows uptake of nutrients, as opposed to the conventional soil based media. further, the presence of vermicompost, a rich organic source of nutrition, would have contributed to better plant growth and thereby production of highest number of flowers. this corroborates the findings of rawat et al. (2020) in geranium. application of inorganic source of nutrients of varying concentrations and an organic source (jeevamrutha) recorded significant differences for the number of leaves at flowering, flower diameter and number of flowers plant-1 (table 1). the treatment n3 96:18:108 ppm n:p2o5:k2o, recorded the maximum number of leaves at flowering (59.39) and was at par with n 4 jeeva mr utha @ 3 % (57. 02), wher ea s n1160:30:180 ppm n: p2o5: k2o recorded the minimum number of leaves (52.44). n1160:30:180 ppm n: p2o5: k2o recorded the highest flower diameter (4.48 cm) and number of flowers plant-1 (125.87), whereas the minimum flower diameter (4.32 cm) was recorded by application of n2128:24:144 ppm table 1 : influence of type of pot, potting media and nutrients on growth and flowering in marigold var. arka pari treatment plant spread number of internodal flower number of root at flowering leaves length diameter flowers spread (cm) at flowering (cm) (cm) plant-1 (cm) p1 33.20 54.75 1.94 4.37 124.54 18.17 p2 33.45 57.06 2.06 4.41 112.17 15.76 sem± 0.34 0.63 0.04 0.03 1.61 0.49 cd (p= 0.05) ns 1.80 0.11 ns 4.58 1.39 s1 33.24 54.72 1.98 4.37 117.73 16.10 s2 33.66 55.88 2.03 4.38 113.65 18.36 s3 33.07 57.11 2.00 4.41 123.68 16.43 sem± 0.42 0.77 0.05 0,03 1.97 0.60 cd (p= 0.05) ns ns ns ns 5.62 1.71 n1 33.41 52.44 2.00 4.48 125.87 16.01 n2 33.65 54.76 1.92 4.32 117.18 17.81 n3 33.95 59.39 2.03 4.41 112.78 17.48 n4 32.28 57.02 2.05 4.33 117.60 16.55 sem± 0.48 0.89 0.05 0.04 2.28 0.69 cd (p= 0.05) ns 2.54 ns 0.1 6.48 ns p1: 6" plastic pot, p2: 6" coir pot; s1: red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v), s2: arka fermented cocopeat (afc), s3: afc + vermicompost (1:1 v/v)]; n1160:30:180 ppm n:p2o5:k2o, n2128:24:144 ppm n:p2o5:k2o, n3 96:18:108 ppm n:p2o5:k2o, n4 3% jeevamrutha j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 standardization of production techniques for potted marigold 116 n: p2o5: k2o and minimum number of flowers plant-1 (112.78) by n3 96:18:108 ppm n: p2o5: k2o. higher concentrations of the major nutrients resulted in production of maximum number of flowers with larger flower size, which might be attributed to the availability of sufficient amount of nutrients to the plants, as also observed kang and van (2004) in salvia splendens. however, it was observed the number of leaves did not increase with the increase in nutrient concentration and was also at par with the organic source of nutrients. interaction effect : significant difference was observed with respect to the number of flowers plant-1and root spread on account of the interaction of three factors viz., pot type, potting media composition and nutrients (table 3), whereas, parameters like plant spread, number of leaves at flowering, internodal length (table 2) and flower diameter (table 3) did not vary significantly with these treatment combinations. maximum number of flowers plant-1 (147.61) was produced by the plants grown in plastic pots, on a potting media combination of arka fermented cocopeat + vermicompost (1:1 v/v) along with nutrient solution of concentration 128:24:144 ppm n: p 2o5: k2o (p1s3n2) and it was on par with p1s1n4 (142.06), p1s2n1 (137.28) and p2s1n1 (137.83), whereas p1s3n2 (94.16) produced the minimum number of flowers plant-1. plastic pots containing the potting media combina tion of ar ka fer mented cocopea t a nd vermicompost with inorganic nutrient solution of concentration 128:24:144 ppm n: p2o5: k2o produced most floriferous plants, which might be attributed to the walls of the plastic container and the nutrient rich porous potting media, holding adequate nutrients and moisture besides the key factor being the optimum concentration of the major nutrients applied at weekly intervals for the growth and production of the plant. accor ding to ma r ina r i et al. (2000) a dding vermicompost to container media modifies the soil structure, increases availability of macro and micronutrients, stimulates microbial activity, augments production of plant growth-promoting substances by microorganisms through interactions with earthworms. similar observation was made by sahni et al. (2008) in strawberry. root spread was significantly highest (23.70 cm) in plants grown in plastic pots on a potting media combination of red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v) and nutrient solution of concentration 160:30:180 ppm n: p2o5: k2o (p1s1n1), which was on par with p la nt s pr ea d at f lo w er in g (c m ) n um be r of l ea ve s at f lo w er in g in te rn od al l en gt h (c m ) t re at m en t p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 n 1 31 .2 1 33 .2 8 30 .9 7 38 .2 4 34 .6 2 32 .1 2 50 .2 8 53 .0 6 57 .8 3 48 .5 0 51 .3 3 53 .6 7 1. 96 1. 88 2. 17 2. 24 1. 93 1. 80 n 2 32 .1 9 32 .4 7 35 .8 9 33 .9 8 33 .4 5 33 .9 1 51 .8 3 52 .5 0 51 .8 3 52 .3 4 61 .6 7 58 .4 1 1. 81 1. 88 1. 92 1. 97 1. 97 1. 99 n 3 33 .6 2 33 .3 8 33 .4 6 34 .5 8 34 .4 3 34 .2 3 59 .1 1 52 .6 7 56 .9 5 65 .2 2 59 .3 9 63 .0 0 2. 03 1. 97 2. 00 2. 21 2. 11 1. 85 n 4 32 .6 3 35 .9 9 33 .2 8 29 .4 7 31 .6 5 30 .6 9 58 .4 4 55 .9 4 56 .5 5 52 .0 0 60 .5 0 58 .6 7 2. 00 2. 01 1. 96 1. 98 2. 24 2. 11 se m ± c d (p = 0. 05 ) se m ± c d ( p= 0 .0 5) se m ± c d ( p= 0 .0 5) p 0. 34 n s 0. 63 1. 80 0. 04 0. 11 s 0. 42 n s 0. 77 n s 0. 05 n s p x s 0. 59 n s 1. 09 n s 0. 07 n s n 0. 48 n s 0. 89 2. 54 0. 05 n s p x n 0. 68 1. 93 1. 26 3. 60 0. 08 n s s x n 0. 83 2. 37 1. 55 4. 40 0. 09 n s p x s x n 1. 18 n s 2. 19 n s 0. 13 n s p 1 : 6 " pl as tic p ot ; p 2 : 6 " co ir po t; s 1 : r ed s oi l + fy m + s an d (1 :1 :1 v /v ), s 2 : a rk a fe rm en te d c oc op ea t (a fc ), s 3 : a fc + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1 v/ v) ]; n 1 1 60 :3 0: 18 0 pp m n :p 2o 5:k 2o , n 2 1 28 :2 4: 14 4 pp m n :p 2o 5:k 2o , n 3 96 :1 8: 10 8 pp m n :p 2o 5:k 2o , n 4– 3% j ee va m ru th a ta bl e 2 : in te ra ct io n ef fe ct o f ty pe o f po t, po tt in g m ed ia a nd n ut ri en ts o n ve ge ta tiv e pa ra m et er s at f lo w er in g st ag e j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 nair et al. 117 ta bl e 3 : in te ra ct io n ef fe ct o f ty pe o f po t, po tt in g m ed ia a nd n ut ri en ts o n flo ra l p ar am et er s an d ro ot s pr ea d fl ow er d ia m et er ( cm ) n um be r of f lo w er s pe r pl an t r oo t sp re ad ( cm ) t re at m en t p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 s 1 s 2 s 3 n 1 4. 55 4. 49 4. 42 4. 38 4. 44 4. 62 12 7. 11 13 7. 28 13 0. 67 13 7. 83 11 6. 06 10 6. 26 23 .7 0 18 .1 7 19 .2 7 11 .4 0 11 .3 1 12 .2 3 n 2 4. 21 4. 44 4. 32 4. 30 4. 36 4. 28 11 4. 89 11 0. 33 14 7. 61 10 8. 11 10 4. 44 11 7. 67 21 .9 0 11 .5 3 18 .6 0 17 .8 3 19 .2 0 17 .8 0 n 3 4. 33 4. 25 4. 35 4. 70 4. 26 4. 57 10 7. 67 11 1. 72 11 8. 89 11 0. 00 10 3. 78 12 4. 61 21 .5 7 18 .3 7 13 .5 3 17 .0 0 17 .3 3 17 .1 0 n 4 4. 30 4. 34 4. 40 4. 20 4. 47 4. 28 14 2. 06 12 1. 45 12 4. 78 94 .1 6 10 4. 17 11 8. 95 21 .4 0 17 .6 7 13 .6 7 12 .0 7 17 .9 0 16 .5 8 se m ± c d ( p= 0 .0 5) se m ± c d ( p= 0 .0 5) se m ± c d ( p= 0 .0 5) p 0. 03 n s 1. 61 4. 58 0. 49 1. 39 s 0. 03 n s 1. 97 5. 62 0. 60 1. 71 p x s 0. 05 n s 2. 79 n s 0. 85 2. 41 n 0. 04 0. 10 2. 28 6. 48 0. 69 n s p x n 0. 05 n s 3. 22 9. 17 0. 98 2. 79 s x n 0. 06 0. 18 3. 94 11 .2 3 1. 20 n s p x s x n 0. 09 n s 5. 58 15 .8 8 1. 69 4. 82 p 1 : 6 " pl as tic p ot ; p 2 : 6 " co ir po t; s 1 : r ed s oi l + fy m + s an d (1 :1 :1 v /v ), s 2 : a rk a fe rm en te d c oc op ea t (a fc ), s 3 : a fc + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1 v/ v) ]; n 1 1 60 :3 0: 18 0 pp m n :p 2o 5:k 2o , n 2 1 28 :2 4: 14 4 pp m n :p 2o 5:k 2o , n 3 96 :1 8: 10 8 pp m n :p 2o 5:k 2o , n 4– 3% j ee va m ru th a p1s1n2 (21.90 cm), p1s1n3 (21.57 cm), p1s1n4 (21.40 cm), p1s3n1 (19.27 cm) and p 2s2n2 (19.20 cm), whereas p2s2n1 (11.31 cm) recorded the minimum root spread. this contradicts the findings that cocopeat based substrates encourage better root growth and spread, which might be due to the interaction of all the three factors. the longevity of flowers from bud stage to the end of display stage was assessed (fig. 1) and the maximum longevity was recorded in the treatment combination p2s2n2 (21.4 days), which was on par with p1s3n2 (20 days), whereas p2s1n3 had the least longevity (15 days). this might be attributed to the optimum dose of nutrients supplied to the plants at weekly intervals and the water and nutrient holding capacity of the potting media and the root spread that must have led to enhanced uptake of the nutrients. nutrient uptake: maximum uptake of nitrogen (2.87g plant-1), phosphorous (0.53g plant-1), potassium (3.24g plant-1), magnesium (0.85g plant-1) and sulphur (0.21g plant-1) was recorded by the plants grown in plastic pots, on a potting media combination of arka fermented cocopeat + vermicompost (1:1 v/v) along with nutrient solution of concentration 128:24:144 ppm n: p2o5: k2o (p1s3n2), whereas the minimum uptake of nitrogen (0.84 g plant-1), phosphorous (0.21g plant-1), potassium (1.02g plant-1), calcium (0.74g plant-1), magnesium (0.25g plant-1) and sulphur (0.07 g plant-1) was recorded by the plants grown in coir pots, on a potting media combination of arka fermented cocopeat + vermicompost (1:1 v/v) along with nutrient solution of concentration 96:18:108 ppm n: p2o5: k2o (p2s3n3) as is evident from fig. 2 and 3. profuse flowering and longevity might be attributed to the uptake of optimum amount of nutr ients in this tr ea tment combina tion. t his corroborates the findings of krol (2011) in pot marigold. micronutrient uptake by the potted plants (fig. 4 and 5) was the highest (3.29,4.57 and 8.10 mg plant-1 of cu, zn and mn, respectively) in the plants grown in plastic pots, on a potting media combination of red soil + fym + sand (1:1:1 v/v) along with nutrient solution of concentration 128:24:144 ppm n: p2o5: k2o (p1s1n2), whereas, the fe uptake was the highest (34.09mg plant-1) in p2s1n1. scoring based on attributes, willingness of the c o ns ume r t o purc has e and t he o v e r all acceptability: the potted plants were scored based on attributes such as cultural perfection, form, plant s iz e, f low er nu mb er, f lower c olou r a nd distinctiveness on a scale of 100 (fig. 6 and 7). j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 standardization of production techniques for potted marigold 118 fi g. 1 : e ff ec t of p ot t yp e, p ot tin g m ed ia a nd n ut ri en ts o n lo ng ev ity o f in di vi du al f lo w er o n th e pl an t fig. 2 : effect of pot type, potting media and nutrients on uptake of major nutrients fig. 3 : effect of pot type, potting media and nutrients on uptake of secondary nutrients j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 nair et al. 119 fig. 4 : effect of pot type , potting media and nutrients on uptake of cu, zn and mn. fig. 6 : effect of pot type, potting media on nutrient on attributes of consumer to purchase fig. 5 : effect of pot type, potting media and nutrients on uptake of fe fig. 7 : effect of pot type, potting media and nutrients on scores based on the consumer to purchase j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 standardization of production techniques for potted marigold 120 plants grown in plastic pots on potting media c omb ina t io n of ar ka f er ment ed c oc op ea t + vermicompost (1:1 v/v) along with nutrient solution of concentration 128:24:144 ppm n: p 2o5: k2o (p1s3n2) scored the highest (81.20), whereas, plants grown in coir pots, on a potting media combination of ar ka f e r ment ed c oc op ea t a lo ng wit h 3 % jeevamrutha (p2s2n4) registered the lowest score (57.70). quality depends on the shape, size, colour of flowers a nd leaves, a nd number of flower s (noordergraaf, 1994; wang et al, 2005). based on the consumers’ willingness to purchase on a scale of 1-5, the same treatment combination p 1s3n2, registered the highest score of 4.5, and p 2s2n4 r ecor ded the lowest scor e of 2. 4. t he overa ll a ccepta bility ba sed on visua l appear a nce wa s assessed on a scale of 1-3. on visual assessment also p1s3n2 and p1s1n4 registered the highest score of 2.7 and p2s2n4 recorded the lowest score of 1.5. according to ferrante et al. (2015) improvement of visual quality of potted plants plays a key role in inc r ea s i ng t he s a le. c oir p o t s ha d p oor mecha nica l pr oper ties a nd r esulted in a faster fig. 8 : effect of pot type, potting media and nutrients on the economics degradation and tended to rupture during handling, tr a ns por t a nd ma r ket ing. besides, r oots a lso protruded from the pot walls in some treatments with discolouration of the pots. economics: plants grown in plastic pots on arka fer mented cocopea t a lone a long with nutr ient solution of concentration 160:30:180 ppm n: p2o5: k2o (p1s2n1) recorded the highest benefit cost ratio of 2.03, however the number of flowers plant-1 and the consumer acceptance scores were lower for this t r ea tment c omb ina tion. t he b es t p er f or ming t r ea t ment c omb ina t ion wit h r es p ec t t o floriferousness, cultural attributes, willingness of the consumer to buy and overall visual acceptability (p1s 3n2) r ecor ded a benefit cost ra tio of 1.18 (fig. 8). coir pots increased the cost of production and have to be retailed at higher prices as compared to the plastic pots. selling price of rs.70 per coir potted plant resulted in b: c ratios ranging from 0 . 3 7 t o 0. 6 3. willingnes s of the c us tomer t o purchase the coir pots depended on their purchasing power and concern for the environment by using eco-friendly products. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 nair et al. 121 conclusion from the present study, it can be concluded that potted plant production of marigold (tagetes patula l.) can be taken up on a commercial basis by nurserymen in plastic pots on a potting media combination of arka fer mented cocopea t+ ver micompost (1:1 v/v) supplemented with weekly application of nutrient solution of 128:24:144 ppm n: p2o5: k2o @ 50 ml pot-1. this combination produced highly floriferous plants with attractive form and shape and had the highest consumer preference and overall visual acceptability. 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(received : 13.12.2022; revised : 03.03.2023; accepted 09.03.2023) standardization of production techniques for potted marigold j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 113-121, 2023 editor’s exordium interdependence in horticultural research “the ultimate goal of farming is not growing crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings” (masanobu fukuoka, the one-straw revolution, 1975) call it “zen and the art of farming” or a “little green book”, masanobu fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical and ever-current challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. at the same time, it is an inspiring, philosophical and spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. it is a relevant pick-up whether you are a guerilla gardener or a kitchen gardener. in fruits, gajanana et al have presented an economic analysis marketing of pink flesh guava and its post harvest losses all along the chain from producer to the consumer, while identifying the maximum window for exercising critical care before product disposal to the consumer. muralidhara and gowda have identified the best stage of rootstocks of coorg mandarin (citrus reticulate blanco) for rapid multiplication of the quality planting material, through soft wood grafting, a new way in citrus. srivastava et al have studied significant correlations between growth, yield and quality of apple in relation to trunk cross sectional area under espalier architecture. same but expanded group has also noticed strong correlations in additional attributes in plum under north west himalayan region, at least in the variety santa rosa. shivashankara et al, while decoding the possible causes for the poor fruit set due to low pollen viability, have undertaken metabolic profiling and chemical compositional analysis in mango applying liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (lc-ms) in totapuri, amrapali and alphonso and other cultivars. yippiee! they have deduced that certain phytohormones, free sugars and amino acids indeed are efficient biochemical markers of pollen viability and possibly better yields. srivastava et al, have evaluated the performance of sweet cherry cultivars in terms of correlational trunk cross sectional area with growth and productivity traits. kanupriya et al have reported the rare occurance of seed polyembryony in langsat (lansium parasiticum) in a tropical tree plantation in tamil nadu; polyembryony is a desirable trait for clonal propagation of perennial plus trees. in vegetable crops, singh et al have evaluated extant germplasm accessions and varieties of brinjal and wild solanaceous lines and identified promising accessions tolerant to the bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum, which perhaps, is one of the most intriguing and phenocomplex pathogens today. varalakshmi et al, while breeding ridge gourd (luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.) for heterosis and combining ability, have recorded superior cross combinations for best sca and gca effects. nasiya-beegum and subramanian, using trichome morphology of 48 accessions in cowpea, have i j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : i-ii, 2019 deduced the ever complex trait of insect resistance, to the infestation by spotted pod borer, maruca vitrata. dalamu et al have addressed the nutritional improvement and heritability aspects of red skinned potatoes of eastern india through genetic diversity in terms of iron and zinc levels. in flower crops, radhika and tejaswini have developed a digital repository and retrieval system for rose germplasm management including a web-enabled interface, useful for rose researchers. a rosy touch indeed! nataraj et al have investigated the performance of anthurium (a. anderanum lindl) cultivars under hill zones of karnataka and suggested cultivars with very good vase life and high benefit: cost ratio. in this issue, articles on the three main crops, fruits (7), vegetables (4) and flower (2), represent various facets of the horticultural technologies, including crop improvement (1), field aspects (5), insect pests (1), diseases (1), post harvest losses (1), nutrition (1), biochemistry (1), basic plant biology (1) and bioinformatics (1). in the midst of the milieu of a torrent of current developments like artificial intelligence, climate resilience, gmo ambience and chemical independence, in agriculture and horticulture, it is with a little indulgence that we consider the opulence and essence of fukuoka’s wisdom and intelligence in our routine research superintendence without any magniloquence! that will be a real tribute to the one-straw revolution man indeed. sayonara. vageeshbabu s. hanur editor in chief journal of horticultural sciences ii j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : i-ii, 2019 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 01-05, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. review nutraceutical horticulture : an overview of biochemical and molecular considerations mohan kumar g.n. department of horticulture, washington state university, pullman, wa 99163. usa corresponding author email: gnmkumar@wsu.edu t he ma jor c omp onent s of ou r diet , na mely, c a r b ohydr a t es , f a t s , pr ot eins , vit a mins , a nd minerals provide for the building blocks besides serving as metabolic fuel to fulfil the bioenergetic needs. since they serve the basic cellular needs, they are considered as ‘primary metabolites’. the molecular and biochemical pathways modulated by the major food components of our diet are wellestablished. many phytochemicals referred to as ‘secondary metabolites’ and not considered as an ‘essential part’ of our diet, also find their way into the digestive tr a ct a long with the major food components. interest in the role played by the ‘nonessential’ or ‘minor ’ components of our diet in preventing the initiation or progression of metabolic disorders has gained momentum. the metabolic disor der s, by and large, ar e non-pathogenic in nature and originate as a consequence of derailed cellular metabolism. p la nt s p r odu c e over 5 0 , 00 0 p hyt oc hemic a ls b elonging t o t he ma jor gr oup s of s ec onda r y metabolites such as phenolics, alkaloids, saponins and terpenes. the secondary metabolites serve several functions in plants and tend to accumulate in various plant parts in response to biotic and/or a biotic inter a ctions. ma ny of the seconda r y metabolites are used by the pharmaceutical industry either in the for mulation drugs dir ectly, or a s pr ecur s or s f or a ctive ingr edients in t he dr ug formulations. the secondary metabolites associated with our diet a re known to influence cellular function upon assimilation. such dietary phytochemicals capable of sustaining normal cellular function and sustain health are known as ‘nutraceuticals’. although phytochemicals of nutraceutical value occur widely, horticultural crops such as fruits, vegetables and spices are particularly rich in nutraceuticals. the interest in the nutraceuticals is on the increase as ca n be ascertained from number of books a nd jou r na ls f ea t u r ing r es ea r c h a r t ic les on nutraceuticals (fig. 1, 2). this talk will focus on the role of dietar y nutra ceuticals derived fr om fruits, vegetables, and spices in sustaining health via their interaction with the biochemical/molecular components in our cells. c e llular c o mpo ne nt s int e r ac t ing w it h nutraceuticals the biochemical pathways modulated by the dietary nutraceuticals are many and complex. however, the major player interacting with nutraceuticals appears to be the nuclear transcription factor (nfk b) . m a ny diet a r y nu t r a c eu t ic a ls ex hib it inhibitory effect on nf-kb (fig. 3). in addition, nutr aceutica ls are capable of inhibiting nf-kb activation mediated by the tumor necrosis factoralpha (tnf-), a cell-signaling molecule. t he activation of nf-kb transcribes genes that mediate the initiation and progression of several metabolic disorders. transcription factors transcription factors are proteins that bind to dna to effect transcription. over 1600 transcription fa ctor s exist in ma mma lia n cells. one su ch transcription factor of importance is nf-kb. as many as 133, 517 citations (oct 2021; pubmed c ent r a l, n a t iona l c ent er f or biot ec hnology information, ncbi) exist on various aspects of nfkb. it is a transcription factor of relevance to the initiation and progression of diseases. therefore, inhib it ion of n f kb a nd/ or it s endogenou s activators (see below) a re considered valuable targets for drug development. nf-kb was discovered in 1986 by ranjan sen and david baltimore. it is ubiquitous to all mammalian cells a nd exists in the cytopla sm. nf-kb is expressed constitutively and remains inactive when 2 mohan kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 01-05, 2022 bound to its inhibitory peptide, ikb. the list of activators of nf-kb is large and include biotic as well as abiotic factors such as viral antigens, freer a dic a ls ( f r s ) , c a r c inogens , en vir onment a l pollutants, alcohol, to name a few. in addition, a family of endogenous peptides known as tumor necrosis factors (tnfs), play a crucial role in the a c t iva t ion of n f kb. up on b ind ing t o it s a c tiva t or s, t n f p r omot es degr a da tion of its inhibitory peptide (ikb) resulting in the activation of n f-kb. t he a ctive nfkb then enter s the nucleus and binds to the response elements (re) of dna to promote transcription. in fact, active nfkb has potential to transcribe over 150 genes with a potential to deregulate cellular function. tumor necrosis factor t nf is a tr ansmembr a ne protein that pla ys a crucial role in the activation of nf-kb. it was first isolated in 1984 and identified as an endogenous t u mor r egr e s s ion f a c t or. t her ef or e, it wa s designated as a tumor necrosis factor. however, over the years, the tnf was identified as a proinflammatory cytokine (cell-signaling peptide) with an ability to initiate several inflammation-induced metabolic disorders upon binding to its elicitors. thus, tnf has a dual role in cell metabolism and often described as a ‘double-edged sword’. the loca liz ed a nd contr olled expr es sion of t n fmediated inflammatory reaction has therapeutic significance. however, its uncontrolled expression lea ds to chr onic infla mma tion a nd contr ibute toward metabolic disorders. for example, in cancer cells, tnf is expressed constitutively. tnf plays a crucial role in pathogenesis of several diseases and hence has attracted a greater research interest. several synthetic fda approved drugs as inhibitors of tnf are currently available. the tnf inhibitor drug industry is expected to reach 42.1 billion us $ in the year 2025. biochemical/molecular pathways modulated by the active tnf and nf-kb as described above, activation of tnf and nf-kb has potential to result in far-reaching consequences through their abilities in initiating transcriptions detrimental to the normal cellular function. such transcriptional changes are significant to derail cells from their norma l function by activa ting proinflammatory pathways. although localized and regulated inflammation is beneficial in containing the disea se pr ogr ession, chr onic infla mma tion contributes toward a number of diseases. in fact, most disea se na mes ending with suffix “ itis” ( b r onc hit is , hep a tit is , meningit is . . . ) s u gges t inflammatory origin (itis: inflammation). by inhibiting apoptosis (programmed cell death) and promoting angiogenesis (development of new blood vessels), nf-kb confirms immortality to abnormal cells. fa ctors that inhibit a poptosis pr omote proliferation of cells with undesirable function. nfkb also promotes development of new blood vessels (angiogenesis). among several factors that promote angiogenesis, vesicular endothelial growth factor (vegf) plays a major role in the development of blood vessels. developing tumor cells promote angiogenesis mediated by vegf. inhibition of angiogenesis is therefore desirable for containing tumor growth. to date, over 14 fda approved angiogenesis inhibitors are available. inhibition of tnf, nf-kb and associated cellular events by nutraceuticals from fruits, vegetables, and spices by their ability to inhibit activation of tnf and nfkb, nutraceuticals derived from fruits, vegetables, and spices modula te infla mma tion, a poptosis, a nd angiogenesis (fig. 2, 3). these molecular/biochemical events promote metabolic disorders such as cancer. a significant body of knowledge exits pertaining to the potential and mode of action of nutraceuticals in containing diseases such as prostate, breast, colon cancer and alzheimer’s disease. to date, information pertaining to the nutraceutical benefits of curcumin (turmeric), quercetin (onion), resveratrol (red grapes, peanut seed coat), sulforaphane (cole crops) and capsaicin (chilies) appear prominently (fig. 4abc and 5ab). it is evident from the published literature that studies on the nutr a ceutica l benefits of other horticultural crops are actively pursued. an interdisciplinary course covering the nutraceutical aspects of horticultural crops will be a very useful addition to the undergraduate or graduate curriculum. such a course deriving appropriate content from horticulture, biochemistry, molecular biology, food science, pharmacology, and human physiology will be valuable to advance awareness on the scientific basis for the health sustaining benefits of fruits, vegetables, and spices. 3 nutraceutical horticulture fi g. 1 . n um be r of p ub lic at io ns p er ta in in g to t he n ut ra ce ut ic al p hy to ch em ic al s of s el ec te d fr ui ts , v eg et ab le s an d sp ic es c ap ab le m od ul at in g in fla m m at io n, a po pt os is ( pr og ra m m ed c el l d ea th ) an d an gi og en es is b y th ei r ab ili ty t o in hi bi t ac tiv at io n of t n f (t um or n ec ro si s fa ct or ) an d n fkb (n uc le ar t ra ns cr ip tio n fa ct or ). so ur ce : n at io na l c en te r fo r b io te ch no lo gy i nf or m at io n, u sa . snotaclbupforeb mun j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 01-05, 2022 4 mohan kumar fig. 2. number of publications pertaining to the nutraceutical phytochemicals of selected fruits, vegetables, and spices capable of preventing or containing diseases such as prostate, breast and colon cancer and alzheimer’s disease through their ability to inhibit activation of tnf (tumor necrosis factor) and nf-kb (nuclear transcription factor). source: national center for biotechnology information, usa. fig. 3. nutraceutical components of selected fruits, vegetables, and spices capable of inhibiting nuclear transcription factor and tumor necrosis factor (nf-kb/tnf). the activation of tnf/nf-kb has negative effects on cellular function. s no ta cl bu pf or eb m un j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 01-05, 2022 5 fig. 4. simplified schematic presenting the mechanism of activation of tumor necrosis factor (tnf) and nuclear transcription factor (nf-kb). nutraceuticals derived from fruits, vegetables and spices play a role in the inhibition of nf-kb and suppress cellular processes (inflammation, angiogenesis, and apoptosis) that lead to metabolic disorders (bold faced tnf and nf-kb represent active forms). references anand, p., kunnumakkara, a.b., sundaram, c, harikumar, k.b., tharakan, s.t., lai, o.s., sung, b., aggarwal, b.b. 2008. cancer is a preventable disease that requires major lifestyle changes. pharm res, 25:2097-116. taniguchi, k., karin, m. 2018. nf-κb, inflammation, immunity and cancer: coming of age. nat rev immunol 18, 309–324. liu, t., zhang, l., joo, d., sun, s.c. 2017. nf-κb signaling in inflammation. sig transduct target ther 2, 17023 holbrook, j. lara-reyna, s., jarosz-griffiths, h., mcdermott, m. 2019. tumour necrosis factor signaling in health and disease. f1000res. 28: f1000 fa culty rev-111. doi:10. 12688/ f1000research. 17023.1. nutraceutical horticulture acknowledgement thanks to dr. ts channesh, director, center for public understanding of science (cpus), bangalore (https:/ /cfpus.org) for his constructive criticism. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 01-05, 2022 short communication studies on genetic variability in dolichos bean (lablab purpureus l.) n. mohan, t.s. aghora and m.a. wani division of vegetable crops icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru -560 089, india e-mail: nmohan@iihr.ernet.in abstract fifty seven pole-type vegetable dolichos bean [lablab purpureus (l.) sweet] germplasm lines were evaluated for genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance at the experimental farm of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, during 2010-12. gcv was comparatively high in days to 50% flowering, days to pod maturity, pod length, pod weight, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant and pod width. high heritability estimates were observed for number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant, pod weight, days to 50% flowering, pod length, days to pod maturity, pod width and number of pods per cluster. high genetic advance, along with relatively high heritability percent, was observed for number of pods per cluster and pod width. existence of wide variation along with high heritability and genetic advance for number of pods per cluster, pod length, pod width and pod yield per plant indicate that selection would be effective for these traits. among the accessions studied, iihr 177 was early for 50% flowering (43 days) and pod maturity (65 days). iihr 6 and iihr 11 had maximum pod length (16.5cm) and pod width (4.1cm), respectively. ten-pod weight was highest in iihr 7(122g), while the number of pods per plant was high in iihr 159 (91.0). maximum pod yield was seen in iihr 150 (576.9g per plant). these accessions having green, purple or creamy-white pods can be used in future breeding programmes. key words: dolichos bean, lablab purpureus, genetic variability dolichos bean (lablab purpureus l.), also known as lablab bean, is one of the important indigenous legumevegetables grown in india for its tender green pods, mature fresh green seeds, and dry seeds. dolichos bean is a rich source of protein, minerals, vitamins and fibre. india is one of the primary centers of origin and diversity of pole-type vegetable dolichos bean (lablab purpureus var. typicus). the present study was undertaken with an objective of assessing extent of genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance available in the 57 pole-type vegetable dolichos bean germplasm lines, since, such information would be useful for improvement in this crop. the experiment was carried out over two years (201012) during september february at the experimental farm of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. the crop was raised in two replications at 1.5m x 15cm spacing between rows and plants, respectively. recommended package of practices was followed. five plants were selected randomly from each accession and data were recorded for thirteen quantitative characters, viz., number of branches, stem thickness, internodal length, leaflet size, days to 50% flowering, days to pod maturity, pod length, pod width, pod weight, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant and number of seeds per pod. average values were arrived at from these five plants for each of the lines in both replications. data were subjected to analysis of variance to obtain information on variation among accessions (panse and sukhatme, 1984). variability for various quantitative characters, and expected genetic advance at 5% intensity of selection, were calculated as per burton (1952) and johnson et al (1955), respectively. results of analysis of variance are presented in table 1. mean sum of squares for various sources with respect to the 13 characters under study revealed that genotypic effects were highly significant for number of branches, internodal length, leaflet size, days to 50% flowering, days to pod maturity, pod length, pod weight, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant and number of seeds per pod, indicating available variability for the aforementioned characters among germplasm accessions studied. range of phenotypic variations was high for leaflet size, pod weight, number of pods per plant and pod yield per plant, indicating that these traits to respond positively for selecting desired types. existence of high variability for j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):82-85, 2014 83 genetic variability in dolichos bean various characters among dolichos bean accessions has also been reported earlier by baswana et al (1980), singh et al (1985), bendale et al (2004) and nahar and newaz (2005). estimates of genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) and phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) provide better comparison of characters regarding extent of genetic variation. genetic variability parameters, viz., genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation (gcv and pcv), heritability (h2) in the broad sense and genetic advance (ga) as percent over mean and range are given in table 2. gcv was comparatively high in days to 50% flowering, days to pod maturity, pod length, pod weight, number of pods per cluster, number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant and pod width indicating, that, these traits are less affected by environment and would respond positively to selection. maximum gcv values were recorded for number of pods per plant (49.47) and pod yield (45.79), suggesting a scope for improvement of these characters through selection. the magnitude of differences between gcv and pcv were found to be relatively narrow for internodal length, leaflet size, stem thickness and number of seeds per pod suggesting, that, the above traits are less affected by environment and selection for these traits based on phenotype would be effective. these results are in agreement with findings of selvi et al (2007). pcv was higher than gcv for number of branches, indicating influence of the environment over genotype, and, phenotypic selection for this trait would be less effective. similar results were obtained in chilli by sha et al (1986). heritability per cent (broad sense) indicates quantum of genotypic variance present among germplasm. heritability estimates give the best picture of the extent of advance to be expected by selection (sha et al, 1986; biradar et al, 2007). high heritability estimates were observed for number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant, pod weight, days to 50% flowering, pod length, days to pod maturity, pod width and number of pods per cluster. similar findings were reported by singh et al (1985) and ali et al (2005). among the above traits, heritability estimates for number of pods per plant, pod yield per plant and pod weight were 98 to 99%. heritability for the remaining traits fell in the range of 33 to 54%. genetic advance is the quantum of genetic gain expected during a selection process. high genetic advance, along with relatively high heritability per cent, was observed for number of pods per cluster and pod width, indicating that these traits are predominantly controlled by additive genes and, therefore, improvement in these characters can be achieved through selection (johnson et al, 1955; panse, 1957). high to moderate heritability together, with moderate table 1. analysis of variance for thirteen traits in dolichos germplasm sl. no. source of variance / replication genotypes error character degrees of freedom 1 57 57 1 number of branches 1.45 0.60** 0.30 2 stem thickness (cm) 2.79 0.82 0.82 3 inter nodal length (cm) 3.80 5.14** 1.14 4 leaflet size (cm2) 643.25 660.58** 147.14 5 days to 50% flowering 0.88 63.12** 72.13 6 days to pod maturity 29.00 114.89 47.98 7 pod length (cm) 264.61 17.01** 10.54 8 pod width (cm) 211.95 12.89 10.34 9 ten-pod weight (g) 452.06 634.90** 7.01 10 number of pods/ cluster 7.76 5.51** 0.85 11 number of pods/ plant 1.70 640.63** 2.69 12 pod yield/ plant (g) 6123.0 30796.46** 302.46 13 number of seeds/ pod 7.74 0.82** 0.31 **significant at 5% level table 2. range, mean, pcv, gcv, heritability and genetic advance for various quantitative characters in dolichos character range mean se gcv pcv heritability ga (% ) (%) (%) (% of mean) number of branches 2.0 – 4.5 3.1 0.39 12.63 17.87 33.33 12.06 stem thickness (cm) 0.6 – 1.3 0.98 0.08 13.24 12.13 54.00 13.62 internodal length (cm) 4.3 – 10.8 7.6 0.76 18.54 14.06 64.00 15.67 leaflet size (cm2) 65.3 – 153.8 112.8 8.58 14.20 10.75 64.00 14.14 days to 50% flowering 43.0 – 83.0 62.5 0.80 8.90 1.80 96.00 3.54 days to pod maturity 65.0 – 100.0 81.8 0.95 5.83 1.64 93.00 3.07 pod length (cm) 5.8 – 16.5 10.9 0.49 27.25 6.30 95.00 12.03 pod width (cm) 1.2 – 9.5 2.30 0.21 31.56 13.06 85.00 22.84 10-pod weight (g) 49.5 – 122.0 78.6 1.87 22.53 3.37 98.00 6.81 number of pods/ cluster 2.0 – 10.0 5.3 0.65 28.79 17.38 73.00 26.10 number of pods/ plant 10.0 – 91.0 36.1 1.16 49.47 4.54 99.00 9.26 pod yield/ plant (g) 69.5 – 576.9 269.7 12.30 45.79 6.44 98.00 13.03 number of seeds/ pod 3.5 – 6.0 4.9 0.39 10.29 11.27 45.00 10.41 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):82-85, 2014 84 genetic advance, was observed for internodal length, leaflet size, stem thickness, pod yield per plant and pod length suggesting, that, these traits are governed by both additive and non-additive gene action (ukkund et al, 2007). genetic improvement of the above characters would be effective only on a moderate scale. high heritability along with low genetic advance noticed for days to 50% flowering and days to pod maturity are attributable to non-additive gene action (vijayalakshmi et al, 1989). these traits can be improved through hybridization (frageria, 1997; kamruzzahan et al, 2000). number of pods per cluster and pod width recorded high gcv, h2 and ga indicating, that, these traits can be improved through phenotypic selection. both pod yield per plant and pod length showed high values for heritability, and moderate values for gcv and ga. selection for these traits would only be moderately effective. existence of a wide variation for various traits in the dolichos bean germplasm, along with high heritability and genetic advance for certain yield-related traits (namely, number of pods per cluster, pod length, pod width, pod yield per plant) indicate that selection would be effective for these traits. of the 57 accessions evaluated, accessions showing maximum values for pod yield and related traits as shown in table 3. five accessions were early (50% flowering 4355.5 days). iihr 177 was the earliest with 50% flowering in 43 days, followed by iihr 143 (53.5 days). similarly, for pod-maturity, iihr 177 was the earliest (65 days), followed by iihr 143 (73.5 days). pod length was highest in iihr 6 (16.5cm) and pod width in iihr 11 (4.1cm). ten-pod weight was maximum in iihr 7 (122g) and number of pods per plant was high in iihr 159 (91.0). maximum pod yield was seen in iihr 150 (576.9g per plant), followed by iihr 159 (576.2g). among accessions with maximum pod yield per plant, three had green pods (iihr157, iihr 177, iihr 159), one purple (iihr 149) and two had creamy white pods (iihr 150 and iihr 170). these elite accessions can be included in future breeding programmes. references ali, f.b., sikdar roy, a.k. and joarder, o.i. 2005. correlation and genetic variation of twenty different genotypes of lablab bean, lablab perpureus (l.) sweet. bangladesh j. bot., 34:125-128 baswana, k.s., pandita, m.l., dhankhar, b.s. and partap, p.s. 1980. genetic variability and heritability studies on indian bean (dolichos lablab var. lignosus l). haryana. j. hort. sci., 9:52-55 bendale, v.w., topare, s.s., bhave, s.g., mehta, j.k. and madav, r.r. 2004. genetic analysis of yield and yield components in lablab bean [lablab purpureus (l.) sweet]. orissa j. hort., 32:99-101 biradar, k.s., salimath, p.m. and ravikumar, r.l. 2007. genetic variability for seedling vigour, yield and yield components in local germplasm collections of green gram [vigna radiata (l.) wilczek]. karnataka j. agric. sci., 20:608-609 burton, g.w. 1952. quantitative inheritance in grasses. proceedings of the 6th grassland congress, 1:277285 frageria, m.s. and kokli, u.k. 1997. correlation studies in tomato. haryana j. hort. sci., 25:158-160 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimate of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:314-318 kamruzzahan, m.m., hossain, i. and alam, m.f. 2000. variability and correlation studies in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) bangladesh j. genet. biotech., 1:21-26 nahar, k. and newaz, m.a. 2005. genetic variability, character association and path analysis in lablab bean (lablab purpureus l.). int’l. j. sustainble agril. tech., 1:35-40 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1984 in: statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi, pp, 347 panse, v.g. 1957. genetics of quantitative characters in table 3. mean data of elite dolichos germplasm accessions showing maximum values for pod traits and yield days to 50% days to mean pod pod width 10-pod no. of pods yield per pod colour flowering pod maturity length (cm) (cm) weight (g) per plant plant (g) green purple creamy white iihr 177 (43.0) iihr177 (65.0) iihr 6 (16.5) iihr 11 (4.1) iihr 7 (122.0) iihr159 (91.0) iihr 150 (576.90) iihr 157 iihr 149 iihr 150 iihr 143(53.5) iihr143 (73.5) iihr 10 (16.0) iihr 160 (4.0) iihr 10 (112.0) iihr170 (82.5) iihr 159 (576.20) iihr 177 iihr 170 iihr 9 (54.0) iihr 9 (74.5) iihr154 (16.0) iihr 1 (3.9) iihr 11 (111.0) iihr176 (76.5) iihr 177 (535.00) iihr 159 iihr 16 ( 54.5) iihr 16 ( 75.0) iihr155 (16.0) iihr 17 (3.8) iihr 174 (111.0) iihr177 (75.0) iihr 157 (515.20) iihr 19 (55.5) iihr 19 (75.0) iihr174 (15.8) iihr 8 (3.7) iihr 155 (109.5) iihr142 (73.5) iihr 170 (501.00) iihr163 (15.5) iihr 149 (380.50) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):82-85, 2014 mohan et al 85 relation to plant breeding. indian j. genet. pl. breed., 17:318-28 selvi, b.s., ponnuswami, v. and sumathi, t. 2007. genetic variability studies in gamma ray induced amla (emblica officinalis gaertn.) grafts. j. applied sci. res., 3:1929-1932 sha, a., lal, s.d. and panth, c.c. 1986. variability studies in chilli. prog. hort., 18:270-272 singh, a.k., geeutam, n.c. and singh, k. 1985. genetic variability and correlation studies in bean (lablab purpureus). indian j. hort., 42:252-257 ukkund, k.c., madalageri, m.b., patil, m.p., mulage, r. and kotlkal, y.k. 2007. variability studies in green chilli (capsicum annuum l.) karnataka j. agril. sci., 20:102-104 vijayalakshmi, y., rao, m.r. and reddy, e.n. 1989. genetic variability in some quantitative characters in chilli. indian cocoa arec. spices j., 1:84-86 (ms received 05 august 2013, revised 22 may 2014, accepted 11 june 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):82-85, 2014 genetic variability in dolichos bean cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) is native to south america (mitchell and mori, 1987) and was introduced into india during the 16th century by the portuguese (johnson, 1973). it is now an important commercialplantation crop in india, grown mainly along the east coast (tamil nadu, andhra pradesh, orissa and west bengal), west coast (kerala, karnataka, maharashtra and goa) and the north-eastern region (meghalaya, manipur, assam, tripura and nagaland). it is widely grown in asia, africa and south america. its kernel is highly nutritive (jain et al, 1954; morton, 1961; joseph, 1975) containing about 21% protein, 22% carbohydrates and 41% fats. production of quality planting material is of utmost important for which the seedlings need to be healthy, free from diseases and pests, and the seed should contain sufficient amount of auxin for good germination, rendering them ideal for softwood grafting. owing to its significant contribution to the national economy, there is a huge demand for quality planting material both for area expansion and replacement of old and unproductive orchards. huballi (2009) reported a requirement of about 1.25 crore grafts to cover nearly 50,000 hectares, on annual basis. therefore, to meet an increasing demand, there is a need to produce quality planting material at a rapid rate. cashew seed is recalcitrant by nature, and year round production of healthy planting material is difficult, as, viability of the seed deteriorates rapidly upon storage short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):245-249, 2015 effect of panchagavya and ga3 on germination and seedling growth in cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) l.s. singh, a. pariari1 and gopal shukla2 central plantation crops research institute research centre, kahikuchi, guwahati 781 017, india e-mail: singhleichombam@gmail.com abstract an experiment consisting of three sowing periods (march-may, june-august and september-november) and seven pre-sowing treatments was undertaken to study the effect of these factors on seed germination and initial seedling growth in cashew. seeds sowing during june august gave significantly better germination and initial seedling growth. however, maximum germination percentage, maximal seedling growth and minimum days to germination were observed with ga3 200ppm during all three sowing periods compared to that in other treatments. as for panchagavya, @ 10% and 20%, was found to be beneficial in treated seeds. all the growth parameters studied were also superior with ga3 application, excepting root growth. best root growth was recorded with panchagavya at 20%. key words: cashew, anacardium occidentale l., ga3, germination, growth, panchagavya (aravindakshan and gopi kumar, 1979; mandal, 2000). to facilitate its germination, the seed must be provided favourable environmental conditions such as adequate moisture supply, appropriate gaseous balance and optimum light. it is necessary to enhance germination while maintaining uniformity of seedlings. with this in view, the present study was undertaken to standardize period of sowing and pre-sowing treatment for optimum germination and good growth in cashew seedlings. the experiment was conducted over two consecutive years (2009 and 2010), at horticultural research station (hrs), mondouri, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia, west bengal. the experimental site is located at 23ºn latitude and 80ºe longitude, at an elevation of 9.75 meters above mean sea level, with the sub-tropical climate of the region providing average annual rainfall of 154.7cm from the south-west monsoon. freshly-harvested seeds of cashew were used for june-august sowing, whereas, stored seeds were used during march–may (9 months) and september–november (4 months) for sowing. seeds were selected based on sinker and floater method, i.e., seeds that sank in water alone were considered for sowing. a hundred seeds were sown per treatment in polythene bags (size 26cm x 17cm) filled with fym, sand and soil in 1:1:1 ratio for germination. seeds 1department of spices and plantation crops, faculty of horticulture, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalya, mohanpur 741 252, nadia, west bengal, 2department of forestry, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, pundibari-736 165 (cooch behar) west bengal 246 that produced 5mm or longer radicals were taken as germinated. growth parameters such as seedling height, collar diameter, number of leaves, shoot and root dry weight, were recorded at 60 days after germination. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design, with seven treatments and three replications. seeds were sown during the first week each of march, june and september for the three sowing periods (march-may, june-august and september-november). details of treatments are: 5% panchagavya (t 1), 10% panchagavya (t 2), 20% panchagavya (t3), ga3 50ppm (t4), ga3 100ppm (t5), ga3 200ppm (t6), and no treatment, i.e., control (t7). seeds were soaked in these solutions for three hours. panchagavya was prepared by mixing cow dung (2.5kg), cow urine (1.5 litre), ghee i.e. clarified butter (500g), cow milk (1 litre), curd (1 litre) and jaggery (500g). cow dung, cow urine and ghee were mixed in a plastic bucket and stirred continuously for a week to remove methane gas. then, cow milk, curd and jaggery were added and the mixture stirred and kept aside for a week. the extracts were weighed and diluted in water to prepare 5%, 10% and 20% panchagavya solution. data were statistically analyzed as per gomez and gomez (1984). from seeds sown during three different periods during a year, it was found that june august was best, yielding the highest germination in a very short time, whereas, march may was not suitable, as, it resulted in the lowest germination rate (table 1). seed germination and growth of cashew seedlings were significantly influenced by presowing treatment (table 1). pre-sowing treatment with ga3 at 200ppm gave 100% germination within 8.5 days, followed by ga3 at 100ppm (99% germination in 9 days). lowest germination (90% in 13.5 days) was recorded in control during june august sowing. sowing period september november also gave germination rates similar to the presowing treatment of june august. results on sowing period confirm that cashew sown during two seasons (march-may and september-november) in west bengal produces better germination, without substantial deterioration to the crop. this may also be due to the prevalent favourable climatic conditions and high viability retained in a fresh seed during this period. pre-sowing treatment also gave uniform and quick germination. similar effect with ga3 treatment has been reported (furuta, 1961). it is likely that this treatment removes the waxy layer of the pericarp, thereby facilitating better germination (harris et al, 1994). three panchagavya treatments were also tried and similar effects were recorded on germination in june – august sowing, whereas, lowest values were recorded in march – may sowing. during september – november sowing, germination percentage ranged from 62% to 83%. maximum germination percentage was recorded with ga3 200ppm (fig. 1). beneficial effect of treatment of seeds with panchagavya on germination has also been reported by pathak and ram (2004). table 1. effect of pre-sowing treatment on germination and number of days to germination in cashew seed march may june august september november treatment germination days taken to germination days taken to germination days taken to (%) germination (%) germination (%) germination panchagavya 5% 38.0 (38.06) 17.50 95.0 (77.08) 13.00 66.0 (54.33) 14.50 panchagavya 10% 51.0 (45.57) 16.00 97.0 (80.02) 10.00 74.0 (59.34) 11.50 panchagavya 20% 54.0 (47.29) 15.00 96.0 (78.46) 12.50 70.0 (56.79) 13.50 ga3 50ppm 47.0 (43.28) 16.50 92.0 (73.57) 11.50 67.0 (54.94) 14.00 ga3 100ppm 52.0 (46.15) 15.00 99.0 (84.26) 9.00 76.0 (60.67) 11.00 ga3 200ppm 61.0 (51.35) 13.50 100.0 (90.00) 8.50 83.0 (65.65) 9.00 control 31.0 (33.83) 18.00 90.0 (71.56) 13.50 62.0 (51.94) 14.50 figures in parentheses are logarithmic transformed values fig. 1. cashew seedlings treated with ga3 200ppm during june – august sowing singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):245-249, 2015 247 effect of pre-sowing treatment on initial seedlinggrowth in cashew is presented in table 2. initial seedlinggrowth showed similar trends in germination, and sowing during june august recorded better growth, followed by september – november. the least growth was recorded in march may sowing. seeds pre-soaked in ga3 200ppm recorded maximum plant height, collar diameter and number of leaves, while, the least plant height, collar diameter and number of leaves were recorded in control in all three periods of sowing. this may be due to early and uniform germination supported by ga3, hastening initiation of shoot growth, thus leading to better seedling height. further, application of ga3 may have also helped increase cell division, leading to better initial shoot-growth. similar results were reported by walase et al (2007) and shanmugavelu (1963; 1970). all the three treatments with panchagavya gave better seedling growth during june august sowing, with the highest seedling height, collar diameter and number of leaves, followed by september november sowing. the lowest values were recorded in march – may sowing. yelleshkumar et al (2008) reported that seeds treated with 3% panchagavya were superior in sprout height, seedling diameter, number of sprouts and number of leaves in mango. leaf area, root length and root:shoot ratio were highest when sowing was done during june – august; all the parameters studied were lowest in march may sowing (table 3). pre-sowing treatment also influenced leaf area, root growth and root:shoot ratio. maximum leaf area (37.75cm2) and root:shoot ratio (1.46) was recorded in ga3 treatment in sowing during june august, while, maximum root growth was recorded in 10% panchagavya. lowest values were associated with ga3 50ppm and 5% panchagavya. root growth was unaffected, as, pre-treated seeds in all the sowings gave similar root growth. it is very interesting to note that application of panchagavya produced better root growth irrespective of sowing time. according to solaiappan (2002), panchagavya has beneficial microorganisms like azospirillum, azotobacter, phosphobacteria and lactobacillus, which may be the reason for good root growth. the present findings are in conformity with yabuta and hayashi (1939) and sumiki (1952). fresh and dry root and shoot weights are presented in table 4. similar trends were observed in june august sowing, which showed maximum fresh and dry root and shoot weights, while, lowest values were recorded in march – may sowing. seeds treated with ga3 200ppm produced higher shoot growth and weight in the three different sowing table 2. effect of pre-sowing treatment on initial seedling growth in cashew treatment march may june august september november plant seedling no. of plant seedling no. of plant seedling no. of height diameter leaves height diameter leaves height diameter leaves (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) panchagavya 5% 18.10 0.74 9.48 22.92 0.88 11.03 22.71 0.85 11.17 panchagavya 10% 19.01 0.77 9.64 24.31 0.96 12.20 22.80 0.90 11.38 panchagavya 20% 21.07 0.88 10.56 24.73 1.05 12.55 23.82 0.91 11.94 ga3 50ppm 18.38 0.76 9.40 23.06 0.92 11.67 22.65 0.86 11.35 ga3 100ppm 20.99 0.86 10.59 25.18 1.05 12.67 24.36 1.02 12.23 ga3 200ppm 23.15 1.00 11.64 27.25 1.15 13.91 26.05 1.03 13.12 control 17.93 0.70 8.83 22.62 0.82 10.83 21.82 0.82 10.98 s.em. (±) 0.37 0.03 0.25 0.43 0.04 0.17 0.45 0.03 0.30 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.14 0.09 0.75 1.30 0.12 0.52 1.35 0.11 0.90 table 3. effect of pre-sowing treatment on seedling growth of cashew treatment march may june august september november leaf area root shoot: leaf root shoot: leaf root shoot: (cm2) length root area length root area length root (cm) length (cm2) (cm) length (cm2) (cm) length panchagavya 5% 27.27 14.61 1.22 27.75 17.80 1.28 29.31 17.62 1.28 panchagavya 10% 31.01 13.88 1.30 31.84 19.22 1.27 26.96 17.56 1.32 panchagavya 20% 25.56 15.65 1.34 34.69 18.68 1.32 31.76 18.66 1.27 ga3 50ppm 26.19 14.35 1.27 26.58 17.80 1.32 24.36 16.58 1.36 ga3 100ppm 26.01 14.82 1.40 35.06 17.81 1.42 35.41 17.23 1.41 ga3 200ppm 31.24 15.55 1.48 37.75 18.59 1.46 32.62 17.47 1.48 control 23.52 14.79 1.28 28.28 18.57 1.21 28.86 16.40 1.32 s.em. (±) 0.77 0.36 0.03 1.38 0.25 0.03 1.26 0.43 0.01 c.d. (p=0.05) 2.34 1.10 0.10 4.21 0.76 0.09 3.82 1.31 0.05 effect of panchagavya and ga3 application in cashew j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):245-249, 2015 248 periods. this could be related to broader leaves, thereby enhanced photosynthetic activity and accumulation of nutrients in the leaf tissues. this, in turn, may have helped improve shoot growth and dry biomass. it may be concluded from the present study that sowing cashew during june -august or september november was better for germination rate and initial seedling growth. treatment with ga3 200ppm was the most effective for germination and better initial seedling growth in cashew during the three different sowing periods. however, ga3 may not be a suitable option to a farmer due to its high price and problem with availability. therefore, pre-sowing treatment with the farmer-friendly panchagavya (20%) can be adopted due to its easy availability and economic viability. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to university grants commission (ugc), new delhi, for providing financial assistance through rajiv gandhi national fellowship, and to dr. mini poduval, reader (research) and officer-incharge, aicrp on cashew, regional research station (rrs), jhargram, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia, west bengal, for providing necessary facilities and for the co-operation extended during the investigation. references aravindakshan, m. and gopikumar, k. 1979. seed viability in cashew. cashew bulletin, 16:6-7 furuta, t. 1961. influence of gibberellins on germination of seeds. amer. camellia yearbook,pp. 141-145 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedure for agricultural research (2nd ed.), table 4. effect of pre-sowing treatment on fresh and dry shoot and root weight of cashew seedling treatment march may june august september november shoot shoot root root shoot shoot root root shoot shoot root root fresh dry fresh dry fresh dry fresh dry fresh dry fresh dry wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) wt. (g) panchagavya 5% 3.70 0.77 1.06 0.15 6.76 1.47 1.72 0.44 5.61 1.05 1.67 0.45 panchagavya 10% 4.38 0.91 1.24 0.21 6.95 1.57 1.97 0.65 6.06 1.13 1.75 0.43 panchagavya 20% 5.16 1.04 1.45 0.33 7.41 1.72 1.88 0.59 6.09 1.18 1.78 0.60 ga3 50ppm 4.02 0.77 1.13 0.13 6.45 1.48 1.66 0.42 5.11 0.96 1.39 0.24 ga3 100ppm 5.20 1.07 1.24 0.21 7.73 1.97 1.70 0.41 6.46 1.50 1.53 0.30 ga3 200ppm 5.72 1.20 1.30 0.23 8.11 2.01 1.86 0.58 7.29 1.81 1.58 0.26 control 3.83 0.74 1.26 0.21 6.19 1.52 1.81 0.57 4.91 0.92 1.40 0.25 s.em. (±) 0.30 0.10 0.05 0.02 0.49 0.10 0.02 0.01 0.51 0.22 0.07 0.07 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.01 0.34 0.16 0.08 1.46 0.29 0.07 0.07 1.56 0.61 0.20 0.22 interscience publication, johan wily and sons, new york, pp. 20-30 harris, c.v., pandian, i.r.s. and thangavelu, s. 1994. pretreatment of cashew seeds to improve germination. south indian hort., 42:121-122 huballi, v.n. 2009. cashew in india. proceedings of cashew field day, february 20, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, jhargram, paschim midnapur, west bengal, pp. 8-14 jain, n.l., das, d.p. and lal, g. 1958. utilization of cashew apples. procs. of the symposium on fruit and vegetable preservation industry in india, cftri, mysore, pp.75-80 johnson, d. 1973. the botany, origin, spread of cashew (anacardium occidentale l.). j. pl. crops, 1:1-7 joseph, k.t. 1975. cashew nut: a valuable nutritive food product. indian cashew j., 10:5-6 mandal, r.c. 2000. cashew production and processing technology. agrobios (india) publishers, ludhiana, pp. 22-31 mitchell, j.d. and mori, s.a. 1987. the cashew and its relatives ( anacardium occidentale l.), anacardiaceae. memoirs of the new york bot. gardens, 42:1-76 morton, j.f. 1961. the cashew’s brighter future. econ. bot., 15:57-78 pathak, r.k. and ram, r.a. 2004. manual on vedic krishi. central institute for subtropical horticulture, rehmankhera, lucknow, pp. 1-38 shanmugavelu, k.g. 1963. studies on the effect of plant growth regulators on some forest plant species. ph.d. thesis, annamalai univ., tamil nadu, india shanmugavelu, k.g. 1970. effect of gibberellic acid on seed germination and development of seedlings of some tree plant species. madras agril. j., 55: 311-314 solaiappan, a.r. 2002. microbiological studies in singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):245-249, 2015 249 panchagavya. bio-control laboratory o f f i c i a l communication, chengalpet, tamil nadu, india sumiki, y. 1952. biochemistry of the bakane fungus. xxv. the physiological action of gibberellins. j. agril. chem. soc. (japan), 26:393-397 walase, s.r., ghawade, d.m., panchbhai and dod, v.n. 2007. effect of ga3 and chemicals on seed germination and seedling growth of aonla. souvenir and abstracts, second indian horticulture congress, april 18-21, icar complex for north eastern region (ner), barapani, meghalaya, india, pp. 138 yabuta, j. and hayashi, t. 1939. biochemical studies bakane fungus of the rice. iii. physiological action of gibberellins on the plants. j. agril. chem. soc. (japan), 15:403-413 yelleshkumar, h.s., swamy, g.s.k., patil, c.p., kanamadi, v.c. and kumar, p. 2008. effect of pre-soaking treatments on the success of soft-wood grafting and growth of mango grafts. karnataka j. agril. sci., 21:471-472 (ms received 02 september 2013, revised 30 june 2015, accepted 29 august 2015) effect of panchagavya and ga3 application in cashew j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):245-249, 2015 genotypic variability in tomato for total carotenoids and lycopene content during summer and response to post harvest temperature k.s. shivashankara, k.c. pavithra, r.h. laxman, a.t. sadashiva1 and m. george christopher1 division of plant physiology and biochemistry icar indian institute of horticultural research bengaluru – 560 089, india e-mail: shiva@iihr.ernet.in abstract lycopene is the major carotenoid responsible for fruit colour in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). however, colour of the fruit is greatly affected by high temperature prevailing during fruit growth in the summer crop. to select a genotype suitable for summer conditions that can maintain colour better, a set of 52 tomato genotypes were evaluated for lycopene, total carotenoids and for tss during summer in bengaluru. among the genotypes screened, iihr 2892 recorded very high lycopene content (328.4mg/100g dry weight) and iihr 2866 recorded very low lycopene content (25.2mg/100g dry weight). tss values ranged from 2.6obrix in cv. vybhav to 7.0o brix in iihr 2866. in addition, study was carried out to determine the effect of postharvest temperature on biosynthesis of lycopene in five selected tomato cultivars (arka rakshak, arka samrat, arka ananya, lakshmi and abhinava). tomatoes harvested at breaker stage were stored at 27o c, 35o c and 40o c for ripening. high temperature reduced lycopene content in tomato fruits. lycopene synthesis in fruits was completely inhibited above 35oc. in this study, mean lycopene content in tomatoes stored at 27o c was 3-4 times higher than that in tomatoes stored at 40o c. this indicates that in tomatoes, temperature at which the fruits are stored after harvest, is a more important factor for colour development. key words: tomato, temperature, total carotenoids, lycopene, total soluble solids (tss) 1division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru-560 089, karnataka, india tomato is one of the widely consumed vegetables in the world. it is rich in compounds beneficial to health, like vitamins, carotenoids, lycopene and phenolic compounds (palop et al, 2010; kaur et al, 2013). lycopene is a potent antioxidant and is thought to be responsible protect cells against oxidative damage, thereby lowering the risk of chronic diseases (rao and agarwal, 1999). in addition to its antioxidant properties, lycopene has also been shown to induce cell to cell communication and to modulate hormone/ immune systems and other metabolic pathways, which may also confer beneficial effects (rao et al, 1998). lycopene, a fat soluble carotenoid, is a precursor of β-carotene and has at least twice as much antioxidant capacity as β-carotene (davis et al, 2003). tomato and its products are a major source of lycopene, and contribute significantly to carotenoid intake in humans. however, processing and storage conditions of tomato may cause lycopene degradation (nguyen and schwartz, 1999). isomerization and oxidation are important reactions causing lycopene degradation. the first stage of degradation is a reversible isomerization of all trans-lycopene to the less colored, more oxidizable cis isomer. environmental factors such as oxygen, light and temperature may be very important in isomerization and autoxidation of lycopene in tomato products. tomatoes are dried mostly at high temperatures in the presence of oxygen; dried tomato products (e.g., tomato halves, slices, quarters and powders) show highest sensitivity to oxidation (demiray et al, 2013). apart from processing and storage conditions, growth environment also influences development of lycopene in tomatoes. high-altitude cultivars had higher lycopene content than cultivars of the plains (chandra et al, 2012), mainly due to the low growth temperature in the high altitude regions. lycopene content is also affected by solar radiation and high temperature in the plains sometimes results in yellow colour of the fruit rather than red (chandra et al, 2012). short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):98-102, 2014 99 genotypic variability in tomato for total carotenoids and lycopene temperature has a significant influence on growth and development of tomato fruits (ploeg and heuvelink, 2005). temperatures below 12o c and above 32o c strongly inhibit lycopene biosynthesis (collins et al, 2006; javanmardi and kubota, 2006; raffo et al, 2006; helyes et al, 2007). high temperatures (35o c) specifically inhibit accumulation of lycopene due to stimulation of conversion of lycopene into β-carotene (krumbein et al, 2006). growth season and location are highly significant factors affecting lycopene concentration in tomatoes. temperatures greater than 30o c lead to inhibition of lycopene synthesis in normal, red cultivars of tomato; when the temperature is lower than 30o c, lycopene synthesis is restored. such effects of temperature are dependent on cultivar (garcia and barrett, 2006). shi and maguer (2000) reported that relatively high temperatures (38o c) inhibited lycopene production, while, low temperatures inhibited both fruit ripening and lycopene production. in this study, variation in lycopene content in 52 genotypes and the effect of postharvest temperature on lycopene biosynthesis in five cultivars was studied. genotypes showing diversity in fruit colour were selected for assessing the variability during summer cultivation. commercial cultivars with red coloured fruits were selected for postharvest temperature experiments, since, these are harvested at the breaker stage, and, full colour-development occurs only after harvest. the experiment was carried out at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, during summer of 2012. bengaluru is located at 13o58’ n latitude, 78o e longitude and 890m above mean sea level. uniformly ripe healthy fruits, at the red ripe stage were harvested and used in the analysis. fruits were homogenized in a blender. total carotenoids and lycopene content was estimated by spectrophotometric method (lichtenthaler, 1987). total carotenoids and lycopene were estimated by extracting five grams of the homogenized tomato sample with acetone and calcium carbonate. extraction was repeated till the residue turned white. all the extractions were carried out under low-light conditions. carotenoids were partitioned to hexane, dried with sodium sulphate and absorbance was read at 470nm and 503nm using a spectrophotometer (t80+ uv/ vis spectrophotometer, pg instruments ltd.). results were expressed as mg per 100g dry weight, using standards. total soluble solids were measured using a digital refractometer (arko india ltd., model dg-nxt) and expressed as obrix. data were subjected to analysis of variance using anova, and means were compared, with critical difference at p≤0.05. significant differences were observed for lycopene and total carotenoid content among the genotypes used (table 2). lycopene content ranged from 25.2mg/100g dry weight in iihr 2866, to 328.4mg/100g dry weight in iihr 2892. total carotenoid content also exhibited a similar trend. the range of lycopene content in the genotypes was found to be significantly higher than the range reported earlier by several workers for tomato cultivars (kerkhofs et al, 2005; toor and savage, 2005; adalid et al, 2010; kotikova et al, 2011). significant differences in tss were observed among genotypes. tss ranged from 2.6o brix in cv. vybhav, to 7.0o brix in iihr 2866. tss is a key determinant of quality in the crop, whether for use as fresh produce or for processing. further, tss also contributes strongly to tomato flavor and consistency (kaur et al, 2013). tss range observed in the genotypes was found to be significantly higher than the range reported by workers earlier for tomato cultivars (george et al, 2004; javanmardi and kubota, 2006; rai et al, 2012). based on lycopene content, the tomato table 1. tomato genotypes used in the study with date of harvest and mean maximum and minimum temperatures during fruit growth period tomato genotypes date of temperature during harvest fruit growth period avg. max. avg. min. iihr 2195, iihr 2197, iihr 2199, iihr 2200, iihr 2201, iihr 2202, iihr 2852 27/06/2012 31.9oc 16.4oc iihr 2853, iihr 2854, iihr 2855, iihr 2856 28/06/2012 31.9oc 16.5oc iihr 2858, iihr 2859, iihr 2860, iihr 2861, iihr 2862 29/06/2012 31.9oc 16.5oc vybhav, nandi, arka rakshak, arka samrat, arka ananya, lakshmi, us 3140, 06/07/2012 31.3oc 17.6oc us 3380, abhinava, iihr 2891, iihr 2890, iihr 2889 iihr 2886, iihr 2887, iihr 2884, iihr 2835, iihr 2834, iihr 2888, iihr 2857, 07/07/2012 31.3oc 17.6oc iihr 2863, iihr 2864, iihr 2865, iihr 2866, iihr 2406, iihr 2408, iihr 2412, iihr 2413, iihr 2417, iihr 2321, iihr 2876, iihr 2827, iihr 2622, iihr 2828, iihr 2657, iihr 2885, iihr 2892 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):98-102, 2014 100 table 2. variation in total carotenoids, lycopene content and tss of 52 tomato genotypes cultivated during summer of 2012 tomato total lycopene tss genotype carotenoids (mg/100g dry (o brix) (mg/100g dry weight) weight) iihr 2892 529.2 328.4 4.4 iihr 2876 505.5 319.1 4.3 iihr 2890 482.8 302.4 3.3 abhinava 466.3 286.5 3.8 iihr 2889 454.9 284.3 3.5 vybhav 454.4 283.8 2.6 iihr 2828 424.6 264.7 4.1 iihr 2861 418.2 263.0 4.3 iihr 2417 392.2 249.6 5.2 iihr 2321 389.9 235.3 4.7 iihr 2827 363.7 230.7 3.3 iihr 2860 367.8 223.7 5.7 iihr 2657 358.1 222.5 5.1 us 3380 355.9 218.0 3.2 lakshmi 346.5 211.0 3.6 iihr 2858 346.4 204.7 5.3 iihr 2891 329.3 203.9 4.3 nandi 335.6 199.4 3.2 iihr 2412 316.9 193.5 4.1 iihr 2888 308.7 189.1 4.3 iihr 2408 304.2 187.7 3.1 us 3140 315.4 186.7 2.9 iihr 2622 298.3 178.8 4.6 iihr 2884 287.5 178.4 4.6 iihr 2413 281.1 178.0 6.0 iihr 2835 284.5 171.3 5.3 iihr 2886 276.9 168.8 4.2 iihr 2887 260.3 165.9 4.5 arka samrat 258.0 158.1 4.2 iihr 2854 259.5 155.5 4.7 arka rakshak 252.5 151.6 3.2 iihr 2857 265.3 151.5 5.5 iihr 2853 246.4 149.9 4.8 iihr 2885 244.2 148.2 4.1 arka ananya 243.9 145.5 4.1 iihr 2834 225.0 133.3 3.9 iihr 2862 225.0 131.9 5.6 iihr 2195 229.4 130.5 4.5 iihr 2863 199.2 118.7 5.8 iihr 2855 201.8 114.9 3.9 iihr 2197 198.2 111.5 4.9 iihr 2859 173.2 100.7 5.1 iihr 2856 160.3 96.3 4.5 iihr 2201 156.7 85.7 4.9 iihr 2202 148.7 81.8 5.1 iihr 2199 137.7 78.1 5.4 iihr 2200 128.6 71.4 5.5 iihr 2852 126.3 69.3 5.1 iihr 2406 146.4 52.1 4.9 iihr 2865 140.2 45.3 3.5 iihr 2864 141.4 44.7 4.5 iihr 2866 98.2 25.2 7.0 mean 285.8 170.8 4.5 cd (p=0.05) 25.2 17.1 0.2 genotypes were divided into six groups (table 3). in the highest (>300mg/100g dw) and lowest (<50mg/100g dw) lycopene content groups, only three genotypes each were present. a majority of the genotypes fell in the group 100-200mg/100g dw lycopene content. results on the effect of postharvest temperature on lycopene biosynthesis in five tomato cultivars, viz., arka rakshak, arka samrat, arka ananya, lakshmi and abhinava, indicated significant difference for total carotenoids and lycopene content (table 4). at 27oc, all genotypes recorded highest total carotenoids and lycopene. with increase in temperature, total carotenoids and lycopene content decreased in all the genotypes. arka rakshak showed highest reduction in total carotenoids and lycopene content. arka ananya, followed by arka samrat, recorded lower reduction in total carotenoids and lycopene content. ‘lakshmi’ and ‘abhinava’ exhibited higher total carotenoids and lycopene at all the temperatures, compared to the other genotypes. mean lycopene content of tomatoes stored at 27oc was 3-4 times higher than that at 40oc. better lycopene content was recorded in cv. abhinava at 35oc, and in cv. lakshmi at 40oc. toor and savage (2006) reported that storage at lower temperatures (7oc) inhibited accumulation of lycopene in tomatoes, whereas, lycopene level in light-red tomatoes increased upto 3-fold at a storage temperature of 15-25oc. farneti et al (2012) concluded that storage of tomatoes at temperatures below 12oc induced lycopene degradation. effect of high temperature (above 30oc) on lycopene content was reported to be cultivar-specific (garcia and barrett, 2006). shi and maguer (2000) reported that relatively high temperatures (38oc) inhibited lycopene production. similar inhibition was also observed in this study at 40oc. further, results indicated that irrespective of the field temperature experienced, colour development in tomato was largely controlled by storage temperature in fruits harvested at the breaker stage. total carotenoids (r = -0.9106) and lycopene (r = -0.9143) were seen to be strongly and negatively correlated with temperature in this experiment. such strong relationship at the post-harvest stage indicates the importance of ripening temperature for colour development in tomato. a wide variation exists for lycopene content among tomato genotypes. iihr 2892 was found to be superior in terms of lycopene content compared to other genotypes. results show that post-harvest environmental conditions showed be considered carefully for development of good colour in tomato fruit. variation in lycopene content in tomato is controlled by both genetic and environmental conditions (like temperature and light). this study confirms that tomatoes contain significant amounts of lycopene which may vary with post harvest shivashankara et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):98-102, 2014 101 temperature conditions. storage at temperatures of 35o and 40o c inhibits accumulation of lycopene in tomatoes significantly, whereas, at 27p c, lycopene content increases. acknowledgement the authors acknowledge financial assistance from nicra project for carrying out the study. they are also thankful to director, iihr, for providing facilities. references adalid, a.m., rosello, s. and nuez, f. 2010. evaluation and selection of tomato accessions (solanum section lycopersicon) for content of lycopene, β-carotene and ascorbic acid. j. food comp. anal., 23:613618 chandra, h.m., shanmugaraj, b.m., srinivasan, b. and ramalingam, s. 2012. influence of genotypic variations on antioxidant properties in different fractions of tomato. j. food sci., 77:1174-1178 collins, j.k., perkins-veazie, p. and roberts, w. 2006. lycopene: from plants to humans. hort. sci., 41:1135-1144 davis, a.r., fish, w.w. and perkins-veazie, p. 2003. a rapid spectrophotometric method for analyzing lycopene content in tomato and tomato products. postharvest biol. tech., 28:425-430 demiray, e., tulek, y. and yilmaz, y. 2013. degradation kinetics of lycopene, â-carotene and ascorbic acid in tomatoes during hot air drying. food sci. tech., 50:172-176 farneti, b., schouten, r.e. and woltering, e.j. 2012. low temperature-induced lycopene degradation in red ripe tomato evaluated by remittance spectroscopy. postharvest biol. tech., 73:22-27 garcia, e. and barrett, d.m. 2006. assessing lycopene content in california processing tomatoes. j. food proc. pres., 30:56-70 george, b., kaur, c., khurdiya, d.s. and kapoor, h.c. 2004. antioxidants in tomato (lycopersicum esculentum) as a function of genotype. food chem., 84:45-51 helyes, l., lugasi, a. and pék, z. 2007. effect of natural light on surface temperature and lycopene content of vine ripened tomato fruit. can. j. pl. sci., 87:927929 javanmardi, j. and kubota, c. 2006. variation of lycopene, antioxidant activity, total soluble solids and weight loss of tomato during postharvest storage. postharvest biol. tech., 41:151-155 table 4. effect of temperature on total carotenoids and lycopene content tomato genotype total carotenoids lycopene mg/100g dry weight mg/100g dry weight 27oc 35oc 40oc mean 27oc 35oc 40oc mean arka rakshak 196.9 79.7 75.8 117.5 121.1 41.5 39.4 67.3 arka samrat 169.6 104.3 71.0 115.0 99.5 56.4 35.1 63.7 arka ananya 193.3 114.5 89.3 132.4 114.2 65.0 47.6 75.6 lakshmi 228.7 112.7 110.5 150.6 138.8 61.3 57.5 85.9 abhinava 221.2 134.4 86.5 147.4 134.2 75.9 47.1 85.7 mean 202.0 109.1 86.6 132.6 121.6 60.0 45.4 75.6 cd (p=0.05) variety (v) 6.0 3.8 temperature (t) 3.6 2.3 v x t 17.9 11.5 table 3. grouping of genotypes based on lycopene content group genotypes i (> 300mg/100g dw) iihr 2892, 2890, 2876 ii (250-300mg/100g dw) abhinava, iihr 2889, vybhav, iihr 2828, iihr 2861 iii (200-250mg/100g dw) iihr 2417, iihr 2321, iihr 2827, iihr 2860, iihr 2657, us 3380, lakshmi, iihr 2858, iihr 2891 iv (150-200mg/100g dw) nandi, iihr 2412, iihr 2888, iihr 2408, us 3140, iihr 2622, iihr 2884, iihr 2413, iihr 2835, iihr 2886, iihr 2887, arka samrat, iihr 2854, arka rakshak, iihr 2857 vi (100-150mg/100g dw) iihr 2853, iihr 2885, arka ananya, iihr 2834, iihr 2862, iihr 2195, iihr 2863, iihr 2855, iihr 2197, iihr 2859 vii (50-100mg/100g dw) iihr 2856, iihr 2201, iihr 2202, iihr 2199, iihr 2200, iihr 2852, iihr 2406 viii (< 50mg/100g dw) iihr 2865, iihr 2864, iihr 2866 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):98-102, 2014 genotypic variability in tomato for total carotenoids and lycopene 102 kaur, c., walia, s., nagal, s., walia, s., singh, j., singh, b.b., saha, s., singh, b., kalia, p., jaggi, s. and sarika. 2013. functional quality and antioxidant composition of selected tomato (solanum lycopersicon l.) cultivars grown in northern india. food sci. tech., 50:139-145 kerkhofs, n.s., lister, c.e. and savage, g.p. 2005. change in colour and antioxidant content of tomato cultivars following forced-air drying. pl. foods human nutr., 60:117-121 kotíková, z., lachman, j., hejtmánková, a. and hejtmánková, k. 2011. determination of antioxidant activity and antioxidant content in tomato varieties and evaluation of mutual interactions between antioxidants. food sci. tech., 44:1703-1710 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rai, g.k., kumar, r., singh, a.k., rai, p.k., rai, m., chaturvedi, a.k. and rai, a.b. 2012. changes in antioxidant and phytochemical properties of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) under ambient condition. pak. j. bot., 44:667-670 rao, a.v. and agarwal, s. 1999. role of lycopene as antioxidant carotenoid in the prevention of chronic diseases. nutr. res., 19:305-323 rao, a.v., waseem, z. and agarwal, s. 1998. lycopene content of tomatoes and tomato products and their contribution to dietary lycopene. food res. int’l., 31:737-741 shi, j. and maguer, m.l. 2000. lycopene in tomatoes: chemical and physical properties affected by food processing. crit. rev. food sci. nutr., 40:1-42 toor, r.k. and savage, g.p. 2005. antioxidant activity in different fractions of tomatoes. food res. int’l., 38:487-494 toor, r.k. and savage, g.p. 2006. changes in major antioxidant components of tomatoes during postharvest storage. food chem., 99:724-727 (ms received 25 june 2013, revised 28 october 2013, accepted 05 february 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):98-102, 2014 shivashankara et al this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction mango (mangifera indica l.), belongs to the family anacardiaceae, has an important place among the fruits of the world and is popularly called as king of fruits in india because of its wide uses and nutritional qualification. it is the most widely cultivated tropical fruit species in india and its cultivation also spread to other tropical and subtropical parts of the world. it occupies the highest area of 2,317 thousand ha among fruit crops and contributes 20, 386 thousand metric tons fruit production (nhb, 2020-21) in india. globally, asia accounts for 75% of world mango production. whereas, india holds first rank among world’s mango producing countries with a share of 38 percent in total world’s mango production (faostat, 2019). in india, most of the commercial cultivars behave as irregular bearers in north indian conditions whereas produce regular crops under south indian conditions (tropical climate). the irregular bearing behaviour of mango is the major obstacle in getting good yields during “off-year” cropping. irregularity in mango crop bearing is may be due to different factors like c:n ratio, hormonal imbalance, etc. carbohydrate metabolism plays a very important role in bearing beha viour of fruit crops (fischer et al. 2012). carbohydrates reserves depicted as the key energy producing chemicals which play important role in floral induction process in many crop species (wahl et al., 2013). draining out of carbohydrate and nitrogen reserves during “on” year is known to lead to a lean crop in the “off” year as they are important for fruit bud initiation i.e., high c/n ratio helps for fruit bud initiation (sharma et al., 2019, 2020). it is well studied about the catalytic activity of the enzymes sucrose phosphate synthase, trehalose phosphate synthase, citrate synthase, alcohol dehydrogenase in carbohydrate metabolism of plants (brownleader, 1997). t he genes r ela ted to the enzymes of car bohydrate metabolism (trehalose phosphate synthase, sucrose phosphate syntha se, citr ate synthase, alcohol dehydrogenase) have been studied original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 122-127, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2135 impact of carbohydrate metabolism pathways on bearing habit of mango (mangifera indica l.) genotypes vittal h.1, sharma n.1*, shivran m.1, sharma n.2, dubey a.k.1, singh s.k.3, sharma r.m.1, singh b.p.4, bollinedi h.1, meena m.c.1, pandey r.1 and gutam s.3 1division of fruits and horticultural technology, icar-indian agricultural research institute, new delhi 110012, india 2department of biotechnology, iilm university greater noida 201310, uttar pradesh, india 3icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, india 4icar-national institute for plant biotechnology, new delhi 110012, india *corresponding author email : nimishasharma@iari.res.in abstract heterozygosity is the major constraint in perennial fruit crop like mango for regular bearing breeding. majority of the popular mango varieties have irregular bearing habit. many external and internal factors affect the bearing habit of perennial fruit crops. among internal factors, the level of carbohydrate reserves and phytohormones plays a major role on bearing habit of fruit crops like apple, citrus, mango, litchi etc., therefore, present research work aimed to study the carbohydrate metabolism pathways in regular and irregular mango genotypes of varying origin. a total of 30 primers were designed using in silico mining of four key genes coding for citrate synthase, alcohol dehydrogenase, sucrose phosphate synthase and trehalose phosphate synthase. these genes play important role in sugar and starch metabolism in mango. of these specific primers, 14 showed polymorphism among the genotypes studied. gene diversity (gd), average number of alleles per locus (an), polymorphism information content (pic) and major allele frequency (maf) observed were 0.45, 2.14, 0.35, 0.59, respectively. simple sequence repeats markers grouped 63.15% studied mango genotypes of regular bearers together. further, these markers could be utilized in a greater number of genotypes for regularity. keywords : carbohydrate metabolism, irregular bearing, mango, molecular markers 123 impact of carbohydrate metabolism pathways in mango j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 122-127, 2023 by many researchers (eldik et al., 1998, coleman et al., 2010, wahl et al., 2013, han et al., 2017, benny et al., 2022) for their role in flowering related process of different plant species. differential expression of the genes coding for sucrose synthase, sucrose phosphate synthase1, atp synthase, polyphenol oxidase and auxin response factor are reported in the floral buds of mango cultivars dashehari, langra, cha usa a nd amr a pa li (ba jpa i et al. , 2021). carbohydrates levels in plants are generally analyzed by biochemical methods, recent advances in molecular biology and biotechnology fields helps us to find out the genes related to carbohydrate metabolism. in our present research we have designed carbohydrate metabolism specific primers for validation of regular and irregular bearing genotypes. materials and methods the pr esent exper iment was carr ied out on 19 genotypes of mango (mango field gene bank, iari) of varying origin and bearing habit viz., 9 hybrids (r egula r bea r er ) r elea sed fr om icar-india n agricultural research institute, new delhi (pusa arunima, pusa surya, pusa peetamber, pusa lalima, pusa shresth, pusa manohari, pusa deepshikha, amrapali and mallika), six irregular bearer genotypes namely dashehari, kesar, alphonso, bombay green, langra, chausa, two south indian genotypes of regular bearer namely totapuri and neelum and two exotic genotypes viz; tommy atkins and sensation. during the course of investigation, blocks were maintained as per the recommended cultural practices. new flushing and healthy leaves from single tree of each genotype were plucked, put into labelled polyethylene bags and placed in an icebox. samples were wr apped in aluminium foil, tagged properly, frozen in liquid nitrogen for a few seconds, and stored at –80°c until dna extraction. genomic dna was extracted by the cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (ctab) method with some modifications (doyle and doyle 1987).the genomic dna was further purified by successive rnase treatment followed by phenol: chloroform extraction. the pellet dissolved in te buffer and stored at -20 °c temperature. the quality of the extracted dna was assessed by agarose gel electrophoresis and quantified using nanodrop 8000 spectrophotometer (thermo scientific, usa). a total of 4 key gene sequences coding for trehalose phosphate synthase, sucrose phosphate synthase, citrate synthase and alcohol dehydrogenase of mangifera indica l. were retrieved from national center for biotechnology informa tion (ncbi, www.ncbi. nlm. nih. gov). these gene nucleotide sequences play impor tant role in ca rbohydra te metabolism. a total of 30 primers were synthesized for wet lab validation. carbohydrate metabolism genes coding for trehalose phosphate synthase, sucrose phospha te syntha se, citr a te syntha se, alcohol dehydrogenase generated 9, 10, 5 and 6 primers, respectively. nucleotide accession number gu233771, gu233770 and gu233769 of alcohol dehydrogenase gene of m. indica l. var. dashehari was used for simple sequence repeats (ssrs) mining. a total of 10 ssrs were identified and 6 primers were synthesized. for citrate synthase gene jn001196, xm_044609816, xm_044609329 nucleotide accession of mango varieties jinhuang and alphonso were used for ssrs mining. a total of 5 primers were generated from identified 5 ssrs sequences. trehalose phosphate synthase gene (nucleotide a ccession number mh759789) sequence of mango variety kensington pride resulted into 13 ssrs and a total of 9 primers were generated. sucrose phosphate synthase gene (nucleotide accession number ab724402, ab724401, ab724400 and ab724399) sequences of mango varieties namely n-13, cat trang, glenn, valencia pride resulted into 25 ssrs sequences and a total of 10 primer s wer e gener ated. primer 3 softwa re (www.frodo.wi/mit.edu/primer3) was used for primer designing. pcr was carried out in 10μl reaction mixture containing 0.5μl each primer (10 pico mole each of forward and reverse), 2 μl of 25ng/μl genomic dna as template and 5μl of taq polymerase buffer 2x master mix (g bioscience, usa). the volume was ma de up to 10μl with ster ile distilled wa ter. thermocycling was carried out in a pe-thermo cycler (c1000 touch thermal cycler, bio-rad, usa). initial denaturation carried out at 94 °c for 5 minutes followed by 35 cycles (denaturation at 94°c, annealing at 55 ° c and extension at 72°c for 1 minute). final extension was carried out at 72°c for 10 minutes. pcr amplified products were resolved in 3% high resolution agarose gels (sisco research laboratories pvt. ltd). electrophoresis was carried out at 120 v for 3 to 4 hours. dna profiles were visualized on uv tr a ns-illumina tor a nd photogr a phed on gel documentation system (alpha innotech, usa). power marker 3.5 was used to calculate gene diversity, heterozygosity and polymorphic information content of the markers (liu and spencer, 2005). 124 vittal et al. results and discussion a total of 30 carbohydrate metabolism specific ma r ker s wer e designed (online resour ce 1). carbohydrate metabolism genes coding for trehalose phosphate synthase, sucrose phosphate synthase, citrate synthase, alcohol dehydrogenase generated 9, 10, 5 and 6 primers, respectively (online resource 1). these ma r kers wer e validated in 19 ma ngo genotypes. genomic dna yield was found varied in all 19 studied mango genotypes and highest yield in totapuri (1360.30 ng/μl) and lowest in pusa surya (405.80 ng/μl) with 752.91 ng/μl average yield. the avera ge value of dna quality on the basis of nanodrop reading (a260/280) was 1.68 and maximum value was found in pusa surya (1.79) and minimum value was found in dashehari (1.65). however, a260/ 230 ratio was found maximum in pusa shresth (2.07) and minimum in neelum (1.83) with 1.90 average values. a total of 14 markers were found polymorphic (table 1). agarose gel profile of mango genotypes using alcohol dehydrogenase gene-based primer nmad1 shown in fig. 1. the major allelic frequency (maf) ranged from the 0.44 to 0.94 among the markers with a mean value of 0.59 per locus. the marker nmsps4 had the highest allelic frequency (0.94), while nmtps7 had the lowest value (0.44). further, among all primers, maximum and minimum pic value was found in nmtps7 primers (0.49) and nmsps4 (0.09), respectively. however, average pic value was 0.35 per locus. the gene diversity of the primers was calculated which ranged from 0.09 to 0.58 with an average of 0.45 per locus. the nmtps7 had the highest gene diversity (0.58), while the lowest value (0.09) was recorded in nmsps4. the observed heterozygosity among primers was also estimated, which varied from 0.10 to 1.00 with an average value of 0.67 per locus. table 1 : genetic variability indices of the 14 polymorphic carbohydrate metabolism specific primers among the set of 19 mango genotypes marker id maf an gd ho pic nmad1 0.7105 2.0000 0.4114 0.5789 0.3267 nmad2 0.5000 2.0000 0.5000 1.0000 0.3750 nmad3 0.6579 2.0000 0.4501 0.6842 0.3488 nmad4 0.5526 2.0000 0.4945 0.7895 0.3722 nmad5 0.5000 2.0000 0.5000 0.8947 0.3750 nmad6 0.6579 2.0000 0.4501 0.5789 0.3488 nmcs1 0.5526 2.0000 0.4945 0.5789 0.3722 nmcs2 0.4737 2.0000 0.5485 0.7368 0.4453 nmcs3 0.5000 3.0000 0.5000 0.5789 0.3750 nmsps4 0.9474 2.0000 0.0997 0.1053 0.0948 nmsps5 0.5526 2.0000 0.4945 0.8947 0.3722 nmsps7 0.5789 2.0000 0.4875 0.7368 0.3687 nmtps1 0.7105 2.0000 0.4114 0.5789 0.3267 nmtps7 0.4474 3.0000 0.5886 0.6842 0.4997 mean 0.5959 2.1429 0.4593 0.6729 0.3572 fig. 1 : agarose gel profile of mango genotypes using alcohol dehydrogenase gene-based primer nmad1 l100 bp ladder, 1. pusa arunima, 2. pusa surya, 3. mallika, 4. tommy atkins, 5. sensation, 6. neelum, 7. totapuri, 8. pusa shreshth, 9. pusa deepshikha, 10. amrapali, 11. pusa manohari, 12. pusa peetamber, 13. pusa lalima, 14. kesar, 15. dashehari, 16. bombay green, 17. langra, 18. chausa, 19. alphonso, l100 bp ladder j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 122-127, 2023 125 fig. 2 : genetic tree of 19 mango genotypes using carbohydrate metabolism specifc primers foot note required? maf, an, gd, ho, pic a dendrogram generated based on molecular data grouped all the 19 genotypes of mango into one major cluster b and one out group a. major cluster b, comprised most of the studied genotypes and further sub-divided into two clusters as b1 and b2. cluster b2 further sub-divided into cluster b2.1 and b2.2. only the amrapali and pusa arunima genotypes were found in sub-cluster b2.1. most of the mango genotypes (89.46%) come under subgroup b2.2 (table 2). genetic tree showed the relatedness among the studied mango genotypes (fig.2). operational taxonomic units (otu) for all combinations given in online resource 2. table 2 : distribution of mango genotypes into groups based on carbohydrate metabolism specific markers cluster alternate bearing regular bearing total genotypes genotypes(tommy (bombay green, atkins, pusa arunima, kesar, dashehari, amrapali, totapuri, alphonso, langra, pusa shreshth, chausa) pusa peetamber, pusa lalima, pusa deepshikha, pusa manohari, neelum, mallika, pusa surya, sensation) a 1(5.2%) 0 5.2% b.1 0 1 (5.2%) 5.2% b.2 5(26.31%) 12 (63.15%) 89.46% impact of carbohydrate metabolism pathways in mango j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 122-127, 2023 126 t he ssr ma r ker s wer e used with a view to characterize and analyze the 19 mango genotypes with respect to bearing habit (regular or alternate bearing) of mango tree. out of 30 ssr markers used, 14 were found polymorphic. pic values aid in forecasting the potentia l use of dna ma r ker s for genotypes assessment in molecular breeding. markers with high pic values (nmtps7) have greater potential in showing allelic variation according to spandana (2012) findings in sesamum crop. and our ssr markers exhibited lower level of gene diversity (0.45). low level of genetic diversity indicates the frequent use of only few parents in breeding among selected cultiva r s (kuma r et al. , 2013). t hough the dendrogram in the present study did not indicate very clear pattern of clustering according to the bearing habit. the cluster b2 consists of 63.15 % regular bearing genotypes as one group which may indicate that these markers have some potential to use and to improve in future studies for differentiating mango cultivars based on their bearing nature. conclusion for characterization and evolution of mango genotypes with respect to bearing habit, ssr markers can be used as they are globally accepted for their efficient and effective management and analysis of the genetic diversity of the germplasm. though clustering is not clear in dendrogram, our markers grouped more than 60 % regular bearing cultivars in one cluster which need further improvement in future studies. therefore, the research work further will be helpful in selection of suitable recombinants and hybrids having regular bearing habit in early nursery stage itself overcoming the problem of long gestation periods and other economic constraints. references bajpai, y., trivedi, m., muthukumar, m. and bajpai, a. 2021. novel insights into biochemical and hormonal factors regulating floral transition in mango (mangifera indica l.). ind. j. biotech., 20(1): 54-64. benny, j., giovino, a., marra, f.p., balan, b., martinelli, f., caruso, t. and marchese, a. 2022. transcriptomic analysis of the pistacia vera (l.) fruits enable the identification of genes and hormone-related gene linked to inf lor es c enc e b u d a b s c i s s ion. g e n e s . , 13(1): 60. brownleader, m.d., harborne, j.b.and dey, p.m. 1997. carbohydrate metabolism: primary meta bolism of monosa ccha r ides. plant biochem.,111. coleman, h.d., beamish, l., reid, a., park, j.y. and ma nsfield, s. d. 2010. alter ed sucr ose metabolism impacts plant biomass production and flower development. transgenic res., 19(2): 269-283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11248-0099309-5 doyle, j.j., and doyle, j.l. 1987. a rapid total dna preparation procedure from fresh plant tissue. focus.,12:13-15. eldik, g.v., ruiter, r.k., herpen, m. van, schrauwen, j.a.m. and wullems, g.j. 1998. an alcohol dehydr ogena se-like gene is specifica lly expr essed in pota to pistils. j. expert. bot..,49(325): 1453–1454. faostat 2019. food and agriculture data. retrieved from food and agriculture organisation of the united nations. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/ data. fischer, g., almanza-merchán, p.j. and ramírez, f. 2012. source-sink relationships in fruit species: a r eview. rev. colombiana de ciencias hortícolas., 6(2): 238-253. han, d., wang, y., zhang, z., pu, q., ding, h., han, j., fan, t., bai, x. and yang, g. 2017. isolation and functional analysis of mxcs3: a gene encoding a citr a te syntha se in ma lus xiaojinensis, with functions in tolerance to iron str ess and abnor mal flower in tra nsgenic arabidopsis thaliana. pl. growth reg., 82(3): 479-489. kumar, m., ponnuswami, v., nagarajan, p. and jeyakumar, p. 2013. molecular characterization of ten mango cultivars using simple sequences r epea t (ssr) ma r ker s. af. j. biotech. , 12: 6568-6573. liu, k. and spencer, v.m. 2005. power marker: a n integr a ted a na lysis envir onment for genetic marker analysis. bioinformatics., 21: 2128-2129. nhb 2020-21. india n hor ticultur e da ta ba se. gurugram, india. http://www.nhb.com vittal et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 122-127, 2023 127 sharma, n., singh,s.k., mahato,a.k., ravishankar, h. , dubey, a. k. a nd singh, n. k. 2019. physiological and molecular basis of alternate bearing in perennial fruit crops. sci. horti., 243:214-225. sharma, n., singh, a.k., singh, s.k., mahato, a.k., sr iva sta v, m. a nd singh, n. k. 2020. compa r a tive rna sequencing-ba sed transcriptome profiling of regular bearing and alternate bearing mango (mangifera indica l.) va r ieties r evea ls novel insights into the (received : 27.10.2022; revised : 17.01.2023; accepted 27.01.2023) regulatory mechanisms underlying alternate bearing. biotech. lett., 42: 1035-1050. spandana, b., reddy, v. p., prasanna, g. j., anuradha, g. 2012. development and characterization of microsatellite markers (ssr) in sesamum. (sesamum indicum l.) species. appl. bioche. biotech., 168: 1594-1607. wahl, v., ponnu, j., schlereth, a., arrivault, s., langenecker, t., franke, a. and schmid, m. 2013. regulation of flowering by trehalose-6phosphate signaling in arabidopsis thaliana. science., 339(6120): 704-707. impact of carbohydrate metabolism pathways in mango j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 122-127, 2023 turmeric (curcuma longa l.) is one of the most important spice crops grown in andhra pradesh. it is a major cash crop cultivated in high-altitude and tribal areas of north coastal andhra pradesh, and is mainly grown on hill slopes under rainfed conditions. during harvest season, fresh as well as cured rhizomes are marketed on weekly shandy days. however, due to lack of knowledge, tribal farmers grow only the local variety and that too without proper fertilization, leading to poor harvest. hence, an investigation was launched to study performance of some improved cultivars for yield potential and yield attributing characters, to identify a better variety for commercial cultivation in this region. field experiments were conducted for two consecutive years during 1997 and 1998 at agricultural research station, seethampeta, srikakulam (dist.,) which falls under the high altitude and tribal zone (hat) of andhra pradesh. seethampeta is located at an elevation of 400m above msl, with average rainfall of 1280mm (contributed from the south west and north east monsoons). turmeric is generally planted during the second fortnight of may, or the first week of june, to coincide with onset of early monsoon showers. the experiment was conducted in randomized block j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):118-120, 2013 short communication evaluation of turmeric (curcuma longa l.) varieties for rainfed cultivation l. naram naidu and k. purushotham horticultural research station, lam, guntur 522 034, india e-mail: naramlnaidu@gmail.com abstract field experiments were carried out for two years at agricultural research station, seethampeta, srikakulam dist., andhra pradesh, to identify suitable turmeric cultivars for tribal areas of north coastal andhra pradesh for rainfed cultivation. ten cultivars were screened for their performance for comparison with the most popular local cultivar, ‘seethampeta local’. all the cultivars tested outperformed the local cultivar. cultivars pts-24 and cll-326 were better in terms of plant height (93.43cm and 92.70cm, respectively) and mean number of tillers / plant (2.16 and 2.21 respectively). per cent curing was highest in pts-38 (28.5), followed by pts-24 (25.7) and cll-326 (25.2). cultivars pts-24 and cll-326 recorded highest mean yield of both fresh and cured rhizomes. yield of fresh rhizomes was positively correlated to number of tillers and number of leaves, while, yield of cured rhizomes was significantly influenced by per cent curing and number of leaves. cultivars pts-24 and cll-326 recorded highest mean yield (23.08 t ha-1 and 22.93 t ha-1, respectively) and were identified as suitable varieties for rainfed cultivation in tribal areas of north coastal andhra pradesh. key words: turmeric, tillers, rhizome, curing, rainfed cultivation design with ten cultivars, viz., pts-9, pts-24, pts-38, co1, bsr-1, cli-317, cll-324, cll-325, cll-326 and local, and replicated thrice. selected primary-finger rhizomes were planted during the first fortnight of june in both the years of study. these were planted at 45cm x 15cm in a plot of 3m x 1.5m. n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o were applied as per recommendations and normal cultural practices / plant protection measures were followed for raising a successful crop. observations on plant height, number of tillers and number of leaves per plant were recorded on ten randomly selected plants from each plot on the 180th day after planting. rhizome yield was estimated and expressed as tonnes ha-1. per cent curing was evaluated by boiling and drying a sample of 2kg of fresh rhizomes from each plot. yield of cured rhizomes was worked out based on curing percentage and was expressed as tonnes ha-1. data were statistically analyzed as per standard procedures (gomez and gomez, 1984). significant differences among cultivars were observed for all the characters studied during both the years of study (table 1). all the cultivars were found to be superior to the local variety. cultivars pts-24, cll-324 and cll-326 recorded 119 t ab le 1 . m ea n p er fo rm an ce o f tu rm er ic v ar ie ti es d u ri n g th e ye ar s 19 97 a n d 1 99 8 e st im at ed y ie ld (t h a1 ) v ar ie ty p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) n o . o f ti ll er s/ p la n t n o . o f le av es /p la n t y ie ld ( kg /p lo t) p er c en t c u ri n g f re sh r h iz o m es c u re d r h iz o m es 19 97 19 98 m ea n 19 97 19 98 m ea n 19 97 19 98 m ea n 19 97 19 98 m ea n 19 97 19 98 m ea n 19 97 19 98 m ea n 19 97 19 98 m ea n p t s -9 7 9 .5 7 84 .2 0 81 .8 8 1. 20 1. 50 1. 35 18 .1 6 18 .1 7 18 .1 6 6. 21 7. 21 6. 71 26 .5 24 .5 25 .5 13 .8 1 16 .0 1 14 .9 1 3. 56 3. 93 3. 74 p t s -2 4 91 .2 7 95 .6 0 93 .4 3 2. 13 2. 20 2. 16 24 .1 6 24 .0 7 24 .1 1 10 .8 7 9. 91 10 .3 9 27 .0 24 .5 25 .7 24 .1 5 22 .0 1 23 .0 8 6. 53 5. 38 5. 95 p t s -3 8 82 .8 3 85 .6 0 84 .2 1 1. 76 1. 80 1. 78 19 .0 3 18 .6 7 18 .8 5 7. 83 7. 11 7. 47 30 .0 27 .0 28 .5 17 .4 1 15 .7 9 16 .6 0 5. 23 4. 26 4. 74 c o -1 80 .2 7 84 .2 7 82 .2 7 1. 76 1. 77 1. 76 19 .9 3 18 .5 3 19 .2 3 10 .4 7 7. 27 8. 87 23 .5 21 .5 22 .5 23 .2 6 16 .1 7 19 .7 1 5. 46 3. 47 4. 46 b s r -1 78 .3 7 83 .1 3 80 .7 5 1. 63 1. 70 1. 66 21 .0 3 20 .5 7 20 .8 0 9. 80 7. 28 8. 54 26 .0 22 .0 24 .0 22 .8 9 16 .1 7 18 .9 7 5. 66 3. 55 4. 60 c l i31 7 91 .0 0 93 .4 0 92 .2 0 1. 97 1. 90 1. 93 21 .0 19 .8 3 20 .4 1 10 .0 6 7. 39 8. 72 25 .5 22 .0 23 .7 22 .3 7 16 .4 2 19 .3 9 5. 70 3. 61 4. 65 c l l -3 24 90 .2 7 95 .5 3 92 .9 0 2. 23 2. 30 2. 26 22 .8 6 21 .6 7 22 .2 6 10 .3 0 8. 22 9. 26 26 .0 22 .0 24 .0 22 .8 9 18 .2 7 20 .5 8 5. 95 4. 02 4. 98 c l l -3 25 82 .4 7 86 .0 3 84 .2 5 1. 70 1. 80 1. 75 20 .6 6 19 .8 0 20 .2 3 9. 30 6. 96 8. 13 24 .0 24 .0 24 .0 20 .6 7 15 .4 7 18 .0 7 4. 97 3. 71 4. 34 c l l -3 26 90 .5 0 94 .9 0 92 .7 0 2. 13 2. 30 2. 21 24 .6 3 22 .9 3 23 .7 8 10 .2 2 10 .4 3 10 .3 2 26 .5 24 .0 25 .2 22 .7 1 23 .1 6 22 .9 3 6. 01 5. 56 5. 78 l oc al 76 .4 3 83 .2 3 79 .8 3 1. 90 1. 90 1. 90 20 .0 6 21 .0 20 .5 3 7. 75 6. 11 6. 93 22 .5 21 .0 21 .7 17 .2 2 13 .5 8 15 .4 0 3. 88 2. 86 3. 37 s .e d. 2. 57 2. 33 1. 76 0. 21 0. 18 0. 14 1. 04 1. 18 0. 78 0. 41 0. 26 0. 24 1. 59 1. 21 0. 95 0. 92 0. 59 0. 53 0. 43 0. 28 0. 25 c .d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 5. 41 4. 91 3. 57 0. 45 0. 38 0. 29 2. 20 2. 48 1. 59 0. 86 0. 55 0. 49 3. 35 2. 54 1. 93 1. 92 1. 24 1. 07 0. 91 0. 58 0. 52 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):118-120, 2013 turmeric varieties for rainfed cultivation 120 naram naidu and purushotham table 2. correlation coefficient of yield and yield attributing characters in turmeric plant no. of no. of per cent yield of height tillers leaves curing freshrhizomes no. of tillers 0.450 no. of leaves 0.653** 0.776** per cent curing 0.380 0.029 0.501* yield of fresh 0.455 0.644** 0.735** 0.052 rhizomes yield of cured 0.386 0.592** 0.726** 0.542* 0.864** rhizomes **correlation significant at 0.01 level *correlation significant at 0.05 level the tallest plants, with highest number of tillers and leaves in these were found to be the most vigorous. cultivation pts-24 had the tallest plants (93.43cm) with highest number of leaves (24.11 per plant), closely followed by cll-324 (92.9cm plant height). cll-324 recorded maximum number of tillers per plant (2.26), followed by cll-326 (2.21) and pts-24 (2.16). the local cultivar recorded shortest (79.83cm) plants, with a mean of 1.9 tillers and 20.53 leaves per plant. similar results have been reported earlier by ramakrishna and reddy (1992). yield per plot ranged from 6.71kg (pts-9) to 10.39kg (pts-24), whereas, per cent curing ranged from 21.7 (local) to 28.5 (pts-38). though yield of fresh rhizomes in the local variety (15.40 t ha-1) was higher than in pts-9 (14.91t ha-1), yield of cured rhizomes was relatively low in this variety (3.37t ha-1) owing to low curing percentage. mean yield of fresh and cured rhizomes was highest in pts24 (23.08t ha-1 and 5.95t ha-1, respectively) closely followed by cll-326 (22.94 and 5.78t ha-1, respectively). these two cultivars were found to be consistent in their performance in both the years under study. suitability of these cultivars to different agro-climatic zones (pujari et al, 1987; ramakrishna and reddy 1992; pruthi, 1998) and yield potential of long-duration cultivars released by andhra pradesh (subbarayudu et al, 1976) have been earlier reported by many workers. these cultivars have been already recommended for commercial cultivation in andhra pradesh (chadha, 2001). results in the present investigation are in conformity with those reported earlier. correlation studies (table 2) revealed fresh yield to be positively correlated to number of tillers and number of leaves, while yield of cured rhizomes was significantly influenced by per cent curing, yield of fresh rhizomes and number of leaves. these findings are in accordance with those reported by indiresh et al (1996). thus, superiority of cvs. pts-24 and cll-326 can be attributed to vegetative vigour and high curing percentage. in view of yield potential and consistent performance of cv. pts-24 and cll-326, these two cultivars were concluded to be suitable for rainfed cultivation in the highaltitude tribal areas of north coastal andhra pradesh. references chadha, k.l. 2001. handbook of horticulture, icar, new delhi. pp: 726-728 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural workers. john wiley & sons, inc., new york ramakrishna, m. and reddy, p.s.n. 1992. performance of different varieties / cultivars of turmeric under northern telangana zone of andhra pradesh. geobios news rep., 12:85-86 indiresh, k.m., uthaiah, b.c., herle, p.s. and balakrishna rao, k. 1996 morphological, rhizome and yield characters of different turmeric varieties in coastal karnataka. mysore j. agril. sci., 24:484-490 pujari, p.d., patil, r.b. and satpal, r.t. 1987. studies on growth, yield and quality components in different turmeric varieties. indian cocoa, arecanut and spices, 11:15-17 subbarayudu, m.r., reddy, r.k. and rao, m.r. 1976. studies on performance of different turmeric varieties. the andhra agril. j., 23:195-198 pruthi, j.s. 1998. major spices of india – crop management, post-harvest technology, icar, new delhi, pp. 289-314 (ms received 08 february 2011, accepted 14 june 2012, revised 11 december 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):118-120, 2013 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction ya r d long bea n (vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis (l.) verdcourt), a trailing type of vegetable cowpea (2n= 24) is one of the most popular and remunerative vegetable crops traditionally grown in kerala. due to the favourable a gro climatic conditions, the crop has gained much importance and has come to occupy a prime position among the vegetable crops raised in the state. but the production of vegetable cowpea is hindered by an array of diseases that cause growth suppression or death of plants, leading to reduction in yield and productivity. sreeja (2014) conducted periodical survey in the potentia l cowpea gr owing a r ea s of thiruvananthapuram district and reported that among the six major fungal diseases, anthracnose was found to be the most predominant one (0-55%). disease index ranged between 0 33.30 and considerable yield losses were attributable to the disease. anthracnose is a destructive fungal disease caused by colletotrichum spp. in india, the incidence of a nthr a cnose disea se wa s fir st r epor ted fr om maharashtra (rao, 1966). according to emechebe and lagoke (2002), all stages of the crop and its parts like hypocotyls, stem, peduncle, flowers, leaves and pods were seriously affected. previous attempts to identify r elia ble sour ces of r esista nce ha ve led to the identification of few bush type resistant cowpea (kumar, 1999), as most of the trailing cultivars are susceptible to anthracnose, but high yielding compared to the bushy or semi-trailing types. the disease is pan-tropical in distribution and is being widely recorded in regions where conditions are wet and humid. once the infection is incited under favourable condition, its management using fungicides is difficult. breeding resistant varieties is suggested as the only practical strategy, especially under hot and humid condition. the present study identified the resistant varieties of vegetable cowpea through artificial inoculation followed by detached leaf assay. materials and methods fifty yard-long bean genotypes belonging to bush, semi erect and pole types were screened against anthracnose disease through artificial inoculation under pot cultur e. seeds of vegeta ble cowpea genotypes were collected from different parts of india, including the released varieties of saus and icar institutes and stored at refrigerated conditions for the screening of yard long bean (vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis (l.) verdcourt) genotypes for resistance to colletotrichum gloeosporoides merin e.g.*, sarada s. and joy m. college of agriculture, kerala agricultural university, trivandrum, kerala, india *corresponding author email : merinelzageorge5010@gmail.com abstract anthracnose is one of the most destructive fungal diseases caused by colletotrichum gloeosporoides in yard long bean, leading to complete crop loss at all stages and its parts like hypocotyls, stem, peduncle, flowers, leaves and pods were seriously affected. few bush type cowpea cultivars have been earlier identified as reliable sources of resistance while trailing types are susceptible, but high yielding. breeding resistant varieties is suggested as the only practical strategy, especially under hot and humid condition. fifty-yard-long bean genotypes belonging to bush, semi erect and pole types were screened against anthracnose disease through artificial inoculation under pot culture. the present study identified the resistant varieties of vegetable cowpea through artificial inoculation followed by detached leaf assay. among the 50 varieties of yard long bean observed, kanakamony, dual purpose yard long bean was found highly resistant with disease severity of 3.67% followed by arimbra local. keywords: anthracnose, colletotrichum gloeosporoides and yard long bean 2 merin e.g., et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 study. the most virulent isolate of c. gloeosporoides was used for artificial inoculation (fig. 1 1). to isolate the fungal spores for artificial inoculation, infected plant parts were collected from field, washed in tap water, and surface sterilised using 0.1% mercuric chloride followed by washing thrice with autoclaved distilled water. the fungus was cultured in potato dextrose agar medium and mycelial growth was observed through microscope. all petri dishes were incubated at room temperature (25±20c). petri dishes were examined for the growth of the pathogen and the morphological characteristics were observed. inoculum was prepared from secondary culture of 7 dayold culture, by scrapping off the mycelium and spores and suspended in 100 ml sterile distilled water. seven seeds each of fifty genotypes were sown in two pots. after the germination, five healthy seedlings were retained and excess thinned out. artificial inoculation was done on 20 days old seedlings kept in pots inside the greenhouse. each plant was sprayed with 20 ml of spor e suspension of vir ulent str a in of c. gloeosporoides having a concentration of 106 spores ml-1 by following serial dilution method. the plants were covered with moistened polythene covers to maintain high humidity (fig. 2). inoculated plants were observed daily for disease incidence. observations on disease incidence were taken on three, five, seven, nine, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and thirty days. final observation was taken when the disease was well expressed. disease severity was assessed using the scale 0-5 reported by latunde and dada (1990). 0. no infection 0.5. hypersensitive spots on main stem only 1: trace of infection – small anthracnose lesions on main stem, petioles of lower leaf only 2. slight infection – lesions on stem, petioles and branches 3. moderate infection – advanced anthracnose lesions on stem, petioles, branches, veins on the abaxial surface of leaves 4. severe – advanced anthracnose lesions on stem, petioles, branches, leaves, veins and peduncles 5. very severe – advanced anthracnose lesions on stem, petioles, branches, leaf veins, spreading lesions on peduncle and pods based on the percentage of plant area infected, disease severity/ intensity was calculated using the following formula (wheeler, 1969). per cent disease severity = sum of all numerical ratings x 100 total no. of plants taken for maximum observation disease category per cent disease incidence was calculated by using the following formula. per cent disease incidence = no. of plants infected x 100 total no. of plants observed based on the per cent disease severity, the genotypes wer e gr ouped into 5 categories a s a dopted by rajkumar et al. (1995). disease severity category 0 immune 1 10 highly resistant 10.1 25 moderately resistant 25.1 50 moderately susceptible above 50 highly susceptible five plants of the resistant genotype identified through artificial inoculation were grown in the field and detached leaf assay was done just before flowering to confirm resistance. results observations on disease incidence were recorded at 10 days after infection. the infection was first observed in leaves, reddish brown streaks were very prominent on veins and veinlets. prominent mildew symptoms were also observed on the leaf lamina (fig. 3). finally, leaves became chlorotic and detached from the infected plant. reddish brown lesions were also developed on the stem. these individual lesions coalesced to form large sunken lesions and covered the whole stem causing drying up of the veins which is known as vine blackening. the pods were rottened, grey in colour, cover ed with bla ck fr uiting bodies of fungus. according to the visible symptoms, the plants were awarded disease scores. among the 50 genotypes tested, kanakamony, a dual purpose yard long bean variety was found to be highly resistant with disease severity of 3.67%, followed by arimbra local with 3 screening of yard long bean sl.no. treatments source percent disease severity disease reaction 1 anaswara kau 22.15 moderately resistant 2 bagyalakshmi kau 13.90 moderately resistant 3 kanakamony kau 3.67 highly resistant 4 arimbra local kau 9.58 highly resistant 5 vyjyanthi kau 56.84 highly susceptible 6 mithra kau 46.90 moderately susceptible 7 githika kau 56.70 highly susceptible 8 lola kau 54.90 highly susceptible 9 manjari kau 38.80 moderately susceptible 10 sharika kau 63.80 highly susceptible 11 vellayani jyothika kau 55.90 highly susceptible 12 kau deepika kau 50.90 highly susceptible 13 co6 tnau 24.70 moderately resistant 14 pusa beej iari 66.45 highly susceptible 15 kashi kanchan iivr 47.64 moderately resistant 16 arka garima iihr 23.90 moderately resistant 17 arka mangala iihr 24.30 moderately resistant 18 arka samradhi iihr 21.60 moderately resistant 19 fh 31 farm house, trivandrum 56.50 highly susceptible 20 fh 55 farm house, trivandrum 53.50 highly susceptible 21 fh 7 farm house, trivandrum 70.78 highly susceptible 22 vs 38 kau 64.99 highly susceptible 23 vs 53 kau 50.12 highly susceptible 24 vs 58 kau 44.64 moderately susceptible 25 vs 16 kau 70.00 highly susceptible 26 tcr 17 nbpgr 69.80 highly susceptible 27 tcr 18 nbpgr 41.50 moderately susceptible 28 tcr 19 nbpgr 56.00 highly susceptible 29 tcr 50 nbpgr 47.25 moderately susceptible 30 tcr 53 nbpgr 26.80 moderately susceptible 31 tcr 54 nbpgr 36.00 moderately susceptible 32 tcr 55 nbpgr 78.91 highly susceptible 33 tcr 56 nbpgr 36.00 moderately susceptible 34 tcr 60 nbpgr 59.49 highly susceptible 35 tcr 61 nbpgr 54.00 highly susceptible 36 tcr 63 nbpgr 59.45 highly susceptible table 1 : percent disease severity and disease reaction of yard long bean genotypes for anthracnose incidence 4 37 tcr 68 nbpgr 31.70 moderately susceptible 38 tcr 69 nbpgr 69.22 highly susceptible 39 tcr 70 nbpgr 36.23 moderately susceptible 40 tcr 74 nbpgr 26.89 moderately susceptible 41 tcr 75 nbpgr 44.47 moderately susceptible 42 tcr 77 nbpgr 35.50 moderately susceptible 43 tcr 80 nbpgr 37.95 moderately susceptible 44 tcr 84 nbpgr 54.25 highly susceptible 45 tcr 86 nbpgr 33.63 moderately susceptible 46 tcr 91 nbpgr 55.20 highly susceptible 47 tcr 92 nbpgr 33.30 moderately susceptible 48 tcr 93 nbpgr 65.33 highly susceptible 49 tcr 96 nbpgr 39.82 moderately susceptible 50 tcr 125 nbpgr 37.49 moderately susceptible se (m)± 1.13 c.d. (0.05) 3.22 9.58% disease severity. tcr 55(78.91 %) was found to be highly susceptible followed by fh-7 (70.78 %) (table 1). among the genotypes evaluated, eight showed moderately resistant reaction from 13.90 to 23.40%. in the eighteen moderately susceptible genotypes, much difference could not be noticed in disease severity values and most of them were pole types. in deta ched lea f a ssa y, the lea ves of kanakamony was symptomless, and the resistance was confirmed in vitro (fig. 4). discussion anthracnose is one of the most destructive fungal diseases caused by colletotrichum gloeosporoides in yard long bean, leading to complete crop loss in all stages and its parts like hypocotyls, stem, peduncle, flowers, leaves and pods were seriously affected. c. gloeosporioides has a wide host range including brassica campestris, legumes, pigeon pea, soybean, brinjal, pumpkin, cucumber, tomato, spinach, mung bea n, br oa d bea n, cowpea , etc. (sha r ma a nd kulshrestha, 2015). symptomatology studies on anthracnose of cowpea was conducted by sreeja (2014). the initial symptoms appeared as minute, circular to irregular spots on the leaves which later increased in size and turned light to dark brown in colour and coalesced together to form large, necrotic spots on the leaves with shot holes. on the stem and vines, symptoms appeared as spindle shaped lesions with light grey centre and reddish-brown margin which merin e.g., et al fig. 1 fig. 2 fig. 3 fig. 4 5 enlarge upto 10-12 mm in length. in the later stages, small, irregular deep-seated reddish-brown spots appear on the pods also. isolation, characterization and identifica tion of the pa thogen r evea led tha t colletotrichum gloeosporioides was associated with anthracnose. adebitan and olufajo (1998) reported that grain types exhibited better resistance to anthracnose. artificial inoculation of fifty genotypes confirmed the resistance in kanakamony, followed by arimbra local, hence these varieties are valuable sources for anthracnose resistance breeding programme. kanakamony is a dual-purpose cowpea (grain cum vegetable) belonging to the sub-species cylindrica. shiny et al. (2015) reported that susceptible bush-type cultivar pusa komal and pole type cultivar lola showed 100 and 68.80 % disease severity while the immune bush type cultivar kanakamony was free from the symptoms and pole type arimbra local showed 8.80 % disease severity using sds-page. these results further support that kanakamony is highly resistant to c. gloeosporoides causing anthracnose. since fungicides and chemicals are not fully effective, the transfer of resistance from the cultivars to trailing types can only be a durable solution. hence the results revealed that the highly resistant genotypes kanakamony and ar imbr a local could be recommended for cr op improvement programmes in trailing type vegetable cowpea for enhancing the resistance to anthracnose. acknowledgments merin elza george expresses her sincere gratitude to kerala agricultural university, india for the complete funding of this research work, which forms part of her ph.d program in vegetable science. reference adebitan s.a. and olufajo o. 1998. field evaluation of cowpea (vigna unguiculata) varieties for grain and fodder production and for multiple disease resistance in nigeria. ind. j. agric. sci., 68:152–154. emechebe, a.m. and lagoke, s.t.o. 2002. recent advances in research on cowpea diseases. in: challenges and opportunities for enhancing sustainable cowpea production. iita, nigeria pp. 94-123. kumar, m. p. 1999. anthracnose disease of vegetable cowpea [vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis (l. ) ver dcour t]. m. sc. t hesis, ker a la agricultural university, thrissur. latunde dada, a.o. 1990. assessment of anthracnose disease in some cultivars of cowpea (vigna unguiculata) caused  by colletotrichum lindemuthianum. j. phythopathol., 130: 147156. rajkumar, g, kalloo, a nd pa ndey, p. k. 1995. resistance in cowpea to pseudocercospora. in: pa per, na tiona l symposium on r ecent developments in vegetable improvement; 2-5 february, 1995, raipur, p. 23. rao, v.g., 1966. an account of the market and storage diseases of fruits and vegetables in bombaymahar ashtr a (india). mycopathologia et mycologia applicata, 28(1-2):165-176. sharma m and kulshrestha s. 2015. colletotrichum gloeosporioides: an a nthr acnose causing pathogen of fruits and vegetables. biosci. biotechnol. res. asia, 12: 1233-1246. shiny, a., mathew, d., nazeem, p.a., abida, p.s., ma thew, s. k. a nd va lsa la , p. a. 2015. identification and confirmation of trailing-type vegetable cowpea resistance to anthracnose. tropical plant pathol., 40: 169-175. sreeja, s.j. 2014. integrated management of fusarium wilt and anthracnose (vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis (l.) verdcourt) using new generation fungicides. ph.d (ag) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur. wheeler, h. and pirone, t.p. 1969. pathotoxin-induced disease resistance in plants. sci., 166: 14151417. screening of yard long bean introduction grape (vitis vinifera l.) is among the important fruit crops of our country, grown on an area of 1,11,000ha with annual production of 12,35,000t (anon., 2012). in india, 74.5% of the grapes produced are used for table purpose, nearly 22.5% are dried for raisin making, 1.5% for wine making and 0.5% are used for juice making. it is known that the best grapes come from vineyards where vegetative growth and crop yield are balanced (dry et al, 2004). vine balance was defined by gladstones (1992) stating, that “balance is achieved when vegetative vigour and fruit load are in equilibrium and consistent with high fruit quality.” in several studies on treatment-induced differences in grapevine productivity, yield components were analyzed to specify the developmental stages involved (may et al, 1976; tafazoh, 1977; cawthon and morris, 1977; scholefield et al, 1977a, 1977b; shaulis, 1980; pool, 1982). in these studies, effects of developmental stages on yield and its components were analyzed. some of the practices like retention of specific number of canes per vine, and removal of leaves and bunches to achieve production of quality grapes from a unit area, need to be accorded priority. information on source:sink alteration on berry development and quality, with respect to biochemical constituents in table grapes, is berry weight, quality and cane biochemistry changes in relation to cane thickness of own-rooted and grafted ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grape r.g. somkuwar, j. satisha and s.d. ramteke national research centre for grapes p.o. box 03, manjri farm post, pune 412 307, india e-mail : rgsgrapes@gmail.com abstract a field trial was conducted to determine the effect of cane thickness on berry quality and other biochemical parameters in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grape at national research centre for grapes, pune, during the year 20082009. average bunch weight increased with increase in cane diameter. own-rooted vines of cane thickness <6mm sprouted earlier than thicker canes. tss of berries decreased with increase in berry size. berries on grafted vines recorded lower tss than on own-rooted vines. biochemical parameters such as content of reducing sugars, carbohydrat and phenols were higher in grafted vines of cane thickness >10mm. results indicate that thicker canes either on their own roots or on grafted vines are superior for yield and yield components, as also for physical properties of bunches and berries and total carbohydrate content of the canes. key words: tas-a-ganesh, sprouting, cane thickness, bunch weight, total soluble solids, reducing sugars, carbohydrates j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):30-34, 2013 lacking. therefore, the present study purports to focus on effects of cane thicknes of own-rooted and grafted vines in relation to yield and quality parameter in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grape. material and methods the study was conducted at national research centre for grapes, pune, during the year 20082009. rootstock ‘dogridge’ was planted during march 2000 along with ownrooted vines, and grafting of ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grape was effected in october, 2000. the experimental site is situated in mid-west maharashtra at an altitude of 559m above msl at 18.32°n latitude and 73.51°e longitude. pune has tropical wet and dry climate, with average temperatures ranging from 20 to 28°c. the vines were trained on four cordons on a horizontally divided canopy trellis with vertical shoot positioning. height of the cordon from ground surface was 1.2m separated by 0.6m wide cross-arms. distance from the fruiting wire to top of the foliage support wire was 0.6m. the vines were planted at a spacing of 3.0m between rows and 1.83m between vines, providing a density of 1815 vines per hectare. since the region falls under a tropical belt, double pruning and single cropping is practiced. the vines were, therefore pruned twice a year (back-pruning and forward31 pruning). the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with four treatments of shoot diameter replicated five times. after back-pruning, approximately 80-100 shoots emerge with varying thickness on the four cordons of the vine. shoot-thinning was performed at the 7-leaf stage. retention of proportionate shoots of <6mm, 6-8mm, 8-10mm and >10mm diameter at shoot-thinning was done on both grafted and own-rooted vines. each replication had five vines. three vines with uniform shoots on each cordon and with fruitful canes were tagged and labelled for recording data in each replication. standard recommended cultural practices were followed during the period of study. observations on yield per vine were recorded after harvest. total phenolic content was determined using folinciocalteu method, using 4-methylcatechol as the standard. concentration of phenolics was expressed as catechol equivalent (mg/g) of the lyophilized sample. reducing sugars were estimated by dinitrosalicylic acid (dnsa) method, while total carbohydrates were estimated by anthrone method, using d-glucose as the standard. protein was estimated using the method of lowry et al (1951). total protein content was expressed as bovine serum albumin fraction-v equivalent (mg/g). standard reference-chemicals like d-glucose, 4-methylcatechol, bovine serum albumin, etc. used in the study were obtained from sd fine chemicals, ltd., mumbai (india). all other buffers and chemicals used were of ar grade from merck pvt. ltd. data were analyzed using the sas model (version 9.3). results and discussion effect of cane thickness on vegetative growth and bunch weight observations recorded on vegetative traits are presented in table 1. significant differences were recorded for days to bud-sprout, bunch weight, berry weight, tss and acidity. own-rooted ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grapevines were earlier to sprout (9.33 days) than vines grafted on ‘dogridge’ rootstock (10.58 days). among own-rooted vines, thin canes (<6mm diameter) sprouted in 7.6 days, followed by 6-8mm (8.53), 8-10mm (10.13) and >10mm thick canes (11.06), respectively. the same trend was observed in grafted vines. these results are in conformity with those of satisha et al (2010) who also reported early sprouting of own-rooted ‘thompson seedless’ grape compared to grafted vines. interaction effect was also found to be significant. prakash and reddy (1990) compared the effect of different rootstocks for bud-sprout and reported that number of days required for bud-break was shorter when ‘gulabi’ (isabella) cane thickness in own-rooted and grafted tas-a-ganesh grape table 1. effect of cane thickness on berry and bunch characters in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grape parameter days to av. bunch av. berry berry berry tss acidity bud sprout wt (g) wt (g) diameter (mm) length (mm) (0brix) (%) factor-a grafted 10.58 371.77 2.94 16.40 21.03 20.49 0.30 own root 9.33 275.02 2.56 16.53 21.00 21.14 0.32 sem± 0.0457 3.219 0.021 0.232 0.133 0.067 0.003 cd (p=0.05) 0.580 40.193 0.266 ns ns 0.851 0.038 factor-b <6 mm 8.66 258.05 2.43 14.89 19.68 21.62 0.32 6-8 mm 9.58 299.70 2.49 16.06 20.52 21.54 0.29 8-10mm 10.41 335.95 2.79 17.17 22.08 21.42 0.31 >10mm 11.16 399.88 3.28 17.76 21.78 18.70 0.30 sem± 0.0646 4.553 0.030 0.328 0.189 0.094 0.004 cd (p=0.05) 0.205 14.48 0.09 1.043 0.601 0.299 0.0127 interaction a x b grafted grafted <6mm 9.73 288.56 2.50 15.73 20.10 20.73 0.26 grafted 6-8mm 10.64 320.14 2.63 16.60 21.43 20.40 0.30 grafted 8-10mm 10.70 385.34 3.09 16.50 22.46 21.33 0.30 grafted >10mm 11.27 493.04 3.54 16.80 20.13 19.53 0.33 own root own root <6mm 7.60 227.55 2.37 14.06 19.26 22.52 0.38 own root 6-8mm 8.53 279.26 2.35 15.53 19.62 22.68 0.29 own root 8-10mm 10.13 286.56 2.50 17.84 21.70 21.51 0.31 own root >10mm 11.06 306.72 3.02 18.72 23.44 17.87 0.28 sem± 0.0914 6.439 0.043 0.464 0.267 0.134 0.006 cd (p=0.05) 0.290 20.48 0.136 1.476 0.849 0.426 0.019 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):30-34, 2013 32 was used as the rootstock, and was longer in vines grafted on ‘dogridge’. in grafted vines, higher bunch weight (371.77g) and berry weight (2.94g) were recorded compared to own-rooted vines (275.02g and 2.65g, respectively). among grafted vines, higher cane thickness resulted in higher average bunch-weight and berry-weight compared to thinner canes. the same trend was observed in ownrooted vines, with varying cane thickness. this could be due to the influence of rootstock in increasing food reserves in the canes, thus increasing berryand bunch-weight. increase in bunch weight directly relates to total yield per vine. though yield per vine in this case is not reported, there appears to be a direct impact on total yield per vine. hedberg et al (1986) reported that ‘shiraz’ vines grafted on ‘ramsey’ and ‘dogridge’ rootstocks outyielded ungrafted vines by 46 and 48%, respectively. they reported ability of ‘dogridge’ rootstock to produce yields as high as those with ‘ramsey’ highlighting the importance of adequate pruning level to enable full potential of the rootstocks to be realized. ferree et al (1996) reported increased yield in grafted ‘cabernet franc’ and ‘white riesling’ over own-rooted vines. differences for berry-diameter and berry-length among grafted and own-rooted vines were found to be nonsignificant. however, interaction effect among cane thickness, and grafted versus own-rooted vines, varied significantly. among canes of varying thickness in grafted vines, higher berry diameter (16.80mm) was recorded in canes with thickness of >10mm diameter, whereas, minimum berry-diameter (15.73mm) was recorded in thin canes (<6mm). among own-rooted vines, berry diameter increased significantly with increase in cane thickness. differences in berry diameter with varying cane thickness may be due to higher amount of reserve food material in thicker canes. these findings are supported by rizk-all et al (2011) who reported that grafting ensured best vegetative growth, improved efficiency of nutrient uptake and increased total chlorophyll content of leaves and total carbohydrates of canes, in comparison with ungrafted vines. significant differences were recorded for total soluble solids in grape berries on own-rooted and grafted vines. higher amount of total soluble solids was recorded in own-rooted vines (21.140brix) over grafted vines (20.490brix). among variable cane thickness in own-rooted vines, tss ranged from 17.870brix in >10mm thick cane, to 22.680brix in 68mm thick canes. however, in grafted vines, tss ranged from 19.530brix (>10mm thick canes) to 21.330brix (810mm thick canes). in the present study, it was observed that tss was lower in grafted vines than in own-rooted vines. tss was also found to decrease with increase in cane thickness. acidity varied significantly among different treatments and their interactions. this is perhaps be due to the fact that grafted vines impart more vigour to a crop than own-rooted vines. increased vigour helps the vine protect its bunches from direct sunlight. protected bunches under the canopy show lower tss. influence of rootstock on fruit composition has been reported by several workers, especially in relation to wine grapes, with a close link between fruit quality and wine made from those fruits. fruit composition parameters that eventually affect wine quality include soluble solids, organic acids, ph, phenolics, anthocyanins, monoterpenes and other components (jackson and lombard, 1993). however, reynolds and wardle (2001) reported grafting to have no effect on vine size, or any of the yield components (yield/vine, clusters/vine, cluster weight, number of berries/cluster, berry weight and crop load). berry size in relation to cane thickness in this experiment indicates that source:sink strength is greater when the canes are thick, either on own-rooted vines or on grafted vines. effect of cane thickness on biochemical parameters data on biochemical changes in relation to cane thickness in own-rooted or grafted grapevines is presented in table 2. among own-rooted and grafted grapevines, significant differences were recorded for amount of reducing sugars in canes of ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grape. higher amount of reducing sugars was recorded in canes of grafted vines (7.26mg/g) compared to own-rooted vines (6.40mg/g). among cane thickness treatments, higher content of reducing sugars (8.51mg/g) was recorded in thicker canes (>10mm) than in thin canes of <6mm diameter (5.56mg/g). with increase in cane diameter, content of reducing sugars also increased. however, interaction effect here was found to be non-significant. increase observed in bunch-weight in thicker canes may be due to higher availability of reducing sugars. higher sugar content in thick canes of grafted as well as own-rooted vines may have helped vines produce larger berries and bunches. significant differences were recorded for carbohydrate content in the canes of own-rooted vs. grafted vines. higher concentration of carbohydrate was recorded in canes of grafted vines (9.36mg/g) compared to own-rooted vines (6.49mg/g). among types of cane, higher amount of carbohydrates was noticed in thicker canes than in thinner ones. canes of >10mm diameter recorded higher concentration 8.69mg/g than thinner canes (<6mm, 6.33mg/ g). however, interaction effect here was found to be nonsomkuwar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):30-34, 2013 33 significant. increase in carbohydrate content in grafted vines might be due to the fact that grafted vines are more efficient in nutrient uptake and storage of carbohydrates. this may have helped increase bunch-size. the above results are in conformity with those of richards (1983) who observed that major functions of the grapevine root system are vine water-relations, uptake and translocation of nutrients, synthesis and metabolism of plant growth substances and storage of carbohydrates. efficient assimilation and use of nutrients by plants is of prime importance for optimizing crop productivity. grape berries, as typical “sink organs”, rely on use of the available carbohydrate resources produced through the process of photosynthesis to support growth and development. transport and allocation of sugars between photosynthetic “source tissues” and the heterotrophic “sink tissues” is known as ‘assimilate partitioning’ and is a major determinant of plant growth and productivity (kingstonsmith, 2001). rizk et al (2011), in their three-season study on red globe grafted on three different rootstocks, observed that percentage of total carbohydrates of the cane was much higher in vines grafted on ‘dogridge’ rootstock than in ownrooted vines. they concluded that rootstocks were more efficient than own-rooted vines in respect of improving physical and chemical characteristics of the berries, vegetative growth parameters, increasing the content of total leaf chlorophylls and percentages of total nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and content of total carbohydrates in the cane compared to non-grafted vines. accumulation of starch in the canes of grafted vines was greater (6.35mg/ g) than in own-rooted vines (5.06mg/g). however, differences among cane thickness and interaction were nonsignificant for most of the biochemical parameters, except proteins and phenols. accumulation of starch in the permanent wood may be the most important carbohydrate reserve in a grapevine. verma et al (2010), in their studies on ‘pusa urvashi’ grape variety grafted on different rootstocks, reported that the rootstocks induced a change in various biochemical parameters of grafted vines. compared to ‘pusa urvashi’ grafted on itself (auto grafted), grafted rootstock-based plants exhibited improved physiological and nutrient status. variation in protein content of canes was observed in both grafted and own-rooted vines. higher protein content was recorded in grafted vines (100.47mg/g) than in ownrooted vines (87.98mg/g). among different cane thickness treatments, higher protein content was recorded in canes of higher thickness than in thinner canes. the same trend was observed in own-rooted vines. interaction effect here table 2. effect of cane thickness on cane biochemical status in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ grape parameter reducing sugars carbohydrates starch proteins phenols (mg/g) (mg/g) (mg/g) (mg/g) (mg/g) factor-a grafted 7.26 9.36 6.35 100.47 7.94 own root 6.40 6.49 5.06 87.98 7.79 sem ± 0.207 0.176 0.161 0.523 0.167 cd (p=0.05) 2.630 2.236 2.046 6.647 ns factor-b <6 mm 5.56 6.33 5.22 78.14 6.01 6-8 mm 6.15 8.20 5.56 84.23 7.63 8-10mm 7.10 8.48 5.71 100.70 8.13 >10mm 8.51 8.69 6.33 113.84 9.69 sem ± 0.293 0.250 0.228 0.740 0.236 cd (p=0.05) 0.932 0.890 ns 2.354 0.750 interaction a x b grafted grafted <6mm 6.09 7.49 5.96 81.23 6.44 grafted 6-8mm 6.43 9.93 6.08 86.22 8.10 grafted 8-10mm 7.56 9.97 6.21 110.92 8.40 grafted >10mm 8.96 10.06 7.16 123.52 8.83 own root own root <6mm 5.04 5.17 4.47 75.05 5.59 own root 6-8mm 5.87 6.47 5.05 82.24 7.17 own root 8-10mm 6.65 7.06 5.21 90.49 7.86 own root >10mm 8.06 7.33 5.51 104.16 10.56 sem ± 0.415 0.353 0.322 1.047 0.334 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns 3.314 1.062 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):30-34, 2013 cane thickness in own-rooted and grafted tas-a-ganesh grape 34 was found to be highly significant. with increased cane thickness, protein content also increased. a positive correlation of berry and bunch weight was also established with higher content of proteins, carbohydrates and reducing sugars in the canes. change in total phenols was observed for cane thickness alone. total phenols were found to increase with increase in cane thickness. however, phenol content found in grafted vines was higher than in own-rooted vines. phenolic compounds occur naturally in plant systems and are known for their anti-microbial properties. these inhibit fungal-spore germination, mycelial-fungal enzymes and toxin production by pathogens (vidhyasekran, 1973). higher levels of phenolic compounds in a plant system imply greater tolerance to biotic stresses (gotez et al, 1999). references anonymous. 2012. grapes. in: indian horticulture database 2011. kumar, b., mistry, n.c., singh, b. and gandhi, c.p. (eds), national horticulture board, gurgaon, india, pp. 68-75 cawthon, d.l. and morris, j.r. 1977. yield and quality of ‘concord’ grapes as affected by pruning severity, nodes per bearing unit, training system, shoot positioning and sampling date in arkansas. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 102:760-767 dry, p.r., iland, p.g. and ristic, r. 2004. what is vine balance? proceedings of 12th australian wine industry technical conference, melbourne, victoria, australia, pp. 68-74 ferree, d.c., cahoon, g.a., ellis, m.a., scurlock, d.m. and johns, g.r. 1996. influence of eight rootstocks on the performance of ‘white riesling’ and ‘cabernet franc’ over five years. fruit varieties j., 50:124130 gladstones, j. 1992. viticulture and environment. winetitles. adelaide, south australia gotez, g., fkyerat, a., metais, n., kunz, m., tabacchi, r., pezet, r. and pont, v. 1999. resistance factors to grey mould in grape berries: identification of some phenolics inhibitors of botrytis cinerea stilbene oxidase. phytochem., 52:759–767 hedberg, p.r., mcleod, r., cullis, b. and freeman, b.m. 1986. effect of rootstock on the production, grape and wine quality of shiraz vines in the murrumbidgee irrigation area. australian j. exptl. agri., 26:511-516 jackson, d.i. and lombard, p.b. 1993. environmental and management practices affecting grape composition and wine quality – a review. amer. j. enol. viticult., 44:409-430 kingston-smith, a.h. 2001. resource allocation. trends in plant sci., 6:48-49 may, p., clingeleffer, p.r. and brien, c.j. 1976. sultana (vitis vinifera l.) canes and their exposure to light. vitis, 14:278-288 pool, r.m. 1982. effect of mepiquat chloride on the growth and yield of concord grapevines. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 107:376-380 prakash, g.s. and reddy, n.n. 1990. effect of different rootstocks on bud-break in grape cv. anab-e-shahi. crop res., 3:51-55 reynolds, a.g. and wardle, d.a. 2001. rootstocks impact vine performance and fruit composition of grapes in british columbia. hort. technol., 11:419-427 richards, d. 1983. the grape root system. hort. rev., 5:127168 rizk-alla, m.s., sabry, g.h. and abd el-wahab, m.a. 2011. influence of some rootstocks on the performance of red globe grape cultivar. j. amer. sci., 7:71-81 satisha, j., somkuwar, r.g, sharma, j., upadhyay, a.k. and adsule, p.g. 2010. influence of rootstocks on growth yield and fruit composition of thompson seedless grapes grown in the pune region of india. south african j. enol. viticult., 31:1-8 scholefield, n., may, p. and neales t.f. 1977. harvestpruning and trellising of ‘sultana’ vines: i. effects on yield and vegetative growth. scientia hort., 115-122 shaulis, n. 1980. responses of grapevines and grapes to spacing of and within canopies. proc. ucd grape and wine symp., pp. 353-361 tafazoh, e. 1977. cane and bud number effect on yield components of non-irrigated grape cv. ‘yaghooti’. scientia hort., 7:133-136 verma, s.k., singh, s.k. and hare krishna. 2010. the effect of certain rootstocks on the grape cultivar ‘pusa urvashi’ (vitis vinifera l.) int’l. j. fr. sci., 10:16–28 vidhyasekaran, p. 1973. possible role of ortho-dihyroxy phenolics in grapevine anthracnose disease resistance. indian j. exptl. biol., 11:473–475 (ms received 04 june 2012, accepted 01 august 2012, revised 10 october 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):30-34, 2013 somkuwar et al 193 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 193-197, 2017 inheritance of parthenocarpy in gynoecious cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) cultivar ppc-2 g.s. jat1, a.d. munshi1, t.k. behera1, *and c. bhardwaj2 1division of vegetable science, icar-indian agricultural research institute, new delhi-12, india; 2division of genetics, icar-indian agricultural research institute, new delhi-12, india *e-mail: tusar@rediffmail.com abstract the gynoecious and parthenocarpic inbred line, pant parthenocarpic cucumber-2 (ppc2) was crossed with indian monoecious and non-parthenocarpic cultivar pusa uday to develop f1, f2, b1 and b2 to determine the inheritance of parthenocarpy.the crop was grown under insect proof net house of 40 mesh. the pistillate buds were covered using butter paper bags before anthesis to prevent out-crossing.the observations were recorded separately for the development of early parthenocarpic fruits (i.e.1-7th nodes), late parthenocarpy (8th and above nodes) and non-parthenocarpic fruits. in f1 generation, out of 40 plants screened, 2 plants produced parthenocarpic fruits at lower nodes (1-7th nodes), 37 plants produced parthenocarpic fruits at upper nodes (8th and above), whereas,only 1 plant that did not produced any fruit was considered as non-parthenocarpic. the segregation of f2 population and test crosses for parthenocarpic fruit development suggested that parthenocarpy in gynoecious and parthenocarpic cucumber line ppc-2 is under the control of incomplete dominant gene. keywords: inheritance, parthenocarpy, gynoecious, cucumber introduction cucumber (cucumis sativus l., 2n = 2x = 14) is an important valuable vegetable of cucurbitaceae family. it is originated in india (sebastian et al, 2010) fr om its wild progenitor cucumis sativus var. hardwickii r., which is still found in southern foothills of himalayas. it is primarily cultivated for tender fruits, which a r e used a s sa la d, pickles a nd rayata preparation. in india, cucumber is cultivated from higher altitude to plains under open field as well as under protected conditions. the cultivated cucumber has narrow genetic base with 3-8% polymorphism within the cultivated genotypes, and 10-25% between botanical varieties (behera et al, 2011). india being considered the home of cucumber possesses a vast range of genetic diversity and variability for both growth and fruit characters, but this diversity has not been fully utilised for its genetic improvement. t he development of gynoecious va r ieties with parthenocarpic traits has become major challenge to the cucumber breeders for use as a parent in f1 hybrid development for achieving higher yield, earliness, uniformity and suitability for protected cultivation (jat et al, 2015, 2016, 2017). therefore, there is an important need to develop gynoecious hybrids with parthenocarpic traits, which may be utilized on commercial scale, especially in the north indian plains because most of indian cucumber cultivars are monoecious with non-parthenocarpic trait. therefore, these varieties are not suitable for growing under protected conditions as these require pollination for fruit set. gynoecy coupled with parthenocarpic cucumber is a yield and quality-related parameter and a high value vegetable crop immensely suited for off season cultiva tion under pr otected condition beca use parthenocarpic varieties do not require pollination for fruit setting. moreover, the fruits are mild in flavour, seedless and have thin skin that does not require peeling. plant growth regulators also regulate the parthenocarpic trait and its stability is significantly influenced by environmental factors. it is a complex physiological process that can be influenced by environmental, physiological and genetic factors. some studies indicated that low temperature, light and short communication 194 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 193-197, 2017 jat et al exogenous hormone could induce parthenocarpy. however, the genetic mechanism of parthenocarpy in cucumber is still unclear. the information about genetics of parthenocarpy is utmost important for efficient breeding procedure to be used for the development of stable parthenocarpic lines. keeping in view all above facts and realizing the importance of cucumber as an important vegetable crop for protected cultivation, it was felt crucial to conduct an experiment for inheritance of parthenocarpy in cross of gynoecious parthenocarpic line with indian monoecious nonparthenocarpic line. the gynoecious line ppc-2 (used as a female parent for source of parthenocarpic gene) was crossed with monoecious and non-parthenocarpic line pusa uday (used as male parent) to develop f1 hybrid during august-november, 2012. the resulting f1 generation of the cross ppc-2× pusa uday was selfed to obtain f2 seeds and pollinated simultaneously with p1 (ppc2) a nd p 2 (pusa uda y) to genera te ba ckcr oss generations, b1 and b2, respectively, during augustnovember, 2013. the seed material of all segregating and backcross generations (f2, b1and b2) including parental lines and f1were sown in plug trays using soil less media i.e. coco-peat, vermiculite and perlite in 3:1:1 ratio. the seedlings at three leaf stage were transplanted in insect proof net-house of 40 mesh size during march-june, 2014 at the research farm, centre for protected cultivation technology, icar-indian agricultural research institute, pusa campus, new delhi, india. all plants of segregating generations (f2, b1 and b2) along with parents and f1 hybrids were tagged and numbered after transplanting for their individual identity for parthenocarpic fruit development. the f2 population comprising 213 plants were used for genetics of parthenocarpy in background of gynoecious and parthenocarpic inbred line ppc-2. the female flowers were covered with butter paper bag one day prior to anthesis to maintain isolation. the fruit set and development were examined after at 7 to 8 days after flower opening. the number of parthenocarpic fruits developed and total number of female flowers labelled per plant were counted. observations were recorded for development of parthenocarpic fruits up to 25th nodes. plants that produced parthenocarpic fruits up to 25th node were considered as parthenocarpic plants. observations were recorded separately for early parthenocarpy (17th node), late parthenocarpy (8th and above node) and non-parthenocarpy. the goodness of fit of the observed segregation ratio for the segregation of parthenocarpic and nonparthenocarpic plants was tested using the classical chi-square (χ-2) test as suggested by panse and sukhatme (1985). the χ-2 value was calculated using the formula given below. χ-2= (observed number – expected number) 2 / expected number) the test of significance is judged when the computed χ2 statistic exceeds the critical value in the table for a 0.05 probability level, then we can reject the null hypothesis of equal distributions and then it is revealed that the observed values are the same as the theoretical distribution. parthenocapy is an important yield related trait in cucumber, especially in protected cultivation. in the present study, an attempt was made to consign the inheritance of parthenocarpy on classical dominantrecessive mendelian model by keeping the cucumber fruits only in three categories of their fruit development i.e. early parthenocarpic, late parthenocarpic and nonparthenocarpic fruit development. the development of parthenocarpic fruit in ‘pant parthenocarpic cucumber-2 (ppc-2)’ is taking place from the beginning at the lower nodes from the base of the plant (early parthenocarpy). therefore, ‘ppc2’ was considered as a homozygous genotype for parthenocarpic fruits development. the variety pusa uda y wa s monoecious a nd pr oduced nonparthenocarpic fruits and it was considered to be homozygous for non-parthenocarpic fruit development. the f1 hybrid derived from the cross of ppc-2 × pusa uday with heterozygous condition produced some parthenocarpic fruits on the lower nodes i.e.5-7th node a nd a bove 8 th node, wer e consider ed a s la te parthenocarpic fruits. in f1 generation, most of the plants produced parthenocarpic fruits but some plants that did not set any fruit were considered as nonparthenocarpic fruit. in segregating f2population, early, late and non-parthenocarpic plants were recorded. out of 213 plants, 170 produced as early and late pa r thenoca r pic fr uits wher e a s 43 a s nonparthenocarpic fruits. the χ2 value indicated a good fit for segregation of parthenocarpy (early, late and non195 parthenocarpy in cucumber cv. ppc-2 parthenocarpy) in the f2 population and backcrossed populations confirmed with the expected ratio of 1:2:1 a nd 1:1, respectively (table1). therefor e, the genotypes for inbr ed line ppc-2 r epr esenting pa r thenoca r py, non-pa r thenoca r py a nd la te parthenocarpy phenotypes were considered as pp, pp and pp, respectively. these data support that parthenocarpic trait in cucumber is controlled by single incompletely dominant gene, as suggested by pike and peterson (1969). they had used a parthenocarpic monoecious var iety a nd a non-pa r thenoca r pic gynoecious line as parents, whereas in our study, gynoecious parthenocarpic and monoecious nonparthenocarpic inbred lines were used as parents. average first fruiting node in segregating generation was observed at the 5thnode. rudish et al (1977) also suggested that the degree or intensity of parthenocarpy could be measured by both the earliness of fruiting and the total number of parthenocarpic fruits. the segregation for parthenocarpic fruits observed in f2 population of ppc-2 × pusa uday is shown in fig.1. these data support that parthenocarpic trait in cucumber is controlled by single incompletely dominant gene, as suggested by pike and peterson (1969). exploring the parthenocarpic trait for development of high yielding cultivars and f1 hybrids suitable for protected cultivation is one of the current priority areas of cucumber breeding.the breeding procedure for development of parthenocarpic varieties in cucumber is not well understood because of the complexity in nature of inheritance and involvement of physiological factors for parthenocarpic fruit development(wu et al, 2016). in cucumber, parthenocarpic mutants have been largely used to breed cultivars suitable for greenhouse cultivation. it was also clear that parthenocarpy trait is genetically controlled, but there is some argument regarding the number of genes and type of gene action involved in development of parthenocarpic fruits. parthenocarpy in cucumber is controlled by an incomplete dominant gene p (pike and peterson, 1969; kim et al, 1992). in the homozygous condition pp develops early parthenocarpic fruits generally at fifth node. in the heterozygous condition pp produce parthenocarpic fruits later than homozygous plants and small in numbers. in homozygous condition recessive pp develops non-parthenocarpic fruits. single recessive gene might be responsible for the expression of parthenocarpy in cucumber (juldasheva, 1973) or many incompletely recessive genes control parthenocarpy (kvasnikov et al, 1970). the study of f3 population showed that more than five genes are involved in par thenocarpy, whereas growing envir onmental conditions and epistatic interactions significantly influence the expression of this trait (sun et al, 2006 a and b) and two additive-dominant epistatic major genes and additive-dominant polygenes (li et al, 2012). thus, the parthenocarpic line ppc-2 could be utilized for development of light green parthenocarpic cucumber lines using pedigree method of breeding (hybridization followed by selection of pur e homozygous parthenocarpic lines). it was revealed from the present study that parthenocarpy in cucumber particularly in gynoecious and parthenocarpic lines ppc-2 is governed by incomplete dominant gene. this study has to be generations number of early late nonexpected chipplants parthenocarpic parthenocarpic parthenocarpy ratio square value (1-7th nodes) (8th and above nodes) observed expected observed expected observed expected ppc-2 (p1) 40 40 40 pusa uday (p2) 40 40 40 ppc-2 × pusa uday (f1) 40 2 37 40 1 ppc-2 × pusa uday (f2) 213 49 56 121 105 43 52 3:1 0.94 0.23 (ppc-2 × pusa uday) × 40 23 20 17 20 1:1 ppc-2 (b1) (ppc-2 × pusa uday) × 40 24 22 16 18 pusa uday (b2) table 1. segregation for parthenocarpy in cucumber j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 193-197, 2017 196 fig. 1. phenotypic evaluation of parthenocarpic and non-parthenocarpic parental genotypes, f1 and f2 population (ppc-2 × pusauday) of cultivated cucumis sativus for parthenocarpy, (a) parthenocarpic fruit of ppc-2, (b) non-parthenocarpic fruit of pusa uday, (c) parthenocarpic fruits of f1 of ppc-2 × pusa uday, (d-f) showing segregation for parthenocarpy in f2 population, (d) early parthenocarpic fruit development, (e) late parthenocarpic fruit development, (f) seeded fruit (after pollination). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 193-197, 2017 jat et al continued further by employing more number of populations in different cross-combinations and plants in segregating population in different environment and locations and confirmation of genetics for this trait would be required in other potential parthenocarpic lines. this information would facilitate the adoption of appropriate breeding strategies for the development of indian stable parthenocarpic cucumber lines and will impr ove the efficiency of selection procedures.therefore, the information generated on inheritance of parthenocarpy from this study would be of immense importance in the context of developing parthenocarpic cultivars/hybrids in indian cucumber suitable for protected cultivation. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) 197 (ms received 07 august 2017, revised 30 november 2017, accepted 18 december 2017) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 193-197, 2017 parthenocarpy in cucumber cv. ppc-2 sativusl.).institute of agricultural information, chinese academy of agricultural sciences. http://www.caas.net.cn. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for a gr icultur a l wor ker s. icar publication, new delhi, pp 327-340. pike, l.m. and peterson c.e. 1969.inheritance of parthenocarpy in the cucumber(cucumis sativus l.).euphytica, 18: 101-105. rudish, j. , ba ker, l. r. a nd sell, h. m. 1977. par thenocar py in cucumis sativus l. a s affected by genetic parthenocarpy, thermophotoperiod and femaleness.journal amer. soci. hort. sci., 102: 225-228. sebastian, p., schaefer, h., telford, i.r.h. and renner, s.s. 2010. cucumber (cucumis sativus) and melon (c. melo) have numerous wild relatives in asia and australia, and the sister species of melon is from australia. procnatl. acad. sci., usa, 107: 14269–14273. sun, z., lower, r.l. and staub, j.e. 2006a. analysis of gener a tion mea ns a nd components of var ia nce for pa rthenoca r py in cucumber (cucumis sativus l.).plant breed., 123(3): 277-280. sun, z., lower, r.l. and staub, j.e. 2006b. variance component analysis of parthenocarpy in elite u.s. processing type cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) lines.euphytica, 148(3): 331–339. wu, z., zhang, t., li, l., xu, j., qin, x., zhang, t., cui, l., lou, q. and li, j. 2016.identification of a stable major-effect qtl (parth 2.1) controlling parthenocarpy in cucumber and associated candidate gene analysis via whole genome resequencing.bmc plant biol., 16(1):182. behera, t.k., staub, j.e., behera, s., delannay, i.y. and chen, j.f. 2011. marker-assisted backcross selection in an interspecific cucumis population br oa dens the genetic ba se of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) euphytica,178: 261–272. jat, g.s., munshi, a.d., behera, t.k. and tomar, b.s. 2016. combining ability estimation of gynoecious and monoecious hybrids for yield and earliness in cucumber (cucumis sativus l) indian j. agric. sci.,86 (3): 399–403. jat, g.s., munshi, a.d., behera, t.k., choudhary, h. and dev, b. 2015.exploitation of heterosis in cucumber for ea r liness, yield a nd yield components utilizing gynoecious lines.indian j. hort.,72(4): 494-499. jat, g.s., munshi, a.d., behera, t.k.,singh, a.k. and kumari s. 2017.genetic analysis for earliness and yield components using gynoecious and monoeciouslines in cucumber (cucumis sativus l.). chemical sci. rev. letters,6(22): 10751079. juldasheva, l.m. (1973). inheritance of the tendency towards parthenocarpy in cucumbers.vavilova, 32: 58-59. kim, s., okubo, h. and fujieda, k. 1992. endogenous levels of iaa in relation to parthenocarpy in cucumber (cucumis sativus l.). scientia horticulturae, 52: 1-8. kvasnikov, b.v., rogova, n.t., tarakanova, s.i. and igna tova s.i. 1970.methods of br eeding vegetable crops under the covered ground.bot. genet. selek.,42:45-57. li, j., zhiwei, q. and xiuyan, z. 2012. genetic analysis of gynoecious in cucumber (cucumis references introduction grape is one of the major fruit crops of the country. earlier, grapevines grown on their own roots performed well, since, most grape growing regions were free from soil-and water-salinity and water scarcity. however, with introduction of the rootstock in grape cultivation, changes in management practices became necessary. since cost of production in grape is higher compared to that in all other horticultural crops, quality production is given due importance. grapevine canopy management is aimed at optimizing carbon allocation to the fruit sink without disturbing growth or development in the other parts of grapevine, e.g., perennial structures such as roots. given the complexity a grapevine canopy may have (microclimate, photosynthetic activity, yield and fruit quality) (smart et al, 1985; hunter et al, 1995), canopy management should be practiced with great care. thorough consideration should be given to partitioning of assimilates between the site of production, accumulation and utilization, to reach this goal. in addition to primary effects like changed translocation patterns when seasonal practices (such as topping and effect of canopy management practices during forward pruning on berry development and photosynthesis in tas-a-ganesh grapes r.g. somkuwar, s.d. ramteke, j. satisha, mahadev bhange and prerna itroutwar national research centre for grapes pune 412307, india e-mail: rgsomkuwar@yahoo.co.in abstract effect of canopy manipulation during forward pruning on berry development and photosynthetic parameters was studied in tas-a-ganesh grape grafted onto dogridge rootstock. canopy manipulation including shoot thinning, leaf removal, shoot thinning with leaf removal, and shoot pinching, was done after forward pruning. significant differences were observed in yield and quality. shoot thinning to about 40 shoots per vine, with removal of three basal leaves, resulted in significantly higher yield, followed by that in shoot thinning alone. lowest yield was recorded in the control. leaf removal drastically reduced bunch development affecting berry weight, diameter and length compared to other treatments. among different canopy manipulation treatments, higher average bunch weight was recorded in shoot thinning plus leaf removal, whereas, lowest bunch weight was recorded with leaf removal alone. at harvest, the amount of total soluble solids in berries was low in leaf removal at pre-bloom stage, but increased in the treatment of shoot thinning with leaf removal, at the same stage. different canopy manipulation treatments had significant impact on photosynthesis and transpiration rates. overall results indicated that canopy manipulation practices such as shoot thinning, to retain 40 shoots per vine with or without leaf removal, followed by pinching, can be recommended to grape growers. key words: grape, canopy managements practices, photosynthesis, quality, yield different levels of defoliation) are applied (hunter and visser 1988a; koblet et al, 1993), secondary effects like compensatory growth, take place (hunter and visser 1990). leaves at different ages play a major role in import and export of food material from the source to the sink as growth progresses (ruffiner et al, 1990; hunter et al, 1994). this variation in canopy due to management practices like shootthinning and leaf-removal is known to directly affect assimilation dynamics. berry growth and chemical composition can be regulated by manipulating source-sink relationship (kliewer and dokoozlian, 2005). assimilate supply from a source may be increased by increasing leaf:fruit ratio, thus, generally leading to larger fruit size in grape (petrie et al, 2000). however, abiotic stress (such as drought) can reduce leaf area and photosynthesis in the grapevine (matthews and anderson, 1988), thus limiting leaf function, and changing the source-sink balance. functional relationship between source availability around bloom period and yield (petrie et al, 2003) inherently implies that defoliation around flowering can reduce fruit-set, leading to loose clusters. with this in view, an effort was made to study j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):18-22, 2014 19 the effect of seasonal canopy management practices on growth compensation, photosynthetic activity, yield and quality parameters in tas-a-ganesh grape grafted onto dogridge rootstock. material and methods vines and vineyard a field experiment was conducted at the farm of national research centre for grapes, pune, during fruiting season of 2007-08. pune is situated in mid-west maharashtra at an altitude of 559m above mean sea level, at latitude of 18.32°n and longitude of 73.51°e. seven-year old vines of tas-a-ganesh grape grafted onto dogridge rootstock were selected for the study. the vines were on flat roof gable system of training, with north-south cordon orientation, spaced at 2.4m between rows and 1.2m between vines (thus, accommodating 1815 vines per hectare). under tropical conditions, the vines were pruned twice a year once after harvest of the crop (foundation pruning) and another for fruits to develop (fruit pruning). all the recommended cultural practices were followed. the experiment was conducted in randomized block design, with five treatments replicated four times. twenty well-developed vines were selected under each canopy management treatment. five different canopy management practices were imposed during the fruit pruning season, i.e., shoot thinning to 15 shoots per meter (retaining approximately 40 shoots per vine), removal of basal three leaves at pre-bloom stage, a combination of shoot thinning with leaf removal, and, shoot pinching at 10 leaves above the bunch, and a control. canopy management practices followed during the period of study are elaborated below. shoot thinning shoot thinning was done at 4 to 5 leaf stage, which was approximately about 16-17 days after pruning. all the secondary and tertiary shoots were hand-removed, and the remaining shoots were thinned evenly when necessary, to 15 shoots/m per vine. leaf removal the fruit bunch appears at the 5th leaf on a newly emerged shoot. basal three leaves on the shoot were removed during the pre-bloom to berry-setting stage (approximately 40-45 days after pruning). shoot pinching for development of a bunch, approximately 10 leaves above the bunch are deemed sufficient. hence, shoot pinching was done at the 10th leaf after bunch, and growth was stopped here. gas exchange parameters: parameters such as stomatal conductance, photosynthetic rate and transpiration rate were recorded during the full-bloom stage. recently matured leaves (5th 6th leaf from tip) were used for measuring various parameters using infra-red gas analyzer (irga model li 6400, li-cor biosciences, nebraska, usa). observations were recorded during bright sunlight during 11.0am to 12.30pm. yield and quality parameters bunch and berry traits: fully mature and ripe bunches were harvested and weighed. fifty berries from each bunch were randomly collected and weighed for calculating the average berry weight. bunch and berry diameter was measured using a graduated scale. total soluble solids (°brix): fresh samples (berries) were pressed using a hand press and juice filtered through a muslin cloth. extracted juice was used for recording total soluble solids (°brix) using a hand refractometer. titratable acidity: titratable acidity of fresh, filtered juice of 50 berry samples was determined using 0.1n naoh and titrated till reaching the end-point (change from colourless to pink) with phenolphthalein indicator. statistical analysis analysis of variance was performed for each variable using sas statistical package version 9.3 (sas institute, cary, nc). least significant differences among treatments were calculated using the same software. results and discussion effect of canopy management practices on vegetative growth and photosynthesis results on vegetative growth parameters in relation to canopy management practices are presented in table 1. among the different treatments studied, differences for shoot length were non-significant. however, shoot thinning with leaf removal, shoot thinning, and shoot pinching, considerably increased shoot diameter. shoot diameter in treatments was higher than in the control. though differences in inter-nodal length were significant, impact of canopy management practices on increasing internodal length was not experienced so much. when the shoot length had no effect, internodal length could not be improved in any of the treatments. canopy management practices had j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):18-22, 2014 canopy management in forward pruning in grape 20 no effect on total number of bunches per vine and lai in tas-a-ganesh grape. it is evident that considerable growth was induced by shoot thinning and leaf removal. increase in shoot diameter may be due to consolidation of food material in shoots supported by photosynthetically active leaves. in a similar study, hunter et al (1995) concluded that an additional compensatory growth and energy demand brought about by lateral removal could have a direct impact on metabolic processes in the grapevine, particularly, availability and distribution of carbohydrates for bunch development. highest photosynthesis rate (11.30μmol/m2/s) was recorded in shoot-thinning (6-7 leaf stage), followed by shoot pinching at 10 leaves above the bunch (10.77μmol/m2/s) compared to the control (8.05µmol/m2/s). results in the present investigation are in conformity with those of koblet (1975) and hunter and visser (1988b) who concluded that changes in canopy microclimate increase photosynthetic activity and export photoassimalates. however, in this study, a noticeable enhancement of photosynthetic activity due to improved light intensity, and possibly, delayed senescence and abscission of the remaining leaves due to lateral-shoot thinning, were found to have a positive effect on yield. canopy manipulation practices had no marked stimulating effect on stomatal conductance. rate of transpiration varied from 2.34 to 3.05 µmol h2o/ m 2/s and was comparable with findings of hunter and visser (1989) for defoliation per cent values for all leaf positions. maximum rate of transpiration (3.05 μmol/m2/s) was recorded with shootpinching at 10 leaves above the bunch, while, a drastic reduction in the rate of transpiration (2.00 μmol h2o/ m 2/s, 2.34 μmol/m2/s, respectively) was recorded with leaf removal (pre-bloom stage and shoot thinning at 6-7 leaf stage). rate of transpiration was higher in shoot-pinching treatment compared to other treatments. results of the present investigation are in line with falis et al (1982) who reported a general decline in transpiration rate with removal of the shoot and leaves during the growth season. shoot thinning had a positive effect on transpiration rate in grapevine. effect of canopy management practices on yield and berry composition data recorded on yield and berry composition figure in table 2. application of different canopy management table 2. effect of canopy management on yield and berry composition in grapes cv. tas-a-ganesh treatment bunch 50-berry berry length berry dia. tss juice acidity yield/ wt(g) wt(g) (mm) (mm) (obrix) p h (%) vine (kg) shoot thinning (6-7 leaf stage) 375.60 a 184.20 a 20.20 b 18.40 a 20.20 b 3.59 b 0.52 b 12.75 a leaf removal (pre-bloom stage) 258.00 d 165.35 d 18.00 d 17.40 c 18.60 d 3.65 a 0.43 c 10.80 b shoot thinning & leaf removal 290.60 c 178.50 b 21.00 a 17.78 b 21.00 a 3.58 b 0.55 b 11.14 b shoot pinching (10 leaves above bunch) 307.80 b 172.35 c 19.44 c 18.40 a 17.66 c 3.65 a 0.53 b 12.25 a control 235.60 e 133.00 e 19.56 bc 17.00 d 19.80 bc 3.58 b 0.62 a 10.09 b cv % 1.38 1.60 2.51 1.48 2.51 0.95 7.99 6.84 cd (p=0.05) 5.440 3.579 0.663 0.354 0.663 0.046 0.056 1.047 significance ** ** ** ** ** * ** * *values followed by the same alphabet are statistically not significant at p ≤ 0.05 table 1. effect of canopy manipulation on vegetative growth and photosynthesis in grape cv. tas-a-ganesh treatment shoot shoot dia. internodal no. of leaf photosynthesis stomatal transpiration length (mm) length bunches/ area index (μmol/m2/s) conductance rate (cm) (cm) vine (lai) (μmol/m2/s) (μmol/m2/s) shoot thinning 93.64 ab 9.13 ab 5.80 a 38.60 a 1.10 a 11.30 a 0.07 ab 2.34 c (6-7 leaf stage) leaf removal 99.07 a 8.56 bc 5.80 a 31.80 a 1.02 a 9.65 c 0.08 ab 2.00 c (pre-bloom stage) shoot thinning + 102.61a 9.57 a 5.30 ab 38.40 a 1.10 a 9.05 d 0.09 a 2.93 ab leaf removal shoot pinching 88.27ab 8.87 ab 4.82 bc 38.60 a 0.98 a 10.77 b 0.09 a 3.05 a (10 leaves above the bunch) control 80.00 b 8.14 c 4.70 c 34.20 a 1.00 a 8.05 e 0.06 b 2.46 bc cv % 15.28 5.97 7.92 14.32 9.42 1.11 20.12 15.27 cd (p=0.05) 0.709 0.561 0.146 0.523 significance at p ≤ 0.05 ns * * ns ns ** ns * *values followed by the same alphabet are statistically not significant at p ≤ 0.05; ns: not significant somkuwar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):18-22, 2014 21 practices resulted in variation in berry quality. yield per vine ranged from 10.09kg in the control to 12.75kg in shoot thinning treatment at 6-7 leaf stage. significant differences were recorded for yield among treatments. highest yield was recorded when shoot-thinning was performed at 6-7 leaf stage (12.75kg/vine), followed by shoot-pinching at 10th leaf above the bunch (12.25kg/vine) over the control (10.09kg/vine). shoot thinning may have helped the vine improve its photosynthetic activity, thereby increasing source-strength required for bunch development (fig 1). similar studies were reported by hunter et al (1995) in cabernet sauvignon. grapevines tend to have reduced cluster weight with leaf-removal. we presume that this is in response to a lower shoot vigor of the grapevine at leaf removal compared with rest of the treatments, when more vigorously growing shoots during fruit-set may compete with clusters at anthesis for available carbohydrates (vasconcelos et al, 2009). berry quality parameters varied due to canopy manipulation practices. berry diameter increased with canopy manipulation treatments. maximum berry diameter (17.78mm) was recorded in shoot-thinning with leafremoval. results of the present investigation are in accordance with keller (2009) who reported that berry growth after flowering was highly dependent on assimilate supply. kemp (2010) reported that removal of leaves early in the first stage of berry growth may disrupt cell division and growth due to reduced assimilates. keller (2009) explained that environmental factors, especially heat stress, seemed to restrict berry size when imposed before the lag phase of growth. spayd et al (2002) reported that sun exposed berries get heated by the incoming radiation, and that a rise in temperature due to early leaf-removal can potentially limit berry size. significant variation in total soluble solids (tss) and titratable acidity was recorded among different canopy management treatments. higher total soluble solids and acidity were recorded with a combination of shoot-thinning and leaf-removal (21.00obrix and 0.55%, respectively), whereas, lowest total soluble solids (18.60obrix) and acidity (0.43%) were recorded in leaf-removal treatment. increase in total soluble solids may have been due to a reduction in the canopy area which resulted in exposure of the bunches to sunlight. these results are in accordance with price et al (1995) who reported exposed pinot noir berries as having the highest tss and lowest acidity; however, there was no difference in ph when compared with moderately-exposed and naturally-shaded fruit. leaf removal at four weeks postbloom decreased tss but did not affect titrable acidity or ph compared to the shaded fruit (vasconcelos and castagnoli, 2000). changes in total soluble solids in a berry may have been due to canopy management practices that resulted in stress to the vine. early-season carbon supply limitation, whether imposed by environmental stress or by cultural practices (such as leaf-removal) may restrict berry size and/or number, but these do not usually impair berry ripening (keller 2009). this is clearly demonstrated in his study. poni et al (2006) emphasized that defoliation at or close to flowering should be avoided in low-vigour vines as it affects yield and berry size adversely. however, results from leaf-removal depend upon climate, variety, clone and trellis system, all of which affect sunlight and temperature within a grapevine canopy. a positive correlation between photosynthesis and yield per vine and average bunch weight is also reported in the present investigation (table 3) indicating the importance of canopy management practices during forward pruning to achieve quality grape production. references fails, b.s., lewis, a.j. and barden, j.a. 1982. net photosynthesis and transpiration of sunand shade – grown ficus benjamina leaves. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 107:758-761 hunter, j.j. and visser, j.h. 1988a. distribution of 14ctable 3. correlation coefficient between various growth, yield and photosynthesis parameters as influenced by canopy management practices parameters shoot yield per photosynthesis transpiration bunch 50-berry tss length (cm) vine (kg) (µmol/cm2/s) rate (µmol h2o/m 2/s) wt (g) wt (g) (obrix) shoot length (cm) 1 0.228 -0.076 0.027 0.173 0.416* -0.014 yield per vine (kg) 1 0.622* 0.213 0.784** 0.662* -0.150 photosynthesis (µmol/cm2/s) 1 0.115 0.604* 0.446* -0.038 transpiration rate (µmol h2o/m 2/s) 1 0.132 0.180 -0.019 bunch wt (g) 1 0.818** 0.124 50-berry wt (g) 1 0.077 tss (obrix) 1.000 *significant at p ≤ 0.05; **significant at p ≤ 0.01 canopy management in forward pruning in grape j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):18-22, 2014 22 photosynthate in the shoot of vitis vinifera l. cv. cabernet sauvignon. i. the effect of leaf position and development stage of the vine. s. afr. j. enol. vitic., 9:3-9 hunter, j.j. and visser, j.h. 1988b. distribution of 14cphotosynthate in the shoot of vitis vinifera l. cv. cabernet sauvignon. ii. the effect of partial defoliation. s. afr. j. enol. vitic., 9:10-15 hunter, j.j., and visser, j.h. 1989. the effect of partial defoliation, leaf position and developmental stage of the vine on leaf chlorophy concentration in relation to the photosynthetic activity and light intensity in the canopy of vitis vinifera l. cv. cabernet sauvignon. s. afr. j. enol. vitic., 10:67-73 hunter, j.j. and visser, j.h. 1990. the effect of partial defoliation on growth characteristics of vitis vinifera l. cv. cabernet sauvignon. i. vegetative growth. s. afr. j. enol. vitic., 11:18-25 hunter, j.j., skrivan, r. and ruffener, h.p. 1994. diurnal and seasonal physiological changes in leaves of vitis vinifera l. co2 assimilation rates, sugar levels and sucrolytic enzymes activity. vitis, 33:189-195 hunter, j.j., ruffner, h.p., volschenk, c.g. and le roux, d.j. 1995. partial defoliation of vitis vinifera l. cv. cabernet sauvignon/99 richter: effect on root growth, canopy efficacy, grape composition and wine quality. amer. j. enol. vitic., 46:306-314 keller, m. 2009. managing grapevines to optimize fruit development in a challenging environment: a climate change primer for viticulturists. aust. j. grape wine res., 16:56-69 kemp, b. 2010. the effect of the timing of leaf removal on berry ripening, flavour and aroma compounds in pinot noir wines. ph.d. thesis submitted to lincoln university, new zealand, pp. 236 kliewer, w.m. and dokoozlian, n.k. 2005. leaf area/crop weight ratios of grapevines: influence on fruit composition and wine quality. amer. j. enol. vitic., 56:170-181 koblet, w. 1975. wanderung von assimilaten uas verschiedenen rebenblattern wahrend der reifephase der trauben. wein-wiss., 30:241-249 koblet, w., candolfi-vasconcelos, m.c., aeschimann, e. and howell, g.s. 1993. influence of defoliation, rootstock and training system on pinot noir grapevines. i. mobilization and accumulation of assimilates in woody tissue. vitic. enol. sci., 48:104108 matthews, m.a. and anderson, m.m. 1988. fruit ripening in vitis vinifera l.: responses to seasonal water deficits. amer. j. enol. vitic., 39:313-320 petrie, p., trought, m. and howell, g. 2000. fruit composition and ripening of pinot noir (vitis vinifera l.) in relation to leaf area. aust. j. grape wine res., 6:46-51 petrie, p.r., dunn, g.m., martin, s.r., krstic, m.p. and clin-geleffer, p.r. 2003. crop stabilization. in: grape growing at the edge. australian society of viticulture and oenology seminar. s.m. bell et al (eds.), pp. 11-16, asvo, adelaide poni, s., casalini, l., bernizzoini, f.s., civardi and intrieri, c. 2006. effects of early defoliation on shoot photosynthesis, yield components and grape composition. amer. j. enol. vitic., 57:397-407 price, s.f., breen, p.j., valalladao, m. and watson, b.y. 1995. cluster sun exposure and quercetin in grapes and wine. amer. j. enol. vitic., 46:187-194 ruffner, h.p., adler, s. and rast, d.m. 1990. soluble and wall associated forms of invertase in vitis vinifera. phytochem., 29:2083-2086 smart, r.e., robinson, j.b., due, g.r. and brien, c.j. 1985. canopy microclimate modification for the cultivar shiraz ii. effects on must and wine composition. vitis, 24:119-128 spayd, s.e., tarara, j.m., mee, d.l. and ferguson, j.c. 2002. separation of sunlight & temperature effects on compostion of vitis vinifera cv. merlot berries. amer. j. eno. vitic., 53:171-182 vasconcelos, m.c., greven, m., winefield, c.s., trought, m.c.t. and raw, v. 2009. the flowering process of vitis vinifera: a review. amer. j. enol. vitic., 60:411–433 vasconcelos, s.c. and castagnoli, s. 2000. leaf canopy structure and vine performance. amer. j. enol. vitic., 51:390–396 (ms received 30 may 2013, revised 03 december 2013, accepted 28 february 2014) somkuwar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):18-22, 2014 introduction according to a panel of nobel laureates, of the top 10 priorities selected for advancing global welfare using methodologies based on theory of welfare economics, in copenhagen consensus, 2008, five were in the area of nutrition “ nutrient supplements, nutrient fortification, biofortification, de-worming and other nutrient programmes at the school and community levels. agriculture in general and horticulture in particular, are of paramount importance for overcoming the malady of mineral nutrient deficiency and malnutrition. attempts to enhance mineral content in food automatically enhanced quality and yield of the crops, especially in horticulture. secondary nutrient deficiency in soils and crops is now emerging as a major problem for maintaining balanced nutrition and quality in horticultural crops. this is mainly due to use of straight fertilizers devoid of secondary nutrients particularly, mg and s. further, intensive cultivation of high yielding varieties/hybrids and the ensuing multifold increase in yields have lead to mining out of these nutrients from soil (shukla et al, 2009). magnesium deficiency in soil not only limits horticultural crop quality and production but also has a negative effect on human nutrition and health. apart from human suffering due to morbidity and mortality, malnutrition, in general, and mineral nutrient deficiencies in particular entail a high economic cost. solanaceous crops like tomato, effect of applied magnesium on yield and quality of tomato in alfisols of karnataka b.l. kashinath, a.n. ganesha murthy1, t. senthivel2, g. james pitchai3 and a.t. sadashiva division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e mail : kasnath@iihr.ernet.in abstract field experiments were conducted for two years on alfisols to assess the effect of applied magnesium on fruit yield and quality parameters in tomato. magnesium was applied at four levels ranging from 0 to 100 kg/ha in the form of mgso 4 . applied mg significantly enhanced fruit yield up to 50kg /ha during the two years of experimentation. tomato quality parameters viz., total titrable acidity, content of lycopene, total carotenoids and ascorbic acid differed significantly among treatments. applied mg significantly improved quality. highest lycopene content, carotenoids and ascorbic acid in the fruit was recorded in recommended dose of fertilizers (rdf) + mgso 4 @ 50kg/ha followed by rdf + mgso 4 @ 75 kg/ha. lowest values for the above parameters were observed in the treatment receiving rdf alone in both the years. key words: tomato, titratable acidity, lycopene, total carotenoids, ascorbic acid, yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):55-59, 2013 potato and cole crops respond well to applied mg (bhargava and raghupathi, 1997). tomato is extensively cultivated on alfisols in south india, particularly, in south and south interior karnataka. these soils are generally deficient in available mg and crops in the field frequently show symptoms of mg deficiency that seriously affect yield and quality in tomato. hence, the present study was undertaken to understand effect of applied mg on yield and quality in tomato grown on alfisols in southern karnataka. material and methods the experiment was conducted at indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bangalore, for two years during the winter season of 2010-11 and 2011-12. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design in triplicate with five treatments, viz., t 1 control (rdf[180:150:120 npk kg ha-1]), t 2 rdf+mgso 4 (25kg ha-1) , t 3 rdf+mgso 4 (50kg ha-1), t 4 rdf+mgso 4 (75kg ha1) , t 5 rdf+mgso 4 (100kg ha-1). fifty per cent of nitrogen and the, full dose of phosphorus and potassium were applied at transplanting, as per treatment, in the form of ammonium sulphate, single super phosphate (ssp) and muriate of potash. the whole quantity of ammonium sulphate 857kg/ ha, ssp938 kg/ha and muriate of potash-200 kg/ha were applied through soil application. only nitrogen was applied 1division of soil science and agriculture chemistry, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 560 089 2gandhi gram rural institute, gandhigram 3bharathiar university, coimbatore, india 56 in three splits viz., 50% at planting, 25% at 25 days after transplanting, and 25% at 50 days after transplanting. magnesium was applied in the form of magnesium sulphate (mgso 4 7h 2 o). quantity of magnesium applied as magnesium sulphate is given in table 1. table 1. quantity of mgso 4 applied for supplying different doses of magnesium treatment levels of quantity of mgso 4 magnesium (kg ha-1) applied (kg ha-1) 25 257 50 514 75 771 100 1028 tomato hybrid arka ananya was transplanted at a spacing of 100cm x 60cm. tomato fruits are harvested in 7 pickings. fruit samples were drawn after ii & iv picking for quality analysis. samples were immediately washed and stored in a refrigerator until analysis. fruit quality parameters viz., total titratable acidity, lycopene level, total carotenoids and ascorbic acid were analyzed by the following methods. titratable acidity (%) titratable acidity of tomato was analyzed using the procedure outlined by mazumdar. acidity was expressed as per cent (%) citric acid. a known amount of tissue sample (by weight) was taken. this was extracted with distilled water by thorough crushing. the extract was then filtered, and the filtrate was made up to a known volume with distilled water. a few drops of phenolphthalein solution were added to this and shaken well. titration was determined by appearance of a pink colour. titratable acidity (%) was quantified using the following formula: calculation in terms of citric acid percentage of total titratable acidity in the sample as equivalent of citric acid average burette volume made upto reading for x 0.0064 x with distilled x 100 sample (ml) water (ml) = ————————————————————————— weight of x volume of aliquot taken for sample (g) examination (ml) where, 0.0064 refer to 1 ml of 0.1 n naoh neutralises 0.0064g of citric acid lycopene and total carotenoids content (mg/100g) lycopene and total carotenoids content of tomato was analyzed using the procedure outlined by lichtenthaler (1987). five grams of the fruit sample was blended with the help of a clean mortar by adding 20ml acetone. the acetone extract was transfer to a separating funnel. carotenoids were extracted with (10x2) ml of hexane, 50ml of distilled water and a pinch of nacl. the volume was then made upto 25ml. to this were added 5-6 grams of sodium sulphate to remove water. absorbance was read using spectrophotometer at 470nm for total carotenoids, and 503nm for lycopene estimation and quantified using the formula: od x std. value x total volume x 100 lycopene (mg/100g) = ————————————————— (503 nm) weight of the sample (g) x 1000 std. value = 1 od = 5.375 µg od x std. value x total volume x 100 total carotenoids (mg/100g) = ————————————— (470 nm) weight of the sample (g) x 1000 std. value = 1 od = 7.306 µg ascorbic acid ascorbic acid was estimated using the 2,6dichlorophenol indophenol titration method (thimmaiah, 1999).the extracted sample was mixed in 4 per cent oxalic acid and made upto a known volume (100ml) and centrifuged. 5 ml of the supernatant was added to 10 ml of 4% oxalic acid and titrated against the dye. titer x dye x volume made x 100 value factor up (ml) ascorbic acid (mg/100g) = ——————————————— aliquot of x weight of the extraction (ml) sample taken (g) where, dye factor = 0.5/titer value statistical analysis data on yield and quality parameters were subjected to statistical analysis as described by sundaraja et al, 1972. and subjected to statistical analysis using ‘biostatiihr’ programme and ‘sas’ programme. results and discussion fruit yield in tomato total mean yield in tomato differed significantly among various treatments during the two years of experimentation. magnesium applied as mgso 4 @ 50kg ha-1significantly enhanced fruit yield. application of higher levels of mg depressed fruit yields, but, yield levels were higher than in plots without mg application (control) (table 3). the mean of two year pooled data revealed lowest tomato yield in j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):55-59, 2013 kashinath et al 57 control treatment (60.09 t ha-1); highest yield was observed in rdf+mgso 4 (50kg mg/ha) (78.01t ha-1) and rdf+mgso 4 (25kg mg/ha) (73.92t ha-1), followed by rdf+mgso 4 (75kg mg/ha) (68.12 t ha-1) and rdf+mgso 4 (100kg mg/ha) (67.80t ha-1). lycopene and total carotenoids magnesium significantly affected lycopene content in tomato fruits during both the years of experimentation (table 4). application of 50kg mg /ha resulted in maximum lycopene content during the first year at ii & iv harvest stage (9.33 & 9.10 mg/100g) and ii year at ii & iv harvest stage (8.33 & 8.10mg/100g) and the lowest lycopene at ii & iv harvest stage (6.89 & 6.46 mg /100g) was observed in control. during the ii year, highest lycopene content was observed in the treatment of 50kg mg/ha (8.33 mg at ii harvest stage and 8.10 mg/100g at iv harvest stage) compared to control (6.05 mg at ii harvest stage and 5.92mg/100g at iv harvest stage). similar results were reported by bose et al (2006) in soils of west bengal. they also stated that soil k deficiency to decreased lycopene content. according to cox et al (2003), red fruiting cultivars had higher lycopene content than yellow or orange cultivars. there was also seasonal effect on lycopene and antioxidant levels in tomato fruits (rosales el al, 2006, toor et al, 2006) and effect of irrigation and nutritional status of plants (dumas et al, 2003). the cultivar used in this study is a medium red variety and, generally, fruits contain 8-9mg lycopene/100g variation in lycopene content in the range of 5.9-9.1 mg/ 100g observed in different treatments in this study showed that applied mg can enhance lycopene content in tomato hybrid ‘arka ananya’ in alfisols. total carotenoids in tomato fruits differed significantly among different treatments (table 5). highest carotenoid content was observed in the treatment 50kg mg/ha during i and ii year. the content was 12.86 and 12.530 mg/100g table 2. initial physical and chemical properties of soil parameter value methodology reference sand (%) 80.30 hydrometer method piper (1966) silt (%) 10.20 hydrometer method piper (1966) clay (%) 9.50 hydrometer method piper (1966) ph 5.20 potentiometer method jackson (1973) ec (ds m-1) 0.26 conductivity meter page et al (1982) organic carbon (%) 0.40 walkely and black wet oxidation method jackson (1973) available nitrogen (ppm) 57.52 alkaline permanganate method subbaiah and asija (1956) available phosphorus (ppm) 6.56 0.5 m nahco 3 – extractable; molybdate – page et al (1982) ascorbic acid blue colour method available potassium (ppm) 110.50 n nh 4 oac – extractable; flame photometer method page et al (1982) nh 4 oac extractable calcium (ppm) 1288.83 versanate titration method black (1965) nh 4 oac extractable magnesium (ppm) 281.58 versanate titration method black (1965) table 4. effect of magnesium application on lycopene content (mg/ 100 g) in tomato hybrid arka ananya treatment i year ii year ii harvest iv harvest ii harvest iv harvest control (rdf) 6.89 6.46 6.05 5.92 rdf+mgso 4 7.62 7.42 6.88 6.65 25kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 9.33 9.10 8.33 8.10 50kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 8.82 8.49 8.02 7.99 75kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 8.80 8.27 7.97 7.83 100kg/ha cv (%) 9.52 8.83 10.6 8.26 cd(p=0.05) 1.49 1.32 1.49 1.14 table 3. effect of magnesium application on fruit yield (t/ha) of tomato hybrid arka ananya treatment i year ii year mean control (rdf) 59.10 61.08 60.09 rdf+mgso 4 25kg/ha 74.60 73.24 73.92 rdf+mgso 4 50kg/ha 77.53 78.40 78.01 rdf+mgso 4 75kg/ha 68.22 68.02 68.12 rdf+mgso 4 100kg/ha 68.10 67.49 67.80 cd (p=0.05) 8.75 8.07 6.31 table 5. effect of magnesium application on total carotenoids (mg/ 100 g) content of tomato hybrid arka ananya treatment i year ii year ii harvest iv harvest ii harvest iv harvest control (rdf) 8.91 8.18 8.84 8.51 rdf+mgso 4 10.49 9.69 10.09 9.59 25kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 12.86 12.53 12.03 11.87 50kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 12.31 12.44 11.18 10.94 75kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 12.02 12.12 10.93 10.30 100kg/ha cv (%) 9.30 13.37 9.50 10.95 cd(p=0.05) 1.98 2.77 1.90 2.11 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):55-59, 2013 effect of magnesium on yield and quality in tomato 58 carotenoids in the treatment 50kg mg/ha during i year at ii & iv harvest stage, respectively. similarly, during the second year, carotenoid content was 12.03 at ii harvest & 11.87 mg/100 g at iv harvest. lowest levels of carotenoids (8.91, 8.18, 8.84 & 8.51 mg/100 g during i & ii year at ii & iv harvest stage, respectively) were recorded in control treatment jean aghofack –nguemezi and valere (2010) carried out similar studies on the effect of fertilizer containing ca and mg on growth, development and quality of tomato fruits in cameroon. they reported no significant alteration in carotenoid content in tomato fruits. this was partly due to the fact that these soils were as such rich in available mg. several others have also reported carotenoids as remaining either unaltered, or even decreasing in content. however, in this study, mg applied to the soils low in available mg had enhanced carotenoid levels in tomato. hence, in these soils, farmers can benefit by adding mg containing fertilizers to soils low in available mg. acidity and ascorbic acid applied mg significantly influenced acidity and ascorbic acid content in tomato during the two years of experimentation (tables 6 & 7). during the first year, highest acidity was recorded in the treatment 50kg mg/ha (0.44mg/ 100g) followed by the treatment 100kg mg/ha (0.40mg/ 100g); lowest was recorded in the control (0.37mg/100g) during the i year at the ii harvest stage. similar results were obtained in the iv harvest stage. where the lowest was observed in control (0.34mg/100g). during the second year highest acidity of the fruit was recorded in treatment 50 kg mg/ha (0.45 and 0.43 mg/100g at ii & iv harvest stage respectively) and the lowest acidity (0.35 and 0.34 mg/100g at ii & iv harvest stage respectively) was observed in the control (rdf only) (table 6). shibli et al (1995) evaluated physico-chemical properties of the fruits of four open-pollinated tomato cultivars (pello, e. mich, pakit and riogrande) grown under rainfed conditions in jordan, and recorded 0.3 % titratable acidity in soils low in available mg. similar to acidity, highly significant difference in ascorbic acid content in tomato was observed among different treatments (table 7). magnesium application resulted in ascorbic acid ranging from 20.17 to 32.22mg/ 100g in fresh fruit during both years. maximum ascorbic acid content was observed in the treatment of 50kg mg/ha (ii harvest-32.22 & iv harvest 30.41 mg/100g) and lowest ascorbic acid content in control during the i year experiment. similarly, during the second year, highest ascorbic acid content (ii harvest-31.41 & iv harvest-29.95 mg/100g) was recorded in the treatment 50kg mg/ha. this was in agreement with findings of gulshan et al (1991) who evaluated nine tomato varieties during summer in tarai region and reported highest (16.2mg/100g) and lowest (8.8 mg/ 100 g) ascorbic acid content in the tomato plant. shibli et al (1995) also reported similar results. results of field experiments clearly indicate that yield in hybrid tomato can be enhanced through application of 50kg mg/ha in alfisols. in addition to fruit yield significant improvement in quality of the fruits was seen as indicated by enhanced levels of total titratable acidity, lycopene, carotenoids and ascorbic acid. hence, farmer applying mgso 4 to the crop can realize higher yields and good quality tomato, with little investment. references bhargava, b.s. and raghupathi, h.b. 1997. current status and new norms of magnesium for grapevines. j. indian soc. soil sci., 45:120-123 black, c.a. 1965. methods of soil analysis part-ii. agronomy monograph, amer. soc. agron., maidson, wisconsinn, usa. table 6. effect of magnesium application on total titratable acidity (mg/100g) in tomato hybrid arka ananya treatment i year ii year ii harvest iv harvest ii harvest iv harvest control (rdf) 0.37 0.34 0.35 0.34 rdf+mgso 4 0.38 0.36 0.39 0.38 25kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 0.44 0.41 0.45 0.43 50kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 0.39 0.37 0.42 0.40 75kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 0.40 0.39 0.41 0.40 100kg/ha cv (%) 5.48 5.92 5.90 5.88 cd (p=0.05) 0.041 0.042 0.045 0.043 table 7. effect of magnesium application on ascorbic acid (mg/ 100g) content in tomato hybrid arka ananya treatment i year ii year ii harvest iv harvest ii harvest iv harvest control (rdf) 21.84 20.67 21.25 20.17 rdf+mgso 4 27.03 25.70 25.93 25.55 25kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 32.22 30.41 31.41 29.95 50kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 29.34 28.01 29.08 27.67 75kg/ha rdf+mgso 4 28.08 26.75 27.26 26.08 100kg/ha cv (%) 7.39 9.37 7.23 7.63 cd(p=0.05) 5.57 4.64 5.18 5.43 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):55-59, 2013 kashinath et al 59 bose, p., sanyal, d. and majumdar, k. 2006. balancing potassium, sulphur, and magnesium for tomato and chilli grown on red lateritic soil. better crops. 90:215218 cox, s.e., stushnoff, c. and sampson, d.a. 2003. relationship of fruit color and light exposure to lycopene content and antioxidant properties of tomato. can. j. p. sci., 83:913-919 dumas, y., dadomo, m., dilucca, g. and grolier, p. 2003. effects of environmental factors and agricultural techniques on antioxidant content of tomatoes. j. sci. food agri., 83:369-382 gulshan, l., singh, d.k. and tiwari, 1991, performance of some tomato cultivars during summer in tarai region. veg. sci., 18:99-101 jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india private limited, new delhi, pp. 498 jean aghofack –nguemezi and valere tatchago, 2010. effects of fertilizers containing calcium and / or magnesium on the growth, development of plants and quality of tomato fruits in the western highlands. cameroon int’l. j. agril. res, 5:821-831 litchtenthaler, h.k. 1987. chlorophyll and carotenoids pigments of photosynthetic biomembrane. methods in enzymology., 148:350-382 mazumdar, b.c. and majumdar, k. 2003. methods on physico-chemical analysis of fruits. daya publishing house. delhi page, a. l., miller, r.h. and keeney, d.r. 1982. methods of soil analysis: part-2. chemical and microbiological properties (2nd ed.), no. 9 (part 2), amer. soc. agron. madison, wisconsin, usa piper, c.s. 1966. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, rosales, m.a, ruiz, j.m., hernadez, j., soriano t., castilla, n. and romero, l. 2006. antioxidant content and ascorbate metabolism in cherry tomato exocarp in relation to temperature and solar radiation. j. sci. food and agri., 86:1545-1551 shibli, r.a., ereifej, k.i., ajlouni. m.a. and hussain, a. 1995. physico-chemical properties of fruits of four open-pollinated tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) cultivars grown under rainfed conditions in jordan. j. food sci. technol., 32:489-492 shukla, a.k., dwivedi, b.s., singh, v.k. and gill, m.s. 2009. macro role of micronutrients. indian j. fert., 5:11-30 subbaiah, b. v. and asija, g. l. 1956. a rapid procedure for the estimation of available nitrogen in soils. curr. sci., 25:259-260 sundaraja, n., nagaraju, venkataramu, m.n. and jaganath, m.k. 1972. design and analysis of field experiments, uas and biostat-iihr bangalore thimmaiah, s.k. 1999. standard methods of biochemical analysis. kalyani publishers, new delhi toor, r.k., savage, g.p. and lister, c.e. 2006. seasonal variations in the antioxidant composition of greenhouse grown tomatoes. j. food comp. anal., 19:1-10 (ms received 09 january 2013, accepted 16 march 2013, revised 10 april 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):55-59, 2013 effect of magnesium on yield and quality in tomato changes in fruit quality and carotenoid profile in tomato (solanum lycopersicon l.) genotypes under elevated temperature k.s. shivashankara, k.c. pavithra, r.h. laxman, a.t. sadashiva1, t.k. roy and g.a. geetha division of plant physiology and biochemistry icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail: shivaiihr@yahoo.com abstract tomato (solanum lycopersicon l.) is a rich source of carotenoids, especially lycopene, and is affected severely by high temperatures under tropical conditions. to study the effect of elevated temperature on lycopene content and other quality parameters, five tomato genotypes, viz., rf4a, abhinava, arka saurabh, iihr 2195 and arka vikas, were grown in a temperature gradient tunnel (tgt) facility under 33.4 and 35.4ºc temperature conditions. fruits were analyzed for total carotenoids, total phenols, total flavonoids, total sugars, tss, acidity, vitamin c besides carotenoids profile (βββββ-carotene, lycopene, phytoene and luteoxanthin content). results revealed that all the quality parameters studied were superior at 33.4ºc, compared to 35.4ºc in all the genotypes. ‘iihr 2195’ recorded highest total phenols (479.28mg/100g dw), total flavonoids (70.27mg/100g dw), ferric reducing antioxidant potential (frap) (310.53mg/100g dw), diphenyl picryl hydrazyl (dpph) radical (487.89mg/100g dw), vitamin c content (292.25mg/ 100g dw) and total sugars (606.88mg/g dw) at 33.4ºc and at 35.4ºc. ‘rf4a’ and ‘arka vikas’ were found to have better total carotenoids content and lycopene at higher temperature than other genotypes. ‘arka vikas’ recorded highest total soluble solids (tss) (8.9ºbrix) and acidity (0.80%) at 35.4ºc. higher tss and acidity were recorded at 35.4ºc than at 33.4ºc in all the five genotypes. genotypic variation was observed in the above stated biochemical parameters in response to elevated temperatures. key words: tomato, tgt, antioxidants, elevated temperature, uplc 1division of vegetable crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india introduction global warming is an important issue threatening most horticultural crops, and can lead to serious consequences in food production. tomato, being sensitive to temperature, is likely to be influenced by elevated temperatures under a climate change scenario (laxman et al, 2013). increase in temperature under climate-change circumstances affects crop yield, in turn affecting sustained supply for meeting a growing demand. tomato, an important horticultural crop in india, is currently the second largest vegetable in terms of production. it is one of the most consumed vegetables in the world. tomatoes are rich in bioactive compounds, including carotenoids (lycopene, β-carotene, phytoene and luteoxanthin), ascorbic acid, flavonoids and phenolic compounds (kaur et al, 2013). along with phenols, higher intake of flavonoids, vitamin c and carotenoids has been reported to reduce the risk of many degenerative diseases (agarwal and rao, 2000). optimal mean daily temperatures for tomato lie between 21 and 24°c, depending on the developmental stage (geisenberg and stewart, 1986). supra-optimal temperatures cause a series of complex morphological, physiological, biochemical and molecular changes that adversely affect plant growth and productivity (wang et al, 2003). temperature has a significant influence on many aspects of growth and development in tomato. temperature below 16ºc can cause flower abscission, while temperature above 30ºc can cause fruit cracking and blotchy ripening (islam, 2011). impact of high temperature on the plant is not limited to flowering and fruit-set, but also subsequent development and maturity of the fruit, and fruit quality. lee and kader (2000) reported higher vitamin c content in tomato grown under low temperatures than that under high temperature. high temperature also affects biosynthesis of carotenoids, j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):38-43, 2015 39 fruit quality and carotenoids in tomato under elevated temperature especially lycopene (kaur et al, 2013). environmental factors other than temperature, like, plant nutrition and light, can also considerably affect biosynthesis of carotenoids. phenolic acids and flavonols are reported to increase under high temperature conditions in strawberry (wang and zheng, 2001). although sufficient literature is available on fruit quality parameters in different tomato genotypes, studies on varietal response to elevated temperature in terms of fruit quality are scanty and this information is essential to identify varieties suited to a changing climate. therefore, the present experiment was set in a temperature gradient tunnel to study the effect of temperature on fruit quality parameters and carotenoid profile in five tomato genotypes. material and methods the experiment was carried out at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, in a temperature gradient tunnel during the months of october 2011 to february 2012. bengaluru is located at 13º58' n latitude, 78ºe longitude and 890m above mean sea level. five genotypes of tomato (solanum lycopersicon l.), viz., rf4a, abhinava, arka saurabh, iihr 2195 and arka vikas, were selected for the study. twenty-five day old seedlings were transplanted into 20 litre capacity plastic containers filled with soil, fym and sand, in the ratio of 2:1:1. temperature gradient tunnel (tgt) measuring 18m length, 4.5m width and 3m height, covered with a polycarbonate sheet was used in the study. one week after transplanting, the containers were shifted to tgt for imposition of temperature treatments. one set comprising six plants each of the five genotypes was placed near the cooling pad and another set with the same number of plants was placed towards the fan (where the average air temperature was about 2°c higher than at the cooling-pad end). daily temperatures and relative humidity (rh) during fruit growth period recorded inside tgt are shown in fig. 1. the gradient inside tgt was maintained only during daytime, as tgt worked on the pad-and-fan system. since there was no gradient in the night-time minimum temperature, only one value for temperature is indicated (fig. 1). photosynthetically active radiation (par) inside the tgt was about 85% of that of the light outside. the plants were provided with recommended dose of fertilizer, and suitable crop protection measures were applied when required. freshly-harvested, fully ripe fruits were used for analysis. fruits were crushed in a blender and a known quantity of the homogeneous mass was set apart for analysis. quality parameters like tss, % acidity, vitamin c content, total phenols, total flavonoids, frap, dpph, total carotenoids and total sugars were analyzed. total soluble solids (tss) were recorded using a digital refractometer (arko india ltd., model dg-nxt) and expressed in ºbrix. acidity was determined by the titration method (aoac, 942.15) using phenolphthalein as the indicator. acidity was expressed in per cent citric acid equivalent. vitamin c content was determined using 2,6dichlorophenol indophenol (dcpip) method (aoac, 967.21) and calculated as mg ascorbic acid equivalent per 100g dry weight. total phenols present in 80% methanol extract were estimated by folin-ciocalteu method (singleton and rossi, 1965). methanol extract was mixed with fcr reagent and the color developed with 20% sodium carbonate reagent. intensity of color developed was read at 700nm using a spectrophotometer (t80+ uv/vis spectrophotometer, pg instruments ltd., uk). results were expressed in mg gallic acid equivalent per 100g dry weight. total flavonoids content was estimated as per chun et al (2003). flavonoids present in the 80% methanol extract were estimated using 5% nano2 and 10% alcl3. absorbance of the pink mixture was read at 510nm and expressed as mg catechin equivalent per 100g dry weight. antioxidant capacity was measured as frap, using a modified method of benzie and strain (1996). methanol extract (0.2ml) was mixed with 1.8ml frap reagent. intensity of the blue colour that developed was measured at 593nm. total antioxidant capacity (as ferric reducing antioxidant potential) was calculated and the antioxidant capacity was expressed as mg ascorbic acid equivalent antioxidant capacity (aeac) per 100g dry weight. radical-scavenging ability was measured using dpph radical assay of kang and saltveit (2002). a 0.2ml aliquot of methanol extract was mixed with 0.3ml of 10mm acetate buffer (ph 5.5) and 2.5ml methanolic 0.2mm dpph solution. reduction in color due to scavenging of dpph radicals by antioxidants was estimated by reading the absorbance at 517nm. radical-scavenging ability was expressed as weight of the sample required for 50% fig. 1. daily maximum/minimum temperature (°c) and relative humidity (%) during the last 35 days of fruiting season j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):38-43, 2015 40 reduction in dpph radicals. total sugars present in the 80% ethanol extract were estimated using dinitrosalicylic acid method (miller, 1959). a 0.2ml aliquot of extract was mixed with dns reagent and the absorbance read at 540nm, expressed as mg glucose equivalent per gram dry weight using a standard curve. total carotenoids and lycopene content were analyzed by spectrophotometric method (lichtenthaler, 1987). carotenoids were estimated by extracting with acetone, partitioned to hexane, and their absorbance read at 470 and 503nm. standards were used for calibration, and results were expressed as mg per 100g dry weight. carotenoid profile by uplc carotenoid profile was estimated by uplc as per serino et al (2009) with minor modifications. acquity-uplc system from waters (milford, ma, usa) consisting of a quaternary pump, auto sampler injector and pda detector equipped with acquity-uplc beh-c18 column (1.7μm, 2.1x50mm) with beh-c18 (1.7μm, 2.1x5mm) guard column was used. instrument control and data processing were done using mass lynx software. the mobile phase consisted of phase-a acetonitrile:methanol:ethyl acetate (53:7:40) and phase-b methanol. isocratic flow rate of 0.2ml/ min was used in the ratio of a:b (95:5) for 6 min with pda scanning from 200 to 650nm. individual carotenoids were identified by diode array spectral characteristics, retention time and relative elution order compared to standards and values in literature. carotenoids were quantified as β-carotene equivalents. a known quantity (1ml) of hexane extract was evaporated to dryness, and residual carotenoids were dissolved in the mobile phase and filtered through 0.2μm nylon filter prior to ion injecting in uplc for further analysis. the detection was monitored at 450nm for βcarotene, 470nm for lycopene, 286nm for phytoene and 420nm for luteoxanthin. statistical analysis data were subjected to analysis of variance using anova, and, means were compared, with critical difference at p≤0.05. results and discussion changes in fruit quality parameters in five tomato genotypes at two temperature conditions are presented in table 1. tss increased with increase in temperature in all the genotypes (5.6 to 7.2ºbrix) and ranged from 3.8 to 7.1ºbrix at 33.4ºc, and at 35.4ºc, it ranged from 4.5 to 8.9ºbrix. similar trend was observed in per cent acidity too. acidity ranged from 0.34 to 0.68% at 33.4ºc, whereas, at 35.4ºc, the acidity ranged from 0.39 to 0.80%. sugars and acids are important components in tomato fruit flavor (george et al, 2004; kaur et al, 2013). increase in titratable acidity with increase in temperature has been reported (khanal, 2012). among genotypes, arka vikas recorded the highest tss (8.9ºbrix) and acidity (0.80%) at 35.4ºc. higher temperature is known to enhance soluble solids level in relation to ambient temperature conditions (gunawardhana and de silva, 2011; khanal, 2012). table 1. changes in fruit quality parameters of five tomato genotypes at two temperature conditions genotype mean tss acidity vitamin c total total frap dpph total total temperature (ºbrix) (%) (mg/100g phenols flavonoids (mg/100g (mg/100g carotenoids sugars during dw) (mg/100g (mg/100g dw) dw) (mg/100g (mg/g fruiting stage dw) dw) dw) dw) rf4a 33.4ºc 5.9 0.53 265.68 344.51 44.63 209.34 321.56 270.36 375.91 35.4ºc 7.1 0.66 272.49 378.99 45.06 160.37 306.32 191.97 366.21 abhinava 33.4ºc 6.1 0.46 272.06 361.73 42.83 202.06 310.16 228.98 423.03 35.4ºc 8.6 0.66 263.70 377.48 43.21 168.35 293.08 136.14 221.03 arka saurabh 33.4ºc 3.8 0.34 225.94 336.88 33.03 198.39 315.28 269.14 403.99 35.4ºc 4.5 0.39 258.59 419.68 45.52 191.93 318.73 176.74 264.38 iihr 2195 33.4ºc 4.9 0.46 292.25 479.28 70.27 310.53 487.89 205.13 606.88 35.4ºc 6.8 0.64 271.63 461.61 66.88 231.92 415.20 155.45 379.79 arka vikas 33.4ºc 7.1 0.68 226.19 352.64 49.66 208.72 343.55 197.33 347.23 35.4ºc 8.9 0.80 212.87 436.62 64.40 192.90 377.65 158.24 254.68 mean 33.4ºc 5.6 0.49 256.42 375.01 48.08 225.81 355.69 234.19 431.41 35.4ºc 7.2 0.63 255.86 414.88 53.01 189.09 342.20 163.71 297.22 cd for varieties (v) (p≤0.05) 0.02 0.01 1.98 1.67 0.82 1.36 1.40 0.81 1.86 cd for temperature (t) (p≤0.05) 0.01 0.01 ns 0.67 0.33 0.55 0.56 0.32 0.74 cd for v x t (p≤0.05) 0.05 0.03 3.96 3.34 1.64 2.73 2.80 1.62 3.72 ns= non-significant shivashankara et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):38-43, 2015 41 vitamin c content did not show significant differences among the two temperature treatments. however, among genotypes, iihr 2195 and rf4a recorded higher vitamin c content at 33.4ºc and 35.4ºc respectively compared to other genotypes. total phenols and flavonoids increased with increase in temperature in all the genotypes (375.01 to 414.88 and 48.08 to 53.01 mg/100g dw for total phenols and total flavonoids respectively). higher total phenols and flavonoids were observed in cv. iihr 2195. phenolic substances are reported to have a protective effect on ascorbic acid (toor and savage, 2006). therefore, presence of phenolics and flavonoids in tomato cells may have helped maintain ascorbic acid level. ferreyra et al (2007) also reported ascorbic acid level to be not significantly affected by temperature during the growth season. wang and zheng (2001) found elevated growth temperature of 30ºc to significantly enhance the content of phenolic acids and flavonols in strawberry. accumulation of phenolics at higher growth temperature has been reported in other crops too (wang, 2006; toor et al, 2006). total antioxidant capacity and radical-scavenging ability were assessed using frap and dpph methods respectively. all the genotypes recorded significantly higher frap and dpph at 33.4ºc. among genotypes, higher frap and dpph values were recorded in iihr 2195 at both 33.4ºc and 35.4ºc. ‘rf4a’ and ‘abhinava’ recorded lower frap values at 35.4ºc compared to other genotypes. ‘abhinava’ recorded lower dpph values at both 33.4ºc and 35.4ºc. all the genotypes recorded higher total sugars at 33.4ºc than at 35.4ºc. iihr 2195 recorded the highest total sugars (606.88mg/g dw) at 33.4ºc. temperature changes are known to affect fruit maturation and growth through influencing regulation of the enzymes acid invertase and sucrose synthase or cell-expansion and division and regulation of sugar transport into the fruit (fleisher et al, 2006). gautier et al (2005) reported decrease in sugar content in cherry tomato when fruit temperatures increased. sugar content in purple passionfruit juice was highest at low growth temperature, and lowest at high growth temperature. more sucrose accumulated at low temperature, while glucose and fructose content increased at higher temperature (utsunomiya, 1992). all these studies support our observations in tomato. in the present study, all the genotypes studied recorded higher total carotenoids and lycopene content at 33.4ºc than at 35.4ºc. carotenoid profiles indicated that β-carotene, lycopene, phytoene and luteoxanthin content was greater at 33.4ºc in all genotypes. temperature had a significant influence on total carotenoids and lycopene content. high temperature may lead to degradation of lycopene (demiray et al, 2013), in addition to a reduced synthesis (helyes et al, 2007). temperatures greater than 30ºc lead to inhibition of lycopene synthesis in normal red cultivars of tomato and synthesis is restored when the temperature drops below 30ºc. these temperature effects vary with the tomato cultivar (garcia and barrett, 2006). temperatures below 12ºc strongly inhibit lycopene biosynthesis, while temperatures over 32ºc stop this process altogether (dumas et al, 2003). temperature during fruit ripening plays a more important role in lycopene biosynthesis than it does during fruit growth period. fig. 2 shows chromatograms of tomato carotenoids at 33.4ºc and 35.4ºc. all the carotenoid pigments under study diminished at 35.4ºc in all five genotypes (table 2). greatest reduction was observed in two major pigments, lycopene and phytoene. however, reduction was lower in ‘rf4a’ and ‘arka vikas’. higher reduction was noticed in ‘abhinava’. in conclusion, changes in fruit quality parameters in five tomato genotypes under elevated temperature were studied under tgt. variations were observed among tomato genotypes for fruit quality parameters at elevated temperature. increase in temperature improved tss and per cent acidity, but decreased total carotenoids, lycopene fig. 2. uplc chromatograms of carotenoids in tomato fruit extract. chromatogram a represents carotenoid profiling at 33.4°c (maximum temperature near the cooling pad) and chromatogram b represents carotenoid profiling at 35.4°c (maximum temperature towards the fan). peaks identified are: (1) luteoxanthin, (2) lycopene, (3) βββββ-carotene and (4) phytoene j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):38-43, 2015 fruit quality and carotenoids in tomato under elevated temperature 42 and total sugars in all the genotypes studied. among the genotypes, iihr 2195 was found to be better in terms of total phenols, total flavonoids, frap, dpph and total sugars at 33.4ºc, as also at 35.4ºc. ‘arka vikas’ was found to be high in tss and per cent acidity at 33.4ºc. rf4a and arka vikas were found to be good at maintaining lycopene level at elevated temperature, compared to the other genotypes. genotype iihr 2195 is recommended for cultivation at elevated temperatures. acknowledgement this work was carried out under a project entitled “national initiative on climate resilient agriculture (nicra)”, indian council of agricultural research (icar), new delhi. the authors are grateful to director, iihr, bengaluru, for providing necessary facilities. references agarwal, s. and rao, a.v. 2000. tomato 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data on phytoene, lycopene, βββββ-carotene and luteoxanthin in five tomato genotypes at two different temperature conditions genotype phytoene lycopene β-carotene luteoxanthin (mg/100g dw) (mg/100g dw) (mg/100g dw) (mg/100g dw) 33.4ºc 35.4ºc % 33.4ºc 35.4ºc % 33.4ºc 35.4ºc % 33.4ºc 35.4ºc % increase/ increase/ increase/ increase/ decrease decrease decrease decrease over over over over 33.4ºc 33.4ºc 33.4ºc 33.4ºc rf4a 29.20 27.05 -7.35 174.38 130.43 -25.20 11.38 5.95 -47.70 4.48 4.94 10.36 abhinava 67.02 35.10 -47.64 150.65 88.91 -40.98 8.11 6.20 -23.52 3.88 2.17 -44.16 arka saurabh 29.74 17.67 -40.58 175.54 121.34 -30.87 5.74 3.67 -36.09 5.01 2.95 -41.20 iihr 2195 36.67 19.25 -47.49 131.46 88.38 -32.77 7.69 3.69 -52.06 4.03 2.23 -44.57 arka vikas 30.08 17.64 -41.37 146.46 122.61 -16.29 4.39 5.22 18.67 3.43 1.61 -53.19 mean 38.54 23.34 170.78 122.65 7.46 4.94 4.17 2.78 cd for varieties 0.40 2.68 0.46 0.13 (v) (p≤0.05) cd for temperature 0.16 1.07 0.18 0.05 (t) (p≤0.05) cd for v x t 0.80 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dinitrosalicylic acid reagent for determination of reducing sugars. anal. chem., 31:426-428 serino, s., gomez, l., costagliola, g. and gautier, h. 2009. hplc assay of tomato carotenoids: validation of a rapid micro-extraction technique. j. agri. food chem., 57:8753-8760 singleton, v.l. and rossi, j.a. jr. 1965. colorimetry of total phenolics with phosphomolybdic-phosphotungstic acid reagents. amer. j. enol. viticult., 16:144-158 toor, r.k. and savage, g.p. 2006. changes in major antioxidant components of tomatoes during postharvest storage. food chem., 99:724-727 toor, r.k., savage, g.p. and lister, c.e. 2006. seasonal variations in the antioxidant composition of greenhouse grown tomatoes. j. food comp. anal., 19:1-10 utsunomiya, n. 1992. effect of temperature on shoot growth, flowering and fruit growth of purple passion fruit (passiflora edulis sims var. edulis). sci. hort., 52:63-68 wang, s.y. 2006. effect of pre-harvest conditions on antioxidant capacity in fruits. acta hort., 712:299305 wang, s.y. and zheng, w. 2001. effect of plant growth temperature on antioxidant capacity in strawberry. j. agril. food chem., 49:4977-4982 wang, w., vinocur, b. and altman, a. 2003. plant responses to drought, salinity and extreme temperatures: towards genetic engineering for stress tolerance. planta, 218:1-14 (ms received 24 november 2014, revised 30 april 2015, accepted 15 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):38-43, 2015 fruit quality and carotenoids in tomato under elevated temperature 85 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 85-87, 2017 low cost potato warehouse facility for karnataka: a success story shahid ali*1, b b kumar2, c m kalleshwara swamy2, m s kadian1, b v ramakrishna1 and brajesh singh3 1international potato center (cip), nasc complex, iari campus, dps marg, pusa, new delhi 110 012 2university of agricultural and horticultural sciences, shivamogga, karnataka 3central potato research institute (cpri), shimla, h.p. *e-mail: s.ali@cgiar.org abstract karnataka is one of the important potato growing states in peninsular india. potato is mainly cultivated in hassan, belgaum, chikkaballapur, chickmagalur, kolar, bangalore rural and dharwad districts. it is grown as rain-fed kharif crop in hassan, belgaum, chickmagalur and dharwad districts and as rabi crop in chickmagalur, chikkaballapur, kolar and bangalore rural districts under protective irrigation. due to non-availability of quality planting material to karnataka farmers, potato productivity is limited. seed imported from north india (punjab) is very expensive and incur about 50% of total production cost and small and marginal farmers cannot afford to procure quality seed every year as no certified seed is being produced locally. international potato center (cip) has recommended an innovative low cost ware house facility as a model during 2014 and 2016 to retain farmers’ seed for subsequent planting seasons saving their seed input cost by 40%. key words: warehouse, potato, low cost technology, cip karnataka produces 5,89,120 mtof potato cultivated in an area of 44,160 ha with productivity of 15.73 tons per ha (anonymous, 2015) and has a ready market within and neighboring states. the potato grown in southern peninsular region gets high market price as this potato is used by processing industry. due to lack of cold storage facility in the state, potato growers are compelled to sell off their produce at throw away prices and this is one of the reason the acreage under potato cultivation has been drastically reduced during last decade. however, the traditional and non-scientific storage practice like heaps and pits usually result in significant loss up to 40% by soil radiation, pests/ diseases, undesirable and early sprouting (mehta et al. 2007). the objective of this study was to demonstrate the use of low cost warehouse in karnataka by cip store fresh harvested table potatoes for short time and seed potatoes for long time storage in the hill zone of karnataka. two low cost diffused light wooden potato ware houses were constructed with the structure size of 8x8x10 and 10x10x10 ft by using locally available areca logs with thatched roofing and racks are made with low cost forest wood planks atkerkepete village and krishi vigyan kendra (kvk), mudigere of chickmagalur district (fig 1&2). the storage capacity of the warehouses are 3.0 and 4.5 tones and total construction cost incurred was rs. 25,000/ and rs. 30700/ respectively. the breeder (certified) seed of kufri jyoti variety procured from central potato research institute (cpri), shimla was planted in june, 2014 and ha r vested dur ing september inkharif 2014 in kerkepete village. it was sorted/graded and treated with 3 per cent boric acid for 30 minutes and tubers were stored in the potato warehouse after shade drying covered with the chopped dried leaves of lantana camara to avoid the infestation of storage pests like potato tuber moth (singh et al, 2009). short communication 86 potato ware houses at kerkepete village and kvk, mudigere, chickmagalur fig.1. front view of the ware houses fig.2. potato seed kept in three tiers in the ware houses j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 85-87, 2017 ali et al after three months of storage the well sprouted medium sized tuber s of var iety k. jyoti wer e planted in small plots of 500m2 as an experiment in the chickmagalur and chikkaballapur areas during subsequent rabi season (2014-15) and 20-25 per cent more yield over the farmers’ seed procured from the apmc was recorded. the productivity in chickmagalur was little lower (19.4 t/ha) than the c hikka ba lla p u r ( 2 5 . 6 t / ha ) . t he t r ia ls wer e undertaken in the farmers’ fields to educate and encourage small and marginal potato growers for using seed stored in the country potato warehouse in chickmagalur disrict. the field day was also organized by cip and about 120 potato growers were trained on seed potato production and short t ime ta b le a nd seed p ota to low cost st or a ge technology at kerkepete village of chickmagalur district. the rabi season (2014-15) seed harvested from chickmagalur and chikkaballapur was sorted/graded and treated with 3 per cent boric acid and well dried seed was stored back in the ware houses in month of march, 2015 covered with chopped lantana leaves and same seed was planted at college of horticulture campus, mudigere in ½ an acre during kharif 2015 under rain-fed condition. the crop was planted during june, 2015 and harvested during september, 2015. the yield of k. jyoti was recoded 25t/ha which is significantly higher than the karnataka state average of 15.73 t/ha. the seed harvested from college of horticulture campus was stored in the ware house at kerkepete village and distributed to the potato growers during ensuing season in chickmagalur and tarikere taluks of chickmagalur districts for further multiplication gave satisfactory yields. 87 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 85-87, 2017 low cost potato warehouse facility anon., 2015. national horticulture board data base (final area & production estimates for horticulture crops) 2014-15 (http://nhb.gov.in/ misdailyareaproduction.aspx?enc=3zoo8k5czcdc/ yq6hcdixc0u1kzzenfunvxacdlxz28=) mehta, a., ezekiel, r., singh b., kumar, d. and pandey s.k. 2007. modified heap and pit storage for table and processing potatoes. cpri technical bulletin no. 82. references singh, b., burman, r.r.,tiewla, d. and ramani, s. 2009. postharvest handling and storage practice in north-east region: present status and suggested improvisations insovenir: golden jubilee celebrations, on 7-8 may, 2009 cprs, shillong, megahalaya (india), pp. 1-6. (ms received 07 may 2016, revised 03 april 2017, accepted 12 may 2017) the breeder seed of varieties k.jyoti and k. himalini was procured from cpri, modipuram, u.p. during 2016 was stored at kvk, mudigere for sprouting and well sprouted tubers were planted at college of horticulture campus during kharif and harvested in september 2016. the yield of k.jyoti and k. himalini was recorded 24.2 t/ha and 18.6 t/ha respectively which was significantly higher than the state productivity .the harvested tubers were sorted/ graded and treated with 3 per cent boric acid and well dried seed was stored in the ware house at kvk, mudigere. the seed harvested in september 2016 was stored in the warehouse at kvk, mudigere for quite a long time to see the physiology when stored more than six months. the well sprouted tubers of both the variety was planted at college of horticulture on 19’th june, 2017 and a good germination and crop growth is recorded. with this innovative technology the farmers can afford to store their fresh harvest up to three months on their farms in low cost ware house and sell when market situation becomes favorable.the potato seed can be retained and used for at least three subsequent seasons without any seed replacement. by using this low-cost ware house facility, karnataka farmers will be able to retain good quality farm seed potato thereby saving approximately40 percent of potato seed cost every year. there is an ample scope to promote short time storage structure at farm level made-out of locally available material for augmenting small and marginal farmers’ income and food security. the farmers can store their seed potato up to six months without any significant loss and the same stock can be used as planting material for subsequent seasons saving their seed input cost. 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):134-137, 2012 effect of paclobutrazol application on nutrient dynamics, vigour and fruit yield in ‘alphonso’ mango (mangifera indica l.) s.c. kotur division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: sckotur@gmail.com abstract application of paclobutrazol to 22 year-old ‘alphonso’ mango trees significantly retarded plant height, plant spread and tree volume. number of flushes and vigour of emerging new flush also decreased significantly besides production of fewer leaves, reduced leaf area, twig length and dry matter content. fruit yield increased significantly in trees receiving paclobutrazol treatment, compared to ‘control’ trees in all four years of study. this increase was distinctly higher during the on-years 2005 and 2007 by 133% and 77%, respectively, over ‘control’ due to more profuse flowering and fruit-set. differences in mineral composition of various tree parts were significant except for n and p content. paclobutrazol application caused significant increase in ca, mg and mn content in the leaf. substantial reduction observed in dry matter content and reduced leaf area accompanied by greater removal of nutrients by increased fruit production under paclobutrazol, application may weaken the tree significantly. the trees would then need proper and adequate nutrient management vis-à-vis untreated trees, to achieve sustainable productivity. key words: ‘alphonso’ mango, mangifera indica l., nutrient dynamics, tree vigour, yield, paclobutrazol introduction paclobutrazol application is recommended as a potent measure to induce regular bearing in ‘alphonso’ mango where alternate bearing is an observed phenomenon. substantial physiological changes in the tree, such as, inhibited growth of meristem, thickened roots and decreased root length are known to be induced by paclobutrazol ([2rs, 3rs]-1-[-chlorophenyl]-4, -4-dmethyl-2-[1, 2, 4-triazol-1-yl] pent-3-ol) application (blaike et al, 2004). singh (2000) envisaged paclobutrazol as the best bet to reduce tree vigour, promote flowering, increase fruit-set and yield in ‘dushehri’ mango. earlier studies on 19-year old productive mango trees during the late rainy season (kotur, 2006) have shown that active roots substantially bunch towards the trunk and soilsurface with paclobutrazol application, as against untreated ‘control’ trees. therefore, effect of this growth retardant was studied on vigour, fruit yield and nutrient dynamics within a tree in 22-year old ‘alphonso’ mango trees. material and methods ‘alphonso’ mango (mangifera indica l.) trees were raised under rain-fed condition on a red sandy-loam (typic haplustalf) soil having a textural b t horizon at 20cm+ depth (>41% clay) overlying a loamy layer (11-14% clay). the soil had ph 5.7, organic carbon 0.3%, cation exchange capacity 8.7 cmol(p+)/kg and bray-i p 20µg/g soil. of the 40 uniform, productive mango trees, 20 were treated twice with paclobutrazol @3.75 a.i/tree in 10 concentric holes, 30cm deep at 1.5m distance from the trunk. the first application was in september 2004, and the second in september 2007, when the soil was sufficiently moist. the trees received 800g of n, 200g of p and 700g of k, applied in two equal splits each year in june (pre-monsoon) and september (post-monsoon). fruit yield was recorded in 10 uniform plants each, from the two set of trees spanning the period 2005 to 2008 in both ‘control’ and paclobutrazol treated plants. the years 2005 and 2007 were on-years, while 2006 and 2008 were off-years under the alternatebearing cycle of ‘alphonso’ mango trees. twigs of the new flush were collected from the same trees to record number of flushes and their vigour during july 2007. height and spread of the tree (east-west and north-south) were recorded in december 2008 in the same trees. tree volume was calculated assuming the crown to be spheroid. data were analyzed using completely randomized design, with 10 replications. in another study, four trees each (being replications in a factorial experiment) from two sets of 135 ‘control’ and paclobutrazol-treated trees (being factor-1) were further sampled to monitor nutrient dynamics within a whole plant, in seven parts (from root to leaf, being factor2) during july 2007. in these trees, samples from root, trunk and the primary branch were drawn using a screw-hole auger. the samples from secondary branch to leaf were collected from a secondary branch that was selected at random and severed from the tree. the branch was separated into secondary, tertiary and quaternary branches, twig and leaf. representative samples were collected from each separately, washed, dried in a draft air oven for 72h at 70ºc. these were then powdered and analyzed for mineral nutrient content using standard analytical procedures chapman and pratt (1961). results and discussion growth and fruit-yield growth and twig properties: application of paclobutrazol caused significant retardation in tree growth and vigour (table 1) in terms of plant height, plant spread and tree volume. it also significantly reduced number of flushes and vigour of the new flush. new twigs showed fewer leaves, reduced leaf area, shorter twigs and reduced dry matter. these results are in agreement with reports of kulkarni (1988) and kurien and iyer (1993). the latter workers also observed that the retardant effect of paclobutrazol was superior to that of cycocel and alar. in peach (prunus persica l.), falcon et al (1998) observed 40% reduction in leaf area and 29% lower dry matter content under paclobutrazol treatment. fruit yield: fruit yield increased significantly in all four years of study in trees receiving paclobutrazol treatment (table 2). similar increase in fruit yield has been reported by kulkarni (1988), voon et al (1991) and burondkar and gunjate (1993). the increase, however, was distinctly higher during the on-years 2005 and 2007 (133% and 77% respectively) over ‘control’ due to more profuse flowering and fruit-set. mean increase was 86%. during the off-years 2006 and 2008, the corresponding enhancement in fruit yield owing to paclobutrazol application was 51% and 55% respectively over ‘control’. mean increase was 54% nutritional composition of the tree effect of paclobutrazol treatment: differences in nutrient composition in different parts of the mango tree with application of paclobutrazol compared to untreated ‘control’ were not significant in respect of n and p (table 3). paclobutrazol treated trees showed significantly higher content of k, ca, s, mn and zn, while, ‘control’ trees showed higher content of mg, fe and cu. nutrient content in different parts of mango tree: earlier studies have been confined to nutrient composition of the leaf (reiger, 1990; werner, 1993). in this study, total nutrient content varied widely in different parts of the mango tree and, significantly, in respect of individual nutrients. four characteristic regions were apparent within a tree (table 3). leaf and quaternary branch, among various parts of the tree, showed distinctly higher contents, of most nutrients. tertiary, secondary and primary branches showed either low or intermediate nutrient content. trunk contained significantly higher amount of nutrients compared to the tertiary and primary branches. root, in contrast, showed nutrient content close to that in trunk. between ‘control’ and paclobutrazol treated trees, n, p, fe, zn and cu content did not differ significantly, while, ca, mg and s content, the table 1. traits for vigour in ‘alphonso’ mango trees influenced by paclobutrazol application treatment tree height tree spread tree number of length of leaf area/ dry weight/ number of (m) (m) volume (m3) leaves/twig twig (cm) shoot (cm2) shoot (g) flushes/tree control 4.25 7.67 130.93 16 14.4 847 2.43 310 paclobutrazol 3.58 6.77 84.48 13 11.1 496 1.40 159 sem (±) 0.140 0.259 9.738 0.4 0.46 46.6 0.087 9.2 cd (p=0.05) 0.415 0.769 28.791 1.2 1.35 138.4 0.258 27.2 table 2. fruit yield (kg/tree) during onand off-years in ‘alphonso’ mango treatment 2005 2006 2007 2008 mean of mean of (on-year) (off-year) (on-year) (off-year) on-years off-years control 79.4 18.6 59.6 35.2 75.6 26.9 paclobutrazol 185.1 28.0 105.2 54.7 140.3 41.5 sem (±) 8.60 1.56 6.10 3.17 6.52 1.82 cd (p=0.05) 25.54 4.64 18.13 9.41 19.37 5.40 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):134-137, 2012 effect of paclobutrazol on nutrient dynamics in mango 136 latter trees showed distinctly higher amount of nutrients in different tree parts. application of paclobutrazol caused significantly higher content of ca, mg, s, mn and zn in our study. werner (1993) reported increased n, ca, mn, zn and b, and reduced p, k and cu content, in ‘blanco’ mango leaves. in peach, reiger (1990) noted significant increases in ca, mg, b and mn content with concomitant reduction of n, p, k, fe and mo in the leaf. further, these workers observed that magnitude of these changes was proportional to the degree of growth-suppression. interaction effects: nitrogen and p content was at par in ‘control’ and paclobutrazol treated trees, except in the quaternary branch that showed significantly higher values when paclobutrazol was applied (table 4). in the case of k, ca, mg and s, paclobutrazol treated trees showed significantly higher values than ‘control’ trees in all plant parts. paclobutrazol, as a growth retardant, affected the extent of flushing and vigour of trees which, over a period of three years, substantially reduced tree volume and tree biomass. in perennial trees, framework of a tree (consisting of the trunk and branches of different order) serve as a reservoir of energy and nutrients. the current status of foliar, floral and fruit growth is largely dependent on nutrients remobilized from this important reserve of the tree. significant reduction in the biomass of a permanent part of the tree, therefore, results in a definite reduction of tree vigour, particularly, when the active roots become shrunk and withdrawn towards the trunk and soil surface (kotur, 2006). in other words, reduced root volume and root activity, table 3. effect of paclobutrazol on mineral composition of different plant parts in ‘alphonso’ trees treatment/ plant part n(%) p(%) k(%) ca(%) mg(%) s(%) fe (µg/g) mn(µg/g) zn(µg/g) cu(µg/g) effect of application of paclobutrazol control 0.39 0.084 1.03 3.82 1.38 0.04 129 38 11.0 43.0 paclobutrazol 0.39 0.085 1.02 5.57 0.93 0.06 113 54 13.7 39.1 sem (±) 0.006 0.0019 0.024 0.121 0.033 0.001 3.6 1.1 0.26 1.35 cd (p=0.05) ns ns 0.069 0.346 0.094 0.002 10.3 3.2 0.76 3.85 mineral composition of different parts of the tree leaf 0.49 0.09 0.06 7.00 2.21 0.13 100 135 22.0 5.6 quaternary branch 0.48 0.18 1.92 5.84 1.02 0.06 53 50 24.8 9.5 tertiary branch 0.35 0.10 0.86 4.25 0.94 0.03 74 25 8.3 2.6 secondary branch 0.40 0.05 0.84 3.68 0.77 0.03 63 20 5.9 11.7 primary branch 0.38 0.05 0.90 3.74 0.87 0.03 99 22 7.3 53.3 trunk 0.35 0.07 1.04 4.89 1.26 0.03 158 37 10.7 129.6 root 0.31 0.05 0.90 3.46 0.99 0.03 302 33 7.4 75.1 sem (±) 0.001 0.004 0.045 0.226 0.061 0.002 6.7 2.1 0.50 2.52 cd (p=0.05) 0.031 0.010 0.128 0.648 0.176 0.005 19.3 6.0 1.42 7.20 table 4. interaction effect of paclobutrazol application on mineral composition in different parts of ‘alphonso’ mango tree plant part n(%) p(%) k(%) ca(%) mg(%) s(%) fe (µg/g) mn(µg/g) zn(µg/g) cu(µg/g) c p c p c p c p c p c p c p c p c p c p leaf 0.50 0.48 0.10 0.09 1.05 1.07 5.29 8.72 1.64 2.79 0.10 0.16 103 98 113 156 22.2 21.7 6.4 4.8 quaternary 0.43 0.52 0.15 0.21 1.36 2.48 4.52 7.16 1.33 0.71 0.05 0.08 51 54 37 63 20.5 29.1 8.0 11.0 branch tertiary 0.34 0.35 0.09 0.10 0.70 1.01 3.73 4.77 1.30 0.59 0.03 0.03 80 68 21 30 7.8 8.9 3.0 2.2 branch secondary 0.39 0.40 0.05 0.06 0.83 0.86 2.80 4.56 1.13 0.43 0.02 0.03 59 67 18 22 5.4 6.5 19.4 4.0 branch primary 0.36 .41 0.05 0.04 0.98 0.81 2.46 5.03 1.18 0.57 0.02 0.03 130 68 18 27 6.9 7.8 40.7 65.8 branch trunk 0.35 0.34 0.09 0.06 1.17 1.51 5.90 3.89 1.65 0.87 0.02 0.04 174 141 29 46 8.2 13.2 92.1 93.1 root 0.37 0.24 0.07 0.03 1.12 0.68 2.43 4.88 1.43 0.54 0.04 0.01 306 298 33 33 6.4 8.5 131.6 92.5 sem (±) 0.015 0.005 0.06 0.320 0.087 0.003 9.5 2.9 0.70 3.65 cd (p=0.05) 0.044 0.014 0.181 0.916 0.249 0.007 27.3 8.4 2.01 10.18 c = control; p = paclobutazol application j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):134-137, 2012 kotur 137 in conjunction with reduced leaf area, may limit the quantum of nutrients absorbed by a tree, and also adversely affect photosynthetic activity in a tree. notwithstanding this, persistent, enhanced fruit yield was observed throughout the four years of this study (2005-2008) due to paclobutrazol treatment, especially, during the on-years (2005 and 2007). this places considerable demand on nutrients removed by the fruits, that add to the overall stress placed on trees. significant changes in composition of different parts of the tree, due to paclobutrazol treatment, reflect this condition. under the circumstances, to maintain high yields in placlobutrazol-treated mango trees, adequate input of nutrient, irrigation and generally good tree-maintenance is warranted (voon et al, 1991). since the permanent framework of the tree including trunk and branches of different order play an important role in supplying seasonal growth of leaves, flowers and fruits it is necessary to keep the associated nutrient reserves of the tree well-supplied (kotur and keshava murthy, 2010). to ensure usefulness of application paclobutrazol (to overcome alternate bearing and sustain fruit yield of mango), there is an imminent need to standardize nutrient management by application of fertilizers close to the trunk (in the zone of high root activity) and, perhaps to apply a higher dose of manures and fertilizers to compensate for nutrients removed by high fruit-yield. acknowledgement the author is grateful to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for providing facilities and to shri n.k. kacker, technical officer, for technical assistance. references burondkar, m.m. and gunjate, r.t. 1993. control of vegetative growth and induction of early and regular cropping in ‘alphonso’with paclobutrazol. acta hort., 341:206-215 chapman, h.d. and pratt, p.f. 1961. methods of analysis for soils, plants and waters. division of agricultural sciences, university of california, the united states of america. kotur, s.c. 2006. effect of paclobutrazol on root activity of mango (mangifera indica). ind. j. agril. sci., 76:143-144 kotur, s.c. and keshavamurthy, s.v. 2010. nutrient dynamics of annual growth flush in mango (mangifera indica). j. hortl. sci., 5:75-80 kulkarni, v.j. 1988. chemical control of tree vigour and promotion of flowering and fruiting in mango (mangifera indica l.) using paclobutrazol. j. hortl. sci., 63:557-566 kurien, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1993. chemical regulation of tree size in mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. alphonso. i. effects of growth retardant on vegetative growth and tree vigour. j. hortl. sci., 68:349-354 singh, s. 2000. effect of (2rs-3rs) paclobutrazol on tree vigour, flowering, fruit set and yield in mango. acta hort., 525:459-462 voon, c.h., pitakpaivan, c. and tan, s.j. 1991. mango cropping manipulation with cultar. acta hort., 291:219-228 werner, h. 1993. influence of paclobutrazol on growth and leaf nutrient content of mango (cv. blanco). acta hort., 341:225-261 (ms received 13 february 2012, revised 14 november, 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):134-137, 2012 effect of paclobutrazol on nutrient dynamics in mango heat tolerance genes, namely, heat-shock proteins (hsp) play a vital role in stress tolerance. these are a class of functionally related proteins involved in folding and unfolding of other proteins. their expression increases when cells are exposed to elevated temperatures. this increase in expression is transcriptionally regulated. the dramatic upregulation of heat shock proteins is a key part of the heatshock response and is induced primarily by the heat shock factor. hsps are found in virtually all living organisms, including plants. many hsps function as molecular chaperones where these direct a protein into a particular pathway by excluding alternate pathways. hsps plays a critical role in protein-protein interactions (such as folding) and assist in establishing of proper protein-shape conformation (ellis, 1993; georgopoulos and welch, 1993; welch, 1993). high levels of heat-shock proteins were produced by exposure to different kinds of environmental stresses, including ultraviolet light, nitrogen deficiency and water deprivation. thus, heat-shock proteins are also referred to evidence for molecular evolutionary conservedness of small heat-shock protein sequence in solanaceaeous crops using in silico methods m.k. chandra prakash, reena rosy thomas1, m. krishna reddy2 and sukhada mohandas3 section of economics and statistics, indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail : mk_chandraprakash@yahoo.com abstract drought and heat contribute to much of the yield decline in agricultural lands all over the world. the basic physiological responses developed against drought and heat stress overlie each other, as; both these stresses eventually lead to dehydration of the cell and to osmotic imbalance. to cope with abiotic stresses, it is necessary to understand plant responses to stresses that disturb homeostatic equilibrium at the cellular and molecular level. although there has been remarkable progress in this with development of microarray-based expression profiling methods (together with genomic sequence data), understanding on ways to employ these data to engineer plants with improved stresstolerance is still at a nascent stage. however, these data can be used for discovering genes, functional microsatellites and regulatory elements using in silico methods. in this context, single nucleotide repeat marker sequences have been identified which is associated with small heat-shock protein sequence (shsp) for heat tolerance in capsicum annuum. these shsp sequences have some structural features in common; its characteristic is that it is homologous and highly conserved. these sequences have been analyzed for molecular evolutionary conservedness in solanaceaeous crops and have been found to have a single nucleotide repeat sequence and a highly conserved shsp sequence. key words: small heat-shock protein (shsp), evolutionary, conserved, solanaceae, markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):82-87, 2013 short communication as stress proteins. hsps range in size from about 16 to over 100kda (vierling, 1991; waters et al, 1996) and are classified into five groups based on molecular weight and function. heat-shock proteins are named according to their molecular weight. for example, hsp60, hsp70 and hsp90 (the most widely-studied hsps) refer to families of heatshock proteins of the order of 60, 70, and 90kda size. the small hsp (shsp), or hsp20, family of heat-stress proteins is a nearly ubiquitous family of stress proteins that range in size from approximately 16–42kda (scharf et al, 2001). increased expression of these under heat-shock conditions and their protective effect on cell viability at elevated temperatures suggests that these may have a function in formation or maintenance of native conformation of the proteins (jakob et al, 1993). during high-temperature stress, molecular chaperones are believed to act by preventing irreversible protein denaturation harmful to the cell (parsell and lindquist, 1993). 1project co-ordinator (tropical fruits) cell 2division of plant pathology 3division of biotechnology 83 small heat-shock protein sequence in solanaceaeous crops genome sequence of the solanaceae crops, i.e., solanum lycopersicum, and capsicum annuum has been explored for abiotic-stress tolerance genes using several in silico methods. the est collection of capsicum annuum and solanum lycopersicum database (approximately 33,875 sequences in capsicum annuum and 2,65,760 sequences in solanum lycopersicum) has been explored for repeat sequences. good quality repeat sequences of around 2500 in capsicum annuum and 12900 in solanum lycopersicum have been identified. these sequences are subjected to several in silico methods for identifying conserved sequences. a sequence of 314bp in capsicum annuum has shown a high degree of similarity with sequences in several solanaceous crops. the sequence has been identified as a small heat-shock protein sequence in capsicum annuum, having single nucleotide repeat (snp) that could be a potential unique marker for heat-shock protein sequence. further, the sequence has been blasted against embl nucleotide sequence database and the result is presented in fig 1. fig 1. the above figure shows the most homologous sequences on top (shown in red) and the less similar ones (in blue). sequence-match and subject-match are shown on the left side and right side, respectively. the sequence in red colour has zero error values (e values) while the sequence in blue colour has a small error value of 1 x 10-29. most homologous sequences are from capsicum annuum, hot pepper, solanum tuberosum and solanum lycopersicum j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):82-87, 2013 84 the identified sequence has been classified as small heat-shock protein class i mrna sequence of capsicum annuum, similar to genbank id eu311413.1. further, a unique signature (marker) has been identified having a 21bp single nucleotide repeat sequence. this may qualify as a marker sequence associated with heat -shock proteins in capsicum annuum. the 314 bp hsp sequence in table 1 was subjected to blast analysis for homologous sequences across genomes. sequence identity of over 85% with hsp sequence mostly places it in solanaceae family. most similar sequences belong to small heat shock protein (shsp) having similar transcription factors. also, it was found that this is highly conserved in solanaceaeous species. blast result sequences having identity of over 85% were subjected to phylogenetic analysis. results revealed that the query sequence was highly similar to that in capsicum annuum and solanum tuberosum. these shsp sequences are highly conserved during the evolutionary process and these sequences together with similar groups indicate stress-related functional conservedness. chandra prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):82-87, 2013 fig 2. the above cladogram from embl shows that shsp sequence is conserved in most of the solanaceae species. the sequence is strongly conserved in capsicum annuum, solanum tuberosum, lycopersicon peruvianum, lycopersicon esculentum and hot pepper 85 small heat-shock protein sequence in solanaceaeous crops further, these sequences were analyzed for functional conservedness across genomes using the web-based program clustalw from embl to assess phylogenetic distance between species. result of the analysis is given below: it is clearly evident from distance values (fig 2) that shsp sequence associated with heat tolerance is present across the genomes by being conservedduring evolution. different shsps that belong to the same species (capsicum annuum) showed high sequence-similarity (table 2) and shsp belonging to different species remained conserved during evolution. hsp sequences were further analyzed using jalview lite, a web-based software from embl, for multiple sequence alignment (msa) of several similar biological sequences for evolutionary relationship (by which they share a lineage, and are descended from a common ancestor). most multiple sequence alignment programs are made using heuristic methods. from the resulting msa sequence, homology can be inferred to identify sequences shared by evolutionary origins and their conservation. multiple sequence alignments of shsp sequence and its conservedness is given below: visual depiction of alignment in fig. 3 illustrate mutation events such as single nucleotide changes, (that appear as differing characters in a single alignment column) and insertion or deletion mutations, i.e., indels or gaps (that fig 3. the above diagram shows alignment of shsp sequence. jalview lite software displays sequence consensus of capsicum annuum cdna, which shows evolutionary conservation with other solanaceaeous crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):82-87, 2013 86 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):82-87, 2013 chandra prakash et al appear as hyphens in one or more of the sequences in the alignment). the consensus sequence is shown at the bottom as a black bar, where height of the black bar depicts sequence consensus. greater height of the black bar denotes high consensus while lesser height denotes low consensus. from the above msa, it is evident that the identified shsp sequence is highly conserved in capsicum annuum and solanum tuberosum. from the above results, it is clear that the 314bp shsp sequence (table 1) shows evolutionary conservedness in solanaceae crops. these shsp sequences have similar structural features in all the crops and blast result revealed that it is highly conserved in the same species (table 2). the single-nucleotide marker sequence “ttttttttttttttttttttt” 72bp from 314bp shsp, sequence is a potential unique signature associated with small table 1. single nucleotide repeat sequence, a unique marker, and shsp conserved sequence from solanaceaous crops sequence feature length/locus ttttttttttttttttttttt single nucleotide repeat sequence 21 bp sequence. (starting from -72bp of 314 bp shsp sequence) aagctcactgaaaatgtcgctaatcccaagaa conserved shsp sequence 314 bp tcttcggcgatcgacgaagcagcagcatgttc gatccattctcaatcgacatgtttgatccattc agggaattgggcttcccaggttccaattcaag ggaggcctctgcatttgccaacacacgaatcg actggaaggaaacacccgaggcgcatgttttc aaggccgatcttccagggcttaagaaggagga agtgaaagtagagatcgaagagcatagggtac ttcagattatcggagagaggaatgaggagaaa gaagataagagtgatacttggcatc table 2. the shsp sequence is conserved in same species, i.e., capsicum annuum, with 100% identity and >89% identical with other solanaceae species such as solanum tuberosum, hot pepper and lycopersicon peruvianum identicality of shsp sequences across genomes source length score identicality e value ks01013c01 ks01 capsicum annuum cdna, mrna sequence 409 387 100.0 0.0 ks01013d08 ks01 capsicum annuum cdna, mrna sequence 437 383 99.0 0.0 ks26044c11 ks26 capsicum annuum cdna, mrna sequence 676 337 99.0 0.0 ks24058a06 ks24 capsicum annuum cdna, mrna sequence 663 337 99.0 0.0 ks12030d10 ks12 capsicum annuum cdna, mrna sequence 356 337 99.0 0.0 ks09027h07 ks09 capsicum annuum cdna, mrna sequence 447 337 99.0 0.0 cs01011e02 hot pepper under oxidative stress capsicum annuum cdna 5', mrna sequence 699 188 90.0 3.0e-99 cs01017f11 hot pepper under oxidative stress capsicum annuum cdna 5', mrna sequence 708 188 90.0 3.0e-99 lycopersicon peruvianum mrna for hsp20.1 protein 656 182 89.0 1.0e-95 sdbt002k03x sdbt solanum tuberosum cdna clone sdbt002k03, mrna sequence 654 179 89.0 6.0e-94 solanum lycopersicum class i small heat-shock protein 20.1 (sl20.1shsp) and class i small 8304 175 89.0 1.0e-91 heat-shock protein 17.6 (sl17.6 shsp) genes lycopersicon esculentum 17.6 kd class i small heat-shock protein (hsp17.6) mrna 732 175 89.0 1.0e-91 stdb002d08u stdb solanum tuberosum cdna clone stdb002d08, mrna sequence 650 175 89.0 1.0e-91 b24i 2 b1 b24i solanum tuberosum cdna, mrna sequence 470 175 89.0 1.0e-91 12734.2 stolon solanum tuberosum cdna clone 12734 5', mrna sequence 671 175 89.0 1.0e-91 ks06005531 ks06 capsicum annuum cdna, mrna sequence 551 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est612422 generation of a set of potato cdna clones for microarray analyses mixed potato 697 175 89.0 1.0e-91 tissues solanum tuberosum cdna clone stmgb34 3' end, mrna sequence est582165 potato roots solanum tuberosum cdna clone cpro32m12 5' end, mrna sequence 564 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est581924 potato roots solanum tuberosum cdna clone cpro31n3 5' end, mrna sequence 605 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est580887 potato roots solanum tuberosum cdna clone cpro28i11 5' end, mrna sequence 669 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est516270 cstd solanum tuberosum cdna clone cstd18g8 5' sequence, mrna sequence 456 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est515117 cstd solanum tuberosum cdna clone cstd13d9 5' sequence, mrna sequence 685 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est513393 cstd solanum tuberosum cdna clone cstd6e7 5' sequence, mrna sequence 688 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est513074 cstd solanum tuberosum cdna clone cstd3n22 5' sequence, mrna sequence 658 175 89.0 1.0e-91 est491411 csts solanum tuberosum cdna clone csts2a16 5' sequence, mrna sequence 629 175 89.0 1.0e-91 87 (ms received 27 december 2012, accepted 05 february 2013, revised 27 march 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):82-87, 2013 small heat-shock protein sequence in solanaceaeous crops heat-shock protein sequence in capsicum annuum. further, distance value from phylogenetic analysis reveals that the sequence has been highly conserved across genomes during evolution. msa also proves alignment conservedness and that mutations occurred during the process of evolution. the shsp sequence shows a high degree of similarity between capscium annuum and solanum tuberosum followed by solanum lycopersicum, solanum peruvianum and lycoperscicon esculentum. presence of this shsp sequence in a crop reveals tolerance to heat and other stressinducible conditions. references ellis, r.j. and van der vies, s.m. 1991. molecular chaperones. annu. rev. biochem., 60:321-347 georgopoulos, c. and welch, w.j. 1993. role of the major heat shock proteins as molecular chaperones. annu. rev. cell biol., 9:601–634 jakob, u., gaestel, m., engel, k. and buchner, j. 1993. small heat shock proteins are molecular chaperones. j. biol. chem., 268:1517–1520 scharf, k.d., siddique, m., vierling, e. 2001. the expanding family of arabidopsis thaliana small heat stress proteins and a new family of proteins containing ácrystallin domains (acd proteins). cell stress chaperones, 6:225–237 parsell, d.a. and lindquist, s. 1993. the function of heatshock proteins in stress tolerance: degradation and reactivation of proteins. annu. rev. genet., 27:437– 496 vierling, e. 1991. the roles of heat-shock proteins in plants. annu. rev. pl. physiol. pl. mol. biol., 42:579–620 waters, e.r., lee, g.j. and vierling, e. 1996. evolution, structure and function of the smallh e a t s h o c k proteins in plants. j. exptl. bot., 47:325–338 welch, w.j. 1993. heat shock proteins functioning as molecular chaperones: their roles in normal and stressed cells. philos. trans. r. soc. lond. b. biol. sci., 339:327–333 introduction cultivation of the common fig (ficus carica) is picking up in india amid growing acceptance of the fruit with high curative and lacerative nutritional values. commercial cultivation of the common (edible) fig is confined mostly to the western parts of maharashtra, gujarat, uttar pradesh (lucknow & saharanpur), karnataka (bellary, chitradurga & srirangapatna) and tamil nadu (coimbatore). of the 470 varieties listed, cvs.‘poona’ and ‘deanna’ are popularly grown for fresh fruit. in india, fig trees are prone to attack by as many as 50 species of insect pests (butani, 1979). of these, the stem boring beetles (that include batocera rufomaculata , b. rubus, aclees cribratus, apriona cinerea, a. rugicollis, olenecamptus bilobus and rhytidodera species) (verghese et al, 2001, 2003) cause severe damage to plants. however, a new curculionid weevil, dyscerus? fletcheri marshall (coleoptera: curculionidae) has been found damaging fig plants heavily during the post-rainy season, by directly damaging the terminal fruit bearing shoots (kamala jayanthi et al, 2015, in press). our preliminary studies showed differential susceptibility of fig cultivars to this stem borer, suggesting a need to identify marker traits involved in hostj. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):83-89, 2015 plant traits in fig as indicators of resistance to shoot borer, dyscerus? fletcheri marshall (coleoptera: curculionidae) p.d. kamala jayanthi, abraham verghese, r. chittiraichelvan1 and ravindra kumar1 division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake po, bangalore-560089 e-mail: jaiinsect@gmail.com abstract a comparative study was conducted on fig (ficus carica l.) cultivars deanna and poona to test whether antixenosis due to plant traits was at least partially responsible for a differential susceptibility to the shoot boring curculionid weevil, dyscerus? fletcheri. field evaluation revealed significant difference in borer incidence in cvs. poona (6.25%) and deanna (75%). further, traits of plant architecture such as number of primary/ secondary/ terminal shoots, plant vigour and density of terminal shoots were significantly higher in cv. deanna, which was highly susceptible to shoot borer. however, latex-flow index was significantly higher in cv. poona that was resistant to the borer. a step-wise multiple regression analysis revealed that the tested plant traits explained 60% of the total variation in stem borer infestation (y=-0.96-0.02x1+0.23x2-0.03x3+0.24x4+1.28x5-1.31x6, r 2=0.60) in the susceptible cultivar, deanna. role of these traits in preference/non-preference of d. fletcheri for a cultivar is discussed. key words: fig, ficus carica l., resistance, cultivars, stem borer, dyscerus? fletcheri plant selection by the pest. however, no literature is available on the effect of plant architecture traits on incidence of shoot borer, d. fletcheri, in fig. therefore, this study was carried out to determine whether these traits contributing to antixenosis in fig cultivars by d. fletcheri. material and methods in the present study, a differential susceptibility of two common fig varieties, deanna and poona, to the curculionid weevil d. fletcheri, was assessed through field evaluation at indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore (12o58’n; 77o35’e), india. observations were recorded during september – december, 2010 to assess the incidence of d. fletcheri on two year old plants growing adjacent to each other. each of the cultivars was planted in five rows, each row consisting of 16 plants. plant architecture traits were recorded in both the varieties (n=80) before flowering (september – december). traits like number of primary shoots, secondary shoots, terminal shoots, plant vigour, density of terminal shoots and latex-flow were measured to relate these traits to varietal preference and non-preference of the curculionid borer, d. fletcheri for a variety. of these traits, the number of primary shoots, secondary shoots, terminal shoots and density of terminal 1division of fruit crops, iihr, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india 84 shoots were grouped under canopy traits as these can be altered through canopy management, whereas, plant vigour and latex-flow index were grouped as inherent plant traits. plant vigour was visually scored on a 1-5 scale where, 1= least vigorous and 5= most vigorous. density of terminal shoots in each tree was also visually scored on a 1-5 scale where, 1= less dense with less compactness, and 5= highly dense with more compactness. latex flow was measured on a 1-3 scale where, 1= low and 3= profuse. latex-flow index was measured by uniformly piercing the base of the tender terminal shoot with a pin, and the amount of latex that oozed out was expressed in relative terms (as described above). sampling for borer infestation was carried out on terminal, fruit-bearing shoots on each tree, based on fresh feeding-damage (external deposition of a fine powder at the base of the shoot), wilting and withering of tender shoots. data collected on plant traits, viz., number of primary shoots, secondary shoots, terminal shoots, plant vigour, density of terminal shoots and latex-flow index were analyzed using one way anova to determine differences in the above-mentioned parameters as significant or nonsignificant, between the two cultivars as per little and hills (1978). correlation, step-wise multiple regression and pathcoefficient analyses between the plant parameters studied and stem-borer incidence were carried out. to get a further insight, a step-wise regression procedure (ryan, 1997) was employed to select the most crucial plant traits influencing variability in borer incidence. this technique consists of essentially identifying, stage by stage, trait(s) significantly related to borer incidence (y). further, as a measure of goodness-of-fit of the models developed, values pertaining to co-efficient of determination (r2) (agostid’no and stephens, 1986) were calculated. variance inflation factor (vif) value was computed to test the multi-colinearity of variables. table 1. plant traits in two fig cultivars variety canopy traits inherent traits of the plant no. of no. of no. of terminal density of plant latex-flow per cent per cent primary secondary tender shoots shoots vigour index infested infested shoots (+se) shoots (+se) (+se) (+se) (+se) (+se) trees(n=80) shoots/ tree deanna 3.80 + 0.08 16.15 + 0.66 53.58 + 1.94 2.90 + 0.15 3.38 + 0.14 1.06 + 0.03 75.00 7.82† (1.0 5.0) (0.0 28.0) (6.0 89.0) (1.0 5.0) (1.0 5.0) (1.0 2.0) poona 3.41 + 0.08 10.83 + 0.37 23.29 + 1.06 2.04 + 0.10 2.46 + 0.11 2.94 + 0.03 6.25 0.32†† (2.0 4.0) (5.0 19.0) (4.0 48.0) (1.0 4.0) (1.0 5.0) (2.0 3.0) cd (p=0.05) 0.22 1.48 4.33 0.34 0.34 0.08 figures in parentheses show the range of values; †n = 4286; ††n = 1863 results and discussion severe borer infestation was noticed (75%) in cv. deanna (n=80) and significantly (p = 0.05) lower infestation (6.5%) was observed in cv. poona (n=80), during augustdecember. within a tree too, significantly higher infestation was noticed on tender terminal-shoots (7.82%) in cv. deanna (n=4286), and 0.32% in cv. poona (n=1863) (t=8.17, df =79, p<0.01). among canopy traits, the number of primary shoots, secondary shoots, terminal tender-shoots, and density of terminal shoots ranged from 1-5, 0-28, 6-89 and 1-5 respectively in cv. deanna and 2-4, 5-19, 4-48 and 1-4, respectively, in cv. poona. inherent plant traits, viz., plant vigour and latex-flow index ranged from 1-5 & 1-2, and 15 & 2-3, respectively, in cvs. deanna and poona, respectively (table 1). data revealed significant variation in canopy and plant traits between cultivars deanna and poona. mean number of primary shoots (3.80), secondary shoots (16.15), terminal tender-shoots (53.58), plant vigour (3.38) and density of terminal shoots (2.90) was significantly higher in cv. deanna compared to cv. poona (table 1). mean latexflow index was significantly higher in cv. poona (2.94) compared to cv. deanna (1.06) (table 1). influence of various plant traits on differential susceptibility of the two common fig varieties revealed that the number of primary shoots (r=0.28; p=0.01); number of secondary shoots (r=0.64; p=0.001), number of terminal tender-shoots (r=0.58; p=0.001), plant vigour (r=0.54; p=0.001), density of terminal shoots (r=0.67; p=0.001) had a significant, positive correlation with incidence of the shoot borer, d. fletcheri. however, latex-flow index had a significant, negative correlation with the incidence of d. fletcheri (r = -0.53; p = 0.001) (table 2). j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):83-89, 2015 kamala jayanthi et al 85 multiple regression analysis indicated that plant traits could explain 60% of the total variation in stem-borer infestation. considering the traits viz., number of secondary shoots, density of terminal shoots, and latex-flow index, being significant based on r/se (a stringent criterion for identifying significant variables for regression analysis), variability in stem borer infestation on the two cultivars can be explained to an extent of 59% (y=-1.56+0.18x2+1.35x51.04x6, r 2=0.59) (table 3). further, traits like number of primary shoots, secondary shoots, terminal tender-shoots, plant vigour, density of terminal shoots and latex-flow index as lone, independent factors explained 8, 41, 33, 29, 49, 28% of the total variation in stem borer incidence, respectively, in linear equations. maximum variation in stem borer infestation was explained by canopy traits and density of terminal shoots (49%), followed by the number of secondary shoots (41%) (table 4). however, step-wise multiple regression analysis showed that various combinations of host-plant traits could not explain variability in stem borer infestation beyond 60% (tables 5-6). nevertheless, canopy traits, viz., number of secondary shoots and density of terminal shoots, alone, could explain variability in stem borer infestation to an extent of 53% (y=-4.83+0.25x2+1.43x5, p=0.01; r2=0.53), with lesser vif value (2.13) indicating a low level of collinearity among variables (table 5). further, a combination of canopy traits, viz., number of terminal shoots and density of terminal shoots, could explain variability in stem borer infestation to an extent of 51% (y=3.97+0.05x3+1.63x5, r 2=0.51). a combination of canopy traits (density of terminal shoots) and inherent plant traits (latex-flow index) could explain variability in stem borer table 2. direct and indirect effects of plant traits in fig cultivars pathways of association direct indirect ‘r’ effects effects 1. primary branches (no.) 0.28* a. direct effect -0.05 b. indirect effect via tertiary branches (no.) secondary branches (no.) plant vigour density of branches latex flow 2. secondary branches (no.) 0.64** a. direct effect 0.33 b. indirect effect via primary branches (no.) 0.13 tertiary branches (no.) 0.24 plant vigour 0.16 density of branches 0.20 latex flow -0.15 3. tertiary branches 0.58** a. direct effect -0.16 b. indirect effect via primary branches (no.) -0.06 secondary branches (no.) -0.12 plant vigour -0.08 density of branches -0.09 latex flow 0.12 4. plant vigour 0.54** a. direct effect 0.08 b. indirect effect via primary branches (no.) 0.01 secondary branches (no.) 0.04 tertiary branches (no.) 0.05 density of branches 0.04 latex flow -0.03 5. density of branches 0.67** a. direct effect 0.40 b. indirect effect via primary branches (no.) 0.12 secondary branches (no.) 0.24 tertiray branches (no.) 0.22 plant vigour 0.26 latex flow -0.13 6. latex flow -0.53** a. direct effect -0.33 b. indirect effect via primary branches (no.) 0.08 secondary branches (no.) 0.15 tertiray branches (no.) 0.24 plant vigour 0.12 density of branches -0.33 *significant at 1% level; **significant at 0.1% level table 3. linear regression models explaining the variability in shoot borer, d. fletcheri, infestation in fig using plant traits variables considered model r2 vif i) significant variables based on r* y=-0.96-0.02 x1 0.60 2.47 (x1=no. of primary shoots; +0.23 x2-0.03x3 x2=no. of secondary shoots; +0.24 x4+1.28 x5 x3= no. of terminal shoots.; -1.31x6 x4=plant vigour; x5=density of terminal shoots; x6=latex-flow index) ii) only significant variables y=-1.56+0.18x2 0.59 2.42 based on (r/se)** +1.35 x5-1.04x6 (x2=no. of secondary shoots; x5=density of terminal shoots; x6=latex-flow index) r=correlation coefficient; **se=standard error table 4. linear models to estimate variability in shoot borer, d. fletcheri, infestation in fig using various plant traits variables considered model r2 vif i) no. of primary shoots (x1) y=-3.15+1.46x1 0.08 1.09 ii) no. of secondary shoots (x2) y=-3.86+0.44x2 0.41 1.69 iii) no. of terminal shoots (x3) y=-1.95+ 0.110x3 0.33 1.50 iv) plant vigour (x4) y=-2.87+ 1.71x4 0.29 1.40 v) density of terminal shoots (x5) y=-3.19+ 2.16x5 0.49 1.81 vi) latex-flow index (x6 ) y=6.25-2.06x6 0.28 1.38 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):83-89, 2015 plant traits and resistance to shoot borer in fig cvs. 86 infestation to an extent 55% (y=0.37+1.79x5-1.32 x6; r2=0.55) (table 6). pathways through which the six plant traits studied operate, to produce their association with shoot borer infestation reveal direct and indirect contribution (table 2). path-coefficient analysis showed that direct effect of number of primary shoots on stem borer infestation was negative and was not too pronounced. indirect effects through other traits also exhibited a similar trend. direct effect of the number of secondary shoots on stem-borer infestation was positive and high in magnitude (0.33). the total correlation between number of secondary shoots and stem-borer infestation was highly positive and significant (0.64). indirect effect of the number of secondary shoots via other plant traits, viz., number of primary shoots (0.13), number of terminal shoots (0.24), plant vigour (0.16) and density of terminal shoots (0.20) was positive and of a reasonable magnitude, contributing to the total correlation coefficient. however, indirect effect through latex-flow index was found to be negative (-0.15). table 5. various linear equations for estimating variability in shoot borer (d. fletcheri) infestation variables considered model r2 vif with the no. of primary shoots kept at a constant i) no. of primary shoots (x1)+ no. of secondary shoots (x2) y=-4.51+0.22x1+0.43 x2 0.41 1.70 ii) no. of primary shoots (x1)+ no. of terminal shoots (x3) y=-3.37+ 0.45x1+0.10x3 0.34 1.52 iii) no. of primary shoots (x1)+ plant vigour (x4) y=-6.19+1.01x1+1.61x4 0.32 1.47 iv) no. of primary shoots (x1)+ density of terminal shoots (x5) y=-4.58+0.44x1+2.07x5 0.46 1.85 v) no. of primary shoots (x1)+ latex-flow index (x6) y=2.95+0.83x1 -1.91x6 0.30 1.43 with the no. of secondary shoots kept at a constant i) no. of secondary shoots (x2)+ no. of terminal shoots (x3) y=-3.89+0.33x2+0.04 x3 0.43 1.76 ii) no. of secondary shoots (x2)+ plant vigour (x4) y=-5.27+ 0.35x2+0.94x4 0.47 1.89 iii) no. of secondary shoots (x2)+ density of terminal shoots (x5) y=-4.83+0.25x2+1.43x5 0.53 2.13 iv) no. of secondary shoots (x2)+ latex-flow index (x6) y=-0.27+0.35x2-1.16x6 0.48 1.92 with the no. of terminal shoots kept at a constant i) no. of terminal shoots (x3)+ plant vigour (x4) y=-3.88+0.08x3+1.06 x4 0.41 1.70 ii) no. of terminal shoots (x3)+ density of terminal shoots (x5) y=-3.97+ 0.05x3+1.63x5 0.51 2.04 iii) no. of terminal shoots (x3)+ latex-flow index (x6) y=1.05+0.08x3-0.91x6 0.36 1.56 with the plant vigour kept at a constant i) plant vigour (x4)+ density of terminal shoots (x5) y=-3.85+0.52x4+1.81 x5 0.46 1.85 ii) plant vigour (x4)+ latex flow index (x6) y=1.42+ 1.28x4-1.51x6 0.42 1.72 with the density of terminal shoots kept at a constant i) density of terminal shoots(x5)+ latex-flow index (x6) y=0.37+1.79x5-1.32 x6 0.55 2.22 table 6. step-wise linear models to estimate variability in shoot borer (d. fletcheri) infestation in fig variables considered model r2 vif i. no. of primary shoots ( x1) + no. of secondary shoots ( x2) + y=-4.25+0.12 x1 + 0.32 x2 +0.04 x3 0.43 1.75 no. of terminal shoots (x3) ii. no. of primaries ( x1) + no. of secondary shoots ( x2) + y= -5.69+0.18x1 + 0.27x2 +0.026x3+0.86x4 0.48 1.92 no. of terminal shoots (x3) + plant vigour (x4) iii. no. of primary shoots ( x1) + no. of secondary shoots ( x2) + y=-5.21+0.02x1 +0.19x2 +0.02x3+0.31x4 +1.19x5 0.54 2.17 no. of terminal shoots (x3) + plant vigour (x4) + density of terminal shoots ( x5) iv. no. of secondary shoots ( x2) + no. of terminal shoots (x3) + y=-5.16+0.28x2 +0.03x3+0.86x4 0.48 0.92 plant vigour (x4) v. no. of secondary shoots ( x2) + no. of terminal shoots (x3) + y=-5.14+0.19x2 +0.02x3+0.03x4 +1.19x5 0.54 2.17 plant vigour (x4) + density of terminal shoots ( x5) vi. no. of secondary shoots ( x2) + no. of terminal shoots (x3) + y=-1.03+0.23x2 -0.03x3+0.24x4 +1.28x5-1.30x6 0.60 2.50 plant vigour (x4) + density of terminal shoots ( x5) + latex-flow index ( x6) vii. no. of terminal shoots (x3) + plant vigour (x4) + y=-4.33+0.05x3+0.31x4 +1.45x5 0.51 2.04 density of terminal shoots ( x5) viii. no. of terminal shoots (x3) + plant vigour (x4) + y=-0.58+0.01x3+0.26x4 +1.56x5-1.15x6 0.55 2.22 density of terminal shoots ( x5) + latex-flow index ( x6) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):83-89, 2015 kamala jayanthi et al 87 number of terminal shoots exhibited moderate, negative, direct effect (-0.16) as well as indirect effects via the number of primary shoots (-0.06), number of secondary shoots (-0.12), plant vigour (-0.08) and density of terminal shoots (-0.09). however, it exhibited a positive, indirect effect through latex-flow index (0.12). similarly, plant vigour also showed moderate, positive, direct effect (0.08) besides indirect effects via the number of primary shoots (0.01), number of secondary shoots (0.04), number of terminal shoots (0.04) and density of terminal shoots (0.05). however, it exhibited a negative, indirect effect through latex-flow index (-0.03). density of terminal shoots exhibited a very high magnitude of positive, direct effect with reference to stem borer infestation (0.40). indirect effects via the number of primary shoots (0.12), number of secondary shoots (0.24), number of terminal shoots (0.22) and plant vigour (0.26) were positive and high in magnitude. total correlation coefficient (0.71) was also found to be highly significant. however, with latex-flow index, it exhibited a negative, indirect effect (-0.13) for stem borer incidence. therefore, by managing canopy traits such as the number of secondary shoots, terminal shoots and density of terminal shoots, stem borer infestation can be reduced. latex-flow index showed a negative, direct effect of high magnitude (-0.33), but showed positive, indirect effects through the number of primary shoots (0.08), number of secondary shoots (0.15), number of terminal shoots (0.24), density of terminal shoots (0.11) and plant vigour (0.12). therefore, inherent plant characters, viz., plant vigour and latex-flow index, can be used as marker traits to induce resistance against stem borer in the common fig cultivars. plant genotypes possess trait-variations that can alter insect preference/non-preference (also referred to as antixenosis), i.e., insects are attracted to, or repelled by, a plant due to a variety of plant characteristics (karban et al, 1997; ernest, 1989) such as plant shape, size, surface texture, presence of trichomes and toughness of the tissue, tough vascular bundles, etc. antixenosis refers to potential planttraits, either morphological or allelochemical, impairing or altering insect behaviour towards the host (preference) in a way as to reduce chances of infestation by insects, for oviposition, food or shelter. preliminary comparative study conducted during 2010-11 showed significant differences in susceptibility of fig genotypes, viz., deanna and poona, to shoot borer, d. fletcheri (table 1). these variations can be attributed to several canopy traits and inherent plant-trait variations, as explained in this study (tables 1-6). the present study clearly revealed highly significant differences in per cent stem-borer infestation among two common fig cultivars, deanna and poona. further, canopy traits, viz., number of secondary shoots, number of tertiary shoots, plant vigour and density of terminal shoots had a significant, positive relationship with stem borer infestation, and, latex-flow index had a significant, negative relationship with stem-borer incidence. high concentration of fresh latex in ficus spp. (moraceae) was reported to range between 15-30% (mooibroek and cornish, 2000). it is generally accepted that the primary function of latex is to provide stickiness to entrap whole insects (dussourd 1993, 1995) or mire their mouthparts (dussourd & eisner 1987); the latex is mobilized and transported to the site of damage immediately upon onset of damage. however, the mechanism of these effects (even for stickiness) is not well-documented. in the present study, the high latex-flow index in cv. poona can be seen as primarily effective on early-instar grubs of d. fletcheri, as reported by zalucki et al (2001 a and b) in the case of milkweed caterpillars. they reported that mortality in specialist caterpillars armed with tiny mandibles feeding on milkweeds is the highest in earlier instars, and, especially high at the first bite after hatching (as, latex is mobilized and transported to the site of damage immediately upon the damage, and can travel over 70cm to the point of damaged, as reported in cryptostegia grandiflora) (buttery and boatman, 1976). however, larger herbivores that feed on whole-plants can be expected to be much less affected, because, accumulation of latex at the site of damage in this case will be ineffective. therefore, in the present study, the high latex-flow index observed in cv. poona may have hampered establishment of early-instar grubs of d. fletecheri. canopy traits, viz., number of primary shoots, secondary shoots, terminal shoots and the density of terminal shoots, were found to be higher in the susceptible cv. deanna, where, heavy incidence of stem borer was noticed. usually, host-preference of herbivourous insects is attributed to their behavioral response to visual, tactile or chemical cues received from the plants when pests encounter (bernays and chapman, 1994; briese and walker, 2002). this provides the insects with positive and negative signals which enable them to identiy a right host (bernays, 1989). earlier studies reported that plant traits such as odour, colour, morphological and anatomical characteristics were also important factors influencing insect host-choice (bernays j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):83-89, 2015 plant traits and resistance to shoot borer in fig cvs. 88 and chapman, 1994). in the present study, the susceptible variety deanna was found to be highly vigorous, with higher number of secondary shoots and, terminal shoots, leading to a dense canopy structure. this may have attracted the stem borer to cv. deanna, compared to cv. poona which was less vigorous, having a less dense canopy architecture. connections between general host-vigour and herbivore preference have been found, especially in gall-inducing insects (craig et al, 1989; horner and abrahamson, 1992; fritz et al, 2003; price and hunter, 2005). plant vigour hypothesis by price (1991) states that females prefer to oviposit on fast-growing plants because of the plant’s better nutritional quality or higher general vigour. further, it is also reported that some plant genotypes endowed with a higher level of defense chemicals, are more resistant to insects than plants with lower concentrations of the same (diego et al, 2011). we too observed in the present study that cv. poona with a higher latex-flow index recorded a lower incidence of stem borer. inherent plant traits, viz., high latexflow index and plant vigour in cv. poona may be responsible for the non-preference of stem borer to this genotype. these can be used as marker traits in breeding programs for developing stem-borer resistant varieties. it is clear from the present study that canopy traits that influence stem borer infestation. the density of terminal shoots, and the number of secondary shoots can be managed to develop a less dense canopy in the susceptible variety, deanna. as reported in earlier studies, herbivorous insect do not attack plants indiscriminately but prefer to feed/ oviposit on specific plant species, or, genotypes of a single species (jaenike, 1990; hjalten et al, 2007; crawford et al, 2007; tommi et al, 2011). further, in addition to genetic effects (i.e., species and genotype effects) on host-plant quality, other factors such as shading, soil fertility, etc. may influence suitability of a host (mutikainen et al, 2000; lower et al, 2003; osier and lindroth, 2006). semiochemical cues in successful hostplant location and colonization can be expected to play a role in primary host attraction, and probably provide a basis for future olfaction-based studies. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, iihr, bangalore for providing facilities to carry out the research, and to dr. v.v. ramamurthy, principal scientist, iari, new delhi, for taxonomic identification of the weevil. the senior author wishes to place on record her deep regards to dr. abraham verghese for his valuable advice, guidance, constant support and encouragement. references agostid’no r.b and stephens m.a. 1986. goodness of fit techniques. marcel dekker, new york bernays, e.a. 1989. host range in phytophagous insects: the potential role of generalist predators. evol. ecol., 3:299-311 bernays, e.a. and chapman, r.f. 1994. host-plant selection by phytophagous insects. chapman and hall, london, uk briese, d.t. and 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resistance to shoot borer in fig cvs. 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 87 trends and innovations in value chain management of tropical fruits harinder singh oberoi* and dinesh m.r. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru, india *corresponding author, email: harinder.oberoi@icar.gov.in abstract india produced about 97.35 million tons of fruits during 2017-18, of which less than 1% fruits were exported. in india, less than 5% of the total fruits produced are sold by the organized supply chain management and e-commerce companies and 3% of the total produce gets processed, indicating that more than 90% of fruits follow the traditional route of supply chain involving farmers, auctioneers, agents/intermediaries, wholesalers, sub-wholesalers, retailers, cart vendors before they reach the consumers. post-harvest (ph) losses occur at each stage of the supply chain and are compounded with each operation. a study on ph loss estimation has shown maximum loss of 15.88% in guava among fruits while other studies have reported much higher ph lossesin fruits. value of tropical fruits, both in monetary terms and quality reduces during harvesting, handling, transportation from the farmer’s field, packaging, storage, retail and even at the consumer’s level. important interventions that reduce the ph losses and improve the supply chain management are establishment of pre-cooling facilities and short term storage facilities through evaporative cooling/refrigeration mechanisms at the farm gate, primary processing and packaging provision at the farm gate or nearby collection centres, transportation of fruits in refrigerated/evaporative cooled vans with the use of alternate energy sources and provision for low temperature and high humidity storage at the retail centres. establishment of a postharvest management system for sorting, washing, partial drying, edible coating, if required and grading at the collection centres will help in reducing the ph losses in the supply chain and help farmers get a better value for their produce. formation of farmer clusters or farmers producer organizations (fpos) provides farmers a better bargaining power because of higher volumes. educating and bringing awareness among the farmers about the good agricultural practices (gap), mechanization in field operations, availability of seeds for different seasons, eliminating the problem of seasonality are also important in production of quality output. transportation of fruits, such as mango, banana and guava in vans/wagons operating through evaporative cooling/ cooling mechanism using phase change material will help in improving the shelf life of such fruits. an integrated radio frequency identification (rfid) system along with the sensors for ethylene, temperature and rh monitoring is likely to help in easy tracking and traceability of the fresh produce. establishment of primary and secondary processing facility at the farmer cluster/ fpo levels will help in transforming the farmers to primary processors. keywords: collection centres, packaging, post-harvest management, supply chain, transportation and value chain introduction india is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world and even the largest producer for some of the tropical fruits, such as papaya, mango and banana. as per the report of national horticulture board (nhb), fruit and vegetable production during 2017-18 in india was 97.35 and 187 million tonnes, respectively. india exported about 0.69 million tons of processed fruits and vegetable products, earning a revenue of about rs 5279 crores in 2018-19, while the export of about 3.80million tons of fresh fruits and vegetables during 2018-19 fetched a revenue of about j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 review 88 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 rs 10,338 crores according to agricultural and processed food export development authority (apeda). export of fresh fruits from india during 2018-19 was less than 1% of the total quantityof the fruits produced in the country. as per ministry of food processing industries (mofpi) data, only 2-2.2% fruits are processed in india. organized supply chain management companiesin india like reliance fresh, big bazaar, aditya birla retail ltd or e-commerce companies like big basket or grofers etc. account for procurement of less than 5% of the total fruits produced in the country. this data indicates that more than 90% of fresh fruits pass through the traditional supply chain involving farmers, auctioneers, agents/ intermediaries, wholesalers, sub-wholesalers, retailers, cart vendors and consumers as mentioned elsewhere in this paper. as the fresh perishable produce has to pass through several hands/ steps, post-harvest (ph) losses occur at each stage before the fruits actually reach the consumers. in addition to the measurable losses, a deterioration in quality (intangible loss) of the fruits takes place at each step, indicating that there are both quality and quantity losses in such a long supply chain having a direct impact on the value of the fresh produce. losses even occur at the level of the consumers that cannot even be estimated. studies on ph losses in fruits and vegetables have reported maximum losses in guava at 15.88% among all the fruits (jha et al., 2015). however, authors considered only eight fruits for ph loss estimation study viz., apple, banana, citrus, grapes, guava, mango, papaya andsapota. salami et al. (2010) have reported losses in fruits and vegetables between harvest and final consumption at about 30-40%. therefore,it becomes imper a tive to r educe the number of operations from farm-to-fork in order to retain the value of the fruits both from the quality and nutrition perspectives and minimize the ph losses. value chain model for horticultural crops value chains describe the full range of activities which are required to bring a product or service from conception, through the different phases of production (involving a combination of physical transformation and the input of various producer services) delivery to final disposal after use (kaplinsky and morris, 2000). value chain integrates various factors together and provides communication of market information to all the players involved in the chain. supply chain activities consist of buying produce (purchasing), changing something about the produce to increase its value (processing e.g. packaging and/ or sorting) and transporting it to the location of demand (distribution). the demand chain consists of activities to stimulate demand for produce (marketing), facilitating transactions to enable people to buy the produce (sales) and providing any ‘after-sales’ service such as dealing with returns or unsold perishable goods (service). value chain encompasses different facets of supply and demand chain, starting from the land use planning, adoption of good agricultural practices (gap), nutrient and agro-chemicals use mana gement, precision farming for production of a good quality and uniform produce; supply chain management, discussed in detail elsewhere in this paper; market intelligence and demand forecasting/crop planning for fruits and vegetables and marketing of the fresh as well as processed fruits. therefore, value chain for fruits is extremely important as it integrates different links together, starting from farmer/ fpo to consumer through different approaches. value chain analysis of mango cultivation in one acre of land in dharwad, karnataka is presented in fig.1. the input details and the price that the farmer gets in the market are obtained from the farmer who has mango plantations spread over 9 acres. though the farmer is the primary producer of the crop, he gets least value for his produce, whereas the major share of value addition is distributed among the traders (intermediaries) and retailers. despite the fact that the major stakeholder in this value chain is a farmer, he accounts for about 12%, whereas the retailers account for about 60% and the traders for about 30% in the value chain. smallholder (farmer ’s) participation in the tropical fruits value chain is constrained by inadequate farmlevel resources, farm-to-market logistical bottlenecks and transaction costs in matching and aggregating dispersed supplies to meet buyer and consumer demands (chang et al., 2014). these constraints are compounded by a new set of challenges associated with compliance with product and process standards enforced by the government agencies or supply chain management companies. some of the major reasons for low-level participation of the smallholders/ farmersin the tropical fruit value chain in countries like indiaare: harinder singh oberoi and dinesh 89 trends and innovations in value chain management of tropical fruits fig. 1: value chain analysis of mango cv. alphonso (1 acre) in dharwad, karnataka (input details for production of fruits and market price of the fruit are presented for illustration purpose and may vary from farm to farm, place to place and the method of cultivation)  fragmented land holdings and low farm outputs which r educe the ba r ga ining power of the individual farmers. it is therefore important to have the farmer co-operatives or fpos who can have a better bargaining power vis-à-vis wholesalers or intermediaries.  lack of market intelligence, poor linkages to mar ket and ina dequate ma rket infor mation, distance from the farmer ’s fields to the retail markets and poor roads and transportation systems compound the problems for farmers.  lack of effective policies, including access to credit, on-farm infrastructure for storage, handling or primary processing of fruits, appropriate quality standards and compliance mechanism and lack of proper pre. and post. harvest technologies limit the involvement of the individual farmers in the value chain. production and crop planning value chain begins with the farmer and the agricultural practices followed by the farmers in production of uniform and quality produce. highest amount of waste in fruits and vegetables supply chain occurs at the farm gateitself. even today, traditional cropping patterns are prevalent in most parts of india. for example, high density and ultra-high density plantations of tropical fruits, such as mango and guava increase the productivity as well as quality of the product, therebyhelping farmers to get better price for their produce. pr oblem of sea sona lity in fr uits and vegetables could be handled largely using seeds available for different seasons.application of gap is widely recognized as the most important measure in assuring the safety of fresh produce, followed by the application of good hygienic practices (ghp) and the certification of food safety management systems (fsms). pre-harvest factors which have a profound influence on the ph quality attributes are the use of qua lity ir r iga tion wa ter (ma in sour ce of contamination); maintenance or restoration of soil organic carbon, crop rotation, avoiding water and fertilizer run-off, water recycling, etc., help in better quality output and minimizing the incidence of pathogen infestation, such as that of aspergillus spp, largely responsible for production of aflatoxins. mechanization j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 90 in land preparation, planting, irrigation and pest and disease management are important components of gap, which help in production of a good quality output. in order to tackle the issues of perishability and seasonality of fruits and vegetables, it is important for the procurement agencies (both government agencies and supply chain management companies) to work closely with the farmers and help them in crop planning. farmers should also be informed about the nutrient use ma nagement, use of biopesticides, micronutrient formulation, high density planting and irrigation techniques. such crop planning and market intelligence techniques will help in adding value to the produce and getting a good remuneration for farmers for their produce. supply chain management of fruits in india recent advances in food markets around the world are driven by consumer demand and preferences, food safety concerns and the increased bargaining power of moder n reta il systems. higher income a nd changing lifestyles have led to demand for more variety, better quality, year-round supply of fresh produce, “healthy” food and convenience. in addition, consumer’s concerns for safe foodand also about the social and environmental conditions under which food is produced has led us to believe that technological interventions are needed to strengthen the supply chain as well as product development. it therefore becomes important to preserve the value of important perishable commodities at each stage in the supply chain as well as during processing. traditional model of supply of fruits and vegetables in india (fig.2) from farmer to consumer involves a series of intermediaries. loss in quantity because of physiological lossesand quality loss due to poor handling occurs at each stage. in certain parts of the country, banana combs are stacked over one another and transported in open trolleys and mini trucks to the auction sites/ wholesale markets. as the village roads and the approach roads to auction sites/ wholesale markets are undulating, broken and have many potholes, spoilage in fruits is intensified. losses are accumulated at each stage of the supply chain (fig.2) and a long supply chain like the one being used in the conventional system leads to significant ph as well as quality loss in fruits. fig. 2: traditional supply chain system followed in india baskets made from bamboo with paddy straw as cushioning materials used as packaging for fruits like papaya and mangoes in various parts of the country (fig. 3) result in very high spoilages during storage and transportation. all these losses reduce the value of the fruit in monetary terms for farmers, leading to distress sale. traditional supply chain for fresh fruits in most cases does not fetch a good remuneration for the farmers. fig. 3: packaging of mangoes in bamboo baskets with paddy straw as cushioning material supply cha in being followed by the organized companies like reliance fresh and aditya birla retail ltd (more) in india isrelatively shorter than the traditional supply chain. both these companies directly procure the produce fr om the fa rmer s/ far mer producer organizations (fpos)/ farmer co-operatives/ clusters. on most occasions, sorting of the fruits is done at the farm gate and the desired fruits are only procured by such companies for supply to their retail stores. supply chain model involves transportation of fresh fruits and vegetables to their collection centres (cc)/buying centres, where the fruits and vegetables are weighed, sorted, if necessary and shifted to the distribution centres (dc), where primary processing operations, such as grading, packaging into small retail packs is done and subsequently, the material is shifted to the retail stores of the respective companies or consumers directly by the e-commerce companies (fig.4). facilities like graders, conveyors, washers and cold stores are available at dcs of these companies. harinder singh oberoi and dinesh j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 91 reliance fresh also deploys a fleet of refrigerated vehicles for transportation of the fruits to their retail stores. this kind of supply chain has helped in reducing the ph losses drastically. as per sihariya et al. (2013) reliance fresh has successfully reduced the ph losses from the farmer’s field to their retail stores from 25-30% to about 7-8% through precooling of harvest, better post-harvest handling (less number of human touches/contacts), and special type of packages for highly perishable products. reliance also uses coldchain for inter-state movement of fruits and vegetables and regularly conducts trainings for the staff in the supply chain, which contribute significantly to alleviation in the ph losses. waycool foods and products pvt ltd, chennai, india procures most fruits and vegetable directly from the farmers and fpos located in and around chennai and nearby districts of tamil nadu and transport the fresh horticultural produce to their collection centre which has facilities for sor ting, gr a ding, weighing, wa shing a nd temperature controlled compartments for storage of highly perishable materials. the company repacks the produce in bulk packages for supply to wholesalers and retails packages for supply to their franchisee retail outlets. the company also has developed transport vehicle based on phase change material (pcm) for transport of highly perishable produce from their collection centre to retail outlets or wholesale ma r kets. wa ycool ha s pla ced the icar-iihr developed arka high humidity storage boxes in their franchisee retail outlets for storage of green leafy and other vegetables, thereby significantly reducing the ph losses at the retail level. big basket, a la rge e-commer ce company that supplies about 100,000 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables annually procures a substantial quantity of and vegetables (about 80%) directly from the farmers and fpos and the remaining produce from other companies like grofers, waycool, etc. the company has its own ccs located near the production hubs, which have the basic facilities for weighing, sorting and grading. fresh produce is directly transported from the ccs to dcs, where the fresh produce is graded, if required, repackaged in small packs, such as punnets for pomegranate, corrugated fibreboard (cfb) boxes for mangoes and papaya and transported directly to the consumer’s doorstep. some of the dcs of the company also have facilities for treatment and packaging of the selected fr esh-cut fruits and vegetables. highly perishable produce is transported either in refrigerated vans or in the containers with gel packs for small retail packs by the company. though the supply of fresh fruits and vegetables in an organized way by the above mentioned companies has brought down the ph losses significantly and have successfully added value to the fresh horticultural produce, these companies put together procure less than 5% of the total fruits produced in the country. fig. 4: supply chain followed by the organized farm-to-fork companies for supply of fruits in india supply chain management practices followed in other countries supply of fruits and vegetables in most of the developed countries involves primary processing of fresh produce at the farm gate and supply of such pr oduce to wholesa ler s/ a gents, r eta iler s a nd consumers directly (fig.5). as per jassi (2011), most of the produce after harvest is subjected to processing to increase the shelf life of the products and is then transported to wholesalers/ agents who deliver the product to the hospitality industry and retail stores from where it r eaches the consumer, which is considered as another good approach of saving the precious fruits and vegetables. in most developed countries, farmers supply fresh produce directly to the retail stores and at times to the consumer and the processing levels in such countries are substantially higher than that in india. fig. 5: supply chain for fresh fruits and vegetables followed in developed countries thailand has similar climatic condition as india and so is the food consumption pattern. the supply chain in fruits and vegetables however is much better developed in thailand as compared to india (srimanee and routray, 2012). supermarkets in thailand account for 40 % of fruit and 30 % of vegetables in urban trends and innovations in value chain management of tropical fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 92 areas, but a lower percentage in the context of the entire country (fig. 6). fresh fruits and vegetables have not only increased in percentage share of sales but also are very profitable relative to other products in the stores in thailand. a consequence of the increasing importance of supermarkets for fruits and vegetables is that the procurement system has had an impact on small farmers, who are the major fruit producers in thailand. the major channel from farmers to co-operative groups to supermarkets accounts for a bout 20% of supply of fa rmer ’s pr oduce. t her e is no inter media r ies between supermarkets and farmers’ co-operative groups. this has reduced the incidence of multiple parties in the channel, thereby improving efficiency of the chain. cooperatives and specialist assemblers are more beneficial to farmers, compared to other channels beca use of their openness a nd flexibility. intermediaries of these channels are responsible for all the steps involved in grading, packaging and delivery, which are more efficient when carried out on a large scale. hotels, restaurants and catering fig. 6: supply chain for fruits and vegetables followed in thailand harinder singh oberoi and dinesh j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 93 technological interventions for reducing post-harvest losses pre-cooling and storage structures harvesting methods and time of harvest play an important role in storage life of the fruit. harvesting of fruits, such as mangoes at about 2 inches from their tip on the peduncle using mechanical harvesters (fig.7) helps in improving the keeping quality of the mangoes. harvesters for fruits, like citrus fruits, sapota, etc. help in reducing the damage/injury to such fruits, eventually leading to extended storage life for such fruits.  air-coolingwhich involves the use of refrigerated air as pre-cooling medium and this method is suitable for tropical fruits. pre-cooling with air can be accomplished in a conventional cold storage room, a special pre-cooling, a funnel cooler, or a forced air cooler.  vacuum cooling that works on the principle of cooling by reducing atmospheric pressure in artificial hermetically sealed chambers. the major advantages of vacuum cooling are the speed and uniformity of cooling of the produce. vacuum cooling is generally found to be useful and suitable for vegetables. in order to save the fresh produce, it is suggested to have the pre-cooling facility at the farm gate or in the vicinity of the farmer ’s field. pre-cooling at 10°c, packing in ldpe bags of 200-gaugethickness without vents followedby storage at 10°c resulted in optimum quality and minimal spoilage in guava (dhara et al., 2017). ravikumar et al. (2018) reported that banana cv. grand naine fruits pre-cooled with hydro cooling (spray at 13°c and stored in cold store at 13 °c) showed good shelf life. kanade et al. (2017) reported that among all the treatments, pre-cooling at 12 °c followed by storage at 15 °c helped in extending the shelf life of fruits of mango cv. alphonso to 28 days. onfarm primary processing deterioration in fruits occurs largely due to factors, such as temperature, oxygen, light, moisture, and microbial growth. deterioration process accelerates once these factors act together, resulting in fast spoilage of fruits. tropical fruits like mango, guava and papaya generally come to harvest during hot and humid periods, such fruits being high in moisture with very less protection are vulnerable to deterioration beca use of physiologica l, biochemica l a nd microbiological spoilage. oxygen essentially provides conditions that enhance growth of aerobic microbes. pr esence of oxygen enha nces the gr owth of microorganisms, such as molds and yeasts, and contributes directly to deterioration in fats, vitamins, flavors, and colors within fruits through the action of enzymes. therefor e, it is extremely important to have a disinfection facility at the farm level to have a good/ optimal shelf life for fresh fruits. ozone is the fig. 7: simple mango harvesters developed at icar-iihr, bengaluru pre-cooling of fruits reduces the field heat, thereby reducing the respiration rate and physiological activity in the fruits, thereby minimizing the spoilage. in addition, pre-cooling also helps in reducing the physiological loss in weight (plw), thus helping in preservation of the value of the fruits. pre-cooling a lso helps in dela ying r ipening a nd r eta r ding senescence. pre-cooling is extremely important for tropical fruits, as the temperatures during harvest are relatively high and therefore, the fruits need to be immediately pre-cooled for having an optimal shelf life. different methods of pre-cooling include  hydro cooling which requires the use of cold water or cold water spray. hydro cooling is generally achieved through flooding, immersion or spraying of cold water. trends and innovations in value chain management of tropical fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 94 strongest food grade antimicrobial agent. while destroying bacteria and viruses, the remaining ozone reverts to oxygen, for a pure, fresh taste without any chemical residue. ozone is environmental friendly, quick, simple and effective against bacteria, pesticides, poisons and prolongs the storage life naturally. ozone is reported to have 1.5 times the oxidizing potential of chlor ine a nd 3, 000 times the potentia l of hypochlor ous acid (hocl). conta ct times for antimicrobial action with ozone are typically 4-5 times less than that of chlorine. ozone rapidly attacks bacterial cell walls and is more effective against the thick-walled spores of plant pathogens and animal pa r a sites tha n chlor ine, a t pr a ctica l a nd sa fe concentr ations (suslow, 1998). applica tion of electrolyzed water has been primarily focused on fr uits and vegeta bles; its potential for sur fa ce decontamination of food products still requires further study and optimization. especially, a pplica tion parameters, such as ph, oxidation reduction potential (orp), temperature, treatment time, and active chlorine concentration, require optimization for washing fresh fruits to increase the microbiocidal effect of electrolyzed water washing as a promising alternative technique (turantas et al., 2018). in some of the countries like usa, uk, washing and/or disinfection using electrolyzed water or ozone is done at the farmer’s field. this helps in not only controlling the spoilage microorganisms as well as the food borne pathogens but also helps in reduced biochemical activity, resulting in a better storability of the produce. packaging and transportation cold storage of mango at 12-13°c is appropriate only for 2-3 weeks, beyond which the fruits tend to deteriorate rapidly. cold storage limits the use of sea freight, which is usually more economical and ecofriendly than airfreight. controlled atmosphere (ca) storage involves regulating the concentration of oxygen (o2) and carbon dioxide (co2) using nitrogen, a right mix of storage temperature and relative humidity (rh) in the storage environment. controlled atmosphere in combination with an optimum storage temperature prolongs the storage life and helps in maintaining the fruit quality including aroma volatiles in mango fruit depending upon the cultivar (singh and zaharah, 2015). elhefny et al. (2012) reported that the optimal ca for long term storage of “keitt” mango at 13°c with 3% o2 + 6% co2+ 91% n2 could extend the storage life up to 10 weeks. shelf life of 3 months is ideal for export of mangoes through the sea route. rao et al. (2018) have pr esented a consolidated information on different storage and packaging techniques to extend the shelf life of tropical fruits, which includes shrink wrapping, modified a tmospher e pa cka ging (map) a nd contr olled atmosphere (ca) storage. transportation of tropical fruits from the farmer’s field to the r eta il stores or cc of the supply cha in companies is one of the major operations having a direct impact on the ph losses and shelf life of the produce. generally, the tropical fruits require a temperature ranging from 12-15 °c and rh ranging from 85-95% for optimal storage. if the similar conditions could be provided during transportation, the ph losses in such fruits can be brought down significantly. studies conducted by icar-iihr, bengaluru on solar operated evaporatively cooled vans for retail sale of fruits and vegetables have shown an extended shelf life of fruits by 36-48 hours depending on the ambient conditions (fig 8a). evaporative cooling through misting helped in increasing the rh to the tune of 80-85%, which subsequently helped in reducing the physiological loss in weight (plw) and r eta ined fr eshness in fr uits a nd vegeta bles. incorporation of phase change material (pcm) [fig. 8b], such as gel packs also help in reducing the temper a tur e, ther ebyhelping in extending the stor a bility of tr opica l fr uits. integr a ting the incorporation of pcm along with the misting system and running this system through solar power is the need of an hour. such kind of storage vans which do not use the fuel of the vehicle for evaporative cooling/cooling mechanism are suitable for short distance transportation as well and will help in reducing the carbon footprint. integrating the use of solar power a nd pcm not only will r educe the environmental pollution but also help in saving energy. fig. 8: a. fruit and vegetable vending van using the solar power and evaporative cooling mechanism through misting for maintaining high rh inside the structure harinder singh oberoi and dinesh j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 95 fig. 8: b. vending van using the phase change material (pcm) for maintaining low temperature during transportation establishment of on-farm storage structures based on evaporative cooling/ refrigeration and hybrid systems help in impr oving the shelf life of the fr esh horticultural produce. increase in humidity to about 90% with a decrease in temperature by 10-12 °c, compared to ambient temperatures help in improving the shelf life of the tr opica l fr uits. on-fa r m establishment of evaporative cooled (ec) storage structures help in reducing the ph losses in fruits and vegetables (chopra et al., 2004). on-farm storage str uctur es like the icar-ciphet designed eva poratively cooled str uctur e (fig. 9a ) or the refrigerated structures (fig. 9b)can serve as ideal structures for pre-cooling as well as storage to improve the shelf life of fruits as well as avoid distress sale of the fresh fruits. in addition to on-farm storage and/or pre-cooling, onfarm primary and secondary processing of fruits will help in adding significant value to the fruits and improve their shelf life. primary and secondary processing facility for sorting, washing, grading, waxing (wherever required) and packaging at the farm gate will improve the marketability of the fruits, in addition to improving their shelf life. creation of secondary processing activities at the farm gate level, for fr uits such a s mango, gua va , papaya pulp processing facility with the product having a shelf life of six months or more will help the farmer/fpo to add value to the fruit and enable them to sell the product at the appropriate time, whenever demand of such products is on the rise. tracking and traceability of the produce tracking of the fresh fruits through the supply chain helps in monitoring the movement of the produce throughout the chain. traceability of the produce gives details about the farmer who produced the fruits, planting date, spray schedule, quality of water used for irrigation, test reports and harvesting date, so that the information could be put to use for improving the cultivation practices at the time of recall. with the traceability system in place, one can identify the root cause for the pathogen infestation or epidemic outbreak so that appropriate preventive action could be taken to ensure that such epidemics do not recur. information about traceability can be incorporated in the farm of bar codes and readable radio frequency identification (rfid) tags and can be made available to a person sitting at a distant place through a mobile app. during the supply chain, installation of the rfid tags on the crates and integrating them with the sensor s for temper ature, rh, weight, ethylene production and biosensors in the transport vehicles will help in reducing the wastages in the supply chain (oberoi, 2008). such information once made available to the farmer/ producer on a mobile or any other device will help him in deciding if the produce needs to be diver ted to a pr ocessing unit dur ing transportation to the destination because of the deterioration in the quality of the produce or could be taken to the destination (fig. 10). this is an important innovation, which will help in significantly reducing the transit losses in perishable commodities. (a) (b) fig. 9: (a) evaporatively cooled structures and (b) solar power refrigerated structure for on-farm pre-cooling and storage of fruits and vegetables trends and innovations in value chain management of tropical fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 96 conclusion value chain integrates different actors in the chain of operations right from the farmers to consumers, involving technological innovations so that the value addition takes place at each stage. in case of fruits, value chain deals with value addition in monetary terms at each stage of the value chain and quality maintena nce thr oughout the va lue cha in. it is extremely important to have a shorter supply chain to ensur e the delivery of quality output to the consumer. farmers/ fpos need to be educated about suitable varieties, gap, use of micronutrients and biopesticides, nutrient use management, mechanization in field operations and better irrigation techniques, thus helping in production of quality and uniform output. efficient crop planning and use of market intelligence and integrating them with gap will help in adding value to the farm produce. establishment of on-farm primary processing and storage facility including the facility for pre-cooling and cold storage is extremely important to preserve the quality and nutritional value of the fr uits. appr opria te packa ging, such a s packaging of fruits in punnets using laser microperforated films or other appropriate films creating map and ca storage are important techniques for value addition to the tropical fruits, such as mango and banana. transportation of tropical fruits using r efr iger a ted conta iner s or wher ever possible, evaporatively cooled containersusing renewable sources of energy, such as solar energy will help in extending the shelf life of fr uits.tra cking and traceability of the fresh produce using the rfid tag, sensors, bar codes help in effective monitoring of the produce through the supply chain. formation of more and more farmer producing organizations (fpos) will help in improving the bargaining power of the farmers and in creation of on-farm storage and processing facilities. creating on-farm processing will help in improving the shelf life of tropical fruits and add value to them through processing facilities. harinder singh oberoi and dinesh j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 fig. 10: traceability studies integrating the rfid tags with different sensors for the produce transported directly or in crates in the trucks 97 chang, k., brattlof, h. and ghukasyan, s. 2014. sma llholder par ticipa tion in the tr opica l superfruits value chain: ensuring equitable share of the success to enhance their livelihood. fao, www.fao.org chopra, s., aleksha kudos, s,k., oberoi, h.s., baboo, b., mahmood ahmad, k.u. and kaur, j. 2004. performance evaluation of evaporative cooled room for storage of kinnowmandarin. journal of food science and technology, 41: 573-577. dhara, p., patel, n.l., ahmad, t., 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fruits and vegetables. journal of microbiology, biotechnology and food science, 7(4): 337-342. trends and innovations in value chain management of tropical fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 87-97, 2019 references (received on 30.11.2019, revised and accepted on 20.12.2019) 33 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 33-42, 2019 original research paper metabolite profiling in mango (mangifera indica l.) pollen grains in relation to viability *k.s. shivashankara, g.a. geetha and t.k. roy division of plant physiology and biochemistry, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *email : shivaiihr@yahoo.com abstract mango productivity is affected mainly by irregular flowering, proportion of bisexual flowers, poor pollination and fertilization and fruit drop. poor fruit set in some of the varieties may be associated with the lower pollen viability. the present experiment was initiated to assess the viability of pollen grains and their metabolites in three mango cultivars amrapali, alphonso and totapuri which are differing in their fruit set intensity. the profiling of sugars, amino acids and some of the phytohormones were analysed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (lc-ms/ms). assessment of pollen grains in three mango cultivars indicated that free sugars such as fructose and glucose, and available amino acids including serine, proline, lysine, phenylalanine, alanine and glutamic acid were predominantly higher in all the cultivars. phytohormones like iaa, iba, aba, ga, zeatin, jasmonic acid and salicylic acid were significantly different in low fruit setting cultivars alphonso and totapuri compared to high fruit setting cultivar amrapali. in cv. alphonso all the metabolites were higher at anthesis but later decreased drastically compared to cvs. totapuri and amrapali. pollen viability percentage was significantly higher in cv. amrapali than in cvs. totapuri, alphonso. among all the cultivars, amrapali maintained better chemical composition at anthesis and also at two hours after anthesis compared to cvs. totapuri and alphonso. key words: pollen, viability, lc-ms, amino acids, sugars, mango, hormones introduction mango productivity is adversely affected by irregular/ alternate flowering, reduced fruit set, high fruit drop and poor pollen viability. greater understanding towards flowering physiology and reproductive physiology of mango (mangifera indica l.) is crucial to overcome these yield complications. mango floral biology has been studied by many workers (pimentel et al., 1984; spencer and kennard, 1955; young, 1955; tsang and chang, 1983). mango pollens are characterized by very short viability as well as high sensitivity towards desiccation (issarakraisila and considine, 1994). pollen viability and its germination are also cultivar dependent characters in mango crop (abourayya et al., 2011; singh, 1954; dahshan, 1971; el-kady, 1973; desai et al., 1986; el-masry, 2001 and abd el-hadi, 2006). however, reasons for poor pollen viability and its biochemical ba sis ar e not yet understood. for effective fertilization, the pollen grains are to be transported to the stigma of the flower at a precise period of time wher e stigma is highly receptive. in a few cases, where pollen grains are placed before the maximum receptivity period of stigma, they must continue to be viable for a long per iod to ger mina te which lea ds to effective fertilization (stosser et al., 1996). pollination outside the window of stigma receptivity period resulted in reduced fruit set or most of the time no fruit set at all in many crops including mango (herrero, 2003). therefore, it is essential to understand the metabolite basis of pollen viability and its relationship with fruit set and production. mango pollens are 20-45 µm long and possess three symmetr ica l, na r r owing cha nnels a long the 34 shivashankara et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 33-42, 2019 longitudinal margins when it is dehydrated and more spher ica l or tr ia ngula r sha pe when hydr a ted (randhawa and damodaran, 1961; singh and singh, 1961). there are many reports suggesting that mango pollen grains are more viable shortly after anther dehiscence and rapidly reduces with time (mallik, 1957; singh, 1963; spencer and kennard, 1955). it is reported that in warm weather the pollen viability is normally >90% in the initial flowering (mukherjee, 1949; singh, 1954; singh and singh, 1961) however, during cool climate, initial flowering resulted in irregular and non-viable pollen grains (issarakraisila et al., 1992). davenport (2009) revealed that mango pollen gr a ins a r e via ble thr oughout wa r m temperatures, whereas cool climate can adversely influence pollen gra in gr owth and pollen tube development to the ovule. pollen grain samples showed presence of various essential and non-essential amino acids (basuny et al., 2013). it is reported that palm pollen grains contain major essential amino acids constituents like, leucine and lysine (hassan, 2011). among available amino acids, proline found to be the maximum and account for 1-2% of the whole weight of pollen grains (stanley and linskens, 1974). kedzia and holdernakedzia (2012) revealed that pollen comprises 10.4% of essential amino acids such as methionine, lysine, threonine, histidine, leucine, isoleucine, va line, phenylalanine and tryptophan. the stingless bees collected pollen grains from jandaira area consisted of 17 amino acids, among which, proline was found at the highest concentration. proline and serine reported to be major amino acids, establishing around 56% of total free amino acids (da silva et al., 2014). digestible carbohydrates have been reported in pollen grains to an extent of 30.8% and among reducing sugars, mainly fructose and glucose account for 25.7% (roulston and cane, 2000). it is also reported that the sugars such as fructose, glucose and sucrose consists of around ninety percent of all low molecular weight sugars. such information on the biochemical composition of pollens is lacking in mango. there is a need for understanding the varietal variation in biochemical composition of pollens in mango which show diver sity in pollen viability and fruit set (abour ayya et al. , 2011; abd el-ha di, 2006). therefore, the present study was initiated in three commercially valued mango cultivars viz. alphonso, totapuri and amrapali which differ in fruit set and pollen viability characteristics. material and methods the experiment was conducted in icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bengaluru, which is located at 13°58 n latitude, 78° e longitude and 890 m above mean sea level. uniformly and healthy grown five trees from each variety were selected for sample collection. the samples were collected at two time intervals after anthesis i.e., 9:00 am and 11:00 am in the morning. the flower samples were brought to lab using petri plates covered with moisture filter papers and immediately processed for biochemical estimation using relevant solvents. pollen viability viability of mango pollen grains was assessed using inorganic acid test as explained by koul and paliwal’s (1961). adding 4% sulphuric acid to the freshly collected pollen grains resulted in immediate formation of short pollen tubes which is known as instant pollen tubes. pollen viability was assessed at anthesis and 2 hours after anthesis. biochemical composition of pollen grains assessment of free amino acids the free amino acids were extracted and analysed using the methanol: formic acid method (geetha et al.,., 2016). in brief, the free amino acids were extracted using 0.1% (v/v) formic acid in 20% methanol and the mixture was sonicated for about 15 min and centrifuged at 4°c in 10,000 rpm for about 20 mins. the extract was filtered using 0.2μm nylon membrane filter and 5μl of sample injected to lcms/ms column for the amino acid analysis. lc and ms-ms conditions the mobile phase for running the lc program was an aqueous phase of 0.1% formic acid in water (a) and organic phase of methanol: water (1:1) with 0.1% formic acid (b). the gradient program starting with 95% of solvent a to 60% at 15 mins and back to the initial conditions at 19 mins. the flow rate was 0.1 ml/min. the analytical column was 2.1 x 50mm uplc behc18 reverse phase column with 1.7μm particle size, protected by a vanguard beh c18 with 1.7μm guard column. the elution was supervised by means of a pda detector and the uplc column discharge driven directly without any splitting into the tqd-ms/ms (waters, usa), for amino acid analysis. 35 metabolite profiling of mango pollen grains estimation of hormones phytohormones were analysed by using lc-ms/ ms a s descr ibed by geetha et al (2016). the samples were homogenised in 1-propanol: water ( 2 :1 ; v/ v) wit h 0 . 0 7 % h c l f or dif f er ent phytohormonal extraction. the supernatant was va por ized to complete dryness a nd ta ken into mobile phase, filtered using 0.2μm nylon filter paper and 5μl was injected to lc-ms/ms. lc and ms-ms conditions the mobile phase was composed of solvent (a) water/acetonitrile/acetic acid (95/5/0.05, v/v/v) and solvent (b) acetonitrile/water/acetic acid (95/5/ 0.05, v/v/v). the gradient program initiated with 85% solvent a changed to 15% at 12 mins and from 13 mins the gradient was returned to the initial conditions of 85% a at 15 min. the flow rate was 0.2 ml/min and the lc column details are same as mentioned for the amino acid analysis. estimation of sugars extraction of different sugars from mango pollen grains was performed as described by geetha et al (2008). a known quantity of the sample was extracted with 5ml of 80% ethanol. the extract was evaporated to remove traces of alcohol and re-dissolved in mobile phase comprising solvent a and solvent b in 1:1 ratio, filtered through nylon filter paper and injected to lc-ms/ms (waters uplc h class system fitted with tqd ms/ms system) for analysis. lc and ms-ms conditions the mobile phase comprised of solvent (a) 80:20ac et onit r il e: wa t er a nd s olvent ( b) 3 0 :7 0 ac et onit r i le: wa t er wit h 0 . 1 % ammoniu m hydr oxide. the gra dient pr ogram was used for running lc, initially with 100% of solvent a to 98% at end of 15 mins and r etur ned to 100% solvent a at 19 mins. the flow rate was 0.1 ml/ min and the analytical column was the same as mentioned for amino acid analysis. statistical analysis the current work is conducted entirely using crd with thr ee replica tes. significance differences among the means were analysed using analysis of variance (anova) at p 0.05. results and discussion in the current study the biochemical changes in pollen grains at anthesis and 2 hours after anthesis was analysed in three commercially important mango cultivars alphonso, totapuri and amrapali which are differing in fruit set intensity. pollen viability our study on pollen viability by inorganic acid test revealed that the pollen grains of cv. amrapali had significantly higher viability compared to cvs. totapuri and alphonso (fig. 1). pollen viability was found to fig 1. pollen viability (% viable pollens) in cvs. alphonso, totapuri and amrapali at anthesis and 2 hrs after anthesis j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 33-42, 2019 decrease 2 hrs after anthesis in cvs. alphonso and totapuri, however it remained consta nt in cv. amrapali. earlier literature on mango pollen grains revealed that they are most viable soon after anther dehiscence and viability decreases rapidly afterwards (sen et al., 1946; spencer and kennard, 1955; mallik, 1957; singh, 1963). although the initial percentage of viable pollen grains are reported to be generally >90% during warm weather, during cool climate initial flowering resulted in irregular, non-viable pollens (issarakraisila et al., 1992). it is reported that reduced pollen viability might be due to abnormal development of anthers at low temperatures (issarakraisila and considine, 1994). the variations in the pollen viability of different mango cultivars are due to genetic makeup (abourayya et al., 2011; el-masry, 2001 and abd el-hadi, 2006). therefore, it is essential to understand whether these variations of pollen viability are due to differences in biochemical composition of pollen grains in the above three cultivars. amino acids in pollen grains results revealed that proline was found to be the leading amino acid in pollen grains of all the three 36 cultivars. total free amino acids were higher in alphonso cultivar compared to the other two cultivars totapuri and amrapali. however, most of the amino acids were decreasing with time in cultivar alphonso on the other hand it remained constant in other two cultivars totapuri and amrapali (table 1). proline, serine, lysine and phenylalanine are the major amino acids in all the cultivars. these amino acids are higher in alphonso at anthesis but later i.e., two hours after anthesis decreased to half of its concentration. in other two cultivars totapuri and amrapali the amino acid concentration remained constant at anthesis and also at 2 hours after anthesis. proline was reported to be present in highest percentage in pollens of higher plants and is up to 1-2% of the whole weight of pollen grains (stanley and linskens, 1974). however, in palm trees pollen grains contain leucine and lysine as the major amino acids (hassan, 2011). in general, pollen grains contain 10.4% of important amino acids such as methionine, lysine, threonine, histidine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, phenylalanine and tryptophan (kedzia and holderna-kedzia, 2012). proline was reported to be highest in the jandaira stingless bees collected pollen grains. they identified 17 amino acids in the bees collected pollen grains and found proline and serine were at higher concentration, comprising around 56% of overall free amino acids (da silva et al., 2014). it is reported by earlier workers that the serine is considered to be second highest amino acid present in many pollen grains whereas bee-collected pollen grains from poland, south korea and china reported glutamic acid, proline, aspartic acid, leucine and lysine are high concentration (szczesna, 2006). in our study also serine was found second highest free amino acid recorded in all the three cultivars (table 1). mutters et al., (1989) revealed that the pr oline content wa s ma ximum in the ma le reproductive parts of cowpea plants, whereas proline deficient mutant arabidopsis plants showed reduced pollen viability signifies the role of proline in pollen grain growth and development. the proline mutated plants are moderately supplemented by spraying proline on inflor escences which resulted in the enhancement of pollen germination in arabidopsis plants (mattioli et al., 2012). phytohormones play very important role in growth and development of plants especially during reproduction. this study indicated that the iaa content was more at anthesis and later decreased in cultivars alphonso and totapuri but increased after anthesis in cv. amrapali (table 2). higher iaa content in pollens of amrapali may be contributing for the better quality pollens in this cultivar compared to alphonso and totapuri. it is reported that indole-3-acetic acid (iaa) is involved in controlling the development of floral parts such as stamens, gynoecia and ovary, which indirectly supporting the development of ovule and also encouraging axial polarity and polar growth of embryo (mol et al., 2004; aloni et al., 2006). increase in content of iaa in pistil post-pollination pr ocesses wa s a lso obser ved indica ting the involvement of iaa probably in promoting the pollen tube growth in the pistils (aloni et al., 2006; wu et al., 2008). however, only a few reports are available on the role of auxins in pollen development and viability. auxin is required for floral organ development and pollen production (cheng et al., 2006) as well as for pollen maturation and a nther dehiscence in arabidopsis (cecchetti et al. , 2013). pollen germination in stigma was complemented by the increase of ethylene, aba, iaa and cytokinins (kovaleva and zakharova, 2003; 2004). there are earlier reports suggested that ethylene or ethylenereleasing agents produce an increased number of female and bisexual flowers, respectively (owens et al., 1980). ethylene content was observed more in cv. amrapali which is high fruit setting variety and the content was increased to twice after 2 hrs of anthesis and this variety is also known to have higher number of bisexual flowers (geetha et al., 2016). plant growth regulator salicylic acid was high in the pollens of cv. amrapali compared to other two cultivars and the content of sa increased after anthesis in all the cultivars (table 2). among the gibberellins estimated, ga4 was significantly higher in cv. amrapali and lowest in cv. alphonso whereas ga3 and ga7 content were similar among the cultivars. aba and jasmonates were also significantly higher in cv. amrapali compared to other two cultivars (table 2). aba was increasing with time after anthesis in all the cultivars. methyl jasmonate was found to increase after anthesis only in cultivar amrapali. parish et al., (2013) revealed gibberellins and aba role in the growth of tapetum is crucial for the circulation of metabolites to the pollen grains. it is also reported that in arabidopsis gibberellins are essential for stamen elongation and pollen maturation (goto and pharis, 1999) whereas in rice, gibberellins j. hortl. sci. vol. 34(1) : 33-42, 2018 shivashankara et al 37 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 33-42, 2019 metabolite profiling of mango pollen grains ta bl e 1. a m in o ac id s (m g/ 10 0g f w ) pr of ili ng i n po lle n gr ai ns o f m an go c vs . a lp ho ns o, t ot ap ur i an d a m ra pa li in flo w er s w hi ch o pe ne d at 9 a m a nd 1 1 a m 38 ta bl e 2. h or m on es a nd p la nt g ro w th r eg ul at or s (µ g/ g fw ) in p ol le n of m an go c vs . a lp ho ns o, t ot ap ur i an d a m ra pa li in flo w er s w hi ch o pe ne d at 9 a m a nd 1 1 a m shivashankara et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 33-42, 2019 39 are essential for pollen growth, stamen elongation and pollen development (chhun et al., 2007). the sugar accumulation in pollen grains of all the three cultivars also followed similar trend as that of amino acids. alphonso cultivar recorded higher fructose and glucose contents when compared to the other two cultivars, but the content decreased to half of its concentration with time in alphonso cultivar however, in the other two cultivars totapuri and amrapali sugars remained constant (table 3). it is reported that pollens collect sucrose throughout their development (aloni et al., 2001), and subsequent hydrolysis by invertase, the glucose and fructose are generated due to rapid metabolization at the onset of germination (karni and aloni, 2002). this is the main reason that in our studies also fructose and glucose concentration was observed in high concentration compared to other sugars in all three mango cultivars. digestible carbohydrates occur in the pollen grains in the amount of 30.8% on an average. reducing sugars, mainly fructose and glucose, are present in about 25.7% in pollen grains (roulston and cane, 2000). increased content of non-reducing sugars, starch and decreased inorganic phosphates and acid phosphatase activities are reported to be some of the reasons for lower viability (nishiyama, 1984). relationship between the sugar and amino acids with pollen viability and germination is yet to be understood. lower pollen viability is observed in cv. alphonso but the pollens had higher amino acids and sugars at anthesis later on decreased. this indicates that these pollen grains may be lacking the enzymes which are useful for the utilisation of sugars and amino acids for germination. the pollen grains of alphonso cultivar is degraded rapidly compared to cultivars totapuri and amrapali which is one of the main constraints for pollen germination and fruit set. greater fruit set in cv. amrapali is primarily because of improved pollen viability and enhanced metabolites in pollens compared to cv. alphons o. higher content of pr oline, ser ine, salicylic acid, glucose and fructose were observed in pollens of cv. alphons o a t a nthes is when compared to other cultivars even though alphonso is low in fruit set. conclusion in the pr esent study, it is obser ved that pollen viability and metabolites vary significantly between the cultivars. in addition to that higher viability pollens of c v. amr a p a li ( high fr u it set) a lso recorded lower sugars and amino acids, higher aba, g a 4, z ea t in a nd s a l ic ylic a c i d when compared to the pollens of alphonso (low fruit set) indicating that the higher viability may be due to better utilisation of sugars and amino acids and due t o higher gr owth r egula t or s. f u r ther it wa s varieties time fructose glucose ribose sucrose alphonso 09:00 5.63±0.21 3.34±0.14 0.13±0.02 0.28±0.03 11:00 2.49±0.14 1.40±0.12 0.03±0.01 0.36±0.02 mean 4.06±0.17 2.37±0.13 0.08±0.02 0.32±0.02 totapuri 09:00 1.67±0.25 1.17±0.13 0.04±0.01 0.24±0.02 11:00 2.29±0.09 1.13±0.07 0.02±0.00 0.21±0.02 mean 1.98±0.17 1.15±0.10 0.03±0.01 0.225±0.02 amrapali 09:00 2.98±0.11 1.56±0.20 0.02±0.01 0.01±0.01 11:00 3.16±0.11 1.85±0.12 0.02±0.01 0.09±0.02 mean 3.07±0.11 1.70±0.16 0.02±0.01 0.05±0.01 cd for varieties (p 0.05) 0.072 0.041 0.001 0.007 cd for time (p 0.05) 0.088 0.051 0.001 0.008 cd for v x t (p 0.05) 0.125 0.072 0.002 0.012 table 3. sugar (g/100g fw) profiling in pollen of mango cvs. alphonso, totapuri and amrapali in flowers which opened at 9 am and 11 am metabolite profiling of mango pollen grains j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 33-42, 2019 40 observed that most of the metabolites increased at 2 hrs after anthesis in cv. amrapali compared to alphonso where the metabolites decreased after a nt hes is . t he s tu dy su gges ts tha t the a b ove met a b olit es es p ec ia lly hor mones a long wit h ma int ena nc e of met a b olit es a f t er a nt her dehiscenc e pla ys a n impor ta nt r ole in higher viability and fruit set in mango crop. this is one of the first studies on mango pollen metabolites. acknowledgement the current study was supported by icar project “national innovations on climate resilient agriculture (nicra)” new delhi. all the authors are thankful to the director, icar-iihr, bengaluru for providing the necessary facilities to carry out the work. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 33-42, 2019 shivashankara et al references abourayya, m.s., kassim, n.e., el-sheikh, m.h. and rakha, a.m. 2011. comparative study between inflorescence characteristics, pollen viability, germination and dimensions of tommy atkins, kent and keitt mango cultivars. life sci. j. 8 (1):100–105. abd el-hadi, s.m.k. 2006. evaluation studies on some mango varieties. fac. agric., al-azhar univ., egypt, pp. 166 (m.sc. thesis). aloni, b., peet, m.m., pharr, m. 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(ms received 17 december 2018, revised 04 may 2019, accepted 10 june 2019) 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 72 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 original research paper soil and plant analysis a strategic tool to diagnose micronutrient imbalance in lime and sapota orchard in tablelands of chambal ravine region of india rashmi i.1*, meena h.r.1, somasundaram j.2 and radha t.k.3 1icar-indian institute of soil water conservation, rc, kota, 2icar-indina institute of soil science, bhopal; 3icar-indian institute of horticulture research, bengaluru 560 089, india email : rashmimenon109@gmail.com abstract micronutrient imbalance in lime and sapota fruit crops result in unstable fruit yield, fruit shedding and degrade quality of the produce. a study was therefore conducted to evaluate micronutrient statusoflime and sapota orchard by analysing soil and plant samples. soil samples were collected from surface (0-15cm) and sub-surface (15-30cm)depth representing whole orchard. at the same time, plant samples including 35-40 each for leaves and petiole samples each from lime and sapota field was also collected.available micronutrients from soil samples were extracted using diethylenetriaminepenta acetic acid (dtpa) and it was in the order of manganese (mn)> iron (fe)> zinc (zn)> copper (cu) in both lime and sapota plantations. dtpaextractable zn and cu showed low status, marginal status of fe and sufficient level of mn in soils of sapota plantations. in plant analysis, high concentration of cu (869 mg kg-1) and zn (411mg kg-1) was observed in lime leaves; however, in sapota crop cu and zn content was 8.25mg kg-1 and 16.7mg kg1 respectively. similarly, fe and mn content of lime leaves was 197 and 43 mg kg-1 which was slightly higher than sapota leaves that recorded 128 and 49mg kg-1 of fe and zn respectively. in sapota plants, higher mn and cu concentration in leaf resulted in zn deficiency symptoms such as shortened internodes or rosette disorders of sapota plants. thus, correcting micronutrient deficiency is pre-requisite for qualitative and quantitative fruit production in tablelands of india. keywords: copper, iron, leaf analysis, manganese, micronutrient deficiency, sapota, zinc introduction ravines are typical examples of land degradation covering approximately 2.06 mha and gully formation occurs in 8.31 mhaarea in india (icar-naas, 2010). generally, these ravine lands also known as badlands are situated near rivers and typically know for deep ravines cutting with extension overnearby arable lands (pani and carling 2013). cultivation of crops is practised on the top slope called tablelands and adjacent undulating topography of gully eroded areas of chambal ravines. fruit crops like lime is of great significance in semi-arid regions of rajasthan due to its hardy nature and low water requirement. however, sapota crop is recently introduced in the r egion a nd ther efor e infor ma tion on a rea a nd production of sapota in rajasthan is not readily available. lime per unit production in rajasthan is 4.0 t ha0-1 which is low against india’s national average of 8.33 t ha”1 (srivastava and shyam, 2008). the area under sapota in india is estimated to be 1.77 lakh hectares, with an annual production of 1.74 million metric tonnes and productivity of 9.91 mg ha -1 (sharma, 2015). major sapota growing state includes andhra pradesh, gujarat, karnataka, maharashtra, tamil nadu, kerala, punjab, west bengal, and haryana. in citrus crops necrosis, die back, chlorosis symptoms are commonly observed in the region due to nutrient deficiency r esulting in decline of lime yield (somasundaram et al., 2011). nutrient imbalance in sapota crop is visualised by poorfruit setting,quality, shedding of fruitsand low productivity. guvvali (2016) this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 73 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 micronutrient imbalance in lime and sapota reported thatonly 10-12% of the total fruits set, and retains until maturity in sapota crop. lower fruit production in north western india is mainly due to nutr ient imba la nce or disor der s which ca use considerable yield reduction with huge economic loss (somasundaram et al., 2011; guvvali and shirol, 2017). subsequently, orchards provide sub optimal fruit yield with increasing gap between the amount of nutrient added and demand of crop (srivastava and singh, 2006). in rajasthan, about 57, 34, 28 and 9% soils are deficient in zinc (zn), iron (fe), manganese (mn) and copper (cu) respectively (shukla, 2018). micronutrients are required by plants to perform specific biochemical reactions, metabolism required for its growth and productivity. thus in order to avoid yield and quality loss, nutrient requirements of lime and sapota crop need to be carefully monitored through soil a nd pla nt a na lysis for evolving nutr ient management strategies. besides soil analysis, leaf sample analysis is considered a more direct method of plant nutritional status evaluation, especially, for fruit crops as these differ from seasonal crops in nutrient requirement due to their size, population density, rate of growth and rooting pattern (motsara and roy, 2008). in ravine landforms, very scanty information is available on micronutrientdeficiency in fruit crops (somasundaram et al., 2011; meena et al. , 2019). t her efor e, the pr esent study wa s conducted with the hypothesis that diagnosing micronutrient disorders of sapota crop is vital to achieve optimum fruit yield so as to improve orchard efficiency with advancing age of crop. the objective of this study was to analyse micronutrient deficiency or sufficiency level through soil and plant analysis in lime and sa pota cr op a nd its ma na gement for sustainable productivity in semi-arid regions of ravine ecosystem. material and methods brief description of experimental site the study area comprises two distinct landscapes, the agricultural tablelands and the ra venous lands a djoining chamba l r iver. t he physiogr aphy is constituted of gently sloping (<2% slope), moderately well-drained tablelands in the immediate vicinity of ravines. the experimental orchard area is a tableland located at research farm, icarindian institute of soil and water conservation, research centre, kota, situated at 25º 11' n latitude and 75º 51' e longitudes at an elevation of 256.9 meters above mean sea levelwith fairly levelled topography. according to koppen’s climate classification subtype, the climate of kota is semi-arid type (mid latitude steppe). more than 90 per cent of rainfallis received during mid-june to september with scanty showers during winter months (nov-dec). this region is characterized by mild and dry winters and hot summers with average rainfall of 740mm (mean of last 5 years) of which most of the r a infa ll is r eceived dur ing july month (300 mm). lime (kagzi lime variety) crop planted at 4.5 x 4.5 m (row x plant) during 2001; sapota cv. ‘kalipatti’ trees planted at 8 x 8 m spacing (row x plant) during 2008. the study was carried out during 2018-2019at the research farm of indian institute of soil and wa ter conser va tion, resea r ch centr e, kota , rajasthan. the soils are brown to dark grey brown in colour, generally non calcareous occurring on flat gently sloping land with less than 2% slope. the soils of the region are moderately well drained fine textured soils classified as typic chromoustert belonging to kota soil series. the region comprises of two diverse geology namely sandstone quartzite, silicaceous limestone and dolomite where a vast area is formed from the alluvium brought down by chambal and its tributaries passing through the residual hillocks and gently sloping rocky plateau (shyampura and sehgal, 1995). the physico-chemical properties of the orchard soil are given in table 1. the irrigation water used in sapota orchard contained bicarbonate, calcium a nd ma gnesium of 600, 66. 8 a nd 33.5 mg l -1 respectively, with ph of 7.6 and electrical conductivity (ec) of 2.76 dsm-1. orchard management the experimental trees were managed with uniform cultural practices as per the standard recommendations with respect to manures and fertilizers, irrigation and pla nt pr otection mea sur es, etc. nutrients wer e regularly supplied to lime crop duringcritical period of crop growth for better production and explained in ta ble 2. recommended dose of nitr ogen (n), phosphorus (p2o5), and potash (k2o) was applied beyond a 30-cm radius from the tree trunk of lime. after ten years, fertilizer were mixed @ 750g n, 450g p and 750g k was applied to each lime plant every year. fertilizers were applied to each tree in two or 74 rashmi et al. three split doses when soil is moist. in sapota orchard, recommended doses of fertilizer were mixed @ 1000 g n, 500 g p and 500 g k per plant for ten-year-old sapota plants. for the application of full recommended dose of npk,2174 g urea (1000 g n), 3125 g single super phosphate (500 g p) and 833 g murate of potash (500 g k) per plant were applied from 6 th year onwards. full amount of phosphorus, potash and half dose of nitrogen in various treatments were applied as basal dose before vegetative sprouting in the month of june. remaining half dose of nitrogen was applied after fruit set in the month of december. collection of plant and soil samples a systematic survey of lime and sapota orchard was conducted to assess the micronutrient status in 15 and 10 year old plantation covering an area of 2 and 0.4 ha respectively. for leaf sample collection, uniform area was selected in the orchard and 30 trees were selected as shown in the fig 1. in both lime and sapota orchard, recently matured leaf were collected from north, south, east, and west quarters of thetrees (reuter et al. , 1997) dur ing september a nd october.about 35-40 fully developed leaf samples were collected, from which petioles samples were separated.the sampling pattern is shown in figure 1 omitting the border plants. from the 35-40 leaf samples collected, petiole samples (40) separated, j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 soil parameters lime sapota depth (cm) 0-15 15-30 0-15 15-30 ph(1:2.5) 7.74 7.51 7.81 7.62 ec (ds m-1) 0.57 0.62 0.55 0.59 oc (g kg-1) 4.7 3.6 4.5 3.4 available nutrients (kg ha-1) nitrogen (n) 365.7 304.4 342.3 288.7 phosphorus (p) 17.4 13.9 15.41 11.4 potassium (k) 436.5 412.4 386 344.5 exchangeable cations (cmol p+ kg-1) na 4.9 5.7 3.2 3.5 ca 18.2 17.9 17.7 17.8 mg 7.6 6.1 7.5 6.4 cation exchange capacity (cec) 27.6 22.5 33.4 32.8 (cmol p+ kg-1) soil texture (%) sand 27.8 29.3 27.2 29.7 silt 42.2 41.5 44.3 42.3 clay 30 29.2 28.5 28 table 1. soil properties under lime and sapota orchard 75 shade dried and grounded to fine powder for nutrient analysis. for nutrient analysis, 1g of sample was digested with tri acid mixtures (nitric, sulphuric and per chloric acid a t 9:2:1). micr onutrients wer e estimated by directly feeding the filtered tri acid extract of the plant sample to a calibrated atomic absorption spectrophotometer using respective hollow cathode lamps for each element (fe, mn, zn and cu). micronutrient concentration was expressed in mg kg-1 on dry weight basis. soil samples were collected from four quadrants at two different depths (0-15cm and 15-30cm) of the lime and sapota orchard (15 composite samples from each depth). soil samples were air dried, grounded and passed through 2mm sieve and subjected to analysis of available micronutrients, namely fe, mn, zn and cu. for the soil analysis 20g soil samples was shaken with 40ml 0.005m dtpa extractant for 2 hours (linday and norvell, 1978). the filtered extract was directly read on aas (model thermo m6 series; thermo scientific, waltham, mass.) for micronutrient analysis of iron (fe), manganese (mn), copper (cu) and zinc (zn). results and discussion micronutrient concentration in soil samples micronutrient concentration of soil samples under sapota plantations are shown in table 3. among micronutrient imbalance in lime and sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 table 2. fertilizer management in lime and sapotaorchard age (years) nitrogen (g/plant) p2o5 (g/plant) k2o (g/plant) lime 1 75 40 75 2 150 80 150 3 225 120 225 4 300 160 300 5 375 200 375 6 450 240 450 7 525 280 525 8 600 320 600 9 675 360 675 10 750 400 750 sapota 1 200 200 300 2 200 200 300 3 200 200 300 4 200 200 300 5 200 200 300 6 1000 500 500 7 1000 500 500 8 1000 1000 1500 9 1000 1000 1500 10 1000 1000 1500 76 micronutrients, highest concentration was observed in mn, followed by fe, zn and cu. surface soil recorded higher micronutrient concentration compared to subsurface soil except for mn. t he micr onutr ient concentr ation in soil was crucially inter pr eted considering the critical limit of soil availability of dtpa extractable zn, cu, mn and fe as 0.6, 0.2, 2 and 4.5 mg kg-1 respectively suggested by lindsay and norvel (1978) and katyal(2018). the available fe content in lime and sapota orchard ranged from 5.3 to 7.7 mg kg-1 and 3.4 to 8 mg kg-1 with mean value of 6.1 and 5.19 mg kg-1 respectively. however, sub surface mean values of dtpa fe content in lime and sapota orchard was 5.4 and 4.59 mg kg-1 respectively (table 3). most of the soil sa mples showed fe concentr a tion below the sufficiency range (6-8 mg kg-1) suggesting that fe deficiency might arise in future in sapota plantation. higher bicarbonate concentration of irrigation water used in fruit orchard could result in fe deficiency. in the medium black soils of study site, fe deficiency in lime plantations owing to increased concentration of bicarbonate ions in irrigation water was reported by somasundaram et al. (2011). similar report of fe deficiency in pomegranate orchard was also reported by gathala et al. (2004). considering the critical concentr a tion of soil mn (2 mg kg-1), d t pa extractable mn concentration in both lime and sapota orchard were above sufficiency range. in lime and sapota orchard, dtpa-mn of surface samples varied from 13.7 to 27.8 mg kg-1 and 8.4 to 15.2 mg kg-1 with mea n va lue of 20. 2 a nd 12. 11 mg kg -1 respectively. in sub surface soil mn concentration varied from 12.7 to 24.6 and 6.57 to 16.03 mg kg-1 with a mea n va lue of 18. 8 a nd 11. 3 mg kg -1 respectively in lime and sapota orchard. in vertisol, high concentr a tions of both tota l a nd dt pa extractable mn had been reported earlier by few authors (singh et al., 2006; kumar and babel, 2011). however, surwase et al.(2016) also found low status of fe and mn in silty clay loam soils under orange crop, although soils had optimum zn and cu. available zn concentration in lime orchard was higher than that of sapota orchar d. t he zn content was low to marginal level in lime orchard. the dtpa extractable zn concentration of lime and sapota orchard varied between 0.42 to 0.97 mg kg-1 and 0.17 to 0.74 mg kg-1 respectively in surface soil. sub surface dtpa zn concentration varied from 0.26 to 0.81 and 0.19 to 0.72 mg kg-1 respectively in lime and sapota orchard. earlier study reported zn deficiency in fruit orchard soils of south eastern rajasthan (kumar and babel, 2011; somasundaram et al. 2011). among all the four micronutrients, cu concentration was lowest in or cha r d soils. t he dt pa extr a cta ble cu concentration varied between 0.082 to 0.51 mg kg-1 and 0.02 to 0.35 mg kg-1 in surface soils of lime and sapota plantations. sub surface samples recorded lower cu content varying from 0.05 to 0.33 mg kg-1 and.02 to 0.25 mg kg-1 in lime and sapota orchard.soils of orchard have ph >7.5, zn forms negatively charged ions called zincate ions (zno2 2-) which can reduce zn availability in soils (katyal, 2018). except for mn, fe, zn and cu concentration were higher in surface compared to sub surface soil. similar results were also reported by surwase et al. (2016) who reported higher dtpa extractable micronutrients in surface soils of orange orchards due to higher soil organic carbon and biological activity in surface layer. thus, balanced micronutrient fertilization is necessary to correct nutrient deficiency in soils of fruits crops for doubling farmer’s income. micronutrient concentration in plant samples (leaves and petioles) plant analysis is known as adiagnostic tool for managing mineral nutrition and the total nutrient concentrationin the leaf tissue provide an accurate production potential of fruit crop which mostly depends upon the supply and uptake of particular nutr ient (sr iva sta va a nd singh 2006). lea f micronutrient concentration, like soil micronutrient content, showed wide variation (table 4).the mean fe content in leaves and petioles of lime trees were 196.8 and 161 mg kg-1 whereas, in sapota plantations it was 127 and 120 mg kg-1respectively. leaf fe concentr ations wa s higher tha n the normal fe concentration in plant tissues. however, 12% plant samples were deficient in fe and in case of petioles 8, 54 and 33% samples were deficient, sufficient and high in fe concentration. considering the optimum level of total fe concentration in plant tissue (50-100 mg kg-1), more than 62% of samples were sufficient a nd 18% sa mples r ecor ded excess of fe concentration. during field examination for sample collection, some trees showed interveinal chlorosis and necrotic symptoms were observed in leaves of both lime and sapota crop.(fig. 2). considering the normal mn content in plant tissues (15 to 50 mg kg-1), most rashmi et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 77 micronutrient imbalance in lime and sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 table 3. micronutrient concentration and ranges (mg kg-1) in soils of lime and sapotaorchard soil depth (cm) fe mn cu zn lime surface soil (0-15) min 5.3 13.7 0.082 0.42 max 7.7 27.8 0.51 0.97 mean* 6.1±0.23 20.2±1.1 0.28±0.025 0.69±0.032 sub surface (15-30) min 3.8 12.7 0.05 0.26 max 7.2 24.6 0.33 0.81 mean* 5.4±0.30 18.8±0.81 0.18±0.02 0.53±0.031 sapota surface soil (0-15) min 3.4 8.4 0.02 0.17 max 8.0 15.2 0.35 0.74 mean* 5.19 ± 0.33 12.11± 0.5 0.19 ± 0.03 0.38±0.05 sub surface (15-30) min 2.8 6.57 0.02 0.19 max 6.5 16.03 0.25 0.72 mean* 4.59 ± 0.29 11.3 ± 0.72 0.10 ± 0.02 0.42 ± 0.05 *mean of 15 samples, ± standard error of mean table 4. leaf and petiole micronutrient concentration and ranges (mg kg-1) in lime andsapotaplantations fe mn cu zn mg kg-1 leaf petiole leaf petiole leaf petiole leaf petiole lime range 45 – 61.2 – 18.6 – 5.64 – 45 – 63 – 46.3 – 68 – 470.3 313.5 84.9 55.3 1588 941 650.8 473.2 mean* 196.8 ± 161.1 ± 42.87 ± 18.6 ± 869 ± 526 ± 411 ± 293 ± 22.7 20.1 3.58 2.2 89.6 57.9 39.8 21.3 sapota range 89.41 – 33.52 – 22.2 – 11.31 – 4.35 – 2 – 0.62 – 0.54 – 231.24 284.51 97.61 69.26 19.78 18.48 48.12 36 mean* 127.66 ± 119.8 ± 48.84 ± 33.46 ± 8.25 ± 9 ± 16.66 ± 13.01 ± 6.56 12.23 3.98 2.92 0.77 0.89 2.25 2.1 *mean of 30 samples, ± standard error of mean 78 rashmi et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 fig. 2. iron deficiency in lime (a) and sapota (b) plants fig. 1. collection of representative plant samples from sapotafruit orchard of the leaf samples showed deficient to sufficient status. the average mn concentration in lime varied between 43 and 19 mg kg-1 and in sapota was 48 and 33 mg kg-1 respectively for leaves and petioles samples (table 4). leaf samples registered 64% sufficientand 36% excess concentra tionof mn, wher ea s in petiole sa mples 8% sa mples wer e deficient. excessive mnconcentration in plant tissues can alter various processes such as enzyme activity, absorption, translocation and utilization of other mineral elements (ca, mg, fe and p), causing oxidative stress (ducicand polle, 2005; lei et al., 2007). mean cu concentration in lime leaf samples varied between 869 and 526 mg kg-1 in leaf and petiole sample. in contrast, lower cu concentration values of leaf samples were recorded in sapota plants. copper concentration of sapota leaf samples varied from 4.35 to 19.78 mg kg1 with a mean value of 8.25 mg kg -1. t he cu concentration of petiole samples varied from 2 to 18.48 mg kg-1 with a mean value of 9 mg kg-1 (table 4). the cu concentration range in plant samples vary from 5 to 16 mg kg-1. based on the normal range of 79 micronutrient imbalance in lime and sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 cu (100 mg kg-1) in plants, lime plants samples showed excessive total cu content. this was mainly attributed to the spray of cu based fungicide to control fungal disease in orchard. some plants with young leaves showed chlorosis symptoms due to cu toxicity. however, in sapota crop, 13 and 21% of leaf and petiole samples were recorded as deficient and 79% wer e sufficient in cu. however, cu deficiency symptoms (dieback of apical buds) in sapota were observed during plant sampling in some sapota trees. some common symptoms included pr ema tur e defoliation and die back of twigs occurred. the tip of the twigs developed multiple buds which died soon. zinc concentration of lime crop for leaf and petiole varied from 46.7 to 650.8 mg kg-1 and 68 to 473.3 mg kg-1 respectively with a mean value of 411 and 293 mg kg-1. in sapota crop, the zn concentration of leaf and petiole samples varied between 0.62 48.12 and 0.5436.0 mg kg-1 with a mean value of 16.7 and 13.0 mg kg-1 respectively (table 3). wide difference between fe content in sapota and lime was observed in the study. based upon the zn concentration (<20 mg kg-1), more than 73% samples were sufficient in zn content in lime orchard. however, in sapota crop 50% of leaf samples were deficient where as 42% recorded optimum to highand 8% had excess zn status.in petioles, 67 and 33% samples recorded deficiency and sufficiency of zn respectively in sapota plants. high zn concentration in lemon orchard was also reported by somasundaram et al. (2011) where more than 88% leaf samples recorded higher zn content. they suggested accumulation of excess of cu in leaf resulted in greater accumulation of zn to maintain nutrient balance. soil and foliar method of fertilizer application is utilized for sapota crop.foliar application of micronutrients is considered as quickest means to correct nutrient deficiency in fruit trees. in sapota crop, fe, mn, zn and cu deficiency can be corrected by foliar spray ferrous sulfate (0.2 to 0.4%), manganese sulphate (0.3%), zinc sulphate (0.2 to 0.5%) and copper sulphate (0.1%) (satyagopalet al., 2015).copper based fungicide (copper oxychloride with 3g l-1 of water) sprays will be helpful in correcting the cu deficiency of sapota. possibility of micronutrient response to its application in crops could be as high as 90% for very low, 60 to 90% for ‘low’ and 30 to 60% for ‘optimum’ levels of extr a cta ble micronutrients (cooper and abi-ghanem, 2017). thus,identifying the deficiencies of micronutrients timely and application of balanced fertilizers at correct time can enhance crop production and quality of fruits. acknowledgement authors are thankful to director icar-iiswc for providing fa cilities for the study. authors a lso acknowledge shri ajay yada v for their help in carrying out study. references cooper, l. and abi-ghanem, r. 2017. micronutrients are the key to better yields. publication no. hg-170215-02, bio huma netics inc. ducic, t. a nd polle, a. 2005. tr ansport and detoxification of manganese and copper in plants. braz. j. plt.phy., 17: 103-112. gathala, m. k., b. l. yadav, and singh, s. d. 2004. mineral nutrient status of pomegranate orchard in jaipur district of rajasthan. j. ind. soc. soil sci. 52:206–208. icarnaas. 2010. degraded and wastelands of india : sta tus a nd spa tia l distr ibution. , directorate of information and publications of agriculture, indian council of agricultural research, krishi anusandhan bhavan i, pusa road, & national academy of sciences, new delhi 110 012. ka tya l, j. c. 2018. micr onutr ients in india n agriculture. ind. j. ferti., 14(4): 12-26. kuma r, m. a nd ba bel a. l. 2011. ava ila ble micronutrient status and their relationship with soil properties of jhunjhunu tehsil, district jhun jhunu, ra ja stha n. ind. j. agri. sci., 3(2): 97-106. lei, y. and korpelainen, h. l.c. 2007. physiological a nd biochemica l r esponses to high mn concentrations in two contrasting populus cathayana populations. chemosphere, 68: 686694. 80 rashmi et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 72-80, 2020 lindsay, w.h. and norvell, w.a. 1978. development of dtpa soil test for zinc, iron, manganese and copper. soil sci. soc. am. j., 42: 421-428. meena, h.r., somasundaram, j., kaushik, r.a., sarolia, d.k., singh, r.k. and meena, g.l. 2019. integrated nutrient management affects fruit yield of sapota (achras zapota l.) and nutrient availability in a vertisol. comm. soil sci. and plt ana., 50 (22):2848-2863. motsara , m.r. a nd roy, r. n. 2008. guide to laboratory establishment for plant nutrient analysis. fao fertilizer and plant nutrition, bulletin no 19: 77-81 guvvali, t. 2016. effect of micronutrients on growth, yield and quality of sapota cv. kalipatti under hdp system. thesis submitted, uhs, bagalkot. guvva li, t. a nd shir ol, a.m. 2017. effect of micronutrients application on soil properties of sapota (achrassapotal.) cv. kalipatti. asia. j. soil sci. plt. nutr., 2(2): 1-6. pani, p. and carling, p. 2013. land degradation and spatial vulnerabilities: a study of inter-village differences in chambal valley, india. asian geograp., 30:1, 65-79. reuter, d.j., robinson, j.b., peverill, k.i., price, g.h. a nd la mbert, m.j. 1997. guidelines for collecting, handling and ana lyzing plant materials. in plant analysis: an interpretation ma nua l, ed. d. j. reuter et al. , p. 55-70. australia, csiro. satyagopal, k., sushil, s.n. and jeyakumar, p. et al. 2015. aesa based ipm package for sapota. pp 37. sharma, k.m. 2015. effect of foliar application of different chemicals on yield and quality of sapota [manilkara achras (mill.) fosberg] cv. kalipatti. m.sc thesis submitted, at nau, navsari, gujrat. shukla, a., behera, s., pakhre, a. and chaudhary, s. 2018. micronutrients in soils, plants, animals a nd huma ns. ind. j. fert. , 14(4): 30-54. shyampura, r.l. and seghal, j. 1995. soils of rajasthan for optimizing land use (nbss publication soils of india series) nagpur, india: national bureau of soil survey and land use planning. singh, r. d., s. kumar, and pande, h. 2006. micronutrient status of soils under different vegetation in uttaranchal hills. j. ind. soc. soil sci. 54:115–116. somasundaram, j.,  meena,  h.r.,  singh,  r.k., prasad, s.n.  and  parandiyal, a.k.  2011. diagnosis of micronutrient imbalance in lime crop in semi-arid region of rajasthan, india. comm. soil sci. plt. anal., 42: 858-869. srivastava, a. k. and singh, s. 2006. diagnosis of nutrient constraints in citrus orchards of humid tropical india. j. plt. nut., 29:6, 1061-1076. srivastava, a. k., and singh, s. 2008. citrus nutrition in india: current status and future strategies. ind. j. agri. sci., 78:3–16. surwase, s.a., kadu, p.r. and patil, d.s. 2016. soil micronutrient status and fruit quality of orange orchards in kalmeshwar tehsil, district nagpur (ms). j. glob. biosci., 5(1): 3523-3533. (received on 17.03.2020 and accepted on 18.06.2020) heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides causes health hazards and environmental pollution, apart from imparting resistance to pathogens nad insects. thus, sustainable agriculture is the answer to tackle various issues arising from excessive dependence on synthetic chemicals. organic farming is not merely nonchemical agriculture, but is a system for integrating interactions between soil, plant, water and soil micro-flora and fauna. organic farming keeps soil healthy by improving biological life therein and helps sustain yields (lampkin, 1990). it is based mainly on principles of restoration of soil organic matter in the form of humus and increasing microbial population (pathak and ram, 2003). bell pepper, being a high-value crop, is subjected to indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides for realizing high yields. but, information on organic cultivation of bell pepper as of now is rather scanty. hence, the present study was undertaken with to assess the response of bell pepper to organic sources of nutrients in relation to biological status of the soil. the experiment was carried out at agricultural research station, gangavati, during 2006 and 2007 in a fixed plot situated in the northern dry zone of karnataka (zone3) that receives rain both from south-west and north-east monsoon. this zone also falls under tungabhadra command area. average rainfall received here was 357.4mm and 176.4mm during the cropping seasons of 2006 and 2007, effect of organic cultivation of capsicum annuum l. on soil microbial properties under open-field and shade-house conditions vasant m. ganiger, j.c. mathad1, m.b. madalageri, n.s. hebasur2 and g. bhuvaneswari department of vegetable science, college of horticulture university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot 587 103, india e-mail : vasantg.veg@gmail.com abstract two bell pepper (capsicum annuum l.) varieties, viz., california wonder and gangavati local, were raised under nine completely organic nutrient sources, along with recommended package of practices, and, under completely inorganic nutrient sources. irrespective of the variety and growing environment, there was substantial increase in total bacterial count (22.97% and 24.98%), population of fungi (20.23% and 20.23%), actinomycetes (36.89% and 36.83%) and mycorrhiza (44.63% and 29.40%) in open-field and shade-house conditions, respectively, in all the nutrient combinations where organic sources were used, compared to the inorganic treatment. all organic nutrient sources used were found to be similar in their effect on soil microbes. key words: capsicum, organics, shade-house, soil microbes, dehydrogenase activity j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):103-106, 2013 short communication 1department of horticulture, college of agriculture, uas, dharwad, karnataka 2department of soil science, college of agriculture, uas, dharwad, karnataka respectively. the soil of the experimental site was medium black. composite soil samples were collected from 0-25cm depth before and after the experiment and subjected to analysis for biological properties. the experiment included main treatments as two varieties of bell pepper, viz., california wonder and gangavati local. sub-treatments were organic source of nutrients, presented in table 1. the experiment was laid out in split-plot design, with three replications. the experimental area was sown with sunhemp (crotalaria juncea) about three months earlier to bell pepper and sunhemp was incorporated into soil 45 days before transplanting bell pepper. sunhemp incorporation was done in all experimental plots except sub-plot treatments o 10 and o 11 . subsequently, the plot area was brought to fine tilth by repeated ploughing and harrowing. the nursery area too was ploughed, harrowed and the soil brought to a fine tilth. beds for raising nursery seedlings for organic nutrient-source treatment were prepared by incorporating well-decomposed fym + sand + red soil. beds for raising seedlings for inorganic treatment were incorporated with the recommended dose of inorganic fertilizer mix along with fym (anontmous, 2005) before sowing bell pepper seeds. to avoid seed and soil-borne diseases, bell pepper seeds were treated with trichoderma viridae prior to sowing. roots of thirty five day old seedlings 104 of bell pepper (except seedlings for o 10 and o 11 treatments) were dipped in a slurry containing biofertilizers, viz., azospirillum, mycorrhizal and phosphorus solubilizing bacterial cultures, for ten minutes. the seedlings were transplanted to a shade-house. all the necessary care table 1. organic and inorganic sources of nutrients used o 1 basal dose of 100% n equivalent (150 kg/ha) through fym 50% (75 kg/ha) and vermicompost 50% (75 kg/ha) o 2 basal dose of 100% n equivalent (150 kg/ha) through fym 50% (75 kg/ha) and vermicompost 25% (37.5 kg/ha) as basal and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% vermicompost (37.5 kg/ha) o 3 basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225 kg/ha) through fym 50% (112.5 kg/ha) and vermicompost 50% (112.5 kg/ha) o 4 basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225 kg/ha) through fym 50% (112.5 kg/ha) and vermicompost 25% (56.25 kg/ha) as basal and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% vermicompost (56.25 kg/ha) o 5 basal dose of 100% n equivalent (150 kg/ha) through fym 50% (75 kg/ha) and poultry manure 50% (75 kg/ha) o 6 basal dose of 100% n equivalent (150 kg/ha) through fym 50% (75 kg/ha) and poultry manure 25% (37.5 kg/ha) and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% poultry manure (37.5 kg/ha) o 7 basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225 kg/ha) through fym 50% (112.5 kg/ha) and poultry manure 50% (112.5 kg/ha) o 8 basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225 kg/ha) through fym 50% (112.5 kg/ha) and poultry manure 25% (56.25 kg/ha) as basal and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% poultry manure (56.25 kg/ha) o 9 basal dose of 150 kg n equivalent through fym, in addition to 25 t/ha recommended fym o 1 0 npk 150:75:50 kg/ha inorganic fertilizer source and 25 t/ha fym as per recommended package (control 1) o 1 1 npk 150:75:50 kg/ha inorganic fertilizer source only (control 2) varieties used: v1= california wonder, v2= gangavathi local table 2. effect of nutrient source on total populations of bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in bell pepper varieties grown under openfield conditions (pooled data) nutrient source total bacterial count (cfux106/g) total fungal count(cfux104/g) total actinomycetes count (cfux104/g) v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 54.10 55.12 54.61 24.17 26.00 25.09 30.06 29.41 29.73 o 2 55.81 52.57 54.19 23.18 23.91 23.55 30.99 29.63 30.31 o3 52.85 53.78 53.31 25.19 24.67 24.93 29.25 28.39 28.82 o4 53.04 54.56 53.80 24.14 25.41 24.78 31.77 31.79 31.78 o5 52.55 50.87 51.71 25.14 25.02 25.08 30.01 31.18 30.59 o6 52.86 50.85 51.85 25.69 24.81 25.25 30.39 30.38 30.38 o7 52.27 50.6 51.43 22.63 24.19 23.41 27.00 29.16 28.08 o8 53.88 54.25 54.06 23.11 24.18 23.65 27.36 29.33 28.34 o9 53.78 50.12 51.95 24.37 25.15 24.76 28.85 30.37 29.61 o10 41.26 40.32 40.79 20.44 20.53 20.49 19.63 18.94 19.28 o11 34.31 36.31 35.31 16.28 17.21 16.75 16.76 15.35 16.05 mean 50.61 49.94 50.27 23.122 23.73 23.43 27.46 27.63 27.54 initial value 38.72 18.69 17.38 % increase over iv 22.97 20.23 36.89 cd (p=0.01) sem± cd (p=0.01) sem± cd at (p=0.01) sem± variety (a) ns 0.6638 ns 0.5973 ns 0.3264 nutrient source (b) 6.09 1.6724 3.15 0.8635 3.79 1.0421 axb 8.62 2.3651 4.45 1.2212 5.36 1.4737 axb 7.43 5.36 4.25 ns = non-significant; v1= california wonder; v2= gangavathi local and cultural operations were followed to raise the bell pepper crop. diseases and pests were, however, managed using products of animal or plant origin only (neem oil, nske 0.5%, npv, pseudomonas fluorescence, nomuruea releyi, trichoderma viridae, hirestela thampane and verticillium lecani) in the organic plots. ten grams of soil samples were diluted serially, using sterile distilled water, to 10-3, 10-4 , 10-5 and 10-6 strengths. aliquots of the one ml of appropriate dilution were plated. total bacteria present were enumerated by growth on nutrient agar, fungi on martins rose bengal agar and actinomycetes on kusters agar medium. plates were incubated at room temperature and counts were made at three days for bacteria, at five days for fungi and at seven days for actinomycets. mycorrhizal spores from soil samples were isolated by wetsieving and decanting (gerdemann and nicolson, 1963). dehydrogenase activity in soil was assayed by the method of cassida et al (1969). data generated from the experiments were statistically analyzed and interpreted, following fisher’s method of analysis of variance, as suggested by panse and sukhatme (1967). data in tables 2 and 3 reveal a substantial increase in total bacterial count (22.97% and 24.98%), total fungal count (20.23% and 20.23%) and total actinomycetan count (36.89% and 36.83% ) in the experiment site after bell pepper cropping, in open and shade-house conditions, respectively, compared to the initial value. bell pepper varieties did not j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):103-106, 2013 ganiger et al 105 table 3. effect of nutrient source on total bacterial count, fungal count and actinomycetan count in bell pepper varieties grown under shade-house conditions (pooled data) nutrient source total bacterial count (cfux106/g) total fungal count (cfux104/g) total actinomycetes count (cfux104/g) v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 40.33 42.33 41.33 17.53 18.57 18.05 23.6 22.27 22.93 o 2 40.67 41.37 41.02 16.33 16.97 16.65 20.53 22.23 21.38 o3 41.40 41.46 41.43 18.10 18.53 18.31 23.00 22.53 22.76 o4 41.00 41.30 41.15 18.47 17.63 18.05 22.13 24.77 23.45 o5 42.53 39.40 40.96 17.07 18.30 17.68 24.67 21.63 23.15 o6 37.93 38.76 38.34 17.13 16.93 17.03 20.50 20.40 20.45 o7 39.53 39.70 39.61 16.80 17.10 16.95 22.50 21.06 21.78 o8 40.10 40.73 40.41 16.13 16.23 16.18 19.90 22.60 21.25 o9 41.50 43.63 42.56 18.23 17.50 17.86 24.90 26.43 25.66 o10 29.33 29.53 29.43 15.17 15.07 15.12 17.27 18.00 17.63 o11 28.47 27.53 28.00 14.17 14.40 14.28 14.33 13.83 14.08 mean 38.43 38.70 38.56 16.83 17.02 16.92 21.21 21.43 21.32 initial value 29.30 14.98 15.58 % increase over iv 24.98 20.23 36.83 cd (p=0.01) sem± cd (p=0.01) sem± cd (p=0.01) sem± variety (a) ns 0.720 ns 0.222 ns 0.393 nutrient sources (b) 6.36 1.748 ns 1.126 3.88 1.065 a × b 9.00 2.473 ns 1.593 5.48 1.507 a × b 7.88 ns 4.58 ns = non-significant; v1= california wonder; v2= gangavathi local table 4. effect of nutrient source on total mycorrhizal count and dehydrogenase activity in soil after cropping season in bell pepper varieties grown under open-field conditions (pooled data) nutrient total mycorrhizal dehydrogenase source count (no. of activity (µg tpf /g spores/100 g) soil/24 hrs) v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 135.45 133.85 134.65 4.04 3.80 3.92 o 2 129.58 130.28 129.93 3.64 3.69 3.66 o3 128.29 130.14 129.22 3.79 3.74 3.76 o4 132.86 130.50 131.68 3.80 3.63 3.71 o5 129.59 131.96 130.78 4.08 3.81 3.94 o6 127.66 130.37 129.02 3.79 3.73 3.76 o7 133.67 133.69 133.68 3.76 3.68 3.72 o8 137.21 133.04 135.13 3.71 3.72 3.71 o9 130.86 131.35 131.11 3.94 3.78 3.86 o10 108.67 109.74 109.21 3.00 2.89 2.94 o11 82.24 80.87 81.555 2.40 2.35 2.37 mean 125.10 125.07 125.09 3.63 3.52 3.58 initial value 88.31 2.48 % increase over iv 44.63 30.72 cd sem± cd sem± (p=0.01) (p=0.01) variety (a) ns 0.8672 ns 0.0089 nutrient sources (b) 10.76 2.9554 0.19 0.0548 axb 15.23 4.1796 0.28 0.0775 axb 11.19 ns = non-significant v1= california wonder v2= gangavathi local significantly influence microbial count. organic treatments showed significant increase in microbial count over inorganic treatments. however, the of various organic treatments were found to be at par for microbial count. there was substantial increase in total mycorrhizal count (44.63% and 29.40%) and dehydrogenase activity (30.72% and 8.87%) in the open and shade-house conditions, respectively, in organic treatments over the initial value (tables 4 and 5). results indicated that organic sources of nutrients significantly influenced soil mycorrhizal count as well as dehydrogenase activity compared to inorganic sources. however, there was no significant difference among organic sources of nutrients. vermicompost and poultry manure are known to contain higher amounts of growth substances, vitamins and enzymes. this increased the bacterial population and root biomass, resulting in elevated amounts of exudates which, in turn, increased bacterial multiplication in the rhizosphere region. present results are in agreement with those of chitesh (2005) and nandani (2006). microbial count was higher in the treatments o 1 to o 8 compared to other treatments involving chemical fertilizers. treatments o 1 to o 8 had higher dehydrogenase activity (2.62 to 2.97µl hydrogen evolved) compared to the inorganic nutrient source treatment o 11 (2.15µl hydrogen j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):103-106, 2013 organic cultivation of capsicum and soil microbial properties 106 table 5. effect of nutrient source on total mycorrhizal count and dehydrogenase activity in soil after cropping season in bell pepper varieties grown under shade-house conditions (pooled data) nutrient total mycorrhizal dehydrogenase source count (no. of activity (µg tpf /g spores/100 g) soil/24 hrs) v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 99.33 105.33 102.33 2.97 2.97 2.97 o 2 101.33 106.00 103.66 2.68 2.67 2.67 o3 102.66 102.33 102.49 2.63 2.65 2.64 o4 105.33 106.00 105.66 2.61 2.63 2.62 o5 97.33 93.33 95.33 3.08 3.03 3.05 o6 93.66 95.66 94.66 2.74 2.67 2.70 o7 95.33 92.66 93.99 2.77 2.70 2.73 o8 100.00 87.00 93.50 2.84 2.75 2.79 o9 110.00 105.66 107.83 2.95 2.79 2.87 o10 63.33 53.66 58.49 2.37 2.24 2.30 o11 44.66 41.33 42.99 2.14 2.17 2.15 mean 92.08 89.90 90.99 2.51 2.46 2.48 initial value 50.38 2.26 % increase over iv 29.40 8.87 cd sem± cd sem± (p=0.01) (p=0.01) variety (a) ns 1.896 ns 0.026 nutrient sources (b) 14.72 4.056 0.24 0.065 a × b 20.89 5.736 0.33 0.092 a × b 19.45 0.29 ns = non-significant v1= california wonder v2= gangavathi local evolved). higher enzyme activity in these treatments may be attributed to higher soil microbial population which was probably due to more substrates being available in the form of fym, vermicompost and poultry manure. soil organic matter plays an important role in protecting soil enzymes which become immobile in the three dimensional network of clay and humus complex (tabatabai, 1994). this reflects greater biological activity in the plot receiving these substrates and stabilization of extra-cellular enzymes with humic substances (burns, 1982 and colvan et al, 2001). these results of the experiment are also in conformity with findings of gunadi et al (1999), masciandaro et al (2000), chitesh (2005) and nandani (2006). references anonymous. 2005. horticulture package of practices, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad karnataka, india burns, r.g. 1982. enzyme activity in soil: location and a possible role in microbial ecology. soil biol. biochem., 14:423-427 cassida, l.e., klein, d.a. and santoro, t. 1964. soil dehydrogenase activity. soil sci., 98:371-376 chithesh, c. 2005. studies on use of organics in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) production. m.sc (hort.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, karnataka, india colvan, s.r., syers, j.k. and o’donnell, a.g. 2001. effect of long-term fertilizer use on acid and alkaline phosphomonoesterase and phosphodiesterase activities in managed grassland. biol. ferti. soils, 34:258-263 gerdemann, j.w. and nicolson, j.h. 1963. the spores of mycorrhizal endogone species extracted from soil by wet sieving and decanting. trans. br. mycol. soc., 46:235-244 gunadi, b., blount, c. and edwards, c.a. 1999. the growth and fecundity of eisenia fetida (savigny) in cattle solids pre-composted for different periods. pedobiologia, 46:15-33 lampkin, n. 1990. in: organic farming, ipswich, u.k. press books, pp. 701-710 masciandaro, g., ceccanti, b., ronchi, v. and bauer, c. 2000. kinetic parameters of dehydrogenase and inorganic fertilizers. biol. fert. soils, 32:579-587 nandani, t. 2006. effect of organic, conventional and integrated form of nutrient management systems on growth, yield and quality of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill). m. sc. (hort.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, karnataka, india panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.u. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers, indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, india, pp. 100174 pathak, r.k. and ram, r.a. 2003. organic farming systems prevalent in india. national symposium on organic farming in hor ticulture for sustainable production, 29-30 august, central institute of subtropical horticulture, lucknow, india, pp. 1-2 tabatabai, a. 1994. soil enzymes. in: weaver, r.w., angle, j.s. and bottomley, p.s. (eds.), methods of soil analysis, part 2. microbiological and biochemical properties, sssa, madison, usa, pp.775-833 (ms received 17 september 2011, accepted 15 june 2012, revised 09 november 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):103-106, 2013 ganiger et al j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 60-66, 2023 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper evaluation of tuberose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 (ic0642158) for flower yield, quality and response to biotic stress bharathi t.u.1*, kumar r.1, nair s.a.1, umamaheswari r.2, sonavane p.2 kalaivanan d.3 and rao v.k.4 1division of flower and medicinal crops, 2division of crop protection, 3division of natural resources, 4division of basic sciences icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : ushabharathi.t@icar.gov.in abstract tuberose (agave amica, family asparagaceae) is an important commercial flower crop valued for its spectacular fragrant flowers. an experiment was conducted to evaluate the single petalled tuberose genotypes for growth, flowering, flower yield, concrete yield and response to biotic stress for two consecutive years from 2020 to 2022. tuberose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 was found to be superior with highest plant height (55.53 cm), early flowering (94.93 days), highest number of spikes/plant (8.47), longest spikes (114.61cm) and rachis (32.11 cm) and maximum number of florets/spike (54.87). the matured bud weight of iihr 17-23sp-08 was 1.29 g, which is preferable in the medium segment range with higher number of flower buds (725 buds per kg). it is a high yielder producing the highest number of spikes/m2 (76.20) and loose flower yield 18.88 t/ha/year among the genotypes evaluated. the genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 was also found to be a good multiplier with the maximum bulb production of 8.94 bulbs per clump. it was found to be resistant to root knot nematode (meloidogyne incognita) and tolerant to leaf burn disease (alternaria polianthi) under field conditions. it was found suitable as loose flower for garland preparation with the shelf life of 2 days under ambient conditions and for concrete extraction with the concrete yield of 0.095%. it produces white buds (rhs colour: nni55d, white group, fan 4) with green tinge on the tip. thus, the genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 was found promising and novel among the single types with better flower and bulb yield parameters. keywords : concrete, evaluation, flowering, single type, shelf life, tuberose, yield. introduction tu b er o s e, a g a v e a m i c a ( m edik. ) t hiede & govaerts (formerly polianthes tuberosa linn.) is one of t he mos t imp or t a nt t r op ic a l b u lb ou s f lower ing p la nt s t ha t b elongs t o t he f a mily asparagaceae and is native to mexico. it is an important commercial crop preferred due to its pleasant fragrance, longer keeping quality and wide adaptability. it is commercially cultivated in india in about 21,970 ha, with a loose flower production of 1,21,860 metric tonnes and cut flower production of 93,680 metric tonnes (anon., 2021). the flowers of tuberose are highly fragrant containing 0.08 to 0.14 % of concrete and having high demand in the international market. globally, tuberose concrete and absolute are produced and traded in india, egypt a nd fr a nce. commer cia l cultiva tion of tuber ose in india is confined to west bengal, kar na ta ka , ta mil nadu, mahar a shtr a, andhr a pr adesh, utta r pra desh, chha ttisga r h a nd the national capital region (ncr). in india, the preference of flower colour of tuberose varieties is limited to white, although some varieties show pinkish and greenish tinge in bud stage. garland segment in tuberose prefer varieties with green tinge on the bud tip. though, the local variety of tuberose under cultivation is with green tinge on the bud tip, but its yield potential is very low and is highly susceptible to pests and diseases. market demand is for medium sized flowers weighing less than 1.5 g/bud which makes a greater number of flowers per unit (kg). this stipulates the development of high yielding tuberose varieties with green tinge on the bud tip and medium bud weight suitable for garland purpose. with respect to biotic stresses, crop loss of 10 to 14% was reported due to root knot nematode https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2148 61 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 60-66, 2023 infestation in tuberose (khan and parvatha reddy, 1992). leaf burn disease caused by alternaria polianthi is extensive in tuberose causing significant yield losses (mariappan et al., 1977; muthukumar et al., 2007 and mazumdar et al., 2021). keeping the above in view, the present research work was carried out with the objective of breeding medium sized flowers with green tinge on bud tip for loose flower and garland purpose that are resistant/tolerant to root knot nematode and leaf burn disease. materials and methods t he tuber ose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 wa s developed through seedling selection from gk-tc-4 during the year 2017. it was vegetatively fixed through bulbs and multiplied. seven single petalled type of tuberose genotypes namely iihr 17-23sp-08, gktc-4, phule rajani, bidhan ujwal, calcutta single, arka prajwal (commercial check) and mexican single (local check) were evaluated for growth, flowering, flower and concrete yield and response to biotic stress in randomized block design with three replications from 2020 to 2022 at the division of flower and medicina l cr ops, icar-india n institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india. bulbs of medium size (2.5 cm diameter) were planted on raised bed of 30 cm height with a spacing of 30 cm x 30 cm with the bed size of 2.4 m2. standard cultural practices were followed throughout the experiment. observations were recorded on 15 plants in total, comprising 5 plants per replication for various parameters viz., plant height (cm), days to spike emergence, days to opening of first floret, number of spikes per clump, spike length (cm), rachis length (cm), number of florets per spike, length of floret (cm), diameter of floret (cm), bud length (cm), matured bud weight (g), weight of 100 florets (g), number of spikes per m2, loose flower yield per ha per year (tons), number of bulbs per clump, shelf life (days) and concrete content (%).tuberose concrete was extracted by solvent extraction method (asta, 1960) with food grade hexane as solvent. the concrete content was calculated on fresh weight basis and expressed in percentage. tuberose genotypes were screened for the resistance against root-knot nematode (m. incognita) for two consecutive years. gall index (gi) was registered in the roots in a 0-5 scale (0immune, 1highly resistant, 2r esistant, 3tolerant, 4susceptible, 5highly susceptible) as per taylor and sasser (1978) at the time of bulb harvest. the per cent disease index (pdi) and host reaction of the tuberose genotypes to leaf blight (a. polianthi) was recorded on 0-5 disease severity scale (0immune, 1resistant, 2-moderately susceptible and 3highly susceptible) under field condition at 15 days interval for three times, as per narayanappa and chandra (1984). the da ta of two yea r s wer e pooled a nd a na lysed statistically (gomez and gomez,1984). results and discussion the perusal of data presented in table 1, revealed significant differences in the growth, flowering and yield traits among the different genotypes. plant height was maximum in genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 (55.53 cm), which was on par with the commercial check arka prajwal (54.84 cm), while, it was minimum in gk-tc-4 (36.05 cm). the variation in plant height table 1 : evaluation of tuberose genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 (ic0642158) with checks plant days to days to no. of spike rachis number single bud genotype height spike first floret spikes per length length of florets weight (cm) emergence open clump (cm) (cm) per spike (g) iihr 17-23sp-08 55.53 94.93 22.17 8.47 114.61 32.11 54.87 1.29 mexican single 37.81 111.10 19.73 4.17 88.11 20.01 43.83 1.01 arka prajwal 54.84 101.03 29.00 5.18 97.39 30.90 52.50 2.04 gk-tc-4 36.05 125.03 19.77 4.00 65.25 18.29 49.67 1.22 phule rajani 39.02 148.17 24.10 4.00 58.14 20.15 44.10 1.09 bidhan ujwal 36.07 106.87 23.30 4.23 55.11 16.21 56.87 1.04 calcutta single 40.77 105.77 19.80 4.13 91.22 11.28 33.57 0.82 sem± 0.79 1.77 0.35 0.12 2.10 0.88 1.25 0.03 cd (p=0.05) 2.45 5.51 1.08 0.36 6.54 2.75 3.90 0.10 cv (%) 3.18 2.70 2.67 4.15 4.47 7.20 4.52 4.75 evaluation of tuberose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 for yield and quality 62 might be due to the inherent genetic makeup of the particular genotype. similar results on variation in plant height were also reported by mahawer et al. (2013) and dogra et al. (2020) in tuberose. days to spike emergence varied from 94.93 to 148.17 days. the genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 was found to be early flowering (94.93 days) followed by arka prajwal (101.03 days) and phule rajani (148.17 days). ramachandrudu and thangam (2009) also reported early flowering in cv. hyderabad single. days to opening of first floret ranged from 19.73 (mexican single) to 29.00 days (arka prajwal), however, genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 recorded 22.17 days for first floret opening and was early as compared to commercial check arka prajwal. the genotypes with early flowering catch the early market and would be remunerative to the farmers. madhumathi et al. (2018) also observed variation in spike emergence in different cultivars of tuberose. the number of spikes per plant has direct influence on the yield of the tuberose. the genotypes iihr 17 23sp 08 registered the highest number of spikes per clump (8.47), whereas, lowest was in gk-tc-4 and phule rajani (4.00). this variation in the production of spikes per clump might be due to the inherent genetic factor of different cultivars under prevailing envir onmenta l conditions. t he r esults a r e in conformity with the findings of dalvi et al. (2021) and gandhi and bharathi (2021) in tuberose. the genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 recorded the longest spike (114.61 cm), while, bidhan ujwal registered shortest spike (55.11 cm). the rachis length varied from 11.28 (calcutta single) to 32.11 cm (iihr 17 23sp 08). variation in spike length and rachis length might be due to the inherent genetic potential of the genotype coupled with environmental conditions during the growing period. madhumati et al. (2018) also observed variation in spike length of tuberose and reported maximum rachis length in arka prajwal (33.40 cm), whereas, minimum rachis length was recorded in gktc-4 (23.93 cm). t he number of flor ets per spike ha s a dir ect association with the flower yield of the crop. number of florets per spike ranged from 33.57 (calcutta single) to 56.87 (bidhan ujwal). the genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 recorded 54.87 number of florets per spike which was on par with commercial check arka prajwal (52.50) and was superior than the local check mexican single (43.83). bharathi and umamaheswari (2018) also reported similar results in tuberose. weight of matured bud is an important economical trait for loose flowers as they are sold on weight basis. current market demand in tuberose is for the variety that produces flowers buds which weigh less than 1.5 g per bud and have a greater number of flowers per unit (kg). in the present study, matured bud weight varied from 2.04 g (arka prajwal) to 0.82 g (calcutta single). the genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 recorded matured bud weight of 1.29 g/bud which is in the range of medium segment and is preferred in the market. based on the individual mature bud weight, iihr 17 23sp 08 contains approximately 725 buds per kg. similar observations were also made by ramachandrudu and thangam (2009) in tuberose cv. arka prajwal. hundred bud weight was recorded maximum in arka prajwal (219.63 g) and minimum in calcutta single (80.80 g). the results are in corroboration with the findings of vijayalaxmi and lakshmidevamma (2016) in tuberose. the data presented in table 2 indicates significant variation in different flower traits. the bud length varied from 5.27 cm (bidhan ujwal) to 6.41 cm (mexican single), however, the genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 recorded the bud length of 6.20 cm, which was found to be superior to the commercial check arka prajwal (6.15 cm). variation in bud length of tuberose might be due to the difference in inbuilt genetic factor of the genotypes as reported by singh et al. (2018) and bharathi and umamaheswari (2018) in tuberose. diameter of floret varied from 3.82 cm (bidhan ujwal) to 5.17 (gk-tc-4). the diversity in flower diameter is in close conformity with the findings of singh and dakho (2017), singh et al. (2018) and bharathi and kirthishree (2019) in tuberose. the highest number of spikes per m2 was recorded in iihr 17-23sp-08 (76.20), whereas lowest was recorded in gk-tc-4 and phule rajani (36.00). loose flower yield was maximum in iihr 17-23sp-08 (18.88 t/ha/yr) followed by arka prajwal (17.48 t/ha/ yr), whereas the lowest loose flower yield was recorded in calcutta single (5.08 t/ha/yr). number of spikes per clump and number of florets per spike were found to be the highest in the tuberose genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 which directly related to the highest loose flower yield. the distinct variation in the flower yield may be attributed to the distinguished inherent genetic bharathi et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 60-66, 2023 63 makeup of cultivars as reported by naik et al. (2018) and dalvi et al. (2021) in tuberose. t he mu lt ip lic a t ion effic ienc y of a va r iet y is important for large scale propagation and wider spread among the farmers and ease of availability. number of bulbs per clump ra nged fr om 3. 19 (phule rajani) to 8.94 (iihr 17-23sp-08). the variations observed in the bulb parameters are due to the presence of wide genetic variability among t he t es t ed genot yp es of t u b er os e. s imila r ob ser va t ions wer e r ecor ded by m a r t olia a nd srivastava (2012) in tuberose. shelf life wa s found to be the highest in the c ommer cia l chec k ar ka p r a jwa l ( 3. 00 da ys ) followed by calcutta single (2.33 days) and iihr 17 23sp 08 (2.17 days). var iation a mong the t u ber os e c u lt iva r s f or t he s helf life ma y b e attributable to the hereditary traits, which is further inter pr eted by pr eva iling clima tic conditions. safeena et al. (2019) reported the presence of genotypic variation in post-harvest life of tuberose. tuberose concrete and absolute are much valued in the international market which is used as powerful modifier in floral accords that blends well with other scents. among the tuberose genotypes tested, the concrete content was found to be the highest in calcutta single (0.097 %) followed by iihr 1723sp-08 (0.095 %) (fig 1.). the results of the study confirms that the genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 can be exploited for concrete extraction besides use as loose flowers which can be value added and used for ga r la nd ma king. t he existence of genetic variation among the tuberose genotypes in terms of concrete and absolute was reported by chaudhary and kumar (2017). the authors suggest that this tr a it ma y b e c ons ider ed a s pr ima r y ba s e f or impr ovement pr ogr ams especially for breeding tuber ose va r ieties with high concr ete content. s imila r r esu lts on va r ia t ion in conc r et e a nd essential oil yield among landraces were reported by tabaei-aghdaei et al. (2002) in rose. t he tuber ose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 wa s screened for the tolerance/resistance to root knot nematode (m. incognita) under field condition for two consecutive years and pooled analysis revealed that it was highly resistant under field conditions wit h minima l ga ll index of 1 . 3 1 ( ta b le 3 ) . genotypic variations towards root knot nematode infestation in tuberose might be due to the genetic table 2 : evaluation of tuberose genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 (ic0642158) with checks bud hundred diameter no. of loose flower no. of shelf genotype length bud weight of floret spikes yield/ha/ bulbs per life (cm) (g) (cm) per m2 year (tons) clump (days) iihr 17 23sp 08 6.20 134.69 4.33 76.20 18.88 8.94 2.17 mexican single 6.41 108.63 4.31 37.50 8.10 7.00 2.00 arka prajwal 6.15 219.63 4.88 46.65 17.48 6.87 3.00 gk-tc-4 6.37 135.41 5.17 36.00 8.86 6.17 1.50 phule rajani 5.49 97.39 4.01 36.00 6.87 3.19 1.42 bidhan ujwal 5.27 116.56 3.82 38.10 8.99 5.67 1.25 calcutta single 5.61 80.80 4.08 37.20 5.08 6.44 2.33 sem± 0.07 2.53 0.08 1.05 0.21 0.25 0.07 cd (p=0.05) 0.21 7.89 0.27 3.28 0.65 0.65 0.22 cv (%) 1.95 3.44 3.50 4.15 3.39 3.39 6.35 fig 1 : evaluation of tuberose genotypes for concrete content on fresh weight basis j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 60-66, 2023 evaluation of tuberose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 for yield and quality 64 table 3 : evaluation of tuberose genotypeiihr-23 sp 08 with checks for leaf burn disease incidence under field condition genotype screening for leaf burn disease* root knot nematode screening** iihr-23 sp 08 9.79 (18.24) 1.31 mexican single 19.20 (26.00) 2.42 arka prajwal 21.33 (27.52) 2.14 gk-tc-4 15.23 (22.98) 1.68 phule rajani 23.59 (29.06) 1.53 bidhan ujwal 21.10 (27.36) 1.38 calcutta single 13.00 (21.14) 1.51 sem± 0.11 cd (p=0.05) 0.34 cv (%) 10.95 *disease severity scale (narayanappa and chandra,1984); **gall index (taylor and sasser,1978); figures in parenthesis are arc sine transformed values makeup of the particular genotype as reported by gandhi et al. (2019) in tuberose. the per cent disease index and host reaction of tuberose genotypes against leaf burn disease caused by a. polianthi under field conditions was recorded for two yea r s . t he r esu lts indic a ted tha t the tuberose genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 was tolerant to leaf burn disease as compared to commercial check arka prajwal and local check mexican single (table 3). the results are in line with the findings of mazumdar et al. (2021) in tuberose who has observed the genetic inherent variation among the genotypes for a. polianthi leaf burn disease. the quality traits of tuberose genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 (fig. 2) along with other genotypes have been presented in the table 4. all the tuberose genotypes under study belong to single type. the flower/bud size was medium in iihr 17 23sp 08 and gk-tc-4, large in arka prajwal and small in mexican single, phule rajani, bidhan ujwal and calcutta single. the tinge on the tip of the bud was green in all the genotypes except arka prajwal. table 4 : quality traits of tuberose genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 (ic0642158) with checks genotype flower type flower/bud size tinge on bud nature of spike iihr 17 23sp 08 single medium green straight mexican single single small green slight bent arka prajwal single large pink straight gk-tc-4 single medium green straight phule rajani single small green straight bidhan ujwal single small green crooked calcutta single single small green slight bent flower spikes of iihr 17 23sp 08 matured buds with green tinge on the tip fully opened medium size flower fig. 2 : tuberose genotype iihr 17 23sp 08 (ic0642158) bharathi et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 60-66, 2023 65 conclusion on the basis of two years of evaluation of seven genotypes for growth, flowering, flower, bulb, concrete yield and biotic stresses, the tuberose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 was found promising and novel for its single type medium size flowers having white (rhs colour: nni55d, white group, fan 4) flower buds with green tinge on the tip, more number of flower buds per kg (approx. 725), more number of spikes (8.47) and bulbs (8.94) per clump per year and high loose flower yield (18.88 t/ha/year). it has resistance to root knot nematode and is tolerant to leaf burn disease under field condition. based on the study, the genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 can be recommended as loose flower for garland purpose and for concrete extraction. references anonymous 2021. final estimates of 2020-21 area and production of horticulture crops. https:/ /a gricoop.nic.in/sites/defa ult/files/202021 %20 (final) %20 advance %20 estimates % 202020-21 %20(1). pdf. accessed 31 mar 2023. asta. 1960. official analytical methods of the american spice trade association, new york, pp. 41-42. bha r a thi, t. u a nd kir thishr ee, s. p. 2019. hybridization and evaluation of hybrids in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.). int. j. chem. stud. 7(1): 189-193. bha r a t hi, t. u a nd uma ma heswa r i, r. 2 01 8. evalua tion of adva nce breeding lines of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) for yield a nd qua lity. j. plant dev. sci. , 10(12): 683-687. cha udhar y, v. and m. kumar. 2017. effect of harvesting time of flowers on concrete and absolute recovery in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.): a comparative study of single and double petalled cultivars. int. j. chem. stud., 5(4): 1416-1420. dalvi, n.v., salvi b.r., pawar c.d., salvi v.g., dhekale j.s., joshi m.s. and khandeka r.g. 2021. va r ieta l eva lua tion on tuber ose (polianthes tuberosa l.) under konkan agroclimatic conditions. j. pharm. innov., 10(10): 444-447. dogra, s., pandey r.k., laishram n and singh a. 2020. varietal evaluation of tuberose under agro-climatic conditions of jammu. j. pharm. innov., 9(2): 499-501. gandhi, d.p. a nd bharathi t.u. 2021. genetic variability and diversity study in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.). int. j. chem. stud., 9(3): 235-240. gandhi, d.p., bharathi, t.u., umamaheswari, r., kala iva na n, d. a nd pra thibha, s. 2019. response of tuberose genotypes to root knot nema tode, meloidogyne incognita: biochemica l, histological a nd nutritional characterization of host-pathogen interaction. j. env. biol., 40: 1151-1158. gomez, k. a. and gomez, a. a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research. john wiley and sons, new york. khan, r.m. and reddy p. p. (1992). nematode problems of ornamental crops and management. nematode pests of crops., pp. 250-257. madhumathi, c., bhargav v., reddy d.s., sreedhar d. and lakshmi t.n. 2018. evaluation of tuberose genotypes for vegetative, flowering a nd yield tra its. int. j. of chem. stud. , 6(6):88-90. maha wer, l. n., bairwa h. l. and shukla a.k. 2013. field performance of tuberose cultivars for growth, floral and economic characters under sub-humid southern plains and aravalli hills of rajasthan. indian j. hort., 70(3): 411-416. mariappan, v., babu, k. and kandasamy, t.k. 1977. a leaf spot disease of tuberose (polianthes tuberose l. ) ca used by new species of alternaria. curr. sci., 46(9): 311. martolia, k. and srivastava, r. 2012. evaluation of differ ent tuberose (polianthes tuberosa ) varieties for flowering attributes concrete and absolute content. indian j. agric. sci., 88: 170-80. mazumder, n., borah, s.k. and deka, k.k. 2021. screening of tuberose cultivars against leaf spot (alternaria polianthi) and its management. agric. sci. dig., doi: 10.18805/ag.d-5289. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 60-66, 2023 evaluation of tuberose genotype iihr 17-23sp-08 for yield and quality 66 muthukumar, a., bhaskaran, r., eswaran, a. and kumar, m. r. 2007. studies on biochemical properties of healthy and leaf spot infected tub er ose pla nts. i nd. j. h orti c. , 46(2 ): 190-193. naik, b.c., kamble b.s., tirakannanavar s. and p a r it s. 2 0 1 8 . e va lu a t ion of diff er ent genotypes of tuberose (polianthes tuberose l . ) f or yield a nd qua lity. i nt . j. cu rr. microbol. appl. sci., 7(08): 53-60. n a r a ya na p p a , m . a nd c ha ndr a , j . k . 1 9 8 4 . fungicidal control of leaf spot of marigold caused by alternaria tagetica. indian j. agri. sci., 54(5): 691-692. ra ma cha ndr udu, k . a nd t ha nga m, m. 2 009. performance of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivars in goa. j. hortic. sci., 4(1): 7677. safeena, s.a., thangam, m. and singh n.p. 2019. evaluation of different cultivars of tuberose (po l i a n t h e s t u b e ro s a l . ) u nder hu mid agro-climatic conditions of goa. j. hortic. sci., 14(2): 109-114. singh, a, singh ak, sisodia a. and padhi m. 2018. performance of tuberose varieties for flowering and flower yield parameters under indo-gangetic plains of eastern uttar pradesh, india. int. j. curr. microbol. appl. sci., 7(08): 2319-7706. singh, a.k. and dakho, j. 2017. evaluation on per for ma nce and superiority of tuber ose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivars for growth and flowering under north indian plain. env. and ecol., 35(1a): 341-345. tabaei-aghdaei, s.r., rezaei m.b. and jaymand, k. 2002. evaluation of variation of flower yield in the damask rose (rosa damascena mill.) genotypes of kashan (iran). iranian j. forest rangeland plants. genet. breed., 9: 99-111. taylor, a. l. and sasser, j. n. 1978. biology, identification and control of root knot nematode meloidogyne spp. nor th ca r olina sta te university graphics, raleigh, nc, p.111. vijayalaxmi, g.p. and lakshmidevamma, t.n. 2016. evaluation of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa) varieties for quality traits. adv. life sci., 5(12): 5370-5371. (received : 20.09.2022; revised : 14.02.2023; accepted 31.03.2023) bharathi et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 60-66, 2023 effect of cane regulation and ga3 spray on berry thinning in ‘thompson seedless’ grape (vitis vinifera l.) s.d. shikhamany*, swapnil v. borade, sanjay k. jeughale and suryakant y. patil maharashtra state grape growers’ association manjri farm post, pune 411 032, india *e-mail: sdshikhamany@gmail.com abstract a field trial was conducted during 2013-14 and 2014-15 fruiting seasons in growers’ vineyards around nashik, maharashtra, india to improve efficacy of ga 3 sprays in berrythinning. as smaller clusters have fewer berries, cluster compactness derived at by number of berries per unit length (cm) of rachis, and, berry-diameter were considered as a measure of berry-thinning. as ga3 effect in berry-thinning is stage-specific, canes uniformly thick in a vine only were retained to achieve uniformity in flowering, by inducing uniform bud-break. cane regulation did not result in uniformity in bud-break or flowering. blanket spray of ga 3 thrice @ 20g a.i./ha, each coupled with either removal of non-uniform canes or retention of all the canes could effectively reduce cluster compactness by reducing number of berries per cluster, without increasing total length of the rachis/cluster or berry diameter. vine yield and quality in terms of total soluble solids and acid content were not affected by the treatments. considering cluster-compactness, yield and ease of cultural operations, retention of all the canes in a vine, coupled with three blanket sprays each of ga 3 @ 20g a.i/ha, on alternate days commencing from initiation of the bloom, is recommended for ‘thompson seedless’. key words: cane regulation, ga 3 spray, uniform flowering, cluster compactness, ‘thompson seedless’ introduction ‘thompson seedless’ is the predominant variety of grape grown in india for table and raisin purposes. this variety is grown in over 70% of the total area under grape in the country. clusters in this variety are very compact, prone to berry cracking and rotting, during ripening, transit and storage. hence, berrythinning is necessary. berry-thinning is achieved with blanket sprays of ga 3 prior to bloom under temperate viticulture. response to ga3 for berry-thinning is highly stage-spe cific. according to turne r (1972), the effective stage is three days to one day prior to initiation of bloom. phenological development stages in the panicle are uneven on any given day under tropical conditions of peninsular india, owing to uneven budbreak after fruit pruning. hence, growers in this region resort to ga 3 sprays during the bloom, supplementing it with manual thinning. manual thinning is not only labour-intensive, but also time-consuming. delayed thinning deprives the berries retained from gaining in size (winkler et al, 1974; coombe, 1960). moreover, manual thinning often leaves unseen bruises on the berries retained, which are then prone to decay in transit and storage (chadha and shikhamany, 1999). in view of the importance of chemical thinning, a field trial was undertaken with an aim to improve the efficacy of blanket pre-bloom sprays of ga3 on berry-thinning by induc ing uniform flowering through cane regulation. uniformity in flowering depends mainly on uniformity in bud-break which, in turn, depends on uniformity in thickness of the canes in a vine. bud-break was found to be earlier in thin canes compared to the thick ones (reddy and shikhamany, 1990; shikhamany and manjunath, 1992). hence, removal of non-uniform canes was attempted, to induce uniform flowering, mediated through uniform bud-break in the vine. material and methods this trial was conducted during the cropping season of 2013-14 and 2014-15 on six/seven – yearj. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 132 old ‘thompson seedless’ grapevines in farmers’ vineyards at two locations (mohadi and pimpalgaon) around nashik (maharashtra). all the experimental vine s were space d at 2.7m x 1.5m gra fted on ‘dogridge’ rootstock, and trained on extended y trellis. these were pruned for fruiting in the second week of october, and grapes were harvested on 140th day after pruning. the vines were subjected to uniform viticulture practices, namely, ethrel sprays for pre-pruning defoliation, hydrogen cyanamide application for promoting bud-break, and ga 3 sprays for cluster elongation. experiments in each vineyard were laid out in factorial a x b x c randomized block design, with the following treatments replicated thrice: factor a season: s1: 2013-14 and s2: 2014-15 factor b location: l1 (mohadi) and l2 (pimpalgaon) factor c treatments (removal of abnormally thin or abnormally thick canes within a vine, coupled with ga3 sprays): t1 -cane removal, coupled with three sprays each of ga3 @ 20g a.i./ha t2 -cane removal, coupled with two sprays each of ga3 @ 30g a.i./ha t3 -retention of all canes, coupled with three sprays each of ga 3 @ 20g a.i./ha t4 -retention of all canes, coupled with two sprays each of ga3 @ 30g a.i./ha t5 -control (growers’ practice of retaining all the canes, and spraying ga 3 @ 80g a.i./ha at 50% bloom) the first spray of ga 3 was applied three days prior to full bloom stage (approximately at initiation of calyptras-opening in a panicle), repeated on alternate days. ga3 at specified dose was sprayed with a blower-assisted-sprayer irrespective of the volume of spray solution. obs e rvations r ec ord ed : obse rvations wer e recorded on five canes tagged in each of the five vines selected at random in each replication/ treatment number of canes/vine: number of canes left on the vine after forward-pruning in t3, t4 and t5, and, after cane removal in t1 and t2 cane diameter: diameter at the middle of each cane was measured, and the average diameter calculated. uniformity in bud-break: number and position of buds opening on selected canes was recorded every day from the 5th to 12th day after pruning. the day on which highest number of buds broke was taken as the standard (d-day) and a score of 100 was given for each bud. for deviation in bud-break by a day from the d-day, either early or late, a score of 75 was given for each bud; a score of 50 for each bud deviating by two days, and a score of 25 for each bud deviating by 3 days. the sum of the scores was divided by the total number of broken buds, and expressed as ‘per cent uniformity in bud-break’. uniformity in flowering: the stage of inflorescencedevelopment specified for applying the first spray of ga3 for thinning wa s use d a s a re fer enc e . observations we re re corded on the number of inflorescences attaining this stage from the 30th day after pruning, on selected canes. the day on which highest number of panicles attained this stage was taken as the standard (d-day), and was given a score of 100 for each panicle. for deviation by one day from the d-day, either early or late, a score of 75 was given for each panicle; 50 for each deviating by two days, and 25 for each deviating by 3 days. the sum of scores was divided by the total number of panicles and expressed as ‘per cent uniformity in flowering’. cluster compactness index: this was derived by dividing the number of berries per cm of the total length of rachis. berry-count and total length of rachis was recorded after removal of berries in five clusters selected at random from each plot. berry-thinning has been found to increase the size of berries retained in a cluster (coombe, 1960; winkler et al, 1974). hence, berry diameter was included in factors determining cluster compactness in these studies. total length of rachis: sum of the length of main rachis and all its branches was measured in cm. number of berries/cluster: average number of berries was counted in five, selected clusters. berry diameter: average diameter of 25 berries was measured (at the middle of the berry, using callipers). yield/vine: average yield of 10 vines in a plot was recorded in kg at harvest. shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 133 cluster weight: mean weight of five clusters selected at random from each plot was calculated. total soluble solids content (tss): soluble solids content was determined in °b using a hand-held refractometer in the juice extracted by crushing the 25 berries selected at random. titratable acids content: this was determined by titrating an aliquot of 10ml juice against 0.1n naoh using phenolphthalein indicator and expressed as gram equivalent tartaric acid in 100ml juice. statistical analysis: data were analyzed in factorial a x b x c (2 x 2 x 5) design, with eight treatment combinations and three replications, where ‘a’ denotes the season, ‘b’ location and ‘c’ treatment. results and discussion reducing cluster compactness was a major objective in our trial, therefore, greater emphasis is laid on presenting this parameter. any treatment reducing cluster compactness should not result in reduction of any yield or quality attribute/s. hence, trea tment e ffe cts on thes e a ttribute s ar e a lso presented. effect on cluster compactness number of berries per cm length of the rachis is a recognized measure of cluster compactness (chadha and shikhamany, 1999), but berry-size also contributes to cluster compactness. at a given number of berries/cm length of rachis, a cluster with berries of 20mm diameter will be more compact, for example than one with 16mm berry diameter. cluster compactness differed significantly with season, location and treatment (table 1) being low less in 2014-15 (s2) compared to that in 2013-14 (s1). this can be attributed to an increased total length of rachis, a nd re duce d numbe r of be rrie s/c luste r. le s s compactness in s2, despite greater berry-diameter is an indication of greater cluster elongation and/or a chemical thinning in ‘ thompson seedless’ grape table 1. effect of cane regulation and ga treatment on components of cluster compactness factor cluster compactness rachis length no. of berries/ berry index (cm) cluster diameter (mm) a. season 1. 2013-14 34.5b 47.6 a 79.0 b 17.9 a 2. 2014-15 32.0a 64.6 b 66.2 a 18.8 b s.em ± 0.52 1.21 1.61 0.11 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.5 3.5 4.6 0.3 b. location 1. l1 32.2 a 63.9 b 66.1 a 18.0 a 2. l2 34.3 b 48.2 a 79.2 b 18.8 b s.em ± 0.52 1.21 1.61 0.11 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.5 3.5 4.6 0.3 c. treatment 1. t1 29.9 a 51.4 a 69.0 a 18.3 2. t2 33.2b 59.8b 72.2 a 18.3 3. t3 30.3a 53.8 a 68.4 a 18.5 4. t4 35.9 c 54.8 a 75.0 a 18.4 5. t5 36.8c 60.6b 78.5b 18.3 s.em ± 0.82 1.91 2.55 0.17 c.d. (p=0.05) 2.3 5.5 7.3 ns interaction a x b * ** ** ** a x c * ns ns ns b x c ** ** ** ns a x b x c * ns ns ns ns= non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 134 reduction in berry-number per cluster in this season. when locations were compared, cluster compactness was less in the vineyard at mohadi (l1) than in the one at pimpalgaon (l2). contributory factors for less compactness at l1 were: comparatively longer rachis, reduced number of berries/cluster, and lower berry diameter. these results indicate that the general prac tice of growe rs for cluster elonga tion and treatments imposed to reduce number of berries/cluster were more effective in s2 and in the vineyard at l1. on the other hand, practices for increasing berry diameter were more effective in s2 and in the vineyard at l2. all the treatments were effective in reducing number of berries/cluster, but owing to less elongation of rachis, cluster compactness was not low in t4 (retention of all canes, coupled with two sprays of ga 3 @ 30g a.i/ha). however, the rest of the treatments more effectively reduced compactness, compared to that in the control. variation in rachis length cannot be attributed to treatments, because, neither cane removal before initiation of growth nor ga3 sprays applied between three to one day prior to bloom, have any effect on rachis elongation. the ideal stage for ga3 application for cluster elongation has been found to be 25 days prior to full-bloom (turner, 1972). berry diameter was not affected by treatments. reduced berry number in the treatments did not result in increased berry-size. the reason for ineffectiveness of ga3 treatments in increasing berry-diameter is the mode of action of ga 3 and its stage of application. ga3 increases berry length but not berry diameter. the ideal stage for ga 3 application for berry elongation is from five to ten days after full-bloom (turner, 1972). hence, application of ga 3 just before bloom was ineffective in increasing berry-diameter. the growers’ practices for increasing berry-diameter appear to have masked treatment effect, if any. effect of the treatments on cluster compactness varied with season and location. interaction of season with treatments influenced cluster compactness only, but not rachis length, number of berries/cluster, or berry diameter. in individual effects of treatments, all the treatments, excepting t4 (retention of all canes, coupled with two sprays of ga3 @ 30g/ha) greatly reduced compactness, compared to the control (t5growers’ practice). however, all the treatments, including t4, reduced compactness in s1; whereas, in s2, only t3 (retention of all canes, coupled with three sprays of ga3 @ 20g/ha) reduced the compactness, compared to that in control, consistently, over the years (table 1a). location x treatment interaction also shikhamany et al table 1a. season x treatment effect on cluster compactness index season treatment t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 2013-14 29.2a 35.4de 30.7ab 36.9e 40.2f 2014-15 30.5ab 31.0a 29.9 a 34.9cde 33.5bcd s.em ± 1.16; cd (p=0.05) = 3.3 influenced cluster compactness. in its major effect, across locations, t2 (cane removal, coupled with two sprays of ga3 @ 30g a.i./ha) reduced compactness greatly, compared to control; but, at l1 it could not do so. at l2, all the treatments (except t4) reduced compactness greatly compared to the control. t1 (cane removal, coupled with three sprays of ga 3 @ 20g a.i./ ha) and t3 were consistent in their effect in reducing the compactness, over the control, at both the locations (table 1b). rachis length was also influenced by location x treatment interaction. when effects of the trea tme nts ove r the s eas on a nd loc ation were considered, rachis length was greater in control, but at par with t2. similar was the trend at l1; but, at l2, all the treatments were at par with control. although ga 3 spray at initiation of bloom had little effect on rachis elongation, rachis length was consistently greater in t2 over locations (table 1c). interaction effect of location x treatment revealed that t1 and t4 were more effective at l1 than at l2, in reducing number of berries/cluster (table 1d), although all the treatments were effective over locations and seasons (table 1). effect of the treatments in reducing number of berries/ cluster seems to have been deviated by comparison with the inherently small clusters obtained in t1 and t4 at l1, and in control at l2 (table 1e). in addition to the berry-thinning effect of ga3 sprays, inherent size of the cluster appears to be the reason for reduced number of berries/cluster. interaction of treatments with season and loca tion als o influe nc ed c luste r c ompa c tnes s significantly. interactions of s1l1t1, s1l1t3, s2l1t1, s2l1t3, s2l2t2 and s2l2t3 resulted in lower compactness, than that of s1l1t5, s1l2t4 or s1l2t5 (table 1e). j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 135 table 1b. location x treatment effect on cluster compactness index ____________________________________________________________________________________ location treatment —————————————————————————————————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— l1 27.8a 34.2efg 29.5abcd 32.2de 37.2gh l2 31.9cde 32.2de 31.2bcde 39.5h 36.5fgh —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 1.16; cd (p=0.05) = 3.3 table 1c. location x treatment effect on rachis length (cm) —————————————————————————————————————————— location treatment —————————————————————————————————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— l1 53.4b 68.4cd 63.9c 61.5c 72.4d l2 49.4ab 51.2ab 43.7a 48.1ab 48.8ab —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 2.70 cd (p=0.05) = 7.7 table 1d. location x treatment effect on number of berries/cluster —————————————————————————————————————————— location treatment —————————————————————————————————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— l1 57.7a 69.1bc 66.8abc 61.4ab 75.3cde l2 80.2def 75.4cde 70.1bcd 88.5f 81.8ef —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 3.60 cd (p=0.05) = 10.3 table 1e. season x location x treatment effect on cluster compactness index —————————————————————————————————————————— 2013-14 2014-15 —————————————————————————————————— treatment l1 l2 l1 l2 —————————————————————————————————————————— t1 25.7a 32.8fghijk 30.0abcdefgh 31.1bcdefgh t2 34.1ghijkl 36.7jkl 34.3hijkl 27.7abcd t3 29.3abcdef 32.2defghij 29.6abcdefg 30.2abcdefgh t4 32.0cdefghi 41.7mn 32.5efghij 37.3klm t5 42.3n 38.0lmn 32.0cdefgi 35.0ij _____________________________________________________________________________________ s.em ± 1.63 cd (p=0.05) = 4.7 chemical thinning in ‘ thompson seedless’ grape 136 in the overall analysis, considering variation due to season and location in the effects of treatments on rachis length, number of berries/cluster and the berry diameter, it can be concluded that t1 and t3 were equally effective in reducing cluster compactness over the control. effect on uniformity in flowering uniformity in flowering is considered to be the basic requirement for blanket sprays of ga 3 to be effective in reducing number of berries/cluster. a perusal of variation in uniformity in flowering and numbe r of be rries /cluster within se asons a nd locations, would reveal that greater uniformity in flowering was associated with a lower number of ber ries /clus ter. trea tment e ffec ts on uniform flowering were influenced by season and location, as evidenced by a significant effect of season x treatment and location x treatment interactions (table 2). cons idering the ir main effe cts and inter ac tion e ffe c ts with se a son a nd loca tion, treatments comprising cane removal (t1 and t2), envisaged at increasing the uniformity in bud-break (eventually increasing uniformity in flowering), failed to do so (tables 2a, 2b and 2c). uniformity in flowering was concordant with uniformity in budbreak only in the case of season but not location or tre a tme nt (ta ble 2). inte ra c tion of se as on x treatment also influenced uniformity in bud-break significantly. this could be due to a differential rate of flowe r de velopme nt, influenced by we ather conditions during flower development (christensen, 1969; negi and randhawa, 1974). however, the component of cane removal in t1 and t2 did not result in increased uniformity in bud-break (table 2d). ca ne diameter was highe r in t1 and t2 where uneven canes were removed (table 2). this implies that it was the undersized canes that were r e mov e d in t 3 a n d t 4 . ca n e di a me te r wa s influenced by season x treatment interaction, being higher in t1 and t2 in 2014-15, but not in 2013-14 (table 2e). increased cane diameter in t1 and t2 did not result in increased uniformity of bud break (table 2d) or flowering (table 2a). in addition to uniformity in cane thickness, uniformity in bud-break depends on pre-pruning defoliation, diurnal variation in tempe rature a fter pruning (shikhamany and manjunath, 1992), and use of chemicals that promote bud-break (shulman et al, 1983; williams, 1987). effect of cane removal on inducing uniform budbreak could have been masked by growers’ practice of using ethrel for pre-pruning defoliation, pruning when temperature is conducive for bud-break, and using hydrogen cyanamide for inducing increased and uniform bud-break. these results point at the futility of caneregulation in inducing uniform flowering under viticulture practices followed by growers in the course of our experimentation. effect on yield yield/vine was higher in 2014-15 compared to that in 2013-14, and higher at l1 than at l2. yield did not diffe r signific antly among trea tments. however, interaction of treatment x location (table 2 f)and treatment x season x location (table 2 g) influenced yield significantly. yield/vine was greater in t3 compared to t1 and t2 at l1, but not at l2 (table 3 a,b,c). treatments t3 and control fared better at l2, than at l1 (table 3a). yield /vine is a function of number of canes/vine, number of clusters/ cane and mean weight of the cluster. increased yield in 2014-15 over that in 2013-14 can be attributed to increased number of canes and higher weight of cluster. in spite of mean bunch-weight being the same (table 3), and cane number/vine being lower (table 2), yield at l1 was higher. similarly, mean weight of cluster and number of canes/vine was lower in t1compared to t3, t4 or t5, but, yield was not lower (table 3). this could be attributed to a greater number of clusters/cane, which depends on c onditions be ing favoura ble for f ruit-bud formation during the vine growth season. effect on quality quality of grapes, as judged by the total soluble solids (tss) and acids content did not differ significantly among tre atments. however, tss content varied with season and location, and, acid content with the location only. interaction of season x location also influenced both quality-components (table 3). t ss content is primarily a varietal character, often modified by diurnal variation in temperature during the ripening period (coombe, 1992). it is mainly controlled by genotype x environment interaction. similarly, acid content is a ls o de termine d by ge notype x environment interaction. shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 137 chemical thinning in ‘ thompson seedless’ grape results of this trial indicate that: i) t1 and t3 a r e e qu a l ly e f f e c ti ve in r e d uc i ng c l us t e r compactness; ii) cane regulation did not result in significant improvement in uniformity of bud-break or flowering; iii) none of the treatments influenced yield or quality. in overall analysis, t3 (retention of all the canes in a vine, and spraying ga3 thrice @ 20g a.i./ha on alternate days, commencing from initiation of the bloom) is recommended for reducing cluster compactness, without compromising yield or quality in ‘thompson seedless’ grape. acknowledgement the authors a re gra teful to shri sure sh ka lamka r (mohadi) a nd shri. arun mor e (pimpalgaon) for facilitating these studies in their vineyards. also, they thank the office bearers and chairma n, ce ntra l re se a rc h committe e of maharashtra state grape growers’ association, pune, for supporting these studies. support given by prof. t.s. mungare and shri. t.s. shelke, and guidance provided by research advisory committee of the association, are gratefully acknowledged. table 2. effect of season on vine growth characters factor canes/vine cane diameter uniformity in uniformity in (mm) bud break (%) flowering (%) a. season 1. 2013-14 33.4a 7.13a 83.1b 79.7a 2. 2014-15 35.2b 7.46b 77.2a 91.7b s.em ± 0.34 0.032 0.52 0.73 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.0 0.09 1.5 2.1 b. location 1. l1 30.3a 7.33 81.7b 88.4b 2. l2 38.2b 7.26 78.6a 83.1a s.em ± 0.34 0.032 0.52 0.73 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.0 ns 1.5 2.1 c. treatment 1. t1 29.5a 7.44b 81.3b 84.4ab 2. t2 30.1a 7.49b 79.3ab 83.2a 3. t3 35.5b 7.16a 80.4ab 86.6bc 4. t4 38.8c 7.18a 80.9ab 89.7c 5. t5 37.4c 7.19a 78.7a 84.7ab s.em ± 0.54 0.050 0.82 1.16 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.6 0.14 2.3 3.3 interaction a x b ** ** ns ns a x c ns ** ** * b x c ** ns ns ** a x b x c ** ns ns * ns= non significant table 2a. season x treatment effect on uniformity in flowering (%) —————————————————————————————————————————— treatment season ——————————————————————————————————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— 2013-14 78.9ab 76.0a 81.5b 86.2cde 76.0a 2014-15 89.9defg 90.3efg 91.7fg 93.3g 93.4g —————————————————————————————————————————— s. em ± 1.64 cd (p=0.05) = 4.7 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 138 table 2b. location x treatment effect on uniformity in flowering (%) —————————————————————————————————————————— location treatment —————————————————————————————————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— l1 84.9a 83.2a 91.4b 96.4c 85.9a l2 83.9a 83.1a 81.8a 83.0a 83.5a —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 1.64 cd (p=0.05) = 4.7 table 2c. season x location x treatment effect on uniformity in flowering (%) —————————————————————————————————————————— 2013-14 2014-15 ——————————————————————————————————— treatment l1 l2 l1 l2 —————————————————————————————————————————— t1 79.8a 78.0 a 90.0 bcd 89.8 bcd t2 74.6 a 77.5 a 91.9 bcde 88.8 b t3 87.3b 75.7 a 95.5cde 87.8 b t4 96.7e 75.7 a 96.2de 90.4 bcde t5 78.5 a 73.5a 93.3 bcde 93.6 bcde —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 2.31 cd (p=0.05) = 6.6 table 2d. season x treatment effect on uniformity in bud-break (%) —————————————————————————————————————————— treatment season —————————————————————————————————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— 2013-14 83.4e 84.2e 84.3e 85.7e 77.8bcd 2014-15 79.3cd 74.4a 76.5abcd 76.2abc 79.7d —————————————————————————————————————————— s. em ± 1.16 cd (p=0.05) = 3.3 shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 139 table 2e. season x treatment effect on cane diameter (mm) —————————————————————————————————————————— treatment season —————————————————————————————-————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— 2013-14 7.18abc 7.08ab 7.04a 7.20abc 7.12abc 2014-15 7.71d 7.90d 7.29c 7.16abc 7.25bc —————————————————————————————————————————— s. em ± 0.071 cd (p=0.05) = 0.20 table 2f. location x treatment effect on number of canes/vine —————————————————————————————————————————— location treatment ———————————————————————————-—————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— l1 27.0a 26.2a 32.3cd 34.0d 32.0bcd l2 32.0bcd 34.0d 38.7e 43.6f 42.8f —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 0.0.77 cd (p=0.05) = 2.2 table 2g. season x location x treatment effect on number of canes/vine —————————————————————————————————————————— 2013-14 2014-15 ——————————— —————————————————— treatment l1 l2 l1 l2 —————————————————————————————————————————— t1 26.7a 32.1fghij 27.3abc 31.9efghij t2 26.9ab 30.0bcdef 25.5a 37.9lm t3 33.1ghijk 35.2kl 31.6defghij 42.2n t4 34.5jk 42.7n 33.6hijk 44.6no t5 33.8ijk 38.9m 30.3cdefg 46.7o _____________________________________________________________________________________ s.em ± 1.08 cd (p=0.05) = 3.1 chemical thinning in ‘ thompson seedless’ grape j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 140 table 3. effect of cane regulation and ga treatment on yield and quality attributes —————————————————————————————————————————— factor yield/vine weight/cluster t.s.s. content acid content (kg) (g) (ob) (g/100ml) —————————————————————————————————————————— a. season 1. 2013-14 9.01a 385.2a 16.9b 0.500 2. 2014-15 19.16b 423.6b 14.9a 0.490 —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 0.459 9.48 0.15 0.0060 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.31 27.2 0.4 ns —————————————————————————————————————————— b. location 1. l1 15.35b 404.7 15.5a 0. 535b 2. l2 12.82a 404.1 16.4b 0.455a —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 0.459 9.48 0.15 0.0060 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.31 ns 0.4 0.017 —————————————————————————————————————————— c. treatment 1. t1 13.26 372.2a 15.9 0.493 2. t2 14.44 417.1bc 15.9 0.491 3. t3 14.39 404.8abc 15.9 0.497 4. t4 13.93 392.5abc 15.8 0.495 5. t5 14.42 435.2c 16.1 0.501 —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 0.725 14.99 0.24 0.0095 c.d. (p=0.05) ns 42.9 ns ns —————————————————————————————————————————— interaction a x b ** ** ** ** a x c ns ns ns ns b x c ** ** ns ns a x b x c * ns ns ns —————————————————————————————————————————— ns= non significant shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 141 table 3a. location x treatment effect on yield/ vine (kg) —————————————————————————————————————————— location treatment ——————————————————————————————————— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— l1 12.83ab 14.44bcd 17.60e 15.91cde 15.99de l2 13.70abcd 14.44bcd 11.18a 11.94ab 12.84ab —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 1.026 cd (p=0.05) = 2.94 table 3b. season x location x treatment effect on yield/vine (kg) —————————————————————————————————————————— 2013-14 2014-15 ——————————— —————————————————— treatment l1 l2 l1 l2 —————————————————————————————————————————— t1 11.08cdefg 6.57ab 14.57ghi 20.83mno t2 10.35bcdef 7.27abcd 18.53ijklmn 21.61no t3 12.43efgh 7.09abc 22.77o 15.27hi t4 13.29fgh 4.87a 18.53ijklmn 19.01jklmno t5 11.37defgh 5.77 a 20.62lmno 19.91klmno —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 1.450 cd (p=0.05) = 4.15 table 3c. location x treatment effect on weight of cluster (g) —————————————————————————————————————————— location treatment ———————————————————————————————————— —————-——— t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 —————————————————————————————————————————— l1 321.3a 418.4efgh 428.6gh 376.9abcdefg 478.2h l2 423.2fgh 415.9defg 381.1abcdefg 408.1cdefg 392.2bcdefg —————————————————————————————————————————— s.em ± 21.20 cd (p=0.05) = 60.7 chemical thinning in ‘ thompson seedless’ grape j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 142 (ms received 13 april 2016, revised 12 june 2016, accepted 20 december 2016) references chadha, k.l. and shikhamany, s.d. 1999. the grape improvement, production and post harvest management (isbn: 81-85048-40-1). malhotra publishing house, new delhi, india, pp. 129-30 christensen, p. 1969. seasonal changes and distribution of nutritional elements in ‘thompson seedless’ grapevines. amer. j. enol. and viticulture, 20:176-90 coombe, b.g. 1960. relationship of growth and development to changes in sugars, auxins and gibberellins in fruit of seeded and seedless varieties of vitis vinifera. pl. physiol., 35:241250 coombe, b.g. 1992. research on development and ripening of the grape berry. amer.j. enol. viticulture, 43:101-110 negi, s.s. and randhawa, g.s. 1974. improvement of grapes with spe cia l reference to tropical conditions of peninsular india. indian j. genetics, 34a:1268-1275 reddy, n.n. and shikhamany, s.d. 1990. comparative efficacy of spray and dip treatments with h2cn2 on bud-bre ak in ‘t homps on se e dles s’ grapevines under tropical indian conditions. gartenbauwissenchaft, 55(1):27-30 shikhamany, s.d. and manjunath, g.o. 1992. effect of hydrogen cyanamide and date of pruning on bud-break and subsequent shoot growth, yield and quality in ‘thompson seedless’ grape. proc. int’l. symp. on recent advances in viticulture and oenology, hyderabad (india), pp. 181-87 shulman, y., nir, g., fangerstein, l. and lavee, s. 1983. the effect of cyanamide on the release from dormancy of grapevine buds. scientia horticulturae, 19:97-104 turner, j.n. 1972. practical use of gibberellin in agric ulture and horticulture. outlook on agriculture, 1:14-20 williams, l.e. 1987. the effect of cyanamide on budbreak and vine development of ‘thompson seedless’ grapevines in the san joaquin valley of california. vitis, 26:107-13 winkler, a.j., cook, j.a., kliewer, w.m. and lider, l.a. 1974. general viticulture. university of california press, berkeley, usa,. pp. 138-96 & 338-70 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 131-142, 2017 shikhamany et al 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction tomato is a globally important vegetable crop and its cultivation is severly hampered by various pests and diseases including tomato leaf curl virus (tolcv). the losses due to infestation of tolcv often exceeds 90 per cent (varma and malathi, 2003; singh et al., 2015). majority of genomic studies relied on molecular markers and functional analysis of genes. in order to understand the structural and functional concept of genomic regions, it is important to employ highthroughput next generation sequencing technologies (barone et al., 2008; wang et al., 2018). rna sequencing also known as transcriptomics is one such technology that allows researchers to examine both known and unknown transcripts. non-coding rnas (ncrnas) are transcripts that are not part of proteincoding genes (wang et al., 2018). among them circular rnas (circrna) are diverse and unique family of endogenous non-coding rnas found in plant cells (wang et al., 2018). cir crnas a r e a bunda nt in the euka r yotic tra nscr iptome. their discovery a nd functiona l involvement in biological processes has opened up a new perspective so as to know how genomic regions interact in a variety of ways. however, their specific role is yet to be understood (zhang et al., 2020; litholdo et al., 2018). the majority of circrnas are conserved across species, although their expression varies according to tissue or developmental stage, as well as during biotic and abiotic stresses. circrnas interact with the transcriptional complex and influence the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression (zhang et al., 2020; shao et al., 2021). they regulate parent gene expression by acting identification of circular rnas in resistant tomato genotype in response to tolcbav infection bhavya c.1, dayanandhi e.2, sadashiva a.t.2#, krishna reddy m.2 and ravishankar k.v.2* 1 department of plant biotechnology, uas, gkvk, bengaluru 560 065, india 2* icarindian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india # present address-r & d, nethra crop sciences private limited-bangalore 562 127, india *corresponding author email : kv_ravishankar@yahoo.co.in abstract circular rnas (circrnas) are covalently closed non-coding rnas that play an important role in a variety of biological processes. circrna profiling helps to understand biological process associated with various abiotic and biotic stresses. in tomato genotype iihr2611 (resistant to tolcbav), a total of 193 circrnas were discovered, of which 72 and 121 were found in control (rc) and tolcbav inoculated (ri) plants respectively. among them, 103 (53 %) were exonic circrna regulating the expressions of their parent genes. relative expression of circrnas 2:45295638|45295796, 2:51520741|51530067 and 7:67566489|67566691 and their respective parent genes solyc02g080530.3 (peroxidase), solyc02g088950.2 (superoxide dismutase) and solyc07g065840.2.1 (heat shock protein 90) response to tolcbav infection were analysed at different time intervals. a significantly positive correlation was observed for the expression profiles of all three circrnas and their parent genes. furthermore, the differential expression across samples as well as time interval indicates that circrna mediated gene expression is involved in viral resistance. the results of the expression assays of both superoxide dismutase and peroxidase were consistent with enzyme analysis. overall findings demonstrated the importance of circrnas in tolcbavd resistance and suggested that circrnas could be key regulators of gene expression during disease resistance in tomato. keywords: circrnas, rna sequencing, tolcbavd resistance, tomato 2 bhavya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 as mirna sponges and rna binding proteins (rbp) sponges (hansen et al., 2013; ashwal-fluss et al., 2014; shao et al., 2021). their biogenesis competes with linear mrna splicing to target alternative splicing mechanism of gene regulation (shao et al., 2021). circrnas also regulate the translation of parental genes through interaction with trans-acting elements (shao et al., 2021). circrna were found to be differentially expressed during pathogen interaction in arabidopsis (sun et al., 2016; zhang et al., 2020), pathogen invasion in kiwi fruit (wang et al., 2017) and interaction with leaf curl virus in tomato (wang et al., 2018); they also have regulatory roles in response to cotton verticillium wilt and maize iranian mosaic virus (xiang et al., 2018; ghor ba ni et al. , 2018). however, ther e is no information on the involvement of circrna in tolcv tolerance in tomatoes. keeping this in view, the present study investigated the potential role of circrna in regulating tolcv resistance in tomato. using highthroughput sequencing technology and appropriate bioinformatic tools, we analysed transcriptome data and identified circrnas. abundance of circrnas, chromosome distribution and their corresponding genes were analysed and further the differential expression of few selected circrnas and their corresponding parent genes at different interval after tolcbav infection were analysed through gene expression studies. material and methods plant infection and rna sequencing tomato genotype (acc no. iihr 2611) resistant to tolcbav was grown under control green house conditions at icar-iihr, bengaluru. ten day old seedlings were inoculated with white fly (bemisia tabaci) carrying tolcbav. at 0, 3, 5, 9, 15 and 21 days post inoculation (dpi) lea f sa mples were collected. total rna from all the periods with three biological replications in each sample was isolated using rna iso-plus (takara, bio inc. japan). the quality of total rna was measured using nabi uv/vis nano spectrometer. total rna of control plants of all the intervals (0, 3, 5, 9, 15 and 21 dpi) were pooled as sample rc and total rna of infected plants of all the intervals (3, 5, 9, 15 and 21 dpi) were pooled as sample ri and sent for rna-sequencing at m/s eurofins genomics facility, bengaluru. the libraries were made from the pooled rna samples and sequenced on an illumina hiseq1500 sequencing platform with 150-bp paired-end reads following manufacturer ’s instructions. the raw reads were filtered to obtain the clean reads by removing reads containing adaptors and uncertain nucleotides n>10%, and also reads with low quality nucleotides (base quality <5 and q score <20%). the rna sequence data of both control and infected tomato (iihr 2611) was submitted to ncbi (srr 13493714). bioinformatic analysis to detect circrnas circplant is composed of four modules. based on total/polyarna sequencing reads, cireplant using bwa-mem software detects plant circrnas and the modified ciri2 (gao et al, 2015; gao et al, 2019; zhang et al., 2020). ciriexplore2 tool was used to identify circrnas with the following criteria: both ends of splice sites should be gu/ag; mismatch d” 2; back-spliced junctions reads e” 1; the distance between two splice sites d” 100 kb (zhang et al., 2016). the functional role of the parent genes of identified circrnas involved in viral resistance was ta ken fr om sol genomics networ k (https:// solgenomics.net) and also from other publications. validation of circrnas and their parent genes using qrt-pcr assay following the manufacturer’s instructions, cdna for rna samples of iihr-2611 at both control and infected conditions (0, 3, 9 and 15 dpi) with three biological replications were synthesized using hicdna synthesis kit (mol bio himedia: mbt076100r). qrt-pcr was performed in quantstudio 7 flex thermal cycler (applied biosystems) using the inter calation dye tb gr een premix ex taq ii (takara cat# rr820a). pcr mixture composition and data analysis were carried out as previously described (sorrequieta et al. 2010). pcr conditions were 30 sec at 95 °c and 40 cycles of 5 sec at 95 °c, 40 sec at 59 °c and 30 sec at 72 °c. a melting curve for every target analysed was included using the following conditions: 95 °c for 15 sec, 60 °c for 1 min, and 95 °c for 15 sec. primer sequence for circrna and their parent genes is listed in table 1. the relative expression level was calculated using the 2"δδct method (livak and schmittgen, 2000). each sample contains three biological replications and three technical replications. the housekeeping gene ef-1α (elongation factor-1α) was used to normalize the transcript levels in the rna samples (lacerda et al., 3 identification of circular rnas in resistant tomato genotype 2015). correlation was performed to mean values of log2 (fc) in excel to analyse relationship between circrna and their parent gene expression. antioxidant enzyme analysis in order to complement circrnas data, we examined sod (superoxide dismutase) and peroxidase (pox) activity, spectrophotometrically in control and infected plants following du and br amlage (1994) a nd chander, s. (1990) respectively. absorption was measured at 560 nm for sod and the increase in absorbance was measured at 450 nm up to 5 min at 1 min inter val for pox. enzyme a ctivity wa s expressed in unit/mg fw. the enzymes activity between control and tolcbav infected tomato samples with three replications were compared statistically by two factor analysis of variance (anova) using online sta tistica l softwa r e pa cka ge for agricultural research-opstat (sheoran et al., 1998). in all analyses, p < 0.05 was taken to indicate statistical significance and tukey’s hsd test was performed for multiple comparisons. results identification of circrnas in tolcbav infected resistant tomato genotype a total of 193 circrnas were identified in iihr2 6 11 genot yp e u s ing c ir c p la n t ( c ir c r n a identifier-ciri2 software (gao et al., 2015; gao et al . , 20 19 ), of which 5 8 wer e sp ec if ic a lly expressed in uninfected plant samples and 107 circrnas in tolcbav infected samples (fig. 1a). while 14 circrnas are common to both rc and ri conditions (fig.1a). the analysis of circrnas a c r os s c hr omos omes ( c hr. ) s howed t ha t a ll chromosomes harbour circrna. however, chr. 2 ha s ma x imum cir crnas both in cont r ol a nd infected conditions, accounting for 23.83 per cent of t ot a l c ir cr nas ident if ied (f ig. 1b). t he distribution of identified circrnas differs with chromosomes where, chr. 1, 4 and 6 had more circrnas in infected sample compared to control (fig. 1b). the results showed that circrnas were formed from various genomic regions. out of 193 total circrnas identified fr om both rc a nd ri, 103 (53 %) circrnas were generated from exonic region, four (2 %) circrnas were from intergenic region and 86 (45 %) circrnas are from other regions of the genome (fig. 1c). the circrnas length analysis showed that most of the exonic circrnas were up to 10kb and intergenic circrnas were <500bp (fig. 1d). a few parent genes of identified circrnas involved in vir us r esista nce includes sod (solyc02g088950.2) and pox (solyc02g080530.3) in chr. 2, zinc finger tr a nscr iption fa ctor 33 (solyc04g057990) and ariadne-like ubiquitin ligase (solyc04g079780) on chr. 4 a nd cha per onin (solyc01g028810) a nd cha per onin cpn60 (solyc01g028810) on chr. 1 (table 2). validation of tomato circrnas in response to tolcbav infection a total of 193 novel circrnas were discovered from control and tolcbav infected seedlings of the resistant genotype (iihr-2611). 108 of them were specific to infected samples induced due to viral infection. among them, we listed parent genes of circrnas based on their functional role in defence against biotic stress (table 2) and experimentally tested the predictions of their expressions using qrtpcr analysis. relative expression pattern of circrna and their parent genes was found to be significantly positively correlating across different interval of viral infection in all three genes with correlation coefficient of 0.89, 0.61 and 0.97 for 7:67566489|67566691 (hsp 90: solyc07g065840. 2. 1), 2:45295638| 45295796 (pox: solyc02g080530.3) and 2:51520741| 51530067 (sod: solyc02g088950.2 respectively (fig 2). the expression of sod gene (up to 6.0 log2fc) table 1 : list primers used in the study circrna_id circrna primer sequence 5 ‘-3’ corresponding gene primer sequence 5'-3' 2:45295638|45295796 f: tgcttggtctcacacattca f: ggaatcaacacccctggagtt (peroxide, pox) r: gcaagatgtataatgcgatggat r: acttctggatataaacggtgtaccaa 2:51520741|51530067 f: gcttgttcccaaatcctgca f: gcgacacttgaacttccttcct (superoxide dismutase) r: ttacccgagttccatccacc r: agcacttccccacagaataatttg 7:67566489|67566691 f: acatggagagaattatgaaggcc f: tatgaaggcacaggcacttagg (heat shock protein 90) r: tcaccttacacagtccctca r: atgatggagttctctgggttgatc 4 bhavya et al table 2 : list of a few identified circrnas with their parental genes circrna_id gene_id corresponding gene reference 1:41290623|41290915 solyc01g028810 chaperonin solgenomics 1:41290675|41291268 solyc01g028810 chaperonin cpn60 solgenomics 2:44939803|44947800 solyc02g080050.2 cysteine-rich receptor-like protein kinase 25 van et al., (2017) 2:45295638|45295796 solyc02g080530.3 peroxide, pox xue et al., (2020) 2:51520741|51530067 solyc02g088950.2 superoxide dismutase li et al., (2020) 4:55042616|55042849 solyc04g057990 zinc finger transcription factor 33 solgenomics 4:64205208|64205372 solyc04g079780 ariadne-like ubiquitin ligase solgenomics 6:39320133|39320546 solyc06g061200 glycine-rich protein padmanabhan et al., 2019 6:39320160|39320804 solyc06g061200.1 glycine-rich protein tomr2 padmanabhan et al., 2019 7:67566489|67566691 solyc07g065840.2.1 heat shock protein 90 tgrd 9:66931468|66931629 solyc09g074680.2.1 cullin 1b (ubiquitin-protein ligase activity) solgenomics 9:69558474|69566030 solyc09g084465.1 wound-induced proteinase inhibitor 1 fan et al., (2019) 11:40246227|40246508 solyc11g040050.2 tbp-associated factor 15 tomap fig. 1. identification and characterization of circrnas in response to tolcbav in a resistant tomato genotype. (a) number of circrnas identified in rc and ri. (b) circrnas distribution on each chromosome. (c) the number and percentage of circrnas originated from exon, intergenic and other genomic regions. (d). percent distribution of exonic, intergenic and other circrnas across chromosomes. (e) classification of circrnas based on length range. 5 identification of circular rnas in resistant tomato genotype fig. 2: expression profiling of tolcbav resistant genotype for circrnas and their corresponding parent genes at different days post infection. the data were normalized to elongation factor-1, presented as the means (standard error, n = 3, three biological replicates, correlation coefficient r=0.89, 0.61 and 0.97 for hsp 0, pox, and sod respectively). and its circrna (up to 5.63 log2fc) was significantly higher during early stages of infection whereas, gene hsp 90 (up to 14.92 log2fc) and its corresponding circrna (up to 7.17 log2fc) expression was higher during later stages of viral infection (nine and 21 dpi) (fig. 2). while, the gene pox relative expression was up to 5.34 log2fc and that of its circrna was up to 8.38 log2fc (fig. 2). the enzyme analysis done to support the circrnas data showed that tolcbav infection had significantly altered the enzymatic activity of pox and sod in resistant tomato (fig. 3). the uninfected tomato plants had lower pox and sod activity compared to those infected plants in all five intervals and this difference was probably due to the presence of the virus. in infected samples, the pox activity was highest at 9 and 21 dpi followed by both five and 15 dpi, while the sod activity was significantly higher at three and five dpi followed by nine and decreased at 21 dpi. the difference in sod and pox activity between the intervals to be more pronounced was likely due to the presence of virus. these relative expression results were in accordance with the enzyme analysis of both sod and pox at respective day intervals and provide some insights into the important role of circrnas association with antioxidant enzymes in disease response against tolcbav in resistant plant. these findings point out to a possible functional role for circrnas in plant defence against viral infection. discussion circrnas are covalently closed non-coding rna molecules. they pr edomina ntly comprising of exonic sequences and are spliced at canonical splice sites and wer e fir st discover ed in huma ns a nd mouse, although they are found in all eukaryotes ( s a lz ma n, 2 0 1 6 ) . us e of hight hr ou ghp u t sequencing technologies and in silico analyses, have reported the circrnas-mediated gene regulation in plant immune system (litholdo et al., 2018). in tomato plants, circrnas identification have been per formed on tomato fruit r ipening (yin et al. 2018), tomato fruit coloration (hong et al., 2020), fruit pigment accumulation (yang et al., 2020), responsive to phytophthora infestans (zhou et al., 2 0 2 0 ), t yl c v inf ec t ion a nd t oma t o lea ves responding to multiple stresses of drought and heat (ta n et al. , 20 17) a nd a lso low temper a tu r e tr ea t ments (ya ng et al. 2 020). in this stu dy, identification of circrnas in tomato genotype resistant to tolcbav wa s examined and their functions in response to virus infection process are discussed. in our study, a total 121 circrnas were generated from diverse genomic regions across all chromosomes in response to viral infection. our result showed that chr 1, 2, 4 and 6, had a greater number of induced circrnas (fig. 1b). few of them were involved in defence response (table 2). similar results were found where chromosome 01 had the most circrnas from susceptible tomato in response to tylcv (wang et al. 2018) and in response to multiple stresses of drought and heat (zhou et al., 2020). chr. 4 and chr. 6 harbour tylcv resistance loci ty-5 (hutton et al., 2012) and ty-1/3 respectively (dong et al., 2016) and 6 induced circrnas on chr. 4 and 6 might be having the regulatory roles on these resistance genomic regions. circrnas are mainly located at exons of genes, but scarcely distributed at introns or intergenic regions (zuo et al. 2016; yang et al. 2020). similar pa tter n wa s obser ved in our exper iment tha t circrnas were generated from various genomic regions and out of 193 total circrnas identified from both rc and ri, 103 (53 %) were from exonic region (fig 1c). similar trend was observed when the circrnas (62 % from exonic region) were analysed in susceptible tomato (wang et al. 2018). t he expr essions of exonic cir crnas wer e significantly correlated with the expressions of parent genes (ye et al., 2015; wang et al., 2018). in our study, we observed a significant positive correlation between relative expression of selected circrnas and their parent genes (correlation coefficient r=0.89, 0.61 and 0.97 for hsp 0, pox, and sod respectively) (fig. 2). hsp90 function through 26s proteasome mediated proteolytic machinery in eukaryotic cells (sadanandom et al., 2012). due to decrease in the degradation of the tylcv protein v2 by the 26s proteasome, silencing of hsp90 led to enhanced accumulation of tylcv cp and dna levels as infection develops (moshe et al., 2016). there is a significa nt positive cor r ela tion between 7:67566489|67566691 circrnas and its parent gene solyc07g065840.2.1 (hsp90) (fig. 2). tylcv infection enhances defence mechanism through the activity of the antioxidant’s enzymes, i.e., sod, cat, ppo and pox in tomato (dieng et al., 2011; sofy et al., 2017). the corresponding biochemical activity of pox and sod was in similar trend with the circrna expression across different intervals after tolcbav infection (fig. 2 and 3). circrnas in plants are differentially expressed both spatially and temporally in plants, acting as important functional modulators involved in biological processes (pan et al., 2018; wang et al., 2016; zhou et al., 2017). circrnas (slcirc017 parent gene) regulated tylcv infection in susceptible plant and the silencing of its parent gene (solyc01g080200.2) resulted in decreased tylcv virus accumulation (wang et al., 2018). in this study also differential expression of circrna parent genes (solyc02g088950.2 and solyc02g080530.3) was observed between control and infected conditions at different intervals (fig. 2). the results indicate that the circrnas2:51520741| 51530067 and 2:45295638|45295796 positively influence the plant response to disease through genes involved in ros scavenging enzymes (sod and pox) providing some insights into the role of circrnas in a ssocia tion with a ntioxida nt enzymes a ga inst tolcbav. the increasing activity of peroxidase after virus infection (fig. 2 and 3) might be due to structural defence of peroxidase which was known to perform polymerization, suberization, cell wall elongation, controlling virus multiplication and wounding (bahar et al., 2020). tylcv infection enhances the activity sod and pox and further these enzymes activate the plant defence mechanisms (dieng et al., 2011; sofy et al., 2017). circrnas analysed in this study might be acting as mirna sponges and functioning through mirna bhavya et al fig. 3: response of sod and pox activity in iihr-2611 to tolcbav infection. bar charts of different colour and with different letters are significantly different (p < 0.05, f = 1.702, df = 18, p = 0.021 for pox and f = 3.75, df = 18, p = 0.021) based on tukey’s hsd test. data presented as means ± se (n = 3) 7 involved regulatory pathways or any of the other transcriptional, translational and posttranslational regulation mechanisms mentioned above. furthermore, the precise mechanism by which circrnas regulate parent gene expression need to be investigated by identification of mirna targets for the parent genes, in order to determine whether circrnas acting via mirna mediated pathway or circrnas directly acting as parent gene regulator at transcription and translational level. the association between circrnas and interacting mirnas was induced using the rice transgenic plants developed using agroinfection of rice calli with circrnas expression cassette (sharma et al., 2021). there are various methods like artificial mirna-mediated circrna knockdown, gain-offunction study, full-length circrna identification followed by circrna-protein interaction (feng and yu, 2021) to study and characterize the biological function of identified circrnas. conclusion circrnas are emerging as a key player in rna mediated gene regulation, having roles in several biological processes at both transcriptional and posttranscriptional stages. many new studies on circrna profiling to diverse stresses found that the exonic circrnas positively regulates the expressions of their parent genes. this is the first report on circrnas for tolcbav resistance and we found a positive correlation between few circrnas and their parent genes. we hypothesised that these circrnas must be acting as mirna sponges and as regulators of mirna mediated pathways in positively regulating their parental genes or acting as regulatory check points at transcription and translational level of parent gene expression. circrnas mediated regulation of some of their parent genes were found to be involved in host defence 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biochem. biophys. res. commun., 479:132-138. identification of circular rnas in resistant tomato genotype 59 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 59-64, 2017 effect of ga3 and fungicide at colour-break stage for extension of bearing period and shelf-life in khasi mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco.) s. r. singh*, a. k. phurailatpam and siddhartha singh college of horticulture & forestry, central agricultural university, pasighat 791 102 arunachal pradesh, india * e-mail: romensenjam@yahoo.com abstract the effect of ga3 of different concentrations along with fungicide was investigated on ten year old trees of khasi mandarin to study the extension of bearing period and its post harvest shelf life the year, 2014-2015. fruits on the tree at colour break stage were sprayed with seven concentrations of 10, 15, 25, 30, 35, 40 and 45 ppm of ga3 each along with the fungicide (carbendazim 1g/l of water) and the control (no ga3 and fungicide). among the different treatments, optimum fruit retention (237 fruits/tree) was observed in t5 (ga3@30ppm + fungicide i.e carbendazim 1g/l of water) as compared to control (162 fruits/tree) and also extended the harvesting period for about 18.3 days in t 7 (ga3@45ppm + fungicide i.e carbendazim 1g/l of water) which is at par with t5 and t6 (18 days). besides, imposition of ga3 and fungicide at colour break stage also minimized the physiological loss in weight, spoilage loss, shriveling and thus, extended the post harvest shelf life of the fruits of about one week as compared to control under the room temperature. key words : khasi mandarin, ga3, fungicide, fruit retention introduction citrus is an important fruit crop which ranks third in production and occupies 12.5% of the total fruit crops production in india. among the citrus group, mandarin orange (citrus reticulata blanco.) is one among the most common among citrus fruits grown in india. it occupies nearly 50% of the total citrus area in india (anon, 2014). in the north east region of india (assam, arunachal pradesh, manipur, tripura and meghalaya), an ecotype of mandarin called khasi mandarin occupied an important place among the other varieties of mandarin orange. in arunachal pradesh, which is known for its organic khasi mandarin production it is facing problems. further, fruits mature and ripe during the period of nov-dec months (peak period for khasi mandarin under pasighat condition). due to the harvesting of all the fruits at one peak period and relatively short harvest period, there is low price of the crop value resulting low income to the khasi mandarin growers. besides, improper storage facilities, after the harvesting of it result in a glut in the market. however, such post ha r vest loss ca n be minimized through storing for a longer period at temperature of 5-70c with relative humidity 85-90% for about 4-8 weeks in the cold storage or with the application of growth regulator (ga3), its bearing per iod ca n be ex tended s o tha t ther e will be minimization of glut in the market. therefore, the pr esent r esea r ch wa s init ia ted to ex plor e the potential of growth regulators in extension of its bea r ing p er iod a nd imp r oving the ha r vesting management in khasi mandarin under the pasighat condition. information regarding application of plant growth regulators like ga3 are still lacking in east siang district of arunachal pradesh. keeping the view and considering the need of fruit retention during the bearing period and to increase the profit among the mandarin growers, the present research was initiated to explore the potential of growth regulators for extension of bearing period and better shelf life of khasi mandarin under the pasighat condition of arunachal pradesh, india. original research paper 60 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 59-64, 2017 singh et al material and methods the present investigations were carried out at the at bodak village under east siang district of arunachal pradesh (fig.1.a) during the year 2014treated plant was supplemented with 450:450:900g n: p: k/plant/year in two split doses. first split dose of the recommended dose of fertilizer of total p and k fertilizers along with half of nitrogen fertilizer was applied in one time at march-april along with a light irrigation after fruit setting and the remaining half of the recommended dose of nitrogen was applied during june-july. before the fruit drop was anticipated to begin, all the fruits on the ground under the trees were removed. at the time of counting, dropped fruits were classified as sound or unsound. sound fruit had no visible signs of injury or infection and unsound fruit had visible injury or pathological infection which we assumed induced by abscission. the statistical analysis of the data on the mean values of individual characters was analyzed using m stat software. results and discussion the effect of different concentrations of ga3 along with fungicide showed significant influence in the extension of bearing period and better shelf life as compared to control without effecting its fruit quality (tables 1, 2 and 3). it was observed that the maximum extension of bearing period (18 days) was observed in t5 and t6 (18 days) and t7 (18.3 days) whereas the earliest fruit ripening was recorded in control (t9) (50.6 days) after the initiation of colour break stage. stewart and hield (1950) reported that the fall of mature fruit was characterized mainly by alterations in the cellular walls in the zone abscission, localized at the peduncle and that the main action of plant growth regulators in the fall of ripe fruit was that of reducing the weakening of the cellular wall material in this region, reducing the fall of fruit (fig.1.b). besides, monselise and goren fig.1. (a) experiment site, bodak village, a.p. 2015 to evaluate the different concentration of ga3 for the extension of bearing period in the tree. the average altitude of the sites of the experiment are about 155 m msl and represent a subtropical, hot and humid climate; in the lower valleys, summer temperatures in june, july, and august typically rise to a b ou t 3 0 o c, while winter t emper a t ur es in december, january, and february usually drops to 13°c. annual rainfall in the state averages about 130 inches (3,300 mm), mostly between april and september. the details of the eight treatments are t1: ga3@10ppm + carbendazim 1g/l, t2: ga3@ 15ppm + carbendazim 1g/l, t 3:ga3@25ppm + carbendazim 1g/l, t4:ga3@30ppm + carbendazim 1g/l, t 5: ga3 @35ppm + car benda zim 1g/l, t 6:g a 3 @ 4 0 p p m + c a r b enda z im 1 g/ l , t 7:ga3@45ppm + ca r benda zim 1g/l a nd t 8 : control. the pgr ga3 sprayed at colour break stage during september months and the extension of bearing period was evaluated by counting the average fruit retention / branche before spraying a t sep tember mont h a s initia l r ea ding (equa l average fruit number/tree) and counted average fruits/br anche at november to observ the fr uit retention and its extension of bearing period. finally, the number of fruits/tree at harvesting stage (last week of nov) was counted for each treatment for the evaluation for better fruit retention/tree and also evaluated for its fruit quality parameters. every fig.1. (b) fruits drop in control plant 61 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 59-64, 2017 extension of bearing period and shelf-life in khasi mandarin ta bl e 1: f ru it re te nt io n of k ha si m an da ri n fo r di ff er en t g a 3 co m bi na tio n tr ea tm en ts ta bl e 2: p hy si ca l p ar am et er s o f k ha si m an da ri n fo r di ff er en t g a 3 co m bi na tio n tr ea tm en ts 62 singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 59-64, 2017 (1978) also reported that the spraying of auxins and ga3 prevented the dropping of fruit by maintaining the cells at the zone of abscission, preventing the synthesis of hydrolitic enzymes, such as cellulose, which decomposed the cell walls. the trees which are treated with ga3 and fungicide were better in the retention of the green chlorophyll pigment of the fruit and extended the bearing period on the tree. besides, fungicide spray during the colour break stage helped in reducing the fungal infection of the mature fruits, resulting in more fruits retention as compared to control. babu et al. (1984) in acid lime and greenburg et al., (1986) in clementine mandarin also reported that application of ga3 at colour break stage increase fruit yield as well a s delay in ha r vest. t his might be due to the enhancement of vegetative growth and preventing the degreening process of the fruit by the ga3 spray which in turn direct improvement in carbohydrate metabolism resulting in better size of the fruit. the application of ga3 and fungicide at the colour break stage also increased the fruit retention and minimized the fruit drop resulting in more number of fruits/tree of 63% at t5 (237 fruits/tree) which are at par with 61% of fruit retention in t6, t7 & t8 showing 215 fruits/tree in t8, 209 fruits/tree in t7 and 202 fruits/tree in t8 respectively. moreover, a study conducted by lakshmi et al., 2014 revealed that increase in yield and yield components of acid lime by ga3 spray was attributed to synthesis of chlorophyll from source to sink. the physical parameters like fruit length, fruit breadth, fruit weight, peel weight, pulp weight juice content, number of seeds/fruit were significantly improved by the application of ga3, however nonsignificant improvement was found in peel thickness (table 2). this can be attributed to nature of gibberellins in cell elongation which makes better size of fruits, correspondingly it increases fruit weight which certainly affect the fruit juice content. the results are in line with the findings of many workers ratnababu et al., (1984) in pant lemon-1, lakshmi et al., (2014) in acid lime a s well a s reddy a nd pr a sa d (2012) in pomegranate with the application of ga3. analytical investigation with different treatments of ga3 along with fungicide at colour break stage (fig. 1.c) revealed that the parameters like tss, reducing sugar, vitamin c, chlorophyll content were significantly but improved there was non-significant improvement ta bl e 3. q ua lit y pa ra m et er s o f k ha si m an da ri n fo r di ff er en t g a 3 c om bi na tio n tr ea tm en t 63 extension of bearing period and shelf-life in khasi mandarin j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 59-64, 2017 fig.1. (c) application of ga3 and fungicide fig.1. (d) colour break stage in acidity and total sugar content of the fruit after the imposition of ga3 and fungicide application at colour break stage (fig. 1.d). besides, shelf-life was also found to improve significantly under the average room temperature of 20.50c and average relative humidity of 72 % after the imposition of treatment without affecting the fruit quality (table 3). the results are in line with the findings of parthiban et al., (2010); debaje et al., (2011) and (lakshmi et al., 2014) who reported ga3 increased quality of acid lime fruits by stimulating the functioning of enzymes involved in physiological processes moreover it might be due to more chlorophyll content resulting extension of bearing period of the tree with ga3 (fig.1.e) resulting in higher accumulation of metabolites synthesis which makes improvement of the fruit quality parameters after the imposition of the treatment. besides, the normal harvesting period of the khasi mandarin was winter period hence, they could kept under the room temperature for a long period (fig.1.f) however, there was fungal infection after 5th fig.1. (e) extension of bearing in the tree day onwards (table 3). it was also reported that fungicide spray of carbendazim one month before harvest prolong the storage period under the room condition by minimizing the fungal infection of the fruits resulting in the prolonged in shelf-life of the fruit (ladaniya, 1997). from the investigation, it is concluded that the combination ga3 and fungicide i.e. carbendazim@ 1g/ l of water helped in the extension of the bearing period in the tree and also extended the post harvest shelf life of the fruits under the room condition for a week more than the control which will help in the controlling of glut in the market during the peak harvest season of khasi mandarin. therefore, application of ga3 @ 30 ppm along with fungicide (carbendazim 1g/l of water) can be recommended to the citrus grower which will help in minimizing the spoilage of the fruit in the peak harvest season and increases the profit to the citrus growing farmers. fig.1. (f) better shelf life after treatment 64 references anonymous 2014. all india area and production of fruits and vegetables. indian horticulture database, national horticulture board, ministry of agriculture, govt. of india. pp. 50. (http.//www.nhb.gov.in). babu, r.s.h., rajput, c.b.s. and rath, s. 1984. effect of zinc, 2,4-d and ga3 on fruiting of kagzi lime (citrus aurant if ol ia swi n gl e). indi an journal of horticulture, 41(3/4): 216-220. debaje, p., ekta, p., shine, d. and ingle, h.v. 2011. effect of plant growth regulators and nutrients on quality of acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle). the asian journal of horticulture. 6(1): 253-255. greenburg, j., monselise, s.p. and goldschmidt, e.e. 1986. effect of ingestion of ga3 and ccc into citrus trees. acta horticulture, 179 (i): 283-286. ladaniya, m.s. 1999. response of nagpur mandarin fruit to pre-harvest spray of gibberellic acid and carbendazim. indian journal of horticulture, 54 (3): 205-212. lakshmi, l.m., ramana, k.t.v., krishna, v.n.p.s., yuvaraj, k.m., lakshmi, t.n., sarada, g.t., sankar, t.g., gopi, v. and gopal, k. 2014. effect of growth regulators and chemicals on fruit yield and quality of hasta bahar flowering in acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle) cv. balaji. journal of agriculture and allied sciences, 3(3): 11-13. monselise sp and goren r 1978. the role of internal factors and exogenous control in flowering, peel growth, and abscission in citrus. hortscience, 13, 134-139. parthiban, s., saraswathy, s., indra, n., samundeeswari, a.v., rani, b.u. and selvarajan, m. 2010. problems and prospectus of citrus production in india with special reference to acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle) cultivation in karnataka. proceeding of national seminar on “citrus biodiversity for livelihood and nutritional security” october 4-5, 2010, nrc, citrus, nagpur, maharastra. pp. 344-349 ratnababu, g.h.v. lavaniya, m.l. and misra, k.k. 1984. effect of plant growth regulator on yield and physiochemical composition of pant lemon-1 (citrus limon burm .) fruits in the off season flush. progressive horticulture, 16(3-4): 191-198. reddy, p.a. and prasad, d.m. 2012. effect of plant growth r egul a tor s on fr ui t ch a ra ct er s an d yi el d of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cv. ganesh. international journal of plant, animal and environmental science, 2(2): 91-93. stewart, w.s. and hield, h.z. 1950. effects of 2,4dich l or ophen oxya cet i c a ci d a n d 2, 4, 5trichlorophenoxyacetic acid on fruit drop, fruit production, and leaf drop of lemon trees. proceeding american society horticulture science, 55, 163-171. (ms received 16 september 2016, revised 13 april 2017, accepted 04 may 2017) singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 59-64, 2017 acknowledgement the authors like to render gratefulness to the college of horticulture & forestry, central agricultural university for funding the research work under the irp project scheme. 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction pseudoperonospora cubensis is the oomycete pathogen responsible for cucurbit downy mildew it ca n infect ma ny cucur bits such a s canta loupe, pumpkin, watermelon, and squash, but cucumber is particularly susceptible. in the united states, use of resistant cucurbit va rieties wa s an effective means of control of downy mildew until 2004. since then, effective control has depended upon chemical fungicides in addition to planting resistant varieties (savory et al., 2011). p. cubensis is spread by means of aerially dispersed sporangia. when viable sporangia land on a host leaf, they germinate in moisture on the leaf ’s surface producing biflagellate zoospores that encyst in stoma where a germ tube is formed that penetrates the leaf’s surface through the stoma. hyphae form in the mesophyll layer a nd pr oduce cla va te-br anched haustoria in the host’s cells. when sporulation is triggered, sporangiophores emerge through stomates bearing sporangia at their tips. when released, these sporangia are carried by the wind and the life cycle repeats at the next site. both visible light and ultraviolet (uv) energy have been reported to reduce the viability of fungal spores (rotem et al., 1985; kanetis et al., 2010). uv has been particularly effective for controlling powdery mildew (patel et al., 2020; skinner et al., 2020; onofr e et al. , 2021). unlike powder y mildew however, downy mildew spores are darkly pigmented with melanin (lee et al., 2021), a strong absorber of effectiveness of the field application of uv-c for cucumber downy mildew control skinner n.p., rea m.s.* and bullough j.d. light and health research center, icahn school of medicine at mount sinai, albany, ny, usa *corresponding author email : mark.rea@mountsinai.org abstract there is growing interest in the application of ultraviolet (uv-c) energy to control crop pathogens. in the present study, the efficacies of uv-c treatments for controlling cucumber downy mildew (pseudoperonospora cubensis) were investigated on a commercial farm in eastern massachusetts, usa. controlled doses of uv-c, delivered by a tractor-mounted array of sources, between 120 and 480 j·m-2 were applied and compared to conventional fungicide treatments as well as to untreated controls, for each of two consecutive years (2020 and 2021). visual assessments of foliar disease severity in the trial plots were made several times from planting through the end of productive life. in contrast to the successful control of powdery mildew, the uv-c treatments for controlling cucumber downy mildew were not as successful as conventional fungicides. none of the uv-c treatments affected the overall progression rate of downy mildew once the disease became apparent, although disease onset was delayed slightly compared to untreated controls. this delay may have been due to uv-c induced resistance to infection by the host. unlike powdery mildews, downy mildew spores from p. cubensis are darkly pigmented, possibly decreasing the efficacy of the uv-c treatments for controlling the disease. dm spores may also be only susceptible to uv exposure prior to encysting in the leaves of the host, thereby perhaps limiting the window of opportunity when uv-c treatments can be effective. although not the primary focus of this study, the use of reflective mulch appeared to delay disease onset relative to black mulch in fields with significant sunlight exposure, perhaps due to lowering plant stress by maintaining a lower soil temperature. keywords : crop pathogens, cucurbits, downy mildew and ultraviolet energy 425 effectiveness of the field application of uv-c for cucumber downy mildew control j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 uv (meredith and sarna, 2006), which reduces the potential for damage from natural uv solar energy (cordero and casadevall, 2017). uv energy can be classified into three bands, uv-a (315-400 nm), uv-b (280-315 nm) and uv-c (100280 nm). sunlight reaching the surface of the earth is limited to the longer uv wavelengths, and the amount and spectrum depends upon weather, latitude, and season. uv energy in all three bands can be produced by electric sources. today, low pressure discharge sources are the most common; however, led sources will undoubtedly displace them in the next few years. uv energy can inactivate viruses, bacteria, and fungi through several different mechanisms (nelson et al., 2018). uv-c in the range of 250 to 270 nm acts directly on nucleic acids (rna and dna) within the cell (nelson et al., 2018). when a uv photon is absorbed, the molecular strands become broken and dimers (molecular lesions) are formed. these dimers, typically thymine dimers, prevent cellular replication unless repaired (kneuttinger et al., 2013). in fact, every organism has nucleic acid repair mechanisms. uv-c can also induce secondary reactions within the cell when a photon is absorbed by an endogenous chromophore and subsequently produces free radicals which, in turn, breakdown one or more vital cellular functions. uv-b and uv-a can also induce these secondary reactions. generally, the longer the uv wavelength, the higher the dose needed to induce secondary endogenous photocatalytic inactivation. secondary ina ctivation can a lso occur through exogenous photocatalysis. photocatalysts like tio2, with moisture, will also produce free radicals that can kill bacteria and fungi by damaging cell walls, thus disrupting their permeability (ramesh et al., 2016). most plants and their obligate parasites have evolved mechanisms that limit cellular damage from natural uv (sancar, 1994; cordero and casadevall, 2017). pigmentation that absorbs uv energy and then dissipates it as heat is one protective mechanism, minimizing damage to dna. pigmentation can also reduce the number of photons available for absorption by chromophores within the cell that might initiate lethal, secondary reactions. melanin is the most widely recognized putative protective pigment in fungi (cordero and casadevall, 2017), with high absorption throughout the uv spectrum (meredith and sarna, 2006). unlike powdery mildew fungi that are devoid of melanin (suthaparan et al., 2012), some downy mildew sporangia such as p. cubensis (lee et al., 2021) have high concentrations of protective melanin. pm incorporates a different protective mechanism that entails upregulating a photoactivated (short visible wavelength) repair mechanisms for uv-induced cellular damage (sancar, 1994). uv treatments have been particularly successful for mitigating obligate powdery mildew in a variety of crops (rose, strawberry, cucumber, etc.). of particular note, nighttime applications of uv have been shown to be more efficient than daytime applications at similar doses (suthaparan et al., 2012). as noted above, powdery mildew has a short-wavelength sensitive repair mechanism which works quite well for pathogen survival because visible light is always in the same solar spectrum as uv. by providing only nighttime uv-c exposure, the powdery mildew pathogen has no access to its short-wavelength repair mechanisms. through field trials, it has been shown that uv-c doses at night between 100 j.m-2 and 200 j.m-2 can be more effective and less expensive than conventional fungicides for limiting the proliferation of powdery mildew (onofre et al., 2021). in the present study we wanted to learn more about the effects of uv-c on mitigating cucurbit downy mildew. rotem et al. (1985) exposed three different types of spores with increasing pigment density to short wavelength uv energy. not surprisingly, they found that the spores with higher pigment density were less sensitive to the effects of uv exposure. based on these findings, we expected that uv-c doses higher than those applied to control powdery mildew would likely be needed to be effective because of high concentrations of protective pigment in downy mildew spores. of some concern, we wanted to determine whether uv-c doses higher than those previously used might reduce yield from the host plant. to further our understanding of the potential for uv-c to control downy mildew, we added a uv-reflecting mulch to the study. the reflective mulch would not only increase the effective dose but would also redistribute the uvc to surfaces otherwise in shadow. in addition to better understanding the direct effects of uv-c on controlling downy mildew, we also wanted to see if there was evidence for uv-induced resistance to infection by the host (kunz et al., 2008; paul et al., 2012), the idea being uv-c exposure prior to the presence of downy mildew in the field might reduce either the severity or 426 skinner et al delay the onset time of infection. additionally, since p. cubensis sporangia may only be susceptible to uv treatment prior to encysting in host leaves, both onceand twice-weekly treatments using different uv doses were investigated. materials and methods uv-c treatment device a tractor three-point hitch mounted uv-c treatment attachment (aka the “dragon”) was designed to treat one crop row at a time. the unit consisted of an array of six 300 w uv-c fixtures [four uv-c lamps (tuv75w/ho, philips) per fixture, each fixture powered by 2 two-lamp ballasts (pure volt iuv2s60-m4-ld, philips/adva nce)], which wer e arranged in a hemi-cylindrical manner arching over the row of plants (fig. 1). the power to operate the light fixtures was provided by a n on-boa rd gasoline powered inverter generator (igen 2600, westinghouse outdoor power equipment). vinyl curtains with a uv reflective foil tape (76145a62, mcmaster-carr) applied to the inner side were installed on both ends of the enclosure to help contain the uv-c within the treatment attachment and to redirect it back into the unit. since the output of the uv-c array is fixed, prescribed dose levels were obtained by varying the speed of the tractor over the crop. the speeds required to achieve the specific doses were verified by driving the uv-c attachment over an integrating uv-c logger.a ground speed of approximately 4.0 km·hr-1(2.5 mph) was required to achieve 120 j·m-2 and 2.0 km·hr-1(1.25 mph) to achieve 240 j·m-2. the 480 j·m-2 dose level was achieved by making two passes at the 240 j·m-2 ground speed. the uv-c logger used was designed and built by the research team. it consisted of a uv-c detector and a microcomputer housed in a weather resistant housing with the detector located under a uv transparent window. the microcomputer recorded the output of the uv-c detector to a memory chip once every 10 ms. the duration and amount of uv-c irradiance incident on the detector was used to compute dose. plastic mulch black (biotelo, heartnut grove inc.) and reflective mulch (brookdale farm supplies) were used to make the beds in the study plots. the reflectance of both mulch types was measured at 254 nm and 436 nm to determine their reflectance of uv-c and a short visible wavelength (table 1). fig. 1 : (left) cutaway end view of the uv-c enclosure showing placement of the fixtures. (right) uv-c treatment attachment mounted to a tractor and shown positioned over an unplanted row. table 1 : reflectance at two wavelengths of the black and the reflective mulches mulch type reflectance 254 nm 436 nm reflective 66% 75% black 5% 1% year 1 field trials the focus of the first-year field trial was to identify a comb ina tion of uv dos e a nd f r equenc y of a pplica tion tha t wa s effective for contr olling cucurbit downy mildew without negatively affecting yield. in a ddition, we wished to eva lua te the efficacy of uv dosing for mitigating downy mildew with uv-reflective mulch relative to black mulch. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 427 three levels of uv dose (120 j·m-2, 240 j·m-2, and 480 j·m-2) were selected and each of these doses wer e a p p lied once or t wic e weekly ( i. e. , on mondays and thursdays). all uv treatments and untreated control plots were duplicated on standard bla ck pla stic mulch and uv r eflective pla stic mulch, accor ding to the field study la yout in fig. s1 (supplimentary data). additionally, plots tr ea ted with the fa rm’s conventional fungicide program were included in the study to benchmark the performance of uv-c only treatments. the conventiona l f ungicide tr ea tment s f or downy mildew a p p l ied du r ing t he yea r 1 t r ia l a r e summarized in table 2. the various dose/frequency combinations were distributed throughout the black a nd r ef lec t ive mu lc h b loc ks s u c h t ha t no combination was replicated in adjacent rows. the cucumber variety raider f1 (harris seed) was used for the first year ’s field trial, since it is not a downy mildew resistant variety and was the choice of the producer. raider f1 does have resistance to scab, and intermediate resistance to angular leaf spot and cucumber mosaic virus. a cooperative extension agent performed the downy mildew severity ratings by visually assessing the percentage of leaf area covered in downy mildew les ions ( ev idenc ed b y yellowing , nec r os is , sporulation) within the whole plot. individual leaf inspections were then conducted on 10 leaves per plot by inspecting both the upper and lower leaf surfaces, to ensure the extension agent was looking carefully at leaf symptoms and not attributing leaf yellowing to downy mildew without evidence of sporulation. year 2 field trials the focus of the second-year trial was to compare the downy mildew control efficacy of the best uv-c only condition from the year 1 field study, the grower ’s conventional fungicide program, and a combination of both treatment types. the treatments used were: (1) uv-c only (480 j·m-2) twice weekly, (2) weekly conventional fungicide, (3) fungicide weekly plus uvc twice weekly and (4) fungicide every other week plus uv-c twice weekly. the third treatment was included to determine if the addition of uv-c to the conventional weekly fungicide program would offer additional control beyond the conventional fungicide program alone. the fourth condition, added at the suggestion of the participating extension agent, was effectiveness of the field application of uv-c for cucumber downy mildew control table 2 : summary of conventional fungicide applications for dm during the year 1 trial; products listed as dm / pm are labeled for treatment of both downy and powdery mildew. date product rate purpose 07/13/2020 rampart 3.27 l·ha-1 dm initiate 2.34 l·ha-1 dm/pm 07/22/2020 curzate 0.51 l·ha-1 dm 07/29/2020 rampart 3.27 l·ha-1 dm 08/04/2020 omega 500f 1.32 l·ha-1 dm 08/13/2020 rampart 3.27 l·ha-1 dm oxidate 5.0 2.34 l·ha-1 dm/pm 08/09/2020 ranman 0.18 l·ha-1 dm 08/06/2020 omega 500f 1.32 l·ha-1 dm 09/01/2020 rampart 3.27 l·ha-1 dm oxidate 5.0 2.34 l·ha-1 dm/pm 09/08/2020 orondis ultra 0.58 l·ha-1 dm oxidate 5.0 1.40 l·ha-1 dm/pm ranman 0.18 l·ha-1 dm 09/16/2020 rampart 3.27 l·ha-1 dm oxidate 5.0 1.40 l·ha-1 dm/pm j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 included to determine if downy mildew control could be maintained by adding uv-c treatments while reducing the amount of conventional fungicide applications.the conventional fungicide treatments for downy mildew applied during year 2 are summarized in table 3. each condition was replicated in two rows on both black and uv reflective mulch, for a total of four replications for each treatment. the last 4.5 m (15 feet) of one row was devoted to a control condition with no fungicide or uv-c treatment. the layout for this field study is shown in fig. s2 (supplimentary data) the cucumber variety raider f1 (harris seeds) was used again for the second year of the trial. each row was divided into ten sections (fig. s2) and assessments of percentage foliar downy mildew severity were made within each of the 10 sections to increase the sample size within each row. assessments were performed visually within a square quadrat with 61 cm (24 inch) sides, placed randomly within each of the ten row sections using the same methodology used in the first year. the top and bottom sides of leaves within the quadrat were inspected to verify that the symptoms were consistent with downy mildew in the same manner as yea r 1. assessments were performed by a farm staff member trained to scout 428 earlier in the year, on august 3rd, when disease severity values ranged from 0.1% to 1%. during the next set of observations on august 11th, disease severity values ranged from 1.5% to 12%; similar to the initial disease observations in year 1. since these two observations in year 2 occurred 8 days apart and since salcedo et al. (2020) reported a range of 8 days during which initial disease observations could be made following infection, august 18th in year 1 and august 11th in year 2 were defined as 12 days after infection, and august 3rd in year 2 was defined as 4 days after infection. year 1 field data fig. 2 shows the observed foliar disease severity values for each treatment and control condition, when black mulch was used, and fig. 3 shows the corresponding data for reflective mulch. each point in figs. 2 and 3 is a single observation for the onceweekly doses or the average of two observations for the twice-weekly doses. the conventional fungicide program in year 1 was only applied with the black mulch, so that condition is omitted from fig. 3. cucurbit downy mildew by cooperative extension agents. results and discussion the sets of data from the year 1 and year 2 field trials were analyzed in two ways. first, the area under the disease progress stairs (audps) method (simko and piepho, 2012) was used to provide a composite index of the relative impact of each treatment and control condition on disease progression throughout the a ssessment per iod in ea ch yea r. second, the instantaneous foliar disease severity values (in percent) from each assessment interval were compared among the treatment and control conditions and fitted with mathematical power functions to model disease progression under each condition. the time reference for the disease progress modeling used in this study is based on an assumed date of initial infection of the cucumber plants in the test plots, based on the average duration of 4 to 12 days between the initial infection and the first observed symptoms in p. cubensis (salcedo et al., 2020). in the year 1 field trials, the first observations of disease occurred on august 18th, when the foliar disease severity for untreated crops ranged from 5% to 12.5%. in the year 2 trials, the initial observations of disease occurred table 3 : summary of conventional fungicide applications made during the year 2 trial; dates marked with an asterisk (*) indicate the products listed were not applied to the plots that received conventional fungicide every other week (products listed as dm / pm are labeled for treatment of both downy and powdery mildew) date product rate purpose 07/21/2021 ranman 0.18 l·ha-1 dm initiate 720 2.34 l·ha-1 dm/pm 07/26/2021* microthiol 6.73 kg·ha-1 dm/pm kocide 3000 1.12 kg·ha-1 dm/pm 08/02/2021 previcur flex 1.40 l·ha-1 dm 08/10/2021* omega 500f 1.17 l·ha-1 dm 08/17/2021 ranman 0.18 l·ha-1 dm 08/23/2021* previcur flex 1.40 l·ha-1 dm 08/31/2021* nordox 75wg 1.23 kg·ha-1 dm/pm 09/06/2021 tanos 0.73 l·ha-1 dm 09/13/2021* rampart 2.34 l·ha-1 dm oxidate 5.0 2.34 l·ha-1 dm/pm skinner et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 fig. 2 : disease progress curves for year 1 under each condition using black mulch. fig. 3 : disease progress curves for year 1 under each condition using reflective mulch. 429 a four-way analysis of variance (anova) was per for med on the folia r disea se sever ity da ta comprising a balanced experimental design with the type of mulch, the uv-c dose, the dosing frequency, and the date of assessment as independent factors. the mulch type had a statistically significant effect (f1,45=15.3, p<0.05) on disease severity, as did the date of assessment (f5,45=1184, p<0.05). there was a ls o a s t a t is t ic a lly s ignif ic a nt int er a c t ion (f5,45=8.89, p<0.05) between the mulch type and the date of assessment on disease severity. this can be observed from the fact that the disease severity values for the two mulch types were similar for the earliest and latest assessment dates but differed around day 20. qualitatively, the curves in fig. 2 also illustrate the la rge diff er ence found in yea r 1 b etween the conventional fungicide treatment conditions and the control and uv-c treatment conditions. disease severity remained under 20% under the fungicide condition for all observation periods, whereas it approached 90%-100% for all other conditions by t he la s t ob s er va t ion p er iod. g en er a lly, t he differences among the control and uv-c treatment conditions wer e sma ll, although the untr ea ted control condition tended to have greater disease severity values than the uv-c conditions. audps values (simko and piepho, 2012) were calculated for each condition representing each tr ea tment type (or contr ol), the fr equency of application (for the uv-c treatment conditions) and type of mulch. these values are shown in fig. 4. qualitatively, fig. 4 shows the much lower audps value for the conventional fungicide condition than for all other conditions. it can also be seen that the audps values are usually (with one exception for 120 j·m-² applied twice weekly) lower for the reflective than for the black mulch. a one-way anova for each treatment condition in fig. 4 was per formed showing that ther e were statistically significant differences among the treatment conditions (f14,10=16.2, p<0.05). tukey’s post hoc tests were carried out among each treatment to identify which conditions differed from the others. it was found that the conventional fungicide treatment (with black mulch) was statistically significantly (t=5.07 to 13.2, p<0.05) different from all other conditions. no other conditions differed from one another after adjustment of type i errors for multiple pairwise comparisons. considering only the uv treatment groups, the audps values could be analyzed using a three-way anova with the uv-c dose, the dosing frequency and the type of mulch as independent variables. this anova revealed a statistically significant main effect of mulch type (f1,7=9.80, p<0.05), but no other main effects nor interactions among the variables. because the audps values collapse a cross the da te of assessment, the result of this analysis is consistent with the anova on the disease severity values. to identify whether and to what extent the treatment types affected the course of disease progression, the data in fig. 2 and 3 were replotted in fig.5 and 6, for bla ck and r eflective mulch r espectively, using logarithmic axes for the abscissa and the ordinate. (values of zero were omitted as they could not be plotted along a logarithmic axis.) visual observation suggested that the data for each condition on the loglog plots in fig. 5 and 6 fell approximately along straight lines, which are represented by power functions of the form y = axb. the best-fitting power functions to the data (excluding the conventional fungicide condition) had exponent (b) values ranging from 2.42 to 4.63, with an average of 3.19. (the exponent for the best-fitting power function to the fungicide condition was 0.31.) assuming the disease progression was similar among the uv treatment effectiveness of the field application of uv-c for cucumber downy mildew control j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 fig. 4 : audps values (simko and peipho, 2012) for each treatment and control condition in year 1. the asterisk (*) for the fungicide condition indicates that this condition was statistically significantly (p<0.05) different from all other conditions. vertical error bars for the conditions are not shown because each value is either a single measurement or the average of two measurement values. 430 conditions, a fixed exponent value of 3.19 was used and best-fitting power functions to each set of data were determined having the form: y = ax3.19, and these are also shown in fig. 5 and 6. goodness of fit (r2) values for each function ranged from 0.88 to 0.998. these modeled power functions are nearly coincident with each other, suggesting that disease progressions for the control and for all uv-c treatment conditions were essentially the same. even the sets of curves for each type of mulch differed very little from each other, despite the statistically significant effect of mulch type in the three-way anova. indeed, taking an arbitrary disease progression value of 10% to represent a threshold for disease in these conditions, less than a single day separates the time after initial infection at which this observable threshold would be met between the control and all uv-c treatment conditions (fig. 5 and 6). a limitation of all analyses from year 1 is the small sample size. only a single observation, or sometimes two observations, were made for the control and treatment conditions in year 1 and this may have limited the ability to achieve statistical significance among those conditions. with or without statistical significa nce, however, the uv-c a pplica tions employed in year 1 were not much of an improvement over the control condition for mitigating dm disease progression. year 2 field data as mentioned previously, subsequent field trials in year 2 were carried out to validate the year 1 findings using what would be expected to be the most effective uvc treatment, 480 j·m-² applied twice weekly. although the 120 j·m-² dose applied once weekly (with reflective mulch) was empirically the most effective treatment, the same treatment was not as effective with black mulch, and collapsing across mulch type, 480 j·m-² had slightly (albeit not statistically significantly) higher effectiveness than the other doses, and application frequency of twice weekly was slightly more effective than once weekly. combinations of fungicide (using the producer’s usual weekly application schedule or a reduced application frequency of every other week [eow]) and uv-c treatments were included in year 2 to identify whether uv-c could enhance the effectiveness of fungicide or permit fewer fungicides to be used while providing protection against downy mildew disease. as also stated previously, multiple sections of each treatment row were evaluated for disease to increase sample sizes and statistical power. fig. 7 and 8 show the progression of disease for each of the control and/or treatment conditions as a function of time (day after assumed infection as described pr eviously). t her e ar e two pr ima ry qualitative differences between the data in these figures for year 2 and the corresponding data in fig. 2 and 3 for year 1. first, there appears to be a greater separation among the conditions in terms of the days that the disease begins to take hold in the plants, especially between the untreated control condition (which skinner et al fig. 5 : disease progression values (non-zero only) for each condition and using black mulch. also shown are best-fitting power functions having the form y = ax3.19. the range of days at which disease progression reached 10% is also indicated by the red arrows. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 fig. 6 : disease progression values (non-zero only) for each condition and using reflective mulch. also shown are best-fitting power functions having the form y = ax3.19. the range of days at which disease progression reached 10% is also indicated by the red arrows. 431 exhibited greater than 50% foliar disease severity by day 21, and the other conditions which exhibited less than 20% disease severity on the same day. second, the disease severity for the fungicide treatment conditions approached 80% by the end of data collection where as in year 1, disease severity was held to less than 20% with the application of fungicide. (possibly, disease severity in year 1 for the fungicide treatment condition would have eventually increased to nearly 100%.) for the four treatment conditions (i.e., fungicide, uv, uv p lu s f u ngic ide, a nd uv p lu s e o w fungicide) for which both types of mulch were used, a three-way anova was performed on the disease severity values, with treatment, mulch type and date of assessment as independent factors. the section number of each row was included in the analysis as a covariate factor to identify whether there were any systematic differences within each row; there were not. the treatment (f3,761=118, p<0.05) and effectiveness of the field application of uv-c for cucumber downy mildew control the date of assessment (f4,761=1958, p<0.05) had statistically significant main effects on disease s ever it y, a nd t her e wa s a ls o a s t a t is t ic a lly significa nt inter a ction between tr ea tment a nd assessment date (f12,761=52.5, p<0.05). this can be observed in fig. 7 and 8 where the disease severity was similar across all treatments for the first and last treatment dates, with the most variation among treatments for the intermediate dates. unlike year 1, the type of mulch did not have a statistically significant (f1,761=0.98, p>0.05) effect on disease progression. mean audps values (simko and piepho, 2012) for each treatment and mulch condition were calculated and are shown in fig. 9. a one-way anova was p er f or med t o a s s es s diff er enc es a mong t he conditions, which were statistically significa nt (f8,149=45.2, p<0.05), with tukey’s tests to assess pairwise comparisons while controlling for type i errors (supplementary data table s1). in general, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in aud p s b et w een mu lc h t yp es f o r t he s a me condition. all conditions except for the uv-only conditions differed significantly (p<0.05) from the untreated control condition (which only used black mulch). the combination of fungicide and uv-c treatment with the black mulch was statistically significantly different (p<0.05) from the fungicideonly t r ea t ment wit h t he s a me mu lc h t yp e, suggesting a small impact of uv-c treatment in conjunction with fungicide. fig. 7 : foliar disease progression curves for year 2 under each condition using black mulch. fig. 8 : foliar disease progression curves for year 2 under each condition using reflective mulch. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 fig. 9 : audps values (simko and piepho, 2012) for each treatment (uv: ultraviolet; eow: every-other-week fungicide application) and mulch condition in year 2. letters above each bar indicate non-statistically significant differences among conditions with a common letter. 432 excluding the untreated control condition, a twoway anova was performed to assess how the tr ea t ment c ondition a nd mu lch type, a nd t he interaction between them, affected audps. section from 1 to 10, was included in this analysis as a cova r ia te to ident ify whet her ther e wer e a ny systematic differences across each of the treatment rows; there were not. there was a statistically significant (f 3, 14 9=110, p<0.05) main effect of treatment, but the mulch type did not exhibit a statistically significant main effect (p>0.05). there was a significant interaction (f3,149=2.72, p<0.05) between treatment condition and mulch type on audps; this is seen in fig. 9 where the black mulch resulted in somewhat higher audps for the fungicide treatment condition, but lower for the uvonly treatment. aside from the two-way interaction between the treatment and mulch type, this analysis of the audps va lues wa s consistent with the an o va on t he dis ea s e s ever it y va lu es in identifying s ignifica nt diff er ences a mong t he treatments but not between the two types of mulch in year 2. using the same analytical procedure as for the year 1 data, the year 2 data for each type of mulch were plotted on log-log axes (excluding zero values) and are shown in fig. 10 and 11. similar to data from year 1, these data also seem to fall along straight lines. using the average exponent value (b=3.19) from the year 1 data, best-fitting power functions of the form y = ax3.1 9 were determined for each condition and these functions are also plotted in fig. 10 and 11. goodness of fit (r2) values for the best-fitting functions ranged from 0.70 to 0.97 with the exception of the untreated (with black mulch) condition, which exhibited a somewhat different shape of its disease progression curve compared to the treatment conditions, as illustrated in fig. 7 and 8. the goodness of fit value for the untreated data was 0.024. in general, there are two observations from these figures in comparison to fig. 5 and 6, which show the corresponding model functions for year 1. first, there was no obvious plateauing effect for the fungicide conditions in year 2 like there seemed to be in year 1. disease progression for the fungicide conditions in year 2 seemed to follow a similar p r ogr es s ion over a ll a s a ll ot her c ondit ions , including the untreated control (albeit delayed somewha t) . second, ther e is somewha t mor e dispersion among the modeled power functions for year 2 than there was in year 1. for example, using 10% disease severity as a threshold for observable disease (fig. 10 and 11), the difference in reaching this criterion between the worst (untreated control) and best (uv+fungicide) conditions were 3.8 days for the black mulch, compared to less than 1 day among all non-fungicide conditions in year 1 (fig. 5 and 6). depending upon exactly when during the disease progression that the data were collected, the fitted power functions in these figures may have reflected ranges of days closer to the beginning (for year 1) or end (for year 2) of time when disease symptoms were progressing. these differences, as well as the limited sample sizes underlying fig. 5 and 6, might explain the lack of difference among the fitted curves for year 1. skinner et al fig. 11 : disease severity values (non-zero only) for each condition using reflective mulch, in year 2. also shown are best-fitting power functions having the form y = ax3.19. the range of days at which disease progression reached 10% is also indicated by the red arrows. fig. 10 : disease severity values (non-zero only) for each condition using black mulch, in year 2. also shown are bestfitting power functions having the form y = ax3.19. the range of days at which disease progression reached 10% is also indicated by the red arrows. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 433 the results for the field studies in each of years 1 and 2 exhibited some consistencies and some differences. over all, the results suggest that, for the doses examined (up to 480 j.m-2), uv by itself is not an effective treatment for downy mildew (p. cubensis) control in cucumbers in the field, especially in comparison to the fungicide regimens used during this study. nor were there any obvious monotonic trends in year 1 for the 120 to 480 j.m-2 doses as one might expect if the lowest dose were consistently worse than the highest dose. possibly, higher uv doses (e.g., 1000 j.m-2) might have been more effective at reducing the severity of disease. however, higher doses than those used in the present study might be damaging to plants, given the reductions in cucumber leaf area observed by patel et al. (2020) in laboratory studies caused by a uv-c dose from an electric light source of only 70 j.m-2. it would also have been challenging to deliver larger doses with the present apparatus without making time-consuming multiple tractor passes over the crops, another practical limitation. nonetheless, the application of uv in conjunction with fungicide treatment did show a statistically significantly lower level of disease severity for the black mulch conditions, corresponding to reduced p r ogr es s io n of downy mildew ( a lt hou gh a signific a nt diff er ence wa s not ob ser ved with reflective mulch). it may be possible to reduce f u ngic ide t r ea t ment in c onju nct ion wit h uv treatment and achieve a level of disease control that is consistent with current conventional practices for fungicide application, but identifying the dosing required to do so is not possible from the present data. in addition, fungicidal products exist that reduce concentrations of melanin pigment in the treated fungi such as tolprocarb (hamada et al., 2014). if the presence of pigments is a factor in the modest effectiveness of uv found in this study, it is possible to speculate that a combina tion of melanin-reducing fungicides plus uv might be more effective than the combination of uv and fungicides used in the present study. given the par allel disea se severity progression curves in fig. 5, 6, 10 and 11, it would appear that none of the treatments investigated in this study altered the course of disease progression once it was established (shown by the slopes of the curves), but rather that they sometimes delayed it (shown by the horizontal offsets among the curves). this is illustrated by the reasonably good fits of the disease severity progression data to power functions having the same exponent of 3.19. with respect to the uv-c treatments investigated in this study, the observed delays in onset of downy mildew may be attributed to increased resistance to downy mildew induc ed b y t he t r ea tments pr ior to infect ion (bonomelli et al., 2004). even if this could be substantiated in further experiments, however, the observed effect was relatively small. yield was not assessed precisely in the firstor secondyear trials. however, observations of yield by the grower revealed that none of the treatments (uv at any dose, fungicide, or combination thereof) resulted in an observable reduction in yield relative to untreated crops. the lack of yield reduction suggests that the uv doses applied were below levels would result in significant phytotoxicity in cucumber plants, even though lower doses of 70 j m-2 could result in visible leaf damage under laboratory conditions (patel et al., 2020). it may be possible to increase uv dose to better control p. cubensis while still maintaining satisfactory yield, but it seems clear that the thresholds for yieldreducing damage to cucumber plants by uv are not well defined. this is important, however, because as described above, pigmented fungal spores are more resistant to damage from uv than unpigmented spores (rotem et al., 1985), and p. cubensis spores contain melanin pigment as they mature (lee et al., 2021). identifying an upper limit for uv doses that do not damage the cucumber plants would be a useful next step in maximizing the potential beneficial impacts of uv-c treatment for downy mildew control. such investigations should include precise field assessment of crop yields as well as further laboratory studies to identify optimal dosing parameters. there were two main areas of inconsistency in the field test results between years 1 and 2. first, the disease severity for the fungicide treatment condition in year 1 did not exceed 17% whereas disease severity in year 2 for the fungicide treatment condition exceeded 85%. however, it should be noted that disease assessment was carried out for a greater number of days past the assumed infection date in year 2 (41 days) than in year 1 (28 days). indeed, on day 31 in year 2, the fungicide treatment conditions had only exhibited 16%-26% disease severity, not much higher than the 15%-17% exhibited on day 28 in year 1. effectiveness of the field application of uv-c for cucumber downy mildew control j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 434 the second main inconsistency between the results for years 1 and 2 was the impact of mulch types. in year 1, there were larger and more consistent reductions (or delays) in disease progression with the reflective mulch than in year 2. one possible post hoc explanation for this comes from the locations of the fields where the year 1 and 2 trials occurred. in year 1, the test field was in an open area with greater exposure to sunlight, and in year 2, the field was partially shaded by nearby trees. although the reflective mulch had a much higher uv-c reflectance (66% at 254 nm) than the black mulch (5% at 254 nm), which would be expected to help increase the uv treatment efficacy, this did not seem to be the case in year 2. as one might expect, the reflective mulch also had a substantially higher visible reflectance (75% at 436 nm) than the black mulch (1% at 436 nm), and this could have resulted in soil temperatures being substantially higher with the black mulch beca use of much higher sunlight absorption compared to the reflective mulch. while not the primary focus of the present study, this suggests that if higher soil temperatures lead to decreased resistance to p. cubensis, reflective mulch may have some benefit because of its solar reflectivity. acknowledgment the authors gratefully acknowledge the technical contributions of jim ward, brian rosado and devon parsons of ward’s berry farm; susan scheufele of uma ss extension; da vid ga dour y, ma rga r et mcgrath, teresa rusinek and chuck bornt of cornell university, and andrew bierman of the light and health research center. funding this work was supported by the u.s. department of agricultur e thr ough the northeast susta inable agriculture research and education program (grant lne19-388r). references bonomelli, a., mercier, l., franchel, j., baillieul, f., benizri, e. and mauro, m.c. 2004. response of grapevine defenses to uv-c exposure. am. j. enol. viticult., 55(1): 51-59. cordero, r.j.b. and casadevall, a. 2017. functions of fungal melanin beyond virulence. fung. biol. rev., 31(2): 99-112. hamada, t., asanagi, m., satozawa, t., araki, n., banba, s., higashimura, n., akase, t. and hirase, k. 2014. action mechanism of the novel rice blast fungicide tolprocarb distinct from that of conventional melanin biosynthesis inhibitors. j. pest. sci., 39(3): 152-158. kanetis, l., holmes, gj. and ojiambo, p.s. 2010. surviva l of pseudoperonospora cubensis sporangia exposed to solar radiation. plant pathol., 59(2):313-323. kneuttinger, a.c., heil, k., kashiwazaki, g. and carell, t. 2013. the radical sam enzyme spore photoproduct lyase employs a tyrosyl radical for dna repair. chem. comm., 49(7): 722-724. kunz, b.a., dando, p.k., grice, d.m., mohr, p.g., schenk, p.m. and cahill, d.m. 2008. uvinduced dna damage promotes resistance to the biotrophic pathogen hyaloperonospora parasitica in arabidopsis. plant physiol., 148(2): 1021-1031. lee, d. j. , lee, j. s. a nd choi, y. j. 2021. cooccur rence of two phylogenetic clades of pseudoperonospora cubensis, the causal agent of downy mildew disease, on oriental pickling melon. mycobiol., 49(2): 188-195. meredith, p. and sarna, t. 2006. the physical and chemical properties of eumelanin. pigm. cell res., 19(6): 572-594. nelson, k.l., boehm, a.b., davies-colley, r.j., dodd, m.c., kohn, t., linden, k.g., liu, y., maraccini, p.a., mcneill, k., mitch, w.a., nguyen, t.h., parker, k.m., rodriguez, r.a., sassoubre, l.m., silverman, a.i., wigginton, k.r. and zepp, r.g. 2018. sunlight-mediated inactivation of health-relevant microorganisms in water: a review of mechanisms and modeling approaches. environ. sci.: proc. imp., 20(8): 1089-1122. onofr e, r. b. , ga dour y, d. m. , stensvand, a. , bierman, a., rea, m. and peres, n.a. 2021. use of ultraviolet light to suppress powdery mildew in strawberry fruit production fields. plant dis., 105(9): 2402-2409. patel, j.s., radetsky, l.c., nagare, r. and rea, m.s. 2020. night time application of uv-c to control skinner et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 435 cucumber powdery mildew. plant health prog., 21(1): 40-46 paul, n.d., moore, j.p., mcpherson, m., lambourne, c., croft, p., heaton, j.c. and wargent, j.j. 2012. ecological responses to uv radiation: interactions between the biological effects of uv on plants and on associated organisms. physiol. plant., 145(4): 565-581. ramesh, t., nayak, b., amirbahman, a., tripp, c.p. and mukhopadhyay, s. 2016. application of ultra violet light assisted titanium dioxide photocatalysis for food safety: a review. innov. food sci.emerg. technol., 38(a): 105-115. rotem, j., wooding, b. and aylor, d.e. 1985. the role of solar radiation, especially ultraviolet, in the mortality of fungal spores. phytopathol., 75(5): 510-514. salcedo, a., hausbeck, m., pigg, s. and quesadaocampo, l.m. 2020. diagnostic guide for cucurbit downy mildew. plant health prog., 21(3): 166-172. sancar, a. 1994. structure and function of dna photolyase. biochem., 33(1): 2-9. savory, e.a., granke, l.l., quesada-ocampo, l.m., varbanova, m., hausbeck, m.k. and day, b. 2011. the cucurbit downy mildew pathogen pseudoperonospora cubensis. mol. plant pathol., 12(3): 217-226. simko, i. and piepho, h.p. 2012. the area under the disease progress stairs: calculation, advantage, and application. phytopathol., 102(4): 381-389. skinner, n.p., bullough, j.d. and rea, m.s. 2021. science enlightening agriculture: helping growers improve crops with uv light. country folks grower 30(1): 32-33. suthaparan, a., stensvand, a., solhaug, k.a., torre, s., mortensen, l.m., gadoury, d.m., seem, r.c. and giselrød, h.r. 2012. suppression of powdery mildew (podosphaera pannosa) in gr eenhouse r oses by br ief exposur e to supplemental uv-b radiation. plant dis., 96(11): 1653-1660. effectiveness of the field application of uv-c for cucumber downy mildew control j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 424-435, 2022 (received : 19.04.2022; revised : 05.10.2022; accepted : 12.10.2022) tea mosquito bug (tmb), helopeltis antonii signoret (hemiptera: miridae), is one of the major pests of cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) in india, damaging tender shoots, inflorescences, immature nuts and apples at various stages of development, resulting in yield loss of 30-50 per cent (devasahayam and nair, 1986). typical feedingdamage by h. antonii appears as a discoloured necrotic area or lesion around the point of entry of the labial stylets inside plant tissue. in severe infestation, young shoots and panicles dry up, giving the infested trees a scorched appearance. successive attacks on new growth can result in death of the tree (stonedahl, 1991; sundararaju, 1996). at present, chemical control measures are recommended for management of h. antonii on cashew (sundararaju, 1993). since there is a potential restriction in usa and eec countries for import of cashew kernels containing pesticide residues, developing integrated pest management with main emphasis on non-insecticidal control methods, viz., biological control, is required. egg parasitoids are potential biological control agents for helopeltis (stonedahl, 1991). telenomus sp. laricis group (hymenoptera: platygastridae) and erythmelus helopeltidis gahan (hymenoptera: mymaridae), which parasitize eggs, are particularly promising, as are the nymphal adult parasitoids of the genus leiophron spp. (hymenoptera: braconidae) (cibc, 1983; sundararaju, 1993). in india, short communication occurrence of parasitoid, leiophron sp. (hymenoptera: braconidae), on adults of helopeltis antonii signoret in cashew p.s. bhat and k.k. srikumar department of entomology, directorate of cashew research darbe po., puttur 574 202, india email: sreeku08@gmail.com abstract helopeltis antonii is a major pest of cashew, cocoa, neem, guava and pepper in the old world tropics. survey for parasites identified a parasitoid, leiophron sp. (hymenoptera: braconidae), on adults of h. antonii. the parasitism was low (1.3%), of which 59.4% was observed during the month of june. size of the parasitoid larvae was 3.66 ± 0.11mm in length, and 1.31±0.03mm in breadth. pre-pupation period was 1.75±0.22 days. copulation was observed between parasitized h. antonii males and females indicating, that, mating was not affected by parasitism. parasitoid activity showed significant positive correlation (r = 0.62; p = 0.05) with rainfall. parasitism provided by this parasitoid certainly warrants further investigation on biological control of this economically important pest. key words: cashew, helopeltis antonii, tea mosquito bug, parasitoid larvae, biological control nymphal parasitoid and the mermithid nematode, agamermis paracaudata steiner, has been reported from h. theivora on tea (durgadas and sambhunath, 1956) and h. antonii on cashew (sundararaju, 2002). the present study aimed to record adult parasitoids of h. antonii and their seasonality in occurrence. the current study was undertaken during 2010 to 2013 at directorate of cashew research, puttur, karnataka (dakshina kannada province). random surveys were made to record h. antonii incidence in cashew plantations. adults were observed for abnormal size with swollen, whitish abdomen described in earlier reports, to record the presence of adult parasitoids (giesberger, 1983; sundararaju, 1996). to assess influence of weather parameters, data on physical parameters, including minimum and maximum temperature (ºc) forenoon and afternoon humidity (%), rainfall (mm) and sunshine (hrs) recorded at the meteorological observatory, were correlated with parasitoid population using spearman’s rank correlations (siegel and castellan, 1988). in the course of the investigation, several specimens of helopeltis antonii sig. (hemiptera: miridae) parastized by the adult parasitoid, leiophron sp. (hymenoptera: braconidae), were collected. a total of 2452 h. antonii adults were observed in which 32 abnormal sized h. antonii j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):103-105, 2014 104 bhat and srikumar (21 male and 11 female) were noticed (fig. 1a). on dissection, it was confirmed that these adults were parasitized by the hymenopteran parasitoid (fig. 1b). sundararaju (2002) recorded that the parasitic larvae emerging from h. antonii died on the same day without pupating in spite of providing different media, viz., soil, saw dust, paper and leaf bits. however, in the current study, whitish parasitoid larvae (one per adult) emerged from h. antonii and pupated on the surface of the glass tubes (25 × 200mm) supported with cotton (fig. 1c and d). size of the mature parasitoid larvae (just before pupation) was 3.66±0.11mm in length and 1.31±0.03mm in breadth. pre-pupation period of the parasitoid larvae was 1.75±0.22 days (table 1). from the 15 pupae, 2 adults emerged (fig. 1e). the parasitoid was identified and deposited at national bureau of agriculturally important insects (nbaii), bangalore, india. copulation was observed between parasitized h. antonii males and females indicating, that, mating was not affected by parasitism. h. antonii adults died within 2 days after emergence of the parasitoid. further, when parasitized females were dissected immediately after emergence of the parasitoid larva, their ovarioles were found to be empty without any developing oocytes. it is reported from northern united states that heavy parasitism by leiophron uniformis gahan significantly depressed populations of halticus bractatus (hemiptera: miridae) (day and saunders, 1990). activity of leiophron sp. was seen to be greater during may july in a three-year study period (fig. 2). the highest number, i.e., 19 parasitised adults, were collected during june. this is in concurrence with studies of sundararaju (2002). the population of adult parasitoid showed significant positive correlation with rainfall (r0.63) (table 2). even though parasitism levels of 6 to 66 per cent have been reported for leiophron sahlbergellae (wilkinson) on sahlbergella singularis haglund (heteroptera: miridae) from west africa (cibc, 1983), the present study has shown a low level of parasitism by leiophron sp. on h. antonii. however, in-depth studies are needed to understand the role of the parasitoid in regulating h. antonii population. acknowledgements our thanks are due to dr. j. poorani, national bureau of agriculturally important insects, bangalore, for identification of the parasitoid. financial support received for outreach programme on management of sucking pests of horticultural crops from indian council for agricultural research (icar), new delhi, is gratefully acknowledged. we are also indebted to the director, directorate of cashew research, puttur, for providing necessary facilities. fig 1. (a) h. antonii female of abnormal size (b) parasitized h. antonii adult dissected out (c) leiophron sp. larva (d) pupation (e) leiophron sp. adult table 1. various parameters of leiophron sp. emergent from h. antonii leiophron sp. pre-pupation parasitized h. antonii larvae (n32) period (days) adults (nos.) length breadth male female 3.66 ± 0.11 1.31 ± 0.03 1.75 ± 0.22 21 11 1 to 3 (1-3 days) fig 2. seasonal activity of leiophron sp. table 2. correlation coefficient (r) of adult leiophron sp. parasitism with reference to temperature, humidity, rainfall and sunshine averaged over three years temperature (oc) humidity (%) rainfall sunshine max. min. forenoon afternoon (mm) (hrs) -0.28 0.23 0.38 0.41 0.62* -0.39 *significant at p= 0.05 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):103-105, 2014 105 references cibc (commonwealth institute of biological control). 1983. possibility for the use of natural enemies in the control of helopeltis spp. (miridae). biocon. new. infor., 4:7-11 day, w.h. and saunders, l.b. 1990. abundance of the garden fleahopper (hemiptera: miridae) on alfalfa and parasitism by leiophron uniformis (gahan) (hymenoptera: braconidae). j. econ. entomol., 83:101-106 devasahayam, s. and nair, c.p.r. 1986. the mosquito bug, helopeltis antonii sign., on cashew in india. j. plant. crop., 14:1-10 durgadas, m. and sambhunath, r. 1956. occurrence of a mermethid worm parasite on helopeltis theivora waterhouse. curr. sci., 2:60-61 giesberger, g. 1983. biological control of helopeltis pest of cocoa in java: a critical review of forty years (1901-1941) research on helopeltis with special reference to the role of black cocoa ant, dolichoderus bituberculatus mayr. in the biological control system. in: archives of cocoa research (eds. h. toxopeus and p.c.wessel), pp. 91-180 siegel, s. and castellan, n.j. 1988. non-parametric statistics for the behavioral sciences (2nd edn), singapore: mcgraw hill international editions, pp. 1-399 stonedahl, g.m. 1991. the oriental species of helopeltis (heteropetera: miridae): a review of economic literature and guide to identification. bull. entomol. res., 81:465-490 sundararaju, d. 1993. studies on the parasitoids of tea mosquito bug, helopeltis antonii sign. (hymenoptera: mymaridae) on cashew with special reference to telenomous sp. (hymenoptera: scelionidae). j. biol. cont., 7:6-8 sundararaju, d. 1996. studies on helopeltis spp. with special reference to h. antonii sign. in tamil nadu. ph.d. thesis, t.n.a.u., coimbatore, india, p. 206 sundararaju, d. 2002. description of endoparasitism in nymph and adults of helopeltis spp. infesting cashew. j. plant. crop., 30:66-68 (ms received 30 april 2013, revised 14 november 2013, accepted 17 january 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):103-105, 2014 occurrence of parasitoid ontea mosquito bug in cashew storage behavior of potato cultivars under ambient conditions in the nilgiris r. sudha*, e.p. venkatasalam, k. divya, aarti bairwa and priyank h. mhatre icar-central potato research station, muthorai-643 004, ooty, the nilgiris, tamil nadu *e-mail: rsudhahort@yahoo.co.in abstract storage behavior of different potato cultivars viz., kufri swarna, kufri girdhari, kufri jyoti, kufri neelima and kufri himalini was assessed for post harvest loss under ambient storage conditions of nilgiri region. the study was carried out in three different seasons (spring, summer and autumn) during 2013-2015. all the cultivars showed dormancy period of more than six weeks in all the three seasons. cultivars varied widely in their weight loss, sprouting behavior and cooking quality. among the varieties kufri girdhari found to possess good storage qualities while kufri swarna showed poor keeping quality in all the three seasons. all the cultivars recorded less total weight loss during autumn season. the study indicated that importance should be given to the storage behavior of the cultivars along with yield in order to have better keeping quality for regular supply of tubers for table as well as seed purpose. key words: potato cultivars, storage behavior, dormancy, total weight loss and keeping quality. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 186-192, 2017 introduction potato (solanum tuberosum l.) is one of the unique and most potential crops having high productivity, supplementing major food requirement in the world. it is rich in carbohydrates, proteins, phosphorus, calcium, vitamin c, β-carotene and has high protein calorie ratio. amongst the world’s important food crops, potato is the fourth important food crop after wheat, rice and maize because of its’ great yield potential and high nutritive value. india ranks third in area and second in production with two million hectares and 46 million tons of production. the nilgiri hills, situated at an elevation of 1500 2600 meters above mean sea level at 11o 24’ north latitude and 74o 4’ east longitude is one of the oldest places where the potato crop was introduced by the foreign invaders long ago. here, the potato crop can be cultivated throughout the year due to its better geographical location making possible to receive rainfall evenly, round the year. the average annual rainfall of the region is 1400mm in about 100 rainy days and the mean maximum and minimum temperatures are 22.2oc and 17.5oc respectively. in the nilgiris, potato can be grown under three distinct seasons namely, summer, autumn and winter. summer is the main season (april/may to august/september) followed by autumn (august/september to december/january). potato crop is grown under rainfed conditions during both summer and autumn seasons. a meager area is grown under irrigation during january/february to may/june as winter crop. knowledge of storage char a cter istics of potato cultiva r s is va luable information for planning for next season in areas like nilgiris where the potato can be grown throughout the year and also storage is necessary for regular supply of potatoes to the consumers during off seasons. here the seed requirement of main crop is to be met from the autumn season harvest and for autumn it is to be met from the summer crop which has been planted little earlier than that of regular summer crop i.e. during mid march as the irrigated crop is grown in a very negligible area. hence the information on storage behavior of different cultivars in different seasons is very much important for farmers so that they can maintain their own source of seed. previous studies on keeping quality (kang and gopal 1993; singh et al, 2001; patel et al, 2002; pande and luthra 2003; das et al, 2004; kumar et al, 2005) conducted under ambient conditions or under non refrigerated storage like heaps, pits and evaporative cooled potato stores (kumar et al, 1995; mehta and kaul, 1997 and mehta et al, 2006) were limited to a few varieties or hybrids short communication 186 187 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 186-192, 2017 storage behaviour of potato varieties at nilgiris or regions. pande et al, (2007), conducted an extensive study on sprouting behaviour and weight loss of 37 indian potato varieties under controlled conditions, but, consolidated information on storage behavior of location specific potato varieties under ambient conditions is lacking. hence, the present study was carried out to evaluate the storage behavior of different varieties under different seasons at nilgiri hills. the study was carried out at icar-central potato research station, muthorai, udhagamandalam, the nilgiris during 2012-13 and 2013-14 in three different potato growing seasons namely spring (january-february to april-may), summer (aprilmay to august-september ) a nd autumn (augustseptember to december). the experimental material consisted of five commercial potato cultivars recommended for the nilgiris viz., kufri swarna, kufri girdhari, kufri jyoti, kufri neelima and kufri himalini. spring crop was planted during second week of january and harvested during april, summer crop was planted during 1st week of may and harvested during september and autumn crop was planted during september and harvested in december. recommended cr op ma na gement practices were followed to grow the crop. haulms cutting were done 105 days after planting. the crop was harvested 15 days after haulm cutting to allow the tubers to attain skin firmness. immediately after harvesting, tubers were kept in heap under shade for 15–20 days for proper curing of tuber skin and the tubers were utilized for studying the storage behavior and cooking quality. storage behaviour for studying storage behaviour, 5 kg healthy clean uniform size tubers of each genotype from the harvest of 120 days crop were kept in gunny bags under ambient conditions in country store. this formed one replication. three such replications were kept in the first week of may for spring crop, last week of september for summer crop, first week of january for autumn crop. the number of tubers in each bag was recorded at the beginning of experiment. the bags containing tuber material were stored for 90 days allowing sufficient space for air movement between bags at ambient room temperatures. the maximum and minimum temperatures and relative humidity were recorded every day. percent sprouting of tubers (as calculated from tubers having one or more sprouts above 2 mm long) and number and weight of healthy and rotted tubers were recorded at 60 and 90 days of storage. the physiological weight loss was calculated by weighing five randomly marked tubers from each replication both at the start and at the end of storage, while per cent total weight loss was calculated by weighing the stored tubers at the end of experiment. tuber dry matter content samples of five randomly drawn tubers of each variety were used for dry matter estimation. the tubers were cut horizontally and half part was chopped into small pieces. the chopped pieces were mixed properly and 50 g sample of each variety in three replications were kept in oven at 80º c for 72 h (luthra et al, 2003). the final dry content of the sample was estimated when the weight of the sample reached to a constant level. cooking quality internal colour, texture and flavour of boiled/ cooked tubers were carried out after one month of harvesting with panel consisting of 12 persons. precaution was taken to wash the mouth before testing the sample (meitei and barooah, 1980) and the final decision about each organoleptic characteristic was taken on consensus. the texture was adjudged in four major categories i.e. 1) extremely mealy–floury, 2) medium to slightly mealy/granular-mealy, 3) gummy/ pasty”waxy and 4) watery or translucent”soggy. similarly, flavor (a combination of feel of taste, texture and aroma) of the baked potatoes was examined in four categories i.e. 1) excellent, 2) very good, 3) good and 4) average (gupta et al, 2014). statistical analysis the data obtained during the two years of experimentation were pooled and analyzed with standard statistical procedure (panse and sukathme 1967). the maximum and minimum temperatures ranged between 12.6-24 °c to 5.9-12.4 °c during the period of spring, 14.75 22.5 °c to 6.95-8.88°c during summer and 15-21°c to 2.8 – 6.3°c during autumn storage. the relative humidity ranged from 60-82 % during spring, 69-90% during summer and 64-97.5% during autumn. the results on different storage 188 sudha et al parameters and cooking quality of potato varieties are described below. dormancy based on the dormancy duration from the date of harvesting, indian potato cultivars can be divided into three categories namely short dormancy (< 71 days), medium dormancy (71-80 days) and long dormancy (>80 days). in the present study, all the test cultivars exhibited a dormancy period of more than six weeks in all the seasons and per cent of sprouting was below its critical limit (80%) on 60 days after storage and falls under the category of medium dormancy. in cultivar kufri swarna, per cent of sprouting reached its critical limit (80%) on 60 days after storage in all the seasons (table 1). hence, it falls under the category of short dormancy variety. such variation in tuber dormancy among genotypes under test is in agreement with earlier report (van ittersum, 1992; das et al., 2004 and gupta et al, 2015). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 186-192, 2017 dormancy (weeks) sprouting %% loss due to sprouting (%) hybrids spring summer autumn spring summer autumn spring summer autumn spring summer autumn at 60 days at 90 days at 60 days at 90 days at 60 days at 90 days kufri neelima > 6 weeks > 6 weeks > 6 weeks 76.5(65.1) 95.8(78.4) 66.3(53.0) 88.7(78.6) 52.0(45.6) 76.7(66.1) 0.4(3.8) 1.0(5.6) 0.5(3.9) kufri swarna > 6 weeks > 6 weeks > 6 weeks 82.2(78.0) 98.5(84.3) 81.5(77.5) 98.5(84.3) 79.0(68.0) 96.9(79.4) 1.8(7.8) 2.1(8.0) 0(0.6) kufri jyoti > 6 weeks > 6 weeks > 6 weeks 75.4(65.1) 94.0(78.8) 68.5(56.3) 89.3(79.2) 70.4(57.1) 90.7(80.5) 0.7(4.5) 1.3(6.4) 0(0.6) kufri girdhari > 6 weeks > 6 weeks > 6 weeks 54.6(47.7) 79.3(68.1) 35.7(26.5) 59.9(50.8) 5.0(0.8) 14.0(6.0) 0.4(3.8) 0.5(3.9) 0(0.6) kufri himalini > 6 weeks > 6 weeks > 6 weeks 78.2(67.0) 97.0(83.5) 77.4(66.8) 95.7(78.4) 73.5(60.2) 92.5(75.4) 1.3(6.4) 1.4(6.8) 0(0.6) sed 0.35 0.53 0.92 1.41 2.10 3.20 0.03 0.04 0.05 cd (p= 0.05) 0.70 1.07 1.86 2.84 4.23 6.47 0.07 0.08 0.10 values in parentheses are transformed values table 1. dormancy, sprouting per cent and per cent loss due to sprouting of potato cultivars under ambient conditions in different seasons in general, dormancy is considered to be the varietal character that might gets influenced by the soil and environmental conditions during crop growth and storage environment (ezekiel and singh, 2003). per cent of sprouting significant variations were recorded with respect to sprouting among the cultivars in different seasons. during spring season, the results on sprouting (table 1) revealed that cultivars kufri girdhari, kufri neelima, kufri jyoti and kufri himalini showed more than 50% tuber dormancy but it was below the critical limit (80%). cultivar kufri swarna attained 82.2% sprouting at 60 days storage. at 90 days, all the cultivars except kufri girdhari attained the critical level (80 %) of sprouting. kufri girdhari recorded 59.9% of sprouting at 90 days after harvest. during summer season, percent sprouting was minimum in kufri girdhari (35.7%), kufri neelima (66.3%), kufri jyoti (68.5%) and kufri himalini (77.4%) at 60 days after storage whereas, kufri swarna crossed the critical level (81.5%). at 90 days after storage, all the varieties crossed the critical limit of sprouting except kufri girdhari (79.3%). during autumn season also the same trend was observed as summer season but the percent sprouting was lower than summer crop. at 60 days, kufri swarna (79.0), kufri himalini (73.5%) and kufri jyoti (70.4%) recorded a highest sprouting per cent. at the end of storage, kufri girdhari recorded 14% sprouting and kufri neelima recorded 76.7% sprouting whereas other varieties reached the critical limit. such variations in sprouting were also observed by kang et al (2001) in indigenous varieties and hybrids. soil and environmental conditions during crop growth have a strong influence on the dormancy duration. cold and wet weather is known to increase the dormancy duration while dry and warm weather reduces it. season to season variation in the duration of dormancy can also be considerable due to variation in the environmental conditions during crop growth. storage temperature has a strong influence on the dormancy duration. higher storage temperature hastens dormancy release, while storage at a temperature of 4ºc and below prolongs dormancy by preventing sprout growth (singh, 2013). wiltshire and cobb (1996) also reported that, temperature is considered to be most important physical factors affecting dormancy and it 189 is reported that within the range of 3–20º c, tubers stored at lower temperature have a longer period of inna te dor ma ncy tha n those stor ed a t higher temperatures. in the present study, average storage temperature during the spring harvested tubers (may – july) was 13.75ºc whereas the storage temperature during summer harvested crop is 13.27ºc while in autumn harvested crop was 11.3ºc. hence, the per cent sprouting was more in spring season crop than other two seasons and it was minimum in autumn season crop in all the varieties. physiological weight loss and weight loss due to sprout reduction in weight of tubers due to evaporative losses from the tuber surface (skin) is considered as physiological weight loss. excessive evaporative losses not only reduce weight but also cause shrinkage on the tuber skin and consequently affect the market value of tubers. physiological weight loss in all the varieties ranged from 11% (kufri himalini) to 18.9% (kufri neelima) during spring season. the range was 9.3% (kufri girdhari) to 22.9% (kufri jyoti) during summer season whereas 5.7% (kufri girdhari) to 9.5% (kufri neelima) during autumn season. among the seasons, autumn season exhibited lower mean physiological weight loss (<9.5 %) (table 2). this could be a ttr ibuted to low tempera tur es (minimum a nd maximum) and relative humidity during the storage of autumn season compared to spring and summer crop. ezekiel et al (2004) also reported based on studies in unsprouted tubers of 11 varieties that weight loss in potato during storage is related with the periderm thickness, number of cell layers in the periderm and also with the number of lenticels on the tuber surface. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 186-192, 2017 storage behaviour of potato varieties at nilgiris hybr ids % loss due to rottage physiological loss of weight (% ) total weight loss (%) s p ri n g s u m m e r a u t u m n s p ri n g s u m m e r a u t u m n s p ri n g s u m m e r a u t u m n kufri neelima 3.7(10.4) 2.0(6.8) 0(1.6) 18.9(26.0) 17.0(24.5) 9.5(18.2) 23(28.9) 20.0(26.5) 10.0(18.4) kufri swarna 8.4(14.2) 0.9(4.7) 0(1.6) 15.8(23.5) 22.0(27.0) 8.4(16.7) 26(30.6) 25.0(29.6) 8.4(16.7) kufri jyoti 1.3(5.9) 0.7(4.1) 0(1.6) 18.0(25.1) 22.9(27.6) 6.4(14.2) 20(26.5) 24.9(29.4) 6.4(14.2) kufri girdhari 0(1.6) 0(1.6) 0(1.6) 14.6(22.0) 9.3(16.1) 5.7(13.4) 15(22.5) 9.8(17.9) 5.7(13.4) kufri himalini 6.7(11.4) 2.8(8.1) 0(1.6) 11.0(18.5) 21.7(27.9) 8.3(16.5) 19(25.4) 25.9(30.6) 8.3(16.5) sed 0. 69 0. 34 0. 20 0. 42 0. 51 1. 14 0. 64 0. 78 1. 74 cd (p= 0.05) 1. 39 0. 70 0. 41 0. 85 1. 03 2. 29 1. 30 1. 57 3. 51 values in parentheses are transformed values table 2. per cent loss due to rottage, physiological loss of weight and total weight loss of potato cultivars under ambient conditions in different seasons in general, sprouted potato tubers loose much more weight than un-sprouted potatoes since the permeability of the surface of the sprout is higher than periderm layer of the tubers. in the present study, among the varieties tested, percent weight loss due to sprouts was in higher range in cultivars, kufri swarna (1.8% at 90 days of storage) whereas it was minimum in kufri neelima and kufri girdhari (0.4%) during spring season. in summer season, maximum sprout loss was recorded in kufri swarna (2.1%) and it was minimum in kufri girdhari (0.5%) whereas in autumn, minimum weight loss due to sprouting was observed in all the varieties except kufri neelima (0.5%). such variations in loss due to sprouting was observed by kang et al (2001), das et al (2004) and gupta et al (2015). tuber rottage rottage makes the tuber unfit for consumption and also induces the infection in the adjacent tubers kept for storage. the mean percent rottage by weight was maximum in kufri swarna (8.4%) while no rottage was observed in kufri girdhari during spring season. during summer also no rottage was observed in kufri girdhari whereas, kufri himalini recorded a maximum rottage of 2.8%. during autumn, no rottage was observed in all the varieties (table 2). the variable response of different genotypes, prevailing temperature and humidity and response of the cultivar might have attributed to variable rottage percentage during different seasons of experiment. raghav and singh (2003) in an experiment involving 12 potato varieties under room temperature, found maximum rottage in kufri jawahar 190 followed by kufri safed. however, mehta et al (2006) reported highest rottage in kufri arun at 105 days of storage. total weight loss total weight loss in potato varieties determines the longevity of their storage and also their keeping quality. total weight loss (including evaporative and respiratory weight loss of tubers and sprouts and weight loss due to rottage) at 90 days of storage showed large variation between varieties in the study (table 2). total weight loss was lowest in cultivar kufri girdhari (15 %) whereas it was high in kufri swarna (26%) during spring season whereas, in summer, kufri himalini recorded highest total weight loss (25.9%) which was on par with kufri swarna (25%) and kufri jyoti (24.9%) and kufri girdhari recorded lowest weight loss of 9.8%. during autumn, kufri girdhari recorded lowest total weight loss (5.7%) which was on par with other varieties viz., kufri swarna (8.4%), kufri himalini (6.4%) and kufri jyoti (8.3%) wheresas kufri neelima recorded highest total weight loss of 10%. the keeping quality of indian potato varieties based on total weight loss can be grouped as excellent (<10 % total weight loss), very good (10–12 %), good (12–15 %), average (15–20 %) and poor keeper (>20 % weight loss) (gupta et al, 2015). based on the results of the three seasons, kufri girdhari was the good keeper in spring season and excellent in summer and autumn seasons whereas, other varieties were poor keeper in spring and summer seasons while excellent keeper in autumn season. tuber dry matter content tuber dry matter is important parameter for considering the suitability of potatoes for different purposes. it ranged from 16.1 % to 24.2 % in indian varieties (gupta et al., 2015). during spring and summer season, highest percent tuber dry matter (table 3) was observed in variety kufri girdhari (19.24 % and 20.61%) followed by kufri himalini (17.58% and 19.35%). during autumn season, highest tuber dry matter was recorded in kufri girdhari (20.07%) followed by kufri swarna (18.30%). cooking quality and potato flavour out of five cultivars evaluated, four varieties were adjudged as waxy and one as floury (kufri swarna) (table 3). similarly, three of them had cream and two light yellow flesh colour after peeling. floury textured kufri swarna possessed moderately high mean dry matter content (18.83 %). jansky (2008), leung et al (1983), van dijk et al (2002) and mosley and chase (1993) also observed association of mealiness with high tuber dry matter content. however, average tuber dry matter content of waxy varieties varies from 16.57% (kufri jyoti) to 19.97% (kufri girdhari). besides dry matter, texture is also influenced by cultivars having varying cell wall density and the degree of solubilization of the middle lamella and cell walls (van marle et al, 1997). in general floury texture is preferred for processing purposes whereas, waxy texture is liked for boiling and canning (mosley and chase, 1993). on the basis of consensus of panel tasters, all the varieties were adjudged as good flavor (table 3). the r eason for varying flavours includes plant genotype, production and storage environment and the enzymes that react with them to produce flavour compounds (jansky, 2010). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 186-192, 2017 sudha et al table 3. cooking quality, flavour and dry matter content of potato cultivars under ambient conditions in different seasons hybrids dry matter content (%) texture flavour flesh colour spring su mmer autumn kufri neelima 17.40 17.24 17.14 waxy good light yellow kufri swarna 17.15 17.75 18.30 floury good cream kufri jyoti 16.17 15.86 17.69 waxy good cream kufri girdhari 19.24 20.61 20.07 waxy good cream kufri himalini 17.58 19.35 17.44 waxy good light yellow sed 0.47 0.52 0.35 cd (p= 0.05) 0.95 1.04 0.70 values in parentheses are transformed values 191 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 186-192, 2017 storage behaviour of potato varieties at nilgiris potato is a semi-perishable crop and storage is necessary for a regular supply to the consumers for table purpose. in areas like nilgiris, since round the year production is possible, there is a regular demand for seed potatoes too. hence, knowledge of storage behavior of different varieties which can withstand ambient temperatures at least for 60–75 days is very important. in the current study, kufri girdhari presented the best overall performance accounting for longer dormancy period, slower sprout growth, low total weight loss and high dry matter content in all the three seasons. hence it can be used as a seed for next year i.e summer harvested tubers can be used as a seed for next summer. kufri swarna proved inferior mainly in terms of its shorter dormancy and faster sprout growth, hence it can be used for alternate seasons i.e spring harvested potatoes can be utilized for autumn season, same way other varieties viz., kufri himalini, kufri jyoti and kufri neelima can be used for planting of alternate seasons. the current study can help the nilgiris farmers to choose and cultivate the potato varieties according to the nature of the demand. references das, m., ezekiel, r., pandey, b.k., singh, a.n. 2004. storage behaviour of potato varieties and advanced cultures at room temperature in bihar. potato j 31(1-2):71-75. ezekiel, r and singh, b. 2003. seed physiology. in: khurana sm p, minhas js, pandey sk (eds) t he pota to production a nd utiliza tion in subtropics. mehta publishers, new delhi, pp 301–313. ezekiel, r., singh, b., sharma, m.l., garg, i.d and khurana, s.m.p. 2004. relationship between weight loss and periderm thickness in potatoes stored at different temperatures. potato j., 31:135–140. gupta, v.k., luthra, s.k and singh, b.p. 2015. storage behavior and cooking quality of indian potato varieties. j. food sci. technol., 52(8):4863-4873. jansky, s.h. 2008. genotypic and environmental contributions to baked potato flavor. am j of potato res., 85:455–465. jansky, s.h. 2010. potato flavor. am j potato res., 87:209–217 kang, g.s and 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28(1):135–136. van dijk, c., fischer, m., holm, j., beekhuizen, j.g., stolle-smits, t and boeriu, c. 2002. texture of cooked potatoes (solanum tuberosum). 1. relationships between dry matter content, sensory-perceived texture, and near-infrared spectroscopy. j agr food chem., 50:5082– 5088. van ittersum, m.k. 1992. variation in the duration of tuber dormancy within a seed potato lot. potato res., 35: 30-36. van marle, j.t., stolle-smits, t., donkers, j., van dijk, c., voragen, a.g.j., recourt, k. 1997. chemical and microscopic characterization of potato (solanum tuberosum l.) cell walls during cooking. j agr food chem., 45:50–58. wiltshire, j.j.j. and cobb, a.h. 1996. a review of the physiology of potato tuber dormancy. ann ap biol., 129:553–569 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction ‘yu her pau’ is an early-maturing litchi (litchi chinensis) cultivar with outstanding fruit quality, but low crop load is a perpetual issue for its production on taiwan (chen et al., 2013; chang et al., 2022). to obtain better fruit development and retention, some litchi growers would prune lateral branches at the end of vegetative flushing to maximize light interception for enhancing photosynthesis on the remaining fruitbearing branches. nevertheless, the benefit of this practice on yields has been anecdotal without empirical evidence. increasing spring female flowers, which form fruitlets, could be another approach to enhance productivity but has never been explored for ‘yu her pau’ litchi. litchi flower formation is a result of signaling cascades initiated by leaf perceiving winter low temperatures (< 20 °c) (menzel and simpson, 1995), which upregulate a litchi flowering locus t (ft), lcft1, in leaves (ding et al., 2015; lu et al., 2022). similar responses involving leaf ft transcription under floral-inductive low-temperature conditions were reported in citrus (citrus sp.) (nishikawa et al., 2007), mango (mangifera indica) (nakagawa et al., 2012), and avocado (persea americana) (ziv et al., 2014), indicating that the leave’s role may be conserved among evergreen woody perennials. interestingly, in low-temperature-treated citrus, reducing leaf numbers resulted in a progressive decrease in flower buds (nishikawa et al., 2013). this leads to the assumption that litchi’s flowering could be manipulated by altering the quantity of leaves to increase productivity. in this pilot study, our objective was to test this hypothesis through evaluating effects of leaf quantity during winter low-temperature exposure on spring female flowering in field-grown ‘yu her pau’ litchi. despite the positive correlation between leaf number during fruit development and final crop load in litchi (chang and lin, 2008), whether mature leaf appearance as early as floralinductive period also helps subsequent fruit set and retention is unclear and thus was also investigated in this research as a subsidiary objective. manipulating female flower intensity in ‘yu her pau’ litchi by delayed winter pruning chang j.1,2 and tang l.3* 1chiayi agricultural experiment branch, 2agricultural chemistry division, taiwan agricultural research institute, council of agriculture, taichung city, taiwan 3united states department of agriculture, agricultural research service, appalachian fruit research station, kearneysville, wv, united states *corresponding author email : lisa.tang@usda.gov abstract ‘yu her pau’ litchi (litchi chinensis) has excellent fruit quality. however, its production on taiwan is limited by low productivity despite being regarded as a high-quality fruit. it is known that litchi’s leaves play a critical role in floral induction under low temperature. thus, we hypothesized that the flower intensity in spring could be manipulated by altering the leaf quality in winter, thereby increasing crop load. in this pilot study, ‘yu her pau’ trees were pruned in mid-december [early pruning (ep)], one of the common cultural practices carried out by growers in the region, as control or mid-january [late pruning (lp)]. this resulted in 50% and 100% canopy foliage for ep and lp trees, respectively, between mid-december and mid-january. at the peak blooming time in march, lp trees produced significantly more female flowers than ep trees (95.8 and 56.1/panicle, respectively) with no negative effects on initial fruit set number, fruitlet abscission, or fruit quality at harvest. our results suggest additional mature leaves present on trees in mid-december onward may benefit litchi flower formation without affecting fruit retention. thus, preserving leaves with delayed pruning might potentially mitigate the negative impacts of warmer winters due to climate change on litchi flowering. keywords : crop load, flowering, fruitlet retention, litchi chinensis, low-temperature induction original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 138-141, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2156 139 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 138-141, 2023 materials and methods this trial was conducted with ten, 31-year old ‘yu her pau’ trees at chiayi agricultural experiment branch, chiayi city, taiwan (lat. 23°29’ n, long. 120°28’ e, alt. 70 m). except pruning times, all trees were subjected to the sa me ma na gement pr a ctices. experiment was in a randomized complete block design; ea ch of the five blocks contained two treatments, early pruning (ep) as control and late pruning (lp). for ep, five trees were pruned on 17 dec 2016 by removing most lateral branches, resulting in about 50% of mature leaves removed from the tree canopy. this treatment, including the extent of branch excision and pruning time, was carried out according to one of growers’ common practices in the regions, hence serving as the control in this study. for late pruning (lp), the other five ‘yu her pau’ trees were thinned on 16 jan 2017 using the same criteria as for ep. therefore, from mid-december through mid-january, ep trees had 50% less canopy foliage than lp trees. spring inflorescence pruning, a conventional practice for litchi production in taiwan (chang et al., 2022), was done to all trees at the same level on 9 mar 2017, with the onset of male blooming. ten panicles were randomly selected per tree for quantifying flower intensity and fruitlet retention. newly emerged female flowers were counted every 2 to 3 days from 20 mar through 7 apr 2017, followed by the weekly quantification of fruitlets for 11 weeks after full female bloom (affb). weekly fruitlet retention was calculated by dividing the number of fruitlets remaining on the panicles by the number of fruitlets obtained at week 1affb. at harvest on 7 june 2017, five randomly selected fruits per tree were evaluated for pericarp, aril, seed and whole fruit weight, and total soluble solids content. the treatment effects of lp in comparison with ep (control) on all parameters measured were determined using one-way analysis of variance with sas enterprise guide (version 7.1; sas institute inc., cary, nc). results and discussion both ep and lp ‘yu her pau’ trees started to produce female flowers from 24 mar 2017 and had the peak bloom time on 29 mar (fig. 1), during which lp trees produced significantly more female flowers than ep trees (fig. 1). total female flowers produced in spring were also significantly greater in lp trees than ep tr ees (208. 8 a nd 153. 0/pa nicle, r espectively; p = 0.022) (table 1). these results demonstrated that delayed pruning increased flower intensity without affecting phenology. notably, from mid-december to mid-january, lp trees had twice as much canopy foliage as that of ep trees, suggesting more mature leaves during this period plays a pivotal role in promoting flowering promotion. since flowering phenology wa s unaltered by pruning times, the relationship between the number of mature leaves in winter and spring female flower intensity in litchi is likely quantitative, consistent with the results in citrus (nishika wa et al. , 2013). given the positive table 1 : flower and fruit characteristics in ‘yu her pau’ litchi pruned in mid-december [early pruning (ep)] and mid-january [late pruning (lp)] treatment female flower fruit no. / panicle fw pw aw sw tss no. / panicle immediately before harvest (g) (g) (g) (g) (0brix) ep 153.0 2.8 29.29 5.75 22.15 1.38 19.65 lp 208.8 1.9 30.16 5.96 22.63 1.57 19.69 anova * ns ns ns ns ns ns fw: fruit weight, pw: pericarp weight, aw: aril weight, sw: seed weight, tss: total soluble solids (tss) fig. 1 : female flower number of ‘yu her pau’ litchi pruned in mid-december [early pruning (ep)] and mid-january [late pruning (lp)]. *significant differences between two treatments on 29 mar at p< 0.05. manipulating female flower intensity in ‘yu her pau’ litchi 140 correlation between winter leaf carbohydrate levels and spring flower numbers reported in citrus (garcia-luis et al.,1995), the additional litchi leaves present in december due to lp might constitutes a greater carbohydrate pool to support more flower buds. alternatively, greater leaf number and area in lp trees may result in a higher ft accumulation (kinmonthschultz et al., 2019), which corresponded to flower intensity in response to floral-inductive conditions (nishikawa et al., 2007; tang et al., 2021; lu et al., 2022). releva ntly, litchi gr own in the nor th hemisphere had maximum lcft1 expression between mid-december and mid-january (ding et al., 2015), when low temperatures (< 20 ºc) guaranteed floral induction (menzel and simpson, 1995). the mean monthly temperature during this trial was 19.8 ºc in december 2016, and 18.3 ºc in january at the orchard that met the low temperature requirement. together, keeping more leaves under flowering-promoting low temperatures (mid-december through january) may positively affect floral signaling involving lcft1, thereby enhancing flowering. litchi inflorescences are heterocladic pleiothyrsoids; each female flower is sur r ounded by multiple subsequently pr oduced ma le flower s within a dichasium (robbertse et al., 1995). for ‘yu her pau’ litchi, the resource competition between new fruitlets (from female flower s) and male flowers is one predominant cause of low fruit set (chen et al., 2013). thus, it is possible that, with increased female flowers (fig. 1), fruit set would be reduced in lp trees due to the concomitant increment in male flowers (jiang et al., 2012; lee and chang 2019). in contrast, our results demonstrated that by week 1 affb, fruitlet numbers in lp and ep trees (160.3 and 150.0/panicle, respectively) were not different (fig. 2), suggesting the initial fruit set was not reduced by delayed pruning. as more fruitlets abscised from lp (87.0%) than ep tr ees (78. 7%), fr uitlet number r ema ined undistinguishable at week 2 affb (fig. 2). final fruit number per panicle of both treatments stayed similar through harvest (table 1), with no difference in pericarp, aril, seed, and total fruit weight or total soluble solids content (table 1). the results of this study indicate that the increase in floral intensity as a result of delayed pruning did not have a significant negative impact on fruitlet retention or fruit quality in ‘yu her pau’ litchi. mature leaves during the early to mid-stages of fruit development are the main photo assimilate source for fruitlets nearby (chang and lin, 2008). hence, similar crop load and fruit quality traits of ep and lp trees could be attributed to similar leaf quantity and canopy light interception, achieved by the same extent of pruning (albeit done at different times), past midjanuary. this  inference further  suggests  that  the presence of mature leaves during the floral-inductive period (mid-december to mid-january), relative to fr uit development per iod, might pla y a n inconsequential part in fruit retention and maturation thereafter. conclusion while literature has provided evidence for the role of leaves, regarding carbohydrate reserves and ft transcription, in litchi flower formation, this study was the first to put such knowledge into practice i.e., to effectively manipulate female flowering by increasing leaf exposure to floral-inductive low temperatures with delayed pruning. our results presented a tool to mitigate low flower intensity in litchi in the event of warmer winters due to climate change. although our study demonstrated no negative effects of increased flowering on initial fruit set, delayed pruning did not result in an increase in final crop load in ‘yu her pau’ litchi. this reflects the fact that flower formation is just one component with regard to yields. therefore, other practices that improve fruitlet retention, like inflorescence pruning and cincturing (chang et al., 2022), could be used in conjunction with delayed pruning to enhance overall litchi productivity. acknowledgement   the resea rch was supported by the council of agriculture, taiwan (project no.:106as-8.3.5-ci-c2). fig. 2 : fruitlet number and fruit retention rate (frr) of ‘yu her pau’ litchi pruned in mid-december [early pruning (ep)] and mid-january [late pruning (lp)]. (week affb-week after full female bloom). j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 138-141, 2023 chang and tang 141 the authors appreciate ming-yi fang and mei-li lin for their assistance in field-block management and data collection, and prof. emerita. chung-jan chang for improving the quality of the manuscript. references chang, j., tang, l., lin, m.l., chang, y.a. and chang, j.w. 2022. inflorescence pruning and cincturing after full female bloom improve ‘yu her pau’ litchi (litchi chinensis) fruit bearing. fruits, 77(4): 1-8. chang, j.c. and lin, t.s. 2008. fruit yield and quality as related to flushes of bearing shoots in litchi. j. amer. soc. hort. sci, 133(2): 284-289. chen, p.a., roan, s.f., lee, c.l. and chen, i.z. 2013. the effect of temperature during inflorescence development to flowering and inflorescence length on yield of ‘yu her pau’ litchi. sci. horti, 159:186-189. ding, f., zhang, s., chen, h., su, z., zhang, r., xiao, q. and li, h. 2015. promoter difference of lcft1 is a leading cause of natural variation of flowering timing in different litchi cultivars (litchi chinensis sonn.). plant sci., 241: 128-137. garcia-luis, a., fornes, f. and guardiola, j.l. 1995. leaf carbohydrates and flower formation in citrus. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 120(2): 222-227. kinmonth-schultz, h.a., macewen, n.j., seaton, d.d., millar, a.j., imaizumi, t. and kim, s.h. 2019. an explanatory model of temperature influence on flowering through whole-plant accumulation of flowering locus t in arabidopsis thaliana. in silico plants, 1(1), diz006. lee, y.c. and chang, j.c. 2019. leafless inflorescence produces more female flowers and fruit yield than leafy inflorescence in ‘yu her pau’ litchi. hort science, 54(3): 487-491. lu, x., lü, p., liu, h., chen, h., pan, x., liu, p., feng, l. , zhong, s. and zhou, b. 2022. identifica tion of chilling a ccumula tiona ssocia ted genes for litchi flower ing by transcriptome-based genome-wide association studies. front. plant sci., 13: 819188. menzel, c.m. and simpson, d.r. 1995. temperatures above 20°c reduce flowering in lychee (litchi chinensis sonn.). j. hortic. sci., 70(6): 981-987. nakagawa, m., honsho, c., kanzaki, s., shimizu, k. a nd utsunomiya. n. 2012. isolation and expression analysis of flowering locus t-like and gibberellin metabolism genes in biennial-bearing mango trees. sci. hortic., 139:108-117. nishikawa, f., endo, t., shimada, t., fujii, h., shimizu, t., omura, m. and ikoma, y. 2007. incr ea sed cift a bunda nce in the stem cor r ela tes with flor a l induction by low temperature in satsuma mandarin (citrus unshiu marc.). j. exp. bot., 58(14): 39153927. nishikawa, f., iwasaki, m., fukamachi, h. and endo, t. 2013. leaf removal suppresses citr us flowering locus t expression in satsuma mandarin. bull. natl. fruit tree sci., 15: 1-6. robbertse, h., fivaz, j. and menzel, c. 1995. a reeva luation of tr ee model, inflor escence morphology, and sex ratio in lychee (litchi chinensissonn.). j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 120(6): 914-920. ziv, d., zviran, t., zezak, o., samach, a. and irihimovitch, v. 2014. expression profiling of flowering locus t-like gene in alternate bearing ‘hass’ avocado trees suggests a role for paft in avocado flower induction. plos one., 9(10): e110613. (received : 22.12.2022; revised : 22.02.2023; accepted 28.02.2023) j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 138-141, 2023 manipulating female flower intensity in ‘yu her pau’ litchi introduction banana is an economically and nutritionally important fruit crop cultivated worldwide. but fusarium wilt, a vascular disease of the banana caused by the soil-borne fungus fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, is causes major devastatation. in spite of the poor history of banana production since 1876 due to fusarium wilt having destroyed thousands of hectares (ploetz 2000), uptil now a comprehensive solution has not been identified to control the disease. change in climatic factors and an increasing population may lead to a great demand for banana production in future. under these conditions, necessary steps should be taken to understand and overcome production constraints. identification of the defense genes and an understanding of plant-pathogen interaction may lead to development of new strategies to control this plant disease. when the pathogen attacks the host, in general, the initial response of the host should be an efficient recognition of the pathogen (either to hinder or limit the entry of the pathogen) with the help of resistance genes (r-genes) and 1division of fruit crops, icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru development of normalized cdna library from fusarium wilt infected roots of a tolerant banana genotype ‘calcutta-4’ musa acuminata ssp. burmannicoides v. swarupa, a. rekha1 and k.v. ravishankar* division of biotechnology icar indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatt lake post, bengaluru 560089, india *e-mail: kvravi@iihr.ernet.in abstract management of the most devasting disease, fusarium wilt of banana, caused by the fungus fusarium oxysporum f. sp., cubense, is a challenge to the plant pathologist and the banana grower. currently, genomics is providing the way for understanding plant defense mechanism, having acquired an important place in crop improvement. to identify the relevant genes and to understand the defense mechanism induced during fusarium wilt infection, a normalized cdna library was constructed from infected root samples of a tolerant banana genotype, musa acuminata spp. burmannicoides ‘calcutta-4’, by duplex specific nuclease (dsn) based normalization, using the smart (switching mechanism at 5' end of rna transcript) full-length cdna construction method. sequencing and analysis of 600 clones revealed 392 non-redundant clones. in all, of 88% of the sequences were annotated using musa genome database, and the remaining 12% were identified as novel loci not annotated. we observed several resistance genes, ros scavenging genes and genes involved in ubiquitin-proteosome pathway in this study. these genes may have a possible role against foc infection. these sequences would enrich the est data developed against specific stress, which is an indispensable tool for predicting functional genes and understanding the defense mechanism. key words: fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, banana, cdna library, defense response, normalization by cell wall strengthening. recognition leads to activation of various defense signaling pathways like ros, salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, aba, auxin, nitric oxide and calcium. these signal pathways modulate each other through a complex network of regulatory mechanisms based on hostpathogen interactions (swarupa et al, 2014). other parallel changes such as altered regulation of ros scavenging enzymes that maintain ros homeostasis, including various biochemical and physiological changes, also occur in the host to debilitate the pathogen. ests and other cdna sequences are among the most reliable evidences for understanding molecular mechanisms operating at the cellular level and for identifying gene-rich regions in a genome species (garg et al, 2011). generation of large-scale ests is a very useful approach to accelerate research on non-model plants like the banana. ests generated from a whole cdna library should represent all the genes expressed in the tissue used for constructing the library. however, abundance of mrna is different for different genes which makes it difficult to fish out rare mrnas from cdna libraries. also, it increases redundant j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):55-60, 2014 56 sequencing of clones, leading to decreased efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the est approach (bonaldo et al, 1996). to overcome problems of redundancy in large-scale cdna sequencing projects, normalization of cdnas is done for construction of the library. the normalization process generally utilizes second-order reaction kinetics for reassociation of denatured dna, so that relative transcript concentrations within the residual single-stranded (ss) cdna fraction are equalized to a considerable extent (young and anderson, 1985). duplex-specific nuclease (dsn) based normalization has been extensively used in animal tissues successfully; however, it has rarely been used in plant systems. therefore, we have made an attempt to develop dsn based normalized cdna library to identify a possible set of genes expressed during fusarium wilt infection. material and methods plant material healthy suckers of the tolerant genotype musa acuminata ssp.burmannicoides, ‘calcutta-4’ were planted in cement pots of 12 inch diameter filled with sterilized soil, after disinfection (using bavistin 2%). routine cultural practices were followed for two months to establish the plants. susceptible cultivar ‘kadali’ was used as a (control plant to check for symptom development. after the plants established, small pieces of fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (foc) infected suckers were chopped and used an inoculum to induce the disease in both genotypes. two months after infection, we observed disease symptoms in the susceptible cultivar ‘kadali’. then, the roots of ‘calcutta-4’, a tolerant, genotype were collected, frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored until future use. construction of normalized cdna library total rna was extracted from foc inoculated (two months after inoculation) root tissues of ‘calcutta-4’ as per liu et al (1998). cdna library was constructed using clontech creator smart cdna library construction kit (clontech, usa. cat. no. 634903) following the manufacturer ’s protocol, with a modification, for normalization. purification of long distance (ld) pcr products was done using axyprep pcr cleanup kit (axygen, cat. no. ap-pcr-250). then, normalization was done for the amplified cdna using duplex-specific nuclease enzyme (evrogen biotech, cat. no. ea003) as per the protocol described by zhulidov et al (2004). dsn untreated sample was maintained as the control. dsn treated and untreated samples were loaded onto 1.1% agarose gel to check the quality of normalization. 2 µl of normalized single-stranded transcript mixture was used in the remaining steps from ld pcr for library construction. the final fractionated pcr products, after pooling, were ligated with the vector provided in the kit, and transformed using electrocompetent e.coli (dh5α) cells. individual colonies were picked up and amplified in fresh chloramphenicol lb agar plates (30µg/ml). plasmid isolation was done using the plasmid isolation kit (sigma co.; cat. no. na0160) and, in all, 600 clones were sequenced. homology search for all the sequence data was done on banana genome hub (droc et al, 2013) using blastn. results and discussion despite the economic importance of banana, fundamental molecular mechanisms underlying its defense mechanism against fusarium wilt is poorly understood. as host-expressed molecules provide insights into the underlying defense mechanism, a normalized cdna library, corresponding to genes expressed during foc infection from root tissues of the tolerant genotype ‘calcutta-4’, was constructed. in this study, we observed that foc inoculated plants of the tolerant genotype ‘calcutta-4’ showed negligible symptoms of discolouration of corm portions and were generally healthy. uninoculated plants were also healthy. infected ‘kadali’ showed both discoloration of corms and symptoms of wilting. zhulidov et al (2004) reported that dsn-based normalization can be used successfully for normalization of cdna from different sources before sequencing the expressed sequence tags (ests). purified ld pcr products obtained from ‘calcutta-4’ were used for normalization using the dsn method (to enrich rare transcripts prior to sequencing). the low intensity and downward shift of normalized cdna smear on agarose/ etbr gel (fig. 1) compared to non-normalized cdna depicts efficiency of the normalization by dsn. only high molecular weight and bright cdna fractions obtained at the final step were pooled for use in sequencing after cloning into the plasmid vector. from sequence data of the 600 clones obtained, we removed low quality, short sequences. 392 clone sequences were finally selected for further analysis (table 1). functional characterization of the sequences was performed by homology-comparison using banana genome hub database and the sequences were classified into seven categories (fig. 2). a major functional category of the genes j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):55-60, 2014 swarupa et al 57 corresponded to genes involved in transcription and translation (27%), followed by those involved in growth and metabolism (25%). defense genes comprised 9% while, signal transduction genes represented 10%. a significant fraction of the defense genes was involved in cell-wall orientation, strengthening and detoxification. a total of 369 ests were submitted to ncbi, genbank (accession number jz349661 to jz350029). a b m fig 1. dsn treatement for normalization of cdna library lane a untreated cdna; lane b dsn treated cdna; m 1kb ladder fig 2. pie chart showing functional categorization of expressed sequence tags (ests) developed from normalized cdna library: seven functional categories of non-redundant ests were identified in ‘calcutta-4’ (musa acuminata ssp. burmannicoides) in response to fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense inoculation. table 1. defense related genes identified against fusarium wilt resistance, developed using infected root samples of the tolerant genotype, ‘calcutta-4’, by normalized cdna library genbank functional annotation of length e-value accn. sequences using blastn (no. of homology search base pairs) (banana genome hub) jz349796 wound-induced basic 329 4e-11 protein~ pr4 jz349806 putative peroxidase 52~ per52 265 2e-12 jz349835 peroxiredoxin, putative 311 4e-20 jz349669 chitinase-like protein 1~ ctl1 318 8e-28 jz349864 peroxiredoxin-2c~ prxiic 371 0 jz349886 putative probable lrr 204 4e-16 receptor-like serine/threonineprotein kinase jz349887 wound induced protein 294 3e-21 jz349880 pathogenesis-related 231 1e-120 protein 1~ pr1 jz349683 heat shock protein dnaj, 204 2e-27 putative~ dnaj jz349962 putative stress-associated 136 2e-69 endoplasmic reticulum protein 2~ serp2 jz349729 heat shock cognate 70 kda 310 2e-16 protein~ hsp70 jz349923 mitogen-activated protein 204 3e-17 kinase kinase kinase 1~ mekk1 jz349666 nbs-lrr disease resistance 351 4e-11 protein, putative~ rga1 jz349733 bzip family transcription 389 1e-20 factor~ rf2a jz349696 snf1-related protein kinase 204 4e-22 catalytic subunit alpha kin10 jz349768 lipoxygenase a~ lox1 141 3e-62 jz350024 powdery mildew resistant 351 4e-11 protein 5 ~ mj1458 jz349893 actin-depolymerizing 358 1e-23 factor 11~ adf11~ jz349668 tubulin alpha-3 379 8e-50 chain~ tuba3 jz349918 profilin-1~ pro1 338 4e-11 jz349814 calreticulin~ crt2 409 3e-74 jz349842 calmodulin~ cam 305 3e-92 jz349756 c2 domain containing 388 8e-19 protein ~ pp16-2 jz349792 myb family transcription 351 6e-41 factor~ myb86 jz349717 serine/threonine-protein 420 4e-27 kinase afc2 jz349951 protein kinase family 204 2e-15 protein~ ctr1 jz349944 small ubiquitin-related 296 7e-28 modifier 2~ sumo2 jz349969 ubiquitin-conjugating 358 4e-36 enzyme e2 28~ ubc28 jz349846 e3 ubiquitin-protein 204 2e-14 ligase at4g11680 developing normalized cdna library in banana for fusarium wilt j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):55-60, 2014 58 from this study, we profiled over 30 prominent genes known to be involved directly or indirectly in defense against the pathogen. expression of genes which help in perception of the pathogen, viz., disease resistance protein rga2 and nbs-lrr disease resistance protein, rga1, various protein kinases like serine-threonine protein kinases, mitogenactivated protein kinase kinase kinase 1(mekk1), transcription factors like bzip family transcription factor, myb family transcription factor (myb86), were all found in our study. li et al (2013) reported induction of various defense related genes in foc infected genotype and not in control plants. these genes include pr-proteins (thaumatin like protein, endochitinase, etc.); transcription factors (myb4, wrky40); and, kinases [mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 2, wall-associated receptor kinase (wak 1)]. this suggests that the above-stated genes are involved in defense response in the banana. genes that pertain to cell wall re-orientation trait, namely profilin, actin depolymerizing factor, tubulin and alpha-3 chain, were also identified. expression of host cellwall thickening genes, fungal cell-wall degrading enymes, and, counteracting inhibitor proteins like polygalacturonase inhibitor protein (pgip) against fungal proteins (ravishankar et al, 2011) during fungal attack are considered important for hindering initial pathogen-entry into the host cell. schmelzer (2002) reported that cell wall thickening also involves re-orientation of actin filaments as a defense response. expression of these genes in the present study suggests cell-wall reorientation as an important part of the plant defense mechanism. β-1,3 glucan and chitin are major components of the fungal cell wall. chitinases have been known as direct defense enzymes, with a capability for attacking fungal cellwalls (thakker et al, 2009). hence, the expression of chitinases, pr1 and pr4, in ‘calcutta-4’ suggests that these may help prevent foc multiplication in the host. similar pattern was observed in a study by van den berg et al (2007) describing involvement of endochitinase (pr3) and and pr1 in antifungal activity against foc in this tolerant genotype of banana. following successful pathogen recognition, production of reactive oxygen species (ros) called the oxidative burst, is one of the earliest cellular responses (torres et al, 2006). here, expression of various ros scavenging enzymes like peroxidase, peroxiredoxin and peroxiredoxin 2c suggests that these genes act as indicators of ros production. ros controls several processes in plants. these act as signaling molecules for eliciting other defense responses; but, being toxic molecules, these are also capable of causing injury to cells (mittler et al, 2004). hence, in cells, ros quantity needs to be strictly regulated; studies have proved that ros scavenging enzymes fine-tune the ros metabolism. also, induction of various defense response genes in tolerant genotypes and not in susceptible genotypes has been represented by various transcriptome and proteomic studies (bai et al, 2013; li et al, 2013b). in our previous study we have observed the earlier and increased expression of antioxidant enzymes like peroxidase and glutaredoxin during foc infection in the tolerant genotype (swarupa et al, 2013). abundance of transcripts for genes involved in ros detoxification: phenylalanine ammonia lyase (that helps in biosynthesis of antimicrobial compounds) and 4-coumaratecoa ligase (important in biosynthesis of flavonoids), were observed during mycosphaerella musicolamusa acuminata (‘calcutta-4’) interaction (passos et al, 2013). hence, our study suggests that ros could play a possible role in activating other downstream defense responses and which is fine-tuned by the above mentioned scavenging enzymes, to maintain ros homeostasis. we ascertained upregulation of various ca2+ signaling genes in our previous study (swarupa et al, 2013). various calcium-binding proteins like calmodulin, calreticulin and c2 domain containing protein, and lipoxygenase, were found in our present study too. activation of cyclic nucleotide gated channels (cngcs)-ca2+ influx (that influences calcium signaling and induction of lipoxygenase involved in ja signaling during fusarium wilt infection) in a tolerant genotype of banana has been reported by li et al (2012). hence, expression of these specified genes supports their role in defense against foc in banana. involvement of ubiquitin–proteasome system (ups) in plant immune signaling which generally helps in post-translational mechanisms has been reported in various studies (marino et al, 2012; craig et al, 2009; dhawan et al, 2009). expression of various genes of the ubiquitination pathway in ‘calcutta-4’ suggests their active role in fusarium wilt infected plants. use of dsn based normalization for construction of cdna library from root tissues against fusarium wilt has diminished redundancy and enriched the identification of novel genes. seventy eight per cent of the transcripts were annotated with known functions of dh pahang genome, a swarupa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):55-60, 2014 59 banana genotype also resistant to fusarium wilt. data generated in this study would be useful in studying defense response against the causative fungus, for selection of elite genotypes for various traits, and for crop improvement. even though banana genome sequence is available, short studies like these are necessary to characterize and attribute functions to genes involved in various biotic and abiotic stresses. further, this would also help identify and study the extent of gene expression during stress. further, detailed analysis of genes identified in this study may help reveal the mechanism of plant defense response. acknowledgment the authors acknowledge financial support from indian council of agricultural research (icar), new delhi through network project on transgenics in crops: “functional genomics of fusarium wilt and drought tolerance in banana”. references bai, t.t., xie, w.b., zhou, p.p., wu, z.l., xiao, w.c., zhou, l., sun, j., ruan, x.l., and li, h.p. 2013. transcriptome and expression profile analysis of highly resistant and susceptible banana roots challenged with fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense tropical race 4. plos one:8:e73945. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0073945 bonaldo, m.f., lennon, g. and soares, m.b. 1996. normalization and subtraction: two approaches to facilitate gene discovery. genome res., 6:791–806 craig, a., ewan, e., mesmar, j., gudipati, g. and sadanandom, a. 2009. e3 ubiquitin ligases and plant innate immunity. j. exptl. bot., 60:1123–1132 dhawan, r., luo. h., foerster, a.m., abuqamar, s., du, h.n., briggs, s.d., mittelsten scheid, o. and 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(eds) nucleic acid hybridization: a practical approach. irl press, oxford, pp. 47-71 zhulidov, p.a., bogdanova, e.a., shcheglov, a.s., vagner, l.l., khaspekov, g.l., kozhemyako, v.b., mikhail v. matz, m.v., meleshkevitch, e., moroz, l.l., lukyanov, s.a. and shagin, d.a. 2004. simple cdna normalization using kamchatka crab duplex-specific nuclease. nucleic acids res., 32:1-8 (ms received 21 march 2014, revised 30 may 2014, accepted 06 june 2014) swarupa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):55-60, 2014 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction c oc on u t ( c o c o s n u c i f e r a ) , p a lm o f f a mily arecaceae is an important plantation crop grown in india and the southern states viz., kerala, tamil nadu, karnataka and andhra pradesh constitute major area and production of coconut. in india, coconut is grown in an area of 2,150.89’000 ha with an annual production of 21,288.24 million nuts and productivity of 9897 nuts/ha (cdb, 20182019). in tamil nadu, coconut is cultivated in 4,38,935.20 ha with 49,474 lakh nuts and 11,271 nuts/ha production and productivity, respectively (cdb, 2019-2020). most of the human population in india depends on coconut directly or indirectly for their livelihood. coconuts possess high nutritive value including minerals, vitamin b, copper, iron along with proteins and antioxidants. they have several health benefits and it is a multipurpose tree, as the whole parts of coconut are used in one or the other way. the coconut tree is infested by several insect pests throughout the year (thampan, 1975). recently, whiteflies pose serious threat to the coconut growers in the country. rugose spiralling whitefly (rsw), aleurodicus rugioperculatus martin (hemiptera: aleyrodidae) originally known as gumbo limbo spiralling whitefly was reported first from coconut during 2004 in belize, central america (martin, 2004), in south florida, united states in 2009 (stocks et al., 2012), in changanassery, kottayam, kerala during 2016 (shanas et al., 2016), mangalore and udupi of karnataka in 2016 (selvaraj et al., 2017) and in pollachi tract, coimbatore district, tamil nadu, in august 2016 (srinivasan et al., 2016). a total of 118 hosts have been documented to be attacked by the rsw, including crops and weeds (stocks et al., 2012). they deposit creamy golden eggs in a spiral pattern on the underside of the leaves. when the nymphs hatch, they begin sucking the plant sap from the underside of the leaves, releasing honeydew that falls seasonal incidence, population dynamics and morphometric traits of exotic coconut whiteflies in southern tamil nadu suriya s.1*, preetha g.1, balakrishnan n.1 and sheela j.2 1department of agricultural entomology, 2department of plant pathology, agricultural college and research institute, killikulam, vallanadu 628252, tamil nadu, india *corresponding author email : suriyaento23@gmail.com abstract survey was conducted at fortnightly intervals to assess the intensity of damage caused by the invasive whiteflies in coconut in the southern districts of tamil nadu viz., thoothukudi, tirunelveli, tenkasi and kanyakumari from december 2020 to august 2021. among the four districts, kanyakumari recorded the highest whitefly incidence (56.30%), whereas, tenkasi showed the lowest infestation (48.83%). two whitefly species viz., rugose spiralling whitefly, aleurodicus rugioperculatus martin and bondars nesting whitefly (bnw), paraleyrodes bondari peracchi were observed in all the surveyed districts. the rugose spiralling whitefly nymphs and adult populations were found to be highest in kanyakumari (49.46 nymphs/leaflet; 36.99 adults/leaflet) and lowest in tenkasi (32.76 nymphs/leaflet; 26.71 adults/leaflet). similarly, the population of bondars nesting whitefly nymphs and adults were highest in kanyakumari (35.31 nymphs/leaflet; 34.84 adults/leaflet), whereas, the lowest nymphal population was observed in tenkasi (22.79 nymphs/leaflet) and adult population in thoothukudi (24.19 adults/leaflet). in morphometric analysis, length and breadth of egg (0.24 ± 0.03 mm and 0.13± 0.02 mm), nymphal (0.83 ± 0.08 mm and 0.38 ± 0.04 mm), pupal (1.08 ± 0.09 mm and 0.70 ± 0.09 mm), adult (female: 2.59 ± 0.09mm, 1.71 ± 0.14 mm; male: 2.27 ± 0.21 mm, 1.30 ± 0.05 mm) was recorded for a. rugioperculatus and egg (0.15 ± 0.02 mm and 0.08 ± 0.01 mm), nymphal (0.46 ± 0.02 mm and 0.36 ± 0.02 mm), pupal (0.59 ± 0.16 mm and 0.41 ± 0.09 mm), adult (1.09 ± 0.08 mm and 0.73 ± 0.07 mm) for p. bondari. keywords : coconut, intensity of damage, morphometry, whiteflies original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 216-222, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2167 217 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 216-222, 2023 seasonal incidence of exotic coconut whiteflies on the upper surface of the fronds below them (josephrajkumar et al., 2016). the fungus capnodium grows on the honeydew, giving it a charcoal black a ppear a nce tha t ma y be visible fr om dista nce (chandrika et al., 2016) that affects photosynthesis and in turn reduction in the quality of nuts. later in 2018, bondars nesting whitefly (bnw), paraleyrodes bondari peracchi was first identified in kayamkulam, kerala. it feeds on more than 25 host plants. (chandrika et al., 2018) which is also creating menace in the coconut gardens of tamil na du r ec ent ly. t he nymphs a nd a du lts of p. bondari construct nesting chambers of woolly wax and the adults will be remaining on the nests for egg laying. the woolly wax nests will be seen on the under surface of the leaflets. another invasive nesting whitefly, paraleyrodes minei laccarino was observed in coconut gardens in larger areas along the western ghat coastal regions of kerala and karnataka since november 2018 (sujithra et al., 2019). palm infesting whitefly, aleurotrachelus atratus hempel was first reported on ornamental areca palm in 2019 at mysore and mandya districts of karnataka (selvaraj et al., 2019). at present, the whitefly complex in coconut pose serious threat to the growers as the under surface of leaves were totally covered with whiteflies and the sooty mould infestation dominates the upper surface. coconut is an important crop in the southern districts of tamil nadu and the incidence of whiteflies can cause stress to the plant by removing nutrients and water. in addition to damaging the host plants, whiteflies also create a nuisance in the area of infestation. in this context, the present study was undertaken to a sses s the sea sona l incidence a nd popula tion dynamics of whitefly species in southern regions of ta mil n a du a nd t o s t u dy the mor p homet r ic parameters of exotic whiteflies of coconut. materials and methods surveys were conducted at fortnightly intervals in the southern districts of tamil nadu viz., thoothukudi, kanya kuma ri, tir unelveli a nd tenkasi on five locations of each district from december 2020 to august 2021 to assess the incidence and population dynamics of whitefly species. the seasonal incidence and the population dynamics of coconut whiteflies was assessed on the under surface of 100 leaflets randomly on ten palms each in five locations. the intensity of damage was calculated using the following formula as suggested by elango et al. (2019). no. of fronds infested / tree intensity of damage (%) = ———————— x 100 total no. of fronds observed/ tree the adult whiteflies were caged on potted coconut plants leaf for oviposition and freshly laid egg spirals were identified for a. rugioperculatus and the nests were observed for the eggs of p. bondari. the eggs were observed regularly and the immature stages of whiteflies were excised daily and measurements on eggs, nymphal stages, pupae and adults were made using leica s8 apo with image analyser. the data obtained on the intensity of damage and populations of a. rugioperculatus and p. bondari were statistically analysed using spss version 16.0 software. results and discussion survey on the incidence and population dynamics of coconut whiteflies in the four southern districts of tamil nadu revealed that among the different species of whitefly inhabiting coconut the two whitefly species viz., rugose spiralling whitefly, a. rugioperculatus and bondar’s nesting whitefly, p. bondari were prevalent in thoothukudi, tirunelveli, tenkasi and kanyakumari districts. the intensity of damage, nymphal and adult popula tion of coconut whiteflies a nd their morphometric parameters are detailed here. intensity of damage (%) by coconut whiteflies the distribution and severity of a. rugioperculatus and p. bondari in the southern districts of tamil nadu from december 2020 to august 2021 are presented in table 1. the highest whitefly infestation (56.30%) was recorded in kanyakumari followed by tirunelveli (54.36%) and thoothukudi (51.83%), whereas, tenkasi district had the lowest infestation (48.83%). on considering the pest infestation in different months among the four districts, the highest infestation was observed in march 2021 (54.44%) followed by december 2020 (54.20%). the per cent infestation was found to be low during august 2021 (47.78%). the survey results on the intensity of damage (%) revealed that the mean per cent infestation of coconut whiteflies among the different months ranged from 47.78 to 54.44% and the mean infestation of coconut whiteflies in different districts revealed that the highest damage wa s recorded in kanya kuma ri distr ict 218 suriya et al. of different months, the descending order of the nymphal population of a. rugioperculatus is as follows: kanya kuma r i (49. 46 nymphs/lea flet) >tirunelveli (44.01 nymphs/leaflet) >thoothukudi (39.68 nymphs/leaflet) > tenkasi (32.76 nymphs/ lea f let ) . t he nymp ha l p op u la t ion of a . rugioperculatus was found to be highest throughout the period of observation except april and june 2021 in kanyakumari district and thoothukudi district recorded highest population in april 2021 (51.24 nymphs/leaflet) and tirunelveli district in june 2021 (46.11 nymphs/lea flet). the lowest population of 22.95 nymphs/leaflet was observed in tenkasi district during august 2021. in the table 1 : intensity of damage by coconut whiteflies in southern districts of tamil nadu location intensity of damage*(% ) mean dec-20 jan-21 feb-21 mar-21 apr-21 may-21 jun-21 jul-21 aug-21 thoothukudi 53.24 50.59 52.30 54.27 51.69 53.89 50.46 52.46 47.59 51.83 (46.88) (45.34) (46.32) (47.46) (45.97) (47.24) (45.26) (46.41) (43.62) (46.06) tirunelveli 55.10 54.91 54.78 55.84 55.55 54.62 54.57 53.76 50.15 54.36 (47.93) (47.82) (47.75) (48.36) (48.19) (47.65) (47.62) (47.16) (45.09) (47.51) tenkasi 48.11 50.18 49.70 51.08 50.20 49.40 50.30 49.00 41.51 48.83 (43.92) (45.10) (44.83) (45.62) (45.12) (44.66) (45.17) (44.43) (40.10) (44.33) kanyakumari 60.35 58.56 58.11 56.58 56.17 54.40 54.06 56.62 51.89 56.30 (51.07) (49.93) (49.67) (48.79) (48.56) (47.53) (47.34) (48.81) (46.08) (48.64) mean 54.20 53.56 53.73 54.44 53.40 53.08 52.35 52.96 47.78 (47.45) (47.05) (47.14) (47.55) (46.96) (46.76) (46.34) (46.70) (43.72) se(d) district =0.387; month =0.580; d×m = 1.159 cd (p=0.05) district = 0.767; month = 1.150; d×m = 2.301ns *mean of five replications. figures in parentheses are arc sine transformed values table 2 : population of aleurodicus rugioperculatus nymphs in southern districts of tamil nadu location population of a. rugioperculatus nymphs/leaflet* mean dec-20 jan-21 feb-21 mar-21 apr-21 may-21 jun-21 jul-21 aug-21 thoothukudi 44.99 35.15 32.98 42.39 51.24 43.46 33.37 40.04 33.48 39.68 (6.71) (5.96) (5.78) (6.53) (7.19) (6.63) (5.80) (6.36) (5.80) (6.30) kanyakumari 62.70 49.83 53.83 55.30 45.15 50.73 45.13 42.80 39.65 49.46 (7.89) (7.01) (7.33) (7.44) (6.71) (7.13) (6.70) (6.52) (6.28) (7.00) tirunelveli 50.62 41.07 47.21 40.21 46.38 50.37 46.11 34.95 39.15 44.01 (7.02) (6.35) (6.75) (6.27) (6.72) (7.05) (6.69) (5.95) (6.28) (6.56) tenkasi 40.94 31.24 26.82 36.35 39.90 35.08 28.54 32.98 22.95 32.76 (6.41) (5.60) (5.23) (6.07) (6.35) (5.96) (5.38) (5.78) (4.83) (5.73) mean 49.81 39.32 40.21 43.56 45.67 44.91 38.29 37.69 33.81 (7.00) (6.23) (6.27) (6.57) (6.74) (6.69) (6.14) (6.16) (5.80) se(d) district=0.133; month =0.200; d×m = 0.398 cd (p=0.05) district =0.262; month =0.394; d×m = 0.787ns *mean of five replications. figures in parentheses are transformed values (56.30%) followed by tirunelveli district (54.36%). ala ga r et al. (2020) assessed the intensity of infestation of a. rugioperculatus during june 2018 to march 2020, the severity of a. rugioperculatus infestation was substantially higher in tirunelveli (70.50%) and kanyakumari (75.70%) districts, respectively. the study results are also in line with the findings of selvaraj et al. (2016) and sundararaj et al. (2017) who reported that the severity of infestation of a. rugioperculatus ranged from 40-60% in coconut. population of a. rugioperculatus nymphs the population of a. rugioperculatus nymphs in four different southern districts of tamil nadu is given in table 2. on considering the overall mean j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 216-222, 2023 219 pr esent study, it wa s obser ved tha t the mea n population of a. rugioperculatus was prevalent throughout the study period and this is in tune with the findings of elango et al. (2020) who studied the population dynamics of a novel exotic whitefly species, a. rugioperculatus a nd their na tur a l enemies on five year old chowghat orange dwarf coconut tr ees a nd found the popula tion of a. rugioperculatus on coconut throughout the year, and the observation recorded on a weekly interval b a s is s how ed t ha t t he p op u la t ion of a . rugioperculatus increased from the first week of july 2018 (130.8 nymph/leaf/frond) to a maximum during the first week of october, 2018 (161.0 nymph/leaf/frond) and then decreased to a minimum during april, 2019 (elango et al., 2020). population of a. rugioperculatus adults the adult population of a. rugioperculatus during the period of observation is presented in table 3. the mean population of a. rugioperculatus adults varied from 29.50 to 34.60 adults/leaflet throughout the study period from december 2020 to august 2021. considering the overall mean the highest pop ula tion of a. rug iope rcul atus a dult s wa s recorded in kanyakumari district (36.99 adults/ leaflet) and the lowest population in tenkasi district (26.71 adults/ leaflet). population of p. bondari nymphs the nymphal population of p. bondari was found to be less when compared to a. rugioperculatus. the mean nymphal population of p. bondari was high in k a nya ku ma r i (3 5. 3 1 nymphs /lea f let) followed by tirunelveli (31.70 nymphs/leaflet), thoothukudi (25.31 nymphs/leaflet) and tenkasi (22.79 nymphs/leaflet). the p. bondari nymphs was found to be maximum in december 2020 (32.78 nymphs/leaflet) followed by february 2021 with 3 0. 1 7 nymp hs / lea flet. among t he months of observation, the least number of p. bondari nymphs was noticed during january 2021 (25.69 nymphs/ leaflet) (table 4). population of p. bondari adults the adults of p. bondari were found to be highest in kanyakumari district similar to nymphs with a population of 34.84 adults/leaflet and followed by tirunelveli district (30.80 adults/leaflet) and then by tenkasi and thoothukudi districts with a mean popula tion of 25. 05 a nd 24. 19 a dults/lea flet, r espectively (ta ble 5). while consider ing the monthly mean, the adult population of p. bondari was highest in december 2020 with a population of 33.07/leaflet followed by may 2021 (30. 18 adults/leaflet). the lowest population of 25.01 adults/leaflet was recorded in july 2021. morphometrics parameters of a. rugioperculatus and p. bondari egg the rugose spiralling whitefly, a. rugioperculatus eggs were 0.24±0.03 mm length, 0.13±0.02 mm br ea dth a nd 0. 6 7±0. 07 mm dia met er a nd t he bondar ’s nesting whitefly, p. bondari eggs were 0.15±0.02 mm in length, 0.08±0.01 mm breadth and 0.37±0.06 mm diameter. table 3 : population of aleurodicus rugioperculatus adults in southern districts of tamil nadu location population of a. rugioperculatus adults/leaflet* mean dec-20 jan-21 feb-21 mar-21 apr-21 may-21 jun-21 jul-21 aug-21 thoothukudi 30.13 35.67 27.88 31.86 28.30 38.69 30.58 22.83 26.75 30.30 (5.51) (5.99) (5.26) (5.67) (5.35) (6.25) (5.56) (4.74) (5.20) (5.50) kanyakumari 41.48 35.45 41.41 33.94 40.94 33.01 31.39 35.91 39.38 36.99 (6.47) (5.99) (6.47) (5.86) (6.43) (5.78) (5.65) (6.03) (6.31) (6.11) tirunelveli 38.76 34.70 32.12 35.07 32.10 31.16 34.47 33.50 32.66 33.84 (6.26) (5.92) (5.70) (5.95) (5.69) (5.61) (5.90) (5.82) (5.74) (5.84) tenkasi 28.04 25.20 29.95 25.57 27.92 25.83 23.62 25.77 28.45 26.71 (5.33) (5.06) (5.51) (5.10) (5.31) (5.13) (4.90) (5.12) (5.38) (5.21) mean 34.60 32.76 32.84 31.61 32.32 32.17 30.02 29.50 31.81 (5.89) (5.74) (5.73) (5.65) (5.69) (5.69) (5.50) (5.43) (5.66) se(d) district=0.093; month = 0.139; d×m = 0.278 cd (p=0.05) district =0.184; month =0.276 ns; d×m = 0.551 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 216-222, 2023 seasonal incidence of exotic coconut whiteflies 220 nymph the first instar nymphs of a. rugioperculatus were 0.35±0.04 mm length, 0.24±0.01 mm breadth, and 1.14±0.29 mm diameter, second instar nymphs were 0.58±0.04 mm length, 0.27±0.01 mm breadth and 1.27±0.19 mm diameter, third instar nymphs were 0.83±0.08 mm length, 0.38±0.04 mm breadth and 2. 50±0. 35 mm dia meter a nd the four th insta r nymphs were 1.08±0.09 mm in length, 0.70±0.09 mm breadth and 2.93±0.28 mm diameter. the body measurements of p. bondari were 0.24±0.01 mm length, 0.16±0.02 mm breadth and 0.83±0.03 mm diameter for first instar nymphs, 0.35±0.04 mm length, 0.25±0.02 mm br eadth, 0.90±0.03 mm diameter for second instar nymphs, 0.46±0.02 mm length, 0.36±0.02 mm breadth and 1.11±0.17 mm diameter for third instar nymphs and 0.59±0.16 mm in length, 0.41±0.09 mm in breadth and 1.67±0.41 mm in dia met er f or f ou r t h ins t a r nymp hs , respectively. fourth instar nymphs are considered as a pseudo pupal stage. adult the length and breadth of adult male were 2.27±0.21 a nd 1. 30±0. 05 mm a nd the a dult female wer e 2.59±0.09 and 1.71±0.14 mm. in bondar’s nesting whitefly, p. bondari adult, the length and breadth were 1.09±0.08 and 0.73±0.07 mm, respectively (table 6). the morphometric analysis on the developmental stages of a. rugioperculatus in coconut revealed that the present result is almost similar in length (mm) with the findings of saranya et al. (2021). table 4 : population of paraleyrodes bondari nymphs in southern districts of tamil nadu location population of p. bondari nymphs/leaflet* mean dec-20 jan-21 feb-21 mar-21 apr-21 may-21 jun-21 jul-21 aug-21 thoothukudi 29.72 22.11 24.99 28.08 26.55 21.54 27.45 22.21 25.18 25.31 (5.47) (4.72) (5.03) (5.33) (5.17) (4.66) (5.27) (4.66) (5.05) (5.04) kanyakumari 40.58 32.07 39.31 31.23 37.79 31.04 34.46 37.70 33.63 35.31 (6.41) (5.70) (6.30) (5.63) (6.19) (5.61) (5.91) (6.18) (5.83) (5.97) tirunelveli 35.90 28.97 32.02 33.02 32.41 30.75 31.31 29.43 31.54 31.70 (6.02) (5.39) (5.67) (5.78) (5.72) (5.57) (5.62) (5.46) (5.65) (5.65) tenkasi 24.94 19.62 24.37 18.52 22.84 24.83 24.32 17.34 28.29 22.79 (5.03) (4.48) (4.98) (4.36) (4.83) (5.03) (4.97) (4.19) (5.36) (4.80) mean 32.78 25.69 30.17 27.71 29.90 27.04 29.39 26.67 29.66 (5.73) (5.07) (5.50) (5.28) (5.47) (5.22) (5.44) (5.12) (5.47) se(d) district=0.097; month = 0.146; d×m = 0.292 cd (p=0.05) district =0.193; month =0.290; d×m = 0.579ns table 5 : population of paraleyrodes bondari adults in southern districts of tamil nadu location population of p. bondari adults/leaflet* mean dec-20 jan-21 feb-21 mar-21 apr-21 may-21 jun-21 jul-21 aug-21 thoothukudi 29.28 23.93 20.06 23.13 25.87 27.23 24.00 19.75 24.43 24.19 (5.44) (4.92) (4.49) (4.84) (5.12) (5.26) (4.94) (4.42) (4.98) (4.94) kanyakumari 41.55 33.34 40.52 31.37 38.41 30.06 34.9 30.75 32.63 34.84 (6.47) (5.81) (6.40) (5.64) (6.24) (5.53) (5.95) (5.58) (5.75) (5.93) tirunelveli 35.45 31.22 27.81 33.34 29.95 33.78 31.11 23.69 30.84 30.80 (5.98) (5.62) (5.30) (5.81) (5.51) (5.85) (5.61) (4.90) (5.59) (5.57) tenkasi 25.99 21.42 25.93 19.21 23.73 29.64 23.88 25.86 29.80 25.05 (5.12) (4.67) (5.12) (4.43) (4.89) (5.48) (4.92) (5.12) (5.49) (5.03) mean 33.07 27.48 28.58 26.76 29.49 30.18 28.47 25.01 29.43 (5.76) (5.25) (5.33) (5.18) (5.44) (5.53) (5.36) (5.01) (5.45) se(d) district=0.090; month = 0.136; d×m = 0.271 cd (p=0.05) district =0.179; month =0.269; d×m = 0.538 *mean of five replications. figures in parentheses are transformed values suriya et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 216-222, 2023 221 conclusion from the present study it is concluded that the exotic whitefly species, viz. , rsw, aleurodicus rugioperculatus and bnw, paraleyrodes bondari were the prevalent whiteflies in southern tracts of tamil nadu in coconut. the population of these invasive species were found throughout the year. references alagar, m., rajamanikam, k., chinnadurai, s. and yasmin, a. 2020. surveillance, assessment of infestation, biology, host range of an invasive r ugose spir a ling whitefly, aleurodicus rugioperculatus martin and status of its natural enemies in tamil nadu. j. entomol. zool. stud., 8(3): 2041-2047. chandrika, m., josephrajkumar, a., singh, l. and alpana, d. 2018. new distributional record of r ugose spir a lling whitefly on coconut in kamrup and nalbari districts of assam. indian coconut j., 61: 19-21. chandrika, m., josephrajkumar, a., 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(received : 12.09.2021; revised : 03.01.2023; accepted 17.01.2023) suriya et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 216-222, 2023 325 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction a properly designed and operated drip irrigation system has to supply the water amount required by the crop and should also wet enough soil volume. the wetting patterns which develop from dripping water onto the soil depend on discharge and soil type. two of the key factors in the design of micro-irrigation systems to obtain the maximum benefits are the amount of water used and the volume of soil to be wetted. the partial soil wetting pattern by micro irrigation requires assessment of the percentage of soil volume that is wetted (sne, 2006). distance between emitter on lateral pipe and distance of lateral pipes from each other should be determined based on the degree of wetted soil diameter by emitters. duration of irrigation also depends on the fact that at what time after commencement of irrigation, the wetting front reaches depth of plant’s root or a multiple of it. distance of outlets, discharge rate and time of irrigation in drip irrigation have to be determined so that volume of wetted soil is close to volume of plant’s root as much as possible. this is because volume of wetted soil surface and moisture depends on soil texture and layering, soil homogeneity, dripper flow rate, primary moisture of soil, consumption water and land slope. a truncated ellipsoid is assumed to best represent the geometry of the wetted soil volume under an emitter. the restricted volume of the wetted soil under drip irrigation and depth-width dimensions of this volume are of considerable practical importance. the volume of the wetted soil represents the amount of soil water stored in the root zone, its depth dimension should coincide with the depth of the root system while its width dimension should be related to the spacing between the emitters and lines. the parameters which influence the wetted soil volume are the available water holding capacity of the soil and the peak daily crop water use representing specific field conditions. the irrigation interval and the management-allowed deficit are additional parameters which affect the wetted volume and could be changed depending on crop sensitivity as well as water and irrigation equipment accessibility (li et al., 2004). irrigation water applied should be adequate for crop water use in irrigation interval. the applied water should not be beyond crop root zone to avoid deep standardisation of soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in mango (mangifera indica l.,) manjunath b.l.*, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and abhilasha c.n. icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta, bengaluru 560 089 *corresponding author email : blmanjunathagri@gmail.com abstract field experiments were conducted in mango for four years during 2017-2020 at icar-indian institute of horticultural research to standardise optimum soil volume wetting for drip irrigation. wetting soil volume upto 70% recorded higher mean fruit yield of 34.8 kg/plant (9.68 t/ha)and with further increase in the level of soil volume wetting irrigation (upto 80%), there was a decline in the mango yield (7.40 t/ha). similarly, significantly increased response was observed in fruit weight upto 70% soil volume irrigation (226 g) although there were no significant differences in the tss of the fruit. significantly higher water use efficiency was observed for 30% soil volume wetting irrigation (274.1 kg/m3) and further no significant differences were observed in water use efficiency between 50% and 70% soil volume wetting irrigations indicating that in areas of water scarcity, it is enough to scheduling the irrigation only upto 50% soil volume wetting in mango for economising the water (232.1 kg/m3). keywords: mango yield, scheduling irrigation, soil volume wetting, water use efficiency 326 manjunath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 percolation. although the wetted soil is based on soil type, flow rate, and crop water use, the horizontal and vertical water movements are related to both emitter flow rate and soil intake rates. as such there is a need to optimise the wetted volume taking into account soils, crop, crop stage and seasons. ma ngo is the ma in fr uit cr op of india a nd is extensively cultivated under rain fed conditions (68%) with wider spacing without much inputs. at present mango is cultivated in an area of 22, 93,000 ha with a production of 2, 07, 98,000 mt, the productivity being 9.66 t/ha (anon. 2019). most of the fruit development of on-season mango fruits takes place during the dry season and farmers have to irrigate mango trees to ensure high yields and good quality. mango responds well to irrigation especially during fruit set to fruit development. mango fruit production and quality at fruit growth stage were significantly affected under different irrigation water amounts. variation in soil water content not only had effects on fruit size, but also on fruit yield (wei et al., 2017). deficit irrigation strategies are needed to increase water use efficiency and solve the problem of fruit weight reduction during development (srikasetsarakul et al., 2011). further, the amount of water to be irrigated and the per cent soil volume to be wetted need to be standardized to a given crop situation for enhanced water use efficiency especially under scarce situations. keeping these points in view, efforts were made to standardise the optimum soil volume wetting irrigation for mango. materials and methods field experiments were conducted for four years during 2017 to 2020 at icarindian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru located at a latitude of 13°8’12"n and a longitude of 77°29’45"e, to standardize the optimum wetted soil volume for irrigation in 18 years old mango (variety ra spur i) spa ced a t 6m x 6m. t he ma ximum temperature during the experimental period ranged from 240c to 360c and the minimum temperature ranged between 100c to 220c. the period between march to may are the warm months with higher temperatures and evaporation while the period between november to january were the cooler months with low temperature and evaporation. the average relative humidity was higher during september and october months. the average rainfall of the location is around 850 mm with two peak periods of rainfall during junejuly and september-october months. pre-experimental soil had a ph of 4.73 with moderate salts (1.00 dsm-1). the organic carbon content of the soil was good (2.91 %). the available nitrogen (471.4 kg/ha), available phosphorus (23.8 kg/ha) and the available potassium content of the soil was on higher side (350 kg/ha). the experiment involved comparison of three levels of soil volume wetting irrigation (30%, 50% and 70%) with normal drip irrigation (80% soil volume wetting) as control in rbd design with six replications. the mango crop was maintained with recommended package of practices except for irrigation. the evaporation data was collected from uswb class a open pa n eva por imeter of meteor ologica l observatory situated in the experimental farm of icar-iihr. irrigation scheduling was done based on pan evaporation data as per the treatments coinciding with the period from fruit set to fruit development stages. the volume of the active root zone (soil volume) was arrived by excavating the moist soil carefully (without da ma ging the r oots) a r ound the ba se befor e experimentation in the representative plants. plastic barriers were introduced to the required length and depth of the root zone to demarcate the required per cent wet and dry zones. three different percentages of the surface soil areas were wetted by the use of single (for 30% and 50% soil volume wetting) and double drip laterals (for 70% soil volume wetting). the amount of rain was taken into account and irrigation paused or reduced accordingly. total water applied was mea sured and wa ter a pplied per tree wa s calculated based on application time and nominal flow ra te. the ca lculated amount of water for ea ch irrigation was either partially wetted or fully wetted in the root zone depending on the treatment. an irrigation level of 80% er was fixed based on the results of earlier experiments in mango and water use was calculated to wet the required per cent soil volume in the active root zone based on the wetted area basis as per the treatments.soil moisture variations were monitored both in dry and wet zones periodically through gravimetric method. mango was applied with recommended fym with a fertilizer dose of 730g n, 180g p2o5 and 680g k2o per plant per year and the crop was managed with r ecommended pa cka ge of pra ctices except for irrigation. plant hopper s were controlled using 327 imidacloprid 0.3% and powdery mildew with wettable sulphur. all the growth and yield parameters were recorded in mango each year. the canopy volume in mango was computed as per standard procedure (mark et al., 2002). at harvest, yield was determined separately for each tree in alltreatments by the use of a mechanical balance. water use efficiency (kg fruits m-3of water applied) was worked out based on the total water applied through drip irrigation according to fao recommendations (doorenbos and kassam, 1979). dropped fruits under all trees in the experiment were collected, counted and weighed. fruit drop was recorded periodically in number and weight. after harvest the number of all dropped fruits per tree and all harvested fruits were added up to estimate the total fruit retention. the retention rate was calculated as the percentage of fruits attached to the tree at harvest as compared to the calculated initial fruit set. the mean data was analysed as per standard statistical procedures (panse and sukhatme, 1985). results and discussion soil moisture the moisture studies in the root zone during different periods indicated that there exist significant variations in the soil moisture across the treatments. in the wet zone, the soil moisture increased with increase in the per cent volume of soil irrigated. the highest soil moisture in the wet zone (14.5 %) was recorded with 80% soil volume wetting with a record of 179.9% increased moisture over the dry zone. it was noticed that even with 50% soil volume wetting, the per cent soil moisture difference in the wet zone was over 158.3 % as compared to dry zone.the higher moisture with increased level of irrigation meeting higher volumes of soil may be attributed to the fact that increasing the water application rate allowed more water to distribute in horizontal direction, while decreasing the rate allows more water to distribute in vertical direction for a given volume applied (li et al., 2004). moreshet (1983) attributed this to the differences in the water depletion a s well to the root density distribution pattern between the partially irrigated and that of the fully irrigated one. plant growth in mango the growth parameters in general increased upto 50% soil volume wetting and declined thereafter. further at 80% soil wetted volume irrigation,significantly lower canopy spread of the plant was observed compared to lower levels of soil volume wetting suggesting that the growth in mango is not favoured much with irrigation above 70% soil volume wetting. vellame (2015) attributes this to the plant acclimation which is caused by an increase in root concentration in the irrigated area. after a period of acclimation, if the entire root system is wetted, soil water extraction becomes proportional to the percentage of wetted area after a short period of time. fruit retention in mango the fruit r etention in mango was significantly influenced by different wetted volumes of irrigating the standardisation of soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in mango table 1 : mean soil moisture variation in dry and wet root zones in mango basin irrigation treatment soil moisture in soil moisture in % increase in soil wet zone dry zone moisture in wet zone (%) (%) over dry zone 30% soil wetted volume 7.71 3.06 152.0 irrigation 50% soil wetted volume 11.96 4.63 158.3 irrigation 70% soil wetted volume 12.77 5.01 154.9 irrigation 80% soil wetted volume 14.50 5.18 179.9 irrigation s.em± 1.05 0.52 c.d (p=0.05) 3.35 ns j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 328 soil with increase in the retention as the percent soil wetting increased with irrigation although the trend was not continuous. significantly higher fruit retention (49.3 %) was observed at 70% soil volume wetting irrigation which although was found at par with 50% soil volume wetting irrigation (47.2%), differed significantly from the other two levels. the increase in fruit retention with increased moisture levels may be attributed to the reduction in fruitlet drop as a consequence of favourable moisture conditions. these differences may also be attributed to the accumulation of abscisic a cid in buds at flor a l initiation in optimizing leaf water potential and sap flow besides optimizing carbohydrate availability and cytokinin in sustaining differentiation activity in growing buds (makhmale sandip et al., 2015). similar observations of maximum fruit retention at harvest stage and delayed maturity in the mango trees with irrigation was also observed by malshe et al., (2020). yield attributing characters and the fruit yield the number of mango fruits per plant increased significantly with increase in soil volume wetting irrigation upto 70% (191.9 fruits/plant) decreasing thereafter suggesting that mango responds only upto this level of soil moisture. higher fruit number with 70% soil volume wetting irrigation may be attributed to higher fruit retention with reduced fruit drop owing to favourable soil moisture conditions at the critical phase. morshet et al., (1983) also observed that there was a considerable difference in flower abscission between irrigation levels especially at the beginning manjunath et al table 2 : percent wetted soil volume irrigation in influencing the plant growth characters in mango plant height canopy volume girth primary secondary treatment (m) (m3) (cm) branches/plant branches/plant 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 30% soil wetted 3.20 3.34 35.64 31.98 64.38 70.00 3.00 3.00 3.38 3.38 volume irrigation 50% soil wetted 3.70 3.98 53.06 45.94 64.13 67.75 4.00 4.00 2.95 2.94 volume irrigation 70% soil wetted 3.52 3.70 46.10 37.74 67.75 70.25 2.50 2.50 3.30 3.30 volume irrigation 80% soil wetted 3.44 3.58 38.24 34.22 63.50 67.25 2.75 2.75 3.05 3.04 volume irrigation s.em± 0.19 0.19 4.10 4.50 3.38 3.90 0.42 0.42 0.27 0.28 c.d (p=0.05) ns ns 12.79 ns ns ns ns ns ns ns treatment fruit retention in plant (%) fruit no. /plant 2017 2018 2019 mean 2017 2018 2019 2020 mean 30% soil wetted 38.9 39.7 47.9 42.2 120.6 205.7 136.6 65.9 132.2 volume irrigation 50% soil wetted 41.2 36.1 38.8 38.7 124.2 198.7 155.3 131.5 152.4 volume irrigation 70% soil wetted 44.2 38.2 59.1 47.2 154.5 214.0 230.4 168.8 191.9 volume irrigation 80% soil wetted 45.3 37.8 64.7 49.3 66.6 177.0 169.8 146.7 140.0 volume irrigation s.em± 2.8 3.7 2.8 1.6 18.4 22.7 18.5 25.5 11.91 c.d (p=0.05) ns ns 8.7 4.73 56.1 ns 56.2 ns 36.23 table 3 : mean fruit retention and fruit number per plant in mango as influenced by different wetted soil volume irrigation during different years j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 329 of the flowering season. the flower abscission rate in the partially irrigated trees was higher than in the fully irrigated trees while the abscission of fruitlets was lesser in the partially irrigated treatment. the mean fruit yield per plant increased significantly with increase in soil volume wetting irrigation upto 70% decreasing there after indicating the graded response to moisture levels in mango. significantly higher mean fruit yield of 34.80 kg/plant (9.68 t/ha) was recorded with 70% soil volume wetting irrigation. this suggests that it is worth giving irrigation to meet 70% level of evaporation demand in areas where water is not scarce. the results also suggests that with further increase in the level of soil volume wetting irrigation (upto 80%), there was a decline in the mango yield (7.40 t/ha) indicating that beyond 70% of soil volume wetting, it is a luxury consumption for the plant. the increase in mean fruit yield with 70% soil volume wetting irrigation over the control (80% soil volume wetting) was 26.1 per cent indicating the deleterious effects of excess irrigation in mango that too with loss of precious irrigation water (24.5%). earlier studies in mango also revealed that meeting 70% evaporative demand is the best for higher fruit yield and quality (srinivas et al., 2016). fruit weight and tss the number of fruits rather than the fruit size influences the total yield. higher fruit yield and favorable fruit size distribution are counteracting and the exact control of both parameters by means of irrigation seems to be difficult. while there is a negative correlation between the number of fruits onthe tree and the average fruit size, the influence of irrigation on fruit size remains important. significantly increased response for irrigation in mango fruit size was observed upto 70% soil volume irrigation (226 g) and decreased there after suggesting that beyond this level, the rate of increase in fruit size is only marginal. lesser fruit weight at lower levels of irrigation may be attributed to the water stress for the full growth of the fruit. noitsakis et al., (2016) also inferred that higher level of water stress was observed when 50% irrigation water of fully watered pomegra nate pla nts was applied resulting in a significant decrease in mean fruit weight and diameter. the tss in mango fruit was although not significantly influenced by different irrigation wetted volumes of soil, relatively higher t.s.s. of 18.840 b was observed at 50% as compared with 80% (17.760 b) although found at par with rest of the treatments. further, this may be attributed to the ability of mango to survive short periods of water deficits as a result of drought tolerance that reduces vegetative growth allowing better penetration of light into the canopy. water use efficiency a perusal of the amount of water used / ha during different years for each of the treatment showed that ther e was a consider able differ ence acr oss the treatments. the amount of water used / ha under 80% of soil wetted volume was substantially higher (78.7 m3/ha) as compared to 30%, the latter depicting a saving of 67.5 % water. similarly, 50% wetted soil volume irrigation showed a saving of 46.2% water standardisation of soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in mango table 4 : mean fruit yield as influenced by percent soil volume wetting irrigation in mango fruit yield (kg /plant) fruit yield (t/ha) treatment 2017 2018 2019 2020 pooled 2017 2018 2019 2020 pooled mean mean 30% soil wetted 22.1 36.6 21.8 12.0 21.4 6.13 10.17 6.05 3.32 5.93 volume irrigation 50% soil wetted 22.4 34.9 28.3 25.0 25.8 6.21 9.68 7.87 6.95 7.15 volume irrigation 70% soil wetted 33.7 40.2 45.9 30.4 34.8 9.35 11.18 12.76 8.43 9.68 volume irrigation 80% soil wetted 12.2 31.7 31.2 31.5 26.6 3.38 8.79 8.66 8.73 7.40 volume irrigation s.em± 3.5 3.8 4.0 4.7 2.0 0.97 1.06 1.11 1.30 0.56 c.d (p=0.05) 10.7 ns 12.2 14.2 6.1 2.96 ns 3.38 3.96 1.70 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 330 compared to nor mal (80% soil wetted volume) irrigation indicating that by following the 50% soil volume wetting, nearly double the area of the crop can be irrigated. significant variations were observed in the mean water use efficiency across the treatments. higher water use efficiency was observed for 30% soil volume wetting irrigation (274.1 kg/m3) differing significantly with other levels suggesting that more yield could be obtained per unit amount of water used with the treatment. further, as the per cent soil volume wetting irrigation increased, the water use efficiency decreased manjunath et al table 5 : mean fruit weight and total soluble solids as influenced by percent soil volume wetting irrigation in mango mean fruit weight (g) t.s.s. (0b) treatment 2017 2018 2019 2020 mean 2017 2018 2019 2020 mean 30% soil wetted 181.4 177.9 156.7 172.9 172.2 19.64 16.66 18.16 18.3 18.2 volume irrigation 50% soil wetted 183.5 178 181.7 185.4 182.2 19.40 17.96 20.52 17.44 18.84 volume irrigation 70% soil wetted 218 192.8 197.4 183.5 197.9 17.98 17.76 19.32 19.28 18.58 volume irrigation 80% soil wetted 214.3 179.7 183.2 230.2 201.8 18.54 15.84 17.48 19.12 17.76 volume irrigation s.em± 13.71 6.873 4.69 18.01 7.5 0.79 0.48 0.72 0.52 0.28 c.d (p=0.05) ns ns 14.27 ns 22.7 ns 1.49 ns ns ns table 6 : water use efficiency in mango (over four years) as influenced by different levels of per cent soil volume wetting irrigation mean savings water in water used (m3/ha) used water wue (kg/m3) treatment (litres/ (%) plant) 2017 2018 2019 2020 mean 2017 2018 2019 2020 mean 30% soil 25.28 33.18 34.73 8.9 25.52 91.8 67.5 242.3 306.6 174.3 373.3 274.1 wetted volume irrigation 50% soil 41.90 54.84 57.67 14.9 42.33 152.3 46.2 148.2 176.5 136.4 467.3 232.1 wetted volume irrigation 70% soil 58.98 76.71 81.03 20.8 59.38 213.6 24.5 158.6 145.7 157.5 405.8 216.9 wetted volume irrigation 80% soil 77.03 95.15 112.75 29.7 78.70 283.1 43.9 92.4 76.8 293.7 126.7 wetted volume irrigation s.em± 23.3 16.8 20.1 93.3 27.0 c.d (p=0.05) 70.8 51.0 61.1 82.2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 331 drastically. this may be attributed to the fact that evaporation is minimised by restriction in wetted soil area and such reduction is influenced by the number of days after the beginning of partial irrigation, a tmospher ic eva por a tive dema nd a nd pla nt phonological stage (vellame et al., 2015). it was noted that there was non-significant differences in the wue between 50% (232.1 kg/m3) and 70% soil volume wetting irrigation (216.9 kg/m3) indicating that in areas of water scarcity it is worth irrigating only upto 50% of soil volume wetting so that we can also save another 21.7% water. spreer et al. (2009) also inferr ed tha t wa ter use efficiency was always significantly higher in the deficit irrigation treatments as compared to the control. further, wei et al. (2017) also concluded that when the soil moisture content was controlled at about 65±70% of the field water moisture capacity, water demand in the growth and development of mango could be ensured and maximum production efficiency of irrigation and the best quality of fruit could be achieved. irrigation only upto 50% soil volume wetting in mango for economising the water (232.1 kg/m3). acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the indian council of agricultural research for the financial assistance in the conduct of the field experiment through the net work project on consortia research platform on water coordinated by icar-indian institute of water management, bhubaneshwar. the work is c ont r ib u t i on n o. 2 3 / 2 0 2 1 of i c ar i i h r , hessaraghatta, bengaluru references anonymous, 2019. area and production of horticulture crops for 2018-19 (3rd advance estimates), na tiona l hor ticultur a l boa r d, india . www.nhb.gov.in. diamantopoulos, e. and elmaloglou, s. 2012. the effect of drip line placement on soil water dynamics in the case of surface and subsurface drip. irrig. drain.e, 61(5): 622-630. li, jiusheng., zhang, j. and rao, m. 2004. wetting patterns and nitrogen distributions as affected by fertigation strategies from a surface point source, j. agri. water manag, 67: 89–104. makhmale, s., makwana, a. n., barad, a. v. and nawade, b. d, 2015. physiology of floweringthe case of mango, int. j. app. res., 1(11): 1008-1012. malshe, k.v., shinde, v.v., sawant, b. n. and salvi, b. r. 2020. comparative study on effect of irrigation during fruit development on yield in ma ngo cv. alphonso, j. pharmacogn. phytochem., 9(2): 2338-2339. makhmale, s. bhutada, p. yadav, l. and yadav, b.k. 2016. impact of climate change on phenology of mango-the ca se study. eco. environ. conserv. 22(9): 127-132. mark, t. s., skinner, q. d., smith, m. a., rodgers, j. d., laycock, w. a. and cerekci, s. a. 2002. evaluation of a technique for measuring canopy volume of shrubs, j. range manag. arch. 55(3): 235-241. conclusion wetting soil volume upto 70% recorded higher mean fruit yield of 34.8 kg/plant (9.68 t/ha) and with further increase in the level of soil volume wetting irrigation (upto 80%), there was a decline in the mango yield (7.40 t/ha). similarly, significantly increased response was observed in fruit weight upto 70% soil volume irrigation (226 g). significant differences were not observed in water use efficiency between 50% and 70% soil volume wetting irrigations indicating that in areas of water scarcity, it is enough scheduling the standardisation of soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 fig 1. mean fruit yield and water use efficiency in mango (over four years) as influenced by different levels of per cent soil volume wetting irrigation 332 moreshet, s. , cohen, y. a nd fuchs, m. 1983. response of mature ‘shamouti’orange trees to irr igation of different soil volumes at simila r levels of a va ila ble wa ter. irr ig. sci. 3(4): 223-236. noitsakis, b., chouzouri, a., papa, l. and patakas, a. 2 0 1 6 . p omegr a na t e p hys iologic a l responses to partial root drying under field conditions. emi. j. food and agric. 28(6): 410-414. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1954. statistical methods for agr icultur a l wor ker s, ind. coun. agril. res. p ongs omb oon, w. , s u b ha dr a b a ndhu , s . a nd stephenson, r.a. 1997. some aspects of the ecophysiology of flower ing int ensity of mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. nam dok m a i in a s emit r op ic a l mons oon as ia n climate. sci. horti. 70: 45–56. r a ja n, s , 2 0 1 2 . p henologic a l r e s p ons es t o temperature and rainfall: a case study of mango, in: tropical fruit tree species and cl im ate c han ge (e d: bhuwon st ha pit, r a ma na t ha r a o, v. a n d s a ja l sthapit), biovarsity international, new delhi. 2: 71-96. rouhallah, f., mosavi, f. and parvanak, k. 2011. experimental study of shape and volume of wetted soil in 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b.l. manjunath and k.srinivas), technical bulletin no. 60. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru, pp.11-12. sukhvibula , n. , whiley, a. w. , smith, m. k. , hetherington, s.e. and vithanage, v. 1999. effect of temperature on inflorescence and floral development in four mango (mangiferaindica l.) cultivars. sci.horti. 82(2): 67–84. vellame, l. m., júnior, f., felisbino, e. and coelho, r. d. 2015. effect of partial soil wetting on transpiration,vegetative growth and root system of young orange trees. scient. agricola, 72(5): 377-384. wei, j., liu, g., liu, d. and chen, y. 2017. influence of irrigation during the growth stage on yield and quality in mango (mangifera indica l). plos one, 12(4): 174-498. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 325-332, 2022 (received : 11.07.2021; revised : 01.09.2022; accepted : 16.09.2022) evaluation of commercial dipping oil for production of quality raisins from thompson seedless grapes ajay kumar sharma*, sharmistha naik, s.d. sawant, pratiksha kadam and r.g. somkuwar icar-national research centre for grapes, manjari farm, solapur road, pune-412307 (india) *e-mail : ajay.sharma1@icar.gov.in abstract grape growing in india is mainly confined to tropical peninsular regions of maharashtra, karnataka and tamil nadu. it is estimated that approximately 95% of total grapes are produced in maharashtra and karnataka alone. about 71 per cent of total grape production of the country is consumed as fresh and 27 per cent is processed into raisins. grape drying is mainly concentrated in sangli, solapur and nashik districts of maharashtra and vijayapura and bagalkot districts of karnataka. generally, after dipping of grape bunches in solution of ethyl oleate and potassium carbonate (also known as australian dip) the grape bunches are spread on nylon mesh inside grape drying shed and within 10-15 days drying process completed. there are several commercial products/substitutes for dip treatment available in the market. however, it has been reported that effectiveness of these products is variable. therefore, present investigation was carried out to study effectiveness of a new commercial product for raisin production from thompson seedless grape variety in comparison to ethyl oleate. grape bunches of thompson seedless were dipped in these solutions prior to drying inside raisin drying shed. besides, the drying bunches were also sprayed with different concentrations of these products on 3rd and 5th days of drying. observations were recorded on drying dynamics, browning index, colour intensity, content of phenols and tannins, sensory properties and quality parameters after storage for 4 months. it was observed that the dip treatment of thompson seedless grapes with a solution of 18 ml commercial product and 24 g potassium carbonate per litre of water for 2 minutes and sprays of 12 ml commercial product +16 g potassium carbonate per liter water on 3rd day and 6 ml commercial product + 8 g potassium carbonate per liter water on 5th day was found better than ethyl oleate for production of good quality raisins. key words: ethyl oleate, drying dynamics, quality, raisins j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 180-185, 2017 introduction grape production in india is mainly concentrated in maharashtra and karnataka and contributing about 95% of total grape production of country. grapes are mainly utilized for fresh consumption (~ 71%) and followed by raisin making where about 27% of total production is utilized (sharma, 2017). the raisins are being made in sangli, solapur and nasik districts of maharashtra and vijayapura and bagalkot districts in karnataka due to prevalence of suitable climatic conditions. t hompson seedless is one of the predominant commercialtable grape cultivar, which also has better attributes for processing into raisins (jogaiah et al., 2014). raisin production is greatly influenced by total soluble solids (tss) at harvest, rate of drying and different drying conditions such as temperature, humidity, and exposure of drying grapes to direct sunlight (somkuwa r et a l. , 2013). beside it pretreatments of grape bunches or application of solutions during drying also play an important role not only in improving quality of dried grapes, but has significant impact on number of days required for drying. original research paper 180 181 commercial dipping oil in thomson seedless raisins j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 180-185, 2017 dipping of grape bunches in solution of ethyl oleate (1.5%) and potassium carbonate (2.5%) for 24 minutes is a common practice followed for raisin making, after which,the drying process is completed within 10-15 days (adsule et al., 2012). although, ethyl oleate is extensively used in dip treatment, there are several products available in the market containing this compound or its substitute. efficacies of many of these products have not been worked out. therefore, attempts were made to develop better products. giridhar et al. (2000) reported that the drying rates for grapes treated with mixed fatty acid esters were higher than the commercial dipping oil ethyl oleate. in addition to the standard chemicals which are recommended for dip treatment of grapes, some other commercial products are also available in indian market and are being used by raisin producers. however, no scientific data have been generated on its effect on drying kinetics and quality of raisins. akshay dip super manufactured by m/s west coast herbochem ltd containing 95.7% ethyl oleate, 1.4% antioxidant preservative and rest emulsifier, is one such commercial product. the present investigation was, therefore, carried out to compare drying kinetics and quality of raisins produced using ethyl oleate and akshay dip super. treatments dipping schedule spray schedule (quantity in 1 liter water) (quantity in 1 liter water) at beginning of the experiment 1stspray (3rdday) 2ndspray (5thday) t1 ethyl oleate (15 ml) + ethyl oleate (15 ml) ethyl oleate (15 ml) (control) potassium carbonate (25 g) + potassium carbonate (25 g) + potassium carbonate (25 g) t2 akshay dip super (18 ml) + akshay dip super (12 ml) + akshay dip super (6 ml) + potassium carbonate (24 g) potassium carbonate (16 g) potassium carbonate (8 g) t3 akshay dip super (15 ml) + akshay dip super (15 ml) + akshay dip super (15 ml) + potassium carbonate (25 g) potassium carbonate (25 g) potassium carbonate (25 g)) t4 akshay dip super (21 ml) + akshay dip super (14 ml) + akshay dip super (7 ml) + potassium carbonate (24 g) potassium carbonate (16 g) potassium carbonate (8 g) table 1. details of dip and spray treatments material and methods the experiment was conducted in the grape drying shed of icar-national research centre for grapes (icar-nrcg), pune during february-march, 2016. details of experimental treatments are given in table-1. grape bunches having healthy berries were harvested at >23°brix tss. the dip and spray solutions were prepared by mixing appropriate quantities of ethyl oleate, akshay dip super and potassium carbonate as given in table 1. after the harvest, grape bunches were dipped in prepared solutions for a duration of 2 minutes. after dipping, treated bunches were spread on nylon mesh inside the grape drying shed. additional sprays of the chemicals were given on 3rd and 5th day of drying as per schedule given in table 1. during the grape drying process, samples were collected on daily basis. the moisture contents (in percentage) in the samples were measured using moisture analyzer of lcgc (model axis). number of days required for achieving 15% moisture content was considered as required duration for raisin making. total phenolic content (tpc) was determined with f-c reagent according to the method of slinkard and singleton (1977) using uv-vis-spectrophotometer and gallic acid as standard phenolic compound. tannins were determined by folin-denis method given by schanderl (1970) using uv-vis-spectrophotometer and tannic acid as a standard. browning index and colour intensity in collected samples were measured by using uv-vis-spectrophotometer. the raisins from all treatments were collected when the moisture level was reached at 15% and stored in sealed polythene bags at low temperature (4-5 0c) in refrigerator for a period of 4 months. after 4 month’s storage, these samples were again analyzed for different quality parameters. each treatment was replicated four times and data were analyzed as per crd. for organoleptic testing, a sensory panel was constituted comprising of 10 persons (5 males and 5 182 sharma et al females) having basic training on organoleptic studies of raisins and experience of raisin tasting. the sensory attributes were colour, texture, sweetness, flavor, mouthfeel, taste and overall acceptability. raisins from all treatments were evaluated based on 9-point hedonic scale (9-like extremely, 8-like very much, 7-like moderate, 6-like slightly, 5-neither like nor dislike, 4dislike slightly, 3-dislike moderately, 2-dislike very much, 1-dislike extremely). however, in case of rancidity more values were mentioned for more rancidity and it was noted on a scale of five. the scores obtained from panelists were used for determining mean values. three samples were analyzed from each treatment. results and discussion effect on dynamics of moisture loss/drying period effect of different treatments on period required for drying is presented in table 2. significa nt differences were noted in different treatments for % moisture content during entire drying period. it is evident from the data that the grapes in treatment t2 lost moisture rapidly and dried much faster (fig. 1). this trend of rapid moisture loss in treatment t2 was consistent over entire drying period. the rate of moisture loss was very rapid in this treatment up to 7th day after which it plateaued till 15th day (table 2). t reat ment s moisture content (%) on days of drying 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 t 1 70.84 58.84 42.63 34.89 29.87 26.75 23.21 22.22 21.93 21.93 19.72 18.81 17.80 16.94 15.84 t 2 66.51 58.38 34.24 32.39 31.05 29.79 20.71 20.70 19.89 19.89 18.32 17.04 16.47 15.77 14.30 t 3 68.40 59.19 48.52 34.013 32.82 31.79 24.02 23.07 19.70 19.70 18.96 18.05 17.03 15.20 16.32 t 4 68.73 62.80 44.25 32.98 33.143 28.813 20.803 19.89 19.22 19.22 19.58 18.00 17.08 16.43 15.30 c.d. (5%) 2.248 1.345 2.798 ns ns 1.719 1.699 ns 1.213 1.086 0. 88 ns ns 0.851 1.022 table 2. dynamics of moisture loss in different treatments fig. 1. dynamics of moisture loss during grape drying j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 180-185, 2017 effect on physical appearance and biochemical constituents of raisins the data presented in table 3 indicate that t he b ioc hemic a l c ons t it u ent s a n d p hys ic a l appearance of raisins were significantly affected by different treatments. lowest colour intensity (0.787) was noted in t3 followed by t2 (0.787), while ma ximum colour intensit y (0. 908 ) wa s recorded in t1. in case of browning index, the differences were non-significant with minimum browning (0.571) in t2 followed by t-3 (0.597). phenols and tannins are also colour contributing c omp ou nds a nd int er a c t ion of p h enols wit h polyphenol oxidase (ppo) is mainly responsible for treatments colour intensity browning index phenols (mg/g) tannins (mg/g) t1 0.908 0.609 0.68 0.77 t2 0.787 0.571 0.92 1.00 t3 0.773 0.597 0.95 1.02 t4 0.893 0.616 0.80 0.89 c.d(p= 0.05) 0.043 ns 0.047 0.060 table 3. effect on of raisins in different treatments 183 browning in raisins. maximum total phenol content (tpc) was recorded in t3 (0.920 mg/g), followed by t2 (0.92 mg/g) while the minimum tpc (0.68 mg/g) was observed in t1. similar trend was noted in case of tannin content in raisins. maximum tannins were recorded in t3 and t2, and minimum in t1(0.77 mg/g). effect on sensory properties of raisins data pr esented in table 4 indicated that maximum score in colour, texture, sweetness, flavor, mouthfeel, ta ste a nd overall acceptability wa s registered in t2. the values of t2 were followed by t1 and t4 in all parameters except flavor. the raisins produced in t3 treatment recorded lowest values for most of the sensory parameters (fig. 2). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 180-185, 2017 commercial dipping oil in thomson seedless raisins table 4. sensory evaluation of raisins prepared in different treatments fig. 2.overall acceptability of raisins produced by different treatments. parameters treatments and hedonic scale score t1 t2 t3 t4 colour 6.67 7.33 6.33 6.33 texture 6.44 7.28 5.94 6.22 sweetness 7.00 7.89 5.61 6.50 flavor 5.56 7.50 5.22 6.44 mouth feel 6.67 7.17 5.22 6.56 taste 6.83 7.67 5.17 6.72 overall acceptability 6.72 7.67 5.39 6.56 it has been demonstrated that the type of chemical pretreatment and origin of the product used in pretreatment significantly affects the drying behavior of the grapes (christensen and peacock, 2000). in general, the aim of pretreatment is to increase drying rates and to produce raisins of desired qualities (doymaz and pala, 2002). the dynamics of changes in moisture content, colour intensity as well as contents of phenols, flavonols, flavonoids and flava-3-ols in the r aisins wer e a lso significa ntly a ffected by the pretreatments (sharma et al., 2013). these quality variations due to pretreatments and also impacts of origin of emulsions were evident in the present studies. the treatment t-2 with akshay dip super exhibited superiority over the ethyl oleate for all quality parameters evaluated. the probable reason for above superiority of this product over ethyl oleate maybe due to the availability of 1.4% antioxidant preservative. sharma et al (2016) reported that ascorbic acid acts as an antioxidant that helps in maintaining colour of raisins and its application reduces drying period. effects on raisin quality parameters after 4 month’s storage color is a main qualitative feature of dried fruits and it changes during storage due to some chemical and biochemical reactions. low temperature storage is recommended for raisins. storage temperature is one of the important factors for change in raisin color after storage and it has been reported that storage at higher temperatures enhance browning (simal et al.,1996). quality parameters of raisins after 4 month’s storage at 4-5 0c are depicted in table 5. it can be seen from this data that the moisture content was surprisingly increased in all treatments. minimum browning index (0.957) and colour intensity (1.353) is again recorded in t-2. maximum tpc was noted in t-2 (0.503 mg/g),while, raisins of t-3 showed maximum tannin content (0.709 mg/g). reduced tpc and tannin contents were observed in raisins after storage than before storage. effect on sensory parameters of raisins stored for 4month at 4-5 °c the results on sensory evaluation of stored raisin are presented in table 6. maximum score for colour, texture, sweetness, flavor, mouthfeel, taste and overall acceptability was again registered in t2. treatment t1 had scored lowest score in all observed sensory 184 para meters. thus, the results revealed that the application of akshay dip super is superior for retaining sensory qualities of raisins stored for a period of 4 months at 4-5 °c. the data related to rancidity revealed that the raisins from t2 were found with lesser rancidity table 6. organoleptic scores of raisins store at low temperature for 4 months parameters t1 t2 t3 t4 colour 6.46 7.61 7.30 7.46 texture 6.61 7.46 7.23 7.30 sweetness 7.00 7.92 7.92 8.15 flavour 6.61 7.46 7.30 7.46 mouthfeel 6.46 7.53 7.00 7.46 taste 6.53 7.30 6.92 7.30 overall acceptability 6.69 7.38 7.23 7.38 rancidity 3.38 2.00 3.00 2.23 storage temperature is an important factor for quality changes in stored raisins. with the increase in storage temperature, browning increases and the color of raisin becomes undesirable.bahaadad and esmaiili (2012) determined that raisins stored at 4-11°c have the lowest color change in comparison to other samples stored at higher temperatures. during the storage, sugars dissolves incrementally in water and then diffuse to the fruit surface and crystalize. it requires some time for equilibrium of crystal layer so that water distribution is delayed. the color change is the major consequence of seeking the equilibrium. aksoy (1992) reported that the water sorption-desorption between the raisins, the storage atmosphere, and the sugars deposited on the fruit surface is established in a more complex manner than with most foods. in the present study, colour intensity and browning index were increased during storage but it was lower in t-2 than other treatments. important sensory problems also occur during the storage of raisins due to enzymatic and non-enzymatic browning reactions, the kinetics of both these reactions are dependent on water activity (aguilera et al. 1987). in case of sensory parameters, t-2 is again found superior over other treatments. on the basis of data collected in present study during 201516, it is observed that the dip treatment of thompson seedless grapes with solution of akshay dip super (18 ml) and potassium carbonate (24 g) per liter of water for 2 minutes followed bytwo sprays on 3rd day [akshay dip super (12 ml) + potassium carbonate (16 g)/litre] and 5th day [akshay dip super (6 ml) + potassium carbonate (8 g)/liter] are found superior for production of quality raisins. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to m/s west coast herbochem ltd, mumbai for financial assistance to the study. the authors would also like to show their gratitude to thedirector, icar-nrc for grapes, pune and panelists of organoleptic studies for their support on collecting valuable data. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 180-185, 2017 sharma et al treatment moisture (%) colour intensity browning index tpc (mg/g) tannins (mg/g) t1 17.943 1.683 1.293 0.432 0.518 t2 16.617 1.353 0.957 0.503 0.665 t3 16.530 1.577 1.140 0.496 0.709 t4 16.043 1.763 1.260 0.478 0.639 cd (p= 0.05) 0.947 0.084 0.046 n/a 0.116 table 5. effect of 4 month’s storage on moisture (%), colour intensity, browning, phenol content and tannin content of raisins in different treatments. 185 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 180-185, 2017 commercial dipping oil in thomson seedless raisins references adsule p. g. , sha r ma a. k. ; ba ner jee, k. a nd karibasappa, g.s. 2012. raisin industry in india: adoption of good drying practices for safe raisins. bull. oiv, 85(974-975-976):209–216. aguilera, j.m., oppermann, k. and sanchez, f.1987. kinetics of br owning of sulta na gr a pes. j.food.sci, 52(4): 990-993, 1025. aksoy, m.s. 1992. effects of storage conditions on the quality of seeded raisins during long-term storage. ms thesis, middle easttechnical university, turkey. bahaadad, g.a. and esmaiili, m. 2012. effects of different dipping solutions and storage conditions on the color properties of raisin. americaneurasian j. agric. & environ. sci., 12 (10): 1311-1315. doi: 10. 5829/ idosi.aejaes.2012.12.10.65188. christensen, l.p. and peacock, w.l. 2000. raisin dr ying pr ocess. raisin production manual,christensen, l.p. (eds.). uc danr pub.california, pp. 207-16. doymaz, i. and pala, m. 2002. the effects of dipping pr e-tr eatments on air -drying r ates of the seedless grapes. j. fd. engg. 52: 413-17. giridhar, n., satyanarayana, a., balaswamy, k. and rao, d. g. 2000. effect of mixed fatty acid esters prepared from different vegetable oils on the drying rate of ‘thompson seedless’ grapes. journal of food science and technology 37 (5): 472-476. jogaiah, s., sharma, a.k. and adsule, p.g. 2014. rootstock influence on the biochemica l composition and polyphenol oxidase activity of ‘thompson seedless’ grapes and raisins. int. j. fruit sci. 14:133–146. doi: 10. 1080/ 15538362.2013.817767. scha nder l, s. h. 1970. methods in food analysis.academicpress.newyork. p709. sha r ma, a. k. 2017. ra isin ma king in india : technological interventions for better quality. https://www.r esear chgate. net/publication/ 319953925. doi:10.13140/rg.2.2.32619. 03363/1 sharma, a.k., rajguru, y.r., adsule, p.g. and goswami, a.k. 2013. pretreatments of tas-aganesh grape bunches and subsequent effect on grape drying. ind. j. hortic.,70(1):107–111. sharma, a.k., banerjee,k.,ramteke, s.d, jogaiah, s., somkuwa r, r. g. a nd adsule,p. g. 2016. eva lua tion of ascorbic acid and sodium metabisulphite applications for improvement in raisin qulaity. proc. natl. acad. sci., india, sect. b biol.sci.,86(3): 637-641. doi10.1007/ s40011-015-0499-8. simal, s., rossello, c., sanchez, e. and canellas, j. 1996. quality of raisins treated and stored under different conditions. j. agri.food.chem.,44 (10): 3297-3302. slinkard, k. and singleton, v.l. 1977. total phenol analyses: automation and comparisons with manual methods. amer. j. enol. vitic.28: 4955. somkuwar, r.g., bondage, d.d.,surange, m.,navale, s. and sharma, a.k. 2013. yield, raisin recovery and biochemical characters of fresh and dried grapes (raisin) of thompson seedless grapes (vitis vinifera) as influenced by different rootstocks. ind.j.agri. sci.,83: 924-927. (ms received 07 november 2017, revised 10 december 2017, accepted 16 december 2017) sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 in this issue… every moment, there is an incremental addition to the knowledge base of any science. this issue of journal of horticultural science hosts the reports on recent developments in different branches of horticultural science viz. crop production, crop improvement, crop protection and crop utilization. a review on innovations in value chain management of tropical fruits by oberoi and dinesh summarises the recent developments in the post-harvest processing of tropical fruits. it emphasizes the importance of farmer producer organizations, good agricultural practices, modified atmosphere packaging facilities, controlled atmosphere storage facilities and use of refrigerated containers during transport. another review article is on importance of zn in horticultural crops and status of zn in soils of karnataka, india written by ganeshamurthy et al. besides enumerating the factors affecting zn availability, it describes how horticultural crops respond to zn. there are seven original research papers and four short communications in this issue. dinesh et al. report a new mango variety with unique characters, “varate giduga” that has many characters contributing to deliciousness. fruits have thick rough and the fruit can be cut into two halves and pulp can be scooped out easily. merin et al. report on the best suitable timing for crossing in yard long bean. safeena et al. have evaluated and identified the tuberose cultivars suitable for humid agro-climatic conditions. meena et al. screened coriander varieties for their resistance to aphids and identified least susceptible varieties. mini shankar et al. identified the ferns species suitable for landscape purpose. with respect to production aspects, linta vincent et al. identified the leaf parameters and their correlation to resistance to prsv in wild relatives of papaya. satisha and somkuwar report the effect of leaf removal on composition of grape varieties grown in india. ganeshamurthy et al report the compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms for potato that would help in hidden hunger of various nutrients and their management in potato. manisha and priya devi report on the significant effect of calcium ions over potassium ions on papaya seed germination and seedling vigour when salts of these ions are used to prime papaya seeds. a short communication by chitra, describes the superiority of use of tissue culture derived planting material of turmeric over the conventional rhizomes. disease free planting material production can be facilitated by tissue culture in turmeric. the biotic stress management is ever demanding aspect. jayanthi mala et al. report the management of jamun seed borer (anselmella kerrichi) using spinosad. amrutha and reshmy report on characterization of rhizoctonia solani that causes fruit rot in strawbeery and its management using trichoderma asperellum and pseudomonas fluorescens. the new editorial team has tried to stand up to the expectations of the community of horticultural scientists and students. there is scope for improvement and the team will keep efforts to improve the standard of the journal. the editorial team gratefully acknowledges the reviewers who have contributed immensely for the better presentation of the journal. wishing you a very happy and scientifically productive new year 2020. s. sriram editor in chief ij. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) 2019 introduction the peach [prunus persica (l.) batsch.] is one of the important stone fruits with a wide range of climatic adaptations. it is globally distributed between 30° to 40° latitudes where strong light, clear skies, a long season and warm temperatures prevail (rom, 1988). peach is the third most important temperate fruit cultivated in india. the peach, including nectarine, commands considerable importance in the economy of himachal pradesh, the leading peach producing state of india, producing 11,276 mt of peach from 5,159 hectares with productivity of 2.19 tons /hectare (anon., 2013). nectarines (prunus persica var. nucipersica) are smooth-skinned fruits closely allied to peach, and are nonpubescent. they have originated apparently from peach by mutation. outer appearance of the fruit resembles a plum, but within it is like peach. lack of pubescence is controlled by a single, recessive gene. fruits are more aromatic than the peach and have a distinct winy flavour. two important cultivars, namely, ‘silver king’ and ‘snow queen’, have shown promise in recent years for cultivation in mid-hills of himachal pradesh. ‘snow queen’ is a sweet and juicy nectarine, suitable for mild-winter climates. the trees produce abundant harvest of delicious, white nectarines. influence of pruning intensity on yield and quality of nectarine peach nidhika thakur and vishal s. rana department of fruit science, college of horticulture dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry nauni, solan 173 230, india e-mail: drvishal_uhf@rediffmail.com abstract a study was conducted to improve fruit yield and quality in nectarine through pruning. six-year old plants of two cultivars, silver king and snow queen, were given nine different pruning treatments, with three replications, in complete randomized block design. results showed that on increasing pruning intensity, fruit yield decreased, while quality of the fruits improved. best quality fruits in terms of fruit weight and pulp:stone ratio were obtained with 60% thinning-out + ¾ heading-back, while, maximum fruit surface colour and total soluble solids (tss) were recorded with 40% thinning-out + ¾ heading-back. highest acidity in fruits was recorded with 20% thinning-out + ¼ heading-back. among the two cultivars, ‘silver king’ exhibited better fruit quality than ‘snow queen’. key words: nectarine, pruning, thinning-out, heading-back, yield, quality pruning is an important horticultural operation for obtaining higher yields of superior quality fruits. it prevents excessive fruiting, increases fruit size and facilitates light penetration into the interior of the tree canopy, which improves fruit coloration (mika, 1986). performance of peach/nectarine trees depends heavily on proper, annual pruning. in terms of pruning, both peach and nectarine can be treated similarly as their flowering and fruiting habits are the same. nectarine fruits are borne on one-year old wood which turns barren later, and no flower-bud differentiation or subsequent fruit-formation occurs in this part of the branch (badiyala and awasthi, 1989). stonefruit plants in general, and peaches in particular, are pruned in two ways, i.e., heading-back and thinning-out. when just one-third to one-half terminal portions of the branches with their basal portion intact are removed, it is termed ‘headingback’. apical dominance of the twig is destroyed and lateral buds are stimulated to grow. when the branches are considered undesirable, these are removed entirely from the point of attachment without leaving any stub, and this is termed ‘thinning-out’ (kaur, 2010). when the trees are not pruned annually, the volume of fruiting wood is reduced every year, and the fruiting shoot moves higher and higher thus getting out of reach (yadav, 2007). hence, proper pruning is instrumental in improving fruit quality by j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):23-26, 2014 24 nidhika thakur and vishal s. rana maintaining a balance between vegetative and reproductive growth. sufficient information is available on peach pruning in the world; however, the physiology of pruning in peaches/ nectarines is not well understood. therefore, the present investigation was conducted to study pruning in relation to yield and fruit quality in nectarine. material and methods the study was conducted in the experimental orchard of dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan (h.p.), during 2009 – 2011. sixyear old plants of nectarine cultivars ‘silver king’ and ‘snow queen’, planted at a spacing of 2m x 3m were selected on the basis of uniform vigor. experimental plants were subjected to variable pruning intensities in mid-december. pruning method in peaches and nectarines involves two components, i.e., thinning-out (to) by complete removal of intermingling shoots, and heading-back (hb) by cutting a portion of the bearing shoot. different pruning intensities included: t120% to + ¼ hb; t220% to+ ½ hb; t320% to + ¾ hb; t440% to+ ¼ hb; t540% to+ ½ hb; t660% to+ ¼ hb; t760% to + ½ hb; t860% to + ¾ hb; t9 (control)40% to + ¾ hb. data on yield were recorded at optimum harvest time, and physical parameters like fruit-surface color, fruit weight and pulp:stone ratio were recorded. total soluble solids were determined by erma hand refractometer. total sugar content and acidity of the fruit was estimated as per the standard method (aoac, 1980). fruits were graded into three categories, viz., three layer (55cm and above), four layer (46-55 cm) and loose (below 46cm), as described by kumar et al (2013). data obtained from the investigation were statistically analyzed in the experimental set-up of randomized block design, and differences exhibited in various treatments were tested for their significance as per gomez and gomez (1984). results and disscission perusal of the data presented in table 1 reveals that fruit yield was affected significantly by pruning intensity. highest fruit yield was recorded in treatment t1 (20% to + ¼ hb) which was least pruned. these results are in agreement with robinson et al (2006) who observed highest yield in the least pruned peach trees. reduction in fruit yield due to severe pruning could be attributed to a low number of floral buds available in such a treatment. therefore, fruiting area got reduced. it is evident from data depicted in fig 1. effect of pruning intensity on yield of different grade fruits in ‘silver king’ nectarine fig 2. effect of pruning intensity on yield of different grade fruits in ‘snow queen’ nectarine table 1. effect of pruning severity on fruit yield in nectarine cultivars treatment fruit yield (kg/plant) ‘silver king’ ‘snow queen’ mean t1 (20% to* + ¼ hb**) 13.3 12.3 12.8 t2 (20% to + ½ hb) 11.9 10.7 11.3 t3 (20% to + ¾ hb) 10.5 9.4 9.9 t4 (40% to + ¼ hb) 12.1 11.3 11.7 t5 (40% to + ½ hb) 10.5 9.3 9.9 t6 (60% to + ¼ hb) 7.5 6.2 6.9 t7 (60% to + ½ hb) 9.8 8.7 9.2 t8 (60% to + ¾ hb) 11.5 10.1 10.8 t9 (control) *** 8.3 8.3 8.3 mean 10.6 9.6 *to: thinning out; treatment : 1.6 **hb: heading back; cultivar : 0.7 ***t9 (control): 40% to + ¾ hb treatment × cultivar : ns cd (0.05) figures 1 and 2 that variable pruning intensity considerably influenced per cent yield of different fruit grades, viz., three layer, four layer and loose grade fruits. production of threelayer and four-layer grade fruits was highest in the most heavily pruned trees, with 60 % to + ¾ hb treatment; j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):23-26, 2014 25 whereas, trees with lighter pruning intensity, i.e., t1 (20% to + ¼ hb) produced higher proportion of loose grade fruits. ‘silver king’ produced more number of three-layers and loose-grade fruits, while, production of four-layer grade fruits was higher in ‘snow queen’. a reduced number of flower buds on severely pruned trees were amply compensated by increased fruit size. hence, fewer and heavier fruits were produced with heavy pruning. fruit quality parameters of both the nectarine cultivars namely, ‘silver king’ and ‘snow queen’ as affected by different pruning severities are presented in tables 2 and 3. data presented in table 2 reveal that pruning had significant influence on fruit quality. highest fruit-weight and pulp:stone ratio was observed in the treatment t8 (60% to + ¾ hb), where pruning severity was the highest. however, better fruit-surface color was recorded with 40% to + ¾ hb. fruit-surface color, fruit-weight and pulp:stone ratio in ‘silver king’ was better than that in ‘snow queen’. fruit-surface color improved with increasing pruning severity due to increased penetration of direct sunlight in to the canopy and fruits. pruning reduced number of flowerbuds and, consequently, the number of fruits; as a result, fruit weight usually increased. similar results of increase in the fruit weight with increasing pruning severity have been reported by hassani and rezaee (2007). increased pulp:stone ratio in the present investigation is supported by the work of mahajan and dhillon (2002) who recorded maximum pulp weight with 75% heading-back compared to that with 50% and 25%, while, stone weight remained unaltered in ‘shani-punjab’ peach. table 2. effect of pruning severity on fruit-surface color, fruit weight and pulp:stone ratio in nectarine cultivars treatment fruit-surface color (%) fruit weight (g) pulp:stone ratio ‘silver king’ ‘snow queen’ mean ‘silver king’ ‘snow queen’ mean ‘silver king’ ‘snow queen’ mean t1 (20% to* + ¼ hb**) 62.1 54.5 58.3 30.4 29.8 30.1 6.2 5.5 5.8 t2 (20% to + ½ hb) 69.0 58.7 63.8 37.8 34.3 36.1 7.1 5.8 6.4 t3 (20% to + ¾ hb) 72.0 62.0 67.0 45.6 37.4 41.5 7.4 6.2 6.8 t4 (40% to + ¼ hb) 64.1 58.3 61.2 42.6 41.7 42.1 8.2 6.8 7.5 t5 (40% to + ½ hb) 78.5 63.2 70.8 49.4 45.1 47.3 8.8 6.5 7.6 t6 (60% to + ¼ hb) 72.3 63.3 67.8 55.4 48.6 52.0 8.6 7.6 8.1 t7 (60% to + ½ hb) 78.4 68.5 73.5 62.5 55.6 59.0 9.1 7.9 8.5 t8 (60% to + ¾ hb) 83.7 70.1 76.9 75.1 70.6 72.8 10.6 8.2 9.4 t9 (control) *** 82.3 75.4 78.8 73.1 68.4 70.8 9.5 9.2 9.3 mean 73.6 63.8 52.4 47.9 8.4 7.1 *to: thinning out; **hb: heading back; ***t9 (control): 40% to + ¾ hb cd (0.05) treatment : 4.5 5.7 0.8 cultivar : 2.1 2.7 0.4 treatment × cultivar : ns ns ns table 3. effect of pruning severity on total soluble solids and titratable acidity in nectarine cultivars treatment total soluble solids (%) titratable acidity (%) ‘silver king’ ‘snow queen’ mean ‘silver king’ ‘snow queen’ mean t1 (20% to* + ¼ hb**) 11.8 12.0 11.9 0.72 0.78 0.75 t2 (20% to + ½ hb) 12.3 12.4 12.4 0.69 0.75 0.72 t3 (20% to + ¾ hb) 13.1 13.1 13.1 0.66 0.71 0.69 t4 (40% to + ¼ hb) 12.2 13.0 12.6 0.65 0.69 0.67 t5 (40% to + ½ hb) 12.8 13.2 13.0 0.62 0.63 0.62 t6 (60% to + ¼ hb) 13.3 12.6 12.9 0.59 0.61 0.60 t7 (60% to + ½ hb) 13.8 13.4 13.6 0.56 0.58 0.57 t8 (60% to + ¾ hb) 14.2 13.7 13.9 0.51 0.55 0.53 t9 (control) *** 14.2 14.1 14.1 0.53 0.53 0.53 mean 13.1 13.1 0.61 0.65 *to: thinning out; **hb: heading back; ***t9 (control): 40% to + ¾ hb cd (0.05) treatment : 0.7 0.05 cultivar : ns 0.02 treatment × cultivar : ns ns influence of pruning intensity on peach yield and quality j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):23-26, 2014 26 total soluble solids and titratable acidity were also significantly affected by different pruning treatments (table 3). highest total soluble solids were recorded in t9 (control, 40%to + ¾ hb). highest titratable acidity was recorded in t1 (20%to + ¼ hb) where the intensity of pruning was lower. higher amounts of total soluble solids in the fruit with increasing pruning severity may be associated with an increase in leaf:fruit ratio resulting in augmented availability of photosynthates, and uptake of nutrients from soil. more severe pruning resulted in significant reduction in fruit acidity, probably attributable to increased fruit-size and moisture content. these findings are in agreement with rathi et al (2003) and sharma and chauhan (2004) who too reported increased tss with increasing pruning intensity in ‘july elberta’ peach. from this study, it is concluded that the best results in terms of fruit weight and pulp:stone ratio in nectarine were obtained with 60% thinning-out and ¾ heading-back; but, fruit yield was lower with this treatment. however, best grade fruits, i.e., 3-layer fruits were obtained at this level of pruning in both the cultivars under study. references a.o.a.c. 1980. official methods of analysis. association of official analytical chemists, 13th edition, w. horowitz (ed.), benjamin franklin station, washington dc p. 101 anonymous. 2013. area and production of fruit in himachal pradesh (unpublished report). department of horticulture, shimla, navbahar (hp) badiyala, s.d. and awasthi, r.p. 1989. effect of pruning severity on yield and quality of peach cv. elberta. haryana j. hortl. sci., 18:204-209 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedure for agricultural research (2nd ed.), john wiley, new york, p. 680 hassani, g. and rezaee, r. 2007. effect of training system and rate of pruning on yield and quality of peach fruit. agri. sci. tabriz, 17:31-38 kaur, harminder. 2010. pruning of deciduous fruit trees. hort. newslett., 6:1-2 kumar, k., thakur, k., and singh, d. 2013. peach. in: fruit production in india. w.s. dhillon (ed.), narendra publishing house, delhi, pp. 457-478 mahajan, b.v.c. and dhillon, b.s. 2002. effect of pruning intensities on the fruit size, yield and quality of peach cv. shan-i-punjab. agril. sci. digest, 22:281-282 mika, a. 1986. physiological responses of fruit trees to pruning. hort. rev., 8:337-367 rathi, d.s., dimri, d.c., nautiyal, m.c. and kumar, a. 2003. pruning responses to shoot growth, fruit set and yield in peach. indian j. hort., 60:151-153 robinson, t.l., andersen, r.l. and hoying, s.a. 2006. performance of six high-density peach training systems in the northeastern united states. acta hort., 713:311-320 rom, c. roy. 1988. the peach: its history and future. in: the peach: world cultivars to marketing. norman f childers and wayne b sherman (eds.), dr. norman f. childers publications, gainesville, florida, pp. 1-6 sharma, d.p. and chauhan, j.s. 2004. response of pruning intensities and fertilizer treatment on yield, fruit quality and photosynthetic efficiency of peach. acta hort., 662:237-241 yadav, p.k. 2007. fruit production technology. international book distributing company, lucknow, u.p., p. 372 (ms received 02 august 2013, revised 22 january 2014, accepted 15 february 2014) nidhika thakur and vishal s. rana j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):23-26, 2014 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees] is a diploid (2n=2x=18) flowering annual belonging to the fa mily aster a cea e a nd is a na tive of china (navalinskien et al., 2005). the genus callistephus derives its name from two greek words ‘kalistos’ and ‘stephos’ meaning ‘most beautiful’ and ‘crown’, respectively. in india, china aster ranks third among the flowering annuals after chrysanthemum and marigold (chakraborty et al., 2019). china aster is winter season annual crop. it is commercially grown for loose andcut flower, which are used in flower decoration, preparation of bouquets and garlands. it is also used in landscape gardening as a bedding plant to provide colour break and mass effect. it is gaining popularity in india, because of ease in cultivation, array of colours and varied uses (bhargav et al., 2016). for any breeding programme, characterization and evaluation are crucial steps in developing a variety and further research. cluster analysis and principal component analysis are two important parameters to determine the diversity of the crop. considering the importance of the crop, the present investigation was carried out to assess the diversity among 42 genotypes of china aster based on the fourteen quantitative traits. materials and methods the present study was conducted at the division of flower and medicinal crops, icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during 2015-16 a nd 2016-17. t he exper imenta l site wa s geographically located at 13o 58¹ n latitude, 78oe longitude and at an elevation of 890 m above mean sea level. the soil of experimental plot was red loamy with ph 7.35 and e.c. of 0.26 dsm-1. a total of 42 genotypes including 21 varieties and 21 stabilized lines were evaluated for vegetative growth, flowering, yield and postharvest life in randomized complete block design with two replications. twenty plants per replication were planted at a spacing of 30 x 30 cm original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 84-89, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2138 assessment of genetic diversity in china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees] bhargav v.1, kumar r.2*, bharathi t.u.2, dhananjaya m.v.2 and rao t.m.2 1department of horticulture college of horticulture and forestry, central agricultural university, pasighat 791102, arunachal pradesh, india 2division of flower and medicinal crops icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : rajiv.kumar11@icar.gov.in abstract china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees] is a flowering annual mainly cultivated for loose flower and cut flower, bedding and pot culture. to assess the genetic diversity, 42 genotypes were evaluated for fourteen quantitative traits. the genotypes were found to be highly variable for the traits such as plant height, plant spread, flower stalk length, 100 flower weight, number of flowers per plant, weight of flowers per plant and flower yield per hectare. however, low variability was recorded for vase life and shelf life. the genotypes were broadly grouped into two clusters, which were further divided into cluster 1a, 1b and cluster 2a, 2b, respectively. all the genotypes in cluster 1a were vigorous and medium flowering, whereas, genotypes in cluster 1b were tall, erect, vigorous and late flowering. the cluster 2a comprises of the genotypes with short stature, small flower and early flowering, however, cluster 2b contains only two genotypes. in principal component analysis (pca) pc1 was highly correlated to flower yield, weight of flowers/plant, flower stalk length and plant height and pc2 was highly positively correlated to shelf life and vase life and negatively correlated to 100 flower weight. the results suggested that the existing variation in china aster genotypes could be used for the development of trait-specific novel genotypes. keywords : china aster, cluster analysis, diversity, principal component analysis 85 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 84-89, 2023 under open field conditions. the recommended agronomical practices were adopted to raise the crop. five random plants were selected for recording the various quantitative traits viz., plant height (cm), number of leaves per plant, plant spread (cm), number of branches per plant, days to first flowering, flower stalk length (cm), flower head diameter (cm), 100 flowers weight (g), number of flowers per plant, weight of flowers per plant (g), duration of flowering (days), vase life (days) and shelf life (days). descriptive statistics (e.g., range, standard deviation, mean, standard error of mean), clustering based on average linkage, and euclidian distance and principal component analysis (pca) were calculated using xlstat (addinsoft, 2017). results and discussion the diversity among the china aster accessions for quantitative traits was high (table 1). wide range of variation was observed for most of the characters such as plant height (8.20-61.80 cm), plant spread (8.7542.65 cm), flower stalk length (4.65-49.10 cm), 100 flower weight (105.00-548.25 g), number of flowers per plant (7.35-65.05), weight of flowers per plant (7.72-235.21 g), flower yield per hectare (6.48-197.57 q/ha). highest variability was recorded for weight of flowers per plant, which directly represent the flower yield per hectare with a mean of 124.49 g and 104.57 q/ha, respectively having a c.v. of 48.65%. minimum variability was observed for vase life (5.40-9.50 days) followed by shelf life (2.35-4.42 days) with a mean of 7.06 (c.v. 14.26%) and 3.42 days (c.v. 14.37%), respectively. presence of such high genetic variability among the genotypes for these parameters will form the basis for effective selection of superior genotypes in china aster. such wide variability for many quantitative traits was also reported by gupta and dutta (2005) a nd ba ner ji et al. (2012) in chr ysa nthemum, a nd kuma r et al. (2014) in bougainvillea. cluster analysis was carried out to distinguish possible groups among the populations using ward method (fig. 1). the agglomerative hierarchical clustering (ahc) allows sub-division of 42 genotypes into two major clusters based on the correlation that exists between the morphological traits among the genotypes. in the present study, cluster 1 comprised of 33 populations, which was further divided into two subgroups cluster ia contains 18 genotypes and ib contains 15 genotypes. nine genotypes were classified into cluster 2, which was again divided into two subclusters group iia and group iib containing 7 and 2 genotypes, respectively. in cluster ia, all the genotypes were vigorous, medium flowering with big flowers, whereas, genotypes in cluster ib were tall and erect, vigorous, late flowering with big flowers. except genotype iihrj22, all the genotypes in cluster iia belong to the japanese trait range mean ± se(m) cv (%)minimum maximum plant height (cm) 8.20 61.80 45.50 ± 0.66 24.97 number of leaves/plant 9.20 32.35 19.50 ± 0.86 22.13 plant spread (cm) 8.75 42.65 24.54 ± 0.72 32.59 number of branches/plant 6.65 17.60 12.08 ± 0.30 19.83 days to first flowering 46.85 100.15 66.71 ± 0.71 16.92 flower stalk length (cm) 4.65 49.10 35.62 ± 0.72 29.34 flower head diameter (cm) 3.54 6.74 5.39 ± 0.07 15.96 100 flowers weight (g) 105.00 548.25 292.02 ± 2.66 31.98 number of flowers/plant 7.35 65.05 40.92 ± 0.46 34.82 weight of flowers/plant (g) 7.72 235.21 124.49 ± 2.06 48.65 duration of flowering (days) 16.58 34.40 24.92 ± 0.30 19.53 flower yield/ hectare (q/ha) 6.48 197.57 104.57 ± 1.73 48.65 vase life (days) 5.40 9.50 7.06 ± 0.12 14.26 shelf life (days) 2.35 4.42 3.42 ± 0.08 14.37 table 1 : descriptive statistics of quantitative traits in china aster genotypes assessment of genetic diversity in china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees] 86 fig. 1 : dendrogram showing genetic relationship among 42 china aster genotypes based on morphological data originated short stature, early flowering and small flowered genotypes, however, iib contains only two european originated genotypes namely milady scarlet and milady white. similar results were also obtained by kumar et al. (2011) in snapdragon, and bharathi and jawaharlal (2014) in marigold. it was observed that genotypes representing particular geographic regions were grouped together. the heterogeneous origin of genotypes, place of release, different ploidy levels often grouped together in the same cluster, suggesting the ancestral relationship between the various genotypes (bellundagi et al., 2013). for further improvement in the morphological and yield parameters, genotypes may be selected on the basis of genetic divergence. crossing between highly genetic divergent genotypes could yield better results (singh et al., 2016). therefore, genotypes may be chosen for crossing on the basis of genetic divergence as depicted in the dendrogram. based on the cluster distance, genotypes belonging to matsumoto series, milady scarlet and milady white, and genotypes belonging to phule ganesh, arka, iihrj3-2 and iihrg13 were most divergent. therefore, crossing among the most divergent genotypes can achieve improvement in the morphological and yield attributes by getting desirable transgressive segregants. to determine the most significant characteristics of the data set and also to determine the distances between the genotypes ba sed on the da ta obta ined on morphological traits, set of 42 genotypes used for cluster a na lysis wer e subjected to pr incipa l component analysis (pca) (table 2). the analysis a lso helped to under sta nd the contr ibution of morphological characters across the genotypes. the fir st two components of the seven consider ed accounted for most of the variation. the first principal component (pc1) explained 55.66% of the total variation and was positively correlated to all the traits; highly correlated to flower yield, weight of flowers/ plant, flower stalk length and plant height. the pc2 explained 10.55% of total variation and was highly positively correlated to shelf life and vase life, and negatively to 100 flower weight (table 2). because pc1 and pc2 accounting 66.21% of cumulative variance the compounds, a scatterplot was made for both (fig. 2). j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 84-89, 2023 bhargav et al. 87 fig. 2 : principal component analysis (pca) of china aster genotypes based on morphological characters 1. arka kamini 2, arka poornima, 3. arka shashank, 4. arka violet cushion, 5. arka aadya, 6. arka archana, 7. phule ganesh pink, 8. phule ganesh purple, 9. phule ganesh white, 10. phule ganesh violet, 11. matsumoto yellow, 12. matsumoto white, 13. matsumoto rose, 14. matsumoto scarlet, 15. matsumoto red, 16. matsumoto pink, 17. local pink, 18. local white, 19. local violet, 20. milady scarlet, 21. milady white, 22. iihrd5, 23. iihrc5, 24. iihrc42, 25. iihrcc39, 26. iihrcc5-1a, 27. iihrcc31-2, 28. iihrj3, 29. iihrj22, 30. iihri1, 31. iihri66, 32. iihrcc31a, 33. iihrg13, 34. iihri69-2, 35. iihrd2, 36. iihrcc19, 37. iihrj3-2, 38. iihri69, 39. iihri16b, 40. iihrh3, 41. iihre10, 42. iihrc1. table 2 : principal component analysis in china aster genotypes variable pc1 pc2 pc3 pc4 pc5 pc6 pc7 eigen value 7.79 1.48 1.19 0.95 0.71 0.54 0.46 cumulative variance (%) 55.66 66.21 74.68 81.49 86.57 90.41 93.70 plant height (cm) 0.82 0.29 0.22 -0.25 -0.09 -0.02 -0.22 number of leaves/plant 0.72 -0.25 -0.41 -0.19 0.05 0.39 0.02 plant spread (cm) 0.82 -0.05 -0.27 0.38 -0.03 -0.04 -0.12 number of branches/plant 0.75 -0.02 -0.17 0.43 -0.15 0.20 -0.17 days to first flowering 0.71 0.04 -0.47 -0.36 0.24 0.12 0.04 flower stalk length (cm) 0.86 0.13 0.30 -0.12 -0.05 0.08 -0.26 flower head diameter (cm) 0.80 -0.08 -0.11 -0.05 -0.34 -0.31 -0.17 100 flowers weight (g) 0.81 -0.33 -0.17 -0.03 -0.22 -0.23 0.25 number of flowers/plant 0.75 -0.02 0.56 0.04 0.24 0.17 -0.01 weight of flowers/plant (g) 0.88 -0.30 0.28 -0.01 0.05 -0.03 0.22 duration of flowering (days) 0.61 0.27 -0.18 0.25 0.59 -0.32 -0.04 flower yield/hectare (q) 0.88 -0.30 0.28 -0.01 0.05 -0.03 0.22 vase life (days) 0.46 0.67 -0.10 -0.41 -0.09 -0.09 0.13 shelf life (days) 0.38 0.70 0.02 0.39 -0.20 0.17 0.30 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 84-89, 2023 assessment of genetic diversity in china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees] 88 large variation was recorded in traits such as shelf life, vase life, plant height, 100 flower weight as mentioned by the relative length of the vectors in the biplot diagram. the biplot also signifies the positive correlation between the parameters viz., shelf life, vase life, plant height, duration of flowering, days to first flowering and 100 flower weight, flower yield per hectare, weight of flowers per plant and number of leaves per plant as indicated by the acute angle. the genotypes like matsumoto, milady scarlet and milady white which were short and early flowering for med a gr oup in one qua dr a nt a nd a ll a r e comparatively late flowering genotypes which are, tall with big flower s for med a nother gr oup a nd intermediate medium flowering forms the group in between. most of the morphological traits contributed equally in grouping of genotypes except vase life and shelf life, which were distributed away from the genotypes. the result of pca is consistent with that of the cluster analysis. a similar pattern was also observed for hips traits in rosa sp. (verma et al., 2013) and in pea (esposito et al., 2007). conclusion this study indicated that the quantitative traits are useful for preliminary evaluation of genetic diversity in china aster. pca revealed that number of flowers per plant, flower yield per hectare, flower stalk length, pla nt height a nd pla nt spr ea d a r e key tr a its contributing to the maximum variation among the genotypes. the cluster analysis showed significant genetic variability among the evaluated china aster genotypes, which may provide an excellent opportunity for crop improvement through hybridization between the genotypes of different clusters, to assemble desirable traits with higher heterotic potential. acknowledgement we acknowledge icar-iihr, bengaluru for providing research facilities to carry out this study. the first author is thankful to icar-iari, new delhi for a wa r ding iari fellowship dur ing his ph. d. programme. references addinsoft.2017. xlstat 2017: data analysis and statistical solution for microsoft excel. paris, france. https://www.xlstat.com/en/download banerji, b.k., batra , a., dwivedi, a.k. 2012. morphological and biochemical characterization of chrysanthemum. j. hortic. sci., 7(1): 51-55. bellundagi, a., singh, g.p., singh, a.m., arora, a., jain, n., prasad, s.s. kumar, j., ahlawat, a. and ramya, p. 2013. genetic diversity for moisture deficit stress adaptive traits in bread wheat (triticum aestivum l.). indian j. plant physiol., 18(2): 131-135. bharathi, t.u. and jawaharlal m. 2014. genetic divergence of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.). trends biosci., 7(16): 2233-2236. bhargav, v., sharma, b.p., dilta, b.s., gupta, y.c. and negi, n. 2016. effect of different plant spacings and cultivars on growth, flowering and seed production of china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees]. res. environ. life sci., 9(8): 970-972. chakraborty, a., bordolui, s.k., mahato, m.k., sadhukhan, r. and sri veda, d.j.m.s.n.k. 2019. variation in seed production potential of china aster genotypes in the new alluvial zone of west bengal. j. crop weed, 15(1): 201-204. esposito, m.a., martin, e.a., cravero, v.p. and cointr y, e. 2007. cha r a cter iza tion of pea a ccessions by srap’s ma rkers. sci. hortic., 113(4): 329-335. gupta, v.n. and dutta, s.k. 2005. morphological and chemica l cha ra cterization of thirty sma ll flowered chrysanthemum cultivars. j.orn. hortic., 8(2): 91-95. kumar, p., janakiram, t., bhat, k.v., ritu jain, prasad, k.v. and prabhu, k.v. 2014. molecular characterization and cultivar identification in bougainvillea spp. using ssr markers. indian j. agric. sci., 84(8): 1024-1030. kumar, r., kumar, s., kumar, p. and mer, r. 2011. genetic variability and divergence analysis in snapdragon (antirrhinum majus l.) under tarai conditions of uttarakhand. prog. hortic., 43(2): 332-336. navalinskien, ė, m., samuitienė, m., and jomantien ė,  r.  2005. molecula r detection a nd j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 84-89, 2023 bhargav et al. 89 characterization of phytoplasma infecting callistephus chinensis pla nts in lithuania. phytopathologia polonica, 35: 109-112. singh, d., arya, r. k., chandra, n., niwas, r. and salisbury, p. 2016. genetic diversity studies in relation to seed yield and its component traits in indian mustard (brassica juncea l. czern & coss.). j. oilseed brassica, 1(1): 19-22. verma, m. k., lal, s., ahmed, n. and sagoo, p. a. 2013. character association and path analysis in hip rose (rosa sp.) genotypes collected from nor th wester n hima la ya n r egion of kashmir. afr. j. agric. res., 8(39): 4949-4955. (received : 03.07.2022; revised : 23.06.2023; accepted 25.06.2023) j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 84-89, 2023 assessment of genetic diversity in china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees] final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 110-117, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction gladiolus (gladiolus hybrida) is a popular cut f lower c r op a nd innu mer a b le c u lt iva r s wit h attractive colors are available for cultivation. it belongs to the family iridaceae. however, the area increase under gladiolus cultivation was negligible during the last decade despite huge demand for this flower cr op both at nationa l and internationa l levels. the area under gladiolus cultivation was 11, 660 ha during 2011-12 and increased to 11,850 ha du r ing 2 0 1 7 1 8 ( n h b, 2 0 1 8 ) . c ommer c ia l production of gladiolus depends largely on the availa bility of pr opagating mater ia l especially corms. large size corm helps in better plant growth and development by supplying storage nutrients in the corm. the slow multiplication rate of quality planting material either cor ms or cormels is a r ec ur r ing p r oblem a nd is hinder ing the a r ea ex pa ns ion of t his f lower c r op. d u e to s low multiplication rate, dormancy of corms/cormels and high per c ent a ge of spoila ge of cor ms dur ing storage, there is an insufficient supply of planting material (memon et al., 2009; priyakumari and sheela, 2005; swapnil et al., 2017). as cormel production in terms of number per plant is more than corm number and the resource use efficiency of cormels as propagating material needs to be assessed either for corm/cormel production or for production of flower spikes in gladiolus to address the problems of short supply of planting material and huge domestic demand. genotypic variations in biomass production and nutrient removal pattern in gladiolus raised from cormels sujatha s.*, rao t.m., rajiv kumar and rupa t.r. icarindian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru-560089, india *corresponding author email: s_sujatha68@rediffmail.com abstract the present study was conducted at icar-iihr, bengaluru, india during 2018-2019 to quantify resource use efficiency in 11 genotypes of gladiolus propagated through cormels based on growth, biomass partitioning and nutrient removal pattern. growth and yield parameters differed significantly among genotypes. the leaf number was significantly higher in arka shobha (9.67) and arka manorama (9.00) than other genotypes (6.33-8.67). the spike length was higher in arka naveen (102.9 cm) and lesser in arka kumkum (66.2 cm). the pattern of biomass partitioning indicated that below ground biomass (corm) accounted for 71.5% of total biomass (3990 kg ha-1), while above ground biomass (leaf and spike) was 28.5% of total biomass (1137 kg ha-1). in gladiolus genotypes, the nutrient profile indicated that the accumulation of n was higher in corms followed by leaves and spikes. the accumulation of p (0.13-0.14%), mn (29.8-43.5 mg kg-1), zn (15.3-23.4 mg kg-1) and cu (5.2-6.0 mg kg-1) was similar. spikes accumulated higher k and mg than leaves and corms. the accumulation of ca was more in leaves (2.39%) followed by flower stalks (1.95 %). the average fe concentration (mg kg-1) was more in corms (293) followed by leaves (269) and flower stalks (160). the average nutrient removal in genotypes was quantified at 122 kg n, 10.8 kg p and 71.7 kg k per ha per crop. the nutrient demand (g ha-1) of fe was more (1062.4) than mn (152.5), zn (23.8) and cu (23.0). the data implies that gladiolus is a heavy feeder of n and k. nutrient removal of k and fe influenced the biomass production with high degree of variability (y =-541.858 + 24.097 kuptake + 1.405 feuptake r 2=0.995). the present study gives scope for precision nutrient use by avoiding blanket recommendations. keywords: biomass partitioning, cormels, genotypes, gladiolus and nutrient removal 111 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 110-117, 2022 balanced nutrition is required for getting optimum yields of both spikes and corms/cormels in gladiolus cultivation. though several reports highlighted the importance of major and micronutrients especially boron and zinc for increased weight and number of corms and cormels per hill in gladiolus, present nutrient recommendations are highly variable (afify, 1983, shah et al.,1984; mukherjee et al., 1998; singh, 1996 and das, 1998; shankar and dubey, 2005; singh et al., 2013; satpathy et al., 2016). no data exist on nutrient requirement of gladiolus varieties based on biomass production and nutrient removal pattern. soil health is another crucial factor for obtaining higher production of below ground biomass (baldotto and baldotto, 2013). thus, precision farming approach with adequate nutrient supply is essential by assessing the nutrient demand of gladiolus genotypes through biomass and nutrient partitioning, and nutrient removal pattern. with this background, the present study was carried out to precisely assess the demand of various nutrients for different plant components especially corms and cormels in various gladiolus genotypes. materials and methods description of study site the present study was carried out in experimental field at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru, karnataka, india (13o7’n latitude and 77o 29’e longitude, 890 m above msl). the climate of the experimental site is semi-arid. the soil of the experimental site is red sandy loam. experimental details the study was carried out in the ongoing breeding experiment comprising of identified genotypes and advanced breeding lines at icar-iihr during 20182019. uniform cormels of different genotypes were planted in fourth week of january, 2018 at a spacing of 30 cm x 20 cm on raised soil beds. recommended plant protection measures were followed for control of major pests and diseases. nutrients were applied @ 200:200:200 kg npk ha-1 in two splits in addition to application 10 t of fym per hectare before planting. the trait specific genotypes identified at icar-iihr were used to find out overall picture of resource use in gladiolus raised from cormels as propagating material. about eleven iihr identified genotypes were selected and were evaluated in randomized block design (rbd) with three replications. the desirable traits of genotypes are given in table s1. growth parameters and biomass estimation growth observations such as plant height, leaf number, tiller number and spike length were recorded in three plants in each replication of all genotypes. for estimation of both above ground and below ground biomass, destructive sampling method was adopted. three plants from each genotype were collected in 2018 just before initiation of flowering and at harvestable stage of spikes. fresh weight was recorded sepa ra tely for leaves a nd spikes/flower stems. similarly, the fresh biomass of corm/cormels was estimated by collecting all corms/cormels from each plant separately. samples were cleaned with distilled water, air dried, packed in brown paper bags, oven dried at 600c to a constant weight and dry weight was recorded after drying. after recording oven dry weight, same samples were ground and kept in labeled butter paper bags for nutrient analysis to find out nutrient accumulation and removal pattern. the average biomass of each part was multiplied with total number of leaves and flower stems/spikes to arrive at total above ground biomass. the below ground biomass was also estimated in a similar manner by multiplying corm/cormel number per plant with biomass per plant. the biomass of leaf, flower stem and corms/cormels was considered to arrive at total biomass production. collection and analysis of soil and plant samples soil samples were collected at 0-25 cm depth in the root zone at 15 cm distance from the base after harvesting of corms. the air-dried soil samples were ground to pass through a 2.0-mm sieve and kept in labelled plastic bags for further analysis. soil chemical/fertility parameters like ph, organic carbon, available p and k were analysed for using standard procedures (jackson 1973). soil organic carbon was measured by titration method (walkley and black, 1934). soil test p was estimated by ascorbic acid reductant method (watanabe and olsen 1965) for colour development after extraction with olsen’s reagent. available k, ca and mg were estimated in flame photometer using ammonium acetate extract. the concentration of micronutrients was estimated in aas using diethylene triamine penta acetic acid (dtpa) extract (lindsay and novell 1978). t he lea f, flower stem and corm samples wer e a na lysed sepa r a tely for t ota l n using mic r okjeldahl digestion method (jackson 1973). the biomass production and nutrient removal pattern 112 sujatha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 110-117, 2022 variety plant flower no. above ground biomass (g plant-1) below ground biomass (g plant-1) height stem of (cm) length leaves leaf flower total corm cormel* total root (cm) stalk arka aarti 79.3 74.8 6.33 4.40 2.97 10.30 13.4 10.9(14) 14.3 0.07 arka aayush 77.7 73.5 8.33 3.60 5.30 10.20 16.7 10.4(17) 17.4 0.30 arka amar 94.3 88.9 8.67 5.70 5.17 17.90 22.2 3.6(10) 24.6 0.33 arka darshan 77.0 73.1 6.33 3.73 5.70 12.17 18.3 10.3(19) 19.7 0.40 arka gold 94.7 89.6 6.67 4.90 3.50 18.40 29.1 3.4(8) 33.6 0.07 arka kumkum 70.5 66.2 7.50 1.83 5.07 9.27 14.3 7.4(11) 15.5 0.37 arka manorama 85.3 80.7 9.00 2.53 5.37 11.10 15.6 2.4(7) 17.5 0.07 arka naveen 107.7 102.9 8.33 5.40 6.03 13.07 27.2 5.5(8) 27.9 0.40 arka poonam 104.3 99.5 8.33 3.23 7.20 15.67 25.9 3.6 (8) 28.9 0.27 arka shobha 94.7 89.9 9.67 6.53 3.87 21.00 31.9 3.0(7) 36.4 0.20 arka tilak 80.3 75.5 8.33 4.33 7.83 14.87 24.2 4.6(5) 25.8 0.13 mean 87.8 83.2 7.95 4.20 5.27 13.99 21.73 2.06 23.8 0.236 cd (p=0.05) 15.32 14.11 ns 0.880 0.923 2.438 4.03 0.863 4.68 0.085 *figures in the parenthesis indicate cormel number table 1. growth and biomass partitioning in gladiolus genotypes propagated from cormels plant samples were digested using 1:3 perchloricnitric acid mixture for estimation of total p, k and micronutrients in different plant parts of flower stalk. total p (vanadomolybdate) was determined following piper (1966). estimation of total k, ca, m g wa s do ne in f la me p hot o met er a nd micronutrients like copper (cu), zinc (zn), iron (fe) and manganese (mn) was done in aas. nutrient removal was computed by multiplying nutrient concentration in each plant part with respective oven-dry biomass and presented per hectare basis. statistical analysis all data were analyzed using spss and microsoft excel. the significant differences between the two means are indicated by lsd (5%) values in the tables. correlations and regressions among different biomass parameters and nutrients were worked out for better understanding of results. differences among genotypes were tested with anova and lsd. results and discussion growth parameters in different genotypes the growth parameters such as plant height, leaf number and spike length differed significantly among genotypes. the plant height of genotypes varied from 70.5 cm in arka kumkum to 107.7 cm in arka na veen. t he flower stem length a lso differ ed significantly among genotypes. the flower stem length was higher in arka naveen (102.9 cm) and lesser in arka kumkum (66.2 cm). the leaf number was significantly higher in arka shobha (9.67) and arka manorama (9.00) than other genotypes with medium leaf number (7.50-8.67) and genotypes with less leaf number (6.33-6.67). the corm number was similar in a ll genotypes (2), but the cor m weight va r ied significantly due to different size corms. cormel number and weight were significant among genotypes. the average dry weights of all components per plant varied significantly among genotypes and were used for computing total biomass production per hectare (table 1). biomass partitioning to different components with respect to biomass production in different genotypes raised from cormels (fig. 1), the biomass par titioning to spikes (15.9%) was mor e tha n pa r titioning to lea ves (12. 6%) except in four genotypes (arka amar, arka aarathi, arka shobha and arka gold). the partitioning of total biomass (3990 kg ha-1) was maximum to below ground corm biomass (71.5%). in gladiolus genotypes raised from corms, the partitioning to corms is only 46% of the total biomass (sujatha et al., 2020c). the average partitioning of biomass to both leaves and 113 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 110-117, 2022 biomass production and nutrient removal pattern spikes was 1137 kg ha -1 (28.5% of total). leaf biomass was significantly higher in arka shobha (784 kg ha-1), while spike biomass production was significantly higher in arka tilak (940 kg ha-1). the biomass of corms was higher in arka shobha (4366 kg ha-1). it is clear that higher biomass partitioning to spikes resulted in r educed cor m biomass in genotypes, while higher biomass partitioning to lea ves is r equ ir ed f o r higher c or m b ioma s s production. for planting material multiplication, this aspect needs to be considered. the availability of recyclable biomass as leaf and spikes was 28.5% of t ot a l b i oma s s in c a s e of r ec y c ling a f t er utilization. nutrient accumulation in different plant components t her e wer e s ignifica nt va r ia tions in nut r ient accumulation of major and secondary nutrients in all plant parts such as leaves, spikes and corms fig. 1. biomass partitioning in different genotypes of gladiolus with cormels as planting material (cd (p=0.05) for leaf biomass: 112.8; flower stalk biomass: 118.3; aboveground biomass: 139.2; below ground biomass: 601.1) a mong genotypes (fig. 2 and 3). in gla diolus genotypes, the nutrient profile among different plant p a r t s a ls o s howed dis t inc t p a t t er n. t he accumulation of n was higher in corms followed by lea ves a nd spikes in a ll genotypes. t he p accumulation was similar in all plant parts (0.130.14%). spikes accumulated higher k than leaves and corms. the accumulation of ca was more in leaves (2.39%) followed by spikes (1.95 %) and corms (0.39%). the mg accumulation was higher in f lower st a lks ( 0. 38% ) followed b y lea ves (0.34%) and corms (0.16%) more ca and mg than cor ms. among micr onutr ients, the a vera ge fe concentration (mg kg-1) was more in corms (293) followed by leaves (269) and flower stalks (160). the range in concentrations (mg kg-1) of mn, zn and cu were 29.8-43.5, 15.3-23.4 and 5.2-6.0, respectively. the previous reports indicated that genotype variability in nutrient content and nutrient uptake is crucial for genetic improvement (dierig et al., 2003 feil et al., 2005 brink et al., 2001). 114 sujatha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 110-117, 2022 fig. 2. nutrient accumulation pattern in gladiolus genotypes raised from cormels cd (p=0.05) for nutrients in leaf (n: 0.172; p: 0.005; k: 0.192;ca:0.188 mg: ns), flower stalk (n: 0.147; p: 0.019; k: 0.237;ca:0.194 mg:0.06) and corms (n: 0.237; p: 0.008; k: 0.041;ca: ns mg: ns) fig. 3. micronutrient accumulation pattern in gladiolus genotypes raised from cormels cd (p=0.05) for nutrients in leaf (fe:38.8, mn: 6.9, zn: ns, cu; ns), flower stalk (fe:29.9, mn: ns, zn:ns, cu: ns) and corms (fe:49.5, mn:5.1, zn: ns, cu: ns) biomass production and nutrient removal pattern nutrient uptake pattern the uptake of major, secondary and micro nutrients differed significantly among different genotypes of gladiolus (fig. 4). the total n removal ranged from 87 kg ha-1 in arka aarti to 178 kg ha-1 in arka shobha. the removal of p and k ranged between 6.1-15.2 kg ha-1 and 46.4-103.2 kg ha-1. the average nutrient removal per hectare per year in genotypes raised from cormels was quantified at 122 kg n, 10.8 kg p and 71.7 kg k. the nutrient removal for secondary nutrients ranged between 24.7-43.4 kg for ca and 6.210.8 kg for mg. among micronutrients, the demand in terms of grams per hectare for fe was more (1062.4 g ha-1) than mn (152.5), zn (23.8) and cu (23.0). the order of nutrient uptake in gladiolus in all genotypes was n>k>ca>p>mg>fe>mn>zn>cu. the data implies that gladiolus is a heavy feeder of n and k. in comparison to gladiolus raised from corms (sujatha et al., 2020c), the biomass production and nutrient uptake by gladiolus genotypes raised from cormels are considerably lower. higher corm biomass production with less nutrient uptake in gladiolus genotypes raised from cormels gives scope for largescale planting material multiplication utilizing cormels. 115 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 110-117, 2022 in gladiolus genotypes, the correlations (table 2) were highly significant for total biomass production and removal of n (r=0.938), k (r=0.968), ca (r=0.967) and mg (r=0.941) and p removal did not influence significantly total biomass production (r =0.292). application of stepwise regression technique to identify the nutrient variables with a significa nt influence on the total bioma ss (y) r esulted in the following equa tion, wher e the variables are written in the increasing order of plevel. multiple r egression ana lysis of r emoval/ uptake of nutrients with total biomass production showed high degree of relation and nutrient removal of k and fe influenced the biomass production with high degree of variability. y (total biomass) = -541.858 + 24.097 kuptake + 1.405 feuptake (r 2=0.995) soil fertility status t he s oil f er t ilit y s t a t u s a t t he end of experimentation was above optimum with soil ph near to neutral (7.07) and the soil organic carbon was 1.32%. the availability of soil nutrients was quantified at 22.3 ppm of p, 335 ppm of k, 4799 ppm of ca, 1208 ppm of mg, 11.3 ppm of fe, 8.5 ppm of mn, 5.6 ppm of zn and 4.1 ppm of cu. t he soil fer tility sta tus implies tha t gla diolus system maintains optimum soil fertility despite higher biomass r emoval in the for m of corms/ cormels and the nutrient application can be adjusted based on nutrient uptake pattern to save critical inputs. conclusions the present study assessed the pattern of biomass and nutrient partitioning, and nutrient demand of different genotypes in gladiolus when cormels were used as planting material. the major influence of n, k, ca and fe on biomass production in gladiolus was evident in this study. the results of the present study can be used as basis for assessing the nutrient r equir ement of gla diolus when r aised thr ough fig. 4. nutrient removal pattern in gladiolus genotypes raised from cormels above below total leaf spike ground ground n p k ca mg fe mn zn parameter biomass biomass biomass biomass biomass uptake uptake uptake uptake uptake uptake uptake uptake leaf biomass 0.71** spike biomass 0.15 -0.27 above ground biomass 0.71** 0.58* 0.63** below ground biomass 0.99** 0.69** 0.04 0.59* n uptake 0.94** 0.59* 0.04 0.51* 0.96** p uptake 0.29 -0.14 0.98** 0.72** 0.10 0.17 k uptake 0.97** 0.68** 0.16 0.69** 0.95** 0.89** 0.31 ca uptake 0.97** 0.71** 0.26 0.80** 0.93** 0.89** 0.39 0.94** mg uptake 0.94** 0.52* 0.41 0.77** 0.90** 0.88** 0.52* 0.91** 0.96** fe uptake 0.94** 0.67** 0.08 0.61** 0.94** 0.92** 0.18 0.83** 0.88** 0.87** mn uptake 0.97** 0.81** 0.01 0.67** 0.96** 0.92** 0.17 0.95** 0.93** 0.84** 0.90** zn uptake 0.62** 0.47* 0.61* 0.89** 0.50* 0.43* 0.70** 0.59* 0.69** 0.66* 0.54* 0.59* cu uptake 0.93** 0.68** 0.19 0.71** 0.91** 0.89** 0.32 0.86** 0.88** 0.84** 0.94** 0.93** 0.66* table 2. correlation matrix for biomass and nutrient uptake 116 sujatha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 110-117, 2022 cor mels. t he r esults give scope for pr ecision 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(received: 06.01.2020; revised: 18.04.2022; accepted: 22.06.2022) 14 sujatha s.pdf turmeric (curcuma longa l.) is one of the important spice crops of india with good export potential. underground rhizomes of turmeric are rich in curcumin and used for medicinal, religious and culinary purposes. these are also as a cosmetic and dye (shah, 1997). essential oil of turmeric is antiseptic and is used in treating gall stones (pruthi, 1976). curcumin and oleoresin help lower total cholesterol in blood serum (manjunatha and srinivasa, 2008). india is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of turmeric in the world. over 1.58 lakh tonne of cured turmeric is produced annually, of which 92-95 % is consumed within the country. the remaining 5-8% is exported, earning foreign exchange of 40-110 million rupees per annum (selvan, 2009). in india, turmeric crop is cultivated in an area of 1.81 lakh ha with a total production of 7.93 lakh tonne (anonymous, 2010). andhra pradesh stood first both in area (73,930 ha) and production (3.75 lakh t) in 2010-11, covering to 40% of area under turmeric in india (anonymous, 2010). within andhra pradesh, northern telangana zone is a major turmeric growing area contributing over 50% of the state’s production. the most important foliar diseases on turmeric reported so far in andhra pradesh are leaf spot caused by collectotrichum capsici [(syd.) butler & bisby] evaluation of fungicides against leaf blotch of turmeric caused by taphrina maculans butler s. narasimha rao and k. ravinder kumar1 dr. y.s.r. horticultural university horticultural research station, darsi -523247, india e-mail : varsha.snrao@gmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted in the first fortnight of july 2008, 2009 and 2010 at horticultural research station, jagtial, and in 2010-2011 at turmeric research station, kammarpally, to evaluate various fungicides against leaf blotch of turmeric. treatments included the fungicides propiconazole (0.1%), hexaconazole (0.1%), tricyclazole (0.1%) and carbendazim + mancozeb (0.1%) for rhizome treatment (dipping) and for foliar spray at 45 and 90 days after planting (dap); and foliar application alone at 45 and 90 dap. among the treatments, rhizome treatment with carbendazim + mancozeb (0.1%) gave the best germination (90.52%); rhizome treatment followed by foliar application of carbendazim + mancozeb (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap significantly reduced disease incidence of turmeric leaf blotch (16.13%) and enhanced fresh-rhizome yield (18.30t ha-1) compared to other fungicide applications. high cost-benefit ratio was achieved with rhizome treatment, followed by foliar application of carbendazim + mancozeb at 45 and 90 dap (1:1.92). key words: turmeric, leaf blotch, fungicides j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):121-124, 2013 short communication 1horticultural research station, chintapalli, dr. ysrhu, andhra pradesh, india and leaf blotch caused by taphrina maculans butler. taphrina leaf blotch appears late in the season, usually on the lower leaves in october-november. severe outbreak of this disease was reported from rayalaseema area of andhra pradesh (sarma and dakshinsmurthy, 1962). yield losses were 37.6 to 52.9% due to this fungus (panja et al, 2000). the pathogen can infect only a few cultivars, which are totally resistant to other foliar disease caused by c. capsisi (reddy et al, 1963). area under susceptible cultivars of turmeric is increasing because of the cultivar’s high curcumin content. nirwan et al (1974) and srivastava and gupta (1977) reported that dithiocarbamates, copper oxychloride and carbendazim were effective in controlling leaf blotch in turmeric. mehdi et al (1994) reported that bitertenol and tridemorph reduced leaf curl infection in peach. prasadji et al (2004) reported that propiconazile, bitertenol and chlorothalonil were effective in reducing leaf blotch disease in turmeric. however, very limited effort was made to develop a management strategy with new systemic fungicides. hence, the present field trial was conducted for managing leaf blotch disease in turmeric using new systemic fungicides. field experiments were conducted during the first 122 fortnight of july 2008, 2009 and 2010 at horticultural research station, jagtial, and in 2010-2011 at turmeric research station, kammarpally, andhra pradesh, in shallow, red chalky soils for three years with the leaf blotch susceptible cultivar cli-317. field trials were laid out with nine treatments and three replications in randomized block design. forty rhizomes were planted on raised beds of 3x1 m size at a spacing of 30 x 15cm. nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were applied @ 190kg, 75kg and 120kg per hectare in the form of urea, single super phosphate and muriate of potash, respectively, as per recommendations of the angr agricultural university, hyderabad. nitrogen was applied in four equal split doses, viz., at sowing, 40, 80 and 120 days after planting (dap). potassium was applied in two split doses, viz., at sowing and 80 dap. all of the phosphorus, the first dose of nitrogen and potassium were applied by broadcast at the time of sowing. remaining doses of nitrogen and potassium were applied by the pocket method. the experimental plot was irrigated by flood irrigation at intervals of 10-15 days. weeding was done at 20, 40, 80 and 120 days after planting. fungicides such as propiconazole (0.1%), hexaconazole (0.1 %), tricyclazole (0.1%) and carbendazim+mancozeb (0.1%) were applied separately by dipping rhizomes in the fungicide solution before planting, followed by foliar application at 45 and 90 dap, and foliar spray at 45 and 90 dap alone. sticker, apsa 80 @0.1%, was mixed with the spray fluid for foliar application. treatment details of rhizome and foliar application are furnished in table 1.the first spray was applied at 45 dap, and the second at 90 dap. observation on germination was recorded at 30 dap, disease incidence was recorded 20 days after the last spray, i.e., 110 dap on 10 randomly selected plants in each replication following a 0-6 disease rating scale as suggested by nambiar et al (1977). per cent disease index (pdi) and per cent disease control (pdc) were worked out in each treatment using the following formulae: sum of all disease ratings per cent disease index (pdi) = x 100 total no. of observations x maximum grade disease in control — disease in treatment per cent disease control (pdc) = x100 disease in control cost benefit ratio was calculated for all the treatments. data was subjected to statistical analysis. all fungicidal treatments showed significantly superior effect over control for germination, per cent disease incidence and yield. disease intensity varied from 14.6 to 39.1% during the three years of study. pooled analysis of the trial starting from 2008-09 and up to 2010-11 was worked out and results are presented in table 2. results indicated that (i) rhizome treatment, followed by foliar application of carbendazim + mancozeb at 45 and 90 dap; (ii) rhizome treatment, followed by foliar application of propiconazole at 45 and 90 dap; (iii) foliar application of carbendazim + mancozeb at 45 and 90 dap, and (iv) rhizome treatment, followed by foliar application of hexaconazole at 45 and 90 dap, were at par with each other (with corresponding per cent disease incidence of 16.13%, 17.68%, 18.83% and 19.54%, respectively). these treatments were significantly superior over other fungicidal treatments. highest fresh-rhizome yield was achieved in rhizome treatment, followed by foliar application of carbendazim + mancozeb at 45 and 90 dap (18.3t ha-1). rhizome treatment, followed by foliar application of propiconazole at 45 and 90 dap; rhizome treatment, followed by foliar application of hexaconazole at 45 and 90 dap, and foliar application of hexaconazole at 45 and 90 dap, recorded 17.13t ha-1, 16.98t ha-1and 16.02t ha-1, respectively. these were the next best treatments for obtaining maximum yields. control plots recorded a disease incidence of 31.21%, with yield of 13.39t ha-1. results of this study on foliar application of propiconazole and carbendazim + mancozeb are in agreement with those in earlier studies ( prasadji et al, 2004; singh et al, 2003; srivastava and gupta, 1977). table 1. treatment details t1 dipping rhizomes in hexaconazole (0.1%), followed by foliar spray of hexaconazole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t2 dipping rhizomes in propiconazole (0.1%), followed by foliar spray of propiconazole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t3 dipping rhizomes in tricyclozole (0.1%), followed by foliar spray of tricyclozole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t4 dipping rhizomes in carbedazim + mancozeb (0.1%), followed by foliar spray of carbedazim + mancozeb (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t5 foliar spray of hexaconazole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t6 foliar spray of propiconazole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t7 foliar spray of tricyclozole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t8 foliar spray of carbedazim + mancozeb (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t9 control narasimha rao and ravinder kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):121-124, 2013 123 evaluation of fungicides against leaf blotch of turmeric economics for each fungicide was calculated based on mean yield from pooled analysis. all the treatments were economically beneficial over the control. rhizome treatment+foliar application with carbendazim+mancozeb (0.1%) gave the best economic returns (1:1.92) among the fungicides tested (table 2), followed by rhizome treatment+foliar application of propiconazole (1:1.81). based on the three years’ study, it is concluded that treatment of rhizome with carbendazim + mancozeb (0.1%), followed by foliar application of propiconazole (0.1%) at 45 dap, and foliar spray of carbendazim + mancozeb (0.1%) at 90 dap were effective in managing leaf blotch and increasing yield in turmeric. references anonymous. 2010. statement showing the all-india area, production and yield of turmeric, chillies and coriander, department of agriculture and cooperation (horticulture division). table-5.10 anonymous. 2010. statement showing the state/spice wise area and production of spices. agricultural situation in india. published by directorate of economics and statistics, ministry of agriculture, krishi bhavan, new delhi, p 861 manjunatha, h. and srinivasan, s. 2008. hypolipidemic and antioxidant potency of heat processed turmeric and red pepper in experimental rats. african j. food sci., 2:1-6 mehdi asmat shah, a.m. and mehdi, a. 1994. efficacy of fungicides in controlling peach leaf curl disease. indian phytopath., 47:427-429 nambiar, k.k.n., sarama,y.r. and brahma, r.n. 1977. field reaction of turmeric types (curcuma longa, curcuma aromatica) to leaf blotch disease (caused by taphrina maculans). j. plantn. crops., 5:124 nirwan, r.s., ram, g. and upadhyay. 1974. chemical control of turmeric leaf spot incited by taphrina maculans butler. hort. advances, 9:47-48 panja, b.n., de, d.k. and mazumdar, d. 2002. assessment of yield losses in turmeric genotype due to leaf blotch disease (taphrina maculans butler) from tarai region of west bengal. pl. prot. bull., 52:13-14 prasadji, j.k., murthy, k.v.m.k., rama pandu, s. and muralidharan. k. 2004. management of taphrina table 2. effect of fungicides on management of leaf blotch in turmeric (pooled analysis 2008-11) treatment per cent leaf blotch yield % increase benefit germination incidence (t/ha) over costratio pdi pdc control t1dipping rhizomes in 87.27 (69.12)* 19.54 (26.21)* 37.39 (37.70)* 16.98 26.81 1:1.79 hexaconazole (0.1%) + foliar spray of hexaconazole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t2dipping rhizomes in 88.98 (70.54) 17.68 (24.88) 43.35 (41.45) 17.13 27.93 1:1.81 propiconazole (0.1%) + foliar spray of propiconazole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t3dipping of rhizomes in 86.36 (68.28) 21.68 (27.69) 30.85 (33.71) 15.56 16.21 1:1.65 tricyclazole (0.1%) + foliar spray of tricyclozole (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t4dipping rhizomes in 90.52 (72.05) 16.13 (23.66) 48.32 (44.03) 18.30 36.67 1:1.92 carbedazim + mancozeb (0.1%) + foliar spray of carbedazim + mancozeb (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t5foliar spray of hexaconazole 84.89 (67.13) 21.24 (27.42) 31.94 (35.00) 16.02 19.64 1:1.74 (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t6foliar spray of propiconazole 87.38 (69.21) 20.71 (27.06) 33.64 (35.43) 15.69 17.17 1:1.71 (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t7foliar spray of tricyclozole 85.95 (67.94) 24.11 (29.40) 22.75 (28.45) 15.12 12.92 1:1.65 (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t8foliar spray of carbedazim + 86.36 (68.28) 18.86 (25.70) 39.67 (39.00) 15.70 17.25 1:1.71 mancozeb (0.1%) at 45 and 90 dap t9control 81.87 (64.75) 31.21 (33.96) 0.00 13.39 1:.1.52 s.em+ 1.34 0.877 0.37 cd (p=0.05) 3.98 5.060 1.14 *figures in the parentheses are arc sine transformed values dap=days after planting; pdi= per cent disease index; pdc= per cent disease control j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):121-124, 2013 124 maculans incited leaf blotch of turmeric. j. mycol. pl. pathol., 34:446-449 pruthi, j.s. 1976. spices and condiments. national book trust, new delhi. pp 223-227 reddy, g.s., dakshinamuthi, v. and sarma, s.s. 1963. note on varietal resistance against leaf spot diseases in turmeric. andhra agril. j., 10:146-148 sarma, s.s. and dakshinamurthy, d. 1962. varietal resistance against leaf spot disease of turmeric. andhra agril. j., 9:61-64 selvan, m.t. 2009. spices and aromatic crops indian scenario. national workshop on spices and aromatic plants, 4-5 feb 2009, pau, ludhiana, punjab, india shah, n.c. 1997. traditional uses of turmeric (curcuma longa l.) in india. j. med. arom. pl. sci., 19:948954 singh, a., basandrai, a.k. and sharma, b.k. 2003. fungicidal management of taphrina leaf spot of turmeric. indian phytopath., 56:119-120 srivastava, v.p. and gupta, j.h. 1977. fungicidal control of turmeric leaf spot incited by taphrina maculans. indian j. mycol. pl. pathol., 7:76-77 (ms received 17 september 2011, accepted 08 october 2012, revised 13 november 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):121-124, 2013 narasimha rao and ravinder kumar introduction watermelon [citrullus lanatus (thunb.) matsum et nakai] is believed to have originated in africa and spread to other parts of world. global area under watermelon cultivation is 37,52,568 ha with annual production of 99,194,223mt (vasanth kumar et al, 2012). it is a commercially important crop in india and the most popular among melons grown in summer. watermelon comprises 90% water, therefore, water supply to the crop is very critical during growth and development of the plant and fruit. water shortage causes noticeable gaps in production, with reduction in leaf area and overall yield. supply of water throughout the growth period is important, but absolutely critical during flowering and fruit development. drip fertigation is an important irrigation-cum-nutrient application method in crop production, particularly, in arid and semi-arid regions where there is a high competition for available water resources. drip irrigation under plastic mulch is an effective way of supplying water efficiently in watermelon cultivation. this may reduce total water requirement besides increasing water use efficiency (srinivas et al, 1989; anon., 2002). to reduce cost of production and environmental pollution, judicious use j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):60-64, 2013 influence of various sources and levels of fertilizer applied through fertigation on hybrid watermelon grown in rabi-summer m. prabhakar, s.s. hebbar and a.k. nair division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail : mpkar@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field experiment was conducted at bangalore during 2006-2008 to study the effect of fertigation on growth and yield of rabi-summer grown watermelon. seven treatments comprising varying rates and sources of fertilizers were applied. application of water soluble fertilizer @ 70:70:70kg n:p 2 o 5 :k 2 o per hectare through fertigation gave significantly higher vine length, number of branches per plant and leaf area index. in general, fertigation treatments recorded higher values for number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and total soluble solids than conventional soilapplication of fertilizers. all the fertigation treatments recorded higher average marketable watermelon yield over conventional soil-application of fertilizers amounting to 7.22 to 26.4% increase. among fertigation treatments, though recommended dose of fertilizer applied as water soluble fertilizer resulted in highest marketable-fruit yield, highest net income (rs. 229775) and b:c ratio (3.03) was obtained in treatment with 70% of recommended dose of npk using conventional fertilizers supplied through fertigation. key words: watermelon, fertigation, rabi, summer, growth, yield, economics of water and nutrients is very important. micro-irrigation and fertigation are among the best option to help economize water and fertilization use in vegetable cultivation (clothier et al, 1985) and for lowering leaching losses (ristimaki, 1999). scientific information on fertigation, especially in watermelon, is very scanty. hence, the present field experiment was set up to determine influence of drip fertigation for supply of different fertilizer sources and levels on growth, fruit yield and quality in watermelon. material and methods the experiment was conducted during rabi-summer seasons of 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 at indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bangalore. soil at the experimental site was red sandy-loam, with organic carbon 0.53%, electrical conductivity 0.24 ds/m, neutral ph (6.72), low available n (160kg/ha), low available p (9.3kg/ha) and medium available k (138kg/ha). the soil had a capacity for holding 148mm available water in the top one meter of its profile. seeds of watermelon hybrid ns-295 were sown in rows of 2m width, with 60cm plant-to-plant spacing, during the first week of november in both years. the experiment 61 fertigation studies in hybrid watermelon was laid out in randomized block design, with seven treatments and three replications. uniform basal dose of farm yard manure @ 25t/ha was applied before sowing. treatment details with source and amount of various fertilizers applied are given in tables 1 and 2. reflective mulch 30 micron thick and 1.2m wide was used. conventional fertilizers used in the experiment were urea, single super phosphate, di-ammonium phosphate and muriate of potash; whereas, 19 each of n, p 2 o 5 , k 2 o, kno 3 and ca (no 3 ) 2 formed the source of water soluble fertilizer. recommended dose of fertilizer in the present study comprised 100kg n, 100kg p 2 o 5 and 100kg k 2 o per hectare. fertilizer was applied at weekly intervals through inline drippers in all the fertigation treatments. soil treatments received the entire p 2 o 5 and k 2 o at sowing, and n in two splits-one at sowing, and the other 28 days later. irrigation was based on evaporation replenishment (0.7 epan) and imposed daily on all the treatments through inline drippers. fertilizers were injected through non-electrical proportional injector at weekly intervals, starting with seven days after germination, and continued for upto 75 days after sowing at equal rates, as per treatments. growth observations were taken 60 days after sowing. meteorological data during crop growth period for both years is given in table 3. all agronomic and plant protection measures were adopted as per recommended package of practices. the crop was table 2. source and quantity (kg/ha) of fertilizers applied under various treatments treatment basal dose top dressing fertigation urea ssp m o p urea m o p urea m o p kno 3 ca(no 3 ) 2 19:19:19 dap t 1 108.7 625 83.0 108.7 83.0 t 2 108.7 625 83.0 108.7 83.0 t 3 526.0 t 4 437.5 152.0 117.0 t 5 437.5 152.0 323 t 6 93.0 117.0 152.0 t 7 368.0 ssp single super phosphate; mopmuriate of potash; dap diammonium phosphate; table 1. treatments imposed in the experiment treatment symbol basal dose top-dressing fertigation level of fertilizer(kg/ha) fertilizer type application dose and method (kg/ha) (kg/ha) (kg/ha) recommended dose conventional 100% npk soil application t 1 50:100:50 50:0:50 0:0:0 (100:100:100 n:p 2 o 5 :k 2 o) conventional 50% nk fertigation t 2 50:100:50 0 50:0:50 wsf 100% npk fertigation t 3 0:0:0 0 100:100:100 70% of recommended dose conventional nk fertigation t 4 0:70:0 70:0:70 (70:70:70 n:p 2 o 5 :k 2 o) wsf nk fertigation t 5 0:70:0 0 70:0:70 conventional npk fertigation t 6 0:0:0 0 70:70:70 wsf npk fertigation t 7 0:0:0 0 70:70:70 wsf: water soluble fertilizer table 3. meteorological data during crop growth period month temperature (oc) rh (%) total evaporation wind max. min. morning evening rainfall(mm) (mm) speed(km/h) november 2006 27.2 18.1 84.5 72.8 112.7 2.7 4.9 december 2006 26.6 14.7 80.0 72.6 3.7 5.6 january 2007 28.4 11.8 78.8 43.2 4.5 5.3 february 2007 29.9 12.9 58.6 29.6 5.6 5.5 march 2007 33.2 16.7 53.3 26.2 7.1 5.3 april 2007 33.8 19.7 68.9 36.8 53.4 5.5 6.7 november 2007 26.7 13.1 68.2 59.7 2.8 4.2 3.3 december 2007 27.5 11.4 74.2 65.1 5.2 3.8 january 2008 28.5 11.9 73.1 53.1 3.6 3.9 february 2008 29.7 15.7 60.6 37.0 7.4 4.7 4.5 march 2008 30.1 16.6 55.0 36.8 105.7 6.2 5.0 april 2008 31.8 18.5 62.6 38.8 11.1 4.1 4.9 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):60-64, 2013 62 harvested at 90 to 100 days after sowing, at fruit maturity as indicated by a dull sound of the fruit, or, when the fruit tendril turned to straw colour, or when the fruit base turned creamy-yellow in colour. observations on crop growth, yield, yield parameters and quality were recorded and statistically analyzed as per gomez and gomez (1983). results and discussion growth parameters all the treatments pertaining to fertigation (irrespective of source or dosage) resulted in better growth in terms of vine length, number of branches per plant and leaf area index compared to conventional soil-application during both years (table 4). among fertigation treatments, application of 100 and 70% recommended dose of npk, in the form of water soluble fertilizer (t 3 and t 7 ), recorded significantly higher vine length than in n:k fertigation at 70% recommended dose (t 4 and t 5 ) in 2006-07 and than all the treatments in 2007-2008. irrespective of dosage and combination of fertilizers in fertigation, vine length and number of branches per plant was higher in water soluble fertilizer treatment than with conventional fertilizers. application at 100% recommended or 70% of recommended rate through fertigation produced significantly higher number of branches per plant compared to soil-application treatments. leaf area index was highest in t 7 and lowest in t 4 and t 1 during 2006-07 and 2007-08, respectively. improvement of crop growth and leaf area in watermelon has been reported to be better with nutrients supplied through fertigation rather than by soil application (zhang, 2011). yield and yield attributes there were no significant differences among treatments for number of fruits per plant during 2006-07. but, in 2007-08, all water soluble fertilizer fertigation treatments (t 3 , t 5 and t 7 ) recorded higher number of fruits per plant than any other treatment (table 5). these treatments were also significantly superior to conventional fertilizer treatment of soil-application of 100 or 50% recommended dose (t 1 and t 2 ), and remained at par with 70% npk application using conventional fertilizer. significant differences for fruit weight due to different treatments were observed but, overall, higher fruit weight was observed in treatments receiving water-soluble fertilizers compared to treatments receiving conventional fertilizers. application of 50% n:k fertigation (t 2 ) resulted in significantly higher fruit weight (4.89kg) which was at par with t 4 and t 6 , and all these treatments were superior to soil-application treatments in 2006-07. during 2007-08, fruit weight was comparatively more in crops receiving water-soluble fertilizers through fertigation compared to all the treatments involving conventional fertilizers. total soluble solids (obrix), representing fruit quality, did not differ significantly due to different fertigation treatments. however, t 7 (which received 70% recommended dose of watersoluble fertilizers) recorded highest values for tss in both years. battilani and solimando (2006) and andrade junior et al (2009) also reported no significant differences in fruit quality in watermelon with various levels of fertilizers supplied through fertigation. all the fertigation treatments recorded higher yield over conventional method of applying commercial fertilizer as soil-application (t 1 ) for upto 7.23 table 4. growth of watermelon as influenced by fertigation treatments treatment vine no. of branches leaf area length(cm) per plant index 06-07 07-08 06-07 07-08 06-07 07-08 t 1 242.3 255.0 8.2 8.0 2.52 2.50 t 2 281.1 273.0 9.3 8.3 2.54 2.52 t 3 286.6 330.0 10.8 10.0 2.58 2.61 t 4 235.3 286.0 10.7 8.6 2.49 2.55 t 5 246.8 300.0 10.7 10.8 2.60 2.63 t 6 277.3 305.0 10.9 9.8 2.56 2.62 t 7 303.2 346.0 11.4 11.0 2.63 2.66 cd (p=0.05) 25.49 20.74 1.40 1.41 0.09 0.0872 table 5. effect of fertigation level on yield, yield attributes and quality in watermelon treatment no. of fruits per plant fruit weight (kg) tss (obrix) yield (t/ha) 06-07 07-08 06-07 07-08 06-07 07-08 06-07 07-08 t 1 1.31 1.32 4.32 5.32 9.38 9.20 45.61 55.80 t 2 1.30 1.25 4.89 5.75 9.63 9.24 48.91 59.81 t 3 1.40 1.60 4.43 6.15 9.68 10.45 60.20 68.85 t 4 1.33 1.43 4.68 5.95 9.75 9.56 53.49 63.34 t 5 1.37 1.62 4.37 6.06 9.76 10.48 56.66 66.50 t 6 1.42 1.51 4.69 5.77 9.83 10.46 56.70 65.50 t 7 1.42 1.68 4.45 6.01 9.90 10.56 59.87 68.31 cd(p=0.05) ns 0.19 0.35 0.47 ns ns 7.72 3.46 ns = non-significant prabhakar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):60-64, 2013 63 table 6. economics of watermelon crop in relation to fertigation treatments treatment* average gross gross net b:c yield investment income income ratio (t/ha) (rs./ha) (rs./ha) (rs./ha) t 1 50.70 77585 253500 175915 2.26 t 2 54.36 77585 271800 194215 2.50 t 3 64.52 104125 322600 218475 2.09 t 4 58.41 75317 292050 216738 2.87 t 5 61.58 98066 307900 209834 2.14 t 6 61.10 75725 305500 229775 3.03 t 7 64.09 93920 320450 226530 2.41 sale price = rs. 5.00/kg *for details on treatments, refer table 1and 2 to 32.00% increase in 2006-07 and 7.18 to 23.38% in 200708. higher yield obtained with fertigation treatments may be because of better growth, higher photosynthetic-surface area coupled with better yield attributes such as number of fruits per plant and larger fruit size. gonsalves et al (2011) reported leaf area index to have a positive effect on the number of fruits and on productivity in watermelon. application of 100% npk fertigation at recommended dose through water-soluble fertilizer (t 3 ) recorded maximum and significantly higher yield (60.20 and 68.85 t/ha) than t 1 and t 2 , but remained at par with treatments where only 70% of the recommended dose of nk or npk was applied as fertigation (except in t 4 ) in the second year. among other fertigation treatments, application of 70% npk recommended dose through water-soluble fertilizers (t 7 ) recorded the second highest yield, followed by t 6 in the first year, and t 5 in the second year. use of fertilizer at 70% of recommended dose through fertigation clearly resulted in higher yield than 50% n:k fertigation + 50% soil application or complete soil-application of conventional fertilizers at recommended dosage. this also indicated that to realize yields equivalent to or higher than in soil application of the entire dose or by fertigating with half the recommended conventional fertilizer, it is possible to save 30% of fertilizer using water-soluble or conventional fertilizers, applied entirely through fertigation. kadam et al (2009) also reported 20% saving in fertilizer using fertigation in watermelon. economics details on economics and benefit:cost ratio in watermelon hybrid ns 295 in relation to various fertigation treatments tested are presented in table 6. highest gross income (rs. 3,22,600/ha) was obtained in the treatment where the entire quantity of water-soluble fertilizers at recommended dosage was given through fertigation (t 3 ), followed by t 7 which received 70% recommended dose of water-soluble fertilizers through fertigation. lowest gross income (rs.2,53,500/ha) was obtained by applying recommended dose of conventional fertilizer to soil (t 1 ). though treatment t 3 resulted in highest gross income, it failed to earn highest net income owing to higher cost of the watersoluble fertilizers. as for net income, the best performance was that of the treatment where 70% recommended dose of npk using conventional fertilizers was supplied to the crop through fertigation. this treatment also resulted in highest b:c ratio (3.03) by virtue of fetching higher yield and gross income, and incurring comparatively low gross investment. from this study, it is evident that application of 70 or 100% recommended npk, through fertigation using watersoluble fertilizers, results in higher yield in watermelon hybrid grown during rabi-summer season. however, from the point of view of economics, 70% n:p:k fertigation using conventional fertilizers is more profitable. hence, it is concluded that for better performance and profitability from hybrid watermelon grown during rabi-summer, supply of 70% recommended dose of npk through fertigation using conventional fertilizers, is appropriate. references andrade junior, a.s., de dias, n. da s. figueiredo junior, l.g.m. ribeiro, v.q. and sampaio, d.b. 2009. response of watermelon to nitrogen fertigation. irriga, 14:115-122 anonymous. 2002. commercial vegetable production guide. watermelon. oregon state university, usa battilani, a. and solimando, d. 2006. yield, quality and nitrogen use efficiency of fertigated watermelon. acta hort., 700:85-90 clothier, b., scotter, d. and harper, e. 1985. three dimensional infiltration and trickle irrigation. trans. amer. soc. agri. engrs., 28:497-501 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1983. statistical procedure for agricultural research, wiley-international science publication, new york, usa gonsalves, m.v.i. pavani, l.c., fillho, a.b.c. and feltrim, a.l. 2011. leaf area index and furit yield of seedless watermelon depending on spacing between plants and n and k applied by fertigation. cientifica jaboticabal, 39:25-33 kadam, u.s., deshmukh, a.d., ingle, p.m. and manjarekar, r.g. 2009. effect of irrigation scheduling and fertigation levels on growth and yield of watermelon (citrullus lanatus thunb.). j. maharashtra agril. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):60-64, 2013 fertigation studies in hybrid watermelon 64 univ., 34:319-321 ristimaki, l. 1999. comparisons between different sources of phosphate applied directly to soil and via fertigation. proceedings international fertilizer society, 430, pp. 16 srinivas, k., hegde, d.m. and havanagi, g.v. 1989. effect of nitrogen fertilization and plant population on plant water relations and yield of watermelon under drip and furrow irrigation. singapore j. primary industries, 17:79-86 vasanth kumar, shirol, a.m., ravindra mulge, thammaih, n. and prasad kumar. 2012. genotype x environmental interaction in watermelon (citrullus lanatus thunb.) genotypes for yield and quality traits. karnataka j. agril. sci., 25:248-252 zhang baodong. 2011. effects of different fertilizers on yield and quality of watermelons under drip irrigation. china cucurbits and vegetables, 24:17-19 (ms received 06 august 2012, accepted 06 november 2012, revised 13 november 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):60-64, 2013 prabhakar et al combining ability for yield and yield-related traits in manjarigota type brinjal (solanum melongena l.) pratapsingh suresh khapte1, t.h. singh, a.t. sadashiva and k. madhavi reddy division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta bangalore -560 089, india email: thsingh@iihr.ernet.in abstract twenty one f1 crosses of manjarigota type of brinjal in a line x tester (mating design) involving seven lines and three testers were evaluated for general combining ability (gca) of the parents and specific combining ability (sca) of the crosses for various quantitative characters. combining ability analysis revealed that two lines viz, iihr-574 (l3) and iihr-575 (l4), and two testers, iihr-438-2 (t1) and iihr-500a (t2) were good general combiner for most of the characters studied and, hence, can be used for further improvement of quantitative traits in manjarigota type of brinjal. among the 21 f1 crosses evaluated, two crosses, l4xt2 and l3xt3, were found to be good specific combiners for most of the yield contributing traits, viz, fruit length, fruit diameter, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant and plant height. therefore, these cross-combinations can be commercially exploited for heterosis breeding to isolate desirable genotypes of manjarigota type brinjal. key words: manjarigota, brinjal (egg plant) heterosis, combining ability, gca, sca j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):176-180, 2013 introduction brinjal (solanum melongena l.) is an important solanaceous vegetable crop of indian origin showing a wide variability for colour, size and shape of fruits. it is often referred to as a poor man’s crop (sharma et al, 2004). it is one of the cosmopolitan and most popular vegetables, grown in almost all parts of the country. it is cultivated in an area of about 6.8 lakh hectares, with production of 118.96 lakh tones and productivity of 17.5t per ha. among brinjal growing states in india, west bengal ranks first in area (1.58 lakh ha) and, also, in production (28.70 lakh t) and productivity (18.1 t/ha) (anon., 2011). manjarigota type of brinjal is purple in colour, with white stripes and is in great demand in karnataka, maharashtra, tamil nadu and parts of andhra pradesh. information on genetic make-up of manjarigota type brinjal is limited. hence, considering its demand, an attempt was made to estimate its combining ability for yield and yield components. selection of best parents for hybridization needs to be based on complete genetic information and estimated pre-potency of potential parents. with these points in view, combining ability studies were undertaken which are a prerequisite for any heterosis breeding programme. these provide the desired information on exploitation of heterosis to enhance productivity in any crop improvement programme for commercial purposes. material and methods the present study was undertaken at division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), hessaraghatta, bangalore, during july 2010 – may 2011. the experimental field is located at an altitude of 890 meters above msl, 13°58' n latitude and 78°e longitude. the experimental material consisted of seven parental lines, viz, iihr-228 (l1), iihr-569 (l2), iihr-574 (l3), iihr-575 (l4), iihr-587 (l5), iihr-592 (l6), iihr-570 (l7), and three testers, iihr-438-2 (t1), iihr-500a (t2) and iihr-571 (t3). detailed information on lines and testers used is presented in annexure 1. crossing was done as per l x t mating design, and a total of 21 f1 crosses were obtained. twenty one f1 hybrids and ten parents were evaluated in randomized block design, with three replications. package of practices for successful cultivation of the crop was followed. observations on five randomly-selected plants were recorded for various traits. combining ability analysis was computed as per kempthrone (1957). 1department of vegetable crops, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641003, india 177 annexure 1. salient features of parents and checks used in the present study s. no. parents source description line 1 (l1) iihr-228 iihr, bangalore plants are dwarf, spiny and highly branched; fruits are round in shape; light purple and, calyx, highly spiny 2 (l2) iihr-569 iihr, bangalore plants are tall; fruits are round to oval in shape, medium purple in colour, with white stripes 3 (l3) iihr-574 iihr, bangalore plants are medium-tall and bushy. fruits are oval in shape and light purple in colour 4 (l4) iihr-575 iihr, bangalore plants are tall and bushy. fruits are oval, with a flat base, dark purple in colour with white strips. 5 (l5) iihr-587 iihr, bangalore plants are tall and bushy. fruits are oval in shape, purple in colour, with white stripes 6 (l6) iihr-592 iihr, bangalore plants are medium-tall and bushy; fruits are round in shape, and light purple in colour 7 (l7) iihr-570 iihr, bangalore plants are tall; fruits are oval in shape, dark purple in colour, with white stripes tester 1 (t1) iihr-438-2 iihr, bangalore plants are tall; fruits are oval to oblong in shape, dark purple in colour, with white stripes 2 (t2) iihr-500a iihr, bangalore plants are tall. fruits are oblong in shape, light purple in colour, with white stripes 3 (t3) iihr-571 iihr, bangalore plants are medium-tall. fruits are round in shape, medium-purple in colour, with white stripes check 1 kalpataru mahyco, jalna plants are tall; fruits are round in shape, medium purple in colour, with white stripes 2 supermohini mahyco, jalna plants are medium-tall. fruits are round in shape, dark purple in colour, with white stripes results and discussion analysis of variance (table 1) indicated the mean sum of squares due to the parents was significant for most of the characters, except days to first flower opening and number of primary branches (table 1). contribution of parents and crosses to combining ability variance, variance due to gca of parents, sca of crosses and the ratio of gca to sca for all traits, is presented in table 2. results revealed that sca variance was higher compared to gca variance for all the characters studied, indicating an involvement of non-additive genes in the inheritance of these traits. involvement of non-additive gene action for various traits in the present investigation too is in consonance with findings of singh et al (2002). contribution of lines, as compared to testers, was found to be higher for all the characters studied, except for days to first fruit harvest, fruit length and number of primary branches. line x tester contribution was found to be greater for all the characters, except days to 50% flowering. general combining ability general combining ability (gca) effects of lines and testers for various characters are presented in table 3. gca effects for days to first flower among lines and testers was negatively significant only in the line, l3 (-1.19) and tester, t1 (-0.79), in accordance with findings of indiresh et al (2005). for days to 50% flowering, the only line, l3 (-1.09) and testers, t1 (-0.49) and t3 (-0.82), showed negatively significant gca effects. this indicates that l3, t3 and t1 were good general combiners. gca effect for per cent fruit set was highest in l4 (4.66), followed by l6 (1.62); among the three testers, only tester t2 (2.63) showed a positively significant gca effect. for days to first fruit harvest, line l3 (-3.76) and tester t3 (-2.47) showed negatively significant gca effects. for fruit length, gca effect observed in l3 (0.54) and among testers t2 (0.51) showed a positive significance. as for gca effect for fruit diameter, two lines, l3 (0.37), followed by l6 (0.36); and, among testers, none was significant. these results confirm the findings of rai and asati (2011) and padmanabham and jagadish (1996). a positive and significant gca for average fruit weight was recorded in two lines, l3 (9.63), followed by l4 (5.52), while, none of the testers was a good general combiner. for number of fruits per plant, two lines, namely l4 (3.49) and l3 (1.60), recorded significant and positive gca effect; among the three testers, only tester t2 (0.84) showed positively significant gca effect. highest positive gca effect was observed in l4 (0.32) and l3 (0.32), while, j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):176-180, 2013 combining ability for yield related traits in brinjal 178 only one tester, t2 (0.18) showed positively significant gca effect for yield per plant. gca effect for number of seeds per fruit was negatively significant in l5 (-1.57) and l1 (-1.27) among the lines, while, in the testers, none was significant. this indicates that number of seeds showed be low in the fruit during its horticultural maturity (tender stage). highest positive gca effect was observed in the lines l4 (5.38), followed by l6 (4.54) and l2 (1.84) for plant height, while, none of the testers showed a positive significance for this trait. for number of primary branches, line l6 (0.66), followed by l3 (0.43) and l5 (0.40), and the tester, t1 (1.01), showed positively significant gca effect. similar results were also reported by baig and patil (2002). specific combing ability (sca) specific combining ability effects of crosses for various characters are presented in table 4. specific combining ability of the crosses studied for days to first flower opening revealed that none of the crosses were negatively significant. for days to 50% flowering, the highest negative sca effect was found in the cross l7 x t1 (-1.39), followed by l5 x t2 (-1.31). these crosses may be considered suitable for exploitation of heterosis for earliness. sca effect for per cent fruit set was highest in the cross l3 x t3 (9.61), followed by l6 x t1 (5.79). negatively significant sca effect in the cross l1 x t3 (-6.96), followed by l3 x t3 (-4.85), was seen for days to first fruit harvest. for fruit length, the cross l4 x t2 (1.90) recorded high sca effect, followed by l6 x t2 (1.65); and, for fruit diameter, the cross l6 x t2 (1.73), followed by l4 x t2 (1.50). these results are in accordance with das and barua (2001). sca effect for average fruit weight was highest in the cross l2 x t3 (23.15), followed by l7 x t1 (18.50). for number of fruits per plant, the cross l6 x t3 (5.38) recorded highest sca effect, followed by l2 x t1 (3.79). good specific table 1. analysis of variance (mean sum of squares) of parents and hybrids for various traits in brinjal source of variation treatment parent cross parents vs lines x error crosses testers degrees of freedom 30 9 20 1 12 60 days to first flower opening 8.01 5.41 9.27* 6.19 6.93 2.71 days to 50% flowering 7.65** 5.04* 9.01** 3.92* 3.86* 0.84 % fruit set 94.45** 26.93** 99.97** 591.59** 113.79** 3.81 days to first fruit harvest 58.50** 53.70** 62.03** 31.15* 56.37** 7.16 fruit length (cm) 4.36** 4.46** 4.27** 5.42** 5.69** 0.34 fruit diameter (cm) 2.34** 1.83** 2.65** 0.68 3.83** 0.25 average fruit weight (g) 693.80** 525.80** 692.68** 2230.41** 947.02** 46.00 number of fruits per plant 40.32** 28.53** 39.12** 170.53** 42.05** 2.67 yield per plant (kg) 0.41** 0.08* 0.45** 2.70** 0.38** 0.01 average seed weight / fruit (g) 12.58* 8.70* 14.23* 14.65* 9.14* 2.07 plant height (cm) 147.56** 210.56** 123.64** 59.15** 114.50** 2.29 number of primary branches 3.97** 0.93 4.10** 28.59 2.77** 0.32 * significant @ 5% level; ** significant @ 1% level table 2. variance of combining ability, their ratio and contribution of lines and testers in brinjal character estimated variance components contribution contribution contribution of of lines (%) of testers (%) lines × testers (%) gca sca gca/sca days to first flower opening 0.06 3.51 0.017 26.69 28.44 44.85 days to 50% flowering 0.13 4.25 0.031 43.30 30.96 25.72 % fruit set -0.35 32.69 -0.01 20.39 11.31 61.31 days to first fruit harvest 0.14 26.63 0.005 17.63 27.84 54.52 fruit length (cm) -0.03 1.29 -0.028 9.25 10.77 79.96 fruit diameter (cm) -0.03 0.64 -0.046 9.80 3.57 86.62 average fruit weight (g) -6.62 17.37 -0.262 14.90 3.06 82.03 number of fruits per plant -0.07 10.01 -0.007 32.63 2.87 64.49 yield per plant (kg) 0.001 0.15 0.006 37.96 11.42 50.60 average seed weight / fruit (g) 0.13 3.30 0.039 59.71 1.71 38.56 plant height (cm) 0.23 32.08 0.007 43.81 0.62 55.56 number of primary branches 0.03 2.27 0.014 17.17 42.24 40.58 gca: general combining ability; sca: specific combining ability j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):176-180, 2013 pratapsingh suresh khapte et al 179 table 3. estimates of general combining ability (gca) effect of parents (lines and testers) for different traits in brinjal parent days to days % fruit days fruit fruit average number yield number plant no. of first to 50% set to first length diameter fruit of fruits per of seeds height primary flower flowering fruit (cm) (cm) weight per plant per (cm) branches opening harvest (g) plant (kg) fruit (g) lines l1 0.55 0.79* -3.57** -0.31 -0.66** -0.10 -3.03 -2.95** -0.26** -1.27* -5.02** -0.37 l2 -0.50 -0.98** -1.18 1.68 0.07 -0.10 -6.92** -2.17** -0.28** 1.98** 1.84** -0.63** l3 -1.19* -1.09** -2.37** -3.76** 0.54** 0.37* 9.63** 1.60** 0.32** 2.33** -1.38** 0.43* l4 1.60** 1.79** 4.66** 2.12* -0.00 -0.12 5.52* 3.49** 0.32** -0.51 5.38** -0.48* l5 0.58 1.12** 1.02 1.01 -0.13 0.09 -0.03 0.26 0.05 -1.57** -6.26** 0.40* l6 -0.68 -0.98** 1.62* 0.46 0.01 0.36* -6.80** 0.04 -0.11** 2.04* 4.54** 0.66** l7 -0.35 -0.65* -0.18 -1.20 0.33 -0.50** 1.63 -0.28 -0.03 0.96 0.91 -0.00 sem± 0.54 0.30 0.65 0.89 0.19 0.16 2.26 0.54 0.03 0.48 0.50 0.18 testers t 1 -0.79* -0.49* -0.88* -0.66 -0.10 -0.23* -3.61* -0.34 -0.09** 0.24 0.24 1.01** t 2 1.28** 1.31** 2.63** 3.14** 0.51** 0.17 2.33 0.84** 0.18** 0.13 0.44 -0.29* t 3 -0.48 -0.82** -1.74 -2.47** -0.40** 0.06 1.28 -0.49 -0.09** -0.38 -0.68** -0.72** sem± 0.35 0.20 0.42 0.58 0.12 0.10 1.48 0.35 0.02 0.31 0.33 0.12 * significant @ 5% level; ** significant @ 1% level table 4. estimates of specific combining ability (sca) effect of crosses for various traits in brinjal cross days to days % fruit days fruit fruit average number yield number plant no. of first to 50% set to first length diameter fruit of fruits per of seeds height primary flower flowering fruit (cm) (cm) weight per plant per (cm) branches opening harvest (g) plant (kg) fruit (g) l1 x t1 2.26* 0.49 -3.02** 5.88** 0.08 -0.34 0.50 -0.09 0.02 -0.19 -3.79** -1.24** l1 x t2 -1.54 0.01 5.69 1.07 -0.80 -0.70* 8.88* -2.61** -0.10 -1.91* 0.16 0.85* l1 x t3 -0.71 -0.50 -2.67* -6.96** 0.71 1.04** -9.39* 2.71** 0.07 2.11* 3.63** 0.38 l2 x t1 0.12 -0.73 -2.10 -3.11* 1.15** 0.75* -13.26** 3.79** 0.09 1.18 -4.72** 1.57** l2 x t2 0.78 1.46** -2.77* 1.07 -1.06** -0.27 -9.88* 0.26 -0.17* -0.37 0.95 -1.11** l2 x t3 -0.91 -0.73 4.87** 2.03 -0.09 -0.47 23.15** -4.06** 0.08 -0.81 3.76** -0.46 l3 x t1 -1.11 -0.28 -1.70 -0.66 -0.51 -0.50 -11.49** -0.31 -0.19 1.29 0.05 -0.95** l3 x t2 2.00* 1.23* -7.91** 5.52** -0.90** -0.72* 7.88* 3.15** 0.35** 1.27 -5.48** 1.37** l3 x t3 -0.88 -0.95 9.61** -4.85** 1.41** 1.23** 3.60** -2.84** -0.16* -2.56** 5.43** -0.41 l4 x t1 0.88 0.49 3.68* -0.88 -0.12 -0.26 -27.38** 0.79 -0.41** 0.58 -4.15** 0.20 l4 x t2 -0.39 -0.31 -0.05 -3.69* 1.90** 1.50** 13.00** 3.26** 0.66** -1.07 11.59** -0.03 l4 x t3 -0.48 -0.17 -3.62** 4.58** -1.77** -1.24** 14.38** -4.06** -0.25** 0.48 -7.44** -0.16 l5 x t1 0.10 1.15* -6.63** -1.44 0.006 0.37 20.17** -0.98 0.23** -0.62 1.39 0.20 l5 x t2 0.02 -1.31* 3.44** 0.41 0.68* -0.71* -3.77 -2.17* -0.25** 0.21 0.62 -0.70* l5 x t3 -0.13 0.15 3.18** 1.03 -0.69 0.34 -16.39** 3.15** 0.02 0.41 -2.01* 0.50 l6 x t1 -0.42 0.26 5.79** 1.44 -0.69* -0.53 12.95** -5.09** -0.18** -2.91** 8.13** 0.50 l6 x t2 -1.43 -0.87 1.27 -4.36** 1.65** 1.73** -4.33 -0.28 -0.15* 1.82* -5.74** -0.07 l6 x t3 1.86 0.60 -7.06** 2.92 -0.95** -1.19** -8.61* 5.38** 0.34** 1.08 -2.38** -0.42 l7 x t1 -1.82 -1.39* 3.98** -1.22 0.08 0.52 18.50** 1.90* 0.43** 0.67 3.09** -0.28 l7 x t2 0.56 -0.20 0.33 -0.03 -1.47** -0.82** -11.77** -1.61 -0.33** 0.04 -2.11* -0.29 l7 x t3 1.26 1.60** -4.32** 1.25 1.38** 0.30 -6.70 -0.28 -0.10 -0.72 -0.97 0.57 sem± 0.95 0.52 1.12 1.54 0.34 0.28 3.91 0.94 0.06 0.83 0.87 0.32 * significant @ 5% level; ** significant @ 1% level combiner for yield per plant turned out to be the cross l4 x t2 (0.66), followed by l7 x t1 (0.43). a negatively significant sca effect was recorded in the cross l6 x t1 (-2.91), followed by l3 x t3 (-2.56) for number of seeds per fruit. for plant height, the highest significant sca effect was noticed in the cross l4 x t2 (11.59), followed by l6 x t1 (8.13). sca effect for number of primary branches was highest in the cross l2 x t1 (1.57), followed by l3 x t2 (1.37). these results are in conformity with findings of dharwad et al, (2011). the lines l3 and l4, and the testers t1 and t2 were good general combiners for most of the traits studied, and these may be exploited in further breeding programmes. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):176-180, 2013 combining ability for yield related traits in brinjal 180 among the crosses, l4 x t2 and l3 x t3 were good specific combiners for most of the yield attributing traits, and can be exploited for heterosis breeding and further subjected to selection to isolate desirable genotypes in manjarigota type brinjal. references anonymous. 2011. indian horticulture database, national horticulture board, gurgoan, india, pp. 130 baig, k.s. and patil, v.d. 2002. combining ability over environments for shoot and fruit borer resistance and other quantitative traits in solanum melongena l. indian j. genet., 62:42-45 das, g. and barua, s.n. 2001. heterosis and combining ability for yield and components in brinjal. ann. agril. res. news series, 22:399-403 dharwad, nalini a., patil, s.a. and salimath, p.m. 2011. heterosis and combining ability analysis for productivity traits in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). karnataka j. agril. sci., 24:622-625 indiresh, k.m., shivasankar, t. and kulkarnai, r.s. 2005. gene action for yield and its components in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). mysore j. agril. sci., 39:50-56 kempthrone, o. 1957. an introduction to genetic statistics. john wiley and sons inc., new york, usa padmanabham, v. and jagadish, c.a. 1996. combining ability studies on yield potential of round fruited brinjal (solanum melongena l.) indian j. genet., 56:141146 rai, n. and asati, b.s. 2011. combining ability and gene action studies for fruit yield and yield contributing traits in brinjal. indian j. hort., 68:212-215 sharma, bindu, pathania, n.k. and gautham vishal. 2004. combining ability studies in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) himachal j. agril. res., 30:54-59 singh, h.v., singh, s.p., singh, major, singh, satyendra, singh, m. and singh, s. 2002. genetic analysis of quantitative traits in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). veg. sci., 29:84-86 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):176-180, 2013 pratapsingh suresh khapte et al (ms received 11 july 2012, revised 16 august 2013, accepted 11 september 2013) lemon cultivation is becoming exceedingly popular because of wider utilization of this fruit than any other citrus fruit. lemon is popularly seen in kitchen gardens. in india, fresh lemons are primarily consumed for a cooling effect in summers. lemon is widely used in preparation of soft drinks and possesses special dietary and medicinal value associated with its high vitamin c content. lemon oil is among the most important citrus oils used for flavouring soft drinks, baked foods, confectioneries, etc. lemon is also used for preparing pickles, squashes, jams, jellies, and marmalades. the plant is free from citrus canker and is endowed with the trait of bearing fruits in several flushes, thus making it available throughout the year. unfortunately, it suffers from a very serious problem of fruit cracking in summers causing considerable reduction in marketable yield, leading to a heavy financial loss to the grower every year. however, application of growth regulators can help in improvement of quality in lemon by controlling the intensity of fruit cracking. in a report on citrus fruit quality, physiological basis and techniques of improvement, augusti et al (2002) concluded that citrus fruit quality was influenced largely by physiological disorders like cracking, puffing and creasing. cracking manifests as a meridian fissure in the peel, usually developing from the stylar end and reaching the equatorial zone or, even, extending beyond that. irrespective of its origin, the crack develops as a consequence of disruption between peel and pulp growth. it was found that during the improving lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] quality using growth regulators savreet sandhu punjab agricultural university, regional research station bathinda-151001, india e-mail : savreetz@gmail.com abstract lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] is a leading acidic citrus fruit. however, poor fruit quality causes considerable reduction in marketable yield leading to heavy financial loss to the grower. to combat poor fruit quality, an experiment was laid out during the fruiting year 2009 with a view to obtain excellent quality lemon at harvest. plant material for this investigation was selected from punjab government progeny orchard & nursery, attari, amritsar. foliar spray of naa (10, 20 and 40ppm) and ga 3 (5, 10 and 20ppm) was applied twice at an interval of 15 days during the month of may. substantial improvement in fruit quality could be achieved with growth regulator treatment. naa at 40ppm proved to be the best treatment for managing fruit cracking and improving fruit quality. key words: lemon, baramasi, fruit cracking, quality, naa, ga 3 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):88-90, 2013 short communication phase of cell enlargement, if the peel does not restart its growth when the pulp expansion takes place, the fruit splits. they found growth regulators to be useful in reducing fruit cracking as these not only increase peel thickness but also significantly increase peel resistance to puncturing. they also observed that repetition of sprays improved this response. growth regulator sprays are of utmost importance when targeting quality in lemon fruits. therefore, this study is an attempt to work out the most suitable hormone spray for improving fruit quality and controlling rind splitting in lemon. the plant material for investigation was selected from punjab government progeny orchard & nursery, attari (amritsar), during the year 2009. in the trial, eight year old lemon trees of uniform size and vigor, free from diseases and pests, were selected. the experiment was conducted in randomized block design. all the treatments were replicated four times taking a treatment unit as two trees. percentage data was analyzed using arcsine transformation. the experiment consisted of foliar sprays of naa and ga 3 at various concentrations as shown below: treatment details t 1 untreated (control) t 2 naa (10ppm) t 3 naa (20ppm) t 4 naa (40ppm) 89 t 5 ga 3 (5ppm) t 6 ga 3 (10ppm) t 7 ga 3 (20ppm) two sprays were applied during may at an interval of 15 days (first spray on 10th may and the second on 25th may). the plants received standard fertilizer dose of 75kg fym /tree and 350g n/tree) and irrigation at intervals of 10-15 days, as recommended by pau, ludhiana. percentage of cracked fruits was calculated on the basis of total number of fruits initially present on the tree. fruit length and breadth was measured using vernier’s callipers. percentage of juice was calculated on fresh weight basis. chemical characters like tss, acidity and ascorbic acid were measured as per standard procedures of a.o.a.c. (1990). data in table 1 indicate t 4 (naa @ 40ppm) to be the most effective treatment for minimizing fruit cracking in lemon (to 13.35%). however, control treatment registered maximum fruit cracking (37.62%). reduction in fruit cracking may be due to the auxin causing enlargement of cells by increasing elasticity and plasticity of the cell wall (yasuda, 1969). thus, peripheral tissues of the fruit would have kept pace with growth of cortex resulting in the reduction of fruit cracking, since, one reason for cracking in fruits is differential growth rates of the peripheral and cortex tissues. peripheral tissues, being senescent and weak, are highly prone to mechanical stress and cracking. therefore reduction in cracking by ga 3 spray may well be due to suppression of certain aging processes leading to increased viability of the peel (coggins and lewis, 1965). richards et al (2001) reported that growth regulators improve cell wall flexibility by stimulating synthesis of new cellulose polymers. singh et al (2006) also opined that systematic spray of growth regulators before rind splitting helps control cracking as growth regulators influence rind thickness. garcia-luis et al (2001) found that application of growth regulators markedly influenced rind structure, affecting both cell size and thickness of flavedo, as it is relevant to cracking. moreover, growth regulators play a significant role in peel resistance and plasticity that determine intensity of cracking. t 4 (naa @ 40ppm) also proved to be the best treatment for maximizing fruit size (5.5cm length and 5.3cm breadth) and weight (65.46g) in lemon. on the other hand, fruits from untreated plants registered minimum fruit size and weight. a generally accepted opinion is that increase in fruit size is due to enlargement of the already existing cells, and auxins are presumed to be responsible for this enlargement. hence, application of naa caused fruit enlargement by increase in cell size. fruit elongation and increase in fruit breadth may be due to cell division initially, and cell enlargement in the later stages. similar findings have been documented by singh et al (2007) and bhatia and yadav (2005). fruit weight also exhibited the same pattern as in fruit size, with treatment t 4 maintaining its superiority over other treatments. singh et al (2007) in aonla, kumar et al (2004) in litchi and josan et al (1995) in lemon elucidated similar results. there are many reports in literature suggesting that application of naa may raise endogenous auxin levels in the fruit, which favours development of various parts of the fruit. thus, increase in fruit size and juice percentage due to auxin application perhaps led to increase in fruit weight due to cell expansion. it is also possible that a developing fruit is an important metabolic sink, into which nutrients and organic substances from leaves and other plant parts flow, thereby accumulating in the fruit. this accumulation of metabolites and water in fruit increases fruit weight. a direct relationship between endogenous gibberellin content in developing fruits of orange with their growth rate was established by krishnamoorthy (1981). improving lemon quality using growth regulators table 1. effect of spraying various growth regulators on fruit cracking and quality in lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. baramasi treatment fruit trait fruit fruit fruit fruit juice tss acidity ascorbic acid cracking (%) length (cm) breadth (cm) weight (g) (%) (%) (%) (mg/100ml of juice) t 1 37.62 (37.78) 4.70 4.43 53.67 41.20 7.15 5.05 45.43 t 2 18.22 (25.14) 5.10 4.80 57.30 45.28 7.33 5.70 49.36 t 3 15.30 (22.88) 5.35 5.15 62.20 47.20 7.47 5.70 50.30 t 4 13.35 (21.30) 5.50 5.30 65.46 48.82 7.53 5.56 53.44 t 5 23.45 (28.87) 4.90 4.75 57.13 42.38 7.28 5.40 48.13 t 6 17.58 (24.64) 5.00 4.90 59.06 44.40 7.40 5.50 49.41 t 7 20.55 (26.85) 5.15 4.95 66.20 46.98 7.60 5.62 51.53 cd (p=0.05) 5.85 0.14 0.20 6.60 2.48 0.07 0.05 2.71 cv % 12.29 1.64 2.40 6.17 3.09 0.58 0.54 3.08 figures in parantheses indicate arcsine transformed values j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):88-90, 2013 90 all chemical treatments applied in our experiment produced significant effect on juice content in lemon fruits compared to the control. data clearly depict that fruits harvested from trees sprayed with 40ppm naa showed maximum juice content (48.82%). higher moisture content in fruits resulted in higher juice content. significant increase in tss and acidity was recorded with increasing concentration in the foliar spray. maximum values for these parameters were recorded in treatment t 4 , and, the minimum in trees with no foliar sprays. tss increased with every increase in concentration of growth regulators in the foliar spray. auxins have been known to be involved in synthesis of α-amylase which converts starch in sugars and, consequently, increasing osmotic pressure of the cell which results in accumulation of water and other solutes. another reason may be that sugars get accumulated, or, some insoluble substances like starch are rendered soluble by hydrolysis, and thus increase total soluble solids (krishnamoorthy, 1981). increase in acidity could be attributed to increased osmotic pressure by cell expansion due to auxins, which lead to accumulation of organic acids. work of josan et al (1995) and mostafa et al (2005) also lends support to the present findings. treatment t 4 resulted in maximum ascorbic acid content (53.44%) in fruits. minimum ascorbic acid content was recorded in fruits from untreated trees. increase in ascorbic acid content may also be due to the growth regulators increasing osmotic pressure by cell expansion, thus leading to accumulation of this organic acid. results indicated that foliar spray of naa @ 40ppm in lemon substantially reduced cracking losses and resulted in better fruit quality. thus, to overcome this serious problem, a good preventive spray programme is necessary at critical stage of fruit development. references a.o.a.c. 1990. official methods of analysis of analytical chemists, 15 th edition (ed. w. horowitz). association of the official analytical chemists, washington dc, usa augusti, m., martinez-fruentes, a. and mesejo, c. 2002. citrus fruit quality, physiological basis and techniques of improvement. agrosciencia, 4:1-16 bhatia, b.s. and yadav, r.k. 2005. effect of foliar spray of urea and naa on fruit yield and quality of ber (z. mauritiana lamk.). national seminar on commercialization of horticulture in nontraditional areas, c.i.a.h., bikaner (india), p 119 coggins, c.w. jr. and lewis, l.n. 1965. some physiological properties of navel orange rind as related to ripening and gibberellic acid treatments. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 86:272-279 garcia-luis, a., duarte, a.m.m., kanduser, m. and guardiola, j.l. 2001. the anatomy of the fruit in relation to the propensity of citrus species to split. sci. hort., 87:33-52 josan, j.s., sandhu, a.s., singh, r. and dhillon, d.s. 1995. effect of plant growth regulators and nutrients on fruit cracking in lemon. ind. j. hort., 52:121-124 krishnamoorthy, h.n. 1981. plant growth substances, including applications in agriculture. tata mcgrawhill publishing co. ltd., new delhi, pp 3-87 kumar, s., kumar, s. and verma, d.k. 2004. effect of micronutrients and naa on yield and quality of litchi cv. dehradun. abstract: in: proceedings of international seminar on recent trends in hi-tech horticulture and pht. c.s.a.u.a.& t., kanpur (india), p 193 mostafa, e.a.m., hassan, h.s.a. and el-sabag, a.s. 2005. influence of spraying ga 3 and kno 3 on yield, fruit quality and leaf mineral contents of balady mandarin trees. minufiya j. agril. res., 30:283-295 richards, d.e., king, k.e., ait-ali, t. and harberd, n. 2001. how gibberellin regulates plant growth and development: a molecular genetic analysis of gibberellin signalling. annu. rev. pl. physiol. pl. mol. biol., 52:67-88 singh, d.b., kingsly, a.r.p. and jain, r.k. 2006. controlling fruit cracking in pomegranate. ind. hort., 51:14-32 singh, j.k., parsad, j. and singh, h.k. 2007. effect of micronutrients and plant growth regulators on yield and physico-chemical characteristics of aonla fruits in cv. narendra aonla-10. ind. j. hort., 64:216218 yasuda, y. 1969. auxin induced cell expansion in relation to cell wall extensibility. pl. cell. physiol., 10:1-9 (ms received 11 november 2011, accepted 14 june 2012, revised 15 september 2012) savreet sandhu j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):88-90, 2013 introduction in grape production, india is next only to usa, with annual production of 18,78,100 mt from an area of 80,000 ha (fao, 2009). peninsular india accounts for 90% area under grapes. india holds the distinction of highest productivity of grapes in the world. the major grape growing states in india are maharashtra, karnataka, andhra pradesh and tamil nadu. grape is also grown in small pockets of punjab, haryana and uttar pradesh. in punjab, grapes are grown on an area of 457 ha with annual production of 12,942 mt (anon., 2011). more than 90% of area under grape in punjab is under cv. perlette alone. monoculture of this variety leads to market glut during a short span of 15-20 days in punjab and adjoining states. moreover, due to fear of pre-monsoon rains, there is panic harvest of poor quality grapes by growers. grape cv. flame seedless has recently been recommended by punjab agricultural university for commercial cultivation in the state. this variety has an edge over the commercial cv. perlette as it is coloured and seedless, has relatively higher yield and better tss/acid ratio. due to excellent fruit quality and earliness, this cultivar has a potential for acquiring an important position in northern india. berries of flame seedless are also lesser than perlette effect of pre-harvest treatment on yield, maturity and quality of flame seedless grape (vitis vinifera l.) mandeep kaur, m.i.s. gill and n.k. arora department of horticulture punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141 004, india e-mail: mandeepbw@gmail.com abstract to improve fruit quality in grape cv. flame seedless, application of ethephon (400 and 500 ppm) and trunk girdling was done at veraison stage. cluster thinning was done by retaining 100, 75 and 50% of total number of bunches on the vines, and, the rest were removed immediately after full bloom. highest yield was obtained in the treatment 100% crop load + 500ppm ethephon, followed by 75% crop load + 500ppm ethephon. the treatment of 50% crop load + 500ppm ethephon resulted in maximum bunch weight, lowest percentage of uneven coloured berries, maximum tss, minimum acidity and maximum tss:acid ratio, maximum anthocyanin content, advanced maturity by 9 days and had maximum sensory rating. but, in this treatment, yield was significantly lower than in treatments where either 75% or 100% crop load was retained. thus, considering yield as well as quality parameters, the treatment 75% crop load + 500ppm ethephon was found to be the best. key words: flame seedless grape, ethephon, girdling, thinning, crop load and are light purple in colour at maturity (gill, 2003). superiority of this variety is compromised by uneven colour development in berries and occurence of water berries. uneven ripening results in poor fruit quality due to presence of unattractive, sour and green berries in a bunch. crop regulation with use of cultural practices like thinning, girdling, ringing and application of growth regulators has shown some promise in quality improvement in grapes (dhillon et al, 1990). in the recent past, efforts have been made to improve colour of this variety with foliar application of ethephon. however, uniform ripening of berries has not been achieved successfully. ethylene-releasing compounds like ethephon, applied at veraison, have been used successfully in many vitis vinifera l. cultivars to improve colour in red grapes (gallegos et al, 2006; yahuaca et al, 2006). human and bindon (2008) also found that ethephon exerted a strong influence on anthocyanin production in grape skin in this cultivar and is, therefore, a more likely solution to overcome poor colour development in production of this cultivar. girdling has been practiced for years to produce large berries in thompson seedless grapes intended for table use, and to enhance fruit quality by enhancing accumulation of sugars (roper and williams, 1989; williams and ayars, 2005). j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):35-40, 2013 36 material and methods the present investigation was undertaken in the new orchard of department of horticulture, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during 2007-2008. there were twelve treatments in the experiment, with three replications. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design (rbd). flame seedless cultivar planted at 3m x 3m spacing on bower (overhead) system of training was selected for the study. thirty-six vines of uniform vigour were selected and these received uniform cultural practices during the course of the investigation. in the treatment of 100% crop load, 120-130 bunches were retained on the vines. likewise, in the treatment of 75% and 50% crop load, 90-98 bunches and 60-65, bunches respectively, were retained on the vines while the rest were removed immediately after full bloom. all the treatments of ethephon and girdling were applied at the veraison stage. trunk girdling was done with a 2mm wide girdler. treatment details t 1 ———— 100% crop load t 2 ———— 75% crop load t 3 ———— 50% crop load t 4 ———— 100% crop load + 400ppm ethephon t 5 ———— 100% crop load + 500ppm ethephon t 6 ———— 100% crop load + girdling t 7 ———— 75% crop load + 400ppm ethephon t 8 ———— 75% crop load + 500ppm ethephon t 9 ———— 75% crop load + girdling t 10 ———— 50% crop load + 400ppm ethephon t 11 ———— 50% crop load + 500ppm ethephon t 12 ———— 50% crop load + girdling observations on bunch characters were recorded in 10 bunches at random from each vine. bunch length, breadth and weight were recorded in these bunches. on attaining uniform purple colour by the berries, maturation date was recorded. berry weight was recorded in 50 randomlyselected berries. bunches from each treatment were evaluated for organoleptic qualities by a panel of five judges on the basis of external appearance of the fruit, its texture, taste and flavor. however, observations on uneven colored berries were recorded from 10 bunches selected at random from each vine. berry skin showing less than 50% area without color development was counted as uneven colored berry and percentage of uneven coloured berries per bunch was calculated. anthocyanin content was recorded by macerating the pulp in aqueous methanolic hcl solvent prepared by mixing methanol (95%) 85 parts+15 parts 1.5n hydrochloric acid. the extracts were centrifuged and od recorded at 530nm and 657nm in a uv-visible spectrophotometer (systronic, 108). anthocyanin content was calculated based on a standard formula as follows (mahadeven and sridhar, 1986): w = weight of sample in grams total soluble solids were recorded as obrix using bausch and lamp hand refractometer at room temperature. subsequent corrections in the readings were made at 20oc using a temperature correction chart. acidity was determined by titrating 2ml of juice against 0.1 n naoh solution using phenolphthalein as an indicator. appearance of light-pink colour marked the end point of titration. percentage tartaric acid was calculated and expressed as anhydrous malic acid using the following formula: per cent acidity = 0.0075x 0.1 n naoh used (ml) x 100 volume of juice (ml) results and discussion treatment t 5 (crop load 100% + 500ppm ethephon) resulted in significantly higher yield (25.37 kg/vine), followed by treatment t 8 (crop load 75% + 500ppm ethephon (23.07 kg/vine) compared to other treatments (table 1). however, with decreased crop load (from 100 to 50%), there was a table 1. effect of various treatments on yield, bunch weight and bunch size (length and breadth) in flame seedless grape treatment yield bunch bunch bunch (kg/vine) wt. (g) length breadth (cm) (cm) t 1 crop load (100%) 24.79 316.33 17.80 9.13 t 2 crop load (75%) 19.46 342.83 18.26 9.26 t 3 crop load (50%) 14.52 341.16 18.63 9.59 t 4 crop load (100%)+ 22.91 353.00 18.13 9.80 400 ppm ethephon t 5 crop load (100%)+ 25.37 358.00 18.80 9.83 500 ppm ethephon t 6 crop load (100%)+ 23.76 326.66 19.76 9.96 girdling t 7 crop load (75%)+ 20.43 375.00 19.53 9.82 400 ppm ethephon t 8 crop load (75%)+ 23.07 379.66 19.73 9.86 500 ppm ethephon t 9 crop load (75%)+ 19.26 340.33 20.10 10.56 girdling t 10 crop load (50%)+ 13.12 363.00 19.26 9.93 400 ppm ethephon t 11 crop load (50%)+ 17.28 423.86 19.90 10.33 500 ppm ethephon t 12 crop load (50%)+ 14.21 341.33 20.20 11.46 girdling cd (p= 0.05) 0.15 2.08 0.38 1.06 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):35-40, 2013 mandeep kaur et al 37 reduction in yeild. chadha and shikamany (1999) reported yield of grapevine to be a mean function of number of clusters and their mean weight. fracaro and boliani (2001) reported that ethephon at 7500ppm, applied 20 days before pruning, resulted in greater yield. all the treatments increased bunch weight compared to control (table 1). treatment t 11 (crop load 50% + 500ppm ethephon) resulted in higher bunch weight (423.86g) compared to control. this was followed by t 8 (crop load (75%) + 500ppm ethephon), which recorded 379.66g. increase in bunch weight observed in the study can be attributed to the effect of cluster-thinning by increased amount of carbohydrates available for growth and development of the bunches. hyun et al (1996) also reported higher bunch weight with ethephon treatment at veraison in kyoho grapes. panwar et al (1994) found that ethephon at 500ppm increased bunch weight by reducing berry drop. similarly, cheema et al (2003) reported greater cluster weight in 50% cluster-thinning along with canopy management in perlette grapes. hameed et al (2004) found that trunk girdling and cluster/berry thinning improved cluster and berry weight. jinyong et al (2005) reported that trunk girdling done when fruits were 15-16mm in diameter increased fruit weight by 10%. maximum bunch length (20.20cm) was recorded in treatment t 12 (crop load 50% + girdling) followed by treatment t 9 (crop load (75%) + girdling). jawanda and vij (1971) and bhujbal and wavhal (1972) also found an increase in bunch length due to girdling in perlette and beauty seedless grapes. maximum bunch breadth was recorded in treatment t 12 (crop load 50% + girdling) (11.46cm), followed by treatment t 9 (crop load 75% + girdling) (10.56cm). fawzi and moniem (2003) reported increase in bunch breadth with girdling alone, or in combination with cluster-thinning, in black monukka grapes. significant reduction in percentage of uneven coloured berries was recorded in all the treatments over control (crop load 100%, table 2). however, treatment t 11 (crop load 50% + 500ppm ethephon) at veraison resulted in lowest percentage of uneven-coloured berries (14.02%), followed by treatment t-11 (crop load 75% +500ppm ethephon). it was concluded that uneven berry percentage decreased with decrease in crop load (50%). also, with increase in concentration of ethephon (500ppm) and low crop load (50%), there was a reduction in uneven berry percentage. girdling treatment also decreased uneven berry colour, along with low crop load (50%). enhanced fruit colour in coloured cvs. karanchi gulabi and kandhari with ethephon was reported by (singh and chundawat, 1978). uniform color development with ethephon 500 ppm at veraison in beauty seedless and pinot noir grapes has also been reported (mehta and chundawat 1979; powers et al 1980). panwar et al (1994) also reported that ethephon sprayed at veraison reduced the number of unevenly ripened berries in beauty seedless grape. kitamura et al (2005) found that by controlling crop load, proper coloration of ‘aki queen’ fruits can be obtained through regulation of anthocyanin concentration. it is clear from the data (table 2) that all treatments resulted in significant increase in anthocyanin content compared to crop load at 100% (control). maximum anthocyanin content (23.06 mg/100g) was recorded in treatment t 11 (crop load 50% + 500ppm ethephon), followed by treatment t 8 (crop load 75% +500ppm ethephon).these results show that decrease in crop load and increase in ethephon concentration can increase anthocyanin concentration. girdling, with decreasing crop load, also increases anthocyanin content, but less than that with ethephon and decreasing crop load. jindal and naik (1994) also found that application of ethephon at 750ppm resulted in increase in anthocyanin pigments in coloured table 2. effect of various treatments on % uneven coloured berries in flame seedless grape treatment uneven coloured anthocyanin berry berries (%) content (mg/100g) wt.(g) t 1 crop load (100%) 85.51 7.07 2.08 t 2 crop load (75%) 69.36 10.55 2.17 t 3 crop load (50%) 56.24 11.36 2.38 t 4 crop load (100%)+ 28.28 11.55 2.54 400 ppm ethephon t 5 crop load (100%)+ 23.84 12.38 2.58 500 ppm ethephon t 6 crop load (100%)+ 39.05 9.52 2.62 girdling t 7 crop load (75%)+ 18.32 17.62 2.56 400 ppm ethephon t 8 crop load (75%)+ 15.63 21.72 2.59 500 ppm ethephon t 9 crop load (75%)+ 33.21 13.01 2.97 girdling t 10 crop load (50%)+ 16.66 18.01 2.66 400 ppm ethephon t 11 crop load (50%)+ 14.02 23.06 2.69 500 ppm ethephon t 12 crop load (50%)+ 28.38 15.84 2.99 girdling cd (p=0.05) 2.37 1.71 0.47 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):35-40, 2013 effect of pre-harvest treatment on yield and quality in grape 38 grapes. likewise, high anthocyanin content was observed with application of ethephon at veraison in tannat grapes (ferrer and gonzalez, 2002). kitamura et al (2005) found in grape that controlling crop load resulted in proper coloration of ‘aki queen’ fruits through regulation of anthocyanin concentration. anthocyanin content and soluble contents in the skin of grape were higher with girdling in combination with low crop load, compared to girdling with higher crop load (yamane and shibayama, 2006). maximum berry weight (2.99g) was significantly higher in treatment t 12 (crop load 50% + girdling), followed by treatment t 9 (crop load 75% + girdling). increase in berry weight with trunk girdling and lower crop load might be due to higher availability of photosynthates to the bunches. dookoozlian et al (1995) also reported increase in berry weight with girdling at fruit set in crimson seedless. however, singh (1995) found highest berry weight with cluster-thinning in perlette and beauty seedless grapes. increase in weight and size of berry, cluster and rachis occurred as a result of girdling (kalil et al, 1999). josan et al (2001) found that trunk girdling along with brushing increased berry size. tarricone (2007) reported that cane girdling at veraison stage increased berry and bunch mass compared to control. data on effect of various treatments on fruit maturity (table 3) indicated that in treatment t 11 (crop load 50% + 500ppm ethephon), maturity advanced by nine days compared to control, followed by treatment t 8 (crop load 75% + 500ppm ethephon) and treatment t-10 (crop load 50% + 400ppm ethephon), where maturity advanced by eight days. other treatments advanced maturity by 3-7 days over control. advancement of maturity with ethephon was possible due to release of ethylene a ripening hormone, resulting in early ripening. ethephon has also been reported to hasten maturity of many grape cultivars when applied at veraison (jensen et al, 1975; 1980; 1982; peacock et al, 1977; metha and chundawat, 1979). results showed that maturation date advanced with low crop load (50%) but, with increased ethephon concentration (500ppm) and low crop load (50%), greater advancement in maturation date was observed, compared to low crop-load alone. girdling also advanced maturity date with low crop-load (50%) compared to low crop-load alone, but maturity was delayed compared to ethephon treatment and low-crop load. ethrel at 250ppm advanced ripening by about 10 days in gulabi grape (reddy and prakash, 1989). al-dujaili (1989) reported that girdling advanced fruit ripening by 3-4 days in buhurzy grape. cheema et al (2003) found that cluster-thinning advanced maturity by nine days in perlette. advancement in maturity may be attributed to the reduced crop load per vine. maximum sensory score (8.97) was recorded with treatment t 11 (crop load 75% + 500ppm ethephon) at veraison, followed by treatment t 8 (crop load 75% + 500ppm ethephon) which had a sensory score of 8.59 (table 3). control, however, got lowest sensory score (3.32). it is clear from the data (table 2) that all the treatments resulted in significant increase in total soluble solids (tss) compared to 100% crop load (control). there was incremental increase in total soluble solids with increase in ethephon concentration and decrease in crop load. highest total soluble solids 17.300brix were recorded in treatment t 11 (crop load 50% + 500ppm ethephon), followed by treatment t 8 , (crop load 75% + 500ppm ethephon) which recorded 17.100brix. data (table 3) on total acidity revealed that all treatments reduced acidity significantly compared to control. minimum acidity was recorded in table 3. effect of various treatments on maturation, palatability rating and chemical traits (tss and acidity) in flame seedless grape treatment date of palatability tss acidity tss/ maturation rating (0brix) (%) acidity ratio t 1 crop load (100%) 30/5 5.32 14.00 0.60 23.33 t 2 crop load (75%) 28/5 5.75 14.80 0.52 28.46 t 3 crop load (50%) 27/5 5.94 14.93 0.48 31.10 t 4 crop load (100%)+ 400 ppm ethephon 26/5 6.54 15.06 0.48 31.37 t 5 crop load (100%)+ 500 ppm ethephon 25/5 6.84 15.36 0.41 37.46 t 6 crop load (100%)+ girdling 27/5 6.13 15.00 0.52 28.84 t 7 crop load (75%)+ 400 ppm ethephon 23/5 7.92 16.43 0.41 40.07 t 8 crop load (75%)+ 500 ppm ethephon 22/5 8.59 17.10 0.37 46.21 t 9 crop load (75%)+ girdling 25/5 7.15 15.70 0.48 32.70 t 10 crop load (50%)+ 400 ppm ethephon 22/5 8.50 16.63 0.37 44.94 t 11 crop load (50%)+ 500 ppm ethephon 21/5 8.97 17.30 0.36 48.05 t 12 crop load (50%)+ girdling 24/5 8.01 16.90 0.45 37.55 cd (p=0.05) — 0.03 0.35 0.09 3.3 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):35-40, 2013 mandeep kaur et al 39 treatment t 11 (crop load 50% + 500ppm ethephon) at 0.36%, followed by treatment t 8 (crop load 75% + 500ppm ethephon) (0.37%). reduction in acidity as a result of ethephon application could be due to effect of this chemical in increasing membrane permeability (which permits acids, stored in cell vacuoles, to respire at a faster rate) (hardy, 1968; kliewer, 1971). it is evident from the data (table 3) that all the treatments influenced tss/acid ratio in fruits. maximum tss/acid ratio was recorded in treatment t 11 (crop load 50% + 500ppm ethephon) (48.05), followed by treatment t 8 (crop load 75% + 500ppm ethephon) (46.21). increase in total soluble solids with ethephon applications is in support with findings of sharma and jindal (1983) who found increase in total soluble solids by ethrel application in beauty seedless grape. amutha and rajendran (2001) found that ethephon at 500ppm produced fruits of superior quality in terms of increased sugar content and decreased acidity. godara et al (2002) also found that ethrel (ethephon) at 500ppm at veraison stage increased total soluble solids (tss) and decreased acidity in thompson seedless grape. likewise, ahmad and zargar (2005) found that ethephon treatment (500ppm) with or without girdling at veraison stage increased tss and accumulation of sugars. girdling and ethanol also increased total soluble solids, berry colouration and hastened ripening. in the present study it observed that treatment 75% crop load + 500ppm ethephon (t8) is the best combination improving yield, fruit maturity and quality of grape cv. flame seedless. references ahmad, m.f. and zargar, g.h. 2005. effect of trunk girdling, flower thinning, ga3 and ethephon application on quality characteristics in grape cv. perlette under temperate kashmir valley conditions. indian j. hort. 62:285-287 anonymous. 2011. area and production of different fruits in punjab state. directorate of horticulture, chandigarh, punjab, india al-dujaili, j.a.h. 1989. the effects of girdling and ethephon treatments on ripening, yield quality and fruit characteristics of buhurzy grape cultivar (vitis vinifera l.). annal. agril. sci. cairo., 34:675-687 amutha, r. and rajendran, c. 2001. effect of growth regulating chemicals on yield and quality of thompson seedless grapes. res. crops, 2:332-337 bhujbal, b.g. and wavhal, k.n. 1972. effects of cane girdling on yield and quality of grapes. res. j. mahatma phule agri. univ., 3:62-63 chadha, k.l. and shikhamany, s.d. 1999. the grape: improvement, production and post-harvest management, malhotra publishing house, new delhi cheema, s.s., singh, p. and dhillon, w.s. 2003. effects of crop regulation and canopy management on fruit quality and disease incidence in grape. indian j. hort., 60:208-213 dhillon, w.s., bindra, a.s., cheema, s.s. and singh, s. 1990. effect of cluster thinning on vine yield and fruit quality in perlette grapes. pl. sci. res., 6:69-71 dokoozlian, n., luvisi, d., moriyana, m. and schrader, p. 1995. cultural practices improve colour, size of “crimson seedless”. california agri., 49:36-39 fao, 2009. www.fao.org/ fawzi, m.i.f. and moniem, e.i. 2003. effect of girdling alone or combined with flower cluster and ethephon application on fruit set, yield and quality of black monukka grapes. j. agril. sci., 11:733-750 ferrer, m. and gonzalez neves, g. 2002. oenological and productive results of the application of different cluster thinning and different winter pruning intensities in vitis vinifera l. cv. tannat. agrociencia montevideo, 6:53-62 fracaro, a.a. and boliani, a.c. 2001. effect of increasing ethephon in vine ‘rubi’ (vitis vinifera l.). revista brasileira fruticultura, 23:510-512 gallegos, j.i., gonzalez, r., gonzalez, m.r. and martin, p. 2006. changes in composition and colour development of ‘trempranillo’ grapes during ripening induced by ethephon treatments at véraison. acta hort., 727:505-512 gill, m.s. 2003. effect of pruning intensities on fruiting behavior of grape cv. flame seedless. m. sc. thesis, pau, ludhiana godara, a.k., chauhan, k.s. and kumar, a. 2002. effect of various pre-harvest treatments on the quality of thompson seedless grapes. harayana j. hortl. sci., 31:164-167 hameed, e.l., abo, e.l. 2004. effect of some thinning, girdling and foliar fertilization treatments on shot berries, yield and quality of ruby seedless grapevines (vitis vinifera l.). assiut j. agril. sci., 35:23-36 hardy, p.j. 1968 metabolism of sugars and organic acids in immature grape berries. plant physiol., 43:224228 human, m.a. and bindon, k.a. 2008. interactive effect of ethephon and shading on the anthocyanin composition of vitis vinifera l. cv. crimson seedless. south african j. enol. vitic., 29:50-58 hyun, d.h., lee, s.m., lee, c.h. and kim, s.b. 1996. effects of aba and ethephon treatments on j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):35-40, 2013 effect of pre-harvest treatment on yield and quality in grape 40 colouration and fruit quality of kyoho grape. j. korean soc. hortl. sci., 37:416-420 jawanda, j.s. and vij, v.k. 1971. effect of gibberellic acid and ringing on fruit set, cluster and berry characters and fruit quality of thompson seedless grapes. indian j. agril. sci., 43:346-351 jindal, p.c. and naik, s.c.n. 1994. effect of ethephon on anthocyanin pigments during ripening in coloured grapes (vitis vinifera l.). maharashtra j. hort., 8:28-31 jinyong, c., jinbao, f., hong, g., weiyuan, z. and shizhong, w. 2005. influence of girdling and gibberellic acid applications on the fruit characteristics of grape cv. red globe. j. fruit sci., 22:610-614 jensen, f., kissler, j.j., peacock, w.l. and leavitt, g. 1975. effect of ethephon on color and fruit characteristics of “tokay” and 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pinot noir fruit and wine. am. j. enol. vitic., 31:203-205 reddy, b.m.c. and prakash, g.s. 1989. effect of girdling and ethtrel treatments on berry weight, colour and quality of gulabi grape. indian j. hort., 46:19-22 roper, t.r. and. williams l.e. 1989. net co 2 assimilation and carbohydrate partitioning of grapevine leaves in response to trunk girdling and gibberellic acid application. plant physiol., 89:1136-1140 sharma, s. and jindal, p.c. 1983. effect of girdling and ethephon application on improvement in grapes cv. early muscat. agri. sci. digest, 3:13-15 singh, i.s. and chundawat, b.s. 1978. effect of ethephon on ripening of late grape cultivars. haryana j. hortl. sci., 7:1-2 singh, s. 1995. ripening and quality of grape (vitis vinifera l.) as affected by cluster thinning. hort. j., 8:9-15 tarricone, l. 2007. ampelographic and agronomical characteristics of table grape cv. maria pia. italus hortus, 14:77-81 williams, l.e. and ayars, j.e. 2005. water use of thompson seedless grapevines as affected by the application of gibberellic acid (ga3) and trunk girdling – practices to increase berry size. agri. forest meteorol., 129:85-94 yamane, t. and shibayama, k. 2006. effect of trunk girdling and crop load level on fruit quality and root elongation in ‘aki queen’ grapes. j. japanese soc. hortl. sci., 75:439-444 yahuaca, b., martinez-peniche, r., reyes, j.l. and madero, e. 2006. effect of ethephon and girdling on berry firmness during storage of ‘malaga roja’ grape. acta hort., 727:459-465 (ms received 11 october 2011, accepted 19 june 2012, revised 20 december 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):35-40, 2013 mandeep kaur et al introduction tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) is one of the most popular and extensively consumed vegetable crops. it tops the list of processed vegetables, as, several items like puree, paste, sauce, ketchup, soup, juice and peeled tomatoes are prepared on a large scale. this multi-million dollar industry thrives on cultivation of processing varieties of tomato the world over. thus, processed tomatoes possessing specific characteristics have acquired special significance in the tomato industry in many advanced countries. processing in tomato has not gained much importance in india though there is a considerable scope for processing for earning foreign exchange. india, in particular karnataka, has favorable weather conditions for growing tomato all year round and produce can be continuously supplied to processing factories. already, some industries have started processing tomato in and around major cities of this state. hence, the demand is rising for identifying a suitable variety for processing. the present study is aimed at evaluating potential genotypes for the purpose on the basis of stability parameters for important yield and quality attributes. material and methods the experimental material consisted of ten tomato genotypes, along with two check varieties. the genotypes were tested during kharif and rabi seasons of year 2007 and summer of 2008, at regional agricultural research j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):138-141, 2012 studies on stability of processing-type genotypes of tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) h.k. jyothi, m.g. patil, and h.m. santhosha department of horticulture, college of agriculture raichur584101, india e-mail: jyothi.kattegoudar@gmail.com abstract to study stability of genotypes under three diverse environments, ten genotypes along with two checks of processingtype tomato were evaluated in randomized block design (rbd) with three replications. environment included three seasons, viz., kharif (2007), rabi (2007-08) and summer (2008) to identify the most stable varieties. overall performance of ptr-1, ptr-4, ptr-6 and ‘arka ashish’ was found stable for yield per plant, number of branches per plant, % fruit set, % acidity and lycopene content. ptr-4 and ptr-6 were stable for high yield and for good processing traits. key words: tomato, stability, genotype x environment interaction station, division of horticulture, raichur. these three seasons were treated as three environments in stability analysis. the experiments were carried out in randomized block design, with three replications. spacing between rows and plants was 75 and 60cm, respectively. data were recorded on five randomly selected plants for plant height (cm), number of primary branches per plant, % fruit set per cluster, yield per plant (kg), acidity (% citric acid) (as per ranganna, 1977), lycopene content (mg/100g fruit juice) as per adsule and ambadan (1976), total soluble solids (tss) (0brix) and ph. the data were subjected to analysis of variance to test the significance of genotype x environment interactions. stability parameters, regression (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) were worked out by the method of eberhart and russel (1966). co-efficient of variation (cv) was calculated as one of the characters, where g x e interaction was non-significant, as per berry et al (1988). results and discussion pooled analysis of variance for various characters is presented in table 1. genotype and environment effects were significant for all the characters studied. similar results were earlier reported in tomato by pandey (1983), poysa et al (1986) and patil (1996). differences seen between genotypes promise a scope for selection, while, significant differences between environments indicate validity of the experiment. 139 studies on processing-type genotypes of tomato significant genotype x environment interaction (g x e) for all characters except tss and ph indicates that genotypes responded to changing environment. nonsignificant g x e for tss and ph shows that these characters are largely non-responsive to changing environment. kalloo and pandey (1979) reported significant differences among genotypes, between environments and g x e interaction in tomato fruit yield, suggesting that prediction of genotype performance across changing environments would be highly effective for these characters. g x e (linear) effects were significant for per cent fruit-set per cluster, % acidity, lycopene content, tss and ph. this indicates that a major component for difference in stability was due to linear as well as non-linear components, and that, performance can be predicted over environments for these characters. these results are in conformity with findings of ortiz and izqeierdo (1994). to assess the stability of a genotype, linear regression can be regarded as a major response of that particular genotype, and deviation from regression should be considered as a better measure of stability (jatasra and paroda, 1979 and beeker, 1981). hence, mean performance of the genotype, together with regression co-efficient (bi) and deviation from regression (s2di) are discussed here. genotypes ptr-1, ptr-4, ptr-6 and ‘arka ashish’ were identified as stable for fruit yield, with ‘bi’ value closer to unity, mean value above population-mean and deviation from regression closer to zero (table 2). maximum yield was observed in ptr-1 (1.9kg plant-1), followed by ptr-4 (1.89kg plant-1), ptr-6 (1.84kg plant-1), and ‘arka ashish’ (1.73kg plant-1). genotype ptr-7 showed average stability. genotypes identified as stable for other traits were: ptr-4, ptr-6 and ‘arka ashish’ for number of branches per plant; ptr-1, ptr-4, ptr-6, ptr-8, ptr-10, ‘arka ahuti’ and ‘arka ashish’ for per cent fruit set per cluster; all and genotypes except ptr-7, ptr-8, ptr-9 and ‘arka ahuti’ for per cent acidity; and ptr-1, ptr-4, ptr-5, ptr6, ptr-9, ptr-10 and ‘arka ashish’ for lycopene content. genotypes identified as stable for tss were: ptr-1, ptr-4, ptr-5, ptr-6, ptr-8, ptr-9, ptr-10 and ‘arka ahuti’ (as indicated by lower cv) and for ph, ptr-2, ptr3, ptr-4, ptr-7 and ‘arka ashish’ (table 3). as for overall performance, ptr-1, ptr-4, ptr-6 and ‘arka ashish’ were found to be stable for yield per plant and for other characters, i.e. number of branches per plant, fruit set, % acidity and lycopene content. ptr-4 and ptr-6 were stable, with high yield and good processing traits. table 1. pooled analysis of variance (mean squares) for various traits in tomato source genotype environment gen. x env. total env. + environment genotype x pooled pooled (g x e) (gen. x env.) (linear) environment deviation error (linear) degree/s of 11 2 22 35 24 1 11 12 66 freedom plant height 38.11** 235.80** 16.03** 34.34 471.63** 15.88 14.82** 6.80 (cm) number of 2.034** 30.921** 1.262** 3.734 61.842** 1.373 1.056** 0.092 branches per plant % fruit set 363.85** 455.81** 21.26** 57.47 911.56**‘ 31.36* 10.24** 6.807 per cluster yield per 0.122* 3.027** 0.149** 0.3895 6.054** 0.0545 0.224** 0.0061 plant (kg) total soluble 0.4409** 2.9257** 0.0974 0.3331 5.8513** 0.15532** 0.036 0.01167 solids (tss) acidity 0.0033** 0.0528** 0.00537** 0.00933 0.1056** 0.0107** 0.00014 0.00047 (% citric acid) p h 0.05168** 0.0769** 0.00919 0.0148 0.1538** 0.0161** 0.00208 0.00537 lycopene 2.031** 2.352** 0.6018** 0.7477 4.706** 0.2909** 0.8366 0.0764 content (mg/100 g juice) * and ** indicate significance at 0.05 and 0.01 levels of probability, respectively gen. = genotype; env. = environment j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):138-141, 2012 140 t ab le 2 . p er fo rm an ce o f va ri ou s to m at o ge n ot yp es ( m ea n o f th re e se as on s) , re gr es si on c oe ff ic ie n t (b i) a n d d ev ia ti on f ro m r eg re ss io n ( s 2 d i) sl . n o g en ot yp e pl an t h ei gh t n um be r o f pe r c en t f ru it se t / y ie ld a ci di ty ly co pe ne c on te nt (c m ) br an ch es / pl an t cl us te r (k g p la nt -1 ) (% c itr ic a ci d) (m g/ 1 00 g ju ic e) m ea n bi s 2 d i m ea n bi s 2 d i m ea n bi s 2 d i m ea n bi s 2 d i m ea n bi s 2 d i m ea n bi s 2 d i 1. pt r -1 55 .7 0 0. 15 ** 1. 17 7. 83 1. 55 0. 04 60 .3 3 1. 47 1. 49 1. 90 0. 56 -0 .0 2 0. 37 0. 58 0. 00 5. 26 0. 30 0. 01 2. pt r -2 54 .5 0 0. 31 ** 2. 26 6. 25 1. 19 ** 0. 10 69 .3 3 0. 41 ** 2. 23 1. 53 0. 51 ** 0. 00 0. 58 2. 27 0. 00 4. 40 2. 80 5. 55 c c 3. pt r -3 64 .6 5 1. 72 18 .5 7c c 7. 46 0. 91 2. 22 c c 49 .1 1 2. 80 10 .7 2c c 1. 58 1. 30 0. 68 c c 0. 41 0. 63 0. 00 3. 73 2. 22 1. 03 4. pt r -4 55 .3 5 0. 77 5. 95 8. 72 0. 88 0. 07 66 .3 5 0. 91 2. 17 1. 89 0. 89 -0 .0 2 0. 40 2. 00 0. 00 5. 64 1. 30 0. 02 5. pt r -5 62 .7 3 1. 19 18 .2 c c 8. 37 0. 28 0. 75 c c 73 .1 1 0. 42 ** 0. 56 1. 39 1. 40 ** 0. 02 0. 37 0. 27 0. 00 4. 66 1. 04 0. 12 6. pt r -6 56 .2 6 0. 16 2. 27 8. 68 1. 07 0. 07 69 .4 3 0. 77 1. 27 1. 82 0. 94 -0 .0 2 0. 41 0. 35 0. 00 5. 30 0. 57 0. 01 7. pt r -7 58 .2 5 2. 24 2. 43 8. 03 1. 20 2. 64 c c 36 .2 1 0. 63 ** 1. 14 1. 59 91 .6 0 0. 28 c c 0. 36 2. 58 ** 0. 00 3. 07 1. 64 2. 09 8. pt r -8 62 .5 8 1. 14 21 .8 1c c 6. 67 0. 81 0. 03 60 .1 1 0. 74 2. 27 1. 48 0. 72 0. 02 0. 32 0. 29 0. 00 3. 20 1. 23 0. 21 9. pt r -9 61 .3 2 1. 30 67 .4 2c c 7. 12 2. 10 3. 08 c c 44 .5 8 0. 73 2. 27 1. 34 0. 93 1. 54 c c 0. 34 1. 43 0. 00 4. 66 1. 03 0. 11 10 . pt r -1 0 61 .4 3 1. 39 12 .7 1c c 7. 18 0. 13 ** 0. 10 60 .5 8 0. 94 0. 92 1. 49 0. 99 -0 .0 2 0. 38 0. 42 0. 00 4. 80 0. 70 0. 33 11 . a rk a a hu ti 62 .1 3 0. 99 ** 0. 99 6. 62 0. 98 ** 0. 20 c c 64 .5 7 0. 96 0. 23 1. 34 0. 95 ** -0 .0 1 0. 31 0. 22 0. 00 5. 16 0. 20 ** 0. 00 12 . a rk a a sh is h 56 .9 0 0. 63 0. 32 7. 95 0. 92 0. 08 62 .0 1 1. 20 2. 20 1. 73 1. 22 -0 .0 2 0. 41 2. 50 0. 00 4. 78 1. 04 0. 32 m ea n 59 .3 1. 00 7. 52 1. 00 59 .6 1. 00 1. 59 1. 00 0. 37 1. 00 4. 55 1. 00 s. em ± 2. 72 0. 61 0. 72 0. 45 2. 26 0. 36 0. 33 0. 66 0. 00 2 0. 04 1 0. 64 6 1. 46 *, * * r eg re ss io n c o ef fi ci en t si g n if ic an tl y d if fe re n t fr o m u n it y a t 0 .0 5 a n d 0 .0 1 l ev el s o f p ro b ab il it y. c , c c d ev ia ti o n s fr o m r eg re ss io n s ig n if ic an tl y d if fe re n t fr o m z er o a t 0 .0 5 a n d 0 .0 1 l ev el s o f p ro b ab il it y, r es p ec ti v el y jyothi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):138-141, 2012 141 table 3. performance of various tomato genotypes (cv values) sl.no. genotype tss (obrix) p h mean cv mean cv 1. ptr-1 4.30 5.70 3.55 2.43 2. ptr-2 4.46 11.02 3.52 0.98 3. ptr-3 4.68 10.56 3.46 1.08 4. ptr-4 5.67 9.70 3.35 1.35 5. ptr-5 4.69 9.31 3.65 2.37 6. ptr-6 4.71 2.32 3.42 4.65 7. ptr-7 4.65 14.17 3.46 0.52 8. ptr-8 4.52 4.20 3.42 3.48 9. ptr-9 4.62 9.91 3.56 1.14 10. ptr-10 4.44 4.79 3.61 6.19 11. arka ahuti 5.19 5.98 3.85 1.39 12. arka ashish 5.06 18.61 3.56 0.36 mean 4.75 3.53 references adsule, p.g. and ambadan. 1979. simplified extraction procedure in the rapid spectrophotometric method for lycopene estimation in tomato. j. food sci. technol., 16:216 beeker, h.c. 1981. correlation among some statistical measures of phenotypic stability. euphytica, 30:835840 berry, s.z., rajique uddin, m., gould, w.a., bisges, a.d. and dyer, g.d. 1988. stability in fruit yield, soluble solids and citric acid of eight machine-harvested processing tomato cultivars in northern ohio. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 113:604-608 eberhart, s.a. and russell, w.a. 1966. stability parameters for comparing varieties. crop sci., 6:35-40 jatasra, d.a. and paroda, r.s. 1979. genotypic x environment interactions and environmental sampling in wheat. crop improvement, 6:86-90 kalloo, g. and pandey, s.c. 1979. phenotypic stability in tomato. haryana agril. univ. j. res., 9:303-307 ortiz, r. and izquierdo, j. 1994. yield stability differences among tomato genotypes grown in latin america and the caribbean. hortsci., 29:1175-1177 pandey, s.c. 1983. stability analysis in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). ind. j. agril. res., 17:229-233 patil, m.g. 1996. investigations on genetic improvement and production practices in processing tomatoes (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). ph.d. (agri.) thesis, univ. agril. sci., dharwad, india poysa, v.w., garton, r., courtney, w.h., metcalf, j.g. and muehmer, j. 1986. genotype-environment interaction in processing tomatoes in ontario. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 111:293-297 ranganna, s. 1977. analysis of fruit and vegetable products. tata mcgraw hill publishing ltd., new delhi, pp.141-160 (ms received 12 december 2011, revised 11 july 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):138-141, 2012 studies on processing-type genotypes of tomato introduction increase in the rate of population growth in india (1.3% in 2012, economic survey, 2012-13). has necessitates production of additional food from a shrinking land area, without deterioration of soil health. this needs extensive research to help develop a scientific model for enhancing and sustaining food production and soil productivity, entailing minimal environment degradation. to attain this, it is essential that nutrients removed from the soil are replaced through judicious use of fertilizers and manures. intensive cropping and imbalanced fertilizer application are major causes for depletion of macronutrients like n, p and k from soil. indian agriculture is running at a ‘net negative nutrient balance’ of a staggering 8-10 million tonnes per year (tandon, 2004), a figure set to reach around 15 million tonnes by 2025. application of fertilizers by farmers without information on soil-fertility status and crop nutrient requirement affects both the soil and the crop adversely (ray et al, 2000). soil testing is an ideal scientific means for a quick and reliable estimation of soil-fertility status. soil test crop response studies in field provide soil-test calibration between level of soil nutrients determined in the laboratory, and crop response to fertilizers j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):18-23, 2015 fertilizer-prescription equations for targeted yield in radish under integrated nutrient management system kaushik batabyal, dibyendu sarkar and biswapati mandal bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya mohanpur, nadia, west bengal-741252, india e-mail: kbatabyal@rediffmail.com abstract soil test crop response correlation studies under integrated plant nutrient system were carried out in inceptisol of west bengal during 2008 – 2010, with radish as a test crop following ramamoorthy’s ‘inductive-cum-targeted yield model’. four fertilizer (npk) and three farmyard manure (fym) levels were randomized in three well-established fertility gradients, each comprising 21 plots. soil and plant analysis data were interpreted to formulate fertilizer adjustment equations, with or without fym, at varying yield targets. it was computed that 1.40, 0.17 and 2.8 kg n, p and k, respectively, were required for producing 100 kg of radish. contribution of fertilizer-source to the total npk uptake in radish was far higher than that obtained from fym and soil available sources. a ready-reckoner developed from soil-test based fertilizer adjustment equations showed that fym application at 10 t ha-1, along with npk fertilizer, resulted in a net saving of 15, 1.8 and 5.0kg ha-1 of n, p and k, respectively, for cultivating radish. key words: fertility gradient, fertilizer-prescription equation, inceptisol, radish, ready-reckoner, yield target observed in the field, for predicting fertilizer requirement of a crop. it is well-documented through various experiments across the country that the actual on-farm yield is lower than potential yield of a crop (aggarwal et al, 2000; ladha et al, 2003). these yield gaps provide ample scope for improving yield levels using techniques that prescribe fertilizer nutrients based on soil-test values and yield-targets desired. fertilizer recommendations based on soil test crop response correlation (stcrc) are more quantitative, precise and meaningful, because, a combined use of soil and plant analysis is involved. this presents a balance between nutrients applied and available nutrients (nutrients already present) in the soil. besides, it takes into account the farmer’s ability to invest in a crop. stcr treatments are also known to record positive responses in terms of biomass yield and net returns more so when integrated sources of nutrients are used (santhi et al, 2002). so far, stcrc-ipns studies have not been made in vegetable crops in west bengal. as radish (raphanus sativus l.) is an important vegetable crop grown extensively in india, the present study was made with an objective of developing fertilizer prescription equations for targeted yield in this crop using organic manure (fym) and chemical fertilizers combined. 19 fertilizer-prescription equation for radish under inm material and methods experimental site to develop a scientific basis for prescribing fertilizer recommendations in radish, field experiments were carried out during 2008 2010 at central research farm, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, gayeshpur, nadia, india (22°58¹ n latitude and 88°29¹ e longitude), with fodder maize (cv. prakash) as the gradient, and radish (cv. red culpin) as the test crop. soil at the experimental site was inceptisol, sandy loam in texture, at ph 6.9 and with organic carbon content of 0.6%. initial, available n, p and k level in the soil was 308, 24 and 155 kg ha-1, respectively. fertility gradient experiment fertility-gradient experiment was conducted prior to the test-crop experiment as per inductive methodology proposed by ramamoorthy et al (1967), during summer 2008-09, by dividing the experimental field into three rectangular strips along the breadth. fertility gradients were created by applying graded doses of fertilizer n, p and k on the strips as shown in table 1. fodder maize was grown exhaustively to help the fertilizers undergo transformation in soil by the plant and microbes. test-crop experiment after harvesting the exhaustive crop, each strip was divided into three sub-strips to impose three levels of fym (0, 5 and 10 t ha-1). each sub-strip was further divided into seven sub-sub-strips, or plots, of 5m x 5m size. thus, 21 plots constituted each strip. the test-crop experiment was conducted during rabi season (2008-09 and 2009-10) with radish (var. red culpin) by superimposing 21 treatment combinations consisting of four levels of n (0, 40, 60 and 80 kg ha-1), four levels of p (0, 9, 13 and 18 kg ha-1) and four levels of k (0, 25, 33 and 50 kg ha-1). in the 21 plots, all the 18 selected treatment-combinations, along with three controls, were superimposed in each gradient strip, as per fractional factorial randomized block design (or incomplete split-plot randomized block design) following the technical programme of all india coordinated research project on soil test crop response correlation (aicrp on stcrc) studies. half the n, along with full amount of p and k, was applied as a basal dose at the final landpreparation stage, and the rest half of n was top-dressed at 30 days after sowing. biometric observation total biomass yield in radish, comprising root and leaf, was recorded plot-wise after crop harvest under each treatment, under all the three fertility strips. soil analysis soil samples (0-0.2m depth) were collected before crop-sowing, prior to fym and fertilizer application, and, after the harvest of both the gradient (maize) and the test (radish) crops. soil samples were analyzed for available n, p and k as per standard methods (jackson, 1973). plant analysis at harvest, representative plant samples were collected from the test crop, washed thoroughly in tap water, followed by a wash in double distilled water. the plant samples were then dried at 60°c to a constant weight, ground and ashed at 550°c for 2 h in a muffle furnace. the ash was dissolved in 2n hcl for determining p and k content as per chapman and pratt (1961). nitrogen content in the dried samples was estimated separately by digesting plant samples with sulphuric acid in the presence of digestion mixture (cuso4+k2so4+ se powder) (micro-kjeldahl digestion method), and, subsequently distilled and titrated (jackson, 1973). nutrient uptake was computed by multiplying the total dry-matter yield with nutrient concentration. data computation from data on soil-test values, crop dry-matter yield and nutrient uptake, basic parameters like nutrient requirement (nr), soil efficiency (cs), fertilizer efficiency (cf) and organic efficiency (co) were calculated, using the following formulae (developed as per ramamoorthy et al, 1967): nutrient requirement (nr) total uptake of nutrient (kg ha-1) (kg of nutrient per = total biomass yield (100kg ha-1)100kg of produce) soil efficiency total uptake in control plot (kg ha-1) or % contribution = soil-test value (stv) of nutrient × 100 from soil (cs) in control plot (kg ha-1) fertilizer total uptake in fertilized plot efficiency or % (kg ha-1) – (stv of nutrient in contribution = fertilizer treated plot x cs) × 100from fertilizer (cf) fertilizer dose (kg ha-1) table 1. graded dose of fertilizer applied to a gradient crop, maize strip level of fertilizer fertilizer dose (kg ha-1) n p k i n 0 p 0 k 0 0 0 0 ii n 1 * p 1 * k 1 * 100 22 83 iii n 2 p 2 k 2 200 44 166 * recommended dose for fodder maize j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):18-23, 2015 20 organic total uptake in organic plot efficiency or % (kg ha-1) – (stv of nutrient in contribution from = organic-treated plot x cs) × 100organic component organic fertilizer dose (co) (kg ha-1) from these basic parameters, fertilizer prescription equations were developed for radish using targeted yield calculator (tyc) software of aicrp on stcr, developed by indian institute of soil science, bhopal. based on the equations, fertilizer recommendation was prescribed as a ready-reckoner for arriving at desired yield-target in radish. results and discussion creation of fertility gradient at the experimental site in the present investigation, all the variation needed in soil fertility level was created deliberately in the same field. the gradient crop developed variability in soil fertility in the three experimental strips in a differential manner. available-nitrogen after harvest increased to 90.4 and 99.1 kg ha-1 in medium (strip-ii) and high (strip-iii) fertilitygradient strip, respectively, from that in the low fertility stripi (table 2). on the other hand, available phosphorus content increased to 37.9 and 44.5 kg ha-1, while, available potassium content increased to 35.2 and 81.4kg ha-1 in mediumand high-fertility gradient strips from the low fertility ones, respectively. increased availability of n, p and k in soil was due to fertilizer application in graded doses, thus creating a fertility gradient in the same field. the gradient developed with regard to k was stiffer and uniform (fig. 1), while, the same for n and p was rather non-uniform. occurrence of non-uniform gradients for n and p is not uncommon (aicrp bi-annual report, stcr, 2007-08). this was due to loss of n through different mechanisms and by locking of p by soil components. maize has been found to develop fertility gradients for the three major nutrients in the experimental strips, because, maize is an exhaustive crop causing overmining of plant nutrients, thus leaving relatively stable nutrient sinks in the soil that result in creating the fertility gradient. yield response in radish results showed that yield in radish was significantly influenced by soil fertility gradient and level of fym and npk. on an average, irrespective of the dose of organic or npk fertilizers, highest yield (48.8 t ha-1) was recorded in medium-fertility strip, followed by high (41.6 t ha-1) and low (38.7 t ha-1) fertility strips (table 3). profuse growth of leaves in the high-fertility strip may have failed to translocate photosynthates to the roots, resulting in relatively low yield. application of fym at 5 t ha-1 produced the highest yield (45.1 t ha-1), followed by ‘no fym’ and fym at 10 t ha-1, irrespective of the gradient and dose of mineral npk applied. across fertility gradients and fym levels, yield in radish was significantly influenced by level of n imposed. maximum yield (45.6 t ha-1) was obtained with application of the highest level of n (80kg ha-1). however, this yield was statistically at par with that obtained with 40 or 60kg n ha-1. this indicates that the optimum dose of n for radish could be 40kg ha-1. with increasing application of n, only vegetative growth increased. yield increased significantly with increasing levels of p and k, and maximum yields were obtained with 13 and 33 kg ha-1 of p and k, respectively; thereafter, it dropped significantly with further increase in levels of both these nutrients. thus, optimum levels of p and k for growing radish would be 13 and 33 kg ha-1, respectively. nutrient uptake irrespective of the levels of fym or npk, no significant difference was seen in n uptake by the crop due to different fertility gradients, but the uptake of p and k was significantly influenced (table 3). however, in all other cases too, the same trend was seen as in yield. again, table 2. soil chemical properties at completion of the gradient crop strip phw organic c (%) available nutrient n p k kg ha-1 i 7.21 0.50 267.4 20.2 130.7 ii 7.04 0.65 357.8 58.1 165.9 iii 7.01 0.62 366.5 64.7 212.1 fig. 1. fertility gradient of the experimental field with reference to available n, p and k in soil kaushik batabyal et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):18-23, 2015 21 irrespective of the gradient and npk levels, fym application had no significant effect on uptake of either n or k by radish. however, significant variation was observed in p uptake by the crop. maximum uptake (15.2 kg ha-1) resulted from application of 10 t fym ha-1, while, the minimum was with zero level of fym. across fertility-gradients and fym levels, application of different levels of n caused significant changes in uptake of n, p and k by radish. maximum uptake of n and k was associated with the highest level of n application (80kg ha-1), while, minimum values were obtained with no n input (table 3). however, magnitude of npk uptake due to application of different levels of p and k followed the same trend as that for yield. uptake increased with increasing levels of p and k and, maximum npk uptake was seen with application of optimum levels of p and k, as mentioned earlier, i.e., 13 and 33 kg ha-1, respectively. developing targeted-yield equations in radish: basic parameters pre-sowing soil-test values, and, data on dry matter yield and nutrient uptake by radish, were used for calculating basic parameters, viz., nutrient requirement (nr) in kg for producing one quintal of radish, per cent contribution from soil (cs), fertilizer (cf) and organic source (co). average nutrient requirement for producing 100kg dry matter yield in radish was 1.40, 0.17 and 2.8 kg of n, p and k, respectively (table 4). this is in close conformity with results of bera et al (2006) and thilagam and natesan (2009). contribution of n, p and k as estimated from soil, fym and fertilizer sources was 6.8, 7.1 and 26.4; 17.6, 4.9 and 29.8, and 47.3, 27.4 and 186.7%, respectively. these results indicate that nutrient contribution from fertilizer sources is greater than that from soil or organic sources. these findings are in agreement with ray et al (2000), meena et al (2001), shrinivas et al (2001) and bera et al (2006). interestingly, it was observed that contribution of k from fertilizer was more than 100% (186.7%). this high value of k could be due to an interaction effect of higher doses of n and p, and the primary effect of starter k dose, in treated plots leading to release of soil k, and consequent higher uptake from native soil sources by the crop (ray et al, 2000). similarly, high efficiency of potassic fertilizer was reported for rice by ahmed et al (2002) and bera et al (2006) in alluvial soil, and for maize (reddy et al, 2000) and jute (ray et al, 2000) in inceptisol. fertilizer-prescription equations, developed using basic parameters estimated by the whole-field method, are presented below: prescription equations fn =2.95 t 0.14 sn for fertilizer npk fp =0.62 t 0.26 sp alone fk =1.47 t 0.14 sk prescription equations fn =2.95 t 0.14 sn -0.37 on for fertilizer npk plus fp =0.62 t 0.26 sp 0.18 op organics (fym) fk=1.47 t 0.14 sk 0.16 ok where, fn, fp and fk=fertilizer n, p and k required (kg ha -1); t=yield target [(100 kg) ha-1]; sn, sp and sk=soil available n, p and k (kg ha-1), and on, op and ok=quantity of n, p table 3. effect of fertility gradient, fym and npk level on yield and npk uptake in radish (mean of two years’ data) gradient yield (t ha-1) nutrient uptake (kg ha-1) n p k low 38.7b 45.1 11.6b 102.6b medium 48.8a 49.9 14.7a 126.8a high 41.6b 48.3 13.7a 111.1b ns fym level (t ha-1) 0 41.8 47.2 11.0c 111.1 5 45.1 49.9 13.8b 116.1 10 42.2 46.3 15.2a 113.3 ns ns ns n level (kg ha-1) 0 28.5b 22.2c 6.5c 52.6b 40 45.6a 56.1a 15.9a 125.5a 60 45.2a 48.9b 13.0b 119.0a 80 45.6a 58.6a 14.0b 132.9a p level (kg ha-1) 0 28.5c 22.2b 6.5c 52.6c 9 44.2ab 47.0a 12.6b 110.5b 13 48.4a 54.1a 15.3a 132.8a 18 42.1b 53.9a 15.1a 122.2ab k dose (kg ha-1) 0 28.5c 22.2c 6.5b 52.6b 25 46.1a 49.8ab 14.4a 123.1a 33 47.3a 56.1a 14.7a 127.6a 50 41.0b 48.9b 14.2a 117.7a values of mean followed by a different letter were significantly different at p≤0.05 using duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt); ns indicates non-significant table 4. basic parameters of targeted yield equation for radish parameter basic data n p k nutrient requirement 1.40 0.17 2.8 (kg nutrient per 100kg dry matter yield) contribution from soil 6.8 7.1 26.4 (soil efficiency, %) contribution from fertilizer 47.3 27.4 186.7 (fertilizer efficiency, %) contribution from organics 17.6 4.9 29.8 (organic efficiency, %) { { j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):18-23, 2015 fertilizer-prescription equation for radish under inm 22 and k added as fym (fym contains 0.46% n, 0.09% p and 0.37% k). a ready-reckoner for fertilizer recommendation in radish based on generated equations, a ready-reckoner was prepared for different soil-test values for yield target of 35 and 45 t ha-1, under npk alone and under npk+fym. results showed that for producing 35 t ha-1 of radish at average soil nutrient status of 300, 30 and 200 kg n, p and k ha-1, respectively, fertilizer nutrient required was 39, 4.4 and 10.8 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively (table 5); but, the requirement was reduced to 24, 2.6 and 5.8 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively, when the fertilizer was applied together with 10 t ha-1 fym. this resulted in a saving of 15, 1.8 and 5.0 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively. again, for producing 45 t ha-1 of radish at the same soil-available-nutrient levels, fertilizer nutrient requirement was 63, 6.6 and 20.8 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively (table 6); but, the requirement was reduced to 48, 4.8 and 15.8 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively, when used with fym. this resulted in similar magnitude of nutrient savings, i.e., 15, 1.8 and 5.0 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively. thilagam and natesan (2009) also table 5. a ready reckoner for fertilizer dose at varying soil-test values for a yield target of 35 t ha-1 soil-test value fertilizer nutrient required (kg ha-1) (kg ha-1) for yield target of 35 t ha-1 inorganic+ inorganic fym (10 t ha-1) n p k n p k n p k 250 5 100 47 7.0 22.5 32 5.7 17.5 275 10 125 43 6.6 20.0 28 4.8 14.2 300 15 150 39 6.1 16.7 24 4.4 11.7 325 20 175 36 5.2 13.3 21 3.9 8.3 350 25 200 32 4.8 10.8 17 3.1 5.8 375 30 225 29 4.4 7.5 15 2.6 2.5 400 35 250 25 3.5 5.0 10 2.2 0.0 table 6. a ready reckoner for fertilizer dose at varying soil-test values for a yield target of 45tha-1 soil-test value fertilizer nutrient required (kg ha-1) (kg ha-1) for yield target of 45 t ha-1 inorganic+ inorganic fym (10 t ha-1) n p k n p k n p k 250 5 100 70 9.2 32.5 55 7.4 26.7 275 10 125 67 8.7 29.2 52 7.0 24.2 300 15 150 63 8.3 26.7 48 6.6 20.8 325 20 175 60 7.4 23.3 45 6.1 18.3 350 25 200 56 7.0 20.8 41 5.2 15.8 375 30 225 52 6.6 17.5 37 4.8 12.5 400 35 250 49 5.7 15.0 34 4.4 9.2 reported that application of fym at 15 t ha-1 together with chemical fertilizer resulted in a saving of 35, 10.9 and 23.3 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively, in cauliflower. conclusion irrespective of fertility gradient or fym level, optimum dose of n, p and k for cultivating radish was 40, 13 and 33 kg ha-1, respectively. this also corresponded to a higher removal of n, p and k by biomass of the harvested crop. contribution of n, p and k from the soil-available pool was 6.8, 7.1 and 26.4% to total n, p and k uptake by the crop, respectively, while, such contribution from applied fertilizer was 47.3, 27.4 and 186.7%, and, that from applied fym was 17.6, 4.9 and 29.8%, respectively. a readyreckoner developed using soil-test based fertilizer adjustment equations in radish showed that application of fym at10 t ha-1 along with chemical fertilizer resulted in a net saving of 15, 1.8 and 5.0 kg ha-1 of n, p and k, respectively, for cultivating radish at average soil-nutrient status of 300, 30 and 200 kg ha-1 n, p and k, respectively. this indicates the usefulness of stcrc-ipns technology for achieving higher-crop production and a more rational use of fertilizer nutrients. references aggarwal, p.k., talukdar, k.k. and mall, r.k. 2000. potential yields of rice-wheat cropping system in the indo-gangetic plains of india. rice-wheat cropping system in the indo-gangetic plains of india. ricewheat consortium series 10, rice-wheat consortium for the indo-gangetic plains, new delhi ahmed, s., riazuddin, m. and krishna reddy, p.v. 2002. optimizing fertilizer doses for rice in alluvial soils through chemical fertilizers, farmyard manure and green manure using soil test values. agropedology, 12:133-140 aicrp bi-annual report. 2007-2008. all india co-ordinated research project on soil test crop response correlation, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, west bengal, india bera, r., seal, a., bhattacharyya, p., das, t.h., sarkar, d. and kangjoo, k. 2006. targeted yield concept and a framework of fertilizer recommendation in irrigated rice domains of subtropical india. jzus-b, 7:963-968 chapman, j.d. and pratt, p.f. 1961. method of analysis for soils, plants and waters. agricultural division, university of california, riverside, california, usa economic survey. 2012-2013. economic survey of india, chapter 2, seizing the demographic dividend, j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):18-23, 2015 kaushik batabyal et al 23 department of economic affairs, ministry of finance, government of india jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall inc. india pvt. ltd., new delhi ladha, j.k., dave, d., pathak, h., padre, a.t., yadav, r.l. and singh, b. 2003. how extensive are yield declines in long-term rice-wheat experiments in asia. field crops res., 81:159-180 meena, m., ahmed, s., riazuddin, m., chandrasekhara, k.r. and rao, b.r.c.p. 2001. soil test crop response studies on onion (allium cepa) in alfisols. j. indian soc. soil sci., 49:709-713 ramamoorthy, b., narasimham, r.l. and dinesh, r.s. 1967. fertilizer application for specific yield target of sonora 64. indian fmg., 17:43-45 ray, p.k., jana, a.k., mitra, d.n., saha, m.n., choudhury, j., saha, s. and saha, a.r. 2000. fertilizer prescription on soil test basis for jute, rice and wheat in typic ustochrept. j. indian soc. soil sci., 48:79-84 reddy, c.k., riazuddin, m. and ahmed, s. 2000. soil test based fertilizer recommendation for maize grown in inceptisols of jagtial in andra pradesh. j. indian soc. soil sci., 48:84-89 santhi, r., natesan, r. and selvakumari, g. 2002. soil test based fertilizer recommendation under ipns for aggregatum onion in inceptisols of tamil nadu. agropedology, 12:141-147 shrinivas, a., prasad, b.r.c., reddy, k.c.k. and maruthisankar, m.g. 2001. soil test based fertilizer recommendations for attaining different yield targets of rice under rice-rice crop sequence in vertisols. j. res.-angrau, 29:69-74 tandon, h.l.s. 2004. fertilizers in indian agriculture from 20th to 21st century. fertilizer development and consultation organization, new delhi thilagam, v.k. and natesan, r. 2009. fertilizer prescription equation for desired yield targets of cauliflower under integrated plant nutrient system based on targeted yield model. agri. sci. dig., 29:201-207 (ms received 13 november 2014, revised 23 may 2015, accepted 26 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):18-23, 2015 fertilizer-prescription equation for radish under inm 35 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 original research paper standardization of spacing and soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in papaya (carica papaya l.) manjunath b.l., nair a.k. and laxman r.h. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, india email : blmanjunathagri@gmail.com abstract field experiments in two crops of papaya were conducted at icar-indian institute of horticultural research for four years during 2016-19 to standardise spacing with optimum soil volume wetting for drip irrigation. narrowing the plant rows drastically reduced the plant height while leaf production affected significantly due to reduction in intra row spacing. the height at first fruiting was significantly lower with a spacing of 1.8 m x 1.5 m (56.4 cm) significantly differing from both 1.5 m x 1.5 m (60.9 cm) or 1.8 m x 1.8 m (66.8 cm). significantly higher mean fruit yield (42.2 t/ha) was recorded with the spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5m as compared to either 1.8m x 1.5m (23.4 t/ha) or 1.8m x 1.8m (22.1 t/ha). significantly higher water use efficiency (71.3 kg/ha.mm) was recorded in papaya by following closer spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5 m. among the interactions, higher papaya yield (48.0 t/ha) was recorded with normal drip irrigation (80% soil volume wetting) under closer spacing (1.5 m. x 1.5 m). further, higher water use efficiency (129 kg/ha. mm) could be obtained by scheduling the irrigation at 30% soil volume wetting especially by planting at 1.5 m. x 1.5 m. spacing suggesting its suitability for water scarcity areas. key words: papaya yield, scheduling irrigation, soil volume wetting, spacing, water use efficiency. introduction papaya is an important fruit crop cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions. being a shallow rooted crop, papaya needs regular irrigation for its rapid growth and development. further, the orchard should have a good drainage system and any amount of water logging will affect the growth. in papaya, stomata are found only on the abaxial leaf surface. they are sensitive to changes in the saturation deficit of the air. stomata also respond quickly to changing light conditions. on clear days, midday suppression of photosynthesis occurs as a result of partial closure of the stomata (carr, 2014). a properly designed and operated drip irrigation system has to supply the water amount required by the crop and should also wet enough soil volume. unlike surface and sprinkler irrigation, drip irrigation only wets part of the soil root zone. this may be as low as 30 per cent of the volume of soil wetted by the other methods. the wetting patter ns which develop from dripping water onto the soil depend on discharge and soil type. although only part of the root zone is wetted it is still important to meet the full water needs of the crop. two of the key factors in the design of micro-irrigation systems to obtain the maximum benefits from these practices are the amount of water used and the volume of soil to be wetted. the restricted volume of the wetted soil under drip irrigation and depth-width dimensions of this volume are of considerable practical importance. the volume of the wetted soil represents the amount of soil water stored in the root zone, its depth dimension should coincide with the depth of the root system while its width dimension should be related to the spacing between the emitters and lines.the parameters which influence the wetted soil volume are the available water holding capacity of the soil and the peak daily crop water use representing specific field conditions. the irrigation interval and the management-allowed deficit are additional parameters which affect the wetted volume and could be changed depending on this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 36 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 manjunath et al. crop sensitivity as well as water and irrigation equipment accessibility. a truncated ellipsoid is assumed to best represent the geometry of the wetted soil volume under an emitter.the partial soil wetting pattern by micro irrigation requires assessment of the percentage of soil volume that is wetted (moshe. 2006). the distance between emitter on lateral pipe and distance of lateral pipes from each other should be determined based on the degree of wetted soil diameter by emitters. the duration of irrigation also depends on the fa ct tha t a t wha t time a fter commencement of irrigation, the wetting front reaches depth of plant’s root or a multiple of it. the distance of outlets, discharge rate and time of irrigation in drip irrigation have to be determined so that volume of wetted soil is close to volume of plant’s root as much as possible. the volume of wetted soil surface and moisture in onion shape depends on different factors including soil texture and layering, soil homogeneity, dr ipper flow r a te, pr ima r y moistur e of soil, consumption water and land slope. analyses on the effects of application rate on the water distribution pa tter n demonstr ated that incr easing the water application rate allows more water to distribute in horizontal direction, while decreasing the rate allows more water to distribute in vertical direction for a given volume applied (li et al., 2004). although papaya is generally considered to be drought sensitive and responsive to irrigation, there is a shortage of good experimental evidence to support this view. there is a need to establish practical irrigation schedules for this remarkable crop. further, to enhance the productivity of the crop, optimum plant population is very crucial. when spacing is varied, it further warrants for understanding the requirement of wetted volume for standardizing the drip irrigation practice in a given agro-climatic condition. keeping this in view, field experiments were conducted to adjudge an optimumsoil volume wetting in papaya along with different plant spacing. materials and methods field experiments were conducted during 2015 to 2019 at icarindian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru located at a latitude of 13°8’12"n and a longitude of 77°29’45"e. the experimental soil was sandy loam in texture with a ph of 6. 14 and an ec of 0. 067 dsm-1. the maximum temperature during the experimental period r a nged fr om 24 0c to 36 0c a nd the minimum temperature ranged between 100c to 220c. the period between march to may are the warm months with higher temperatures and evaporation while the period between november to january were the cooler months with low temperature and evaporation. the a ver a ge r ela tive humidity wa s higher dur ing september and october months. the average rainfall of the region is around 850 mm with two peak periods of rainfall during junejuly and septemberoctober months. pre-experimental soil had a ph of 6.32 with almost no salts (0.14 dsm-1). the organic carbon content of the soil was quite low (0.15 %). although the available nitrogen content of the soil was low (56 kg/ha), the available phosphorus was higher (51.5 kg/ ha). further, the available potassium content of the soil was also higher (315 kg/ha). field exper iments wer e conducted in pa pa ya (cv. red lady) in split plot design with three plant spacing (1.5 x 1.5 m., 1.8 x 1.5 m. and 1.8 x 1.8 m.) as main plot treatments and three levels of soil volume wetting (30%. 50% and 70%) as sub plot treatments in four replications. the crop was raised with recommended package of practices except for irrigation. irrigation was scheduled based on pan evaporation and the per cent soil volume was restricted by inserting a barrier in the root zone. the calculated amount of water for each irrigation was either partially wetted or fully wetted in the root zone depending on the treatment. all the growth and yield parameters were recorded in both the crops. the root length and depth were recorded based on longest horizontal and vertical growth, respectively and the root volume was measured based on the quantity of water displaced by immersing in water. the root dry weight was recorded by carefully collecting the roots and drying in hot air oven till constant weight was obtained. all the mean data was analyzed as per standard statistical procedures (panse and sukhatme, 1985). results and discussion plant growth although majority of the growth parameters showed non-significant differences among different per cent soil volume wetting irrigation levels, plant spacing was found to affect the plant stature, leaf production and height at first flowering significantly (table 1). giving wider spacing of 1.8 m x 1.8 m for papaya was found to favour the crop growth through higher plant height 37 standardization of spacing and soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in papaya (1.57 m) significantly differing from both 1.8 m x 1.5 m and 1.5 m x 1.5 m plant spacing. the leaf production followed a similar trend with significantly higher leaf production at wider spacing of 1.8 m x 1.8 m (24.5 leaves/plant). it is wor th to note that narrowing the plant rows drastically reduced the plant height while leaf production affected much due to r eduction in intr a r ow spa cing. t his a ssumes significance in papaya as source sink balance is critical in papaya fruit set, development and sugar accumulation and in general each mature leaf can provide photo assimilate for about three fruits (zhou et al., 2000). further, the height at first fruiting was significantly lower with a spacing of 1.8 m x 1.5 m (56.4 cm) significantly differing from both 1.5 m x 1.5 m (60.9 cm) or 1.8 m x 1.8 m (66.8 cm) plant spacing. similar results were reported in papaya by singh et al. (2010) wher ein vegetative growth characters in papaya like plant height, numbers of leaves and inter-nodal length showed significant difference among all the treatments. root growth parameters in papaya root growth in general was significantly influenced both by the plant spacing as well asirrigation levels. root length was significantly higher with 1.5 m. x 1.5 m spacing (109.8 cm) ascompared to either 1.8 m. x 1.8 m. (100.3 cm) or 1.8m. x 1.5 m. (91.9 cm). among the irrigation levels, meeting 50% er and irrigating in part of the root zone (50%) was found to have higher root length (114.7 cm) significantly differing from others. further, the interaction between spacing and irrigation levels was significant with highest root length (126.7cm) recording in1.5m x 1.5m spacing with 50% er irrigating in 50% of the root zone (table 2). t he r ooting depth in pa pa ya wa s influenced significantly both by plant spacing and interaction of spacing with irrigation levels. planting at a distance of 1.8m x 1.5m was found to produce significantly deeper roots (54.2 cm) over other spacings and among the interactions, planting at 1.8m x 1.5m and irrigation meeting 30% of er wetting 100% of the root volume resulted in significantly higher rooting depth (61.7cm). the root volume in general differed significantly both with the plant spacing and the irrigation levels. closer planting at 1.5m x 1.5m distance had shown significantly higher root volume (2148 cm3) as compared to either 1.8m x 1.5m (1983 cm3) or 1.5m x 1.5m (1671 cm3). among the irrigation levels, meeting 70% er and irrigating in part of the root zone (70%) was found to have higher root volume (2572 cm3) significa ntly differing from others. fur ther, the inter a ction between spa cing a nd irrigation levels was significant with highest root volume (2833.3 cm3) observed under 1.8m x 1.5m spa cing with ir r iga tion meeting 70% er a nd wetting 70% of the root zone. the oven dry weight of roots was significantly influenced by plant spacing. the significantly higher oven dry weight of root in papaya was observed under plant spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5m (516.7 g/plant) as compared to either 1.8m x 1.5m (237.2 g/plant) or 1.8m x 1. 5m (279.6 g/plant) which may be a t t r ib u t ed t o t he higher gr owt h of r oot s in competing environments in search of resources at c los er s p a c ing wit h higher i nt r a p la nt competitions.wang et al. (2006) also reported that root development and distribution are affected by spatial and temporal soil water distribution. photosynthetic rate the photosynthetic response of papaya is strongly linked to environmental conditions through stomatal behavior (zhou et al., 2004). the photosynthetic r ate recorded in papaya in differ ent tr ea tment combinations is depicted in fig.1. it was observed that the spacing of papaya plant to a distance of 1.8m x 1.8 m influenced the photosynthetic rate (10.85 µ mol/m 2 /s) significantly as compared to 1.5 m. x 1.5 m. (9.09 µ mol/m 2 /s) although it was at par with the spacing of 1.8 m. x 1.5 m. (9.48 µ mol/m 2 /s). among the irrigation levels, meeting 70% of the er and wetting 70% soil volume recorded the highest photosynthetic rate (10.52 µ mol/m 2 /s) which was found to differ significantly with 50% of the er wetting 50% of the soil volume (8.41 µ mol/m 2 /s). although the interaction effects were not significant, the highest photosynthetic rate of 11.73 µ mol/m 2 /s was recorded with 1.8 m x 1.8 m spacing at 70%er irrigation wetting 70% soil volume. santas et al., (2015) also affirmed that the fruit production and physiological characteristics of papaya depend on planting spacing. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 38 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 manjunath et al. spacing irrigation level plant collar no. of canopy height at first height girth leaves/ spread fruiting (cm) (cm) plant (m) (cm) e-w n -s 1.5m x 1.5m irrigation at 30% er wetting 30% soil 133.0 24.3 17.4 142.0 147.0 62.8 volume   irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% soil 140.0 26.4 20.0 154.0 168.0 58.6  volume   irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% soil 143.0 28.0 21.4 154.0 156.5 58.0 volume   irrigation at 70% er wetting 100% soil 137.7 26.1 17.5 167.0 138.7 64.0 volume mean 138.4 26.2 19.1 154.3 152.6 60.9 1.8m x 1.5m irrigation at 30% er wetting 30% soil 132.0 26.6 24.4 146.0 144.0 61.8 volume   irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% soil 146.0 28.2 23.8 165.0 156.0 55.0 volume   irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% soil 138.0 26.8 22.4 154.0 152.0 54.0 volume irrigation at 70% er wetting 100% soil 143.0 24.7 22.5 150.3 152.7 54.8 volume   mean 139.8 26.6 23.3 153.8 151.2 56.4 1.8m x 1.8m irrigation at 30% er wetting 30% soil 167.0 28.0 25.8 162.0 161.0 66.8 volume   irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% soil 140.0 25.0 21.6 154.0 158.0 66.4 volume   irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% soil 162.0 28.2 21.8 163.0 161.0 69.4 volume   irrigation at 70% er wetting 100% soil 159.0 29.2 28.7 169.7 174.8 64.7 volume mean 157.0 27.4 24.5 162.2 163.7 66.8 s.em ± main 2.47 0.60 0.84 3.10 5.874 1.19 sub 2.65 0.73 1.17 4.18 6.559 1.52 main x sub 4.93 1.19 1.68 6.20 11.748 2.39 c.d.(p=0.05) main 8.17 ns 2.79 ns ns 3.95 sub ns ns ns ns ns ns main x sub 13.75 ns ns ns ns ns table 1. growth attributes in papaya as influenced by spacing and soil volume wetting irrigation treatments 39 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 standardization of spacing and soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in papaya table 2. root growthin papaya as influenced by plant spacing and irrigation levels spacing irrigation level root length root depth root volume dry weight of (cm) (cm) (cm3) roots (g/plant) 1.5 m irrigation at 30% x1.5m er wetting 30% soil volume 110.0 56.7 2866.7 688.3 irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% soil volume 126.7 48.3 2000.0 356.2 irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% soil volume 102.5 52.5 2800.0 540.7 irrigation at 70% er wetting 100% soil volume 100.0 42.5 925.0 481.5 mean 109.8 50.0 2147.9 516.7 1.8 m irrigation at 30% er x 1.5m wetting 30% soil volume 91.7 61.7 2350.0 317.4 irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% soil volume 100.0 46.7 1850.0 232.7 irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% soil volume 103.3 50.0 2833.3 299.5 irrigation at 70% er wetting 100% soil volume 72.5 58.5 900.0 99.2 mean 91.9 54.2 1983.3 237.2 1.8 m irrigation at 30% er x1.8m wetting 30% soil volume 75.0 40.0 800.0 171.3 irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% soil volume 117.5 45.0 2000.0 368.5 irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% soil volume 111.3 43.3 2083.3 337.6 irrigation at 70% er wetting 100% soil volume 97.5 45.0 1800.0 241.1 mean 100.3 43.3 1670.8 279.6 s.em ± main 1.87 2.18 98.49 48.00 sub 3.06 1.85 119.55 61.09 main x sub 4.96 3.53 204.60 103.45 c.d. (p=0.05) main 6.59 7.68 347.46 169.33 sub 8.93 ns 348.76 ns main x sub 14.89 11.11 625.80 ns 40 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 manjunath et al. fruit yield although the mean fruit number per plant not affected significantly by plant spacing, different levels of soil volume wetting irrigation had a significant influence (table 3). irrigating the plant to wet 70% of the soil volume resulted in significantly higher number of fruits (17.2/plant) as compared to 30% (10.6/plant) and normal drip irrigation (13.3/plant) although it was on par with 50% of the soil volume (14.8/plant). although the fruit yield in general was slightly lower in the crop owing to the incidence of prsv disease (even with sufficient care to combat the disease), the treatment effects were very clear both for the spacing and the irrigation levels. significantly higher mean fruit yield (42.2 t/ha) was recorded with the spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5m as compared to either 1.8m x 1.5m (23.4 t/ha) or 1.8m x 1.8m (22.1 t/ha).the mean increase in yield on the basis of two crops ranged from 80.3 per cent (over 1.8 x 1.5m spacing) to 91.0 per cent (over 1.8m x 1.8 m spacing). this increased fruit yield at closer spacing of 1.5m x 1.5m was not only due to more number of plants per unit area but also was due to higher number of fruits (16.4/plant) over other spacings. although different soil volume wetting irr igation failed to affect the mean fr uit yield significantly, irrigation at 70 per cent er and wetting either 70% of soil volume (31.7 t/ha) or 100% of soil volume (31.2 t/ha) showed higher fruit yield. the response in total yield to the irrigation applied was quadratic and increasing in the range to the amounts of water applied from 30, through 50 to 70 per cent of the er. similar results of higher yield with increasing trend in irrigation levels each year was also reported earlier in orange by petillo (2004). significantly higher water use efficiency (71.3 kg/ ha.mm) was recorded in papaya by following closer spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5 m which decreased drastically with increase in spacing either to 1.8 m x 1.8 m (34. 6kg/ha . mm) or 1. 8 m x 1. 5 m (37. 3 kg/ ha. mm). this suggests that under limited water situations following an ideal agronomic package is also essential to get more output per unit amount of water used. fig 1. effect of different spacing and soil volume wetting irrigation on photosynthetic rate in papaya j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 standardization of spacing and soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in papaya spacing soil volume no. of fruits /plant fruit yield / plant (kg) papaya yield (t/ha) water use efficiency wetting (%) (kg/ha.mm) 20162018m e an 20162018m e an 20162018m e an 20162018m e an 1 7 1 9 1 7 1 9 1 7 1 9 1 7 1 9 1.5m x irrigation at 30% er 1.5m wetting 30% root 13.00 19.90 16.50 10.30 10.40 10.30 45.6 46.03 45.79 110.08 148.01 129.04 zone volume irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% root 11.30 20.40 15.90 8.00 8.77 8.38 35.6 39.70 37.63 51.55 74.88 63.21 zone volume irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% root 16.90 19.90 18.40 8.95 10.40 9.66 39.8 34.90 37.30 40.92 52.57 46.75 zone volume normal drip irrigation 18.10 11.30 14.70 11.2 5.84 8.53 49.9 46.10 47.98 62.69 29.62 46.15 mean 14.80 17.90 16.40 9.61 8.83 9.22 42.7 41.7 42.20 66.31 76.27 71.29 1.8m x irrigation at 30% er 1.5m wetting 30% 9.70 8.63 9.15 5.95 4.46 5.21 22.05 16.50 19.30 53.29 53.14 53.21 root zone volume irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% root 13.70 12.60 13.10 6.38 6.75 6.56 23.60 25.00 24.30 34.25 48.04 41.15 zone volume irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% root 9.70 20.50 15.10 3.90 11.2 7.54 14.50 41.40 27.90 14.96 47.25 31.10 zone volume normal drip irrigation 11.60 11.70 11.60 6.40 5.48 5.94 23.70 20.30 21.99 24.53 23.15 23.84 m e an 11.20 13.30 12.20 5.66 6.97 6.31 20.96 25.80 23.40 31.75 42.89 37.32 1.8m x irrigation meeting 1.8m 30% er wetting 30% 3.43 8.68 6.05 1.60 4.57 3.09 4.93 14.10 9.51 11.90 45.35 28.63 soil volume irrigation meeting 50% er wetting 50% 10.18 20.40 15.28 5.30 11.20 8.25 16.38 34.50 25.50 35.60 66.38 50.99 soil volume irrigation meeting 70% er wetting 70% 12.40 23.50 17.96 8.58 10.70 9.66 26.45 33.20 29.80 27.38 37.85 32.61 soil volume irrigation meeting 70% er and wetting 10.90 16.40 13.70 6.35 9.02 7.69 19.60 27.80 23.70 20.28 31.78 26.03 100% soil volume m e an 9.23 17.24 13.20 5.46 8.88 7.17 16.80 27.40 22.10 23.79 45.34 34.57 s.em ± m ain 1.54 1.75 1.26 0.86 1.09 0.85 3.79 4.06 3.46 4.44 6.86 4.82 su b 0.97 1.81 1.02 0.77 1.00 0.63 3.09 3.84 2.54 6.19 8.47 5.40 main x sub-1 2.12 3.23 1.98 1.45 1.86 1.23 5.99 7.05 5.15 10.30 14.43 9.43   c.d (p=0.05) m ain ns ns ns 3.05 ns ns 13.38 ns 12.20 15.6 24.2 17.00 su b 2.82 5.29 2.97 ns 2.93 1.85 ns ns ns 18.0 24.7 15.80 main x sub -1 6.86 ns ns 4.53 ns 4.05 ns ns ns 31.2 44.1 29.00 table 3. fruit yield and water use efficiency in papaya as influenced by spacing and soil volume wetting in two crops of papaya 42 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 manjunath et al. among the interactions, higher papaya yield (48.0 t/ ha) was recorded with normal drip irrigation (80% soil volume wetting) under closer spacing (1.5m x 1.5 m). however, higher water use efficiency (129 kg/ ha.mm) could be obtained by scheduling the irrigation at 30% soil volume wetting especially by planting at 1.5 x 1.5m spacing. the economics of papaya cultivation the economics of growing papaya under different spacings with irrigation levels is presented in table 4. it was observed that the cost of production of papaya was although 33 per cent higher under closer spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5 m (rs.3,69,400/ha), the gross returns were also significantly higher (rs.6,32,740/ha). the higher cost of production with closer spacings ma y be a ttr ibuted to the additional investment cost on planting material, pit making and other inputs like manures and fertilizers. sagar et al., (2012) also found that papaya was highly capital intensive crop and average cost of cultivation per hectare was rs.176660. the higher gross returns with closer spacing may be attributed not only to the more number of yielding plants but also higher yield per plant. higher net returns were recorded with closer spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5 m (rs.2,63,290/ha). further, benefit cost ratio was although higher (1.72) with closer spacing, the results were found to be non-significant. table 4. the mean economics of papaya cultivation under different spacing and irrigation levels cost of gross net b:c spacing irrigation level production returns returns (rs/ha) (rs/ha) (rs/ha) ratio 1.5m x1.5m irrigation at 30% er wetting 30% 3,47,700 6,86,900 3,39,020 1.98 root zone volume irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% 3,65,060 5,64,400 1,99,340 1.55 root zone volume irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% 3,82,430 5,59,980 1,77,550 1.46 root zone volume normal drip irrigation 3,82,430 7,19,670 3,37,240 1.88 mean 3,69,400 6,32,740 2,63,290 1.72 1.8 m x1.5m irrigation at 30% er wetting 30% 2,97,810 3,91,740 93,930 1.31 root zone volume irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% 3,15,180 3,64,690 49,510 1.16 root zone volume irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% 3,32,550 4,18,790 86,240 1.26 root zone volume normal drip irrigation 3,32,550 3,91,740 93,930 1.31 mean 3,19,520 3,91,740 80,900 1.26 1.8 m x1.8m irrigation at 30% er wetting 30% 2,55,970 3,94,910 1,38,940 1.54 root zone volume irrigation at 50% er wetting 50% 2,73,340 3,81,880 1,08,540 1.4 root zone volume irrigation at 70% er wetting 70% 2,90,710 4,47,040 1,56,330 1.54 root zone volume normal drip irrigation 2,90,710 3,55,820 65,100 1.22 mean 2,77,680 3,94,920 1,17,230 1.43 43 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 standardization of spacing and soil volume wetting for drip irrigation in papaya among the irrigation levels, the gross returns were relatively higher (rs. 4,91,180/ha) with irrigation at 30% er a nd 30 per cent soil volume wetting, which may be attributed to the better soil moisture availability under the treatment in turn improving the productivity. similarly, the net returns were also relatively higher with the treatment. closer spacing of 1.5 m x1.5m also recorded higher benefit cost ratio which may be attributed to both higher plant population (44% higher) and the yield per plant (28% higher). higher benefit cost ratio with spacing of 1.5m x 1.5m clearly indicated that it is worth to spend more for the inputs with closer spacing. further, benefit cost ratio was relatively higher with 70 per cent soil volume wetting as compared to other irrigation levels. conclusion the results of four years field trial in papaya on spacing and different soil volume based irrigation levels clearly indicated that under water scarcity conditions, it is worth irrigating papaya to meet only 30 per cent of the soil volume through a package of 1.5 m x 1.5m spacing so as to enhance the water use efficiency to the highest level (129.04 kg/ha.mm). acknowledgement the financial help rendered thr ough sponsor ed research project on consortia research platform on water by indian council of agricultural research is gratefully acknowledged. references carr, m. k. v., 2014. the water relations and irrigation requirements of papaya (carica papaya l.) : a review. experimental agri., 50 (2): 270-283. santas, e.m., barbosa da silva jr., g., cavalcante, i.h.l., marques, a.s. and albano, f.g.. 2016. pla nting spa cing a nd nk fer tilizing on physiological indexes and fruit production of papaya under semiarid climate, bragantia 75 (1) campinas jan./mar. 2016 epub dec 04, 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1678-4499.111. eliemar campostrini and david m.glenn, 2007. ecophysiology of papayaa review, brazilian j. plant physiology, 19 (4) online version issn 1677-9452, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1590/s1677-04202007000400010  petillo, g.m., puppo, l., chammorrow, a. and hyashi, r. 2004. effects of drip irrigation on the amount of water and wetted soil volume on washington na vel or a nge yield, proceedings of international seminar on irrigation (ed: r.c. vallone), acta horti., 646 : 101-106. li, j., zhang, j. and rao, m. 2004. wetting patterns and nitr ogen distributions as affected by fertigation strategies from a surface point source. j.agri. water management, 67 : 89104. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi. sagar b. , par ma r, h. c. and dar j v.b., 2012. economics of production of papaya in middle gujarat region of gujarat, india, global j. bio, agri. and health sci.,1(2):10-17. singh d.b., roshan r.k., pebam n., yadav m., 2010. effect of different spacings on growth, yield and yield characters of papaya (carica papaya l.) cv. coorg honey dew, acta horti., 851:291294.  moshe, s. 2006. micr o ir r iga tion in a rid and semi-arid region guidelines for planning and design. international commission on irrigation a nd dr a ina ge (icid) 48 nya ya ma r g, chanakyapuri, new dehli-110 021, india. 44 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 35-44, 2020 manjunath et al. wang h., liu f., andersen m.n., jensen c.r., 2009. comparative effects of partial root-zone drying and deficitirrigation on nitrogen uptake in potatoes (solanum tuberosum l.). irrigation sci., 27: 443-447. zhou l, christopher d.a., paull r., 2000. defoliation and fruit removal effects on papaya fruit production, sugar accumulation, and sucrose metabolism. j. american soc. horti. sci., 125: 644-652. (received on 19.10.2019 and accepted on 21.03.2020) 79 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 75-78, 2019 short communication an assessment of fruiting and polyembryony in langsat (lansium domesticum corr.) from nilgiris, india kanupriya*, pushpa chethan kumar and anuradha sane icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india *e-mail: kanupriya@icar.gov.in abstract in this paper we report the fruit characteristics and seed polyembryony in langsat, lansium parasiticum (syn. lansium domesticum corr.). this fruit tree belongs to the family meliaceae in order sapindales and is considered to be native of western south east asia and is common in both wild and cultivated forms throughout malaysia and philippines where the fruits are very popular and the tree is being utilized in reforestation efforts. it is also grown in southern thailand and vietnam and flourishes in the nilgiris and other humid areas of south india. in the present investigation we report the morphological and biochemical parameters of the plants and fruits obtained from state horticultural farm, buliar (latitude 11.34; longitude 76.79) in tamil nadu, at elevation of 360 m msl and receiving average annual rainfall of 125.14 cm. the plantation was established in the year 1900 and consists of various tropical trees like mangosteen, langsat, arecanut, coffee, silveroak, pepper, cinnamon in tier system of planting. key words: langsat, polyembryony, nilgiris introduction the langsat is an erect, slender or spreading type of tree; reaching 1215 m in height, with red-brown furrowed bark. its leaves are pinnate, 22-50 cm long, with 5 to 7 alternate leaflets, elliptic – oblong, pointed at both ends, dark-green and glossy on upper surface, paler and dull beneath with a prominent midrib. the flowers are mostly bisexual, small, pale-yellow borne in br a nched r a cemes on the tr unk a nd oldest branches, at first they are erect and finally pendant, 10 to 30 cm in length (morton, 1987). the fruit is borne in cluster of 2 to 30 (fig a), it is oval, ovoidoblong or nearly round, 2.5 to 5 cm in diameter, weighing 200g on an average with the contribution of seed approximately 7 percent of the weight. the fruits are non-climactric in nature like pomegranates and citrus and have to be allowed to fully mature on the tree to obtain optimum taste. the peel of the fruit is pale brown, thin, velvety and contains milky latex. there ar e 3 or 5 segments of aromatic, white, translucent, juicy flesh called arils with sweetsour taste, bit similar to litchi (fig b). the seeds adhere to the flesh and are present in 1 to 3 of the aril segments. they are green, relatively large2 to 2.5 cm long and 1.25 to 2 m wide and bitter tasting. the peel of the fruit is considered to be high in tannins and the arils are high in total phenol content. the tss of the fleshy arils varies from 14 to 17°brix depending on the maturation of the fruit, the titratable acidity (as percent citric acid) decreases as the fruit matures from 2 to 0.5 % and the ascorbic acid content of the fruit is around 1mg/100g. the fruits are known to suffer from aril browning due to the activity of polyphenol oxidase, which significantly reduces the marketability of the fruits (huang et al 2010). the seed has been reported to contain a minute amount of an unnamed alkaloid, 1% of an alcoholsoluble resin, and two bitter, toxic principles (venkatachalam and meenune 2012). an arrow poison has been made from the fruit peel and bark of the tree. both are known to possess a toxic property, lansium acid, which is known to arrest heartbeat in frogs. the dried peel is burned in java to serve as mosquito repellent and the wood is utilized for house posts, rafters, tool handles and small utensils. the pulverized seed is 80 kanupriya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 75-78, 2019 employed as febrifuge and vermifuge. the bark paste is used as poultice on scorpion stings. an astringent bark decoction is used as treatment for dysentery and malaria. leaf juice is used as eye-drops to dispel inflammation (samuagam et al.,2015). polyembryony is the phenomenon of occurrence of more than one embryo in a seed leading to emergence of sever a l seedlings fr om a seed. in tr ue polyembryony, additional embryos arise by several ways such as splitting of zygote or proembryo called cleavage polyembryony which is more common in gymnosperms, from cells of embryo sac other than the egg (apogamy) or nucellar or integumentary cells outside the embr yo sac (a dventive embr yony) (maheshwari 1952). depending on the origin, the embryos can be genetically different (ganeshaiah et al 1991). little is known about the outcome of polyembryony, which seems to increase the fitness of the mother plant by increasing the chances of establishment of at least one of the seedlings from the same seed (bet hedging). polyembryony can also be beneficial, as more seedlings are produced by the same investment of the mother plant (shaankeer and ganeshaiah, 1997). on the other hand, competition may arise during germination for the food reserves (e.g., cotyledons, endosperm), between embryos which ma y r educe vigour. in melia cea e, polyembryony appears to be an unusual phenomenon and has been described only for a few genera. on the other hand, polyembryony is reported in several fruit crops of tropical regions (table 1). in langsat it is a common phenomenon with more than 50% of seeds giving more than one seedling. fresh seeds take about l0 days to germinate and the first leaf is formed by fig. a: langsat fruit borne in clusters on tree fig. b: individual fruit opened to show the fleshy arils the fourth week. germination is hypogeal. in a seed with more than one embryo, a number of shoots are formed each having its own root system and may be separated out as separate seedlings. where there is only one embr yo, only one seedling is formed. however, in certain cases there are multiple shoots, with only one root system. in such cases only one shoot is vigorous and the others die off in time (salma and razali 1957) in this study, langsat fruits were obtained from state horticultural farm, buliar (latitude 11.34; longitude 76.79) in tamil nadu, at elevation of 360 m msl and receiving average annual rainfall of 125.14 cm. the plantation was established in the year 1900 and consists of various tropical trees like mangosteen, langsat, arecanut, coffee, silver oak, pepper, cinnamon in tier system of planting. ten fruits were collected and analyzed for physico-chemical parameters as per the methods descr ibed by ranga nna (1986) in triplicates. the seed weight ranged from 1.56 to 0.77g, pulp weight from 13.5 to 6.69g and peel weight from 5.1 to 2.53g, accounting to 7.76, 66.94 and 25.3% of total weight of the fruit, respectively. the pulp was analyzed for biochemical parameters such as tss which was found to be 13.73 °brix, titratable acidity (as % citric acid) was 2.34% and ascorbic acid was 8.53 mg/100g (table 2). sensory evaluation revealed that fruit color was pale brown, pulp color was whitish jelly type similar to litchi pulp, the taste was sweet with bit sour similar to taste of litchi fruit (table 3). t he s eeds wer e u s ed t o det er mi ne va r iou s parameters such as percent germination, viability, 81 fruiting and polyembryony in langsat j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 75-78, 2019 nu mb er of s eedlings ob t a ined p er s eed (polyembryony) were recorded for ten seeds by germinating them in wet towel. hundred percent ger mina tion wa s observed with the number of embryo per seed ranging from 2 to 5. four seeds (40%) gave rise to two plants, four seeds (40%) gave rise to three plants while four and five plants were obtained from one seed (10%) each (fig c). the seedlings were planted in polybags containing soil: sand: fym mixture in 2:2:1 ratio (fig d). good establishment was observed and the plants were transferred to field for further evaluation. in today’s world, where consumers are looking for novel fruits and varieties langsat can prove to be a good species for the areas experiencing tropical clima te. it ha s been r epor ted tha t despite the various types that have been identified, the genetic va r ia bility is still too na r r ow for mea ningful breeding efforts in this crop (salma and razali 1957). it also suffers from long juvenility period fig. c: germinating polyembryonic seed with four seedlings fig. d: the potted seed giving rise to three and two seedlings each and the fr uits a re pathenocarpica lly developed making hybridization ineffective. the fruits are often not uniform in size, the tree is prone to bark borers, and the tree architecture needs a lot of pruning for better fruit formation and facilitate ea sier ha r vesting. a lot of br eeding effor ts is needed to improve the genetic characteristics of this species before it can really have an industrial impact. table 1: polyembryony reported in different families of tropical fruits families scientific name common name anacardiaceae mangifera indica mango guttiferae garcinia mangostana mangosteen meliaceae lansium domesticum langsat myrtaceae eugenia spp, myrciaria cauliflora rose apple/ malay apple, jaboticaba rutaceae citrus spp orange 82 table 2: physico-chemical parameters of langsat fruit on fresh weight basis parameter mean sd se tss (0brix) 13.73 0.11 0.06 titratable acidity (%) 2.34 0.03 0.02 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 8.53 0.92 0.53 fruit length (mm) 31.537 2.55 0.81 fruit breadth (mm) 23.383 1.96 0.62 fruit weight (g) 13.42 0.16 0.05 pulp weight (g) 10.92 2.36 0.75 seed weight (g) 1.24 0.4 0.13 peel weight (g) 3.55 0.95 0.3 table 3: appearance and sensory evaluation of fresh langsat fruit sensory parameter observation fruit color pale brown pulp color whitish jelly type taste sour aroma bland flavour bland (ms received 05 october 2018, revised 21 february 2019, accepted 07 may 2019) references morton, j. langsat. in: fruits of warm climates. julia f. morton, miami, florida, 1987, p.201-201 huang, w.y., cai, y.z., corke, h. and sun, m.2010. survey of antioxidant capacity and nutritional quality of selected edible and medicinal fruit pla nts in hong kong. j food compo analysis, 23(6):510-517. ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and qua lity contr ol for fr uit a nd vegeta ble products. tata mcgraw hill pub. co. ltd., new delhi. sa mua ga m, l. , sia , c. m. , akowua h, g. a. , okechukwu, p.n. and yim, h.s.2015. in vivo a ntioxida nt potentia ls of r a mbuta n, mangosteen, and langsat peel extracts and effects on liver enzymes in experimental rats food sci biotechnol.,24(1):191-198 venkatachalam, k. and meenune, m.2012. changes in physiochemica l qua lity a nd br owning related enzyme activity of longkong fruit dur ing four differ ent weeks of on-tr ee maturation. food chemistry, 131(4):14371442 maheshwari, p. 1952. polyembryony in angiosperms, palaeobotanist, 1: 319–329. salma, i and razali, b. 1957. the reproductive biology of langsat in peninsular malaysia mardi res. bull., 15(2) :141-150 ganeshaiah, k.n., shaanker r.u., joshi n.v. 1991. evolution of polyembryony: consequences to the fitness of mother and offspring. j genetics 70: 103-127 shaankeer r.u, ganeshaiah k.n. 1997. conflict between pa r ent a nd offspr ing in pla nts: pr edictions, pr ocesses a nd evolutiona r y consequences current sci., 72: 932-939 kanupriya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 75-78, 2019 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 editor’s exordium research diversity in horticulture “only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we’” (mark twain, 1835-1910) ‘we’, in the editorial board of this journal, are continuously striving hard to raise the standards bar, by putting ‘you’, the readers, as our cynosure. to achieve this, we are constantly upbringing in measures and means; as somebody says ”one step forward at a time”. content and quality remain the prime moving force. considering this, this issue indeed addresses a wide and diverse of subjects in the field of horticultural sciences. articles on vegetable crops (5), fruits (4), flower crops (1), medicinal and aromatic crops (1), economic analysis (1) and techno-engineering (1), appear in this issue. these articles discuss topics in breeding and crop improvement (2), agronomy (or can we coin ’hortonomy’?) (3), engineering (3), nutrient management (2), post-harvest technology (1), economics (1) and biochemistry (1). this issue, therefore, truly imbues a sense of gratification in its wider coverage and diversity. tomato is an important vegetable crop of the world. however, biotic and abiotic stresses create havoc and severely reduce the crop yields globally, including in india. sadashiva et al. review the progress towards identification and gene pyramiding-based tomato improvement through domestication of wild and feral resistance genes from tomato’s ancestral alley, solanum habrochaites la-1777 ecotype. in the process, the researchers have also improved various quality parameters too. this research group successfully symbolizes a ‘mission mode’ approach to crop improvement. dhatt et al. discuss plastic tunnel and mulch on various parameters in brinjal, another important solanaceous vegetable crop, for enhancing production and profitability. mounika et al. study the effects of azospirillum, phosphate solubilizing bacteria and micronutrients on coriander, a green leafy vegetable. continuing in vegetable crops, while sudha et al. assess the importance of storage behaviour of five kufri potato varieties under nilgiris conditions, jat et al. analyze the inheritance of the much desired parthenocarpy in a gynoecious cucumber line to be under the regulation of an incompletely dominant gene. in fruit crops, singh et al. carry out investigations on the impact of pruning on growth, yield and quality parameters of dashehari mango (now, its that delicious season of enjoying the “king of the fruits” labor!). shivashankara et al., speaking of the season, use i j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : i-ii, 2017 the biochemical approach to identify the best times for maximum volatile accumulation and corresponding harvest of banana cultivars, albeit under kerala conditions. manjunath et al. report the standardization of the partial root zone drying technique of irrigation in papaya for enhanced water productivity and water use efficiency. in grapes, sharma et al. evaluate commercial dipping oil and other potassium salts for the production of good quality raisins. while bhuvaneswari and sangama reveal that arecanut sheath cup is a better ecofriendly package in tuberose, baraa al-mansour et al. recommend better integrated nutrient management techniques in french basil for increased profitability. taking the icar-iihr campus as a paradigm, bhanu and ramaswwamyreddy exhaustively analyze extant landscape data points and offer technological solutions and interventions of rainwater harvesting, while finally indhushree et al. identify key constraints in exporting of horticultural products and subsequent measures to be taken in sustaining growth of exports internationally. the editorial board of jhs heartily acknowledges the erudite assistance received from various referees nationally, who selflessly and meticulously perused the manuscripts, offered their valuable comments and helped building the two issues in this year. icar-iihr celebrated its year-long golden jubilee commemorations, ending with an international symposium on horticulture, on its 50th foundation day. a glimpse of the various scholarly events is presented in the closing pages in this issue, along with salient varieties and technologies of this institute. the journal offers best wishes to the quinquagenarian iihr. readers, may please suggest other horticultural institutions for similar recognition in this journal and “we” will duly consider it. vageeshbabu s. hanur associate editor journal of horticultural sciences ii j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : i-ii, 2017 tomato (solanum lycopersicum mill.) is one of the most important and largely cultivated vegetable crops. it occupies a pre-eminent position among vegetables for its high nutrient content. lately, greater emphasis is laid on organic production of vegetables. growth regulators and foliar nutrient sprays are used for increased flower production, retention and higher yield in tomato. when foliar nutrition is applied, lower quantities of fertilizers are needed compared to nutrient application through soil. foliar nutrition also reduces fixation or leaching of nutrients. one of the most significant benefits of using foliar feeding is that it is less expensive than many other means for boosting plant growth. these days, major nutrients (n, p and k) are applied to vegetable crops through foliar sprays (chaurasia et al, 2005). the ultimate goal of foliar nutrition is to supply the plant with the right amount of nutrients. panchakavya is a formulation prepared from products obtained from the cow and consists of dung, urine, milk, curd and ghee. physio-chemical properties of panchakavya reveal that it contains almost all the major nutrients, micronutrients and growth harmones such as iaa and ga. it also possesses aromatic compounds like phenyl acetic acid and benzoic acid, products that have a definite role in plant metabolism (vadivel, 2006). j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):107-110, 2013 short communication effect of biostimulants on yield and quality in tomato t. saraswathi and s. praneetha department of vegetable crops, horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641003, india e-mail : sarasvel_t@yahoo.co.in abstract an experiment was conducted to study comparative efficacy of growth regulators and panchakavya on growth, yield and biochemical constitution of tomato. it is well known that panchakavya plays a vital role in organic cultivation. hence, the present experiment was laid out to determine the effect of this biostimulant on yield and quality in tomato. recommended dose of fertilizers recorded highest yield. next best results were obtained by combined spray of panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm); panchakavya (3%) alone and panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm). results also revealed comparable performance of panchakavya over salicylic acid and nitrobenzene indicating, that, panchakavya can be utilized as an organic component to increase yield in tomato. key words: tomato, panchakavya, salicyclic acid, nitrobenzene a field trial was conducted at horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. the experimental farm is situated in south western region of tamil nadu at 11°n latitude and 77°e longitude at an altitude of 426.6m above msl. present study was conducted with the main objective of assessing the effect of bio-stimulants and growth regulators on yield and quality of tomato variety pkm 1. soil in the experimental field was well-drained, sandy clay-loam in texture, with ph 6.5 and ec 0.206dsm-1. soil nutrient status was checked and recommended dose of fertilizers was applied. experimental design and layout the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with twelve treatments and was replicated thrice. details of treatments are given below 1. panchakavya (3%) seed treatment 2. panchakavya (3%) seedling dip 3. panchakavya (3%) root drench 4. panchakavya (3%) foliar spray 5. nitrobenzene (150ppm) foliar spray 6. salicylic acid (100ppm) foliar spray 7. nitrobenzene (150ppm) + panchakavya (3%) foliar spray 108 saraswathi and praneetha 8. salicylic acid (100ppm) + panchakavya (3%) foliar spray 9. nitrobenzene (150ppm) + salicylic acid (100ppm) foliar spray 10. nitrobenzene (150ppm) + salicylic acid (100ppm) + panchakavya (3%) foliar spray 11. farm yard manure @ 25t/ha 12. recommended fertilizer dose (150:100:100kg npk/ha) seeds were soaked in panchakavya 3% for an hour, shade-dried and then sown in the nursery. root dip with panchakavya (3%) was done just before transplanting the seedlings. root drench (50ml/plant) with panchakavya (3%) was done on the same day after planting. all the foliar sprays were given twice (once each before and after flowering). farm yard manure @ 25t/ha was applied as basal dose at the time of last ploughing. the above treatments were imposed with no application of synthetic fertilizers. recommended dose of fertilizer (150:100:100kg of npk/ha) was applied at half of n and full dose of p and k as basal dose, and the remaining half of n was top-dressed on 30th day after planting. morphological observations were recorded on plant height, number of branches, days taken for 50% flowering, number of fruits per cluster, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, yield per plant and estimated yield per hectare. chlorophyll content was estimated as per yoshida et al (1971), carbohydrate content was estimated by the procedure suggested by sadasivam and manickam (1996) and soluble protein was estimated by lowry’s method (lowry et al, 1951). results (table 1) of the present study revealed that spraying panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) and nitrobenzene (150ppm); and panchakavya (3%) alone recorded maximum plant height (80.36cm and 78.63cm respectively). maximum number of branches per plant (9.33) was recorded both in spray of panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm), and panchakavya (3%) + nitrobenzene (150ppm) and was on par with recommended fertilizer dose (150:100:100kg npk/ ha) (8.99), salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm) spray (8.44), and panchakavya (3%) spray (8.21). in addition, nutrients in urine are readily soluble and are in a liquid form which allow them to be taken up by the plant at once (sharma, 1998). salicylic acid, a phenolic compound, is known to prevent auxin oxidation (schneider and whiteman, 1974). salicylic acid spray may have increased the level of auxin which, in turn, could have increased plant height. nitrobenzene also has a synergistic effect with auxin which may have also caused increased n. due to increased level of auxin in the growing tip, plant height may have increased. the same observation has been recorded in okra too (savitha, 2004). days taken for 50% flowering was significantly influenced by various treatments. earliest flowering was observed with foliar application of panchakavya (3%) alone (37.33 days), and was on par with nitrobenzene (150ppm) spray (38.00 days), panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm) spray (38.00 days), table 1. effect of biostimulants and growth regulators on yield and quality in tomato treatment plant no. of days no of single yield/ yield total carbosoluble height branches taken for fruits/ fruit plant (t/ha) chlorophyll hydrate protein (cm) flowering plant weight (g) (kg) (mg/g) content (mg/g) (mg/g) seed treatment 3% pk 57.50 6.06 42.23 32.53 40.60 0.68 18.18 0.34 1.79 15.60 seedling3% pk 67.43 6.86 40.66 29.53 41.44 0.65 15.66 0.36 1.98 14.21 root drenching3% pk 64.16 5.20 42.00 33.06 41.03 0.70 15.84 0.35 2.34 14.43 pk 3% foliar spray 78.63 8.21 37.33 37.6 42.98 0.85 22.16 0.45 2.94 17.31 nitrobenzene150ppm 61.03 7.77 38.00 42.76 36.11 0.75 18.74 0.36 1.88 15.36 salicylic acid 100pm 62.56 7.40 40.00 26.66 41.26 0.66 16.05 0.43 2.83 14.44 pk+nb 76.23 9.33 38.38 41.76 33.88 0.59 15.12 0.44 2.40 14.13 pk+sa 75.93 9.10 39.33 37.13 43.67 0.85 23.27 0.46 2.83 16.70 nb+sa 62.10 8.44 38.66 34.50 41.40 0.73 17.70 0.38 2.24 14.42 p+sa+nb 80.36 9.33 38.00 44.76 37.02 0.86 22.88 0.51 3.05 18.42 fym (25t/ha) 57.46 6.77 40.66 30.13 37.04 0.60 14.30 0.36 2.22 13.71 npk 150:100:100kg/ha 77.26 8.99 39.33 44.53 45.30 1.14 29.48 0.54 3.13 17.90 cd (p=0.05) 2.69 1.24 1.59 2.16 3.82 0.54 2.47 0.07 0.25 1.73 *note: pk panchakavya; nb nitrobenzene; sa salicylic acid; fym farm yard manure j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):107-110, 2013 109 panchakavya (3%) + nitrobenzene (150ppm) spray (38.38 days) and salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm) spray (38.66 days). readily available n, p, k and growth regulators in panchakavya may have induced early flowering in tomato. similarly, earlier flowering in rose with panchakavya (5%) spray was reported by thamarai selvi et al (2002). combined spray of panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm) significantly increased number of fruits per plant (44.76), followed by application of the recommended dose of fertilizers (44.53), and nitrobenzene (150ppm) spray (42.76). maximum number of fruits recorded in the above treatments could be due to increased level of auxin by nutrients applied thus increasing the flower production and retention. presence of auxin in panchakavya was reported by kanimozhi (2004). florigenic activity of salicylic acid was demonstrated by kumar et al (1997). savitha (2004) reported increased number of fruits in okra with application of nitrobenzene (150ppm). application of recommended dose of fertilizers significantly improved fruit weight. the treatment was on par with foliar application of panchakavya 3% + salicylic acid (100ppm), and foliar spray of panchakavya alone (3%). soluble forms of nutrients are easily available in panchakavya and salicylic acid makes the plant physiologically more active, which influences fruit weight positively (kumar et al, 1999). fruit yield per hectare was significantly higher with application of recommended dose of fertilizers (1.14kg/ plant). among foliar sprays, panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm) spary (0.86kg/plant), panchakavya (3%) spray (0.85kg/plant), and panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) spary (0.84 kg/plant) were on par. this indicated a better effect of panchakavya over salicylic acid and nitrobenzene. increased yield due to panchakavya was mainly due to better availability of nutrients. total chlorophyll, carbohydrates and protein content also followed a similar trend. regulation of stomata has been shown to be favorably influenced by bio-active substances produced by beneficial micro-organisms present in panchakavya (kanimozhi, 2004). favorable influence of salicylic acid in soybean was reported by kumar et al (1999). senthil and kumaresan (2006) observed that soil application of controlled release fertilizer (crf) aagroblen @ 30g m-2, plus wsf plant starter @ 2g l-1 as foliar spray significantly enhanced quality of red ripe pods of chilli, registering higher levels of capsaicin (4.26mg 100g-1), i.e., 3.9% increase over the control. this may have been influenced by nitrogen uptake. results in the present investigation revealed that recommended dose of fertilizers gave higher yield. the next best results were obtained with spraying panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm) + nitrobenzene (150ppm); panchakavya (3%) + salicylic acid (100ppm), and panchakavya (3%) alone. total chlorophyll, carbohydrate and protein content were also higher in the above treatments. this suggests that panchakavya can be effectively sprayed to increase yield in tomato as an organic component along with recommended dose of fertilizers. references chaurasia, s.n.s., singh, k.p. and mathura rai. 2005. effect of foliar application of water s o l u b l e fertilizers on growth, yield, and quality of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum l.). sri lankan j. agril. sci., 42:66–70 kanimozhi, b. 2004. effect of organic manures and biostimulants on productivity and quality of brahmi (bacopa monniere l.). m.sc. thesis submitted to tnau, coimbatore, tamil nadu, india kumar, p., dube, s.d., mani, v.p. and chauhan, v.s. 1997. effect of salicyclic acid on flowering, pod formation and yield of pea. in: national seminar on plant physiology for sustainable agriculture, march 19-21, iari, new delhi, p. 69 (abstr.) kumar, p., dube, s.p. and chauhan, v.s. 1999. effect of salicylic acid on growth, development and s o m e biochemical aspects of soybean. indian j. pl. physiol., 4:327-330 lowry, o.h., hosobrough, n.j., farr, a.l. and randall, r.j. 1951. protein measurement with foliar phenol reagent. j. biol. chem., 193:265-275 sadasivam, s. and manickam, a. 1996. biochemical methods. new age international (p) limited, new delhi, p-1 savitha, 2004. determination of phytotonicity, phytotoxicity, safety and residue of nitrobenzene in okra. m.sc. thesis submitted to tnau, coimbatore, t.n., india j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):107-110, 2013 effect of biostimulants on yield and quality in tomato 110 schneider, e.a. and whiteman, f. 1974. metabolism of auxin in higher plants. ann. rev. pl. physiol., 25:487-513 sharma, s.k. 1998. food for good health. diamond pocket books, new delhi, pp. 215-218 thamarai selvi, s.p., chezhiyan, n. and raman, a. 2002. studies on the effect of growth regulators, calcium and boron and organics on rose. south indian hort., 50:430-436 vadivel, e. 2006. panchakavya as potentiator of living plant cells: effects on crop plants and the biochemistry that validates the effects. proceedings of national seminar on convergence of technologies for organic horticulture, july 20-21, 2006, tnau, coimbatore pp. 12-22 yoshida, s., forno, d.a., cook, j.h. and gomez, k.a. 1971. laboratory manual for physiological studies on rice. irri, manila, the philippines. p. 82 http:// www.tammac.co.za/pastures/dungurine.pdf (ms received 28 june 2010, accepted 16 november 2010, revised 12 december 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):107-110, 2013 saraswathi and praneetha 78 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 78-81, 2017 manipulation of shade and plant density for enhanced production of cut-foliage in ruscus hypophyllum l. ranjit singh*, parminder singh and jaswinder kaur department of floriculture and landscaping pau, ludhiana 141 004 *email: ranjit_flori@pau.edu abstract cut foliage are deep green with long lasting and evergreen properties which are commonly preferred by the floral industry as accents in floral arrangements. ruscus hypophyllum l. is one of the commercially produced cut foliage material for making good line, filler and mass material in making floral arrangements. it requires shade for growth. experiments were conducted with the objectives to find out optimum shade levels and planting density. the rhizomes were planted in factonal randomized block design under three shade levels ( 0, 50% and 75%) and three plant spacing (30x30 cm, 30x40 cm, 30x50cm) with planting density of 18, 15, and 12 plants per m2, respectively. it was observed that different shade levels and plant spacings exhibited significant effect on plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, leaf size and number of stems harvested per plant. the plants were recorded tallest under 75 % shade levels and 30x30 cm plant spacing (61.30cm and 54.48 cm, respectively). the number of leaves produced per plant were maximum (69.99) under 75% shade, however, number of leaves per plant were maximum under 30x30cm spacing. among various shade levels, 75% shade level resulted in maximum number of cut stems (16.28) that was at par with 50% shade level (16.08). however, the cut stems harvested per plant were recorded maximum (16.67) under 30x30cm spacing. from the results obtained, it was concluded that ruscus hypophyllum grown under 75% shade level with 30x30 cm spacing and planting density of 18 plants per m2, produced maximum yield of cut stems with longer stem length. keywords: shade level, cut foliage, planting density, ruscus hypophyllum cut foliages are important component of the floricultural industry, largely used as fillers in bouquet making and flower arrangements. in general, plants that are deep green with long lasting evergreen properties are commonly used by the floral industry as accents in floral arrangements (schlosser and blatner, 1997). the foliage from a wide range of plants is used in florist industry. some important pla nts inc lu de u ni ta li es , a sp ar ag u s, r us cu s hypophyllum, dracaena, codiaeum variegatum, aspidistra elatior, hedera helix, cyperus, some wild grasses etc. apart from these, foliage and branches from some woody plants such as species of eucalyptus, bottlebrush, euonymus, murraya paniculata, cycas revoluta , cycas circinalis, livistona, palms etc. are also used (bhattacharjee, 1999). there is a tremendous increase in economic impor t a nc e of c u t folia ge p r odu c t ion in t he ornamental industry. in india with changing life styles and increased urban affluence, flor iculture has assumed a definite commercial status in recent times, particularly during the past 2-3 decades. availability of natural resources like diverse agroclimatic conditions permit production of a wide range of temperate and tropical flowers and cut greens, almost all through the year in some parts of the country. though india is leading supplier of dry flowers, dry and fresh foliage to europe, the market share of all these three products put together is only 5.4%. in cut foliage, it is observed that the value of indian exports was usd 7.28 millions. the trade of foliage indicates that india has emerged as the short communication 79 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 78-81, 2017 top most suppliers among the developing countries and has been successful in developing a sustainable market in the eu (ladha and gunjal, 2011). so keeping the importance and potential of cut foliage in international scenario, study was planned to eva lua te t he eff ects of modif ied sha de levels combined with planting density on production of cut foliage of ruscus hypophyllum l. t he exper iments wer e condu cted a t the research farm of the department of floriculture and landscaping, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana during 2014-2015. three shade levels open, 50% and 75% were created with the help of green agro shade nets nand arched gi pipes. the shade nets were fixed on the arched gi pipes with the help of plastic ropes. the structure was erected in north south direction. beds of two meter square area were prepared under these nets and sprouted rhizomes of ruscus hypophyllum were planted at three different plant densities i.e., s1 (18 plants per square meter, spacing 30x30 cm), s2 (15 plants per square meter, spacing 30x40 cm), and s3 (12 plants per square meter, spacing 30x50 cm ) in these beds. the experiment was conducted in factorial randomized block design with three replications. the data were recorded on plant height (cm), plant spread (cm), stem diameter (cm), number of leaves, leaf diameter (cm) , lea f lengt h (cm) , a nd number of st ems harvested. data recorded, thus were, analyzed using cpcs1 computer software to draw the appropriate conclusion. different shade levels significantly affected the plant height and plant spread (table 1). plant height was recorded maximum (61.30 cm) under 75% shade level. the close planting in s1 (30x30cm) resulted in tall plants as compared to s2 (30x40cm) and s3 (30x50 cm). it may be attributed to the fact that closer plant spacing resulted in more vertical growth. however, different shade levels exhibited non significant effect on plant height. however, plant spacing linearly increased the plant spread. under closer plant spacing the plants exhibited lesser plant spread and vice versa. shade levels did not exhibit any significant affect on plant spread. stamps (1997) reported that the growth, both vertical and horizontal in case of ruscus increased linearly with increasing shade levels from 30 to 80 per cent whereas the response of stem length and weight to shade level peaked in the 50-80% shade range. table 2: effect of different shade levels and plant spacings on stem diameter and number of leaves of ruscus hypophyllum l. table 1: effect of different shade levels and plant spacings on plant height and plant spread of ruscus hypophyllum l. shade and plant density in ruscus 80 stem diameter showed close relationship with plant density, while, different shade levels did not affect the same (table 2). the number of leaves (phylloclades) produced per plant were maximum (69.99) under 75% shade levels, however, number of lea ves p er pla nt wer e ma x imum under s 1 (30x30cm) spacing. heavy shades produce fewer but longer stems with large cladodes than the lower shade (anonymous, 2006). the number of leaves /stem is also reported high under 50-80% shade range (stamps 1997). leaf size showed significant variation with respect to the different shade levels (table 3). leaf breadth was maximum (3.35 cm) in the plants which were grown under 75% shade level. it was also observed that leaves were broader (3.74 cm) in s1 (30 x30cm) which may be attributed to change in microclimatic conditions under high density pla nting r es ult ing in p ositive eff ec ts on lea f expansion. similar trends were also observed for leaf length. heavy shades produces long stems with j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 78-81, 2017 singh et al table 4: effect of different shade levels and plant spacing on number of stems harvested per plant in ruscus hypophyllum l. table 3: effect of different shade levels and plant spacing on leaf (cladode) size of ruscus hypophyllum l. large sized leaves (cladodes in case of ruscus) than the lower shade anonymous (2006). the ruscus is sold in the market as cut stem which in turn has different uses. the different shade levels and plant spacings resulted in significant var iations in the number of salea ble cut stems harvested per plant. amoung various shade levels, 75% shade level resulted in maximum number of cut stems (16.28) which were at par with 50% shade level (16.08). however, the cut stems harvested per pla nt wer e r ecor ded ma ximum ( 16. 67 ) under s1(30x30cm) spacing. the plant density under s1 (30x30 cm) spacing had maximum of 18 plant/m2 as compared to s1 (15 plants/m2) and s3 (12 plants /m2) spacing. thus, the cut stem harvested per plant were recorded maximum in the plants which were pla nted 30x30 cm a pa r t. ma rino et al (2003) concluded that higher planting density increases the number of stems and total fresh weight asparagus p lu mo s us ba ker a nd a s pa r a g us d e ns i f l or u s jessop cv. 81 references anonymous, (2006). production manual cut foliage apeda, pp28. bhattacharjee, s.k. (1999). postharvest management of cut flowers, cut foliage and post production management of potted plants. j. ornam. hort., 2: 32-39. ladha, s. and gunjal, s. (2011). floriculture: international markets. in: floriculture today, pp.1-4. marino, a., ferrante, a., maletta, m. and mensuali-sodi, a. (2003). production and postharvest evaluations of ornamental asparagus spp. adv. hort. sci., 17(2): 88-92. schlosser, w.e. and blatner, k.a. (1997). special forest productsan east-side perspective. report to: usda forest service, interior columbia basin e cosyst em man a gem en t pr oject: sci en ti fi c assessment. pacific northwest research station, portland, 1-3. stamps, r.h. (1997). effects of shade level on growth and vase life of milky way aspidistra, variegated mondo grass and israeli/holland ruscus. cut foliage grower,12: 1-6. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 78-81, 2017 (ms received 25 april 2017, revised 26 may 2017, accepted 30 june 2017) shade and plant density in ruscus it is concluded that ruscus hypophyllum l. grown under 75% shade levels with 30x30 cm spacing and plant density of 18 plants per square meter, produced the maximum yield of cut stems with longer stem length. acknowledment the financial help extended by university grants commission, new delhi in the form of major research pr oject to conduct the exper iments is highly acknowledged. 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf 65 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 65-70, 2017 changes in chemical constituents and overall acceptability of bael-guava nectar and crush during storage harsha rohila, rakesh gehlot, s. siddiqui and rekha centre of food science and technology, ccs haryana agricultural university, hisar 125 004 (haryana) e mail: harsharohila19@gmail.com abstract the bael-guava nectar and crush were analyzed for changes in chemical composition at monthly interval for three months storage period. there was a slight increase in total soluble solids of both the beverage blends. total and reducing sugars, acidity and browning increased significantly, while ascorbic acid and total phenols decreased significantly during three months storage in both the blended beverages. though, the overall acceptability of bael-guava beverages decreased significantly with the advancement in storage period, their overall rating remained above the acceptable level even after three months storage. keywords: bael, guava, nectar, crush, chemical constituents, storage introduction aegle marmelos, commonly called as bael, is a tropical fruit native to southeast asia and is grown throughout india, sri lanka, pakistan, bangladesh, burma, thailand and most of the southeast asian countries. the tree belongs to the rutaceae family and holds a sacred value among hindus and is often worshipped or its leaves are presented to the deities. the pulp contains laxative properties and is used in treatment of gastrointestinal related problems such as diarrhoea, dysentery, constipation and diabetes. bael fruit, because of its hard shell, mucilaginous texture and numerous seeds in its pulp is difficult to eat in raw form, hence, it is not popular as a dessert fruit. the fruit has a great potential for processing into several products like ready-to-serve drink, nectar, squash, crush, syrup, wine, cider, preserve, candy, jam, slab, bar, cheese, toffee and powder. gua va (psidium guajava l. ) belongs to fa mily myrta ceae a nd is a na tive of t r opica l america. it is a rich source of ascorbic acid and other vitamins. apart from vitamin c, it is also a rich source of minerals like calcium, phosphorus, iron. it is very much relished for its fleshy texture, appealing flavour and delicious taste. it contains a p p r ec ia b le qu a nt it ies of a nt iox ida nt s like polyphenols and ascorbic acid that help in reducing incidence of many degenerative diseases such as arthritis, arteriosclerosis, cancer, heart diseases, inflammation and brain dysfunction. fruit bever ages ar e incr ea singly ga ining popularity throughout the world due to nutritive and therapeutic value over synthetic beverages, which can further be improved by blending two or more fruit juices/pulps having excellent flavour, taste, nutritional and medicinal value. consumers, generally, have less preference for bael beverages due to its peculiar taste. guavas, on the other hand, are liked very much by majority of consumers. thus, blending of guava pulp with bael pulp will supplement its blended beverages with vitamins, minerals, besides improving its overall acceptability. keeping this aspect in view, the work was initiated to standardize appropriate combination of bael-guava blends for preparation of nectar and crush, and also to assess the changes in chemical constituents and overall acceptability of beverage blends during storage. material and methods the present investigation was carried out at centre of food science and technology, chaudhary charan singh haryana agricultural university, hisar during the year 2015. uniformly ripe bael and guava fruits were procured from local market of hisar. the original research paper 66 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 65-70, 2017 rohila et al fig. 1 flow sheet for extraction of pulp from bael fruits ripe bael fruits  washing  breaking of fruits  scooping out pulp  addition of water equal to weight of pulp  kneading  heating at 800c  passing through pulper  bael pulp fig. 2 flow sheet for extraction of guava pulp ripe guava fruits  washing and cutting into slices  addition of water (25% to weight of fruit slices)  blending in a mixer  straining through a stainless steel sieve  guava pulp the extracted bael pulp was blended with guava pulp in 100:0, 80:20, 60:40, 40:60, 20:80, and 0:100 proportions. nectar beverages with 20 and 25 per cent pulp, 14 per cent total soluble solids (tss) and 0.24 per cent acidity were prepared from the above blends (fig. 3). for this, total soluble solids (tss) and acidity were first analyzed in bael-guava blends. on the basis of this analysis, requisite quantities of sugar and citric acid dissolved in water were added to bael-guava blends for the adjustment of required tss and acidity in the beverage blends (as per recipes). nectar blends were then filled in pre-sterilized glass bottles (200 ml capacity) leaving 1" headspace, sealed with crown corks and sterilized in boiling water for 25 to 30 minutes. the sterilized bottles were then cooled in air, labelled and stored at room temperature for three months. fig. 3 flow sheet for preparation of bael-guava nectar bael-guava blends (as per recipe)  preparation of sugar syrup (sugar + citric acid + water)  straining  cooling  mixing with blends  filtration  bottling  sealing  sterilization  cooling  labeling  storing at room temperature crush (fig. 4) beverages having 40 and 50% pulp, 55% total soluble solids and 1.0% acidity were prepared from bael-guava blends in different ratios i.e., 100:0, 80:20, 60:40, 40:60, 20:80 and 0:100, respectively. sodium benzoate @ 1 g/l was mixed as a chemical preservative in the crush and filled in 200 ml capacity sterilized glass bottles leaving 2.5 to 3.0 cm headspace, sealed with crown corks, labelled and stored at room temperature. bael and guava fruits were washed thoroughly and the pulp was extracted (figs. 1 and 2). 67 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 65-70, 2017 chemical changes of bael-guava nectar and crush during storage among these blends, one best blend (40 bael:60 guava) was selected on the basis of sensory evaluation along with 100 bael :0 guava and 0 bael:100 guava for storage study. fig. 4 flow sheet for preparation of bael-guava crush bael-guava blends (as per recipe)  preparation of sugar syrup (sugar + citric acid + water)  straining of syrup  cooling  mixing with blends  mixing of sodium benzoate (1g/l crush)  straining  bottling  sealing  labeling  storing at room temperature nectar and crush were analyzed for changes in chemical composition during three months storage. total soluble solids (tss) were estimated at ambient temperature by hand refractometer (0-32% and 2862%) and the values were expressed as per cent tss. total and reducing sugars were estimated by the method of hulme and narain (1931). acidity, ascorbic acid and browning were analyzed by the methods of ranganna (2014), while total phenols were estimated as per the method given by amorium et al. (1997). nectar and crush from bael-guava blends were subjected to by a panel of eight judges using 9-point hedonic scale as described by ranganna (2014). the crush beverages were evaluated after diluting it 5 times (1:4) with water, whereas nectar beverages were ser ved a s such without dilution. t he over a ll acceptability of nectar and crush was based on mean scores obtained from sensory scores of colour and appearance, flavour, taste, mouthfeel. the treatments were replicated thrice, and the data were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) using completely randomized design. the critical difference value at 5% level was used for making comparison among different treatments during storage period. results and discussion there was a gradual increase in total soluble solids of ba elgua va b lended bever a ges . t he increase in total soluble solids of nectar and crush might be due to hydrolysis of polysaccharides and solubilization of pulp constituents during storage. total sugars and reducing sugars of bael-guava nectar and crush increased during three months s tor a ge. t his might b e due to hydr olys is of polysaccharides like pectin, starch, etc. into simple sugars and inversion of non-reducing into reducing suga rs respectively. simila r obser vations were recorded by patil et al. (2011) in rose apple and jamun blended nectar, nagpal and rajyalakshmi (2009) in bael-citrus blended beverages and selvi et al. (2013) in guava-banana-mango mixed fruit squash. the increase in acidity during storage might be due to formation of organic acids by degradation of ascorbic acid. the results are in conformity with the earlier findings of jakhar et al. (2013) in guavabarbados cherry blended rts drink and tiwari and deen (2014) in bael-aloe vera squash. blending of bael pulp with guava pulp resulted in significant increase in ascorbic acid content in bael-guava nectar and crush. there was significant eff ect of differ ent tr ea t ment s a nd stor a ge on ascorbic acid content of bael-guava nectar and crush. ascorbic acid is sensitive to heat, light and is oxidized quickly in the presence of oxygen, hence, it might have been destroyed during processing and s ub s equ ent ly du r ing s t or a ge p er iod. simila r reduction in ascorbic acid content was also recorded by kumar et al. (2009) in aonla-pineapple blended necta r a nd hema la tha et al. (2014) in or a nge blended star gooseberry squash. a gradual loss in total phenols was recorded in both ba el-gua va beverage blends during three months storage. 68 table 1. changes in chemical constituents of bael-guava nectar during storage *bael-guava nectar with 20 and 25 per cent pulp, 14 per cent tss and 0.24 per cent acidity rohila et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 65-70, 2017 69 the phenolic compounds are highly volatile and are easily oxidized. similar findings were also recorded by nidhi et al. (2008) in bael-guava blended beverages and selvamuthukumaran and khanum (2013) in spiced seabuckthorn mixed fruit squash. a gradual increase in browning of bael-guava nectar and crush was observed throughout the storage period of three months. there was significant effect of different table 2. changes in chemical constituents of bael-guava crush during storage *bael-guava crush with 40 and 50 per cent pulp, 55 per cent tss and 1.0 per cent acidity chemical changes of bael-guava nectar and crush during storage j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 65-70, 2017 treatments and storage period on browning of baelguava nectar and crush. t he over a ll a c cep ta b ility of b a el-gua va b ever a ges d ec r ea s ed s ignif ic a nt ly wit h t he a dva ncement in stor a ge per iod, however, their overall rating remained above the acceptable level even after three months storage. 70 references nidhi, gehlot, r., singh, r. and rana, m.k. 2008. changes in chemical composition of ready-to-serve baelguava blended beverage during storage. j. food sci. technol. 45: 378-380. patil, r.m., thippanna, k.s., prasahanth, s.j. and chikkasubbanna, v. 2011. physico-chemical character, sensory quality and storage behaviour of rose apple nectar blended with jamun. the asian journal of horticulture 6: 369-372. ranganna, s. 2014. “handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products”. tata mcgraw hills publishing co. ltd., new delhi. selvamuthukumaran, m. and khanum, f. 2013. development of spiced seabuckthorn [elaeagnus rhamnoides (l.) a. nelson syn. hippophae rhamnoides l.] mixed fr ui t squash. indi an j ournal of tradit ional knowledge 13: 132-141. selvi, j., banumathi, p., kanchana, s. and ilamaran, m. 2013. studies on the preparation of mixed fruit squash from guava, banana and mango. food science research journal 4: 158-163 tiwari, d.k. and deen, b. 2014. studies on development of squash from bael (aegle marmelos correa.) pulp and aloe vera (aloe barbadensis miller.) gel blend. annals of agri-bio research 19: 438-487. amorium, h.v., dougall, d.k. and sharp, w.r. 1997. the effect of carbohydrate and nitrogen concentrations of phenol synthesis in plant scarlet rose cells grown in tissue culture. physiologica plantarum 39: 91-95. hemalatha, h.g., soumya, d.v., padmashri, h.s., rajeshwari, d. and chikkasubbanna, v. 2014. organoleptic evaluation of orange blended star gooseberry squash and its storage behaviour. environment and ecology 32: 1563-1565 hulme, a.c. and narain, r. 1931. the ferricyanide method for determination of reducing sugars. a modification of hagedom-jensen-hanes technique. biochem. j. 25: 1051-1061. jakhar, m.s., vaish, p.k. and pathak, s. 2013. studies on the standardization and preservation of guava (psidium guajava l.) and barbados cherry (malpighia glabra l.) blended ready-to-serve beverage. prog. hort. 45: 95-99. kumar, s., godara, r.k. and singh, d. 2009. preparation of nectar from aonla-pineapple blend and its storage studies. haryana journal of horticultural sciences 38: 213-215. nagpal, s. and rajyalakshmi, p. 2009. quality and storage of rts beverage from bael and citrus fruit blends. beverage & food world (36): 24-26. (ms received 22 october 2016, revised 12 march 2017, accepted 04 april 2017) rohila et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 65-70, 2017 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf introduction source of the explant plays an important role in successful plant regeneration. explants collected from the field are a major source of contamination of cultures, and results in a reduction in the number of clean cultures. various factors like temperature, moisture, light, etc. collectively influence germination. in vitro seed germination is the best alternative if a crop is sexually propagated. seed-borne infections may be an important source of the primary inoculum and the seed should be treated before sowing to obtain good germination and a healthy crop (habib et al, 2007). mercuric chloride-hgcl2 (sarker et al, 2006) is a widely used chemical for effective control of in vitro bacterial and fungal infections in eggplant effectively. most of the seeds have a hard seed coat, and are easy to disinfect, generally escaping the adverse effects of the chemical. but hgcl2 is found to have a lethal effect on initiation of cultures in solanaceous crops. a number of other chemicals like sodium hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide are used as disinfectants for in vitro seed germination. rick and borgnino (1989) advocated the use of 2.7% sodium effect of seed disinfectants on in vitro seed germination and seedling development in eggplant m. kaur, a.s. dhatt, and a.s. sidhu1 department of vegetable science punjab agricultural university, ludhiana-141004, india e-mail: mkaur97@rediffmail.com abstract the present investigation reports effects of disinfectants on culture contamination, seed germination and seedling growth in eggplant. mercuric chloride hampers seed germination when seeds are treated with 0.1% solution above 2 min duration and lesser durations are not helpful in controlling in vitro contamination. the highest seed germination (89.97%) was recorded with 50% commercial bleach for 20 min in the genotype bl-3, followed by br-16 (88.53%), br-14 (86.19%), bl-5 (86.16%) and bsr-23 (85.57%). however, least number of seeds germinated in br-18 (10.94%), bsr-25 (13.27%) and bl-7 (18.62%) when disinfected with 75% commercial bleach for 25min. overall results revealed that 50% commercial bleach concentration (73.76%) was better than 75% (36.85%), and 20 min duration (60.82%) was better than 25 min (49.80%) for seed disinfection. among the varieties, bl-3 was at the top (68.85%) and br-18 at the lowest (34.16%) edge for per cent seed germination. seedling growth (cm) with use of commercial bleach was quite satisfactory compared to disinfection with hgcl2, where, 50% commercial bleach favored a good stand of plant lets even after 10 days, showing a healthy root (3cm), hypocotyl (5cm) and cotyledons (1.5cm). key words: seed germination, seedling growth, culture contamination, bleach, mercuric chloride, sodium hypochlorite 1icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india hypochlorite (half-strength standard household bleach) for 30 min for improvement in seed germination. commercial bleach can thus used for disinfection. bleach is readily available and can be diluted to desired concentrations. chemically, it contains sodium hypochlorite (4%), sodium hydroxide (1%), and amine oxide (1%) that are used as disinfectants for in vitro cultures. sodium hypochlorite (naocl) is effective as a disinfecting and sterilizing agent against a broad range of bacteria, viruses and fungi (aref and baki, 1974). germination of both mature and immature seeds was rather stimulated by soaking seeds in 3.5% sodium hypochlorite solution for 15 min (ho et al, 1995). sodium hypochlorite accelerated germination and improved germination rate in other plant species and vigour index in all the cases studied (pernezny et al, 2002). objectives of the present study were to examine effects of various chemicals as seed treatments, including a range of concentrations and duration of exposure, on in vitro seed contamination, subsequent seed-germination and seedling growth. emphasis was placed on evaluation of mercuric chloride and the commercial bleach. j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):61-65, 2014 62 material and methods the present investigation was carried out in dr g.s. khush laboratories of school of agricultural biotechnology, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during 2005-2008. ten genotypes of eggplant, viz., bl-3, bl-5, br-14, bsr21, bsr-27, br-16, bl-7, bsr-23, br-18 and bsr-25 were used in the investigation. seeds of each variety were first washed with teepoltm (labolene) to remove dirt and light-weight seeds. only bold seeds were selected and treated with 0.1% hgcl2 and the commercial bleach (75% and 50%) for different lengths of time (2, 4, 6, 8 min for hgcl2, and 20, 25 min for the commercial bleach), respectively. after treatment with hgcl2, seeds were washed thrice, under a laminar air flow cabinet, with autoclaved milliq water to remove traces of hgcl2 on the surface of the seeds. commercial bleach treated seeds, however, were washed till formation of the foam stopped. disinfected seeds were shifted to clean and autoclaved petridishes. the seeds were then cultured on half-strength ms medium (murashige and skoog, 1962) solidified with 0.8% agar for germination, and incubated at 25±2°c in the dark for 20 days. each jam-jar was inoculated with 10-14 seeds. observations on culture contamination, seed germination and seedling growth were made. seed germination (%) was calculated using the number of seeds germinated from among seeds cultured in clean cultures. statistical analysis was done in crd factorial design, using cpcs-1 software package (cheema and singh, 1990). results were compared at 1 per cent level of least square differences (lsd), and interpreted. results and discussion culture contamination (%) mercuric chloride was found to be more effective of the two in controlling culture contamination. culture contamination was less (3.99%, 8.66% and 25.10%, respectively), when seeds were treated with 0.1% hgcl2 for 8, 6 and 4 min; however, treatment for 2 min showed highest (53.33%) per cent contaminated cultures even before actual germination started (fig. 1). some cultures, although clean, did not show the good seedling growth required for culture initiation. hypocotyl and the cotyledon remained mostly inside the seed coat. exposure of seeds to 0.1% hgcl2 for over 2 min further hampered seed germination and seedling growth. seeds turned brown at first, and then black, as days passed, but did not germinate. growth of the seedlings may have been hindered due to excessive exposure to the harsh chemical. seed coat of eggplant is thin compared to that in woody plant species that escape this effect. thus, the chemical may enter the seed through the thin seed coat, and may affect germination of the seed and growth of seedlings. commercial bleach also reduced culture contamination (24.88%, 23.77%, 22.21% and 13.99, respectively, with 50% conc. for 20 min, 50% conc. for 25 min, 75% conc. for 20 min and 75% conc. for 25 min.) exhibiting good seedling growth while having satisfactory roots, hypocotyl and cotyledons (fig.1). increased concentration of the bleach, while reducing the number of contaminated cultures did not hamper seedling growth. seed germination was delayed by 2-3 days with use of higher concentration (75%) of bleach than with 50% concentration. chemically, it contains sodium hypochlorite (4%), sodium hydroxide (1%), and amine oxide (1%) that are used as disinfectants in in vitro culture. sodium hypochlorite (naocl) is effective as a disinfecting and sterilizing agent against a broad range of bacteria, viruses and fungi (mustafa, 2002). this is also found to increase seed germination in field conditions. seed germination (%) hgcl2 was highly toxic and inhibited seed germination. no germination was seen, when seeds of different genotypes were treated with 0.1% hgcl2 for 8, 6 and 4min time duration; however, 2 min treatment showed 9.27% germination, with poor seedling growth (fig. 2a). genotypic differences were also observed, where br-18 and bsr-25 showed the poorest response to hgcl2 treatment. mercuric chloride resulted in delayed germination and restricted growth in eggplant seedlings. as per sarker et al (2006), t1 0.1% hgcl2 for 8min, t2 0.1% hgcl2 for 6min, t3 0.1% hgcl2 for 4min, t4 0.1% hgcl2 for 2min, t5 50% commercial bleach for 20min, t6 50% commercial bleach for 25min, t7 75% commercial bleach for 20min, t8 75% commercial bleach for 25min. fig 1. effect of various disinfectants on culture contamination in eggplant j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):61-65, 2014 kaur et al 63 seeds treated with 0.1% (w/v) mercuric chloride for 5-6 min showed germination in eggplant. however, increased concentration of, and longer exposure to, mercuric chloride while further reducing bacterial contamination, caused a modest reduction in seed germination and growth too, as reported by ling et al (2010). the effect of commercial bleach concentrations on seed germination in different genotypes of eggplant is given in fig. 2b. highest seed germination with 50% commercial bleach was observed in the genotype bl-3 (85.80%), followed by br-16 (84.25%), bl-5 (82.23%), br-14 (82.15%), and bsr-23 (82.13%), however, corresponding germination values with 75% commercial bleach were: 51.91, 45.19, 44.44, 43.00 and 44.29%, respectively. the length of treatment with commercial bleach significantly affected seed germination in different genotypes (fig. 2c). it was highest in bl-3 (74.58%), followed by br-16 (70.89%), bl-5 (69.17%), br-14 (68.94%) and bsr-23 (68.93%) with 20min duration. however, increase in duration to 25min lowered germination rate to 63.13, 58.55, 57.50, 56.20 and 57.49 % in the respective genotypes. interaction effect of concentrations and durations of commercial bleach treatment on seed germination was significant too (fig 2d). highest seed germination of 77.30% was seen with 50% commercial bleach for 20min duration in all the genotypes. however, it was lowest (29.38%) with 75% commercial bleach for 25min treatment. similar increase in germination was also reported in conifer seeds by wenny and dumroese (1987). interaction of genotype, and concentration and duration of exposure to commercial bleach in table 1 revealed that seed germination (89.97%) was highest with 50% commercial bleach for 20min in bl-3, followed by br-16 (88.53%), br-14 (86.19%), bl-5 (86.16%), and bsr-23 (85.57%). however, least number of seeds germinated in br-18 (10.94%), bsr-25 (13.27%) and bl7 (18.62%) when disinfected with 75% commercial bleach for 25min. overall, the results revealed that 50% commercial bleach concentration (73.76%) was better than 75% fig 2. a) effect of hgcl2 (0.1%) on seed germination (%) in various eggplant genotypes b) effect of commercial bleach concentrations on seed germination (%) c) effect of duration of commercial bleach treatment on seed germination (%) d) effect of commercial bleach concentration and duration of treatment on seed germination (%) table 1. effect of commercial bleach concentrations duration and genotype on seed germination (%) in eggplant genotype commercial bleach genotype 75% 50% mean 25min 20min 25min 20min bl-3 44.63 (41.90) 59.19 (50.27) 81.64 (64.60) 89.97 (71.52) 68.85 (57.07) bl-5 36.70 (37.26) 52.18 (46.23) 78.29 (62.21) 86.16 (68.14) 63.33 (53.46) br-14 34.30 (35.83) 51.70 (45.95) 78.11 (62.07) 86.19 (68.15) 62.57 (53.00) bsr-21 29.89 (33.12) 43.66 (41.34) 72.27 (58.20) 78.06 (62.04) 55.97 (48.68) bsr-27 32.02 (34.44) 46.07 (42.73) 73.46 (58.97) 80.80 (63.99) 58.08 (50.03) br-16 37.14 (37.53) 53.24 (46.84) 79.96 (63.38) 88.53 (70.18) 64.72 (54.48) bl-7 18.62 (25.54) 32.35 (34.65) 58.23 (49.71) 62.85 (52.43) 43.01 (40.58) bsr-23 36.28 (37.02) 52.29 (46.29) 78.70 (62.49) 85.57 (67.66) 63.21 (53.36) br-18 10.94 (19.30) 23.27 (28.82) 48.47 (44.10) 53.96 (47.25) 34.16 (34.87) bsr-25 13.27 (21.31) 29.36 (32.79) 53.16 (46.79) 60.63 (51.29) 39.18 (38.05) conc. mean 36.85 (36.96) 73.76 (59.76) duration mean 25min: 49.80 (44.79) 20min: 60.80 (51.93) lsd (p=0.01) conc: 0.25 duration: 0.27 genotype: 0.56 conc x duration: 0.35 conc x genotype: 0.80 duration x genotype: 0.82 conc x duration x genotype: 1.13 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):61-65, 2014 seed disinfectants and in vitro response of eggplant seeds 64 (36.85%) and 20min duration (60.80%) was better than 25min (49.80%) for seed disinfection. among the genotypes, bl-3 was at the top (68.85%) and br-18 at the lowest (34.16%) edge for per cent seed germination. seed germination using the commercial bleach was quite satisfactory compared to that in hgcl2 treatment, exhibiting normal growth and development of seedlings (plate 1a). seed germination was observed after 15 days in hgcl2 treatment, while, it was within a week using the commercial bleach. commercial bleach contains 4% sodium hypochlorite (naocl), which acts as a sterilizing agent. kaur et al (2011a & b) also used it for sterilizing eggplant seeds. however, mir et al (2008) used 0.1% hgcl2 for 3 min for disinfecting eggplant seeds. differential response in seed germination using various disinfectants for different length of time can be due to genotypic differences, method of treatment and cultural condition during the experiment. seed germination (%) and seedling growth in eggplant were also seen to be negatively affected by increasing concentration of the disinfectant. a delayed germination (by 3-4 days) and reduced seedling growth was observed with increase in concentration and time of exposure in commercial bleach treatment. mustafa (2002) also reported similar results. seedling growth seedling growth (cm) with the use of commercial bleach was quite satisfactory compared to disinfection with hgcl2. seedlings exhibited normal growth and development, as visible in fig iii and plate1b. seeds did not germinate when treated with 0.1% hgcl2 for over two minutes. two-minute treatment also gave a poor stand of germinated seedlings with restricted growth having only root growth after 15 days of culturing. however, 50% commercial bleach favored good stand even after 10 days with healthy root (3cm), hypocotyl (5cm) and cotyledons (1.5cm). increased concentration of commercial bleach (75%) also produced seedlings with slow growth rate of root (1cm), hypocotyl (4cm) and cotyledons (1cm). mustafa (2002) also reported similar results in flax. type of seed disinfectant in eggplant affects culture contamination, seed germination and seedling growth significantly. moreover, the concentration, time duration of disinfection and genotype also affect seed germination and seedling growth potential. it is concluded that commercial bleach is better than hgcl2 for initiation of in vitro cultures in eggplant. references aref, a. and baki, a. 1974. pitfalls in using sodium hypochlorite as a seed disinfectant in 14c incorporation studies. plant physiol., 53:768-771 cheema, h.s. and singh, b. 1990. a user’s manual to cpcs-1. a computer programme package for the analysis of commonly used experimental designs, pp-1, pau, ludhiana, punjab, india habib, a., sahi, s.t., ghazanfar, m.u. and ali, s. 2007. location of seed-borne mycoflora of eggplant (solanum melongena l.) in different seed components and impact on seed germinability. int’l. j. agril. biol., 9:514–516 ho, c.k., jacobs, g. and donald, d.g.m. 1995. effects of sodium hypochlorite, ethanol and culture medium on seed germination of paulownia species. seed sci. tech., 23:157-163 kaur, m., dhatt, a.s., sandhu, j.s., sidhu, a.s. and gosal, s.s. 2011a. role of genotype, explant and growth harmones on regeneration in eggplant (solanum melongena). indian. j. agri. sci., 81:38-43 plate 1. a) seed-germination enhanced with 50% commercial bleach (cb) b) effect of hgcl2 (0.1%) and commercial bleach (75% and 50%) on seedling growth (cm) in eggplant after 10 days of culture fig 3. effect of hgcl2 and commercial bleach on seedling growth (cm) in eggplant j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):61-65, 2014 kaur et al 65 kaur, m., dhatt, a.s., sandhu, j.s. and gossal, s.s. 2011b. in vitro plant regeneration in brinjal from cultured seedling e plant. indian j. hort., 68:61-65 ling, t., fangke, y. and jun, r. 2010. effect of mercury to seed germination, coleoptile growth and root elongation of four vegetables. res. j. phytochem., 4:225-233 mir, k.a., dhatt, a.s., sandhu, j.s. and gosal, s.s. 2008. genotype, explant and culture medium effects on somatic embryogenesis in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). hort. environ. biotechnol., 49:182187 murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. plant., 15: 473-497 mustafa, 2002. the effect of sodium hypochlorite solutions on in vitro seedling growth and shoot regeneration of flax (linum usitatissimum). naturwissenschaften, 89:259-261 pernezny, k., nagata, r., raid, r.n., collins, j. and carroll, a. 2002. investigation of seed treatments for management of bacterial leaf spot of lettuce. plant dis., 86:151-55 rick, c.m. and borgnino, f.h. 1989. a method for improving seed germination of solanaceous species. http:// tgrc.ucdavis.edu/seed_germ.html sarker, r.h., sabina, y. and hoque, m.i. 2006. multiple shoot formation in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). pl. tiss. cult. biotech., 16:53-61 wenny, d.l. and dumroese, r.k. 1987. germination of conifer seeds surface-sterilized with bleach. tree planters’ notes, 38:18-21 (ms received 03 april 2012, revised 14 october 2013, accepted 29 november 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):61-65, 2014 seed disinfectants and in vitro response of eggplant seeds introduction brinjal (solanum melongena l.) is one of the major cultivated vegetable crops grown round the year. it has high nutritive and medicinal value. exploitation of hybrid vigour in vegetable crops is an important breeding objective in countries like japan, netherlands, uk and usa. in india although some brinjal hybrids have been released for cultivation, there is a scope in this crop to strengthen hybridbreeding programmes. brinjal, often a self-pollinated crop that also shows some degree of crossing, has the advantages of easy crossing, production of large number of seeds per cross and low seed requirement per unit area for exploitation of heterosis . hybrid breeding entails evaluation of elite parents and a number of crosses (along with the type of gene action involved required, to chalk out breeding strategies) to identify heterotic hybrids and desirable parents. the present study was, therefore, undertaken to study extent of heterosis over the better parent in line x tester design for yield and yield-attributing traits in brinjal. material and methods the present study was conducted at vegetable research farm, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during 1998-99 on ten lines (punjab bahar, he-12, pant rituraj, sm 17-4, sada bahar baingan, pant-samrat, hr112, h-7, h-9 and kt-4); four diverse testers (punjab neelam, aruna, s-16 and punjab barsati) and 40 f 1 hybrids thereof. hand-emasculation and pollination was done during autumn, while, seeds of f 1 hybrids and their parents were heterosis for fruit yield and its components in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) kuldeep singh, a.s. sidhu1 and ajay kumar2 department of vegetable crops punjab agricultural university ludhiana-141 004, india e-mail: ajaykpau@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted with 14 parents and 40 f 1 s to study heterosis in brinjal. crosses showing significant heterosis over the better parent were: he12 x aruna for first fruit set; br-112 x aruna for fruit length and diameter; pant samrat x punjab neelam for number of fruits per plant; h-7 x aruna for fruit weight; h-9 x s-16 for total yield per plant; negative heterosis were recorded in kt-4 x aruna for borer and pant in rituraj x punjab neelam for nematode infestation. key words: brinjal, heterosis, yield, better parent 1indian institute of horticulture research, hessaraghatta, bangalore-560089 2farm advisory service scheme, amritsar-143001 sown in a nursery and transplanted during spring. seedlings 8-10 cm tall were planted in the field at a spacing of 75cm between rows and 50cm between plants, in randomized block design with three replications. each treatment comprised seven plants in a row and data were recorded on five competitive plants. recommended agronomical and cultural practices were followed. observations were recorded on days to first fruit set, fruit length, fruit diameter, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, yield per plant, and, borer and nematode infestation. heterosis over the better parent was calculated as superiority of the f 1 cross over the better parent. j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):142-144, 2012 standard error of difference for heterotic effects was calculated using the formula: where, ems = error mean square from analysis of variance r = number of replications 143 heterosis in brinjal critical difference was computed as se x t value at error degrees of freedom, at 5% level of significance results and discussion analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among treatments for all the characters. estimates of heterosis over the better parent for various traits are presented in table 1. results revealed that for days to first fruit set, only 14 crosses of 40 showed significant, negative, desirable heterosis over the respective better parent. heterosis ranged from -0.32 to -12.05% for br-112 x aruna and he12 x aruna. crosses showing desirable heterosis over the better parent were: he-12 x aruna, kt-4 x aruna, sm17-4 x s-16, and pant samrat x aruna. the earliest cross, he-12 x aruna, took 30 days from transplanting to first fruit set. positive heterosis was observed for fruit length, fruit diameter, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and total yield per plant. four crosses table 1. per cent heterosis over the better parent for various traits in brinjal parent / hybrid days to fruit fruit no. of average total yield borer nematode first fruit length diameter fruits per fruit (fruits/ infestation infestation set (cm) (cm) plant weight (g) plant) (g) index index (fruit wt. %) pb. bahar x aruna -7.749** -41.379** 25.893** -52.611** 32.699** -9.195* 31.425 12.081 x s-16 1.676 -55.338** -41.990** -19.737** -1.476 -20953** 16.931 0.079 x pb. neelam 17.838** -53.415** -0.358 -21.709** -5.536** -17.155** 76.109** 8.567 x pb. barsati 37.376** -57.828** 09.551 -60.748** 12.997** -46.052** 19.552 -22.538** he-12 x aruna -12.050** 3.797 -19.040** -37.976** 7.147** -1.916 54.855** -9.108 x s-16 -4.234* -2.551 -14.499** -6.773** -1.784 -5.078 -3.569 8.896 x pb neelam 9.450** 27.067** -3.806 3.648 -28.892** 14.844** 59.830** -19.070** x pb barsati -1.302 4.489 17.582** -41.434** 4.792* -23.919** 48.498** 16.178 sada bahar x aruna 10.735** -31.434** -0.670 -49.474** 10.600** -37.353** 94.351** 24.161** x s-16 47.508** -32.329** -33.059** -53.518** 5.131* -54.118** 19.716 29.468** x pb neelam 14.943** -45.023** -39.615** -53.905** -9.088** -34.412** 58.481+** 19.974** x pb barsati 25.289** -36.270** -3.842** -50.78** -6.190* -43.228** 61.325** 6.390 pant samrat x aruna -10.732** -4.511 -16.675** -36.236** -22.937** -6.513 20.412 27.270** x s-16 6.135** -5.707 -3.195 -2.625 -23.858 -7.143 0.994 23.484** x pb neelam 0.937 -5.954 -21.923** 19.995** -27.400** -12.970** 32.886* -26.227** x pb barsati -1.242 -3.423** 0.764 -63.884** -35.243** -62.536** 59.710** 6.506 br-112 x aruna -0.321 56.671** 44.827** -64.809** -21.611** -40.996** 25.302 -6.108 x s-16 2.256 5.495 -10.345* -24.336** -5.535** -12.857 -12.871 5.825 x pb neelam -1.885 -11.336* -15.385** -16.525* -14.323** -25.105** 38.292** 4.971 x pb barsati 13.890** -16.145** 24.770** -67.290 25.886** -35.591** 40.594** 22.656** h-7 x aruna 23.796 13.728** 16.964** -41.251** 61.908 -4.902 87.295** -12.108 x s-16 0.000 -14.544** -17.389** -36.872** -17.548** -24.771** 66.643+** 2.992 x pb neelam -6.217** -14.235** -30.239** -43.749** 35.997** -21.797** 45.632 -16.290** x pb barsati -5.866+ -42.018** 10.853 -25.855** -26.366** -45.718** 52.478** -22.538** h-9 x aruna -6.521** -29.104** -5.960 -45.994** 20668** -5.900 6.273 9.080 x s-16 4.565* -20523** -34.931** 14.477* 21.861** 39.524** 17.775 0.079 x pb neelam -6.198** -17.340 -42.347** 17.391** -28.413** 0.795 12.599 0.250** x pb barsati 0.985 -15052** -7.163 -42.991** -24.049** -47.320** 18.733 25.848** kt-4 x aruna -11.789** -5.141* 2.232 -41.812** 0.360 -35.249** -9.549** -5.146 x s-16 2.018 -18.665** -27.582** -23.077** -13.067 -14.191** -16.889 -5.146 x pb neelam -5.052* -35.539** -29.615** -33.846** -39.492** -32.217** -16.264 0.000 x pb barsati -0.679 -15.378** -4.558 -54.206** 26.284** -42.219** 41.992* 15.393+** ptr x aruna -7.395** 1.110 -7.864 -25.783** -42.278 4.214 -1.752 0.000 x s-16 -0.339 -3.797 -7.363 3.296 -27.729** -0.517 -28.392 0.000 x pb neelam 7.756** -18.699** -23.873** -6.091 -18.683** -23.012** -6.775 -28.584** x pb barsati -2.144 -20.948** -3.878 -44.598** -19.443** 29.870** -2.996 12.896** sm 17-4 x aruna -2.527 -9.165* 2.522 -34.145** 0.788 -27.586** 16.618+* 24.270** x s-16 -11.605** 22.125 -12.262 -34.220 11.467** 0.529 -8.851** -20.572 x pb neelam -6.315** -8.171 -9.721** -40.887** -30.526** -19.665** 72.093* -23.870 x pb barsati 5.556** -5.518 -15.281 -47.663** 15.053** -39.827** 34.064* 3.311 cd at (p=0.05) 1.435 0.776 0.544 1.110 3.164 20.027 3.887 0.578 cd at (p=0.01) 1.899 1.027 0.720 1.469 4.187 93.661 5.143 0.765 *, ** significant at 5 and 1 % levels, respectively j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):142-144, 2012 144 out of 40 showed significant, positive heterosis over the better parent for fruit length, and it ranged from 1.11% to 55.67%. crosses showing significant positive-heterosis were: br112 x aruna and pant rituraj x aruna. range of positive heterosis over the better parent for fruit diameter was 2.33% to 44.83%. only five crosses out of 40 showed significant positive-heterosis over the respective parent. the best cross was br-112 x aruna. maximum positive-heterosis for number of fruits per plant ranged from 3.30% to 19.99%. only three crosses out of 40 showed significant positive-heterosis over the better parent (pant samrat x punjab neelam, h-9 x punjab neelam, and h-9 x s-16). maximum desirable heterosis for average fruit weight ranged from 0.36% to 61.91%. only 13 crosses out of 40 showed significant positive-heterosis over their respective better parent (h-7 x aruna, punjab bahar x aruna, kt-4 x punjab barsati, br112 x punjab barsati, and h-9 x s-16). these results are in agreement with those of dixit et al (1987), balmohan et al (1983), dixit and gautam (1987), singh and parsad (1995) and prasath et al (2000). maximum desirable heterosis over the better parent for yield per plant was 0.53 to 39.52%. the best heterotic cross was h-9 x s-16, with fruit yield of 976.67g/plant, followed by he-12 x punjab neelam (803.9g/plant). significant positive heterosis for yield per plant was earlier reported by salehuzzaman (1981), singh et al (1982), patil and shinda (1984), singh and kumar (1988), prasath et al (2000), das and barua (2001) and ashwani and khandewal (2003). negative heterosis is desirable for borer and nematode infestation. most desirable heterosis for borer infestation ranged from -1.75% to -28.39%. only two hybrids of the 40 studied showed significant negative, desirable heterosis: kt-4x aruna and sm 17-4 x s-16. these results are in agreement with findings of dahiya et al (1985). range of negative desirable heterosis for nematode infestation was from -5.15% to -28.58%. crosses showing significant desirable heterosis were pant rituraj x punjab neelam, pant smrat x punjab neelam, punjab bahar x punjab barsati, he-12 x punjab neelam and h-7 x punjab neelam. these brinjal hybrids may be commercially exploited. references ashwani, r.c. and khandewal, r.c. 2003. hybrid vigour in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). ann. agril. res. news series, 24:833-37 balmohan, t.n., subbiah, r. and shanmugavelue, k.g. 1983.studies on heterosis in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). in: proc. scientific meeting in genetics and improvement of heterotic systems, coimbatore (india), school of genetics, tamil nadu agri. univ., pp. 23-24 dahiya, m.s., dhankar, b.s., kalloo, g. and pandita, m.l. 1985. line x tester analysis for the study of combining ability in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). hayrana j. hort. sci., 14:102-07 das, g. and barua, n.s. 2001. heterosis and combining ability for yield and its components in brinjal. ann. agri. res. news series, 22:399-403 dixit, j. and gautam, n.v. 1987. studies on hybrid vigour in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). ind. j. hort., 44:74-77 dixit, j., bhutani, r.d. and dubi, b.s. 1987. heterosis and combining ability in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). ind. j. agri. sci., 52:444-47 patil, r.b. and shinde, s.r. 1984. heterosis in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). j. maharashtra agri. univ., 9:289-92 prasath, d., natarajan, s. and thamburaj, s. 2000. line x tester analysis for heterosis in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). orissa j. hort., 28:59-64 salehuzzaman, m. 1981. investigation on hybrid vigour in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). sabrao j. bangladesh, 13:25-31 singh, b. and kumar, n. 1988. studies on hybrid vigour and combining ability in birnjal (solanum melongena l.). veg. sci., 15:72-78 singh, d.p. and prasad, v.s.r.k. 1995. heterosis in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). ind. j. hort., 52:291-95 singh, s.n., singh, n.d. and hazarika, g.n. 1982. a note on degree of dominance and parental mean performance in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). haryana j. hort. sci., 11:146-48 (ms received 26 november 2011, revised 11 july 2012) kuldeep singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):142-144, 2012 effect of plant growth regulators on yield and quality in gladiolus under bay island conditions v. baskaran, k. abirami and s. dam roy central island agricultural research institute (ciari) port blair 744101, andaman and nicobar islands, india e.mail: vbaski01@gmail.com abstract field experiments were conducted for two consecutive seasons during 2011-12 and 2012-13 to study the effect of plant growth regulators on gladiolus cv. chandini. the results revealed that various growth, flowering and corm characters were significantly affected with the application of different growth regulators at different concentrations. earliness in corm sprouting, spike emergence and maximum duration of spike was observed in ga3 500ppm. maximum number of leaves per plant, plant height, maximum spike length, rachis length and number of florets per spike were observed in ga3 750ppm. more number of shoots per corm (3.3) was recorded by benzyl adenine (ba) at 75ppm. with respect to corm characters maximum number of corms and cormels per plant were observed in ba 100ppm. maximum weight of single corm, weight of corms per plant, size of single corm and volume of single corm were recorded in ga3 500ppm. maximum weight of cormels per plant was recorded in ba 100ppm. maximum value of propagation coefficient was recorded in ga3 500ppm (318.3%). key words: gladiolus, ga3, ba, naa short communication gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus l.) is one of the most important bulbous ornamental crops grown in many parts of the world either as cut flower or for garden display. it is popularly known as queen of the bulbous flowers due to its attractive shades, varying sizes of flowers, brilliant colour tones and long lasting vase life. the magnificent inflorescence is also used for making bouquets and floral decorations. it has a great share in cut flower industry and fetches good premium for the money invested. it is cultivated all over the country due to ever increasing demand of this elegant cut flower. the andaman and nicobar islands offer good scope for cultivation of wide variety of flowers because of its diversities in topography, altitude and climatic conditions. congenial agro-climatic conditions coupled with rich fertile soils, well distributed rainfall throughout the year ensure year round production of tropical and sub tropical flowers. it has great potential to emerge as the major supplier of many floricultural products. due to changes in social and cultural lifestyle of people, cut flowers have found an important place in various social functions. taking into consideration the unique agro-climatic conditions of the bay islands, demand of flowers by islanders and tourists, cultivation of gladiolus has bright prospects. however, this potential remain untapped due to limited access to technologies, the farmers have very little idea about the scientific cultivation of this crop. synthetic growth regulating chemicals have been reported to be very effective in manipulating growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus (mahesh and misra, 1993; baskaran and misra, 2007; suresh kumar et al, 2008). they have been reported in enabling removal or circumvention of many of the barriers imposed by heredity and environment. flower cultivation in the andaman and nicobar islands is gaining importance due to its ever increasing demand both for inland and tourism requirements. gladiolus is one of the major cut flower crops and its cultivation can potentially increase the island farmers’ economic prosperity as the demand is high in the islands. the performance of any crop or variety largely depends on genotypic and environmental interaction. as a result, crop or cultivars, which perform well in one region, may not perform same in other region of varying climatic conditions. hence, it is necessary to study the effect of growth regulators on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus under bay island conditions. j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):213-216, 2014 214 the experiment was conducted for two consecutive seasons during november april of the years 2011-12 and 2012-13 in the division of horticulture and forestry, cari, port blair, andaman and nicobar islands, which is situated at the eastern coast of india in bay of bengal (10°30’ and 13°42’ n latitude and 92°14’ and 90°16’ e longitude) having a typical tropical and humid climate with annual precipitation of 3086 mm with a short dry spell of 4 months (januaryapril) and the recorded relative humidity is about 82%. healthy, uniform sized (8-10cm circumference) corms of gladiolus cv. chandhini were planted at a spacing of 30 x 40cm, following randomized block design with three replications. in total, there were 10 different treatments viz., t1ba @ 75ppm, t2ba @ 100ppm, t3ba @ 125ppm, t4ga3 @ 250ppm, t5 ga3 @ 500ppm, t6ga3 @ 750ppm, t7 naa @100 ppm, t8naa @ 200ppm, t9naa @ 300ppm and control. corms were soaked in growth regulator solution overnight (12h) and shade dried. the crop was grown with all recommended cultivation practices throughout the experiment. the observations were recorded on various vegetative growth, floral and corm production parameters. two years data was pooled and statistically analyzed. the data presented in table 1 showed that all the vegetative and floral characters were significantly affected by pre plant corm soaking treatment of plant growth regulators. the growth regulators had profound effect on corm sprouting. earliness in corm sprouting was recorded by ga3 at 500ppm (9.2 days) followed by ba at 125ppm (10.4 days) over control (20.3 days). the present results are in conformity with baskaran and misra (2007) and kumar et al (2002) in gladiolus. this may be due to free ga3 which is active in breaking down the reserved food material by hydrolytic enzymes in the presence of sufficient moisture and hence caused earlier sprouting (kumar and singh, 2005). ginzburg (1973) reported that ethephon promoted the growth of dormant corms and application of ba induced ethylene production. promotional effect of ba was reported by ram et al (2002) in gladiolus cv. friendship. maximum number of leaves per plant was obtained by ga3 at 750ppm (8.5) and minimum was in control (5.7). number of leaves per plant increased with increasing concentrations of ga3 which was found to be at par with naa 200 and 300ppm (7.8 and 7.2, respectively). this may be due to ga3 exhibited its characteristic effect on shoot elongation leading to the production of more number of leaves. this increase in number of leaves by naa might be due to the fact that naa promotes vegetative growth by active cell division, cell enlargement and cell elongation. the similar results are reported by ravidas et al (1992) in gladiolus and reddy (1998) in tuberose. more number of shoots per corm was observed by ba at 75ppm (3.3), whereas minimum number of shoots was observed in control (1.3). this may be due to breaking of dormancy by ba and thereby enhanced sprouting. ba promotes cell division and shoot differentiation resulting into increased number of shoots per corm. in general, the plants treated with ga3 recorded the maximum plant height whereas plants treated with ba recorded minimum plant height. maximum plant height was recorded in ga3 at 750ppm (92.5cm) and minimum in ba at 125ppm (54.5cm). ga3 induced the active cell division and cell elongation resulting in enhancement in plant height greulach and haesloop (1958). the decrease in plant height with application of ba might be due to reducing apical dominance. similar results have been reported by sindhu and verma (1998); maurya and nagda (2002) and sharma et al (2004) in gladiolus. table 1. effect of plant growth regulators on growth and flowering of gladiolus cv. chandini treatments days number number plant first duration number spike spike rachis takenfor 50% of of height flower of of emergence length length sprouting leaves shoots (cm) initiation flower florets (days) (cm) (cm) (days) (days) ba 75ppm 12.8 6.0 3.3 55.8 82.3 9.8 7.0 70.7 53.0 30.5 ba 100ppm 13.5 6.3 2.7 55.0 69.5 10.1 8.7 61.3 49.5 21.1 ba 125ppm 10.4 6.7 2.8 54.5 59.3 11.2 7.3 49.7 51.0 33.0 ga3 250ppm 12.4 7.2 2.2 79.9 54.3 13.0 9.0 46.0 58.3 39.9 ga3 500ppm 9.2 7.6 2.0 82.9 53.0 15.6 10.0 45.3 62.0 40.2 ga3 750ppm 11.2 8.5 1.8 92.5 60.9 13.7 11.3 52.3 63.1 45.3 naa 100ppm 17.4 6.8 1.4 70.9 82.4 10.8 7.7 71.3 53.0 32.8 naa 200ppm 16.2 7.8 1.4 78.7 69.7 11.7 8.0 59.7 59.6 33.1 naa 300ppm 14.3 7.2 1.8 73.5 60.5 12.0 7.0 52.0 60.3 32.3 control 20.3 5.7 1.3 71.4 75.0 8.0 6.7 64.0 53.2 31.5 cd (p= 0.05) 3.0 0.9 1.1 9.0 5.3 1.9 2.7 4.2 8.4 8.3 baskaran et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):213-216, 2014 215 early spike emergence was recorded by ga3 at 500ppm (45.3 days) which was found to be at par with ga3 at 250ppm (46 days) whereas late spike emergence was observed in naa at 100ppm (71.3 days). early flowering was recorded in ga3 at 500ppm (53.0 days) which was found to be at par with ga3 at 250ppm (54.3 days) whereas, late flowering was recorded in naa 100ppm and ba 75ppm (82.4 and 82.3 days, respectively). advanced bud formation and onset of flowering in ga3 treated plants are responsible for early flowering. the results are in line with findings of baskaran and misra (2007) in gladiolus, whereas late flowering by the application of naa which might have caused ethylene formation which is correlated with an inhibition of the growth instead of promoting the cell division (krishnamurthy, 1981). ga3 at 500ppm was found most effective in increasing the flowering duration (15.6 days) and it was minimum (8.0 days) in control. the results are in agreement with the findings of baskaran and misra (2007) and sharma et al (2004) in gladiolus. ga3 at 750ppm gave the maximum spike length and rachis length (63.1cm and 45.3cm, respectively). these results are in conformity with sharma et al (2004) and baskaran and misra (2007) in gladiolus. this might be due to the enhanced growth rate of vegetative plant parts as influenced by ga3 which also increases the photosynthetic and metabolic activities causing more transportation and utilization of photosynthetic products. this might have resulted in the better quality spike production (halevy and shild, 1970). maximum number of florets per spike was recorded in ga3 750ppm (11.3) and minimum was recorded in control (6.7). gibberellic acid promotes the growth of auxiliary buds and their flowering. it is evident from table 2 that all the characters pertaining to corm production were significantly influenced by plant growth regulator treatments. maximum number of corms and cormels per plant was observed in ba 100ppm (3.1 and 16.6, respectively). ba promoted the sink activity of developing corm and cormels at the expense of flower spike, this might be the reason for increase in number of corms and cormels and poor quality flower spikes. similar results were also observed by tawar et al (2007) in gladiolus cv. jester. maximum weight of single corm was recorded by ga3 at 500ppm (62.5g) closely followed by ga3 750ppm (61.7g). similarly, maximum weight of corms per plant was recorded in ga3 500ppm (153.5g) whereas weight of cormels per plant was recorded maximum in ba 100ppm (6.0g) and minimum was recorded in control (2.8g). this increase in weight of cormels by naa might be due to their involvement in cell division, cell expansion and increased volume of intercellular spaces in the mesocarpic cells. these results are in agreement with the earlier findings by ravidas et al (1992) in gladiolus. maximum size (6.5cm) and volume (71.0cc) of single corm was also recorded in ga3 500ppm closely followed by ga3 750ppm (6.3cm and 70.3cc, respectively) which were statistically at par. the increase in weight, size and volume of the corm with the application of ga3 can be attributed to increase in number of leaves per plant which increased the photosynthetic assimilates. these assimilates are transported to the resulting daughter corms, thereby, increasing their weight, size and volume. regarding corm and cormel production which ultimately affect the propagation co-efficient, ga3 at 500ppm as corm dipping for 12 hours gave maximum propagation co-efficient (318.3%) followed by ba at 125ppm (265.9%). similar findings have also been reported by kumar et al (2002) and suresh kumar et al (2008) in gladiolus. it may be concluded that among all the treatments used in our study, ga3 at 750ppm followed by ga3 at 500ppm is very effective in producing quality bloom. ba at 100ppm was found to be the best for corm production in gladiolus cv. chandini. table 2. effect of plant growth regulators on corm production of gladiolus cv. chandini treatments number of number of weight of weight of weight of size of volume of propagation corms per cormels per single corms per cormels per corm one corm co-efficient plant plant corm (g) plant (g) plant (g) (cm) (cm3) (%) ba 75ppm 2.7 13.1 40.2 102.6 4.7 4.4 47.4 212.0 ba 100ppm 3.1 16.6 42.1 123.9 6.0 4.5 50.2 258.3 ba 125ppm 2.9 14.4 45.9 129.6 5.2 4.4 53.4 265.9 ga3 250ppm 1.9 12.0 56.6 99.6 4.3 5.6 65.3 206.2 ga3 500ppm 2.7 14.7 62.5 153.3 5.3 6.5 71.0 318.3 ga3 750ppm 2.3 12.3 61.7 116.3 4.4 6.3 70.3 239.7 naa 100ppm 2.1 13.1 50.2 92.6 4.7 5.2 57.4 195.6 naa 200ppm 2.6 14.3 51.7 113.6 5.1 4.9 58.5 237.7 naa 300ppm 2.7 14.9 46.9 108.0 5.4 5.0 52.8 227.8 control 1.4 7.8 34.3 40.3 2.8 4.2 40.1 86.3 cd (p=0.05) 0.6 2.0 6.5 18.2 0.7 0.9 6.7 22.8 effect of pgrs on yield and quality in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):213-216, 2014 216 references baskaran, v. and misra, r.l. 2007. effect of plant growth regulators on growth and flowering of gladiolus. indian j. hort., 64:479-482 ginzburg, c. 1973. hormonal regulation of cornel dormancy in gladiolus grandiflorus l. j. exp. bot., 24:558566 greulach, v.a. and haeshloop, j.c. 1958. the influence of ga3 on cell division and cell elongation in phaseolus vulgaris. american j. bot., 45:568-570 halevy, a.h. and shild, r. 1970. promotion of growth and flowering plants treated with endogenous ga3 in gladiolus plants treated with growth retardant ccc. physiol. plant., 23:820-827 krishnamurthy, h.n. 1981. plant growth substancesincluding applications in agriculture. tata mcgraw hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi, india kumar, r., dubey, r.k. and misra, r.l. 2002. effect of ga3 on growth, flowering and corm production of gladiolus, p. 110-113 in: floriculture research trend in india, misra r.l. and sanyat misra, (eds.). isoh, new delhi, india mahesh, k.s. and misra, r.l. 1993. effect of growth regulators in gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 1:12-15 maurya, r.p. and nagda, c.l. 2002. effect of growth substances on growth and flowering of gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus l.) cv. friendship. haryana j. hort. sci., 31:203-204 ram, r., mukherjee, d. and sandeep, m. 2002. plant growth regulators affect the development of both corms and cormel in gladiolus. hort. sci., 37:343-344 ravidas, l., rajeevan, p.k. and valsalakumari, p.k. 1992. effect of foliar application of growth regulators on the growth, flowering and corm yield of gladiolus cv. friendship. s. indian hort., 40:329-335 reddy, b.s. 1998. pre and post harvest management in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa. l.) cv. double. phd. thesis, choudhary charansing haryana agricultural university, haryana sharma, j.r., gupta, r.b. and panwar, r.d. 2004. growth, flowering and corm production of gladiolus cv. friendship as influenced by foliar application of nutrients and growth regulators. j. orn. hort., 7:154158 sindhu, s.s. and verma, t.s. 1998. effect of different size of cormels and various treatments in gladiolus cv. white oak. recent hort., 4:69-70 suresh kumar, p., bhagawat, r., rajiv kumar and ronya, t. 2008. effect of plant growth regulators on vegetative growth, flowering and corm production of gladiolus in arunachal pradesh. j. orn. hort., 11:265-270 tawar, r.v., sable, a.s., kakad, g.j., hage, n.d. and ingle, m.b. 2007. effect of growth regulators on corms and cormels production of gladiolus (cv. jester). annal pl. physiol., 21:257-258 kumar, v. and singh, r.p. 2005. effect of gibberellic acid and growing medium on flowering and corm production in gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 8:146-148 baskaran et al (ms received 20 september 2014, revised 22 november 2014, accepted 28 december 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):213-216, 2014 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction india has been blessed with a wide range of climate and geographical conditions and is most suitable for gr owing va r iou s kinds of veget a b le c r op s . vegetables are important constituents of indian agriculture and are grown in an area of 10353 thousand hectares with an annual production of 191769 thousand mt (national horticulture board, 2020). vegetables with shorter duration and higher pr oductivity have resulted in gr eater economic r etur ns to fa r mer s over the la st two decades. agriculture is the main occupation of the people of himachal pradesh. the total area under vegetable cultivation in the state was 8861 thousand hectares with a total production of 1776.02 thousand mt in the yea r 2019-2020 (national horticultur e board, 2020). the major vegetables grown in the state are potato, tomato, pea, ginger, capsicum, cauliflower, french beans, radish, cabbage, okra, carrot, chilli, and spinach. there are a number of problems associated with the vegetable production. productivity of vegetable crops is unable to reach its optimum level. low p r odu c t ivi t y ma y b e a t t r ib u t ed t o p oor inf r a s t r u c t u r e, p oor ir r iga t ion , s ma ll a nd fra gmented land holdings, and low investment capacity of the farmers, fragile ecosystem and inaccessibility to technology (gc and hall, 2020). the perishable nature of the vegetables also results in inability on the part of producers to manage supply in assembling markets. vegetable cultivation is also facing the challenge of profitability and economical use of resources. these parameters need to be validated time to time for policy making and for the farmers to take judicious farm decisions ( n a t iona l c ommis s ion on f a r me r s , 2 0 0 6 ) . p r odu c t ion f u nc t ion a na lys is ex p r es s es t he relationship between the quantities of productive factors (such as labour and capital) used and the amount of product obtained (britannica, 2022). j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 223-227, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2168 production function analysis for vegetable cultivation in kullu valley of himachal pradesh: application of cobb-douglas production model mandla i.* and vaidya m.k. department of social sciences (agricultural economics), college of forestry dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry, solan 173230, himachal pradesh, india *corresponding author email : ishita.mandla37@gmail.com abstract vegetable cultivation plays a vital role in the agricultural economy of india. agriculture is the main occupation of the people of himachal pradesh. vegetable cultivation is facing challenges in profitability and economical use of resources. but a limited research has been done on resource use efficiency and elasticity of production in tomato, cauliflower and peas which are the major vegetable crops grown in kullu. the present study was carried out in kullu valley in the year 2019-2020 and multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select sixty farmers from different panchayats and villages on the basis of area they had under these crops. the elasticity of inputs used in the production of vegetables was worked out by fitting cobb-douglas production function. the sum of elasticity coefficients in case of tomato (σbi = 1.22), cauliflower (σbi = 1.56) and pea (σbi = 1.31) were greater than unity which is statistically significant and shows increasing returns to scale. the ratio of marginal value product (mvp) to marginal factor cost (mfc) represented by value of r, was greater than unity in tomato for plant protection (8.38) and labour (1.05) which indicated their under-utilization. value of plant protection (0.30) on the other hand was less than unity in cauliflower, which shows its over-utilization. in case of peas, values for fertilizer (-1.09), seed (-2.44) and fym (0.87) showed these were over utilized. it is suggested that the farmers should be trained for judicious use of resources. keywords : cobb-douglas, elasticity, panchayats, resource use efficiency 224 mandla and vaidya j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 223-227, 2023 it can also be used to determine the chea pest combination of productive factors that can be used to produce a given output. keeping in view the above facts, the study was conducted to study about the pr oduction function analysis for vegetable cultivation in kullu valley of himachal pradesh. materials and methods t he stu dy wa s c onduc ted in kullu va lley of hima chal pra desh, india . multi-sta ge r a ndom s a mp ling t e c hniqu e wa s u s ed t o s elec t t he respondents. at the first stage, two development blocks viz., kullu and naggar were selected. at the second stage, five panchayats from each block were selected randomly. the panchayats selected from the kullu block were bajaura, hatt, jia, mohal and shamshi and the pancha yats selected from the naggar block were badagran, brann, hallan-i, hallan-ii and katrain. at the third stage, a list of farmers growing vegetables was prepared from the selected panchayats and a sample of six vegetable growers was taken assigning random number using simple random technique from each panchayat, thus, comprising a sample of 60 vegetable growers in total for final survey. primary data was collected on a pre-tested and well-structured schedule by per s ona l inter view method f r om t he select ed respondents during the year 2019-2020 and were s t u died a t d ep a r t ment of s oc ia l s c ienc es (agricultural economics), college of forestry, dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan, himachal pradesh, india. the cobb-douglas production function was used for studying the relationship between output of vegeta bles a nd the va r ious inp uts of ea ch vegeta ble (cobb and dougla s, 1928; loka pur et al., 2014). or logy = log a +b1logx1 + b2logx2 + b3logx3………………+bnlogxn+ u w her e, y = g r os s r et u r n ( qu i nt a l) ; x 1 = expenditure on human labour (ma nda y); x 2 = expenditure on fym (quintal); x3 = expenditure on pla nt protection (kg); x4 = expenditure on fertilizers (kg); x5 = expenditure on seed (kg); a = intercept and b1to b5 are the elasticity coefficients and u = error term. adjusted r2 is the modified version of r that has been adjusted for the number of predictors in the model. adjusted r is the statistic based on the number of 30 independent variables in the model which is the desired property of a goodness of fit statistic. the adjusted value of r2 is calculated as follow: 2 = 1-(1r2) kn n   1 where, r2 = coefficient of multiple determination; n = number of sample observation; k = number of parameters estimated and r2 = adjusted r2 ‘f’ test was used to test the overall significance of explanatory variables to check if they affected the dependent variable or not. the expression for the test is as under: f (k-1, n–k) df = k kn 1 where, k= number of parameters; n = number of observations in the sample and r2 = coefficient of multiple determination. estimation of resource use efficiency the marginal value product of a particular resource represents the expected addition to the gross returns caused by an additional unit of a resource, while other inputs are kept constant (kireeti and guleria, 2015). the marginal value product (mvp) of the resources employed in vegetable production was calculated by multiplying the marginal physical product (mpp) by the unit price of the output(py), as given below: mvpxi = mppxi.py where, mvpxi = marginal value product of i th input; mppxi = marginal physical product of the i th input and py = price of unit output. the estimation of mvp-factor cost ratio was done using the formula given below: r = mvpxi/mfc where, r = efficiency ratio; mvpxi = marginal value product; mfc = marginal factor cost; if r = 1 resource is efficiently used; r > 1 resource is underutilized and r\ < 1 resource is over utilized the elasticity of production was calculated as: ep = mppxi/ appxi where , ep= elasticity of production; mppxi = marginal physical product and app xi = average physical product 225 production function analysis for vegetable cultivation results and discussion one of the main objectives of a production unit is to co-ordina te and utilize r esour ces or factor s of production in such a manner that together they yield the maximum net returns. the cost and return analysis does not put sufficient light on the efficiency of resource allocation. it just depicts the general idea about the different factors of production or inputs used in the cultivation and production. in order to explain the contribution of individual input in the total output, production function analysis is helpful to evaluate the efficiency of various inputs used by the farmers. the elasticity of inputs used in the production of vegetables has been wor ked out by fitting cobb-dougla s production function (goni et al., 2013). the analysis was carried out at overall basis as there was no significant difference was observed among various categories of farm. cobb douglas production function in tomato, cauliflower and peas the estimated cobb-douglas production function for tomato is presented in table 1. the production function analysis shows that in case of tomato, 88 % of variation in output was explained by the variables under study. the sum of elasticity coefficients in case of tomato was greater than unity (σbi = 1.22) which was statistically significant and showed increasing returns to scale which meant that the output increased in a greater proportion than the increase in input. the plant protection and labour were found statistically significant at 1 and 5 % respectively. cobb-douglas production function for cauliflower is r epresented in ta ble 1. t he sum of ela sticity coefficients in case of cauliflower was greater than unity (σbi = 1.56) which was statistically significant and showed increasing returns to scale which meant that the output increased in a greater proportion than the increase in input. seed, fym, fertilizer and labour were found to be statistically significant at 1 % level of significance. in case of peas (table 1), the sum of elasticity coefficients in case of pea was greater than unity (σbi = 1.31) , which was statistically significant and showed increasing returns to scale which meant that the output increased in a greater proportion than the increase in input. fym and labour were found to be ta bl e 1 : e st im at ed c ob -d ou gl as p ro du ct io n fu nc tio n in t om at o, c au lif lo w er a nd p ea f un ct io n to m at o c au lif lo w er p ea c oe ff ic ie nt st an da rd e rr or p -v al ue c oe ff ic ie nt st an da rd e rr or p -v al ue c oe ff ic ie nt st an da rd e rr or p -v al ue in te rc ep t 54 .9 5 -0 .4 9 0. 00 12 0. 00 -0 .0 7 0. 25 4. 27 -1 .4 2 0. 66 se ed 0. 03 -0 .0 6 0. 61 0. 11 * -0 .0 4 0. 01 -0 .0 7 -0 .1 3 0. 61 fy m -0 .0 4 -0 .1 0. 67 0. 10 * -0 .0 4 0. 01 0. 02 * -0 .0 1 0. 00 l ab ou r 0. 29 ** -0 .1 2 0. 02 1. 11 * -0 .0 5 0. 00 0. 90 * -0 .3 6 0. 01 fe rt ili ze r -0 .0 2 -0 .1 1 0. 00 0. 24 * -0 .0 7 0. 00 -0 .0 7 -0 .1 3 0. 61 pl an t pr ot ec tio n 0. 93 * -0 .1 0 0. 87 0. 03 -0 .0 3 0. 26 0. 39 ** -0 .1 8 0. 04 σb i 1. 22 ** r 2 0. 88 1. 56 * r 2 0. 99 1. 31 * r 2 0. 81 f 80 .6 2 a dj us te d r 2 0. 87 13 32 .9 9* a dj us te d r 2 0. 99 11 .4 6* a dj us te d r 2 0. 77 * an d ** s ig ni fi ca nt a t 1 an d 5 % l ev el r es pe ct iv el y j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 223-227, 2023 226 showed its over-utilization and a reduction in their use would lead to maximization of profits. in case of pea, the ratio of mvp to mfc represented by value of r in case of plant protection chemicals and labour was greater than unity which means these were under-utilized and an increase in the use of these would increase the production. values for fertilizer, seed and fym were less than unity, which meant these were over utilized and a reduction in their use would lead to the ma ximization of profits in the sa mpled households. conclusion the cobb-douglas production function analysis indicated that the labour and plant protection had significant impact on output of tomato, whereas seed, labour, fym and fertilizer significantly contributed towards cauliflower production. in case of pea, role of fym, human labour and plant protection played a significant role in increasing the production. the efficiency ratios for the significant variables indicated tha t the fa r mer s wer e not using the r esour ces judiciously. the reason for this may be lack of awareness and knowledge. therefore, it is suggested that the farmers should be trained for judicious use of resources. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the department of social sciences (agricultur al economics), college of significant at 1% level whereas, plant protection was found to be significant at 5 % level. resource use efficiency and elasticity of production in tomato, cauliflower and peas resource use efficiency indicates whether a particular input is used efficiently or not as dictated by its economically optimum level. if a particular input is used up to that level where its marginal factor cost equal to the value of associated marginal products, then the resource use is said to be efficient. if the efficiency ratio is less than one it indicates that the resource is being over utilized and if ratio is more than one, the resource is being under-utilized. for tomato, it was observed that the ratio of mvp to mfc represented by value of r in case of plant protection and labour wasgreater than unity which meant these were under-utilized and an increase in their usage would increase the production. values of fertilizer, seed and fym were less than unity, which meant these were over utilized and a reduction in their usage would lead to the maximization of profits in the sampled households. in case of cauliflower, the ratio of mvp to mfc represented by value of r in case of seed, fym, fertilizers and labour was greater than unity which showed under-utilization of these inputs and increasing their use would increase the production. value of plant protection on the other hand was less than unity which table 2 : estimated resource use efficiency and elasticity of production in tomato, cauliflower and pea crop function coefficient app mpp py mvp mfc r seed 0.03 1.70 0.06 1000.00 55.72 275.00 0.2 fym -0.04 1.61 -0.07 1000.00 -71.63 150.00 -0.48 labour 0.29 1.26 0.37 1000.00 368.22 350.00 1.05 plant protection 0.93 2.26 2.10 1000.00 2095.52 250.00 8.38 fertilizer -0.02 1.88 -0.03 1000.00 -30.83 525.15 -0.06 seed 0.11 1.68 0.18 1200.00 215.20 200.00 1.08 fym 0.10 1.65 0.16 1200.00 190.85 150.00 1.27 labour 1.11 1.56 1.73 1200.00 2072.81 350.00 5.92 fertilizer 0.24 1.82 0.44 1200.00 528.17 525.15 1.01 plant protection 0.03 1.96 0.06 1200.00 75.01 250.00 0.30 seed -0.07 1.5 -0.10 4885.26 -488.54 200.00 -2.44 fym 0.02 1.53 0.03 4885.26 129.89 150.00 0.87 labour 0.90 1.19 1.07 4885.26 5245.21 350.00 14.99 fertilizer -0.07 1.75 -0.12 4885.26 -572.25 525.15 -1.09 plant protection 0.39 2.10 0.82 4885.26 4017.05 250.00 16.07 to m at o c au lif lo w er pe a mandla and vaidya j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 223-227, 2023 227 forestry, dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan, himachal pradesh, india for supporting this study. references br ita nnica , t. 2022. pr oduction function. encyclopedia br ita nnica . https:// www.britannica.com/topic/production-function. cobb, c.w. and douglas, p.h. 1928. a theory of production. amer. econ. rev., 18: 139-165. gc, r.k and hall, r.p. 2020. the commercialization of smallholder farming a case study from the rural western middle hills of nepal. agric., 10(5): 143. doi: https://doi. org/10.3390/ agriculture10050143 goni, m. , umar, a.s.s. and usman, s. 2013. analysis of resourceuse efficiency in dry season vegetable production in jere, borno sta te, niger ia . j. biol. agric. healthc. , 3: 8-24. kireeti, k. and guleria, c. 2015. an analysis of the factors affecting the apple production and productivity in shimla. econ. aff., 60(4): 741-745. lokapur, s., kulkarni, g.n., gamangatti, p.b. and gurikar, r. 2014. resource use efficiency of ma jor vegeta bles in belga um distr ict in karnataka. int. res. j. agric. econ. stat., 5(1): 108-110. national commission on farmers. 2006. serving farmers and saving farming. towards faster and more inclusive growth of farmers’ welfare. fifth and fina l report. government of india, ministry of agriculture vol. 1, 4 october 2006. na tiona l hor ticultur e boa r d. 2020. na tiona l horticulture board database. www.nhb.gov.in. (received : 10.05.2022; revised : 03.12.2022; accepted 30.01.2023) production function analysis for vegetable cultivation j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 223-227, 2023 organic agriculture is a holistic production management system that promotes and enhances agroecosystem health including bio-diversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. organic manures improve physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil. soils managed with organic amendments generally have larger microbial populations than those managed with mineral fertilizers. thus, incorporation of organic amendment to soil promotes microbial activity (balasubramanian et al, 1972). one of the basic principles of soil fertility management in organic systems is dependence of plant nutrition on biologically derived nutrients. animal manures, oil cakes, biofertilizers and by-products of agro-industries are some potential sources of nutrients in organic farming. organic farming is essential for producing quality vegetables devoid of toxic residuals. in view of all these aspects, it is worthwhile to develop technologies for developing organic manures with higher nutrient status, better nutrient-release and ideal nutrient-ratio suitable for vegetable crops. results of such investigations may help develop bio-organic composite manures with safe c:n ratio containing at least 3% n, and n:k ratio of 1:0.5 (an ideal ratio for most vegetables). the investigation was carried out at college of evaluation of different organic manure mixtures in vegetable amaranth cultivation v.p. vipitha and v.l. geethakumari department of agronomy, college of agriculture, vellayani trivandrum 695 522, india e-mail: vipithaagron143@gmail.com abstract an investigation was conducted during 2009-2011 at college of agriculture, vellayani, to develop bio-organic composite manures containing at least 3%n, with n:k ratio of 1:0.5, and to evaluate the effect of these manures on growth and productivity of vegetables. the investigation comprised three separate experiments, namely, formulation and quality evaluation of bio-organic composite manures, mineralization of bio-organic composite manures, and, crop response study. amaranth (amaranthus tricolor) was raised as a test crop for the study. organic sources used in the preparation of bio-organic composite manures were:coir pith compost, poultry manure, neem cake, ground nut cake, ash, rock dust and microbial consortium. five composite organic manures, satisfying the selection criteria (3%n, n:k ratio of 1:0.5), were identified for further investigation. results of the crop response study revealed that among the bio-organic composite manures used, maximum yield was obtained under poultry manure (50g) + ground nut cake (30g) + rock dust (19g) + microbial consortium (1g), and this was on par with (i) coir pith compost (50g) + ground nut cake (35g) + ash (15g), and, (ii) poultry manure (50g) + ground nut cake (30g) + rock dust (20g). key words: bio-organic composite manure, mineralization study, organic sources short communication agriculture, vellayani, during 2009-2011 and comprised three separate experiments: (1) formulation and quality evaluation of bio-organic composite manures, (2) mineralization study of bio-organic composite manures, and (3) crop response study. in the first experiment, a study was conducted in the laboratory during january 2010 january 2011. coir pith compost, poultry manure, neem cake, ground nut cake, ash, rock dust and microbial consortium (sivaprasad, 2011; sheeja et al, 2012 and 2013) were used as sources for preparing bio-organic composite manures. raw materials were mixed in different proportions to obtain various organic manure mixtures. sixteen organic manure mixtures were prepared as per treatments presented in table 1. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized design, with 16 treatments and 2 replications. composite organic manures showing at least 3% n and n:k ratio of 1:0.5, were selected for further study. five mixtures (om3, om5, om9, om11, 0m13) satisfying all selection criteria (3%n and n:k1:0.5) were identified for further investigation. coir pith compost was prepared as per the following procedure: materials required: coir pith 1 tonne, urea 5 kg, mushroom (pleurotus) spawn 1.5kg. j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):86-89, 2014 87 evaluation of organic manure mixtures in amaranth select a shaded place of 5x3m dimension and level it after removing weeds. first, spread 100 kg coir-pith uniformly. spread 300g (one bottle or cover) of pleurotus spawn on this and cover it with a second layer of 100kg coir pith. on the surface of the second layer, spread 1kg urea uniformly. repeat this sandwiching process of one layer coir pith with spawn, followed by another layer of coir pith with urea, up to 1m height. sprinkle water, if necessary, to keep the heap moist. allow the heap to decompose for the month. the coir pith is converted into good manure after about 30-40 days. in the second experiment, mineralization study was conducted in pots during january 2011 to june 2011. the objective of the study was to assess nutrient release pattern from different organic manure mixtures. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized design, with eight treatments and three replications. five selected mixtures, along with kerala agricultural university package of practice (kau, package of practive) [100:50:50 kg/ha n:p2o5:k2o (50: 50: 50 kg/ha n:p2o5:k2o applied as basal and 50 kg/ha n applied as top dressing after each harvest)], kerala agricultural university ad hoc organic package of practice (cow urine @ 500tha-1 (kerala agricultural university, 2009)) and absolute control formed the eight treatments. these composite manures were applied as n equivalent basis of 100kgn ha-1 (kerala agricultural university, 2007) for the test crop, amaranth. the soil, containing composite manures, was filled in pots of uniform size (30x30cm2). sampling was done at monthly interval for a period of six months after incubation. crop response study was conducted with eight treatments and three replications using vegetable amaranth as the test crop. treatments were same as the mineralization study. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design. treatments: t1 om3 (coir pith compost 50g + ground nut cake 35g + ash 15g) t2 om5 (poultry manure 50g + ground nut cake 30g + rock dust 20g) t3 om9 (coir pith compost 50g + ground nut cake 36g + rock dust 13g + microbial consortium 1g) table 2. nutrient content of organic manure mixtures used treatment n (%) p (%) k (%) om1 1.79 0.61 0.66 om2 1.79 0.36 0.77 om3 3.25 0.87 1.44 om4 1.79 0.67 1.02 om5 3.14 1.04 1.32 om6 2.02 1.24 1.14 om7 2.63 1.19 1.96 om8 2.24 1.12 1.70 om9 3.53 0.27 1.72 om10 2.29 0.17 2.32 om11 3.19 0.26 1.24 om12 2.91 0.24 1.58 om13 3.08 0.39 0.88 om14 2.13 0.33 1.24 om15 2.97 0.45 0.66 om16 2.24 0.38 0.76 table 1. components used in organic manure production treatment organic sources (weight in g) coir pith poultry groundnut neem rock ash microbial compost manure cake cake dust consortium om1 50 _ 35 _ 15 _ _ om2 50 _ 20 20 10 _ _ om3 50 _ 35 _ _ 15 _ om4 50 _ 20 20 _ 10 _ om5 _ 50 30 _ 20 _ _ om6 _ 50 20 15 15 _ _ om7 _ 50 20 20 _ 10 _ om8 _ 50 30 _ _ 20 _ om9 50 _ 36 _ 13 _ 1 om10 50 _ 22 22 5 _ 1 om11 50 _ 35 _ _ 14 1 om12 50 _ 22 22 _ 5 1 om13 _ 50 30 _ 19 _ 1 om14 _ 50 22 17 10 _ 1 om15 _ 50 30 _ _ 19 1 om16 _ 50 22 22 _ 5 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):86-89, 2014 88 t4 om11 (coir pith compost 50g + ground nut cake 35g + ash 14g + microbial consortium 1g) t5 om13 (poultry manure 50g + ground nut cake 30g + rock dust 19g + microbial consortium 1g) t6 kerala agricultural university ad hoc organic package of practice t7 kerala agricultural university package of practice t8 soil alone sixteen different organic manures were prepared and n, p, k content in these was analyzed. data presented in table 2 reveal that om9 recorded maximum nitrogen content (3.53%), om6 registered maximum phosphorus content (1.24%) while om10 recorded maximum potassium content (2.32%). criteria fixed for manure selection were: a minimum of 3% n, and n:k ratio of 1:0.5. om3, om5, om9, om11 and om13 registered n content over 3%, and n:k ratio of over 1:0.5. better nitrogen content in these selected manures is due to presence of ground-nut cake and nitrogen fixing organisms present in the microbial inoculant used in preparation of the manures. available n, p and k content of soil as influenced by various bio-organic composite manures was analyzed and results are presented in tables 3,4 and 5. during the initial stage of mineralization, om13 recorded significantly higher available n content (363.62kg ha-1) compared to that in all other treatments. at 3 and 4 months of incubation, om9 recorded increased n content (376.32kg ha-1 and 357.42kg ha-1, respectively) which was significantly higher from other treatments. at 5 and 6 months of incubation, highest n content was recorded in om11 (342.55 and 332.02 kg ha-1, respectively) which was significantly superior to that in all other treatments. initial increase in available n observed in om3, om11 and om13 was perhaps due to mineralization of the nutrients in organic manures. this mineralization occurred due to safe c:n and c:p ratios of the manures. later, reduction in mineralization was observed at 2 months of incubation; thereafter again, an increase was observed. with om5 and om9, available n content increased gradually up to three months of incubation. available phosphorus content was highest in om5 at one and two months after incubation (138.39 and 125.35kg ha-1, respectively). at one month after incubation, om5 was significantly superior to all other treatments, and, at two months after incubation it was on par with om3. at 3, 4, 5 and 6 months after incubation, om3 recorded maximum p content (98.47, 97.77, 84.15 and 80.74kg ha-1, respectively). for all the manures used, availability was high during the first month after mineralization, and the content declined gradually thereafter. available k2o content at one month of incubation was highest in om11 (180.88kg ha-1) and was significantly superior to all other treatments except om3. the content of k2o at 2 months after incubation and 3 months after table 3. effect of various treatments on available nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium status in soil (kg ha-1) treatment nitrogen phosphorus potassium 1mai 3mai 6mai 1mai 3mai 6mai 1mai 3mai 6mai t1 238.34 357.51 314.32 131.51 98.47 80.74 174.35 147.28 102.97 t2 280.15 351.24 308.94 138.39 92.74 71.23 124.88 108.64 86.35 t3 313.60 376.32 314.68 125.85 93.15 78.08 122.64 126.56 92.22 t4 319.87 357.51 332.02 119.51 88.48 52.43 180.88 129.92 101.89 t5 363.62 329.87 299.14 131.91 86.51 70.00 128.43 100.80 83.78 t6 288.52 319.87 298.88 107.16 77.26 76.19 156.24 151.20 115.83 t7 357.51 313.60 299.76 128.63 98.57 68.60 138.32 122.08 89.55 t8 288.52 301.23 222.52 98.03 65.54 66.13 105.28 99.12 66.91 se 5.63 10.27 4.31 1.95 1.76 2.73 5.56 5.37 3.09 cd (p=0.05) 16.87 30.81 12.93 5.84 5.27 8.19 16.68 16.11 9.27 mai months after incubation table 4. effect of various treatments on yield and yield attributes of amaranth treatment leaf wt stem wt yield (g plant-1) (g plant-1) (t ha-1) t1 51.89 22.96 12.48 t2 46.32 23.59 11.65 t3 41.72 20.16 10.31 t4 42.04 22.12 10.69 t5 53.23 23.32 12.76 t6 40.53 17.22 9.63 t7 44.33 20.73 10.85 t8 22.69 12.32 5.84 se 1.52 1.21 0.566 cd (p = 0.05) 4.61 2.78 1.20 vipitha and geethakumari j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):86-89, 2014 89 incubation was significantly higher in om3 added soil (163.89kg ha-1 and 147.28kg ha-1, respectively). at four and five months of incubation, om3 was significantly superior to all other manures. at six months after incubation, manures showed a decline in available k2o content. application of farmyard manure, poultry manure and sugarcane filter cake, alone or in combination with chemical fertilizers, improved soil organic c, total n, p, and k status compared to soils that received chemical fertilizers alone (kulvinder et al, 2005). results from crop response study given in table 6 show that om13 registered highest yield (12.76t ha-1), which was on par with om3 (12.48t ha-1) and om5 (11.65t ha-1), and was significantly superior to all other treatments. yield is a function of leaf weight and stem weight. om3, om5 and om13 recorded higher leaf and stem weights, which cumulatively resulted in better yield. om3, om5 and om13 recorded higher plant height compared to om9 and om11. this must have resulted in better leaf growth and higher stem weight. gianquinto and borin (1990) observed increase in plant growth and yield in tomato plants with addition of organic manures. awodun (2007) reported poultry manure application in fluted pumpkin increased number of leaves and branches, length of internode compared to npk fertilizers. the same was reported by jose et al (1988). this study shows that application of bio-organic composite manure (prepared by mixing poultry manure, ground-nut cake, rock-dust and microbial consortium) can produce 12.76 t ha-1 of vegetable amaranth. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge college of agriculture, vellayani, kerala, india, for funds and facilities provided. references awodun, m.a. 2007. effect of poultry manure on the growth, yield and nutrient content of fluted pumpkin (telfaria occidentalis hook f.). asian j. agril. res., 1:67-73 balasubramanian, a., siddaramappa, r. and rangaswami, g. 1972. effect of organic manuring on the activities of enzymes hydrolyzing sucrose, urease on soil aggregation. pl. soil, 14:327-328 gianquinto, g. and borin, m. 1990. effect of organic and mineral fertilizer application and soil type on the growth and yield of processing tomatoes. rev. agron., 24:339-348 jose, d., shanmughavelu, k. and thamburaj, s. 1988. studies on the efficacy of organic vs inorganic form of nitrogen in brinjal. indian j. hort., 5:100-103 kau. 2007. package of practices recommendations: crops (12 th ed). directorate of extension, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 334p kau. 2009. package of practices recommendations (ad hoc) for organic farming. directorate of extension, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 200p kulvinder, k., krishan, k.k. and anand, p.g. 2005. impact of organic manures with and without mineral fertilizers on soil chemical and biological properties under tropical conditions. j. pl. nutri. soil sci., 168:117– 122 sheeja, k.r., reena, m., nimmy, j., naveen, l. and leenakumar, s. 2012. plant growth promoting rhizobacteria for reducing the use of chemical fertilizers in transplanted rice (oryza sativa l.) in: agriculture and environment. proceedings of 8th kerala environmental congress, centre for environment and development, and rajive gandhi centre for biotechnology, thiruvananthapuram, kerala (india), 228-294 sheeja, k.r., reena, m., nimmy, j. and leenakumary, s. 2013. pgpr mix-i for eco friendly production of rice. in: science, research and education. proceedings of 25th kerala science congress, technopark, thiruvananthapuram, kerala (india), 78-80 sivaprasad, p. 2011. development of consortium of microbial inoculants for disease management and nitrogen and phosphorus nitrogen of black pepper and vanilla-final report. keral state council for science, technology and environment, pp. 1-95 (ms received 07 may 2012, revised 25 february 2014, accepted 24 march 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):86-89, 2014 evaluation of organic manure mixtures in amaranth the most important commercial citrus species grown in india include mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco), sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck.) and acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle). citrus industry in india is the third largest fruit industry covering 0.99 million ha with annual production of 9.64 million tonnes (http://data.gov.in/dataset/ all-india-and-state-wise-area-and-production-fruits). india is the sixth largest citrus producing country in the world, contributing 4.69% of world citrus production. in punjab, citrus fruits rank first, over an area of 44.724 thousand ha and annual production of 9.005 lakh tonnes (http://data.gov.in/ dataset/all-india-and-state-wise-area-and-production-fruits). kinnow is the leading citrus fruit under an area of 31.788 thousand ha and annual production of 5.913 lakh tonnes. area under kinnow is increasing rapidly due to its precocious bearing habit and very high economic returns to growers. the major problem raising citrus in punjab and surrounding states is non-availability of quality planting material. nursery is one of the basic inputs in citrus industry, and attention should be focused on large scale, rapid multiplication of trueto-type, healthy planting material. therefore, production of disease-free plant material is a pre-requisite for a bright future for the citrus industry. for raising healthy plant material of citrus, a thorough understanding of mother germination and growth of rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) seedlings under protected environment lakesh k. sharma1 and h.s. dhaliwal department of horticulture, punjab agricultural university ludhiana, punjab 141004, india email : dhaliwal_mandhali@yahoo.com abstract production of disease-free plants is necessary for a healthy future for the citrus industry. therefore, a study was designed to compare growth of direct-sown and transplanted rough lemon seedlings under controlled conditions. rough lemon rootstock seedlings were grown under screen-house, shade-net house, glasshouse, and open field conditions. seeds were planted in seed beds, propagation trays and black polythene bags. germination was significantly higher (94.30%) in propagation trays under shade-net house except that in screen-house. minimum germination (62.45%) was recorded in open-field seed-beds. seedling height, stem diameter, leaf number and leaf area was found to be maximum (i.e., 55.26cm, 0.63cm, 33.43 and 24.75cm2 respectively) in direct-sown seeds in polybags under screen-house which were transferred to glasshouse during winter. minimum values observed were 41.33cm, 0.44cm, 18.29 and 15.47cm2, respectively, in conventionally raised seedlings. on the basis of our study, it is concluded that rough lemon nursery is best raised in polybags under screen-house or glasshouse conditions. key words: screen-house, g lasshouse, shade-net house, rough lemon j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):91-94, 2013 short communication rootstock plant selection, seed sowing, raising seedlings, transplanting seedlings and budwood selection is essential. to raise quality planting material of kinnow, the most important step is to produce healthy and vigorous seedlings of rough lemon for propagation in the shortest possible time. therefore, the present study was planned to compare growth performance of direct-sown and transplanted rough lemon seedlings. the present investigation was carried out during 200607 in college orchard, department of horticulture, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana. rough lemon seeds were extracted from healthy fruits collected from single-tree source and treated with ridomil mz 72 wp. these were sown in seed beds, propagation trays and black polythene bags filled with sterilized farm soil + fym (2:1) in the second fortnight of august. after seed sowing, the polythene bags and propagation trays were divided into three sets. of these, one set was placed under screenhouse, the second in shadenet house and the third under open field conditions. seedbeds and propagation trays could not support larger seedlings. therefore, seedlings from seed-beds were transplanted into nursery beds and in polythene bags when these attained a height of 10cm. seedlings from propagation 1department of soils, north dakota state university, fargo, nd-58108, usa 1e-mail: lakesh.sharma@ndsu.edu or lkpau2010@gmail.com 92 trays were also transferred to polybags. in mid-november, polythene bags from each treatment were divided into three sets. one set of each treatment was transferred to polyhouse, the second to glasshouse up to the end of february, while, the third remained in place. in the first week of march, the polythene bags placed in glasshouse and polyhouse were again shifted to their original place for further growth until seedlings reached the buddable stage. observations were recorded on seed germination in the second fortnight of september, before transplanting. data on seedling height, seedling diameter, number of leaves and leaf area were recorded at the time of budding during may. germination data were recorded one month after sowing and per cent germination was calculated as under: no. of germinated seeds per cent germination = ——————————— x 100 total number of seeds sown height of the seedlings was measured from soil surface to the plant tip in centimeters with a meter scale, while diameter was intimated with vernier calipers at 5 cmabove ground at the time of budding. fully developed green leaves were counted starting from the base of the stem at the time of budding, and leaf size was calculated using a graph sheet. there were three replications per treatment, with 50 seedlings constituting a replication. data were analyzed in this completely randomized block design (singh et al, 1998). maximum mean seed germination (94.30%) was obtained in treatment t 2 , where seeds had been sown in propagation trays under shade net-house. this value was significantly higher than seed germination obtained in all other treatments, except in t 1 93.35% , where seeds were sown in propagation trays under screen-house conditions. this was followed by 89.41% and 85.55% seed germination recorded in t 5 (seeds sown in polybags under shade-net house) and t 4 (seeds sown in polybags under screen-house), respectively. minimum seed germination (62.45%) was obtained in t 7 (control), where seeds were sown in seed beds in open-field. this value was significantly lower than in all other treatments (table 1). data on seed germination was recorded 30 days after sowing. it is clear that shade improves germination percentage compared to open-field conditions, and germinations rate increases with increase in shade, i.e., from screen-house to shade-net house. optimum temperature range for rough lemon seed germination was recorded as 20-400c (rouse and sherrod, 1996). present results are in accordance with findings of dhaliwal and mehan (2006) who reported 85-90% seed germination in rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) in seeds sown in black polythene bags/plastic trays under 50% shadenet house with polycarbonate sheet roof, under ludhiana (punjab) conditions. similarly, singh et al (1970) found germination of citrus rootstock seeds (c. jambhiri, c. pseudolimon, c. limonia, c. magaloxycarpa and poncirus trifoliata) under alkathene cover (65-85%) to be distinctly superior to that in open-field conditions (25-52%). maximum mean seedling height, stem diameter, number of leaves and leaf area of 55.26cm, 0.63cm, 33.43 and 24.75cm2 were obtained, respectively, in treatment t 12 where seeds were sown directly in polybags under screenhouse conditions and seedlings were then shifted to glasshouse in winter (november to february). this was significantly higher than seedling height, stem diameter, number of leaves and leaf area obtained in all other treatments, except for stem diameter (0.61cm) obtained in treatment t 11, where seeds were sown directly in polybags under screenhouse and were shifted to polyhouse during winter. this was followed by seedling height (54.10cm and 53.46cm) in t 15 and t 11 , respectively; for stem diameter, this was followed by t 11 (0.61cm) and t 3 (0.60cm). in the case of number of leaves, this was followed by t 3 (30.10) where seeds were sown in propagation trays and transplanted to polybags under screen-house and shifted to glasshouse during winter (november to february). in leaf area, this was followed by treatment t 11 (22.08cm2), and t 3 (21.33cm2). minimum mean seedling height, stem diameter, number of leaves and leaf area of 41.33cm, table 1. effect of sowing method on seed germination in rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) under modified environment treatment seed germination (%) t 1 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting 93.35 in pb under sh t 2 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting 94.30 in pb under snh t 3 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting 69.40 in pb under open t 4 -seed sowing in pb under sh 85.55 t 5 -seed sowing in pb under snh 89.41 t 6 -seed sowing in pb under open 65.52 t 7 -seed sowing in seed beds (control) 62.45 standard error of mean (sem) 5.19 cd (5%) 2.2 pb = polybag, sh = screen house, pt = propagation trays snh = shade-net house j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):91-94, 2013 sharma and dhaliwal 93 0.44cm, 18.29 and 15.47cm2 were recorded in t 22 (control) respectively, where seeds were sown in seed beds and transplanted to nursery beds in open-field conditions. maximum seedling height (53.43cm), stem diameter (0.60cm), number of leaves (30.10) and leaf area (21.33cm2) were obtained when seeds were sown in propagation trays and seedlings then transplanted into polybags under screenhouse, and which were shifted to glasshouse during winter (nov-feb) compared to all other similar type of treatments. greater seedling height, stem diameter, number of leaves and leaf area were recorded in treatments t 3 , t 6 , t 9 , t 12 , t 15 , t 18 and t 21 , where seedlings were shifted to glasshouse in winter (november to february) compared to treatments where seedlings were transferred to polyhouse (t 2 , t 5 , t 8 , t 11 , t 14 , t 17 and t 20 ) or those that were not shifted from their original place (t 1 , t 4 , t 7 , t 10 , t 13 , t 16 and t 19 ). this might be due to modification in environmental conditions like temperature and humidity, which were favourable for growth of seedlings under screenhouse compared to shade-net house and open field conditions. also, there is less attack of insect-pests on seedlings under screenhouse. open-field conditions may have more harmful effects on seedling growth due to high temperature. these findings are in accordance with results of dhaliwal et al (2003a) who recorded significantly higher seedling height, stem diameter and number of leaves under screen house compared to open-field under ludhiana, punjab conditions. in another trial, dhaliwal et al (2003b) also recorded maximum seedling height, stem diameter and number of leaves in rough lemon seedlings germinated under glasshouse and placed in screenhouse conditions, compared to those germinated in glasshouse and placed in openfield; germinated and kept in screenhouse or those that were germinated and placed in open-field, under ludhiana, punjab conditions. singh et al (1970) also recorded increase in seedling height, stem diameter, number of leaves and leaf area of rough lemon and rangpur lime seedlings under alkathene cover compared to open-field, under delhi conditions. in the case of seedling height, similar results were reported by muller (1988) in citrus rootstocks under south african conditions; by chaturvedi and bajpai (1999) in bridelia retusa and holarrhena antidysenterica under madhya pradesh (india) conditions; west et al (2002) in saw tooth oak (quercus acutissima), white oak (quercus alba), green ash (fraxinus pennsylvanica) and flowering dogwood (cornus florida) under auburn, alabama, u.s.a, table 2. effect of direct-sown and transplanted rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) seedlings on seedling height, stem diameter, number of leaves and leaf area under modified environmenta treatments seedling stem number leaf height (cm) diameter (cm) of leaves area (cm2) t 1 seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb under sh 50.01 0.56 26.03 19.32 t 2 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb under sh + ph 52.49 0.59 27.89 20.35 t 3 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb under sh + gh 53.43 0.60 30.10 21.33 t 4 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb under snh 47.82 0.55 25.56 17.52 t 5 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb under snh + ph 49.05 0.56 26.21 18.09 t 6 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb under snh + gh 49.63 0.57 26.57 19.57 t 7 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb in open 45.28 0.49 24.61 16.59 t 8 -seed sowing in pt and transplanting in pb in open + ph 45.95 0.51 25.34 17.21 t 9 -seed sowing pt and transplanting in pb in open + gh 46.58 0.52 26.64 18.66 t 10 -direct sowing of seeds in pb under sh 50.29 0.59 27.36 20.09 t 11 -direct sowing of seeds in pb under sh + ph 53.46 0.61 29.56 22.08 t 12 -direct sowing of seeds in pb under sh + gh 55.26 0.63 33.43 24.75 t 13 -direct sowing of seeds in pb under snh 49.92 0.56 26.56 18.22 t 14 -direct sowing of seeds in pb under snh + ph 51.85 0.57 26.88 18.91 t 15 -direct sowing of seeds in pb under snh + gh 54.10 0.58 27.95 20.38 t 16 -direct sowing of seeds in pb in open 48.28 0.51 25.28 17.23 t 17 -direct sowing of seeds in pb in open + ph 49.42 0.53 26.34 18.13 t 18 -direct sowing of seeds in pb in open + gh 50.80 0.53 27.76 20.11 t 19 -seed sowing in seed beds and transplanting in pb in open 43.69 0.48 20.93 15.62 t 20 -seed sowing in seed beds and transplanting in pb in open + ph 45.26 0.49 22.60 16.25 t 21 -seed sowing in seed beds and transplanting in pb in open + gh 45.37 0.51 23.55 16.37 t 22 -seed sowing in seed beds and transplanting in nursery beds (control) 41.33 0.44 18.29 15.47 standard error of mean (sem) 0.77 0.11 0.69 0.59 cd (5%) 0.95 0.02 0.96 1.08 pb = polybag, sh = screen house, pt = propagation trays, snh = shade-net house, gh = glass house, ph = poly house j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):91-94, 2013 studies on rough lemon seedlings under protected environment 94 conditions. similar results were recorded by chaturvedi and bajpai (1999) in bridelia retusa spieng. and holarrhena antidysenterica wall. under madhya pradesh, india conditions; kumari et al (2001) in nagpur mandarin under nagpur, maharashtra conditions; singh (2003) in rough lemon under ludhiana, punjab conditions; kumar (2004) in rough lemon under ludhiana, punjab conditions and hazarika et al (2005) in seedlings of khasi mandarin under tinsukia (assam) conditions in the case of number of leaves. references chaturvedi, s.k. and bajpai, s.p. 1999. the effect of light conditions on root, shoot and plant length on selected forest-tree species. ind. forester, 125:725-729 dhaliwal, h.s., kanwar, j.s., rattanpal, h.s. and arora, n.k. 2003a. effect of growing media on seed germination and growth of rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) under protected conditions. allindia seminar on potential and prospects for protective cultivation dec.12 13, pp. 193-196 dhaliwal, h.s., kanwar, j.s., rattanpal, h.s. and arora, n.k. 2003b. seed germination and growth studies on direct sown rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) under protected conditions. all-india seminar on potential and prospects for protective cultivation, dec.12-13, pp. 155-156 dhaliwal, h.s. and mehan, v. k. 2006. latest propagation techniques in citrus under phytosanitory conditions. seminar on kinnow, abohar pp 8-9. hazarika, n., saikia, a.j., borah, s.c. and barbora, a.c. 2005. effect of shade on growth and development of khasi mandarin seedlings in nursery. crop res. hisar, 2:446-448 http://data.gov.in/dataset/all-india-and-state-wise-area-andproduction-fruits kumar, j. 2004. effect of media composition on growth and buddability of rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) seedlings. m.sc. thesis, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, punjab, india kumari, n.v., singh, a.k.s., das, d.k., ghosh, and dhurjati, t. 2001. performance of microbudding under different green house structures in citrus reticulata cv. nagpur mandarin. south ind. hort., 49:335-337 muller, p. 1988. optimum shade requirement of citrus nursery tree. citrus and sub-tropical fruit research institute, south africa, 190:12 rouse, r.e. and sherrod, j.b. 1996. optimum temperature for citrus seed germination. proc. flo. state hort. soc., 109:132-135 singh, r., saxena, s.k. and v.p. sharma. 1970. an improved method of raising citrus rootstocks. the punjab hortl. journal 10:166-171 singh, s., bansal, m.l., singh, t.p. and kumar, k. 1998. statistical methods for research workers, kalyani publishers, new delhi singh, r. 2003. propagation studies on the kinnow mandarin under screen-house conditions. m.sc. thesis, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, punjab, india west, d.h., chappelka, a.h., tilt, k.m., ponder, h.g. and williams, j.d. 2002. effect of tree shelters on growth and gas exchange of four tree species under field and nursery conditions. j. envin. hort., 20:96-100 (ms received 06 august 2012, accepted 04 december 2012, revised 19 december 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):91-94, 2013 sharma and dhaliwal sph -jhs coverpage 15-1 june 2020 single 1 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 review diversity and distribution of curry leaf in india raghu b.r. division of vegetable crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 560 089. email : ragubr@gmail.com abstract curry leaf is an aromatic tropical and sub-tropical plant originated from india. besides its culinary purpose, curry leaf is known for its medicinal and industrial applications. based on ethno-botanical reports and other floral distribution studies, the germplasm rich regions of curry leaf in india could be identified into six zones as foot hills of himalaya, north-east region, middle india, eastern ghats, western ghats and andaman – nicobar islands. with respect to color and size of leaves, habitat and flavor, t he curr y leaf plant is clas sified as bro wn/ gamthi, regular and dwarf morphotypes. four genetically diverse chemotypes of curry leaves such as -pinene, -pinene, -carophyllene and -phellandrene exist in india. due to its nutritional value, increasing export potential, less input, lower cost of cultivation, assured income, perennial nature and constant demand in local, national and international markets, the curry leaf is being cultivated on commercial scale in recent years in india. key words: curry leaves, distribution, diversity, germplasm and morphotypes introduction curry leaf (murraya koenigii (l.) spreng) is an aromatic, tropical and sub-tropical plant with several culinary, nutraceutical, medicinal, therapeutic and industrial values (reddy et al., 2018). it is an important and indispensible part of indian cuisine (verghese, 1989). the ethno-botanical use of curry leaf for medicinal purposes is known since centuries. carbazole alkaloids present abundantly in curry leaves ha ve anticancer, a nti-diabetic a nd anti-oxida nt properties (igara et al., 2016). the essential oils extracted from curry leaf plant have several industrial applications in the manufacturing of soaps, perfumes, cosmetics, food processing and many others. as curry leaf is a rich source of bio-available calcium and other essential nutrients, it makes an important component of indian diet and imparts several direct and indirect health benefits to its consumers. as curry leaf is a perennial leafy vegetable, it provides assured income to small and marginal farmer s if cultivated on commercial scale and earns considerable amount of foreign returns through export particularly to gulf and european unions (joseph and peter, 1985). regardless of its numerous benefits and several applications, curry leaf is still an unexplored and underutilized crop. this is evident from inadequate effor ts being put towa r ds the collection, characterization, conservation and efficient utilization of pla nt genetic r esour ces (pgr) for cr op improvement and limited area of cultivation under this crop. however, understanding the extant of variability, distribution pattern and identification of germplasm r ich regions a r e the prer equisites in a ny crop improvement program. furthermore, accelerated use and augmentation of available pgr, identification of trait specific genotypes, mapping and introgression of economically important gene(s)/qtls (quantitative tr ait loci) into well adapted a nd elite genetic background are sign of more efficient and rapid genetic improvement program in any crop species and so with the curry leaf. moreover, efficient breeding programmes should backup with detailed survey and frequent collaborative germplasm exploration trips to cover wide range of variability, followed by regular exchange and characterization of germplasm between this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 the breeders. in addition, development of various robust genomic resources and their efficient use in rapid germplasm screening and detection of elite genotypes and traits discovery. thus, in the present article efforts are made to throw a light on diversity and distribution pattern of curry leaves and its present status of genetic improvement in india. botany curry leaf belongs to the family rutaceae and the genus murraya j. koenig ex l (satyavati et al., 1987). it is true diploid with chromosome number, 2n=18 (x=9) (raghvan, 1957). it is found in various tropical and subtropical regions of the world (smith, 1985). it is a semi-deciduous, aromatic, pubescent and unarmed shrub or small tree capable of growing up to 6 meter height with slender but strong woody stem (figure 1). later, the woody stem develops into densely crowded shaded crown. the leaves of curry leaf plant a re alternate, estipula te, bipinnately compound, glabrous, 15-20 cm long, rarely pubescent at young and gland dotted and extremely strongly aromatic with numerous volatile compounds. the leaflets are alternate and short stalked; ovate to ovate lanceolate in shape with number varies from 9 to 12 or more per leaf. the leaves are slightly pungent, bitter and aciduous in taste. the major chemical compounds responsible for characteristic intense aroma and flavor are sabinene, pinene, cadinol, caryophyllene and cadinene (singh et al., 2014). monoterpenoids and their oxygenated derivatives are the chief chemical constituents present in essential oil of curry leaf (singh et al., 2014). the essential oils extracted from fresh leaves collected from different parts of western ghats, india contains significant a mount of monoter pene hydrocar bons such a s sa binene (6.90-40.59%), β-phellandrene (1.3945. 89%) a nd α-pinene (1. 93-63. 66%), a nd a sesquiterpene hydrocarbon β-caryophyllene (6.6818.46%) (syamasunder et al., 2012). curry leaf is highly self-pollinated crop. the flowers are bisexual, produced many in a terminal pedunculate inflorescence arranged compact, corymbiform and cymose panicle. the bisexual flowers are very small measuring about a cm length, white and fragrant. the flowers contain five deeply cleft and pubescent calyx, five fr ee a nd spr ea ding petals, ten freely a nd alternatively arranged short and long, linear and subulate stamens with small and short anthers. the style is thick, elongated, cylindrical and articulate with capitate or grooved stigma. the flowering occurs mainly in the middle of april to middle of may reaching its peak in last week of april. the curry leaf plant bears small berries, measuring 1-2 cm diameter with thin pericarp and mucilaginous pulp enclosing 1 or 2 seeds. the fruiting starts from middle of july and continue up to end of august. upon ripening, the fruits turn red and ultimately black and seeds are non endospermic with membranous and glabrous testa bearing small embryo. propagation occurs either through seeds or rooted suckers. origin and distribution the curry leaf originated from indian sub-continent including andaman and nicobar islands, sri lanka and bangladesh (joseph and peter, 1985), later expanded to different parts of the world by indian migrants. presently, it is grown in various tropical and subtropical regions such as, india, sri lanka, bhutan, nepal, malaysia, southern china , gua ngdong, southern hainan, southern yunnan, laos, vietnam, thailand, mariana islands, vanuatu, new caledonia, ryuku islands, australia and south africa (smith, 1985). curry leaf is widely distributed throughout india except in higher altitudes of himalayas. it is found abundantly in forests and waste lands in natural, wild and cultivated forms up to 1650 m altitude (joseph and peter, 1985). in southern india , it is found in homestead gardens of every household (joseph and peter, 1985). based on several ethno-botanical reports and other floral distribution studies, the germplasm rich regions of curry leaf could be identified into six zones for future exploration and genetic improvement in india (figure 2). region-1: this region is confined to sub-tropical forests running all along the sub-himalayan foothills fr om ja mmu & k a shmir, hima c ha l p r a des h, uttarakhand to terai regions of uttar pradesh and bihar (figure 2). in himachal pradesh, curry leaf is found in the forest ranges found between tanda and sha hpur in ka ngra distr ict, nalagarh a nd nahan-paonta ranges in sirmaur district and some warmer areas of solan, shimla, bilaspr, hamirpur and mandi districts. in uttarakhand, sub-tropical forests in foot hills of shivalik of dehradun and gharwal and udham singh nagar including rajaji national park and sub-tropical forests of kumoan raghu 3 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 r egions of almor a , n a inita l a nd cha mp a va t districts are rich in curry leaf. the terai regions of uttar pradesh covering 15 districts (saharanpur, muzaffar nagar, bijnor , moradabad , rampur , bareilly , pilibhit, kheri , ba hraich, shra vasti, balrampur, siddharth , mahrajganj, kushinagar, gorakhpur) including dudhwa national park, and west-champaran, east-champaran and gopalganj districts of bihar are rich sources of curry leaf. regio n-2: t he r egion is confined to tr opica l evergreen and semi-evergreen, and tropical moist and dry deciduous forests of north-eastern states (figure 2). this region covers from foot hills of south sikkim, darjeeling, jalpaiguri and cooch behar districts of west bengal. the assam valley includes brahmaputra valley, barak valley, karbi plateau and barail hills and parts of south kamrup, sibsagar, north lakhimpur, cachar, goalpara, nowgoan and darrang districts of assam. east and west kameng, lower & upper subansiri, lohit and tirap districts in arunachal pradesh. southern a nd nor ther n s lop es of megha la ya inc luding northern and north-western slopes of garo hills. western and north-western parts of nagaland. jiri, moreh, vangoi, tamenglong forest areas and forest areas adjacent to myanmar in manipur. dharam nagar, kailashahr, belonia, amarpur, sonamura, udia p u r a nd s a da r s u bdivis ion in tr ip ur a . northern side forest areas of kawnpuri, hortaki, bhairabi, kolarib, vairentee and western parts of mizoram. besides, the curry leaf is an integral part of many tribal medicines and hence it could be seen commonly in home-stead gardens in north eastern states. region-3: this region is confined to central india, from sundarban delta to satpur range covering chotanagpur plateau, hazaribagh plateau, ramgarh hills, malayagiri, dandaka ranya and vindhyan ranges (figure 2). unlike regions 1& 2, this region is loosely spread over south-western parts of west benga l, jha rkha nd, norther n par ts of odisha , chhattisgarh, and northern parts of maharashtra to ma dhya pr a desh inc luding souther n utta r pradesh. a pursuance of review of literature of ethno-botanical use and floral and medicinal plants diversity studies of curr y leaf in centra l india indica ted tha t, it ha s been gr own a nd used in sonebhadra district of uttar pradesh, jabalpur, neemuch, raisen, rewa, umaria, anuppur, nimar eco-region, satpur plateau of madhya pradesh, bhadrak, koraput, jharsuguda, keonjhar districts, rourkela, nandan kanan wild life sanctuary of odisha, mahasamund, dantewada, koria, jashpur, ra ipur, surguja, rata npur r egion of bila spur, raigarh area , bhoramdeo wild life sanctua ry, kabirdham wild life sanctuary of chhattisgarh, dumka of jharkhand, bhagalpur, banka, buxar of bihar and burdwan, hoogly, south 24 parganas, birbhum, west rarrh region of west bengal. region-4: this region is confined to eastern parts of india mainly covering eastern ghats (figure 2). this region starts from southern parts of odisha, covering andhra pradesh and up to northern tamil nadu. region-5: this region is confined to western parts of india mainly covering western ghats (figure 2). this region starts from southern parts of gujarat, covering, maharashtra, goa, karnataka and up to kerala. region-6: this region is confined to andaman and nicoba r islands mainly cover ing the anda ma n semi-evergreen forests, andaman moist deciduous forests and andaman secondary moist deciduous forests (figure 2). nutritional potential of curry leaves the fresh and dried leaves of curry plant are used for flavoring the food stuffs. it is good sources of miner a ls ( ca lc iu m, p hos phor u s , i r on, zinc , magnesium), vitamins (a, e, b, c), and are rich in carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids and fibre. besides, leaves contains alka loids, flavonoids, phenols, saponins, steroids, quinones, tannins and other bio-active compounds. vyas et al. (2015) reported ascorbic acid (23.41 mg/g), total flavonoid (17.38 mg/g), and total phenol (3.21 mg/g) in curry lea ves, a nd which a r e a ssocia ted with higher a ntioxida tive ca pa city, thus a ct a s ver y good sources of dietary antioxidants. it is reported that, 100 gm of fresh leaves contains 8.7g carbohydrate, 6g protein, 1g fat, 7560 µg ß-carotene, 830mg diversity and distribution of curry leaf in india 4 ca lcium a nd 0. 93mg ir on. wher ea s, 100g of dehydrated leaves contains 64.31g carbohydrate, 12g protein, 5.4g fat, 5292 µg ß-carotene, 2040mg calcium and 12mg iron (khatoon et al., 2011). the nutritive value of the curry leaf is comparable to other vegetables. without realizing the nutritive value of curry leaves, it is usually not consumed along with food, but considered merely as a flavouring agent. the leaves can retain original flavour and other qualities even a fter dr ying. cur r y lea ves conta in some important free amino acids like glycine, asparagin, serine, aspartic acid, theonine, alamine, proline, glutamic acid, tryptophan, leucine, tyrosine, alpha amino butyric acid, phenylalanine, isoleucine, lysine, arginine and histidine and vitamin a (wealth of india, 1962). although curry leaf is a rich source of calcium, its bioavailability is affected due to the presence of high oxalic acid (1.35% total oxalates; 1.15% soluble oxalates). thus, identification of low oxalate and low oxalic acid genotypes will be an important step towards the effective utilization of curry leaves as leafy vegetable. the comparative nutrient value of curry leaf with some common vegetables as per icmr (aykroyd, 1996) is given below. medicinal properties of curry leaves the different parts of curry leaf plant have many applications in ayurveda and other traditional medicine system (karthikar and basu, 1935). curry leaves are richest source of carbazole alkaloids, which have bioactive functions like anti-oxidant, anticancer, antidiabetic, and antiulcer (igara et al., 2016). the carbazole alkaloids, mahanimbine and koenigine present in these leaves showed higher anti-oxidant activities (ganesan et al. 2013). the extracts from roots, bark and leaves the are used in aboriginal medicine as tonic, anthelmintic, stomachic, analgesic, and as appetizing, carminative and stimulative agents for treating influenza, piles, itching, fever, dropsy, asthma, bronchial eruptions, diarrhoea, body aches, kidney pains, vomiting, fresh cuts and bites of poisonous animals ( rana et al. 2004). the green leaves eaten raw for cure of dysentery (dryry, 1978). the pulped bark and root of curry leaf plant are externally applied to cure eruptions and bites of poisonous animals (dastur, 1970). industrial use of curry leaves fresh leaves on steam distillation under pressure yields 1.6-3.7 ml volatile oils called curry leaf oil per kilogram (kg) of biomass (syamasunder et al., 2012). the leaf oil is characterized by specific gravity of 0.9748 at 250c, saponification value of 5.2 and acid parameters curry cauli cabbage radish carrot dry tomato dry leaf flower pea chilli protein 6.1 2.6 1.8 0.6 0.9 19.7 0.9 15.9 (g/100g) carbohydrates 18.7 4.0 4.6 6.8 10.6 56.5 3.6 31.6 (g/100g) fat 1.0 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.2 1.1 0.2 6.2 (g/100g) calcium 830 626 39 50 80 75 48 160 (mg/100g) phosphorus 57 107 44 20 530 298 20 370 (mg/100g) iron 7.0 40 0.8 0.5 22 5.1 0.4 2.3 (mg/100g) vitamin-a 12600 51 2000 5 3150 66 585 576 (i.u./100g) vitamin-c 4 56 124 17 3.0 0 27 50 (mg/100g) raghu j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 5 value of 3.8 (wealth of india, 1962). similarly, the mature fruits also yield a yellow colour volatile oil with specific gravity of 0.872 at 130c and boiling point of 173.740c, having neroli-like odour and pepper like taste accompanied by agreeable sensation of coolness on the tongue. similarly, yellow colour oil extracted from the seeds is known as limbolee oil (drury, 1978). the leaf oil is used as a fixative for a heavy type of soap perfumes. the essential oils extracted from other par ts a re also used in cosmetics industry and aromatherapy. besides, the extracts from berries of curry leaf plant are used to prevent oxidative damage of meat and meat products (yogesh et al., 2012). the curry leaves are incorporated in functional poultry meat finger sticks to improve lipid stability and antimicrobial quality of the products. this indicate that the effective use of curry leaves as an alternative to synthetic food pr eser vatives in functional food industries (aswathi et al., 2014). besides, the curry leaf oil is also exported from india (salikutty and peter, 2001). the age of the leaves influences the oil composition, with advancing maturity there is gradual decrea se in volatile oils and oleoresin (a cetone extracted). the specific gravity of curry leaf oil is 0.97 while refrective index is 1.50 and optical rotation is +48 at (250c). the saponification value of this oil is 5.2 and after acetalation it is 54.6 commercial cultivation of curry leaves in india besides, naturalized forest and homestead gardens habitation, the curry leaves are also being cultivated in large commercial scale in several districts of southern india due to increasing export potential, low inputs for cost of cultivation, adoptability to small and marginal lands, assured income, perennial nature, and constant domestic demand in local markets. the large scale commercial cultivation of curry leaves is seen in guntur, nellore, anantapur and krishna districts of andhra pradesh, sanga reddy, medak, siddipet, kama reddy and nizamabad districts of telangana and coimbatore, tiruppur, selem and thoothukudi districts of tamil nadu (mohan, 2012) (fig. 2). diversity of curry leaves in india curry leaf plant is native to india. a tremendous variability exists at morphological, bio-chemical and molecular level for this crop. several chemo-types and morpho-types have been reported in curry leaves of indian origin (rao et al., 2011; sivakumar and meera, 2013). there are four genetically diverse chemotypes of cur r y lea ves such a s -pinene, -pinene, caryophyllene and -phellandrene were reported in india (raina et al. 2002). similarly, the essential oils extracted from leaves of curry plants from various locations of western ghats, india, were ca tegor ized into 4 chemotypes na mely, -phella ndr ene, sa binene, -pinene a nd caryophyllene (syamasunder et al., 2012) three different morphotypes with respect to color and size of leaves, habitat of the plant, flavor of the plant as, brown/gamthi (gm), regular (re) and dwarf (df), are identified in india. brown types are most fragrant slowly growing; leaves are small, thick with serrated edges and dark brown in color. regular types are fastest growing and grow as tree, greater in look, and leaves are exstipulate, bipinnately compound and long having reticulate venation with dark in color and available throughout the country. dwarf types grows as a shrub with moderate growth, spreading branches and appears as a bush, leaves are light green, look like a regular type but aromacity of its own. all three morphotpes differ for intensity of flavor. the radical scavenging capacity of methanolic extracts of three morpho-types was in the order of gamthi>dwarf> regular, with ic50 values of 171, 365 and 471 (g/ml), respectively (sivakumar and meera, 2013). besides, gamthi (532.8 mg/ml) had more phenolic content over dwarf (168.2 mg/ml) and regular (111.6 mg/ml) types and 6.01, 4.82 and 3.58 mg/ml of flavonoids were reported in gm, df and re, respectively (sivakumar and meera, 2013). further, curry leaves exhibited huge variability with respect to chemical composition of essentia l oils over loca tions a nd sea sons (syamasunder et al., 2012). genetic improvement of curry leaves in india genetic improvement of curry leaves interms of ger mpla sm collection, cha r a cter iza tion a nd conservations are still in nascent stage in india. majority of curry leaf growing farmers on commercial scale have adapted locally available genotypes in which genetic potential for yield, resistance to pests and diseases and information on quality is unknown. however, two improved varieties of curry leaves diversity and distribution of curry leaf in india j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 6 na mely, dwd-1 a nd dwd-2 (suwa sini) a r e genetica lly distinct genotypes, r elea sed fr om university of agricultural sciences (uas), dharwad for commercial cultivation. besides, a local landrace called senkaampu is very popular in different parts of tamil nadu due its good aroma and high oil content. recently, the research efforts are initiated at icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bengaluru for genetic improvement of curry leaf for improved yield and quality and resistance pests and disease. over 100 germplasm of curry leaves were collected from different parts of the country and successfully established in field gene bank at icar-iihr, bengaluru. further, efforts are being ma de to cha racter ize them and r egistered with national gene bank for further utilization in research programmes in india. future thrust 1. area expansion under commercial cultivation: in india, the commercial cultivation of curry leaves is confined to few distracts of tamil nadu, andhra pradesh, telangana and karnataka covering more 90% of commercial cultivation. however, curry leaf can easily fit to other dry land parts of the country. besides, it assures income security to small and marginal farmers in rainfed ecosystems. thus, there is a huge scope to expand curry leaf cultivation to nonconventional arid and semi-arid regions of central, western and north-east parts of the country. 2. conservation of pgr in curry leaves: curry leaf is native to india and tremendous diversity exists for this crop. to understand the extant of variability for important economic traits and identification of trait specific genotypes requires comprehensive exploration of pgr, characterization and documentation. there should be a system of regular exchange of germplasm among the researchers. 3. development of dus guidelines and protection of farmer’s varieties: in various parts of india, the farmers are popularly growing local cultivars of curry leaves. they known to possess unique tr a its a nd ha ve economic impor ta nce. however, there is no internationally or nationally accepted dus test guidelines available in curry leaves; which is a mandatory requirement to register and protect farmer ’s varieties under ppv&fra, new delhi. thus, there is an urgent need to develop raghu j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 fig. 1. curry leaf plant (bushy) (a) and small tree (b). 7 fig. 2. diversity map of curry leaves (murraya koenigii (l.) spreng) in india. diversity and distribution of curry leaf in india j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 internationally or nationally accepted dus test guidelines in curry leaves. 4. comprehensive research efforts in curry leaves: a breeding program inclusive of increased use of genomic resources in pgr management, identification of trait specific genotypes and trait discovery, successful introgression into elite genetic background is need of the hour. further, much intensive effort towards ideotype breeding in curry leaves is required for development of ever green and bushy type with quick generation capacity after pruning. conclusion curry leaves is a multi-utility leafy vegetable with numerous benefits. it is known to enhance the palatability of food and is a rich source of nutrients and valuable volatile oils. it is an easily cultivable perennial crop with low input cost, being grown as a small tree in homestead gardens; intercrop with other perennial crops and also on commercial scale. due to its per enniality, it ca n provide assur ed income for 10-12 years of planting with minimum annual expenditure. though curry leaf is an ancient crop native to india, its nutritive and medicinal values have not been fully appreciated yet. efforts towa r ds cha r a cter iza tion a nd conser va tion of genetic wealth and genetic improvement of curry leaf have not been addressed adequately. thus, there is need to popularize and utilize this native cr op with a dequa te r esea r ch a nd institutiona l efforts. 8 references anonymous. 1962. the wealth of india: the raw materials. council of scientific and industrial research, india, 6: 446-448. aswathi, p.b., biswas, a.k., beura, c.k., yadav, a.s., khatke, p.a. 2014. a study on the antimicrobial and antioxidant effects of murraya koenigii on functional poultry meat finger sticks. int. j. meat. sci., 4:15 21. aykroyd, w. r. 1966. the nutritive value of indian foods and the planning of satisfactory diets, indian council of medical research, new delhi, 6th ed: 53-58. dastur, j. f. 1970. meditional plants of india and pakistan, third edn. d. b. taraporevala sons & co. private ltd., bombay: 115. drury, h. c. 1978. the useful plants of india. second edn. william, h. allen & co., london. 78. ganesan, p., phaiphan, a., murugan, y., baharin, b.s. 2013. compa r a tive study of bioa ctive compounds in curry and coriander leaves: an update. journal of chemical and pharmaceutical research, 5(11):590-594. igara c.e., omoboyowa, d.a., ahuchaogu, a.a., orji, n.u., ndukwe, m.k. 2016. phytochemical and nutritional profile of murraya koenigii (linn) spreng leaf. journal of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry. 5(5):07-09. joseph, s. and peter, k. v. 1985. curry leaf (murraya koenigii), perennial nutritious leafy vegetable. economic botony, 39: 68–73. kartikar, k.r. and basu, b. d. 1935. indian meditional pla nts. second edn. m/s. bishen singh mahendra pal singh, dehra dun. 1: 474-475. khatoon, j., verma, a., chacko, n and sheikh, s. (2011). utilization of dehydrated curry leaves in different food products. i ndian journal of natural products and resources, 2(4): 508-511 mohan, r. s. 2012. curry leaf campaign. spice india. 25 (7): 10-12. raghuvan, r.s. 1957. chromosome number of indian meditational plants. proc. indian. acad. sci. sect. b.45, 6: 294-298. ra ina , v.k., lal, r.k., tr ipa thi, s., kha n, m., syamasundar, k.v. and srivastava, s.k. 2002. essential oil composition of genetically diverse stocks of m urray a k oe nigii. flav our and fragrance journal, 17: 144-146. rana, v. s., juyal, j. p., rashmi & blazquez, m. a. 2004. chemical constituents of the volatile oil of murraya koenigii leaves. international journal of aromatherapy, 14: 23-25. rao, b. r. r., rajput, d.k. and mallavarapu, g.r. 2011. chemical diversity in curry leaf (murraya koenigii) essential oils. food chemistry, 126 : 989–994. reddy, b. m., dhanpal, c. k. and lakshmi b. v. s. 2018. a review on curr y leaves ( murray a koenigii): versatile multi-potential medicinal plant. international journal of advances in pharmacy medicine and bioallied sciences, 6(1): 31-41. salikutty, j. and peter, k. v. 2001. curry leaf (in) hand book of herbs and spices (ed.) k. v. peter, wood head publishing company, england. satyavati, g.v., gupta a.k. and tendon n. 1987. medicinal plants of india, indian council of medical research, new delhi india, vol. 2: 289299. singh, s, more, p.k., mohan s.m. 2014. curry leaves (murraya koenigii) – a miracle plant. indian j. sci. res., 4(1): 46-52. sivakumar, chv. and meera, i. 2013. anti-oxidant and biochemical activities of three morphotypes of murraya koenigii l. from uttarakhand. j food process technol. 4: 246. smith, a. c. 1985. flora vitiensis nova: a new flora of fiji (spermatophytes only), lavai, kauai, hawaii: pacific tropical botanic garden, 3: pp 758. syamasundar, k.v., srinivasulu, b., gowda, a.p.l., sr inivasaiyer, r., ra o, r.r. 2012. chemo variations of wild curry leaf (murraya koenigii spreng.) from western ghats of india. journal of pharmacognosy, 6(2): 126-130. verghese, j. 1989. indian curry leaf. perfumer and flavorist, 14(3): 69-70. vyas, v.g., kandoliya, u.k., vidhani, s.i., parmar, h.j., bhalani, v.m., golakiya, b.a. 2015. heavy metal deposition and phytochemical characterization of curry leaves (murraya koenigii). int. j. curr. microbiol. appl. sci., 4:839-43. yogesh, k., jha, s.n., yadav, d.n. 2012. antioxidant activities of murraya koenigii (l.) spreng berry extract: application in refrigerated (4±1°c) stored meat homogenates. agric. res., 1 : 183-189. raghu b r et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 1-8, 2020 (received on 01.11.2019 and accepted on 10.06.2020) 01 raghu review on curry leaves proof.pdf introduction in the global market, usa, germany and united kingdom are the largest consumers of dried flowers. india, netherlands, mexico, israel and, more recently, australia are the major exporters in the trade. indian dried flower export market is classified into three main product segments, namely, a) dried plant parts in bulk, popularly called ‘botanicals’ b) potpourri, and c) decor products. globally, india has emerged as a leader in export of dried-flower products, trading dried flowers worth rs 150 crores annually (patil, 2007). this constitutes 25% of the global dried-flower market. the industry exports 500 different varieties of dried plant parts to 20 countries. the indian industry risks losing its competitiveness to suppliers of other origin for lack of reliable processing technologies. to strengthen the dry flower industry, more research is required so as to promote and uplift the industry. drying, bleaching and dyeing are the essential processing techniques in dried flower making, and these greatly influence quality of the final product, before usage finally. therefore, a study was undertaken to standardize processes for dried-flower production. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):65-69, 2013 standardization for drying, bleaching and dyeing processes in dried flowers m. jawaharlal, m. visalakshi, s. cintu and m. ganga department of floriculture and landscaping tamil nadu agricultural university coimbatore – 641003, india e-mil : jawaharflori@yahoo.com abstract an experiment was conducted at tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, during 2009-2010 to standardize processing techniques for dried flower production. foliage of silver oak (grevillea robusta), thuja (thuja orientalis) and camellia (camellia reticulata) was best preserved by glycerinization; leaves were soft and pliable, with lowest moisture and highest overall acceptability. in the case of fully-opened flowers in button-type chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum grandiflorum), gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) and plumeria (plumeria alba), a combination of sand and silica gel, and microwave-oven embedded method was found to be suitable for drying, with high overall acceptability. dried pods of jacaranda (jacaranda mimosifolia) and castanospermum (castanospermum australe) were fully bleached by soaking overnight in 10% sodium hydroxide and subsequent treatment with 2% sodium hydroxide + 2.5% sodium silicate + 35% hydrogen peroxide. bleached pods were given dye treatments where acrylic dyes showed good dyeing consistency, light fastness, wash fastness and rubbing fastness. key words: dry flowers, glycerinization, desiccants, bleaching, dyeing material and methods the present study was carried out at the horticultural research station (yercaud) and department of floriculture and landscaping (coimbatore) of tamil nadu agricultural univeresity, during the year 2009-2010. fully mature leaves of silver oak, thuja and camellia were applied the following drying treatments: a) air drying mature leaves were tied in bundles and hung upside down under ambient temperature, b) sand drying mature leaves were embedded horizontally in fine river sand, with 5cm sand each below and above the leaves, c) microwave drying mature leaves were dried in this oven for 30 seconds to 4 minutes, depending upon texture of the leaves d) glycerinization full dip method: mature leaves were dipped fully in glycerin-hot water mixture, e) glycerinization uptake method: mature leaves were given a slant cut at 10cm from their stalk and immersed vertically in glycerin-hot water mixture. fully opened flowers of button-type chrysanthemum (green and yellow), gerbera (ycd1red) and plumeria (white) were given drying treatments, namely, air-drying and microwave-drying after embedding them in five different media, viz., river sand, silica gel, borax, mixture of sand and silica gel (1:1) and mixture of 66 sand and borax (1:1). dried pods of jacaranda mimosifolia and castanospermum australe were given different bleaching treatments, with six bleaching chemicals in nine combinations. fully-bleached pods were given dyeing treatment with four different dyes, viz., acid dyes, basic dyes, food dyes and acrylic dyes. experiments were laid out in completely randomized block design, with five replications. quality parameters like colour retention, shape retention, brittleness, texture and overall acceptability were visually scored in the experiment on drying. for bleaching pods, scoring was done visually on quality parameters like bleaching consistency (uniform bleaching of the pods), and whitening index, on a score of 0-4, where 0 denoted no colour change and 4 bright white. for dyeing treatments, time taken for dye uptake, dyeing consistency, wash fastness, rubbing fastness and light fastness were recorded immediately after dyeing. in all the processing techniques, a panel of 10 members from all age groups judged the samples visually and scored on a scale of 0 to 4 (very low to very high dye). results and discussion experiment 1: drying leaves results on leaf drying (table 1) revealed that sand drying took maximum time (18 days) in drying thuja leaves. minimum time taken for drying was in silver oak leaves with microwave drying. maximum moisture loss percentage in leaves (61.18%) was observed in microwave drying in camellia leaves. minimum moisture loss percentage (11.6%) was observed in glycerinization full dip method in silver oak leaves.this is because glycerin replaces moisture by capillary action when leaves are subjected to the uptake method, whereas, glycerin is taken up through surface of the leaves when the latter are dipped fully (white, 2007). air-drying is the easiest and low-cost method of preserving flowers and foliage (susan, 1990) but it causes the flowers to shrink (bhattacharjee and palanikumar, 1999; rengaswamy et al, 1998). in the case of microwave-oven drying, performance was poor in all the three, i.e., silver oak, thuja and camellia leaves. this is due to the fact that microwave dried materials are susceptible to breakage (papparozzi and callister, 1988) although this method takes minimum time for drying. consumer acceptability is the ultimate factor for commercializing any dried-flower product. acceptability depends upon various parameters such as texture, shape retention, colour retention, brittleness and, altogether, these decide overall acceptance. in the present study, the best overall acceptability was obtained with glycerinization fulldip method in thuja (3.87), silver oak (3.7) and camellia leaves (3.7) (table 2). the next best treatment was glycerinization by the uptake method. these findings are in accordance with earlier reports of david trinklein (1998) in maple, magnolia and oaks; verey (1994) in eucalyptus and hollyhock; paul dubois and daryl joyce (2005) in luecodendrons; mercer jo (1996) in beech; anon. (2004) in ivy; deepthi singh and santhosh kumar (2008) in camellia and maiden hair fern, and, white (2007) in magnolia and ligustrum. they concluded that glycerinization kept the leaves soft and pliable for easier handling and, hence, was the most suitable method for obtaining most of the visual qualities in dried flowers, especially the foliage part. treating foliage with glycerin yields unique results of table 2. visual score on overall acceptability of dried leaves of silver oak, thuja and camellia treatment sensory score silver oak thuja camellia air drying 1.99 1.82 0.35 sand drying 2.50 1.66 1.30 microwave drying 2.02 1.44 0.76 glycerinization(full dip) 3.70 3.87 3.70 glycerinization (up take) 3.18 3.08 2.74 sem ± 0.15 0.13 0.17 cd (p=0.05) 0.28 0.26 0.35 table 1. effect of drying method on time taken for drying of silver oak (grevillea robusta), thuja (thuja orientalis) and camellia (camellia reticulata) with different drying agents treatment duration of drying moisture loss (%) silver oak thuja camellia silver oak thuja camellia air drying 3.6 days 10 days 8.2 days 43.53 44.33 53.12 sand drying 5.8 days 18 days 14.0 days 38.77 47.38 46.58 microwave drying 1.36 min 3.36 min 3.29 min 42.56 53.27 61.18 glycerinization(full dip) 3.4 days 2.0 days 6.0 days 11.62 15.72 19.8 glycerinization (uptake) 2.0 days 12.0 days 10.2 days 17.3 13.24 15.6 sem ± 0.379 0.447 0.932 2.5 1.3 1.3 cd (p=0.05) 0.791 0.932 1.08 5.2 2.7 2.9 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):65-69, 2013 jawaharlal et al 67 indefinite flexiblity and pliability and, hence, the glycerinization (uptake) method is suitable in foliage with broad leaves, and glycerinization (full dip) method for single leaves (white, 2007). further, effect of glycerinization also depend on type of the leaf (paul dubios and daryl joyce, 2005). experiment 2: drying flowers results on drying of flowers (table 3) indicate that overall acceptability was best in flowers embedded with a combination of silica gel and sand, under microwave-oven drying. visual score of 3.5 was obtained by chrysanthemum yellow, chrysanthemum green, gerbera and plumeria dried flowers. the next best result was with silica alone, in all the four types of flower. these findings are in accordance with those of susan (1990) in rose, zinnia and dahlia; thomler (1997) in marigold and zinnia; alleman (1994) in celosia and daffodil; roberts (1997) in carnation, chrysanthemum and zinnia; lourdusamy (1998) in zinnia and french marigold. they found silica gel drying to be the most suitable method for achieving most of the desirable visual qualities in dry flowers. silica gel is white in appearance and, sometimes, contains blue crystals that act as an indicator for the amount of moisture absorbed. moisture is absorbed by silica gel from the flowers (norman winter, 1998) quickly, compared to borax and sand; and, flower shape is also retained (nirmala, 2008). sand drying is the oldest method, least expensive and sand is the best desiccant. it should be dry, fine and washed several times with water to make it saltfree (white, 2007). microwave-oven drying with embedded desiccants is one of the best methods to obtain superior products. embedded plant material is placed in a hot-air oven or microwave oven, at controlled temperature for an appropriate amount of time (anon, 2000). experiment 3: bleaching pods time taken for perfect bleaching was least in the treatment combination of overnight soaking in 10% sodium hydroxide, followed by soaking with 2% sodium hydroxide + 2.5% sodium silicate + 35% hydrogen peroxide, compared to other hydrogen peroxide combinations (table 4). this is in accordance with findings of samanta et al (2007) where optimum time period required for bleaching at room temperature was 6, 3 and 5h, respectively, for jute, cotton and jute-cotton union fabrics. time variation between pods may be due to difference in pod thickness, lignin content and cellulose content. data on quality of bleaching consistency and whitening index of bleached pods at periodic intervals (figs. 1 and 2) revealed that bleaching consistency score was maximum (2.23) in pods soaked in 10% sodium hydroxide overnight, followed by treatment with 2% sodium hydroxide + 2.5% sodium silicate + 35% hydrogen peroxide. these findings are in line with those of gulrajani and sukumar (1985). suitability of hydrogen peroxide as a bleaching agent has been reported by several workers earlier. peroxides can degrade cellulose, as well as decolourize it, and remove stains (zeronian et al, 1995), are less expensive (paul table 3. sensory score on overall acceptability of flowers of chrysanthemum (yellow and green), gerbera and plumeria with various drying agents with microwave drying treatment sensory scores chrysanthemum chrysanthemum gerbera plumeria (yellow) (green) air drying 0.76 0.78 0.78 0.76 sand drying 2.83 2.82 2.68 2.8 silica drying 3.02 3.06 2.77 3.03 borax drying 0.00 0.0 0.0 0.0 silica + 3.56 3.57 3.53 3.55 sand drying borax + 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 sand drying sed ± 0.13 0.065 0.09 0.054 cd (p=0.05) 0.06 0.130 0.18 0.12 table 4. effect of bleaching agent on time taken for complete bleaching in jacaranda mimosifolia and castnospermum australe treatment jacaranda castanospermum effect pods (hrs) pods (hrs) observed 2% naoh 24 24 fully bleached + 2.5% na 2 sio 3 + 30 %h 2 o 2 2% naoh 18 12 fully bleached + 2.5% na 2 sio 3 + 35%h 2 o 2 2% naoh 18 18 fully bleached + 2.5% na 2 sio 3 + 40 %h 2 o 2 30% naocl 24 24 unbleached + 10% hcl 35% naocl 24 24 unbleached + 11.5% hcl 40% naocl 24 24 unbleached +13% hcl 30% naclo 2 24 24 partially bleached +10% hcl 35% naclo 2 24 24 partially bleached +11.5% hcl 40% naclo 2 24 24 partially bleached +13% hcl j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):65-69, 2013 processes for dried flowers production 68 dubios and daryl joyce, 2005) and are the best bleaching agents (lourdusamy, 1998). the reason is that use of hydrogen peroxide at optimum concentrations results in higher rate of degradation of cellulose and hemicelluloses present in the constituent fibres, and improves whitening index. addition of sodium hydroxide to hydrogen peroxide causes surface-darkening, impairing whiteness and, hence, optimum use of a peroxide stabilizer (sodium silicate) is essential to achieve comparable levels of whiteness. this is probably due to re-deposition of silica particles from sodium silicate onto the bleaching material (samanta et al, 2007). fig 1. effect of bleaching at different intervals on visual score for bleaching consistency in jacarnda mimosifolia pods t 1 2% naoh+2.5% na 2 sio 3 +30% h 2 o 2; t 2 2% naoh+2.5% na 2 sio 3 +35% h 2 o 2 ; t 3 2% naoh+2.5% na 2 sio 3 +40% h 2 o 2 ; t 4 30% naocl+10% hcl; t 5 35% naocl+11.5% hcl; t 6 40% naocl+13% hcl; t 7 30% naclo 2 +10% hcl; t 8 35% naclo 2 +11.5% hcl; t 9 40% naclo 2 +13% hcl fig 2. effect of bleaching at different intervals on sensory score for whitening index in castanospermum australe pods t 1 2% naoh+2.5% na 2 sio 3 +30% h 2 o 2 ; t 2 2% naoh+2.5% na 2 sio 3 +35% h 2 o 2 ; t 3 2% naoh+2.5% na 2 sio 3 +40% h 2 o 2 ; t 4 30% naocl+10% hcl; t 5 35% naocl+11.5% hcl; t 6 40% naocl+13% hcl; t 7 30% naclo 2 +10% hcl; t 8 35% naclo 2 +11.5% hcl; t 9 40% naclo 2 +13% hcl table 5. effect of various dyes on time taken for dye-uptake by jacaranda mimosifolia and castanospermum australe pods treatment time taken for dye uptake (min.) jacaranda castanospermum mimosifolia australe acid dye 4 4.6 basic dye 2 2.2 food dye 6 6 acrylic dye 1.4 1.6 sem ± 0.48 0.36 cd (p=0.05) 1.017 0.76 experiment 4: dyeing pods time taken for dye uptake was least in acrylic dye treatment for jacaranda (1.4 min.) and castanospermum pods (1.6 min.) (table 5). time taken for dye uptake was highest (6 min.) with food dye in both pods of both the species. score on visual appearence of rubbing fastness and wash fastness of dyed pods with different dyeing treatments is furnished in figures 3 & 4. rubbing fastness was superior in jacaranda pods (4.4) and castanospermum pods (4.3) with acrylic dyes. wash fastness scores were higher fig 3. effect of dyes on sensory score for rubbing fastness in pods of jacaranda mimosifolia and castanospermun australe fig 4. effect of dye on sensory score for wash fastness in pods of jacaranda mimosifolia and castanospermun australe j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):65-69, 2013 jawaharlal et al 69 for basic and acrylic dyes in both jacaranda and castanospermum pods. these findings are in line with observations of van dam jan et al (2002) and anon (2010). wash fastness of a dye is influenced by rate of diffusion of the dye and state of the dye once inside the fibre. the dye has a tendency to aggregate inside the fibre (thereby increasing in molecular size) and, hence, exhibits good wash fastness. these findings are also in agreement with earlier reports (van dam, 2002; anon., 2010) it is concluded from the above study that glycerinization is the best for preserving foliage in a soft and pliable form. sand and silica gel, in combination with microwave oven drying, proved superior for retention of flower colour and shape. bleaching dried pods was best achieved by soaking overnight in sodium hydroxide 10%, followed by treatment with 2% naoh + sodium silicate 2.5% + hydrogen peroxide 35%. acrylic dyes were found to be superior for dyeing pods. acknowledgement the senior author wishes to thank national coordinator, naip (component –ii), icar, new delhi, for providing financial assistance to carry out this work under icarnaip project “ value chain on flowers for export and domestic markets”. references alleman, e. 1994. here to stay, from ‘the rose ette’ http://www.houstonrose.org/hrshere.htm anonymous. 2000. preserving flowers. www.pp.missouri. edu/newsletters/meg/archives/v14n7/ anonymous. 2004. regular microwave flower press large microwave flower press.www.leevalley.com /html/gm420ie.pdf anonymous. 2010. dyeing of dry flowers. http:// handicraft.indiamart.com/ products/ decorative-items/ dry-flowers/storing-preserving-dry-flowers.html bhattacharjee, s.k. and palanikumar, s. 1999. drying of ornamental flowers. agro india, november, 25-27 david trinklein. 1998. collecting natural materials. website: www.arte-lessons.com/pdf/collecting.pdf deepthi singh and santhosh kumar 2008. dry flowers add natural splendor indoors. floriculture today, 13:42-48 gulrajani, m.l. and sukumar, n. 1985. optimization of a single stage preparatory process for cotton using sodium chlorite. textile res. j., 56:476-83 lourdusamy, d.k. 1998. standardizing drying and bleaching techniques of dry flowers. m.sc. thesis submitted to tamil nadu agriculture university, coimbatore mercer jo. 1996. horticulture information leaflet 8111 north carolina cooperative. www.ces.ncsu.edu/ depts/hort/hil/pdf/hil-8111.pdf norman winter. 1998. preserving flowers and leaves. w w w. e x t e n s i o n . u m d . e d u / p u b l i c a t i o n s / p d f s / fs556.pdf nirmala, a., chandrasekar, r., padma, m. and rajkumar, m. 2008. standardization of drying techniques of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus). j. orn. horti., 11:168-172 papparozzi, e.t. and mc. callister. 1988 glycerol and microwave preservation of annual statice (limonium sinuatum mill). sci. hort., 34:293-299 patil, s.k. 2007. post harvest management and value addition of flowers.www.sikkimfloriculture.com/ pdf/post_harvest%20pdf.pdf paul dubois and daryl joyce. 2005. farm note 10/89: drying cut flowers and foliage. www.agric.wa.gov.au/objtwr/imported_assets/.../ fn010_1989.pdf pp: 33-44 rengasamy, p. 1998. dry flowers and foliage an underexploited industry. tnau souvenir, coimbatore, india roberts, a. 1997. preserve those spring flowers. http//www. xtention.unr.edu/south/garden/flower.html samanta, a.k., deepali singhee and basu, g. 2007. hydrogen peroxide and potassium per-oxo-sulphate combined room temperature bleaching of jute, cotton and jute – cotton union. ind. j. fibre text. res., 32:221-231 susan, c. 1990. preserving plant materials. www.williamsburgmarketplace.com thomler, j. 1997. drying flowers and leaves. http:// www.nectar.com.au/jascraig/craft/dried.html van dam jan, e.g., van den oever, m.j.a. and edwin, r.p. keijsers 2002. production process for high density high performance binderless boards from whole coconut husk. industrial crop prod., 20:97101 verey, r. 1994. the flower arranger garden, drying flowers. website: twep-webmaster@pathfinder.com. white, p. 2007. drying and preserving plant materials. www.edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/ep/ep00400.pdf zeronian, s.h. and inglesby, m.k. 1995. bleaching of cellulose by hydrogen peroxide. cellulose, 2:265-272 (ms received 16 october 2012, accepted 04 december 2012, revised 18 april 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):65-69, 2013 processes for dried flowers production introduction exploring natural biodiversity as a source of novel alleles to improve productivity, adaptation, quality and nutritional value of crops is of prime importance in 21st century breeding programmes (fernie et al, 2006). efforts are on to improve the quality of not only grains but also vegetable crops (romer et al, 2000). sweet pepper (capsicum annuum l.) is an important vegetable not only because of its economic importance, but also for its nutritional value, mainly as an excellent source of natural red colour owing to the pigment capsanthin, and antioxidant compounds (lee et al, 1995; howard et al, 2000). capsicum is an excellent source of vital micronutrients and vitamins such as vitamin c and vitamin e (minguez-mosquera & hornero-mendez, 1994; daood et al, 1996; gnayfeed et al, 2001). a wide spectrum of antioxidant compounds is present in fruits of pepper viz., vitamin ‘e’, ‘c’ and β-carotene; phenolic compounds, carotenoides and xanthophylls. levels of antioxidants vary among accessions. generally, hot peppers are a better source of these than variability for functional and nutritional quality traits in sweet pepper (capsicum annuum l.) n.k. hedau, s. saha, a. gahalain, arun kumar, p.k. agrawal and j.c. bhatt vivekananda parvatiya krishi anusandhan sansthan almora 263 601, india e-mail: hedaunirmal_2003@yahoo.co.in abstract natural biodiversity for functional and nutritional quality traits is of prime importance in breeding programmes for developing nutritionally rich genotypes. the present investigation was carried out to identify lines of sweet pepper with high ascorbic acid content and important mineral nutrients like potassium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, iron and manganese. forty accessions of sweet pepper (capsicum annuum l.) were analyzed for their functional and nutritional composition. wide variation was observed in functional quality traits like ascorbic acid content (22-129mg 100g-1), and βββββ-carotene (0.39-1.0mg 100g-1) suggesting a considerable level of genetic diversity. wide variability was also noticed for nutritional composition (k, p, zn, cu, fe & mn) in the tested lines. across accessions, concentration of ascorbic acid was negatively correlated with copper content (r = -0.293, p < 0.05) being significantly greater in two accessions, vhc 34 and vhc 37 (129 and 118.0 mg100g-1, respectively) compared to other accessions. βββββ-carotene concentration was higher (0.85 to 0.99mg 100g-1) in six accessions, and lower (0.39 to 0.54mg 100g-1) in twenty four accessions. greater variability present for quality traits holds an immense potential to help develop capsicum lines with traits of high functional and nutritional quality. therefore, this information is potentially useful in sweet pepper breeding programmes in the future. key words: sweet pepper, variability, correlation, nutritional quality j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):181-186, 2013 sweet ones (daood et al, 1996; gnayfeed et al, 2001). antioxidant vitamin ‘c’, an important compound in pepper fruits, chelates heavy metal ions (namiki, 1990), reacts with singlet oxygen and other free radicals, and suppresses peroxidation thereby reducing the risk of arteriosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases and some forms of cancer (harris, 1996). carotenoids, vitamin ‘e’ and vitamin ‘c’ are located in the pericarp of pepper fruit, whereas, capsaicinoids are distributed in different parts of the fruit. studies on evaluation of variability, especially for quality in given sets of germplasm, is lacking in sweet pepper. therefore, the present study was undertaken to analyze extent of variability in nutritional quality present in the available germplasm of sweet pepper, to breed for varieties and hybrids with high nutritional quality. material and methods plant material forty lines of capsicum (capsicum annuum l.) including exotic types, landraces and cultivars were grown 182 in the field during kharif season (april–august) of 2008 and 2009 at the experimental farm, hawalbagh (29o36’ n, 79o40’ e, 1250m above msl). fruits were harvested at the mature green stage. three replicates of 40 lines were analyzed for various functional and nutritional attributes: vhc 10, vl shimla mirch 2, vhc 15, vhc 13, vhc 45, california wonder, vhc 19, vhc 21, vhc 23-1, vhc 23-2, vhc 24, vhc 25, vhc 42, vhc 41-1, vhc 40-1, vhc 26, vhc 27, vhc 43, vhc 41-2, vhc 20, vhc 28, vhc 29, vhc 30, vhc 46, vhc 31, vhc 32, vhc 33, vhc 34, vhc 36, vhc 37, vhc 38, vhc 39, vhc 40-2, vhc 44, vhc 4, vhc 6-1, vhc 6-2, vhc 3, vhc 2 and vhc 22. chemicals and reagents all chemicals and reagents were procured from merck india ltd. double-distilled water was used throughout the analysis. chromatographic condition for estimation of β-carotene and ascorbic acid content in mature green fruits, hplc system (shimadzu, japan) was operated equipped with a hitachi pump (l-7100) uv-vis detector (l-7400) controlled by win chrom chromatographic software. the hplc column used was purospher®, rpc18 (4.6 × 250mm i.d.; 5μ). samples were injected in 20μl volumes at ambient temperature. quantification of β-carotene /ascorbic acid in the samples was achieved by comparing each peak retention time and area with the standard. chemical analysis determination of ascorbic acid content l-ascorbic acid (laa) was extracted and quantified by hplc as per abdulnabi et al (1997), with minor modifications. the sample (10g) was homogenized with a solution (10ml) containing meta-phosphoric acid (0.3m) and acetic acid (1.4m) for 15 minutes at room temperature. the mixture was filtered through whatman no. 4 filter paper to obtain a clear extract. all the samples were extracted in triplicate. the mobile phase was acetonitrile:methanol: tetrahydrofuran (45:50:5 v/v/v) at a flow rate of 1.0ml min-1, and detection was done at 254nm. determination of βββββ-carotene content β-carotene in pepper samples was extracted as per ismail and fun (2003), with minor modifications. the β-carotene standard (e1cm 1% = 2560 in hexane) was obtained from sigma chemical co. (st. louis, mo, usa). pepper samples (10g) were extracted with 40ml ethanol (99.8%) and 10ml 100% (w/v) potassium hydroxide, and homogenized for three minutes. the mixture was saponified by heating for 30 minutes. then, the mixture was partitioned thrice in n-hexane, followed by a wash with distilled water and passed through sodium sulfate. hexane was removed under reduced pressure at 45oc using a rotary evaporator. the standards and pepper isolates were dissolved in 10ml hexane prior to hplc analysis. a mobile phase was run at 0.8ml min-1 and consisted of water containing 0.01% formic acid:acetonitrile (95:5 v/v). β-carotene was detected at 450nm using a uvvis detector. the column was equilibriated to the original mobile-phase concentration prior to injection of the next sample. determination of nutritional attributes peppers were analyzed for nutrient parameters after di-acid digestion (hno3:hclo4 10:4 v/v). potassium (k) content was determined by flame photometry, while fe, zn, cu and mn contents were analyzed using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. phosphorus (p) was estimated photometrically by development of phosphomolybdate complex (taussky and shorr, 1953). statistical analysis forty different lines of capsicum were grown in the field under completely randomized block design, with three replications. data represent the mean of three replicate samples for each capsicum type. genotypic mean value of each parameter was used for statistical analysis, using spss programme (spss inc., version 10, chicago, illinois, usa). correlation analysis (brereton, 2003) and cluster analysis were performed using spss. results and discussion hplc methodology prior hplc-analysis saponification has been recommended to remove chlorophyll and to hydrolyze carotenol (scott, 1922). in our study, preliminary work determined 40 oc to be the optimal saponification temperature which maximized retention of both xanthophylls and nonoxygenated carotenoids. a chromatogram of β-carotene standard and best fruits extracts of the genotype is shown in part a of figure 1. polar or lipophobic extract of capsicum fruits contains ascorbic acid, the major precursor of vitamin ‘c’ and capsaicinoids, the pungency principle. a chromatogram of l-ascorbic acid standard and fruit extract of the best genotype is shown in part b of figure 1. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):181-186, 2013 hedau et al 183 frequency distribution of sweet pepper accessions forty accessions of sweet pepper were used for studying eight traits including two functional and six nutritional traits. among the accessions, frequency distribution of ascorbic acid and β-carotene was classified into four groups. in both types of traits, the first group contributed maximum number of accessions. frequency distribution for ascorbic acid is presented in figure 2a. group 1 contributed 17 out of 40 accessions tested; second, third and fourth group comprised of 12, 9 and 2 accessions respectively. frequency distribution for β-carotene was classified into four groups with 24, 6, 4 and 6 accessions in each group, respectively (fig. 2a). in the case of ascorbic acid, the frequency group showing high values (group 4) contributed only 2 accessions, whereas, in the case of β-carotene, 6 accessions showing high values were observed in group 4. ascorbic acid ascorbic acid d et ec to r re sp on se d et ec to r re sp on se standard typical capsicum genotype standard typical capsicum genotype βββββ c a r o t e n e βββββ c a r o t e n e b a fig 1. hplc chromatogram for lascorbic acid and βββββ-carotene standard and in fruit extract of typical capsicum genotype fig 2. frequency distribution of βββββ-carotene and ascorbic acid (a); phosphorus and potassium (b); zinc and copper (c); iron and manganese (d) content in the 40 capsicum lines used 6.51-7.90 5.11-6.50 3.71-5.10 2.30-3.70 27.81-33.30 22.31-27.80 16.81.22.30 11.30-16.80 30.11-35.20 25.01-30.10 19.91-25.0 14.80-19.90 453.39-579.30 327.46-453.38 201.54-327.45 75.60-201.53 0.85-0.99 0.70-0.84 0.55.0.69 0.39-0.54 102.26.129 75.51-102-25 48.76-75.50 22-48.75 0.7-0.82 0.58-0.69 0.45-0.57 0.32-0.44 7.0-8.19 5.80-6.99 4.60-5.79 3.39-4.59 fr eq ue nc y (n o. ) fr eq ue nc y (n o. ) fr eq ue nc y (n o. ) fr eq ue nc y (n o. ) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):181-186, 2013 variability in sweet pepper for quality traits 184 frequency distribution for phosphorus and potassium content among the accessions also segregated into four groups (fig. 2b). the first two groups of phosphorus and potassium contributed maximum number of accessions. similarly, micronutrients also got grouped into four classes. in this case, for zinc and copper, the first two groups contributed maximum number of accessions. frequency distribution for zinc and copper is presented in fig. 2c. in the case of iron, maximum number of accessions (24) were observed in the first group, whereas, group 2 of manganese contributed 17 accessions (fig. 2d). the frequency group showing high values (group 4) contributed 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 5 for phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper, iron and manganese, respectively. variation in sweet pepper properties wide variations occurred in all the attributes tested (table 1). this is due to the wide genetic base of the sweet pepper genotypes tested. ascorbic acid content in these pepper accessions ranged from 22 to 129mg 100g-1 (fresh weight at physiological maturity), consistent with the report of howard et al (2000), gnayfeed et al (2001) and saha et al (2010). l-ascorbic acid content in capsicum annuum fruit was reported to be 102-202mg 100g-1 fresh fruit (howard et al, 2000). wide variation (0.39-0.996mg 100g-1) was observed in β-carotene content in the accessions evaluated, suggesting a considerable level of genetic diversity. this is inconsistent with the report of gnayfeed et al (2001) who found paprika red pepper to contain 171-250mg g-1 β-carotene. however, our result is in accordance with howard et al (2000). the latter reported 337-800μg 100g-1 β-carotene in capsicum annuum fresh fruit. phosphorus and potassium content in pepper ranged between 0.32 – 0.82% and 3.39 – 8.19% , respectively, on dry matter basis, whereas, iron and zinc ranged between 75.6 – 579.3 and 11.3 – 33.3μg g-1; manganese and copper varied from 14.8 to 35.2 and 2.3 to 7.9μg g-1, respectively. jadczak and grzesczuk (2004) reported physiologically mature peppers to be richer in mineral content than green ones. table 1. basic statistical studies for functional and nutritional attributes in 40 capsicum lines attribute unit min. max. mean sd variance functional properties ascorbic acid mg per 100g 22.00 129.00 59.73 25.66 658.70 β-carotene mg per 100g 0.39 1.00 0.58 0.19 0.03 (fresh weight at physiological maturity) nutritional properties phosphorus (p) % 0.32 0.82 0.52 0.12 0.02 potassium (k) % 3.39 8.19 5.12 1.41 1.98 iron (fe) μg g-1 75.60 579.30 218.21 109.29 11944.70 zinc(zn) μg g-1 11.30 33.30 19.48 5.93 35.17 manganese (mn) μg g-1 14.80 35.20 24.76 4.73 22.39 copper (cu) μg g-1 2.30 7.90 4.68 1.42 2.01 fig 3. dendrogram showing relationship among 40 lines used based on eight quality attributes. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):181-186, 2013 hedau et al 185 correlation between functional and nutritional attributes few significant-correlation-coefficients among traits, from –0.293 (copper versus ascorbic acid content) to 0.764 (phosphorous versus potassium content), were observed but most values were low (table 2). potassium, phosphorus and zinc content correlated to three other nutritional attributes. zinc was, besides, highly positively-correlated with all the nutritional traits, viz., potassium, phosphorus, copper, iron and manganese content (r = 0.541, 0.735, 0.61, 0.377 and 0.481, p < 0.01, respectively). phosphorus content was also found to be highly correlated with potassium, zinc, copper and manganese content (r = 0.764, 0.735, 0.618 and 0.416, p < 0.01, respectively). similarly, potassium content was correlated with phosphorous, zinc and copper content (r = 0.764, 0.541, p < 0.01 and 0.35, p < 0.05, respectively). interestingly, ascorbic acid content was negatively correlated with copper content (r = -293 p < 0.05) and β-carotene content was not correlated with any of the traits under study. statistical procedure for classification to visualize the pattern of clustering among sweet pepper accessions, hierarchical cluster analysis was used. the data matrix included as objects each of the eight attributes analyzed for the 40 accessions. variables were attributes described in the experimental section. pearson correlation was used as criterion for similarity, and furthest neighbour as the clustering method. using the similarity level, these 40 sweet pepper accessions were classified into three main groups (fig. 3). differences existing between accessions studied for the variables selected were adequate to classify the accessions correctly. dendrogram of the 40 sweet pepper accessions showed three groups (fig. 3). cluster 1 consisted of 32 accessions (starting from the top, 8th to 30th accessions). second cluster comprised of seven accessions (vhc 30, vhc 36, vhc 27, vhc 29, vhc 31, vhc 2 and vhc table 2. correlation coefficient of functional and nutritional attributes ascorbic acid k p zn cu fe m n carotene ascorbic acid -0.215 -0.056 -0.152 -0.073 -0.293* 0.241 -0.011 â-carotene -0.014 -0.063 -0.118 0.131 -0.125 -0.153 potassium (k) 0.764** 0.541** 0.350* 0.115 0.230 phosphorus (p) 0.735** 0.618** 0.202 0.416** zinc(zn) 0.610** 0.377** 0.481** copper (cu) -0.126 0.096 iron (fe) 0.648** *, ** represent p < 0.05, 0.01, respectively 34,) and the third cluster consisted of a single genotype (vhc 33) that is highly distinct from other accessions falling to the two clusters. acknowledgement the authors thank dr. r.s. rawal and mr. harish andola, gbpihed, kosi-katarmal, almora, for assistance in hplc analysis. references abdulnabi, a.a., emhemed, a.h., hussein, g.d. and biacs, p.a. 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international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k.*, singh r., mir t.u.g., akhtar n. department of molecular biology and genetic engineering, school of bioengineering and biosciences, lovely professional university, phagwara, punjab-144401, india. corresponding author email : atifkhurshid61200216@gmail.com abstract citrus rinds contain essential oils. one of the major constituents of the essential oils in the zest of different fruits like citrus sinensis, c. limon, and vitis vinifera is limonene. in this research, limonene was extracted by hydro-distillation method using clevenger set up and its antimicrobial activity against certain bacterial and fungal strains was determined by using kirby bauer’s disc diffusion method. the primary antimicrobial screening of limonene without dilution exhibited a zone of inhibition (mm) comparable to ampicillin (20mg/ml) and amphotericin b (20mg/ml). the effect of pure limonene against all strains used was high as compared to the isolated samples. the mic values also showed an expected decrease in the zone of inhibition from 1:2 to 1:8 dilutions. based on this study, the cost-effective isolation of limonene and other essential oils is quite possible. keywords: anti-microbial citrus, hydro-distillation and limonene introduction citrus fruits are generally cultivated throughout the world. a substantial load of waste is produced after their processing. an estimated amount of citrus mash (cm) generated in south korea was reported to be more than sixty thousand tons. not only the edible part but also the citrus peels are well known for their phytochemical, polyphenolic, vitamin, and essential oil contents (mahato et al., 2017). one of the major components of citrus waste is the limonene. in citrus, the outer skin known as zest contains the majority of the limonene, whereas, traces of limonene can be isolated from the inner white kernel. limonene is a colourless cyclic monoterpene with chemical formula c10h16 having 1-methyl-4(prop-1-en-2-yl) cyclohex1-ene as its iupac name and commonly used in food and pharmaceutical industries (atti-santos et al., 2005). it derives its name from the lemon as it can be derived from lemon peel. limonene in its two optical forms is not only found in the citrus fruits but is known to exist in about 300 plant essential oils (bacanli et al., 2015). this ten carbon compound is known to be volatile in nature and is also prone to oxidation. this oxidation generally occurs at the time of extraction and packaging. limonene has found a wide range of applications as a flavoring and fragrance agent in many products, such as perfumes, beverages, detergents and soaps (erasto and viljoen, 2008). besides this, limonene is well known for its insecticidal properties as it can penetrate the insect body through the respiratory system (fumigation), the cuticle (contact effect), or the digestive system (ingestion effect)(prates et al., 1998) . limonene has a characteristic citrus odor and is colorless with a molar mass of 136.24g/mol. since it has a chiral center with four functional groups around so, it exists in two isomeric forms i, e d-limonene and llimonene. the d-limonene is common in lime, lemon, orange, tangerine, etc. it has a density of about 84kg/ m3 which is lesser than the water i, e 997kg/m3 (erasto and viljoen, 2008). the presence of this 10 carbon compound is also attributed to various plant genera like lippia (frog fruit) and artemisia (mugwort, sagewort). this optically active compound is generally found in its dform. however, l-form is also found in pinus and menthe species. limonene has been found to exhibit herbicide and antifeedant properties and acts as an 310 wani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 309-314, 2021 attractant for pollinators. this compound with its two isoprene units has tremendous antioxidant properties as it saturates the pulmonary membrane and gives protection against endogenous and exogenous oxidant agents like ozone (er asto and viljoen, 2008). limonene can generally be extracted by various methods like steam distillation, cold press, solvent extraction, and hydro-distillation using the clevenger system. the emergence of drug resistant bacterial and fungal species poses a serious global public health concern. hence, it is imperative to search for novel compounds to conta in these pa thogens. in this r ega r d phytochemicals can be very useful. hence, in this study antibacterial and antifungal properties of limonene extracted from citrus sinensis, c. limon, and vitis vinifera were evaluated. material and methods sample collectiona and extraction: the samples of the known variety of c. sinensis, c. limon, and v. vinifera were collected from the local street vendor in the commonly used polythene bag. the samples were washed initially with tap water and then with distilled water to make the outer surface sterilized (shaw et al., 1997). the fresh orange (1000g), lemon (500g), and grape (500g) after surface sterilization were gently pressed against the grater to remove the zest without removing any part of the white flesh. the peel of v. vinifera was obtained manually. then the peels of v. vinifera and zest of c. sinensis and c. limon were transferred to round bottom flasks (rbf). after that water was added into the rbf along with porcelain chips to prevent splashing of the zest and peels to the neck and allow smooth boiling (gelb et al., 1995; malko and wróblewska, 2016). the distillation process was proceeded at a temperature of 70°c. the distillate was collected a fter one a nd a ha lf hour s and then continuing the process again. the distillate was left undisturbed for about 20 minutes and then removed carefully using a pipette. limonene isolation and detection the crude essential oil rich in limonene isolated from zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, and vitis vinifera were detected by comparing the odour of the pure limonene with tha t of the isola ted sa mples. furthermore, the detection of crude limonene was performed by comparing the ph with that of pure limonene (lopez-sanchez and pagliaro, 2014). for the detection of the crude limonene from the zest of c. sinensis (oil), c. limon (lil), and v. vinifera (gil) biochemical assays such as iodine test and bromine test as described by wang and weller, 2006, and asbahani et al., 2015, respectively. culture revivaland antimicrobial activity determination the strains which include gram-positive (b.subtilis, m.luteus, and s. aureus), gram-negative (e.coli, k.pneumoniae, a.hydrophila, and p.pituda), and f u nga l ( c . a l b i c a n s , c . p a r a p s i l o s i s a n d s.cerevisiae) were obtained from microbial type culture collection (mtcc) (lucchesi et al., 2004). all the bacterial and fungal cultures were initially revived in the nutrient broth and yea st extra ct peptone dextrose (yepd) broth, respectively and growth was checked as per the method described by bhattacharya et al., (2014). after the revival of microbes the antimicrobial activity of the crude essential oils rich in limonene was determined by using kirby bauer ’s disc diffusion method (akhtar et al., 2017a; akhtar et al., 2017b; choudhury et al., 2017). in brief the microbes were grown overnight at 37°c and 28°c in nutrient broth and yepd broth for bacterial and fungal species respectively. then 100 µl of the culture were spread on nutrient agar and yepd agar plates. then, sterile filter discs containing different concentration of the essential oils rich in limonene extracted from zest of c. sinensis, c. limon and v. vinifera were placed on the plates. the plates were further incubated at 37°c for bacterial species and 28°c for fungal species. after the incubation, the zone of inhibition was measured. ampicillin was used as control for bacterial species and amphotericin b was used as control for fungal species. result and discussion isolatoion and detection of limonene distillate obtained after hydro-distillation is given in the table 1. the ph of the crude essential oils was almost the same as that of pure limonene. the color change during the biochemical assays such as iodine test and bromine water test also confirmed the presence of limonene in the crude essential oils (figure 1 and figure 2). the limonene content in orange zest, limonene zest, and grape peels were 2.0 ml, 2.7ml and 3.46ml for every 100 g of samples respectively. 311 limonene extraction and its antimicrobial activity microbial susceptibility the maximum anti-microbial activity was shown by the pure limonene (97%) for all the tested strains. among the ten strains, the maximum effect of pure limonene was found in the case of b. subtilis with a zone of inhibition (zoi) measuring about 12mm. the minimum effect was revealed against c. albicans with zoi mea sur ing a bout 3mm (ka r r, 1989) . on comparing the results of three crude essential oil isolates the maximum effect was shown by the oil and lil against k. pneumoniae (7mm) and s. aureus (8mm) respectively. the crude essential oil rich table 1. distillate obtained after hydro-distillation fruit zest solvent tempeinitial limonene name weight added rature distillate volume (g) (ml) (°c) (ml) (ml) orange 150 150 70°c 13 3 lemon 90 200 70°c 10 2.5 grape 130 150 70°c 16 4.5 limonene isolated from the grape peels showed good positive effects against e.coli (0.7mm) and b. subtilis (0.5mm) while it showed zoi in the range of 1mm3mm aga inst all other stra ins (figur e 3, 4, 5) (bhattacharya et al., 2014) . however, gol, was found to be ineffective against all the fungal strains. so, pur e limonene showed the maximum antimicrobial activity in comparison to the three isolates, whereas, the oil and lil showed maximum effect against gram positive bacteria than those of gram negative bacteria. the effects shown by the limonene are given below (table 2): figure 1. the antimicrobial activity of (i) pure limonene (pl), (ii) crude essential oil isolated from c. limon (lil), against e. coli at different concentration(a). 1:2 (b). 1:4 (c). 1:6 (d). 1:8 figure 2. antifungal activity of essential oils against c. parapsilosis (a). pl (b). oil (c). lil (d) gil j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 309-314, 2021 312 table 2. anti-microbial activity of essential oils against different bacteria and fungi organisms organism mtcc incubation pure zone of inhibition (mm) type number time (h) limonene orange lemon grape isolate isolate isolate m. luteus gpb 106 24 6 6 5 3 p. putida gnb 102 27 5 6 4 3 a. hydrophila gnb 1739 26 4 3 4 3 e.coli gnb 739 25 6 2 8 7 s. aureus gpb 3160 24 7 5 6 2 b. subtilis gpb 121 24 10 4 2 5 k. pneumoniae gnb 7028 27 7 6 5 3 c. albicans fungi 183 30 3 1 0.00 0.00 c. parapsilosis fungi 998 30 5 4 3 0.00 s. cerevisae fungi 36 30 5 4 2 1 microbiostatic/microbicidal effect of limonene with different dilutions: all those bacteria showing a zone of inhibition equal to 4mm or more were tested for determining the microbiostatic/microbicidal of a particular type of limonene. on the other hand, those with zoi below 4mm were not tested (-). there was a continuous decrease in the zoi of inhibition from less diluted sample to a more diluted sample (figure 4 and 5). besides the continuous decline in the zoi, there were some unusual results shown by the p.putida for 1:2 and 1:4 lil. similar uncommon results were shown by e. coli and b. subtilis (bold letters). similar type of findings were reported in previous studies against e. coli, p. putida, and s. aureus (akhtar et al., 2017a, 2017b; bilal ahmad et al., 2020). c. parapsilosis and s. cerevisae showing zoi equal to 4mm or more for oil and pl respectively were tested using different dilutions of these two samples. c. albicans was not tested because it did show susceptibility without dilution. there was a continuous decrease in the zoi from less diluted sample to more diluted samples. the summary of microbiostatic/microbiocidal effect of crude essential oils rich in limonene with different dilutions is given in table 3. table 3. microbio-static/microbicidal effect of limonene with different dilutions zoi by ampicillin, pl, oil, lil and gil ( mm) orga+ve pure limonene orange isolated limonene lemon isolated limonene grape isolated limonene nism control mtcc 25 mg/ml 1:2 1:4 1:6 1:8 1:2 1:4 1:6 1:8 1:2 1:4 1:6 1:8 1:2 1:4 1:6 1:8 106 7 4 2 0 0 4 3 0 0 3 2 0 0 102 5 4 3 1 0 3 2 1 0 3 0 2 0 1739 6 3 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 739 7 6 4 3 2 5 4 0 2 4 3 1 0 3160 7 3 2 1 1 4 3 2 1 3 1 1 0 121 5 3 4 2 1 4 3 2 1 4 2 1 1 7028 6 3 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 183 1 1 0 998 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 36 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 wani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 309-314, 2021 313 conclusion in the study crude essential oil rich in limonene were extracted from citrus sinensis, citrus limon, a nd vi ti s vi n if er a b y hydr odis tilla tion wit h clevenger set-up. the detection of limonene in these crude essential oils were confirmed by different biochemical assays. the isolated crude essential oil rich in limonene showed potential antimicrobial activity against different gram-positive and gramnegative ba cteria a s well a s a lso thr ee funga l species. this study shows that the limonene rich essentia l oils of c. sinensis, c. limon a nd v. vinifera has the potential to be used in drug and food industry to control various pathogens. conflict of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. references akhtar, n., choudhury, n., and kumar, n. 2017a. antioxidant and antimicrobial potentials of artemisia indica collected from the nepal region. journal of pharmaceutical sciences and research, 9(10), 1822–1826. akhtar, n., choudhury, n., and kumar, n. 2017b. evaluation of antioxidant and antimicrobial potentials of eclipta prostrata 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(received on 16.01.2021, revised on 06.07.2021 and accepted on 05.10.2021) wani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 309-314, 2021 00 contents.pdf 01 shalini.pdf 02 sheikh.pdf 03 debanath.pdf 04 nimbolkar.pdf 05 satisha.pdf 06 kaur.pdf 07 nitin kumar.pdf 08 varsha.pdf 09 ravishankar.pdf 10 swamini.pdf 11 vijaykumar.pdf 12 usha bharathi.pdf 13 yogalakshmi.pdf 14 adams.pdf 15 lakshman.pdf 16 yella swami.pdf 17 varalakshmi.pdf 18 sharon.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 22 event report.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s.1, sujatha anil nair1, nair a.k.2, laxman r.h.3 and kalaivanan d.4 1division of flower and medicinal crops, 2division of vegetable crops, 3division of basic sciences and 4division of natural resources, icar – indian institute of horticultural research, bangaluru, karnataka *corresponding author email : agrivijay483@gmail.com abstract the vegetative performance of chrysanthemum var. marigold with respect to phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule was evaluated. in the vegetative phase, the maximum plant height (62.44 cm), number of secondary branches per plant (42.65), number of primary branches per plant (10.85), leaf area (3793.81 cm2) was recorded in the treatment combination. whereas, the maximum average plant spread (47.98 cm) was in i1f4, number of leaves per plant (217.76) was in i3f1. scheduling irrigation regime i3-(0.8 er each at vegetative, bud and flowering phases) in combination with weekly application of (f4) 75:112.5:75 kg npk/ha in three splits 40:20:20 % npk (vegetative phase), 30:40:40 % npk (bud phase) 30:40:40% npk (flowering phase) through fertigation recorded maximum loose flower yield (26.27 t/ha) and this can be correlated with increased values for most of the vegetative parameters that directly influence the yield of the crop. hence the above was observed best treatment over other treatment combinations with respect to vegetative parameters of chrysanthemum var. marigold. key words: chrysanthemum var. marigold, fertigation, irrigation, phenophase and vegetative performance. introduction chr ysa nt hemu m (d en dr an th em a gr an di fl or a tzvelev.) is one of the important commercial flower crops in india as well as in the world. it is native of the northern hemisphere, chiefly europe and as ia . it belongs to fa mily aster a cea e a nd is commonly called as the “queen of the east”. its flowers are valued for its long keeping quality, wide array of colours and different forms, which make it s uita ble for use in flor a l bouquets, flower arrangements and decorations. chrysanthemum is the second most important flower crop after rose in india. the area under flower crops is 339000 ha with an overall production of 19.91 lakh tonnes. t he lea ding c hr ysa nthemu m gr owing sta te is karnataka with an area of 5453 ha and production of 59.54 thousand tonnes of loose flowers in 201718 after tamil nadu. water and fertilizer are the two vital inputs for crop production. apart from the economic considerations, it is also well known that the injudicious use of water and fertilizer can have f a r r ea c hing delet er iou s imp lic a t ions on the envir onment . t her ef or e, t he need a r is es f or technological options, which will help in sustaining the pr ec ious r es ou r c es a nd ma x imiz ing cr op production without any pernicious impact on the envir onment. optimum plant nutrition is ver y essential in plant growth and development, if it is not in sufficient amount then it reduces the vigor of the plant and affects yield of flower crops by producing small leaves, light green or off-color foliage, fewer branches and poor flowering (melvin a nd j a mes , 2 0 0 1) . e x ces s ive a p p lic a t ion of nutrients can cause adverse effects on plant growth, inc r ea s e t he p ot ent ia l f or env ir onment a l conta mina tion thr ough lea ching a nd wa ste of resources. method of nutrient application to plants is also a key issue to get the optimum potential of the crop. fertigation helps in reducing the wastage of nutrients through enhanced use efficiency of fertilizer besides providing flexibility in timing of 223 influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 fertilizer application in relation to crop demand b a s ed on p henologic a l s t a ges of gr owt h (papadopoulos, 1992). it also determines quantity of nut r ients , timing of a pp lic a t ion a nd most important component of water distribution (ahmad and khan, 2017). the amount of nutrient and water r equirement of a pla nt var ies a ccording to its phenophase and dispensation of water and nutrients can be scheduled accordingly. t he fer tiga tion scheduling should be based on plant, soil-air, plant wa t er r ela t ions a nd gr owt h s t a g e of p la nt (sankaranarayanan, 2007). it is essential to work out an economically feasible and technologically efficient fertigation scheduling f or op timu m u s e of wa t er a nd nu t r ient s f or enhanced wa ter productivity with r efer ence to different growth and developmental stages. hence, it is important to evaluate under phenophase based irrigation and fertigation treatments for improving vegeta tive per formance of chrysanthemum va r. marigold under open field condition. material and methods the present investigation conducted during two seasons i.e. 2018 & 2019, at the division of flowers and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research (icar-iihr), bengaluru. the experimental site is situated in eastern dry zone of karnataka state at 130 7 ́north latitude, 770 29 ́ east longitudes and at an altitude of 890 meters above the mean sea level. the experiment was laid out in split plot design with fifteen treatment combinations along with three replications. the treatment consists of three main plot treatments at phenophases of vegetative phase i.e. i1 – (0.8, 1.0 and 1.2 er at vegetative, bud and flowering phases, respectively), i2 (0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 er at vegetative, bud and flowering phases, respectively) and i3(0.8 er each at vegetative, bud and flowering phases) and five sub plot treatments (f1: 33. 3:33. 3:33. 3 % npk (vegeta tive pha se), 33.3:33.3:33.3 % npk (bud phase) 33.3:33.3:33.3 % npk (flowering phase) @ 100:150:100 kg npk/ha (rdf), f2: 40:20:20 % npk (vegetative phase), 30:40:40 % npk (bud phase ) 30:40:40% npk (flowering phase) @ 100:150:100 kg npk/ha (rdf), f3: 33.3:33.3:33.3 % npk (vegetative phase), 33.3:33.3:33.3 % npk (bud phase ) 33.3:33.3:33.3 % npk (flowering phase @ 75:112.5:75 kg npk/ ha (75% rdf), f4: 40:20:20 % npk (vegetative phase), 30:40:40 % npk (bud phase) 30:40:40% npk (flowering phase) @ 75:112.5:75 kg npk/ha (75% rdf), f5: soil application of recommended dose of fertilizer (100:150:100 kg npk/ha) and f1-f4: 25% of fertilizer dose i.e. 100:150:100 and 75:112.5:75 kg npk/ha was applied as basal dose. the previous day open pan evaporimeter observation was considered for scheduling the irrigation as per the treatment. the irrigation schedule was calculated by using following formula. the organic manure i.e. farmyard manure (20 t/ha) and basal application (urea, dap and mop) was a pplied a s per the tr ea tments a s ea r lier to transplanting. transplanting was followed with a spacing of 60 cm × 45 cm. the dose of fertilizers was applied based on treatments through fertigation in the form of water-soluble fertilizers (urea, map and sop). the fertigation was given at weekly intervals from thirty days after transplanting to 120 days. results and discussion the vegetative parameters viz., plant height (cm), number of primary and secondary branches per plant, average plant spread (cm) at flowering and leaf area (cm2) as influenced by phenophase based different irr iga tion and fertiga tion r egimes a re discussed below. t he pla nt height (cm) of chrysa nthemum wa s significa ntly influenced by differ ent levels of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation. among interactions effects the maximum plant height (61.19 cm) was recorded in i3f4 and it was on par with i2f4 (59.19 cm) and i2f3 (59.10 cm) whereas, the minimum (41.10 cm) was recorded in the treatment combination i2f2 during the first year. the maximum plant height (65.30 cm), was recorded in i3f1 and it was on par with the treatments, i1f4 (64.50 cm), i2f4 (64.43 cm) and i3f4 (63.68 cm) whereas, the minimum (44.60 cm) was recorded in i1f2 during the second year. in pooled interaction, the maximum plant height (62.44 cm) was recorded in i3f4 and it was on par with the treatment i2f4 (61.81 cm) and the minimum (46.91 cm) was recorded in i1f2. (table 1 & 2) (fig.1). 224 ta bl e 1 . in flu en ce o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) an d nu m be r of p ri m ar y br an ch es o f ch ry sa nt he m um v ar . m ar ig ol d t re at m en ts p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) n um be r of p ri m ar y br an ch es p er p la nt i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n i 1 51 .4 2 54 .4 8 52 .9 5 9. 64 9. 96 9. 80 i 2 52 .3 2 56 .3 0 54 .3 1 9. 74 9. 14 9. 44 i 3 48 .8 8 58 .9 7 53 .9 2 9. 43 9. 20 9. 32 se . d 0. 65 0. 40 0. 38 0. 03 0. 08 0. 05 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 1. 83 1. 11 1. 07 0. 10 0. 23 0. 14 f 1 51 .7 0 57 .5 0 54 .6 0 8. 71 9. 30 9. 00 f 2 44 .1 4 52 .4 0 48 .2 7 9. 77 9. 50 9. 63 f 3 55 .3 3 54 .7 6 55 .0 4 10 .1 3 9. 57 9. 85 f 4 58 .8 3 64 .2 0 61 .5 2 10 .6 1 10 .8 3 10 .7 2 f 5 44 .3 6 54 .0 5 49 .2 1 8. 80 7. 96 8. 38 se . d 0. 66 0. 58 0. 40 0. 11 0. 11 0. 08 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 1. 14 1. 20 0. 83 0. 22 0. 23 0. 17 ta bl e 2. i nt er ac tio n ef fe ct o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) of c hr ys an th em um v ar . m ar ig ol d t re at i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n m en ts f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n i 1 51 .9 0 49 .2 1 56 .7 9 56 .1 0 43 .0 9 51 .4 2 53 .7 1 44 .6 0 55 .6 0 64 .5 0 54 .0 0 54 .4 8 52 .8 1 46 .9 1 56 .2 0 60 .3 0 48 .5 5 52 .9 5 i 2 55 .1 0 41 .1 0 59 .1 0 59 .1 9 47 .1 0 52 .3 2 53 .5 0 56 .7 0 51 .2 7 64 .4 3 55 .6 0 56 .3 0 54 .3 0 48 .9 0 55 .1 9 61 .8 1 51 .3 5 54 .3 1 i 3 48 .1 0 42 .1 0 50 .1 0 61 .1 9 42 .9 0 48 .8 8 65 .3 0 55 .9 0 57 .4 0 63 .6 8 52 .5 6 58 .9 7 56 .7 0 49 .0 0 53 .7 5 62 .4 4 47 .7 3 53 .9 2 m ea n 51 .7 0 44 .1 4 55 .3 3 58 .8 3 44 .3 6 57 .5 0 52 .4 0 54 .7 6 64 .2 0 54 .0 5 54 .6 0 48 .2 7 55 .0 4 61 .5 2 49 .2 1 se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) i 0. 65 1. 83 0. 40 1. 11 0. 38 1. 07 f 0. 66 1. 14 0. 58 1. 20 0. 40 0. 83 i at f 1. 22 2. 77 0. 99 2. 15 0. 73 1. 66 f at i 1. 14 2. 37 1. 01 2. 09 0. 69 1. 43 vijayakumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 225 t re at i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n m en ts f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n i 1 8. 79 9. 20 10 .8 0 10 .5 0 8. 90 9. 64 10 .6 0 9. 80 10 .2 0 11 .2 0 8. 00 9. 96 9. 70 9. 50 10 .5 0 10 .8 5 8. 45 9. 80 i 2 8. 93 10 .4 0 10 .0 0 10 .7 7 8. 60 9. 74 8. 10 9. 60 9. 60 10 .1 9 8. 19 9. 14 8. 52 10 .0 0 9. 80 10 .4 8 8. 40 9. 44 i 3 8. 40 9. 70 9. 60 10 .5 6 8. 89 9. 43 9. 20 9. 10 8. 90 11 .1 0 7. 70 9. 20 8. 80 9. 40 9. 25 10 .8 3 8. 30 9. 32 m ea n 8. 71 9. 77 10 .1 3 10 .6 1 8. 80 9. 30 9. 50 9. 57 10 .8 3 7. 96 9. 00 9. 63 9. 85 10 .7 2 8. 38 se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) i 0. 03 0. 10 0. 08 0. 23 0. 05 0. 14 f 0. 11 0. 22 0. 11 0. 23 0. 08 0. 17 i at f 0. 17 0. 36 0. 19 0. 42 0. 14 0. 30 f at i 0. 19 0. 39 0. 19 0. 40 0. 14 0. 30 ta bl e 3. i nt er ac tio n ef fe ct o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on n um be r of p ri m ar y br an ch es p er p la nt o f ch ry sa nt he m um v ar . m ar ig ol d f ig . 1 . i nf lu en ce o f ph en op ha se b as ed i rr ig at io n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 226 the irrigation treatment i3(0.8 er each at vegetative, bud and flowering phases) in combination with f4 fertigation at 40:20:20 % npk (vegetative phase), 30:40:40 % npk (bud phase) 30:40:40% npk (flower ing pha se) @ 75:112.5:75 kg npk/ha2 recorded the maximum plant height (62.44 cm) in chrysanthemum var. marigold. the increase in plant height with irrigation at i3 might be due to adequate moisture provided in the soil throughout the crop period. adequate soil moisture resulted in greater development of meristematic tissues leading to higher rate of photosynthesis and assimilation in the plant system in marigold (chawla, 2008). in the fertigation treatment f4, higher proportion of nitrogen fertilizer at vegetative phase might have increased the plant height because of the synergistic interaction of nitrogen with available endogenous auxin resulting in enhanced cell wall plasticity and increased cell elongation thus resulting in increase in the height of the plant. further, during the bud and flowering phases, the sustained growth of the plant might have been the result of optimum application of nitrogen. the results from the present investigation could hence be attributed to the frequent and constant a pplica tion of optimum levels of fer tilizers a t appropriate intervals at crop phenophases, which increases the available nutrient status in the root rhizosphere at constant levels during all the phases thus increasing the uptake of nutrients rapidly, and further influencing the growth of the plant. similar observations were earlier reported by mamata et al. (2017) in marigold, parya et al. (2017) in gerbera, priyanka et al. (2017) in gladiolus and satapathy et al. (2016) in ma r igold, ja mil et al. (2016), zawadzisnka and janicka (2007) in amaryllis and viola respectively. the treatment i1f4 was on par with i3f4 for maximum (10.83), number of primary branches per plant (table 1 & 3) and the maximum number of secondary branches per plant (42.65) was recorded in the treatment combination i3f4 and it was on par with i1f4 (41.44) and the minimum (17.75) was recorded in i1f5. the treatment i3f4 recorded the maximum number of seconda r y br a nches per pla nt (42. 65) in chrysanthemum var. marigold. this increase in number branches might be mainly due to the increased irrigation scheduled favoring longer availability of soil moisture which leads to better growth and development of vegetative part of the plant. the greater availability of nutrient at optimum proportions at critical growth stages in the present fertigation treatment might have resulted in production of more number of branches per plant as observed by siraj ali (1998) in bird-ofparadise. polara et al. (2015) recorded similar results in afr ica n ma r igold. t hese findings a r e in conformation with the earlier results of jawaharlal and ganesh (2020) in chrysanthemum and nagaraju et al. (2003) in rose (table 4 & 5). the average plant spread was significantly influenced and showed linear increase with irrigation regime and with optimum dosage of water-soluble fertilizers through fertigation. among interactions effect the maximum average plant spread (53.23 cm) was recorded in the treatment combination i1f4 followed by the treatment i1f3 (45.76 cm) and the minimum (31.60 cm) was recorded in the treatment combination of i1f5 during the first year. the maximum average plant spread (49.33 cm) was recorded in the treatment combination i3f1 followed by i2f3 (44.87 cm) and the minimum (30.80 cm) was recorded in the treatment combination i1f2 during the second year. in pooled interaction, the maximum average plant spread (47.98 cm) was recorded in the treatment combination i1f4 followed by the treatment i1f3 (43.61 cm) and the minimum (32.23 cm) was recorded in the treatment combination of i3f2 (table 4 & 6). it was recorded that irrigation regime i1(0.8, 1.0 and 1.2 er at vegetative, bud and flowering phases, respectively) in combination with fertigation at 40:20:20 % npk (vegetative phase), 30:40:40 % npk (bud phase) 30:40:40% npk (flowering phase) @ 75:112.5:75 kg npk/ha registered maximum average plant spread (47.98 cm). this result clearly showed that higher amount of nitrogen supplied at vegetative phase along with higher soil moisture levels leads to increased vegetative growth of chrysanthemum var. marigold. according to paul et al. (1996) the plant spread could be attributed to the frequent application of fertilizers with constant supply of nutrients, at regular intervals for better growth which would have resulted in reduced nutrient losses by leaching and efficient use of nutrients through fertigation compared to soil application. this is in accordance with the findings of deshmukh and wavhal (1998) in china aster and ahirwal et al. (2012) in african marigold. the ma ximum number of lea ves (235.03) was recorded in the treatment combination i1f4 and it was vijayakumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 227 t re at m en ts n um be r of s ec on da ry b ra nc he s a ve ra ge p la nt s pr ea d n um be r of l ea ve s pe r pl an t (c m ) pe r pl an t i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n i 1 29 .1 8 30 .6 5 29 .9 1 42 .3 2 39 .6 7 41 .0 0 22 1. 93 13 6. 89 17 9. 40 i 2 32 .4 2 27 .2 7 29 .8 5 36 .7 1 41 .0 4 38 .8 8 22 0. 26 14 1. 43 18 0. 82 i 3 30 .9 7 29 .2 9 30 .1 3 35 .6 9 40 .4 8 37 .4 3 21 8. 84 15 6. 34 18 7. 59 se . d 0. 78 0. 61 0. 06 0. 34 0. 13 0. 58 1. 23 1. 99 3. 20 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 1. 41 1. 20 0. 12 0. 95 0. 26 1. 62 2. 60 4. 02 6. 98 f 1 30 .0 6 34 .0 6 32 .0 6 37 .1 3 43 .8 7 40 .5 0 22 4. 07 15 9. 64 19 1. 86 f 2 26 .3 2 23 .4 4 24 .8 8 38 .2 6 35 .2 6 36 .7 6 22 0. 74 13 6. 21 17 8. 47 f 3 31 .5 0 27 .3 0 29 .4 0 40 .5 4 40 .9 2 40 .7 3 21 4. 97 14 3. 18 17 8. 57 f 4 42 .1 2 39 .8 6 40 .9 9 42 .9 8 41 .8 1 42 .3 9 22 5. 88 15 4. 83 19 0. 36 f 5 24 .3 0 20 .6 8 22 .4 9 34 .3 0 38 .4 5 36 .3 7 21 7. 97 13 0. 57 17 3. 77 se . d 0. 89 0. 60 0. 55 0. 53 0. 96 0. 79 0. 26 0. 27 0. 05 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 1. 54 1. 19 1. 02 1. 10 2. 03 1. 64 0. 45 0. 55 0. 10 ta bl e 4. i nf lu en ce o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on v eg et at iv e pa ra m et er s of c hr ys an th em um v ar . m ar ig ol d influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 228 t re at i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n m en ts f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n i 1 26 .8 2 26 .5 9 31 .7 8 42 .0 4 18 .6 9 29 .1 8 37 .2 4 28 .4 2 29 .9 3 40 .8 4 16 .8 1 30 .6 5 32 .0 3 27 .5 0 30 .8 5 41 .4 4 17 .7 5 29 .9 1 i 2 36 .4 8 27 .0 5 31 .9 9 39 .9 1 26 .6 7 32 .4 2 29 .1 5 29 .1 7 17 .2 8 37 .8 4 22 .9 1 27 .2 7 32 .8 2 28 .1 1 24 .6 4 38 .8 8 24 .7 9 29 .8 5 i 3 26 .8 8 25 .3 1 30 .7 2 44 .4 0 27 .5 5 30 .9 7 35 .7 8 12 .7 4 34 .7 0 40 .8 9 22 .3 3 29 .2 9 31 .3 3 19 .0 2 32 .7 1 42 .6 5 24 .9 4 30 .1 3 m ea n 30 .0 6 26 .3 2 31 .5 0 42 .1 2 24 .3 0 34 .0 6 23 .4 4 27 .3 0 39 .8 6 20 .6 8 32 .0 6 24 .8 8 29 .4 0 40 .9 9 22 .4 9 se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) i 0. 78 1. 41 0. 61 1. 20 0. 06 0. 17 f 0. 89 1. 54 0. 60 1. 19 0. 55 1. 02 i at f 1. 34 2. 68 1. 01 2. 07 0. 89 1. 76 f at i 1. 33 2. 66 1. 00 2. 06 0. 90 1. 75 ta bl e 5. i nt er ac tio n ef fe ct o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on n um be r of s ec on da ry b ra nc he s pe r pl an t of c hr ys an th em um v ar . m ar ig ol d t re at i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n m en ts f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n i 1 38 .4 0 42 .6 3 45 .7 6 53 .2 3 31 .6 0 42 .3 2 40 .4 6 30 .8 0 41 .4 6 42 .7 3 42 .9 0 39 .6 7 39 .4 3 36 .7 1 43 .6 1 47 .9 8 37 .2 5 41 .0 0 i 2 37 .5 0 35 .2 3 38 .7 3 37 .2 0 34 .9 0 36 .7 1 41 .8 2 41 .4 7 44 .8 7 39 .2 3 37 .8 3 41 .0 4 39 .6 6 38 .3 5 41 .8 0 38 .2 1 36 .3 6 38 .8 8 i 3 35 .5 0 30 .9 3 37 .1 3 38 .5 0 36 .4 0 35 .6 9 49 .3 3 33 .5 3 36 .4 3 43 .4 7 33 .1 0 40 .4 8 42 .4 2 32 .2 3 36 .7 8 40 .9 9 34 .7 5 37 .4 3 m ea n 37 .1 3 38 .2 6 40 .5 4 42 .9 8 34 .3 0 43 .8 7 35 .2 7 40 .9 2 41 .8 1 38 .4 5 40 .5 0 36 .7 6 40 .7 3 42 .3 9 36 .3 8 se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) i 0. 34 0. 95 0. 13 0. 26 0. 58 1. 62 f 0. 53 1. 10 0. 96 2. 03 0. 79 1. 64 i at f 0. 89 1. 93 2. 53 5. 59 1. 36 2. 99 f at i 0. 92 1. 90 2. 54 5. 24 1. 37 2. 84 ta bl e 6. i nt er ac tio n ef fe ct o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on a ve ra ge p la nt s pr ea d (c m ) of c hr ys an th em um v ar . m ar ig ol d vijayakumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 229 on par with i1f1 (229.61) and the minimum number of leaves per plant (205.01) were recorded in i1f5 during the first year. the maximum number of leaves per plant (215.50) was recorded in the treatment combination i3f1 and it was on par with i2f2 (192.21), i1f3 (171.61) and i3f4 (175.90) whereas, the minimum (89.61) was recorded in i1f2 during the second year. in pooled interaction the maximum number of leaves per plant (217.76) were recorded in the treatment combination i3f1 and it was on par with i2f2 (208.41), i1f3 (195.96), i1f4 (197.22) and i3f4 (198.75) whereas, the minimum (154. 61) wa s r ecor ded in i 1f 2 (table 4 & 7). the treatment i3f4 registered maximum number of leaves per plant and maximum leaf area (2404.74 cm2) was recorded in i1f4 and it was on par with i3f4 (2352.18 cm2) and the lowest (1308.31 cm2) was recorded in i3f1 during the vegetative phase (tables 8 & 9) (fig. 2a, 2b & 2c). in the present study, the increase in number of leaves and leaf area could be fig. 2. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation scheduling on leaf area (cm2) at vegetative phase fig. 2.a. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation scheduling on leaf area (cm2) at vegetative phase during first year fig. 2.b. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation scheduling on leaf area (cm2) at vegetative phase during second year fig. 2.c. pooled influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation scheduling on leaf area (cm2) at vegetative phase influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 230 l ea f ar ea ( cm 2 ) a t ve ge ta ti ve p ha se t re at i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n m en ts f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n i 1 22 9. 61 21 9. 60 22 0. 31 23 5. 03 20 5. 01 22 1. 93 12 4. 21 89 .6 1 17 1. 61 15 9. 40 13 9. 60 13 6. 89 17 6. 91 15 4. 61 19 5. 96 19 7. 22 17 2. 31 17 9. 40 i 2 22 2. 60 22 4. 61 20 8. 60 22 1. 00 22 4. 30 22 0. 26 13 9. 21 19 2. 21 10 4. 21 12 9. 20 14 2. 30 14 1. 43 18 0. 91 20 8. 41 15 6. 41 17 5. 10 18 3. 30 18 0. 82 i 3 22 0. 01 21 8. 00 21 3. 00 22 1. 60 22 1. 60 21 8. 84 21 5. 50 12 6. 80 15 3. 71 17 5. 90 10 9. 80 15 6. 34 21 7. 76 17 2. 40 18 3. 36 19 8. 75 16 5. 70 18 7. 59 m ea n 22 4. 07 22 0. 74 21 4. 97 22 5. 88 21 7. 97 15 9. 64 13 6. 21 14 3. 18 15 4. 83 13 0. 57 19 1. 86 17 8. 47 17 8. 57 19 0. 36 17 3. 77 se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se . d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) i 1. 23 2. 60 1. 99 4. 02 3. 20 6. 98 f 0. 26 0. 45 0. 27 0. 55 0. 05 0. 10 i at f 4. 27 9. 08 23 .2 6 52 .4 1 12 .3 9 27 .7 9 f at i 4. 58 9. 45 22 .2 8 45 .9 8 11 .9 9 24 .7 6 ta bl e 7. i nt er ac tio n ef fe ct o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on n um be r of l ea ve s pe r pl an t of c hr ys an th em um v ar . m ar ig ol d ta bl e 8. i nf lu en ce o f ph en op ha se b as ed i rr ig at io n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on l ea f ar ea ( cm 2 ) a t ve ge ta ti ve p ha se o f ch ry sa nt he m um v ar . m ar ig ol d t re at m en ts i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n i 1 16 40 .8 0 23 73 .7 4 20 07 .2 7 i 2 12 86 .4 2 23 62 .9 7 18 24 .6 8 i 3 13 45 .8 8 25 75 .2 8 19 60 .5 8 se . d 8. 89 45 .5 2 5. 30 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 24 .6 8 10 1. 36 10 .5 0 f 1 11 02 .6 7 23 19 .6 8 17 11 .1 8 f 2 13 34 .6 5 24 08 .4 3 18 71 .5 4 f 3 15 69 .7 3 23 88 .7 5 19 79 .2 4 f 4 17 78 .7 9 28 51 .5 1 23 15 .1 5 f 5 13 36 .0 0 22 18 .2 7 17 77 .1 4 se . d 20 .8 1 26 .4 4 13 5. 35 c d ( p= 0. 05 ) 42 .9 6 59 .0 2 27 9. 33 vijayakumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 231 ta bl e 9. i nt er ac tio n ef fe ct o f ph en op ha se b as ed ir ri ga tio n an d fe rt ig at io n sc he du lin g on le af a re a (c m 2 ) a t ve ge ta tiv e ph as e of c hr ys an th em um v ar . m ar ig ol d t re at i ye ar ii y ea r p oo le d m ea n m en ts f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n f 1 f 2 f 3 f 4 f 5 m ea n i 1 14 30 .3 4 16 98 .0 0 17 94 .1 9 18 96 .3 4 13 85 .1 5 16 40 .8 0 27 92 .2 7 21 98 .0 3 18 57 .8 0 29 13 .1 3 21 07 .4 7 23 73 .7 4 21 11 .3 1 19 48 .0 2 18 26 .0 0 24 04 .7 4 17 46 .3 1 20 07 .2 7 i 2 89 7. 36 11 54 .9 0 11 45 .8 0 19 86 .5 0 12 47 .5 4 12 86 .4 2 25 30 .4 7 21 18 .1 0 27 94 .0 3 23 90 .5 7 19 81 .6 7 23 62 .9 7 17 13 .9 2 16 36 .5 0 19 69 .9 2 21 88 .5 4 16 14 .6 1 18 24 .6 8 i 3 98 0. 32 11 51 .0 4 17 69 .2 0 14 53 .5 3 13 75 .3 1 13 45 .8 8 16 36 .3 0 29 09 .1 7 25 14 .4 3 32 50 .8 3 25 65 .7 0 25 75 .2 8 13 08 .3 1 20 30 .1 1 21 41 .8 2 23 52 .1 8 19 70 .5 1 19 60 .5 8 m ea n 11 02 .6 7 13 34 .6 5 15 69 .7 3 17 78 .7 9 13 36 .0 0 23 19 .6 8 24 08 .4 3 23 88 .7 5 28 51 .5 1 22 18 .2 7 17 11 .1 8 18 71 .5 4 19 79 .2 4 23 15 .1 5 17 77 .1 4 se .d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se .d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) se .d c d ( p= 0. 05 ) i 8. 89 24 .6 8 45 .5 2 10 1. 36 5. 30 10 .5 0 f 20 .8 1 42 .9 6 26 .4 4 59 .0 2 13 5. 35 27 9. 33 i at f 33 .4 5 70 .7 2 37 .8 6 65 .4 1 23 .4 9 50 .0 1 f at i 36 .0 5 74 .4 1 35 .7 8 71 .3 6 23 .5 1 57 .8 9 influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 232 ahirwar, m.k., ahirwar, k. and megha, sukla. 2012. effect of pla nt densities, nitr ogen a nd phosphorus levels on growth, yield and quality of african marigold. annals of plant and soil research, 14(2):153155. ahmad, a., and khan, s. 2017. water and energy sca r city for a gr icultur e: is ir r iga tion modernization the answer. irrigation and drainage, 66: 34-44. chawla, s.l. 2008. effect of irrigation regimes and mulching on vegetative growth, quality and yield of flowers of african marigold. thesis, doctor of philosophy in hor ticultur e, maharana pratap university of agriculture and technology, udaipur. deshmukh, a.s., shinde, p.p. and jadhav, s.b. 1996. fertigation under drip irrigation for sugarcane. in: all india seminar on modern irrigation techniques, proceedings (june). pp. 217-219. deshmukh, r. and wahal, n. 1998. effect of iron on growth and flowering of aster. journal of maharashtra agricultural university, 23(2): 99-101. hatwar, g.p. gondane, s. v. urkude, s.m. and gahukar, o.v. 2003. effect of micronutrients on growth and yield of chilli. soil and crops, 13:123-1254. ja leel, c. a. , p. ma niva nna n, b. sa nka r, a. kishorekumar, r. gopi, r. somasundaram and references r. panneerselvam. 2007. induction of drought str ess toler a nce by ketocona zole in catharanthus roseus is mediated by enhanced antioxidant potentials and secondary metabolite accumulation. colloids surf. b: biointerfaces, 60: 201-206 jamil, m. k. j., ahman, m. m. i. r., & ossain, m. m. o. h. 2016. response of n, p and k on the growth and flowering of hippeastrum (hippeastrum hybridum hort.). journal of agriculture, 41(1), 91–101. jawaharlal, m and ganesh, s. 2020. studies on the effect of fer tiga tion in gr eenhouse chrysanthemum. journal of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry, sp.9(2): 254-259. karam, f., lahoud, r., masaad, r., kabalan, r., breidi, j., chalita, c., rouphael, y. 2007. evapotranspiration, seed yield and water use efficiency of drip irrigated sunflower under full and deficit irrigation conditions. agricultural water management 90(3), 213– 223. kaushik, h., singh, j.p., mohan, b., rajbeer and nathiram. 2013. effect of inorganic fertilize (nitrogen) and bio-fertilizer (azospirillum) on growth and flowering in african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) cv. pusa narangi ga inda . international journal of agricultural sciences, 9(1):189-192. khan, m.m., sujatha, k., krishna, r., manohar, m., kariyanna, a. a., farooqui and shivshankar. attributed to application of higher proportion of nitrogen fertilizer and optimum irrigation regimes at vegetative phase might have increased the number of leaves and leaf area. it may be due to the fact that the vegeta tive gr owth increa sed with nitr ogen application and hence nitrogen is an essential part of nucleic acid, which plays a vital role in promoting vegetative growth. the present results were also in line with the reports of maharnor et al. (2011) and polara et al. (2014) in african marigold, karam et al. (2007) in sunflower and jaleel et al. (2009) in catharanthus. rawat and mathpal (1984), paul et al. (1996) and khan et al. (1996) in various crops. conclusion in the vegetative phase of chrysanthemum var. marigold, the irrigation treatment i3-(0.8 er each at vegetative, bud and flowering phases) in combination with fertigation treatment f4 at 40:20:20 % npk (vegetative phase), 30:40:40 % npk (bud phase) 30:40:40% npk (flowering phase) @ 75:112.5:75 kg npk/ha was found adequate to cater the demand of water as well as nutrient requirement for vegetative phase of chrysanthemum var. marigold. this can be correlated with the maximum loose flower yield (26.27 t/ha) registered by the same treatment. further better plant growth as recorded during the investigation is indicative of better uptake of nutrients which in turn are involved in basic reaction of photosynthesis and in synthesis of metabolites required for plant growth with above irrigation and fertigation schedule. hence it is concluded that the above treatment combination i3f4 wa s registe red as the be st tre atment to imp rov e the vegetative growth of chrysanthemum var. marigold. vijayakumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 233 1996. fertigation studies in horticultural crops in: proc. all india seminar on mit, bangalore, ed khan, m. m., pp. 178-186. maharnor, s.i., chopde, n., thakre, s. and raut, p.d. 2011. effect of nitrogen and pinching on growth and yield of african marigold. asian journal of horticulture, 6(1): 43-45. ma mta kuma wa t, s. k. , kha ndelwa l, m. r. , choudhary, p.k., kumawat, g. sharma and paru panwar. 2017. effect of integrated nutrient management on growth, flowering and yield of afr ica n ma r igold (tagetes erecta l. ). international journal of current microbiology and applied sciences, 6(8): 60-65. marchner, h. 1983. introduction to the mineral nutrition of plants. handbook plant physiology, 154: 31 38. marschner, h. and cakmak, i. 1986. mechanism of phosphorus-induced zinc deficiency in cotton. ii. evidence for impaired shoot control of phosphorus uptake and translocation under zinc deficiency. physiologia plantarum, 68: 491-496. melvin, r.k. james, j.k. 2001. fertilizing shade and ornamental trees, msu extension forestry bulletin, bozeman. nagaraju, c.g., reddy, t.v. and madaiah, d. 2003. effect of plant density, irrigation and oil cakes on growth, production and quality of field gr own rose cultivar landor a. journal of ornamental horticulture, 6(3): 172-179. pafli, g. 1965. relations between abundant n supply and amino acid concentration on leaves of rice plants. plant and soil, 23: 275284. papadopoulos, i. 1992. phosphorus fertigation of trickle-irrigated potato. fertilizer research, 31: 9-13. parya, c. 2017. effect of integrated plant nutrient system for gerbera flower production under protected cultivation. journal of applied horticulture, 19(2), 139-142. paul, j., joseph, j. and kabeer, a. 1996. fertilizer irrigation an overview. in proceedings of all india seminar on mit, bangalore, 196-204. paul, j., joseph, j. and kabeer, a. 1996. fertilizer irrigation an overview. in proceedings of all india seminar on mit, bangalore, 196-204. polara, n.d., gajipara, n.n. and barad, a.v. 2014. effect of nitrogen and phosphorus on nutrient content and uptake in different varieties of afr ica n ma r igold (tagetes erecta l. ). international quarterly journal of life sciences, 9(1):115-119. priyanka tirkey, lagamanna r kullur and vm prasad. 2017. effect of organic and inorganic source of n.p.k on growth and yield parameters of gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus) cv. jester. journal of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry, 6(5): 1004-1006. rawat, p.s. and mathpal, k.n. 1984. effect of micronutrients on yield and sugar metabolism of some of the vegetables under kumaon hill conditions. scientific culture, 50: 243-244. sa nka r a na r a ya na n. 2007. integr a ted wa ter management system for better fibre quality and high production. tmc annual report, 20062007. satapathy, s.p., toppo, r., dishri, m., and mohanty, c. r. 2016. impact of integrated nutrient management (inm) on flowering and corm pr oduction in gla diolus. biometrics & biostatistics international journal, 4(7): 296 298. singatkar, s.s., swant, r.b., ranpise, s.a. and wavhal, k.n. 1995. effects of different levels of n, p and k on growth and flower production of ga illa r dia . jour na l of ma ha r a shtr a agriculture university, 20(3): 392-394. siraj ali, m.s. 1998. effect of singral and nitrophoska fertilizers on growth, flowering and mineral composition of bird-of-paradise (strelitzia reginae ait. ) pla nts. indian journal of horticulture, 55(3): 257-262. terangpi, h. and paswan, l. 2003. effect of npk on growth and flowering of gerbera. journal of ornamental horticulture. 6(1): 71-72. zawadzisnka, a., & janicka, d. 2007. effects of compost media on growth and flowering of parviflorous garden pansy (viola wittrockiana gams. acta agrobotanica, 60(2): 161–166. (received on 05.09.2021, revised on 23.09.2021 and accepted on 15.01.2022) influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 222-233, 2021 00 contents.pdf 11 vijaykumar.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf introduction custard apple belongs to the family annonaceae which has 46 genera and around 500 to 600 species, most of them found in the tropics. of the several species of annona, at least five are available in india and yield edible fruit. these are: custard apple (annona squamosa l.), cherimoya (annona cherimola mill.), soursop (annona muricata l.), ‘ramphal’ (annona reticulata l.) and atemoya (annona atemola hort.). custard apple has been performing well under dryland conditions where other crops do not. the tree is small, more or less shrub-like, shedding leaves in winter. the flowers are borne on current season’s growth (newly emerging young shoots). flowers are bisexual and distinctly protogynous (sampath and jalikop, 2000). pruning and defoliation are essential components for inducing off-season flowering while aiming at quality and quantity of fruits. in custard apple, fruiting occurs on the current season’s growth. with this in view, the present investigation was conducted to test the effect of different pruning intensities in combination with chemical defoliation on induction of offseason cropping in custard apple cv. balanagar. material and methods the experiment was laid out in the experimental orchard of custard apple at icar indian institute of induction of off-season flowering in custard apple (annona squamosa l.) cv. balanagar g.m. vinay and r. chithiraichelvan1 collage of horticulture, bengaluru university of horticultural science, bagalkot 587 123, india e-mail: vingeegmvegs@gmail.com abstract pruning and defoliation are essential operations for inducing off-season flowering and fruiting to yield better quality and quantity of fruits in custard apple. trees were subjected to two levels of pruning (25% and 50%) combined with use of chemical defoliants (urea 5%, ethrel 2000ppm, potassium iodide 1%, or ortho-phosphoric acid 1%) besides the control, with each treatment replicated thrice. early initiation of flowering and better vegetative growth was seen in pruned (25%) and defoliated trees than in the control or other treatments. maximum off-season yield (10.33kg/ plant) was obtained in t4 (25% pruning, combined with 5% urea spray as defoliant) and t6 (25% pruning, combined with 1% potassium iodide-spray as defoliant). findings of this investigation helped standardize pruning and defoliation practices on a scientific basis for off-season production of custard apple fruits. key words: pruning, defoliation, off-season, custard apple, urea horticultural research, bengaluru, during 2013-2014. eleven-year-old trees of cv. balanagar showing uniform vigour were selected for the study. randomized complete block design (rcbd) was followed, with two levels (25% and 50%) of pruning intensity combined with defoliating chemicals (urea 5%, ethrel 2000ppm, potassium iodide 1%, ortho-phosphoric acid 1%) with control. each treatment was replicated thrice. number of shoots that emerged (secondary and tertiary shoots were counted), length of the emerged shoots (from the point of emergence to the tip, in cm), number of flowering shoots, number of flowers per shoot, and number of flowers per plant were noted at monthly interval; days taken to first flower, duration of flowering, days taken to fruit-set from onset of pruning, average number of fruits per tree, and fruit yield (kg/tree) were recorded. results and discussion growth attributes pruning, when performed appropriately, provides the tree with a proper shape and size. it also enables essential operations for custard apple for enhancing production of quality fruits. significant differences among treatments at different dates of observations for number of shoots that emerged were observed (table 1). maximum number of shoots emerged at 30, 60 and 90 days in treatment t4 (66.0, 1division of fruit crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):13-17, 2015 14 86.00 and 125.67, respectively), which was on par with t5, t6, t8, t7, t2 and t10, and, no branches were seen in t1 (controlno pruning and no chemical spray). this could be due to greater availability of leaf area on shoots from 25% pruning compared to 50% pruning. further, as t4 is a combination (25% pruning + spray of 5% urea), more numerous shoots may have been induced, resulting in greater leaf area, consequently increased photosynthetic activity. the present findings are in line with pandey et al (1998) who reported maximum number of shoots under 25% pruning in ber. at 120 days from treatment, t1 (198.0) was found to be highly significant relative to other treatments; minimum shoot number was seen in treatments t11, t9, t10 and t8. this could be attributed to the fact that control trees were neither pruned nor sprayed with chemicals, and, sprouting occurred as a natural consequence of leaf shedding and production of new growth from all the buds, 120 days after treatment-imposition in the other trees. bajwa et al (1986) found significantly high total number of shoots in unpruned ber trees. lal and prasad (1971) also found unpruned ber trees as producing more shoots compared to the pruned trees. data on length of shoot (table 1) indicate significant differences among treatments, at monthly intervals. at 30 days of observation, maximum shoot length was seen in t3 (6.3) and t2 (5.5), at 60 days in t11 (13.57), t3 (12.93) and t8 (12.67), at 90 days in t3 (25.23), and, at 120 days in t5 (30.74) which was on par with t10, t3, t11 and t9. minimum shoot length was observed in t1 (5.60). no shoots emerged in control t1 at 30, 60 or 90 days. longest shoots were observed in the lightly pruned (25%) trees during initial stages of growth, in severely pruned (50%) trees at the end of growth period, and shortest shoots were seen in unpruned trees, throughout the growth period. similar results were obtained by dhaliwal et al (2014) in kinnow, and by trevor and steven (2009) in custard apple. yield attributes significant differences were noticed for number of flowering shoots per tree at monthly intervals (table 2). at 30 days, maximum flower number was found in treatment t4 (46.0), at 60 days in t11 (74.67), at 90 days in t2 (85.0), and was on par with t5, t6, t8, t10, t2, t11, t7, t3 and t9. no shoots or flowers emerged in control t1 at 30, 60 or 90 days. these findings are in agreement with guimond et al (1998) who found pruning in cherry trees to influence number of flowering shoots. similar results were reported by braswell and spiers (2005) and lord et al (1979). at 120 days, t1 (148.33) was more significant than the other treatments and the least number of flowers were seen in t3 (120.33), which was on par with t7, t8, t9 and t2. control trees showed maximum number of flowering shoots at this stage, because, it was the main season for flowering in custard apple under bengaluru conditions. flowering period in treated trees ended at 120 days, as, the trees had started flowering early in the season, and, all the differentiated buds had bloomed. similar results were reported by mohamed and fawzi (2010) in custard apple, and by bruno and evelyn (2001) in cherimoya. at 30 days, higher number of flowers per shoot appeared in t3, t7 and t8 (6.67); at 60 days, most number of flowers were found in t10 (6.67), and at 90 days in t4 (6.33), which was on par with the other treatments, excepting t1 and t9 (4.67). at 120 days, more flowers per shoot were found in t1 (12.67), followed by t5 (7.00); the least number was seen in t2 (5.00) and other treatments (table 2). more table 1. effect of various pruning levels and defoliants on shoot emergence and shoot length treatment number of shoots emerging per tree length of emerged shoots (cm) (days after pruning) (days after pruning) 30 60 90 120 30 60 90 120 t 1 control (no pruning, no chemicals) 0.00 0.00 0.00 198.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.60 t 2 25% pruning (no chemicals) 61.00 81.00 121.00 176.00 5.50 9.53 18.03 27.30 t 3 50% pruning (no chemicals) 59.00 79.00 118.67 165.33 6.30 12.93 25.23 29.57 t 4 25% pruning + urea 5% 66.00 86.00 125.67 175.00 4.10 9.23 23.67 29.20 t 5 25% pruning + ethrel 2000ppm 64.67 83.33 123.67 171.33 5.23 10.13 21.00 30.74 t 6 25% pruning + potassium iodide 1% 64.00 82.67 123.33 168.67 4.53 12.03 24.30 29.20 t 7 25% pruning + ortho-phosphoric acid 1% 61.33 83.33 123.00 166.33 4.57 12.10 23.83 27.23 t 8 50% pruning + urea 5% 63.00 83.00 121.67 162.33 5.33 12.67 23.83 26.30 t 9 50% pruning + ethrel 2000ppm 60.67 80.00 119.33 160.67 3.53 13.20 23.27 29.27 t 1 0 50% pruning + potassium iodide 1% 61.33 81.67 122.00 162.00 4.03 12.20 24.53 30.50 t 1 1 50% pruning + ortho-phosphoric acid 1% 60.33 78.67 117.00 157.00 4.57 13.57 23.73 29.43 sem± 1.637 1.436 1.558 1.842 0.311 0.330 0.683 0.519 cd (*p=0.05) 4.830* 4.237* 4.957* 5.433* 0.918* 0.974* 2.015* 1.532* j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):13-17, 2015 vinay and chithiraichelvan 15 flowers per shoot were observed in pruned trees than in unpruned trees, as light-pruning removes apical dominance, resulting in bud-break from the lower portion of the shoot. these findings are in agreement with george and nissen (1987) in custard apple. however, at 120 days, number of flowers per shoot in t1 was more because of presence of more number of shoots at the time, naturally resulting in the highest number of flowers in unpruned trees. similar results were obtained by trevor and steven (2009) in custard apple, and by dhaliwal et al (2014) in kinnow. kahn et al (2001) found an increase in the number of flowers per shoot after pruning in cherimoya. as for number of flowers per tree (table 3), at 30 days of treatment, more flowers per tree were observed in treatment t8 (280.67), at 60 days in t11 (504.33), at 90 days in t4 (526.00), and at 120 days in t1 (989.0). due to a higher number of flowering shoots, and more flowers per shoot in these treatments, the number of flowers per tree was high too. similar results reported by kahn et al (2001) revealed that pruning increased the number of flowers per tree in cherimoya and so did trevor and steven (2012) in atemoya. all the pruning treatments together with defoliation gave better results as for early initiation of flowering. significant difference was seen between pruning-withdefoliation, and unpruned trees (table 4). minimum number of days taken for emergence of the first flower were seen in t8 (22.6), while longest time taken for the appearance of first flower was seen in control t1 (95.3) (table 4). by pruning, apical dominance could be arrested thus, directing the movement of photosynthates to the lateral buds, thereby aiding flower initiation. similar results were reported by trevor and steven (2012) in atemoya, and by laura and julian (2008 and 2009) in cherimoya. table 4 shows longer duration of flowering as observed in pruned defoliated tress than in control trees; t8 (130.0) showed the longest duration, followed by the other table 3. effect of various pruning levels and defoliants on number of flowers treatment number of flowers per tree (days after pruning) 30 days 60 days 90 days 120 days t 1 control 0.00 0.00 0.00 989.00 (no pruning, no chemicals) t 2 25% pruning 232.33 309.00 422.67 617.67 (no chemicals) t 3 50% pruning 216.67 277.33 438.33 762.67 (no chemicals) t 4 25% pruning + 230.67 368.00 526.00 623.33 urea 5% t 5 25% pruning + 241.67 311.33 474.00 863.33 ethrel 2000ppm t 6 25% pruning + 261.00 347.33 494.00 744.33 potassium iodide 1% t 7 25% pruning + 269.00 305.00 410.67 724.67 ortho-phosphoric acid 1% t 8 50% pruning + 280.67 289.33 411.00 732.00 urea 5% t 9 50% pruning + 254.67 344.67 372.67 737.67 ethrel 2000ppm t 1 0 50% pruning + 219.33 422.00 403.00 773.33 potassium iodide 1% t 1 1 50% pruning + 241.67 504.33 436.00 810.67 ortho-phosphoric acid 1% sem± 27.339 61.357 42.946 63.950 cd (p=0.05) 80.642* 180.98* 126.67* 188.62* table 2. effect of various pruning levels and defoliants on number of flowering shoots and number of flowers treatment number of flowering shoots per tree number of flowers per shoot (days after pruning) (days after pruning) 30 60 90 120 30 60 90 120 t 1 control (no pruning, no chemicals) 0.00 0.00 0.00 148.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 12.67 t 2 25% pruning (no chemicals) 41.00 61.67 85.00 123.33 5.67 5.00 5.00 5.00 t 3 50% pruning (no chemicals) 32.33 59.67 82.33 120.33 6.67 4.67 5.33 6.33 t 4 25% pruning + urea 5% 46.00 64.67 83.00 124.33 5.00 5.67 6.33 5.00 t 5 25% pruning + ethrel 2000ppm 44.67 62.00 83.67 123.33 5.33 5.00 5.67 7.00 t 6 25% pruning + potassium iodide 1% 43.67 65.00 82.33 124.00 6.00 5.33 6.00 6.00 t 7 25% pruning + ortho-phosphoric acid 1% 40.33 61.00 81.67 121.00 6.67 5.00 5.00 6.00 t 8 50% pruning + urea 5% 42.00 62.00 82.67 122.33 6.67 4.67 5.00 6.00 t 9 50% pruning + ethrel 2000ppm 40.00 61.00 79.67 122.67 6.33 5.67 4.67 6.00 t 1 0 50% pruning + potassium iodide 1% 41.33 63.00 81.00 129.00 5.33 6.67 5.00 6.00 t 1 1 50% pruning + ortho-phosphoric acid 1% 40.67 74.67 81.67 128.00 6.00 5.33 5.33 6.33 sem± 2.140 9.798 1.409 1.830 0.526 0.469 0.536 0.521 cd (p=0.05) 6.313* 28.90* 4.157* 5.398* 1.551* 1.384* 1.582* 1.537* j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):13-17, 2015 induction of off-season flowering in custard apple 16 treatments. this could be attributed to the fact that treated trees flowered earlier and continued to flower into the normal season. minimum duration of flowering was seen in control t1 (73.00) where trees flowered in the normal season only. similar results were reported by trevor and steven (2012) in atemoya, and by george and nissen (1987) in custard apple. minimum number of days taken to fruit-set seen in treatment t11 (109.0) was on par with the other treated trees. control t1 (156.0) took longer to set fruit (table 4), as photosynthate pruning increases photosynthate translocation to flower buds causing them to fruit earlier than in the control. these findings are in accordance with that of naira and moieza (2014) and lal et al (2000) in guava. average number of fruits per tree differed significantly among treatments. pruning regimes, including defoliation, increased the mean number of fruits per tree over control (table 4). more fruits were seen in t4 (41.33) and t6 (41.33), whereas, fewest fruits were seen in t1 (30.0). pruning along with defoliation appears to have resulted in increase in new growth, culminating in higher translocation of photosynthates from the leaves to the shoots. our results are in agreement with findings of farre et al (2000) and kahn et al (2001) in cherimoya. data presented in table 4 reveal significant difference between treatments. pruning at 25% produced higher yield than 50% pruning or that in unpruned trees. pruning operation removed apical dominance, released lateral buds from correlative inhibition, and, changed the tree form and construction. this, in turn, enhanced flower-bud initiation in lateral buds, leading to increased yield. maximum yield was obtained in t4 (10.33) and t6 (10.33), as more number of table 4. effect of various pruning levels and defoliants on reproductive growth and yield treatment days taken to duration of time taken for average no. of fruit yield/tree first flower flowering (days) fruit-set (days) fruits per tree (estimated) (kg) t 1 control (no pruning, no chemicals) 95.3 73.00 156.00 32.00 8.00 t 2 25% pruning (no chemicals) 26.6 121.67 121.00 37.33 9.33 t 3 50% pruning (no chemicals) 24.6 123.00 117.67 30.00 7.50 t 4 25% pruning + urea 5% 25.3 127.33 116.67 41.33 10.33 t 5 25% pruning + ethrel 2000ppm 26.3 128.00 114.00 39.33 9.83 t 6 25% pruning + potassium iodide 1% 26.6 129.00 111.67 41.33 10.33 t 7 25% pruning + ortho-phosphoric acid 1% 25.6 129.00 112.33 40.33 10.08 t 8 50% pruning + urea 5% 22.6 130.00 110.00 37.67 9.42 t 9 50% pruning + ethrel 2000ppm 24.3 129.33 111.67 37.00 9.25 t 1 0 50% pruning + potassium iodide 1% 24 126.33 110.67 38.33 9.58 t 1 1 50% pruning + ortho-phosphoric acid 1% 23.6 127.67 109.00 36.67 9.17 sem± 0.686 1.210 1.367 1.214 0.303 cd (p=0.05) 2.023* 3.56* 4.302* 3.583* 0.895* fruits were borne on the tree. similar results were reported by mohamed et al (2011) in plum, and by demirtas et al (2010) in apricot. minimum fruit yield was recorded in t3 (7.50) and t1 (8.0 which may be attributed to 50% pruning in t3, resulting in reduced tree-size and available photosynthates. mohamed and fawzi (2010) reported a similar phenomenon in annona. the regular in season crop of annona under bengaluru conditions coincides with the south-west monsoon that is august; therefore, quality of the fruit is affected due to rains. the present investigation on induction of off-season flowering through pruning and chemical defoliants resulted in achieving off-season flowering and fruiting (in june) in cv. balanagar. as annona fruits are not available in the market during this period, growers will be able to get better market price and profits. in our findings, maximum off-season yield was obtained in t4 (25% pruning, combined with 5% urea as spray) and t6 (25% pruning, combined with 1% potassium iodide as spray). our findings have helped standardize the cultural practices required on a scientific basis for off-season production of annona fruits. references bajwa, g.s., sandhu, h.s. and bal, j.s. 1986. effect of pruning severity on growth and bearing of ber. indian j. hort., 43:203-206 braswell, j. and spiers, h.j.m. 2005. effect of pruning on blueberry (vaccinium ashei). acta hort., 574:3738 bruno, r.m. and evelyn, d.v. 2001. effect of summer pruning and bark girdling on cherimoya var. concha lisa. agri. tech., 61:215-220 demirtas, m.n., bolat, i., ercisli, s., ikinci, a., olmez, h.a., sachin, m., altindag, m. and celik, m. 2010. the j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):13-17, 2015 vinay and chithiraichelvan 17 effects of different pruning treatments on the growth, fruit quality and yield of ‘hacihaliloglu’ apricot. acta sci., 9:183-192 dhaliwal, h.s., banke, a.k., sharma, l.k. and bali, s.k. 2014. impact of pruning practices on shoot growth and bud production in kinnow (citrus reticulata blanco.) plants. j. exptl. biol. agril. sci., 1:507513 farre, j.m., hermoso, j.m., guriado, e. and garcia, t.j. 2000. techniques of cherimoya cultivation in spain. procs. first international symposium on cherimoya, ecuador. c.f. hort. abstr., 70:3040 george, a.p. and nissen, n.c. 1987. effect of cincturing, defoliation and summer pruning on growth and flowering of custard apple (annona cherimola x annonas squamosa) in subtropical queensland. australian j. exptl. agri., 27:915-18 guimond, c.m., lang, g. and andrews, p.k. 1998. timing and severity of summer pruning affects flower initiation and shoot re-growth in sweet cherry. hortl. sci., 33:647-649 kahn, t.l., adams, c.j. and arpaia, m.l. 2001. effect of pruning and nitrogen fertilization on cherimoya (annona cherimola mill.). sci. hort., 64:25-30 lal, h. and prasad, a. 1971. pruning in ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.): effect on vegetative growth. punjab hort. j., 11:143-146 lal, s. tiwari, j.p. and misra, k.k. 2000. effect of plant spacing and pruning intensity on fruit yield and quality of guava. prog. hort., 32:20-25 laura soler and julian cuevas. 2008. development of a new technique to produce winter cherimoyas. hort. tech., 18:24-28 laura soler and julian cuevas. 2009. early flower initiation allows ample manipulation of flowering time in cherimoya (annona cherimola mill.). sci. hort., 121:327–332 lord, w.j., greene, d.w. and damon, r.a. 1979. flowering of young apple trees following summer pruning. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 104:540-44 mohamed elham and fawzi. 2010. effect of pruning, defoliation and nitrogen fertilization on growth, fruit set and quality of abdel-razik annona cultivar. nat. sci., 8:281-287 mohamed, s.m., fayed, t.a., el-shrief, h.m. and mokhtar, o.s. 2011. effect of heading, cut levels, bending and naa on spurs formation, yield and fruit quality of sun gold plum cultivar. j. hortl. sci. ornamen. pl., 3:232-243 naira, a. and moieza, a. 2014. summer pruning in fruit crops. african. j. agril. res., 9:206-210 pandey, r.c., pathak, r.a. and singh, i.s. 1998. effect of pruning intensity on vegetative and reproductive growth in ber (ziziphus mauritiana). indian j. hort., 55:306-313 sampath, k.p. and jalikop, s.h. 2000. cross-compatibility among annona species. indian j. hort., 57:309313 trevor olesen and steven. 2009. branch development in custard apple (cherimoya annona cherimola miller x sugar apple annona squamosa l.) in relation to tip-pruning and flowering, including effects on production. trees, 23:855–862 trevor olesen and steven. 2012. effects of defoliation on flower development in atemoya custard apple (annona cherimola mill x a. squamosa l.) and implications for flower-development modelling. australian j. bot., 60:160–164 (ms received 01 july 2014, revised 15 may 2015, accepted 28 may 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):13-17, 2015 induction of off-season flowering in custard apple introduction mango is one of the most important fruit crops of india. it is grown in area of 2.297 million ha with a production of 15.188 million tonnes according productivity of 6.6 t/ha (nhb, 2011) which is very low compared to countries like israel, mexico, brazil and philippines. one of the reasons for low productivity is due to alternate bearing tendency in most of the commercial varieties of mango. control of vegetative vigour and canopy size with simultaneous promotion of flowering are important for enhancing the production efficiency of mango orchards (iyer and kurian, 2002). the use of vigour regulating rootstocks and growth retardants that are antagonistic to gibberellins such as paclobutrazol (kurian and iyer, 1993a and kurian et al, 1996) are the most promising approaches in this regard. although, the direct effects of paclobutrazol on the growth and flowering of mango have been well documented (kulkarni, 1988, kurian and iyer, 1993a, b, c, and burondkar and gunjate, 1991). however, there is little information on the long term effects of continuous application of pbz on flowering, fruit yield and quality of mango especially in varieties like alphonso effect of dose and time of paclobutrazol application on the flowering, fruit yield and quality of mango cv. alphonso y.t.n. reddy and reju m. kurian division of fruit crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560089, india e-mail: nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field trial was conducted for eight years at indian institute of horticulture research, bengaluru to find out the effect of dose and time of application of paclobutrazol (pbz) on flowering, fruit yield and quality of ‘alphonso’ mango. the percentages of flowering, vegetative and dormant shoots were affected by paclobutrazol application. different dose and time of application of paclobutrazol increased the percentage of flowering shoots significantly and most pronounced effect was with treatment d1t2 (3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break) which recorded 89.9% flowering shoots as compared to 73.8% in control treatment. regarding fruit yield, maximum mean fruit yield of 22.0kg/plant was recorded with treatment d1t2 (3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break) and least was with control (13.1kg/plant) which accounts for fruit yield increase of 67.9%. no particular trend was observed in respect of shoot length in different treatments. however in general, paclobutrazol application reduced the shoot length compared to control. with respect of fruit quality attributes, acidity and tss were found to be nonsignificant among different treatments during different years. average fruit weight was found to be significant during different years and paclobutrazol application reduced the average fruit size compared to control. cost benefit ratio was maximum of 1:2.52 was with treatment 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break and least cost benefit ratio of 1:1.06 was with control. key words: mango, fruit yield, fruit quality, paclobutrazol, flowering. j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):27-30, 2014 one of the important commercial varieties of mongo having tendency of alternate bearing. such information is important for sustained production of mango hence, the study was taken up in alphonso variety of mango. material and methods the experiment was conducted at indian institute of horticulture research, bengaluru for eight years on alphonso cultivar of mango employing randomized block design replicated four times. the trees were nine years old at the start of study and were growing on unspecified rootstock under rainfed conditions with uniform cultural management practices. the plants were given two doses of paclobutrazol 3ml/m canopy, (0.75g a.i/m canopy) 5 l/m canopy (1.25g a.i/m canopy) with 3 times of application namely 60, 90, 120 days before bud break, totaling seven treatments including control. the paclobutrazol applied as soil drench along the drip line of trees. percentage of shoots producing flower panicles or vegetative shoots or remaining dormant shoots were recorded during january-february months along with panicle length and length of shoots from 28 the tagged shoots following the imposition of the growth retardant treatments. fruit yield was recorded in may-june months during the year 1999 to 2006. fruit quality parameters such as average fruit weight, total soluble solids and acidity were recorded as per standard procedures from a random sample of 25 fruits from each tree. cost benefit ratio was worked out from the mean cumulative fruit yields based on prevailing market rates. analysis of variance and f.test were employed for the interpretation of the results. results and discussion shoot length the shoot lengths as influenced by paclobutrazol application are presented in table-2. most of the years shoot length was found to be non-significant among the different treatments. only during the years 2001, 2005 and 2006, significant differences were observed among the treatments. however, in general paclobutrazol application reduced the shoot length compared to control. this observation is in agreement with the earlier findings of paclobutrazol influence on shoot growth of mango (kurian and iyer, 1993a, burondkar and gunjate, 1991 and reddy and kurian, 2008). paclobutrazol is a known inhibitor of gibberellin biosynthesis (anon., 1984) and lower gibberellin levels resulting from its application might have retarded the shoot elongation. the reduction in shoot elongation serves to control excess vegetative vigour and thereby to restrict the canopy size of mango trees, which would facilitate easier orchard management practices as well as planting mango trees at higher densities than the conventional spacing. flowering the percentage of flowering, dormant and vegetative shoots as influenced by different treatments are presented in tables 1 and 2. enhancement in the proportion of flowering shoots through a reduction in the proportion of vegetative and dormant shoots was a striking response to paclobutrazol application. all the paclobutrazol treatments increased the percentage of flowering shoots with reduced percentage of vegetative and dormant shoots compared to control. the increased flowering percentage with different paclobutrazol treatments ranged from 11-14% more compared to control with concurrent reduction of vegetative and dormant shoots in the paclobutrazol treatments. enhanced flowering of mango trees following paclobutrazol treatments has earlier been reported (kurian and iyer, 1993b, burondkar and gunjate, 1991, kulkarni, 1988 and reddy and kurian, 2008.) maximum mean percentage of flowering shoots (89.9%) were recorded with treatment d1t2 3ml pbz/m canopy applied 90 days before bud break and least mean percentage of shoots as in control treatment (73.9%). fruit yield fruit yield in terms of fruit number and weight of fruits/tree increased with the application of paclobutrazol (table 3). all the treatments increased the fruit yield compared to control and the most pronounced effect was with treatments d1t2 (3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break) which increased the mean fruit yield to an extent of 64.9% compared to control treatment. such beneficial effects of paclobutrazol in enhancing fruit yield of ‘alphonso’ mango have been documented by earner workers (kurian and iyer, 1993c, and burondkar and gunjate 1991, reddy and kurian 2008). fruit yield increase was mainly attributed to enhanced percentage of flowering shoots and reduced percentage of vegetative and dormant table 1. effect of time and dose of application of paclobutrazol on vegetative and flowering shoots of mango cv. alphonso treatment vegetative shoots (%) flowering shoots (%) 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 mean 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 mean d0t 0 25.0 5.0 6.2 14.5 9.5 14.0 12.5 16.5 12.9 67.5 53.5 93.8 85.5 70.5 71.0 80.0 69.0 73.8 d1t 1 12.5 3.3 7.5 10.5 3.5 1.7 13.8 17.5 8.8 87.5 88.2 92.5 89.5 86.5 97.3 83.7 74.0 87.4 d1t 2 10.0 4.3 16.2 12.0 4.5 1.0 2.5 17.8 8.5 90.0 93.2 83.8 88.0 89.0 98.5 96.3 81.0 89.9 d1t 3 18.5 4.5 7.5 13.0 4.0 2.3 11.5 15.5 9.6 81.5 93.0 92.5 87.0 86.9 97.4 87.3 83.0 88.6 d2t 1 45.0 2.5 10.0 9.5 3.2 1.2 12.0 4.5 11.0 63.7 90.5 90.0 90.5 89.9 98.8 86.5 94.0 87.9 d2t 2 20.0 1.8 2.5 7.5 3.5 1.7 10.0 10.0 7.1 78.8 75.7 97.5 92.5 90.0 95.8 90.0 83.5 87.8 d2t 3 25.0 8.0 6.2 9.0 3.8 4.3 11.0 16.5 10.5 75.0 70.5 93.8 91.0 88.4 92.4 87.0 82.0 85.0 f.test ns ns ** * * * * * ns ns ** * * * * * s.em± 9.8 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.6 1.1 1.5 2.1 11.2 9.9 1.3 1.2 3.4 3.5 3.8 1.5 cd at 5% 3.9 3.6 4.8 3.4 4.5 6.3 3.9 3.8 9.3 10.8 11.5 4.5 cv% 2.7 1.9 3.2 5.4 1.5 2.8 3.7 4.2 2.1 3.4 3.0 2.0 1.5 4.8 5.1 4.1 d0t0 control d2t1 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d1t1 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d2t2 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d1t2 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d2t3 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break d1t3 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break reddy and kurian j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):27-30, 2014 29 table 2. effect of paclobutrazol on dormant shoots and shoot length of ‘alphonso’ mango treatment dormant shoots (%) shoot length (cm) 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 mean 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 mean d0t 0 7.5 41.5 0 0 17.0 15.0 7.5 20.5 13.6 13.5 12.3 12.1 13.1 14.5 15.0 16.5 13.5 13.8 d1t 1 0 8.5 0 0 10.0 1.0 2.5 8.5 3.8 12.0 10.4 10.2 15.4 13.5 14.1 14.2 12.5 12.7 d1t 2 0 2.5 0 0 6.5 0.5 1.2 1.2 1.5 12.3 10.9 10.5 14.0 13.0 13.9 13.8 12.3 12.5 d1t 3 0 2.5 0 0 9.1 1.3 1.2 1.5 2.0 11.9 9.3 10.0 12.0 13.2 14.0 13.5 11.2 11.8 d2t 1 21.3 7.0 0 0 6.9 0 1.5 1.5 4.8 10.5 7.6 9.8 13.0 13.8 14.5 15.9 12.0 12.1 d2t 2 1.2 22.5 0 0 6.5 2.5 0 6.5 4.9 11.5 11.1 10.9 13.1 13.4 13.1 14.0 11.9 12.3 d2t 3 0 21.5 0 0 7.8 3.3 2.0 1.5 4.5 11.0 10.1 11.0 13.5 12.9 12.4 13.4 11.6 11.9 f.test ** ns ns ns * * * * ns ns * ns ns ns * * s.em+ 3.7 9.6 0 0 2.5 2.1 1.1 3.9 1.2 1.08 0.42 1.05 1.5 1.9 0.6 0.2 cd at 5% 10.9 0 0 7.5 4.3 3.3 11.7 1.7 1.8 0.4 cv% 5.1 2.3 0 0 1.9 2.5 1.0 2.2 2.3 1.7 2.9 2.1 1.0 3.5 4.8 1.2 d0t0 control d2t1 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d1t1 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d2t2 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d1t2 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d2t3 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break d1t3 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break table 3. fruit yield of ‘alphonso’ mango as influenced by paclobutrazol application treatment no. of fruits/plant fruit yield (kg\plant) 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 pooled 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 pooled mean mean d 0t 0 29.7 53.7 94.7 60.5 55.0 69.71 96.5 69.7 66.2 5.7 11.7 16.1 14.1 12.5 12.0 20.1 14.9 13.4 d 1t 1 35.2 65.0 106.5 99.1 71.5 108.2 183.2 115.5 98.0 8.7 14.6 17.3 20.5 16.5 20.2 37.3 21.4 19.6 d 1t 2 22.5 72.5 77.5 90.0 156.0 94.0 194.7 109.4 102.1 5.5 20.7 16.0 18.1 35.6 18.9 39.8 25.8 22.6 d 1t 3 31.0 62.0 94.0 81.9 96.5 80.7 176.0 92.6 89.3 7.7 14.0 16.5 20.4 21.8 16.1 37.2 21.1 19.4 d 2t 1 31.7 66.0 98.5 90.9 124.8 90.2 156.7 96.8 94.5 7.9 15.2 16.9 18.9 27.0 18.1 32.8 23.3 20.0 d 2t 2 31.5 57.7 69.4 85.0 96.2 100.7 189.5 91.7 90.2 7.6 13.7 14.8 17.5 21.8 20.5 38.9 24.9 20.0 d 2t 3 41.5 72.5 99.5 80.1 112.0 95.5 151.7 85.6 93.6 10.2 16.6 17.9 16.0 23.2 19.4 28.5 21.0 19.1 f.test ns * ns ns * * * * * ns * ns * * * * * * s.em+ 9.4 4.3 16.7 14.1 7.1 6.4 9.9 7.2 4.4 2.3 2.1 2.9 1.4 3.2 1.6 2.5 2.0 3.5 cd at 5% 13.1 21.3 19.4 30.1 21.8 14.3 6.2 4.3 9.8 4.7 7.6 6.3 10.8 cv% 2.9 3.8 4.6 4.1 5.5 3.2 2.1 2.0 1.9 2.4 1.1 3.7 4.5 3.0 1.5 3.0 4.2 5.0 d0t0 control d2t1 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d1t1 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d2t2 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d1t2 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d2t3 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break d1t3 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break shoots by the application of paclobutrazol. paclobutrazol alters the source-sink relationships in mango to support the fruit growth with fewer leaves and lesser leaf area (kurian et al, 2001) which explains the enhanced fruit yield with lesser vegetative growth. fruit quality there was no appreciable influence of different treatments on fruit quality parameters such as total soluble solids and acidity but average fruit weight reduced as a result of paclobutrazol treatment (table 4). all the paclobutrazol treatments affected the average fruit weight compared to control. this may be due to more number of fruits by the paclobutrazol application. almost similar trend was observed in mango by kurian and iyer (1993c) and reddy and kurian (2008) as a direct response to paclobutrazol application. cost benefit ratio the cost benefit ratio worked out in terms of mean fruit yield, gross and net returns are presented in table 5. maximum cost benefit ratio of 1:2.52 was recorded with the treatment 3ml paclobutrazol/m canopy applied 90 days before bud break treatment whereas, control treatment recorded the least cost benefit ratio of 1:1.06. all the paclobutrazol treatments increased the cost benefit ratio and the best treatment was found to be 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break. paclobutrazol application affected the percentage of flowering shoots in turn increased the fruit yield of alphonso mango. paclobutrazol application effect of paclobutrazol on alphonso mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):27-30, 2014 30 table 4. fruit quality attributes of alphonso mango as influenced by paclobutrazol application treatment average fruit weight (g/fruit) tss (ºbrix) 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 d 0t 0 243.0 246.2 179.7 230.5 229.1 176.3 205.6 215.0 15.5 15.9 16.9 17.2 17.1 17.5 16.8 16.7 d 1t 1 231.0 232.5 182.6 212.1 230.5 186.1 202.5 191.5 16.0 15.7 17.4 16.4 17.6 17.8 16.7 16.9 d 1t 2 240.0 243.7 158.2 177.8 235.6 199.4 205.1 235.6 15.8 14.1 16.4 17.0 18.0 17.6 17.0 17.2 d 1t 3 247.0 248.7 176.6 243.0 225.5 197.8 212.2 228.1 15.0 15.6 17.3 16.9 17.5 18.0 17.1 17.5 d 2t 1 200.0 197.5 179.8 209.5 290.1 200.7 210.5 238.8 15.2 15.5 17.1 17.3 16.9 17.1 17.5 17.4 d 2t 2 219.5 221.2 194.7 208.2 260.4 203.6 205.9 240.5 15.3 14.9 16.6 16.0 16.7 16.9 17.3 16.9 d 2t 3 240.0 241.2 179.2 203.0 210.9 200.5 199.8 220.6 15.5 15.0 16.5 17.5 17.1 16.8 16.9 16.6 f.test * * ns ns * * * * ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns s.em+ 8.5 10.8 18.1 19.5 2.1 3.9 1.5 2.8 0.5 0.4 0.35 0.41 0.39 0.45 0.40 0.30 cd at 5% 27.5 32.1 6.3 11.7 4.5 8.4 cv% 2.0 1.8 2.7 3.2 2.3 1.4 1.9 2.9 4.1 4.0 2.1 1.8 3.6 2.5 1.0 1.6 d0t0 control d2t1 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d1t1 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 60 days before bud break d2t2 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d1t2 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 90 days before bud break d2t3 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break d1t3 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 120 days before bud break reduced the shoot length and average fruit weight. tss and acidity were not affected by the different treatments. cost benefit ratio was maximum with 3ml pbz/m canopy applied 90 days before bud break. references anonymous. 1984. technical data sheet-paclobutrazol, plant growth regulator for fruits. ici. england. burondkar, m.m. and gunjate, r.t. 1991. regulation of shoot growth and flowering in alphonso with paclobutrazol. acta hort., 291:79-84 iyer, c.p.a and kurian, r.m. 2002. strategies for high density planting of horticultural crops. in: hi-tech horticulture. chadha. k.l., choudhary. m.l. and prasad. k.v. (eds.) horticultural society of india, new delhi, pp. 66-78 kulkarni, v.j. 1988. chemical control of tree vigour and the promotion of flowering and fruiting in mango using paclobutrazol. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 63:557-566 kurian, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1993a. chemical regulation of tree size in mango cv.alphonso. i. effects of growth retardants on vegetative growth and tree vigour. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 68:349-354 kurian, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1993b. chemical regulation of tree size in mango cv.alphonso. ii. effects of growth retardants on flowering and fruit set. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 68:355-360 kurian, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1993c. chemical regulation of tree size in mango cv. alphonso. iii. effects of growth retardants on yield and quality of fruits. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 68:361-364 kurian, r.m., reddy, y.t.n., sonkar, r.k. and reddy, v.v.p. 2001. effect of paclobutrazol on source-sink relationship in mango (mangifera indica l). j. appl. hort., 3:88-90 kurian, r.m., reddy, v.v.p and reddy, y.t.n. 1996. growth, yield, fruit quality and leaf nutrient status of thirteen-year-old ‘alphonso’ mango on eight rootstocks. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 71:181-186 national horticultural board. 2011. database of horticulture crops. 2009, new delhi reddy, y.t.n. and kurian, r.m. 2008. cumulative and residual effects of paclobutrazol on growth, yield and fruit quality of ‘alphonso’ mango. j. hortl. sci., 3:119-112 table 5. cost benefit ratio of ‘alphonso’ mango as influenced by paclobutrazol treatment gross net cost returns returns benefit ratio d0t0 control 45850 23650 1:1.06 d1t1 3ml/m canopy pbz 45850 45050 1:2.12 applied 60 days before bud break d1t2 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 67550 54500 1:2.52 90 days before bud break d1t3 3ml/m canopy pbz applied 77000 44350 1:1.99 120 days before bud break d2t1 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 66850 45750 1:2.08 60 days before bud break d2t2 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 68250 44700 1:1.98 90 days before bud break d2t3 5ml/m canopy pbz applied 67200 43300 1:1.95 120 days before bud break (ms received 04 march 2013, revised 05 february 2014, accepted 01 april 2014) reddy and kurian j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):27-30, 2014 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 109 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 109-114, 2019 original research paper evaluation of different cultivars of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) under humid agro climatic conditions of goa safeena s.a.1*, thangam m.2 and singh n.p.3 1icar-directorate of floricultural research, pune 2icar – central coastal agricultural research institute, goa 3icar-national institute of abiotic stress management, baramati corresponding author: *safeena.sa@icar.gov.in, safeenasandeep@gmail.com abstract tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) is one of the most important tropical bulbous-ornamental cultivated for production of long-lasting flowers spikes. adaptation and acclimatization of different cultivars under humid agro-climatic conditions of goa are to be confirmed for their better performance. the present investigation was conducted to evaluate the performance of tuberose cultivars under agro-climatic conditions of goa during 20142017. five single and six double cultivars of tuberose were evaluated during the study period. all the cultivars differed in their growth and flowering behaviour. among the single cultivars, evaluated, maximum number of florets per spike (47.00) was observed in pune local whereas spike-length (75.59 cm) was maximum in mexican single. among the double cultivars, evaluated, maximum plant height (52.21 cm) and maximum number of leaves per plant (59.63) were recorded with cultivar arka suvasini. leaf length was significantly higher (52.93 cm) in pearl double whereas leaf width (2.04 cm) was maximum in calcutta double. days to appearance of flower spike were earlier in arka suvasini. minimum days taken for opening of basal floret (84.88 days) were recorded with cultivar arka suvasini. spike girth (0.68 cm), spike fresh-weight (69.06 cm), floret stalk-length (3.6 cm), floret diameter (5.24 cm), weight of individual floret (3.49 g) and vase life (7.93 days) was significantly maximum in cv. arka suvasini followed by pearl double. based on the performance evaluation cv. mexican single among single types and cv. arka suvasini and pearl double among double types could be recommended for commercial cultivation under agro climatic conditions of goa. key words: cultivars, double, evaluation, single and tuberose introduction tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.), popularly known as rajanigandha or nishigandha is one of the most important tropical ornamental bulbous flowering plants cultivated for production of its long-lasting flower spikes. it is a native of mexico and belongs to the familyasparagaceae. flowers of the single type (single row of perianth) are commonly used for extraction of essential oil, loose flowers, making garland etc., while that of double varieties (more than two rows of perianth) are used as cut flowers and for garden display. flowers of the ‘single’ cultivars are more fragrant than ‘double’ type and contain 0.08 to 0.14 percent concrete, which is used in high-grade perfumes (singh and uma, 1995). in india, tuberose is cultivated commercially in bagnan, kolaghat, midnapur, panskura, ranaghat, krishnanagar of west bengal; coimbatore, dindigul, kadalur, krishnagiri, dharmpurui, sathyamangalam, theni and madurai districts of tamil nadu; pune, nashik, ahmednagar, thane, sangli of maharashtra; east godavari, guntur, chittoor, krishna distr ict of andhra pradesh ; mysore, tumkur, kolar, belgaum and devanhalli taluk in karnataka ; guwahati and jorhat in assam ; udaipur, ajmer and jaipur in rajasthan; navsari and valsad of gujarat and parts of uttar pradesh and punja b. some of the tuber ose cultiva r s ha ve beenintroduced, while some are evolved in india. the information available on recommendations of the suitabletuberose cultivars for growth, floral and 110 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 109-114, 2019 safeena et al economicpa rameter s under coa stal humid agro climatic conditions of goa is scanty. adaptation and acclimatization of different tuberose cultivars under humid agro climatic conditions of goa are to be confirmed for their better performance. this will ena ble the fa r mer s to gr ow r elea sed a nd new introduced and improved cultivars of tuberose and helps in making them understand their superiority over local cultivars. keeping these facts in view, the pr esent study wa s conducted to eva lua te the performance of different tuberose cultivars under coastal humid climatic conditions of goa and to find out the suitable tuberose cultivar under agroclimatic conditions of goa. materials and methods the present experiment was conducted at floriculture research farm, horticulture science section, icarcentral coastal agricultural research institute, ela, old goa, goa, india during 2014-2017. the state of goa is located between 140 16" north latitude and 730 75" east longitude with the states of maharashtra on the north and karnataka on the east and south and arabian sea on the west. the five single type cultivars, viz., mexican single, calcutta single, hyderabad single, pune local single and phule rajni,and six double type cultivars (pearl double, arka suvasini, bidhan rajani, calcutta double, hyderabad double and pune local double) were used for the present study. the uniform sized bulbs of size(2 cm diameter) were planted with the spacing of 45 x 30 cm in a plot size of 1.50 m x 1.0 m. uniform cultural practices were adopted for all the cultivars. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design (rbd) with five replications. ten plants from each plot were randomly selected for recording various observations. the observations were recorded for two consecutive years on vegetative growth, floral and bulb parameters. the observations, viz., plant height at shoot emergence (cm), number of leaves per plant, leaf length (cm), leaf width (cm), days to appearance of flower spike, number of florets per spike, length of spike (cm), diameter of spike (cm), fresh weight of the spike (g), stalk length of the floret (cm), diameter of the floret (cm), fresh weight of the individual floret (g), vase life of the spikes (days), weight of the bulbs, average number of bulbs per clump and bulblets per clump were recorded. the data recorded on various parameters were compiled and analysed statistically as per the methods described by panse and sukhatme (1985). results and discussion significant differences were observed for various morphological characters and floral quality traits among different single cultivars of tuberose evaluated (table 1 and 2) under coastal humid agro climatic conditions of goa.tallest plant (49.18 cm), and more number of leaves per plant (82.66) were obtained in cv. mexican single in single flower types (table 1). the highly significant variation in plant height and number of leaves per plant among various tuberose cultivars may be attributable to the hereditary traits, which is further altered by prevailing environmental conditions. the results of the present study are in conformity with the findings of bhaskar and reddy table 1: plant growth and floral characteristics in single-type tuberose cultivars under humid agro-climatic conditions of goa treatments plant height no. of days to no. of no. of length of diameter at shoot leaves appearance of spikes/ florets/ spike of spike emergence initial spike clump spike (cm) (cm) (cm) mexican single 49.186 82.660 112.003 3.67 37.083 75.590 0.532 calcutta single 46.643 64.047 114.177 3.17 35.223 68.177 0.810 hyderabad single 42.640 60.940 136.273 3.50 45.057 61.023 0.905 pune local single 38.030 63.167 123.41 2.83 37.167 62.093 0.915 phule rajni 40.387 68.170 131.073 3.13 38.050 58.113 0.540 s.em + 0.115 0.858 0.564 0.093 0.704 0.294 0.005 cd (0.05) 0.346 2.575 1.693 0.289 2.113 0.882 0.014 111 evaluation of different cultivars of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) (2006), bhaskaret al. (2006) and mahawer et al. (2008) in tuberose. in case of single flower type cultivar s ea rliest flowering was recorded in cv. mexican single (112 days) whereas it was very late in hyderabad single (136.273days) (table 1) (fig. 1).the variation in days to appearance of flower spike was chiefly due to the different genetic make-up of the cultivars evaluated under the present study and prevailing environmental conditions.mexican single recorded significantly maximum spike length (75.59 cm) (table 1). this variation in spike length among various tuberose cultivars evaluated in the present study may be due to different genetic make-up of the cultivars and prevailing environmental conditions. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 109-114, 2019 fig. 1: tuberose crop in flowering stage under humid agro-climatic conditions of goa significant variation was noticed with respect to number of florets per spike in single types (table 1). the variation in number of florets per spike may be due to genetic variability among the different cultivars of tuberose and prevailing environmental condition during field trial.further, in single flower type tuberose cultivars, higher trends for floret stalk length (1.84 cm), diameter of floret (4.085 cm) and weight of individual floret (2.123g) was recorded in cv. mexican single (table 2). the variations observed in various floral table 2: floral and bulb characteristics in single-type tuberose cultivars under humid agro-climatic conditions of goa treatments floret stalk diameter weight of vase life weight of no. of no. of length of floret individual (days) bulb bulbs/ bulblets/ (cm) (cm) floret (g) (g) clump clump mexican single 1.840 4.085 2.123 6.702 31.953 7.467 26.000 calcutta single 1.721 3.820 1.543 6.730 22.087 6.123 23.667 hyderabad single 1.372 4.047 1.717 6.920 19.700 5.680 22.633 pune local single 1.821 3.803 1.023 5.917 21.517 6.133 20.300 phule rajni 1.741 3.123 1.440 5.400 19.003 5.000 20.367 s.em + 0.007 0.053 0.029 0.019 0.407 0.104 0.525 cd (0.05) 0.020 0.160 0.087 0.059 1.221 0.313 1.575 112 characters might be due to the presence of sufficient genetic variability as reported earlier by bichoo et al. (2003) in gladiolus. among the single flowered types, mexican single, calcutta single and hyderabad single had better vase life of 6.70 days, 6.73 days and 6.92 days respectively (table 2). sateesha et al. (2011) reported good vaselife in tuberose cultivars, vaibhav and prajwal. the highly significant variation for the vase-life of cut spike among tuberose cultivars may be due to its different genetic make-up with pr evailing envir onmental conditions, which ultima tely a ffects va r ious physiological processes like turgidity of the cell, water uptake through xylem tissue, water loss through transpiration, respiration and breakdown of their ser ved food, which influences va se-life under laboratory conditions. in case of single flower type cultivar, highest bulb weight per clump was recorded in cultivar mexican single (31.953 g), while, lowest (19.003 g) in phule rajni (table 2). these differences might be due to the genetic characters of the different tuberose varieties taken up for the present study.the variation in weight of bulbs per plant among different tuberose cultivars at bulb harvesting stage can be attributed to the distinguished varietal genetic make-up of the cultivar. significant differences were observed for various morphological characters and floral quality traits among different doublecultivars of tuberose evaluated (table 3 table 4) under coastal humid agro climatic conditions of goa.it is evident from the data in table 3 that out of the different double type tuberose cultivars evaluated for their vegetative characteristics, j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 109-114, 2019 safeena et al table 3: plant growth and floral characteristics in double-type tuberose cultivars under humid agro-climatic conditions of goa treatments plant height no.of leaf leaf days to no. of no. of length at shoot leaves length width appearance spikes/ florets/ of emergence per plant (cm) (cm) of clump spike spike (cm) flower spike pearl double 42.171 44.633 52.930 1.664 164.417 3.36 43.253 71.018 arka suvasini 52.211 59.630 41.449 1.148 105.767 3.97 42.247 70.463 bidhan rajani 39.554 48.300 34.767 1.643 172.33 2.28 30.083 57.483 calcutta 37.300 47.500 37.257 2.040 111.433 2.39 33.233 57.507 double pune local 37.377 38.127 37.635 1.456 114.603 2.40 47.033 65.733 hyderabad 41.030 49.927 38.307 1.138 138.06 3.17 35.540 69.063 double s. em+ 0.214 0.148 0.132 0.086 1.896 0.028 0.292 0.240 cd (0.05) 0.643 0.444 0.392 0.258 5.689 0.088 0.875 0.720 the maximum plant height and number of leaves per plant were recorded in cv. arka suvasini (52.21 cm and 59.63 no’s). panse (1957) reported that the variation in plant height and number of leaves per plant among the cultivars might be due to the genetic constitution of the germplasm, which has close bearing in response to selection. out of the six tuberose cultivars evaluated for their floral parameters (table 3) among the double flower types, days to appearance of flower spike were earlier in arka suvasini (105 days) while it was late in bidhan rajani(172 days).similar results with respect to variation in days to first flowering among different cultivars were reported earlier by bhaskar et al. (2006) and mahawer et al. (2008). among the double flowered types, length of the spike (71 cm) was maximum in pearl double as recorded in table 3. being genetically controlled factor, significant variation occurred in length of the spike due to the hereditary tr a its of differ ent cultiva r s under pr eva iling 113 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 109-114, 2019 evaluation of different cultivars of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) table 4: floral and bulb characteristics in double-type tuberose cultivars under humid agro-climatic conditions of goa treatments diameter fresh floret diameter weight vase life weight no. of no. of of spike weight stalk of floret of indi. (days) of bulb bulbs/ bulblets/ (cm) of spike length (cm) floret (g) (g) clump clump (g) (cm) pearl double 0.645 62.504 3.523 5.186 3.383 7.600 56.067 12.733 30.167 arka suvasini 0.680 69.060 3.600 5.240 3.490 7.930 52.133 11.500 29.600 bidhan rajani 0.617 25.897 1.814 4.397 1.580 5.350 34.567 9.400 26.300 calcutta double 0.547 25.217 2.007 5.000 1.750 7.023 33.467 9.733 28.167 pune local 0.563 25.548 3.349 4.726 1.698 5.725 36.267 8.200 19.733 hyderabad double 0.542 45.311 3.021 4.068 1.481 6.030 32.800 9.167 17.800 s. em+ 0.017 0.180 0.042 0.032 0.013 0.056 0.236 0.034 0.087 cd (0.05) 0.051 0.540 0.125 0.095 0.038 0.167 0.709 0.103 0.261 environment. present results are in accordance with the findings of patil et al. (2009) and mahawer et al. (2008) who obtained significant variation among the tuberose cultivars for length of the spike. the two-year pooled data revealed that maximum trend for number of florets per spike (47) was observed in pune local while minimum trend was recorded in bidhan rajani (30) among the double flower ed types (table 3). these r esults ar e in accordance with the findings of patil et al. (2009) and mahawer et al. (2008) who noted significant variation in number of florets per spike in different cultivars of tuberose.the cultivar arka suvasini performed better in different floral qualitative traits like spike girth (0.68 cm), stalk length of the floret (3.6 cm), diameter of the floret (5.24 cm) and weight of individual floret (3.49g) which was followed by pearl double (table 4). further, the highest fresh weight of the spike was recorded in cultivar arka suvasini (69.06 g), followed by the cultivar pearl double (62.50 g) among double flower type tuberose cultivars (table 4). variation in fresh weight of the spike might be due to different genetic ma ke-up of the differ ent cultiva rs a nd prevailing environment conditions. present findings are in accordance with the findings of kumar and yadav (2005) in gladiolus.the vase life was found to be significantly maximum (7.93 days) in cv. arka suvasini followed by pearl double (7.60 days) among the double flowered tuberose types (table 4). the maximum bulb weight per plant were recorded in cultivar pearl double (56.06 g), whereas, minimum (32.80 g) in hyderabad double in double flower type of tuberoses evaluated under the present study (table 4).the cultivars with more number of leaves have higher photosynthetic activity, source sink relationship, thereby accumulating more amount of carbohydrates and improved bulb weight per plant under prevailing environmental conditions. the significant variation in bulb weight of different tuberose cultivars were also recorded earlier by mahawer et al. 2008. based on results obtained, it may be concluded that cv. mexican single among single types and cv. arka suvasini and pearl double among double types could be recommended for commercial cultivation under coastal humid agro climatic conditions of goa since they were found to be promising in respect of plant growth, floral and bulb characteristics. acknowledgement we would like to thank icarcentral coastal agricultural research institute, ela, old goa, goa, india for providing the necessary facilities to carry out this research work. 114 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 109-114, 2019 safeena et al references bhaskar, v.v. and reddy, p.s. 2006. performance of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivars under the nor ther n telenga na zone of andhr a pr a desh. in:national symposium on ornamental bulbouscrops held on 5-6 december, 2006 at svbpuat, meerut (u.p.).pp. 30. bhaskar, j., sobhana, a. and rajeevan, p.k. 2006. performance evaluation of tuber ose polianthes tuberosa (l.) varieties. in: national symposium on ornamental bulbous crops held on 5-6 december 2006 at svbpuat, meerut (u.p.), pp. 31. bichoo, g.a., jhon and wani, s.a. 2003. genetic variabilityin some quantitative characters of gladiolus. j. orn.hort., 5: 22-24. kumar, r. and yadav, d.s. 2005. evaluation of gladiolus cultivars under sub-tropical mid-hills of meghalaya. orn. hort. 8: 86-90. mahawer, l.n., shukla, a.k. and bairwa, h.l. 2008. performance of various tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivars under agroclimatic zone iv-a sub-humid southern plains and aravalli hills of rajasthan. in: national symposium on recent advances in floriculture held on 4-6 march, 2008 at nau, navsari, gujarat, pp.73. panse, v. g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi, 4th edition. patil, v.s., munikrishnappa, p.m. and shantappa, t. 2009. performance of growth and yield of different genotypes of tuberose under transitional tract of north karnataka. j. ecobiol.,24: 327-333. sateesha, g.r., kumar, anil and biradar, m.s. 2011. performance of different tuberose varieties under field conditions. plant arch.,11: 359-60 singh, k.p. and uma, s. 1995. studies on ratoon crop in tuberose cv. single and double. indian perfumer, 39(4): 158-160. (received on 25.9.2017, revised and accepted on 12.11.2019) introduction bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) is one of the important and popular cucurbitaceous vegetable grown in our country. it is considered as a prized vegetable owing to its high nutritive value, especially ascorbic acid, iron and medicinally important anti-diabetic property (behera, 2004). plant growth regulators (pgrs) have a great potential in increasing productivity in vegetables. growth promoters / growth retardants can be used judiciously to maximize yield in several vegetable crops. response of a plant or plant parts to exogenous growth regulators varies with fluctuations in endogenous hormonal levels in the plant, and the manner in which natural growth regulators interact with applied growth regulators. though plant growth regulators have a great potential to influence plant growth and morphogenesis, their application and actual assessment needs to be planned well in terms of optimal concentration, stage of application, speciesspecificity, season, etc. these constitute a major impediment in exploiting pgrs applicability. in view of their effect on virtually every aspect of plant growth, even a modest increase of 10-15 per cent could bring about increment in gross annual productivity by 10-15 million tons. effect of plant growth regulators on leaf biochemical characters and fruit yield components of bittergourd (momordica charantia l.) cvs. mhbi-15 and chaman plus biradar geeta, m.b. chetti and c.m. navalgatti department of crop physiology university of agricultural sciences, dharwad 580 005, india email: b4ugeeta@gmail.com abstract effect of plant growth regulators on leaf biochemical parameters (chlorophyll pigments, sugars, nitrate reductase activity, total phenols) and fruit yield bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) was studied. the experiment consisted of foliar treatment with three plant growth regulators, ga3 (20, 40 and 60ppm), naa (50ppm) and ccc (100 and 200ppm) in two bittergourd varieties, mhbi–15 and chaman plus at 45 days after sowing (das). results revealed significant difference between treatments on chlorophyll, sugar, total phenol content as also on nitrate reductase activity. foliar application of ccc (200ppm) recorded maximum amount of total sugars (18.03% over control), total phenol content (10.93%) as also nitrate reductase activity (16.12%). among the treatments, application of ga3 (20ppm) recorded maximum chlorophyll content (18.03% over control). highest increase in mean fruit yield over control was recorded with application of ga3 (20ppm) (39.88%), followed by ccc (200ppm) (34.15%) in both the cultivars. key words: bittergourd, fruit yield, leaf biochemical characters, plant growth regulators fruit yield in bittergourd depends upon accumulation of photoassimilates and their partitioning to different plant parts. yield in bittergourd was found to be strongly influenced by application of different growth regulators, thus indicating importance of these compounds in increasing yield potential through an effect on various physiological and biochemical traits. with this background, the present investigation was undertaken to find suitable plant growth regulators for increasing yield potential and quality in bittergourd. material and methods a field experiment was conducted at main agricultural research station, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, during rabi 2007-08. the experiment consisted of treatment combinations involving three plant growth regulators, viz., ga3 (20, 40 and 60ppm), naa (50ppm) and ccc (100 and 200 ppm) with two varieties of bittergourd mhbi–15 and chaman plus. foliar treatments were imposed during flower initiation (45 days after sowing) in both the varieties, with three replications laid out in factorial randomized block design. observations on leaf j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):43-47, 2014 44 biochemical characters and fruit yield components were made using standard procedures. extraction of chlorophyll was done following the method of shoaf and lium (1976) using dimethylsulfoxide (dmso). leaf material (250mg) was incubated for 30min at 65°c in 10ml of dimethylsulphoxide (dmso) reagent. the supernatant was collected and volume made up to a known quantity (10ml) and absorbance read at 645 and 663nm. using spectrophotometer (spectro uv-vis dual beam uvs-2700, labomed inc., usa), total chlorophyll, chlorophyll ‘a’ and ‘b’ were calculated and expressed as mg/g fresh weight. sugars were estimated following nelson (1941). reducing sugar content was estimated using copper and arsenomlybdate reagents. colour development was read et 510nm using the spectrophotometer. total sugars were estimated using anthrone reagent. colour developed was estimated measuring absorbance at 630nm. results were expressed as mg/g fresh wt. nitrate reductase activity (nra) in vivo was estimated following saradhambal et al (1978) by leaf disc method using nneda and sulphanilamide. pink colour development was read using a spectrophotometer at 540nm. activity of nitrate reductase was expressed as nmoles of no2 formed per gram fresh weight per hour. estimation of total phenols was done by folin ciocalteau reagent method (sadasivum and manikam, 1992). results were expressed as mg/g fresh weight. total fruit yield was calculated by multiplying plant population per hectare by yield per vine in three randomly labeled plants. total number of fruits was counted on each vine. data were subjected to analysis of variance as per panse and sukhatme (1967). results and discussion biochemical parameters plant growth regulators had a profound influence on chlorophyll content in the leaf. significant differences were observed among treatments, but interaction effect was found to be non-significant between treatments and varieties with respect to chlorophyll ‘a’, ‘b’ and total chlorophyll content in the leaf (table 1). maximum increase in chlorophyll ‘a’ (18.9%), ‘b’ (14.4%) and total chlorophyll (18.03%) over the control was recorded with ga3 @ 20ppm. in general, chlorophyll content was significantly lower in cv. mhbi-15 compared to that in cv. chaman plus in all treatment combinations, including the control. foliar application of ga3 (20ppm and 40ppm) resulted in higher chlorophyll content. increase in photosynthetic rate due to ga3 application has been attributed to enhanced ultra-structural morphogenesis of plastids and increase in rubisco activity (arteca and donga, 1981). variation in chlorophyll content due to growth regulator application may be attributed to decreased chlorophyll degradation and or increased chlorophyll biosynthesis. data on reducing, non-reducing and total sugars indicated significant differences between varieties and treatments (table 2). significant increase in reducing sugars was noticed with application of ccc. maximum reducing sugar content (22.1%) in leaf was recorded with ccc (200ppm). non-reducing sugars (13.6%) also increased with foliar spray of ccc (200ppm). foliar application of ccc (200ppm) also registered significantly high increase table 1. influence of plant growth regulators on chlorophyll ‘a’, ‘b’ and total chlorophyll (mg/g fresh wt.) in bittergourd leaf treatment chlorophyll ‘a’ chlorophyll ‘b’ total chlorophyll v1 v2 mean v1 v2 mean v1 v2 mean t1 gibberellic acid (20ppm) 0.956 1.006 0.981 0.222 0.239 0.230 1.178 1.245 1.211 t2 gibberellic acid (40ppm) 0.913 0.950 0.931 0.215 0.229 0.222 1.128 1.179 1.153 t3 gibberellic acid (60ppm) 0.883 0.905 0.894 0.210 0.220 0.215 1.093 1.125 1.109 t4 naphthalene acetic acid (50ppm) 0.935 0.797 0.866 0.215 0.230 0.222 1.150 1.027 1.088 t5 cycocel (100ppm) 0.898 0.915 0.906 0.210 0.217 0.213 1.108 1.132 1.120 t6 cycocel (200ppm) 0.864 0.883 0.873 0.205 0.212 0.208 1.069 1.095 1.082 t7 control 0.821 0.830 0.825 0.198 0.204 0.201 1.019 1.034 1.026 mean 0.895 0.898 0.896 0.210 0.221 0.216 1.106 1.119 1.113 for comparing means of s. em± cd (p=0.05) s. em± cd (p=0.05) s. em± cd (p=0.05) varieties 0.011 ns 0.003 0.009 0.017 ns treatments 0.022 0.065 0.004 0.012 0.031 0.092 v x t 0.031 ns 0.005 ns 0.044 ns v1: mhbi-i5 v2: chaman plus ns: non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):43-47, 2014 biradar geeta et al 45 in total sugars (18.5%) over the control and in other treatments. in general, higher sugar content was recorded in cv. chaman plus compared to cv. mhbi-15 in all the treatments. higher accumulation of sugar in ccc treated plants might be due to higher biosynthesis of chlorophyll and photosynthesis. our results also confirm the earlier findings of uprety and yadavs (1985) in oat plants. plant growth regulators exhibited significant differences in nitrate reductase activity (nra) in the leaf (table 3). the enzyme activity increased by 16% with foliar application of ccc @ 200ppm compared to that in control. nitrate reductase a key enzyme in nitrogen metabolism, is known to be regulated by various environmental factors apart from presence of its substrate viz., nitrate. the enzyme catalyses reduction of nitrate to nitrite (vadigeri et al, 2001). similarly, lawlor and fock (1975) suggested that cccinduced increase in photosynthesis was associated with an increase in nr activity. it is generally believed that nitrate reductase activity depends upon the activity of substrate and proteinaceous compounds. therefore, it is suggested that application of plant growth regulators results in enhanced nitrate uptake by plants (kuchenberg and jung, 1988). similarly, goswami and srivastava (1989) also reported increase in nitrate reductase activity to the application of growth regulators. data on total phenols as influenced by plant growth regulators indicated wide differences among the two genotypes and treatments. cultivar chaman plus recorded higher total phenols compared to mhbi-15 (table 3). all the growth regulators used significantly increased total phenol content. among the treatments, ccc (200ppm) recorded significantly higher increase in total phenol content (10.93%) over the control. plant phenolic compounds have been widely reported to be substances stimulatory to plant growth and function as promoters (ghareib et al, 2010). this, as reported by other workers, is made possible by mobilization of metabolites like carbohydrates and total phenols (talaat, 2005; talaat and balbaa, 2010). these data indicate that total phenol content can be enhanced with application of pgrs in bittergourd. yield and yield components number of fruits per plant was significantly higher with foliar spray of ga3 @ 20ppm (11.6%), followed by ccc @ 200ppm (9.6%) compared to control (table 4). fruit yield per plant and fruit yield per ha were also table 2. influence of plant growth regulators on reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars and total sugars (mg/g fresh wt.) in bittergourd leaf treatments reducing sugars non-reducing sugars total sugars v1 v2 mean v1 v2 mean v1 v2 mean t1 gibberellic acid (20ppm) 2.05 2.29 2.17 4.86 6.07 5.46 6.93 8.36 7.64 t2 gibberellic acid (40ppm) 1.98 2.25 2.11 4.87 5.95 5.41 6.85 8.20 7.52 t3 gibberellic acid (60ppm) 1.91 2.11 2.01 4.83 5.97 5.40 6.74 8.08 6.99 t4 naphthalene acetic acid(50ppm) 2.03 2.22 2.12 5.02 6.26 5.64 7.05 8.48 7.96 t5 cycocel (100ppm) 2.08 2.28 2.18 5.08 6.31 5.69 7.16 8.59 8.08 t6 cycocel (200ppm) 2.16 2.36 2.26 5.17 6.34 5.75 7.33 8.71 8.25 t7 control 1.78 1.92 1.85 4.55 5.57 5.06 6.33 7.49 6.96 mean 1.99 2.2 2.1 4.91 6.06 5.48 6.91 8.27 7.59 for comparing means of s. em± cd (p=0.05) s. em± cd (p=0.05) s. em± cd (p=0.05) varieties 0.01 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.1 0.29 treatments 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.06 0.19 0.54 v x t 0.02 ns 0.03 0.09 0.27 0.77 v1: mhbi-i5 v2: chaman plus ns: non significant table 3: influence of plant growth regulators on nitrate reductase activity and total phenols in bittergourd leaf treatment nitrate reductase activity total phenols (nmolno2 g -1fr.wt. hr-1) (mg g-1 fresh wt.) v1 v2 mean v1 v2 mean t1 gibberellic 118.9 179.3 149.1 13.90 14.91 14.40 acid (20ppm) t2 gibberellic 117.6 175.8 146.7 13.96 14.73 14.34 acid (40ppm) t3 gibberellic 115.6 173.4 144.5 13.86 14.64 14.25 acid (60ppm) t4 naphthalene 121 181.9 151.5 13.95 14.79 14.37 acetic acid(50ppm) t5 cycocel 122.9 184.3 153.6 14.07 14.95 14.51 (100ppm) t6 cycocel 125.8 186.9 156.3 14.24 15.38 14.81 (200ppm) t7 control 108.6 160.6 134.6 12.94 13.76 13.35 mean 118.6 177.4 148 13.84 14.73 14.28 for comparing s. em± cd (p=0.05) s. em± cd (p=0.05) means of varieties 1.3 3.6 0.02 0.05 treatments 2.4 6.8 0.03 0.09 v x t 3.3 ns 0.04 0.13 v1 : mhbi-i5 v2: chaman plus ns: non-significant effect of pgrs on leaf biochemistry and yield in bittergourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):43-47, 2014 46 significantly higher with foliar application of ga3 @ 20ppm, followed by ccc @ 200ppm. lowest fruit yield was recorded in the control. higher fruit yield was obtained as a result of higher number of hermaphrodite flowers per plant and better vegetative growth observed by us in our earlier study (geeta et al, 2010). similar results were reported by dostogir et al (2006) and ram asrey et al (2001). significant increase in number and weight of fruits and total yield was observed in peach with application of ccc @ 500ppm (mahajan and sharma, 2000). increase in fruit yield of treated plants may be further attributed to the fact that plants remain physiologically active to build up sufficient amount of assimilates for developing flowers and fruits, thereby, leading to higher yield. improvement in yield could come about in two ways, i.e., by the existing varieties adapting to grow better in their environment, or, by altering the relative proportions of different plant parts to increase the yield of only the economically important parts (pankaj et at, 2005). in addition, crop yield depends not only on accumulation of photosynthates during crop growth and development, but also on its partitioning to desired storage organs. these, in turn, are influenced by efficiency of the metabolic processes within a plant. growth retardants are capable of redistributing dry matter in the plant, thereby bringing about yield improvement (chetti, 1991). from these results, it can be concluded that all pgr foliar treatments differed significantly for both the varieties in all the traits studied with reference each other and in control plants. among the different treatments, ga3 @ 20ppm enhanced chlorophyll content. significantly higher nra, reducing, non-reducing and total sugars, and, total phenols were recorded with ccc (200ppm), and the lowest was recorded in control. however, maximum number of fruits per plant was recorded with ga3 (20ppm) followed by ccc (200ppm) and various treatments differed significantly with respect to fruit yield (kg/plant and t/ha), with ga3 (20ppm) showing highest values compared to all other treatments. references arteca, r.n. and donga, c.n. 1981. increased photosynthetic rates following gibberellic acid treatments to the roots of tomato plants. photosynth. res., 2:243-249 behra, t.k. 2004. heterosis in bitter gourd. j. new seeds., 6:217-222 chetti, m.b. 1991. evaluation of chamatkar on groundnut. pestology, 15:43-50 dostogir, h., abdul karim, m., habibur rahman pramanik, m. and syedur rahman, a.m. 2006. effect of gibberellic acid (ga3) on flowering and fruit development of bittergourd (momordica charantia l.). int’l. j. bot., 2:329-332 geeta biradar, nawalagatti, c.m., doddamani, m.b. and chetti, m.b. 2010. effect of plant growth regulators on morpho-physiological parameters in bittergourd. int’l. j. agril. sci., 6:504-507 ghareib, h.r., abdelhamed, m.s. and ibrahim, o.h. 2010. antioxidative effects of the acetone fraction and vanillic acid from chenopodium murale on tomato plants. weed biol. mgt., 10:64-72 goswami, b.k. and srivastava, g.c. 1989. effect of benzyl adenine on nitrate reductase enzyme in sunflower (helianthus annuus l.). indian j. pl. physiol., 329:325329 kuchenberg, k. and jung, o. 1988. changes in root: shoot ratio and ion uptake of maize (zea mays) from soil as influenced by plant growth regulators. pl. soil, 102:151-157 table 4. influence of plant growth regulators on yield and yield components in bittergourd treatment no. of fruits / plant fruit yield(kg/plant) fruit yield(t/ha) v1 v2 mean v1 v2 mean v1 v2 mean t1 gibberellic acid (20ppm) 16.4 18.3 17.3 1.203 1.417 1.310 8.113 9.249 8.681 t2 gibberellic acid (40ppm) 15.7 17.5 16.6 1.087 1.318 1.202 7.650 8.922 8.286 t3 gibberellic acid (60ppm) 15.2 16.8 16.0 1.059 1.252 1.155 7.398 8.579 7.988 t4 naphthalene acetic acid(50ppm) 15.6 16.7 16.1 1.100 1.164 1.132 7.770 8.625 8.197 t5 cycocel (100ppm) 15.9 17.8 16.8 1.116 1.266 1.191 7.834 8.745 8.289 t6 cycocel (200ppm) 16.1 18.0 17.0 1.173 1.359 1.266 8.004 9.029 8.518 t7 control 14.9 16.1 15.5 0.883 1.013 0.948 6.806 7.619 7.212 mean 15.6 17.3 16.4 1.088 1.255 1.171 7.653 8.68 8.165 for comparing means of s. em± cd (p=0.05) s. em± cd (p=0.05) s. em± cd (p=0.05) varieties 0.2 0.5 0.06 0.172 0.014 0.039 treatments 0.3 1.0 0.115 0.323 0.026 0.075 v x t 0.5 ns 0.157 0.456 0.036 0.103 v1: mhbi-i5 v2: chaman plus ns: non-significant biradar geeta et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):43-47, 2014 47 lawlor, d.w. and fock, h. 1975. photosynthesis and photorespiratory co2 evolution of water stressed sunflower leaves. planta, 126:381-387 mahajan, b.v.c. and sharma, r.c. 2000. effect of preharvest applications of growth regulators and calcium chloride on physico-chemical characteristics and storage life of peach (prunus persica batsch.) cv. shane-e-punjab. haryana j. hort. sci., 29:41-43 nelson, n. 1941. photometric adaptation of the somogy’s method for determination of glucose. j. biol. chem., 153:375-380 pankaj, g., dhaka, r.s. and fageria, m.s. 2005. effect of plant growth regulators and water regimes on growth, yield and quality of bottlegourd. haryana j. hort. sci., 34:181-183 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, pp. 167174 ram asrey, singh, g.n., shukla, h.s. and rajbir singh, 2001. effect of seed soaking with gibberellic acid on growth and fruiting of muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). haryana j. hort. sci., 30:277-278 sadasivum, s. and manikam, a. 1992. biochemical methods for agricultural sciences. wiley eastern ltd., new delhi, pp. 189-191 saradhambal, k.v., singh, s.p., prakash, s. and naik, m.s. 1978. effect of bacterial blight on the activities of nitrate reductase and peroxidase in rice plants. indian j. biochem. biophys., 15:105-107 shoaf, t.w. and lium, b.w. 1976. improved extraction of chlorophyll a and b from algae using dimethyl sulfoxide. oceanography, 21:926-928 talaat, m.i. 2005. physiological effect of salicylic acid and tryptophan on pelargonium graveolens. egypt. j. appl. sci., 20:751-760 talaat, m.i. and balbaa, k.l. 2010. physiological response of sweet basil plants (ocimum basilicum l.) to putrescine and trans-cinnamic acid. americaneurasian j. agril. environ. sci., 8:438-445 uprety, m. and yadava, r.b.r. 1985. effect of ccc on lodging, yield, and grain quality of oat (avena sativa) cultivar kent indian j. plant physiol, 28:103-106 vadigeri, b.g., madalgeri, b.b. and sheelavantar, m.n. 2001. effect of ethrel and gibberllic acid on yield and quality of two cucumber varieties. karnataka j. agri. sci., 14:727-730 (ms received 04 april 2013, revised 04 november 2013, accepted 20 january 2014) effect of pgrs on leaf biochemistry and yield in bittergourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):43-47, 2014 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction chrysa nthemum (dendranthema x grandiflora tzvelev) is popularly known as ‘guldaudi’ in india and ‘glory of the east’ or ‘mum’ in usa. it belongs to the family asteraceae and native to northern hemisphere, chiefly europe and asia. it is one of the important floriculture crops in the world and ranks second next to rose. it is used as a cut flower, potted plant, and herbaceous perennial, and has been grown in garden for more than 2500 years (vijayakumari et al., 2019). in india, small flowered chrysanthemum is used for making garlands, venis, gajaras and in religious offerings. there has been increase in the demand for potted chrysanthemum due to its suitability as potted plant in the last few years (abrol et al., 2018). it is a short-day plant; critical photoperiod is 13. 5 h for vegeta tive gr owth a nd 12 h for reproductive development (cockshull, 1985). crop improvement depends on magnitude of genetic variability and its nature and association among key traits for efficient selection. the phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) and genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) helps in determining the amount of variability (allard, 1960). heritability estimates the relative influence of environment on expression of genotypes. genetic advance gives an idea about the expected genetic changes, and for efficient selection, high heritability along with high genetic advance can be used (johnson et al., 1955). studies on correlation coefficients between various desirable traits would be helpful in indirect selection of desirable traits for crop improvement. the path coefficient analysis is highly effective method to simplify the complex interactions among various traits which reveals the direct and indirect causes of such interactions. thus, the present study was carried out to a ssess the genetic pa rameter s of variability, correlation coefficients and path coefficient which would be of great significance in selection of parents for formulating appropriate breeding programme in chrysanthemum. original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 77-83, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2150 assessment of genetic variability, character association and path coefficient analysis in chrysanthemum (dendranthema x grandiflora tzvelev) gurung a., kumar r.*, aswath c. and tejaswini p. division of flower and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : rajiv.kumar11@icar.gov.in abstract thirty-one genotypes of chrysanthemum (dendranthema x grandiflora tzvelev) were evaluated for nine growth and flowering related traits to assess the genetic variability, correlation and path coefficient analysis. significant differences among genotypes for all the growth and flowering related traits were observed through analysis of variance. the range of variation was high for number of leaves plant-1 (66.17-164.50) followed by number of flowers plant-1 (30.67-116.83). the magnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation for all the characters studied. high (>20%) pcv and gcv was recorded for plant height, number of branches plant-1, number of leaves plant-1, days to bud initiation, days to first flower opening and number of flowers plant-1. heritability estimates ranged from 77.72% (days to optimum flowering) to 96.93% (number of flowers plant-1). high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was recorded for all the traits studied. number of flowers plant-1 exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with number of branches and leaves plant-1. path coefficient analysis using correlation coefficients revealed that days to first flower opening (1.564) exhibited positive and very high direct effect, while,number of leaves plant1 (0.347) and flower diameter (0.337) showed positive and high direct effect. hence, genotypes with superior traits may be considered for further improvement. keywords : chrysanthemum, correlation and path coefficient, genetic variability, heritability 78 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 77-83, 2023 gurung et al. materials and methods the present study was carried out in the division of flower and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, during 2019-20 a nd 2020-21. t he exper imenta l site wa s geographically located at 13o58’ n latitude, 78oe longitude and at an elevation of 890 meter above mean sea level. the experiment was carried out to evaluate thirty-one chrysanthemum genotypes for growth and flowering traits under naturally ventilated polyhouse in completely randomized design (crd) with three replications. the 31 genotypes used as experimental material were a1 collection, appu, arka chandrakant, arka chankdrika, arka kirti, arka pink star, arka usha kiran, arka yellow gold, autumn joy, coffee, fitonia, flirt, garden beauty, gulmohar, heritage, jublee, marigold, mayur, nbri little kusum, pachai local, pink cloud, ratlam selection, rekha, shukla, statesman, sunil, vasanthika, white dolley, white local, white prolific and winter queen. the plants of all genotypes were raised through terminal cuttings taken from healthy stock plants. after transplanting, plants were imposed with photoperiod of 15/9 hours for 30 days after transplanting and black in (dark conditions) until flower bud initiation. uniform package of practices was followed throughout the experiment to ensure good growth. five uniformly grown plants per replication were tagged for recording observations for various growth and flowering traits, viz., plant height (cm), number of branches per plant, number of leaves per plant, days to bud initiation, days to first flower opening, number of flowers per plant, optimum flower ing, flower dia meter (cm) and flowering duration (days). the collected data of both the years were pooled and analyzed statistically. the analysis of variance for each character was carried out as suggested by panse and sukhatme (1985). the genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variance were calculated as suggested by burton and de vane (1953) and heritability (broad sense), genetic advance and genetic gain were calculated by the for mula given by johnson et al. (1955). t he correlations were calculated as per al-jibouri et al. (1958) and genotypic correlation coefficient was further partitioned into direct and indirect effect with the help of path coefficient analysis as elaborated by dewey and lu (1959). results and discussion t he a na lysis of va r ia nce r evea led significa nt differences among the genotypes for various growth and flowering characters (table 1). this infers that among the genotypes, wide range of variability exists and substantial improvement in this crop is possible through selection. estimation of genetic parameters for growth and flowering traits the extent of variability i.e. mean, range, mean, and estimates of genetic parameters such as phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv), genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv), heritability (broad sense) and genetic advance, genetic advance as per cent of mean for various traits present in chrysanthemum genotypes studied are presented in table 2. the range of variation was high for number of leaves plant-1 (66.17-164.50) followed by number of flowers plant-1(30.67-116.83) and days to first flower opening (31. 00-88. 33). t he ma gnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation for all the characters studied, however, difference a mong gcv and pcv was narrow. this indicates that phenotypic expression of genotypes ma y be genetica lly contr olled a nd environment has slight influence, implying that phenotypic variability could be a reliable measure of genotypic variability. similar results wer e also reported by kumari et al. (2017) in china aster and bennurmath et al. (2018) in chrysanthemum. higher table 1 : analysis of variance (anova) for morphological traits in chrysanthemum source of df plant number number plant-1 days to days to flower number flowering variation height of of leaves bud first optimum diameter of duration (cm) branches plant-1 initiation flower flowering (cm) flowers (days) plant-1 opening plant-1 treatment 30 8,230.95 58.67 13,872.46 471.52 3,867.80 3,852.28 22.18 9,507.31 9,502.86 ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** error 62 0.25 12.81 10.19 1.00 4.74 6.02 4.22 0.08 5.29 79 assessment of genetic variability in chrysanthemum phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation were recorded for number of flowers plant-1(36.48% and 35.92%), plant height (32.12% and 31.12%), number of branches plant-1(27.17% and 26.27%), number of leaves plant-1 (25.77% and 24.55%), days to bud initiation (22.06% and 20.85%) and days to bud first flower opening (21.61% and 20.45%), respectively. for flower diameter, pcv estimates was found to be high (20.02%), and a moderate gcv (18.51%), while, days to optimum flowering (17.04% and 15.02%) and flowering duration (18.27% and 16.41%) showed moderate estimates of pcv and gcv, respectively. similar results of higher estimates of pcv and gcv were reported in chrysanthemum (telem et al., 2017 and henny et al., 2021), gaillardia (arulmani et al., 2015) and china aster (rai et al., 2017, bhargav et al., 2019 and nataraj et al., 2021). the genotypic coefficient of variation alone is not enough to measure the heritable variations present among the genotypes. to get the best picture of the a mou nt of a dva nc e to be ex p ect ed f r om the selections, it should be considered in conjunction wit h her it a b ilit y es t ima t es ( bu r t on, 1 9 5 2 ) . however, for more reliable conclusions, heritability es t ima t es a long wit h genet ic ga in a r e mor e meaningful in predicting the best individual for selection than the heritability value alone (johnson et al. 1955). the herita bility estimates for a ll characters were high (>80%), ranging from 77.72% (days to optimum flowering) to 96.93% (number of flowers plant-1). the genetic advance ranged from 1 . 8 8 ( f lower dia met er ) t o 4 7. 7 1 ( nu mber of leavesplant-1). all the traits had genetic advance as per cent mean estimates of more than 20%, and ranged from 27.28% (days to optimum flowering) to 72.85% (number of flowers plant-1). high values of heritability estimates supplemented with greater genetic gains are indicative of additive gene effects (narayan et al., 1996); therefore, this offers ample scope for efficient selection. high her ita bility coupled with high expected genetic advance was observed for number of flowers per plant -1 and number of branches plant-1 (telem et al., 2017), and flower diameter in chrysanthemum (henny et al., 2021) and days to 50% flowering in china aster (kumari et al., 2017 and nataraj et al., 2021). phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficients for various traits phenotypic and genotypic correlation analysis is the biometrical technique used to find out the nature and degree of association of traits, prevailing between highly heritable with most economic characters (kha ngjar a kpa m et al. , 2015). it gives better understanding of the contribution of trait to the genetic make-up of a crop and helps in making indirect table 2 : genetic parameters for various growth and flowering traits in chrysanthemum range coefficient gcv pcv heritability genetic genetic minimum maximum of variation (%) (%) (%) advance advance as trait mean (%) per cent mean plant height (cm) 59.09 26.92 103.27 7.93 31.12 32.12 93.90 36.71 62.12 number of 6.35 3.33 9.67 6.92 26.27 27.17 93.51 3.33 52.33 branches plant-1 number of leaves 99.08 66.17 164.50 7.85 24.55 25.77 90.71 47.71 48.16 plant-1 days to bud 21.06 11.17 32.00 7.20 20.85 22.06 89.34 8.55 40.60 initiation days to first flower 59.4 31.00 88.33 6.98 20.45 21.61 89.57 23.68 39.87 opening days to optimum 76.23 51.33 104.50 8.04 15.02 17.04 77.72 20.80 27.28 flowering number of flowers 63.95 30.67 116.83 6.39 35.92 36.48 96.93 46.58 72.85 plant-1 flower diameter 5.34 3.67 6.90 7.63 18.51 20.02 85.46 1.88 35.24 (cm) flowering duration 44.43 31.17 61.17 8.02 16.41 18.27 80.71 13.49 30.37 (days) gcv: genotypic coefficient of variation; pcv: phenotypic coefficient of variation j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 77-83, 2023 80 selection for improvement of economically important traits. the high positive correlation between the traits shows that selection for improvement of one character results in the improvement of the other and could be useful in developing an effective selection strategy. correlation coefficients among different traits have been worked out and presented in table 3. in general, the genotypic correlation coefficients were higher than phenotypic correlation coefficients, which may be due to interaction of genotypes with the environment. in the present study, number of flowers per plant has been taken as dependent variable, whereas, remaining eight characters were considered as independent variables contributing towards number of flowers per plant. the results of correlation coefficient revealed that the number of flowers plant-1exhibited genotypic positive and highly significant correlation with number of br anches pla nt -1 (0. 415) a nd number of lea ves plant-1(0.392), therefore, there is a scope for direct selection of these characters for improvement in number of flowers plant-1. a correlation study suggests that the genotype having higher number of flowers per plant would also possess a greater number of branches and number of leaves plant-1. significant and positive correlation of number of flowers per plant with plant height and number of br anches in china a ster (sreenivasulu et al., 2007) and chrysanthemum (khangjarakpam et al., 2015 and telem et al., 2017) have been reported. plant height exhibited positive and highly significant association with days to bud initiation (0.580), days to first flower opening (0.674), days to optimum flowering (0.599), flower diameter (0.510) and flowering duration (0.521). positive significant corr elation of pla nt height with flower size in chrysanthemum (raghava et al., 1992) and with days to 50% flowering in china aster (khangjarakpam et al. (2015) has been reported. this leads to the conclusion that the selection of taller plants results in early bud initiation, first flower opening, optimum flowering, maximum flower diameter and longer flowering duration. therefore, direct selection of this character results in higher flower yield. plant number number days days to days flower flowering number height of of to first to diameter duration of trait (cm) branches leaves bud flower optimum (cm) (days) flowers plant-1 plant-1 initiation opening flowering plant-1 plant height (cm) g 1.000 -0.045 -0.118 0.580** 0.674** 0.599** 0.510** 0.521** -0.008 p 1.000 -0.021 -0.117 0.580** 0.663** 0.588** 0.492** 0.501** -0.008 number of branches plant-1 g 1.000 0.255* -0.224* 0.104 0.085 -0.083 0.075 0.415** p 1.000 0.094 -0.106 0.072 0.056 -0.026 0.038 0.190 number of leaves plant-1 g 1.000 -0.274* 0.026 0.044 -0.249* -0.063 0.392** p 1.000 -0.271* 0.022 0.039 -0.242* -0.061 0.387** days to bud initiation g 1.000 0.621** 0.628** 0.419** 0.324* -0.209* p 1.000 0.612** 0.617** 0.404** 0.311* -0.208* days to first flower opening g 1.000 0.985** 0.346** 0.584** 0.087 p 1.000 0.969** 0.332* 0.558** 0.086 days to optimum flowering g 1.000 0.301* 0.571** 0.057 p 1.000 0.30* 0.542** 0.056 flower diameter (cm) g 1.000 0.361** 0.112 p 1.000 0.338** 0.110 flower duration (days) g 1.000 -0.010 p 1.000 -0.009 no. of flowers plant-1 g 1.000 p 1.000 correlation r value at 5% = 0.2038; 1% = 0.3357; *significant at 5% ; **significant at 1% table 3 : genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients for various growth and flowering traits in chrysanthemum j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 77-83, 2023 gurung et al. 81 table 4 : path coefficient analysis for various growth and flowering traits in chrysanthemum plant number number days days to days flower flowering number height of of to first to diameter duration of trait (cm) branches leaves bud flower optimum (cm) (days) flowers plant-1 plant-1 initiation opening flowering plant-1 plant height (cm) p -0.084 0.002 0.010 -0.049 -0.056 -0.050 -0.041 -0.042 -0.008 g -0.234 0.010 0.028 -0.136 -0.158 -0.140 -0.120 -0.122 -0.008 number of branches plant-1 p -0.002 0.111 0.011 -0.012 0.008 0.006 -0.003 0.004 0.190 g -0.012 0.267 0.068 -0.060 0.028 0.023 -0.022 0.020 0.415 number of leaves plant-1 p -0.041 0.033 0.353 -0.096 0.008 0.014 -0.085 -0.021 0.387 g -0.041 0.089 0.347 -0.095 0.009 0.015 -0.087 -0.022 0.392 days to bud initiation p -0.170 0.031 0.079 -0.293 -0.179 -0.180 -0.118 -0.091 -0.208 g -0.094 0.036 0.044 -0.162 -0.101 -0.102 -0.068 -0.053 -0.209 days to optimum flowering p 0.415 0.045 0.014 0.383 0.625 0.606 0.207 0.349 0.086 g 1.053 0.162 0.040 0.972 1.564 1.541 0.541 0.913 0.087 number of flowers plant-1 p -0.219 -0.021 -0.014 -0.229 -0.360 -0.372 -0.112 -0.201 0.056 g -0.794 -0.113 -0.059 -0.832 -1.306 -1.326 -0.430 -0.757 0.057 flower diameter (cm) p 0.147 -0.008 -0.072 0.121 0.099 0.090 0.299 0.101 0.110 g 0.172 -0.028 -0.084 0.141 0.117 0.109 0.337 0.122 0.112 flowering duration (days) p -0.054 -0.004 0.007 -0.033 -0.060 -0.058 -0.036 -0.107 -0.009 g -0.058 -0.008 0.007 -0.036 -0.065 -0.064 -0.040 -0.111 -0.010 the number of branches per plant exhibited positive significa nt cor r ela tion with number of lea ves plant-1(0.255), however, it showed negative and significant correlation with number of days to bud initiation (-0.224). number of leaves plant-1exhibited negative significant correlation with days to bud initiation (-0.274) and flower diameter (-0.249). days to bud initiation exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with days to first flower opening (0.621), days to optimum flowering (0.628) and flower diameter (0.419), while, positive significant correlation with flowering duration (0.324). however, it showed negative and significant correlation with number of flowers plant-1(-0.209). these results are in close agreement with the findings obtained by poornima et al. (2007) in china aster and panwar et al. (2013) in african marigold. the days to first flower opening exhibited positive and highly significant association with days to optimum flowering (0.985), flower diameter (0.346) and flower ing dur a tion (0. 584). da ys to optimum flowering showed positive and highly significant association with flowering duration (0.571), while, positive significant correlation with flower diameter (0.324). flower diameter exhibited positive and highly significant correlation with flowering duration (0.361). these results are in close agreement with the findings of telem et al. (2017) in chr ysa nthemum and khangjarakpam et al. (2015) in china aster. path coefficient analysis for various traits path coefficient analysis divides the association between two traits into direct and indirect effects. considering number of flowers plant -1 to be a dependent trait, phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of correlation between number of flowers plant-1 and all other characters were further partitioned into direct and indirect effects (table 4). the residual effect is 0.29, due to the characters not considered for the study. on portioning the phenotypic correlation into direct and indirect effects, maximum positive and high direct effect on number of flowers plant-1was recorded for days to first flower opening (0.625) followed by number of leaves plant-1(0.353). positive and moderate direct effect on flower diameter (0.299) and positive a nd low dir ect effect on number of br a nches plant-1(0.111) were also recorded. kumar et al. (2012) observed highest direct positive effect of number of primary branches plant-1 on number of flowers per plant in chrysanthemum at the phenotypic level. the high negative direct effect was recorded for number of flowers plant-1 through days to optimum flowering (-0.372). the negative direct effect was moderate for assessment of genetic variability in chrysanthemum j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 77-83, 2023 82 days to bud initiation (-0.293), low for flowering duration (-0.107) and negligible for plant height (-0.084). kumar et al. (2012) observed highest direct negative effect on number of flowers plant-1 via plant height at the phenotypic level. at the genotypic level, very high positive and direct contribution was recorded for days to first flower opening (1.564), high for number of leaves plant-1 (0.347), and flower diameter (0.337) and moderate for number of branches plant-1 (0.267). kumar et al. (2012) showed positive direct effect of day to flower ing on number of flower s pla nt -1 in chrysanthemum. however, days to optimum flowering (-1.326) had very high negative direct effect, while, plant height (-0.234) had moderate negative direct effect on number of flowers per plant. days to bud initiation (-0.162) and flowering duration (-0.111) recorded low negative direct effect. kumar et al. (2012) also observed highest direct negative effect on number of flowers per plant via days to flower bud initiation followed by plant height at flower bud initiation stage in chrysanthemum. conclusion t he study provides the a ctua l infor ma tion on contribution of the characters and thus forms the basis for selection of suitable characters to improve the flower yield. it may be suggested for yield in terms of number of flowers per plant, direct selection of traits such as days to first flower opening, number of leaves per plant, flower diameter and number of branches per plant may be effective in selection of chrysanthemum. references abrol, a., dhiman, s.r. and sharma, p. 2018. effect of cultivars, growth regulators and photoperiods on production of potted chrysa nthemum, dendranthema grandiflora t zvelev. int. j. farm sci., 8(4): 66-72. al-jibouri, h. a., millar, p. a. and ronimsom, h. f. 1 9 5 8 . g enot yp ic a nd envir onment a l var ia nces a nd co-va r ia nces in an upland 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(received : 17.07.2022; revised : 23.06.2023; accepted 25.06.2023) assessment of genetic variability in chrysanthemum j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 77-83, 2023 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction pummelo [citrus maxima merr., (c. grandis osbeck; c. decumana l.)], family rutaceae, was known in the western world mainly as the principal ancestor of the grapefruit. the areas in southern thailand and northern malaysia are most likely the centre of origin of pummelos (wen et al., 2010). in india, it is grown in home gardens in all states of india and maximum diversity is reported from north-east (ne) region bihar and bengal (roy et al., 2014). pummelo is now gaining popularity in india due to its high nutritional value and antioxidant property. it has played an important role as a parent of many citrus fruits, such as lemon, oranges and grapefruit (youseif et al., 2014). pummelo fruit has several health benefits because of its super-rich vitamin c and vitamin b content. it also contains vitamin a, bioflavonoids, healthy fats, protein, fiber, antioxidants and enzymes. it contains high amount of beta carotene and folic acid and is very beneficial for pregnant women. nutrients are required for supporting the metabolism within the tree-ecosystem and also to support quality fruit production (tha mr in et al. , 2014). both maximum fruit quality and yield of pummelo will occur only in the presence of optimum nutrient balance and intensity. maintaining orchards at optimal leaf nutrient concentrations is one of the key issues for maximizing yield. low fruit quality and yield is often associated with poor soil fertility and poor nutrient management (zhuang, 1995). leaf analysis is a method of determining plant nutrient requirement based on assumption that within certain limits, there original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2157 stionic effects on leaf mineral nutrient contents in pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) grafted on different rootstocks kalaivanan d.1*, sankaran m.2 and patil p.3 1division of natural resources, 2division of fruit crops, 3project co-ordinator, aicrp on fruits, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : kalaivanan.d@icar.gov.in abstract a study was conducted to determine the mineral nutrients concentration in the index leaf of pummelo accessions. index leaf samples from 25 pummelo accessions grafted on pummelo and 12 pummelo clones grafted on rangpur lime rootstocks were collected for assessing leaf mineral nutrient status. the results revealed that pummelo plants grafted on pummelo, the concentration of leaf n (1.43-2.49 %), p (0.17-0.22 %), k (0.75-4.45 %), ca (2.37-6.29 %), mg (0.60-1.04 %), s (0.06-0.22 %), fe (124-245.45 mg kg-1), mn (9.85-50.05 mg kg-1), zn (17-69 mg kg-1) and cu (8.8-25.15 mg kg-1) showed significant variation with different accessions. out of 25 pummelo accessions, twenty-four accessions were deficient in n and s, fourteen were deficient in k, four were deficient in mn and five were deficient in zn and all accessions were sufficient in p, ca, mg, fe and cu. the observed trends in the leaf nutrient concentration of pummelo accessions clearly indicated the significance of the genotypic variation when chemical analysis is used for diagnosing the leaf nutrient status of pummelo trees. similarly, leaf n, p, k, ca, mn, cu and zn varied significantly among twelve pummelo clones grafted on rangpur lime. among the clones grafted on rangpur lime, 18-3 and 18-5 found to have higher and lower leaf nutrient content in most of the mineral nutrients, respectively. the leaf nutrient content of pummelo varies among genotypes, but there is no genotype that stands out in all macro and micronutrients evaluated. the n, p, k, ca, s, fe, mn and cu leaf contents in pummelo were always higher in plants grafted on rangpur lime. however, the foliar mg and zn contents were continually higher in plants grafted on ‘pummelo’ compared to rangpur lime which eventually reduces leaf yellowing/chlorosis in pummelo. pummelo rootstocks were found to respond well in terms of mg and zn nutrient uptake and tolerance to phytophthora as compared to rangpur lime. therefore, it is concluded that pummelo can be an ideal rootstock for commercial pummelo cultivation. keywords : accessions, grafting, leaf mineral nutrient, pummelo, rangpur lime, rootstock 143 stionic effects on leaf mineral nutrient contents in pummelo j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 is positive relationship between nutrient availability, leaf nutrient content, yield and quality of fruits (srivastava and singh, 2004a; 2004b). stebbins and wilder (2003) r epor ted tha t lea f nutr ient concentrations can be used as a guide to determine nutrient status of plant that are directly linked/related to the pattern of growth and development. impact of stock on scion and scion on stock is known as stionic effect. rootstock choice is one of the most important aspects in orchard management because scion cultivars respond differently to growth, fruit quality, disease resistance and nutrients accumulation when grown on diverse rootstocks. plant nutrient concentrations in scion cultivar may differ even though they are grown in the same conditions. rootstocks directly affect the ability of plants to uptake the water and nutrients from the soil. similarly, different scions exhibit variable quantities of nutrients from different rootstocks. the long-term performance of stionic combinations and their significant effects on leaf nutrient levels in different fruit crops have been studied for different climatic conditions across the world (dubey and sharma, 2016). however, no such studies were carried out in pummelo. hence, selection of an appropriate graft/stionic combination with better leaf nutrient absorption is very critical to produce pummelo commercially. therefore, the main purpose of the present research was to determine the status of various macro and micronutrients in the leaf of pummelo genotypes grafted on pummelo and rangpur lime for choosing the right graft combination with enhanced nutrient absorption. it is also possible to reduce the application of nutrients in pummelo by employing perfect stionic combination that have high nutrient absorption capacity. materials and methods to determine the nutrient concentration of leaf as influenced by genotypes and rootstocks, index leaf samples (4th and 5th leaf from tip of new shoots/flush with a ge of 4 to 6 months) from 25 pummelo genotypes (>15 years old) grafted on pummelo and 12 pummelo clones (4 years old) grafted on rangpur lime rootstocks were collected in the month of june 2019 from the field gene bank maintained at icar-iihr, bengaluru, which is situated in south-east tract of karnataka state at 12058 north latitude and 77034 east longitude and at an altitude of 900 m above mean sea level. the study area comes under semi-arid, sub-tropical climate with hot summer and cold winter with an average rainfall of 866 mm. most of the rainfall is received from the south-west monsoon during july to august. twenty leaf samples, five leaves from each direction of east, west, north and south were taken individually from five trees per genotypes from non bearing fruit terminals. the samples were washed first under tap water followed by 0.1 n hcl, distilled water and finally with double distilled water. the cleaned leaf samples were then dried by spreading on clean blotting papers and final drying was done in an oven at 68oc (chapman and pratt, 1961) by separately packing in labeled paper bags. the dried leaf samples were sequentially ground by electrical grinder for further analysis. the nitrogen (n) content in the leaf samples was a na lysed by kjelda hl method (aoac, 1970). phosphorus (p), potassium (k), ca lcium (ca ), magnesium (mg), iron (fe), manganese (mn), zinc (zn) and copper (cu) were estimated by diacid mixture (9:4 hno3: hclo4) as given by jackson (1973). phosphorus content in leaf samples was determined by vanadomolybdo phosphoric acid yellow colour method (jackson, 1973). the intensity of yellow colour was read at 430 nm in the spectrophotometer. potassium content was estimated using fla me photometer (jackson, 1973). calcium and magnesium content was determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas) (sarma et al., 1987). micronutrient content viz. fe, mn, cu and zn was determined using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas) (sarma et al., 1987). the data were statistically scrutinized using analysis of variance of sas 9.3 statistical package. results and discussion leaf macronutrients index leaf samples of 23 pummelo genotypes grafted on pummelo rootstock and 12 pummelo clones grafted on rangpur lime rootstock were analyzed for n, p, k, ca, mg, s, fe, mn, zn and cu contents and presented in table 1, 2, 3 and 4 and fig.1, 2. the data on leaf macronutrients content in pummelo grafted on pummelo and rangpur lime is presented in table 1 & 2 and fig. 1. the concentration of different nutrients in leaf exhibited a wide variation among the genotypes irrespective of the rootstocks. however, the n concentration of leaves was not differed significantly among pummelo genotypes grafted on own rootstocks. genotype ‘kunigal selection’ had the highest leaf n 144 kalaivanan et al. fig. 1 : leaf macronutrient content in pummelo grafted on pummelo (p) and rangpur lime (rl) genotype n (%) p (%) k (%) ca (%) mg (%) s (%) devenahalli selection-1 1.53 0.19 0.95c 4.70bcdef 0.74 0.13 midnapur selection 1 1.57 0.21 1.90bc 4.10defg 0.80 0.22 midnapur selection 1 1.64 0.21 1.30bc 3.83efghi 0.86 0.09 tirupati-1 1.86 0.18 1.45bc 4.17defg 0.77 0.06 hyderabad selection 1.97 0.20 2.00bc 5.51abcd 0.85 0.15 kallar selection 2.11 0.20 0.85c 3.46fghi 0.82 0.15 raichur selection 1.58 0.22 1.15c 3.77efghi 0.72 0.11 khanapur selection 1.95 0.21 2.10bc 4.11defg 0.76 0.12 ikp-1 2.03 0.17 0.75c 4.37cdefg 0.82 0.17 ikp-2 1.92 0.20 1.15c 2.40hi 0.60 0.07 tirupati-2 1.43 0.19 0.90c 4.26cdefg 0.81 0.11 tirupati -2a 1.89 0.19 0.75c 5.76abc 1.04 0.12 kalenahalli-1 1.53 0.19 1.55bc 3.97defg 0.75 0.15 devenahalli selection-2 1.54 0.19 1.95bc 5.95ab 0.88 0.08 midnapur selection-2a 1.90 0.19 2.75b 6.29a 0.93 0.14 kunigal selection 2.59 0.20 4.45a 3.94efgh 0.83 0.11 devenahalli selection-3 1.64 0.17 1.00c 4.02defg 0.83 0.14 accession-18 1.54 0.20 1.75bc 3.84efghi 0.69 0.13 accession-19 1.62 0.22 1.25bc 3.41fghi 0.75 0.17 devenahalli selection -4 1.93 0.18 1.25bc 2.37i 0.71 0.12 devenahalli selection-5 1.61 0.18 2.25bc 4.45bcdefg 0.92 0.14 devenahalli selection-6 1.69 0.19 1.05c 3.02ghi 0.70 0.14 devenahalli selection-7 1.79 0.20 1.10c 5.27abcde 1.01 0.12 gollehalli 2.07 0.20 1.65bc 4.01defg 0.94 0.13 kalenahalli-1a 1.62 0.19 0.80c 2.99ghi 0.73 0.15 general mean 1.78 0.19 1.52 4.16 0.81 0.13 p-value 0.7806 0.3407 0.0176 0.0014 0.3237 0.9886 se(d) 0.413 0.018 0.734 0.753 0.133 0.075 lsd at 5% ns ns 1.5139 1.5549 ns ns table 1 : leaf macronutrient content in pummelo grafted on pummelo j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 145 (2.59%) and ‘tirupati selection’ had the lowest leaf n (1.43%) when grafted with pummelo. zhuang et al. (1991) reported that leaf n content ranging from 2.5 to 3.1% indicated sufficiency in guanximiyou’ pummelo leaves. the concentration of leaf n in most of the pummelo accessions was below the critical value of 2.50% except in genotype ‘kunigal selection. similar trend was observed in leaf n content of pummelo accessions grafted on rangpur lime also (table 2). the highest mean leaf n content (2.00%) was observed in the pummelo grafted on rangpur lime rootstock compared to pummelo grafted on pummelo (1.78%). the range of n levels in leaf of pummelo accessions grafted on pummelo and rangpur lime was compared well with the reported values of 1.7 to 2.81 per cent in citrus by srivastava and singh (2002; 2003; 2005; 2006; 2008). the pummelo accessions grafted on pummelo did not influence the p concentration of leaves significantly. the values ranged from 0.17 to 0.22% with a mean value of 0.19%. the range of p levels in leaf matched well with the va lues 0. 14-0. 18 % r eported by zhuang et al. (1991) in pummelo and 0.09-0.17 % reported by srivastava and singh (2002; 2003; 2005; 2006; 2008) in citrus. the concentration of leaf p was the highest in the genotype ‘raichur selection’ (0.22%) and was the least in ‘devenahalli selection-3’ (0.17%) accession. of the 23 accessions, the values of p in the foliage were found to be sufficient in five accessions and excess in twenty accessions. according to zhuang et al. (1991), leaf p content ranging from 0.14 to 0.18% indicated sufficiency, whereas, p content below 0.14% indicated p deficiency in pummelo. similar to leaf n, the highest mean leaf p content (0.22%) was also observed in the pummelo grafted on rangpur lime rootstock compared to pummelo grafted on pummelo (0.19%). the leaf k concentration of pummelo accessions grafted on pummelo ranged from 0.75 to 4.45% with a mean value of 1.52%. leaf k was significantly higher in the kunigal selection (4.45%) and genotypes tirupati-2 (0.75%) recorded the lowest leaf k content. however, the concentration of leaf k was below the critical value of 1.40% in 14 pummelo accessions. the range of k levels in leaf were almost similar to that reported by srivastava and singh (2002; 2003; 2005; 2008) (1.02-2.59%) in citrus. according to zhuang et al. (1991), the leaf k content ranging from 1.4 to 2.2% indicated sufficiency. like leaf n and p, the highest mean leaf k content was observed in the pummelo grafted on rangpur lime (2.73%) rootstock compared to pummelo on pummelo (1.52%). the concentration of ca and mg in leaf of pummelo genotypes exhibited wide variation. highest ca concentration of 6.29% was observed in accession ‘midnapur selection-2a’ and the lowest ca concentration of 2.37% was in genotype ‘devena ha lli selection-4’. t he ca concentration of leaf was at par in ‘devenahalli table 2 : leaf macronutrient content in pummelo grafted on rangpur lime genotype n (%) p (%) k (%) ca (%) mg (%) s (%) clone 19-1 1.59d 0.23bcd 3.30ab 3.03ef 0.72 0.13 clone 18-5 1.57d 0.17g 2.30bcd 2.72f 0.67 0.13 clone 24-4 2.39a 0.18fg 3.07abc 4.80abc 0.81 0.14 clone 8-4 1.83cd 0.22bcde 1.10d 5.04a 0.77 0.14 clone 25-5 2.03bc 0.19efg 1.73cd 3.85cde 0.73 0.10 clone 18-4 1.79cd 0.24bc 2.73abc 3.96cde 0.75 0.13 clone 21-4 2.33ab 0.21cdef 2.40abcd 4.95ab 0.71 0.15 clone 18-1 1.66d 0.24b 3.23ab 4.00bcd 0.67 0.12 clone 10-5 2.25ab 0.20defg 3.17ab 3.57def 0.65 0.10 clone 18-3 2.52a 0.31a 3.67a 4.95ab 0.69 0.20 clone 25-2 1.73cd 0.22bcde 2.53abc 4.74abc 0.75 0.13 clone 20-4 2.28ab 0.21bcdef 3.47ab 4.40abcd 0.72 0.13 general mean 2.00 0.22 2.73 4.17 0.72 0.13 p-value <.0001 <.0001 0.0224 0.0003 0.9196 0.9228 se(d) 0.171 0.016 0.649 0.461 0.096 0.054 lsd at 5% 0.3542 0.0328 1.3465 0.9568 ns ns stionic effects on leaf mineral nutrient contents in pummelo j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 146 selection-2, ‘tirupati-2’ and ‘hyderabad selection’ genotypes. the range of ca level in leaf (2.37-6.29%) was higher than the range reported by zhuang et al. (1991) (2.0-3.8%) and srivastava and singh (2002; 2003; 2005; 2008) in citrus (1.80-3.28%). the concentration of leaf ca in all the genotypes was higher than the critical level (2.0%). the concentration of mg in leaves of pummelo genotypes varied from as low as 0.6% in genotype ‘tirupati-2’ to as high as 1.04% in genotype ‘a-10’ which was above the critical levels (0.32%). the range of mg level in leaf was compared well with standards of zhuang et al. (1991) (0.32-0.47%) and srivastava and singh (2002; 2003; 2005; 2008) (0.43-0.92%). the mean leaf ca (4.16%) and s (0.13%) in pummelo genotypes grafted on pummelo were found almost comparable with the pummelo genotypes grafted on rangpur lime (4.17% and 0.13%). however, the pummelo genotypes grafted on pummelo had better mean leaf mg content (0.81%) than the plants grafted on rangpur lime (0.72%). with r espect to lea f sulphur content, no significant differ ence wa s obser ved in differ ent pummelo genotypes grafted on pummelo nevertheless found to be matching with leaf s content of pummelo clones grafted on rangpur lime. the range of s levels in leaf (0.06-0.22%) was noticeably lower than those reported by zhuang et al. (1991) (0.2-0.39%). leaf micronutrients the data on leaf micronutrients in pummelo grafted on pummelo and rangpur lime is presented in table 3 & 4 and fig. 2. considerable differences were observed, in the micronutrient concentration of leaf in pummelo genotypes. a relatively wide range of leaf fe was found among the pummelo genotypes. the concentration of leaf fe was found to be statistically significant in pummelo genotypes grafted on pummelo and the genotype ‘ikp-1’ recorded the highest leaf fe (245.45 mg kg-1). the lowest leaf fe content (124 mg kg-1) was recorded in genotype ‘devenahalli selection4’. the range of fe levels in pummelo leaf (124245.45 mg kg-1) of the present study was compared well with standards of srivastava and singh (2002) reported in khasi mandarin (84.6-249.0 mg kg-1). pummelo genotypes differed significantly with respect to leaf mn concentration. higher concentration of leaf mn was recorded in genotype ‘tirupati-2’ (50.05 mg kg-1), and ‘ikp-1’ (36.40 mg kg-1). the range of mn levels in leaf (9.85-50.05 ppm) was appreciably lower than those reported by zhuang et al. (1991) (15-140 mg kg-1). the concentration of leaf zn ranged from 17 to 69 mg kg-1 with a mean value of 33.3 mg kg-1. the accession ‘ikp-1’ recorded the highest leaf zn concentration of 69 mg kg-1 whereas; accession ‘a20’ had the lowest leaf zn concentration of 17 mg kg1. the values of zn levels in leaf of most of accessions wer e r ela tively higher tha n those r epor ted by zhuang et al. (1991) (24-44 mg kg-1). t he concentration of zn in the leaves were in the deficient range (<24 mg kg-1) in few pummelo genotypes (a18, devenahalli selection-4, devenahalli selection-5, devenahalli selection-6 and kalenahalli) grafted on pummelo. copper concentration of the pummelo leaf ranged from 8.80 to 25.15 mg kg-1 with a mean of 15.36 mg kg-1. higher concentration of leaf cu was r ecor ded in a ccessions ‘golleha lli selection, ‘devenahalli selection-2’ and ‘kalenahalli. the concentration of leaf cu was statistically significant among the pummelo accessions. the ranges of cu levels in leaves were much higher than the values of 8-17 mg kg-1 reported by zhuang et al. (1991). the values of cu in the foliage of all the accessions under study were above the critical value of 8.0 mg kg-1. pummelo genotypes grafted on rangpur lime recorded the highest fe, mn, and cu except zn. low leaf zn might be one of the causes for wide spread appearance of severe yellowing/chlorosis in pummelo trees grafted on rangpur lime. the highest leaf zn was recorded in the pummelo accessions grafted on pummelo might be reason for reduced level of leaf yellowing/chlorosis. the zn is required in plants for synthesis of auxins which act as plant growth promoter in various phenophases of the plant. the data recorded on leaf macro and micronutrient status of pummelo grafted on different rootstocks revealed that the nutrient content of the leaf samples was significantly influenced by the rootstocks and scions as well. differences in leaf nutrient content among the stionic combinations could be due to the variances among the rootstocks in the morphology, density of the roots in the soil profile, rooting pattern, root volume, and variations in nutrient absorption capacity of the roots (zhuang et al., 1991; srivastava and singh 2002). the rootstock having higher root volume can be more efficient in absorbing nutrients from the soil. variation in leaf nutrient content could also be caused by scions of different genotypes, and kalaivanan et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 147 table 3 : leaf micronutrient content in pummelo grafted on pummelo genotype fe (mg kg-1) mn (mg kg-1) zn (mg kg-1) cu (mg kg-1) devenahalli selection-1 180.45bc 19.30ghij 31.60fg 13.85fghi midnapur selection 1 163.60bcde 19.35ghij 27.45gh 15.70ef midnapur selection 1 133.05de 18.60ghij 32.40f 15.05efgh tirupati-1 176.05bcd 21.45fghi 39.65d 15.45efg hyderabad selection 176.35bcd 24.90def 34.70ef 11.75hij kallar selection 157.50bcde 17.45hijkl 29.95fg 11.50ij raichur selection 192.00b 17.80ghijk 46.90c 16.00ef khanapur selection 170.65bcd 21.90fghi 33.40ef 12.05ghij ikp-1 245.45a 36.40c 69.00a 13.70fghi ikp-2 186.45bc 16.95ijkl 27.40gh 11.70hij tirupati-2 195.40b 50.05a 47.35bc 14.95efghi tirupati -2a 172.70bcd 44.30b 42.90cd 20.35bcd kalenahalli-1 174.90bcd 22.90efg 38.15de 16.90def devenahalli selection-2 182.40bc 29.45d 52.20b 22.50ab midnapur selection-2a 157.60bcde 19.30ghij 30.35fg 18.25cde kunigal selection 146.40cde 12.45lm 26.85ghi 11.90hij devenahalli selection-3 146.55cde 15.15jkl 24.00hij 8.80j accession-18 134.95de 14.45jklm 23.50hij 9.35j accession-19 162.05bcde 15.75jkl 24.10hij 12.10ghij devenahalli selection -4 124.00e 9.85m 17.00k 10.10j devenahalli selection-5 146.80cde 17.20hijkl 23.30hij 21.25bc devenahalli selection-6 145.30cde 12.80klm 20.10jk 18.00cde devenahalli selection-7 181.90bc 22.30efgh 33.85ef 16.25ef gollehalli 188.10bc 27.25de 34.35ef 25.15a kalenahalli-1a 145.55cde 22.00fghi 22.05ij 21.50bc general mean 167.45 21.97 33.30 15.36 p-value 0.0080 <.0001 <.0001 <.0001 se(d) 21.819 2.513 2.391 1.717 lsd at 5% 45.033 5.1872 4.9356 3.5442 fig. 2 : leaf micronutrient content in pummelo grafted on pummelo (p) and rangpur lime (rl) stionic effects on leaf mineral nutrient contents in pummelo j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 148 table 4 : leaf micronutrient content in pummelo grafted on rangpur lime genotype fe (mg kg-1) mn (mg kg-1) zn (mg kg-1) cu (mg kg-1) clone 19-1 147.20 38.37cde 21.67bc 13.57d clone 18-5 156.40 33.80cdef 15.73c 14.30cd clone 24-4 223.27 28.50ef 26.60ab 13.73d clone 8-4 221.37 42.70bc 26.80ab 25.60a clone 25-5 201.23 50.27ab 21.27bc 17.87bcd clone 18-4 170.73 42.70bc 24.03ab 22.43ab clone 21-4 175.87 27.27f 23.97ab 20.83abc clone 18-1 167.43 39.97bcd 22.33bc 16.03bcd clone 10-5 188.97 54.80a 21.90bc 14.33cd clone 18-3 183.73 36.00cdef 23.10b 21.90ab clone 25-2 230.97 30.50def 25.90ab 19.00abcd clone 20-4 223.97 37.93cdef 30.77a 18.63bcd general mean 190.93 38.57 23.67 18.19 p-value 0.1478 0.0007 0.0396 0.0202 se(d) 31.527 5.273 3.401 3.346 lsd at 5% ns 10.935 7.0538 6.939 differences in the incorporation from the roots to shoots and then leaves (srivastava and singh 2003; 2005 and 2008). conclusion present investigation, clearly indica ted the leaf nu t r ient c ont ent of p u mmelo va r ies a mong genotypes, but there is no genotype that stands out in a ll ma c r o ( n , p, k , c a , m g a nd s ) a nd micronutrients (fe, mn, zn and cu) ana lyzed. however, hyderabad selection, raichur selection, ikp-1, tirupa thi-2, and kalenahalli selction-1 c ou ld b e c ons ider ed a s s u p er i or p u mmelo a ccessions offer ing a gr ea t scope for genetic imp r ovemen t p r ogr a mmes a nd ma x imiz ing productivity with less inputs. average leaf nitrogen, p ot a s siu m, ir on, a nd ma nga nes e cont ent s in pummelo were higher in plants grafted on rangpur lime. phosphorus, calcium, sulphur, and copper contents in pummelo-pummelo stionic combination were found almost comparable with the pummelorangpur lime stionic combination. however, the foliar magnesium and zinc contents were found higher in pummelo pummelo stionic combination which eventually reduces leaf yellowing/chlorosis in pummelo. pummelo rootstocks were found to respond well in terms of p, ca, mg, s, zn and cu nutrient uptake and tolerance to phytophthora as compared to rangpur lime. therefore, it can be concluded that pummelo can be an ideal rootstock for commercial pummelo cultivation with better nutrient absorption capacity, reduced chlorosis, and phytophthora incidence. wider variations in leaf nutrients contents in pummelo accessions indicated the differential response of pummelo germplasm u nder s imila r s oilc lima t ic c ondit ions whic h emphasize due consideration while formulating leaf nutrient standards of pummelo for diagnostic and future nutrient management strategy as well. references aoac. 1970. official methods of analysis, 11th edition, association of official agricultural chemists, washington, dc. chapman, h.d. and pratt, p.f. 1961. methods of analysis for soil, plant and water, division of agricultural science, university of california, berkley, usa., pp. 150-210. dubey, a. k., and sharma r. m. 2016. effect of rootstocks on tree growth, yield, quality and leaf mineral composition of lemon (citrus limon (l.) burm.). sci. hortic., 200: 131-136. jackson, m. l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india private ltd., new delhi. roy, d., kundu, s., ghosh, b., dutta, p. and pal, r. 2014. performance of pummelo germplasm in new alluvial zone of west bengal. j. crop. weed., 10: 179-182. kalaivanan et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 149 sarma, v. a. k., krishna, p. and budihal, s. l. 1987. soil resource mapping of different states in indiaa laboratory manual. national bureau of soil survey and land use planning. pp. 49. srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2002. soil analysis ba sed diagnostic norms for indian citr us cultivars. comm. soil sci. pl. anal., 33: 16891706. srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2003. soil plant nutrient limits in relation to optimum fruit yield of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) cultivar mosambi. indian j. agric. sci., 73(4): 209-211. srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2004a. soil plant nutritional constraints contributing to citrus decline in marathawada region, india. comm. soil sci. & pl. anal., 35: 2537-550. srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2004b. zinc nutrition, a globa l concer n for susta ina ble citr us production. j. sustain. agric., 25(3): 5-42. srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2005. diagnosis of nutrient constraints in citrus orchards of humid tropical india. j. pl. nutri., 29(6): 1061-1076. srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2006. citrus nutrition and biochemical markers. j. pl. nutri., 29(5): 827-855. srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2008. dris norm and their field evaluation in nagpur mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco). j. pl. nutri., 31(6): 1091-1107. stebbins, r.l. and k.l.wilder, 2003. leaf analysis of nutrient disorders in tree fruits and small fr uits. extension ser vice, or egon sta te university. thamrin, m., susanto, s., susila, a.d. and sutandi, d.a. 2014. correlation between nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium leaf nutrient with fruit production of pummelo citrus (citrus maxima). asian j. of appl. sci., 7(3): 129-139. wen, b.,cai, c., wang, r., tan, y. and lan, q. 2010. critical moisture content windows differ for the cryopreservation of pomelo (citrus grandis) seeds and embryonic axes. cryo lett., 31: 2939. youseif, s.h., halwagi, a.e., sayed. h.a. and hanaiya, a.e.i. 2014. chemical analyses, antibacterial activity and genetic diversity assessment of some egyptian citrus spp. cultivars. afr. j. biotech., 13: 2626-2636. zhuang, y.m., wang, r.j., chen, l.x., xu, w.b., huang, y.z. and zhou, z.l. 1991. optimum range of mineral element content in the leaves of guanxi honey pumelo (citrus grandis). j. fujian acad. agri. sci., 6(2): 52-58. zhuang, y.m., wang, r.j., xie, z.n., xu, w.b. 1995. study on nutrition diagnosis standard of citrus, longan and litchi. fujian fruits., 1: 6-9. (received : 25.12.2022; revised : 03.06.2023; accepted 05.06.2023) stionic effects on leaf mineral nutrient contents in pummelo j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 142-149, 2023 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 166 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 166-168, 2019 short communication management of eulophid seed borer, anselmella kerrichi (narayanan et al.) (hymenoptera : chalcidoidea : eulophidae) on jamun jayanthi mala b.r.1*, kamala jayanthi p.d.1, anjana subramoniam1 and rekha a.2 division of entomology and nematology1, division of fruit crops2, icarindian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake po, bengaluru 560 089. *email: entjaya@gmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during 2019 to evaluate certain insecticides and botanicals against jamun seed borer, anselmella keriichi (naryananet al.). the results revealed that the seed borer infestation was significantly low in -cyhalothrin (4.20%) and cypermethrin (5.77%) treatments followed by spinosad (6.36%), deltamethrin (6.40%) and imidacloprid (6.71%) (f=7.9; df=11; p<0.0001). among the organic insecticides viz., spinosad @ 0.2 ml/l showed significant reduction in jamun seed borer infestation. keywords: syziumcumini, chemical insecticides, botanical insecticides, hymenoptera and insect pest fr uits of ja mun, syzium cumini l. (fa mily myrtaceae; commonly known as jambul, black plum, indian blackberry, jambulan, java plum etc.) are known for their economic importance with several medicinal properties (warrier et al., 1996). jamun is attacked by number of insect pests and recently a eulophid seed borer, anselmella kerrichi (narayanan et al.,) (hymenoptera: chalcidoidea: eulophidae) causing huge economic losses in jamun cultivation have been reported (kamala jayanthi et al., 2019; anjana et al., 2019). the adult female wasp lays eggs inside the tender fruits. after completing the life cycle inside the jamun seeds, fully-grown adults emerge out making a circular hole, in turn causing both quantitative and qualitative losses. the infested fruits bore black, pinprick size oviposition punctures along with circular exit holes on the rind. heavy infestation of jamun fruits by a. kerrichi rendering the fruits unmarketable was observed (fig.1). the present study was conducted during march-april 2019 at an experimental block of icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india located at 13o58’ n latitude and 78o e longitude at an elevation of 890 m above mean sea level. a total of 12 treatments (as listed in table 1) were evaluated against jamun seed borer. each treatment involved three consecutive sprays with 15 days interval and each treatment replicated thrice in three different sets. a total of 1200 fruits were harvested for each tr eatment. ea ch set containing 1200 fruits per treatment in which randomly 400 fruits per replication were observed. keeping the fact in view that jamun fruits are consumed fresh for its high medicinal value, all the experimental sprays were restricted to early stages of fruiting (during g3 to g4 stages; kamala jayanthi et al., 2019) to avoid pesticide residue issues. the observations were recorded on total number of fruits and number of fruits infested with jamun seed borer. data were subjected to anova (using f test as criteria at p=0.05 level). net benefit per acre for each treatment was derived by subtracting the total cost of plant protection from total income. cost: benefit ratio of each treatment wa s derived by subtracting the income of the control treatment from the net income of each sprayed treatment and the products were divided by total cost of plant protection for each treatment (shabozoi et al., 2011). the results pertaining to the efficacy of various treatments in the management of jamun seed borer were given in table 1. the mean per cent fruit infestation by a. kerrichi varied significantly from 4.20-19.45 among the treatments (f=7.9; df=11; p<0. 0001). after a dminister ing a ll the thr ee experimental sprays the per cent fruit infestation by a.kerrichi was significantly lower in treatments viz., -cyhalothrin, cypermethrin, spinosad, deltamethrin 167 management of eulophid seed borer, anselmella kerrichi j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 166-168, 2019 and imidacloprid with a fruit infestation of 4.20, 5.77, 6.36, 6.40 and 6.71% respectively compared to the control. however, all above treatments were found on par with each other with respect to seed borer infestation. the treatments viz., abamectin, pongamia soap, neem soap, neem oil did not reduce the seed borer infestation compared to the control (table 1). relative economic performance of the treatments was compared with the control using the cost:benefit (c:b) r atio. t he synthetic pyrethr oid viz. , cyhalothrin (1:9.67), gave the highest c:b ratio followed by spinosad (1:8.57), cypermethrin (1:8.48), and deltamethrin (1:8.23). the present study revealed that spinosad and other synthetic pyrethroids could be recommended for the management of jamun seed borer at the early stage of fruiting. anjana et al., (2109) studied the possibility of using color sticky traps as a strategy for management of a. kerrichi in jamun. their results showed that females were attracted to blue sticky trap whereas, male wasps attracted to yellow sticky trap. considering the need for eco-friendly pest management modules for jamun, integrated management strategies involving colour traps and need based spray interventions have to be standardized to minimize the economic losses caused by jamun seed borer a. kerrichi. acknowledgements authors thank the director, icar-iihr, bengaluru for providing research facilities. we also thank mr t s. rajanna for technical support. fig. 1: a. pricks on immature jamun fruits, b. adult jamun seed borer, c & d. galleries 168 jayanthi mala et al treatment fruit infestation (%) c: b ratio set i set ii set iii overall mean t1 cypermethrin (1.0 ml/l) 4.83 8.12 4.38 5.77 1:8.48 (12.70) (16.55) (12.07) (13.77) t2 deltamethrin (1.0 ml/l) 5.00 7.57 6.62 6.40 1:8.23 (12.92) (15.97) (14.91) (14.60) t3 spinosad (0.2 ml/l) 3.57 4.35 11.14 6.36 1:8.57 (10.89) (12.04) (19.50) (14.15) t4 quinalphos (2.5 ml/l) 10.00 17.87 13.64 13.84 1:2.14 (18.43) (25.01) (21.67) (21.70) t5 chlorantraniliprole (0.3 ml/l) 13.46 10.56 1.74 8.59 1:6.53 (21.52) (18.96) (7.59) (16.02) t6 cyhalothrin (1.0 ml/l) 5.00 4.32 3.27 4.20 1:9.67 (12.92) (11.99) (10.42) (11.78) t7 imidacloprid (0.5 ml/l) 6.67 7.33 6.14 6.71 1:7.57 (14.96) (15.71) (14.34) (15.01) t8 abamectin (0.5 ml/l) 24.00 18.13 15.20 19.11 1:1.14 (29.33) (25.20) (22.95) (25.83) t9 pongamia soap (10 g/l) 12.08 12.63 16.43 13.71 1:2.15 (20.34) (20.82) (23.91) (21.69) t10 neem soap (10 g/l) 24.17 19.57 14.61 19.45 1:1.57 (29.45) (26.25) (22.47) (26.06) t11 neem oil (10 ml/l) 13.33 19.40 22.22 18.32 1:0.84 (21.42) (26.14) (28.13) (25.53) t12 control 13.68 17.39 20.00 17.03 (21.71) (24.65) (26.57) (24.31) cd @0.05% 5.80 *figures in the parenthesis are arcsine transformed values table 1: efficacy of different insecticides against jamun seed borer, a.kerrichi (narayanan et al.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 166-168, 2019 references anjana s., p.d. kamala jayanthi, b.r. jayanthimala and a. rekha. 2019. differential attraction of ja mun seed bor er, anselmella kerrichi (narayanan, subba rao & patel, 1988) to various colour traps. pest man. in hort. eco.25 (1):121-122 kamala jayanthi p. d., anjana s., rekha, a., jayanthi mala , b. r. 2019. eulophid seed bor er, anselmella kerrichi (na r a ya na n et a l. ; hymenoptera), an emerging pest of jamun. cur, sci., 117 (6): 922-924 na ra ya na n, e.s., subba rao, b. r. a nd patel, g.a.a.1957. a new pteromalid genus from india. ind. j. ent. 19: 202-203 shabozoi, n.u.k., abro, g.h., syed, t.s., awan, m.s. , 2011. economic appra isa l of pest management options in okra . pak. j. of zool.43, 869-879. warrier, p, nambiar, v. and ramankutty, c. 1996. indian medical plants, orient longman ltd., hyderabad, 5: 225-228 (received on 9.9.2019 , revised on 7.12.2019 and accepted on 20.12.2019) 81 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 original research paper identification of nbs-lrr resistance gene analogues (rga) from rose (iihrr13-4) resistant to powdery mildew (podosphaera pannosa (wallr.:fr.) de bary) neethu k. chandran1, 3, sriram s.1*, tejaswini prakash2 1division of crop protection, 2division of floriculture and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, india 3jain university, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india email : subbaraman.sriram@icar.gov.in abstract resistance is the best strategy to manage powdery mildew (podosphaera pannosa (wallr.:fr.) de bary) of rose. identification of resistant genes (r genes) from plant species will help in breeding programs. nucleotide binding site leucine rich repeats (nbslrr) is a major class of r gene family in plants. this study reports the identification and molecular characterization of resistance gene analogues from roses maintained at icarindian institute of horticultural research (iihr). the powdery mildew resistant line iihrr13-4 was compared with the susceptible commercial cultivar, konfetti. pcr based approaches with degenerative primers based on different conserved motifs of nbs-lrr were employed to isolate resistance gene analogues (rgas) from rose. eleven rgas (iihrr13-4r1, iihrr13-4r2, iihrr13-4r3, iihrr13-4r4, iihrr13-4r5, iihrr134r6, iihrr13-4r7, iihrr13-4r8 iihrr13-4r9 and iihrr13-4r10) were identified from powdery mildew resistant germplasm line, iihrr13-4, based on the sequence and similarity to rgas from rosaceae family and other crops. the major similarity to rose rgas reported are from fragaria vesca, rosa hybrid cultivar, prunus and rosa chinensis. rgas isolated from iihrr13-4 belonged to toll interleukin receptor (tir)-nbs-lrr and non-tir-nbs-lrr rgas (lecine zipper (lz) type). different motifs of rgas identified were p-loop, rnbs a, kinase 2, kinase 3a, rnbs-d and glpl of nbs domain. this study reports the existence of resistance at genetic level in powdery mildew resistant genotype iihrr13-4. these rgas will be useful for mapping and characterization of r genes in iihrr13-4 and breeding for improved powdery mildew resistance in roses. key words: nucleotide binding site-leucine rich repeats (nbs-lrr), podosphaera pannosa, powdery mildew, resistance gene analogues (rga) and rose. introduction two major events involved in defense mechanism are recognition of pathogen attack and induction of defense r esponses fr om pla nts a ga inst the pathogen.the defense response against particular pathogen is triggered by an interaction between r gene from the host and avirulence gene product of pathogen which restricts the pathogen invasion (flor, 1971; holt et al.,2000). r genes form a diverse group of related sequences that are widely distributed in plant genome. there are five classes of r genes based on their structural characteristics of predicted protein structure and majority of these r-genes belong to nucleotide-binding site (nbs) and leucine-rich repeats (lrrs) groups (ellis and jones, 1998; hammondkosack and jones, 1998; hattendorf and debener, 2007a; hattendorf and debener, 2007b). putative nbs domains are concerned with signalling and they are characterized by several highly conserved motifs, viz. p-loop, kinase-2 and gly-leu-pro-leu (glpl) motifs. structural domains of lrrs are involved in protein-protein interactions and pathogen recognition (belkhadir et al., 2004; ellis et al., 2003; yung, 2000). this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 82 chandran et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 the nbs-lrr domain is classified into two groups based on their n-terminus. first is the amino terminal toll interleukin receptor (tir)-nbs-lrr and the second is without tir region known as non-tirnbs-lrr class. tir-nbs-lrr is characterized by their similarity to toll receptor in drosophila and interleukin 1 receptor of mammals and non-tir groups has a leucine zipper (lz) or coiled coil(cc) motif instead of tir. non-tir group is widely distributed in both monocots and dicots while tir group is rare in cereals and grasses. so far several r genes have been cloned in different crops(collier and moffett, 2009; dangl and jones, 2001; ellis et al., 2003; hammond-kosack and jones, 1997; jones, 2001; liu et al., 2007). resistance gene analogues are putative derivatives of r genes. the highly conserved domains provide unique identity to r genes in pla nt genome (hammondkossack et al., 1996). the conserved motifs of nbs-lrr can be used to isolate resistance genes from plants by pcr based approach with oligonucleotide degenerate primers. rgas have been isola ted fr om wide va r ieties of pla nt species (hattendorf and debener, 2007a). characterization of rga is an effective strategyto identify r genes and develop markers for disease resistance (mayer et al., 1999; hattendorf and debener, 2007a; biber et al., 2010; backiyarani et al., 2013; lei et al.,2014; sekhwal et al., 2015). rose is one of the economically important ornamental crops from rosaceae family and it has the highest economic impact in the world. rose flower industry comprises of local and international marketing of cut flowers, loose flowers, scent, oil and medicines. the worldwide estimated production of rose is 18 billion cut stems, 60-80 million potted-rose and 220 million for landscape purposes (debener and byrne, 2014). apart from roses, other economically important members of rosaceae family are apples (malus), strawberries (fragaria), stone fruits like peach, plum, apricots (prunus) and pears (pyrus). most of the species of rosaceae family are woody perennials. there is a wide range of pathogens viz., fungi, bacteria, virus, phytoplasma and nematodes that attacks rose plants causing its death and thereby reducing the marketability of roses. powdery mildew is one of the most damaging diseases of rosaceae family (xu et al., 2007). podosphaera pannosa (wallr.:fr.) de bary is an obligate (biotrophic) pathogen (order erysiphales, phylum ascomycotina) that inhabits numer ous economically impor tant plants.severe powdery mildew infection reduces greenhouse cut flower production (leuset al., 2003; xu et al., 2005, debener and byrne, 2014). characterization of r genes from wild varieties will help in obtaining disease resistant cultivars of roses (hattendorf et al., 2004; hattendorf and debener, 2007b). so fa r, only two r genes ha ve been characterized in rose viz. rdr 1 for black spot resistance (von malek et al., 2000; ayana et al., 2011) and rpp1 for powdery mildew resistance (linde and debener, 2003; linde et al., 2004) from institute for ornamental plant breeding, germany. diseaser esistance loci have been identified and mapped in apple (calengeet al., 2005; perazzolli et al., 2014; pessina et al., 2014), strawberries (zamora et al., 2004), peach (dirlewanger et al., 1996, 2004; quarta et al., 2000; dettori et al., 2001; lalli et al., 2005), arabidopsis thaliana (aarts et al., 1998; mayer et al.,2003) and soybeans (yu et al.,1996). study of r gene and its locus can help to reveal their exact function in pathogen recognition followed by defense and their evolution among particular plant species. this can be used to develop novel disease management strategies (mchale et al., 2006). in this context, the best desirable strategy for disease management is development of resistant varieties as it can be a cost effective alternative for chemical method of disease management. powdery mildew resistance was observed in rose genotype (iihrr134) during field evaluation but mechanism of disease resistance was unknown. the objective of this study was to identify and characterize resistance gene analogues from iihrr13-4. materials and methods rose genotypes used in this study were obtained from division of ornamental crops, icarindian institute of hor ticultur a l resea r ch (iihr). eight r ose genotypes (table 1) were used to identify resistant gene analogues based on earlier reports. among those genotypes selected, iihrr13-4 was found to be resistant, rosa indica was immune and remaining were highly susceptible to powdery mildew. genomic dna was isolated from coppery red rose leaves by ctab method (doyle and doyle, 1987). six sets of degenerative primers (table 2) were used 83 s.no. rose genotypes used in the study field assessment of powdery mildew disease 1 r1 iihrr13-4 (pmr) resistant 2 r2 rosa indica resistant 3 r3 11-3 susceptible 4 r4 first red susceptible 5 r5 dean de pointers susceptible 6 r6 fantasy susceptible 7 r7 konfetti susceptible 8 r8 -13-24 susceptible table 1. rose genotypes maintained at iihr used in the study table 2. list of primers used in this study for the amplification of rgas s.no. primer name sequence (5’-3’) motif 1 rs1 f ggiggiatiggiaaaaciac ggmgktt rs1 f raarcaigcdatrtgiarraa flhiacf 2 rs3 f ggigtiggiaaiaci ggvgktt rs3 r raarcaigcdatrtgiarraa flhiacf 3 rs4f ggiggiatiggiaaaaciac ggmgktt rs4r raarcaigcsatrtciarraa fldiacf 4 rs10f ggiggiatiggiaaaaciac ggmgktt rs10r ytciggraaiarigcrcarta ycalfpe 5 rs11f ggiggiytiggiaaraciac gglgktt rs11r ytiiggraaiarigcrcarta ycalfpe 6 rs12f ggiggigtiggiaaiaci ggvgktt rs12f ytciggraaiarigcrcarta ycalfpe for amplification of rgas. rs1 rs2 and rs3 primer pairs were specific for tir-nbs-lrr type and rs10, rs11 and rs12 were for lz type (hattendorf and debener, 2007a). pcr assays were performed with genomic dna in a total volume of 25 µl containing10µm of forward and reverse primers (sigma aldrich, india), 3 units of taq polymerase and 2.5 mmtaq buffer (genei, bengaluru, india).pcr reaction was performed in eppendorf thermal cycler with initial denaturation at 940c for 3 min, 35 cycles of 940c for 1 min, 420c for 1 min, 720c for i min followed by final extension step at 72 0c for 10 minutes (hattendorf and debener, 2007a). agarose gel (1.5%) electrophoresis was carried out to view and purify the pcr products.the amplified products were further purified by nucleospin gel and purification kit by macherey-nagel gmbh & co. kg, germany. the purified products were ligated into ptz 57r/tvector. cloning was done with thermo-fisher scientific insta clone pcr cloning kit (thermofisher scientific ba ltics uab, lithua nia ). transformed colonies were selected for plasmid isolation and presence of insert was confirmed by plasmid pcr. cloned plasmids were sequenced for further identification (hattendorf and debener, 2007a). rga sequences wer e a na lysed using ncbi vecscreen (https://www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/tools/ vecscreen/) and bioedit (hall, 1999). sequence similarity search was done using ncbi blast (https:/ j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 resistance gene analogues (rga) in rose 84 /blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) for rga sequences. amino a cid sequences wer e gener a ted using expert protein analysis system (expasy) (https:// web. expa sy.org/tr anslate/) tra nsla ting tool a nd conserved motifs were identified by amino acid sequence a lignment. phylogenetic tr ee wa s constructed with mega-6 (tamuraet al., 2013) with bootstrap analysis with 1000 replications. sequences of selected rgas were deposited at ncbi-gen bank database. results and discussion genomic rgas were identified from rose genotypes with various degenerate primer sets with an amplified product of 550-700 bp length (fig.1).from the different primer sets used only rs1 and rs10 primer combinations amplified in rose plants irrespective of susceptibility or resistance. the pcr amplified products were cloned and 41 colonies were picked for confirmation and sequence analysis. finally ten rga clones were selected from iihrr13-4 by rs1 pr imer combina tion a nd three rgas identified respectively from iihrr13-4, konfetti and first red by rs10 combination. these rgas were finalised based on the sequence length and similarity to rgas from rosaceae family and other plant rgas. the rgas sequences with internal stop codons were eliminated. total eleven rgas were confirmed from iihrr13-4 after sequence analysis and similarity to other plant rgas. other two rgas were confirmed fig. 1. agarose gel electrophoresis confirming the amplification of rose rgas fragments, 1-5, 1 -7 rose rgas. rga fragments amplified at 550-700bp. from powdery mildew susceptible first red and konfetti. all the amplified pcr pr oducts were purifiedand cloned in p tz vector. the sequence homology of rose rgas to other plant proteins and other known r genes was confir med by ncbi blast search. the list of proteins present in other plants belonging to rosaceae family to which close similarity was observed for the rgas identified in the present study is given in table 3. the r gene sequences retrieved from ncbi database used in the phylogenetic analysis are listed in the table 4. rgas identified in the present study showed similarity to both tir class of nbs-lrr rgas and non-tir (lz) class of nbs-lrr. rgas identified from susceptible varieties showed similarity to rgas of rosaceae family but some of them excluded after amino acid translation because of the presence of internal stop codons. finally thirteen rga sequences viz., iihrr13-4r1, iihrr13-4r2, iihrr13-4r3, iihrr13-4r4, iihrr13-4r5, iihrr13-4r6, iihrr13-4r7, iihrr13-4r 8, iihrr13-4r9, iihrr13-4r10, iihrr13-4rs10 (iihrr13-4), iihrsfrr10 (first red) and iihrrrirs10 (rosa indica) were identified in this study. multiple sequence a lignment identified highly conserved amino acid motifs present in the rgas of iihrr13-4. multiple sequence alignment of iihrr134 rgas was performed with other r genes of rose, arabidopsis, solanum, nicotiana, malus, prunus, fragaria a nd a poptotic pr otea se a ctiva ting factor(apaf) gene (fig. 2). six highly conserved amino acids motifs of nbs domain identified were ploop, rnbs (resistance nucleotide binding site)-a, kinase-2, kinase-3a, rnbs-d, and glpl. ncbi cd-search (conserved domain software) was used to find and confirm the conserved domains of rgas and presence of nucleotide binding domain (nbarc domain) a nd lrr3 super fa mily domain. the selected rgas wer e further a nalysed for their phylogenetic relationships among rosaceae family and other plant r genes. chandran et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 85 table 3. list of rgas identified from the present study, their genbank accession numbers and sequence similarity with rgas of other rosaceae family rose ncbi protein to which closer similarity plant species identity rgas accession observed (%) number iihrr13mg958641 tmv resistance protein n-like isoform x2 fragaria vesca 77 4r1 sub sp. vesca putative nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 80 iihrr13mg970527 putative nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 98 4r2 putative winged helix-turn-helix dnarosa chinensis binding domain, leucine-rich repeat domain iihrr13mg970528 putative transcription factor wrky family rosa chinensis 94 4r3 putative tir-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 82 iihrr13mg970529 putative transcription factor wrky family rosa chinensis 100 4r4 putative tir-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 83 iihrr mg970530 tmv resistance protein n-like fragaria vesca subsp. 67 13-4r5 vesca tmv resistance protein n-like prunus avium 62 iihrr13mg970531 putative nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 87 4r6 putative toll-like receptor, p-loop containing rosa chinensis 88 nucleoside triphosphate hydrolase iihrr13mg970532 putative tir-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 100 4r7 tmv resistance protein n-like fragaria vescasu bsp. 73 vesca iihrr13mg970533 putative tir-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 83 4r8 putative transcription factor wrky family rosa chinensis 72 iihrr13mg970534 putative tir-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 88 4r9 putative transcription factor wrky family rosa chinensis 75 iihrr13mg970535 nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybridc ultivar 88 4r10 putative tir-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid cultivar 84 iihrr13mk704433 putative disease resistance protein rosa chinensis 74 4rs10 rga3 and rga4 iihrsfr mk704434 putative disease resistance protein rga1, rosa chinensis 86, 85, 86 r10 (first rga2, rga3 and rga4 and 90 red) isolate f11p2-4f nbs-lrr resistance rosa hybrid cultivar 87 protein gene iihrrri mk689860 putative disease resistance protein rga2 rosa chinensis 97, 88 rs10 rga3 and rga4 and 87 (rosa nbs-lrr resistance protein gene rosa hybrid cultivar 88 indica) j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 resistance gene analogues (rga) in rose 86 chandran et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 f ig . 2 . m ul tip le s eq ue nc e al ig nm en t s ho w in g co ns er ve d m ot if s in th e am in o ac id a lig nm en t o f ii h r r 13 -4 r g a s w ith ot he r r g en es o f r os e, a ra bi do ps is , s ol an um , n ic ot ia na , m al us , p ru nu s, f ra ga ri a an d a pf g en e. h ig hl y co ns er ve d am in o ac id s of m ot ifs (p -l oo p, r n b sa , k in as e2, k in as e3a , r n b s d , a nd g lp l) a re s ha de d 87 j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 resistance gene analogues (rga) in rose phylogenetic tree was constructed using mega-6 software to identify genetic relationship and diversity among rose rgas and other known plant r genes from rosaceae and other species (table 3). different r genes from different crops available in genbank were selected to analyse the phylogenic relationship among r genes. the phylogeny was constructed using neighbour joining method with1000 boot strap replications (fig. 3). the two distinct groups of rgas, t ir a nd lz types wer e clea r ly sepa r a ted in phylogram. apoptotic protease activating factor 1 (apaf1) related to human cell death was used as out-group to construct phylogentic tree because of its nbs domain with greater protein sequence similarity to nbs-lrr proteins of plants. highest degree of similarity of iihrr13-4 rgas was observed with malus domestica, rosa chinensis, f. vesca and rosa hybrid cultivar. comparative sequence analysis specifies the clustering of rose rgas with certain rosaceae rgas. iihrr13-4r2, iihrr13-4r3, iihrr13-4r4, iihrr13-4r8 andiihrr13-4r9 clustered together with tir-nbs-lrr rosa hybrid cultiva r. iihrr13-4r7 cluster ed with t mv r esista nce n like pr otein of fragaria vesca. iihrr13-4r5 clustered with tmv resistance n like protein of prunus avium and tir-nbs-lrr rosa hybrid cultivar. iihrr13-4r1 grouped with tmv of nicotiana tabaccum. other rga iihrrconrs10 grouped with lz-nbs-lrr of rosa hybrid cultivar, nbarc of arabidopsis thaliana , rgc1 of solanum a nd rga 4 of rosa chinensis. rga identified from fir st red iihrsfrrs10 were grouped with xa21 of oryza sativa. neighbour joining phylogenetic tree confirms the similarity of tir and lz type of rgas from iihr rose genotypes to rgas of rosaceae family. identification of rgas can assist in breeding program for superior disease resistance because of the specific gene feature. rga fragments are generated from different motifs of conserved domains of r genes that code for resistance against particular pathogen. rga based markers that linked to r genes are more specific and facilitate selection of desirable disease resistant lines (ellis et al., 2000; biber et al., 2010, hattendorf and debener, 2007a). pcr based approach with degener a te pr imer is a n efficient method for identification and cloning of rgas from plants (hattendorf and debener, 2007a; vossen et al., 2013; yu et al., 1996). pcr based approach was used in the study to identify potential rgas linked to powdery mildew resistance in iihr line of r ose (iihrr13-4) for which molecular basis for mechanism of disease resistance had not been earlier identified. based on previous obser va tions under field eva lua tion, genotype iihrr13-4 that wasfound resistant was selected along with wild rose species r. indica which was sl.no. r gene host accession no. 1 rgc1 solanum tuberosum af266747.1 2 nb-arc domain disease resistance protein arabidopsis thaliana np187360.1 3 virus resistance (n) gene nicotiana glutinosa u15605.1 4 tir-nbs-lrr type r protein 7 malus baccata aaq93075.1 5 tir-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid am075235.1 7 rust resistance protein m gene linum usitatissimum u73916.1 8 rpp5 arabidopsis thaliana nm114316.3 9 l6 linum usitatissimum u27081.1 10 rpw8.1, rpw8.2 arabidopsis thaliana af273059.1 11 xa21 oryza sativa  ay885788.1 12 lz-nbs-lrr resistance protein rosa hybrid am075248.1 13 tmv resistance protein n-like fragaria vesca subsp. vesca xm011459053.1 14 tmv resistance protein n-like prunus avium xm021944693.1 15 apoptotic protease activating factor 1 (apaf1) mrna (out group) homo sapiens  af149794.1 table 4. list of r genes retrieved from ncbi database used in the phylogenetic analysis that were compared with rgas of rose 88 immune to powdery mildew. molecular profiling of rgas with nbs conserved motifs helps in diversity studies of r gene families and identification of molecular markers for disease resistance (r) genes (vossen et al., 2013). six degenerate primers of conserved nbs motifs used in the present study were selected from hattendorf and debener (2007) for isolation of genomic rgas from rose. rs1, rs2 and rs3 primers helped in identifying tir class of genomic rgas and rs4, rs5 and rs6 aided amplification of non-t ir cla ss (lz) of rgas fr om r ose. t he difference in each primer set relies on single amino acid in the motif sequence. primers of p-loop motif sequence (gg.gktt) differed in the third amino acid of the motif (gg (m/v/l) gktt). in the same way, primers designed on nbs-ix motif also differed in single amino acid change. motif sequence of nbsix was fl.iacf and change was on the third amino acid (fl(h/d)iacf). these variation in primer sequences helps to identify complete set of rgas present in the rose genome. genomic rgas isolated from rose belonged to tir and non tir class (lz) of nbs-lrr resistance genes. non-tir classes of rgas are present in monocotyledons (wheat, rice, maize) and di-cotyledons but tir class of rgas mostly found in dicotyledonous plants. hattendorf and debener (2007a) reported that rose genome contained more tir class of rgas rather than non-tir class with respect to number and diver sity of rgas in r ose genome. t he clea r distinction between tir and lz class is based on the motif sequences of nbs domain (xu et al., 2005). rgas identified from all genotypes of rose (table 1) ir respective of powdery mildew resistance a nd susceptibility. pr evious investigations showed constitutive expression of rgas but their transcription was induced by different factors in different crops chandran et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 fig. 3. the phylogenetic tree constructed with neighbor-joining method based on the amino acid sequences of rose rgas, along with rgas and r genes from rosaceae and other plant species. the bootstrap values obtained from 1000 replications branches corresponding to partitions reproduced in less than 50% bootstrap replicates are collapsed. 89 (hammond-kosack and jones, 1997). expression of rgas specifically after pathogen attack explains their role particularly in defense response. hattendorf and debener (2007b) explained relative expression of rgas in rose by checking the expression of rgas in diplocarpon rosae (black spot disease) inoculated and control rose leaves. enhanced expressions of tirrgas wer e obser ved in r ose a fter bla ck spot inoculation than untreated control, indicating direct function of tir-rgas in disease resistance against black spot. genomic rgas isolated from powdery mildew susceptible lines of rose (table 1) were excluded because of presence of premature stop codons. rga isola ted fr om fir st red (iihrrsfrrs10) was without stop codons and that grouped with xa21 of o. sativa in the phylogram. the genomic rga of first red probably may not express during powdery mildew infection process to prevent the disease and leads to the susceptibility to powdery mildew. ncbi blast results indicate that iihrsfrr10 was showing similarity to rosa hybrid cultivar nbs-lrr resistance protein pseudogene by 86.59%. therefore, the rga was identified from first red ma y be pseudogene. t hese r esults ga ve information regarding the expression levels of rgas in rose with respect to disease resistance. some of the rgas were identified as pseudogenes in many crops (potato, arabidopsis, cotton, lotus and tomato). non-functional pseudogene paralogs of r-genes (xa21, cf9, pto and dm3) were identified and have strong identity with other nbs protein but their sequences are short and presence of premature stop codons was observed. pseudogenes are assumed to be involved in the r gene evolution process (sekhwal et al., 2005; songet al., 1997). the ncbi blast results showed that iihrr13-4r4 were 100% similar to putative transcription factor wrky family of r. chinensis. wrky super family of plant transcription factors plays important role in plant defense. the plant immune receptors detect pa thogen effector pr oteins thr ough wrky transcription factors and activate defense (phukanet al., 2016). the nbs-lrr usually connects with other protein domains. arabidopsis rrs1-rnb-lrr protein carries c-terminal wrky dna binding domain that enables formation of receptor complex with another nbs-lrr protein, rps4 that helps in detection of bacterial effectors. this ligand-receptor binding initiates activation of defense mechanisms this indicates that the plants defense depends on intracellular immune receptors. the phylogenetic tree showed clear separation of two different classes of nbs-lrr rgas (tir and lz). resistance gene analogues identified in the present study were closely related to rosa hybrid cultivar, r. chinensis and other species of rosaceae family (fragaria, prunus and malus). the conserved motifs identified from rgas of iihr13-4were similar to rosa multiflora hybrid (hattendorf and debener, 2007a), chestnut rose (xu et al., 2005), strawberry (zamora et al., 2004) and other plant nbs-lrr r genes. these conserved motifs of nbs domain codesfor atp or gtp binding proteins and hydrolysis activity (phukan et al., 2016; saraste et al., 1997; xu et al., 2005). iihrr13-4 rgas were showing more homology with tir-nbs-lrr disease resistance gene of rosa hybrid and tmvn like disea se resistance gene of f. vesca. the two major clades observed were tir group and non-tir group (lznbs-lrr) of rgas. tir group of nbs-lrr genes of rosa hybrid was clustered together with iihrr134 rgas. phylogenetic studies r evea led the relationship between rgas identified from rose and other r genes/rgas of rosaceae and other family also. multiple sequence alignment by clustalw showed that different motifs of rose rgas were p-loop, rnbsa, kinase 2, kinase 3a, rnbs-c and glpl of nbs domain. rose tir rgas carried an aspartic acid residue (d) at the end of kinase 2 region (nbs iii). usua lly lz-rgas (leucine zipper ) possess tryptophan residue (w) instead of aspartic acid residue. other r genes with lrr3 super family domain reported earlier were nbarc domain of putative rp3 protein from zea mays, rpp5 disease resistance protein of a. thaliana and nbarc domain of r genes of solanaceae, o. sativa, rosids, vitis vinifera (rx-cc-nbarc), malus domestica, capsicum annuum and citrus sp. lrr domain of known r genes (rp3, rpp5, nbarc) was present in iihrr13-4 rgas. the presence of conserved domain lrr 3 super family will give unique identity to rgas identified from the genome of powdery mildew resistance germplasm line iihrr13-4. several rgas present in each plant genome may or may not link to resistance. the iihrr13-4 was found resistant to powdery mildew in field evaluations. the j. hortl. sci. vol. 15(1) : 81-92, 2020 resistance gene analogues (rga) in rose 90 powdery mildew resistant line iihrr13-4 was studied along with other resistant and susceptible rose lines. the rgas were identified from all rose genotypes and some were excluded because of stop codons. finally eleven rgas selected from the iihrr13-4 that might be linked to resistance mechanisms. this is the initial study on resistance mechanisms in the rose line iihrr13-4 against powdery mildew disease. the expression analysis studies (n. k chandran, personal communication) revealed more expression of rgas and resistance related transcription factors in iihrr13-4 compared to susceptible cultivar konfetti upon powder y mildew infection. t he comparison between iihrr13-4 and konfetti revealed that expression level of rga transcripts might not be sufficient to elicit resistance in konfetti. this indicates the importance of proper and required expression of disease resistance gene against particular pathogen. this study indicates that several r gene candidates (rgas) are present in rose plants but only few are linked to disease resistance. these rgas identified from iihrr13-4 might be putative derivatives for r gene(s) against powdery mildew and may help in future research on mapping and characterization of r genes from iihrr13-4. map based cloning approach is used to isolate r genes and that requires high-density genetic maps. genome-wide rga identification would assist to develop markers and mapping resistance genes and further possible cloning. conclusion the present study explains the putative molecular mechanism behind resistance to powdery mildew resistance in iihrr13-4 through different motifs present in the nbs domain of nbs-lrr group of r genes. this can be used as a basis for further studies related to molecular mechanism of resistance since rgas a r e potentia l ca ndida tes for functiona l resistance gene and marker development in various breeding programs. the results of present study will help to develop rga based markers linked to powdery mildew resistance in rose and this will help in rose resistant breeding and disease resistance screening programs using r gene profiling. further study 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j.d. 2004. isolation and diversity analysis of resistance gene analogues (rgas) from cultivated and wild strawberries. mol. genet and genomics. 272 : 480-487. introduction the genus mucuna belongs to the family fabaceae (leguminoceae) and includes about 150 species of annual and perennial legumes with pan-tropical distribution. mucuna pruriens l. is a well-known medicinal plant, yet, study on its pharmacological properties and corresponding compounds still continues. importance of the genus mucuna as a medicinal plant is mainly due to presence of l-dopa. ldopa (3,4 dihydroxy–l–phenylalanine) is a neurotransmitter precursor used for symptomatic relief of parkinson’s disease. further, it acts as a precursor for several neurologically important catecholamines such as the neurotransmitter dopamine and the important hormones, adrenaline and noradrenalin (riley, 1997). reproducible regeneration of shoots from various explants is desirable in plant tissue culture for crop improvement (christopher et al, 1991). differentiation of structures in tissue culture is controlled by growth regulators, along with other components of the culture medium (narender et al, 2011). analysis of activities of various j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):1-7, 2015 biochemical changes during plantlet regeneration in two accessions of mucuna pruriens s. raghavendra, c.k. ramesh 1, v. kumar2, m.h.m. khan3 and b.s harish4 department of biochemistry, college of horticulture university of horticultural sciences bagalkot – 587102, india e-mail: raghu_rsn2004@rediffmail.com abstract the genus mucuna is an important medicinal herb and is extensively used in traditional indian systems of medicine for various ailments. in vitro culture technique provides an alternative to plant propagation and germplasm conservation. our aim was to study the biochemical changes occurring during regeneration of shoots (plantlets) from explants of two accessions of mucuna pruriens, by monitoring the efficiency of nitrogen utilization and changes in levels of some hydrolytic enzymes. a rapid micropropagation system was developed using murashige and skoog’s (ms) medium supplemented with bap and iaa combined. in both the accessions, 3.0mg l-1 6-bap, in combination with 0.2mg l-1 iaa, induced shoot buds and shoot elongation; however for multiple-shoot induction, a slightly higher concentration of cytokinin, i.e., 3.5mg l-1 6-bap, in combination with 0.2mg l-1 iaa, was required. results of the present study confirm an active growth of explants revealed by nitrate assimilation enzymes and hydrolytic enzymes. it is concluded that medium composition, growth regulator combination and culture incubation conditions are all vital in both the accessions of mucuna pruriens for induction of in vitro plant regeneration. key words: mucuna, in vitro, biochemical changes, regeneration, enzymes enzymes provides a reasonable and promising approach to understanding the biochemical basis of developmental pathways (singh et al, 2009). therefore, there is a need to study structural and biochemical aspects underlying initiation of organized development in vitro (sujatha et al, 2000). the present study was aimed at investigating the biochemical changes that occur during regeneration of shoots (plantlets) in explants of two accessions of mucuna pruriens, viz., accession 1 (m. pruriens bearing a black seed-coat) and accession 2 (m. pruriens bearing a white seed-coat). this was done by monitoring the efficiency of enzymes involved in nitrogen utilization, and changes in the level of some hydrolytic enzymes. material and methods plant material and preparation of explants seeds of both the accessions of mucuna pruriens were procured from university of agricultural sciences, bengaluru. the seeds were surface-sterilized with 1% mercuric chloride for 5 min, followed by washing in sterile distilled water 5-6 times to remove traces of the surface1department of studies in biotechnology, sahyadri science college, shivamogga – 577 102, karnataka, india 2department of biochemistry, davangere university (kuvempu university p.g center), shivagangothri, davangere 577 002, karnataka, india 3department of chemistry, jawaharlal nehru national college of engineering, shivamogga – 577201, karnataka, india 4department of medicinal and aromatic plants, college of horticulture sciences, university of horticulture sciences, bagalkot – 587102, karnataka, india 2 sterilant. these were then germinated in vitro on basal ms (murashige and skoog, 1962) medium. plants grown thus were used as the explant source. explants were trimmed aseptically (1.5 to 2.0cm) and inoculated onto ms medium. media and culture conditions ms medium composed of ms salts and vitamins supplemented with sucrose (30g l-1), solidified with 0.8% (w/v) agar and ph adjusted to 5.8 before autoclaving at 121oc for 20 min. cultures were maintained at 24 ± 2oc under 16h light/8h dark photoperiod using light provided by cool, white, fluorescent lamps (25µmol m-2 s-1) in a growth chamber. shoot induction, multiplication and rooting ms basal medium supplemented with various concentrations (0.5, 1.0 to 5.0mg l-1) of different cytokinins, viz., 6-bap (benzyl amino prurine), kinetin and 2-ip [6-(-γ, γ-dimethylallylamino purine)] either singly, or in combination, with 0.2mg l-1 indole-3-acetic acid (iaa) or α-naphthalene acetic acid (naa) or no plant growth regulator to evaluate morphogenic potential of the nodal explants. all the cultures were subcultured to fresh medium of the same composition every 28 days (4 weeks). percentage response of explants producing shoots, number of shoots produced per explants and shoot-length were recorded at weekly intervals. rooting of shoots was done on half-strength ms medium supplemented with different concentrations of iaa and naa (each singly at 0.5mg l-1 to 4mg l-1) or in combination with 0.1% activated charcoal. enzyme extraction and assay enzyme extraction and assays were performed as described below, with slight modifications when necessary, for the present investigation. for nitrate/ ammonia assimilating enzymes, extraction for nitrate reductase was carried out as per altaf ahmad and abdin (1999), and enzyme activity was assayed as per campbell and smarrelli (1978). extraction and assay for glutamine synthetase were done as per philippe lenee and yves chupeau (1989). the same extraction procedure was adopted for glutamate dehydrogenase. optimum conditions for enzyme activity were maintained, namely, ph, temperature, substrate and cofactor concentrations. acid and alkaline phosphatase enzyme extraction and assay were carried as per angosto et al (1988). for invertase, the method of yolanada cuadrado et al (2001) was used for extraction, and the activity was determined using the method of miller and ranwala (1994). extraction and assay of α-amylase was carried out as per sadasivam and manickam (2008). peroxidase extraction was done as per lorenza m. bellani et al (2002) and its activity was assayed as per oskar sanchez et al (1989). statistical analysis all the experiments were conducted in three replicates. data were subjected to statistical analysis using microsoft excel (ms office, 2003) and are presented as mean ± se. results and discussion shoot induction and rooting in nodal explants organogenesis was observed in nodal segments cultured on ms medium supplemented with each of the concentrations of bap/ kinetin/ 2-ip (alone, or in combination) with 0.2mg l-1 iaa/ naa in both the accessions of mucuna. morphogenic response observed was better with the aminopurine class of cytokinins (bap and 2-ip) than with the furfuryl amine class of cytokinins (kinetin), with bap showing a better response among the former. therefore, for further studies, only bap was used as the cytokinin of choice. optimum growth of shoot occurred on medium containing 3mg l-1 bap in combination with 0.2mg l-1 iaa (fig. 1a and. 1b) in both the accessions fig. 1. micropropagation in two accessions of mucuna pruriens using nodal explants a. shoot elongation in accession 1 on ms + bap (3.0mgl-1) and iaa (0.2mgl-1) b. shoot elongation in accession 2 on ms + bap (3.0mgl-1) and iaa (0.2mgl-1) c. multiple-shoot induction in accession 1 on ms + bap (3.5mgl-1) and iaa (0.2mgl-1) d. multiple-shoot induction in accession 2 on ms + bap (3.5mgl-1) and iaa (0.2mgl-1) e. rooting in accession 1 f. rooting in accession 2. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):1-7, 2015 raghavendra et al 3 emergence) was also observed in ms medium fortified with naa/ iaa at 0.5mg l-1. morphological changes occurring in explants during the course of their proliferation on a suitable medium were monitored by determining some biochemical changes, viz., nitrate/ ammonia utilizing enzymes during shoot regeneration from nodal/ leaf explants, and changes in hydrolytic enzymes during organogenesis. changes in nitrate reductase (nr) activity: nitrate reductase (nr) is one of the key enzymes involved in the first step of nitrate assimilation in plants (altaf ahmed & abdin, 1999). table 3 shows the pattern of changes in nitrate reductase activity in both the accessions monitored from the day of inoculation up to the 30th day, at 5-day intervals. in regenerating nodal explants of accession 1, the activity peaked on day 20. thereafter, it remained the same until day 30. whereas, in accession 2, two peaks of activity were observed on the 10th and 25th day (table 3). changes in gs and gdh activity: glutamine synthetase (gs) and glutamine dehydrogenase (gdh) are the other key enzymes involved in nitrate and ammonia assimilation in plants. in accession 1, gs activity was found to be higher between the 10th and table 1. effect of cytokinin–auxin combination in ms basal medium on shoot regeneration from nodal explants in two accessions of mucuna pruriens bap naa iaa average no. of average per cent (mg l-1) (mg l-1) (mg l-1) shoots per culture shoot-length (cms) survival accession 1 accession 2 accession 1 accession 2 accession 1 accession 2 0.0 0.2 0.0 0 0 0 0 0.5 0.2 0.0 1.83 ± 0.30 1.10 ± 0.35 0.82 ± 0.23 0.80 ± 0.20 14.42 ± 0.87 10.92 ± 0.51 1.0 0.2 0.0 1.50 ± 0.34 1.33 ± 0.31 1.33 ± 0.19 1.23 ± 0.13 23.50 ± 1.92 17.67 ± 1.24 1.5 0.2 0.0 1.50 ± 0.34 1.83 ± 0.37 1.83 ± 0.21 1.73 ± 0.21 40.75 ± 2.33 30.42 ± 1.61 2.0 0.2 0.0 1.75 ± 1.33 1.50 ± 0.38 2.25 ± 0.28 2.15 ± 0.18 52.00 ± 1.65 39.42 ± 1.76 2.5 0.2 0.0 1.75 ± 1.33 1.83 ± 0.34 3.08 ± 0.34 3.18 ± 0.34 58.17 ± 1.65 49.08 ± 3.55 3.0 0.2 0.0 2.83 ± 40.23 2.67 ± 1.37 6.42 ± 0.62 5.42 ± 0.42 94.00 ± 1.11 87.33 ± 1.44 3.5 0.2 0.0 12.75 ± 1.66 10.17 ± 2.90 4.83 ± 0.53 4.33 ± 0.23 86.33 ± 1.81 84.42 ± 2.88 4.0 0.2 0.0 1.17 ± 0.23 1.17 ± 0.47 3.58 ± 0.45 2.58 ± 0.25 64.58 ± 0.82 64.25 ± 2.04 4.5 0.2 0.0 1.50 ± 5.05 1.75 ± 0.51 2.00 ± 0.35 2.01 ± 0.35 46.17 ± 1.11 62.92 ± 1.78 5.0 0.2 0.0 1.80 ± 0.30 1.73 ± 0.35 1.83 ± 0.21 0.83 ± 0.12 40.15 ± 1.53 39.32 ± 1.56 0.0 0.0 0.2 0 0 0 0 0.5 0.0 0.2 1.00 ± 0.33 1.67 ± 0.31 0.82 ± 0.23 0.82 ± 0.20 15.47 ± 0.67 11.12 ± 0.53 1.0 0.0 0.2 1.83 ± 0.41 1.92 ± 0.23 1.33 ± 0.19 1.24 ± 0.13 25.53 ± 1.97 18.68 ± 1.26 1.5 0.0 0.2 1.92 ± 0.29 1.50 ± 0.29 1.83 ± 0.21 1.83 ± 0.23 46.85 ± 2.53 31.41 ± 1.62 2.0 0.0 0.2 1.27 ± 0.51 1.08 ± 0.90 2.25 ± 0.28 2.25 ± 0.28 57.00 ± 1.53 39.72 ± 1.46 2.5 0.0 0.2 1.17 ± 0.97 1.17 ± 0.38 3.28 ± 0.36 3.38 ± 0.24 62.17 ± 1.56 51.13 ± 1.25 3.0 0.0 0.2 3.42 ± 1.69 2.42 ± 2.64 7.42 ± 0.61 5.74 ± 0.42 97.00 ± 1.09 89.13 ± 1.14 3.5 0.0 0.2 14.25 ± 2.46 11.50 ± 2.61 5.83 ± 0.53 4.23 ± 0.23 89.09 ± 1.80 84.02 ± 1.18 4.0 0.0 0.2 1.33 ± 0.66 1.42 ± 0.07 3.58 ± 0.45 2.78 ± 0.52 64.18 ± 0.32 65.24 ± 2.14 4.5 0.0 0.2 1.42 ± 0.01 1.92 ± 0.05 2.00 ± 0.35 2.03 ± 0.30 52.17 ± 1.17 61.82 ± 1.29 (data represent mean + s.e.) (table 1). a concentration of 3.5mg l-1 bap, in combination with 0.2mg l-1 iaa, induced multiple shoots (fig. 1c and fig. 1d) in both the accessions. average number of shoots per culture in accession 1 was 14.25±2.46, with a survival of 97%. in accession 2, the average number of shoots per culture was 11.50±2.61, and the survival percentage was 89 (table 1). after three subcultures (28-day subculture cycle), individual shoots attained nearly 5-6cm length. successful root establishment (fig. 1e and 1f) was achieved in individual shoots on ms medium (half-strength) supplemented with naa (0.5mg l-1) and iaa (0.5mg l-1), individually, in the presence of 0.1% activated charcoal at 30 days of incubation. of the two auxins studied, naa was more effective in induction of rooting than iaa in the case of both the accessions of mucuna (table 2). roots induced on naa were thicker and survival percentage of the plants regenerated was also better (98% for accession 1, and 92% for accession 2) compared to iaa (69% for accession 1, and 64% for accession 2). shoot regeneration was achieved in nodal explants of accessions 1 and 2 when cultured on ms medium supplemented with 3mg l-1 6-bap in combination with 0.2mg l-l iaa. similarly, organogenesis (in the form of root j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):1-7, 2015 biochemical changes during plantlet regeneration in mucuna pruriens 4 20th day, and decreased thereafter. accession 2 had higher gs activity between the 5th and 20th day, and decreased thereafter (table 3). in accession 1, it was observed that activity of both the isoforms of gdh (nad+ and nadh isoforms) from day 0 and day 5 remained the same; but, there was an increase in activity on day 10, and it peaked on day 15, decreasing thereafter. but, the activity was greater in the nadh isofarm on day 10 compared to the nad isoform (table 3). in accession 2, there was a gradual increase in the activity of both the isoforms of glutamate dehydrogenase (nad+ and nadh isoforms) up to day 10 and day 15 in nadh and nad isoforms, respectively, and decreased thereafter (table 3). acid and alkaline phosphatases activity of acid phosphatase in regenerating shoots in accession 2 was found to increase gradually from day 0 to day 30, whereas, in accession 1, the activity of this enzyme increased from day 0 to day 5, and showed a dip on day ‘10’ and, thereafter, a gradual increase until day 30 (table 3). activity of alkaline phosphatase in regenerating shoots in accession 1 increased progressively from day 0 to day 30, whereas, in accession 2, there was a reduction until day 10, and thereon, the activity increased and peaked on day 25 (table 3). invertases invertases exist in at least two isoforms, such as the soluble (extracellular) and wall-bound form; and, acid and alkali isoforms. in the present study, both acid (ph 5) and alkali (ph 7.5) isoforms were studied in organ-forming and non-organ-forming regenerating shoot cultures. wall-bound invertase activity of the wall-bound invertases in accession 1 is presented in table 3. acid invertase peaked on day 15. in the case of alkaline invertase, there was no increase in activity at all; rather, there was a gradual decrease in its activity from day 0 to day 30. the activity of wall-bound invertase of accession 2 peaked on day 5, and, gradually decreased from day 10 to day 30 (table 3); whereas alkaline invertase showed a little increase in activity on day 5, and decreased thereafter. extracellular invertase activity of acid isoforms in accession 1 peaked on day 10, and gradually decreased thereon. alkaline isoforms also showed maximum activity on day 10 (table 3). the activity in accession 2 showed a gradual increase from day 0 to day 10 and remained constant up to day 15, decreasing thereafter; whereas, the activity of alkaline isoforms peaked on day 10. ααααα-amylase activity of á-amylase remained the same on day 0 and day 5 in both the accessions, and gradually increased from day 10 to day 30 (table 3). peroxidase peroxidase activity in accession 1 peaked on day 25, and decreased thereafter; whereas, in accession 2, peak activity was observed on day 20. table 2. effect of different auxins (in half-strength ms medium supplemented with 0.1% activated charcoal) on root induction in two accessions of mucuna pruriens auxin rooted shoots mean no. of mean root-length plant survival (mg l-1) (%) roots/shoot (cm) (%) accession 1 accession 2 accession 1 accession 2 accession 1 accession 2 accession 1 accession 2 no auxin 07.2 + 0.95 07.2+ 0.95 1.4 + 0.07 1.4 + 0.07 0.8 + 0.02 0.8 + 0.02 16.1 + 0.78 16.1+ 0.78 iaa 0.2 34.2 + 1.28 32.4 +1.28 5.6 + 0.12 3.5 + 0.12 1.4 + 0.01 1.2 + 0.01 35.4 + 1.35 32.4+ 1.31 0.3 48.4 + 1.14 42.4+ 1.12 7.6 + 0.07 6.7 + 0.06 2.7 + 0.02 2.3 + 0.02 41.6 + 1.19 38.6+ 1.13 0.4 76.5 + 2.12 72.5+ 2.02 9.6 + 0.10 8.6 + 0.01 3.3 + 0.28 3.0 + 0.21 53.7 + 1.82 49.7+ 1.72 0.5 94.8 + 2.96 92.8+ 2.86 11.9 + 0.1 10.9 + 0.1 4.1 + 0.03 3.6 + 0.02 69.2 + 2.73 64.2+ 1.72 1.0 72.2 + 2.08 68.2+ 1.67 5.2 + 0.06 4.8 + 0.05 2.8 + 0.28 2.2 + 0.18 22.1 + 1.89 18.1+ 1.74 naa 0.2 63.5 + 4.72 61.5+ 3.62 6.9 + 0.08 5.6 + 0.04 2.7 + 0.28 2.3 + 0.25 34.2 + 0.48 32.4+ 0.34 0.3 78.6 + 3.26 72.4+ 2.36 7.7 + 0.08 7.4 + 0.07 3.1 + 0.22 2.9 + 0.12 60.2 + 0.94 58.2+ 0.84 0.4 89.2 + 2.33 85.2+ 2.13 9.9 + 0.09 9.4 + 0.08 4.0 + 0.32 3.8 + 0.26 76.2 + 0.96 72.4+ 0.86 0.5 96.2 + 6.63 94.2+ 5.52 12.4 + 0.24 12.2+ 0.23 4.4 + 0.38 4.1 + 0.28 98.6 + 0.96 92.6+ 0.76 1.0 46.3 + 2.88 43.4+ 2.68 5.6 + 0.06 5.2 + 0.05 2.9 + 0.22 2.7+ 0.21 30.2 + 0.33 28.2+ 0.23 (data represent mean + s.e.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):1-7, 2015 raghavendra et al 5 nitrate uptake system in a plant must be versatile and robust, because, plants need to transport adequate amount of nitrate to satisfy the demand in the face of external nitrate concentration that can vary by five orders of magnitude (crawford, 1995). nitrate supplement in the medium must be converted into nh4 + in plants before the nitrogen can enter amino acids and other nitrogen compounds. nitrate reductase has been studied intensively because its activity often controls protein synthesis rate in plants absorbing no 3 as a major nitrogen-source (srivastava, 1980; naik et al, 1982). genes for this have been cloned from several plants and mutants, and transgenic lines are available too (lam et al, 1996; lochab et al, 2007). results of the present investigation clearly suggest that there is a synergy that operates among enzymes for nitrate and ammonia assimilation when nitrate concentrations in the medium are high (~30mm in ms medium). this induces production of nitrate reductase, and subsequently gs, as nitrate is converted into ammonia. activity of nitrate reductase persists continuously even after cultures enter the stationary phase; whereas, production of gs is directly or indirectly dependent on nr activity. from the results above, it can be concluded that decrease in gs activity when cultures enter the stationary phase may be attributed to decrease in the activity of nitrite reductase; also, this could be due to exhaustion of sucrose in the medium. results of the present investigation are supported (in other plant species) by philippe lenee & yves chupeau (1989) and suzuki et al (1987). in the present study, lower levels of phosphatases during the initial culture-period may be because of the high table 3. changes in nitrate/ammonia utilizing enzymes and some hydrolytic enzymes during plantlet regeneration in two accessions of mucuna pruriens enzyme accession days of incubation 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 nitrate reductase(µmole no2 g -1 min-1) accession 1 25.24 25.24 25.24 49.4 73.95 73.95 73.95 accession 2 49.4 49.4 73.95 49.4 49.4 73.95 73.95 glutamine synthetase (gs)(n moles of accession 1 230 250 250 250 250 150 140 γ glutamate formed mim-1 g-1 protein) accession 2 200 230 230 230 230 140 130 glutamate dehydrogenase accession 1 100 100 240 260 120 150 100 (nadh-gdh)(μmole nadh g-1 f.w.) accession 2 100 140 200 180 140 100 100 glutamate dehydrogenase accession 1 100 100 160 260 100 80 100 (nad+-gdh)(μmole nad+ g-1 f.w.) accession 2 100 100 120 180 60 100 100 acid phosphatase(n moles of pnp accession 1 508 508 434 579 650 675 711 released min-1 g-1 f.w.) accession 2 394 394 394 431 468 662 712 alkaline phosphatase(n moles of accession 1 468 468 394 434 468 662 712 pnp released min-1 g-1 f.w.) accession 2 418 418 431 418 468 529 712 wall-bound invertase(µg of reducing ph 5 3.05 3.05 8.76 12.8 0.876 0.292 0.292 sugar released min-1 g-1 f.w.) ph 7 2.3 2.3 2.00 1.75 0.876 0.292 0.292 wall-bound invertase(μg of reducing ph 5 3.000 3.504 4.080 3.504 0.379 0.292 0.292 sugar released min-1 g-1 f.w.) ph 7.5 2.000 2.300 1.750 0.876 0.876 0.292 0.292 extracellular invertase(μg of reducing ph 5 1.460 1.460 2.920 1.168 0.584 0.000 0.000 sugar released min-1 g-1 f.w.) ph 7.5 0.876 0.876 5.548 3.500 2.920 0.584 0.000 extracellular invertase(μg of reducing ph 5 2.336 2.336 3.050 0.876 0.292 0.000 0.000 sugar released min-1 g-1 f.w.) ph 7.5 2.62 2.62 3.504 3.050 0.292 0.000 0.000 α-amylase(μg maltose released accession1 30 30 32 36 38 42 46 min-1 g-1 f.w.) accession2 28 28 30 34 36 38 40 peroxidase(units ml-1 min-1) accession1 400 480 720 360 600 840 780 accession2 300 360 400 400 600 450 660 mean±se of 3 observations is not indicated due to the large amount of data j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):1-7, 2015 biochemical changes during plantlet regeneration in mucuna pruriens 6 inorganic-phosphate levels in the medium. pronounced increases in the activity of phosphatases before manifestation of a visible morphogenic event (observed to happen prominently on day 20), i.e., on day 15 in both the accessions, suggests that these enzymes may have a role in biochemical degradation of plasmodesmata. such degradation may facilitate penetration of roots/ elongation of shoots (naidu & kavi kishor, 1995; kumar, 1998). together with this, peroxidase activity was found to peak on day 20 in accession 2, and day 25 in accession 1, with gradual and progressive increase witnessed from day 0. peroxidases are a large group of enzymes involved in a number of biological processes such as lignification (lagrimini et al, 1997a), cross-linking of cell wall proteins (bradley et al, 1992) and auxin catabolism (lagrimini et al, 1997b). perhaps, an increase in enzyme-level indicates a role of these enzymes in tissue proliferation and differentiation. on examining involvement of acid phosphatases in initiation and formation of adventitious roots in impatiens sps., malik and kumari (1977) attributed these roles to the enzymes. it was speculated that glycodisases may cleave wall-linkages and facilitate growth. increased activity of hydrolytic enzymes seen in the present investigation indicates that different compounds degrade in tissues, and this is concurrent with a high synthetic activity occuring during organogenesis. results of the present investigation are supported by previous findings of brown & thorpe (1980), kavi kishor & mehta (1988), naidu & kavi kishor (1995), and kumar (1998), in other plant species. conclusion with a view to confirm whether nutrients or, growth regulators added to the medium and conditions like of source light and temperature at which cultures were incubated, affected growth of plants in vitro, biochemical studies were undertaken. in higher plants, nitrate-assimilating and hydrolytic enzymes are regulated by light, hormones, sugars, and, carbon and nitrogen metabolites. results of the present study confirm active growth of explants revealed by the activity of nitrate assimilating enzymes and hydrolytic enzymes (excepting gdh, the activity of which decreased, as, it is a stress induced enzyme). thus, it may be concluded that medium composition, growth regulator combination and culture incubation conditions are cited for optimal growth in vitro in both the accessions of mucuna pruriens for plant regeneration. references altaf ahmad and abdin, m.z. 1999. nadh: nitrate reductase and nad(p)h: nitrate reductase activities in mustard seedlings. pl. sci., 143:1-8 angosto, t., gonzalez, f. and matilla, a. 1988. partial purification and some biochemical properties of acid phsophatase in germinating chick pea (cicer arietinum l.) seeds. physiol. pl., 74:715-719 bradley, d., kjellborn, p. and lamb, c. 1992. elicitorand wound-induced oxidative cross-linking of a prolinerich plant cell wall protein: a novel, rapid defense response. cell., 70:21-30 brown, d.c.w. and thorpe, t.a. 1980. adenosine phosphate and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide pool sizes during shoot initiation in tobacco callus. pl. physiol., 65:587-590 campbell, w.h. and smarrelli, jr. j. 1978. purification and kinetics of higher plant nitrate reductase. pl. physiol., 61:611-616 christopher, t., prolaram, b. and subhash, k. 1991. differential in vitro morphogenetic response in hypocotyl segments of capsicum annuum. indian j. expt’l. biol., 29:68-69 kavi kishor, p.b. and mehta, a.r. 1988. changes in some enzyme activities during growth and organogenesis in dark-grown tobacco callus cultures. pl. cell physiol., 29:255-259 kumar, v. 1998. biochemical and in vitro plantlet regeneration studies in fig (ficus carica l. cv. gular). m. phil. dissertation submitted to sri krishnadevaraya university, anantapur, andhra pradesh, india lagrimini, l.m., gingas, v., finger, f., rothstein, s. and liu, t-t.y. 1997a. characterization of antisense transformed plants deficient in the tobacco anionic peroxidase. pl. physiol., 114:1187-1196 lagrimini, l.m., joly, r.j., dunlap, j.r., and liu, t-t.y. 1997b. the consequence of peroxidase overexpression in transgenic plants on root growth and development. pl. mol. biol., 33:887-895 lam, h.m., coshigano, k., oliveira, i., melo-oliveira, r. and coruzzi, g. 1996. the molecular genetics of nitrogen assimilation into amino acids in higher plants. pl. mol. biol., 47:569-593 lochab, s., pathak, r.r. and raghuram, n. 2007. molecular approaches for enhancement of nitrogen use efficiency in plants. in: agricultural nitrogen use & its environmental implications (eds. abrol, y.p., j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):1-7, 2015 raghavendra et al 7 raghuram, n. and sachdev, m.s.). ik international, delhi, india, pp. 327-350 lorenza m. bellani, massimo guarnieri and anna scialabba. 2002. differences in the activity and distribution of peroxidases from three different portions of germinating brassica oleracea seeds. physiol. pl., 114:102-108 malik, c.p. and kumari, u. 1977. histochemical studies on the localization of metabolic reserves and enzymes during the initiation and formation of adventitious roots inimpatiens balsamina l. new bot., 4:113-115 miller, w.b. and ranwala, a.p. 1994. characterization and localization of three soluble forms of invertase from lilium longiflorum flower buds. physiol. pl., 92:247 -253 murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. pl., 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pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 67: 145-151 (ms received 02 december 2013, revised 13 january 2015, accepted 06 february 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):1-7, 2015 biochemical changes during plantlet regeneration in mucuna pruriens introduction cut-foliage industry has made a major breakthrough in floriculture business. most foliage plants are indigenous to tropical and subtropical regions. in general, foliage plants are grown as understory plants in the canopy of giant trees. as a result, foliage plants are native to this type of environment, are tolerant to low light, sensitive to chilling temperature and are day-neutral to photoperiod. in subtropical climes, temperature as well as humidity may vary with season. among various parameters, leaf characters assume significance for their use as cut-foliage. of the total turnover and supply of floricultural products during 2010 (€ 4130 million), indoor foliage plants alone contributed € 1445 million (rs. 99.23 billion) in global floricultural trade (anon., 2011a). some of the important indoor foliage plants (genera) occupying world-rank lists in 2010 anthurium, kalanchoe, dracaena, ficus, spathiphyllum, hedera, begonia, chrysalidocarpus (lutescens) and zamioculcas. recent data showed that floricultural products (live trees and other plants, bulbs, roots and the like; cut-flowers and ornamental foliage) exported from india stood at rs. 28,645 lakh during the 2010-11 fiscal years. in the same period, imports were valued at rs. 4,548 lakh (anon., 2011b). the trend shows that india has been slowly accelerating its pace in the international trade. as for the foliage plant industry, during 2008-2009 more than 39% of the total export from india evaluation of cut-foliage plants for eastern ghats i. suryapriya, r. arulmozhiyan*, a. sankari1 and m. anand1 anbil dharmalingam agricultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, tiruchirappalli620 009, india *e-mail: arulmozhiyan@yahoo.co.in abstract a maiden attempt was made at horticultural research station (hrs), a constituent research unit of tamil nadu agricultural university, located at yercaud, salem district, tamil nadu, india during 2012-2013 to assess the suitability of various ornamental foliage plant species under shevroys /eastern ghats conditions. considerable variation was found in quantitative and qualitative parameters among the foliage species. the study recommends nephrolepis cordifolia and asparagus sprengeri as suitable liners, while, large-leaved species like cordyline fruticosa and philodendron xanadu as background materials in larger arrangements, and the smaller-leaved dracaena reflexa var. angustifolia for smaller arrangements. key words: foliage plants, arrangements, liner, background material was contributed by foliage products, fresh or dry. however, in view of the importance of foliage ornamentals, an experiment was formulated to evaluate 29 foliage species collected from various sources to identify suitable cut-foliage species for the shevroys region. material and methods an experiment was conducted using 29 foliage species (table 1) at horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural university, yercaud, during the year 20122013 to evaluate their suitability for foliage. the experimental site is geographically situated between 11° 04" and 11° 05" north latitude and 78° 05" to 78° 23" east longitude, at an altitude of 1500m above mean sea level. average maximum and minimum temperatures during the experimental period were 31.0oc and 12.4oc, respectively. the mean annual rainfall received by yercaud was 1572mm in 47 rainy days. average relative humidity was 75%. irrigation was provided at intervals of 5-6 days throughout the period of experiment, depending upon soil moisture status and weather conditions. all the foliage species were planted at a spacing of 1m × 0.8m. the study was patterned on randomized block design, with three replications. five plants from each replication were observed for biometrics on plant height (cm), plant spread (cm), leaf length (cm), leaf breadth (cm), number of shoots, leaf area, longevity, petiole length and girth (cm), and internodal length (cm) besides qualitative characters like leaf shape, margin, texture, venation, leaf 1horticultural research station, tnau, ooty, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):24-29, 2015 25 evaluation of cut-foliage plants for eastern ghats apex and foliage colour. data was compiled, analyzed and is presented in tables 2 & 3. post-harvest treatments like pulsing and holding solution were also studied. in pulsing treatment, mature leaf from each species was harvested and treatments imposed for six hours. details of the pulsing treatments are as follows: po – filtered water, p1acidified water (ph 3.5), p2sucrose 5%, p3sucrose 5% + agno3 50ppm, and, p4sucrose 5% + agno3 100ppm. after pulsing, the foliage was transferred to water for comparing the effects of treatments. foliage from different species was subjected to the following holding treatments: ho – filtered water, h1acidified water (ph 3.5), h2sucrose 5%, h3sucrose 5% + agno3 25ppm and, h4sucrose 5% + agno3 50ppm. vase-life was calculated by noting the time taken to develop symptoms like leaf-drop, yellowing and wilting (factors that rendered the foliage unfit for arrangement). observations on vase-life in combination treatments were noted for a period of ten weeks. results and discussion on evaluation, it was found that all the foliage plants had significant differences in the characters studied. quantitative characters of different foliage species is presented in table 2. plant height recorded ranged from 37.70cm to 31.40cm. cordyline fruticosa recorded the highest plant height (131.4cm), followed by dracaena purple compacta (102cm) and asparagus sprengeri (92.7cm). lowest plant height was recorded in dracaena fragrans ‘lemon lime’, with 37.7cm. a similar trend was also reported by russ and pertuit (2001) in various foliage plants like dracaena, philodendron, schefflera, and some indoor ferns. plant-spread is an important character when considering the foliage for its growing environment. it gives an idea about the number of plants that can be accommodated in a given area (plant density). however, in climbers, plant-spread had lesser relevance compared to that in the others that had vertical growth. the highest plantspread of 117.59cm east-west, and 118.18cm north-south, was noticed in asparagus sprengeri. lowest plant-spread was noticed in philodendron green emerald (30.63cm ew, 33.37cm n-s). similar variations were observed by eapen (2003). number of leaves ranged from 13.51 to 196.67. maximum number of leaves was recorded in dracaena reflexa ‘song of jamaica’ (196.67), followed by dracaena reflexa var. angustifolia (185.00), asparagus setaceous (137.27) and dracaena marginata (78.95). lowest number of leaves was observed in philodendron ‘ceylon gold’ (13.5). basically, species with larger leaves tended to produce less number of leaves, whereas, species with smaller leaves had greater number of leaves. this variation was due to several factors like genetic make-up, partition of the photosynthates, production of more number of branches and tillers, etc. our results confirmed the findings of bulle and dejongh (2001) and benedetto et al (2006). number of shoots too is an important characters contributing to yield. in the present study, shoot number differed significantly between species. dracaena reflexa var. angustifolia registered higher number of shoots (7.7), followed by dracaena reflexa (song of jamaica) (6.5) table 1. list of foliage species evaluated in shevroys of eastern ghats in tamil nadu botanical name family common name aglaonema crispum araceae chinese evergreen anthurium andreanum araceae lady jane asparagus sprengeri liliaceae sprengeri fern asparagus densiflorus liliaceae asparagus fern asparagus setaceous liliaceae fern asparagus cordyline chocolate agavaceae ti plant queen cordyline chocolate swirl agavaceae ti plant cordyline compacta araceae ti plant cordyline fruticosa agavaceae ti plant cordyline negra agavaceae ti plant cordyline tango agavaceae ti plant cordyline terminalis agavaceae ti plant dracaena agavaceae ti plant ‘purple compacta’ dracaena compacta agavaceae dracaena dracaena fragrans agavaceae dracaena ‘lemon lime’ dracaena fragrans agavaceae corn plant ‘massangeana’ dracaena marginata agavaceae red-edged dracaena dracaena reflexa var. agavaceae song of india angustifolia dracaena reflexa var. agavaceae dracaena tropical dracaena reflexa agavaceae song of jamaica ‘song of jamaica’ dracaena sanderiana agavaceae corn plant heliconia rostrata heliconiaceae lobster claw nephrolepis cordifolia polypodiaceae erect sword fern nephrolepis falcata polypodiaceae fishtail sword fern philodendron ‘ceylone gold’ araceae philodendron philodendron green emerald araceae philodendron philodendron imbe ‘variegata’ araceae philodendron philodendron red emerald araceae philodendron philodendron xanadu araceae philodendron j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):24-29, 2015 26 and the lowest number of shoots (1.0) was observed in the species of heliconia rostrata, philodendron red emerald, cordyline compacta, cordyline terminalis, philodendron green emerald, philodendron ‘ceylon gold’ and philodendron imbe ‘variegata’. highest leaf area was observed in philodendron imbe ‘variegated’ (321.67cm2) followed by dracaena fragans ‘massangeana’ (corn plant) with 289.79cm2, and philodendron red emerald (240.75cm2). lowest leaf area was observed in asparaus sprengeri (3.19cm2). length and girth of petiole are important characters for cut-foliage giving physical support to the leaf. also, length of the leaf contributes to the spread of a plant. more the petiole length, greater the plant spread. if the petiole is short, high compactness is noticed in leaf arrangement. petiole length ranged from 2.63cm to 22.23cm. table 2. quantitative characters of various foliage species species plant plant spread leaf shoot leaf petiole petiole interleaf height e-w n-s no. number area length girth nodal longevity (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm2) (cm) (cm) length (d) (cm) aglaonema crispum 59.80 55.93 50.74 19.50 2.10 130.6 7.75 3.19 24.50 anthurium andreanum 69.90 86.63 88.53 17.50 93.06 17.30 2.29 22.70 asparagus sprengeri 92.70 117.59 118.18 55.37 3.19 5.24 2.23 24.00 asparagus densiflorus 57.80 34.22 41.50 14.57 14.89 5.79 1.50 22.40 asparagus setaceous 53.20 44.73 44.35 133.27 33.02 6.25 1.44 22.50 cordyline 54.80 34.68 36.27 30.10 3.30 86.53 4.72 3.66 19.00 chocolate queen cordyline 61.90 40.07 44.13 30.18 3.40 89.60 4.82 3.47 21.70 chocolate swirl cordyline compacta 37.80 39.38 42.80 15.58 1.00 67.62 3.85 2.49 19.10 cordyline fruticosa 131.40 68.03 67.53 30.89 3.30 214.1 6.07 3.28 19.90 cordyline negra 45.40 39.71 41.10 16.52 1.80 171.1 4.19 2.69 17.90 cordyline tango 42.00 42.25 44.20 30.82 4.20 67.98 2.81 2.50 18.80 cordyline terminalis 81.20 59.88 64.44 28.41 1.00 80.16 7.77 2.67 21.80 dracaena 78.30 32.69 37.11 74.97 2.50 42.79 2.63 2.59 23.00 ‘purple compacta’ dracaena compacta 54.00 33.68 39.00 71.28 4.30 41.81 22.40 dracaena fragrans 37.70 47.64 58.43 24.42 39.91 23.50 ‘lemon lime’ dracaena fragrans 79.10 77.86 83.94 39.52 1.90 289.7 26.70 ‘massangeana’ dracaena marginata 102.0 67.16 70.68 78.95 1.80 32.33 23.20 dracaena reflexa 48.20 62.88 71.93 185.0 7.70 17.28 2.09 19.70 var. angustifolia dracaena reflexa 53.60 39.83 45.01 36.62 3.80 20.49 1.36 23.50 var. tropical dracaena reflexa 72.10 65.98 70.12 196.67 6.50 32.42 23.20 ‘song of jamaica’ dracaena sanderiana 56.90 63.09 66.60 25.08 1.00 70.44 23.10 heliconia rostrata 65.80 63.00 71.31 22.40 1.00 47.19 5.61 2.73 23.00 nephrolepis cordifolia 58.20 49.81 50.93 32.08 72.13 7.44 0.45 22.70 nephrolepis falcata 64.30 57.34 51.73 19.07 43.67 4.53 0.27 23.60 philodendron 36.80 54.40 56.13 13.51 1.00 38.47 5.79 2.64 2.96 19.50 ‘ceylon gold’ philodendron 50.90 30.63 33.37 21.11 1.00 56.76 14.29 3.28 1.72 18.00 green emerald philodendron imbe 53.80 34.93 56.93 14.57 1.00 321.6 16.81 3.65 24.60 ‘variegata’ philodendron 70.00 86.80 97.63 19.27 1.00 240.7 5.85 3.82 3.62 22.80 red emerald philodendron xanadu 47.60 70.24 73.83 42.40 61.15 22.23 2.67 18.50 s.ed. 3.66 3.13 3.96 10.72 0.57 20.11 0.31 0.13 0.19 0.64 cd (p=0.05) 7.33 6.28 7.94 21.48 1.15 40.3 0.63 0.27 0.38 1.28 suryapriya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):24-29, 2015 27 philodendron xanadu recorded the longest petiole (22.23cm), the shortest petiole was observed in dracaena ‘purple compacta’ (2.63cm). maximum petiole girth (3.82cm) was recorded in philodendron red emerald. minimum petiole girth was observed in nephrolepsis falcata (fishtail sword fern), with 0.27cm. these results are in accordance with those of wang and chen (2003) and mollick et al (2011). as for internode length, most species had short and compact internodes, the very first qualities sought out in decoration. highest internode length was observed in philodendron red emerald (3.62cm), followed by philodendron ‘ceylon gold’ (2.96cm) while, the minimum was observed in dracaena reflexa var. tropical (1.36cm). leaf longevity on the plant is linked to leaf production intervals. if a plant produces leaves at longer intervals, longevity of the leaf is found to be higher. longevity of the table 3. qualitative characters of various foliage species treatment leaf venation leaf leaf leaf leaf texture of foliage type shape margin tip orientation the leaf colour aglaonema crispum simple pinnate oblong entire acute cuneate smooth pale green anthurium andreanum simple pinnate acuminate entire acute cuneate smooth deep green asparagus sprengeri simple none linear entire acute cuneate fine deep green asparagus densiflorus simple none linear entire acute cuneate fine deep green asparagus setaceous simple none linear entire acute cuneate fine deep green dracaena ‘purple compacta’ simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate smooth deep purple dracaena compacta simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate smooth deep green dracaena fragrans simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate fine yellow ‘lemon lime’ dracaena fragrans simple parallel lanceolate undulate acute attenate coarse deep green ‘massangeana’ dracaena marginata simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate smooth purple dracaena reflexa var. simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate smooth pale yellow angustifolia dracaena reflexa simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate smooth deep green ‘song of jamaica’ dracaena reflexa ‘green’ simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate smooth deep purple dracaena sanderiana simple parallel lanceolate undulate acute attenate coarse pale green cordyline chocolate queen simple parallel lanceolate entire acute decurrent smooth deep green cordyline chocolate swirl simple parallel lanceolate entire acute decurrent smooth pale sandal cordyline compacta simple parallel lanceolate entire acute decurrent smooth deep purple cordyline fruticosa simple parallel lanceolate entire acute attenate smooth deep green cordyline negra simple parallel lanceolate entire acute decurrent smooth deep pink cordyline tango simple parallel lanceolate entire acute decurrent smooth deep purple cordyline terminalis simple parallel lanceolate entire acute decurrent smooth deep green heliconia rostrata simple pinnate ovate entire acute cuneate smooth deep green nephrolepis cordifolia simple none lanceolate entire acute cuneate fine deep green nephrolepis falcata simple none lanceolate entire acute cuneate fine deep green philodendron simple pinnate lanceolate entire acute cuneate smooth golden yellow ‘ceylon gold’ philodendron green emerald simple pinnate lanceolate entire acute cuneate smooth deep green philodendron imbe ‘variegata’ simple pinnate lanceolate entire acute cuneate smooth deep green philodendron red emerald simple pinnate saggitate revolute acute cuneate coarse deep purple philodendron xanadu simple pinnate entire entire acute decurrent coarse deep green leaves on a plant depends upon environmental conditions, genetic factors and incidence of pests and diseases. longer life of leaves on the plant also helps stagger harvest of the leaves. under normal conditions, foliage of dracaena fragrans ‘massangeana’ (26.7 days), philodendron imbe ‘variegata’ (24.6 days) and aglaonema crispum (24.5 days) was found to have the highest longevity among the plants evaluated. however, shrub-like cordyline negra (17.9 days) showed lower longevity of leaves than other species (alex, 2012). qualitative traits of different foliage plants are presented in table 3. characters like texture, type, shape, margin, tip, base, pigmentation, venation, arrangement of leaves and branching habit, were considered as these relate to aesthetic value of the plants and the arrangement. plants like dracaena reflexa var. angustifolia (song of india), dracaena reflexa ‘song of jamaica’, anthurium j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):24-29, 2015 evaluation of cut-foliage plants for eastern ghats 28 table 5. effect of the holding solution on cut foliage plants at shevroys condition (days) name of the species h 0 h 1 h 2 h 3 h 4 aglaonema crispum 8.40 6.70 10.7 14.0 13.6 anthurium andreanum 6.40 6.50 11.3 15.0 15.5 asparagus sprengeri 6.70 7.20 11.5 15.3 15.3 asparagus densiflorus 5.70 6.40 10.0 12.7 14.1 asparagus setaceous 7.30 5.80 11.3 13.6 15.5 cordyline chocolate queen 7.40 7.50 12.5 12.9 13.7 cordyline chocolate swirl 6.90 5.70 13.4 14.7 15.2 cordyline fruticosa 7.20 7.50 10.9 13.3 14.5 cordyline negra 6.40 6.60 11.4 12.3 14.1 cordyline tango 7.00 7.50 12.2 13.4 13.7 cordyline terminalis 7.30 6.20 9.90 13.3 14.5 cordylne compacta 7.00 7.00 11.6 13.5 15.3 dracaena ‘purple compacta’ 7.10 6.10 11.5 12.9 12.9 dracaena compacta 6.20 6.30 11.7 14.1 15.7 dracaena fragrans 7.10 6.20 11.2 12.4 16.2 ‘lemon lime’ dracaena fragrans 8.40 7.30 11.5 15.0 15.5 ‘massangeana’ dracaena marginata 5.20 5.40 10.4 14.5 15.2 dracaena reflexa 7.00 7.50 8.60 15.1 14.7 dracaena reflexa var. 6.50 6.60 11.3 13.6 14.5 tropical dracaena reflexa 7.20 5.60 10.3 15.9 16.3 ‘song of jamaica’ dracaena sanderiana 6.50 7.20 12.6 14.5 16.1 heliconia rostrata 7.40 6.00 11.3 13.7 14.3 nephrolepis cordifolia 7.80 6.50 10.1 12.1 14.4 nephrolepis falcata 7.60 6.90 12.2 14.3 15.3 philodendron ‘ceylone gold’ 6.50 5.90 11.9 10.0 13.4 philodendron green emerald 7.70 6.00 12.1 14.1 15.4 philodendron imbe ‘variegata’ 6.30 6.80 11.4 15.3 15.1 philodendron red emerald 7.70 6.70 11.7 13.1 16.2 philodendron xanadu 7.90 6.40 11.9 12.9 14.4 s.ed. 0.40 0.36 0.70 1.10 0.74 cd (p= 0.05) 0.81 0.72 1.40 2.21 1.49 *ho filtered water, h1acidified water (ph 3.5), h2 sucrose 5%, h3 sucrose 5% + agno3 25ppm, h4 sucrose 5% + agno3 50ppm table 4. effect of pulsing treatment on cut foliage at shevroys condition (days) name of the species p 0 p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 aglaonema crispum 8.40 10.1 12.3 10.3 15.8 anthurium andreanum 10.0 10.1 11.8 10.8 17.4 asparagus sprengeri 7.60 8.50 10.5 8.90 17.5 asparagus densiflorus 7.50 7.90 9.50 8.30 18.6 asparagus setaceous 8.00 9.20 12.3 9.90 17.9 cordyline chocolate queen 8.70 10.4 11.8 10.3 20.3 cordyline chocolate swirl 7.80 8.30 10.3 8.80 17.1 cordyline fruticosa 8.60 8.20 9.10 8.70 19.7 cordyline negra 8.30 9.50 10.6 9.50 18.5 cordyline tango 10.4 10.5 11.5 10.8 18.3 cordyline terminalis 8.30 9.50 10.8 9.50 19.4 cordylne compacta 8.50 10.4 10.1 9.70 19.5 dracaena ‘purple compacta’ 9.20 10.1 10.6 10.0 20.6 dracaena compacta 9.60 9.80 9.60 9.70 16.8 dracaena fragrans 9.30 11.7 12.7 11.2 16.5 ‘lemon lime’ dracaena fragrans 10.40 9.00 12.9 10.8 19.0 ‘massangeana’ dracaena marginata 8.10 9.90 12.0 10.0 20.1 dracaena reflexa 12.9 9.80 10.2 10.9 17.1 dracaena reflexa var. 8.50 8.20 9.50 8.70 18.4 tropical dracaena reflexa 9.10 8.90 9.40 9.10 17.9 ‘song of jamaica’ dracaena sanderiana 9.10 9.00 9.70 9.20 19.7 heliconia rostrata 7.90 8.10 13.3 9.80 19.9 nephrolepis cordifolia 8.90 8.90 11.2 9.70 19.3 nephrolepis falcata 8.80 8.30 10.5 9.20 17.1 philodendron ‘ceylone gold’ 7.40 8.30 10.8 8.80 17.0 philodendron green emerald 8.20 7.80 10.3 8.80 19.6 philodendron imbe ‘variegata’ 7.70 8.20 11.3 9.10 17.5 philodendron red emerald 9.20 8.90 11.3 9.80 17.9 philodendron xanadu 8.00 8.20 10.1 8.70 20.0 sed 0.48 0.55 0.61 0.88 0.74 cd (p=0.05) 0.97 1.11 1.23 1.77 1.49 p0 – filtered water, p1acidified water (ph 3.5), p2sucrose 5%, p3sucrose 5% + agno3 50ppm, p4sucrose 5% + agno3100ppm andreanum (lady jane), philodendron ‘ceylon gold’ and asparagus sprengeri (sprengeri fern), need adequate staking, as, these tend to bend. nephrolepis cordifolia (erect sword fern), nephrolepis falcata (fishtail sword fern) and asparagus setaceous (asparagus fern) need adequate pruning. plants were also rated according to their quality (characters like colour, texture and pigmentation). among dracaena species, dracaena reflexa var. angustifolia rated as good. similarly, in cordyline species cordyline fruticosa, philodendron species philodendron xanadu, nephrolepis species nephrolepis cordifolia, and asparagus species asparagus sprengeri, performed well under eastern ghats. these can be recommended as the best foliage plants, possessing all the qualities (to be grown in any type of growing conditions); these are also well-suited for testing under open conditions. this type of visual qualitygrading was done earlier by wang et al (2005). keeping-quality is of prime commercial importance in the trade of cut-foliage, besides aesthetics. pre-harvest and post-harvest factors, together with the stage and time of harvest, determine keeping-quality of the foliage for vaselife. if harvested at the immature or over-mature stage, the foliage does not keep well, and, the desired effect of foliar variegation is not fully achieved by a foliage arrangement. generally, foliage is cut when mature, having fully attained its shape, colour and size. kumar and bhattacharjee (2003) reported foliage of calathea ornata, codiam varigatam, j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):24-29, 2015 suryapriya et al 29 dracaena sp. and nephrolepis sp. as having longer vaselife when the leaves were mature and fully expanded. pulsing is a short-term treatment given to cut-foliage immediately following harvest, to improve keeping quality. data on effect of pulsing solutions on vase-life of different species of cut-foliage are furnished in table 4. among the pulsing solutions used, highest vase-life was recorded in dracaena ‘purple compacta’ under p4 (sucrose 5% + agno3100ppm), with 20.6 days. this was significantly superior to the other pulsing solutions and was followed by cordyline ‘chocolate queen’ in p 4 (sucrose 5% + agno3100ppm), with 20.3 days. minimum vase-life of 7.5 days was recorded in po (filtered water) in asparagus densiflorus. data on effect of holding solutions on vase-life of different species of cut-foliage are furnished in table 5. holding solutions significantly influenced vase-life. among the holding solutions tested, highest vase-life was recorded in h4 (sucrose 5% + agno3 50ppm), with 16.3 days in dracaena reflexa ‘song of jamaica’. this was significantly superior to other holding treatments, followed by h3 (sucrose 5% + agno3 25ppm) with 16.2 days in dracaena fragrans ‘lemon lime’ and philodendron red emerald. a minimum vase-life of 5.4 days was recorded in dracaena marginata in h1 (acidified water). in conclusion, nephrolepis cordifolia and asparagus sprengeri can be recommended as suitable liners, while, large-leaved species like cordyline fruticosa and philodendron xanadu as background materials for larger arrangements, and the smaller-leaved dracaena reflexa var. angustifolia for smaller arrangements. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, and aicrp-floriculture, indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, for financial assistance for successful conduct of the experiment at horticultural research station, yercaud. references alex, r. 2012. evaluation of foliage plants for interior plantscaping. ph.d. thesis, kerala agricultural university, vellanikkara, thrissur, kerala, india, 130p anonymus, 2011a. facts and figures, 2010 [on-line]. flora holland (dutch agricultural wholesale board/ flowers and plants): http://www.floraholland.com [22 dec. 11] anonymus, 2011b. dgcis [directorate general of commercial intelligence and statistics], ministry of commerce and industry, government of india [online]: http://www.dgciskol.nic.in [21 dec. 2011] benedetto, a.d., molinari, j., boschi, c., benedicto, d., cerrotta, m. and cerrotta, g. 2006. estimating crop productivity for five ornamental foliage plants. int’l. j. agri. res., 1:522-533 bulle, a. and de jongh, m. 2001. effects of growing conditions on the shelf life of ficus benjamina. acta hort., 543:113-117 eapen, s.m. 2003. evaluation of tropical plant species for use as cut foliage. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, kerala agricultural university, vellanikkara, thrissur, kerala, india, 74p kumar, v. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 2003. exploring cut greens for florist trade. indian hort., 47:4-9 mollick, a.s., shimoji, h., denda, t., yokata, m. and yamasaki, h. 2011. croton codiaeum variegatum (l.) blume cultivars characterized by leaf phenotypic parameters. sci. hort., 132:71-79 russ, k. and peruit, a. 2001. foliage plants. http:// hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets-/hgici1504 wang, q. and chen, j. 2003. variation of photosynthetic characteristics and leaf area contributes to spathiphyllum cultivar differences in biomass production. photosynthetica, 41:443447 wang, q., chen, j., stamps, r.h. and li, y. 2005. correlation of visual quality grading and spad reading of green leaves foliage plants. j. pl. nutr., 28:1215-1225 (ms received 29 october 2014, revised 03 january 2015, accepted 20 january 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):24-29, 2015 evaluation of cut-foliage plants for eastern ghats introduction papaya is an important fruit crop in india propagated by seeds only. seed germination in papaya is reported to be slow, erratic and is also incomplete (chako and singh, 1966). ‘red lady’ is the choicest variety of papaya-growers due to its hermaphrodite nature and prolonged shelf-life of fruits. but, seed cost in this variety is very high (rs. 2.0 lakh kg-1). therefore, increasing germination per cent and producing more number of healthy seedlings is a challenge for papaya growers. papaya seeds of cv. red lady face some problems in germination and have high seedling-mortality due to damping-off disease in the nursery. incomplete germination and initial mortality are the causes for reduced survival per cent of papaya seedlings. growth media composition influences seed germination and quality of the seedlings (wilson et al, 2001). growth medium directly affects seed germination, seedling growth, development and, later, maintenance of the extensively functional rooting system. a good growth medium provides sufficient anchorage or support to the plant, serves as a reservoir for nutrients and water, allows oxygen diffusion to the roots and permits j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):41-46, 2013 effect of growth media on seed germination and seedling growth in papaya (carica papaya l.) cv. red lady r.l. bhardwaj krishi vigyan kendra, sirohi maharana pratap university of agriculture and technology udaipur 313 001, india e-mail : rajubhardwaj3@gmail.com abstract the study was carried out to explore the effect of growth media on seed germination and seedling growth in papaya cv. red lady. three types of media with three levels of cocopeat were studied. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized design, with nine treatment combinations, and replicated thrice. results showed that the medium vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat layer on top of the polybag (t 9 ) gave highest germination rate (92.71%), maximum speed of emergence (493.34), highest seed vigour (89.33), maximum germination index (7.18), highest germination value (25.58), the least time required for imbibition (9.37 days) and minimum time taken to germination (3.22 days). medium t 9 was also found to be the best for growth of ‘red lady’ papaya seedlings as it gave the highest values for seedling growth parameters like seedling height (23.05cm), leaf area (339.26cm2), number of leaves (9.84), stem diameter (3.32mm), number of roots (16.68), root length (9.93cm), total biomass (4.89g plant-1) and lowest root/shoot ratio (0.21). this treatment significantly reduced seedling mortality and produced maximum number of healthy seedlings (92.69%) in minimum number of days (35.24), showing the highest net profit (rs. 3470.65/1000 seedlings) and benefit:cost ratio (1.84) seedling production. key words: papaya seedling, germination, growth media, plant growth, cocopeat, pond soil, vermicompost, propagation, farm yard manure gaseous exchange between roots and the atmosphere outside root substrate (abad et al, 2002). nursery potting media influences quality of seedlings produced (agbo and omaliko, 2006). quality seedlings established well in the field and increased productivity of the orchard (baiyeri, 2006). generally, media for fruit crop seedlings are composed of soil, organic matter, pond soil and sand. pond soil is usually used as a basic medium because it is inexpensive and easy to procure. supplementing sand is aimed at making the medium more porous. while organic matter (farm yard manure and vermicompost) is added to enrich seedlings with adequate nutrients, cocopeat is considered as a good growth media component, with acceptable ph, electrical conductivity and other chemical attributes (abad et al, 2002). cocopeat has good physical properties, high total pore space, high water content, low shrinkage, low bulk density and is slow to biodegrade. results of many experiments reveal that cocopeat (used alone, or as a component of soil medium), is suitable for roses, gerbera, many potted plants (de kreij and leeuven, 2001; pickering, 1997), and also for vegetables. 42 keeping in view influence of the medium on germination and seedling growth in papaya, present investigation was carried out to study the effect of different media, viz., sand, pond soil, farm yard manure, vermicompost and cocopeat on seed germination, seedling growth and vigour of papaya seedlings. material and methods seed material and treatment seed germination and seedling growth experiments in papaya were carried out at the model nursery of krishi vigyan kendra, sirohi (rajasthan) during two successive seasons, from july to august in 2009 and 2010 under agronet (75%) house conditions. papaya seeds of cv. red lady (f 1 ) produced by known-you seed co. ltd., kaohsiung, taiwan, was procured from known you seed (india) pvt. ltd., pune, in 10g polyethylene air-tight packing in cardboard boxes. nine treatments consisted of various combination of growth media with or without cocopeat in polybags (10 x 12cm), namely, t 1 – sand + pond soil (1:1) without cocopeat; t 2 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 3 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 4 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 5 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 6 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 7 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 8 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1cm cocopeat and t 9 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat. seed-sowing was done in the month of july at about 1cm depth in different media as per treatments. the polybags were irrigated immediately after seed-sowing and irrigation was repeated daily util final emergence. after completion of germination, the bags were irrigated once every two days. experimental design the experiment was laid out in completely randomized design, and replicated thrice. each treatment composed of 100 polybags. all observations on germination parameters were recorded at the time of germination, and, growth parameters from 10 randomly selected seedlings at the time of transplanting (45 days after seed-sowing). observations on germination were recorded from the first germination until no further germination was seen, at two days’ interval. imbibition period was calculated counting number of days from sowing to commencement of germination. speed of emergence (se) was calculated according to islam et al (2009) using the following formula; no. of seedlings emerged 5 days after sowing speed of emergence = [—————————] x 100 no. of seedlings emerged 15 days after sowing germination percentage was calculated by number of germinated seeds divided by the total number of seeds sown in polybags, and multiplied by 100. germination period was calculated as the difference between initial and final emergence (number of days). seed vigour was calculated by dividing total number of healthy seedling by total number of seedlings, and multiplied by 100. germination index was calculated as described in the association of official seed analysis (1983) using the following formula: no. of no. of germinating germinating seeds seeds germination index = [—————] + [—————] days of days of final first count or last count germination value (gv) was calculated according to hossain et al (2005) following the formula: germination value = (σ dgs/n) x gp/10, where, gp is the germination percentage at the end of experiment, dg is the daily germination speed obtained by dividing cumulative germination percentage by the number of days since sowing, σ dgs is the total germination obtained by adding every value of dg obtained from daily counts, n is the total number of daily counts, starting from the first germination and (10) is a constant. counting of number of leaves was done at the end of the experiment by when true leaves had emerged. stem diameter was measured 1cm above the base of the stem, using vernier callipers. plant height was measured from the base of the seedling to highest tip of the plant. leaf area was calculated by tracing the leaves on a graph paper. number of roots and root length measurement was done by the standard method using the destructive method of uprooting the plants and taking measurement. stem and root were weighed to record stem root fresh weight, root/ shoot ratio, and, total fresh and dry weight of the plant (g) at the time of transplanting. survival % (15 days after transplanting in the main field) was recorded using the following formula; total number of surviving transplanted plants survival % = ———————————————x 100 total number of transplanted plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):41-46, 2013 bhardwaj 43 net return was calculated by subtracting cost of each treatment from the gross returns and benefit:cost ratio was calculated as net income/cost of seedling production. all data were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) to determine significant differences, followed by tukey’s test for comparison of means at 5% significance level. results and discussion results showed that growth media and cocopeat had a beneficial effect on seed germination and seedling growth in papaya cv. red lady. seed germination seed germination parameters in papaya as affected by growth media mixture and use of cocopeat are presented in table 1. treatment t 9 was found to be the best, followed by t 8 as for germination parameters, as, these media had suitable physical properties and a good water holding capacity to supports papaya seed germination (table 1). germination commenced at an average of 9.37 days after sowing, on vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat layer (t 9 ) in both the years of experimentation. germination continued until 23.87 days from sowing, when no further germination was noticed. in both the years, maximum speed of emergence (493.34), highest germination % (92.71), highest seed vigour (89.33), highest germination index (7.18), best germination value (25.58), least time required for imbibition (9.37 days) and minimum germination period (3.22 days) were obtained in vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm top-filling with cocopeat of the polybags in both the years. sand + pond soil (1:1) without cocopeat showed least values for all the parameters compared to other treatments. this could be due to the fact that pond soil and vermicompost are high in organic matter which increases water and nutrient holding capacity of the medium for supply to the plant. vermicompost is reported as having bioactive principles considered to be beneficial for root growth, root initiation, germination and growth of the plant (bachman and metzger, 2008), as also having a balanced composition of nutrients (zaller 2007). vermicompost, mixed with pond soil, affects physical, chemical & biological properties of the soil as the organic matter acts as a glue for soil aggregation and is a source of soil nutrients. soil aggregation improves permeability and airflow in the polybags. organic matter may also improve nutrient availability and improve phosphorus absorption (karama and manwan, 1990). all these factors are favourable for seed germination and, ultimately, increase seed germination %, speed of emergence, seed vigour, germination index, germination value, and, reduce the imbibition period. combined application of vermicompost and cocopeat in treatment t 9 showed significant positive effect on germination, seedling growth and plant biomass, probably owing to a synergistic combination of both these factors in improving physical condition of the media and providing nutritional factors (sahni et al, 2008) seedling growth and development data presented in tables 2 and 3, and figure 1, show significant increase in growth of papaya seedlings as affected by different growth media. maximum number of leaves was observed in t 9 (9.84) which was at par with t 6 (9.1). maximum seedling diameter (3.32mm), seedling height (23.05cm), leaf area (339.26cm2), root length (9.93cm) and fresh weight of plants (4.89g) were recorded in t 9 treatment. similarly, maximum number of roots per plant table 1. effect of growth media mixture and cocopeat on germination parameters in papaya cv. red lady seed (pooled) treatment imbibition speed of germination germination seed germination germination period emergence % period vigour index value t 1 15.67 127.37 59.69 8.20 55.24 2.37 1.94 t 2 13.60 169.56 67.82 6.98 64.16 3.14 3.50 t 3 12.05 226.21 80.33 5.88 75.74 4.34 6.83 t 4 15.35 154.12 70.79 7.28 64.69 3.24 3.37 t 5 13.59 277.13 81.55 4.88 76.76 4.51 7.72 t 6 11.59 325.56 85.65 3.95 82.81 5.45 12.47 t 7 13.84 252.51 77.62 6.15 73.76 3.69 5.02 t 8 11.63 430.54 87.57 4.08 83.26 5.99 14.50 t 9 9.37 493.34 92.71 3.22 89.33 7.18 25.58 sem+ 0.500 9.350 2.000 0.260 1.830 0.180 0.280 cd (p=0.05) 1.470 27.680 5.920 0.780 5.410 0.530 0.830 t 1 – sand + pond soil (1:1) without cocopeat; t 2 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 3 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 4 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 5 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 6 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 7 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 8 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 9 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):41-46, 2013 seed germination and seedling growth in papaya cv. red lady 44 was also observed in t 9 treatment (16.68) which was at par with that in t 8 (16.01). highest fresh-weight of shoots (4.05g) roots (0.84g), and lowest root/shoot ratio (0.21) was also observed in t 9 . vermicompost provides adequate nutrients and enhances both physical properties and waterholding capacity. combined application of vermicompost and cocopeat have too showed significant effect on seedling growth and plant biomass, perhaps due to the synergistic effect of both these factors. this result is in line with findings of campos mota et al (2009) and abirami et al (2010) who suggested that since coir dust was low in nutrients, mixed with vermicompost it provides a better growth medium for plant establishment. however, air filled porosity, easily available water and aeration of vermicompost and farm yard manure were not at the recommended level which, in turn, limited root growth and lowered water-holding capacity. therefore, medium with vermicompost and cocopeat is better suited than vermicompost alone, because of its better physical properties and higher nutrient levels. this treatment combination also helped reduce damping-off disease in the seedlings due to proper aeration of the root zone of the seedlings and produced highest survival in seedling (92.69%), which was at par with t 8 (91.70%). due toe better physical properties and enhanced nutrient levels in t 9 , seedling growth improved and attained transplantable size early (35.24 days), which was at par with t 6 (37.62 days). improved soil permeability and air flow may have reduced damping-off disease in the nursery stage, and provided support to the fast growth of seedlings ultimately, seedlings gained transplanting-size early. it appears that good physical and biological conditions in cocopeat and vermicompost had a positive effect on root development. this is helpful in realizing increased survival % of seedlings in the main field, after transplanting. beneficial effect of cocopeat on the root system was observed on nutmeg seedlings by abirami et al (2010), in osteospermum cuttings by nowak (2004), in salvia and viola by pickering (1997) and in impatiens by smith (1995). application of vermicompost:pond soil:sand (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat (t 9 media) proved to be profitable and showed maximum net returns (rs. 3470.65/1000 seedlings) and highest benefit:cost ratio (1.84) due to higher germination rate and survival % (tables 1 and 3). this treatment was significantly superior to rest of the treatments during both years. benefit:cost ratio, however, was at par with that in treatmentt 8 . t 1 t 9 t 2 t 3 t 4 t 5 t 6 t 7 t 8 t 1 t 9 t 2 t 3 t 4 t 5 t 6 t 7 t 8 t 1 t 9 t 2 t 3 t 4 t 5 t 6 t 7 t 8 fig. 1 effect of growth media and cocopeat on shoot, root growth and leaf area in papaya cv. red lady seedlings j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):41-46, 2013 bhardwaj 45 table 2. effect of growth media mixture and cocopeat on growth of papaya cv. red lady seedlings (pooled) treatment number stem girth seedling leaf number root fresh weight of leaves (mm) height (cm) area (cm2) of roots length (cm) of plants (g) t 1 3.54 1.12 8.27 16.72 5.80 3.46 0.62 t 2 5.59 1.44 9.39 31.83 9.90 3.88 0.80 t 3 7.68 2.08 11.39 50.80 12.17 5.74 1.01 t 4 6.62 1.54 9.11 50.35 7.47 5.08 0.69 t 5 8.20 2.34 12.19 91.66 10.41 6.92 1.00 t 6 9.10 2.82 17.31 134.15 12.26 7.27 1.44 t 7 7.38 2.05 14.05 137.65 12.90 7.67 2.42 t 8 8.31 2.69 19.93 232.75 16.02 9.02 3.56 t 9 9.84 3.32 23.05 339.26 16.68 9.93 4.89 sem+ 0.350 0.100 0.440 3.460 0.560 0.210 0.050 cd (p=0.05) 1.040 0.300 1.290 10.230 1.650 0.610 0.140 t 1 – sand + pond soil (1:1) without cocopeat; t 2 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 3 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 4 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 5 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1 cocopeat; t 6 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 7 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 8 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 9 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat table 3. effect of growth media mixture and cocopeat on biomass production, survival rate, net returns and b:c ratio in papaya cv. red lady seedlings (pooled) treatment fresh weight fresh weight survival root /shoot days required net returns b:c ratio of shoot (g) of root (g) % ratio to attain (rs./1000 transplantable seedlings) size in seedlings t 1 0.39 0.22 77.71 0.57 46.33 780.0 1.16 t 2 0.52 0.27 81.26 0.52 43.83 980.0 1.19 t 3 0.69 0.33 85.18 0.48 41.85 1880.0 1.35 t 4 0.51 0.18 82.20 0.35 42.10 1068.0 1.20 t 5 0.78 0.23 85.77 0.30 40.00 1868.0 1.34 t 6 1.12 0.31 88.74 0.28 38.10 2368.0 1.41 t 7 1.93 0.47 85.75 0.25 40.28 2170.60 1.65 t 8 2.94 0.66 89.80 0.23 38.33 2970.40 1.78 t 9 4.05 0.84 92.69 0.21 35.24 3470.65 1.84 sem+ 0.060 0.020 1.600 0.010 1.010 52.690 0.070 cd (p=0.05) 0.670 0.480 4.740 0.029 2.980 155.940 0.198 t 1 – sand + pond soil (1:1) without cocopeat; t 2 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 3 sand + pond soil (1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 4 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 5 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 6 fym + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat; t 7 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) without cocopeat; t 8 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 1cm cocopeat; t 9 vermicompost + sand + pond soil (1:1:1) with 2cm cocopeat on the basis of results obtained in this study, it is concluded that growth media significantly influence germination and growth in papaya seedlings. medium with vermicompost, pond soil and sand (1:1:1) and topping of polybags with 2cm cocopeat layer was the best since germination, and, seedling growth and development parameters, were higher in this than on other media. overall results revealed that media supplemented with cocopeat resulted in higher rate of germination and better growth and development of papaya seedlings, compared to media without cocopeat. therefore, it is suggested that vermicompost, pond soil and sand with cocopeat may be used as growth media for achieving higher germination rate and faster seedling growth in ‘red lady’ papaya seedlings. references abad, m., noguera, p., puchades, r., maquieira, a. and noguera, v. 2002. physico-chemical and chemical properties of some coconut dusts for use as a peat substitute for containerized ornamental plants. biores. technol., 82:241-245 abirami, k., rema, j., mathew, p.a., srinivasan, v. and hamza, s. 2010. effect of different propagation media on seed germination, seedling growth and vigour of nutmeg (myristica fragrans houtt.). j. med. pl. res., 4:2054-2058 agbo, c.u. and omaliko, c.m. 2006. initiation and growth of shoots of gongronema latifolia benth stem cuttings in different rooting media. african j. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):41-46, 2013 seed germination and seedling growth in papaya cv. red lady 46 biotech., 5:425–428 aosa. 1983. seed vigour testing handbook, (contribution no. 32). association of official seed analysis, ithaca, usa, 45 pp bachman, g.r. and metzger, j.d. 2008. growth of bedding plants in commercial potting substrate amended with vermicompost. biores tech., 99:3155-3161 baiyeri, k.p. 2006. seedling emergence and growth of pawpaw (carica papaya) grown under different coloured shade polyethylene. int’l agrophysics, 20:35-39 campos mota, l., van meeteren, u. and blok, c. 2009. comparison of physical properties of vermicompost from paper mill sludge and green 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p–nutrition and micorrhizal inoculation on rooting and growth of osteospermum. acta hort., 644:589-593 pickering, j.s. 1997. an alternative to peat. the garden, 122:428-429 sahni, s., sharma, b.k., singh, d.p., singh, h.b. and singh, k.p. 2008. vermicompost enhances performance of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria in cicer arietinum rhizosphere against sclerotium rolfsii. crop prot., 27:369-376 smith, c. 1995. coir: a viable alternative to peat for potting. horticulturist, 4:25-28 wilson, s.b., stoffella, p.j. and graetz, d.a. 2001. use of compost as a media amendment for containerized production of two subtropical perennials. j. env. hort., 19:37-42 zaller, j.g. 2007. vermicompost as a substitute for peat in potting media: effects on germination, biomass allocation, yields and fruit quality of three tomato varieties. sci. hort., 112:191-199 (ms received 20 december 2011, accepted 15 april 2013, revised 15 april 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):41-46, 2013 bhardwaj sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 142 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 142-148, 2019 original research paper compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms and indices for potato (solanum tuberosum l.) ganeshamurthy a.n.*, govindakrishnan p.$, raghupathi h.b. and mahendra kumar m.b. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, india. $ icar-central potato research institute, shimla, india *e-mail: angmurthy@gmail.com abstract a survey was conducted in potato fields for collection of leaf samples to establish nutrient concentration yield data bank. the data bank was used for developing multivariate compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms for assessing the nutritional status of selected centres of potato growing fields. the mean n, p and k concentrations were 2.09, 0.25 and 4.16 %, respectively. the mean ca (1.11%) concentration was twice higher compared to mg (0.63 %) concentration. the mean values of zn, cu, fe, mn and b were 43.69, 31.24, 986.71, 192.76 and 59.98 ppm, respectively. the cnd norms for vn, vp and vk were 3.04, 0. 94 and 3. 73, respectively. the norm for ca (v ca=2. 45) and mg (vmg=1.78) were much narrower compared to the absolute nutrient concentration. the norm for vzn, vcu, vfe, vmn and vb were -3.24, -3.60, -0.23, -1.98 and -2.89respectively. the multivariate cnd norms developed for ten nutrients proved to be an important tool for diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in potato. the nutrient indices developed indicated that zn was the most common yield-limiting nutrient. the cnd norms and the indices developed can be used for identifying the hidden hunger of various nutrients in potato for evolving nutrient management strategies. keywords: cnd norms, nutrients and potato introduction potato (solanum tuberosum l.) is the world’s fourth most important food crop after wheat, rice and maize because of its great yield potential and high nutritive value. it constitutes nearly half of the world’s annual output of all root and tuber crops, with an annual world production of about 388 m t (fao, 2019). india produces 48.23m t of potatoes from an area of 2.15 m ha (anon., 2017) with a productivityof 2.24 t ha-1. potatois a crop of temperate climates. optimum soil temper a tur e for nor ma l tuber gr owth is 15 to 18°c.potato requires a well-drained, well-aerated, porous soil with ph of 5.0 to 6.0. as well as providing starch, an essential component of the diet, potatoes are rich in vitamin c, minerals, high in potassium and an excellent source of fibre. the potato crop requires substantial amounts of nutrient sources for maximum yield and quality. fertilizer management could be guided in part by plant analysis. reliable nutrient norms for obtaining adequate nutrient balance with minimum application of fertilizers are required (parent et al., 1994). nutrient status in plants is currently diagnosed using nutrient concentration or dual ratios in selected tissues (walworth and sumner, 1987). elemental concentrations vary vastly with time and the critical level of one element can shift widely if another element can substitute or interfere with the uptake of the first element planttissues possess a multivariate character with respect to elemental composition that could be interpreted for diagnostic purposes. mineral composition of pla nt tissues, expr essed a s concentrations or relative (ratio) values forms the basic numerical information for diagnosing nutrient status in plants (parent and dafir, 1992). several approaches are adopted for identification of nutrient imbalances, a one being the compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd). it provides a correction factor for any nutrient, given all the nutrients under analysis (i.e. multinutrient ratios). in addition, cnd 143 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 142-148, 2019 generates new variables and it is amendable to multivariate analysis of tissue compositional data (parent and dafir, 1992). it recognizes that, given a change in certain nutrient proportions in the foliage, other pr opor tions must be a lter ed since pla nt composition is constrained to 100 per cent the dry matter content. thus, nutrient diagnosis is generally conducted at a particular growth stage for which norms were derived (parent et al., 1994). the cnd norms are multivariate norms that give due weightage to all the elements, including unmeasured fa ctor s a nd ther efor e, ha ve higher dia gnostic sensitivity (anjaneyulu et al., 2008). the present investigation was carried out with the main objective to develop multivariate diagnostic norms for potato leaves collected from different centres of all india coordinated research project (aicrp) on potato using cnd to improve diagnostic pr ecision and to understand interaction among different nutrients governing yield and quality of the potato crop. materials and methods the leaf samples of potato were collected from different centres of aicrp on potato under indian council of agricultural research (icar) viz., sardar kr ishinagar (gujar at), bidha n cha ndra kr ishi vishwavidyala ya (west bengal), indira gandhi agricultural university, raipur (chhattisgarh), g. b. pant university of agriculture and technology, pa ntna ga r (utta r a kha nd), assa m agr icultur a l university, jorhat (assam), rajendra agricultural university (bihar) and chaudharycharan singh haryana agricultural university, hisar (haryana) to establish nutrient concentration versus yield data bank for developing diagnostic norms. a total of 78 leaf samples were collected by selecting the 3rd to 6th leaf from growing tip were collected just before bloom stage, which provides the index leaf in potato. about 25 to 30 samples were collected from each plot from different centres of aicrp on potato. the leaf sa mples were decontamina ted by wa shing in a sequentially with tap water, 0.2 per cent detergent solution, 0.1 n hcl and finally with double distilled water. leaf samples were dried at 65 to 700c for 48 h. the samples were then powdered in a cyclotec mill and analysed for different nutrients by digesting 1g tissue in diacid mixture (9:4 ratio of nitric acid and perchloric acid) using standard analytical methods (jackson, 1973). the samples were analysed for major (n, p and k), secondary (ca, mg and s) and micronutrients (zn, cu, fe, mn and b) by standard method (piper, 1966; jackson, 1973 and jones and case, 1990). thus, nutrient concentration vs yield data bank (based on standard procedure, below 30 t ha-1 and above 30 t ha-1 are considered as low yield and high yield) was established for developing nutrient diagnostic norms. the cnd norms (mean and standard deviation (sd) of the analysed leaf samples) were developed by adopting the procedure outlined by parent and dafir (1992). this was accomplished by following the steps proposed by khiari et al. (2001) as follows. ist step: to convert all the plant nutrient concentrations to percentage (%). iind step: sum all the plant nutrient concentration i.e. total = (n+p+k+ca+mg+zn+cu+fe+mn+b) iiird step: calculate residue (rd) rd = 100 (n+p+k+ca+mg+zn+cu+fe+mn+b) where, rd = it is the filling value between 100 and the sum of the nutrient proportions. ivth step: calculate geometric mean (g) g= (n*p*k*ca*mg*zn*cu*fe*mn*b)1/n where, n = no. of nutrient elements taken for calculation. vth step: row centred log ratios of the nutrient proportions (vx) were calculated using the equation. vn = ln (n/g), vp = ln (p/g), vk = ln (k/g), vca = ln (ca/g), vmg = ln (mg/g), vzn = ln (zn/g), vcu = ln (cu/g), vfe= ln (fe/g), vmn = ln (mn/g) and vb = ln (b/g) vith step: cnd norms are computed using means and sd corresponding to the row centred log ratios vx of the nutrients for high yielding populations. v*n, v*p, v*k, .......v*bi.e mean = average (vx1+ vx2+ vx3+ ........+vxn) where, vx = average of no. of row centred log ratios of all the nutrients proportions. sd*n, sd*p, sd*k, .......sd*bi.e sd = stdev (vx1+ vx2+ vx3+ ........+vxn) compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms and indices 144 where, vx = sd of no. of row centred log ratios of all the nutrients proportions. viith step: the standardized variables (vn v*n)/ sd*n to (vb v*b) / sd*b are cnd nutrient indices for low yielding population. in = (vn v*n) / sd*n, ip = (vp v*p)/ sd*p, ......... ib = (vb v*b)/ sd*b. independent values for vn to vbwere introduced in the equation for diagnostic purpose. once cnd nor ms a nd indices ha ve been developed, a n independent da ta ba se ca n va lida te them. t he validations of cnd norms and indices have been reported by parent and dafir (1992), parent et al. (1994) and khiari et al. (2001). results and discussion nutrient concentration range the mean concentrations of n, p, k, ca, mg, zn, cu, fe, mn and b in leaf of potato are presented in table 1. the mean n concentration was 2.09 % and ranged from 0.40 to 3.68 %. maximum yield in potato was reported when n concentration in leaf ranged from 1.19 to 1.30 % (vijaykumar, 2010). the mean p concentration was 0.25 % and varied from 0.42 to 0.46 %. the k concentration varied widely from 1.80 to 7.95 % with a mean of 4.16 %. the increased content of primary nutrients (n, p and k) might be attributed to the better crop growth because of increased availability of nutrients due to application of fertilizers. besides, application of nutrients in proper balance generally results in better utilization of added nutrients (vijaykumar, 2010). similarly, ca concentration showed a wide variation ranging from 0.60 to 1.57 %. the mean ca (1.11 %) was twice higher to mg (0. 63 %), which wa s comparable to the values reported by anjaneyulu et al, (2008) in guava and anjaneyulu and raghupathi (2010) in papaya. the mean leaf concentration of zn, cu, fe, mn and b were 43.69, 31.24, 986.71, 192.76 and 59.28 ppm, respectively. the optimum range varied from 10.60-104.98, 20.08-76.40, 205.535721.60, 4.85-448.00 and 20.86-104.99 ppm for zn, cu, fe, mn and b respectively (jones, 1991 and tisdale et al., 1997). this was attributed to increased availability of these nutrients due to the supply of these nutrients through micronutrient fertilizers (vijaykumar, 2010). gopalakrishnan (2007) reported that the micronutrients for early flower set and helps in production of growth hormones for their good growth and development for the crops. compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms the cnd norms for n (vn), p (vp) and k (vk) for leaf of potato were 3.04, 0.94 and 3.73 respectively (table 2). the norms derived indicated higher requirement of k compared to n that might be due to continuous flowering in potato. similarly, high cnd norm for k was reported in banana (raghupathiet al., 2002) indicating higher k requirement. the norm for ca (vca= 2.45) was higher compared to that of mg (vmg= 1.78) norm. the higher norm value noticed for ca was mainly due to the presence of high free ca lcium ca rbona te in soils, which might ha ve overwhelming influence on calcium uptake. this finding corroborates with the results observed by anjaneyulu and raghupathi (2010). among the micronutrients, fe requirement was much higher compared to mn, zn. cu and b with a norm value of vfe = – 0.23. cnd norms are multivariate norms with due weightage to all the other elements, including the unmeasured factor. sum of the tissue components is 100 % and therefore the sum of row centred log ratios (including filling value) is zero. cnd norm values developed were difficult to comprehend compared to nutrient concentrations, expressed as per cent or ppm (anjaneyulu et al., 2008). therefore, the cnd norms are having higher diagnostic precision (parent and dafir, 1992) compared to the bivariate diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (walworth and sumner, 1987). compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) indices independent values were introduced from low yielding potato crops for the purpose of diagnosis of a nutrient that limits the yield. the cnd indices identified zn, ca and k as the most common yield limiting nutrients (table 3). among the 44 selected low yielding potato fields, both zn and k were common yield limiting nutrients. similarly, the results are in conformity with the findings of anjaneyulu (2007) in which zn and k were identified as common yield limiting nutrients in papaya diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris) technique. boron and manganese were also found to be low in some potato fields as reflected through indices (anjaneyulu and raghupathi, j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 142-148, 2019 ganeshamurthy et al 145 2010). however, no single nutrient was found solely responsible for low yield (anjaneyulu et al., 2008). the concentration of n when below the critical level manifested visual symptoms of nutritional imbalance, which exhibited negative indices. thus, the yield limiting nutrients were differing from field to field though some of the nutrients were more prominent. the order in which nutrients were limiting the yield indicated that most often more than one nutrient was limiting the yield. among different nutrient elements, b showed a significant positive relationship (table 4) with both ca and mg, whereas k whose requirement is very high for crops like potato showed negative relationship with b. multivar iate technique (compositional nutr ient diagnosis) was proved to be an important tool for interpretation of complex interaction pattern among nutrients concentration in rapidly growing potato pla nts. t he nor ms der ived indica ted higher requirement of k compared to n. among different nutrients, the cnd indices identified zn, ca and k as the most common yield limiting nutrients in potato. acknowledgement t he fina ncia l suppor t of icar networ k on micronutrient management in horticultural crops for enha ncing yield a nd qua lity is gr a tefully acknowledged. the support extended by all the aicrp, potato centres in sampling and supplying the samples is also gratefully acknowledged. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 142-148, 2019 compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms and indices table 1: mean and range of nutrients concentration for potato (high yielding potato) nutrient unit mean minimum maximum n % 2.09 0.40 3.68 p % 0.25 0.42 0.46 k % 4.16 1.80 7.95 ca % 1.11 0.60 1.57 mg % 0.63 0.12 1.01 zn ppm 43.69 10.60 104.98 cu ppm 31.24 20.08 76.40 fe ppm 986.71 205.53 5721.60 mn ppm 192.76 4.85 448.00 b ppm 59.98 20.86 104.99 table 2: compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms for potato cnd variate cnd norms sd vn 3.04 0.43 vp 0.94 0.36 vk 3.73 0.37 vca 2.45 0.36 vmg 1.78 0.63 vzn -3.24 0.52 vcu -3.60 0.55 vfe -0.23 0.63 vmn -1.98 0.92 vb -2.89 0.69 vr 6.89 0.24 146 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 142-148, 2019 ganeshamurthy et al n p k ca mg zn cu fe mn b r 2.01 2.75 0.86 0.41 0.31 -1.41 -0.93 -0.71 -0.22 -0.90 0.16 2.20 2.71 0.66 -0.31 0.19 -1.06 -1.01 -0.68 -0.14 -0.74 0.27 2.09 2.64 0.88 0.08 0.06 -1.12 -1.05 -0.81 -0.23 -0.52 0.21 2.16 2.67 0.92 0.05 0.16 -1.24 -0.99 -0.71 -0.33 -0.60 0.34 2.17 2.64 1.09 0.31 0.23 -1.01 -0.90 -1.23 -0.29 -0.70 0.27 1.72 0.52 0.77 -0.47 -0.16 -0.58 -0.37 0.39 -0.14 -0.79 -0.45 1.79 0.67 0.69 -0.06 -0.17 -0.70 -0.49 0.33 0.01 -1.02 -0.65 1.88 0.67 1.31 -0.12 -0.10 -0.67 -0.61 0.23 -0.23 -0.97 -0.44 1.96 0.73 0.48 -0.15 -0.18 -0.96 -0.43 0.51 -0.24 -0.69 -0.68 1.71 0.95 -0.16 -0.58 -0.31 -0.57 -0.58 0.58 0.13 -0.70 -0.73 -0.15 0.40 -0.09 -0.16 0.55 -0.65 0.67 1.36 -0.64 -0.90 -0.60 0.25 -0.10 0.19 0.15 0.67 -1.00 0.44 -0.03 -0.26 -0.11 -0.24 0.55 0.19 -0.27 0.33 0.39 -0.72 0.80 -0.09 -0.09 -0.71 -0.23 0.33 0.48 0.65 0.06 0.76 -0.76 0.81 -0.30 -0.54 -0.60 -0.86 0.62 0.54 0.80 0.05 0.77 -0.81 0.63 -0.32 -1.09 0.05 -0.61 2.02 1.43 -0.04 0.04 0.70 -1.46 -0.41 -1.38 -0.27 0.41 0.23 1.54 2.11 -0.34 -0.09 0.55 -1.48 -0.38 -1.46 -0.28 0.79 -0.11 1.98 0.34 0.11 0.01 0.83 -1.57 -0.26 -1.67 -0.26 1.05 0.58 1.30 1.59 0.02 -0.10 0.86 -1.37 -0.36 -1.47 -0.57 1.04 0.67 2.30 1.34 -0.13 1.07 1.35 -1.18 -0.66 -1.78 -1.66 1.41 2.09 -2.25 1.88 -2.85 -0.23 -0.39 -0.01 0.92 0.74 0.56 0.28 -1.08 -0.73 2.18 -3.10 -0.60 -0.65 -0.24 0.71 0.65 0.70 -0.01 -1.52 0.06 3.22 -0.78 0.71 0.46 -1.40 -0.23 0.24 -0.24 -0.74 0.05 -0.80 2.25 -0.48 0.36 0.24 -1.16 0.02 0.22 0.10 -0.30 -0.72 -0.80 2.30 0.34 0.45 0.32 -0.63 1.33 -1.52 -0.58 0.17 0.25 1.90 3.67 1.02 -0.72 0.17 -1.08 -0.70 -0.74 -0.26 -1.04 0.14 2.12 3.68 0.74 -0.09 0.22 -1.15 -0.61 -0.89 -0.42 -1.07 -0.13 2.06 2.47 1.87 -0.12 0.23 -1.25 -0.89 -0.88 -0.37 -0.79 -0.18 2.13 2.71 1.24 -0.42 0.13 -1.13 -0.47 -0.77 -0.32 -0.95 0.14 2.17 2.71 0.65 -0.20 0.21 -1.25 -0.67 -0.68 -0.26 -0.76 -0.05 1.74 1.04 0.08 -0.30 -0.31 -0.61 -0.41 0.47 -0.02 -0.85 -0.48 2.04 0.83 0.13 -0.54 -0.40 -0.53 -0.41 0.50 0.05 -0.92 -0.48 1.63 0.10 0.25 -0.30 -0.35 -0.47 -0.34 0.56 0.09 -0.73 -0.29 -0.96 -0.11 -1.02 -0.44 0.07 0.19 -0.18 1.60 -0.07 0.01 -1.09 -1.24 0.02 -1.05 -0.36 0.06 0.30 -0.03 1.48 -0.09 0.02 -1.15 -0.54 0.32 -2.00 -0.65 0.01 0.67 -0.44 1.53 0.04 -0.03 -1.28 -0.52 0.17 -1.32 -0.86 -0.13 0.40 0.19 1.42 -0.05 -0.17 -1.44 -0.61 0.12 -1.33 -0.20 -0.04 0.48 -0.54 1.55 0.01 -0.18 -1.26 0.44 0.05 -3.16 -0.43 0.36 -0.56 0.70 0.53 0.04 0.64 -0.87 0.81 -0.17 -0.63 -0.69 0.21 -1.08 0.63 0.35 0.29 -0.30 -1.25 1.19 -0.15 -1.10 -0.22 0.50 -0.86 0.63 0.60 0.17 -1.02 -0.77 1.54 -0.40 -1.19 0.09 0.36 -0.99 0.16 0.65 0.05 -0.51 -0.48 1.64 0.94 -2.05 -0.24 0.41 -0.97 0.39 0.70 -0.04 -0.80 -0.41 0.89 0.52 1.93 0.27 1.26 -1.73 -0.59 -1.42 -0.52 0.62 0.68 r = residue table 3: cnd indices for selected low yielding fields of potato 147 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 142-148, 2019 compositional nutrient diagnosis (cnd) norms and indices table 4: correlation coefficient among the indices for the low yielding population n p k ca mg zn cu fe mn b r n 1 p 0.132 1 k 0.711 0.077 1 ca -0.119 0.022 0.035 1 mg 0.09 -0.11 0.231 0.639 1 zn -0.52 -0.357 -0.444 -0.384 -0.625 1 cu -0.853 -0.415 -0.538 0.091 0.072 0.54 1 fe -0.417 -0.361 -0.355 -0.387 -0.623 0.699 0.307 1 mn -0.306 0.083 -0.481 -0.545 -0.802 0.42 0.077 0.514 1 b -0.193 -0.185 -0.397 0.367 0.569 -0.245 0.233 -0.525 -0.328 1 r 0.498 0.241 0.363 0.542 0.667 -0.649 -0.438 -0.782 -0.687 0.44 1 references anonymous, 2017. agricultural statistics at a glance. director ate of economics and sta tistics, ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, government of india, new delhi. pp230. anjaneyulu, k. 2007. diagnostic petiole nutrient norms and identification of yield limiting nutrients in papaya (carica papaya.) using diagnosis and recommendation integrated system. indian j. agri. sci., 77(11): 711-714. anja neyulu, k. , ra ghupa thi, h. b. a nd chandraprakash, m. k. 2008. compositional nutrient diagnosis norms (cnd) for guava (psidium guajava l.). j. hortl. sci., 3(2): 132-135. anjaneyulu, k. and raghupathi, h. b. 2010. cnd and pca approaches for multivariate diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in papaya (carica papaya l.). proc. iind is on papaya. pp363-368. fao, 2019.food and agricultural organization, faostat-http:/www.fao.com. gopalakrishnan, t. r. 2007. vegetable crops. new india publishing agency, pitampura, new delhi. pp265. jackson, m. l., 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india (pvt.) ltd., new delhi, pp408. jones and case, 1990. hand book of reference methods for plant analysis. soil and plant analysis council, inc., 10:42-46. jones, j. b. jr., 1991. plant tissue a nalysis in micronutrients. in micronutrient in agriculture (morvedt, j. j., cox, f. r., shuman, l. m. and welch, r. m., (eds). soil sci. soc. america, madison, usa. pp477-521. khiari, l., parent, l. e. and tremblay, n. 2001. selecting the high yield sub-population for diagnosing nutrient imbalance in crops. agron. j., 93: 802-808. parent, l. e. and dafir, m., 1992. a theoretical concept of compositional nutrient diagnosis. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 117(2): 239-242. 148 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 142-148, 2019 ganeshamurthy et al (received on 29.7.2017 , revised on 23.11.2019 and accepted on 14.12.2019) parent, l. e., cambouris, a. n. and muhawenimana, a., 1994. multivariate diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in potato crops. soil sci. soc. amer. j., 58: 1432-1438. piper, c. s., 1966.soil and plant analysis. hans publishers. bombay raghupathi, h. b., reddy, b.m.c. and srinivas, k., 2002. multivariate diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in banana. comm. soil sci. plant anal. 33(13 & 14): 2131-2143. tisdale, s. l., nelson, w. l., beaton, j. d. and havlin, j. l., 1997. soil fertility and fertilizers (fifth edition), second indian reprint, prentice hall of india ltd., new delhi. vijaykumar, c. 2010. effect of sources and time of fertilizer application on uptake, growth and yield of potato under rainfed condition in hassan district. m.sc. thesis submitted to uas, bangalore. walworth, j. l. and sumner, m. e., 1987. the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris). adv. soil sci., 6: 149-188. 73 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-74, 2019 short communication performance of anthurium (anthurium anderanum lindl) cultivars under hill zone of karnataka s.k. nataraj, kirtimala b. naik, h.s. yallesh kumar and y.s. ramesha college of horticulture, mudigere-karnataka 577 132 *e-mail: natflori@gmail.com abstract an investigation was carried out at experimental block, college of horticulture, mudigere. tropical recorded maximum lai 2.83, and had maximum plant height, number of leaves, leaf area and leaf area index. cultivar crinkle red recorded maximum number of flowers per plant per year (13.14), which was on par with tropical (11.77), cheers (10.60) and fire (10.25). cultivar midori recorded maximum vase life (35.00 days) followed by tropical (33.33 days) and it was on par with fire (32.22 days). cultivar midori recorded maximum vase life (35.00 days), followed by tropical (33.33 days) and it was on par with fire (32.22 days) and highest b:c ratio is recorded in cultivar tropical (1.83) and it was least in fantacia (1.13) . keywords: anthurium, protected cultivation, economics introduction ant hu r iu m ( a n t h u r i u m a n d re a n u m l ind) is cultivated for its colour full spathe and attractive foliage, anthuriumis having 600 species distributed wor ldwide. it is gr own for differ ent pur poses among them anthurium andreanum is popular for cut flower (shiva and sujatha, 2008). the major producers in the world are netherland, mauritius and hawaii. asia is most rapidly growing market for anthurium. it is basically a semiter restr ial tropical plant requiring warm, shaded and humid conditions, similar conditions that prevail in west coa st and western ghat hilly regions of south india. commercial cultivation of anthurium started by coffee planters of karnataka, kerala and tamil nadu. it comes up well under temperatures of 2124 0c, relative humidity of 60-80 % with low to medium light intensity of 20000 to 25000 lux and very importantly quality flowers with bright colour, good stalk length. growth & yield can be achieved at 60 to 80 % shade in different seasons (prakash et al., 2006). though coffee is the major crop in hilly regions of karnataka lot of fluctuation exists in price and due to labour problem planters are looking for an alternative crop, with this back ground present study was carried out to find out suitable varieties for hill zone of karnataka under nvph. t he pr esent investiga tion wa s ca r r ied out a t experimental block, college of horticulture, mudigere which is situated in hill zone of karnataka at 130 7´ north latitude, 750 37 ́east longitude with an altitude of 982 m above mean sea level which receives annual rain fall of 2000 to 3500 mm spread over 4-5 months (jan-sept) with temperature (27 0 c ) and rh (80 % ) . e x p er i ment wa s la id ou t i n c omp let e randomised design with 7 anthurium cultivars viz., tropical, middori, cheers, crinkle red, fantasia and acr opolis and replica ted thr ice for cut flower production in raised bed during 2013-2016 under nvph. the bed comprised of coconut husk, coffee pulp, coir pith, brick pieces and tile pieces. pooled data on vegetative parameters viz; plant height, number of lea ves, lea f ar ea, lea f ar ea index), flower ing parameters viz; days taken for unfolding of spathe from initiation of flowers, number of days taken for full unfolding of spathe from initiation of flower and vase life), quality parameters viz; peduncle length, spathe length, spadix length, spadix angle to spathe and yield parameters viz; number of flowers per plant were recorded at monthly interval from six months after planting. 74 nataraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-74, 2019 vegetative characters were significantly influenced by the cultivars (table1). maximum plant height was recorded in cultivar tropical (73.12 cm) and it was on par with cv. fire (64.22 cm) and cheers (60.13 cm) and least plant height was recorded in cv. fantasia (30.63 cm).with respect to number of lea ves cv. midor i recor ded highest number of leaves (13.44) which was at par with cv. tropical (12.56) and cv. fire (12.23) and lowest o leaves were r ecorded in cv. fa nta sia (5.43). cultivar tropical recorded maximum petiole length (36.15 cm) and it was minimum in cv. fantasia (19.25). for leaf area and leaf area index, cv. crinkle red ( 26 62 . 0 0 cm2 ) wa s a t p a r wit h cv . tr op ica l (2585. 00 cm2) and it was least in cv. fanta sia (955,00 cm2), while, lai is concerned cv. tropical recorded maximum lai 2.83, followed by midori 2.49 and least was in fantasia 1.0. cultivar tropical wa s aggr essive in vegeta tive growth so it ha d maximum plant height, number of leaves, leaf area and so also maximum leaf area index hence maximum photosyntates. this may also be attributed to the interaction between environment. while cv. fantasia recorded least lai with least plant height, number of leaves and leaf area. these findings are in line with findings of femina et al (2006) significant difference was observed for flowering, quality and yield parameters. the pooled data is presented in (table 2). cultivar fantasia (50.54 days) took minimum days for unfolding of spathe from initiation, while cv. tropical (73.12 days) took maximum days which was at par with fire (64.22 days) and cheers (60.13 days). peduncle length is most important character which decides the suitability as cut flower and price of any anthurium variety, cultivar tropical had (63.50 cm) peduncle length being highest among the cultivars followed by cheers and fire. cultiva r fanta sia recorded minimum peduncle length (28.23 cm). another important quality parameter that makes cultivar suitable for export is spadix angle to spathe. similar results were also reported by rajeevan et al (2007) in anthurium. if angle is wide there is chance of breakage of spadix in packing so an angle of around 300 is ideal. cultivar tropical had an angle of 32 0 which was on par with fire with an angle of 32.250 and crinkle red and acropollis had maximum angle of 44.100 and 43.20 0 respectively. femina et al (2006) also reported variation in spadix angle in anthurium cultivars studied. main objective of protected cultivation is to have more number of flowers per square meter, significant differences were observed for yield parameters. cultivar crinkle red statistically recorded maximum number of flowers per plant per year (13.14), which was on par with tropical (11.77), cheers (10.60), fire (10.25) and least was in fantasia (8.1). cultivar midori recorded maximum vase life (35.00 days), followed by tropical (33.33 days) and it was on par with fire (32.22 days), least vase life was recorded in cv. acropolis with 19 .00 days. earlier latha et al (2015) showed similar results in variety ‘esmeralda’. similar results were also recorded by paull and chantrachit (2001) and thawiang et al (2007). though the cv. crinkle red had maximum flowers but quality parameters like peduncle length, spadix table 1. vegetative parameters as influenced by different anthurium cultivars (pooled data 3 years) treatment plant height number of leaf area petiole length (cm) leaves (cm2) lai (cm) v1 : fantasia 29.88 5.48 953.00 1.13 19.92 v2 : acropolis 43.68 8.94 1617.67 1.73 26.67 v3 : crinkle red 55.76 10.64 2662.33 3.43 26.50 v4: tropical red 72.04 12.69 2585.00 2.93 36.72 v5: fire 64.07 11.91 1790.00 2.00 30.63 v6:cheers 59.71 7.97 1512.33 1.95 27.16 v7:midori 55.67 13.22 2306.00 2.66 33.59 s. em ± 0.45 0.54 1.48 0.27 0.51 cd (p=0.05) 1.39 1.68 4.57 0.84 1.58 75 performance of anthurium in hills j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-74, 2019 angle was more hence not suitable for export hence can only be sold in local market. whereas, tropical had appreciable vegetative, quality, flowering and yield parameters along with maximum plant height, number of leaves, highest peduncle length, leaf area, lai which was able to synthesize more photosynthates and thus produced better quality flowers , more yield and maximum vase life. similar results were also reported by islam et al (2013) in anthurium. significant difference were reported for b:c ratio (table 3.) among all cultivars, cost of cultivation was 4,12,539.00 for 560 sq.mt and yield varied from 40,500 in cv. fantasia to 58,850 in cv. tropical accordingly gross and net returns were varied from 7,55,280 to 3,42,741 . cultivar tropical recorded maximum b:c ratio (1.83) followed by cheers (1.64), fire (1.51) and it was least in fantasia (1.13), these difference may be attributed to yield potential and quality of flowers of individual genotypes, similar results were also reported by agasimani et al., (2011). table 2. flower, quality and yield parameters as influenced by anthurium cultivars (pooled data 3yrs) days to peduncle spathe spathe spadix spadix spadix flowering number vase treatment intiate bud length length width angle to length width duration of flowers/ life to flowering (cm) (cm) (cm) spathe (cm) (mm) (days) plant/year (days) v1 : fantasia 50.54 28.08 10.55 7.81 35.03 3.60 7.84 57.11 8.1 28.00 v2 : acropolis 44.09 43.07 13.56 9.47 34.13 4.87 7.78 48.22 10.08 19.70 v3 : crinkle red 56.21 44.03 10.55 9.45 29.07 4.56 7.00 58.44 13.41 24.89 v4: tropical red 73.15 63.17 15.01 10.59 32.00 6.52 9.94 61.22 11.77 32.78 v5: fire 64.26 56.30 13.87 9.61 32.42 5.58 8.87 58.67 10.25 32.41 v6:cheers 60.12 47.27 9.53 8.06 28.30 3.60 7.53 64.22 10.60 30.11 v7:midori 56.14 59.15 13.36 11.19 30.04 5.46 8.53 94.11 9.05 35.17 s. em ± 0.54 0.63 0.34 0.35 0.65 0.33 0.37 0.68 0.58 0.57 cd (p=0.05) 1.65 1.93 1.06 1.09 2.02 1.00 1.16 2.10 1.95 1.75 table 3. economics of anthurium cultivars during ii year total cost of flower price per flower cultivar cultivation for yield gross return net returns gbc 560 sq.mt (560 a b (rs.) * (rs.) ratio (rs.) sq.mt) grade grade v1 : fantasia 4,12,539.00 40500 24300 16200 4,69,800.00 57,261.00 1.13 v2 : acropolis 4,12,539.00 50500 30300 20200 5,85,800.00 1,73,261.00 1.41 v3 : crinkle red 4,12,539.00 67050 13410 53640 6,16,860.00 2,04,321.00 1.49 v4: tropical 4,12,539.00 58850 47080 11770 7,55,280.00 3,42,741.00 1.83 v5: fire 4,12,539.00 51250 35875 15375 6,25,250.00 2,12,711.00 1.51 v6:cheers 4,12,539.00 53000 42400 10600 6,78,400.00 2,65,861.00 1.64 v7:midori 4,12,539.00 45500 36400 9100 5,85,400.00 1,72,861.00 1.41  a grade flower average price rs.14  b grade flower average price is rs.8/flower is the cost of flower considered for calculation 76 establishment cost for anthurium grown under naturally ventilated polyhouse of 560 m2 area particulars particulars remarks i. investment cost construction of polyhouse (for life of 15 years) planting materials@100/plant for 4 years (5000 plants/450 sq.mt net cultivable area ) bed preparat ion (ti les, bricks, coconut husk, coir pith) for four years sub total ii. maintenance cost for first year 1. labour @ rs.450/day labour for bed preparation and planting 20 man days supervision and to operate drip and fertigation unit (2hrs a day) 60 man days spraying of pp chemicals @ 2 hr/ 15 day/year=6 man days intercultural operationsweeding, h ar vest i n g, fil l i ng of m edi a , harvesting of flowers and packing of flowers harvested in first year. 2 labour/15 days for 10 months is 40 man days 2. fertilizers and plant protection chemicals 3. irrigation 4. harvesting and packing total maintenance cost i year total return during i year maintenance cost i year total establishment cost variable cost 1. labour @ rs.450/day a. supervision and to operate drip and fertigation unit (2hrs a day) 40 man days total cost 4,000,00.00 4,90,000.00 50,000.00 9,40,000.00 9,000.00 27,000.00 2700.00 18,000.00 30,492.00 5000.00 10000.00 1,02,192.00 15000 x 4 = 60,000.00 rs.42,192.00 rs.9,82,192.00 18,000.00 amortized cost 26,600.00 1,22,500.00 12,500.00 1,61,600.00 rs.10,548.00 1,72,148.00 (rs./year) with drip and ventury system 80 % area is the actual planting area after excluding paths and hockey (20 %) apportioned for 4 years polyhouse-15 yrs plants-4 yrs 3 flowers/plant after six months and sold @ rs. 4/ flower for c grade flower apportioned for 4 years iii. cost of cultivation of anthurium under nvph polyhouse ii year onwards nataraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-74, 2019 77 b. spraying of pp chemicals @ 2 hr/ 15 day/year=6 man days c. intercultural operationsweeding, h ar vest i n g, fil l i ng of m edi a , harvesting of flowers and packing of flowers harvested in first year. 3 labour/15 days for 10 months is 50 man days 2. inputs a. fertilizers and plant protection chemicals b. irrigation c. packing material and transportation interest on vc @11 % total variable cost 3. fixed cost a. int erest on fi xed investment @11% b. amortization cost /year c. depreciation on equipments – sprayer and tools total fc total cost of cultivation 2700.00 22,500.00 52,500.00 5000.00 30,000.00 rs.14,377.00 rs.1,30,700.00 1,08,041.00 1,72,148.00 1650.00 rs.2,81,839.00 rs.4,12,539.00 performance of anthurium in hills j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 69-74, 2019 78 references prakash, d., sujatha, k. and sangma 2006.anthurium. in: advan. orn. hort. 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(ms received 12 september 2017, revised 06 november 2018, accepted 30 march 2019) nataraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 34(1) : 69-74, 2018 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 209 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction black spot, caused by diplocarpon rosae is the major destructive a nd dominant disease among different fungal diseases in rose. owing to the demand and popularity of roses in current flower trade and landscape gardening, breeding for the resistant varieties or developing the varieties that require less care in terms of management against the destructive diseases is the need of the hour. plants protect themselves through various means of defenses through accumulation of several defense related biochemical compounds following infection by pathogens. reactive oxygen species (ros) that are produced as initial cellular responses following s u cc es sf u l pa t hogen r ec ognit ion ( ashr y a nd mohamed, 2011) have major roles in cell signaling a nd t hes e a r e t he s econda r y mes s enger s f or a ctiva tion of genes tha t encode for pr otective proteins (lamb and dixon, 1997 and mendoza, 2011). however, the increased ros production causes cellular damage through peroxidation of membrane fatty acids (lamb and dixon, 1997) and plants defend against this with up regulation of antioxidant enzymes like superoxide dismutase (sod), catalase (cat) a nd peroxida se (pox) (mittler et al. , 2004). phenolics a r e toxic to microbes in nature and increase the physical and mechanica l str ength of the host cell wa ll. t he oxidation of these toxic phenolic compounds by polyphenol oxida se (ppo) pr oduces quinones (antimicrobial compounds) that are highly toxic to invading fungi thereby offering resistance against a wide range of pathogens (cahill and mccomb, 1992). phenylalanine ammonia lyase (pal), one of the key enzymes in the phenyl propanoid pathway, has a role in synthesis of phytoalexin and salicylic acid. increase in the pal activity subsequently increases the phenolic contents offering disease resistance to plants (klessig and malamy, 1994). biochemical characterization of defense responses in rose genotypes in response to artificial inoculation with black spot pathogen diplocarpon rosae saidulu y.1*, tejaswini p., upreti k.k.2, sriram s.2, seetharamu g.k.1, devappa v.1 and mythili j.b.2 1college of horticulture, bengaluru-65, university of horticultural sciences, bagalkote, karnataka, 587 104, india. 2 icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru, karnataka, 560 089, india. *corresponding author email : saidulugowd08@gmail.com abstract resistance responses in the leaves of eight rose genotypes, knock out (highly resistant), arka nishkant (moderately resistant), r. multiflora (highly susceptible), arka swadesh (highly susceptible), iihrr 13-4 (susceptible), arka parimala (susceptible), r. indica (susceptible) and iihrr 4-15-12 (moderately susceptible), exhibiting varied levels of resistance against black spot were investigated post artificial inoculation with black spot pathogen, diplocarpon rosae. there was consistent increase in the activities of defense related enzymes such as catalase, peroxidase, polyphenol oxidase, superoxide dismutase and phenylalanine ammonia lyase and other defense related secondary metabolites like phenols and flavonoids at different phases of black spot progression and increase was high in resistant genotypes knock out and arka nishkant. the peak activity of defense enzymes and high concentration of other metabolites was witnessed during early stages of infection in the resistant genotypes while it was during later phase in the susceptible genotypes. these results suggested that the faster and stronger activation of defense system is associated with the resistance against black spot in the rose genotypes. keywords: artificial inoculation, diplocarpon rosae, enzymes, flavonoids, phenols, resistance and rose 210 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 understanding of plant resistance mechanism against pathogens at various levels provides new opportunities to breed improved cultivars with better resistance to the diseases. there were not many studies in this line on black spot disease infection in rose. thus, the study was conducted to investigate the role of various defense related enzymes and compounds at different progression periods post infection by black spot pathogen in different rose genotypes possessing differential resistance. material and methods location and climate of experimental site the present investigation was carried out during 2016 at icar-iihr, bengaluru, which is geographically located at 130 58’ n latitude, 780 e longitude and at an elevation of 890 m above mean sea level with an average annual rainfall of about 890 mm. plant material the rose genotypes evaluated in the present study were part of rose breeding program at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru. a total of eight rose genotypes were used for the study in completely randamized design (crd). the plants were provided with all inputs as per the package of practices for rose cultivation except for fungicidal sprays during the period of investigation. young and healthy leaves from 4th to 6th node from apex of the shoot were collected (dong, 2014) ran damly from three plants of the selectedfrom the selected genotypes viz., r. multiflora (highly susceptible), ar ka swa desh (highly susceptible), iihrr 13-4 (susceptible), arka parimala (susceptible), r. indica (susceptible), iihrr 4-15-12 (moderately susceptible), arka nishkant (moderately resistant) and knock out (highly resistant) in three replications. the collected leaves were cleaned with deionized sterile water and wiped with sterile tissue paper. preparation of conidia suspension rose leaves, severely infected with black spot, preferably with yellow halo around the spots were collected and surface cleaned with sterile tissue paper. later, the infected leaf portions were cut and submerged in deionized sterile distilled water in the sterile tubes. the tubes were kept in orbital shaker for one minute after adding two drops of tween2 0 . t he s u s p ens ion wa s f ilt er ed a nd t he concentration of conidia in the filtrate was adjusted t o 2 × 1 0 4 c oni dia / ml ( l e u s , 2 0 0 5 ) u s ing ha emoc yt ome t er. t his f ilt r a t e w a s u s ed f or inoculation of leaves. the spores from pure culture of the pathogen maintained on detached leaves was used for further inoculation of healthy leaves in the present study. artificial inoculation of leaves the inoculation of excised leaves with d. rosae was performed as described by debener et al. (1998). the cleaned healthy leaves were placed on moist blotting paper, with their petioles wrapped in moist cotton plugs in glass petri plates to maintain 100 per cent humidity. on each leaflet surface, 4-6 dr op lets of 10µ l c onidia l suspension (2 ×10 4 conidia/ml) was pipetted out in laminar air flow to avoid contamination. the inoculated leaves were then incubated at ~25ºc under 10 h photoperiod for two weeks (dong, 2014). enzyme assays: the infected and control leaves were analyzed for the activities of following defense related biochemical compounds on every third day i.e., on 0, 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 days after inoculation (dai). pox activity (ec 1.11.1.7) (enzyme units/ g fresh weight -eu/g fw): the pox activity was determined by following same method described by chander (1990) and enzyme activity was expressed as enzyme units g/ fw. ppo activity (ec 1.10.3.1) (eu/g fw): the ppo activity was determined following the method of selvaraj and kumar (1989) without any modifications and the enzyme activity was expressed as eu/g fw. cat activity (ec 1.11.1.6) (eu/mg fw): the cat activity was determined by following the same procedure as per masia (1998) and activity was expressed as eu/mg fw. pal activity (ec 4.3.1.24) (eu/g fw): the pal activity was estimated as per the same procedure followed by hodgins (1971) and activity wa s expressed as eu/g fw. sod activity (ec 1.15.1.1) (eu/mg fw): the sod activity was estimated as per the same procedure followed by du and bramlage (1994) and activity was expressed as eu/mg fw. saidulu et al 211 total phenols (mg/ g fresh weight): total phenol content was estimated by same procedure followed by singleton and rossi (1965) by spectrophotometric method using folin-ciocalteau’s phenol reagent (fcr) and the phenol content was expressed as mg/g fw. total flavonoids (mg/ g fresh weight): total flavonoid content was estimated by the spectrophotometric method using same procedure as followed by chun et al. (2003) and total flavonoid content was expressed as mg/g fw. results and discussion a) pox activity analysis of data revealed that pox activity increased significantly in inoculated leaves of all genotypes after infection with the pathogen (fig s1, s2). among the inoculated leaves (i2) of all genotypes, highest peroxidase activity (1.84 eu/ g fw) was observed in highly resistant variety knock out, on 6th day after inoculation (g8d3) which was almost 1.4 times to the maximum a ctivity found in highly susceptible genotype, r. multiflora (1.29 eu/ g fw) that was observed on 9th day after inoculation (g1d4) (table 1). in the va r iety ar ka nishka nt, which wa s moderately resistant, peak enzyme activity was observed (1.76 eu/ g fw) on 12th day (g7d5). no significant changes in enzyme activity were found in un-inoculated leaves (i1) of all genotypes during entire observation period (fig. s1, s2) (data not presented). peroxidase is involved in biosynthesis of lignin and other oxidized phenols (bruce and west, 1989). peroxidase mediates the oxidation of phenols to oxidized phenols that are highly toxic to the pathogen (sequeira, 1983). thus, the increased activity of peroxidase in infected tissues contributes to resistance by inhibiting the pathogen growth. in the present study, resistant genotypes have recorded quick and high peroxidase activity compared to susceptible ones. due to the increased activity of peroxidase at early stages of infection, the pathogen growth was hindered and thus offered resistance against black spot. similar increased activity of peroxidase in resistant genotypes in response to pathogen infection has been reported in fusarium infection in melon (hanifei et al., 2013), botrytis infection in faba bean (el-komy, 2014) and brown rust infection in wheat (riaz et al., 2014). b) ppo activity ppo activity increased in inoculated leaves of all genotypes in response to the pathogen inoculation (fig. s3, s4). at a given time period on 3rd (d2) and 6th (d3), highest ppo activity (2.62 eu/ g fw and 3.13 eu/ g fw respectively) was found in highly resistant variety knock out (g8d2 and g8d3) respectively) whereas the lowest activity (0.85 eu/ g fw and 1.84 table 1. pox activity (eu/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) of rose genotypes (g) at different intervals after inoculation (d) pox activity (eu/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves sl.no. genotypes (g) (i2) at different days interval after inoculation (d) day 0 day 3 day 6 day 9 day 12 day 15 (d1) (d2) (d3) (d4) (d5) (d6) 1 r. multiflora (g1) 0.47 0.68 1.22 1.29 1.18 0.71 2 arka swadesh (g2) 0.38 0.69 1.25 1.38 1.23 0.8 3 iihrr 13-4 (g3) 0.46 0.71 1.3 1.38 1.22 1.02 4 arka parimala (g4) 0.55 0.93 1.32 1.56 1.39 1.04 5 r. indica (g5) 0.47 1.01 1.44 1.52 1.62 1.65 6 iihrr 4-15-12 (g6) 0.49 0.78 1.31 1.7 1.59 1.65 7 arka nishkant (g7) 0.44 1.48 1.69 1.68 1.76 1.71 8 knockout (g8) 0.46 1.81 1.84 1.74 1.71 1.64 s.em ± 0.06 c.d. @ 5% 0.18 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 biochemical changes in rose genotypes in respons to black spot 212 eu/ g fw respectively) was recorded in highly susceptible genotype r. multiflora (g1d2 and g1d3 respectively) (table 2). this revealed that the enzyme activity in resistant genotype increased immediately in response to the pathogen infection whereas the enzyme a ctivity increased slowly a nd gr adua lly in the susceptible genotype. among all genotypes, highest activity of ppo in inoculated leaves (i2) (3.64 eu/ g fw) was recorded in moderately resistant genotype arka nishkant on 9th day after inoculation (g7d4). no significant changes in enzyme activities were found in un-inoculated leaves (i1) of all genotypes during entire observation period (fig. s3, s4) (data not presented). ppo catalyzes the oxidation of phenols released due to membrane damage (siddique et al., 2014) during microbial invasion into oxidized phenols i.e., quinones that are more reactive and highly toxic (batsa, 2004) which creates toxic environment for pathogen development (jockusch, 1966 and mohamed et al., 2012). thus increase in ppo activity is associated with resistance. in present study, ppo activity increased quickly with pathogen inoculation in resistant genotypes wher ea s the incr ea se in susceptible genotypes was slow and less. this early increase in activity of ppo in resistant genotypes inhibited the fungal growth and thereby contributed for resistance in resistant genotype. these results are in conformity with the findings of khatun et al. (2009) who reported increased activity of ppo in black spot (alternaria tenuis) infected resistant rose leaf tissues during progression of disease. highest activity of ppo was also reported in fusarium infected resistant melon genotypes compared to susceptible ones (hanifei et al., 2013). c) cat activity the inoculated lea ves of all genotypes showed significantly higher levels of cat activity during the period of observation than those of un-inoculated controls (fig. s5, s6). in highly resistant genotype knock out, the cat activity increased sharply and reached its peak (19.83 eu/ mg fw) on 12th day after inoculation (g8d5), whereas in r. multiflora which was highly susceptible, the cat activity increased comparatively at a slower pace and reached its peak (8.71 eu/ mg fw) on 9th day (g1d4), followed by a decrease by 15th day (7.15 eu/ mg fw) (g1d6). when the cat activity of all genotypes was compared on third day (d2) immediately after pathogen inoculation, the highest activity (16.06 eu/ mg fw) was observed in highly r esistant genotype knock out (g 8d2) whereas lowest activity (7.64 eu/ mg fw) was found in arka swadesh (g2d2) which was highly susceptible to the disease. no significant changes were detected in control leaves (i1) throughout the observation period (fig. s5, s6) (data not presented). cat is one of the important h2o2 scavenging enzymes that eliminate the toxic effects of h2o2 through a mechanism known as halliwell–asada–foyer pathway j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 saidulu et al table 2. ppo activity (eu/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) of rose genotypes (g) at different intervals after inoculation (d) ppo activity (eu/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves sl.no. genotypes (g) (i2) at different days interval after inoculation (d) day 0 day 3 day 6 day 9 day 12 day 15 (d1) (d2) (d3) (d4) (d5) (d6) 1 r. multiflora (g1) 0.59 0.85 1.84 2.65 2.45 2.19 2 arka swadesh (g2) 0.53 0.99 2.05 2.82 2.68 2.35 3 iihrr 13-4 (g3) 0.57 1.02 2.16 2.30 2.52 2.44 4 arka parimala (g4) 0.57 1.53 2.41 3.09 3.24 3.33 5 r. indica (g5) 0.69 1.13 2.32 2.88 2.60 2.46 6 iihrr 4-15-12 (g6) 0.74 2.11 2.82 3.35 3.47 3.54 7 arka nishkant (g7) 0.74 2.27 2.94 3.64 3.44 3.40 8 knockout (g8) 0.70 2.62 3.13 3.29 3.39 3.42 s.em ± 0.07 c.d. @ 5% 0.18 213 (hanifei et al., 2013). it protects the plant cells from oxidative damage caused by ros (gill and tuteja, 2010). the results of present study revealed that inocula ted lea ves of a ll genotypes showed sig­nificantly higher levels of cat activity than those of un-inoculated controls. in inoculated leaves of both resistant and susceptible genotypes, the cat activity increased during the progress of infection. however, induced levels of cat were significantly higher during progression of infection in the inoculated leaves of resistant genotypes compared to those of susceptible genotypes. these differences in cat activity in present study suggested that the low enzyme activity in susceptible genotypes made them less efficient in reducing the high levels of h2o2 produced during d. rosae infection. these results are in agreement with the findings of el-komy (2014) who r epor ted increased activity of cat in resistant genotypes over susceptible ones after inoculation with chocolate spot pathogen of faba bean. mandal et al. (2008) have also r epor ted tha t a less efficient enzyma tic ros scavenging system, mainly a decrease in cat activity caused high level of damage caused by f. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, in tomato. (el-komy, 2014). d) pal activity the inoculated lea ves of all genotypes showed significantly higher levels of pal activity than those of un-inoculated controls (fig s7, s8). pal activity changed significantly in inoculated leaves (i2) of all genotypes with progression of time after inoculation. in inoculated leaves of all genotypes, pal activity increased in response to pathogen infection and reached peak by 9th day in all genotypes except in highly resistant variety knock out where the peak activity was observed on 6th day itself. further, the enzyme activity got decreased slightly by 15th day in all genotypes after reaching peak (fig. s7). in highly resistant variety knock out, maximum activity that was recorded on 6th day was 2.95 eu/ g fw (g8d3) whereas in r. multiflora which was highly susceptible, peak pal activity was recorded as 1.48 eu/ g fw (g1d4) which was observed on 9 th day. no significant changes were detected in control leaves (data not pr esented) thr oughout the obser va tion per iod (fig. s7, s8). pal is primary enzyme in the phenylpropanoid metabolism and plays a significant role in the synthesis of several defense-related secondary compounds such j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 biochemical changes in rose genotypes in respons to black spot as phenols and lignin (hemm et al. 2004; tahsili et al. 2014). the activation of pal and subsequent increase in phenolic content in plants is a general response associated with disease resistance (siddique et al. 2014). results of present study revealed that pal activity was high in resistant genotype compared to susceptible genotypes. this increased activity of pal in r esista nt genotypes have lea d to mor e production of defense related secondary compounds which conferred protection against disease. the increased activity of pal in defense against fungal pathogens in resistant genotypes was also reported in case of brown rust interactions in wheat (riaz et al., 2014) e) sod activity the sod activity changed significantly in inoculated leaves of all genotypes with progression in days after inoculation (fig s9, s10). at a given time period on third day (d2) immediately after inoculation, highest sod activity (2.99 eu/ mg fw) was found in moderately resistant genotype arka nishkant (g7d2) wher e the lowest a ctivity (1. 50 eu/ mg fw respectively) was recorded in highly susceptible genotype r. multiflora (g1d2). the highly resistant genotype knock out (g8) recorded sod activity equivalent to 2.91 eu/ mg fw on third day (g8d2). on sixth day (d3) after inoculation, highest sod activity among all genotypes (3.76 eu/ mg fw) was found in highly resistant genotype knock out (g8d3) where the lowest activity (2.08 eu/ mg fw) was recorded in highly susceptible genotype r. multiflora (g1d3). this revealed that the enzyme activity in resistant genotype increased immediately in response to the pathogen infection whereas the enzyme activity increased gradually at a slower pace in susceptible genotype. the sod activity in highly r esistant genotype knock out reached its peak on 6th day (3.76 eu/ mg fw) (g8d3) after inoculation and thereafter decreased by 15th day (2.21 eu/ mg fw) (g8d6) whereas in highly susceptible genotype r. multiflora, the activity remained increasing throughout the observation period and reached peak on 15th day (2.60 eu/ mg fw) (g1d6). no significant changes in enzyme activity were detected in control leaves throughout the observation period (fig s9, s10) (data not presented). sod is one of the important reactive oxygen species scavenging enzymes which catalyzes the dismutation of superoxide anion radicals (o2-) into h2o2 and o2 214 (smirnoff, 1993; khan and panda, 2008). h 2o2 generation in infected plants is considered one of the important defense strategies of plants against the invading necrotrophic pathogen (hanifei et al., 2013). results of present study revealed that increased sod activity was observed in both resistant and susceptible genotypes but the increase was more and quick in resistant ones, in response to pathogen inoculation. in case of susceptible genotypes, though there was increase in enzyme activity, it may not be adequate and quick enough to counter pathogen development, making them susceptible to the disease. similar results of higher sod activity in resistant cultivar over susceptible cultivar, after pathogen inoculation were reported in case of chocolate spot disease of faba bean (el-komy, 2014) and mycosphaerella fragariae infection in strawberry (ehsani-moghaddam et al. 2006). f) total phenols the inoculated lea ves of all genotypes showed significantly higher levels of total phenols during t he p er iod of ob ser va t ion t ha n t hose of u ninoculated controls (fig s11, s12). in inoculated leaves (i2) of all genotypes, total phenols changed significantly with progression in time period after inocula tion a nd reached their peak on 9th day inoculation (d4) and thereby decreased by 15th day (d6) (table 6). in highly resistant genotype knock out, the total phenols increased sharply and reached peak (81.94 mg/g fw) on 9th day (g8d4) whereas in r. multiflora which was highly susceptible, total phenols increased comparatively at a slower rate and reached its peak (49.84 mg/g fw) on 9th day (g 1d4). when the tota l phenols content of all genot yp es wa s c omp a r ed on t hi r d da y ( d 2 ) immediately after pathogen inoculation, highest accumulation (71.94mg/g fw) was observed in highly r es is ta nt genotype k nock o ut ( g 8 d 2 ) whereas lowest accumulation (31.59 mg/g fw) was found in iihrr 13-4 (g3d2) which was susceptible to the disease. no significant changes in enzyme activity were detected in control leaves throughout the observation period (fig s11& s12) (data not presented). phenols enhance the mechanical strength of host cell walls by synthesis of lignin and suberin which are involved in the formation of physical barriers that can block the spread of pathogens (ngadze et al. 2012; singh et al. 2014). further, khatun et al., 2009 reported that the phenols are fungitoxic in nature. in the present study, the amount of total phenols was significantly higher in inoculated leaves of resistant genotypes, while it wa s significa ntly lower in susceptible genotypes. thus, high accumulation of phenols in resistant genotypes may be playing role in eliciting resistance response against black spot pathogen. the increased phenolic content in resistant genotypes after pathogen inoculation was also reported in case of chocolate spot disease of faba bean (elkomy, 2014) and in cotton interaction with cotton leaf curl burewala virus (siddique et al., 2014). g) total flavonoids the results revealed that inoculated leaves of all genotypes showed significantly higher levels of total flavonoids during the period of observation than those of un-inoculated controls (fig. s13, s14). total flavonoids changed significantly in inoculated leaves (i2) of all genotypes with increase in number of days after inoculation and showing their peak on 9th day after inoculation (d4) and further decreased by 15th day (d6) (ta ble 7). in highly r esista nt knock out genotype, total flavonoids increased sharply and reached peak (35.11 mg/g fw) on 9th da y a f t er ino c u la t ion ( g 8 d 4) wher e a s in r . multiflora which was highly susceptible, total flavonoids increased comparatively at a slower rate and reached peak (18.33 mg/g fw) on 9 th day (g1d4). when the total flavonoids of all genotypes were compared on third day (d2) immediately after pathogen inoculation, highest accumulation (28.73 mg/ g f w ) wa s obs er ved in highly r esis t a nt genotyp e k noc k o ut (g 8 d 2 ) wher ea s lowes t a ccumula tion (10. 57 mg/g fw) wa s found in iihrr 13-4 (g3d2) which is susceptible to the disease. no significant changes were detected in control leaves throughout the observation period (fig. s13, s14) (data not presented). flavonoids are very important in plant resistance against pathogenic bacteria and fungi. antipathogenic properties of flavonoids can be non-specific in nature and partly could be the result of their antioxidative properties. flavonoid compounds are transported to the site of infection and induce the hypersensitivity reaction, which is the earliest defense mechanism employed by the infected plants and programmed cell death (mierziak et al., 2014) thus restrict the spread j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 saidulu et al 215 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 biochemical changes in rose genotypes in respons to black spot pal activity (eu/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) sl.no. genotypes (g) at different days interval after inoculation (d) day 0 day 3 day 6 day 9 day 12 day 15 (d1) (d2) (d3) (d4) (d5) (d6) 1 r. multiflora (g1) 0.60 0.86 1.36 1.48 1.41 1.33 2 arka swadesh (g2) 0.71 1.18 1.51 1.80 1.68 1.48 3 iihrr 13-4 (g3) 0.88 1.41 1.60 1.91 1.73 1.46 4 arka parimala (g4) 0.85 1.51 1.79 2.07 1.98 1.68 5 r. indica (g5) 0.85 1.40 1.76 1.86 1.70 1.59 6 iihrr 4-15-12 (g6) 0.57 1.87 2.03 2.22 2.14 2.10 7 arka nishkant (g7) 0.63 1.94 2.25 2.36 2.24 2.21 8 knockout (g8) 0.69 2.48 2.95 2.91 2.71 2.51 s.em ± 0.02 c.d. @ 5% 0.06 table 4. pal activity (eu/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) of rose genotypes (g) at different intervals after inoculation (d) table 3. cat activity (eu/mg fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) of rose genotypes (g) at different intervals after inoculation (d) cat activity (eu/mg fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) sl.no. genotypes (g) at different days interval after inoculation (d) day 0 day 3 day 6 day 9 day 12 day 15 (d1) (d2) (d3) (d4) (d5) (d6) 1 r. multiflora (g1) 6.78 8.10 8.10 8.71 7.73 7.15 2 arka swadesh (g2) 5.08 7.64 9.65 10.71 9.44 8.91 3 iihrr 13-4 (g3) 5.38 8.65 7.87 6.54 5.68 5.88 4 arka parimala (g4) 6.60 9.40 10.18 10.63 9.61 8.70 5 r. indica (g5) 5.58 9.83 8.39 7.65 6.10 5.83 6 iihrr 4-15-12 (g6) 6.69 12.08 15.02 16.77 17.44 18.28 7 arka nishkant (g7) 6.55 13.12 16.27 17.86 18.88 17.39 8 knockout (g8) 4.50 16.06 18.01 18.48 19.83 17.21 s.em ± 0.18 c.d. @ 5% 0.51 216 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 saidulu et al table 5. sod activity (eu/mg fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) of rose genotypes (g) at different intervals after inoculation (d) sod activity (eu/mg fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) sl.no. genotypes (g) at different days interval after inoculation (d) day 0 day 3 day 6 day 9 day 12 day 15 (d1) (d2) (d3) (d4) (d5) (d6) 1 r. multiflora (g1) 1.18 1.50 2.08 2.31 2.41 2.60 2 arka swadesh (g2) 1.20 1.75 2.35 2.27 2.08 1.62 3 iihrr 13-4 (g3) 1.23 1.86 2.44 2.53 2.60 2.57 4 arka parimala (g4) 1.18 1.97 2.53 2.76 2.59 2.63 5 r. indica (g5) 1.09 2.02 2.67 2.82 2.81 2.68 6 iihrr 4-15-12 (g6) 1.32 2.80 3.30 3.48 3.55 3.58 7 arka nishkant (g7) 1.17 2.99 3.42 3.60 3.30 3.43 8 knockout (g8) 1.19 2.91 3.76 3.10 2.61 2.21 s.em ± 0.03 c.d. @ 5% 0.07 table 6. total phenols (mg/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) of rose genotypes (g) at different intervals after inoculation (d) total phenols (mg/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) sl.no. genotypes (g) at different days interval after inoculation (d) day 0 day 3 day 6 day 9 day 12 day 15 (d1) (d2) (d3) (d4) (d5) (d6) 1 r. multiflora (g1) 35.78 42.27 47.07 49.84 45.72 39.14 2 arka swadesh (g2) 28.45 36.40 40.48 43.36 41.33 36.17 3 iihrr 13-4 (g3) 26.84 31.59 37.27 46.66 41.25 37.03 4 arka parimala (g4) 34.31 44.79 52.81 56.63 51.49 45.72 5 r. indica (g5) 28.38 41.27 46.46 52.84 49.78 41.42 6 iihrr 4-15-12 (g6) 35.20 54.72 67.07 74.04 68.35 57.41 7 arka nishkant (g7) 26.99 54.27 58.09 62.84 59.61 49.93 8 knockout (g8) 33.15 71.94 76.77 81.94 71.11 65.91 s.em ± 0.66 c.d. @ 5% 1.84 217 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 biochemical changes in rose genotypes in respons to black spot of pathogen. in the present study, the amount of total flavonoids was significantly higher in inoculated leaves of resistant genotypes, while it was significantly lower in susceptible genotypes. this high accumulation of fla vonoids in r esista nt genotypes might ha ve contributed for the resistance. resistance against the fungal infection due to increased accumulation of flavonoids in leaves was also reported in interaction of cedar-apple rust pathogen and apple trees (lu et al., 2017). conclusion the changes in activity of defense related enzymes like cat, pox, ppo, sod and pal and accumulation of plant defense related secondary compounds like phenols and flavonoids were distinguished clearly in inoculated leaves compared to un-inoculated leaves. further, the trend of either increase or decrease in activity of defense related biochemical c omp ou nds wa s mor e p r ominent a nd va r ied significantly among the studied genotypes with progression in time period of black spot disease. all studied defense related biochemical compounds increased drastically faster in higher quantities in r es ist a nt genot yp es compa r ed to su sc ept ible genotypes during disease progression contributing for resistance. table 7. total flavonoids (mg/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) of rose genotypes (g) at different intervals after inoculation (d) total flavonoids (mg/g fw) in d. rosae inoculated leaves (i2) sl.no. genotypes (g) at different days interval after inoculation (d) day 0 day 3 day 6 day 9 day 12 day 15 (d1) (d2) (d3) (d4) (d5) (d6) 1 r. multiflora (g1) 11.86 14.48 17.10 18.33 17.62 15.41 2 arka swadesh (g2) 7.45 12.93 14.11 16.34 14.19 12.96 3 iihrr 13-4 (g3) 4.46 10.57 14.46 15.36 12.82 11.11 4 arka parimala (g4) 13.92 20.73 24.89 26.38 24.91 19.48 5 r. indica (g5) 10.85 18.81 24.63 27.45 24.12 19.41 6 iihrr 4-15-12 (g6) 13.13 22.87 27.10 29.55 28.89 21.14 7 arka nishkant (g7) 4.60 18.45 21.57 23.85 20.94 18.85 8 knockout (g8) 12.38 28.73 32.63 35.11 29.54 19.95 s.em ± 0.25 c.d. @ 5% 0.68 references ashry, n.a and mohamed, h.i., 2011, impact of secondary metabolites and related 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graminearum. j. plant. interact., 9: 412–417. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 209-219, 2022 biochemical changes in rose genotypes in respons to black spot (received:14.07.2021; revised: 17.02.202; accepted: 15.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 screening wild and cultivated cucurbits against root knot nematode to exploit as rootstocks for grafting in cucumber c. thangamani*1, l. pugalendhi2 and v. punithaveni3 1horticultural research station, kodaikanal, tnau, india 2tapioca and castor research station, yethapur, tnau, india 3department of vegetable crops, horticultural college & research institute, tnau, coimbatore, india. *e-mail: thangamani.sk@gmail.com abstract yield of mono-cropped cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) is reduced by root knot nematode (meloidogyne incognita kofoid and white). use of resistant rootstocks in grafting may overcome the problem. cucurbitaceous species were screened against root knot nematode to evaluate their use as rootstocks in grafting. inoculation was with nematodes @ 2 j2·g -1 (j2 = second stage juvenile) of soil in pot culture at the 1 to 2 true leaf stage, 45 days after inoculation, plants were uprooted and observations made to calculate root knot nematode index (rki). cucurbita moschata, cucumis metuliferus, citrullus colocynthis and cucumis callosus were resistant having a rki-2. cucurbita ficifolia, cucurbita maxima, cucumis melo sub sp. agrestis were moderately resistant with a rki-3. total phenols content in roots indicates plant resistance to m. incognita. cucumis metuliferus had the highest mean total phenols content (16.98 mg·g1 of root) followed by citrullus colocynthis (16.08 mg·g-1 of root) and cucurbita moschata (15.37mg·g-1 of root). resistant rootstocks possessed higher peroxidase and ppo activity than susceptible ones. cucumis metuliferus had the highest value of peroxidase and ppo activity (3.83 od·min-1·g-1 of root and 3.67 od·min-1·g-1 of root) followed by citrullus colocynthis (3.26 and 3.63 od·min-1·g-1 of root), cucumis callosus (3.02 and 2.98 od·min-1·g-1 of root) and cucurbita moschata (2.93 and 2.94 od·min-1·g-1 of root). cucumber scions, ‘green long’ and ‘ns 408’ had lower peroxidase and ppo activity of 0.64 and 1.42 od·min-1·g-1 and 0.57 and 1.31 od·min1·g-1 of root, respectively. resistant and moderately resistant cucurbitaceous species may be used for further studies possibly leading to improved yield. keywords: meloidogyne incognita root knot nematode index phenols – peroxidase ppo original research paper introduction cultivation of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) is impaired and yield reductions occur due to the root knot nematode (meloidogyne incognita kofoid and white). the nematode damages plants by direct feeding from induced large galls throughout the root system of infected plants and alters uptake of water and nutrients, interfering with translocation of photosynthates. the nematode spends most of their active life within plant roots. the infestation stage is the second-stage juvenile (j2), which penetrates the root and migrates to the vascular tissue to establish a permanent feeding site (williamson and hussey, 1996). incidence of m. incognita can result in a 25% annual yield loss in field grown cucumber (anwar and mckenry, 2012). control of root-knot nematodes in cucumber with soil fumigants or other nematicides, is becoming more difficult, because of increased cost of chemicals and high toxicity of the chemicals to nearly all living organisms. the degree of resistance due to these chemicals is not acceptable. alternative approaches for managing this problem in cucumber are necessary. grafting is a technique using resistant root stocks to mitigate root knot nematode incidence. wild cucumis species and other cucurbitaceous root stocks provide a broad base for grafting. initial screening studies of root stocks for root knot nematode resistance or tolerance could help in root stock selection. inducible defense against nematodes includes accumulation of peroxidase (ibrahim, 1991) and polyphenol oxidase 32 33 (zacheo and zacheo, 1995). biochemical responses during invasion supports this mechanism which occurs due to non-cooperative action of host tissue or cells. chemical inhibitors in host tissue counteract, or neutralize giant cell inducing effects of nematode salivary secretions (barons, 1939). this study was undertaken to evaluate root stocks for their resistance to root knot nematode. material and methods wild and cultivated cucurbitaceous species rootstocks viz., cucurbita ficifolia (fig leaf gourd), cucurbita moschata (pumpkin), cucurbita maxima (winter squash), cucumis metuliferus (african horned cucumber), citrullus colocynthis (colocynth), cucurbita pepo (summer squash), luffa cylindrica (sponge gourd), lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd), cucumis callosus, cucumis melo sub sp. agrestis, cucumis melo va r. momordica (sna p melon), cucumis melo var. utilissimus (long melon) and the cucumber scions ‘ns 408’ and ‘green long’ were screened for resistance to root knot nematode in pot culture. the experiments were carried out during 201314 at the nematology glass house, college orchard, ta mil na du agr icultur e univer sity (t nau), coimbatore in a randomized block design. samples of root bearing galls, with their rhizospheric soils, were collected from experimental plots of the department of nematology, tnau. isolation of m. incognita was with cobb’s sieving and decanting method followed by a modified baermann funnel technique (cobb, 1918; schindler, 1961). the identity of m. incognita was confirmed taxonomically. highly susceptible tomato (solanum lycopersicum l) and cucumber plants were used for developing pure cultures of m. incognita. the plants were maintained in pots filled with a steam sterilized loamy soil mixed with fine river sand. plants were inoculated with 2-3 j2 stage g -1 soil of m. incognita race 3 per pot. rootstocks and scions were initially grown in protrays and 15-day old healthy seedlings transplanted in to plastic pots with 13.73 cm bottom dia, 17.5 cm height and 20 cm top dia containing 5.0 kg of sterilized pot mixture of red soil:sand:cow manure, 2:2:1 ratio. there were 3 replications for each cultivar. initially 300 ml of water used to irrigate pots on alternate days. after establishment of seedlings irrigation was at 3 to 4 day intervals. no chemical fertilizers were applied. to control foliage pests, neem oil @ 3 % was applied twice at biweekly intervals.the method suggested by sasser et al. (1957) was used to inoculate plants with nematodes. infested roots from pure culture were cut into pieces about 2 cm long and placed in 0.5% sodium hypochlorite (naocl) solution. the container was shaken for about 3 min to dissolve the gelatinous matrix freeing eggs from the egg mass and incubated for 48 hr under room temperature. the eggs were kept in petri dishes and an aerator used to enable hatching. the inoculum concentration was adjusted to a known number by addition of water, by taking a known quantity (1 ml) after shaking and the population counted under a stereoscopic microscope. the nematode inoculum (2 j2 g -1 of soil) was placed at a 2 cm depth in the rhizosphere region of soil and covered with sterile sand at 15 days after planting. plants were uprooted at 45 days after inoculation and washed in a gentle stream of water. shoot and root length, fresh and dry weights, and root dry weights measured. dry weight was determined after drying tissues in a forced air oven at 60°c for 72 hrs. from fresh root samples, numbers of galls/10 g of root, egg masses and females·g-1 of root were counted under a stereoscopic microscope after staining with acid fuchsin lactophenol. degree of resistance was assessed as indicated by the root knot index as per the method developed by heald et al. (1989). total phenols, peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase were estimated in plants. recently matured physically active roots of 5 randomly selected plants after inoculation were used for analysis. root samples obtained at 0, 24, 48, 72, 96, 120 hrs were homogenized in a chilled pestle and mortar for enzyme extraction. the folin-ciocalteau reagent method was used to estimate total phenols (bray and thrope, 1954). one-ml of ethanol root extract was placed in a boiling tube to which 1 ml of folin ciocalteau reagent and 2 ml of 20% sodium carbonate were added. the mixture was heated for exactly 1 min in a boiling water bath at 70°c. after cooling, 2 ml of distilled water was added and the blue color development was read at 660 nm in a uv spectrophotometer. peroxidase activity was assayed using the method of srivastava (1987). the reaction mix consisted of 1.5 ml guiacol solution, 100 µml peroxidase enzyme preparations and 100 µl hydrogen peroxidase (h2o2) was prepared for assay. at the start of enzyme reaction, absorbance of the mixture was j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 screening cucumber rootstocks for nematode resistance 34 cucurbitaceous mean shoot mean shoot mean shoot mean root mean root mean root species length fresh weight dry weight length fresh weight dry weight (cm) (g) (g) (cm) (g) (g) rootstocks fig leaf gourd 248.97 49.85 4.72 21.88 1.63 0.23 (cucurbita ficifolia) pumpkin 82.65 42.10 4.46 56.82 3.14 0.50 (cucurbita moschata) winter squash 64.53 44.91 5.03 50.95 3.05 0.36 (cucurbita maxima) african horned cucumber 148.59 19.92 2.23 16.22 0.13 0.01 (cucumis metuliferus) colocynth 74.31 8.47 0.95 22.42 1.32 0.22 (citrullus colocynthis) summer squash 39.92 7.54 0.82 2.98 0.76 0.09 (cucurbita pepo) sponge gourd 88.64 19.88 2.23 39.73 1.13 0.18 (luffa cylindrica) bottle gourd 82.98 31.78 3.56 33.41 2.03 0.31 (lagenaria siceraria) cucumis callosus 92.94 20.81 2.12 12.93 1.71 0.53 cucumis melo 90.82 14.94 1.32 11.04 0.97 0.41 sub sp. agrestis snap melon cucumis 96.57 18.04 2.14 23.27 0.92 0.11 melo var. momordica long meloncucumis 84.02 15.69 1.86 20.24 0.80 0.10 melo var. utilissimus scions cucumis sativus 93.82 15.00 1.68 13.02 0.62 0.07 (hyb.ns 408) cucumis sativus 109.50 22.28 2.49 20.11 0.94 0.12 (var. green long) grand mean 101.70 25.04 2.67 25.98 1.48 0.26 sed 3.23 2.19 0.45 2.30 0.16 0.09 cd (p=0.05) 6.67 4.53 0.94 4.74 0.32 0.19 table 1. reaction of wild and cultivated cucurbitaceous rootstocks and cucumber scions to m. incognita on growth parameters at 45 days after inoculation thangamani et al set to zero at 420 nm and change in absorbance of samples recorded at 30 sec intervals for 3 min. boiled enzyme was the control. polyphenol oxidase activity was assayed by the method of srivastava (1987). a standard reaction mixture contained 1.5 ml of 0.1 m phosphate buffer (ph 6.5), 0.5 ml enzyme preparation and 0.5 ml of 0.01 m catechol was prepared. at the start of the enzyme reaction, the absorbance was set to zero at 495 nm. the change in sample absorbance was recorded at 30 sec intervals for 3 min. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 35 the statistical analysis of the observations recorded was performed according to the method suggested by panse and sukhatme (1985). the data wer e a na lysed in agres sta tistica l pa cka ge (dosbox-0.74) developed by tnau, coimbatore. results and discussion rootstocks and scions responded differently for challenge inoculation with root knot nematode (table 1, 2). the longest shoots (248.97 cm) and highest shoot fresh and dry weights (49.85; 4.72 g) were in fig leaf gourd. the shortest shoot length (39.92cm), and lowest shoot fresh and dry weight (7.54g; 0.82 g) were in summer squash. the cucurbita species viz., pumpkin and winter squash had longer roots (56.82cm; 50.95 cm) and the highest root fresh and dry weights {(3.14g, 0.5 g); (3.05g , 0.36 g)} followed by fig leaf gourd (21.88 cm, 1.63 g , 0.23 g) respectively. this might be due to low nematode reproduction on pumpkin, winter squash and fig leaf gourd roots. tamilselvi (2013) also reported that among the nematode inoculated cucurbits, mean root fresh weight were not reduced due to low nematode reproduction on species like colocynth, african horned cucumber and pumpkin roots. among the two scions, the lowest root fresh and dry weights were in cucumber scion ‘green long’ (0.94 g; 0.12 g). in susceptible species the deformed root system is due to infestation by m. incognita which causes development of giant cells and block age of xylem vessels. this interferes with nutrient uptake and results in impaired plant growth. these findings agree with ploeg and phillips (2001) in melons species and krishnaveni and subramanian (2002) in cucumber where more than 1000 j2 of m. incognita as initial inoculation caused significant reduction in shoot length, root length and shoot weight. all cucurbitaceous species rootstocks and cucumber scions developed characteristic galls caused by r oot knot nema tode (ta ble 2). t her e wer e differences among rootstocks for number of galls, egg masses and females g-1 of root. colocynth had the lowest numbers of galls/10 g of roots (4.69) followed by african horned cucumber (5.24) and the wild cucumis callosus (8. 36) compa r ed to other cucur bita ceous species a nd cucumber scions. however, lesser galls/10 g of roots was observed fig leaf gourd (25.32), winter squash (11.32), cucumis melo sub sp. agrestis (29. 34). nema tode egg production indicated at nematodes completed their life cycle within the roots. numbers of egg masses (1.94) and root knot nematode females (3.85) were the lowest on african horned cucumber followed by colocynth (1.98, 4.81) and cucumis callosus (3.12, 5.44). whereas, reduction in numbers of galls, females and egg-masses were observed in winter squash followed by fig leaf gourd by amin et al. (2012). this may be due to poor host status for the invading parasite (siguenza et al., 2005). in the susceptible species summer squash, cucumber, bottle gourd, long melon and snap melon had higher numbers of galls, eggs and females compared to moderately resistant and resistant species (table 2). the genotypes had variable root knot index (rki) values. lower number of gall as observed in african hor ned cucumber, colocynth, cucumis callosus and pumpkin classified them as resistant to root knot nematode with a rki-2. whereas, lesser galls/10 g of roots was observed fig leaf gourd, winter squash and cucumis melo sub sp. agrestis were classified as moderately resistant with a rki-3. resistance reaction might be due to the presence of nematode resistant gene (hadisoeganda and sasser, 1982; roberts and may, 1986) making plants less attractive to attack by nematodes. the compatible and incompatible reactions might be due to presence of resistant genes, which were activated as a result of nematode invasion (williamson, 1999; davis et al., 2000; williamson and kumar, 2006). plants generally respond to nematode invasion by activation of a series of local and systemic defense mechanisms (trudgill, 1995). phenolic compounds in nematode injured areas accumulate and associated oxidative enzymes are activated (balasubramanian and purushothaman, 1972). significant difference in root total phenol, peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase activity occurred (table 3,4,5). total phenol content in roots is an indication of plant resistance to meloidogyne incognita. the total phenols content in genotypes varied with respect to inoculation of nematodes (table 3). african horned cucumber had the highest mean total phenols content (16.98 mg·g-1 of root) followed by colocynth(16.08 mg·g-1 of root) and pumpkin (15.37mg·g-1 of root). total phenols content in roots appeared to have a negative association with root knot index, number of females and number of egg masses. screening cucumber rootstocks for nematode resistance j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 36 thangamani et al table 2. reaction of cucurbitaceous rootstocks and cucumber scions on the incidence of root knot nematode (m. incognita) under pot culture and enzyme levels cucurbitaceous no. of no. of egg no. of species galls/10 g masses/g females rki * reaction** of roots of roots 5 g root rootstocks fig leaf gourd 25.32 11.36 6.32 3 mr (cucurbita ficifolia) pumpkin 9.26 3.61 5.94 2 r (cucurbita moschata) winter squash 11.32 3.94 6.50 3 mr (cucurbita maxima) african horned cucumber 5.24 1.94 3.85 2 r (cucumis metuliferus) colocynth 4.69 1.98 4.81 2 r (citrullus colocynthis) summer squash 98.35 31.32 59.21 4 s (cucurbita pepo) sponge gourd 34.39 11.14 25.63 4 s (luffacylindrica) bottle gourd 79.36 26.27 51.94 4 s (lagenaria siceraria) cucumis callosus 8.36 3.12 5.44 2 r cucumis melo sub 29.34 10.29 22.39 3 mr sp. agrestis snap melon 41.20 12.36 37.51 4 s cucumis melo var. momordica long melon 49.65 15.92 49.32 4 s cucumis melo var. utilissimus scions cucumis sativus 83.25 29.35 59.31 4 s (hyb.ns 408) cucumis sativus 76.35 23.39 48.35 4 s (var. green long) rki * root knot nematode index (heald et al., 1989) **rresistant, mrmoderately resistant, s-susceptible j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 37 screening cucumber rootstocks for nematode resistance table 3. root total phenols content in cucurbitaceous rootstocks and cucumber scions under root knot nematode (m.incognita) inoculation rootstocks/scions total phenol (mg g-1 of fresh roots) hours after inoculation rootstocks 0 24 48 72 96 120 mean fig leaf gourd 9.26 10.13 10.87 13.87 17.11 15.86 12.85 (cucurbita ficifolia) pumpkin11.87 12.34 12.98 15.14 21.2 18.67 15.37 (cucurbita moschata) winter squash 9.76 11.41 11.97 12.65 13.95 12.02 11.96 (cucurbita maxima) african horned cucumber 15.15 16.82 18.26 18.09 17.13 16.43 16.98 (cucumis metuliferus) colocynth 12.34 13.56 16.12 17.97 18.89 17.6 16.08 (citrullus colocynthis) summer squash 5.21 5.94 6.84 7.98 8.12 7.79 6.98 (cucurbita pepo) sponge gourd 7.13 8.26 9.84 11.81 10.82 10.7 9.76 (luffa cylindrica) bottle gourd 4.42 4.87 5.86 7.43 6.86 5.12 5.76 (lagenaria siceraria) cucumis callosus 7.29 7.73 9.56 9.92 9.98 9.34 8.97 cucumis melo sub sp. 6.46 6.93 7.56 8.64 9.76 8.35 7.95 agrestis snap melon 5.17 6.33 7.25 8.73 9.43 7.79 7.45 (cucumis melo var. momordica) long melon 5.43 6.14 7.65 8.76 9.35 7.91 7.54 (cucumis melo var. utilissimus) scions cucumis sativus 4.53 6.29 6.7 7.36 8.95 7.27 6.85 (ns 408) cucumis sativus 4.87 5.63 6.85 7.96 9.03 7.78 7.02 (green long) sed 0.19 0.49 0.32 0.50 0.53 0.48 – cd (p=0.05) 0.39 1.01 0.66 1.03 1.10 0.98 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 38 thangamani et al table 4. root peroxidase content in cucurbitaceous rootstocks and cucumber scions after root knot nematode (m.incognita) inoculation rootstocks/scions peroxidase (changes in od.min-1 g-1 of fresh root) hours after inoculation rootstocks 0 24 48 72 96 120 mean fig leaf gourd 1.31 1.73 2.47 2.85 2.94 2.56 2.31 (cucurbita ficifolia) pumpkin 1.85 2.32 2.59 3.26 3.91 3.65 2.93 (cucurbita moschata) winter squash 1.32 1.76 2.21 2.35 2.8 2.94 2.23 (cucurbita maxima) african horned cucumber 3.15 3.29 3.56 3.92 4.34 4.72 3.83 (cucumis metuliferus) colocynth 2.42 2.87 3.09 3.18 3.74 4.26 3.26 (citrullus colocynthis) summer squash 1.23 1.37 1.62 2.15 2.18 2.61 1.86 (cucurbita pepo) sponge gourd 1.12 1.38 1.65 2.32 2.54 2.69 1.95 (luffa cylindrica) bottle gourd 1.87 2.17 2.61 2.93 3.15 2.99 2.62 (lagenaria siceraria) cucumis callosus 2.31 2.57 2.84 3.02 3.73 3.65 3.02 cucumis melo sub sp. agrestis 1.43 1.89 2.76 2.98 3.85 3.47 2.73 snap melon 1.21 1.41 2.09 2.16 2.46 2.85 2.03 (cucumis melo var. momordica) long melon 0.89 1.24 1.76 2.15 2.45 2.08 1.76 (cucumis melo var. utilissimus) scions cucumis sativus 0.37 0.41 0.48 0.69 0.76 0.71 0.57 (ns 408) cucumis sativus 0.44 0.51 0.71 0.74 0.77 0.67 0.64 (green long) sed 0.50 0.06 0.64 0.08 0.09 0.11 – cd (p=0.05) 1.01 0.12 1.27 0.15 0.17 0.22 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 39 screening cucumber rootstocks for nematode resistance table 5. root peroxidase content in cucurbitaceous rootstocks and cucumber scions after root knot nematode (m.incognita) inoculation rootstocks/scions peroxidase (changes in od.min-1 g-1 of fresh root) hours after inoculation rootstocks 0 24 48 72 96 120 mean fig leaf gourd 1.69 2.43 2.74 2.87 2.94 3.05 2.62 (cucurbita ficifolia) pumpkin 1.85 2.32 2.59 3.26 3.91 3.65 2.93 (cucurbita moschata) winter squash 1.22 1.35 1.56 1.97 2.25 2.75 1.85 (cucurbita maxima) african horned cucumber 2.95 3.19 3.56 4.12 4.34 3.86 3.67 (cucumis metuliferus) colocynth 3.12 3.38 3.57 3.74 3.79 4.18 3.63 (citrullus colocynthis) summer squash 0.35 0.45 0.62 0.72 0.92 0.84 0.65 (cucurbita pepo) sponge gourd 0.39 0.52 0.68 0.94 1.02 0.95 0.75 (luffa cylindrica) bottle gourd 0.41 0.59 0.75 0.98 1.23 1.62 0.93 (lagenaria siceraria) cucumis callosus 2.29 2.54 2.73 3.14 3.73 3.45 2.98 cucumis melo sub sp. agrestis 1.41 1.78 2.65 2.87 3.72 3.41 2.64 snap melon 0.64 0.98 1.11 1.89 2.16 2.46 1.54 (cucumis melo var. momordica) long melon 0.87 1.21 1.36 1.64 2.17 2.65 1.65 (cucumis melo var. utilissimus) scions cucumis sativus 0.67 0.85 0.93 1.18 1.88 2.35 1.31 (ns 408) cucumis sativus 0.73 0.82 1.26 1.57 1.73 2.41 1.42 (green long) sed 0.39 0.08 0.70 0.12 0.19 0.09 – cd (p=0.05) 0.80 0.16 0.14 0.24 0.38 0.18 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 40 thangamani et al resista nt r ootstocks possessed higher peroxidase and ppo activity than susceptible ones. african horned cucumber had the highest value of peroxidase and ppo activity (3.83 od·min-1·g-1 of root and 3.67 od·min-1·g-1 of root) followed by colocynth (3.26 and 3.63 od·min-1·g-1 of root), cucumis callosus (3.02 and 2.98 od·min-1·g-1 of root) and pumpkin (2.93 and 2.94 od·min-1·g-1 of root). cucumber scions, ‘green long’ and ‘ns 408’ had lower peroxidase and ppo activity of 0.64 and 1.42 od·min-1·g-1 of root and 0.57 and 1.31 od·min-1·g-1 of root, respectively (table 4, 5). several of the genotypes were classified as resistant or moderately resistant. they may be promising candidates to be used as rootstocks for cucumber to enhance resistance to r oot knot nema todes. fur ther study on gr a ft compatibility between root knot nematode resistant rootstocks with cucumber is needed. acknowledements t he a uthor s a cknowledge the fina ncia l assistance from the department of science and technology, new delhi through the women scientist scheme (a) on “standardization of grafting techniques in cucumber to mitigate root knot nematode and soil borne diseases” and the above research work is part of the scheme. amin, a.w., a. wanis, m. tomader, and g. abdel r a hma n. 2 0 1 2 . e va lu a t ion of s ome cucurbitaceous rootstocks. 1 for resistance/ susceptibility to root-knot nematode and fusarium wilt under screenhouse conditions. egyptian j. agric. res. 90(4):1561-1577. anwar, s.a. and m.v. 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plant dis. 66:145150. heald, c.m., b.d. bruton and r.m. davis. 1989. influence of glomus intradices and soil p hos p hor u s on m . i n c o g n i t a inf e c t ing cucumis melo. j. nematol. 21:69-73. ibrahim, k.s. 1991. peroxidase isoenzymes from meloidogyne cultured on different hosts. rev. nematol. 14:335-344. krishnaveni, m. and s. subramanian. 2002. rootknot nema t odes of c u c u r b its a nd their ma na ge ment . n a t iona l s y mp os iu m on biodiversity and management of nematodes in c r op p i ng s ys t ems f or s u s t a ina b le a gr icultur e. depa r tment of nematology, agr ic u lt u r a l r es ea r c h st a t i on, 11 1 3 november 2002, durgapura, jaipur, india panse, v.g. and p.v. sukhatme. 1957. statistical methods for agr icultura l wor kers. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi. ploeg, a.t. and m.s. phillips. 2001. damage to melon (cucumis melo l.) cv. durango by m e l o i d o g y n e i n c o g n i t a in s ou t her n california. nematology 3:151-158. 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(ms received 16 january 2016, revised 11 april 2018, accepted 21 may 2018) j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 32-41, 2018 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 249 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 249-254, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. short communication introduction indian jujube or ber (ziziphus mauritiana lamk.) is a spiny small tree belongs to the family rhamnaceae which is native of india (krishna et al., 2014). it is also called as desert apple, jujube, chinese apple, ber etc. although z. mauritiana is extensively distributed in tropical areas of the world, india is a major place of its cultivation. in india, it is cultivated over 49,000 ha with the production of 4, 81,000 mt per year (anon, 2017). ber fruits are healthy as well as nutritious which contains higher quantity of vitamin c which is much higher than citrus and apple (khera and singh, 1976). in the current scenario, improved varieties of ber are gaining recognition among the farmers in many parts of the country because of its adaptability to various climatic condition. in odisha too, ber cultivation is gaining momentum during recent years and in general climatic condition prevalent in coastal odisha is different from rest of the country. hence knowledge on disea ses ha mper ing the productivity has to be generated to develop suitable management practices at regional level to make ber cultivation as more remunerative. the diseases like powdery mildew caused by oidium erysiphoides var. zizyphi was reported as an economically important disease of ber, which can lead to 50-60 per cent loss in fruit yield (jamadar and shamarao, 2004). other diseases like rust caused by phakospora zizyphivulgaris (gupta et al., 1984), leaf spots and fruits spots (gupta and madan, 1977a; 1977b;), witches broom caused by mlos (khan et al.,2008) and leaf spots caused by alternaria, cercospora, septoria, cladosporium, pestalotiopsis etc. were reported to infect ber crop in india. a kind of bright orange colour cottony stem blotches of various sizes combined with cracking were observed on bark of one and half yearold ber plants (fig. 1a) at the experimental orchard of icar-iihr central horticultural experiment station situated in the state of odisha during july september 2017. in severe cases twig drying also was observed. based on symptomatology, it was identified as plant parasitic algal infection. similar kind of symptoms was reported on black berry crop due to plant parasitic algae cephaleuros virescens and the occurrence of algal stem blotch in ber (ziziphus mauritiana) under coastal odisha conditions in india sangeetha g.1*, panda m. and kishore k. icar-iihr central horticultural experiment station, bhubaneswar-751019, odisha, india 1division of crop protection, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *corresponding author e-mail : g.sangeetha@icar.gov.in abstract the investigation was carried out during 2017-18 to identify and document the emerging diseases of indian jujube or ber (ziziphus mauritiana lamk.) in odisha state located in eastern part of india. periodical visit and subsequent investigations revealed the occurrence of a new kind of stem blotch disease in ber caused by alga. symptoms were observed on bark of the stem and branches as bright red velvety blotch colonies during julyseptember 2017. however dull grey blotches were visible throughout the year. leaves and fruits were left unaffected. the algal stem blotch occurrence was assessed during the year 2018 and disease severity ranged from 9.4-14.8 per cent. the green alga was identified and confirmed as trentepohlia arborum (agardh) hariot based on key morphological characters. the stem blotches lead to death of young twigs measured between 3 to 8 mm thickness on primary and secondary branches wherein thickness of branches was more than 10 mm, algal blotches caused cracking of bark. present study highlights the causal agent of stem blotch of ber, its symptomatology, impact of disease and suggested management practices. keywords: ber, indian jujube, odisha, stem blotch, trentepohlia arborum 250 sangeetha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 249-254, 2022 disease was referred as orange cane blotch (holcomb et al., 1998). it has been documented as one of the important diseases of black berry grown in coastal plains experiencing warm, wet, humid environment in south eastern united states (browne et al., 2020). hence systematic study was planned to identify the organism involved in causing stem blotch in ber, its symptomatology, impact of algal parasite on crop growth and prophylactic measures to be undertaken. the study was carried out at the experimental farm of icar-iihr-central horticultural experiment station, odisha during 2017-2018. the experimental farm is located at 20°15' n latitude and 85°15' e longitude with an elevation of 25.5 m above msl experiencing humid hot, tropical climate which receives average annual rainfall of 1400 mm between june to september. disease incidence and severity was recorded during 2018 crop season at fortnight interval and required number of plants remained unsprayed for assessing the disease severity. totally 25 plants were chosen and tagged for diseases assessment and minimum 4 stems per plant was marked with field tape a nd a ssessed for stem blotch thr oughout the year. severity of algal blotch  was assessed visually for the total length of stem/branch using 0-5 arbitrary scale (0no stem blotches, 1 = trace infection (< 1 per cent of branch covered with algal blotches); 2 = light (1-5 per cent of branch covered with algal blotches); 3 = moderate (6–25 per cent of branch covered with algal blotches); 4 = severe (26-50 per cent of branch covered with algal blotches but no twig drying; 5 = very severe >50 per cent of branch covered with algal blotches accompanied with twig death). per cent disease index (pdi) was determined using the formula, pdi=sum of all disease rating × 100/ (total no. of rating × maximum disease grade). stems ( n=1 0 ) b ea r ing a lga l b lot c h f r om the differ ent ber tr ees gr own in our exper imenta l orchard was collected during july-september 2017 and symptoms were observed visually as well under a stereomicroscope and macroscopic features of algal thalli were noted. microscopic features of algal thalli, features of filaments, sporangiophore and sporangia were observed under bright field microscope. dimensions of algal structures viz., were measured (n=30) for each structure and the range of the values were noted and described. algal parasite was identified based on the descriptions given by silva et al. (2010). and thomas et al. (2019). bright orange, circular blotches ranged from 2-30 mm diameter were observed during humid rainy days (fig 1b). macroscopic structures of algae were observed under stereo zoom microscope. the orange patches consist of cottony filaments and spore masses of algae. the algal lesions were mostly circular to irregular and were raised, velvety and were often brick-red in colour during rainy months and the rest of the year, the lesions were greyish in colour. approximately 3 mm to 8mm size thickness twigs as well as branches were severely affected which lead to twig death and branch dieback (fig 1c) in young twigs. on primary and secondary branches where in thickness of branches was more than 10 mm, algal blotches caused cracking and plant tissue/bark beneath blotch/ algal thalli was fig. 1a. stem blotch disease caused by t. arborum on ber, 1b. close up view of stem blotch symptom, 1c. drying of young twigs 251 occurrence of algal stem blotch in ber discoloured, necrotized. the bark cracking was observed from mild to deep from (fig 2a-2d) and in extreme cases big branches died due to invasion of secondary pathogens. all the trees in orchard were found infected with mild to severe form and per cent disease severity index were ranged from 9.4-14.8 during 2018 and maximum disease severity was recorded during second fortnight of june 2018. the voucher specimens of ber infected with algal stem blotch was sent to, lichenology and algology laboratory, csirnational botanical research institute, lucknow and it was identified as trentepohlia arborum (agardh) hariot. microscopic features algae were documented by using the olympus bx 53 microscope. the main plant body of t. arborum was thallus that consisted of uniseriate (arranged in single row) poorly branched, entangled filaments, tapered to the apex, branched at 90° angle; individual cells were of cylindrical in shape. grouped sporangia (ranged from 4-8 in number) from a basal enlarged cell (or suffultory cell) observed to be unique characteristic featur e. spora ngia wa s round to elliptical in shape, present laterally or apically on the erect axes and measuring 16-20 µm in diameter (n=25) (fig 4a and b). the above algal descriptions are in line with thomas et al. (2019) and silva et al. (2010). cribb (1958) characterized t. arborum by its grouped sporangia from a basal enlarged cell and the tapered filament. the genus trentepohlia includes about 40 species (hoek et al., 1995) and this genus mostly exists in tropical climatic area; however, it also exists in temperate areas (liu et al., 2012). trentepohlia belongs to the phylum chlorophyta, cla ss ulvophyceae, order trentepohliales and  family trentepohliaceae (guiry and guiry, 2016).  in  the current scheme of taxonomy, trentepholiales comprise of single family trentepohliaceae with five genera such as trentepohlia, cephaleuros, phycopeltis, printzina and stomatochroon (brooks et al., 2015). till now in india, the green algae, cephaleuros species is well known for its parasitic nature on several plants and causes orange to reddish spots consists of sporangiophores and sporangia on stems, fruits, leaves of the many ornamental and fruit trees (pitaloka et al., 2015). extensive survey carried out in eastern india to document the diseases of ber by misra et al. (2013) revealed the occurrence of cephaleuros sp. on ber leaves. even though wide survey was carried out in india by number of researchers with regard to trentepohlia species, (bruhl and biswas, 1923; randhawa and venka ta r a ma n, 1962; kr ishna mur thy, 2000), information of trentepohlia as a plant parasitic algae is limited in india. as early in 1980s, jose and chowdary (1980) reported a species of trentepohlia dusenii from calcutta, india. t. aroburm was reported from kerala and shillong from rocks (panikkar and sindhu, 1993; kharkongor and ramanujam, 2015). j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 249-254, 2022 fig. 2a to 2 d. stages of bark cracking due to t. arborum blotches on bark of ber 252 trentepohlia rigidulawas reported on sub-aerial habitat as greenish coating on cement walls of a temple in bhubaneswar, orissa (samad and adhikary, 2008). the ecological study of the species indicated the major occurrence of this genus on the substratum like tree bark in the tropical area. t. rigidula (j. muller) hariot was recorded from west bengal, india from two distinct habitats (i.e.) epiphytic form on tree bark of bael (aegle marmelos) and epilithic form on a concrete cement tank wall (satpati and pal, 2016). in a survey conducted from indian sundarbans biosphere reserve, four trentepohlia species viz. , t. abietina, t. sundarbanensis, t. torulosa and t. thevalliensis were reported (satpati and pal, 2015). at bhitarkanika national park in kendrapara district of odisha, the tree species like avicennia alba, avicennia officinalis, ceriops decandra, heritiera fomes, rhizophora apiculata etc were found to be the major hosts of trentepohlia flava (chakraborty et al., 2012) and this species were found to colonise the tree bark within the mangroves. t he pr esent study pr oved the infection of t. arborum in z. mauritiana causing stem blotches in ber which resulted in die back of young twigs and cracking of bark portion below the point of infection and has the potential to reduce the vigour of young as well as matured plants if care is not taken at right time. when blotch colony formation i.e., the coverage of the stem/branch by algal blotch is limited without cracks, then this parasitic alga does not limit or have not much adverse effect on crop. but where ideal environmental conditions of warm, wet and humid environment prevail, it girdled the small stems/ branch and also paved the way for secondary infection, causing death of young branches and twigs. similar kind of observation was made in black berry plants infected with algae, c. virescens which was evidenced in terms of orange lesions on stems led to girdling of canes and if favorable conditions continue in the field, algal colonization combined with secondary fungal infections could lead to dieback and death of canes (brooks, 2004). black berry canes with larger and more numerous blotches produced significantly lesser number of berries than canes with slight/no algal blotch (browne et al., 2020). during the study period, it was observed that algal botch was mainly observed on ber during warm rainy wea ther coupled with high humidity (da ta not shown).the prevailing humid climate in coastal plains of odisha accompanied by frequent rainfall and warm temperature might favoured the algal pathogen and predispose the crop to infection. the earlier studies were also revealed that the members of trentepohliales have been widespread in tropical and temperate regions with humid climates (chapman, 1984) and recurrent rains coupled with warm weather might encourage the viability of the algal parasite in the host plants (han et al., 2011; sunpapao et al., 2016). southwest monsoon followed by sudden summer encouraged rapid infection of cephaleuros diffuses in leaves of artocarpus in kerala (thomas et al., 2016). for the management of as orange cane blotch in black berry canes (woody stems) caused by parasitic algae c. virescens, brannen (2018) recommended the removal of old canes and their destruction promptly after harvest, pruning to improve air movement in the canopy, strategic site drainage, proper weed control, plastic mulching combined with drip irrigation, and application of appropriate agrochemical. the present study witnessed that, from the viable algal lesions present on stem bark, algal inoculum re-emerges and fig. 3a and 3b. microphotographs of t. arborum infecting ber sangeetha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 249-254, 2022 253 infect the crop during subsequent year; consequently, if the disease was not effectively controlled during the previous year, the succeeding crop ended up in high level of disease severity. hence it is suggested that, the plants have to be trained and pruned with open centre system with 2-3 primary branches at a height of 50-60 cm. in addition, pruning has to be done every year to remove weak and diseased branches to obtain healthy tree growth and profitable crop. under odisha condition, pruning during february-march (after fruit harvest) followed by spray of copper hydroxide (2.0 g/l)) or copper oxychloride (3.0 g/l) at fortnight interval provided efficient control of stem blotch disease of ber. as the ber cultivation is gaining momentum among the farmers in the state of odisha, more studies are warranted to know the detailed role of epidemiological factors with regard to stem blotch disease severity especially under coastal odisha condition. acknowledgement the authors extent sincere thanks to dr. sanjeeva nayaka, lichenology/algology laboratory, csirnational botanical research institute, lucknow for extending his help in identifying the above algal parasite. the authors are grateful to the director, icar-iihr, bengaluru for the facilities provided. references anonymous. 2017. horticultural statistics at a glance. government of india: horticulture statistics division, depa r tment of agr icultur e, cooperation & farmers welfare, ministry of agriculture & farmers welfare, p. 481. brannen, p. 2018. orange felt (orange 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(received: 04.09.2020; revised: 21.04.2022; accepted: 22.06.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf original research paper morphophysiological characters of dendrobium var. yellow splash as influenced by bioinoculants and different levels of benzyladenine *p. shilpa, mini sankar, p.k. sudhadevi, c.k. geetha and reshmi vijayaraghavan department of floriculture and landscaping, college of horticulture kerala agricultural university, thrissur. *e-mail:-shilpaponnarath@gmail.com abstract dendrobium is the most commonly grown tropical orchid species in india and kerala. they are highly specific about their nutrient requirement. the use of bio-inoculants in crop production of ornamentals has opened up a new possibility of using them for improving the growth and yield of orchids. hence the objective of study was to evaluate the response of dendrobium cv. yellow splash to different kinds of bio-inoculants viz., amf, azospirillum and a microbial consortia pgpr mix – 1 developed from kau, along with 50, 100 and 150 ppm of benzyladenine. the experiment consisted of ten different treatments involving bio-inoculants and benzyladenine. plant height and number of leaves were maximum in the plants inoculated with amf along with 100 ppm benzyladenine. treatment comprising of azospirillum and 100 ppm benzyladenine was superior in terms of other morphological parameters like leaf breadth, leaf area and plant spread. maximum leaf length and highest number of shoots were observed in plants inoculated with azospirillumand 150 ppm benzyladenine. considering the floral parameters, both quantitative and qualitative attributes were found to be superior in the treatment consisting of amf along with 150 ppm benzyladenine. highest root length was observed under the treatment amf along with 100 ppm benzyladenine while number of roots and root volume were maximum in the plants inoculated with azospirillum and 150 ppm benzyladenine. plants inoculated with amf and 100 ppm benzyladenine had highest chlorophyll content while highest stomatal frequency was observed under the treatment azospirillum and 100 ppm ba. from the study it could be concluded that inoculation of dendrobium orchids with bio-inoculants like amf and azospirillum can significantly improve the morphological characters of the plants which in turn influence the production of quality spikes. keywords: bio inoculants, benzyl adenine, amf, azospirillum and pgpr mix 1 introduction orchids are elegant cut flowers that capture the title of ‘highest selling flower ’ in indian cut flower industry due to their unique shape, size, colour and characteristic aroma of certain species. among the diversified species of orchids, dendrobium is most commonly grown species in india, especially in kerala. commercial growers of dendrobium in k er a la a r e f a c ing ma ny p r ob lems inclu ding inclement weather, pest and disease attack as well as lack of technical knowhow. they are unaware about the scientific nutrient management practices and their injudicious way of nutrient application leads to a decline in crop yield, higher incidence of pests and diseases and this will affect the production of export quality flowers. commercial formulations of bio-inoculants have found to be widely used in crop production programmes of various ornamentals. application of exogenous growth hormones has also been reported to increase the yield and quality attributes in ornamental crops. there is a need to develop a package which integrates the benefits from all possible sources of organic, inorganic and biologic components which can be recommended to orchid growers. hence the present study was conducted with the objective of eva lua ting the response of dendrobium var. yellow splash to bioinoculants and different levels of benzyl adenine. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 54-60, 2018 54 55 shilpa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 54-60, 2018 material and methods the study was conducted in the department of f lor icu lt ur e a nd la nds ca ping, college of horticulture, vellanikkara, kau. the experiment consisted of ten different treatments with three replications laid out in crd. the adhoc nutrient recommenda tion for orchids a s per package of pr a ct ices r ecommenda t ions of k au is f olia r application of n:p‚ o… :k‚ o, 3:1:1 during period of vegetative growth and 1:2:2 during flowering period at the rate of 0.2 per cent twice a week. three bioinoc u l a nt s v i z . , p g p r m ix – 1 , am f a nd azospirillum and three levels of benzyladenine viz., 50, 100 and 150 ppm were superimposed on this recommendation. pgpr mix-1 was applied through root dipping of plants in loose water slurry at the rate of 500g/2.5l of water for 20 minutes prior to planting. amf was directly applied at the rate of 50g/kg of potting media at the time of planting. likewise, azospirillum was applied through root dipping of plants in a slurry of 500g of the inoculum in 50 ml of water for 30 minutes prior to planting.benzyl adenine (ba) was applied as foliar at monthly intervals. treatments: t pop + pgpr mix-1 + ba 50 ppm t‚ pop + pgpr mix-1 + ba 100 ppm tƒ pop + pgpr mix-1 + ba 150 ppm t„ pop + amf + ba 50 ppm t… pop + amf + ba 100 ppm t† pop + amf + ba 150 ppm t‡ pop + azospirillum + ba 50 ppm tˆ pop + azospirillum + ba 100 ppm t‰ pop + azospirillum + ba 150 ppm t € control (kau pop recommendation for orchids) results and discussion morphological parameters vegetative characters a significant improvement in vegetative characters were observed in treatments consisted of bio-inoculants and benzyladenine when compared to control(table 1). treatments consisted of amf along with different concentrations of ba were superior in terms of plant height and maximum plant height was observed in t… (pop + amf + ba 100 ppm). increased plant height of amf inoculated plants may be due to efficient endomycorrhizal association of the fungus with roots of dendrobiumorchids which might have helped in better uptake and mobilization of nutrients. the mycorrhizal extrametrical hyphal strands extend into the medium, absorb water and minerals effectively and make it available to the plants. better availability of nutrients along with the production of phytohormones and antibiotics might be contributed to the morphological and physiological changes resulting a significant improvement of plant height in plants inoculated with amf. an improvement of plant height as a result of amf inoculation has been reported in various flower crops (varshneyet.al., 2002; prabhat et al., 2003; bhatia and guptha, 2007) a perusal of the data with respect to other vegetative characters like plant spread, number of leaves, leaf length, leaf breadth, leaf area and number of shoots per plant revealed that there was a significa nt improvement of all these parameters in plants inoculated with azospirillumalong with different levels of ba and maximum values for all these parameter s were observed in t‰ (pop + amf + ba 150 ppm). beneficial effect of azospirilum might be the result of versatile mechanisms like increased nutrient uptake, enhanced stress resistance, vitamin production, siderophores and biocontrol, operating simultaneously or sequentially in azospirillum inoculated plants (cohen et al., 2015). azospirillum species are having the capacity of self-production of phytohormones like auxin, gibberlins, cytokinins and nitric oxide and inducing the synthesis of these compounds in plant tissues (gadagi, 1999). cytokinin regulates several processes such as cell division, leaf expansion, shoot and root morphogenesis. gibberlins are responsible for cell division and elongation of plant cells. azospirillum pr esent in the rhizosphere ar e a ble to pr oduce 56 ta bl e 1. i nf lu en ce o f bi oi no cu la nt s an d be nz yl a de ni ne o n m or ph ol og ic al c ha ra ct er s p la nt p la nt l ea f l ea f l ea f n um be r of n um be r r oo t r oo t t re at m en ts he ig ht sp re ad le ng th br ea dt h ar ea ps eu do bu lb s/ of le ng th vo lu m e (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) (c m 2 ) pl an t r oo ts (c m ) (c m 3 ) t 1 ( po p + pg pr m ix -1 + b a 5 0p pm ) 27 .7 5 20 .5 13 .4 7 5. 13 49 .4 9 4. 00 47 .0 0 20 .8 0 15 .4 5 t 2 ( po p + pg pr m ix -1 + b a 1 00 pp m ) 25 .8 8 21 .1 7 13 .5 2 5. 12 49 .4 6 3. 50 31 .0 0 18 .7 5 15 .4 0 t 3 ( po p + pg pr m ix -1 + b a 1 50 pp m ) 24 .3 3 22 12 .4 3 5. 05 46 .4 9 3. 67 36 .6 7 16 .0 0 20 .3 3 t 4 ( po p + a m f + b a 5 0p pm ) 28 .9 2 20 .8 3 13 .4 3 5. 03 48 .5 3 4. 33 46 .3 3 23 .6 7 22 .9 0 t 5 ( po p + a m f + b a 1 00 pp m ) 33 .0 9 22 .2 9 13 .3 3 4. 68 45 .1 8 3. 83 37 .0 0 24 .1 8 15 .4 3 t 6 ( po p + a m f + b a 1 50 pp m ) 30 .4 3 22 .0 8 13 .7 3 5. 25 51 .1 2 3. 33 44 .0 0 18 .5 0 20 .2 0 t 7 ( po p + a zo sp ir ill um + b a 5 0p pm ) 22 .2 5 19 .5 8 14 .3 0 5. 23 52 .2 1 3. 33 35 .6 7 17 .7 7 5. 73 t 8 ( po p + a zo sp ir ill um + b a 1 00 pp m ) 25 .4 5 27 .1 0 13 .2 3 6. 13 57 .9 4 4. 83 44 .6 7 24 .0 7 19 .7 3 t 9 ( po p + a zo sp ir ill um + b a 1 50 pp m ) 25 .3 8 27 .2 5 15 .7 8 5. 45 57 .3 9 5. 00 48 .3 3 23 .8 5 30 .2 5 t 10 (p o p ) 21 .9 3 21 .1 7 12 .5 5 4. 43 41 .2 3 3. 00 39 .0 0 22 .0 0 10 .3 0 c d ( 0. 05 ) 5. 38 9 4. 08 7 1. 31 3 0. 65 7 6. 93 3 0. 71 3 10 .8 08 4. 83 5 9. 29 ta bl e 2. i nf lu en ce o f bi oi no cu la nt s an d be nz yl a de ni ne o n flo ra l ch ar ac te rs d ay s sp ik e st al k n um be r of in te rn od al fl or et l on ge vi ty t re at m en t to le ng th le ng th fl or et p er le ng th si ze in th e fie ld fl ow er (c m ) (c m ) sp ik e (c m ) (c m 2 ) (d ay s) t 1 (p o p + pg pr m ix -1 + b a 5 0p pm ) 28 9. 00 17 .2 7 7. 33 6. 00 5. 07 17 .0 0 63 .3 3 t 2 (p o p + pg pr m ix -1 + b a 1 00 pp m ) 30 8. 67 21 .3 3 10 .2 3 6. 00 4. 10 18 .3 89 60 .3 3 t 3 (p o p + pg pr m ix -1 + b a 1 50 pp m ) 26 2. 67 14 .0 0 6. 40 7. 00 5. 63 18 .4 3 50 .3 3 t 4 ( po p + a m f + b a 5 0p pm ) 26 4. 33 22 .0 3 10 .6 3 9. 00 5. 83 20 .5 1 56 .3 3 t 5 ( po p + a m f + b a 1 00 pp m ) 27 4. 00 20 .4 3 12 .9 7 8. 67 5. 17 20 .3 5 57 .6 7 t 6 ( po p + a m f + b a 1 50 pp m ) 28 3. 33 29 .4 0 16 .2 7 9. 33 7. 17 27 .4 1 72 .6 7 t 7 (p o p + a zo sp ir ill um + b a 5 0p pm ) 29 6. 67 20 .4 3 13 .8 3 5. 00 5. 13 17 .7 2 63 .6 7 t 8 (p o p + a zo sp ir ill um + b a 1 00 pp m ) 25 6. 00 20 .3 0 12 .2 3 6. 67 5. 43 19 .0 2 66 .0 0 t 9 (p o p + a zo sp ir ill um + b a 1 50 pp m ) 30 4. 33 21 .8 0 12 .3 7 7. 33 5. 03 21 .3 5 64 .3 3 t 10 (p o p ) 30 0. 33 17 .8 0 10 .0 0 5. 33 3. 67 17 .3 3 47 .6 7 c d ( 0. 05 ) n s 2. 41 2. 84 2. 13 1. 44 3. 11 7. 04 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 54-60, 2018 morphophysiological characters of dendrobium 57 shilpa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 54-60, 2018 metabolites which act as signals for the production of phytohormones in the pla nt system. action of phytohormones like cytokinins and gibberlins coupled with increased nutr ient sta tus of azospirillum inoculated plants might have contributed to the improvement of vegetative characters like plant spread, leaf length, breadth and leaf area. these results are in conformity with findings of bhaskar et al. (2002) in marigold, anon. (2003) in dendrobium, srinivasa (2006),chaudhary et al. (2013) in gladiolous, hoda and mona (2014) in petunia and yadav et al. (2013) in gerbera, who reported an improvement in vegetative growth as a result of azospirillum inoculation. in both the cases of inoculation with amf and azospirillum, optimistic results were obtained when the plants were supplied with benzyladenine along with these bio-inoculants. benzyladenine is characterised as a synthetic cytokinin which highly helps in the cell division, cell elonga tion, or gan forma tion and regeneration and also they play an important role in translocation of assimilates to growing cells. application of exogenous cytokinin has been reported to increase the synthesis of endogenous cytokinin in plants (letham, 1994). in the present study the exogenous application of benzyladenine might have increased the level of cytokinin in the plants. elevated cytokinin level and morphophysiological changes due to bio-inoculant treatments might have resulted an improvement of vegetative growth in plants under these treatments. root parameters from the results obtained, it could be clearly observed that, maximum root length was exhibited by the plants inoculated with amf. this result might be mainly attributed to higher phosphorous uptake in the plants by extra radical mycelium leading to higher shoot and root growth in inoculated plants (smith and read, 1997). amf was reported to produce metabolites that can alter the plant’s ability to produce roots and to alter root regeneration and root morphology resulting an increased absorptive surface area and feeder root longevity (linderman, 1988). a diffusible symbiotic signal produced by amf which is recently identified as lipochito oligosaccharides (lcos), designated as my factors which helps in root growth and branching (maillet et al., 2011) could be considered as another reason for the high rate of root growth in amf inoculated plants. this result is in accordance with the findings of martin and stutz (2004); perner et al. (2007). in the case of number of roots and root volume, higher number of roots and maximum root volume were pr oduced by the plants under the treatment t‰ (pop + azospirillum + 150 ppm ba). azospirillum is a gr a m nega tive diazotrophicrhizobacteria which exhibits chemotactic response to plant exudates, i.e., the ability to sense and navigate towards the most favourable niches for growth (rodriguezet al., 2009). when plants are inoculated with azospirillum, the signalling molecules will be produced by the bacteria and the plant will produce lateral roots and root hairs which are the source of exudates to maintain bacterial population in rhizosphere (gadagiet al., 2004). significant changes in the root volume and number of roots were reported as a result azospirillum inoculation in different cereals (wani, 1990 and okonand itzigsohn, 1995). production and secretion of phytohormones like auxin, cytokinin and gibberlins by azospirillum itself might be the reason for more number of root formations in the inoculated plants. similar findings were reported by molla et al. (2001) and remans et al. (2008) in different root parameters considered, bioinoculants along with 100 and 150 ppm benzyladenine exhibited maximum values for all the root characters. even though benzyladenine has least effect on root growth, sometimes through auto inductive cytokinin regulation, this effect may reverse, favouring better root production in the plants. so here in addition to the phytohormone produced inside the plant due to azospirillum inoculation, exogenous application of ba might have elevated the level of cytokinin concentration within the plants and higher root production might have occurred due to autoinductivecytokinin regulation. similar findings were also reported by wroblewska (2013). floral characters an improvement in the parameters like length of the spike, stalk length, number of flowers per spike, flower sizeand field life of spikes were observed in the treatments consisting of amf in combination with different levels of benzyl adenine(table 2). however the treatment t† (pop + amf + ba 150 ppm) was found to be the best among all the treatments. even though epiphytic or chids like dendrobiuma r e characterised by the presence of ariel roots covered with velamen tissue, itcan be function as absorbing roots, once it gets attached to a substrate (dycus et 58 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 54-60, 2018 al., 1957). hence in addition to the nutrients supplied through foliar spray, there might have been an additional exploration of nutrients, especially phosphorous, from the growing substrate also. the positive influence of amf inoculated plants in floral characters might be due to this enhanced absorption and availability of nutrients to the pla nts combined with efficient translocation of phytohormones resulting in early flower initiation and production of quality spikes. benzyladenine, a synthetic reported to be one of the multifactorial components that functions as floral stimulus and exogenous application of cytokinin was reported to hasten the rate of flower initiation and flower production due to an increase in endogenous level of cytokinin in plant system (blanchard and runkle, 2008). the result of the study is in conformity with the findings of perner et al., (2007)and barman et al., (2014) who reported a positive influence of benzyladenine on floral characters in various flower crops. physiological parameters chlorophyll content regarding chlorophyll content, maximum chl a, chl b and total chlorophyll content were observed in the treatment t… (pop + amf + 100 ppm benzyladenine) fig. 1. this might be due to an elevated level of stomatal conductance, transpiration, photosynthesis and plant growth. formation of larger and more number of bundle sheath chloroplast could be another reason for maximum production of chloroplast in inoculated plants (arumugan et al., 2010). in addition to the effect of amf, benzyladenine also carries an important role for higher chlorophyll production in the plants under this treatment (t… ). cytokinin encourage the protease activity and results in the release of cations like ca²z , mg²z and zn²z from their nature bound or complexed state (fletcher et al., 1971) and the release of these ions may also be the possible reason for higher chlorophyll production in this treatment. the result of the present study is found to be in accordance with the findings of fletcher and mccullagh (1971). stomatal characters considering the stomatal frequency, maximum number of stomata was obtained in the treatment consisted of azospirillum and 100 ppm benzyladenine applied along with the recommended dose of npk a nd cow dung slur ry (pop)(fig. 2). since the maximum leaf ar ea wa s obser ved in the same treatment, it could be the reason for more number of stomata compared to other plants. conclusion morphophysiological characters of dendrobium fig 1. influence of bioinoculants and benzyl adenine on total chlorophyll content fig 2. influence of bioinoculants and benzyl adenine on stomatal density from the study it could be observed that there was a significant improvement in the vegetative as well as root par ameter s in the treatment consisting of azospir illum a long with 100 a nd 150 ppm benzyladenine. however the treatment t† (pop + amf along with 150 ppm benzyladenine) was found to be superior in both qualitative and quantitative floral attributes.since the orchids an grown for their high value cut spikes, the treatment t6 (pop + amf + 150 ppm ba) can be recommended for production of quality spikes in dendrobium orchids. 59 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 54-60, 2018 shilpa et al [anonymous]. 2003. orchids. biennial progress r ep or t, i ndia n council of agr ic ultu r a l research, new delhi, pp. 204 – 243. arumugam, r., s. rajasekaran and s.m. nagajan. 2010. response of arbuscularmycorrhizal fungi and rhizobium inoculation on growth and chlorophyll content of vignaunguiculata ( l) wa lp va r. p u sa 15 1 . j . a p pl . sc i . environ.,manage.14(4):113-115. barman, d., usha 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(ms received 26 october2017, revised 15 february 2018, accepted 27june 2018) 71 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 71-77, 2017 in vitro regeneration and conservation of an endangered medicinal plant sarpagandha (rauvolfia serpentina l.) subhendu s. gantait*1, koushik dutta2 and jayoti majumder1 1associate professor,department of floriculture & landscaping, faculty of horticulture, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia-741252, west bengal, india 2formerly assistant professor, department of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, cooch behar, west bengal, india *email : ssgflori@gmail.com abstract an investigation on in vitro plant regeneration of endangered medicinal plant rauvolfia serpentina l. was carried out. the newly emerging leaves were used as explants, which were transferred to half strength ms medium along with various combinations of growth regulators for callus regeneration. the half strength ms medium fortified with 5.0 mgl-1 2,4-d and 2.0 mgl-1 naa was found most suitable for qualitative (light green colour) and quantitative callus production (86%). the shoot regeneration (81.67 %) and elongation (5.67 cm) was highest in full ms medium supplemented with 6.0 mgl-1 bap and 2.0 mgl1 ga3 and consequently, the root initiation was highest (55%) in half strength ms medium containing 3.0 mgl-1 iba. the regenerated plantlets were preserved for nine months in good condition through repeated subculturing on full strength ms media. the callus were kept in storage by repeated sub-culturing in in vitro condition on ms medium fortified with 0.2 mgl-1 2,4-d and the preservation could be extended for nine months in its best condition. it was evident that, the regeneration capacity of callus was reduced as the time of callus storage was increased. key words: in vitro, regeneration, rauvolfia, callus, medicinal plant introduction rauvolfia serpentina l. commonly known as sarpagandha is a woody perennial medicinal plant belonging to family apocynaceae. the roots of this shrub have been used in ayurvedic medicines from ancient time of indian medical therapy (singh et al., 2015). this shrub is highly effective for high blood pressure control. according to ayurveda, it is the best among all anti-hypertensive drugs. it has been stated that, the drug is useful in mental disease, epilepsy, sleeplessness and several other ailments (ojha and mishra, 1985). but due to increasing anthropogenic activities and rapidly eroding natural ecosystem, the natural habitat of this species is decreasing. rauvolfia is threatened in india due to its indiscriminate collection a nd over exploitation of natur a l resour ces for commercial purposes to meet the requirements of pha r ma ceutica l industr y, coupled with limited cultivation (singh et al., 2009). iucn has kept this plant under endangered status (anonymous, 2009; jain et al., 2003). in the present study, an attempt has been made to preserve the plant and to maintain its essence for future generation, as we know the plant is an endangered species. seeds of rauvo lfia ha s er r a t ic a nd low germination percentage and if the seeds stored more than 7-8 months practically don’t germinate at all. more over, the germination percentage of seed is very poor and variable ranging from 25-50 percent (mitra, 1976). hence, tissue culture technique in this plant is expected to be helpful to ex situ conservation by reducing the risk due to natural vagaries. micropropagation is a unique method for original research paper 72 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 71-77, 2017 gantait et al the production of homozygous and disease free plants. this technique would also facilitate to obtain large number of plants irrespective of season and an alternative source of secondary metabolites in colossal quantity. the process of micropropagation u s ing va r i ou s p hyt ohor mones in dif f er ent concentr ation for rauvolfia ha s been r epor ted earlier (roy et al., 1994; vanisree et al., 2004; baksha et al., 2007; rahman et al., 2008, mallick et al., 2012). but, the conservation of callus for months through indirect regeneration and mass replication of secondary metabolite in hassled free cultivation method is a new invention and there is also a need to apply in vitro methods for the regeneration and conservation of this valuable endangered plant. hence, a n effort has been made to develop an efficient protocol for the recovery of plants through or ganogenesis of rauvolfia serpentina. it was hypothesised that, use of suitable plant growth regulators (pgr) as supplement of basic ms media could improve the in vitro plantlet regeneration and conservation potentiality of rauvolfia. different growth regulators as supplement of ms medium were optimized for rapid in vitro multiplication and conservation of rauvolfia serpentina callus using leaf explant as an initial plant material. material and methods plant material and explant preparation the present investigation was carried out at the tissue culture laboratory of the department of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, ubk v, west benga l, india . t he disea se f r ee juvenile leaf explants, used for callus formation and r egener a tion of rauvolfia serpentina l. wer e collec ted fr om the gr een house of r esp ective department of the university. they were washed three times with de-ionized wa ter. rest of the sterilization process was carried out in the horizontal laminar flow cabinet. the leaf was carefully made into 1 cm2 incision along with the midrib. the exc is ed ex pla nt s wer e tr ea t ed with diff er ent concentration of various disinfectants (4% bavistin for 10 min and 0.1% hgcl2 for 1 min.) and then cultured on the suitable medium. during inoculation, the basal portions of the leaves were kept in the contact with media. culture medium and experimental treatments the medium comprised of macro and micro elements according to murashige and skoog (1962) with and sucrose of 30gl-1 (himedia® mumbai), solidified with 0.6% agar (himedia® mumbai). the plant growth regulators used were 2,4-d, ba, naa and iba (sigma eldritch® usa). all experiments were carried out in 100 ml culture tubes and jam bottles (borosil, kolkata). the ph of media was adjusted to 5.7 prior to autoclaving at 1210c at 15 lbs/sq inch pressure for 20 minute. culture was incubated under 1600 lux light intensity for 16 h/8h light and dark cycles. the leaf was placed on standard and ½ ms medium supplemented with various concentrations of 2,4-d (2.0 and 5.0 mgl-l) and naa (2.0 mgl-l) for callus induction, growth and development (table 1) . after 28 days of culture, the inducted in vitro calli were cut into small pieces and transferred to the medium for shoot regeneration. ms medium containing different concentration and combination of bap (2.0, 4.0 and 6.0 mgl-l) with ga3 (2.0 mgl l) wer e used for shoot regener a tion a nd shoot multiplication (table 2). the shoot regeneration was observed a fter 3-4 weeks of subculturing. for initiation of roots 4-5 weeks old shoots (2-4 cm length) were cultured on half strength ms medium supplemented with different concentrations of iba (1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 mgl-l) (table 3). callus conservation the developed callus and regenerated plantlets calli were kept in in vitro condition under a foresaid temperature, light and humidity ideal for the plant development for a period of 9 months. the inducted calli were subcultured at 1½ month interval repeatedly on ms medium supplemented with 2,4-d (0.1, 0.2 or 0.3 mgl-l) for regeneration of callus in in vitro (table 4). wherein, the in vitro regenerated plantlets were kept by subculturing at 1½ month intervals on different strengths of ms medium (full, ½ and ¼ ms) without any plant growth regulators (table 5). the well developed callus were kept at 20±3c under 1600 lux light intensity of 16h/8h day-night photoperiodic conditions and maintained as such for nine months by repeated sub culturing. 73 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 71-77, 2017 in vitro regeneration in sarpagandha table 1. effect of 2, 4-d and naa on callus induction in rauvolfia serpentina *”arc sin transformed ms murashige & skoog table 2. effect of bap and ga3 on shoot regeneration in rauvolfia serpentina ms murashige & skoog table 3. effect of iba on root initiation in rauvolfia serpentina ms murashige & skoog 74 table 4. effect of 2, 4-d on in vitro callus regeneration in rauvolfia serpentina ms murashige & skoog gantait et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 71-77, 2017 table 5. effect of media strength on in vitro regeneration of plantlet in rauvolfia serpentina ms murashige & skoog acclimatization the well rooted in vitro regenerated plantlets wer e t r a ns f er r ed t o p la s t ic c u p s c ont a ining autoclaved vermiculite and vermicompost (1:1) for four weeks in culture room. then the pr ima ry hardened plantlets were transferred to poly cups containing garden soil, sand, vermicompost (1:1:1) along with biofertilizers and were maintained under shed net with natural day length and temperature condition. experimental design and data analysis the experiments were designed in completely randomized design (crd). in each treatment 10 explants (n=10) were inoculated inside jam bottles separately. the statistical analysis was done by o.p. s t a t s of t w a r e p a c ka ges a nd t he mea n wer e compared using duncan’s multiple range test at the 5 % probability level. results and discussion callus regeneration the callus grew within a month from inoculation on the callus formation medium containing different combinations of plant growth regulators viz. 2,4-d and naa (table 1). among the different combinations ½ ms media supplemented with 5.0 mgl-l 2,4-d and 2.0 mgl-l naa was found to be the best for maximum callus initiation (86.0%) of green coloured compact callus and took minimum days (18.33 days) to callus formation compared to others. it was also evidenced by mallick et al. (2012) that, the high-frequency callusing induced in leaf and stem explant of rauvolfia serpentina on modified ms medium supplemented with 2.5 mgl-l 2,4-d. ms medium containing 2.0 mgl-l of bap plus 1.0 or 2.0 mgl-l 2,4-d resulted into copious callus induction observed by ilahi et al. (2007). shoot regeneration from callus it was obtained from ms medium supplemented with different combinations of bap and ga3 (table 2). ms medium supplemented with 6.0 mgl-l bap and 2.0 mgl-l ga3 gave highest level of shoot regeneration (81.67%) and number of shoots (4.0) per explant with a mean shoot length of 5.67 cm followed by the ms medium supplemented with 4.0 mgl-l bap and 2.0 mgll ga3 resulted better shoot length (4.67 cm) and higher number of shoots per explant (3.33). the data also reveals that, a combination of bap and ga3 is 75 in vitro regeneration in sarpagandha j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 71-77, 2017 table 6. regeneration capacity of the callus in rauvolfia serpentina (figures in the parenthesis are angular transformation values) necessary for shoot regeneration and elongation and also for early shoot development (22.00 days). mallick et al. (2012) also r eported that, the ma ximum r egener ation of shoots fr om callus (90%) wa s observed in ms medium supplemented with 0.2 mgl-l naa and 1.5 mgl-l ba. similar result was obtained by panwar et at. (2011) with maximum shoots (25.4) per culture from the callus in shooting medium containing 2.0 mgl-l bap + 0.5 mgl-l naa. susila et al. (2013) showed that the best shoot proliferation (92%) was in ms medium containing 0.1 mgl-1 naa and 2.5 mgl-1 ba. root regeneration out of different iba concentrations tested, iba 3.0 mgl-l was the best for root initiation (table 3). t he r oot initia tion wa s 55% a t t he s a me concentration. the total number of roots per explant was 3.0 with root length of 4.67 cm within 12 days of transferring. ms medium supplemented with iba (2.0 mgl-l) also induced better rooting (46.0%) with 2.43 roots per explant. the present results are in accordance with the result reported by rahman et al. (2008) that, the adventitious shoots best rooted on half strength ms medium supplemented with 1.0 mgl-l each of iba and iaa. rooting of the young shoots was obtained with 1.0, 2.0 or 4.0 mgl-l of iba (ilahi et al., 2007). susila et al. (2013) reported that half strength ms medium supplemented with 0.4 mgl-1 naa a nd 0. 1 mgl-1 iba caused for maximum root formation (91%). callus conservation the calli were best conserved by repeated sub-culturing on ms medium fortified with 0.2 mgl1 2,4-d evidenced with light green callus turn brown, increase in size and shape and the preservation could be extended for nine months in its best condition (table 4 & fig. 1d). the regeneration capacity of the stored callus was tested at three months interval by tra nsferring the ca llus on best regeneration media. the maximum regeneration (72.0%) of the stored callus was noticed after three months of preservation with minimum days (13.67) taken for regener ation (table 6). after nine months, the regeneration capacity of the repeated sub-cultured callus was reduced drastically with average of only 4 3 . 0 % r egen er a t ion a nd t he t ime t a ken f or regeneration was longer (24.33 days). significant results were found during callus conservation in ter ms of the c a pa cit y of ca llus r egener a tion. furthermore, the plantlets regenerated from calli were survived successfully for nine months in good condition on full strength ms media comparing to ½ or ¼ strength media through repeated subculturing at 1½ month interval (table 6 & fig. 1e). this technique provides a large number of disease free true to type plantlets throughout the year which will confer a large scale cultivation of this endangered species for commercial cultivation. therefore, this micropropagation protocol and in vitro conservation of r . s e r p e n t i n a will b e u s ef u l f or f u r t her improvement of this important medicinal shrub. 76 fig. 1: in vitro regeneration of r. serpentina. a. callus regenerated in ½ ms medium supplemented with 2,4-d 5.0 mgl-1 and naa 2.0 mgl-1. b. multiple shoots induction n ms media containing bap 6.0 mgl-1 and ga3 2.0 mgl -1. c. plantlets initiate roots in ½ ms medium containing iba 3.0 mgl-1. d. conservation of callus in ms medium containing 2,4-d 0.2 mgl-1. e. conservation of plantlets in ms medium gantait et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 71-77, 2017 conclusion from the present study it can be concluded that, in r. sepentina most qualitative and quantitative callus formation is possible in half strength ms medium supplemented with 5.0 mgl-1 2,4-d and 2.0 mgl-1 naa. the plant multiplication was highest in full strength ms medium fortified with 6.0 mgl-1 bap and 2.0 mgl-1 ga3. the calli were preserved for nine months in their best condition by repeated sub-culturing in in vitro condition on ms medium fortified with 0.2 mgl-1 2,4-d. it was also evident from the study that, the regeneration capacity of callus was reduced as the time of callusing increased. acknowledgement t he a uthor s a r e tha nkful to mr. rocky thockchom and mr. kamal das for assistance in experimental works in the laboratory and greenhouse. 77 in vitro regeneration in sarpagandha j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 71-77, 2017 references anonymous. 2009. rauvolfia sepentina l. germplasm resources information network. united states department of agriculture. 2003-03-14. retrieved 2009-11-11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rauwolfia. baksha, r., ara, m., jahan, a., khatun, r. and munshi, j. l. 2007. in vitro rapid clonal propagation of rauwolfia serpentina. l. bangladesh j. sci. ind. res., 42: 3744. ilahi, i., rahim, f. and jabeen, m. 2007. enhanced clonal propagation and alkaloid biosynthesis in cultures of rauwolfia. pakistan j. plant sci., 13: 45-56. jain, v., singh, d., saraf, s., saraf, s. 2003. in vitro micropropagation of rauvolfia serpentina through multiple shoot generation. anc. sci. life., 23: 1–5. mitra, g. c. 1976. studies on the formation of viable and non-viable seeds in rauwolfia serpentina benth. indian j. exp.biol., 14: 54-56. ojha, j. and mishra, u. 1985. dhanvantari nighantuh, with hindi tra nslation and commentary. 1 st ed., department of drabyaguna, institute of medical sciences, bhu, varanasi, 204 p. mallick, s. r., jena, r. c. and samal, k. c. 2012. rapid in vitro multiplication of an endangered medicinal plant sarpgandha (rauwolfia serpentina). american j. plant sci., 3: 437-442. murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bio-assays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. plant., 15: 473-497. rahman, m. s. m., haque, i. n., jubair, t. a., haque, a. k. and mukti, i. j. 2008. the influence of different hormone concentration and combination on callus in-duct i on a n d regen era t i on of r auwolf i a serpentina l. benth. pakistan j. bio. sci, 11: 16381641. roy, s. k., hossain, m. z. and islam, m. s. 1994. mass propagation of rauvolfia serpentina by in vitro shoot tip culture. plant tiss. cult. 4: 69-75. singh, r. k., singh, a., rath s. and ramamurthy, a. 2015. a review of sarpagandha whole herb v/s reserpine alkaloid in the management of hypertension. int. ayurvedic med. j., 3: 555-569. singh, p., singh, a., shukla, a. k., singh, l., pande, v. and nailwal, t. k. 2009. somatic embryogenesis and in vitro regeneration of an endangered medicinal plant sarpgandha (rauvolfia serpentina. l). life sci j., 6: 57-62. susila, t., reddy, s. g. and jyothsna, d. 2013. standardization of protocol for in vitro propagation of an endangered medicinal plant rauwolfia serpentina benth. j. medicinal plant res., 7: 2150-2153. vanisree, m., lee, c. y., lo, s. f. and nalawade, s. m. 2004. studies on the production of some important secondary metabolites from medicinal plants by plant tissue cultures. bot. bull. acad. sinica., 45: 1-22. (ms received 12 april 2016, revised 04 may 2017, accepted 28 june 2017) 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() / . hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 52-54, 2006 analysis of genetic divergence in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) h. r. sharma, deepa sharma and a. k. thakur dr. yashwant singh parmar university of horticulture and forestry horticultural research station, kandaghat district solan (himachal pradesh) 173 215, india e-mail: hrs_kgt@yahoo.com abstract non-hierarchical analysis conducted on 60 genotypes of tomato {lycopersicon esculentum mill.) grouped the genotypes into 10 clusters. maximum divergence within a cluster was exhibited by the cluster vih (1.531), closely followed by cluster iii (1.528) and cluster v (1.460), whereas, cluster viii and cluster ii were the most divergent from each other followed by cluster vii and cluster viii. promising genotypes selected were ft-5, lbr-10-2, ths1-1, ths-2-2, t-99-1-2 and t-99-2-3 for yield per plant, fruit size index, pericarp thickness and plant height, whereas, w 55, campbell and ec-123018 were found to be the best for average fruit weight. however, genotypes ec-170785 and red cherry may be used to improve the number of fruits per plant and earliness. key words: cluster analysis, tomato, genetic divergence, lycopersicon esculentum introduction tomato {lycopersicon esculentum mill.) is an important vegetable crop grown worldwide. the crop has been studied extensively and a marked improvement has been achieved with respect to yield and other useful traits. since, the success of crop improvement programme is based solely on diversity available in the breeding material. in the present studies, non-hierarchical euclidean clustering approach was used to assess diversity and to select elite and divergent parents for use in further crop improvement programmes. material and methods the experimental material comprised of 60 genotypes of tomato collected from various sources in india. the experiment was laid out during kharif 2005 at dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, horticultural research station, kandaghat, solan, himachal pradesh, situated at an altitude of 1270m above mean sea level, lying between latitude 30° 52' north and longitude it 11' east. the climate here ranges from sub-tropical to sub-temperate. sixteen plants of each genotype were transplanted at the recommended spacing of 60cm x 45cm. standard cultural practices were followed as to raise the tomato crop as per recommendations of the package of practices developed by the university (anon. 2005). observations on plant height, days to first harvest, fruit size index, average fruit weight, number of fruits per plant and yield per plant were recorded on 10 randomly selected competitive plants from each plot. mean values of all the traits were subjected to statistical analysis. genetic divergence analysis was performed by using nonhierarchical euclidean cluster analysis (spark, 1973). results and discussion cluster analysis of data on yield and traits grouped the 60 genotypes into ten clusters. composition of the clusters is given in table 1. maximum number of genotypes figured in cluster ix followed by cluster iii, cluster v and cluster vii (8 genotypes in each), cluster x (7 genotypes), cluster i and cluster vi (6 genotypes), cluster ii (3 genotypes) and cluster iv and cluster viii (2 genotypes each). maximum intra-cluster distance (table 2) was exhibited by cluster viii (1.531) closely followed by cluster iii (1.528) and cluster v (1.460). higher values of intracluster distance indicate greater diversity among members of the cluster. the least intra-cluster distance observed in cluster x (0.983) indicated limited genetic divergence. the inter cluster distance among different clusters shows that cluster viii and cluster ii are most divergent having maximum (7.384) inter cluster distance followed by cluster vn and cluster vih (6.361). similar findings have also been reported earlier by rai et al (1998), dharmatti et al (2001), mohanty and prusti (2001), sharma and verma (2001) and parthasarathy and aswath (2002). the genotypes selected mailto:hrs_kgt@yahoo.com sharma et al from divergent clusters may, thus, provide genetically divergent parents for hybridization programmes and may produce heterotic f,s or transgressive segregants in later generations. cluster means for yield and horticultural traits in tomato (table 3) revealed that maximum number of fruits per plant (75.28) were obtained in cluster viii, whereas genotypes of cluster vi gave the highest yield per plant table 1. composition of clusters in tomato (2.38 kg), fruit size index (34.58 cm^), pericarp thickness (8.03 mm) and plant height (2(x).44 cm). cluster vii showed the minimum number of days (46 days) to achieve marketable maturity. the genotypes may, thus, be selected from these clusters to improve a particular trait. genotypes ft-5, lbr-10-2, ths-1-1, ths-2-2, t99-1 -2 and t-99-2-3 were found to be promising with respect to yield per plant; fruit size index, pericarp thickness and cluster number of genotypes genotype i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x 6 3 8 2 8 6 8 2 10 7 ec 122911, ec 177862, le 580, le 590, le 598, dvrt-2 w 55, compbell, ec 123018 rutger, iihr-1278, ec 122171, ec 368860, ec 126255, ec 353830, ec 143540, ageta iihr-1200, lihr-1260 solan gola, lalmani, sioux, sel 147, pusa ruby, ec 130031, ec 126762, hs 88 ft-5, lbr-10-2, ths-1-1, ths-2-2, t 99-1-2, t 99-2-3 roma, russel, chiku, le 581, le 258, le 259, le 260, le 600 ec 170785, red cherry beefsteak, marglobe, solan surkha, sel 231, a 2, ai-11, lbr-12-1, lbr_14-1, lbr-8-2, uc 82 b marathan, iihr-i246, ec 546280, ec 141830, ec 143590, jtl, hawaii 7998 table 2. intra and inter cluster distance in tomato cluster i ii iii iv vi vii viii ix i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x 1.305 3.171 2.460 3.006 2.681 3.071 2.902 4.804 1.878 2.650 0.994 3.825 2.893 3.522 4.174 4.528 7.384 2.984 3.805 1.528 3.870 2.064 4.679 3.421 4.452 2.500 2.536 1.031 4.583 4.588 5.337 6.196 4.006 3.330 1.460 3.506 3.490 5.249 1.494 2.412 1.212 4.631 6.260 2.655 3.225 0.902 6.361 2.665 4.831 1.531 5.715 4.450 1.124 2.619 0.983 table 3. cluster means for various characters in tomato cluster number of fruits per plant yield per plant (kg) average fruit weight (g) fruit size index (cm-) pericarp thickness (mm) plant height (cm) days taken to first harvest i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x 34.09 16.02 26.09 24.28 26.11 36.63 26.77 75.28 25.62 31.84 2.11 1.76 1.16 2.31 1.22 2.38 1.59 1.28 1.60 1.62 62.98 110.86 48.42 95.12 49.63 64.65 59.79 17.98 63.35 51.48 23.20 29.59 20.32 12.87 33.25 34.58 27.99 13.46 30.92 22.32 4.84 3.08 2.96 2.00 4.23 8.03 7.97 1.91 6.36 3.54 152.04 167.67 144.82 170.67 165.34 200.44 66.91 163.50 154.33 204.17 58.17 66.67 60.38 75.50 67.75 81.67 46.00 69.00 66.00 83.71 table 4. promising genotypes for various traits character promising genotypes identified number of fruits per plant yield per plant (kg) average fruit weight (g) fruit size index (cm-) pericarp thickness (mm) plant height (cm) days taken to first harvest ec 170785, red cherry ft-5, lbr-10-2, ths-1-1, ths-2-2, t 99-1-2, t 99-2-3 w 55, compbell, ec 123018 ft-5, lbr-10-2, ths-1-1, ths-2-2, t 99-1-2, t 99-2-3 ft-5, lbr-10-2, ths-1-1, ths-2-2, t 99-1-2, t 99-2-3 ft-5, lbr-10-2, ths-i-1, ths-2-2, t 99-1-2, t 99-2-3 roma, russel, chiku, le 581, le 258, le 259, le 260, le 600 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 52-54,2006 53 genetic divergence in tomato plant height, whereas w 55, campbell and ec-123018 were found to be the best for average fruit weight. however, genotypes ec-170785 and red cherry may be used to improve the number of fruits per plant and earliness (table 4). references anonymous,2005. package of practices for vegetable crops. directorate of extension education, dr. y.s. parmar, university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan, himachal pradesh, pp. 8-23 dharmatti, p. r., madalgeri, b. b . , mannikeri, i. m., patil, r. v., girish patil and patil, g. 2001. genetic divergence studies in summer tomatoes. kamataka j. agric. scl, u-a07-411 mohanty, b. k. and prusti, a. m. 2001.analysis of genetic distance in tomato. res. crops, 2:382-385 parthasarathy, v. a. and aswath, c. 2002. genetic diversity among tomato genotypes. indian j. hort., 59:162166 rai, n. , rajput, y. s. and singh, a. k. 1998. genetic divergence in tomato using a non hierarchical clustering approach. veg. sci., 25:133-135 sharma, k. c. and verma, s. 2001. analysis of genetic divergence in tomato. ann. agric. res., 22:71-73 spark, d. n. 1973. euclidean cluster analysis. algorithm as 58. appl. stat., 22:126-130 (ms received 27 april, 2006 revised 18 june, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 52-54, 2006 54 papaya (carica papaya l.) is one of the important fruits of the tropical and subtropical regions of our country. it has gained commercial importance due to high productivity and multipurpose use. papaya is considered as the poor man’s fruit. aykroyd (1951) ranks it next to mango as a source of precursor of vitamin a. while this vitamin is generally associated with carotene, the yellow pigment in papaya is not carotene, but caricaxanthin. cultivar differences and geographic effects on carotenoid composition and vitamin a values have been reported in papaya. geographic effect had a greater influence than the cultivar on vitamin a content (kimura et al, 1991). physicochemical characters play a very important role in selection of improved genotypes of papaya with superior quality. these are useful as breeding material for further improvement. the present investigation was undertaken to assess physicochemical characteristics in papaya under bengaluru conditions. the experiment was conducted at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, using ten varieties of papaya (carica papaya l.), viz., coorg honey dew, pink flesh sweet, sunrise solo, waimanalo, pant-2, washington, red gold, pusa dwarf, pau selection and co-4, and, two hybrids, h-39 and h-57, in the years 1997-2000. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design, with three replications. observations were recorded on plant height, stem circumference, plant spread (n-s & j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):234-235, 2013 short communication 1college of agriculture, lembucherra, tripura, india evaluation of varieties and hybrids for physico-chemical characters in papaya (carica papaya l.) sukhen chandra das1 and m.r. dinesh department of fruit crops, indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: sukhenchandra@rediffmail.com abstract papaya (carica papaya l., caricaceae) is a fruit crop of commercial significance in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. the present investigation was carried out to assess physico-chemical characteristics of 10 genotypes of papaya under bengaluru conditions. results revealed that the varieties, sunrise solo, waimanalo and the hybrids, h-39 and h-57 had medium-sized fruits. fruit cavity index was low in the varieties sunrise solo, pink flesh sweet and in hybrids h-39 and h-57. further, sunrise solo recorded the highest plant height while the shortest plants were observed in pusa dwarf. weight of the fruits was found to vary from 486.67g in sunrise solo, to 1380.33g in pusa dwarf. pulp thickness, tss and ascorbic acid were found to be maximum in hybrids h-39 and h-57. lowest titratable acidity too was observed in the hybrids h-39 and h-57. key words: carica papaya, physico-chemical characteristics, varieties, hybrids e-w), fruit weight, fruit length, fruit breadth, fruit volume, fruit cavity index, pulp thickness, total soluble solids (tss), total carotenoid content, ascorbic acid, titrable acidity and hundred seed weight. data were statistically analyzed using standard procedures of ranganna (1994). marked variation in growth parameters in different varieties and hybrids for various characters were observed. among the varieties and hybrids studied (table 1), sunrise solo recorded the highest plant height, while, the least was seen in the variety, pusa dwarf. hybrids h-39, h-57 and varieties washington, pant-2, pau-selection and co-4, showed medium plant height and plant spread. least plant spread was recorded in pusa dwarf. fruit weight was found to vary from 486.67g in sunrise solo, to 1380.33g in pusa dwarf. varieties coorg honey dew, waimanalo, pant-2, washington, red gold and co-4 had medium-sized fruits. smallsized fruits were noticed in the variety sunrise solo, and in the hybrid h-39. dinesh and yadav (1998) reported fruit weight to be 600-800g in the variety ‘surya’. cavity index of the fruit was found to vary from 15.33% in sunrise solo, to 39.70% in co-4. varieties washington, waimanalo, pusa dwarf and pink flesh sweet had medium cavity index, whereas hybrids h-39 and h-57 had a low cavity index. similar observation was recorded in a previous study in ‘surya’ (anon., 1999). highest pulp thickness was recorded in h-39, followed by pink flesh sweet. dinesh and yadav (1998) reported pulp thickness of 3.0-3.5cm in ‘surya’. 235 physico-chemical characters of papaya varieties and hybrids ghanta (1994) recorded a pulp thickness of 3.10cm in the variety ‘ranchi’. highest tss was observed in the hybrid h-39, and the lowest in the variety ‘pusa dwarf’. dinesh and yadav (1997) recorded tss of 13.5obrix in h-39. similar observation was reported by auxcilia and sathiamoorthy (1999). highest total carotenoid content was observed in h-39, and the least in ‘pusa dwarf’. ahmad shah and shanmugavelu (1975) reported high total carotenoids (1.250 to 2.558mg/100g) in the first generation hybrid (co-1 x coorg honey dew). auxcilia and sathiamoorthy (1999) also recorded similar observation. highest titrable acidity was observed in waimanalo and the lowest in the hybrids h-39, h-57 and in co-4. ghanta (1994) recorded titrable acidity to be 0.003% in cv. ranchi. highest ascorbic acid content was recorded in hybrid h-39 and in red gold, and lowest in the variety ‘waimanalo’. therefore, it is seen that the season and agro-climatic region in which plants grow influence vitamin c (ascorbic acid) content of the fruit. auxcilia and sathiamoorthy (1999) observed a range (27.65 to 71.89mg/ 100g) in cv. ranchi. similar observation was also reported by ahmed shah and shanmugavalu (1975) in their first generation hybrids. highest carotenoid content was found in hybrid h-39, followed by pink flesh sweet and sunrise solo. lowest titrable acidity was observed in the hybrids h-39 and h-57, while, highest ascorbic acid content was reported in hybrid h-39. the hybrids and varieties mentioned above can be used as potential parents to breed for their respective quality characters enumerated above. references ahmed shah, h. and shanmugavelu, k.g. 1975. studies on first generation hybrid in papaya: chemical constituents of the fruit (carica papaya l.). south indian hort., 23:109-113 anonymous. 1999. research activities: fruits, iihr, annual report, bangalore, p.17 auxcilia, j. and sathiamoorthy, s. 1999. evaluation of gynodioecious papaya for yield and quality. south indian hort., 44:121-123 aykroyd, w.r. 1951. the nutritive value of indian foods and the planning of satisfactory diets, govt. of india res., new delhi dinesh, m.r. and yadav, i.s. 1997. improvement of guava and papaya by breeding. iihr annual report, bangalore, p.30 dinesh, m.r. and yadav, i.s. 1998. indian hort., 43:21-33 ghanta, p.k. 1994. physico-chemical changes in papaya cv. ranchi during fruit development and maturity. south indian hort., 42:231-235 kimura, m., rodriguez-amayya, d.b. and yokoama, s.m. 1991. lebensmittel-wissenschatt und technologie, 24:415-418 ranganna, s. 1994. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable production, 2nd ed., tata mcgraw-hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi table 1. physico-chemical characters of varieties and hybrids of papaya variety/ hybrid x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 1 0 x 1 1 x 1 2 x 1 3 x 1 4 x 1 5 coorg honey 198.83 32.67 191.00 192.00 1089.33 1071.67 22.05 28.33 13.00 2.73 11.83 2.00 0.17 67.13 1.37 dew sunrise solo 237.77 37.77 189.00 184.67 486.67 443.33 13.64 15.33 7.97 2.83 13.47 3.00 0.18 50.67 1.37 waimanalo 180.00 32.47 167.00 170.67 803.33 656.67 12.33 25.60 10.17 2.10 11.73 2.00 0.33 36.27 1.40 pant-2 166.67 33.47 207.67 207.67 1047.33 1028.00 20.20 36.33 13.13 2.77 11.69 2.00 0.17 56.47 1.47 washington 181.67 30.70 236.67 231.67 827.33 796.67 15.59 27.90 10.12 2.13 12.30 2.57 0.22 61.77 1.20 red gold 206.67 35.67 213.00 213.00 1027.33 965.67 19.57 39.50 12.70 2.27 10.77 2.20 0.16 68.00 1.40 pusa dwarf 139.47 29.23 157.33 156.33 1380.33 1367.00 19.27 27.20 15.23 2.37 9.53 1.53 0.16 66.63 1.30 pau selection 159.22 31.57 189.00 191.00 1064.00 1056.33 18.43 37.23 14.17 2.70 10.87 2.20 0.15 65.93 1.40 pink flesh 192.22 34.33 200.00 199.67 1060.00 1041.33 23.80 25.17 12.10 3.20 13.41 3.03 0.18 52.77 1.43 sweet co-4 191.67 34.57 194.33 193.00 901.00 825.67 16.00 39.70 11.40 2.23 9.87 2.93 0.14 51.30 1.47 h-39 206.13 33.97 198.00 195.67 703.33 857.67 16.57 15.43 10.65 3.27 14.83 3.27 0.13 69.00 1.30 h-57 212.77 36.20 166.67 169.00 943.33 716.67 13.50 23.53 10.65 2.57 10.77 2.70 0.13 59.93 1.40 grand mean 189.43 33.52 192.47 192.02 944.78 902.22 17.58 28.44 11.76 2.59 11.75 2.47 0.18 58.82 1.39 f-test * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * sem+ 5.67 1.37 8.79 8.67 95.95 96.55 0.61 3.08 0.51 0.08 0.41 0.12 0.03 2.33 0.03 cd (p=0.05) 16.63 4.03 25.76 25.41 281.37 283.18 1.78 9.01 1.50 0.25 1.19 0.35 0.08 6.85 0.08 x1: plant height (cm) x5: fruit weight (g) x9: fruit breadth (cm) x13: titrable acidity (%) x2: stem diameter (cm) x6: fruit volume (ml) x10: pulp thickness (cm) x14: ascorbic acid (mg/100g) x3: plant spread e-w (cm) x7: fruit length (cm) x11: tss (obrix) x15: hundred seed weight (g) x4: plant spread n-s (cm) x8: fruit cavity index (%) x12: total carotenoide content (mg/100g) (ms received 10 september 2012, revised 09 may 2013, accepted 25 june 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):234-235, 2013 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 focus isotope-aided research in fruit and vegetable crops s.c. kotur isotope laboratory division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 560089, india e-mail: sckotur@gmail.com abstract in the realm of newly-emerging horticultural enterprises, some of the traceror isotope-related applications are highlighted here. these include root activity studies on important fruit crops using soil injection of carrier-free 32p, factors affecting spatial temporal root activity distribution of fruit crops, appropriate time and method of application to achieve maximum use efficiency in fruit and vegetable crops using 15nand 32p-labelled fertilizers. a model for studying nutrient efficient cropping sequences and crop combinations in vegetable crops was also developed. other uses of radiation techniques in plant nutrition are: mobilization of p from mother plant to sucker in ‘robusta’ banana, contribution of exogenous fertilizer source to phosphorus availability in citrus, internal dilution technique for comparing sources not amenable to isotope labelling, determination of tree volume in fruit crops using isotope dilution technique, detection of unorthodox movement of nutrients upon direct feeding of nutrients to de-navelled banana bunch, monitoring internal dynamics of water in spongy-tissue affected ‘alphonso’ mango fruits, investigations on source-sink relationship in mango and some vegetable crops, identification of high water use efficient types using ∇∇∇∇∇ 18o values in onion, etc. scope of using tracer techniques in horticultural research is highlighted. key words: isotopes, root activity, 32p, fertilizer use efficiency, 15n, horticultural crops, tracer techniques india has made tremendous advances in modern agriculture toward food and nutritional security. in recent years, agriculture and horticulture have assumed great importance mainly, to augment food and nutritional security and secondarily, to facilitate cost-effective, remunerative and eco-friendly enterprises with a vast export potential. to meet challenges in research and development, tracer techniques have made important contribution as these can be ingeniously applied to resolve issues not ordinarily possible through conventional techniques. traceror isotope-aided research in agricultural crops has been done at various centres, but attention paid to horticultural crops is sporadic and largely restricted to a few fruit crops like mango, grape and banana. more concerted work was undertaken in the past three decades at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, covering most tropical and sub-tropical fruit and vegetable crops. the isotope laboratory here was established in 1976 with financial assistance from usaid and dst and is an aerb approved class ii laboratory with an exclusive field facility, perhaps the best in the country. most of the research has been carried out as field experiments. salient achievement of this exemplary lead, along with contemporary research done is presented in this paper. nuclear techniques used in soil science and plant nutrition complement conventional techniques and provide unique information that other techniques cannot. major applications of radiation techniques are: (i) quantitative information generation on flow and fate of fertilizer in soil, and uptake of nutrients by plants, to develop efficient fertilizer management practices, (ii) identification of the source of soil water and its availability to plants, (iii) identification of sources of atmospheric/ soil carbon and estimation of their contribution, dynamics of photosynthates/assimilates to understand crop nutrition, (iv) measurement of biological nitrogen fixation, and (v) measurement of extent of soil erosion. significant use of radiotracers in soil chemical and plant nutrition has been made. an ideal tracer is one which is physically, chemically and biologically indistinguishable from the tracer and which must not disturb the soil-waterplant system (ramachandran et al, 2007). in other words, the ‘isotope effect’ should be practically absent. radioactivity used in such studies should be low enough to not affect plants (the experimental material) or 120 experimenters. normally, these criteria are easily met in practical situations of soil/crop research. the mainstay of tracer studies used in plants and soils is the principle of isotope dilution, propounded by g. hevesy and r. hobbie in 1932, the term being first introduced by d. rittenberg and g.l. foster in 1940. dilution of the radioactive isotope by its non-radioactive counterpart results in reduction of specific activity (defined as activity per unit volume or mass) in a conserved manner, proportional to the original specific activity and amount of the analyte (fasset, 1995). when stable isotopes are used, diluted natural isotopic ratio is related to concentration by the amount and isotopic composition of the separated isotope that was added. the principal limitation, however, is availability of suitable spike or tracers. the half-life must be long enough for sufficient activity to be available during the analysis for good counting statistics. other important advantage of tracer techniques is the highly sensitive detection possible when appropriate instruments are installed in an isotope laboratory. root activity studies in fruit crops efficient use of fertilizers is a function of chemical availability of the nutrient and volume of soil explored by the roots. information on root activity is useful in standardizing time and method of fertilizer application, irrigation, planting distance and other cultivation practices (bojappa and singh, 1973). the pattern of root activity distribution obtained using radioactive 32p compared well with the actual (purohit and mukherjee, 1974). root activity studies in important fruit crops were carried out on a typic haplustalf soil having textural horizon (b t ) at 20cm depth. therefore, deeper layers were of hard to very hard dry consistency, blocky structure and slow infiltration rate, all of which increase mechanical resistance to root growth in drier months. soil injection of carrier-free 32p was used to study root activity distribution in important fruit crops under rain-fed conditions. the unique advantage of 32p as a tracer for root activity studies is its relative immobility in soil (making location of isotope application effective for measurement of root activity) and its high mobility within the plant once absorbed, such that the tracer becomes homogenously distributed within the plant in a couple of weeks after application. its convenient half-life of 32p (14.3 days) makes it possible for four quarterly injections when root activity is required to be monitored during annual growth cycle of the perennial plants. its amenability to cerenkov counting which make detection convenient, is yet another advantage. results indicated that citrus varieties [kinnow mandarin (iyengar, 1983); kagzi lime (iyengar and keshava murthy, 1987); coorg mandarin iyengar et el, 1988; table 3, fig. 1); and sweet orange cv. mosambi (iyengar and shivananda, 1990a)] were shallow-rooted. in these crops, fertilizer applied at a shallow depth can be optimally absorbed, as also drip irrigation/ fertigation can be efficacious. both grape varieties viz., ‘anab-e-shahi’ and ‘thompson seedless’ (prakash, 1987; iyengar et al, 1989 and iyengar and shivananda, 1990b), mango cv. ‘alphonso’ (bojappa and singh, 1973; kotur et al, 1997), guava cv. ‘arka mridula’ (kotur et al, 1998, fig. 2), ‘ganesh’ pomegranate (kotur and keshava murthy, 2003b) and ‘cricket ball’ sapota (kotur, 2005) were deeprooted in nature. these deep-rooted crops utilize native nutrients effectively from the entire rooting volume but may show limited utilization of (i) nutrients applied at shallow depth and (ii) irrigation water. spread of active roots in fruit trees was uniform during north-east monsoon due to uniformly moist soil-water regime. during summer, the active roots moved towards soil surface and away from trunk towards the periphery of drip-circle. intensity of root activity (total radioactivity recovered during the season) was highest during south-west monsoon due to high volumetric soilfig 1. surface-oriented root activity distribution (example: 6 year old coorg mandarin, iyengar and keshava murthy,. 1988b) fig 2. deep-rooted root activity distribution (eg., 6-year old ‘arka mridula’ guava; kotur et al, 1998) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 kotur 121 moisture, and decreased during winter as rains receded. least intensity of root activity was observed during summer from depletion of soil moisture. generally, a period of high root activity alternated with shoot growth except in guava, in which, both the periods of high root activity and shoot activity coincided. however, ‘arka mridula’ guava was an exception (kotur et al, 1998). in ‘surya’ papaya (kotur and keshava murthy, 2001), one year after planting, active roots spread uniformly to a depth of 45cm and to a radial distance of 100cm from the trunk (fig 3). similarly, in ‘robusta’ banana at the shooting stage, active roots extended up to 75cm lateral distance and 45cm depth, leading to fairly uniform root activity distribution in the entire rooting volume (kotur et al, 2011). thus, both banana and papaya grown under irrigated condition were found to utilize fully rooting volume both in terms of radial distance (subject to spacing) and depth (45cm) uniformly, owing to the congenial soil physical conditions round the year. thereby, these crops can be exhaustive on native soil nutrients. in the second phase of root activity studies, effect of various production practices on were evaluated since tracer techniques are sensitive. salient findings are: (i) in ‘ganesh’ pomegranate, type of planting material used had significant impact on root activity pattern. air-layers showed predominantly surface-oriented root system by confining 98% of active roots up to 50cm depth, while seedlings extended roots up to 100cm depth. conversely, air-layers extended roots to a wider distance (75cm) compared to seedlings (50cm). seedlings showed better anchorage and were amenable to closer spacing (high planting density) than air-layers (kotur and keshava murthy, 2004a). (ii) in ‘arka mridula’ guava trees aged 16 years, cultural practices used for maintaining plant bed had a distinct influence on root activity. intensity of root activity was higher under polythene mulch, followed by green manure mulch and non-cultivation. the dept-total of root activity was substantially higher at 160cm distance under black polythene mulch during winter (50%) and under green manure mulch (41%). in the rest of the treatments and seasons, 31-37% of active roots were present at this distance (kotur, 2007a). (iii) in ‘arka mridula’ guava, with increasing age, active roots extended predominantly sideways than deep owing to anisotropism of the soil. in 7-year old trees, bulk of the active roots extended up to 150cm radial distance, while, in 16year old trees the roots extended to a distance of 240cm. as a result, to achieve high fertilizer use efficiency, the circular band of superphosphate had to be shifted from 100160cm in young trees to a much farther distance of 130190cm in older trees (kotur, 2007b). (iv) assessment of root activity distribution in annona as influenced by rootstock-scion interaction showed that, in general, seedlings of both annona squamosa and a. reticulata had higher intensity of root activity than when these were grafted with ‘arka sahan’ scion. root activity distribution in a. reticulata trees closely conformed to that in a. squamosa. grafts of both the species showed relatively uniform distribution of active roots throughout the year compared to seedlings (which may promote better anchorage, drought tolerance and utilization of native soil moisture and nutrients from the rooting volume) (kotur, 2009). (v) application of paclobutrazol, a growth retardant, to 20-year old ‘alphonso’ mango trees to regularize fruit bearing showed reduced intensity of root activity. active roots tended to bunch close to the soil surface and tree trunk compared to ‘control’ trees (kotur, 2006). this effect was pronounced during seasons of high soil moisture (kotur, 2012). this calls for rationalization of fertilizer placement in such trees to optimize fertilizer use and to prevent decline. selection of uniform fruit trees in studies such as these is an important pre-requisite to contain coefficient of variation. however, good comparison of the pattern of root activity distribution from tracer studies with actual distribution using excavation studies, has been observed (purohit and mukherjee 1974). zapata (1990) listed several sources of error like spatial variability of soil across the plantation, plant variability related to genetic origin, sampling factors (type, size, time, etc.), injection factors related to unequal probability of contact between root and the isotope applied. fig 3. uniform root activity distribution (eg., one-year old ‘surya’ papaya; kotur and keshava murthy, 2001) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 isotope-aided research in fruit and vegetable crops 122 therefore, it is essential to characterize and earmark a fairly uniform land for root activity studies, and to interpret results keeping soil characteristics in view. when soil depth, shallow water-table and physical properties are not a constraint allowing for free growth of roots (as, perhaps, in alluvial soils), rooting pattern in any plant may be as characteristic and unique as is its shoot canopy. a pilot study is a must to standardize isotope to be applied to each tree (to obtain substantial counts during detection of the tracer) geometry of the location of points of injection for effective evaluation of rooting volume and, procedure and frequency of sampling, is essential before embanking on detailed studies. once these protocols are standardized, root activity distribution of a large number of crops can be studied quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively. appropriate time and placement of fertilizer in fruit crops fertilizers are, perhaps, the single costliest item in cost of cultivation (accounting for 30-40% of the cost). growers use fertilizers in ample measure notwithstanding their cost, for obtaining high yields. however, indiscriminate use of mineral fertilizers also leads to pollution of soil, water and the atmosphere. fertilizer use aims at supplying required nutrients to a crop and not to the soil. fertilizer use efficiency is a quantitative measure of actual uptake of the fertilizer nutrient by a plant/crop in relation to the amount of nutrient added to soil. it is commonly expressed as: amount of nutrient in plant derived from fertilizer utilization of added fertilizer (%) = ------------------------------x 100 amount of nutrient applied as fertilizer it is the key to achieve highest possible yield with a minimum fertilizer input. in other words, efficient fertilizer management is most cost-effective and eco-friendly. isotopic techniques are superior to conventional methods as they give a direct and quantitative measure of isotope-labelled fertilizer nutrients utilized by the crop, quite independent of the native nutrients present in soil. as a result, different fertilizer practices like placement, timing, sources, etc., can be evaluated efficiently. the most important parameters determined in this technique is the fraction (of the nutrient in the plant) derived from (labelled) fertilizer is fdff. this fraction is expressed as percentage, i.e., fdff (%) as follows: in the case of 15n studies, percent 15n atom excess in plant sample ndff (%) = ———————————————— x 100 percent 15n atom excess in labelled fertilizer and, in the case of 32p studies, specific activity of 32p in plant sample pdff (%) = ———————————————— x 100 specific activity of 32p in labelled fertilizer labelling or enriching a fertilizer with the desired isotope is indispensable for this work, as, use of the labelled soil is not satisfactory. with phasing out of 32p-labelling facility for superphosphate by board of radiation and isotope technology (brit), mumbai, in 2003, the national facility for labelling superphosphate with 32p was established at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore in the isotope laboratory, as a joint venture with brit in 2005, and has been functional ever since. fertilizer use efficiency in relation to application time and placement method was studied in some fruit crops raised on red sandy-loam (typic haplsutalf) weakly acidic in reaction, having low cation exchange capacity under semiarid tropic conditions, using 32p-labelled superphosphate and 15n-labelled ammonium sulphate. the fertilizers were placed in circular bands around the plant during different seasons. n and p derived from fertilizer (ndff and pdff) were determined to monitor differences in absorption due to time of application and placement method. it was found that in eight year old plants of sweet orange (iyengar and keshava murthy, 1988a) and coorg mandarin (iyengar and keshava murthy, 1989), there was better absorption of fertilizer during late rainy season with the fertilizer placed in a circular band 105cm to 135cm from the trunk ( fig. 4, table 1). a comparison of nine year old scion cultivars, viz., italian lemon (citrus latifolia tanaka) and seedless lime (c. limon birm.) showed that the dwarfing rootstock ‘trifoliate orange’ (poncirus trifoliata) resulted in highest pdff, while, rangpur lime (c. limonia osbeck.) and cleopatra mandarin (c. reshni tanaka) resulted in lower fig 4. proper placement of fertilizers in 8 year old citrus plants (iyengar et al, 1996) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 kotur 123 pdff. between scion cultivars, italian lemon derived more p from the fertilizer than died seedless lime (iyengar and keshava murthy, 1988b). in grape, there was faster and greater uptake of fertilizer during vegetative phase than during reproductive phase. fertilizer should be applied in two splits but within 15 days after each pruning in a band of 60cm width, between a radial distance of 60cm to 120cm (keshava murthy and iyengar, 1992). similar observations were made in ‘perlette’ and ‘anab-e-shahi’ grape (madhava rao et al, 1971). in seven-year old guava ‘arka mridula’, to achieve high use efficiency, p fertilizer may be applied between 100 and 220cm during july (fig. 5) (keshava murthy and kotur, 1998b) and, in 12-year old mango ‘alphonso’, the same may be applied at 60cm to 150cm radial distance during july and november, for better absorption (fig. 6) (keshava murthy and kotur, 1999a). in ‘robusta’ banana, recommended p dose should be applied in two equal splits at planting, 8th leaf stage (45-50 days after planting) and at 16th leaf stage (90 days after planting). the recommended n and k should be applied in four splits at 8th, 16th and 25th leaf stages and at shooting. during early stages (8th and 16th leaf stage) fertilizer may be applied in 25cm circular bands between 25 and 50cm radial distances (fig 7) whereas, during the later stages, in wider bands of 50cm width between 25 and 75cm radial distances (fig 8). (keshava murthy and kotur, 1998a). investigations on determining inter-plant root competition and rationalization of fertilizer management in ‘robusta’ banana under high-density planting was studied (kotur et al, 2011). inter-plant competition of roots for nutrients was practically negligible. application of 80% recommended phosphorus dose, applied in two splits as circular bands at 5cm depth, between 15 and 35cm in the first of split dose, and between 35 and 55cm distance from the base of the plant in the second split dose was optimum to attain high fruitand bunch. in ‘surya’ papaya, it was found best to apply p fertilizer between 10cm and 40cm radial distance during pre-bearing, early vegetative stage, and between 20cm and 80cm during flowering and fruitbearing (kotur and keshava murthy, 2003a; fig. 9). overall, application of fertilizer during rainy season and placement within the dripcircle always resulted in higher absorption of the applied fertilizer. by appropriate placement, p use efficiency of applied fertilizer increased from 0.51% to 16.35% in ‘arka mridula’ guava and 2.9% to 17.7% in ‘robusta’ banana. fertilizer use efficiency of n applied in respect of ‘robusta’ banana increased from 6.8% to 60.0%. table 4 illustrates dividends from improved fertilizer use efficiency by proper timing and placement, based on these studies. these results are valid for practical management of other fertilizers too, since, nutrient absorption presupposes prevalence of high root activity in the zone of placement at the time of fertilizer application. fertilizer management in vegetable crops area under vegetables is steadily increasing in periurban areas due to urbanization concerted research carried out using 15n-enriched and 32p-labelled fertilizers has led to many important findings. studies were carried out on red sandy-loam soil (typic haplustalf) belonging to thymagondlu series, with ph 5.7, organic carbon 0.5%, cation exchange capacity 8.7 cmol (p+)/kg, available fig 5: appropriate placement of fertilizer in 7-year old ‘arka mridula’ guava plant fig 6. appropriate placement of fertilizer in 12-year old ‘alphonso’ mango fig 7. optimum placement of fertilizer during early vegetative (50-100 days after planting, 8-16 leaf stage) in banana fig. 8. optimum placement of fertilizer after late vegetative stage (beyond 100 days after planting) in banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 isotope-aided research in fruit and vegetable crops fig 9. appropriate placement of fertilizer in 8year old papaya plants 124 (alkaline permanganate) n 202kg/ha and available (bray1) p 2kg/ha. nitrogen differential behavior of vegetable crops with respect to n use the uniqueness of each vegetable in respect of its requirement, differential dependence on soil vs. fertilizer source, etc. was studied in various vegetable crops. the crops differed substantially in respect of fertilizer n uptake and utilization owing to varying crop duration and specific crop characteristics. iyengar and shivananda (1992) observed that among the vegetables studied total n uptake was highest in brinjal, while it was the least in onion. tomato and onion relied more on fertilizer n whereas brinjal, okra, french bean and chilli absorbed greater n from the soil source (table 2). brinjal had the highest average rate of n uptake (3.53/ha/day) and chilli, the lowest (0.6kg/ha/day). recovery of fertilizer n ranged from 13.9% in chilli, to 44.7% in brinjal. onion showed the highest physiological efficiency, while brinjal registered highest agronomic efficiency. cropping sequence and combination cropping sequences are a feature of intensive cultivation of vegetables. here, it is necessary to identifyfertilizer efficient cropping sequence(s). of the six cropping sequences popular among farmers of bangalore region, it was found that french bean-tomato-onion and okracabbage-brinjal sequences were superior in utilizing applied n (table 3) (kotur and keshava murthy, 1999). the former was more efficient in using applied n to the first crop, than the latter. tomato-onion-french bean sequence was the best (42.16% n utilization) due to better use of n applied to the first crop (tomato being the best user, at 30.31%) and residual n by onion (11.14%). in this manner, highly efficient cropping sequences need to be adopted in different situations to attain high utilization of applied fertilizer. crop combinations are also a feature essential to increase cropping intensity. studies on the pattern of n use by component crops (table 4) (kotur et al, 2010a) showed that n use efficiency of crop combination: capsicum (onion) watermelon (radish) – okra (french bean) was drastically reduced to 6.44-19.21% from 10.85-37.16%, compared to any of the solo (main) crops. management of n fertilizer use there is a need for and scope to refine fertilizer management by adopting a strategy to ensure supply of n when a crop needs it the most, in adequate number of splits and at a place close to root zone where the crop can absorb it most efficiently. such management enhances utilization of the applied fertilizer and, in some instances, can lead to saving of fertilizer input. in transplanted vegetable crops, it is an accepted practice to apply n fertilizer in two equal splits: the first as basal dose, and the second as top-dressing, 20-40 days after transplanting. basal application is likely to remain unused and may be lost to irrigation, as, the transplant is yet to develop new roots and begin absorbing applied n. table 2. uptake of n, and n-use efficiency in vegetable crops in alfisol soil crop variety n uptake (kg/ha) recovery of pe* ae** fertilizer soil applied n (%) french bean arka komal 22.3 70.5 27.9 150 175 okra pusa savani 46.7 171.6 38.9 220 401 tomato arka vikas 42.7 56.8 26.4 513 340 brinjal arka shirish 53.4 401.8 44.7 223 844 onion arka kalyan 46.1 37.1 25.4 626 289 chilli arka lohit 16.7 81.8 13.9 166 137 *physiological efficiency; **agronomic efficiency table 1. scope for improvement of fertilizer use efficiency by appropriate time and placement strategies in some fruit crops crop (variety) age range of fertilizer use (years) efficiency observed broadcast appropriately placement placed nitrogen derived from fertilizer (ndff, %) banana (robusta) 1 6.8 60.00 phosphorus derived from fertilizer (pdff, %) sweet orange (mosambi) 9 0.51 2.36 mandarin (coorg mandarin) 9 1.08 4.51 grape (thompson seedless) 10 2.35 3.21 mango (alphonso) 9 1.32 4.85 guava (arka mridula) 7 2.90 17.70 papaya (coorg honey dew) 6* 0.72 6.72 papaya (surya) 6* 0.83 10.27 papaya (surya) 1 5.63 12.96 *age in months j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 kotur 125 therefore, shivananda et al (1996) delayed basal n application by 10 days after transplantation, increased the number of split applications from two to three, and realized high yields of ‘arka vikas’ tomato by applying 75% of recommended n dose (fig. 10). however, it was necessary to complete both top-dressings before 30 days from transplantation, to attain high n uptake and fertilizer utilization. in ‘ecl’ hybrid chilli, on the other hand, application of three equal splits, i.e., basal + two topdressings at 100% recommended dose, was the best provided the basal dose was applied at transplantation (owing to its quick growth). delay in application of basal dose of n caused reduction in yield in green chilli. in ‘arka lohit’, an improved variety of chilli, deferred application in three equal splits was the best (due to the plant’s slow growth habit) but no saving in n dose was possible (kotur et al, 2010b). it is noteworthy that when the number of splits increased from two to three, the relative proportion of n in the first split application was reduced from 50% to 33% with table 4. n and p fertilizer utilization and yield under various solo crops and their combinations treatment capsicum water melon okra (onion) (radish) (french bean) yield* (kg/1.8m2) solo crop-1 6.253 15.539 5.644 solo crop-2 2.683 8.919 2.425 crop combination 4.371 15.583 5.454 sem (±) 0.1019 0.2537 0.1380 cd (p=0.05) 0.3526 0.8778 0.4774 fertilizer n utilization (%) solo crop-1 10.85 23.70 22.76 solo crop-2 25.25 37.16 23.10 crop combination 6.60 19.12 6.44 sem (±) 0.590 0.843 0.821 cd (p=0.05) 2.042 2.916 2.839 fertilizer p utilization (%) solo crop-1 11.90 4.89 8.24 solo crop-2 7.09 10.43 10.14 crop combination 6.18 6.13 9.31 sem (±) 0.146 0.128 0.229 cd (p=0.05) 0.504 0.442 0.792 *yield expressed as capsicum-equivalent in capsicum (onion), as water melon-equivalent in water melon (radish), and as okra-equivalent in okra (french bean) crop combinations based on prevalent wholesale market prices table 3. n utilization (%) in vegetable cropping sequences treated crop second crop third crop total french bean-tomato-onion 22.20 4.48 1.57 28.25 30.31 11.14 0.71 42.16 14.19 6.72 0.54 21.45 okra-cabbage-brinjal 9.46 2.03 1.74 13.30 24.47 2.48 0.56 27.51 20.20 0.62 1.91 22.73 fig 10. application of n @ 90kg /ha in three equal splits delayed by 10 days after planting (bottom) saved 25% n input compared to application of full dose (120kg n/ha) as basal dose (top) in ‘arka vikas’ tomato, under bangalore conditions the crop still young, which improved the use-efficiency of applied n. vegetable crops are special in that they cannot complete their physiological life-cycle in the production process. most vegetable crops are terminated much ahead of their senescence, when economic harvest has peaked. in contrast to seed-to-seed field crops, this requires high levels of nutrients to be present in the soil solution in the root zone of vegetable crops throughout the crop duration. therefore, when the vegetable crop cycle ends, sizeable residual fertilizer nutrients inevitably remain in the soil. however, hardly 5-10% of n is utilized by the crop succeeding the first crop, and much less (<1%) in the third crop (kotur et al, 2010a). ureolytic enzymes are closely associated with organic j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 isotope-aided research in fruit and vegetable crops 126 matter content in acidic soils, irrespective of agro-climatic region (ramesh and kotur, 2006; shilpashree and kotur, 2009). volatilization loss of urea applied to the surface of moist soil can be substantial even in acid soils. in such instances, n use efficiency of a fertilizer can be greatly reduced unless n fertilizer is adequately incorporated into the soil or, slow release forms (or neem oil/product blended/ coated urea) are used. by such intervention, in tomato and french bean crops, neem-oil coated urea (nocu) applied at 80% of recommended dose produced fruit/pod yield close to that obtained with 100% recommended dose (applied as prilled urea) due to its controlled release in soil, and better utilization by the crop (kotur et al, 2007). phosphorus banding at appropriate depth phosphorus is a relatively immobile nutrient in soil. when it interacts with soil (when thoroughly incorporated/ mixed), it tends to get ‘fixed’ into less soluble forms, with al3+ and fe3+ prevalent in acid soils, or, with ca2+ and/or mg2+ predominance in alkaline soils. to avoid this, phosphatic fertilizers should be banded at an appropriate depth in close proximity to a zone of high root density, to attain higher p utilization (table 3). accordingly, banding of superphosphate at 5cm depth in french bean (iyengar and shivananda, 1988), brinjal and tomato (shivananda and iyangar, 1993), cabbage (kotur et al, 1995a) and onion and chilli (kotur et al, 1995b) was found to be superior. a saving of 40% in brinjal, and 20% in tomato and onion, was possible without any loss in yield. in deep-rooted okra crop, however, deeper placement (10cm depth) was necessary to attain this (shivananda and iyangar, 1990). in the case of f1 hybrid varieties which, in most cases, are more vigorous than improved or high-yielding cultivars, roots are likely to grow deeper. therefore, in hybrid capsicum, a crop grown from pro-tray raised seedlings (kotur, 2008), and in crops of cabbage and cauliflower raised from raised bed seedlings, superphosphate needed to be banded at a deeper depth of 10cm to attain high yield and optimum fertilizer use efficiency, as, the roots grew much deeper in these cases. however, in f1 hybrid ‘arka ananya’ tomato grown in raised bed seedlings, a shallower banding at 5cm depth was found to be superior to deeper placement, and led to a saving of 20% p and, yet, achieved high yield. this was attributed to the fact that tomato produced a tuft of secondary roots at around 5cm depth which absorbed most of the applied fertilizer p (even though the tap root, perhaps for proceeding anchorage, extended up to 12cm depth). in all these crops, attempts to elicit root activity distribution in a crop grown by transplanting raised-bed/ protray seedlings using soil injection of 32p, did not succeed. perhaps this was because plant part (shoot/ leaf) was not sampled accurately or detection of 32p was too sensitive. phosphorus use efficiency under increased cropping intensity under enhanced cropping intensity in ‘capsicum (onion)-water melon (radish)-okra (french bean)’ crop combination (crops mentioned in parentheses here are intercrops), p use efficiency drastically reduced from 4.8911.90 to 6.18-9.31%, compared to either of the sole (main) crops (kotur et al, 2010a). reduction in p utilization under various crop combinations was smaller than that in n utilization (table 4). it is evident that fertilizer use efficiency can be substantially improved (tables 1 and 6) by appropriate fertilizer management, through simple and non-monetary innovative practices. considering that >30% of nitrogen and entire quantities of phosphoric and potassic fertilizers are imported by india, improvement by even 1% use efficiency of n, p and k means saving several hundred crores of rupees, besides making farming enterprise more costefficient and eco-friendly. identification of nutrient-efficient varieties of scion and rootstocks in fruit crops inter-specific and inta-varietal differences in kinetic parameters (i max , k m and c min ) leading to different rates of absorption, and, their response to variations in rhizospheric nutrient concentration or marginal soil situations in respect of p, were studied in important fruit crops using 32p as a tracer. rate of net inflow (i n ) was calculated by the formula: i max (c s – c min ) i n = ——————— k m + (c s – c min ) where, i max denotes maximum rate of nutrient absorption (in pmoles/cm/s); k m , the nutrient concentration at which inflow is ½i max (in pmoles/l); c min , the nutrient concentration at which there is no net inflow (in pmoles/l); and c s , the equilibrium concentration of p (at 10µmole/l) in the solution. although such studies were widely conducted on annuals and short-duration plants, it is worthwhile to study the phenomenon in perennial fruit trees (which conserve nutrients for future use, to sustain a cyclic growth pattern). j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 kotur 127 amongst polyembryonic mango rootstocks, ‘peach’ and ‘prior’ may be said to be highly responsive to applied p, and likewise, scions budded onto them, in view of higher values of i max observed. ‘nendran’ banana, ‘bangalore blue’ grape and ‘citrumelo’ citrus could also be fertilizer responsive. low values of c min observed in ‘rough lemon’ rootstock of citrus, ‘vellaikolumban’ polyembryonic rootstock of mango, and ‘anab-e-shahi’ variety of grape indicate that these rootstocks/varieties of crops can be grown successfully in marginal soils. on the other hand, most citrus (rootstocks/scion) varieties require more fertile soils. phosphorus inflow rate (i n ) is comparatively high in polyembryonic mango rootstocks particularly, ‘olour’, ‘peach’, ‘prior’ and ‘vellaikolumban’, and thus, better p absorption efficiency, and may respond better to application. among banana varieties, also known to have high inflow rates, ‘nendran’ responded better to fertilization compared table 7. phosphorus derived from fertilizer (pdff, %) in newlydeveloping and mature old parts in italian lemon as influenced by various rootstocks rootstocks young, mature mature developing parts leaf fruit shoot tip flower fruit rind juice rough 5.9 8.8 2.5 4.5 2.2 1.2 lemon rangpur 5.3 7.2 4.7 5.5 4.8 3.2 lime cleopatra 5.4 5.7 6.2 4.7 2.2 2.8 mandarin kodaikithuli 10.2 12.6 5.1 8.4 1.5 3.2 mandarin trifoliate 8.1 10.5 6.1 7.2 2.8 2.8 orange carrizo 11.7 16.2 13.0 10.2 3.2 5.7 citrange citrumelo 12.5 16.7 7.5 10.5 4.6 2.3 table 9. activity of tritium (dps g-1 dry weight) in mesocarp and seed tissues in ‘alphonso’ mango fruit treated with pgrs fruit status mesocarp seed healthy 506 39 spongy 1467 68 spongy (germinating seed) 3185 123 spongy (ga 3 -treated) 3180 189 healthy (pbz-treated) 495 34 cd (p=0.05) 17.9 table 6. scope for improvement of fertilizer use efficiency by application at appropriate time and placement in some vegetable crops crop (variety) fertilizer use efficiency observed lowest highest nitrogen tomato (arka vikas) 22.4 27.9 chilli pepper (arka lohit) 16.9 30.3 chilli pepper (hybrid ecl) 11.0 22.1 phosphorus french bean (arka komal) 12.4 19.2 okra (pusa savani)* 7.6 12.6 onion (arka kalyan) 18.6 23.0 chilli pepper (arka lohit) 15.4 20.3 cabbage (pride of india) 31.5 35.5 table 5. comparison of different levels of phosphorus banded at 5cm below seed/plant row level of recommended (%) uptake fertilizer p (kg/ha) p dose (kg/ha) yield utilization p 2 o 5 (t/ha) (%) tomato 60 80 23.81b 5.74 21.90b* 75 100 19.50a 5.33 16.27a brinjal 24 60 6.41 2.61 24.89b 40 10 4.10 2.44 13.94a onion 40 80 63.43 4.79 22.95 60 100 65.65 4.86 18.63 chilli 48 60 13.09 5.54 26.54 80 100 17.98 7.17 20.61 cabbage (pride of india) 48 60 9.01 8.97 40.11 80 100 9.34 12.27 35.26 cabbage (mahyco hybrid 413) 72 60 14.20 14.45 46.15b 120 120 14.35 17.52 33.59a *number followed by the same alphabet indicates no statistical difference (p=0.05) in each crop table 8. appropriate quantities of urea and sulphate of potash, cost per banana bunch and expected increase in bunch weight in different varieties of banana banana quantity of cost/ improvement observed variety urea and bunch sulphate of (rs.) weight pulp:peel potash of the bunch ratio used/bunch (g) (range, in kg) (from/to*) grande 10 3 3-5 2.70 to 2.84 naine dwarf 7.5 2 2-4 2.84 to 3.74 cavendish robusta 7.5 2 2-4 2.57 to 3.22 nendran 7.5 2 2-4 3.28 to 4.08 ney poovan 2.5 1 1-3 4.44 to 6.09 najangud 5 2 1-3 3.11 to 4.60 rasabale red banana 7.5 2 2-4 4.40 to 5.45 *pulp:peel ratio in fruit from ‘control’ to ‘treated’ bunches j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 isotope-aided research in fruit and vegetable crops 128 to others. similarly, ‘bangalore blue’ grape may likely respond better to p fertilization. all citrus rootstocks, which incidentally showed lowest p inflow rates, may perhaps show poor response to p fertilization (keshava murthy and kotur, 2000). in terms of suitability of soil to a variety, or response of a variety to applied p, fruit crops and their varieties differed widely. these differences may be partly due to kinetic parameters of absorption, or, due to root morphology or ontogeny of the crop/variety. an ideal situation for a rootstock or variety would be to have higher i max and lower k m , which makes it both fertilizer responsive suitable for marginal soils. however, verification trials in the field are required to confirm influence of these kinetic parameters of p absorption for future selection or breeding work. other applications need-based, ingenious applications of tracer techniques can be made to address specific experimental requirements. some instances are mentioned below. mobilization of p from mother plant to sucker in ‘robusta’ banana balakrishnana and shanmugavelu (1985) showed that during early stages of growth, suckers caused considerable nutrient depletion to the mother plant by drawing large proportion of their requirement from it. rajeevan et al, (1987), on the other hand, showed that considerable mobilization of p from mother plant to the sucker was possible by retaining the pseudostem for some time after bunch harvest. keshava murthy and iyengar (1991) found that in ‘robusta’ banana, retention of pseudostem of the mother plant even upto even 45 days after harvest of bunch was beneficial. contribution of exogenous fertilizer source to phosphorus requirement in citrus in fruit plants, understanding the role of energy reserves and mineral nutrients in the permanent framework of a tree, for growth and yield, is important to rationalize fertilizer management. in newly developing and mature parts of citrus limonia (italian lemon) raised on various rootstocks, new growth obtained a maximum of 15-16% of its phosphprus content from exogenous fertilizer source. assuming that at least equal proportion came from the soil source, endogenous source of reserve phosphorus within the plant contributes at least 65-70% of phosphorus requirement for current growth of the newly-developing parts (iyengar and keshava murthy, 1988b; table 7). similar results were obtained in seedless lime. it was further demonstrated that in declining ‘thompson seedless’ grapevines, the entire energy (carbohydrates, that largely constitute dry matter) and n, p and k requirement of current vine parts was met by reserves present in the permanent vine parts (keshava murthy and kotur, 2001). internal dilution technique for comparing sources not amenable to isotope labelling in banana, carrier-free 32p was injected into the rhizome to compare superphosphate (ssp), farm yard manure (fym), tank silt (ts) and combinations thereof as a source of phosphorus. among these, ssp showed the lowest pdes (phosphorus derived from external source), while, ts showed higher values, with fym+ts being the best. fym treatments, with or without ssp, showed up as intermediate. tank silt (ts) had higher p availability in soil, followed by fym (keshava murthy and kotur, 1999b). thus, it was possible to evaluate various sources of p without having to label the sources. determining tree volume infruit trees using isotope dilution technique similar to determining volume of water in large water bodies, using the principle of isotope dilution 32p was injected into a tree trunk and allowed complete distribution. thereafter, its dilution was estimated as a measure of tree volume. thus, volume of 4-year old ‘alphonso’ trees (56.903-68.981 m3×103) and their biomass (321.70-36.23g × 103) showed good agreement but, generally, over-estimated both by about 19% compared to actual values determined physically (43.720-60.693 and 22.88-37.78, respectively; kotur and keshava murthy, 2004b). the technique was applied to estimate tree volume of 15-year old ‘alphonso’ mango and 12-year old ‘allahabad safeda’ guava trees (kotur, 2004). this holds promise in stusies on fertilizer use efficiency and nutrient dynamics of tree crops where total biomass of the tree is an important trait. detection of unorthodox movement of nutrients in banana a technology for enhancing size of fingers in a banana bunch was developed to suit market demands, by de-navelling and post-shooting feeding of n, k and s through the distal stalk-end of rachis (kotur and keshava murthy, 2008). the technique involves blending approximately 7.5g urea and 7.5g sulphate of potash dissolved in 100 ml water with 500g fresh cow dung, and applying the slurry to denavelled stalk-end of ‘robusta’ bunch soon after fruit-set. about 10-15cm long rachis should be available after the j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 kotur 129 last banana hand to tie a plastic bag (used milk bag is convenient) with a strong string (plate 1). experimentally, it was found that by this treatment, bunch weight increased by 67% over the ‘control’ where the male flower was retained until harvest. using 15nisotope label, movement of 51% of n into the bunch from ammonium sulphate blended in cow dung was confirmed. in ‘ney poovan’ banana, blending 5g ammonium sulphate (or 2.5g urea) and 2.5g sulphate of potash and applied similarly, showed a response of 78% by absorbing 42% of the n applied (kotur and keshava murthy, 2010)(plate 2). quality of banana in terms of pulp:peel ratio distinctly improved by direct feeding of nutrients to the bunch. the technology was standardized in seven popular cultivars of banana (table 8) and was very costeffective. monitoring internal dynamics of water in mango fruit using 3h tritiated water, internal movement of water was successfully monitored in investigations on mitigating spongy tissue in ‘alphonso’ mango (ravindra et al, 2010). an up-regulation of seed metabolic activity with ga 3 accompanied by significant increase in tritium counts, and down-regulation of seed metabolism with pbz resulted in a decline of tritium counts in seed (table 9) thus establishing a direct relationship between mobilization of water from the mesocarp to the embryo and metabolic activity of the seed. source-sink relation studies in horticultural crops mango: studies on translocation and in planta distribution pattern were undertaken using compounds labelled with 14cisotope during different phases of growth and development in mango (kohli, 1985). mango cultivars on which these studies were carried out were: ‘alphonso’, ‘dashehari’, ‘kalpady’ ‘langra’, ‘kensignton’, ‘neelum’ and ‘bangalora’. (i) newly emerging growth flush in mango received large quantities of assimilates produced elsewhere. expanding leaves in the new flush continued to import photosynthates from older leaves until turning dark green (4-week old); (ii) in 6-month old epicotyl grafts, photosynthates moved largely to the root system and to new growth flushes in the vegetative phase. presence of growing fruits substantially enhanced percentage of photosynthates exported from leaves, to meet the needs of rapidly growing fruits; (iii) young inflorescence acted as a strong sink and, at later stages, inflorescence-leaves photosynthesized and contributed to development of fruits; (iv) at pea stage of fruit development, export of photosynthates from 14c-fed leaves increased from 50 to 89% at fully maturity. flow of photosynthates slowed down as fruits attained maturity after a stage of rapid growth; and, (v) in comparison to fruit pulp, the seed (kernel) acted as a stronger sink. based on results of translocation studies using co 2 in different varieties of mango, further studies were conducted. feeding co 2 resulted in higher rate of carbon fixation in leaves of girdled shoots than that in ‘control’ shoots; but, translocation of 14c assimilates to the developing fruits on girdled and ‘control’ shoots was comparable (chacko et al, 1982). in both biennialand regular-bearing cultivars, there was progressive reduction in fruit size with decreasing number of supporting leaves. biennial-bearing cultivars required over 50 leaves, whereas, regular-bearing cultivars needed around 35 leaves for normal development of the fruit. utilization of reserve photosynthates from vegetative organs during the ‘on year ’ could be a contributing factor for towards biennialand erratic-bearing in mango (reddy and gorakh singh, 1990, 1991; reddy and kurian, 1993). paclobutrazol application seemed to alter source-sink relationship in mango, and, lesser number of leaves were able to support fruit growth (which could be a reason for enhanced fruit-yield despite suppressed vegetative growth) (kurian et al, 2001). vegetable crops dynamics of photosynthates in vegetable crops salient findings using 14c-isotope are: (i) in eggplant, transport of assimilates was bi-directional within 48 hours, 14c moved to all parts of the plant: root, stem and leaves, until fruits began to develop. fruits subtending the fed nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur enriched cow dung applied to de-navelled distal end of ‘robusta’ banana bunch (top) and response observed in ‘ney poovan’ banana (bottom; left: control, right: treated). plate 1 plate 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 isotope-aided research in fruit and vegetable crops 130 leaves were a major sink (srinivasa rao, 1988); (ii) genotypic differences in partitioning of carbon in different plant parts were observed; these may play a major role in determining content of solids in tomato cultivars (srinivasa rao and bhatt, 1989a); (iii) in okra, translocation of assimilates was bi-directional to apical and basal portions of the stem. irrespective of the leaf fed, subtending fruit was the strongest sink among reproductive parts (srinivasa rao and bhatt, 1989b); (iv) in fruiting bell-pepper plants, the first flowering node acted as a major sink for carbon (10.2%) for up to 20 days, and weakened thereon as other growing fruits overtook and used up 46.7% of carbon. in de-blossomed plants, maximum amount of radiocarbon moved to roots due to slower growth of the other vegetative organs during summer (bhatt and srinivasa rao, 1993a); and, (iv) in okra, pod was a strong sink (26.2%), but the stem also accumulated 34.4-42.1% of 14c indicating, that, the latter could act as a storage organ for possible retranslocation later to developing fruits (bhatt and srinivasa rao, 1993b). studies on moisture-stress tolerant and susceptible onion: ratio 18o/16o reveals net carbon sequestration as a function of respiratory loss and soil-water deficit. water stress was imposed in four cultivars: sm-11 (tolerant), n-2-4-1 (moderately tolerant), ‘arka niketan’ (susceptible) and ‘arka kalyán’ (tolerant) at 30 and 60dap, for four weeks. low ∇ 18o indicated highly water-use-efficient cultivars that also exhibited high levels of transpiration. high correlation was observed between oxygen (18o) enrichment and stomatal conductance in various onion cultivars (fig.11). possibilities of using tracer techniques are immense in the multi-disciplinary mode in horticultural research. the present paper provides only a partial glimpse of the vast scenario. requirement for special design of isotopededicated field and laboratories, trained staff and high cost make it a daunting task in the short run; but, its multiple utility to various disciplines, quick and reliable results when a focused programme is in place, make it a cost-effective and invaluable technique in the long run. the present article proves this in ample measure. isotope–aided studies should address simple and specific questions ordinarily not solved by conventional research, and provide direct answers. practical solutions useful to growers can emerge with adequate research using conventional techniques based on leads provided by isotope-aided studies. references balakrishnan, r.g. and shanmugavelu, k.g. 1985. translocation of 32p between mother plant and sucker at different stages of banana cultivars of different ploidy levels. banana newslett., 8:28-30 bhatt, r.m. and srinivasa rao, n.k. 1993a. partitioning of 14c-photosythate in fruiting and deblossomed bellpepper plants. indian j. exptl. biol., 31:389-391 bhatt, r.m. and srinivasa rao, n.k. 1993b. translocation of photosynthetic assimilates during pod development in okra (hibiscus esculentus). indian j. agric. sci., 63:708-711 bojappa, k.m. and singh, r.n. 1973. studies on root activity and soil feeding zones of mango (mangifera indica l.) using 32p. newsletter, indian soc. nuclear techniques in agri. & biol., 2:112-113 chacko, e.k., reddy, y.t.n. and ananthanarayanan, t.v. 1982. studies on the relationship between leaf number and area and fruit development in mango (mangifera indica). j. hortl. sci. 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b.r.v. 1993. effect of placement on the utilization of fertilizer p by brinjal (solanum melongena l.) and tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). j. nuclear agril. biol., 22:94-99 shivananda, t.n., iyengar, b.r.v. and kotur, s.c. 1996. nitrogen management in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum l.) using 15n-enriched fertilizer. ind. j. agric. sci., 66:151-154 srinivasa rao, n.k. 1988. patterns of 14csucrose translocation in eggplant (solanum mengena l.) j. hort. sci. 63:535-539 srinivasa rao, n.k. 2006-07. annual report, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore srinivasa rao, n.k. and bhatt, r.m. 1989a. distribution of 14c-sucrose applied to leaves at different nodes of okra (abelmoschus esculentum) during flowering and early pod growth. ann. appl. biol. 115:521-527 srinivasa rao, n.k. and bhatt, r.m. 1989b. sink-source relationship of five cultivars of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum) differing in total solids content of fruit. indian j. agric. sci., 59:368-373 zapata, f.1990. isotope techniques in soil fertility and plant nutrition studies. pp. 61-129 in use of nuclear techniques in studies of soil-plant relationships. international atomic energy agency, vienna j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):119-133, 2012 isotope-aided research in fruit and vegetable crops introduction pear is next only to apple amongst temperate fruits in acreage, production and varietal diversity. due to its hardy nature, tolerance to wide range of soils, it needs less care and can grow under different agro-climatic conditions (misger et al, 2009). it is successfully grown in both temperate and sub-tropical regions of j & k, himachal pradesh and uttaranchal and sub-tropical regions of punjab, assam and south india as it can tolerate as low as – 26oc during dormant period and as high as 45oc during growing season (anonymous, 2011). in kashmir valley, the area under pear is 6644 ha with annual production of 31423 mt (anon., 2012). majority of cultivars grown in the valley are having characteristics like crispiness and hardiness in fruit texture, not acceptable to the consumers (farooqui and happa, 1990) besides being low yielding and susceptible to many pests and disease. since the superior quality of pear cultivars are confined to the high hills of kashmir valley, due to the availability of its high chilling requirements ranging from 5001500 hours. therefore an effort has been made to assess the performance of new high yielding exotic pear cultivars under kashmir valley conditions. performance of some exotic pear cultivars under temperate conditions of kashmir f.a. misger, amit kumar* and s.a. bandey division of fruit science sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences & technology kashmir, srinagar (j & k) 191 121, india *e-mail : khokherak@rediffmail.com abstract seven exotic varieties and two commercially grown cultivars of pear grafted on quince were evaluated for various physio-chemical characteristics for two years in the orchard of department of horticulture, srinagar, jammu and kashmir. among various physical characters, red anjou recorded maximum fruit length (6.88cm), fruit diameter (5.77cm), fruit weight (111.36g) and fruit volume (118.48cm2), followed by coscia for all these characters. no significant variation was recorded for l/d ratio among the pear cultivars. maximum fruit firmness (20.77 lb/inch2) was scored by cosco-d. coscia registered maximum tss (14.04%) along with minimum acidity (0.30%) and highest tss/acid ratio (46.80). highest reducing sugar (7.92%) and total sugar (9.26%) was scored by coscia, followed by william bartlett as 6.77% of reducing sugar and 7.96% of total sugar. from the present study it is clear, that red anjou and coscia performed well under kashmir conditions and is suitable for commercial purpose. key words: performance, exotic, pear, temperate, cultivars material and methods eight-year-old seven exotic cultivars viz., coscia, red anjou, kaiser, max red bartlett, cosco-d, passe crassane and decana along with the two commercially grown local varieties william bartlett and chinese sandy pear as control were used for the present investigation. the investigations were conducted in the orchard of department of horticulture, rajbagh, srinagar, j & k during 2005 and 2006. nine trees of each cultivar having uniform size and vigour were selected randomly and all the trees were kept under similar cultural practices to ensure uniform growth. the experiment was laid out in the randomized block design with three replications for each treatment. observations on different physical characters of fruit viz. fruit length, fruit diameter, l/d ratio, fruit weight, fruit volume, fruit firmness were recorded. acidity was measured in terms of malic acid and tss by using hand refractometer. sugars were determined by standard methods (aoac, 1990). data collected on various parameters were statistically analyzed as per the procedure given by snedecor and cochran (1994). j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):145-147, 2014 146 results and discussion the perusal of pooled data of two years in table 1 reveals significant variation with respect to all the fruit characters except l/d ratio. maximum fruit length (6.88 cm) was recorded in red anjou, which was statistically higher among all the cultivars. while cv. cosco-d registered the minimum fruit length (4.87cm). red anjou attained the maximum fruit diameter (5.77cm) which was statistically at par with coscia, kaiser, max red bartlett, decana and william bartlett however; the minimum fruit diameter (4.31cm) was recorded for chinese sandy pear. no significant variation was recorded for l/d ratio among the pear cultivars. all the pear cultivars exhibited oblong shape however; red anjou exhibited more conical form as compared to passe crassane and cosco-d. maximum fruit weight (111.36g) and fruit volume (118.48cm3) was recorded in red anjou, followed by coscia (107.40g and 115.63cm3). red anjou was statistically superior to coscia and other cultivars under study for fruit weight however; it was statistically at par with coscia for fruit volume. the lowest fruit weight (64.15g) and fruit volume (78.70cm3) was recorded in cosco-d. the differences in these characters are largely due to varietal differences, environmental factors and the vigour of the trees. earlier lal and singh (1979), rathore (1982) and shah (1997) also observed variations while evaluating pear cultivars. cosco-d scored maximum fruit firmness (20.77 lb/inch2) which was statistically at par with passe crassane (20.33 lb/inch2). minimum fruit firmness (10.29 lb/inch2) was registered in coscia. the firmness in pears varies with cultivars, climate and utilization of fruits (westwood, 1978). the total soluble solids (14.04%) recorded in coscia was found maximum and statistically significant in comparison to all other cultivars, however, lowest was recorded in chinese sandy pear (11.02%) (table 2). minimum acidity (0.30%) was recorded in coscia, max red bartlett and cosco-d while the maximum acidity was exhibited by red anjou (0.42%). however, the differences among pear cultivars were non-significant for acidity. rathore (1982), farooqui and happa (1990) and sandhu et al (2002) also observed similar results with respect to total soluble solids and acidity. they also concluded that both low and high quality pear cultivars vary in acidity. coscia exhibited highest tss/acid ratio (48.80) which was statistically superior among all the cultivars whereas lowest tss/acid ratio (28.26) was found in red anjou (table 2). maximum reducing sugar (7.92%) along with maximum non-reducing sugar (1.34%) and total sugar (9.26%) were registered in coscia which was statistically higher among all the cultivars for reducing sugar and total sugar, however, for non-reducing sugar coscia was statistically at par with decana (1.29%). minimum reducing sugar was recorded in decana (5.71%) however, minimum non-reducing sugar (0.87%) and total sugar (6.92%) was scored by cosco-d (table 2). these variations in sugars may be due to the fact that the best dessert cultivars tend to have high total sugar content and the same is available in the form of fructose, glucose and sucrose (griggs and iwakiri, 1977). during the course of studies, the fruits of coscia pear cultivar were observed to be better in quality while table 1. physical characteristics of fruits of exotic and indigenous pear cultivars cultivar fruit fruit l/d fruit fruit fruit length diameter ratio weight volume firmness (cm) (cm) (g) (cm3) (lb/inch2) coscia 6.12 5.41 1.13 107.40 115.63 10.29 red anjou 6.88 5.77 1.19 111.36 118.48 11.21 kaiser 6.02 5.34 1.14 102.38 108.55 11.57 max red 5.82 5.11 1.13 84.63 95.18 14.10 bartlett cosco-d 4.87 4.51 1.08 64.15 78.70 20.77 passe 5.11 4.77 1.07 70.96 86.47 20.33 crassane decana 5.88 5.10 1.15 93.23 102.65 15.56 william 5.60 5.04 1.11 84.79 93.23 11.27 bartlett chinese 4.98 4.31 1.15 71.14 84.16 16.02 sandy pear cd (0.05) 0.65 0.98 ns 3.77 4.18 1.75 table 2. chemical characteristics of fruits of exotic and indigenous pear cultivars cultivar tss acidity tss/ reducing nontotal (%) (%) acid sugar reducing sugar ratio (%) sugar (%) (%) coscia 14.04 0.30 46.80 7.92 1.34 9.26 red anjou 11.87 0.42 28.26 6.22 1.12 7.34 kaiser 11.47 0.32 35.84 5.93 1.18 7.11 max red 12.23 0.30 40.77 6.02 1.03 7.05 bartlett cosco-d 12.17 0.30 41.40 6.05 0.87 6.92 passe 11.35 0.31 36.61 6.02 0.96 6.98 crassane decana 11.83 0.31 38.16 5.71 1.29 7.00 william 12.42 0.32 38.03 6.77 1.19 7.96 bartlett chinese 11.02 0.31 35.55 5.93 1.06 6.99 sandy pear cd (0.05) 1.02 ns 0.25 0.30 0.13 0.20 misger et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):145-147, 2014 147 red anjou cultivar were rated better in physical characters of fruits. it is concluded that coscia performed best among all the exotic pear cultivars followed by william bartlett and red anjou, under agro-climatic conditions of kashmir valley while other cultivars did not show any promise. references anonymous, 2011. package of practices for temperate fruits. directorate of extension education. s.k. university of agricultural sciences & technology of kashmir, shalimar, srinagar, pp 23-28 anonymous, 2012. statement showing area and production of different fruits in j&k state. department of horticulture. j&k govt. srinagar, pp 1-2. aoac, 1990. official methods of analysis. association of official agricultural chemists 15th ed. washington, d.c. usa. farooqui, k.d. and happa, r.k. 1990. evaluation of pear cultivars (pyrus communis l.) in kashmir. progressive hort., 20:263-68 griggs, w.h. and iwakiri, b.t. 1977. asian pears in california. california agriculture january issue:8-12 lal, h. and singh, s.n. 1979. performance of some promising cultivars of pear grown at saharanpur. progressive hort., 11:56-60 misger, f.a., mir, a.a., bandey, s.a. and wani, g.m. 2009. phenological and fruit production characteristics of some exotic pear cultivars in kashmir. skuast j. res., 11:178-82 rathore, d.s. 1982. performance of promising pear cultivars at shimla. progressive hort., 14:202-04 sandhu, a.s., singh, t. and singh, r. 2002. performance of asian pear varieties under punjab conditions. indian j. of hort., 59:253-57 shah, m.n. 1997. comparative performance and variability studies of various pear cultivars under temperate climatic conditions of kashmir. m.sc. thesis. s.k. university of agricultural sciences & technology, srinagar, pp 98 snedecor, g.w. and cochran, w.g. 1994. statistical method. english edition. first east-west press edition, new delhi pp 503 westwood, m.n. 1978. temperate zone pomology. freeman and co. timber press, portland, oregon, singapore (ms received 19 september 2013, revised 20 june 2014, accepted 27 june 2014) performance of exotic pear cultivars in kashmir j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):145-147, 2014 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. fusarium wilt disease caused by fungal pathogen fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (foc) is one of the major threats to the banana cultivation (ploetz and pegg, 2000). the fungal mycelium clogs the xylem vessels and hinders the supply of water and nutrients, showing the symptoms of discoloration and drooping of leaves, splitting of stem, eventually leading to the collapse of the plant (li et al., 2011). based on vir ulence a nd host specificity foc ha s been differentiated to four physiological races viz., races 1-4 (moore et al., 1993). banana cv. rasthali is highly susceptible to foc1, due to which the area of cultivation has declined from 146 to 20 hectares (singhal, 1999), continued cultivation in sa me condition worsen the situation which threatens total extinction (thangavelu et al., 2001). currently available methods to control the disease are ineffective, hence deploying resistance in susceptible variety by genetic transformation served as an alternative strategy (ploetz, 2015). f. oxysporum species known to exhibit shor t biotr ophic pha se followed by complete necrotrophy in host plant (thaler et al., 2004). in view of this, employing genes which negatively regulate the cell death pathway in host were used to enhance resistance against necrotrophic fungi (dickman and de figueir edo, 2013). bag genes encoding multifunctional group of pr oteins function by interacting with the signaling molecules and molecular chaperones, such as heat shock proteins resulting in inhibition of pcd (sonderma nn et al. , 2001; doukhanina et al., 2006; jacobs and marnett 2009; ge et al., 2016). most of the time, exogenous genes have mostly been expressed by ubiquitin promoter that drives high-level expression of transgenes in monocot plants (jiang et al., 2018). beta-glucosidase promoter isolated from zea mays (zmbgl) shows much stronger activity in root parts (vigorous cell division zones associated with vascular tissues) compared to mature seeds and edible part of the crop (gu et al., 2006). over expression of programmed cell death (pcd) gene, atbag4 under two different promoters namely zmbgl promoter and ubiquitin promoter was studied to confer foc1 resistance in banana cv. rasthali. the embryogenic cell suspension (ecs) initiated from male inflorescence of banana cv. rasthali was maintained in controlled condition as previously short communication j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 228-232, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2169 over expression of anti-apoptotic gene in banana cv rasthali enhances resistance against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense race 1 umesha m.1, sunisha c.2, usharani t.r.2*, sowmya h.d.2 and sriram s.3 1dept of biotechnology and biochemistry, centre for post-graduate studies jain university, bengaluru 560069, karnataka, india 2division of basic sciences, 3division of crop protection icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bangalore 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : usharani.tr@icar.gov.in abstract the most popular banana cv rasthali was transformed with anti-apoptotic gene, atbag4 regulated with two different promoters viz., zmbgl and ubiquitin to enhance the tolerance levels to fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense race 1 (foc1). the differences in gene expression driven by two promoters revealed that stronger expression of atbag4 gene under the ubiquitin promoter suppressed the infection and spreading processes of foc1 in transgenic banana under standard bioassay systems. analysis using the real time pcr showed the varying levels of atbag4 gene expression under two promoters. it was evident that zmbgl driven atbag4 lead to lower gene expression in leaves which correlated with lesser levels of resistance to foc1. constitutive expression of atbag4 under the control of ubiquitin promoter showed increased transgene transcripts which directly correlated with the enhanced tolerance against foc1 from seedlings stage to active vegetative phases. this study reveals the importance of constitutive expression of anti-apoptotic gene showing enhanced tolerance against the most dreaded foc1 in highly susceptible variety rasthali. keywords : anti-apoptotic gene, banana, constitutive expression, fusarium wilt, rasthali 229 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 228-232, 2023 described (sunisha et al., 2020a). ecs was heat shocked at 45ºc for 5 min and transformed with atbag4 gene constructs obtained from queensland univer s it y tec hnology, au s t r a lia u s ing a g ro b a c t e r i u m s t r a in ag l a s des c r ib ed b y (khanna et al., 2004). the putative transformants developed with atbag4 genes driven by zmbgl pr omot er a s well a s ubiquit in pr omoter wer e s u b jec t ed t o p c r a na lys is . tota l r n a wa s extracted from leaf tissue of untransformed and transformed plants using plant rna isolation kit (sigma , aldr ich). br ief ly, 4 µ g of rna wa s subjected for dna se treatment and first strand cdna synthesized using 2µg of rna, oligo (dt) 12-18 primer (sigma), revertaid tm m-mulv reverse transcriptase (thermo scientific). five transgenic lines f r om ea ch c ons t r u ct wer e individu a lly subjected to qpcr in three replications with a total volume of 20 μl reaction mixture containing 10 μl of pcr mix from sybr green kit (takara), 1 μl of gene primer set and 5 μl of cdna template in a 7 5 0 0 r e a ltime p c r s ys t em ( ap p lied biosystems). banana actin gene was used as an endogenou s gene c ont r ol f or qrtp c r . amplification conditions were, initially 95 °c for 5 min followed by 40 cycles of 95 °c for 1 min, 60 °c for 45 sec, and 72 °c for 30 sec, each. final pcr melt curve of 95°c for 1min and 60°c for 15 s was employed and 2-δδct method was used to a na lyze qua ntitative var ia tion (sunisha et al. , 2020b). five transgenic lines from each construct a long with the untr a nsfor med susceptib le cv. rasthali and resistant cv. grand naine controls were inoculated with foc1 obtained from plant fig. 1 comparative atbag4 gene expression analysis in leaves of transgenic plants lines 8, 9, 142, 166 and 168 represent transgenic banana cv rasthali expressing atbag4 under zmbgl promoter. lines 333, 335, 339, 343 and 345 represent transgenic banana cv rasthali expressing atbag4 under ubiquitin promoter pathology labor atory, icar-indian institute of hor ticu ltur e res ea r c h, ba nga lor e (india ), a s described previously by smith et al. (2008) with slight modification in the potting mixture. external s ymp t oms w er e r ec or ded f ou r weeks p os t inoculation by scoring each plant for yellowing and wilting symptoms (paul et al., 2011) using a 1–5 point scoring, where 1 represented -healthy, no symptoms; 2—slight symptoms (yellowing of the leaves); 3—advance symptoms (dropping of the leaves); 4—extensive symptoms (whole foliage got dried); 5—entire plant affected (complete dead plant). the data was analyzed by one-way analysis of var iance (anova) using graphpad prism® software (usa). table 1. bioassay of atbag4 transgenic lines of banana cv. rasthali plants inoculated with foc1 for symptom expression sl. no. transgenic lines external symtoms zmbgl: uboquitin: zmbgl:atbag4 ubiquitin:atbag4 atbag4 atbag4 yellowing wilting yellowing wilting 1 168 333 3.3 1.3 2.3 1.6 2 166 335 3.0 2.0 2.6 1.3 3 142 339 3.3 2.3 2.6 1.6 4 8 343 2.6 1.6 2.3 2.0 5 9 345 2.3 2.6 1.6 2.0 6 rs contol 4.3 4.6 5.0 4.3 c.d. 0.9 1.2 0.8 1.1 constitutive expression of anti-apoptotic gene in banana 230 tr a ns genic lines ex p r es s ing at bag 4 gene; r s— contr ol a r e u nt r a nsf or med c v r a s t ha li. results a re presented as score—yellowing a nd wilting: 1–5 scale, stem splitting: 1–3 scale. five to seven leaf stage plants were subjected for the foc root-challenge bioassay. the treatments were significantly dissimilar from susceptible rs control lines as p < 0.05 based on lsd post hoc test agrobacterium mediated transformation of ecs with binary vector containing atbag4 gene, driven by zmbgl and ubiquitin promoter resulted in total of 23 pcr confirmed putative transformants free f r om s oma c lona l va r ia t ion. t he well r oot ed plantlets were acclimatized in net house for further development. the efficient overexpression a nd transcript levels of the atbag4 gene were examined using cdnas derived from five selected transgenic lines of each construct and also in un-transformed cont r ol. t he qrt-p cr da t a showed t ha t the expression of atbag4 gene driven by ubiquitin promoter ranged from 2 to 8.5-fold whereas the transgenic lines expressing atbag4 gene under z mbgl p r omot er s howed les s t ha n onef old expression in leaves compared to untransformed plants (fig 1). the differential expression in the t r a ns genic a nd nont r a ns for med pla nts wer e statistically significant (f = 131.7; p = < 0.0001). tr a nsfor ma nts expr essing atba g4 dr iven by ubiquitin and zmbgl pr omoter showed reduced external symptoms compared to untransfor med control plants four weeks post inoculation. the ubiquitin promoter resulting transgenic events exhibited higher gene expression level in leaves compa red to tr ansgenic events developed with zmbgl pr omot er. also, tr a nsgenic lines over expressing anti-apoptotic atbag4 gene driven by ubiquitin promoter exhibited reduction in external symptoms (< 3 rating for yellowing and wilting) and enhanced tolerance to fusarium wilt caused by foc 1 under pot condition. similarly, the ubiquitin p r omot er u sed in t r a ns genic pla nt s f or over expressing musabag1 showed enhanced resistance to foc infection (ghag et al., 2014). it is evident from the present study that anti-apoptotic atbag4 gene driven by root specific zmbgl promoter was ha ving lower levels of ex pr es sion in lea ves . similarly, the root specific zmrcp-1 promoter is ola t ed f r om ma iz e f a iled t o d eliver gu s a exp r es sion in lea ves of t r a nsgenic p la nt a ins ( o nya ngo e t a l . , 2 0 1 6 ) . h owev er, t he gene expression in roots and vascular discoloration index post foc inoculation are to be further studied to know the efficacy of root specific zmbgl promoter over constitutive ubiquitin promoter. further, the zmbgl promoter expressing in vascular tissues is developmentally and spatially regulated promoter and such pr omoters are under the influence of several endogenous elements (schmitz et al., 2022) which could be the reason for lower levels of tr ansgene expr ession in leaves. in contra st the constitutively over expressing atbag4 gene are expressed in all the tissues leading to higher oxygen scavenging activity and preventing tissue damage restricting the faster multiplication of foc1 (paul et al., 2011). owing to the multiple reports confirming host pcd manipulation induced resistance to various foc races (magambo et al., 2012; dale et al., 2017), the modification of genes regulating pcd pathways in plants is emerging as a promising strategy to provide broad-spectrum resistance to both biotic and abiotic stresses (lincoln et al., 2002; li and dickma n, 2004;). hence, our r esear ch ma inly focused on improving resistance to fusarium wilt by manipulating pcd pathways. acknowledgement t he a uthor s a r e tha nkful to dbt-birac for f u nding u nder t he p r ojec t d evelop ment a nd transfer of technology from queensland university of technology (qut ), austr a lia to india for biofortifcation and disease resistance in banana. this is the part of ph.d. dissertation work of first author. references dale, j. l, james, a, paul, j. y, khanna, h, smith, m, echeverria, s. p, bastidas, f. g, kema, g, waterhouse, p, mengersen, k. and harding, r. 2017. transgenic cavendish bananas with resistance to fusarium wilt tropical race 4. nature comm. 8:1496. doi: 10.1038/s41467017-01670-6. dickman, m. b. and de figueiredo, p. 2013. death be not proud—cell death control in plant funga l inter a ctions. plos pathog. 9: e1003542. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. ppat.1003542 umesha et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 228-232, 2023 231 doukhanina, e. v., chen, s., van der zalm, e., godzik, a., reed, j. and dickman, m. b. 2006. identification and functional characterization of the bag pr otein fa mily in arabidopsis thaliana. j. bio. chem., 281: 18793-18801. ge, s., kang, z., li, y., zhang, f., shen, y., ge, r. and huang, z. 2016. cloning and function analysis of bag family genes in wheat. func. pl. biol., 43: 393-402. ghag, s. b, shekhawat, u. k. and ganapathi, t. r. 2014. native cell-death genes as candidates for developing wilt resistance in transgenic banana plants. aob plants. 1:6 https:// doi:10.1093/ aobpla/plu037. gu, r., zhao, l., zhang, y., chen, x., bao, j., zhao, j. and wang, g. 2006. isolation of a maize betaglucosidase gene promoter and characterization of its activity in transgenic tobacco. plant cell rep., 25: 1157-1165. jacobs, a. t. and marnett, l. j. 2009. hsf1-mediated bag3 expression attenuates apoptosis in 4hydroxynonenal-treated colon cancer cells via stabilization of anti-apoptotic bcl-2 proteins. j. biol. chem., 284: 9176-9183. jiang, p., zhang, k., ding, z., he, q., li, w., zhu, s., cheng, w., zhang, k. and li, k. 2018. characterization of a strong and constitutive pr omoter fr om the ar a bidopsis ser ine carboxypeptidase-like gene atscpl30 as a potential tool for crop transgenic breeding. bmc biotech., 18:1-13 khanna, h.k., becker, d., kleidon, j. and dale, j. 2004. centrifugation assisted agrobacteriummedia ted tr a nsfor ma tion (caat ) of embryogenic cell suspension of banana (musa spp. cavendish aaa and lady finger aab). mol. breed., 14: 239–252. li, c. y, chen, s, zuo, c. w, sun, q. m, ye, q, yi, g. j. and huang, b. z. 2011. the use of gfp– transformed isolates to study infection of ba na na with fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense race 4. euro. j. pl. pathol., 131: 327-340. linclon, j. e, richael, c, overduin, b, smith, k, bostock, r. a nd gilchr ist, d. g. 2002. expression of the antiapoptotic baculovirus p. 53 gene in tomato blocks programmed cell death and provides broad-spectrum resistance to disease. pnas, usa., 99: 15217-15221. li, w. and dickman, m. b. 2004. abiotic stress induces apoptotic-like features in tobacco that is inhibited by expression of human bcl-2. biotechnol lett., 26: 8. magambo, b. 2012. generating transgenic banana (cv. sukali ndizi) r esistant to fusar ium wilt (doctoral dissertation, queensland university of technology). moore, n. y., pegg, k., allen, a. r. and irvin, j. a. g. 1993. vegeta tive compa tibility a nd distribution of fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense in australia. aus. j. expt. agric., 33: 797-802. onyango, s. o., roderick, h., tripathi, j. n., collins, r., atkinson, h. j., oduor, r. o. and tripathi, l. 2016. the zmrcp-1 promoter of maize pr ovides r oot tip specific expr ession of tr a nsgenes in pla nta in. j. biol. res. thessaloniki., 23: 1-9. paul, j.y., becker, d.k., dickman, m.b., harding, r.m., khanna, h.k. and dale, j.l. 2011. apoptosis-related genes confer resistance to fusarium wilt in transgenic ‘lady finger ’ bananas. plant biotech. j., 9: 1141-1149. ploetz, r. c. and pegg, k. g. 2000. fusarium wilt. in: diseases of banana, abacá and enset. d. r. jones, (ed.) pp.143-159.cabi publishing, wallingford, uk. ploetz, r. c. 2015. management of fusarium wilt of banana: a review with special reference to tropical race 4. crop prot., 73: 7–15. schmitz, r. j., grotewold, e. and stam, m. 2022. cisregulatory sequences in plants: their importance, discovery, and future challenges. plant cell. 34: 718-741. singhal, v. 1999. bananas. in: indian agriculture 1999. indian economic data research centre, new delhi. pp. 150–152. sondermann, h., scheufler, c. , schneider, c., hohfeld, j., hartl, f. u., and moarefi, i. 2001. structure of a bag/hsc70 complex: convergent functional evolution of hsp70 nucleotide exchange factors. science. 291: 1553-1557. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 228-232, 2023 constitutive expression of anti-apoptotic gene in banana 232 sunisha, c., sowmya, h.d., usharani, t.r., umesha, m., gopalkrishna, h.r. and saxena, a., 2020a. deployment of stacked antimicrobial genes in banana for stable tolerance against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense through genetic transformation. mol. biotech., 62: 8-17. sunisha, c., sowmya, h. d., ushara ni, t. r., umesha, m., gopalkrishna, h. r., and sriram, s. 2020b. induction of ced9 mediated antiapoptosis in commercia l ba na na cultivar rasthali for stable resistance against fusarium wilt. 3 biotech., 10: 1-8. (received : 20.10.2022; revised : 04.12.2022; accepted 05.12.2022) thaler, j. s, owen, b. and higgins, v. j. 2004. the r ole of the ja smona te r esponse in pla nt susceptibility to diverse pathogens with a range of lifestyles. plant physio., 135: 530-538. thangavelu, r., sundararaju, p., sathiamoorthy, s., raghuchander, t., velazhahan, r., nakkeeran, s. a nd pa la niswa mi, a. 2001. status of fusarium wilt of banana in india. p.58-63. in: a.b. molina, n.h. nikmasdek, k.w. liew (eds.), banana fusarium wilt management: towards sustainable cultivation. inibapaspnet, los banos, philippines. umesha et al. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 228-232, 2023 introduction india, especially maharashtra has wide variety of climate and soil on which a large number of horticultural crops such as fruits, vegetables, ornamental crops, etc. are grown. citrus is one of the most delicious fruits of par excellence and belongs to the family rutaceae. it is one of the popular and choicest fruits of the country. their wholesome nature, multifold nutritional and medicinal values have made them very important. the excellent natural sugar:acid ratio of juice in the fruits attracts the consumers (chadha, 2001). in india, citrus comprises the third largest fruit industry next to mango and banana in production and second in area after mango which occupies about 10% of the total area under fruit crops. citrus fruits have good nutritive value, which are regarded as a guaranteed source of vitamin c (ascorbic acid) and having high amount of sugar content and minerals like calcium, phosphorus, iron etc. the major sweet orange producing states in india are andhra pradesh, maharashtra, tamil nadu, karnataka, madhya pradesh, assam, bihar, gujarat, himachal pradesh, uttar pradesh, punjab and haryana. in india, about 34.63 lakh ha area under sweet orange cultivation produces 388.42 comparative studies on ‘nucellar’, ‘sathgudi’ and ‘local’ sweet orange (mosambi) (citrus sinensis osbeck.) under marathwada conditions m.b. patil and v.m. panchal sweet orange research station badnapur, dist. jalna, maharashtra 431 202, india e-mail: mbpatil_08@rediffmail.com abstract the present investigation was conducted during ambia bahar season in the year 2011-12. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three treatments and seven replications. the variety ‘nucellar’ recorded maximum average height of plant, spread of tree, stem girth, number of branches per tree, was early to mature, had highest yield, fruit size, number of segments per fruit, weight of fruit, peel weight, peel thickness of fruit, tss, and ph, while, the variety ‘sathgudi’ recorded maximum juice weight, with low peel-to-juice ratio. the taste of fruits of local mosambi was sweeter, with less acidity than the other two varieties. maximum number of seeds per fruit was recorded in local mosambi. highest average ph and ascorbic acid content in fruit juice was recorded in cv. nucellar. therefore, on the basis of results obtained in the present investigation, it is suggested that of the three varieties studied, ‘nucellar’ is the best in yield and other parameters, with ‘sathgudi’ being the second best. key words: nucellar, sathgudi, mosambi, fruit size j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):44-46, 2016 lakh tonnes of fruit. in maharashtra, sweet orange is grown in jalna, aurangabad, parbhani, nanded, nagpur, amaravati, ahmednagar districts. it is cultivated on an area of 10.81 lakh ha with the production of 73.20 lakh tonnes of fruits. the highest productivity is reported in karnataka and lowest in himachal pradesh. in jalna district, ‘nucellar’, ‘sathgudi’, ‘rajapimpri’, ‘mosambi’ and ‘local’ are the major cultivars of sweet orange. hence, it is necessary to study the feasibility and suitability for cultivation of these varieties in the region. therefore, at present, some physical aspects like height and spread of tree, stem girth, number of branches per tree, number of fruits, fruit size, peel to juice ratio, number of seeds per fruit, etc., and chemical aspects like tss, acidity, ph and ascorbic acid content of fruit juice of ‘nucellar’ mosambi and sathgudi have been compared with local sweet orange. material and methods the present experiment was conducted on the field of farmer at shelgaon post, taluq badnapur, dist. jalna, maharashtra, during ambia bahar season in the year 201112. the experimental site categorized as semi arid tropics and the soil used for the experiment was uniform with gentle slope. the soil was medium black with uniform in texture, 45 colour and having good drainage. irrigation channels were made for easy supply of water. the field consisted of 580 trees of nucellar, 220 plants of sathgudi and 20 trees of local cultivar of sweet orange which were planted in the year 2003 at a spacing of 6x6 m2. seven uniform, healthy trees were selected each from nucellar, sathgudi and local cultivar of sweet orange for the experiment. fifty fruits from a single tree were selected to study the physical and chemical composition of all three varieties. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design (rbd). spread of the tree was measured in both the directions, i.e. north-south and east-west, and their mean was recorded. the length and breadth of fruit was measured in cm. with the help of vernier caliper. tss of the freshly extracted juice was measured using a hand-held refractometer (0-280b). ascorbic acid content in the juice was analyzed by 2,6dichlorophenol indophenol visual titration method. 2,6 dichlorophenol dye was titrated against the sample juice using 3% metaphosphoric acid as a stabilizing agent. results and discussion physical characteristics of nucellar, sathgudi and local cultivar of sweet orange among the data recorded on physical parameters, maximum tree height (3.87m) was recorded in ’nucellar’. patil (2004) recorded maximum height (4.09m) in cv. nucellar. maximum spread of the tree (3.20 and 3.12m) east-west and north-south was recorded in ‘nucellar’. suresh kumar et al (2010) noticed that the difference in spread of sweet orange cultivar in different directions. the girth of stem was recorded maximum in nucellar (41.40cm). malhotra et al (1982) compared the girth of stem of various rootstocks of citrus. number of branches recorded per tree was highest (6.42) in nucellar compared to that in sathgudi (5.57) and local (5.28). highest number of fruits per tree (363.57) was recorded in nucellar compared to that in sathgudi (304.80) or local (184.85). maximum fruit size (8.80cm length and 8.51cm breadth) was recorded in ‘nucellar’. dubey (2000) recorded maximum fruit size in ‘vanilla malta’. the maximum peel thickness (6.31cm) was recorded in nucellar. arora et al (2007) recorded the range of peel thickness in some citrus cultivars to be between 2.1mm and 8.4mm. maximum fruit weight (194.56g) was recorded in nucellar compared to that in sathgudi (176.47g) or local sweet orange. rao et al (1971) recorded maximum fruit weight (204g) in sathgudi. highest pomace weight (63.77g) and peel weight (62.50g) was recorded in nucellar. patil (2004) recorded highest pomace weight (52.69g) and peel weight (42.51g) in nucellar. the highest juice per fruit (71.50 ml) was recorded in sathgudi, whereas, it was (67.86ml) in nucellar and (56.37ml) in local cultivar. similar observations were reported by dubey (2000). average peel-to-juice ratio in nucellar was (0.92%), while it was 0.77% in sathgudi and 0.91% in the local cultivar. table 1. physical characteristics of nucellar, sathgudi and local cultivar of sweet orange sl. character nucellar sathgudi local se cd no. sweet (p=0.05) orange 1. tree height (m) 3.87 3.51 3.40 0.074 0.23 2. tree-spread (m) east-west 3.20 3.05 2.70 0.056 0.178 north-south 3.12 2.92 2.64 0.054 0.172 3. stem girth (cm) 41.40 40.44 39.80 0.66 2.04 4. no. of branches/ tree 6.42 5.57 5.28 0.21 0.66 5. no. of days to 244.00 237.71 234.57 11.02 3.14 harvest from fruit-set 6. no. of fruits/ tree 363.57 304.57 184.85 11.47 35.30 7. fruit size (cm) fruit length 8.80 8.10 6.80 0.08 0.25 fruit breadth 8.51 8.30 7.10 0.09 0.30 8. peel thickness (mm) 6.31 5.28 4.47 0.17 0.52 9. fruit weight (g) 194.56 176.47 151.30 5.03 15.49 10. pomace weight (g) (%) 63.77 (32.77%) 49.70 (28.16%) 41.50 (27.42%) 1.00 3.08 11. peel weight (g) (%) 62.50 (32.12%) 55.27 (31.31%) 51.38 (33.95%) 2.08 6.41 12. juice weight/ fruit (ml) (%) 67.86 (34.87%) 71.50 (40.51%) 56.37 (37.25%) 3.452 10.62 13. peel-to-juice ratio (%) 0.92 0.77 0.91 0.024 0.076 14. no. of segments/ fruit 11.80 12.30 11.40 0.654 2.01 15. no. of seeds/ fruit 17.71 17.14 26.14 3.452 10.62 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):44-46, 2016 comparative studies on sweet orange varieties 46 maximum number of segments per fruit (12.30) was recorded in sathgudi, whereas it was 11.80 in nucellar and 11.40 in local cultivar. barkule (1995) recorded maximum in sathgudi (11.81), followed by nucellar (10.89). maximum number of seeds per fruit (26.14) was recorded in local cultivar compared to 17.71 in nucellar and 17.14 in sathgudi. patil (2004) recorded an average of 20.49 seeds per fruit in nucellar and 18.13 in sathgudi, which confirms our results. therefore, on the basis of results obtianed in the present study, it is suggested that the variety nucellar is good in yield and other physical parameters, with sathgudi being the second best sweet orange among the varieties studied. chemical characteristics of nucellar, sathgudi and local cultivars of sweet orange. among chemical characteristics, the highest tss (11.42ob) was recorded in nucellar as compared to both sathgudi and local sweet orange. sharma et al (1986) recorded the lowest tss (8.0ob) in sathgudi. the lowest acidity of fruit juice was recorded (0.40%) in local cultivar as compared to nucellar (0.47%) and sathgudi (0.58%). singh and kaur (2009) compared physic-chemical characteristics of citrus, acidity, very less difference in ph of fruit juice it was recorded 5.29 in nucellar, 5.24 in sathgudi and 5.25 in local cultivar of sweet orange. the highest ascorbic acid content 56.44mg per 100ml of juice was recorded in sathgudi, whereas, it was 55.44 mg in nucellar and lowest (55.03mg) in local cultivar. patil (2004) recorded 43.80mg in nucellar and 53.31mg per 100ml juice in ‘sathgudi’. table 2. chemical characteristics of nucellar, sathgudi and local cultivars of sweet orange sl. character nucellar sathgudi local se cd no. sweet (p=0.05) orange 1. tss (0b ) 11.42 11.27 11.30 0.94 ns 2. acidity (%) 0.47 0.58 0.40 0.029 0.089 3. ph 5.29 5.24 5.25 0.79 ns 4. ascorbic acid 55.03 56.44 53.40 0.56 ns (mg/100 g) ns= non-significant references arora, n.k., thakur, a., rattanpal, h.s., sangwan, a.k. and sidhu, a.s. 2007. survey of kinnow mandarin orchards for nutrient status in arid irrigated region of punjab. haryana j. hortl. sci., 36:207-209 barkule, r.p. 1995. evolution of different mandarin sweet orange, root stock species and cultivars under midhill conditions of arunachal pradesh. indian j.hort., 67:433-443 chadha, k.l. 2001. limes and lemona. handbook of horticulture. icar, new delhi, india, pp.209-225 dubey, a.k. 2000. studies on comparative performance of certain sweet orange (citrus sinensis) cultivars at foothills situation of arunachal pradesh. progressive hort., 32:153-158 malhotra, n.k., jawanda, j.s. and vij, v.k. 1982. comparative evaluations of root stocks for mosambi orange under acid-irrigated conditions of punjab. indian j. hort., 39:57-62 patil, r.f. 2004. comparative studies of nucellar and sathgudi mosambi (citrus sinensis osbeck.) under parbhani (maharashtra) conditions. m.sc. dissertation submitted to marathwada krishi vidyapeeth, parbhani, maharashtra, india rao, s.n., rama rao, b.v. and swamy, g.s. 1971. rootstock investigations of sathgudi orange (citrus sinensis osbeck.). indian j. hort., 28(3):189-195 sharma, o.n., gupta, k.r. and gupta, r.k. 1986. soil status of healthy and chlorotic orchards of jammu. res. dev. rep., 3(14):41-44 singh, s. and kaur, r. 2009. comparative study of physicochemical characteristics of citrusspecies grown under valley conditions of srinagar (garhwal). the asian j. hort., 4:251-252 suresh kumar, p., devi, p., choudhary, v.k. and kanwal, m. 2010. evolution of different mandarin, sweet orange, rootstock species and cultivars under midhill conditions of arunachal pradesh. indian j. hort., 67:433-443 patil and panchal j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):44-46, 2016 (ms received 22 february 2014, revised 15 october 2015, accepted 22 december 2015) sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 169 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 169-172, 2019 short communication pod set and pollen viability studies in yard long bean (vigna unguiculata sub sp. sesquipedalis) merin, e.g.*, sarada, s. and celine, v.a. department of olericulture, college of agriculture, vellayani695 522, kerala. corresponding author email: merinelzageorge5010@gmail.com abstract a study was conducted in a yard long bean (vigna unguiculata sup/ssp. sesquipedalis) hybrid vs 50 (kakkamoola local) x vs 26 (vellayani jyothika) to assess the percentage fruit set at two time intervals and to identify the best time interval for pollination in yard long bean hybrids. hand pollination was done using vs 50 as female parent and vs 26 as male parent for seven consecutive days at two time intervals, 6.30 – 7.30 am and 7.30 – 8.30 am. higher percentage of fruit set (36.8 %) was observed between 6:30 – 7:30 a.m. as compared to the time interval 7:30 – 8:30 am. (23.8%). pollen viability was determined for the parents vs 50 (kakkamoola local) and vs 26 (vellayani jyothika) at 6.30, 7.30 and 8.30 am. highest pollen viability for both the parents vs 50 and vs 26 was observed during 7.30 am. the present study shows that the best time interval for crossing in yard long bean is 6.307.30 a.m. keywords: hybridization, pod set, pollen viability and vigna unguiculata sub sp. sesquipedalis introduction vigna unguiculata sub sp. sesquipedalis (l. ) verdcourt commonly known as yard long bean or pole type vegeta ble cowpea is a commer cia lly used leguminous plant with very long pods and climbing growth habit, widely grown in china, south and south east asia. it belongs to the family fabaceae and is one of the most popular and remunerative vegetable crop traditionally grown in kerala, cultivated mainly for crisp and tender pods that are consumed both fresh and cooked. it is a rich and inexpensive source of vegetable protein and its cultivation enriches soil fertility by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. it has become an essential component of sustainable agriculture in marginal lands of the tropics because of its quick growth habit. productivity of the crop is limited by a complexity of biotic (pest and diseases) and abiotic (rainfall, temperature, relative humidity and light intensity) factors. some attempts have been made to study the genetic and environment variability for various productive traits, inheritance of these traits and correlation between yield and its components. so far no public sector hybrids of yard long bean are available for cultivation in kerala, which makes farmers to depend on private sector hybrids by paying exorbitant prices. so there is an urgent need to improve the crop for better yield and quality through heterosis breeding. cultivar improvement in selfpollinated species is done by hybridization. because of poor crossing success and less number of seeds per pod, heterosis is difficult. pod yield and yield attributes in vegetable cowpea are complex traits governed by polygenic inheritance, a ffected by environment. both genotype and environment affect the crossing success in self-pollinated species such as vegetable cowpea. cowpea is highly self – pollinated, the result of a cleistogamous flower structure and simultaneous pollen shed and stigma receptivity (ehlers and hall, 1997), although some crossing may occur due to insects. self-pollinated nature is due to hermaphrodite sex form, homogamy and dehiscence of anther much earlier than anthesis. stamens and pistil in opened flower remain enveloped together inside the tube like structure of joined petals called as keel, leading to cleistogamous nature. flowers open only once between 7.00 and 9.00 a.m. on cloudy days the flowers may open even in the afternoon. anther dehiscence is influenced by environmental factors 170 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 169-172, 2019 such as clear sky, presence of moonlight, warm temperature etc. and it may vary from 10.00 pm. at night to 1.00 am. stigma become receptive and pollen become fertile on the da y of anthesis. sever al hybridization procedures have been developed (rachie et al. 1975; blackhurst and miller 1980). high hybrid pod set is observed when emasculation is done before anthesis which is followed by pollination on the day of anthesis in morning hours. rachie et al. (1975) reported that some cowpea genotypes are superior pollen donors as compared to others which are seed parents. time and efforts in crossing play an important role in expressing efficient parental donors for crossing. the cross vs 50 x vs 26, identified as a superior hybrid for yield and quality, was used for the present study. the aim of the study was to observe the percentage fruit set at two time intervals in the yard long bean hybrid vs 50 x vs 26 and the influence of pollen viability of the parents at different times on fruit set, in order to identify the best time interval for pollination in yard long bean hybrids. resmi and gopalakrishnan (2004) reported problems such as delayed and erratic flowering and low pod set in yard long bean. the study was conducted at the department of olericulture, college of agriculture, vellayani during february to march 2017. lakshmi (2016) conducted a diallel analysis to study the heterosis and combining ability of yard long bean (vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis (l.) verdcourt) and to develop superior hybrids with high yield and quality. based on the mean performance, specific combining ability and standa rd heter osis, the hybrid vs 50 x vs 26 (kakka moola local x vellayani jyothika) was observed to be one of the most promising for yield and quality characters. with this background, the cross vs 50 x vs 26 (kakkamoola local x vellayani jyothika) was selected for the study. the source and characters of the parents vs 50 and vs 26 are given in table 1. merin et al hand pollination was done using vs 50 as female pa r ent a nd vs 26 a s ma le pa r ent for seven consequetive days at two time intervals, 6.30 – 7.30 a.m. and 7.30 – 8.30 a.m. ige et al. (2011) studied the floral biology and pollination ecology of three varieties of cowpea (vigna unguiculata l. walp.) and observed that flower opening is initiated between 6.00 to 6.30 am and closes between 11.30 to 12.00 pm. in all the varieties and that when the weather is hot and dry the flowers close earlier. pollen viability was determined for the parents vs 50 (kakkamoola local) and vs 26 (vellayani jyothika) at 6.30, 7.30 and 8.30 am. flower bud due to open the next day, was selected in the female parent (vs 50). emasculation was done in the afternoon hours by removing the keel petal. cowpea flowers drop off easily as they are highly sensitive. hence butter paper bag was used to cover the bud and to prevent drying out of emasculated bud. pollen was collected next day morning from a freshly opened flower. the standards and wings from the intended male parent (vs 26) was removed and by slight depression of the keel, the stigma covered with the pollen grains protrudes out which itself can be used as brush for pollination. it wa s br ushed on the stigma tic sur fa ce of the ema sculated flower. t he crossed flowers wer e covered and labeled. pollen viability was determined by acetocarmine staining method. anthers were collected from a minimum of 3 mature flowers per plant at 6.30 am. one drop of 1 % acetocarmine was placed on a slide glass. pollen grains were mounted slightly in a drop of acetocarmine: glycine (1:1). the slides were left for 30 minutes for proper staining. a cover slip was placed gently over the slide and examined under a microscope. pollen viability was studied by counting the number of stained pollen grains and unstained, aborted pollen grains. an average of 100 pollen were counted in different microscopic fields. the above procedure was repeated at 7.30 and 8.30 am. for both the parents. table 1: source and characters of parents used for the study parent name of accession source character vs 50 kakkamoola local kakkamoola, high yield, long pods thiruvananthapuram, kerala vs 26 vellayani jyothika college of agriculture, high yield, long pods vellayani, kerala 171 the number of pods that set on hand pollination was counted and recorded. percentage of pod set was calculated using total number of crosses done. pollen viability was calculated as follows: pollen viability % = number of well filled and stained pollen grains x100 total number of pollen grains counted the data on percentage of pod set in the cross vs 50 x vs 26 is presented in table 2. higher percentage of fruit set (36.8 %) was observed in the cross vs 50 x vs 26 between 6:30 – 7:30 am. as compared to the time interval 7:30 – 8:30 am. (23.8%). according to ehlers and hall (1997), pollinations performed after 10 am. are less successful than pollinations performed between 710 am. rachie et al. (1975) reported an average success of 10-20 % in cowpea pollination. table 2: percentage of pod set in the cross vs 50 x vs 26 time interval days 6: 30 – 7:30 a.m. 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. no. of crosses pod set no. of crosses pod set 1 5 2 7 1 2 5 1 4 2 3 8 3 7 1 4 5 2 8 2 5 5 2 7 2 6 6 3 5 1 7 4 1 4 1 total 38 14 42 10 pod set (%) 36.8 23.8 pollen viability of the parents vs 50 and vs 26, determined at 6.30, 7.30 and 8.30 a.m. is given in table 3. highest pollen viability for both the parents vs 50 and vs 26 was observed during 7.30 a.m. warrag and hall (1983) and faisal et al. (1992) attributed low pod set in cowpea to low pollen viability and anther dehiscence. animasaun (2014) reported that fruit set in plants is determined to a greater extent by the amount of viable pollen in a flower. the present study showed that the best time interval for crossing in yard long bean is 6.307.30 a.m. table 3: percentage of pollen viability time pollen viability (%) vs 50 vs 26 6.30 a.m. 86.50 90.90 7.30 a.m. 89.50 93.00 8.30 a.m. 88.50 88.50 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 169-172, 2019 pod set and pollen viability studies in yard long bean 172 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 169-172, 2019 merin et al animasaun, d. a., oyedeji, s., azeez, m.a. and onyegwukwu, f. 2014. evaluation of growth and pollen viability in relation to fruit set among five varieties of tomato grown in nigeria. agronomski glasnik: glasilo hrvatskog agronomskog društva, 76(4-5):203-218. blackhurst, h.t., and j.c. miller, jr. 1980. cowpea. in: w. r fehr a nd h. h ha dley (eds. ), hybridisation of crop plants. univ. of wisconsin, madison. p. 327-337. ehlers, j.d. and hall, a. e. 1997.cowpea (vigna unguiculata l. walp.). field crops res. 53: 187204. faisal, e. a., anthony, e. h. and darleen, a. d. 1992. heat injury during floral development in cowpea (vigna unguiculata, fabaceae). am. j. bot. 79 (7): 784-791. ige, o.e., olotuah, o.f. and akerele, v. 2011. floral biology and pollination ecology of cowpea references (vigna unguiculata l. walp). mod. appl. sci. 5(4): 7482. lakshmi, k.m. 2016. development of hybrids in yard long bea n (vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis (l.) verdcourt). msc (hort) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 115p. rachie, k.o., rawal, k. and franckowiak, j.d. 1975. a rapid method of hand crossing cowpeas. technical bulletin no. 1. international institute of tropical agriculture, ibadan, nigeria. resmi, r. and gopalakrishnan, t.r. 2004. effect of plant growth regulators on the performance of yard long bean. j. trop. agric. 42 (1-2): 5557. warrag and hall. 1983. reproductive responses of cowpea to heat stress: genotypic differences in tolerance to heat at flowering. crop sci.23: 1088-1092. (received on 30.9.2017 , revised on 6.12.2019 and accepted on 12.12.2019) introduction orchids enjoy the order of royalty in the world of ornamental horticulture and floriculture. orchid flowers belong to the largest flowering family, orchidaceae, with approximately 25,000 to 30,000 species occuring worldwide and fetching a very high price in the international market. india is endowed with a very rich flora and fauna and harbours more species of endemic plants than any other region of the world. though the family is cosmopolitan, more species are found in the tropics rather than in the temperate regions (abraham and vatsala, 1981). genera of orchids commercially important are cymbidium, dendrobium, phalaenopsis, oncidium, vanda, mokara, arachnis and cattleya (hew, 1994; laws, 1995). however, research work on evaluation of orchid species /commercial hybrids and varieties and their suitability for our conditions is very limited. hence, the present study was aimed at identifying orchid species suitable for growth and flower yield under shevaroy hills of eastern ghats in south india. material and methods performance of 24 orchid species was evaluated at horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural performance of orchid species in shevaroy hills of eastern ghats m. anand, a. sankari and r. arulmozhiyan horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural univerisity yercaud 636 602, india e-mail: anandhort@yahoo.com abstract performance of 24 orchid species was assessed in the net-house of horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural university, yercaud. among the species studied, plant height was significantly high (105cm) in spathoglotts plicata. at the end of the vegetative stage, number of leaves was maximum (30) in aerides. leaf was longest (49.8cm) and widest (17.6cm) in rhyncostylis retusa. paphiopedilum insigne produced largest flower size (14.4cm across). pedicel length was highest in phaius tankervillae (10.3cm) and renanthera inshootiana (7.1cm). aerides multiflorum recorded lowest pedicel length (1.24cm). epidendrum radicans and spathoglottis plicata produced flowers round the year. lucia virides recorded maximum life (29 days) on plant, followed by arachnanthe clarkei (18 days), dendrobium densiflorum (18 days) and oncidium flexosum (16 days), while, minimum (6 days) was observed in two orchid species, aerides crispum and cattleya sp. maximum (23 days) vase life was recorded in lucia virides. results of the investigation thus reveal that among the 24 orchid species studied, epidendrum radicans, lucia virides and paphiopedilum insigne performed better in terms of vegetative and floral characters under shevaroy hill condition. key words: orchid species, characterization, shevaroy hills, eastern ghats university, yercaud, between 2008 and 2011. the orchid species are as follows: aerides multiflorum, aerides crispum, acanthephippium bicolour, arachnanthe clarkei, cymbidium giganteum, coelogyne flaccid, cattaleys sp., dendrobium chrysotoxum, dendrobium moschatum, dendrobium densiflorum, epidendrum radicans, epigenium ampulum, odontoglossum crispum, liparis griffithii, lucia virides, oncidium flexosum, paphiopedilum insigne, paphiopedilum villosum, paphilianthe teres, phaius tankervillae, pholidata imbricate and renanthera inshootiana, rhyncostylis retusa and spathoglottis plicata. the experimental site is geographically situated between 11°04" and 11°05" north latitude, and 78°05" and 78°23" east longitude at an altitude of 1500m above mean sea level. average maximum and minimum temperature during the study was 31.0oc and 12.4oc, respectively. mean annual rainfall recorded in yercaud was 1572mm over 47 rainy days. average relative humidity recorded was 75%. the orchid species were planted in earthen pots of size 6" x 4" and potting media prepared with a mixture of charcoal, broken bricks and characoal, in equal quantity. irrigation was applied twice a day during the warmer months, and j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):210-213, 2013 211 performance of orchids in eastern ghats once a day during the cooler periods. besides, water was also sprinkled on the plants once a day to maintain a conducive temperature and humidity inside the net-house. during the vegetative phase n, p and k were applied in the ratio of 3:1:1. during the blooming phase, this ratio was 1:2:2. micronutrients were also applied at a concentration of 0.5% twice a week. the study was made in completely randomized block design, with three replications. each replication consisted of five plants. five plants from replication of each orchid species were used for obtaining biometric data on plant height (cm), plant spread (cm), leaf length (cm), leaf width (cm), leaf number, number of spikes / plant, spike/stalk length, flower size (cm), pedicel size, flower longevity and vase-life in water. data collected was pooled and analyzed as per panse and sukhatme (1967). results and discussion vegetative growth characters in terms of plant height, number of leaves, leaf length, leaf width and habitat play a key role in ultimately deciding crop yield. these parameters differed significantly among the orchid species studied (table 1). plant height ranged from 23.8cm to 105cm and was significantly higher in spathoglottis plicata (105.0cm), followed by oncidium flexosum (85.5cm) and cymbidium giganteum (78.0cm). lowest plant height was recorded in lucia virides (23.8cm). variability for plant height among different species was due to genetic and environmental effects. these results are in agreement with those of thomas and lekharani (2008). leaves are important functional units for photosynthesis and greatly influence growth and yield by affecting plant spread. number of leaves recorded at table 1. data on vegetative parameters of orchid species grown in shevroy hills (pooled mean of three years) species plant no. of leaf leaf height leaves/ length width (cm) plant (cm) (cm) aerides multiflorum 40.0 11.0 17.2 2.4 aerides crispum 53.0 30.0 19.1 11.7 acanthephippium bicolour 40.0 8.0 38.2 13.5 arachnanthe clarkei 38.2 12.0 18.6 4.0 cymbidium giganteum 78.0 12.0 4.0 2.1 coelogyne flaccida 32.0 9.0 13.2 4.6 cattaleys sp. 40.2 10.0 13.3 3.9 dendrobium chrysotoxum 46.7 15.0 13.6 7.7 dendrobium moschatum 52.0 13.0 13.8 5.0 dendrobium densiflorum 58.0 14.0 10.2 4.6 epidendrum radicans 34.0 13.0 14.1 12.5 epigenium ampulum 33.7 11.0 8.8 4.1 odontoglossum crispum 37.2 14.0 16.7 5.6 liparis griffithii 34.0 15.0 14.3 2.5 lucia virides 23.8 8.0 24.4 5.2 oncidium flexosum 85.5 8.0 14.8 4.1 paphiopedilum insigne 47.0 9.0 17.9 3.5 paphiopedilum villosum 32.5 11.0 13.0 6.5 paphilianthe teres 31.4 10.0 39.0 15.7 phaius tankervillae 59.0 8.0 27.2 6.6 pholidata imbricate 40.5 10.0 13.5 3.0 renanthera inshootiana 47.5 12.0 20.1 4.0 rhyncostylis retusa 40.0 7.0 49.8 17.6 spathoglottis plicata 105.0 5.0 48.0 13.7 sem 1.05 3.96 2.04 1.58 cd(p= 0.05) 2.11 7.97 4.1 3.19 table 2. data on visual growth traits of 24orchid species species habit habitat growth blooming habit period aerides multiflorum h e monopodial april aerides crispum h e monopodial april-june acanthephippium h t sympodial april-may bicolour arachnanthe h e monopodial jan-feb clarkei cymbidium h t sympodial april giganteum coelogyne flaccida h t sympodial jan cattaleys sp. h t, e sympodial oct dendrobium h e sympodial march chrysotoxum dendrobium h e sympodial may, june, moschatum feb dendrobium h e sympodial sep densiflorum epidendrum h e monopodial round the radicans year epigenium h t sympodial oct ampulum odontoglossum h e monopodial march crispum liparis griffithii h t sympodial aug lucia virides h t monopodial march, aug oncidium flexosum h t, e march paphiopedilum h t sympodial feb insigne paphiopedilum h t sympodial oct villosum paphilianthe teres h t monopodial june phaius tankervillae h t,e sympodial april, may, july, nov pholidata imbricate h t sympodial aug renanthera h e monopodial june inshootiana rhyncostylis h t monopodial june retusa spathoglottis h e sympodial round the plicata year hherbaceous, tterrestrial , eepiphytic j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):210-213, 2013 212 the end of the vegetative stage was maximum in aerides crispum (30), followed by liparis griffithii (15) and dendrobium chrysotoxum (15). minimum number of leaves was noticed in spathoglottis plicata (5). similar difference in leaf number among species was also observed by fadelah (2007). leaf length and width are important parameters influencing total photosynthetic ability and, thereby, plant spread. leaf length was higher in rhyncostylis retusa (49.8cm), followed by spathoglottis plicata (48.0cm) and paphilianthe teres (39.0cm), whereas, leaf length was minimum in cymbidium giganteum (4.0cm). leaf width was maximum in rhyncostylis retusa (17.6cm) and spathoglottis plicata (13.7cm), while, it was minimum in cymbidium giganteum (2.1cm). habit and habitat of the 24 orchid species were also studied (table 2). floral characters, viz., flower size, pedicel size, flowering period, number of spikes per plant and spike/stalk length were recorded, and are presented in table 3. paphiopedilum insigne produced the largest flowers (14.4cm), followed by lucia virides (13.9cm) and oncidium flexosum (13.4cm). phaius tankervillae produced smaller flowers (0.6cm) than the other orchid species. pedicel size differed significantly among orchid species, and ranged from 1.2 to 10.3cm. maximum pedicel size was seen in phaius tankervillae (10.3cm) and renanthera inshootiana (7.1cm), while, aerides multiflorum recorded the lowest pedicel size (1.24cm). observation on blooming period was recorded to bring out a floral calendar for the 24 orchid species for the year. dendrobium densiflorum flowered in april, while aerides multiflorum, aerides crispum, dendrobium moschatum and paphilianthe teres flowered in june. lucia virides and rhyncostylis retusa flowered during july. phaius tankervillae flowered during may and august, while, lucia virides and cymbidium giganteum flowered in september. paphiopedilum insigne and paphiopedilum villosum flowered during october november. aerides crispum and cattleya sp. flowered in october. during the month of november epigenium ampulum had flowered, while, phaius tankervillae flowered during december. epidendrum radicans and spathoglottis plicata produced flowers round the year. the longest spike length was noticed in paphilianthe teres (66.60cm), followed by lucia virides (65.40cm), table 3. data on floral and yield parameters of orchid species (pooled mean of three years) species no. of spike /stalk flower length of flower longevity vase life in spikes/ plant length (cm) size (cm) pedicel (cm) (days) water (days) aerides multiflorum 1.0 22.4 3.0 1.2 10.0 9.0 aerides crispum 2.0 3.6 2.7 2.6 6.0 5.0 acanthephippium bicolour 3.0 5.2 6.8 6.4 8.0 8.0 arachnanthe clarkei 3.0 9.6 6.3 4.3 18.0 15.0 cymbidium giganteum 1.0 3.2 4.9 4.6 9.0 8.0 coelogyne flaccida 2.0 12.0 4.6 2.5 9.0 7.0 cattaleys sp. 1.0 3.1 5.0 3.2 6.0 6.0 dendrobium chrysotoxum 1.0 10.9 4.4 3.7 7.0 6.0 dendrobium moschatum 2.0 9.1 6.1 2.3 13.0 12.0 dendrobium densiflorum 3.0 53.8 5.5 4.0 16.0 15.0 epidendrum radicans 5.0 11.0 7.1 2.7 12.0 10.0 epigenium ampulum 1.0 10.5 4.9 5.6 11.0 9.0 odontoglossum crispum 2.0 17.9 5.0 6.7 8.0 6.0 liparis griffithii 2.0 1.5 2.3 2.3 10.0 9.0 lucia virides 3.0 65.4 13.9 1.5 29.0 23.0 oncidium flexosum 1.0 24.2 13.4 4.6 16.0 15.0 paphiopedilum insigne 3.0 25.5 14.4 5.1 15.0 14.0 paphiopedilum villosum 3.0 12.9 5.9 6.1 15.0 14.0 paphilianthe teres 2.0 66.6 9.8 2.7 15.0 13.0 phaius tankervillae 3.0 17.9 0.6 10.3 9.0 8.0 pholidata imbricate 1.0 26.2 5.1 1.3 8.0 7.0 renanthera inshootiana 1.0 26.3 4.2 7.1 9.0 12.0 rhyncostylis retusa 2.0 47.3 3.2 2.5 12.0 10.0 spathoglottis plicata 1.0 45.8 3.8 4.8 13.0 11.0 sem 0.104 2.96 3.63 2.78 2.88 2.39 cd (p= 0.05) 0.209 5.96 7.3 0.56 5.79 4.82 anand et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):210-213, 2013 213 dendrobium densiflorum (53.08cm), rhyncostylis retusa (47.30cm) and spathoglottis plicata (45.8cm) which were statistically on par with each other. the shortest spike was seen in cattleya sp. (3.10cm). rest of the varieties produced spike length ranging from 3.2cm to 26.3cm. variation in spike length among varieties is a genetic character (thomas and lekha rani, 2008). among the various orchid species under study, epidendrum radicans recorded the highest number of spikes per plant (5) followed by cymbidium giganteum (4). some of the orchid species produced fewer spikes probably due to the effect of environmental factors. this is in accordance with barman et al (2007) in cymbidium orchids and roy chowdhury et al (2004) in dendrobium sp. longevity of flower spike on the plant is an important factor in potted plants (wang, 2004). lucia virides recorded maximum life (29 days) on the plant, followed by arachnanthe clarkei (18 days), dendrobium densiflorum (18 days) and oncidium flexosum (16 days). minimum life (6 days) of the spike on the plant was observed in two orchid species, aerides crispums and cattleya sp. genetic makeup of the variety decides the longevity of spikes on the plant (nagare and pal, 2008; sakai et al, 1995) maximum (23 days) vase-life (complete wilting of spikes in the vase) was recorded in lucia virides, followed by arachnanthe clarkei (17 d). aerides crispum registered the shortest (5 days) vase-life in water. this may be due to total carbohydrate reserves in the florets, osmotic concentration and pressure potential of petal cells. vascular block could be regarded as a major cause for wilting, leading to a reduction in the longevity of cut-flowers (bala et al, 2008). results of the present investigation thus revealed that among the 24 orchid species studied epidendrum radicans, lucia virides and paphiopedilum insigne performed better in terms of vegetative and floral characters under shevaroy hills of the eastern ghats. references abraham, a. and vatsala, p. 1981. introduction to orchids. tropical botanical garden and research institute, trivandrum, pp. 10-27 bala, m., kumar, r. and singh, k. 2008. evaluation of rose (rosa spp.) cultivars for post harvest attributes. j. orn. hort., 11:77-78 barman, d., basak, j., rai, b., devadas, r., nayarase, v. and medhi, r.d. 2007. performance of cymbidium hybrids in mid-hill situation of sikkim. j. orn. hort., 10:30-33 fadelah, a.a. 2007. field performance of tissue culture micropropagated dendrobium orchid hybrids. acta hort., 812:622 hew, c.s. 1994. orchid cut-flower production in asean countries. in: orchid biology: reviews and perspectives, vol. 6, j. arditti (ed.), pp. 363-401 laws, n. 1995. cut orchids in the world market. flora cult. int’l., 5:12-15 nagare, v.s. and pal, r. 2008. cultivating potted orchids fetches more. indian hort., 6:24-26 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers. 2nd edn. icar, new delhi, india. roychowdhury, n., mandal, t. and munsi, p.s. 2004. evaluation of different dendrobium spp. under polyhouse in north-east indian hills. acta hort., 659:491-498 sakai, k., hara, m. and fukuda, m. 1995. characteristics of nobile type dendrobium cultivars. i. response to night temperature in winter. res. bull. aichi-ken agri. res. centre, 27:235-245 thomas, b. and lekha rani, c. 2008. assessment of floral characters in commercial varieties of monopodial orchids. j. orn. hort., 11:15-20 wang, y.t. 2004. flourishing market for potted orchids. flower tech., 7:14-17 (ms received 30 july 2012, revised 09 april 2013, accepted 07 june 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):210-213, 2013 performance of orchids in eastern ghats final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 280-286, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper rose (rosa spp.) is one of the most economically important ornamental crops in the world. increasing demand for cut-flowers both in domestic and export markets encouraged many entrepreneurs to enter into the commercial cultivation of roses. rose has been traditionally categorized as a salt-sensitive species with salt injury reported within a range of 0.5 to 3 ds m-1 electrical conductivity (ec) depending on species, cultural medium, leaching fraction, and environmental conditions (urban, 2003). bernstein et al. (1972) classified roses as having very poor tolerance to salinity with a 25-50% decrease in shoot growth at electrical conductivity values in the saturation extract (ece) between 2 and 3 ds m-1, and experiencing lethal effects at ece of 4 ds m -1. in green houses electrical conductivity levels will increase significantly as roses are irrigated with water soluble fertilizers. high content of salts affect the plants by reducing water availability to the plants and by specific ion toxicity of na, cl, b, etc. as the availability of good quality water has become scarce, farmers are using poor quality water with high salt content and ground water from deep layers of borewells which contain high amounts of bicarbonates for rose cultivation. the poor quality water affects the ph and ec of the growing medium which inturn affects the nutrient availability to the plants. high bicarbonate content in soil affects soil ph and affects availability of micronutrients especially iron. this bicarbonate induced iron deficiency or iron chlorosis results in poor flower yield and quality. the high bicarbonate (hco3-) concentration and associated high ph of irrigation water is detrimental to plant growth, due to its adverse effects on availability and solubility of nutr ients (ma r schner, 1995). by application of phosphoric and sulfuric acids through fertigation, many polyhouse units try to control the ph. this is a costly, cumbersome and unsafe practice. sustainable rose production will have to incorporate introduction assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi l.r.*, tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and upreti k.k. icar-india institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, india *corresponding author email : varalakshmi.lr@icar.gov.in abstract rose is a commercial flower crop widely grown across india. it is highly sensitive to salinity and alkalinity. in the process of identification of salt and alkalinity resistant rootstocks of rose cultivars, a survey was conducted in the rose growing areas of uttar pradesh (up) and rajasthan. total of 28 representative surface soil samples were collected from rose fields of these regions, processed and analyzed for the soil quality parameters. similarly water samples (20 samples) from the bore wells of these fields were collected and analyzed. the results revealed that most of the soils of rose growing fields in up were alkaline (ph >8.0) with normal salt content (electrical conductivity, ec < 0.5 ds m-1). many of these soils also had higher bicarbonates (> 3 meq 100 g-1). in case of rajasthan, few samples had higher ph, ec, chloride (>2 meq 100 g-1) and bicarbonate contents. exchangeable sodium percentage (esp) of up and rajasthan samples ranged from 5.21-20.7% and 2.94-24.9%, respectively. in case of water parameters in these areas, ph was slightly in alkaline range, ec of some of the samples were high (>1 dsm-1). sodium content was slightly higher than other cations. soluble sodium percentage (ssp) of water samples was also slightly higher than normal range (0-50%). few samples had slightly higher chloride above the threshold limit. from the results, it is concluded that soil and water quality of the rose growing areas of up and rajasthan is marginal and proper management/reclamation measures need to be carried out for sustaining the production system. keywords: rajasthan, rose, soil quality, uttar pradesh and water quality 281 assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 280-286, 2021 economically feasible and environmentally sound solutions to problems associated with high levels of salts and hco3 in irrigation water. one of the ways to manage this problem is to use resistant varieties or rootstocks. though there are good number of studies on rootstocks for high ph in other countries, the work on this aspect in india is scanty. the area under salinity and alkalinity problems in ra ja stha n is 1, 95, 571 ha a nd 1, 79, 371 ha , respectively. similarly 21,989 ha of cultivated land is affected with salinity problems and 13,46,971 ha of land is affected with alkalinity problems in uttar pradesh (mandal et al., 2011). rose is being cultivated in 1342 hain rajasthan (shekhawat, 2012) and 612 hain uttar pradesh (sachan et al., 2014). the present investigation was conducted to assess the soil and water quality sta tus of r ose gr owing a rea s of rajasthan and uttar pradesh as a preliminary study for collection of rose germ-plasm for screening to tolerance of salinity and alkalinity problems of soil and water. materials and methods investigative surveys were conducted in udaipur, ha ldighati, sir ohi, pali a nd jodhpur a r ea s of rajasthan during october, 2017 and in lucknow, kannauj, etah, and aligarh areas of u.p. during january, 2018. representative soil and water samples were collected from rose fields to assess quality status with respect to rose cultivation. about 28 surface soil samples and 20 water samples from these regions have been collected and analyzed for quality parameters. soil samples were analyzed for ph using glass electrode and ec using conductivity meter in 1:2.5 soil: wa ter suspension (richa r ds, 1954). t he exchangeable na, k, ca and mg in the soils were analyzed using neutral normal ammonium acetate extr a ction method (cha pma n 1965). soluble bicarbonate and chloride content in the soil were analyzed by titration method (richards, 1954). exchangeable sodium percentage (esp) of soil was calculated using the equation 1 as given below (richards, 1954). esp(%) = exchangeable {(na)/(ca + mg + k + na)} x 100 ……..eq.(1) similarly water samples have been analyzed for ph and ec using ph meter and conductivity meter (richards, 1954). na, k, ca, mg, hco3 and cl were analyzed following standard analytical procedures (richards, 1954). sodium adsorption ratio (sar) of water samples had been calculated by adopting the following equation (richards, 1954). sar (me/l)1/2 = {(na) / [(ca + mg)/2] 1/2 } ……..eq.(2) soluble sodium percentage was also calculated adopting equation 3(richards, 1954). ssp (%) = {(na +k) / (ca + mg + k + na)} x 100 ……..eq.(3) all the data were introduced to descriptive statistics for arithmetic mean and co-efficient of variation calculation. results and discussion soil quality parameters soil r eaction in the study ar eas wa s found to slightly alkaline to highly alkaline range. the soil ph ranged from 7.83-9.34 in u.p with an average value of 8.55 (table 1) and 7.18-8.42 in rajasthan (average 7.91) (table 2). the ec ranged from 0.120.76 ds m-1 which was normal range in up soils, whereas in rajasthan soil it ranged from 0.14-4.59 ds m-1, mostly under normal range but few samples had higher ec particularly in haldigati and pali areas. the exchangeable cations na, k, ca and mg in the u.p soils ranged from 174-730 mg kg-1, 48228 mg kg-1, 1109-2526 mg kg-1 and 369-548 mg kg-1, respectively. in rajasthan, the corresponding values were 128-1575 mg kg-1, 65-367 mg kg1, 1 2 8 9 2 9 2 3 mg kg -1 a nd 2 8 9 5 0 8 mg kg -1 , respectively. the results showed some soil samples had higher exchangeable sodium. the same had been reflected in the esp of the respective soils. soils of u.p had 5.21-20.7% esp (mean 8.65%) and soils of rajasthan had 2.94-24.9% esp (mean 9.52%). this showed that many soils had esp above the limit of 6% esp, that reflect prevalence of alka linity pr oblems in the study a r ea . t he exchangeable sodium percentage (esp) measures the proportion of cation exchange sites occupied by sodium. soils are considered sodic when the esp is greater than 6, and highly sodic when the esp is greater than 15 (tim et al., 2019). this showed that many rose growing farms are having sodicity problems in uttar pradesh and some in rajastan. further bicarbonate content of soils were also high 282 varalakshmi et al in some soil samples (>2 meq 100 g-1) and it ranged from 0.3-3.9 meq 100 g-1 (mean 2.2 meq 100 g-1) in up and 0.3-10.1 meq 100 g-1 (mean 2.83 meq 100 g1) in rajasthan. the presence of higher sodium and bicarbonate in the soil could increase the soil alkalinity that is adverse to the plant growth. this is evident from the ph values of soil samples from the rose fields in both rajastan and u.p. the chloride content of the soil varied from 0.4-4.0 meq 100 g-1 (mean 2.5 meq 100 g-1) in the up region and 0.6-13.0 meq 100 g-1 (mean 3.23 meq 100 g-1) in rajasthan samples. this indicated that chloride problem was more in pali, balarwa, and haldigati regions of rajasthan and in some pockets of etah and kannauj in up. soil alkalinity will result in poor soil structure and su r f a c e c r u st for ma t ion. high ph is u su a lly a s s oc ia t ed wit h high ex c ha ngea b le s odiu m percentage. on the other hand, soil salinity and chloride toxicity could also be a serious problem that affects the germination, root growth and water availability of the plant (munn and tester, 2008). e xc ess na + ha d b een a s s umed t o b e la r gely responsible for reduction in crop growth and yield under salinity (tsai et al., 2004; hong et al., 2009). though clis an essential plant nutrient, it could be toxic to plants at high concentrations (xu et al., 2000; white and broadley, 2001). table 1. soil quality parameters of rose growing areas of uttar pradesh s.no. location ph ec na+ k+ ca2+ mg2+ hco3 clesp (ds (mg (mg (mg (mg (meq (meq (%) m-1) kg-1) kg-1) kg-1) kg-1) 100 g-1) 100 g-1) 1 lucknow-1 8.44 0.21 179 147 1800 462 3.1 0.4 5.56 2 lucknow-2 8.34 0.38 323 216 2526 539 2.5 1 7.36 3 basheerpur-1 8.61 0.12 175 48 1344 450 2.3 0.6 6.70 4 basheerpur-2 8.23 0.31 187 69.3 1109 369 3.2 1.2 8.46 5 narora-1 9.34 0.23 363 103 2006 473 2.0 3.6 9.98 6 narora-2 8.59 0.37 278 206 1694 436 0.3 4.0 8.73 7 sarkari-1 8.22 0.39 212 228 1797 548 0.5 4.0 6.12 8 sarkari-2 8.23 0.31 187 69.3 1109 369 0.3 2.4 8.46 9 jagdevpura-1 8.91 0.38 463 127 1417 479 3.5 10 15.0 10 jagdevpura-2 9.24 0.76 730 195 1577 452 3.9 2.4 20.7 11 safedpura-1 8.56 0.23 174 199 1862 472 3.6 3.6 5.21 12 sagedpura-2 8.40 0.25 215 110 1435 526 3.0 0.6 7.32 13 safedpura-3 8.45 0.20 174 199 1862 472 0.5 1.2 5.21 14 hapur-1 7.83 0.67 198 134 1475 431 3.2 1.4 7.07 15 hapur-2 8.83 0.27 250 193 1684 471 0.5 0.6 7.80 mean 8.55 0.34 274 150 1646 463 2.2 2.5 8.65 cv (%) 4.67 50.9 55.3 40.1 22.1 11.1 63.1 100 47.7 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 280-286, 2021 283 irrigation water quality parameters the irrigation water quality parameters of rose growing areas of up (table 3) and rajasthan (table 4) were analyzed and the results revealed that ph of the water samples were slightly alkaline in nature. particularly water samples of up had ph of 7.53-8.36, and water samples of rajasthan had 7.23-7.70 ph range. it showed that irrigation waters of both the region had slightly higher ph (i.e.,) above the neutral ph (6.5-7.5). in case of ec, it ranged from 0.07-2.44 ds m-1 in up samples and 0.45-2.63 ds m-1 in rajastha n samples and few samples fr om pali, haldigati and udaipur (rajasthan), and etah and aligarh (up) had higher ec (>1 ds m-1). the cationic concentrations of the samples were within the safe s.no. location ph ec na+ k+ ca2+ mg2+ hco3 clesp (ds (mg (mg (mg (mg (meq (meq (%) m-1) kg-1) kg-1) kg-1) kg-1) 100 g-1) 100 g-1) 1 chikada, 7.18 0.35 1223 68 2760 428 3.0 0.8 2.94 udaipur 2 fatehnagar, 8.29 0.33 1341 123 2617 497 2.3 1.0 24.9 udaipur 3 haldigati-1 7.67 0.35 194 367 2923 508 2.4 0.6 4.09 4 haldigati-2 7.93 0.31 207 103 2140 493 3.0 5.0 5.63 5 haldigati-3 8.08 0.18 168 187 2559 454 3.2 3.0 4.11 6 haldigati-4 7.55 4.59 1575 228 1633 483 2.2 2.0 34.9 7 arathwada 8.42 0.15 195 65 1289 409 0.3 1.8 7.80 8 posalia 8.02 0.15 138 119 1913 410 0.5 2.0 4.32 9 balarwa-1 7.95 0.14 128 107 1677 289 0.5 1.2 4.79 10 balarwa-2 8.05 0.14 207 180 1719 313 3.0 5.0 7.16 11 balarwa-3 7.87 0.24 138 174 1724 311 2.5 3.6 4.89 12 balarwa-4 7.83 0.37 186 172 1696 313 3.8 3.0 6.55 13 kvk, pali 8.02 0.45 428 222 2045 404 10.1 13.0 11.6 mean 7.91 0.60 387 163 2053 409 2.83 3.23 9.52 cv (%) 4.01 202 125 49.9 24.8 19.3 86.7 102 100 table 2. soil characteristics of rose growing areas of rajasthan range for k and ca, but na and mg were higher than the fao threshold levels in some samples (ayers and westcot, 1985). further sar of the water samples of up region was 2.4-10.5 (4.5 meq l-1) and rajasthan region was 2.92-10.3 (5.41 meq l-1). the ssp of the water samples were also very high that ranged from 33.5-82. 5% in up samples and 45.7-75. 7% in rajasthan samples. most of the samples had higher sar (more than 3) and ssp (>50%), which indicated presence of more na than other cations. it was also reflected in higher ph of water samples. the ssp and the sar were important factors for studying sodium hazards. the water samples with greater than 50% ssp and more than 3 (meq l-1) sar might result in accumula tion of sodium in soil tha t ca use the assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 280-286, 2021 284 br ea kdown of physica l pr oper ties a nd r educe permeability of soil, and stunted growth in plants (joshi et al. 2009). the bicarbonate content was also higher than threshold value of 1.5 meq l-1 in both the region, as per the fao guidelines. the chloride concentration of the samples were within the safe limit (below 3 meq l-1) in some samples and exceeded in some samples as in soil samples of pali (17.5 meq l -1) which wa s excessively high. necessa r y precautionary measures could be taken while using the poor quality waters for irrigation over a longer period, because these lead to accumulations of salts and other hazards in the soil become harmful to production system. conclusions in comparison with other crop species, rose crop is highly sensitive to salinity and alkalinity. in the current study, it has been observed that most of the soil and water samples of the rose growing areas of uttar pradesh and rajasthan are degraded due to alkalinity, sodium and bicarbonate hazards, and in some cases chloride hazards and salinity problems. long term use of marginal quality water for irrigation can further aggravate the problems of soil salinity and alkalinity. therefore, proper precautionary measures, reclamation and management of degraded soils and marginal qua lity wa ters is inevitable for susta ining the production system. table 3. irrigation water quality of rose growing areas of uttar pradesh s.no. location ph ec na+ k+ ca2+ mg2+ hco3 clsar ssp (ds (mg (mg (mg (mg (meq (meq (meq (%) m-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1)1/2 1 lucknow 7.59 0.65 5.28 0.02 2.98 0.51 5.0 0.6 4.0 60.3 2 bashirpur 7.66 0.48 6.26 0.03 0.75 0.58 5.2 1.2 7.7 82.5 khannoj 3 bashirpur 8.32 0.07 16.9 0.02 3.5 1.67 1.0 0.6 10.5 76.6 khannoj 4 narora, etah 7.55 2.44 3.87 0.08 2.81 2.6 7.0 5.0 2.4 42.2 5 narora, etah 7.54 0.76 8.83 0.08 3.38 3.87 5.1 0.6 4.6 55.1 6 sarkari gram, 7.53 1.00 8.75 0.02 3.51 6.34 3.8 1.8 3.9 47.1 awaghad 7 jagdevpura, 7.77 0.63 6.20 0.01 4.54 6.00 3.9 1.7 2.7 37.1 hasayan 8 jagdevpura, 7.7 2.07 5.28 0.01 3.60 1.67 3.8 0.2 3.3 50.1 hasayan 9 safed pura, 7.63 0.60 6.26 0.04 1.56 6.26 4.1 1.2 3.2 44.6 alighar 10 hapur 7.53 0.85 6.08 0.04 5.10 7.07 5.0 2.0 2.5 33.5 mean 7.68 0.96 7.37 0.04 3.17 3.66 4.39 1.5 4.5 52.9 cv (%) 3.10 76.7 49.8 74.1 40.2 70.3 35.0 92.0 58.8 30.6 fao threshold (ayers 6.51.0 3.0 0.5 5.0 1.0 1.5 3.0 3.0 50.0 and westcot,1985) 8.0 varalakshmi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 280-286, 2021 285 table 4. irrigation water quality of rose growing areas of rajasthan s.no. location ph ec na+ k+ ca2+ mg2+ hco3 clsar ssp (ds (mg (mg (mg (mg (meq (meq (meq (%) m-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1) l-1)1/2 1 chapiri, 7.70 0.62 5.86 0.087 1.73 1.75 5.8 0.8 4.44 63.1 udaipur 2 chikada, 7.59 1.05 8.74 0.032 1.01 1.80 7.1 3.0 7.37 75.7 udaipur 3 fatehnagar, 7.51 1.57 15.90 0.043 3.50 2.08 10.0 5.0 9.52 74.1 udaipur 4 haldigati-1 7.52 0.45 4.86 0.076 1.56 1.95 5.3 1.2 3.67 58.4 5 haldigati-2 7.32 1.76 7.74 0.076 4.54 2.24 10.9 3.6 4.20 53.5 6 posalia 7.31 0.99 7.57 0.043 2.33 1.59 5.1 3.0 5.41 66.0 7 balarwa-1 7.50 0.53 5.18 0.022 3.81 1.82 3.0 2.0 3.09 48.0 8 balarwa-2 7.56 0.63 5.12 0.043 4.25 1.88 4.0 1.8 2.92 45.7 9 balarwa-3 7.58 0.62 5.27 0.011 3.60 1.82 3.8 2.0 3.20 49.4 10 kvk, pali 7.23 2.63 20.8 0.151 6.01 2.09 3.9 17.5 10.3 72.1 mean 7.48 1.09 8.70 0.06 3.23 1.90 5.89 3.9 5.42 60.6 cv (%) 1.98 64.7 61.8 69.9 48.1 10.0 45.5 123 50.3 18.6 fao threshold (ayers 6.51.0 3.0 0.5 5.0 1.0 1.5 3.0 3.0 50.0 and westcot,1985) 8.0 references ayers, r.s. and westcot, d.w. 1985. water quality for agriculture. fao irrigation and drainage pa per. 29 rev. 1. food and agricultur e organization of the united nations, rome. bernstein, l., francois, l.e. and clark, r.a.1972.salt toler a nce of or na menta l shr ubs a nd groundcovers. j. amer. soc. hort. sci.,97:550– 556. brady, n.c. and weil, r.r.1999. elements of the 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(received on 13.01.2021, revised on 29.07.2021 and accepted on 30.07.2021) varalakshmi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 280-286, 2021 00 contents.pdf 01 shalini.pdf 02 sheikh.pdf 03 debanath.pdf 04 nimbolkar.pdf 05 satisha.pdf 06 kaur.pdf 08 varsha.pdf 09 ravishankar.pdf 10 swamini.pdf 11 vijaykumar.pdf 12 usha bharathi.pdf 13 yogalakshmi.pdf 14 adams.pdf 15 lakshman.pdf 16 yella swami.pdf 17 varalakshmi.pdf 18 sharon.pdf 22 event report.pdf rose (rosa hybrida l.) is referred to as the queen of flowers. it belongs to the genus rosa and the family rosaceae, and is ranked as number one cut-flower. there are several kinds of cultivars of rose in a dazzling spectrum of color, tint and hue, with forms ranging from miniatures to shrubs to climbers. floribunda is a modern group of garden roses developed by crossing hybrid teas with the wild rose, rosa multiflora, or polyantha roses. garden roses are uniquely different from cut-roses on account of production of higher number of flowers per stem. therefore more number of flowers produced per unit area fulfills the criteria for garden decoration. modern landscape planners hardly utilize the available diversity of roses in landscaping although exclusive rose gardens have been established in various cities. landscaping with roses is one way of adding beauty to gardens. floribunda roses are an excellent category best suited for gardening as these produce more flowers per unit area and for a longer duration. the possibility of their use as cutsprays under indian conditions should also be explored. as there is a great diversity among floribunda roses, there is a need to evaluate performance of these cultivars. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):271-275, 2013 short communication evaluation of floribunda rose (rosa hybrida l.) cultivars for landscape use under punjab condition parget singh, r.k. dubey, ranjit singh and ramesh kumar department of floriculture and landscaping punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141004, india e-mail: rkdubey.flori@pau.edu abstract the present study was carried out to evaluate floribunda rose cultivars for landscape use under sub-tropical climate of the punjab. thirty cultivars were planted in randomized block design, with three replications. maximum plant height (53.67cm) was recorded in ‘banjaran’, while plant-spread, leaf length and leaf breadth were maximum (90.83cm, 12.73cm and 9.10cm, respectively) in ‘brown velvet’. the cv. iceberg produced comparatively longer (2.77cm) buds. flower size was maximum in ‘charleston’ (8.37cm). number of petals per flower was higher in ‘arunima’. thorn density was found to be higher (42.67 per ten cm i.e., decimeter) in cv. ‘st. boniface’ whereas, ‘summer snow’ and ‘ahalya’ were thornless. thorn shape was that of a hook in all the cultivars. maximum number of flowers per plant, per unit area were recorded in ‘summer snow’ (367.85/m2), which was on par with ‘arunima’ (340.32/m2), ‘first edition’ (320.75/m2) and ‘thornless beauty’ (328.24/m2). flower stalk length (82.33cm) and flower duration (141.33 days) were higher in cv. brown velvet. the cultivars were also evaluated for their fragrance. key words: floribunda rose, evaluation, landscape the present experiment was carried out at the research farm, department of floriculture and landscaping, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during the years 2009-2011. the ludhiana, being subtropical, is characterized by cold winters, with occasional ground-frost in december and january, and, high temperatures associated with hot, desiccating winds in may and june. average annual rainfall in the area is 700mm. the soil of the experimental plot was sandy-loam with medium fertility at ph 8. rose cultivars were collected from various sources like directorate of floricultural research, iari, new delhi, and from private nurseries and included cvs. banjaran, parfait, gold cup, junior miss, brown velvet, sexy rexy, valentine, rumba, red gold, charleston, sparton, thornless beauty, hot cocoa, show bizz, neelambari, princess de monaco, nimes, iceberg, summer snow, first edition, charisma, bordure vive, john john, saratoga, st. boniface, hemangini, arunima, nordia, lenturner and ahalya. the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design, with three replications, with one 272 plant per replication. a year old plants, already established in the field, were used for recording observations. planting distance of the rose bushes was 75cm x75cm. uniform cultural practices like pruning, fertilization and pesticide application, were applied to all the plants well in time as per standard package of practices. plants were flood-irrigated as and when required. frequency of irrigation during the summer months was twice a week, whereas in the winter it was once a week. manual weeding was done weekly. observations were recorded on various parameters, viz., plant height (cm), plant-spread (ns and ew spread, in cm), thorn density (count per 10cm), leaf length and leaf breadth (cm), bud length and diameter (cm), flower size (cm), flower shoot length (cm), flower color (as per rhs color chart), duration of flowering (days), fragrance (yes/no), flower vase-life in tap water (days), petal number/ flower, and seed setting (yes/no). data were statistically analyzed using cpcs1 software. subtropical climatic conditions are characterized by extremes of winter and summer temperatures, and have a marked effect on plant height, plant-spread, leaf length and leaf breadth (table 1). plant height varied from 21.33cm to 53.67cm, thus showing a wide variation among cultivars. maximum plant height (53.67cm) was recorded in ‘banjaran’, followed by ‘hot cocoa’, ‘gold cup’ and ‘brown velvet’, with 52, 51.67 and 50cm, respectively. plants were dwarf in the case of ‘bordure vive’ (21.33cm). cultivars bordure vive, hemangini and show bizz were observed to be dwarf compared to others as these exhibited lower plant height (21.33, 27.33 and 26.33cm, respectively). therefore, these cultivars are suitable for high-density planting. variation in plant height among different cultivars may be due to individual genetic make-up of the cultivars. our results are in conformity with findings of murugesan et al (1991) and singh et al (2004). maximum plant-spread (90.83cm) was observed in ‘brown velvet’, followed by table 1. evaluation of floribunda rose cultivars for plant height, plant spread, leaf length and leaf breadth name of cultivar plant plant leaf leaf height spread length breadth (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) banjaran 53.67 41.17 11.23 8.13 parafait 38.00 31.67 8.57 6.30 gold cup 51.67 43.33 8.27 5.30 junior miss 43.00 39.67 8.27 6.73 brown velvet 50.00 90.83 12.73 9.10 sexy rexy 31.00 40.67 9.33 7.73 valentine 31.67 39.00 8.20 7.17 rumba 46.33 40.17 8.57 5.80 red gold 39.00 37.17 7.87 6.30 charleston 42.33 39.00 8.97 6.00 sparton 28.67 32.17 8.10 7.10 thornless beauty 44.33 50.50 9.47 7.73 hot cocoa 52.00 49.67 9.77 8.10 show bizz 27.33 19.17 6.07 4.17 neelambari 35.00 28.83 7.93 6.20 princess de monaco 47.67 45.33 10.10 7.33 nimes 37.33 35.67 12.47 9.43 iceberg 33.33 16.83 8.53 6.80 summer snow 29.33 23.00 7.67 4.83 first edition 37.67 52.00 9.60 7.97 charisma 42.67 32.00 9.00 6.00 bordure vive 21.33 29.17 8.17 7.23 john john 46.67 32.67 9.17 7.10 saratoga 42.33 30.67 8.27 7.10 st. boniface 37.67 38.17 9.37 5.27 hemangini 26.33 32.50 9.17 7.10 arunima 37.67 39.17 8.53 6.03 nordia 31.00 28.00 10.10 7.97 lenturner 28.33 32.17 8.23 5.07 ahalya 28.67 29.67 10.07 6.03 cd (p=0.05) 11.93 13.64 0 .84 0.53 table 2. evaluation of floribunda rose cultivars for bud length, bud diameter, flower size and flower stalk length name of cultivar bud bud flower flower length diameter size stalk (cm) (cm) (cm) length (cm) banjaran 1.97 1.27 6.13 54.67 parafait 1.80 1.57 6.70 38.67 gold cup 1.67 1.33 5.03 39.67 junior miss 1.87 1.37 5.80 45.67 brown velvet 2.10 1.77 6.60 82.33 sexy rexy 1.70 1.33 6.97 32.00 valentine 1.93 1.20 6.77 35.33 rumba 1.60 1.23 4.63 46.67 red gold 2.33 1.47 6.23 32.00 charleston 2.47 1.70 8.37 43.67 sparton 1.67 1.47 5.80 40.00 thornless beauty 2.30 0.90 4.57 51.33 hot cocoa 2.43 1.80 5.30 46.67 show bizz 1.53 1.20 5.63 24.67 neelambari 1.73 1.23 5.30 42.00 princess de monaco 2.57 1.77 6.70 39.33 nimes 1.67 1.53 5.30 41.67 iceberg 2.77 1.03 6.47 41.00 summer snow 1.50 0.83 5.27 50.67 first edition 2.90 1.50 6.00 43.33 charisma 1.77 1.27 5.27 32.00 bordure vive 2.20 1.30 6.20 24.33 john john 2.53 1.73 5.40 36.67 saratoga 1.60 1.13 4.37 50.00 st. boniface 2.13 1.47 5.70 31.00 hemangini 2.03 1.47 4.50 40.00 arunima 1.80 1.30 6.63 29.67 nordia 2.20 1.40 5.30 30.33 lenturner 2.50 1.70 4.70 23.00 ahalya 1.80 1.10 4.57 33.67 cd (p=0.05) 0 .39 0.25 0.59 12.97 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):271-275, 2013 parget singh et al 273 ‘first edition’, ‘thornless beauty’ and ‘hot cocoa’ where plant-spread recorded was 52.0, 50.50 and 49.67cm, respectively. cultivars with lower plant-spread were ‘iceberg’, ‘show bizz’ and ‘summer snow’ and had an upright growth-habit, thus, rendering them suitable for close planting. malhotra (1997) also reported similar findings when evaluating roses under polyhouse and open conditions. maximum leaf length (12.73cm) was recorded in ‘brown velvet’, followed by ‘nimes’ and ‘banjaran’ (12.47 and 11.23cm, respectively) (table 1). minimum leaf length (6.07cm) was recorded in ‘show bizz’. leaf breadth was maximum (9.43cm) in ‘nimes’, followed by ‘brown velvet’ and ‘banjaran’ (9.10 and 8.13cm, respectively). minimum leaf breadth (4.17cm) was found in ‘show bizz’, followed by ‘summer snow’ and ‘lenturner’, where it was 4.83 and 5.07cm, respectively. larger leaf size is more desirable as it has a higher photosynthetic area which affects plant growth and productivity positively. table 2 shows that bud length varied from 1.5cm in ‘summer snow’, to 2.9cm in ‘first edition’. diameter of the flower bud varied from 0.83cm in ‘summer snow’, to 1.77cm in ‘brown velvet’ and ‘princess de monaco’. wide variation was observed in flower size among different cultivars (table 2). maximum flower size (8.37cm) was recorded in ‘charleston’, followed by ‘sexy rexy’ (6.97cm) and ‘valentine’ (6.77cm). smallest flowers (4.37cm) were table 3. evaluation of floribunda rose cultivars for petal number, thorn density, vase life, number of flowers per plant and duration of flowering name of petal thorn vase-life number duration cultivar number/ density (days) of of flower (count flowers/ flowering per 10 plant (days) cm) banjaran 24.67 10.00 6.00 93.23 129.67 parafait 61.00 20.00 5.00 103.10 129.33 gold cup 27.33 14.00 11.00 48.21 137.00 junior miss 30.67 20.00 5.00 73.85 134.67 brown velvet 26.00 18.00 7.00 171.12 141.33 sexy rexy 36.33 17.67 6.00 107.87 132.33 valentine 33.00 9.67 5.00 262.23 130.67 rumba 32.00 14.33 8.00 132.12 127.67 red gold 18.00 32.00 7.00 92.01 125.33 charleston 20.67 20.00 5.00 183.87 129.00 sparton 41.00 22.00 6.00 68.36 130.33 thornless 19.00 16.00 6.00 328.24 133.67 beauty hot cocoa 19.67 24.00 5.00 130.69 134.33 show bizz 26.67 20.00 6.00 88.42 133.67 neelambari 33.00 6.00 5.00 257.23 131.33 princess de 32.67 25.00 4.00 27.28 132.33 monaco nimes 29.33 6.00 6.00 86.45 135.33 iceberg 28.00 8.00 7.00 121.26 128.67 summer snow 20.00 0.00 5.00 367.85 160.67 first edition 26.00 16.00 7.00 320.75 132.33 charisma 32.00 10.33 8.00 142.95 133.00 bordure vive 20.00 16.00 6.00 98.19 130.67 john john 21.00 14.00 7.00 48.83 130.33 saratoga 22.00 18.00 5.00 95.65 135.00 st. boniface 23.00 42.67 6.00 78.76 127.33 hemangini 41.33 12.00 5.00 220.46 129.00 arunima 66.00 12.00 4.00 340.32 129.00 nordia 40.00 14.00 5.00 72.65 134.00 lenturner 32.00 26.00 5.00 65.12 133.67 ahalya 20.00 20.00 6.00 145.65 134.00 cd (p=0.05) 2.19 2.51 1.36 48.96 4.87 table 4. evaluation of floribunda rose cultivars for flower colour, fragrance and seed-set name of flower colour rhscc fragrance seed no. (yes/no) setting (yes/no) banjaran red group 44 b yes no parfait red group 54 a no no gold cup yellow group 12 a yes yes junior miss red group 49 b no yes brown velvet greyed red group 179 a yes no sexy rexy red group 49 b no no valentine red group 46 a yes no rumba yellow group 4 b yes yes red gold red group 39 b no no charleston red group 53 a no yes sparton red group 47 b no no thornless red group 55 a yes no beauty hot cocoa greyed red group 181 b yes no show bizz red group 45 b no yes neelambari red purple group 61 b no yes princess de red group 55 b no no monaco nimes red group 45 a no no iceberg white no no summer snow white no no first edition orange red group n 34 b no no charisma orange red group n 30 a yes no bordure vive red purple group n 66 a yes no john john yellow orange group 14 a no no saratoga white no no st. boniface orange red group n 30 a yes yes hemangini white no no arunima red purple group 62 b no no nordia grayed red group 182 b no no lenturner red group 55 c no no ahalya purple group 75 b no no j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):271-275, 2013 evaluation of floribunda roses for landscaping 274 observed in ‘saratoga’. larger flowers are considered to be better for exhibition purposes, while, cultivars with smaller flowers may be suited better for garden display. similar differences in flower size of cultivars have been earlier reported by murugesan et al (1991), bhattacharjee (1994), singh et al (1994), malhotra (1997), singh and singh (2002) and malik et al (2007). similarly, the cultivars were evaluated for flower stalk length (table 2). maximum flower stem length (82.33cm) was recorded in ‘brown velvet’, while, ‘lenturner’ recorded lower stalk length (23cm). cultivars having flowers with higher number of petals were ‘arunima’, ‘parfait’ and ‘hemangini’ at 66, 61 and 41.33 petals per flower, respectively (table 3). however, lowest number of petals (18 per flower) was recorded in ‘red gold’. based on thorn density, i.e., number of thorns per 10 cm (decimeter) of stem, ‘st. boniface’ had the highest number of thorns (42.67) (table 3). ‘summer snow’ was thornless. ‘nimes’ and ‘iceberg’ bore very few (6 and 8, respectively). for landscape use, cultivars with fewer thorns are preferred. with this in view, ‘summer snow’, ‘iceberg’, ‘nimes’ and ‘neelambari’ were rated as better. similar variation in number of thorns among cultivars has been reported by murugesan et al (1991), sundram et al (1996) and singh (1995) too. ‘gold cup’ exhibited maximum flower vase-life (11 days) (table 3). ‘princess de monaco’ and ‘arunima’ remained fresh in tap water for only up to four days which could be due to the accumulation of reducing and non-reducing sugars at harvest of stems. some cultivars showed slow opening of petals, while, in others, petals opened faster. maximum number of flowers per plant (consequently, per meter square area), were recorded in ‘summer snow’ (367.85/m2), on par with ‘arunima’ (340.32/ m2), ‘first edition’ (320.75/m2) and ‘thornless beauty’ (328.24/m2). variation in vase-life of various rose cultivars has also been reported by bhattacharjee (1994), murugesan (1996) and malhotra (1997) earlier. ‘summer snow’ produced flowers for longer duration (160.67 days), followed by ‘gold cup’ and ‘nimes’ (137 and 135.33 days, respectively) (table 3). however, flowering span was shortest in ‘red gold’ (125.33 days). ‘summer snow’ produced flowers in summer months too. cultivars showed variation in flower colour too (table 4). it was found that thirteen cultivars, namely , ‘banjaran’, ‘patfait’, ‘junior miss’, ‘sexy rexy’, ‘valentine’ ,’red gold’, ‘charleston’, ‘sparton’, ‘thornless beauty’, ‘show biz’, ‘prncess de monaco’, ‘nimes’, and ‘lenturner’ belonged to the red group, while three cultivars, ‘arunima’, ‘bordure vive’ and ‘neelambari’ fell into the red-purple group. cultivars ‘rumba’ and ‘gold cup’ belonged to the yellow group. ‘first edition’, ‘charisma’ and ‘st boniface’ belonged to the orange-red group while ‘brown velvet’, ‘hot cocoa’ and ‘nordia’ belonged to the grayed-red group. ‘john john’ fell into the yellow-orange group, whereas, ‘ahalya’ in the purple-group. the remaining cultivars were white in colour. cultivars ‘banjaran’, ‘gold cup’, ‘brown velvet’, ‘valentine’, ‘rumba’, ‘thornless beauty’, ‘hot cocoa’, ‘charisma’, ‘bordure vive’ and ‘st. boniface’ were fragrant, while, the remaining ones were non-fragrant. seed-set was observed in ‘gold cup’, ‘junior miss’, ‘rumba’, ‘charleston’, ‘show bizz’, ‘st. boniface’ and ‘neelambari’ under punjab conditions. rest of the cultivars did not set seed (table 3). singh (1995) also reported seedset in rose cultivars under punjab conditions. based on results of the experiment, the varieties have been classified for various landscape uses as under: landscape use major characters varieties for pots more plant spread with less plant height; parfait, sexy rexy, valentine, spartan, first edition, bordure vive, longer flowering duration hemangini, ahalya for bedding more number of flowers per unit area, banjaran, parfait, gold cup, junior miss, brown velvet, sexy rexy, with long flowering duration valentine, rumba, red gold, charleston, sparton, thornless beauty, hot cocoa, show bizz, neelambari, princess de monaco, nimes, iceberg, summer snow, first edition, charisma, bordure vive, john john, saratoga, st. boniface, hemangini, arunima, nordia, lenturner, ahalya for cut-flowers long flower shoot (at least 35cm) neelambari, princess de monaco, nimes, iceberg, summer snow, and considerably long vase-life first edition, banjaran, parfait, gold cup, junior miss, brown velvet, sexy rexy, valentine, rumba, red gold, charleston, sparton, thornless beauty, saratoga j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):271-275, 2013 parget singh et al 275 references bhattacharjee, s.k. 1994. post harvest life of cut roses as affected by varietal differences. s. indian hort., 41:331-334 malhotra, r. 1997. studies on plant growth and flower production of commercial cultivars of rose (rosa hybrida l.) under polyhouse and natural conditions. m.sc. thesis, punjab agicultural university, ludhiana, india malik, a.s., sehrawat, s.k., yadav, b.s., dahiya, d.s. and kumar, s. 2007. performance of rose cultivars on rosa indica var. odorata rootstock as influenced by budding time. haryana j. hortl. sci., 36:277-279 murugesan, s., thamburaj, s. and rajamani, k. 1991. performance of rose cultivars at yercaud. s. indian hort., 39:359-362 murugesan, s., thamburaj, s. and thangaraj, t. 1996. afterlife of cut roses in vase. s. indian hort., 43:168-170 singh, a.k., karki, k. and jauhari, s. 2004. response of nitrogen on growth and flowering parameters in rose. j. orn. hort., new series, 7:90-94 singh, b.p. and singh, c.n. 2002. effect of time and methods of budding on the performance of rose (rosa indica) cv. black prince. pl. archives, 2:65-67 singh, b.r., patil, m.t., patil, g.k. and bhujbal, b.g. 1994. performance of indian bed rose cultivars. j. maharashtra agri. univ., 19:344-345 singh, d. 1995. improvement of roses through controlled and open pollinated progenies. m.sc. thesis, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india sundram, k., rajamani, k., rengasamy, p. and azhakiamanavalan, r.s. 1996. studies on the performance of hybrid tea rose cultivars. s. indian hort., 44:83-84 (ms received 31 july 2012, revised 04 june 2013, accepted 15 july 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):271-275, 2013 evaluation of floribunda roses for landscaping short communication apricot (prunus armeniaca l.) occupies an important position in terms of area and production among stone fruits. it is grown commercially in kashmir valley and ‘new castle’ is a popular variety. foliar analysis is an accepted tool to ascertain adequacy or otherwise of mineral nutrient status in fruit plants. however, this needs to be standardized for selection of index leaf for a given nutrient element. the most suitable leaf position and sampling time are those that show least variation in mineral concentration (mason, 1958). nutrient standards developed for recommendation of fertilizers are specified to a cultivar, and under particular climatic conditions (westwood, 1993). as no such information is available on apricot grown in kashmir valley, the present study intended to bridge this gap. the study was conducted on ‘newcastle’ apricot in our experimental orchard during 2009-10. four healthy trees of uniform age, size and vigour were chosen. three leaf sampling positions were selected, i.e., top, middle and basal. leaf samples with petioles were collected at 15 day intervals, viz., 1st and 15th of each month, starting from may to september. leaf samples were thoroughly washed first with tap water, then with 0.1nhcl and, distilled and double distilled water. washed samples were then dried in shade and, subsequently, in an oven at 68oc, ground and, finally stored for chemical analysis. nitrogen content was determined by micro-kjeldhals distillation method (a.o.a.c., 1980), phosphorus by ammonium molybdate:ammonium meta vanadate method, potassium and standardization of leaf sampling technique for macronutrients in apricot under temperate conditions h.u. rehman, m.k. sharma and f.a. banday division of fruit science sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir shalimar-191 121, india e-mail : drsharma_mk@rediffmail.com abstract macroand micro-nutrient content influenced by position of leaf on the shoot and time of sampling was studied to determine leaf-sampling time for apricot grown in temperate region of the country. results revealed that middle order leaves were the most suitable for determining nutrient needs in apricot trees. leaf samples should be collected during june july for determining n, k and ca; first fortnight of july for p; and, from mid-june to mid-july for mg. key words: leaf sampling, apricot, nutritional diagnosis, suitable sampling date calcium by flame photometer, u.k. (jackson, 1967) and magnesium by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. results were expressed as percentage on dry matter basis. data was analyzed by the method of gomez and gomez (1983). variation in leaf n content in apricot followed a definite trend during the sampling season (fig. 1). n content of basal and top leaves increased significantly from first sampling date, i.e., may 1 and upto june 15. thereafter, it decreased significantly to the lowest value on september 1. however, no period of stability in n content was recorded fig 1. nitrogen content in apricot leaf influenced by position of leaf on the shoot and time of sampling (% dry weight) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):98-100, 2012 99 leaf sampling in apricot in basal and top leaves. although n content of middle leaves exhibited a similar trend as in basal and top leaves, during june 1 to july 1, it remained statistically at par. mean n content of apricot leaves increased, irrespective of position of the leaf on the shoot from may 1 to june 15 as a result of both current absorption and remobilization of n accumulated in the previous season. mean n content was recorded highest in ‘top’ positioned leaves, followed by middle and basal leaves. nitrogen, being a mobile element, tends to accumulate in top leaves (singh and rajput, 1978). similar results were recorded by verma and bhandari (1990) and malik and ahmad (2008). phosphorus content of top and basal leaves showed a decreasing trend from first sampling date to the last sampling date (fig. 2). no period of ‘least variation’ was observed in top and basal leaves. similarly, p content in middle leaves decreased significantly from may 1 to july 1, followed by a nutrient stability period of july 1 to july 15.subsequently, p content of the middle leaves again declined significantly upto the last sampling date, i.e. september 1. the decline in p content could be due to dilution effects of growth, and it being a mobile element, significant remobilization of this element may have occurred to various sinks, prior to leaf-fall (clark and smith, 1990). mean p content showed significant difference among leaf positions and was recorded highest in the top leaves, followed by middle leaves, and was lowest in the basal leaves. the present results agree with earlier reports of batjer and westwood (1958). potassium content, irrespective of position of the leaf on the shoot, followed a similar trend from may 1 to june 1, and thereafter, k content of top and basal leaves decreased significantly upto the last sampling date. however, k content of middle leaves showed least variation i.e., highest stability from june 1 to july 1. thereafter, it showed a trend similar to that in top and basal leaves (fig. 3). highest level of k was noticed in top leaves, followed by middle leaves and was lowest in the basal leaves. these results are in conformity with findings of lekhova (1974) and verma and bhandari (1990). calcium content, irrespective of leaf-position on the shoot, showed an increasing trend from may 1 (the first sampling date) to september 1 (the last sampling date). increase in ca content was significant in top and basal leaves, and no period of stability was observed in any pair of sampling dates (fig. 4). there was, however, gradual but nonsignificant increase in ca content between june 1 july 1. the ever-increasing concentration of ca may be attributed to limited mobility of calcium in the phloem and, also, low demand in the fruit (smith; 1962 and shear and faust, 1980). ca content of leaf samples increased with leaf position on shoot basipetally, since, deposition of ca as calcium pectate in the middle lamella increases with age of the leaf. the present findings are in agreement with observations of verma and bhandari (1990) and malik and ahmad (2008) wherein authors reported higher ca content with advancing age of the leaf. magnesium content of top leaves increased significantly between may 1 june 15. between june 15 july 1, significant decrease in mg content was observed (fig. 5). from july 1 to august 1, an increasing trend in mg content was noticed. thereafter, mg content showed significant decline with advancement of sampling season. fig 2. phosphorus content in apricot leaf influenced by position of leaf on the shoot and time of sampling (% dry weight) fig 3. potassium content in apricot leaf influenced by position of leaf on shoot the and time of sampling (% dry weight) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):98-100, 2012 100 although mg content of middle leaves followed an exactly similar trend as that in top leaves, change in mg content between june 15 july 15 was non-significant in the case of middle leaves. change in mg content of basal leaves on all dates of sampling was statistically significant, and no period of stability in mg content of basal leaves was observed. these findings may be attributed to the relatively limited mobility of mg in phloem, as also low demand in the fruit (smith, 1962; shear and faust, 1980). decrease in magnesium content during september may have been due to lower soil temperature, which alters root activity and, in turn, affects cation absorption (melich and reed, 1948). highest mean value of mg content was recorded in the basal leaves, followed by middle and top leaves. thus, it can be concluded that middle leaves of current fig 4. calcium content in apricot leaf influenced by position of leaf on the shoot and time of sampling (% dry weight) fig 5. magnesium content in apricot leaf influenced by position of leaf on the shoot and time of sampling (% dry weight) season’s growth are the most suitable for determining nutrient needs in the apricot tree. leaf samples should be collected starting from early june to early july for determining n, k and ca; during the first fortnight of july for determining p, and from mid-june to mid-july for determining mg. references a.o.a.c. 1980. official methods of analysis of the association of official analytical chemists, 13th ed. (ed. w. horowitz.). benjamin franklin station. washington, d.c. p1018 batjer, i.p. and westwood, m.n. 1958. seasonal trend of several mineral elements in leaves and fruits of elberta peach. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 71:116-126 clark, c.j. and smith, g.s. 1990. seasonal changes in nutrient content of persimmon leaves. sci. hort., 42:85-97 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1983. statistical procedures for agricultural research. 2nd ed., john wiley and sons, new york jackson, m.l. 1967. soil chemical analysis. asia publishing house, bombay lekhova, e. 1974. changes in the nutrient content of apple leaves during the growing period. grad.-i-loz. nauka, 11:35-48 malik, a.r. and ahmad, m.f. 2008. standardization of leaf sampling dates for early and late cultivars of apple. 3rd ind. hort. cong., 194p mason, a.c. 1958. the concentration of certain nutrient elements in apple leaves taken from different positions on shoot and at different dates through the growing seasons. j. hortl. sci., 33:128-138 melich, a. and reed, j.f. 1948. characterization of the plant factor in the cation requirement and contents in plants. proc. soil sci. soc. amer., 13:399-401 shear, c.b. and faust, m. 1980. nutritional ranges in deciduous tree fruits and nuts. hort. rev., 2:142-163 singh, n.p. and rajput, c.b.s. 1978. effect of leaf age and position on fruiting status of guava leaf mineral composition. j. hortl. sci., 53:73-74 smith, p.f. 1962. mineral analysis of plant tissues. ann. rev.pl. physiol., 13:81-108 verma, k.s. and bhandari, a.r. 1990. standardization of leaf sampling techniques for macro-nutrient elements in temperate peaches. ind. j. hort., 47:140-153 westwood, m.n. 1978. temperate zone pomology, w.u. freeman and company. san francisco, usa. p. 427 (ms received 16 may 2011, revised 19 may 2012) rehman et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):98-100, 2012 23 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 effect of integrated nutrient management on mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. himsagar h. d. talang*, p. dutta, c. mukhim and s. patil department of fruits and orchard management, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, west bengal 741 252 *email: hammylliende@gmail.com abstract a field experiment was carried out for two years (2012-13 and 2013-14) to study the effect of integrated nutrient management comprising of biofertilizers (azospirillum, azotobacter, trichoderma and pseudomonas) conjointly with chemical fertilizers and organic manures on growth, yield and quality as well as soil chemical properties of mango cv. himsagar at bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, regional research station, gayeshpur. result revealed that treatment with half (1000:500:1000 g npk/tree) + 50 kg fym + azospirillium (250 g) + 100 g potassium mobiliser (t6) recorded maximum plant height (5.79 m), girth (64.91 cm) and plant spread in east-west (5.63 m) and north-south direction (5.46 m) than the other treatments. the treatment t8 consisting of half (1000:500:1000 g npk/tree) + 50 kg fym + 5 kg vermicompost + 100 g potassium mobiliser recorded maximum number of fruits (230.31 / tree), fruit weight (261.48 g), yield (60.22 kg /tree) and also have a significant improvement in terms of tss (19.66 0brix), total sugars (16.48 %), ascorbic acid (33.56 mg/100 g pulp), â-carotene (6935 µg/100g pulp) and shelf life (9 days) at room temperature as compared to other treatments, concomitant with higher values of soil (n-198.22 kg/ha, p-58.44 kg/ha and k-326.93 kg/ha) and leaf nutrient (n1.77 %, p-0.67 % and k-1.08 %) contents. key words: bio-fertilizers, organic mulching, fruit quality, shelf life. material and methods an experiment was conducted during 2012-13 and 2013-14 at bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya regional research station, gayeshpur, west bengal. twelve years old trees of mango cv. himsagar of uniform vigor and size, planted at 10x10 m distance and maintained under uniform cultural practices were selected for study. the experiment comprised ten (10) treatments and replicated thrice. the treatments are as follows: t1: 1000 : 500 : 1000 g npk/tree/year (control) t2: t1 + zn (0.5 %) + b (0.2 %) + mn (0.1 %) + ca (0.6 %) as foliar spray twice (august and october) t3: t1 + organic mulching (10 cm thick) t4: t2 + organic mulching (10 cm thick) introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) is an important fruit crops of india because of its wide adaptability, delicious taste and high nutritive value. india is the largest producer of mango in the world with an area of 25.16 lakh ha and production of 184.31 lakh tonnes, share 45.1 % of total mango production in the world with a productivity of 7.3 mt/ha. chemical fertilizers are mostly in use for supplying nutrient elements for proper growth and yield of mango. owing to increasing cost of fertilizer, their short supply and sustainability issues, it is felt desirable to reduce the dependence on chemical fertilizers. therefore, an investigation was carried out to identify the suitable integration of different sources of nutrients viz. chemical fertilizers, organic manures and biofertilizers with respect to plant growth, yield and quality of mango fruits. *scientist (fruit science), icar research complex for neh region, umroi road, umiam-793 103, meghala ya original research paper 24 talang et al t5: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + trichoderma (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g) t6: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + azospirillum (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g) t7: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + azotobacter (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g) t8: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + 5 kg vermicompost + potassium mobiliser (100 g) t9: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + pseudomonas florescence (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g) t10: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + trichoderma (250 g) + pseudomonas florescence (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g) the vegetative growth parameters like plant height (m), plant girth (cm) and canopy spread (eastwest a nd north-south directions in meter ) were recorded by standard methods. for yield parameters, average number of fruits per tree, average yield per tree (kg) and average weight of fruit (g) were recorded. the yield was recorded by weighing the fruits at the time of each picking. fifty uniform mature fruits from each tree were used for recording of various fruit quality parameters. bio-chemical composition like total sugars, ascorbic acid and β-carotene were estimated using standard procedures as described by ranganna, 1986. acidity was analyzed following standard methods (a.o.a.c. , 1990). the t ss of fruit pulp was determined with the help of zeiss hand refractometer. shelf-life of fruit at room temperature was recorded by keeping ten mature fruits per treatment in three replicates for each treatment at room temperature for ripening without deterioration of fruits. the soil and leaf mineral content (n, p and k) were also estimated using standard procedure viz. soil available nitrogen by alkaline permanganate method (jackson, 1973), phosphorous (p2o5) by bray and kurtz no. 1 method (bray and kurtz, 1945) and potassium by flame photometry (black, 1965) using ammonium acetate as an extractant; leaf nitrogen was determined by microkjeldahl method as described by black (1965), phosphorous by vanadomolybdate phosphoric acid method as described by jackson (1973) and potassium with the help of photometer (piper, 1956). the data were analyzed statistically as described by panse and sukhatme (1985). results and discussion effect on plant growth all the growth parameters, viz. plant height, plant girth and canopy spread (east-west and north-south directions) were significantly influenced by the treatments (table 1). however, t6 showed maximum plant height (5.79 m), plant girth (64.91 cm) and canopy spread (5.63 m in east-west and 5.46 m in north-south direction) and the minimum was recorded with control. these findings are similar with the findings of shulka et al. (2009). the higher increase in plant height and spread may be due to the build up of colonies of the applied bio-fertilizer inoculates and their growth promoting effects including the synthesis of plant growth promoting substances as mentioned by tien et al. (1979) and sharma and bhutani (1998). effect on fruit set, fruit weight and yield fruiting wa s significantly influenced by integrated nutrient management. fig.1 showed that maximum number of fruits (230.31/tree) harvested was in t8 whereas; the least nos. of fruits (176.71/tree) was recorded in control (t1). the highest average fruit weight (261.48 g) was in t8 which was at par with t7 whereas; the lowest (211.57 g) was in t3 (fig.2). t8 recorded the highest fruit yield (60.22 kg/tree) and t3 the lowest (39.27 kg/tree) as indicated in fig.3. these results are in line with the findings of gautam et al. (2012) in mango and bhutani et al. (2012) in banana. the significant improvement in fruiting on account of vermicompost application along with inorganic sources of npk may be attributed to the translocation of nutrients from soil and enhanced supply of macro and micro-nutrients during entire growing seasons and microbial deposition (mishra et al., 2011). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 25 ta bl e 1: e ff ec t o f i nt eg ra te d nu tr ie nt s m an ag em en t o n gr ow th o f m an go c v. h im sa ga r t 1: 10 00 : 50 0 : 1 00 0 g n pk /tr ee /y ea r ( co nt ro l); t 2: t 1 + z n (0 .5 % ) + b (0 .2 % ) + m n (0 .1 % ) + c a (0 .6 % ) a s fo lia r s pr ay tw ic e (a ug us t a nd o ct ob er ); t 3: t 1 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 4: t 2 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 5: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 6: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo sp ir ill um ( 25 0 g) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 7: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo to ba ct er (2 50 g ) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 8: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + 5 k g v er m ic om po st + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 9: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + p se ud om on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 10 : ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + ps eu do m on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ) inm on mango cv. himsagar j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 26 fig.1: effect of integrated nutrient management on no. of fruits/tree fig.2: effect of integrated nutrient management on fruit weight (g) fig.3: effect of integrated nutrient management on fruit yield (kg/tree) talang et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 27 effect on bio-chemical composition of fruits variation in tss, total sugars, acidity, ascorbic acid and β-carotene of mango cv. himsagar were significant among the treatments. it is clear from table 2 that lowest acidity content (0.25 %) was recorded in t8 which was at par with t2 and t7 whereas, the highest content (0.34 %) of acidity in the fruit was in t4 which was statistically at par with t6 and t3. t8 recorded the highest tss (19.66 °brix), which was however at par with t7 (19.27 °brix) whereas the minimum tss (17.81 °brix) was recorded in t4. similarly, t8 recorded the highest total sugars (16.48%), ascorbic acid (33.56 mg/100 g pulp) and beta-carotene (6935 µg/100g pulp) content. this can be attributed to better growth of plants due to vermicompost, which might have favored the accumulation of higher sugars, less acidity and better ascorbic acid content. these findings are in line with the findings of patel and naik (2010) in sapota and singh et al. (2010) in papaya. effect on shelf life of fruits it was observed from fig.3 that t8 recorded maximum shelf life (9 days) whereas t2 reduced the shelf life (5 days) at room temperature. these findings are in conformity with hazarika and ansari (2010) in banana where they pointed out that treatments with 50 % inor ga nic fer tilizer s, ver micompost a nd biofertilizers improved the shelf life which may be due to beneficial effect of vermicompost. patel and naik (2010) also noted that application of vermicompost and chemical fertilizers proved best in respect of extending post harvest shelf-life of sapota. fig.4: effect of integrated nutrient management on shelf life of fruits at room temperature (no. of days) inm on mango cv. himsagar j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 28 ta bl e 2: e ff ec t o f i nt eg ra te d nu tr ie nt m an ag em en t o n bi och em ic al p ar am et er s o f m an go c v. h im sa ga r t 1: 10 00 : 50 0 : 1 00 0 g n pk /tr ee /y ea r ( co nt ro l); t 2: t 1 + z n (0 .5 % ) + b (0 .2 % ) + m n (0 .1 % ) + c a (0 .6 % ) a s fo lia r s pr ay tw ic e (a ug us t a nd o ct ob er ); t 3: t 1 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 4: t 2 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 5: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 6: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo sp ir ill um ( 25 0 g) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 7: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo to ba ct er (2 50 g ) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 8: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + 5 k g v er m ic om po st + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 9: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + p se ud om on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 10 : ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + ps eu do m on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ) talang et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 29 inm on mango cv. himsagar j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 ta bl e 3: e ff ec t o f i nt eg ra te d nu tr ie nt s m an ag em en t o n so il nu tr ie nt st at us in m an go c v. h im sa ga r t 1: 10 00 : 50 0 : 1 00 0 g n pk /tr ee /y ea r ( co nt ro l); t 2: t 1 + z n (0 .5 % ) + b (0 .2 % ) + m n (0 .1 % ) + c a (0 .6 % ) a s fo lia r s pr ay tw ic e (a ug us t a nd o ct ob er ); t 3: t 1 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 4: t 2 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 5: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 6: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo sp ir ill um ( 25 0 g) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 7: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo to ba ct er (2 50 g ) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 8: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + 5 k g v er m ic om po st + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 9: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + p se ud om on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 10 : ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + ps eu do m on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ) 30 ta bl e 4: e ff ec t o f i nt eg ra te d nu tr ie nt s m an ag em en t o n le af n ut ri en t s ta tu s o f m an go c v. h im sa ga r t 1: 10 00 : 50 0 : 1 00 0 g n pk /tr ee /y ea r ( co nt ro l); t 2: t 1 + z n (0 .5 % ) + b (0 .2 % ) + m n (0 .1 % ) + c a (0 .6 % ) a s fo lia r s pr ay tw ic e (a ug us t a nd o ct ob er ); t 3: t 1 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 4: t 2 + p ad dy s tr aw m ul ch in g (1 0 cm th ic k) ; t 5: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 6: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo sp ir ill um ( 25 0 g) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 7: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + a zo to ba ct er (2 50 g ) + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 8: ½ t 1 + 5 0 kg f y m + 5 k g v er m ic om po st + p ot as si um m ob ili se r ( 10 0 g) ; t 9: ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + p se ud om on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ); t 10 : ½ t 1+ 5 0 kg f y m + t ri ch od er m a (2 50 g ) + ps eu do m on as fl or es ce nc e (2 50 g ) + po ta ss iu m m ob ili se r (1 00 g ) talang et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 31 inm on mango cv. himsagar j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 table 5: effect of integrated nutrients management on benefit:cost ratio of mango cv. himsagar t1: 1000 : 500 : 1000 g npk/tree/year (control); t2: t1 + zn (0.5 %) + b (0.2 %) + mn (0.1 %) + ca (0.6 %) as foliar spray twice (august and october); t3: t1 + paddy straw mulching (10 cm thick); t4: t2 + paddy straw mulching (10 cm thick); t5: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + trichoderma (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g); t6: ½ t1+ 50 kg fym + azospirillum (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g); t7: ½ t1+ 50 kg fym + azotobacter (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g); t8: ½ t1 + 50 kg fym + 5 kg vermicompost + potassium mobiliser (100 g); t9: ½ t1+ 50 kg fym + pseudomonas florescence (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g); t10: ½ t1+ 50 kg fym + trichoderma (250 g) + pseudomonas florescence (250 g) + potassium mobiliser (100 g) effect on soil and leaf nutrient content the results from two years clearly indicated that the soil and leaf nutrient status were significantly influenced by integrated nutrient management. table 3 revealed that maximum nitrogen (198.22 kg/ha), phosphorus (58.44 kg/ha) and potassium (326.93 kg/ ha) content in the soil was recorded in t8 whereas, the lowest nitrogen (182.35 kg/ha), phosphorus (43.92 kg/ha) and potassium (288.78 kg/ha) in the soil was for t3. the increased soil n,p,k might be due to accelerated decomposition of native soil organic matter by addition of organic material, leading to higher mineralization and release of nutrient elements. this is in line with the finding of raina et al. (2011) who also obtained higher soil n, p and k status with the application of fym, vermicompost and chemical fertilizers. similarly, maximum nitrogen (1.77 %), phosphorus (0.67 %) and potassium (1.08 %) content in the leaf was observed in t8 and minimum in t3 (table 4). this may be due to the improvement in the physical conditions of soil, root development and more soil moisture retention by the addition of fym which resulted in increased absorption of water and nutrients and consequently improved the leaf nutrient status (morselli et al., 2004). effect on benefit:cost ratio table 5 indicated that benefit:cost ratio was also influenced by different nutrients combinations. the highest benefit:cost was observed in t8 while lowest was recorded in control. this may be attributed to the higher yield obtained from vermicompost application. conclusion from the above study, it can be concluded that integrated application of half rdf (1000 : 500 : 1000 g npk/tree/year) + 50 kg fym + 5 kg vermicompost + 100 g potassium mobiliser may be a better option than application of chemical fertilizers alone for enhancing growth, yield and fruit quality of mango besides improving the soil and leaf nutrient status. acknowledgement the first author is thankful to the department of science and technology, government of india for providing financial assistance. 32 references anonymous, 2014. all india area and production of fruits and vegetables. indian hort. database, national horticultural board, ministry of agriculture, govt. of india., p. 246. (http.//www.nhb.gov.in) a.o.a.c. 1990. official methods of analysis, association of analytical chemists (15th edn.), washington, d.c. bhutani, a.m., chovatia, r.s., patel, k.d., vadaria, k.n. and rankja, n.j. 2012. effect of chemical fertilizer and vermicompost on yield and nutrient content and uptake by fruits of banana (musa parasidiaca l.) cv. grand naine. asian j. hort., 7(2):594-598 black, c.a. (1965). methods of soil analysis. amer. soc. agron. inc. madison, 117-174, pp. bray, r.h. and kurtz, l.t. 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(1973). soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, ed.2, pp. 82-111. mishra, s., choudhary, m.r., yadav, b.l. and singh, s.p. 2011. studies on the response of integrated nutrient management on growth and yield of ber. indian j. hort., 68(3): 318-321 morselli, t.b.g.a., sallis, m.d.g., terra, s. and fernandes, h.s. 2004. response of lettuce to application of vermicompost. revista cientifica rural, 9: 1-7 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers, i.c.a.r., new delhi. patel, d.r. and naik, a.g. 2010. effect of pre-harvest treatment of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers on post harvest shelf-life of sapota cv. kalipatti. indian j. hort., 67(3): 381-386 piper, c.s. (1956). soil and plant analysis. waite agric. res.ins. south australia. raina, j.n., kumar, a. and suman, s. (2011). effect of conjoint applications of organic manures and chemical fertilizers on soil nutrient status and productivity of apple (malus domestica borkh). prog. hort., 43(2): 259-263 rangana, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality controls for fruit and vegetable products, 2nd edn. pp 89-90. tata mcgraw hill co. ltd., new delhi sharma, s. d. and bhutani, v. p. 1998. response of apple seedling to vam, azobacter and inorganic fertilizers. the hort. j., 1: 1-8 shukla, a.c., saralia, d.k., bhavna, k., kaushik, r.a., mahawar, l.n. and bairwa, h.l. 2009. evaluation of substrate dynamics for inm under high density planting of guava cv. sardar. indian j. hort., 66 (4): 461464 singh k.k., barche, s. and singh, d.b. 2010. integrated nutrient management in papaya (carica papaya l.) cv.surya. acta hort., 851:377-380 tien, t.m., gaskins, m.h. and hibbel, dept. 1979. plant growth substances produced by azospirillium brasilense and their effect on the plant growth of pearl millet (pennisetum americanum l.) appl. environ. microbiol. 37: 1016-24 talang et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 23-32, 2017 (ms received 05 march 2016, revised 01 february 2017, accepted 28 april 2017) 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf anoplocnemis phasiana (fab.) (coreidae: hemiptera) usually referred to as paddle-legged bug or leaf footed bug (named for its leaf-like expansions of their hind tibia and femora) and as legume-pod bug (common on redgram, cowpea and other pulses), is often fondly addressed to as ‘halting bugs’ by grape growers. this is because these bugs frequent grapevines during the post-pruning phase in summer (after april pruning). their alternate hosts are erythrina, cassia, glyricidia, pongamia, sorghum, groundnut, brinjal, potato, ridge gourd, citrus, cocoa, etc. (puttarudraiah, 1983; mitchell, 2001). these bugs are cosmopolitan and cause economic damage when they occur in large numbers. nevertheless, most of the time these coreids do not build up in numbers sufficient to become serious pests. these bugs are larger, blackish-brown, appear as carved wood but are quite engaging creatures. these do not get scared easily and are perfect subjects for pictures. dorsal side of their abdomen is brick-red and the ventral side is blackish-brown; a small head; four-segmented, long antennae (terminal segment brick-red in colour); large, compound eyes and a pair of ocelli. abdomen of the male is slender, hind femora long with large, strong tibia, whereas, abdomen of the female is triangular with un-flattened hind femora. adult a. phasiana bugs are strong fliers flying long distances (upto 5000m) and lay eggs normally in chains. the eggs are grayish-black in colour and hatch in 7-11 days. short communication tip withering bug, anoplocnemis phasiana (fab.), halts grape shoots: friend or foe, arrival time explains p.d. kamala jayanthi and g.s. prakash1 division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake po, bangalore 560089, india e-mail : jaiinsect@gmail.com abstract pruning is a regular practice followed in grapevine, vitis vinefera l., to keep the vine manageable and productive. however, immediately after pruning, the plants put out a new flush of leaves which attract several leaf-feeding insects, leading to defoliation and crinkling. incidence of tip withering bug, anoplocnemis phasiana (fab.), usually coinciding with the period of halting practice, results in die-back of shoot tip and prevents extension of the shoot, thus halting shoot growth. intricacies involved in incidence of this coreid bug on grapevine are discussed here. key words: tip withering bug, anoplocnemis phasiana, grape the life cycle includes five nymphal instars, with total nymphal period varying from 29 to 54 days. early instars resemble ants. adult longevity varies from 24 to 84 days, but unmated females and males have survival rates of upto 170 days (davies and lateef, 1975). usually, nymphs and adults live above-ground on their host plants where they may feed on seeds, fruits, stems or leaves. like in all true bugs, adults are equipped with a beak, or rostrum, a hypodermic needle-like device carried under the head, which is used for piercing plant tissue to suck out the saps. they do not simply ‘suck out sap’, but inject tissue-dissolving saliva and vacuum out the resulting slurry. the widespread damage to a plant is a result of these liquifying enzymes (puttarudraiah and maheswariah, 1956). in grape, these bugs were found to usually feed on tender shoot tips, causing die-back like symptoms. both nymphs and adults pierce with their mouthparts tender shoots and suck out the sap. tips of the shoots thus fade and dry up, hence the pest is also called the tip withering bug. if present in large numbers during early shoot development, losses due to this bug would be considerable. halting (nipping the shoot-tip) the shoots is a regular practice in grape after back-pruning, and is done to curtail vigour than for altering canopy architecture. in contrast with other grape-growing regions, grapevines in the tropics are pruned twice a year, once each in summer and early1division of fruit crops, iihr, bangalore j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):112-113, 2012 113 tip withering bug of grape winter, to maintain a balance between shoot-growth and productivity. after summer pruning, the growing cane (if not curtailed) develops into a long cane with bud-fruitfulness likely shifting to its terminal portions. normally, table varieties (especially seedless cultivars) have unfruitful basal buds. therefore, halt of the growing cane at the 5th node, developing one or two sub-canes, coupled with application of vigour-reducing chemicals like ccc (2 chloro-ethyl trimethyl ammonium chloride) has largely helped viticulturists increase basal-bud fruitfulness. incidence of a. phasiana on grapevine shoots interestingly, attack of a. phasiana on grape shoots coincides with the period of halting and, as mentioned earlier, the attack dries up the shoot tip and curtails its extension thus halting it naturally. nevertheless, appearance of a. phasiana during early shoot development (i.e., before the 5th node) is serious as, shoot-growth halts before the desired length is attained and farmers resort to control measures to limit the damage. however, if pest incidence occurs during 4th 6th nodal stage, it favours the grower as tip-damage by the bug helps the shoot halt naturally. this occurs approximately 22-25 days after pruning and differs with the variety and region. therefore, grape growers often call this the ‘halting bug’ and are glad to sight it during 4th-6th nodal stage. the role of the halting bug, a. phasiana, as a friend or foe in grape is, therefore, decided by its arrival time. nevertheless, the bug, can turn from foe to friend and vice-versa in grape. phoretic association between the egg parasitoid, protelenomus sp., and adult a. phasiana bugs, has also been observed. most parasites were found on hind femora in male bugs, while about half of the parasitoids were found attached to antennae of the female bugs. studies showed that the transfer of parasites from male bug to female bug occurs during copulation. since the bugs change their hostplant seasonally, phoresy can be used to advantage by making the bugs vehicles for parasitoid transportation (kohno, 2002). acknowledgment the authors thank dr. j. poorani, principal scientist, nbaii, bangalore, for taxonomic identification and insect photographs. references davies, j.c. and lateef, s.s. 1975. insect pests of pigeonpea and chickpea in india and prospects for control. pro. intl. workshop on grain legumes. icrisat, hyderabad, jan 13-16, 1975, pp. 319-331 kohno, k. 2002. phoresy by an egg parasitoid, protelenomus sp. (hymenoptera: scelionidae), on the coreid bug anoplocnemis phasiana (heteroptera: coreidae). entomol. sci., 5:281-285 mitchell, p.l. 2001. leaf-footed bugs (coreidae). in: heteroptera of economic importance. eds. carl w. schaefer and antonio ricardo panizzi. crc press, 2001 puttarudraiah, m. 1983. a guide for cultivation and protection of important crops. s.v. rangaswamy and company ltd, bangalore, pp.1280 puttarudraiah, m. and maheswariah, b.m. 1956. some observations on the life history and habits of anoplocnemis phasiana (fabricius). j. bombay nat. hist. soc., 31:248-255 fig 1. halting in grape shoot caused by the coreid bug, anoplocnemis. phasiana; female & male bug (ms received 15 april 2011, revised 10 may 2012) tip withering by anoplocnemis phasiana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):112-113, 2012 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 149 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 149-154, 2019 original research paper effect of calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate priming on seed germination and seedling vigour of papaya (carica papaya l.) maneesha s.r. and priya devi s. icar-central coastal agricultural research institute, ela, goa 403 402 email: maneesha.sr@icar.gov.in abstract the effect of seed priming with calcium nitrate ca(no3)2 and potassium nitrate (kno3) on germination and seedling vigour were studied in papaya varieties. open pollinated local (gauty) papaya seeds were soaked in ca(no3)2and kno3 solutions (10000 ppm, 15000 ppm and 20000 ppm) up to 24 hours and germination percentage and seedling characteristics were recorded. the least number of days taken for seed germination (4.33 days), the highest germination percentage (82.56 % ), the highest shoot length (14.31 cm) the highest fresh biomass (1.36 g) and dry biomass (0.174 g) were recorded in 10000 ppm ca(no3)2treatment. further, seeds of papaya varieties viz., arka surya, arka prabhat and madhu bindhu were treated with 5000 ppm, 10000 ppm and 15000 ppm ca(no3)2 and observed that arka prabhat seeds treated with 10000 ppm ca(no3)2had taken the least number of days for germination (4.75 days) and also the highest shoot length (25.2 cm). the results of the experiment proved the significant effect of calcium ions over potassium ions on papaya seed germination and seedling vigour. keywords: calcium nitrate, papaya, potassium nitrate, seed germination and seedling vigour. introduction papaya is one of the important tropical fruit crops cultivated in india. it is a highly nutritious with high amount of vitamin a (258 µg), vitamin c (60.90 mg) and folic acid (37 µg). it also contain dietary fibers (1.7 g), calcium (20 mg), iron (0.25 mg), magnesium (21 mg), phosphorus (10 mg), potassium (182 mg), protein (0.47g) and fat (0.26 g) (usda, 2019). papaya is mostly consumed as a fresh fruit and raw fruits are used as vegetable. processed products like tutty fruity, jam and squash are prepared from papaya. papain (vegetable pepsin) is a digestive enzyme extracted from mature unripe papaya, which is widely used in meat and leather industry as a tenderizing agent. the medicinal properties of papaya plant are also well exploited by pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. total area under papaya cultivation in india is 0.146 million hectare with a production of 6.096 million tonnes and productivity of 41.8 tonnes per hectare (indiastat, 2019). commercially, papaya plant is propagated by seeds sown in protrays, poly bags or raised beds in nursery. the seedlings are transplanted to the main field after 45 days maturity in the nursery. earliness in seed germination and seedling growth at the nursery stage are the indicators of the vigour of the plant. poor germination percentage, low seedling vigour and diseases like damping off and viral diseases are major problems faced by papaya growers in nursery stage. stored papaya seeds germinate faster than the fresh seeds, but long storage period causes asynchronous and slow germination with low germination percentage (andred et al., 2008). seed germination is affected by internal factors like seed maturity, age of seeds, moisture condition of the seeds (ellis et al., 1991), nutritional and health status of the mother plant and inhibitors present in the sarcotesta and seed coat (reyes et al., 1980 and chow and lin, 1991). the external factors like storage conditions and duration of storage, ph and nutritional conditions of the growing media and biotic and abiotic stress factors also influence papaya seed germination. heat shock induced stimulation of germination in pre-dried and reimbibed papaya seed were reported by webster et al. , (2016) t hey a lso r epor ted the effect of 150 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 149-154, 2019 maneesha and priya devi exogenous a pplica tion of gibber ellic a cid to r epla ce the hea t shock stimulation. seed treatments with chemicals or growth hormones are usually practiced in papaya for early and uniform seed germination and better seedling growth. pre-sowing treatment of papaya seeds in 2.03.0 mm ga3 solution improves germination in papaya (pandit et al., 2001). according to marcos filho (2015) osmopriming with chemical agents such as polyethylene glycol (peg), calcium nitrate, and potassium nitrate activate germination of seeds by forming a water potential equilibrium between seeds and the solution by osmosis. external nitrogenous compounds ca n substitute costly pla nt growth substances, which are difficult to dissolve. calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate are cheap and familiar chemicals with strong dissolving capacity. these cations can imbibe water fast and change the water potential of the seeds. calcium nitrate pretreatment removed dormancy and enhanced germination in brachiaria seeds (silva et al., 2017). the priming of tomato seeds with cacl2 and kno3 solution was efficient to improve the seedling growth under salinity conditions (ebrahimi et al., 2014). batista et al. (2015) reported that the priming with kno3 and ca (no3)2 resulted in greater growth of pepper (c. frutescens) seedlings.t he effectiveness of seed treatments varies with varieties in papaya (rodriguez et al., 2019). t her efore, this exper iment wa s constituted to study the effects of calcium and potassium ions on seed germination and seedling vigour of different papaya varieties. materials and methods effect of ca(no 3)2 and kno 3 on s eed germination and plant biomass of local papaya var. gauty in goa and adjoining areas, an open pollinated tall papaya variety (gauty) is commonly grown in the back yards. the tree will bear profusely with small round fruits with sweet yellow flesh. this local variety shows comparatively good field tolerance to papaya ring spot virus (prsv) and other viral diseases. for this experiment, seeds were collected from the wellripened fruits and washed thoroughly in tap water to remove the sarcotesta (mucilaginous coat surrounding the seed). the seeds were shade dried and stored in butter paper covers under room temperature. the seeds were treated with three different concentrations (10000 ppm, 15000 ppm and 20000 ppm) of calcium nitrate (ca(no3)2) and potassium nitrate (kno3 ). the treatment solutions were prepared on the same day of treatment application using distilled water. fifty seeds were counted and soaked in the treatment solution for 24 hours. the next day the solutions were dra ined a nd the seeds wer e sown in the black polythene nursery bags (20 cm x 10 cm) with drainage holes. the experimental design was completely randomized design with three replications. obser va tions on da ys ta ken for ger mina tion, germination percentage, shoot length, root length, fresh weight of leaves, dry weight of leaves; leaf area, fresh biomass and dry biomass were recorded on 15 days after germination. chlorophyll was extracted using 80 % acetone and chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, total chlorophyll and chlorophyll a/b ratio were estimated using spectrophotometer as per the method suggested by arnon (1949). specific leaf weight and specific leaf area were calculated by the standard formula given below. specific leaf area (sla) = leaf area/ leaf dry weight specific leaf weight (slw) = leaf dry weight/ leaf area effect of ca(no3)2 on seed germination and seedling characteristics of important commercial varieties in this experiment, three varieties of papaya viz., arka surya, arka prabhat and madhu bindu seeds were treated with three different concentrations of calcium nitrate (5000 ppm, 10000 ppm and 15000 ppm). exper imenta l design wa s fa ctoria l completely randomized design (fcrd) with three replications. all other experimental procedures and observations were same as that of previous experiment. the data of both the experiments were analyzed in anova at 0.05 probabilities using the statistical software wasp 2.0 of icar-ccari, goa. results and discussion effect of ca(no3)2and kno3 on seed germination and plant biomass of local papaya var. gauty the effect of ca(no3)2and kno3 at different levels (10000 ppm, 15000 ppm and 20000 ppm) to the seeds 151 effect of calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate priming of papaya (carica papaya l.) of local (gauty) papaya showed that, there is a significant influence of seed treatment on papaya seed germination. the least number of days taken for germination (4.33 days)) and the highest germination percentage (82.56 %), shoot length (14.31 cm), fresh biomass (1.36 g) and dry biomass (0.174 g) were recorded in 10000 ppm ca(no3)2treatment. number of leaves, fresh weight and dry weight of the leaves and leaf area showed nonsignificant difference between the treatments (table 1). effect of calcium ions on papaya seed germination was studied earlier by bautista-calles et al. (2008) and reported that, seeds treated for 4 days in 10"5 m calcium chloride solution increased seed germination up to 262 % and seedlings generated from treated seeds accumulated more biomass than the control seedlings. according to salles et al. (2019), calcium nitrate enhanced the germination of eggplants in adverse environmental conditions. chlorophyll is the pigment molecule responsible for the light absorption and photosynthesis. the concentration of chlorophyll content in the leaves is an indication of the photosynthetic capacity and the productivity of the plant. total chlor ophyll content of the leaves, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and the chlorophyll a/ b r a tio ha d no significant differ ence a mong the treatments (fig. 1). specific leaf area and specific leaf weight are parameters, which indirectly show the efficiency of photosynthesis. the partitioning of dry matter to leaf area is an important determinant of plant growth rate during early phases of development j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 149-154, 2019 table 1: effect of calcium and potassium nitrate on germination and seedling vigour of local (gauty) papaya variety d ays ge r m i n u mb e r s h o o t fresh leaf dry leaf l eaf fr es h dry treat men ts taken for n a t i o n o f l e n g t h we i g h t we i g h t ar e a b i o m as s b i o m as s g e rmin a t i o n % l e av e s ( cm ) ( m g ) ( m g ) (cm2 ) (g ) (g) 10000 ppm 4.33a 87.80a 4.93 14.31a 109.41 14.00 14.00 1.36a 0.17a ca(no3)2 15000 pm 6.00ab 57.27ab 4.92 11.67b 136.31 16.33 12.93 0.88b 0.12b ca(no3)2 20000 ppm 7.00abc 66.03b 3.87 12.11abc 89.10 14.66 10.31 0.77bc 0.09c ca(no3)2 10000 ppm kno3 8.00 bc 43.59b 4.33 10.92abc 98.33 14.67 11.25 0.67c 0.05c 15000 ppm kno3 7.67 c 48.72b 4.23 9.31bc 90.00 19.67 10.54 0.53b 0.09c 20000 ppm kno3 7.33 d 48.72b 4.22 13.26ab 101.83 17.00 12.27 1.01c 0.12b control 8.33e 43.59b 4.13 10.42bc 90.46 13.33 10.42 0.42c 0.04c cd (0.05) 0.76 27.42 ns 3.08 ns ns ns 0.41 0.05 fig. 1: effect of calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate on physiological parameters of local (gauty) papaya variety 152 (potter and jones, 1977; nelson, 1988).specific leaf weight (leaf weight/leaf area) has been positively correlated with photosynthesis per unit of leaf area for genotypes of many species (nelson, 1988). however, in this experiment, the results showed that, the seed treatments have no significant role in the photosynthetic efficiency of the plants. effect of ca(no 3)2 on seed germination and seedling characteristics of important commercial varieties three varieties of papaya (arka surya, arka prabhat and madhu bindhu) were treated with cano3 at different levels (5000 ppm, 10000 ppm and 15000 ppm) along with control. among the three varieties, arka prabhat treated with 10000 ppm ca(no3)2 r ecor ded the lowest number of da ys ta ken for germination (4.75 days) and the highest shoot length (25.2 cm). fresh weight of the leaves, dry weight of the leaves, leaf area and specific leaf weight were also estimated (table 2). the experiment proved the significant effect of calcium ions in the papaya seed germination at low concentration. the interaction effect of the three varieties with the three different concentration of calcium nitrate treatment showed that, arka prabhat treated with 5000 ppm and 10000 ppm calcium nitrate had taken the least number of days for germination. the highest germination percentage was recorded in arka prabhat treated with 5000 ppm calcium nitrate (87.85%). shoot length, fresh weight of the leaves, dry weight of the leaves, leaf area and specific leaf weight was j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 149-154, 2019 maneesha and priya devi table 2: effect of ca(no3)2 on seed germination and seedling vigour of papaya varieties days taken ge r m i n u mb e r s h o o t fr es h dry l eaf s pe ci fi c treat men ts for n a t i o n o f l e n g t h b i o m as s b i o m as s ar e a leaf area g e r m i n at i o n % l e av e s (cm) (g ) (g ) (mm2 ) (mm2 /g ) v1 (arka surya) 5.50 70.40 6.50 20.49 0.37 0.18 3388.13 1949.16 v2 (arka prabhat) 4.75 70.40 5.90 20.95 0.51 0.30 4682.75 1668.22 v3(madhu bindhu) 6.50 78.99 6.25 18.63 0.47 0.26 3936.00 1504.51 cd (0.05) 0.62 12.40 0.82 2.77 0.10 0.04 902.20 421.61 c1 (5000 ppm ca(no3)2) 5.33 85.77 6.67 21.75 0.44 0.24 4188.50 1933.09 c2 (10000 ppm ca(no3)2) 5.50 72.92 6.33 22.37 0.42 0.22 3871.33 1783.47 c3 (20000 ppm ca(no3)2) 5.50 71.88 6.33 21.12 0.53 0.26 4415.50 1718.51 c4(control) 6.00 62.50 5.50 14.85 0.42 0.27 3533.83 1394.12 cd (0.05) 0.72 14.31 0.95 3.20 0.12 0.05 1041.77 486.84 v1 c1 4.50 84.73 7.00 20.90 0.30 0.12 3110.00 2574.64 v1c2 5.50 68.75 6.00 20.95 0.43 0.21 4159.00 2031.32 v1c3 6.00 65.63 6.50 24.20 0.48 0.23 4042.00 1756.80 v1c4 6 .00 62.50 6.50 15.90 0.27 0.15 2241.50 1433.90 v2c1 5.00 87.85 6.50 24.95 0.50 0.29 5760.50 1981.77 v2c2 4.50 65.63 6.00 25.20 0.43 0.21 4140.00 1960.28 v2c3 4.50 65.63 6.00 20.45 0.63 0.30 4892.00 1738.45 v2c4 5.00 62.50 5.00 13.20 0.48 0.40 3938.50 992.36 v3c1 6.50 84.73 6.50 19.40 0.51 0.30 3695.00 1242.87 v3c2 6.50 84.38 7.00 20.95 0.40 0.25 3315.00 1358.81 v3c3 6.00 84.38 6.50 18.70 0.49 0.25 4312.50 1660.28 v3c4 7.00 62.50 5.00 15.45 0.49 0.25 4421.50 1756.09 cd (0.05) 1.24 24.79 1.64 5.539 0.21 0.09 1804.39 843.22 153 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 149-154, 2019 effect of calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate priming of papaya (carica papaya l.) references andrade, m., j. ayala, i. alia, h. rodríguez, c. ac os ta a nd v. lópez . 200 8. effec t of germination promoters and substrates in the development of papaya seedlings. revista de la facultad de agronomía—luz. 25:617635. batista, t. b., f. f. s. binotti, e.d. cardoso, e.m. ba r divie s s o a nd e . c os t a . 2 0 1 5 . physiological aspects and quality of pepper s eedlings in r es p ons e to t he vigor a nd conditioning of seeds. bragantia, 74(4): 36 737 3. htt ps :/ /doi. or g/1 0. 15 90 /1 67 84499.0133. ba utista -ca lles,f., guillermo carr illo-castañed, angel villegas-monter. 2008. recuperation of the high germinability condition of papaya s eed t hr o u gh p r iming t ec hn ology a nd bioregulators. agrociencia. 42(7):817-826. chow, y.j. and c.h. lin.1991. p-hydroxy benzoic a cid a s the ma jor p henolic ger mina t ion inhibitor of papaya seed. seed science and technology.19:167-174. ebrahimi, r., ahmadizadeh, m., and rahbarian, p. (2014). enhancing stand establishment o f tomato cultivars under salt stress condition. j o u r n a l h o r t i c u l t u re , b i o l o g y a n d environ-ment, 5(1): 19-42. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s13580-014-0032-7. ellis, r.h., t.d. hong and e. h. roberts. 1991. effect of storage temperature and moisture on the germination of papaya seeds. seed science research.1:69-72. gouveia, g. c. c., binotti, f. f. s., and costa, e. (2017). priming effect on the physiological potential of maize seeds under abiotic stress. pe s q u i s a a g ro p e c u á r i a tro p i c a l , 47(3),328-335.https://doi.org/10.1590/198340632016v4746560. h t t p s : / / w w w. i n d i a s t a t . c o m / a g r i c u l t u r e / 2 / fruitsandnuts/17426/papaya/17444/stats.aspx. retrieved on 15.10.2019. marcos filho, j. 2015. fisiologia de sementes de plantas cultivadas. londrina: abrates. (p. 659). nelson, c.j., 1988. genetic association between photosynthetic cha ra cter istics and yield: review of the evidence. pl ant phy sio l. biochem., 26: 543-554. p a ndit , v. k . , n . s ha nt ha a nd j . p. s inha . 2001.impr oving papaya (carica papaya) seed germination and seedling growth by pres owing t r e a t ment s . i n d i a n j o u r n a l o f agricultural sciences 71 (11): 704-706. potter, j. r. a nd jones, j. w. , 1977. lea f a rea partitioning as an important factor in growth. plant physiol., 59: 10-14. r eyes , m . n . , a. per ez a nd j. c u eva s . 19 80 . detecting endogenous growth regulators on the sarcotesta, endosperm and embryo by paper chromatography on fresh and old seeds of t wo p a p a ya va r iet ies . j o u r n a l of agriculture-university of puerto rico. 64:164-172. rodriguez,s., i. vargas, a. hijuelo, f. loumeto, j. j. silva, j. perez, q. arias, y. fonseca, y. gomez,  m. baldoquin    and d. oliva.2019.analysis  of  the  effect  of higher in arka prabhat variety treated with 10000 ppm calcium nitrate. gouveia et al. (2017) reported that the priming of corn seeds with calcium nitrate and phenylalanine promoted greater germination rate of low vigour seeds.the priming of cucumber seeds with potassium nitrate showed little effect in improving the germination and growth rate of seedlings under salt stress conditions (oliveira and steiner, 2017). reis et al. (2012) also reported that kno3 priming resulted in higher germination rate and lower mean germination time in eggplant cv. embu. from the results, it is very clear that the seed priming with calcium nitrate at low concentration can hasten and improve the germination of papaya, but there is no significant effect in the further growth. 154 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 149-154, 2019 maneesha and priya devi sca r ifica tion process on papaya (carica pa pa ya lin. ) s ee ds ge rm in a ti on do i : http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88012 salles, j.s., a. h. f. de lima, f. f. da s. binotti, e. costa, e. d. c. binotti, j. s. salles, g. h. da c. vieira1 and andreia f. g. o. de s ou z a . 2 0 1 9 . c a lc iu m nit r a t e p r iming increases the germination rate of eggplant seeds. journal of agricultural science. 11(5): 181-186. silva, a.g., paula, r. c. m., binotti, f. f. s. and e. costa. 2017. comportamento germinativo de sementes de eucalipto em duas temperaturas (received on 25.9.2019, revised on 2.12.2019 and accepted on 6.12.2019) com o uso de sais inorgânicos. enciclopédia biosfera,14(25): 358-364. https://doi.org/ 10.18677/encibio_2017a33. usda-national nutrient database for standard refer enc e relea s e. 2 01 6. r et r ieved on 05.11.2019. webster, r.e., w.m. waterworth, w. stuppy, c.e. wes t , r . e nnos , c . m . br a y a nd h . w. pritchard. 2016.biomechanical, biochemical, a nd mor p hologic a l mec ha nis ms of hea t s hoc kmedia t ed ger mina tion in c a r i c a papaya seed. j exp. bot.67 (22) : 63736384. sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 125 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 125-129, 2019 original research paper screening of coriander genotypes for their relative susceptibility against aphids under field conditions meena n.k.*, lal g., meena s.s., kant k. and meena r.d. icar-national research centre on seed spices, ajmer (rajasthan), india * corresponding author email: email: narottammeena@gmail.com abstract the field experiments were conducted during rabi 2013-14 and 2014-15 to screen out twelve varieties/entries of coriander (coriandrum sativum l. ) for their relative susceptibility against aphids. none of the varieties/entries escaped the infestation of aphids. the build-up of aphid infestation started from second half of december and reached to its maximum in the first to third week of february in both years and then gradually declined. on the basis of grade index of mean aphid population, coriander varieties rcr684 (25.45 aphids/plant), rcr-446 (26.45 aphids/plant), acr-1 (26.60 aphids/plant), rcr436 (41.75 aphids/plant), gujarat coriander-2 (42.45 aphids/plant), pant haritma (43.50 aphids/plant) and gujarat coriander-1 (43.70 aphids/plant) were categorized as least susceptible, rajendra swati and rcr-41 were moderately susceptible, whereas, swati (cs-6), sadhna (cs-4) and sindhu (cs-2), 73.88, 70.60 and 69.50 aphids/plant, respectively were categorized as highly susceptible varieties of coriander against aphids under field conditions. coriander variety rcr-684 received maximum yield (16.82 and 16.63 q/ha) for both the years followed by acr-1 and rcr-446. key words: aphids, coriander genotypes, semi-arid region and susceptibility. introduction coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) is an important major seed spice crop, grown for leaves as well as seed purpose.it belongs to the family apiaceae, is a na tive of souther n eur ope a nd nor ther n africa to southwestern asia. the coriander plants are annual herb, stems erect, branched or bushy, diploid, chromosome number 2n=22. coriander seeds and leaves contain essential oils, which account for aromatic character of the plant (sankaracharya and sankaranarayana, 1989). the seeds have a lemony citr us fla vour when cr ushed, due to the linalool, terpenes, pinene, and limonene, among others (zheljazkov et al., 2014). coriander seeds are considered as car minative, diuretic, stomachic, antibilious, refrigerant and aphrodisiac (butani, 1984).the fresh leaves are an ingredient in many south asian foods (such as rasams, chutneys, and salads); in chinese and thai dishes; in mexican cooking, particularly in salsa and guacamole and as a ga r nish; a nd in sa la ds in russia a nd other cis countries (moulin, 2002). it is mainly grown in rajasthan, madhya pradesh, andhra pradesh, gujarat and assam in a large area as majorrabi season crop and cultivated in many more states in large to small areas. coriander is most susceptible crop to aphids in semi-arid region, if plant protection measures not applied on time; it causes nearly 40-50% yield losses. in present situation of agriculture, farmers are using a number of pesticides for aphid control resulting development of pest resistance to various commonly used insecticides, pest resurgence, and outbreaks as well as severe mortality of natural enemies and pollinators particularly honeybees, hence the identification of resistance source against aphids is the main factor to manage the pest. keeping these in view, field exper iment wer e conducted a t r esea r ch fa r m, icar-na tiona l research centre on seed spices, ajmer to evaluate twelve varieties/entries of coriander viz., gujarat coriander-1, gujarat coriander-2, sadhna (cs-4), acr-1, swati (cs-6), rcr-41, rcr-436, rcr-684, hisar sugandh, pant haritma, sindhu (cs-2) and rajendra swati for their resistance/susceptibility 126 meena et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 125-129, 2019 against aphids during rabi 2013-14 and 2014-15 to find out the resistance sources as breeding material against aphids. materials and methods the field experiments on screening of different va rieties/entr ies of coriander for their rela tive susceptibility against aphids were conducted at icarnational research centre on seed spices, ajmer for two consecutive years 2013-14 and 2014-15. the study location is lying between 740 35’ 39" to 740 36’ 01" e longitude and 260 22’ 12" to 260 22’ 31" n latitude at an altitude of 486 m above mean see level. the region fall under iii agro-climatic zone of rajasthan is considered under semi-arid region. soil fertility status of institute’s experimental field is sandy loam, poor fertility and water holding capacity, having ph 8-8.3, ec 0.07-0.12 and organic carbon 0.150.23 percent along with available n 178.5 kg/ha (low), p2o5 12kg/ha (medium), k2o kg/ha (low). the area receives annual rainfall 250-350 mm and temperature range 22-36 0c (maximum) and 5-20 0c (minimum) with 64-80% relative humidity during cropping rabi season. twelve varieties/entries i.e. rajendra swati, acr-1, gujarat coriander-1, rcr-41, pant haritma, rcr-684, sadhna (cs-4), swati (cs-6), rcr-446, sindhu (cs2), gujarat coriander-2 and rcr-436 were sown in well prepared and statistically laid out fields in ra ndomized block design concept with 03 replications. the seeds of above varieties/entries were sown in the plot sized of 3x3 meter, under specified geometry adopted in pop of the institute. seeds were treated with trichoderma viride @ 6g/kg of seed to avoid the seed borne diseases. plant protection measures were not applied during standing crop to a llow the a phid incidence on the cr ops. t he observations on aphid population were recorded at weekly intervals from five randomly selected and tagged plants/plot. initially, whole plants were taken in to study and later on it was sifted to 10 cm twig when crop was in full grown and umbels during flowering and finally it was considered as aphid population per plant. the relative susceptibility was determined on the basis of grade index worked out on peak infestation by using formulae mean of peak aphid population; σ: standard deviation for insect population) as given below, wherein, the incidence was measured on the basis of mean aphid population per plant. grade mean aphid population/plant least susceptible <48.36 moderately susceptible 48.36-66.13 highly susceptible >66.13 the data were obtained and transformed in sqrt. x + 0.5 values and subjected to analysis of variance to find out the critical difference (gomez and gomez, 1983). results and discussion twelve varieties/entries of coriander were screened out for their r ela tive susceptibility to a phids (hyadaphis coriandri das and myzus persicae sulzer) and the data on mean aphid’s mixed population per plant were taken for two consecutive years and presented in table 1 and 2, revealed that, none of the varieties/entries was free from aphid infestation. initially, the aphid infestation started in second half of december (35 das) with very less in populations in both the years. in 2013-14, the aphid infestation started on second half of december with few aphids per plant on some coriander varieties, whereas rcr684, rcr-446 and acr-1 were remained free from the aphid infestation at this stage. then after, pest infestation increased gradually and reached to its maximum during february month with three peaks depending upon the varieties/entries (table 1). the coriander variety rcr-684 received lowest aphid infestation (23.70 aphids/plant) followed by rcr-446 and acr-1 with 24. 10 a nd 24.20 aphids/plant, respectively. the maximum aphid infestation was observed on variety swati (cs-6) 71.10 aphids/plant followed by sadhna (cs-4) sindhu (cs-2) and rcr41 having aphids population of 66.40, 65.00 and 64.20 aphids/plant, respectively. the remaining varieties/ entries were received the aphid infestation with ranged from 41.70 to 52.30 aphids/plant. over the season, the lowest mean aphid infestation (9.21 aphids/plant) was recorded on variety rcr-684 followed by acr-1 and rcr-446, whereas, maximum on swati (cs-6) and sadhna (cs-4) and sindhu (cs2). the highest yield of coriander seed was also recorded from the variety rcr-684 (16.82 q/ha) followed by acr-1 (15.74q/ha) and rcr-446 (12.89 q/ha), while minimum yield 4.14 q/ha was obtained 127 screening of coriander genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 125-129, 2019 t ab le 1 : sc re en in g of p op ul ar c or ia nd er v ar ie ti es f or t he ir r el at iv e su sc ep ti bi lit y ag ai ns t ap hi ds d ur in g 20 13 -1 4 a ve ra ge p op ul at io n of a ph id s pe r pl an t v ar ie tie s 23 rd 31 st 7t h 14 th 21 st 28 th 04 th 11 th * 18 th * 25 th * 04 th 11 th m ea n y ie ld d ec d ec ja n ja n ja n ja n fe b fe b fe b fe b m ar m ar (q /h a) r aj en dr a sw at i 0. 33 # 0. 40 1. 40 4. 60 15 .0 0 21 .3 0 42 .2 0 52 .3 0 31 .7 0 32 .0 0 18 .4 0 9. 20 19 .0 7 10 .5 5 (4 .5 5) (4 .7 8) (7 .0 0) (1 1. 40 ) (1 9. 80 ) (2 3. 40 ) (3 2. 60 ) (3 6. 60 ) (2 8. 00 ) (2 8. 10 ) (2 1. 30 ) (1 5. 40 ) (1 9. 41 ) a c r1 0. 00 0. 20 1. 00 3. 10 9. 60 14 .0 0 18 .2 0 24 .2 0 15 .0 0 16 .2 0 10 .8 0 5. 20 9. 79 15 .7 4 (3 .5 4) (4 .1 2) (6 .1 0) (9 .7 0) (1 6. 10 ) (1 9. 10 ) (2 1. 80 ) (2 4. 60 ) (1 9. 80 ) (2 0. 20 ) (1 6. 70 ) (1 2. 00 ) (1 4. 48 ) g uj ar at 0. 40 0. 60 3. 10 4. 60 13 .7 0 19 .0 0 36 .0 0 35 .8 0 43 .2 0 30 .3 0 18 .2 0 5. 60 17 .5 4 11 .1 5 c or ia nd er -1 (4 .8 3) (5 .2 3) (9 .4 0) (1 1. 20 ) (1 9. 00 ) (2 2. 20 ) (3 0. 40 ) (3 0. 40 ) (3 2. 90 ) (2 7. 90 ) (2 1. 80 ) (1 2. 50 ) (1 8. 98 ) rc r-4 1 0. 66 1. 60 1. 90 5. 20 16 .3 0 20 .0 0 34 .2 0 35 .0 0 41 .3 0 64 .2 0 20 .1 0 11 .1 0 20 .9 7 4. 14 (5 .3 2) (7 .3 6) (7 .6 0) (1 2. 10 ) (2 0. 70 ) (2 2. 60 ) (2 5. 80 ) (2 9. 80 ) (2 9. 20 ) (4 0. 50 ) (2 2. 90 ) (1 7. 20 ) (2 0. 10 ) pa nt h ar itm a 0. 60 2. 00 2. 00 7. 10 10 .0 0 16 .4 0 30 .1 0 43 .0 0 21 .8 0 22 .0 0 17 .2 0 10 .1 0 15 .1 9 10 .6 6 (5 .2 3) (7 .8 6) (8 .0 0) (1 3. 80 ) (1 6. 30 ) (2 0. 60 ) (2 7. 80 ) (2 9. 60 ) (2 3. 80 ) (2 3. 20 ) (2 0. 80 ) (1 6. 40 ) (1 7. 78 ) rc r-6 84 0. 00 0. 00 1. 20 1. 20 8. 30 12 .4 0 14 .2 0 18 .6 0 23 .7 0 17 .7 0 10 .2 0 3. 10 9. 21 16 .8 2 (3 .5 4) (3 .5 4) (6 .5 0) (6 .5 0) (1 4. 90 ) (1 7. 80 ) (1 9. 10 ) (2 1. 70 ) (2 4. 70 ) (2 1. 70 ) (1 6. 50 ) (9 .2 0) (1 3. 81 ) sa dh na (c s4) 0. 60 2. 00 1. 80 6. 00 19 .8 0 25 .1 0 35 .0 0 35 .4 0 66 .4 0 55 .2 0 23 .0 0 10 .2 0 23 .3 8 5. 55 (5 .1 4) (8 .0 2) (7 .8 0) (1 3. 10 ) (2 2. 50 ) (2 5. 30 ) (3 0. 00 ) (3 0. 00 ) (4 1. 00 ) (3 7. 00 ) (2 4. 50 ) (1 6. 60 ) (2 1. 74 ) sw at i ( c s6) 1. 00 2. 33 2. 10 6. 60 23 .0 0 24 .1 0 39 .2 0 40 .0 0 42 .1 0 71 .1 0 36 .2 0 13 .1 0 25 .0 7 8. 48 (6 .1 2) (8 .3 2) (8 .1 0) (1 3. 20 ) (2 4. 70 ) (2 4. 80 ) (3 1. 60 ) (3 1. 60 ) (3 2. 60 ) (3 8. 00 ) (3 0. 40 ) (1 8. 10 ) (2 2. 29 ) rc r-4 46 0. 00 0. 00 1. 20 1. 00 10 .2 0 11 .0 0 12 .3 0 21 .2 0 24 .1 0 18 .2 0 14 .7 0 6. 20 10 .0 1 12 .8 9 (3 .5 4) (3 .5 4) (6 .5 0) (6 .3 0) (1 6. 40 ) (1 7. 10 ) (1 7. 70 ) (2 3. 40 ) (2 4. 70 ) (2 2. 00 ) (1 9. 30 ) (1 3. 00 ) (1 4. 45 ) si nd hu (c s2) 0. 20 1. 60 2. 00 4. 90 18 .2 0 22 .7 0 34 .5 0 41 .3 0 65 .0 0 54 .1 0 20 .3 0 10 .0 0 22 .9 0 7. 65 (4 .1 2) (7 .2 5) (8 .0 0) (1 1. 70 ) (2 1. 60 ) (2 4. 10 ) (2 9. 70 ) (3 2. 30 ) (4 0. 70 ) (3 7. 10 ) (2 3. 00 ) (1 6. 50 ) (2 1. 34 ) g uj ar at 0. 40 0. 80 1. 60 5. 70 20 .1 0 20 .0 0 22 .1 0 29 .6 0 41 .8 0 27 .2 0 11 .6 0 6. 70 15 .6 3 7. 23 c or ia nd er -2 (4 .7 2) (5 .7 8) (7 .2 0) (1 2. 80 ) (2 2. 70 ) (2 2. 60 ) (2 3. 80 ) (2 7. 60 ) (3 2. 30 ) (2 6. 20 ) (1 7. 20 ) (1 3. 30 ) (1 8. 01 ) rc r-4 36 0. 00 2. 40 1. 80 5. 60 14 .1 0 18 .3 0 20 .4 0 28 .6 0 41 .0 0 41 .7 0 12 .0 0 5. 40 15 .9 4 10 .5 4 (3 .5 4) (8 .5 7) (7 .7 0) (1 2. 20 ) (1 9. 00 ) (2 1. 60 ) (2 2. 90 ) (2 6. 90 ) (3 1. 90 ) (3 2. 50 ) (1 7. 50 ) (1 1. 40 ) (1 7. 98 ) se m ± 0. 04 0. 05 0. 11 0. 12 0. 11 0. 09 0. 39 0. 41 0. 56 0. 74 0. 21 0. 17 0. 69 c d (p =0 .0 5) 0. 10 0. 15 0. 33 0. 34 0. 33 0. 28 1. 15 1. 20 1. 65 2. 18 0. 63 0. 51 2. 06 # m ea n of t hr ee r ep lic at io ns . * p ea k po pu la tio n of a ph id s fi gu re i n pa re nt he si s ar e sq rt . x + 0 .5 t ra ns fo rm ed v al ue s 128 meena et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 125-129, 2019 t ab le 2 : sc re en in g of p op ul ar c or ia nd er v ar ie ti es f or t he ir r el at iv e su sc ep ti bi lit y ag ai ns t ap hi ds d ur in g 20 14 -1 5 a ve ra ge p op ul at io n of a ph id s pe r pl an t v ar ie tie s 20 th 27 th 03 rd 10 th 17 th 24 th 31 st 07 th * 14 th * 21 st * 28 th 07 th m ea n y ie ld d ec d ec ja n ja n ja n ja n ja n fe b fe b fe b fe b m ar (q /h a) se m ± c d (p =0 .0 5) # m ea n of t hr ee r ep lic at io ns . * p ea k po pu la tio n of a ph id s fi gu re i n pa re nt he si s ar e sq rt . x + 0 .5 t ra ns fo rm ed v al ue s 129 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 125-129, 2019 screening of coriander genotypes from the variety rcr-41, which was highly susceptible to aphid. similarly, in 2014-15 the aphid infestation started in third week of december with few aphids per plant on some coriander varieties, whereas rcr-684, rcr446 and acr-1 were remained free from the aphid infestation at this stage. then after pest infestation increased gradually and reached to its maximum during the month of february with three peaks i.e. 7t h february (on varieties rajendra swati, and pant har itma ), 14 th febr uar y (on va r ieties gujar a t coriander-1, rcr-684, sadhna (cs-4), rcr-446, sindhu (cs-2) and rcr-436) and 21stfebruary (rcr41, swati (cs-6) and gujarat coriander-2) depending upon the varieties/entries (table 2). the coriander variety rcr-684 received lowest aphid infestation (27.20 aphids/plant) followed by rcr-446 and acr-1 with 28.80 and 29.00 aphids/plant, respectively. meenaet al. (2002b) also reported that coriander varieties rcr-446 and rcr-436 were found least susceptible against aphids are in accordance the present finding. these three varieties were found statistically at par for aphid infestation. the maximum aphid infestation was observed on variety swati (cs6) 76.66 aphids/plant followed by sadhna (cs-4) sindhu (cs-2) and rcr-41 having aphids population of 74.80, 74.00 and 65.10 aphids/plant, respectively. the remaining varieties/entries were received the aphid infestation with ranged from 41.80 to 51.33 aphids/plant. the highest yield of coriander seed was recorded from the variety rcr-684 (16.63 q/ha) followed by rcr-446 (14.89 q/ha) and acr-1 (14.75q/ ha), while minimum yield 6.00 q/ha was obtained from the variety sadhna (cs-4) and rcr-41 (6.65q/ha), which were highly susceptible to aphid. based on two year results, it was evident from the study that the coriander varieties i.e. rcr-684 (25.45 aphids/plant), rcr-446 (26.45 aphids/plant), acr-1 (26.60 aphids/ plant), rcr-436 (41. 75 a phids/plant), guja ra t coriander-2 (42.45 aphids/plant), pant haritma (43.50 aphids/plant) and gujarat coriander-1 (43.70 aphids/ plant) are moderately susceptible, whereas, swati (cs-6), sadhna (cs-4) and sindhu (cs-2) with aphid population 73.88, 70.60 and 69.50 aphids/plant, respectively were categorized as highly susceptible varieties of coriander against aphids under field conditions. references butani, d.k. 1984. spices a nd pest problems; coriander. pesticides, 18(9): 15-17. gomez, a.k. and gomez, a.a. (1983). statistical procedure for agricultural research. 2ndedn. wiley interscience publication, new york, pp 25. meena, p.c., sharma, j.k. and noor, a. 2002b. varietal reaction of coriander coriandrum sativum l. and impact of date of sowing in incidence of aphid hyadaphis coriandri das. indian journal of entomology, 64(1): 58-62. moulin, leo (2002). eating and drinking in europe: a cultural history. mercatorfonds. p. 168. sankaracharya, n.b. and sankaranarayana, m.l. 1989. processing and flavor quality of seed spices. first national seminar seed spices, jaipur, 24-25 october, pp. 301-328. zheljazkov, v. d.; astatkie, t; schlegel, v (2014). hydrodistillation extraction time effect on essential oil yield, composition and bioactivity of cor ia nder oil. journal  of  oleo science. 63 (9): 857–65. (received on 30.9.2017, revised and accepted on 30.11.2019) final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 144-151, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh, k.h.a.1*, singh, b.1, haokip, s.w.1, shankar, k.1, debbarma, r.1, gaitri devi, a.2 and nengparmoi t.h.3 1department of fruit science, 2department of vegetable science, college of horticulture and forestry, central agricultural university, pasighat-791102, arunachal pradesh, india 3department of agronomy, college of agriculture, vellanikkara, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, kerala 680656 *corresponding author email : sheikh4261@gmail.com abstract assam lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.], an indigenous lemon cultivar of assam, is widely cultivated in warm southern slopes of the himalayas in north-eastern india. since this cultivar of lemon is having a prominent trait of bearing fruits in several flushes throughout the year, it is essential to provide sufficient nutrition for obtaining optimum yield with good quality fruits. in the current experiment, a randomized block design having twelve treatments with three replications was followed to find out the response of lemon fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micronutrients during the year 2019. among all, the treatment znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%) gave the best performance in improving the yield and quality of fruits. the highest number of fruits per plant at the time of harvesting (73), yield per plant (11.5 kg), fruit fresh weight (158 g), fruit length (9.60 cm), fruit diameter (5.80 cm), juice content (152 ml/fruit), tss (6.40 °b), ascorbic acid (49.10 mg/100g), total sugar (6.30%), reducing sugar (3.90%), non-reducing sugar (2.40%) with lowest titratable acidity (3.13%) were obtained which revealed that the yield and fruit quality of lemon depends on the application of different micronutrients. keywords: assam lemon, fruit quality, micronutrients, nutrition and yield introduction citrus is considered as one of the most important fruits widely cultivated in different parts of the world. it belongs to the family rutaceae. it is very famous for its juice and pulp all over the world. among the citrus cultivar, assam lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] is an indigenous lemon cultivar of assam and is grown all over the north-eastern region. as this plant is having a prominent trait of bearing fruits in several flushes throughout the year, it is essential to provide sufficient nutrition for obtaining optimum yield with good quality fruits. micronutrients like zinc, iron, boron and copper are not only essential but they are equally significant like other macronutrients, in spite of their requirement in minute quantities. they also play a vital role in the various enzymatic activities and synthesis. their acute deficiencies are sometimes incurable in nature (kumar, 2002). zinc is required for the synthesis of tryptophan which is the precursor of indole acetic acid synthesis resulting in the growth and development of tissues. iron is also an important micronutrient necessary for the citrus plants. it has been reported that the application of iron sulphates as folia r spr a y r educes the lea f chlor osis a nd consequently increase the yield (devi et al., 1997). it also helps in a significant increase of fruit yield, fruit volume, ascorbic acid content and leaf iron content in citrus (aboutalebi and hassanzadeh, 2013). similarly, boron also plays a vital role in the growth behaviour and productivity of citrus fruits. it increases the phenolic compound production in the plant system that is responsible for the polar transport of auxin. this increases the auxin activity resulting in increasing the vegetative growth of citrus trees (gurjar et al., 2015). boron also helps in pollen grain germination and 145 response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in lemon j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 144-151, 2021 elongation of pollen tubes that results in increasing the fruit set percentage and ultimately increase in yield (abd-allah, 2006). as a micronutrient, copper plays a significant role in plants. it is involved in stimulation activities for lignification of the cell wall of plants, and photosynthesis, and acts as an electron carrier in the plant system (somasundaram et al., 2011). it is reported that copper helps in production of sugar compounds and leads to more accumulation of total soluble solids (tss) in the fruit juice (singh et al., 2018). since citrus is a micronutrient loving crop, the more precise management of nutrition is required to meet the nutrient demand for its growth and development. thus, fulfilling the nutritional requirement is very important for economically profitable citrus fruit production. assam lemon being a heavy and regular bearing crop which bears throughout the year has to be supplied with adequate nutrients to ensure the yield and quality of the harvest. most of the time citrus growers are not giving proper emphasis to application of micronutrients, as they are required in minute quantities. this leads to a drastic decrease in the growth and development of plants and it also affects the yield a nd quality of fruits. so, the curr ent experiment was conducted to study the effect of micronutrients on fruit yield and quality of assam lemon in the north-eastern region of india. material and methods the experiment was laid out with the objectives of eva lua ting a nd sta nda r dizing the impa ct of micronutrients on yield and quality of assam lemon. the research work was executed on three years old assam lemon plants which were planted at the spacing of 3m x 3m during the year 2019 at the citrus fruit block, department of fruit science of the college of horticulture and forestry, central agricultural university, pa sigha t, aruna cha l pr adesh. it is geographically located at 28° 04’ 43" n latitude and 95° 19’ 26" e longitude with an altitude of 153 m above the mean sea level. pasighat lies under the humid sub-tropical climate. the average annual rainfall and temperature of this area are 32.8 cm and 25.5 ºc, respectively. the rainy season starts from june and it continues till september with maximum rainfall during july. august is the warmest month of the year while december is the coldest month of the year with the average temperature of 31.60c and 20.50c p c respectively. the design of the experiment followed was randomized block design (rbd) having twelve treatments and each treatment was replicated thrice. in each replication, there were two plants and the total numbers of plants in the whole experiment were seventy-two. the recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) for assam lemon 100: 100: 100 g npk (source: nurea, pssp and kmop)/plant/ year (www.kiran.nic.in), was applied to all the plants under the investigation. half of the dose before flowering during the first week of january and the remaining half dose during the second month of june were applied. the treatments studied were: t1 control, t2 znso4 (0.2%), t3 feso4 (0.2%), t4 borax (0.2%), t5 cuso4 (0.2%), t6 znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%), t7 znso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%), t8 znso4 (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%), t9 feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%), t10 feso4 (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%), t11 borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%) and t12 znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%). for the foliar application of these micronutrients (sources: znso436.40% zn, feso432.8% fe, borax10.8% b and cuso421% cu), the required amounts of micronutrient sources were dissolved in separate container. then the ph of the nutrient solutions were checked by using pen type digital ph meter and it was adjusted by 0.1 n concentrated hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. the application was done on 5th april, 2019 (i.e.) after the complete emergence of spring flush and the onset of fruit setting) on an average of two liters per tree and normal water was used for spraying the plants in control by using knapsack sprayer. in each spray treatment teepol @ 0.01% was added as sticking gent in prepared solution. the total numbers of fruits per plant at the time of harvesting (i.e.) during june-july fruits developed attractive green to little yellow colour and they were harvested two times) were recorded. for fruit yield of assam lemon, fruits from each plant were harvested separately for all treatments and yield per plant was calculated by multiplying total number of fruits per plant with average fruit weight. for recording the readings of physical parameters like fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter and juice content, five fruits from each treatment were selected randomly. then the fruit weight was recorded by using a precision weighing balance and its average weight was expressed in grams 146 sheikh et al (g). for the fruit length and fruit diameter a digital vernier caliper was used to record the data and their average fruit length and fruit diameter were expressed in centimeters (cm). fruit juice content was also measured by using a measuring cylinder and its average juice content per fruit was expressed in milliliters (ml). the tss in fruit juice was determined using hand held refractometer (0 ºb–32 ºb). the titratable acidity of the fruit was determined by titrating the fruit juice against 0.1n naoh solution using phenolphthalein as an indicator (light pink end point) and expressed as percentage in terms of citric acid (aoac, 2002). total sugar content was estimated by anthrone method as described by hodge and hofreiter (1962). reducing suga r content wa s estima ted by spectrophotometric method as described by somogyi (1952). the non-reducing sugar content was obtained by the subtraction of the reducing sugar content from the total sugar content. non reducing sugars content = total sugar reducing sugar the ascorbic acid content of fruits was determined by the method described by ranganna (1986) using 2, 6dichlorophenol indophenol dye. the samples extracted in meta-phosphoric acid solution were titrated with dye to pink end point. the ascorbic acid content was calculated and expressed as mg per 100 g of fruit weight sample. the observations recorded during field experiment and data obtained from laboratory analysis were subjected to the statistical analysis of variance for rbd. significance and non-significance of the va r ia nc e du e t o diff er ent t r ea t ment s wer e determined by calculating the respective ‘f’ values according to the method described by gomez and gomez (2010). results and discussion yield and its attributing parameters: the data depicted in table 1 exhibited the significant impact of foliar imposition of micronutrients on yield and its attributing parameters. the highest number of fruits per plant (73) at the time of harvesting and fruit yield (11.52 kg/plant) was recorded in t 1 2 [znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%)] while the lowest number of fruits per plant (43) at the time of harvesting and fruit yield (5.60 kg/plant) was obtained in t1 (control). this might be due to the synergistic effect of different micronutrients as they directly take part in many physiological processes and activity of many enzymes for greater gathering of food materials. zinc helps in prevention of abscission layer formation and increase the synthesis of tryptophan which is the precursor of auxin synthesis and this facilitates the ovary to remain intact with the shoot, ensuring in minimizing the flower and fruit drop and maximize the retention of fruits in the plants (gurjar et al., 2015). there is also a correlation between fruit drop and internal hormonal level in the plant system. as the level of internal auxin concentration in the plant system is higher, then the fruit retention capacity will be more leading to increase in number of fruits per plant. iron also plays a major role in cell division and cell enlargement resulting in increasing the fruit size and fruit weight which ultimately leads to the increase in yield of plants. ganie et al. (2013) reported that boron helps in germination of pollen grains and elongation of pollen tube because of which the fruit set, fruit retention and yield of the guava plants were increased. copper involves in synthesis and stability of chlorophyll responsible to produce food materials required for the growth and development of fruits. ilyas et al. (2015) observed the significant improvement of photosynthetic and fruit yield in citrus reticulata blanco var. kinnow on the foliar imposition of zn, cu and b. similarly, zoremtluangi et al., (2019) also proved that the foliar application of zn, cu and b obtained the maximum number of fruits per plant and yield per tree. the present report is in conformity with the experimental findings revealed by bhoyar and ramdevputra (2016) in guava and jangid et al. (2019) in aonla. physical parameters of fruits: most of the physical parameters of the assam lemon fruit had consequential effect due to the application of different micronutrients and they are presented in table 1. the highest fruit fresh weight (157.77 g), juice content (152 ml/fruit), fruit length (9.60 cm) and fruit diameter (5.80 cm) were obtained in treatment t12[znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%)] while the lowest fruit fresh weight (130.20 g), juice content (120 ml/fruit), fruit length (7.43 cm) and fruit diameter (4.10 cm) were obtained in treatment t1 (control). the overall amelioration in the physical parameters of the assa m lemon fruit might be because of benefaction of different micronutrients in the growth and development of fruits. zinc facilitates in the j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 144-151, 2021 147 table 1. effect of micronutrients on yield and physical parameters of assam lemon treatments number of fruit fruit fruit fruit juice fruits/plant yield fresh length diameter content (kg/plant) weight (g) (cm) (cm) (ml/fruit) t1 43 5.60 130.2 7.43 4.10 120 t2 58 8.40 144.60 8.57 5.00 135 t3 48 6.64 138.40 7.87 4.67 129 t4 54 7.68 142.10 8.33 4.90 134 t5 45 6.00 133.30 7.60 4.27 123 t6 70 10.84 155.00 9.43 5.73 149 t7 67 10.11 150.80 9.27 5.50 145 t8 63 9.34 148.13 8.90 5.33 141 t9 52 7.29 140.23 8.13 4.73 131 t10 47 6.38 135.70 7.77 4.43 127 t11 61 8.95 146.60 8.73 5.13 137 t12 73 11.52 157.77 9.60 5.80 152 c.d. (0.05) 7.22 1.17 5.02 0.85 0.54 4.01 sem± 2.44 0.39 1.70 0.28 0.18 1.36 synthesis of tryptophan, the precursor of auxin synthesis and consequently the auxin level in the fruit increases. this lead to the higher enlargement of cell because of cell vacuolization resulting in increased size of vesicles, dimension of locules and eventually the weight and size of fruit. therefore, the significant influence of zn in increasing the fruit fresh weight was revealed by ghosh and besra (2000) in sweet orange. iron and zinc also play a vital role in the enlargement of cell, division of cell and formation of starch. thus, the additive effect of these micronutrients resulted in increased fruit fresh weight. the rise in fruit fresh weight might be because of the higher translocation of photosynthates to fruits. similar findings were revealed by waskela et al. (2013) in guava. boron also plays a vital role in cell division and cell elongation, thereby increasing the fresh weight of fruit. the increase in fruit fresh weight owing to the combined imposition of zn and b may be the result of stimulation influence on plant metabolic process. in addition to this, b also activates the sugar and water mobilization in the fruits resulted in increasing the fruit weight as reported by lakshmipathi et al. (2015). similarly, ilyas et al. (2015) also reported that the foliar imposition of zn, cu and b had significant effect on fruit yield with regard to number and fresh weight of fruit. trivedi et al. (2012) reported that zinc controls the semi-permeability of cell wall through which the movement of water into fruits increases, that results in obtaining the highest juice content in guava. sajid et al. (2012) also revealed that the foliar spray of zn and b had consequential influence on juice content in fr uits of sweet or a nge. t he imposition of micronutrients might have ameliorated the plant health by improving the sugar metabolism and conduction of assimilates as a result of which the fruit juice content increase. similar outcomes were revealed by the findings of singh et al. (2018) in sweet orange cv. mosambi. increase in fruit length might be because response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in lemon j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 144-151, 2021 148 of the direct effect of b and zn in increasing the cell division and cell elongation process. similarly, the fruit diameter was notably influenced by the imposition of zinc sulphate and borax. dutta and banik (2005) reported that the increase in fruit length and fruit diameter may be due to the improvement in internal physiology of developing fruit with regard to proper supply of wa ter, miner a l nutr ients a nd other compounds essentia l for nor ma l gr owth a nd development of fruit and the present result is in conformity with the reports of yadav et al. (2013). quality parameters of fruit: the quality parameters of fruits were significantly improved by the foliar application of micronutrients and they are presented in table 2. in this, the treatment t12[znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%)] offered maximum tss (6.40 ºb), ascorbic acid (49.10 mg/100 g), total sugars (6.30%), reducing sugars (3.90%) and non-reducing sugars (2.40%) content of fruits while the minimum tss (5.30 ºb), ascorbic acid (34.37 mg/100 g), total sugars (3.73%), reducing sugars (2.53%) and non-reducing sugars (1.20%) were obtained in t1 (control). table 2. effect of micronutrients on quality parameters of assam lemon treatments tss ascorbic titratable total reducing non reducing (°brix) acid acidity sugar sugar sugar (mg/100g) (%) (%) (%) (%) t1 5.30 34.37 4.93 3.73 2.53 1.20 t2 5.93 40.43 4.57 4.80 2.90 1.90 t3 5.50 35.27 4.63 5.13 3.17 1.97 t4 5.60 39.55 4.47 4.37 2.70 1.67 t5 5.83 37.09 4.33 4.63 2.83 1.80 t6 6.13 42.33 3.90 6.00 3.80 1.20 t7 6.00 46.83 3.73 5.53 3.43 2.10 t8 6.20 48.30 3.57 5.73 3.70 2.03 t9 5.90 45.13 3.47 5.67 3.57 2.10 t10 5.97 41.06 3.23 5.37 3.13 2.23 t11 5.80 47.70 3.67 5.47 3.27 2.20 t12 6.40 49.10 3.13 6.30 3.90 2.40 c.d. (0.05) 0.44 3.31 0.39 0.27 0.24 0.40 sem± 0.15 1.12 0.13 0.09 0.08 0.13 zinc is required in enzymatic reactions namely hexokinase, carbohydrate and protein synthesis. in addition to this, boron helps in the transportation of sugar in the form of boron-sugar complex and it also intensifies hydrolysis of carbohydrates into simple suga r. copper a lso helps in eleva ting the photosynthetic efficiency that results in higher rate of photosynthesis. the main product of photosynthesis is sugar, thus increase in the photosynthesis by the additive action of zinc, boron and copper results in mor e suga r compounds a nd this led to the accumulation of more total soluble solids in fruit juice. the results of the current investigation are in line with the results obtained by babu and yadav (2005) in khasi mandarin and singh et al. (2018) in sweet orange cv. mosambi. kumari et al. (2009) also sheikh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 144-151, 2021 149 reported that the foliar fertilization of fe, zn and cu had significant effect in increasing the tss of kinnow mandarin. zinc helps in the synthesis of auxin that leads to the increase in ascorbic acid content as reported by nawaz et al. (2008). similarly, foliar imposition of zn, b and cu also helps in increasing the ascorbic acid content in the fruit juice of sweet orange cv. mosambi as reported by singh et al. (2018). increase in sugar content (total sugar, reducing sugar and non-reducing sugar) in the fruit juice of assam lemon might be because of the active participation of zn, cu and b in photosynthesis and faster translocation of sugars from the site of synthesis to the developing fruits. the other reason might be due to the decrease in starch content during deterioration of acid and quick transfer of sugars in the fruit. thus, the present findings are in line with the outcomes obtained by el-rahman (2003) in naval orange and bhatt et al. (2012) in mango. although, the lowest value of titratable acidity (3.13%) of fruit juice was observed in t12[znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%)] while the highest titratable acidity (4.93%) was recor ded in t 1 (control). the reduction of titratable acidity might be because of more synthesis of nucleic acids due to more availability of plant metabolites as reported by ullah et al. (2012) in kinnow mandarin. the other reason might be because of their utiliza tion in r espir a tion a nd quick transformation of organic acid into sugars as disclosed by brahmachari et al. (1997) in litchi. similarly, the outcomes are in agreement with the results obtained by sau et al. (2018) in guava. on the basis of the experimental evidence obtained from the current research work, it is concluded that the imposition of recommended dose of n, p and k fertilizers (100g: 100g: 100g npk/plant/year) together with foliar spray of znso4 (0.2%) + feso4 (0.2%) + borax (0.2%) + cuso4 (0.2%) once (two weeks after fruit setting) can be advocated to assam lemon growers as the most potent measures to enhance the number of fruits per plant, yield per plant and fruit quality that will eventually increase the productivity. acknowledgement the authors would like to express the heartfelt and sincere thanks to the department of fruit science, college of hor ticulture a nd for estr y, centr a l agricultural university, pasighat, arunachal pradesh, for the guidance and needful help during the entire course of the experiment. references a.o. a. c. 2002. officia l methods of ana lysis. association of official analytical chemists international, washington d.c. pp. 1-12. abd-allah, a.s. 2006. effect of spraying some macro and micro nutrients on fruit set, yield and fruit quality of washington navel orange trees. j. appl. sci. res., 2: 1059-1063. aboutalebi, a. and hassanzadeh, h. 2013. effects of iron and zinc on sweet lime (citrus limmetta) fr uit qua ntity a nd qua lity in ca lca r eous soils. int. j. farming allied sci., 2(18): 675677. babu, k.d. and yadav, d.s. 2005. foliar spray of micr onutr ients for yield a nd qua lity impr ovement in kha si ma nda r in ( citrus reticulata blanco.). indian j. hortic., 62(3): 280-281. bhatt, a., mishra, n.k., mishra, d.s. and singh, c.p. 2012. foliar application of potassium, calcium, zinc and boron enhanced yield, quality and shelf life of mango. hort flora res. spectrum, 1(4): 300-305. bhoyar, m.g. and ramdevputra, m.v. 2016. effect of foliar spray of zinc, iron and boron on the growth, yield and sensory characters of guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. sardar l-49. j. appl. nat. sci., 8(2): 701-704. brahmachari, v.s., yadav, g.s. and naresh, k. 1997. effect of feeding of calcium, zinc and boron on yield and quality attributes of litchi (litchi chinensis sonn.). orissa j. hortic., 25(1): 4952. devi, d.d., srinivasan, p.s. and balkrishnan, k. 1997. influence of zn, fe a nd mn on photosynthesis and yield of citrus sinensis. indian j. plant physiol., 2(2): 174-176. dutta, p., and banik, a.k. 2005. effect of foliar feeding of nutrients and plant growth regulators on physico-chemical quality of sardar guava grown in red and lateritic tract of west bengal. response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in lemon j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 144-151, 2021 150 in international guava symposium. pp. 407411, december 5, 2005. lucknow, india. el-rahman, a.m.a. 2003. effects of some nutrients and growth substances application on fruiting, yield and fruit quality of navel orange trees. bulletin-faculty of agriculture, university of cairo, 54(2): 175-188. ganie, m.a., akhter, f., bhat, m.a., malik, a.r., junaid, j.m. and shah, m.a. 2013. boron – a critical nutrient element for plant growth and productivity with reference to temperate fruits. curr. sci., 104: 76–85. ghosh, s.n. and besra, k.c. 2000. effect of zinc, boron and iron spray on yield and fruit quality of sweet orange cv. mosambi grown under rainfed laterite soil. indian agric., 44(3/4): 147-51. gomez, a.k. and gomez, a.a. 2010. statistical procedures for agricultural research. 2ndedn. wiley india private limited, new delhi, pp. 134-138 gurjar, m.k.,kaushik, r.a. and baraily, p. 2015. effect of zinc and boron on the growth and yield of kinnow mandarin. int. j. sci. res., 4(4): 2277-8179. hodge, j.e. and hofreiter, b.t. 1962. determination of reducing sugars and charbohydrates, in: whistler, r.l. a nd wolfr om, m.l. 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(received on 14.04.2021, revised on 13.09.2021 and accepted on 26.10.2021) waskela, r.s., kanpure, r.n., kumawat, b.r. and kachouli, b.k. 2013. effect of foliar spray of micronutrients on growth, yield and quality of guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. dharidar. int. j. agric. sci., 9(2): 551-556. yadav, v., singh, p.n. and yadav, p. 2013. effect of foliar fertilization of boron, zinc and iron on fruit growth and yield of low-chill peach cv. sharbati. int. j. sci. res. publ., 3(8): 22502256. zoremtluangi, j., saipari, e. and mandal, d. 2019. foliar application of zinc, manganese, copper a nd bor on influenced the fr uit gr owth, development and quality of khasi mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco). j. pharmacogn. phytochem., 8(3): 3324-3327. response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in lemon j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 144-151, 2021 00 contents.pdf 02 sheikh.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf evaluating direct feeding of de-navelled banana bunch with nutrients for enhancing fruit quality, yield and nutrient content s.c. kotur1, p.r. ramesh and r. venugopalan1 division of soil science and agricultural chemistry krishi vigyan kendra hirehalli tumkur 572 104, india e-mail : sckotur@gmail.com abstract direct feeding of nutrients to bunch after de-navelling was evaluated in seven varieties of banana (musa sp.) cvs. ‘grand naine’ (gn), ‘robusta’(r), ‘dwarf cavendish’(dc), ‘ney poovan’(np), ‘nanjangud rasabale’(nr), ‘nendran’ (n) and ‘red banana’ (rb) using 500g fresh cow-dung, 100ml water, and 2.5 10g each of urea and sop in combinations. across varieties, fruit and bunch weight increased by 41.5-104.0% and 44.5-97.3%, respectively, compared to ‘control’. maximum increase in fruit weight was observed with a blend of urea + sop each at 10g in ‘gn’, 7.5g in ‘r’, ‘dc’, ‘n’ and ‘rb’, while, the level of urea + sop was best at 2.5g for ‘np’ and 5.0g for ‘nr’. magnitude of increase in fruit and bunch weight was higher in the cut-end (distal end) of the bunch compared to the leaf-end (proximal end). improvement in pulp:peel ratio was best in ‘np’ (4.29-5.91) and ‘nr’ (2.99-4.32), while, it was lowest in ‘gn’ (2.692.72). total soluble solids (tss) in the pulp decreased with increasing fruit/bunch yield. ‘n’ showed an increase in tss from 23.9-24.8°brix in ‘control’, to 27.1-27.2° at 7.5g each combined urea and sop application. benefit: cost increased from 0.35 to 1.20 in ‘gn’, 0.79 to 1.62 in ‘r’, 0.60 to 1.43 in ‘dc’, 3.01 to 5.22 in ‘np’, 2.16 to 3.41 in ‘nr’, 1.37 to 3.67 in ‘n’ and from 2.82 to 4.96 in ‘rb’, indicating obvious profitability of the technique. nutrient composition in respect of n, k and s showed a general increase consequent to direct nutrient feeding. differences in fruit quality and nutrient composition between the top and the bottom portion of the bunch differed with variety. key words: direct nutrient feeding, nitrogen, potassium, sulphur, musa sp., grand naine, robusta, dwarf cavendish, ney poovan, nanjangud rasabale, nendran, red banana, banana varieties introduction manipulation of fruit size in a banana bunch to meet market demands is very important for realizing maximum profitability. sometimes, bunch trimming is done by farmers in south east asian countries to increase fruit size and advance fruit maturity, albeit at a small loss in bunch weight (mustaffa and kumar, 2012). however, without resorting to such drastic measures, enhanced bunch weight, with concomitant improvement in growth of fruits at the stalk end (i.e. leaf end) of the bunch besides improved fruit nutrient content, was successfully achieved in ‘robusta’ and ‘ney poovan’ banana by direct nutrient feeding at the de-navelled distal end of the rachis or stalk, using cowdung slurry enriched with appropriate amounts of urea and sulphate of potash (sop) (fig. 1) (kotur and keshavamurthy, 2008; kotur and keshavamurthy, 2010). therefore, an attempt was made to evaluate the technique further in seven popular cultivars of banana (musa sp.) in terms of yield, fruit quality and nutrient content in pulp. material and methods the study was undertaken at the farm of krishi vigyan kendra, hirehalli, tumkur, located at latitude 13º16’20" north and longitude 77º11’11" east at an elevation of 851amsl. the crop was raised on clay loam soil with ph 7.53, electrical conductivity 0.44 dsm-1, organic carbon content 0.78%, available n 126 kg ha-1, available k 153 kg ha-1 and available s 29kgha-1. seven cultivars of banana, viz., (i) ‘grand naine’-g (aaa) ; (ii) ‘robusta’-r (aaa); (iii) ‘dwarf cavendish’-dc (aaa); (iv) ‘ney poovan’np (ab); (v) ‘nanjangud rasabale’-nr (aab, silk group); (vi) ‘nendran’-n (aab, plantain group) and (vii) ‘red banana’-rb (aaa) were planted using suckers at a spacing of 2.1×2.1m. fertilizer dose used was: 250:50:300g npk / plant for the gn, r and dc, 200:50:300 for np, nr and n, and 250:100:250 for ‘nendran’. de-navelling and direct nutrient feeding was done as per kotur and keshavamurthy (2008) (see fig. 1) using 2 levels of urea + sop, depending on expected weight of the bunch based on earlier findings 1icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):166-171, 2014 167 on ‘robusta’ and ‘ney poovan’ (table 1). cow-dung contained 22.5% moisture, 1.6% n, 0.8% k and 0.5% s. in ‘control’, the male bud was retained until harvest. bunches were divided into leaf-end (proximal end) and cutend (distal end) portions, retaining the number of hands nearly equal. bunches selected for the study were uniform in size with 135.8 ± 8.25 fingers per bunch in ‘grand naine (n=7), 136.2 ± 9.25 in ‘robusta’, 12.9 ± 7.52 in ‘dwarf cavendish’, 127.6 ± 12.34 in ‘ney poovan’, 75.6 ±9.12 in ‘nanjangud rasabale’, 55.4 ± 4.56 in ‘nendran’ and 77.5 ± 7.23 in ‘red banana’. the (separated) hands were covered with brown paper and stored in cardboard boxes to ripen. the fruits were sampled at edible ripe stage for determining pulp:peel ratio, and, for total soluble solids (tss) using a refractometer. the pulp portion was sliced, dried in an oven for 72h at 70o c, powdered and analyzed for n, k and s using standard procedures. seven replications were made and data were analyzed in randomized block design. cost of cultivation per banana bunch was rs. 84.54 in ‘grand naine’, rs. 74.65 in the second and third varieties, rs. 72.57 in ‘ney poovan’ and ‘nanjangud rasabale’, rs. 76.17 in ‘nendran’ and rs. 84.54 in ‘red banana’ keeping in view crop duration and fertilizer dose. the cost of various levels of urea + sop used was rs. 0.20-0.83 per bunch, which was included in cost of production of each bunch. prevailing wholesale price of banana fruit/kg was: rs. 6 for the first 3 varieties, rs. 32 for ‘ney poovan’, rs. 28 for ‘nanjangud rasabale’, rs. 30 for ‘nendran’, and rs. 24 for ‘red banana’. benefit accrued was calculated in terms of net returns computed after deducting fixed and variable costs of cultivation. results and discussion fruit and bunch weight: in all the varieties of banana studied, direct feeding of nutrients to the cut-end of the bunch after de-navelling significantly increased fruit and bunch weight compared to ‘control’. this may be attributed to translocation of nutrients from the cow-dung slurry, mediated by added water into which distal end of the rachis at the bunch tip was dipped. the slurry contained 1.15-4.60g n, 1.125-4.5g k and 0.45-1.80g s from 2.5-10g each of urea and sop added to enrich cow dung (in addition to 6.2g n, 2.4g k and 1.9g s present in 500g of fresh cow-dung itself). it also contained other nutrients and bio-chemicals that are helpful in enhancing fruit growth. this unorthodox movement of nutrient from the distal end into the bunch was demonstrated by kotur and keshavamurthy (2008) in ‘robusta’ and kotur and keshavamurthy (2010) in ‘ney poovan’ banana using 15n-enriched urea in the slurry. over 45% of urea added to the cow dung was recovered in the bunch, indicating movement of n in both the varieties. increase in content of other nutrients was also indicative of mobilization of nutrients from an external source into the bunch. the optimum dose of urea + sop translates into maximum fruit weight was 10g in ‘grand naine’, 7.5g in ‘robusta’, ‘dwarf cavendish’, ‘nendran’ and ‘red banana’, while, it was 2.5g in ‘ney poovan’ and 5.0g in ‘nanjangud rasabale’ varieties (table 1). at these levels of urea + sop combination, increase in fruit weight/bunch was 61.3% in ‘grand naine’, 45.6% in ‘robusta’, 51.0% in ‘dwarf cavendish, 65.1% in ‘ney poovan’, 41.5% in ‘nanjangud rasabale’, 104.9% in nendran and 54.8% in ‘red banana’, compared to that in ‘control’. between the top and bottom halves of the bunch, it was the bottom portion that showed higher fruit weight compared to the top portion in all the varieties studied (46.4-72.6% over the ‘control’). the upper half of the bunch, on the other hand, showed just 38.3-54.3% increase in all the varieties excepting ‘nendran’. in the latter variety, the top portion gained 104.5% fruit weight while the bottom portion gained 106.7% compared to ‘control’ owing to fewer fruits in the bunch a characteristic of the variety. this indicated that proximity of the lower portion of bunch to the source of direct nutrient feed caused higher enhancement of the fruits relative to fig. 1. technique of direct nutrient feeding of banana bunch through the distal end direct nutrient feeding of de-navelled bunch in banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):166-171, 2014 168 table 1. effect of direct feeding of nutrients to bunch on fruit and bunch yield and benefit: cost ratio in seven varieties of banana treatment fruit weight (kg) bunch weight (kg) benefit: top bottom total top bottom total cost ratio grand naine ( gn ) control 11.423 7.037 18.460 11.795 7.169 18.964 0.35 7.5g 16.903 10.741 27.644 17.750 11.099 28.849 1.05 10.0g 17.631 12.143 29.774 18.443 12.533 30.976 1.20 sem (±) 0.5660 0.5563 0.9092 0.6004 0.560 0.9510 0.067 cd (p=0.05) 1.7438 1.7141 2.8014 1.8498 1.728 2.9301 0.208 robusta ( r ) control 13.414 7.896 21.310 14.049 8.127 22.176 0.79 7.5g 18.470 12.549 31.019 19.181 12.867 32.048 1.62 10.0g 17.611 9.757 27.368 18.381 9.977 28.319 1.28 sem (±) 0.6518 0.7814 0.7179 0.6569 0.7872 0.7471 0.055 cd((p=0.05) 2.0082 2.4077 2.2121 2.0241 2.4255 2.3017 0.168 dwarf cavendish ( dc ) control 12.480 6.814 19.294 13.046 6.971 20.017 0.61 7.5g 18.349 10.793 29.142 19.076 11.056 30.132 1.43 10.0g 17.173 11.507 28.680 17.823 11.731 29.554 1.38 sem (±) 0.6313 0.3513 0.6937 0.6380 0.3545 0.7073 0.057 cd (p=0.05) 1.9451 1.0861 2.1373 1.9656 1.0922 2.1795 0.175 ney poovan ( np ) control 5.351 2.973 8.324 5.980 3.126 9.106 3.01 2.5g 7.690 5.549 13.739 8.397 5.967 14.094 5.22 5.0g 6.807 5.344 12.151 7.556 5.614 13.170 4.81 sem (±) 0.3228 0.2567 0.542 0.3149 0.2559 0.5336 0.236 cd (p=0.05) 0.9947 0.7912 1.671 0.9702 0.7884 16.440 0.726 nanjangud rasabale ( nr ) control 5.243 3.500 8.743 5.501 3.663 9.164 2.16 2.5g 5.496 4.041 9.537 5.751 4.174 9.925 2.42 5.0g 7.251 5.124 12.375 7.537 5.756 13.293 3.41 sem (±) 0.178 0.2481 0.3344 0.1797 0.2477 0.2496 0.118 cd (p=0.05) 0.5489 0.7645 1.0303 0.5536 0.7632 0.7690 0.363 nendran ( n ) control 4.224 2.521 6.745 4.821 2.669 7.490 1.37 5.0g 7.721 4.239 11.960 8.464 4.454 12.918 3.08 7.5g 8.637 5.186 13.823 9.379 5.401 14.780 3.67 sem (±) 0.2453 0.1861 0.3588 0.2546 0.3742 0.3638 0.115 cd (p=0.05) 0.7559 0.5234 1.1055 0.7844 1.1531 1.1210 0.354 red banana ( rb ) control 8.094 4.256 12.350 8.494 4.429 12.923 2.82 7.5g 9.089 5.219 14.408 9.573 5.389 14.962 3.43 10.0g 12.143 6.980 19.123 12.801 7.341 20.142 4.96 sem (±) 0.3497 0.3232 0.6210 0.3621 0.3271 0.6345 0.188 cd (p=0.05) 1.0774 0.9958 1.9135 1.1156 1.0079 1.9549 0.578 17.173 11.507 28.680 17.823 11.731 29.554 1.38 that of the top portion that was farther away in location. improvement in bunch weight was in close conformity with that in fruit weight. profitability, as reflected by benefit:cost ratio, showed that cultivation of all the varieties of banana studied is a profitable enterprise. however, significant and substantial increase in benefit:cost ratio from 0.35 to 1.20 in ‘grand naine’, 0.79 to 1.62 in ‘robusta’, 0.61 to 1.43 in ‘dwarf cavendish’, 3.01 to 5.22 in ‘ney poovan’, 2.16 to 3.41 in ‘nanjangud rasabale’, 1.37 to 3.67 in ‘nendran’ and 2.82 to 4.96 in ‘red banana’ shows the superior cost:effectiveness of the technique over ‘control’ (table 1). fruit quality: total soluble solids in the pulp, in general, showed a reduction with increasing fruit weight and bunch weight due to dilution by the enhanced biomass of pulp (table 2). however, ‘nendran’ was exceptional, in that, tss increased from 23.9-24.8°brix in ‘control’ to 27.127.2°brix at 7.5g each of urea + sop which registered maximum enhancement in fruit yield from direct nutrient feeding. the difference in tss of pulp between the top and kotur et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):166-171, 2014 169 table 2. effect of direct feeding of nutrients to bunch on quality parameters and nutrient content of pulp in seven varieties of banana treatment total soluble solids pulp: nutrient content (%) (ºbrix) peel ratio n k s top bottom top bottom top bottom top bottom top bottom grand naine ( gn ) control 22.6 22.8 2.72 2.69 1.29 1.31 1.72 1.84 0.037 0.063 7.5g 19.5 19.6 2.89 2.86 1.24 1.29 1.10 1.64 0.046 0.079 10.0g 18.6 19.5 2.92 2.84 1.38 1.32 1.26 1.90 0.067 0.063 sem (±) 0.28 0.26 0.031 0.032 0.016 0.039 0.065 0.037 0.0019 0.0097 cd (p=0.05) 0.85 0.81 0.094 0.099 0.049 0119 0.202 0.114 0.0060 0.0297 robusta ( r ) control 23.4 23.4 2.52 2.63 1.07 1.04 1.69 1.51 0.032 0.022 7.5g 21.1 20.8 3.21 3.23 1.00 1.24 1.98 2.04 0.033 0.044 10.0g 18.3 19.0 3.10 3.18 1.25 1.64 2.05 2.16 0.037 0.036 sem (±) 0.45 0.39 0.09 0.09 0.034 0.035 0.031 0.025 0.0011 0.0015 cd (p=0.05) 1.38 1.19 0.26 0.26 0.104 0.118 0.096 0.078 0.0035 0.080 dwarf cavendish ( dc ) control 22.7 22.6 2.71 2.97 1.51 1.53 2.49 1.76 0.074 0.064 7.5g 17.9 19.4 3.25 3.74 2.04 1.57 2.35 2.12 0.084 0.046 10.0g 18.9 18.9 3.00 3.33 2.16 1.72 2.81 2.06 0.098 0.058 sem (±) 0.38 0.30 0.097 0.096 0.025 0.026 0.094 0.039 0.0753 0.0018 cd (p=0.05) 1.17 0.92 0.299 0.297 0.078 0.082 0.289 0.121 0.2320 0.0057 ney poovan ( np ) control 25.0 23.9 4.59 4.29 1.21 1.24 1.31 1.25 0.027 0.023 2.5g 23.3 23.7 6.47 5.68 1.07 1.21 1.59 1.32 0.023 0.023 5.0g 24.0 21.8 5.91 5.89 1.27 1.28 1.34 0.92 0.028 0.019 sem (±) 0.30 0.34 0.304 0.341 0.039 0.017 0.027 0.021 0.0015 0.0008 cd (p=0.05) 0.92 1.06 0.937 1.052 0.074 0.054 0.084 0.064 0.0046 0.0024 nanjangud rasabale ( nr ) control 24.0 20.4 2.99 3.14 0.95 0.96 1.90 1.56 0.060 0.073 2.5g 22.6 22.4 3.34 3.63 0.91 1.12 1.97 1.98 0.072 0.066 5.0g 24.6 22.2 4.14 4.32 1.05 1.28 2.21 2.01 0.086 0.079 sem (±) 0.31 0.16 0.122 0.090 0.026 0.044 0.046 0.022 0.0019 0.0141 cd (p=0.05) 0.94 0.50 0.376 0.278 0.081 0.136 0.140 0.066 0.0060 0.0433 nendran ( n ) control 24.8 23.9 3.30 3.30 0.97 0.84 1.33 136 0.015 0.017 5.0g 24.7 25.0 3.66 3.49 0.79 0.66 1.37 1.28 0.016 0.018 7.5g 27.2 27.1 3.89 4.08 0.96 0.76 1.29 1.35 0.026 0.022 sem (±) 0.97 0.54 0.131 0.110 0.017 0.024 0.019 0.019 0.011 0.0007 cd (p=0.05) 2.98 1.65 0.403 0.339 0.051 0.076 0.058 0.059 0.0033 0.0020 red banana ( rb ) control 24.9 25.4 3.71 3.95 1.51 1.07 1.81 1.77 0.078 0.108 7.5g 24.1 24.8 3.76 4.02 2.04 1.00 1.58 1.53 0.093 0.078 10.0g 22.5 22.8 3.89 3.69 2.16 1.25 1.51 1.52 0.067 0.067 sem (±) 0.21 0.15 0.039 0.238 0.025 0.033 0.026 0.028 0.003 0.005 cd (p=0.05) 0.65 0.47 0.121 0.733 0.078 0.104 0.080 0.087 0.009 0.0141 bottom portions of the bunch varied with variety. in ‘grand naine’, ‘dwarf cavendish’ and ‘red banana’, the bottom portion showed slightly higher tss. in ‘ney poovan’ and ‘nanjangud rasabale’, the pulp from bottom portion showed slightly lower tss. pulp:peel ratio is indicative of relative quantity of edible part of banana fruit, a higher value indicates better quality fruit. pulp:peel ratio improved invariably with direct nutrient feeding compared to that in ‘control’, since, growth in pulp was markedly higher than that in the peel. the improvement was marked is higher in ‘ney poovan’ (4.29-5.91) and ‘nanjanagud rasabale’ (2.99-4.32), while, it was lowest in ‘grand naine’ variety (2.69-2.92). in the rest of the varieties, change in tss was moderate. nutrient content: content of n, k and s was influenced significantly by direct nutrient feeding to the bunch. in fact, it was due to the combined action of (i) level of enrichment of cow-dung by urea + sop (ii) infusion of n, k and s from the enriched slurry (iii) dilution of the nutrients gained in enhanced biomass of the pulp and (iv) direct nutrient feeding of de-navelled bunch in banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):166-171, 2014 170 the characteristic of a variety. in the case of n in the pulp from ‘control’ fruits, differences between top and bottom portion of the bunch were only slight. when direct nutrient feeding was done n content generally increased with increasing level of urea + sop, and, the pulp from bottom part of the bunch showed higher n content in ‘robusta’ and ‘nanjangud rasabale’. in the rest of the varieties, n content was lower, perhaps owing to dilution. potassium content was higher in the pulp from bottom of the bunch in ‘dwarf cavendish’, ‘ney poovan’ and ‘nanjangud rasabale’. increasing levels of urea + sop in cow-dung slurry caused an increase in k content in general, but the reverse was true in ‘nendran’, ‘red banana’ and ‘grand naine’. increasing level of urea + sop in cow-dung slurry generally increased s content in the pulp of the banana fruit. sulphur content in the pulp from bottom portion of bunch was higher in ‘grand naine’, while, in the rest of the varieties, it was generally lower in the bottom part of the bunch. these results suggest a general improvement in n, k and s content with direct nutrient feeding. the unorthodox movement of nutrients from the distal stalk-end into the fruit bunch may be attributed to the fact that a developing bunch forms a strong sink for the nutrients available in the cow-dung slurry, actives as a source of nutrients. this was conclusively demonstrated by a significant movement of 15n from the cow-dung slurry into the fruits (kotur and keshava murthy, 2008) to an extent of 44.1% of applied n in ‘robusta’, and to 41.5% in ‘ney poovan’ (kotur and keshava murthy, 2010). inclusion of urea in the slurry is reported to enhance urease activity, which may facilitate hydrolysis of urea into nh3 and water for easy absorption and assimilation of n there by enhances bunch yield (ancy et al., 1998). de-navelling per se saves the plant from unnecessary expense of energy and nutrients (which the male flower does, if retained until harvest). direct nutrient feeding through the distal end after de-navelling, additionally, helps bunch development. improvement in the composition of fruit pulp in respect of n, k, and s may be attributed to translocation of the nutrients present in the slurry. significance of observed variation in tss in different varieties of banana needs to be ascertained organoleptically. improved nutrient content in the pulp may have beneficial nutraceutical consequences in the banana fruit, in particular, and could lead to promotion of nutritional security in general. the results showed that remunerative boost in yield of high quality banana fruits can be achieved by direct nutrient feeding of the bunch with appropriate amounts of urea and sop blended into fresh cow-dung slurry. to estimate the relation between bunch weight in banana cultivars and urea + sop quantities used for direct nutrient feeding, correlation and regression were analyzed. a initial and final bunch weight upon direct nutrient feeding showed that ‘nendran’ did not conform with the rest of the varieties. correlation between initial bunch weight (‘control’) and maximum increase in bunch weight observed (n = 42) in 6 varieties was highly significant (r = 0.944**, fig. 2). further, maximum bunch weight obtained and quantity of urea + sop used also showed a high degree of correlation (r = 0.853**) and good regression (fig. 3). from the equation obtained, each gram of urea and sop used resulted in an increase of 3.852kg bunch weight, corrected by -1.257kg being the intercept. fig. 2. relation between initial and final bunch yield upon direct nutrient feeding in different cultivars of banana fig. 3. relation between quantity of urea + sop and increase in bunch weight upon direct nutrient feeding in different varieties of banana kotur et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):166-171, 2014 171 the analysis showed that a robust relationship exists between the quantity of urea + sop used and the expected increase in bunch weight. this can be adopted in practice in most banana cultivars. as the composition and quality of cowdung may vary depending upon the breed of the cow, the kind of feed and other factors, verification of the technique is advisable to maximize dividends from direct nutrient feeding of the banana bunch in different varieties. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for providing facilities, to scientist-in-charge, kvk, hirehalli, for providing the crop for the trial, and to shri n.k. kacker and shri s. thippeswamy, technical officers, for technical assistance. references ancy, t.k., kurien, s., augustin, a. and balachandran, p.v. 1998. urease activity in banana fruit. j. pl. nutr., 21:2127-40 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2008. enhancing the fruit yield of ‘robusta’ banana (musa × paradisiaca l.) by de-navelling and feeding nitrogen, potassium and sulphur through the distal-end of the bunch. indian j. agril. sci. 78:109-115 kotur, s.c. and keshava murthy, s.v. 2010. enhancing fruit yield in ‘ney poovan’ banana (musa × paradisiaca l.) by de-navelling and feeding n, k and s through distal stalk-end of the bunch. j. hortl. sci., 5:53-6 mustaffa, m.m. and kumar, v. 2012. banana production and productivity enhancement through spatial, water and nutrient management. j. hortl. sci., 7:1-28 (ms received 07 december 2013, revised 25 may 2014, accepted 21 june 2014) direct nutrient feeding of de-navelled bunch in banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):166-171, 2014 introduction litchi is one of the most important subtropical fruit crops of the family sapindaceae. area under litchi, both in india and other litchi growing countries of the world is increasing rapidly owing to the fruit’s popularity globally. in view of the importance of litchi in west bengal, efforts are being made to provide technological support through research for increasing production, post-harvest management and marketing. however, until now, not much attention has been paid to varietal improvement. very little information is available on flowering habit and floral biology of litchi, factors that are important for varietal improvement. keeping this in view, the present investigation was undertaken for studying floral biology of seven litchi cultivars. material and methods the present investigation was conducted using 25 year-old litchi plants of cvs. china, deshi, elaichi, kasba, mclean, nafarpal and piazi, grown at horticultural research station, mondouri, b.c.k.v., west bengal. ten panicles were tagged at random in each variety, covering all the directions in a plant, and three plants were earmarked in each cultivar to study floral biology. observation on anthesis was recorded from 7 am to 6 pm at regular intervals for seven days. anther dehiscence was studied by marking 20 anthers at 8 am and these were observed every hour upto 6 pm for 3 days. data on percentage of viability and size of pollen were recorded using acetocarmine stain. studies on floral biology of seven litchi (litchi chinensis sonn.) cultivars p.k. pathak1 s.k. dutta ray and s.k. mitra faculty of horticulture, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya mohanpur -741252, india e-mail : sisirm@vsnl.net abstract floral biology of seven litchi cultivars (china, deshi, elaichi, kasba, mclean, nafarpal and piazi) was studied. cultivar deshi showed panicle formation on 2nd january, while panicle initiation was early (10th february) in cv. piazi. flowering duration varied between 13±4 days in ‘china’ and 30± 3 days in ‘piazi’. male:hermaphrodite flower ratio was maximum in ‘piazi’ (5.8:1) and minimum in ‘china’ (2.74:1). in general, anthesis was maximum between 7 and 8 am, while, anther dehiscence was maximum between 9 and 10 am. percentage of viable pollen varied between 82.14% in cv. elaichi and 91.38% in cv. piazi pollen germination was higher in 15% sucrose solution. key words: litchi, anthesis, dehiscence, pollen viability, flowering. percentage of pollen germination was recorded by culturing pollen in different concentrations (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35%) of sucrose solution at room temperature for 24 hours. results and discussion panicle initiation was seen between 2nd january and 24th february in all the seven cultivars studied. among these, cv. deshi was the earliest to produce panicles (2nd january), followed by mclean (7th january). cv. china was the last to flowe (31st january). completion of panicle initiation was earliest (10th february) in cv. piazi, followed by cv. deshi (12th february) and 25th february in cv. nafarpal. duration of panicle initiation was shortest (25±0 days) in va. elaichi, followed by cv. china (25±2 days), whereas, cvs. deshi and mclean took maximum number of days (42±4 and 41.5±5.5 days, respectively) to complete panicle initiation. it is clear from these data that when panicles initiated early in the season, longer duration was needed to complete their emergence, while, cultivars that started panicle initiation late in the season, took shorter time. this may be due to low temperatures prevalent during the early phase of panicle initiation, and, with increase in temperature, duration of panicle initiation shortened. in litchi, flowers that open first are usually male, followed by hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite flowers. in the present study, first flower opening was noted on 18th february in cv. piazi, followed by that on 22nd and 1krishi vigyan kendra, north 24-parganas, west bengal, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):25-29, 2013 26 t ab le 1 . f lo w er in g b eh av io u r in d if fe re n t li tc h i cu lt iv ar s c u lt iv ar d at e o f e n d o f d u ra ti o n d at e o f e n d o f d u ra ti o n d at e o f e n d o f d u ra ti o n d at e o f e n d o f d u ra ti o n t o ta l p an ic le p an ic le o f p an ic le fi rs t m al e m al e o f m al e fi rs t h er m ahe rm ao f h er m afi rs t p se u d o p se u d o o f p se u d o f lo w er in g in it ia ti o n in it ia ti o n in it ia ti o n fl ow er p h as e p h as e p h ro d it e p h ro d it e p h ro d it e he rm ahe rm ahe rm ad u ra ti o n (d ay s) o p en in g (d ay s) fl ow er p h as e p h as e p h ro d it e p h ro d it e p h ro d it e (d ay s) o p en in g (d ay s) fl ow er p h as e p h as e o p en in g (d ay s) c hi na 31 st j an . 24 th f eb . 2 5 .0 ± 2 7 th m ar ch 9t h m ar ch 4 .0 ± 1 9 th m ar ch 1 3 th m ar ch 5 .5 ± 1 .5 12 th m ar ch 19 th m ar ch 7 .5 ± 0 .5 1 3 .0 ± 4 .0 d es hi 2 n d ja n . 12 th f eb . 4 2 .0 ± 4 22 n d f eb . 22 n d m ar ch 1 6 .0 ± 4 8 th m ar ch 1 5 th m ar ch 7 .0 ± 1 .0 13 th m ar ch 1 9 th m ar ch 7 .5 ± 0 .5 2 7 .0 ± 4 .0 e la ic hi 28 th j an . 21 st f eb . 2 5 .0 ± 0 1 st m ar ch 1 4 th m ar ch 1 2 .5 ± 1 .5 1 3 th m ar ch 1 6 th m ar ch 4 .0 ± 0 .0 16 th m ar ch 2 4 th m ar ch 7 .5 ± 1 .5 2 4 .0 ± 2 .0 k as ba 24 th j an . 22 n d f eb . 3 0 .5 ± 1 .5 4 th m ar ch 1 5 th m ar ch 1 0 .0 ± 2 12 th m ar ch 1 9 th m ar ch 6 .5 ± 1 .5 17 th m ar ch 2 3 rd m ar ch 7 .0 ± 1 .0 2 0 .5 ± 2 .5 m cl ea n 7t h j an . 16 th f eb . 4 1 .5 ± 5 .5 23 rd f eb . 12 th m ar ch 1 5 .5 ± 3 .5 8 th m ar ch 1 4 th m ar ch 6 .0 ± 1 .0 13 th m ar ch 2 0 th m ar ch 8 .0 ± 1 .0 2 6 .5 ± 2 .5 n af ar p al 19 th j an . 25 th f eb . 3 8 .0 ± 2 4 th m ar ch 1 8 th m ar ch 1 3 .0 ± 2 15 th m ar ch 2 2 n d m ar ch 7 .0 ± 2 .0 21 st m ar ch 2 7 th m ar ch 7 .0 ± 1 .0 2 4 .0 ± 3 .0 p ia zi 9t h j an . 10 th f eb . 3 3 .0 ± 3 18 th f eb . 9t h m ar ch 1 6 .0 ± 4 7 th m ar ch 1 4 th m ar ch 5 .5 ± 2 .5 12 th m ar ch 1 8 th m ar ch 6 .0 ± 2 .0 3 0 .0 ± 3 .0 t ab le 2 . f lo ra l ch ar ac te rs i n d if fe re n t li tc h i cu lt iv ar s c u lt iv ar n o . o f n o . o f n o . o f p se u d o s ex r at io p er c en t f lo w er s iz e n o . o f c ol ou r c o lo u r o f m al e h er m ap h ro d it e h er m ap h ro d it e (m al e : h er m ap h ro d it e l en g th d ia m et er st am en s / o f d is c p an ic le fl o w er s/ fl o w er s/ fl o w er s/ h er m ap h ro d it e) fl o w er s ( m m ) ( m m ) fl ow er p an ic le p an ic le p an ic le c hi na 11 2. 67 19 6. 33 42 5. 00 2. 74 :1 2 6 .7 4 ( 3 1 .1 3 ) 7. 17 7. 12 6. 33 l ig ht c re am y el lo w is h gr ee n d es hi 44 6. 50 25 7. 00 64 0. 67 4. 23 :1 1 9 .1 7 ( 2 5 .9 5 ) 4. 07 5. 00 7. 00 l ig ht c re am l ig ht g re en e la ic hi 29 7. 33 20 3. 25 62 4. 33 4. 54 :1 1 8 .0 6 ( 2 5 .1 4 ) 5. 83 6. 67 7. 33 l ig h t y el lo w g re en k as ba 32 6. 00 22 2. 00 7 .0 5 .6 7 4. 64 :1 1 7 .7 2 ( 2 4 .8 9 ) 6. 40 7. 95 6. 25 l ig ht c re am g re en m cl ea n 59 8. 75 28 4. 25 45 9. 33 3. 72 :1 2 1 .1 8 ( 2 7 .3 9 ) 5. 00 5. 55 7. 25 l ig h t y el lo w l ig h t g re en to g re en n af ar p al 26 9. 67 17 3. 33 36 1. 67 3. 64 :1 2 1 .5 4 ( 2 7 .6 3 ) 6. 83 7. 33 6. 50 l ig ht c re am l ig ht g re en p ia zi 58 9. 67 22 2. 33 70 0. 00 5. 80 :1 1 4 .6 9 ( 2 2 .5 1 ) 4. 83 5. 62 6. 40 l ig ht c re am g re en s e m ± 24 .2 62 8. 14 2 1 5 .1 9 8 8 0. 33 5 0. 44 1 0. 08 1 n s c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 74 .7 88 25 .0 98 46 .8 5 1. 03 3 1. 36 0 0. 24 8 n s = n o n -s ig n if ic an t pathak et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):25-29, 2013 27 23rd february in cvs. deshi and mclean, respectively, while it was on 7th march in cv. china. the first phase concluded by 9th march in cvs. china and piazi, but was 15th march in cv. nafarpal. duration of the first phase (male phase) lasted only 4±1 days in cv. china, and 16±4 days in cvs. deshi and piazi. the second phase, i.e., hermaphrodite phase, was found to overlap slightly with the first phase. hermaphrodite flowers started opening by 7th march in cv. piazi, and were noted to open last in cv. nafarpal (15 th march). hermaphrodite-flower opening ended early in cv. china (13th march), and on 22nd march in cv. nafarpal. duration of the second phase of flowering varied between 4±0 days in cv. elaichi and 7±2 days in cv. nafarpal. the last phase, i.e., pseudohermaphrodite phase, started one to two days, before or just after completion, of the second phase. among the cultivars studied, pseudohermaphrodite phase was earlier (between 12th march and 18th 19th march) in cvs. china and piazi and continued until 21st to 27th march in cv. nafarpal. duration of this phase varied between 6±2 days in cv. piazi and 8±1 days in cv. mclean. in general, the first phase of flowering (male phase) was the longest of the three phases and took up almost 40-50% of the total flowering duration, followed by the third phase (pseudohermaphrodite phase). similar observations were also reported by chadha and rajpoot (1969) and stern and gazit (1996). total flowering duration in litchi varied between (as low as) 13±4 days in cv. china, to 30±3 days in cv. piazi. results showed that cultivars that start flowering early in the season take longer to complete flowering cycle, whereas, those that start flowering later in the season, take a shorter time to complete flowering. this may be due to increase in temperature during later part of the season. it was also observed that if the panicle starts flowering too table 3. percentage anthesis at different times of the day in various litchi cultivars cultivar before 7 am 7 8 am 8 -10 am 10 -12 am 12 2 pm 2 4 pm 4 6 pm china 48.15 12.96 18.52 14.81 3.70 1.85 (43.94) (21.08) (25.49) (22.63) (11.06) (7.82) deshi 42.86 9.52 28.57 9.52 9.52 (40.89) (17.95) (32.31) (17.97) (17.97) elaichi 37.50 12.50 18.75 18.75 6.25 6.25 (37.76) (20.69) (25.66) (25.66) (14.48) (14.48) kasba 39.28 10.71 21.43 14.29 7.14 3.57 3.57 (38.81) (19.10) (27.58) (22.21) (15.50) (10.89) (10.89) mclean 55.00 10.00 17.50 10.00 2.50 5.00 (47.87) (18.43) (24.73) (18.43) (9.09) (12.92) nafarpal 40.00 11.43 25.71 14.29 8.57 (39.23) (19.76) (30.47) (22.21) (17.02) piazi 52.78 2.78 25.00 13.89 5.56 (46.59) (9.59) (29.99) (21.88) (13.63) sem ± 0.456 0.484 0.336 0.208 0.326 cd (p=0.05) 1.406 1.491 1.036 0.642 1.005 table 4. anther dehiscence at different times of the day (based on 20 flowers tagged at 8 am) cultivar 9-10 10-11 11-12 12-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6 a m a m am p m p m p m p m p m p m china 6 5 3 1 1 1 deshi 8 5 4 1 1 1 elaichi 5 5 2 2 1 1 kasba 10 5 3 1 mclean 9 3 4 2 2 1 nafarpal 6 4 4 1 1 piazi 8 4 5 2 1 sem ± 0.504 ns ns ns ns cd (p=0.05) 1.553 ns=non-significant late in the season, it may skip the first phase or the first phase may last one to two days; the second phase of flowering started immediately thereafter. length of the flowering cycle varies with the genotype and weather, and, is much shorter under warm temperatures (stern and gazit, 2003). number of male flowers was maximum (598.75/ panicle) in cv. mclean, followed by cv. piazi (589.67/ panicle), compared to 112.67/panicle in cv. china. number of hermaphrodite flowers per panicle was also found to be maximum (284.25) in cv. mclean, and only 173.33/ panicle in cv. nafarpal. number of pseudohermaphrodite flowers per panicle varied between 361.67 in cv. nafarpal and 705.67 in cv. kasba. average percentage of pseudohermaphrodite flowers per panicle was higher, followed by male flowers, in all the varieties studied except cv. china (which showed higher number of hermaphrodite flowers than male flowers). sex ratio (male:hermaphrodite) of flowers varied between 2.74:1 in cv. china and 5.8:1 in cv. piazi. similar observation was also recorded by sarkar and bondopadhyay (1989). floral biology of some litchi cultivars j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):25-29, 2013 28 table 6. pollen germination percentage in different concentrations of sucrose solution cultivar concentration of sucrose solution (%) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 china 8.33 13.79 19.05 58.06 43.33 20.69 15.00 0.00 (16.77) (21.79) (25.88) (49.66) (41.17) (27.05) (22.79) (4.05) deshi 4.00 10.34 28.21 47.17 29.17 12.28 10.26 0.00 (11.54) (18.75) (32.08) (43.37) (32.68) (18.68) (18.68) (4.05) elaichi 11.76 20.00 28.57 55.88 37.15 18.18 8.00 7.41 (20.05) (26.56) (32.31) (48.38) (37.55) (24.25) (16.43) (15.56) kasba 11.11 18.75 26.09 53.84 35.71 13.13 7.64 3.45 (19.45) (25.66) (30.72) (47.20) (36.69) (21.24) (16.04) (10.63) mclean 10.00 14.89 21.62 51.11 31.58 13.51 7.14 4.44 (18.42) (22.69) (27.71) (45.64) (34.19) (21.56) (15.50) (12.10) nafarpal 4.54 11.11 29.51 42.31 46.15 21.74 6.45 2.00 (12.24) (19.47) (32.90) (40.58) (42.79) (27.79) (14.71) (7.95) piazi 6.12 8.93 20.83 56.82 42.86 8.47 4.26 2.78 (14.32) (17.38) (27.15) (48.92) (40.89) (16.92) (11.89) (9.58) sem ± 0.538 0.304 0.361 1.208 0.477 0.400 0.203 1.099 cd (p=0.05) 1.659 0.938 1.113 3.725 1.469 1.233 0.625 3.387 average (of three types) flower size was found to be largest in cv. china (7.17mm x 7.12mm), and was smallest in cv. deshi (4.07mm x 5.00mm). maximum length (7.17mm) and diameter (7.95 mm) of flower was noted in cvs. china and kasba, respectively. this result is similar to the report of menzel et al (2002). in general, flower diameter was slightly higher than flower length, except in cv. china. average number of stamens in each flower varied between 6.25 (cv. kasba) and 7.33 (cv. elaichi). active stigma of the hermaphrodite flowers was generally bi-lobed, with two ovules on the base; but, triand tetra-lobed stigma, with respective number of ovules on the base were also noted in almost all the cultivars under study. length of stigma and stamens varied with type of flower. male flowers had table 5. pollen viability and pollen size in various litchi cultivars cultivar percentage size of pollen of viable pollen length (µ) diameter (µ) usingacetocarmine test china 90.20 31.25 31.00 (71.76) deshi 89.36 32.50 32.50 (70.96) elaichi 82.14 30.57 29.50 (65.00) kasba 82.15 36.80 32.28 (65.01) mclean 90.78 39.86 39.00 (72.36) nafarpal 83.33 36.09 34.00 (65.99) piazi 91.38 37.86 30.86 (72.99) sem ± 0.536 0.225 0.148 cd (p=0.05) 1.653 0.693 0.456 well-developed and longest stamens in while female parts (ovary and stigma) were very poorly/not developed. shortest stamens were seen in hermaphrodite flowers and rarely exceeded length of the ovule, but, both stigma and ovary were well developed here. pseudohermaphrodite flowers were somewhat similar to male flowers in respect of stamen development, and functioned as male; development of ovary and stigma in this type of flowers was superior to that in the male but not well-enough as in hermaphrodite flowers, to set fruit. floral disc in cvs. elaichi and mclean was lightyellow in colour, while, rest of the varieties had light-cream coloured floral disc. colour of the flower panicle was green in cvs. elaichi, kasba and piazi, light-green in cvs. nafarpal and deshi, light-green to green in cv. mclean, and yellowishgreen in cv. china. observation on anthesis was recorded from 7 am to 6 pm. maximum percentage of anthesis was seen between 7 am and 8 am in cvs. elaichi, kasba, mclean and china; and between 8 am and 10 am in vars. nafarpal, deshi and piazi, and gradually slowed down thereafter. however, mejority of the anthesis was noted before 7 am in all the cultivars under study. this indicates that anthesis continues throughout the night and the following day (chadha and rajpoot, 1969). anther dehiscence was highest in the mornings between 9 am and 10am (chadha and rajpoot, 1969). after 12 noon, it slowed down drastically. percentage of viable pollen varied between 82.14 in var. elaichi and 91.38 in cv. piazi. other varieties fell in this range. size of pollen was largest (39.86µ x 39.00µ) in cv. mclean, compared to 30.57µ x 29.50µ in cv. elaichi. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):25-29, 2013 pathak et al 29 overall pollen germination was maximum in 15% sucrose solution, except in cv. nafarpal, which showed maximum pollen germination in 20% sucrose solution (shukla et al, 1978). among the cultivars studied, ‘china’ showed maximum (58.06%) pollen germination in 15% sucrose solution, followed by 56.82% in cv. piazi. references chadha, k.l. and rajpoot, m.s. 1969. studies on flowering biology, fruit set and its retention and quality of some litchi varieties. ind. j. hort., 26:124-129 menzel, c.m., bagshaw, j., campbell, t., greer, n., noller, j., olesen, t. and waite, g.k. 2002. lychee information kit. queensland department of primary industries, nambour, australia sarkar, t.k. and bandyopadhyay, a. 1989. flowering behavior of some important litchi (litchi chinensis) varieties of the gangetic plains of west bengal. envir. ecol., 7:189-192 shukla, k.s., misra, r.l., kaul, m.k. and prasad, a. 1978. studies on pollen germination of certain fruits. haryana j. hortl. sci., 7:162-164 stern, r.a. and gazit, s. 1996. lychee pollination by the honeybee. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 121:152-157 stern, r.a. and gazit, s. 2003. the reproductive biology of litchi. hort. rev., 28:393-453 (ms received 25 august 2012, accepted 04 december 2012, revised 30 january 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):25-29, 2013 floral biology of some litchi cultivars introduction brinjal (solanum melongena l., 2n = 2x = 24) is one of the most commonly grown vegetables in india as also other parts of the world. it can be grown round the year in almost all parts of the country (except in the plains) due to its wide adaptability. it is cultivated for its tender and immature fruits under tropical and subtropical conditions in our country. brinjal has medicinal properties. its fruits are excellent for remedy liver problems. brinjal, being native to india and often a cross-pollinated crop, possesses considerable diversity for plant type, fruit colour, fruit shape, fruit size, yield and other quality traits. this offers an opportunity to exploit genetic divergence for improvement of the crop. the improvement may be with respect to developing new germplasm, varieties or hybrids. combining ability analysis helps identify of good combining parents and superior f 1 crosses. the most efficient method providing information on general combining ability (gca) and specific combining ability (sca) effects involving large numbers of studies on combining ability for yield and quality traits in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) bharat bhushan, a.s. sidhu, a.s. dhatt and ajay kumar department of vegetable crops punjab agricultural university, ludhiana-141 004, india e-mail: ajmerdhatt@gmail.com abstract the experimental material in brinjal (eggplant) comprised 19 parents (15 lines + 4 testers), 60 f 1 crosses and two standard checks (bh-1 and bh-2). this was grown in randomized block design, with three replications. lines vs. testers showed significance for all characters except plant height, plant spread, number of primary branches, dry matter, total sugars and total phenol. analysis for parents vs. hybrids showed significance for all the characters except average fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, plant spread and number of primary branches. analysis of variance for combining ability revealed mean squares due to lines and testers were significant for all the characters except plant height, plant spread, number of primary branches, total sugars, total phenol and content of anthocyanins. the ratio of variance due to specific combining ability and general combining ability (σσσσσ2sca: σσσσσ2gca) was greater than unity, indicating non-additive genetic control for all traits except plant spread and total phenols. among the females, punjab barsati, pbr-91-1, rcmbl-1-1, bsr-11; and among the males, bb-93-c and u-8-61-3 were best general combiners for yield and yield components. punjab barsati was the best combiner for days to 50% flowering, days to first fruit harvest, number of fruits per plant and number of primary branches. the cross jbr-3-16 ××××× pb-64 manifested best sca effects for days to 50% flowering; pbr-91-1jbsr-98-2 for average fruit weight; bsr-11 ××××× pb-64 for fruit length; bsr-11××××× u-8-61-3 for fruit girth, and the cross habl-1 ××××× jbsr-98-2 for yield per plant and per hectare. key words: brinjal, general combining ability, specific combining ability, additive gene action, crosses j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):145-151, 2012 parents is line × tester design. it can also help determine gene action with reference to the traits under study. estimation of combining ability has been previously done by baig and patil (2002), kumar and pathania (2003), singh et al (2003), singh and singh (2004) and singh (2006). material and methods the present investigation was carried out at the department of vegetable crops, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during rainy season of the year 200607 using 15 diverse lines, four testers and two standard checks (bh-1 and bh-2). parents were crossed to obtain 60 f 1 hybrids. these f 1 hybrids, along with their parents and standard checks, were transplanted to the field with spacing of 60cm x 45cm. other cultural practices were followed as per the package of practices recommended by punjab agricultural university, ludhiana. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications. observation recorded were: days to 50% flowering, days to first fruit harvest, average fruit weight 146 bharat bhushan et al (g), fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), number of fruits per plant, plant height (cm), plant spread (cm), number of primary branches, yield per plot (kg), yield per hectare (q), dry matter content (%), total sugars (%), total phenols (mg/100g) (swain and hill, 1959), and anthocyanin content (mg/100g) (mahadevan and sridhar, 1986). data were recorded on per plot basis with three replications. analysis of variance for the design was performed to obtain error mean squares, for use in further analysis. combining ability analysis for various traits was done as per kempthorne (1957) with computer software cpcs (singh and cheema, 1985). results and discussion highly significant combining ability was observed for all the characters, except number of primary branches, total sugars and anthocyanin content. similarly, mean squares due to males were highly significant for all characters except plant height, plant spread, total sugars, total phenols and anthocyanin content. mean sum of squares due to females and males were also highly significant except for plant height, plant spread, number of primary branches, total sugars, total phenols and anthocyanin content. ratio of variance due to specific combining ability and general combining ability effects (σ2sca: σ2gca) was greater than unity, indicating non-additive genetic control for all the traits under study except plant spread and total phenols. this indicated that non-additive gene effects had a greater role in controlling inheritance of characters like days to 50% flowering, days to first fruit harvest, average fruit weight, fruit length, fruit girth, number of fruits per plant, plant height, number of primary branches, yield per plot, dry matter content, total sugars, anthocyanin content and yield per hectare. this indicates that heterosis breeding can be exploited for improvement in these traits. for plant spread and total phenols, additive gene action was predominant, whereby, improvement can be made by selection. padmanabham and jagadish (1996) reported most of the characters (including yield per plant, fruit weight, number of fruits per plant and plant height) to be predominantly governed by non-additive gene action. similarly, aswani and khandewal (2005) reported predominance of non-additive variance for most characters, including fruit yield, plant height and plant spread. general combining ability (gca) reflects the average performance of a parent in a series of cross-combinations, estimated from performance of f 1 s. estimates for general combining ability effects are presented in table 1. for days to 50% flowering, habl-1, jamuni gola and punjab barsati were good combiners among the female lines for earliness, due to the highly significant, negative general combining ability effects. however, among males, pb-64 was found to be a good combiner for earliness. days to first fruit harvest showed that the female parents punjab barsati, bsr-11, jamuni gola and jbr-3-16 were good combiners for early fruit harvest. among the males, pb-64 was found to be a good combiner for days to first fruit harvest. average fruit weight indicated that the female parents rcmbl-1-1 and jbr-3-16 and the male parents u-8-61-3 and bb-93c were good combiners for improvement in average fruit weight in brinjal. for fruit length, gca effect among females was significant in pb-1, punjab barsati, pb-2 and ks-331. among males, u-8-61-3 and pb-64 were found to be good combiners for improving fruit length. for fruit girth, the female lines rcmbl-1-1, ppl, jamuni gola, ivbr-3 and ndb-21 and the tester bb-93-c exhibited significant, positive general combining ability effects. for number of fruits per plant, female lines jbr-3-16, jamuni gola, punjab barsati and ks-331 were found to be good combiners; while, among male lines, jbsr-98-2 and u-8-61-3 were good general combiners, with significant, positive gca effects. for plant height, among the female lines, habl-1 and pb2 recorded highly significant, positive general combining ability effects and were, hence, good combiners. male line bb-93-c was the best combiner for plant height. lines pb1, habl-1 and rcmbl-1-1 exhibited high and significant, positive general combining ability effects for plant spread. among the testers, bb-93-c was found to be a good combiner, exhibiting significant, positive gca effects. as for number of primary branches, among the females ks331, ivbr-3 and, punjab barsati, and among males, u-861-3 exhibited high and significant, positive general combining ability effects. high yield is the prime objective of most varietal improvement programme and the new variety is expected to have a yield potential higher than or equal to existing cultivars. punjab barsati, followed by pbr-91-1, rcmbl-1-1 and bsr-11 among the female parents; and bb-93-c and u-8-61-3 among male parents, were found to be good combiners for yield. analysis of combining abilities for dry matter content revealed that among females, habl-1, jamuni gola, punjab barsati, rcmbl-1-1 and pbr-91-1 were good general combiners. among males, jbsr-98-2 was found to be a good general combiner. for total sugars, among the females, best combiners were pb-2, ppl, jpm/pkb-105-2 and pb1. among males, the best combiners were bb-93-c and uj. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):145-151, 2012 147 8-61-3. for total phenols, pb-2, pbr-91-1 and pb-1 among females, and among males, u-8-61-3, bb-93-c and pb-64 were found to be good combiners. for anthocyanin content, female lines rcmbl-1-1, punjab barsati and ppl, and a male line bb-93-c, were found to be good general combiners. having observed the overall performance of all female parents for general combining ability effects, it can be inferred that the female parent punjab barsati was the best combiner for days to 50% flowering, days to first fruit harvest, number of fruits per plant and number of primary branches. the female parent rcmbl-1-1 was also a good combiner for average fruit weight, fruit girth and plant spread. bsr-11 was the best combiner for days to first fruit harvest and for total yield. among the testers, bb-93-c was a good combiner for average fruit weight, fruit girth, plant height, plant spread, yield per plot and total yield. pb-64 was the best male parent for days to 50% flowering and days to first fruit harvest. u8-61-3 was the best male combiner for average fruit weight, fruit length and number of primary branches. variation in combining ability among genotypes has been reported earlier by varshney et al (1999), das and barva (2001), kumar and pathania (2003) and ashwani and khandelwal (2005). specific combining ability (sca) indicates deviation in performance of a cross-combination from that predicted, on the basis of general combining abilities of parents. it can be either negative or positive. estimates for specific combining ability effects for different traits are presented in table 2. days to 50% flowering in eleven crosses showed desirable significant, negative specific combining ability effects. the cross jbr-3-16× pb-64 recorded highest value for significant, negative sca effects. kumar and pathania (2003) and ashwani and khandewal (2005) also reported significant negative sca effects for days to first fruit harvest. for this trait, thirteen crosses showed desirable significant negative, specific combining ability effects. the cross combination punjab barsati × u-8-61-3 recorded highest negative sca effects, followed by the other crosses. for average fruit weight, ten crosses showed positive specific combining ability effects. the cross pbr-91-1 × jbsr-98-2 was observed to be the best specific combiner for this character, followed by the other crosses. padmanabham and jagadish (1990) and varshney et al (1999) also found significant, positive specific combining ability effects for average fruit weight. among the thirteen crosses exhibiting significant, positive specific combining ability effects for fruit length, highest sca effect was recorded in the cross bsr-11 × pb-64, followed by the other crosses. significant estimates of sca effects of crosses for fruit length in brinjal were also reported earlier by varshney et al (1999) and ashwani and khandewal (2005). for fruit girth, 17 cross-combinations showed significant, positive sca effects. the cross-combination bsr-11 × u-8-61-3 recorded highest sca estimates, followed by the other crosses. ingale and patil (1997) and varshney et al (1999) also found significant estimates for specific combining ability effects of crosses made for fruit diameter. number of fruits per plant revealed that thirteen crosses had significant desirable specific combining ability effects. the cross ivbr-3 × pb-64 exhibited highest positive sca effects, followed by the other crosses. these results are in conformity with findings of padmanabham and jagadish (1996) and ashwani and khandewal (2005). sca effects on plant height revealed fifteen crosses as having significant, positive sca estimates. the cross habl-1 × u-8-61-3 showed highest significant, positive sca effects, followed by the other crosses. significant estimates for specific combining ability effects of crosses for plant height in brinjal have also been reported by ponnuswami and irulappan (1992) and varshney et al (1999). for plant spread, 11 cross-combinations exhibited significant, positive specific combining ability effects. crosscombinations with high values for significant, positive sca effects for this trait were ivbr-3 × bb-93-c, followed by other crosses. sca effects on number of primary branches revealed that 17 crosses had significant positive effects. the cross pbr-91-1 × bb-93-c showed highest significant positive sca. for yield per plot and yield per hectare, specific combining ability revealed that 13 cross combinations had significant positive estimates. the combination habl-1 × jbsr-98-2 was observed to have highest significant positive sca, followed by the other crosses. ingale and patil (1997), varshney et al (1999) and ashwani and khandewal (2005) also reported similar observations in f 1 hybrids of brinjal for fruit yield per plant. significant estimates for specific combining ability of crosses for yield per hectare in brinjal was also reported earlier by varshney et al (1999) and kumar and pathania (2003). in the case of dry matter content, seven crosscombinations showed positive, significant sca. the cross habl-1 × bb-93-c gave highest significant positive sca effects for this trait. in the case of total sugars, analysis of j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):145-151, 2012 combining ability studies for yield and quality in brinjal 148 t ab le 1 . g en er al c om b in in g ab il it y ef fe ct s of s om e li n es a n d t es te rs f or v ar io u s tr ai ts i n b ri n ja l p ar en t d ay s d ay s to a ve ra ge f ru it f ru it n o . o f p la n t p la n t to 5 0 % fi rs t fr u it fr u it le ng th gi rt h fr u it s p er he ig ht sp re ad fl ow er in g h ar v es t w ei gh t p la n t f em al e p ar en t b s r -1 1 0. 28 -1 .6 2 * * -1 3. 31 0. 14 -0 .3 7 -0 .5 1 -8 .2 5 * * -7 .3 6 * * iv b r -3 -0 .9 7 -0 .4 6 -2 0 .8 1 * * -1 .3 7 * * 0. 71 ** 0. 91 1. 32 -1 .8 7 h a b l -1 -2 .8 7 * 0. 38 -5 .8 1 0. 51 -0 .6 4 * * 0. 51 6. 24 * 6. 80 ** p u n ja b b ar sa ti -2 .6 3 * * -2 .3 7 * * 9. 19 2. 36 ** -1 .1 1* 1. 58 * 1. 72 3. 55 jp m /p k b -1 0 5 -2 0. 53 1. 21 ** 10 .0 3 -0 .7 0 0. 09 -0 .0 1 2. 88 0. 89 p b r -9 1 -1 -0 .8 8 -0 .0 4 -1 8 .7 2 * * -2 .7 8 * * -0 .4 2* -1 .2 6* -3 .0 1 -5 .5 3* r c m b l -1 -1 2. 63 ** 1. 38 ** 6 8 .3 6 * * -0 .2 7 1. 35 ** -3 .9 2 * * 3. 34 5. 35 * p b -1 -0 .3 0 1. 71 ** -1 2. 06 4. 52 ** -0 .8 2 * * -0 .2 6 -0 .0 9 6. 95 ** h -8 -0 .8 8 -0 .1 2 9. 19 -0 .5 9 -0 .4 4* 0. 41 3. 39 1. 08 n d b -2 1 0. 78 1. 21 ** 10 .4 4 -1 .8 0 * * 0. 53 * -. 3 0 9 * * -1 .7 1 -5 .9 0* jb r -3 -1 6 2. 95 ** -0 .7 9* 4 2 .5 3 * * 0. 46 0. 30 3. 41 ** 1. 23 5. 11 k s -3 31 -0 .4 7 0. 63 -1 6 .2 2 * 1. 16 ** -0 .6 4 * * 1. 49 * 0. 85 2. 60 ja m u n i g o la -2 .6 5 * * -1 .2 1 * * -3 5 .3 9 * * -2 .2 5 * * 0. 74 ** 2. 08 ** -8 .0 6 -1 .6 3 p p l 1. 53 0. 71 -2 3 .7 2 * * -0 .9 4* 0. 76 ** -0 .2 6 -5 .5 7* -5 .2 5* p b -2 -1 .3 0 -0 .6 2 -3 .7 2 1. 56 ** -0 .0 3 -0 .0 9 5. 73 * 1. 60 c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 1. 98 0. 75 13 .4 5 0. 75 0. 42 1. 18 5. 51 5. 16 c d ( p = 0 .0 1 ) 2. 60 0. 98 17 .7 0 0. 96 0. 55 1. 6 7. 25 6. 8 m al e p ar en t b b -9 3 -c 1. 98 ** 0. 78 ** 1 2 .8 6 * * -2 .0 7 * * 0. 91 ** -0 .4 5 3. 62 ** 3. 16 ** u -8 -6 1 -3 -0 .6 0 -0 .2 4 1 8 .1 9 * * 2. 16 ** 0. 04 0. 71 ** 2. 29 2. 26 p b -6 4 -0 .9 1 * -0 .5 2 * * -2 7 .0 3 * * 0. 54 ** -0 .9 7 * * -1 .4 3 * * -2 .2 1 -2 .0 4 jb s r -9 8 -2 -0 .4 7 -0 .3 1 -4 .0 3 -0 .6 4 * * 0. 02 1. 17 ** -3 .6 4 * * -3 .4 1 * * c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 0. 91 0. 34 6. 22 0. 33 0. 19 0. 54 2. 55 2. 35 c d ( p = 0 .0 1 ) 1. 19 0. 44 8. 18 0. 43 0. 25 0. 71 3. 35 3. 13 * a n d * * s ig n if ic an t at 5 a n d 1 p er c en t, r es p ec ti v el y n o . o f y ie ld y ie ld d ry t o ta l t o ta l a n th o cy an in p ri m ar y p er p er m at te r su ga rs p h en o ls co n te n t b ra n ch es p lo t h ec ta re co n te n t -0 .9 2 * * 1. 76 ** 6 5 .5 4 * * -0 .8 1 * * -0 .2 5 * * -3 2 .5 6 * * -0 .1 8 0. 89 ** -0 .3 2 -1 1. 64 -0 .3 4 0. 05 10 .4 3 -0 .3 5 * * 0. 49 -0 .2 1 5 7 .3 1 * * 1. 07 ** -0 .0 6 -1 7. 49 0. 11 0. 84 ** 3. 05 ** 1 1 3 .2 9 * * 0. 85 ** -0 .0 6 14 .5 2 0. 42 ** -0 .2 1 -0 .2 6 -1 1. 99 0. 35 0. 22 ** 19 .9 7 0. 23 -0 .8 9 * * 2. 20 ** 8 1 .8 9 * * 0. 65 * -0 .1 8* 3 1 .2 3 * * 0. 18 0. 04 2. 01 ** 7 4 .7 9 * * 0. 75 ** -0 .0 2 -8 .0 7 0. 45 ** -0 .9 8 * * -3 .4 9 * * -1 2 8 .9 4 * * -1 .0 9 * * 0. 15 * 28 .9 4* 0. 16 -0 .0 7 -0 .1 8 -6 .2 2 -0 .3 0 0. 14 -1 3. 68 0. 22 -0 .7 4* 0. 32 12 .2 9 0. 46 0. 08 -1 .5 0 -0 .1 0 -0 .1 0 0. 35 13 .2 1 -0 .3 2 -0 .0 4 -3 3 .5 1 * * -0 .3 9 * * 0. 95 ** -1 .8 5 * * -7 0 .4 9 * * -0 .7 8 * * -0 .1 6* -1 1. 98 -0 .1 1 -0 .6 5* -1 .5 7 * * -5 7 .6 9 * * 0. 93 ** -0 .1 9 * * -1 8. 97 0. 13 -0 .2 7 -2 .4 6 * * -9 0 .6 6 * * -0 .0 9 0. 23 ** -2 3 .5 7 * 0. 36 ** 0. 43 0. 64 23 .9 3 0. 33 0. 26 ** 3 2 .2 8 * * -0 .1 3 0. 64 0. 83 31 .1 5 0. 55 0. 15 23 .4 7 0. 26 0. 84 1. 09 41 .0 0 0. 72 0. 19 30 .9 0 .0 .3 4 0. 27 3. 56 ** 1 3 2 .2 4 * * 0. 03 0 .0 9 6 * * 1 5 .2 7 * * 0. 17 ** 0. 42 ** 1. 48 ** 5 3 .6 4 * * -0 .1 5 0. 07 8* 1 6 .8 6 * * -0 .1 1 -0 .3 9 * * -4 .0 5 * * -1 4 9 .4 9 * * -0 .3 2 * * -0 .0 9 8 * * 1 5 .2 6 * * -0 .1 9 * * 0. 25 -0 .9 9 * * -3 6 .4 0 * * 0. 44 ** -0 .0 68 7. 34 -0 .1 0 0. 29 0. 38 14 .4 2 0. 25 0. 07 2 10 .8 6 0. 12 0. 38 0. 50 18 .9 8 0. 32 0. 09 4 14 .2 9 0. 15 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):145-151, 2012 bharat bhushan et al 149 t ab le 2 . s p ec if ic c om b in in g ab il it y ef fe ct s of c ro ss es f or v ar io u s tr ai ts i n b ri n ja l h yb ri d d ay s d ay s t o a ve ra ge fr ui t fr ui t n o. o f pl an t pl an t to 5 0% fi rs t f ru it fr ui t le ng th gi rth fr ui ts p er he ig ht sp re ad flo w er in g ha rv es t w ei gh t pl an t b sr -1 1´ b b -9 3c -4 .6 2* * -2 .4 4* * -1 02 .0 2* * -3 .2 9* * -1 .7 3* * 5. 95 ** -8 .9 6 -9 .4 5* b sr -1 1´ u -8 -6 13 1. 18 1. 91 ** 10 2. 63 ** -6 .6 4* * 3. 82 ** -6 .8 7* * 10 .1 9* * -1 1. 79 ** b sr -1 1´ pb -6 4 5. 82 ** 0. 22 7. 86 8. 53 ** -1 .5 2* * -2 .4 0* 14 .5 9* * 12 .3 0* * b sr -1 1´ jb sr -9 82 -0 .9 5 0. 31 -8 .4 1. 40 * -0 .5 5 3. 32 ** -1 2. 82 ** -5 .4 6 iv b r -3 ´b b -9 3c -1 .1 4 -1 .6 1* * 8. 80 0. 53 -0 .2 9 -5 .8 0* * 13 .9 6* * 13 .9 3* * iv b r -3 ´u -8 -6 13 7. 10 ** -1 .2 5 -4 .8 -4 .2 0* * 0. 05 -0 .6 2 -1 3. 41 ** 12 .1 9* * iv b r -3 ´p b -6 4 -5 .1 4* * 0. 72 -1 1. 30 3. 95 ** -1 .7 3* * 6. 84 ** 14 .1 7* * 6. 41 iv b r -3 ´j b sr -9 82 -0 .0 3 2. 14 ** 7. 36 -0 .2 7 1. 97 ** -0 .4 2 -1 5. 73 ** -1 3. 54 ** h a b l -1 ´b b -9 3c 7. 02 ** 9. 88 ** -5 2. 86 ** -1 .1 2 1. 14 ** -6 .7 1* * -8 .9 4 -1 2. 53 ** h a b l -1 ´u -8 -6 13 -1 .7 3 -4 .4 2* * 5. 13 0. 30 -0 .2 3 4. 79 ** 15 .1 1* * 7. 55 h a b l -1 ´p b -6 4 -0 .7 5 1. 55 * 13 .6 9 -5 .1 6* * 0. 84 * -2 .7 3* * -1 4. 82 ** 12 .1 6* * h a b l -1 ´j b sr -9 82 -4 .5 3* * -7 .0 2* * 34 .0 2* * 5. 99 * -0 .7 4* 4. 66 ** -7 .1 7 -5 .1 7 pu nj ab b ar sa ti 5. 52 ** 2. 63 * -3 7. 86 ** -6 .0 7* * 0. 60 2. 20 * 13 .3 4* * 5. 72 ´b b -9 3c pu nj ab b ar sa ti -5 .5 6* * -7 .3 3* * 13 .4 7 3. 05 ** -1 .5 6* * 1. 04 -5 .9 7 -1 2. 49 ** ´u -8 -6 13 pu nj ab b ar sa ti -1 .5 8 -1 .0 2 8. 69 8. 08 ** -0 .2 8 -2 .8 2* * -1 3. 10 ** -1 3. 47 ** ´p b -6 4 pu nj ab b ar sa ti 5. 63 ** 5. 72 ** 15 .6 9 -5 .0 6* * 1. 25 ** -0 .4 2 14 .7 3* * 5. 24 ´j b sr -9 82 jp m /p k b -1 05 -2 2. 02 0. 72 11 1. 30 ** 0. 02 1. 30 ** -3 .5 4* * 13 .2 3* * 6. 81 ´b b -9 3c jp m /p k b -1 05 -2 -1 .0 6 -0 .2 5 -1 7. 36 3. 93 ** 2. 18 ** 2. 29 * -1 2. 89 ** -1 2. 32 ** ´u -8 -6 13 jp m /p k b -1 05 -2 5. 24 ** 2. 05 ** -4 2. 13 ** -1 .7 0* * -0 .5 1 -3 .9 0* * -7 .1 3 -4 .9 8 ´p b -6 4 jp m /p k b -1 05 -2 -1 .2 0 -2 .5 2* * -5 1. 80 ** -2 .2 5* * -0 .9 8* * 5. 16 ** -8 .9 9 -5 .6 4 ´j b sr -9 82 pb r -9 11´ b b -9 3c -4 .5 6* * -2 .6 9* * -4 9. 94 ** 0. 64 -0 .7 0 2. 70 ** 6. 63 -4 .8 6 pb r -9 11u -8 -6 13 5. 35 ** -0 .0 05 -4 6. 94 ** 0. 24 -0 .7 5* 0. 21 13 .4 3* * 12 .4 8* * pb r -9 11 ́ pb -6 4 1. 66 0. 30 -2 6. 72 * -1 .1 5 2. 04 ** 0. 34 -1 2. 27 * -1 1. 85 pb r -9 12. 55 2. 39 * 12 3. 61 ** 0. 26 1. 42 ** -3 .2 5* * 7. 20 8. 55 1j b sr -9 82 r c m b l -1 -1 -0 .8 1 -0 .4 4 19 .6 3 -0 .9 3 1. 09 ** -0 .9 6 -1 2. 60 ** -7 .4 8 ´b b -9 3c r c m b l -1 -1 2. 43 3. 57 ** 57 .6 3* * -3 .1 6* * -0 .7 3* -1 .1 2 -8 .3 6 -6 .0 4 ´u -8 -6 13 r c m b l -1 -1 -0 .2 5 1. 55 * -2 7. 13 * -2 .4 3* * 0. 16 -1 .9 8 -9 .1 8 12 .6 6* * ´p b -6 4 r c m b l -1 -1 -1 .3 6 -4 .6 8* * -5 0. 13 ** 6. 53 ** 0. 47 4. 07 ** 12 .7 2* * 7. 97 ´j b sr -9 82 pb -1 b b -9 3c -2 .1 4 -0 .1 1 -3 .2 7 0. 33 2. 44 ** 1. 03 5. 71 -6 .0 6 pb -1 u -8 -6 13 7. 43 3. 24 ** -1 1. 94 4. 98 ** -0 .5 6 1. 21 -1 3. 56 ** -7 .8 9 pb -1 pb -6 4 -5 .4 5* * -1 .4 4* * 38 .2 7* * -1 .9 4* * 1. 41 ** -2 .3 2* 13 .0 3* * -4 .9 9 n o. o f y ie ld y ie ld d ry to ta l to ta l a nt ho cy an in pr im ar y pe r pe r m at te r su ga rs ph en ol s co nt en t br an ch es pl ot he ct ar e co nt en t -1 .7 4* * -1 .8 9* * -7 0. 51 * 1. 60 ** -0 .3 8* * 33 .3 5 -0 .1 9 1. 77 ** 3. 02 ** 11 3. 02 ** -0 .3 4 0. 15 -3 8. 81 0. 15 -0 .9 9 -4 .1 5* * -1 54 .2 0* * -1 .3 8* * 0. 45 ** -2 8. 49 0. 29 0. 17 3. 02 ** 11 1. 69 ** -0 .2 4 -0 .3 7* * 65 .9 5* * -0 .1 7 1. 57 ** -1 .3 7 -5 1. 40 1. 50 ** -0 .1 6 17 .3 9 0. 31 -1 .4 9* * 0. 34 13 .6 3 -1 .0 0* 0. 37 ** 19 .5 9 -0 .7 3* * 1. 58 ** 0. 99 36 .5 3 -0 .1 5 -0 .2 7* -2 4. 65 0. 28 -0 .5 3 0. 04 1. 23 -1 .3 4* * -0 .1 2 -6 3. 22 ** -0 .8 2* * 1. 76 ** -1 1. 76 ** -4 35 .9 6* * 1. 70 ** 0. 11 -2 6. 72 -0 .2 2 1. 48 ** 1. 79 * 67 .3 3* 0. 57 -0 .4 4* * 31 .3 0 0. 63 ** -0 .6 8 1. 24 45 .8 0 1. 49 ** 0. 17 62 .1 9* * -0 .0 3 1. 06 8. 72 ** 32 2. 81 ** 0. 63 0. 36 ** -1 3. 78 -0 .2 0 -0 .5 5 -1 .3 2 -4 9. 49 -1 .5 2* * -0 .3 8* * -1 2. 51 0. 32 -1 .7 9* * 6. 86 ** 25 5. 40 ** 1. 54 ** -0 .1 8 -2 7. 34 -0 .2 2 1. 46 ** -0 .4 1 -1 5. 55 -1 .0 4* 0. 56 ** 55 .6 5* * -0 .7 8* * 0. 30 -5 .1 3* * -1 90 .3 5* * 1. 03 * 0. 18 -1 6. 04 0. 26 -2 .1 2* * 5. 65 ** 21 1. 95 ** 0. 96 * -0 .2 1 -1 8. 77 0. 72 ** 1. 92 ** -2 .2 9* * -9 2. 41 ** -0 .5 9 -0 .5 5* * -5 2. 61 ** 0. 06 1. 04 -2 .9 3* * -1 06 .3 0* * -1 .3 3* * 0. 11 61 .7 2* * -0 .4 2 -0 .8 3 -0 .4 2 -1 3. 23 -0 .2 3 0. 22 -5 7. 72 ** -0 .2 9 2. 01 ** 2. 12 ** 78 .5 7* * 1. 04 * 0. 38 ** -6 8. 88 ** 0. 77 ** 0. 66 -2 .7 5* * -1 00 .8 6* * -1 .3 2* * 0. 29 * -2 6. 19 -0 .1 7 -1 .9 4* * -1 .5 2* -5 6. 99 * 0. 57 -0 .1 3 -1 8. 43 -0 .6 9* * 1. 56 ** 2. 15 ** 79 .2 7* * -0 .2 9 -0 .1 4 56 .6 1* * 0. 73 ** 1. 74 ** 1. 08 39 .9 7 1. 01 * 0. 13 17 .0 6 0. 19 -1 .6 9* * 0. 60 23 .5 0 0. 45 0. 44 ** -3 5. 84 -0 .1 5 1. 36 * 4. 06 ** 15 0. 14 ** -0 .1 9 -0 .1 3 -5 9. 21 ** 0. 60 ** 0. 41 -5 .7 5* * -2 13 .6 2* * -0 .2 6 -0 .0 4 -2 2. 00 -0 .2 2 1. 77 ** -3 .0 1* * -1 11 .9 6* * -1 .5 0* * -0 .1 6 34 .0 2 0. 34 -0 .7 4 -3 .1 9* * -1 17 .1 9* * 0. 88 0. 14 34 .9 5 -0 .7 1* * 1. 48 ** -0 .4 3 16 .5 2 0. 72 0. 62 ** -2 2. 62 0. 13 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):145-151, 2012 combining ability studies for yield and quality in brinjal 150 t ab le 2 . c on td . h yb ri d d ay s d ay s t o a ve ra ge fr ui t fr ui t n o. o f pl an t pl an t to 5 0% fi rs t f ru it fr ui t le ng th gi rth fr ui ts p er he ig ht sp re ad flo w er in g ha rv es t w ei gh t pl an t n o. o f y ie ld y ie ld d ry to ta l to ta l a nt ho cy an in pr im ar y pe r pe r m at te r su ga rs ph en ol s co nt en t br an ch es pl ot he ct ar e co nt en t pb -1 jb sr -9 82 -0 .3 6 -1 .6 8* * -2 3. 05 -3 .3 7* * -0 .2 8 0. 07 -6 .1 8 12 .5 3* * h -8 ´b b -9 3c -1 .5 6 -1 .9 4* * 35 .4 7* * 1. 69 ** 0. 51 3. 03 ** -8 .3 3 6. 71 h -8 ´u -8 -6 13 5. 35 ** 1. 74 ** -5 3. 19 ** -0 .6 1 -0 .8 2* 1. 21 -5 .5 5 -5 .3 9 h -8 ´p b -6 4 -1 .6 8 -2 .2 7* * -1 7. 97 0. 30 -0 .2 1 2. 67 * -8 .6 7 13 .5 5* * h -8 ´j b sr -9 82 2. 21 2. 47 ** 35 .6 9 -1 .3 8* 0. 52 -6 .9 2* * 7. 56 -1 1. 87 ** n d b -2 1b b -9 3c -5 .2 2* * -0 .2 7 37 .5 5* * 1. 98 ** -0 .1 4 -2 .1 3* 13 .5 2* * 7. 09 n d b -2 1u -8 -6 13 5. 01 ** -0 .2 5 -1 4. 44 0. 52 2. 21 ** -1 .2 8 6. 48 -6 .3 1 n d b -2 1p b -6 4 2. 99 -1 .2 7* * 19 .1 1 -1 .0 8 1. 11 ** -0 .1 5 6. 02 -5 .7 3 n d b -2 1j b sr -9 82 3. 21 1. 81 * -4 2. 22 ** -1 .4 2* -0 .1 8 3. 57 ** -1 4. 03 ** -4 .0 4 jb r -3 -1 6´ b b -9 3c 10 .9 3* * -1 .6 1* * -4 .5 2 -0 .2 4 0. 14 1. 70 -8 .0 9 -1 3. 84 ** jb r -3 -1 6u -8 -6 13 -0 .8 1 3. 07 ** 23 .4 7* -0 .6 8 0. 55 0. 54 -1 2. 59 ** -8 .9 8 jb r -3 -1 6p b -6 4 -8 .1 7* * -4 .2 7* * 38 .6 9* * -2 .1 4* * 1. 22 ** -1 .9 8 14 .4 5* * 5. 69 jb r -3 -1 6j b sr -9 82 -1 .9 5 2. 81 ** -5 7. 63 ** 3. 07 ** -1 .9 1* * -0 .2 5 9. 93 7. 14 k s33 1b b -9 3c -2 .6 4 0. 97 30 .8 8* * 3. 50 ** -0 .3 6 0. 28 7. 06 12 .7 6* * k s33 1u -8 -6 13 -5 .0 6* * -1 .3 3* 5. 55 0. 20 -0 .7 7* -0 .8 7 -1 3. 06 ** -8 .6 1 k s33 1p b -6 4 1. 91 0. 97 -1 5. 88 -1 .1 6 0. 47 3. 59 ** -8 .9 6 -5 .1 6 k s33 1j b sr -9 82 1. 79 -0 .6 0 -2 0. 55 -2 .5 4* * 0. 65 -3 .0 0* * 5. 87 -1 2. 38 ** ja m un i g ol a -1 .8 9 -1 .8 6* * 20 .0 5 0. 47 -0 .1 8 1. 70 12 .8 1* * 6. 23 ´b b -9 3c ja m un i g ol a 1. 35 1. 82 ** -2 6. 94 * 0. 58 3. 05 ** 0. 21 4. 97 12 .1 1* * ´u -8 -6 13 ja m un i g ol a´ pb -6 4 5. 66 ** -1 .5 2* 6. 61 -1 .8 6* * 0. 44 1. 67 -6 .2 5 -1 0. 36 * ja m un i g ol a -0 .1 1 1. 56 * 0. 27 0. 81 -0 .3 1 -3 .5 8* * -5 .5 3 -8 .9 8 ´j b sr -9 82 pp l ´b b -9 3c -1 .3 1 1. 55 * -2 8. 27 * 1. 19 0. 46 -1 .2 9 -1 3. 97 ** -5 .8 4 pp l ´u -8 -6 13 -4 .6 0* * 0. 91 -8 .6 1 -0 .4 9 1. 07 ** -1 .1 2 -6 .6 8 -6 .6 2 pp l ´p b -6 4 1. 24 1. 55 8. 27 -1 .9 2* * 0. 22 -0 .3 2 13 .5 0* * 12 .0 3* * pp l jb sr -9 82 -5 .3 3* * -4 .2 ** 28 .6 1 1. 21 -0 .7 5* 2. 74 ** -1 2. 72 ** 7. 43 pb -2 b b -9 3c -2 .1 4 -2 .7 7* * 15 .0 5 1. 28 * -0 .2 8 1. 86 6. 09 8. 40 pb -2 u -8 -6 13 5. 43 ** -1 .4 3* -2 3. 61 * 1. 97 ** 0. 50 0. 37 12 .9 7* * 6. 52 pb -2 pb -6 4 2. 07 2. 88 * -0 .0 5 -0 .2 8 2. 32 ** 3. 51 ** -4 .3 1 -5 .0 2 pb -2 jb sr -9 82 1. 63 1. 31 * 8. 61 -2 .9 7* * -0 .5 4 -5 .7 5* * -6 .7 1 6. 09 c d (p = 0. 05 ) 3. 43 1. 30 23 .3 1 1. 27 0. 73 2. 05 9. 55 8. 94 c d (p = 0. 01 ) 4. 51 1. 71 30 .6 8 1. 67 0. 96 2. 69 12 .5 7 11 .7 6 * an d ** si gn if ic an t a t 5 a nd 1 p er c en t, re sp ec tiv el y -1 .4 3* 6. 64 ** 24 5. 37 ** 0. 50 -0 .1 5 -6 7. 34 ** -0 .3 0 -1 .4 8* * 1. 97 ** 72 .8 4* * -0 .6 2 0. 14 -4 8. 38 * 0. 67 ** -0 .8 5 1. 32 50 .2 1 0. 56 -0 .2 7* 29 .0 0 -0 .2 1 -0 .9 6 -1 .9 5* * -7 2. 58 ** -1 .7 3* * -0 .3 1* * -3 3. 53 0. 45 1. 78 ** -1 .3 5* -5 0. 47 0. 80 0. 12 20 .9 1 -0 .5 5* 1. 06 1. 27 46 .9 0 1. 32 ** -0 .1 7 33 .2 2 -0 .1 7 0. 77 -1 .3 5 -4 9. 16 -0 .6 8 -0 .1 5 63 .4 7* * -0 .4 7* 0. 80 0. 38 13 .8 4 -1 .3 3* * 0. 16 -6 2. 22 ** -0 .1 8 -1 .6 4* * -0 .3 0 -1 1. 58 0. 69 0. 11 -2 6. 67 0. 21 -1 .4 7* * 2. 95 ** 10 8. 94 ** 1. 19 * -0 .4 7* * 38 .1 6 -0 .3 2 1. 66 ** 0. 15 6. 71 -0 .3 0 0. 19 -5 3. 65 ** -0 .1 2 -1 .6 0* * 1. 12 41 .3 1 0. 62 0. 11 28 .4 1 0. 62 ** 0. 57 -4 .2 2* * -1 56 .9 7* * -1 .5 0* * 0. 37 ** -1 4. 26 0. 18 0. 38 1. 01 39 .5 4 -0 .6 3 0. 17 32 .4 9 -0 .2 1 -1 .5 6* * -0 .9 4 -4 0. 81 -0 .9 1 -0 .5 7* * 27 .2 0 0. 38 1. 48 ** 0. 25 11 .4 1 1. 08 * -0 .1 7 -3 7. 54 -0 .1 1 -0 .5 8 -0 .3 2 -1 0. 14 0. 46 0. 18 -4 2. 15 * -0 .1 5 0. 88 1. 19 44 .0 5 -0 .1 4 0. 11 29 .9 0 -0 .2 7 0. 27 0. 45 17 .7 5 0. 98 * -0 .4 7* * -1 8. 93 -0 .1 2 -1 .8 9* * 1. 40 51 .8 5 -0 .8 2 -0 .1 7 -2 0. 47 0. 24 -1 .0 5 -3 .0 6* * -1 13 .6 7* * -1 .4 4* * -0 .1 9 29 .5 0 -0 .8 3* * -1 .5 3* * -0 .6 7 -2 5. 41 -0 .8 4 -0 .1 8 55 .7 3* * -0 .6 8* * 1. 88 ** -3 .3 2* * -1 22 .1 4* * 0. 64 0. 16 -6 5. 47 ** 0. 41 0. 53 0. 60 22 .1 2 0. 15 -0 .4 2* * 17 .0 5 -0 .2 2 1. 78 ** 3. 39 ** 12 5. 42 ** 0. 04 -0 .1 6 -6 3. 44 ** 0. 64 ** 0. 23 2. 76 ** 10 1. 93 ** 0. 35 0. 13 -9 .9 6 -0 .1 8 -1 .5 5* * -0 .7 0 -2 5. 00 0. 30 -0 .1 8 18 .6 0 -0 .1 1 0. 98 1. 33 49 .1 3 1. 41 ** -0 .0 7 12 .6 5 0. 15 1. 08 -3 .3 9* * -1 26 .0 6* * -1 .0 6* -0 .4 9* * -5 8. 29 ** -0 .7 9* * 1. 11 1. 44 53 .9 6 0. 96 0. 27 40 .6 6 0. 46 1. 46 1. 89 71 .0 2 1. 26 0. 35 53 .5 2 0. 60 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):145-151, 2012 bharat bhushan et al 151 sca revealed that seven crosses had desirable specific combining ability. pb-1 × pb-64 (0.62) cross-combination exhibited highest positive sca, followed by the other crosses. sca in the case of total phenols revealed that seven crosses had significant, positive estimates. the crosses bsr11 × jbsr-98-2, ndb-21 × u-8-61-3, habl-1 × pb-64 and jpm/pkb-105-2 × pb-64 showed highest significant, positive sca, followed by the other crosses. anthocyanin (content) analysis for sca revealed that eight crosses had desirable specific combining ability. pbr-91-1 × bb-93-c cross combination exhibited highest positive sca. references ashwani, r.c. and khandewal, r.c. 2005. combining ability studies in brinjal. ind. j. hort., 62:37-40 baig, k.s. and patil, v.d. 2002. combining ability over environments for shoot and fruit borer resistance and other quantitative traits in solanum melongena l. ind. j. genet., 62:42-45 das, g. and barua, n.s. 2001. heterosis and combining ability for yield and its components in brinjal. ann. agril. res. news series, 22:399-403 ingale, b.v. and patil, s.j. 1997. diallele analysis for fruit characters in eggplant. pkv res. j., 21:25-29 kempthorne, o. 1957. an introduction to genetic statistics. john wiley and sons, inc., new york, pp 458-471 kumar, v. and pathnia, n.k. 2003. combining ability studies in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). veg. sci., 30:50-53 mahadevan, a. and sridhar, r. 1986. in: methods in physiological plant pathology (3rd edn). sivakami publications, chenai, pp. 192-193 padmanabham, v. and jagadish, c.a. 1996. combining ability studies on yield potential of round fruited brinjal (solanum melongena l.). ind. j. genet., 56:141146 singh, b. and singh, a.k. 2004. gene effect for quantitative traits in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). crop res., 23:109-110 singh, g. 2006. studies on the performance of f 1 hybrids in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). m.sc. thesis, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india singh, h.v., singh, s.p, singh, s. and rajput, c.b.s. 2003. heterosis in relation to combining ability in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). veg. sci., 30:38-41 singh, b. and cheema, c.s. 1985. cpcs a computer software package. punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india swain, t. and hillis, w.e. 1959. the phenolic constituents of prunus domestica the quantitative analysis of phenolic constituents. j. sci. food. agri. 10:63-68 varshney, n.c., singh, y.v. and singh, b.v. 1999. combining ability in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). veg. sci., 26:41-44 (ms received 26 november 2011, revised 21 july 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):145-151, 2012 combining ability studies for yield and quality in brinjal mango is a commercially important tropical fruit crop of india and exhibits wide variations in growth habit, flowering and fruiting. orchard efficiency and productivity of mango is affected by problems of biennial bearing, high fruit-drop during initial stages of fruit development and unfavourable environmental conditions resulting in low fruit set (murti and upreti, 2000). plant growth retardants especially paclobutrazol, has been found beneficial in combating some of the production-related problems. studies have shown paclobutrazol application to be promising for improving flowering and fruiting in several mango varieties (yadava and singh, 1998; kulkarni, 1988). beneficial effects of paclobutrazol in mango have been attributed to manipulation in phytohormones, water relations and c:n ratio (upreti et al, 2013). in this study, an assessment was made on the effect of paclobutrazol on fruit quality attributes. although studies have been conducted on effects of paclobutrazol on fruit quality in other fruit crops, these studies are limited with reference to indian mango varieties. in the present study, effect of soil drenching treatment with paclobutrazol on some fruit-quality parameters in commercially important mango variety totapuri was investigated. the experiment was conducted at the experimental j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):236-239, 2013 short communication effect of paclobutrazol on fruit quality attributes in mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. totapuri y.t.n. reddy, s.r. shivu prasad and k.k. upreti1 division of fruit crops, indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore -560089, india e-mail : nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract paclobutrazol application restricts vegetative growth while improving flowering and fruiting in mango. in the present study, effect of soil drenching with paclobutrazol @ 3.0ml m-1 canopy diameter, applied during the 3rd week of august, on fruit quality attributes was investigated in cv. totapuri. parameters like fruit weight, total soluble solids (tss), % acidity, and content of ascorbic acid, carotenoids, lycopene and individual sugars was estimated. paclobutrazol application increased average fruit weight, tss and content of ascorbic acid and total carotenoids, and reduced the acidity in fruits compared to fruits in untreated trees. lycopene content was only marginally influenced by paclobutrazol. in fruits of paclobutrazol treated trees, increase of 23.4% in total sugars, 29.6% in reducing sugars, 77.4% in glucose and 27.8% in sucrose content was recorded over fruits from the untreated trees. results indicated that, paclobutrazol application improved quality in mango fruit. key words: fruit quality, mango, paclobutrazol farm of indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru, on 19 year old, uniform trees of the regular bearing cv. totapuri, planted at 10 x 10m spacing. soil at the experimental site was sandy loam, and the average canopy diameter of trees was 6.3m. paclobutrazol (cultar, 23% w/w paclobutrazol, syngenta limited, uk) was applied once, as soil drench, at a concentration of 3.0ml m-1 of average canopy diameter by spreading the solution in a circular band of 25cm width around the tree, three feet from the trunk, during the 3rd week of august 2010 and 2011. both control and paclobutrazol treatment consisted of four trees each. the experimental design adopted was completely randomized design (crd) for drawing statistical inferences. during the course of the experiment, maximum and minimum temperature ranged between 27.631.2°c and 19.8-21.0°c, respectively; relative humidity was in the range of 56.7-62.8% at 1400 hr, and 75.7-81.1% at 0800 hr. samples of five mature fruits from each tree of paclobutrazol-treated and untreated trees were collected and ripened at room temperature (around 28°c). appearance of colour on fruit peel and olfactory perception of fruit aroma were employed as indices of fruit ripening. total soluble solids (tss) were estimated in ripe fruits using 1division of plant physiology & biochemistry, iihr, bangalore, karnataka, india 237 effect of paclobutrazol on fruit quality in mango a hand-held erma refractrometer. titratable acidity (ta) was determined by aoac (1990) method using phenolphthalein indicator. total carotenoid and lycopene content was estimated spectrophometrically in pulp of the ripened fruit as per jensen (1978) and ranganna (1976), respectively. molar extinction coefficient of 2500m-1 cm-1 at 450nm for total carotenoids, and 1.72x105m-1 cm-1 at 503nm for lycopene were used for calculation. all estimations were made in triplicate. reducing sugars were measured in fruit pulp using the procedure of somagyi (1952). total sugars were estimated using anthrone reagent as per the standard procedure of hansel and moller (1975). fructose, glucose and sucrose content was analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography (hplc) (sánchez-mata et al, 2002) with some modification. shimadzu (japan) prominence hplc system equipped with refraction index detector (rid) (model 10a, shimadzu, japan), and nh2 reversed-phase column (25cm x 4.6mm, 5µm, supelco, usa) were used. both rid cell temperature and column temperature were maintained at 40°c during analysis. the mobile phase consisted of water:acetonitrile (25:75 v/v) at a flow rate of 1.0ml min-1. standards of fructose, glucose and sucrose (sigma-aldrich, usa) were used for quantification. five grams of fruit pulp was extracted in 20ml of 70% ethanol and contents were kept in boiling water bath for 45 minutes. after cooling to room temperature, the contents were centrifuged at 10,000rpm at 4°c. the residue was re-extracted with an additional 10ml of 80% ethanol and centrifuged again. the two supernatants were mixed together and the volume adjusted to 25ml with water. the samples were filtered using 0.45µm syringe filter (millipore, usa) and stored in glass tubes at 20°c for hplc analysis. significant differences were recorded in fruit quality parameters (table 1). average fruit weight, tss and the content of ascorbic acid and total carotenoid increased, whereas % acidity declined in fruit pulp by paclobutrazol treatment compared to that in untreated trees. lycopene content was influenced only marginally by paclobutrazol treatment. maximum average fruit weight (266g fruit-1), tss (13.5obrix), ascorbic acid content (8.42mg 100g-1), total carotenoid (3.9mg 100g-1) and lycopene content (0.67mg 100g-1) were recorded in the fruit pulp under paclobutrazol treatment. average increase in fruit weight by paclobutrazol treatment has been reported in mango cvs. sensation (oosthuse and jacob, 1997), amrapali (sarkar and rahim, 2012) and kaew (benjawan et al, 2006). in contrast, there is also a report of decline in average fruit weight in cv. tommy atkins (oosthuyse and jacobs, 1997) by paclobutrazol application. this indicates that, the effect of paclobutrazol on fruit size is cultivar dependent. rebolledomartinez et al (2008) found at decline in fruit weight was dependent on the dose of paclobutrazol used, with high concentration exhibiting loss in fruit weight. oosthuse and jacobs (1997) also found average fruit weight to increase by virtue of an increase in fruit length. increase in fruit weight could be a consequence of better resourcemobilization as propounded by davis et al (1988) as also manipulation of plant water relations in preference for the developing sinks (fruits) by paclobutrazol treatment. kurian et al (2001) reported favourable alteration in source-sink relationship in mango with paclobutrazol to support fruit growth in cvs. langra and dashehari. it is speculated that, paclobutrazol, while inducing growth restriction, may tend to reduce photo-assimilate demand of the growing shoot in favour of superfluous sinks (fruits). this is expected to increase fruit soluble solids, and a corresponding decrease in acidity. however, source-sink manipulation by paclobutrazol needs further investigations for a better understanding. rebolledo-martinez et al (2008) also reported paclobutrazol treatment to be effective in increasing tss, and corresponding decrease in acidity, in mango fruit. ascorbic acid, carotenoids and lycopene are welldocumented as potent antioxidants and, thus, their content in the fruit serves as an important phytonutrient descriptor for fruit quality. an increase in the content of ascorbic acid and carotonoids following paclobutrazol treatment indicates table 1. effect of paclobutrazol on fruit quality attributes in mango cv. totapuri treatment fruit tss acidity ascorbicacid total carotenoids lycopene weight(g) (°b) (%) (mg 100 g-1) (mg 100 g-1) (mg 100 g-1) control 245.79 12.10 0.21 6.59 3.17 0.61 paclobutrazol treated 266.09* 13.51* 0.18* 8.42** 3.89* 0.69* (3.0 ml m-1 canopy (8.26) (11.65) (16.67) (27.77) (22.71) (13.11) diameter) cd (p=0.05) 13.75 0.14 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.003 **significant @ 1%; *significant @ 5%; values in parentheses represent per cent change over control j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):236-239, 2013 238 distinct improvement in fruit quality. paclobutrazol-induced increase in ascorbic acid and total carotenoids have been reported in fruit crops like papaya (auxcilia et al, 2010) and avocado (kohne and kremer-kohne, 1990). data on total sugars (reducing, non-reducing and individual sugars) are presented in table 1. paclobutrazol treatment modified the content of total sugars, reducing sugars, glucose and sucrose in fruits harvested from treated trees. under paclobutrazol treatment, fruits showed an increase of 23.4% in total sugars, 29.6% in reducing sugars, 77.4% in glucose and 27.8% in sucrose content over that in fruits from untreated trees. the content of total sugars, reducing sugars, glucose and sucrose was 91.79mg g-1, 69.07mg g-1, 5.80mg g-1 and 17.04mg g-1, respectively, in paclobutrazol-treated fruits. these parameters indicate production of better quality fruits under paclobutrazol application. increase in sugar content by paclobutrazol application is presumed to be the result of favourable mobilization of photo-assimilates to the developing sink created by maturing fruits. increase in the content of reducing sugars and sucrose by paclobutrazol treatment in mango has been reported by abdel rahim et al (2011). further, zaharah et al (2013) reported significant increase in sugars in mango fruit by abscissic acid treatment. thus, a possible induction of abscissic acid by paclobutrazol, as reported in an earlier study (upreti et al, 2013), may also be another reason for increase in sugars. murti and upreti (1997) reported presence of high abscissic acid content in mango fruit during maturation and ripening. another possible mechanism which may contribute to increase in sugar content may be an improved nutrient uptake and nutrient mobilization from the soil by paclobutrazol application. however, this aspect needs to be further investigated. to conclude, we found that paclobutrazol application in mango cv. totapuri helps increase fruit weight and produces fruits with high-quality attributes viz., a high content of sugars, ascorbic acid and carotenoids. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to director, iihr, for providing facilities and to dr. c.p.a. iyer, chairman (consortium advisory committee, naip project) for his encouragement during the study. the authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from naip and icar, new delhi. the authors are also thankful to dr. bengali baboo, national director and dr. s. kochhar, national coordinator4 for his encouragement during the study. references abdel rahim, a.o.s., elamin, o.m. and bangerth, f.k. 2011. effects of paclobutrazol (pbz) on floral induction and associated hormonal and metabolic changes of biennially bearing mango (mangifera indica l.) cultivars during off year. arpn: j. agri. biol. sci., 6:55–67 aoac. 1990. official methods of analysis. association of official analytical chemists, washington d.c., usa auxcilia, j., sathiamoorthy, s., jeyakumar, p., kumar, n. and balamohan, t.n. 2010. effect of paclobutrazol (ppp333) on yield and quality of fruit and latex of papaya var. co2. acta hort., 851:413-418 benjawan, c., chutichudat, p., boontiang, k. and chanaboon, t. 2006. effect of chemical paclobutrazol on fruit development, quality and fruit yield of kaew mango (mangifera indica l.) in northeast thailand. pak. j. biol. sci., 9:717-722 davis, t.d., staffens, g.l. and sankhala, s.n. 1988. triazole plant growth regulators. hort. rev., 10:6396 hansel, j. and moller, i. 1975. percolation of starch and soluble carbohydrates from plant tissue for quantitative determination with anthrone. anal. biochem., 68:87-94 jensen, a. 1978. chlorophylls and carotenoids. in: hellebust, a. and crargie, j. (eds.). handbook of phytological table 2. effect of paclobutrazol on content of total sugars, reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars and important individual sugars in mango cv. totapuri treatment total sugars reducing sugars non-reducing fructose glucose sucrose (mg g-1) (mg g-1) sugars(mg g-1) (mg g-1) (mg g-1) (mg g-1) control 74.41 53.31 21.12 7.76 3.27 13.33 paclobutrazol treated 91.79* 69.07* 22.79 7.23 5.80** 17.04** (3.0 ml m-1 canopy diameter) (23.36) (29.56) (7.91) (0.53) (77.37) (27.83) cd (p=0.05) 3.51 1.69 2.96 0.92 0.71 1.95 **significant @ 1%; *significant @ 5%; values in parentheses represent percent change over control reddy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):236-239, 2013 239 methods, cambridge univ. press, london, uk, pp 59-70 kohne, j.s. and kremer-kohne, s. 1990. effect of paclobutrazol on growth, yield and fruit quality of avocado in a high density orchard. acta hort., 275:199-204 kulkarni, v.j. 1988. chemical control of tree vigour and the promotion of flowering and fruiting in mango (mangifera indica l.) using paclobutrazol. j. hort. sci. biotechnol., 63:557–566 kurian, r.m., reddy, y.t.n., sonkar, r.k. and reddy, v.v.p. 2001. effect of paclobutrazol on source-sink relationship in mango (mangifera indica l.). j. appl. hort., 3:88-90 murti, g.s.r. and upreti, k.k. 1997. changes in some endogenous growth substances during fruit development in mango. pl. physiol. biochem., 22:4447 murti, g.s.r. and upreti, k.k. 2000. plant hormones. in: hemantaranjan, a. (ed.), advances in plant physiology, vol. 3. scientific publishers, jodhpur, india, pp. 109-148 oosthuyse, s.a. and jacobs, g. 1997. effect of soil applied paclobutrazol on fruit retention, fruit size, tree yield and tree revenue in ‘sensation’ and ‘tommy atkins’ mango. acta hort., 455:431-440 ranganna, s. 1976. in: manual of analysis of fruits and vegetable products, mcgraw hill publication, new delhi, india, pp. 77 rebolledo-martínez, a., del ángel-pérez, a.l. and moreno, j.r. 2008. effects of paclobutrazol and kno3 over flowering and fruit quality in two cultivars of mango manila. comunicaciones reports comunicoes, 33:518-522 sanchez-mata, m.c., cámara-hurtado, m. and díezmarqués, c. 2002. identification and quantification of soluble sugars in green beans by hplc. eur. food res. technol., 214:254–258 sarkar, b.c. and rahim, m.a. 2012. vegetative growth, harvesting time, yield and quality of mango (mangifera indica l.) as influenced by soil drench of paclobutrazol. bangladesh j. agril. res., 37:335348 somagyi, m. 1952. notes on sugar determination. j. biol. chem., 195:19-23 upreti, k.k., reddy, y.t.n., shivu prasad, s.r., bindu, g.v., jayaram, h.l. and rajan, s. 2013. hormonal changes in response to paclobutrazol induced early flowering in mango cv. totapuri. sci. hort., 150:414-418 yadava, r.b.r. and singh, v.k. 1998. long-term effects of paclobutrazol on yield and quality of dashehari mango (mangifera indica l.). ind. j. pl. physiol., 3:166–167 zaharah, s.s., singh, z. symons, g. and reid, j. 2013. mode of action of abscissic acid in triggering ethylene biosynthesis and softening during ripening in mango fruits. postharvest biol. technol., 75:37-44 (ms received 07 january 2013, revised 14 june 2013, accepted 16 july 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):236-239, 2013 effect of paclobutrazol on fruit quality in mango j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 55-57, 2006 studies on the extent of genetic contamination in seed production of ridge gourd (luffa acutangula roxb.) k. padmini and l. b. naik section of seed science & technology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: kpadmini@iihr.emet.in abstract studies were conducted during 2002-2005 (rabi season) to evaluate the extent of genetic contamination in round fruited ridge gourd (recessive) vehen grown for seed production under open field conditions. the round fruited ridge gourd was sown at 200 m, 400 m, 600 m and 800 m distance from arlia sumeet (long fruited) which acted as the local marker (dominant). the highest percentage of genetic contamination was recorded at a distance of 200 m from the contaminator (arka sumeet) (28.62% and 88.1%, respectively, in the years 2003 and 2005). it was also observed that there was a gradual reduction in contamination level with increasing distance from 28.62 to 17.44% at 600 m distance in 2003 and 88.11% at 800 m to 74.23% in 2005. the lowest percentage of contamination was recorded at the highest isolation distance (at 600 m, 17.44% in 2003 and at 800 m, 74.24% in 2005), although it is not within the prescribed maximum permissible limit of genetic contamination (1 and 2% for foundation and certified seed respectively). in the present study, in all the isolation distances studied, the level of contamination is well above the permissible minimum seed certification standards (99 and 98 % genetic purity for foundation and certified seed respectively). hence, any reduction in the isolation distance from the prescribed (800 m) isolation would drastically affect the genetic purity of ridge gourd for seed production under open field conditions. key words: cucurbits, genetic purity, isolation, ridge gourd, seed production introduction cwcmmw spp ( rosa, 1924). growing different ridge gourd t j i j * u u u * j f »ui varieties in the vicinity would enhance the chance of india is ranked as the highest producer or vegetables . . ^ ,^. , , , „ „ „ , , , . . ., , j .̂ r nn n.• /co™iv contamination. tumwar and singh (1988) have recommended in the world accounting for 90 million tonnes in 6.2 million ,^^„ , ^^^ . , . ,. r ,^ . ^ j . ^xr,~ rî /tt • c e t a1000 m and 500 m isolation distance for foundation and hectare area dunng 2003-04 (economic survey of india, ^ . ^ , , , . ^ . , . . , ^ 2004-05). the projected hybrid and open pollinated (op) ^^""'^'"^ f"^. p'-oduction of ndge gourd, respectively. the , . \ c j u innc • uu * / i n n c prescribed minimum seed certification standards for all seed requirement for gourds by 2005 is highest (1012.5 ^ . . . , . „,̂ ^ , .^^ • , • , -imc » \.i \ j • •u cucurbits, m general, is 800 m and 400 m isolation distance tonnes and 2025 tonnes, respectively) compared to other . ^ , . , .^ , , , . . , * ui /au j . 7 ^nna\ t, • • * 11• j for foundation and certified seeds production, respectively vegetables (ahmed e? a/, 2004). being insect pollinated, ^̂ , . ^ „ . ,„„^^ ^ , ^ ,. . ^r^ „ ,.^ . • 1 ..• j-.. . ^ (agarwal and dadlani, 1987). in the earlier studies of radha cucurbitaceous crops require an isolation distance to prevent i, r , , , . , . 1 ^ „ , / . , . , . j , ^ . , ii*• knshnamaiya e? a/(2001) in cotton, which is often a cross outcrossing in seed production by open pollination „. , ^ . , . m• • . /d uinnr. cu j t-> \. ->r>nc\ t i *• poiiinatcd crop, 6m isomion was sufficient as against the (robinson, 1999; singh and dasgupta, 2005). isolation ^ ., , . v , .~ . , , f^„ ,. ^ . j j . • • • •» .. * prescribed minimum seed certification standards of 50 m and distance m any seed production is a pre-requisite to prevent k^ ^ r , • . ,, , • , o.̂ , u • 1 • * / 11»• f *u 30 m tor foundation and certified seed respectively. since a either mechanical mixture /cross pollination for the , . , . ^ , f . , ^ , . j ^ . cu a ic j . / 4.-ea a highproportionof natural crossing occurs in ndge gourd, it production of breeder/ foundation/ or certified seeds. & f f . , . , ° . . , . v tt ,̂ . . .,, ,̂ ., j . . j n e c e s s i t a t e s i s o l a t i o n b e t w e e n v a r i e t i e s / g o u r d s for however, this varies with the crop, wild species, wind . „ . . ^ . . .'^ . , , , . j u 1 1 * c a t ^ maintenance of genetic punty. there is no information on breaks, b a m e r s and geographical location of seed plot, , ,. , , r r/ • • •, • , ^ ,the distance needed tor effective isolation under indian etc., which are crossable with the crop under study. ridge gourd is a cross pollinated croj pollination is effected mainly by honey bees. under n conditions, pollination by honey bees is upto 85-95% in distance. conditions. hence, the present study was undertaken to ridge gourd is a cross pollinated crop and determine genetic contamination in seed production of ridge pollination is effected mainly by honey bees. under natural gourd under open field conditions, so as to reduce the isolation mailto:kpadmini@iihr.emet.in padmini and naik material and methods a field experiment was conducted at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, in the rabi season of 2002 to 2005 to facilitate natural crossing between round and long fruited ridge gourd. the recessive seed parent (round fruited type) was sown in isolation from other varieties/ gourds to avoid cross pollination. the different isolation distances used were 200 m, 400 m, 600 m and 800 m from the contaminator /marker, arka sumeet (dominant long fruited type). these distances are less than the prescribed 800 m for cucurbits in obtaining foundation seeds. it was ensured that there were no physical barriers upto 8{x) m to facilitate natural crossing during rabi 2002 and 2004. the crop was raised using the recommended package of practices. seeds of ridge gourd collected at various isolation distances from 200 m,4(x) m,600 m and 800 m from the contaminant plot (round type ) were extracted and used for genetic purity evaluation by conducting field grow-out tests (got) during october 2003 and october 2005 following standard procedures (agarwal, 1993). the crop was sown in a randomised block design with seven replications per treatment. the extent of genetic contamination in seed crop was recorded based on the number of plants with long fruits in the progeny and expressed as percentage. statistical analysis of data was done using analysis of variance (anova) for various isolation distances after data were subjected to angular transformation. results and discussion data on frequency of contaminants and extent of genetic contamination in the progeny of seed crop (round fruited recessive type) at various isolation distances from the contaminator, arka sumeet (long fruited dominated type) are given in tables 1 and 2, respectively. results revealed that contamination in the progeny of round fruited type decreased with increasing isolation distance from the contaminator.the highest percentage of genetic contamination/outcrossing was recorded at a distance of 200 m from the contaminator (28.62% in 2003 and 88.11% in 2005). the lowest percentage of contamination was recorded at the highest isolation distance (at 600 m, 17.44% in 2003 and at 800 m, 74.24% in 2005), although it is not under the prescribed maximum permissible limit of genetic contamination. statistical analysis of the transformed values of percentage of genetic contamination revealed that there were no significant differences among the various isolation distances studied for the extent of genetic contamination in the years 2003 and 2005. table 1. frequency of round and long fruited types in the progeny of round fruited ridge gourd at various isolations (grow-out tests) isolation distance (m) 2003 200 400 600 800 2005 200 400 600 800 number of round fruited types 173 188 158 * 11 13 15 34 number of long fruited types 59 49 33 * 86 59 58 80 total number of plants per treatment 232 237 191 * 97 72 73 114 *no fruit set observed table 2. extent of genetic contamination at various isolation distances in ridge gourd isolation distance (m) 200 400 600 800 cd (0.05) genetic contamination (%) in the progeny of round fruited ridge gourd 2004 28.62 (31.49)* 20.14 (26.43)* 17.44 (24.06)* _ ns 2005 88.11 (69.80)* 83.51 (66.01)* 79.04 (63.23)* 74.23 (59.47)* ns : angular transformed values; no fruit set was observed the present study revealed that as the isolation distance increased from 200 m to 800 m, per cent contamination in the progeny of round fruited ridge gourd decreased. the minimum genetic purity standards for foundation and certified seed are 99% and 9 8 % , respectively. cross-pollinated vegetable seed crops exhibit higher degree of variation as compared to self-pollinated vegetables. also, genetic contamination in crosspollinated vegetables affects in such a way that any specific character bred into a variety is likely to be lost (prem singh arya, 1999). in the present study, although there were no significant differences between the isolation distances it is risky to reduce the prescribed isolation distance below 800 m. as the level of contamination is well above the permissible minimum seed certification standard. differences in the levels of genetic contamination between the years 2003 and 2005 could be attributed to a relative abundance of pollinators which is variable based on the attractiveness to the adjacent field crop. hence, any reduction in isolation distance from the prescribed 800 m would drastically affect the genetic purity of ridge gourd / hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 55-57, 2006 56 seed production in ridge gourd for seed production under iihr conditions at bangalore. thus, there is a need to standardize the isolation distance to ensure the genetic contamination of round fruited ridge gourd is well within the permissible limits so as to maintain the minimum genetic purity standards for foundation and certified seed production under bangalore conditions. references agarwal, p. k. 1993. handbook of seed testing. ministry of agriculture. goi, new delhi. 130p. agarwal, p. k. and dadlani, m. 1987. techniques in seed scienceandtechnology of ridge gourd. south asian publishers, new delhi. 190p ahemed, n, khan,s. h and baseerat. 2004. hybrid vegetables: a historical perspective, preset status and future prospects, pp 1-9. in: recent advances in hybrid seed production of important vegetables. shere-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology, srinagar (india), economic survey of india. 2005. ministry of agriculture and cooperation, new delhi. http:// indiabudget.nic.in prem singh arya. 1999. vegetable seed productionprinciples. kalyani publishers, pp 78-82. radha krishna maiya, basave gowda, shekhara gouda, m. and khadi, b.m. 2001. isolation distance in cotton (gossypium arboreum). seed res., 29:245247. robinson, r.w. 1999. rationale and methods for producing hybrid cucurbit seed. j. new seeds, 1:1-47. rosa, j..t. 1924. pollination and fruiting habit in the cantaloupe. proc. amen soc. hort. sci., 21:51. singh, rk and das gupta, s. k. 2005. hybrid loofah. / â ĥ' seeds, 6:2-3 tumwar n .s. and singh s.v. 1988.1ndian minimum seed certification standards. central seed certification board, new delhi. pp:221-222. (ms received 5 april, 2006 revised 19 june, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 55-57. 2006 57 http:// j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 fruit and vegetable exports in the post-liberalization era: the indian experience a. indhushree*, anil kuruvila, jesy thomas and c. latha bastine department of agricultural economics, college of horticulture, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, kerala. *e-mail: indhuashree@gmail.com abstract the liberalization of agricultural trade brought about by the economic reforms of 1991, the subsequent wto agreement and the proliferating regional trading agreements have opened opportunities as well as challenges for india’s horticultural trade. this paper analyses the performance of horticultural exports from the country in terms of growth, instability, dynamics, diversification and stability with respect to commodities and markets and the constraints in terms of the non-tariff measures (ntms) faced and delineates the opportunities and strategies required to be followed by the sector for a sustainable growth. the horticultural exports from the country have grown significantly in both quantity and value terms during the period from 1991 to 2016. the highest share in the exports of horticultural products from india was accounted by grapes for which the major markets were netherlands, russia, united kingdom, uae, germany and saudi arabia. among the vegetables, india accounted for about 9.4 per cent of share in world exports of onion and the main destinations were bangladesh, malaysia, uae and sri lanka. the horticultural exports have shown increased commodity diversification as well as geographical diversification due to increased market access in developed countries. even though the tariffs have come down there by increasing the exports, the ntms, especially quality issues in connection with sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations have increased in the postliberalization era. given the inherent potential and rising competiveness of the india’s horticultural sector, the removal of product specific constraints, especially production of commodities of international standards could definitely help in sustaining the growth of horticultural exports. key words: exports, growth and instability, non-tariff measures, sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations introduction india is one of the world’s largest producer and consumer of the horticultural commodities especially, fruits and vegetables. the production of horticultural crops in india was about 283.3 million tonnes in 201516. over the last five years, the contribution of vegetables (59-61 %) remain highest in the horticulture crop production followed by fruits (31-32 %). there is a wide diversification in the production of these commodities all over the country and it increased significantly in the recent decades. india is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world. it produced 91.4 million tonnes of fruits and 166.6 million tonnes of vegetables during 2015-16 (goi, 2016). even though india’s share in global market is only around one percent, there is increasing demand for india’s horticulture products in the global market. the liberalization of agricultural trade brought about by the economic reforms of 1991, the subsequent wto agreement and the proliferating regional trading agreements have opened opportunities as well as challenges for india’s horticultural trade internationally. these negotiations also focus more on international agricultural commodity markets in the context of improvement in market access and reduction of export subsidies (dastagiri, 2017). at the same time this has original research paper 133 134 also paved the way for increase in non-tariff barriers that restricts the international trade in horticultural commodities. non-tariff measures are the policy measures other than ordinary customs tariffs that can potentially have an economic effect on international trade in goods, changing quantities traded, or prices or both (unctad, 2013). as reported by fao, phytosanitary controls imposed by importers are critical for developing countr ies exporting fr esh fr uit and vegetables. these controls are particularly stringent in the usa, australia and japan. india faces several constraints in the export of vegetables and fruits, especially to the developed countries, in the form of ntms especially quality issues in connection with sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations which have increased in the postliberalization era. the non-tariff barr iers established by the importing countries combined with other factors like zero tolerance to insects and pests, and issues in certification, cause difficulties to the exporters. rejection or additional checks at the entry points create considerable financial loss, delay in delivery to the client, loss of quality and reputation of indian exports (idris et al., 2015). in the above setting, this paper analyses the performance of horticultural exports from india in terms of growth, instability, dynamics, diversification and stability with respect to commodities and markets and the constraints in terms of the non-tariff measures (ntms) faced and delineates the opportunities and strategies required to be followed by the sector for a sustainable growth. material and methods the study was conducted based on the data on india’s fruits and vegetables exports from the year 1988 to 2016. the data on quantity and value of exports a nd destinations of fr uits a nd vegeta bles a nd information on the non-tariff barriers were collected. the data sources were world integrated trade solution (wits) and agricultural produce export development authority (apeda). the percentage share of each of the major vegetables and fruits in the total export of vegetables and fruits was estimated and based on this percentage share, top 8 vegetables and top 7 fruits were identified for which the analyses on export instability, geographic concentration and markov chain analysis were done. export instability to study the export instability, coppocks instability index was used which can be expressed in the following estimable form the instability index is = (antilog v log – 1) x 100 where, xt is the value of exports in year or volume of exports in year t, n is number of years and m is the arithmetic mean of the difference between the logs of xt and xt+1 etc., v log is logarithmic variance of the series. concentration in the exports of vegetables and fruit commodity concentration – gini concentration index diversification of export basket can reduce the vulnerability of domestic producers and consumers to external shocks and it can also reduce the volatility in export earnings. gini index was used to measure the concentration in the export of total vegetables and fruits from india. gini concentration index= 100 2 where, xit is the value of exports of commodity ‘i’ from india in year ‘t’ and xt is the values of export of all commodities from india in year t. geographic concentration – hirschman index increased geographic concentration increases the instability and thereby the risks in export earnings. the hirschman index was used to measure the geographic concentration in the export of fruits and vegetables. hirschman index, hi = 100 2 where, xit is the value of exports of commodity from india in year t to the ith market, xt is the total value of export of the commodity from india in year t and n is the number of countries importing the commodity from india. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 indhushree et al 135 stable export markets for india’s vegetables and fruits: markov chain analysis the stable export markets for india’s vegetables and fruits were identified by estimating retention probabilities using markov chain analysis. the model is a stochastic process which describes the finite number of possible outcomes si (i=1,2…r) which is a discrete random variable xt (t=1,2…t) and which assumes that (a) the probability of an outcome on the tth trial depends only on outcome of the preceding trial, and (b) this probability is constant for all time periods (lee et al., 1970). central to markov chain analysis is the estimation of the transitional probability matrix p. the element pij of this matrix indicates the probability that exports will switch from country i to country j with the passage of time. the diagonal element pij where, i=j, measures the probability that the export sha re of a country will be r etained. hence, an examination of the diagonal element indicates the loyalty of an importing country to a particular country’s exports (atkin and blandford, 1982). the average exports to a particular country was considered to be a random variable which depends only on its past exports to that country and which can be denoted algebraically as, where, ejt is exports from india to j th country during the year t, eit-1is exports to i th country during the year t-1, pij is the probability that exports will shift from i th country to jth country, ejt is the error term which is statistically independent of eit-1, and r is the number of importing countries. the expected export shares of each country during period t were obtained by multiplying the exports to these countries in the previous period (t-1) with the transition probability matrix. results and discussion share of different vegetables and fruits in total vegetables and fruits exports from india the share of individual vegetables in total vegetables export from india is given in table 1. it could be observed from the table that during triennium ending (te) 1990, onions and shallots accounted for 36.56 percent and 44 percent of the total vegetables exports in value terms and quantity terms respectively. it was followed by dried leguminous vegetables which accounted for 3 percent of value and 1 percent of quantity of vegetables exports from india. it could be observed from the table that in quantity terms onions and shallots accounted for the maximum share in all the trienniums, whereas in value terms, the only exception to this was triennium ending 2000. in triennium ending 2000, dried lentils accounted for the maximum share in total value of vegetables exports from india. even though onion and shallots occupied the first position in triennium ending 2010 and triennium ending 2016, the other vegetables like dried onions, tomatoes, potatoes, other potatoes have increased in shares in both quantity and value terms, which is a clear indication of diversification of india’s export basket of vegetables. the share of individual fruits in total fruits export from india is given in table 2. it could be observed that during triennium ending 1990, cashew nuts accounted for 76.37 percent of the total fruits exports in value terms. it was followed by gua vas, mangoes and mangosteens which accounted for 6.38 percent of value of fruits exports from india. in terms of quantum of exports, guavas, mangoes and mangosteens and fresh grapes accounted for 22.8 percent and 6.11 percent respectively. it could be observed from the table that in value terms, cashew nuts accounted for the maximum share in all the trienniums under consideration, whereas in quantity terms, the highest sha re was accounted by gua va s, ma ngoes and mangosteens in all the trienniums. while the share of cashew nuts declined in triennium ending 2010 and triennium ending 2016, the other fruits like guavas, mangoes and mangosteens, fresh grapes, bananas, dried grapes have increased in shares in both quantity and value terms, which is a clear indication of diversification of india’s export basket of fruits. the results of the instability analysis for export of fruits given in table 4 shows that the instability in export value, quantity and unit value for bananas, dried grapes and lemon and lime declined during the period from 2000 to 2016 while it increased in case of guavas, mangoes and mangosteens, fresh grapes and walnuts. for cashew nuts the instability in value increased but in terms of quantity and unit value it declined. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 fruit and vegetable exports in india 136 commodities te 1990 te 2000 te 2010 te 2016 percent share percent share percent share percent share onions and shallots value 36.56 17.19 31.94 22.46 (fresh or chilled) quantity 44.02 29.55 39.29 32.81 dried onions value 0.43 2.89 3 7.03 quantity 0.09 0.66 0.54 1.34 tomatoes value 0.05 0.07 2.31 4.69 (fresh or chilled) quantity 0.03 0.11 2.7 5.76 potatoes value 0.38 0.97 1.76 4.45 (fresh or chilled) quantity 0.57 2.49 2.9 5.75 other potatoes value 0.33 0.81 1.61 4.4 (fresh or chilled) quantity 0.51 2.08 2.74 5.73 dried leguminous vegetables value 3.04 7.39 0.32 1.13 (shelled) quantity 1 4.2 0.12 0.33 dried lentils value 2.37 22.9 0.02 0.67 (shelled) quantity 0.67 14.14 0.01 0.24 garlic value 0.78 0.53 0.67 0.62 (fresh or chilled) quantity 0.54 0.58 0.23 0.36 other vegetables value 8.77 22.75 24.65 30.09 quantity 3.45 14.48 11.6 13.83 totalvegetables exports value (1000 usd) 130255.3 283994.8 1326335.7 1681428.8 (actual value) quantity (1000 tons) 584.5 934.67 3903.1 4218.65 source: computed using data from wits.org note: per cent share denotes share in total quantity and value of vegetable exports table 1. dynamics in share of different vegetables in total vegetables exports from india table 2. dynamics in share of different fruits in total fruits exports from india commodities te 1990 te 2000 te 2010 te 2016 percent share percent share percent share percent share cashew nuts value 76.37 79.5 55.55 51.8 quantity 0.05 30.17 16.79 13.17 guavas, mangoes and value 6.38 2.94 19.92 12.35 mangosteens quantity 22.8 14.35 33.65 23.02 fresh grapes value 1.79 1.91 8.03 12.02 quantity 6.11 4.79 13.35 14.32 bananas, including plantains value 0.02 0.62 1.76 3.13 quantity 0.62 2.77 6.04 9.95 dried grapes value 0 0.03 1.19 1.99 quantity 0 0.04 1.09 2.92 walnuts without shell value 3.1 2.54 3.43 1.34 quantity 3.39 1.8 0.96 0.36 lemons and limes value 0.01 0.17 0.67 0.63 quantity 0.1 0.91 2.82 2.11 other fruits value 12.32 12.3 9.46 16.75 quantity 66.93 45.16 25.28 34.15 total fruits exports value (1000 usd) 286305.63 606959.54 1085762.6 1571229.11 (actual value) quantity (1000 tons) 92.86 287.48 725.31 836.9 source: computed using data from wits.org note: per cent share denotes share in total quantity and value of fruit exports j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 indhushree et al 137 commodity instability index (%) 1988-99 2000-16 1998-2016 onions and shallots values 20.6 37.1 31.3 (fresh or chilled) quantity 34.1 35.2 34.8 unit value 18.7 48.6 37.6 dried onions values 58.3 72.9 68.6 quantity 55.1 81.0 71.2 unit value 23.9 73.3 55.1 tomatoes (fresh or chilled) values 164.9 134.3 146.6 quantity 136.7 187.5 164.3 unit value 62.3 73.1 67.5 potatoes(fresh or chilled) values 108.8 90.7 97.6 quantity 100.3 84.3 90.6 unit value 45.4 41.9 42.6 other potatoes (fresh or chilled) values 104.2 96.8 98.6 quantity 110.4 94.3 99.4 unit value 46.4 42.4 43.3 dried leguminous values 24.9 97.0 71.1 vegetables (shelled) quantity 26.3 99.9 74.9 unit value 10.9 18.6 16.6 dried lentils(shelled) values 72.3 379.8 248.7 quantity 72.6 459.6 292.7 unit value 13.8 19.5 17.8 garlic (fresh or chilled) values 176.3 344.3 269.0 quantity 181.7 446.6 323.7 unit value 15.8 64.5 47.9 source: computed using data from wits.org instability analysis the instability indices for vegetables export from india given by coppock’s instability index (table 3) shows that the instability in value, quantity and unit value of exports for onions and shallots, dried onions, dried leguminous vegetables, dried lentils and garlic have increased in the period from 2000 to 2016 when compared to the period from 1988 to 1999. for potatoes and other potatoes, the instability in export declined. the instability in value for tomatoes declined but the instability in export quantity and unit value increased during the period from 2000 to 2016. concentration of exports commodity concentration and geographic concentration of exports were considered to be the major contributing factors in the instability of export earnings. commodity concentration the commodity concentration in the export of vegetables and fruits from india given by the gini concentration index is given in table 5. the average value of the concentration index for the period from 1988 to 1999 was 50.61 and 78.89 for export of vegetables and fruits respectively. during the period from 2000 to 2016, the average value of the commodity concentration index for vegetables and fruits declined to 42.32 and 64.51 a nd this declining trend in commodity concentration for export of vegetables and fruits is shown in figure 1 and 2 respectively. the higher commodity concentration index for export of fruits from india indicates greater dependence on the export of only few commodities which is often thought to be the inherent cause for the fluctuations in export earnings. the lesser concentration index for vegetables export tha n fr uits implies compa ra tively mor e diversification in the export basket of vegetables. table 3. instability in export of vegetables from india (coppocks instability index) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 fruit and vegetable exports in india 138 commodity instability index (%) 1988-99 2000-16 1998-2016 cashew nuts (fresh or dried) values 13.7 21.0 19.6 quantity 604.6 17.1 259.7 unit value 631.9 15.6 263.5 guavas, mangoes and values 23.5 40.5 35.1 mangosteens, (fresh or dried) quantity 23.7 44.2 36.0 unit value 12.7 18.9 17.8 fresh grapes values 37.5 44.2 41.1 quantity 44.2 46.1 44.4 unit value 12.7 31.4 24.8 bananas, including plantains values 291.1 38.4 143.8 (fresh or dried) quantity 357.1 43.5 169.7 unit value 81.0 25.6 51.4 dried grapes values 377.1 342.6 345.7 quantity 442.6 299.9 344.4 unit value 67.4 32.6 49.2 walnuts without shell values 23.6 35.8 32.4 (fresh or dried) quantity 24.0 25.7 26.3 unit value 14.8 29.4 23.8 lemons and limes values 47.0 29.7 38.4 (fresh or dried) quantity 54.3 49.8 52.8 unit value 50.3 38.2 42.7 source: computed using data from wits.org table 4. instability in export of fruits from india (coppocks instability index) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 indhushree et al fig. 1. commodity concentration of vegetables export from india fig. 2. commodity concentration of fruits export from indiastable export markets for india’s vegetables and fruits: markov chain analysis geographic concentration the average value of geographic concentration index for vegetables export (table 6) declined for all the major vegetables during the period from 2000 to 2016, with the only exception of tomatoes for which it increased from 73.93 (1988 to 1999) to 76.21 (2000 to 2016) which indicates the diversification of the vegetables export from india to different countries, except in case of tomatoes. the concentration index value of 40 and above is considered to indicate higher degree of concentration. the overall concentration 139 index for onions and shallots, tomatoes, potatoes, other potatoes and dried leguminous vegetables was more than 40 and this indicate the greater dependence of these commodities in the economic conditions of few countries. the overall concentration index for dried onions export was less than 40 (35.38) which imply its higher diversification in terms of geographic coverage and thus limiting the possibility of risk from price variability of exports. table 7 shows the geographic concentration index for fruits export from india. the average value of geographic concentration index declined for cashew nuts, guavas, mangoes and mangosteen, fresh grapes, bananas, dried grapes and shelled walnuts in the period from 2000-2016, with the only exception of lemons and limes for which it increased significantly from 63.64 (1988-1999) to 75.47 (2000-2016) and which indicate the increased diversification in the export of fruits from india to different countries, with the exception of lemons and limes, for which the export was increasingly concentrated in few countries. the overall concentration index for cashew nuts, fresh grapes, guavas, mangoes and mangosteen, bananas, dried grapes and lemons and limes was more than 40 and this indicate their greater dependence on economic conditions in few countries. the overall concentration index for shelled walnuts export was les s t ha n 4 0 (3 5 . 3 8) whic h imp ly it s higher diversification in terms of geographical coverage and thus limiting the possibility of risk from export price volatility. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 fruit and vegetable exports in india table 5. commodity concentration of vegetables and fruits exports from india (gini concentration index) mean value concentration index (%) vegetables fruits 1988-1999 50.61 78.89 2000-2016 42.32 64.51 overall (1988-2016) 45.75 70.46 source: computed using data from wits.org table 6. geographic concentration of vegetables export from india (hirschman concentration index in %) mean value onions and dried tomatoes potatoes other dried shallots onions (fresh or (fresh or potatoes leguminous (fresh or chilled) chilled) (fresh or vegetables chilled) chilled) (shelled) 1988-99 43.59 44.97 73.93 59.63 61.35 47.33 2000-16 44.15 30.1 76.21 56.91 58.61 38.17 overall (1988-2016) 43.85 35.38 75.31 58.38 59.98 41.26 source: computed using data from wits.org mean value cashew guavas, fresh bananas, dried walnuts lemons and nuts mangoes and grapes including grapes without limes mangosteens plantains shell 1988-99 45.29 49.63 58.92 50.41 66.23 35.33 63.64 2000-16 42.01 35.01 46.02 44.67 46.28 31.22 75.47 overall (1988-2016) 43.73 40.15 50.85 46.36 53.54 32.26 72.24 source: computed using data from wits.org table 7. geographic concentration of fruits export from india (hirschman concentration index in %) 140 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 indhushree et al stable export markets for india’s vegetables and fruits: markov chain analysis the major and consistent export markets of vegetables and fruits were identified using markov chain analysis and the results are given in table 8. the retention probability value of 0.5 and above is considered to represent the stable market for exports indica ting the loyalty of the importing country to india’s exports. t he most stable ma rkets for onions and shallots, dried onions, tomatoes, potatoes, other potatoes, dried leguminous vegetables, dried lentils a nd ga rlic wer e identified a s nepa l, belgium, pakistan, mauritius, oman, uae, sri lanka and bangladesh respectively. the probability that the countries nepal, belgium, pakistan, mauritius, oman, uae, sri lanka and bangladesh retained their export share from one year to the next year were 79 percent for onions and shallots, 60 percent for dried onions, 80 percent for tomatoes, 97 percent for pota toes, 92 percent for other pota toes, 81 percent for dried leguminous vegetables, 81 percent f or dr ied l ent ils a nd 8 6 p er c ent f or ga r lic respectively. the uae was the most stable export market for india n ca shew nuts, gua vas, ma ngoes and mangosteen and lemons and lime. the probability that the uae retained its export share wa s 94 percent for cashew nuts, 85 percent for guavas, mangos and mangosteen and 97 percent for lemons and lime. netherlands and the united kingdom were the most stable export markets for fresh grapes as the probability that both the countries retained their export share was 88 percent. oman (90 percent), saudi arabia (60 percent) and spain (68 percent) were identified as the most sta ble markets for table 8. stable export markets for india’s vegetables and fruits identified based on markov chain analysis vegetables onions and shallots nepal singapore kuwait bangladesh uae (fresh or chilled) (0.7898) (0.6364) (0.6350) (0.6188) (0.5611) dried onions belgium (0.6037) tomatoes (fresh or chilled) pakistan bangladesh (0.8002) (0.6302) potatoes (fresh or chilled) mauritius nepal sri lanka uae (0.972) (0.9015) (0.8460) (0.6817) other potatoes oman nepal sri lanka hong kong, china uae (fresh or chilled) (0.9192) (0.8193) (0.7797) (0.6870) (0.681) dried leguminous vegetables uae sri lanka nepal us (shelled) (0.8109) (0.7412) (0.6907) (0.6385) dried lentils sri lanka uae bangladesh kuwait (shelled) (0.8104) (0.7848) (0.7523) (0.5325) garlic (fresh or chilled) bangladesh pakistan philippines thailand (0.8556) (0.5452) (0.5238) (0.5233) fruits cashew nuts fresh or dried) uae us korea, rep. japan kuwait germany (0.9378) (0.8094) (0.6990) (0.6088) (0.6002) (0.5212) guavas, mangoes and uae saudi arabia qatar yemen china mangosteens (fresh or dried) (0.84483) (0.7348) (0.7022) (0.6101) (0.5901) fresh grapes netherlands u k switzerland uae saudi arabia (0.8813) (0.8784) (0.8415) (0.8222) (0.7563) russian federation bangladesh norway (0.6762) (0.6362) (0.5129) bananas, including sultanate of oman uae nepal malaysia plantains (fresh or dried) (0.9041) (0.7665) (0.6340) (0.5945) dried grapes saudi arabia uae (0.6005) (0.5218) walnuts without shell spain other asia, nes belgium (fresh or dried) (0.6807) (0.6488) (0.5599) lemons and limes uae bangladesh maldives nepal (fresh or dried) (0.9710) (0.7240) (0.6218) (0.5823) source: computed using data from wits.org note: figures in parentheses indicate the retention probabilities of the respective countries 141 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 fruit and vegetable exports in india bananas, dried grapes and shelled walnuts exports respectively. constraints: non tariff measures the figure 3 shows the incr ea se in sps measures that were in force and those initiated by the members of world trade organization (wto) from the period 2005 to 2016. there was constantly increasing trend in the sps measures. fig. 3. sanitary and phyto sanitary (sps) measures initiated and in force source: computed using data from wto market access including a number of agreements and protocols and also the cost involved in irradiation process. usa also imposed a ban on the import of fresh grapes for using sulphur pads in package boxes. but this need not be a concern for the us as the us producers of grapes were also understood to be using these procedures. australia and new zealand imposed ban on indian mangoes and others fruits due to presence of fruit flies and stone weevils. china delayed the finalization of protocol on phyto-sanitary measures and certification procedures that affected the indian fruits such a s ma ngo, gua va , gr a pes, wa ter melons, muskmelon, papayas and other fruits and the vegetables such a s cucumber, gher kins, bea ns a nd other leguminous vegetables, aubergines, capsicum and others. the default mrl (maximum residue levels) set by the european communities was very high and the risk assessment of this level do not have scientific justification and also the member states like uk, netherlands and germany have set up mrls for some compounds which were not harmonized by the ec. even though the tariffs have come down there by increasing the exports, the ntms, especially quality issues in connection with sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations have increased in the postliberalization era, especially for fruits and vegetables. conclusion the purpose of the study was to analyze the performance of horticultural exports that includes the vegetables and fruits from india. the study reveals that the highest share in the vegetables export from india was accounted by onions and shallots both in value (22.46 %) and quantity terms (32.81 %) followed by dried onions and tomatoes in value terms. the highest share in the fruits export was accounted by cashew nuts (51.8 %) followed by guavas, mangoes and mangosteens together and countries non tariff barriers japan ban on the import of fresh grapes from india on the basis of report of the incidence of oriental fruit fly on grapes in pakistan and vapor heat treatment (vht) for mango fruit flies usa mangoes – high cost of certification and irradiation for stone weevil infection grapes – use of sulphur pads australia ban on import of indian mangoes and other fruits due to presence of fruit flies and weevil china delay in finalization of protocol on phyto sanitary measures and certification procedures new zealand ban on import of indian mangoes and other fruits due to presence of fruit flies and weevil european communities different mrls by the member countries for pesticides, drugs and other contaminants source: apeda table 9. non tariff barriers affecting india’s export the important non-tariff barriers as identified by agricultural products export development authority (apeda) that adversely affected the export of indian horticultural commodities are given in table 9. japan imposed a ban on import of fresh grapes from india by quoting the reason that there was threat of infestation of oriental fruit fly in pakistan while importing fresh grapes. but the data collected from survey which was conducted for three years revealed that there was no such infestation on indian grapes. the export of ma ngoes to the usa involved higher cost of certification that involves the complex process of 142 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 133-142, 2017 indhushree et al fresh grapes in value terms. in terms of quantity, t he highes t sha r e wa s a cc ounted b y gu a va s , mangoes and mangosteens (23.02 %) followed by fr esh gr a pes a nd ca shew nuts. t he sha r es of different vegetables and fruits in the total vegetables and fruits exports from india in triennium ending 2010 and triennium ending 2016 indicate increasing diversification of india’s export basket of vegetables and fruits. varying trend in the instability of different vegetables and fruits were identified and it was also revealed that the instability declined for majority of the commodities. there was declining trend in the commodity concentration for both vegetables and fruits indicating the diversification in the export b a s ket of v eget a b les a nd f r u it s a nd les s er dependence on the export of few commodities and thus reducing the risk of export fluctuations. the lesser geographic concentration was identified for dried onions and shelled walnuts exports indicating their higher diversification in terms of geographical coverage and thus limiting the possibility of risk from price variability of exports. the most stable markets for the india’s export of onions and shallots, dried onions, tomatoes, potatoes, other potatoes, dried leguminous vegetables, dried lentils and garlic were identified as nepal, belgium, pakistan, mauritius, oman, uae, sri lanka and bangladesh respectively.the most stable export markets for fruits were uae for cashew nuts, guavas, mangoes and mangosteen and lemons and lime, netherlands and the united kingdom for fresh grapes and oman, saudi arabia and spain for bananas, dried grapes and shelled walnuts respectively. the important cases of non-tariff barriers that affected indian fruits and vegetables export were ban on the import of fresh grapes from india on the basis of report of the incidence of oriental fruit fly on grapes in pakistan by japan, high cost of certification for mangoes and ban on grapes for using sulphur pads by usa, ban on import of indian mangoes and other fruits due to presence of fruit flies and weevil by australia and new zealand, delay in finalization of protocol on phyto sanitary measures and certification procedures in china and different mrls by the member countries of european communities for pesticides, drugs and other contaminants. given the inher ent potentia l a nd r ising competiveness of the india’s horticultural sector, the stra tegies such as r emoval of product specific constraints, especially production of commodities of inter na tiona l sta nda r ds, r esea r ch suppor t for improvement in the productivity and shelf life of fruits and vegetables which make their availability longer in international market, providing training and technical assistance for the producers with regard to export, improvement in the infrastructure facilities such as cold storage facilities and regulations in the non-tariff barriers could definitely help in sustaining the growth of horticultural exports. references apeda. non-tariff barriers faced by indian agricultural products. available at: http://www.apeda.gov.in atkin, m. and blandford, d. 1982. structural changes in import-shares for apple and in the uk. european journal agricultural economics, 9(1): 313-326. dastagiri, m.b. 2017. india’s horticultural export markets: growth rates, elasticities, global supply chains, and policies. modern economy, 8: 847-864. goi (government of india). 2016. horticultural statistics at a glance 2016. ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, new delhi. fao (food and agricultural organization). important commodities in agricultural trade: fruits and vegetables. available at: http://www.fao.org/3/ay4852e/y4852e13.htm idris, s., singh, a. and praveen, k.v. 2015. trade com peti t i ven ess a nd i mpa ct of food sa fet y regulations on market access of india’s horticultural trade. agricultural economics research review, 28(2): 301-309 lee, t.c., judge, g.g. and zellener, a. 1970. estimating the parameters of the probability model from aggregate time series data. north holland publishing company. unctad (united nations conference on trade and development). 2013. non-tariff measures to trade: economic and policy issues for developing countries. united nations publication. available at: h t t p : / / u n c t a d . or g / e n / p u bl i c a t i on s l i br a r y/ ditctab20121_en.pdf www.wits.org wto (world trade organization). integrated trade intelligence portal. available at: https://i-tip.wto.org/ goods/default.aspx?language=en (ms received 13 september 2017, revised 16 october 2017, accepted 26 november 2017) 26 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 26-32, 2019 original research paper correlation of trunk cross sectional area with fruit yield, quality and leaf nutrient status in plum under north west himalayan region of india dinesh kumar, k.k. srivastava and s.r. singh icarcentral institute for temperate horticulture, srinagar, jammu and kashmir, india principal scientist, icarcentral institute for subtropical horticulture, lucknow. e-mail:dkches@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the correlation of trunk cross sectional area (tcsa) with fruit yield, quality and leaf nutrient status in plum at icar-central institute for temperate horticulture, srinagar, jammu and kashmir during 2013-14. the tcsa (110.45, 118.23, 123.45, 131.67, 139.25, 146.82, 152.37 and 161.26 cm2) was based on their trunk girth at 15 cm above the ground. maximum canopy volume (23.14m3 and fruit number 128/ tree) were recorded when tcsa was highest (161.26cm2). maximum fruit weight (58.85g) was recorded with 123.45cm2 tcsa. fruit yield and productivity efficiency (59.47kg/ tree and 0.29kg/ cm2) were recorded with 152.37cm2 tcsa. fruit size (47.45 x 44.12mm), pulp weight (57.54g) and pulp/stone ratio (43.92) were recorded with 123.45cm2 tcsa. maximum tss (19.450b), total sugar (13.98%) and reducing sugar (11.46% ) were recorded with 161.26 cm2 tcsa. non-reducing sugar (2.53% ) was recorded with 118.23cm2 tcsa. higher leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content (2.38, 0.19 and 1.95%) was observed with 161.26 cm2 tcsa. a positive and significant correlation was noticed between tcsa and canopy volume (0.995), fruit number (0.992), yield (0.968), pulp/stone ratio (0.903), tss (0.977), total sugar (0.937), reducing sugar (0.920), non-reducing sugar (0.048), leaf n (0.971), leaf p (0.977) and leaf k (0.997) value in plum variety santa rosa under north west himalayan region of india. keywords: tcsa, plum fruit yield, quality, leaf nutrient introduction plum (prunus domestica l.) is one of the important stone fruits of temperate region of india, mainly grown in the states of jammu and kashmir, himachal pradesh and uttarakhand. the total area under plum cultivation is 22,000 ha with annual production of 82, 000 tonnes a nd pr oductivity is 3. 72 t/ha (anonymous, 2015) as compared to other apricot gr owing countr ies in the wor d. t he chilling requirement of this crop ranges from 300 to 400 hour s (chill unit) depending upon the va r iety (japanese as well as european plum). the plum fruit are commonly used for fresh as well as for drying purposes. the processed products include candy, frozen fruit, jams, jelly products and tradi­tional serbian plum for alcoholic beverages (milosevic et al., 2010a). the ripe fruits are the rich source of vitamin a, b (thiamine), riboflavin and minerals like calcium, phosphorus and iron. the dried plums are known as prunes and all plum cultivar cannot be used for drying purpose. the prunes have great ayurvedic value for medicine. european plums are used both for drying and fresh markets, while chinese plums are used mainly for fresh market (kumar et al., 2018). the trunk cross sectional area (tcsa) of fruit tree is a useful index for estimation of fruit yield and other pa ra meter s (chapman et al., 1986). several variations have been observed in the tcsa of plum trees even when a single cultivar is planted on a large scale, which is mainly due to differences in root characteristics leading to nutrient uptake. the differences in tree size have shown differences in their performance in respect of growth and fruit yield (oppenheimer, 1960). the tcsa of the tree is positively related to transport of nutrient from root to aerial parts of the plant and the distribution 27 correlation studies in plum j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 26-32, 2019 of food materials from site of production to site of utilization (hartmann and kester, 1989), which ultimately influences the vegeta tive as well as reproductive growth of tree. an objective of our investigation was to determine the effect of trunk cross sectional area of trees on growth, fruit yield, quality a nd leaf nutr ient status of plum under kashmir conditions of jammu and kashmir. materials and methods the experiment was conducted on eight year old trees of plum variety santa rosa, planted with 5m × 5 m s p a c in g a t i c ar c ent r a l i n s t it u t e of temper a te hor ticultur e, srinaga r, ja mmu and k a s hmir, i ndia du r ing 2 0 1 3 a nd 2 0 1 4 . t he research farm at srinagar is situated at a latitude of 34° 05’n and longitude of 74° 50’e and at an altitude of 1640 m above mean sea level. the plum variety santa rosa is commercially grown in the region and requires 300-400 chill hours for proper fruiting. fruits of are highly attractive shape and size with red in colour. the experimental field soils are silty loam with medium fertility levels (38.50% sand, 25.2.0% silt and 36.30% clay; ph 6.8, 0.45% organic carbon, 358.5 kg n/ha, 10.45 kg p/ha and 281.35 kg k/ha). there were eight different trunk cross sectional ar ea of tree (110. 45, 118.23, 123. 45, 131.67, 139.25, 146.82, 152.37 and 161.26 cm2) based on their trunk girth at 15 cm above the ground. the experiment was laid out in ra ndomized block design with three replications and two trees per unit with almost uniform trunk cross-sectional area were kept for recording the observations. the trees were trained in central modified leader system and pruning was done during dormant (decemberjanuary) depending upon the climatic condition. t he t r u nk c r os s s ec t iona l a r ea of t r ee wa s calcula ted by using for mula tcsa=girth2/4 (westwood et al., 1963). observations on canopy volume, fruit number, size and yield were recorded during fruiting season. fruits were harvested at maturity stage and yield per tree was calculated in kilogr a m. t he p r oductivity eff iciency wa s calculated by formula: fruit yield (kg/tree)productivity efficiency (kg/cm2 tcsa) = ———————— tcsa (cm2) the fruit, stone and kernel size were determined by observing the length and diameter and measured by digita l vernier ca lliper. ten mature fruits were selected randomly from each tree and pooled as per replication in all treatments for quality analysis. the total soluble solids (tss) of fruits was estimated by hand refractometer (0-32 range) and expressed in terms of 0brix. to estimate tss, fruit pulp was crushed in a pestle and mortar and then squeezed through a muslin cloth for extraction of juice. the titratable acidity expressed in terms of percentage of citric acid was recorded by titrating 2ml of juice a ga inst n/10 sodium hydr oxide using phenolphthalein indicator. for nutrient analysis, leaf samples were collected as per the treatments from the middle portion of bearing shoots of the plum tree (singh et al. 2007). fully developed 30 number of lea f sa mples were collected fr om the tree and processed for estimation of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content. the leaf samples were kept in hot oven for drying at 60 °c for 48 hours (bhargava and raghupati, 1993). after drying the leaf samples ground to pass a 0.5 mm mesh and analysed for macro-nutrient content. nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium were estimated by the modified microkjeldahl vanado-molybdate (jackson, 1967) and flame photometric methods, respectively. the data were analysed statistically (steel and torrie, 1986) for interpretation of results. results and discussion data on canopy volume, fruit number, fruit weight, fruit yield and productivity efficiency as influenced by trunk cross sectional area of tree is given in table 1. the canopy volume and fruit number increased with increase in the tcsa of tree and the parameters were positively correlated. significantly maximum canopy volume (23.14m3) and fruit number (128/tree) were recorded when the tcsa was highest (161.26cm2) and minimum canopy volume (12.45m3) and fruit number (65/tr ee) were recor ded with minimum tcsa (110.45cm2). this might be due to more uptake of nutrients from root to aerial part of the plants. these results are inconformity with the findings of dhaliwal and dhillon (2003) while working on guava. maximum fruit weight (58.85g) was recorded when the tcsa (123.45cm2) was medium. the improvement in fruit weight with medium trunk cross sectional area might be attributed to the reduction in number of fruits/tree and yield, which in tur n diverted more nutr ients for the 28 kumar et al development of limited number of fruits on the tree. significantly maximum fruit yield (59.47kg/tree) was recorded with 152.37cm2 tcsa closely followed by 57.91kg/tree with 161.26cm2 tcsa and 54.89 kg/tree with 146.82 cm2 tcsa, respectively which were super ior to other tr ea tments. t he productivity efficiency varied from 0.330 to 0.390 and maximum value 0.390 kg/cm2 was recorded with 152.37cm2 tcsa and lowest value 0.330kg-1cm2 was recorded with 110.45cm2 tcsa in plum variety santa rosa. similar results were reported by kumar et al., (2008) indicating that tcsa had significant and positive effect on fruit yield in guava and in kinnow mandarin by dalal and brar (2012). the authors westwood and table 1. effect of tcsa on growth and yield of plum cultivar santa rosa tcsa canopy volume fruit number fruit weight fruit yield pe (cm2) (m3) (/tree) (g) (kg/ tree) (kg/cm2 tcsa) 110.45 12.45 65 56.12 36.47 0.330 118.23 14.37 71 57.45 40.78 0.345 123.45 15.95 79 58.85 46.49 0.376 131.67 16.35 86 55.48 47.71 0.362 139.25 18.45 98 55.12 54.02 0.388 146.82 20.19 105 52.28 54.89 0.374 152.37 21.25 120 49.56 59.47 0.390 161.26 23.14 128 45.24 57.91 0.359 sem± 1.81 12.5 3.02 2.31 0.45 cd(p=0.05) 4.27 29.4 7.12 5.45 ns roberts (1970) reported that cross-sectional area of trunk increases the fruit yield in apple. fruit attributes a perusal of data on fruit size, l/w ratio, pulp weight, stone weight and pulp/stone ratio as influenced by differ ent tr unk cr oss sectiona l a r ea of plum (table-2) indicated that the fruit size varied from 40.18 x 39.24mm to 47.45 x 44.12mm under different treatments. maximum fruit size 47.45 x 44.12mm was registered when the tcsa was123.45cm2. t he length/width ratio (1.09) was higher with 110.45cm2 and 131.67cm2 tcsa. maximum pulp weight (57.54g) was recorded with 123.45cm2 tcsa and j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 26-32, 2019 table 2. effect of tcsa on fruit attributing characters of plum cultivar santa rosa tcsa fruit size (mm) l/w pulp weight stone weight pulp/stone (cm2) length width ratio (g) (g) ratio 110.45 46.45 42.35 1.09 54.12 1.32 41.00 118.23 47.11 43.93 1.07 56.15 1.30 43.19 123.45 47.45 44.12 1.07 57.54 1.31 43.92 131.67 45.23 41.24 1.09 54.08 1.40 38.62 139.25 44.05 41.08 1.07 53.71 1.41 38.09 146.82 42.15 41.15 1.02 50.90 1.38 36.88 152.37 41.89 40.02 1.05 48.22 1.34 35.98 161.26 40.18 39.24 1.02 43.89 1.35 32.51 sem± 3.25 2.18 0.04 5.87 0.06 5.27 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns 29 minimum stone weight (1.30g) was recorded with 118.23 cm2 tcsa. the highest pulp stone ratio (43.92) was recorded with 123.45cm2 tcsa followed by 43.19 with 118.23cm2 tcsa and 41.0 with 110.45cm2 tcsa in plum variety santa rosa. an improvement in fruit size due to lower trunk cross sectional area might be attributed to the reduction in fruits/tree and yield which in turn diverted more nutrients for limited number of fruits. similar findings on fruit yield and quality in relation to crop load in apple were reported by dhaliwal and dhillon, 2003. quality attributes the quality parameters viz, t ss, acidity, total sugar, reducing sugar and non-reducing sugars as influenced by different tcsa in plum is presented in table-3. the total soluble solids varied from 17.24 to 19.450brix. maximum tss (19.450brix) j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 26-32, 2019 correlation studies in plum table 3. effect of tcsa on fruit quality characters of plum cultivar santa rosa tcsa tss acidity total reducing non reducing (cm2) (0b) (%) sugar (%) sugar (%) sugar (%) 110.45 17.24 0.52 12.58 10.12 2.46 118.23 17.51 0.54 12.95 10.42 2.53 123.45 18.21 0.48 13.05 10.98 2.07 131.67 18.45 0.59 13.12 11.04 2.08 139.25 18.58 0.53 13.16 11.13 2.03 146.82 19.12 0.50 13.25 11.15 2.10 152.37 19.24 0.49 13.85 11.35 2.50 161.26 19.45 0.47 13.98 11.46 2.52 sem± 0.43 0.02 0.29 0.26 0.08 cd (p=0.05) 1.02 0.05 0.69 0.62 0.21 was recorded with 161.26cm2 tcsa. the total sugar and reducing sugar (13.98 and 11.46%) was maximum when the tcsa wa s highest 161.26 c m2. t he non r edu c ing s u ga r ( 2 . 5 3 % ) wa s maximum with 118.23cm2 tcsa in plum variety santa rosa. similar results were also reported by salvador et al., (2006) in apples and kumar and pandey (2010). smaller fruit size had higher tss probably because of lower cell volume and lower proportion of intercellular spaces. the fruit acidity decreased due to increase in the tcsa, maximum acidity was estimated with medium tcsa. similar relationship was also established by kumar et al., (2008) in guava a nd kumar et al. , (2014) in apricot. leaf nutrient attributes the leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content a s influenced by diff er ent t cs a in plum is presented in table-4. significantly maximum leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potash content (2.38, 0.19 a nd 1. 95 % ) wer e est ima t ed when the t cs a (161. 26cm2) wa s highes t followed by 15 2. 37 c m2( 2 . 3 1 , 0 . 1 7 a nd 1 . 8 9 % ) a nd 1 4 6 . 8 2 c m2 (2.28,0.17 and 1.82%), respectively in plum variety santa rosa. higher leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents recorded with highest tcsa might be due to more uptake of macro-nutrient fr om root to a er ial part of the plants. similar findings were reported by dalal and brar,(2012) in kinnow. c o r r e l at i o n b e t w e e n t c s a w i t h y ie l d a nd quality characteristics cor r ela tion coefficient a mong differ ent tr a its studied were estimated in all possible combinations f or gr owt h , yield a nd qu a lit y p a r a met er s (table-5). a positive and significant correlation was observed between trunk cross sectional area and canopy volume (0.995), fruit number (0.992), 30 yield (0.968), pulp/stone ratio (0.903), tss (0.977), total sugar (0.937), reducing sugar (0.920), leaf n (0.971), leaf p (0.977) and leaf k (0.997). similarly positive correlation was observed between canopy volume a nd fr uit number (0. 990), fr uit yield (0.966), tss (0.976), total sugar (0.841), reducing sugar (0.923), nitrogen (0.966), phosphorus (0.973) a nd pota ssium (0.993). the fruit number wa s positively cor r ela ted with yield (0. 957), t ss (0.961), total sugar (0.955), reducing sugar (0.900), leaf n(0.953), leaf p(0.966) and leaf k(0.991). significant and positive correlation was noticed between fruit weight and fruit length (0.954), width (0.901), l/w ratio (0.759) and pulp/stone ratio ( 0. 09 4) . a p os it ive r ela t ionship wa s noticed between yield and tss (0.974), total sugar (0.894), reducing sugar (0.956), leaf n(0.975), leaf p(0.925) a nd lea f k (0 . 9 74 ) . p os itive c or r ela tion wa s obser ved between fruit length a nd fruit width (0.930), l/w ratio (0.810) and pulp weight (0.948). positive correlation between fruit width and pulp weight (0.948) a nd p/s ratio (0.980). positive correlation was observed between l/w ratio and pulp weight (0.742), p/s ratio(0.680) and acidity. similarly positive correlation between pulp weight and pulp/stone ratio (0.949) and total sugar (0.854). positive correlation was noticed between pulp/ st one r a tio a nd lea f k (0. 888 ). posit ive a nd table 4. effect of tcsa on leaf nutrient content of plum cultivar santa rosa tcsa leaf nutrient content (cm2) n (%) p (%) k (%) 110.45 1.75 0.12 1.51 118.23 1.79 0.12 1.59 123.45 2.02 0.14 1.64 131.67 2.11 0.15 1.71 139.25 2.17 0.15 1.78 146.82 2.28 0.17 1.82 152.37 2.31 0.17 1.89 161.26 2.38 0.19 1.95 sem± 0.12 0.01 0.08 cd (p=0.05) 0.29 0.03 0.21 significant correlation between tss and total sugar (0.900), reducing sugar (0.963), leaf n(0.996),leaf p(0.979) and leaf k (0.978) was noticed. similarly there was significantly positive correlation between tota l s uga r a nd r educing su ga r ( 0. 8 72 ), lea f n(0. 878), lea f p (0. 903) a nd lea f k (0. 942). significant positive correlation between reducing sugar and leaf n(0.967), leaf p(0.917) and leaf k(0.935) was noticed. significant correlation was observed between leaf n and leaf p(0.974) and lea f k(0. 973). wher ea s, significa ntly negative cor r ela tion c oefficient wa s obs er ved between tcsa and fruit weight(-0.885) and pulp weight(0.865). similarly negative correlation between fruit number and fruit weight(-0.908) and pulp weight(0.892) was noticed. negative correlation between fruit yield and fruit size (-0.867 and -0.773).similar r esults wer e r epor ted by kumar et al., (2014) while working on apricot. it is concluded that trunk cross sectional area of tree is important and useful index for prediction of fruit yield and quality traits. it is evident from the results that the tcsa of tree had a pronounced effect on the canopy volume, fruit yield and quality of plum var iety santa rosa under north west himalayan region of india. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 26-32, 2019 kumar et al 31 pa rt ic ul ar t c c v fr ui t fr ui t y ie ld pe * fr ui t fr ui t l /w pu lp st on e p/ s t ss a ci di ty to ta l r s n r s l ea f l ea f l ea f sa nu m be r w t le ng th w id th ra tio * w t w t ra tio * su ga r n p k t c sa 1. 00 0. 99 5 0. 99 2 -0 .8 85 0. 96 5 0. 60 7 -0 .9 51 -0 .8 53 -0 .8 09 -0 .8 65 0. 44 8 0. 90 3 0. 97 7 -0 .4 41 0. 93 7 0. 92 0 0. 04 8 0. 97 1 0. 97 7 0. 99 7 c v 1. 00 0. 99 0 -0 .8 70 0. 96 6 0. 62 5 -0 .9 33 -0 .8 08 -0 .8 40 -0 .8 49 0. 38 7 -0 .8 68 0. 97 6 -0 .5 14 0. 94 1 0. 92 3 0. 05 1 0. 96 6 0. 97 3 0. 99 3 fr ui t nu m be r 1. 00 -0 .9 08 0. 95 7 0. 59 5 -0 .9 53 -0 .8 64 -0 .7 93 -0 .8 92 0. 38 2 -0 .9 05 0. 96 1 -0 .4 96 0. 95 5 0. 90 0 0. 12 6 0. 95 3 0. 96 6 0. 99 1 fr ui t w t 1. 00 -0 .7 54 -0 .2 15 0. 95 4 0. 90 1 0. 75 9 0. 99 8 -0 .2 23 0. 09 4 -0 .7 99 0. 47 7 -0 .8 76 -0 .6 69 -0 .4 22 -0 .7 83 -0 .8 79 -0 .8 65 y ie ld 1. 00 0. 79 3 -0 .8 67 -0 .7 73 -0 .7 27 -0 .7 30 0. 49 4 -0 .7 99 0. 97 4 0. 42 3 0. 89 4 0. 95 6 -0 .1 06 0. 97 5 0. 92 5 0. 97 4 pe 1. 00 -0 .4 09 -0 .3 39 -0 .3 39 -0 .1 84 0. 47 2 0. 31 3 0. 69 6 -0 .2 52 0. 53 8 0. 78 8 -0 .4 82 0. 71 3 0. 54 8 0. 64 3 fr ui t le ng th 1. 00 0. 93 0 0. 81 0 0. 94 8 -0 .4 34 0. 97 3 -0 .8 94 0. 42 8 -0 .8 56 -0 .7 67 -0 .1 88 -0 .8 89 -0 .9 35 -0 .9 33 fr ui t w id th 1. 00 0. 54 4 0. 90 5 -0 .5 69 0. 98 0 -0 .7 91 0. 19 3 -0 .7 63 -0 .6 90 -0 .1 57 -0 .8 09 -0 .8 43 -0 .8 44 l/ w r at io 1. 00 0. 74 2 -0 .0 99 0. 68 0 -0 .7 80 0. 67 4 -0 .7 24 -0 .6 48 -0 .1 61 -0 .7 43 -0 .8 10 -0 .7 80 pu lp w t 1. 00 -0 .2 18 0. 94 9 -0 .7 76 0. 47 4 0. 85 4 -0 .6 39 -0 .4 36 -0 .7 62 -0 .8 62 -0 .8 44 st on e w t 1. 00 -0 .5 14 0. 48 3 0. 39 3 0. 18 7 0. 50 5 -0 .6 22 0. 54 5 0. 44 2 0. 45 9 p/ s ra tio 1. 00 -0 .8 36 0. 28 8 -0 .8 10 -0 .7 23 -0 .1 84 -0 .8 44 -0 .8 99 0. 88 8 t ss 1. 00 -0 .4 30 0. 90 0 0. 96 3 -0 .1 09 0. 99 6 0. 97 9 0. 97 8 a ci di ty 1. 00 -0 .4 98 0. 35 9 -0 .2 81 -0 .3 98 -0 .4 67 -0 .4 22 to ta l su ga r 1. 00 0. 87 2 0. 26 8 0. 87 8 0. 90 3 0. 94 2 r ed uc in g su ga r 1. 00 -0 .2 37 0. 96 7 0. 91 7 0. 93 5 n on r ed uc in g su ga r 1. 00 -0 .1 62 -0 .0 11 0. 02 9 le af n 1. 00 0. 97 4 0. 97 3 le af p 1. 00 0. 96 8 le af k 1. 00 ta bl e 5. c or re la tio n co ef fic ie nt f or 1 9 ch ar ac te rs o f pl um *p e -p ro du ct iv ity e ff ic ie nc y; * l /w r at io -l en gt h/ w id th r at io ; *p /s r at io -p ul p/ st on e ra tio j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 26-32, 2019 correlation studies in plum 32 references anonymous. 2015. area and production of horticultural crops . directorate of horticulture, government of jammu a nd kashmir. bhargava, b. s. and raghupati, h. b. 1993. analysis of plant materials for macr o and micronutrients. methods of analysis of soils,plants and fertilizers, p 49–82. h l s tandon (ed.). fdco,new delhi. 1-27. chapman, k. r., paxton, b. and maggs, d. h. 1986. growth and yield of clonal guavas in south eastern queensland. australian j. exp. agri. 26: 619–624. dalal, r. p. s. and brar, j. s. 2012. relationship of trunk cross sectional area with growth, yield, quality and leaf nutrient status in kinnow mandarin. indian j. hort. 69 (1): 111– 113. dhaliwal, g.s. and dhillon, s.k.2003. effect of tree size on physico-chemical characteristics of fruits of guava cv. sardar. indian j. hort. 60(4):312-317. hartmann, h. t. and kester, d. e. 1989. plant propagation: principlesand practices, 4 edn, pp 377–9. pr intice hall of india priva te limited, new delhi. ja ckson, m. l. 1967. soil chemical analysis .constable and co.ltd, london. kumar,d. and pandey, v.2010. relationship of trunk crosssectional area with bunch weight, fruit quality a nd nutr ient sta tus in ba na na ra stha li (pathkapoora-aab). indian j. hort. 67(1):2629. kuma r, d. , ahmed, n., sriva sta va, k.k. a nd dar,t.a.2014. effect of cross sectional area of rootstock on growth, yield, quality and leaf nutrient status in apricot (prunus armeniaca) cv cit h-apr icot-2. indian j. agri. sci. 84(2):236-240. kumar,d., pandey,v., anjaneyulu,k. and nath, v.2008. relationship of trunk cross sectional area with fruit yield, quality and leaf nutrient status in allahabad safeda guava (psidium guajava). indian j. agri. sci.78(4):337-339. kumar,d., srivastava,k.k. and singh,s.r.2018. pomological and horticultural diversity of plum va rieties eva lua ted under ka shmir conditions. trop. plant res.5(1):77-82. milosevic, t., milosevic, n., mratinic, e. 2010a. mor phogenic va r ia bility of some autochthonous plum cultiva rs in western serbia. brazilian archives bio. tech. 53: 1293–1297. oppenheimer, c. 1960. the relationship between tree size and yield in mango (mangifera indica l.) and avocado (persea americana mill). hort. adv. 4: 6–15. salvador, f.r.d., fisichella, m. and fontanari, m.2006. correlation between fruit size and fruit quality in apple trees with high and standard crop load levels. j. fruit and orna. plant res. 14 (2):113-122. singh, d., chhonka, p. k. and dwivedi, b. s. 2007. manual on soil,plant and water analysis. westville publishing house, new delhi, pp 1– 197. steel, r. g. t. and torrie, j. h. 1986. principles and procedure of statistics, pp 348–54. mcgraw hill international book co.,singapore. westwood m n a nd rober ts a n. 1970 . t he relationship between trunk cross-sectional area and weight of apple tree. j. american soc. hort. sci. 95 : 28–30. westwood, m. n., reimer, f. c. and quackenbush, v. l. 1963.long term yield a s related to ultimate tree size of three pears varieties grown on rootstocks of five pyrus species. proc. american soc. hort. sci. 82: 103–8. (ms received 24 october 2018, revised 01 april 2019, accepted 11 june 2019) j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 26-32, 2019 kumar et al 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):31-37, 2014 effect of spacing and pruning on growth, yield and quality of cv. deanna fig (ficus carica l.) ravindra kumar, s. ganesh1, r. chithiraichelvan, k.k. upreti2 and v.v. sulladmath division of fruit crops icar indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560 089, india e-mail: rkumar@iihr.ernet.in abstract the effects of tree spacing (5x2m, 5x2.5m, 5x3m, 5x3.5m and 5x4m) and pruning (8 buds/cane, 6 buds/cane and 4 buds/cane) on vegetative growth, physiological parameters, fruit yield and quality were studied in fig (ficus carica l.) cv. deanna in the 3rd and 4th year of its growth during the period 2010-12. it was observed that with increase in tree spacing, growth parameters like leaf number, shoot length, internode length, tree-spread, tree height and tree circumference, along with fruit yield both in terms of fruit number and fruit weight per tree, declined gradually under different pruning levels. increase in pruning level from 8 buds/cane to 4 buds/cane resulted in increased leaf number, shoot length and internode length. yield characters, viz., fruit number/tree, fruit weight/tree, fruit number/hectare and fruit weight/hectare were marginally influenced by pruning. however, interaction effects of pruning and spacing were found to be non-significant. consistently declining trends in photosynthesis rate and stomatal conductance, along with increase in leaf water potential value were observed with increase in spacing. effects of spacing were more conspicuous than those of pruning. best results for maintenance of vigour and fruit yield were observed under a spacing of 5x2m or 5x2.5m, and 4 buds/cane pruning. although there was reduction in average fruit size under closer spacing when compared to wide spacing, fruit quality attributes like tss and acidity were not affected by various treatments. effects of closer spacing on growth and yield parameters were more pronounced in the 3rd year as compared to the 4th year, showing better response to treatments in young trees. fruit yield calculated on per hectare basis showed highest fruit number of 116500-133750 and 274500-299500, and fruit weight of 54.5-62.0 and 158.77173.30 quintals/ha, respectively, during the 3rd and 4th year of planting under closer spacing of 5x2m and 4 buds/cane pruning. key words: ficus carica, fig deanna, growth, pruning, fruit quality, spacing, yield introduction fig (ficus carica l.), a native of middle east and western asia, belongs to the family moraceae. it is a deciduous tree growing well in warm and dry climatic conditions. its fruits are considered nutritionally important because of their, abundant richness in mineral, vitamin and antioxidant content. fruits, as well as plants other parts like latex, bark, leaves and roots, are known for their medicinal properties (fergusion et al, 1990; nath et al, 2008). the fig is mainly cultivated in california and arabia, besides countries like italy, turkey, spain, greece and portugal. in india, it is considered to be a minor fruit, and, its cultivation has not received as much importance as other cultivated fruit crops. however, over the last few years, commercial cultivation of fig has received wide attention in several indian states, including karnataka, because of its high economic value, low input requirement and easy crop-maintenance. 1the faculty of agriculture & ah, gandhigram rural institute (deemed university), gandhigram, dindigul-624302, tamil nadu, india 2division of plant physiology and biochemistry, icar indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru-560089, india at present, the total area under fig cultivation in india is estimated to be about 1000 hectares, of which 400 hectares are grown in maharashtra (singhal, 1998). however, its productivity is low due to insufficient scientific information on its growth behaviour and production under indian conditions. pruning and maintenance of optimum treespacing are important management practices for realizing potential growth and productivity in perennial horticultural crops. pruning encourages efficient canopy management for optimal utilization of available sunlight, and helps break apical dominance thus allowing lateral bud growth (roper et al, 1993; schilletter and richey, 2005; marini, 2009). however, beneficial effects of pruning largely depended upon pruning intensity and time. similarly, tree-spacing is vital factor for effective utilization of available land by helping accommodate a reasonable number of trees, efficient utilization of soil nutrients and better interception of sunlight, 32 thus facilitating easy harvest. investigations made in the past have shown a good response of pruning and treespacing for improving growth and productivity of many fruit crops like apple (palmer et al, 1992), mango (das and jana, 2012), grapes (turkington et al, 1980) and ber (saini et al, 1996). in the present investigation, an attempt was made to study the effects of different levels of pruning and treespacing on growth, yield and fruit quality of a commercially important fig cv. deanna, with an objective to develop specific recommendations. material and methods the study was conducted at the experimental farm of indian institute of horticultural research, hesarghatta, bengaluru, in the commercially important fig cv. deanna during two consecutive seasons of the years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012. trees selected were of uniform age, grown at five different spacings viz., t1 = 5.0m x 2.0m; t2 = 5.0m x 2.5m; t3 = 5.0m x 3.0m; t4 = 5.0m x 3.5m and t5 = 5.0m x 4.0m. in each spacing treatment, row-to-row distance was kept constant (5.0m). each spacing treatment was subjected to three levels of pruning: p1 = 8 buds/cane, p2 = 6 buds/ cane, and p3 = 4 buds/cane, by retaining the required number of buds. pruning was performed in september in both the years. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design, with 4 replications under each treatment. treatments were imposed in 3rd and 4th years orchard life of fig plants. during experimentation, average minimum and maximum temperatures ranged between 13.2-20.3°c and 26.2-30.6°c, respectively, and average relative humidity at 8.30 am and 1.30 pm were 66.7-84.5% and 41.3-63.6%, respectively. standard package of practices was adopted for maintenance of trees during experimentation. at 60 days from pruning, periodic observations on morphological characters such as leaf number, shoot length and internode length, were recorded. observations on tree height, trunk circumference and tree-spread (north to south and east to west) were also made at fruiting stage. data on physiological attributes like photosynthesis rate, stomatal conductance and leaf water potential were recorded on fully expanded leaves at 60 days from tree-pruning. leaf water potential was measured with dew point micro voltmeter (wescor, usa) after cutting leaf discs of uniform diameter (1cm), and values were expressed as -mpa. photosynthesis rate and stomatal conductance were recorded in situ in 5 replicates, on licor portable photosynthesis system (model li 6400xt, licor, usa) at 10-11 am. data were replicated 4 times. at harvest, fruit number and fruit weight per tree were recorded. average fruit weight was calculated by dividing fruit weight per tree with fruit number per tree under various treatments. data on fruit yield were computed on per hectare basis regarding fruit number and fruit weight (quintals). besides, 10 fruits/tree were picked randomly and used for determination of fruit quality parameters such as total soluble sugars (tss) and titrable acidity (ta). tss was estimated using hand erma refractrometer. ta was determined by aoac (1990) method using phenolphthalein as the indicator. all the data were subjected to standard statistical analyses as per steel and torrie (1980) and means were evaluated by least significance difference (lsd) at 5% level for interpretation of the results. results and discussion growth parameters shoot regeneration post pruning was observed 2 weeks during the 3rd year and after 3 weeks during the 4th year of planting under different tree-spacings. this indicated that the response to pruning was faster in younger trees. tree spacing did not exert any influence on days taken for induction of new shoots in the pruned tree. in general, leaf production, shoot length and internode length were higher in the 3rd year, than in the 4th year, of planting under different pruning and spacing treatments (table 1). with increase in tree spacing, leaf production, shoot length and internode length under various pruning levels declined gradually, while, with increase in pruning level from 8 buds/cane to 4 buds/cane, the above growth parameters increased, independent of tree spacing. maximum leaf production, shoot growth and internode length were witnessed under closer spacing of 5x2m or 5x2.5m, and, under 4 buds/shoot pruning regimen (table 1). tree spread (e-w or n-s), tree height and tree circumference, irrespective of pruning intensity, decreased by 8.7-20.9%, 17.1-29.9% and 14.3-21.3%, respectively, under wider spacing compared to closer spacing during both the years, and, the decline was higher in the 3rd year than in the 4th year of planting (table 1). pruning treatments under various tree spacings declined in e-w and n-s tree-spread, and, the effect was more prominent under 4 buds/cane pruning level. however, the effects of pruning on tree spread, tree height and tree circumference were non-significant. tree spread (n-s), tree height and tree circumference were seen to be maximum in trees grown under 5x2m or 5x2.5m spacing, subjected to 4 buds/cane pruning, during both the years. non-significant interaction effect was observed between pruning and spacing for these growth characters in both the years. mano and hamada (2005) and mano et ravindra kumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):31-37, 2014 33 table 1. effect of spacing and pruning on growth in fig cv. deanna 3rd year from planting 4th year from planting p1 p2 p3 mean p1 p2 p3 mean leaf number t 1 18.46 18.02 20.00 18.83 t 1 11.26 12.37 13.47 12.37 t 2 17.42 15.95 20.87 18.08 t 2 11.76 12.51 12.13 12.13 t 3 15.90 15.05 18.07 16.34 t 3 12.41 10.58 12.43 11.81 t 4 16.12 14.12 15.43 15.22 t 4 11.06 11.61 12.65 11.77 t 5 13.52 13.52 14.25 13.70 t 5 10.63 11.33 11.90 11.29 mean 16.28 15.29 17.72 mean 11.42 11.68 12.52 s: **, cd (5%): 1.86; p: **, cd (5%): 1.44; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv:13.75 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 13.73 shoot length (cm) t 1 63.86 59.57 71.80 65.08 t 1 28.03 33.18 40.26 33.82 t 2 52.82 43.77 78.32 58.30 t 2 29.94 29.44 28.30 29.23 t 3 46.12 41.60 61.07 49.60 t 3 28.49 29.90 25.00 27.80 t 4 45.82 31.15 33.65 36.87 t 4 22.95 26.76 33.08 27.60 t 5 31.88 26.56 34.41 30.95 t 5 21.33 25.08 28.85 25.09 mean 48.10 40.53 55.85 mean 26.15 28.87 31.10 s: **, cd (5%): 11.21; p: **, cd (5%): 8.68; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%):—; cv: 28.23 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 35.47 internodal length (cm) t 1 3.44 3.31 3.60 3.45 t 1 2.27 2.61 2.95 2.62 t 2 3.04 2.73 3.74 3.17 t 2 2.47 2.28 2.26 2.34 t 3 2.85 2.48 3.42 2.92 t 3 2.25 2.84 2.07 2.39 t 4 2.80 2.18 2.16 2.38 t 4 2.16 2.28 2.65 2.36 t 5 2.30 1.99 2.51 2.27 t 5 1.99 2.19 2.42 2.20 mean 2.89 2.54 3.07 mean 2.23 2.44 2.47 s: **, cd (5%): 0.39; p: **, cd (5%): 0.30; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 16.60 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 25.21 tree spread (e-w) (cm) t 1 201.25 195.00 197.50 197.92 t 1 211.25 227.25 205.00 214.50 t 2 206.25 176.25 205.00 195.83 t 2 236.25 197.50 211.75 215.17 t 3 207.50 170.00 190.00 189.17 t 3 242.00 178.75 208.75 209.83 t 4 205.00 178.75 176.25 186.67 t 4 231.25 210.00 176.25 205.83 t 5 181.25 148.75 161.25 163.75 t 5 206.25 191.25 190.00 195.83 mean 200.25 173.75 186.00 mean 225.40 200.95 198.35 s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%):—; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: *, cd (5%): 23.23; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 21.52 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 17.47 tree spread (n-s) (cm) t 1 226.25 256.25 233.75 238.75 t 1 248.75 267.50 238.75 251.67 t 2 237.50 190.00 238.75 222.08 t 2 258.75 216.25 213.75 229.58 t 3 212.50 197.50 202.50 204.17 t 3 252.50 241.25 193.75 229.17 t 4 217.50 188.75 160.00 188.75 t 4 236.25 192.5 213.75 214.16 t 5 191.25 171.25 188.75 183.75 t 5 226.25 203.75 215.00 215.00 mean 217.00 200.75 204.75 mean 244.50 224.25 215.00 s:*, cd (5%): 36.28; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 21.21 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 20.79 tree height (cm) t 1 204.00 214.00 206.25 208.08 t 1 191.25 208.00 195.50 198.25 t 2 201.75 170.00 212.50 194.75 t 2 191.25 160.00 188.75 180.17 t 3 180.00 166.25 177.25 174.50 t 3 189.25 161.00 186.00 178.75 t 4 183.25 159.00 169.00 170.58 t 4 184.00 164.25 168.25 172.17 t 5 171.50 157.50 162.25 163.75 t 5 172.75 161.00 175.75 169.83 mean 188.10 173.35 185.55 mean 185.80 170.85 182.85 s: **, cd (5%): 21.03; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 13.99 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 14.21 trunk circumference (cm) t 1 24.75 27.25 26.50 26.17 t 1 29.25 32.00 30.25 30.50 t 2 27.25 24.00 27.25 26.17 t 2 31.00 28.75 31.25 30.33 t 3 24.00 23.37 24.87 24.08 t 3 30.50 26.87 30.50 29.29 t 4 24.50 21.75 21.12 22.46 t 4 30.50 27.25 25.00 27.58 t 5 23.75 20.75 22.25 22.25 t 5 29.25 25.75 27.75 27.58 mean 24.85 23.42 24.40 mean 30.10 28.12 28.95 s: *, cd (5%): 3.12; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%): —p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 15.60 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 13.87 s-spacing; p-pruning; ** p≤0.001; *p≤0.05 spacing treatments: t1, t2, t3, t4 and t5;pruning treatments: p1, p2 and p3 effect of spacing and pruning on fig j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):31-37, 2014 34 al (2011) earlier reported a beneficial effect of closer spacing on tree vigour and yield in fig. physiological parameters leaf water potential under various pruning levels increased from -2.69 mpa to -2.45 mpa with increasing tree spacing, but was unaffected by pruning in different tree spacings. maximum leaf water potential values [ranging from 2.39-2.54 (-mpa)] were recorded under wider spacing of 5x4m, and minimum [ranging from 2.67-2.72 (-mpa)] under closer spacing of 5x2m during the 3rd year of tree growth (table 2). leaf water potential values did not show much variation during the 4th year under various treatments. photosynthesis rate and stomatal conductance in the pruned trees declined from 15.25 to14.54 µmol/m2/s and 0.19 to 0.16 mol/m2/s, respectively, in trees at closer spacing of 5x2m, to 13.71-13.09 µmol/m2/s and 0.13-0.14 mol/m2/s in trees at 5x4m spacing. maximum photosynthesis rate was recorded in trees subjected to 8 buds/cane pruning level, whereas, stomatal conductance was highest under 6 buds/ cane pruning intensity in closely-spaced trees (5x2m) (table 2). from the above results, it is evident that pruning and spacing had marked influence on growth and productivity on fig. closer tree-spacing of 5x2m or 5x2.5m, especially, in young trees (3 years old) with 4 buds/cane pruning, resulted in better growth and higher fruit yield. closer spacing also led to a reduction in average fruit weight, without compromising on fruit quality. maintenance of optimum treespace is well-documented as promoting growth and yield in perennial crops by reducing inter-tree competition for soilderived resources like water and nutrients (policarpo et al, 2006) and by increased light penetration (johnson and robinson, 2000 and policarpo et al, 2006). however, results presented in the present study are in contrast to this, revealing a possibility of absence of inter-tree competition under closer spacing. such closer spacing is ideal for better and efficient interception of available sunlight. inter-tree competition and declined light penetration under dense planting are expected only in the event of overlapping root system and higher canopy-spread in the growing trees. in the present study, the trees were young enough (3 years old) to have an overlapping root system and/or a vigorous canopy, therefore, chances of inter-tree competition and table 2. effect of spacing and pruning on physiological parameters in fig cv. deanna 3rd year from planting 4th year from planting p1 p2 p3 mean p1 p2 p3 mean leaf water potential (-mpa) t1 2.72 2.69 2.67 2.69 t1 1.98 1.96 1.80 1.91 t2 2.54 2.41 2.58 2.51 t2 2.06 1.77 1.80 1.88 t3 2.57 2.54 2.52 2.54 t3 1.90 1.95 1.90 1.92 t4 2.52 2.48 2.49 2.49 t4 1.83 1.77 1.87 1.82 t5 2.54 2.39 2.42 2.45 t5 1.67 2.02 1.87 1.85 mean 2.58 2.50 2.53 mean 1.89 1.90 1.85 s: **, cd (5%): 0.08; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 3.55 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 14.89 photosynthesis rate (μmol/m2/s) t1 15.25 14.87 14.54 14.88 t1 10.17 11.58 11.12 10.96 t2 13.73 13.63 12.88 13.41 t2 10.74 10.76 10.98 10.83 t3 13.06 12.79 12.36 12.73 t3 10.91 11.05 10.71 10.89 t4 13.57 13.28 12.42 13.09 t4 11.55 11.33 11.87 11.58 t5 12.92 12.64 13.26 12.94 t5 11.77 12.06 11.55 11.79 mean 13.71 13.44 13.09 mean 11.03 11.36 11.25 s: **, cd (5%): 0.74; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 6.71 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 9.00 stomatal conductance (mol/m2/s) t1 0.16 0.19 0.18 0.18 t1 0.25 0.21 0.21 0.22 t2 0.18 0.17 0.15 0.17 t2 0.17 0.21 0.21 0.20 t3 0.17 0.17 0.17 0.17 t3 0.19 0.22 0.21 0.21 t4 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.14 t4 0.20 0.20 0.22 0.21 t5 0.15 0.13 0.15 0.14 t5 0.20 0.20 0.18 0.19 mean 0.16 0.16 0.16 mean 0.20 0.21 0.21 s: **, cd (5%): 0.02; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 13.33 pxs: ns, cd (5%): ——; cv: 15.00 s-spacing; p-pruning; **p≤0.001; *p≤0.05 ravindra kumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):31-37, 2014 35 obstruction to available sunlight by the tree canopy, are less expected. better light interception under closer spacing could be an important factor in contributing to positive growth and higher yield as is evident from increase in photosynthesis rate and stomatal conductance. also, higher negative-waterpotential values evident under closer spacing help ensure better tree growth by facilitating faster absorption / translocation of available water from soil under the influence of transpiration pull. results obtained in the present study also showed that effects of closer spacing on growth and yield were less pronounced during the 4th year compared to that in the 3rd year of planting. this indicated that age of the tree is vital for effects of closer spacing in fig. mano and hamada (2005) and mano et al (2011) reported that closer spacing in fig was beneficial to tree-vigour and yield in fig. it will be interesting to see trees under the present spacing perform in the subsequent years of growth. numerous studies show that pruning induces vegetative growth (naor and gal, 2002; davenport, 2006; albert et al, 2010; claude et al, 2005; marini, 2009). pruning-induced vegetative growth is in line with these findings. fruit-size reduction under close spacing can be explained by the observation of policarpo et al (2006) who stated that partitioning of assimilates between the vegetative and reproductive parts was sensitive to high-density planting, and greater diversion of photosynthates to the vegetative parts at the expense of reproductive growth caused fruitsize reduction. table 3. effect of spacing and pruning on fruit yield in fig cv. deanna 3rd year from planting 4th year from planting p1 p2 p3 mean p1 p2 p3 mean fruit number/tree t1 116.50 127.00 133.75 125.75 t1 274.50 268.75 299.50 280.91 t2 109.50 74.00 138.25 107.25 t2 298.50 246.75 239.75 261.66 t3 87.25 85.75 114.50 95.83 t3 239.50 232.00 265.75 245.75 t4 62.50 33.00 47.25 47.58 t4 255.75 221.50 258.00 245.08 t5 49.25 19.75 37.50 35.50 t5 229.00 266.25 236.00 243.75 mean 85.00 67.90 94.25 mean 259.45 247.05 259.80 s: **, cd (5%): 42.16; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%):—; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 62.10 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 21.22 fruit weight (kg)/tree t1 5.44 6.01 6.19 5.88 t1 15.87 14.91 17.33 16.03 t2 4.83 3.28 6.18 4.76 t2 17.37 13.70 14.28 15.12 t3 3.78 4.01 4.81 4.20 t3 14.65 13.48 15.71 14.61 t4 3.55 2.12 2.66 2.77 t4 15.23 13.07 15.61 14.63 t5 2.62 1.06 2.17 1.95 t5 14.07 15.99 14.03 14.70 mean 4.04 3.29 4.40 mean 15.44 14.23 15.39 s: **, cd (5%): 1.93; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%):—; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 59.84 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 20.30 fruits number/ha t1 116500 127000 133750 125750 t1 274500 268750 299500 280916 t2 87600 59200 110600 85800 t2 238800 197400 191800 209333 t3 58109 57110 76257 63825 t3 159507 154512 176989 163669 t4 35688 18843 26980 27170 t4 146033 126476 147318 139942 t5 24625 9875 18750 17750 t5 114500 133125 118000 121875 mean 64504 54405 73267 mean 186668 176052 186721 s: **, cd (5%):30355; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: **, cd (5%):35094; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 18.18 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 7.35 fruit weight (quintals)/ha t1 54.46 60.11 61.96 58.84 t1 158.77 149.11 173.30 160.39 t2 38.68 26.27 49.51 38.15 t2 139.03 109.65 114.28 120.99 t3 25.22 26.72 32.10 28.01 t3 97.61 89.82 104.66 97.36 t4 20.29 12.13 15.22 15.88 t4 86.97 74.65 89.14 83.59 t5 13.12 5.31 10.89 9.77 t5 70.35 79.99 70.18 73.51 mean 30.35 26.11 33.93 mean 110.55 100.64 110.31 s: **, cd (5%): 14.11; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: **, cd (5%):18.53; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 56.85 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 20.98 s-spacing; p-pruning; **p≤0.001; *p≤0.05 effect of spacing and pruning on fig j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):31-37, 2014 36 fruit yield fruit number and fruit weight per tree were considerably influenced by tree-spacing and pruning during the 3rd and 4th year of planting. the effects were pronounced during the 3rd year. yield and yield attributes were superior during the 4th year than in the 3rd year of planting under different spacing/pruning treatments. this shows that production efficiency is low when trees are still young during the 3rd year, but their response to pruning and spacing treatments was better (table 3). under different in-row tree spacing during the 3rd year, fruit number and fruit weight per tree increased with increase in pruning levels from 8 buds/cane to 4 buds/cane. however, during the same year, increased tree-spacing, on averaging over pruning, resulted in gradual decline in these yield characters. maximum fruit number and fruit weight on per tree basis was recorded under closer spacing of 5x2m or 5x2.5m, and in trees subjected to 4 buds/cane pruning during the 3rd year. during the 4th year of tree growth, the trends with respect to effects of pruning and spacing on fruit weight and fruit number were the same as observed in the 3rd year, but treatment effects were nontable 4. effect of spacing and pruning on fruit quality in fig cv. deanna 3rd year from planting 4th year from planting p1 p2 p3 mean p1 p2 p3 mean average fruit weight (g) t1 47.33 44.58 49.25 47.05 t1 58.91 56.75 58.83 58.16 t2 42.58 42.83 45.66 43.69 t2 59.66 58.16 62.08 59.97 t3 48.58 43.91 46.83 46.44 t3 60.66 57.58 58.75 59.00 t4 60.66 59.00 65.66 61.77 t4 60.08 59.41 60.91 60.14 t5 60.66 57.83 63.25 60.58 t5 61.08 60.33 59.25 60.22 mean 51.96 49.63 54.13 mean 60.08 58.45 59.96 s: **, cd (5%): 7.88; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%):—; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 18.42 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 11.12 total soluble solids (ob) t1 12.13 13.20 13.98 13.10 t1 20.00 19.68 19.48 19.72 t2 14.51 13.66 13.71 13.96 t2 18.78 19.66 19.30 19.25 t3 14.15 13.69 14.58 14.14 t3 19.61 20.49 19.85 19.98 t4 14.43 14.66 14.16 14.42 t4 19.58 19.26 19.80 19.55 t5 14.85 15.41 14.81 15.02 t5 19.80 20.66 20.10 20.19 mean 14.01 14.12 14.25 mean 19.55 19.95 19.70 s: ns, cd (5%):—; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%):—; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 11.54 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 6.89 acidity (%) t1 2.31 (0.16) 2.42 (0.18) 2.31 (0.16) 2.35 (0.17) t1 2.89 (0.25) 2.89 (0.25) 2.89 (0.25) 2.89(0.25) t2 2.24 (0.15) 2.36 (0.17) 2.36 (0.17) 2.32 (0.16) t2 2.95 (0.26) 2.95 (0.26) 2.88 (0.25) 2.93(0.26) t3 2.35 (0.17) 2.27 (0.16) 2.32 (0.16) 2.31 (0.16) t3 2.83 (0.24) 2.83 (0.24) 2.88 (0.25) 2.85(0.24) t4 2.27 (0.16) 2.39 (0.17) 2.32 (0.16) 2.33 (0.16) t4 2.89 (0.25) 2.83 (0.24) 2.95 (0.26) 2.89(0.25) t5 2.32 (0.16) 2.32 (0.16) 2.24 (0.15) 2.29 (0.16) t5 3.06 (0.28) 3.00 (0.27) 3.18 (0.30) 3.08(0.28) mean 2.30 (0.16) 2.35 (0.17) 2.31 (0.16) mean 2.92 (0.26) 2.90 (0.25) 2.95 (0.26) s: ns, cd (5%): —; p: ns, cd (5%): —; s: ns, cd (5%):—; p: ns, cd (5%): —; pxs: ns,cd (5%): —; cv: 8.62 pxs: ns, cd (5%): —; cv: 7.19 s-spacing; p-pruning; **p≤0.001; *p≤0.05 significant (table 3). the differential responses to pruning and tree-spacing during the 3rd and 4th year of tree growth could be due to the difference in tree age. fruit yield, calculated per hectare, showed fruit number in the range of 116500-133750 and 274500-299500 and fruit weight in the range of 54.5-62.0 and 158.77-173.30 q/ha, respectively, during the 3rd and 4th year of planting under closer spacing of 5x2m and under 4 buds/cane pruning. data on yield was found to be highly significant for different spacings, whereas, the interaction effects were found to be non-significant. this could be due to a lesser influence of pruning on yield. however, this is apparent with higher values for coefficient of variance. results indicated that closer spacing, with 5x2m and 4 buds/cane pruning, was relatively more beneficial in fig cultivation (table 3). mano and hamada (2005) and mano et al (2011) also reported closer spacing in fig to be beneficial for yield. fruit quality average fruit weight, in general, was higher in the 4th year compared to that in the 3rd year of tree growth under various pruning and spacing treatments. average fruit weight in the 3rd year was higher under wider spacing ravindra kumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):31-37, 2014 37 compared to closere spacing, and, 4 buds/cane pruning levels produced fruits with higher average fruit weight (45.7-65.7g). in the 4th year, with increased tree spacing, average fruitweight showed only marginal increase under various pruning levels (table 4). effects of pruning and spacing in the 4th year were found to be non-significant. fruit quality attributes like tss and acidity were not influenced by tree spacing or pruning in both the years. this indicated that fruit quality attributes are not disturbed by pruning/spacing treatments. further, tss and acidity in fruits under various pruning and spacing levels were, in general, higher during the 4th year than in the 3rd year of tree growth (table 4). interaction effects of pruning and spacing on fruit quality attributes were non-significant. mano et al (2011) also reported no difference in fruit quality in trees grown under closer or wider spacing. acknowledgment thanks are due to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for providing necessary facilities, and, dr. p. sampath kumar and dr. t. sakthivel for providing support and guidance from time to time. references albert, t., karp, k., starast, m. and paal, t. 2010. the effect of mulching and pruning on the vegetative growth and yield of the half-high blueberry. agron. res., 8:759–769 aoac. 1990. official methods of analysis. association of official analytical chemists, washington d.c., usa claude, b., françoise, l., michel, g. and robert, h. 2005 pruning intensity and fruit load influence vegetative and fruit growth in an early-maturing peach tree (cv. alexandra). fruits, 60:133-142 das, b. and jana, b.r. 2012. effect of canopy management on growth and yield of mango cv. amrapali planted at close spacing. j. food agri. environ., 10:328-331 davenport, t.l. 2006. pruning strategies to maximize tropical mango production from the time of planting to restoration of old orchards. hortsci., 41:544-548 fergusion, l., michailides, t.j. and shorey, h.h. 1990. the california fig industry. hortl rev., 12:409-490 johnson, p.r. and robinson, d.m. 2000. the tatura trellis system for high density mangoes. acta hort., 509:359-364 mano, t. and hamada, k. 2005. effects of close planting on growth, fruit quality and yield in young fig tree. kinki-chugoku-shikoku agri. res., 6:72–75 mano, t., mizuta, y. and moriguchi, t. 2011. super-high density planting of fig (ficus carica l.) for early recovery from sick soil and low temperature injury. hort. res., 10:367-373 marini, r.p. 2009. physiology of pruning in fruit trees. virginia cooperative extension, publication no. 422025, pp 1-8, http:// pubs.ext.vt.edu/422/422-025/422025_pdf.pdf naor, a. and gal, y. 2002. shoot and cluster thinning influence vegetative growth, fruit yield, and wine quality of ‘sauvignon blanc’ grapevines. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 127:628–634 nath, v., kumar, d. and pandey, v. 2008. fig. in: fruits for the future, vol. 1, satish serial publishing house, azadpur, delhi, pp 512 palmer, j.w., avery, d.j. and wertheim, s.j. 1992. effect of apple tree spacing and summer pruning on leaf area distribution and light interception. sci. hort., 52:303–312 policarpo, m., talluto, g. and bianco, r.l. 2006. vegetative and productive responses of ‘conference’ and ‘williams’ pear trees planted at different in-row spacings. sci. hort., 109:322-331 roper, t.r., patten, k.d., demoran ville, c.j., davenport, j.r., strik, b.c. and poole, a.p. 1993. fruiting of cranberry uprights reduces fruiting the following year. hort. sci., 28:228 saini, r.s., yamdagni, r., kaushik, r.a. and thareja, r.k. 1996. effect of pruning severity on growth, flowering, yield and quality of ber (ziziphus mauritiana lamk.) cv. kaithli under rainfed conditions. haryana j. hortl. sci., 25:37-40 schilletter, j.c. and richey, h.w. 2005. pruning in horticulture plants, chapter xiv. in: textbook of general horticulture, biotech books, new delhi, pp 270-283 singhal, v. 1998. handbook of indian agriculture. 1st edn, vikas publishing house pvt. ltd., new dehli, 186187 steel, r.g.d and torrie, j.h. 1980. principles and procedures of statistics. a biometrical approach. 2nd ed., mcgraw hill inter. book co. tokyo, japan turkington, c.r., peterson, j.r. and evans, j.c. 1980. a spacing, trellising, and pruning experiment with muscat gordo blanco grapevines. am. j. enol. vitic., 31:298-302 (ms received 27 november 2013, revised 17 may 2014, accepted 03 june, 2014) effect of spacing and pruning on fig j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):31-37, 2014 introduction early blight caused by the nectrotrophic hyphomycete alternaria solani (ellis & martin) sorauer, is a disease with huge economic impact in many tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) growing areas around the world and can reduce yield by 79% (gwary and nahunnaro 1998). a. solani produces a wide range of symptoms at all stages of tomato plants, causing early blight, collar rot, stem lesions and fruit rots (chaerani and voorrips, 2006). the fungus is seed borne (khulbe and sati,1987) and also overwinters in plant debris in the form of mycelia, conidia and chlamydospores (patterson,1991) and other alternate hosts like potato, egg plant and pepper (ellis and gibson, 1975) providing a potential primary source of inoculum for early blight epidemics. detection of the pathogen inoculum sources, particularly in seed and seedling, prior to planting could prevent introduction of infected material into fields, which could be an effective management practice. the currently available technique to detect a.solani in tomato seed and infected plant material is based on culturing on agar media and further its morphological characterization (rotem, 1994), which demands specialized mycological detection and quantification of alternaria solani in tomato by real time pcr p. chowdappa, b.j. nirmal kumar, b. reddi bhargavi, k.r. hema and s.p. mohan kumar division of plant pathology icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail: pallem@iihr.ernet.in abstract a conventional and real-time pcr assays using sybr green for the detection and quantification of a. solani have been developed and validated. a primer set (alp and its4) designed from the its region of a. linicola/ a. solani complex, yielded a 536 bp product when dna from 38 isolates of a. solani were amplified. no product was amplified from a. alternata, a. brassicae, a. brassicicola, a.helianthi, a. porri, a. sesami, a.carthami, a.ricini, colletotrichum gloeosporioides, c. capsici, c. falcatum, cercospora canescens, c. capsici, phytophthora infestans, sclerotium rolfsii, fusarium equiseti, f. oxysporum, rhizoctonia solani, phoma exigua, curvularia spp and drechslera. in addition, alp/its4 primers were successfully utilized in real-time pcr assays of a. solani. the efficiency of conventional and real-time pcr assays was compared. the conventional pcr was able to detect the pathogen on symptomatic artificially infected tomato plants 5 days after pathogen inoculation. the detection limit was 100 conidia and 10 pg of dna in the case of conventional pcr. real-time pcr exhibited a detection limit 10 times lower (10 conidia, 10fg of dna). the application of real time pcr assay for rapid detection of a.solani in infected tomato plant material is discussed. key words: alternaria solani, molecular diagnosis, real time pcr, early blight expertise. a. solani can be artificially grown in various culture media, but it does not readily sporulate in vitro, making identification difficult based on morphology (rotem, 1994). further, numerous saprophytic alternaria spp. commonly are found on tomato seed, complicating the identification process. an alternate rapid and accurate method for specific detection of a.solani in seed and other plant material is required. conventional diagnostic pcr assays have been successfully employed in seed health testing (guillemette et al, 2004; ioos et al, 2009). tedious and time-consuming post-amplification procedures such as gel electrophoresis and detection by gel documentation and cross contamination limiting large-scale applications of conventional pcr for routine fungal pathogen diagnosis. in addition to detection and identification, pathogen quantification is an important aspect with respect to plant disease management, since it provides the information required for determining the necessity, and the extent of appropriate control strategies. in recent years, real time pcr based techniques have emerged as robust tools for diagnosis and quantification of j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):196-201, 2014 197 pcr-based assay for alternaria solani in tomato seed borne pathogens and have contributed greatly to plant disease management (guillemette et al, 2004; lievens et al, 2006; alaei et al, 2009; debode et al, 2009). real time pcr offers several advantages compared to conventional pcr based detection of plant disease diagnosis: increased sensitivity, no post pcr processing and allows quantification of target dna (schena et al, 2004). however, no report is available on the pcr detection of a.solani in tomato except few publications on molecular diversity (weir et al, 1998; martinez et al, 2004; lourenco et al, 2009). to our knowledge, this is the first report concentrating on the molecular detection and quantification of a.solani directly from tomato tissue. the objective of this study was to develop sensitive and specific quantitative real-time pcr assay for detection of the a.solani in seed and other plant material of tomato and compare its sensitivity to a conventional pcr assay. material and methods alternaria solani isolate (ota 5) (ncbi accession no hq270458), obtained from naturally infected tomato foliage, during 2011 at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, was used in the present study. the mycelium was grown in potato dextrose broth at 25 ±1oc, washed with sterile distilled water to remove traces of medium and transferred to filter paper to damp dry. dna was extracted from the mycelium according to the protocol described earlier (chowdappa et al, 2003). dna from conidia was extracted using naoh lysis method described by nam et al (2007). the dna pellet was re-suspended in 30 to 50 μl of 10mm tris-edta buffer, ph 8.0 and stored at “20oc. the its region of r dna was amplified with its1 and its4 primers (white et al, 1990). the resulting pcr product was cloned into e.coli dh5α and sequenced the plasmid inserts to confirm that it has 100% homology to rdna sequence of a. solani available at genbank. the genomic dna (gdna) and plasmid dna (pdna) was quantified using nano drop spectrophotometer and serially diluted to obtain concentrations from 100ng to 10fg/μl. conidial suspension (2x 106 conidia/ml) of a.solani, derived from artificially inoculated tomato fruits var. arka vikas, was used as source of inoculum. fully matured leaves from 40 days old tomato plants var. arka vikas were excised at the petiole base and washed thoroughly with sterile distilled water, damp dried and point inoculated with 20μl of conidial suspension of a. solani and placed in moist chambers containing 95% humidity at 25ºc under photoperiod of 12h light. leaves inoculated with water served as control. the necrotic tissue with abundant conidia were excised after 7 days of inoculation and considered as 100% infected plant material. to estimate the detection limit of target dna in leaf tissue, 100mg of 100% infected plant material was serially diluted with 900mg of healthy material and created plant material containing 100% to 0.001% infection. three replicate of dilutions series were prepared. the healthy seeds var. arka vikas were artificially inoculated with 2×106 conidia of a. solani following the procedure described by ioos et al (2009). infection of tomato seeds by a.solani was further confirmed by inoculating 100 inoculated seeds randomly on pda at 25 ±1°c. to know the detection limit of target dna in seed, seedlots with infestation levels ranging from 10.0% to 0.1% were created by mixing 900 healthy seeds and 100 infected seeds (10% infection), 990 healthy seeds and 10 infected seeds (1% infection) and 999 healthy seeds and 1 infected seeds (0.1% infection). dna was extracted from 100mg of plant sample or 25 number of seeds using zr plant/seed dna kit (zymo research corporation, usa) as per manufacturer ’s recommendations. to determine the target dna concentration at various stages of the infection process in the leaf, the conventional and real-time pcr method was used with dna extracted from plant material inoculated with a. solani and harvested at 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 days of post inoculation. conventional pcr conventional pcr was performed according to the method of chowdappa et al (2003) using alp (5’ggcacctcccggggtggc-3’) and its 4 (5’tcctccgcttattgatatgc-3’) primers (mckay et al, 1999). pcr was performed in 50μl reaction containing 1μl template dna, 5μl of 10x pcr buffer, 40.7μl of sterile distilled water, 1μl of 10mm dntp’s, 1μl of each 10pmol each a. solani specific primer and 0.25μl of taq dna polymerase (5u/μl). pcr amplification was performed in an eppendorf master cycler by 34 cycles of denaturation at 94oc for 60s, annealing at 55oc for 60s, and extension at 72oc for 1.5min with an initial denaturation of 5min at 94oc before cycling and a final extension step at 72oc for 5min. to determine if the correct sized pcr product was amplified, 5 ìl of the pcr product were electrophoresed in 2% agarose gel at 90v for 1h in tris-borate-edta (tbe) buffer and visualized under uv after staining with ethidium bromide (0.5 μg/ml). to check the specificity of the primer pairs, alp and its4, dna from alternaria solani, a. alternata, a.brassicae, a. brassicicola, a.helianthi, a.porri, a.sesame, a.carthami, a.ricini, colletotrichum j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):196-201, 2014 198 gloeosporioides, c.capsici, c.falcatum, cercospora canescens, c.capsici, phytophthora infestans, sclerotium rolfisi, fusarium equiseti., f.oxysporum, rhizoctonia solani and phoma exigua, curvularia spp and drechleria species associated with tomato and other crops has been tested and it showed amplification of a.solani and not from other inter and intra related species. real time pcr real-time pcr was performed with the sybr® green (roche diagnostics corp., indianapolis, in, usa) in 20 μl reactions contained 1 μl of the target dna extract, 10 μl of the sybr green i pcr master mix 2x, 1 μl of each primer (50 pm) alp and its4 and 7 μl sterile distilled water. amplification and detection of fluorescence (530nm) was carried out using light cycler 2 (roche diagnostics corp., indianapolis, in, usa). thermal cycling conditions consisted of initial denaturation for 10min at 95oc followed by 40 amplification cycles of 10s at 95oc, 30 s at 55oc, 30s at 72oc. fluorescence was detected at the end of the elongation phase for each cycle. to evaluate amplification specificity, melting curve analysis was performed at the end of each pcr run. a melting curve profile was obtained by heating the mixture to 95oc for 10s, cooling to 70oc for 20s and slowly heating to 95oc for 20s at 0.05oc/s ramp rate with continuous measurement of fluorescence at 530nm. crossing point (cp) values, which are inversely proportional to detected dna content, were calculated using light cycler software 2.0. reactions were run in triplicate to minimise the error due to handling the standard curve was generated using tenfold dilution series of target pdna and gdna amount (1ng/μl to 10 fg/μl) from a. solani isolate against the cp value exported from the light cycler 2 real-time detection system. for all the concentrations, three replicate real–time pcr reactions were conducted to establish linear regression curves between threshold cycle (cp) and the logarithm of the template dna concentration. the amount of dna for unknown samples was extrapolated from the cp value and the value obtained from the standard curve. in order to know the interference of non-target fungal dna in the real-time assay, the same serial dilutions of a. solani isolate ota5 dna (i.e., ranging from 1ng to 10 fg/μl) were added to 10 pg/μl of genomic dna from a. alternata, a. brassicae, a. brassicicola, a. helianthi, a. porri, a. sesami, a. carthami, a. ricini, colletotrichum gloeosporioides, c. capsici, , cercospora capsici, phytophthora infestans, sclerotium rolfsii, fusarium equiseti, f. oxysporum, rhizoctonia solani, phoma exigua, curvularia spp and drechslera associated with tomato or healthy tomato dna prior to amplification. for all samples, three replicates were analyzed. finally, the assays were validated using naturally infected samples collected from 30 different localities in bengaluru rural, chikkaballapura, hassan, kolar and tumkur districts of karnataka, chittoor district of andhra pradesh and coimbatore district of tamil nadu. results and discussion the primer pair, alp and its4 selectively amplified dna from a. solani isolate ota5, producing amplicon of 537bp and no amplification of dna from other fungal isolates was detected. sequencing of amplified fragment showed a nucleotide sequence exhibiting 100% identity with its gene of a. solani. the detection limit in conventional pcr is 10pg of dna (fig.1) and 100 conidia. the limit of detection was 10fg of dna (fig. 2) and 10 conidia in case of real time pcr. a characteristic sigmoidal amplification curves were obtained for the different concentrations of target dna when fluorescence intensity at 530nm was plotted against the cycle number (fig. 2). the standard curves from lane m 50bp ladder; lane 1control; lane 2-100ng; lane 3-10ng; lane 4-1ng; lane 5-100pg; lane 6-10pg; lane 7-1pg fig. 1. amplified products of serially diluted gdna using conventional pcr curve11ng; curve2-100pg; curve310pg; curve41pg; curve5100fg; curve610fg; curve7control fig. 2. amplification curves of 10-fold serial dilutions of target gdna of a. solani using real time pcr chowdappa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):196-201, 2014 199 simultaneous real-time pcr reactions were y = “3.557x + 30.757 (r2 =0.9811) for gdna and y = “3.554x + 32.377 (r2 =0.9916) for pdna which ‘y’ represents the log concentration of the target dna and ‘x’ represents the cp value. the standard curves obtained from the separate realtime pcr assays and five different dilution series of gdna and pdna were highly similar: the coefficient of variation between the cp values was smaller than 5% at all template levels. highly linear relationships (r2 =0.99) were observed between the cp value and the log of the dna concentration in each replicate. the slope of the standard curves was not significantly different (p>0.05) for pdna template (“3.557 ± 0.120) versus gdna template (“3.558±0.230), which implies that pdna can be used reliably for the assembly of standard curves and thus the quantification of a. solani in unknown dna samples (fig. 3). when real-time pcr was conducted on a. solani pdna and gdna that was mixed with a tomato gdna or dna from other fungal isolates, no significant difference was observed between the resulting standard curves (p>0.05) or the correlation coefficients (r2 =0.99), indicating no interactive effect of the plant or other dna with the pcr reactions. the minimum detection of target dna by real time pcr assay was 10fg of pdna or gdna, corresponding to cp values of 26.28 and 28.35 respectively. melting curve analysis revealed that the melting temperatures of the pcr products and pdna or gdna of a. solani as template were uniform for all template concentrations, demonstrating the specificity of the amplification process (fig. 4). further, dissociation of the pcr reactions consistently produced a single peak at 74ºc in all the samples, showing the existence of single product in the reaction and no other primer dimer peaks were detected. similar melting curve with a tm maximum at 74.0°c was obtained also on dna extracted from 10 conidia. to confirm the presence of a specific pcr product, a series of pdna was analyzed after real-time pcr in 2% agarose gels. all the samples showed presence of expected band size of 537bp (fig.5). blastn analysis of 537 bp obtained from the sequencing of the amplicon showed 100% sequence identity with the its region of a. solani present in ncbi databases. the conventional pcr was able to detect the pathogen 5 days post-inoculation in symptomatic leaves. however, real time pcr signals were detected in artificially inoculated tomato plants two days after inoculation, artificial inoculated seed and in naturally infected leaves, stems, calyx and fruits. no amplification was detected in the healthy plant material. a significant (p = 0.01) linear correlation was obtained between cp values and log values of serial dilutions standard curves were obtained with 10-fold series of genomic dna of a. solani. data represent means of the three independent reactions. fig.3. standard curves for the quantification of target gdna in tomato samples fig.4. melting curve profile for real-time pcr amplification. four peaks represent target pdna, target gdna, target gdna spiked with tomato dna and target gdna spiked dna of a. alternata. lane m100 bp marker; lane 1artificially infected leaf; lane 2naturally infected leaf; lane 3naturally infected stem; lane 4naturally infected calyx; lane 5naturally infected fruit; lane 6infected seed; lane 7healthy leaf. fig. 5. in planta detection of a. solani by real time pcr with primer alp-f and its4 pcr-based assay for alternaria solani in tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):196-201, 2014 200 containing 1 to 0.001% infected leaf material ( y= -3.50x + 30.59, r2 = 0.9891) when serial dilution of artificially inoculated tomato leaves with healthy leaves were used to determine detection limit of a. solani in 100mg of tomato material. the infected leaf material with 0.001% infection had 156fg of dna of a. solani for 100mg plant material while infected seed material with 0.1% had 85fg target of dna for 25 seeds. minimum 25 seeds are required to detect target dna by real time pcr. positive results were further confirmed by running the product of real-time pcr amplification on 1.5% agarose gel (fig. 5). real time pcr assay was able to detect a. solani in naturally infected leaves, stems, calyx, fruits and seeds collected from different localities in karnataka (fig. 5). alternaria solani is an important seed borne pathogenic fungus responsible for the early blight of tomato. production and supply of disease free seed is necessary to limit the spread of this pathogen. culture and morphological based detection methods are time consuming and laborious. in this study, alp/its4 primers (mckay et al, 1999) specifically detected a. solani in tomato seed by conventional and real-time pcr assay. mckay et al (1999) reported that a.linicola and a.solani had identical its and ß–tubulin nucleotide sequences and prevented the selection of an a.linicola-specific pcr primer and suggested that this primer has the potential for use in detection of a.solani in many hosts. the results showed that alp/its4 primers amplified dna extracted from a.solani isolates. a.solani is difficult to identify when conidia or other characteristic morphological structures are absent in the culture. in the absence of rapid morphological identification system, a technique that permits specific, sensitive and quantitative detection of a.solani in plant material is required. the present study describes a real time pcr based technique that meets these requirements that eliminate the need for pure culture isolation and production of morphological structures like conidia and shows the usefulness of the assay in artificially and naturally infected plant material. the real time assay developed in this study was highly sensitive with detection thresholds as low as 10fg gdna and 10 conidia and 10 times more sensitive than that of conventional pcr. the lower detection limit by real-time pcr assays was possible due to less inhibition by plant inhibitors in real time pcr assays than that of conventional pcr. real-time pcr assays have been used for the detection of fungal plant pathogens in seeds (guillemette et al, 2004; lievens et al, 2006; alaei et al, 2009; debode et al, 2009) and this technique would be useful for seed health testing. thus, the results showed that real time pcr assay is a highly specific and sensitive technique that can be used in routine quarantine inspections to screen the seeds and transplants for the diagnosis of a. solani. the real-time pcr-based method presented here has the advantage of quantitative estimation of seed infection and can be automated easily over conventional pcr. this method can be used for diagnosis purpose in plant quarantine laboratory, disease screening programmes, epidemiological studies and for screening fungicidal resistance. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge the indian council of agricultural research (icar), new delhi for financial support in the form national net work project on “diagnosis and management of leaf spot diseases of field and horticultural crops”. references alaei, h., baeyen, s., maes, m., hofte, m. and heungens, k. 2009. molecular detection of puccinia horiana in chrysanthemum x morifolium through conventional and real-time pcr. j. microbiol. meth., 76:136–145 chaerani, r. and voorrips, r. 2006. tomato early blight (alternaria solani): the pathogen, genetics and breeding for the resistance. j. gen. pl. pathol., 72:335-347 chowdappa, p., brayford, d., smith, j. and flood, j. 2003. molecular discrimination of phytophthora isolates on cocoa and their relationship with coconut, black pepper and bell pepper isolates based on rdna 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genes for phylogenetics. in: pcr protocols: a guide to methods and applications, eds. m.a. innis, d.h. gelfand, j.j. sninsky & t.j. white, pp. 315"332. academic press, new york, ny, usa (ms received 14 october 2013, revised 03 july 2014, accepted 23 july 2014) pcr-based assay for alternaria solani in tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):196-201, 2014 final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in different states of india debnath sanjit1, bauri f.k.1, swain s.2, patel a.n. 3, patel a.r. 3, shaikh n.b. 4, bhalerao v.p. 4, baruah k. 5, manju p.r. 6, suma a.6, menon r.6, gutam s.7 and patil p.7* icar-all india coordinated research project on fruits; 1bidhanchandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, west bengal 2orissa university of agriculture and technology, bhubaneswar, odisha; 3navsari agriculture university, gandevi, gujarat 4mahatma phule krishi vidyapeeth, jalagon, maharashtra; 5assam agricultural university, jorhat, assam 6kerala agriculture university, kannara, kerala; 7indian institute of horticultural research, hessarghatta, bengaluru *corresponding author email : pcfruits.iihr@icar.gov.in abstract an experiment was conducted under the icar-all india coordinated research project on fruits to study the high density planting (hdp) and nutrient requirement of banana at six research centres across the country, including bhubaneswar (orissa), gandevi (gujarat), jalgaon (maharashtra), jorhat (assam), kannara (kerala) and mohanpur (west bengal) to enable higher productivity of banana and profit to farmers. objective of this study was to explore the possibility of increasing productivity through intervention of only per unit plant population (through planting system) and level of nutrition, but without any interference to the regional choices of variety (e.g. choice variety nendran for kerala or martaman for west bengal), production system (mono/polyclone, single/multi-year plantation, and pop of respective states), for which national productivity ranges are much skewed also. results indicated that intervention of only plant density could increase productivity of banana within the existing system of production and choice of variety of different region or states. the experiment was laid out in rbd with four planting densities (s1p2, s1p3, s2p2and s2p3, where s1=2m x3m, s2=1.8m x3.6m, p2=2 suckers/hill, p3=3 suckers/hill), three nutrition levels (f1, f2and f3, which is 100%, 75% and 50% of rdf) and one with region-specific conventional planting density and nutrition (100% of rdf) practices as control.the results of this experiment showed that hdp (s1p3, 5000 plants / ha) in banana, accommodating three suckers per hill at 2m x 3m spacing increased productivity over the conventional system at the bhubaneswar, gandevi, jorhat, kannara and mohanpur centres. the increase in productivity due to hdp (5,000/ha) over control was 28.9% (rdf 25%) to 50.6% (rdf 100%) at bhubaneswar, 15.2% (rdf 25%) to 21.9% (rdf 100%) at gandevi, 4.0% (rdf 25%) to 7.4% (rdf 100%) at jorhat, 33.5%(rdf 25%) to 43.5% (rdf 100%) at kannara and 46.5%(rdf 25%) to 79.0% (rdf 100%) at mohanpur. the nutrient requirement under hdp was 100% rdf at kannara, 75% rdf at bhubaneswar and mohanpur and 50% rdf at gandevi and jorhat centres, which indicates a saving in cost of fertilizer input by 25% -50%. it is therefore, recommended for hdp (5000 plants/ha) in banana, accommodating three suckers per hill at 2m x 3m (6.6 ft x 3.8 ft) spacing with 50% rdf in the agro-climatic regions of gandevi and jorhat, with 75% rdf in the agro-climatic regions of bhubaneswar and mohanpur and with 100% rdf in the agro-climatic region of kannara in order to ensure higher productivity and profit to farmers. keywords: banana, productivity, input saving, nutrition strategy and planting 153 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 introduction sustainable increase in productivity is the key objective of commercial fruit cultivation to meet the per-head demand of fruits for human nutrition. high density pla nting (hdp), media ted by ca nopy management, wa s found to be very useful for increasing the productivity of fruit crops. however, the commonly used canopy management tools for perennial fruit trees (training, pruning and dwarfing rootstocks) were not feasible for canopy management and hdp of herbaceous perennial plants such as banana (debnath et al., 2015). productivity in bananas is governed by the ‘source’ and ‘sink’ components of the plant system and its usefulness necessitates distinguishing between physiological and agronomic approaches (turner, 1998). hdp in banana was found to have direct effect on growth and yield parameters, viz., pseudostem height, girth, leaf number, leaf area index, absorption of solar light, bunch weight and productivity (nalina et al., 2000; thippesha et al., 2005; debnath et al., 2017). this, therefore, indicated the need forregion-specific fine-tuning of agronomic practices including spacing, plant density, nutrition and so on, for successful hdp in banana. for hdp of cv. martaman (aab) in the gangetic alluvium region of west bengal, the identified optimum leaf area index (lai) was 5.50, corresponding to a plant population of 5000/ha, accommodating 3 plants/pit at 2m × 3m spacing (debnath et al., 2015). these technological inputs on hdp in banana through research works are essentially needed for intervention and betterment of the much-skewed distribution of banana productivity across the different states in india. the average national productivity of banana in india is 34.86 t/ha, of which only five states recorded a productivity of more than 45 t/ha madhya pradesh (69.52 t/ha), gujarat (65.62 t/ha), andhra pradesh (56.24 t/ha), maharashtra (52.04 t/ha) and uttar pradesh (45.72 t/ ha). in fact, banana is grown in rest of the states with much lower productivity (3.40 to 44.94 t/ha) (anon, 2018). with this back ground, an experiment was conducted to study the hdpand nutrient requirement of banana across the different states in the country for increasing productivity and profitability of the farmers. materials and methods t he i ndia n council of agr icult ur a l res ea r ch (icar), through its all india coordinated research p r ojec t ( a i c r p ) on f r u it s , c o ndu c t ed a n experiment between 2009 to 2015 to study the hdp and nutrient requirement of banana at six research centres across the country, including bhubaneswar ( o r is s a ) , g a ndevi ( g u ja r a t ) , j a lga on (maharashtra), jorhat (assam), kannara (kerala) and mohanpur (west bengal) to ensure higher productivity of bana na and profit for far mer s ( ta b le1 ) . t he ex p er iment wa s l a id ou t in randomized block design (rbd), replicated four t imes wit h 15 pla nt s p er r eplica tion a nd 1 3 treatment combinations, including four planting dens it i es ( s 1 p 2 , s 1 p 3 , s 2p 2 a nd s 2p 3 , wh er e s1=2mx3m, s2=1.8m x3.6m, p 2=2 suckers/hill, p3=3 suckers/hill), three nutrition levels (f1, f2 and f3=100%, 75% and 50% of rdf) and with one table 1. soil type, agro-climatic region and location of experimental sites under icar-aicrp on fruits centre soil type, agro-climatic region and location bhubaneswar soil: saline, lateritic, alluvial, red and mixed red and black; east and south east ouat, odisha coastal plain; 20015’n latitude and 85052’ e longitude gandevi soil: clay loam; agro-climatic region-i (south gujarat) and heavy rainfall area; nau, gujarat 210n latitude, 730e longitude, 7.6 m above mean sea level jalgaon soil: black; deccan plateau, hot semi-arid eco region; 210nlatitude, mpkv, maharashtra 74.330elongitude jorhat soil: sandy loam; upper brahmaputra valley zone; 26.750nlatitude, aau, assam 94.220elongitude kannara soil: clay loam; 10°32’6.5" n latitude, 76°20’9.8" e longitude, 58m above mean kau, kerala sea level mohanpur soil: clay-loam; the gangetic alluvium region of west bengal; 23.50north latitude, bckv, west bengal 890 elongitude, 9.75 m above mean sea level studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement 154 sanjit et al region-specific conventional planting density and nutrition (100%rdf) practice as control. for a p a r t ic u la r r egion/ s t a t e, ex is t ing p a c ka ge of practices (pop) was fixed and followed both for conventiona l densit y a nd t r ea tment densit ies. compared the impact of density and nutrition level (variable factor) only, while the pop (including irrigation method and amount) was a constant for the same region/state. details were given above on the variable factors only, viz., plant population (s1p2, s1p3, s2p2& s2p3) and nutrition levels (f1, f2 & f3). uniform, healthy sword suckers were disinfected and planted in 1m3 pits as per spacing treatments. region-specific recommended varieties and pop (nutrition, irrigation, protection, and so on) wer e followed for the r espective resear ch centres (table 2). initial soil nutrient status was estimated from the soil samples randomly collected variety & conventional recommended dose of irrigation centre planting spacing & plant fertilizer method material population/ha (rdf/plant/crop cycle) followed bhubaneswar grand nain 1.8 m x 1.8 m, 10 kg fym + 200g n + 50g drip (aaa), sucker 3086 p2o5 + 200g k2o gandevi grand nain, 1.8 m x 1.8 m, 10 kg fym + 300g n + 90g drip sucker 3086 p2o5 + 200g k2o jalgaon grand nain, 0.9x1.5x2.1m, 10 kg fym + 200g n + 40g drip sucker 4444 (paired p2o5 + 200g k2o row system) jorhat jahaji (aaa), 1.5m x1.5m, 12 kg fym + 110g n + 33 g rainfed sucker 4444 p2o5 + 330 g k2o kannara nendran (aab), 2 m x 2 m, 10 kg fym + 190g n + 115 g basin sucker 2500 p2o5 + 300 g k2o mohanpur martaman (aab), 2 m x 2 m, 10 kg fym + 200g n + 40g check basin sucker 2500 p2o5 + 200g k2o table 2. variety, planting materials, conventional spacing, plant population, recommended fertilizer dose (rdf) and irrigation method followed at different centres table 3. initial soil nutrient status of experimental plots at different centres centre organic total available soil available soil available soil carbon nitrogen nitrogen (n) phosphorus (p2o5) potassium (k2o) (%) (%) content (kg/ha) content (kg/ha) content (kg/ha) bhubaneswar 0.61 0.67 200.0 67.6 134.4 gandevi 0.66 230.0 52.8 230.0 jorhat 0.60 0.64 192.2 40.1 119.1 kannara 0.70 0.70 260.0 55.0 155.0 mohanpur 0.78 0.70 285.0 58.0 165.0 f r om ex p er i ment a l f ield du r ing f ina l la nd preparation (table 3). observations on gr owth characters (viz., pseudostem height (m), girth (cm), lea f numb er, lea f a r ea index, da ys ta ken f or shooting) a nd lea f nit r ogen, p hos phor us a nd potassium content (n, p & k in %) were recorded at shooting or flowering stage of the plant. the crop duration (days), finger number per bunch, finger weight (g), bunch weight (kg), yield (t/ha), tss (0b), acidity (%), shelf-life (days) of fruits, yield increase over contr ol (%), b: c r atio and soil nutrient status (available n, p2o5and k2o in kg/ ha) were recorded after harvest. quality of fruit was analyzed as per a.o.a.c. (1984) methods. the available nitrogen was determined by using the alkaline potassium permanganate method (subbiah j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 155 and asija, 1956). the available soil phosphorus was estimated by olson method (jackson, 1967). available soil potassium was determined by using flame photometric method, whereas walkley and bla c k’s r a p id t it r a t ion met hod wa s u s ed t o determine the organic carbon content of the soil (jackson, 1967). the micro-kjeldahl method as described by black (1965) was used to estimate the leaf n content. the leaf p content was estimated by using the va nado-molybda te yellow colour method and the leaf k content was determined by using fla me photometr y (cha pma n a nd pr a tt, 1961). the amount of nutrients applied per hectare was estimated on the basis of plant population per hectare under hdp and conventional systems and the recommended fer tilizer dose (rdf) at the respective centres, considering that per ton fym contributed 0.5 kg n, 0.2kg p2o5 and 0.5 kg k2o. the amount of nutrients removed through fruit harvest from hdp (those that produced higher yield and highest b:c ratio) and conventional systems was calculated based on fruit yield and nutrient removal (6.7 kg n, 1.7 kg p2o5and 6.7 kg k2o) per ton banana produce (ganeshamurthy et al., 2011). pooled da ta for three cr op cycles’ was analyzed for statistical inference by following the statistical method for rbd, as described by gomez and gomez (1983). results and discussion the major objective of this study was to investigate productivity increase, if any, due to variations in per unit plant population and nutrition level. yield increase for each region/state was estimated separately, in respect of its variety and pop only, by comparing the yield under hdp & conventional density of that pa r ticula r va r iety. it wa s r eflected fr om the observations that hdp could increase productivity in different region/state with the same variety & pop of respective region, only including intervention of hdp system. it was observed that the plant growth characters showed significant variations (c.d. at 5%) due to density of planting and a level of nutrition at all centres (ta bles 4, 5 a nd 6). ma ximum height of the pseudostem was recorded with a planting density of 5000/ha with 100% rdf (s1p3f1) at all centres treatno. of bhubaneswar gandevi jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ha. h g h g h g h g h g s1p2f1 3333 2.32 55.12 1.85 61.18 1.22 61.27 3.23 42.25 2.90 64.38 s1p2f2 plant/ 2.30 54.53 1.78 59.38 1.21 58.30 3.12 40.92 2.87 62.80 s1p2f3 ha 2.28 53.82 1.73 58.05 1.18 59.40 3.06 41.35 2.83 62.53 s1p3f1 5000 2.41 53.91 1.98 59.88 1.81 53.30 3.38 41.15 3.02 62.42 s1p3f2 plant/ 2.39 51.62 1.89 59.01 1.76 55.67 3.29 40.66 2.99 61.10 s1p3f3 ha 2.37 50.23 1.86 55.47 1.40 63.50 3.24 39.15 2.97 60.46 s2p2f1 3086 2.31 56.83 1.79 60.21 1.58 57.20 3.23 43.10 2.87 65.43 s2p2f2 plant/ 2.27 55.74 1.75 56.77 1.12 63.10 3.14 41.70 2.86 64.83 s2p2f3 ha 2.25 54.95 1.69 56.33 1.10 56.10 3.11 42.25 2.82 63.19 s2p3f1 4630 2.38 54.94 2.00 58.25 1.28 57.53 3.37 41.65 2.99 62.47 s2p3f2 plant/ 2.33 53.91 1.93 55.99 1.39 56.10 3.29 41.15 2.92 61.73 s2p3f3 ha 2.31 52.87 1.86 55.98 1.36 65.10 3.25 40.00 2.90 61.33 control 2.20 57.01 1.87 62.78 1.13 74.10 3.05 46.85 2.78 66.18 sem (±) 0.02 0.33 0.04 1.05 0.004 0.65 1.23 0.41 0.04 0.79 c.d. at 5% 0.07 1.54 0.12 2.96 0.008 0.42 0.03 1.139 0.08 1.62 table 4. variations in pseudostem height (h in m) and girth (g in cm) at shooting stage of plant due to different planting densities and nutrition levels j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement 156 table 5. variations in leaf number per plant and leaf area index (lai) at shooting stage of plant due to different planting densities and nutrition levels. treat no. of bhubaneswar gandevi jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ leaf/ lai leaf/ lai leaf/ lai leaf/ lai leaf/ lai ha. plant plant plant plant plant s1p2f1 3333 10.59 3.58 20.89 1.02 24.65 2.60 11.00 5.48 12.70 3.25 s1p2f2 plant/ 10.44 3.47 20.33 0.99 26.16 2.65 10.40 5.17 12.40 3.17 s1p2f3 ha 10.32 3.36 20.04 0.97 24.33 2.44 10.20 5.29 11.90 3.05 s1p3f1 5000 10.21 4.35 19.79 1.00 26.64 2.83 10.80 8.16 11.60 4.45 s1p3f2 plant/ 9.82 4.22 19.47 0.98 25.62 2.58 10.40 8.11 11.30 4.35 s1p3f3 ha 9.64 4.15 19.02 0.94 25.32 2.72 10.00 7.98 11.00 4.22 s2p2f1 3086 11.02 3.26 20.78 1.00 23.76 2.45 11.67 3.53 13.10 3.11 s2p2f2 plant/ 10.64 3.14 20.35 0.97 24.03 2.16 11.27 3.65 12.80 3.03 s2p2f3 ha 10.62 3.09 19.56 0.90 23.74 2.49 10.70 3.47 12.10 2.87 s2p3f1 4630 10.32 4.14 19.65 0.99 26.33 2.53 10.80 5.30 11.70 4.16 s2p3f2 plant/ 10.27 4.05 19.50 0.95 26.05 2.65 10.40 5.33 11.40 4.05 s2p3f3 ha 9.84 3.92 19.30 0.93 26.15 2.71 10.50 5.14 11.00 3.91 control 11.24 2.70 21.53 1.04 21.45 6.48 13.50 1.72 13.60 2.61 sem (±) 0.17 0.17 0.42 0.02 0.53 0.22 0.31 0.56 0.27 0.50 c.d. at 5% 0.52 0.52 1.17 0.07 1.10 0.46 0.92 1.20 0.55 1.01 table 6. variations in days taken for shooting (ds in days) and crop duration (cd in days) due to different planting densities and nutrition levels. treatno. of bhubaneswar gandevi jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ha. ds cd ds cd ds cd ds cd ds cd s1p2f1 3333 217.4 309.3 288.5 398.1 254.7 341.7 247.5 336.1 297.1 389.1 s1p2f2 plant/ 214.3 304.2 294.8 390.3 253.3 342.9 248.2 338.7 293.3 383.3 s1p2f3 ha 212.5 299.3 298.9 402.8 252.0 341.2 258.5 343.7 292.6 379.6 s1p3f1 5000 240.4 338.4 312.2 413.0 279.7 335.4 259.6 348.1 309.7 407.7 s1p3f2 plant/ 236.7 332.7 302.7 421.5 281.7 352.7 259.5 347.5 303.4 399.4 s1p3f3 ha 219.3 312.7 311.4 420.8 284.7 350.1 265.8 354.1 298.6 391.6 s2p2f1 3086 218.6 308.4 291.2 393.7 245.0 332.1 239.6 329.5 295.3 385.3 s2p2f2 plant/ 216.8 303.4 285.3 383.2 242.0 326.0 240.7 330.2 293.5 380.5 s2p2f3 ha 215.5 299.3 293.8 407.8 240.7 322.9 247.6 336.1 296.1 380.1 s2p3f1 4630 236.6 331.5 313.7 411.5 270.7 351.0 251.5 339.5 306.4 401.4 s2p3f2 plant/ 237.4 329.8 313.3 415.7 272.3 351.6 257.3 345.3 304.2 396.2 s2p3f3 ha 219.8 307.9 324.0 414.5 269.7 347.2 259.8 348.5 299.9 387.9 control 210.3 296.0 291.5 378.1 230.7 328.0 219.3 309.3 275.4 374.5 sem (±) 3.63 5.23 6.73 6.90 0.86 0.57 1.26 1.80 8.57 8.57 c.d. at 5% 10.60 15.50 19.65 19.40 1.77 1.25 4.55 5.28 17.50 17.50 sanjit et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 157 except at ga ndevi, wherea s maximum gir th of pseudostem was recorded with conventional planting density and nutrition at all centres. leaf number per plant at the shooting stage was recorded to be maximum in conventional planting at all centres except jorhat, however, the leaf area index was recorded to be maximum in highest density of planting with 100% rdf (s1p2f1) at the bhubaneswar, kannara and mohanpur centres. it was seen that more time (days) was required from planting to harvesting under the higher density of planting (5000 plant/ha), when compared to a lower plant population of 3086, 3333 and 4630 /ha. such variations in pla nt growth characters viz., increase in pseudostem height, leaf area index, durations for shooting and harvesting, but reduction in pseudostem girth and leaf number per plant at shooting, as a result of high-density planting in banana were also established by the findings of rodriguez et al. (2007), thippesha et al. (2007), pujari et al. (2011) and debnath et al. (2015). fruit yield and quality parameters were found to vary significantly due to different densities of planting and nutrition levels, across the centres (tables 7,8 and 9). finger number per bunch was recorded as being higher under lower density of planting, including control, at all centres except jalgaon. similarly, the weight of an individual bunch was also higher under lower density of planting. but the total fruit yield per unit area, that is, the productivity of banana showed steady increase due to increase in the density of planting. maximum content of total soluble solids and shelf life of fruit were recorded under conventional plant density and nutrition at the bhubaneswar, jorhat and mohanpur centres, whereas non-significant effect was recorded on the total soluble solids content of the fruit at gandevi and kannara centres. a plant population of 5000/ha with 100% rdf resulted in maximum fruit acidity at all centres. these results corroborated with the findings of nalina et al. (2000), thippesha et al. (2007), pujari et al. (2011) and debnath et al. (2015). the per cent increase in productivity over control due to different planting densities and nutrition levels varied from 8.3 to 50.6 at bhubaneswar, 8.8 to 21.9 at gandevi, 2.4 to 7.4 at jorhat, 4.5 to 43.5 at kannara and 5.7 to 79.0 at mohanpur centre (table 10). maximum productivity and b: c ratio table 7. variations in finger number (fn) and finger weight (fw in gram) due to different planting densities and nutrition levels treat no.of bhubaneswar gandevi jalgaon jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ha. fn fw fn fw fn fn fw fn fw fn fw s1p2f1 3333 128.4 119.3 129.9 142.8 154.0 151.3 145.9 52.4 166.5 108.7 122.2 s1p2f2 plant/ 123.6 118.4 123.0 141.6 148.0 145.1 144.1 51.0 165.2 102.4 121.1 s1p2f3 ha 112.7 116.5 116.5 133.8 125.0 150.8 140.6 50.8 157.4 96.4 119.8 s1p3f1 5000 124.4 114.2 113.5 128.6 131.0 173.8 123.8 52.0 148.3 104.0 119.3 s1p3f2 plant/ 122.0 112.7 105.1 128.1 124.0 177.8 127.1 50.7 148.1 100.9 118.0 s1p3f3 ha 108.9 111.3 99.7 122.3 110.0 196.6 104.3 50.3 142.5 87.5 116.6 s2p2f1 3086 127.3 125.2 131.0 146.7 154.0 159.4 154.5 52.0 163.4 107.5 124.8 s2p2f2 plant/ 124.5 123.1 126.9 140.8 142.0 175.4 150.6 51.2 159.1 103.5 123.2 s2p2f3 ha 118.4 119.8 121.5 134.3 127.0 155.4 155.2 50.5 151.5 97.8 120.5 s2p3f1 4630 122.3 118.7 110.9 131.9 136.0 166.1 119.8 51.3 149.8 104.0 121.2 s2p3f2 plant/ 120.7 116.4 108.0 124.7 125.0 158.9 112.3 50.7 144.3 101.0 119.9 s2p3f3 ha 108.3 115.3 105.4 118.4 110.0 188.1 102.9 50.5 139.9 88.8 117.5 control 130.2 129.4 133.7 147.5 147.0 269.5 161.8 56.9 168.7 110.7 125.3 sem (±) 2.97 2.91 4.01 3.55 1.95 0.31 1.68 0.19 1.95 4.31 1.05 c.d. at 5% 9.01 8.92 11.3 9.98 5.69 0.67 ns 0.53 3.66 8.81 2.15 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement 158 treat no.of bhubaneswar gandevi jalgaon jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ha. bw y bw y bw y bw y bw y bw y s1p2f1 3333 14.4 48.1 17.2 57.3 20.4 67.9 14.1 47.1 8.7 29.1 12.1 40.1 s1p2f2 plant/ 13.6 45.4 16.3 54.2 19.3 64.3 14.0 46.7 8.4 28.1 11.3 37.5 s1p2f3 ha 13.4 44.6 15.1 50.4 14.9 49.6 13.1 43.8 8.0 26.7 10.5 34.3 s1p3f1 5000 12.0 59.8 15.3 76.5 18.8 93.8 15.5 77.6 7.7 38.5 11.2 55.7 s1p3f2 plant/ 11.6 57.8 14.9 74.7 17.1 85.3 15.8 78.7 7.5 37.5 10.9 54.4 s1p3f3 ha 10.2 51.2 14.5 72.3 13.9 69.3 16.1 80.2 7.2 35.8 9.2 45.6 s2p2f1 3086 15.1 46.8 16.7 51.5 20.8 64.2 12.6 38.9 8.5 26.2 12.3 37.8 s2p2f2 plant/ 14.3 44.2 16.1 49.6 19.6 60.4 11.4 35.1 8.1 25.2 11.6 35.5 s2p2f3 ha 13.9 43.0 13.9 42.9 15.3 47.3 13.1 40.4 7.6 23.6 10.7 32.9 s2p3f1 4630 12.0 55.7 17.3 80.3 19.6 90.6 16.5 76.4 7.7 35.6 11.3 52.0 s2p3f2 plant/ 11.6 53.8 14.7 68.3 17.3 80.3 16.5 77.0 7.3 33.9 11.0 50.1 s2p3f3 ha 10.7 49.7 14.1 65.4 14.3 66.1 16.6 77.0 7.1 32.7 9.5 43.3 control 15.9 49.0 20.3 62.8 21.2 94.2 17.2 74.7 10.7 26.9 12.4 31.1 sem (±) 0.52 0.60 0.71 2.45 0.90 3.31 0.08 0.06 0.05 0.56 0.55 0.64 c.d. at 5% 1.54 1.80 2.09 6.90 2.65 9.65 0.18 0.12 0.15 0.98 1.13 1.30 table 8. variations in bunch weight (bw in kg) and yield (y in t/ha) of fruit due to different planting densities and nutrition levels table 9. variations in total soluble solids (tss in 0brix), acidity (a in %), and shelf-life (sl in days) of fruits due to different planting densities and nutrition levels treatno.of bhubaneswar gandevi jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ha. tss a sl tss a sl tss a sl tss tss a sl s1p2f1 3333 22.9 0.30 6.90 20.1 0.37 9.14 18.8 0.15 7.50 30.4 24.6 0.48 10.1 s1p2f2 plant/ 22.3 0.29 6.70 19.7 0.35 9.26 17.9 0.19 8.33 30.2 23.8 0.46 9.70 s1p2f3 ha 22.1 0.27 6.20 19.7 0.30 8.80 19.2 0.16 8.06 30.0 23.2 0.42 9.50 s1p3f1 5000 22.7 0.37 6.80 19.9 0.39 8.94 20.2 0.31 8.80 30.4 24.4 0.59 9.80 s1p3f2 plant/ 21.6 0.36 6.40 19.6 0.35 9.49 19.6 0.21 9.27 30.2 23.7 0.58 9.50 s1p3f3 ha 20.9 0.34 6.00 19.8 0.32 9.85 19.5 0.26 9.08 29.9 23.1 0.56 9.10 s2p2f1 3086 23.1 0.33 7.00 20.0 0.35 8.93 16.7 0.16 7.73 30.0 24.8 0.55 10.2 s2p2f2 plant/ 23.0 0.33 6.80 19.6 0.33 9.03 13.7 0.21 8.60 29.8 24.5 0.55 9.80 s2p2f3 ha 22.4 0.30 6.60 19.6 0.30 9.05 18.6 0.17 7.69 30.0 24.1 0.48 9.60 s2p3f1 4630 22.6 0.36 6.80 20.1 0.37 9.33 19.6 0.35 7.18 30.1 24.5 0.55 9.90 s2p3f2 plant/ 21.7 0.35 6.50 19.4 0.36 8.95 19.2 0.22 8.75 29.8 23.9 0.54 9.80 s2p3f3 ha 21.1 0.32 6.10 19.6 0.31 9.00 21.0 0.23 8.81 29.6 23.3 0.51 9.50 control 23.2 0.31 7.30 20.1 0.31 8.97 24.0 0.14 11.3 29.5 25.1 0.49 10.4 sem (±) 0.21 0.01 0.18 0.23 0.01 0.20 0.25 0.01 0.19 0.2 0.33 0.05 0.28 c.d. at 5% 0.64 0.04 0.54 ns 0.02 0.56 0.53 0.01 0.39 ns 0.67 0.10 0.58 sanjit et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 159 were estimated due to highest planting density of 5000 plants/ha at all centres, except jalgaon. it va ried fr om 28. 9% to 50.6% at bhuba neswa r, 15.2% to 21. 9% a t gandevi, 4.0% to 7.4% at jorhat, 33.5% to 43.5% at kannara and 46.5% to 79.0% at mohanpur, over the conventional system (control). however, the estimated b: c ratios varied with the levels of nutrition (50%, 75% and 100% of rdf) within the same planting density of 5000/ ha. for kannara centre, maximum b: c ratio was 2.65 with 5000 plant/ha and 100% rdf, whereas, for mohanpur and bhubaneswar centres, it was 2.65 and 2.67, respectively with 5000 plants/ha and 75% rdf. in case of jorhat and gandevi centres, the b:c ratio was 4.94 and 5.40, respectively with 5000 plants/ha and 50% rdf. hence, there were savings in fertilizer input by 25% at the mohanpur and bhubaneswar centres and by 50% at the jorhat and gandevi centres. it was noted that although the bunch weight of an individual plant under high density planting decreased, the total number of plants and bunches per unit area was much higher and hence the productivity much higher (debnath et al., 2015). increase in the photosynthetic canopy surface and light interception under high density planting are reported to be the major contributing f a c t or s f or higher p r odu c t ivit y in b a na na (thippesha et al., 2007, debnath et al., 2015). significant variations were recorded in the soil nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content (kg/ha) after harvesting of banana and in the leaf n, p and k content at the shooting stage of the fruit at all centres (tables 11, 12, 13and 14). as compared wit h s oil nu t r ient s t a t u s a f ter ha r ves t int he convent iona l sys tem (cont r ol) , no signific a nt depletion was observed due to the combination of high density planting and nutrition treatment (that resulted in higher yield and maximum b:c ratio) in the available soil nitrogen content (except at the gandevi, jalgaon and jorhat centres), the available soil phosphorus content (except at the gandevi and jalgaon centres) and the available soil potassium content (except at the jalgaon and jorhat centres). at the bhubaneswar centre, maximum leaf n and p content was recorded in control, whereas it was lowest in the 50 00 pla nts /ha with 50% rdf treatment. but leaf k content was recorded as being maximum under the 3086 plants/ha with 100% rdf treatment and lowest in the 4630 plants/ha with 50% rdf treatment. however, leaf n, p and table 10. variations in yield increase over control (yi in %) and b:c ratio due to different planting densities and nutrition levels treat no.of bhubaneswar gandevi jalgaon jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ha. yi bcr yi bcr yi bcr yi bcr yi bcr yi bcr s1p2f1 3333 21.1 2.47 3.90 -27.9 2.32 2.78 8.3 2.13 29.0 2.41 s1p2f2 plant/ 14.4 2.54 4.12 -31.7 2.25 3.06 4.5 2.02 20.7 2.56 s1p2f3 ha 12.4 2.49 4.31 -47.3 1.77 3.15 -0.7 2.05 10.5 2.45 s1p3f1 5000 50.6 2.41 21.9 4.24 -0.4 2.76 4.0 3.73 43.5 2.60 79.0 2.42 s1p3f2 plant/ 45.6 2.67 19.0 4.77 -9.4 2.58 5.4 3.93 39.8 2.55 75.9 2.65 s1p3f3 ha 28.9 2.32 15.2 5.40 -26.4 2.16 7.4 4.94 33.5 2.47 46.5 2.34 s2p2f1 3086 17.8 2.44 3.57 -31.8 2.25 2.22 -2.4 2.13 21.4 2.45 s2p2f2 plant/ 11.4 2.57 3.84 -35.9 2.16 2.15 -6.3 2.02 14.1 2.54 s2p2f3 ha 8.3 2.43 3.65 -49.8 1.73 2.94 -12.1 2.02 5.7 2.44 s2p3f1 4630 40.4 2.34 27.9 4.76 -3.8 2.75 2.4 4.00 32.5 2.52 67.2 2.31 s2p3f2 plant/ 35.4 2.47 8.8 4.51 -14.8 2.50 2.7 4.32 26.1 2.45 61.2 2.45 s2p3f3 ha 25.2 2.29 4.2 5.00 -29.8 2.15 3.1 4.40 21.7 2.41 39.3 2.28 control 2.25 4.57 2.91 3.99 1.74 2.49 sem (±) c.d. at 5% j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement 160 table 11. variations in available soil nitrogen (n) content (kg/ha) after harvest due to different planting densities and nutrition levels treatment no.of pl./ha bhubaneswar gandevi jalgaon jorhat kannara mohanpur s1p2f1 3333 196.0 259.3 225.0 276.5 280.0 281.3 s1p2f2 plant/ 194.0 249.7 222.0 301.5 274.3 279.2 s1p2f3 ha 187.0 244.7 208.0 234.6 289.0 272.4 s1p3f1 5000 191.0 265.0 211.0 194.8 312.2 278.1 s1p3f2 plant/ 185.0 256.1 209.0 205.7 356.6 274.2 s1p3f3 ha 177.0 249.7 203.0 200.2 328.8 270.5 s2p2f1 3086 198.0 260.2 220.0 211.6 285.6 282.3 s2p2f2 plant/ 196.0 250.5 212.0 227.0 274.2 280.3 s2p2f3 ha 189.0 247.3 209.0 216.6 269.3 274.8 s2p3f1 4630 195.0 264.1 214.0 193.2 286.1 279.3 s2p3f2 plant/ 188.0 248.8 211.0 204.5 295.0 276.1 s2p3f3 ha 182.0 244.3 205.0 183.6 268.1 271.1 control 198.0 263.2 214.0 206.1 266.2 282.3 sem (±) 7.62 0.61 2.05 3.56 5.20 c.d. at 5% 15.54 1.79 4.24 8.20 10.62 table 12. variations in available soil phosphorus (p2o5) content (kg/ha) after harvest due to different planting densities and nutrition levels treatment no.of pl./ha bhubaneswar gandevi jalgaon jorhat kannara mohanpur s1p2f1 3333 64.0 61.0 19.8 14.2 136.4 55.5 s1p2f2 plant/ 62.0 57.8 19.3 19.2 139.9 53.4 s1p2f3 ha 59.0 56.1 18.4 14.6 115.2 50.1 s1p3f1 5000 60.0 61.8 19.1 17.9 129.8 51.2 s1p3f2 plant/ 58.0 57.1 18.9 9.8 139.9 48.3 s1p3f3 ha 55.0 54.8 17.9 17.7 128.5 43.6 s2p2f1 3086 67.0 61.9 19.3 10.9 115.3 56.4 s2p2f2 plant/ 64.0 57.1 18.9 10.9 126.4 54.1 s2p2f3 ha 61.0 53.9 18.3 11.5 120.8 51.3 s2p3f1 4630 65.0 61.4 19.2 12.2 142.6 53.5 s2p3f2 plant/ 61.0 57.1 19.2 14.6 139.6 51.4 s2p3f3 ha 57.0 54.4 18.2 18.8 129.2 45.7 control 69.0 60.7 19.2 13.3 70.2 57.6 sem (±) 5.20 0.11 0.07 3.69 4.76 c.d. at 5% 14.04 0.31 0.15 7.25 9.97 sanjit et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 161 table 13. variations in available soil potassium (k2o) content (kg/ha) after harvest due to different planting densities and nutrition levels treatment no.of pl./ha bhubaneswar gandevi jalgaon jorhat kannara mohanpur s1p2f1 3333 129.0 333.9 631.0 74.4 397.6 160.2 s1p2f2 plant/ 125.0 323.7 628.0 67.2 532.0 156.7 s1p2f3 ha 120.0 316.3 614.0 77.3 425.6 150.4 s1p3f1 5000 124.0 327.5 622.0 69.4 436.8 154.5 s1p3f2 plant/ 118.0 319.0 619.0 50.4 565.6 151.2 s1p3f3 ha 112.0 310.8 602.0 81.8 515.2 143.2 s2p2f1 3086 130.0 334.7 630.0 87.3 459.2 161.4 s2p2f2 plant/ 127.0 324.8 627.0 74.9 481.6 158.1 s2p2f3 ha 120.0 317.3 616.0 86.7 470.4 151.1 s2p3f1 4630 126.0 324.7 625.0 65.0 526.4 157.3 s2p3f2 plant/ 123.0 317.2 624.0 85.2 487.2 154.3 s2p3f3 ha 118.0 310.6 607.0 79.4 414.4 149.4 control 130.0 330.7 622.0 71.7 330.4 162.5 sem (±) 5.84 2.76 3.74 2.65 6.28 c.d. at 5% 14.60 8.04 7.73 7.40 13.12 treatno.of bhubaneswar jorhat kannara mohanpur ment plants/ha. n p k n p k n p k n p k s1p2f1 3333 2.76 0.33 3.59 2.83 0.29 4.23 2.41 0.04 0.49 2.82 0.28 3.71 s1p2f2 plant/ 2.72 0.32 3.57 3.21 0.35 5.31 1.95 0.13 0.84 2.78 0.26 3.69 s1p2f3 ha 2.62 0.27 3.50 2.93 0.19 4.84 2.31 0.14 0.83 2.68 0.23 3.60 s1p3f1 5000 2.74 0.33 3.60 3.04 0.20 4.88 2.28 0.11 0.85 2.80 0.26 3.70 s1p3f2 plant/ 2.67 0.29 3.58 3.04 0.14 5.44 1.67 0.13 0.78 2.73 0.24 3.62 s1p3f3 ha 2.58 0.23 3.48 4.06 0.18 5.84 2.10 0.09 0.74 2.64 0.18 3.52 s2p2f1 3086 2.77 0.32 3.68 2.43 0.25 4.34 1.72 0.14 0.79 2.83 0.27 3.71 s2p2f2 plant/ 2.70 0.30 3.62 2.71 0.36 3.13 2.48 0.11 0.83 2.76 0.25 3.65 s2p2f3 ha 2.64 0.27 3.58 2.75 0.32 4.71 2.41 0.05 0.59 2.70 0.22 3.61 s2p3f1 4630 2.77 0.32 3.55 2.85 0.33 4.80 2.49 0.08 0.71 2.81 0.27 3.68 s2p3f2 plant/ 2.71 0.30 3.51 2.32 0.34 4.21 2.42 0.05 0.57 2.74 0.25 3.64 s2p3f3 ha 2.63 0.24 3.41 3.41 0.23 5.34 2.58 0.04 0.66 2.66 0.19 3.54 control 2.79 0.34 3.65 3.45 0.30 3.11 2.81 0.04 0.50 2.85 0.20 3.72 sem (±) 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.32 0.01 0.01 0.67 c.d. at 5% 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.06 0.04 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.02 table 14. variations in leaf n, p and k content (%) at the shooting stage due to different planting densities and nutrition levels j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement 162 *estimated on the basis of rdf and planting density in hdp and conventional systems. **calculated as per ganeshamurthy et al. (7) and fruit yield from hdp and conventional systems. table 15. nutrient applied to and nutrient removed through fruit harvest from hdp (producing higher yield and highest b:c ratio) and conventional system (control) centre hdp producing higher yield and conventional system producing lower highest b:c ratio yield and lower b:c ratio nutrient applied nutrient removed nutrient applied nutrient removed (kg/ha)* through fruit (kg/ha)* through fruit harvest (kg/ha)** harvest (kg/ha)** n p2o5 k2o n p2o5 k2o n p2o5 k2o n p2o5 k2o bhubaneswar 1375 550 1500 387 98 550 848 339 926 266 67 266 gandevi 1875 750 1500 484 123 750 1157 463 926 421 107 421 jorhat 1000 525 2250 537 136 400 889 467 1999 500 127 500 kannara 1325 875 2000 258 65 530 662 437 1000 180 46 180 mohanpur 1375 500 1500 364 92 550 687 250 750 208 53 208 k content showed no specific trend at the jorhat and kannara centres. at the mohanpur centre, minimum leaf n, p and k content was recorded under the highest planting density (5000 plants/ha) with the lowest nutrition level (50% rdf). the nutrients applied to and nutrients removed through fruit harvest from hdp (producing higher yield and highest b:c ratio) and conventional systems were calculated and are presented in table 15. under the hdp system, the region-specific, per-plant rdf was increased in proportion to the increase in plant population per unit area, therefore, any remarkable depletion in soil and plant nutrient status may not have shown at many centres. it was observed by debnath et al. (6) that the root zone of plants under the high density planting system had more density of effective feeder roots compared to the root zone of plants under the conventional (low density) planting system and it indicated better uptake of applied manures and fertilizers. in present study, the site-specific application of nutrients (rdf) to the high-density feeder root zones of banana p la nt s u nder h dp might ha ve c a us ed bet ter u tiliza t ion of a p p lied nu tr ient s , r esu lting in 25%-50% savings of rdf. conclusion the results of this experiment showed that high density pla nting (hdp:5000pla nts/ha ) of ba na na , accommodating three suckers per hill at 2m x3m spacing,increased productivity over the conventional planting system at the bhubaneswar, gandevi, jorhat, kannara and mohanpur centres. under the hdp system, the nutrient requirement was 100% rdf at the kannara centre, 75% rdf at the bhubaneswar and mohanpur centres and 50% rdf at the gandevi and jorhat centres. this indicated a savings in cost of fertilizer input by 25% at the bhubaneswar and mohanpur centres and by 50% at the gandevi and jorhat centres. it was therefore, recommended that hdp (5000 pla nts/ha ) in ba na na be a dopted, accommodating three suckers per hill at 2m x3m (6.6 ft x 3.8 ft) spacing with 50% rdf in the agro-climatic region of gandevi and jorhat, with 75% rdf in the agro-climatic region of bhubaneswar and mohanpur and with 100% rdf in the agro-climatic region of ka nnar a for higher productivity a nd return on investment to farmers. acknowledgements this work was carried out with the financial support of the indian council of agricultural research (icar) and the collaborative organizations (saus/icar institutes) under icar-all india coor dinated research project (aicrp) on fruits. the authors wish to acknowledge the icar and the collaborative organizations for providing the required research facilities and support. sanjit et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 163 references a.o.a.c. 1984. official methods of the analysis of the association of official analytical chemist. washington, d. c., 14thedn. anonymous 2018. horticultural statistics at a glance 2018. hor ticultur a l sta tistics division, department of agriculture, cooperation and farmers’ welfare, ministry of agriculture, cooperation and farmers’ welfare, govt. of indai. new delhi. page: 174. black, c.a. 1965. methods of soil analysis. american soc. agron. inc. madison. pp. 1171-1175. chapman, h.d. and pratt, p.f. 1961. methods of analysis for soil, plants and water. univ. california, usa. p.6. debnath, s., bauri, f.k., bandyopadhyay, b., misra, d.k., mandal, k.k., murmu, i. and patil, p. 2015. identification of optimum leaf area index (lai) for high density planting of banana cv. martaman under gangetic alluvium region of west bengal. j. crop and weed, 11(2):63-66. debnath, s., bauri, f.k., mandal, k.k. and patil, p. 2017. effect of planting density on canopy orientation and root distribution of banana cv. martaman (aab). paper presented at the national seminar on ‘enhancing productivity of fruit crops – mitigating major challenges’, held on 8th january, 2017 at icar-iihr, bengaluru. ganeshamurthy, a. n., satisha, g. c. and patil, p. 2011. potassium nutrition on yield and quality of fruit crops with special emphasis on banana and grapes. karnataka j. agric. sci.,24 (1) : 29-38. gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1983. statistical procedures for agricultural research, 2ndedn., john willey and sons, new york. pp. 20-29. jackson, m.l. 1967. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall, india. nalina, l., kumar, n. and sathiamoorthy, s. 2000. studies on high density planting in banana cv. robusta (aaa). 1. influence on vegetative characters. indianj. hort., 57(3): 190-195. pujari, c. v., pawar, r. d. and marbhal, s. k. 2011. studies on the effect of planting density and sucker arrangement on growth and flowering in banana. adv. plantsci., 24(2): 617-619. rodriguez, w., araya, j. c. and perez, l. 2007. effect of plant spacing and density on canopy structure and efficiency, growth and yield of banana (musa aaa, cv. willia ms). corbana, 33(60): 1-14. subbiah, b.v. and asija, g.l. 1956. a rapid procedure for the estimation of available nitrogen in soils. curr. sci., 25 : 259. thippesha, d., raju, b., jagannath, s., naik, d. j., mahantesh, b. and poornima, g. 2005. studies on planting systems and spacing on growth characters of banana cv. robusta (musa aaa) under tr a nsitiona l zone of ka r na ta ka . karnatakaj. hort., 1(3): 63-69. thippesha, d., srinivas,v., mahanthesh,b. janardhan, g. a nd vishnuvar dhana . 2007. effect of different planting systems on flowering and crop duration with different levels of nutrition and spacing in banana cv. robusta (aaa). asian j. hort., 2(2): 280-284. turner, d.w. 1998. ecophysiology of bananas: the generation and functioning of the leaf canopy. acta hort., 490: 211-221. (received on 05.02.2021, revised on 02.12.2021 and accepted on 06.12.2021) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 152-163, 2021 studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement 03 debanath.pdf final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 103 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 103-109, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction the response of fruit tree to externally applied mineral nutrients needs to be quantified to provide technology innovations to fruit growers as ready to use package of practices. this process might lead to nutrient richness in the end product i.e. fruit pup. this is very significant in case of sand, loamy sand, sandy loam soils having low water holding capacity, soil organic matter, nutrient reserve and microbial a ctivity. significant response of the tree to nutrient application depends on several attributes like tree physiology, soil response, weather interactions and varietal ability etc. adak et al. (2021) scientifically explained that there is an urgent need for revisiting policy issues in terms of soil nutrition vis-à-vis productivity and profitability for subtropical zone. soil nutrients play significant role in responding to the signal transduction to roots and from roots to sink. the source-sink continuum often either hastens or restricted by the pools of nutrients. lower the nutrient pool, response to end product may be low. however, foliar application may improve the positive response through xylem-phloem pathways through leaf stomata. adak et al. (2019) indicated that lower soil nutrient index is responsible for lower productivity of dashehari mango in farmers’ field in maal area of uttar pradesh. this certainly had contributed to yield variations within the orchards. similarly in apple orchards aggelopoulou et al. (2010) described the spatial yield and quality variability within the apple orchards. nutrient deficiency in the foliar part is one of the top most priority for any commercial or non-commercial orchards to indentify and its possible solutions for correction of nutrient limitations. several nutrients were recorded to be deficient on long-term basis in orchards. raja et al. (2005) inferred boron deficiency in mango and also suggested for possible remediation. tehranifar and response of dashehari mango to different zn levels on yield and pulp nutrient contents grown on sandy loam soils of lucknow adak t.1, kumar k.1, singh v.k.1 and ganeshamurthy a.n.2* 1icarcentral institute for subtropical horticulture, lucknow 226 101, up, india 2icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru 560 089, india *corresponding author e-mail : angmurthy@gmail.com abstract dashehari is the leading mango variety grown in indo-gangetic plain. its yield is affected severely by the micronutrient deficiencies. zinc and boron are the two important micronutrients which limit the yield and quality of dashehari mango in this region. hence a field study was taken up to understand the responses of dashehari mango to different levels of zn. results indicated yield enhancement with proper zn supplementation through foliar sprays. highest yield of 43.50±2.00 to 50.72±2.40 kg tree-1 was recorded with 1.0% znso4 application, followed by 42.27±1.26 (1.5% znso4) to 47.85±1.65 (0.75% znso4) kg tree-1. tss (19.63±0.25 to 20.27±0.40°brix), acidity (0.150±0.01 to 0.200±0.02%) and ascorbic acid (29.46±2.29 to 35.17±1.32 mg per 100 g) variations were noted under the influence of various zn treated fruits. foliar spray application also caused nutrient richness in mango fruit pulp showing improvement in zn concentration in fruit pulp from 1.17±0.10 to 1. 73±0.10 mg kg-1. highest concentration of b, cu, fe and mn were observed (3.13±0.018, 4.37±0.06, 7.87±0.06, 20.10±0.15 mg kg -1 respectively) with p and k concentrations of 0.026±0.0002& 0.28±0.001% respectively. significant difference in leaf and soil zn content was also recorded. the results indicated that yield and quality of dashehari mango can be improved with foliar spray of zn in sandy loam soil. keywords: dashehari mango, pulp nutrient concentration, soil and foliar nutrient, yield and quality attribute and zn levels. 104 adak et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 103-109, 2022 tabar (2009) observed that foliar application of k and b (1.5 and 3.0 g l-1) leads to nutrient richness in pomegranate. liu et al. (2021) emphasized potassium fertilization during fruit development for improving quality and potassium use efficiency of tomato in deficit irrigation regime. the quality of the produce is to be authenticated for which low cost near-infrared spectroscopy technology could be employed (yang et al., 2021). similarly, davarynejad et al. (2009) recorded positiveness of foliar nutrition technology in enhancing the yield, quality and alternate bearing as well in pistachio fruit tree. the statistical significance of such response is to be recorded and multivariate interpretation should be done in order to understand the foliar chemical composition of essential nutrients (raghupathi and shilpashree, 2018) for development of technologies for corrections. on the present field study, trails were laid out to record the response of zn levels on nutrient richness and productivity level on sandy loam soil at lucknow, uttar pradesh. material and methods the field study was conducted on 9th and 10th year old mango cv dashehari trees spaced at 10×10 m on sandy loam soil at rehmankhera farm, lucknow, uttar pradesh during 2015-18. seven treatments were replicated thrice in a randomized block design. initial nutrient status of the experimental field was poor. the treatments applied were as t1: control, t2: 0.25% znso4, t3: 0.50% znso4, t4: 0.75% znso4 t5: 1.0% znso4 t6: 1.5% znso4 and t7: 2.0% znso4. the foliar spray was done in the last week of september, before flowering (3rd week of february), at marble stage of fruit and second spray after 25 days interval. the znso4 was sourced as fertilizer (15%) and the volume of spray per tree was 10-liter volume of solution. field layout and basin preparation was done as per recommended package of practices. irrigation water was applied on critical stage wise and based on weather inputs. tree protection measures were also taken care of. soil samples were collected randomly from the selected trees. leaf samples were taken from n-s and e-w directions within the canopy. fruit samples were collected from different directions in the canopy to represent the overall performance of the tree. fruits were harvested during 2nd week of june. yield was reported kg tree-1 basis. quality components were analyzed as par ranganna (1986). all standard procedures were followed for preparation of soil and leaf and pulp samples for chemical analysis. leaf digestion and soil digestion was completed following laboratory protocol and micronutrients were analysed using aas. statistical analysis viz., significance, standard error of mean, standard error of difference and coefficient of variations were computed in opstat (sheoran et al., 1998). results and discussion the study reveals the effectiveness of different zn levels on the dashehari mango grown on sandy loam soils in indo-gangetic plains under subtropical climate. the results showed significant response among mango trees treated with different foliar zn levels (table 1). lowest znso4 application yield of 33.17±2.25 kg tree-1 was noted. in general, yield improved up to 1%. beyond that t5, the response was not significant. highest yield of 43.50±2.00 and 50.72±2.40 kg tree-1 was noted. tss of 19.90±0.31 (t 1) to 19.63±0.25 (t 5) and 19.67±0.21 (t 1) to 20.03±0.21°brix (t5) was estimated. similarly, acidity of 0.158±0.03, 0.200±0.02 (t5) to 0.175±0.03 to 0.158±0.01% (t1) was recorded. ascorbic acid content was ranging from 35.17±1.32 (t5) to 30.58±3.50 mg per 100 g (t1). variable content of quality attributes suggested possible nutrient interaction in the mango trees. the enhanced nutrient concentration in fruit pulp was also recorded (table 2). lowest zn concentration of 1.17±0.10 (t1) to 1.73±0.10 (t4), 1.60±0.06 mg kg-1 (t 5) wa s r ecor ded. cu concentr a tion of 3.50±0.015 mg kg-1 (t1) to 3.93±0.015 mg kg -1 (t5), b concentration of 2.01± 0.09 mg kg-1 (t1) to 3.13 ±0.18 mg kg-1 (t5) followed by 2.56±0.12 mg kg -1 (t4) were recorded. non-significant response was observed in some mineral composition like fe that varied between 16.20±0.15 to 20.10 ±0.15 mg kg-1. a narrow range of 0.021 to 0.026% p and 0.26 to 0.28% k was observed. the observed results suggested strong response of zn levels on fruit pulp zn content. the mineral contentions of leaf tissue showed zn variations between 29.7±5.51 (t1) to 52.0± 5.29 mg kg-1 (t5), cu content of 13.7±0.58 (t1) to 19.7±1.53 mg kg-1 (t 4), b content of 32.367±3.11 (t 1) to 35.93±1.79 mg kg-1 (t5) (table 3). however, fe and mn contents were non-significant with a narrow range of 170.3±11.59 mg kg-1 to 206.7±10.26 mg kg-1 and 137.7±5.13 mg kg-1 to 158.0±8.72 mg kg-1 wa s observed. similarly, p and k content were recorded as 0.147 to 0.159% and 0.936 to 1.022% respectively. soil organic matter in general was low i.e. 0.316 to 105 response of dashehari mango to different zn levels treatment p k fe mn zn cu b % mg kg-1 t1 0.023±0.0004 0.28±0.002 17.77±0.50 6.97±0.12 1.17±0.10 3.50±0.015 2.01±0.09 t2 0.024±0.0003 0.26±0.005 18.17±0.26 7.73±0.10 1.60±0.06 4.17±0.21 2.59±0.21 t3 0.026±0.0002 0.27±0.002 16.20±0.15 7.80±0.06 1.67±0.12 4.23±0.06 2.55±0.27 t4 0.024±0.0005 0.26±0.006 18.57±0.30 7.77±0.12 1.73±0.10 4.37±0.06 2.56±0.12 t5 0.021±0.0006 0.27±0.008 20.10±0.15 7.83±0.12 1.60±0.06 3.93±0.15 3.13±0.18 t6 0.021±0.0001 0.28±0.001 17.03±0.15 7.87±0.06 1.53±0.06 3.37±0.21 2.02±0.10 t7 0.023±0.0002 0.28±0.002 16.43±0.06 7.37±0.21 1.43±0.21 3.13±0.17 2.04±0.23 cd 0.05 ns ns ns ns 0.21 0.3 ns se(m) 0.0001 0.002 0.147 0.069 0.068 0.097 0.108 se(d) 0.0002 0.003 0.207 0.098 0.096 0.137 0.153 cv(%) 1.525 1.519 1.431 1.577 7.686 4.395 7.755 se(m) stands for standard error of mean and se(d) stands for standard error of difference. cv is the coefficient of variations; values in mean ± standard deviations table 2. effect of foliar application of zn on nutrient concentration of mango pulp treatment fruit yield tss acidity ascorbic acid (kg /tree) (0 b) (%) (mg/100g) t1 33.17±2.25 38.32±2.48 19.90±0.31 19.67±0.21 0.175±0.03 0.158±0.01 29.46±2.92 30.58±3.50 t2 34.83±3.00 44.40±3.60 19.93±0.21 19.87±0.21 0.175±0.01 0.183±0.01 31.14±1.45 31.34±1.32 t3 37.00±1.53 45.83±1.68 20.03±0.36 19.77±0.15 0.158±0.04 0.167±0.01 29.46±5.26 33.64±2.65 t4 41.67±1.50 47.85±1.65 19.70±0.38 20.27±0.40 0.167±0.01 0.175±0.03 29.46±2.53 33.64±3.50 t5 43.50±2.00 50.72±2.40 19.63±0.25 20.03±0.32 0.158±0.03 0.200±0.02 30.30±5.26 35.17±1.32 t6 42.27±1.26 46.60±1.51 19.83±1.07 19.73±0.15 0.150±0.01 0.183±0.03 31.98±5.26 35.17±1.32 t7 38.83±2.75 43.12±3.58 20.36±0.20 19.83±0.23 0.167±0.03 0.183±0.01 33.67±1.45 34.40±6.07 cd 0.05 2.944 3.546 ns ns ns ns ns ns se(m) 0.945 1.138 0.299 0.151 0.009 0.013 1.982 1.721 se(d) 1.336 1.610 0.423 0.214 0.013 0.018 2.803 2.434 cv(%) 4.224 4.355 2.603 1.316 9.776 12.16 11.152 8.921 se(m) stands for standard error of mean and se(d) stands for standard error of difference. cv is the coefficient of variations; values in mean ± standard deviations table 1. effect of foliar application of zn on fruit yield and quality of mango 0.385%, much lower than critical level of 0.50% (table 4). lower soc content thus recommends for higher organic input remedies to sandy loam soil. available k of 74.78±3.97 mg kg-1 (t1) to 84.48±3.81 mg kg-1 (t 4) to 81. 79±15. 87 mg kg -1 (t 5) wa s estimated. fe and mn availability of 4.78 to 5.87 and 8.21 to 9.31 mg kg-1 was observed. significant difference of zn and cu content of 0.52±0.08 mg kg1 (t1) to 0.93±0.25 mg kg -1 (t5) and 0.43±0.15 (t1) to 1.29±0.30 mg kg-1 (t5) was evidenced (table 4). higher cv (%) of 20.78% (zn) and 30.75% (cu) was also noticed. t he ob ser ved yield diff er ences in the ma ngo orchards are accounted for different rate of zn a p p lic a t ion . tr ee nu t r it ion wa s t hu s f ou nd responsible for obtaining satisfactory yields. zeng et al. (2001) reported the possible soil and leaf k j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 103-109, 2022 106 treatment p k fe mn zn cu b % mg kg-1 t1 0.157±0.007 0.969±0.03 182.3±20.43 149.0±12.49 29.7±5.51 13.7±0.58 32.367±3.11 t2 0.159±0.005 0.960±0.03 206.7±10.26 155.7±6.11 35.7±3.51 14.7±3.21 35.100±2.05 t3 0.147±0.002 0.936±0.03 182.7±9.87 143.7±5.13 38.3±1.53 17.0±4.36 38.800±2.79 t4 0.148±0.005 0.984±0.01 183.0±9.54 152.7±14.05 46.0±6.24 19.7±1.53 39.967±4.60 t5 0.158±0.012 1.022±0.06 170.3±11.59 137.7±5.13 52.0±5.29 13.0±1.00 35.933±1.79 t6 0.156±0.002 1.006±0.01 184.3±29.67 158.0±8.72 55.3±5.13 12.3±0.58 35.300±1.80 t7 0.160±0.013 0.996±0.03 174.7±12.22 154.0±14.0 55.7±7.02 11.7±2.31 36.367±3.67 cd 0.05 ns ns ns ns 9.9 4.5 ns se(m) 0.005 0.020 9.3 6.27 3.22 1.46 1.84 se(d) 0.007 0.028 13.15 8.86 4.55 2.07 2.61 cv(%) 5.15 3.45 8.78 7.23 12.47 17.4 8.80 se(m) stands for standard error of mean and se(d) stands for standard error of difference. cv is the coefficient of variations; values in mean ± standard deviations table 3. effect of foliar application of zn on nutrient concentration of mango leaf treatment soc p k fe mn zn cu % mg kg-1 t1 0.316±0.02 0.179±0.03 74.78±3.97 4.78±0.31 8.21±0.35 0.52±0.08 0.43±0.15 t2 0.370±0.05 0.211±0.02 71.41±4.26 5.37±0.78 9.31±0.51 0.68±0.15 0.72±0.14 t3 0.385±0.07 0.184±0.02 81.96±2.93 5.13±0.46 8.42±1.05 0.55±0.09 0.62±0.14 t4 0.370±0.07 0.213±0.03 84.48±3.81 5.87±0.51 8.86±0.77 0.84±0.15 0.92±0.25 t5 0.375±0.06 0.173±0.03 81.79±5.95 5.14±0.66 8.95±1.00 0.93±0.25 1.29±0.30 t6 0.331±0.04 0.199±0.02 79.75±3.65 5.62±0.68 8.94±1.04 0.61±0.10 1.19±0.23 t7 0.375±0.02 0.208±0.03 80.64±4.22 5.66±0.23 8.93±1.04 0.78±0.08 0.83±0.52 cd 0.05 ns ns 6.78 ns ns 0.22 0.39 se(m) 0.026 0.013 2.26 0.28 0.37 0.073 0.13 se(d) 0.037 0.018 3.20 0.40 0.52 0.103 0.19 cv(%) 14.61 13.13 5.72 10.55 8.39 20.78 30.75 se(m) stands for standard error of mean and se(d) stands for standard error of difference. cv is the coefficient of variations; values in mean ± standard deviations table 4. effect of foliar application of zn on soil nutrients after harvesting of mango concentration variations along with nut yield and qua lity in pista chio tr ee. per r y et al. (20 10) exhibited the pear orchard tree characteristics and its var ia tions with yield. the soil condition is always questionable for solute transport ability. asghari et al. (2011) reported the effect of soil conditioner s in a sa ndy loa m soil in ter ms of physical quality and bromide transport while yadav et al. (2011) recor ded sta tistica lly significant impr ovement in amra pali ma ngo with nutr ient transformation mechanisms. in fact, the fitness of soil for tr ee planta tions with potential yield is always top most priority on long-term basis to sustain la nd productivity (ganesha murthy a nd reddy, 2015). recently, vallentin et al. (2022) opined that the satellite remote sensing data could adak et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 103-109, 2022 107 potentially be used for yield estimation and infrared spectroscopy could also be scientifically applied for quality assurances in mango and apple (li et al., 2021). t he role of foliar spray of nutr ients is beneficial in fruit trees as observed by pal et al. (2018) in arka neelamani grape, kumar et al. (2017) on guava, hamze et al. (2018) on pistachio tree. talang et al. (2017) found the effectiveness of calcium, boron and sorbitol on fruit-set, yield and quality in himsagar mango. adak et al. (2020) experimentally proved the beneficial effects of foliar nutrient technology on the yield performance, fruit quality and nutrient status of guava. in fact, the technological innovations should efficiently be disseminated to small and marginal growers for harnessing the benefits (adak et al., 2022). since, s oil p r op e r t ies a ls o inf lu enc e t he yield p er f or ma nc e s , p a r t ic u la r ly or ga nic c a r b on r ecognized a s effective indica tor, soil orga nic carbon stock should be estimated (hinge et al., 2018) and digital soil mapping of soil properties ( d ha r u ma r a ja n e t a l . , 2 0 2 0 ) , s h ou ld a ls o emp ha s iz ed f or f u t u r e p r ec is i on or c ha r d management. thus, the response recorded within the cur r ent tria l showed 1% znso 4 should be applied to mango trees for better statistically higher yield, quality component and nutrient richness. beyond 1% znso4, economical benefit may not be availed. conclusion harvesting of optimum fruit yield from orchard is the sole objective of mango farmers. fruit yield and fruit quality increased significantly with application of 1.0% znso4 over control. in the current study yield of 50.72 kg tree-1 indicated that there is enormous scope to increase the yield of mango in this region through zinc application through foliar sprays. the study recommends foliar spray of 1.0% znso4 for mango in indo-gangetic plain region for higher yields and improvement of fruit quality. study further shows the scope for improvement in soil management to get a desirable potential yield. acknowledgement icar networ king pr oject on “ micr onutr ient management in horticultural crops for enhancing yield and quality” is duly acknowledged for financial assistance. director, icar-cish, lucknow is also kindly acknowledged for smooth functioning of field trials and other staff for cooperation in laboratory and fields. references adak, t., babu, n., pandey, g., chandra, s. and kumar, a. 2022. technological 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(received: 23.01.2022; revised: 25.03.2022, accepted: 30.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf 13 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 13-19, 2019 original research paper evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance t.h. singh1*, d.c. lakshmana reddy2, c. anand reddy1, a.t. sadashiva1 p. pandyaraj1 and y.b. manoj1 division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india 1division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research (icar-iihr), bengaluru, india 2division of biotechnology, indian institute of horticultural research (icar-iihr), bengaluru, india *email : singh.ht@icar.gov.in abstract bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum is one of the major diseases in solanum species including cultivated eggplant (solanum melongena l.). bacterial wilt (bw) disease management in eggplant is difficult due to high survival rate of pathogen in soil and chemical application is not eco-friendly. the best way to avoid bacterial wilt in eggplant is using disease-resistant varieties. however, only a limited number of bacterial wilt resistant varieties are available and, there is a necessity to identify and/or develop new resistant varieties. in the current study, wild solanum species, and eggplant cultivated varieties were evaluated against ralstonia solanacearum, and disease incidence was recorded. the cultivated varieties iihr-108, pusa purple long and rampur local were identified as susceptible, whereas, iihr-7 and cari-1 were identified as resistant to bacterial wilt. these resistant wild and cultivated varieties can be used as a root-stock in bacterial wilt disease resistant breeding programmes. keywords: wild solanum species, eggplant, ralstonia solanacearum, disease scoring, grafting introduction eggplant (solanum melongena l.) (2n=24) is one of the most popular solanaceous vegetable crop cultivated globally. asia is the major producer (93%) of eggplant (fao, 2016). it is originated from india and south china (da unay and ha zra , 2012). eggplant is generally cultivated in open fields with hot and humid conditions. eggplant is susceptible to numerous diseases viz., bacterial wilt; fusarium wilt; verticillium wilt, early blight, leaf spot, potato virus-y (pvy), tobacco ring spot virus, tomato spotted wilt virus (tswv), phytoplasma, and root-knot nematode. duo to these diseases, quality and quantity of eggplant production is adversely affected. eggplant bacterial wilt (ralstonia solanacearum) is a major concern in india. the pathogen is race specific and has five different races. ralstonia solanacearum strains are divided into five different biovars based on the biochemical analysis. in india, eggplant bacterial wilt is mainly caused by race 1 and biovar 3 (gopalakrishnan et al., 2005). the pathogen (ralstonia solanacearum) can survive in soil upto ten years without any host plant and have the ability to colonize in non-host plants including a vast range of symptomless weeds (gopalakrishnan et.al., 2014). the pathogen enters into the plants through wounds or secondary root initiation points leading to pathogen colonization in the vascular parenchyma and cell wall breakage (ramesh, 2008). the initial wilt symptoms are leaf drooping, followed by full-plant wilting and vascular discoloration. when cut ends of wilted plant placed in water, milky white ooze out can be observed. there are different methods of artificial inoculation/ screening of bacterial wilt like root cut inoculation, leaf or stem pricking and natural field infestation (ramesh, 2008). these pathogenic spores remain viable and active in the soil for several years making the disease control almost impossible through any means of chemical treatments especially in the regions 14 singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 13-19, 2019 where repeated eggplant cultivation is taken up. many of the commer cial va rieties/hybrids ar e highly susceptible to bacterial wilt. chemical management often leads to the presence of chemical residues in the fruits, thus, raises the concern of food safety. the most economical way of bacterial wilt control is to develop bacterial wilt resistant varieties/hybrids. recently, grafting strategy using resistant root-stock has been proposed for soil-borne pathogens like bacterial wilt, and it will help in bacterial wilt resistant varieties/hybrids development with the different genetic backgrounds. hence, identification of a bacterial wilt root-stock will be of higher use and any preferable variety/hybrid can be grafted on it. here, we evaluated wild solanum species and cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance through artificial inoculation, and these can be used as root-stock in grafting. materials and methods plant material and phenotypic characters in this study, five eggplant cultivated varieties viz., iihr-7 (ic395334), iihr-662 (cari-1, ic0585684), iihr-108 (arka kusumakar), iihr-663 (rampur local), and seven wild species viz., solanum gilo (rs-3), solanum indicum (rs-4), solanum viarum (rs-6), solanum aethiopicum (rs-7), solanum mammosum (rs-8), and solanum torvum (rs-9 and rs-9a) were used for bacterial wilt screening (fig.1). these germplasm accessions were maintained at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru. fig. 1. eggplant cultivated varieties [iihr-7 (ic395334), iihr-662 (cari-1, ic0585684), iihr-108 (arka kusumakar), iihr663 (rampur local)] and seven wild species [solanum gilo, s. indicum, s. viarum, s. aethiopicum, s. mammosum, and s. torvum used for bacterial wilt screening. 15 evaluation of eggplant for bacterial wilt resistance t ab le 1 . p he no ty pi c tr ai ts o f el it e ge rm pl as m l in e s; . n o. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 n am e of th e lin e iih r -1 08 (a rk a k us um ak ar ) iih r 7 (ic 39 53 34 ) iih r -6 62 (c a r i-1 , i c 05 85 68 4) ii h r 6 63 (r am pu r l oc al ) pu sa p ur pl e l on g so la nu m g ilo s ol an um i nd ic um so la nu m vi ar um so la nu m ae th io pi cu m so la nu m m am m os um so la nu m t or vu m ph en ot yp ic c ha ra ct er s a cc es si on ii h r -1 08 , i s a pu re li ne s el ec tio n fr om ii h r -1 93 (a lo ca l c ol le ct io n fr om k ar na ta ka ). ph en ot yp ic c ha ra ct er s vi z. , pl an t h ei gh t: m ed iu m /ta ll; g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng ; s te m a nd fo lia ge c ol or : g re en ; f lo w er c ol or : w hi te ; f ru it: s m al l ( m ed iu m lo ng ) gr ee n; c oo ki ng q ua lit ie s: g oo d; y ie ld : 40 t/h a; c ro p du ra tio n: 1 40 -1 50 d ay s an d ba ct er ia l w ilt i nc id en ce : hi gh (s us ce pt ib le ).q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 85 -1 00 c m ); fr ui t l en gt h (1 314 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (3 .0 -3 .5 c m ); av er ag e fr ui t w ei gh t ( 30 -4 0 g) . it is a n ad va nc ed b re ed in g lin e de ri ve d fr om c ro ss b et w ee n a rk a k es ha v, a nd ii h r -3 22 . p he no ty pi c ch ar ac te rs v iz ., pl an t he ig ht : t al l; gr ow th h ab it: s pr ea di ng ; s te m a nd fo lia ge c ol or : g re en ; f lo w er c ol or : p ur pl e; fr ui t: lo ng -g re en ; c oo ki ng q ua lit ie s: go od a nd b ac te ri al w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w (h ig hl y re si st an t) .q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 10 012 0 cm ); fr ui t l en gt h (1 820 cm ); fr ui t d ia m et er (3 .2 -3 .5 c m ); av er ag e fr ui t w ei gh t ( 40 -4 5 g) . t hi s ge rm pl as m li ne w as c ol le ct ed fr om a nd am an & n ic ob ar (p or t b la ir ) i sl an ds . p he no ty pi c ch ar ac te rs v iz ., pl an t h ei gh t: m ed iu m /ta ll; g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng ; f ru it: r ou nd -g re en ; b ac te ri al w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w (h ig hl y re si st an t). q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : pl an t h ei gh t ( 11 513 0 cm ); fr ui t l en gt h (1 012 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (1 416 c m ); a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( 30 035 0 g) . t hi s ge rm pl as m li ne w as c ol le ct ed fr om r am pu r vi lla ge o f u p, in di a. p he no ty pi c ch ar ac te rs v iz ., pl an t h ei gh t: ta ll; g ro w th ha bi t: sp re ad in g; fr ui t: lo ng -v io le t p ur pl e; fr ui t b ea ri ng : m ix ed (f ru its a re b or ne in c lu st er s an d so lit ar y) ; c oo ki ng q ua lit ie s: go od a nd b ac te ri al w ilt in ci de nc e: h ig h (h ig hl y su sc ep tib le ).q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 11 513 0 cm ); fr ui t l en gt h (2 024 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (4 .0 -4 .5 c m ); a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( 70 -7 5 g) . t hi s va ri et y w as d ev el op ed t hr ou gh p ur elo ne s el ec tio n by i a r i, n ew d el hi . p he no ty pi c ch ar ac te rs v iz ., pl an t he ig ht : m ed iu m ; g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng ; f ru it: lo ng -p ur pl e (g lo ss y) ; c oo ki ng q ua lit ie s: g oo d an d ba ct er ia l w ilt in ci de nc e: h ig h (h ig hl y su sc ep tib le ). fr ui ts a re b or n in c lu st er s. q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 30 -4 0 cm ); fr ui t l en gt h (1 518 c m ); y ie ld ab ou t 4 045 to nn es /h a. pl an t h ei gh t: ta ll; g ro w th h ab it: e re ct ; f ru it: s m al l r ou nd (l oo k lik e to m at o an d ha ve b ot h ri dg e/ ri dg ele ss tr ai ts ) co ok in g qu al iti es : b ad a nd b ac te ri al w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w (h ig hl y re si st an t) . q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 10 011 5c m ); fr ui t l en gt h (3 .5 -4 .0 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (3 .0 -3 .5 c m ); a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( 25 -3 0 g) . pl an t h ei gh t: m ed iu m /ta ll, g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng (t ho rn s on s te m s an d m id r ib s) ; f ru it: s m al l a nd p ur pl e (p ea s iz e, a nd r ed to o ra ng e w he n ri pe ) an d ba ct er ia l w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w ( hi gh ly r es is ta nt ).q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 80 -9 0 cm ); fr ui t le ng th (1 .0 -1 .5 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (0 .9 -1 .0 c m ); a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( 23 g) . pl an t h ei gh t: ta ll, g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng (d en se th or ns a re p re se nt o n th e st em m id r ib s) ; f ru it: s m al lro un d (w hi te s tr ip es du ri ng im m at ur e st ag e an d tu rn y el lo w a fte r ri pe ni ng ) a nd b ac te ri al w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w (h ig hl y re si st an t). q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : pl an t h ei gh t ( 10 012 0 cm ); fr ui t l en gt h (2 .5 -3 .0 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (2 .0 -3 .0 c m ); a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( 58 g) . pl an t h ei gh t: m ed iu m /ta ll, g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng (h av e pu rp le ti ng e) ; f ru it: s m al lre d, o bl at e ro un d (l oo k lik e to m at o) a nd ba ct er ia l w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w (h ig hl y re si st an t) .q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 85 -9 5 cm ); fr ui t l en gt h (5 .5 -6 .5 c m ); fr ui t di am et er (4 .5 -5 .0 c m ); a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( 40 -5 0 g) . pl an t h ei gh t: ta ll, g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng ( de ns e th or ns a re p re se nt o n th e st em m id r ib s) ; f ru it: c ow ’s u dd er s ha pe (t ur n ye llo w o n ri pe ni ng ) an d ba ct er ia l w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w (h ig hl y re si st an t) .q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 12 513 5 cm ); fr ui t le ng th (5 .5 -6 .0 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (3 .5 -4 .0 c m ); av er ag e fr ui t w ei gh t ( 15 -2 0 g) . pl an t h ei gh t: ta ll, g ro w th h ab it: s pr ea di ng (d ar k gr ee n fo lia ge ); fl ow er c ol or : w hi te ; f ru it: d ar k gr ee n at im m at ur e st ag e an d tu rn y el lo w o n ri pe ni ng ) a nd b ac te ri al w ilt in ci de nc e: lo w (h ig hl y re si st an t) .q ua nt ita tiv e tr ai ts : p la nt h ei gh t ( 13 015 0 cm ); fr ui t l en gt h (1 .5 -2 .5 c m ); fr ui t d ia m et er (1 .0 -1 .5 c m ); a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( 10 -1 5 g) . j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 13-19, 2019 16 basic information of solanum species and eggplant varieties were described in table 1. artificial screening of bacterial wilt r. solanacearum inoculum was prepared according to urquhart et al. (1998) from bacterial wilted eggplants. the bacterium colonies were collected from wilted plant using ooze out test, and streaked on triphenyl tetrozolium chloride (tzc or ttc) plate (fig. 2). the plates were incubated at 28oc 30oc for 48 hours, and the tzc plates were checked for development of avirulent and virulent colonies. the sepa r ated vir ulent colonies wer e selected a nd suspended in sterile distilled water. the concentration of inoculum was recorded using a spectrophotometer and stored at 4oc for further use. soil drenching method was used for inoculating the 25 days seedlings with r. solanacearum suspension, with concentration of 1.0 x108 cfu / ml (od 600 nm = 0.3) (rashmi et al., 2012). a) resistant b) susceptible observation and bacterial wilt disease screening according to hussain et al. (2005), bacterial wilt symptoms and total number of wilted plants per germplasm/variety were recorded on a 0-5 scale, with minor modifications. based on the percentage of wilted plants, accessions were categorized as highly resistant to highly susceptible. disease scoring scale s.no. percentage of disease scale (0-5) incidence (%) 1 no wilt symptom (0%) highly resistant (hr) (0) 2 1 10% wilted plants resistant (r) (1) 3 11 -20% wilted plants moderately resistant (mr) (2) 4 21-30% wilted plant moderately susceptible (ms) (3) 5 3140% wilted plants susceptible (s) (4) 6 > 40% wilted plants highly susceptible (hs) (5) results and discussion ralstonia solanacearum race 1 biovar 3 is more devastating and causes a severe problem in eggplant cultivation mainly in hot & humid areas like india (markose, 1996). controlling the bacterial wilt disease is practically not possible with the help of chemicals, and hence growing the resistant variety/hybrid is the best a ppr oa ch. in the br eeding or gr a fting, identification of best-durable resistant root-stock is the first step. in various studies, high level of ralstonia solanacearum resistance is reported in iihr-7, cari-1 and wild solanum species solanum torvum, ls 174, solanum sisymbriifolium, solanum viarum, solanum mammosum, solanum nigrum, solanum maroniense and solanum stramonifolium (mochizuki and yamakawa, 1979, gousset et al., 2005; reddy et al., 2015; bainsla et al., 2016). eggplant cultivated varieties and wild solanum species were artificially inocula ted with r. solanacearum inoculum (concentration ~1.0 x 108 cfu/ml). after 25-35 days post-inoculation period, wilt incidence was observed on iihr-108, rampur local and pusa purple long. up to 7-8 weeks, no wilting symptoms were observed on iihr-7, cari-1 and all wild solanum species. in the present study, susceptible check variety iihr108 has shown ~100% bacterial wilt incidence on artificial inoculation. in the test accessions, bacterial wilt incidence ranged from 0 to 99.33 %. in general, the resistance level of eggplant cultivated varieties to bacterial wilt in is limited (bhavana and singh, 2016). resistant source from cultivated eggplant accessions will be highly useful in breeding due to their advantage in crossing, and no negative effects of fruits will hinder the br eeding. among the cultiva ble eggpla nt a ccessions, iihr-7 (ic-395334) a nd ihr-662 figure 2. ooze out test and r. solanacearum virulence identification in tzc plate. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 13-19, 2019 singh et al 17 t ab le 2 . m ea n pe rf or m an ce o f ge no ty pe s fo r ba ct er ia l w ilt i nc id en ce a nd y ie ld a tt ri bu ti ng t ra it s sl . n o. o f pl an t fr ui t fr ui t n o. o f a ve ra ge fr ui t % n am e of th e ge no ty pe pr im ar y he ig ht le ng th di am et er fr ui ts / fr ui t yi el d b ac te ri al w ilt n o. br an ch es (c m ) (c m ) pl an t w t. (g ) (t /h a) in ci de nc es 1 iih r -1 08 6. 63 94 .6 7 14 .3 2 3. 09 37 .3 3 42 .6 7 6. 22 99 .3 3 (8 5. 70 *) 2 iih r -7 5. 74 10 6. 00 19 .6 7 3. 50 39 .6 7 42 .6 7 37 .4 7 0. 00 (0 .0 0* ) 3 ii h r -6 62 (c a r i1) 6. 64 95 .1 7 13 .8 4 10 .4 8 18 .0 0 29 1. 67 29 .1 5 0. 00 (0 .0 0* ) 4 iih r -6 63 ( 6. 37 91 .1 6 17 .2 7 3. 61 31 .2 2 36 .7 2 27 .5 6 21 .5 4 (2 7. 64 *) 5 pu sa p ur pl e l on g 4. 03 94 .7 8 19 .4 9 2. 94 6. 79 32 .8 4 4. 52 92 .3 2 (7 5. 46 *) 6 so la nu m g ilo 3. 57 93 .4 5 5. 13 3. 86 27 .6 7 25 .6 7 4. 56 26 .4 5 (3 0. 93 *) 7 so la nu m i nd ic um 3. 71 84 .8 1 1. 61 0. 38 17 4. 33 0. 29 0. 79 0. 00 (0 .0 0* ) 8 so la nu m v ia ru m 7. 13 12 3. 33 3. 42 2. 46 17 6. 00 19 .8 4 1. 80 0. 00 (0 .0 0* ) 9 so la nu m a et hi op ic um 3. 20 76 .0 0 5. 57 3. 31 26 .0 0 33 .1 7 8. 22 4. 38 (1 2. 03 *) 10 so la nu m m am m os um 5. 32 11 1. 99 5. 65 4. 05 35 .0 0 30 .8 3 4. 39 4. 50 (1 2. 19 *) 11 so la nu m to rv um 3. 70 14 3. 33 2. 12 1. 52 22 3. 33 0. 19 0. 82 0. 00 (0 .0 0* ) g. m ea n 5. 10 10 1. 34 9. 83 3. 56 72 .3 0 50 .6 0 11 .4 1 6 6. 53 se m 0. 35 3. 79 0. 67 0. 27 4. 93 2. 69 0. 80 1 .2 4 sd 0. 49 5. 37 0. 94 0. 38 6. 97 3. 80 1. 14 1. 76 cd 1. 49 16 .2 7 2. 85 1. 16 21 .1 5 11 .5 4 3. 45 5. 18 c v (% ) 9. 64 5. 29 9. 57 10 .7 2 9. 64 7. 52 9. 97 2. 65 *v al ue s i n pa re nt he si s a re a ng ul ar tr an sf or m ed v al ue s j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 13-19, 2019 evaluation of eggplant for bacterial wilt resistance 18 (cari-1) were found to have high resistance with no incidence of bacterial wilt. among the wild species, bacterial wilt incidence ranged from 0 (solanum torvum, solanum viarum, and solanum indicum) to 26.45 % (solanum gilo). wild species are hardy in nature, and will have the special advantage of strong root system for combating other abiotic stresses. these wild species cannot be used in breeding pr ogr amme ea sily because of negative fruit traits. however, these can be used as a root-stock for eggplant and tomato cultivation in bacterial wilt prone areas. these wild species can be effectively used for grafting the commercial varieties and hybrids of eggplant and tomato. gopalakrishnan et al. (2005) identified high phenolic content, and some special root cortical cells in bacterial wilt resistant cultivar root system, and are thought to be responsible for controlling of r. solanacearum spreading and multiplication. already, the success of using solanum torvum in grafting eggplant for bacterial wilt and yield advantage has been proved. the same can be used for tomato and other solanum cultivation. solanum torvum have graft advantages and compatibilities with cultivated eggplant, hence, it can be effectively used in grafting programs of bacterial wilt resistant eggplant varieties/hybrids (ashok et al., 2017). ashok et al. (2017) reported solanum torvum resistance with 5.7% susceptibility, whereas, in our study it was found highly resistant with no incidence. this variation in level of resistance may be due to the variability in the solanum torvum accessions or difference in ralstonia solanacearum races. acknowledgement authors are thankful to the director, indian institute of horticultural research (icar-iihr), bengaluru, india for providing research facilities. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 13-19, 2019 singh et al references ashok, k.b., raja, p., pandey, a.k. and ranindro, p. 2017. evaluation of wilt resistance of wild solanum species through grafting in brinjal. int. j. curr. microbiol. app. sci., 6(9): 3464-3469. bainsla, n.k., singh, s., singh, p.k., kumar, k., singh, a.k. and gautam, r.k. 2016. genetic behaviour of bacterial wilt resistance in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) in tropics of andaman and nicobar islands of india. american journal of plant sciences, 7: 333338. bhavana, p. and singh, a.k. 2016. biodiversity in br inja l germplasm aga inst resista nce to ba c t er ia l wilt . ba n gla des h j ou r na l of botany, 45(3): 737-739. daunay, m.c. and hazra, p. 2012. eggplant, in: handbook of vegetables, (eds. peter, k.v. and hazra , p.), studium press llc, texas, usa, 257-322. food and agriculture organisation (fao). 2016. http://www.fao.org gopalakrishnan, c., singh, t.h. and rashmi b. ar t a l. 2 0 1 4 . e va lu a t ion of eggp la nt accessions for resistance to bacterial wilt ca used by ralstonia solanacearum (e. f. smith). j. hortl. sci., 9(2): 202-205. gopalakrishnan, t. r., singh, p.k., sheela, k.b., shankar, m.a., kutty, p.c.j. and peter, k. v. 2 005. d evelop ment of ba ct er ia l wilt resistant varieties and basis of resistance in eggp la nt ( s ol a n um me l on g e na l. ) . i n : ba c t er ia l wilt : t he d is ea s e a nd t he ralstonia solanacearum species complex. c. allen, p. prior, and a. c. hayward, eds. aps press, st. paul, mn. pp 293-300. gousset, c., collonnier, c., mulya, k., mariska, i., rotino, g. l. , besse, p., ser va es, a. a nd sihachakr, d. 2005. solanum torvum, as a useful source of resistance against bacterial a nd funga l disea ses for impr ovement of eggplant (s. melongena l.). plant science, 168(2): 319-327. hussain, m.z., rahman, m.a. and bashar, m.a. 2005. screening of brinjal accessions for b a c t er ia l wil t c a u s ed b y r a l s t o n i a solanacearum. bangladesh j. botany, 34(1): 53-58. markose, b. l. 1996. genetic and biochemical bases of resistance to bacterial wilt in c h i l l i ( d oc t or a l dis s er t a t ion) , k er a la agricultural university, thrissur, kerala. 19 m oc hiz u ki , h . a nd ya ma ka wa , k . 1 9 7 9 . resistance of selected eggplant cultivars and related wild solanum species to bacterial wilt (pseudomonas solanacearum). yasai shikenjo hokoku. bulletin of the vegetable and ornamental crops resear ch station. series a. ramesh, r. 2008. bacterial wilt in brinjal and its mana gement. technica l bulletin no: 10, icar research complex for goa (indian council of agricultural research), ela, old goa403 402, goa, india. r a s hmi, b . a. , g op a la kr is hna n, c . a nd t hip p es wa my, b. 2 0 1 2 . an eff ic ient inoculation method to screen tomato, brinjal and chilli entries for bacterial wilt resistance. pest mgt. hortl. ecosystems, 18: 70-73. reddy, a.c., venkat, s., singh, t.h., aswath, c., r eddy, k . m . a nd r eddy, d . l . 2 0 1 5 . isolation, characterization and evolution of nbs-lrr encoding disease-resistance gene analogs in eggplant against bacterial wilt. european journal of plant pathology, 143(3): 417-426. urquhart, l., mienie, n.j.j. and steyn, p.l. 1998. the effect of temper ature, storage period and inoculum concentr a tion on symptom development a nd sur viva l of ralstonia solanacearum in inocula ted tuber s. in: bacterial wilt disease, springer, berlin. pp. 351-357. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 13-19, 2019 evaluation of eggplant for bacterial wilt resistance (ms received 12 may 2018, revised 14 may 2019, accepted 24 june 2019) 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. introduction fennel (foeniculum vulgare mill.), chromosome number 2n=2x= 22, is one of the most eminent medicinal and aromatic plant belonging to the family apiaceae (umbelliferae). fennel is widely cultivated throughout the temperate and sub-tropical regions (sheet et al., 2020). gujarat ranks first in the area, production and productivity of fennel. it is used in a wide range of curry powder, curries flavoured soups, such as mulligatawny and shorbas, and is often used with fish. fennel seeds are also used in pickles, chicken casseroles, salad dressings, fish liver and pork sauces and cucumber, sauerkraut lentils and pickled beef. powdered fennel goes into biscuits, cakes and cooked apple dishes. the volatile oil in indian fennel seed ranged from 0.7-1.2% (saharkhiz and tarakeme, 2013), and 4 to 6% in east european fennel seeds. its seeds are found to be a good source of minerals like ca, fe, mg, k, na, and zn as well as vitamin a, and niacin and phytate (11.35-13.10 mg/g.). in recent times, due to awareness of health and food sa fety concer ns, orga nic fa r ming a nd na tur a l cultivation practices are gaining momentum. the organic farming practices are compatible with the environment and able to sustain soil microflora, fauna and fertility in the long term. although organic farming is still a small industry (1%–2% of global food sales), its importance is rapidly growing worldwide. in the domestic as well as the international market, there is a great demand for organic products which shows a greater potential source of income for small producers/ stakeholders. despite the potential benefits of organic farming in terms of higher soil health and quality of produce, maintenance of high yields is one of the major challenges under organic farming systems (tilman et al., 2002; patel et al., 2014). modern cultivars are selected by plant breeders under conventional systems and they may not perform well under organic farming systems where they are grown in a stressed environment without the addition of original research paper j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 https://doi.org/10.24154/jhs.v18i1.2151 stability analysis of yield, yield attributes and essential oil content in fennel (foeniculum vulgare mill.) evaluated under a long-term organic production system lal s.1*, lal g.2, meena n.k.1, meena r.d.1, chaudhary n.1, choudhary m.k.1 and saxena s.n.1 1icar-national research centre on seed spices, tabiji, ajmer 305006, rajasthan, india 2cauvery water management authority, new delhi 110066, india *corresponding author email : shivcith@gmail.com abstract eight varieties of fennel (foeniculum vulgare mill.) were evaluated under field trial for their stability of yield, yield attributes and essential oil content under the organic production system in six consecutive years from 2016 to 2021. mean square due to environment + (variety × environment) was significant for all the traits studied indicating the existence of variety × environment interaction. based on the mean performance, regression coefficient and deviation from regression values, it was found that stability of yield and yield components are imparted in the varieties, gf-12 and af-1 across the years through the stable performance of characters and like numbers of primary and secondary branches, number of umbels and umbellate and seed yield. however, variety rf-101 for essential oil content can be considered as most suitable, stable and adopted to organic production system compared to other varieties. correlation analysis revealed highly positive relationship in plant height, number of primary branches, number of umbels and umbellate per plant and seed yield. based on the findings, fennel growers are apprised to select stable high-yielding fennel varieties for the organic production systems in semi-arid regions of india. along with their use in hybridization programmes to converge the stability characteristics of seed yield for the development of a stable variety adapted to a wider range of environments under organic production systems. keywords : correlation, essential oil, fennel, organic production system, seed yield, stability 91 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 external inputs that are entirely different to those in which they were selected (murphy et al., 2007; singh et at., 2017). so, there’s a need to select varieties for the organic production system which is believed as a stressed environment as crops are not supplied with chemicals for either supplying nutrients or to protect the crop from pests and diseases. very limited scientific information is available regarding the evalua tion of differ ent va rieties under orga nic production system, especially in seed spices for yield and quality attributes especially genetic studies on the performance of a diverse variety of fennel grown under the organic system are lacking. in recent times, improved released fennel varieties af-1, rf-101, co-01, rajendra saurabha, gf-12, rf-281, rf-125 and gf-02 are cultivated widely under different arid and semi-arid regions for high yields and quality, therefore, these varieties were chosen to investigate their performance and stability for growth and yield under an organic production system. materials and methods a field experiment under ai-npoe project was carried out at icar-national research centre on seed spices, tabiji, ajmer, rajasthan for six consecutive years from 2016 to 2021 to identify suitable and stable fennel varieties for the organic production system. eight released varieties viz., af-1, rf-101, co-01, rajendra saurabha, gf-12, rf-281, rf-125 and gf-02 of fennel wer e tested under a n orga nic production management system for growth, yield and quality attributes. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with three replications in a plot size of 12 m2. soil of the experimental site was sandy loam in nature and the experimental block was maintained as per the organic production requirements since 2011. soil fertility status of an experimental site shows organic carbon (0.26%), available nitrogen (130.4 kg ha-1), available phosphorus (12.06 kg ha-1) and a vailable potassium (359.07 kg ha -1). t he recommended dose of nutrients for fennel is 100:50:30 kg ha-1 and manures were applied on a nitrogen equivalent basis through organic sources (50% by fym, 25% by vermicompost and 25% by castor ca ke). nitr ogen content of fa r mya r d ma nur e, vermicompost and castor cake is 0.50, 1.0 and 5.0%, respectively. every year seeds were sown during the second week of october by maintaining the row-to-row spacing of 50 cm. fennel seeds were sown at the rate of 10 kg ha-1 after treating seeds with trichoderma virdae, phosphate solubilising bacteria and azotobacter at the rate of 10 g kg-1. irrigation and intercultural operations were followed as per recommended package of practice. the biometrical observations were recorded for ten different characters viz., initiation of flowering, days to 50% flowering, plant height at harvest, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, number of umbels per plant, number of umbellate per umbel, seed yield and essential oil per cent in a seed. observations on days to 50% flowering and days to maturity were recorded on a plot basis, whereas, data on the rest of the characters were recorded on five randomly selected plants in all three replications. for extraction of essential oil, a thirty-gram fresh seed sample in three replications was drawn from each treatment and used for essential oil extraction by hydr o-distilla tion for 7 hrs using a clevenger apparatus. in the present study, stability analysis was carried out using pooled data of six rabi seasons over six years following the model proposed by eberhart and russell (1966). the model was used to find out g × e interaction and both linear (bi) and non-linear (s2di) components of g × e interaction were considered for the indication of the performance of the individual variety. a different year of study was considered as different environment. the linear regression coefficient (bi) was considered as a measure of responsiveness and deviation from regression (s2di) as a measure of stability. according to the model, stable variety has regression coefficient (bi) equal to unity (bi=1.0) and deviation from regression does not significantly differ from zero (s2di=0). in general bi=1 implies average stability, bi>1 (1.01-1.30) implies below average stability and bi<1 (0.81-0.99) implies above average stability of a varieties. the desirability of a variety is judged based on stability criteria together with the mean value of the character. stability analysis carried out using online opstat (sheron et al., 1998). correlations were calculated on a genotypes mean basis, according to pearson’s test using sas 9.3 software. results and discussion analysis of variance (anova) for the stability of different traits was analysed in selected varieties across six years (table 1). results of anova revealed that stability analysis of yield, yield attributes and essential oil content 92 ta bl e 1 : a na ly si s of v ar ia nc e fo r st ab ili ty p er fo rm an ce f or s ee d yi el d, i ts c om po ne nt s an d es se nt ia l o il co nt en t in f en ne l so ur ce d f p la nt d ay s to d ay s to n o. o f n o. o f n o. o f n o. of y ie ld he ig ht an th es is 50 % pr im ar y se co nd ar y um be ls / um be lla te / (q /h a) at h ar ve st fl ow er in g br an ch es br an ch es pl an t pl an t (c m ) v ar ie ty 7 1, 96 1. 08 ** 52 .0 5* * 50 .4 2* * 11 6. 43 ** 24 1. 80 ** 56 4. 96 ** 22 4. 13 ** 87 .9 1* * e nv ir on m en t 6 25 ,6 44 .0 4* * 1, 54 6. 61 ** 95 3. 02 ** 67 .9 8 10 8. 96 1, 01 5. 50 94 3. 18 ** 2, 06 5. 10 ** v ar . x e nv 42 1, 22 3. 23 ** 53 .5 0* * 82 .9 4* * 20 .7 9* * 42 .9 2* * 89 .1 5* * 69 .9 6* * 52 .0 3* * e nv .+ v ar . x 48 26 ,8 67 .2 6* * 1, 60 0. 16 ** 1, 03 5. 97 ** 88 .7 8* * 15 1. 88 ** 1, 10 4. 6* * 1, 01 3. 10 ** 2, 11 7. 20 ** e nv . e nv . (l in ea r) 1 25 ,6 44 .0 4* * 1, 54 6. 66 ** 95 3. 02 ** 67 .9 8* * 10 8. 96 1, 01 5. 5* * 94 3. 18 ** 2, 06 5. 10 ** e nv . x v ar . 7 24 0. 03 ** 1. 80 8* * 4. 43 * 16 .0 7* * 8. 11 * 52 .3 6* * 56 .5 6* * 10 .8 21 * (l in ea r) po ol ed 40 98 3. 19 5* * 51 .6 9* * 78 .5 1* * 4. 72 * 34 .8 0 36 .7 8* * 13 .4 0* 41 .2 0* d ev ia tio n po ol ed e rr or 98 6, 12 4. 55 19 0. 58 21 7. 50 57 .6 8 15 8. 50 91 7. 2 34 2. 14 47 3. 71 d f d eg re e of f re ed om , * si gn if ic an t at p 0. 05 , v ar -v ar ie ty , e nv -e nv ir on m en t the mean squa res due to var ieties were highly significant for all the traits viz., plant height at harvest, days to initiation of flowering, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, number of umbels/plant, number of umbellate/plant, seed yield and essential oil content. it indicates that selected varieties were divergent and possess significant genetic variation for traits studied. the mean squares due to environments and interaction of variety with the environment (g x e) and environment + (variety x environment), were found highly significant for all the selected traits indicating the selected environments (years) were random and differ in climatic conditions. the partitioning of variance into components likes environments, envir onments (linear ), var iety x environment (linear) and pooled deviation (non-linear) showed that mean squares due to environment (linear) were also found significant. the significant mean squares value confirmed that the environments (years) were random and distinct, and they employed influence on the expression of a trait having significant mean squares and this variation could be attributed to have arisen due to the linear response of the expression of the variety to the environment. the significant value of mean squares for all the attributes studied revealed that the behaviour of the variety could be predicted for environments (years) more precisely for most of the traits and the g x e interaction was the result of the linear function of the environmental factors. the non-linear component arising due to heterogeneity, measured as mean squares due to pooled deviation, these significant mean squares revealed the presence of a non-linear response of the variety to the changing environments (stability performance). the significant mean squares for the pooled deviation confirmed the contribution of the non-linear component to the total g x e interaction. the variety differed in the stability of these traits making its prediction more difficult. similar kind of results was earlier reported by sastry et al. (1989), verma and solanki (2015), lal (2014), sawargaonkar & sahu (2018) and mangat (1986) where fennel genotypes and varieties were evaluated under a traditional production system. the results based on the stability parameters are discussed character-wise based on the model proposed by eberhart and russell (1966). according to eberhart and russell model, genotypes are grouped based on their variance of the regression deviation (either equal j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 lal et al. 93 or not to zero). a genotype with variance in regression deviation equal to zero is highly predictable, whilst a genotype with regression deviation more than zero has less predictable response (scapim et al., 2010). a correlation coefficient was estimated according to johnson et al. (1955) using sas 9.3 software and only significant correlation discussed. initiation of flowering (days) averaged 87.85 across the study years, while, the mean values ranged from 85.91 to 89.00 (table 2). in gf-12, flowering took pla ce ea r ly, wher ea s, co-01 exper ienced la te flowering over the course of the study’s years. out of the eight varieties, af-1 depicted regression coefficient that was unity and did not significantly deviate from the regression line, indicating good stability and favourable all environmental conditions (years) for this trait. rajendra saurabha, rf-125 and rf-125 had high mean values and regression coefficient that was above than unity implies above average stability. in contrast, co-01, rf-101, and gf-02 had high mean values and regression coefficient that was less than one, indicating above average stability that was suitable for an unfavourable or poor environment (organic production system) for this trait. the average plant height (cm) years was recorded 169.21, and the mean values ranged from 163.92 to 180. 61. gf-12 ha d the tallest plants, whereas (rf-281) 163.92 had the shortest plants. only three of the eight varieties, af-1 and gf-12 had high mean, regression coefficient above unity and non-significant departures from the regression line, indicating that these two varieties have below average stability for plant height. the average days to 50% flowering ranged from 94.76 to 97.86 against an average of 96.80 days. the earliest 50% flowering was recorded in variety (gf-12), while the late variety was rajendra saurabha. the variety viz., af-1 and co-01, has showed above average sta bility as they ha d higher mea n, r egr ession coefficient of more than one and non-significant deviation from regression line, hence, this variety was considered as suitable for a favourable environment for this trait and has below average stability for this trait. the mean value for numbers of primary branches varied from 7.07 to 11.10 as against the average of 8.54 across the years under study. the maximum number of primary branches was recorded in variety gf-12 while the lowest was in co-01. variety gf-12 and af-1 has high mean value with regression coefficient above unity and non-significant deviation from regression line considered as stable variety. however, variety af-1 has high mean value with regression coefficient below unity and non-significant deviation from regression has above average stability. the findings suggested that these varieties are well a da pted to suita ble for poor a nd fa vour a ble environmental conditions respectively for this trait. rf-125 was specially adapted to the favourable environment for this trait as it had a regression coefficient above unity and a high mean with a small non-significant deviation from regression. the average numbers of secondary branches varied from 15.45 to 21.21 as against the average of 17.82 across the years under study. the maximum numbers of secondary branches were recorded in variety gf-12 while, the lowest was in variety rf-101. variety rf-281 has a high mean value with regression coefficient above unity and non-significant deviation from regression line considered as below average stable variety for the trait. variety af-1 and gf-12 have high mean values with regression coefficient below unity and non-significant deviation from r egr ession expla ining its suita bility in poor (unfavourable) environment. across the study years, the average numbers of umbels per plants were varied from 28.95 to 37.92, with a mean value of 31.92 (table 3). gf-12 had the highest numbers of umbels per plants, whereas co-01 had the lowest ones during the course of the study’s years. rajendra saurabha and rf-281varieties demonstrated regr ession coefficient that was unity and nonsignificant deviations from the r egression line, indicating average stability. in contrast, af-1, gf-12 and gf-125 had high mean values and regression coefficient that was higher than one, indicating below average stability that was suitable for an unfavourable or poor environment (organic production system) for this trait. the average number of umbellate per plant varied from 22.21 to 28.49, whereas, across the study years, it averaged 25.22. the variety rf-281 recorded lowest number of umbellate per plant, while variety gf-12 had the highest number of umbellate per plant. variety gf-12, af-1, rf-125 and gf-02 had high mean j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 stability analysis of yield, yield attributes and essential oil content 94 values and regression coefficient that was higher than one indicating below average stability suitable in unfavourable/poor environment (organic production system) for this trait. the average seed yield (q/ha) across the study’s years was 25.75 which was ranged from 23.95 to 27.82. variety rf-101 had the lowest seed yield per hectare, whereas, variety gf-12 had the highest. for seed yield, the regression coefficient (bi) varied from -0.88 to 1.10. this wide variation in regression coefficients suggests that different varieties have responded differently over the course of six years and in the context of an organic production system. a regression coefficient for gf-12 is unity, so gf-12 would be adaptable to all environments. similar results was also reported in the genotypes rf-101, fnl-72 and fnl-71 had a bove a vera ge mea n, seed yield, regression coefficient of bi=1 but non-significant deviation from regression line (s 2di=0). hence, indica ting its specific a da ptability under good agronomic management practices (sawargaonkar et al., 2018). for af-1, it is less than unity and hence, it is a dapta ble across poor environments. t his demonstrates its particular adaptability for yield component traits under good agronomic management. the higher seed yield per hectare that was observed for rf-125 and gf-02 and are attributed to the regression coefficient value being less than unity and the non-significant deviation from regression that explains its suitability in a harsh environment with above-average stability. rajendra saurabha and rf281, regression coefficient value is more than unity that depicts above average stability, hence it performs well in favourable environments. lal (2008) and verma & solanki (2015) also reported above average stability of fennel genotypes rf-205 for seed yield. gangopadhyay et al. (2012) also reported similar results trait in stability analysis for seed yield of fenugreek genotypes. the range of seed essential oil content (%) was estimated from 1.14-1.25 as against the average of 1.197 obtained across the years under study. the maximum essential oil content was recorded in variety af-1, while, the minimum was in variety gf-02. the variety af-1 and rf-101 had recorded higher essential oil content above avera ge value and regression coefficient value is near unity with non-significant deviation from regression indicates that the variety is more responsive for input rich conditions.t ab le 2 : s ta bi lit y pa ra m et er s of g ro w th , f lo w er in g an d nu m be r of b ra nc he s at tr ib ut es in f en ne l v ar ie ty d ay t o in it ia ti on o f p la nt h ei gh t d ay s to 5 0% n o. o f pr im ar y n o. o f se co nd ar y fl ow er in g (c m ) fl ow er in g br an ch es br an ch es x i bi s2 di x i bi s2 di x i bi s2 di x i bi s2 di x i bi s2 di a f1 87 .9 1 1. 00 2. 60 17 7. 58 1. 01 -8 .5 6 96 .3 3 1. 05 6. 18 10 .6 8 0. 93 -0 .1 7 20 .7 1 0. 88 -0 .3 9 r f10 1 88 .2 9 0. 98 0. 92 16 4. 89 0. 96 -2 0. 19 96 .5 7 1. 06 0. 53 7. 54 0. 34 -0 .0 9 15 .4 5 0. 60 -0 .4 0 c o -0 1 89 .0 0 0. 97 0. 82 16 7. 21 0. 81 -9 .1 2 97 .7 1 1. 08 -0 .2 9 7. 07 0. 41 0. 04 15 .8 4 0. 74 1. 66 r aj en dr a sa ur ab ha 88 .7 6 1. 02 -0 .1 1 16 6. 89 0. 94 -1 1. 60 97 .8 6 0. 93 -0 .1 5 7. 25 0. 98 -0 .0 9 16 .2 7 1. 26 -0 .0 2 g f12 85 .9 1 0. 96 0. 12 18 0. 61 1. 02 7. 61 94 .7 6 1. 07 0. 13 11 .1 0 1. 02 -0 .1 3 21 .2 1 0. 84 -0 .5 3 r f28 1 87 .5 7 1. 07 0. 08 16 3. 92 1. 16 29 .0 1 96 .9 5 0. 91 0. 05 7. 81 0. 91 -0 .1 3 18 .2 8 1. 01 -0 .2 7 r f12 5 88 .4 3 1. 01 0. 88 16 4. 42 1. 08 22 .7 8 97 .6 7 0. 99 1. 02 8. 70 1. 48 -0 .0 9 18 .4 4 1. 21 1. 02 g f02 86 .9 1 0. 97 -0 .1 8 16 8. 14 1. 03 20 .0 7 96 .5 7 0. 92 2. 32 8. 14 1. 93 0. 02 16 .3 3 1. 47 1. 57 po ol ed m ea n: 8 7. 85 po ol ed m ea n: 1 69 .2 1 po ol ed m ea n: 9 6. 80 po ol ed m ea n: 8. 54 po ol ed m ea n: 1 7. 82 se (m ea n) : 0. 46 se (m ea n) : 2. 02 se (m ea n) : 0. 57 se (m ea n) : 0. 14 se (m ea n) : 0. 38 se ( b) :0 .0 82 se ( b) :0 .0 88 se ( b) :0 .1 28 se ( b) :0 .1 18 se ( b) : 0. 25 3 x i m ea n, b ire gr es si on c oe ff ic ie nt a nd s 2 d i-d ev ia tio n fr om t he r eg re ss io n j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 lal et al. 95 ta bl e 3 : st ab ili ty p ar am et er s of u m be l a nd u m be lla te /p la nt a nd y ie ld c on tr ib ut in g tr ai ts in f en ne l v ar ie ty n o. o f um be ls /p la nt n o. o f um be lla te /p la nt se ed y ie ld ( q/ ha ) e ss en ti al o il co nt en t (% ) x i bi s2 di x i bi s2 di x i bi s2 di x i bi s2 di a f1 36 .1 3 1. 15 -2 .1 8 27 .8 6 1. 16 -1 .1 2 27 .5 1 0. 98 -1 .2 0 1. 25 1. 08 1 0. 00 1 r f10 1 29 .1 4 0. 63 -2 .7 1 22 .2 1 0. 80 -0 .9 1 23 .9 5 0. 99 0. 64 1. 24 1. 07 1 -0 .0 01 c o01 28 .9 5 0. 63 -2 .2 2 24 .1 0 0. 56 -0 .8 6 24 .5 0 1. 08 -0 .8 1 1. 20 0. 61 0 0. 00 0 r aj en dr a sa ur ab ha 29 .6 9 1. 00 -2 .6 7 24 .8 1 0. 73 -1 .0 5 25 .2 7 1. 10 -0 .8 2 1. 21 0. 81 0 0. 00 1 g f12 37 .9 2 1. 11 -1 .7 2 28 .4 9 1. 11 -1 .0 0 27 .8 2 1. 00 -1 .1 6 1. 19 0. 73 0 -0 .0 00 r f28 1 31 .2 6 0. 99 -3 .0 9 23 .3 0 1. 26 -0 .3 4 25 .7 5 1. 02 -1 .2 0 1. 18 0. 69 1 0. 00 1 r f12 5 32 .5 0 1. 21 -2 .4 8 25 .5 1 1. 20 -0 .3 9 25 .4 3 0. 88 -0 .2 2 1. 17 0. 64 2 -0 .0 00 g f02 29 .7 5 1. 25 -0 .4 9 25 .5 1 1. 19 -0 .9 7 25 .7 4 0. 91 0. 15 1. 14 1. 05 0 -0 .0 00 po ol ed m ea n: 3 1. 92 po ol ed m ea n: 2 5. 22 po ol ed m ea n: 2 5. 75 po ol ed m ea n: 1 .1 97 se (m ea n) : 0. 39 se (m ea n) : 0. 24 se (m ea n) : 0. 41 se (m ea n) : 0. 98 se ( b) : 0. 08 5 se ( b) : 0. 05 3 se ( b) :0 .0 63 se ( b) : 0. 18 4 x i m ea n, b ire gr es si on c oe ff ic ie nt a nd s 2 d i-d ev ia tio n fr om t he r eg re ss io n ta bl e 4 : c or re la tio n an al ys is a m on g se ed y ie ld , its c om po ne nt s an d es se nt ia l o il co nt en t in f en ne l c ha ra ct er is ti cs d ay t o p la nt d ay s to n o. o f n o. o f n o. o f n o. o f se ed e ss en ti al in it ia ti on he ig ht 50 % pr im ar y se co nd ar y um be ls / um be lla te / yi el d oi l co nt en t of f lo w er in g (c m ) fl ow er in g br an ch es br an ch es pl an t pl an t (q /h a) (% ) d ay t o in iti at io n of fl ow er in g 1. 00 0 -0 .6 19 0. 89 1* -0 .6 72 -0 .5 93 -0 .6 34 -0 .5 67 -0 .7 01 0. 36 0 pl an t he ig ht ( cm ) 1. 00 0 -0 .7 83 0. 89 1* 0. 78 0 0. 86 3* 0. 88 7* 0. 86 6* 0. 26 4 d ay s to 5 0% f lo w er in g 1. 00 0 -0 .7 82 -0 .6 47 -0 .7 35 -0 .5 77 -0 .6 90 -0 .0 66 n um be r of p ri m ar y br an ch es 1. 00 0 0. 93 7* * 0. 97 7* * 0. 88 9* * 0. 91 9* * 0. 15 9 n um be r of s ec on da ry b ra nc he s 1. 00 0 0. 97 9* * 0. 82 8* * 0. 93 2* * 0. 11 0 n um be r of u m be ls /p la nt 1. 00 0 0. 86 9* * 0. 92 7* * 0. 16 6 n um be r of u m be lla te /p la nt 1. 00 0 0. 91 6* * -0 .0 24 se ed y ie ld ( q/ ha ) 1. 00 0 0. 00 2 e ss en tia l oi l co nt en t (% ) 1. 00 0 *s ig ni fi ca nt a t p0. 05 ; * * h ig hl y si gn ifi ca nt a t p 0. 05 j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 stability analysis of yield, yield attributes and essential oil content 96 lal, r. k. 2014. stability and genotype x environment interaction in fennel. j. herbs spices med. plants, 13(3): 47–54. gangopadhyay, k. k., tehlan, s. k., saxena, r. p., mishra, a. k., raiger, h. l., yadav, s. k. and kumar, g. 2012. stability analysis of yield and its component traits in fenugreek germplasm. indian j. hortic., 69: 79-85. johnson, h. w., robinson, h. f. and comstock, r. e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agronomy j., 47(7): 314318. mangat, n.s. 1986. stability for seed yield and its components in fennel (foeniculum vulgare). crop improv., 14: 38–40. murphy, k. m., campbell, k. g., lyon, s. r. and jones, s. s. 2007. evidence of va r ieta l adaptation to organic farming systems. field crops res., 102: 172-177. patel, d.p., das, a., kumar, m., munda, g. c., ngachan, s. v., ramkrushna, g. i., layek, j., naropongla buragohain, j. and somireddy, u. 2014. continuous a pplication of organic amendments enhances soil health, produce quality and system productivity of vegetable based cropping systems at subtropical eastern hima la ya s. exp. agric. , doi: 10. 1017/ s0014479714000167. verma, p. and solanki, r.k. 2015. stability of seed yield and its component tr a its in fennel (foeniculum vulgare). indian j. agric. sci., 85 (11): 1504-1507. saharkhiz, m.j. and tarakeme, a. 2013. essential oil content and composition of fennel (foeniculum vulgare l. ) fr uits a t differ ent sta ges of development. j. essent. oil-bear. plants, 14(5): 605-609. seet, j., pandey, v.p., singh, d and pattnaik, m. 2020. genetic va r ia bility studies in fennel (foeniculum vulgare l.). j. pharm. innov., 9(4): 160-164. singh, d.k., gupta, s., nanda, g., sharma, y., singh, v.v. and bisarya, d. 2017. evaluation of rice varieties for yield under organic farming in correlation analysis among plant, yield and quality traits t he cor r ela tion study (ta ble 4) deter mines interrelationships among the studied traits showed that the da ys to initia tion of flower ing wa s found significant relation with days to 50% flowering, plant height showed positive association with number of primary branches, number of umbels per plant, number of umbellate per plant and seed yield. number of primary branches revealed highly significant positive corr elation with number of seconda ry branches, number of umbels per plant, number of umbellate per plant and seed yield similarly number of secondary branches showed positive correlation with number of umbels per plant, number of umbellate per plant and seed yield. number of umbels per plant revealed positive highly significant correlation with number of umbellate per plant and seed yield. similar kind of results were also reported by dashora and sastry, (2011), yogi, (2013) and abou et al. (2013) in fennel. conclusion the two varieties gf-12 and af-1 had high mean performance, non-significant regression coefficient deviation from unity (bi=1) and non-significant deviation from zero (s2di=0) in terms of numbers of umbels and seed yield per hectare and rf-101 had recorded higher essential oil content. hence, in terms of yield, yield components gf-12 and af-1 and rf101 for essential oil content can be considered as the most suitable, average stable over the environments (years) and adopted to organic production system compared to other varieties besides further utilization in stable varietal development programme in fennel. references abou, el-nasr t. h. s., sherin, a., mahfouze and al kordy, m.a.a. 2013. assessing phenotypic and molecular variability in fennel (foeniculum vulgare mill.) varieties. aust. j. basic appl. sci., 7(2): 715-722. d a s hor a , abha y a nd sa s t r y, e . v. d . 2 0 11 . variability, character association and path coefficient a na lysis in fennel. indian j. hortic., 68(3): 351356. eberhart, s.a.and russell, w.a. 1966. stability parameters for comparing varieties. crop sci., 6: 36-40. j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 lal et al. 97 tarai region of uttarakhand, india. int. j. curr. microbiol. app. sci., 6: 734-738. sawargaonkar, s. l., singh a k and sahu, s. 2018. stability analysis for seed yield and yield a ttr ibuting tr a its in fennel (foeni culum vulguare mill.). j. spices aromat. crops, 27(1): 74-80. sastry, e. v. d., singh, d., sharma, k. c. and shar ma , r. k. 1989 stability analysis in coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) indian. j. genet., 49: 151-153. scapim, c. a., pacheco, c.a.p. , ama ral, a.t., vieira, r.a., pinto, r.j.b. et al. (2010). c or r ela t ions b etween the s t a b ilit y a nd adaptability statistics of popcorn cultivars. euphytica, 174(2): 209-218. sheoran, o.p., tonk, d.s., kaushik, l.s., hasija, r.c and pannu, r.s.1998. statistical software package for agricultural research workers. recent a dva nces in infor ma tion theor y, statistics & computer applications by d.s. hooda & r. c. ha sija depa r tment of mathematics statistics, ccs hau, hisar pp.139-143. tilman, d., cassman, k.g., matson, p.a., naylor, r. a nd pola sky, s. 2002. agr icultur a l susta ina bility a nd intensive pr oduction practices. nature, 418: 671-677. verma, p. and solanki, r.k. 2015 stability of seed yield and its component tr a its in fennel (foeniculum vulgare). indian j. agril. sci., 85: 1504–1507. yogi, r., meena, r. s., kakani, r. k. panwar, a. and solanki, r. k. 2013. variability of some morphological characters in fennel (foeniculam vulgare mill.) int. j. seed spices., 3(1): 4143. (received : 23.09.2022; revised : 13.04.2023; accepted 15.05.2023) j. hortic. sci. vol. 18(1) : 90-97, 2023 stability analysis of yield, yield attributes and essential oil content j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):249-254, 2013 short communication egg plant or brinjal (solanum melongena l.) is an important, highly productive vegetable crop and is often referred to as the poor man’s crop (bindu et al, 2004). heterosis breeding is an efficient approach in crop improvement, and selection of parental lines is very important in developing hybrids for commercialization. a knowledge of combining ability helps identify the best combiners, aids heterosis breeding or to accumulate fixable genes through selection. such information forms the backbone of any breeding programme. among the various methods, line x tester analysis provides information on the combining ability of genotypes. combining ability effects rank among the important parameters commonly used by plant breeders to evaluate genetic potential of the material being handled by them. dhillion (1975) opined that combining ability of parents gave useful information on making the choice of parents in terms of expected performance of their hybrids and progenies. the gca effect is considered as an intrinsic genetic value of the parent for a trait, which is due to additive genetic effects and is fixable (simmonds, 1979). singh and hari singh (1985) suggested that parents with high gca tend to produce transgressive segregants in f2 or later generations. gravios and mcnew (1993) reported that if additive gene action was predominant in a self-pollinated species, the breeder could effectively select various levels of inbreeding, because additive effects are readily transmissible from one generation to another. in view of this, we undertook combining ability analysis using ten lines and four testers. the experimental material comprised of 40 f1s and 14 parents (10 lines and 4 testers) which were evaluated, during 2010-2011 in rbd, with three replications, at college orchard, agricultural college and research institute, madurai which is situated at 9°5 latitude and 78°5 longitude and at an elevation of 147m above msl. cultural practices were followed as per the package of practices in tnau crop production guide (2005) with plants spaced at 60cm x 60cm. observations were recorded in five plants selected randomly in each genotype. data were recorded for 15 biometrical traits viz., plant height, days to first flowering, number of branches per plant, fruit length, fruit pedicel length, fruit circumference, calyx length, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, shoot borer infestation, fruit borer infestation, little leaf incidence, ascorbic acid content, total phenol content and fruit yield per plant in 14 parents and 40 hybrids. this data was used for estimating combining ability. combining ability analysis was computed as per kempthorne (1957). parents/hybrids that showed negative and significant gca effects were considered for days to first flowering, fruit length, calyx length, shoot and fruit borer gene action and combining ability analysis in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) s. ramesh kumar1 and t. arumugam department of horticulture, agricultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university madurai 625 104, india e-mail: rameshamar06@gmail.com abstract combining ability analysis in brinjal genotypes indicated significant genotypic and environmental variations for all the 15 characters studied. both general combining ability (gca) and specific combining ability (sca) variances showed significant interactions. genotypes palamedu local (l5), alagarkovil local (l4), melur local (l6) and annamalai (t1) were found to be good general combiners, and the crosses l3 x t3 (kariapatty local x punjab sadabahar), l8 x t1, (nilakottai local x annamalai), l4 x t1 (alagarkovil local x annamalai), l6 x t2 (melur local x kkm 1), l7 x t3 (keerikai local x punjab sadabahar) and l7 x t2 (keerikai local x kkm 1) were identified as good specific combiners for fruit yield and other related traits. these hybrid combinations can be used for commercial exploitation for fruit yield in brinjal. key words: brinjal, gene action, combining ability, gca and sca 1department of horticulture, vanavarayar institute of agriculture, manakkadavu, pollachi-642103, tnau, tamil nadu, india 250 infestation and little leaf incidence; while, for the other traits, parents /hybrids with positively significant gca effects were taken into consideration. combining ability analysis was carried out using tnaustat software package. analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among all parents and hybrids for all the characters studied, indicating the presence of considerable amount of genetic variability (table 1). hybrids vs parents comparison was significant for all the traits, revealing occurrence of heterotic effects. knowledge of relative importance of additive and non-additive gene action is essential to the plant breeder for developing an efficient hybridization programme. panse (1942) suggested that if additive genetic variance was greater, the chance of fixing superior genotypes in early-segregating generation would be greater; whereas, if dominant and epistatic interactions were predominant, selection should be postponed to a later generation, and appropriate breeding techniques should be applied to obtain a useful genotype. from an analysis of the combining ability estimates, it was seen that non-additive gene action operated for all the characters in our study, as, variance due to general combining ability (gca) and specific combining ability (sca) was highly significant (table 2). further, it was observed that variance due to sca was higher in magnitude than gca for all the traits studied. thus, it supports predominance of non-additive gene effects on governing the expression of most of the characters. these results are in accordance with prabhu (2005), muthulakshmi (2007) and prakash (2008) for plant height; indiresh et al (2005) for days to first flowering; prakash (2008) for number of branches per plant; suneetha (2006), muthulakshmi (2007) and prakash (2008) for number of fruits per plant; muthulakshmi (2007) for average fruit table 1. analysis of variance for parents and hybrids for 15 characters source df ph dff nb/ p fl fpl fc cl hybrids 39 346.5306* 54.8730* 17.4039* 5.4570* 1.4005* 9.9952* 1.0970* lines 9 973.0851* 76.5412* 40.2728* 4.9768* 2.1125* 20.0498* 2.5695* testers 3 66.6626* 17.7451* 12.1612* 9.7032* 0.4415* 16.6776* 0.5407* line x testers 27 168.7756* 51.7756* 10.3635* 5.1453* 1.2698* 5.9011* 0.6680* errors 78 85.0412 3.3519 4.3914* 0.0933 0.0216 0.4478 0.0424 source df nf/p afw sbi fbi lli acc tpc fy/p hybrids 39 161.9557* 149.5525* 54.4746* 63.3535* 69.4393* 12.9752* 533.5026* 0.6288* lines 9 197.8137* 328.0857* 104.8571* 80.0248* 128.8896* 24.3787* 998.8697* 0.9020* testers 3 234.2205* 72.4168* 41.9781* 34.1338* 70.4679* 33.1344* 55.7529* 0.4214* line x testers 27 141.9736* 98.6121* 39.0689* 61.0430* 49.5083* 6.9342* 431.4635* 0.5608* errors 78 1.8176 4.0138 0.9524 2.1378 0.8543 0.1632 4.1422 0.0100 *significant at 5% level ph plant height (cm) dff days to first flowering nb/p number of branches per plant fl fruit length (cm) fpl fruit pedicel length (cm) fc fruit circumference (cm) cl calyx length (cm) nf/p number of fruits per plant afw average fruit weight (g) sbi shoot borer infestation (%) fbi fruit borer infestation (%) lli little leaf incidence (%) acc ascorbic acid content (mg/100g) tpc total phenol content (mg/100g) fy/p fruit yield per plant (kg) table 2. magnitude of variance for yield components character gca sca δ2 a δ2 d ratio of variance variance δ2 a: δ2 d plant height (cm) 67.02 98.15 2.91 98.15 0.02 days to first 2.06 14.97 0.20 14.97 0.01 flowering number of 4.52 17.34 0.26 17.34 0.01 branches per plant fruit length (cm) -0.01 2.15 0.05 2.15 0.02 fruit pedicel 0.07 0.41 0.03 0.41 0.07 length (cm) fruit 1.17 4.40 0.06 4.40 0.01 circumference (cm) calyx length (cm) 0.15 0.38 0.007 0.38 0.01 number of fruits 11.80 62.29 0.75 62.29 0.01 per plant average fruit 19.12 51.88 0.83 51.88 0.01 weight (g) shoot borer 5.48 19.66 0.25 19.66 0.01 infestation (%) fruit borer 1.58 18.65 0.03 18.65 1.60 infestation (%) little leaf ) 6.61 26.49 0.32 26.49 0.01 incidence (% ascorbic acid 1.45 6.84 0.09 6.84 0.01 content (mg/100g) total phenol 47.28 159.27 1.67 159.27 0.01 content (mg/100g) fruit yield per 0.02 0.20 0.02 0.20 0.10 plant (kg) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):249-254, 2013 ramesh kumar and arumugam 251 ta bl e 3. g en er al c om bi ni ng a bi lit y ef fe ct s of p ar en ts pa re nt pl an t d ay s t o n um be r o f fr ui t fr ui t fr ui t ca ly x he ig ht fir st br an ch es le ng th pe di ce l ci rc um le ng th (c m ) flo w er in g pe r p la nt (c m ) le ng th fe re nc e (c m ) (c m ) (c m ) l 1 11 .2 9* * 1. 30 * 0. 24 0. 31 ** -0 .1 1* 1. 78 ** -0 .1 8* * l 2 13 .9 2* * 3. 14 ** -2 .8 7* * 0. 25 ** -0 .4 2* * -0 .4 8* -0 .3 2* * l 3 6. 51 * 3. 19 ** -2 .2 3* * -0 .2 7* * 0. 38 ** -2 .0 8* * 0. 59 ** l 4 1. 14 -3 .1 6* * -0 .3 5 0. 53 ** 0. 28 ** -1 .3 1* * 0. 63 ** l 5 -7 .6 8* * -2 .1 6* * 3. 53 ** -0 .0 7 0. 39 ** 1. 79 ** 0. 38 ** l 6 -9 .6 9* * -3 .4 8* * 3. 03 ** -0 .2 5* * 0. 41 ** 0. 69 ** 0. 39 ** l 7 5. 36 * -1 .0 3 2. 26 ** -0 .0 4 -0 .8 0* * -0 .5 5* * -0 .4 6* * l 8 -2 .2 0 1. 52 ** -0 .1 2 1. 26 ** -0 .4 1* * -0 .9 1* * -0 .6 8* * l 9 -7 .8 3* * -1 .2 9* 0. 66 -0 .6 4* * 0. 23 ** 0. 16 -0 .2 7* * l 10 -1 0. 83 ** 1. 97 ** -4 .1 3* * -1 .0 8* * 0. 05 0. 89 ** -0 .0 7 se 2. 66 0. 52 0. 49 0. 08 0. 04 0. 19 0. 05 t 1 1. 54 -0 .9 6* * 1. 32 ** -0 .7 1* * -0 .0 2 0. 86 ** -0 .0 7 t 2 -2 .0 1 -0 .1 7 1. 34 ** 0. 08 -0 .1 5* * -0 .0 5 -0 .1 5* * t 3 0. 48 0. 26 -1 .0 5* * -0 .0 5 0. 02 -0 .9 5* * 0. 14 ** t 4 -0 .0 1 0. 86 * -1 .6 1* * 0. 68 ** 0. 15 ** 0. 14 0. 08 * se 1. 68 0. 33 0. 31 0. 05 0. 02 0. 12 0. 03 ** s ig ni fi ca nt a t 1 % le ve l * s ig ni fi ca nt a t 5 % le ve l n um be r av er ag e sh oo t fr ui t li ttl e a sc or bi c to ta l fr ui t of fr ui ts fr ui t bo re r bo re r lea f ac id ph en ol s yi el d pe r p la nt w ei gh t in fe st at io n in fe st at io n in ci de nc e co nt en t co nt en t pe r p la nt (g ) (% ) (% ) (% ) (m g/ 10 0g ) (m g/ 10 0g ) (k g) -4 .7 3* * 6. 34 ** -3 .3 3* * -0 .4 0 1. 38 ** 2. 90 ** -4 .9 5* * -0 .0 7* 2. 10 ** -0 .9 8 0. 38 -2 .4 5* * 0. 74 ** 0. 35 ** -4 .6 6* * 0. 07 * -6 .1 2* * -4 .7 4* * -5 .9 1* * 1. 26 ** -2 .7 3* * 0. 51 ** 1. 94 ** -0 .4 5* * 4. 53 ** 2. 20 ** 0. 81 ** -1 .8 6* * -4 .7 1* * -0 .4 1* * 8. 96 ** 0. 30 ** 8. 13 ** 4. 17 ** -0 .6 7* -0 .7 6 -3 .6 1* * -0 .4 6* * 0. 64 0. 43 ** -0 .2 1 -1 .0 5 -1 .2 0* * 0. 25 -2 .7 7* * -0 .1 7 5. 87 ** -0 .0 4 -2 .5 7* * 5. 48 ** 0. 58 * -1 .2 8* * 1. 67 ** 0. 19 18 .2 8* * 0. 06 * 4. 47 ** -1 0. 28 ** 3. 01 ** 3. 36 ** 2. 44 ** -1 .5 7* * -1 1. 06 ** 0. 03 0. 41 -3 .9 5* * 3. 62 ** 5. 03 ** 2. 02 ** 1. 01 ** -1 0. 24 ** -0 .0 6* -6 .0 3* * 2. 80 ** 2. 71 ** -3 .1 6* * 5. 57 ** -2 .3 5* * -4 .7 7* * -0 .2 7* * 0. 39 0. 57 0. 28 0. 42 0. 26 0. 11 0. 58 0. 02 1. 44 ** 0. 11 0. 52 ** -0 .6 8* 0. 56 ** 1. 14 ** -0 .4 8 0. 11 ** 3. 43 ** -0 .7 8* 1. 29 ** -0 .5 1 -0 .1 0 -0 .0 7 0. 34 0. 15 ** -4 .1 3* * 2. 12 ** -0 .3 4 1. 59 ** -2 .0 5* * 0. 31 ** -1 .5 4* * -0 .1 7* * -0 .7 4* * -1 .4 6* * -1 .4 7* * -0 .4 1 1. 59 ** -1 .3 8* * 1. 69 ** -0 .0 9* * 0. 25 0. 36 0. 17 0. 26 0. 16 0. 07 0. 37 0. 01 li n es t e st e r s j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):249-254, 2013 combining ability in brinjal 252 ta bl e 4. s pe ci fi c co m bi ni ng a bi lit y ef fe ct s of h yb ri ds h yb ri d p h d f f n b / p fl fp l fc c l n f/ p a fw sb i fb i ll i a c c t p c fy /p l 1 x t 1 -1 3. 03 * -2 .8 0* * 2. 62 * 0. 17 -0 .1 2 -1 .4 6* * -0 .3 6* * 6. 95 ** 8. 88 ** 4. 91 ** -1 .3 4 2. 07 ** -0 .3 7 1. 57 0. 71 ** l 1 x t 2 -2 .4 8 -0 .0 8 -0 .0 7 -0 .2 9 -0 .3 6* * 1. 02 ** -0 .1 3 -5 .9 8* * -5 .0 1* * -2 .7 8* * 1. 27 -3 .5 7* * -0 .2 0 -2 .6 5* -0 .4 6* * l 1 x t 3 -2 .6 8 1. 58 -1 .3 6 -0 .2 5 0. 79 ** 0. 96 * 0. 53 ** -2 .5 5* * 3. 25 ** -4 .1 1* * 1. 50 -3 .0 2* * 0. 74 ** 3. 09 * -0 .1 3* l 1 x t 4 18 .1 9* * 1. 30 -1 .1 9 0. 37 * -0 .3 1* * -0 .5 2 -0 .0 4 1. 58 * -7 .1 2* * 1. 98 ** -1 .4 3 4. 52 ** -0 .1 6 -2 .0 1 -0 .1 2* l 2 x t 1 13 .0 8* 2. 82 ** -1 .5 1 1. 42 ** -0 .3 3* * 2. 28 ** 0. 06 7. 54 ** -5 .2 1* * -0 .6 7 4. 02 ** 2. 01 ** -0 .6 8* * 10 .9 8* * 0. 16 ** l 2 x t 2 -5 .4 4 -2 .9 8* * -0 .9 1 -1 .2 9* * -0 .1 1 -0 .6 2 0. 22 -1 1. 26 ** 2. 01 5. 59 ** -0 .3 5 -0 .1 2 0. 88 ** 18 .8 7* * -0 .5 2* * l 2 x t 3 0. 13 4. 10 ** 0. 54 -0 .3 9* -0 .1 4 -0 .8 2* 0. 08 7. 02 ** 2. 60 * -2 .1 9* * -0 .9 9 -3 .8 9* * -0 .9 7* * 13 .7 2* * 0. 51 ** l 2 x t 4 -7 .7 7 -3 .9 4* * 1. 88 0. 26 0. 58 ** -0 .8 3* -0 .3 7* * -3 .3 2* * 0. 60 -2 .7 4* * -2 .6 9* * 2. 00 ** 0. 77 ** -2 1. 61 ** -0 .1 5* * l 3 x t 1 8. 55 4. 48 ** 1. 59 0. 32 -0 .7 6* * 0. 53 -0 .6 6* * 6. 03 ** -5 .9 5* * 1. 44 * -1 .1 9 -0 .3 1 0. 02 9. 34 ** 0. 06 l 3 x t 2 0. 34 5. 67 ** -0 .5 8 -0 .1 1 -0 .4 2* * -0 .0 4 -0 .2 6* -6 .9 4* * -4 .1 2* * -2 .4 9* * 4. 04 ** -0 .2 4 -2 .0 1* * -9 .3 9* * -0 .4 3* * l 3 x t 3 -3 .4 4 -4 .4 4* * -2 .1 1* 0. 47 ** -0 .1 5 -0 .2 1 0. 06 6. 42 ** 10 .5 3* * -2 .3 9* * -3 .9 7* * -3 .9 1* * 0. 72 * * 7. 77 ** 0. 63 ** l 3 x t 4 -5 .4 6 -5 .7 1* * 1. 11 -0 .6 8* * 1. 32 ** -0 .2 8 0. 87 ** -5 .5 2* * -0 .4 7 3. 43 * * 1. 12 4. 46 ** 1. 26 ** -7 .7 2* * -0 .2 7* * l 4 x t 1 1. 83 -1 .2 8 3. 37 ** -0 .3 0 -0 .1 7* 1. 79 ** 0. 25 * 3. 08 ** 4. 52 ** -7 .0 4 ** 3. 76 ** -2 .0 5* * -0 .7 9* * 4. 09 ** 0. 26 ** l 4 x t 2 -3 .1 5 -1 .3 1 2. 32 * -0 .0 9 -0 .5 4* * 0. 75 0. 08 4. 03 ** -2 .8 6* -1 .1 1 1. 54 -1 .4 8* * 1. 64 ** -0 .0 8 0. 14 * l 4 x t 3 3. 92 1. 76 -3 .5 2* * -1 .4 3* * -0 .0 0 -0 .6 9 -0 .6 4* * -4 .3 1* * -5 .0 2* * 5. 40 * * -2 .9 3* * 4. 35 ** -0 .4 7 * -4 .1 8* * -0 .3 7* * l 4 x t 4 -2 .5 9 0. 83 -2 .1 5* 1. 81 ** 0. 72 ** -1 .8 5* * 0. 31 * -2 .8 1* * 3. 36 ** 2. 76 * * -2 .3 7* * -0 .8 2 -0 .3 8 0. 18 -0 .0 3 l 5 x t 1 -2 .6 2 -2 .1 3* -3 .9 0* * -0 .0 5 -0 .0 2 -0 .5 0 -0 .2 0 -1 1. 37 ** 7. 78 ** -0 .7 7 -5 .8 2* * 3. 56 ** 2. 09 ** -9 .2 4* * -0 .5 6* * l 5 x t 2 -0 .4 4 0. 44 0. 03 -0 .4 2* -0 .3 1* * -0 .9 5* -0 .4 7* * 0. 98 2. 17 0. 97 0. 32 4. 43 ** -0 .7 0* * 4. 76 ** 0. 04 l 5 x t 3 7. 13 3. 88 ** 2. 11 * 0. 03 -0 .0 1 1. 12 ** 0. 89 ** 6. 31 ** -4 .3 3* * 0. 13 -3 .6 4* * -3 .5 3* * -1 .0 4* * -5 .6 8* * 0. 38 ** l 5 x t 4 -4 .0 7 -2 .2 0* 1. 81 0. 43 * 0. 34 ** 0. 33 -0 .2 2 4. 04 ** -5 .6 2* * -0 .3 2 9. 14 ** -4 .4 5* * -0 .3 5 10 .1 6* * 0. 14 * l 6 x t 1 4. 25 2. 59 * -3 .4 7* * -1 .4 9* * 0. 96 ** -0 .4 6 -0 .2 4* -4 .5 7* * -1 .4 9 2. 99 ** 2. 82 ** -6 .3 0* * 2. 63 ** -1 6. 57 ** -0 .3 2* * l 6 x t 2 1. 94 -1 .5 6 1. 97 * 3. 50 ** 0. 67 ** -0 .9 0* 0. 58 ** 4. 85 ** 3. 72 ** -4 .2 6* * -6 .0 5* * 0. 21 -1 .1 5* * 0. 85 0. 41 ** l 6 x t 3 -1 4. 13 ** -1 .0 6 0. 91 -0 .2 0 -0 .6 4* * -0 .8 0* 0. 21 -2 .1 3* * -1 .6 7 3. 46 * * 6. 15 ** 4. 74 ** -1 .1 2* * 3. 35 ** -0 .1 6* * l 6 x t 4 7. 94 0. 03 0. 59 -1 .8 1* * -0 .9 9* * 2. 17 ** -0 .5 5* * 1. 85 * -0 .5 6 -2 .1 8* * -2 .9 1* * 1. 35 * -0 .3 8 12 .3 7* * 0. 07 l 7 x t 1 -5 .8 3 4. 52 ** -2 .0 8 * -0 .4 8* * 0. 16 -0 .2 3 0. 29 * -1 0. 8* * -3 .1 1* * 1. 48 * 3. 27 ** 1. 40 * -0 .0 1 4. 12 ** -0 .7 7* * l 7 x t 2 4. 19 1. 11 1. 74 1. 03 ** 0. 73 ** 1. 69 ** -0 .1 9 8. 24 ** 10 .7 1* * 0. 74 -1 .1 9 -4 .2 4* * -1 .6 4* * 5. 06 ** 0. 91 ** l 7 x t 3 5. 42 -6 .1 2* * -0 .6 6 -0 .9 9* * -0 .2 5* * 0. 96 * -0 .4 6* * 1. 13 -7 .1 7* * -1 .2 8 * -1 .8 6* 6. 59 ** 1. 99 ** -1 0. 10 ** -0 .1 8* * l 7 x t 4 -3 .7 8 0. 48 1. 00 0. 45 * -0 .6 4* * -2 .4 2* * 0. 36 ** 1. 46 -0 .4 3 -0 .9 4 -0 .2 2 -3 .7 5* * -0 .3 4 0. 92 0. 04 l 8 x t 1 -1 .2 4 -8 .0 0* * 3. 45 ** -0 .5 0* * 0. 35 ** -0 .7 4 0. 16 1. 67 * -1 .8 6 4. 76 * * 10 .6 9* * -1 .3 9* -2 .0 5* * 3. 32 ** 0. 39 ** l 8 x t 2 -4 .8 5 1. 00 -0 .3 9 -2 .2 6* * 0. 58 ** -1 .1 0* * -0 .1 1 4. 86 ** -0 .2 7 0. 55 4. 82 ** 1. 28 * 3. 03 ** -8 .3 7* * -0 .2 4* * l 8 x t 3 2. 72 -2 .4 6* 1. 20 2. 67 ** -0 .8 4* * 0. 10 -0 .2 1 -0 .9 7 -5 .0 7* * -1 .1 5 * 6. 32 ** -3 .0 7* * -0 .9 1 ** 5. 97 ** -0 .5 4* * l 8 x t 4 3. 38 9. 46 ** -4 .2 6* * 0. 08 -0 .0 9 1. 74 ** 0. 16 -6 .6 6* * 7. 20 ** -4 .1 6 ** -0 .4 5 3. 18 ** -0 .0 7 -0 .9 2 0. 39 ** l 9 x t 1 -2 .8 5 1. 63 4. 08 ** 0. 03 -0 .2 6* * -1 .1 9* * 0. 44 ** 5. 95 ** -3 .5 8* * -4 .5 4* * 2. 34 ** 2. 94 ** 1. 05 ** -1 1. 79 ** 0. 51 ** l 9 x t 2 7. 38 -0 .7 4 -4 .6 9* * -0 .5 6* * 0. 01 -1 .2 6* * 0. 00 9. 17 ** -2 .4 8* 3. 17 ** -1 .7 6* -0 .3 0 0. 50 * -5 .2 8* * -0 .0 8 l 9 x t 3 -1 .0 4 2. 59 * 1. 11 0. 65 ** 0. 84 ** 0. 69 -0 .5 7* * 1. 06 4. 18 ** 2. 00 * * 1. 42 3. 65 ** 0. 36 -1 .1 6 -0 .2 7* * l 9 x t 4 -3 .4 9 -3 .4 9* * -0 .4 9 -0 .1 2 -0 .5 9* * 1. 76 ** 0. 13 -6 .6 0* * 1. 87 -0 .6 3 -2 .0 0* -6 .2 9* * -1 .9 0* * 18 .2 3* * -0 .1 6* * l 10 x t 1 -2 .1 3 -1 .8 4 -4 .0 9* * 0. 88 ** 0. 18 * -0 .0 1 0. 25 * -3 .6 3* * 0. 02 -2 .5 5* * 2. 83 ** -1 .9 2* * -1 .9 5* * 26 .1 4* * -0 .4 5* * l 10 x t 2 2. 51 -1 .5 6 0. 58 0. 48 ** -0 .2 5* * 1. 43 ** 0. 30 * -7 .7 3* * -3 .8 9* * -0 .3 8 -2 .6 4* * 4. 04 ** -0 .3 5 -3 .7 8* * 0. 24 ** l 10 x t 3 1. 95 0. 16 1. 81 -0 .5 7* * 0. 41 ** -1 .3 2* * 0. 10 5. 97 ** 2. 70 * 0. 12 -2 .0 0* -1 .9 1* * 0. 75 ** -1 2. 77 ** 0. 14 * l 10 x t 4 -2 .3 3 3. 23 ** 1. 70 -0 .7 9* * -0 .3 4* * -0 .1 0 -0 .6 5* * 1. 37 1. 17 2. 80 * * 1. 80 * -0 .2 1 1. 55 ** -9 .5 9* * 0. 08 se 5. 32 1. 05 1. 20 0. 17 0. 08 0. 38 0. 11 0. 77 1. 15 0. 56 0. 84 0. 53 0. 23 1. 17 0. 05 *s ig ni fi ca nt a t 5 % le ve l, * *s ig ni fi ca nt a t 1 % le ve l n f/ p n um be r of f ru its p er p la nt a fw a ve ra ge fr ui t w ei gh t ( g) sb i sh oo t b or er in ci de nc e (% ) fb i fr ui t b or er in ci de nc e (% ) ll i l itt le le af in ci de nc e (% ) a c c a sc or bi c ac id c on te nt (m g/ 10 0g ) t p c to ta l ph en ol c on te nt fy /p fr ui t y ie ld p er p la nt (k g) (m g/ 10 0g ) p h pl an t h ei gh t ( cm ) d f f d ay s to f ir st f lo w er in g n b /p n um be r of b ra nc he s pe r pl an t fl fr ui t l en gt h (c m ) fp l fr ui t p ed ic el le ng th (c m ) fc fr ui t c ir cu m fe re nc e (c m ) c l c al yx le ng th (c m ) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):249-254, 2013 ramesh kumar and arumugam 253 weight; prasath (1997) for ascorbic acid content; and, jerard (1996) and suneetha (2006) for fruit yield per plant. general combining ability estimates are presented in table 3. in the present study, the line l5 (palamedu local) was adjudged as the best general combiner, since, it expressed significant gca effects for nine traits, viz., days to first flowering, number of branches per plant, fruit pedicel length, fruit circumference, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, shoot borer infestation, little leaf incidence and fruit yield per plant. this was followed by l4 (alagarkovil local) which showed good general combining ability for the traits days to first flowering, fruit pedicel length, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, fruit borer infestation, little leaf incidence, total phenol content and fruit yield per plant. among the lines, alavayal local (l1) and sedapatty local green (l2) were also good general combiners, because of having high gca values for seven characters. among the testers, t1 (annamalai) was adjudged as a good general combiner, as, it showed significantly favourable gca effect for days to first flowering, number of branches per plant, fruit length, fruit circumference, number of fruits per plant, fruit borer infestation, ascorbic acid content and fruit yield per plant. from the above information, it is inferred that palamedu local (l5), alagarkovil local (l4), melur local (l6) and annamalai (t1), among parents, were found to be the best general combiners, since these expressed good gca effects for a majority of the traits (including growth, yield and quality characters). estimates for specific combining ability are given in table 3. sprague and tatum (1942) reported that specific combining ability was due to non-additive gene action. sca effect of hybrids have been attributed to a combination of positive, favourable genes from different parents or due to presence of linkage in repulsion phase (sarsar et al, 1986). therefore, selection of hybrids based on sca effects would excel in heterotic effect. in the present study, hybrid l3xt3 (kariapatty local x punjab sadabahar) excelled, with superior sca effect for nine characters, viz., days to first flowering, number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight, shoot and fruit borer infestation, little leaf incidence, ascorbic acid content, total phenol content and fruit yield per plant. the crosses, l8 x t1 and l4 x t1, were the next best specific combiners for eight traits each. these were followed by l6 x t2, l10 x t3, l7 x t3 and l7 x t2, which were identified as specific combiners for seven traits each. in general, among the 40 hybrids studied, hybrids l3 x t3 (kariapatty local x punjab sadabahar), l8 x t1, (nilakottai local x annamalai), l4 x t1 (alagarkovil local x annamalai), l6 x t2 (melur local x kkm 1), l7 x t3 (keerikai local x punjab sadabahar) and l7 x t2 (keerikai local x kkm 1) were good specific combiners for a majority of growth and yield attributing characters, including fruit yield. references bindu, sharma, pathania, n.k. and gautham vishal. 2004. combining ability studies in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). himachal j. agril. res., 30:54-59 dhillion, b.s. 1975. the application of partial diallel crosses in plant breeding – a review. crop improv., 2:17 gravios, k.a. and mcnew. r.w. 1993. genetic relationships and selection for rice yield and yield components. crop sci., 33:249-252 indiresh, k.m., shivasankar, t. and kulkarni, r.s. 2005. gene action for yield and its components in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). mysore j. agril. sci., 39:50-56 jerard, b.a. 1996. studies on heterosis and combining ability in egg plant (solanum melongena l.). m.sc. (hort.) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, tamil nadu, india kempthorne, o. 1957. an introduction to genetic statistics. john wiley & sons inc., new york, usa muthulakshmi, r. 2007. heterosis and line x tester analysis of combining ability in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). m.sc. (hort.) thesis, agricultural college and research institute, madurai, tamil nadu, india panse, v.g. 1942. genetics of quantitative characters in relation to plant breeding. indian j. genet., 2:318327 prabhu, m. 2005. breeding for high yield with shoot and fruit borer (leucinodes orbonalis guen.) resistance in brinjal (solanum melongena l.), ph.d. (hort.) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, tamil nadu, india prakash, t. 2008. heterosis and combining ability studies in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). m.sc. (hort.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, karnataka, india prasath, d. 1997. studies on per se performance, heterosis and combining ability in egg plant (solanum melongena l.). m.sc. (hort.) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, tamil nadu, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):249-254, 2013 combining ability in brinjal 254 sarsar, s.m., patil, b.a. and bhatade, s.s. 1986. heterosis and combining ability in upland cotton. indian j. agril. sci., 56:567-573 simmonds, n.w. 1979. principles of crop improvement. longman group ltd., london, pp. 110-116 singh, s.n. and harisingh. 1985. note on the relationship between per se performance and general combining ability of parents in egg plant. indian j. agril. sci., 52:614-615 sprague, g.r. and tatum, l.a. 1942. general vs specific combining ability in single crosses of corn. j. amer. soc. agron., 34:923-932 suneetha, y. 2006. heterosis and association analysis for yield quality and physiological characters in late summer brinjal. j. res. angrau, 34:18-24 tnau crop production guide. 2005. cultivation practices of brinjal. pp. 46-47 (ms received 11 june 2012, revised 15 may 2013, accepted 04 june 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):249-254, 2013 ramesh kumar and arumugam introduction bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) is one of the most important tropical vegetable crops. it belongs to the family cucurbitaceae, and is popularly known as balsam pear, karela, or bitter melon. in india, it is cultivated in an area of 26,004 hectares, with total production of 1,62,196 tonnes at a productivity level of 6.23 tonnes per ha. use of pgrs and micronutrients like boron could be a useful alternative for increasing crop production. ga3 and naa are important growth regulators that can modify growth, sex ratio and yield-contributing characters in a plant (shantappa et al, 2007). micronutrients and cations are involved in enzyme systems as co-factors, with exception of zn, mn, cu and b. the latter are capable of acting as ‘electron carriers’ in enzyme systems and are responsible for oxidation-reduction process in the plant system. storage and preservation of quality seed stocks until the next season is as important as producing quality seeds. farmers and scientists opine that safe storage of seeds is advantageous, as, it reduces the burden of seed production every year, besides facilitating timely supply of desired genetic stocks for use in the years following periods of low production. germination ability and vigour expected from effect of foliar sprays of naa, triacontanol and boron on growth and seed quality in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) cv. pusa visesh p.r. arvindkumar, s.n. vasudevan and m.g. patil department of seed science and technology, college of agriculture university of agricultural sciences, raichur – 584 102, india e-mail : arvindkrathod09@gmail.com abstract an investigation was undertaken to study the effect of foliar sprays of naa, triacontanol and boron on vine growth, seed quality and storability in bitter gourd cv. pusa visesh. results revealed that naa at 50mg/l produced the longest vines (192.33 and 260.67cm), maximum leaf area (1.890 and 2.965cm2/vine), leaf area index (1.969 and 2.760) and leaf chlorophyll content (39.23 and 38.90 spad value) at 85 and 100 days after sowing (das), respectively. as for seed quality attributes, treatment with boron at 4mg/l recorded lowest seed moisture content and highest seed germination percentage (9.16% and 85.5%, respectively), followed by naa at 50mg/l (9.21% and 85.25%, respectively) whereas, control recorded highest seed moisture and lowest seed germination percentage (9.84% and 74.5%, respectively) recorded at the end of storage. key words: bitter gourd, vine length, boron, seed moisture stored seeds is another matter of great importance. seed is said to be in storage mode while on the plant itself, right from its physiological maturity, and continues to be so until the next sowing, or further use, or death. deterioration of seed during storage is inevitable and leads to various changes at different levels, viz., impairment or shift in metabolic activity, compositional changes, decline or change in enzyme activity, phenotypic cytological changes, apart from quantitative losses. seeds being hygroscopic in nature, this viability and vigour under storage is known to be regulated by variation in physico-chemical factors, initial seed quality, storage structures, packaging materials, etc. (doijode, 1988). material and methods a field experiment was conducted at college of agriculture, raichur, karnataka, during rabi 2009, with three replications in randomized block design. healthy and bold seeds were dibbled with spacing of 120cm x 80cm to a depth of 4.0cm. after germination, one seedling was retained per hill. gross plot size was 10.80 x 8.0 = 86.4m2, and net plot size was 8.4 x 6.4m = 76.8m2. plant protection measures were adopted as and when required. two growth regulators, viz., naa (25 and 50mg/l), triacontanol (0.5 and 1.0mg/l) and boron (3.0 and 4.0mg/l) were used as foliar application, j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):148-152, 2014 149 effect of growth regulators on seed quality in bitter gourd with absolute control and water spray, at two to four trueleaf stage, and then at 60 days after sowing (das), 75 das and 90 das. precaution was taken to prevent drifting of spray solution from one treatment plot to other. in each treatment, five plants were randomly selected and tagged for recording vine length, leaf area, leaf area index and leaf chlorophyll content. vine length was measured from the base of the plant to the tip of fully-opened top leaf at 70, 85 and 100 das. leaves from five selected plants from each treatment were used for estimating leaf area. leaf area was computed by using a leaf area meter (lai ceptometer model l8-80, decagon devices, inc., usa). lai was expressed as cm2 per plant. leaf chlorophyll content was measured from the middle leaves at 70, 85 and 100 das. in each plot, five plants were selected and the mean leaf chlorophyll content was recorded using a portable chlorophyll meter spad – 502 (spectrum tech.org.inc, usa) and expressed in spad value. for seed quality analysis, fruits were harvested when they turned orange-red, and seeds were separated manually to estimate seed moisture content and seed germination percentage. germination test was conducted as per ista (international seed testing association) procedure by the rolled towel method. from the germination test, ten normal seedlings were selected randomly from each treatment on the day of the final count. seedling length was measured from shoot tip to root tip. ten normal seedlings were held in a butter paper bag and dried for 24 hours in a hot-air oven maintained at 900c to measure seedling dry weight. later, seedlings were removed from the oven and allowed to cool in desiccators for 30 minutes before weighing them in an electronic balance (anon., 1999). results and discussion plant growth regulators modify plant organs differentially and influence source-to-sink relationship to improve yield potential. such substances are, therefore, potentially useful in agriculture. suitable concentrations applied at appropriate time can increase yield either by altering dry matter distribution in the plant or by regulating growth (watson, 1958). microenvironment plays a vital role in production of quality seeds besides increasing productivity. incorporating nutrients in to the seed improves the vigour potential which, in turn, leads to higher yield (chauhan et al, 1984). in the present investigation, spraying naa at 50mg/ l significantly improved vine length (192.33cm and 260.67cm), followed by naa at 25mg/l (186.60cm and 252.33cm) at 85 das and 100 das, respectively. lowest vine length (168.33cm and 214.10cm, respectively) was noticed in absolute control (table 1). increase in vine length is thought to be due to increasing plasticity of the cell wall, followed by hydrolysis of starching to sugars (which into lowers water potential of the cell, resulting in entry of water into the cell thereby causing elongation and rapid cell division table 1. effect of plant growth regulators and other chemicals on growth parameters in bitter gourd cv. pusa visesh treatment vine length (cm) leaf area (cm2/vine) leaf area index (lai) leaf chlorophyll content (spad value) 70 85 100 70 85 100 70 85 100 70 85 100 das das das das das das das das das das das das t1 : absolute 144.31 168.33 214.10 1.258 1.592 2.291 1.310 1.658 2.387 30.27 32.17 31.70 control t2 : water spray 145.33 169.33 218.67 1.276 1.645 2.317 1.329 1.714 2.413 33.17 34.40 33.98 t3 : naphthalene 150.67 186.60 252.33 1.421 1.796 2.493 1.480 1.871 2.597 36.17 37.47 36.80 acetic acid @ 25mg/l t4 : naphthalene 152.33 192.33 260.67 1.434 1.890 2.965 1.493 1.969 2.760 37.53 39.23 38.90 acetic acid @ 50mg/l t5 : triacontanol 150.67 183.40 229.33 1.407 1.719 2.346 1.466 1.791 2.443 35.20 36.00 35.67 @ 0.5mg/l t6 : triacontanol 152.93 185.87 230.67 1.379 1.784 2.362 1.436 1.859 2.460 34.97 36.07 35.73 @ 1.0mg/l t7 : boron @ 3.0mg/l 153.17 183.67 228.00 1.346 1.794 2.333 1.402 1.869 2.430 35.30 36.40 36.07 t8 : boron @ 4.0mg/l 154.00 185.87 232.67 1.447 1.856 2.525 1.507 1.933 2.630 35.50 38.57 36.82 s. em± 4.41 5.33 6.91 0.066 0.051 0.075 0.069 0.054 0.079 2.15 2.17 1.98 p = 0.05 ns 16.16 20.96 ns 0.156 0.228 ns 0.162 0.238 ns 5.77 6.02 das – days after sowing; ns – non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):148-152, 2014 150 in the growing portion) in bottle gourd (kore et al, 2003) and in ridge gourd (hilli et al, 2010). naa at 50mg/l also recorded highest leaf area and lai (2.965cm2/vine and 2.760, respectively) at 100 das, followed by boron at 4mg/l (2.525 cm2/vine and 2.630, respectively) and naa at 25mg/l (2.493cm2/vine and 2.597, respectively). lowest leaf area and lai (2.291cm2/vine and 2.387, respectively) were noticed in absolute control (table 1). additional availability of naa in the seed may have increased the level of amylase in aleurone tissue of the seed for better conversion of the complex starches into simple sugars for providing energy for growth, and, leaf area increased with increase in time to a maximum, coinciding with maximum top growth, and a steady decline at later stages in musk melon (ram asrey et al, 2001). maximum leaf chlorophyll content was observed with naa 50mg/l (39.23 and 38.90 spad value) which was on par with that in boron 4mg/l (38.57 and 36.82 spad value), table 2. effect of plant growth regulators and other chemicals on seed moisture content (%) in bitter gourd cv. pusa visesh treatment storage period (months) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 t1 : absolute control 7.27 7.28 7.29 7.30 7.32 7.55 7.68 7.86 8.00 8.90 8.95 9.84 (15.65) (15.65) (15.65) (15.68) (15.67) (15.95) (16.09) (16.28) (16.64) (17.35) (17.40) (18.28) t2 : water spray 7.18 7.28 7.30 7.43 7.45 7.50 7.64 7.82 8.15 8.71 8.78 9.53 (15.54) (15.65) (15.68) (15.81) (15.84) (15.88) (15.91) (15.94) (16.59) (17.17) (17.23) (17.98) t3 : naphthalene 7.24 7.30 7.30 7.32 7.34 7.45 7.67 7.89 8.18 8.54 8.60 9.31 aceticacid @ 25mg/l (15.60) (15.67) (15.67) (15.69) (15.72) (15.77) (15.80) (15.85) (16.58) (16.98) (17.05) (17.77) t4 : naphthalene 7.15 7.17 7.25 7.26 7.28 7.30 7.33 7.38 7.80 8.25 8.41 9.21 aceticacid @ 50mg/l (15.51) (15.53) (15.62) (15.63) (15.65) (15.67) (15.70) (15.76) (16.22) (16.69) (16.86) (17.67) t5 : triacontanol 7.23 7.25 7.29 7.38 7.40 7.43 7.52 7.60 7.95 8.69 8.69 9.45 @ 0.5mg/l (15.60) (15.62) (15.68) (15.76) (15.78) (15.82) (16.00) (15.68) (16.60) (17.14) (17.14) (17.90) t6 : triacontanol 7.08 7.12 7.17 7.24 7.25 7.36 7.43 7.45 7.73 8.37 8.78 9.46 @ 1.0mg/l (15.43) (15.47) (15.52) (15.61) (15.62) (15.73) (15.81) (15.84) (16.03) (16.92) (17.23) (17.91) t7 : boron @ 3.0mg/l 7.20 7.32 7.33 7.38 7.40 7.54 7.64 7.78 8.22 8.79 8.90 9.42 (15.57) (15.69) (15.71) (15.76) (15.79) (15.94) (16.05) (16.20) (16.62) (17.24) (17.35) (17.87) t8 : boron @4.0mg/l 7.07 7.11 7.19 7.30 7.30 7.44 7.58 7.88 7.90 8.49 8.53 9.16 (15.42) (15.47) (15.56) (15.67) (15.68) (15.83) (15.98) (16.30) (16.32) (16.94) (16.98) (17.62) s. em± 0.09 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.08 0.11 0.14 0.15 0.19 0.11 p = 0.05 ns ns ns ns ns 0.28 0.22 0.31 0.39 0.43 0.56 0.32 figures in parentheses indicate angular transformed value; ns: non-significant table 3. effect of plant growth regulators and other chemicals on seed germination (%) in bitter gourd cv. pusa visesh treatment storage period (months) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 t1 : absolute control 81.75 83.25 83.75 82.75 81.25 80.00 79.25 78.50 77.75 76.50 75.75 74.50 (64.73) (65.85) (66.25) (65.53) (64.36) (63.45) (62.94) (62.42) (61.88) (61.04) (60.52) (59.69) t2 : water spray 82.25 84.50 85.50 84.75 83.50 82.25 81.75 81.00 79.75 78.25 77.00 75.75 (65.09) (66.87) (67.69) (67.09) (66.11) (65.15) (64.75) (64.26) (63.47) (62.23) (61.40) (60.54) t3 : naphthalene 86.25 88.00 88.75 88.50 88.00 87.25 86.75 86.25 86.00 85.25 84.50 83.75 aceticacid @ 25mg/l (68.26) (69.81) (70.41) (70.34) (69.79) (69.24) (68.75) (68.37) (68.08) (67.42) (67.16) (66.51) t4 : naphthalene acetic 87.75 89.25 90.25 90.25 90.25 89.00 88.50 88.00 87.25 87.00 86.25 85.25 acid @ 50mg/l (69.57) (70.93) (71.84) (71.83) (71.88) (70.75) (70.26) (69.79) (69.13) (69.08) (68.26) (67.44) t5 : triacontanol 84.00 87.00 87.50 87.25 87.25 86.75 86.50 86.50 86.00 85.50 84.75 83.75 @ 0.5mg/l (66.45) (68.90) (69.33) (69.10) (69.10) (68.79) (68.59) (68.55) (68.03) (67.69) (67.03) (66.24) t6 : triacontanol 85.00 87.25 88.00 87.75 87.50 86.75 86.75 86.50 86.50 86.00 85.50 84.50 @ 1.0mg/l (67.22) (69.13) (69.75) (69.59) (69.33) (68.70) (68.68) (68.46) (68.45) (68.15) (67.84) (67.01) t7 : boron @ 3.0mg/l 86.75 87.25 89.25 89.00 88.75 88.25 88.00 87.75 87.25 86.50 86.00 85.00 (68.67) (69.10) (70.88) (70.69) (70.47) (70.03) (69.81) (69.59) (69.09) (68.49) (68.08) (67.26) t8 : boron @ 4.0mg/l 88.50 90.25 91.00 90.50 90.25 89.25 89.00 88.75 87.50 87.00 86.50 85.50 (70.22) (71.84) (72.61) (72.18) (71.94) (70.93) (70.78) (70.59) (69.37) (69.01) (68.48) (67.65) s. em± 0.68 0.88 0.74 1.14 0.98 1.15 1.18 1.29 1.09 1.28 1.39 1.31 p = 0.05 1.99 2.56 2.16 3.32 2.86 3.35 3.46 3.76 3.18 3.74 4.05 3.83 figures in parentheses indicate angular transformed values arvindkumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):148-152, 2014 151 whereas, control recorded 32.17 and 31.70 spad value at 85 and 100 das, respectively (table 1). this may have been due to growth regulators and agrochemicals causing decreased chlorophyll degradation, and increased chlorophyll synthesis. growth regulator application delayed leaf senescence which could also be attributed to higher chlorophyll content. similar results were reported by shinde and jadhav (1995) in cowpea and sai sankar (2001) in mung bean. seed is the nucleus of life and is subjected to continuous ageing once it has reached physiological maturity. this phenomenon results in an irreversible change in seed quality ultimately affecting viability. quantitative deterioration of seed during storage is mainly attributed to prolonged storage. after the harvest of crop, the resultant seeds were analyzed for various seed quality parameters (tables 2 & 3). growth regulator and nutrient treatments showed beneficial, significant influence on seed quality parameters over control. growth regulator and other treatments did not show any significant effect on moisture content until five months of storage. as the storage period advanced, per cent moisture content increased successively. boron at 4mg/l recorded lowest seed moisture (9.16%), followed by naa at 50mg/l (9.21%), whereas, control recorded highest seed moisture (9.84%) at the end of storage. this variation in moisture content is mainly due to environmental factors and the pervious use of cloth bag. similar trend was reported by gavale (1994) in tomato and marbhal et al (2006) in bitter gourd. low seed germination percentage recorded in freshly harvested seeds may be due to primary dormancy associated with the embryo of fresh seeds. subsequently, as storage proceeded, gradual increase in seed germination was seen in all the treatments up to the third month of storage. from the fourth month onwards, a slight decrease in seed germination and seed quality parameters was observed indicating the onset of deterioration (which may be due to combined effects of high temperature, low oxygen and high co2 partial pressures) in melon (edelstein et al, 1995). similar findings were reported by murugesan and vanangamudi (2005) in ash gourd, and nerson (1991) in cucurbits. storage studies revealed that germination percentage (table 3) was significantly high in boron @ 4mg/l (88.50%, 91.00% and 85.50%), followed by naa @ 50mg/l (87.75%, 89.25% and 85.25%), boron @ 3 mg/l (86.75%, 89.25% and 85.00%) and water spray (82.25%, 85.50% and 75.75%) treatments, whereas, lowest germination percentage was observed in absolute control (81.75%, 82.75% and 74.50%, respectively) at the end of first, third and twelfth month of storage period, respectively. highest germination percentage recorded at the end of the third month of storage period is perhaps due to a natural breakdown of seed dormancy due to external environmental factors. this might be due to an adequate supply of food reserves for resuming embryo growth and synthesis of hydrolytic enzymes secreted which act on the starchy endosperm, in turn, affecting the physiology of seed germination and establishment of the seedling. effect of boron on seed germination was also earlier reported by gedam et al (1996) in bitter gourd. differences in storability are probably due to variations in combating seed-borne pathogen. however, all the treatments resulted in above the minimum seed certification standards of 60% of seed germination up to twelve months of storage. references anonymous. 1999. ista, international rules for seed testing, seed sci. technol., supplement rules, 27:25-30 chauhan, k.p.s., purkar, j.k. and banerjee, s.k. 1984, aging induced changes in seeds. seed res., 12:5371 doijode, s.d. 1988, effect of storage environment on brinjal (solanum melongena) seed viability. prog. hort., 20:292-293 edelstein, m., corbeneau, f., kingel, j. and nersan, h. 1995. seed coat structure and oxygen availability control low temperature germination of melon (cucumis melo) seeds. physiol. plantarum., 93:451-456 gavale, b.s. 1994. seed yield and quality in tomato cultivars as influenced by picking sequences. m.sc. (agri.) thesis, dept. of botany, mahatma phule krishi viyapeeth, rahuri (m.s.), india gedam, v.m., patil, r.b., suryawanshi, y.b. and mate, s.n. 1996. seed quality as influenced by growth regulators in bitter gourd. seed res., 24:158-159 hilli, j.s., vyakarnahal, b.s., biradar, d.p. and ravi, h. 2010. effect of growth regulators and stages of spray on growth, fruit set and seed yield of ridge gourd (luffa acutangula l. roxb). karnataka j. agril. sci., 23:239-242 effect of growth regulators on seed quality in bitter gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):148-152, 2014 152 kore, v.n., khade, h.p., nawale, r.n., patil, r.s. and mane, a.v. 2003. effect of growth regulators on growth, flowering and yield of bottle gourd variety samrat under konkan conditions. j. soils and crops, 13:18-21 marbhal, s.k., musmade, a.m., kashid, n.v., kamble, m.s. and kampthe, p.v. 2006. effect of growth regulation and picking sequence on seed quality of bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) var. phule green gold. prog. hort., 38:72-76 murugesan, p. and vanangamudi, k. 2005, effect of post harvest fruit storage on seed quality in ash gourd [benincasa hispida (thunb.) cogn]. seed res., 33:160-164 nerson, h. 1991. fruit age and extraction procedures affects germinability of cucurbit seeds. seed sci. technol., 19:185-195 ram asrey, singh, g.n., shukla, h.s. and rajbir singh. 2001. effect of seed soaking with gibberellic acid on growth and fruiting of musk melon (cucumis melo l.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 30:277-278 sai sankar. 2001. influence of plant growth regulators, chemicals and nutrients on productivity potential in green gram (vigna radiata l.). m.sc. (agri.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, karnataka, india shantappa tirakannanavar, shekhargouda, m., meharwade, m.n. and deshpande, v.k. 2007. seed yield and quality as influenced by plant growth regulators and stages of spray in bitter gourd cv. coimbatore long. seed res., 35:11-16 shinde, a.k. and jadhav, b.b. 1995. influence of naa, ethrel and kno3 on leaf physiology and yield of cowpea. annals pl. physiol., 9:43-46 watson, d.j. 1958. the dependence of net assimilation rate on leaf area index. ann. bot., 22:37-54 (ms received 5 january 2013, revised 30 december 2013, accepted 15 february 2014) arvindkumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):148-152, 2014 introduction patchouli (pogostemon patchouli pellet.), a member of lamiaceae, is the source of commercial patchouli oil. it is native to the philippines and is now cultivated on a commercial scale in indonesia, malaysia, china, brazil and india. among these countries, indonesia leads, with oil production of 600 tonnes, accounting for 80% of world production (jadhav et al, 2002). oil of patchouli is obtained by steam distillation of shade-dried herbage. the oil has a strong fixative property and is known to improve tenacity. the oil has mainly a woody note. it is generally blended with other essential oils, and is used in beverages, candy making and meat products. blended with sandalwood oil, it gives one of the finest attars, widely used for scenting soaps, perfumes, body lotions, aftershave lotions, detergents, cosmetics, tobacco and incense sticks (angadi and vasantha kumar, 1995). in view of the market potential of patchouli, a study was undertaken to widen the knowledge base on use of plant growth regulators (pgrs) on patchouli cultivation. pgrs are considered as the new generation agrochemicals after fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. the role of pgrs in modifying canopy structure and optimizing yield attributes has proven by earlier researchers. patchouli, being an aromatic crop, contains essential oil in its leaves and stem. it is possible to increase both herbage and oil yield by effect of pinching and growth regulators on growth, herbage yield, essential oil content and oil yield of patchouli (pogostemon patchouli pellet.) honnappa asangi and m. vasundhara1 university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot krcch, arabhavi 591218, india e-mail: asangipma@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of growth regulators on plant growth, herbage yield, essential oil content and oil yield in patchouli (pogostemon patchouli pellet.) variety cim-shreshta, at university of agricultural sciences (uas), gkvk, bangalore, during 2011-12. results indicated that fresh and shade-dried herbage and essential oil yield was influenced significantly by growth regulators. it is concluded that pinching at 45 days after transplanting, followed by foliar application of benzyl adenine (300ppm), and, subsequent sprays at each harvest was more effective in increasing the yield compared to control. key words: patchouli, pinching, cycocel, benzyl adenine, growth regulators exogenous application of plant growth regulators. with this background, a field study was conducted to ascertain the effect of growth regulators on growth, herbage yield, essential oil content and oil yield in patchouli. material and methods the field experiment was conducted at sanjeevani vatika, medicinal and aromatic plants section, department of horticulture, university of agricultural sciences, gkvk, bangalore, during 20112012 on a plot with sandy loam soil of uniform fertility status. treatments included (t1) control, (t2) pinching without spraying, (t3) pinching + cycocel (ccc) 2000ppm, (t4) pinching + ccc 2500ppm, (t5) pinching + ccc 3000ppm, (t6) pinching + ba 200ppm, (t7) pinching + ba 300ppm and (t8) pinching + ba 350ppm. these eight treatments were tested in randomized complete block design, with three replications. forty five day old rooted cuttings were transplanted in the main field in the third week of july, at a spacing of 45cmx45cm. recommended dose of npk (150:50:50kg ha-1) was applied, full dose of p and k, along with one sixth of n was applied before planting, and, the remaining n was top-dressed in five splits at bimonthly intervals. earthing-up was done immediately after fertilizer application. the plots received irrigation. pinching operation was carried out 45 days after transplant to the main field. on the same day, growth regulators were sprayed in treatment plots while water was 1department of horticulture, uas, gkvk, bengaluru 560 065, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):214-216, 2013 215 effect of growth regulators on patchouli sprayed in the control plot. the remaining two sprays (second and third sprays) were applied after the first and second harvests, respectively. the first harvest was done after 135 days of planting; the second and third harvests were done at 75 days’ interval after the first harvest. observations on various growth parameters were recorded at harvest. harvested branches, along with leaves, were dried under shade for seven days. shade-dried leaves were than hydro-distilled, using clevenger’s apparatus, to estimate essential oil content. results and discussion growth attributes of patchouli effects of pinching and application of growth regulators on patchouli growth and yield are presented in tables 1 and 2. control plants (t1) recorded significantly higher plant height (78.71cm) compared to pinched plants during the first harvest. however, plant height was maximum in plants treated with pinching + ba 300ppm in subsequent harvests, as ba continued to increase cell activity. similar results were obtained by (rajashekar, 2010) in rose. in general, plants were taller in the first harvest compared to the second and third. this could be due to the longer harvest interval (135 days) and favourable weather conditions prevalant. plant height decreased in all the treatments compared to control. maximum reduction was noticed in the treatment of pinching + ccc @ 3000ppm. similar results were obtained by bhat et al, (1989) in davana and vasundhara et al (1992) in marjoram. reduction in plant height appears to be due to slowing down of rate of cell division and reduction in cell elongation. it has been suggested that cycocel has anti-gibberllin effect which prevents excessive vegetative growth, increases chlorophyll synthesis and root development, stimulates photosynthetic activity, prevents lodging and increases yield (moore, 1980). the treatment on pinching + ba @ 300ppm (t7) recorded significantly higher number of branches, number of leaves and higher plant spread compared to control (t1) in all three harvests (table 1). similar effect (axillary bud development and further growth due to application of kinetin or ba) was reported by geeta and hippalgaonkar (1993), bhaskar et al (1997) and farooqi et al (1993) in patchouli and davana. increase in number of branches and leaves may have been due to the fact that cytokinins have the ability to induce growth of secondary and tertiary branches and of reducing senescence in plants, resulting in increased leaf retention. increased plant spread could be due to an increased number of branches and number of leaves per plant. yield parameters in patchouli the application of pinching + ba @ 300ppm (t7) registered significantly higher fresh herbage yield (12.13, 10.81 and 9.77t/ha), dry herbage yield (2.52, 2.36 and 2.0t/ ha) and oil yield (47.19, 43.70 and 36.44 kg/ha) compared to control in all three harvests, respectively. higher herbage and oil yield with application of pgrs may be due to enhanced yield-contributing factors, viz., plant height, number of leaves, number of branches and plant spread. benzyl adenine (ba) is known to modify growth of plants, as, it promotes cell division, morphogenesis, lateral bud development and delays senescence, leading to enhanced leaf expansion which cause maintenance of more number of green leaves. this clearly shows that ba can induce robust growth, resulting in increased herb yield compared to other treatments under identical growing conditions. these table 1. effect of growth regulators on growth parameters at three harvests in patchouli treatment plant height (cm) no. of branches plant-1 no. of leaves plant-1 plant spread (cm2) h 1 h 2 h 3 h 1 h 2 h 3 h 1 h 2 h 3 h 1 h 2 h 3 t 1 78.71 56.86 55.97 23.45 24.52 20.48 385.49 367.75 331.83 42.11 39.71 36.31 t 2 74.04 55.75 55.63 29.49 26.86 22.53 437.95 396.88 354.16 47.02 42.85 39.68 t 3 71.10 54.33 51.70 33.22 31.72 30.47 519.44 487.75 452.11 59.78 56.20 52.74 t 4 69.98 53.74 50.91 32.09 30.33 29.39 498.59 475.05 435.25 58.61 53.85 50.48 t 5 69.11 52.31 49.44 30.26 29.60 27.92 490.54 466.01 413.87 56.82 51.48 48.61 t 6 73.91 56.50 55.84 34.95 32.74 31.19 540.65 491.65 462.75 61.37 58.40 53.61 t 7 77.35 60.84 59.58 39.14 35.86 34.33 578.70 535.54 493.04 64.72 62.75 57.25 t 8 76.52 58.30 58.30 36.52 34.28 31.78 553.21 507.39 474.21 62.92 60.03 55.38 f-test * * * * * * * * * * * * s.em ± 1.40 1.05 1.14 1.43 1.20 1.16 10.35 9.53 10.14 1.19 1.52 1.26 cd (p=0.05) 4.26 3.17 3.45 4.32 3.63 3.52 31.40 28.91 30.75 3.61 4.60 3.83 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):214-216, 2013 216 findings are in line with results of geeta and hippalgaonkar (1993) also in patchouli who obtained higher fresh herbage yield per plant with 0.5x10-4m kinetin and farooqi et al (2003) in mentha arvensis and farooqi et al (1993) in davana. oil content (% v/w) did not vary substantially among treatments. however, ccc @ 2000ppm and ba 300ppm showed higher values (1.87%) at first harvest; but, during the second and third harvests, ba at 300ppm showed maximum oil content (1.85 and 1.82%, respectively). this may be because of overall increase in leaf biomass under the same treatment. references angadi, s. and vasantha kumar, t. 1995. patchouli. in: advances in horticulture medicinal and aromatic plants, chadha, k.l. and gupta, r. (eds.) malhotra publishing house, new delhi, india, p. 751-771 bhaskar, s., vasantha kumar, t. and srivastava, h.c. 1997. effect of growth regulators on production of herbage and oil in patchouli (pogostemon patchouli). indian perfumer, 41:98-101 bhat, p.b., farooqi, a.a. and subbaiah, t.k. 1989. influence of growth regulators on growth herbage and essential oil yield in davana (artemisia pallens wall.). proc. xi int’l. congress of ess. oils, fragrance and flavour, 3:81-84 (ms received 02 january 2013, revised 11 september 2013, accepted 15 october 2013) farooqi, a.a., devaiah, k.a. and vasundhara, m. 1993. effect of some growth regulators and pinching on growth, yield and essential oil content of davana (artemisia pallens wall.). indian perfumer, 37:19-23 farooqi, a.h.a., khan, a. and sharma, s. 2003. effect of kinetin and chlormequat chloride on growth, leaf abscission and essential oil yield in mentha arvensis. indian perfumer, 47:359-363 geeta, s. and hippalgaonkar, 1993. influence of foliar applied kinetin on growth and essential oil content of patchouli (pogostemon cablin benth.). indian perfumer, 37:167-170 jadhav, s.g., jadhav, b.b. and apte, u.b. 2002. influence of growth regulators on growth and oil content of patchouli (pogostemon cablin benth.). indian perfumer, 46:287-289 moore, t.c. 1980. biochemistry and physiology of plant hormones. narsoja publishing house, new delhi, india, pp. 107-131 rajashekhar, m. 2010. regulation of growth and quality in greenhouse rose using growth regulators. gaurav soc. agril. res. info. centre, 11: 370-372 vasundhara, m., farooqi, a.a., devaiah, k.a. and shridharayya. 1992. influence of some growth regulators on growth, herbage and oil yield in marjoram (majorana hortensis moench). indian perfumer, 36:171-174 table 2. effect of growth regulators on yield parameters at three harvests in patchouli fresh herbage dry herbage oil content oil yield treatment yield(t ha-1) pooled yield (t ha-1) pooled (%) (kg ha-1) pooled h 1 h 2 h 3 h 1 h 2 h 3 h 1 h 2 h 3 h 1 h 2 h 3 t 1 7.19 7.02 6.42 18.38 1.59 1.54 1.37 4.01 1.83 1.80 1.77 29.35 27.65 24.28 81.28 t 2 8.34 7.30 6.47 22.11 1.81 1.70 1.39 4.90 1.83 1.81 1.77 33.08 30.81 24.58 88.48 t 3 10.37 9.82 8.67 28.86 2.08 2.03 1.76 5.87 1.87 1.83 1.80 38.90 37.14 31.64 107.69 t 4 9.88 9.44 8.45 27.76 1.92 1.92 1.73 5.57 1.85 1.83 1.77 35.51 35.28 30.56 101.35 t 5 9.60 8.83 8.18 26.61 1.87 1.87 1.65 5.38 1.83 1.80 1.78 34.35 33.41 29.35 97.11 t 6 11.14 10.15 9.27 30.56 2.28 2.14 1.90 6.32 1.83 1.83 1.80 41.94 39.23 34.14 115.31 t 7 12.13 10.81 9.77 32.70 2.52 2.36 2.00 6.89 1.87 1.85 1.82 47.19 43.70 36.44 127.33 t 8 11.69 10.42 9.55 31.66 2.39 2.25 1.97 6.61 1.85 1.81 1.80 44.39 40.90 35.54 120.83 f-test * * * * * * * * ns ns ns * * * * s.em ± 0.34 0.30 0.35 0.91 0.12 0.10 0.07 0.21 0.05 0.04 0.04 2.65 1.85 1.44 4.31 cd (p=0.05) 1.04 0.92 1.05 2.77 0.35 0.31 0.22 0.62 8.05 5.61 4.35 13.08 * significant at 5% level t 1 : control t 5 : pinching + ccc 3000ppm t 2 : pinching without spraying t 6 : pinching + ba 200ppm t 3 : pinching + ccc 2000ppm t 7 : pinching + ba 300ppm t 4 : pinching + ccc 2500ppm t 8 : pinching + ba 350ppm h1first harvest, h2second harvest, h3third harvest honnappa asangi and vasundhara j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):214-216, 2013 effect of plant growth regulators on growth and yield of daisy (aster amellus l.) cv. dwarf pink y.c. raveendra, a.m. shirol1 and b.s. kulkarni department of floriculture and landscape architecture k.r.c. college of horticulture, arabhavi university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot -587 102, india e-mail: amshirol08@gmail.com abstract an experiment was carried out to improve plant stature in daisy (aster amellus l.) cv. dwarf pink using various growth regulators. among the various growth promoters and their combinations tested, gibberellic acid (150ppm) and brassinosteroid (0.5ppm) application produced maximum vegetative growth, spike yield and vase-life. it is concluded that a combination of gibberellic acid (150ppm) and br (0.5ppm) is helpful improving growth and quality in daisy cv. dwarf pink. key words: aster amellus l., brassinosteroid, gibberellic acid, naphthalene acetic acid j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):276-277, 2013 short communication 1aicrp (tf), k.r.c. college of horticulture, arabhavi591 218, karnataka, india daisy (aster amellus l.) is an important annual ornamental crop grown for its attractive, coloured cutflowers used as fillers in the preparation of bouquets, or, in vases for decoration, etc. cultivar dwarf pink is a dwarf statured plant (15 to 20cm height), with very attractive pink coloured flowers. brassinosteroids (br) are a novel group of growth promoting steroidal lactones termed brassinolide isolated from the pollen of rape (brassica napus) and identified as the sixth group of phytohormones (mitchell et al., 1970). br was found to evoke a characteristic biological activity termed as ‘brassin activity’ that includes elongation, curvature, swelling and splitting of the treated internode in bean second internode bioassay. this was later attributed to the ability of br to induce cell enlargement and cell multiplication (workleyand mitchell, 1971). several workers reported that plant stature, yield and quality of a crop could be either increased or decreased by application of synthetic plant growth regulators (mitchell et al, 1970; talukdar and paswan, 1998; dias, 1998, and kulkarni, 2003). cost of these growth promoters is very high and these are used in the concentration range of 50 to 500ppm, or more. compared to other growth hormones (auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene and abscisic acid), brassinosteroids are effective at relatively lower concentrations. literature on effect of growth promoters and brassinosteroids on growth and yield in daisy is very limited. the present investigation was carried out to test the effect of growth regulators on growth, yield and vase-life in daisy (aster amellus l.) cv. dwarf pink. the study was carried out at kittur rani channamma college of horticulture, arabhavi, university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, during june december, 2011. the experiment was laid out in randomized completely block design with three replications. the treatments comprised of two concentrations of gibberellic acid (150 and 200ppm), brassinosteroids (0.5 and 0.75ppm) and naphthalene acetic acid (150 and 200ppm) and a combination of gibberellic acid (150ppm) with brassinosteroids (0.5ppm); gibberellic acid (150ppm) with naphthalene acetic acid (150ppm); naphthalene acetic acid (150ppm) with brassinosteroid (0.5ppm) and control (water spray). the plot size was 2.1 x 1.8m. the suckers were planted at 30cm x 30cm spacing in each plot accommodating 42 plants. plant growth promoters were sprayed twice in each cropping season, viz., 20 and 50 days after planting, 80 and 110 days after planting and 140 and 170 days after planting in the first, second and third cropping seasons (70, 120 and 180 days after planting), respectively. five plants were selected randomly for recording observations on growth, yield and other parameters. growth, yield and flowering varied significantly with application of brassinosteroids and a combination of other 277 growth and yield in daisy using pgrs growth promoters (table 1). plants spayed with a combination of br (0.5ppm) and ga (150ppm) produced significantly high plant height (34.68cm), number of leaves (74.31), internodal length (2.36cm) leaf area (896.43cm2), number of flower spikes per plant (6.27) vase-life (5.44 days) and days to first flower and 50 percent flowering (45.33 and 54.33 days, respectively), followed by plants sprayed with ga 200 ppm were found on par for plant height (31.13cm), intermodal length (2.05cm), number of flowering spikes (5.25), vase-life (4.78 days) and days to first flower (46.22 days). this variation in growth, flowering and yield parameters may be due to production of better vegetative growth and a higher photosynthetic area that helps synthesis of metabolites owing to application of growth promoters (kulkarni, 2003). these results are in conformity with findings of dias (1998) in rose using brassinosteroids and by talukdar and paswan (1995) in chrysanthemum using gibberellic acid. it can thus be concluded that spraying a combination of gibberellic acid and brassinosteroids is helpful for improving the vegetative growth, yield and quality in daisy (aster amellus l.) cv. dwarf pink. references dalal, s.r., karale, g.d. and kalkame, m. 2009 effect of growth regulators on growth, yield and quality of chrysanthemum under nethouse conditions. the asian j. hort., 4:161-163 dias, s.m.f. 1998. effect of growth regulators on growth and flowering of roses and post-harvest physiology of cut roses. ph.d. thesis, univ. agril. sci., dharwad, karnataka, india kulkarni, b.s. 2003. evaluation of varieties and effect of planting date and growth regulators on performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema indicum) ph.d. thesis, univ. agril. sci., dharwad, karnataka, india mandava, n.b. 1988. plant growth promoting brassinosteroids. ann. rev. pl. physiol. pl. mol. biol., 39:23-52 mitchell, j.w., mandava, n.b., worley, j.f., plimmer, j.r. and smith, m.v. 1970. brassins: a new family of plant hormones from rape pollen. nature, 225:1065-1066 talukdar, m.c. and paswan, l. 1995. effect of plant growth regulators on growth and flowering of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev.) cv. rajkumari. j. agril. sci. soc., north east india., 8:145-149 talukdar, m.c. and paswan, l. 1998. effect of ga3 and ccc on growth and flowering of standard chrysanthemums. j. orn. hort., 1:11-16 workley, j.k. and mitchell, j.w. 1971 growth responses induced by brassins (fatty plant hormones) in bean plants. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 96:270-27 table 1.effect of growth promoters on vegetative growth, flowering and yield parameters in daisy (aster amellus l.) cv. dwarf pink (three seasons’ pooled data) treatment plant number of number of plant spread (cm) internode leaf days days number vase height suckers/ leaves/ e-w n-s length area to first to 50% of spikes/ life (cm) plant plant (cm) (cm2) flowering flowering plant (days) g 1 24.46 3.26 63.37 21.68 21.96 1.71 482.34 47.61 56.98 4.71 4.22 g 2 31.13 4.78 68.79 23.99 25.18 2.05 649.40 46.22 56.90 5.25 4.78 g 3 24.42 3.62 66.34 20.39 21.20 1.63 513.03 48.33 58.22 3.57 3.45 g 4 23.02 3.53 66.94 20.31 21.78 1.75 507.16 48.00 58.67 4.71 3.56 g 5 24.57 3.12 63.71 18.93 19.26 1.74 415.26 48.56 60.67 4.50 3.56 g 6 24.65 4.05 61.21 19.37 19.61 1.71 448.85 48.89 61.45 4.17 4.22 g 7 34.68 5.46 74.31 27.69 25.48 2.36 896.43 45.33 54.33 6.27 5.44 g 8 23.46 3.60 63.40 19.97 18.35 1.53 400.51 48.11 60.44 4.49 3.89 g 9 24.70 4.10 63.71 19.34 19.54 1.70 432.30 48.95 60.11 4.96 3.66 g 1 0 22.37 2.61 56.99 17.64 18.16 1.13 279.39 50.44 62.06 4.22 3.35 s. em± 2.44 1.59 0.19 33.21 0.41 0.83 0.50 0.31 cd=0.05 7.25 ns 4.72 ns ns 0.57 98.66 1.22 2.47 1.50 0.92 g1ga3 (150ppm), g2ga3 (200ppm), g3br (0.5ppm), g4 br (0.75ppm), g5 naa (150ppm), g6 naa (200ppm), g7 ga3 (150ppm) + br (0.5ppm), g8 ga3 (150ppm) + naa (150ppm), g9 naa (150ppm) + br (0.5ppm) and g10control (water spray) (ms received 10 september 2012, revised 08 november 2013, accepted 20 november 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):276-277, 2013 introdution papaya (carica papaya l.) has gained popularity in recent years because of ease of its cultivation, quick returns and adaptability to diverse soil and climatic conditions. moreover, papaya fruits are delicious and commercially important because of their high nutritive and medicinal value. papaya is cultivated in india in an area of 96,000ha, with production of 39,13,000t. in andhra pradesh, the crop is grown in an area of 18,759ha, with production of 15,00,720t (nhb database, 2010). a new papaya cultivar, red lady, introduced from taiwan has replaced traditional varieties like coimbatore selections, coorg honey dew and pusa selections because of its high productivity, red colour flesh and gynodioecious nature. papaya is a highly perishable fruit and can be stored only for four days at room temperature. post-harvest losses in papaya up to 75 and 90 per cent have been reported in india and costa rica (cerdaz and seenz, 1993). storage of papaya fruits at low effect of chemicals and growth regulators on post-harvest shelf-life and quality in papaya (carica papaya l.) cv. red lady d. ramesh, b. prasanna kumar1, m. rajasekhar and d.r. salomi suneetha horticultural college and research institute dr ysr horticultural university venkataramannagudem 534 101, india e-mail: prasanna652002@yahoo.com abstract the present investigation on papaya (carica papaya l.) cv. red lady was carried out at horticultural college and research institute, venkataramannagudem, west godavari district of andhra pradesh, during the year 2010-11. the study was carried out using 9 different treatments involving two chemicals calcium nitrate and calcium chloride at 1, 2, 3 and 4% concentration and two growth regulators, viz., ga3 at 75, 100, 150 and 200mg/l, and ba at 100, 125, 150 and 175mg/l concentration conducted separately in a factorial concept of completely randomized design (crd), with three replications, under laboratory conditions. physical parameters studied were per cent fruit ripening, physiological loss in weight (plw), fruit firmness, shelf-life, and, physic-chemical properties studied were: total soluble solids (tss), total sugars, reducing sugars, acidity, ascorbic acid and brix:acid ratio. fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% showed significantly low plw, per cent fruit ripening, and the highest fruit-firmness, shelf-life, lowest total soluble solids, total sugars, reducing sugars, brix:acid ratio, and highest acidity and ascorbic acid content, which were on par with cacl2 @ 2% application. fruits treated with ga3 @ 100mg/l also exhibited similar results for these parameters. it was concluded that cacl2 @ 4 % had a beneficial impact on shelf-life of papaya fruits upto 10.67 days without any loss in either physical or physic-chemical properties. similarly, application of growth regulators such as ga3 and ba @100mg/l significantly increased shelf-life of papaya fruits upto 12 days and 11 days, respectively, while showing the best physical and physico-chemical properties. key words: papaya, plw, ga, ba, calcium chloride, fruit firmness, total soluble solids temperature is limited, as, these are susceptible to chilling injury. however, experimental evidence has revealed that post-harvest treatment of fruits, in general, with various ripening retardants like wax emulsion, gibberellins, calcium chloride, benzyl adenine and spermine, improved shelf-life and quality of fruits and vegetables (mehta et al, 1986; padhmanabhan et al, 1994; bhagwan, 1998). salts of calcium have been shown to inhibit ethylene production and, thus, delay ripening (al-ani and richardson, 1985). fruits treatment with calcium prevented post-harvest losses in ber and pear (siddiqui and gupta, 1988). in addition to this, a few growth regulators are believed to promote shelf-life of papaya fruits. it is suggested that ga3 @100mg/l significantly suppresses succinate activity of malate dehydrogenase during post-harvest ripening of papaya and, thus, retards ripening (mehta et al, 1986). hence, the present investigation was undertaken to study the effect of some chemicals and growth regulators on quality, shelf-life 1post harvest technology research station, dr ysrhu, venkataramannagudem j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):66-73, 2014 67 shelf-life and quality in papaya and storage of fruit of papaya cv. red lady under local agro-climatic conditions. material and methods the present investigation was carried out at department of post harvest technology, horticultural college and research institute, venkataramannagudem, near tadepalligudem, aphu, west godavari district (a.p.) during the year 2010-11. fruits at full maturity (characterized by all-green and without any yellow or red colour development) were considered. for each treatment, ten good fruits, free from pests and diseases, were selected and subjected to treatment with chemicals and growth regulators in both the experiments. chemicals of analytical grade, viz., calcium chloride (cacl2) and calcium nitrate (cano3) @ 1%, 2%, 3% and 4%, and growth regulators, viz., gibberellic acid (ga) @75mg/l, 100mg/l, 150 mg/l, and 200 mg/l, and, benzyl adenine (ba) @ 100mg/l, 125mg/l, 150mg/l and 175mg/l, and control (water treatment) were used. after application of chemicals, all the fruits were wrapped in newspaper for storage studies. observations on physical and physico-chemical parameters were recorded at 0, 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th day after chemical application. physical parameters studied included physiological loss in weight (plw), per cent fruit ripening, fruit firmness (kg cm-2), shelf-life (days); physico-chemical parameters included total soluble solids -tss (%), total sugars (%), reducing sugars (%), acidity (%), ascorbic acid (mg/100 g), and tss: acid ratio. the experiment was conducted in completely randomized design with factorial concept and two factors, viz., chemicals or growth regulators (factor-1) and storage period (factor-2), with 9 treatments replicated thrice. data were subjected to statistical analysis as per panse and sukhatme (1985). results and discussion physical parameters papaya is one of the important tropical fruit crops grown in india. commercial potential of this crop could not be exploited on a large scale due to high perishability of the fruit and poor post-harvest storage facilities. the shelf-life of papaya fruits is relatively short compared to other tropical fruits as a direct consequence of weak cell-wall integrity. experimental findings revealed that treatment of fruits with cacl2 @ 4% resulted in delayed ripening (41.52%) and fruits retained their firmness upto the 12th day, which was on par with treatment using ca(no3)2 @ 2% (42.82). this may be attributed to the possibility that high concentrations of externally added calcium inhibited induction of ripening (ferguson, 1984). inhibitory effect of calcium on ethylene synthesis, without modifying the capacity to respond to higher concentration of ethylene, helped delay natural ripening (brady, 1987). post harvest treatment with ga3 @ 100mg/ l also resulted in minimum per cent ripening (34.39) than with rest of the growth regulator treatments. growth regulators slowed down the ripening process by retarding pre-climacteric respiration rate, thereby postponing their climacteric peaks, compared to untreated control fruits (58.65). this was also reported by gautam and chundawat (1989). ga3, being a growth promoter, is reported to also have an antagonistic effect on ethylene biosynthesis (diller, 1969) (table 1). fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% resulted in best retention of fruit-firmness (6.45) upto the 12th day of observation, followed by the application of ca(no3)2@ 3% (5.75), which was on par fruits treated with cacl2 @ 3% (5.93). among all the growth regulators used at different concentrations, fruits treated with ga3 @ 100mg/l recorded the highest firmness (7.92), followed by that at ba @ 150mg/ l (6.97) irrespective of the date of observation. the major cause of loss in firmness during ripening is due to dissolution of the cell wall and middle lamella by the action of hydrolyzing enzymes (hulme, 1958). breakdown of middle lamella (which holds the cell firmly) is brought about by the action of pectolytic enzymes, mainly, polygalacturonase. the inhibitory effect of ca2+ on the process of softening may have been due to an applicable degree of ca2+ binding during pectin solubilization (shear, 1975) (table 1). as evident from data the lowest plw (9.61%) was observed with cacl2 @ 4% which was on par with ca(no3)2 @ 2% (9.74%) than in rest of the treatments. similarly, treatment of fruits with ga3 @ 100mg/l recorded the lowest plw (8.84), which was on par with that in ba 150mg/l and was significantly lower than rest of the growth regulator treatments. highest plw (13.64%) was observed in control, which resulted in quick deterioration of fruits. this may be due to the role of calcium on limiting electrolyte breakage attributed to altered membrane permeability (bangerth, 1979). jones and lunt (1970) contended that calcium controlled disintegration of mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum and cytoplasmic membrane and, thus, helped retard respiration (table 1). j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):66-73, 2014 68 t ab le 1 . e ff ec t of p os tha rv es t ap pl ic at io n of c he m ic al s an d gr ow th r eg ul at or s on p er c en t fr ui t ri pe ni ng , fr ui t fi rm ne ss a nd p hy si ol og ic al l os s of w ei gh t in pa pa ya (c ar ic a pa pa ya l .) c v. r ed l ad y pe r c en t f ru it rip en in g fr ui t f irm ne ss (k g cm -2 ) ph ys io lo gi ca l l os s o f w ei gh t ( % ) tr ea tm en t d ay s af te r tre at m en t d ay s af te r tre at m en t d ay s af te r tre at m en t 3r d d ay 6t h da y 9t h da y 12 th d ay m ea n 3r d d ay 6t h da y 9t h d ay 12 th da y m ea n 3r d da y 6t h da y 9t h d ay 12 th d ay m ea n c ac l 2 @ 1 % 14 .2 0 (2 2. 14 ) 24 .3 0 (2 9. 53 ) 64 .5 0 (5 3. 42 ) 94 .3 0 (7 6. 18 ) 49 .3 3 (4 5. 32 ) 10 .2 0 6. 06 2. 33 0. 92 4. 88 7. 87 (1 6. 29 ) 11 .0 3 (1 9. 40 ) 14 .4 (2 2. 30 ) 17 .9 7 (2 5. 08 ) 12 .8 2 (2 0. 77 ) c ac l 2 @ 2 % 12 .4 0 (2 0. 61 ) 22 .5 0 (2 8. 31 ) 65 .1 7 (5 3. 82 ) 95 .0 0 (7 7. 07 ) 48 .7 7 (4 4. 96 ) 11 .3 2 6. 33 3. 67 0. 93 5. 56 7. 63 (1 6. 03 ) 10 .6 7 (1 9. 06 ) 12 .6 7 (2 0. 85 ) 14 .8 3 (2 2. 65 ) 11 .4 5 (1 9. 65 ) c ac l 2 @ 3 % 10 .4 0 (1 8. 81 ) 20 .5 0 (2 6. 92 ) 64 .5 0 (5 3. 42 ) 94 .5 0 (7 6. 42 ) 47 .4 8 (4 3. 90 ) 11 .6 0 7. 20 3. 93 1. 00 5. 93 6. 76 (1 5. 07 ) 9. 63 (1 8. 08 ) 11 .4 (1 9. 73 ) 13 .6 7 (2 1. 70 ) 10 .3 7 (1 8. 64 ) c ac l 2 @ 4 % 8. 12 (1 6. 55 ) 18 .4 7 (2 5. 45 ) 50 .1 7 (4 5. 09 ) 89 .3 2 (7 0. 92 ) 41 .5 2 (3 9. 50 ) 12 .2 7 7. 87 4. 60 1. 07 6. 45 5. 57 (1 3. 65 ) 8. 03 (1 6. 46 ) 11 .2 7 (1 9. 61 ) 13 .5 5 (2 1. 60 ) 9. 61 (1 7. 83 ) ca (n o 3) 2 @ 1 % 11 .4 0 (1 9. 73 ) 21 .5 (2 7. 62 ) 62 .1 7 (5 2. 03 ) 94 .2 0 (7 6. 06 ) 47 .3 2 (4 3. 86 ) 11 .6 0 6. 33 2. 93 1. 00 5. 47 7. 63 (1 6. 03 ) 10 .6 7 (1 9. 06 ) 12 .6 7 (2 0. 85 ) 14 .8 3 (2 2. 65 ) 11 .4 5 (1 9. 65 ) ca (n o 3) 2 @ 2 % 8 .1 0 (1 6. 53 ) 19 .5 2 (2 6. 22 ) 52 .4 3 (4 6. 39 ) 91 .2 1 (7 2. 75 ) 42 .8 2 (4 0. 47 ) 11 .7 3 6. 13 4. 00 1. 13 5. 75 5. 87 (1 4. 02 ) 9. 27 (1 7. 72 ) 11 .0 1 (1 9. 38 ) 12 .8 0 (2 0. 96 ) 9. 74 (1 8. 02 ) ca (n o 3) 2 @ 3 % 13 .4 0 (2 1. 47 ) 23 .5 (2 8. 99 ) 64 .1 7 (5 3. 22 ) 94 .3 0 (7 6. 18 ) 48 .8 4 (4 4. 96 ) 11 .4 0 7. 20 3. 67 0. 93 5. 80 6. 30 (1 4. 54 ) 9. 57 (1 8. 02 ) 11 .7 6 (2 0. 05 ) 13 .4 0 (2 1. 47 ) 10 .2 6 (1 8. 52 ) ca (n o 3) 2 @ 4 % 15 .1 7 (2 2. 92 ) 25 .1 7 (3 0. 11 ) 67 .6 7 (5 5. 34 ) 98 .2 0 (8 2. 28 ) 51 .5 5 (4 7. 66 ) 10 .8 7 6. 02 3. 00 1. 00 5. 22 7. 76 (1 6. 17 ) 10 .9 (1 9. 28 ) 12 .6 (2 0. 79 ) 15 .0 3 (2 2. 81 ) 11 .5 7 (1 9. 76 ) co nt ro l 15 .4 0 (2 3. 10 ) 25 .5 (3 0. 33 ) 82 .5 3 (6 5. 28 ) 99 .5 5 (8 6. 14 ) 55 .7 5 (5 1. 22 ) 9. 60 4. 13 1. 77 0. 93 4. 10 7. 97 (1 6. 40 ) 11 .5 7 (1 9. 88 ) 16 .2 7 (2 3. 79 ) 18 .7 3 (2 5. 64 ) 13 .6 4 (2 1. 43 ) m ea n 11 .8 0 (2 0. 21 ) 22 .0 8 (2 2. 26 ) 63 .6 0 (5 3. 12 ) 94 .5 4 (7 7. 11 ) 11 .1 8 6. 36 3. 32 0. 99 7. 04 (1 5. 36 ) 10 .1 5 (1 8. 55 ) 12 .2 6 (2 0. 82 ) 14 .9 8 (2 2. 73 ) f te st se .d cd f te st se .d cd f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) (p =0 .0 5) (p =0 .0 5) ch em ic al (c ) * 0. 92 2. 13 * 0. 04 0. 07 * 0. 09 0. 17 st or ag e * 0. 71 1. 65 * 0. 03 0. 06 * 0. 07 0. 13 pe rio d (s ) in te ra ct io n * 0. 61 3. 7 * 0. 07 0. 14 * 0. 17 0. 24 c x s g a 3 @ 75 m g/ l 11 .4 1 (1 9. 74 ) 21 .5 0 (2 7. 62 ) 63 .1 7 (5 2. 63 ) 95 .2 (7 7. 34 ) 47 .8 2 ( 44 .3 3) 11 .2 8 6. 29 4. 13 1. 8 5. 88 5. 80 (1 3. 93 ) 10 .5 7 (1 8. 97 ) 12 .0 0 (2 0. 27 ) 14 .6 (2 2. 46 ) 10 .7 4 (1 8. 91 ) g a 3 @ 10 0m g/ l 8. 84 (1 7. 30 ) 19 .3 3 (2 6. 08 ) 57 .2 6 (4 9. 17 ) 72 .1 2 (5 8. 12 ) 39 .3 9 (3 7. 67 ) 13 .4 8. 8 6. 13 3. 33 7. 92 4. 87 (1 2. 75 ) 8. 03 (1 6. 46 ) 10 .4 0 (1 8. 81 ) 12 .0 7 (2 0. 33 ) 8. 84 (1 7. 09 ) g a 3 @ 15 0m g/ l 12 .2 3 (2 0. 47 ) 22 .3 3 (2 8. 20 ) 60 .1 7 (5 0. 86 ) 77 .2 0 (6 1. 47 ) 42 .9 8 (4 0. 25 ) 12 .2 7 8. 07 4. 87 1. 6 6. 7 5. 33 (1 3. 35 ) 9. 37 (1 7. 82 ) 10 .9 0 (1 9. 28 ) 12 .6 3 (2 0. 82 ) 9. 56 (1 7. 82 ) g a 3 @ 20 0m g/ l 15 .4 0 (2 3. 10 ) 25 .5 0 (3 0. 33 ) 64 .5 (5 3. 42 ) 98 .2 0 (8 2. 28 ) 50 .9 0 (4 7. 28 ) 7. 28 6. 28 2. 93 1. 3 4. 47 5. 57 (1 3. 65 ) 8. 89 (1 7. 35 ) 11 .0 7 (1 9. 43 ) 12 .0 3 (2 0. 29 ) 8. 89 (1 7. 68 ) ba @ 1 00 m g/ l 12 .2 0 (2 0. 44 ) 22 .3 3 (2 8. 20 ) 64 .1 7 (5 3. 23 ) 94 .2 0 (7 6. 06 ) 48 .2 3 (4 4. 48 ) 11 .7 3 6. 13 4 1. 23 5. 77 5. 67 (1 3. 77 ) 9. 27 (1 2. 72 ) 11 .5 7 (1 9. 88 ) 13 .1 3 (2 1. 24 ) 9. 91 (1 8. 16 ) ba @ 1 25 m g/ l 13 .1 7 (2 1. 28 ) 23 .1 7 (2 8. 77 ) 64 .1 5 (5 3. 21 ) 94 .3 0 (7 6. 18 ) 48 .7 0 (4 4. 86 ) 12 .1 3 7. 33 4. 47 1. 6 6. 38 5. 87 (1 4. 02 ) 9. 73 (1 8. 17 ) 12 .5 0 (2 0. 70 ) 15 .0 3 (2 2. 81 ) 10 .7 8 (1 8. 93 ) ba @ 1 50 m g/ l 11 .4 1 (1 9. 74 ) 21 .4 5 (2 7. 59 ) 57 .3 8 (4 9. 24 ) 77 .2 0 (6 1. 47 ) 41 .8 6 (3 9. 51 ) 12 .2 7 8. 13 5. 67 1. 8 6. 97 4. 53 (1 2. 29 ) 8. 30 (1 6. 74 ) 10 .4 3 (1 8. 84 ) 12 .1 3 (2 0. 38 ) 8. 85 (1 7. 06 ) ba @ 1 75 m g/ l 15 .3 0 (2 3. 02 ) 24 .3 3 (2 9. 55 ) 64 .2 5 (5 3. 27 ) 95 .1 5 (7 7. 27 ) 49 .7 6 (4 5. 78 ) 11 .6 8. 07 4. 93 1. 47 6. 52 5. 70 (1 3. 81 ) 9. 13 (1 7. 59 ) 12 .4 0 (2 0. 62 ) 13 .7 6 (2 1. 77 ) 10 .2 4 (1 8. 45 ) co nt ro l 30 .4 0 (3 3. 46 ) 40 .5 0 (3 9. 52 ) 64 .5 0 (5 3. 42 ) 99 .2 (8 4. 86 ) 58 .6 5 (5 2. 82 ) 11 .6 7. 07 2. 8 1. 2 5. 67 7. 76 (1 6. 17 ) 10 .9 0 (1 9. 28 ) 12 .6 0 (2 0. 79 ) 15 .1 (2 2. 86 ) 11 .5 9 (1 9. 78 ) m ea n 14 .4 8 (2 2. 06 ) 24 .4 9 (2 9. 54 ) 62 .1 7 (5 2. 05 ) 89 .2 0 (7 2. 78 ) 11 .5 1 7. 35 4. 44 1. 66 5. 42 (1 3. 75 ) 9. 16 (1 7. 79 ) 11 .2 8 (1 9. 85 ) 12 .6 7 (2 1. 44 ) f te st se .d cd f te st se .d cd f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) (p =0 .0 5) (p =0 .0 5) g ro w th * 0. 90 2. 10 * 0. 06 0. 09 * 0. 10 0. 18 re gu la to rs (g ) st or ag e * 0. 68 1. 65 * 0. 50 0. 08 * 0. 09 0. 15 pe rio d (s ) in te ra ct io n * 0. 57 2. 80 * 0. 80 0. 20 * 0. 19 0. 26 g x s va lu es in p ar en th es es ar e a rc si ne tr an sf or m ed ramesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):66-73, 2014 69 fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% recorded the highest shelf-life (10.67 days) over other treatments, and was on par with ca(no3)2 @ 2% application (10.50 days). among the growth regulators applied, significantly higher shelf-life was recorded with ga3 @100mg/l (12 days), followed by ga3 @ 150mg/l (11.67 days) than in rest of the treatments. further, in both the cases, untreated fruits resulted in the lowest shelf-life (7.33 and 8.67, respectively) (table 2). the most important physiological effect of ga3 is that it influences oxidative or peroxidative enzyme activity by increasing production of oxidative inhibitors (such as polyhydroxy cinnamic acids) in large quantities. this may have helped extend shelf-life of the fruits, as stated by frenkel and dyck (1973). physico-chemical parameters the lowest per-cent reducing sugars (7.51) was observed with cacl2 @ 4% whereas, the highest per cent (8.65) was seen in untreated fruits. similarly, fruits treated with ga3 @ 100mg/l resulted in lowest amounts of reducing sugars (6.78%) compared to that in the remaining treatments. fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% resulted in lowest (10.48%) total sugars than that in rest of the treatments; whereas, highest per cent total sugars (13.31) was observed in untreated fruits (table 3). in the control, total soluble solids (tss) increased during ripening due to enzymatic conversion of starch to simple sugars (hussain et al, 2008). however, reduction in the tss of calcium-treated papaya may have been due to inhibition or retardation of conversion of starch to simple sugars (which slows down electrolytic breakage and metabolic activity, thereby retarding ripening (izumi and watada, 1994; agar et al, 1999). total soluble solids (tss) in papaya fruits increased with an increase in storage period from the 3rd day (10.60ob) to the 9th day (13.56ob) and, thereafter, decreased until the 12th day (12.40ob) with application of chemicals at different days of storage. further, mean tss of fruits with use of various growth regulators also increased from the 3rd day (8.37ob) to the 9th day (14.33ob). thereafter, it decreased until the 12th day (12.07ob). the increase in tss may be attributed mainly to conversion of starch and other polysaccharides to soluble forms of the sugars (mukherjee and dutta, 1967). rate of increase in tss content was slow in fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% (10.91 ob) and ga3 100mg/l (11.14ob) compared to the control fruits (13ob). in fruits showing higher shelf-life, tss decreased at a slower rate. further, among growth regulators, fruits treated with ga3 @ 100mg/l had lower tss (11.14 ob) indicating that the ripening process slowed down. these findings are in conformity with those of kumbhar and desai (1986) in sapota. highest titratable acidity (0.30%) was observed in fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% and lowest (0.19%) was observed in the untreated fruits. similarly, fruits treated with ga3 @ 100mg/l recorded highest (0.26%) titrable acidity than the rest of the treated fruits. acidity decreased gradually from the 3rd day to the 12th day in all the treatments (table 4). decline in acidity can be attributed to a decrease in citric acid content during storage, as reported by medlicott and thompson (1985). there was a continuous decrease in acidity of papaya fruits with progressive storage period, as was utilization of organic acids during respiration (singh et al, 1954). ascorbic acid content of papaya fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% recorded the highest values (48.60 mg/100g fresh weight), whereas, fruits treated with ca(no3)2 @ 2% recorded a value of 47.33 which was on a par with the former, but higher than that in control (41.00). similarly, fruits treated with ga3 100mg/l resulted in highest (42.67) ascorbic acid content than fruits treated with rest of the growth regulators. untreated fruits recorded the lowest value for this (34.14) (table 4). tss:acid ratio of papaya fruits treated with cacl2 @ 4% was the lowest (55.48), whereas, the highest ratio (79.35) was observed in untreated fruits. this may be due to a slow hydrolysis of starch to sugars, and, a gradual build-up of sugars in calcium-treated fruits. table 2. effect of postharvest application of chemicals and growth regulators on shelf life (in days) in papaya cv. red lady treatment shelf life treatment shelf life (in days) (in days) cacl2 @ 1% 9.00 ga3@75ppm 11.33 cacl2 @ 2% 9.67 ga3@100ppm 12.00 cacl2 @ 3% 9.33 ga3@150ppm 11.67 cacl2 @ 4% 10.67 ga3@200ppm 10.67 ca(no3)2 @ 1% 9.00 ba@100ppm 11.00 ca(no3)2 @ 2% 10.50 ba@125ppm 10.00 ca(no3)2 @ 3% 8.25 ba@150ppm 9.33 ca(no3)2 @ 4% 9.33 ba@175ppm 10.33 control 7.33 control 8.67 mean 9.34 mean 10.56 s.ed 0.39 s.ed 0.20 cd (p=0.05) 0.83 cd (p=0.05) 0.44 j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):66-73, 2014 shelf-life and quality in papaya 70 ta bl e 3. e ff ec t of p os tha rv es t ap pl ic at io n of c he m ic al s an d gr ow th r eg ul at or s on r ed uc in g su ga rs , t ot al s ug ar s an d to ta l s ol ub le s ol id s in p ap ay a cv . r ed l ad y re du ci ng su ga rs (% ) to ta ls su ga rs (% ) to ta l s ol ub le s ol id s ( ° b rix ) tr ea tm en t d ay s af te r tre at m en t d ay s af te r tre at m en t d ay s af te r t re at m en t 3r d d ay 6t h da y 9t h da y 12 th d ay m ea n 3r d d ay 6t h da y 9t h da y 12 th d ay m ea n 3r d da y 6t h da y 9t h d ay 12 th d ay m ea n c ac l 2 @ 1 % 5. 80 (1 3. 93 ) 8. 25 (1 6. 69 ) 9. 97 (1 8. 40 ) 7. 77 (1 6. 18 ) 7. 95 (1 6. 30 ) 9. 05 (1 7. 51 ) 11 .2 0 (1 9. 55 ) 13 .4 7( 21 .5 3) 10 .9 0( 19 .2 8) 11 .1 6( 19 .4 7) 10 .6 9 13 .4 3 13 .6 5 12 .6 8 12 .6 1 c ac l 2 @ 2 % 5. 62 (1 3. 71 ) 8. 20 (1 6. 64 ) 9. 63 (1 8. 08 ) 7. 66 (1 6. 06 ) 7. 78 (1 6. 12 ) 8. 45 (1 6. 90 ) 11 .0 8 (1 9. 44 ) 13 .4 3( 21 .5 0) 10 .5 1( 18 .9 2) 10 .8 7( 19 .1 9) 10 .6 12 .7 6 13 .5 5 12 .6 5 12 .3 9 c ac l 2 @ 3 % 5. 04 (1 2. 97 ) 7. 93 (1 6. 35 ) 9. 60 (1 8. 05 ) 7. 52 (1 5. 91 ) 7. 52 (1 5. 82 ) 8. 31 (1 6. 75 ) 10 .9 7 (1 9. 34 ) 13 .3 0( 21 .3 9) 10 .3 2( 18 .7 4) 10 .7 3( 19 .0 5) 10 .5 1 12 .5 4 13 .5 4 12 .3 4 12 .2 3 c ac l 2 @ 4 % 5. 03 (1 2. 96 ) 7. 16 (1 5. 52 ) 8. 70 (1 7. 15 ) 7. 51 (1 5. 90 ) 7. 10 (1 5. 38 ) 8. 30 (1 6. 74 ) 10 .8 1 (1 9. 19 ) 12 .2 5( 20 .4 9) 10 .2 5( 18 .6 7) 10 .4 0( 18 .7 7) 10 .4 12 .0 4 13 .0 5 12 .1 5 11 .9 1 ca (n o 3) 2 @ 1 % 5. 10 (1 3. 05 ) 8. 60 (1 7. 05 ) 9. 80 (1 8. 24 ) 7. 79 (1 6. 21 ) 7. 82 (1 6. 14 ) 8. 90 (1 7. 36 ) 11 .8 6 (2 0. 14 ) 13 .2 2( 21 .3 2) 11 .5 1 (1 9. 83 ) 11 .3 7( 19 .6 6) 10 .6 1 12 .2 13 .5 4 11 .8 5 12 .0 5 ca (n o 3) 2 @ 2 % 5. 02 ( 12 .9 5) 8. 05 (1 6. 48 ) 9. 63 (1 8. 08 ) 7. 58 (1 5. 97 ) 7. 57 (1 5. 87 ) 8. 60 (1 7. 05 11 .9 8 (2 0. 25 ) 12 .8 1( 20 .9 7) 11 .5 0( 19 .8 2) 11 .2 2( 19 .5 2) 10 .4 6 12 .0 7 13 .1 5 12 .2 2 11 .9 8 ca (n o 3) 2 @ 3 % 5. 80 (1 3. 93 ) 8. 69 (1 7. 14 ) 9. 85 (1 8. 29 ) 7. 82 (1 6. 24 ) 8. 04 (1 6. 40 ) 9. 40 (1 7. 85 ) 12 .9 8 (2 1. 12 ) 13 .3 4( 21 .4 2) 11 .8 8( 20 .1 6) 11 .9 0( 20 .1 4) 10 .4 5 13 .3 2 13 .6 8 12 .2 2 12 .4 2 ca (n o 3) 2 @ 4 % 5. 90 (1 4. 06 ) 8. 80 (1 7. 25 ) 10 .1 3 (1 8. 56 ) 7. 88 (1 6. 30 ) 8. 18 (1 6. 54 ) 9. 70 (1 8. 14 ) 12 .1 6 (2 0. 41 ) 13 .3 8( 21 .4 5) 12 .2 9( 20 .5 2) 11 .8 8( 20 .1 3) 10 .6 5 12 .5 13 .7 2 12 .5 12 .3 4 co nt ro l 6. 57 (1 4. 85 ) 9. 47 (1 7. 92 ) 10 .5 6 (1 8. 96 ) 7. 98 (1 6. 41 ) 8. 65 (1 7. 03 ) 10 .5 0( 18 .9 1) 13 .5 1 (2 1. 56 ) 13 .8 6( 21 .8 5) 12 .6 1( 20 .8 0) 12 .6 2( 20 .7 8) 11 13 .8 5 14 .2 12 .9 5 13 m ea n 5. 54 (1 3. 60 ) 8. 35 (1 4. 95 ) 9. 76 (1 6. 17 ) 7. 72 (1 6. 13 ) 9. 02 (1 7. 47 ) 11 .8 3( 20 .1 1) 13 .2 2 (2 1. 32 ) 11 .3 1( 19 .6 4) 10 .6 12 .7 5 13 .5 6 12 .4 f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) ch em ic al * 0. 06 0. 12 * 0. 11 0. 34 * 0. 04 0. 07 (c ) st or ag e * 0. 05 0. 10 * 0. 07 0. 15 * 0. 03 0. 06 pe rio d (s ) in te ra ct io n c x s * 0. 12 0. 24 * 0. 41 0. 41 * 0. 07 0. 14 g a 3 @ 75 m g/ l 4. 53 (1 2. 29 ) 7. 95 (1 6. 38 ) 8. 32 (1 6. 76 ) 6. 85 (1 5. 17 ) 6. 91 (1 5. 15 ) 8. 24 (1 6. 68 ) 11 .6 2 (1 9. 93 ) 13 .5 6 (2 1. 60 ) 11 .5 4 (1 9. 86 ) 11 .2 4( 19 .5 2) 8. 25 11 .8 7 13 .5 3 11 .5 7 11 .3 1 g a 3 @ 10 0m g/ l 4. 50 (1 2. 25 ) 7. 81 (1 6. 23 ) 8. 07 (1 6. 50 ) 6. 74 (1 5. 05 ) 6. 78 (1 5. 01 ) 7. 81 (1 6. 23 ) 11 .5 0 (1 9. 82 ) 13 .2 4( 21 .3 4) 11 .2 4 (1 9. 59 ) 10 .9 5( 19 .2 4) 8. 2 11 .7 5 13 .2 2 11 .3 7 11 .1 4 g a 3 @ 15 0m g/ l 4. 81 (1 2. 67 ) 8. 18 (1 6. 62 ) 9. 11 (1 7. 57 ) 7. 09 (1 5. 44 ) 7. 30 (1 5. 57 ) 7. 87 (1 6. 29 ) 12 .2 3 (2 0. 47 ) 13 .3 3 (2 1. 41 ) 11 .1 8 (1 9. 53 ) 11 .1 5( 19 .4 3) 8. 29 12 .2 4 13 .7 6 11 .4 3 11 .4 3 g a 3 @ 20 0m g/ l 4. 89 (1 2. 77 ) 8. 27 (1 6. 71 ) 9. 15 (1 7. 61 ) 7. 12 (1 5. 47 ) 7. 36 (1 5. 64 ) 8. 50 (1 6. 95 ) 12 .2 4 (2 0. 48 ) 13 .7 4( 21 .7 6) 11 .6 8 (1 9. 98 ) 11 .5 4( 19 .7 9) 8. 3 13 .4 2 14 .2 12 .3 8 12 .0 8 ba @ 1 00 m g/ l 5. 37 (1 3. 40 ) 8. 74 (1 7. 19 ) 9. 65 (1 8. 10 ) 7. 76 (1 6. 17 ) 7. 88 (1 6. 22 ) 8. 30 (1 6. 74 ) 11 .6 1 (1 9. 92 ) 13 .0 2( 21 .1 5) 11 .7 8 (2 0. 07 ) 11 .1 8( 19 .4 7) 8. 22 11 .8 6 13 .2 7 11 .4 1 11 .1 9 ba @ 1 25 m g/ l 5. 35 (1 3. 37 ) 8. 67 (1 7. 12 ) 9. 64 (1 8. 09 ) 7. 23 (1 5. 60 ) 7. 72 (1 6. 04 ) 8. 27 (1 6. 71 ) 12 .6 3 (2 0. 82 ) 13 .6 5 (2 1. 68 ) 11 .3 4 (1 9. 68 ) 11 .4 7( 19 .7 2) 8. 27 13 .5 7 15 .1 9 12 .3 12 .3 3 ba @ 1 50 m g/ l 5. 24 (1 3. 23 ) 7. 32 (1 5. 69 ) 8. 64 (1 7. 09 ) 7. 01 (1 5. 35 ) 7. 05 (1 5. 34 ) 7. 84 (1 6. 26 ) 12 .3 4 (2 0. 56 ) 13 .2 7( 21 .3 6) 11 .2 8 (1 9. 62 ) 11 .1 8( 19 .4 5) 8. 28 13 .5 9 15 .2 12 .3 7 12 .3 6 ba @ 1 75 m g/ l 5. 29 (1 3. 30 ) 8. 56 (1 7. 01 ) 9. 68 (1 8. 13 ) 7. 22 (1 5. 59 ) 7. 69 (1 6. 00 ) 8. 10 (1 6. 53 ) 12 .5 6 (2 0. 75 ) 14 .0 2( 21 .9 9) 12 .8 5 (2 1. 00 ) 11 .8 8( 20 .0 7) 8. 3 13 .7 6 15 .2 5 12 .5 6 12 .4 7 co nt ro l 6. 23 (1 4. 45 ) 9. 49 (1 7. 94 ) 10 .2 2 (1 8. 64 ) 8. 78 (1 7. 23 ) 8. 68 (1 7. 07 ) 9. 25 (1 7. 70 ) 13 .5 6 (2 1. 60 ) 15 .1 2( 22 .8 8) 12 .9 8 (2 1. 12 ) 12 .7 2( 20 .8 2) 9. 26 13 .8 1 15 .3 7 13 .2 12 .9 1 m ea n 5. 13 (1 3. 08 ) 8. 33 (1 6. 77 ) 9. 16 (1 7. 61 ) 7. 33 (1 5. 67 ) 8. 24 (1 6. 68 ) 12 .2 5 (2 0. 48 ) 13 .6 6 (2 1. 69 ) 11 .7 6( 20 .0 5) 8. 37 12 .8 7 14 .3 3 12 .0 7 f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) f te st se .d cd (p =0 .0 5) g ro w th * 0. 06 0. 11 * 0. 13 0. 25 * 0. 06 0. 08 re gu la to rs (g ) st or ag e p er io d (s ) * 0. 04 0. 08 * 0. 07 0. 21 * 0. 05 0. 07 in te ra ct io n g x s * 0. 11 0. 22 * 0. 18 0. 35 * 0. 08 0. 16 va lu es in p ar en th es es a re a rc si ne tr an sf or m e j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):66-73, 2014 ramesh et al 71 ta bl e 4. e ff ec t of p os tha rv es t ap pl ic at io n of c he m ic al s an d gr ow th r eg ul at or s on t it ra bl e ac id it y, a sc or bi c ac id a nd t ss :a ci d ra ti o in p ap ay a cv . r ed l ad y t it ra bl e ac id it y (% ) a sc or bi c ac id ( m g/ 10 0g ) t ss :a ci d ra ti o t re at m en t d ay s a ft er tr ea tm en t d ay s a ft er tr ea tm en t d ay s a ft er tr ea tm en t 3r d d ay 6t h da y 9t h da y 12 th d ay m ea n 3r d da y 6t h da y 9t h d ay 12 th d ay m ea n 3r d da y 6t h da y 9t h d ay 12 th d ay m ea n c ac l 2 @ 1 % 0. 30 (3 .1 4) 0. 23 (2 .7 5) 0. 18 (2 .4 3) 0. 17 (2 .3 6) 0. 22 (2 .6 7) 34 .5 7 46 .2 6 54 .0 7 34 .1 3 42 .2 6 39 .0 1 70 .3 4 85 .7 5 97 .6 8 73 .2 0 c ac l 2 @ 2 % 0. 33 (3 .2 9) 0. 29 (3 .0 9) 0. 24 (2 .8 1) 0. 19 (2 .5 0) 0. 26 (2 .9 2) 35 .4 3 46 .4 0 54 .8 0 35 .9 3 43 .1 4 38 .7 4 66 .3 4 83 .1 5 95 .2 7 70 .8 8 c ac l 2 @ 3 % 0. 34 (3 .3 4) 0. 31 (3 .2 0) 0. 25 (2 .8 7) 0. 20 (2 .5 6) 0. 28 (2 .9 9) 36 .7 0 47 .1 7 56 .6 7 39 .3 0 44 .9 6 36 .9 0 48 .6 7 74 .7 0 91 .2 5 62 .8 8 c ac l 2 @ 4 % 0. 36 (3 .4 4) 0. 32 (3 .2 4) 0. 28 (3 .0 3) 0. 22 (2 .6 9) 0. 30 (3 .1 0) 38 .6 3 55 .6 3 57 .0 9 43 .0 3 48 .6 0 27 .2 4 42 .2 2 69 .6 3 82 .8 4 55 .4 8 c a( n o 3) 2 @ 1 % 0. 23 (2 .7 5) 0. 20 (2 .5 6) 0. 19 (2 .5 0) 0. 13 (2 .0 7) 0. 19 (2 .4 7) 35 .5 7 49 .5 0 54 .2 4 36 .9 7 44 .0 7 39 .4 3 55 .4 3 74 .7 6 75 .4 3 61 .2 6 c a( n o 3) 2 @ 2 % 0. 30 (3 .1 4) 0. 25 (2 .8 7) 0. 23 (2 .7 5) 0. 19 (2 .5 0) 0. 24 (2 .8 1) 37 .2 0 55 .3 0 56 .8 2 40 .0 1 47 .3 3 35 .7 9 47 .7 4 72 .1 2 74 .4 4 57 .5 2 c a( n o 3) 2 @ 3 % 0. 29 (3 .0 9) 0. 24 (2 .8 1) 0. 22 (2 .6 9) 0. 18 (2 .4 3) 0. 23 (2 .7 5) 36 .5 0 47 .1 7 56 .5 7 39 .3 0 44 .8 9 39 .5 6 65 .9 6 85 .5 4 92 .6 2 70 .9 2 c a( n o 3) 2 @ 4 % 0. 25 (2 .8 7) 0. 22 (2 .6 9) 0. 20 (2 .5 6) 0. 16 (2 .2 9) 0. 21 (2 .6 0) 34 .6 7 46 .4 5 53 .4 4 35 .9 3 42 .6 2 41 .2 4 70 .2 4 86 .4 2 97 .5 3 73 .8 6 c on tr ol 0. 23 (2 .7 5) 0. 20 (2 .5 6) 0. 17 (2 .3 6) 0. 15 (2 .2 2) 0. 19 (2 .4 7) 33 .4 7 46 .2 0 52 .2 1 32 .1 2 41 .0 0 50 .6 4 79 .1 2 87 .9 8 99 .6 7 79 .3 5 m ea n 0. 29 (3 .0 9) 0. 25 (2 .8 6) 0. 22 (2 .3 9) 0. 18 (2 .4 0) 35 .9 4 48 .8 9 55 .4 6 37 .4 1 38 .7 3 60 .6 7 80 .0 1 89 .6 4 f te st se .d c d ( p = 0. 05 ) f te st se .d c d ( p = 0. 05 ) f te st se .d c d ( p = 0. 05 ) c he m ic al ( c ) * 0. 08 0. 02 * 0. 67 1. 32 * 6. 38 4. 59 st or ag e pe ri od ( s) * 0. 05 0. 09 * 0. 37 0. 74 * 4. 64 9. 23 in te ra ct io n c x s n s * 1. 17 2. 34 n s g a 3 @ 7 5m g/ l 0. 31 (3 .1 9) 0. 19 (2 .5 0) 0. 16 (2 .2 9) 0. 10 (1 .8 1) 0. 19 (2 .4 5) 36 .5 0 39 .2 5 49 .3 8 37 .9 3 40 .7 7 40 .3 3 51 .2 2 71 .0 2 82 .7 5 61 .3 3 g a 3 @ 1 00 m g/ l 0. 33 (3 .2 9) 0. 29 ( 3. 09 ) 0. 21 (2 .6 2) 0. 19 (2 .5 0) 0. 26 (2 .8 8) 37 .6 3 41 .2 1 51 .7 2 40 .1 3 42 .6 7 37 .9 0 49 .6 7 57 .8 7 76 .4 3 55 .4 7 g a 3 @ 1 50 m g/ l 0. 32 (3 .2 4) 0. 21 (2 .6 2) 0. 19 (2 .5 0) 0. 14 (2 .1 4) 0. 22 (2 .6 3) 33 .9 5 37 .5 4 48 .3 2 33 .2 4 38 .2 6 40 .9 9 52 .5 3 71 .0 3 82 .8 4 61 .7 8 g a 3 @ 2 00 m g/ l 0. 30 (3 .1 4) 0. 20 (2 .5 6) 0. 16 (2 .2 9) 0. 13 (2 .0 7) 0. 20 (2 .5 2) 32 .5 7 36 .2 4 45 .2 3 32 .9 7 36 .7 5 41 .4 4 53 .2 6 75 .4 6 85 .3 6 63 .8 8 b a @ 1 00 m g/ l 0. 25 (2 .8 7) 0. 18 (2 .4 3) 0. 15 (2 .2 2) 0. 12 (1 .9 8) 0. 18 (2 .3 8) 35 .4 3 37 .3 8 39 .1 8 36 .6 1 37 .1 5 43 .4 6 57 .2 4 75 .4 6 87 .6 1 65 .9 4 b a @ 1 25 m g/ l 0. 26 (2 .9 2) 0. 20 (2 .5 6) 0. 18 (2 .4 3) 0. 16 (2 .2 9) 0. 20 (2 .5 5) 36 .8 0 38 .6 7 40 .2 1 37 .3 6 38 .2 6 41 .3 3 55 .2 3 73 .2 6 83 .6 2 63 .3 6 b a @ 1 50 m g/ l 0. 32 (3 .2 4) 0. 27 (2 .9 8) 0. 21 (2 .6 2) 0. 17 (2 .3 6) 0. 24 (2 .8 0) 38 .4 0 39 .3 2 41 .3 7 38 .6 3 39 .4 3 37 .2 4 50 .8 0 59 .3 2 76 .5 7 55 .9 8 b a @ 1 75 m g/ l 0. 31 (3 .1 9) 0. 21 (2 .6 2) 0. 18 (2 .4 3) 0. 13 (2 .0 7) 0. 21 (2 .5 8) 34 .5 0 38 .4 3 39 .4 0 35 .9 3 37 .0 7 38 .1 3 48 .6 8 72 .1 3 86 .4 3 61 .3 4 c on tr ol 0. 24 (2 .8 1) 0. 17 ( 2. 36 ) 0. 14 (2 .1 4) 0. 10 (1 .8 1) 0. 16 (2 .2 8) 32 .1 3 34 .2 3 38 .1 1 32 .1 1 34 .1 4 43 .4 8 65 .9 3 76 .4 3 89 .7 6 68 .9 0 m ea n 0. 29 (3 .1 0) 0. 21 (2 .6 4) 0. 18 (2 .4 0) 0. 14 (2 .1 2) 35 .3 2 38 .3 6 43 .6 6 36 .1 0 40 .4 8 53 .8 4 70 .2 2 83 .4 9 f te st se .d c d ( p = 0. 05 ) f te st se .d c d ( p = 0. 05 ) f te st se .d c d ( p = 0. 05 ) g ro w th * 0. 90 2. 10 * 0. 67 1. 32 * 7. 69 5. 38 re gu la to rs ( g ) st or ag e pe ri od ( s) * 0. 68 1. 65 * 0. 42 0. 84 * 3. 30 8. 25 in te ra ct io n g x s * 0. 57 2. 80 * 1. 33 2. 64 n s v al ue s in p ar en th es es a re a rc si ne t ra ns fo rm ed j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):66-73, 2014 shelf-life and quality in papaya 72 among the growth regulators tested, fruits treated with ga3 @ 100mg/l resulted in lowest tss:acid ratio (55.47), and untreated fruits had a value of 68.90. tss:acid ratio of papaya fruits recorded a gradual increase with increasing storage period. the increase in tss:acid ratio can be attributed to starch breakdown, resulting in free sugars, and, a decline in organic acids due to their consumption during respiration (ghafir et al, 2009). the decline in tss:acid ratio in calcium-treated papaya may be due to a retardation in tss levels by calcium but the retention of acidity at high levels (mahajan et al, 2008). further, a gradual decline in tss:acid ratio was recorded with increasing cacl2 concentration. these results are in agreement with findings of rajkumar et al (2005) in papaya and goud (1979) in sapota. it is concluded that chemicals such as cacl2 @ 4% have proved their beneficial impact on shelf-life of papaya fruits upto 10.67 days without any loss in either physical or physico-chemcial properties. similarly, application of the growth regulator ga3 @ 100mg/l also increased shelf-life in papaya fruits upto 12 days, with the best physical and physico-chemical attributes. acknowledgement the authors express their gratitude to dr. ysr horticultural university, venkataramannagudem, west godavari district, andhra pradesh for providing financial assistance and 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harvest application of calcium chloride and diphenyl package on the storage behaviour of ber fruits. haryana agril. univ. j. res., 18:337-340 singh, k.k., kapur, n.s. and mathur, p.b. 1954. studies on cold storage of mangoes. indian j. agril. sci., 24:137-148 (ms received 06 december 2012, revised 30 december 2013, accepted 04 january 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(1):66-73, 2014 shelf-life and quality in papaya 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper management of diseases and insect-pests of french bean in northwestern indian himalayan region using integrated approaches chandrashekara c.1*, mishra k.k.1, stanley j. 1, subbanna a.r.n.s.1 hooda k.s.2, pal r.s.1, bhatt j.c.1, pattanayak a.1 1 icar–vivekananda parvatiya krishi anusandhan sansthan, almora, uttarakhand, india 2 icar–indian institute of maize research, new delhi, india * corresponding author email : chandrashekara.c@icar.gov.in abstract french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) production is adversely affected by many pathogens and insect-pests worldwide. in the present investigation, effect of different bio-fortified composts, organic amendments, botanicals and pesticides were evaluated against diseases and insectpests of french bean. the results showed that seed treatment and drenching with trichoderma harzianum strain 11, followed by soil application of fortified farmyard manure resulted in the lowest root rot incidence, highest germination, vigour and yield in french bean. in another set of experiment, soil incorporation of parthenium hysterophorus, urtica dioica and lantana camara were found to reduce root rot incidence with high germination and pod yield. among the bioproducts and botanicals tested, foliar spray of cow dung extract (50%) reduced angular leaf spot, rust and bacterial blight severity by 51, 69 and 25 per cent, respectively. among the fungicides, foliar application of azoxystrobin 23 sc (0.1%) and difenoconazole 25ec (0.025%), also reduced angular leaf spot and rust severity by 93 and 90 per cent, respectively. among different insect pest management strategies under field conditions, cartap hydrochloride and batain seed extract registered low sucking bug (chauliops choprai) population. integrated approaches including bio-agents, botanicals along with chemicals for managing these diseases and insect-pests were found appropriate options. out of six different ipm modules evaluated, seed treatment with carbendazim along with foliar spray of 0.1% azoxystrobin and cartap hydrochloride resulted in lowest root rot, rust, angular leaf spot, bacterial blight and chaulopsis choprai bug population in french bean. keywords : bioagents, botanicals, eco-friendly management, french bean, fungicides and insecticides introduction french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) is globally grown in nearly 1.58 million ha with a production of 23.28 million ton (fao, 2020) of which major pr oduction is fr om developing countries. t he increasing incidence of soil-borne and foliar diseases, viz., root rot, rust, bacterial blight and angular leaf spot and insect like sucking bug has become a major constraint for the profitable cultivation of bean since last few years (joshi et al., 2009; mageshwaran et al., 2012; jakhar and chaudhary, 2013). the losses due to bean root rot disease some time exceed 70 per cent (navarrete-maya et al., 2009). losses due angular leaf spot caused by phaseoisariopsis griseola and rust caused by uromyces appendiculatus varies up to 80 per cent and 18-100 per cent, respectively. the management practices for diseases and insectpests rely primarily on application of chemical pesticides. the excessive and indiscriminate uses of pesticides adversely affect soil flora-fauna and have raised serious concern about health and environmental hazards. there is growing awareness about the use of plant extracts, bio-agents, bio-pesticides and chemicals together that can provide more environmentally sound and economically feasible alternatives for disease and insect-pests management. washings of vermicompost (biowa sh) p r epa r ed fr om f olia ge of ja tr opha (jatropha curcas), annona (annona squamosa) and pa rthenium (parthenium hysterophorus ) wer e 2 chandrashekara et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 reported to be effective against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri (wilt of chickpea), sclerotium rolfsii (colla r r ot of chic kpea ) a nd mac rophom ina phaseolina (subramaniam et al., 2010). similarly, leaf extracts (20%) of neem and chinaberry were reported to inhibit alternaria solani and f. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, the pathogens of early blight and wilt diseases of tomato (hassanein et al., 2008). seed treatment with t. harzianum isolates cen287, cen289 and cen316 reduces the incidence of asp ergill us, clad ospori um a nd sclerotium sclerotiorum in common beans and promoted plant growth and rhizosphere competence (carvalho et al., 2011). botanicals and bioagents are inexpensive, easily available and biodegradable with less non-target effects besides being effective against plant pathogens (siddiqui and gulzar, 2003). use of bioagents as seed treatment and soil drenching reduces dissemination of pathogens and contribute for good crop establishment (pomella and ribeiro, 2009). application of organic amendments is one of the disease management str a tegies especia lly a ga inst soil bor ne p la nt pathogens. soil application of paper mill residual amendments suppressed cucumber damping-off and foliar brown spot of snap bean (stone et al., 2003). organic matter (om)-mediated suppression of soil borne diseases in field soils caused by pathogenic species of pythium and phytophthora has been reported for a variety of plant species and organic substrates (lewis et al., 1996; lourd et al., 1987). soil amendment with bio-agent fortified compost can modify the microbial community composition by enhancing the competition for nutrients or antagonism or mycoparasitism among microbes (aryantha and guest, 2006). in addition, beneficial microbes activate the plant to defend themself, a phenomenon termed ‘induced systemic resistance’ (conrath et al., 2002; van-loon, 2007). chemical control is an important option in the management of bean diseases and pests because of the widespread occurrence of foliar diseases and the susceptibility of the available cultivars (emeran et al., 2011). most of the studies focu sed on la bor a t or y a nd gr eenhouse-b a sed evaluations of inhibition a bility, pr oduction of antibiotics and suppression of mycelial growth. in addition to right choice of fungicides, more studies are required to identify the time and schedule of sprays. very few and inadequate studies are available on field assessment of bio-control a gents, botanicals in combination with pesticides for their ability to reduce the incidence of diseases and insect-pests of french bea n a s a n i pm module under nor thwes ter n himalayan region (joshi et al., 2009). hence, integrated approaches including bio-agents, botanicals along with chemicals for managing bean diseases and insect-pests could be the appropriate options and has been explored in this study. material and methods all laboratory and field experiments were conducted in c ompletely r a ndomized design (crd) a nd randomized block design (rbd), respectively with three replications for each treatment on a susceptible variety, vl bauni bean-2. in vitro studies preparation and evaluation of plant extracts leaf samples of plants viz., eucalyptus globulus, parthenium hysterophorus, urtica dioica, quercus leucotrichophora, lantana camara, oxalis latifolia and artemisia hirsuta were collected, air dried at 50°c, powdered and stored at room temperature in desiccator before analysis. dried samples (5 g) were grinded in a super mill grinder 1500 series (newport scientific pvt. ltd.) and grinded samples (1.5 g) were extra cted by semiautoma tic soxhlet appa ra tus (pelican, socsplus, 2as, chennai) in methanol at 100 °c for 1 h and 90 per cent methanol was recovered during recovery phase at 130°c for 30 min, the metha nolic extracts were dried at 80 °c, a gain dissolved in methanol to a concentration of 250 and 500 ppm and stored at 4 °c for further use. field studies trichoderma isolates (50) isolated from soil samples collected from different locations of uttarakhand hills of north-western himalayas were evaluated in vitro for their antagonistic activity against french bean pathogens. based on antagonistic activity, three t. harzianum isolates (th-11, th-28 and th-34) were selected and mass multiplied for further testing under field conditions. on the other hand, soil borne pathogens viz. rhizoctonia solani and fusarium oxysporum were also identified (booth, 1985; domsch et al., 1980) and mass produced for field inoculation. effect of bioagent fortified compost on root rot incidence bioagent fortified composts were evaluated against root rot of french bean at experimental sick plot , 3 management of diseases and insect-pests of french bean ha wa lba gh du r ing the yea r 20 08 a nd 2 009. trichoderma harzianum isolates (th-11, th-28 and th-34) having 2 x 108 cfu (20 g/kg), were mixed with farm yard manure (fym) (10t/ha) and poultry manure (pm) (5 t/ha ), 1520 da ys pr ior to the soil incorporation. soil was pre-inoculated with the test pathogens. bean seeds, treated with different isolates of t. harzianum (2 ml of suspension at 2.5x108 conidia ml-1 per 100 g of seeds) were sown at 15 cm plant to plant space in 3x3 m2 at icar-vpkas experimental station, hawalbagh, almora. the mean average temperature during cropping period was 32°c. plant emergence was recorded 15-20 days after sowing (das). at 20 das, four adjacent plants were removed per plot and vigour index was calculated. effect of organic amendments on root rot incidence field experiments to study the effect of organic amendments on root rot incidence were carried out during kharif 2009 a nd 2010. sixteen organic amendments viz., neem oil cake @ 5t/ha, mustard cake @ 5t/ha, saw dust @ 2.5 t/ha, poultry litter @ 5t/ha, wheat straw @ 2.5t/ha, e. globulus @ 20t/ha, vermicompost @ 5 t/ha, fym @ 10 t/ha (dry wt basis), p. hysterophorus @ 20t/ha, mushroom spent compost @ 5t/ha, u. parviflora (or dioica @ 10t/ha, q. leucotrichophora @ 20t/ha, l. camara @ 20t/ha, o. latifolia @ 20t/ha, a. hirsuta @ 20t/ha and composted paper @ 10t/ha were incorporated one month before sowing and untreated field plot was kept as control. soil was inoculated to entire experimental field with test pathogens (r. solani and f. oxysporum @ 2 x 108 cfu ) one week before incorporation of organic products. seedling emergence and root rot incidence was recorded at post-emergence stage as well as 30 das and average accumulated disease incidence was calculated. evaluation of bio-products and fungicides against foliar diseases in field conditions, six fungicides viz., azoxystrobin @ 0.1%, difenoconazole @ 0.025%, propiconazole @0.05%, tebuconazole @ 0.05%, chlorothalonil @ 0.2% and mancozeb @ 0.25% were evaluated against rust and angular leaf spot diseases during 2009 and 2010. in another set of field experiments, effect of thr ee fungicides viz . , a zoxystr ob in @ 0 . 1%, difenoconazole @ 0.025% and propiconazole @ 0.05%, with 1, 2 and 3 fungicide spray against rust, angular leaf spot and bacterial blight diseases of french bean were evaluated during the year 2011 and 2012. in a third set of field experiment, efficacy of 12 differ ent biopr odu cts viz. , ba ta in (mel ia azederach) seed kernal extract @ 30%, a. hirsuta, p. hysterophorus, azadirachtin, panchgavya, neem ca ke extract, cow ur ine, cow dung extr act, z. officinale rhizome, a. sativum bulb, t. domestica bulb and horticultural mineral oil were evaluated against rust, angular leaf spot and bacterial blight diseases during the year 2009 and 2010 along with mancozeb @ 0.25% spray as positive control and untreated as negative control. evaluation of different insecticides against chauliops choprai field trials were conducted at experimental farm, hawalbagh with nine insecticides viz, thiamethoxam 25%wg, imidacloprid 17.8 sl, dinotefuran 20sg , cartap hydrochloride 75sg, deltamethrin 2.8 ec, spinosad 45sc, indoxacarb 14.5sc, endosulfan 35ec and profenophos 50ec during 2008-09 to test the efficacy of insecticides against the sucking bug, c. choprai. observations were made on the number of adult insects per randomly selected three leaves in ten plants in each plot before the treatment and 3, 7, 14 and 21 days after spray. the per cent pest control by the treatment with respect to untreated check was calculated using henderson and tilton (1955) formula by taking a ver a ge of the insects pr esent a fter treatment. the insect count was subjected to statistical analysis adapting rbd with 3 replications using spss version 3/93 after converting it to square root values. the mean values of treatments were then subjected to tukey highly significant difference (hsd) test. % reduction = 100 x 1 (at x bc) (bt x ac) whereas, at – no. of bugs present in the treated plants after treatment; bt – no. of bugs present in the treated plants before treatment, ac – no. of bugs present in the control plants after treatment and bc – no. of bugs present in the control plants before treatment another set of field trials were carried out using botanical (batain-melia azederach), bt and insecticide (cartap hydrochloride) to find their efficacy on sucking bug c. choprai in fr ench bean for four year s. observations were made as given above on the 4 number of adult insect in the leaves and per cent reduction with respect to control calculated. statistical analysis the experiments were analyzed separately using analysis of variances. chi-square test was performed on the variances to test the homogeneity among the repeated experiments. the disease incidence was assessed based on the total number of plants infected over total number of plants observed in square meter area and then expressed in percentage. the data were subjected to analysis of variances and fisher ’s protected least significant difference or critical difference was used to separate the treatment means. the data were statistically analyzed by using sas 9.3 version software. the original data was transformed to arcsine in order to bring the data under normal distribution before analysis. results and discussion evaluation of plant extracts against rhizoctonia solani and fusarium oxysporum plant extracts parthenium hysterophorus, u. dioica and l. camara showed significantly higher antifungal activity against r. solani and f. oxysporum at 500 ppm concentration (table 1). a reduction of 76.30 per cent r. solani mycelial growth in comparison to control was observed for p. hysterophorus followed by u. parviflora and l. camara (73.33%). however, l. camara inhibited maximum radial growth of f. oxysporum (65.19%) followed by p. hysterophorus (58.89 %) and u. parviflora (58. 15 %). t his corroborates the findings of hadi and kashefi (2013) and baraka et al. (2011). hadi and kashefi (2013) reported that cinnamomum zeylanicum, mentha piperita, allium hirtifolium and allium sativum recorded largest inhibition on the growth rate of f. oxysporum. similarly, baraka et al. (2011) reported in vitro efficacy of marjoram, garlic and jojoba against f. oxysporum, f. moniliforme, f. solani, thilaviopsis paradoxa, botryodiplodia theobromae and rhizoctonia solani and reported the antifungal a ctivity of differ ent p la nt extr a cts a ga inst f. oxysporum and r. solani. effect of bioagent fortified composts on root rot incidence the results of two years of field trials to evaluate the effect of composts fortified with biocontrol agents on root rot incidence of french bean are presented in table 2. significantly higher seedling emergence (87.02%) and lower root rot incidence (16.07%) was found in case of treatment t2 i.e., seed treatment and drenching with t. harzianum strain 11 @ 1% along with soil application of fortified farmyard manure @ 10 t/ha, followed by t7-treated check i.e. seed treatment with thiram @ 3g/kg seed along with application of farm yard manure @ 10 t/ha. the results showed 29 to 49 per cent increase in seedling emergence and 13 to 47 per cent root rot incidence reduction in various treatments in comparison to control (table 2). maximum vigor index (3312) and yield (12.59t/ha) was found from treated check i.e., seed treatment with thiram @ 3g/kg seed along with application of farmyard manure @ 10 t ha-1. the present results agree with manjunatha et al. (2013), who reported that combining soil application through bioagent (trichoderma viride and pseudomonas fluorescens) enriched farm-yard manure, along with seed treated with the bio-control agents resulted in maximum germination, least root rot incidence and highest yields of chickpea plants against root rot pathogen, macrophomina phaseolina. effect of organic amendments on root rot incidence the results of experiments on organic amendments showed that various organic amendments resulted in increa se in seedling emergence (26% 47%), reduction in root rot incidence (32% 64%) and increase in yield (13 to 111%) as compared to control (table 3). the soil incorporation of p. hysterophorus and l. camara @ 20 t ha -1 was found to have maximum seedling emergence (83.28 and 81.57% %) and lower root rot incidence (11.58 and 11.86%) respectively. however, maximum yield (7.0 t ha-1) was recorded with amendment of l. camara @ 20 t ha-1 followed by u. parviflora @ 10 t ha-1 (6.98 t ha-1) and p. hysterophorus (6.85 t ha-1). in this study, soil incorporation of p. hysterophorus, l. camara and u. parviflora resulted in maximum seedling emergence and reduction in root rot incidence which is in accordance with the findings of angiras (2008) and subramaniam et al. (2010). soil amendment is a practice, which favours plant development, improves soil quality as well as having suppressive effect on many soil-borne plant pathogens (nawar, 2008; elwakil et al., 2009). organic amendments in addition to disease suppression, improves the aggregation, chandrashekara et al 5 table 1 : evaluation of plant extracts against rhizoctonia solani and fusarium oxysporum causing root rot of french bean in vitro rhizoctonia solani fusarium oxysporum treatments mean mycelial mean mycelial inhibition (%) inhibition (%) 250 ppm 500 ppm 250 ppm 500 ppm t1eucalyptus globulus 15.19 59.63 14.81 47.78 t2parthenium hysterophorus 17.04 76.30 13.70 58.89 t3urtica parviflora 12.22 73.33 8.52 58.15 t4quercus leucotrichophora 1.48 19.26 0.00 15.19 t5lantana camara 15.93 73.33 10.37 65.19 t6oxalis latifolia 0.74 24.07 0.00 20.74 t7artemesia hirsuta 4.07 27.41 1.85 19.63 t8control 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 turkey hsd (p = 0.05) 0.41 0.57 0.20 0.67 (mean of three replications) table 2 : effect of bioagent fortified composts on root rot incidence of french bean under field condition vigour seedling root rot yield treatments index emergence incidence per increase per reduction t/ increase cent (% ) cent (% ) ha (% ) t1 st & drenching with t. harzianum (t11) 2828 83.51a 43 17.85a 41 12.75a 45 @ 1% + sa of fortified pm @ 5 t/ha (66.44) (24.87) t2 st & drenching. with t. harzianum (t11) 3179 87.02a 49 16.07a 47 11.77a 33 @ 1% + sa of fortified fym @ 10 t/ha (69.58) (23.44) t3 st & drenching with t. harzianum (t-28) 2627 83.03a 42 20.63ab 31 11.67a 32 @ 1% + sa of fortified pm @ 5 t/ha (66.96) (26.59) t4 st & drenching. with t. harzianum (t-28) 2392 75.95ab 30 24.10ab 20 11.40ab 29 @ 1% + sa of fortified fym @ 10 t/ha (61.22) (28.80) t5 st & drenching with t. harzianum (t-34) 2533 75.51ab 29 24.27ab 19 11.57ab 31 @ 1% + sa of fortified pm @ 5 t/ha (61.44) (29.02) t6 st & drenching with t. harzianum (t-34) 2550 79.19ab 35 26.27ab 13 11.13ab 26 @ 1% + sa of fortified fym @ 10 t/ha (64.27) (30.50) t7 treated check (st with thiram 3312 84.33a 44 16.45a 44 12.59a 43 @ 3g/ kg seed with fym @ 10 t/ha) (67.00) (24.20) t8 – control (fym @ 10 t/ha) 2301 58.57b 0 30.08b 0 8.82b 0 (56.05) (33.08) turkey hsd(p = 0.05) 241.5 10.93 8.14 1.98 * seed treatment; ** soil application figures in parentheses represent arc sine transformed values means in the same column followed by different letters are significantly (p < 0.05) different. management of diseases and insect-pests of french bean 6 reduce compaction and surface crusting, increase carbon sequestration and nutrient availability, and enhance infiltration and water holding capacity of soil (min et al., 2003). effect of bioproducts against foliar diseases twelve bioproducts along with one fungicidal control and untreated control were evaluated against foliar diseases viz., rust, angular leaf spot and bacterial blight of french bean for two years and the data obtained were summarized in table 4. the results indicated a reduction of 7-78 per cent rust disease, 5-65 per cent angular leaf spot and 25-54 per cent bacterial blight severity and an increase of 1-49 per cent in yield as compared to control. foliar spray of bioproducts, batain seed kernel extract (30%), cow urine (50%) and cow dung extract (50%), were found at par with fungicidal (mancozeb) spray in reducing rust severity. similarly, significantly lower angular lea f spot wa s r ecor ded for folia r spr a y of p. hysterophorus (22.11%), azadirachtin (19.33%), panchgavya (16.33%), neem cake extract (19.57%), cow urine (26.17%) and mancozeb (11.83%). all the biop r oducts r educed ba cter ia l blight sever ity significantly in comparison to control. the present results agree with vijayalakshmi and saranya (2010), who reported antimicrobial activities of cow urine against staphylococcus aureus, escherichia coli, aspergillus and rhizopus. basak et al. (2001 and 2002) reported the inhibitory activity of cow urine and cow dung against f. oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum, f. so lani f. s p. cucurb itae a nd sc leroti nia sclerotiorum. evaluation of different fungicides against foliar diseases of french bean the fungicides under study were highly efficacious, completely preventing rust and angular leaf spot infection, when applied thrice at 10 days interval. all the treatments were found significantly effective in reducing rust (25-93%) and angular leaf spot severity (36-93%) and resulted in increasing yield by 64-194 chandrashekara et al table 3 : effect of organic amendments on root rot incidence of french bean seedling emergence root rot incidence pod yield treatments per cent per cent per cent per cent t/ha per cent increase increase increase increase t1 neem oil cake @ 5t/ha 74.75(59.84) 32 17.82(21.80) 45 5.88 abc 77 t2 mustard cake @ 5t/ha 72.49(58.38) 28 21.11 (25.04) 34 3.83 cd 15 t3 saw dust @ 2.5 t/ha 76.30(60.94) c 35 17.78 (21.33) 45 4.96abcd 49‘ t4 poultry litter @ 5t/ha 74.77(59.85) 32 17.28 (21.20) 46 5.63 abcd 69 t5 wheat straw @ 2.5t/ha 77.03(61.44) c 36 17.65 (20.82) 45 5.71abc 72 t6 eucalyptus globulus @ 20t/ha 74.33(59.57) 31 19.58 (23.13) 39 5.13 abcd 54 t7 vermicompost @ 5 t/ha 75.72(60.48) 34 17.09 (21.06) 47 5.69 abc 71 t8 fym @ 10 t/ha (dry wt basis) 74.03(59.37) 31 15.40 (22.72) 52 5.15 abcd 55 t9 parthenium hysterophorus @ 20t/ha 83.28(65.94) a 47 11.58 (15.15)a 64 6.85ab 106 t10 mushroom spent compost @ 5t/ha 75.12(60.08) 33 18.02 (22.00) 44 3.75 cd 13 t11urtica parviflora @ 10t/ha 78.25(62.21) b 38 15.37 (19.35) 52 6.98a 110 t12 quercus leucotrichophora @ 20t/ha 72.93(58.66) 29 20.71 (24.66) 36 4.45 cd 34 t13lantana camara @ 20t/ha 81.57(64.59) a 44 11.86 (15.34) 63 7.00a 111 t14oxalis latifolia @ 20t/ha 74.07(59.39) 31 19.38 (22.84) 40 4.58 bcd 38 t15artemesia hirsuta @ 20t/ha 74.78(59.86) 32 18.83 (22.25) 42 5.79 abc 74 t16composted paper @ 10t/ha 71.55(57.79) f 26 22.00 (25.45) 32 4.58bcd 38 t17control 56.65(48.82) g 0 27.20 (31.63)d 0 3.32d turkey hsd(p = 0.05) 6.34 2.87 (mean of three replications) * figures in parentheses represent arc sine transformed values; means in the same column followed by different letters are significantly (p < 0.05) different. 7 per cent in compa r ison to contr ol (fig. 1a ), emphasizing the effect of foliar spray of fungicides towa rds yield enhancement. amongst all tested fungicides, application of azoxystrobin was found to have lowest rust (2.81%) and angular leaf spot (2.71%) severity with highest yield (11.94 t ha-1) followed by difenoconazole. similarly, from the repeated fungicidal spray experiment, lowest rust (3.33%), angular leaf spot (4.17%) and highest yield (10.12 t ha-1) was recorded when three sprays of azoxystrobin was given (fig. 1b), which was at par with two sprays of azoxystrobin. management of diseases and insect-pests of french bean rust angular leaf spot bb pod yield treatments per cent reduction per cent reduction per cent reduction per cent increase (% ) (% ) (% ) (% ) t1-bske 28.02abcd 55 27.50bcd 19 17.50abc 29 4.40abc 25 @ 30 % fs (31.73) (31.57) (24.66) t2-a. hirsuta 31.83bcd 49 28.05bcd 17 17.00abc 31 3.77bc 7 @ 30 % fs (34.25) (31.79) (24.29) t3-p.hysterophorus 40.02defg 36 22.11abcd 35 17.00abc 31 3.73bc 6 @ 30 % fs (39.13) (27.90) (24.06) t4-azadirachtin 0.03 % 36.00cde 42 19.33abc 43 14.84ab 40 4.05bc 15 @ 0.2 % fs (36.82) (25.89) (22.58) t5-panchgavya 53.84efgh 14 16.33ab 52 18.33bc 26 3.84bc 9 @ 3 % fs (47.25) (23.69) (25.26) t6-neem cake extract 39.16cdef 37 19.57abc 42 14.55ab 41 4.43abc 26 @ 20 % fs (38.70) (26.12) (22.28) t7-cow urine 22.83abc 63 26.17bcd 23 18.33bc 26 4.42abc 25 @ 50 % fs (28.35) (30.64) (25.30) t8-cow dung extract 19.52ab 69 16.66ab 51 18.58bc 25 4.64ab 32 @ 50 % fs (26.00) (23.92) (25.43) t9-z.officinale rhizome 54.26fgh 13 25.67bcd 24 16.70abc 32 3.87bc 10 @ 5% f (47.51) (29.91) (24.05) t10-a. sativum bulb 32.83bcd 47 20.05abcd 41 14.52ab 41 3.96bc 12 @ 5% fs (34.85) (26.49) (22.27) t11-t. domestica bulb 43.33defg 31 26.00bcd 23 17.50abc 29 3.76bc 7 @ 5% fs (41.15) (30.41) (24.66) t12-horticultural mineral oil 57.83gh 7 31.99cd 5 15.33ab 38 3.55bc 1 @ 1% fs (49.55) (34.25) (22.89) t13-mancozeb 13.85a 78 11.83 65 11.33a 54 5.24a 49 @ 0.25% (21.58) (19.90) (19.50) t14-control 62.41h 0 33.83d 0 24.67c 0 3.52c 0 (52.35) (35.46) (29.68) turkey hsd (p = 0.05) 9.51 8.10 4.81 0.64 figures in parentheses represent arc sine transformed values; means in the same column followed by different letters are significantly different (p < 0.05). table 4 : effect of bioproducts against foliar diseases of french bean under field condition fungicide application appears to be a suitable shortterm strategy for bean rust control in the absence of resistant cultivars. the differences in efficacy among the tested fungicides were probably related to their fungicidal activity. the present results are in line with the findings of various workers who reported reduced sever ity of bean diseases by applying different fungicides (emeran et al., 2011) azoxystrobin is one of the leading systemic fungicide of strobilurin class developed from naturally occurring wood-decaying mushroom mainly inhibiting mitochondrial respiration by binding to the q0 site of cytochrome b, blocking 8 fig. 1. : effect of different fungicides against foliar diseases of french bean t1-azoxystrobin @0.1%, t2-difenoconazole @ 0.025%, t3propiconazole @0.05% t4chlorothalonil @0.2%, t5mancozeb @ 0.25%, t6control fig. 2. : effect of number of fungicide spray on foliar diseases of french bean t1, t4, t7-azoxystrobin one, two and three sprays, t2,, t5, t8difenoconazole one, two and three sprays t3, t6, t9-propiconazole one, two and three sprays, t10control electron transfer and disrupting the production of atp (sundravadana et al., 2009) and hence effectively controls many plant diseases (la mondia, 2012). difenoconazole are sterol synthesis inhibitors known to have acropetal systemic movement in plants and many have good activity against rust disease (kuck et al., 1995). similar findings on the impact of fungicides on plant diseases were reported by various workers (miles et al., 2007). bio-efficacy of insecticides on chauliops choprai under field conditions the results of the field trial on the insecticidal efficacy on c. choprai are given in the table 5. the mea n number of bugs in the fir st tr ia l befor e treatment ranged from 4.67 – 5.67 three leaves-1 plant-1. at three das, less number of bugs (0.33 plant-1) was recorded in deltamethrin treated plots. indoxacarb, cartap, endosulfan and spinosad treated plots were not significantly different with each other in terms of insect population at three days after treatment (dat). at 14 das, 0.83 bugs plant-1 was recorded in deltamethrin sprayed plants which is not significantly different with the cartap treatment (0.84 bugs plant-1) and endosulfan treatment (1.50 bugs pla nt -1). ca r tap hydr ochlor ide tr ea tment harbored the least number of bugs (1.0 plant-1) at 21 das which is not significa ntly superior to deltamethrin (1.17 bugs plant-1). the overall per cent reduction registered by deltamethrin and cartap hydrochloride were 82.70 and 79.16, respectively. phospha midon, pa r a thion-methyl, endosulfa n, quinalphos and fenitrothion are reported as effective insecticides for the management of c. fallax in india (kashyap et al., 1980). integrated management of chauliops choprai under field conditions the results of the field trials on integrated pest management (ipm) on c. choprai using botanical, bt a nd ins ect ic ide is given in ta b le 6 . t he pretreatment count ranged from 9.42 to 10.42 bugs three leaves-1 plant-1. at 3 dat, treatments like, cartap, batain extract and batain + bt registered low pes t p op ula tion of 0. 84, 2. 92 a nd 2 . 9 2, respectively which were not significantly different with each other. batain and cartap hydrochloride was found to reduce the bug population to 1.0 and 1.82 per plant on 14 dat. the overall reduction with respect to control showed cartap hydrochloride as superior with 89.59% followed by batain 78.82 per cent. in the present study, more emphasis was given on use of bioagents, biopesticides, botanicals/plant ex t r a c t s a n d ju dic iou s u s e of p e s t ic ides in compatible or complimentary manner. gajanana et al. (2006) reported that root dipping of seedlings in imidacloprid, soil application of neem/ pongamia cake, spraying of botanicals like pongamia soap and bio-pesticide like ha npv has been found effective against both insect and diseases. similarly, el-mougy et al. (2013) r eported tha t combine treatments of calcium chloride, thyme oil with bioagents reduced significantly root rot incidence of cucumber, cantaloupe, tomato and pepper plants. chandrashekara et al 9 management of diseases and insect-pests of french bean table 5 : bio-efficacy of insecticides on chauliops choprai in french bean under field conditions treatments ptc 3 dat 7 dat 14 dat 21 dat reduction*(%) t1thiamethoxam 5.67a 1.50abc 3.84b 2.67ab 1.83bc 58.45 t2imidacloprid 4.67a 1.67abc 1.34a 2.00ab 1.34bc 67.46 t3dinotefuron 5.34a 2.17bc 2.67bc 3.17b 1.67bc 56.62 t4cartap hydrochloride 5.17a 1.17abc 1.50a 0.84a 1.00a 79.16 t5deltamethrin 4.83a 0.33a 1.17a 0.83a 1.17a 82.70 t6spinosad 5.17a 1.17abc 1.83a 2.00ab 3.00b 62.94 t7indoxacarb 4.84a 0.84ab 1.34a 2.17ab 1.84bc 69.44 t8endosulfan 4.67a 0.17a 1.17a 1.50ab 1.67bc 76.93 t9profenophos 5.00a 2.83c 1.67a 2.67b 2.33bc 54.53 t10control 5.17a 7.17d 5.50c 5.00c 6.00c -  cd$ 1.18 0.56 0.95 0.67   (mean of three replications) * per cent reduction is with respect to control calculated using henderson tilton formula $ analyzed using spss after square root transformation in a column means followed by a common letter are not significantly different at p=0.05 by lsd table 6 : integrated management of chauliops choprai in the frenchbean under field conditions ptc 3 dat 7 dat 14 dat 21 dat reduction (%) bt 10.17a 9.00b 8.50b 8.17b 9.50b 26.09 batain 10.25a 2.92a 2.17a 1.83a 3.25a 78.82 bt+ batain 10.42a 2.92a 2.17a 2.09a 3.33a 78.46 cartap hydrochloride 9.42a 0.84a 0.84a 1.00a 1.92a 89.59 control 10.17a 11.42c 11.50c 12.17c 12.50c  cd$ 2.53 3.11 3.47 3.23   (mean of three replications) * per cent reduction is with respect to control calculated using henderson tilton formula $ analyzed using spss after square root transformation in a column means followed by a common letter are not significantly different at p=0.05 by lsd evaluation of different ipm modules against french bean diseases and insect pests based on the findings of different sets of experiments, six efficacious treatments against bean disease and insects were selected. six different ipm modules involving different orga nic/inorga nic substra te/ chemicals/bioagents in different combinations along with pure chemicals and untreated check were tested against french bean diseases and insect pests. results presented in table 8 revealed a lowest root rot incidence (8.63%), rust severity (3.50%), angular leaf spot (2.50%), bacterial blight (2.17%) and chauliops choprai bug population (1.50 plant-1) in t7 i.e. seed treatment with carbendazim along with foliar spray of azoxystrobin @ 0.1 and cartap hydrochloride, followed by t4 (seed treatment with t. harzianum strain 11 and 28 along with soil application of p. hysterophorus and foliar spray of azoxystrobin @ 0.1 and cartap hydrochloride). however, other ipm modules comprising of organic substances viz., t1, t3 and t5 were also found equally effective in reducing diseases and insect-pests of french bean. an increase of 96.6 per cent yield over control was obtained with treatment t4 (9.66 t/ha) which was at par with treatments t2 (95.5 %) (9.55 t/ha) and t7 (94.8 %) (9.48 t/ha). 10 the integrated disease and pest management involves a total system approach for the suppression of pathogens and insect populations to a level where higher yields can be obtained and enables the farmers to achieve maximum economic return. in the present study, more emphasis has given on use of bioagents, biopesticides, botanicals/plant extracts, and judicious use of pesticides in compatible or complimentary manner. similarly, pande et al. (2009) emphasized about the use of integrated disease management (idm) modules for important foliar and viral diseases of legumes including bean. stevens et al. (2003) reported that long-term effectiveness of ipm plus soil solarization reduced soil borne diseases of vegetables for more than two years after solarization. the ipm technology has been found economically viable as the yield on ipm farms has been found higher by about 46 per cent, cost of cultivation has been less by about 21 per cent and the net returns have been higher by chandrashekara et al table 7 : evaluation of different ipm module options against french bean diseases and insect-pests root rot rust als bb sucking yield treatment (%) (%) (%) (%) bug (t/ha) (%) t1 st th(11+28)+sa lantana+fs cow 12.63bc 19.83bc 12.28bcd 6.60bc 2.75a 5.5ab dung extract+fs bske (20.80) (26.20) (20.13) (14.85) (9.50) t2 -st th11+28)+sa lantana+fs 12.97b 3.66a 2.92abc 2.40a 1.75a 9.55a azoxystrobin+fs cartap hydro (21.08) (10.78) (9.67) (8.72) (7.52) t3 st th 11+28 + sa lantana + fs 13.10b 20.95bc 11.58abcd 4.83ab 2.73a 6.60b panchgavya + fs bske (21.16) (26.65) (19.58) (12.64) (9.42) t4 st with th 11+28 + sa parthenium + 9.53bc 3.53a 2.20a 1.33a 1.68a 9.66a fs azoxystrobin @ 0.1 + fs cartap (17.97) (10.66) (8.34) (6.60) (7.35) hydrochloride t5 st with th 11+28 + sa parthenium + 10.87bc 17.89b 12.42cd 4.27ab 2.80a 6.53b fs cow dung extract @ 50 % + fs bske (19.25) (24.89) (20.43) (11.83) (9.61) @ 10 % t6 st with th 11+28 + sa parthenium + 13.20b 18.92bc 10.50abcd 6.77bc 2.68a 6.4b fs panchgavya @ 3 % + fs bske (21.30) (25.44) (18.69) (14.82) (9.37) @ 10 % t7 st carbendazim + azoxystrobin @ 8.63a 3.50a 2.50ab 2.17a 1.50a 9.48a 0.1 fs + cartap hydrochloride fs (17.08) (10.71) (8.97) (8.41) (6.84) t8 control 29.00c 35.58c 19.00d 12.13c 17.50b 3.65c (32.57) (36.58) (25.64) (20.29) (24.43) turkey hsd (p = 0.05) 2.32 7.08 6.88 2.98 4.38 1.57 (means of three replications) figures in parentheses represent arc sine transformed values means in the same column followed by different letters are significantly different (p < 0.05). als: angular leas spot, bb: bacterial blight 119 per cent (gajanana et al., 2006). hence there is lot of scope for co-operative awareness among the farmers in enhancing the use of ipm practices especially in vegetable cultivation. conclusion the present study concludes that bioagent fortified composts, organic amendments, botanicals, fungicides and insecticides alone or in combination have potential to enhance the germination, controlling soil and foliar diseases and insect populations of french bean. acute toxicity assays (lc-50) revealed deltamethirn as the highly toxic insecticide for sucking bug, chauliops choprai followed by diafenthiuron and indoxacarb. but in field conditions, delta methr in wa s not statistically superior to cartap hydrochloride in efficacy against sucking bug with the percent pest reduction of 82.7 and 79.2 per cent. in ipm trial, melia azedarach (batain) extract 5 per cent and 11 management of diseases and insect-pests of french bean cartap hydrochloride were found to be effective against the sucking bug registering a per cent pest reduction of 78.8 ad 89.6 per cent, respectively and thus can be recommended. references angiras, n. n., 2008. international parthenium research news, 1(5). www.iprng.org. aryantha, p. g. and guest, i. d., 2006. mycoparasitic and antagonistic inhibition on phytophtora cinnamomi rands by microbial agents isolated from manure composts. plant pathol. j., 5: 291–298. baraka, m. a., fatma, m. r, shaban, w. i. and arafat, k. h. 2011. efficiency of some plant extr a cts, na tur a l oils, biofungicides a nd fungicides against root rot disease of date palm. j. biol. chem. environ. sci. 6(2): 405–429. basak, a. b. and lee, m. w., 2001. comparative efficacy and in vitro activity of cow urine and cow dung for controlling fusarium wilt of cucumber. abstract published in the 2001 korean soc. plant path. ann. meet. int. con., held on the 25-30th october, kyongju, korea. p.49. basak, a. b., lee, w. m. and lee, t. s. 2002a. inhibitive activity of cow urine and cow dung against sclerotinia sclerotiorum of cucumber. mycobiol., 30(3): 175–179. booth, c., 1985. the genus fusarium. kew, surrey commonwealth mycological institute, 2nd ed., p.237. carvalho, d. d. c., mello, s. c. m., lobo, m. and geraldine, a. m., 2011. biocontrol of seed pathogens and growth promotion of common bean seedlings by trichoderma harzianum. pesq. agropec. bras., 46(8): 822-828. conrath, u., pieterse, c. m. j. and mauch mani, b. 2002. priming in plant-pathogen interactions. trends pl. sci., 7:210–216. domsch, k. h., gams, w. and anderson, t. 1980. compendium of soil fungi. academic press, london. el-mougy, n. s., abdel kader, m. m. and lashin, s. m. 2013. bio-compost application for controlling soilborne plant pathogens – a review. j. appl. sci. res. 9(6): 3543-3551. elwakil, m. a., el-refai, i. m., awadallah, o. a. and mohammed, m. s. 2009. seed-borne pathogens of f a ba bea n in egypt: detection a nd pathogenicity. plant pathol. j. 8:90–97. emeran, a .a., stenglein, j. c., fernández a. 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(ed.), modern selective fungicides: properties, applications, mechanisms of action, second ed. gustav fischer verlag, new york, pp. 205–258. la mondia, j. a. 2012. efficacy of azoxystrobin fungicide against sore shin of shade tobacco caused by rhizoctonia solani. tobacco sci. 49: 1–3. lewis, j. a., lumsden, r. d. and locke, j. c., 1996. biocontrol of damping-off diseases caused by rhizoctonia solani and pythium ultimum with a lgina te p r ills of glioc ladium vi rens , trichoderma hamatum and various food bases. biocontrol sci. tech. 6(2): 163-174. lourd, m., alves, m.l.b. and bouhot, d. 1987. qualitative and quantitative study of the species of pythium pathogenic in soils of the region of manaus 2. “varzea” soils. retrieved from http:/ /agris.fao.org/agris-search/search.do? record id=br880231588 mageshwaran, v., mondal, k. k., kumar, u. and annapurna, k. 2012. role of antibiosis on suppression of bacterial common blight disease in french bean by paenibacillus polymyxa strain hka-15. afr. j. bio. tech. 11: 12389– 12395. manjunatha, s. v., naik, m. k., khan, m. f. r. and goswami, r. s. 2013. evaluation of biocontrol agents for management of dry root rot of c hickpea ca used by mac rophom ina phaseolina. crop protec. 45: 147–150. miles, m. r., levy, c., morel, w., mueller, t., steinlage, t., van-rij, n., frederick, r.d. and hartman, g. l. 2007. international fungicide efficacy trials for the management of soybean rust. plant dis. 91: 1450–1458. min, d. h., islam, k. r., weil, r. r. and vough, l. r. 2003. dairy manure effects on soil quality and c sequestration in alfalfa-orchardgrass systems. comm. soil sci. plant analysis 34(5&6): 781–799. navarrete-maya, r., trejo-albarran, e., navarretemaya, j., prudencio-sains, j. m. and gallegos, j. a. 2009. rea ction of common bea n genotypes to fusarium spp. , rhizoctonia solani under field and greenhouse conditions. agric. tecnica. en mexico. 35(4): 455–466. nawar, l. s. 2008. control of root rot of green bean with composted rice str aw fortified with trichoderma harzianum. amercian eurasian j. agric. environ. sci. 3(3): 370–379. pande, s., sharma, m., kumari, s., gaur, p. m., chen, w., kaur, l., macleod, w., basandrai, a., basandrai, d., bakr, a., sandhu, j. s., tripathi, h. s. and gowda, c. l. l. 2009. integra ted folia r diseases ma nagement of legumes. intl conf. on grain legumes: quality impr ovement, va lue addition and tr ade, february 14-16, 2009, indian institute of pulses research, kanpur, india. pp-143-161. pomella, a. w. v. and ribeiro, r. t. s. 2009. contr ole biológico com trichoderma em grandes culturas uma visão empresarial. in: bett iol, w. , mor a ndi, m. a. b. 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(tokyo). 51: 415–417. stevens, c., khan, v. a., rodriguez-kabana, r., ploper, l. d., backman, p. a., collins, d. j., brown, j. e., wilson, m. a. and igwegbe, e. c. k. 2003. integration of soil solarization with chemical, biological and cultural control for the ma na gement of soilbor ne disea ses of vegetables. plant soil. 253(2): 493–506. stone, a. g. , va lla d, g. e. , cooper ba nd, l. r. , rotenberg, d., darby, h.m., james, r.v., stevenson, w.r. and goodman, r.m. 2003. effect of organic amendments on soilborne and foliar diseases in field-grown snap bean and cucumber. plant dis. 87: 1037-1042. subramaniam, g., kannan, i. g. k., alekhya, g., humayun, p., meesala, s.v., kamala, d. 2010. efficacy of jatropha, annona and parthenium 13 biowa sh on sclerotium rolfsii, fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri and macrophomina phaseo lina, pa thogens of chickpea a nd sorghum. african j. biotechnol. 9(47): 8048– 8057. sundr a va da na , s. , alice, d. , ku tta la m, s. , sa miya ppa n, r . , 2009. effica c y of a zoxystr obin on coll etotri chum gloe osporioi des penz. gr owth a nd on controlling mango anthracnose. j. agricul. biological sci. 2: 10–15 van-loon, l.c. 2007. plant responses to plant growth promoting bacteria. eur. j. plant pathol. 119: 243-254. vijayalakshmi, r., saranya, v.t.k. 2010. effect of “ gomutr a ” on pla nt gr owth a nd its antifungal and antibacterial activity. j. herbal sci. technol. 6: 6–11. management of diseases and insect-pests of french bean introduction bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) has been identified as one of the promising vegetables for export by agricultural processed food products and export development authority (apeda). the crop occupies 6.76 million hectare area with annual production of 101.43 million tonnes (rai and pandey, 2007). but, the demand is likely to rise to 193mt by the year 2030. though several high-yielding varieties have been developed to augment production and productivity of this high-value vegetable, its potential can only be realized by developing high-yielding hybrids with earliness. in our country, a wide range of variability exists in vegetative and fruit characters in this crop. exploitation of heterosis is far easier in cross-pollinated crops and bitter gourd, being monoecious, provides ample scope for utilization of hybrid vigour on a commercial scale. hence, the present investigation was initiated to study combining ability and heterosis in bitter gourd by diallel analysis. diverse parents from different locations having high yield and quality pave way for development and release of hybrids, through heterosis breeding. hybrid vigour can be substantially improved by crossing genetically diverse inbreds evaluation of f 1 hybrids in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) for yield and quality c. thangamani, l. pugalendhi, t. sumathi and c. kavitha department of vegetable crops, horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore – 641 003, india e-mail: thangamani.sk@gmail.com abstract to study the combining ability and heterosis for yield and quality characters, full diallel analysis was carried out in bitter gourd during january – april 2008 (thai pattam), with 10 diversified parents, at research farm, horticultural college and research institute, tnau, coimbatore. parental mean and gca effects revealed that the parents preethi, co-1, mc-30, uchha bolder, green long and mc-105 were the best genotypes for improvement of yield, combined with quality characters. hybrids, viz., preethi x mc-30, kr x usl, mc-105 x mc-10 and priyanka x co-1 registered favourable values for mean, significant sca and standard heterosis for yield and quality parameters. hence, these hybrids are recommended for commercial exploitation of heterosis. comparison of parental gca and sca of hybrids revealed that hybridization between good x good, good x poor, medium x poor and poor x good combiners gave rise to hybrids with significant sca effects. considering the mean performance, sca and standard heterosis, hybrid ‘preethi x mc-30’ registered favourable values for the most important characters like earliness, number of fruits, fruit yield and quality. top performing f 1 hybrids can be tested over seasons and locations for assessing stability for high yield and quality. key words: bitter gourd, momordica charantia, mean performance, combining ability, standard heterosis and, thus, heterosis is mostly accomplished from genetic diversity among parents (sharma, 1994). diallel analysis also provides reliable information on components of the variance, general combining ability (gca), specific combining ability (sca) variances and their effects (singh and narayanan, 1993). material and methods ten parents, viz., co-1 and green long, from coimbatore, tamil nadu; priyanka and preethi from kerala; karala rakshuse (kr), uchha small long (usl) and uchha bolder (ub) from west bangal; mc-30, mc-105 and mc-10 from palur, tamil nadu, were chosen from the germplasm maintained at research farm, department of vegetable crops, horticultural college and research institute, coimbatore. diallel crosses [method i, model 1 griffing (1956)] among the ten parents were effected in all possible combinations. thus, a total of ninety crosses and their ten parents were evaluated in january – april, 2008 (thai pattam) for various quantitative and qualitative traits. observations on yield and quality traits, viz., days to first female flower appearance, node number at which first female flower appearned, sex ratio, days to first harvest, j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):105-108, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 106 fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight, number of fruits per vine, yield of fruits per vine, ascorbic acid and iron content, were all recorded on three randomly selected single-plants in each replication. mean values were taken for statistical analysis using genres statistical package for genetical researchers, version 7.01, 1994 from pascal intl. software solutions. estimation of general and specific combining abilities was done as per griffing (1956). heterosis in f 1 hybrids was estimated for each trait by using the three mean values. variety co-1 was used as the standard parent to estimate standard heterosis. results and discussion removal of undesirable genotypes is essential in any crop breeding program. this can be achieved by studying the mean performance of parents and hybrids. mean performance and gca effects were seen to be related in the parents (table 2). mean and combining ability effects, separately, did not show parallelism. therefore, it is necessary to consider mean and combining ability effects together for further isolation of desirable parental genotypes and hybrids. combining ability for each trait was analyzed in the present investigation. the study clearly revealed that variances due to gca and sca were significant for all the characters studied, indicating presence of both additive and dominance gene actions. variance due to reciprocal effects was also significant for all the characters studied (table 1). reciprocal variation is perhaps due to cytoplasmic inheritance and its interaction with nuclear genes. a comparison of parental gca and sca of hybrids revealed that hybridization between good x good (preethi x mc-30, gl x preethi), good x poor (mc-105 x mc-10), medium x poor (kr x usl), poor x good (priyanka x co-1) combiners gave rise to hybrids with significant sca effects in the favourable direction (table 2 and 3). table 1. analysis of variance for combining ability s.no. trait mean squares of gca sca rca 1 days to first female-flower 24.42** 19.35** 14.89** appearance 2 node-number first female 36.39** 10.02** 9.67** flower appeared 3 sex ratio 170.78 ** 16.44 ** 14.80 ** 4 days to first harvest 148.37** 40.27** 52.69** 5 fruit length 158.03** 14.38** 16.80** 6 fruit girth 12.01** 4.69** 6.47** 7 fruit weight 3022.75** 135.62** 195.01** 8 number of fruits per vine 1511.91** 60.48** 41.43** 9 yield of fruits per vine 0.320** 0.356** 0.308** 10 ascorbic acid content 74.28** 286.65** 323.25** 11 iron content 0.112** 0.203** 0.145** ** significant at 1% level table 2. mean performance and gca of parents for yield and quality traits parent days to node-number sex days to fruit fruit fruit number yield of ascorbic iron first at which ratio first length girth weight of fruits fruits acid content female first female harvest per vine per vine flower flower s appearance appeared co -1 55.82 29.12 17.23 64.78 27.82 14.81 78.99 23.64 2.01 98.41 2.18 -0.34** 0.66** 2.33** -3.11** 3.92** 0.32** 1.91** -2.55** 0.09** 2.51** 0.00** green long 66.14 30.23 34.68 62.45 25.89 15.51 107.53 18.59 1.71 95.61 2.14 0.43** 0.90** 3.23** -3.22** 2.38** -0.15** 5.27** -3.82** -0.07** 0.07** -0.07** priyanka 61.97 20.98 26.23 65.91 20.56 14.98 114.30 18.76 1.78 96.18 2.12 0.28** 1.69** 2.37** -0.17** 0.53** 0.37** 6.36** -4.08** -0.12** -4.17** -0.06** preethi 55.20 21.12 19.34 58.67 16.43 14.39 106.73 21.92 2.27 98.51 2.73 -2.55** -2.09** -0.47** 1.74** -2.09** 1.12** 7.73** -1.34** 0.12** 1.96** 0.14** karala rakshuse 58.86 22.93 33.65 60.34 16.76 15.51 81.35 17.45 1.61 80.91 2.64 (kr) -0.19** 0.75** 2.45** -0.04** -0.03 0.27** 4.49** -3.72** -0.08** 0.74** 0.04** uchha small 57.18 26.84 19.42 61.82 14.89 12.56 63.67 24.72 1.48 86.28 1.72 long(usl) 1.04** 0.53** -0.64** 2.77** -1.22** -1.17** -7.55** -2.45** -0.10** -1.46** 0.06** uchha 56.65 14.89 4.02 55.45 6.12 8.46 16.83 94.28 1.34 67.24 2.26 bolder (ub) -0.29** -2.16** 1.16** -3.47** -5.93** -1.01** -33.10** 23.44** 0.17** 1.01** -0.03** mc 30 59.15 23.98 18.23 59.72 32.87 11.39 95.40 21.45 1.78 90.17 2.11 -0.59** 1.04** -1.38** 1.07** 2.60** -0.66** 10.81** -2.67** 0.10** 0.64** -0.07** mc 105 61.18 22.81 20.23 62.34 20.45 16.56 90.94 20.94 1.82 94.38 1.82 1.80** -0.76** -0.18** 2.16** -0.51** 0.69** 2.88** -0.32** -0.10** 1.77** -0.03** mc-10 59.77 19.92 23.34 70.71 16.98 14.14 98.66 24.84 1.71 93.61 1.70 0.40** -0.57** -8.86** 2.27** 0.35** 0.20** 1.21** -2.51** -0.01** -3.07** 0.03** mean values are shown in bold and gca values in italics; * and ** significantly superior at 5% and 1% levels, respectively j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):105-108, 2011 thangamani et al prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 107 table 3. mean performance, sca and standard heterosis in important bitter gourd hybrids for yield and quality traits parent days to node-number sex days to fruit fruit fruit number yield of ascorbic iron first at which ratio first length girth weight of fruits fruits acid content female first female harvest per vine per vine flower flower appearance appeared preethi x 52.18 20.20 11.90 57.62 11.84 13.65 105.79 37.02 3.42 104.81 2.53 mc-30 -4.97** 0.35** 2.82** -4.91** -2.84** 0.43** -5.39** 8.66** 0.70** 10.05** 0.46** -4.04 -29.58** -29.90** -9.70** -56.80** -6.44** 35.96** 58.99** 72.73** 8.01** 17.67** kr x usl 59.47 20.88 17.47 58.39 18.45 14.99 110.75 36.98 3.24 104.12 2.74 1.39** -2.10** -4.66** -1.00** 0.85** 0.81** 24.66** 7.32** 0.93** 8.73** 0.42** 9.37** -27.21** 2.92** -8.49** -32.68** 2.74** 42.33** 58.81** 63.64** 7.30** 27.44** mc 105 x 59.76 19.98 16.87 61.56 20.68 18.43 78.65 40.24 2.65 100.18 2.61 mc 10 0.24 1.02** -3.96 -3.53** 0.07** 3.00** -3.35 13.11** 1.07** 5.27** 0.49** 9.90** -30.35** **-0.62 -3.53** -24.54** 26.32** **1.03 72.82** 33.84** 3.24** 21.40** green long x 60.76 20.61 16.02 59.29 26.54 15.51 90.72 32.92 2.65 97.18 2.73 preethi 1.68** -2.27** -4.19** -2.55** 1.27** 0.37** -9.87** 4.84** 0.22** 0.06* 0.16** 11.74** -28.15** -5.63** -7.08** -3.16 6.31** 16.59** 41.38** 38.84** 0.15** 26.98** priyanka x 55.62 27.96 19.92 58.22 23.66 14.86 100.51 31.03 2.56 108.11 2.01 co -1 -0.67** 1.47** -7.32** -6.05** -1.94** 0.62** 5.42** 6.34** 0.67** 11.42** 0.40** 2.29** -2.53** 17.35** -8.76** -13.67** 1.85* 29.17** 33.26** 29.29** 11.41** 6.51** preethi x 56.86 18.23 15.92 60.21 20.1117.23 99.46 29.56 2.31 91.12 2.03 co -1 2.00** -3.24** -6.71** -8.10** 0.35** 1.70** 1.54* 3.37** 0.16** 9.01** 0.33** 10.09** -36.45** -6.622** -5.64** -26.62** 18.09** 27.82** 26.95** 16.67** 6.10** 5.58** mc 105 x 65.96 21.92 17.88 70.36 21.98 17.54 98.14 19.49 2.28 95.41 1.81 green long -0.35 -0.99** -0.97** 1.04** 2.16** 0.09 -0.66 3.76** 0.13** 23.00** -0.05** 21.31** -23.58** 5.33** 10.26** -19.80** -11.31** 26.13** -16.30** -38.89** -1.67* -15.81** preethi x ub 54.89 14.78 11.92 63.77 10.99 12.63 62.28 55.92 2.21 90.14 1.84 -1.48** -0.72** -0.79** -0.51 0.87** 0.37** 0.7 7.01** 0.19** 0.21 -0.15** 0.95** -48.47** -29.78** -0.06 -59.90** -13.43** -19.96** 140.15** 11.62** -7.11** -14.42** kr x mc-30 57.86 26.81 23.84 67.29 23.66 13.91 102.76 18.89 1.77 90.21 1.44 -3.25** -1.23** 0.66** 1.24** -1.23** 2.22** -2.38** 3.03** 0.22** 0.48 -0.13** 6.41** -6.54** 40.44** 5.45** -13.67** -4.66** 32.07** -18.87** -10.61** -7.03** -33.02** mean values are shown in bold, sca values in italics and standard heterosis values in normal font* and ** significantly superior at 5% and 1% levels, respectively the parent ‘preethi’ was found to outperform other parents by its favourable mean performance and gca effect together for the following characters: node of first femaleflower appearance, sex ratio, fruit weight, fruit yield, ascorbic acid and iron content. this was followed by co-1 for days to first female-flower appearance, days to first harvest, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit yield, ascorbic acid and iron content (table 2). five parents, viz., uchha bolder, mc-30, preethi, uchha small long and mc-105 possessed lower values for the character of sex ratio. in majority of the cases, parents with high mean performance were found to show a significant gca effect, and this was in conformity with reports of lawande and patil (1990) and sundaram (2006) in bitter gourd. high specific-combining ability of a particular crosscombination results mostly from dominance and interaction effects existing between the hybridizing parents (sundaram, 2006). a close observation of top-performing hybrids with superior sca for most traits also revealed a similar trend. significance of sca was registered for number of fruits, fruit yield and quality parameters in the cross combinations ‘preethi x mc-30’, ‘kr x usl’, ‘mc-105’ x ‘mc-10’, ‘gl x preethi’ and ‘priyanka x co-1’. cross combinations with high sca can be well-utilized in heterosis breeding, as reported by sirohi and choudhury (1977) and sundaram (2006) in bitter gourd. evaluation of hybrids based on three criteria, viz., mean, sca and standard heterosis, could lead to identification of different sets of cross-combinations for each of these criteria. however, scope for exploiting hybrid vigour in heterosis breeding depends not only on the extent of heterosis for individual traits, but also on mean performance and sca effects of the hybrids. hence, it would be more appropriate to evaluate hybrids based on the above three criteria. such evaluation revealed that none of the hybrids exhibited superiority for all the three criteria with regard to any of the characters studied. evaluation of f 1 hybrids in bitter gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):105-108, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 108 hybrid ‘preethi x mc-30’ registered favourable values for mean, significant sca and standard heterosis for the most important characters like earliness, number of fruits, fruit yield and quality parameters. the other top-performing hybrids with respect to yield and quality parameters were kr x usl, mc-105 x mc-10, gl x preethi and priyanka x co-1 (table 3). in any hybridization programme, correct choice of male and female parents becomes necessary to obtain a superior cross-combination; and this, in fact, is revealed by significance of sca among reciprocal crosses. reciprocal effects may be due to cytoplasmic inheritance and the maternal effect. among the reciprocal crosses, hybrid combinations identified as superior (based on the sca effect for yield contributing characters coupled with quality parameters viz., number of fruits, fruit yield, ascorbic acid and iron content) were: priyanka x co-1 and preethi x co1. significant reciprocal effects have been reported earlier in bitter gourd by gopalakrishnan (1986), devadas (1993) and sundaram (2006). in the top-yielding hybrids, viz., preethi x mc-30, kr x usl and mc-105 x mc-10, reciprocal effects were negative and significant. these performed badly in their reciprocal combinations for fruit yield, which could be due to the maternal effect. such non-significant reciprocal effects have been reported earlier too in bitter gourd by devadas (1993). considering the three criteria, viz., mean, sca and standard heterosis, hybrids ‘preethi x mc-30’, ‘kr x usl’, ‘mc-105 x mc-10’, ‘gl x preethi’ and ‘priyanka x co-1’ can be well-exploited in heterosis breeding to obtain higher yield, with quality fruits. moreover, these hybrids can be better-utilized for improvement of the characters listed above and by intermating among superior segregants resulting from these heterotic hybrids. this likely to throw up desirable progeny in subsequent generations. references devadas, v.s. 1993. genetic studies on fruit and seed yield and quality in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). ph.d. (hort.) thesis, tnau, coimbatore gopalakrishnan, r. 1986. diallel analysis in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.), m.sc. (hort.) thesis, tnau, coimbatore, india griffing, 1956. concept of general and specific combining ability in relation to diallel crossing systems. australian j. biol. sci., 9:483-493 lawande, k.e. and patil, a.v. 1990. studies on combining ability and gene action in bitter gourd. j. maharashtra agril. univ., 15:24-28 rai, m. and pandey, a.k. 2007. towards a rainbow revolution. the hindu survey of indian agriculture,112-119p sharma, j.r. 1994. in: principles and practice of plant breeding, tata mc graw hill publication. co. ltd., new delhi, 152p singh, p. and narayanan, s.s. 1993. in: biometrical techniques in plant breeding. kalyani publishers, new delhi, 187p sirohi, p.s. and choudhury, b. 1977. combining ability in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). veg. sci., 4:107-115 sundaram, v. 2006. studies on genetics of yield and yield components in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) under salinity. ph.d (hort.) thesis, tnau, coimbatore, india (ms received 15 september 2011, revised 12 december 2011) thangamani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):105-108, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction tomato (solanum esculentum) is the second most popular vegetable next to potato in the world (bhatia et al, 2006). it is considered an important vegetable crop, and a model species for introduction of agronomically important genes into dicotyledonous crop plants. the most often used pathway of regeneration in tomato is via shoot organogenesis from callus, leaf or cotyledon explants, or, directly from thin cell layers of inûorescence (bhatia et al, 2004). in vitro regeneration through organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis can be used for multiplication of genetically identical clones and is an integral part of genetic transformation procedures. in vitro morphogenetic responses of cultured plants are affected by different components of culture media and it is important to evaluate their effect on plant regeneration. although advances have been made towards better understanding of metabolic processes related to regeneration (cairney et al, 2000), determining conditions for in vitro plant regeneration is still largely at an empirical stage. thus, in vitro regeneration can be difficult to achieve in some plant species or in particular genotypes within the species. among lycopersicon species, l. peruvianum is considered to be highly organ-specific in its response, and regeneration of shoots from roots has already been documented (koornneeff et al, 1993). other genotypes have also been described for their ability to form shoots on calli derived influence of growth regulators and explant on plant regeneration in tomato atul batra and b.k. banerji floriculture section, national botanical research institute rana pratap marg, lucknow-226001, india e-mail : banerjibk@yahoo.co.in abstract influence of different growth regulators was studied on in vitro growth and regeneration of tomato (solanum esculentum) explants derived from hypocotyls and cotyledons of aseptically grown seedlings. on the basis of regeneration frequency, number of shoot primordia and shoots produced per explants, it is concluded that the best regeneration is achieved on murashige and skoog (ms) medium supplemented with 0.5 mg l”1 of indole-3-acetic acid and 1.0 mg l”1 zeatin. in all the genotypes studied, a good percentage of regeneration frequency was observed in hypocotyl explants used. key words: cotyledon, explants, genotype, hypocotyl, shoot primordia from hypocotyls (l. pimpinellifolium wv700; faria and illg, 1996), cotyledons (l. esculentum cv. uc82; hamza and chupeau, 1993) and suspension cells (l. esculentum cv. vfnt; meredith, 1979). in the present study, an attempt has been made to compare effects of various growth regulators on shoot induction and plant regeneration in tomato. material and methods tomato (solanum esculentum) cultivars, pusa ruby, ailsa craig and arka vikas, were used in the present investigation. seeds were purchased from the local market of lucknow city. seeds of cv. ailsa craig were procured from research institute of crop production (france). surface-sterilization of seeds was done for 15 min with 1% sodium hypochlorite solution and seed were rinsed three to four times with sterile (autoclaved) water. thereafter, the seeds were allowed to germinate in glass containers with half-strength ms medium comprising ms salts (murashige and skoog, 1962), 2.5 mg l”1 thiamine, 1.0 mg l”1 pyridoxine, 1.0 mg l”1 nicotinic acid and 1.5% (w/v) sucrose. the generation medium was solidified with 0.8% (w/v) agar. cultures were incubated initially for two days in dark at 26±1°c temperature. these were maintained under a photoperiod of 16h illumination, with a light intensity of 50µmol m”2 s”1. in vitro grown seedlings were used as the source for j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):130-132, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 131 two types of explant: hypocotyl and cotyledon segment. each cotyledonary leaf was cut transversely into two segments (proximal and distal), which were placed with their adaxial surface in contact with the medium whereas, hypocotyls were cut into three segments (lower, middle and upper), and were placed horizontally on the surface of regeneration medium. for induction of regeneration, the following media were used: (a) ms1 {ms medium without growth regulators (control)} (b) ms2 {ms medium + 0.5 mg l”1 iaa+ 1.0 mg l”1 zeatin} (c) ms3 {ms medium +1.2 mg l”1 bap + 0.5 mg l”1 naa} (d) ms4 {ms medium + 2.5 mg l”1 bap+ 0.4mg l”1 naa} (e) ms5 {ms medium + 3.5 mg l”1 bap + 0.5 mg l”1 naa} culture conditions and statistical analysis culture media were adjusted to ph 5.8 before autoclaving at 121ºc and 15lb/in2 for 20 min. cultures were incubated in a growth chamber at 26±2ºc under 16h light (2000 lux) and 8h dark. experiments were designed in completely randomized design (crd) and data are presented with standard error (se) (snedecor and cochran, 1967). regeneration of explants was assessed at five weeks from culture. the following parameters were evaluated: (1) frequency of regeneration (number of regenerating explants /number of plated explants) x 100 (2) number of shoots and shoot primordial per explant plated results and discussion in vitro morphogenic response of cultures was seen to be affected by different components of culture media, especially by concentration of growth hormones. it is, therefore, important to evaluate hormonal effects on plant regeneration. tomato is one of the most studied plants owing to its importance as a crop species, and its several advantages in genetic, molecular and physiological studies (mccormick et al, 1986). two types of explants, derived from cotyledons and hypocotyls, were isolated from seedlings of three tomato cultivars. forty to forty five segments from each type of explant were cultured on ms medium variously supplemented with different growth regulators. frequency of adventitious shoot regeneration was seen to differ with the type of explants, and, type and concentrations of growth regulators added to the medium. medium supplemented with 0.5 mg l”1 iaa +1.0 mg l”1 zeatin (ms2 medium) was the most effective (100%) at inducting adventitious shoots from hypocotyl explants in all cultivars table 1 adventitious shoot regeneration in tomato explants and cultivars on ms medium supplemented with various growth regulators. the data were recorded at 5 weeks from culture number of shoots and shoot primordia per explant (± se) pusa ruby arka vikas ailsa craig explant hypocotyl cotyledon hypocotyl cotyledon hypocotyl cotyledon medium ms1 3.10±0.31 0 4.98±0.89 0 4.95±0.12 0 medium ms2 6.31±1.12 5.90±1.22 6.69±1.14 5.45±0.86 6.98±1.03 5.78±0.32 medium ms3 2.43±0.40 4.12±1.91 3.51±0.24 5.40±0.90 2.97±0.11 5.24±1.02 medium ms4 3.49±1.01 4.39±1.85 3.48±0.11 4.67±0.12 4.26±1.01 5.31±1.05 medium ms5 3.18±1.20 3.12±0.44 5.61±0.92 4.62±0.73 4.02±0.71 5.09±0.89 ± se = standard error; each treatment is an average of 25 replicates growth regulators on tomato regeneration fig 1. regeneration frequency of cotyledons across cultivars ms 1 ms 2 ms3 ms4 ms5 induction medium r e g e n e ra ti o n f re q u e n cy ( % ) 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 ms 1 ms 2 ms3 ms4 ms5 r e g e n e ra ti o n f re q u e n cy ( % ) 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 induction medium pusa ruby arka vikas ailsa craig pusa ruby arka vikas ailsa craig j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):130-132, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 132 studied (fig.1). regeneration frequency of cotyledons was cultivar-dependent and renged from 67% to 100% in media supplemented with various concentrations of bap and naa, and from 75% to 100% in medium supplemented with zeatin. results of our experiment confirm the positive influence of growth regulators on number of shoots regenerating from tomato cotyledons and hypocotyls. in all the cultivars, zeatin-supplemented media gave higher number of shoots and shoot-primordia per explant (table 1). we observed weaker effect of bap on adventitious shoot regeneration in tomato compared to zeatin, and this corresponded with frequency of regeneration for a particular cultivar. results of our experiments are in very close proximity to findings of other workers (nogueira et al, 2001). the most efficient medium for in vitro regeneration of tomato is induction medium supplemented with the cytokinin zeatin. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to director, national botanical research institute, lucknow, for his kind help during the course of the above study. references bhatia, p., ashwath, n., senaratna, t. and david, m. 2004. tissue culture studies of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum). pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 78:1–21 cairney, j., xu, n., mackay, j. and pullman, j. 2000. special symposium: in vitro plant recalcitrance transcript profilg: a tool to assess the development of conifer embryos. in vitro cell. dev. biol. pl., 36: 152-162 faria, r.t. and illg, r.d. 1996. inheritance of in vitro plant regeneration ability in the tomato. rev. brasil. genética, 19:113-116 hamza, s. and chupeau,y. 1993. re-evaluation of conditions for plant regeneration and agrobacterium-mediated transformation from tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). j. exptl. bot., 44:1837-1845 koornneeff, m., bade, j., hanhart, c., horsman, k., schel, j., soppe, w., verkerk, r. and zabel, p. 1993. characterization and mapping of a gene controlling shoot regeneration in tomato. pl. j., 3:131-141 mccormick, s., niedermeyer, j., fry, j., branason, a., horsch, r. and fraley,r. 1986. leaf disc transformation of cultivated tomato (l. esculentum) using agrobacterium tumefaciens. pl. cell rep., 5:81-84 meredith, c.p. 1979. shoot development in established callus cultures of cultivated tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). z. pûanzenphysiol. bd., 95:405411 murashige, t. and s koog, f. 1962. a revised medium for napid growth and bioassays with tabacco cultures. physiol. plant., 15:473-497 nogueira, f.t.s., costa, m.g., figueira, m.l., otoni, w.c. and finger, f.l. 2001. in vitro regeneration of santa clara tomato plantlets and its natural mutant firme. sci. agrotec. lavras., 25:36-71 snedecor, g.w. and cochran, w.g. 1967. statistical methods. 6 ed., iowa univ., iowa, usa (ms received 12 july 2011, revised 16 august 2011) atul batra and banerji j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):130-132, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no effect of soil and foliar application of nutrients on growth and yield in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) kamal narayan, p. dubey, d. sharma, vijay t. katre, s.p. tiwari and anita mishra1 department of horticulture indira gandhi krishi vishwavidyalaya, raipur492006, india e-mail : kamalnarayan37@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of foliar feeding of watersoluble fertilizers in combination with soil-applied fertilizers on growth, yield and quality attributes in tomato cv. pant t-3. the experiment was laid out during 2009-10 in a randomized block design with four replications and six treatments. water-soluble fertilizers were sprayed along with different levels of soil-applied fertilizers. results of the experiments revealed that among the treatments, 87.5% recommended dose of npk + foliar spray of water-soluble fertilizers recorded tallest plants, higher number of primary and secondary branches, more fruits per cluster, fruits per plant, fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit pericarp thickness, highest fruit yield per plant and fruit-yield per hectare. however, early flowering and fruiting were observed in the control (100% recommended dose of fertilizer). economically, 87.5% recommended dose of npk + foliar spray of water-soluble fertilizers was recorded highest net return of, rs.1,25,890.05 and highest benefit:cost ratio of 2.73, in our trial. key words: foliar nutrition, water-soluble fertilizers, tomato, yield short communication tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) is one of the popular and important vegetables grown in india. efficiency of fertilizers applied to soil is generally low due to various losses and due to fixation. foliar application of nutrients eliminates the problems of fixation and immobilization. hence, foliar nutrition is recognized as an important method of fertilization in modern agriculture. tomato is a crop highly responsive to foliar application of nutrients especially, during the critical stages. thus, foliar application provides ample scope for utilization of nutrients efficiently and for correcting nutrient deficiencies rapidly. a great difficulty in supplying macro nutrients through foliage is non-availability of suitable water-soluble fertilizers. watersoluble fertilizers are a better source of nutrients for foliar application (vibhute, 1998). recently, new generation watersoluble fertilizers exclusively for foliar feeding have been introduced. these fertilizers have different ratios of n, p & k and are highly water-soluble, hence, ideal for foliar nutrition (jeybal et al, 1998). method of nutrient application plays an important role in supplying nutrients to plants. traditional supply of nutrients to the tomato crop has been through conventional fertilizers, i.e., urea, ssp, mop, 1mats university, raipur (c.g.) etc. however, with the changing scenario, water-soluble fertilizers (wsf) are being used both for drip and foliar application. with these factors in view, the present investigation was undertaken in tomato to study the effect of foliar feeding of water-soluble fertilizers, in combination with soil-applied fertilizers, on growth, yield and quality attributes tomato cv. pant t-3. the experiment was conducted at the research-cuminstructional farm, department of horticulture, indira gandhi krishi vishwavidyalaya, raipur (c.g.), during rabi season of 2009-10, to work out the optimum dose of soilapplied fertilizers in combination with foliar spray of watersoluble fertilizes. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with six treatments in four replications. treatment schedule was as follows: t 1 100% recommended dose of fertilizers (100:80:60), control t 2 100% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf t 3 87.5% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):101-103, 2012 102 t 4 75% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf t 5 62.5% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf t 6 50% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf the experimental plots were 8.0m x 2.5m in size and consisted of eight rows, with a spacing of 60cm in between rows and 45cm between plants. the soil in the experimental field was clay-loam in texture, with ph 7.1 (neutral), available n 218 kg ha-1 (low), available p 17.2 kg ha-1 (medium), available k 311 kg ha-1 (high) and organic matter content 0.5%. different factorial levels of recommended dose of fertilizer were applied at the time of field preparation as a basal dose. water-soluble fertilizers (19:19:19, 13:0:45, and 0:52:34) were applied @ 2% (20 g l-1) at different stages of growth, i.e., two sprays of 19:19:19 during the vegetative stage, 0:52:34 during the flowering stage and two sprays of 13:0:45 during fruit-development stage. observations on growth and yield were recorded in randomly selected plants. total soluble solids were recorded using a refractometer. mean data were statistically analyzed as per panse and sukhatme (1989) and benefit:cost ratio was also calculated. data presented in table i reveal that plant height in tomato cv. pant t-3 differed significantly between the treatments. maximum plant height (122.71cm), highest number of primary branches (4.73) and secondary branches (14.73) per plant was recorded in the treatment with 87.5% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf. similar findings were reported by prabhu (1998) and karpagam et al (2004) in hybrid brinjal. higher levels of nitrogen and phosphorus at the early stage may have encouraged higher number of auxiliary buds to sprout and, ultimately, resulted in higher number of primary and secondary branches per plant. similar results of better branching with foliar application of nutrients were reported by chaurasia et al (2006). treatment with 87.5% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf also recorded delayed flowering (64.45 days), 50% flowering (75.20 days) and fruiting (69.02 days) (table 1). however, earliest flowering (50.60 days), 50% flowering (58.16 days) and fruiting (54.81 days) was noted in the control which may be due to difference in levels of available nitrogen, as, the control did not receive foliar nitrogen. similar findings were also reported by ahmad and choudhary (1990) wherein application of n delayed flowering in tomato. results in table 2 reveal that number of fruits per cluster, fruits per plant, fruit weight, fruit diameter and fruit pericarp thickness differed significantly between treatments. highest number of fruits per cluster (5.55) and fruits per plant (69.52) was observed in the treatment with 87.5% recommended dose of fertilizers + foliar spray of wsf. the increase in number of fruits per cluster and number of fruits per plant could be due to increased supply of nutrients at critical growth stages, i.e., flowering and fruit-set (naik et al, 2002). jeybal et al (1998) and vibhute (1998) also reported similar findings. higher fruit weight (53.14g), fruit diameter (5.30cm) and fruit pericarp thickness (5.02mm) were observed in the same treatment too. these findings are in conformity with results of nanthakumar and veeraragavathatham (1999) and narayanamma et al (2002). data pertaining to yield attributing characters given in table 2 reveal that highest fruit yield per plant (3.44kg), per hectare (127.40t) and benefit:cost ratio (2.73) was recorded in treatment t3, while lowest yield per plant (1.97kg), per hectare (72.96t) and b:c ratio (1.59) was table 1. effect of foliar feeding of water-soluble fertilizers on growth and flowering of tomato cv. pant t-3 treatment plant numbers numbers days to days to 50% days to1st height of primary of secondary 1st flowering flowering fruiting (cm) branches branches t1 100% rdf* (control) 75.22 2.81 9.51 50.60 58.16 54.81 t2 100% rdf + foliar spray of wsf 116.33 3.76 14.03 59.95 68.79 65.58 t3 87.5% rdf +foliar spray of wsf 122.71 4.73 14.73 64.45 75.20 69.02 t4 75% rdf + foliar spray of wsf 104.67 4.13 13.19 56.20 67.09 62.01 t5 62.5%rdf + foliar spray of wsf 92.54 3.64 12.69 56.41 65.87 61.42 t6 50% rdf + foliar spray of wsf 87.01 3.40 11.84 51.56 58.71 55.89 se(d) + 7.28 0.38 1.28 4.10 5.33 0.58 cd (p=0.05) 15.51 0.81 2.74 8.73 11.37 1.13 *recommended dose of fertilizer j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):101-103, 2012 kamal narayan et al 103 recorded in the control. similar response in tomato was reported by palaniappan et al (1999). among various treatments, treatment t 3 (87.5% recommended dose of fertilizer+foliar spray of water-soluble fertilizers) recorded tallest plants, higher number of primary and secondary branches, number of fruits per cluster, fruits per plant, fruit weight, fruit diameter, fruit pericarp thickness, fruit yield per plant, fruit yield per hectare and tss content of the fruit. however, time taken to first flowering, 50% flowering and fruiting was less in control (100% recommended dose of fertilizer). thus, t 3 (87.5% recommended dose of fertilizer + foliar spray of watersoluble fertilizer) was found to be highly beneficial for maximizing the yield of tomato cv. pant t-3, yielding a high benefit:cost ratio. references ahmad, c.m.s. and choudhry, m.a. 1990. effect of nitrogen on some yield parameters in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) under maidugari environmental condition. sharhad j. agri, 6:155-158 chaurasia, s.n.s., singh, k.p. and mathura rai. 2006. response of tomato to foliar application of watersoluble fertilizers. veg. sci., 42:66-70 jeybal, a., murlidhar rao, m. palanippam, s.p. and chelliah, s. 1998. technical bulletin on specialty fertilizers. nagarjuna agricultural research and development institute, secunderabad, m/s nagarjuna fertilizer co. (pvt.) ltd. hyderabad karpagam, r., kannan, m., natarajan, s. and srinivasan, k. 2004. studies on the efficacy of foliar feeding of water-soluble fertilizers on growth parameters and yield of brinjal hybrid cobh-1. south ind. hort., 52:139-142 naik, l.b., prabhakar, m. and tiwari, r.b. 2002. influence of foliar sprays with water soluble fertilizers on yield and quality of carrot (daucus carota l.) procs. int,’l conf. vegetables, bangalore, p:183 nanthakumar, s. and veeraragavathatham, d. 1999. effect of integrated nutrient management on yield and yield attributes of brinjal cv. plr.1. south ind. hort.,47: 42-48 narayanamma, m., sai reddy, c.,-chiranjeevi, c.h. and prabhakar reddy, i. 2002. infuence of water-soluble fertilizers on yield of brinjal. veg. sci., 33:94-95 palanippan, s.p., jeybal, a. and chelliah, s. 1999. response of tomato to chillito foliar application of specialty fertilizers. veg. sci., 26:198-200 panse, v.g. and sukhame, p.v. 1989. statistical methods for agricultural workers. 5th edition, icar, new delhi vibhute, c.p. 1998. a process for manufacturing complex solid and liquid completely water-soluble fertilizers. fert. news., 43:63 table 2. effect of foliar feeding of water-soluble fertilizers on yield and quality in tomato cv. pant t-3 treatment no. of no. of fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit tss bc** fruits fruits weight diameter pericarp yield per yield (%) ratio per cluster per plant (g) (cm) thickness plant per (mm) (kg) ha.(t) t1 100% rdf* 3.44 46.45 36.51 3.58 3.53 1.97 72.96 0.65 1.59 (control) t2 100% rdf + 4.61 65.94 51.43 4.76 4.69 3.31 122.59 0.53 2.53 foliar spray of wsf t3 87.5% rdf + 5.55 69.52 53.14 5.30 5.02 3.44 127.40 0.58 2.73 foliar spray of wsf t4 75% rdf + 4.48 60.60 46.88 4.67 4.45 2.84 105.18 0.61 2.51 foliar spray of wsf t5 62.5%rdf + 4.30 57.56 41.57 4.47 4.01 2.75 101.85 0.59 2.40 foliar spray of wsf t6 50% rdf + 4.02 57.48 41.43 3.98 3.80 2.68 99.26 0.58 2.43 foliar spray of wsf se(d) + 0.58 4.72 5.14 0.54 0.45 0.37 0.56 0.30 cd (p=0.05) 1.23 10.07 10.96 1.15 0.97 0.79 1.20 0.64 *recommended dose of fertilizer **benefit : cost ratio (ms received 6 january 2011, revised 9 january 2012) effect of spacing on growth and yield in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):101-103, 2012 sclerotinia sclerotiorum (lib.) de bary [syn. s. libertiana fuckel: whetzelinia sclerotiorum (lib.) korf and dunont], commonly called the white mold, is among the most non-specific, omnivorous and successful plant pathogens. plants susceptible to this pathogen belong to 64 families, 225 genera and 361 species (purdy, 1979) and the pathogen has an ability to survive in soil for long periods as sclerotia (purdy, 1979; willetts and wong, 1980). the pathogen attacks nearly all kinds of succulent plants including flowers, shrubs weeds and almost all vegetables (chupp and sherf, 1960). phaseolous lunatus (lima bean) is one of the important vegetable crops. its fresh seeds can be used as vegetable and dry seed as pulse for human consumption and as fodder in general, especially for mulch cattle. the crop suffers due to infection of sclerotinia sclerotiorum (lib.) de bary which causes white mold. the pods can become infected while on the plant and at post-harvest. to combat the disease, soil solarization (ferraz, 2001), crop rotation and chemical control (kurozawa and pavan, 1997) are employed. due to lack of adequate levels of host resistance, many fungicides have been employed to control sclerotinia disease (steadman, 1979; bardin and huang, 2001). use of fungicides to control s. sclerotiorum has been evaluated in snap bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.). efficacy of fungicides for control of white mold (sclerotinia sclerotiorum lib.) de bary in lima bean ashutosh pandey, amita j. mathew, madhu kamle, rupesh kumar mishra and pradeep kumar plant pathology laboratory central institute for subtropical horticulture rahmankhera, lucknow227 107, india e-mail : ashutosh.pandeybt@gmail.com abstract white mold of lima bean (phaseolous lunatus) caused by sclerotinia sclerotiorum is a major disease in india. isolates of the pathogen from different region of uttar pradesh were assayed both in vitro and in the greenhouse (in vivo) for their sensitivity to eight commercially available fungicides, viz., dithiocarbamic acid, carbendazim, ziram, phenylthiourea, carboxin + dithiocarbamic acid, difenoconazole, hydrogen sulphide, and mancozeb. phenylthiourea and difenoconazole were found to be most effective and these inhibited radial growth of the test organism a level of to 71.5% and 70.5%, respectively. these two fungicides were also found as most promising in controlling the disease under greenhouse conditions, reducing disease severity to 0.14% and 0.22%, respectively compared to the control where it was 18.9%. keywords: sclerotinia sclerotiorum, white mold, phaseolous lunatus, lima bean, fungicides however, control has been inconsistent (hunter et al, 1978; steadman, 1979) primarily due to difficulty in achieving good coverage with the fungicide and timing of application in relation to ascospore release. fungicides have been used successfully on a commercial scale for controlling the disease on soybean, dry bean, oilseed rape and several vegetables (bailey et al, 2001; budge and whipps, 2001; del rio et al, 2004), but, adequate information on the efficacy of various fungicides and their judicious usage is lacking in controlling white mold on p. lunatus (gossen et al, 2001). therefore, the present investigation describes the efficacy of eight commercially available fungicides [which were tested both in vitro and under greenhouse (in vivo) condition] against the pathogen causing white mold in p. lunatus. maintenance of sclerotinia sclerotiorum isolates five isolates of s. sclerotiorum used in the present study were collected from infected p. lunatus plants growing in five different districts of uttar pradesh namely faizabad, akbarpur, gonda, basti and lucknow (table 1). the pathogen was isolated on pda plates and the isolates were further purified by growing sclerotia singly from each colony on potato dextrose agar (pda) slants. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):114-117, 2012 115 colony characteristics radial growth (mm), morphology and number of sclerotia per plate were evaluated in petri dishes on pda. at least three pda plates were inoculated with 5mm dia. mycelial discs taken from the margin of actively growing five day old colonies in each plate. inoculated plates were then incubated at 25±2oc. colony diameter was measured every day until fifth day. number of sclerotia per plate was estimated at 20-25 days of incubation. data from replicated plates were averaged. colony morphology was also observed at 10 days of incubation. in vitro experiment eight fungicides, viz., dithiocarbamic acid, carbendazim, ziram, phenylthiourea, carboxin + dithiocarbamic acid, difenoconazole, hydrogen sulphide and mancozeb (table 2) were evaluated for control of white mold fungus on pda and on seedlings of p. lunatus as per bhaktavatsalam et al (1978). greenhouse experiment eight commercially available fungicides were evaluated for control of s. sclerotiorum on p. lunatus as per mueller et al (2002). colony characteristics: data on colony characteristics, growth rate, number of sclerotia per plate and period taken for sclerotia formation in five isolates of s. sclerotiorum collected from different location is presented in table 1. of the five, three isolates collected from faizabad, akbarpur and gonda formed fluffy colonies whereas, isolates from basti and lucknow had compact colonies. the isolate collected from basti showed maximum growth rate, i.e., 48mm per day, and the isolate collected from lucknow showed minimum growth of 35mm per day. a maximum of 42 sclerotia per plate were formed in the isolate collected from akbarpur, whereas only 19 sclerotia per plate were formed in the lucknow isolate. all the isolates took uniformly seven days for sclerotia formation. fungicides in control of white mold in lima bean table 1. colony characteristics of various isolates of sclerotinia sclerotiorum collected during 2007 on host phaseolus lunatus isolate(s) place of colony growth rate no. of sclerotia period (days) of pattern of sclerotium collection morphology (mm per day) per plate sclerotium formation formation ss 1 faizabad fluffy 40 31 days scattered ss 2 akbarpur fluffy 42 19 days near rim ss 3 gonda fluffy 39 25 days near rim ss 4 basti compact 48 25 days scattered ss 5 faizabad compact 35 12 days scattered table 2. nature of fungicides used and their active chemical s. no. common name iupac name active chemical nature 1 thiram tetramethyl thiuram disulphides dithiocarbamic acid contact 2 bavistin methyl benzimidazol-2-ylcarbamate carbendazim systemic 3 cuman zinc dimethyl dithiocarbamate ziram contact 4 topsin-m methyl-ethyl-thiophanate phenylthiourea systemic 5 vitavax 5,6-dihydro-2-methyl-1,4-oxathi-ine-3-carboxanilide carboxin + dithiocarbamic acid systemic + contact 6 score 1-(2-[4-(4-chlorophenoxy)-2-chlorphenyl]-4-methyl-1, difenoconazole systemic 3-dioxolan-2-yl methyl]-1 h-1,2,4-triazole 7 sulfex elemental sulfur hydrogen sulphide contact 8 indofilm 45 manganese ethylene (dithiocarbamate) (polymeric) mancozeb contact complex with zinc salt table 3. effect of fungicides on percentage inhibition of radial growth of s. sclerotiorum (in vitro) s. sclerotiorumisolates inhibition of radial growth (%) by fungicides dithiocarbamic carbendazim ziram phenylthiourea carboxin + difenoconazole hydrogen sulphide mancozeb acid dithiocarbamic acid ss 1 27.8 34.5 24.6 70.2 34.8 67.9 31.5 42.0 ss 2 34.7 32.5 26.5 71.5 36.5 66.0 30.6 41.4 ss 3 23.4 32.5 22.8 69.6 33.6 68.4 28.6 38.9 ss 4 27.9 33.4 22.8 69.9 34.0 70.5 28.4 39.9 ss 5 32.8 29.8 22.6 69.5 35.3 69.8 32.4 38.9 cd (p>0.05) 0.55 1.02 0.28 1.18 0.88 1.25 0.64 1.04 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):114-117, 2012 116 in vitro experiments: it is clear from data presented in table 3 that all the chemical pesticides tested were effective against the test organism in comparison to control. extent of mycelial growth in s. sclerotiorum in response to each fungicide varied considerably. phenylthiourea was found most effective in reducing mycelial growth by 69.5% to 71.5%, followed by difenoconazole where inhibition was recorded 66% to 71.5%. mancozeb, carboxin + dithiocarbamic acid and carbendazim exhibited intermediate level of inhibition, whereas hydrogen sulphide, ziram and dithiocarbamic acid showed lowest effectiveness in inhibiting mycelial growth. in vitro studies have earlier been used to identify specific fungicide and rate of fungicidal activity against s. sclerotiorum (hawthorne and jarvis, 1973). phenylthiourea has been proved to be effective against fusarium oxysporum and rhizoctonia solani (iqbal et al, 1996) and aganist ascochyta. lentis (rauf et al, 1996). greenhouse experiments: a significant (p<0.05) effect among the eight fungicides tested was observed on disease severity. plants not sprayed with fungicide had expanded foliar lesions that caused defoliation. fungal colonized stems and some plants were dead. phenylthiourea and difenoconazole were most effective in controlling the disease under greenhouse, exhibiting 0.14% and 0.22% disease severity, respectively (table 4). these results are in accordance with earlier findings showing that spraying the whole plant with effective fungicides provides excellent control of s. sclerotiorum (hunter et al, 1978). thus the present study revealed that topsin–m was found to be most effective, both in in vitro and greenhouse conditions, against sclerotinia rot in lima bary. in brinjal (iqbal et al, 2003). muller et al, (2002) reported that plants treated with benomyl, thiophanate methyl and vinclozolin expressed no symptoms or signs of sclerotinia stem rot in soybean. references bailey, k.l., johnson, a.m., kutcher, h.r., gossen, b.d. and morrall, r.a.a. 2001. managing crops losses from foliar diseases with fungicides, rotation and tillage in the saskatchewan parkland spring sown oilseed rape. crop prot., 17:405-411 bardin, s.d. and huang, h.c. 2001. research on biology and control of sclerotinia disease in canada. can. j. pl. pathol., 23:88-98 bhaktavatsalam, g., satyanarayana, k., reddy, a.p.k. and johri, v.t. 1978. evaluation of sheath blight resistance in rice. int’l. rice res. notes., 3:910 budge, s.p. and whipps, j.m. 2001. potential for integrated control of sclerotinia sclerotiorum in glasshouse lettuce using coniothyrium minitans and reduced fungicide application. phytopath, 91:221-227 chupp, c. and sherf, a.f. 1960. sclerotinia diseases in: vegetable diseases and their control. the ronald press company, new york, pp 43-46 del rio, l.e., venette, j.r. and lamey, h.a. 2004. impact of white mold incidence on dry bean yield under nonirrigated conditions. pl. dis., 88:1352-1356 ferraz, l.c.l. 2001. praticas culturais para o manejo de mofo-branco (sclerotinia sclerotiorum) em feijoeiro. piracicaba: usp/esalq, (tese doutorado) gossen, b.d., rimmer, s.r. and holley, j.d. 2001. first report of resistance to benomyl fungicide in sclerotinia sclerotiorum. pl. dis., 85:1206 hawthorne, b.t. and jarvis, w.r. 1973. differential activity of fungicides on various stages in the life cycle of sclerotinia spp. new zealand j. agril. res., 16: 551-557 hunter, j.e., abawi, g.s. and crosier, d.c. 1978. effects of timing, coverage and spray oil on control of white mold of snap bean with benomyl. pl. dis. rep., 62:633-637 hunter, t., hutchinson, m.a. and eckhart, w. 1978. translation of polyoma virus t antigens in vitro. proc. nat’l. acad. sci., usa, 75:5917–5921 iqbal, s.m., bashir, m., rauf, c.a. and mali, b.a. 1996. efficacy of fungicides against soil-borne pathogens of chickpea. pakistan j. phytopathol., 8:6567 ashutosh pandey et al table 4. evaluation of fungicide against s. sclerotiorum under green house condition (in vivo) fungicidesname rate disease severity (kg a.i./ha) in seedlings control (untreated) 18.90 dithiocarbamic acid 0.52 2.60 carbendazim 0.65 1.90 ziram 0.66 2.20 phenylthiourea 0.72 0.14 carboxin + dithiocarbamic acid 0.72 1.30 difenoconazole 1.16 0.22 hydrogen sulphide 0.86 1.10 mancozeb 1.22 0.88 cd (p>0.05) 0.58 0.84 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):114-117, 2012 117 iqbal, s.m., ghafoor, a., ahmad, z. and haqqani, a.m. 2003. pathogenicity and fungicidal efficacy for sclerotinia rot of brinjal. int’l. j. agril. biol., 5: 618-620 kurozawa, c. and pavan, m.a. 1997. doencas do tomateiro. in: kimti, h., amorim, l., bergamin filho, a., camargo, l.e.a. and rezende, j.a.m. (ed.). manual de fitopatologia: doencas das plantas cultivadas. 3. ed. sao paulo agronomica ceres. pp. 690-719 mueller, d.s., dorrance, a.e., derksen, r.c., ozkan, e., kurle, j.e., grau, c.r., gaska, j.m., hartman, g.l., bradley, c.a. and pedersen, w.l. 2002. efficacy of fungicides on sclerotinia sclerotiorum and their potential for control of sclerotinia stem rot on soybean. pl. dis, 86:26–31 purdy, l.h. 1979. sclerotinia sclerotiorum history, diseases and symptomlogy, host range, geographic distribution and impact. phytopathol., 69:875-80 rauf, c.a., iqbal, s.m. and rahat, s. 1996. fungicidal efficacy against ascochyta lentis. pakistan j. phytopathol., 8:49–51 steadman, j.r. 1979. control of plant diseases caused by sclerotinia species. phytopath., 69:904-907 steadman, r.g. 1979: the assessment of sultriness. part ii: effects of wind, extra radiation and barometric pressure on apparent temperature. j. appl. meteor., 18:874-885 willetts, h.j. and wong, a.l. 1980. the biology of sclerotinia sclerotiorum, s. trifoliorum and s. minor with emphasis on specific nomenclature. bot. rev., 46:101-65 (ms received 8 april 2010, revised 4 march, 2012) fungicides in control of white mold in lima bean j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):114-117, 2012 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 58-60, 2006 long term seed storage studies in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) s. d. doijode division of plant genetic resources indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india email: dsd@iihr.emet.in abstract muskmelon cv arka jeet seeds were conserved in moisture permeable, semi permeable and impermeable containers at low (5°c) and sub-zero (-20°c) temperatures for 15 years. seed deterioration in terms of loss of viability and vigour were minimal in low temperature stored seeds. the recovery of viable seed was 86% in -20° c stored seeds after 15 years of storage. seedlings raised from stored seeds were vigorous, healthy and free from morphological abnormalities. storage of muskmelon seeds at sub-zero temperature (-20°c) provides effective protection to genetic and planting material. key words: muskmelon, seeds, storage, low temperature, viability, vigour, germination introduction muskmelon {cucumis melo l) is an important cucurbitaceous vegetable crop, widely cultivated for its juicy fruits and for dessert purposes. the fruit is rich in carbohydrates, vitamin a and c contents. besides seeds are also eaten after removing seed coat. muskmelon is a warm season crop and grows well under tropical and subtropical conditions. the crop is raised through seeds under open and protected cultivation. seeds are also valued for germplasm conservation. they are high value seeds demanding suitable protection during seed storage, to produce high quality plants. two important parameters namely seed viability and vigour determine seed quality, which ensures good seedling establishment and adequate plant population in field. high seed quality is preferred for crop production, crop improvement and genetic conservation. seed storage under improper condition affects the seed quality and causes great loss to farming community (harrington, 1972). several factors are associated with the seed deterioration. low temperature storage is promising in reducing the deterioration (bass, 1980) and helps in preserving the planting and genetic material although the quantum of viable seeds recoverable after a set period is variable. thus, an experiment was conducted with a view to lower the deterioration process by storage at temperatures so that seeds remain viable for fairly longer period. material and methods seeds of cv arka jeet were used for long term storage study. seeds were extracted from mature ripe fruits. they were washed thoroughly in order to remove mucilaginous, inert and chaffy materials. then the seeds were dried to 6.4 per cent moisture content and packed in moisture permeable (per), semi permeable (semi-per) and impermeable (imp) containers and stored at low (5°c) and sub-zero (-20°c) temperatures for 15 years. seed quality in terms of viability and vigour was determined periodically. seed viability was based on the percentage of germination obtained in clelands seed germinator at an alternating temperature cycle of 20-30°c for 16 h and 8 h, respectively. seed viability was calculated on the basis of emergence of 5 10 15 storage period (years) • 5 per • s semi per 5 imp -20 per -»— -20 semi per • -20 imp ; fig. 1. viability of muskmelon seeds stoved at -20° c mailto:dsd@iihr.emet.in doijode table 1. influence of low temperature and storage containers on seed viability and plant vigour in muslinielon storage temp. low (5°c) sub-zero (-20°c) cd at 5% storage containers per sem per imp per sem per imp shoot length (cm) 8.8 9.6 il.o 10.6 10.4 ns root length (cm) 8.6 9.8 11.5 9.8 10.8 ns dry wt (mg) 13.5 16.1 17.7 16.1 18.3 1.9 vigour index-i 751 1302 1651 1319 1843 188 vigour index-ii 584 1077 1301 1047 1589 219 normal seedlings. seedling length was recorded on one week old seedlings. dry weight was recorded on seedlings dried at 65°c for 48 h. vigour index i and vigour index ii were calculated by multiplying percentage of germination with seedling length and dry weight respectively (abdulbaki and anderson, 1972). the data was statistically analysed for variance and means were compared using protected least significant difference test at 0.05 probability level. results and discussion high seed viability (86%) was preserved for 15 years as against two years under ambient conditions (doijode, 1987). loss of seed viability and reduction of seed vigour were rapid under ambient conditions particularly at higher temperature and humidity. seeds preserved in moisture impermeable container viz., laminated aluminium foil pouches at 5° c and -20°c showed 73% and 86% of germination respectively after 15 years of storage (fig. 1). initially high viability was retained for first two years under ambient condition thereafter it declined rapidly. however, high seed viability was maintained at low and sub-zero temperatures for 15 years. the loss of viability was more in the seeds stored in moisture permeable container followed by semi permeable container both at 5°c and -20°c storage. seed quality was affected by chilling injury in moisture permeable container at sub zero temperature. fonseca et al (1980) reported that seeds stored at higher temperature deteriorates faster and exhibit lower germination percentage and lower seedling vigour. such a process was lower at cooler temperatures (harrington, 1972, and doijode, 2002). apart from seed viability, seedling vigour was also well preserved with low temperature storage. high vigour in terms of seedling growth and dry weight accumulation was greater in young seedling emerged from the seeds stored at 20°c (table 1). likewise, these seeds showed higher vigour indices i and ii. seed storage in moisture impermeable container helped in maintenance of high seed quality. seed deterioration process was faster and greater in the seeds stored in moisture permeable containers (bass and clark, 1974). aluminium foil laminated pouches were impermeable to exterior moisture vapour contents and also effective in preserving high seed viability and vigour during storage. muskmelon seeds are high value and low volume material used in crop production, improvement and germplasm conservation. improper handling and storage under ambient condition hastens the process of seed deterioration (doijode, 2002). suitable storage conditions are necessary to minimize the deterioration process so that seeds remain viable for longer period. the importance of an ideal storage is to control loss of viability, simple to use and stable for inheritance of plant characters. as a result, seeds were successfully conserved for longer period. seedlings raised from stored seeds were normal and did not show any morphological variations. further, recovery of viable seeds was high (86%) even after prolonged (15 years) storage. seed storage in moisture impervious containers at -20°c was effective in maintaining high viability and vigour for long-term (15 years). this avoids frequent growing of crop in field, prevent risk of genetic contamination and crop breeder can readily access and conserve the valuable genetic material for future use. references abdul-baki, a. a. and anderson, j. d. 1972. physiological and biochemical deterioration of seeds, pp 283-309. in: seed biology. kozlowski t.t. (ed.). academic press, new york bass, l. n. 1980. seed viability during long term storage. hort. rev. 2:111-141. bass, l. n and clark, d. c. 1974. effect of storage conditions, packaging material and seed moisture content on longevity of safflower seeds. proc. assoc. seed analyst 64:\20-ni. j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 58-60, 2006 59 long term seed storage studies in muskmelon doijode, s. d. 1987. seed longevity in different muskmelon cultivars. vegetable sci., 14:51-54. doijode, s. d. 2002. seed conservation an effective and viable method for the conservation of genetic diversity in cucurbits. proc. int'l. conf. vegetables, bangalore pp 84-88. fonseca, j. r, freire a. de, freire, m. s and zimmerman f. j. p. 1980. conservation of bean seeds under three methods of storage. rev. brasileira sementes, 2:19-27. harrington, j. f. 1972. seed storage and longevity, pp 145245. in: seed biology kozlowski t.t. (ed.). academic press, new york (ms received 27 april, 2006 revised 7 june, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 58-60, 2006 60 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 155 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 155-160, 2019 short communication characterization of rhizoctonia solani causing fruit rot of strawberry (fragaria x ananassa duch.) in wayanad and in vitro evaluation of fungicides, organic preparations and bioagents for its management amrutha p. and reshmy vijayaraghavan department of plant pathology, college of horticulture, kerala agricultural university, vellanikara, thrissur, india. corresponding author email: amruthapvijayan8@gmail.com abstract strawberry, one of the most delicate, sweet and refreshing temperate fruit has grabbed the minds of several farmers and consumers all over the world. several fungal diseases affect it. as part of the study, surveys were carried out in major strawberry growing parts of kerala viz., wayanad, idukki, malappuram and thrissur. however, rotten fruits with dark and hard encrustations were collected only from wayanad district during 2015-16. pathogen was isolated by following the standard protocol and koch’s postulates were proved. upon culturing, the fungal isolate produced white mycelia turning brown on maturation with rapid growth. the hyphae were branched at right angles and did not produce spores. the pathogen was identified as rhizoctonia solani based on cultural and morphological characters. in vitro evaluation was carried out with 9 fungicides and carbendazim 12% + mancozeb 63% , cymoxanil 8% + mancozeb 64%, propineb and bordeaux mixture at all concentrations showed cent per cent inhibition. copper hydroxide and difenoconazole inhibited the pathogen from 54.44 to 75 per cent and 58.88 to 70.55 per cent at 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2 and 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15, respectively. copper oxychloride recorded less than 45 per cent inhibition, whereas carbendazim and potassium phosphonate were found to be least effective. comparing the efficacy of organic preparations against rhizoctonia, calphomil recorded highest inhibition of 55.33 to 63.88 per cent at different concentrations. panchagavya and baking powder + vegetable oil mixture could inhibit the mycelial growth only by 23.33 to 25.50 per cent and 22.22 to 26 per cent, respectively. whereas, neem oil was found to be least effective. biocontrol agents were evaluated against the pathogen and trichoderma asperellum could restrict growth of the pathogen by 66.67 per cent and pseudomonas fluorescens by 33.33 per cent. keywords: bioagents, fungicides, bioagents, rhizoctonia solani and strawberry strawberry (fragaria x ananassa duch.), a delicious fruit, is a hybr id species of fragaria which is cultivated all over the world and is valued for its flavour, aroma and colour. strawberry is an excellent table fruit and has a great demand in processing industry such as preserves, juices, jam and ice cream. united states is the largest producer of strawberry followed by china a nd spa in. pa nchga mimahabaleshwar in maharashtra accounts for 85 per cent of india’s production. kerala has become an important producer of strawberry as it is being cultivated in high range areas likemunnar, vattavada and kanthalloor of idukki district and several other places in wayanad. but, the crop is seriously inflicted by several diseases caused by colletotrichum spp., pestalotia sp., gnomonia comari, botrytis cinerea, rhizoctonia solani, alternaria alternata, rhizopus nigricans and mucor spp. among which, r. solani causing hard rot causes significant yield losses. dodge and stevens (1924) first reported rotting of strawberry fruits in florida incited by r. solani that lead to half the loss of total plants. sharma and bhardwaj (2001), de los santos et al. (2003) and timudo-torrevilla et al. (2005) has also investigated on strawberry fruit rot caused by r. solani. as the crop shares a major part of the fruit industry, there is an emerging trend 156 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 155-160, 2019 amrutha and reshmy vijayaraghavan for the cultivation and processing of the fruits. thus the present investigation was taken up to study the loss caused by the disease in specific locations of kerala, symptomatology and characterization of the associated pathogen, managementof the pathogen usingf ungicides, organic preparations and selected biocontrol agents in vitro. intensive surveys wer e conducted in different strawberry growing tracts of kerala viz., wayanad, malappuram, idukki and thrissur during decemberjanuary, march-april and july-august.during the surveyin ambalavayal, wayanad during decemberjanuary, rotten fruits showing similar symptoms were collected a nd per cent incidencewa s r ecor ded (wheeler, 1969).the pathogen was isolated from infected fruits as per the standard protocol on potato dextrose agar. the cultures thus obtained were maintained at 4°c for further studies. pathogenicity tests were carried out by placing mycelial bits on fruits wounded with ster ile needle a nd observed for development of symptoms. symptoms observed during the survey were recorded and the symptoms shown during the artificial inoculation of pathogen for pathogenicity tests were noted down and compared. cultural and morphological characters viz., colony colour, pigmentations, colour of hyphae, branching pattern, presence of septation on hyphae or conidia were studied. the isolate were identified up to genus level a nd sent to na tiona l centr e for funga l ta xonomy (ncft ), new delhi for fur ther confirmation. nine fungicides (ta ble 1) a nd four orga nic preparations (neem oil, panchagavya, calphomil and baking powder + vegetable oil mixture) each at three different concentrations (recommended, lower and higher) were evaluated in vitro against r. solani by poison food technique (zentmeyer, 1955). media without the fungicide or organic formulation served as control. the plates were then incubated at room temperature (26-±1°c). organic formulations were disinfected under uv light for one hour before mixing with pda medium to avoid contamination. tween 20a non-ionic surfactant, @ 0.2 per cent, was added to the mixture of pda and neem oil to ensure perfect mixing of neem oil with the medium (neves et al., 2001). then required quantity of each formulation was mixed with the medium and plated. observations were taken daily noting the growth rate of fungal pathogen until the cultures on control plates attained full growth. the per cent inhibition of mycelial growth in ea ch tr ea tment wa s r ecor ded (vincent, 1947).efficacy of reference cultures of fungal and bacterial biocontrol agents from kerala agricultural university (kau) viz., trichoderma asperellum and pseudomonas fluorescens were tested against fungal pa thogen of stra wber ry following dua l culture technique (dennis and webstar, 1971). during the survey, rotten fruits with disease were collected dur ing december -ja nua r y fr om ambalavayal, wayanad. during pathogenicity testing symptoms developed as brownish sunken lesions two days after inoculation, which later turned water, soaked spreading to an area of 4cm2. under field conditions, rotten fruits collected from open fields of ambalavayal were black and hard encrustations were formed on either side of the fruits, which ultimately led to fruit rot that was reported,by dodge and stevens (1924) and de los santos et al. (2003). mycelia of pathogen in culture appeared white,later turning light brown producing long thread like hyphae showing fast abundant growth, which attained 90mm within three days in petri plate. margin of colony was circular, smooth and hyphae were hyaline gradually turning brown and branching at 90° below the septa with distinct constrictions. sporulation was absent and the hyphal length ranged from 121.23 to 150.98 μm with new hyphae arising at right angles (fig. 1). based on these cultural and morphological characteristics, the isolate was identified as rhizoctonia spp. and for further confirmation, upto the species level, the isolate was send to ncft, new delhi where the cultures were identified as rhizoctonia solani and thereafter maintained in the repository with id. no. 8232.16. these observations were similar with that of sneh et al. (1991), nechet and halfeld-vieira (2007) and lal and kandhari (2009) in various crops like pigeon pea and rice. in vitro screening of fungicides against r. solani revealed that carbendazim 12% + mancozeb 63%, cymoxanil 8% + mancozeb 64%, propineb 70wp and bordeaux mixture at all concentrations were 100 per cent effective (fig. 2). according to srinivas et al. (2013) and raj et al. (2016), carbendazim 12% + mancozeb 63%showed cent per cent and propineb 96.27 per cent efficacy against r. solani of rice and chilli. however, copper hydroxide and difenoconazole 157 characterization of rhizoctonia solani causing fruit rot of strawberry j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 155-160, 2019 *mean of the three replications in each column figure followed by same letter do not differ significantly according to dmrt. “x+0.5 transformed values are given in parantheses fungicide conc per cent inhibition (%) rhizoctonia solani carbendazim 12% + mancozeb 63% 0.15 100(10) a 0.2 100(10) a 0.25 100(10) a cymoxanil 8% + mancozeb 64% 0.15 100(10) a 0.2 100(10) a 0.25 100(10) a copper hydroxide 77wp 0.1 54.4(7.45)f 0.15 70.87(8.38)c 0.2 75(8.7)b copper oxychloride 50wp 0.2 38.88(6.29)i 0.25 41.66(6.51)h 0.3 43.55(6.67)g propineb 70wp 0.25 100(10) a 0.3 100(10) a 0.35 100(10) a carbendazim 50wp 0.05 0(.7) 0.1 0(.7) 0.15 0(.7) difenconazole 25ec 0.05 58.55(7.69)e 0.1 67.31(8.19)d 0.15 70.44(8.4)c potassium phosphonate 0.25 0(.7)j 0.3 0(.7)j 0.35 0(.7)j bordeaux mixture 0.5 100(10) a 1 100(10) a 1.5 100(10) a cd (0.05) 0.031 table 1: in vitro evaluation of fungicides against rhizoctonia solani inhibited the pathogen from 50 to 70 per cent (table 1). apart from other fungicides, copper oxychloride recorded less than 45 per cent in inhibiting pathogen. conversely, srinivas et al. (2013) and raj et al. (2016) recorded 70 to 100 per cent inhibition of r.solani of rice and chilli with copper oxychloride. carbendazim and potassium phosphonate were found to be the least per cent effective. nevertheless, seema et al. (2010) pointed out higher efficacy of carbendazim in inhibiting r. solani of tobacco. among all the organic preparations tested against r. solani,calphomil recorded the highest inhibition of 55.33 to 63.88 per cent at different concentrations 158 (fig.2) while neem oil was found the least effective. however, pa ncha ga vya a nd ba king powder + vegetable oil mixture could restrict the mycelial growth upto 26 per cent (table 2). several workers pointed out the antifungal activity of panchagavya against r. solani (dogra, 2006; ashlesha and paul, 2014 and jandaik and sharma, 2016) in capsicum. observations on the in vitro eva lua tion of r. solani with trichoderma asperellum tested 66. 67 per cent inhibition and pseudomonas fluorescens exhibited only 33.33 per cent control (fig. 2). in congruence with above findings, amin and razdan (2010), seema and devaki (2012) and srinivas et al. (2013) noticed upto 63. 52 and 71.4 per cent control over r. solaniwith trichoderma viride infecting tomato, tobacco and rice.however, mezeal (2014) noted a higher inhibition of 81. 30 per cent with p. fluorescensagainst r. solani from tomato whereas, tapwal et al. (2015) reported an inhibition of only 1.45 per cent and 5.10 per cent with t. viride and t. harzianum when tested against r. solani. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 155-160, 2019 amrutha and reshmy vijayaraghavan table 2: in vitro evaluation of organic preparations against r.solani sl. no. formulation conc (%) per cent inhibition 1. calphomil 0.2 55.33(7.47)c 0.25 58.33(7.67)b 0.3 63.88(8.01)a 2. neem oil 0.15 0 0.2 0 0.25 0 3. panchagavya 2.0 23.33(4.88)g 3.0 25.38(5.02)f 4.0 25.50(5.11)e 4. baking powder + 0.2 22.22(4.76)h vegetable oil 0.25 23.40(4.8)g 0.3 26.0(5.16)d cd(0.05) 0.019 159 fig. 1: (a) rhizocotonia solani infected straw berry fruit, (b) r. solani on pda, (c) hyphae of r. solani with right angle branching. a) cymoxanil 8%+ mancozeb 64% b) difenoconazole 25ec c) carbendazim 12%+ mancozeb 63% d) copper oxychloride 50wp e) calphomil f) neem oil g) trichoderma asperellum h) pseudomonas fluorescens fig. 2: in vitro evaluation of fungicides and organic formulations against rhizoctonia solani j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 155-160, 2019 characterization of rhizoctonia solani causing fruit rot of strawberry 160 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 155-160, 2019 amrutha and reshmy vijayaraghavan references amin, f and razda n, v. k. 2010. potential of trichoderma species as biocontrol agents of soil bor ne funga l pr opa gules. j. phytol. 2(10):38-41. ashlesha and paul, y.s. 2014. antifungal bioefficacy of organic inputs against fungal pathogens of bell pepper. indian j. res. 3(6):4-6. de los santos, b., barrau, c. and romero, f. 2003. strawberry fungal diseases.j. food agric. environ.1:129-132. dennis, c. and webster, j. 1971. antagonistic properties of species-groups of trichoderma: iii. hyphal interaction.trans. british mycol. soc.57(3):363-369. dodge, b. o. a nd stevens, n. e. 1924. t he rhizoctonia brown rot and other fruit rots of strawberries.j. agric. res.28(7):643-648. dogra, s. 2006. antifungal potential of panchgavya against some soil borne pathogens. m.sc. thesis, department of plant pathology, csk himachal pradesh krishivishvavidyalaya, palampur, india. pp.115. jandaik, s and sharma v. 2016. antifungal potential of panchagavya against soil borne fungal pathogens associated with capsicum nurseries. int. invention j. agric. soil sci .4(2): 22-26. la l, m. a nd ka ndha r i, j. 2009. cultur al a nd morphological variability in rhizoctonia solani isolates causing sheath blight of rice. j. mycol. plant pathol. 39(1):77. mezeal, i. a. 2014. study biocontrol efficacy of pseudomonas fluorescens a nd bacillus subtilis a ga inst rhizoctonia solani a nd fusarium oxysporum causing disease in tomato (lycopersiconesculentum l. ) indian j. fundam. appl. life sci.4(4): 175-183. nechet, k. d. l. and halfeld-vieira, b. a. 2007. first report of rhizoctonia solani causing web blight on pigeonpea in br a zil. fitopatologia brasileira, 32(4), 358-358. raj, lal, a. a., naik, t. s. and shivakumar, k. v. 2016. eva lua tion of fungicides a ga inst rhizoctonia solani the causal agent of seedling rot of chilli.advances in life sci.5(3):729-731. seema, m., devaki, n. s. and sreenivas, s. s. 2010. in vitro eva luation of fungicides against rhizoctonia solani infecting fcv tobacco in karnataka light soils.pestology34(11):36-38. sharma, a. and bhardwaj, l. n. 2001. influence of temperature, relative humidity and nutrient solution on sporangial germination and zoospore liberation in phytophthora cactorum causing leather rot of strawberry. plant dis. res. 16(2):243-246. sneh, b. , bur pee, l. a nd ogoshi, a. 1991. identification of rhizoctonia species. aps press. usa. pp. 133. seema, m and devaki, n. s. 2012. in vitro evaluation of biological control agents against rhizoctonia solani.j. agric. technol. 8(1):233-240. srinivas, p., ratan, v., patel, a. p. and madhavi, g. b. 2013. review on banded leaf and sheath blight of rice caused by rhizoctonia solani kuhn. international journal of applied biology and pharmaceutical technology, 61(2): 80-97. tapwal, a., thakur, g., chandra, s. and tyagi, a. 2015. in-vitro evaluation of trichoderma species against seed borne pathogens.int. j. pharma biosci.1(10), 14-19. timudo-torrevilla, o. e., everett, k. r., waipara, n. w. , boyd-wilson, k. s. h. , weeds, p. , langford, g. i. and walter, m. 2005. present status of strawberry fruit rot diseases in new zealand.new zealand plant prot.58:74-79. vincent, j. m. 1947. distortion of fungal hyphae in the presence of certain inhibitors. nature 159:850. (received on 15.9.2017, revised on 1.11.2019 and accepted on 2.12.2019) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 33-38, 2006 development of ipm package with safe pesticide residue: 1. cabbage debi sharma, a. krishnamoorthys p. n. krishna moorthy', girija ganesans a. k. ahuja and m. d. awasthi division of soil science & agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india. e-mail; dsharma@iihr.ernet.in abstract an ipm module with safe pesticide residues on cabbage, with already proven treatments such as carbosulfan, dimethoate, cypermethrin+ profenofos and mancozeb under chemical method of control; nsp, bacillus thuringiensis and trichogramma bactrae under non chemical method of control were revalidated individually and in combination. six releases of parasitoid t. bactrae at weekly intervals starting from 12 days after transplanting or spray of nsp 4% at 10-15 days interval, 4 times, starting from 20 days after transplanting, foliar spray of dimethoate and mancozeb gave good control of aphids, leaf blight and black rot respectively.based on the effectiveness of the treatment and pesticide residues below their permissible levels in cabbage at harvest, a module was developed and tested in the field. the ipm package thus developed was found to control the pests effectively and at the same time the residues on the crop were within the safe limits. key words: cabbage, biological control, ipm, pesticide residues introduction cabbage (brassica oleracea l. var. capitata) is an important vegetable crop, grown throughout the year and in many parts of india, under assured irrigation. the hybrids grown under intensive cultivation, indiscriminately receive very high doses of pesticides resulting in development of resistance in many pests, outbreak of secondary pests and accumulation of pesticide residues in the final produce. pesticide residue studies carried out under all india coordinated research project on pesticide residues, icar, india, revealed that 62.6% of the farm gate samples of cabbage contained residues of which 7% were above legally permissible levels (agnihotri, 1999). these residues on cabbage pose a health hazard for the consumer since it is consumed raw as salad and also added to a variety of preparations. international market standards demand very low or zero pesticide residues in exportable vegetables. therefore, development of integrated pest management (ipm) package for vegetables having pesticide residues at or below permissible levels is necessary in the national context. while a great deal of work has been carried out on ipm of cabbage in india (krishnaiah et at, 1981; krishna moorthy and krishna kumar, 2000, 2001) and abroad (becker, 1989; finch, 1993; pollard, 1991), all of these deal with control of either a particular insect or disease. there is no single package for the integrated control of insects and diseases together while ensuring low pesticide residues in cabbage at harvest. the present study is thus aimed at development of an ipm package for cabbage with safe pesticide residue level. material and methods a study on the development of pesticide residue free ipm package for cabbage was carried out during the period 2000 2003 at indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bangalore (12" 58' n, 77" 35' e). the major pests and diseases dealt with during the study were diamondback moth (dbm), plutella xylostella (l.); borers, helicoverpa armigera (hubner), spodoptera litura (r), aphid, brevicoryne brassicae (l.), altemaria leaf blight, altemaria brassicae (berk.) and black rot, xanthomonas campestris pv campestris. cabbage variety krishna (f, hybrid) was grown as per recommended package of practices. seedlings in the nursery were well protected using 80 mesh nylon net to avoid egg laying by dbm at seedling stage itself. the seedlings were transplanted in an area of 150 m^ after dipping in a solution containing cypermethrin (0.5 ml/1) and mancozeb (2 g/1) for 30 minutes. a spacing of 50 cm x 50 cm was followed and a dose of 120 n: 80 p: 80 k was applied to the soil. a paired row of indian mustard 'division of entomology and nematology ^division of plant pathology mailto:dsharma@iihr.ernet.in debi sharma et al was sown for every 25 rows of cabbage at the time of transplanting (srinivasan and krishna moorthy, 1991). chemical control although several insecticides were used for the control of pests on cabbage, carbosulfan (brown and hargreaves, 1979) and cypermethrin + profenofos (mohan, 1987) were evaluated using exploded design. in the first trial, carbosulfan @ 0.025% was sprayed on the crop at fortnighdy intervals from 7* day after planting (dap) for control of all the pests. a total of 5 sprays were given. to assess the efficacy of the pesticide, a control treatment with 25 m^area was also maintained simultaneously without any pesticide spray. observations were made on the population of dbm, aphids and a dbm parasitoid, cotesia plutellae kurdj. a combined insecticidal formulation containing cypermethrin and profenofos (mohan, 1987) was sprayed @ 0.08% from 12 dap at fortnightly intervals for the control of pests of cabbage in the second trial. a total of 5 sprays were given. two foliar sprays of dimethoate @ 0.5 ml/1 (mallapur et al, 1994) at an interval of 15 days was given to control aphids. foliar spray of the fungicide mancozeb @ 2.0 g/1 was given at 60 days after transplanting to check the incidence of altemaria leaf blight and black rot (jayakumar et al, 1995). disease scoring was done as per the 0-5 scale (wheeler, 1969). validation of non-chemical control several botanical insecticides and biocontrol agents were evaluated singly or in combination for control of cabbage pests in the third trial. these were ( i ) neem seed powder (nsp) 4% (krishna moorthy and krishna kumar, 2000) 4 sprays, (ii) bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (bt) (krishnamoorthy et al, 2003) -4 sprays @ 1 g/1, (supplied by wockhardt life sciences ltd. mumbai, india) (iii) 6 releases of laboratory mass-bred egg parasitoid, trichogrammatoidea bactrae nagaraja and nagarkatti @ 40,000 to 60,000 adults/ha (singh et al, 2004) at weekly interval from 12 dap for the control of dbm and (iv) three sprays of bt and six releases of t. bactrae. (anon., 2001). statistical analysis of the data obtained was carried out between treatment and control, in each case. residue analysis the pesticides used in chemical control trials were evaluated to find whether such applications resulted in persistence of harmful residues on the cabbage heads at harvest. cabbage heads ready to harvest were collected after 3 and 5 days of the last foliar spray treatment of each pesticide. these were chopped into ~ 1 cm pieces, mixed and quadrisected. a representative sample of 50 g was drawn in triplicate for analysis of residues of each pesticide. residues of carbosulfan and its major metabolite carbofuran were determined by blending the cabbage sample in hexane isopropanol (1: 1, v/v) solvent mixture in a waring blender. the residues were thereafter partitioned into hexane, cleaned up from other co-extractives by florisil adsorption column chromatography and determined by glc (leppert et al, 1983). residues of dimethoate in cabbage heads were analyzed by glc (anon., 1984). the residues of mancozeb were extracted by hydrochloric acid digestion followed by trapping of evolved carbon disulfide (cs^) into viles reagent. the residues were finally determined as total quantity of cs^ evolved by spectrophotometric method (keppel, 1971). the residues of ethylene thiourea (etu), a toxic metabolite of mancozeb, were also analyzed in the samples by hplc (smith et al, 1982). the residues of profenofos were analyzed by extraction in acetone + hexane and determined by glc as per chen et al (2001). all the analytical methods were standardized in the laboratory and their efficiency ascertained by suitable recovery experiments. results and discussion chemical control in the first trial (2000 -2001), dbm population was observed throughout the cropping period but at low level. the mean population of dbm was 1.66/plant in treatment as compared to 0.89/plant in control. similarly, population of aphids was higher in treated plot (0.16/plant) as compared to control (0.00/plant) (table 1). carbosulfan treatment seemed to suppress the population of parasitoid, c. plutellae in cabbage as no cocoons of cotesia were observed in treated plots (table 1). observations made on the population of s. litura, h. armigera and leaf webber showed that the population of these were uniformly low in all the trials. in the second trial, it was observed that the aphid population in cypermethrin + profenofos treated plot ranged from 0 to 4 with a mean value of 0.62/plant throughout the crop period, whereas, in control it ranged from 0.2 to 14 with a mean of 4.32/plant. the mean dbm population, however was higher in treated plot (1.08/plant) as compared to the control plot (0.31/plant). the combination insecticide had no effect on the population of cotesia (table 1). thus, carbosulfan and combination insecticide, cypermethrin + profenofos, had no effect in controlling these pests of cabbage with the former having deleterious effect on the j. hon. sci. vol. 1(1): 33-38, 2006 34 development of ipm package with safe pesticide residue: 1. cabbage table 1. effect of treatment various treatments on the incidence of dbm, no of dbm / plot treated control cabbage aphid and dbm parasitoid no. of cabbage aphid / plot treated control in cabbage. no. of dbm parasitoid cotesia plutellae / plot treated control carbosulfan profenofos + cypermethrin nsp bt t. bactrae nsp + t. bactrae bt + i bactrae 1.66 1.08 0.61 0.76 1.53 0.48 0.51 0.89 0.31 2.88 2.88 2.88 1.43 1.43 0.16 0.62 0.27 1.15 10.48 1.36 4.71 0.00 4.38 3.07 3.07 3.07 5.71 5.71 0.00 0.16 0.00 0.07 0.10 0.02 0.06 0.10 0.10 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.14 0.14 principal natural enemy, c. plutellae. it was not possible to assess the efficacy of carbosulfan against aphid population as no aphid population was observed in control for comparison. however, combination insecticide profenofos + cypermethrin was found to be effectively controlling aphid in a separate trial. spray of mancozeb resulted in considerable reduction of the incidence of disease, altemaria leaf blight in treatment as compared to that in control (table 2). similar observations for disease incidence of black rot of cabbage also showed reduction of disease incidence in treatment as compared to control. the per cent disease index (pdi) for blight was 19.25 as compared to 52.25 in control while the same for black rot was 15.45 as against 36.01 in control. non-chemical control the incidence of dbm was less in treatments in which nsp 4%, bt and egg parasitoid {t. bactrae) were used alone or in combination, compared to control. these treatments were also better than the chemical control (table 1). among non-chemical methods of control, nsp 4 % controlled dbm as well as aphids better than egg parasitoid and bt applications. the aphid population in treatments where egg parasitoid or bt was used remained the same or slightly higher. there were fewer cocoons of c. plutellae available in treatments than in control. but it was not due to direct toxic effect on c. plutellae; rather, there was indirect deleterious effect of nsp on egg parasitoid. the population of c. plutellae was found to be less because of fewer number of dbm larvae available for the larval parasitoid to parasitise in these treatments. however, among the various treatments, use of egg parasitoids along with bt or nsp resulted in better reduction of dbm population than release of egg parasitoid alone. residue analysis the results obtained from residue analysis (table 3) revealed that repeated foliar application of carbosulfan resulted in persistence of carbosulfan as well as its toxic metabolite, carbofuran in cabbage heads above the prescribed maximum residue limit of 0.1 ppm. it is thus not advisable to apply carbosulfan on cabbage heads at harvest as its residues (0. 14 0.65 ppm) persist at non permissible levels for upto 5 days after the last spray . carbosulfan residues (0.05 0.27 ppm), have been similarly found to persist above permissible levels even on 15* day after last spray in brinjal (rajeswaran et al, 2004). treatments of combination pesticide cypermethrin + profenofos resulted in persistence of 1.26 and 0.72 ppm of residues of profenofos at harvest carried out at 3 and 5 days after last treatment (dalt) respectively. the mrl of profenofos in cabbage is 1 ppm; therefore, the cabbage heads were safe only at 5 dalt from the point of residue persistence of profenofos. residues of 0.025 ppm of profenofos have been found on the 6 dalt in spring onion (talebi and ghassami, 2004), however, no reports regarding profenofos residues in cabbage have been found in literature. cypermethrin residues present on cabbage heads were 0.389 and 0.216 ppm at 3 dalt and 5 dalt respectively, and since mrl of cypermethrin in brassica and leafy vegetables (mrl of cypermethrin in cabbage heads is not yet established) is 1 ppm, the cabbage heads could be considered safe for consumption at 3 dalt itself from the point of view of residue persistence of cypermethrin on cabbage heads. similar results have earlier been obtained by babu et al (2001) who recommended a table 2. effect of mancozeb on alternaria leaf blight and black rot in cabbage si. no. treatment 1 before mancozeb spray 2 three days after mancozeb spray 3 per cent reduction in disease incidence / hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 33-38, 2006 treatment (mean alternaria leaf blight 30.05 19.25 33.00 35 pdi) black rot 20.53 15.45 20.56 control (mean alternaria leaf blight 40.35 52.25 pdi) black rot 30.03 36.01 debi sharma et al table 3. persistence pattern of pesticide residues in cabbage heads sl.no. 1 2 3 4 pesticide mancozeb etu (metabolite) carbosulfan carbofuran (metabolite) profenofos cypermethrin ditnethoate bdl = below detectable limit; dalt = table 4. sl.no. rate of application 2.0 g/1 1.0 ml/1 1.5 ml/1 0.5 ml/1 = days after last treatment no. of sprays 1 5 5 5 2 mean residues (mg kg-') 3 dalt 5 dalt bdl bdl bdl bdl 0.650 0.140 0.340 0.560 1.261 0.720 0.389 0.216 1.264 0.647 pesticide residue free/safe ipm module for cabbage (seed treated previously) stage operation mrl (mg kg-') 3.00 0.10 0.10 1.0 1.0 1.0 target pests remarks safe unsafe safe at 5 dalt safe safe at 5 dalt 1 nursery preparation 2 nursery nursery one day before transplanting transplanting 5 transplanted crop drench nursery with captan @ 2g/l apply carbofuran @ 0.5 kg a.i/ha to nursery spray nursery with copper oxychloride @ 3 g/1 on is"" and so"" days after sowing spray nursery with bt @ 1 g/1 on 10* days after sowing netting with 80 mesh spray nursery with bt @ 1 g/1 and metalaxyl-mancozeb @ 2 g/1 1. sow paired row of mustard for every 25 rows of cabbage at the time of transplanting. 2. plant cabbage at 50 x 50 cm instead of 50 x 45 cm as followed by farmers. six releases of parasitoid trichogrammatoidea bactrae (50,000 adults/ha) at weekly intervals from 12 days after transplanting. or spray pulverized nsp 4 % at 10-15 days interval 3-4 times from 20 dap. or spray bt @ 1 g/1 at 10-15 days interval 3-4 times 20 dar spray dimethoate, 0.5mla two to three sprays of dichlorvos, 1 ml/1 to border mustard to protect the foliage as and when required (2 3 sprays). removing basal disease affected leaves in the morning need based application of mancozeb 0.25 % damping off soil borne insects like ants, termites etc. damping off and downy mildew dbm dbm etc. dbm downy mildew dbm and other pestslike aphids, leaf webber etc., (optional). bacterial rot and altemaria. dbm dbm and other pests like aphids, leaf webber etc. dbm and other lepidopterous pests. aphid (need based) saw fly and other pests (optional) bacterial rot, altemaria and downy mildew bacterial rot, altemaria and downy mildew. waiting period of 3 days for cypermethrin in cabbage. 1.26 and 0.65 ppm were the residues of dimethoate present in cabbage heads at 3 and 5 dalt respectively. the mrl of dimethoate in cabbage is 1 ppm, therefore, the cabbage heads were safe for consumption at 5 dalt if sprayed with dimethoate. in rumania, a study had recommended a waiting period of 7 days for dimethoate residues in tomatoes, cucumbers and egg plants (flora and isac,1972). the residues of mancozeb and its major metabolite, ethylene thiourea were found to be below detectable limit at 3 and 5 dalt (table 3). jayakumar et al (1995) had also recommended a waiting period of 2 days for mancozeb residues in tomato. thus, it was observed that considering residual persistence among the chemicals used for control of cabbage pests, dimethoate can be recommended for control of aphids and mancozeb can be used for the control oi altemaria leaf blight and bacterial rot as these are safe to be applied at harvest stage of cabbage. thus, it was seen that, six releases of parasitoid, t. bactrae (50,000 adults/ha) at weekly intervals from 12 days / hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 33-38, 2006 36 development of ipm package with safe pesticide residue: 1. cabbage after transplanting or spray of nsp 4 % at 10-15 days interval (4 times) from 20 dap gave good control of pests. among insecticides, dimethoate could be used for the control of aphids as need based pesticide in all parasitoid release plots as its residue is within the safe limit at 5 dalt (table 3). incorporating the above results a pesticide residue free or safe ipm module was developed (table 4). earlier, numerous reports have indicated the efficacy of various plant protection agents for cabbage ipm, for instance, bt products in combination with insect growth regulator, chlorfluazuron, have been highly recommended for control of dbm in papua new guinea (saucke, 1994) and as an important option for ipm in cabbage. similarly, setiawati (2000) indicated that spinosad 25 sc was suitable for controlling dbm and cabbage head caterpillar. however, in this study, for the first time a complete cabbage ipm module was developed taking consumer safety into account. the cabbage heads grown using this module will be free from harmful pesticide residues. a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t the authors gratefully acknowledge financial assistance received from the national agricultural technology project (natp) under icar for carrying out the above study. r e f e r e n c e s anonymous, 1984. indian standard method for determination of dimethoate residues in food commodities. is: 11021-1984. anonymous, 2001. iihr annual report, 2000-2001, p 83, iihr, hessaraghatta, bangalore, india agnihotri, n.p. 1999. pesticide safety evaluation and monitoring. aicrp on pesticide residues, division of agricultural chemicals, lari, new delhi, 173p. babu,t.r., sultan, m.a., reddy.k.n., reddy, d.j. 2001. dissipation of quinalphos and cypermethrin residues in cabbage. indian j pi prot., 29:144-145. becker, r.f. 1989. cultural practices and cultivar selection as the foundation of a cabbage ipm program. trans.illinois state hortil. soc, 123:28-31. brown, j.d. and hargreaves, j.r. 1979. control of cabbage pests. queensland agril j., 105:222-228. chen, 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2004. role of egg parasitoid, trichogrammatoidea bactrae nagaraja alone and in combination with dichlorovos in the management of plutella xylostella (l.) on cabbage. / biol cont., 18:135-139. smith, r.m., madahar, k.c., salt w.g. and smart, n.a. 1982. degradation of ethylene thiourea on lettuce. pestic. sci., 23:337-349. srinivasan, k. and krishna moorthy, rn. 1991. mustard plants trap major cabbage pests. indian farming, 40:11-12. srinivasan, k. and krishna moorthy, rn. 1993. evaluation of neem products and other standard chemicals for the management of major pest complex on cabbage: comparison between standard spray regime and ipm involving mustard as a trap crop. in: neem and enviornment, vol.1, (eds.) r.r singh, m.s.chari, a.k. raheja, and w.kraus. oxford and ibh publishing co. (pvt.) ltd., new delhi and calcutta, pp. 447-458. telebi, k. and ghassami, m.r. 2004. residues of profenfos in spring onion. commun. agric. appl biol. sci., 69:799-802. wheeler, b.e.j. 1969. an introduction to plant disease. john wiley, london, u.k., 301 pp (ms received 6 march, 2006 revised 2 may, 2006) j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 33-38, 2006 38 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14, 2006 focus spices biotechnology k. v. peter, k. nirmal babu' and d. minoo' kerala agricultural university thrissur, kerala, india e-mail: kvptr@yahoo.com abstract in recent times, biotechnological tools have supplemented various conventional approaches in conservation, characterization, improvement and utilization for increasing production and productivity of spices. in many spices, viable micropropagation technologies are available for commercial production and generation of disease free planting material. somaclonal variation is important in crops where natural variability is low and a few useful somaclonal variants have been identified in ginger, turmeric and vanilla. protoplast technology is also available for capsicum, black pepper, fennel, fenugreek, garlic, saffron and peppermint. in vitro cryopreservation, synseed and micro-rhizome technologies are available for safe propagation, conservation, movement, and exchange of spices germplasm. studies are in progress for in vitro production of flavour and colouring compounds like capsaicin, vanillin, anethole, crocin, picrocrocin, saff'ranal, etc. using immobilized and transformed cell cultures. use of molecular markers for crop profiling, fingerprinting, molecular taxonomy, identification of duplicate hybrids, estimation of genetic fidelity and tagging of genes for marker aided selection (mas) is gaining importance. isolation of important and useful genes and development of transgenics is in the preliminary stage. key words: spice crops, micropropagation, somaclonal variation, dna fingerprinting, secondary metabolites introduction spices and herbs are aromatic plants, parts of which are used to flavour cuhnary preparations, in confectionery, and in medicines and perfumery. spices and herbs are grown throughout the world; different plant species are grown in different regions. india is a rich repository of spices with over 100 species of herbs and spices being grown. black pepper, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, vanilla, capsicum, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, tamarind, pimenta, etc., constitute the major spices. seed spices like coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, dill, caraway, anise and herbal spices like saffron, lavender, thyme, oregano, celery, anise, sage and basil are also important. crop improvement aims to increase productivity and quality of a target crop to meet increasing human demands. lack of high yielding, pest and disease resistant varieties, and a limited genetic variability in some crops, is a major production constraint in spices. use of biotechnological tool stands to play a major role in achieving the above through commercial propagation, development of novel varieties and new breeding lines via somaclonal variation, anther culture, protoplast fusion, bioreactor and recombinant dna technologies for improving, conserving and utilizing the diversity and increasing the utility of spices. micropropagation and plant regeneration high and rapid rate of multiplication coupled with additional advantage of obtaining disease-free planting material makes micropropagation an important and viable alternative to conventional propagation. black pepper and related species methods for micropropagation of black pepper have been reported using various explants from both mature and juvenile tissues (broome and zimmerman, 1978; lissamma joseph et al, 1996). phenolics and endogenous bacterial contaminants severely hamper establishment in black pepper cultures. treating explants with fungicides prior to routine sterilization followed by frequent transfer to fresh medium, use of activated charcoal and antibiotics in culture media have been suggested for reducing phenolic interference and systemic contamination. efficient plant regeneration protocols are essential for genetic manipulation of any crop species. plants have been successfully regenerated from callus cultures of many piper species. plant regeneration 'indian institute of spices research, marikunnu p.o., kozhikode 673 012, kerala, india mailto:kvptr@yahoo.com peter et al was reported from shoot tip and leaf, with or without an intervening callus phase, (bhat et al, 1995). techniques for somatic embryogenesis in black pepper are reported by nair and gupta (2003). cyclic somatic embryogenesis from maternal tissues like integuments has tremendous potential for automated micropropagation. these systems are useful for transgenic experiments for transfer of phytophthora resistance. methods for micropropagation of medicinally important species of piper viz., piper longum p. chaba and p. betle have also been developed (sarasan et al, 1993). plants were regenerated from leaf and stem explants of related species of black pepper like piper longum, p. betle, p. chaba, p. attenuatum and p. colubrinum through both direct and indirect organogenesis (bhat et al, 1992; 1995). somatic embryogenesis is also reported in betelvine (johri et al, 1996). cardamom efficient and commercially viable technology for rapid clonal propagation of cardamom is available (vatsya et a/, 1987). many commercial laboratories use micropropagation techniques for large-scale production of clonal material. successful high-frequency regeneration of plantlets from cardamom has been reported. attempts on anther and microspore culture were reported to be inconsistent in plant regeneration from anther derived callus on ms medium. ginger clonal multiplication of ginger has been reported by many workers (rout et al, 2001). micropropagation helps in production of pathogen-free planting material in ginger where diseases often spread through infected seed rhizomes. regeneration of plantlets through callus has been reported from leaf, vegetative bud, ovary and anther explants. ginger fails to set fruit in nature. however, in vitro pollination could be effected to overcome prefertilization barriers to develop the 'fruit' and subsequently, plants could be recovered from these fruits (valsala et al, 1997). turmeric technologies for micropropagation mrmeric of for production of disease-free planting material were developed (nadgauda et al, 1978; yasuda et al, 1988, rahman et al, 2004; prathanturarug etal, 2003,2005). organogenesis and plant regeneration has been reported in turmeric by various workers (shetty et al, 1982; praveen et al, 2005). renjith et al (2001) reported in vitro pollination and hybridization using two short duration types vk-70 and vk-76 and reported seed set and seed development. this reduces breeding time and helps in recombination breeding which had not been attempted in turmeric earlier. other zingiberaceous taxa protocols for micropropagation of many economically and medicinally important zingiberaceous species like amomum subulatum (large cardamom), curcuma aromatica (kasturi turmeric), c. domestica var. 'koova', c. aeruginosa, c. caesia , c. amada (mango ginger), curcuma domestica [c. longa], c. zedoaria kaempferia galanga, k. rotunda, alpinia spp., alpinia conchigera, alpinia galanga, etc have been developed. (barthakur and bordoli, 1992; chang and criley, 1993). yasuda (1988) reported successful callus induction from rhizomes. prakash et al (2004), lakshmi and mythili (2003) and rahman et al (2004) reported efficient plant regeneration through somatic embryogenesis from leaf basederived callus of kaempferia galanga l. vanilla micropropagation of vanilla has been standardized for large-scale multiplication of disease-free plants (cervera and madrigal, 1981; kononowicz and janick, 1984;geetha and shetty, 2000). in vitro germination of vanilla seeds and selection of useful genotypes from segregating progenies is also reported. this technique was also used to rescue interspecific hybrids between cultivated v. planifolia and wild v. aphylla through embryo rescue. in vitro propagation of vanilla tahitiensis (mary mathew et al, 2000) and endangered species of vanilla-v. wightiana , v. andamanica, v. aphylla and v̂ pilifera was also reported to save these species from extinction. successful plant regeneration from shoot and seed derived callus was reported in vanilla (davidonis and knorr, 1991; nirmal babu et al, 1997). this efficient system can be used for creation and exploitation of somaclonal variation in this crop where the existing variation is limited. tree spices micropropagation protocols have been reported in many tree spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cassia, clove, camphor, curry leaf, pomegranate, camboge and tamarind (zhangandstoltz, 1981; mascarenhas, etal 1987;mathew andhariharan, 1990;hazarikaera/, 1995; mini efaf, 1997; mallika, et al, 1997; bhuyan et al, 1997; huang et al, 1998; nirmal babu et al, 2000; mehta et al, 2000). j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14,2006 spices biotechnology plant regeneration through somatic embryogenesis has been reported in cinnamomum verum and c. camphora. induction of somatic embryogenesis from zygotic embryos oisyzygium cumini and nutmeg was reported by iyer et al,. (2000). seed and herbal spices micropropagation protocols for many seed and herbal spices are available. these include coriander, fennel, anise, peppermint, spearmint, celery, thyme, lavender, savory, ocimum, oregano, basil, sage, fennel, parsley, sweet marjoram, dill and garlic (bhojwani, 1980; ahuja, 1982; miura, et al, 1987; cellarova, 1992; furmanowa and ozszowska, 1992; hunault and du-manoir, 1992; panizza and tognoni, 1992; toth and lacy, 1992; patnaik and chand, 1996; vandemoortele et al, 1996; sajina et al, 1997; iyer and pai, 1998). plant regeneration has been successfully induced from callus cultures of peppermint, coriander, celery, cumin, fennel, lavender, anise, parsley, poppy, oregano, dill, caraway and sage (ratnamba and chopra, 1974; sehgal, 1978; chand and roy, 1981; jha et al, 1982; ammirato,1983; van eck and kitt, 1990;1992; neena kumari and sarathy, 1992; kataeva and popowich, 1993; onisei et al, 1994; okamoto et al, 1994; donovan et al, 1994; hunault and maatar, 1995; kim et al, 1996; sajina et al, 1997; sastry et al, 1997). propagation through somatic embryogenesis and in vitro flowering and seed set in coriander was reported by stephan and jayabalan (2001). in vitro flowering and seed formation in cumin has been reported. bertaccini et al (2004) used micropropagation for elimination of mitebrone virus and for establishment of virus-free garlic (allium sativum). plant regeneration from anther and microspore cultures has been reported in fennel and celery. capsicum micropropagation and plant regeneration in chilli was reported using various explants (agarwal 1988; anu etal, 2004). development of haploid capsicum through androgenesis is reported. new approaches for induction of pollen embryogenesis in capsicum annuum were reported by gonzalez et al (1996) and regner (1996). occurrence of unreduced gametes and ploidy restoration in haploid peppers {capsicum annuum) was reported. saffron reports are available on micropropagation and plant regeneration in saffron. in vitro proliferation of saffron stigma was also reported (homes et al, 1987; ilahi et al, 1987; yang era/, 1996). field evaluation of tissue cultured plants black pepper and related species large-scale field evaluation of tissue cultured black pepper plants, in over 30 ha in all the pepper growing districts of kerala, indicated that tissue cultured plants were superior to conventional propagules in field establishment, plant height, intemodal length, number of laterals per unit area, number of spikes per unit area, fruit set, mean yield, dry weight, oil content, oleoresin content, etc. preliminary field performance of micropropagated plantlets of piper longum, p. chaba and p. betle indicated that these were on par with conventionally propagated plants (nirmal babu et al, 2003). cardamom large-scale field evaluation of tissue cultured plants of cardamom was carried out by the spices board of india and the iisr. results showed that micropropagated plants performed on par with suckers. ginger and turmeric field evaluation of tissue cultured plants of ginger and turmeric indicate that micropropagated plants require at least two crop seasons to develop rhizomes of normal size that can be used as seed rhizomes for commercial cultivation. tissue cultured plants of kasturi turmeric, mango ginger, kaempferia galanga, etc. also show a similar pattern. salvi et al (2002) reported in turmeric that micropropagated plants showed significant increase in shoot length, number of tillers, number and length of leaves, number of gingers and total fresh rhizome weight per plant compared to conventionally propogated plants. variations among regenerated plants have been reported in kaempferia galanga. anu et a/, (2004) reported variation among somaclones and their seedling progeny in capsicum annuum. estimation of genetic fidelity in micropropagated pepper using rapds genetic fidelity of micropropagated plants of black pepper was confirmed by nirmal babu et al (2003). rapd (random amplification of polymorphic dn a) profiling and j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14, 2006 peter et al morphological characterization indicated that the micropropagation protocol can be used for commercial cloning of black pepper. genetic uniformity of micropropagated piper longum using rapd profiling was reported by ajith ef a/ (1997) and parani ef a/(1997). in ginger, rapd profiles did not show any polymorphism among micropropagated plants. however, nirmal babu et al (2003) reported rapd profile differences in micropropagated ginger. salvi et al (2001) reported that rapd analysis of regenerated plants in turmeric showed variation. genetic stability and uniformity of foeniculum vulgare mill, plants regenerated through organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis was reported by bennici et al ( 2004 ). somaclonal variation induction and utilization of somaclonal variation was attempted in many spices to develop genotypes resistant to biotic and a biotic stresses. in black pepper, a few phytophthora foot rot tolerant somaclones were identified through in vitro selection of calli using crude culture filtrate and toxic metabolites isolated from phytophthora capsici. attempts to induce somaclonal variation in cardamom resulted in identification of a few katte virus tolerant somaclones (nirmal babu et al, 1997). in ginger, field evaluation of somaclones indicated variability and resulted in identification of a few promising, high yielding lines with tolerance to rhizome rot (nirmal babu et al, 1996; nirmal babu, 1997). rapd characterisation of these somaclones also showed profile variations indicating genetic differences isolation of pythium-tolerant ginger by using culture filtrate as the selecting agent has also been reported. variants with high curcumin content were isolated from tissue cultured plantlets of turmeric. root rot disease tolerant clones of turmeric cv. suguna were isolated using continuous in vitro selection technique against pure culture filtrate of pythium graminicolum (gayatri et al, 2005). variation in essential oil composition of plants regenerated from protoplasts of peppermint was reported. reports are also available on in vitro selection for salt tolerance in fenugreek, trigonellafoenum-graecum; in vitro selection for resistance to altemaria blight in cumin and drought tolerance in coriander through tissue culture has also been showed. somaclonal variation and virus elimination for improvement of garlic has been reported. ghosh et al (1997) reported generation of virus free plants by thermotherapy and meristem culture in garlic. msu shk 5, a somaclonally derived fusarium yellows resistant line in celery has been identified. microrhizomes microrhizomes form an important source of disease-free planting material in rhizomatous crops like ginger and turmeric and are ideally suited for germplasm exchange, transportation and conservation. in vitro induction of microrhizomes in ginger, turmeric and kaempferia is reported by many workers (bhat et al, 1994; nirmal babu, 1997; raghu rajan, 1997; sunitibala et al, 2001; nirmal babu et al, 2003). microrhizome derived plants had more tillers but the plant height was smaller. they gave fresh rhizome yield ranging from 100800 g per plant with an estimated yield of 10 kg per 3m^ bed. in vitro formed rhizomes were found to be genetically more stable compared to micropropagated plants (nirmal babu et al, 2003). synthetic seeds artificial or synthetic seeds can be an ideal system for low-cost plant movement, propagation, conservation and exchange of germplasm. synthetic seeds were developed by encapsulationg in vitro developed small shoot buds in 3% calcium alginate in black pepper, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, camphor, cinnamon, celery, lavender and fennel. these synthetic seeds could be stored from 7 to 10 months in sterile water with over 80 % viability (redenbaugh et al, 1986; pratap 1992;sharmaefa/, 1994). protoplast culture the protoplast is a naked cell and absence of the cell wall makes a protoplast suitable for a variety of manipulations that are not normally possible with intact cells. hence, protoplast is an important tool for parasexual modification of genetic content of cells. successful isolation and culture of protoplasts was reported in p. nigrum and p. colubrinum (shaji et al, 1998). plant regeneration, however, was observed only in p. colubrinum. protoplasts could be successfully isolated from in vitro grown leaf mesophyll tissues of cardamom, ginger and turmeric. these were cultured upto the microcalli stage (nirmal babu, 1997; geetha et al, 2000). isolation and fusion of protoplasts in vanilla is reported. isolation of protoplasts from leaves of nutmeg has been reported by iyer et al (2000). j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14, 2006 sf)ices biotechnology successful isolation and culture of protoplasts was reported in fennel (miura and tabata, 1986), fenugreek (sen and gupta, 1979), peppermint and garlic (ayabe etal, 1995) and saffron (isa et al, 1990). sub sang ki and park (1995) reported protoplast fusion and culture in garlic. succ^essful production of interspecific hybrids between peppermint and gingermint was reported by sato et al (1996). organogenesis and plant regeneration from isolated protoplasts have been demonstrated in chillies (pari and czako 1981; agarwal, 1988; prakash et al, 1997). genetic transformation preliminary reports are available on agrobacterium mediated gene transfer in p. nigrum (sasi'kumar and veluthambi, 1996). they obtained primary transfofmants for kanamycin resistance in cotyledons using agrobacterium tumefaciens binary vector strtiins lb a 4404 and eha 105. sim et al (1998) reported agrobacteriummediated transfer of gus gene to black pepper. nirraal babu et al (2005) reported agrobacterium mediated transformation of black pepper with the gene for osmotin, a pr (pathogenesis related) protein known to induce resistance to phytophthora. preliminary experiments to standardize optimum conditions for gene delivery and efficiency of the plasmid vector pahc25 and promoter ubi-1 and transformation of cardamom using biolistic process resulted in transient expression of gus gene in bombarded callus tissue. a few reports are available on agrobact^riummediated genetic transformation of capsicum (liu ^t al, 1990;shivegowdae?a/, 2002). regeneration of transgenic pepper plants resistant to tmv and cmv has been reported. molecular characterization and development of mapping populations in recent times, there is increased emphasis on using molecular markers for characterization of genotypes for genetic fingerprinting, to identify and clone important genes, for marker assisted selection and in understanding inter-relationships at the molecular level. black pepper in black pepper, molecular markers like rapd, aflp and issr were used for assessment of genefic variability to characterize important cultivars, varieties, related species to develop fingerprints and to study inter relationships (pradeep kumar et al, 2001). a mapping population was developed for preparation of the genetic map in black pepper (nirmal babu et al, 2003). male parent-specific rapd markers were used by johnson et al (2005) to identify hybrids. jaramillo and manos (2001) used phylogenetic analysis of sequences of the internal transcribed spacers (its) of nuclear ribosomal dna based on a world wide sample of the genus piper. in long pepper {piper longum), banerjee et al (1999) reported male sex associated rapd markers. genetic diversity among landraces of a dioecious piper betle using molecular markers was reported by anjali et al (2004). cardamom molecular techniques like rapd, rflp and issr polymorphism were used to characterize cardamom germplasm collections comprising important cultivars, varieties and related genera to develop fingerprints and to study inter-relationships. the study indicated no duplicates in the 100 lines characterized and that the kerala and kamataka populations were divergent as they formed two separate clusters in the phylogram. rapd and issr profiling of 11 species representing 5 major, related tribes of cardamom indicated that ammomum is closest to the cultivated cardamom (nirmal babu et al, 2005). a protocol for isolation and molecular characterization of dna from market samples of cardamom was standardized and can be used to identify different grades of commercial cardamom and to identify adulttrents if any (iisr annual report, 2004). ginger rapd profiling of various ginger cultivars and related species is in progress at the indian institute of spices research to study the interrelationships and to identify core collections in the germplasm. ninetysix accessions of ginger were analysed and interrelationships studied. polymorphism detected is moderate to low in ginger. rapd profiling of ginger somaclones and selected 'variants' among micropropagated, callus regenerated and microrhizome derived plants indicated differences in rapd profiles. phylogenetic analysis of the tribe zingibereae (zingiberaceae) was performed by ngamriabsakul et al (2003) using nuclear ribosomal dna (its 1,5.8s and its2) and chloroplast dna. the study suggested that the tribe zingibereae and the genus curcuma are monophyletic. kress et al (2002) studied phylogeny of the gingers (zingiberaceae) using dna sequences of the nuclear / hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14,2006 peter et al internal transcribed spacer (its) and plastid matk regions and proposed a new classification of the zingiberaceae. turmeric sasaki et al (2004) used single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) analysis of the tmk gene to identify curcuma plants. sasikumar et al (unpublished) studied over 96 indian cultivars and related species of turmeric using rapd profiling for establishing interrelationship. rapd analyses showed good polymorphism among the 96 accessions studied. five species of curcuma were characterized using 12 primers. intra species polymorphism in {curcuma was high compared to the interspecies polymorphism (iisr 2003, 2004). an efficient protocol for isolation of high molecular weight dna from dried. powder samples of turmeric, including market samples, is described by remya et al (2004). this will help in pcr-based detection of adulteration in marketed turmeric powder. cao et al (2001) and sasaki et al (2(x)2) used sequence analysis of chinese and japanese curcuma drugs on the 18s rrna gene and tmk gene and the application of amplification-refractory mutation system analysis for authentication. vanilla in the absence of classical phenotypic markers in perennial crops like vanilla, molecular markers such as rapd and aflp were used to establish genetic similarities and interrelationships in cultivars, seed progenies, somaclones and interspecific hybrids. isoenzyme, rapd and aflp polymorphisms, supplemented by morphological characters, have been used to study the existing variability in cultivated vanilla, species interrelationships, identification of interspecific hybrids, and, fingerprinting of important genotypes. the study indicated limited variability among the cultivated collections of v̂ planifolia grown in india. vanilla tahitensis was found to be closest to v. planifolia. significant variations exist among selfed seed progenies of v. planifolia. this variation was further magnified when plant regeneration was through callus or when explants were grown in colchicine containing medium. progeny obtained from crosses between v. planifolia and v. aphylla is truly hybrid, and thus, in vitro technology can be used for generation of variability in crop improvement (minoo et al, 2006). in tree spices, shibu et al (2000) identified sex specific dna markers for identifying female trees in nutmeg. yapwattanaphun et al (2004) used its sequence data to elucidate phylogenetic relationship in mangosteen {garcinia mangostana) and its wild relatives {garcinia spp.). molecular characterization and preparation of molecular maps has been done in capsicum. amedo-andres et al (2002) developed rapd and scar markers linked to the pvr4 locus for resistance to pvy in capsicum. blum et al (2002) reported mapping of the locus for pungency in capsicum. kang et al (2001) developed interspecific {capsicum annuum x c. chinese) f2 linkage map in pepper using rflp and rapd markers. caranta et al (1999) developed caps marker for the pvr 4 locus for pyramiding potyvirus resistance genes in pepper. isolation of candidate genes work on isolation of genes responsible for agronomically important characters, especially for biotic and a biotic stresses, has also been attempted in spices. in black pepper, progranunes on isolation, cloning of genes and validation is in progress and a few putative, genomic and cdna fragments associated with resistance genes have been isolated (iisr 2004, 2005; johnson et al, 2005). molecular cloning of a cdna fragment encoding the defense related protein a-l,3-glucanase in black pepper {p. nigrum l.) and methyl glutaryl coa reductase in piper colubrinum has been reported. bhat et al (2(x)5) reported isolation and sequencing of cmv coat protein gene with reference to black pepper. chen et al (2005) reported cdna cloning and characterization of a mannose-binding lectin from zingiber officinale roscoe (ginger) rhizomes. molecular cloning of mannose-6-phosphate reductase and its developmental expression in celery was studied by everard et al (1997). wang and kumar (2004) reported that heterologous expression of arabidopsis ers1 causes delayed senescence in coriander. huh et al (2001) utilized the candidate gene approach to identify phytoene synthase as the locus for mature fruit color in red pepper {capsicum spp). tai and staskawicz (2000) constructed yeast artificial chromosome (yac) library of hot pepper {capsicum annuum l.) and identified clones from the bs2 resistance locus. bai et al (2004) reported successful cloning and expression of crocus sativus phytoene desaturase gene and preparation of antiserum. tsaftaris et al (2004) reported / hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14,2006 spices biotechnology isolation of three homologous api-like mads-box genes in crocus sativus l. and characterized their expression. conservation of genetic resources in vitro conservation genetic resources of most spices are conserved either in seed gene banks or in field repositories. storage of germplasm in seed banks is not practical in some crops as these are vegetatively propagated and seeds are either recalcitrant or heterozygous. conservation of germplasm in in vitro gene banks and cryobanks is a viable and safe alternative. conservation of pepper, cardamom, ginger, turmeric, vanilla, seed and herbal spice germplasm in vitro in gene banks by slow growth was reported (dekkers et al, 1991; nirmal babu et al, 1996, 1997,1999). conserved material of all the species developed into normal plants without any deformities and was morphologically similar to the mother plants. rapd profiling of the conserved plants too showed genetic integrity. suspensions of embryogenic cell lines of fennel, conserved at 4 °c for upto 12 weeks, produced normal plants upon transfer to normal laboratory conditions (umetsu et al, 1995). conservation of genetic resources in in vitro gene banks is now an established convention and gene banks for conservation of spice germplasm functions at the iisr and at the national bureau of plant genetic resources, new delhi. about 500 accessions of spice germplasm are currently conserved the in vitro repository of iisr. cryopreservation cryopreservation of black pepper and cardamom seeds in liquid nitrogen (ln^) has been reported. plants could be successfully regenerated from cryopreserved seeds of capsicum and anise, and, technologies for cryopreservation of black pepper, cardamom, ginger, turmeric and vanilla germplasm using vitrification and encapsulation methods is available. choudhary and chandel, (1995); eported cryopreservation of vanilla pollen for conservation of the haploid genome and for assisted pollination between species that flower during different seasons and successful fertilization was effected using cryopreserved pollen. production of secondary metabolites use of biotechnology for biosynthesis of secondary metabolites particularly in plants of pharmaceutical significance holds an interesting alternative to conventional production of plant constituents. in vitro proliferation of the stigma of saffron, crocus sativus and chemical analysis of metabolites produced through tissue cultures has been reported by himeno et al (1988); koyama et al (1987). in vitro metabolite production from saffron tissue cultures has also been demonstrated by venkataraman et al (1989) and vishwanath era/(1990). production of flavour components and secondary metabolites in vitro using immobilised cells is an ideal system for spice crops. production of saffron and capsaicin was reported using cell cultures (johnson et al, 1996). reports on in vitro synthesis of crocin, picrocrocin and saffranal from saffron stigma (himeno and sano, 1995) and colour components from cells derived from pistils (hori et al, 1988) are available for further scale up. johnson et al (1996) reported biotransformation of ferulic acid vanillamine to capsaicin and vanillin in immobilised cell cultures of capsicum frutescens. callus and cell cultures have been established in nutmeg, clove, camphor, ginger, lavender, mint, thyme, celery, etc. cell immobilization techniques have been standardized in ginger, sage, anise and lavender (ilahi and jabeen, 1992). production of essential oils from cell cultures (ernst, 1989) and accumulation of essential oils by agrobacterium tumefaciens transformed shoot cultures of pimpinella anisum has been reported (salem and charlwood, 1995). regulation of the shikimate pathway in suspension culture cells of parsley (conn and mccue, 1994) and production of anethole from cell cultures of foeniculum vulgare (hunault et al, 1989) is also reported. growth of shoot cultures and production of monoterpene by transformed shoots of mentha citrata and mentha piperita in flasks and fermentors was reported. chavez et al (1996) reported biosynthesis of the sesqiterpene phytoalexin capsidol in elicited root cultures of chilli pepper. production of rosmarinic acid in suspension cultures of salvia officinalis has been discussed by hippolyte et al (1992). phenyl propanoid metabolism in suspension cultures of vanilla planifolia was studied by funk and brodelius (1990 a, b). reports on production of phenolic flavour compounds using cultured cells and tissues of vanilla are also available (dorenburg and knorr, 1996). in vitro production of petroselinic acid was reported from cell suspension cultures of coriander (kim et al, 1996). kintzios et al (2004) reported scaling up of micropropagation in ocimum basilicum l. in an airlift bioreactor and accumulation of rosmarinic acid thereof. though the feasibility of in vitro production of spice j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14,2006 peter et al principles has been demonstrated, methodology for scaling up and reproducibility needs to be developed before it can reach commercial levels. once standardized, this technology can have tremendous potential in industrial production of important compounds like capsaicin, vanillin, crocin, picrocrocin, saffranal, myristicin, anethole, menthol and curcumin. micropropagation technology is available for rapid cloning of many spices. technology for conservation of genetic resources in in vitro gene banks is another useful development. molecular characterization of germplasm has made reasonable progress. identifying markers for important agronomic characters will help in marker assisted selection to shorten breeding time. application of recombinant dna technology for production of transgenics resistant to biotic and abiotic stress has a long way to go in spices improvement. although 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hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 1-14,2006 14 final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 234-240, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u.1*, meenakshi srinivas1, umamaheswari r.2 and priti sonavane2 1division of flower and medicinal crops 2division of crop protection icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560089, india *corresponding author email: t.ushabharathi@gmail.com abstract an experiment was carried out to evaluate an advance breeding line of tuberose double type iihr-4 along with check for flowering, yield and resistance to root knot nematode and alternaria polianthi leaf blight disease. the hybrid selection iihr-4 was developed through hybridization by crossing mexican single x pearl double, followed by selection. double type tuberose iihr4 was found to be novel with better flowering and quality traits such as relatively shorter spike (62.00 cm) and rachis length (25.59cm) and favourable diameter of floret (4.47cm) and number of florets per spike (50.75), more number of florets (7.10) open at a time on the spike and shorter internodal length between the florets (3.45cm). the florets are with shorter length (5.22cm) arranged very compactly on the spike making iihr-4 ideal as cut flower. added to this, the advanced breeding line iihr-4 was found to be highly resistant to root knot nematode meloidogyne incognita under field conditions and tolerant to alternaria polianthi leaf blight disease. keywords: advanced breeding line, cut flower, flowering, double type, tuberose and yield introduction tuberose (polianthes tuberosa linn.) is an important tropical bulbous ornamental plant belonging to the family ‘asparagaceae’ and is native to mexico (bailey, 1919). there are two types of tuberose namely, single and double which are commercially cultivated across the globe for their exquisite flowers. single types are used as loose flowers for garland pur pose and perfumery industry whereas double varieties are highly preferred for cut flower and bouquets because of the longer keeping quality of the flower spikes. double tuberose flowers have high demand in both local and international markets and are being exported to gulf countries. the increasing demand for superior and novel double type tuber ose necessita tes the development of varieties of this category. tuberose is commercially cultivated in india in an area of about 16,190 ha, with a loose flower production of 1, 07, 910 metric tonnes and cut flower production of 89.29 lakh numbers of cut stems (anon, 2016). root knot nematode infects tuberose and leads to 10-14% of crop loss (khan and reddy, 1992). leaf blight disease caused by alternaria polianthi is extensive in tuberose growing regions of the country. development of tolerant and resistant varieties to these biotic stresses is the need of the hour to help the tuberose growers. keeping these objectives in view, an advance breeding line of double type tuberose (iihr-4) developed by icar-iihr was evaluated for flowering, yield, quality and reaction to root knot nematode and a.polianthi leaf blight disease. materials and methods the investigation was carried out at the division of flower and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during 2015 2018. the advance breeding line of tuberose iihr-4 with double flowers was evaluated along with the commercial check varieties arka vaibhav, arka suvasini, local checks hyderabad double and pearl double. randomized block design was followed for the experiment with three replications. uniform size of bulbs (2.5 cm diameter) were planted on raised bed 235 performance evaluation of double type tuberose j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 234-240, 2021 with the spacing of 30 x 30 cm. standard cultural practices were followed throughout the experimental period. the growth, yield and quality parameters viz., days to spike emergence, days to opening of first floret, spike length, rachis length, number of florets per spike, length of floret, diameter of floret, bud length, matured bud weight, single flower weight, number of spikes per clump, vase life, number of bulbs per clump, number of bulblets per clump, internodal length between the florets and number of florets open at a time on the rachis were observed. the tuberose lines/cultivars were screened for the tolerance/ resistance against root knot nematode meloidogyne incognita for three consecutive years. gall index (gi) was recorded in the roots in a 0-5 scale as per taylor and sasser (1978) at the time of bulb harvest. per cent disease index and host reaction of tuberose genotypes against leaf blight disease caused by a. polianthi under field condition was recorded thrice at15 day interval using 0-5 scale (narayanappa and chandra, 1984). the pooled data of three years were statistically analyzed as per gomez and gomez (1984). results and discussion the results of the study revealed significant differences among the tuberose lines for flowering and yield parameters (tables 1 and 2). days to spike emergence ranged from 133.73 (arka suvasini) to 198.00 (pearl double) with the general mean of 161.53 days. the advanced breeding line iihr-4 recorded 154.15 days to spike emergence. early spike appearance in tuberose cultivar arka suvasini was reported by safeena et al. (2019) who noticed wide range of variation in days taken to flowering due to variation in genetic makeup and prevailing environmental conditions. spike length ranged from 62.00 cm (iihr-4) to 86.36 cm (pearl double) with the mean of 78.64 cm. the advanced breeding line iihr-4 recorded spike length of 62.00 cm with upright stalk categorized into short spike group suitable for cut flower. varietal differences for spike length was earlier reported by madhumati et al. (2018), prashanta et al. (2016), safeena et al. (2019) and dogra et al. (2020) in tuberose. rachis length varied from 25.59cm (iihr-4) to 33.71cm (arka vaibhav) with the general mean of 29.06 cm. the number of florets per spike was recorded the maximum in arka suvasini (55.33) and minimum in pearl double (48.78) with the mean of 50.91. the results are in line with findings of ranchana et al. (2013), rao and sushma (2015), bharathi et al. (2018) in tuberose and rani and singh (2005) in gladiolus. the variation observed in spike length and rachis length might be attributed to the inherent genetic characters of the individual cultivars and environmental factors. the line iihr-4 recorded least floret length of 5.22 cm and arka suvasini recorded the highest floret length of 6.22 cm with the general mean of 5.69 cm. similar results on highest floret length of tuberose cultivar arka suvasini was stated by ranchana et al. (2013). the florets of iihr-4 are short and arranged closely without any gap between the internodes, making the spike very attractive and rendering the line highly suitable as cut flower. such variation might be due to the varietal characters and similar observations were made by bharathi and umamaheswari (2018). diameter of floret varied from 4.44 cm (pearl double) to 4.77 cm (arka suvasini) with the general mean of 4.56cm. this may be due to varied growth rates and genetic make-up. the results are in line with the findings of rao and sushma (2015) and gandhi et al. (2017) and safeena et al. (2019) in tuberose. bud length ranged from 4.86 cm (hyderabad double) to 5.68 cm (arka suvasini) with the mean of 5.40 cm. single flower weight was varied from 2.29g (arka vaibhav) to 3.57g (arka suvasini) with the mean of 2.73g. the variation in floral parameters might be primarily governed by the genetic makeup of the varieties and these results were also experimentally supported by the findings of andrew et al. (2017). number of florets open at a time on the spike is an important trait for cut flower spike since it depicts the exquisiteness of the cut flower. the line iihr-4 recorded the highest number of florets (7.10) open at a time on the spike. the lowest was observed in arka vaibhav (2.40) with the general mean of 4.50. the advanced breeding line iihr-4 was very appealing with highest number of florets open at a time on the spike and this character makes the line iihr-4 highly suita ble a s cut flower, especia lly for flower arrangement and bouquet (fig.1). the line iihr-4 was found to be superior over the commercial check for the above character. the variations in number of florets open at a time on the spike might be due to different genetic make-up of the different cultivars and prevailing environment conditions of the experimental area. the results are in conformity with the findings of kusum (2010) in tuberose who also reported the va riation among the tuberose cultivar s for the maximum open florets per spike. 236 bharathi et al fig. 2. reaction of tuberose cultivars to root knot nematode j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 234-240, 2021 fig. 1. the field view of tuberose line iihr-4 and flower spikes 237 table 1. performance evaluation of advance breeding line of tuberose double type for flowering parameters genotype days spike rachis no. of length diameter bud single no. of internodal to length length florets of of length flower florets length spike (cm) (cm) per floret floret (cm) weight open at a (cm) emerg spike (cm) (cm) (g) time on ence spike iihr-4 154.15 62.00 25.59 50.75 5.22 4.47 4.98 3.16 7.10 3.45 arka suvasini 133.73 79.66 31.41 55.33 6.20 4.77 5.68 3.57 3.70 4.45 arka vaibhav 137.60 80.43 33.71 52.35 6.02 4.49 5.49 2.29 2.40 5.79 pearl double 198.00 86.36 28.24 48.78 5.48 4.44 5.28 2.94 5.45 4.83 hyderabad 184.18 84.77 26.35 50.10 5.51 4.71 4.86 3.05 3.85 4.17 double mean 161.53 78.64 29.06 51.46 5.69 4.58 5.26 3.00 4.50 4.54 range 133.7362.0025.5948.785.224.444.862.292.403.45198.00 86.36 33.71 55.33 6.20 4.77 5.68 3.57 7.10 5.79 cv% 3.49 5.77 4.82 5.45 3.32 3.23 3.84 5.83 7.27 9.67 cd (p=0.05) 8.69 6.99 2.16 ns 0.29 0.23 0.31 0.27 0.50 0.68 performance evaluation of double type tuberose j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 234-240, 2021 fig. 3. per cent disease index and host reaction of different tuberose varieties to leaf blight disease caused by alternaria polianthi under field condition 238 according to bharathi and umamaheswari (2018), the trait internodal length indicates compactness of the florets arranged on rachis, which is the ideal character for the selection of suitable cut flower. in the present investiga tion, inter noda l length between florets ranged from 3.45 (iihr-4) to 5.79 cm in arka vaibhav with the general mean of 4.54 cm. among the double types evaluated, the line iihr-4 recorded the shortest internodal length and the florets are arranged very densely on the spike. in agreement with findings of the present study, the highest internodal length in arka suva sini was reported by singh and singh (2013) in tuberose under delhi condition. variation in the internodal length might be due to the genetic makeup of the cultivars under study and similar observations were reported by bharathi and umamaheswari (2018) in single type tuberose. number of spikes per clump ranged from 2.14 (hyderabad double) to 4.43 (iihr-4) with the mean of 3.23. number of spikes per m2 varied from 19.24 (hyderabad double) to 33.94 (iihr-4) with the mean of 26.52. this variation in spikes per clump is in line with the findings of ra o a nd sushma (2015), ranchana et al. (2013), gandhi (2017) and safeena et al. (2019) in tuberose. number of spikes per hectare ranged from 1,92,750.00 (hyderabad double) to 3,98,781.25(iihr-4) with the mean of 2,90,481.25. the advanced breeding line iihr-4 was found to be superior in flower yield than the commercial check arka vaibhav. this variation in the production of spikes/plant and spikes per plot might be due to the genetically controlled factor and also due to the hereditary traits of different cultivars under prevailing environment. the vase life ranged between 6.50 and 7.25 days for the genotypes evaluated. significant differences were not noticed among the double genotypes for vase life indicating that the advanced breeding line iihr-4 has good vase life and it is on par with commercial cultivars interms of vase life. arka suvasini recorded minimum number of bulbs per clump (2.69) and maximum number of bulbs per clump was recorded in arka vaibhav (8.19) with the mean of 5.14. number of bulblets per clump ranged from 32.81 (arka suvasini) to 71.00 (pearl double) with the mean of 53.28. the variations in bulb parameters might be due to the presence of genetic variability of the cultivar and the results are in line with the findings of madhumathi et. al. (2018) in tuberose. with respect to straightness of spike, the line iihr-4, arka vaibhav and hyderabad double were found to bear straight spikes, while the cultivars arka suvasini and pearl double produced slightly bent spikes. the tinge on flower bud was recorded to be green in the line iihr-4 and arka vaibhav and all the bharathi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 234-240, 2021 genotype no. of no. of no. of no. of no. of vase nature tinge type spikes spikes spikes bulbs bulblets life of on of per per per per per (days) spike flower flower clump m2 ha/year clump clump bud opening iihr-4 4.43 33.94 398781.25 4.25 44.63 6.50 straight green wide arka suvasini 2.91 22.82 261593.75 2.69 32.81 7.25 slightly bent pink wide arka vaibhav 4.00 33.77 360125.00 8.19 54.81 7.25 straight green wide pearl double 2.14 19.24 192750.00 5.00 71.00 7.00 slightly bent pink shy hyderabad 2.66 22.83 239156.25 5.56 63.13 7.13 straight pink wide double mean 3.23 26.52 290481.25 5.14 53.28 7.03 range 2.1419.24192750.002.6932.816.504.43 33.94 398781.25 8.19 71.00 7.25 cv% 6.26 7.74 6.28 15.03 10.44 7.63 cd (p=0.05) 0.31 3.16 28095.99 1.19 8.57 ns table 2. performance evaluation of advance breeding line of tuberose double type for flower, bulb yield and vase life 239 other cultivars recorded pink tinge on flower bud. the type of flower opening was found to be shy in pearl double while all the other cultivars recorded wide flower opening. differences in nature of spike, flower opening and tinge on flower bud was earlier reported by bharathi and umamaheswari (2018) in tuberose and these are due to the distinguished generic make up of the genotypes. the advanced breeding line iihr-4 was screened for the tolerance/ resistance against root knot nematode m. incognita for three consecutive years and the pooled analysis revealed that it was highly resistant under field conditions with least gall index of 1.24 (fig. 1). variations of tuberose genotypes for root knot nematode tolerance and resistance were reported earlier by gandhi et al. (2018) who stated that this might be due to the inherent genetic character. per cent disease index and host reaction of tuberose genotypes against leaf blight disease caused by alternaria under field conditions were recorded and the results indicated that the breeding line iihr-4 has better field tolerance to alternaria leaf blight as compared to the other tuberose genotypes evaluated (fig. 3). conclusion it is concluded from the above study for three consecutive years that among the cultivars evaluated for flowering, yield, quality and biotic stresses, the advanced breeding line iihr-4 with superior flowering and quality parameters namely the double type florets on shorter spike and rachis, more number of florets open at a time on the spike, shorter intermodal length between the florets with compact floret arrangement, straight spikes with wide open florets and green tinge on flower buds makes the iihr-4 as most ideal cut flower cultivar. it was also found to be highly resistant to root knot nematode m. incognita under field conditions with better field tolerance to alternaria leaf blight disease. performance evaluation of double type tuberose j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 234-240, 2021 references andrew, l., rokolhu, k., angngoi, b.y., and lokam b., 2017 evalution of tubrose (polianthes heberosa l.) cultivaers under the foothill conditions of nagaland, j.orn. horti. 20(2): 69-74 anonymous. 2016. indian statistics, ministry of agricultureand farmers’ welfare, government of india. bailey, l. h. 1919. the standard cyclopedia of horticulture. macmillan, vol. 2. bha r a thi, t. u a nd uma ma heswa r i, r. 2018. evalua tion of adva nce breeding lines of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) for yield and quality. j. plant development sciences, 10(12) : 683-687. dogra, s., pandey, r.k., laishram, n and singh, a. 2020. varietal evaluation of tuberose under agro clima tic conditions of ja mm. pharma innovation journal, 9(2): 499-501. g a ndhi, d . p. 2 0 1 7 . e va lu a t ion o f t u b er os e (polianthes tuberosa l.) for quality, yield and tolerance/resistance to root knot nematode (meloidogyne incognita). m.sc thesis. dr. y. s . r . h or t ic u lt u r a l uni ver s it y, venkataramannagudem. gandhi, d.p., bharathi, t.u., umamaheswari, r., ka la iva na n d. a nd p r a thibha , s. 2 019. response of tuberose genotypes to root knot nema t o de, m e l o i d o g y n e i n c o g n i t a : biochemica l, histological a nd nutritional characterization of host-pathogen interaction. j. of environmental biology, 40: 1151-1158. gomez, k. a. and gomez, a. a. 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(polianthes tuberosa linn. ) under delhi conditions. the asian j. horti, 8(2): 512-514 taylor, a. l. and sasser, j. n. 1978. biology, identification and control of root knot nematode meloidogyne spp. nor th ca r olina sta te university graphics, raleigh, nc, 111 pp. (received on 15.01.2021, revised on 24.07.2021 and accepted on 27.07.2021) bharathi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 234-240, 2021 00 contents.pdf 12 usha bharathi.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf introduction eggplant or brinjal (solanum melongena l.) belongs to the family solanaceae and is the most important and widely-consumed vegetable in india. it is grown in 691,000 hectares with production of eight to nine million tonnes (equivalent to one quarter of global production), which makes india the second largest producer of eggplant in the world. bacterial wilt, caused by ralstonia (=pseudomonas) solanacearum (e.f. smith) yabuuchi et al, is a major constraint in eggplant production in india. the disease is widely distributed in tropical, subtropical and some warm temperate regions of the world. the pathogen is difficult to control since it is soil-borne and has a wide host-range, including several hundred species representing 44 families of plants. infection is through root-to-root transmission, movement of soil and dissemination by farm implements, and insect transmission. a combination of high temperature and poor drainage favour development of the disease which causes 75 to 81% yield loss during summer in india (das and chattopadhyay, 1953; rai et al, 1975; rao et al, 1976). bacterial wilt in brinjal is being managed by application of bactericides, copper fungicides and by crop rotation, with no adequate control. once the disease develops and wilt symptoms appear in the field, application of bactericides and copper fungicides has no effect on the bacterium. crop evaluation of eggplant accessions for resistance to bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum (e.f. smith) yabuuchi et al. c. gopalakrishnan, t.h. singh and rashmi b. artal icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail : gopkran@iihr.ernet.in abstract forty-one eggplant accessions were screened in a sick plot for bacterial wilt resistance at indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru. nine accessions, viz., iihr-322, avt-iires-1, avt-iires-2, avt-iires-4, avt-iires-5, iihr500-a, bplh-1, iihr-3 and iihr-5 showed highly resistant reaction, with no wilting of plants; five accessions, viz., res-2, res-5, res-6, 37-36-4-4 and 36-37-13, showed resistance reaction per cent wilt 3.33 -10.0. two accessions, viz., 36-37-3 and 37-4-20, showed moderately resistant reaction, with 11.0 and 12.0 per cent wilt incidence, respectively; while, 22 accessions were ‘moderately susceptible to highly susceptible’, with wilt incidence ranging from 25.45 to 100.0%. key words: eggplant, bacterial wilt, resistance screening rotation is not a viable control method, as, the bacteria can persist indefinitely in infested fields (jaworski and morton, 1964; sonoda, 1978). in the absence of effective chemicals and bactericides for managing this disease, emphasis is laid on developing eggplant (brinjal) cultivars with resistance to ralstonia solanacearum. though resistance to bacterial wilt has been studied in several crops, especially tomato, there is little published work on bacterial wilt resistance in eggplant (chaudhary and sharma, 2000; zakir hussain et al, 2005; mondal et al, 2013). work on breeding for resistance to bacterial wilt in eggplant is in progress at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru. a large number of eggplant accessions were evaluated for resistance to bacterial wilt and the results are reported in their paper. material and methods a total of 41 eggplant accessions, including resistant and susceptible checks (table 1), were evaluated during the year 2010-2011 in bacterial-wilt sick plot at indian institute of horticultural research farm, hessaraghatta, bengaluru. 35 day old eggplant seedlings of these accessions raised in pro-trays were transplanted to wilt-sick soil which had a pathogen population of 1.0 x 108cfu/gm soil. infested soil was used because it permits assessment of field resistance by allowing the infection process to take place under natural j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):202-205, 2014 203 conditions, with realistic doses of naturally-produced inoculum. recommended package of practices for growing brinjal crop were followed from transplanting up to harvest. the bacterium, r. solanacearum, was isolated from freshly wilted eggplant on triphenyl tetrazolium chloride agar medium (ttc) (kelman, 1954) and multiplied on 523 enriched medium (kado and haskett, 1970). bacterial suspension from 523 medium was diluted in sterile distilled water and its concentration adjusted to 0.3 od at 600nm (1.0 x 106cfu/ml) using a spectrophotometer. to ensure infection, the plants were also inoculated with bacterial suspension (106cfu/ml) by axil-puncture method at 15th and 30th day after transplanting (winstead and kelman, 1952; rashmi et al, 2012). all the 41 accessions were replicated thrice, with 30 plants in each replication, in randomized block design. periodical, observations were recorded on incubation period and per cent bacterial-wilt incidence. to assess length of the incubation period, an average of 10.0 per cent of wilted plants from each accession was taken (atabug and juan, 1981) and bacterial infectivity was confirmed by the ooze test, as also by isolating the bacterium on ttc medium. wilt symptoms and number of wilted plants per accession were recorded and graded on 0-5 scale, as per winstead and kelman (1952) and zakir hussain et al (2005), with some modification. the modified rating scale is given below: 0 highly resistant (hr) with no wilt symptom; 1 resistant (r), with 1 10% wilted plants; 2 moderately resistant (mr) with 11 -20% wilted plants; 3 moderately susceptible (ms), with 21-30% wilted plants; 4 susceptible (s) with 3140% wilted plants, and, 5 highly susceptible (hs) with > 40% wilted plants. the experimental data were statistically analyzed. data on per cent incidence of wilt were transformed into arc sine, and analysis of variance was carried out with transformed values. the means were compared for statistical significance using duncan multiple range test (panse and sukhatme, 1989). the accessions were categorized as highly resistant to highly susceptible, depending on the percentage of wilted plants. results and discussion results presented in table 1 showed that nine accessions, viz., iihr-322 (fig. 1), avt-iires-1, avt-iires-2, avt-iires-4, avt-iires-5, iihr500-a, table 1. evaluation of eggplant accessions for bacterial wilt resistance sl. accession wilt incidence reaction no. mean* (%) 1. avt-1 res-1 54.44 (47.53) hs 2. res-2 04.44 (12.13) r 3. res-3 60.00 (50.76) hs 4. res-4 33.33 (35.23) hs 5. res-5 03.33 (10.48) r 6. res-6 10.00 (18.36) r 7. iihr-322 00.00 (0.00) hr 8. avt-iires-1 00.00 (0.00) hr 9. avt-iires-2 00.00 (0.00) hr 10. avt-iires-3 96.66 (79.94) hs 11. avt-iires-4 00.00 (0.00) hr 12. avt-iires-5 00.00 (0.00) hr 13. bplh-1 00.00 (0.00) hr 14. ph-5 100.00 (89.96) hs 15. mebh-9 100.00 (89.96) hs 16. h-925 100.00 (89.96) hs 17. iihr-500a 00.00 (0.00) hr 18. eggplant green long 30.00 (33.15) ms 19. iihr-3 00.00 (0.00) hr 20. iihr-5 00.00 (0.00) hr 21. 37-36-4-4 10.00 (18.42) r 22. 36-37-13 05.00 (12.88) r 23. 36-37-3 11.00 (19.32) m r 24. 37-4-20 12.00 (20.23) m r 25. 37-36-4-9 100.00 (89.96) hs 26. purple rani 100.00 (89.96) hs 27. eggplant round 100.00 (89.96) hs 28. 2bmg-1 x ph-2 90.00 (72.07) hs 29. iihr-104 100.00 (89.96) hs 30. pb-4 100.00 (89.96) hs 31. ph-6 100.00 (89.96) hs 32. mebh-11 100.00 (89.96) hs 33. iihr-106 100.00 (89.96) hs 34. iihr-500a x iihr-575 75.00 (60.00) hs 35. eggplant purple long 25.45 (30.26) ms 36. mg round 100.00 (89.96) hs 37. mgr-2 (spineless) 100.00 (89.96) hs 38. manjari 100.00 (89.96) hs 39. arka nidhi (rc) 00.00 (0.00) hr 40. arka keshav (rc) 00.00 (0.00) hr 41. arka shirish (sc) 100.00 (89.96) hs cd (p=0.05): 2.39, cv (%): 3.46, sem±: 0.85 *mean of three replications figures in parenthesis are angular transformed values r = resistant hs = highly susceptible hr = highly resistant ms = moderately susceptible mr = moderately resistant bplh-1, iihr-3 and iihr-5, were highly resistant with no wilting of plants; five accessions, viz., res-2, res-5, res6, 37-36-4-4 and 36-37-13, showed resistant reaction with per cent wilt ranging from 3.33 to 10.0; two accessions, viz., 36-37-3 and 37-4-20, showed moderately resistant evaluation of eggplant for resistance to bacterial wilt j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):202-205, 2014 204 reaction, with 11.0 and 12.0 per cent wilt incidence, respectively; and 22 accessions (table 1) showed ‘moderately susceptible to highly susceptible’ reaction ranging from 25.45 to 100.0% wilt incidence. the resistant check varieties, arka keshav and arka nidhi, showed no bacterial wilt incidence, and, the susceptible check, arka shirish showed 100% wilt incidence (fig. 2). similar observation was also made by chaudhary and sharma (2000), who found that genotype sm 6-6 to be resistant to bacterial wilt, with arka keshav, arka neelkanth and arka nidhi as the resistant checks. mondal et al (2013) found that out of eight lines of local eggplant germplasm screened in bacterial-wilt sick soil, ‘midnapur local’ and ‘bhangar’ were tolerant to the disease. normally, under field conditions, wilt symptom appears at the time of flowering, which is approximately 30 to 40 days after transplanting. in the highly-susceptible variety arka shirish, the first symptom of wilt appeared after six days from the first inoculation (20.0% wilt), which was 21 days after transplanting and extended for 35 days (100.0% wilt); whereas, in the resistant accession (res-5 and res6) which showed wilt incidence of 3.33 to 10.0%, the initial symptom was noticed 14 days after the first inoculation, and had a longer incubation period of 60 days. similar observation was made by rahman et al (2011) on incubation of the pathogen in resistant cultivar katabegun, which showed 30.0% bacterial wilt incidence after 55 days of transplanting to wilt-sick soil. thus, the present results indicate that resistant accessions had longer incubation period compared to the susceptible ones. similarly, rahman (1997) reported in chilli that resistant accessions had a longer incubation period and took a longer time to produce disease symptoms, than the susceptible accessions. accessions found to be highly resistant in the present study are being further used in breeding programmes for developing bacterial wilt resistant eggplant hybrids. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, and coordinator, orp on phytophthora, for providing facilities. references atabug, r.r. and juan, m.o.s. 1981. screening of tomato accessions for bacterial wilt resistance. philippines phytopath., 17:63-66 chaudhary, d.r. and sharma, s.d. 2000. screening of some brinjal cultivars against bacterial wilt and fruit borer. agri. sci. digest, 20:129-130 das, c.r. and chattopathyay, s.b. 1953. bacterial wilt on eggplant. indian phytopath., 8:130-135 jaworski, c.a. and morton, d.j. 1964. an epiphytotic of pseudomonas solanacearum in tomatoes on newlycleared klej sand in relation to potassium, calcium, and magnesium levels. pl. dis. rep., 48:88–89 kado, c.i. and heskett, m.g. 1970. selective media for isolation of agrobacterium, corynebacterium, erwinia, pseudomonas and xanthomonas. phytopath., 60:969-976 kelman, a. 1954. relationship of pathogenicity in pseudomonas solanacearum to colony appearance on tetrazolium medium. phytopath., 44:693-695 mondal, b., bhattacharya, i., sarkar, a. and khatua, d.s. 2013. evaluation of local brinjal (solanum melongena l.) germplasm for bacterial resistance. int’l. j. agril. stat. sci., 9:709-716 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1989. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, india, p359 rahman, m., farjana ali, k.m., hussain, a. and lutfunnaher, l. 2011. screening of different eggplant cultivars against wilt disease caused by fungi, bacteria and nematodes. j. exptl. sci., 2:6-10 rahman, m.a. 1997. infection and some aspects of fig 1. brinjal variety iihr-322: highly resistant to bacterial wilt fig 2. brinjal variety arka shirish: highly susceptible to bacterial wilt gopalakrishnan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):202-205, 2014 205 resistance mechanism of capsicum annuum to ralstonia solanacearum. ph.d. thesis, university of pertanian, malaysia rai, p.v., shivappa setty, k.k.a. and vasantha setty, k.p. 1975. bacterial wilt of petunia and its source of inoculum. curr. res., 4:173-174 rao, m.v.b., sohi, h.s. and vijay, o.p. 1976. reaction of some varieties of brinjal to pseudomonas solanacearum. veg. sci., 3:61-64 rashmi b. artal, gopalakrishnan, c. and thippeswamy, b. 2012. an efficient inoculation method to screen tomato, brinjal and chilli entries for bacterial wilt resistance. pest mgt. hortl. ecosystems, 18:70-73 sonoda, r.m. 1978. effect of differences in tolerance of tomato to pseudomonas solanacearum and time of planting on incidence of bacterial wilt. pl. dis. rptr., 62:1059-1062 winstead, n.n. and kelman, a. 1952. inoculation techniques for evaluating resistance to pseudomonas solanacearum. phytopath., 42:628-634 zakir hussain, m., rahman, m.a. and bashar, m.a. 2005. screening of brinjal accessions for bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum. bangladesh j. bot., 34:53-58 (ms received 08 november 2013, revised 07 july 2014, accepted 01 september 2014) evaluation of eggplant for resistance to bacterial wilt j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):202-205, 2014 introduction efficient use of plant nutrients through chemical fertilizers and organic manures is a good means for increasing agriculture productivity and profitability. cost of fertilizers has gone up and, hence, their optional use in required quantity mainly depends on resources available to farmers. imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers results in lower nutrient use efficiency and restricts utilization of the genetic potential of a crop to its maximum. the most comprehensive approach of fertilizer application by incorporating soil test values, nutrient requirement of the crop, contribution of nutrients from soil manures fertilizers and fixing yield-targets is possible only through soil test crop response (stcr) approach. therefore, this study was undertaken to develop targeted yield equations for carrot crop in red soils of gandhi krishi vignyan kendra (gkvk), bangalore. material and methods a field experiment was conducted on carrot crop during kharif 2008-09 under red soils (kandic paleustalfs) of zonal agricultural research station (zars), gkvk, bangalore to develop targeted yield equations following the development of fertilizer prescription targeted yield-equation for carrot crop based on soil test values p.k. basavaraja, p.n. narasimha reddy, n.l. rajesh and k.b. apoorva aicrp on stcr, department of soil science and agricultural chemistry university of agricultural sciences, gkvk, bangalore – 560 065, india e-mail:pujarikbraj@gmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted on red soils (kandic paleustalfs) of zonal agricultural research station, gkvk, bangalore during kharif 2008-09 to develop a targeted yield equation for carrot crop. after developing three levels of fertility gradient with respect to available npk in soil, the main experiment was conducted by taking carrot as a test crop. initial soil data, carrot root yield and npk uptake by carrot crop were used for obtaining four important basic parameters, viz., nutrients required to produce a quintal of carrot roots (nr%), contribution of nutrients from fertilizers (cf%), contribution of nutrients from soil (cs%) and contribution of nutrients from organic matter (%c-om). these parameters were used for developing fertilizer-adjustment targeted yield equation. comparison of the present soil testing laboratory method with soil test crop response approach of fertilizer recommendation clearly indicated superiority of stcr targeted yield approach for efficient and economic use of fertilizers to attain the required yield target. key words: carrot, red soils, basic parameters, targeted yield equation procedure of ramamoorthy et al (1967). three strips of fertility gradients, viz., low, medium and high (with respect to available nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) were developed taking fodder maize as the exhaustive crop. thereafter the main experiment was conducted by dividing each strip into three blocks of fym taking seven different npk combinations + 1 absolute control. so thus, a total of 21 treatments of npk combinations and 3 controls were imposed in each strip. similarly, the same npk treatment groups in each fym block were randomized in the other two gradient strips to a total of 72 treatments. the following npk and fym levels in different combinations were tested in this experiment. nutrient levels tested fym (tha-1) n p 2 o 5 k 2 0 kgha-1 0 0 0 0 25 5 0 3 2 2 5 30 7 5 6 4 5 0 100 9 6 7 5 j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):33-36, 2011 34 before applying fym and npk, soil samples (0-20 cm deep) from all the 72 plots were collected and analyzed for available nitrogen, by the alkaline permanganate method (subbaiah and asija, 1956); for available phosphorus, by bray’s method and for available potassium, by the ammonium acetate method (hanway and heidal, 1952) as described by jackson (1973). after imposing all the treatments, carrot crop was sown at 22.5cm x 10cm spacing and recommended package of practices were followed. carrot root and leaf yield were recorded separately, and samples were taken for estimation of npk uptake by the crop (which was computed using plant analysis as well as yield data). initial soil data, yield and uptake were used for obtaining nr (nutrient required to produce a quintal of carrot roots), %cs (contribution of nutrients from soil), %cf (contribution of nutrients from fertilizers) and c–om (contribution of nutrients from organic matter), as illustrated below (ramamoorthy et al, 1967) nutrient uptake (npk) (kgha-1) by grain + straw nr (kg q-1) = ——————————————————————— grain yield or any economic produce (q ha-1) nutrient uptake (kgha-1) by grain + straw in control plot %cs = —————————————————————————— x 100 soil test values (av. npk) in control plot (kgha-1) these basic parameters were transformed into simple, workable fertilizer adjustment equations for calculating any yield target based on soil test values following the procedure of ramamoorthy et al (1967). results and discussion highest carrot root yield of 132.47q ha-1 was recorded in the high-fertility strip (l 3 ), where 2-2-2 levels of npk were applied along with 25t ha-1 fym (f 2 ). in the lowfertility strip (l 1 ) higher root yield of 118.53q ha-1 was obtained in 3-1-1 levels of npk without fym (f 1 ), whereas, in the medium-fertility strip (l 2 ), higher yield of carrot root (115.58 q ha-1) was noticed in 3-2-3 levels of npk along with 30t ha-1 of fym (f 3 ). nutrient uptake by grain + straw in treated plot soil test values in treated plot %contribution (npk) from soil x %cf = ———————————————————————— x 10 nutrient dose applied in treated plot (kg ha-1) %c-om = ————————————————————————— amount of nutrients (npk) added through om [nutrient uptake by grain + straw in om plot ] [soil test values in om plot] [mean % contribution (npk) from soil] -x-in control plots, the highest root yield of 93.51q ha-1 was recorded in the high-fertility strip (l 3 ) in which 25t ha-1 fym (f 2 ) had been applied; whereas, the lowest yield of 51.08q ha-1 was obtained in low-fertility strip (l 1 ) where no fym (f 1 ) had been applied (table 2). the basic data, when computed, clearly indicated that nutrients required to produce a quintal of carrot root are: 0.76 kg nitrogen, 0.42 kg phosphorus and 0.78 kg potassium (table 1). nutrient-contribution from fertilizer was maximum (72.37% n, 84.24% p 2 o 5 and 90.24% k 2 o) for attaining maximum yield of carrot, whereas, contribution from soil was slightly lower (28.55% n, 36.56% p 2 o 5 and 59.29% k 2 o). contribution from organic matter was very low (0.16% n, 0.12% p 2 o 5 and 0.46% k 2 o). these findings are in close conformity with those reported by velayutham (1979) and santhi et al (1999). by using these basic parameters, targeted yield equation for carrot crop was developed with respect to fertilizer nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium requirement (kg ha-1). the equations are as follows: f.n.* = 1.04 t** 0.39 stv***-n 0.23 om f.p 2 o 5 = 0.49 t 0.43 stv-p 2 o 5 0.14 om f.k 2 o = 0.87 t 0.66 stv-k 2 o 0.51 om * f.n. = fertilizer nitrogen (kg ha-1); f.p 2 o 5 = fertilizer phosphorus (kg ha-1); f.k 2 o = fertilizer potassium (kg ha-1) ** t = yield target (t ha-1) *** stv = soil test values (kg ha-1) using these equations, a farmer-friendly readyreckoner was developed (following the procedure of ramamoorthy et al, 1967), which clearly indicates the quantity of fertilizer nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium needed to be applied to get a fixed yield-target based on soil test values. table 1. basic data on nutrient requirement of carrot crop and contribution of nutrients from different sources n p 2 o 5 k 2 o nr (kgq-1) 0.76 0.42 0.78 cs (%) 28.55 36.56 59.29 cf (%) 72.37 84.24 90.24 c-om (%) 0.16 0.12 0.46 basavaraja et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):33-36, 2011 35 table 2 indicates the amount of fertilizer nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium required, along with 10t ha-1 fym or without fym for a fixed yield target of 20t ha-1, based on soil test values. if this yield target is modified, the amount of fertilizer nutrient required will change. similarly, if the soil test values change, the amount of npk required to attain a fixed-target will also get modified. if the soil test value with respect to available nitrogen is 290kg ha-1, the amount of fertilizer nitrogen required to obtain carrot root yield of 20tha-1 is 72kg ha-1 with 10t ha-1 rym (table 2). however, for the same soil-test values and the same yield target, 94.7kg ha-1 of fertilizer nitrogen is required when no fym is applied. similarly, if the available phosphorus content of soil is 23kg p 2 o 5 ha-1, the amount of phosphatic fertilizer required for the same yield-target (20t ha-1) is 74.5kg p 2 o 5 ha-1 and 88.9kg p 2 o 5 ha-1 with and without fym application, respectively. if the soil test value for potassium is 160kg ha-1, the amount of fertilizer potassium required for a target yield of 20t ha-1 without fym is 69.0kg ha-1, whereas, with fym just 18.3kg of fertilizer potassium is required. fertilizer use following these equations is more economical and environment friendly. for example, to obtain yield target of 20t ha-1 carrot roots, fertilizer nitrogen required is only 75.0kg ha-1 even if the soil test value ranges from 260kg n ha-1 to 580kg n ha-1, as per soil testing laboratory (stl) recommendation (table 3); whereas, in stcr approach, fertilizer n required for the same yield-target (20t ha-1) at lower soil nitrogen level (260kg n ha -1) is 106.5kg fertilizer nitrogen. at higher soil test value of 480kg soil nitrogen, just 19.7kg of fertilizer nitrogen is needed to achieve the same yield target. similarly, for soil test values of 23.0kg p 2 o 5 ha-1 to 52.0kg p 2 o 5 ha -1, amount of fertilizer phosphorus recommended as per stl is 63.0kg ha-1;. but, in the stcr approach, 88.9kg of fertilizer phosphorus is recommended (table 3) when soil test value is 23.0kg p 2 o 5 ha-1; whereas, at 52.0kg ha -1 of available phosphorus, 76.3kg of fertilizer phosphorus is required to get a yield target of 20t ha-1 carrot roots. similarly, 50.0kg ha-1 potassium fertilizer is required to produce 20t ha-1 of carrot root, when the soil test values ranges from 125kg k 2 o ha-1 to 300kg k 2 o ha-1, as per stl recommendations. however, if one follows the stcr approach of fertilizer application, 92.0kg ha-1 of potassic fertilizer needs to be added when the soil test value is 125kg k 2 o ha-1. but, when the soil test value is 300kg k 2 o ha-1, no potassium fertilizer is needed to achieve the yield target of 20t ha-1. table 2. stcr fertilizer prescription ready-reckoner for carrot root yield target of 20t ha-1* stv only fym stv only fym stv only fym kmno 4 n inorganics (10t ha-1) bray’s p 2 o 5 inorganics (10t ha-1) k 2 o inorganics (10t ha-1) f. n req. f. n req. f. p 2 o 5 req. f. p 2 o 5 req. f. k 2 o req. f. k 2 o req. (kg ha-1) 250 110.4 87.7 15.0 92.4 78.0 110 101.8 51.2 260 106.5 83.8 17.0 91.5 77.1 120 95.2 44.6 280 98.6 75.9 19.0 90.6 76.2 125 92.0 41.3 290 94.7 72.0 21.0 89.8 75.3 130 88.7 38.0 300 90.7 68.0 23.0 88.9 74.5 140 82.1 31.5 320 82.8 60.1 25.0 88.0 73.6 150 75.5 24.9 340 74.9 52.2 30.0 85.8 71.4 160 69.0 18.3 400 51.3 28.6 32.0 85.0 70.6 170 62.4 11.7 440 35.5 12.8 35.0 83.7 69.3 180 55.8 5.2 480 19.7 0.0 38.0 82.4 68.0 200 42.7 0.0 520 3.9 0.0 41.0 81.1 66.7 220 29.5 0.0 560 0.0 0.0 44.0 79.8 65.4 240 16.4 0.0 600 0.0 0.0 46.0 78.9 64.5 260 3.3 0.0 47.0 78.5 64.1 280 0.0 0.0 50.0 77.2 62.8 300 0.0 0.0 52.0 76.3 61.9 320 0.0 0.0 54.0 75.4 61.0 340 0.0 0.0 58.0 73.7 59.3 440 0.0 0.0 62.0 72.0 57.5 *to increase or decrease yield target by one q ha-1,variations to be made in fertilizer recommendations are as follows: n = + 1.05kg p 2 o 5 = + 0.49kg k 2 o = + 0.87kg fertilizer prescription for carrot j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):33-36, 2011 36 table 3. stcr fertilizer prescription ready-reckoner along with stl method of fertilizer application for carrot root yield target of 20tha-1 stcr stl stv stcr stl stcr stl stv kmno 4 f. n f. n bray’s f. p 2 o 5 f. p 2 o 5 stv k 2 o f. k 2 o f. k 2 o req. req. p 2 o 5 req. req. req. req. 250 110.4 90.0 15.0 92.3 73.0 110 101.8 65.0 260 106.5 90.0 17.0 91.5 73.0 120 95.2 65.0 280 98.6 90.0 19.0 90.6 73.0 125 92.0 50.0 290 94.7 75.0 21.0 89.7 73.0 130 88.7 50.0 300 90.7 75.0 23.0 88.9 63.0 140 82.1 50.0 320 82.8 75.0 25.0 88.0 63.0 150 75.5 50.0 340 74.9 75.0 30.0 85.8 63.0 160 69.0 50.0 400 51.3 75.0 32.0 85.0 63.0 170 62.4 50.0 440 35.5 75.0 35.0 83.7 63.0 180 55.8 50.0 480 19.7 75.0 38.0 82.4 63.0 200 42.7 50.0 520 3.9 75.0 41.0 81.1 63.0 220 29.5 50.0 560 0.0 75.0 44.0 79.8 63.0 240 16.4 50.0 600 0.0 60.0 46.0 78.9 63.0 260 3.3 50.0 47.0 78.5 63.0 280 0.0 50.0 50.0 77.2 63.0 300 0.0 50.0 52.0 76.3 63.0 320 0.0 35.0 54.0 75.4 53.0 340 0.0 35.0 58.0 73.7 53.0 440 0.0 35.0 62.0 71.9 53.0 in comparison to the current soil testing laboratory (stl) recommendations followed in karnataka, the stcr approach of fertilizer application is superior for efficient use of costly fertilizer nutrients in a balanced way without accruing any wastage, thereby helping sustaining the soil productivity for longer period. references hanway, j.j. and heidal, h. 1952. soil analysis methods as used in iowa state college soil testing laboratory. iowa state college of agriculture bulletin, 57:1-31 jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi ramamoorthy, b., narasimham, r.l. and dinesh, r.s. 1967. fertilizer application for specific yield targets of sonora – 64 wheat. ind.farming, 17:43-45 santhi, r., selvakumari, g. and rani perumal. 1999. soil test based fertilizer recommendations under integrated plant nutrition system for rice – rice – pulse cropping sequence. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 47:288-294 subbiah, b.v. and asija, g.i. 1956. a rapid procedure for determination of available nitrogen in soils. curr. sci,. 31:196-198 velayutham, m. 1979. fertilizer recommendations based on targeted yield concept – problems and prospects. fert. news 24:12-20 (ms received 20 september 2010, revised 14 april 2011) basavaraja et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):33-36, 2011 molecular mechanisms involved in biosynthesis and regulation of carotenoids in plants p. shilpa, k.v. ravishankar, k.s. shivashankara1*, a.t. sadashiva2 and n. sunil kumar 3 division of biotechnology 1division of plant physiology and biochemistry 2division of vegetable crops icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, india *corresponding author e-mail: shiva@iihr.res.in abstract carotenoids are coloured compounds beneficial to plants and humans. some of the major health benefits carotenoids provide include vitamin a precursors and, antioxidants besides being involved in several physiological functions. even though several carotenoids are synthesised by plants, only a few like beta/ alpha carotenes and cryptoxanthin serve as vitamin a precursors. the rest are useful as antioxidants. to draw maximum benefits from carotenoids, we need to incorporate these in crop improvement programmes for enhancing available vitamin a precursor carotenoids. therefore, it is essential to study biosynthesis of carotenoids, their genetics and their control. in this review, we focus on factors r egulating c ar ote noid biosynthesis, m etabolism and s tor age in plastids. transcriptional and genetic control of carotenoid production in plants is discussed in the review using several mutants too. further, environmental regulation of carotenoid biosynthesis is also highlighted. carotenoid-rich fruits and vegetables have greater economic value owing to their health-promoting effects. besides,carotenoids have several industrial applications. therefore, knowledge of regulation mechanism in carotenoid production in plants can help develop crop varieties or technologies, thus generating carotene-rich fruits and vegetables. key words: carotenoid biosynthesis, regulation, plastid, fruit, transcription factor introduction carotenoids are naturally-occurring, lipophilic, c40 isoprenoid compounds of red, yellow and orange coloured pigments. they are usually found in all photosynthetic organisms (bacteria, algae and plants) as well as in some non-photosynthetic bacteria and fungi. colour is an important factor that makes flowers, fruits and vegetables economically valuable. this, in turn, is directly related to accumulation of carotenoids. orange colour from â-carotene, and red colour in tomatoes and watermelon from lycopene are some examples . apart from the appe aling colour of carotenoids in fruits such as tomatoes, water-melon and papaya, and in vegetables such as carrot, red-bellpeppers and green leafy vegetables such as spinach, broccoli and lettuce, these are also nutritionally important to humans. consumption of carotenoid-rich fruits and vegetables has several health benefits. these are precursors for vitamin a synthesis deficiency of which leads to age-related macular degeneration. carotenoids also act as free-radical scavengers owing to their antioxidant property, and help in prevention of several degenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases and cancer (fraser and bramley, 2004; fiedor and burda, 2014). in plants, carotenoids have diverse functions: they serve as components of the lightharvesting apparatus during photosynthesis, they attract pollinators and seed-dispersal agents (pandurangaiah et al, 2016). in view of the importance of carotenoids in plants and humans, focus is now on carotenoid research, particularly, in horticulture crops. there are several review articles on carotenogenesis and its regulation in plants (fraser and bramley, 2004; walter and strack, 2011; giuliano, 2014). a major focus of carotenoid research is to find compositional variation j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 focus 92 in carotenoids and regulation thereof at different levels in various plant species. the present review purports to be an overview of the recent progress in our understanding of regulation of carotenoid biosynthesis in plants. carotenoid biosynthesis pathway a intermediate compounds and enzymes involved in the pathway synthesis of carotenoids needs some precursors belonging to the family of isoprenoids. carotenoids are derived from two isoprene isomers, isopentenyl diphosphate (ipp) and its allylic isomer dimethylallyl diphosphate (dmapp) (nisar et al, 2015). formation of isoprenoids or isopentenyl diphosphate (ipp) occurs via two pathways, the cytosolic mevalonic acid pathway (mva) and the plastidic methyl-erythritol 4phosphate (mep) pathway (rodriguez-concepcion and boronat, 2002; eisenreich et al, 2004). in the mep pathway, pyruvate and glyceraldehyde (mainly obtained by glycolysis) are used as substrates initially for the formation of deoxy-d-xylulose 5-phosphate (dxp) which is catalyzed by dxp synthase (dxs). next, mep is formed from reduction of dxp by the enzyme dxp reductoisomerase (dxr). the roles of dxs and dxr in the pathway are very important, as,these enzymes have been shown to affect c arotenoid accumulation in plants (presumably through their control of ipp and dmapp flux). in tomato, dxs gene expression exhibited developmental and organ-specific regulation and a strong correlation with carotenoid synthesis during fruit development (lois et al., 2000). ipp is the fundamental c5 unit from which carotenoids are synthesized. dmapp is sequentially formed from ipp, catatlyzed by ipp isomerase. further, by addition two ipp units, dmapp is converted to farnesyl diphosphate (fpp) and, later, fpp is further condensed to geranyl geranyldi-phosphate (ggpp) the first precursor to carotenoid biosynthesis. formation of phytoene from two molecules of ggpp is the first rate-limiting step in the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway (fig.1). biosynthesis of phytoene shilpa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 fig. 1. schematic representation of carotenoid biosynthesis pathway (source: current opinion in plant biology, 2001, 4:210–218) 93 from ggpp is a two-step reaction catalyzed by the enzyme, phytoene synthase (psy). psy is encoded by multi-gene families in most plant species, except arabidopsis where psy is encoded by a single gene. three psy genes are reported in cereal crops viz., maize, rice and wheat. tomato contains two genes, psy1 and psy2. the former encode s the fruitripening-specific isoform, whilst psy2 predominates in green tissues, including mature green fruit, and has no role in carotenogenesis in a ripening fruit (fraser et al, 1999). psy gene(s) has/have also been used to increase carotenoid content in other crops such as rice, carrot and tomato. by contrast, the bacterial crti gene encodes a single desaturase, that converts phytoene into all-trans lycopene (fraser et al,1992). various members of psy family of genes are expressed differentially in various organs of a plant and are regulated by environmental factors (li et al, 2008a,b). psy3 in rice was recently found to control carotenoid biosynthesis in the root in response to abiotic stress (welsch et al, 2008). a mutation in psy1gene causes a yellow-flesh phenotype (the r, r mutant) and complete absence of carotenoids in the ripe fruit, an effect that can be mimicked with antisense psy1 transformation in tomato (bird et al, 1991; bramley et al, 1992). further, phytoene is converted into lycopene by a multistep process involving desaturation of phytoene by two structurally and functionally similar membrane-bound enzymes, phytoene desaturase (pds) and æ-zeta carotene desaturase (zds) in plants. quinones act as electron acceptors for pds and zds desaturation reactions, as demonstrated in daffodil and arabidopsis (nisar et al, 2015). pds and zds are two fadcontaining enzymes that require at least a plastoquinone (mayer et al., 1992; norris et al, 1995) and a plastid terminal oxidase (carol and kuntz, 2001) as electron acceptors. next, two cis-trans isomerases, z-iso (li et al, 2007) and crtiso (isaacson et al, 2002) are required to convert poly-cis-configured phytoene into the all-trans form lycopene. recently, two distantly related crtiso-like single-copy genes (crtiso-l1 and crtiso-l2) have been discovered in tomato, arabidopsis and grape. these enzymes are presumed to initiate a competing metabolic pathway, metabolizing carotenes upstream of all-trans-lycopene (fantini et al, 2013). isomerization of cis bonds to all-trans lycopene thus appears to be another regulatory step in carotenoid biosynthesis. cyclization of lycopene is a crucial branching point in carotenoid biosynthesis. in plants, all-trans lycopene is a substrate for the enzyme cyclase, which further derives a diverse group of carotenes [differentiated based on their different cyclic end-groups, either addition of a beta ring (â-ring) and/or an epsilon ring (å-type ring)]. these two competing steps of lycopene cyclization determine the proportion of lycopene channelled to the two branches of the carotenoid pathway, viz., âand á-carotenes. there are two types of lycopene cyclases: lycopene å cyclase (lcy-e), which convert lycopene into á-carotene; and, lycopene â cyclase (lcy-b & cyc-b), which convert lycopene into â-carotene (pecker et al, 1996; ronen et al, 1999). in fruits, carotenogenesis is carried out by two types of lycopene â cyclases,viz, chloroplast lycopene â cyclase (lcy-b), and chromoplast lycopene â cyclase (cyc-b). in higher plants, a chloroplast-specific lyc ope ne â-c yc lase enzyme (lcy-b) mediates c onve rsion of lyc ope ne into â -c a rote ne in photosynthetic tissue (ronen et al, 2000). lycopene to â-carotene conversion in chromoplast is mediated by a paralog of lyc ope ne âc yclase ca lle d the chromoplast-specific lycopene beta cyclase gene (cyc-b). in tomato, lcy-b is expressed in leaves, flowers and fruits until the breaker-stage, whereas, cyc-b is expressed exclusively in flowers and in chromoplasts of fruits at breaker-and ripe-stages of fruit ripening. cyc-b retains the same catalytic function as lcy-b, but has only 55% amino acid sequence identity (mohan et al,2016), but ccs (capsanthin capsorubin synthase) of pepper has a high homology to cyc-b of tomato (dalal et al, 2010) (fig. 1). xanthophylls, viz., lutein, zeaxanthin and neoxanthin, are produced by hydroxylation of á-carotene and âcarotene. á-carotene is converted in lutein by two hydroxylation reactions catalyzed by â ring carotene hydroxylases and å ring carotene hydroxylases. on the other hand, â-carotene is converted into zeaxanthin by â ring carotene hydroxylases. then, zeaxanthin epoxidase (zep) hydroxylates the â rings of zeaxanthin in two consecutive steps to yield antheraxanthin and, then, violaxanthin. violaxanthin is converted to neoxanthin by neoxanthin synthase, which is the final step in the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway (fig. 1). briefly, the carotenoid pathway starts with isoprenoid units, built together to form a series of carotenoids such biosynthesis and regulation of caratenoids in plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 94 a s phytoe ne, lyc ope ne, ca rotene a nd, f ina lly, xanthophylls, by the activity of various enzymes. tran sge nic st udie s in p lants for alte ring carotenoid content although conve ntiona l br ee ding a pproa che s successfully increased carotenoid content in plants, gene transfer or genetic engineering methods help faster and easier introduction of carotenogenic genes into plants, in a less laborious way. there has been significant progress in development of transgenic crop varieties that produce higher levels of carotenoids and, more recently, there have been a number of key achievements in areas of branch-point modulation (shifting the flux towards particular molecules,and away from the othe rs ), de novo ca rote noge ne sis (introduction of the entire carotenogenic pathway into plant tissues that lack carotenoids) and pathway extension (farre et al, 2011). plant carotenoids have been successfully engineered with either plant or bacterial genes, or, combinations of genes from the two sources. because they display some particular fe ature s , ba c ter ial ge ne s have be e n use d for e ngine er ing both e arly (phytoe ne synthes is, desaturation and isomerization) and late (lycopene cyclization, ketocarotenoid biosynthesis) biosynthetic steps (rosati et al, 2010). rice, one of the nonsola naceous c rops, was choosen for carotenoid engineering. one of the major biotechnological brea kthroughs has bee n molec ular breeding of ‘golden rice’ in both japonica a nd indica backgrounds, whose grain accumulates â-carotene (pro-vitamin a). beyer et al (2002) introduced (in a single, combined transformation effort) the cdna coding for phytoene synthase and lycopene cyclaseboth from narcissus pseudonarcissus and both under the control of the endosperm-specific glutelin promotertogether with a bacterial phytoene desaturase (crti, from erwinia uredovora, under constitutive 35s promoter control). this combination covers all the requirements for â-carotene synthesis an, as hoped, yellow â-carotene-bearing rice endosperm was obtained. transgenic maize plants containing crtl and crti genes expressed under the control of specific promoters showed increased levels of carotenoids, especially â-carotene (34-fold), contributing to the first transgenic maize developed to combat vitamin a deficiency (aluru et al, 2008). jayaraj et al (2008) engineered the keto-carotenoid biosynthetic pathway in carrot tissues by introducing a â-carotene ketolase gene, isolated from the alga, haematococcus pluvialis. gene constructs were made with three promoters (double camv35s, arabidopsis-ubiquitin, and rold from agrobac te rium rhizoge ne s ). endoge nous expression of carrot â-carotene hydroxylases was up-regulated in transgenic leaves and roots, and up to 70% of the total carotenoids were converted to novel keto carotenoids, with accumulation of up to 2,400ìg/g root dry-weight. as for solanaceous crops, tomato is the best-investigated species within solanaceae family due to its importance as a food crop, and nutritional value of its fruits accumulating lycopene. fruit-specific expression of a ba cterial psy gene (crtb from erwinia) produced fruits with higher phytoene, âcarotene and total carotenoid levels, but with not increased lycopene content (fraser et al, 2007). large increases in fruit â-carotene and total carotenoids were achieved by manipulating the expression of lycopene â-cyclase genes: overexpressing arabidopsis/ tomato lcy-b genes under the control of chromoplast-specific promoters resulted in higher â-carotene level, up to 7fold (rosati et al, 2000) and 32-fold (d’ambrosio et al, 2004), respectively. in order to increase lycopene content in the fruits, antisense approach was used for silencing the lcy-b gene (rosati et al, 2000). in a study on potato, a bacterial phytoene synthase gene under the control of patatin promoter increased âcarotene and total carotenoids (ducreux et al, 2005). diretto et al (2007) investigated modulation of carotenogenesis in potato leaves and tubers using bacterial phytoene desaturase, carotenoid isomerase and lycopene â cyclase. they observed an increase in metabolite as well as transcript levels in the transgenic plants. there was a 20-fold increase in expression of these genes simultaneously. the tubers showed enhanced â-carotene content and appeared deep yellow (golden) in colour. peppers or hot chillis have peculiar caroptenoids that are different from those in other fruits. capsanthin, capsorubin and capsanthin 5,6-epoxide are the red carotenoids exclusively accumulating in fruits of capsicum spp. (deli et al, 2001). the gene encoding capsanthin-capsorubin synthase (ccs) is involved in synthesis of these pigments. pepper varieties can be classified according to fruit color: the two main isochromic families include red varieties-synthesizing capsanthin and capsorubin pigments; and, yellow ones accumulating a carotenoid shilpa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 95 pool c omprising a nthera xanthin, viola xa nthin (precursors of capsanthin and capsorubin) as well as ze a xanthin, á -cr yptoxa nthin, á -ca rote ne a nd cucurbitaxanthin a (guil-guerrero et al, 2006). from a molecular and biochemical viewpoint, red-fruited varieties display high ccs and high carotenoid genetranscript levels, besides a high red-to-yellow (r/y) isochromic pigment fraction as also high capsanthinto-zeaxanthin (caps/zeax) ratios. regulation of carotenoid biosynthesis transcriptional regulation carotenoid accumulation is determined mainly by transcription regulation of the genes involved in the carotenoid pathway. transcriptional regulation of carotenoids is extensively studied in the model plant tomato during fruit ripening. in this crop, lycopene is accumulated via upregulation of the genes dxs, psy, pds, crtiso (which are the upstream genes in the pathway) and downregulation of the downstream genes, lcy-b, cyc-b and lcy-e. psy is one of the rate-limiting enzymes and is the most targeted enzyme involved in carotenogenesis (as, it provides the initial substrate phytoene, levels of which determine the level of carotenoids synthesized). psy1, present in very low abundance in leaves, is moderate in petals, and extremely high in fruits at the pink and mature redstages; psy2 is reported to be expressed in all the tissues, with the highest level in yellow petals; and psy3 is found in the tomato genome and is predicted to regulate root carotenogenesis induced by abiotic stress, aba and light. a tomato mutant related to lycopene biosynthesis is available, viz., yellow flesh (locus r), a loss-of-function mutant of the slpsy1 gene, where there is lack of carotenoids; overexpression of the same restores carotenoid biosynthesis (fray and grierson, 1993). gady et al (2012) identified a psy1 knockout mutant through targeting induced local lesions in genomes (tilling). the mutant fruit is yellow in colour due to the absence of carotenoids proving, that, psy is the candidate enzyme involved in the initial step of carotenoid biosynthesis. light-induced synthesis of carotenoids is characterized by an increase in the expression of psy and, also, increase in enzyme activity. psy transcript levels have been reported to increase in response to light of the wavelength far-red (welsch et al, 2000). the light-induced increase in psy expression ha s been shown to be mediate d by phytochrome (phys) photoreceptors. light-induced activation makes the cytoplasmic localized phys to translocate to the nucleus where they interact with, and me dia te , de gra da tion of the phytochrome interacting transcription factors (pifs); these factors bind to g-boxes in the promoters of light-induced genes, and negatively regulate their expression (leivar et al, 2009). transgenic lines over-expressing psy1 gene significantly increased carotenoid content in the tomato fruit (fraser et al, 2007). in tomato fruits, the mads box transcription factor, rin (ripening inhibitor), has been confirmed to regulate carotenoid accumulation by interacting with the slpsy1 promoter (martel et al, 2011). according to luo et al (2013), slsgr1 (stay green protein) regulates carotenoid accumulation through directly interacting with slpsy1 during tomato ripening and, therefore, repression of slsgr1 significantly increases lycopene and âcarotene accumulation. issacson et al (2002) e luc idated the molecular mechanism of carotenoid isomerization by studying tangerine fruits in tomato. fruit of tangerine are orange, and accumulate prolycopene (cis-lycopene) instead of all-trans-lycopene, which is normally synthesized in the wild type. map-based cloning of the tangerine locus of tomato identified crtiso, which encodes an authentic carotenoid isomerase that func tions dur ing c ar ote noid de sa tura tion. in arabidopsis, a gene designa ted pdh e ncodes a polypeptide 75% identical to the crtiso from tomato (86% identical in the predicted mature-polypeptide region). evidence that arabidopsis crtiso ortholog is involved in carotenoid biosynthesis is described by park et al (2002). it is interesting to note that crtiso activity can be partially substituted by exposure to light in green tissues via photoisomerization (isaacson et al, 2002; park et al, 2002). cyclization of lycopene is a key branching-point in the carotenoid pathway. lycopene cyclases are also important determinants of carotenoid content in different plants. the two cyclases, viz., â cyclases and å cyclases are associated with differences in lycopene, â-carotene and, further, to xanthophylls by the former, and ä-carotene to lutein by the latter. tissuespecific isoforms are involved in fine-tuning carotenoid composition in a few plants. in arabidopsis and rice, only single-copy of these cyclases is expressed, whereas in plants like tomato, water melon and citrus, there are two types of cyclases: chloroplast-specific biosynthesis and regulation of caratenoids in plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 96 and chromopla st-specific (tadmor et al, 2005; alque´zar et al, 2009; devitt et al, 2010). chloroplastspecific cyclases are expressed in leaves and in the green tissues of fruit. in contrast, chromoplast-specific cyclases are expressed in flowers and chromoplasts of the fruit. the chloroplast to chromoplast transition is a remarkable event during the fruit-ripening process, as, chlorophyll content decreases and carotenoid content increases. downregulation of â cyclase leads to a n ac c umula tion of lyc ope ne, where as , its upregulation leads to synthesis of â-carotene from lycopene. expression of chromoplast-specific â cyclase has been found to correlate with accumulation of â-carotene and/or the downstream xanthophylls in tomato and citrus (ronen et al, 2000; alque´ zar et al, 2009). increased level of â-carotene is due to the fruit-specific chromoplast lycopene â cyclase (cyc-b). this phenotype was named beta (b gene). beta is a partially dominant, single-locus mutation that imparts an orange colour to the fully-ripened fruit owing to accumulation of â-carotene at the expense of lycopene (ronen et al, 2000). in wild tomatoes, the b gene is expressed at low leve ls, wherea s in the beta mutant, its transcription dramatically increases. null mutations in the b gene are responsible for the phenotype of og (old gold), indicating that og is an allele of b. two recessive allelic mutations, oldgold (og) and old-goldcrimson (ogc), have the same phenotype of deep red fruits, rich in lycopene but lacking â-carotene (ronen et al, 2000). lycopene å cyclase (lcy-e), in wild tomatoes is downregulated at the breaker-stage of ripening. in contrast, it increases approximately 30fold during fruit ripening in delta plants. this is due to a single, dominant gene, del, in the tomato mutant delta, which changes fruit colour to orange from accumulation of ä-carotene at the expense of lycopene (ronen et al, 1999). lcy-e plays a key role in determining â-carotene/á-carotene ratio (harjes et al, 2008). lutein and zeaxanthin are produced next, by åcarotene hydroxylase and â-carotene hydroxylase. further epoxidation of zeaxanthin by zeaxanthin epoxidase (zep) produces violaxanthin. this reaction is reversed by violaxanthin de-epoxidase (vde) to give rise to the xanthophyll cycle in plants to adapt to high light-stress. violaxanthin is converted into neoxanthin by neoxanthin synthase (nsy) (shan lu and li, 2008). a study shows that a novel gene-product of aba4 is needed for neoxanthin synthesis (north et al, 2007). environmental regulation light plays an important role too in carotenoid biosynthesis. light intensity, duration, direction, spectral quality are all key factors for modulating plant carotenoids during fruit development. photomorphogenic mutants have been reported in a number of species, including arabidopsis, sorghum, brassica, tobacco, tomato and pea (levin et al, 2006). the tomato high pigment 1 (hp1) and high pigment 2 (hp2) are regulated by light, which controls plastid development in these mutants. light-signalling proteins are responsible for hp1 and hp2 phenotypes in tomato. two re gula tory ge ne s, uv-da ma ged dnabi nding p rote in1 (ddb1) and deetiolated1 (det1), c ontrol light-signalling pathways. mutations in these genes are responsible for high-pigment mutants (hp1 and hp2) in tomato (shan lu and li, 2008). carotenoid accumulations in these mutants is linked to early plastid-biogenesis, number and size to provide a large compartment for carotenoid biosynthesis and deposition (liu et al, 2004). the red-ripe fruits of these mutants are characterized by an intense red colour mainly from increased levels of carotenoids, primarily lycopene. these hp mutants have proved to be excellent tools in the study of complex inte rac tions betwee n light a nd plant development. some of these have also been harnessed in breeding programs. similarly, like hp1 and hp2, high pigment 3 (hp3) mutant in tomato is caused by a mutation in the gene of zep, which confers an enhanced level of carotenoid accumulation by increasing the size of plastid compartment in the cells, to enable greater biosynthesis and higher storage capacity (galpaz et al, 2008). apart from these mutants, light-regulated carotenoid synthesis is observed through lres (light responsive elements) and g box elements present in the promoter region of the genes involved in the pathway. the most common type of lres present in genes activated by light are atcta element, and, g1 (cacgag) and g2 motifs (ctcgag) (von lintig et al, 1997). therefore, light acts as an inducer of photomorphogenesis, and carotenoid biosynthesis through photoreceptors and activation of known transcription factors (pizarro and stange, 2009). psy activity is regulated by red and far-red light as a consequence of phytochrome activation, leading to increase in psy activity only under red light conditions (schofield and paliyath, 2005). shilpa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 97 temperature has a significant influence on growth and development of tomato fruits. it has been reported that high temperature (35°c) can specifically inhibit accumulation of lycopene by stimulating conversion of lycopene into carotene (hamauzu et al, 1998). biosynthesis of lycopene is affected by environmental conditions. if the temperature of the fruits exceeds 30°c, synthesis of lycopene is inhibited in tomato (brandt et al, 2006). another study by dumas et al (2003) showed that temperatures below 12°c strongly inhibited lycopene biosynthesis, while, temperatures above 32°c stopped this process altogether in tomato. carotenoid accumulation in plants is regulated by hormones such as ethylene, jasmonates (ja), aba,etc. ethylene plays a central role in fruit-ripening. effect of ethylene in regulating carotenoid accumulation during fruit de ve lopme nt in toma to ha s bee n increasingly reviewed. ethylene production strongly correlates with rapid accumulation of -carotene and lycopene, and expression of slpsy1 and slpds. this shows that the process is dependent on ethylene (marty et al, 2005). many transcription factors have been shown to affect carotenoid accumulation in the fruit of tomato through regulation of ethylene biosynthesis and signalling. in fruit tissues, mads box transcription factor, ripening inhibitor (rin), has been confirmed to regulate carotenoid accumulation by interacting with slpsy1 promoter (martel et al, 2011) (fig. 2). rin interacts directly with the promoters of ethylene biosynthesis genes, acc synthase2 (acs2) and acs4, also the ethylene perception gene, ethylene receptor 3 (etr3/nr) (fig. 2). the corresponding mutant of rin, rin, fails to synthesize climacteric ethylene and a ccumulates lycopene in the fruit (vrebalov et al, 2002). tagl1 and fruitfull 1 and 2 (which belong to mads box transcription factor) biosynthesis and regulation of caratenoids in plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 fig. 2. schematic representation of role of ethylene in carotenoid accumulation are positive regulators of ethylene biosynthesis (vrebalov et al, 2009). ethylene response factor 6 (slerf6), a tomato ethylene response factor, is also found to be a negative carotenoid modulator. reduced expression of slerf6 by rnai enhanc ed both ethyle ne re lease and ca rotenoid accumulation during fruit ripening in tomato (lee et al, 2012). the role of ethylene in carotenoid formation is further demonstrated by a tomato ethylene-insensitive mutant, never ripe (nr), which exhibits a ripeningdefective fruit phenotype, and fails to accumulate lycope ne (lanahan et al, 1994). j a is a lso of importance in positively controlling carotenoid accumulation. in tomato, lycopene content is greatly reduced in the fruits of ja-deficient mutants, and, is increased in transgenic lines having enhanced ja levels. exogenous meja treatment of an ethylene-insensitive tomato mutant (nr) can dramatically enhance lycopene ac cumulation in the fruit. aba has also be en documented to control carotenoid biosynthesis by regulating plastid development. a study of abadeficient tomato mutants, namely, hp3, flacca (flc), and sitiens (sit), shows an inverse correlation between aba levels and plastid number. in these mutant fruits, both plastid number and lycopene levels are enhanced (galpaz et al, 2008) indicating that aba, a carotenoid 98 derivative, may be implicated in build-up of storage capacity in plastids (liu et al, 2015). deficiency of aba in hp-3 mutant led to enlargement in plastid compartment size, probably by increasing plastid division. by doing so, it enabled greater pigment biosynthesis, and 30% more storage capacity for carotenoids in the mature fruit (galpaz et al, 2008). s om e s tu di e s a re re por t e d on th e ro le o f transcription factors in regulation of carotenoid biosynthesis. lee et al (2012) characterized one c a ndi da te for im pa c t o n tr a ns -lyc ope n e a nd -carotene accumulation, viz., slerf6, revealing that it indeed influenced carotenoid biosynthesis and other ripening phenotypes. reduced expression of slerf6 by rnai enhanced both carotenoid and ethylene levels during fruit ripening, demonstrating an important role for slerf6 in ripening through integrating the ethylene and carotenoid synthesis pa thwa ys . a numbe r of tr ans c ription fa ct ors im pa c ti ng r ipe nin g a nd , t hu s, c a r ot e no id accumulation, have been identified including rinmads (vrebalov et al, 2002), cnr squamosa promoter binding protein (manning et al, 2006), tagl1 mads box (vrebalov et al, 2009), lehb1 hbzip (lin et al, 2008) and slap2a, an ap2 gene (karlova et al, 2011). more specific carotenoid regulators have been identified in non-fruit tissues. in ar abidops is, modula ting mrna l eve ls of ethylene response factor (erf) rap2.2 (which is capable of binding the psy promoter), resulted in small carotenoid alterations in root calli (welsch et al, 2007). atrap2.2 belongs to ap2/erebp family of transcription fa ctors and binds to upstream regulatory elements of the genes psy and pds. atrap2.2 recognizes cis-acting element atcta, which mediates a strong basal promoter activity (welsch et al , 2007). a putative tomato nac transcription fa ctor named slnac4 ac ts a s a positive regulator of fruit carotenoid synthesis in tomato. slnac4 plays an important role in response to a bio tic st re s s , but, tr a ns ge nic re pre s s ion de monstrates tha t slna c4 also participates in normal fruit-ripening as a positive regulator by modula ting the c limac te ric ripening hormone , ethylene, and carotenoid pigmentation (zhu et al, 2013) (table 1) . carotenoid catabolism a metabolic equilibrium between biosynthesis and catabolism of carotenoids is essential for maintaining the content and composition of ca rotenoids in pho tos yn the ti c t is s ue s (be i se l e t al , 20 10) . carotenoid degradation is brought about by a group of e nz ym e s kno wn a s caro te no id cle av ag e dioxygenases (ccds). thus, catalytic activity of c a rot e no id c l e a v ag e d io x y g e na s e s (ccd s ) , wh ic h le a ds t o e n z yma tic tu r nov e r of c 4 0 ca rote noids into apocarotenoids, is c ritica l in regulating carotenoid accumulation. in arabidopsis, the ccd gene family consists of nine members and can be divided into two groups: four ccds (ccd1, 4, 7 a n d 8 ) a nd f ive 9c is e po x y c ar ote n oid dioxygenases (nce d 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9). t he se enzymes cleave different carotenoids and some exhibit unique substrate specificity (auldridge et al, 2006). diffe rent ccds and nceds rec ogniz e diffe re nt c arote noid substra te s a nd c le a ve a t different sites, producing various apocarotenoids (walter and strack, 2011). in vitro expression of ccd1 in e. coli from a number of horticultural crops such as tomato fruit saffron flower, and melon fruit indicates that ccd1 cleaves -carotene and other carotenoids into a range of volatiles. ccd1 transcription is associated with carotenoid levels in some horticultural crops. although a negatively correlated change between ccd1 or ccd4 and carotenoid content has been observed in various fruits and vegetables, regulation of ccd expression is n ot w e l l-u nd e r s too d ( yua n e t al , 20 15 ) . investigation on the activity of slccd1b and its homolog, slccd1a, provides direct evidence for involvement of ccd in carotenoid degradation. in vitro assays showed that slccd1a and slccd1b target double bonds in all trans configured and cisshilpa et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 table 1. list of some transcription factors and type of regulation involved in carotenoid synthesis tra nsc rip ti on family type of factor reg ula tio n s l e r f 6 m ads rin positive regulation ta g l 1 m ads box positive regulation l eh b 1 h b zip positive regulation s l a p 2 a a pe ta l a 2/e r f negative regulation r a p 2 . 2 e r f positive regulation s l n a c 4 na c positive regulation 99 biosynthesis and regulation of caratenoids in plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 91-103, 2017 configured carotenoids, ac yclic carotene s and apocarotenoids, contributing to the production of a vast majority of tomato isoprenoid volatiles (ilg et al, 2014). fruit specific rnai-mediated suppression of slnced1 produces deep-red fruits with reduced slnced1 transcription and aba biosynthe sis, besides increased accumulation of lycopene and bcarotene (sun et al, 2012). besides catabolism and turnover of carotenoids, the ability of a cell to store and sequester carotenoids plays a significant role in determining the level of carotenoid accumulation in a given cell. nearly all of carotenoid biosynthesis enzymes are located in the plastid, but all their genes are encoded by the nuclear genome (cazzonelli et al, 2009). carotenoids in plants are synthesized de novo in nearly all types of plastids, but accumulate in large quantities in chloroplasts and chromoplasts (howitt and pogson, 2006). carotenoids in the chloroplast are integrated with chloroplast binding proteins and, in chromoplast, carotenoids are associated with polar lipids and carotenoid associated proteins, to form carotenoid-lipoprotein sequestering substructures to effectively sequester and retain a large quantity of carotenoids (vishnevetsky et al, 1999). chromoplast development and differentiation plays a crucial role in carotenoid biosynthesis, as, chromoplasts provide a site not only for active carotenoid biosynthesis, but also for carotenoid storage. size and structure of the plastids is also important for accumulation of carotenoids. thus, carotenoid accumulation is a net result of biosynthesis, turnover and, finally, stable storage of endproducts (shan lu and li, 2008). conclusion an understanding of carotenoid biosynthesis and regulatory mechanism has been of interest from several years, as, carotenoid content is one of the most important quality traits in fruits and vegetables with industrial, health and nutritional attributes. the high value of naturally-occurring carotenoids (which are economically important) has triggered special interest in uncovering the several levels/ modes of carotenoid regulation. several attempts have been made to improve plant carotenoid content and composition. although significant progress has been made in understanding carotenoid metabolism in plants, some aspects such as signalling mechanism involved in plastid biogenesis, cross talk between carotenoid biosynthesis pathway and other pathways, a nd ways in whic h s uch interactions influence carotenoid content and overall growth and development of the plant, need to be studied. an in-depth investigation of these aspects will enhance knowledge to help grow plants rich in carotenoids. therefore efforts should be made to improve 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plant physiol., 147:367-380 yuan, h., zhang , j., divyashree, n. and li, l. 2015. carotenoid metabolism and regulation in horticultural crops. hort. res., 2: article number 15036 zhu, m., chen, g., zhou, s., tu, y., wang, y., dong, t. and hu, z. 2013. a new tomato nac (nam/ataf1/2/ cuc2) transcription factor, slnac4, functions as a positive regulator of fruit ripening and carotenoid accumulation. plant cell physiol., 55(1):119-135 54 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 54-58, 2017 genetic diversity studies among aab group indian banana cultivars using issr markers k.v. ravishankar1, a. rekha*2 rema menon3, c.k. anoopa1, k. sudeepa1 and r. poornima1 1division of bio-technology, icar-iihr, hessaraghatta, bengaluru 560 089 2division of fruit crops, icar-iihr, hessaraghatta, bengaluru, 560 089 3 banana research station, kerala agricultural university, kannara, marakkal thrissur, kerala 680 652 * e-mail: arekha@iihr.res.in abstract banana and plantains are generally classified based on morphological characteristics namely aa, aaa, ab, aab and abb. further, there are four sub-groups in aab genomic group. presently we analyzed diversity using issr markers in 18 cultivars of aab genomic group along with two each of aa types and bb wild accessions for comparison. the results have shown that aab cultivars form a separate group. dendrogram analysis showed that the subgroups ‘plantain’ ‘silk’ and ‘mysore’ were placed in between aa and bb type. whereas ten cultivars of ‘pome’ sub group of the cultivars were unique and was placed in a separate cluster. in this study using issr markers, we are able to identify the subgroups clearly and their genetic relationships within the aab group. the cultivars rasthali and nendran were clearly separated. the pome sub-group cultivars found to be in a group which may be based on their geographical origin. key words: banana and plantain, diversity, issr markers, aab group. introduction banana cultivars were classified based on a taxonomical scoring method developed by simmonds and shepherd (1955). there are about 30 musa species grouped into four sections. south east asia could be a primary center of diversity of the aab group of bananas with distinct varieties de langhe (2000). it appears that a first set of edible diploids and polyploids were identified through selection and domestication, which gradually lost the ability of seed set and were clonally propagated. a second range of edible bananas would have evolved through hybridization between closely related species m. acuminata (aa genomic group) and m. balbisiana (bb genomic group), early to evolution of ab; aab &abb type cultivars later lot of mutations might have accumulated in these types. among aab triploids, there are 11 subgroups as reported by uma et.al, (2005). a total of 66% diversity was identified in india for aab groups, which is represented by seven subgroups based on stable mutants present. generally, this aab group has been divided into four sub-groups based on morphological traits, namely ‘plantains’ group with ‘nendran’; cultivar ‘rasthali’ a highly susceptible genotype to fusarium wilt disease in ‘silk’ group; ‘pome’ group which comprises of ‘virupakshi’ or hill banana cultivars and ‘mysore’group with cultivar ‘palayan kodan’ having high yield & tolerance to fusarium wilt disease. reports on diversity analysis of banana accessions involving different genomic groups using different markers like rflp, rapd, aflp were reported by several authors kaemmer et.al, (1997); jarret et.al, (1993); howell et.al, (1994); bhat & jarret (1995) and bhat et.al, (2004). visser (1996) was able to distinguish aab and abb group genotypes using random primers. creste (2003) and group used microsatellite markers to differentiate the banana genotypes. however, there are no studies exclusively focused on diversity analysis of aab group cultivars and analysis of the genetic basis among these subgroups using issr markers. material and methods eighteen aab cultivars were collected from banana resea rch sta tion (ker ala agr icultura l university), kannara, kerala; two each of aa (anai original research paper 55 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 54-58, 2017 issr markers among aab cultivars of india komba n & m. acuminata ssp burmannicoidescalcutta -4) a nd bb (m. balbisiana & wild-3) genotypes were included for comparison (table 1) which were maintained in the field germplasm block of icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. total genomic dna from all 22 cultivars was isolated using the modified ctab method, ravishankar et.al, (2000). a few ssr’s were screened and selected 16 issr primers, which amplified multiple r epr oducible ba nds (ta ble-2), wer e used for amplification of dna. the 25µl pcr reaction consisted of 2.5 µl of reaction buffer, 3.0 µm concentration (2.5 µl of primer), dntps 1mm (2.5 µl) taq polymerase 3 µ/µl (0.5 µl), 20ng/ µl dna template (2.5 µl) and volume was made up with sterile water. pcr was carried out using a master cycler gradient (eppendorf ag, ha mbur g, ger ma ny) ther ma l cycler with the temperature profile of; initial denaturation at 94°c for 1 min, then 35 cycles of 30 s at 94°c for denaturation, 45s at an annealing temperature of 52°c, and elongation at 720c for 1 min; with a final extension at 72°c for 5 min. the amplified pcr products were separated on 1.5 percent agarose gel along with 1kb dna ladder. the gel was visualized and documented using uv pro gel documentation system. for issr markers, the presence of a band in each position was recorded, the presence as ‘1’ and the absence as ‘0’. the bands for each primers were scored separately. using this data, squared euclidian distances were calculated to estimate all pair wise differences in the markers for all cultivars sneath and sokal (1973). based on distance matrix, cluster analysis was done using a minimum variance algorithm (ward, 1963). table 1: list of cultivars aab genomic groups table 2: issr primers used results and discussion sixteen issr primers amplified 96 markers for 18 aab cultivars, out of which 71 were polymorphic bands (table 3). based on cluster analysis, the genotypes used here were found to be divided in two ma jor gr oups. first subgr oup consisted of aa (m. acuminata) type along with two subgroups ‘mysore’, ‘silk’ and bb (musa balbisiana) types. the second major cluster consisted of cultivars from the subgroup ‘pome’. the first cluster was further divided into four sub-clusters where, ‘anai komban’ a cultivated aa type and m. acuminata ssp. burmaniccoidescalcutta-4, wild aa type, formed one group. the cultivars ‘mysore ethan’ and ‘karim kadali’ showed a close relation to aa types. ‘thiruvananthapuram’, and ‘pisang seribu’, was placed close to ‘palayan kodan’ cultivar, belonging to ‘mysore’ sub group, the 56 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 54-58, 2017 cultivars ‘thiruvanathapuram’ and ‘pisang seribu’ are grouped as unique cultivars based on morphological parameters. ‘thiruvananthapuram’ has small bunch with 7-8 hands, fruits are long with 12-13cm in length and pulp like that of pome group cultivars resembling ‘pisang kelat’. ‘pisang seribu’ has a very long bunch of 2m long with numerous small fingers (nearly 1000 fruits). the fruits and pulp resemble fruits of ‘mysore’ subgroup; it is said to be a mutant of musa chiliocarpa (stover & simmonds, 1987). the ‘silk’ subgroup cultivars ‘poovan’, ‘martman’ and ‘madhranga’ were found to be closely related. this group has characteristic yellowish green psuedostem and pink pigmentation all along the petiole margin, the fruit pulp is starchy and very sweet. the second major cluster consisted of ‘pome’ subgroup cultiva rs na mely ‘siruma lai’, ‘kali’, ‘kaliagali’, ‘padathi’, ‘virupakshi’, ‘krishnavazha’ are grouped together. the cultivars ‘mannan’ and ‘kullan’ resembled each other and were placed together. among the pome group cultivars, ‘krishnavazha’ is morphologically distinct with dark blackish pigmentation on the psedostem. the fruits of all the cultivars are invariability angular with a distinct apex. the peel is bright yellow when ripe, easily peels off, pulp has a sweet aroma. this subgroup was placed close to bb musa balbisiana wild types. aab accessions could have arisen as a result of either ab x aa or aa x ab cross (de langhe et.al,2010) as contribution of a or b genome in this group does not agree with simple allopolyploid genome formulae of simmonds and shepherd. deviations were observed in the required total score of 35-37 based on morphological characterization, in ‘pome’ and ‘silk’ group cultivars. this was further strengthened by study of careel where inheritance of organelle (chloroplast and mitochondria) dna was used carreel et.al, (2002). they also described the probable evolution of interspecific hybrids through (bb x aa) x aa cross or (aa x bb) x aa cross combinations to get baa or aab type cultivars where the cultivars have ‘b’ type or ‘a’ type cytoplasm and hence dosage of a or b genome varies. ravishankar et al table 3: markers generated by the issr primers 57 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 54-58, 2017 issr markers among aab cultivars of india these studies have helped in categorizing the aab cultivars based on their genetic relationship with aa and bb genotypes (fig.1). however, the pome types are totally distinct from other three subgroups, these are comparatively more robust, bunch orientation is either horizontal or at an angle. male phase is short with whip like rachis ending with a ‘top’ shaped male bud. anthers abort and turn black; fruits are angular with thick peel (singh et.al, 2001). further, molecular studies are required to study the evolution of aab types and its progenitors. fig 1: dendro gram of 18 aab cultivars along with aa and bb types. us e of is sr ma r ker s gener a lly gives higher polymorphism than rapd (ning et.al, 2007) or rflp. there are reports on diversity analysis by ning and co-workers using 216 banana accessions using microsatellite (ssr) markers; the accessions could be separated based on the genomic groups. however, it could not separate the somatic mutants. the issr method is widely used in ascertaining the genetic fidelity among the in vitro raised plants (rout et.al, 2009). in our work diversity analysis was studied involving aab genomic group using issr markers, the results revealed variability within cultivars of this group. earlier, diversity in this group was reported based on rapd studies by menon, 2004 and team. clustering of aab group cultivars was based on their sub gr oup cla ssification. the cultivar rasthali of sub-group ‘silk’, which is distinct, and nendran of sub-group ‘plantain’ a unique dualpurpose cultivar were separated from others. the cultivars of two sub-groups ‘mysore’ and ‘pome’ were found to be separated based on geographical locations. pome types were distinctly separated from other three subgroups. it appears that these subgroups have a distinct genetic base; therefore they form a separate group in cluster analysis. rapd analysis within 23 ‘pome’ group cultivars ha s r evea led 3 ma jor gr oups a mong differ ent accessions and did not give a clear difference based on morphologica l traits (uma et. al, 2005). in gener a l i s s r ma r ker s wer e a b l e t o gr ou p morphologically similar types in a cluster more efficiently than rapd markers. further, we need to examine distinct genetic base of ‘pome’ group aab cultivars using molecular studies. 58 ravishankar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(1) : 54-58, 2017 acknowledgement authors acknowledge financial assistance from icar, new delhi, through icar ad-hoc project on musa genome mapping: development of sequence tagged microsatellite sites (stms), markers for musa balbisiana (bb) types, analysis of diversity, characterization and mapping. and support by director, icar-iihr to conduct above experiment. bhat k v and jarret r, (1995). random amplified polymorphic dna an d gen et ic diversit y in in di an musa germplasm. genetic resources and crop evolution (nld) 42 (2): 107-118. bhat k v, amaravathi y, gautam pl and velayudhan k c, (2004). aflp characterization and genetic diversity analysis of indian banana and plantain cultivars (musa spp.). plant genetic res, characterization and utilization, 2:121–130. carreel f, de léon g d, lagoda p, lanaud c, jenny c, j p horry, h tezenas du montcel (2002).ascertaining maternal and paternal lineage within musa by chloroplast and mitochondrial dna rflp analyses. genome, 45(4): 679–692. creste s, tulmann neto a, silva s o, figueira a, (2003). genetic characterization of banana cultivars (musa spp.) from brazil using microsatellite markers. euphytica (nld), 132 (3): 259-268. de langhe e, (2000).diversity in the genus musa: it’s significance and it’s potential. acta horticulture (ishs), 540:81-88. de langhe e, hřibová e, carpentier s, doležel j and swennen r, (2010). did backcrossing contribute to the origin of hybrid edible bananas? annals of botany, 106 (6): 849-857. doi:10.1093/aob/mcq187 howell e c, newbury h j, swennen r, withers l.a and ford-lloyd bv, (1994). the use of rapd for identifying and classifying musa germplasm. genome, 37:328-332. jarret l, vuylsteke r, gawel d, nicholas j, reynold p b, lisa j. (1993). detecting genetic diversity in diploid bananas using pcr and primers from highly repetitive dna sequence. euphytica, 68(1-2): 69-76. kaemmer d, fischer d, jarret rl, baurens f c, grapin a, dambier d, noyer j.l, lanaud. c, kahl. g and lagoda. p.j.l (1997). molecular breeding in the genus musa: a str ong case for stms marker technol ogy. euphytica, 96(1):49-63. references menon r, sunny k m, babu t d, nazeem p a and keshavachandran r, (2004).genetic diversity of cultivars from southern india using rapd markers. in: intl congress on musa: harnessing research to improve livelihoods. 6-9 july 2004, penang, malaysia (abstracts: p-6). ning shu p, lin-bing x, yan lu, huang b z and ge x j, (2007). genome composition and genetic diversity of musa germplasm from china revealed by pcrrflp and ssr markers. scientia horticulture, 114:281–288. ravishankar k v, dinesh m r and anand l, (2000). assessment of genetic relatedness among mango cultivars of india using rapd markers. j. hort sci & biotechnology, 75: 198–201. rout g r, senapati s k, aparajita s and palai s k, (2009). studies on genetic identification and genetic fidelity of cultivated banana using issr markers. plant omics journal 2(6): 250-258. simmonds nw and shepherd k, (1955). the taxonomy and origins of the cultivated bananas. journal of linniean society, 55:302 – 312. singh h p, uma s and sathiamoorthy s, (2001). a tentative key for identification and classification of indian bananas. (icar-nrcb). technical bulletin. 61. sneath p h a and sokal r r, (1973). numerical taxonomy, in: t he pri n cipl es a n d pr act i ce of n umer i ca l classification. cabi. 573 pp. stover rh and simmonds n w, (1987). bananas. iii edition, longman, green and co ltd., london. uma s, sathiamoorthy s and durai p, (2005). bananaindian genetic resources and catalogue, (icar-nrcb) 268. visser a a, (1996). characterization of banana and plantain using random amplified polymorphic dna markers. meeting: first international conference on banana and plantain for africa, kampala (uga), 10:14-18 acta horticulture, 540. (2000)ishs, leuven (bel). ward j h, (1963).hierarchic grouping to optimize an objective function. journal of american statistical association. 58:236-244. (ms received 26 august 2016, revised 18 april 2017, accepted 21 june 2017) 00 content jh june 2017.pdf 00 sph-journal november new 12.pdf 01 sph-journal november new 01.pdf 02 sph-journal november new 04.pdf 03 sph-journal november new 05.pdf 04 sph-journal november new 07.pdf 05 sph-journal november new 09.pdf 06 sph-journal november new 10.pdf 07 sph-journal november new 11.pdf 08 sph-journal november new 13.pdf 09 sph-journal november new 03.pdf 10 sph-journal november new 06.pdf 11 sph-journal november new 08.pdf using genetic resources for developing sustainable solutions to basic crop-constraints has been suggested from time to time but these resources have not been exploited fully due to the inherent problem of their large size and lack of adequate evaluation and classification (dahlberg, 1995). germplasm exploration, maintenance, evaluation and characterization with reference to economically important traits is a pre-requisite for improvement programmes in any crop. the yellow himalayan raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) is one of the tastiest wild fruits, growing in abundance throughout the north-western himalayas. besides providing essential nutrients required in the human diet, this fruit has great potential in agro-processing industries as squash, jam, yoghurt and ice-cream (singh and kumar, 2001; singh et al, 2009). due to cross-pollination coupled with predominance of sexual propagation, the wild population exhibits a high degree of genetic diversity for economically important characters. improvement in yield and quality of highly cross-pollinated crops like wild raspberry is generally achieved by selecting from naturally occurring populations genotypes with desirable characters. assessment of genetic diversity in wild raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) native to north-western himalayan region dinesh singh, k. kumar and vikas kumar sharma department of fruit science, university of horticulture & forestry nauni, solan 173230, india e-mail: dinesh_hort@yahoo.com abstract nature and magnitude of genetic diversity was assessed in 170 wild raspberry genotypes based on eight quantitative characteristics, viz., fruit weight, fruit length, fruit breadth, tss, acidity, reducing sugars, non-reducing sugars and vitamin c. a survey was conducted in three north-western himalayan states of himachal pradesh, jammu & kashmir and uttarakhand. the species was found to be distributed between 760 and 1950m amsl, 30o10’159" to 33o04’693"n and 74o44’076" to 78o25’681"e. the non-hierarchical cluster analysis resulted in 12 clusters of genotypes. the cluster pattern did not exhibit any interrelation between geographical isolation and genetic diversity. of the 170 genotypes, 31 fell in cluster xii, 27 in cluster v, 19 in cluster i, 17 in cluster ix, 16 in cluster viii, 15 in cluster xi, 13 in cluster ii, 12 in cluster vii, 10 in cluster iii, six in cluster x, three in cluster vi and one genotype in cluster iv. genotypes falling under clusters iii, vi , vi can be used as parents in hybridization programmes for improving important traits like tss, fruit weight and acidity respectively. key words: raspberry, genetic diversity, cluster analysis mahalanobis (1936) d2 statistics based on multivariate analysis of quantitative traits is a powerful tool for measuring divergence in a set of population. therefore, an attempt was made to study geographical distribution vis-a-vis multivariate analysis of genetic divergence of wild raspberry naturalized in the north-western himalayas. an exploration in the north-western himalayas was undertaken during the years 2007 and 2008 in the subtropical to wet-temperate areas of solan, shimla, mandi, kullu and chamba districts of himachal pradesh; kathua, udhampur, samba, jammu and reasi districts of jammu and kashmir; and, dehradun, rishikesh, uttarkashi and tehri garhwal districts of uttarakhand. gis data of the areas surveyed were recorded with the help of gps (gps map76, germin, taiwan) (table-1). as many as 170 raspberry genotypes, growing scattered, were marked in different geographical regions (fig.1) for exploration with the local inhabitants. a random sample of 30 fruits in three replicates were taken from each genotype marked and observations were recorded on fruit quality characters, viz., berry weight (g), berry length (mm), berry breadth (mm), tss (0b), acidity (%), reducing sugars (%), non-reducing sugars (%), vitamin short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 149 table 1. geographical distribution of rubus ellipticus genotypes in some location of north-western himalayas genotype location altitude latitude longitude distribution majhgaon-1 majhgaon 1482 30o53’115" 77o07’081" abundant majhgaon-2 majhgaon-3 oachhghat-1 oachhghat kiar-1 kyar 1258 30o52’076" 77o07’646" frequent dhillon-1 dhillon 1411 30o52’816" 77o04’216" frequent kumarhatti-1 kumarhatti 1590 30o53’431" 77o03’127" frequent shaktighat-1 shaktighat 1442 30o56’266" 76o57’739" frequent garkhal-1 garkhal 1621 30o54’085" 76o58’922" occasional garkhal-2 gangli-1 ganglimour 1415 30o56’847" 76o57’199" frequent khariyana-1 khadiyana 1328 30o56’356" 77o01’589" frequent khariyana-2 khariyana-3 khariyana-4 khariyana-5 bhimboot-1 bhimboot 1330 30o56’276" 77o01’641" abundant deothi-1 deothi 1390 30o56’447" 77o02’300" frequent deothi-2 deothi-3 dedhghrat-1 dedhghrat 1482 30o57’314" 77o06’827" abundant dedhghrat-2 dedhghrat-3 dedhghrat-4 dedhghrat-5 dedhghrat-6 dedhghrat-7 salogra-1 salogra 1443 30o56’005" 77o07’906" frequent salogra-2 salogra-3 padag-1 padag 1480 30o55’411" 77o06’320" occasional padag-2 kiarighat-1 kyari 1627 30o59’488" 77o05’670" occasional kiarighat-2 kiarighat-3 hrsk-1 hrsk 1476 30o57’320" 77o06’850" abundant hrsk-2 hrsk-3 vaknaghat-1 vaknaghat 1697 31o00’520" 77o05’519" abundant vaknaghat-2 vaknaghat-3 kandaghat-1 kandaghat 1415 30o58’154" 77o06’334" frequent kandaghat-2 kandaghat-3 kandaghat-4 kandaghat-5 kandaghat-6 kaithleghat-1 kaithleghat 1710 30o58’198" 77o06’206" frequent kaithleghat-2 kaithleghat-3 shamlech-1 shamlech 1513 30o54’650" 77o06’591" frequent shoghi-1 shoghi 1804 31o02’519" 77o07’631" frequent shoghi-2 shoghi-3 shoghi-4 shoghi-5 shoghi-6 contd. genetic diversity of native wild-raspberry in nw himalayas j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 150 panthaghati-1 panthaghati 1979 31o04’214" 77o10’930" occasional panthaghati-2 panthaghati-3 hiranagar-1 hiranagar 1805 31o07’119" 77o06’104" occasional hiranagar-2 hiranagar-3 ghanahatti-1 ghanahatti 1700 31o08’127" 77o05’285" abundant ghanahatti-2 ghanahatti-3 nadokhar-1 nadokhar 1529 31o09’093" 77o01’352" frequent kalani-1 kalani 1591 31o09’782" 77o02’178" abundant kalani-2 kalani-3 bithari-1 bithari 1700 31o24’540" 77o08’074" abundant bithari-2 sanarali-1 sanarali 1610 31o20’265" 77o11’130" occasional sanarali-2 nalagali-1 nalagali 1750 31o21’345" 77o12’016" occasional nalagali-2 badhu-1 badhu 1813 31o29’535" 77o00’580" abundant badhu-2 badhu-3 badhu-4 kukarigalu-1 kukarigalu 1764 31o31’518" 76o59’648" abundant kukarigalu-2 gumma-1 gumma 1506 31o57’916" 76o51’155" abundant gumma-2 maigal-1 maigal 1171 31o45’702" 76o56’973" frequent maigal-2 chhaprahan-1 chhaprahan 1138 31o37’962" 77o03’712" frequent chhaprahan-2 chhaprahan-3 chailchowk-1 chailchowk 1435 31o33’985" 77o00’013" abundant pandoh-1 pandoh-2 ghatasani-1 ghatasni 1650 31o56’705" 76o50’000" frequent ghatasani-2 balichowki-1 balichowki 1115 31o41’723" 77o16’617" abundant balichowki-2 chihuntapul-1 chihuntapul 1276 31o39’125" 77o20’315" frequent chihuntapul-2 chihuntapul-3 targali-1 targali 1238 31o39’593" 77o19’081" frequent targali-2 targali-3 sidhwan-1 sidhwan 1283 31o39’021" 77o20’419" frequent seobag-1 seobagh 1225 31o59’460" 77o08’056" occasional seobag-2 karasu-1 karasu 1432 32o02’108" 77o08’218" frequent karasu-2 raison-1 raison 1460 32o03’234" 77o08’209" frequent raison-2 chhattenseri-1 chhattenseri 1373 32o03’213" 77o07’722" occasional bandrol-1 bandrol 1342 32o01’506" 77o07’393" occasional bandrol-2 bandrol-3 bandrol-4 contd. genotype location altitude latitude longitude distribution dinesh singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 151 sarali-1 sarali 1060 32o17’549" 76o06’986" abundant sarali-2 sarali-3 sarali-4 sarali-5 lahru-1 lahru 770 32o24’343" 75o58’607" occasional lahru-2 lahru-3 koti-1 koti 834 32o39’704" 77o01’736" frequent koti-2 koti-3 koti-4 daintha-1 daintha 914 32o19’664" 76o03’956" frequent sihunta-1 sihunta 928 32o18’084" 76o05’383" frequent sihunta-2 patka-1 patka 1086 32o20’292" 76o02’250" frequent patka-2 drumnalla-1 drumnalla 1096 32o17’337" 76o07’337" frequent drumnalla-2 bhatoli-1 bhatoli 1360 32o31’273" 75o56’460" frequent kudera-1 kudera 1126 32o37’755" 75o53’968" frequent kudera-2 saroga-1 saroga 1277 32o37’249" 75o52’166" frequent koharnala-1 koharnala 1298 32o37’405" 75o51’454" frequent pepari-1 pepari 1370 32o37’812" 75o53’518" frequent pepari-2 ranichauri-1 ranichauri 1737 30o19’335" 78o24’395" frequent ranichauri-2 ranichauri-3 ranichauri-4 hill campus-1 hill campus 1846 30o18’834" 78o24’507" frequent badshahithol-1 badshahithol 1804 30o20’264" 78o24’326" abundant badshahithol-2 badshahithol-3 badshahithol-4 dharkot-1 dharkot 1340 30o23’244" 78o23’685" frequent chamba-1 chamba 1598 30o20’711" 78o23’678" frequent chamba-2 chamba-3 chamba-4 than-1 than 1470 30o19’911" 78o23’561" frequent than-2 hindola-1 hindola 1367 30o11’016" 78o18’771" frequent kot maniar-1 kot maniyar 1430 30o22’017" 78o23’605" frequent ramgarh-1 ramgarh 1395 30o24’015" 78o24’831" occasional baurgaon-1 baurgaon 1438 30o24’338" 78o24’881" occasional chopdiyal-1 chopdiyal 1923 30o22’465" 78o22’296" frequent chopdiyal-2 sabali-1 sabali 1370 30o19’276" 78o23’702" abundant sabali-2 sabali-3 sabali-4 chopdiyali-1 chopdiyali 1290 30o19’866" 78o22’690" frequent kotigad-1 kotigad 1355 30o22’383" 78o23’660" frequent guldi-1 guldi 1600 30o21’346" 78o23’598" frequent kirgani-1 kirgani 1319 30o24’243" 78o23’913" occasional genotype location altitude latitude longitude distribution genetic diversity of native wild-raspberry in nw himalayas j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 152 fig 1. map showing areas surveyed for biodiversity studies in rubus ellipticus smith in north-western himalayas areas surveyed location of selected r. ellipticus genotypes legends india jammu & kashmir himachal pradesh uttarakhand dinesh singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 153 c (mg/100g) and berry colour. berry size was measured with digital vernier calipers (mitutoyo, japan-cd-6"cs), berry weight with an electronic balance, tss by digital refractometer and acidity, sugars and ascorbic acid as per standard procedures of ranganna (1986). mean data of eight quantitative traits of 170 genotypes were subjected to non-hierarchical cluster analysis (through the statistical software spss 10.0) for studying the pattern of genetic divergence, using mahalanobis d2 statistics, and grouping the genotypes as per the method suggested by tocher (rao, 1952). on the basis of the extensive survey conducted in three indian states of the north-western himalayas, the species under study (rubus ellipticus smith) was found to be geographically located between 760m and 1950m amsl, at 30 010’159" to 33 004’693"n and 74 044’076" to 78025’681"e (table 1). analysis of variance for eight quantitative traits showed significant differences among the 170 genotypes, indicating the existence of genetic diversity (table 5). these 170 genotypes fell into 12 clusters (table 2). it was apparent that 31 genotypes were in cluster xii, 27 in cluster v, 19 in cluster i, 17 in cluster ix, 16 in cluster viii, 15 in cluster xi, 13 in cluster ii, 12 in cluster vii, 10 in cluster iii, six in cluster x, three in cluster vi and only one in cluster iv. clustering pattern of the genotypes showed that a genotype from a particular area did not necessarily belong to the same cluster. from a study of genetic divergence among the 170 genotypes, it appears that genetic drift and natural selection under different environmental conditions could cause considerable diversity compared to that caused by geographical distance. upon divergence, some of the genotypes belonging to different eco-geographic regions could be grouped under one cluster while genotypes belonging to a particular geographic origin were distributed under different clusters suggesting, that, geographic distances do not necessarily represent genetic diversity (dwivedi and mitra, 1995; maiti et al, 2002). to start a breeding programme involving selection of parents from a large number of genotypes, it is necessary to first classify the genotypes into groups based on their distinguishing characteristics. such grouping of genotypes is useful for efficient selection of parents in a hybridization programme. clustering of the 170 genotypes based on eight quantitative traits using non-hierarchical euclidean cluster analysis gives an idea of extent of similarities and dissimilarities among the genotypes. inter-and intra-cluster distances thus obtained enable the breeder to decide on the table 2. clustering pattern of 170 pre-selected genotypes of raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) based on eight quantitative characters of horticultural importance cluster no. of name of genotype genotypes i 19 garkhal-2, deothi-1, deothi-3, dedhghrat-1, hrsk-2, kandaghat-2, kandaghat-4, kaithleghat-3, shoghi-2, nadokhar1, kalani-1, kalani-2, sanarali-1, nalagali-1, gumma-2, maigal-1, pandoh-2, sarali-1, ramgarh-1 ii 13 vaknaghat-2, shoghi-6, pandoh-1, targali-2, sidhwan-1, sihunta-1, ranichauri-1, badshahithol-2, hindola-1, chopdiyal1, chopdiyal-2, sabali-1, sabali-2 iii 10 majhgaon-3, kandaghat-1, kandaghat-6, shoghi-5, sanarali-2, ghatasani-1, chihuntapul-1, sarali-5, kudera-2, pepari-2 iv 1 dharkot-1 v 27 majhgaon-2, dhillon-1, khariyana-1, bhimboot-1, deothi-2, dedhghrat-5, dedhghrat-7, padag-2, vaknaghat-3, shamlech-1, shoghi-1, shoghi-3, shoghi-4, bithari-2, badhu-3, maigal-2, balichowki-2, targali-1, seobag-2, karasu-1, raison-1, bandrol-2, bandrol-3, sarali-4, lahru-2, lahru-3, drumnalla-1 vi 3 hill campus-1, badshahithol-1, sabali-4 vii 12 kumarhatti-1, kaithleghat-1, panthaghati-3, bithari-1, badhu-1, badhu-2, badhu-4, kukarigalu-2, chhaprahan-2, chhaprahan-3, chailchowk-1, sarali-3 viii 16 oachhghat-1, khariyana-2, dedhghrat-4, salogra-2, padag-1, kiarighat-1, ghatasani-2, seobag-1, sarali-2, daintha-1, bhatoli-1, badshahithol-3, badshahithol -4, chamba-3, chamba-4, kotigad-1 ix 17 khariyana-4, khariyana-5, salogra-1, kiarighat-2, kiarighat-3, hrsk-1, balichowki-1, koti-3, kudera-4, than-1, than-2, kot maniar-1, baurgaon-1, sabali-3, chopdiyali-1, guldi-1, kirgani-1 x 6 shaktighat-1, garkhal-1, dedhghrat-2, dedhghrat-6, kandaghat-5, pepari-1 xi 15 majhgaon-1, gangli-1, dedhghrat-3, vaknaghat-1, hiranagar-2, ghanahatti-3, kukarigalu-1, chhaprahan-1, raison-2, chhattenseri-1, bandrol-1, ranichauri-2, ranichauri-3, chamba-1, chamba-2 xii 31 kiar-1, khariyana-3, salogra-3, hrsk-3, kandaghat-3, kaithleghat-2, panthaghati-1, panthaghati-2, hiranagar-1, hiranagar-3, ghanahatti-1, ghanahatti-2, kalani-3, nalagali-2, gumma-1, chihuntapul-2, chihuntapul-3, targali-3, karasu-2, bandrol-4, lahru-1, koti-1, koti-2, koti-4, sihunta-2, patka-1, patka-2, drumnalla-2, kudera-1, kudera-3, ranichauri-4 genetic diversity of native wild-raspberry in nw himalayas j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 154 best possible combinations of genotypes so that heterosis can be exploited for crop improvement. average inter-cluster distance was maximum (10.77) between clusters iv and vi, whereas, it was minimum (1.97) between cluster ii and xii indicating, that, hybridization among genotypes under clusters iv and vi can be made to get high heterotic effects, and expect desirable segregants. whereas, low inter-cluster distance between clusters ii and xii would recommend non-inclusion of genotypes falling under these clusters in any hybridization programme. similar conclusions were drawn by rai and misra (2005), kaushal and sharma (2005) and shah et al (2010) in their respective studies based upon cluster analysis of 17 genotypes of bael, 229 genotypes of pecan, and 13 genotypes of almond. intra-cluster distance was maximum (7.02) within cluster x, and minimum (1.90) within cluster xii (table 3). low range of distances within a cluster depicts lesser diversity among genotypes. highest average fruit weight (0.67g) and non-reducing sugars (11.2%) were observed in cluster vi. average fruit tss was maximum (17.2%) in cluster iii. cluster iv showed the highest values for reducing sugars (4.9%), acidity (1.42%) and vitamin c (5.1mg/100g). fruit acidity was minimum (1.29%) in cluster vii. fruit length and breadth were maximum in cluster xi (12.29 mm) and cluster v (12.76 mm), respectively (table 4). genotypes falling under cluster vi can be used as parents in breeding for improvement in fruit weight. similarly, genotypes under cluster iii can be used as a potential source for higher tss content in berries. genotypes of clusters iv and vii can lend themselves as parental sources for the chemical characters of fruit like vitamin c, sugars and acidity. conclusions on similar lines were drawn by various workers in their studies (singh et al. 2003 in pomegranate, roy and misra, 2005 in bael, gohil and pandya, 2006 in salicornia and nagar and fageria, 2006 in lehsua). table 3. average inter-and intra-cluster distance (d2) among 170 genotypes of raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) cluster i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii i 3.92 3.30 2.22 6.92 4.18 5.17 3.93 2.04 4.54 3.61 5.61 2.65 ii 3.02 3.97 8.10 2.64 3.45 3.75 2.37 3.34 4.60 3.29 1.97 iii 3.16 7.90 5.47 4.73 2.85 3.61 5.94 5.50 5.85 3.35 iv 5.34 6.75 10.77 8.36 6.89 6.35 6.81 7.90 6.50 v 4.17 6.03 4.99 3.11 2.07 4.33 2.94 2.29 vi 6.19 5.03 4.62 6.18 6.66 5.86 4.89 vii 6.10 4.77 6.19 7.06 4.06 3.32 viii 4.11 2.83 2.52 4.98 2.16 ix 6.26 3.32 4.31 2.94 x 7.02 6.90 4.20 xi 6.40 3.21 xii 1.90 figures in the diagonal represent intra-cluster distance table 4. cluster means for eight characters in 170 genotypes of raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) character cluster i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii fruit weight (g) 0.51 0.55 0.52 0.51 0.54 0.67 0.59 0.48 0.5 0.45 0.63 0.53 fruit length (mm) 8.7 10.26 10.19 10.05 9.95 10.96 11.51 9.09 10.05 7.68 12.29 10.63 fruit breadth (mm) 11.55 12.63 11.8 10.41 12.76 12.01 14.17 10.93 10.85 9.28 14.36 12.12 fruit tss (0b) 15.63 13.67 17.2 12.9 11.84 15.51 16.36 13.99 11.39 13.02 12.4 13.92 acidity (%) 1.34 1.32 1.33 1.42 1.31 1.33 1.29 1.33 1.32 1.34 1.31 1.34 reducing sugars (%) 2.91 3.27 2.75 4.9 2.81 3.93 2.72 3.46 3.45 2.92 3.11 2.87 non-reducing sugars (%) 6.69 8.52 7.02 1.03 6.74 11.2 6.95 7.45 6.87 6.87 7.11 6.72 vitamin c (mg/100g) 3.98 4.01 3.94 5.1 3.68 3.97 3.76 3.74 3.82 3.9 3.92 3.86 table 5. analysis of variance for some quantitative traits of horticultural importance for pre-selected genotypes of raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) character mean squares replication treatment error degree of freedom (d.f.) 2 169 338 berry weight (g) 0.003 0.048* 0.001 berry length (mm) 0.062 5.462* 0.039 berry breadth (mm) 0.053 5.851* 0.044 tss (0b) 0.0001 10.594* 0.06 acidity (%) 0.0004 0.050* 0.002 reducing sugars (%) 0.076 1.079* 0.032 nonreducing sugars (%) 0.048 2.996* 0.04 vitamin c (mg/100g) 0.096 0.602* 0.027 cd at (p = 0.05) dinesh singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 155 acknowledgements the authors are thankful to department of science & technology, govt. of india, new delhi, for providing necessary financial help during the course of this investigation as a pioneering research work conducted under the project entitled “studies on biodiversity of raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) for selection of superior genotypes growing wild in the north-western himalayas. references dahlberg, j.a. 1995. operators’ handbook for sorghum germplasm maintenance. ars special publication. beltsville, md, usa dwivedi, a.k. and mitra, s.k. 1995. genotypic correlation and path coefficient analysis in litchi (litchi chinensis sonn.). ind. agri., 39:57-61 gohil, r.h. and pandya, j.b. 2006. genetic divergence in salicornia (salicornia brachiata roxb.). ind. j. genet., 66:75-76 mahalanobis, p.c. 1936. on the generalized distance in statistics. proc. nat’l. acad. sci. (india), 2:49-55 maiti, c.s., wangchu, l. and mitra, s.k. 2002. genetic divergence in jackfruit (artocarpus heterophyllus lamk.) ind. j. genet., 62: 369-370 nagar, b.l. and fageria, m.s. 2006. genetic divergence in lehsua (cordia myxa roxb.). ind. j. genet., 66:67-68 rai, d. and misra, k.k. 2005. studies on genetic divergence in bael (aegle marmelos correa). ind. j. hort., 62:152-54 rajan, s., yadava, l.p., kumar, r. and saxena, s.k. 2009. genetic divergence in mango varieties and possible use in breeding ind. j. hort., 66:7-12 ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products (2nd ed.), tata mcgraw hill, new delhi rao, c.r. 1952. advanced statistical methods in biometrical research. john wiley and sons, new york shah, s., sharma, g. and sharma, n. 2010. heritability, genetic variability, correlation and nonhierarchical cluster analysis of different almond ( prunus dulcis) genotypes. ind. j. agril. sci, 80:576-583 singh, r., meena, k.k. and singh, s.k. 2003. genetic divergence for yield and its component traits in pomegranate (punica granatum l.). ind. j. pl. genet. resources, 16:133-34 singh d., kumar, k. and sharma, v.k. 2009. evaluation of raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) genotypes growing wild in the north-western himalayas for berry quality traits. ind j. agril. sci., 79:913-916 (ms received 02 september 2010, revised 13 april 2011) genetic diversity of native wild-raspberry in nw himalaya j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):148-155, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no in jammu and kashmir, guava culture has shown tremendous potential as the most remunerative crop in the last decade, despite erratic climatic conditions drought-like situations, which, in turn, actually boosted the area under this crop. to standardize the method for nitrogen fertilization, an experiment was conducted during 2007-08 to determine leaf nutrient status, since the latter is an important parameter of notational management of fruit crops, in guava cv. sardar. the present study was conducted at experimental orchard, division of fruit science, faculty of agriculture, udheywalla, skuast-jammu (latitude 32.430north and longitude 74.540east) on fifteen year old plants of guava cv. sardar during the winter season of 2006-07 and 200708. winter months here experience mild temperatures ranging from 6.50c to 21.70c. december is the coldest month, when minimum temperature falls to 40c. the farm soil was sandy-loam in texture. initial soil status of the experimental orchard is presented in table 1. dose of npk (572:207:265g tree-1) for guava as recommended by skuast-j was applied in the experiment. a total of twelve treatments, replicated thrice, were executed in randomized block design, viz., t 1 = azospirillium; t 2 = 100% n tree-1 through fym + azospirillium; t 3 = 100% n tree-1 through poultry manure + azospirillium; t 4 = 50 % n tree-1 through fym + 50% n tree-1 through poultry manure; t 5 = azospirillium + t 4, t 6 = azotobacter; t 7 = azotobacter + t 1 ; t 8 = azotobacter + t 2 ; t 9 = azotobacter + t 3 ; t 10 = effect of organic manures and biofertilizers on leaf and fruit nutrient status in guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. sardar akash sharma, v.k. wali, parshant bakshi and mahital jamwal division of fruit science, foa, skuast-j, chatha, jammu-180 009, india e-mail : akashskvastj@gmail.com abstract pooled analysis of two-year data on nutrient status of ‘sardar’ guava raised under organic manures and biofertilizers indicated that maximum leaf nitrogen (1.73%), phosphorus (0.24%), potassium (1.23%), calcium (1.96%), magnesium (0.80%); and maximum fruit nitrogen (1.12%), phosphorus (0.15%), potassium (0.94%), calcium (0.22%), magnesium (0.66%) was recorded, respectively, after fruit harvest with application of full dose of nitrogen to the plant applied through poultry manure augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium. key words: guava (psidium guajava l.), poultry manure, azotobacter, azospirllum, leaf and fruit nutrients azotobacter + t 4 ; t 11 = azotobacter + t 5 ; t 12 = absolute control. two organic manures (farmyard manure and poultry manure) were applied to the trees around the trunk in the first week of july. two biofertilizers (azotobacter and azospirillium) with a uniform dose of 200g plant-1 were mixed in jiggery solution, prepared separately for each tree, and were fed to roots. fertilizers were applied after regulating the crop for winter season by applying 1000ppm naa at full-bloom stage in the second week of may. observations on leaf nutrient status (n, p, k, ca and mg) were made by collecting twenty fully-mature leaves at bloom-stage in the month of july (before fertilizer application) and january (after fruit harvest) from each treatment, all around the trees. washing, cleaning, drying, grinding and storing of samples was done as per the method of chapman (1964). digestion of leaf sample was done with one gram of leaf sample for various elements, as suggested by piper (1966). separate digestion was carried out for nitrogen-estimation using concentrated sulphuric acid and digestion mixture (jackson, 1973). observations on fruit nutrient status (n, p, k, ca and mg) were recorded with ten grams of fresh fruit pulp, as described by jackson (1973). separate digestion was carried out for estimation of other nutrients suggested by piper (1966). estimation of total nitrogen was in fruit and leaf was done by micro-kjeldhal method (jackson, 1973). total phosphorus was determined by vanadomolybdo phosphoric yellow colour method short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):169-171, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 170 suggested by jackson (1973). potassium content was estimated by a flame photometer. estimation of calcium and magnesium was done using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. results of nutrient-content of leaf and fruit are presented on dry-weight basis. data generated during the course of the study was subjected to statistical analysis prescribed by panse and sukhatme (2000). use of biofertilizers and organic manures showed that the treatment comprising full dose of nitrogen, applied through poultry manure augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium, was more effective compared to other treatments. pooled data in table 2 reveals that after fruit harvest, maximum amount of leaf nitrogen (1.73 %) and fruit nitrogen (1.12 %) was recorded in the treatment comprising full-dose of nitrogen, applied through poultry manure augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium. increase in leaf nitrogen status observed was partially attributed to the stimulating influence of biofertilizers on organic manure which, in turn, increases nutrient-absorption rate and translocation in the tree system. it could also be due to increased dry-matter production, and nitrogen-fixation or nitrogen assimilation by azotobacter and azospirillium (singh and singh, 2004). pooled data in table 2 reveals that after fruit harvest, maximum content of phosphorus in leaf (0.24 %) and fruit (0.15 %) was observed with full dose of nitrogen, applied through poultry manure augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium. this was perhaps due to production of enzyme complexes by the biofertilizers applied, which may have solubilized the unavailable form of phosphorus and made it available to the plant (singh et al, 2003). persual of pooled data in table 2 also showed highest amount of phosphorus in leaf (1.23 %) and fruit (0.94 %) after fruit harvest with application of poultry manure augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium. this increase in leaf potassium in guava was probably due to the combined use of organic manure and biofertilizer which may have contributed to improving soil physical-properties. inturn, the results in better rooting, and therefore, better uptake of potassium from native sources. increase in potassium content in the present study is also in conformity with findings of ahmad et al (2004). pooled data in table 3 shows that after fruit harvest, highest leaf and fruit calcium content (1.96 % and 0.22 %) was observed in the treatment comprising full-dose of nitrogen given through poultry manure augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium. this increase in nutrients table 1. initial status of soil in experimental orchard particulars content a. mechanical analysis sand (%) 68.5 silt (%) 18.5 clay (%) 13.0 b. chemical analysis p h 7.5 electrical conductivity (dsm-1) 0.11 organic carbon (%) 0.58 available nitrogen (kg ha-1) 230.15 available phosphorus (kg ha-1) 14.45 available potassium (kg ha-1) 140.5 available calcium (meq/100g) 6.04 available magnesium (meq/100g) 2.65 table 2. effect of biofertilizers and organic manures on nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in leaf and fruit of guava cv. sardar on per cent dry weight basis (pooled means) treatment n in leaf n in fruit p in leaf p in fruit k in leaf k in fruit bfa afh bfa afh bfa afh t 1 1.82 1.60 0.99 0.20 0.20 0.08 1.16 1.17 0.85 t 2 1.84 1.68 1.06 0.21 0.21 0.10 1.16 1.19 0.89 t 3 1.84 1.69 1.09 0.21 0.22 0.11 1.17 1.20 0.90 t 4 1.82 1.58 0.97 0.20 0.19 0.08 1.16 1.16 0.85 t 5 1.84 1.66 1.04 0.20 0.21 0.10 1.16 1.18 0.87 t 6 1.82 1.60 0.98 0.20 0.19 0.08 1.16 1.17 0.86 t 7 1.82 1.61 1.02 0.21 0.21 0.10 1.16 1.18 0.87 t 8 1.85 1.70 1.10 0.21 0.23 0.12 1.18 1.21 0.91 t 9 1.86 1.73 1.12 0.21 0.24 0.15 1.19 1.23 0.94 t 1 0 1.82 1.67 1.03 0.20 0.21 0.10 1.16 1.19 0.88 t 1 1 1.86 1.71 1.11 0.21 0.23 0.12 1.18 1.22 0.91 t 1 2 1.76 1.56 0.90 0.19 0.16 0.06 1.15 1.13 0.81 cd (p=0.05) 0.04 0.05 0.07 ns 0.03 0.03 ns 0.03 0.04 bfa: before fertilizer application afh: after fruit harvest ns: non-significant akash sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):169-171, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 171 was, may be, due to production of enzyme complexes by nitrogenfixers and which solubilized the unavailable form of nutrient elements and made them available (narayan et al, 2004). persual of pooled data in table 3 shows that after fruit harvest, maximum content of leaf magnesium (0.80%) and fruit magnesium (0.66%) was seen with the treatment comprising full-dose of nitrogen applied through poultry manure, augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium. it was observed that azotobacter helped increase length of the main root and the number of secondary roots in guava, which enhanced uptake of the mineral element as a result of better translocation to leaves for growth and development of the fruit (rana, 2001). the present study thus reveals a positive response of organic manure, along with biofertilizers, on nutrient status of winter-season guava. in conclusion, our results show that table 3. effect of biofertilizers and organic manures on calcium and magnesium in leaf and fruit of guava cv. sardar on per cent dry weight basis (pooled means) treatment ca in leaf ca in mg in leaf mg in bfa afh fruit bfa afh fruit t 1 1.88 1.89 0.16 0.75 0.72 0.60 t 2 1.90 1.93 0.18 0.76 0.77 0.63 t 3 1.90 1.94 0.18 0.77 0.78 0.64 t 4 1.85 1.85 0.14 0.73 0.68 0.59 t 5 1.89 1.92 0.17 0.75 0.76 0.62 t 6 1.87 1.87 0.15 0.75 0.71 0.60 t 7 1.87 1.90 0.17 0.75 0.74 0.61 t 8 1.91 1.94 0.20 0.77 0.79 0.65 t 9 1.91 1.96 0.22 0.78 0.80 0.66 t 1 0 1.89 1.91 0.17 0.76 0.75 0.62 t 1 1 1.90 1.95 0.21 0.77 0.79 0.65 t 1 2 1.80 1.77 0.12 0.76 0.63 0.58 cd (p=0.05) 0.05 0.04 0.04 n.s 0.06 0.03 bfa: before fertilizer application afh: after fruit harvest n.s: non-significant a full dose of nitrogen in the form of poultry manure, augmented with azotobacter and azospirillium, plays a vital role in improving leaf and fruit nutrient status of guava. references ahmad, a.f., saxena, s.k., sharma. r.r. and singh, s.k. 2004. effect of azotobacter chroococcum on nutrient uptake in ‘amarpali mango’ under high density planting. ind. j. hort., 61:348-349 chapman, h.d. 1964. suggested foliar-sampling and handling techniques for determining the nutrient status of some field horticultural and plantation crops. ind. j. hort., 21:97-119 jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, 498p morton, j.f. 1987. fruits of warm climates. creative res. syst. inc., pp 91-102 narayan, r., magray, g.h, ahmed, n. and samanta, a. 2004. effect of organic manures on nutrient uptake and quality of capsicum (capsicum annum var. grossum l.) the hort. j., 17:141-144 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 2000. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, p108 piper, c.s. 1966. soil and plant analysis. hans publishers, bombay, pp 40-51 rana, r.k. 2001. studies on the influence of nitrogen fixers and plant bioregulators on growth, yield and quality of strawberry cv. chandler. ph.d. thesis, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, solan singh, a. and singh, r.p. 2004. effect of bioand chemical fertilizers on nutrient status of olive trees. haryana j. hort. sci., 33:27-29 singh, a., patel, r.k. and singh, r.p. 2003. correlation studies of chemical fertilizers and biofertilizers with growth, yield and nutrient status of olive trees (olea europea). ind. j. hill farming, 16:99-100 (ms received 10 december 2010, revised 6 july 2011) organic manures and biofertilizers in guava plant nutrition j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):169-171, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no fruit-set in cashew is mainly influenced by the activity of pollinators (reddi, 1993; thimmaraju and lakshmi raju, 1993; freitas and paxton, 1996). in the east coast of tamil nadu, 32 species of insects visited cashew inflorescences (ambethgar, 2002). in the west coast of india, devasahayam (1986) and sundararaju (2000, 2003) reported various species of bee such as pseudapis oxybeloides (smith), ceratina smaragdula (f.), apis spp., lasioglossum sp., trigona iridipennis smith and one unidentified halictid visiting cashew. based on the number of free pollen-grains on their bodies, honey bee (a. mellifera) and the solitary bee (centris tarsata) were found to be efficient pollinators of cashew (frietas, 1997; bhattacharya, 2004). studies were therefore undertaken to document the diversity of bee pollinators occurring on cashew in the cashew belt of coastal karnataka and in coastal tamil nadu. simultaneously, information on other flower resources (flora) occurring in cashew plantations during the lean season and flowering period of cashew was collected, in order to suggest methods for conservation and management of pollinators. diversity of bee pollinators was assessed by collecting bees that maintained constancy on cashew flowers in the cashew belt of coastal karnataka and in coastal tamil nadu, by undertaking surveys during 2004 – 2006. bee species were identified using taxonomic keys developed by batra (1977). visitation of bee pollinators at fixed hours and on diversity of bee pollinators and flora in cashew d. sundararaju* directorate of cashew research puttur (d.k.), karnataka-574 202, india e-mail: dsraju21@gmail.com abstract seven species of bee that maintained constancy on cashew flowers were identified from coastal karnataka [(pseudapis oxybeloides (smith), lasioglossum sp. and halictus sp., halictidae; braunsapis sp., ceratina smaragdula (f.) and ceratina sp., apidae)] and four species from coastal tamil nadu [(ceratina (pithitis) binghami cockerell, c. smaragdula, braunsapis sp. and p. oxybeloides)]. time spent by bees for visiting the flowers ranged from 0.8 to 25.1 seconds per flower. diversity of flora recorded during 2003-08 as floral resources for nectar for all the above bee species during lean and flowering periods of cashew both at coastal karnataka and tamil nadu is presented in this paper. key words: diversity of bees, floral resources, cashew *present address: national bureau of agriculturally important insects, hebbal, bangalore-560 024 fixed spots in cashew during the flowering season of 200506 was recorded. for this, one square meter of the canopy was marked in early-season (nrcc selection-2), midseason (bhaskara) and late-season (chintamani1) flowering varieties. in each variety, visits of bee pollinators at fixed hour (11.00 hr and 14.00 hr) were observed for a period of 10 minutes continuously for 30 days from initiation of flowering in panicles. highest population recorded either at 11.00hr or 14.00hr was accounted as population for that day. role of bee pollinators in fruit-set was observed by caging single trees completely with nylon net (size 40 mesh) similar to that in studies of freitas and paxton (1996). total time spent per flower by some of the bees was recorded with the help of a stop-watch and video-graph. simultaneous observations were made within cashew plantations on diversity of flora that served as floral resources during lean periods, and additional floral resources during flowering periods of cashew. species of bees which visited cashew flowers, and bees carrying pollen grains on their legs and body hairs, were collected and identified. there were seven species from coastal karnataka pseudapis oxybeloides, lasioglossum sp. and halictus sp. (halictidae); braunsapis sp., ceratina smaragdula and ceratina sp. (apidae), and four species from coastal tamil nadu: ceratina (pithitis) binghami cockerell, c. smaragdula, braunsapis sp. and p. oxybeloides. these species were observed as mainly short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):52-55, 2011 53 collecting pollen grains, followed by feeding on nectar and were categorized either as pollen-bees native-bees, wild bees or non-apis bees (batra, 1994). even though honeybees (apis florea f., a. cerana indica and a. dorsata f., apidae) visited cashew flowers in both the regions, these were mainly involved in feeding on nectar and, very rarely, in collecting pollen. stingless bee (trigona iridipennis smith, apidae) alone collected both nectar and pollen grains. however, pollen billets on their corbiculae were loaded in the form of a brownish, slimy mass. though the occurrence of above species of apis, p. oxybeloides, c. smaragdula and lasioglossum sp. have already been reported by devasahayam (1986), reddi (1995), sundararaju (2000), ambethgar (2002) and bhattacharya (2004), four species viz., halictus sp., ceratina sp., braunsapis sp. and ceratina (pithitis) binghami in this study have been recorded for the first time from cashew plantations of coastal karnataka and tamil nadu. as per reports of ambethgar (2002), apis mellifera l. was sighted in coastal tamil nadu, but could not be sighted in the repeat survey undertaken during 20042006. similarly, bhattacharya (2004) reported occurrence of bombus spp. in west bengal, but it is surprising to note that bombus spp. specific to the cooler high-altitude region (1350m to 8400m above msl (abrol, 1997) was seen on cashew. recently, the extent of pollination in cashew with a maximum of upto 46.8%) after the visit of a. cerana indica, was documented by sundararaju (2011). total time spent on the flower by bees was accounted for by keeping time with a stop-watch and recording with a video camera (tables 2 and 3) and was seen to range from 0.8 to 25.1 seconds flower. whenever pollen alone was collected, the time spent was found to be minimum (0.8 to 5.0 sec flower-1). combined collection of pollen and nectar, or collection of nectar alone, time spent was maximum (5.0 to 25.1 sec. / flower). this is in contrast to an earlier study by sundararaju (2000) who observed p. oxybeloides as spending 2.0 seconds on pollen collection alone. the abundance of bees on early-(nrcc selection-2), mid(bhaskara) and late-season (chinthamani 1) flowering varieties was 0.35, 0.16 and 0.09 bees panicle-1, respectively, in a constant period of 10 minutes, during 2005-06 (table 1) at puttur (coastal karnataka). under undisturbed video recording, in a canopy area containing 15 panicles during a period of 20 minutes, visit of 2-3 a. cerana indica and 1-5 p. oxybeloides bees was found to be low in cashew. this is in concurrence with earlier reports of ohler (1979) and free (1993). during 2006-07, a single tree of ‘bhaskara’ variety was caged all over with mosquito net, in the centre of a plantation at puttur and geitonogamous pollination (through gravitational fall of pollen grains) was completely prevented by removing the upper panicles. every day, the tree was observed between 11.00 and 12.00h. most of the time, at least twice or thrice, bee species p. oxybeloides dashed against the mesh of the cage from outside the of cage and ultimately, could not enter the cage because of its larger body-size, and the close mesh of mosquito net. this type of external attraction may be due to volatiles emanating postanthesis in cashew flowers. as a result, no fruit-set was observed even upto 45 days from onset of flowering in the particle. and at the same time, normal fruit-set showing various stages of fruit development was observed on all the surrounding un-caged trees. subsequently, in the caged tree, belated fruit-set was spotted after 45-60 days from of flowering. by this time, all the surrounding un-caged trees table 1. visitation by bees on different varieties of cashew trees bee species visit of bee within 10 minutes (no./panicle/day) during 30 observational days nrcc bhaskara(m) chintamani(l) selection-2 (e) stingless bee 0.280(30) 0.003(3) 0.036(8) (trigona iridipennis ) apis cerana indica 0.027(14) 0.026(10) 0.014(11) (honey bee) a. florea 0.025(17) 0.007(3) 0.000 non-apis spp. 0.021(9) 0.136(26) 0.036(16) total 0.353(30) 0.162 (26) 0.086(27) figures in parentheses are no. of days sighted out of 30 observational days; e, m, l: early-, mid& late-season flowering variety, respectively table 2. time spent by different species of bees* per cashew flower name mean± s.d (seconds)** range (seconds) apis cerana indica 2.31 ± 1.35 0.8 9.0 apis florea 8.25 ± 2.61 1.222.2 ceratina 13.62 ± 1.30 5.025.1 (pithitis) binghami braunsapis sp. 9.43 ± 1.36 2.022.0 *recorded with a stop-watch; * * mean of minimum 10 observations table 3. visitation of bees on cashew flowers as recorded on video camera bee species no. of bee visits time on 15 panicles within a spent / flower period of 20 minutes (seconds) day1 day2 day3 mean± s.d. range apis cerana indica 3 2 2 3.6±1.0 2-5 pseudapis oxybeloides 1 5 4 4.1±3.9 1-18 diversity of bee pollinators and flora in cashew j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):52-55, 2011 54 had panicles at an advanced stage of fruiting and were on in the verge of cessation of flowering. since the caged tree had no panicles bearing fruits, flowering was to be observed continuous, without any cessation. therefore, the caged tree was critically observed. finally, through visual observation, entry of lasioglossum sp. through the mesh of the cage was confirmed especially at the site where flower panicles touched the mesh of the cage. also visit to new flowers of the caged tree, by bee species already present inside the cage, was seen. since the caged tree maintained active flowering while all the surrounding trees were on the verge of cessation of flowering, bees must have been attracted to flower panicles touching the mesh of the cage. subsequently, through the mesh of the cage, these bees may have made a forced entry. as a result, a final fruit-set in 71.2% of panicles with a mean of 1.2 nuts/panicle was recorded. whereas, in the surrounding un-caged trees that showed activity of bees of the above-mentioned species (since onset of flowering), final fruit-set was observed in 81.3% of panicles, with a mean of 2.1 nuts/panicle. this level of fruit-set on the caged tree was possible mainly due to involvement of smaller bees that entered through the mesh of the cage. this is in contradiction with earlier studies by freitas and paxton (1996) who reported meager fruit-set in a completely caged tree (since larger bees were excluded and smaller bees were not involved in pollination of cashew). diversity of flora recorded during 2003-08 as floral resources for all the above bee species in lean periods at coastal karnataka included of lindernia antipoda l. l. crustacean l. and l. ciliata (colsm.) (scrophulariaceae), spermacoce hispida l. and s. ocymoides burm. (rubiaceae), mimosa pudica l. and acacia pennata l. willd (mimoceae), rungia repens nees (acantheceae), leucas aspera willd. (labiatae) and muntingia calabura l. (tiliaceae). whereas, during the flowering period of cashew, blumea lacera l. and b. oxydonta d.c. (asteraceae), rungia parviflora (retz.) nees and muntingia calabura were observed as additional floral resources. in coastal tamil nadu, ocimum americanum l. and o. adscendens willd. (labiatae), cleome viscosa l. (capparidaceae), oldenlandia umbellata l. (rubiaceae) and l. aspera were found to be floral resources during the lean period. cleome viscosa, o. adscendens, and, l. aspera and celosia sp. (amaranthaceae) were observed as additional flower resources during the flowering period. even though p. oxybeloides, lasioglossum sp. and braunsapis sp. visited cashew and b. lacera, b. oxydonta and r. parviflora, the respective bees maintained with specific parallel-exclusive constancy pattern on cashew alone. but, at vridhachalam (coastal tamil nadu), during the flowering period of cashew, exclusive constancy by ceratina (pithitis) binghami, braunsapis sp. and p. oxybeloides was also observed on cleome viscosa and l. aspera, common weeds in cashew plantations. similar level of exclusive parallel-constancy by these species of bees was not seen on other varieties of cashew except ‘bhaskara’. thus, the high-yielding variety bhaskara, was found to be a bee-pollinator attractant variety in coastal tamil nadu. this can be further popularised all over coastal tamil nadu. existence of the above floral resources during both lean and flowering periods of cashew in coastal karnataka and tamil nadu, can help conserve/manage these bees whenever any recommended insecticides (used for management of cashew pests) caused a depression in bee population. all the same, use of existing recommended insecticides has not affected pollination in cashew in the past (sundararaju, 2000, 2003 and 2004). this is because non-apis bees do not have any scope for contact with insecticide-treated cashew flowers, except on the day of insecticide application. growth of b. lacera and o. adscendens at the respective regions was noticed only in limited locations and, therefore, needs to be spread to other locations for conservation. it is also interesting to note that most of above-mentioned flora are native weeds in cashew plantations, excepting mimosa pudica. these native weeds are fairly non-invasive and are capable of growing under partial shade of the cashew canopy. however, muntingia calabura is an exotic fruit tree and cannot be recommended for growing within cashew plantations as it has been recorded as a refugee-host for an important, key pest of cashew, helopeltis spp. (miridae: heteroptera) (sundararaju et al, 2002). acknowledgement the author thanks the director, directorate of cashew research, puttur for providing facilities. he also thanks shri laxmipathi for technical assistance and biosystematics unit of department of entomology, gkvk, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore for identification of ceratina (pithitis) binghami. identification of various flora of pollinators by botanical survey of india, southern regional centre, coimbatore, is gratefully acknowledged. sundararaju j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):52-55, 2011 55 references ambethgar, v. 2002. insect visitors of cashew inflorescence in north-eastern zone of tamil nadu, india. progr. hort., 34:223-229 abrol, d.p. 1997. bees and bee keeping in india. kalyani publishers, delhi, pp. 303-308 batra, s.w.t. 1977. bees of india (apidea), their behaviour, management and a key to the genera. orient. insects, 11:289-324 batra, s.w.t.1994. diversify with pollen bees. am. bee j., 134:591-593. bhattacharya, a. 2004. flower visitors and fruit set of anacardium occidentale. ann. bot. fennici., 41:385-392 devasahayam, s. 1986. some observation on insects visiting cashew inflorescence. cashew bull., 23:1-5 free, b.j. 1993. insect pollination of crops. academic press, london, pp 122-124 frietas, b.m. 1997. changes with time in the germinability of cashew (anacardium occidentale) pollen grains found on different body areas of its pollinator bees. rev. brasil biol., 57:289-294 frietas, b.m. and paxton, r.j.1996. the role of wind and insects in cashew (anacardium occidentale) pollination in ne brazil. j. agril. sci.,126:319-326 ohler, j.g. 1979. cashew. koniklijk institute voor de tropen, amsterdam, pp260 reddi, e.u.b. 1993. pollination studies of cashew in india : an overview. in: ( eds.veeresh , g.k., umashaankar, r. and ganeshaiah, k.n.). proc. int’l. symp. polln. trop. uas, bangalore, pp. 321-324 reddi, e.u.b. 1995. insect pollination in cashew. in: ( ed. sihag, r.c.). pollination biology: environmental factors & pollination. rajendra scientific publishers, hisar. pp. 68-74 sundararaju, d. 2000. foraging behaviour of pollinators on cashew. the cashew, 14:17-20 sundararaju, d. 2003. occurrence of bee fauna and extent of pollination in insecticide sprayed ecosystem of cashew. j. palynol., 39:121-125 sundararaju, d. 2004. evaluation of promising new insecticides in large plots for management of tea mosquito bug on cashew. j. plantn. crops, 32(suppl.):285 288 sundararaju, d. 2011. studies on extent of pollination and fruitset in cashew. j. plantn. crops, 39 (in press) sundararaju, d., raviprasad, t.n. and bhat, p.s. 2002. new refuge host plant for helopeltis spp. insect envir., 8:137-138 thimmaraju, k.r. and lakshmi raju. 1993. pollinator limited fruit-set in cashew. in: (eds. veeresh , g.k., umashaankar, r. and ganeshaiah, k.n.). proc. int’l. symp. polln. trop. uas, bangalore, pp. 43 (ms received 04 december 2010, revised 25 april 2011) diversity of bee pollinators and flora in cashew j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):52-55, 2011 introduction guava (psidium guajava) belongs to the family myrtaceae and has a diploid chromosom number 2n = 22. guava is believed to have originated in central america (hayes, 1953) and is now well-adapted to india, being widely grown throughout the country. although guava is self pollinated, 35-40% cross pollination takes place in some cultivars, providing a heterogeneous, openpollinated seedling population with adequate genetic variation (pathak and ojha, 1993). most guava varieties have evolved through selection from seedling variants. guava fruit is a rich source of vitamins (a and c), dietary fiber, carotenoids, essential oils and pectin. besides its nutritional properties, the leaves and bark of p. guajava have a long history of medicinal use that still continues today (joseph and mini priya, 2011). the present study aims to use microsatellite markers to measure genetic diversity in guava germplasm. this would help breeders choose genetically diverse germplasm for use as parents in breeding programmes to develop superior hybrids. 3department of biotechnology, gokaraju rangaraju institute of engineering and technology, hyderabad-500090, india. assessment of genetic diversity in guava (psidium guajava) germplasm using microsatellites m.v. naga chaithanya1, m.r. dinesh2, c. vasugi2, d.c. lakshmana reddy1, d. sailaja3 and c. aswath1* 1division of biotechnology, 2division of fruit crops icarindian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560 089, india *e-mail: aswath@iihr.ernet.in abstract although the varietal diversity is fairly rich in guava, most varieties lack one or more desirable characters. hence, attempts were made for improving specific traits, viz., attractive pink pulp colour, soft seeds, medium fruit size, high tss and high ascorbic acid. genetic diversity analysis is a prerequisite for identifying potential parents in breeding programs and germplasm conservation. molecular characterization helps discriminate closely-related genotypes, as, this technique is unaffected by environment, rendering it more reliable. in this study, 48 polymorphic ssrs screened from a total of 115 ssr markers were used for analyzing marker segregation in 72 guava accessions. statistical analysis was done using identity1.0 and cervus 3.0 software. cluster analysis was done with darwin 5.0 software, using wards minimum variance method, and weighted group neighbour joining method, to check reliability of grouping among clusters. the trend in grouping was found to be similar in both methods. dendrograms generated showed that the hybrids clustered with their parents; exotic collections fell into two different sub-groups based on productivity; the wild species formed one group; and navalar cultivars from dharwad clustered together, reflecting similar origin. key words: guava, genetic diversity, dendrogram, simple sequence repeats microsatellites consist of tandemly repeated units of dna, show high levels of allelic diversity per locus, are co-dominant in nature and highly reliable. thus, these can be used for infering genotyping information, and are best suited for genetic diversity studies in both plants and animals (cholastova and knotova 2012). material and methods a. plant material and molecular markers guava germplasm maintained in the field gene bank (fgb) at indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india, was selected for the study. the germplasm consisted of hybrids, exotic collections, local collections and wild species used as rootstocks or as parents in the disease resistance breeding program (vasugi and dinesh, 2007). total genomic dna of the 72 guava accessions was extracted from leaf material by doyle and doyle method (1990) with minor modifications. the precipitated dna was dissolved in te buffer and integrity of genomic dna isolated was determined by electrophoresis in 0.8% agarose gel. dna quantification j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 118 was done using a gene quant uvspectrophotometer (ge health care bio-sciences ltd; england), and diluted accordingly. out of a total number of 72 accessions (table 1), 24 guava accessions (diverse with respect to fruit characteristics, viz., fruit weight, tss-total soluble solids, ascorbic acid, pulp colour, seed hardness and fruit weight) were initially selected. genotyping was performed using the following polymerase chain reaction profile: volume of the reaction mixture was 20µl which contained 1x buffer (10 mm tris hcl of ph 8, 50mm kcl, 1.5mm mgcl2), 0.5µm of each primer, 200µm of dntps, 0.5 units of taq dna polymerase (genei, bangalore) and 50ng genomic dna. dna amplification was done as per the pcr program of risterucci et al (2005). amplified pcr products were separated on 3% agarose gel (3b black bio biotech india, ltd.) loaded with 100bp ladder (fermentas). the gels were stained with ethidium bromide and were photographed using uvipro platinum gel documentation unit. molecular weight analysis of the amplified alleles was made in comparison with a 100 bp ladder loaded along with the samples by using uvitec platinum id software (ver.12, cambridge, uk). genotyping was done to screen 115 ssr (simple sequence repeats) markers, of which only 48 were found to be polymorphic. pcr amplification of the remaining accessions was performed using the 48 shortlisted polymorphic markers (table 2) to obtain allelic molecular weight data of all the 72 accessions. b. statistical and genetic diversity analysis statistical parameters such as number of alleles per locus (k), allele frequencies, expected heterozygosity (exp.het.), observed heterozygosity (obs.het.) and polymorphic information content (pic) were analyzed using allele frequency analysis module of cervus 3.0 (kilinowski et al, 2007). probability of identity (pi) was calculated using identity1.0 software. darwin 5.0 software was applied to construct a dendrogram by both wards minimum variance method and neighbor joining method. factorial analysis was performed using darwin 5.0 (http://darwin.cirad.fr) (perrier et al, 2003). results and discussion 1. allelic diversity the 48 ssrs exhibited unique amplification fragments in the 72 accessions. results of statistical analysis are depicted in table 2. a total of 249 alleles were amplified. amplicon size varied from 71bp (mpgcir207) to 386bp (mpgcir100). based on results on statistical analysis (table 2), the number of alleles ranged from 2 (mpgcir029, mpgcir236) to 11 (mpgcir201), with a mean number of 5.33 alleles per locus (which was higher than 4.5 alleles per locus reported earlier) (rodriguez et al, 2007). pic values ranged from 0.260 (mpgcir236) to 0.811 (mpgcir243), with a mean of 0.563. expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.078 (mpgcir038) to 0.838 (mpgcir243), with a mean of 0.616. pi values computed using identity1.0 software (wagner and sefc, 1999) ranged from 0.052 to 0.847 for the loci mpgcir321 and mpgcir038, respectively (which was higher than the range 0.031 to 0.487 reported earlier) (kanupriya et al, 2011). 2. genetic diversity analysis cluster analysis was performed using the distancebased clustering method, which takes pair-wise distance matrix as an input for analysis, by a specific clustering algorithm (johnson and wichern, 1992). 1. nasik 2. local 1 3. chittidar 4. sindh 5. local 2 6. local 3 7. behat coconut 8. g6 9. ec-147037 10. ciw5 11. nagpur seedless 12. abu ishaqwala 13. phili pink 14. lucknow42 15. ciw1 16. apple colour 17. aneuploid-2 18. dhareedar 19. ciw2 20. gr1 21. surkha chitti 22. aneuploid1 23. chakaiya ruthamnagar 24. surkha chitti neptuani 25. arka amulya 26. arka mridula 27. allahabad safeda 28. safed jam 29. c.p.a. white 30. ben dror 31. smooth green 32. benaras 33. portugal 34. lalit 35. mirzapur seedling 36. sardar guava 37. florida seedling 38. seedless triploid 39. karela 40. ec-147039 41. spear acid 42. purple local 43. red flesh 44. pati 45. dharwad 46. hisar safeda 47. superior sour lucidum 48. white flesh 49. psidium molle 50. psidium cattelianum 51. psidium quadrangularis 52. psidium chinensis 53. psidium friedrichsthalianum 54. s.p.no.6 55. s.p.no.7 56. 7-12 ec147036 57. hafsi 58. bangalore local 59. 7-39147034 60. 9-35147036 61. ec-162904 62. parker dessert 63. sabdana badri 64. kohir long 65. kohir safeda 66. swetha 67. cish-g-1 68. local white 69. beaumont 70. kg guava 71. thailand guava 72. kamsari table1. list of accessions used in the present study naga chaithanya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 119 table 2: list of polymorphic markers with results of statistical analysis sl. locus f=forward primer (5’-3’) expected size no. of allele obs. exp. pic pi no. r=reverse primer (3’-5’) (bp) alleles size (bp) het het 1 mpgcir339 f: ccgaagacgaggagatta 160 5 140-227 0.070 0.658 0.582 0.181 r: ttaagtggaaaatcacagttg 2 mpgcir243 f: acagcaggacacaaagga 174 7 107-212 0.292 0.798 0.764 0.072 r: gctctgaggtggttttcat 3 mpgcir182 f: gaggaagaaacccgaagtta 181 8 87-202 0.264 0.8 0.769 0.068 r:ggtagaaagatcggaaagac 4 mpgcir236 f: actcatattccgtttgcatc 164 2 154-168 0.056 0.301 0.254 0.507 r:gaattaacgacgagttccac 5 mpgcir316 f: gcttcatattacaaaccttgg 232 4 192-281 0.239 0.464 0.416 0.317 r:gatctaactgacttgccaaaa 6 mpgcir326 f: agaacaagacacgagaagag 116 6 83-179 0.250 0.787 0.748 0.081 r:aaaatctacgcacaaacc 7 mpgcir207 f: caagatttgcctcaagaaac 136 5 71-145 0.306 0.460 0.433 0.319 r:aactaaatagcctgctggtg 8 mpgcir206 f:ggaagtttcaaagtaacagcac 181 6 174-295 0.111 0.764 0.721 0.096 r:agaatgagtccatgctcaaa 9 mpgcir220 f:agagcagtggttgctatttt 218 7 145-164 0.083 0.731 0.679 0.121 r:cccatctcttacttttcttgtg 10 mpgcir277 f:agccgattatgattacctg 173 5 144-191 0.250 0.732 0.689 0.113 r:cgattcactccctcattact 11 mpgcir039 f:gctcaccttactcattcagc 155 4 145-200 0.014 0.524 0.406 0.309 r:ctgttgctaagagctttcgt 12 mpgcir222 f:ccagaatcagacatagttagag 166 3 169-213 0.171 0.393 0.337 0.381 r:ctgaagacatcaacatggaa 13 mpgcir093 f:gcatcatgtgtttgaacgat 123 6 102-168 0.194 0.803 0.768 0.070 r:aagtgtgcgttctccatct 14 mpgcir099 f:tcaaagtccaaaactcatgc 220 4 194-267 0.208 0.532 0.475 0.276 r:gggatggagtaaagatgaaa 15 mpgcir042 f:ctcacccaaaatctacacaag 107 3 110-140 0.029 0.322 0.296 0.436 r:aagggactggacgatgtt 16 mpgcir100 f:ctagaagtcgaagaatggaa 128 5 122-386 0.239 0.671 0.617 0.154 r:tttgttagtatcggagtcgag 17 mpgcir185 f:aacgcatctggcattgat 117 4 97-135 0.141 0.308 0.285 0.476 r:ccttggtctccctcttactc 18 mpgcir165 f:taagggattcatttccgagt 124 3 127-176 0.029 0.523 0.411 0.289 r:ctggtgtgacgatgactttt 19 mpgcir029 f:ctcgcttcaatctccatcta 162 2 166-202 0.521 0.414 0.326 0.409 r:agcgacacagactcttcatt 20 mpgcir154 f:cttcagctacagcctttcc 138 8 102-285 0.903 0.794 0.759 0.074 r:ggagaaagcagaaattcca 21 mpgcir038 f:agcctgttttacgccttc 111 3 102-131 0.028 0.081 0.079 0.847 r:cggctgctctattgttattt 22 mpgcir194 f:gcagagaatcgaagcacta 172 6 154-208 0.278 0.747 0.695 0.113 r:gcaagcacaggttctacttt 23 mpgcir193 f:gaacgtgggttacataccat 122 4 102-132 0.028 0.594 0.506 0.252 r:atcaccgtcctcctaaatct 24 mpgcir027 f:agcacttagggacaaattca 292 4 262-337 0.167 0.668 0.598 0.178 r:ctcactctcctccattcaag 25 mpgcir191 f:gaccctcccacttatattttg 210 6 216-282 0.485 0.766 0.726 0.071 r:aagctgacataacagtcgaa 26 mpgcir091 f:gcggtggatttgaatttag 125 3 107-142 0.324 0.552 0.465 0.272 r:ccaagtaacccacaacaata 27 mpgcir031 f:tctcactgatgcaacttttc 128 8 104-191 0.159 0.616 0.580 0.156 r:cccattttcatctcaaagtc 28 mpgcir157 f:aaccaccaaaccatacacc 209 4 163-224 0.246 0.692 0.636 0.128 r:cgaccaaccctacattctg assessment of genetic diversity in guava using microsatellites j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 120 table 2: contd. sl. locus f=forward primer (5’-3’) expected size no. of allele obs. exp. pic pi no. r=reverse primer (3’-5’) (bp) alleles size (bp) het het 29 mpgcir161 f:tctcaaggaccaacaagaag 246 5 218-283 0 0.681 0.622 0.136 r:aggacttagcttgggttttc 30 mpgcir111 f:caacctcgtttgagtcttct 115 5 86-156 0.222 0.420 0.394 0.363 r:aacatcattgggaccattc 31 mpgcir041 f:aagtggtgtcagcaactacc 136 4 130-170 0.014 0.579 0.505 0.214 r:cttagtttgaccgctccagt 32 mpgcir174 f:gccactgtgtaagaggattg 261 4 181-273 0.108 0.626 0.545 0.158 r:attgtgggagattggagac 33 mpgcir184 f:aagctacaatcgacgaaaac 221 5 171-254 0.171 0.706 0.660 0.117 r:cactattagcgaacctgcat 34 mpgcir104 f:attcccgtggattatgtatc 120 2 125-141 0 0.423 0.332 0.381 r:acaaccattttctcctcatc 35 mpgcir109 f:aatttccacagatcacaagg 110 5 104-147 0.083 0.686 0.620 0.162 r:ggcatctccatcaaatacat 36 mpgcir325 f:aaacgctcgaatcagttg 172 7 140-202 0.319 0.807 0.773 0.068 r:ccaagaaacacagggattac 37 mpgcir200 f:ccttgctttggtgaggtc 178 8 141-377 0.203 0.685 0.645 0.118 r:gctaattcagtccttccaact 38 mpgcir321 f:ttttggcctgggaatatag 129 8 114-191 0.209 0.810 0.778 0.052 r:taaaacgaaagcagaaaacc 39 mpgcir032 f:cgcctttcgtaaaagaagt 100 5 73-136 0.071 0.672 0.613 0.148 r:tcatatactcggacaaaacg 40 mpgcir102 f:aattggtgtagcatctgga 176 5 181-255 0.403 0.661 0.586 0.188 r:gcctaccatgaacagagaaa 41 mpgcir201 f:tttgccttcgagcttctact 133 11 120-303 0.471 0.791 0.754 0.070 r:acaatttcgtgggctcgt 42 mpgcir203 f:atgaaggcattacctaagac 126 3 127-341 0.086 0.547 0.447 0.274 r:accctattaacccttagcaa 43 mpgcir205 f:acctctccagctctacacg 101 5 89-164 0.458 0.786 0.745 0.084 r:gaggttgtcgaaggttgat 44 mpgcir098 f:catcaactttccaggcata 127 4 116-148 0.0 0.663 0.595 0.154 r:ccattcagtcggtttgac 45 mpgcir101 f:atggctgtaagaagcaaaag 110 5 100-164 0.074 0.413 0.368 0.317 r:gaagaaatgtaggtgcgttc 46 mpgcir150 f:cctagtgactcgaagcaatc 108 5 106-152 0.153 0.657 0.592 0.182 r:ttgagccctagcatagacag 47 mpgcir133 f:cgatcttggaatgtaagagg 148 8 134-244 0.181 0.709 0.659 0.133 r:tggatttgcaggttctatct 48 mpgcir437 f:acaacagttctgatcccaaa 153 6 155-346 0.099 0.725 0.678 0.113 r:ctcggagacacagaggtcta bp= number of base pairs, obs. het= observed heterozygosity, exp. het= expected heterozygosity, pic= polymorphic information content , pi= probability of identity a wards minimum variance method wards minimum variance method (ward, 1963) generates a graphic representation such as a tree or a dendrogram, in which clusters can be visually identified. confidence limits of different clades in the dendrogram were tested by bootstrapping 1000 times to assess repetitiveness of genotype clustering (felsenstein, 1985) in both the methods. dendrogram generated by wards minimum variance method is shown in figure 1. this method showed two clusters: a major cluster (cluster 1) with 50 accessions, and a minor cluster (cluster 2) with 22 accessions. subgroup-c1 included genotypes like sindh, chittidar, hafsi, behat coconut, local 1, nasik, local 3, bangalore local, ciw5, abu ishakwala, and nagpur seedless. sub group-c2 included seven varieties and five wild species, along with phili pink and lucknow-42. most of the exotic collections grouped with local-2 in group-d, leading to the inference that local-2 is an introduction. fourteen accessions were clustered in subgroup-e1 as shown in figure 1. genotypes like dhareedar, aneuploid -2 and apple colour clustered with ciw2 and ciw1, in subgroup-e2. local white, s.p. no.7, bendror, cish-g-1, swetha, beaumont, s.p. no.6 clustered in group-f of cluster-1. naga chaithanya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 121 cluster-2 had one group-g which was divided into sub-groups g1 and g2. in subgroup-g1, all the white-pulped varieties clustered with purple local, a purple-pulp accession. many pink-pulp varieties clustered with two white-pulp accessions, florida seedling and superior sour lucidum, in subgroup-g2. b. neighbor joining method (nj) to overcome systemic errors, an alternative method known as neighbor joining is used in phylogenetic studies. this removes the assumption that the data are ultrameric (swofford et al, 1996). in this method, bootstrapping values of the allele frequencies can be displayed to assess reliability of the nodes. the dendrogram obtained is shown in fig. 2. the neighbor joining method is discussed in detail, as, it includes bootstrapping. the bootstrap values varied from 2% to 100%. highest bootstrap value of 100% was observed for the varieties arka amulya and kohir long. a similar low bootstrapping value, ranging from 3% to 100%, was reported earlier by hadadinejad et al (2011). cluster analysis clearly showed that the accessions fell broadly into three clusters. cluster-1 was divided into group-a and group-b. group-a was subsequently subdivided into a1 and a2. a1 sub-group clustered 11 accession together showing that these were genetically closer; but morphologically, the similarity was not visible, perhaps due to minor differences in allelic composition. clustering of five wild species with phili pink and lucknow42 in subgroup-a2 represents their close genetic similarity; it can be inferred indirectly that these are quite dissimilar to the commonly cultivated psidium guajava. similar clustering of wild species was earlier reported by rajkumar et al, (2011). group-b consisted of five exotic collections, with higher productivity (ec-162904, g6, 9-35147036, 7-39147034, ec-147037) (vasugi and rami reddy, 2003). cluster-2 with 26 germplasm accessions was divided into group-c and group-d. group-c was further divided in to sub-groups c1 and c2, that clustered 21 and one genotypes, respectively. cluster c1 confirmed the parentage of hybrids (dinesh and vasugi, 2010) as arka mridula, and the hybrid arka amulya clustered with its maternal parent, allahabad safeda. other hybrids (kohir safeda and safed jam) clustered with their parent, allahabad safeda. in c2, only gr1 was present. navalur varieties grouped with dhareedar, aneuploid-2 and apple colour, indicating their genetic similarity within group-d. cluster-3 was divided into subgroups e1 and e2. subgroup-e1 was further divided into group-f and g. group-f was sub-divided into f1 and f2. f1 was divided into f1a and f1b and contained white and pink pulp varieties in two different clusters, respectively. subgroup-e2 clustered three accessions, hisar safeda, purple local and white flesh, which separated from the other 19 genotypes. all the remaining 19 genotypes under e1 were divided into four sub-groups like f1 (f1a, f1b, and f2) and g. subgroup-f1 consist of both white and pink pulp varieties in two different clusters. further clustering resulted in clear differentiation of the remaining pink and white pulp varieties. the white-pulp varieties clustered in sub-group f1a. sub-group f1b grouped all pink pulp varieties with florida seedling, a white pulp accession. sub-groups f2 clustered two pink pulp varieties with superior sour lucidum, a white-pulp accession. this grouping may perhaps be due to their highly acidic nature. in sub-group g, pink-pulp varieties like thailand guava and pati clustered together. similar differentiation of white and pink pulp varieties was reported by kanupriya et al (2011). c. factorial analysis factorial analysis represented in fig. 3 is a type of principal co-ordinate analysis used for deriving a 2-3 dimensional scatter plot of individuals. this method facilitates identification of individuals showing intermediacy between two groups (lessa, 1990). individuals belonging to a single plot reveal sets of genetically similar individuals (karp et al, 1997). the picture consists of x axis and y axis, based on which it is divided into four co-ordinates (co-1, co-2, co-3, and co-4). interestingly, the accessions that grouped in cluster 1 in neighbor joining method (nj) were included in co-2 (except p.quadrangularis, which grouped in co-1). this alignment of p. quadrangularis in co-1 of factorial analysis may be due to the superior morphological traits like high stamen number, large flower and fruit, and good flavour, compared to the other species used in the study (vasugi and dinesh, 2007). accession g6 showed intermediacy between co-1 and co-2. co-4 included accessions from cluster-2 in nj method, except dhareedar, aneuploid-2 and apple colour (which grouped in co-2). co-1 and co-3 together included all the accessions belonging to cluster 3 in neighbour joining method. irrespective of the method used, pattern of clustering among genotypes was found to be similar. both the cluster-analysis methods grouped individuals into stringently defined groups or clusters. finally, factorial analysis clearly confirmed the patterns obtained by cluster analysis. assessment of genetic diversity in guava using microsatellites j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 122 fig. 1. dendrogram generated using wards minimum variance method from the computed genetic distances of simple matching coefficient. the black dot on the left of the dendrogram indicates the origin, and the line at the bottom indicates the coefficient of jaccards dissimilarity matrix. naga chaithanya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 123 fig. 2. dendrogram generated using weighted neighbor joining method from the computed genetic distances of simple matching coefficient. bootstrap values supporting nodes are shown on the branches. the black dot on the left of the dendrogram indicates origin, and the line at the bottom indicates coefficient of jaccards dissimilarity matrix. from the dendrograms, it can be deduced that many accessions were comparable to known superior varieties, and, can be used as parents in future guava breeding programs. allelic pattern shown by the primer combinations evaluated in the present study confirms the high discriminatory capacity of ssr markers. therefore fingerprinting of guava accessions can be done using such data. an acceptable level of genetic diversity was detected, as, a number of clusters were formed, allowing for efficient selection of parents in future breeding programs. parentage was also confirmed through molecular diversity analysis. exotic collections have a good demand in the processing assessment of genetic diversity in guava using microsatellites j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 124 fig. 3. factorial analysis generated using darwin 5.0 software naga chaithanya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 125 industry because of their pink pulp, with sweet-acid blend and high productivity. these can be exploited in guava breeding programmes in india. acknowledgement the authors are indebted to council for scientific and industrial research (csir) for financial help as a fellow to the first author, and director, iihr for providing facilities for this study. references cholastova, t. and knotova, d. 2012. using morphological and microsatellite (ssr) markers to assess the genetic diversity in alfalfa (medicago sativa l.). int’l. j. biol. vet. agril. food engg., 6:146-152 dinesh, m.r. and vasugi, c. 2010. guava improvement in india and future needs. j. hortl. sci., 5:94-108 doyle, j.j. and doyle, j.l. 1990. isolation of plant dna from fresh tissue. focus, 12:13-15 felsenstein, j. 1985. confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using the bootstrap. evolution, 39:783-791 hadadinejad, m., ebadi, a., naghavi, m.r. and nikkhah, r. 2011. genealogy and molecular diversity of iranian grapevine progenies. j. agril. sci. tech., 13:1147-1161 hayes, w.b. 1953. fruits growing in india. kitabistan, allahabad, india johnson, a.r. and wichern, d.w. 1992. applied multivariate statistical analysis. 3rd edition, prentice-hall, englewood cliffs, nj, usa joseph, b. and mini priya, r. 2011. review on nutritional, medicinal, pharmacological properties of guava (psidium guajava l.). int’l. j. pharm. biosci., 2:54-69 kalinowski, s.t., taper, m.l. and marshall, t.c. 2007. revising how the computer program cervus accommodates genotyping error increases success in paternity assignment. mol. ecol., 16:1099-1106 kanupriya, madhavi latha, p., aswath c., reddy, l., padmakar, b., vasugi, c. and dinesh, m.r. 2011. cultivar identification and genetic fingerprinting of guava (psidium guajava l.) using microsatellite markers. int’l. j. fruit sci., 11:184–196 karp, a., kresovich, s., bhat, k.v., ayad, w.g. and hodgkin, t. 1997. molecular tools in plant genetic resources conservation: a guide to the technologies ipgri, rome lakshmana reddy, d. c., kiran, k., srinivas reddy, s.h., kanupriya, aswath, c. and singh, t.h. 2012. ssrbased dna barcodes as a tool for identification of eggplant genotypes. int’l. j. veg. sci., 18:260-271 lessa, e.p. 1990. multidimensional analysis of geographic genetic structure. sys. biol., 39:242-252 mahajan, r., tabia, s., raina, g. and mangotra, n. 2012. assessment of genetic diversity of non-basmati rice of jammu and kashmir using microsatellite markers. j. cereals and oil seeds, 3:21-27 mondini, l., noorani, a. and pagnotta, m.a. 2009. assessing plant genetic diversity by molecular tools. diversity, 1:19-35 pathak, r.k. and ojha, c.m. 1993. genetic resources of guava. adv. hort. fruit crops., 1:143-147 perrier, x., flori, a. and bonnot, f. 2003.genetic diversity of cultivated tropical plants (ed. p. hamon). data analysis methods, 43–76 rajkumar, g., weerasena, j., fernando, k. and liyanage, a. 2011. assessment of genetic diversity among sri lankan rice varieties by aflp markers. pl. genetic resources, 9:224-228 risterucci, a.m., duval, m.f., rohde, w. and billotte, n. 2005. isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci from psidium guajava l. mol. ecol. notes, 5:745-748 rodriguez, n.n., valdés-infante, j., becker, d., velázquez, b., coto, o., ritter, e. and rohde. 2004. morphological, agronomic and molecular characterization of cuban accessions of guava (psidium guajava l.). j. genet. breed., 8:70-90 swofford, d.l., olsen, g.j., waddell, p.j. and hillis, d.m. 1996. phylogenetic inference. in: d.m. hillis et al. (eds.) molecular systematics, 2nd edition, sinauer associates, sunderland, ma., usa, pp. 407–514 vasugi, c. and rami reddy, p.v. 2003. chacterization and evaluation of some exotic guava accessions under bangalore conditions. indian j. pl. genet. resources, 17:189-192 vasugi, c. and dinesh, m.r. 2007. genetic variability in some psidium species. indian j. agril. sci., 77:420423 wagner, h.w. and sefc, k.m. 1999. identity 1.0, centre for applied genetics, university of agricultural sciences, vienna, austria ward, j.h. jr.1963. hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. j. amer. statistical assoc., 58:236–244 (ms received 06 october 2014, revised 29 november 2014, accepted 03 december 2014) assessment of genetic diversity in guava using microsatellites j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):117-125, 2014 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):209-210, 2012 bougainvillea is one of the most important semiscandent, fast growing climbers imparting beauty to gardens in north india with its brightly coloured bracts. during febjune and again, in sept-dec. colour of the bract ranges from deep magenta to white, including purple, mauve, orange, red, scarlet, crimson, pink and yellow. it can be planted as a hedge, as standard or semi-standard shrub or bush, in pots, as bonsai, or, can be even trained against lightcoloured walls. it is most suited for planting in boulevards, city squares and expressways. it is propagated by cuttings and layering. plant growth regulators have been reported to stimulate root formation in the propagation material (kale and bhujbal, 1972; and nath, 1999). the present investigation was carried out to study the effect of different concentrations of iba on rooting potential of stem cuttings of four different varieties of bougainvillea, viz., louise wathen, thimma, mrs. butt and shubhra, and to arrive at the best treatment for a given variety. the investigation was carried out at main experimental station, department of horticulture, narendra deva university of agriculture & technology, kumarganj, faizabad, during 2008-09. hardwood cuttings 20-23cm long and 7-10mm thick of the four varieties listed above were harvested from fully mature woody shoots of previous year’s growth. cuttings were then treated with three effect of indole butyric acid (iba) concentration on sprouting, rooting and callusing potential in bougainvillea stem cuttings neerja singh college of horticulture & forestry narendra deva university of agriculture and technology kumarganj, faizabad-224229, india e-mail: neerja.nduat@rediffmail.com abstract a study was conducted in 2008-09 to investigate the influence of indole butyric acid (iba) at 0, 1000, 1500 and 2000ppm concentrations on rooting potential in hardwood cuttings of four varieties of bougainvillea, i.e., louise wathen, thimma, mrs. butt and shubhra. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with sixteen treatments and four replications. results indicated that both iba concentration and variety had significant effect on sprouting, rooting, callusing and establishment of cuttings. louise wathen cuttings treated with 1000ppm iba were superior in response with 85.39% sprouting, 75.46% rooting and 80.78% callusing. establishment (100%) was also best in this treatment. key words: bougainvillea spp., indole butyric acid, bracts, callusing concentrations of iba (1000, 1500 and 2000 ppm) for 30 minutes and planted in nursery beds, along with the control, under open-condition. planting distance was 20cm between rows and 10cm within the row. sixteen treatments with four replications were included in randomized block design, in the first week of march. observations on sprouting percentage were made when most number of cuttings sprouted. rooting and callusing percentage was calculated upon digging out the cuttings in july, i.e., 19 weeks after planting. rooted cuttings were planted back into nursery beds for three months for studying their rate of establishment. data in table 1 reveal that percentage sprouting, rooting, callusing and establishment increased significantly on application of indole butyric acid, in comparison to the control. it was also noted that increasing the concentration of iba from 1000 to 2000ppm resulted in reduced in response. hardwood cuttings of louise wathen treated with 1000ppm iba were found to be significantly superior to rest of the treatments with respect to sprouting (85.39%), rooting (75.46%), callusing (80.78%) and establishment (190%). lowest values for all types of response were recorded in shubhra cuttings under control. beneficial effect of iba (1500ppm) on rooting has also been recorded by kale and bhujbal (1972) in cuttings of bougainvillea var. ‘mary palmer’. kanmadi et al (1997) reported highest 210 percentage of primary and secondary roots per cutting in bougainvillea var. ‘mahara’ at 1000ppm iba. singh and singh (2002) reported best rooting response at 2000ppm iba in the variety ‘thimma’. increasing the concentration of iba from 1000 to 2000 ppm resulted in decreased sprouting, rooting, callusing, etc. in louise wathen, rooting at 1000ppm was 75.46%, but was only 49.33% at 2000ppm. similarly, significant reduction in callusing (55.5%) and establishment (97.5%) was observed at 2000ppm iba in this variety. shepherd and winston (2000) reported 125ppm iba to be the best concentration for improving rooting in variety ‘thimma’ when 0, 125, 250, 500 and 1000 ppm iba concentrations were used. increase in all three types of response varied significantly among different varieties at similar concentrations of iba. variety ‘louise wathen’ proved best for all propagation parameters, followed by ‘thimma’. values for sprouting, rooting, etc., were found lowest in the case of ‘shubhra’ at the same concentration of iba. even at 1000ppm iba, sprouting (58.45%), rooting (47.88%), callusing (58.45%) and establishment (87.50%) were significantly poor in ‘shubhra’ compared to the other three varieties. references kale, p.n. and bhujbal, b.g. 1972. use of growth regulators in rooting of cuttings of bougainvillea var. mary palmer. punjab hort. j., 15:71-73 kanmadi, v.c., patil, s., ryagi, y.h., shirol, r.m. and vijaykumar. 1997. effect of growth regulators on rooting of cuttings in bougainvillea variety mahara. adv. agril. res. india, 7:43-45 nath, j.c. 1999. rooting of bougainvillea var. dr rao as affected by iba and type of cuttings. haryana j. hortl. sci., 28:74-75 shepherd, h. and winston, s.l. 2000. effect of iba on rooting of stem cuttings of bougainvillea (bougainvillea sp.) cv. thimma. bioved., 4:37-40 singh, a.k. and singh, v.b. 2002. influence of wood maturity and auxin on regeneration of bougainvillea cuttings. prog. hort., 34:196-199 table 1. effect of iba on rooting of cuttings in four varieties of bougainvillea treatment sprouting rooting callusing establishment % % % % v 1 c 0 53.78 22.27 32.31 92.50 v 1 c 1 85.39 75.46 80.78 100.0 v 1 c 2 69.53 56.95 65.84 100.0 v 1 c 3 63.81 49.33 55.50 97.50 v 2 c 0 45.00 26.19 37.66 95.50 v 2 c 1 74.14 63.81 69.53 97.50 v 2 c 2 61.77 50.83 56.95 95.00 v 2 c 3 56.95 43.56 52.34 90.00 v 3 c 0 34.56 16.58 31.29 82.50 v 3 c 1 60.27 49.38 58.61 92.50 v 3 c 2 53.78 42.12 53.78 90.00 v 3 c 03 49.39 37.73 45.00 87.50 v 4 c 0 32.90 10.65 22.50 80.00 v 4 c 1 58.45 47.68 58.45 87.50 v 4 c 2 50.83 40.67 49.39 85.00 v 4 c 3 45.06 33.05 39.17 82.50 cd(p=0.05) 4.684 4.850 5.232 5.525 v 1 = louise wathen c 0 = control (no iba) v 2 = thimma c 1 = 1000ppm iba v 3 = mrs. butt c 2 = 1500ppm iba v 4 = shubhra c 3 = 2000ppm iba (ms received 02 june 2011, revised 21 august 2012) neerja singh j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):209-210, 2012 introduction reports indicate that about 28mt of primary plant nutrients (npk) are removed annually by crops in india, while 18mt (even much less in semi-arid condition) are applied as fertilizer, leaving a net negative balance of about 10mt of primary plant nutrients (naas, 2006). this imbalanced and skewed fertilization status is a major causative factor for stagnant /reduced crop yields by declining crop response to applied fertilizers and impaired nutrient use efficiency. use of inorganic fertilizer alone has not been helpful under intensive agriculture owing to its high cost, and is often associated with reduced crop yields, with soil degradation, nutrient imbalance and acidity (obi and ebo, 1995). the need for renewable forms of energy and reduced cost of fertilizing the crops, has revived use of organic manures worldwide (ayoola and adeniran, 2006), more so in india (naas, 2006). thus, integrated nutrient management has shown promising results not only in sustaining productivity, but also has proved to be effective in maintaining soil health besides enhancing nutrient efficiency (kadrekar, 1993; thakur et al, 2011). integrating fertilizer n rates with organics on soil-available nutrients and yield of sapota under semi-arid conditions of karnataka g.c. satisha, prakash patil, a.m. shirol1 and a.n. ganeshamurthy icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india e-mail: satishagc@gmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted for three consecutive years to study the effect of various combinations of nitrogenous fertilizer (in the form of urea), vermicompost and fym on yield and soil-available nutrients in sapota. largest number of fruits (4820 tree-1) and maximum fruit yield (31 tons ha-1) were recorded with 10kg vermicompost + 350:50:450g npk tree-1, and was on par with application of 40kg fym + 350:50:450g npk tree-1. the net profit and yield trend over the years showed that application of 10kg vermicompost + 350:50:450g npk tree-1 was more suitable for meeting nutrient requirement for enhanced yield in sapota. application of organics (irrespective of source) showed positive, significant effect on organic matter content of the soil after three years. highest build-up of organic matter in the soil was recorded with 10kg vermicompost alone (t10), which was at par with 40kg fym alone (t5). moreover, there was a clear trend of increasing total soil nitrogen content in plots supplied with increased levels of inorganic nitrogen with organic manures, and, this was subsequently reflected in potentially mineralized nitrogen, suggesting an improved labile pool of plant-available nitrogen. therefore, there is an obvious need to include organic manures along with the inorganic nitrogenous fertilizer for optimizing the use-efficiency of soil and applied n to achieve sustainable yields in sapota for profit. key words: fym, vermicompost, inorganic fertilizers, sapota, potential mineralized nitrogen, plant-available nutrients sapota (manilkara achras mill.), popularly known as ‘chiku’, is one of the important tropical fruit crops of india. it is the most popular fruit crop in karnataka, gujarat and maharashtra, these being the major sapota producing states in india. it is a hardy crop and tolerates salinity to some extent (sulladmath and reddy, 2001). it responds well to water and nutrients (bhuva et al, 1990; boora et al, 2002; singh et al, 2003). therefore, productivity in sapota can be increased significantly through application of fertilizers in combination with organic manures (devashi, 2012). a complementary use of organic and inorganic fertilizers has been recommended for sustenance of long-term cropping in the tropics (ipimoroti et al, 2002; yadukumar et al, 2012). fuchs et al (1970) reported that nutrients from mineral fertilizers enhanced establishment of crops, while, those from mineralization of organic manures promoted yield when both types of fertilizer were combined. murwira and kirchman (1993) observed that nutrient use efficiency could be increased through a combination of manure and inorganic fertilizer. this study was, therefore, conducted to investigate the effects of varying rates of inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers 1k.r.c. college of horticulture, university of horticultural sciences, arabhavi 591 310, karnataka, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):172-178, 2014 173 integrating fertilizer n rates with organics in sapota and various organic manures on sapota yield and soil-fertility status under semi-arid climate of karnataka, as a long-term management practice. material and methods the study was carried out to examine a conjunctive use of inorganic nitrogen and organic nutrient sources, in the form of vermicompost and farm yard manure, on soil fertility and productivity of sapota as part of developing integrated production packages. the experiment was conducted at experimental farm, college of horticulture, university of horticultural sciences, arabhavi, karnataka, india, under aicrp (tropical fruit crops) over three years (2009-10 to 2011-12). the study was initiated in a ten-yearold sapota orchard of var. ‘kalipatti’ (1990 planting) under normal planting density (10m x 10m). the experimental soil was silty-clay in texture (15.6% sand, 39.5% silt and 43.8% clay), with ph (1:2.5 w/v) 7.93, ec 0.55 ds m-1, organic carbon 6.1g kg-1, available nitrogen 259kg ha-1, olsen-p 8.2kg ha-1, available potassium 334kg ha-1, dtpa-fe 2.86mg kg1, mn 6.72mg kg-1, zn 0.20mg kg-1, cu 0.40mg kg-1 and boron 0.15mg kg-1. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with ten treatments comprising various combinations of nitrogenous fertilizer (in the form of urea), vermicompost and fym, with three replicates per treatment (15 trees per replicate). details of the treatments are shown in table 1. vermicompost and fym were collected from small farmholdings in the vicinity of the experimental farm, and, fym was dried before use. total n, p and k content of the fym was 0.50, 0.24 and 0.59%, respectively, and that of vermicompost was 2.10, 0.18 and 1.06%, respectively. recommended dose of p2o5 (50g tree -1 year-1) and k20 (450g tree-1 year-1) was applied as basal in the form of diammonium phosphate and muriate of potash in all the treatments except t5 and t10. vermicompost, fym, and n in the form of urea, were applied in two equal splits during june and september/ october. at the time of application of fertilizers, a trench of 30cm width and equal depth, 1m away from trunk of the tree, was prepared. all the fertilizers were applied in the trench and covered with soil. tree height and tree spread (n-s and e-w directions) were recorded as vegetative growth parameters. yield and yield parameters such as fruit weight, number of fruits per tree and fruit yield were recorded. total soluble solids (tss) were determined using a hand refractometer. at the end of three years of cropping, soil and leaf samples were collected three months after the last fertilizer and /or manure application. root activity in sapota was high (72%) within 2m radius around the tree, and in the top-soil (0-30cm). soil samples within 2m radius of tree were collected from each replication of individual treatment plots and analyzed for ph, ec, organic carbon, available n, p and k using standard procedures (dhyan singh et al, 2005). exchangeable ca and mg in the soil were extracted with 1n ammonium acetate (ph 7.0) solution and determined using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas). dtpa-extractable soil fe, mn, zn and cu were determined as per lindsay and norvell (1978) using aas. soil organic matter content was estimated as per nelson and sommers (1982). an aliquot of dried soil was ground to a fine powder (<1 mm), and soil total nitrogen was analyzed using a chn analyzer. the pool of potentially mineralizable nitrogen in soil was analyzed according to lober and reeder (1993). data were analyzed using analysis of variance, as described by panse and sukhatme (1985). results and discussion yield and yield parameters significant variation in fruit weight, number of fruits per tree and fruit yield was observed in different levels of integration of nutrient sources (table 2). highest fruit weight (67.5g), maximum number of fruits per tree (4820) and highest fruit yield (310.6kg) were obtained in treatment t9 receiving 10kg vermicompost and 350:50:450g npk tree-1. however, this was on par with application of 40kg fym + 350:50:450g npk tree-1. an increase in fruit yield over the years (table 3) was observed in treatment t9 (10kg vermicompost and 350:50:450g npk tree-1) and t4 (40kg table 1. levels and doses of organic and inorganic fertilizers supplied to sapota trees treatment treatment details (dose per tree per year) t1 40kg fym + 200g n t2 40kg fym + 250g n t3 40kg fym + 300g n t4 40kg fym + 350g n t5 40kg fym alone t6 10kg vermicompost + 200g n t7 10kg vermicompost + 250g n t8 10g vermicompost + 300g n t9 10kg vermicompost + 350g n t10 10kg vermicompost alone recommended dose of p2o5 (50g tree -1 year-1) and k20 (450g tree -1 year-1) was applied as basal, in the form of di-ammonium phosphate and muriate of potash, in all treatments except t5 and t10). j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):172-178, 2014 174 fym/vermicompost with inorganic fertilizers may be attributed to higher mineralization of soiland applied n (high pnm rates), leading to a build-up of available n and, therefore, better supply of nutrients, with a conducive physical environment thus leading to better root activity and higher nutrient absorption. this resulted in better tree growth and superior yield attributes, responsible for high yield. increased fruit weight and fruit yield, due to application of higher levels of nitrogen integrated with organic manure, was also reported by devashi (2012) and yadukumar et al (2012). lowest fruit weight (64.5g) and fruit yield (227.4kg) obtained with application of 40kg fym alone, was most likely due to lower nitrogen content, thereby slower availability of nitrogen without inorganic fertilizers. highest total soluble solids (tss) (25.5°b) was obtained with application of 10kg vermicompost alone (t10); but this was on par with the application of 40kg fym alone (t5). quality parameters such as tss (table 2) improved significantly with application of organic manure, irrespective of the source. this may be due to a gradual and steady release of nutrients during the growth period (devashi, 2012). economics were worked out for a period of two years (2010-11 and 2011-12) (table 3). the highest net profit in both the years was obtained in plots treated with 10kg vermicompost + 350:50:450g npk per plant (t9), with benefit:cost ratio of 6.78 and 5.96, respectively. however, this was on par with application of 40kg fym + 350:50:450g npk tree-1 (t4), with b:c ratio of 6.76 and 5.80, respectively. this suggests that depending on availability of vermicompost and/or fym, one can apply inorganic fertilizers (350:50:450g npk tree-1) with the organic manures to meet optimum nutrient requirement for enhancing yield in sapota, as, yield and net profits in these treatments were on par. soil available-nutrient status a perusal of data in table 4 shows that continuous application of chemical fertilizers with organics resulted in non-significant changes in ph and ec of soil at the end of three years. however, lower ph was observed in plots treated with inorganic fertilizers compared to that with organic manure alone, irrespective of the source. organic carbon content of the soil increased significantly with application of fym and /or vermicompost, together with graded doses of npk fertilizers (table 4). application of organics, irrespective of source, showed a positive significant effect on organic carbon content of the soil at the end of three years. highest build-up of organic carbon in soil was recorded with 10kg vermicompost alone (t10), which was table 2. effect of integrating organic manure with inorganic nitrogen on yield and yield attributes in sapota cv. kalipatti (2011-12) treatments number fruit fruit tss of fruits weight yield (°b) per tree (g fruit-1) (kg tree-1) t 1 : 40kg fym +200g n 3678 65.00 243.50 22.50 t 2 : 40kg fym +250g n 3800 65.50 250.00 22.60 t 3 : 40kg fym +300g n 3966 66.10 262.10 23.50 t 4 : 40kg fym +350g n 4550 67.00 297.50 23.70 t 5 : 40kg fym alone 3420 64.50 227.40 25.10 t 6 : 10kg vc +200g n 3715 66.00 245.70 22.50 t 7 : 10kg vc +250g n 3968 66.30 259.90 23.40 t 8 : 10kg vc +300g n 4460 66.50 289.50 23.90 t 9 : 10kg vc +350g n 4820 67.50 310.60 24.40 t 1 0 : 10kg vc alone 3600 65.00 236.50 25.50 sem± 98.6 0.86 5.13 2.93 cd (p=0.05) 286.00 2.60 16.40 0.90 vc= vermicompost table 3. effect of integrating organic manure with inorganic nitrogen on fruit yield in sapota and benefit-cost ratio under various treatments treatment fruit yield (t ha-1 year-1) benefit:cost ratio 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 pooled 2010-11 2011-12 t 1 : 40kg 15.6 14.2 24.3 18.03 3.19 3.21 fym + 200g n t 2 : 40kg 17.0 15.6 25.0 19.20 4.80 4.73 fym +250g n t 3 : 40kg 19.1 17.8 26.2 21.03 5.15 5.00 fym +300g n t 4 : 40kg 21.9 20.3 29.7 23.97 6.76 5.80 fym +350g n t 5 : 40kg 12.7 11.7 22.7 15.70 3.05 3.00 fym alone t 6 : 10kg vc 16.4 14.3 24.5 18.40 3.12 3.10 +200g n t 7 : 10kg vc 17.5 16.3 26.9 20.23 5.06 4.80 +250g n t 8 : 10kg vc 21.7 19.1 28.9 23.24 5.65 5.20 +300g n t 9 : 10kg vc 23.2 21.7 31.1 25.33 6.78 5.96 +350g n t10: 10kg vc 13.6 11.6 23.7 16.30 3.05 3.00 alone s em + 0.50 0.52 0.70 0.64 cd (p=0.05) 1.35 1.53 1.64 1.61 vc= vermicompost fym + 350:50:450g npk tree-1). fruit yield in sapota increased significantly with increase in dose of nitrogen fertilizer applied together with vermicompost and /or fym over the years. benefits accruing from an integrated use of satisha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):172-178, 2014 175 at par with 40kg fym alone. addition of fym and /or vermicompost may have created an environment conducive for formation of humic acid, which ultimately resulted in an increase in organic carbon content in the soil (hati et al, 2007). these results are in agreement with findings of verma et al (2005) and hazarika et al (2011). data in table 4 indicate a slight declining trend (210 to 273kg ha-1) from an initial level (259kg ha-1) of available n status at the end of three years of cropping. the magnitude of decline decreased with increasing levels of nitrogenous fertilizers. however, there was a significant build-up of available n in the soil in treatments t4 and t9 receiving 40kg fym and 10kg vermicompost, respectively, along with 350:50:450g npk tree-1. increase in available n may be attributed to enhanced multiplication of microbes by incorporating manures. this, with high dose of n fertilizers, facilitates mineralization of soil n, leading to a build-up of higher available n (vipan kumar and singh, 2010). all the plots that treated with fym and /or vermicompost along with inorganic fertilizers, had positive significant effect on available p status. significant reduction in available p status of soil observed in plots receiving fym alone (t5) or vermicompost alone (t10) occurred due to removal of p by the crop in the absence of any external source of p. incorporation of fym and /or vermicompost along with inorganic p increased availability of p to the crop and mineralization of organic p due to microbial action, and, enhanced the mobility of p (prasad et al, 2010). the status of available k increased in all the treatments except in t5 and t10 (table 4). highest build-up of available k in the soil was observed in plots receiving 40kg fym + 350:50:450g npk tree-1 (t4), and 10kg vermicompost + 350:50:450g npk tree-1 (t9). available k depleted in treatments receiving fym alone (t5) or vermicompost alone (t10), with no k fertilizer after three years, thus indicating that continuous omission of k in crop nutrition caused mining of the native pools, which resulted in decreased crop yields (dwivedi et al, 2007). addition of organic manures like fym or vermicompost along with inorganic fertilizers had a beneficial effect on increasing k availability. a perusal of data in table 5 also indicates that addition of organic manures (either fym or vermicompost alone, or, in combination with inorganic fertilizers) had positive significant effect on concentration of micronutrients in the soil at the end of three years. incorporation of fym increased significantly availability of zinc and copper in the soil compared to all other treatments, while, manganese was significantly lower in plots supplied with organic manure, irrespective of source. in the case of iron, no specific trend was observed among treatments. application of organic manures may have contributed to build-up of these nutrients and led to prevention of fixation of these cations by chelation action of organic compounds released during decomposition of manures. these results are in agreement with those of devaraja et al (1980) and philip et al (2012). table 4. effect of integrating organic manure with inorganic nitrogen on physico-chemical properties of soil after three years treatment p h ec organic available nutrients (ds m-1) carbon (kg ha-1) (g kg-1) nitrogen phospotasphorus sium t 1 : 40kg fym 7.85 0.486 6.70 212.34 12.70 395 +200g n t 2 : 40kg fym 7.77 0.521 7.39 245.80 14.60 545 +250g n t 3 : 40kg fym 7.91 0.517 8.10 231.22 17.31 383 +300g n t 4 : 40kg fym 7.86 0.635 7.80 266.36 10.60 720 +350g n t 5 : 40kg fym 7.94 0.385 9.00 245.80 9.11 255 alone t 6 : 10kg vc 7.90 0.555 7.60 223.12 11.72 420 +200g n t 7 : 10kg vc 7.92 0.423 8.30 254.46 14.00 715 +250g n t 8 : 10kg vc 7.83 0.537 7.40 239.32 18.50 565 +300g n t 9 : 10kg vc 7.70 0.527 8.60 273.12 16.00 615 +350g n t 1 0 : 10kg vc 7.93 0.419 9.30 250.66 6.30 200 alone sem± 0.23 7.81 0.30 13.79 cd (p=0.05) ns ns 0.66 19.52 0.91 38.48 vc= vermicompost table 5. effect of integrating organic manure with inorganic nitrogen on concentration of micronutrients in soil after 3 years treatment micronutrient (mg kg-1) fe m n zn cu b t 1 : 40kg fym +200g n 3.94 5.44 0.24 0.40 0.23 t 2 : 40kg fym +250g n 2.72 7.36 0.30 0.40 0.20 t 3 : 40kg fym +300g n 3.42 6.84 0.28 0.38 0.15 t 4 : 40kg fym +350g n 2.72 6.78 0.28 0.40 0.15 t 5 : 40kg fym alone 3.40 5.30 0.32 0.44 0.15 t 6 : 10kg vc +200g n 2.38 6.48 0.22 0.38 0.23 t 7 : 10kg vc +250g n 2.96 6.66 0.28 0.40 0.15 t 8 : 10kg vc +300g n 2.82 7.52 0.26 0.36 0.23 t 9 : 10kg vc +350g n 3.34 8.86 0.26 0.40 0.15 t 1 0 : 10kg vc alone 3.18 4.80 0.26 0.38 0.15 sem± 0.081 0.190 0.061 0.090 0.004 cd (p=0.05) 0.24 0.57 0.18 0.27 0.012 vc= vermicompost integrating fertilizer n rates with organics in sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):172-178, 2014 176 overall, soil organic matter content significantly increased in plots supplied with organic manure alone (fym / vermicompost) (table 6). this linear increase in organic matter is important in semi-arid conditions where soils are subjected to intense degradation. other soil properties, directly or indirectly linked to soil organic matter content, also increased with application of organic manure, although this depended on the number of years of application. our data confirm that the content of total soil nitrogen, and soil cation exchange capacity, were significantly affected due to treatments and showed a linear trend with organic matter. total soil nitrogen content in the treatments t5 (40kg fym alone) and t10 (10kg vermicompost alone) were comparable, and this was significantly higher than that in plots receiving chemical fertilizers when these organic manures was applied consecutively for three years. nonetheless, there was a clear trend in improvement of total soil nitrogen content in plots supplied with increased levels of inorganic nitrogen with organic manures, and, this subsequently reflected in the potentially mineralized nitrogen (table 6), suggesting an improved labile pool of plant-available nitrogen. potentially mineralized nitrogen content was higher in treatments receiving inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers than in plots supplied with organic manure alone. this result suggests that organic nitrogen present in fym and /or vermicompost is resistant to mineralization and, is therefore, retained in the soil. these results further indicate that after continuous application of organic manure, the overall microbial demand for ammonium to be immobilized is higher than that which is nitrified. therefore, application of fym or vermicompost alone may result in short-time reduction of nitrogen availability in these soils, suggesting that initial application of the organic manure to the soils should be accompanied by another source of available nitrogen, as evident with potentially mineralized nitrogen, in the present study. it may be concluded from the present study that fruit yield in sapota increases significantly with application of increased levels of nitrogen fertilizers, integrated with vermicompost and /or fym over the years. integrated application of organic manures (40kg fym or 10kg vermicompost tree-1) with inorganic fertilizers (350:50:450g npk tree-1) not only produced higher yields in sapota, and higher net profits over the years, but also improved soil fertility compared to application of organic manures alone. thus, optimum mineral nutrition, in conjunction with organic manures, can play a vital role in exploiting higher yield potential in sapota through a favorable effect on plantavailable nutrient supply. acknowledgement the authors thank mr. mazhar jamil, senior technical officer, micronutrient laboratory, icar-iihr, bengaluru, immensely for his sincere assistance in processing and analysis of soil and leaf samples received from various aicrp (fruit crops) centres in india. the authors are grateful to project co-ordinator, icar-aicrp on fruit crops, iihr, bengaluru, for providing necessary facilities for experimentation. table 6. organic matter, total nitrogen, exchangeable ca, mg, soil cation exchange capacity and potentially mineralized nitrogen as influenced by integrating organic manure with inorganic n treatment organic total exchangeable exchangeable soil potentially matter nitrogen ca mg cec mineralized (%) (cmol (p+) kg-1) nitrogen (µg n g-1) t1:40kg fym +200g n 1.18 0.027 18.58 4.77 24.46 20.06 t2:40kg fym +250g n 1.25 0.032 12.63 4.77 18.51 21.83 t3:40kg fym +300g n 1.38 0.033 20.03 5.81 26.95 22.16 t4:40kg fym +350g n 1.33 0.035 20.78 3.73 25.62 25.35 t5:40kg fym alone 1.46 0.041 19.73 3.77 24.61 21.62 t6:10kg vc +200g n 1.41 0.031 15.80 3.21 20.13 25.91 t7:10kg vc +250g n 1.36 0.036 21.88 3.73 26.72 27.66 t8:10kg vc +300g n 1.30 0.036 23.68 4.25 29.05 33.31 t9:10kg vc +350g n 1.46 0.043 21.78 5.29 28.19 37.70 t10:10kg vc alone 1.53 0.044 22.10 5.29 28.51 26.27 sem± 0.020 0.001 0.385 0.088 0.636 0.497 cd (p=0.05) 0.06 0.003 1.14 0.26 1.91 1.42 vc= vermicompost satisha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):172-178, 2014 177 references ayoola, o.t. and adeniran, o.n. 2006. influence of poultry manure and npk fertilizer on yield and yield components of crops under different cropping systems in south west nigeria. african j. biotech., 5:13361392 bhuva, h.p., katrodia, j.s., and patel, r.g. 1990. effect of 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crops, 40:1-8 satisha et al (ms received 11 june 2014, revised 26 september 2014, accepted 2 october 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):172-178, 2014 bulb onion is one of the important vegetable crops of india and is commonly used for salad and culinary purposes. india is the second largest producer, with 151.18 lakh tonnes produced from 10.64 lakh hectare area (anon., 2011a). it can be grown throughout the country. maharashtra, karnataka, andhra pradesh and gujarat are the major onion growing states. however, onion in punjab is grown on less than one percent of area (8.14 thousand hectare), but its production share is two percent (1.74 lakh tonnes) owing to high (21.5 t/ha) productivity (anon., 2011b). to meet the growing and diverse needs of various stakeholders, right from production to the consumption-chain of bulb onion crop, development of improved varieties with a stable performance always remained a challenge to onion breeders. knowledge of the type and magnitude of variation in available germplasm is a pre-requisite for successful breeding to achieve desired goals. performance of different bulb onion cultivars is much affected by climactic conditions. reports on estimated genetic variability and other genetic parameters under punjab conditions were published in the 80s and 90s. upon the advent of 21st century, huge differences in climatic conditions and genotypic variability have been observed. further, onion is photo-thermosensitive for bulb development, and, there is a need to evaluate the existing bulb onion germplasm under conditions prevailing in punjab. therefore, the present work j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):255-258, 2013 short communication studies on genetic variability and heritability in bulb onion (allium cepa l.) in north-western plains of india j.s. khosa and a.s. dhatt department of vegetable science punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141 004, india e-mail: jiffenvir.pau@gmail.com abstract a study on genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance was carried out in bulb onion for 13 traits using 43 accessions. the range of variation was highest for bolting (0 to 51.30%), followed by days to maturity (110 to 155 days) and bulb weight (44 to 87.03g). values for phenotypic coefficient of variation were higher than corresponding genotypic coefficient of variation for all the characters studied. higher heritability estimates were obtained for plant height, leaf length, days to maturity, number of scales per bulb, polar diameter, equatorial diameter and tss. bolting, bulb weight, neck-to-bulb ratio and the lachrymatory factor showed moderate heritability, while, lowest values were observed for leaf girth and number of leaves per plant. genetic advance varied from 0.06 to 21.82 for leaf girth and bolting, respectively. key words: bulb onion, variance, pcv, gcv, heritability, genetic advance was undertaken to estimate genetic variability and heritability in bulb onion to help plan an efficient breeding programme. seeds of 43 genotypes were sown in a nursery in the first week of november (2009-10 and 2010-11) and transplanted in the first week of january (2010-11 and 201112) at a spacing of 15cm between rows and 7.5cm between plants. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications. recommended cultural practices were followed as per the package of practices for cultivating a healthy onion crop. data were recorded on leaf girth (cm), leaf length (cm), number of leaves per plant, plant height (cm), bolting (%), number of scales per bulb, number of days to 75% maturity, bulb weight (g), polar bulb diameter (cm), equatorial bulb diameter (cm), neck to bulb ratio (cm), lachrymatory factor (mg/100g) and total soluble solids (tss, obrix) as per descriptors of national bureau of plant genetic resources, new delhi (anon., 2000). genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation, heritability in the broad sense, and expected genetic advance were calculated as per burton and devane (1953) and johnson et al (1955) using the computer software cpcs (singh and cheema, 1985). analysis of variance for all characters recorded displayed significant variation among varieties (table 1). 256 the range was highest for bolting (0.0 to 51.30%), followed by days to 75% maturity (110.0 to 155), bulb weight (44.00 to 87.03g) and lachrymatory factor (9.26 to 22.66 mg/100g) (table 2). phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) ranged from 7.89 (neck-to-bulb ratio) to 120.45 (bolting %) indicating a wide variability among the genotypes tested. pcv was high for bolting (120.45) and lachrymatory factor (20.24), moderate for bulb weight (18.77), leaf length (16.07), number of leaves per plant (14.97), tss (14.09), plant height (13.76), number of scales per bulb (10.63), polar diameter (10.58) and days to 75% maturity (10.21), while, it was low for leaf girth (9.70), equatorial diameter (9.06) and neck-to-bulb ratio (7.89). gcv value was high for bolting (104.94), while, it was moderate for bulb weight (16.46), lachrymatory factor (16.53), leaf length (14.90), tss (12.77) and plant height (12.54). low gcv was observed in days to 75% maturity (9.78), number of scales per bulb (9.77), polar diameter (9.70), equatorial diameter (8.67), number of leaves per plant (8.37), neck-to-bulb ratio (6.31) and leaf girth (6.28). values for pcv were found higher than for corresponding gcv, but, with narrow differences except for bolting (table 3). similar trend was earlier observed in diverse bulb onion genotypes by melke and ravishankar (2006) and by pramoda and gangaprasad (2007). the studies reflected presence of greater phenotypic variability among accessions and the responsiveness of attributes to selection for achieving improvement. golani et al (2006) obtained moderate pcv and low gcv for bulb weight. a narrow difference in bulb weight and bulb diameter was observed by rashid et al (2008) and mohanty (2001). sultana et al (2007) obtained very high pcv (104.47) and gcv (103.77) values for bulb weight. very high values (>200) for pcv and gcv were observed for number of leaves at flowering, plant height, number of flowers per scape and fresh bulb weight, by rashid et al (2008). genetic coefficient of variation does not indicate amount of heritable variation; hence, estimation of heritability needs to be made. in the present study, high heritability was observed for days to 75% maturity (0.917), equatorial diameter (0.915), leaf length (0.859), number of scales per bulb (0.845), polar diameter (0.842), plant height (0.829) and tss (0.821). high values indicate that substantial improvement can be expected by laying emphasis on selection for these traits. bulb weight (0.769), bolting (0.759), lachrymatory factor (0.667) and neck-to-bulb ratio (0.64) showed moderate heritability, while, leaf girth (0.419) and number of leaves per plant (0.312) exhibited low heritability (table 4). table 2. performance of bulb onion genotypes for morphological and quality traits. trait g m range pcv gcv hbs ga leaf girth (cm) 1.13 0.83 1.30 9.70 6.28 0.419 0.06 no of leaves/plant 6.42 5.24 8.18 14.97 8.37 0.312 0.42 leaf length (cm) 45.36 29.52 58.12 16.07 14.90 0.859 8.77 plant height (cm) 55.02 37.09 70.26 13.76 12.54 0.829 8.80 bolting (%) 17.05 0.00 51.30 120.45 104.94 0.759 21.82 days to 75 % maturity 136.79 110 155 10.21 9.78 0.917 17.94 bulb weight (g) 62.32 44.00 87.03 18.77 16.46 0.769 12.59 no. of scales/ bulb 6.23 5.27 7.80 10.63 9.77 0.845 0.78 polar diameter (cm) 3.93 2.91 4.82 10.58 9.70 0.842 0.48 equatorial diameter (cm) 5.07 4.06 6.06 9.06 8.67 0.915 0.59 neck to bulb ratio (cm) 1.99 1.74 2.43 7.89 6.31 0.640 0.14 lachrymatory factor (mg/100g) 17.47 9.26 22.66 20.24 16.53 0.667 3.30 tss (°brix) 11.08 9.12 14.27 14.09 12.77 0.821 1.79 gmgeneral mean, pcvphenotypic coefficient of variation, gcvgenotypic coefficient of variation, hbsheritability in the broad sense, gagenetic advance. table 1. analysis of variance for various traits studied in bulb onion (allium cepa l.) s. no. traits mean sum of squares treatment error 1 leaf girth (cm) 0.0222104** 0.006978 2 no. of leaves per plant 1.5001390** 0.634568 3 leaf length (cm) 144.42210** 7.474208 4 plant height (cm) 152.53720** 9.768558 5 bolting (%) 1062.0710** 101.6490 6 days to 75% maturity 553.38890** 16.27509 7 bulb weight (g) 347.27060** 31.57870 8 no. of scales per bulb 1.1793810** 0.067891 9 polar diameter (cm) 0.4634826** 0.027342 10 equatorial diameter (cm) 0.5965305** 0.018017 11 neck to bulb ratio (cm) 0.0568237* 0.008963 12 lachrymatory factor (mg/100g) 29.168650** 4.164181 13 tss (°brix) 6.4470720** 0.436672 ** significant at 1% and * significant at 5% j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):255-258, 2013 khosa and dhatt 257 this indicates poor response for improvement through direct selection for these traits. literature shows higher heritability for tss (hosamani et al, 2010), polar diameter (trivedi et al, 2006), plant height (pramoda and gangaprasad, 2007), bolting (hossain et al, 2008 and sultana et al, 2007) and days to maturity (dhaduk et al, 2011), whereas, heritability is seen moderate for bulb weight (hosamani et al, 2010) and low heritability for number of leaves per plant (golani et al, 2006). selection for traits with high heritability is influenced less by environmental factors, and selection based on phenotypic performance is reliable. genetic advance gives the actual picture, as, it measures genetic gain under selection. it is desirable to consider genetic advance and heritability simultaneously during selection, because, high heritability is not always coupled to high genetic improvement (johnson, 1955). in the present study, estimates for genetic advance were higher (ga) for bolting (21.82), and moderate for days to 75% maturity (17.94) and bulb weight (12.59). rest of the traits had low values for genetic advance, as indicated in table 4. however, higher heritability was observed for polar diameter, equatorial diameter, tss and number of scales per bulb, although genetic advance was low. similar trend was reported by trivedi et al (2006) and mohanty (2001) while singh et al (1995) found high genetic advance for bulb weight and bulb yield. however, melke and ravishankar (2006) reported higher heritability and genetic advance for traits like number of leaves per plant, tss, biological yield per plant and plant height. to conclude, it was found that heritability and genetic advance values were variable from trait to trait. days to 75% maturity showed higher heritability and moderate genetic advance, while, moderate heritability and moderate genetic advance was seen for bulb weight. this suggests that substantial improvement in traits can be expected by practicing selection for specific traits. on other hand, low values for heritability and genetic advance in various traits indicated that direct selection may not be very effective. selection can thus be made for improving multiple traits simultaneously, having a good heritability and genetic advance. references anonymous. 2000 minimal descriptors (for characterization and evaluation) of agrihorticultural crops. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, part-1, pp. 185-89 anonymous. 2011a. htpp://www.nhb.gov.in anonymous. 2011b. package and practices of vegetable crops. punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india, pp. 1-2 burton, g.w. and devane, e.h. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-481 dhaduk, l.k., patel, a.g., mehta, d.r. and damasia. d.m. 2011. genetic variability, correlation and path coefficient analysis in onion (allium cepa l). proc. nat’l. symp. alliums: current scenario and emerging trends. p. 148. directorate of onion and garlic research, pune, india golani, i.j., vaddoria, m.a., mehta, d.r., naliyadhara, m.v. and dobariya, k.l. 2006. analysis of yield components in onion. indian j. agri. res., 40:224227 hosamani, r.m., patil, b.c. and ajjappalavara, p.c. 2010. genetic variability and character association studies in onion (allium cepa l.). karnataka j. agri. sci., 23:302-305 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.c. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soybeans. agron. j., 47:314-318 melke, a. and ravishankar, h. 2006. variability and association among bulb yield and yield related traits in onion (allium cepa l.). trop. agri., 83:112-119 mohanty, b.k. 2001. genetic variabilityh, inter-relationship and path analysis in onion. j. trop. agri., 39:17-20 pramoda, h.p. and gangaprasad, s. 2007. biometrical basis of handling segregation population for improving productivity in onion (allium cepa l.). j. asian hort., 3:278-280 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):255-258, 2013 genetic variability in bulb onion 258 rashid, m.s., hossain, m.s., khalepuzzaman and rahman, m.s. 2008. variability and inter-relationship among yield and yield contributing characters in onion (allium cepa l.). j. biol. sci., 16:85-88 singh, b. and cheema, c.s. 1985. cpcsa computer software package. punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india singh, d.n., nandi, a., tripathy, p. and sahu, a. 1995. genetic variability and correlation in onion (allium cepa). indian j. agri. sci., 65:793-796 (ms received 10 august 2012, revised 17 june 2013, accepted 20 july 2013) sultana, m., islam, a.k.m.a., rasul, m.g., mian, m.a.k. and hossain, t. 2007. estimation of correlation and path coefficients of seed yield contributing traits in onion (allium cepa l.). indian j. hort., 57:329333 trivedi, a.p., dhumal, k.n. and lawande, k.e. 2006. estimates of heritability, genetic advance and correlation between yield and its components in onion (allium cepa l.) indian j. genet., 66:59-60 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):255-258, 2013 khosa and dhatt j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 1-6, 2019 original research paper post harvest loss and marketing of fruits economic analysis of pink flesh guava in local and distant markets in india *t.m. gajanana, d. sreenivasa murthy, m. sudha, a.k. saxena d.v.sudhakar rao and v. dakshinamoorthy icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089 *email : gajanana.tm@icar.gov.in abstract guava produced in bengaluru in karnataka is also transported to distant markets like cochin in kerala and chennai in tamil nadu. an assessment of post harvest loss (phl) was done in these markets. the main marketing channel followed was: producer  phc  distant market ws retailer  consumer marketing practices followed in marketing of pink flesh guava and losses occurring at the wholesale (transit) and retailers’ level (storage) in the distant market kerala were studied from wholesalers and retailers. the phl at the wholesalers’ level was observed to be 3.6 per cent mainly due to pressed and crushed fruits during transit. the retail level loss was 4.59 per cent which was mainly due to storage for more than two days resulting in decaying, rotting, yellowing etc. average price received by the wholesaler was rs.29.92/kg with a margin of rs.6.21/kg (20.75%). the retailers received a price of rs.46.54/kg with a margin of rs.16.35/kg (35.13%). marketing practices followed in marketing of pink flesh guava and losses occurring at the wholesale (transit) and retailers’ level (storage) in the distant market chennai (tamil nadu) were studied with wholesalers in coimbeedu market and retailers in different parts of chennai. the phl at the wholesalers’ level was observed to be 4.62 per cent mainly due to pressed and crushed fruits during transit. the retail level loss was 6.09 per cent which was due to pressing of fruits during handling. the wholesaler received a margin of 22.91 percent in trading of guava fruits. the retailers received a margin of 45.72 per cent. the karnataka farmers can take advantage of the higher prices prevalent in the distant markets and increase their income. pathological investigation indicated that losses occurred at different stages of handling due to styler end rot, anthracnose, canker, thrips attack etc., which needs to be addressed. the storage losses of pink flesh guava were estimated as 5.89 % after 4 days of storage at room temperature (24-32°c) that constituted mainly the physiological loss in weight (plw). spoilage started after 5 days of storage (10.5 %) and reached to 28.31 % by 6 days of storage. after 4 days of storage, guava fruits lose weight to the extent of 6 per cent and the spoilage starts after 5 days. hence, care should be taken to dispose of the fruits within five days of harvest. key words: post harvest loss, marketing, pink flesh guava, economic analysis introduction guava (psidium gujava l) is an important nutritious fruit crop in the country and accounts for about 4 per cent each of area and production of total fruit crops in india. there are two different types of guava viz. allahabad safeda (white flesh) and pink flesh. while informa tion on economic a spects of ma rketing and the losses that occur at different stages of handling of allahabad safeda guava is available [gajanana et al. 2011; gajanana et al. 2015], the same for pink flesh guava is lacking at present. h enc e, a s t u dy t o ex a mine t he ma r ket ing arrangements and to assess the post harvest losses in pink flesh guava at different stages of handling, both at loca l mar ket and dista nt ma rkets, was undertaken in one of the major guava producing states, karnataka, of india. gajanana et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 1-6, 2019 data and methodology karnataka is one of the major guava producing states in the country and it produces 1397703 tonnes (3.81%) from an area of 6858 ha. (2.56%). about 15 per cent of guava in karnataka is produced in bangalore (rural and urban) districts accounting for 15 per cent of the state area under guava (2013-14). pink flesh guava is a popular variety used both for table and processing purposes besides being rich in lycopene content and is grown in karnataka. as bangalore (rural & urban) district produces the maximum quantity of this type of guava in the state, bangalore district was selected for the study. data was collected from 19 sample farmers in bangalore north taluk and 15 retailers from markets. guava produced in bangalore is also marketed in distant markets like cochin in kerala and chennai in tamil nadu. hence, efforts were made to assess the transit and retail level losses in these markets also. averages, percentages and ratios were used as analytical tools. results marketing practices in pink flesh guava guava harvesting fields in bangalore district were visited. marketing practices followed and losses occurring at the field and retailers’ levels were studied. the main marketing channel followed by the guava growers in bangalore district was field sale of guava to contractors/processors. specifically, the following channels are observed: 1. producer  local market ca  retailer  consumer 2. producer  phc  local market ca  retailer  consumer 3. producer  phc  processor 4. producer  phc  distant market ws  retailer  consumer post harvest loss assessment in pink flesh guava in the local market total post harvest loss (phl) in pink flesh guava worked out to 17.06 per cent consisting of field level loss of 11.47 per cent and retail level loss of 5.59 per cent (table 1). table 1. post harvest loss in guava at different levels of handling – bangalore market phl at field level: total phl in pink flesh guava at the field level was observed to be 11.47 per cent consisting of canker affected fruits (4.43%), over ripe fruits (4.16%), bird attack (0.93%), blossom end rot (0.54%), scratches, mealy bug, malformation and other diseases (1.41%). sl. no. stages/levels loss (%0 1 field level (after harvest and before marketing 11.47 grading, sorting for damages) damage due to canker 4.43 over ripe fruits and discarded 4.16 damage due to bird attack 0.93 damage due to blossom (styler) end rot 0.54 damage due to mealy bug , scratches, malformation etc 1.41 2 retail market level (damage due to press & crushed fruits 5.59 during transit & loading/ unloading) 3 total phl in guava 17.06 phl at retail level: retail level losses worked out to5.59 per cent mainly consisting of press damaged and crushed fruits during handling. price realization: average price received by the farmer was rs.25.38/kg in the local bangalore market with a producer share of 73.54 per cent. the retailers 2 economic analysis of loss in guava realized a price of rs.31.25/kg with a margin of rs.5.45/kg (21.12%). pathological investigation of causes of damage: guava (pink flesh) fruits collected from the orchards located in different localities were assessed for the association of different diseases. the overall percent disease incidence varied from 26.67% (locality 4) to 50.00% (loca lity-1). among the diseased fruits anthracnose (colletotrichum gloeosporiodes), styler end r ot (phomopsis psidi ) a nd ca nker (pestaliopsis psidi) were the major diseases that resulted in spoilage of fruits and their level varied in different localities (tables 2 & 3). anthracnose was the major disease followed by styler end rot and canker in localities no 1,2,3,4 & 6 where the incidence of anthracnose ranged from 52.78% (locality-6) to 38.33% (locality-1); styler end rot varied from 38.89% (locality no-6) to 35.56% (locality-2) whereas canker ranged from 22.22% (locality no 1) to 27.78% (locality no 4). similarly canker was a major problem followed by styler end rot and anthracnose in localities-3 & 5. here, incidence of canker was 50.00% in locality-3 and 41.67% in locality-5; incidence of styler end rot was 30.56% in both the localities whereas incidence of anthracnose ranged from 19.44% (locality -3) to 27.78% (locality-5). in localities-7& 8, styler end rot was the major problem followed by canker and anthracnose. incidence of styler end rot, canker and anthracnose were 57.78% & 38.33%; 35.67% & 31.67% and 6.67% & 30.00% in localities 7 & 8 respectively. table 2. status of guava (pink flesh) fruits collected from different localities fruit status localities 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 healthy (%) 50.00 63.33 53.33 73.33 66.67 66.67 66.67 56.67 (45.01) (52.87) (46.93) (59.02) (54.79) (54.79) (55.09) (48.85) diseased (%) 50.00 36.67 46.67 26.67 33.33 33.33 33.33 43.33 (45.01) (37.15) (43.09) (31.00) (35.22) (35.22) (34.93) (41.16) c.d. (0.5%) = 7.789 note: figures in parentheses indicate angular transformed values table 3. incidence of diseases on guava (pink flesh) fruits collected from different localities disease localities 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 canker 27.22 28.89 50.00 27.78 41.67 8.33 35.56 31.67 (pestaliopsis psidi) (31.46) (32.52) (45.01) (31.81) (40.21) (16.78) (36.61) (34.25) styler end rot 34.44 35.56 30.56 33.33 30.56 38.89 57.78 38.33 (phomopsis psidi) (35.94) (36.61) (33.56) (35.27) (33.56) (38.59) (49.48) (38.26) anthracnose 38.33 35.56 19.44 38.89 27.78 52.78 6.67 30.00 (c.gloeosporioides) (38.26) (36.61) (26.17) (38.59) (31.81) (46.60) (14.97) (33.22) c.d. (0.5%) = 9.778 note: figures in parentheses indicate angular transformed values post harvest storage losses in pink flesh guava fruits: the storage losses of pink flesh guava were estimated as 5.89 % after 4 days of storage at room temperature (24-32°c) that constituted mainly the physiological loss in weight (plw). spoilage started after 5 days of storage (10.5 %) and reached to 28.31 % by 6 days of storage. by storing the fruits at low temperature of 12°c, the total storage losses after 12 days could be reduced to 8.99 % that constituted 6.99 % of plw and 2.07 % of spoilage. the total storage losses at 12°c increased to 16.56 % when the storage duration increased to 15 days. the spoilage during storage at both room temperature and 12°c was found to be mainly due to anthracnose disease (table 4). j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 1-6, 2019 3 marketing and phl assessment in pink flesh guava in the distant markets guava produced in bangalore is also transported to distant markets like cochin in kerala and chennai in tamil nadu. the main marketing channel followed in the distant markets was: producer  phc  distant market ws  retailer  consumer the losses occurring during transit and at retailer’s level are assessed and presented in table 5. table 5. transit and retail level loss in distant markets particulars kerala (%) tamil nadu (%) transit loss 3.60 4.62 retail level loss 4.59 6.09 total loss at 8.19 10.71distant market marketing and phl assessment in pink flesh guava in the distant markets kerala marketing practices followed in marketing of pink flesh guava and losses occurring at the wholesale (transit) and retailers’ level (storage) in the distant market kerala were studied from 12 wholesalers in mattancherry, nettur and ernakulam and 13 retailers in varapuzha, vyttila, kadavantra, thripunitura and ernakulam. table 4. post harvest storage losses in pink flesh guava fruits stored at rt and 12°c physiological loss in weight (plw) % spoilage (%) days after harvest days after harvest at room 2 4 5 6 2 4 5 6 temperature 2.95 5.89 8.35 9.98 0 0 10.56 28.31 at 12°c 5 8 12 15 5 8 12 15 3.40 4.97 6.99 8.35 0.00 0.52 2.07 8.21 the phl at the wholesalers’ level was observed to be 3.6 per cent mainly due to pressed and crushed fruits during transit. the retail level loss was 4.59 per cent which was mainly due to storage for more than two days resulting in decaying, rotting, yellowing etc. (table 5). as may be seen from table 6, average price received by the wholesaler was rs.29.92/kg with a margin of rs.6.21/kg (20.95%). the retailers received a price of rs.46.54/kg with a margin of rs.16.35/kg (35.13%). marketing and phl assessment in pink flesh guava in the distant market chennai marketing practices followed in marketing of pink flesh guava and losses occurring at the wholesale (transit) and retailers’ level (storage) in the distant market – chennai (tamil nadu) were studied with 9 wholesalers in coimbeedu market. the retail level phl was assessed from 18 retailers in mmda market, mylapore vmc, alwarpet, pondy bazar, t.nagar, west mambalam, thambaram, chromepet, pa lla va r a m, guindy, sa ida pet, r. a. pur a m, royapettah and zam bazar market. the phl at the wholesalers’ level was observed to be 4.62 per cent mainly due to pressed and crushed fruits during transit. the retail level loss was 6.09 per cent which was mainly due to pressing of fruits during handling (table 5). the wholesaler, by selling the fruits to retailers at rs.34.71/kg, received a margin of 22.91 per cent in trading of guava fruits. the retailers sold the guava fruits at rs.66.53 and received a margin of 45.72 per cent (table 6). gajanana et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 1-6, 2019 4 conclusions  the price prevalent in the distant markets like cochin and chennai is much higher compared to local bangalore market. producers could get higher prices by transporting guava to distant markets like chennai and cochin. however, at present, producers are not transporting the fruits on their own; instead they are sending them thr ough the a gents of the dista nt ma r ket wholesaler s. it wa s observed tha t the loss occurring at the distant markets worked out to 8-11 per cent. considering the huge wholesaler’s margin of 21-23 per cent and retailers’ margin of 35-46 per cent in distant markets, there exists scope for the producers to venture into these markets.  overripe fruits account for about 4.16 per cent of the losses occurring at the field level. this damage due to over ripe fruits can be reduced by select harvest of fruits.  the loss occurring at different stages of handling due to styler end rot, anthracnose, canker, thrips attack etc. needs to be addressed. economic analysis of loss in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 1-6, 2019 5 table 6. marketing cost, price realized, intermediaries margin and producer’s share in guava (pink flesh) in distant markets (rs/kg) sl.no. particulars kerala tamil nadu 1 selling price of phc/purchase price of wholesaler 20.83 24.00 marketing cost of ws 2.88 2.75 margin of ws 6.21 (20.75%) 7.96 (22.91%) selling price of ws/purchase price of retailer 29.92 34.71 marketing cost of retailer 0.27 1.40 margin of retailer 16.35 (35.13%) 30.42 (45.72%) 2 selling price of retailer /consumer’s price 46.54 66.53 3 phc’s /producer’s share (%) 44.76 36.07 figures in parentheses are percentage to retailer’s selling price fig. 1: pink flesh guava harvested and sorted in bangalore fig. 2: guava produced in bangalore transported and sold in distant markets cochin and chennai gajanana et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(1) : 1-6, 2019 6 (ms received 25 september 2017, revised 03 july 2018, accepted 23 june 2019)  the first application of thiophanate methyl (0.1%) or carbendazim (0.1%) or chlorothalonil (0.2%) at flower bud initiation stage; after 15 days the application of ziride (0.4%) or zineb (0.3%) and subsequently the third application of mancozeb (0.2%) or carbendazim (0.1%) or thiophanate methyl (0.1%) after 15 days the second application provides good control of the diseases.  it was observed that after 4 days of storage, guava fruits lose weight to the extent of 6 per cent and the spoilage starts after 5 days. hence, care should be taken to dispose of the fruits within five days of harvest. however, it was also observed tha t by stor ing the fruits at low temperature of 12°c, the storage losses could be reduced. references gajanana, t.m., d. sreenivasa murthy and m. sudha, 2011. post ha r vest losses in fr uits a nd vegetables in south india – a r eview of concepts and quantification of losses, indian food packer, 65(6):178-187 gajanana, t.m., d. sreenivasa murthy, a.k. saxena, d. v. sudha ka r ra o, m. sudha , a nd v. dakshinamoorthy, 2015. economic analysis of post harvest loss and marketing efficiency of guava (cv. allahabad safeda) in karnataka, journal of horticultural sciences, 10(1):70-73 00 contents.pdf 01. rms copy 62(17) gauva.marketing & phl-pinflesh.pdf 02. rms copy 63(17) soft wood grafting – a novel and rapid multiplication technique in coorg mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco).pdf 03. rms copy 25(18) evaluation of solanum species and eggplant cultivated varieties for bacterial wilt resistance.pdf 04. rms 18(18).pdf 05. rms_ii _24_18.pdf 06. rms copy 26 (18) metabolite paper-edited_04.05.2019.pdf 07. rms copy 1(19).pdf 08. rms copy 2(19) revised heterosi and combining effects ridge gourd 2019.pdf 09. rms copy 5(19) digital repository revised.pdf s1. rms 45(17) effect of trichomes in cowpea on infestation by spotted pod borer.pdf s2. rms copy 65(17) performance of anthurium (anthurium andreanum lind) cultivars in hill zone of.pdf s3. rms copy 2(18) langsat paper revised.pdf s4. rms 3(19) mineral content of red skinned potatoes of eastern india-revised.pdf sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 3 page 4 sph -jhs coverpage jun 2019 issue 14(1).pdf page 1 page 2 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 161 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 161, 2019 short communication varate giduga (acc. no. 21067; ic no. 418238) : a unique mango (mangifera indica l.) variety dinesh m.r., sankaran m.*, ravishankar k.v. and sunil gowda icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089 *corresponding author: kmsankaran@gmail.com varate giduga is one of the unique variety from sirsi region of karnataka. the tree is semi-circular shaped with dense foliage, leaves about 25cm long; dark green in colour with wavy margin. it is a very consistent and heavy producer. the fruit of this tree matures by mid-april and fruit has a distinctive yellow skin color on fruit exposed to the sun. the fruit shape is round, fruit weight ranged from 350-400 g, fruit length was 9.8 cm, fruit diameter was 9.2 cm, fruit thickness was 8.0cm and bisexual flowers were 16.53%. biochemical constituents such as the total phenols (317.50 mg/100 g), flavonoids (5.79 mg/100g), carotenoids (1.46 mg/100 g) and acidity (0.19%) were recorded which suggests that these characters are unique as compared to other varieties. the fruit skin is rough and glossy in appearance and the fruit has little or no fiber. it is very delicious in taste with high pulp percentage (74.0%) and high tss (23.4º b). the flesh color is orange. the fruits have deep orange firm pulp and very sweet with pleasant flavor. besides, several other tr aits have drawn special attention to this mango variety as it has large sized fruits (fig-1), late variety with very good taste, fruit can be cut into two halves by retaining the stone in one half, regular bearer and fruit fly resistant genotype because of its thick peel and high phenolic content in pulp (317.50 mg/100 g). fig. 1: fruits and cut fruits of varate giduga genotype. (received on 5.10.2019, revised on 6.12.2019 and accepted on 9.12.2019) title : fruit tree physiology authors : w.s. dhillon and z.a. bhat pau, ludhiana -141004, india pages : 309 publisher : narendra publishing house delhi -110006, india tree physiology is a difficult and challenging area for working. knowledge on physiology of growth and development of fruit tree is essential for a horticulture researcher/teacher. even though many books on tree physiology are available, books on fruit tree physiology are rare to find except for a few edited books on the physiology of fruit trees. however, these books are relatively old ones and no text books are available for researchers, teachers and students working in the area of fruit crops. in this regard, the book entitled “fruit tree physiology” authored by drs. w.s.dhillon and z.a.bhat is timely and very informative for horticulturists as well as physiologists who are working on fruit crops. this book consists of 12 chapters which include, bud dormancy, chilling requirement in fruit crops, heat units and thermoperiodism, physiology of flowering in horticultural crops, fruit growth and development, unfruitfulness in fruit crops-causes and control measures, alternate bearing in fruit plants-causes and management, parthenocarpy-a mechanism for seedlessness, graft incompatibilitycauses and remedial measures, physiology of dwarfism in fruit plants, fruit ripeningbiochemistry, physiology and regulation and abscission in fruit plants. bud dormancy chapter includes the classification of dormancy, site of dormancy, physiological and molecular basis of dormancy, factors affecting and methods to overcome dormancy. chilling requirement in fruit crops chapter has covered various crops which require chilling temperatures for flowering. it includes various aspects of chilling like importance of chilling,, length of chilling requirement in fruit species, resting phase, effective chilling temperatures, effect book review of high temperatures on the chilling requirement, models for fruit trees etc. heat units and thermoperiodism chapter explains the degree days concept, heat requirement in fruit various crops like apple, grapes, date palm, mango, plum, citrus, raspberry, peach, apricot, banana, pineapple and olive. this chapter also deals with thermoperiodism in fruit crops. the chapter is useful to understand the temperature requirement for different phonological events in fruit crops and their modeling. physiology of flowering in horticultural crops: this chapter deals with the one of the most complex developmental process in fruit crops called flowering. flowering chapter covers many interesting aspects like photoperiodism, phytochromes, radiation experiments to show the importance of phytochromes in flowering, hormonal balance, florigen concept, vernalisation, and molecular aspects of flowering. authors have highlighted many papers which deal with the identification of genes, transcription factors associated with flowering. fruit growth and development chapter has covered the pattern of fruit growth in many fruit crops and the factors associated with fruit growth. unfruitfulness in fruit crops-causes and control measures. influence of many environmental factors, light, temperature, rainfall, wind, humidity, tree age, soil nutritional status, horticultural practices like pruning, grafting, etc have been explained in this chapter. alternate bearing in fruit crops and its causes and control measures is also explained with respect to endogenous and exogenous factors. mechanism of parthenocarpy, factors affecting parthenocarpy, genetics of parthenocarpy, physiology of parthenocarpy and induction of parthenocarpy in fruit crops is explained in a simple and more understandable way. graft incompatibility-causes and remedial measures chapter include classification of incompatibility, structural or anatomical basis, biochemical basis and other microorganism basis has been explained neatly in this chapter. various methods to detect incompatible combinations have also been given in this chapter. this will be useful for students as well as researchers. along with graft incompatibility, dwarfism is also very important in fruit crops. dwarf plants are highly preferred in all the fruit crops especially for the high density orcharding. this chapter deals with physiology of dwarfism, use of root stocks, interstocks, bioregulators, pruning and training, phenols. use of girdling, scoring, bark inversion, root pruning, and paclobutrazol is also highlighted in this chapter. use of biotechnology to induce dwarfness in apple is briefly explained. available dwarfing root stocks have also been given for different fruit crops like cherry, apple, mango, plum, pear, peach, guava and ber. fruit ripening chapter gives only brief account of biochemical events. it covered climacteric and nonclimacteric fruits, mechanism of ripening, ethylene biosynthesis, chlorophyll degradation, starch hydrolysis, cell wall degradation etc. regulation off ripening by controlled atmosphere storage, chemical usage, mcp and bioregulators is also briefly covered in this chapter. however, for biochemistry of ripening still books by hulme is the best. last chapter of the book is abscission in fruit plants. this chapter deals with morphological and anatomical and biochemical changes, formation of abscission zones, significance of abscission zones, control of abscission. it has also touched briefly the factors affecting the abscission. k.s.shivashankara principal scientist division of plant physiology and biochemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089 mango (mangifera indica l.) is a major commercial fruit crop in many tropical and subtropical countries. india, the world’s largest producer of mangoes, has 35.46% of its total area under mango among fruit crops and 28 % of the total production of fruits. however, productivity of mango in india is very low compared to other mango-growing countries, lack of environmental signals for flowering being a limiting factor for obtaining consistent mango production in the tropics. an alternative to dependence on the environmental stimulus for flower initiation is evolving management strategies substitute for these signals. several workers have suggested that foliar feeding of nutrients directly to the site of metabolism as a substitute for or supplement to soil application considerably enhanced fruit yield and quality attributes (samra et al, 1977; singh et al, 1994). it has also been recognized that mango leaves absorb most of the nutrients within 24-72 hrs after spray and, thereafter, depletion of leaf nutrient content is seen owing to translocation of n, p and k to actively developing organs within the plant system (singh, 2002). hence, an attempt was made by us to improve flowering and fruit set in mango using various nitrogenous chemicals as foliar spray. an experiment was carried out on 25-year old mango trees of cv. alphonso at the orchard of horticultural college and research institute, coimbatore, during 2010-2011. the short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):190-193, 2012 effect of foliar spray of nitrogenous chemicals on flowering, fruit set and yield in mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. alphonso r. sudha1, t.n. balamohan2 and k. soorianathasundaram department of fruit crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, tamil nadu e-mail: rsudhahort@yahoo.co.in abstract effect of foliar application of various nitrogenous chemicals on flowering, fruit set and yield of mango cv. alphonso was studied at the orchard of horticultural college and research institute, coimbatore, during 2010 2011. maximum number of flowering shoots (68.7%), number of panicles (7.5/m2), panicle length (31.4cm), number of hermaphrodite flowers (282.5/panicle), fruit set (17.0%), number of fruits (146.0/tree) and fruit yield (43.8 kg/tree) was obtained with foliar spray of kno 3 at 2% concentration. higher content of chlorophyll (1.7g mg-1), carbohydrate (14.5g 100g-1) and nitrogen (1.43%) and higher c/n ratio (10.18) were also recorded in plants sprayed with 2% kno 3 , followed by 1% kno 3 . key words: mango, flowering, fruit set, nitrogenous chemicals trees were under irrigation on clayey loam soil, with available nitrogen 216.70 kg/ha, available phosphorus 18.32 kg/ha and available potash 453.60 kg/ha. trees were spaced at 10m x 10m. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications, and a single tree was treated as a unit/treatment. treatments included spraying urea @ 1% (t 1 ) or 2% (t 2 ); kno 3 @1% (t 3 ) or 2% (t 4 ); nh 4 no 3 @ 1% (t 5 ) or 2% (t 6 ); cano 3 @1% (t 7 ) or 2% (t 8 ), and control (t 9 ). the chemicals were sprayed in morning hours with a rocker sprayer (after adding tween-20 as a surfactant) at fifteen-day intervals from 15th november to 30th december. data on per cent flowering shoots, number of panicles/square metre, length of the panicle, number of hermaphrodite flowers/panicle, fruit set percentage, number and weight of fruits/tree; chlorophyll, carbohydrate and nitrogen content and c/n ratio, were recorded as per standard procedures. estimation of per cent shoots flowered was based on emergence of the flowering panicle in 25 shoots tagged per tree. numbers of panicles were counted per square meter area at five different locations on a tree with the help of a wooden frame (1m x 1m dimension) and the mean was arrived at. length of panicle was measured on ten shoots and the mean was expressed in centimetres. number of hermaphrodite flowers was counted in four panicles at five 1 division of horticulture and forestry, central agricultural research institute, port blair, a & n islands, india 2 horticultural college and research institute for women, tnau, trichy 620 009, tamil nadu, india 191 t ab le 1 . e ff ec t of f ol ia r sp ra y of n it ro ge n ou s ch em ic al s on f lo w er in g, f ru it s et , yi el d a n d b io ch em ic al p ar am et er s in m an go c v. a lp h on so t re at m en t p er c en t n o . o f l en g th o f n o . o f (% ) f ru it n um be r y ie ld / c h lo ro p h y ll c ar b o h y d ra te n it ro g en c /n fl ow er in g p an ic le s/ p an ic le h er m ap h ro d it e se t o f fr u it s/ tr ee co n te n t co n te n t co n te n t (% ) ra ti o sh o o ts ( % ) m 2 (c m ) fl ow er s/ pa ni cl e tr ee (k g) (m g g1 ) (g 1 00 g1 ) t 1 u re a 1 % 6 1 .2 (5 2 .1 ) 6. 5 29 .3 19 6. 0 1 5 .5 (2 3 .3 ) 12 8. 0 32 .0 1. 6 13 .1 1 .3 (6 .5 ) 9. 7 t 2 u re a 2 % 6 3 .7 (5 2 .2 ) 6. 3 30 .2 21 8. 7 1 6 .2 (2 3 .5 ) 13 2. 0 33 .5 1. 6 13 .3 1 .3 (6 .4 ) 9. 8 t 3 k n o 3 1 % 6 5 .0 (5 2 .4 ) 7. 1 30 .4 27 7. 5 1 6 .5 (2 3 .6 ) 13 8. 0 41 .4 1. 7 14 .2 1 .4 (6 .6 ) 10 .1 t 4 k n o 3 2 % 6 8 .7 (5 2 .6 ) 7. 5 31 .4 28 2. 5 1 7 .0 (2 3 .6 ) 14 6. 0 43 .8 1. 7 14 .5 1 .4 (6 .5 ) 10 .1 t 5 n h 4 n o 3 1 % 5 9 .2 (5 1 .7 ) 5. 8 28 .5 15 2. 0 1 5 .0 (2 3 .0 ) 11 8. 0 29 .5 1. 5 12 .3 1 .2 (6 .1 ) 9. 8 t 6 n h 4 n o 3 2 % 6 0 .7 (5 1 .9 ) 6. 0 29 .0 15 6. 2 1 5 .2 (2 3 .2 ) 12 5. 0 31 .2 1. 5 12 .6 1 .2 (5 .9 ) 10 .0 t 7 c an o 3 1 % 5 6 .2 (4 6 .9 ) 5. 2 24 .5 11 7. 0 1 4 .1 (2 1 .6 ) 11 5. 0 29 .9 1. 4 11 .6 1 .1 (5 .8 ) 10 .2 t 8 c an o 3 2 % 5 7 .5 (4 7 .0 ) 5. 3 26 .5 13 7. 2 1 4 .0 (2 1 .4 ) 12 0. 0 30 .0 1. 4 11 .8 1 .1 (5 .8 ) 10 .2 t 9 c o n tr o l 4 7 .0 (4 6 .6 ) 4. 5 21 .0 11 8. 0 1 2 .2 (2 1 .4 ) 10 2. 0 25 .5 1. 3 11 .0 1 .0 (5 .4 ) 10 .1 m ea n 59 .9 6. 0 27 .8 18 3. 6 15 .1 12 5. 0 32 .9 1. 5 12 .6 1. 2 9. 9 f t es t ** ** ** ** ** * ** * ** * n s s .e m ± 0. 9 0. 3 1. 1 21 .3 0. 3 4. 3 1. 9 0. 1 0. 4 0. 1 0. 1 s e d 0. 5 0. 2 0. 5 2. 3 0. 3 1. 7 0. 7 0. 03 0. 4 0. 2 0. 2 c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 1. 0 0. 4 1. 1 4. 8 0. 6 3. 6 1. 5 0. 1 1. 0 0. 5 — c v ( % ) 1. 1 3. 6 3. 0 34 .7 1. 4 10 .5 17 .9 9. 5 9. 1 4. 5 1. 8 f ig u re s in p ar en th es es i n d ic at e ar cs in e tr an sf o rm ed v al u es o f p er ce n ta g es n s = n o n -s ig n if ic an t, * * = s ig n if ic an t a t p = 0 .0 1 a n d * = s ig n if ic an t a t p = 0 .0 5 foliar spray of nitrogenous chemicals in mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):190-193, 2012 192 different locations on the tree during flower opening. fruit set was recorded at pea-berry stage on five randomly tagged panicles. number of harvested fruits / tree was counted and their total weight in kilograms (kg) per tree was recorded. total chlorophyll content was determined in fresh leaves as per yoshida et al (1971) and expressed a mg g-1. total carbohydrate content was estimated colorimetrically using the procedure of somogyi (1952) and expressed as g 100g-1. per cent nitrogen content was estimated by micro kjeldahl method of piper (1966). the ratio of carbohydrate to nitrogen was calculated. data collected were subjected to statistical scrutiny (panse and sukhatme, 1967). results in table 1 indicate that percent flowering shoots increased significantly with application of nitrogenous chemicals, over the control. maximum shoot length of 68.2cm was observed in kno 3 spray at 2%. number of panicles also increased with foliar spray of nitrogenous chemicals. highest number of panicles (7.5/m2) was recorded in trees sprayed with kno 3 2%, and the minimum was seen under control (4.5/m2). length of panicle was higher (31.4cm) in kno 3 2% treatment. other nitrogenous chemicals too increased the length of panicle noticeably over the control. number of hermaphrodite flowers/panicle was the highest (282.5) in kno 3 2% spray, and lowest in the control (118.0). kno 3 spray induced flowering of young shoots, indicating partial substitution of their maturity requirement by kno 3 . beevers and hageman (1969) and filner et al (1969) reported ability of kno 3 and other nitrate sources as inducing nitrate reductase in many species. nitrate reductase is a key enzyme in nitrate assimilatory pathway for amino acids synthesis. methionine has been reported to promote mango flowering and is a precursor of ethylene (maity et al, 1972). davenport and nunez-elisea (1997) stated that kno 3 stimulated flowering of mango is mediated by increased levels of endogenous ethylene. potassium nitrate is a universal rest-breaking agent in deciduous fruit trees (erez and lavee, 1974) that may simply hasten flower emergence of a differentiated, but dormant, mango bud. astudillo and bondad (1978) reported induction of flowering in ‘carabao’ mango with kno 3 . it is evident from the data that yield / tree differed significantly among treatments. sprays of various nitrogenous chemicals increased fruit set over the control. though increased fruit set was observed with kno 3 2% (17.0 %), followed by kno 3 1% (16.5 %), the former resulted in maximum number of fruits (146/tree) as against the control (102/tree). highest fruit yield of 43.8kg per tree was observed with kno 3 2% spray, whereas control recorded least fruit yield of 25.5kg/tree. the next best treatment was kno 3 1% spray (41.4 kg). kno 3 treatments were more effective in increasing fruit yield, which may be attributed to a higher number of hermaphrodite flowers, fruit set and number of fruits / tree. similar report was made by sergent et al (1997) in mango cv. haden. plant biochemical parameters were also influenced by foliar feeding of nitrogenous chemicals. maximum chlorophyll content was observed in kno 3 2% (1.7mg g-1) and minimum in control (1.3mg g-1). c/n ratio in leaves was highest with kno 3 2% (10.1), and lowest in control (10.1). high c/n ratio was probably conducive to floral induction. highest carbohydrate content was observed in trees sprayed with kno 3 2% (14.5g 100g-1) compared to control (11.0g 100g-1). plants sprayed with kno 3 2% registered higher nitrogen content (1.4%) than the control (1.0%). seasonal changes in carbohydrate and nitrogen content of mango leaves in relation to flowering have been reported earlier by sen et al (1963). the present study illustrates that kno 3 2% foliar spray can improve flowering, fruit set and yield in mango cv. alphonso, rather than use of urea, nh 4 no 3 or cano 3. references astudillo, e. and bondad, n.d. 1978. potassium nitrate induced flowering of ‘carabao’ mango shoots at different stages of maturity. philippines j.crop sci., 3:147-152 beevers, l. and hageman, r.h. 1969. nitrate reduction in higher plants. annu. rev. pl. physiol., 20:492-522 davenport, t.l. and nunez-elisea, r. 1997. ethylene and other endogenous factors possibly involved in mango flowering. acta hort., 275:441-448 erez, a. and lavee, s. 1974. recent advances in breaking the dormancy of deciduous fruit trees. in: international horticultural congress proceedings, 19:69-78 filner, p.j., wray, l. and varner, j.e. 1969. enzyme induction in higher plants. science., 165:358-367 maity, s.c., maity, s.k. and sen, p.k. 1972. effect of ethylene producing chemicals on growth and flowering of mango (mangifera indica l.). ind. agri., 16:201203 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, pp 108 piper, c.s. 1966. soil and plant analysis. hans publishers, bombay, india, pp. 7-299 sudha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):190-193, 2012 193 samra, j.s., thakur, r.s. and chadha, k.l. 1977. effect of foliar application of urea on yield and yield parameters of mango. ind. j. hort., 34:26-29 sen, p.k., sen, s.k. and guda, d. 1963. carbohydrate and nitrogen content of mango shoots in relation to fruit bud differentiation on them. ind. agri., 7:133 sergent, e., ferrair, d. and leaf, f. 1997. effect of potassium nitrate and paclobutrazol on flowering induction and yield of mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. haden. acta hort., 455:211-220 singh, j.n., singh, d.k. and chakravarthy, d. 1994. effect of urea and naa on fruit retention and physicochemical composition of mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. langra. orissa j. hort., 22:26-30 singh, n.p. 2002. effect of chemicals and plant regulators on the promotion of flowering and fruiting in mango cv. dusehri. ph.d. thesis, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india somogyi, n. 1952. notes on sugar determination. j. biol. chem., 200:145-154 suresh kumar, p., reddy, y.n. and sri hari, d. 2003. effect of foliar spray of chemicals on flowering and fruiting of shoots emerging after pruning in mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. baneshan. south ind. hort., 51:7-11 yoshida, s., forno, d. a. and cock, j.i. 1971. chlorophyll estimation in rice. laboratory manual, irri publications, the philippines pp. 36-37 (ms received 13 february 2012, revised 01 october 2012) foliar spray of nitrogenous chemicals in mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):190-193, 2012 asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ is a woody evergreen herbaceous perennial, with upright or trailing branches growing up-to 2 feet. tiny spines are borne in axils along branches. needle–like branchlets are clustred around nodes. asparagus looks soft and fluffy. it can be easily grown with minimal care, without pest and disease problems. it can be grown as ground cover, indoor plant, hanging basket, landscape border and entry point ornamental. best potted plants are raised in friable, mildtextured substrates for optimal growth and flowering. some substrates such as peat, perlite and vermiculite have been successfully used by growers, but their cost and availability are limiting factors. commonly used growth media containing soil, sand and fym lead to compaction of this crop having fleshy and sensitive fibrous roots. therefore, a need was felt to standardize locally available, cheap, good quality growth media for successful pot culture of asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’. the pot experiment was conducted at horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural unversity, yercaud. the experimental site is geographically situated between 11°04" and 11°05" north latitude and 78°05" and 78°23" east longitude at an altitude of 1500m above mean sea level. average maximum and minimum temperature range between 31.0oc and 12.4oc, respectively. mean annual rainfall of yercaud is 1572 mm and average relative humidity is 75%. uniform sized young plants of 15cm height influence of potting media on growth of asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ k. kayalvizhi, r. arulmozhiyan, a. sankari and m. anand horticultural research station, yercaud 636 602, india e-mail: arulmozhiyan@yahoo.co.in abstract a study was conducted on the influence of growth media on development of asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ at horticultural research station, yercaud during the years 2011-12. the pot experiment was laid out under open condition, with nine set of treatments comprising various combinations of soil, sand, fym, vermicompost and microbial consortia (azospirillum, phosphobacteria and pseudomonas fluorescens). from among the media combinations used, the treatment involving soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (t3) @ 2:1:1:0.5 (670g+375g+375g+165g) was found to be the best substrate for vegetative and root characters like plant height, shoot number, leaflet number, leaflet length, leaflet width, root number, root length, bulb number, bulb length, bulb width and vase-life in asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’. key words: asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’, growth media, vegetative and root characters, vase-life j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):278-281, 2013 short communication were collected and planted in 30cm diameter earthern pots, with one plant per pot, in the last week of september 2011 in six growth media formulated using soil, sand, fym, vermicompost, cocopeat, microbial consortia, viz., azospirillum, phosphobacteria and pseudomonas fluorescens. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design, with nine set of treatments, and replicated three times containing ten plants each. data was generated on vegetative and root characters at 30 day intervals. vegetative characters like plant height, number of shoots, number of leaflets, length of leaflet, width of leaflet and root characters like number of roots, root length, number of bulbs, length of bulb, width of bulb and, finally, vase-life were studied. available nitrogen in the media was estimated by alkaline permanganate as per subbiah and asijia (1956). available phosphorus in the media was estimated by klett summerson colorimeter method using red filter (olsen et al, 1954). available potassium in the media was estimated using neutral, normal ammonium acetate, and values were expressed in kg/ha (hanway and heidal, 1952). micronutrient content, viz., fe, zn, mn and cu in various media was estimated by the triple acid extract method, using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer, and expressed in g/kg (jackson, 1973). nitrogen content in the leaf sample on dry weight basis was estimated by the method of humphries (1956). phosphorus and potassium content in leaf samples were also estimated using a flame photometer 279 influence of potting media on growth of asparagus (jackson, 1973). micronutrients in leaf samples, viz., fe, mn, zn and cu, were estimated using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer, and were expressed as ppm (lindsay and norell, 1978). treatment combinations are detailed below: treatment particulars combination t 1 soil + sand + fym (2:1:1) (750g + 375g+ 375g) t2 soil + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1) (750g + 375g + 375g) t3 soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5) (670g + 335g + 335g + 165g) t4 t3 (670g + 335g + 335g + 165g) + microbial consortia (azospirillum 2g/pot, phosphobacteria 2g/pot and pseudomonas fluorescens 20g/pot added at the time of media preparation) t5 cocopeat + sand + fym (2:1:1) (750g + 375g + 375g) t6 cocopeat + sand + vermicompost (2:1:1) (750g + 375g + 375g) t7 cocopeat + sand + fym + vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5) (670g + 335g + 335g + 165g) t8 t7 (670g + 335g + 335g + 165g) + microbial consortia (azospirillum 2g/pot, phosphobacteria 2g/pot and pseudomonas fluorescens 20g/pot) added at the time of media preparation) t9 control growth media consisting of soil + sand+ fym+ vermicompost (t3) induced higher plant height at all the stages. it resulted in the tallest plant (27cm) on 180th day after planting, while, the control (t9) had dwarf plants (8.57cm) (table 1). the substrate combination of soil + sand + fym+ vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5) (t3) produced higher number of stems in asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’. number of leaflets (238.33) was highest in media with (t3) soil + sand + fym+ vermicompost (2:1:1:0.5). this corroborates the results of turski et al (1983) on anthurium plant and khayyat et al (2007) on epipremnum aureum. the same treatment (t3) produced longer leaflets (1.03cm) than the control (0.18cm). these findings are in conformity with those of fascella et al (2003) in ruscus hypoglossum. leaflet width in our study under different growth media had no significant influence on growth for the entire cropping period. table 2 shows significant effect of the media combination soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (t3) on number of roots (30.67) over the control (10.47). this study confirms the findings of fageria et al (2007). root length under different growth media produced significantly longer roots (64cm) under soil + sand+ fym + vermicompost (t3) compared to control (12.23cm). the present findings are in conformity with those of papafotiou et al (2005) in codiaeum variegatum l. the same treatment produced more bulbs (39.77) than in the untreated control (12.20). length of bulb was significantly influenced by soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (t3). the same treatment t3 recorded larger bulbs (3.17cm). this is in accordance with swaminathan et al (1999) and munikrishnappa et al (2004) in tuberose. width of the bulb (1.75cm) and weight of the bulb (75g) were significantly higher in soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (t3) than in control (1.19cm and 24.83g, respectively). these findings are in agreement with munikrishnappa et al (2004) and shankar lal et al (2010) in tuberose. table 1. effect of growth media on vegetative characters of asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ vegetative characters treatment plant height (cm) shoot number leaflet number leaflet length (cm) leaflet width initial final initial final initial final initial final (cm) t1 9.69 22.63 7.23 10.43 125.00 190.33 0.47 0.73 0.1 t2 8.05 15.67 5.50 14.03 149.00 181.00 0.51 0.72 0.1 t3 10.20 27.00 9.17 19.00 155.33 238.33 0.61 1.03 0.1 t4 8.11 24.20 7.57 12.87 118.00 207.33 0.36 0.69 0.1 t5 7.79 11.03 5.37 7.77 133.33 175.00 0.26 0.51 0.1 t6 7.84 10.50 7.17 9.53 142.33 212.33 0.17 0.43 0.1 t7 7.16 9.83 5.37 7.57 110.67 169.00 0.30 0.27 0.1 t8 8.74 10.80 5.23 7.50 126.00 178.00 0.18 0.22 0.1 t9 7.29 8.57 4.80 6.97 97.33 154.67 0.10 0.18 0.1 se(d) 0.95 0.69 1.22 1.20 21.14 32.61 0.12 0.11 ns cd (p=0.05) 1.99 1.46 2.57 2.53 44.42 68.51 0.25 0.23 ns j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):278-281, 2013 280 nutrient availability plants in the treatment comprising soil + sand+ fym + vermicompost (t3) had highest available nitrogen (191.00kg ha-1), phosphorus (9.65kg ha-1) and potassium (80.33kg ha-1) and also recorded higher concentration of micronutrients like iron (16.97ppm), zinc (1.89ppm), manganese (18.50ppm) and copper (3.57ppm) than in the control (table 3). yansong et al (2008) reported chicken manure to contain greater amounts of available n than peat moss; bunt (1988) and meinken and schraff (1988) in chrysanthemum; basker and saravanan (1977) and richard et al (2010) in aglaonema ‘science bay’. ahmad and qasim (2003) found that poultry manure + sand + silt + sawdust (2:1:1:1) combination resulted in maximum available phosphorus. mineralization and immobilization process of n, and its availability, are influenced by the amount of organic waste added. phosphorus content of any media had a significant influence on root development in the crop. chen et al (1988) experimented with various media, viz., peat, composted cattle-manure and their mixtures, to analyze ‘p’ content. they observed that cattle manure had the highest p content (125mg 100g-1). this holds true in the present investigation where addition of fym to the media consortia increased p content in the media. potassium content in various media was influenced by addition of organic amendments to the media. yansong et al (2008) reported higher levels of n, k, ca and mg in a medium consisting of 100% poultry manure. vermicompost and fym may have acted as a source of macroand micronutrients (zn, fe, cu and mn), enzymes and growth hormones in the early crop-growth phase which, in turn, encouraged early vigorous growth (table 4). foliage from the treatment combination soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (t3) had the longest vase-life (7.47 days). increase in vase-life was probably due to a trigger in metabolic activity, and due to narrowing of c:n ratio by table 2. effect of growth media on root characters and vase-life of asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ root characters treatment root number root length (cm) bulb number bulb length (cm) bulb width (cm) bulb vase-life initial final initial final initial final initial final initial final weight (g) (days) t1 13.57 23.60 52.27 62.00 20.30 31.00 1.60 2.83 0.87 1.39 60.00 5.97 t2 13.87 23.97 23.70 34.73 28.50 32.37 1.98 2.60 0.71 1.32 46.33 6.20 t3 18.47 30.67 54.00 64.00 30.17 39.77 2.08 3.17 0.89 1.75 75.00 7.47 t4 12.70 21.27 27.07 39.70 19.33 27.83 1.42 2.66 0.76 1.27 48.50 6.67 t5 10.43 15.37 8.38 13.93 10.97 17.60 1.40 2.97 0.85 1.36 30.67 5.20 t6 13.10 20.60 25.00 34.13 15.93 24.57 1.78 2.88 0.80 1.33 51.17 5.43 t7 9.83 17.33 18.03 27.20 9.03 14.53 1.67 2.65 0.79 1.34 29.23 5.27 t8 10.23 18.60 26.63 34.43 15.57 22.83 1.80 2.71 0.69 1.24 31.33 5.70 t9 6.83 10.47 5.67 12.23 8.30 12.20 1.30 2.45 0.60 1.19 24.83 4.33 se(d) 2.42 2.12 2.83 1.57 1.55 1.10 0.20 0.19 0.12 0.08 1.27 0.32 cd (p=0.05) 5.07 4.46 5.94 3.30 3.26 2.31 0.44 0.39 0.24 0.16 2.67 0.68 table 4. effect of media on leaf nutrient content in asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ leaf nutrients treatment macronutrients micronutrients (kg ha-1) (ppm) n p k fe zn m n cu t1 1.96 0.17 4.89 65.00 39.00 67.33 7.33 t2 1.95 0.19 4.55 64.00 35.67 63.33 9.04 t3 2.00 0.22 5.11 80.67 41.00 70.18 10.50 t4 1.95 0.18 4.87 68.00 34.00 65.67 7.33 t5 1.87 0.17 4.30 63.00 36.67 65.00 9.04 t6 1.93 0.18 4.54 66.67 34.00 63.67 6.50 t7 1.97 0.17 4.26 67.33 37.00 62.33 9.04 t8 1.95 0.16 4.67 67.52 32.67 61.78 8.43 t9 1.84 0.14 4.11 60.33 31.33 60.40 5.00 se(d) 0.03 0.02 0.08 1.33 1.40 1.47 0.31 cd (p=0.05) 0.06 0.05 0.16 2.80 2.93 3.09 0.66 table 3. effect of media on soil nutrient availability in asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ available soil nutrients treatment macronutrients micronutrients (kg ha-1) (ppm) n p k fe zn m n cu t1 221.00 10.37 91.33 18.17 1.96 19.22 3.82 t2 215.00 11.45 85.67 18.27 1.98 19.68 3.79 t3 191.00 9.65 80.33 16.97 1.89 18.50 3.57 t4 201.00 10.50 108.44 18.44 2.03 19.58 4.14 t5 230.00 10.65 106.00 18.46 1.99 22.11 4.16 t6 242.00 10.90 101.33 19.29 1.95 20.58 3.83 t7 241.00 10.93 119.00 18.40 1.95 22.33 3.93 t8 235.00 11.04 110.00 18.11 1.95 22.00 4.13 t9 252.00 12.17 120.00 19.94 2.20 22.67 4.22 se(d) 3.74 0.42 3.49 0.25 0.04 0.69 0.08 cd (p=0.05) 7.86 0.88 7.34 0.52 0.08 1.46 0.16 kayalvizhi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):278-281, 2013 281 significant accumulation of carbohydrates. this is in accordance with khalaj et al (2010) in gerbera. from our study, it can be concluded that media consisting of soil + sand + fym + vermicompost (t3) (2:1:1:0.5 670g + 335g + 335g + 165g) can significantly improve growth, yield and quality parameters, which ultimately result in increased net returns (2.72:1) in asparagus densiflorus ‘meyersii’ under pot culture. references ahamed, i. and qasim, m. 2003. nutrient uptake efficiency of scindapsus aurens. indian j. agril. biol., 5:594 -597 basker, m. and saravanan, a. 1997. effect of coir pith based potting mix and methods of fertilizer application on tomato. madras agri. j., 84:476-480 bunt, a.c. 1988. physical properties of mixtures of peat and minerals of different particle size and bulk density for potting substrates. acta hort., 150:143-153 chen, y., inbar, y. and hader, y. 1988. composted agricultural wastes potting media for ornamental plants. soil sci., 145:298-303 fageria, n.k., baliger, v.c. and clark, r.b. 2007. physiological functions of nutrients. in: physiology of crop production. idbc, lucknow, india, pp. 206251 fascella, g., zizzo, g.v., costantino, c. and agnello, s. 2003. effect of different substrates on soilless cultivation of ruscus hypoglossum for cut foliage production. acta hort., 614:211-215 hanway, j. and heidal, h.s. 1952. soil analysis methods used in iowa satate college, soil testing lab. iowa agri., 57:1-31 humphries, e.c. 1956. mineral component and analysis. in: modern methods of plant analysis (eds. peach, k. and tradey, m.v.), springer berlin heidelberg jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, pp. 498 khalaj, m.a., amiri, m. and sinthu, s.s. 2011. response of different growing media on the growth and yield of gerbera in hydroponic open system. indian j. hort., 68:583-586 khayyat, m., nazari, f. and salehi, h. 2007. effects of different pot mixtures on pothos (epipremnum aureum lindl. and andre ‘golden pothos’) growth and development. amer. eur. j. agri. & env. sci., 2:341-348 lindsay, w.l. and norell, w.a. 1978. development of dtpa soil test for zinc, iron, manganese and copper. soil sci. amer. j., 42:421-428 meinken, e. and scharff, h.c. 1988. preparation and use of tree bark as a growing substrate. gb+gw, 88:518–521 munikrishnappa, p.m., katimani, k.n. and ravikumar, m. 2004. effect of vermicompost on growth and yield of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) under semi-arid tropics of north karnataka. national symposium on recent trends and future strategies in ornamental horticulture, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, india, p.61 olsen, s.r., cole, c.l., watanbe, f.s. and dean, d.a. 1954. estimation of available phosphorus in soils by extraction with sodium bicarbonate. u.s.d.a. cic. 339 papafotiou, m., kargas, g. and lytra, i. 2005. olive-mill waste compost as a growth medium component for foliage potted plants. hort. sci., 40:1746-1750 richard. j., henny and jianjun chen. 2010. “science bay” aglaonema. hort. sci., 45:1281-1282 shankar lal, lakhawat, s.s. and choudhary, m.k. 2010. effect of organic manure and biofertilizers on growth, flowering and bulb production in tuberose. indian j. hort., 67:554-555 subbiah, b.v. and asiija, g.l. 1956. a rapid procedure for determining available nitrogen in soil. curr. sci., 25:259-260 swaminathan, v., ramaswamy, n. and pallia, o.a.a. 1999. effect of azosporillum, phosphobacteria and inorganic nutrients on the growth and yield of tuberose. south indian hort., 47:331-334 turski, r., flis-bujak, m. and martyn, w. 1983. effect of different contents of organic matter on substrate properties and growth of anthurium andreanum. prace institutu sadownictwa, kwiaciarstwa wskierniewlcach, 8:123-132 yansong, a.o., min sun and yuqi li. 2008. effect of organic substrates on available elemental contents in nutrient solution. biol. res. tech., 99:5006-5010 (ms received 06 december 2012, revised 17 october 2013, accepted 19 november 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):278-281, 2013 influence of potting media on growth of asparagus original research paper j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 42-47, 2018 effect of plant growth regulators and pinching on growth and flower yield of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) c.t. sathappan department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, tamil nadu 608 002. e-mail: sathap5p@rediffmail.com abstract marigold is one of the commercially exploited flower crop that belong to the family asteraceae. presently, in our country the commercial extraction of marigold carotenoids is becoming popular in many states. the production of economical yield and better quality of marigold flowers, requires proper crop management techniques. crop regulation and flower forcing are important techniques to make the marigold production profitable. this can be done by adopting pinching and application of pgrs. hence, an experiment was carried out in the department of horticulture, in factorial randamized block design replicated thrice with 14 treatments with two f1 hybrids viz., gold benz tall and maxima yellow. the experiment comprised of ga3 @ 50, 100 and 150ppm, naa @ 50, 100 and 150ppm, mh @ 250, 500 and 750ppm, alar @ 200, 400 and 600ppm and pinching with untreated control. the study revealed that the growth parameter like plant height, number of laterals per plant, number of leaves per plant were significantly influenced by the application of ga3 and naa. among the varieties, gold benz tall performed better for all the growth attributes but var. maxima yellow performed better for the number of laterals per plant. the plant sprayed with of ga3 @ 150ppm registered the maximum plant height (70.44cm), number of laterals per plant (16.13), number of leaves per plant (383.76) and leaf area (113.51cm2) and control evinced the least values in the growth parameters. application of ga3 and naa significantly enhanced flowering when compared to control, while pinching delayed flowering. the treatment of ga3 @ 150ppm in both gold benz tall (30.13 and 406.21 g plant-1) and maxima yellow (33.16 and 402.83 g plant-1 recorded maximum number of flowers per plant and flower yield respectively as compared to control. based on the above results, it is revealed that foliar spray of ga3 @ 150 ppm was found to be superior in increasing the yield of flowers in both the varieties. keywords: marigold, growth regulators, ga3, naa, flowering. introduction marigold is one of the commercially exploited flower crops that belong to the family asteraceae and genus tagetes. the two main popularly grown species in marigold are tagetes erecta l. and tagetes patula l. which have their origin in mexico and south africa, respectively. presently, in our country, the commercial extraction of marigold carotenoids is done in cochin (kerala), hyderabad (andra pradesh), satyamangalam (tamil nadu) and telagi near harihar, davenagere, haveri and kolar, chikmagalur district and around bangalore (karnataka). consequently large area in ka r na ta ka , andr a pr a desh, ta mil na du a nd maharashtra are under contract farming of marigold for xa nthophyll extra ction. t he production of economical yield and better quality of marigold flowers, requires proper crop management techniques. crop regulation and flower forcing are important techniques to make the marigold production profitable. growth regulation can be done by adopting pinching and application of pgrs. the response for these practices may vary depending up on the variety cultivated. plant growth regulators have gained wide acceptance for optimizing the yield of plants by modifying growth, development and stress behavior (shukla and farooqi, 1990). synthetic plant growth regulators, such as auxins, cytokinins and various growth retardants when applied exogenously to the plant, influence various aspects of plant development 42 43 sathappan a nd biosynthesis of its impor ta nt components (kewalanand and pandy, 1998). control of flowering is one of the most important practical aspects in application of plant growth regulators. there are many examples of utilization of plant growth hormones to regulate the flowering in many plants. hence, the present investigation was undertaken to study the effect of pla nt gr owth r egula tor s a nd specia l horticultural practice like pinching for increasing yield and quality of flowers. material and methods the experiment was carried out in department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university during the period 2012-2013 to elucidate information on effect of different growth regulators and pinching on growth and yield of marigold. this experiment was carried out in factorial randamized block design replicated thrice with 14 treatments. two f1 hybrids namely gold benz tall and maxima yellow wer e ta ken for the study with the tr ea tments comprising of ga3 @ 50, 100 and 150ppm, naa @ 50, 100 and 150ppm, mh @ 250, 500 and 750ppm, alar @ 200, 400 and 600ppm, pinching and untreated control. these growth regulators were applied as foliar spray to the respective plots as per treatment schedule in two doses at ten days after planting and twenty days after first spray. pinching was done at twenty days after transplanting. the growth and yield parameters were recorded at different stages of crop growth (30, 45 and 60 days after transplanting). the statistical analysis of data was done by adopting the standard statistical procedure given by panse and sukhatme (1967). results and discussion the study revealed that the growth parameter viz., plant height, number of laterals per plant, number of leaves per plant were significantly influenced by the application of growth regulators (table 1). among the varieties v1 (gold benz tall) performed better for all the growth attributes, however, the number of laterals per plant was recorded highest in v2 (maxima yellow). the plant sprayed with of ga3 @ 150 ppm (t3) registered maximum plant height (70.44 cm) which was followed by ga3 @ 100 ppm (t2) (67.46 cm). similarly, the data on number of laterals per plant (16.13), showed were maximum under ga3 @ 150 ppm (t3) which was followed by ga3 @ 100 ppm (t2) with 15.16. among the growth attributes, plant height a nd number of la ter a ls per pla nt wer e significantly increased as the concentration of ga3 and naa increased. the increase in plant height and number of branches per plant with application of ga3 seems to be due to enhanced cell division and cell enlargement, promotion of protein synthesis coupled with higher dry matter accumulation in the plant. similar results were also reported by daddagoudar (2002) in china aster and dalal et al. (2009) in chrysanthemum. however, the reduction of plant height in pinched plants is mainly due to elimination of apical dominance and diversion of the plant metabolites from vertical growth to horizontal growth leading to production of more number of branches per plant. as the apical dominance is removed usually the plant itself adjusts to encourage the growth of auxiliary buds, which may be converted into branches. similar effects wer e r epor ted by sen a nd na ik (1977) in chrysanthemum and khanna et al. (1981) in carnation and sunitha et al. (2007) in african marigold. the number of leaves per plant also showed similar results with maximum leaves (383.76 / plant) under treatment ga3 @ 150 ppm (t3) and largest leaf area (113.51cm2). the control treatment evinced the least values for all the growth parameters. variation in number of leaves/ plant was pronounced by the application of different growth regulators. the effects of the ga3 treatments were observed significantly superior to the rest of the treatments. this trend was in concurrence with findings of narayana gowda (1985) in china aster and talukdar and paswan (1988) in chrysanthemum. in gener a l, the yield pa r a meter s wer e significantly varied due to per se and interaction effects of gr owth r egula ting tr ea tments a nd va rieties (table 2). in the present study, number of days taken for first flowering was significantly altered due to the application of different growth regulators. pinching hastened the flowering when compared to application of ga3, naa, mh and alar. the yield parameters are also significantly influenced due to growth regulator and pinching treatments. application of ga3 and naa significantly enhanced flowering when compared to contr ol, while, pinching dela yed flower ing. significantly earlier flower initiation were registered j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 42-47, 2018 44 ta bl e. 1 e ff ec t of g ro w th r eg ul at or s an d pi nc hi ng o n ve ge ta tiv e ch ar ac te rs i n a fr ic an m ar ig ol d p la nt h ei gh t (c m ) n um be r of l at er al s/ pl an t n um be r of le av es / p la nt l ea f ar ea / p la nt t re at m en ts v 1 v 2 t re at m en t v 1 v 2 t re at m en t v 1 v 2 t re at m en t v 1 v 2 t re at m en t m ea n m ea n m ea n m ea n t 1 – g a 35 0 pp m 83 .8 6 38 .4 0 61 .1 3 13 .5 3 14 .2 0 13 .8 6 34 5. 40 31 2. 20 32 8. 00 96 .2 3 92 .1 3 94 .1 8 t 2 – g a 3 1 00 p pm 91 .4 8 43 .4 4 67 .4 6 14 .7 3 15 .6 0 15 .1 6 37 7. 80 34 3. 33 36 0. 56 11 0. 00 10 4. 36 10 7. 18 t 3 – g a 3 1 50 p pm 93 .5 6 45 .5 2 70 .4 4 15 .5 3 16 .7 3 16 .1 3 39 9. 40 36 8. 13 38 3. 76 11 6. 53 11 0. 50 11 3. 51 t 4 – n a a 5 0 pp m 81 .1 4 37 .4 8 59 .3 1 13 .3 3 14 .0 0 13 .6 6 34 0. 00 30 8. 00 32 4. 00 94 .8 3 88 .8 6 91 .8 5 t 5 – n a a 1 00 p pm 86 .4 4 40 .4 6 63 .4 5 14 .0 6 14 .6 0 14 .3 3 35 9. 80 32 1. 20 34 0. 50 10 2. 60 96 .5 3 99 .5 6 t 6 – n a a 1 50 p pm 88 .4 0 41 .6 6 65 .0 3 14 .3 3 15 .2 6 14 .8 0 36 7. 00 33 5. 86 35 1. 43 10 8. 76 10 2. 83 10 5. 80 t 7 – m h 2 50 p pm 74 .4 8 33 .5 8 54 .0 3 12 .2 0 13 .0 6 12 .6 3 31 0. 73 28 7. 46 29 9. 10 80 .5 0 74 .4 6 77 .4 8 t 8 – m h 5 00 p pm 70 .6 6 30 .6 2 50 .6 4 10 .9 3 11 .4 6 11 .2 0 30 0. 26 24 0. 53 27 0. 40 84 .7 6 78 .9 6 81 .8 6 t 9 – m h 7 50 p pm 67 .0 4 28 .4 7 47 .7 6 10 .5 3 10 .8 0 10 .6 6 28 8. 93 23 1. 73 26 0. 33 92 .8 0 86 .7 3 89 .7 6 t 10 – a la r 20 0 pp m 76 .4 4 36 .4 8 55 .4 6 12 .6 6 13 .6 0 13 .1 3 32 2. 00 29 9. 20 31 0. 60 76 .8 3 70 .8 3 73 .8 3 t 11 – a la r 40 0 pp m 73 .5 6 32 .4 7 53 .0 2 11 .4 6 11 .8 0 11 .6 3 30 2. 60 25 5. 20 27 8. 90 82 .7 0 76 .0 6 79 .3 8 t 12 – a la r 60 0 pp m 67 .8 3 29 .4 9 48 .6 6 10 .6 0 11 .4 0 11 .0 0 29 9. 80 23 3. 20 26 6. 50 88 .7 6 82 .7 6 85 .7 6 t 13 – p in ch in g 65 .3 9 26 .5 8 45 .9 8 9. 73 10 .5 3 10 .1 3 28 4. 40 21 4. 13 24 9. 26 68 .8 0 62 .6 6 65 .7 3 t 14 – c on tr ol 78 .2 5 35 .5 4 56 .8 9 9. 13 9. 60 9. 36 24 6. 60 21 1. 20 22 8. 90 68 .6 3 62 .3 0 65 .4 6 v ar ie ty m ea n 78 .5 9 35 .5 8 57 .0 9 12 .5 3 12 .8 5 12 .6 9 32 4. 62 28 2. 97 30 3. 79 90 .9 1 85 .0 0 87 .9 5 se d c d (p =0 .0 5) se d c d (p =0 .0 5) se d c d (p =0 .0 5) se d c d (p =0 .0 5) v 0. 02 0. 04 0. 33 0. 66 0. 78 1. 57 0. 34 0. 68 t 0. 06 0. 12 0. 08 0. 17 2. 07 4. 16 0. 90 1. 80 v x t 0. 09 0. 18 0. 12 0. 24 2. 93 5. 88 1. 27 2. 55 (v 1g ol db en z ta ll/ v2 -m ax im a y el lo w ) pgr and pinching in african marigold j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 42-47, 2018 45 ta bl e. 2 e ff ec t of g ro w th r eg ul at or s an d pi nc hi ng o n flo w er in g an d yi el d ch ar ac te rs in a fr ic an m ar ig ol d d ay s ta ke n fo r fl ow er n um be r of f lo w er s si ng le f lo w er f lo w er y ie ld p er x an th op hy ll co nt en t ap pe ar an ce p er p la nt w ei gh t (g ) pl an t (g ) (m g g1 ) t re at m en ts v 1 v 2 t re at m en t v 1 v 2 t re at m en t v 1 v 2 t re at m en t v 1 v 2 t re at m en t v 1 v 2 t re at m en t m ea n m ea n m ea n m ea n m ea n t 1 – g a 35 0 pp m 38 .2 0 39 .6 6 38 .9 3 26 .6 0 28 .4 0 27 .5 0 12 .0 7 10 .9 6 11 .5 1 32 1. 06 31 1. 26 31 6. 16 5. 77 5. 73 5. 75 t 2 – g a 3 1 00 p pm 33 .2 0 34 .4 0 33 .8 0 28 .2 6 31 .2 0 29 .7 3 13 .0 7 11 .9 6 12 .5 1 37 3. 15 36 9. 35 37 1. 25 6. 56 6. 52 6. 54 t 3 – g a 3 1 50 p pm 31 .4 0 32 .4 0 31 .9 0 30 .1 3 33 .1 6 31 .8 0 13 .3 7 12 .2 5 12 .8 1 40 6. 21 40 2. 83 40 4. 52 6. 77 6. 73 6. 75 t 4 – n a a 5 0 pp m 40 .0 0 41 .4 6 40 .7 3 26 .5 3 28 .0 0 27 .2 6 11 .7 6 10 .6 8 11 .2 2 31 1. 99 29 9. 04 30 5. 51 5. 58 5. 54 5. 56 t 5 – n a a 1 00 p pm 36 .0 0 37 .5 3 36 .7 6 27 .8 0 29 .2 0 28 .5 0 12 .3 7 11 .2 7 11 .8 2 34 3. 88 32 9. 08 33 6. 48 5. 95 5. 90 5. 93 t 6 – n a a 1 50 p pm 35 .2 0 36 .9 3 36 .0 6 28 .0 0 30 .5 3 29 .2 6 12 .7 7 11 .6 6 12 .2 1 35 7. 56 35 5. 97 35 6. 76 6. 17 6. 13 6. 15 t 7 – m h 2 50 p pm 42 .0 0 43 .4 6 42 .7 3 24 .2 0 26 .1 3 25 .1 6 9. 98 8. 84 9. 41 24 1. 51 23 0. 98 23 6. 24 4. 58 4. 54 4. 56 t 8 – m h 5 00 p pm 45 .4 0 47 .8 6 46 .6 3 21 .8 6 23 .5 3 22 .7 0 10 .7 6 9. 66 10 .2 1 23 5. 21 22 7. 29 23 1. 25 4. 98 4. 93 4. 96 t 9 – m h 7 50 p pm 48 .4 0 50 .2 6 49 .3 3 21 .0 6 22 .2 0 21 .6 3 11 .4 6 10 .3 6 10 .9 1 24 1. 34 22 9. 99 23 5. 66 5. 38 5. 34 5. 36 t 10 – a la r 2 00 p pm 41 .0 0 42 .6 0 41 .8 0 24 .4 0 27 .2 0 25 .8 0 9. 66 8. 53 9. 09 23 5. 70 23 2. 01 23 3. 85 4. 38 4. 34 4. 36 t 11 – a la r 40 0 pp m 43 .2 0 45 .7 3 44 .4 6 22 .9 3 23 .8 0 23 .3 6 10 .4 7 9. 37 9. 92 24 0. 07 22 3. 00 23 1. 53 4. 78 4. 74 4. 76 t 12 – a la r 60 0 pp m 47 .4 0 49 .6 6 48 .5 3 21 .3 3 23 .4 6 22 .4 0 11 .0 6 9. 93 10 .4 9 23 5. 90 23 2. 95 23 4. 42 5. 19 5. 15 5. 17 t 13 – p in ch in g 52 .6 0 54 .4 6 53 .5 3 19 .4 6 22 .1 3 20 .8 0 9. 16 8. 07 8. 61 17 8. 58 17 8. 25 17 8. 41 4. 08 4. 04 4. 06 t 14 – c on tr ol 50 .2 0 52 .4 0 51 .3 0 18 .4 6 19 .2 0 18 .8 3 9. 13 8. 04 8. 58 16 8. 53 15 4. 36 16 1. 44 4. 07 4. 03 4. 05 v ar ie ty m ea n 41 .7 2 43 .4 9 42 .6 0 24 .9 6 25 .7 1 25 .3 4 11 .2 2 10 .1 1 10 .6 7 27 7. 37 27 0. 27 27 3. 82 5. 30 5. 26 5. 28 se d c d (p =0 .0 5) se d c d (p =0 .0 5) se d c d (p =0 .0 5) se d c d (p =0 .0 5) se d c d (p =0 .0 5) v 0. 08 0. 17 0. 07 0. 14 0. 03 0. 05 0. 18 0. 36 0. 00 3 0. 00 7 t 0. 23 0. 47 0. 18 0. 37 0. 05 0. 09 0. 34 0. 69 0. 01 0 0. 02 0 v x t 0. 33 0. 67 0. 26 0. 53 0. 07 0. 14 0. 54 1. 05 0. 01 4 0. 02 9 (v 1g ol db en z ta ll/ v2 -m ax im a y el lo w ) sathappan j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 42-47, 2018 46 pgr and pinching in african marigold in the plants sprayed with ga3 @ 150 ppm in gold benz tall (31.40 days) and 32.40 days in maxima yellow. however, it was delayed in the plants sprayed with mh @ 750 ppm and alar @ 600 ppm. thus, it is evident that the days taken for flower initiation were delayed significantly by spraying growth retardants. in general, it is concluded that ga3 @ 150 ppm promoted flowering in both gold benz tall (31.40 days) and maxima yellow (32.40 days). this might be due to synergetic effect of auxins with gibberellins generally obtained in short day plants. the delayed flowering in marigold with the application of mh might be due to lesser mitotic activity and preservation of biosynthesis of gibberellic acid like substances. the present results are in agreement with the findings of sen and maharana (1971) and dutta et al. (1993) in chrysanthemum. the treatment of ga3 @ 150ppm in both gold benz tall (30.13 and 406.21 g) and maxima yellow (33.16 and 402.83 g) recorded maximum number of flowers per plant and flower yield per plant as compared to control. the plant sprayed with of ga3 @ 150ppm registered the maximum number of flowers per plant (31.80) and flower yield per plant (404.52 g) as compared to control. the increase in number of flowers might be due to production of large number of laterals at early stage, which had sufficient time to accumulate reserve carbohydrates for proper flower bud differentiation. the increase in flower yield by ga3 @ 150 ppm treatment was due to increased number of branches which led to incr eased number of flowers a nd improvement in individual flower weight. these findings are in accordance with kumar and ugherja (1998), gupta and dutta (2000), rakesh et al. (2003) and singhrot et al. (2004) in chrysanthemum. among all interaction treatments, v1t3 (gold benz tall ga3 @150 ppm) recorded the highest yield (406.21 g) per plant followed by v2t3 (maxima yellow ga3 @ 150 ppm) (402.83 g) per plant. the gibberellin is well known for its promoter effects on cell division and cell elongation. therefore an increase in single flower weight obtained with the application of ga3 @ 150 ppm might be due to increase in ga activity in the floral buds. since, the alar is an anti-auxins and also possibly anti-gibberellins too would have reduced the flower size and stalk length. similar results were also reported by girwani et al. (1990), gowda and ja yanthi (1991) in ma rigold, vijai ananth a nd anburani (2010) and kumar and haripriya (2010) in nnerium and ragaa and taha (2012) in iris. marigold flower production is governed by the extent of which the applied growth regulators are translocated to these floral parts to obtain higher yield of flower s a nd ultima tely xa nthophyll yield. xanthophyll yield was maximum with the treatment ga3 @ 150 ppm and minimum in control (t14). based on the above facts and results of the present studies on growth regulator treatments and pinching on different varieties of marigold, it is revealed that foliar spray of ga3 @ 150 ppm was found to be superior in increasing yield of flowers in both varieties. references da dda gouda r, s. r. , vya ka r a na ha l, b. s. , shekhargouda, m., nalini prabhakar, a. s. and patil, v.s., 2002. effect of mother plant nutrition and chemical spray on growth and seed yield of china aster cv. kamini. seed research, 30(2): 269-274. dalal.s.r., karale, g.d. and kalkame momin,c.h. 2009. effect of growth regulators on growth, yield and quality of chrysanthemum under net house conditions. asian. j. hort., 4 (1): 161163. dutta, j.p., r. seemanthini and khader, m.a. 1993. regulation of flowering by growth regulators in chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum indium l.) cv. co-1. south indian hort., 41(5): 293-299. girwani, a., baba, r.s. and chandrashekhar, r.1990. response of marigold (tagetes erecta l.) to growth regulators and zinc. indian agric.sci., 60(3): 220-222. gowda n.j.v., and jayanthi,r. 1991. effect of ccc and mh on growth and flowering of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.). prog. hort., 23 (1-4): 114 – 118. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 42-47, 2018 47 gupta, v. n. and datta,s.k. 2000. influence of ga3 on growth and flowering in chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) cv.janthi. indian j. plant physiol. 6(4): 420-422. kewalanand, j.n and pandy,c.s. 1998. effect of plant growth regulators on the growth, herbage and oil yield of japanese mint (mentha arvensis ) and its economic there from. j. med. arom plant sci., 20: 725 – 730. khanna, k., arora , j. s. and singh, j., 1981. effect of spacing and pinching on growth and flower production of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus cv.marguerite scarlet). j. orn. hort., 5(1-2): 1619. kumar, s., and haripriya,k. (2010). effects of growth retardants on growth, flowering and yield of nerium ( nerium odorum l.). plant archives., 10( 2) : 681 – 384. kumar, k.k. and ughreja, p.p. (1998). effect of foliar application of ga3, naa, mh and etheral on gr owth, flower ing a nd flower yield of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium) cv. iihr-6. j. applied hort., 4(1-2): 20-26 narayana gowda, j. v., 1985. investigation on horticultural practices in the production of china aster (callistephus chinensis l. nees). ph. d., t hesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v., 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi. p. 381 (1967). ragaa a. and taha, 2012. effect of some grown r egula tor s on gr owth, flower ing, bulb productivity and chemical composition of iris plants. j.hort. sci. & orn. plants, 4 (2): 215 – 220. rakesh, singhrot, r.s., and beniwal, 2003. effect of ga3 and pinching on growth and yield in chr ysa nthemum. haryana j. hort. sci, 32(1&2): 61-63. sen, s.k. and maharana, t. (1971). growth and flower ing response of chrysa nthemum to growth regulator treatments. punjab hort. j., 11: 276-279. sen, s.k and naik, j., 1977. growth and flowering r esponse of pinched a nd unpinched chrysanthemum to growth regulator treatment. indian j. hort., 33:86-90. shukla, a and a.h. farooqi, 1990. utilization of plant growth regulators in aromatic plant production. curr. res. med, arom. plants, 12: 152 – 157. singhrot, r.s., beniwal, b.s. and moond, s.k. 2004. effect of ga3 and pinching on quality and yield of flowers in chrysanthemum. j. hort. sci., 32 (1&2):224-226. sunitha, h.m., ravi hunje, b.s.,vyakaranahal and h.b. bablad. 2007. effect of plant population, nutrition, pinching and growth regulators on plant growth, seed yield and quality of african marigold (tagetes erecta linn.). j. orn. hort., 10(2): 90-95 talukdar mc, paswan l (1988). effect of ga3 and ccc on growth and flowering of standard chrysanthemum. j. orn. hort.1: 11-16. vijai ananth, a and anburani,a. (2010). effects of growth retardants on growth and yield in nerium ( nerium odorum l.). j. orn. hort., 13 (3): 240 242. sathappan j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 42-47, 2018 (ms received 2 september 2017, revised 19 april 2018, accepted 25 june 2018) introduction among various problems faced by crop plants, water stress is considered to be the most critical one (boyer, 1982). since plants being immobile, cannot evade water stress in the same way as other mobile organisms. therefore, plants adopt many morphological and physiological alterations to acclimatize to stressful environment (sakamoto and murata 2002). one such mechanism that is ubiquitous in plants is the accumulation of organic metabolites collectively called as compatible solutes (bohnert et al, 1995). these compatible solutes act as an osmoprotectant (burnett et al, 1995). among the osmoprotectant, glycinebetaine considered to be one of the most predominant and most effective osmoprotectant (burnett et al, 1995). however, not all plants can produce osmolytes in sufficient quantities to combat drought. in many crops genotypic engineering was adopted to increase or initiate the synthesis of glycinebetaine. however, biosynthesis of glycinebetaine through genetic engineering is costly (hanson and wyse, 1982) and most of the plants do not normally accumulate sufficient amount of osmolytes. the exogenous application influence of exogenous glycinebetaine on hot pepper under water stress r.m. bhatt, n.k. srinivasa rao and a.d.d.v.s. nageswara rao division of plant physiology and biochemistry icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail: rmbt@iihr.ernet.in abstract a study was conducted to evaluate the effect of exogenous application of glycinebetaine (gb) on physiological response in hot-pepper (capsicum annuum l. vs. arka lohit and pusa jwala) under water stress. glycinebetaine was applied to seeds as well as plants through foliar applications. water stress affected considerably the morphophysiological parameters in both the cultivars. however, in glycinebetaine (gb) treated plants, plant height, leaf area (la), flower and fruit number and total dry matter (tdm) were greater compared to the untreated stress plants (t4) under water stress. glycinebetaine application enhanced the photosynthesis (pn) in water deficit experiencing plants, mostly due to a greater stomatal conductance (gs) and carboxylation efficiency of co2 assimilation. in both the cultivars after 12 day of stress, the pn decreased from 10.1 to 1.0-1.3 μ mol m -2 s-1 in untreated stressed plants (t4), while in the treated stressed plants pn had reduced to 2.0 – 3.0 μ mol m -2 s-1 (t1 – t3). the application of gb increased the wue in both the cultivars. the better wue in treated plants of hot-pepper under stress was attributed to the improved pn. the higher per plant yield in the gb applied plants under stress in both the cultivars associated with higher pn rate, gs and wue in treated plants. though there was an increase in pn rate, wue and plant yield in the treated plants (t1 – t3), the better results were found in the plants (t2) where seeds were treated and foliar application was given at the time of imposing stress. key words: glycinebetaine, hot pepper, photosynthesis, stomatal conductance of glycinebetaine has been suggested as an alternative approach to improve tolerance under water stress (makela et al, 1996). application of glycinebetaine has been shown to protect functional protein, vital enzymes and photosynthetic machinery (xing and rajashekar, 1999) and has been found to improve the crop water productivity under limited and well watered conditions (hussain et al, 2008). however, such studies are lacking in the horticultural crops like hot-pepper, though it is being grown under tropical and sub-tropical conditions. therefore, the present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of exogenous application of glycinebetaine on physiological response in hot-pepper under water stress. material and methods plant material and glycinebetaine treatment: the seedlings of hot-pepper genotypes, arka lohit and pusa jwala were raised in seedling trays containing coco peat. one month old seedlings were transplanted in the plastic pots (12’’dia.) containing sandy soil and farmyard manure (3:1 v/v) under natural environmental conditions. the day j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):153-156, 2014 154 temperature varied from 34 to 36oc and photosynthetic photon flux density (ppfd) from 1000 to 1900 µ mol m-2s-1 during the study. the plants were irrigated regularly and the recommended package of practices was followed to grow the plants. water stress was imposed at flowering stage (35 days after transplanting) by withholding irrigation for a period of 12 days. the gb treatment was given to seed (6.0%) before sowing and plants through foliar spray (1.0%) at the time of imposing water deficit stress. the treatments were defined as follows: t1 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb, t2 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb + foliar spray (1.0%), t3 = water deficit stress + foliar spray only, t4 = water deficit stress, t5 = irrigated plants. soil moisture content as measured gravimetrically was 20-22% in the control and 11-13% under the stress. morpho-physiological observations: gas exchange parameters such as net photosynthesis rate (pn), stomatal conductance (gs) and internal co2 (ci) were measured using portable photosynthesis analysis system (model lca 3, analytical development corporation, huddesdon, u.k). fully expanded leaf (5th leaf) from top was used clamped to the leaf chamber and the observations were recorded when pn, gs and ci were reached to stable value under natural conditions. all the gas exchange parameters were recorded between 10.00 and 11.30h. the osmotic potential (ψs) was measured using wescor osmometer (model 5520). the observations were also recorded on plant height, leaf area, number of flowers and fruits. leaf area was measured by leaf area meter (li-3000). plant samples were collected at the time of releasing the stress and dried in oven at 80oc for 48h to determine the total dry matter (tdm). the plant fruit yield was measured on fresh weight basis. results and discussion the effect of gb on plant height, leaf area, flower and fruit number and total dry matter (tdm) were shown in table 1. there was considerable effect of gb treatments on these parameters under water stress. the tdm accumulation was 8.7 to 11.5% in arka lohit and 3.0 to 36.7% higher in pusa jwala in treated plant (t1–t3) as compared to untreated plants (t4) under stress (table 1). in both the cultivars, the response was better to gb treatments applied to both seeds + foliar treatment (t2). a significant decrease in pn and gs was found by 12 days after stress in both the cultivars (fig. 1a and 1b). reduction in pn was sharp in pusa jwala as compared to arka lohit. at the end of 12 days stress, pn decreased from 10.1 to 1.0-1.3 µ mol m-2 s-1 in untreated stressed plants (t4), while table 1. morpho-physiological parameters as affected by glycinebetaine application under stress in two cultivars of hot pepper variety treatment plant leaf flower fruit total dry height area no. no. matter (cm) (cm2) (g plant-1) arka lohit t1 76.0 659.2 50 8 22.629 t2 84.0 1094.0 53 7 23.223 t3 92.0 1374.0 65 7 22.635 t4 75.0 720.6 50 6 20.810 t5 80.0 2615.2 70 20 46.394 sem 1.38 158.86 2.40 1.17 2.16 pusa jwala t1 62.0 1017.0 25 8 16.589 t2 68.0 1328.6 50 8 20.291 t3 56.0 1145.0 58 5 15.309 t4 50.0 778.0 41 8 14.84 t5 70.0 2049.0 53 21 34.236 sem 1.66 96.53 2.59 1.26 1.62 t1 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb, t2 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb + foliar spray (1.0%), t3 = water deficit stress + foliar spray only, t4 = water deficit stress and t5 = irrigated plants in gb treated stressed plants pn reduced to 2.0 – 3.0 µ mol m-2 s-1 (t1 – t3). similarly, gs reduced from 0.84 mol m-2 s-1 to 0.04 mol m-2 s-1 in untreated stress plants, while in treated stress plants, it was 0.89 to 0.06 mol m-2 s-1. among the treated plants, the higher gs (0.08 to 0.10 mol m -2 s-1) was found in t2 in both the cultivars. the recovery in pn and gs after releasing 12 days stress was almost the same in both the cultivars (fig. 1a and 1b). the ci value was higher in untreated stress plants (t4) as compared to the plants treated with gb (t1 – t3) in both the cultivars (table 2). similar trend was observed for a/ci ratio. the wue reduced in both the cultivars under stress in untreated plants (0.26 – 0.38 µ mol co2/ mol h2o m -2s-1). however, the decrease in wue was less in the plants treated with gb and ranged from 0.53 to 0.70 µ mol co2/ mol h2o m -2s-1 in arka lohit and 0.30 to 0.47 µ mol co2/ mol h2o m -2s-1 in pusa jwala. the ψs in the irrigated plants varied from -1.10 to -1.16 mpa. under stress, it decreased up to -2.0 to -2.32 mpa under stress (t4) in both the cultivars. gb treated plants (t1 – t3) of arka lohit had the ψs of -2.45 to -3.00 mpa and pusa jwala -2.59 to -2.90 mpa (table 2). the per plant yield was 267 – 294g plant-1 in arka lohit and 204 – 213 g plant-1 in pusa jwala in the treated stress plants (t1 – t3), while in untreated stress plants (t4) it was 252 g plant-1 in arka lohit and 156g plant-1 in pusa jwala (fig. 2). the effect of gb on plant response to water stress was better in t2. our studies confirmed that the application of gb improved the la production, plant height and tdm bhatt et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):153-156, 2014 155 fig.1a. pattern of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance as affected by glycinebetaine application during water stress in hot pepper var. arka lohit t1 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb, t2 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb + foliar spray (1.0%), t3 = water deficit stress + foliar spray only, t4 = water deficit stress and t5 = irrigated plants accumulation and pn rate under water deficit. generally, the reduction in pn under water-deficit is caused by either stomatal closure and/or photosynthetic apparatus damage. stomatal closure has an effect on co2 entering cells, whereas continuous moderate or sever absence of water can damage the photosynthetic apparatus (makela et al, 1999). our study indicated that water deficit considerably reduced the pn and gs in hot pepper. the gb application alleviated these disturbances caused by water deficit in both the cultivars (fig. 1a and fig. 1b). there was an increase in ci under stress condition (t4). an increase in ci with a decrease in pn and gs in untreated plants under stress (t4) suggests a decline in biochemical capacity of the plants. the greater a/ci ratio in the gb applied plants indicates the improvement in carboxylation efficiency in the gb applied plants under water stress. the application of gb improved gs and protected the photosynthetic apparatus, which resulted in the higher pn under water deficit and alleviation of negative effects (fig. 1a & b and table 2). ma et al, (2007) also found that in tobacco the foliar application of gb improved the pn under water stress mostly due to a greater gs and carboxylation efficiency of co2 assimilation. the gb application also resulted in a decrease in ψs in both the cultivars (table 2). glycinebetaine is thought to act as a compatible solute; therefore, its accumulation decreases ψs and improves the leaf water status in these cultivars. the decrease in ψs may improve the leaf water status. earlier studies also shown the application of gb improved water status of plants under stress (xing and rajashekar, 1999). further, the application of gb increases the wue in both the cultivars. makhdum and shabad-ud-din (2007) found an increase in wue in gb applied plants of cotton under t1 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb, t2 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb + foliar spray (1.0%), t3 = water deficit stress + foliar spray only, t4 = water deficit stress and t5 = irrigated plants fig. 1b. pattern of photosynthesis and stomatal conductance as affected by glycinebetaine application during water stress in hot pepper var. pusa jwala influence of exogenous glycinebetaine on hot pepper under water stress j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):153-156, 2014 156 water stress. the better wue in treated plants of hot-pepper under stress was attributed to the improved pn. the higher per plant yield in the gb applied plants under stress in both the cultivars of hot-pepper attributed to higher pn rate, gs and wue in treated plants. among the treatments, best results were found in t2, where gb treatment was given to seeds and foliar application. table 2. net photosynthetic rate (pn, μmol m -2s-1), stomatal conductance (gs, mol m-2s-1), intercellular carbon dioxide (ci, ppm), water use efficiency (wue, μmol co2/ mol h2o m -2 s-1) and leaf osmotic potential (ψψψψψs,-mpa) as influenced by glycinebetaine application under stress in hot pepper variety treatment a gs ci a/ci wue ψ s , arka lohit t1 1.6 0.06 337 0.005 0.59 2.45 t2 3.0 0.10 306 0.010 0.70 3.00 t3 2.0 0.07 303 0.007 0.53 2.50 t4 1.0 0.05 351 0.003 0.26 2.00 t5 12.1 0.67 289 0.042 1.11 1.16 sem 0.92 0.05 5.15 0.003 0.06 0.14 pusa jwala t1 1.5 0.06 314 0.004 0.30 2.59 t2 2.5 0.08 300 0.008 0.47 2.90 t3 2.0 0.07 333 0.006 0.40 2.60 t4 0.8 0.04 331 0.002 0.38 2.32 t5 11.2 0.50 304 0.037 0.98 1.10 sem 0.86 0.04 3.03 0.003 0.05 0.14 t1 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb, t2 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb + foliar spray (1.0%), t3 = water deficit stress + foliar spray only, t4 = water deficit stress and t5 = irrigated plants t1 = water deficit stress + seeds treatment with 6% gb, t2 = water deficit tress + seeds treatment with 6% gb + foliar spray (1.0%), t3 = water deficit stress + foliar spray only, t4 = water deficit stress and t5 = irrigated plants fig. 2. effect of glycinebetaine on plant yield under water stress in two cultivars of hot pepper acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the director, icar-iihr, bengaluru for providing necessary facilities and to mr. c. muniraju for technical help. references bohnert, h.j.d.e., nelson, r. and ensen, r.e. 1995. adaptation to environmental stresses. pl. cell, 7:1099-1111 boyer, j.s. 1982. plant productivity and environment. sci., 218:443-448 burnett, m., lafontaine, p.j. and hanson, a.d. 1995. assay, purification and partial characterization of choline monooxygenase from spinach. pl. physiol., 168:581588 hanson, a.d. and wyse, r. 1982. biosynthesis, translocation and accumulation of betaine in sugar beet and its progenitors in relation to salinity. pl. physiol., 70:1191-1198 hussain, m., farooq, m., jabran, k., rehman, h. and akram, m. 2008. exogenous glycinebetaine application improves yield under water-limited conditions in hybrid sunflower. arch agron soil sci., 54:557-567 ma, x.l., wang, y.j., xie, s.l., wang, c. and wang, w. 2007. glycinebetaine application ameliorates negative effects of drought stress in tobacco. russian j. of pl. physiol., 54:472-479 makela, p., kontturi, m., pehu, e. and somersalo, s. 1999. photosynthetic response of drought and salt-stresses tomato and turnip rape plant to foliar-applied glycine betaine. physiol. pl., 105:45-50 makela, p., peltonenasainio, p., jokinen, k., pehu, e., setala, h., hinkkanen, r. and somersalo, s. 1996. uptake and translocation of foliar-applied glycinebetaine in crop plants. pl. sci., 121:221-234 muhammad iqbal makhdum and shabab-ud-din. 2007. influence of foliar application of glycinebetaine on gas exchange characteristics of cotton gossypium hirsutum l. j.res. sci., b.z. univ. 181:13-17 sakamoto, a. and murata, n. 2002. the role of glycinebetaine in protection of plants from stress: clues from transgenic plants. pl. cell environ., 25:163-171 xing, w. and rajashekar, c.b. 1999. alleviation of water stress in beans by exogenous glycinebetaine. pl. sci., 148:185-195 bhatt et al (ms received 26 november 2013, revised 22 july 2014, accepted 30 july 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):153-156, 2014 crop improvement largely depends on existence of genetic variability. improvement in any crop is based on the extent of genetic variation present in it and, the degree of improvement depends on magnitude of the available, beneficial genetic variability. the present study was undertaken in 10 chilli cultivars received from aicrp (vegetables) with the objective of obtaining information variability, heritability and genetic advance. the experiment was conducted during rainy seasons of 2004-07 completely randomized block design with three replications. treatment was in a plot of four rows each five metres long. recommended cultural practices were followed. five plants were selected randomly from each genotype and observation on height, plant spread, number of fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit girth, number of seed per fruit, ripe chilli yield and dry chilli yield were recorded. variability for variability studies in chilli (capsicum annuum l.) with reference to yield attributes k. uma jyothi, s. surya kumari and c. venkata ramana horticultural research station, andhra pradesh horticultural university lam, guntur 522 034, india e-mail: umajyothik@yahoo.com abstract field experiments were conducted at regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur, andhra pradesh during the rainy season 2004-2007, with ten chilli genotypes supplied by aicrp on vegetables (from different geographical sources). this was to study genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance as per cent mean for several economic characters to identify promising cultivars suitable for the krishna-godavari zone of andhra pradesh. data were collected on eight characters, viz., plant height, plant spread and number of fruits per plant; fruit length, fruit girth, number of seeds per fruit, ripe-chilli yield and dry-chilli yield. significant differences were observed among genotypes in respect of all the characters studied. phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv) was slightly higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) for all the traits, indicating a low environmental influence on expression of these traits. high gcv and pcv were observed for ripe-chilli yield, dry-chilli yield, number of fruits per plant, number of seeds per fruit and fruit length indicating a higher magnitude of variability in these traits and, consequently, a greater scope for improvement through simple selection. low gcv and pcv were recorded for plant height, plant spread and fruit girth suggesting a limited variability, for these traits. high heritability, coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean, was observed for ripe-chilli yield, dry chilli yield, number of fruits per plant, number of seeds per fruit and fruit length, indicating the influence of additive genes. these characters-with high gcv, pcv, heritability and genetic advance as per cent mean-should be considered as reliable selection criteria for crop improvement for yield and yield attributing characters in chilli. key words: capsicum annuum, variability, gcv, pcv, heritability, genetic advance different quantitative characters and expected genetic advance at 5% intensity of selection were calculated as per burton (1952) and johnson et al (1955), respectively analysis of variance in these 10 improved chilli cultivars showed that highly significant differences were recorded for all the quantitative and qualitative characters studied indicating adequate genetic variability among the cultivars st-udied. this is in accordance with reports of sarma and roy (1995), smitha (2005) and biswadip chatterjee (2006). genetic variability estimates, including means, genotypic and phenotypic variances, pcv, gcv, heritability, genetic advance and genetic advance as per cent mean for different characters, are presented in table 1. height of plants ranged from 73.7cm (dsl-1) to 99.3cm (dcl-352), with a grand mean of 86.1cm. gv and short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):133-135, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 134 pv observed were 56.53 and 92.39, respectively, while, gcv and pcv were 8.73 % and 11.16 %, respectively. high heritability of 61.19, with a low ga of 12.11 and 14.07 ga as per cent mean, was recorded. spread of plant ranged from 90.6cm (dsl-1) to 115.6cm (ajeet-3), with a mean of 106.5cm. the gv and pv of the cultivars were observed to be 59.6 and 136.6, respectively. estimates of gcv and pcv per cent were found to be 7.25 and 10.96, respectively. heritability of 43.63 %, with ga of 10.51 and 9.87 ga as per cent mean, was recorded. similar results were reported earlier by karad et al (2006), biswadip chatterjee (2006) and samadia d.k(2007). maximum variation was observed for number of fruits per plant. mean number of fruits per plant was found to be 148, with a minimum of 88.60 (indra chilli-1), and a maximum of 315 (lca-353). gv and pv were 3922.10 and 4024.60, respectively. gcv and pcv obtained were 40.15 and 40.67, respectively. high heritability per cent (97.5), coupled with high genetic advance of 127.36 and 81.64 as ga as per cent mean, was recorded. a wide range of variation for fruit length was observed. fruit length ranged from a minimum of 5.6cm (dsl-1) to 11.5cm (pc-6), with a mean of 8.20cm. the gv and pv observed were 3.35 and 4.07, respectively, while gcv and pcv per cent were observed to be 22.29 and 24.57, respectively. high heritability per cent of 82.28, with low genetic advance of 3. 2 and 41.66 ga as per cent mean, was recorded. fruit girth ranged from a minimum of 3.1cm (indra chilli -1) to a maximum of 4.1cm (pc-6), with a mean of 3.4cm. the gv and pv were found to be 0.09 and 0.14, respectively. estimates for gcv and pcv per cent were 8.85 and 10.91, respectively. heritability per cent of 66.67, coupled with low ga of 0.51 and low per cent of 15.04 ga as per cent mean, was recorded for this character. these results were in agreement with findings of gogoi and gautam (2002), rathod et al (2002), nandadevi and hosamani (2003), sreelathakumary and rajamony (2004), wasule et al (2004), mishra et al (2005), singh et al (2005), karad et al (2006) and biswadip chatterjee (2006). maximum variation among cultivars was observed for ripe-fruit weight per hectare. mean weight of ripe-fruit per hectare was 186.9q, with a minimum weight of 73.7q/ ha (dsl-1) and maximum weight of 342.7q/ha (lca353). the gv and pv recorded were 7587.4 and 8059.6, respectively. gcv and pcv per cent recorded were observed to be 48.31 and 49.79, respectively. a high heritability per cent of 94.14, coupled with high ga of 174.09 and 96.56 ga as per cent mean, was observed. dry-fruit weight per hectare ranged from a minimum of 23.6q/ha (dsl-1) to a maximum of 75.25q/ha (lca-353), with a grand mean of 46.65q/ha. the gv and pv recorded were 371.3 and 19.9, respectively. gcv and pcv were 41.17 % and 42.46 %, respectively. a high heritability percentage of 93.99, coupled with ga of 38.47 and 82.21 ga as per cent mean, was observed. these results are in concurrence with reports of gogoi and gautam (2002), rathod et al (2002) sreelathakumary and rajamony (2002) and biswadip chatterjee (2006). number of seeds per fruit ranged from a minimum of 39.2 (ajeet-3) to a maximum of 84.23 (dcl-352) with a table 1. genetic variation for quantitative traits in chilli (caspsicum annuum l.) cultivars sl.no. character mean range genotypic phenotypic genotypic phenotypic broad genetic ga as min. max. variation 2g variation 2v coefficient coefficient sense advance per cent of variation of variation heritability (ga) mean gcv (%) pcv (%) % (h2) at 5% at 5% 1 plant 86.1 73.7 99.3 56.53 92.39 8.73 11.16 61.19 12.11 14.07 height (cm) 2 plant 106.5 90.6 115.6 59.6 136.6 7.25 10.96 43.63 10.51 9.87 spread (cm) 3 no. of fruits 148 88.6 315.0 3922.1 4024.6 40.15 40.67 97.45 127.36 81.64 per plant 4 fruit 8.2 5.6 11.5 3.35 4.072 22.29 24.57 82.27 3.42 41.66 length (cm) 5 fruit 3.4 3.1 4.1 0.09 0.135 8.85 10.91 66.67 0.51 15.04 girth (cm) 6 no. of seeds 52.4 39.2 84.2 147.12 187.52 23.15 26.13 78.46 22.13 42.23 per fruit 7 ripe chilli 186.9 73.7 342.7 7587.4 8059.6 48.31 49.79 94.14 174.09 96.56 yield (q/ha) 8 dry chilli 46.7 23.6 75.3 371.26 395.01 41.17 42.46 93.99 38.47 82.21 yield (q/ha) uma jyothi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):133-135, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 135 mean of 52.38. gv and pv were 147.12 and 187.2, respectively. gcv and pcv estimates were 23.15 and 26.13, respectively. heritability of 78.46, coupled with ga of 22.13 and 42.23 ga as per cent mean was observed. verma et al (2004) reported similar results in chilli. higher pcv and gcv were observed for number of fruits per plant, ripe-fruit yield, dry-fruit yield per hectare, number of seeds per fruit and fruit length, indicating higher magnitude of variability for these traits and, consequently, greater scope for improvement these traits through simple selection. low gcv & pcv were recorded for plant height, plant spread and fruit girth, suggesting limited variability for these traits. high heritability, coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean, was observed for ripe-chilli yield, dry-chilli yield, number of fruits per plant, number of seeds per fruit and fruit length, indicating the influence of additive genes. these characters, with high gcv, pcv, heritability and genetic advance as per cent mean should be considered as reliable selection criteria for crop improvement in terms of yield and yield-attributing characters in chilli. references biswadip chatterjee. 2006. character association and genetic divergence in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). m.sc. thesis, acharya n.g. ranga agricultural university, hyderabad, india burton, g.w. 1952. quantitative burton, g.w. 1952, quantitative inheritance in grasses. proc. 6th int. grassland congress, 1:277-285. choudhary, b.s. and samadia, d.k. 2004. variability and character association in chilli land races and genotypes under arid environment. ind. j. hort., 61:132-136 gogoi, d. and gautam, b.p. 2002. variability, heritability and genetic advance in chilli (capsicum spp.). agril. sci. digest, 22:102-104 karad, s.r., navale, p.a. and kadam, d.e. 2006. variability and path-coefficient analysis in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). int’l. j. agril. sci., 2:90-92 manju, p.r. and sreelathakumary, i. 2002a genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in hot chilli (capsicum chinese jacq.). j. trop. agri., 40:4-6 mallikarjun, c.g., manjunath, a, nehru, s.d. and kulkarni, r.s. 2003 genetic variability and correlations in chilli (capsicum annuum l.) with special reference to quality characters. mysore j. agril. sci., 37: 325-331 mishra, a.c., singh, r.v. and ram, h.h. 2005. studies on genetic variability in capsicum (capsicum annuum l.) under mid-hills of uttaranchal. ind. j. hort. 62:248-252 nandadevi and hosamani, r.m. 2003. estimation of heterosis, combining ability and per se performance in summer-grown chilli (capsicum annuum l.) for yield and resistance to leaf curl complex. capsicum and eggplant newslett., 22:59-62 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi pp. 68-75 rathod, r.p., deshmukh, d.t., sable, n.h. and rathod, n.g. 2002. genetic variability studies in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). j. soils and crops, 12 :210-212 sarma, r.n., and roy, a. 1995. variation and character association in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). annals of agri. res., 16:179-183 shah, a., lal, s.p. and pant, c.c. 1986. variability studies in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). progressive hort., 18:270-272 singh, m.d., laisharam, j.m. and bhagirath, t. 2005. genetic variability in local chillies (capsicum annuum l.) of manipur. ind. j. hort., 62:203-205 sreelathakumary, i. and rajamony, l. 2004. genetic divergence in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). ind. j. hort., 61:137-139 verma, s.k. singh, r.k. and arya, r.r. 2004. genetic variability and correlation studies in chillies. progressive hort., 36:113-117 wasule, j.h., parmar, j.n., potdukhe and deshmukh, d.t. 2004. variability studies in chilli. annals of pl. physiol., 18:187-191 variability in chilli for yield traits (ms received 5 july 2009, revised 25 august 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):133-135, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction bell pepper has attained the status of a high-value crop in india in recent years and occupies a pride of place among vegetables in indian cuisine because it is a delicacy with a pleasant flavour coupled with rich colours (green, red, yellow, etc.) and high content of ascorbic acid and other vitamins, and minerals. modern agriculture, depends largely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc., resulting in increased production. this has adversely affected soil productivity and environment quality. heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides causes health hazards and environmental pollution apart from imparting resistance to pest against chemical pesticides and fungicides. modern or industrial farming has also led to concerns on ecological, economical, soil and human health, philosophical front, etc. therefore, these days, organic farming is gaining importance steadily. bell pepper is a high-value crop, and in a quest to harvest high yields, fertilizers and pesticides find indiscriminate use in its cultivation. but, information on organic cultivation of bell pepper is rather scanty. hence, the present study was undertaken with an objective to study the response of bell pepper to organic sources of nutrients and its effect on yield and fruit quality. j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):156-160, 2012 effect of organics and inorganics on yield parameters in bell pepper under open condition vasant m. ganiger, j.c. mathad1, m.b. madalageri, h.b. babalad2 and g. bhuvaneswari department of vegetable science, college of horticulture university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot 587 103, india e-mail: vasantg.veg@gmail.com abstract investigations were carried out to study the effect of organics on yield and fruit quality parameters in bell pepper grown under open condition. split plot design, with three replications, was adopted taking two bell pepper varieties, viz., california wonder and gangavati local (as main-plot treatments) and nutrient source (as sub-plot treatments). variety california wonder performed better with respect to yield parameters compared to the local variety. application of 100% recommended dose of nitrogen (rdn) through a combination of 50% fym and 50% poultry manure (o 5 ) as basal dose recorded significantly higher fruit yield (16.33 t/ha) and yield components over other treatments. among interactions, o 5 (fym (50%) + poultry manure (50%) recorded significantly higher fruit yield (18.47 t/ha), followed by 18.31 t/ha with organic application in o 1 (fym (50%) + vermicompost (50%) in california wonder variety. key words: organics, bell pepper, open condition, vermicompost, poultry manure, fym material and methods experimental details the experiment was carried out at agricultural research station, gangavati, during 2006 and 2007 in a fixed plot situated in the northern dry zone of karnataka (zone3) that receives rains from both south-west and north-east monsoon and falls under the tungabhadra command area. average rainfall received here was 357.4mm and 176.4mm during the cropping seasons (2006 and 2007, respectively). the experiment included main treatments and two bell pepper varieties, viz., california wonder and gangavati local. sub-treatments of organic sources of nutrients were as follows: o 1 : basal dose of n equivalent (150 kg/ha) through fym 50% and vermicompost 50% o 2 : basal dose of 75% n equivalent through fym 50% and vermicompost 25 % (37.5 kg n /ha) and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% (37.5 kg n/ha) n equivalent through vermicompost o 3 : basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225 kg n) through fym 50% (112.5kg n /ha) and vermicompost 50% (112.5 kg n /ha) o 4 : basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225kg n/ha) through 1department of horticulture; 2department of organics, college of agriculture, uas, dharwad, karnataka, india 157 effect of organic cultivation on yield in bell pepper fym 50% (112.5kg n /ha) and vermicompost 25% (56.25kg n /ha) and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% (56.25kg n/ha) n equivalent through vermicompost o 5 : basal dose of n equivalent (150kg/ha) through fym 50% and poultry manure 50% o 6 : basal dose of 75% n equivalent through fym 50% and poultry manure 25% (37.5kg n /ha) and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% (37.5kg n/ha) n equivalent through poultry manure o 7 : basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225kg n) through fym 50% (112.5kg n /ha) and poultry manure 50% (112.5kg n /ha) o 8 : basal dose of 150% n equivalent (225kg n/ha) through fym 50% (112.5kg n /ha) and poultry manure 25% (56.25kg n /ha) and top dressing after 45 dat with 25% (56.25kg n/ha) n equivalent through poultry manure o 9 : basal dose of 150kg rdn equivalent through fym, in addition to 25 tons/hectare of recommended fym o 10 : npk 150:75:50kg/ ha inorganic fertilizer source and 25 tons/hectare fym as per recommended package (control 1) o 11 : npk 150:75:50kg/hectare inorganic fertilizer source only (control 2). the experiment was laid out in split plot design, with three replications. nutrient composition of manures used in the experiment is given in table 1. the experimental area was grown with sun hemp (crotalaria juncea) for three months and the sun hemp crop was incorporated into the soil 45 days before transplanting bell pepper. this was done in all the experimental plots except sub-plot treatments o 10 and o 11 . beds for raising nursery seedlings for organic nutrient sources treatment were prepared by incorporating welldecomposed fym + sand + red soil. beds for raising seedlings under inorganic treatments (o 10 and o 11 ) were incorporated with the recommended dose of inorganic fertilizer mixture, along with fym, before sowing bell pepper seeds. to avoid seed or soil borne diseases, bell pepper seeds were treated with trichoderma viridae prior to sowing. thirty-five day old bell pepper seedlings were transplanted at a spacing of 60cm x 45cm. roots of the seedlings, except in o 10 and o 11 treatments, were dipped in a slurry containing biofertilizers, viz., azospirillum, mycorrhizial and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria cultures, for 10 minutes. all necessary cultural operations were undertaken to raise the bell pepper crop. diseases and pests were managed using products of animal or plant origin (neem oil, nske 0.5%, npv, pseudomonas fluorescence, nomuruea releyi, trichoderma viridae, hirestela thampane and verticillium lecani) in the organic plots. fruit and yield characteristics five randomly selected plants were tagged in each treatment plot for recording fruit and yield parameters, viz., weight of 10 fruits, number of fruits per plant, yield per plant, yield per plot, fruit length, fruit breadth, fruit shape, fruit pericarp weight, pericarp thickness at the centre of the fruit, pericarp thickness at blossom end, seed to pericarp ratio, number of seeds per fruit, seed weight per fruit and 100 seed weight. yield per plot was used for computing yield per hectare and was expressed as t/ha. statistical analysis data were statistically analyzed following fishers method of analysis of variance, as suggested by panse and sukhatme (1967). level of significance was computed at p=0.05. results and discussion data presented in table 2 show that the cv. california wonder produced heavier fruits (621.5 g/10 fruits) and highest fruit yield (423.30 g/plant) over the local cultivar (254.56 g/10 fruits and 332.20g, respectively). cultivar california wonder performed better with respect to fruit characters, viz., fruit length (6.33cm), fruit breadth (5.41cm), pericarp weight (607.65 g/10 fruits), pericarp thickness at table 1. nutrient composition and other properties of manures used particulars fym vermicompost poultry manure p h 7.13 7.08 7.19 ec (ds/m) 0.29 1.24 1.39 total nutrient content (macroand micro-) (%) n 0.50 1.21 1.50 p 0.24 0.82 1.56 k 0.53 1.03 2.38 ca 0.22 0.58 1.40 mg 0.18 0.22 0.36 s 0.23 0.39 0.53 total micronutrient content (mg/kg) zn 135.00 269.40 228.00 m n 181.20 251.80 261.40 cu 22.10 27.60 48.00 fe 251.30 382.00 1110.00 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):156-160, 2012 158 table 2. effect of nutrient source on yield in bell pepper varieties grown under open-field condition (pooled data of 2006 and 2007) nutrient source weight of 10 fruits (g) no. of fruits/plant total yield (t/ha) v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 644.42 268.04 456.23 6.93 16.31 11.62 18.31 13.96 16.14 o 2 639.32 260.17 449.74 6.65 17.77 10.73 16.95 13.33 15.14 o3 693.18 246.90 470.03 6.35 14.51 10.43 16.98 13.27 15.12 o4 678.80 256.57 467.68 6.37 13.51 9.94 16.08 12.98 14.53 o5 730.46 278.63 504.55 6.91 16.33 11.62 18.47 14.18 16.33 o6 681.18 265.58 473.38 6.36 16.43 11.37 17.71 13.29 15.50 o7 593.63 251.21 422.42 6.28 14.26 10.27 16.90 12.80 14.85 o8 538.19 254.47 396.33 6.16 14.11 10.14 16.78 12.43 14.61 o9 569.22 248.25 408.74 6.03 14.30 10.16 16.39 12.17 14.28 o10 580.50 250.21 415.35 6.12 13.81 9.96 16.88 12.51 14.69 o11 482.65 220.10 351.38 5.60 11.28 8.44 14.65 11.12 12.88 mean 621.05 254.56 437.80 6.341 14.78 10.43 16.92 12.91 14.92 cd at (p=0.05) sem± cd at (p=0.05) sem± cd at (p=0.05) sem± variety (a) 55.55 9.129 0.40 0.065 2.44 0.648 nutrient source (b) 123.53 29.510 1.26 0.453 0.74 0.311 a × b 115.68 41.734 1.77 0.641 1.04 0.440 v1 = california wonder , v2 = gangavati local table 3. effect of nutrient source on physical characters in bell pepper varieties grown under open-field condition (pooled data of 2006 and 2007) nutrient source fruit length (cm) fruit breadth (cm) v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 6.27 5.19 5.73 5.36 4.78 5.07 o 2 6.10 5.17 5.63 4.45 4.78 4.61 o3 6.11 5.67 5.89 5.43 4.83 5.13 o4 6.38 4.95 5.66 5.84 4.88 5.36 o5 6.81 5.67 6.24 5.68 4.63 5.15 o6 7.55 5.30 6.42 5.67 4.98 5.32 o7 6.68 5.78 6.23 5.43 5.14 5.28 o8 5.75 5.11 5.43 5.34 4.93 5.13 o9 5.97 5.34 5.65 5.71 4.77 5.24 o10 6.20 4.96 5.58 5.44 4.30 4.87 o11 5.88 4.36 5.12 5.18 3.97 4.57 mean 6.33 5.22 5.78 5.41 4.72 5.06 cd (p=0.05) sem± cd (p=0.05) sem± variety (a) 0.40 0.0658 0.09 0.0157 nutrient ns 0.5120 0.10 0.2159 source (b) a × b 2.01 0.7240 0.14 0.3054 a × b 1.37 0.57 v 1 = california wonder, v 2 = gangavati local blossom end (1.36cm), number of seeds per fruit (128.24), seed weight per fruit (1.21g) and weight of 100 seeds (0.72g) as compared to the local variety (tables 3-5). these higher values for yield components in cv. california wonder can be attributed to the variety’s capacity to utilize natural resources like light intensity, temperature, relative humidity and nutrients, compared to gangavati local cultivar. present research findings show that yield in bell pepper differed significantly with respect to the source of nutrients. the application of 100% recommended dose of nitrogen (rdn) through combination of 50% fym and 50% poultry manure (o 5 ) as basal dose recorded significantly higher fruit yield of bell pepper (16.33 t/ha). this could be attributed to the significant increase in yield components, viz., number of fruits (11.62) and fruit weight/plant (411.47g). improvement in yield components may be attributed to increased vegetative growth of the plant through increase in plant height (94.33 cm), plant spread (45.83 cm), number of primary branches per plant (2.61), secondary branches (7.58) and stem girth (1.07cm) (vasant, 2010). increase in growth, yield and yield components due to application of fym + poultry manure combination may -nutrients) of soil (jeyabaskaran et al, 2001; naidu et al, 2002). the rhizosphere is, thus, more congenial to the plant for nutrient uptake and utilization. further, considerable amount of nitrogen is present in poultry manure in the form of uric acid. this is readily available to the plant, helping it put forth good growth right from the onset of the crop. the second best nutrient combination with respect to yield in bell pepper was application of 100% rdn equivalent nutrient through fym + vermicompost (16.14 t/ha). these nutrient sources resulted in significant improvement in yield attributing traits like: number of fruits per plant (11.62), fruit weight/plant (400.89g), fruit length (5.73cm), fruit breadth (5.07cm), pericarp thickness at blossom end (1.26cm), number of seeds per fruit (132.25), seed weight per fruit (1.19g) and 100 seed weight (0.70g) this was made possible through improvement in growth parameters of the plant as vasant m. ganiger et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):156-160, 2012 159 evident by increased plant height (71.05cm), secondary branches per plant (7.51) and stem girth (1.14cm). vermicompost used in this treatment combination is known to enhance microbial activity, which may have improved availability of macroand micro-nutrients to the plants. it also acts as a chelating agent and regulates availability of metabolic micro-nutrients to plants and, thus, helps increase plant growth and yield-attributing traits by providing nutrients in their available form. besides, vermicompost also contains significant quantities of nutrients, a large amount of beneficial microbial populations and biologically active metabolites particularly, gibberellins, cytokinins, auxins and group b vitamins (bhavalkar, 1991) all of which have a beneficial effect on photosynthesis and translocation. results of the present findings are in agreement with findings of several earlier workers, viz., basavaraja et al (2003), salas and ramirez (2001), jeevansab (2000) and kalembasa and deska (1998) in capsicum. table 5. effect of nutrient source on seed traits in bell pepper varieties grown under open-field condition (pooled data of 2006 and 2007) nutrient source no. of seeds/fruit seed weight/fruit (g) 100 seed weight (g) v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 138.40 126.09 132.25 1.25 1.13 1.19 0.75 0.65 0.7 o 2 137.69 128.25 132.97 1.25 1.19 1.22 0.75 0.64 0.69 o3 126.69 118.92 122.81 1.21 1.11 1.16 0.75 0.63 0.69 o4 123.13 114.99 119.06 1.16 1.12 1.14 0.82 0.60 0.71 o5 152.28 132.69 142.49 1.21 1.24 1.22 0.74 0.64 0.69 o6 147.03 133.07 140.05 1.19 1.22 1.20 0.75 0.60 0.67 o7 124.59 125.10 124.85 1.18 1.17 1.17 0.73 0.56 0.64 o8 138.77 123.19 130.98 1.11 1.13 1.12 0.73 0.69 0.71 o9 124.57 118.27 121.42 1.23 1.19 1.21 0.67 0.60 0.63 o10 103.69 105.54 104.62 1.65 0.95 1.30 0.69 0.56 0.62 o11 93.83 85.43 89.63 0.89 0.75 0.82 0.58 0.44 0.51 mean 128.24 119.23 123.74 1.21 1.1091 1.16 0.72 0.60 0.66 cd at (p=0.05) sem± cd at (p=0.05) sem± cd at (p=0.05) sem± variety ((a) 1.53 ns 0.026 ns 0.0230 ns nutrient source (b) 2.77 7.67 0.063 0.175 0.0250 0.072 a × b 3.91 10.85 0.089 0.248 0.0354 0.101 a × b 9.23 0.192 0.110 v 1 = california wonder , v 2 = gangavati local table 4. effect of nutrient source on fruit pericarp characters in bell pepper varieties grown under open-field condition (pooled data of 2006 and 2007) nutrient source fruit pericarp weight pericarp thickness at centre pericarp thickness at seed:pericarp (g/10 fruits) of the fruit (cm) blossom end (cm) ratio v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean v 1 v 2 mean o1 633.66 254.80 444.23 0.79 0.62 0.70 1.35 1.17 1.26 0.019 0.044 0.032 o 2 627.04 248.97 438.00 0.75 0.61 0.68 1.40 1.14 1.27 0.020 0.047 0.033 o3 680.84 239.77 460.31 0.66 0.39 0.52 1.34 1.15 1.24 0.018 0.046 0.032 o4 666.92 245.19 456.06 0.65 0.54 0.59 1.36 1.06 1.21 0.017 0.044 0.031 o5 708.14 264.95 486.54 0.79 0.48 0.63 1.51 1.16 1.33 0.017 0.047 0.032 o6 669.27 256.53 462.90 0.72 0.62 0.67 1.39 1.13 1.26 0.017 0.047 0.032 o7 581.42 241.08 411.25 0.72 0.59 0.65 1.46 1.12 1.29 0.020 0.048 0.034 o8 527.34 243.16 392.75 0.64 0.61 0.62 1.40 1.08 1.24 0.021 0.047 0.034 o9 553.38 236.55 394.97 0.61 0.57 0.59 1.40 1.07 1.23 0.022 0.050 0.036 o10 564.77 240.27 402.52 0.51 0.48 0.49 1.23 1.04 1.13 0.029 0.040 0.034 o11 471.35 211.59 341.47 0.44 0.43 0.43 1.17 0.98 1.07 0.019 0.035 0.027 mean 607.65 243.90 426.45 0.66 0.54 0.60 1.36 1.10 1.23 0.020 0.045 0.032 cd at sem± cd at sem± cd at sem± cd at sem± (p=0.05) (p=0.05) (p=0.05) (p=0.05) variety (a) 6.11 1.000 0.08 0.013 0.06 0.0094 0.016 0.001 nutrient 11.13 4.016 0.11 0.041 0.12 0.0429 0.005 0.002 source (b) a × b 15.74 5.680 0.16 0.058 0.17 0.0607 0.007 0.003 v 1 = california wonder, v 2 = gangavati local j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):156-160, 2012 effect of organic cultivation on yield in bell pepper 160 organic nutrient sources, on application to soil improve its physical properties like aggregation, aeration, permeability and water holding capacity (govindarajan and thangaraju, 2001) thereby promoting growth and development of plants. it has been reported that among organic sources of nutrients, poultry manure is the best source for improving the physicochemical properties of soil (jeyabaskaran et al, 2001; naidu et al, 2002). poultry manure contained 2.00, 1.97 and 4.92% npk, respectively, and 113.2, 71.0, 140.6 and 310.5 mg/kg of total amount of zinc, copper, iron and manganese, respectively (gopal reddy, 1997). it has also been experimentally proved that considerable amount of n is present as uric acid which is readily available to plants. c: n ratio of poultry manure is reported to be narrower than in fym which attenuates release of nitrogen (chadwick et al, 2000). vermicompost is known to be another good organic source of nutrients showing good results. this may be due to higher macroand micro-nutrients, growth hormones, vitamins, antibiotics, enzymes, humic acid, beneficial microbes, etc. in it. vermicompost also acts as a chelating agent and regulates growth of plants by providing nutrients in their available form. these organic sources of nutrients can be applied either alone or in combination with inorganic fertilizers to obtain better yields and quality in a diverse array of crops (bhavalkar, 1991). organic nutrient sources have a profound effect on yield parameters in bell pepper varieties grown under open condition. the treatment combination of basal application of n (150kg/ha) equivalent to fym 50% and poultry manure 50% in the variety california wonder significantly improved fruit yield and yield attributing factors like weight of 10 fruits, number of fruits per plant and seed weight per fruit. references basavaraja, n., nandi, v.r. and praveen jhoglikar. 2003. protected cultivation of capsicum and bhendi. proceedings of all india seminar on potential and prospects for protective cultivation, institute of engineers, ahmednagar, december 12-13, 2003, pp. 197-199 bhavalkar, v.s. 1991. vermiculture biotechnology for leisa. seminar on low external input sustainable agriculture, amsterdam, the netherlands, pp. 1-6 chadwick, d.r., john, f., pain, b.f., chambers, b.j. and williams, j. 2000. plant uptake of nitrogen from the organic nitrogen fraction of animal manures: laboratory experiment. j. agril. sci., 154:159-168 gopal reddy, b. 1997. soil health under integrated nutrient management in maize-soybean cropping system. ph.d. thesis, acharya n.g. ranga agri. univ., rajendranagar, hyderabad govindarajan, k. and thangaraju, m. 2001. azospirillum a potential inoculant for horticultural crops. south ind. hort., 49:223-235 jeevansab, 2000. effect of nutrient sources on growth, yield and quality of capsicum grown under different environments. m.sc. (agri.) thesis, univ. agri. sci., dharwad, karnataka, india jeyabasakaran, k.j., pandey, s.d., mustaffa, m.m. and sathiamoorthy, s. 2001. effect of different organic manures with graded levels of inorganic fertilizers on ratoon of poovan banana. south ind. hort., 49:105109 kalembasa, s. and deska, j. 1998. the possibility of utilizing vermicompost in the cultivation of radish and paprika. roczniki akademii rolniczej-w-poznaniu ogrodnictwo, 27:131-136 naidu, a.k., kushwah, s.s. and dwivedi, y.c. 2002. influence of organic manures, chemical and biofertilizers on growth, yield and economics of brinjal. south ind. hort., 50:370-376 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi, pp. 100174 salas, s. and ramirez, c. 2001. a microbial bioassay to estimate nutrient availability of organic fertilizers: field calibration. agronomia-costaricense, 25:11-23 vasant, m.g. 2010. response of bell pepper to organic nutrition under different environments. ph.d. thesis, uas, dharwad, karnataka, india (ms received 17 september 2011, revised 09 november 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):156-160, 2012 vasant m. ganiger et al pgpr in managing root rot disease and enhancing growth in mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco.) seedlings b.n. chakraborty*, s. allay, a.p. chakraborty and u. chakraborty immuno-phytopathology laboratory department of botany, university of north bengal siliguri, darjeeling, west bengal 734 013, india *e-mail: bncnbu@gmail.com abstract decline in general plant-health and fruit production in mandarin influenced by abiotic and biotic factors is a major threat to cultivars grown in darjeeling and sikkim hills. fusarium root rot, caused by f. oxysporum, is one of the most serious diseases afflicted during early plant growth stage in citrus. to address this, seven pgpr isolates pseudomonas poae (rmk03), bac illus str atos phe ric us (rhs/cl-01), oc hrobactr um an thr opi, pae nibacillus len tim orbus , bac illus pum ilus, bac illus m e gate rium and bac illus amyloliquefaciens were isolated from the rhizosphere of citrus reticulata, c. limonia and camellia sinensis, and used for evaluating their effect on growth of mandarin seedlings. pseudomonas poae showed in vitro antagonism to fusarium oxysporum. better growth enhancement was noticed with p. poae, b. stratosphericus, o. anthropi and b. pumilus. enhanced activity of chlorophyll, total protein, phenol, four major defense enzymesc as observed upon application of pgpr. p. poae also suppressed root rot caused by fusarium oxysporum. use of pgpr, which promote growth besides reducing disease severity to some extent, may lead to use of eco-friendly approaches for controlling plant diseases. key words: pgpr, mandarin, root rot, citrus, bacterial isolates introduction mandarin (citrus reticulata blanco.) is one of the most important fruit crops of darjeeling and sikkim hills. economy of the farmers in this region is fully dependent on good, disease-free fruit production. however, several abiotic and biotic factors pose a threat to the plants, causing rapid decline in plant health resulting in decreased fruit production. several diseases in citrus are attributed to soil-borne fungi. fusarium root rot, caused by f. oxysporum, is one of the serious diseases in this crop. soil application of bacillus subtilis and streptomyces griseoviridis has been reported to control root rot disease (nemec et al., 1996; ziedan and eman, 2002). this has led to delivery of pgpr strains to the soil to improve population dynamics of the augmented bacterial antagonists and to suppress establishment of pathogenic microbes in horticultural crops (esitken, 2011). inte nsive inter ac tions ta ke pla c e in the rhizos pher e a mong soil, mic roorga nis ms and microfauna which may affect plant growth and yield positively or negatively (antoun and prevost, 2006). it has been proved that root inoculation and/or spraying with pgpr results in increased germination, seedling emergence, and, modified growth and yield in tomato (mayak et al, 2004; woitke et al, 2004), lettuce (han and lee, 2004; barassi et al, 2006), radish (yildirim et al, 2008a, b) and strawberry (karlidag et al, 2011). growth stimulation in plants by pgpr application may be a direct mechanism set-in by the production of seconda ry me tabolite s such as phytohormones, riboflavin and vitamins (dakora, 2003), or, through improved nutrient availability (glick, 1995; chabot et al, 1996a; yanni et al, 1997). three commercial biofertilizers: phosphorein (phosphate dissolving bacteria bac illus me gate r ium var. phos phatirc um), microbien (azotobacter spp.) and cerealien (nitrogenfixing cyanobacteria) controlled dry root-rot disease j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 105 of citrus caused by fusarium solani (mart.) snyd & hans, and improved the yield quality in mandarin (mohamedy and ahmed, 2009). enhanced plant nutrition effected by pgpr is mainly through increased phosphorus uptake, by solubilization of inorganic phosphate or by mineralization of organic phosphate. further, indirectly, pgpr act as biocontrol agents to reduce disease severity, or these stimulate other beneficial symbioses, or, protect the plant by degrading xenobiotics in contaminated soils (jacobsen, 1997). more importa ntly, such pgpr may also induce systemic resistance in the host (isr), thereby protecting plants against pathogen attack. this study aimed to understand the effect of pgpr in controlling root rot disease of mandarin caused by f. oxysporum using biochemical analysis during disease suppression. material and methods test organisms plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (pgpr): pseudomonas poae (rmk03), isolated from the rhizos phere of citr us re tic ulate ; bac illus stratosphericus (rhs/cl-01), isolated from the rhizosphere of citrus limonia; and, ochrobactrum anthropi, p ae nibacillus le ntimor bus, bacillus pumilus , bac illus me gate r ium and bac illus amyloliquefaciens, isolated from the rhizosphere of camellia sinensis, were identified on the basis of morphological, microscopic and biochemical tests, and 16s rdna sequencing. fungal pathogen: f. oxysporum (rhs/m534), causing root rot of mandarin, was obtained from the rhizosphere of c. reticulata. blast query of the 18s rdna sequence of f. oxysporum against genbank database confirmed its identity. morphologic a l and s ca nning e le ctron microscopic (sem) studies: pure cultures of the three isolates were streaked on nutrient agar (na) plates for colony development. individual colonies were examined for shape, size, structure and pigmentation. gram-specific reactions of these isola tes were recorded as per buchanan and gibbson (1974). gram positive/negative reaction and the shape of cells was recorded. sem view of all the seven isolates was also recorded. genomic dna isolation and 16s rdna amplification by pcr extraction of genomic dna was done from 24h old culture a s per sta fford et al (2005) with modification. this was followed by spectrophotometric quantic a tion using a colepa rme r uv–vis spectrophotometer and, quality was analyzed on 0.8% agarose gel. for pcr amplication, dna was amplied by mixing the template dna (50ng) with polymerase re ac tion buff er, dnt p mix, prime rs a nd taq polymerase. polymerase chain reaction (pcr) was performed in a total volume of 100 l, containing 78 l deionized water, 10 l 10x taq polymerase buffer, 1 l 1u taq polymerase enzyme, 6 l of 2 mm dntps, 1.5 l of 100 mm forwa rd (50-agagt rt gatcmtygct wac-30) a nd re ve rse (50cgytamc ttwttacg rct-30) primers, and 3.5 l of 50ng template dna. pcr programming was as follows: initial denaturing at 94°c for 5 min, followed by 30 cycles of denaturation at 94°c for 60s, annealing at 59°c for 60s and extension at 70°c for 2 min, and final extension at 72°c for 7 min, in a primus 96 advanced gradient thermocycler. the pcr product (20 l) was mixed with a loading buffer (8 l) containing 0.25% bromophenol blue, 40% w/v sucrose in water, and then loaded onto 2% agarose gel with 0.1% ethidium bromide for examination under horizontal electrophoresis. t he pcr product was sent for sequencing to chromous biotech, bengaluru, india. 16s rdna sequence and phylogenetic analysis the 16s rdna sequences obtained from pcr products were analyzed by ncbi-blast and aligned with ex-type isolate sequences from ncbi genbank for identication. evaluation of pgpr activity with bacterial isolates in vitro phosphate solubilization: primary phosphate solubilizing of all eight isolates was carried out by allowing the bacteria to grow on a selective medium, i.e ., pikovs kaya’s a gar ( pikovs ka ya, 1948). appearance of a transparent halo around the bacterial colony indicated phosphate solubilizing activity of the bacterium. side rophore produc tion: produc tion of siderophore was detected by the standard method of pgpr in disease management in mandarin j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 106 schwyn and neiland (1987), using the blue indicator chrome azurol s (cas). iaa production: for detection and quantification of iaa, selected bacterial cells were grown for 24h to 48h on high c/n ratio medium. tryptophan (0.1mm) was added to enhance indole acetic acid (iaa) production. iaa in the culture supernatant was assayed by pillet-chollet method (dobbelaere et al, 1999). plant growth promotion one-year-old mandarin seedlings were selected and earthenware pots under open condition. field-grown plants were watered regularly for maintenance. growth promotion was studied in terms of increase in plant height and number of leaves. observations were recorded at 4 and 8 months from application of the seven different bacterial strains. in vitro antagonism f. oxysporum was paired with p. poae on solid medium as per chakraborty and chakraborty (1989). inoculum preparation and application plant growth promoting rhizobacteria: initially, bacteria were cultured on nutrient broth medium (himedia, m002-100g, ingredients: peptic digest of animal tissue 5.00g/litre, sodium chloride 5.00g/l, beef extract1.50g/l, yeast extract1.50g/l, final ph at 25°c 7.4±0.2), and allowed to grow with shaking at 37°c at 120rpm for 48h. at the end of the log phase, bacterial cultures were centrifuged at 10,000rpm for 15 min and the bacterial pellet collected. bacterial aqueous suspension was prepared using distilled water as per requirement, to maintain a bacterial concentration of 108 c.f.u./ml. the aqueous suspension was then applied as foliar spray and soil-drench @ 100 ml/plant to the rhizosphe re of one -yea r-old manda rin pla nts. application of suspension was done every month, repeated in three replications. fungal pathogen: the pathogen (f. oxysporum) was grown in sand-maize meal medium (maize meal:sand:water 1:9:1 w:w:v) in autoclaved plastic bags (sterilized at 20lb pressure for 20 min) for a period of three weeks at 28ºc, until the mycelium completely covered the substrate. mandarin seedlings were inoculated by adding 100g of previously prepared inoculum of f. oxysporum to the rhizosphere soil. disease assessment dise a se a ss es sme nt was done a s pe r chakraborty et al (2006) at 15, 30 and 45d after inoculation. disease intensity was assessed as rootrot index on a scale of 0-6, depending on underground as well as above-ground symptoms, as follows: 0=no symptom; 1=small roots turn brownish and start rotting; 2=leaves start withering and 20-40% of roots turn brown; 3=leaves withered and 50% of roots affected; 4=shoot tips also start withering and 60-70% roots affected; 5=shoots withered, with defoliation of lower withered leaves, 80% roots affected; 6=whole plants die, with upper withered leaves still attached to the shoot; roots fully rotted. biochemical analysis all the biochemical analyses were performed with treated as well as control mandarin leaves and roots. enzyme assay peroxidase (pox, ec1.11.1.7): extraction and assay of peroxidase was done as per chakraborty et al (1993). specific activity was expressed as an chitinase (cht, ec 3.2.1.14): chitinase was extracted from mandarin leaves and assayed following boller and mauch (1988). phenylalanine ammonia lyase (pal, ec 4.3.1.5): the enzyme was extracted and assayed as per bhattacharya and ward (1987). enzyme activity was determined as the amount of cinnamic acid produced from l-phenyl alanine from 1g of tissue/min. 1,3glucanase ( : glucanase was e xtracted and assayed from leaf samples as per pan et al (1991). enzyme activity was phenolics: phenols were extracted and estimated from leaf samples as per mahadevan and sridhar (1982). quantification of total phenol and o-dihydroxy phenol was done using a standard of caffeic acid. chlorophyll total chlorophyll content was estimated by the method of harborne (1973). chakraborty et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 107 protein soluble proteins were extracted and estimated by the method of lowry et al (1951). results and discussion microscopic observations and identification of pgpr morphological observations of all the seven pgpr isolates showed that these were rod shaped and gram +(ve) with the exception of rmk03 isolated from the rhizosphere of citrus reticulata, which was rod shaped but gram -(ve). all the bacilli of the group als o produc ed e ndos pore s. sc a nning ele ctron micrographs also confirmed the structure of bacteria: b. amyloliquefacienslarger, rod shaped (size ), b. pumilus –rod shaped (size o. anthropirod shaped (size 2µm), p. lentimorbusrod shaped (size 2µm) and b. megaterium larger rod, shaped (size 2µm). of the seven pgpr isolates, sequences of two isolates, rmk03 and rhs/cl-01, have been deposited with ncbi genbank database, under accession nos. kj 917553.1 and km 066950.1, for pseudomonas poae and bacillus stratosphericus, respectively. these two isola tes , ps eudomonas poae and bac illus stratosphericus, isolated from the rhizosphere of citrus reticulata and c. limoni, respectively, were selected for the present study on the basis of their better response of phosphate solubilization and in vitro antagonism against f. oxysporum, causal agent of the root-rot disease in mandarin. blast query of the 18s rdna sequence of f. oxysporum (rhs/m534) against genbank database confirmed its identity. the sequence has been deposited with ncbi genba nk database as accession no. kf952602. in vitro pgpr activities the seven bacterial strains were tested for different pgpr activity, as described already under materials and methods. all these seven isolates produced a clear halo zone of approx. 3cm dia in pikovskaya’s medium indicating, that, these could solubilize phosphate. similarly, production of siderophore was confirmed by a change in colour of cas from blue to yellow around the bacterial inoculum in the petri plate (table 1). antagonistic effects of p. poae against f. oxysporum pgpr in disease management in mandarin j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 rhizosphere pgpr isolate gen bank acc. no. phosphate characteristic iaa solubilization siderophore production production citrus reticulata pseudomonas poae kj917553 + + + (rm-k-03) citrus limoni bacillus stratosphericus km066950 + + + (cl-rh-01) camellia sinensis bacillus amyloliquefaciens jn983127 + + + (trs 6) ochrobactrum anthropi + + + (trs 4) paenibacillus lentimorbus + + + (trs 5) bacillus pumilus jq765579 + + + (brhs/t382) bacillus megaterium jx312687 + + + (trs 7) table 1. in vitro pgpr characteristics of bacterial isolates + = activity present 108 p. poae was tested for its antagonistic effect on f. oxysporum. in paired culture, p. poae inhibited growth of f. oxysporum (fig. 1). growth of mandarin seedlings p. poae reduced significant root-rot (table 2). disease index value of root-rot in one-year-old mandarin saplings following the treatment with f.oxysporum at 15 days after inoculation was 2.3, whereas, this value fell to 0.6 in plants treated with p. poae and challenge-inoculated with f.oxysporum. even at 45 days after inoculation, root-rot index value was low in p. poae+f. oxysporum treatment, in comparison to the plants inoculated with f. oxysporum alone. chlorophyll and phenol content chakraborty et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 fig 1. in vitro antagonistic effect of p. poae against f. oxysporum (a), p. poae+f. oxysporum (b) growth promotion was studied in terms of increase in plant height and number of leaves, in comparison to the control. marked by enhanced growth of one-year-old mandarin seedlings was observed with all the isolates, but, superior growth enhancement was noticed on application of p. poae, b. stratosphericus, o. anthropi and b. pumilus. per cent increase in plant height and number of leaves in mandarin plants were recorded at 4th and 8th month after application of the seven isolates as soil drench and foliar spray (fig. 2). effect of p. poae on root-rot of mandarin fig 2. effect of pgpr application on growth of mandarin seedlings at 4 and 8 months. t1p. poae, t2b. statosphericus, t3b. amyloliquefaciens, t4o. anthropi, t5p. lentimorbus, t6b. pumilus and t7b. megaterium treated. differences in height determined through t-test between control and treatments significant at p=0.05.different letters (a,b) above bars indicate significant difference in t-test at p=0.05 between control and treated. table 2. disease index for root rot incidence in one-year old mandarin saplings following tre atment with pseudomonas poae and pathogen challenge disease index da ys of root inoculated wi th plant tr eated in ocul at i on f. oxysporum alone with p. poae and pathogen f. oxysporum 15 2.3±0.145a 0.6±0.145b 30 3.4±0.115a 1.2±0.115b 45 5.9±0.057a 2.8±0.115b rot index: 0no symptoms; 1small roots turn brownish and start rotting; 2leaves start withering and 20-40% of roots turn brown; 3leaves withered and 50% of roots affected; 4shoot tips also start withering; 60-70% roots affected; 5shoots withered with defoliation of lower (withered) leaves, 80% roots affected; 6whole plant dies, with upper withered leaves still attached to shoot, roots fully rotted average of thre e re plicates; differences between f. oxys porum trea tment a nd p. poae + f. oxy sporum tr e a t m e nt s i gnif i c a nt a t p = 0. 05 ( st ude nt ’s t test)difference between f. oxysporum and p. poae + f. oxysporum teatments significant at p = 0.05 (students ttest) whe re superscript (a, b) are differe nt ; where seperate same, difference insignificant bioc h em ic a l t e st s we re p e rf orme d to evaluate changes brought about by application of the pgpr isola te s. enhanced a cc umulation of chlorophyll and total phenol was observed in the tre ate d se edling, as compa re d to the control (fig. 3). 109 defense enzymes and protein the activity of defense enzymes and protein on seedling are presented in table 3. there was considerable increase in the activity of the defense enzymes, viz, pal, pox (fig. 4 a-b), cht and 1,3-glu (fig. 5 a-b), with all seven pgpr isolates. significant increase in the activity of defense enzymes was observed in p. poae + f. oxysporum treatments in comparison to p. poae or f. oxysporum alone, or in control plants (fig. 6 a-b; fig. 7 a-b). chitinase content increased with increase in period of inoculation in both leaves and roots, whereas, peroxidase activity decreased with increase in the number of hours. leaves showed a significant drop in peroxidase activity within 96 hours of inoculation. protein content also increased significantly in plants following bacterial application, compared to that in untreated control plants. se ven pgpr isolates, pseudomonas poae (rmk03), bacillus stratosphericus (rhs/cl-01), ochrobactrum anthropi, paenibacillus lentimorbus, bacillus pumilus, bacillus megaterium and bacillus amyloliquefaciens, were tested on mandarin seedlings in pot culture experiment, for plant growth promoting activity when applied as an aqueous suspension to nonsterile soil with the natural rhizospheric microflora. of the seven pgpr isolates, sequence of two isolates (rmk03 and rhs/cl-01) has been deposited with ncbi genbank database under the accession nos. kj 917553.1 and km 066950.1 for pseudomonas poae and bacillus stratosphericus, respectively. the sequence of f. oxysporum (rhs/m534) has been pgpr in disease management in mandarin j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 table 3. protein content in leaf and root upon application of various pgpr isolates average of three replicates; differences between control and treated significant at p=0.05 (student’s t-test)difference between control and treated significant at p = 0.05 (student’s t-test) where superscript (a, b) are different ; where superscipt same, difference insignificant treatment protein content leaf root untreated (control) 63.0 ± 0.57a 2.68 ± 0.397a plant treated with: pseudomonas poae 136.8 ± 1.18b 8.58 ± 0.881b bacillus stratosphericus 106.4 ± 1.16b 6.37 ± 0.867b bacillus amyloliquefaciens 107.7 ± 1.74b 4.04 ± 1.15b ochrobactrum anthropi 104.2 ± 1.15b 6.29 ± 1.15b paenibacillus lentimorbus 104.2 ± 0.58b 5.77 ± 1.73b bacillus pumilus 76.4 ± 1.16b 5.81 ± 0.57b bacillus megaterium 86.8 ± 1.19b 2.88 ± 0.57b gt = gram of tissue fig 3. effect of application of rhizobacterial strains on total chlorophyll content (a) and total phenol content (b) in mandarin leaves. t1p. poae, t2b. statosphericus, t3b. amyloliquefaciens, t4o. anthropi, t5p. lentimorbus, t6b. pumilus and t7b. megaterium treated; mg /gt =milligram/gm tissue; differences in chlorophyll and phenol content determined through t-test between control and treatment significant at p=0.05.different letters (a,b) above bars indicate significant difference in t-test at p=0.05 between control and treated. 110 chakraborty et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 fig 4. activity of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (a) and peroxidase (b) in leaf and root of mandarin following application of pgpr. t1p. poae, t2b. statosphericus, t3b. amyloliquefaciens, t4o. anthropi, t5p. lentimorbus, t6b. pumilus and t7b. megaterium treated;µgcinnamic acid/gt/min=µgcinnamic acid/gm tissue/min; “o.d/gt/min=”o.d/gm tisuue/ min;differences in pal and pox activities determined through t-test between control and treated leaf / root, significant at p=0.05.different letters (a,b) above bars indicate significant difference in t-test at p=0.05 between control and treated. fig 5. activity of -1,3 glucanase (a) and chitinase (b) in leaf and root of mandarin following application of pgpr. t1p. poae, t2b. statosphericus, t3b. amyloliquefaciens, t4o. anthropi, t5p. lentimorbus, t6b. pumilus and t7b. megaterium treated; µgglu/gt/min=µgglu/gm tissue/min; µgnacglu/gt/hour=µgnacglu/gmtissue/hour; differences in glu and cht activity determined through t-test between control and treated leaf / root, significant at p=0.05.different letters (a,b) above bars indicate significant difference in t-test at p=0.05 between control and treated. 111 fig 6. activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (a) and peroxidase (b) in leaf and root of mandarin see dlings following application of p. poae and f. oxy sporum at 24 and 96 hours after inoculation;µgcinnamic a cid/ gt/min=µgcinnamic a cid/gm tissue/min; “o.d/gt/min=”o.d/gm tisuue /min; differences in pal and pox act ivity determine d through t-test be tween control and tre ate d lea f / root, significant at p=0.05.differ ent letters (a,b) above bars indicate signific ant difference in t-test at p=0. 05 between control and treated. fig 7. activity of -1, 3 glucanase (a ) and chitinase (b) in le af and root of mandar in se edlings following application of p. poae a nd f. oxysporum a t 24 and 96 hours a fte r inoculation;µgglu/gt/min=µgglu/gm tissue / min; µgnacglu/gt/hour=µgnacglu/gm tissue/hour;difference s in glu and cht activity determined through ttest betwe en control a nd treate d le af / root, signific ant at p=0.05.diffe rent le tte rs (a, b) above bars indicate significant differe nce in t-te st at p=0.05 betwe en control and tre ated. j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 pgpr in disease management in mandarin 112 deposited in ncbi genbank database under the accession no. kf952602. markedly enhanced growth of mandarin seedlings was observed with application of pgpr; however, superior growth enhancement was noticed with p. poae, b. stratosphericus, o. anthropi and b. pumilus application. all these isolates solubilized phospha te and produc ed siderophore s in vitro. application of b. pumilus along with g. mosseae in the rhizosphere of citrus plants led to an increase in growth of seedlings in terms of increase in plant height and number of leaves (chakraborty et al, 2011). acharya et al (2013) reported soil application and foliar spray of pgpr to be effective in promoting overall growth of sualu plants, as well as a increase in the level of defense-related enzymes, phenols and protein in the leaves of treated plants. similar results were rec orde d in tea see dlings upon a pplication of ochrobactrum anthropi (chakraborty et al, 2009). nelson (2004) reported significant control of plant pathogens, or direct enhancement of plant development, by pgpr. the author also pointed out recent progress in understanding diversity, colonizing ability, mechanism of action, formulation and application of pgpr in management of sustainable agricultural systems. lavania et al (2006) reported the ability of serratia marcescens nbr11213 to promote growth and control foot and root rot disease of betel vine caused by phytophthora nicotianeae, while, chakraborty et al (2010) reported positive influence of s. marcescens (trs-1) on growth of tea seedlings. the ability of b. megaterium to produce iaa (used for lateral-root induction) and to promote growth in lactuca sativa, alone, or in combination with arbuscular mycorrhiza, was reported by marulanda-aguirre et al (2008). orhan et al (2006) reported plant growth promoting effects of two bacillus strains, osu-142 (n2-fixing) and m3 (n2-fixing and phosphate solubilizing). bacillus m3 strain stimulated plant growth and resulted in significant yield increase in raspberry (cv. heritage) plants in terms of yield, growth and nutrient composition of leaf. chakraborty et al (2013) reported that bacillus amyloliquefaciens, serratia marcescens and b. pumilus enhanced seedling growth in tea varieties in nursery as well as in the field. effect of bacteria on metabolism in mandarin seedlings was also determined. to determine if the bacteria could induce systemic resistance in mandarin plants, accumulation of defenserelated enzymes and phenolics was studied. results revealed that the seven pgpr isolates also enhanced the activity of defense-related enzymes peroxidase, chitinase, 1,3-glucanase, phenylalanine ammonia lyase, protein content as well as total phenol. greater increase in the activity of defense enzymes was observed in p. poae + f. oxysporum treatments, in comparison to p. poae or f. oxysporum-treated or control plants. enhanced activity of chlorophyll was also observed. antibiotic-producing pseudomonas chlororaphis strains df190 and pa23, bacillus cereus strain dfe4, and bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain dfe16 were tested for elicitating induced systemic resistance (isr) and direct antibiosis for control of black-leg in canola, caused by the fungal pathogen leptosphaeria maculans. bacteria were shown to control the black-leg disease in canola (ramarathnam et al, 2011). twenty-one isolates of pseudomonas fluorescens were isolated and their identity confirmed through various biochemical tests, of which five tested positive for 2,4-dapg production, with specific primers. the biocontrol potential of these isolates on groundnut stem-rot pathogen (sclerotium rolfsii) was determined through in vitro dual culture assays. eight isolates were found effective against s. rolfsii (causing up to 75% inhibition) in the dual culture method. all the five 2,4-dapg-producing plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria isolates were highly antagonistic to s. rolfsii (asadhi et al, 2013). biological control re presents a promising approach for protection of plants against soil-borne pathogens. fusarium wilt of cucumber, caused by f. oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum, has been successfully controlled by b. subtilis sqr 9, both in vitro and in vivo. wilt incidence reduced significantly by 49%–61% (cao et al, 2011). yuan et al (2012) established that volatile compounds produced by b. amyloliquefaciens njn-6 reduced mycelial growth and germination of spores in f. oxysporum f. sp. cubense in vivo by about 30-40%, and strongly antagonized f. oxysporum in the soil as well. akhtar et al (2010) studied the effect of bacillus pumilus, pseudomonas alcaligenes and rhizobium sp. on wilt of lentil caused by f. oxysporum f. sp. lentis. combined application resulted in the greatest increase in plant growth, number of pods, nodulation, root colonization by rhizobacteria, and, reduced wilting. conclusion application of diffe re nt pgpr to citr us reticulata resulted in improved growth of the crop, with simultaneous enhancement in activity of defense chakraborty et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 104-115, 2017 113 pgpr in disease management in mandarin enzymes, and higher proteins, phenolics and chlorophyll. root rot disease was successfully managed using one of the pgpr strains, pseudomonas poae. these pgpr can be potentially developed as plant growth promoters having disease suppressing ability. acknowledgement we wish to thank university grants commission (ugc), new delhi, for providing funds for this research. references akhtar, m.s., shakeel, u. and siddiqui, z.a. 2010. biocontrol of fusarium wilt by bacillus pumilus, pseudomonas alcaligenes and rhizobium sp. on lentil. tur. j. biol., 34:1-7 acharya, a., chakraborty, u. and chakraborty, b.n. 2013. improvement of health status of litsea monopetala using plant growth promoting 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popular conventional products in the african countries and, further, quality enhancement of the beverage is reported in scientific literature (iwuoha and eke 1996; akubor et al, 2003; aurore et al, 2009; carvalho et al, 2009). fermented fruit beverages are distinct from unfermented fruit juices as these possess a unique flavour due to synthesis and molecular rearrangement of esters, carbonyl compounds, alcohols and fatty acids during fermentation, clarification and subsequent storage (rapp and mandery, 1986). extensive research has been done on flavour profile of the banana fruit, and scientists have documented banana flavour as a varietal character. major flavour principles in the banana are: esters, carbonyl compounds, free alcohols and short-chain organic acids (mattei, 1973; marriott, 1980; macku and jennings, 1987). however, there is no information published to date on aroma profile of the banana wine. this study describes j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):217-223, 2013 1division of plant physiology and biochemistry, iihr, bangalore aroma profile of fruit juice and wine prepared from cavendish banana (musa sp., group aaa) cv. robusta k. ranjitha, c.k. narayana and t.k. roy1 division of post harvest technology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560089, india e-mail: ranjitha@iihr.ernet.in abstract a comparative study of the aroma profile of an alcoholic beverage (wine) and natural juice from banana cv. robusta was performed. the study showed disappearance and synthesis of many aroma compounds during the fermentation process. relative abundance of carbonyl compounds was high in the juice, and carboxylic acid content was higher in the wine. aroma signature compounds of banana juice, isoamyl acetate, butyl isovalerate, isopentyl isovalerate, trans2hexenal and butanoates were present only in a low proportion in the wine, while decanoic, dodecanoic and hexa decanoic acids (as well as their esters) were abundant in the banana wine. synthesis compounds like methyl nonyl ketone, isoeuginol and 2-methoxy 4-vinyl phenol was greater during fermentation. elemicin was present in high quantity in both the juice and the wine. key words: banana wine, head-space volatiles, esters, fermentation-derived aroma, spme method aroma profile of a high-quality fermented beverage compared with unfermented juice of the banana in a commercially important cavendish cultivar, robusta. material and methods preparation of the substrate for fermentation pulp obtained from the ripe banana of cv. robusta was mixed with 0.5% pectinase ccm plus (a cocktail of enzymes obtained from biocon ltd., bangalore), incubated for 90 min. at 50oc and the juice extracted by straining through a muslin cloth. the juice was then diluted with water in the ratio 2:1, tss and acidity were adjusted to 22obrix and 0.6%, respectively, followed by addition of 200ppm potassium metabisulphite and 0.03% diammonium phosphate. fermentation log phase culture of saccharomyces cerevisiae ucd522 was inoculated @ 2% v/v to the above-mentioned substrate material, and fermentation was carried out at 18oc in 3 litre conical flasks fitted with loose cotton plugs. progress in the fermentation process was measured using a brix hydrometer, and, completely fermented juice was racked and clarified using bentonite and stored at 10oc for two months. 218 biochemical and sensory analysis of banana wine banana wine was analyzed for ph, acidity, phenolics, residual sugar and alcohol (amerine and ough, 1982). sensory properties of the wine were evaluated using a ninepoint hedonic scale. head-space volatile analysis of banana juice and wine using gc-fid and gc-ms headspace aroma of banana juice and wine was extracted by solid phase micro-extraction (spme) technique and analyzed using gc-fid and gc-ms/ms. highly crossed-linked 50/30μm divenylbenzene/carboxen/ polydimethylsiloxane (dvb/car/pdms) spme fibre (supelco inc. bellefonte, pa, usa) was used for extraction of volatile compounds from banana juice and wine. sodium chloride was added to the sample prior to head-space sampling to improve extraction efficiency, thus increasing the amount of analytes adsorbed onto the fibre (pawliszyn, 1997). extraction process followed for estimating headspace volatiles in banana fruit juice and wine was as described earlier by (vermeir et al, 2009). ten ml of the fruit juice diluted with an equal quantity of water, and, 20ml wine samples plus 1g nacl were transferred to two 50 ml vials with screw-caps silicon rubber septum and a small magnetic bar. vials were sealed with the rubber septum immediately after transfer of the sample, and were kept at 37±1oc for 15 min. with continuous stirring to facilitate transfer of analytes and equilibration to the head-space. sampling was done by inserting the pre-conditioned fibre in the head-space for 90 min. at 37±1oc with continuous stirring. subsequently, the spme device was introduced into the injector port for gas chromatographic analysis, and was kept in the inlet for 10 min. for desorption. gc-fid analysis was performed on a varian-3800 gas chromatograph (varianbv, harculesweg b,4338 pl middelburg, the netherlands) system equipped with 30m x 0.25mm id with 0.25μm film-thickness vf-5 fused silica capillary column (varian inc., 25200 commercentre drive, lake forest, ca 92630-8810, usa). the detector and injector were net at temperatures 270 and 250oc, respectively, and the column oven temperature program was: 50oc for 2 min. followed by increment of 3oc/min up to 200oc held for 3 min., and then, with increment rate of 10oc/min. up to 220oc and held for 8 min. at the same temperature. the carrier gas was helium, with a flow rate of 1.0ml/min. with 1:5 split ratio. for qualitative identification of volatile substances and for comparative variation of retention time and index, standards such as ethyl acetate, propanol, butanol, amyl alcohol, isoamyl acetate, pentanol, hexanol, 1-octene-3-ol, eugenol were co-chromatographed. varian-3800 gas chromatograph coupled to a varian4000, ion-trap mass spectra detector (varianbv, harculesweg b,4338 pl middelburg, the netherlands) equipped with a fused-silica capillary column vf-5ms with 30m x 0.25mm id, 0.25μm film-thickness from varian (varian inc., 25200 commercentre drive, lake forest, ca 926308810, usa) was used for gc-ms analysis of volatile constituents. helium, with a flow rate of 1ml/min, was used as the carrier gas. the mass spectrometer was operated in the external electron ionization mode at 70ev, with full mass scan-range 45–450 amu. the ion trap, transfer line and ion source temperatures were maintained at 200oc, 240oc and 210oc, respectively. temperature was programmed as described earlier. head-space volatiles were quantified as relative per-cent area in gc-fid chromatogram, and were identified by comparing retention index as determined using homologous series of n-alkanes (c5 to c32) as the standard (kovats, 1965) and comparing the spectra available with two spectral libraries, wiley-2005 and nist-2007. results and discussion in the present experiment, an alcoholic beverage was prepared from ripe fruits of the popular banana cultivar, robusta. the beverage possessed biochemical characteristics typical of dry table wines (table 1). it possessed a pleasant aroma, distinct from unfermented juice, and was scored as “like very much” by a panel of trained judges (scoring 8±0.6 in the nine-point hedonic scale). analysis of the head-space volatiles revealed a clear difference between aroma principles of the fresh juice and the wine. the principal groups of aroma compounds found in the head-space volatiles of juice and wine were esters, table 1. biochemical composition of alcoholic beverage prepared from banana cv. robusta (aaa group) parameter value p h 4.00 ± 0.15 total acidity (% citric acid) 0.50 ± 0.012 alcohol (%v/v) 10.98 ± 0.56 volatile acidity (% acetic acid) 0.03 ± 0.00 phenolics (mg/l) 606 ± 32 residual sugars (mg/l) 700 ± 25 *total antioxidant potential (mg aeac/l) 326 ± 1.20 **sensory score (in 9 point hedonic scale) 8 ± 0.6 values given are a mean of three replicates ± std deviation * aeac= ascorbic acid equivalent antioxidant capacity ** mean of 10 replications j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):217-223, 2013 ranjitha et al 219 alcohols, phenols, carboxylic acids, carbonyl compounds, hydrocarbons, and a few others like phenyl-methoxy compounds (fig. 1). esters were the most prominent aromatic principles in juice (50%) and wine (62.9%). levels of carbonyl compounds and hydrocarbons were high in fruit juice (13.1% and 11.86%, respectively), and the proportion of alcohols in head-space was similar in both the products. carboxylic acid fraction was very negligible (1.4%) in banana juice, but its proportion increased significantly in wine (14.1%). the above observation points to disappearance or modification of a few aroma compounds, and simultaneous production of another set of flavor principles during winemaking. research on production of flavor compounds in grape wine is rather advanced, and studies have shown that during alcoholic fermentation of the fruit, yeast produces ethanol, carbon dioxide and a number of by-products, including esters (mateo et al, 1992). aromatic profile pattern of a wine is a function of the fermentative strain, vinification temperature and glycosylated aroma precursors present in the fruit (lilly et al, 2000). occurrence of glycosylated compounds like fatty acids and shikimic acid derivatives have been reported earlier in banana fruit (perez et al, 1997). relative abundance of individual aroma compounds is presented in table 1. a total of 19 alcoholic compounds were present in the banana juice, while the fermented beverage possessed only 15 compounds belonging to the same functional group. it was found that amyl alcohol, (e,e)dodeca-8,10-dien-1-ol, 11-tridecyne-1-ol were the major hydroxyl compounds in banana juice, while, amyl alcohol, α-methylphenethyl alcohol, (z,z)dodeca -3, 6-dien-1-ol, etc. were prominent in banana wine. phenols such as methyl euginol, euginol, isoeuginol and methoxy euginol were present in both banana juice and wine, while, 2-methoxy-4 vinylphenol was detected only in the banana juice. these are low aroma-threshold compounds and have been earlier reported to contribute the floral note to banana aroma (shiota, 1991). the compound, 2-phenyl ethyl alcohol, was identified as one of the major aglycon moieties in the ripe banana fruit (perez et al, 1997). the glycosidases present in the banana juice would have helped release this bound flavour from its precursor molecule. phenyl ethyl alcohol imparts a sweet, floral, rosy note to the product (ribereaugayon et al, 2006). the flavour profile of banana juice was characterized by approximately 21 types of carbonyl compounds, of which (z,z)-oxacyclo trideca-4-7-dien-2-one, trans-2hexenal, β-ionone, isoamyl aldehyde, etc. were present in higher quantities. but, wine possessed very low levels of carbonyl compounds, which were predominated by isoamyl aldehyde, methyl nonyl ketone and cycloisolongifolene. this observation leads to the inference that even though most carbonyl compounds are incapable of surviving vinification, some carbonyls like isoamyl aldehyde and methyl nonyl ketone are synthesized during banana wine making. the carbonyl fraction, along with the alcohols, contributes to the woody or musty flavor, among which, trans-2-hexenal and pentan-2-one contribute to the herbal note in banana juice (shiota, 1991). decrease in levels of hexanal and trans-2hexenal are reported earlier in grape fermentation (kotseridis and baumes, 2000). the above observation suggests that radical differences in the levels of highly odorous carbonyl compounds also contribute to the distinctness of banana wine aroma. there were 11 kinds of acid in the head-space of banana juice, and this number were 12 in the banana wine. the banana juice had higher quantity of short-chain carboxylic acids, while, the wine was predominated by longchain acids, of which n-decanoic acid was the most predominant. fatty acids in wines result from auto-oxidation of saturated lipids in the fruit and the cell membrane component of yeast. the most abundant fatty acid in the banana wine, n-decanoic acid (capric acid), is an important component of yeast cell membrane, and autolysis of the yeast cell gives way to its release in the wine (rapp, 1998; torija et al, 2003). esters were, by far, the predominant compounds in banana juice and wine. banana juice contained 38 esteric compounds, of which, short-chain organic acid esters such as that of acetic, propanoic, butyric, isovaleric acid, etc., were the most abundant. banana wine had 37 ester compounds in the head space, with large amounts of longerchain acid esters like that of decanoic, dodecanoic, octanoic, octadecanoic acids etc. in the present study, the most table 2. head-space volatile compounds identified in juice and wine from banana cv. robusta (aaa group) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):217-223, 2013 aroma analysis in banana fruit juice and wine 220 table 2. contd. name of the compound kovat’s relative area percentage index juice wine tridecan-2-one 1498 0.30 — tridecanal 1522 0.09 — tetradecanal 1584 — 0.13 2-methylhexadecanal 1835 0.32 — (z)-9,17-octadecadienal 1988 0.33 — acids 2-hydroxy-2966 — 0.06 methylbutanoic acid 4-hexenoic acid 984 0.35 — 2,3,3-trimethyl-41019 0.01 — pentenoic acid heptanoic acid 1083 0.09 0.07 benzoic acid 1178 — 0.61 4-butoxybutanoic acid 1249 0.39 — 8-nonenoic acid 1274 0.21 — 3-ethyl-3-methylpentanedioic 1451 0.23 — acid tridecanoic acid 1324 — 0.03 3-ethyl-3-methylpentanedioic 1454 — 0.16 acid undecanoic acid 1458 — 0.43 n-decanoic acid 1573 — 11.88 dodecanoic acid 1592 — 0.15 pentadecanoic acid 1843 — 0.06 hexadecanoic acid 1961 0.21 0.63 cis-9-octadecenoic acid 2095 — 0.04 esters methyl 2-propenoate 578 — 0.82 ethyl 2-butynoate 794 0.02 — trans-2-hexenyl formate 803 0.24 — ethyl butanoate 806 0.15 — butyl acetate 812 0.12 0.03 ethyl isovalerate 858 — 0.01 isoamyl acetate 872 6.60 2.92 propyl butanoate 912 0.54 — propyl isovalerate 956 0.48 — propyl-2-methyl butanoate 978 0.15 — ethyl 3-hexenoate 992 — 0.16 butyl butanoate 994 2.35 — ethyl hexanoate 996 — 0.41 isoamyl butanoate 1008 2.11 — hexyl acetate 1010 0.07 — isopentyl 2-methyl propanoate 1013 1.17 — butyl isovalerate 1072 10.02 — 6-heptenyl acetate 1073 — 0.03 ethyl sorbate 1089 — 0.20 ethyl heptanoate 1099 — 0.06 isopentyl isovalerate 1105 19.45 0.38 ethyl benzoate 1172 — 2.43 isoamyl iso valerate 1183 0.02 — butyl hexanoate 1186 0.05 — hexyl butanoate 1190 1.48 0.38 trans-2-hexenyl butyrate 1191 1.21 0.04 1-methylhexyl butyrate 1198 0.01 0.04 1-methylheptyl butyrate 1217 0.06 — butyl sorbate 1222 0.29 — β-phenylethyl acetate 1226 — 0.62 table 2. head-space volatile compounds identified in juice and wine from banana cv. robusta (aaa group) name of the compound kovat’s relative area percentage index juice wine alcohols amyl alcohol 765 1.33 1.61 1-hexyne-3-ol 779 0.06 — 2,3-butanedithiol 898 0.02 0.02 4,4-dimethyl-2-pentanol 801 0.32 — butanediol 910 — 0.03 1-methyl-2-cyclohexen-1-ol 918 0.14 — 1,2-pentanediol 923 — 0.17 (3e)-2-ethyl-3-hexen-1-ol 1010 0.05 — α-methylphenethyl alcohol 1155 — 0.82 2-(4-methylcyclohexyl)1159 0.33 0.18 2-propanol (e,z)-3,6-nonadien-1-ol 1175 0.20 0.45 2-(1,1-dimethylethyl)1191 0.19 — cyclohexanol citronellol 1234 0.09 — 1-cyclohexyl-1-butanol 1245 0.04 — (z,z)-dodeca-3,6-dien-1-ol 1418 0.39 — (e,e)-dodeca-8,10-dien-1-ol 1482 1.07 7-tridecanol 1492 0.09 0.33 1,10-decanediol 1514 0.09 — nerolidol 1564 — 0.10 11-tridecyn-1-ol 1582 1.45 — (z,z)-6,9-pentadecadien-1-ol 1783 0.03 0.21 phytol 2122 — 0.06 phenols 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol 1191 — 1.26 methyleugenol 1338 0.55 0.10 eugenol 1384 0.95 0.16 isoeugenol 1428 0.08 1.72 methoxyeugenol 1609 1.16 1.52 aldehydes and ketones isoamylaldehyde 653 0.42 1.89 trans-2-hexenal 859 3.63 — 2,4-hexadienal 911 0.22 — 1-(1-methyl-2962 0.44 — cyclopenten-1-yl) ethanone 2-octanone 994 0.42 0.01 2,2-dimethylocta-3,4-dienal 1109 0.04 — pulegone 1175 0.31 — citronellal hydrate 1248 0.10 0.02 5,6-decanedione 1288 0.07 — methyl nonyl ketone 1292 0.50 1.44 (2 undecan2-one) (e,e)-2,4-decanedienal 1294 0.03 — 2,4-decadienal 1312 0.02 — 1-(2,6,6-trimethyl-21326 0.04 — cyclohexen-1-yl) acetone dodecanal 1371 0.28 — 2-butyl-2-octenal 1385 0.03 — (z,z)-oxacyclotrideca1445 4.75 — 4,7-dien-2-one 8,9-dehydro-9-formyl1469 — 0.44 cycloisolongifolene β-ionone 1493 0.77 — j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):217-223, 2013 ranjitha et al 221 table 2. contd. name of the compound kovat’s relative area percentage index juice wine hexyl iso-valerate 1240 1.32 — butyl (e)-2-hexenoate 1257 0.05 — n-hexyl iso-valerate 1259 0.04 — propyl octanoate 1277 — 0.05 isomenthyl acetate 1298 0.16 — isobutyl benzoate 1302 — 0.02 1-octen-3-ol butyrate 1322 0.36 — butyl octanoate 1387 — 0.39 1-ethylpropyl octanoate 1417 — 0.28 amyl octanoate 1478 — 1.36 propyl decanoate 1493 — 20.51 eugenyl acetate 1526 0.03 — methyl dodecanoate 1528 — 0.06 isobutyl decanoate 1545 — 0.20 ethyl dodecanoate 1562 — 11.77 phenylethyl valerate 1565 0.58 — e-2-hexenyl benzoate 1583 — 0.11 iso-amyl decanoate 1647 0.06 2.88 ethyl trans-4-decenoate 1760 — 1.46 ethyl tetradecanoate 1793 — 1.84 3-methylbutyl dodecanoate 1858 0.10 — methyl -9-hexadecenoate 1877 0.02 0.93 methyl hexadecanoate 1889 — 0.48 (e)-4-tridecenyl acetate 1892 0.24 — methyl (e)-7-hexadecenoate 1898 0.06 4.69 butyl hexadecanoate 1978 0.01 — ethyl hexa decanoate 1991 0.22 5.12 isopropyl hexadecanoate 2021 0.03 — ethyl heptadecanoate 2098 — 0.12 methyl octadecanoate 2128 — 0.22 ethyl -cis,cis-9,122185 0.37 octadecadienoate ethyl cis-9-octadecenoate 2189 0.05 0.78 ethyl octadecanoate 2209 0.02 0.38 hydrocarbons naphthalene 1175 0.33 — (4e,8z)-1,4,8-dodecatriene 1225 0.67 — (e,z)-5,7-dodecadiene 1239 0.36 — (e,z)-5,7-dodecadiene 1246 3.53 — 3-dodecyne 1252 1.57 — azulene 1311 — 0.51 caryophyllene 1435 0.27 — (z)-5-pentadecen-7-yne 1552 0.61 — (e)-7-pentadecen-5-yne 1556 0.19 — (z)-4-hexadecen-6-yne 1641 4.33 — 1,e-8,z-10-pentadecatriene 1518 — 0.17 others — — 2-ethylfuran 705 0.12 — 1-nitro-2,2-dimethylpropane 794 0.12 — 2,3-butanedithiol 901 0.35 — 2-propyloctahydro-11394 0.09 — benzothiophene 3,4,5-trimethoxyallylbenzene 1560 6.64 5.58 (z)-5-propenyl-1,2,41621 0.14 — trimethoxybenzene predominant ester in banana juice was found to be butyl isovalerate (10.6%). butyl isovalerate (3-methyl butyl butanoate) was identified as the major constituent of headspace volatiles in all the banana cultivars from madeira island (nogueira et al, 2003). acetate esters alone contributed 10.6% of the total head-space volatiles in banana juice, while, their share in the wine dropped to 4.63%. isoamyl acetate was the major acetic acid ester present in banana juice (6.6%). butanoates alone contributed 10.38% to the total head-space volatiles in banana juice, while, their share in the wine aroma profile was reduced to 0.79%. butyl and isopentyl alcohol esters of isovaleric acid constituted 29.47% of the total juice head-space volatiles. a rise in production of isopentyl isovaleric acid during the ripening of banana was observed by macku and jennings (1987). banana owes its fruity aroma to acetates and butanoates of butanol, isoamyl alcohol, pentan-2-ol and hexyl acetate (shiota, 1991). abundance of decanoic acid and dodecanoic esters in the wine was 23.59% and 23.39%, respectively, while their share in the juice was almost negligible. in order of abundance, esters found in the juice were: isoamyl acetate> butyl acetate> butyl butanoate >hexyl isovalerate. the wine contained propyl decanoate, methyl-(e)-7-hexadecenoate, ethyl benzoate, isoamyl decanoate, amyl octanoate, etc., in high quantities. decanoic acid and dodecanoic acids are components of the yeast cell membrane, and are abundant at low-temperature growth of the yeast (torija et al, 2003). ethyl dodecanoate is reported to have a typical wine-yeast background aroma and propyl decanoate has a waxy, sweet aroma with low odour-strength. these two compounds are reported in fermented and distilled beverages like wine, brandy and whisky (comuzzo et al, 2006). the esters are synthesized by alcohol acetyl transferases, using higher alcohols and acetyl co-a as substrates. esterases present in the yeast can significantly synthesize or hydrolyze the esters, based on physico-chemical conditions of the wine, a fact which supports discovery of new esters in wine, as compared to the juice (lilly et al, 2006). a few hydrocarbons were also identified in the present study. (z)-4-hexadecen-6-yne, (e,z)-5,7-dodecadiene and 3-dodecyne were the important hydrocarbons present in banana juice, but were absent in the banana wine. instead, new compounds such as azulene and 1, e-8, z-10pentadecatriene were present, though in very small levels, in banana wine. a variety of hydrocarbons have already been detected in banana volatiles (shiota, 1991). nevertheless, their contribution to banana juice aroma may j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):217-223, 2013 aroma analysis in banana fruit juice and wine 222 be negligible, as, the alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, naphthalenes, etc. have high aroma-thresholds. among other flavouring compounds, 3,4,5-trimethoxy allyl benzene (elemicin), a natural phenyl propene, and a constituent of the essential oil in nutmeg, was also present in a high proportion in both banana juice and the wine. euginol and elemicin give a pleasant, mellow aroma to the ripe banana fruit (wang et al, 2007). another significant volatile was 2-methoxy 4vinyl phenol, present in the wine but not in the juice. this compound is a major odour compound in many white wines, and aroma of the pure compound is described as wine-like (comuzzo et al, 2006). this suggests that origin of this compound in banana wine lies in the fermentation process. conclusion there is a clear difference in head-space volatile profiles of banana juice and wine. aroma signature compounds of banana juice, viz., isoamyl acetate, butyl isovalerate, isopentyl isovalerate, trans-2-hexenal, butanoates, etc. were present only in a low proportion in banana wine. at same time, the decanoic, dodecanoic acid, hexa decanoic acid esters, and, highly odorous compounds like methyl nonyl ketone and isoeuginol, 2 methoxy 4-vinyl phenol were synthesized during fermentation, and were retained in the finished wine in relatively higher quantities. these facts justify distinctness of the banana wine as perceived by judged by the sensory evaluation panel. acknowledgement: the authors thank dr. a.s. 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freeze-drying and air-drying. food chem., 104:1516-1521 (ms received 23 october 2012, revised 10 october 2013, accepted 28 october 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):217-223, 2013 aroma analysis in banana fruit juice and wine tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) is one of the important vegetable crops grown throughout the year. alkaline cultivable soil contains less available phosphorus. due to higher concentration of calcium, whenever phosphatic fertilizers are applied in such soils, a large quantity gets immobilized and becomes unavailable to the crop. phosphorus is one of the most important mineral nutrients for plant growth and development. it is second only to nitrogen, limiting the growth of crops. plants acquire p from soil. however, most of the soil phosphorus, approximately 95–99%, is present in the form of insoluble phosphates (abou el-yazeid et al, 2007). as a result, the amount available to plants is usually a small proportion of the total p. to increase the availability of phosphorus to plants, farmers apply large quantities of phosphoric fertilizer. but, after application, a large proportion of available phosphorus quickly turned into the insoluble form (rodriquez and farag, 1999). hence, a very small percentage of applied phosphorus is used by plants (abd alla, 1994). several scientists (asea et al, 1988; surange et al, 1995; nahas, 1996; dutton and evans,1996; gull et al, 2004) have reported the ability of different bacterial species to solubilize insoluble inorganic phosphate compounds. phosphate solubilizing bacteria play an important role in supplementing phosphorus to plants, allowing sustainable use of phosphate (bhatacharya and jain, 2000). soil and seed inoculation with phosphate effect of phosphorus solublizing bacteria (psb) on growth and yield in tomato m.k. poonia and b.l. dhaka krishi vigyan kendra maharana pratap university of agriculture & technology p.b. no. 4, bundi-323001, india e-mail : kumarmp03@rediffmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted to study the effect of phosphate solublizing bacteria (psb) on growth and yield of tomato. psb culture was applied through soil and seedling root dip before transplanting with two levels of phosphorus fertilizers, i.e., 75% and 100% of recommended p, and compared. results revealed that application of 100% p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution recorded significantly higher plant height (86.30cm), leaf area index (3.52), number of fruits/plant (16.32), fruit weight (77.75g), fruit yield/plant (1125g) and yield (392.26 q/ha) compared to other treatment combinations, except 100% p with 5kg/ha soil application of psb. the same treatment also recorded the highest (3.41) cost:benefit ratio. however, no significant difference was noticed in 100% recommended p with seedling dip in psb solution, or soil application. key words: tomato, phosphorus, phosphoros solublizing bacteria, psb solubilizing bacteria (psb) improves solubilization of fixed soil phosphorus and of applied phosphates, resulting in higher crop yields (jones and darrah, 1994; toro et al, 1997; bhatacharya and jain, 2000). in this context, the present study is designed to evaluate the effect of psb on growth and yield in tomato crop. a field experiment was carried out at farmers’ fields during zaid 2010 (i.e., summer crop) to study the effect of phosphate solubilizing bacterial strain on growth and yield of tomato. four week old seedlings of tomato were transplanted on ridges in the field toward the end of february with a spacing of 60cm x 45cm. soil in the experimental field was clay loam in texture, slightly alkaline in reaction (ph 8.10), low in organic carbon content (0.38%), available n (205.4 kg ha-1) and available p (18.1 kg ha-1) but high in available k (350 kg ha-1). this experiment included a control and four treatments (which were a combination of two levels of p:75 and 100% of recommended p 2 o 5, i.e., 80 kg ha-1 and two modes of psb inoculation (soil and root inoculation). treatments applied were : t 1 – 100 % of recommended p (control) t 2 75 % of recommended p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution (1kg psb:10 litre water), t 3 -100 % of recommended p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution (1kg psb:10 litre water), t 4 75 % of recommended p with soil application of psb@ 5kg ha-1 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):104-107, 2012 105 effect of psb on growth and yield in tomato and t 5 100 % of recommended p with soil application of psb @ 5kg ha-1. these treatments were arranged in a randomized block design and replicated four times. the n and k fertilizers in all treatments including control were applied as per recommended package of practices for the region and the psb was supplied by iffco. full amount of p as per treatments was applied just before transplanting through drilling in rows. observations on growth parameters like plant height, leaf area index and yield attributing characteristics i.e. no. of fruits/plant, fruit weight (g), fruit yield/ plant, fruit yield (q/ ha) were recorded. the experimental data were subjected to statistical analysis of variance and test of significance through the procedure appropriate to the randomized block design (panse and sukhatme,1989). the plant height and leaf area index are considered to be an important factor to judge the efficacy of phosphorus solublizing bacteria and were found to increase to a significant level with the application of phosphorus solublizing bacteria. the results in table 1 revealed that the application of 100% recommended p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution significantly increased plant height and leaf area index over control as well as other treatments. the treatment t 3 (100% p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution) increased plant height (86.30cm) and leaf area index (3.52). the increase in growth characters might be due to stimulative effect of psb on p solubilization leading to higher p availability and uptake by plants (han et al, 2006; kim et al,1997; sharma et al,2007 and turan et al,2007). higher microbial activity in rhizosphere expressed as activity of hydrogenase, phosphates and nitrogenase enzymes was also reported (eltantawy and mohamed, 2009). the results illustrated in table 1 indicate that application of 100% of recommended p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution was superior for enhancing number of fruit per plant and fruit size of tomato. this observation may be due to role of psb inoculation in benefiting plant growth by improving root development, mineral uptake and plant water relationship. in addition to increased p availability, psb also reported to produce growth promoting substances which might enhance the crop growth. these hormones from psb might have increased the various endogenous hormonal levels in plant tissue, that may enhance pollen germination and tube growth, which ultimately increased the fruit set. the higher fruit set may also be due to higher percentage of productive flowers. it is clear from the data presented in table-1 that application of 100 % of recommended p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution (t 3 ) treatment was the superior for increasing the total yield (392.26q/ha) which is significantly higher over control and at par with t 5 . the highest yield might be due to the high yield contributing characters like number of fruits per plant and average fruit weight. solubilization of ‘p’ from insoluble and fixed / adsorbed forms is an important aspect regarding p availability in soils. microbial biomass assimilates soluble p, and prevents it from adsorption or fixation (khan and joergensen, 2009). microbial community influences soil fertility through soil processes viz. decomposition, mineralization, and storage / release of nutrients. microorganisms enhance the p availability to plants by mineralizing organic p in soil and by solubilizing precipitated phosphates (chen et al, 2006; kang et al, 2002 and pradhan and sukla, 2005). these bacteria in the presence of labile carbon serve as a sink for p by rapidly immobilizing it even in low p soils (bünemann et al, 2004). subsequently, psb become a source of p to plants upon its release from their cells. similar results were reported in tomato (el-tantawy and mohamed, 2009 and shukla et al, 2009), cauliflower (kachari and korla, 2009), turmeric (padmapriya and chezhiyan, 2009), pea (chaykovskaya et al,2001) and guava (dutta et al, 2009). table 2 indicated that the highest net return (rs. 242607.41) and benefit: cost ratio of 3.41 was recorded with 100% of recommended p with seedling dip in psb 1:10 solution (t 3 ). this may be attributed to high yield recorded in this treatment. similar observation were also reported in table 1. effect of phosphorous solublizing bacteria on the growth and yield attributes of tomato. treatments plant height leaf area no. of fruits / fruit fruit yield/ fruit yield (cm) index plant weight (g) plant (q/ ha) t 1 75.88 2.96 14.93 67.18 978.75 344.16 t 2 81.05 3.20 15.49 73.38 1040.00 364.61 t 3 86.30 3.53 16.32 77.75 1125.00 392.26 t 4 80.70 3.21 15.44 72.90 1038.75 362.47 t 5 85.58 3.51 16.24 76.98 1122.50 389.93 cd (p=0.05) 1.21 0.076 0.37 1.27 7.19 4.41 sem+ 0.96 0.060 0.29 1.01 5.70 3.50 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):104-107, 2012 106 tomato (premsekhar and rajashree, 2009), clusterbean (dadhich and gupta 2001) and wheat (singh et al, 2009). it could be concluded that root inoculation with psb 1:10 solution (1kg psb:10 litre water) in the presence of 100% p (full recommended p 2 o 5 dose) significantly increased plant height, leaf area index, number and yield of fruits per plant, fruit weight and yield per hectare. the highest net return and cost: benefit ratio were also recorded with the same treatment. references abd alla, m.h. 1994. phosphatases and the utilization of organic phosphorus by rhizobium leguminosarum biovar viceae. lett. appl. microbiol., 18: 294-296 abou el-yazeid, a abou–aly, h.e, magdy, m.a. and mousa, s.a.m. 2007. enhancing growth, productivity and quality of squash plant using phosphate dissolving microorganisms (bio phosphor) combined with boron foliar spray. res. j. agric. & biol. sci., 3: 274–286 asea, p.e.a., kucey, r.m.n. and stewart, j.w.b. 1988. inorganic phosphate solubilization by two penicillium species in solution culture and soil. soil biol. biochem., 20: 459-464 bhatacharya, p. and jain, r.k. 2000. phosphorous solublizing biofertilizers in the whirl pool of rock phosphate-challenges and opportunities. fert. news, 45:45-52 bünemann, e. k., bossio, d. a., smithson, p. c., frossard, e. and oberson, a. 2004. microbial community composition and substrate use in a highly weathered soil as affected by crop rotation and p fertilization. soil biol. biochem. 36:889-901 chaykovskaya, l.a., patyka, v.p. and melnychuk, t.m. 2001. phosphorus mobilizing microorganisms and their influence on the productivity of plants. in (w.j. horst, eds.) plant nutrition-food security and sustainability of agroecosystems, pp: 668-669 chen, y. p., rekha, p. d., arunshen, a. b., lai, w. a. and young, c. c: 2006. phosphate solubilizing bacteria from subtropical soil and their tricalcium phosphate solubilizing abilities. appl. soil ecol., 34:33-41 dadhich, l.k. and gupta, a. 2001. effect of phosphate solubilizing bacteria and phosphorus on the growth pattern of clusterbean. annals of biol, 17:107 110. dutta, p. maji, s.b. and das, b.c. 2009. studies on the response of bio-fertilizer on growth and productivity of guava. indian j. hort., 66:39-42 dutton, v. m. and evans, c. s. 1996. oxalate production by fungi: its role in pathogenicity and ecology in the soil environment. can. j. microbiol., 42:881-895 el-tantawy, m.e. and mohamed, m.a.n. 2009. effect of inoculation with phosphate solubilizing bacteria on the tomato rhizosphere colonization process, plant growth and yield under organic and inorganic fertilization. j. appld sci. res., 5:1117-1131 gull, m., hafeez, f. y., saleem, m. and malik, k. a. 2004. phosphorus uptake and growth promotion of chickpea by co-inoculation of mineral phosphate solubilizing bacteria and a mixed rhizobial culture. aust. j. exp. agric., 44:623-628 han, h.s.; supanjani and lee, k.d. 2006. effect of coinoculation with phosphate and potassium solubilizing bacteria on mineral uptake and growth of pepper and cucumber. plant soil environ., 52:130-136 jones, d.l. and darrah, p.r. 1994. role of root derived organic acids in the mobilization of nutrients from the rhizosphere, plant soil, 166: 247-257 kang, s. c., hat, c. g., lee, t. g. and maheshwari, d. k. 2002. solubilization of insoluble inorganic phosphates by a soil-inhabiting fungus fomitopsis sp. ps 102. curr. sci. 82:439-442 kim, k.y., jordon, d. and mcdonald, g.a. 1997. effect of phosphatesolubilizing bacteria and vesicular – arbuscular mycorrhizae on tomato growth and soil microbial activity. biology and fertility of soils, 265:79-87 khan, k. s. and joergensen, r. g.; 2009. changes in microbial biomass and p fractions in biogenic household waste compost amended with inorganic p fertilizers. bioresour. technol.,100:303-309 kachari manisha and korla, b.n., 2009. effect of biofertilizers on growth and yield of cauliflower cv. psb k-1. indian j. hort., 66:496-501 nahas, e. 1996. factors determining rock phosphate solubilization by microorganism isolated from soil. world j. microb. biotechnol., 12:18-23 table 2. effect of phosphorous solublizing bacteria on the economics of tomato crop. treatments gross return net return b:c (rs) (rs) ratio t 1 275325.19 204825.19 2.91 t 2 291688.89 221288.89 3.14 t 3 313807.41 242607.41 3.41 t 4 289974.07 219674.07 3.12 t 5 311940.00 241040.00 3.40 cd (p=0.05) 3529.73 3529.73 0.05 sem+ 2801.23 2801.23 0.04 poonia and dhaka j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):104-107, 2012 107 padmapriya, s. and chezhiyan, n. 2009. effect of shade, organic, inorganic and biofertilizers on morphology, yield and quality of turmeric. indian j. hort., 66:333-339 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1989. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi pradhan, n. and sukla, l. b. 2005. solubilization of inorganic phosphate by fungi isolated from agriculture soil. african j. biotechnol., 5:850-854 premsekhar, m. and. rajashree, v. 2009: influence of biofertilizers on the growth characters, yield attributes, yield and quality of tomato: am.-eurasian j. sustain. agric., 3:68-70 rodriquez, h. and farag, r. 1999. phosphate solubilizing bacteria and their role in plant growth promotion. biotechnol. adv., 17:319339 sharma, k., dak, g., agrawal, a., bhatnagar, m. and sharma, r. 2007. effect of phosphate solubilizing bacteria on the germination of cicer arietinum seeds and seedling growth. j. herb. med. toxicol., 1:61-63 shukla, y.r., thakur , a.k. and joshi, a. 2009. effect of inorganic and bio-fertilizers on yield and horticultural traits in tomato. indian j. hort., 66:131-133 singh, r., singh, b. and patidar, m. 2009. effect of preceding crops and nutrient management on productivity of wheat (triticum aestivum) based cropping system in arid region. indian j. of agron., 52:267 272 surange, s., wollum, a. g., kumar, n. and nautiyal, c. s. 1995. characterization of rhizobium from root nodules of leguminous trees growing in alkaline soils. can. j. microbiol., 43:891-894 toro, m., azcon, r. and barea, j.m. 1997. improvement of arbuscular mycorrhiza development by inoculation of soil with phosphate-solubilizing rhizobacteria to improve rock phosphate bioavailability ((sup32) p) and nutrient cycling, appl. environ. microbiol, 63: 4408-4412 turan, m. ataoglu, n. and sahin, f. 2007. effect of bacillus fs-3 on growth of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum l.) plant and availability of phosphorus in soil. plant soil environ., 53:58-64 (ms received 13 january 2012, revised 4 may 2012) effect of psb on growth and yield in tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):104-107, 2012 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 115 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 original research paper effect of leaf removal on composition of wine grape varieties grown in semiarid tropical climate of india satisha j.1* and somkuwar r.g.2 1division of fruit crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089. 2icar national research centre for grapes, pune 412 307 india. corresponding author: email: satisha.j@icar.gov.in abstract removing leaves from cluster zone is one of the management practices followed to improve fruit composition in temperate wine grape growing countries. however, knowledge on canopy management practices to improve fruit and juice composition for quality wine making is still lacking in semiarid tropical regions of india. due to ample sunlight availability during fruit growth in semiarid tropics, it is unclear whether the leaves have to be removed from cluster zone. in case the leaves have to be removed, the direction from which it has to be done is also important. hence, this study was conducted to see the effect of leaf removal from two sides of canopy on fruit composition in two wine grape varieties. in cabernet sauvignon vines leaf removal from both east and west side of the canopyimproved fruit quality in terms of reduced ph, potassium, malic acid and increased phenolics. nevertheless, removing leaves from eastern side was found to be better than western side, because clusters are exposed toexcess sunlight. however, in sauvignon blanc, leaf removal from east side improved most of the desirable fruit composition parameters, while leaf removal from west side reduced the fruit quality in terms of sugars, acids, ph, total phenols etc. key words: cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc, fruit composition, leaf removal, organic acids, phenolic compounds introduction though practice of wine grape cultivation is increasing in many of the tropical countries of the world, its commercial cultivation is gaining impetus only from past 50 years as compared to traditional temperate wine producing countries. among tropical countries, brazil, india, venezuela etc. are playing a lead role in production of wine grapes. in last two decades, there was a substantial increase in area of grape cultivation in tropical countries. the increase was most rapid in asian countries like india, thailand, myanmar and vietnam, where new vineyards for table grape and wine production are established every year. as there is no dearth of sunlight in these areas during the annual vine growth cycle, there is a need to study the impact of sunlight exposure to clusters and high temperature on berry composition and thereby wine quality. most of the work on canopy management practices in wine grapes is reported from uas (main and morris, 2004; bergqvist et al., 2001), new zealand (kemp et al., 2011), australia (ristic et al., 2013), european countries (targaduila et al., 2008) etc. important canopy management practices which are being practices in most of the wine grape growing countries are shoot thinning, shoot positioning, cluster thinning and leaf removal in cluster zone etc. either a lone or in combina tions. t hese ma na gement practices help in optimizing sunlight interception, photosynthetic ca pa city of lea ves a nd fr uit microclimate to improve fruit composition and wine quality. leaf removal at fruit zone in many of the cultivars showed improved fruit composition in terms of soluble solids, juice ph, phenolic compounds, a nthocya nins a nd ar oma (kemp et al., 2011). however, in some varieties there was no significant influence in quality of grapes or wines from leaf removal treatment (reynolds et al., 1986). leaf removal at veraison stage is known to improve the fruit composition by reducing juice ph due to reduced potassium and malic acid concentration (lang and thorpe, 1989). the senescing leaves before falling 116 satisha and somkuwar j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 fr om vines r e-tr a nsloca te photosyntha tes into permanent vine parts. during that period, developing clusters are strong sink and hence more potassium diverts towards clusters from older leaves (kodur, 2011). hence, removing leaves at veraison is found to be beneficial in reducing potassium accumulation and it improves cluster exposure to sunlight improving a ccumula tion of sever a l beneficia l seconda r y metabolites. since leaf removal is one of the important management practices in improving the wine grape quality in warmer regions, it is always a question in which side of the canopy; leaves should be removed or retained to optimize cluster exposure to sunlight to har ness the advanta ges. hence, this study was undertaken to study the influence of leaf removal from two sides of canopy at cluster zone to know its effect on fruit composition of both red and wine grape cultivars. materials and methods location and plant material this experiment was conducted at the experimental vineyard of icar-national research centre for gr a pes, pune tha t is loca ted in midwest of maharashtra state (india) at an altitude of 559 m above the mean sea level. it lies in 18.32° n latitude and 73.51° e longitude. five-year-old cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc grapes grafted on to 110r rootstock were selected for this study. the vines were planted at a spacing of 2.5 m between rows and 1.2 m between vines within a row. the row orientation was in the direction of north south. the vines were trained to double cordon small t system. the pruning biomass of the vines was in the range of 1.0-1.25 kg. approximately 32 to 36 shoots were retained per vine by thinning out excess shoots. imposition of leaf removal treatments lea f r emova l tr eatments wer e imposed dur ing veraison stage of berry development. on all fruit bearing shoots, leaves at cluster zone (basal five leaves and 2-3 leaves above clusters) were removed. four different sets of variations were created on about 40 vines (10 vines per replication) as follows: treatment 1: leaf removal on east side of the canopy (east lr) treatment 2: no leaf removal on east side of the canopy (east control) treatment 3: leaf removal on west side of the canopy (west lr) treatment 4: no leaf removal on west side of the canopy (west control) harvesting and recording fruit composition parameters harvesting was done at about 110 days after pruning in sauvignon blanc and about 140 days in cabernet sauvignon varieties. after harvesting, about 250 berry sa mples wer e collected fr om ea ch tr ea tment replication wise. half of the samples were utilized immediately for analysis of basic fruit composition parameters such as total soluble solids (tss), titratable acidity, juice ph and potassium content. before analyzing these parameters, weight of 100 berries and weight of 50 seeds was recorded using electronic balance. the remaining half of the berry samples was stored in -20°c for analysis of organic acids and phenolic compounds using high performance liquid chromatography (hplc). the fresh fruits were macerated in cheesecloth and were centrifuged and the supernatant was analysed for tss (hand held refractometer with temperature compensated to 20°c); acidity (titration of juice a ga inst 0. 1n na oh using phenolphtha lein a s indicator); ph (ph meter, model 420, thermo orion,) and potassium (flame photometer, model, pfp 7, jenway ltd, uk). hplc analysis of organic acids and phenolic compounds the fruit samples stored in -20°c freezer were used for hplc analysis. after removing samples from freezer, they were thawed overnight under refrigerated conditions. la ter the fruits wer e ma cera ted in cheesecloth; the resultant must was centrifuged and the supernatant was used for hplc analysis. phenolic compounds chromatographic analysis of phenolic compounds was performed using the 1260 series agilent technologies hplc, equipped with an inbuilt 4 channel-degassing unit, standard auto-sampler, 1260 infinity quaternary pump, agilent 1260 infinity diode array detector and an injector. the system was interfaced with a personal computer utilizing the agilent ez chrome elite software for control, data acquisition and further 117 effect of leaf removal on composition of wine grape varieties grown analysis. a zorbax eclipse plus c18 column (4.6 mm x 100 mm 1.8 µm particle size.) was used. the analytical column was preceded by a c18 guard column to prevent any non-soluble residues from samples from contaminating the column. the injection volume maintained was 10µl with a flow rate of 0.80 ml/minute. the mobile phase consisted of a (0.2% acetic acid in 10% acetonitrile) 95% and b (0.2% acetic acid in acetonitrile) 5%. prior to use, the solvent was filtered through vacuum filter and then sonicated for 5-10 minutes in an ultrasonic bath to remove air bubbles. the column temperature was maintained at 30°c. peaks were determined at 280 nm for all the phenolic compounds. organic acids the analysis of organic acids (tartaric acid and malic acid) was done with agilent technologies 1260 series hplc system with diode array detector (dad) at wavelength of 214 nm and bandwidth of 4.0. the column used was agilent zorbax eclipse plus c 18 (4.6 ×100 mm 5um). the separation was done with mobile phase of a 95% acidified wa ter with orthophosphoric acid (ph 2.0) and b 5% absolute methanol with flow rate of 0.8ml/min. column temperature was 25o c. the injection volume was 10µl and total run time was 7 minutes. statistical analysis the experiment was conducted in randomized block design with four replications and the data was analysed using sas version 9.3. tukey’s test was used for comparing treatment means. results and discussion leaf removal and its influence on fruit composition the influence of leaf removal from two different sides of canopy on basic fruit composition parameters in cabernet sauvignon is given in table 1. leaf removal from both east and west side of the canopy has reduced the berry weight compared to their control counterparts. the maximum 100-berry weight of 100.60 g was recorded in west control vines followed by east control vines. leaf removal from east side of the canopy has recorded minimum berry weight of 95.2 g. there was no significant difference among the treatments for seed weight. the maximum total soluble solids (tss) of 22.43°b and lowest acidity (0.53%) were recorded in vines with east leaf removal treatment, while west control recorded the lea st t ss on vines. significant difference was recorded for potassium content with highest in east control vines (1748 ppm) and lowest in west leaf removal (1570 ppm) vines. similarly highest juice ph was recorded with east control vines (3.58) and least with west leaf removal vines (3.43). there were no significa nt differ ences a mong tr ea tments for anthocyanin and malic acid content. the fruit composition parameters of sauvignon blanc grape in relation to leaf removal treatments from different canopy sides are presented in table 2. the highest berry weight was recorded in vines which received east leaf removal treatment (104.40 g) followed by those on west leaf removal vines (101.60 g). significant differences were recorded for tss, acidity, ph, potassium, tartaric and malic acid content. highest tss (22.62 °b) and lowest acidity (0.50%) were recorded on vines with east leaf removal vines. both east and west control vines recorded higher values for potassium (1782 and 1658 ppm) than leaf r emova l tr ea tments. t he lowest juice ph wa s recorded with east leaf removal treatment (3.46), while it was highest in east control vines (3.62). highest malic acid was recorded in east control (3.87 g/l) followed by west control (3.78 g/l) vines, while it was lowest in east leaf removal vines (2.89 g/l). sunlight intensity received at different zones in the vine canopy is known to strongly influence fruit composition such as sugars, acids, and other secondary metabolites involved in wine aroma including phenolics (downey et al., 2006). accordingly, many viticultural treatments associated with canopy management are intended to manipulate photosynthetic photon flux (ppf) of the fruiting zone or the distribution of photon flux across the total leaf area of the canopy to achieve metabolic effects. in grapevines, depending on cultivars and ca nopy mana gement practices, leaves and bunches can develop in zones varying from heavily shaded to fully exposed clusters. generally, the berries that develop in open canopies have high sugar concentrations, impr oved a cid meta bolism a nd incr ea sed concentr a tions of ber r y phenolics including anthocyanins (gladstone, 1992). j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 118 the sunlight exposure to clusters through these canopy management practices to obtain good quality fruits varies with variety to variety. in the present study, leaf removal on both the sides of the canopy in cabernet sauvignon vines resulted in reduced berry weight and increased tss compared to control vines. however, in sauvignon blanc, there was increase in berry weight on leaf-removed vines compared to control vines. this variation in berry weight among different varieties is in agreement to the previous findings of reduced berry weight in clusters developed in shaded part of canopy compared to that of exposed clusters. the reduced berry weight in cabernet sauvignon might be due to elevated berry temperature through more exposure of clusters in leaf-removed vines resulting in reduced berry cell division and elongation coupled with increased berry transpiration and consequent berry dehydration (bergqvist et al., 2001). many investigators found that sunlight exposed fruits are generally rich in total soluble solids and reduced titratable acidity compared to non-exposed or shaded canopy (ferree et al., 2004; main and morris, 2004). but, in contrast some workers found that defoliation had no effect on soluble solids and titratable acidity (vasconcelos and castagnoli, 2000; poni et al., 2006).the decline in titratable acidity with increased exposure to sunlight may be attributed to increased malic acid degradation due to the higher temperatures of exposed fruit (lakso and kliewer, 1978). though acidity was highest on grapes harvested from control vines, the juice ph was also highest on those vines, while it was least on leaf-removed vines. the ph of grape juice or wine usually results from the balance between anionic forms of organic acids (mainly malic acid and tartaric acid) and the major cations such as potassium (boulton, 1980).it is very well established concept that juice ph in grapes is determined by concentration of juice potassium and malic acid (kodur et al., 2010; kodur, 2011). in this study, leaf removal treatments in both the varieties recorded least juice ph and lower concentrations of malic acid and potassium content compared to control vines. leaf removal at veraison stage affects synthesis of primary and secondary metabolites and this effect is directly related to leaf layer number, photosynthetic rate and canopy surface area. several experiments have shown increased sugars, flavor, flavonoids and decreased acidity when leaf removal was done at veraison stage (poni et al., 2006). in contrast, leaf removal at veraison on plants with low canopy density does not affect grape sugar, acidity, or color (reynolds et al., 1986). in this study, the leaves were removed from cluster zone at the time of veraison in both the varieties. it is observed that at the time of veraison, most of the potassium accumulated in leaves get diverted towards developing ber ries lea ding to increased potassium content in berries (lang and thorpe, 1989). similarly, clusters developed in shaded portion of the canopy are known to accumulate more ma lic a cid tha n open ca nopies. t he incr ea se concentration of malic acid in control berries may be due to reduced metabolic rate of malate degradation, which was otherwise used as respiratory substrate in post veraison berries (morrison and noble, 1990). thus, leaf removal at cluster zone during veraison had dua l a dva nta ges of r educing the pota ssium translocation from older leaves into clusters and reduced malic accumulation. kliewer and smart (1989), also recorded more potassium, malic acid in shaded berries than fully exposed berries. leaf removal and its influence on phenolic profile the influence of leaf removal on phenolic profile of cabernet sauvignon grapes is presented in table 3. among flavan 3ols, there was increase in catechin and epicatechin content in vines, which received leaf removal treatment on both the sides, compared to their control counterparts. highest catechin content was recorded in east leaf removal vines followed by west leaf removal vines. there was significant increase in quercetin content from control vines to leaf removed vines. vines with west lea f removal tr ea tment recorded maximum quercetin content (13.12 mg/l) while, it was minimum in east control (6.61 mg/l). most of the non-flavonoid phenolic compounds such as gallic acid, vanillic acid, coumaric acid and chlorogenic acids were increased with leaf removal tr eatment compared to control tr eatments. t he concentration of these phenols was in the order of gallic acid > coumaric acid > chlorogenic acid > ca fa ter ic a cid > va nillic a cid. most of these compounds were highest in east leaf removal treated vines than in west leaf removal treated vines except coumaric acid, which was highest in west leaf removal treated vines (3.80 mg/l). piceatanol, a stilbene was highest in west leaf removal treated vines (39.41 mg/ satisha and somkuwar j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 119 l) followed by west control vines (30.97 mg/l). the resveratrol was detected in very trace amounts and was highest in east control vines (0.056 mg/l). the total phenolic compound was significantly highest in west leaf removal vines (94.01 mg/l) compared to east leaf removal vines (72.09 mg/l). the influence of leaf removal from different sides of canopy on phenolic profile of sauvignon blanc grapes is given in the table 4. among flavan – 3 ols, catechin and epicatechin accounted for maximum concentration followed by quercetin and myrecetin (both flavonols). highest catechin content was recorded in east leaf removal (16.77 mg/l) followed by west control (14.86) vines. most of the nonflavonoid contents were increased in east leaf removal vines as compared to east control vines, while it was decr ea sed in west lea f r emova l tr ea ted vines compared to west control vines. the concentrations of non-flavonoid phenolic compounds in east leaf removal treated vines were on par with west control vines, while it was minimum in west leaf removal vines. the total phenolic content was highest in east leaf removal vines (43.11 mg/l) followed by west control vines (37.37 mg/l), while minimum total phenolic compound was recorded in west leaf removal vines (30.39 mg/l). though there was no significant difference among treatments in anthocyanin concentration in cabernet sauvignon grapes, there was slight reduction in its accumulation in control vines. in control vines, it is likely that light is a limiting factor for anthocyanin accumulation. many authors have confirmed that sha ding r educes a nthocya nins a ccumula tion (dokoozlian and kliewer, 1996; jeong et al., 2004). similarly, it was opined that anthocyanin synthesis is directly regulated by both the light exposure and the temperature conditions to which a grape bunch is subjected (smart et al., 1988). management practices that create a canopy architecture where bunches receive sufficient light for anthocyanin synthesis, but berries are protected from excessive berry heating, would seem appropriate for the production of fruit with optimal levels of anthocyanins for vines grown in hot climates. based on the previously established scientific reports, haselgrove et al. (2000) suggested that a desirable canopy forvines grown in hot climatic conditions is one where bunches are moderately exposed. cluster shading resulted in a substantial reduction in accumulation of flavonols and skin pr oanthocya nidins a nd minimal differ ences in anthocyanins in ‘pinot noir ’ grapes (cortell and kennedy, 2006). the fruit composition with respect to juice ph, potassium and malic acid in cabernet sauvignon grapes with east leaf removal and west control vines are quite comparable. hence, one should take decision whether to remove leaves from west side of the canopy as it may expose clusters to direct afternoon sunlight as it is undesirable to expose clusters to excess sunlight in hot climate as suggested by haselgrove et al. (2000). leaf removal on different sides of canopy showed different pattern of phenolic profiles in two of the var ieties studied. in ca bernet sa uvignon, lea f exposure on both east and west side of the canopy recorded increased phenolic content though percent incr ea se wa s mor e (123%) when lea ves wer e removed from west side compared to control vines. in variety sauvignon blanc, there was about 129% increase in total phenolic compounds when leaves were removed in east side of the canopy compared to control, but when leaves were removed from west side of the canopy there was about 81% reduction in total phenolic compounds compared to control vines (figure 1). most of the different classes of phenolic compounds increased in response to leaf removal treatment on both east and west side of the canopy in cabernet sauvignon variety, while in sauvignon blanc, increased concentration of different phenolic compounds was observed only when leaves were removed from east side of the canopy. there was reduction in all the phenolic compounds when leaves wer e r emoved fr om west side of the ca nopy compa r ed to contr ol vines. t he incr ea sed concentration of phenolic compounds in cabernet sauvignon vines in response to leaf removal is in accordance to the findings of ristic et al. (2007), wherein shaded clusters of shiraz could accumulate only traces of quercetin compared to those in exposed clusters. this clearly suggests the role of leaf removal to expose clusters to sunlight for accumulation of quercetin is a light dependent process in colored varieties. however, when clusters were exposed on west side of the canopy in sauvignon blanc, there was reduction in quercetin content. among stilbenes, content maximum concentration of piceatannol was recorded in both the varieties compared to resveratrol. leaf removal from both sides of canopy in cabernet effect of leaf removal on composition of wine grape varieties grown j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 120 sauvignon increased piceatannol content, but it was r educed in sa uvignon bla nc. t he incr ea sed concentration of piceatannol compared to resveratrol might be because it is glucosylated resvera trol metabolite as opined by waterhouse and lamuelaraventos (1994). though it is said that colored grapes have high concentration of stilbene, some studies could not esta blish a s they could deter mine higher concentration of stilbene (trans resveratrol, piceid etc.) in some white grape cultivars compared to those in red grape cultivars (mikes et al., 2008). conclusions practice of removing leaves from different sides of vine canopy may not be uniform for all grape varieties grown in a given soil and climatic conditions. in this preliminary study, significant variation in fruit composition parameters was observed due to leaf removal from different sides of vine canopy in both the varieties. cabernet sauvignon being red variety could produce fruits with lower ph, high tss; lower pota ssium a nd ma lic a cid content a nd higher concentration of anthocyanin, when leaves were removed from east side of the canopy.however, better fruit quality with respect to juice ph, potassium and malic content were comparable between east leaf removal and west control vines. in sauvignon blanc, leaf removal on west side of the canopy resulted in drastic reduction of phenolic compounds compared to leaf removal from east side of the canopy. in this particular variety, leaf removal from east side of the canopy was found to be better. hence, leaf removal should be carried out selectively in different sides of the canopy depending on the vigor of the variety. in both the varieties, leaf removal on east side of the canopy could produce quality grapes measured in terms of lower juice ph coupled with reduced potassium and malic acid. a high degree of leaf removal to expose bunches in west side of the canopy under tropical climatic conditions may not be desirable for obtaining good quality wine grapes. further studies on degree of variation in light intensity and berry temperature under the influence of leaf removal will help in better understanding of fruit chemistry on leaf-removed vines. satisha and somkuwar j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 fig. 1: effect of leaf removal on percent change in phenolic contents in comparison to control vines 121 effect of leaf removal on composition of wine grape varieties grown j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 table 1: effect of leaf removal on fruit composition of cabernet sauvignon grapes treatment berry seed tss acidity juice potassium antho tartaric malic wt (g) wt (g) (°b) (%) p h (ppm) cyanin acid acid (g/mg) (g/l) (g/l) east control 100.00 1.43 21.37 0.59 3.58 1748 0.83 6.50 3.84 east lr 95.20 1.45 22.43 0.53 3.43 1648 1.00 5.04 3.51 west control 100.60 1.47 21.31 0.61 3.52 1636 0.80 6.52 3.92 west lr 95.60 1.46 21.86 0.56 3.56 1570 0.84 6.26 3.62 sem ± 1.59 0.015 0.32 0.01 0.041 33.06 0.12 0.225 0.22 cd@ 5% 3.39 0.032 0.69 0.03 0.087 70.46 0.26 0.479 0.47 pd”0.05 0.049* ns ns 0.004 0.044 0.012 ns 0.023 ns *: values below 0.05 are statistically significant at pd”0.05; ns: non significant table 2: effect of leaf removal on fruit composition of sauvignon blanc grapes treatment berry wt seed wt tss acidity juice potassium tartaric malic (g) (g) (°b) (%) p h (ppm) (g/l) (g/l) east control 96.39 1.43 21.26 0.606 3.62 1782 7.40 3.87 east lr 104.40 1.46 22.62 0.500 3.46 1588 6.14 2.89 west control 98.60 1.46 21.88 0.622 3.61 1658 7.15 3.78 west lr 101.60 1.46 21.62 0.582 3.52 1650 6.66 3.21 sem ± 1.953 0.017 0.268 0.016 0.039 29.46 0.239 0.208 cd@ 5% 4.161 0.036 0.571 0.034 0.083 62.77 0.509 0.443 pd”0.05 0.049 ns 0.016 0.0003 0.030 0.002 0.002 0.001 *: values below 0.05 are statistically significant at p=0.05; ns: non significant 122 satisha and somkuwar j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 t ab le 3 : e ff ec t of l ea f re m ov al o n ph en ol ic p ro fil e (m g/ l ) of c ab er ne t sa uv ig no n gr ap es r oo ts to ck s f la vo no id p he no lic c om po un ds n on f la vo no id p he no lic c om po un ds to ta l f la va n -3 -o ls f la vo no ls a nd f la vo no l a gl yc on s h yd ro xy b en zo ic h yd ro xy c in na m at es s ti lb en e a ci ds c at ec hi n ep ic at e q ue rc et r ut in e k ae m pf m yr ec e g al lic v an ill ic c af te ri c c ou m ar ic c hl or o r es ve r pi ce at ch in in hy dr at e er ol tin ac id ac id ac id ac id ge ni c at ro l an no l e as t c on tr ol 20 .7 8 7. 11 6. 61 0. 02 7 0. 23 0. 00 0 3. 48 0. 21 2. 07 1. 39 2. 05 0. 05 6 17 .2 6 62 .6 5 e as t l r 24 .8 9 6. 80 10 .5 6 0. 03 0 0. 37 0. 01 5 3. 92 0. 57 2. 20 2. 16 2. 87 0. 02 6 17 .3 4 72 .0 9 w es t c on tr ol 20 .9 8 5. 62 7. 78 0. 04 1 0. 13 0. 00 1 3. 20 0. 11 0. 97 2. 29 1. 77 0. 03 3 30 .9 7 76 .0 1 w es t l r 22 .3 0 5. 87 13 .1 2 0. 03 6 0. 11 0. 00 0 3. 89 0. 40 0. 80 3. 80 1. 68 0. 02 5 39 .4 1 94 .0 1 se m ± 2. 39 1. 07 0. 80 3 0. 00 6 0. 03 3 0. 00 3 0. 30 0. 12 0. 48 0. 39 6 0. 29 0 0. 02 3 1. 43 2 5. 03 4 c d @ 5 % 5. 09 2. 28 1. 71 1 0. 01 2 0. 07 0 0. 00 6 0. 64 0. 26 1. 03 0. 84 3 0. 61 7 0. 04 9 3. 05 1 10 .4 24 pd ”0 .0 5 n s n s 0. 00 01 n s 0. 00 02 0. 01 0 n s n s n s 0. 00 4 0. 04 n s 0. 00 1 0. 00 36 *: v al ue s be lo w 0 .0 5 ar e st at is tic al ly s ig ni fic an t at p d” 0. 05 ; n s: n on s ig ni fic an t t ab le 4 : e ff ec t of l ea f re m ov al o n ph en ol ic p ro fil e (m g/ l ) of s au vi gn on b la nc g ra pe s r oo ts to ck s f la vo no id p he no lic c om po un ds n on f la vo no id p he no lic c om po un ds to ta l f la va n -3 -o ls f la vo no ls a nd f la vo no l a gl yc on s h yd ro xy b en zo ic h yd ro xy c in na m at es s ti lb en e a ci ds c at ec hi n ep ic at e q ue rc et r ut in e k ae m pf m yr ec e g al lic v an ill ic c af te ri c c ou m ar ic c hl or o r es ve r pi ce at ch in in hy dr at e er ol tin ac id ac id ac id ac id ge ni c at ro l an no l e as t c on tr ol 13 .9 5 8. 30 4. 06 0. 50 0. 36 1. 51 0. 77 0. 13 0. 82 0. 05 1. 26 0. 39 1. 27 33 .3 8 e as t l r 16 .7 7 8. 65 5. 91 1. 23 0. 80 2. 51 0. 84 0. 14 0. 62 0. 26 1. 53 0. 27 0. 89 43 .1 1 w es t c on tr ol 14 .8 6 8. 99 5. 33 0. 35 0. 18 2. 04 0. 80 0. 16 0. 63 0. 15 1. 59 0. 16 1. 50 37 .3 7 w es t l r 11 .7 1 6. 63 4. 60 0. 89 0. 15 1. 33 0. 79 0. 11 0. 87 0. 05 1. 34 0. 20 1. 34 30 .3 9 se m ± 1. 02 1 0. 50 2 0. 47 0 0. 25 0. 17 5 0. 24 8 0. 06 6 0. 03 4 0. 24 0 0. 01 8 0. 13 8 0. 11 7 0. 24 4 1. 64 8 c d @ 5 % 2. 17 5 1. 06 9 1. 00 1 0. 53 2 0. 37 2 0. 52 8 0. 14 0 0. 07 2 0. 51 1 0. 03 8 0. 29 4 0. 24 9 0. 47 7 3. 51 1 pd ”0 .0 5 0. 02 2 0. 02 4 0. 06 3 0. 00 1 0. 06 3 0. 01 6 0. 71 0 0. 02 4 0. 83 5 0. 00 1 0. 33 2 0. 54 8 0. 37 5 0. 00 03 *: v al ue s be lo w 0 .0 5 ar e st at is tic al ly s ig ni fic an t at p d” 0. 05 ; n s: n on s ig ni fic an t 123 effect of leaf removal on composition of wine grape varieties grown j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 115-124, 2019 references ber gqvis t, j. , dokoozlia n, n a nd ebisuda , n. 2001. sunlight exposure and temper atur e effects on berry growth and composition of cabernet sauvignon and grenache in the central san joa quin valley of ca lifornia. amer. j. enol. vitic. 52:1–7. boulton, r., 1980. the general relationship between potassium, sodium and ph in grape juice and wine. american 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(received on 3.10.2019, revised and accepted on 10.12.2019) introduction gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex hooker f.) is one of the most beautiful cut flowers with exquisite shape, size and colour with over 40 species of asiatic and african origin. gerbera is a dwarf herbaceous perennial plant belonging to the family asteraceae. it is a diploid, with somatic chromosome number 2n = 50. the modern gerbera arose from g. jamesonii hybridized with g. viridifolia and, possibly, other species. gerbera is among the top ten cutflowers traded in the global market. there is a good demand for these flowers both in the domestic and export markets. as commercial cultivation of the cut-flowers has a good potential, introduction and popularization of high-yielding cultivars of gerbera has gained importance. however, no systematic efforts have been made in the past to identify cultivars of gerbera suitable for cut-flower production under protected conditions in the shevaroy hills. keeping this in view, 36 cultivars of gerbera were collected and evaluated to identify gerbera cultivars suitable for the region. material and methods an experiment was conducted under polyhouse at horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural university, yercaud, between 2008 and 2010. the evaluation of commercial cultivars of cut gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex hooker f.) under polyhouse in shevaroy condition of eastern ghats m. anand, a. sankari and r. arulmozhiyan horticultural research station, yercaud 636 602, india e-mail: anandhort@yahoo.com abstract an investigation was carried out to evaluate performance of 36 cultivars of cut gerbera (gerbera jamesonii bolus ex hooker f.) in a polyhouse at horticultural research station, tamil nadu agricultural university, yercaud, during 2008-2010. significant differences were observed for all the characters studied. maximum plant-spread (78.02cm) was observed in cv. robusta. higher number of leaves was recorded in cv. white tibet (41.54). maximum leaf length and leaf width was recorded in cvs. golden gate and yanara. maximum number of suckers produced was recorded in cv. junkfru (7.60). maximum stalk length was observed in cv. white tibet (62.62cm), while flower diameter, cut flower production and vase-life were higher in cv. rosalin. correlation and path coefficient analysis showed that plant height, number of leaves per plant and number of suckers per plant were the important components of cut-flower yield in gerbera. it may be concluded that cultivars rosalin, white tibet, junkfru and golden gate were found to be the best for floral quality and yield, and are recommended for cut-flower production under shevaroy condition of eastern ghats. key words: gerbera, evaluation, correlation, path coefficient j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):199-203, 2013 experimental site is geographically located between 11°04" and 11°05" north latitude and 78°05" to 78°23" east longitude, at an altitude of 1500m above mean sea level. average maximum and minimum temperatures are 31.0oc and 12.4oc, respectively. mean annual rainfall in yercaud is 1572mm, and average relative humidity 75%. the soil of the experimental plot was laterite in texture, at 0.5 to 1.5m depth, ph 6.25 and ec 0.037 dsm. the plot was thoroughly pulverized and enriched with red soil, sand and welldecomposed farm yard manure in 2:1:1 proportion. the polyhouse was fumigated with methyl bromide (30g/m2). the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications. thirty six cultivars with uniformsized suckers (4-5 leaves) were collected from different sources (table 1) and planted in may 2008 at a spacing of 30 x 30cm. length, breadth and height of the polyhouse was 23m, 12m and 7.5m, respectively. five plants per replication in each cultivar were used for recording observations on plant spread, leaf length, leaf breadth, number of leaves/plant, number of suckers/plant, days taken to flowering, stalk length, flower diameter, number of flowers/plant/year and vase-life. genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients were calculated as per panse and sukhatme (1967). parameters of variability were calculated 200 as per the formula of burton and de vane (1953). heritability, genetic advance and expected genetic gain were calculated by the formula suggested by jhonson et al (1955). mean and standard error were worked out as per standard methods, and coefficient of variation was computed. path coefficient was worked out owing genotypic correlation coefficient. results and discussion all the genotypes showed significant differences for vegetative characters (table 2). greater plant-spread was recorded in cvs. rosalin (78.02cm) and white tibet (71.94cm); minimum was observed in cv. essandre (37.49cm). difference among the cultivars could be due to leaf size variation. these results are in accordance with findings of rajiv kumar and yadav (2005), and thomas et al (2004). more number of leaves were produced by cvs. white tibet (41.54), rosalin (35.46) and golden gate (35.46). leaf length and leaf width influence flower yield too, as these are important parameters influencing plant spread. longest leaf was recorded in cv. golden gate (29.62cm), while the shortest in cv. goldy (14cm). cultivar golden gate was found to produce broader leaves, and yanara narrower leaves. difference in various growth parameters may be attributed to inherent genetic characters of the cultivar (luna and mahumita, 2009). among the cultivars, higher number of suckers was recorded in cvs. junkfru, (7.60) and rosalin (6.90), while table 1. source of gerbera cultivars cultivar source aida kf biotech amaretto spic biotech arobella kf biotech avemeria spic biotech blondy private nursery bondana private nursery dalma kf biotech dolcerita private nursery essandre spic biotech florida spic biotech golden gate kf biotech goldy private nursery junkfru private nursery kalika private nursery lily private nursery marmara spic biotech marshsal spic biotech mini private nursery oilila private nursery oranila kf biotech piton private nursery red bull private nursery red ventura private nursery ringo private nursery rosalin kf biotech rosabella private nursery ruby red private nursery sunway kf biotech skylina spic biotech verseck private nursery vojavir private nursery thalassa kf biotech tiffany private nursery white tibet private nursery woman spic biotech yanara spic biotech table 2. evaluation of gerbera cultivars for growth attributes under shevaroy conditions cultivars plant leaf leaf number number days spread length width of of taken to (cm) (cm) (cm) leaves/ suckers/ flowering plant plant aida 56.75 15.00 5.33 16.21 5.58 130.67 amaretto 59.44 19.00 4.90 18.24 5.58 134.67 arobella 50.16 21.62 4.00 30.40 5.07 116.67 avemeria 50.67 22.00 4.50 25.33 4.56 123.67 blondy 49.76 18.00 3.70 39.52 5.27 139.00 bondana 42.56 21.00 5.90 27.36 6.49 134.67 dalma 43.07 15.00 6.10 29.39 5.67 113.67 dolcerita 38.51 19.50 5.00 31.41 4.05 126.67 essandre 37.49 21.00 5.00 39.52 3.95 127.67 florida 58.27 16.50 5.14 22.29 5.98 139.00 golden gate 67.04 29.62 7.10 35.46 5.67 115.67 goldy 59.79 14.00 5.26 29.39 3.55 117.67 junkfru 66.71 25.00 6.70 38.50 7.60 116.67 kalika 63.84 16.50 3.50 22.29 3.55 121.33 lily 42.15 14.10 5.77 29.37 3.98 125.33 marmara 48.14 16.00 5.90 31.41 4.56 123.67 marshsal 61.81 23.00 5.50 32.43 3.55 126.67 mini 53.71 23.00 5.70 25.33 4.56 117.67 oilila 70.59 25.00 6.40 31.41 6.99 134.67 oranila 61.98 23.50 3.80 31.41 4.56 109.67 piton 49.65 21.00 5.40 17.23 3.55 145.00 red bull 43.57 23.00 5.90 33.44 4.05 129.67 red ventura 63.84 17.50 5.00 23.31 5.32 121.33 ringo 50.67 21.00 5.10 21.28 4.19 127.67 rosalin 78.02 23.66 6.50 35.46 6.90 120.33 rosabella 44.08 22.00 4.40 33.44 3.55 133.67 ruby red 59.45 23.00 6.40 33.44 6.48 145.00 sunway 56.75 17.00 4.83 33.44 4.76 120.33 skylina 42.56 19.00 5.70 34.45 4.96 129.67 verseck 45.72 20.00 5.89 24.32 5.21 135.67 vojavir 50.87 15.25 5.37 20.27 5.20 128.67 thalassa 57.76 20.00 4.50 29.39 4.66 126.67 tiffany 38.51 25.00 3.60 21.28 3.55 133.67 white tibet 71.94 22.50 6.20 41.54 6.18 127.67 woman 39.52 19.00 4.90 39.52 4.56 134.67 yanara 41.55 23.50 3.20 23.31 4.05 144.00 sem 2.3 0.37 0.19 1.27 0.42 5.37 cd (p=0.05) 4.7 0.74 0.39 2.53 0.21 10.72 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):199-203, 2013 anand et al 201 rosalin produced the longest stalk, while cultivars dalma and florida produced the shortest. similar variations have been earlier observed by kandpal et al (2003) in cutgerbera. diameter of the flower was highest in cv. rosalin (11.7cm) and white tibet (11.45cm), while cv. mini had the lowest flower diameter (5.47cm). this is perhaps due to the inherent character of the individual variety. these findings are in accordance with results of luna and mahumita (2009) who reported large difference in flowerdiameter of different gerbera cultivars grown under greenhouse conditions. number of cut-flowers per plant varied from 24 to 48 flowers per plant per year. cultivar rosalin produced the highest number of cut-flowers (48), followed by white tibet (40). minimum number of cut-flowers were produced by dalma (23). longest vase-life of cut-flower in water was recorded in cv. rosalin (11.33 days). analysis of variance revealed that mean square of treatments was significant for most of the characters, indicating varietal differences in all the characters studied (table 4). estimates for phenotypic coefficient of variance (pcv) were found to be higher than genotypic coefficient of variance (gcv) for all the seven characters studied indicating, that, the apparent variation was not only due to the genotype but also due to influence of the environment in expression of the genotype. these results are in agreement with chobe et al (2010). a close correspondence was seen between gcv and pcv for number of leaves, number of suckers per plant, flower diameter and number of flowers, indicating little influence of environment on these characters. estimates for heritability in the broad sense gives a measure of transmission of characters from one generation to another, thus, giving an idea of the heritable portion of variability, and enabling the plant breeder isolate elite selections in the crop. in the present study, number of flowers per plant had high heritability values along with genetic advance of mean, followed by number of suckers per plant and number of leaves. thus, selection on the basis of number of flowers per plant, number of suckers per plant and number of leaves would be more effective in further breeding programmes. chobe et al (2010) reported high heritability along with genetic advance as per cent of mean for number of days to first flowering, stalk length and number of flowers per plant. anoop kumari et al (2011) reported high heritability, along with lower genetic advance, for number of suckers and flower diameter, thereby exhibiting non-additive gene effects. table 3. evaluation of gerbera cultivars for floral characters under shevaroy condition cultivars stalk flower number of vase-life length diameter flowers/plant/ (days) (cm) (cm) year aida 38.91 8.51 24.00 6.00 amaretto 43.68 9.22 24.00 9.33 arobella 49.76 5.88 36.00 10.33 avemeria 43.57 8.51 24.00 10.33 blondy 46.01 7.29 24.00 7.00 bondana 48.03 9.02 36.00 9.33 dalma 35.36 7.91 24.00 9.33 dolcerita 51.48 8.41 24.00 8.33 essandre 49.15 8.31 36.00 10.33 florida 35.77 7.29 24.00 9.33 golden gate 50.86 9.50 36.00 8.33 goldy 46.72 6.99 24.00 9.33 junkfru 57.05 10.64 36.00 8.33 kalika 41.35 8.92 24.00 8.33 lily 42.09 6.51 32.00 7.33 marmara 42.46 10.13 24.00 9.33 marshsal 52.39 6.28 24.00 9.33 mini 38.91 5.47 36.00 8.33 oilila 54.21 8.51 36.00 10.33 oranila 54.62 9.32 36.00 9.33 piton 46.11 8.51 24.00 8.33 red bull 39.72 10.33 24.00 10.33 red ventura 45.19 10.33 24.00 10.33 ringo 37.90 8.51 36.00 8.33 rosalin 58.17 11.75 48.00 10.33 rosabella 39.72 7.60 36.00 9.33 ruby red 50.66 7.39 36.00 10.33 sunway 48.74 8.11 24.00 8.33 skylina 41.95 9.53 24.00 10.33 verseck 40.84 10.03 36.00 10.33 vojavir 38.10 9.63 24.00 9.33 thalassa 51.78 6.59 24.00 9.33 tiffany 50.87 8.51 24.00 10.33 white tibet 62.62 11.45 40.00 10.33 woman 47.93 9.83 36.00 10.33 yanara 42.86 8.11 24.00 9.33 sem 2.20 0.42 1.29 0.46 cd (p=0.05) 4.39 0.83 2.58 0.92 cvs. goldy, rosabella, tiffany and piton produced lower number of suckers per plant. similar variations in sucker production among cultivars of cut-gerbera was also reported earlier by rajiv kumar and yadav (2005), and sarkar and ghimiray (2004). least number of days taken to flowering was recorded in cv. oranila (109.67 days), followed by cv. dalma (113.67 days). the least number of days taken to flowering was recorded in cv. ruby red (145.0 days). on perusal of data presented in table 3, it is seen that floral characters differed significantly among cultivars. stalk length is one of the most important characters considered in grading cut-flowers. cultivars white tibet and j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):199-203, 2013 evaluation of cut gerbera cultivars under polyhouse 202 in the present study, it was observed that genotypic correlation coefficient was higher than phenotypic correlation coefficient for most of the characters under study (table 5). similar trend was observed also by magar et al (2010) in cut-gerbera for most of the characters. these findings indicate that though there is a strong, inherent association between various characters, phenotypic expression is reduced under the influence of environment. in some cases, phenotypic and genotypic correlations were very close, indicating less influence of environment. in the present study, genotypic correlation between number of flowers per plant per year was positively correlated with plant height (0.145), number of leaves (0.241), number of suckers (0.188) and stalk length (0.200) and were positively correlated, while, the days to first flowering and flower diameter showed a negative correlation with yield. this is in line with results of magar et al (2010). path coefficient analysis revealed that plant height, number of leaves, number of suckers and stalk length had a positive effect on yield (table 6), while this was negative for days to first flowering and flower diameter. direct effect was the highest for plant height, followed by stalk length and number of leaves. number of leaves had the highest indirect effect on number of flowers/plant/year through days to first flowering. considering correlation and path coefficients, plant height, number of leaves per plant and number of suckers per plant emerged as the important components of cut-flower yield in gerbera. this is in agreement with results of hasanuzzaman (2006). it may be concluded from the present investigation that of the 36 cultivars evaluated under polyhouse condition, cultivars rosalin, white tibet, junkfru and golden gate were the best, with superior qualities for cut-flower production under shevaroy condition of eastern ghats. table 4. analysis of genetic parameters for quantitative traits in gerbera character range mean pcv gcv ecv heritability ga(%) (%) (%) (%) (h2) % of mean plant height (cm) 22.09 28.37 25.49 7.84 5.91 5.15 56.90 9.19 number of leaves 16.21 41.54 29.22 25.13 24.05 7.29 91.58 47.41 days to flowering 109.67 145 127.75 8.18 6.35 5.16 60.25 10.15 number of suckers 3.55 7.60 4.95 22.74 22.13 5.25 94.66 44.35 stalk length (cm) 35.77 62.62 46.27 15.10 13.93 5.84 85.06 26.46 flower diameter (cm) 5.47 11.75 8.58 18.14 17.12 6.00 89.07 33.29 number of flowers / plant /year 24.00 48.00 29.67 23.29 22.67 5.35 94.71 45.44 table 6. path co-efficient analysis for cut gerbera character number of days to number of stalk flower no. of leaves flowering suckers length diameter flowers / (cm) (cm) plant /year number of leaves 0.24881 0.02556 0.02463 0.01306 -0.02052 0.24881 days to flowering 0.04515 -0.14084 -0.00105 -0.09251 -0.04929 -0.14084 number of suckers 0.09602 0.00231 0.06383 -0.04765 0.03445 0.06383 stalk length (cm) 0.0103 0.04131 -0.00964 0.31537 -0.10227 0.31537 flower diameter (cm) -0.01191 -0.01619 -0.00513 0.07521 -0.42884 -0.42884 table 5. genotypic and phenotypic co-efficient of correlation for yield attributing parameters in gerbera character number days to number of stalk flower no. of of leaves flowering suckers length diameter flowers / (cm) (cm) plant /year number of leaves genotype 1 0.181 0.386 0.041 0.048 0.241 phenotype 1 0.165 0.372 0.042 0.038 0.238 days to flowering genotype 1 -0.016 -0.293 0.115 -0.276 phenotype 1 0.129 0.003 0.262 -0.114 number of suckers genotype 1 -0.151 -0.08 0.188 phenotype 1 -0.059 -0.009 0.211 stalk length (cm) genotype 1 0.238 0.200 phenotype 1 0.333 0.201 flower diameter (cm) genotype 1 -0.292 phenotype 1 -0.254 no. of flowers / plant / year genotype 1 phenotype 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):199-203, 2013 anand et al 203 references anoop kumari, patel, k.s. and mahesh choudhary. 2011. genetic variability studies in gerbera, res. pl. biol., 1:01-04 burton, g.w. and de vane, e.h. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478481 chobe, r.r., pachankar, p.b. and warade, s.d. 2010. studies on genetic variability and heritability in gerbera. asian j. hort., 5:356-358 hasanuzzaman, m.d. 2006. performance of gerbera genotypes. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, submitted to shere-bangla agricultural university, dhaka johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:314-318 kandpal, k., kumar, s., srivastava, r. and ramchandra, n. 2003. evaluation of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) cultivars under tarai condition. j. orn. hort., 6:252-255 luna barooah and madhumita choudhury talukdar. 2009. evaluation of different gerbera cultivars under agroclimatic conditions of jorhat, assam. j. orn. hort., 12:106-110 magar, s.d., warade, s.d., nalge, n.a. and nimbalkar, c.a. 2010. correlation and path analysis studies in gerbera (gerbera jamesonii). int’l. j. pl. sci., 5:553-555 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers. 2nd edn. icar, new delhi, pp 101-109 and 152-161 rajiv kumar and yadav, d.s. 2005. evaluation of gerbera cultivars under sub-tropical hills of meghalaya. j. orn. hort., 8:212-215 sarkar, i. and ghimiray, t.s. 2004. performance of gerbera under protected condition in hilly region of west bengal. j. orn. hort., 7:230-234 thomas, d.a., sujatha, k., jayanthi, m. and sangama. r. 2004. comparative performance of sucker and tissue culture propagated plants of gerbera under polyhouse. j. orn. hort., 7:31-37 (ms received 30 july 2012, revised 03 april 2013, accepted 07 june 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):199-203, 2013 evaluation of cut gerbera cultivars under polyhouse introduction north-eastern region of india is endowed with a unique physiography and rich plant genetic diversity. this region is blessed with nature’s gift of a large number of indigenous fruit crops of tropical, subtropical and temperate nature. many of these have medicinal, therapeutic and commercial value. however, a large number of indigenous minor fruits are still found in the wild and many are yet to be precisely identified and used. known species, however, are on the verge of extinction due to inadequate methods of propagation. therefore, in an effort to prevent their extinction considering their importance in the environment of the rural area and home-life of the community, their large-scale multiplication through cuttings is the need of the hour. five fruit species indigenous to assam were used in the study: barthekera (garcinia pedunculata roxb.), teportenga (garcinia xanthochymus hk.f), jalphai (eleocarpus floribundus bl ), nagatenga (rhus semialata murr.) and outenga (dillenia indica linn. vegetative propagation is particularly important in horticulture because genetic make up of most fruit cultivars is highly variable, and unique characteristics of such plants are lost for ever if these are seed-propagated. vegetative propagation makes possible production of trees with desirable characters and enables their perpetuation and multiplication. standardization of iba concentration for rooting of cuttings of some indigenous fruit crops of assam thejangulie angami1 and r.p. das department of horticulture assam agricultural university jorhat785 013, india e-mail: thejaangami@yahoo.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study the effect of different concentrations of iba (250, 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 ppm) on rooting of cuttings in five indigenous fruit speciesbarthekera (garcinia pedunculata roxb.), teportenga (garcinia xanthochymus hk.f), jalphai (eleocarpus floribundus bl ), nagatenga (rhus semialata murr.) and outenga (dillenia indica linn.) during march 2007. among all the five species studied, outenga registered highest percentage of rooting (38.86), number of primary roots (12.00), survival percentage (40.47) and longest shoots (20.41cm). iba @ 2000 ppm exhibited highest percentage of rooting (37.13), number of primary roots (9.13), survival percentage (35.69) and longest shoots (17.91cm). key words: cuttings, indigenous fruits, rooting, vegetative growth, indole butyric acid in propagation by cuttings, formation of roots or “rhizogenesis”, is an important stage which is attained only when several influencing factors come into play. among these, plant growth regulators are known to have a stimulatory effect on rooting of cuttings (audus, 1965). so far, among a number of synthetic plants growth substances used for rooting of cuttings, indole butyric acid (iba) has been found to be (hartman and kester, 1993). thus, the objective of this experiment was to work out and optimize the most appropriate concentration of iba for good rooting and high survival of cuttings in the stated indigenous fruit species of assam and to study morphological characters of the established cuttings as influenced by different concentrations of iba. material and methods the present investigation was conducted at the experimental farm, department of horticulture, assam agricultural university, jorhat, during march 2007. the experiment was laid out in split plot design, the main plot being species of the fruit crop, while, iba concentration was considered in the sub-plot. these were replicated three times. uniform, diseases-free, 1.5 to 2 year old shoots were selected for the experiment. about 10mm thick and 15-20cm long cuttings were made with a slanting cut on both sides, 1present address: division of horticulture, icar (rc) for neh region, umiam-793103, meghalaya, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):109-113, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 110 retaining 2-3 round buds in between. basal ends of the prepared cuttings were treated with indole 3-butyric acid for 5-10 seconds. solutions of 0, 250, 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 ppm iba were prepared by dissolving iba in a drop of 1n koh and then making up the volume with water. treated cuttings were than planted (15 x 20cm spacing) in the nursery bed. at planting, the base of the cuttings was pressed firmly to avoid formation of air pockets. after planting, nursery beds were watered well. periodic observation on rooting percentage, number of primary roots, length of the longest primary root, fresh and dry weights of the root were recorded randomly for each replication of the treatment, and, mean values were calculated. similarly, for the aerial part of the cutting, number of branches and new leaves, length of the shoot, leaf area and survival percentage were recorded and subjected to statistical analysis as per panse and sukhatm (1967). data on rooting and survival percentage were subjected to angular transformation prior to statistical analysis (snedecor and cochran, 1967). results and discussion plant species: as for root formation, outenga registered highest percentage (38.86) of rooting at 90 days from planting. higher percentage of rooting in outenga may be attributed to presence of a higher number of rapidly dividing cells leading to early callusing and, ultimately, rooting (yakobashvilli, 1964). outenga produced maximum number of primary roots (12.00), longest root (11.44 cm), higest root fresh weight (1.03g) and dry weight (0.21g). better performance of outenga in all root characters could be ascribed to presence of higher rooting cofactors in the tissues of cuttings (leonard, 1968). superiority of outenga could also be due to higher c:n ratio in the tissues of cuttings and greater food reserves in the shoot (basu and ghosh 1974). higher endogenous auxin concentrations are known to improve rooting (haissig, 1970) but application of cytokinin inhibits rooting (drewes and van staden, 1989). higher endogenous auxin and lower cytokinin concentration may have enabled better rooting in outenga cuttings. higher percentage of survival of cuttings of outenga was observed to be related to higher amount of callusing and rooting compared to that in the other species. contrary to this, nagatenga recorded lowest percentage of survival. this might be due to failure of formation of vascular connection between the root primordial and vascular tissue of the cutting itself, (bose et al, 1991). nagatenga recorded highest number of branches (5.56) and number of new leaves (15.23), and lowest (5.33) number of primary roots. this could be due to high endogenous levels of cytokinin and sugars. similar explanation had been given by (gur et al, 1986) where high cytokinin and sugar concentration have been were shown to be related to leaf retention in peach cuttings. longest (20.41cm) shoots were found in outenga. this may be due to a better root system which absorbed more nutrients for plant growth, as shown by deol and khosla (1983). maximum leaf area (88.37cm2) in outenga might be due to its genetic propensity for production of largersized leaves. iba treatments: increased rooting response of iba @ 2000ppm in cuttings may be attributed to induction of more vigorous cell division at the basal end of cutting and increases accumulation of sugars, which favours callus formation and, subsequently, rooting. this is in conformity with findings of (sundharai et al, 2002). cuttings treated with iba @ 2000ppm showed significant superiority over all other iba concentrations and exhibited highest number of primary roots (9.13), root length (9.30cm), fresh weight (1.12g) and dry weight (0.22g). this might be due to increased metabolic activity in the cuttings treated with iba, as shown by audus (1965). higher survival % of cutting treated with iba @ 2000 ppm might be attributed to higher number of primary roots, branches and leaves, which paid in higher uptake of water (kher, 1987). iba treatment significantly increased the number of new leaves (13.16), number of branches (5.62), length of the shoot (17.91cm) and leaf area (49.72cm2) per cuttings. better response of iba @ 2000 ppm with reference to all shoot characters may be attributed to an improved root system. similar inference was drawn by chauhan and maheshwari (1970) in their work with peach cuttings. interaction effect: data in tables 1 to 6 reveal that the interaction effect of plant species and iba treatments was significant longest primary root per cutting, fresh weight of roots per cutting, survival percentage, number of branches per cutting, number of new leaves per cutting, size of the longest shoots per cutting. further, the findings revealed that the combination of outenga and iba @ 2000 ppm (p 5 t 5 ) exhibited superiority over all combination in respect of number of new leaves per cutting (18.87) and survival percentage (45.00). superiority of this two combination may be attributed to presence of a rooting cofactor in the stem thejangulie angami and das j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):109-113, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 111 or to inherent rooting capacity of the species (singh and singh, 1972). in the present investigation, it was also observed that outenga treated with iba 250ppm (p 5 t 1 ) showed superiority in respect of length of the longest primary root (12.47 cm). taportenga treated with iba @ 2000 ppm (p 2 t 5 ) showed highest fresh weight (1.22g). highest number of branches (6.50) was observed in jalphai treated with iba @ 2000 ppm (p 3 t 5 ), while, length of longest shoot (21.95cm) was superior in outenga treated with iba @ 1500ppm (p 5 t 4 ). it is also evident that interaction effect of plant species and iba treatments was found to be non-significant in respect of rooting percentage at 90 days, number of primary roots per cutting, dry weight of roots per cutting and leaf area per cutting, which was ascribed to the inherent resistance of the plant species to rooting. this is in consonance with the finding obtained by kehl (1950) who reported that though growth promoting hormones improved rooting in various plant species, these may be incapable of break down their inherent resistance to rooting. it can thus be concluded that the plant species outenga produced highest rooting percentage at 90 days, followed by jalphai, nagatenga and barthekera. taportenga exhibited minimum rooting percentage and was found difficult-to-root plant species. however, we have shown that all the species can be propagated by stemcuttings with the aid of iba. it was also evident that different concentrations of iba induced different response in the five species of plants selected for this experiment. iba at 2000 ppm showed superior behaviour in rooting as well as in shoot characteristics over all other concentrations tested in the table 1. effect of plant species and iba on length of longest primary roots per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 6.67 7.00 6.83 6.17 10.57 7.45 t 1 6.50 8.17 7.57 6.90 12.47 8.32 t 2 6.33 7.80 8.23 7.57 12.00 8.39 t 3 6.00 7.53 8.90 8.17 11.40 8.40 t 4 6.00 10.73 9.37 8.63 11.17 9.18 t 5 5.83 11.00 9.67 8.93 11.07 9.30 mean p 6.22 8.71 8.43 7.73 11.44 cd (p=0.05) p= 0.28 p 1 (barthekera) t 0 (control) t= 0.24 p 2 (taportenga) t 1 (250 ppm) pxt = * p 3 (jalphai) t 2 (500 ppm) *= significant at p=0.05 p 4 (nagatenga) t 3 (1000 ppm) p 5 (outenga) t 4 (1500 ppm) t 5 (2000 ppm) table 2. effect of plant species and iba on fresh weight of roots per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 0.46 0.54 0.43 0.45 0.45 0.47 t 1 0.9 0.83 1.05 0.80 1.15 0.95 t 2 0.99 1.10 1.01 1.00 1.19 1.06 t 3 1.07 1.17 0.99 1.03 1.18 1.09 t 4 1.11 1.18 1.07 1.05 1.13 1.11 t 5 1.13 1.22 1.09 1.07 1.08 1.12 mean p 0.94 1.01 0.94 0.90 1.03 cd (p=0.05) p= 0.03 t= 0.03 pxt = * *= significant at p=0.05 table 3. effect of plant species and iba on survival percentage at 120 days iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 00.00 33.33 00.00 00.00 30.00 12.67 (0.29) (35.22) (0.29) (0.29) (33.21) (13.86) t 1 00.00 33.33 16.67 00.00 40.00 18.00 (0.29) (35.22) (23.86) (0.29) (39.23) (19.78) t 2 10.00 36.67 23.33 10.00 43.33 24.67 (18.43) (37.22) (28.78) (18.43) (41.15) (28.81) t 3 13.33 40.00 33.33 13.33 43.33 28.67 (21.14) (39.23) (35.22) (21.14) (41.15) (31.58) t 4 20.00 43.33 36.67 16.67 46.67 32.67 (26.57) (41.15) (37.22) (23.86) (43.08) (34.38) t 5 20.00 46.67 36.67 20.00 50.00 34.67 (26.57) (43.08) (37.22) (26.57) (45.00) (35.69) mean p 10.56 38.89 24.44 10.00 42.22 (15.55) (38.52) (27.10) (15.10) (40.47) cd (p=0.05) p= 1.82 t= 2.45 pxt = * *= significant at p=0.05 table 4. effect of plant species and iba on number of branches per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 1.75 3.50 3.83 4.00 4.92 3.60 t 1 2.00 4.25 4.50 5.42 4.92 4.22 t 2 2.08 5.00 6.00 5.33 6.00 4.88 t 3 2.42 5.33 5.75 6.00 5.50 5.00 t 4 3.00 6.00 5.83 6.25 5.58 5.33 t 5 3.67 6.33 6.50 6.33 5.25 5.62 mean p 2.49 5.07 5.40 5.56 5.36 cd (p=0.05) p= 0.21 t= 0.20 pxt = * *= significant at p=0.05 rooting of cuttings with iba in indigenous fruits of assam j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):109-113, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 112 table 5. effect of plant species and iba on number of new leaves per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 3.47 5.93 6.80 10.20 11.60 7.60 t 1 3.80 7.13 8.13 14.87 12.53 9.29 t 2 3.80 9.00 11.07 14.07 13.27 10.24 t 3 3.47 10.00 11.00 16.00 15.73 11.24 t 4 4.67 10.20 13.00 18.07 18.47 12.88 t 5 5.07 10.40 13.27 18.20 18.87 13.16 mean p 4.05 8.78 10.54 15.23 15.08 cd (p=0.05) p= 0.49 t= 0.58 pxt = * *= significant at p=0.05 table 6. effect of plant species and iba on length of longest shoot per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 11.17 10.89 12.72 12.61 18.17 13.11 t 1 13.17 13.00 13.50 14.44 19.94 14.81 t 2 13.89 14.06 14.50 15.94 20.50 15.78 t 3 15.22 16.06 16.05 15.67 21.45 16.89 t 4 16.11 14.83 16.39 17.61 21.95 17.38 t 5 16.33 16.33 17.33 19.11 20.44 17.91 mean p 14.31 14.19 15.08 15.90 20.41 cd (p=0.05) p= 0.44 t= 0.39 pxt = * *= significant at p=0.05 table 7. effect of plant species and iba on percentage of rooting at 90 days iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 13.33 10.00 30.00 16.67 33.33 20.67 (21.14) (18.43) (33.21) (23.86) (35.22) (26.37 ) t 1 16.67 16.67 33.33 23.33 36.67 25.33 (23.86) (23.86) (35.22) (28.78) (37.22) (29.79) t 2 20.00 23.33 33.33 26.67 36.67 28.00 (26.67) (28.78) (35.22) (31.00) (37.22) (31.76) t 3 23.33 26.67 36.67 23.33 40.00 30.00 (28.78) (31.00) (37.22) (28.78) (39.23) (33.00) t 4 26.67 23.33 40.00 30.00 43.33 32.67 (31.00) (28.78) (39.23) (33.21) (41.15) (34.67) t 5 30.00 26.67 43.33 36.67 46.67 36.67 (33.21) (31.00) (41.15) (37.22) (43.08) (37.13) mean p 21.67 21.11 36.11 26.11 39.44 (27.43) (26.97) (36.88) (30.47) (38.86) cd (p=0.05) p= 2.31 t= 2.64 pxt = ns ns= not significant table 8. effect of plant species and iba on number of primary roots per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 5.00 6.33 6.33 4.33 10.00 6.40 t 1 5.67 6.67 7.00 5.33 11.67 7.27 t 2 7.00 7.67 7.67 5.00 12.00 7.87 t 3 7.00 8.00 7.67 4.67 12.33 7.93 t 4 7.33 8.33 8.00 6.00 12.67 8.47 t 5 8.00 9.33 8.33 6.67 13.33 9.13 mean p 6.67 7.72 7.50 5.33 12.00 cd (p=0.05) p= 0.60 t= 0.72 pxt = ns ns= not significant table 9. effect of plant species and iba on dry weight of roots per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 0.14 0.16 0.12 0.12 0.15 0.14 t 1 0.16 0.17 0.18 0.17 0.21 0.18 t 2 0.17 0.20 0.17 0.16 0.22 0.18 t 3 0.20 0.20 0.16 0.16 0.23 0.19 t 4 0.21 0.21 0.19 0.18 0.21 0.20 t 5 0.22 0.23 0.22 0.20 0.21 0.22 mean p 0.18 0.20 0.17 0.16 0.21 cd (p=0.05) p= 0.01 t= 0.02 pxt = ns ns= not significant table 10. effect of plant species and iba on leaf area per cutting iba plant species (p) treatments (t) p 1 p 2 p 3 p 4 p 5 mean t t 0 49.17 46.60 17.63 15.90 84.67 42.79 t 1 51.58 48.95 19.11 17.08 87.27 44.80 t 2 63.67 52.46 19.80 16.67 89.10 48.34 t 3 60.00 53.11 19.46 18.57 90.83 48.39 t 4 57.17 51.50 20.98 19.33 90.83 47.96 t 5 65.17 53.67 21.59 20.65 87.52 49.72 mean p 57.79 51.05 19.76 18.03 88.37 cd (p=0.05) p= 3.55 t= ns pxt = ns ns= not significant thejangulie angami and das j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):109-113, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 113 five plant species. thus, indigenous fruit crops like barthekera, taportenga, jalphai, nagatenga and outenga can be propagated with proper care and management under suitable soil and climatic conditions of assam with application of iba. references audus, l.j. 1965. plant growth substances, leonard hill book limited, london, second edition, pp 553. basu, r.n. and ghosh, s.k. 1974. effect of nitrogen nutrition of stock plants justicia gendarussa l. on rooting of cutting. j. hortl.sci., 49:245-252. bose, t.k., mitra, s.k. and sadhu, m.k. 1991. propagation of tropical and sub tropical horticultural crops. first edition noya prakash, calcutta, pp. 33-38. chauhan, k.s. and maheshwari, l.d. 1970. effect of certain plant growth regulators, seasons and type of cuttings on root initiation and vegetative growth in stem cuttings of peach, var. sharbati. ind j. hort., 27:136-140. deol, g.s. and khosla, r.k. 1983. effect of size of stem cuttings on juvenile growth of populus ciliata. wall. ex. royle. ind.j.forestry, 6:205-207. drewes, f.e. and van staden, j. 1989. the effect of 6benzyladenine derivatives on the rooting of phaseolus vulgaris l. primary leaf cuttings. pl. growth reg., 8:289-296. gur, a., altman, a., stern, r. and wolowitz, b. 1986. improving rooting and survival of softwood peach cuttings. sci. hortic., 30: 97-108. haissig, b.e. 1970. influence of indole-3-acetic acid on adventitious root primordia of brittle willow. planta, 95:27-35. hartman, h.t. and kester, d.e. 1993. plant propagation principles and practices, fifth edition. prentice hall, new delhi, pp. 200-241. kehl, f.h. 1950. vegetative propagation of tea by nodal cuttings. tea quart. 20:3-18. kher, m.a. 1987. chrysanthemum in india. publ, nbri, lucknow, india leonard, p.s. 1968. factors influencing root initiation in easy and difficult-to-root cuttings of chrysanthemum. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 92:622-626. panse, v.g. and sukhatm, p.v. 1967. statistical methods of agricultural workers (2nd edition), icar, new delhi. singh, r. and singh, r.p. 1972. effect of iba, potting media and maturity of wood in propagation of sweet-lime and lemon by cuttings. ind. j. hort., 29:505-510. snedecor, g.w. and cochran, w.g. 1967. statistical methods. 6th edition. oxford and ibh publishing co., new delhi, pp. 325-329 sundharai, k., ponnuswami, v. and jaya jasmine. 2002. effect of growth regulators in the propagation of hippli (long pepper). south ind. hort., 48:172-174 yakobashvilli, b.a. 1964. anatomical study of some hardrooting subtropical plants. tea and subtropical plants, 1:135-147. (ms received 19 july 2010, revised 13 june 2011) rooting of cuttings with iba in indigenous fruits of assam j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):109-113, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction tomato is rich in lycopene, β-carotene, phenols and flavonoids, having moderate amounts of vitamin c (stewart et al, 2000; beutner et al, 2007). it is also a good source of vitamin e, thiamine, niacin, pyridoxine, folate, vitamin k and dietary fibre (usda, 2006). with high levels of healthpromoting bioactive compounds and antioxidants, tomato fruit has also been identified as a functional and nutraceutical food (agarwal and rao, 1998; canene-adams et al, 2005). vitamins are nutrients essential in our diet. eight of the water-soluble vitamins are known as vitamin b-complex group. thiamine (b1), riboflavin (b2), niacin (b3), pantothenic acid (b5), pyridoxine (b6), biotin (b7), folic acid (b9) and cyanocobalamin (b12) constitute vitamin bcomplex. the b vitamins function as coenzymes helping the body obtain energy from food. these are also important for good vision, a healthy skin, nervous system and red blood metabolite profiling for six ‘b’ vitamins using lc-ms in tomato genotypes at different stages of fruit maturity p. kavitha, k.s. shivashankara, t.k. roy, k.c. pavithra, v.k. rao, a.t. sadashiva1, k.v. ravishankar2 and g.j. sathish3 division of plant physiology and biochemistry, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru –560 089, india e-mail: shivaiihr@yahoo.com abstract vitamins are essential nutrients in food crucial for maintaining good health. tomato, being a widely consumed vegetable, provides a good quantity of vitamins. metabolite profiling of vitamins at different stages of fruit maturity in a crop helps identify the right stage for better quality. based on preliminary screening for quality parameters, tomato lines rich in tss, antioxidants, lycopene and beta-carotene were selected for the present study. eight genotypes and a wild species were profiled for ‘b’ vitamins at three different stages of fruit maturity, viz., green, breaker and ripe stage. a simple and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric (lc-ms/ms) method for simultaneous determination of six ‘b’ vitamins was developed and validated by us. among the genotypes studied, iihr-249-1 recorded higher niacin, pantothenic acid and biotin content. pyridoxine content was higher in the hybrid, arka rakshak. the wild species, la-1777(solanum habrochaites) was found to be rich in pantothenic acid, riboflavin and thiamine. content of most of the vitamins increased with ripening of the fruit. iihr-249-1 and la-1777 were found to be rich in ‘b’ vitamins, earlier reported to be also rich in antioxidants and lycopene. these genotypes can be used for improving the nutritive value of tomato under crop improvement programmes, through conventional breeding or biotechnological approaches. key words: tomato, b vitamins, lc-ms/ms-mrm, fruit ripening, green stage, breaker stage cell formation. various methods like microbiological assays, spectrophotometric assays, capillary electrophoresis, tlc, hplc and a few lc-ms based methods have been used for estimation of ‘b’ vitamins (chen et al, 2006). tomato is a very widely consumed vegetable globally and is moderately rich in vitamins, but it needs to be improved for content of ‘b’ vitamins very crucial for maintaining optimal health. metabolite profiling of the tomato fruit for vitamins can help improve its quality. the present study was undertaken to study variations in the profile of ‘b’ vitamins in eight selected genotypes that included hybrids, varieties, an elite germplasm line and a wild species, at three different stages of fruit ripening. we also developed a simple, sensitive and reliable lc-ms/ ms method for quantification of six ‘b’ vitamins, namely, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, pyridoxine and biotin. 1division of vegetable crops, 2division of biotechnology, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560 089, india 3department of biochemistry, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta-577 451, karnataka, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):30-37, 2015 31 metabolite profiling of ‘b’ vitamins in tomato fruit material and methods plant material based on initial screening of a large number of tomato lines for quality parameters, a total of nine genotypes of tomato including released varieties, commercial hybrids, cherry tomato, an elite germplasm line and a wild species were used for profiling ‘b’ vitamins, as follows: ● commercial hybrids: arka ananya, arka samrat and arka rakshak ● varieties: arka ashish and arka vikas ● cherry tomato lines: iihr-2864 and iihr-2866 ● wild species: solanum habrochaites (la-1777) ● elite germplasm line: iihr-249-1 plants were raised in the field under irrigated conditions as per the standard package of practices. ‘b’ vitamins were assessed in fruits harvested at three different stages of ripening, viz., green stage (45 days post-anthesis), breaker stage (55 days post-anthesis) and red ripe stage (60 days post-anthesis, when the fruit is completely red or orange, yet firm). samples were collected from three different plants in all the genotypes. reagents the water-soluble vitamin standard thiamine hydrochloride (≥99%), riboflavin (99%), niacin (99.5%), calcium d-pantothenate (98%), pyridoxine hydrochloride (99%) and biotin (≥99%) were procured from sigma chemical co., usa. standard vitamin solutions were prepared in 0.01n hcl. butylatedhydroxy toluene (bht) and ammonium formate were procured from himedia, india. amino acid standard mixtures at a concentration 2.5μmoles per ml, o-phthalaldehyde (opa) reagent and formic acid were obtained from sigma. amino acid standard solutions were prepared in 0.1n hcl. sodium phosphate [monobasic and dibasic (anhydrous)], sodium hydroxide and boric acid were obtained from merck, india. organic solvents used as a mobile phase for liquid chromatography were of chromatographic/ms grade. equipment acquity uplc-h class, coupled with acquity tqdms/ms from waters, usa with esi source, was used for determinating water-soluble vitamins. the instrument was equipped with a degasser, quaternary pump, automatic injection system, with a diode array detector and a temperature control compartment for the analytical column. the detection system allowed simultaneous detection at various wavelengths and mrm for individual masses. the overall system-control and data acquisition were monitored by mass lynx™ software. extraction of water-soluble vitamins extraction of water-soluble vitamins was done as per methods previously reported, with some modifications (santos et al, 2012; zand et al, 2012). during extraction it was assumed, that the samples were protected from direct exposure to light, to avoid degradation of the vitamins. in brief, 3-4 fruits of tomato from each of the genotypes were homogenized for one minute in a mixer-blender. from the homogenized mixture, 10g were weighed and then extracted with 40ml of 10 mm ammonium formate/methanol 50:50 (v/v) containing 0.1% bht. after shaking for 5 minutes to achieve good sample-dispersion in the extraction liquid, the samples were incubated in a water bath at 70°c for 40 min. after cooling down to room temperature, the samples were centrifuged at 14000g for 10 min and the volume made up to 50ml with 10mm ammonium formate. finally, the supernatant was filtered through a 0.2μm nylon filter and injected into an uplc-ms/ms system. lc and ms-ms conditions separation, identification and quantification of the six ‘b’ vitamins was performed using uplc coupled with tandem mass spectrometry detection, using multiple reaction monitoring (mrm) mode. the column used was uplc beh c18 (2.1 x 50mm, 1.7μm; waters, usa) with security guard column vanguard beh-c18 (2.1 x 5mm, 1.7μm; waters, usa). the column oven was maintained at 25°c, with the sample injection volume being 3.0μl. eluted vitamins were monitored using a pda detector and tqdms/ms (waters, usa), where lc-ms conditions were optimized for analysis of the vitamins. the binary mobile phase consisted of an aqueous phase of 0.1% formic acid in water (a) and organic phase of methanol (b). the initial flow was composed of 95% of a and 5% of b, and was held for 1.0 min. the gradient was gradually changed to 30% of a and 70% of b over a period of 6 min. then hold for 0.5 min. the system was then returned to 95% a and 5% b for 12 min. flow rate was maintained at 0.1 ml/min. simultaneous determination of the six ‘b’ vitamins through lc-ms/ms by mrm method is depicted in fig. 1. ms-ms method validation multiple reactions monitoring (mrm) detection mode was employed for analysis of ‘b’ vitamins. details on precursor ions, collision induced product ions and the optimised cone voltage and collision energies for each of the vitamins under esi+ve mode are presented in table 1. j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):30-37, 2015 32 temperatures at 350°c and 135°c respectively. evaluation parameters used for validating the methodology for determination of the vitamins were: linearity, detection, quantification limits and repeatability. regression line equations, correlation coefficients (r), lod and loq for each vitamin are shown in table 2. linearity was determined by constructing calibration curves, and five injections (n= 5) were made at each level, resulting in mean coefficient of variation for the injections of 1.6 to 4.5%. fresh fruits of tomato were used for validating the method of extraction and estimation of vitamins. recovery obtained for all the six ‘b’ vitamins ranged between 85 and 90%. the recovery studies were carried out by estimating the six ‘b’ vitamins in the spiked and nonspiked samples. recovery was calculated from the difference between the spiked and un-spiked samples, and was expressed as percentage. hplc analysis of free amino acids amino acids, viz., glutamic acid, alanine and valine, which are precursors for biosynthesis of most of the ‘b’ vitamins, were analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography (hplc) (bartolomeo and maisano, 2006). the chromatograph used was lc-10a system (shimadzu, kyoto, japan) connected to a uv-visible detector (10 a) with binary pump, and controlled by shimadzu class vp table 2. calibration curves, lod and loq for b vitamins compound rt standard curve correlation loda (ng/µl) loqb(ng/µl) linear range coefficient (r) tested (ng/µl) thiamine 1.60 y = 4014x – 3229.6 0.999 0.50 1.53 1.92 15.6 riboflavin 8.62 y = 4493x + 1.3825 0.998 0.51 1.55 1.0 8.0 niacin 2.15 y = 212.14x + 27.2 0.997 0.62 1.87 2 16 pantothenate 7.20 y = 2593x 66.54 0.999 0.19 0.59 1.6 12.8 pyridoxine 3.02 y = 47530x + 19652 0.996 0.5 1.50 2.14 17.12 biotin 8.58 y = 46818x + 1968.2 0.999 0.34 1.02 1.0 8.0 alod= limit of detection (s/n=3) bloq= limit of quantitation (s/n=10) table 1. mrm of ‘b’ vitamin standards ‘b’ vitamins formula parent ion daughter ions cone voltage collision energy ionisation mass (m/z) [m+h]+ (ce) mode thiamine (b1) 264 265.03 122.06 (q) a 20 16 esi+ 265.03 144.02 20 14 esi+ riboflavin (b2) 376 376.97 243.05 40 24 esi+ niacin (b3) 123 123.9 80.523 (q) a 34 20 esi+ 123.9 77.47 34 18 esi+ pantothenic acid (b5) 219.03 220.01 202.21 28 12 esi+ 220.01 124.16 (q)a 28 20 esi+ pyridoxine (b6) 169 169.97 152.09 (q) a 24 12 esi+ 169.97 134.04 24 20 esi+ biotin (b7) 244 245.03 222.14 26 14 esi+ a “q” taken as quantifier ion fig. 1. lc-ms chromatograms of ‘b’ vitamins ms-ms parameters such as capillary voltage, extractor voltage and rf lens volts were set at 3.2kv, 4v and 0.1v respectively. nitrogen gas-flow for desolvation and cone were set at 550 and 50 l/h, with desolvation and ion-source kavitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):30-37, 2015 33 workstation software. the column used was agilent eclipse aaa (5μm, 4.6 x 150mm) with the guard column fitted with a c18 cartridge (cat. no. 4287, phenomenex). the binary mobile phase consisted of 40mm na2h2po4/ na2hpo4 (1:1) buffer at ph 7.8 (a) and acetonitrile/ methanol/water (45:45:10) (merck ltd, india) (b) with flowrate of 2.0ml/min. sample extraction and derivatization extraction of amino acids was done as per a previously reported method using methanol:chloroform (70:30 v/v) mixture (marur et al, 1994; pratta et al, 2011). derivitization of amino acids was done using o-phthalaldehyde, before injection into the column, using a 20μl loop (rheodyne, rohnert park, ca, usa). the column and guard column were thermostatically controlled at 32°c. the instrument was run in a gradient mode, and detection was monitored on uv absorbance at 338nm wavelength. retention time for glutamate, alanine and valine were 5.13, 11.28 and 15.17 min respectively. amino acids were quantified by running their standards under a gradient elution programme. the initial flow was composed of 100% of a, and was held for 1.9 min. the gradient was gradually changed to 43% of a and 57% of b, over a period of 2 min. the system was then changed to 100% b at 24 min; at 27 min, the system was returned to 100% a. the flow rate was maintained at 2.0 ml/min. statistical analysis analysis of variance (anova) was carried out for guaging the statistical significance of differences among genotypes. results were analyzed by two-way anova (with replications), using microsoft excel software. mean values were compared using least significant difference (lsd) at 1% probability. mean values were calculated from three independent experiments in all the cases. pearson correlation coefficient (r) among all the variables was calculated using microsoft excel software. principal component analysis (pca) using statistixl software (version 1.8) was made to assess the importance of each source of variation (genotype and ripening stage) in categorizing the results obtained to estimate metabolic changes occurring during fruit ripening. results and discussion the b vitamins detected in tomato were: niacin, pyridoxine, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamine and biotin (table 3). content of all the b vitamins differed significantly among genotypes and at different stages of fruit maturity, at p≤0.01. among the genotypes tested, highest values for niacin and pyridoxine were recorded at the ripe stage in arka vikas (0.350mg kg-1 fw) and arka rakshak (0.252mg kg-1 fw). lowest pyridoxine content was recorded in the wild species, la-1777 (0.010 mg kg-1 fw). however, pantothenic acid was highest at the ripe stage of the wild species la-1777 (2.522 mg kg-1 fw), followed by iihr-249-1 (1.295mg kg-1 fw); the other lines recorded this value in the range of 0.373 to 0.531mg kg-1 fresh weight. maximum riboflavin content was recorded at the ripe stage in la-1777 (0.621mg kg-1 fw), and was 15.2 times more than in iihr-249-1 (0.041mg kg-1 fw), and 5.6 times more than that in the other seven lines (0.110mg kg-1 fw). riboflavin content in the wild species was found to be 1.9 times more than the usda reference value for tomato (0.034mg kg-1 fw). the highest value for thiamine was also observed at the ripe stage in la-1777 (0.830mg kg-1 fw), followed by ‘arka ananya’ (0.326mg kg-1 fw), while, the lowest value was recorded in iihr-2491 (0.020mg kg-1 fw). the highest total biotin content was found at the ripe stage in iihr-249-1 (0.564mg kg-1 fw), followed by ‘arka vikas’ (0.469mg kg-1 fw) and ‘arka ashish’ (0.427mg kg-1 fw). the wild species la-1777 recorded the lowest biotin content (0.195mg kg-1 fw). some varieties of tomato have been earlier reported to contain a good quantity of pantothenic acid (0.42 to 0.54mg kg-1 fw), biotin (0.01 to 0.014mg kg-1 fw) and niacin (5.39mg kg-1 fw) (james, 1952). thiamine content of 0.001 to 0.028mg per kg fresh weight was reported in fifteen commonly grown vegetables in southern thailand (taungbudhitham, 1995). however, in the present study, the highest value recorded for pyridoxine (0.252mg kg-1 fw) and niacin (0.350mg kg-1 fw) in tomato at ripe stage was less than the usda reference value for both [pyridoxine (0.65 mg kg-1 fw), niacin (5.9 mg kg-1 fw)]. riboflavin is naturally present in several foods and beverage, such as liver, cheese, milk, meat, eggs, peas, beans, whole-grain cereals, and wines (amc, 2000; capo-chichi et al, 2000). the variation in b vitamin content among the under study lines may be due to differences in their genetic background. genotype iihr249-1, and the wild species la-1777 were found to be rich in pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamine and biotin. these genotypes were also reported earlier to be rich in vitamin c, lycopene, phenols and flavonoid with high tss (kavitha et al, 2013). these lines can be further used for improving vitamin content by introgression of wild species with lines having a good horticultural background. among the different stages of fruit ripening, niacin content increased with ripening in the case of iihr-249-1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):30-37, 2015 metabolite profiling of ‘b’ vitamins in tomato fruit 34 ta bl e 3. ‘ b ’ v it am in s in s el ec te d lin es o f to m at o in ( fr ui ts h ar ve st ed a t th re e di ff er en t st ag es o f ri pe ni ng , v iz ., g re en s ta ge ( g s) , b re ak er s ta ge ( b s) a nd r ip e st ag e (r s) m et ab ol ite / n ia ci n pa nt ot he ni c a ci d py rid ox in e ri bo fla vi n th ia m in e b io tin rip en in g s ta ge m g kg -1 fr es h w ei gh t g en ot yp e g s b s r s g s b s r s g s b s r s g s b s r s g s b s r s g s b s r s iih r24 91 0. 04 2 0. 11 2 0. 12 7 0. 26 0 1. 00 5 1. 29 5 0. 09 7 0. 22 3 0. 12 4 0. 01 0 0. 04 1 0. 04 1 0. 03 6 0. 10 4 0. 02 0 0. 29 2 0. 45 0 0. 56 4 (0 .7 37 ) (0 .7 83 ) (0 .7 92 ) (0 .8 72 ) (1 .2 27 ) (1 .3 40 ) (0 .7 73 ) (0 .8 50 ) (0 .7 90 ) (0 .7 14 ) (0 .7 35 ) (0 .7 35 ) (0 .7 32 ) (0 .7 77 ) (0 .7 21 ) (0 .8 90 ) (0 .9 74 ) (1 .0 32 ) iih r28 66 0. 03 8 0. 00 0 0. 11 7 0. 52 1 0. 44 2 0. 46 0 0. 19 2 0. 22 0 0. 08 0 0. 05 0 0. 04 1 0. 11 1 0. 05 8 0. 05 1 0. 13 8 0. 14 4 0. 65 2 0. 37 0 (0 .7 33 ) (0 .7 07 ) (0 .7 85 ) (1 .0 10 ) (0 .9 71 ) (0 .9 80 ) (0 .8 32 ) (0 .8 48 ) (0 .7 61 ) (0 .7 42 ) (0 .7 36 ) (0 .7 85 ) (0 .7 47 ) (0 .7 42 ) (0 .7 99 ) (0 .8 03 ) (1 .0 73 ) (0 .9 33 ) iih r28 64 0. 04 0 0. 20 6 0. 08 3 0. 89 4 0. 63 1 0. 49 1 0. 15 0 0. 21 8 0. 07 1 0. 08 6 0. 11 5 0. 12 0 0. 04 9 0. 06 7 0. 20 2 0. 13 9 0. 53 8 0. 45 9 (0 .7 35 ) (0 .8 40 ) (0 .7 63 ) (1 .1 81 ) (1 .0 63 ) (0 .9 95 ) (0 .8 06 ) (0 .8 47 ) (0 .7 55 ) (0 .7 66 ) (0 .7 84 ) (0 .7 87 ) (0 .7 41 ) (0 .7 53 ) (0 .8 38 ) (0 .7 99 ) (1 .0 19 ) (0 .9 79 ) a . r ak sh ak 0. 04 3 0. 05 7 0. 00 0 0. 51 6 0. 52 4 0. 37 3 0. 13 0 0. 18 5 0. 25 2 0. 03 4 0. 09 3 0. 11 5 0. 07 9 0. 02 3 0. 17 8 0. 13 9 0. 47 7 0. 37 6 (0 .7 37 ) (0 .7 46 ) (0 .7 07 ) (1 .0 08 ) (1 .0 12 ) (0 .9 34 ) (0 .7 94 ) (0 .8 28 ) (0 .8 67 ) (0 .7 31 ) (0 .7 70 ) (0 .7 84 ) (0 .7 61 ) (0 .7 24 ) (0 .8 23 ) (0 .8 00 ) (0 .9 88 ) (0 .9 36 ) a . a sh ish 0. 00 0 0. 00 0 0. 06 7 0. 16 8 0. 86 4 0. 41 6 0. 07 8 0. 26 4 0. 12 5 0. 01 0 0. 05 3 0. 12 3 0. 02 9 0. 03 2 0. 26 2 0. 22 4 0. 61 7 0. 42 7 (0 .7 07 ) (0 .7 07 ) (0 .7 53 ) (0 .8 17 ) (1 .1 68 ) (0 .9 57 ) (0 .7 60 ) (0 .8 74 ) (0 .7 91 ) (0 .7 14 ) (0 .7 44 ) (0 .7 90 ) (0 .7 27 ) (0 .7 29 ) (0 .8 73 ) (0 .8 51 ) (1 .0 57 ) (0 .9 63 ) a. a na ny a 0. 06 2 0. 04 0 0. 04 4 1. 05 8 0. 37 1 0. 53 2 0. 18 1 0. 15 2 0. 16 9 0. 02 6 0. 05 9 0. 10 8 0. 27 8 0. 03 3 0. 32 6 0. 04 2 0. 58 2 0. 31 5 (0 .7 50 ) (0 .7 35 ) (0 .7 38 ) (1 .2 48 ) (0 .9 33 ) (1 .0 16 ) (0 .8 25 ) (0 .8 08 ) (0 .8 18 ) (0 .7 26 ) (0 .7 48 ) (0 .7 80 ) (0 .8 82 ) (0 .7 30 ) (0 .9 09 ) (0 .7 37 ) (1 .0 36 ) (0 .7 10 ) a . v ik as 0. 02 5 0. 07 3 0. 35 0 0. 31 4 0. 90 5 0. 45 4 0. 05 8 0. 18 0 0. 06 6 0. 00 8 0. 03 4 0. 09 8 0. 04 0 0. 03 1 0. 18 5 0. 05 7 0. 22 1 0. 46 9 (0 .7 24 ) (0 .7 57 ) (0 .9 22 ) (0 .9 02 ) (1 .1 86 ) (0 .9 77 ) (0 .7 47 ) (0 .8 25 ) (0 .7 52 ) (0 .7 13 ) (0 .7 31 ) (0 .7 73 ) (0 .7 35 ) (0 .7 29 ) (0 .8 28 ) (0 .7 46 ) (0 .8 49 ) (0 .9 84 ) a . s am ra t 0. 05 4 0. 06 1 0. 04 5 0. 85 4 0. 36 4 0. 47 3 0. 13 8 0. 18 2 0. 10 0 0. 02 5 0. 09 8 0. 11 3 0. 00 9 0. 03 7 0. 16 8 0. 03 1 0. 43 5 0. 39 1 (0 .7 45 ) (0 .7 49 ) (0 .7 38 ) (1 .1 64 ) (0 .9 29 ) (0 .9 86 ) (0 .7 99 ) (0 .8 26 ) (0 .7 75 ) (0 .7 24 ) (0 .7 73 ) (0 .7 83 ) (0 .7 14 ) (0 .7 33 ) (0 .8 17 ) (0 .7 29 ) (0 .9 67 ) (0 .9 44 ) la -1 77 7 0. 02 7 0. 00 0 0. 19 3 2. 20 8 0. 00 0 2. 52 2 0. 01 4 0. 00 0 0. 01 0 0. 11 0 0. 00 0 0. 62 1 0. 07 9 0. 00 0 0. 83 0 0. 14 3 0. 00 0 0. 19 5 (0 .7 26 ) (0 .7 07 ) (0 .8 33 ) (1 .6 46 ) (0 .7 07 ) (1 .7 38 ) (0 .7 17 ) (0 .7 07 ) (0 .7 14 ) (0 .7 81 ) (0 .7 07 ) (1 .0 59 ) (0 .7 61 ) (0 .7 07 ) (1 .1 53 ) (0 .8 02 ) (0 .7 07 ) (0 .8 34 ) m ea n 0. 03 6 0. 06 1 0. 11 4 0. 75 5 0. 56 7 0. 78 0 0. 11 5 0. 18 0 0. 11 1 0. 04 0 0. 05 9 0. 16 1 0. 07 3 0. 04 2 0. 25 7 0. 13 0 0. 37 7 0. 36 2 cd (p ≤0 .0 1) g en ot yp e ( g ) 0. 00 95 0. 02 31 0. 00 61 0. 00 33 0. 00 57 0. 02 32 st ag e ( s) 0. 00 55 0. 01 33 0. 00 35 0. 00 19 0. 00 32 0. 01 34 g x s 0. 01 64 0. 04 00 0. 01 06 0. 00 56 0. 01 0 0. 04 02 *v al ue s i n p ar en th es es ar e s qu ar e r oo t t ra ns fo rm ed j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):30-37, 2015 kavitha et al 35 (0.042 to 0.127mg kg-1 fw), iihr-2866 (0.038 to 0.117mg kg-1 fw), ‘arka vikas’ (0.025 to 0.350mg kg-1 fw) and la1777 (0.027 to 0.193mgkg-1 fw); but, it was higher in the breaker stage, and decreased with ripening in the other lines. among the different stages of ripening, pyridoxine content was high in the breaker stage in all the lines studied, except ‘arka rakshak’ which recorded highest pyridoxine content at the ripe stage (0.252mg kg-1 fw). pantothenic acid content increased with ripening in the line iihr-249-1 (0.260 to 1.295mg kg-1 fw), and la-1777 (2.208 to 2.522mg kg-1 fw), whereas, it was higher at the green stage, and decreased with ripening in cherry tomato lines iihr-2866 (0.521 to 0.460mg kg-1 fw) and iihr-2864 (0.894 to 0.491mg kg-1 fw). a similar trend was observed in iihr hybrids ‘arka ananya’ (1.058 to 0.532mg kg-1 fw), ‘arka rakshak’ (0.516 to 0.373mg kg-1 fw) and ‘arka samrat’ (0.854 to 0.473mg kg-1 fw). in the case of varieties, it was high in the breaker stage, decreasing thereafter. among the different stages analyzed, riboflavin increased with ripening in all the lines, while thiamine content increased with ripening in all the lines except iihr-249-1 (where it decreased from green stage to ripe stage) (0.036 to 0.020mg kg-1 fw). biotin content increased with ripening in iihr-249-1 (0.292 to 0.564mg kg-1 fw) and in other lines; whereas, it decreased from the breaker to ripe stage in iihr-2866 (0.652 to 0.370mgkg-1 fw), ‘arka rakshak’ (0.477 to 0.376mg kg-1 fw), ‘arka samrat’ (0.435 to 0.391mg kg-1 fw) and ‘arka ashish’ (0.617 to 0.427mg kg-1 fw). in general, ‘b’ vitamin content in the ripe fruit was considerably higher than in the unripe fruit, which may be related to higher availability of carbohydrate precursors during fruit ripening (carrari and fernie, 2006). however, very few reports are available on accumulation of vitamins at different stages of fruit maturity. an increase in vitamin c content as pepper fruits mature has been reported earlier (osuna-garcia et al, 1998; bae et al, 2014). relation between ‘b’ vitamins and their amino acid precursors glutamate, alanine and valine precursors for biosynthesis of some of the ‘b’ vitamins were analyzed at different stages of fruit ripening. highest glutamate content was recorded at the ripe stage in ‘arka ashish’ (417.86mg kg-1 fw), and lowest in ‘arka samrat’ (221.67mg kg-1 fw). there was an increase in accumulation of glutamate from the green to the ripe stage in most of the genotypes. higher value for alanine was recorded at the ripe stage in la1777 (1505.4 mg kg-1 fw), which was about 5 times more than in the elite germplasm line iihr-249-1 (317.05mg kg-1 fw). alanine content increased with ripening in almost all the genotypes. among the genotypes, highest valine content was recorded at the ripe stage in the wild species la-1777 (159.02mg kg-1 fw), and the lowest in the hybrid ‘arka samrat’ (5.24mg kg-1 fw). accumulation of valine was higher in the breaker stage compared to that in ripe or green stages (fig. 2). correlation coefficients run between ‘b’ vitamins and the three precursor amino acids indicated that alanine and valine were strongly correlated to pantothenic acid (r = 0.97, r = 0.91 respectively, p≤0.01), whereas, alanine did not show any significant relationship with biotin. glutamate showed significant correlation with pyridoxine (r = 0.86, p≤0.01). however, it did not show any significant relationship with niacin. in the present study, the higher levels of pantothenic acid and pyridoxine observed may be directly related to higher supply of precursor amino acids valine, alanine and glutamate. as previously reported, glutamate is the principal freeamino-acid in ripe fruits of cultivated varieties of tomato, and free amino acids increase dramatically during fruit ripening, with their abundance changing differentially (sorrequieta et al, 2010). total amino acid content at red ripe stage was higher than in the mature green stage in tomato germplasm lines, and their relative content increased from mature-green to ripe stage (forde and lea, 2007; pratta et al, 2011). significant increase in glutamic acid and reduced levels of alanine and valine, throughout maturation and ripening was reported in various lines of tomato (omasoliu et al, 2011). increased glutamate content towards the end of ripening is also reported in tomato, which could be due to a cessation of chlorophyll biosynthesis, since, glutamate is also a precursor of chlorophyll (carrari and fernie, 2006). fig. 2. glutamate, alanine and valine in various genotypes of tomato at different stages of fruit maturity (gs: green stage, bs: breaker stage, rs: ripe stage) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):30-37, 2015 metabolite profiling of ‘b’ vitamins in tomato fruit 36 principal component analysis (pca) for distinguishing genotypes and stages of fruit maturity principal component analysis (pca) was done to understand the pattern of accumulation of ‘b’ vitamins at different stages of fruit maturity. as the selected genotypes were of different genetic backgrounds, pca allowed us to understand the relation between distribution of ‘b’ vitamins across genotypes, and at different stages of fruit maturity. data on vitamins at the ripe stage in all the genotypes were subjected to pca. pc 1 and pc 2 contributed to the wide variability of 97.4% among genotypes (fig. 3). a biplot of pc1 and pc 2 revealed that the wild species la-1777, and the germplasm line iihr-249-1 were completely different from the other genotypes (hybrids, varieties or cherry tomato lines). la-1777 was distinct from iihr-2491, but these two genotypes were characterized by high levels of niacin, thiamine, riboflavin and pantothenic acid. all the other genotypes grouped along with pc2 were found to contain higher levels biotin and pyridoxine, but lower levels of the other ‘b’ vitamins. a second pca was done to study accumulation of ‘b’ vitamins at different stages of fruit maturity. out of six principal components (pc’s), two, viz., pc 1 and pc 2, accounted for 87.8% variability among the different stages of fruit maturity (fig. 4). in a biplot of pc 1 and pc 2, the three stages in the genotypes appeared as separate groups. the ripe stage of the genotypes was characterized by higher amounts of ‘b’ vitamins, particularly biotin, thiamine and riboflavin. breaker stage was found to possess the highest amount of niacin, pyridoxine and pantothenic acid, while, the green stage was found to be associated with low levels of all the ‘b’ vitamins studied. a wide variability was observed between the green and the breaker stage than in the ripe stage in all the genotypes studied, indicating that biosynthesis of ‘b’ vitamins was primarily ripeningregulated. conclusion lcms-mrm as a technique has proved to be sensitive, selective and a reliable method for individual determination of six ‘b’ vitamins in tomato. the elite germplasm line iihr-249-1, and the wild species la-1777 with high pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamine and biotin content; the hybrid ‘arka rakshak’, with fairly high pyridoxine serve as a good source material for improving nutritive value of the tomato for use in crop breeding or biotechnological approaches. higher levels of alanine and valine may be indicative of higher accumulation of pantothenic acid in tomato. ripe stage was found to be a rich source of vitamins. however, in some genotypes, niacin, pyridoxine and biotin levels remained nearly the same at breaker and ripe stages. acknowledgement the authors wish to thank department of biotechnology, new delhi, for sponsoring the present investigation. we also thank director, icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), for providing facilities. fig. 4. distribution of b vitamins (circles) at green stage (gs), breaker stage (bs) and ripe stage (rs) in the 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u.s. department of agriculture, agricultural research service. january 30 2006. usda nutrient database for standard reference, release 18. retrieved from nutrient data laboratory home page: http:// www.nal.usda.gov./fnic/foodcomp/search zand, n., chowdhry, b.z., pullen, f.s., snowden, m.j. and tetteh, j. 2012. simultaneous determination of riboflavin and pyridoxine by uhplc/lc-ms in uk commercial infant meal food products. food chem., 135:2743-2749 (ms received 16 april 2015, revised 28 may 2015, accepted 03 june 2015) j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(1):30-37, 2015 metabolite profiling of ‘b’ vitamins in tomato fruit growth and yield performance of hybrid hot pepper, chilli (capsicum annuum l.) as influenced by fertigation and polyethylene mulching g. chandramohan reddy, s.s. hebbar, a.k. nair, h.b. raghupathy, a.p. mallikarjuna gowda* and k. umesha* division of vegetable crops, icar-iihr hessaraghatta, bengaluru-560 089, karnataka, india abstract a field experiment was conducted at bengaluru during 2015 to study the effect of fertigation on performance of hybrid chilli (capsicum annuum l.). the trial included nine treatments comprising varying rates and sources of fertilizers, tested with or without mulching. application of recommended dose of fertilizer (180:120:180 kg npk/ha) through fertigation using water-soluble fertilizers resulted in higher values for plant height (104.27 cm), number of branches per plant (16.71), leaf area per plant (89.44 dm2), dry matter per plant (185.49 g), number of fruits per plant (142.7), fruit length (11.13 cm), fruit girth (4.75 cm), fruit weight (1.29 g), yield per plant (184.11 g) and fruit yield (5.03 t/ha) which remained on par with same amount of fertilizer applied using conventional means along with polyethylene mulching. in general, treatments that received fertilizers through fertigation took less number of days to flowering over conventional soil-application of fertilizers. all fertigation treatments recorded higher dry-chilli fruit yield over the conventional soil-application of fertilizers, to a tune of 27.87% to 52.4% over the control. key words: chilli, fertigation, water-soluble fertilizers, mulching, growth, yield introduction chilli (capsicum annuum l.), owing to its multiple uses as spice, condiment, vegetable, salad and pickle, is an important and popular crop widely grown throughout the world. in india, chilli is grown under 7.92 lakh hectares, with production of 12.23 lakh tonnes and productivity of 1.55 tonnes per hectare (nhb, 2015). chilli is a long duration crop needing regular and optimal soil-moisture and nutrient availability throughout the cropping period. water shortage and low nutrie nt s tatus c ause s a noticea ble gap in production, reduced plant growth, yield and overall quality. therefore, adoption of modern irrigation techniques is emphasized to improve water use efficiency and bring greater area under vegetable cultivation. drip fertigation is an important irrigationcum-nutrient application method in crop production, particularly in high-value crops like chilli. drip fertigation under plastic mulch is an effective way of supplying water and fertilizers in chilli cultivation. studies carried out elsewhere have indicated that the in onion fertilizer should be applied regularly and timely in small amounts for better plant growth and yield (neeraja et al, 1999). scientific information on fertigation, especially on kharif grown chilli, is very scanty. hence, the present study was undertaken to determine the effect of fertigation with recommended dose of fertilizers and sources through drip irrigation, along with polyethylene mulching, for commercial production of chilli. material and methods the experiment was conducted during kharif s e a s on in 20 15 a t icar-i ndia n in st itu te of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru, karnataka, india. the soil was well-drained sandy loam having an initial organic carbon (0.63 %), ph (5.5), available n (303.18 kg/ha), available p (41.4 kg/ha), available k (366.51 kg/ha) and electrical conductivity (0.24 dsm-1) with available waterholding capacity of 135mm at one meter soil depth. j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 151-155, 2017 *pg centre, uhs bagalkot, gkvk campus, bengaluru, karnataka, india 152 chilli hybrid seedlings (‘arka meghana’) were transplanted in a 90cm-40cm raised bed under paired row system, with plant-to-plant spacing of 45cm in the row, in the last wee k of july. the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design, with nine tre atments a nd three replications. a uniform, basal application of farm yard manure @ 25 tonnes hectare-1 was applied prior to transplanting. treatment details and the amount of various fertilizers applied are given in tables 1 and 2, respectively. in soil-application treatment, the whole of p and half of n and k were given as the basal dose and the remaining half of n and k wa s side -dres sed 30 a nd 60 days a fte r transplanting, in equal splits. urea, polyfeed (1919-19) and potassium nitrate (13-0-45) were used as the water-soluble fertilizers for treatments t 1 to t4; urea , di-ammonium phosphate (dap) a nd muriate of potash (mop) as normal fertilizers for fertigation treatments t 5 and t 6; dap was used as the source of p2o5 in t5 & t6. twenty per cent solution was prepared, by intermittent stirring for a period of six hours. then it was allowed to settle down overnight. next day the clear supernatant solution was used for fertigation. the amount of water present in the residue was estimated, and that quality of p 2 o 5 was a dded while preparing the solution. urea, single super phosphate and muriate of potash constituted conventional fertilizers for treatment t9. drip irrigation system installed by us consisted of 16mm in-line drip lateral with 4 lph output dripper spaced at 40cm. drip irrigation was imposed depending upon the rate of evaporation and amount of effec tive ra infa ll rec eived. at thre e weeks after transplanting, fertilizers were applied through the drip system as per treatment, at weekly intervals. desired amounts of fertilizers were dissolved in 20 litres of water and applied via the ventury system through drip irrigation in fertigation treatments, and were continued upto 20 days prior to c omple tion of the crop growth period. drip application time was determined based on daily e va por a tion va lu e s c olle c te d fr om the iih r meteorological observatory, and epan coefficient of 0.8. various yield parameters were recorded in five plants, selected randomly replication-wise, in all the treatments. all the agronomic and plant protection measures were followed as per the recommended pa ckage of practices (prabha kar et al, 2010a). experimental data were statis tic ally a nalyze d (gomez and gomez, 1983) and compared using critical difference at 5% level of probability. results and discussion all the fertigation treatments resulted in better growth in chilli as seen by the higher plant height at harvest and number of days taken to 50% flowering, compared to conventional soil application of fertilizers (table 3). data analysis revealed that application of 100% recommended fertilizer dose, through fertigation using water-soluble fertilizers and mulching (t 1), recorded significantly higher plant height (104.27cm), number of branches per plant (16.71) and leaf area per plant (89.44 dm2) than most other treatments, but remained on par with t 2 , t 5 and t 7 . . higher values for plant height and number of branches in fertigation treatments may be attributed to a continuous supply (and consequent, availability) of plant nutrients to the root zone. this is in conformity with findings of prabhakar et al (2010b). the same treatment recorded significantly higher dry-matter production per plant (185.49g) than all the other treatments, except t5. this is in conformity with findings of ramachandrappa et al (2010) in chilli. among fertigation treatments, application of 100% recommended fertilizer does through water-soluble fertilizers along with mulching (t 1 ) recorded the least number of days to 50% flowering (27.77 days), followed by application of 100% recommended dose through normal fertilizers along with mulching (t5). this indicated that 100% n:p:k fe rtiga tion with re c omme nde d dos e (180:120:180 kg npk/ha) at weekly intervals resulted in a longer duration of flowering at reproductive stages of growth, than in the other treatments. treatments receiving npk fertigation at the recommended fertilizer dose either using water-soluble (t1) or normal fertilizers (t5) along with polyethylene mulching, remained at par for most of the yieldattributing characters and dry-chilli yield (table 4). treatment t 1 (wherein fertigation using water-soluble fertilizers at recommended dose was applied along with polyethylene mulch) recorded significantly higher number of fruits (142.74) than the other treatments, but remained on par with t 2 , t 5 and t 7 . similar trend was observed with fruit length too where t1 recorded the highest fruit length of 11.13cm. the same treatment recorded significantly higher fruit girth (4.75 cm) than all other treatments. as for fruit weight, fertigation with 100% recommended fertilizer dose by water-soluble or normal fertilizers, along with mulch treatments, resulted in the same value (1.29g), which remained at chandramohan reddy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 151-155, 2017 153 fertigation and mulching in hybrid hot pepper, chilli j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 151-155, 2017 154 chandramohan reddy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 151-155, 2017 155 par with most of the treatments, except t 4 and t 9 . fruit yield per plant was significantly higher in t1 (184.11g), which remained at par with only t 5 (183.46g) and t7 (175.84g).the same treatments also recorded higher dry-fruit yield compared to the other tre atments, showing tha t application of 100% recommended dose of fertilizers using water-soluble or normal fertilizer, along with mulch, is beneficial for improving yield-attributing characters and, finally, drychilli yield. soil application of the recommended dose of phosphorus while supplementing nitrogen and potash using water-soluble fertilizer through fertigation, in combination with polyethylene mulch, also resulted in higher values for all the yield-attributing characters and dry-chilli yield. soil application of normal fertilizer without mulch recorded minimum values for all the yield-attributing characters and final yield. all fertigation treatments recorded higher chilli dry-fruit yield over conventional soil-application of fertilizers, to a tune of 27.87% to 52.4%. this may be attributed to a high fertilizer-use efficiency attained with application of water-soluble fertilizers (mohanaramya et al, 2010). similar results were reported by muralikrishnasamy et al (2008) and leela rani et al (2015) in chillies, and, sanchita et al (2010) in capsicum (sweet/bell peppers). from this study, it can be concluded that dry chilli yield in kharif grown crop at weekly fertigation with nitroge n, phos phorus and potas h a t the recommended dose (180:120:180 kg npk/ha) through water-soluble fertilizers or conventional fertilizer along with polyethylene mulching, was found to be higher. references gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1983. statistical procedure for agricultural research. 2nd edn. wiley-international science publication, new york, usa leela rani, p., balaswamy, ramachandra rao, k.a. a nd mas than, s.c. 2015. evalua tion of integrated nutrient management practices on growth, yield and economics of green chilli cv. pusa jwala (capsicum annuum l.). int’l. j. bio-source stress mgt., 6:076-080 mohanaramya, m., rajamani, k., sooriyanatha sundaram, k. and rangasami, m.v. 2010. effe ct of drip fertigation on yie ld, tuber characters and quality characters of glory lily. south indian. hort., 58:97-101 muralikrishnasamy, s., veerabadran,v., krishnasamy, kumar, v. and sakthivel, s. 2008. drip irrigation and fertigation in chillies.7th international microirrigation congress, organized by international commission on irrigation and drainage, 13-15 september, 2006, kuala lumpur,malaysia, pp. 1-7 neeraja,g., reddy, k.m, reddy, i.p. and reddy, y.n. 1999. effect of irrigation and nitrogen on growth, yield and yield attributes of rabi onion (allium cepa) in andhra pradesh. veg. sci., 26: 64-68 national horticulture board. 2015. indian horticulture database. ministry of agriculture, government of india, new delhi prabhakar, m., hebbar, s.s. and nair, a.k. 2010a. production technology of vegetable crops a handbook. indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru, karnataka, india, pp. 87-92 prabhakar, b.n., ramachandrappa, b.k., nanjappa, h.v. and soumya, t.m. 2010b. effect of frequency and methods of fertigation on growth, yield, quality and economics of green chilli (capsicum annuum l.). mysore j. agril. sci., 44:523-528 ramachandrappa, b.k., nanjappa, h.v., prabhakar, b.n. and soumya,t.m. 2010. effect of sources and level of fertilizer for drip fertigation on crop productivity, rooting and fertilizer use efficiency in green chilli (capsicum annuum l.). mysore j. agril. sci., 44:345-349 sanchita, b., luchon, s., pankaj, b., tridip and bhaskarjyothi. 2010. studies on effect of fertigation with different levels of n and k fertilizers on growth, yield and economics of early season capsicum under cover. veg sci., 37:160-163 fertigation and mulching in hybrid hot pepper, chilli (ms received 14 july 2016, revised 11 december 2016, accepted 30 december 2016) j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 151-155, 2017 j. hon. sci. vol. 1(1): 39-43, 2006 pheromone trapping protocols for brinjal shoot and fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis guenee (lepidoptera: pyralidae): evaluation of trap design, quantity and dispenser n. k. krishna kumar, b. krishna kumari', h. s. singh ,̂ h. r. ranganath, b. shivakumara and c. m. kalleshwaraswamy division of entomology & nematology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post. bangalore-560 089. india e-mail: nkkumar@iihr.ernet.in abstract studies were conducted at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, and central horticultural experiment station, bhubaneshwar, india, to evaluate trap design, quantity of pheromone loading and dispensers for attracting brinjal shoot and fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis guenee (lepidoptera: pyralidae) using indigenously synthesized pheromone lure [synthesized by indian institute of chemical technology (iict), hyderabad], during 2003 and 2004. a water trap consisting of plastic container (20 cm dia. and 7.5 cm depth) with a facility to place the pheromone septum was designed. pheromone load of 4 mg in both water trap and pest control india (pci®) delta trap was observed to catch higher number of male moths compared to dispensers with lesser loading. when trap designs were compared, water trap with pheromone lure was observed to attract higher number of males than pest control india (pci®) delta trap. among the different pheromone dispensers tested, rubber septum was superior to plastic vial or plastic septum. rubber septum supplied by bio pest management® captured significantly higher number of moths compared to rubber and plastic septum supplied by difterent firms. a comparison of iict synthesized lures along with some commercially available lures indicated that bio pest management® lure dispensed in rubber outperformed pci® and iict lures. key words; brinjal shoot and fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis, pheromone traps and lures i n t r o d u c t i o n to be applied daily during summer, which resulted in outbrinjal (soza««m/7zeto«^m«l.) is an economically ^'^^^ °^ s e c o n d a r y p e s t s s u c h as red s p i d e r m i t e , important vegetable in bangladesh, china, india, pakistan, tetranychus cucurbitae r a h m a n and s a p r a ( a c a r i : the philippines, sri lanka and thailand. among insect tetranychidae), and serious health consequences for both pests, brinjal shoot and fruit borer (bsfb), leucinodes producers and consumers (kabir et al 1996). orbonalis guenee (lepidoptera: pyralidae) is the most v / i t h the i n c r e a s i n g i m p o r t a n c e a c c o r d e d to destructive pest. it is considered nearly monophagous sustainable agriculture. integrated pest management (ipm) although potato has been recorded as an alternate host • , „ • a \ a * a \ a^ a ^ ^ is becoming more widely adopted, leading to decrease in (nandihalli^/a/, 1996). at present, farmers rely exclusively j , , • i /t mnox *r. j -c• c.u . , . • . , , , • „ , use or chemicals (jones, 1998). after identification of the on chemical insecticides to control this pest. several . r-r^o^-r, r , • ,^, , , j , • • -j . ,• , maior component or bsfb female sex pheromone (zhu e-r workers have reported that insecticides such as dimethoate, , phosphamidon. cypermethrin and monocrotophos (ahmad, ' ' ' ' ^ ^^^' ^ " ^ ^ " ' ^ ''«'' ^ ̂ ^^^' ^ ^ ' ^ annihilation technique 1977; kuppuswamy and balasubramanian, 1980; jagan ^^^^^ " ^ ' " ^ ^^^ pheromones is considered to be one of mohan et al, 1980) are effective in reducing of bsfb. ^he most important components of ipm in bsfb (cork et among these, synthetic pyrethroids have been widely used. «/• 2001). the present study was to evaluate the field it is observed that bsfb defies all the chemical control efficacy of indigenously synthesized bsfb pheromone measures. according to cork et al (2001), farmers spray along with trap design, pheromone dispensers and to 50 to 70 times during the six-month growing season of compare these with some commercially available lures. this brinjal. in bangladesh, insecticides were recently observed could help to develop mass trapping and ipm of bsfb. ' organic division-i. indian institute of chemical technology. hyderabad500 007, india ^central horticultural experiment station (iihr). bhubaneswar-751 019. india mailto:nkkumar@iihr.ernet.in krishna kumar et al material and methods synthesis of individual pheromone components of brinjal fruit and shoot borer was done at organic divisioni of the indian institute of chemical technology (iict), hyderabad. the pheromone components i [ ( e ) l l hexedecenyl acetate] and ii [(e)-ll-hexadecen-l-ol] used in this study had > 99.5% isomeric and > 97% product purity. rubber septa and plastic septa dispensers used for the study were purchased from commercial suppliers and were subjected to solvent pretreatment prior to preparation of pheromone lures. leucinodes orbonalis sex pheromone lures were prepared by impregnating pre-activated pheromone dispensers with 100:1 blend of ( e ) l l hexadecenyl acetate (100) and (e)-li-hexadecen-l-ol (1). loadings of the pheromone blend onto the dispensers was adjusted to 0.5 mg 4.0 mg as per requirement and design of the field experiment. the lures thus prepared were stored in at -20"c until deployment in the field. trap design the water trap consisted of a plastic container (basin type) of 20 cm dia. and 7.5 cm depth (fig. 1). the container was filled with water and the pheromone lure was hung 2.5 cm above the water surface using insulated metallic wire. the lure was protected from direct sunlight using a circular plastic plate. the trap was placed 30 cm above the crop canopy using bricks. the trap height with respect to canopy height was adjusted at weekly intervals. water level in the container was maintained at a constant and lures were replaced with fresh ones every month. a small quantity of soap solution was added to the water to avoid escape of trapped moths. this trap was compared with delta sticky trap (30 cm x 10 cm; fig. 2) supplied by fig. 1. water trap designed at iihr pci (pest control india, bangalore). observation on the number of male moths trapped was made on a daily basis. pheromone quantity the experiment was conducted from january june 2003 using arka neelkant, a bacterial wilt resistant brinjal variety, at the indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore. the pheromone dispenser used in this study was a plastic vial. different pheromone loadings viz., 0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 4.0 mg were evaluated for their efficacy in attracting male bsfb moths using water and delta traps. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block design and replicated three times. a distance of 10 m between each treatment and a distance of 15 m between each replication was maintained. pheromone lures were replenished once in four weeks. pci delta traps and water traps were placed as and when required. table 1: trap catches of leucinodes orbonalis in water and delta traps with various pheromone loads at iihr, bangalore treatments water trap with 0.5 mg water trap with 1.0 mg water trap with 2.0 mg water trap with 4.0 mg pci delta trap® with 0 pci delta trap® with 1 pci delta trap® with 2 pci delta trap® with 4 water trap with 0.0 mg pci delta trap with 0.0 cd (p=0.05) cv (%) total number of moths trapped mean±sd catch / trap* pheromone load pheromone load pheromone load pheromone load ,5 mg pheromone load 0 mg pheromone load .0 mg pheromone load ,0 mg pheromone load pheromone load mg pheromone load 59 59 61 110 44 39 53 61 ii 9 figures in parentheses are vx+o.i transformed values ; * = mean of three replications superscripts of the same sign in a column indicate non-significant difference 20+1.01(4.35)" 20+0.61(4.31)" 20±0.90(4.27)'' 37±1.52(5.99r 15±0.86(3.80)'> 13±0.27(3.66)'' 18+0.49(4.17)" 20± 1.05(4.41)" 4±0.42(1.89)' 3±0.01(1.69)'^ 1.56 23.65 j. hon. sci. vol. 1(1): 39-43, 2006 40 pheromone trapping protocols for brinjal shoot and fruit borer fig. 2 pcp delta trap pheromone dispenser the experiment was conducted from january to april 2004 using brinjal variety arka neelkcmt, at iihr, bangalore and at central horticultural experiment station (ches), bhubaneswar. two dispensers, rubber septa and plastic vials supplied by local commercial firms were evaluated (table 2). aldrich rubber septa imported from the united kingdom was also used in the study. all dispensers were impregnated with 4,0 mg iict synthesized pheromone these dispensers were placed in pci® traps (fig. 3). seven treatments were imposed following randomized complete block design and replicated four times at iihr and three times at ches. fresh lures were replaced once in four weeks. comparative evaluation of commercially available iict-synthesized pheromone lures a study was conducted from september to december 2004 to assess the trapping potential of indigenously synthesized iict and commercially available lures. the experiment was conducted in randomized block design with four replications. each replication consisted fig. 3 pci' water trap of 98 plants (var. arka neelkant) in 5 x 5 marea with one trap per replication. pci® water traps (fig. 3) were used for all the lures. lures were changed every 4 weeks. the commercial lures evaluated were bio pest management® rubber septa, bio pest management® plastic septa and pci® rubber septa. these three lures of commercial firms were compared with the iict synthesized lure impregnated in different dispensers. results and discussion pheromone quantity and trap design results indicated that the total trap catch was highest in water trap with 4 mg pheromone loading (37.00±1.52 moths/trap) during the trapping period of 6 months. this was followed by a pheromone load of 4 mg in delta sticky trap, which recorded 20.00±1.05 moths per trap. the trap catches in these treatments were significantly higher compared to both water trap and delta trap with 0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mg pheromone loading (table 1). pheromone loadings of 0.5 and 1.0 mg caught significantly less number of moths (table 1). when water traps and pci delta traps' were compared irrespective of loading, water table 2. catches of leucinodes orhonalis in water trap with different types of pheromone dispensers (loaded with 4 mg of iict synthesized pheromone) at iihr, bangalore, and ches, bhubaneswar iihr, bangalore ches, bhubaneshwar treatment total moths mean+sd /trap total moths mean±sd /trap aldrich" rubber septa * abhishek* rubber septa* basarassrubber septa* bio-pest management® rubber septa bio-pest managementplastic septa blank cd (p=0.05) cv (%) figures in parentheses are vx+0.1 transformed values 29 56 22 69 24 0 7.25+1.60(2.38)"^ 14.00±1.10(3.70)"' 5.50 ±1.19(2.32^ 17.25±1.35(4.01)' 6.00±i.34(2.3i)'» 0.00±0.33(0.32)" 1.452 5.91 66 94 35 107 54 1 22.00±1.8()(4.67)» 3i.33±1.46(5.56)» 11.67±1,59(3.29)»' 35.67±1.69(5.90)" 18.00± 1.12(4.24)'' 0.33±0.12(0.56)' 2.15 30.62 j. hon. sci. vol. 1(1): 39-43, 2(x)6 41 krishna kumar et al table 3. comparative efficiency of iict lure dispensed in different septa with commercial lures in attracting l. orbonalis treatments pheromone source total no. of moths mean±sd per trap per night abhishek" rubber septa iict abhishek'̂ plastic vial iict asthagiriherbal plastic septa iict bio pest management® plastic septa commercial bio pest management® rubber septa commercial pci® rubber septa commercial blank / empty empty cd cv {%) 160 211 241 501 653 317 7 0.70+0.60(1.06)" 0.90+0.30(1.25)"" 0.90±0.40(1.19)'' 2.10+1.40(1.56)" 2.60+1.70(1.69)" 1.20+0.70(1.30)"" 0.10+0.02(0.72)'^ 0.33 17.99 figures in parentheses are vx+0.1 transformed values superscripts of the same sign in a column indicate non-significant difference traps were observed to be more effective than delta traps. significant variation in trap catches between water and delta sticky traps indicated that water traps were more efficient than delta traps. water trap is also cheaper and long lasting. dispensers pheromone lures dispensed in rubber septa were superior to polyethylene or plastic septa in trapping bsfb moths. in the trials conducted at iihr, bangalore and ches, bhubaneswar, the bio pest management® rubber septa trapped maximum bsfb moths. but at ches, bhubaneswar, other dispensers performed on par with biopest management® septa even though the latter caught highest number of moths (107 males) with mean of 35.67 per trap. the significant variability in the trap catches across septa indicates that in addition to pheromone loading, use of appropriate dispenser is most important for success in mass trapping. dispensing septa dictate rate of release of pheromone and that varies with the technology. hence, variation in response of male moths to pheromone traps is attributed to the nature of the dispenser used. the mean number of moths trapped in bangalore (17.25 males/ trap) was less compared to that in bhubaneswar (35.67 males / trap), which indicated that pest density and weather parameters influence trap catches in different regions (krishna kumar et al, 2004). another possibility could be behavioural polymorphism in the populations of l. orbonalis or geographic variation in female sex pheromone which has been reported in many lepidopteran pests including rice leaf folder, cnephalocrocis medinalis guenee (kawazu et al, 2000) and helicoverpa annigera (kumar and shivakumara, 2002). however, this needs to be confirmed in l. orbonalis. efficiency of indigenously synthesized iict lures the performance of commercial lures may vary with the quality and quantity of sex pheromone. bio pest management bsfb pheromone lures in rubber and plastic septa trapped higher number of moths (2.60±1.70 males/ trap/night) (table 3). catches in plastic septa and rubber septa of bio pest management were not statistically different. number of moths trapped by hct lures irrespective of type of dispensers was statistically not significant. the hct lure loaded in three different dispensers were on par with catches of pci rubber septa. however, the pheromone loading synthesized by iict was 4 mg/vial and the load in commercial company is unknown. hence, depending on the cost : benefit ratio, pheromone loading to increase the efficacy of lures needs investigation. the findings in the present study suggest that trap design, quantity of lure and nature of dispensers affect the response of l. orbonalis to synthetic sex pheromone. water trap with pheromone load of 4mg dispensed in rubber septum is recommended for mass trapping of bsfb. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the department of biotechnology (dbt), ministry of science and technology, government of india, for financial support. the authors are indebted to dr. alan cork, professor of bio-rational pest management. university of greenwich, united kingdom, for suggestions and critical review of the manuscript. the authors thank directors, iihr (icar) and iict (csir) for facilities and encouragement. references ahmad, r. 1977. studies on the pests of brinjal and their control with special reference to fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis guen. (pyralidae: lepidoptera). ento. newsletter, 7:2-3. attygalle, a. b., schwaraz, j. and gunawardena, n. e. 1988. sex pheromone of brinjal fruit and shoot borer leucinodes orbonalis guenee {lepidoptera: pyralidae). z. naturforsch., 43:790-792. cork, a., alam, s. n., das, a., das, c. s., ghosh, g. c , j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 39-43, 2006 42 pheromone trapping protocols for brinjal shoot and fruit borer farman, d. i., hall, d. r., maslen, n. r., vedham, k., phythian, s. j., rouf, f. m. a. and srinivasan, k. 2001. female sex pheromone of brinjal fruit and shoot borer, leucinodes orbonalis (lepidoptera: pyralidae), blend optimisation. j. chem. ecol, 27:1867-1877. jagan mohan, n., krishna kumar, n. k. and prasad, v. g. 1980. chemical control of leafhopper {amrasca biguttula biguttula) and fruit borer {leucinodes orbonalis) on brinjal. pesticides, 14:19-21. jones, o. t. 1998. practical application of pheromones and other semiochemicals. pp 263-276. in: insect pheromones and their use in pest management. howse, p. e., stems., jones, o. t. (eds.). kabir, k. h., baksh, m. e., rouf, f. m. a., karim, m. a. and ahmed, a. 1996. insecticide usage pattern on vegetables at farmer's level of jessore region in bangladesh: a survey finding. bangladesh j. agric. res., 21:241-254. kawazu, k., hasegava, j. i., honda,h., ishikawa, y., wakamula, s., sugie, h., kamiwada, h., kamimoro, t., yoshiyasu, y. and tatsuki, s. 2000. geographic variation in female sex pheromone of the rice leaf folder moth, cnephalocrosis medinalis: identification of pheromone components in japan. ent. exp. appl, 96:103-109. krishna kumar, n.k., venugopalan, r., krishna moorthy, p n., shivakumara, b. and ranganath, h. r. 2004. influence of weather factors on the attraction of male eggplant shoot and fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis guenee to synthetic sex-pheromone in south india. pestmgt. hortl. ecosys., 10:161-168. kumar, a.r.v. and shivakumara, b. 2003. variable response of helicoverpa armigera moth to sex pheromone blends: a case of behavioural polymorphism? curr scl, 84(5):705-709 kuppuswamy, s. and balasubramanian, m. 1980. efficacy of synthetic pyrethroids against brinjal shoot and fruit borer. 5. ind. hort., 28:91-93. nandihalli, b. s., kuberappa, g. c. and viswanathappa, k. r. 1996. survey of insect pests of potato in hassan, kamataka. mysore j. agril. scl, 30:138-141. zhu, p, kong, f., yu, s., yu, n., jin, s., hu, x, and xu, j. 1987. identification of the sex pheromone of eggplant borer, leucinodes orbonalis guenee (lepidoptera: pyralidae). z. naturforsch., 42:1347-1348. (ms received 2 february, 2006 revised 26 june, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 39-43, 2006 43 j. hott. sci. vol. 1 (1): 15-18, 2006 studies on physiological and biochemical changes in relation to seed viability in aged onion seeds k. bhanuprakash, h. s. yogeesha, l. b. naik and m. n. arun section of seed science & technology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: kbp_iihr@yahoo.co.in abstract rapid loss in viability of onion seeds during seed storage is a major problem. not much information concerning the physiological and biochemical changes is available. in the present investigations, seeds were aged artificially by exposure to 45*c +75% rh for a period of fifteen days. samples were collected at three day intervals and physiological and biochemical changes in the aged seeds were compared to those in fresh seeds. results revealed that ageing affected seed viability and vigour significantly and this effect was more pronounced with increase in duration of exposure to artificial ageing. marked reduction in germination to an extent of 4,16 and 75% was noticed in three, six and nine day artificially aged (daa) seeds, respectively, when compared to fresh seeds. further increase in ageing duration to twelve and fifteen days resulted in total loss of germination. increase in ageing duration decreased a amylase and dehydrogenase activities but increased peroxidase activity up to nine days of ageing. lipid peroxidation increased consistently with increase in duration of ageing. at 15 daa, 26.2% increase in malondialdehyde content over the control was observed. sds page protein profile and esterase zymograms of aged seeds showed alteration in banding pattern when compared to that of fresh seeds. key words: onion, accelerated ageing, protein profiles, enzymes introduction up to 15 days at 45" c +75 % rh as per ista (1999) onion {allium cepa l.) seeds lose vigour and ^^^^ard procedure. samples were collected every third day. viability at faster rates than seeds of most other vegetables ^ ^ e r agemg, the seeds of all the treatments were dned back (choudhari and basu, 1988). the relation between ^ the original moisture content for further studies. temperature, moisture content and viability period is similar germination and growth parameters under the conditions used in hot air drying or at long-term , , , .̂ . t u *u.i»u .. four replicates of fifty seeds of each sample, planted storage at sub zero temperature. in both the cases, the pattern *̂ •' i'tof deterioration preceding death is also the same, whether ^̂ moistened roll paper towels, were germinated in a growth the seed survives for seconds or decades (roberts, 1981). ^^^^^er at 20''c under dark. observations were recorded artificial ageing techniques are employed to elucidate the "'^ germination (ista, 1999), germination rate (gr), mechanisms of deterioration during storage because gemiination speed (gs) and standard germination (stg). physiological changes in the seed occurring during artificial these parameters were computed, as given below, using and natural ageing are thought to be similar (chen et al, the formula given by mugnisjah and nakamura (1986). 1999). hence, an experiment was conducted to examine gr=100/no. planted (normal seedlings day 6/ changes due to artificial ageing in relation to seed viability g+normal seedlings day 12/12) and vigour in onion cv. arka bindu. material and methods gs=100/no. planted (normal seedlings day 1/ 1+normal seedlings day 2/2.... day 12/12) agemg treatment stg=100/ no. planted (normal seedlings day 6 + fresh seeds of cv. arka bindu were aged artificially normal seedlings day 12) mailto:kbp_iihr@yahoo.co.in bhanuprakash et al lipid peroxidation, electrical conductivity and total soluble sugars lipid peroxidation in fresh and aged seeds was studied by tba colour reaction as outlined by bemheim et a/ (1948). the methodology followed for studying electrical conductivity (ec) was that described by rudrapal and basu (1979). the amount of sugars in seed leachate was determined using the method of dubois et al (1951). leaching of sugar was expressed as glucose equivalent per ml of leachate. enzyme activity a-amylase and peroxidase activities were estimated as per sadasivam and manickam (1996). dehydrogenase activity was estimated as per the procedure outlined by agarwal and dadlani (1987). protein electrophoresis seeds of each sample (0.5g) were crushed to fine powder using a pestle and mortar and the flour was defatted by soaking in a mixture of chloroform, methanol and acetone in 2:1:1 ratio for 3 h. the supernatant was poured out and the process was repeated three times. the samples were dried at room temperature and a sub-sample of 0.1 g was homogenized in an eppendorf tube by adding 400 |j.l of the extraction buffer (tris glycine, ph 8.3). initially, the tubes were left at room temperature for 1 h and then shifted to a°c until the next day. the samples were centrifuged at 10,000 x g for 10 min. and the supernatant was collected. to 10 |j,1 of this supernatant, 10 |a,l of working sample buffer was added and boiled at \00°c for 5 min. protein content in the samples was quantified as per the procedure outlined by lowry et al (1951). protein characterization of seeds was carried out using sds page (laemmli, 1970). isozyme analysis seeds of each sample (o.lg) were crushed to a fine powder using liquid nitrogen in prechilled pestle and mortar and the contents were transferred to eppendorf tubes containing 75|xl of o.im tris hcl, ph 7.5. the contents were homogenized using micropestle and left overnight at 10°c for extraction. samples were centrifuged at 4°c at 10000 rpm and subjected to alkaline page by loading 25p,l in each well. the gel was run at 15°c for a period of six hours under a constant current of 1(x) v until samples crossed the stacking gel and later at 250 v. the gels were stained immediately in a staining solution (50 mg fast blue rr salt in 2 ml of 50 mg naphthyl acetate in 50 % acetone added to 100 ml of 0.5 m sodium phosphate buffer, ph 6.2) for one hour. data were statistically analyzed using completely randomized block design as outlined by pause and sukhatme (1978). results and discussion results revealed that ageing affected seed viability and vigour significantly and this effect was more pronounced with increase in duration of ageing. marked reduction in germination of 4, 16 and 75% was noticed in three, six and nine day artificially aged (daa) seeds, respectively, compared to fresh seeds. further increase in ageing duration to 12 andl5 days resulted in total loss of germination. ageing also showed significant deleterious effects on other quality traits. three, six, nine, twelve and fifteen days of artificial ageing resulted in significant reductions in speed of germination, rate of germination, total seedling dry weight and seedling vigour index (table 1). reduction in seedling vigour index was 14.7,42.9,91.2, 1(x) and 100% in comparison to fresh seeds (table 1). similar loss in seed viability and vigour when subjected to artificial ageing has also been reported in various crops earlier (mcdonald, 1999). besides physiological changes, many biochemical changes were noticed due to ageing. wide differences in membrane permeability between aged and fresh seeds were noted. except at three daa, there was progressively higher table 1. effect of duration of artificial ageing on onion seed vigour-physiological parameters s.no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 treatment fresh 3daa 6daa 9daa 12daa 15daa sed+ cd@5% % germination* 100(89.8) 96(79.9) 84(67.1) 25(29.9) 0 0 2.56 5.38 total seedling length (cm) 15.80 14.00 10.70 5.50 0 0 0.81 1.69 total dry weight (mg) 1.216 1.296 1.320 0.600 0 0 0.017 0.035 shoot vigour index 1575 1343 900 139 0 0 75.5 158.7 germination speed 192.0 145.0 120.0 19.7 0 0 2.43 5.10 germination rate 24.30 23.30 20.50 4.08 0 0 0.34 0.72 standard germination 196 188 165 37 0 0 3.23 6.79 *values in parentheses represent angular transformed values j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 15-18,2006 16 seed viability in onion table 2. effect of duration of artificial ageing on onion seed vigour-biochemical parameters s.no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 treatment fresh 3daa 6daa 9daa 12daa 15daa secl± cd@57c electrical conductivity (us/cm) 70.4 70.3 74.4 83.8 91.8 101.8 1.92 4.03 dehydrogenase activity (% change over control) 100.0 90.4 62.3 44.3 35.6 34.9 1.55 3.25 malondialdehyde content (% change over control) 100.0 103.9 114.5 119.4 121.4 126.2 0.85 1.80 total soluble sugars (hg/ml) 127.5 137.5 168.5 470.0 490.0 530.0 17.4 36.7 amy!; (ug produc ise activity maltose ed/ml/min.) 95.1 97.1 82.4 62.4 38.5 37.6 2.10 4.41 peroxidase activity (change in od/ min.) 0.009 0.018 0.022 0.024 0.023 0.023 0.002 0.005 leaching of electrolytes and sugars with increasing duration of ageing. increase in ageing duration from six to fifteen days increased the ec values by 5.7 to 44.6% and sugar levels 1.07 to 4.16 times when compared to fresh seeds. these results clearly demonstrate that the aged seeds lost integrity of cell membranes. lipid peroxidation, estimated by production of malondialdehyde, increased consistently with increase in duration of ageing. increase in malondialdehyde content was noticed to the tune of 3.9, 14.5, 19.4, 21.4 and 26.2% in comparison to fresh seeds. pammenter et al (1974) also noticed more lipid peroxides in aged seeds than in the corresponding controls. these 15daa i -i a-sli seeds daa-lja>s alter artificial ageing plate 1. sds-page tris soluble protein profile of fresh and aged onion seeds showing alteration in banding pattern 15daa 12 9 6 .̂ f ' ? i — . plate 2. esterase isozyme profile of fresh and aged onion seeds showing alteration in banding pattern results, when taken along with reduction in germination speed and seedling growth, indicate that increase in lipid peroxidation may be partly responsible for reduced onion seed vigour at supra-optimal temperature of 45" c when coupled with high humidity (table 2). in the present investigation, activities of a-amylase, dehydrogenase and peroxidase were also examined in relation to seed deterioration. although there was no significant decrease in aamylase activity at three daa, a sharp decline in activity of 12.7 to 57.5 |ig with increase in ageing duration from six to fifteen days was observed when compared with fresh seeds. it was further noted that following ageing, the activity of dehydrogenase declined more rapidly than in the fresh seeds, where as peroxidase activity increased significantly until nine daa and thereafter, remained unaltered (table 2). the sudden increase in peroxidase activity at the beginning of ageing may be due to activation of antioxidative mechanism to suppress the high levels of peroxides that were produced under supra-optimal ageing conditions. age associated reduction in activity of key enzymes in seeds has been reported (wilson and mcdonald, 1986). thus, reduction in enzyme activity may be a reflection of changes in protein synthesis (nandi et al, 1995). sds page protein profile of accelerated aged seeds showed an alteration in twelve and fifteen daa where the characteristic protein pattern was lost (plate 1). the loss of subunits in six, nine and twelve daa seeds indicate that protein degradation occurred due to prolonged ageing. nautiyal et al (1985) reported that in shorea robusta seeds, proteins with higher electrophoresis mobility deteriorated first during ageing. analysis of esterase isozymes also revealed alteration in aged seeds. results obtained for twelve and fifteen daa seeds, particularly, showed no resolution into discrete bands (plate 2). aung and mcdonald (1995) also noticed a decrease in some esterase isozymes in peanuts during storage, due to ageing. based on these findings, it is concluded that seed ageing in onion is the j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1); 15-18,2006 17 bhanuprakash et al result of slowdown processes in synthesis. this may be attributed to degradation of proteins, inactivation of enzymes and higher lipid peroxidation in onion seeds during ageing. references agarwal, p.k. and dadlani, m.1987. techniques in seed science and technology. south asian publishers, new delhi. aung, u.t. and mcdonald, m.b. 1995. changes in esterase activity associated with peanut {arachis hypogea l.) seed deterioration. seed sci. & technol, 23:101-111 bernheim,f., bernheim, m.l.c. and wilbur, k.m. 1948. the reaction between thiobarbituric acid and the oxidation products of certain lipids. j. biochem., 174:257-264 chen, x.l., chen, s.p. and lu, x.x.1999. comparative study on artificial ageing methods in evaluating the storability of rape {brsassica napus l.) seeds. acta agron. sin., 25:265-68. choudhuri, n. and basu, r.n. 1988. maintenance of seed vigour and viability in onion {allium cepa l.). seed sci. & technol, 16:51-61 dubois. m., gilles, k., hamilton, j.k., rebers, p.a. and smith, f. 1951. a colorimetric method for determination of sugars. nature, 168:167 ista (1999). international rules for seed testing. seed sci. & technol, 13:299-520 laemmli, u.k. 1970. cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage t .̂ nature, 227:680-685 lowry, h., rosebrough, n.j., farr, a.l. and randall, r.j. 1951. protein measurement with the folin phenol reagent. j. biol. chem., 193:265-75 mcdonald, m.b. 1999. seed deterioration: physiology, repair and assessment. seedscl & technol, 21:1112il mugnisjah, w.q. and nakamura, s. 1986. methanol and ethanol stress for seed vigour evaluation in soybean. seedscl & technol, 14:95-103 nandi, s., ganguly, s. and sen-mandi, s.1995. seed technology for cold tolerance in rice. int'l rice res. notes, 20:20-21 nautiyal, a.r., thaphya, a.p and purohit, a.n. 1985. seed viability in sal iv. protein changes accompanying loss of viability in shorea robusta l. seed sci. & technol, 13:83-96 pammenter, n.w., adamson j.h. and berjak, p. 1974. viability of stored seed extension by cathodic protection. science, 186:1123-1124 pause, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, newdelhi. roberts, e.h. 1981. physiology of ageing and its application to drying and storage. seed scl & technol, 9:359372 rudrapal, a.b. and basu, r.n. 1979. physiology of hydration dehydration treatment in the maintenance of seed viability in wheat. ind. j. exp. biol, 17:768771 sadasivam, s. and manickam, 1996. biochemical methods. 2"^ ed. new age international publ. pvt. ltd., new delhi. wilson, d.o.jr. and mcdonald, m.b.jr.l986. the lipid peroxidation model of seed ageing. seed sci. & technol, 18:269-300 {ms received 3 april, 2006 revised 26 june. 2006) j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (i): 15-18. 2006 18 the indian bdellium [commiphora wightii (arnott.) bhand.] is a well-known medicinal plant of burseraceae family. it is an important oleo-gum producing plant. the plant possess oleo-gum producing ducts, tapping of which produces a pale yellow, aromatic fluid known as guggal gum used in allopathic, ayurvedic and unani systems of medicine owing to its anti inflammatory, anti-rheumatic, hypocholesteremic, hypolipidemic and anti-fertility activity. the plant is reported to be an important component of flora of the tropical arid ecosystem (kumar and shankar, 1982). forests are the main source for collection of guggal gum. however, with rising pressure on natural resources, forests are shrinking rapidly. due to the high demand for guggal in medicine, not only the pharma industries but others too have done destructive harvesting, using faulty methods of gum tapping. this has led to decimation of the plants compounded by inadequate replenishment. this species is now listed under category ‘a’ of endangered plants (tajuddin et al, 1997). guggal can be propagated by seeds and through vegetative means. seeds show poor germination besides needing scarification. as considerable variability occurs in seedling populations, vegetative propagation is required to produce short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):211-213, 2012 effect of auxins on shoot and root growth in an endangered medicinal plant guggal [commiphora wightii (arnott.) bhand.] bhavya bandi, b.r. parmar, s.b. parmar and kruti parmar department of horticulture, n.m. college of agriculture navsari agricultural university navsari, gujarat 396 450, india e-mail: parmarballu@yahoo.co.in abstract an investigation was carried out to study the effect of iba and naa on vegetative propagation of guggal [commiphora wightii (arnott.) bhand.] through cuttings, at navsari agricultural university, navsari. the experiment consists of ten treatments: iba, naa and their combination, each at 2000, 4000 and 6000 mg l-1 along with control, replicated thrice. ten cuttings per each treatment and per replication were planted. planting media used were: sand, soil and vermicompost, in 2:1:1 ratio. cuttings were dipped for five minutes in solutions of iba, naa and their combinations. cuttings treated with 4000 mg l-1 iba proved to be the best for shoot and root responses, viz., days taken to first sprouting (11.67 days), number of shoots per cutting (10.27), number of leaves in the longest shoot (44.07), length of longest shoot (51.69cm), diameter of the longest shoot (4.40mm), rooting percentage (61.19), number of primary roots per cutting (15.01), length of the longest primary root (26.36cm), and number of secondary roots (22.37) and length of the longest secondary root (21.40cm) per cutting. it was concluded that iba @ 4000 mg l-1 was most effective for obtaining maximum shoot and root growth. key words: guggal, propagation, iba, naa true-to-type progenies. commiphora wightii is known to be propagated through stem cuttings (mertia and nagrajan, 2000; singh et al, 2009; kumar et al, 2006). it being an arid region plant, the present investigation on guggal was designed to evaluate influence of the auxins iba and naa on regeneration of cuttings under south gujarat conditions. the trial was carried out at department of horticulture, n.m. college of agriculture, navsari agricultural university, navsari. hardwood cuttings of guggal 20 cm in length with 4-5 buds were used. a slant cut was made at the base of the cuttings which were then treated with various concentrations of iba, naa (2000, 4000 and 6000 mg l-1) and their combinations, at the same levels of concentration. cuttings in the control group were treated with distilled water. all the cuttings were dipped in respective concentrations of solutions for 5 minutes. ten cuttings were planted per treatment in black polythene bags containing sand, soil and vermicompost in 2:1:1 ratio. the experiment was laid out in crd, with 3 replications. data on root and shoot growth were recorded at 120 days after planting. results were analyzed statistically. 212 shoot traits auxin tested in the experiment had significant influence on various shoot characters, compared to the control. iba @ 4000 mg l-l was the best and recorded minimum number of days to first sprout (11.67 days), highest number of shoots per cutting (10.27), higher number of leaves in the longest shoot (44.07), longest shoot (51.69cm) and highest diameter in the longest shoot (4.40mm) (table 1). early sprouting, increase in number of shoots and shoot length may be due to utilization of the stored carbohydrates perhaps due to influence of the auxin through cell division and elongation. at higher concentration (6000 mg l-l), growth of shoot decreased. this could due to the inhibitory/toxic effect, supported by singh et al (2009) in guggal, parmar et al (2010) in bougainvillea, and singh and singh (2005) in poinsettia. root traits different root promoting substances, i.e. iba, naa (auxins) and their combinations were significantly superior over the control in improving the root parameters studied. iba @ 4000 mg l-l significantly increased rooting percentage (61.19) and other root traits like, number of primary roots per cutting (15.01), length of the longest primary root (26.36 cm), number of secondary roots (22.37) and length of the longest secondary root (21.40cm) per cutting, over other treatments (table 2). lowest values for all the characters were seen in control. better rooting and root growth with the auxins might be ascribed to greater metabolic activity and utilization of sugars and starch upon hydrolysis in the stem. iba was found to be superior to naa, or combinations thereof, because of its greater chemical stability, slow mobility in plants and slow destruction by auxintable 1. effect of pgrs on shoot growth parameters in guggal cuttings pgr concentration (mg l-l) number of number of number of leaves length of diameter of days taken shoots per in longest longest shoot longest shoot to sprout cutting shoot (cm) (mm) t 1 (iba 2000) 13.00 3.97 30.07 33.28 3.03 t 2 (iba 4000) 11.67 10.27 44.07 51.69 4.40 t 3 (iba 6000) 12.33 5.83 33.07 36.76 3.56 t 4 (naa 2000) 15.33 6.33 41.37 34.76 3.20 t 5 (naa 4000) 13.67 6.23 31.03 36.83 3.73 t 6 (naa 6000) 15.67 4.80 33.63 35.73 3.34 t 7 (iba 2000 + naa 2000) 14.00 6.90 38.40 33.95 3.91 t 8 (iba 4000 + naa 4000) 19.33 5.03 30.57 32.06 3.15 t 9 (iba 6000 + naa 6000) 21.33 4.10 26.57 28.66 2.99 t 10 control 26.33 3.00 19.42 25.97 2.41 s.em.± 0.67 0.22 1.35 1.33 0.13 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.99 0.65 3.98 3.93 0.39 c.v. (%) 7.19 6.72 7.12 6.61 6.78 table 2. effect of pgrs on root parameters in guggal cuttings pgr concentration (mg l-l) rooting % number of primary length of longest number of secondary length of longest roots per cutting primary root (cm) roots per cutting secondary root (cm) t 1 (iba 2000) 57.37 10.85 21.83 19.37 14.53 t 2 (iba 4000) 61.19 15.01 26.36 22.37 21.40 t 3 (iba 6000) 51.18 9.91 19.37 12.24 13.63 t 4 (naa 2000) 47.53 8.76 21.07 15.47 17.53 t 5 (naa 4000) 53.51 11.82 22.97 20.02 14.84 t 6 (naa 6000) 48.43 6.94 17.27 17.27 14.07 t 7 (iba 2000 + naa 2000) 50.40 12.89 23.97 20.57 19.23 t 8 (iba 4000 + naa 4000) 34.35 9.19 16.63 14.05 11.66 t 9 (iba 6000 + naa 6000) 31.29 6.41 15.73 15.73 9.23 t 10 control 18.45 3.24 10.40 10.40 7.13 s.em.± 1.67 0.36 0.72 0.63 0.55 c.d. (p=0.05) 4.92 1.06 2.13 1.86 1.63 c.v. (%) 6.37 6.54 6.39 6.51 6.68 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):211-213, 2012 bhavya bandi et al 213 (ms received 19 september 2011, revised 14 august 2012) degrading enzymes. naa may have been destroyed more rapidly by the auxin-degrading enzymes. strong influence of iba on rooting and root growth has been experimentally substantiated earlier by various workers, viz., singh et al (2003 and 2009) and kumar et al (2006) in guggal; singh and singh (2005) in poinsettia and parmar et al (2010) in bougainvillea. conclusion it may be concluded that among all the treatments used in our study, iba @ 4000 mg l-1 was the most effective for achieving maximal shoot and root growth in guggal. references kumar, d., chandra, r. and aishwath, o.p. 2006. biomass partitioning and cutting success as influenced by indole butyric acid in softwood cuttings of indian bdellium [commiphora wightii (arnot.) bhand.]. rev. bras. pl. med., botucatu., 8:49-52 kumar, s. and shankar, v. 1982. medicinal plants of the indian desert: commiphora wightii (arnott.) bhand. j. arid environ., 5:1-11 mertia, r.s. and nagarajan, m. 2000. successful rooting in cuttings of commiphora wightii (arnott.) bhand. annal. arid zone, 39:87-88 parmar, b.r., patel, v.b., bhalerao, p.p. and tank, r.v. 2010. effect of different plant growth regulators on vegetative propagation of bougainvellia peruviana cv. touch glory through hardwood cuttings. the asian j. hort., 5:222-224 singh, a.k. and singh, r. 2005. influence of growth regulating substances on rooting of cuttings of poinsettia cv. flaming sphere. prog. hort. 37:8588 singh, b., singh, j., tiwari, s.k., and ansari, a.a. 2003. mass multiplication through stem branch cuttings of commiphora wightii, an important medicinal plant. j. trop. forestry, 19:24-29 singh, j., kumawat, p.c., kumar, r., manmohan, j.r., pandey, s.b.s. and singh, s.s. 2009. propagation of guggal [commiphora wightii (arnott) bhand.] through cuttings. ind. j. agroforestry. 11:76-79 tajuddin a.s.k., tyagi, b.r., ram, m., dwivedi, s. and kumar, s. 1997. development of cultivar marusudha of guggul (commiphora wightii). j. med. arom. pl. sci., 19:1043-1044 auxins in guggal propagation j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):211-213, 2012 the sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck.) occupies the first position among all the commercial citrus species grown in the world. it prefers dry, sub-tropical climate for good growth yield and for producing quality fruits. it produces a well-spread canopy with well-developed leaders, laterals and sub-laterals. sweet orange plants are generally planted at a spacing of 5 x 5 meters, and economical orchard life varies from 15 to 25 years depending upon the rootstock used, management practices followed and the prevailing agro-climatic conditions in a particular area. it is observed that on attaining the age of seven to eight years, the canopy of the sweet orange plant becomes dense and overcrowded, which results in susceptibility of the plant to insect-pests and diseases thereby drying up of shoots. besides, excessive growth of the leaders and laterals may result in shade falling on the plants nearby. due to formation of the dense canopy and the shading effect, fruit yield gradually decreases. pruning, which is the art of removal of unwanted growth of plant parts in a scientific manner, is needed for sustained production and for increasing the efficiency of the orchard. in citrus per se, drastic pruning may not be desirable, but short communication effect of pruning on productivity in sweet orange s.n. ghosh and b. bera1 department of fruits and orchard management bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalay mohanpur, nadia 741252, west bengal, india e-mail : profsnghosh@yahoo.co.in abstract to sustainable production of quality fruits in eight year old sweet orange plants of cv. mosambi budded onto citrus jambheri rootstock, and grown in laterite soil at jhargram, paschim medinipur, a canopy management trial was conducted for two consecutive years. the treatments included t1: no pruning; t2: removal of dead and dry shoots and branches; t3: t2 + removal of thin shoots and water-sprouts arising from the leaders at 90 o angle; t4: t3 + removal of selected laterals; t5: t4 + removal of selected leaders for formation of open-centre-canopy. randomized block design with five replications was set up. results indicated that fruit production improved with regular pruning. significantly high fruit retention (68%) with maximum number of fruits (250) was recorded in plants where open-canopy was maintained by judicious removal of the leaders, laterals, thin shoots and dead wood. trees with open-canopy not only resulted in 71.4% increase in fruit number, but also enhanced fruit weight by 17.9% over control. significantly good fruit quality in terms of tss, total sugars and vitamin c content was recorded in fruits from the open canopy treatment. dry weight of shoots / branch was lowest (1.50kg) in open-canopy treatment and highest in the unpruned control (3.0kg). foliar n, p and k status did not vary significantly with different pruning practices. key words: canopy management, fruit production and quality, sweet orange, laterite soil 1mps farm, dighisole, dahijuri, jhargram-721504, west bengal, india reports are available on the effect of pruning in sweet orange (philips, 1978; bevingten, 1980; joubert et al., 2000) from different countries. in india, this information is lacking, particularly, in sweet orange grown in laterite soils. with a view to increasing production and for improving fruit quality, this investigation was undertaken with different pruning intensities. the experiment was conducted in a private orchard at jhargram, paschim medinipur, west bengal, on eight year old sweet orange plants cv. mosambi, budded onto jambheri (citrus jambheri) rootstock planted at a spacing of 5m x 5m. before pruning, the plants were over-crowded and had excessive growth of leaders and laterals. the pruning treatment comprised of: t1: no pruning; t2: removal of dead and dry shoots and branches; t3: t2 + removal of thin shoots and water-sprouts arising from the leaders at 900 angle; t4: t3 + removal of selected laterals; t5: t4 + removal of selected leaders for formation of open-centrecanopy. the pruning operation was conducted in the first week of january. in the first year (2010), all the pruning j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):206-208, 2014 207 effect of pruning on productivity in sweet orange treatments were imposed as per schedule, while, in the second year (2011), dead shoots were removed. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with five-replication by taking two plants as a unit. the plants were fertilized with 30kg fym, 400g nitrogen, 200g p2o5 and 300g k2o plant -1 year-1 in two splits, viz., during march and june. the plants were irrigated at monthly interval after fruit-set (i.e. february) and this was continued until the onset of monsoon. observations on fruit-retention (from the marble stage of fruit development to maturity), fruit yield (by number, and weight) was recorded each year. shoot mortality (biomass) was recorded at the time of pruning and was expressed in kg, on fresh weight basis. foliar n, p and k status was estimated from six month old leaves as per standard procedure (bhargava, 1999). physico-chemical characteristics of mature fruits were record each year using standard methods (a.o.a.c, 1990). fruit yield, which was the main focus of the experiment, improved significantly with various pruning treatments (table 1). highest fruit retention (68%) was observed in plants where open-canopy was formed by judicious removal of the leaders and laterals (t5) thereby resulting in production of highest number of harvestable fruits in both the years. highest fruit production in open-canopy plants (t5) may be due to greater penetration of sunlight and better air circulation, creating a micro-climate conducive to synthesis of carbohydrates and phyto-hormones. the second best treatment was t4, where laterals had been removed selectively. control plants (t1) produced the lowest number of fruits (140) in both the years. it was observed that fruit production was higher in the first year, and relatively less in the second year, irrespective of the treatment. this indicated that the sweet orange has a tendency for alternate bearing. this is in conformity with the findings of ghosh and tarai (2007) in sweet orange and sharma et al (1997) in kinnow mandarin. just as with fruit number, fruit yield was highest (41.3kg plant-1) in the open-canopy plants (t5), followed by plants (36.8kg plant-1-) where laterals were removed selectively (t4) (table 1). highest fruit yield in t5 may be due to best fruit retention and to production of weighable fruits (table 2). yield improvement in aged citrus plants due to pruning practices was also reported by tayde and ingle (1997) in nagpur mandarin, nath (1994) in assam lemon, sharma et al (1997) in kinnow mandarin and joubert et al (2000) in sweet orange and grapefruit. fruit weight increased significantly with various pruning treatments (table 2). highest fruit weight (165g) was recorded in the open-canopy plants (t5), followed by t4 (160g), while, the lowest was recorded in control plants (140g). highest fruit weight seen in open-canopy plants (t5) may be attributed to better assimilation of reserve foods in the branches remaining on the plant. sharma et al (1997) also recorded higher fruit weight in kinnow plants where extra growth was removed judiciously. fruit size (length and breadth) did not significantly vary among treatments. quality of the fruits improved significantly with different pruning treatments. the highest juice percentage (52.5%), t.s.s. (8.6ºb), total sugars (5.6%) and vitamin c (34.5mg/100ml) content were recorded in fruits from the open-canopy plants (t5). these findings corroborate with those of joubert et al table 1. effect of canopy management on fruit production and shoot mortality, and, foliar n, p and k status in sweet orange cv. mosambi treatment fruit number of fruits plant-1 average shoot foliar n, p and k status retention 2010 2011 average fruit yield mortality n (%) p (%) k (%) (%) plant-1 plant-1 on (kg) fresh weight basis (kg) t1 : no pruning (control) 47 150 130 140 19.6 3.00 1.70 79.00 1.45 t2 : removal of dead shoots only 50 185 175 180 27.0 2.35 1.68 78.00 1.50 t3 : t2 + removal of thin shoots 56 205 195 200 31.4 2.30 1.68 78.00 1.55 and water sprouts, arisen from the leaders t4 : t3 + removal of selected laterals 64 240 220 230 36.8 1.50 1.70 80.00 1.55 t5 : t4 + removal of selected leaders 68 270 230 250 41.3 1.20 1.74 88.50 1.58 for formation of open canopy cd (p=0.05) 5.2 10.5 7.4 8.0 3.8 0.20 n.s.* n.s.* n.s.* cv (%) 9.2 16.4 11.7 12.2 8.1 3.9 2.4 3.6 1.8 *n.s. = non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):206-208, 2014 208 (2000) and tayde and ingle (1997). the lowest values in quality parameters were recorded in fruits from control plants. plants showing less intensity of shoot-drying is an indication of good plant health and vice versa. the lowest amount of dry shoots was recorded (1.2kg) in open-canopy plants (t5), while it was highest (3.0kg) in control plants (t1), followed by t2 (2.35kg). results in table 1 indicate that removal of dry and dead shoots every year is essential for maintaining plant health in citrus species like the sweet orange. the leaf is considered as the most suitable index tissue, and represents nutrient status of the plant (bhargava, 1999). foliar n, p and k status was assessed to ascertain the nutrient status of pruned and unpruned plants. it was found that n, p and k values did not vary significantly with various pruning treatments (table 1). however, t5 plants showed a slightly higher value for foliar n, p and k compared to the other pruning treatments imposed. references a.o.a.c. 1990. official methods of analysis (15th edn.). association of official agricultural chemists, washington d.c. bevingten, k.b. 1980. response of valencia orange trees in australia to hedging and topping. procs. fla. state hort. soc., 93:65-66 bhargava, b.s. 1999. leaf analysis for diagnosing nutrient need in fruit crops. indian hort., 43:6-8 ghosh, s.n. and tarai, r.k. 2007. performance of mosambi sweet orange on different rootstocks grown in laterite soil in west bengal. j. hortl. sci., 2:153-155 joubert, f.j., plessis, m.h. du, stassen, p.j.c. and du plassis, m.h. 2000. pruning strategies to alleviate overcrowding in high density citrus orchard. j. appl. hort., 2:1-5 nath, j.c. 1994. effect of pruning intensity on growth, yield and quality of assam lemon (citrus limon). haryana j. hortl. sci., 23:281-285 philips, r.l. 1978. hedging and topping citrus in high density plantings. procs. fla. state hort. soc., 91:43-46 sharma, j.n., josan, j.s. and thind, s.k. 1997. effect of pruning intensities on the productivity of kinnow mandarin. indian j. hort., 54:304-307 tayde, g.s. and ingle, h.v. 1997. studies on the effect of severity of pruning on growth, yield and quality of nagpur mandarin. procs. nat’l. symp., nrc citrus, nagpur, pp. 185-187 table 2. effect of canopy management on physico-chemical characteristics of fruits (average of two years) treatment fruit length breadth juice t.s.s. acidity total vitamin c weight (g) of fruit of fruit content (0b) (%) sugars (mg/100 ml (cm) (cm) (%) (%) juice) t1 : no pruning (control) 140 7.4 7.4 49.2 7.2 0.26 5.20 29.60 t1 : removal of dead 150 7.5 7.5 50.3 7.8 0.27 5.30 30.50 shoots only t1 : t2 + removal of thin 157 7.7 7.7 50.5 8.0 0.25 5.40 31.50 shoots and water sprouts, arisen from the leaders t4 : t3 + removal of 160 7.8 7.8 52.0 8.2 0.26 5.50 34.10 selected laterals t5 : t4 + removal of 165 7.9 7.9 52.5 8.6 0.26 5.60 34.50 selected leaders for formation of open canopy cd (p=0.05) 4.8 n.s.* n.s.* 1.1 0.30 n.s. 0.20 0.60 cv (%) 6.5 2.1 1.6 4.4 3.9 2.7 4.1 3.8 n.s. = non-significant (ms received 14 september 2013, revised 15 july 2014, accepted 05 august 2014) ghosh and bera j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):206-208, 2014 dry root rot of chillies, caused by sclerotium rolfsii, is a major disease in chilli-growing areas of andhra pradesh, and causes severe losses. the pathogen survives as sclerotia in soil for a long duration which served as a source of primary inoculum (shoeraj singh et al, 2007). due to prolonged, saprophytic survivability of the pathogen, chemical management is not very effective and is, therefore, uneconomical. plant derivatives endowed with pesticidal properties are being evolved worldwide as alternatives or supplements to existing chemical pesticides for several reasons, viz., spiralling costs, environmental hazards and development of resistance by pathogens and insects (mishra, 2005). plant extracts are known to possess antimicrobial properties and several research workers have studied antifungal activity of various plant extracts (seshakiran et al, 2006; sheoraj singh et al, 2007; deepak kumar et al, 2008). these reports prompted the present investigation on in vitro screening of plant extracts, viz., neem (azadirachta indica), bottlebrush (callistemon lanceolatus de), periwinkle (vinca rosea), ashoka (polyalthia longifolia), curry leaf (murraya koenigii), prosopis (prosopis julifera), onion bulb (allium cepa) and ginger stem (zingiber officinalis) to assess their inhibitory effect on pathogen mycelial growth, sclerotial production and sclerotial germination. plant extracts: leaves of neem, callistemon, vinca, ashoka, curry plant and prosopis plants and onion bulb and ginger stem were washed with sterilized distilled water and short communication effect of various plant extracts on dry root rot of chillies caused by sclerotium rolfsii g. bindu madhavi, s.l. bhattiprolu and v. bali reddy regional agricultural research station, lam guntur 522 034, india e-mail : gopireddy_bindu@yahoo.co.in abstract eight different plant extracts were evaluated in vitro against sclerotium rolfsii causing dry root rot in chillies. among these, leaf extract of neem (azadirachta indica) caused maximum inhibition of mycelial growth (80.74%), followed by periwinkle vinca rosea (78.8%) and bottlebrush (callistemon, 74.8%) respectively. sclerotial production was inhibited to an extent of 11% and the inhibition caused was maximum with neem extract, followed by polyalthia longifolia and v. rosea extracts. though sclerotial germination was inhibited by 30% to 95% in various treatments, the most effective treatment was that of neem leaf extract (95%), followed by ginger extract (92%). key words: sclerotium rolfsii, plant extracts, mycelial growth, sclerotial production air-dried. a hundred grams of freshly-chopped leaves, bulb and stem were taken and boiled at 80oc for 10 min. in water. the material was homogenized for five min., filtered through muslin cloth and the filtrate was centrifuged at 5000rpm for 15 min. the clear supernatant was collected and used as 100% standard extract. for evaluation of antifungal activity of these extracts, 10% concentration was made by adding 10ml of standard, basic stock of plant extract to 90ml potato dextrose agar (pda) in petri plates, replicated thrice for each treatment. pda without the plant extract served as the check. each plate was inoculated with a sclerotium taken from 15-day old culture of s. rolfsii. inoculated plates were incubated at 25+1oc and data on (i) mycelial growth and (ii) sclerotial formation were recorded. sclerotial germination was recorded by collecting sclerotia from 15day old cultures of the pathogen grown on pda medium. the sclerotia were at first surface-sterilized with sodium hypochlorite solution (0.35% available chlorine) and then washed in sterile distilled water and placed in sterilized petri plates under dry conditions. three sclerotia were suspended in aqueous extracts obtained from the above plant material in the cavities of cavity slides placed over a vshaped glass rod in a humidity chamber made in sterile petri plates. the plates were incubated at 28+1oc for 72 hours. a check was also maintained with sterilized distilled water in place of aqueous extract. each treatment was replicated thrice, germination of sclerotia was recorded and per cent inhibition calculated. j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):156-158, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 157 effect of plant extracts: all plant extracts were by and large inhibitory to pathogen mycelial growth and sclerotial formation. mycelial growth inhibition ranged from 35.18 to 80.74% (table1). significantly, highest inhibition was recorded in the extract obtained from neem leaves (80.1%). next in order were extracts obtained from periwinkle (78.8%), callistemon (74.8%), ashoka (67.03%), prosopis spp (52.59%) and ginger (48.22%). curry leaf extract was least inhibitory, as was the extract of onion bulbs. the plant extracts did not affect sclerotial formation, although these delayed sclerotial formation by 20 days. maximum reduction (table1) in sclerotial formation (11%) was recorded in plates amended with neem leaf extract, followed by ashoka (9.83%) and vinca (6.67%). aqueous extract of neem leaves inhibited sclerotial germination in s. rolfsii by 95%. this was followed by ginger (92%) and vinca (88%), whereas foliar extracts of ashoka and prosopis recorded 70% and 50% inhibition, respectively. inhibition of sclerotial germination was low with extracts of onion bulb (allium cepa, 45%) and bottlebrush (callistemon lanceolatus de, 40%) whereas, it was least with extract of curry leaf (30%). these results are in agreement with findings of shoeraj singh et al (2007) who reported that foliar extract of neem followed by that of ashoka, caused maximum inhibition of mycelial growth, sclerotial production and viability of s. rolfsii causing collar rot of lentil. seshakiran et al (2006) found mycelial growth and sclerotial formation to be inhibited by extracts of prosopis, neem and onion bulb, as also recorded in the present investigation. sonali and gupta (2004) reported that acqueous extracts of mustard cake and neem cake, neem oil reduced in vitro germination of sclerotia of s. rolfsii causing seedling blight of apple. fungitoxic properties of prosopsis julifera against various species of fusarium, dreschlera and alternaria were reported by raghavendra et al (2002) and ganesan (1993), whereas datar et al (1999) reported fungicidal properties of leaf extracts of ashoka (polyalthia longifolia) against macrophomina phaseolina. sharma and gupta (1995) observed decrease in root rot incidence in apple using neem cake as an organic amendment. similar report came form karthikeyan and karunanidhi (1996) with work on several soil-borne pathogens. singh and dwivedi (1989) found that azadirachta indica, emblica officinalis, turmeric and ginger extracts reduced hyphal dry-weight and sclerotial production in vitro in s. rolfsii. leaf, flower, stem and root extracts of vinca rosea were found to be inhibitory to s. rolfsii, fusarium oxysporum and aspergillus niger (narain and satapathy, 1977). findings in the present study are in conformity with those in the above-stated reports and these can be further exploited for formulating integrated disease management (idm) schedule for dry root rot of chillies. references datar, v.v, 1999. bioefficacy of plant extracts against macrophomina phaseolina (tassi) gold, the incitant of charcoal rot of sorghum. j. mycol. pl. path., 29:251-253 deepak kumar srivastava and heera lal yadav. 2008. antifungal activity of some medicinal plants against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici. ind. phytopath., 61:99-102 ganesan, t. 1993. fungitoxic effect of wild plant leaf extracts. geobios, 20:264-266 karthekeyan, a. and karunanidhi, k.1996. influence of organic amendments on the intensity of fusarium wilt of banana . pl. dis. res., 11:180-181 mishra, s.r. 2005. plant protection and pest management. discovery publishing house, science, 304 p. table 1. effect of various plant extracts on mycelial growth, sclerotial formation and germination of sclerotium rolfsii s.l no. plant extract used mycelial per cent inhibition (%) sclerotial inhibition growth inhibition of sclerotium germination (% over control) (cm) of growth formation (%) after 72 h 1 neem (azadirachta indica) 1.73 80.61 11.00 5 95 2 callistemon (callistemon lanceolatus) 2.26 74.80 5.83 60 40 3 periwinkle (vinca rosea) 1.90 78.80 6.67 12 88 4 ashoka (polyalthia longifolia) 2.96 67.03 9.83 30 70 5 curry leaf (murraya koenigii) 5.90 34.40 3.16 70 30 6 prosopis (prosopis julifera) 4.26 52.59 4.50 50 50 7 onion (allium cepa) 5.83 35.18 3.20 55 45 8 ginger (zingiber officinale) 4.46 48.22 3.63 8 92 9 check 8.96 0 99.00 100 0 sem ± 0.117 0.404 2.041 cd (p= 0.05) 0.350 1.211 6.119 effect of plant extracts on dry root rot of chilli j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):156-158, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 158 narain, a. and satapathy, j.n. 1997. antifungal characterstics of vinca rosea extracts. ind. phytopath., 30:36-40 raghavendra, m.p., satish, s. and raveesha, k.a. 2002. prosopis juliflora swartz: a potential plant for the management of fungal diseases of crops. in: asian cong. mycol. pl. path., ind. soc. mycol. pl. pathol., university of mysore, p.136 singh, r.k. and dwivedi, r.s. 1989. effect of plant parts and products on morphology and growth of sclerotium rolfsiia foot root rot pathogen of barley. acta bot. indica, 17:125-127 seshakiran, k., lingaraju, s. and adiver, s.s. 2006. effect of plant extracts on sclerotium rolfsii, the incitant of stem rot of groundnut. j. mycol. pl. path., 36:77-79 sheoraj singh, prajapathi, r.k., srivastava, s.s.l., pandey, r.k. and gupta, p.k.2007. evaluation of different botanicals and non target pesticides against sclerotium rolfsii causing collar rot of lentil. ind. phytopath., 60:499-501 sonali and gupta, a.k. 2004. efficacy of plant materials on inhibition of sclerotial germination of sclerotium rolfsii. j. mycol. pl. path., 34:382-384 sharma, s.k. and gupta, v.k. 1995. management of root rots of apple through soil amendments with plant materials. pl. dis. res., 11:164-167 (ms received 9 march 2010, revised 3 june 2011) bindu madhavi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):156-158, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction strawberry (fragaria ananassa duch) is propagated conventionally through runners but it is not feasible for mass multiplication. alternative methods of propagation like micropropagation have tremendous potential and attempts have been made for commercially exploitation (boxus, 1974; boxus et al, 1977). in the process of mass multiplication, the initial step of surface sterilization of explants is one of the most crucial factors in plant tissue culture. contamination in plant cultures generally originates from explants, operators, laboratory environments or ineffective sterilization techniques. microbes existed even among the healthy plants and their presence is often missed under field conditions, but the deleterious effects get expressed during in vitro conditions. further, enzymatic browning at the initial establishment of in vitro culture is another primary cause failure of the cultures, leading to the death explants (pirttilla et al, 2008; zaid, 1984). thus, establishment of a simple and effective disinfection protocol for escalating the survival of effective decontamination and regeneration protocol for in vitro culture of strawberry cv. chandler s. diengngan1, b.n.s. murthy* and m. mahadevamma1 icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-560 089, india *e-mail: bnsmurthy@iihr.ernet.in abstract nodal segments of strawberry cv. chandler were collected from the field and surface sterilization of the explants was carried out using various levels of decontaminants as different treatments viz. sodium hypochlorite (naclo) 0.5% for 7, 5 and 3 min and mercuric chloride (hg cl2) 0.1% for 5 min, 3 min and 3 min 10 sec. the explants were excised and cultured for 3 weeks on the initiation medium supplemented with various levels of bap (0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2mg/l) and its combination with ga (0.5 and 1mg/l). sub culturing was done and finally rooting was initiated on the medium supplemented with various levels of iba (0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2mg/l) for 4 weeks. the results obtained indicated that, among the decontaminants, treatment of explants with hg cl2 0.1% for 3 min 10 sec resulted in the minimum contamination and browning of explants. further, maximum shoot proliferation percentage, shoots per explant and minimum number of days to shoot initiation was observed when explants were cultured on ms medium supplemented with 1.5 mg/l bap over other concentrations of either bap or in combination with ga. however, the maximum length of shoots was obtained in medium supplemented with 1.5 mg/l bap + 0.5 mg/l ga. while, medium supplemented with 0.5 mg/l iba supported highest percentage of rooting, the highest number of roots, maximum root length of microcuttings and minimum number of days to root initiation were observed in medium supplemented with 1mg/l of iba. key words: decontaminants, growth regulators, in vitro, nodal segments, strawberry explants is imperative both for research and commercial production. the growth and development of explants in vitro is very much influenced by the addition of growth regulators to the basal medium for culture (skoog and miller, 1957). morozova (2002) reported that high concentration of cytokinins (ba) required for strawberry micro-propagation, while boxus (1999) suggested lower concentrations (0.5-1mg/l) of ba. therefore, the present study was undertaken to develop an effective disinfection protocol for nodal segments of strawberry cv. chandler obtained from field grown plants and assess the efficacies of various growth regulators at different levels for efficient in vitro culture of strawberry cv. chandler. material and methods explant selection and sterilization field grown runners (7-10cm size) obtained from open field (block-i) of the icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesarghatta, bengaluru, karnataka, 1university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, p.g. centre, bengaluru-560 065, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):126-130, 2014 127 in vitro culture of strawberry cv. chandler india, were used in the present studies. the leaves and root initials were trimmed off and nodal segments (1-2cm) were pretreated with a mixture of bavistin (1.0%), ctab (cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide0.5%) and antibiotic formulation (streptomycin + tetracycline) 0.1% each for 90min. the explants were then washed off with all the residues using sterile distilled water three times. thereafter, the explants were treated for 1 minute using 75% ethanol containing 2 drops of tween-20. subsequently, the explants were treated with various surface sterilants at different concentrations and timings as per the treatments. the surface sterilants used were sodium hypochlorite (na clo) 0.5% for 7, 5 and 3 min and mercuric chloride (hg cl2) 0.1% for 5 min, 3 min and 3 min 10 sec. after subsequent washing for six times, exposed ends were trimmed off, and the excised nodal explants of 1-1.5 cm size were cultured in vitro (fig. 1). shoot proliferation and root initiation surface sterilized nodal segments were cultured on ms medium containing 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 mg/l of bap. another set of treatments consisting of 0.5 or 1 mg/l of ga in combination of the four concentrations of bap mentioned above with were also tested. the cultures were examined regularly and the data on shoot proliferation was recorded after 3 weeks of culture. these shoots were used as microcuttings and sub-cultured on fresh medium for further shoot proliferation and root initiation. growth characteristics such as percentage of explants showing shoot proliferation, days to shoot initiation, number of shoots per explant and average length of shoot were recorded. further, the micro-cuttings obtained from the shoot induction treatments were transferred to ms media containing 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 mg/l of iba and the percentage of rooting, number of days to root initiation, number of roots per micro-cutting and average root length were recorded in each treatment after 4 weeks of sub-culturing and the data were subjected to appropriate statistically analysis. hardening hardening of the rooted plantlets was carried out on the medium consisting of a mixture of sterilized sand, soil and cocopeat (1:1:2). one third of the plastic cups punched with drainage holes were filled with hardening media. after fig. 1. decontamination protocol of strawberry nodal explants in vitro culture. fig. 2. efficacy of decontaminants in reducing the contamination and browning of explants j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):126-130, 2014 128 the medium was saturated with water to field capacity, the plantlets were transplanted in to plastic cups after thorough washing and finally the cups were covered with an inverted punched transparent cups to maintain humidity and placed under cool fluorescent light in the culture room. after one week, the covered plastic cups covers were removed to permit further hardening, and after one month, hardened plantlets were relocated to glasshouse conditions. such hardened plantlets of two months old were ready for transfer to the field. statistical analysis analysis of variance was carried out using completely randomized design (crd) using spss statistics version 17.0. for each of the treatment combinations, ten replications were maintained and the test for significance (p d”0.05) was conducted among different surface sterilants and plant growth regulators treatments. results and discussion the efficacy of various decontaminants in reducing the contamination of explants of strawberry cv. chandler for in vitro culture was evaluated. the data on percentage of contamination showed significant differences among the surface sterilants, and it was observed that explants treated with na clo 0.5% for 7 min resulted in zero contamination, but the browning percentage was highest. treatment of explants with hgcl2 0.1% 3 min 10 sec gave the minimum percentage of contamination and browning compared to other treatment combinations. the best decontamination protocol suggested by ying ko et al (2009) using sodium hypochlorite (0.5%) for 7 min, biswas et al (2007) with 0.1% hgcl2 for 5 min and sharma et al (2009) with 0.1% hgcl2 for 3 min were also tried in the present study but of little help in overcoming contamination. since, the decontamination treatment identified in the present study worked efficiently with the explants collected from the open field, it saves the cost for installation of protected structure for raising plants as source of explants, thereby increasing the economic return. significant differences in shoot proliferation of strawberry cv. chandler to in vitro culture were observed under the influence of growth regulator treatments (table 1). it was observed that medium supplemented with 1.5mg/ l bap resulted in the highest percentage of shoot proliferation and minimum number of days to shoot initiation. maximum number of shoots per explant was obtained on medium supplemented with 1.5mg/l bap and was significantly higher than the other concentrations of bap alone or in combinations with ga. the maximum number of days taken for shoot initiation and minimum number of table 1. influence of plant growth regulators on the number of days to shoot initiation, number of shoots per explant and shoot length of nodal segments of strawberry cv. chandler plant growth days to number of shoot regulators (mg/l) shoot shoots per length initiation explant (cm) control 10.50±0.45 2.30±0.21 1.06±0.09 bap 0.5 9.20±0.47 3.60±0.16 1.63±0.10 bap1 8.90±0.43 5.00±0.26 2.42±0.14 bap 1.5 8.00±0.26 6.30±0.15 3.47±0.10 bap 2 8.90±0.41 5.00±0.21 2.72±0.06 bap 0.5 + ga 0.5 9.50±0.22 3.50±0.17 3.10±0.07 bap 0.5 + ga 1 9.40±0.43 3.70±0.15 3.64±0.07 bap1 + ga 0.5 9.10±0.41 4.10±0.23 4.00±0.06 bap 1 + ga 1 8.50±0.45 4.50±0.17 4.43±0.07 bap 1.5 + ga 0.5 8.00±0.26 5.50±0.17 5.20±0.05 bap 1.5 + ga 1 8.40±0.48 4.80±0.20 4.77±0.07 bap 2 + ga 0.5 9.20±0.36 4.20±0.20 4.10±0.04 bap 2 + ga 1 9.90±0.35 3.60±0.16 3.66±0.07 cd (p=0.05) 1.10 0.54 0.22 table 2. rooting responses of micro-cuttings of strawberry cv. chandler under the influence of various concentrations of iba iba days to number of root length concentrations root roots per (cm) (mg/l) formation micro-cutting iba 0 15.40±0.34 1.80±0.13 1.07±0.09 iba 0.5 12.00±0.47 3.60±0.27 2.20±0.08 iba 1 9.30±0.21 5.50±0.22 3.47±0.11 iba 1.5 9.40±0.22 4.40±0.22 2.97±0.08 iba 2 10.70±0.33 3.60±0.27 2.18±0.07 cd (p=0.05) 0.94 0.65 0.25 fig. 3. effect of plant growth regulators on shoot proliferation percentage of explants of strawberry cv. chandler diengngan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):126-130, 2014 129 shoots per explant were recorded in basal ms medium. biswas et al (2008) however reported that 0.5 mg/l bap in ms medium gave the best response for multiple shoot induction. the higher requirement of concentration for shoot proliferation in the present study could be attributed to genotypic differences as genotypes responds differently in vitro (passey et al, 2003). supplementation of ga to the bap containing medium did not improve the rate of shoot proliferation and is in accordance with the reports by sakila et al (2007). however, the medium supplemented with 1.5mg/l bap + 0.5mg/l ga exhibited the highest shoot length in explants in the present investigation and the minimum length of proliferated shoots were observed in basal ms medium thus ga contributed to elongation of proliferated shoots and again similar observation was reported by sakila et al (2007). on perusal of data, it was found that 0.5mg/l iba when supplied to the medium resulted in the highest response to in vitro rooting reflected in highest percentage of rooting. the lowest percentage of rooting in micro-cuttings was observed on basal ms medium (fig. 4). however, the minimum number of days taken to root formation was observed in medium supplemented with 1 mg/l iba and this treatment also resulted in highest number of roots per microcutting. maximum number of days taken for rooting and least number of roots per explant were observed in basal ms medium and interestingly, the average root length of micro-cuttings also recorded maximum in 1mg/l iba, which was significantly superior to other iba concentrations. overall, results indicated that supplementation of 1mg/l to the media resulted in the highest rooting responses in microcuttings of strawberry cv. chandler. similar results have been obtained by hemant et al (2001), ritu et al (2001), sakila et al (2007) on other cultivars of strawberry and mante et al, 1989 in prunus sp. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge the vice chancellor, the dean (pgs), university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, karnataka and the director, icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india for providing necessary facilities requisite for completion of the experiment and encouragement. references biswas, m.k., hossain, m. and islam, r. 2007. virus free plantlets production of strawberry through meristem culture. world j. agric. sci., 3:757-763 biswas, m.k., islam, r. and hossain, m. 2008. micropropagation and field evaluation of strawberry in bangladesh. j. agric. tech., 4:167-182 boxus, p. 1974. the production of strawberry plants by in vitro micro-propagation. j. hortic. sci., sci. biotech., 49:209-210 boxus, p. 1999. micro-propagation of strawberry via axillary shoot proliferation. in: plant cell culture protocols. methods in molecular biology. part iii. plant propagation in vitro. hall r. d. (ed.) humana press inc., totowa nj, 111:103-114 boxus, p., quoirin m. and laine, m.j. 1977. large scale propagation of strawberry plants from tissue culture. heidelberg, new york, pp.130-143 hemant, g., kaur, r., sharma, d.r., neetu, t., gautam, h. and thakur, j.n. 2001. a comparative study on in vitro and ex vitro rooting of micropropagated shoots of strawberry (fragaria x ananassa). pl. cell biotech. mol. biol., 2:149-152 mante, s., scorza, r. and cordts, j.m. 1989. plant regeneration from cotyledons of prunus persieg, p. domestica and p. cerasus. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 19:1-11 morozova, t. 2002. genetic stability of pure lines of fragaria vesca l. in micro-propagation and long term storage in vitro. acta hort., 567:85-87 passey, a.j., barrett, k.j. and james, d.j. 2003. adventitious shoot regeneration from seven commercial strawberry cultivars (fragaria × ananassa duch.) using a range of explants types. pl. cell rep., 21:397-401 fig. 4. influence of iba on rooting percentage in strawberry cv. chandler in vitro culture of strawberry cv. chandler j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):126-130, 2014 130 pirttilla, a.m., podolich, o., koskimaki, j.j., hohtola, e. and hohtola, a. 2008. role of origin and endophyte infection in browning of bud derived tissue cultures of scots pine (pinus sylvestris l.). pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 95:47-55 ritu, m., kaur, r., anju, s., sharma, d.r., mahajan, r. and sharma, a. 2001. micro-propagation of strawberry cultivar chandler and fern. crop improvement, 28:19-25 sakila, s., ahmed, m.b., roy, u.k., biswas, m.k., karim, r., razvy, m.a., hossain, m., islam, r. and hoque, a. 2007. micro-propagation of strawberry (fragaria ananassa duch) a newly introduced crop in bangladesh. amer. euras. j. sci. res., 2:151-154 sharma, s., wall, v.k., klier ravi and sharma, m. 2009. in vitro propagation of strawberry (fragaria x ananassa duch.) cv. chandler. j. res., skuastj, 8:157-167 skoog, f. and miller, c.d. 1957. chemical regulation of growth and organ formation in plant tissue cultivated in vitro. symp. soc. expt. biol., 11:118-131 ying ko chien, abdul karima, m.a.l., al-jowid, s.m. and al-baiz, a. 2009. an effective disinfection protocol for plant regeneration from shoot tip cultures of strawberry. afric. j. biotech., 8:2611-2615 zaid, a. 1984. in vitro browning of tissue and media with special emphasis to date palm culture, a review. date palm j., 3:269-275 diengngan et al (ms received 07 december 2014, revised 12 december 2014, accepted 13 december 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):126-130, 2014 capsicums (capsicum annuum l.), commonly called sweet pepper or bell pepper is the christmas ornamental of vegetable world with a beautifully shaped glossy exterior that comes in an array of vivid colors ranging from green, red, yellow, orange, purple, brown to black. sweet peppers are plump, bell-shaped vegetables featuring three to four lobes. bell pepper is a source of over 30 different members of the carotenoid nutrient family. recent studies have shown that vitamin c content and carotenoid content in bell pepper increase with ripening. so does their total antioxidant capacity. bell pepper is also a good source of the antioxidant vitamin e. in addition to conventional antioxidant vitamins, bell pepper is also a good source of the antioxidant mineral, manganese. solan district of himachal pradesh is well-known for commercial cultivation of vegetables, mainly tomato, bell pepper, cauliflower and cabbage. bell pepper is more susceptible to water stagnation and excess moisture. therefore, cultivation of bell pepper under protected structures can prove to be a boon for ensuring higher yield and quality produce. cultivation of sweet pepper under greenhouse would not only help realize higher productivity, but can also ensure better returns to the farming community (singh and asrey, 2005). j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):259-261, 2013 short communication performance of coloured bell pepper in naturally-ventilated polyhouse under mid-hill conditions of himachal pradesh rajender sharma and y.r. shukla dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry krishi vigyan kendra, rohru, shimla, india e-mail: dr.rajender_sharma@rediffmail.com abstract bell pepper is highly susceptible to water stagnation and excess moisture. therefore, cultivation of this vegetable under protected structures can prove to be a boon, ensuring higher yields and quality produce. farmers are mainly concentrating on cultivation of coloured varieties, viz., orobelle and bomby, under these structures. therefore, on-farm trials were laid out during the year 2007 in farmers’ fields, with six hybrids of bell pepper (orobelle, bomby, mahabharath, tanvi, tanvi plus and us-26) replicated thrice in rbd at four locations. the aim was to provide a suitable substitute for the existing varieties. on studies revealed that tanvi (yellow-fruited) and tanvi plus (red-fruited) were the best yielders when compared to varieties being grown by the farmers. average plant height ranged from 100 to 160cm, fruit weight ranged from 205 to 280g/fruit and number of marketable fruits per plant varied from 11 to 23. yield and (benefit:cost) b:c ratio for the two best hybrids, i.e., tanvi and tanvi plus were 140.5t & 127.3t ha-1, and 2.37 & 2.06, respectively. key words: bell pepper, naturally-ventilated polyhouse, quality produce, yield the present investigation was conducted in naturally-ventilated polyhouses of 225m2 area, at the farmer’s field, in the year 2007. plants of six hybrids, viz., orobelle, bomby, mahabharath, tanvi, tanvi plus and us26, were spaced 45 x 30cm apart in rbd, with four replications. the total plant population accommodated was 1400. plants were transplanted in the first week of april, and the final harvest was made in october. calcium ammonium nitrate (can), single super phosphate (ssp) and muriate of potash (mop) fertilizers were applied in the form of basal dose, and water-soluble fertilizer npk 19:19:19 was applied through drip irrigation as per recommendations of dr. y.s. parmar uhf, nauni, solan; but, mulching was not done. all the recommended agronomic and plant protection measures were followed by the farmers to ensure a healthy plant stand. data were recorded on plant height, fruit weight, number of marketable fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit width, fruit shape, fruit colour and yield per unit area. data were subjected to statistical analysis as per gomez and gomez (1984). economics of production was also worked out to assess economic feasibility of the hybrids tested. all the traits under study were significantly influenced by different hybrids/genotypes (table 1). maximum plant 260 height (160cm) was recorded in the hybrid tanvi plus which was statistically at par with us-26 (140cm). however, difference in height of rest of the genotypes was nonsignificant. hybrids us-26 and mahabharath also showed significant differences in height compared to tanvi, which attained a maximum height of 100cm. significant differences seen among the hybrids may be attributed to the varied genetic constitution of the genotypes. however, kanwar and sharma (2010) have earlier observed non-significant differences for plant height among the genotypes tested in naturally ventilated-polyhouses under cold desert conditions of ladakh (j&k). average fruit weight varied from 205g in us-26 to 280g in tanvi. the highest average fruit weight recorded for tanvi (280g) differed significantly from rest of the genotypes, except in mahabharath (240g), which was at par with tanvi. differences for average weight were nonsignificant among the genotypes bomby, orobelle, mahabharath, tanvi plus and us-26. variation in fruit weight in bell pepper from 27.3g to 200g has been reported also by luitel et al (2011). hybrid ‘tanvi plus’ produced maximum number of fruits per plant (23), with statistical superiority over the remaining genotypes/hybrids tested. this was followed by ‘tanvi’. ‘mahabharath’ recorded minimum number of fruits per plant (11), and was at par with bomby and us-26. maximum fruit length (107.7mm) was recorded in the hybrid mahabharath and showed significant differences with orobelle, bomby and tanvi; while, it should statistical similarity with rest of the genotypes. shortest fruits were observed in the hybrid orobelle (79.3mm). fruit width ranged between 78.6 and 109.1mm. widest fruits (109.1mm) were seen in the hybrid us-26, which was statistically superior to orobelle, tanvi plus and tanvi. differences with the remaining hybrids were non-significant. on the basis of fruit length and fruit width, appropriate bell-shape (which is a characteristic trait of bell peppers) was observed in the genotypes mahabharath, tanvi and tanvi plus. highest yield (140.5t ha-1) was recorded for tanvi, closely followed by tanvi plus (127.3t ha-1), while, differences with the remaining hybrids were significant. it was interesting to note that though tanvi recorded less number of fruits per plant (19) compared to tanvi plus (23), higher yield per unit area in tanvi resulted from higher average fruit weight. fruit weight was significantly higher in tanvi (280g) compared to tanvi plus (215g). it can, thus, be inferred that yield is directly related to fruit weight rather than number of fruits per plant. singh and asrey (2005) reported the yield of california wonder, an open-pollinated variety, to be 76.4t ha-1. this supports the higher yields of table 1. mean performance of bell pepper genotypes for various horticultural traits genotype plant height fruit weight no. of fruits fruit length fruit width yield fruitcolour fruitshape (cm) (g) per plant (mm) (mm) per ha (t) bomby 120 220 14 83.4 99.6 109.2 red flat orobelle 120 230 17 79.3 79.9 116.7 yellow square mahabharath 132 240 11 107.7 93.3 101.1 red bell tanvi 100 280 19 93.3 82.6 140.5 yellow bell tanvi plus 160 215 23 106.2 78.6 127.3 red bell us-26 140 205 13 97.4 109.1 106.1 yellow flat cd (p=0.05) 25.4 41.2 3.2 14.22 18.37 20.6 table 2. economics of bell pepper production under naturallyventilated polyhouse (area = 225m2) genotype cost of gross net *b:c cultivation returns returns ratio (rs.) (rs.) (rs.) bomby 56195 147420 91225 1.62 orobelle 56195 157545 101350 1.80 mahabharath 56195 136485 80290 1.43 tanvi 56195 189675 133480 2.37 tanvi plus 56195 171855 115660 2.06 us-26 56195 143235 87040 1.55 *b:c = net returns / cost of cultivation; sale price of fruits: rs.60 per kg table 3. cost of cultivation of coloured bell pepper in 225m2 naturally-ventilated polyhouse sl. no. cost head amount (rs.) 1. cost of polyhouse (area 225m2) 175,000/1a. average life of polyhouse 5 years 1b. cost of polyhouse/ year 35,000/2. labour charges (70 mandays, @ rs. 130/-) 9,100/2a. preparation of beds 10 man days 2b. transplanting and irrigation 10 man days 2c. intercultural operations (fertilizer 40 man days application, weeding / hoeing, spraying, staking, etc.) 2d. harvesting 10 man days 3. cost of seed material 900/4. cost of manure, fertilizer and pesticide 8,895/5. cost of staking material 1,000/6. transportation charges 1,300/total cost of cultivation 56,195/j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):259-261, 2013 rajender sharma and shukla 261 hybrid varieties obtained in the present study very well. kanwar and sharma (2010) also reported significant differences among hybrids for fruit weight, fruit length, fruit breadth and, ultimately, yield per unit area. economics of production was worked out upon taking into account variable and fixed costs. benefit:cost ratio for the hybrids ranged from 1.43 to 2.37 (table 2). hybrid ‘tanvi’ proved to be the best in terms of yield per unit area (140.5t ha-1), and was closely followed by ‘tanvi plus’ (127.3t ha-1). benefit:cost ratio for the two best hybrids i.e. tanvi and tanvi plus, was 2.37 and 2.06, respectively. hybrids ‘mahabharath’, ‘tanvi’ and ‘tanvi plus’ exhibited an exact bell shape. references gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedure for agricultural research. john wiley and sons, new york, p. 690 kanwar, m.s. and sharma, o.c. 2010. performance of capsicum under protected cultivation in cold arid region. j. hill agri., 1:88-89 luitel, b.p., lee, t. and kang, w. 2011. variation for fruit yield and quality characteristics in sweet pepper (capsicum annuum l.) germplasm collection. kor. j. breed. sci., 43:139-144 singh, r. and asrey, r. 2005. performance of tomato and sweet pepper under unheated greenhouse. haryana j. hortl. sci., 34:174-175 (ms received 03 december 2012, revised 23 september 2013, accepted 24 october 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):259-261, 2013 performance of coloured bell pepper in naturally ventilated polyhouse introduction ssrs, also known as microsatellites, are tandem repeat units that are 1-6 nucleotides in length. they represent an important class of molecular markers for studying the genome structure, evolution and applied aspects. the ssrs have wide applications in plant breeding. single nucleotide ssrs have been used in population genetics analyses of chloroplast genomes, while di-, triand tetranucleotide ssrs are used for the construction of linkage maps of nuclear genomes. development of ssrs using conventional methods by means of construction and screening of genomic libraries, sequencing of clones containing ssrs and testing of primers is time-consuming, expensive and laborious. alternatively, using bioinformatics approach, ssrs can be mined from the est sequences available in the genomic databases. est projects for several genomes are in progress and are generating a large number of est sequences for numerous organisms. the ests are deposited in the public biological databases and available freely for download. est sequences represent the coding regions of the genome and hence useful for marker development. ssr mining from ests has been explored for monocot crops (kantety et al, 2002; jayashree et al, 2006) and few dicot crops (kumpatla in silico microsatellite development in arum lily (zantedeschia aethiopica) v. radhika, c. aswath, d.c. lakshman reddy, shweta, a. bhardwaj division of biotechnology, indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake p.o., bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: vr@iihr.ernet.in abstract microsatellites are an important class of molecular markers having wide application in genetic research. development of microsatellites using conventional methods is laborious and expensive. alternatively, in silico approach can be followed to detect simple sequence repeats (ssrs) from expressed sequence tags (ests) available in public biological databases. the in silico developed est-ssrs have been found to be transferrable across species and genera. a study was undertaken to mine simple sequence repeats (ssrs) from the expressed sequence tags (ests) of arum lily, zantedeschia aethiopica, belongs to the family araceae. a total of 4283 ests of zantedeschia aethiopica, downloaded from dbest of ncbi, were pre-processed and subjected to clustering and assembly. in all, 1968 clusters (800 contigs and 1168 singletons) were obtained, resulting in 54 % reduction in ests. in addition, 1936 ssrs were obtained, which included 617 mono, 101 di-, 201 tri-, 80 tetra-, 23 pentaand 898 hexa-nucleotide repeats. the plant has an abundance of 0.70 ssrs/ kb. we designed 1091 primers for these ssrs. a few in silico designed ssr primers were tested for polymorphism in anthurium, belonging to the araceae family, resulting in 40% amplification success. key words: anthurium, araceae, expressed sequence tag (est), microsatellite, simple sequence repeat (ssr) and mukhopadhyay, 2005; scott et al, 2000; jayashree et al, 2006). a considerable proportion of ssrs developed from ests for a given species have been transferable in related plant species (cordeiro et al, 2001; eujayl et al, 2004; varshney et al, 2005) as well as distant plant species (decroocq et al, 2003; zhang et al, 2005). all these features make ssr development from ests attractive. anthurium and zantedeschia are large genera of flowering plants from the araceae family. at the time of study the est database of ncbi did not contain ests of anthurium, but there were a considerable number of ests of zantedeschia aethiopica, commonly known as arum lily. hence, a study was undertaken to mine ssrs from ests of zantedeschia aethiopica. these ssrs would be further tested and used in anthurium breeding programme of the institute. material and methods est data source the est sequences of zantedeschia aethiopica were downloaded from dbest of genbank (boguski et al, 1993). 4283 est sequences were downloaded in fasta format. j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):37-40, 2011 38 est processing pre-processing of the ests was carried out in 4 steps elimination of vector contamination, removal of poly-a tails and ambiguous bits. freely available tools were used for this purpose. the est sequences were compared with the univec vector database using vecscreen (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/vecscreen/vecscreen.html) for identification of vector contamination. the trimest program of emboss was used for removing the polya/ polyt ends of the est sequences. clustering and assembly the pre-processed est sequences were clustered and assembled using cap3 software (huang and madan, 1999) to obtain clusters (contigs and singletons). ssr identification and primer development ssr or microsatellite identification from the contigs and singletons was done using i-mex microsatellite detection software (suresh and hampa pathalu, 2007). primers were designed for the ssrs using the primer3 software accessed through the interface of i-mex. results and discussion pre-processing of ests the total sequence length of the 4283 est dataset of zantedescia aethiopica was 2.764 mb. the est sequences generated in the laboratory may be contaminated with vector sequence. many of the ests are deposited in the est databases without removal of the contamination. hence removal of vector contamination from the est sequences is necessary to improve the efficacy of subsequent analyses. vecscreen of ncbi was used for detection of vector sequences. the identified vector contaminations as well as suspect sequences were removed from the sequences using perl scripts developed in-house. poly a/ poly t ends of the est sequences were removed using trimest. est clustering and assembly redundancy has been observed in the ests of zantedeschia aethiopica. 1840 clusters (800 contigs and 1168 singletons) were obtained after clustering and assembly of the ests resulting in a 54% reduction of the est data. redundancy is an inherent feature with est datasets generated by random or shotgun sequencing within cdna libraries. clustering of ests eliminates redundancy in the datasets. cap3 computes overlaps between sequences and joins reads in decreasing order of overlap scores to form contigs. the contigs are longer in length, which facilitates the design of primers for those est-ssrs where the ssr is near the end of the est sequence. the contigs and singletons obtained were used for identification of ssrs. ssr identification the ssrs were detected using i-mex. the minimum number of repeats was fixed as 20 for mono nucleotide, 6 for di and tri nucleotide, 3 for tetra and penta nucleotide and 2 for hexa nucleotide repeats. further the analysis of occurrence and frequency of ssrs was investigated to find repeat types, number of repeats, and frequency. the definition of ssr varies by size and type of repeat and some authors do not consider monomer repeats as ssrs. few authors consider only those ssrs whose repeat motif is larger than 20 bp (varshney et al, 2002). kumpatla and mukhopadhyay (2005) observed that comparisons of ssr size and type of repeat are difficult to discuss. they targeted four classes of repeats (viz. mono, di, tri and tetra) with default settings for repeats as 15 for mono nucleotides and five for di, tri, or tetra-nucleotides. 1936 ssrs were obtained in zantedeschia aethiopica satisfying the criteria of minimum number of repeats as defined above. this plant has abundance (number of ssrs per kb of sequence analyzed) of 0.70 ssrs/kb which was higher than observed in citrus viz. 0.2 ssrs/kb of ests sequences (chen et al, 2005). in our study, hexa–nucleotide repeats were the most frequent (46.38%), followed by mono-repeats (31.86%) and then by tri-repeats (11.2%) (table 1). in citrus and jatropha (wen et al, 2010) the tri-nucleotide motifs were the most abundant while di nucleotide repeats constituted the highest number of repeats in iris (tang et al, 2009). in all types of ssrs, most common and longest ssrs were found. most common di nucleotide repeats contained ag motifs. according to past studies, ga/ ct have been found to be the most abundant motifs in barley, maize, sorghum, wheat (kantety et al, 2002), iris (tang et al, 2009) and coffee (hendre et al, 2008). in the present study, tct, ctc, gaa were the most table 1. frequency and density of est-ssrs type of repeat no. of frequency density ssrs (ssrs/ kb) (bp/ mb) mono-nucleotide 617 0.2231 9461.65 di-nucleotide 101 0.0365 329.59 tri-nucleotide 217 0.078 357.09 tetra-nucleotide 80 0.0289 93.342 penta-nucleotide 23 0.0083 26.41 hexa-nucleotide 898 0.3248 663.53 radhika et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):37-40, 2011 39 common tri-nucleotide repeats. kantety et al (2002) found ggc/ ccg the most abundant tri-nucleotide repeat motif in rice, barley, maize and sorghum and aac/ ttg the most common tri-nucleotide repeats in wheat. cat/ atg and ttc/ gaa were the most abundant tri-nucleotide repeats in coffee (hendre et al, 2008) and aag/ ctt and agg/ cct were the most abundant in iris (tang et al, 2009). the tri-nucleotide repeats act as amino acid codons. most commonly found were leucine, proline, glycine, arginine, glutamic acid, glycine and alanine. most of the codons were repeated 2-3 times. amino acid repeats for leucine and alanine were most frequent in the ests (table 3). most common tetra nucleotide repeat in zanthedeschia aethiopica was tccc. the lengths of trinucleotide and tetra-nucleotide repeat in this plant ranged from 18-31 and 12-28 repeats respectively. the ssr loci were categorized into two groups based on the length of their ssr tract size, class i having ssrs length >= 20 and class ii containing perfect ssrs > 12 but < 20. of the total number of ssrs identified, 676 belonged to class i and 142 to class ii (figure 1). mono-nucleotide repeats formed the largest portion of class i and tri-nucleotide repeats formed the largest portion of class ii repeats. class i and class ii microsatellites were found to be most frequent in the gene rich regions in rice with a higher frequency of class ii than class i repeats (temnykh et al, 2001). primer development to convert in silico identified est-ssrs to molecular markers, primer pairs were designed for est-ssrs. primers were designed for the ssrs using primer3 software. primer pairs could be designed for 70% (1091) of the est-ssrs. few est-ssrs of zantedeschia aethiopica were tested for polymorphism in anthurium and 40% amplification success was obtained. in coffee, 61 (63.5%) primer pairs were experimentally validated and used to investigate the genetic diversity among the 34 accessions of different camellia spp. (hendre et al, 2008). the level of polymorphism in cultivars detected by est-ssr markers in sugarcane was low (pic=0.23) while a subset of these markers showed a high level of polymorphism in related genera viz. erianthus and sorghum species (cordeiro et al, 2001). the primers pairs designed for est-ssrs of medicago truncatula showed high level of polymorphism (70%) in alfalfa and other annual medics and are valuable genetic markers for the medicago (eujayl et al, 2004). a subset of 165 est-ssr markers from a total of 185 assigned to genetic map of barley showed transferability in wheat (78.2%), rye (75.2%) and in rice (42.4%) (varshney et al, 2005). the transferability of est-ssr markers from apricot and grapevine to other related and unrelated species was examined (decroocq et al, 2003). overall grape primers fig 1. distribution of class i and class ii repeats in arum lily, zantedeschia aethiopica table 2. most common and longest ssr motifs nucleotide most common frequency longest repeat repeat type repeat/s di ag 15 tc (50) tri tct, gaa, ctc 24 ctt (30) tetra tccc 4 aaat (28) penta gttgc (25) ccctc (25) hexa ctcgga 10 catcaa (36) aaaaag (36) table 3. frequency of tri-nucleotide repeats as est-ssrs amino acid codons frequency alanine cga, gcg, gcc, gct 30 arginine aga, agg, cgc, cgg, cgt 21 asparagine aac 1 cysteine tgc, tgt 8 glutamic acid gaa, gag 13 glutamine caa,cag 9 glycine ggc, ggt, gga 29 histidine cat, cac 7 isoleucine ata, att 2 lysine aag 6 leucine ctc, ctg, tta, ctt, cta, tta 30 aspartic acid gac, gat 3 methionine atg 1 serine agc, tca, tcc, tct 22 phenyl alanine ttc 3 proline cca, cct, ccg 13 stop codon tga 5 theronine aca, acc, act 4 tryphtophan tgg 5 valine gtt, gtg, gta 5 in silico microsatellite development in arum lily j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):37-40, 2011 40 amplified products in most of vitaceae accessions while apricot primers amplified polymorphic alleles only in closely related species of rosaceae. transferability of est-ssrs of triticum aestivum was studied in eight related species and it ranged from 76.7 % for aegilops tauschii to 90.4% for t. durum and was lower for distant relatives such as barley (50.4%) and rice (28.3%) (zhang et al, 2005). acknowledgement the authors would like to thank director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore for encouragement. this research was partly funded by council of scientific and industrial research (csir), new delhi, india. references boguski, m.s., lowe, t.m. and tolstoshev,c.m. 1993. dbest—database for “expressed sequence tags”. nat genet., 4:332-333 chen, c., zhou, p., choi, y.a., huang, s. and gmitter, f.g. 2005. mining and characterizing microsatellites from citrus ests. theor. appl. genet., 112: 12481257 cordeiro, g. m., casu, r., mcintyre, c.l., manners, j.m. and henry, r.j. 2001. microsatellite markers from sugarcane (saccharum spp.) ests cross transferable to erianthus and sorghum. pl. sci., 160:1115-1123 decroocq, v., fave, m.g., hagen, l., bordenave, l. and decroocq, s. 2003. development and transferability of apricot and grape est microsatellite markers across taxa. theor. appl. genet., 106:912-922 eujayl, i., sledge, m., wang, l., may, g.d., chekhovskiy, k., zwonitzer, j.c. and mian, m.a.r. 2004. medicago truncatula est-ssrs reveal crossspecies genetic markers for medicago spp. theor. appl. genet., 108:414-422 hendre, p.s., phanindranath, r., annapurna, v., lalremruata, a. and aggarwal, r.k. 2 0 0 8 . development of new genomic microsatellite markers from robusta coffee (coffea canephora pierre ex a. froehner) showing broad crossspecies transferability and utility in genetic studies. bmc pl biol, 8:51 huang, x. and madan, a. 1999. cap3: a dna sequence assembly program. genome res., 9:868-877 jayashree, b., punna, r., prasad, p., bantte , k., has, c.t., chandra, s., hoisington, d.a. and varshney, r.k. 2006. a database of simple sequence repeats from cereal and legume expressed sequence tags mined in silico: survey and evaluation. in silico biol, 6: 607-20 kantety, r.v., rota, m. l., matthews , d.e. and sorrells, m.e. 2002. data mining for simple sequence repeats in expressed sequence tags from barley, maize, rice, sorghum and wheat. pl. mol. biol., 48:501-510 kumpatla, s.p. and mukhopadhyay, s. 2005. mining and survey of simple sequence repeats in expressed sequence tags of dicotyledonous species. genome, 48:985-98 scott, k.d., eggler, p., seaton, g.g., rossetto, m., ablett, e.m., lee, l.s. and henry, r. j. 2000. analysis of ssrs derived from grape ests. theor. appl. genet., 100:723–726 suresh, b.m. and hampapathalu, a.n. 2007. imex: imperfect microsatellite extractor. bioinformatics 23:1181-1187 tang, s., okashah, r.a., pratt, m.m.c., pratt, l.h., johnson, v.e., taylor, c., arnold, m.l. and knapp, s.j. 2009. est and est-ssr marker resources for iris. bmc pl. biol., 9:72 temnykh, s., declerck, g., lukashova, a., lipovich, l., cartinhour, s. and mccouch, s. 2001. computational and experimental analysis of microsatellites in rice (oryza sativa l.): frequency, length variation, transposon associations, and genetic marker potential. genome res., 11:1441-1452 varshney, r.k., thiel, t., stein, n., langridge, p. and graner, a. 2002. in silico analysis on frequency and distribution of microsatellites in ests of some cereal species. cell. mol. biol. lett., 7:537–546 varshney, r.k., sigmund, r., borner, a., korzun, v., stein, n., sorrells, m.e., langridge, p. and graner, a. 2005. interspecific transferability and comparative mapping of barley est-ssr markers in wheat, rye and rice pl. sci., 168:195-202 wen, m., wang ,h., xia, z., zou, m., lu, c. and wang, w. 2010. development of est-ssr and genomic-ssr markers to assess genetic diversity in jatropha curcas l. bmc res. notes., 3:42 zhang, l.y., bernard, m., leroy, p., feuillet, c. and sourdille, p. 2005. high transferability of bread wheat estderived ssrs to other cereals. theor. appl. genet., 111:677-687 (ms received 20 october 2010, revised 25 february 2011) radhika et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):37-40, 2011 fruit crops provide food, nutritional and economic security, besides being a means for crop diversification. low hill-region of himachal pradesh is suitable for cultivation of a number of fruit crops, but mango is leading in this zone. average productivity of this crop in the state is around 0.93t/ ha (anonymous, 2009) which is far below the national average. among other factors, non-availability of sufficient amount of planting material of optimal quality is one of the major bottlenecks hampering productivity of mango in the state. healthy and uniform planting material of high quality is a prerequisite for establishing a productive orchard. nursery rising, presently undertaken by various public and private institutions, is being done on the basis of personal experience of growers. no package of recommendations is available for this commercial venture. thus, for maximizing output of quality nursery, it is of utmost importance to standardize nursery techniques to suit local growingconditions. the present studies were designed for standardization of nursery techniques for output maximization under low-hill conditions of himachal pradesh. studies were conducted at the experimental farm neri of dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, regional horticultural and forestry research station, bhota, hamirpur during the years 2004-2009. the farm is located at an altitude of 620m amsl experiencing average mean maximum and minimum temperatures of 31.30c and 12.40c, respectively, and is representative of nursery output maximization in mango under low-hill conditions of himachal pradesh shashi kumar sharma and sanjeev kumar banyal regional horticultural and forestry research station, bhota – 177001, india email: skbanyal@gmail.com abstract studies to standardize nursery production techniques in mango for output maximization were conducted during 2004-2009. three separate experiments were laid out to work out optimum spacing, fertilizer level and time of transplant of mango seedlings. best result in terms of nursery output per unit area was observed in seedlings transplanted at a spacing of 30cm x 20cm during mid-august to mid-september. it was also observed that a higher proportion of early-transplanted seedlings became graftable by march. thus there exists a wide scope for raising greater number of mango grafts in a year, as, these grafts attain saleable size by july-august, if suitable irrigation and nutrition is provided. seedling survival improved with different levels of manure and fertilizer application. overall saleable plant material generated was highest with application of 10kg fym + 25g n + 16g p 2 o 5 + 60g k 2 o per m2 bedarea. key words: mango, nursery, spacing, fertilizer, transplanting the low-hill region of himachal pradesh. relative humidity here is around 60.9 %. soil texture of the nursery was clay-loam with ph value of 6.6. organic matter content of the nursery soil was 0.38% at onset of the experiment. available n and p were low, and k content was medium. initially, the study purported to standardize spacing for maximization of nursery output. three spacings, viz., s 1 30cm x 10cm, s 2 -30cm x 20 cm and s 3 -30cm x 30cm with five replicates, were tried in completely randomized design (crd). five beds of 2m x 1m comprised the replication and each bed was treated as a unit for observation. observations were recorded on seedling survival and on proportion of graftable seedlings by march and july each year. data on graft-success was also recorded for different treatments. output maximization of the nursery was judged by number of saleable grafts produced per unit area. seedlings were collected from the ground underneath locally grown mango trees, at the green leaf stage. during the period study (2004-06), transplantation was carried out from july to september each year. considerable amount of variation was observed in growth and development of transplanted seedlings with respect to time of transplant. therefore, the second experiment was planned for standardizing transplanting time for mango seedlings, with the following treatments: t 1 : seedlings transplanted during 1st fortnight of july short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):56-58, 2011 57 t 2 : seedlings transplanted during 2nd fortnight of july t 3 : seedlings transplanted during 1st fortnight of august t 4 : seedlings transplanted during 2nd fortnight of august t 5 : seedlings transplanted during 1st fortnight of september t 6 : seedlings transplanted during 2nd fortnight of september each treatment was replicated thrice with five plots (2m x 1m) for each replicate. the stones of local mango varieties were collected and were allowed to germinate in nursery beds in 3-4 inch thick layer of fym. copper colored seedlings on turning green were transplanted into nursery beds at a spacing (which was found to be the best in first experiment) 30cm x 20cm. the seedlings were then allowed to grow and were veneer grafted in march and july. observations recorded were similar to that in the first experiment. in both the experiments described above, seedlings were manured @10kg fym at the time of transplantation. the third experiment was laid out to standardize manure and fertilizer dose to raise a healthy mango nursery. the following treatments were applied: f 1 : 10kg fym + 25g n + 16g p 2 o 5 + 60g k 2 o per m2 bed-area f 2 : ½ f 1 f 3 : 2f 1 fym, p and k were applied at the time of bedpreparation and n was applied in two split doses (one month after transplanting and the other in february end). each treatment was replicated thrice, with five plots (2mx1m) for each replicate. observations recorded were similar to those in experiments 1 and 2. data for all three experiments was pooled and analyzed as per standard procedures of gomez and gomez (1984). data pertaining to seedling-spacing is presented in table 1. it is evident that survival of transplanted seedlings was not influenced significantly by different spacing treatments. in all, 72 to 74% survival of seedlings was observed under various treatments. this reflects that as far as survival of transplanted seedlings was concerned, even a spacing of 30cm x10cm is sufficient. under wider spacing, it was observed that higher proportion of seedlings attained graftable size by march. highest number of graftable seedlings was achieved in 30cm x 30cm spacing (though, it was statistically at par with 30cm x 20cm spacing). grafting success % was also higher in this treatment. proportion of seedlings that attained graftable size by july was also higher under 30cm x 30cm spacing, but was statistically at par with 30cm x 20cm. grafting success in july grafted seedlings was also higher under the treatment 30cm x 20cm. gtz-itfsp (2010) reported that the best spacing for transplanting mango seedlings was 30cm x 30cm. mukherjee and majumdar (1964) too reported that spacing affected success in veneer grafting in mango. overall nursery-output, i.e., saleable grafts generated per m2 area, was also highest under the treatment 30cm x 20cm. higher proportion of saleable grafts under this treatment may be attributed to higher plant-density here in comparison to 30cm x 30cm spacing and higher proportion of graftable seedlings grafting success in comparison to 30cm x 10cm spacing. hence, 30cm x 20cm may be designated as optimum spacing for raising mango grafts. as for the time of seedling transplantation (table 2), survival of transplanted seedlings was highest when these were transplanted during the second fortnight of august and was statistically at par with those first in the transplanted fortnights of august and september. faruque and fakir (1973) reported that time of seedling transplanting had a significant effect on growth and performance in a mango nursery. these studies further revealed that mid–june transplanted seedlings had the lowest mortality, under bangladesh conditions. in our studies, it was observed that early transplantation resulted in a higher proportion of graftable seedlings by march. grafting success in march and july was not influenced by any of the treatments. it can be inferred from these findings that a larger proportion of early-transplanted seedlings became graftable by march. hence, there exists a wide scope for raising greater number table 1. effect of spacing on performance of mango nursery treatment seedling seedlings grafted in march seedlings grafted in july saleable grafts (spacing in cm) survival (%) per m2 graftable graft graftable graft seedlings (%) success (%) seedlings (%) success (%) s 1 30x10 72 42 68 62 68 8.0 s 2 30x20 74 54 76 72 76 11.64 s 3 30x30 73 60 71 78 74 6.24 cd 0.05 ns 6.4 7.2 6.2 4.8 2.33 nursery output maximization in mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):56-58, 2011 58 of mango grafts in a single year, as, these grafts can attain saleable size by july-august if suitable irrigation and nutrition is provided. gtz-itfsp (2010) has recommended that the best transplanting-time is at the 5-leaf stage or about 5cm seedling-height. our study shows that the highest proportion of saleable seedlings can be obtained in seedlings transplanted during the 2nd fortnight of august; but, statistically, this was not found to be superior to early-august and early-september transplanting. nutrition is one of the major aspects of nurseryraising and results pertaining to this are presented in table 3. it is observed from the data that seedling-survival improved with manure and fertilizer application. survival was maximum with the full dose of fertilizers (f 1 ) and was statistically at par with that in double the dose (f 3 ). graftable proportion of seedlings by march significantly improved by application of double dose (f 3 ) but was statistically at par with f 1 . graft success was highest in march in treatment f 1 . the proportion of plant in the nursery that attained graftable size by july was also highest in f 2, although statistically at par with f 1 . overall saleable plant-material was highest with application of 10kg fym + 25g n + 16g p 2 o 5 + 60g k 2 o per m2 bed-area, i.e., treatment f 1. no systematic studies are available on manure and fertilizer application in mango nursery under different locations. more number of location-and site specific studies on this aspect could further add to the existing scant information on nurseryraising. it can be concluded from results discussed above that, for maximization of mango nursery output, the seedlings raised should be transplanted by end of august to midseptember at a spacing of 30cm x 20cm in nursery beds manured @ 10kg fym + 25g n + 16g p 2 o 5 + 60g k 2 o per m2 bed-area. references anonymous, 2009. district-wise area and production of fruits in directorate of horticulture, himachal pradesh, faruque, a.h.m. and fakir, m.m.a.s.1973. propagation of mango by different methods of grafting. bangladesh hort., 1:25-28 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a, 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research. 2nd edition, john wiley and sons, new york gtz-itfsp. 2010. tree crop propagation and management – a farmer training trainer manual. www.gtztreecrops.org khushk, a.m. and menon, k. 2003. economy of mango nurseries. dawn the internet edition. http// www.dawn.com singh, m.p. and gill, s.s. 1989. standardization of propagation techniques in mango. acta hortic., 231: 179-181 table 3. effect of fertilizers on performance of mango nursery treatment seedling seedlings grafted in march seedlings grafted in july saleable grafts (fertilizers dose) survival (%) per m2 graftable grafting graftable grafting seedlings (%) success (%) seedlings (%) success (%) f 1 73 72 72 83 79 12.7 10kg fym, 25g n, 16g p 2 o 5, 60g k 2 o per m2. f 2 half the dose of f 1 54 58 59 65 64 8.2 f 3 double the dose of f 1 70 74 71 85 70 10 cd 0.05 8.4 6.9 7.9 9.2 7.9 2.3 table 2. effect of time of transplant on performance of mango nursery treatment seedling seedlings grafted in march seedlings grafted in july saleable grafts (time of transplant) survival (%) per m2 graftable grafting graftable grafting seedlings (%) success (%) seedlings (%) success (%) t 1 1st fortnight of july 62 48 64 82 74 10 t 2 2nd fortnight of july 69 42 65 84 75 11 t 3 1st fortnight of august 70 43 61 80 74 13 t 4 2nd fortnight of august 75 40 62 81 76 15 t 5 1st fortnight of september 72 32 64 82 72 13 t 6 2nd fortnight of september 56 15 66 80 70 7 cd 0.05 5.6 8.7 ns ns ns 2.3 (ms received 30 september 2010, revised 15 march 2011) sharma and banyal j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):56-58, 2011 introduction banana (musa spp.) is one of the most important fruit crops of india, next only to mango. it is cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. india is the largest producer of banana, contributing 19.71% of the global production and a total production of 19.19mt from 0.565 mha area (singh, 2007). banana is the most important fruit crop of kerala and one of the oldest cultivated fruit crops. in kerala, several landraces are available and cultivated in different parts, known by different local names, being a highly evolved crop. banana cultivars have a number of synonyms, resulting in a somewhat confused taxonomical status. simmonds (1962) concluded that present day cultivars evolved by hybridization of two ancestral parents, musa acuminata and m. balbisiana, which are considered as the main contributors of a and b, genomes respectively. all cultivars are classified into various genomic groups such as aa, aaa, ab, aab and abb based on morphological diversity studies in ecotypes of banana (musa spp.) using molecular markers and d2 analysis c. rajamanickam and k. rajmohan1 horticultural college and research institute periyakulam – 625 604, india e-mail : cmanickam@rediffmail.com abstract the present study was aimed at analyzing the genetic diversity of promising banana ecotypes grown in kerala. twenty eight ecotypes of banana were collected from different parts of kerala. dna isolated from these was used for rapd analysis. six most-promising primers viz., opa-01, opa-03, opa-13, opb-04, opb-10 and opb-12 were used. these yielded 46 scorable bands with an average of 7.66 bands per primer. rapd data were analyzed statistically and a dendrogram was constructed. twenty three characters were observed in the twenty eight banana ecotypes and were statistically analyzed as per the method proposed by mahalanobis (d2). from rapd dendrogram, it was found that the banana clones clustered into fourteen groups at a distance of 0.200. at a distance of 0.250, 8 out of 12 nendran (aab group) ecotypes formed a single cluster at the same distance. among palayankodan (aab group) ecotypes pknnr, pisang ceylon, motta poovan, chandra bale and palode palayankodan grouped together and formed a single cluster. attu nendran, monthan, robusta, koonoor ethan, ilavazha and vellapalayankodan formed individual clusters and had maximum genetic divergence. among diploid clones, ilavazha (bb group) had maximum genetic divergence. among triploid clones, attu nendran, robusta, koonoor ethan and vellapalayankodan showed maximum genetic divergence. among nendran (aab group) ecotypes, attu nendran and koonoor ethan revealed maximum genetic divergence. among palayankodan (aab group) ecotypes, vellapalayankodan recorded the highest genetic divergence. in d2 analysis too, a similar trend was observed. key words: banana, ecotypes, rapd, molecular markers, d2 analysis, genetic divergence 1 department of plant molecular biology and biotechnology, college of agriculture, vellayani – 695522, thiruvananthapuram, kerala, india scoring (stover and simmonds, 1987). morphological characterization has been a major tool for classifying banana cultivars into different genomic groups. efforts have also been made to classify bananas and plantains using quantitative traits. variability and genetic divergence among indian bananas were studied by valsalakumari et al (1985). molecular techniques have proved to be a powerful tools and have led to understanding genetic relationships among banana cultivars. such studies are reported by howell et al (1994), bhat and jarret (1995), rekha et al (2001), kahangi et al (2002) and soni (2010) in musa and singh et al (2003) and rai and mishra (2005) in mango. among various molecular characterization techniques, random amplified polymorphic dna marker (rapd) has been gainfully employed to investigate genetic variability (brown et al, 1993). hence, the present study is an attempt to characterize some of the commercially important bananas and their land races grown in kerala using molecular markers and d2 analysis. j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):34-40, 2012 35 material and methods planting material this study was conducted in the department of plant biotechnology, college of agriculture, vellayani, thiruvananthapuram, kerala. ecotypes of banana used in the study are presented in table 1. banana clones belonging to six genomic groups were used in the study. five suckers (replication) of each ecotype were maintained at the instructional farm, college of agriculture, vellayani. suckers of almost uniform size were collected from different parts of kerala, planted and maintained here. spacing adopted was 2.0m x 2.0m. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block (crd) design with five replications, as per the panse and sukhatme (1967). observations were recorded on plant height, pseudostem girth, number of suckers per plant, leaves per plant, leaf length, leaf width, crop duration, number of fingers per hand, fingers per bunch, bunch weight, hand weight, number of hands per bunch, length of bunch, weight; length, girth and volume of finger, pulp/peel ratio, tss, acidity, total sugars, sugar/acid ratio and shelf life of the fruit. data were analyzed statistically. rapd analysis dna extraction emergent young leaves before they fully unfurled were used for dna extraction in all the ecotypes of banana following the procedure of (modified) walbot (1998). leaves were collected in the morning hours and washed under running tap water, and then in distilled water, two to three times after chopping the leaves coarsely. after wiping off the water using tissue paper, the chopped leaves were placed in a cool, dry porcelain mortar and ground well to a fine powder in liquid nitrogen. about 1 g of emerging leaves is used for dna extraction powdered leaf samples were transferred to the extraction buffer (168g urea, 28ml 5m nacl, 20ml 1m tris hcl at, ph 8, 16ml 0.5m edta and 20ml phenol, made upto 400 ml with sterile water) and placed in a water-bath at a temperature of 55oc. a volume of 2.5ml of 20% sds (5g sds, in 25ml sterile distilled water) and a pinch of polyvinyl pyrollidone (pvp) were added and mixed gently. then, 25ml of phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol (25:24:1) solution was added and this was centrifuged at 10000rpm for 10 min at 4oc. the supernatant was mixed with equal volume of phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol and table 1. cultivars banana types ploidy and genomic composition of banana ecotypes sl. clone type ploidy genomic no. level composition 1. red banana dessert 3x aaa 2. vellakappa dessert 3x aaa 3. robusta dessert 3x aaa 4. vellayani nendran dessert 3x aab 5. padalamurian dessert / 3x aab cooking 6. myndoli dessert / 3x aab cooking 7. chengazhikodan dessert / 3x aab cooking 8. attu nendran dessert / 3x aab cooking 9. kaliethan dessert / 3x aab cooking 10. koonoor ethan dessert / 3x aab cooking 11. mysore ethan dessert / 3x aab cooking 12. zanzibar dessert / 3x aab cooking 13. quintal banana dessert / 3x aab cooking 14. changanasseri dessert / 3x aab nendran cooking 15. manjeri nendran dessert / 3x aab cooking 16. palode palayankodan dessert 3x aab 17. pknnr dessert 3x aab 18. chandra bale dessert 3x aab 19. pisang ceylon dessert 3x aab 20. mottapoovan dessert 3x aab 21. vellapalayankodan dessert 3x aab 22. monthan cooking 3x abb 23. peyan cooking 3x abb 24. kadali dessert 2x aa 25. pisang lilin dessert 2x aa 26. njalipoovan dessert 2x ab 27. kunnan dessert 2x ab 28 ilavazha leaf purpose 2x bb centrifugated at 10000rpm for 10 min. the above steps were repeated 2-3 times until the interphase disappeared. to the upper phase so collected, 1/10th volume of 3.0m sodium acetate and double the volume of 70% cold, absolute ethanol were added. the pellet was dried and dissolved in 100µl to 200µl of te buffer and stored at 4oc. dna quantification was done using uv-vis spectrophotometer. dna amplification reactions were performed in 25µl medium containing 20ng of genomic dna, 2.5µl 1x buffer, 5pm primer, 200µm each of dntps (each of datp, dttp, dctp and dgtp) and 0.6 units of taq dna polymerase. pcr was carried out with initial denaturation at 95oc for diversity in ecotypes of banana at molecular level j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):34-40, 2012 36 3.0 min, followed by 45 cycles of denaturation at 95oc for 1.0 min, annealing at 36oc for 1.5 min and extended at 72oc for 2.0 minutes. the synthesis step of the final cycle was extended further by 6.0 min. finally, products of amplification were cooled to 4oc. forty one decamer primers were screened for efficiency using dna isolated from ‘attu nendran’ as a representative sample. of the 41 decamer primers used, 34 yielded amplification products. these primers produced 123 bands, of which 116 bands (94.31%) were polymorphic and seven bands (5.61%) were monomorphic. twenty five primers showed a high level of polymorphism. finally, six most-polymorphic primers were used for rapd analysis of all the 28 banana clones. pcr amplification was made by six different random primers (opa-01, opa-03, opa-13, opb-04, opb-10 and opb12 (operon technologies, usa) and these were selected for further amplification. amplification products were mixed with loading buffer containing bromophenol blue, separated electrophoretically on 1.4% agarose gel containing 0.5µg/ ml ethidium bromide. for data analysis, only amplification products reproducible over two amplifications were included. pcr products were difenoconazoled as discrete variable: a difenoconazole ‘+’ for presence and ‘-‘for absence of a homologous band. a genetic similarity matrix was constructed using the jaccard’s co-efficient method (jaccard, 1908). based on similarity coefficient, the distance between clones was computed with the help of a software package ntsys (version 2.02i). a dendrogram was constructed by upgma method and, association between various genotypes was estimated from the dendrogram (fig. 1). d2 analysis morphological observations were recorded from 28 banana ecotypes based on the method of stover and simmonds (1987). data on plant morphology, quantitative yield, fruit and quality parameters were recorded. d2 statistics, a measure of distance, based on multiple characters proposed by mahalanobis (1936) was used. grouping of varieties was done by tocher’s method (rao, 1952). relative contribution of characters to divergence at the cluster as well as genotype level was assessed on the basis of coefficient of variation of individual traits. average intracluster distance was calculated using the following formula. d2 is defined as: k d2 = d i 2 = (yi1 – yim)2, (1± m) i = 1 where yi1 and yim are uncorrelated means of the 1th and mth clones for the ith character. average intercluster distance was calculated by taking each cluster and its distance from another cluster. cluster diagram was drawn with the help of square root of d2 values showing relationships within and between clusters (fig. 2). results and discussion d2 analysis analysis of variance showed highly significant differences between genotypes for each of the twenty three characters studied. from the present study, all the 28 genotypes can be grouped into six clusters (table 2). fig 1. dendrogram of 28 banana ecotypes of kerala using rapd marker (for clone number, refer table 1) fig 2. cluster diagram showing relationship between different clusters rajamanickam and rajmohan j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):34-40, 2012 37 maximum number of genotypes are included in cluster ii (14 genotypes), viz., red banana, vellakappa, robusta, padalamurian, chengazhikodan, kaliethan, vellayani nendran, attu nendran, mysore ethan, manjeri nendran, changanasseri nendran, monthan, peyan and ilavazha. this is followed by cluster i (9 genotypes), namely, palode palayankodan, pknnr, chandra bale, pisang ceylon, mottapoovan, kadali, pisang lilin, njalipoovan and kunnan. cluster iv (quintal banana), cluster v (vellapalayankodan) and cluster vi (koonoor ethan) formed individual clusters. cluster iii contained only two genotypes, namely, myndoli and zanzibar. ecotypes occurring in cluster i were palode palayankodan, pknnr, mottapoovan, chandra bale and pisang ceylon. another member of palayankodan, vellapalayankodan, fell under cluster v. table 2. group constellations in twenty eight ecotypes of banana cluster no. of ecotype/s ecotypes c 1 9 palode palayankodan, pknnr, chandra bale, pisang ceylon, mottapoovan, kadali, pisang lilin, njalipoovan, kunnan c 2 14 red banana, vellakappa, robusta, padalamurian, chengazhikodan, kaliethan, myndoli, attu nendran, mysore ethan, manjeri nendran, changanasseri nendran, monthan, peyan, ilavazha c 3 2 vellayani nendran, zanzibar c 4 1 quintal banana c 5 1 vellapalayankodan c 6 1 koonoor ethan inter and intra cluster distance among the six clusters was variable (table 3). intercluster d values express diversification among groups of genotypes resembling each other, based on 23 characters under the study, while intracluster d values express the magnitude of divergence between clones within a cluster. intra-cluster genetic distance, d values, ranged from 96 (cluster i) to 159 (cluster iii) indicating wide divergence. maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between cluster vi and cluster v (803), followed by cluster vi and cluster i (762), while, minimum inter-cluster distance d (182) was between cluster iv and cluster iii. intercluster distances and their mutual relationship are depicted in fig. 2. intercluster distance is higher than intracluster distance in all the cases indicating greater divergence of genotypes between clusters. similar relationships were also observed by valsalakumari et al (1985) in banana and balasubramanyan et al (2009) in mango. table 3. estimation of average intra and inter cluster d for six clusters constructed from 28 ecotypes of banana cluster number c 1 c 2 c 3 c 4 c 5 c 6 c 1 96 244 460 408 202 762 c 2 112 269 210 310 553 c 3 159 182 536 336 c 4 0 427 382 c 5 0 803 c 6 0 bold figures in diagonals are intra-cluster distances contribution of individual character towards divergence (table 4) revealed that maximum contribution to total differences was made by number of fingers per hand (15.48%), shelf life of fruit (14.88%), number of fingers per bunch (13.69%) and finger girth (8.93%). lowest contribution of frequency was recorded in leaf width, tss, pseudostem girth, number of leaves per plant, number of suckers per plant, hand weight, pulp/peel ratio, fruit volume and level of acidity. table 4. contribution of various characters to divergence s. no. character frequency % contribution 1. plant height (cm) 5 2.98 2. psendostem girth (cm) 2 1.19 3. no. of leaves 2 1.19 4. leaf length (cm) 1 0.60 5. leaf width (cm) 4 2.38 6. no. of suckers 2 1.19 7. crop duration (days) 3 1.79 8. bunch weight (kg) 11 6.55 9. no. of hands per bunch 13 7.74 10. no. of fingers per bunch 23 13.69 11. no. of fingers per hand 26 15.48 12. finger length (cm) 3 1.79 13. finger girth (cm) 15 8.93 14. finger weight (g) 5 2.98 15. bunch length (cm) 5 2.98 16. hand weight (kg) 2 1.19 17. pulp-peel ratio 2 1.19 18. fruit volume (cc) 2 1.19 19. tss (°brix) 1 0.60 20. acidity (%) 2 1.19 21. total sugars (%) 7 4.17 22. sugar /acid ratio 7 4.17 23. shelf life (days) 25 14.88 rapd analysis six random primers that were used for amplification (opa-01, opa-03, opa-13, opb-04, opb-10 and opb12) gave scorable polymorphic bands. number of diversity in ecotypes of banana at molecular level j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):34-40, 2012 38 polymorphic and monomorphic bands obtained from these primers are presented in table 5. number of bands produced by each primer varied with genotype. the primers yielded 46 scorable bands with an average of 7.66 bands per primer. nucleotide sequence of the above mentioned primers is presented in table 6. a total of 46 bands were analyzed and a dendrogram was constructed (fig. 1). from the dendrogram, at a distance of 0.20 it is seen that diploid groups were different from triploid groups. among the diploids, ab genomic clones, namely, kunnan and njalipoovan were found to be grouped together. ab genotypes are different from the bb genotype. kadali and pisang lilin (belonging to aa group) ilavazha (of bb group) formed three separate groups, at a distance of 0.20. ecotypes belonging to aa genotype formed a single cluster at a distance of 0.25. in d2 analysis too, ecotypes belonging to aa group fell under the same cluster. ilavazha (bb) was different from both aa and ab genotypes with respect to molecular profile. ilavazha (bb group) formed a single cluster and also had maximum genetic divergence among diploid clones. ilavazha is different in geographical origin and is morphologically too different from other diploid clones. in d2 analysis of diploid clones, kadali, pisang lilin, njalipoovan and kunnan formed a cluster, while, ilavazha formed a separate cluster. among triploids, clones belonging to aaa group were different from aab or abb as seen in the dendrogram. vellakappa and red banana, both belonging to the aaa group, grouped together. in d2 analysis also, these two clones clustered together. shanmugavelu et al (1992) reported that vellakappa was probably a mutant of red banana, as these two naturally resembled each other in several aspects. robusta, falling under aaa group formed a separate cluster in the dendrogram. this might be due to the dwarf stature of robusta, which is a distinct character of the cavendish group. however, in d2 analysis, all three clones belonging to the aaa genome (red banana, vellakappa and robusta) fell under a single cluster. rekha et al (2001) also observed that robusta did not group together in the dendrogram with other clones belonging to aaa genome, namely, red banana, grand naine and dwarf cavendish. in the present study, eight out of 12 nendran ecotypes belonging to aab genome grouped together with respect to molecular profile. ecotypes like chengazhikodan, myndoli, kaliethan, vellayani nendran, zanzibar mysore ethan, changanasseri nendran and manjeri nendran formed a single group d2. koonoor ethan and attu nendran formed independent clusters. the same trend was seen in rapd profiles too. simi (2001) reported manjeri nendran, myndoli, chengazhikodan, attu nendran, changanasseri nendran and mysore ethan as falling under the same cluster. koonoor ethan morphologically varied from the rest of nendran ecotypes and was also of a geographically different origin. fruit characters like length, girth and weight of finger, shelf life and tss in this clone were higher, compared to other nendran ecotypes. padalamurian and quintal banana grouped together at a distance of 0.25. quintal banana, considered giant plantain, recorded higher plant height, pseudostem girth, days from flowering to harvest, crop duration and bunch weight. hence, in morphological clustering, it is under a different cluster from padalamurian, although the two fell under the same cluster as per rapd analysis. from rapd profiles, among the six palayankodan ecotypes, five clones (mottapoovan, pisang ceylon, pknnr, chandra bale and palode palayankodan) are grouped together, the exception being vellapalayankodan. in d2 analysis too, palode palayankodan, mottapoovan, pknnr, pisang ceylon and chandra bale formed a single cluster while vellapalayankodan formed a separate cluster. vellapalayankodan belonging to this particular clone is unique, characterized by robust growth characters, with higher value for crop duration, pseudostem girth, plant height, number of fingers per bunch, bunch length, number of table 5. number of polymorphic and monomorphic bands obtained with different primers primer number of number of polymorphic monomorphic bands bands opa-01 9 opa-03 8 opa-13 5 1 opb-04 9 opb-10 9 1 opb-12 6 1 total 46 3 table 6. nucleotide sequence of promising primers and number of informative rapd markers primers sequence number of informative rapd markers opa-01 5’caggcccttc3’ 9 opa-03 5’agtcagccac3’ 8 opa-13 5’cagcacccac3’ 5 opb-04 5’ggactggagt3’ 9 opb-10 5’ctgctgggac3’ 9 opb-12 5’ccttgacgca3’ 6 rajamanickam and rajmohan j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):34-40, 2012 39 suckers per plant, number of hands per bunch, finger length, sugar/acid ratio and shelf life of fruit. it has an ashy-white fruit skin which is uncommon in palayankodan ecotypes. this result indicated that including cultivars with desirable characters, and traits such as disease resistance and high inter-cluster distance, would result in a highly segregating generation in breeding programmes. in selecting cultivars for hybridization, considerable care should be taken to select specific clusters and specific cultivars from selected clusters. our study showed that cultivars belonging to the same genomic group was highly variable, as, these belonged to different clusters. in d2 analysis, monthan and peyan came under a single cluster and were similar in 21 characters out of 31. clones belonging to abb genomic group (monthan and peyan) at a distance of 0.20 formed an independent cluster and were different from other triploid genomic clones (aaa or aab). in clustering based on d2 analysis, monthan and peyan were found to belong to a single group. however, as per rekha et al (2001) found that all the cultivars of abb group (monthan, cuba, muthia, karpooravally and klue teparod) came under a single cluster. the above molecular characterization tallied with association of genotypes based on genomic classification of simmonds. some aspects needed further investigation as there was confusion regarding grouping of cultivars such as quintal banana, vellapalayankodan, myndoli, attu nendran, koonoor ethan, robusta and ilavazha. these clones formed separate clusters which might be due to less number of decamer primers used in this study. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge kerala agricultural university, kerala, india, for providing funds and facilities to carry out doctoral research work. references balasubramanyan, s., manivannan, m.i., vani, v., saraswathy, s. and rajamanickam, c. 2009. genetic divergence in mango. paper presented in national seminar on production, postharvest technology and marketing of mango, horticultural college and research institute, tnau, periyakulam, tamil nadu, india, p. 28-29 bhat, k.v. and jarret, r.l. 1995. random amplified polymorphic dna and genetic diversity in indian musa germplasm. genet. resource crop eval., 42:107-118 brown, p.t.h., lang, f.d., kranz, e. and lorz, h. 1993. analysis of single protoplasts and regenerated plants by pcr and rapd technology. mol. gen. genet., 237:311-317 howell, e.c., newbury, h.j., swennen, r.l., withers, l.a. and ford-lloyd, b.v. 1994. the use of rapd for identifying and classifying musa germplasm. genome, 37:328-332 jaccard, p. 1908. nouvelles rescherchers sur la distribution, florale bull. soc. vaudoise de sciences naturelles, 44:223-270 kahangi, e.m., lawton, m.a. and kumar, c.a.c.y. 2002. rapd profiling of some banana varieties selected by small scale farmers in kenya. j. hortl. sci. biotech., 77:393-398 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(hort.) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 72pp. simmonds, n.w. 1962. the evolution of the bananas. longmans, green and company limited, london, 170pp. singh, h.p. 2007. research and development of banana and diversity in ecotypes of banana at molecular level j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):34-40, 2012 40 plantain in india. souvenir national conference on banana, 25-28 october, 2007. nrcb, trichy, tamil nadu, india, pp 1-19. singh, r., meena, k.k. and singh, s.k. 2003. genetic divergence for yield and its component traits in pomegranate (punica granatum l.). ind. j. pl. genet. resources, 16:133-134 soni, k.b., manju, r.v., priya, a.o., shimi, s. and suseela, k.g. molecular characterization of banana clones using rapd markers. 2010 global conference on banana, nrcb, trichy, tamil nadu, india, 10-13 december, 2010, pp.1-19 stover, r.h. and simmonds, n.w. 1987. bananas. third edition. longman scientific and technical, harlow, esse, england, 445pp. valsalakumari, p.k., nair, p.c.s. and prabhakaran, p.v. 1985. genetic divergence in banana. agril. res. j. kerala, 22:146-149 walbot, v. 1988. preparation of dna from single rice seedlings. rice genet. newslett., 5:149-151 (ms received 28 september 2011, revised 3 march 2012) rajamanickam and rajmohan j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):34-40, 2012 focus introduction garden pea (pisum sativum l. var. hortense) belongs to the family leguminosae (fabaceae) is also called sweet pea is a choice vegetable grown for its fresh shelled green seeds rich in protein (7.2 %), vitamins and minerals. the green seeds are used as vegetable or can be used after processing (canning, freezing and dehydration). india is ranking second next to china both in terms of area and production (fao, 2012). in india, it is grown in an area of 0.42 million ha with the production of 4.01 million metric tonnes and productivity is 9.5 t/ha. garden pea is a cool season crop mainly grown during winter season in plains and during summer season in hills. major area of garden pea is in temperate and subtropical regions of the country. it is also grown in some cooler parts of southern india. garden pea is cultivated on a large scale in the states like uttar pradesh, madya pradesh and jharkhand. it is also grown in himachal pradesh, punjab, west bengal, haryana, bihar, uttarakhand, jammu and kashmir, odisha, parts of rajasthan and maharashtra (fig 1). in south it is grown in karnataka and in the hilly regions like ooty and kodaikanal garden pea improvement in india n. mohan, t.s. aghora, m.a. wani and b. divya division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post bangalore-560089, india e-mail: nmohan@iihr.ernet.in abstract garden pea (pisum sativum l. var. hortense) is an important legume vegetable grown for its fresh, shelled green seeds rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals. at present over 1000 germplasm lines are available in india. improvement of garden pea in the country was initiated during the 1940s in iari and later in several other agricultural universities/ icar institutes. currently, 27 early-varieties and 59 mid-season varieties are under cultivation in india. initially, focus was on developing early-maturing varieties with high yield and quality. subsequently, emphasis was laid on developing mid-season varieties having resistance to powdery mildew and other major diseases like fusarium wilt and rust. besides, varieties with resistance to bruchids and the leaf miner are also available. in the present paper, an attempt has been made to review current status of improvement of garden pea in india, covering its genetic resources, variability, heritability, genetic advance, heterosis and combining ability, g x e interaction, male sterility, breeding for biotic and abiotic stresses, mutation breeding and biotechnological applications. in recent years, there has been an increase in demand for varieties suited to kharif and early summer seasons, with resistance to powdery mildew, rust, fusarium root wilt/rot and stemfly and also for processing and export. therefore, future thrust in the improvement of garden pea would be on developing varieties tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses (mainly high temperature), and also for processing and export. key words: garden pea, pisum sativum, genetic resources, breeding, varieties, resistance in tamil nadu. uttar pradesh is the leading state in the area (1.8 lakh ha) and production (18.8 lakh tonnes) followed by madhya pradesh (22.8 thousand ha; 5.34 lakh tonnes). jammu and kashmir is the leading state in productivity (20.8 t/ha) followed by jharkhand (14.8 t/ha) table 1 & 2 (nhb, 2013). j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 fig 1. garden pea area per cent share in different states in india. source : nhb, 2013 leading pea producing states (2012-13) 126 origin pea (pisum sativum l.) is one of the world’s oldest domesticated crops (ambrose, 1995; zohary and hopf, 2000). vavilov (1928) considered central asia as a primary centre of origin and north east as a secondary centre of origin. garden pea originated in the region comprising central asia, mediterranean countries and ethiopia. it is native to syria, iraq, iran, turkey, israel, jordan, ethiopia, lebanon and has been cultivated in europe for several thousand years (nasiri et al, 2009). according to blixt (1970), the mediterranean is the primary centre of diversity with secondary centers in ethiopia and the near east. smykal et al (2012) has reported that its area of origin and initial domestication lies in the mediterranean, primarily in the middle east. the wild representatives of p. sativum extend from iran and turkmenistan through anterior asia, northern africa and southern europe (makasheva, 1979; maxted and ambrose, 2000; maxted et al, 2010). lamprecht (1956) reported that pisum sativum (l.) originated in medieval times through a mutation to white flower and large seeded from cultivated form of pisum arvense (l.). purseglove (1974) regarded p.elatius a wild species in russia as an ancester of p. sativum. the genus pisum contains the wild species p. fulvum found in jordan, syria, lebanon and israel; the cultivated species p. abyssinicum from yemen and ethiopia, which was likely domesticated independently of p. sativum; and a large and loose aggregate of both wild (p. sativum subsp. elatius) and cultivated forms that comprise the species p. sativum in a broad sense (jing et al, 2010; ellis et al, 2011, smykal et al, 2011; upadhyaya et al, 2011). classification the genus pisum is a member of the family papilionaceae tribe viciae and is composed of two species, p. sativum l. and p. fulvum sibth & sm. pisum sativum is further divided to include five subspecies, namely, sativum, elatius, humile, arvense and and hortense. the two sub species namely arvense and hortense are treated as varieties under species sativum (govorov, 1928; nasiri, 2009). based on crossability and cytogenetical evidences, the number of species within the genus pisum sativum includes the following sub-species (simmonds, 1979) namely, table 1. state-wise area, production and productivity under pea (nhb, 2013). area (in 1000 ha), production (in 1000 tonnes) and productivity (t/ha) state area production productivity uttar pradesh 175.01 1877.93 10.7 madhya pradesh 53.45 534.00 10.0 jharkhand 24.13 358.22 14.8 himachal pradesh 23.67 280.23 11.8 punjab 20.33 208.17 10.2 west bengal 21.80 132.11 6.1 haryana 15.08 107.54 7.1 bihar 10.02 88.71 8.9 uttarakhand 11.65 78.29 6.7 jammu & kashmir 2.79 58.08 20.8 odisha 5.89 52.76 9.0 others 57.10 230.10 4.0 total 420.90 4006.17 9.5 source: nhb, 2013 table 2. major pea growing areas in different states (nhb, 2013). state districts/location andhra pradesh : chittoor, rangareddy, medak assam : darrang, kamrup, nagaon bihar : patna, nalanda, bhojpur, gaya, muza harpur, vaishali, samastipur, katihar chhattisgarh : raipur, baloda bazar, durg, bemetara, rajnandgaon, janjgir-champa, bilaspur, korba, raigarh, surguja, surajpur, koriya, balrampur haryana : ambala, yamunanagar, kurukshetra, kaithal, karnal, panipat, sonipat, gurgaon, jind himachal pradesh : lahul & spiti (keylong, kazza), kinnaur (kalpa, sangla nichar valley, chango, pooh), shimla (rohroo, theog, shogi, mashoba), sirmour (pacchad, sangarh, rajgarh) jharkhand : ranchi (ratu, mandar), ramgarh, hazaribagh, palamu karnataka : kolar, bengaluru, mysore, tumkur, hassan, chikkaballapur madhya pradesh : shajapur, jabalpur, ujjain, dewas, gwalior, morena, hoshangabad, vidisha, sagar maharashtra : pune, parbhani, thane, jalna, nandurbar, chandrapur, buldhana manipur : imphal valley mizoram : aizawl, lunglei, saiha nagaland : kohima, wokha, mokochung, zunheboto, tuensang, phek, mon, dimapur odisha : angul (kishorenagar), sambalpur (sasan) punjab : hoshiarpur (hoshiarpur 1, hoshiarpur 2, chabbewal), amritsar (verka, jandiala guru, majitha, rayya), patiala (sanaur, rajpura, ghannaur, patran), s,b,s, nagar (nawan shahr, bala, chaur) rajasthan : jaipur, alwar, jodhpur, udaipur uttar pradesh : lalitpur, jalaun, jhansi, mohoba, sultanpur, hamirpur, azamgarh, basti, allahabad, pratapgarh, etah, mirzapur, jaunpur, kabir nagar, ambedkar nagar, sonbhadra, faizabad, barabanki, raebareli, sitapur, siddharth nagar, gonda, balia, kanpur-nagar, kanpur-dehat, kanshiram nagar uttarakhand : almora, chamoli, champawat, dehradun, nainital, tehri, udham singh nagar, uttarkashi west bengal : nadia, hoogly, 24 parganas j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 127 outcrossing is generally less than 1%. peas are diploid and the chromosome number is 2n=2x=14 (yarnell, 1962). the standard karyotype of pea was described by levitskii (1934) and blixt (1959). karyotype comprises seven chromosomes; five acrocentric and two sub-metacentric. acrocentric chromosomes are distinguishable on the basis of arm length and centromere (ellis and poyser, 2002). genetics knowledge of gene action in plant breeding helps in the selection of parents for use in the hybridization programmes and also in the choice of appropriate breeding procedure for the genetic improvement of various quantitative characters (sharma et al, 2013a). pea genetics has been an object of study since early days (knight, 1799; mendel, 1866) and pea was the original model organism used in mendel’s discovery of the laws of inheritance, making it the foundation of modern plant genetics (smykal et al, 2012). vilmorin and bateson (1912) were probably the first to study the linkage in peas. genetic studies of several morphological, physiological, quality and resistance attributes have been reviewed by several workers and lamprecht (1948) gave the first presentation of seven linkage groups (blixt, 1974). according to blixt (1974), around 169 genes have been assigned on different chromosomes or linkage groups. most of the genes have been assigned by lamprecht, based on dihybrid combination derived from analysis of f2 generations. the linkage map of pea consists of over 200 loci (kaloo and bergh, 1993). the list of genes are given in table 3 & 4. 1) inheritance of qualitative characters pea has been extensively studied for the genetics of qualitative traits. significant contributions on qualitative genetics of pea have been made by several scientists. among them h. lamprecht, l.m. monli, s.j. wellensick and blixt have contributed enormously. yarnell in1962 has listed several genes controlling various qualitative attributes and such genes are present in all the seven linkage groups (kaloo and bergh, 1993). blixt (1974) has given a list of 324 qualitative genes. a partial listing of genes useful in breeding programme has been compiled by gritton (1980) and kumar et al (2006). amin et al (2010) have compiled the genes which govern various qualitative traits. three single recessive genes, cry, la and le influence internode length and plant height. each gene governs these characters along with other two genes. similarly branching is controlled by two single recessive genes, fr and fru in presence of each other. a pisum sativum l. var. hortense (garden pea), pisum sativum l. var. arvense (field pea), pisum sativum l. var. macrocarpum (whole pod edible pea), pisum sativum var. elatius (wild form), pisum sativum var. syriacum (wild form). a distinctive ethiopian form pisum abyssinicum has been recognized as a species (smartt, 1990). description pea is an annual herbaceous plant, with angular or roundish hollow stems covered with a waxy bloom. in leafy types, leaves consist of one or more pairs of opposite leaflets borne on petioles together with several pairs of tendrils (which are essentially modified leaves) and a single or compound terminal tendril. leaflets are broad and ovate with distinct ribs, and are slightly toothed or entire. stipules are large, ovate and are irregularly toothed at the base. in semi-leafless types, the leaflets are replaced by tendrils but the stipules are still present. while in leafless types, the leaflets are also replaced by tendrils (afila type) but the stipules are rudimentary. afila types have better standing ability than the leafy types because tendrils of adjascent plants intertwine. the plants have tap roots with numerous lateral roots. inflorescence is a receme comprising one or two self-fertile flowers arising from axil of leaf. the flowers are zygomorphic and are hermaphrodite. calyx consists of five green sepals and corolla has five petals. flower colour ranges from white, pink, lavender, blue to purple. the diadelphous and roecium consists of 10 stamens (9 + l) with short filaments. nine of these filaments at the lower portion are fused to form a staminal tube and surround the ovary. the 10 th stamen remains free. the gynoecium is monocarpellary. the ovary is superior, unilocular with marginal placentation, style short, curved, stigma flattened. ovules upto 13 are arranged alternatively. the fruit is a pod containing several seeds, flattened when young but becoming round or nearly round later, and dehisce along the sides. the seeds may be round, dented or wrinkled. seed colour ranges from creamy white to brown and may be mottled (kalloo, 1993; peter and kumar, 2008). reproductive biology and cytology pea is a self pollinated crop with cleistogamous flowers. anthesis and anther dehiscence take place in the morning (5 to 8 am). stigma of pea is receptive to pollen from several days prior to anthesis and one day after flower opening. pollen is viable from the time anthers dehisce. pollination occurs 24 h before flower opening. pollen on the stigma germinates in about 8--12 h and fertilization occurs 24-28 h after pollination (peter and kumar, 2008). j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india 128 single recessive gene, ram is responsible for increasing the number of branches. the characters of leaves, leaflets, stipules and tendrils are governed by single recessive gene. the leaflets are converted into tendrils by the gene, af, double leaflet and stipule area, lat, tendrils present on acacia leaves, tac and leaves with extra leaflets and no tendrils, stem fasciation is controlled by two single recessive genes fa and fas along with each other. the wax or bloom trait is inherited by single recessive gene, such as wa for absence of wax on pods, upper and lower stipule surfaces and underside of leaflets, wb for pods without wax, little wax on rest of plants and wel for absence of wax from all parts of plant. the colour of plant and its parts, like foliage, flower, and seed are also governed by single recessive genes, like for absence of anthocyanin in plants, flower and seed, ch-l for light yellow green plant, d for green leaf axil, pa for dark green immature seed and foliage and vm with effect j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 table 4. gene list in pea gene phenotype class aat-m mitochondrial aspartate physiological characters aminotransferase ac abnormal corolla flower and generative apparatus aldo-p aldolase physiological characters bcm res. bean common mosaic virus physiological characters beg begoniaerubrum flower and generative apparatus calf cabbage leaf complex mutants ch3 chlorina chlorophyll mutations chi2 chlorotica chlorophyll mutations chi23 chlorotica chlorophyll mutations crd crispoid foliage and emergences cyv1 res.cyvv physiological characters den deminutio seed characters est2 esterase physiological characters est4 esterase physiological characters fn flower number flower and generative apparatus fum fumerase physiological characters gal2 beta-galactosidase flower and generative apparatus gfc green flowers flower and generative apparatus k keeled wings flower and generative apparatus mifo minute-foveatus seed characters mo res. bv2, pv2 physiological characters orp orange pod pods pal pallens seed characters pgm-p plastid phosphoglucomutase physiological characters ppd photoperiod response physiological characters ppi3 -not definedphysiological characters pwv res. pwv-k physiological characters rms3 ramosus shoot system rug3 rugosus seed characters s chenille seed characters smb2 res. bv2, pv2 physiological characters ster female sterility physiological characters stpr abnormal generative organs flower and generative apparatus str brunneostriata seed characters sym14 nodulation resistance root system sym22 nodulation resistant root system ve ventriosus seed characters vi2 viridis chlorophyll mutations (source: peter and kumar, 2008) table 3. gene action for various traits character gene description 1. plant height cry influences internode length; plant height along with la and le la internode length and plant height along with cry and le le internode length and plant height along with cry and la 2. wax (bloom) wa without wax on pods, upper and lower stipules surfaces and underside of leaflets wb pods without wax, little wax on rest of plant wel wax absent from all parts of the plant 3. branching fr with fru determines number of basal branches fru with fr determines number of basal branches ram increases number of branches 4. leaf and af leaflet converted into tendril stipule lat double leaflet and stipule area tl leaves with extra leaflets and no tendrils 5. colour a absence of anthocyanin d green leaf axil; dependent on ‘a’ for manifestation of colour pa dark green immature seed and foliage 6. inflorescence, fn with fna determines number number of of flower on the inflorescence; flowers rearly influenced by environment fna with fn determines number of flowers on the inflorescence, greatly influenced by environment 7. fasciation fa stem fasciation with fas fas stem fasciation with fa 8. flower colour b flower pink; dependent on ‘a’ for manifestation of colour ce flower rose; dependent on ‘a’ for manifestation of colour 9. seed com sides of seeds flattened di small dimpled depressions in seed; observable only with r seed r seed cotyledons wrinkled rb seed cotyledons wrinkled gty gritty seed surface i green cotyledons; produces yellow cotyledons pl hilum black with a or b 10. pod bt apex of pods blun con affects curvature of pods n pod wall thick p reduces or eliminates sclerenchymatous membrane on inner pod wall v same as p gp young pod yellow (source: amin et al, 2010) mohan et al 129 similar to pa. the number of flowers on the inflorescence is controlled by two different recessive single genes, fn and fna in the presence of each other. the gene b is for pink flower and ce for rose coloured flowers and both are dependent on the dominant a for manifestation of colour. single recessive genes determine various seed characteristics, like flattened seed sides (com), dimpled seed (di), wrinkled seed cotyledon (r, rb), gritty seed surface (gty), and green cotyledons (i), and black hilum by dominant gene pi along with ar and b. single recessive gene, it increases pod width by 25%; the dominant gene con effects curvature of pods, dominant bt for blunt apex of pods and recessive n for thick pod wall. tough and leathery pods that dehisce readily at maturity are due to the presence of a dominant single gene, ‘p’ and ‘v’are responsible for reducing or eliminating sclerenchymatous membrane on inner pod walls. the purple pod colour is governed by two dominant genes pu and pur, along with the dominant gene a and yellow colour of young pods by a recessive gene gp. singh et al (1986a) in a 10 × 10 diallel analysis reported that non-additive gene action was predominant for protein content. the persistence of sca component for protein component indicated that additive × additive component was predominant. mean degree of dominance indicated over dominance for protein content. negative correlation coefficient (r) between parental order of dominance (wr + vr) and parental measurement (yr) for protein content indicated that the dominant alleles contributed positively for the expression of this trait. regression coefficient for protein content significantly differed from unity, suggesting the presence of non-allelic interaction of genes. the regression line passed below the origin, suggesting over dominance for protein content. rastogi (1988) reported the presence of high non-additive genetic variance (h1 and h2) as compared to additive genetic variance (d) in a diallel analysis of ten parents for vitamin c content of garden pea seed in f1 generation. the ratio of h2/4h1 was very near to the expected value of 0.25. kd/ kr ratio in the parents was more than 1 revealing the predominant role of dominant alleles. the scatter of parental arrays suggested that the parents such as gc 66 and bonneville contained greater number of dominant genes for higher vitamin c content. rastogi et al (1989) found significant non-additive components in case of protein content in pea seed. 2) inheritance of quantitative characters the highly heritable polygenic characters are plant height, earliness, number of pods per plant, pod length, seeds per pod and 100 seed weight. pod yield has low heritability. number of branches, earliness, number of pods per inflorescence, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per plant, seed weight and number of days to maturity and plant height had direct effect on yield. the gene action, degree of dominance, and inter allelic gene effects were studied for different plant characters. seed yield per plant had additive genetic variance and positive epistasis. plant height and days to flowering was controlled by non additive genes with partial dominance and over dominance (amin et al, 2010). genetics of few quantitative traits is given in table 5. pod yield exhibited low heritability, whereas number of pods per plant exhibited high heritability. high estimates of heritability were recorded for plant height, pod length, seeds per pod and weight (singh and singh 1989a). nandpuri et al (1973) reported a high genetic advance for number of pods per plant, plant height and 100 seed weight. yield was positively correlated with number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pod, seed weight, branches per plant and number of clusters per plant. number of clusters and number of pods per plant (kalloo and dhankar, 1977) and number of seeds per pod and harvest index, tewatia et al (1983) had direct effect on yield. narsinghani et al (1982) reported that additive genetic variance in pea was significant for seed yield per plant, while epistatic gene action was positive for number of pods and j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india table 5. genetics of quantitative traits in pea trait inheritance / gene action plant height high heritability, over dominance, partial dominance, high genetic advance days to flowering non-additive gene action, partial dominance, over dominance earliness dominant genes; high heritability late flowering recessive genes; high heritability first node bearing flower dominant gene action; partial dominance number of pods per plant high heritability; epistatic gene action positive; high genetic advance pod length high heritability number of seeds per pod high heritability; additive gene and test weight action and high genetic advance for 100 seed weight seeds per plant epistatic gene action positive; additive, dominance and over dominance pod yield low heritability cold resistance intermediate dominance, polygenic, many recessive genes (source: amin et al, 2010) 130 seeds per plant. there was a positive additive dominance and over dominance for seeds per plant. the monogenic system for days to flowering was observed by ram et al (1981) but nonadditive gene action was noted by singh et al (1986a). kumar and agarwal (1982) concluded two types of genes, dominant genes for earliness and accumulation of recessive genes for late flowering. higher narrow sense heritability has been obtained for this character by singh (1979). dominant gene action for first node -bearing flowers had been shown by singh et al (1980) but singh et al (1986a) obtained partial dominance. the difference in gene action observed in these studies can be attributed to genotypic differences. srivastava and singh (1988) found both additive and non-additive gene effects to be important in genetics of seeds per pod in peas but non-additive gene effects were more prevalent than additive effects. gupta and lodhi (1988) evaluated nine cultivars of garden pea in a half diallel analysis for days to pod formation and days to maturity and observed the preponderance of both additive as well as non-additive gene effects for both traits. the complete dominance was observed for days to pod formation and over-dominance for days to maturity. the ratio of kd/kr (ratio of dominant allele and recessive allele) revealed excess of dominance alleles for both the traits. symmetry of distribution of positive and negative genes in the parents was indicated only for days to maturity. positive correlation for days to pod formation showed importance of recessive alleles favouring delaying of pod formation, while negative association for days to maturity indicated importance of dominant alleles for late maturity. singh and ram (1988), observed that additive and non-additive gene action predominated for days to flower, green pods per plant, 100 green pod weight, pod length, shelling percentage, number node at which appear of first flower, primary branches per plant, plant height and green pod yield in diallel analysis of garden pea. genetic components of variation analysis supported these conclusions. singh and singh (1989b) studied genetics of earliness in terms of flower initiation and days to maturity in f1 of 12 parents in a diallel cross in garden pea. the additive and non-additive components of genetic variance were significant for these characters. karmakar and singh (1990) observed that the analysis of variance for combining ability has revealed the role of additive as well as non-additive gene action in controlling the characters seed yield per plant, pods per plant, and seeds per plant, plant height and days to flowering. however, non-additive gene action was predominant for these characters. rana and gupta (1994) carried out genetic analysis of green pod yield and found that it was influenced by over dominance. sarawat et al (1994) found that both additive and non-additive gene effects were important in the expression of grain yield, branches per plant, pods per plant, seeds per pod, plant height and onset of flowering. kumar and bal (1995) predicted over dominance for yield, number of pods per plant, 100 seed weight and partial dominance for other. the degree of dominance indicated overdominance for all the traits except pod length and seeds per pod. sirohi et al (1995) found that additive x dominance and dominance x dominance types of non-allelic interactions were important in the inheritance of traits like days to flowering, days to maturity and plant height. singh et al (1997) carried out genetic analysis to detect epistasis and to estimate components of genetic variance. significant estimates of both additive and dominance components were observed for all the traits, except for pod length. the direction of dominance was positive and significant for days to flowering, plant height, number of pods per plant and seed yield indicating the isodirectional nature of dominance. raj et al (1998) studied genetics of yield and it’s components in garden pea. the characters like pod yield per plant, number of seeds per pod and number of pods per plant showed either significant additive or dominance or both gene effects along with (i), (j) or (i) types of epistasis in one or more cases. sharma et al (1999) observed the presence of both additive and non-additive type of gene action in pea. singh and sharma (2001) recorded in a diallel analysis of 8 parents for five characters that additive gene effects were significant and positive in two crosses for plant height, number of pods per plant, number of seeds and pod yield per plant, almost all the f1 crosses had positive dominance gene effects for plant height, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, pod length and pod yield per plant and a higher magnitude than that of additive gene effects. in diallel analysis of 10 parents for earliness, sharma et al (2003a) reported that the additive (d) and non-additive (h1) components of genetic variance were significant for earliness. the degree of dominance was in partial dominance range in f1 and over dominance range in f2. the ratio of h2/4h1 revealed the symmetrical distribution of negative and positive alleles among the different parents. the ratio of kd/kr was more than unity in f1 indicated excess of dominant alleles in the expression of these traits. ranjan et al (2005) estimated the variance ratio to determine the importance of additive and non-additive genetic variances. the variance ratio was less for days to flowering, plant height, branches per plant, days to maturity, j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et almohan et al 131 pods per plant, seeds per pod and seed yield per plant. sood and kalia (2006) conducted inheritance studies on seven economic traits viz., days to 50% flowering, days to first picking, pods per plant, seeds per pod, pod yield per plant and shelling percentage in a diallel set of eight parents excluding reciprocals in garden pea. from 28 f1 crosses as well as their f2’s, prevalence of over dominance was observed for most of the traits in both the generations. nonadditive gene action appeared to be more predominant for the inheritance of most characters studied. dominant alleles were more frequent in parental lines for the inheritance of most of the characters. low to medium narrow sense heritability indicated presence of non-additive gene action for most of the traits except for pod yield. dhillon et al (2006) reported additive and non-additive gene effects governed the inheritance of all the studied characters. the additive gene effects were more pronounced for days to flower initiation, node at which first pod appears, number of branches per plant, plant height, number of pods per plant, pod length, days to marketable maturity and shelling percentage, whereas the non-additive gene effects were more pronounced for number of seeds per pod, dry matter content and total green pod yield per plant. sharma and sharma (2012) observed the prevalence of over dominance for most of the traits except for node number at which first flower appear. however, additive and dominance genetic variance were highly significant for days to 50% flowering and days to first harvest. for green pod yield per plant the regression line was linear and slope of regression varied significantly from unity suggesting the prevalence of non-allelic interactions. low estimates of narrow sense heritability indicated the presence of nonadditive gene action for most traits except for days to 50% and days to first harvest. these characters also exhibited medium to high level of heritability and the selections in segregating generation could be effective for evolving early maturing types. sharma and bora (2013) reported higher values of heritability in broad sense and genetic gain indicating that the additive gene actions are important in determining the characters viz. plant height, days to first picking, 100 green pod weight, green pod yield and days to 50% flowering revealed. therefore, selection programme based on these characters would be more effective in improving yield parameters of garden pea. combining ability analysis for six physiological characters in pea revealed that leaf area and chlorophyll-a/b ratio was governed by additive gene action, while, both additive and non-additive gene action were important for controlling total chlorophyll, chlorophylla, chlorophyll-b content and specific leaf weight, as found by sirohi and singh (2013). 3) inheritance of disease resistance single dominant genes confer resistance to several diseases like enation mosaic virus (en); near wilt, fusarium oxysporum f. pisi race 2 (fnw); fusarium wilt, fusarium oxysporum f. pisi race 1 (fw); brown root of peas, fusarium solani f. sp. pisi; rust, uromyces fabae; downy mildew, perenospora pisi and bacterial blight, pseudomonas syringe pv. pisi race 1, pea root rot, aphanomyces euteiches. resistance to pea seed borne mosaic virus (sbm), powdery mildew (er1, er-2), bean yellow mosaic virus (mo), top yellow virus, pea streak virus, pea mosaic virus (pmv), and bean virus is controlled by recessice genes. resistance to ascochyta blight (ascochyta pisi) is governed by duplicate factors or single dominant genes (amin et al, 2010, in kalloo, 1993) (table 6). varieties there are three groups of varieties namely early, mid season and late. the early group varieties are dwarf and attain pod maturity in 40 to 45 days and generally two harvests can be done. the duration is 6070 days. the early varieties have the advantage in the market as they get better price. further, early life cycle also helps farmer to quickly switch over to second crop. due to their compact j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india table 6. genetics of disease resistance in pea resistant to inheritance enation mosaic virus single dominant gene, en single dominant gene, fnw fusarium oxysporum f.pisi race 2, near wilt single dominant gene, fw fusarium oxysporum f.pisi race 1, fusarium wilt single recessive gene, sbm pea seed borne mosaic virus single recessive gene, er powdery mildew (erysiphe polygoni) single recessive gene, er-2 powdery mildew (erysiphe polygoni) monogenic, dominant brown root of peas, fusarium solani f. sp. pisi monogenic, dominant rust, uromyces fabae, resistance dominant monogenic, dominant downy mildew, perenospora pisi duplicate factor or ascochyta blight, (ascochyta pisi) single dominant gene single recessive gene (mo) bean yellow mosaic virus monogenic recessive top yellow virus single recessive gene pea leaf roll virus single recessive gene pea streak virus single recessive gene (pmv) pea mosaic virus single recessive gene bean virus 2 (source: amin et al, 2010) 132 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 table 7. details of early varieties sn variety source trait remarks 1. ageta pau, ludhiana plants are small, erect and green in colour. it is suitable for early sowing. first flower appears in about 25 days after seed sowing and it takes about 6 weeks for first picking. two picking are done. average green pod yield is 50-55 q/ha. 2. alaska introduction early, smooth-seeded green pea pods are light green and appears singly with from england 5-6 small, bluish-green. 55 days to maturity. 3. ap 3 kalyanpur early maturing variety (50-55 days), pods are long (9-9.5cm), dark green, 7-8 green seeds per pod, shelling percentage is 47%. pod yield 7 t/ha in 60 -65 days. 4. arkel iari, new delhi early maturing variety. plant height is 45 cm. pods are dark green, 8.5 cm long, 7-8 green seeds per pod, incurved towards the sutures. first picking in 55-60 days. recommended in 1978. pod yield 7.5 t/ha in 50 -55 days. shelling percentage is 40%. 5. asauji iari, new delhi flowering in 30-35 days after sowing and blossom appear in 6-7 nodes. pods are produced singly. pods are about 8 cm long, curved, dark green, narrow and appear round when fully developed, each pod contains seven seeds. pods give high shelling percentage (45%). 6. early badger introduction a dwarf wrinkled seeded variety. pods are ready for picking in 60-65 days from usa after sowing. first blossom appears in 10-11th node; pods are yellowish green and borne singly, 7.5 cm long with 5-6 bold and sweet seeds. 7. early superb introduction yellowish green foliage. it flowers in about 45 days and first blossom appears from england at 8-10th node. pods are borne singly; these are dark green, curved with 6-7 smooth seeds. shelling percentage is 40%. 8. harbhajan jnkvv, developed at jabalpur by selection from the exotic genetic stock. it is very (ec 33866) jabalpur early and first picking can be taken in 45 days of sowing. plant type resembles that of field peas; pods are small with yellow, round and small seeds. average pod yield 3 t/ha. 9. jawahar matar 3 jnkvv, developed through hybridization of t19 x early badger followed by selections. (jm 3) jabalpur plant height 70-75 cm with bushy growth habit; flower colour white. first picking 50 days, pods 7 cm long, light green, roundish-oval in shape with 4-5 wrinkled seeds. shelling percentage (45%). 10. jawahar matar 4 jnkvv, developed at jabalpur through advanced generation selections from the cross (jm 4) jabalpur t19 x little marvel. plant height 65 cm, foliage and stem are green. first picking after 70 days. pods are green, medium in size (7cm) with 6-7 green, wrinkled and sweet seeds. average pod yield 7 t/ha with 40% shelling. 11. jawahar peas-4 jnkvv, this powdery mildew resistant and wilt tolerant variety for hillocks was (jp4) jabalpur developed at jabalpur through advanced generation selections from a triple cross local yellow batri × (6588 × 46c). plants attain height of around 75 to 80 cm on hillocks and about 1 m in plants; medium size pods with 5-6 bold, green seeds. first picking after 60 days in hillocks and 70 days in plains. average pod yield 3-4 t/ha in hillocks and 9 t/ha in plains. 12. jawahar peas 54 jnkvv, developed at jabalpur through advanced generation selection from a double (jp 54). jabalpur cross (arkel × jm5) × (‘4bc’ × jp 501). plants are dwarf and vigorous. pods are round to oval shaped, 5 cm long, curved (sickle shaped) and enclosing 8-9 big, wrinkled, greenish-yellow seeds. shelling percentage is 45. average pod yield 7 t/ha. recommended for zones iv, v, and vii. 13. kashi kanak iivr, varanasi it is an early maturing variety developed through selection. it has plant height 50-55cm, foliage dark green, pod straight, light green, length 7-8 cm filled with bold seeds. first picking at 55-58 days after sowing, green pod yield 60-80 q/ha. fusarium wilt resistant suitable for both fresh market and dehydration. good caning variety; fusarium wilt resistant powdery mildew resistant powdery mildew resistant variety. mohan et al plant habit more number of plants could be accommodated per unit area and thereby increasing the yield. details of early varieties are given in table 7. the mid season varieties attain pod maturity in 60 to 65 days and the duration is 90 days. generally, three harvests can be done and pod yield is 10 to 12 t/ha (table 8). in late varieties plants are tall (4 to 5ft) and needs staking. pod maturity is 90 days and duration is 120 days (table 9). the popular varieties and recommended areas for this cultivation are given in table 10. 133j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 table 7. contd. sn variety source trait remarks 15. kashi nandini iivr, varanasi early maturing variety developed through pedigree selection from the cross (vrp 5) p 1542 x vt-2-1. plant height 47-51 cm, flowers appear at 32 days after sowing, bears7-8 pods per plant. pods are 8-9 cm long, attractive, length 8-9 cm, well filled with 8-9seeds, shelling 47-48%, yield 110-120 q/ha. recommended for j&k, h.p., uttrakhand, punjab, tarai region of u.p., bihar, jharkhand, karnataka, tamil nadu and kerala. 16. kashi udai iivr, varanasi early maturing variety developed through pedigree selection from the cross (vrp 6) arkel x fc-1. plant height is 58-62 cm and 50% flowering at 35-37 days after sowing. plants have dark green foliage and short internodes with 8-10 pods per plant. pods are attractive, length 9-10 cm, filled with 8-9 bold seed, shelling percentage 48; yield 1011 t/ha. recommended to up. 17. little marvel introduction a dwarf wrinkled seeded variety. it is bred in england from the cross chelsea from england. gem x suttons alaska. foliage dark green; first blossom appears at 9-10th node in 40 days after sowing. pods 8 cm long bore singly, thick, shinny,dark green, straight and broad containing 5-6 sweet seeds. 18. lucknow boniya dwarf white-seeded cultivar, flowers in 40 days. the pods are borne singly, small, narrow, green, and 4-5 seeded when fully developed. 19. matter ageta 6 pau, ludhiana dwarf, high yielding variety developed at ludhinana through pedigree selction from the cross massey gem × harabona. plants are dwarf (40 cm), erect, vigorous and quick growing; foliage green and 1-2 pods are borne in a bunch; first picking within 50-55 days after sowing; pods are long with 6-8 round green seeds; average pod yield 6 t/ha with 44% shelling. 20. meteor introduction plants are 35-40 cm tall, dark green foliage; pods are produced singly, dark from england. green, 8.7 cm long with seven smooth seeds. shelling percentage is 45%. 21. pant matar 2 gbpuat, developed at pantnagar through pedigree selection from the cross early (pm-2) pantnagar badger × ip3 (pant uphar). plant height 50-55 cm; fruit setting starts from 6th node. pods are green, relatively small in size than arkel, with 6-8 sweet and wrinkled seeds. first picking starts 60-65 days after sowing. average pod yield 7-8 t/ha. 22. pant sabji gbpuat, early maturing variety developed through pedigree selection from a cross matar-3 pantnagar of arkel & gc 141. plants are dwarf with dark green foliage. the pods are long well filled with 8-10 seeds. average pod yield 9-10 t/ha. 23. pant sabji gbpua&t early variety (70 days to green pod picking) and resistant to powdery matar-4 pantnagar mildew. it is leafless type. yield is 90 q/ha. j&k, h.p., hills of u.p., punjab, tarai region of u.p., bihar and jharkhand 24. pant sabji gbpuat, pant sabji matar-5 is an early-maturing variety whose plant is dwarf. pods matar-5 pantnagar are long, well-filled and slightly curved towards the tip. the seeds are green and wrinkled at maturity. the first green pod picking can be done within 60 to 65 days and seed maturity is recorded in 100 to 110 days after sowing. its green pod yield potential is 90-100 quintals per hectare. the variety is suitable for cultivation in kumaon hills and the plains of uttarakhand. 25. vl-ageti vpkas, developed at vpkas, almora through advanced generation selection from matar-7 (vl-7) almora the cross pant uphar x arkel. plants are dwarf with green foliage and white flowers. pods are light green, attractive, medium in size (about 8 cm) containing 6-7 seeds. the seeds are light green, dimpled bold and very sweet with high tss (16.8%). average yield 10 t/ha with 42% shelling. suitable for pea growing areas of uttaranchal, uttar pradesh and bihar, uttarakhand. 26. vrp 2 iivr, varanasi plants 50 cm tall. pods straight and medium sized. first harvest in 55-58 yield 10 t/ha. it is tolerant to leaf miner and pod borer it is tolerant to high temperature resistant to mildew powdery resistant to powdery mildew garden pea improvement in india 14. kashi mukti iivr, varanasi early maturing powdery mildew resistant variety developed through pedigree (vrp22) selection from the cross no. 7 x pm-5. plant height is 50-53 cm and 50% flowering at 35-36 days after sowing. pods are 8.5-9 cm long, attractive filled with 8-9 bold soft textured seeds, shelling percentage 48-49, yield 9.0-11.0 t./ha. recommended for u.p., punjab, and jharkhand. powdery mildew resistant 134 table 8: details of mid season varieties sn variety source trait remarks 1. alderman introduction plants are tall (150 cm); pods are more or less straight, big (9-10 cm) and from usa borne singly with 8-10 very sweet, shiny seeds. 2. arka ajit iihr, bangalore. developed by back cross method of breeding using bonneville, freezer 656 erygel and iihr209 followed by pedigree method. plants medium tall, pods 8 cm long with 8 very sweet seeds. pods mature in 65 days. shelling percentage 55. pod yield. 10t/ha in 90 days. seeds medium bold and light green. released by cvrc and recommended for up, rajasthan and karnataka. 3. arka apoorva iihr, bangalore. a whole edible, dual purpose, midseason pea variety; resistant to powdery mildew and rust; pods green, crisp, sweet, can be used as salad at immatureand medium mature stage; seeds are bold, sweet and dark green; tss 12; pod yield 11 t/ha in 90 days. 4. arka karthik iihr, bangalore. this is a mid season variety developed at iihr and released at the institute level during 2001. it is resistant to both powdery mildew and rust and suitable for freezing. pod yields 11 tonnes per ha. in 90 days. the pods are 10.5 – 11.0 cm long, seeds bold, light green and sweet. 5. arka pramodh iihr, bangalore. mid-season pea variety; pods are medium long (8.0 cm) and slightly flattish round, mature in 65 days; seeds are bold, round, dark green and very sweet; resistant to powdery mildew and rust; pod yield 12 t/ha in 90 days 6. arka priya iihr, bangalore. mid-season variety; pods are round, medium long (8 cm), mature in 65 days; seeds are round, medium bold, dark green and very sweet; resistant to powdery mildew and rust; pod yield 12 t/ha in 90 days. 7. arka sampoorna iihr, bangalore. it is a whole pod edible mid season pea variety developed at iihr. pods mature in 55 days. pods are light green, medium long, with less parchment in the pod walls and medium sweet and crisp. the pods are edible at any stage of development. seeds are medium bold, sweet. pod yield 8 t/ha in 85 days. 8. azad p-1 csaua&t, kanpur. plant height 80-90 cm, foliage dark green, days to flowering 40-45 days. 4 pickings. 8 – 9 t/ha. 9. azad p-2 csaua&t, kanpur. developed through advanced generation selection from the cross bonneville×6587. plants are tall (130-150 cm), erect with light green foliage and white flowers. pods smooth, dark green, 8-10 cm long, narrow, very tightly filled, 8-10 seeds per pod, 30-40 pods per plant, shelling percentage 50-55%. first harvest 75 days after sowing. average yield 12t/ ha. in 90 – 95 days. 10. azad p-3 csaua&t,kanpur. early maturing variety. first picking in 70 days after sowing. pods are well filled, bold, green, attractive, straight and medium size. yield 8 t/ha. 11. azad p-4 csaua&t, kanpur. medium tall, small pods, resistant to powdery mildew. average yield 80-90 q/ha. punjab, tarai region, of u.p., uttarakhand, bihar, jharkhand 12. azad p-5 csaua&t, kanpur. medium tall, well branched foliage green, flower white, pod medium long smooth and light green seed brown and wrinkled. pod yield 13. bonneville iari new delhi introduced variety from usa. plant medium tall (60 cm), flowers are mostly borne in doubles; pods are light green, straight, big (9 cm) with 6-7 well-filled, sweet, bold and wrinkled seeds. 65-70 days for first flowering. shelling percent 45. average pod yield 9 t/ha. 14. dpp-9411 hpkv, palampur developed through recombination breeding at hpkv, palampur and identified for release through aicrp-vc in 2002. plants are medium tall (67.6 cm) with deep green dense foliage. pods are deep green, straight, well-filled, medium-sized 6-7 cm long and contain 7-8 bold grains per pod, sweet with tss 16.5°b. it has marketable maturity in 130 days in the hills and it is resistant to powdery mildew. recommended for j&k, h.f and uttaranchal and has yield potential of 100-105 q/ha. 15. hara bona punjab medium tall, days to first picking 45-50 days. node to first fruiting 6-7. pods 7-8 cm long, dark green, 5-6 seeds per pod. escapes powdery mildew and pea rust owing to earliness. suitable for freezing. resistant to powdery mildew and rust. moderately resistant to powdery mildew and rust. resistant to powdery mildew and rust resistant to powdery mildew and rust resistant to powdery mildew and rust powdery mildew and rust resistant to powdery mildew. mohan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 135 table 8. contd. sn variety source trait remarks 16. hisar harit hau, hisar developed at hisar through bulk-pedigree method of selection from the cross bonneville × p23. plant semi dwarf, first picking after 60 days, foliage green; single to double podded; pod well filled and sickle shaped, large and green. pod length 6.8 cm; seed green dimpled after drying. average pod yield 10 t/ha. 17. jawahar jnkvv, jabalpur identified in 1975 for the zones i, iv, vii. developed at jabalpur through matar 1 advanced generation selections from the cross of t19 × greater progress. plant height 65-70 cm, bushy, foliage green, flower white with two flowers per axil. pods straight with beak like outgrowth at the lower end and big (8 9 cm) with 8-9 big, sweet and wrinkled seeds. average pod yield 10-12 t/ha with 52% shelling. 18. jawahar jnkvv, jabalpur developed at jabalpur through advanced generation selection from matar 2 greater progress × russian-2. pods dark green, big, curved with 8-10 sweet seeds. seeds are wrinkled, green and bigger in size. 19. jawahar jnkvv, jabalpur mid season variety derived from t 19 x little marvel. plants 50-60 cm matar-4 tall. foliage green. pods green, 7 cm long. mature seeds green and wrinkled. recommended for zone number iv and vii. average yield 12 t/ha. 20. jawahar jnkvv, jabalpur this duel variety was developed at jabalpur through advanced generation matar 15 selections from the triple cross (jmi × r 98 b) × jp 501 a/2. plants are dwarf (50 cm), having compact internodes and bigger pods containing 8 seeds. average pod yield 13 t/ha. 21. jawahar jnkvv, jabalpur developed at jabalpur through advanced generation selection from a peas 54 double cross (arkel × jm5) × (‘4bc’ × jp 501). plants are dwarf (45-50 cm) and vigorous, pods are big, incurred towards sutures (sickle shaped) and enclosing 8-9 big, wrinkled, greenish-yellow seeds. average pod yield 7 t/ha. 22. jawahar jnkvv, jabalpur a progeny of double cross (arkel x jp 829) x (jp 501 x jm 1) belongs to peas 71 mid-season group. the plants are 50 cm in height and the pods are medium sized (7 cm) with 6-7 ovules. average pod yield 12 t/ha. the seeds are green, wrinkled and bigger (100 seed weight 17 g). 23. jp 83 jnkvv, jabalpur mid season variety developed through double cross (arkel x jp 829) x (46 c x jp 501). plants dwarf. pods big and curved with 8 green and sweet ovules. yield 12-13 t/ha. 24. kashi shakti iivr, varanasi this is a medium maturing variety developed through pedigree selection from the cross hara bona x ndvp-8. plant height is 90-98 cm and 50% plants bear flowers at 54-56 days after sowing. plants have dark green foliage with 11-12 pods per plant. pods are 10-10.5 cm long, attractive, filled with 7.5-8.5 bold seeds, shelling percentage 48-49; yield 14-16 t/ha. 25. kashi samridhi iivr, varanasi developed from the cross fc-1 x pm-5, semi-determinate, (vrpmr-11) plant ht. 65-75 cm. foliage dark green, short internode length. good attractive and well filled green smooth pods, 13-14 pods/plant, average pod weight is 5-6 g. 7-8 bold seed/pod, round in shape. recommended for states of uttar pradesh, bihar and punjab. late (90-100 days), resistant to shattering, avg. pod yield 10.2-13.0 t/ha 26. khapar kheda maharashtra it is a local selection. plants are tall growing. a popular double-podded cultivar and flowers in 65-70 days. pods are small and seeds are wrinkled. pods are 5-6 cm long and 4-5 seeded when fully developed. average green pods yield 5 to 6 t/ha. 27. lincoln iari katrain medium tall, plants bear double pods of 8-9 cm length and sickle shaped. introduced from pods are dark green. mature seeds wrinkled, dark green, sweet, 8-9 grains/ usa pod, first picking 85-90 days. shelling percentage is 46. fresh seeds are sweet. yield 6.8-10 t/ha. long shelf life. resistant to powdery mildew and fusarium wilt powdery mildew resistant powdery mildew resistant powdery mildew resistant resistant to pm, tolerant to leaf miner and pod borer. good for canning garden pea improvement in india j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 136 table 8. contd. sn variety source trait remarks 28. matter ageta 6 pau, ludhiana dwarf, high yielding variety developed at ludhinana through pedigree selection from the cross massey gem × harabona. plants are dwarf (40 cm), erect, vigorous and quick growing; foliage green and 1-2 pods are borne in a bunch; first picking within 50-55 days after sowing; pods are long, 12 to 15 pods per plant with 6-8 round green seeds. shelling per cent 44. the grains are sweet and taste is better, the seed is smooth, dented and light green with high dry matter, chlorophyll and crude protein. average pod yield 6 t/ha. 29. mithi phali pau, ludhiana plants are dwarf, gives high green edible pod. yield8t/ha. 30. narendra sabji ndau&t, plant height 70-75 cm, days to flower 50-54 days. recommended for matar-2 faizabad, up cultivation in punjab, uttar pradesh and bihar. moderately tolerant to powdery mildew, rust and major pests under field conditions. 31. narendra sabji ndau&t, developed at ndua&t, faizabad. plant tall (70-75 cm) and green in matar 4 faizabad, up colour. mature grains are wrinkled, 7-9 per pod and green in colour. recommended for up. average pod yield 10-11 t/ha. 32. narendra sabji ndau&t, developed through hybridization cks-123 x arkel followed by pedigree matar 6 faizabad, up selection at ndua&t, faizabad and notified by cvrc (notification no. 597 ce) dated 25.04.2006. plants are green, 45-55 cm tall, flowering starts in 30-35 days, early maturity, first green pod picking in 60-70 days after seed sowing. pods are 8 cm long filled with 7-8 green sweet seeds. recommended for punjab, u.p., bihar, and jharkhand. average pod yield 8.5-9.5 t/ha. 33. ooty-1 hrs, developed at tnau through pure line selection from the accession tnau, ooty ps 33. it is a dwarf type, yield potential of 11.9 t/ha in 90 days of crop duration. 34. p-8 pau ludhiana 7-8 seeds per pod, less sweet. shelling 47.3%. days to flowering 72. mature seeds green wrinkled. susceptible to powdery mildew. identified in 1985. 35. palam priya hpkv, palampur pedigree selection from the cross bonneville x p 388. plants are medium tall (60-67 cm), vigorous with dark green foliage and branching habit. the pods are borne in double and are smooth, straight, light green, long (8-9 cm) well filled (7-8 seeds/pod) with 60 % shelling. its green peas contain 15-16 % tss. the seeds become wrinkled upon maturity with light bluish green colour. on an average it gives 4-5 green pod pickings in hills with an average pod yield of 12.515 t/ha. 36. pant uphar gbpuat, developed at pantnagar through selection. pant height 70-75 cm with pantnagar relatively thin leaflets of light green in colour; flower white and two buds are borne per axil; pods are round and 7-8 cm in length with yellowish and wrinkled seeds. first picking starts 75 to 80 days after sowing. average pod yield 10 t/ha with 52% shelling. 37. pc-531 ludhiana mid season variety. pod maturity in 65-70 days. pods dark green, long (8-9cm), round and shelling 50%. average pod yield is 10 t/ha in 90 days. 38. perfection it is an introduced the plant is vigorous and medium tall and flowers are borne in doubles; new line variety from usa pods are about 8 cm long, dark green with 6-7 light green, sweet and wrinkled seeds. first picking starts after 85 days. it is a high yielding variety. average pod yield is 10 t/ha. 39. punjab 87 pau, ludhiana pant height 75.5 cm, leaves dark green and 1 to 2 pods per axil. pod maturity in 100 -120 days. pod length 9.3 cm. seeds bold, wrinkled and average seeds per pod 7.6. pod yield 10 to 12 t/ha. 40. punjab 89 pau, ludhiana pant height 92 cm, vigorous having more number (28-30) of well filled pods per plant. the pods are dark green, long having 9-10 sweet grains per pod with 55 % shelling. pods are borne in doubles. it takes 85-90 days for first picking. average green pod yield 15 t/ha. tolerant to high temperature. suitable for processing. resistant to white fly. resistant to powdery mildew, tolerant to leaf minor tolerant against pea stem fly. mohan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 137 table 8. contd. sn variety source trait remarks 41. phule priya mpkvv, rahuri suitable for rabi season. pods are straight, green, tender, sweet, 8-10 greens per pod. average pod yield 10-10.5 t/ha. recommended for maharashtra 42. pusa pragati iari, introduction from germany in 1983. pods long (10 cm), green with 9 seeds new delhi per pod; first picking 60-65 days; yield 7 t/ha. released in 1987. 43. swarna mukti harp, ranchi a mid season variety. recommended for cultivation in jharkhand, bihar and rajasthan yield : 20-25 t/ha 44. swarna rekha harp, ranchi early maturing selection from local material of bihar. it matures in about 120 days. plants are semi-spreading type with white flowers. seeds are round, smooth and creamy in colour with black hilum. it is suitable for green pods and dry seeds as well. its average yield is 8-10 t/ha of green pods and 1.5-2.0 t/ha of dry grains. 45. swarna tripti harp, ranchi recommended for cultivation in jharkhand, bihar and west bengal. yield: 24-28 t/ha. 46. sylvia iari katrain introduced from sweden. plants are tall; first blossom appears at 14 t h to 16 t h node after 60 days of sowing. pods are borne singly, yellowish in colour, long (12 cm) and curved without parchment type pericarp. pods are sweet and have general appearance of a medium sized french bean pod. 47. type 19 department of selection from a sample of varanasi district of up. it matures in 120 days. agriculture, it has dark green foliage and white flowers. seeds are wrinkled and varanasi,u.p greenish white. pods are ready for picking in about 75 days. average green pod yield 7-10 t/ha. 45% shelling. 48. vivek matar-3 vpkas, developed at almora through pedigree selection from the cross old almora sugar × early wrinkled dwarf 2-2-1. plant height 67 cm, determinate in habit with light green foliage, white flower and bear two pods in a bunch; pods are light green, 6.8 cm long, straight with 5 wrinkled seeds. first picking starts 100 days after sowing. average pod yield 10 t/ha with 46% shelling. identified in 1987 for zones i, iv, vii. 49. vivek matar-6 vpkas, developed at almora through hybridization of pant uphar × vl matar-3 almora and subsequent selections in advanced generations. plants are dwarf, vigorous with dark green foliage and white flowers. pods are light green, straight, medium sized (6-7 cm) and completely filled with 6 semi-wrinkled seeds of greenish white colour. first picking starts 125-130 days after sowing. average yield 10-11 t/ha. notified in 1997 by cvrc. recommended for uttarakhand hills, h.p., delhi, haryana and rajasthan. 50. vl-8 vpkas, plant height 65-70 cm, pods light green, pod aturity 135-140 days. almora, pod yield 11 – 12 t/ha. notified in 1997 by cvmrc. recommended for uttarkhand, himachal pradesh and jammu and kashmir. tolerant to powdery mildew. resistant to powdery mildew. resistant to powdery mildew. snap pea whole pod edible snap pea tolerant to powdery mildew and wilt moderately tolerant to cold and moisture stress tolerant to powdery mildew and white rot. 51. vivek matar 10 vpkas, plant height 62 – 65 cm. pods curved, dark green pods; fresh seeds, green and almora sweet; pod maturity 125-130 days. pod yield 9 – 11 t/ha. notified in 2008 by cvrc for uttarakhnad, h.p., j&k, up. 52. vrp 2 iivr, plants 50 cm tall. pods straight and medium sized. first harvest in 55-58. varanasi pod yield 10 t/ha. 53. vrp 3 iivr, mid season variety which flowers between early and mid season. varanasi pod yield 8 t/ha. 54. vrp-7 iivr mid season variety. pod maturity in 65-70 days. pods dark green, long (8-9cm) and shelling 50%. average pod yield is 9-10 t/ha in 90 days. 55. madhu plant height 130-150 cm, foliage yellowish green days to flowering 50-55 days, pods 12-15cm long, light green, smooth surface, 2-2.5 cm broad, 20.25 pods per plant and 5-6 seeds per pod. resistant to white rot, wilt, leaf blight and moderately resistant to powdery mildew and tolerant to pod-borer. garden pea improvement in india j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 138 germplasm status though large number of garden pea germplasm is available in different agricultural universities, the exact status of germplasm is presently not available. nbpgr, new delhi is having large number of vegetable germplasm collection including peas. recently iivr has been recognized as the nodal center for maintenance of vegetable germplasm collection at the national level and is presently maintaining 425 pea germplasm (iivr, 2014). table 11 roughly indicates the status of pea germplasm. a cursory look at the figure makes one to assume that more than 1200 pea germplasm is currently available in the country. however, the possibility that there might be duplications in these collections is not ruled out. inter institutional co-ordination at the national level between both icar institutes and the agricultural universities which hold these valuable germplasm will help in systematic conservation, cataloguing and documentation of all the available accessions including core collections for specific traits. this will facilitate their exchange and effective utilization in the breeding programmes. the following table shows the lines which are superior for earliness and for certain pod traits (kumar et al, 2006; amin et al, 2010). trait superior accessions earliness asauji, lucknow, bonia, hans, ec 3 no. of pods per plant plp-496, 279, 69, 5, 26, 50, 69, 179, 279, 496, ap-3, long pods ec 109171, 109176, 109190, 109195, ap-1, ap-3, bold pods ec-41 03, 6185, 95924, ap-3 mohan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 table 9. details of late varieties sn variety source trait remarks 1. np 29 iari new delhi plants are medium-tall with green foliage. first blossom appears at 14-16th node after 80 days from sowing, pods are ready to harvest after 100 to 110 days of sowing. pods are borne in double, green, straight, 7.5 cm long with 6-7 seeds. shelling percentage 50. 2. punjab 88 pau ludhiana developed at ludhiana through selections from the hybrid progeny of the cross pusa 02 × morrasis-55. plant height 75.5 cm, vigorous, erect with dark green foliage; one or two flowers per axil. flowering after 75 days and first picking 100-120 days after sowing. pods are dark green, long (8-10 cm) and slightly curved at centre with 7-8 green less sweet seeds. pod yield 10-12 t/ha with 47% of shelling. notified in 1980. 3. vivek matar 9 vpkas almora plant height 60-70 cm, pods are dark green, long, pod maturity 130-140 days. pod yield 9-11 t/ha. all pea growing areas of uttarakhand hills uttaranchal. notified in 2006 by svrc. 4. vivek matar 11 vpkas almora it was developed by hybridization between ‘azad pea 1’ × ‘prs-18-6-4-5-1’. plants are 50-60 cm tall. pods curved, dark green mostly double pods; pod length 8-9 cm, fresh seeds green and sweet; pod maturity 132-135 days. pod yield 9-11 t/ha. notified in 2010 by svrc for uttarakhand, h.p., j&k, up. suitable for dehydration purpose. tolerant to powdery mildew and white rot tolerant to powdery mildew table 10. popular varieties and recommended area/s for their cultivation (nhb, 2013) name of variety recommended area/s iari, new delhi bonneville all over india arkel all over india pusa pragati all over india iihr, bengaluru arka ajit punjab, tarai region of u.p., rajasthan, gujarat, haryana, delhi, karnataka, tamil nadu and kerala iivr, varanasi kashi nandini j&k, h.p., uttrakhand, punjab, tarai region of u.p., bihar, jharkhand. karnataka, tamil nadu and kerala kashi uday uttar pradesh g.b.u.a.&t., pant nagar pant uphar u.p. and uttarakhand pant matar-2 j&k, h.p., hills of u.p., punjab, tarai region of u.p., bihar and jharkhand pant sabji j&k, h.p., hills of u.p., punjab, matar-3 tarai region of u.p., bihar and jharkhand pant sabji j&k, h.p., hills of u.p., punjab, matar-4 tarai region of u.p., bihar and jharkhand pant sabji j&k, h.p., hills of u.p., punjab, matar-5 tarai region of u.p., bihar, maharashtra and jharkhand phule priya maharashtra tnau, coimbatore ooty 1 tamil nadu pole type ooty 1 tamil nadu csauat, kanpur azad p-3 u.p. azad p-2 punjab, tarai region of u.p., uttarakhand, bihar, jharkhand azad p-4 punjab, tarai region of u.p., uttarakhand, bihar, jharkhand azad p-5 punjab, tarai region of u.p., uttarakhand, bihar, jharkhand 139 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india table 11. germplasm reported from different centres sl. no. no. of germplasm name of the center reference accessions 1. 105 dr. y. s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan. jarial and sharma (2005) 2. 80 g.b. pant university of agriculture & technology, pantnagar. gupta and singh (2006) 3. 120 n.d. university of agriculture & technology, faizabad. singh and gautam (2007) 4. 50 pau, ludhiana kumar et al (2007a) 5. 54 institute of agricultural sciences, banaras hindu university, varanasi. yadav et al (2010) 6. 317 csk himachal pradesh krishi vishvavidyalaya, palampur. banyal et al (2011) 7. 120 iihr, bangalore iihr (2013) 8. 425 iivr, varanasi iivr (2014) table 12. accessions resistant to diseases. disease/pathogen source of resistance reference/s fusarium root rot pi 140165, pi 183910, 194006, king et al (1981) (fusarium solani f.sp. pisi) 210257, 223385 damping-off acs 140165, 1890, 19404 kraft and roberts (1970) (pythium ultimum) minnesota 494 a ii king et al (1981) powdery mildew continental, jp 501, in: kalloo (1993) (erysiphe pisi) vp 7906, ph1-1, hwvp 1 ec 326, 42529, 109190, 109196, amin et al (2010) t 10, p 185, p 288, pc 6578, b 4048, p 6587, p 6588, bhu 159, ic 4604, pmr-17, pmr-19, ks-245, ks-221, pandey et al (1999) jp-501, jp-9, n0 23, ndvp-250, p-19, ec-269291, jp-20 ec598655, ec598878, ec598704, rana et al (2012) ic278261 and ic218988 rust jp batri brown 3 and 4 narsinghani et al 1980 (uromyces fabae) pj 207508, 222117, ec 109188, amin et al (2010) ec 42959, ic 4604, pj 207508, wilt (fusarium oxyporium f.sp. pisi) new era hagedorn (1953) kala nagni, lmr 20, lmr 110, jp 501 kalloo (1993) early perfection, bonneviella, pl 43, 124, 6101, glacier amin et al (2010) fusarium root rot dia, nike, k 7589, r 4006, helia rybnikova and rudikova (1990) (fusarium oxyporium) ascochyta blight kinnauri’ rastogi and saini (1984a) (ascochyta pisi) k 1632, 3055, 5072, 5117 vladimirtseva et al (1990) pea root rot pi 166159, 167250, 169604, rastogi and saini (1984b) (aphanomyces euteiches) 180693, 180868, minnesota 494 king et al (1981) pea enation mosaic virus pi 193586, pi 193835 stevenson and hagedorn (1971) pea seed-borne psb, mv-pam, psbmv-p4 provvidenti and alconero (1988) mosaic virus x 78122, 78123, 78124, muehlabawer (1983) 78125, 78126, 78128 bacterial blight onward and 3080 taylor (1972) (p. syringae pv. pisi) bean yellow bonneville schroeder and provvidenti (1971) mosaic virus wisconsin perfection hagedorn (1951) pea leaf-roll virus rando, novette, starlett paszkiewicz (1983) pea mosaic virus perfection type america wonder, gem, schroeder and provvidenti (1966) dwarf white sugar, little marval amin et al (2010) bean virus 2 new era, wisconsin, perfection johnson (1957) source: (kalloo 1993; amin et al, 2010) 140 genetic variability sharma and bora (2013) reported that the genotypic coefficient of variances (gca) varied from 8.14 (pod length) to 33.35 (green pod yield per plant). the estimates of gca were found highest for green pod yield per plant (33.35), followed by plant height (26.82) and number of green pod per plant (21.02), respectively. kumaran et al (1995a), vikas and singh (1999a), singh et al (1996), sureja and sharma (2000) and kalloo et al (2005) also reported high estimates of genotypic variability for yield and its contributing traits. kumar et al (2010) reported maximum phenotypic coefficient of variation (42.69%) for number of pods per plant followed by yield per plot (38.76%). it was moderate for duration of availability of green pods (18.02%). comparatively low phenotypic coefficient of variation was shown by 100-green seed weight (13.58%), days to 50% flowering (5.18%) and days to first picking (4.28%). guleria et al (2009) reported significant varietal variations in the mature dry seeds of pea genotypes for total protein (14.95% to 22.44%), albumins (3.30% to 6.35%), globulins (7.97% to 10.53 %), glutelins (1.15% to 3.05 %) and prolamins (0.46% to 1.50 %). rathp and dhaka (2007), the magnitude of genotypic coefficients of variation (gcv) and phenotypic coefficients of variation (pcv) were comparatively higher for seed yield per plant, dry matter yield, plant height and number of pods per plant as compared to other characters. these findings are supported by earlier workers (dhobal 1996; singh vikas et al, 1996; kumar et al, 1998; tyagi et al, 1997). according to olivia et al (2010) the analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences for days to first flower, length of internodes, days to first green pod harvest, length of pods, number of pods/plant, pod yield/ plant, seed yield per plant, plant height, 100 seed weight, shelling percentage and protein content, except breadth of pods which was significant at 5% level. heritability and genetic advance kumaran et al (1995a), vikas and singh (1999), singh et al (1996), sureja and sharma (2000) and kalloo et al (2005) reported high estimates of broad sense heritability were recorded for plant height (97.84%), days to first green pod picking (95.80), 100 green pod weights (94.69%), green pod yield per plant (93.10), and days to 50% flowering (92.25%), whereas remaining characters revealed moderate heritability. the high genetic advance as percent of mean along with high heritability was obtained for green pod yield per plant (66.28), plant height (54.67), number of green pod per plant (38.28), 100 green pod weight (32.07). similar findings were also reported earlier by kumar et al (2000), mahanta et al (2001) and chaudhary and sharma (2003). pallavi et al (2013) recorded highest heritability 99.97% for days of flowering. heritability estimates were moderate for node of first flower (78.27%); followed by 100-seed weight (68.25%), plant height (65.84%), and number of primary branches per plant (53.50%). similar to this investigation, joshi and thomas (1987) observed high heritability for 100seed weight and plant height. high heritability was also found for plant height at maturity by narsinghani and saxena (1991). nandi et al (1995) reported moderately high genetic advance and heritability for plant height, 100-seed weight and pod length. lenka et al (1998) also indicated that seed yield and 100-seed weight are all heritable traits. high genetic advance coupled with high heritability was observed for plant height and 100-seed weight. it indicated genotypic variation for these traits was probably due to high additive gene effects and thus early generation selection for highly heritable characters is expected to give better results. raffi and nath (2004) also reported the additive gene effect for pods per plant, 100-seed weight, plant height and yield per plant. kumar et al (2010) reported maximum genetic advance was exhibited by pods per plant followed by biological yield per plant and plant height with their high magnitude of genotypic coefficient of variability and heritability indicating the presence of additive effects for these characters. sharma et al (2009b) estimated heritability ranged from 49.25% in shelling percent to 95.95% in pod breadth. high heritability along with more genetic gain was expressed by pod breadth (94.95% & 63.16%). total phenols (g/100g) of leaves (94.37% & 84.30%) and high heritability with moderate genetic gain was recorded for number of pods/ plant (93.41% & 25.39%), node number at which first flower appears (94.93% & 23.68%) and pod yield per plant (79.17% & 22.96%) indicating presence of additive genes in governing these traits and the selection based on the phenotypic performance of the plants could prove to be very effective in the improvement of these characters which could be retained in further generations. kumarai et al (2008) recorded highest heritability for shelling percentage (93.1%) followed by nodes to first flower (87.7%), 100 seed weight (87.4%), number of pods per plant (85.3%), seed vigour index (85.0%) and pod length (80.1%). moderate heritability estimates were recorded for rest of the traits viz., number of seeds per pod (78.0%), plant height (77.5%), total soluble solids (76.2%), pod yield per plant (73.3%) and powdery mohan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 141 mildew intensity (74.1%). high heritability coupled with moderate genetic gain was observed for nodes to first flower, number of pods per plant, 100 seed weight and seed vigour index. these results indicated that an effective selection for this trait could be done. similar inferences were drawn by kumaran et al (1995a). moderate heritability and genetic gain was observed for number of seeds per pod, which was in conformity with singh and saklani (1973). singh (1995), dhobal (1996) and gupta et al (1998) reported that high heritability coupled with high genetic advance over the mean was observed for plant height, dry matter yield, 100 seed weight and grain yield per plant indicating the preponderance of additive gene effect and desired improvement in these characters can be brought through direct selection of these component traits. mahanta et al (2001) also observed high heritability coupled with high genetic advance for seed yield per plant, pods per plant, plant height, seeds per pod and 100 seed weight, suggesting additive gene effects. the findings also get supported by kumar et al (1998). pod length and number of seeds per pod exhibited high heritability with low genetic advance indicating non-additive genetic effects. yadav et al (2010) reported that heritability (h2) value was highest for plant height (96.70) followed by seed yield per plant (96.20), 100-seed weight (95.90%) and seeds per pod (90.60). high heritability estimates for these characters were also reported by sureja et al (2000), chaudhary et al (2003), and singh et al (2006). the genetic advance (ga) expressed as percentage of mean, was maximum for seed yield per plant (72.00%) followed by pods per plant (55.39%) and 100-seed weight (47.96%). the minimum ga value was recorded for days to maturity (10.41).the results are in harmony with tyagi and srivastava (2002), vikas et al (1999). seed yield per plant, 100-seed weight, plant height and pods per plant exhibited high heritability along with high genetic advance. akhilesh et al (2007) and sharma et al (2003b) also reported this estimates of heritability for different traits. the studies further revealed the medium value of heritability for number of seeds per pod, shelling per cent, number of primary branches, number of pods per plant, 100 seed weight and seed yield per plant. these findings are in agreement with those of singh et al (2003). the high value of genetic advance in per cent of mean was recorded for plant height, length of internodes, length of pods, days taken to first flower, number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, number of primary branches, shelling percent, seed yield per plant and pod yield per plant. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india singh et al (2003) and akhilesh et al (2007) have also reported that estimate of genetic advance for different traits showed that high heritability with high genetic advances was recorded for length of pod, length of internodes, plant height and days to appearance of first flower. correlation and path analysis according to kumarai et al (2008) the genetic correlation coefficients were higher than their respective phenotypic correlation coefficients for most of the associations, which may be attributed to the low effect of environment on the character association. pod yield per plant was positively and significantly correlated with number of pods per plant, 100 seed weight and seed vigour, which suggested the possibilities of improving pod yield per plant improvement of these characters. similarly plant height had significant positive correlation with number of pods per plant and 100 seed weight. maximum positive direct effect on pod yield was shown by number of pods per plant, followed by number of seeds per pod. among the various indirect effects on pod yield, high positive indirect effects via number of pods per plant were recorded for the traits viz., 100 seed weight, plant height, total soluble solids, seed vigour, and nodes to first flower. high positive indirect effect was also recorded for pod length via number of seeds per pod. high negative indirect effect was observed for powdery mildew severity via number of pods per plant, for total soluble solids via number of seeds per pod, for shelling percentage via nodes to first flower, for 100 seed weight via plant height and for nodes to first flower via shelling percentage. sharma et al (2009b) reported that the path coefficient revealed that at genotypic levels, number of pods per plant (0.7921) exhibited highest significant and positive direct effect on pod yield per plant, followed by node at which first flower appears (0.0393) and plant height (0.0046). high positive indirect effects via pods plant were recorded for traits viz. total phenols (0.4581), plant height (0.1396) and node at which first flower appears (0.1084). thus the results showed that number of pods per plant total phenols, node at which first flower appeared and plant height were the most appropriate characters to select for high green pod yield in garden pea. present findings lend credence to (kumaran, et al 1995b, shah and lal 1990, sharma and kaali 1998). according to yadav et al (2010) the seed yield per plant showed significant and positive correlation with pods per plant, 100-seed weight and plant height. 100-seed weight 142 had significant and positive correlation with pod length and plant height. number of seeds per pod was strongly associated with plant length. pods per plant were positively and significantly associated with number of primary branches. the trend of correlation coefficients revealed positive and highly significant association of yield per plant with plant height, pods per plant and 100 seed weight. srivastava and singh (1989), vikas et al (1999) and kumar et al (2003) earlier reported a similar trend. the correlation analysis revealed positive and highly significant association of the traits viz., days to flowering and days to maturity, pod length and seeds per pod, pods per plant, seed yield per plant and 100 seed weight with pod length and seed yield per plant. for path coefficient the direct and indirect effect of yield contributing traits on yield revealed that the maximum positive direct effect was exhibited by pods per plant followed by 100-seed weight, days to maturity and pod length. high direct effects for above traits were also reported by kumar et al (2003) and arya et al (2004). the high positive direct effect of number of pods per plant on yield per plant resulted from strong and positive correlation between them. the pod length had positive direct effect on seed yield (0.058) but it had relatively low correlation with yield per plant. the correlation between seeds per pod (0.001) and seed yield was positive (0.044) due to positive indirect effect via pod length, 100-seed weight, days to maturity and number of primary branches. finding of path analysis indicated that pods per plant, seed weight and days to maturity had high direct effect towards seed yield accompanied with moderate to high correlation with yield per plant. according to rathp and dhaka (2007) the path coefficient analysis revealed that direct and indirect effects at genotypic level were higher than corresponding phenotypic effects. highest positive direct effect on seed yield per plant was exhibited by number of pods per plant (0.61), 100-seeds weight (0.26 g) and dry matter yield per plant (0.24 g). highest indirect positive effect was observed via number of pods per plant (0.61), dry matter yield (0.16 g) and harvest index (0.23). number of pods per plant, pod length, number of pods per node, dry matter yield per plant, number of seeds per pod, harvest index and 100-seed weight showed significantly positive correlation with seed yield per plant. it was observed that seed yield per plant is directly affected by number of pods per plant, harvest index and number of pods per plant while it is indirectly affected via number of pods per node, 100-seed weight, plant height and number of branches per plant. heterosis an improvement in yield of self-pollinated crops like garden pea is effected mainly through selection of genotypes with desirable traits in the recombinant inbred populations resulting from the hybridization of parental lines. heterosis has been recognized in pea since the early studies of mendel (1866). in india, although heterosis in pea was reported, the cleistogamous nature of flower and non availability of male sterility system restricts its application in production of commercial hybrids (sarawat et al, 1994; singh et al, 1994; tyagi and srivastava, 2001) however, the phenomenon of heterosis is helpful in prediction of potential crosses which are likely to give transegressive segregants (ganesh et al, 2008). heterosis for seed yield ranged from 30 to 56% depending on the environment and was greater in poor environments compared to the better environments. this effect is primarily due to increases in the number of pods per plant (sarawat et al, 1994). ganesh et al (2008) estimated heterosis over better parent for seed yield and related traits in 16 crosses. significant average heterosis over better parent was observed for plant height, pods per plant and seed yield per plant. heterosis for seeds per pod and seed weight was negative or low. heterosis for seed yield per plant and pods per plant was mainly due to over dominance. brar et al (2012) observed that the cross p-1 and arkel x c-96 showed maximum significant heterosis for early flowering and can be exploited for early yield. katiyar (1994) also revealed significant heterobeltiosis for days to 50% flowering and the cross combination c-308 x c-400 exhibited maximum significant positive heterosis (40.97%) over better parent and also recorded high sca effects for plant height. these findings are in in agreement with those of srivastava et al (1986) and mishra et al (1993). the cross combination(s) ma6 x c-400 for pod length; arkel x c-400 for number of pods per plant; jm-5 x c-96 and ndvp-10 x c-400 for shelling percentage exhibited highest significant maximum positive heterosis. the cross-combinations p-1 x pb-89, ks-268 x pb-89, pmr-19 x c-400 for number of grains per plant, and ks268 x c-400, p-1 x c-400, ma-6 x c400 for green pod yield per plant, exhibited significant and positive heterosis (brar et al 2012). bisht and singh (2010) reported that the yield and related traits were most heterotic characters, whereas, number of green pods per plant, number of primary branches per plant, number of nodes per main stem, green j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 143 pod yield, dry seed yield, showed high heterosis over mid parent, better parent or standard parent. e-6 × arkel and e-6 x vl-7 were the best combinations over the standard checks for days to first flowering. singh and santhoshi (1989) reported that heterosis in yield was due to more number of primary branches per plant. awasthi et al (2009) reported negative significant heterosis and heterobeltiosis for earliness. sood et al. (2006) reported that matar ageta-6 x ji-2436 exhibited heterobeltiosis for earliness and green pod yield. according to karnwal and kushwaha (2010) among all 28 crosses, high heterotic response for pods per plant was exhibited by the cross darl-403 × pant uphar. whereas, darl-403 × pant uphar f1 showed highest magnitude of heterosis for primary branches. the highest heterosis response for nitrogen fixing (nodules per plant) was expressed by the cross darl403 × vp-316. while, highest heterosis for nodules volume per plant was exhibited by two crosses darl-403 × vp-316 and arkel × punjab ageta. heterosis for nodules dry weight per plant was exhibited by the cross azad p-3 × pant uphar. according to sharma and sharma (2013a), only 15 crosses out of 28, revealed significant positive heterobeltiosis and highest magnitude of heterosis was recorded in pb-89 x psm-3. the highest economic heterosis was recorded in pb-89 x psm-3. heterosis for pod yield per plant was also reported pandey et al (2006). the cross combinations green pearl x dpp 9411 and azad p1 x sugar giant with high heterosis for pod yield and related traits were reported by sharma et al (2007). bora et al (2009) reported significant and highest heterosis for pod length, number of green pods per plant and for green pod yield per plant and several other characters. among parents dvp-2, vrp-6 and pmr-32 were observed to be top performing parents for pod yield and its contributing traits. however, for quality traits pusa pragati, pmr-32, vrp-6 and dvp-2 were best. the f1 hybrid dvp-2 x pusa pragati had manifested significant high heterosis for quality as well as yield and its contributing traits. sharma et al (2007) observed that the cross combinations green pearl x dpp 9411 and azad p 1 x sugar giant showed high heterosis and sca effects for pod yield and related traits. green pearl x sugar giant combination was the most promising for early flowering and green pod picking. for most of the traits including pod yield per plant, both additive and non-additive gene actions were of prime importance. according to sharma and bora (2013) the cross vrp-5 x arkel revealed significant highest heterosis for pod length over better parent and standard check, respectively. the cross combination pmr-32 x snow pea revealed significant positive heterosis for number of green pods per plant pod yield per plant over better parents. mishra (1998) and shah and mohammed (2005), also reported significant heterosis for number of pods per plant, and shah and mohammod (2005) and singh and mir (2005) for green pod yield per plant. the manifestation of heterosis for these pod weight had also been reported earlier by sharma et al (1998) and kumar et al (2000). patil et al (2011) observed that green pod yield per plant exhibited high amount of heterosis over superior parent. the cross combination of azad p5 x ks-150 exhibited maximum heterosis over superior parent rao and narsinghani (1987) observed the highest heterosis over the better parent in the cross kinnauri x r 701 it was also observed the parents having highest genetic divergence did not produce heterosis of the same magnitude. on the other hand, the crosses possessing lowest d2 values produced different heterotic effects. this means that the parent of the same cluster can also produce different heterotic values. awasthi et al (2009) observed that the crosses, ec 328758 x swarnamer showed positive significant heterosis for seed yield. similarly, ram et al (1986), tyagi and srivastava (1999), kumar et al (2000) and sharma et al (2007) observed heterobeltiosis for seed yield pods per plant. misra (1998), gupta et al (1998) and pathak and jamval (2002) concluded that while cross ec 328758 x swarnamer exhibited positive significant heterosis for pods per plant and seed yield per plant and ec 269396 x pusa pragati for early maturity. combining ability studies the combining ability analysis is the most important and efficient tool in choosing the desirable parents for hybridization programmes. the nature and magnitude of two kinds of combining abilities, i.e. general combining ability (gca) and specific combining ability (sca) helps the breeder in adopting appropriate breeding methodology (bisht and singh, 2010). combining ability analysis on the basis of diallel mating system is one of the most appropriate methods to identify the best combiners, which can be utilized for hybridization programme. it gives information about the nature of gene action and the relative magnitudes of fixable (additive) and non-fixable (non-additive/dominance) genetic variations (borah, 2009). j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india 144 the concept of combining ability was proposed by sprague and tatum (1942). they partitioned the genetic variances into two components (i) variance due to general combining ability (gca) and (ii) variance due to specific combining ability (sca). the gca is defined as the average performance of parental lines or strains in a set of cross combinations. whereas in sca certain cross combinations relatively show better or low performance on the basis of average performance of the parental lines. singh et al (1972) evaluated the progeny of a diallel set excluding reciprocals for yield and the yield contributing traits and reported that both gca and sca variances were significant for all the traits. the gca effects were prominent in characters such as plant height, pod length and pod width, where as in number of pods per plant and number of seeds per pods, sca effects were more. das and kumar (1975) observed that both gca and sca variances were predominant for yield, number of branches, number of pods and seeds per pod, while sca variances were higher for seed yield per plant. venkateswarlu and singh (1981) reported that both general and specific combining ability were important for plant height, primary branches, pods/ plant, 100-seed weight and seed yield/plant. the mean squares from diallel analysis of the f1 crosses showed that the variances due to both gca and sca were highly significant for all the character studied. singh et al (1986a) had reported tht both general and specific combining ability mean squares were significant for all the traits studied and varieties rachna, p-29 and p-185 were the best general combiners followed by hfp-4 and dola. in general, a positive relationship was recorded between sca effects. ec-33866 was found to be good general combiners for protein content. srivastava et al (1986) observed that the best general combiners were also best specific combiners. gupta and lodhi (1988) evaluated nine cultivars of garden found that parents ec-109189, t163, ec-09196 and p-23 were good general combiners for days to pod formation and days to maturity. cross combinations ec -109189 × t-163, ec-109189 × p-23, ec109189 × ec-109196, t-163 × ec-109196 and t-163 × p23 showed significant negative sca effects and thus, were promising for selecting early genotypes. singh and singh (1989b) studied genetics of earliness and days to maturity in a diallel cross and suggested that both additive and nonadditive genetic variance were controlling these characters. the parents ec-33866, a-474-228, gc-322 and sel-2 were good general combiners. the performance of parents was positively associated with their gca effects. the sca effect was found for early flowering in ec-33866 x ed followed by sel-2 × t163. karmakar and singh (1990) reported that in a diallel experiment that jp-169 was the best general combiner for yield and its components followed by vp-7802. the genotype vp-8005 was good general combiner for seeds per pod and arkel for dwarf stature. glorisa × jp 169 was the best specific combination for yield and yield component characters followed by arkel × vp-7802 and jp 169 × vp 8005. arkel × vp 8005. karnwal and kushwaha (2010) concluded that, the parents darl403, pant uphar and psm-3 were good general combiner for both pod yield per plant and nitrogen fixing nodules per plant. the five crosses namely vl-9 × pant uphar, vl-9 × darl-403, darl403 × pant uphar, darl-403 × vp-316 and psm-3 × darl403 are important for developing lines with good yield potential and high nitrogen fixation. kumar and bal (1995) reported bonneville to be the best general combiner. the cross combinations wando × p-35, arkel × p-35, hara bonna × gc-141, arkel × gc141 and arkel × gc-141 were the best specific combiners for pods per plant, pod length, number of seeds per pod, hundred seed weight and yield per plant respectively. panda et al (1996) were found parents ph-1, huvp-1, ec-33866 and vl-6 to be good general combiners for green pod yield, number of seeds per pod, days to first picking of green pods and the cross combination huvp-1 × ec-33866 was the best specific combination for total green pod yield per plant. singh and mishra (1996) studied heterosis and combining ability in 6 × 6 diallel set of mid season peas and found cultivar bonneville was the best general combiner followed by vp-7906. the estimates of sca effects showed that cross bonneville × jp-169 performed best for pod length, pod width and grains per pod. however, 10 out of 15 cross combinations (vp-7906 × c-152 being highest) showed negative sca for days to 50% flowering, which tends towards the earliness. in most of the cases, sca variances were found to be higher than those of gca variances for early maturity. bhardwaj and kohli (1998) found that the parents vl-3, lincoln, kinnauri, ageta-6 and arkel were good general combiners for yield and yield traits. they had observed that the crosses showing high estimates of sca effects usually did not involve both the parents having high gca effects. most of the crosses showing significant and positive sca effects involved high × low general combiners. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 145 narayan et al (1998) studied combining ability from data derived on pod yield and three quality components viz., dry matter content, total soluble solids and protein content and six yield components in pea varieties and their 15 f1 cross combinations. the cultivar bonneville was the best combiner for all the quality traits. sharma (1999) observed that the parents azad p-1, palam priya and vl-7 were the best general combiners, while cross combination vl-7 × dpp-13 showed significant and positive sca effects for all 5 yield components except grains per pod. sharma et al (2000) carried out combining ability analysis from diallel cross of pea cultivars and found that gca variance were significant for all characters except pod breadth for which sca variance was higher. the per se performance of parents and crosses was usually associated with the combining ability effects. singh et al (2001) derived information on combining ability in garden pea involving twenty one crosses and seven parents. the gca and sca variances were highly significant for all the traits (days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of primary branches per plant, number of pods per plant and pod length). the sca variances were predominant in comparisons to gca variances for all the characters that indicated the greater contribution of non-additive gene action in the expression of these characters. kumar and jain (2002) conducted field trial with 8 × 8 diallel analysis in garden pea and observed that variety arka ajeet showed highest gca effects for characters including number of pods per plant and plant height. the cultivar had revealed bonneville higher gca for earliness, number of pods per plant and pod yield per plant. cross combination arka ajit × bonneville had revealed highest sca for pod yield per plant and number of pods per plant followed by pmr20 × ks-136. singh and mishra (2002) derived information on combining ability in 10 × 10 diallel set. the mean sum of squares due to gca and sca variances were highly significant for all the characters except seeds per pod. the parents pdp-52 and azad p-1 were the best general combiners for seed yield per plant. three cross combinations pdp-23 x pdp-52 in f1 and pdp-33 × pdp-55 and pdp41 × pdp-55 in f2 had exhibited desirable significant sca effects for four characters. dixit (2003) reported that the cross combinations ipf × kpmr and ipf98-9 × ms ndp90-1 showed significant and desirable sca effects as well as high per se performance for pod yield per plant and number of pods per plant. the cross combination ipf-98-9 × ndp-90-1 showed significant sca effects and good performance for plant height. singh and singh (2003) evaluated f1 and f2 generations of pea in a 10 × 10 diallel set of crosses. the magnitude of sca effects was recorded higher than gca effects for all the traits under investigation except days to first flowering and days to maturity. zaman and hazarika (2005) derived information on general and specific combining ability effects. parent rachna and hup-2 were found to be good general combiners for green pod yield and most of the other characters. azad pea was good general combiner for earliness. the cross combinations rachna × azad pea, rachna × hudp-6 and azad pea × hup-2 exhibited higher and significant sca effects for yield and majority of the characters. ranjan et al (2005) conducted field trial involving 7 × 7 diallel mating design excluding reciprocals for yield and its components. parents kpmr-327, kpmr-228, ndp-93 were observed as good general combiner and crosses hup-15 ×kpmr-327, kpmr-327 × lfp-179 as superior cross combinations for yield contributing characters. pandey et al (2006) reported that combining ability analysis showed significant difference for gca and sca variance for all the characters. parent lincoln appeared to be one of the best combiners for all the traits including plant height in desired direction. on the basis of combining ability studies general combiners for plant height (dwarfness, ud-1, lincoln), pods per plant (pahari matar, nc-64086), pod length (lincoln, j-4), seeds per pod (lincoln, up-7839), pods yield per plant (lincoln, nc-64086) and arkel ud-1 for total soluble solids were identified. sood et al (2006) reported that the varieties palam priya and ji-2334 were the best parent for protein content. bonneville proved to be the best combiner for pod yield per plant, shelling percentage, dry matter content, and protein content, whereas lincoln and vl-3 were the best combiners for all the traits except shelling percentage and protein content. these parents also produced some crosses with high sca effects for more than one trait. bonneville × lincoln exhibited positive significant sca effects for all the characters except dry matter content, while as solan nirog × kiannauri recorded significant and positive sca effects for all traits except pod yield per plant (raj, 2006). the prevalence of additive and non-additive gene action in the inheritance of yield and quality traits suggested that the suitability of recurrent selection in succeeding generations for the development of transgressive segregants. singh et al (2007) conducted a field study with 10 × 10 diallel analysis (without reciprocals) in edible podded pea. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india 146 the mean squares for general combining ability were observed higher than those of specific combining ability in all the characters. variety sugar bon showed highest gca for days to 50% flowering and number of branches per plant and the second highest gca for plant height. variety mithiphali recorded highest gca effects for total and marketable green pod yield per plant. cross combination sugar daddy × jp-19 recorded highest specific combining ability for total and marketable green pod yield per plant followed by early snap × mithiphali. sharma et al (2007) carried out a line × tester analysis involving 10 promising lines and 2 testers having wider genetic base for pod yield and related horticultural traits in garden pea at diverse environments at kukumseri (dry-temperate) and palampur (sub-temperate) during summer 2004 and winter 2004 and 2005, respectively. among the parents, green pearl, azad p 1, dpp 9418-06 and dpp 9411 were observed as good general combiners for pod yield/plant and majority of the component traits. the cross combinations green pearl × dpp 9411 and azad p 1 × sugar giant showed high heterosis and sca effects for pod yield and related horticultural traits. the cross green pearl × sugar giant was the most promising for early flowering and green pod picking. for powdery mildew incidence, the cross vrpmr 10 × sugar giant where both parents revealed high negative gca effects also showed significant negative sca effect and heterosis. for most of the traits including pod yield/plant, both additive and non-additive gene actions were of prime importance. kalia and sood (2009) evaluated f1’s and f2 progenies of eight divergent parents mated in diallel fashion excluding reciprocals for combining ability in green pea for the horticultural characters. however, the sca variance component was predominant indicating the importance of non-additive gene effects for all the characters except for peas per pod and pod yield which were influenced by additive gene action, suggesting their improvement through pure line selection. palam priya was found to be the best general combiner for all traits and is thus the most suited as parent for improving productivity and other desirable traits in garden pea. to ensure further increase in pod yield along with high protein content, cross combinations involving desirable yield components is advocated, with ji 1559 × matar ageta 6 as the best combination. to further improve pod yield, inclusion of f1 combinations with high sca and parents with good gca in multiple crosses, biparental mating, or diallel selective mating could be a worthwhile approach. singh et al (2010) observed higher values of variance due to gca for days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, pod length, number of developed ovules per pod, shelling percentage and green pod yield per plant showed presence of additive gene action while it was non additive for number of productive branches per plant and number of pods per plant based on both the generations. parents ‘ks226’, ‘ks-225’, ‘ks-136’, ‘azad p-1 and ‘azad p-3’ were good general combiners for green pod yield based on both the generations. cross combinations namely ‘kpmr-184 × ks-136’, ‘rachna x ks-225’, ‘ks-195 x ap-3’, ‘kpmr184 × mutant pea’ and ‘mutant × ks-136’ in f1, ‘ks-195 × ks-225’, ‘kpmr-184 × ap-3’, ‘mutant × ks-226’, ‘ks226 × ap-1’ and ‘kpmr-65 × ks-226’ in f2 were good as specific combinations for green pod yield. majority of these crosses fall in the high × low general combiners. the crosses between table × field pea gave higher yield than table × table or field × field pea. sirohi and singh (2013) reported lines hppc 41, hppc 77, hppc 91 and hppc 94 for leaf area and total chlorophyll content and hppc 60, hppc 67 and hppc 84 for specific leaf weight were good general combiners. while hppc 67 × hppc 63, hppc 69 × lincoln, and hppc 94 × lincoln were the promising crosses for specific leaf weight, chlorophyll-a and chlorophyll-b contents, respectively, on the basis of specific combining ability. genotype × environment (g × e) interactions genotypes selected in a breeding program, before they are commercially released need to be tested at different locations for few years in order to select superior lines based on the genotype × environment (g × e) interaction and their stability across these situations. to determine the extent of the g × e interaction, a simple regression analysis of stability parameters is used by analyzing parameters of experiments conducted over years and/or locations (eberhart and russell, 1966). rana et al (2006) evaluated 28 genotypes of garden pea in six environments for pod yield and quality traits and reported that azad p-i, dpp9418-06 and pb-88 were promising and stable genotypes for conducive environment, while the genotype ndvp 9 was suitable for poor environment for pod yield per plant and tss. in addition to them, dpp 9411 also showed consistent performance over all the environments for pod yield per plant and chlorophyll content. thus, based on these results, azad p-i, dpp 9418-06, pb-88, ndvp 9 and dpp 9411 may be recommended for commercial cultivation in garden pea growing belts of himachal pradesh. sirohi and gaurav j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 147 (2008) reported stability analysis of 30 pea genotypes for 16 characters grown over eight environments. the genotype × environment interaction was significant for all the characters except for pod length and number of seeds per pod indicating varied phenotypic expression of most of genotypes in different environments. the genotype dmr7, l-116, p-1852 and kpmr-157 were identified as stable genotypes for yield. male sterility in peas, the first instance of male sterile mutant gene acting during pre-meiosis was recorded by nirmala and kaul (1991). here, the anther development and pmc differentiation occurs normally. however, later, their chromatin and nucleolus degenerate and they do not develop a callose wall. thus, while the gene action is pre-meiotic, the mutant is ameiotic functionally. pisum sativum genome is a rich source of ms genes, 38 recorded by gottschalk and kaul (1974) and 8 by nirmala (1990). the ms genes act differentially at most all the stages of microsporogenesis (kaul 1988; kaul and nirmala 1991; 1993, nirmala and kaul 1991, 1993). though the facets and pathways of ms gene action in pisum mutants are diverse and innumerable, the consequences are the same viz. inhibition of the formation, promotion or development of functional pollen grains. male sterility in pea had not been reported to occur naturally until singh and singh (1995) characterized a spontaneous mutant with a single recessive gene conferring male sterility observed in a ‘longittee’ cultivar. the plant had whitetranslucent anthers, and was male sterile. the inheritance of this mutant was studied in a cross involving the mutant and the mother parent and their f 1, f2, f 3 and bc1f1generations. results suggested that the sterile character was genetic and due to a recessive gene. prior to this discovery, several male sterile mutants were generated using a variety of mutagenesis treatments (nirmala and kaul, 1991). all male sterile genes which have been reported act as recessive traits and nearly all the mutants have full female fertility (kaul, 1988). two ms genes (ms-3 and ms-10) exhibited reduced female fertility in addition to male sterility. many of the male sterile (ms) genes which have been reported act during the post-meiotic stage. sterility of the male gametophyte occurs through a variety of mechanisms, beginning during pre-meiosis through post-meiotic events; however, most cases of sterility involve post-meiotic events (kaul, 1988; kaul and nirmala, 1989). by ems, des and gamma ray treatment in arkel and bonneville pea varieties, three male sterile mutants, msg-1, msg-7 and msg-8 were induced in pisum sativum (nirmala and kaul, 1991). sterility in each of these is conditioned by single recessive genes, the three genes being non-allelic. whereas in one mutant, the ms gene acts during pre-meiosis, in the other two the genes act during post-meiosis. in both the post-meiotic mutants, male meiosis was normal. in both the post-meiotic mutants, micro spores degenerate fully. male sterility in all the three mutants was complete while female fertility was normal. kaul and nirmala (1993) reported, dyssynapsis, involving lack or impaired synaptic pairing, confined only to the male sex was detected in a 0.05% des induced mutant of pisum sativum variety arkel. this anomaly is controlled by a single nuclear recessive gene msg4, nonallelic to the other msg genes isolated in p. sativum genome. the synaptic anomaly leads to abnormal male meiosis resulting in degenerated microspore formation rendering the mutant total male sterile. nirmal and kaul (1994) have isolated two male sterile mutants msg5 and msg6 from m2 progeny of 4hr 0.05% ems and 0.1% des treated seeds of bonneville and arkel, respectively. msg 5 induces male sterility at mi stage and msg6 induces at pii stage. methods for breeding improvement of pea has been undertaken at several centres in the country. some of the important centers where garden pea breeding work is in progress are: bhu (varanasi), csaua&t (kanpur), gbpuat (pantnagar), harp (ranchi), hau (hisar), hpkv (palampur), iari (new delhi), iari (katrain), iihr (bangalore), iivr (varanasi), jnkvv (jabalpur), ndau&t (faizabad), pau (ludhiana) and vpkas (almora). the improvement of garden pea in india started in around the year 1940. initially the main emphasis in pea improvement has been on early maturity, yield, and quality. later on the focus has shifted to the midseason varieties with resistance to diseases. intensive work has been undertaken on breeding for resistance to diseases (powdery mildew, fusarium wilt and rust) at several centers in the country and for insect pests (bruchus, leaf miner) at jnkvv, jabalpur. work on breeding for resistance to leaf miner was taken up at hau, hisar (amin et al, 2010). pea being a self pollinated crop can very well be improved through methods commonly practiced in the improvement of self pollinated crops. these methods tend to follow the systematic sequence of steps developed for utilization to their best advantages. following methods are mostly commonly used for pea improvement (kumar et al, 2006). j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india 148 1. introduction: most cultivated varieties in india have been introduced from various european countries and the u.s.a. arkel, meteor, early badger perfection newline, little marvel and superb are introductions (kumar et al, 2006). introduction was the main method of improvement followed in earlier days. cultivar bonneville still occupies large area. earlier t 19 was grown for a short duration. yet another line np 29 once grown is hardly seen but lincolin continues to be grown by farmers even today, although at a very few places. the other entries which are grown in small pockets are early giant, greater progress, early superb, early badger, little marvel, khapadkheda, perfection new line and wisconsin (peter and kumar, 2008). 2. hybridization: most of the pea cultivars have been developed by hybridization between an indian variety and an exotic variety (amin et al, 2010). hybridization system results in new recombinants and variability in crop plants. breeding work has led to development, testing, identification, release and notification of many improved garden peas varieties. for evolving varieties through hybridization in pea following procedures are used: (i) single seed descent method (ii) pedigree method and modifications (iii) bulk method (iv) back-cross method 2.1. single seed descent (ssd) method: single seed descent method is now becoming common in peas. this is particularly useful in those situations where selected better lines are intercrossed. hybrid (f1) plants are grown to produce 500 or more f 2 seeds. one seed is harvested from each f2 plant and the harvested seeds are bulked to plant f3. this procedure continues till f5 and f6 in which phenotypically uniform, superior and stable individual plants with distinct traits are selected for further evaluation for yield and quality. a major advantage of this method is to improve this crop with less resources and the rapid advancement of generation is possible in field and glass house / off season nurse. (kumar et al, 2006). 2.2. pedigree method: this is a system of breeding in which individual plants are selected in the segregating generations (f2) from a cross on the basis of their desirability judged individually and on the basis of a pedigree record. jawahar mattar series 1, 2, 3, 4, 54 and 83 have been evolved through this method (peter and kumar, 2008). several improved varieties like arka priya, arka pramodh and arka apoorva have been developed through this method at iihr, bangalore. similarly, vivek matar 3, 6, 11, kashi samridhi, narendra sabji matar 6, matar ageta 6 and jawahar matar 1 and 2 were developed through this method. 2.3. bulk method: this method was developed by nilsson ehle of sweden in 1908 in a wheat breeding programme. the growing of genetically diverse population of self pollinated crops in a bulk plot with or without mass selection followed by single plant selection in f /f 5 6 generation is known as bulk breeding. following are the advantages of this method (newman, 1912). (i) large populations could be grown in each generation, thereby increasing the probability of more gene combinations. (ii) little work is required to handle anyone cross permitting several crosses to be carried forward. (iii) selection from later generations would breed true as in any other comparable method of breeding. (iv) more generations could be grown each year involving off season nurseries since there is greater role of natural selection. (kumar et al, 2006). 2.4. back-cross method: in the back cross method, the hybrid and progenies in the subsequent generations are repeatedly backcrossed to one of their parents. the objective of the back cross method is to improve one or two specific traits of a high yielding variety, which is well adapted to the area and has other desirable characteristics. the characters lacking in this variety are transferred to it from a donor parent without changing its genotype, except for the gene being transferred. since the recipient parent is repeatedly used in the backcross programme, it is also known as recurrent parent. the donor parent, on the other hand, is known as the non recurrent parent because it is used only once in the breeding programme (for producing the f1 hybrid). thus, the end result of a back cross programme is a well adopted variety with one or two improved characters. (kumar et al, 2006). the back cross method is mainly used in the disease resistant breeding programme. varieties like arka ajit and arka sampoorna which are resistant to powdery mildew and rust were developed through this method at iihr, bangalore. 3. mutation breeding: mutation breeding is an alternative to conventional breeding for crop improvement. exposing plant genetic material to mutagens enhances the possibility of isolating genotypes with desirable traits. induced mutations can create variability in inherited traits in crop plants (kumar et al, 2007b). induced mutagenesis has been j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 149 used to obtain direct mutants or by using these mutants in hybridization (ahloowalia et al, 2004) to overcome yield barriers and to obtain desirable horticultural traits. in peas studies were carried out by narsinghani (1978) to assess the adaptability and yield potential of some of the induced and spontaneously arisen genotypes. the various mutants and their recombinants with commercial cultivars presently available at jabalpur and elsewhere are given below (kumar et al, 2006). afila: snoad (1974) introduced the st gene (reduced stipule size) and the af (afila) gene where leaflets get converted into branched tendrils. plant with the genetic constitution af af and st st are called “leafless”. in afila plants tendrils intertwine and provide mechanical support to adjacent plants and prevent lodging to some extent. acacia: the tendrils are converted into leaflets. this tendril less mutant character is also governed by simple recessive gene (acacia long, acacia batri, acacia purple). eleiofil: the leaflets are subdivided repeatedly and multiple leaflets confuse the plants to be of peas till pods are formed. the genetics of this mutant is a double recessive of acacia x afila. the genetic ratio obtained is 9 normal: 3 acacia: 3 afila: 1 pleiofila (pleiofila tall, peliofila dwarf, pleiofila purple). earlflowering mutant: this mutant flower from 4th to 6th node from the base, against 7th to 8th in arkel, 12th to 13th in bonneville. these are ’46 c’ and jp-829. fasciated mutants: the genotypes under this group are r701, r-71 0, jp-625, jp-67 etc. the inflorescence is not distributed along the stem but the flowers are clustered at the top. the apical part of the stem is band like and broadened. sometimes the distribution of flowers and pods are over a larger part of the stem region without reduction in the total length and are called relaxed fasciated mutants such as 251a. the mutated attributes have been combined with multi resistant lines and the advance pea recombinants are being tested for resistance and production potential at jabalpur. sharma et al (2009a) exposed arkel and azad p-1 to mutagens ( 60co gamma rays and ethyl methane sulphonate (ems)) in 2004 to 2006. treatment with 0.3% ems was, in general, more effective in inducing desirable mutations at the highest frequency, and ‘arkel’ had more positive mutations. most mutants bred true as they did not segregate in the m2 generation. profuse pod-bearing mutants and two mutants with long, slender pods.were isolated ‘azad p-1. two mutants with short internodes were isolated in ‘azad p-1’ treated with 15 kr dose of gamma rays and 0.3% dose of ems. 26 mutants with dark green pods and 21 mutants with long pods (pod length between 10 to13 cm) were also isolated from 0.3% ems-treated ‘arkel’ during 2006. male sterile mutants were recorded in different treatments of gamma rays and ems; anthers of such male sterile mutants were shriveled without pollen formation, resulting in no pod set or pods containing no seed. sharma et al (2010) isolated wilt-resistant mutants in two susceptible pea genotypes, arkel and azad p-1, mutagenized either with ethyl methane sulfonate (ems, 0.2% and 0.3%) or gamma rays (5-22.5 kr) in 60co gamma cell for three consecutive years. screening of different mutagenized populations under wilt-sick plots resulted in the isolation of 25 mutants exhibiting complete or enhanced wilt resistance compared to parental genotypes. five of these wilt-resistant mutants also outperformed the susceptible background genotypes in terms of yield and other horticultural traits. in general the breeding methods mostly followed in garden pea are pedigree selection, backcrossing and their modifications used for developing varieties resistant to diseases. kalloo (1993) has reported the use of recurrent selection to develop varieties resistant to common root rot. breeding objectives in india, most of the organizations which work for the improvement of garden pea are targetting to develop high yielding varieties (in early, midseason and tall group) with resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. presently, there is also demand for varieties and suitable for processing qualities like freezing, dehydration and canning and export. thus, the chief breeding objectives in peas are: 1. breeding for earliness: early varieties have advantage as they get a better market price though the yield might be less. early varieties attain pod maturity in 50-60 days. they are usually dwarf in their plant habit and are highly suitable for high density sowing which helps to maximize the productivity and thereby compensate for the lower yield. arkel, meteor, pm 2, early december, early badger, vl7, vrp 2, swarna rekha, jawahar matar 3 and 4 are some of the popular varieties. besides, several other varieties namely, hans, ec-3, lucknow, asauji, lucknow, bonia, ec 3 are also in cultivation. details of early varieties are given in the table-7. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india 150 2. breeding for high yield: mid season and late group of varieties generally give yield above 10 tonnes in about 90 and 110 days respectively. most of the varieties presently in cultivation are mid season varieties with pod maturity in 65 days. some of the popular varieties in this category are: bonneville, arka ajit, arka karthik, jp 83, palam priya, azad p1, pant uphar, kashi shakthi, hisar harit, punjab 88, swarna rekha, narendra sabji matar 6 and phule priya. details all the midseason varieties are given in the table-8. 3. breeding for disease resistance major diseases for which resistance breeding work is in progress in india are powdery mildew, rust and fusarium wilt. accessions resistant to diseases are given in table 12. 3.1. breeding for resistance to powdery mildew pea powdery mildew is one of the major constraints in pea production worldwide, causing severe seed yield and quality loss. the resistance is governed by a single recessive gene er1 in majority of resistant cultivars, but er2 and er3 have also been reported (sara et al, 2010; srivastava et al, 2012). in india, among fungal diseases affecting pea, powdery mildew (pm) caused by erysiphe pisi is the most serious one as it causes yield loss upto 50 100% (kumar and singh, 1981; aghora et al, 2006). previous studies by many workers have shown that powdery mildew is governed by a single pair of recessive gene er. the simple recessive inheritance has also been confirmed by mishra and shukla (1984) and singh et al (1986b). both in icar institutes and in agricultural universities, major focus is on breeding garden pea for resistance to powdery mildew disease. several improved varieties/lines resistant to pm are available for cultivation. among these the popular resistant varieties are arka ajit, arka karthik and arka sampoorna (mohan et al, 2012). recently at iihr, two powdery mildew resistant varieties, arka priya and arka pramodh, with pod yield of 12 t/ha in 90 days were developed and released at the institute level (iihr, 2012). several other varieties also show very high level of resistance for powdery mildew pmr17, pmr-19, ks-245, ks-221, jp-501, jp-9, no. 23, ndvp250, p-19, ec-269291, jp-20 (pandey et al, 1999). some of the other powdery mildew resistant popular garden pea varieties are: jp-83, jp-71, prs-4, azad p-1 and azad p-4 superior yields, better quality pods, bigger and sweet ovules. (amin et al, 2010; peter and kumar, 2008). sharma and sharma, (2013b) has reported that six genotypes of pea viz. vp -233, prp-801, pmvar-1, vp318, vp-316 and pmvar-5 were found to be resistant to powdery mildew. these resistant genotypes could be used in breeding programs for development of disease resistance. sharma et al (2013b) used three resistant genotypes, sugar giant, vrpmr-10 and dpp 9411 in hybridization and developed two high yielding powdery mildew resistant lines dppmr09-9 and dppmr-09-2. recently at iihr, ssr marker for powdery mildew resistance has been identified for using in marker assisted breeding (mab) programme (iihr, 2012). 3.2 breeding for rust resistance pea rust has been reported to be caused uromyces pisi (pers.)wint. and uromyces fabae (pers.) de barry. the latter species is prevalent in india (katiyar and ram, 1987). rust is governed by single pair of dominant gene (aghora et al, 2006). many workers have identified sources of resistance to rust in peas (pal et al, 1980; singh et al, 2004; vijayalakshmi et al, 2005; kushwaha et al, 2006). varieties developed at iihr, arka ajit, arka karthik, arka priya, arka pramodh and arka sampoorna are resistant to rust (mohan et al, 2012; iihr, 2012). similarly, varieties developed by jnkvv, jabalpur jb batri 3 and jp batri brown 4, are resistant to rust. few other donors for rust resistance are: pj-222117, bc-1091188, pj-207508, jp batri brown-3 and jp batri brown 5 (narasinghani et al, 1980; peter and kumar, 2008). combined resistance to rust and powdery mildew varieties arka karthik, arka ajit, arka priya and arka pramodh developed at iihr, bangalore have combined resistance to both rust and powdery mildew. another variety of snap pea, arka sampoorna is also resistant to rust and powdery mildew (mohan et al 2012; iihr, 2012). 3.3 breeding for resistance to wilt and root rot fusarium wilt: among diseases affecting root, wilt caused by fusarium oxysporum f. sp. pisi (hall) snyd and hans is one of the most devastating diseases of pea (sharma et al, 2006; sharma, 2011). the disease along with root rot has been reported to cause yield losses up to 93% in india (maheshwari et al, 1981). presently, most of the commercial varieties are susceptible to this disease. therefore, development of resistant cultivar is the most efficient approach for the management of this disease (sharma et al, 2010). sen and majumdar (1974) reported immunity against wilt in sylvia, blible pod, selectionl, t17, kalanagani, grey giant, alaska, canner king, kelvedon monarch, etc. utikar and sulaiman (1976) observed field resistance against fusarium wilt in tall white sugar, early j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 151 giant and grey badger. high resistance against wilt was obtained by pachhauri et al (1981) in lines jm 2, jm 1, gc 468, sel 23-3-2 and resistance in pusa vipasha, sel 2 pl-2, kalanagani, sel 525, gc 66, lokar, ec 3833, canner king, super alaska, boach selection and sel 5-2-1. the genotype kalanagani reported to be immune against wilt by several workers (sen and majumdae, l974; ramphal and choudury, 1983; pachhauri et al, 1981). at jnkvv, jabalpur, breeding of peas resistant to fusarium wilt and powdery mildew resulted in isolation of resistant donor jp 501 a/2 (tiwari and narsinghani, 1985). the genetics of wilt disease resistance found to be monogenic dominant (narsinghani and tiwari, 1991). donors for, wilt resistance are: early perfection, pl-6101, pl-43, pl-124, early giant, canner king, bonneville, silivia, blible red, t-17, selection -1, jm2, jm-i, pusa vipasha, tall white sugar, lakar, boach selecation, kalanagni, and early badger (kumar et al, 2006). dhar et al (2011) tested four early (gp 17, gp 207, gp 447, pusa pragati) and four mid season (gp 378, gp 468, gp 471 and gp 473) lines along with highly susceptible variety arkel in fusarium wilt sick plot and found that lines gp 17, p 207’ and gp 473 had high level of resistance (9– 26%) besides yield. sharma and sharma (2013c) observed that out of the 36 genotype screened, three were highly resistant and 14 were resistant. root rot: fusarium root rot, caused by fusarium solani (mart.) sacc. f. sp. pisi (f. r. jones) w. c. snyder & h. n. hans affects pea crop around the world (kraft and pfleger 2001). mir (1997) observed that out of the 13 varieties tested, two were resistant (grey giant and early badger) to fusarium solani f. sp. pisi. varieties bonneville and arkel were highly susceptible to the disease. 3.4 breeding for bacterial blight ascochyta blight complex is a severe disease of peas throughout the world and causes huge losses to growers every year. the disease complex is caused by three ascochyta species: a. pisi (teleomorph didymella pisi), a. pinodes (teleomorph mycosphaerella pinodes) and phoma medicaginis var. pinodella. according to rastogi and saini (1984b), pea blight caused by assochyta pinodella cause considerable damage to the pea crop every year. to ascertain the inheritance of resistance to pea blight and incorporate resistance in the commercial cultivars, crosses were made between kinnauri resistant to pea blight and four highly susceptible commercial pea cultivars bonneville, lincoln, gc 141 and sel 18. studies of the f1’s, f2’s, back crosses and f3’s indicated that kinnauri carries a dominant gene imparting resistance to pea blight. 3.5 breeding for resistance to viral diseases viruses are among the most widespread and destructive pathogens of crop plants causing serious economic losses by yield and quality reduction (fao, 2011). in pea’s pea seed-borne mosaic virus (psbmv), caused by potyvirus is an important viral disease affecting pea transmitted by aphids and causes major yield loss (coutts et al, 2008; gibbs et al, 2008). pea seed borne mosaic virus (psbmv) is transmitted through seeds. in india its occurrence was reported in by thakur et al (1984). symptoms for pea seed-borne mosaic virus disease are stunting, chlorotic flecks, leaf and pod distortion (kapoor and singh, 1999). resistance to the common strains of psbmv is conferred by a single recessive gene (sbm) (hagedorn and gritton, 1973) localized on lg vi (sbm-1 locus) (smykal et al, 2010). hagedorn and gritton (1973) used pi-93586 and pi-193835 as the sources of resistance to pea seed borne mosaic virus. pea enation mosaic virus (pemv) is transmitted by aphids (nault et al, 1964). disease symptoms include stunted growth, translucent veins, and blister like lesions, deformed pods and reduced yield (usda 2009). eleven accessions (ji 2990 to 3000) from the norwich germplasm collection were screened for pea enation mosaic virus (pemv) and were found to be tolerant to the disease though there was some variation in the expression of pemv symptoms (schmidt et al, 1995). perfected freezer-60 has been reported to be its source of resistance (hagedom and hampton, 1975). line ps08 is tolerant to pemv. resistance to pemv is governed by single dominant gene en (usda, 2009). two markers cngc (2.5 cm) and trnamet2 (1.3 cm) are closely associated with resistance to pea enation mosaic virus (pemv) and these markers can be used in marker assisted breeding (jain et al, 2013). 3.6 breeding for insect resistance few of the major insects which cause damage to peas are: leaf minor (chromatomyia horticola goureau) aphids (acyrthosiphon pisi) pod borer (helicoverpa armigera hub., lampides boeticus l.and etiella zinckenella tr.) pea stem fly (melanagromyza phaseoli tryon) pea weevil (bruchus pisorum) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india 152 among the pests of this crop, pea stem-fly (melanagromyza phaseoli tryon), pea leaf miner (chromatomyia horticola goureau) and pod borer complex (helicoverpa armigera hub. lampides boeticus (l.) and etiella zinckenella tr.) are serious, and often cause substantial loss of crop (mittal and ujagir, 2005). leaf miner: pea leaf miner caused more than 20% loss in pea yield (mehta et al, 1994). several varieties have been identified with high and moderate level of resistance to pea leaf miner in india (mukerji et al, 2009). at jnkvv, jabalpur, jp 179, jp 169-1, jp 747 were found to be resistant to leaf miner (kalloo, 1993). similarly at hau, hisar, lmr 4, lmr 10 and lmr 20 were identified as the sources of resistance to leaf miner (kalloo, 1993). mittal and ujagir (2005) identified palo7 resistant as it had leaf miner infestation index of 0.20 and damage rating of 1 on a scale of 1-4 , compared with infestation index of 0.37 in check c.v. hpf4. bruchus: pea seeds are damaged by pulse beetle (bruchid) (callosobruchus chinensis linn). bruchus infestation starts on maturing pods in the field. (srivastava and bhatia, 1958). the two pea lines, jp 9 and jp 179 were resistant to bruchus (kumar et al, 2006). the crosses of pisum fulvum with p. sativum hold promise for resistance to the pea seed weevil (bruchus pisorum) (amin et al, 2010). pea stem fly: the damage by larval stages of the stem fly results in plant wilting and mortality up to 100 % in northern india (sandhu et al, 1975; singh, 1986). sources of tolerance to stem fly are: asauji, gc-141, ip-3 (pant uphar), t-163, dwarf grey sugar, t -10, load sel and bonneville (kumar et al, 2006). mittal and ujagir, 2005 identified two germplasm viz., p-4039 and p-4107 resistant as they had stem fly damage of 3.12 and 4.97% compared with 13.52% damage in check (hfp4) and ten germplasm proved to be moderately resistant with stem fly damage between 5.99 and 9.56 % and damage rating of 2. multiple resistance a few lines with multiple resistances to diseases and pests were developed at jnkvv jabalpur. jp 9 resistant to powdery mildew and bruchus and jp batri brown 3 and jp batri brown 4 resistant to rusts and bruchus (amin et al, 2010). jp-179 highly resistant to powdery mildew, fusarium wilt, bruchus, leaf minor and tolerant to rust and jp-501 a/2 resistant to fusarium wilt, powdery mildew and bruchus (kumar et al, 2006). varieties developed at iihr, bangalore, namely: arka ajit, arka karthik, arka pramodh and arka priya were found to be resistant to both powdery mildew and rust. snap or sugar snap pea breeding whole pod edible pea also known as snap pea or sugar snap pea is so called because the pods are devoid of fibrous parchment layer (sneddon, 1970) and unlike conventional peas; entire pods are consumed either as salad or after minimal cooking. the pods can be consumed either at the initial stage when seeds just begin to appear and the pods are almost flat (popularly known as snow peas) or in the half maturity stage or even at full maturity stage. mature pods are tender, succulent and sweet with crisp texture. the pods are rich in protein, minerals and vitamins. recently, edible podded peas are gaining popularity as about 40% of consumable biomass is saved as no shelling is required (singh et al, 2007). whole pod edible peas are popular in several western countries like usa and european countries, china, japan and in south east asian countries. in india, in the recent years it is becoming popular and there is a tremendous scope for its spread in the upmarket. according to simmonds (1979) classified snap pea under pisum sativum l. var. macrocarpum. the edible condition results from action of one or both of two independent recessive genes, p and v. either gene present in the homozygous condition greatly reduces parchment, while, pods of plants homozygous for both p and v are considered parchment-free (white, 1917). howerver, inheritance studies by mcgee and baggett, (1992) revealed that lack of parchment layer trait (fiberlessness) in pod wall is controlled by a single recessive gene sin-2. oregon sugar poded is a snap pea variety, developed at oregon state university, usa and has been introduced in india. smilarly, sylvia is a snap poded variety introduced from sweden by iari katrain. at iihr, arka sampoorna a whole pod edible pea was developed by iihr and released in 2001 at the institute level (iihr, 2014). a. sampoorna has pod yield potential of 8 t/ha in 90 days and the pods are medium long (7 to 7. cm) and both pod walls and seeds are light green. the seeds are medium sized with intermediate sweetness. also, it is resistant to powdery mildew and rust. pan et al (2010) reported that swarna tripti (ic 548862) was developed through hybridization between a green podded and powdery-mildew-resistant pea line jp 585 and a lightgreen podded variety oregon sugar podded, followed by j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 153 selection in the segregating generations. this variety is ready for harvest in 80-85 days after sowing. its pods are green, medium long (7.3-7.5 cm). recently another whole pod edible dual purpose variety arka apoorva was developed and released at iihr (iihr 2012). arka apoorva is a midseason pea line with pod yield potential of 10 t/ha in 90 days. arka apoorva gave about 20 % higher pod yield than a. sampoorna. the pods are longer (9 cm) and broad compared to a. sampoorna (7 cm) and the seeds are bold, dark green sweet and the whole pods are crisp. it is also moderately resistant to powdery mildew and resistant to rust. breeding for higher nutritive quality parent 65102 was a good general combiner for protein, tryptophan, ascorbic acid and calcium contents. cultivar little marvel is very sweet and cultivars li lincon, thomas laxton, and alderman have excellent canning and freezing quality. these characteristics can be transferred into new high yielding cultivars by systematic breeding programmes (kumar et al, 2006). high protein content the inheritance of protein content is polygenically controlled, and also by recessive factors (cousin et al, 1985). the varieties gc 195 and the local cultivar, kinnauri have high soluble protein content due to the presence of a very high number of dominant genes (rastogi et al, 1989). breeding for processing quality freezing, dehydration and canning are the most common processing methods of peas. there is great demand for frozen peas during off season. wrinkled and dark green peas like arkel are suitable for dehydration. peas grown for processing have to attain maturity at the same time. for canning, both round and wrinkled seeded varieties like t 19 and bonneville are used. however for freezing, wrinkled seeds are used (amin et al, 2010). at iihr, bangalore, iihr 18, a wrinkled bold seeded variety was found to be suitable for freezing up to six months. breeding for abiotic stress breeding for tolerance to high temperature and resistance to frost: garden pea is commonly cultivated during winter season in plains. in the recent years there is a demand for varieties suitable for cultivation during off season particularly during early summer due to higher market price. however at present there is no garden pea variety tolerant to high temperature and suitable for cultivation during summer season. peas grown during summer results in poor growth, poor pod and seed set. iihr544 (magadi local) a tall midseason cultivar belonging to arvense group is tolerant to high temperature. it is a pulse type cultivar grown around bangalore during summer (february to april). the pods are small (4 cm long) with four seeds and yield is around 2.5 t/ha. cultivar early badger is reported to be tolerant to heat and drought (choudhury, 1967). freezer can be good source of frost tolerance and the cv. alderman which is suitable for hill regions (yawalkar, 1969) can be used for transferring frost resistant genes into other suitable cultivars. biotechnology in pea improvement biotechnology tools like marker-assisted breeding, tissue culture, in vitro mutagenesis and genetic transformation have potential to contribute in the development of varieties resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses. however, only limited success has been achieved till now. molecular marker-assisted breeding molecular markers (closely linked to targeted traits) are the powerful genomic tools to increase the efficiency and precision of breeding in crop improvement (varshney et al, 2012). majority of the work on molecular markers in pea breeding is based on genetic mapping using various dna markers in segregating populations for specific traits. traditional mapping approaches have led to the development of marker-assisted selection strategies in pea breeding (vignesh et al, 2011). several workers have identified molecular markers linked to powdery mildew and rust resistant genes. molecular markers have also been used diversity analysis in pea. use of molecular markers in diversity analysis kumari et al (2013) analyzed genetic diversity among 28 pea genotypes using 32 ssr markers. cluster analysis revealed two distinct clusters, i and ii with six and 22 genotypes respectively. cluster ii further had two sub clusters with iia (12 genotypes) and iib (10 genotypes). wani et al (2013) used randomly amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) to estimate diversity among five genotypes of pea (four rapd primers generated 24 bands, 10 of which were found to be polymorphic. molecular markers for powdery mildew tiwari et al (1998) crossed the resistant cultivar highlight with er1and the susceptible cultivar radley. f3 plants were screened with primers, using bulked j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 garden pea improvement in india 154 segregant analysis and three operon primers, opo-18, ope-16, and opl-6, were linked to er1. janila and sharma (2004) has studied powdery mildew resistant cultivar dmr11 and a susceptible line and found that marker opu-17 was linked to resistant allele and it would increase the efficiency of marker assisted selection for powdery mildew resistance. katoch et al (2010) reported that by segregation analysis of an f2 progeny of cross lincoln/ji2480, the leaf resistance (of powdery mildew) in ji2480 was controlled by a single recessive gene er2. through linkage analysis of resistant f2 progeny plants using ssr and rapd markers it was inferred that marker of er2 gene was localized on pea linkage group iii (lgiii). a rapd marker opx-17_1400, showing linkage to er2 was successfully converted to a scar marker, scx17_1400 for usage in breeding. srivastava et al (2012) screened 620 random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) markers and developed a scar marker scopx 04880 which can differentiate homozygous resistant plants from the susceptible accessions and can be used in marker-assisted selection. molecular markers rust resistance vijayalakshmi et al (2005) has identified two rapd markers linked to rust [uromyces fabae (pers.) de bary] resistant gene in pea, viz., sc10-82360 and scri-711000 flanking the rust resistance gene (ruf).these rapd markers were not close enough to ruf for using in makerassisted selection. however, if the two markers were used together, the effectiveness of mas would be improved considerably. rai et al (2011) evaluated a mapping population of 136 f6:7 recombinant inbred lines (rils) derived from the cross between pea genotypes, huvp 1 (susceptible) and fc 1 (resistant). one major (qruf) and one minor (qruf1) qtl for rust resistance on lgvii was identified. the qruf was flanked by ssr markers, aa505 and aa446 which would be useful for marker-assisted selection for pea rust resistance. tissue culture sharma and kaushal (2004) generated and evaluated somaclones of two pea cultivars, palam priya and lincoln for resistance to ascochyta blight and powdery mildew. five somaclones of lincoln and one of palam priya showed resistance to ascochyta pinodes but none were resistant to powdery mildew. however, one somaclone (sp6-1) of palam priya was resistant to ascochyta blight and moderately resistant to powdery mildew. increased pal and peroxidase activity was observed in somaclones resistant to ascochyta blight. sharma et al (2010) isolated wilt (f. oxysporum f. sp. pisi) resistant callus regenerants and evaluated them in wilt sick plots. only five r2 lines showed wilt resistance compared to parental cultivars. doubled haploids doubled haploids (dhs) are an important tool for the rapid generation of homozygous breeding lines which helps to accelerate the selection process and thus speed up the breeding of new varieties. in peas, doubled haploidy is still in embryonic stages partly due to problems such as poor regeneration of fertile plants and most protocols are genotype specific posing threats to their wide application (croser et al, 2006).there are many factors such as genotype, donor plant growth conditions, microspore stage, pre-treatment of flower buds and culture medium etc., that affect androgenesis. more often, anthers rather than microspores are cultured, since the extraction and culture methods of pollen grains are laborious process. gosal and bajaj (1988) induced callus on anthers from pea. a few heart-shaped stage embryos developed but no regeneration was obtained. gupta et al (1972) attempted for the first time to develop an androgenesis protocol for the pea breeding line ‘b22’ through anther culture, but no regeneration or confirmation of the ploidy level of callus cells was reported. subsequent experiments with the same callus resulted in a few roots, shoots and torpedo-shaped embryos after 36 months, again with no confirmation of ploidy level (gupta 1975). gosal and bajaj (1988) successfully induced callus from anthers of the pea cultivar ‘bonneville’ as well as the two breeding lines, ‘t163’ and ‘p88’. a few heart-shaped stage embryos developed but no regeneration was obtained. about 90% of the cells were diploid indicating that callus might have developed from maternal anther tissue rather than microspores. for isolation of anthers, buds are harvested when the microspores reach the uninucleate stage. this stage is reached when bud size is 6-7 mm in field pea. generally, whole flower buds at various stages of development are harvested and used as a source of explants either immediately or stored in darkness at 4ºc (for 2 to 5 days) for cold shock pre-treatment or at 32oc (for 1 or 3 days) for heat shock before isolation of anthers. for example, field pea buds are pre-treated by placing their stamens in water at 4ºc for 48 hr. sidhu and davies (2005) have given detailed protocol for anther culture in var. mukta, and pisum fulvum (sm) accession atc113. they have found that anthers of pea genotypes cultured on b5 medium with nine percent sucrose was the best for callus production. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):125-164, 2013 mohan et al 155 they also recovered two putative haploid /dh plants were recovered from two genotypes gorokh and pelican. putative haploid /dh plants were produced only on l2 + dicamba (2 mg/l) + casein hydrolysate (1 g/l) + 9% sucrose medium. a plantlet was regenerated from one cultivar. efforts are on to identify key factors to improve this protocol and to achieve complete regeneration (sidhu and davis, 2005). though the progress made till now by various workers in peas is very limited, the recovery of haploid plants in peas demonstrates that the haploid production may be possible in this crop by microspore or anther culture. whether any culture conditions can be modified to give consistent haploid production in different pea genotypes needs further investigation. it is important to identify whether these plants are from microspores and therefore haploid or doubled haploid, or from somatic cells of anthers. future thrust 1. systamatic work on the collection, conservation, cataloguing, evaluation and exchange of germplasm. 2. breeding varieties for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses (mainly high temperature) and suitable for processing (freezing) to meet the internal demand 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(verbenaceae). the mealybug was first thought to be a good biocontrol agent for lantana camara in queensland, australia. biology of p. parvus has been extensively studied on lantana. adults feed on the underside of leaves and on green stems. eggs are laid on the underside of fully expanded, mature leaves. crawlers cluster along leaf veins. development from egg to adult takes about 26 days. adults live for about three months. in the present study, heavy population of mealybug, p. parvus, was recorded both at the collar region and on subterranean plant parts of china aster. the mealybug was recorded during august-september 2010 on cv. kamini of china aster, in the field of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore (12o58’ n; 77o35’ e and altitude 890 m above msl). about 25% of the plants were infested by this mealybug and infested plants were stunted in growth and did not bear flowers as did the healthy plants of the same age. when uprooted, all the stunted plants in the field short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):108-109, 2012 109 lantana mealybug on china aster were observed to be infested with the mealybug on their root system, in turn, affecting growth of the plant further (fig. 1). the mealybug was mounted on a slide and its characters were studied as per mckenzie (1967). field characters: body oval to elongate, dorso-ventrally flattened; body light yellow, covered with thin, white wax powder; body without any naked areas. however, horizontal segmental lines darker than the wax-dusted inter-segmental area; legs light yellowish-brown; body periphery with small, wax filaments of uniform size numbering 17-18; ovisac elongate on lower side of the female; occurring on roots and collar region of the host. mounted mealybug characters: antenna nine segmented; legs well-developed, reaching beyond body margin, with claw having denticle. translucent pores on hind tibia seen only in a few specimens. circulus small, oval, between 3rd and 4th abdominal segment. cerari 18 in numbers, raised from derm, giving body margin a wavy appearance. each cerari with two lanceolate setae. some cerari on head with three setae. dorsal setae short, lanceolate and often associated with trilocular pores. trilocular pores present both on dorsum and venter; however, multilocular disc pores present only on venter of abdomen. very few quinquelocular pores present between hind and middle legs on venter. aggregation of oral tubular ducts between 12th and 13th cerari (when counted from anal lobe cerari upwards). combination of field and mounted characters led to confirmation of the species as phenacoccus parvus. this is the first record of p. parvus on roots of china aster in pest proportions. williams (2004), while providing synopsis of the subterranean mealybugs, mentioned this species of phenacoccus as infesting roots of its hosts. in india, it has been recorded from orissa on chrysanthemum sp. (asteraceae), capsicum annuum l. (solanaceae), amaranthus sp. (amaranthaceae) and lycopersicon esculentum mill. (solanaceae). keeping in view the incidence of p. parvus in pest proportions and its subterranean feeding habit on china aster, there is an urgent need to exercise management options before its occurrence reaches alarming proportions. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to director, iihr, bangalore and director, nbaii, bangalore for providing facilities; dr. v.v. ramamurthy, in-charge, insect identification service, iari, new delhi for confirmation of mealybug species, and dr. m. mani, iihr, bangalore for his encouragement for the study. references anonymous, 1990. phenacoccus parvus morrison. distribution maps of pests (wallingford: cab international), 518pp ben dov, gottlieb, y. and sando, t. 2005. first record of phenacoccus parvus morrison (hemiptera: coccidea: pseudococcidae) from the palearctic region. phytoparasitica, 33:325-326 jennifer, m. 1994. the pest status of phenacoccus parvus morrison (homoptera: pseudococcidae). int. j. pest mgnt., 40:337-340 mckenzie, h.l.1967. mealybugs of california with taxonomy, biology and control of north american species. university of california press, berkeley and los angeles, california,. 525pp reddy, p.p. 2009. advances in integrated pest and disease management in horticultural crops vol 3: ornamental, medicinal, aromatic & tuber crops. studium press (india) pvt. ltd., new delhi, 364pp udayagiri, s. 1985. insect pests of china aster – first record from india. ind. j. entomol., 47:78-82 udayagiri, s. 1987. first record of liriomyza compositella spencer and l. brassicae (riley) (diptera: agromyzidae) as pests of ornamental crops in south india. entomon, 12:85-88 williams, d.j. 2004. mealybugs of southern asia. the natural history museum, kuala lumpur, southdene sdn, bhd, malaysia 896pp fig 1. china aster plants infested with planacoccus parvus (ms received 7 april 2011, revised 23 november 2011) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):108-109, 2012 bael (aegle marmelos l.), considered to be a packhouse of nutrients and medicine, is one of the most neglected and underutilized fruit crops. in spite of possessing a good amount of nutritional and medicinal properties for mankind, little attention has been paid to its cultivation, research and development. due to its indian origin, a wide genetic base is available throughout the country, and this needs to be conserved and explored. as bael is a cross-pollinated crop propagated by seed, a wide variability in exists its population. vegetative propagation ensures multiplication of selected, elite clones for commercial cultivation and conservation in situ / ex situ. a number of workers have suggested that budding was the best method, although the time of propagation varied from place to place (kumar et al, 1995; tripathi and kumar, 2004). at present, softwood method of wedge-grafting is very popular in many fruit crops like jamun (madalageri et al, 1991), sapota (pampanna and sulikeri, 2000) and custard apple (ghosh et al, 2004). little information is available on bael. bael is mainly grown in marginal lands, and in situ, cultivation of plants is useful for raising better plant stands with early bearing compared to nursery-raised planting material. unfortunately meagre information is available on optimum time required for in-situ propagation of bael. red laterite soil zone of west bengal that covers five districts has a good number of elite bael genotypes, but no information on their propagation is available. to standardize short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):214-216, 2012 studies on propagation of bael (aegle marmelos l.) under jhargram conditions s.n. ghosh, s. roy1 and b. bera1 department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur – 741 252, india e-mail: profsnghosh@yahoo.co.in abstract to work out the optimum time and method for commercial multiplication of bael (aegle marmelos l.), an investigation was carried out in 2007 and 2008 at a private nursery in jhargram of paschim midnapur, west bengal. results revealed that grafting in march should be done under propagation-shed condition. during shortage of scion material, chip budding can be practiced from 20th to 30th march, under partial shade. for raising the orchard in-situ, chip budding should be done at the onset of monsoon (10th to 25th june) on two-year old seedlings, which should have been pruned the previous october. key words: bael, budding, grafting, nursery, in situ, season propagation methods and time of operation suitable for nursery and field planting in bael, an investigation was carried out under jhargram conditions. the study was undertaken in a nursery at jhargram, paschim midnapore, in the years 2007 and 2008. soil in the area of study was laterite and the climate dry sub-tropical. meteorological data for this period is presented in table 1. seedlings were raised from seeds of fruits collected from a single, elite plant from a nearby village. these were raised in perforated, black polythene bags (25cm x 15cm) under the open condition. for budding and grafting, 50 seedlings each were used and replicated thrice in randomized block design. in the nursery, grafting operation was carried out under a propagation shed where a white, transparent fiber sheet was used as a cover. budding was carried out under a thatch shed for the period 1st march to 30th april due to high day temperatures while, during 10th june to 10th september, this was done under the propagation shed (as in grafting). success rate of propagation and data on plant growth were recorded two months after grafting and budding. to workout the best time for in situ propagation, chip budding was carried out on two year old seedlings grown under open field condition at a spacing of 30cm x 60cm. for budding, 16-month old seedlings headed back during the previous october were used and one healthy shoot per seedling retained. chip-budding was done in the following 1mps farm, dighisole, jhargram, paschim midnapore, west bengal, india 215 year from 10th june to 10th september. fifty seedlings grown in situ were chip-budded with scions of a selected, elite plant and replicated thrice in randomized block design. data on budding success and seedling growth were recorded two months after the operation. obtaining maximum success with better growth, information on the right method and exact time of propagation in polybags grown seedling is paramount for a successful nursery business. results from two years of investigation revealed that grafting gave higher success compared to budding, irrespective of the time of operation, except 25th july (table 2). march (1st march to 30th march) was the best month, both for budding and grafting, as the highest success of 70 to 90% was recorded in budding and 85 to 95% in grafting. this could be due to better physiological condition of both the scion and the stock. it is known that plants start a new growth flush after a long period of dormancy, in the month of march, under the present condition. this may have resulted in good sap flow and cambial activity. this would also give an added advantage to the nurseryman as good sale of planting material can be expected in the ensuing monsoon season. operations carried out during monsoon (10th june to 10th september) showed that 25th june was better for grafting (70% success), while 25th july was good for budding (50% success). it has been reported that midmay to mid-june is the best period for patch-budding under faizabad conditions (kumar et al, 1994), while mid-august under banaras conditions (kumar et al, 1995) and the last week of july under hisar conditions (tripathi and kumar, 2004) are best. success in budding and grafting fell drastically after 10th august, which may be due to low cambial activity in the propagation of bael (aegle marmelos l.) table 2. effect of season on success of budding and grafting in bael two months after the operation (average of two years) time of operation in the nursery in the field (in situ) chip budding grafting chip budding success shoot number success shoot number success shoot number (%) length (cm) of leaves (%) length (cm) of leaves (%) length (cm) of leaves 1st march 70 (56.79) 36 11 95 (77.08) 27 10 not followed 10th march 80 (63.43) 29 9 85 (67.21) 22 8 -do20th march 80 (63.43) 39 14 85 (67.21) 28 10 -do30th march 90 (71.57) 40 15 95 (77.08) 32 12 -do10th april 70 (56.79) 22 9 80 (63.43) 20 8 -do20th april 0 (0.00) 10 (18.43) 10 6 -do30th april 0 (0.00) 5 (12.92) 12 8 -do10th june 30 (33.21) 20 26 50 (45.00) 22 14 44.0 (41.55) 40 46 25th june 35 (36.27) 22 25 70 (56.79) 17 10 64.0 (53.13) 36 32 10th july 8 (16.43) 35 18 40 (39.23) 14 9 16.0 (23.58) 48 25 25th july 50 (45.00) 45 20 35 (36.27) 15 9 0 (0.00) 10th august 22 (27.97) 13 10 30 (33.21) 10 6 20.0 (26.57) 23 8 25th august 6 (14.18) 10 8 0 (0.00) 8.0 (16.43) 29 19 10th september 0 (0.00) 0 (0.00) 0.0 (0.00) c. d. (p=0.05) (7.12) 8.1 3.2 (6.34) 5.5 1.5 (5.21) 4.5 2.8 figures in parentheses indicate angular transformed values table 1. mean meteorological data of 2007-2008 recorded for the period under investigation month mean temperature (0c) mean humidity (%) mean rainfall mean number maximum minimum maximum minimum (mm) of rainy days january 24.2 12.1 84.6 40.6 0 0 february 28.6 14.4 88.8 35.9 1.4 1 march 34.2 20.6 89.4 41.4 30.0 4 april 36.7 22.7 76.6 52.4 48.8 6 m a y 37.2 24.8 79.2 48.4 35.5 6 june 38.4 25.7 90.2 63.8 122.0 12 july 35.3 23.4 91.7 72.6 321.0 22 august 36.2 22.7 92.6 78.4 340.0 23 september 36.4 23.6 87.5 78.6 221.0 21 october 29.4 22.5 81.2 59.8 150.0 12 november 28.2 18.2 75.3 50.4 29.0 3 december 24.3 12.3 72.2 44.4 20.5 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):214-216, 2012 216 stock and scion. in the present study too, physiological condition of the stock and scion may have been very important for getting higher budding and grafting success. highest success was achieved in the month of march when the stock and scion plants were in an active phase of growth and climatic conditions were ideal (table 1). regarding the growth of successful plants, it was observed that plants raised through budding had better growth (shoot length and leaf number) compared to grafting, irrespective of the time of operation. maximum shoot length (45 cm) was attained when budding was made on 25th july, followed by 30th march (40 cm). leaf number was highest (26) in plants budded on 10th june. in grafting, the longest shoot was recorded in plants grafted on 30th march (32 cm), followed by 20th march (28cm). highest leaf production here was observed in plants grafted on 10th june (14), closely followed by those grafted on 30th march. bael is found to grow in degraded soils like laterite with poor water-holding capacity and that receive low precipitation from november to may. in such a situation, field-raising of an orchard, not only results in a better plant stand compared to polybag-raised plants, but also these plants require less water and care during the initial years (due to a good root system). results from two years of investigation showed (table 2) highest budding success (64%) in rootstock plants that were chip-budded on 25th june, followed by those on 10th june (44%). success percentage fell drastically after 25th june probably due to frequent rain. this may have affected the bud union and cambial activity in both stock and scion, reported to be greatly correlated with prevailing atmospheric conditions (kumar et al, 1995). growth of successful plants was found to be satisfactory as shoot length was 36 to 40cm and leaf number 32 to 46 in june-budded field-grown plants. references ghosh, s.n., manna, s. and mathew, b. 2004. effect of season on success of grafting in custard apple under semi-arid condition of west bengal. the hort. j., 17:89-91 kumar, d., pathak, r.k. and ali, w. 1994. studies on effect of duration and methods of budding in bael. ind. j. hort., 51:150-153 kumar, d., singh, s.p. and rajput, c.b.s. 1995. influence of environmental factors and methods of budding in bael. ind. j. hort., 52:170-173 madalageri, m.b., patil, v.s. and nalawadi, u.g. 1991. propagation of jamun (syzygium cumini) by softwood wedge grafting. myforest, 27:176-178 pampanna, y. and sulikeri, g.s. 2000. effect of season on the success and growth of softwood grafts in sapota on invigorated rayan rootstock. karnataka j. agril. sci., 13:779-782 tripathi, a., and kumar, r. 2004. studies on the effect of method and time of budding in bael. haryana j. hortl. sci., 33:195-98 (ms received 10 may 2012, revised 17 august 2012) ghosh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):214-216, 2012 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 162 comparative studies on growth and yield of conventional and tissue culture plants of turmeric (curcuma longa) var. co2 chitra r. department of spices and plantation crops, horticulture college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, periyakulam, tamil nadu, india email: rchitra@tnau.ac.in abstract turmeric (curcuma longa l.) is an ancient spice, native of india and south east asia used from antiquity as spice and a dye. it is commonly propagated through rhizomes. the availability of disease free quality planting material is scarce during the cropping season (june – september). an experiment was conducted to study the performance of in vitro derived turmeric plants with conventional rhizome under field condition. the results indicated that the tissue culture plants showed better performance over the conventional rhizome planting. tissue culture plants grew vigorously and taller than conventional type. the highest yield potential was observed in tissue cultureplants (40.83 tons/ha) as compared to the conventional rhizome planting (30.14 tons/ha). the rhizome rot incidence was lower (3.87% ) in tissue culture plants than rhizome-derived plants (25.58% ). however, the agronomic traits observed during the present study in tissue culture plants are stable and rhizome harvested from tissue culture plants can be used as disease free planting materials for further planting. keywords: conventional propagation, rhizome yield, tissue culture plants and turmeric. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 162-165, 2019 short communication turmeric (curcuma longa l.) is the third important spice crop, grown in tropical part of india. it is mainly used as condiment, dye and in drug and cosmetic industries. in india, it is grown in an area of 1,94,000 ha with a production of 9,90,000 tons. in the state of tamil nadu it is grown in an area of 35,700 ha with production of 1,90,000 tons and productivity of 5.3 tons of dried rhizome/ha. turmeric is propagated through rhizomes and large quantity of rhizome is required as planting material for the commercial cultivation. planting material requirement is about 2.5 t/ha and total requirement of the country is about 2 lakh tonnes per year. storage loss of rhizomes due to rhizome rot disease is severe which causes tissue senescence and degeneration. propagation of turmeric through seed is not economical because of poor flowering and seed set (balachandran et al., 1990). curcumin, a major constituent of rhizome has been widely used in various medicinal purpose, which incr ea sed the dema nd of the r hizomes (chattopadhyay et al., 2004). the conventional methods of propagation are incapable to produce large quantities of quality planting material, which necessitates the new method. tissue culture is used to multiply large quantities of pest and disease free planting material and performance evaluation of tissue-cultured plants is necessary to determine the potential benefits. main purpose of this study was to assess the field performance of the in vitro derived pla ntlets a nd its effect on mor phology a nd development of turmeric plants. the present study was carried out at hc & ri, coimbatore, tamil nadu, india. in vitro plants were obtained by following the procedure described in the previous protocol (babu et al., 2007). in this study, bud sprouts were used as explant and inoculated on to half strength ms media supplemented with 3 mg l1ba and1 mg l-1 naa. contamination free oneweek-old cultures were transferred into multiplication medium (ms medium containing 5 mgl-1 ba and 1.0 mgl-1 naa). sub-culturing was done using 78 weeks old culture for further multiplication. well root in vitro 163 comparative studies on growth and yield of conventional and tissue culture plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 162-165, 2019 plantlets were transferred to polythene bags containing garden soil, sand and farmyard manure in equal proportions and kept in shade net for hardening and establishment. the rhizome was obtained from trueto-type pla nts ma inta ined in sha de house for conventional rhizome planting. plants were planted during 2016-17, using a completely randomized block design with equal number of replication. plants were spaced at 0.45 x 0.25 m with the plot size of the experiment was 3 x 5 m. a fertilizer dose of 25:60:106 npk kg ha-1 was uniformly applied to all the plots. data were collected on the important morphological characters such as plant height, number of tillers per plant, number of leaves, length and width of leaves, number of finger per plant, average finger diameter, total weight of rhizome per plant, weight of mother rhizome and number days for maturation of the plant. each of the morphological characters except rhizome morphology was scored and recorded every two months interval, until the time of harvest. statistical analysis was conducted for each experiment and pooled analysis over the experiments was conducted using a randomized complete block design method. significance was determined at the 0.05 probability level. all statistical analyses were performed with spss 16.0 (spss inc., chicago, il, usa). one-way analysis of variance (anova) was used to compare means. phenotypic variant or off type plants are commonly observed in in vitro raised population of c. longa var. co 2. variants were observed in micropropagated plants in all the three different replicated sites exhibiting the changes in leaf morphology and colour. the χ2 test for independence indicated that phenotypic variation and propagation methods were independent criteria. (χ2 = 3.70, p = 0.32) (i.e., the ratio of trueto-type to off type plants remained the same for both methods of propagation). the micropropagated plant showed two times higher variation frequency than rhizome-derived plants (table 1). similar result was observed in banana (smith and drew, 1990; smith, 1988; dir k et al. , 1996). among the var iation observed in both the populations (in vitro and conventional plant), tillers of approximately 3.7% of in vitro raised plants and approximately 1.8% of conventional rhizome plants had leaves with one half of the lamina green and the other half albino and variegation on the edge of lamina (table 1). neeta et al. (2002) also documented similar results in turmeric var. ‘elite’. however, conclude that results of phenotypic va r ia tion r a te wer e not a lwa ys table 1: growth and yield of tissue culture and conventional grown plants of turmericvar.co 2 characters conventional rhizome tissue culture difference derived plants plants off type (%) 1.8z 3.7z 1.9** plant height (cm) 65.61±.19a 76.88±.27b 11.27* number of leaves per plant 10.93±.10c 13.13±.12d 2.20* leaf length (cm) 39.38±.18e 43.05±.21e 3.67** leaf breadth (cm) 12.69±.14f 14.01±.25f 1.32** number. of tillers per plant 2.73±.17g 4.60±.15g 1.87** weight of mother rhizome (g) 105.83±.27h 136.62±.22i 30.79* weight of primary rhizome (g) 148.30±.30j 164.58±.58k 16.28* weight of secondary rhizome (g) 72.43±.35l 85.58±.27m 13.15* fresh rhizome yield/plot (15 m2) (kg) 45.62±.15n 61.25±.10o 15.63* estimated fresh rhizome yield/ha (t) 30.14 40.83 10.69** maturity (days) 276** 255** -21.00** rhizome rot incidence (%) 25.58±.25n 3.87±.40n -21.71** value are means ± se, n=108.*significant at p d” 0.05; **non-significant; ***maturity date, when 95% of leaves become yellowish. means followed by same letters are not significantly different at p = 0.05. 164 chitra consistent over trial, which however, may be greatly influenced by environmental factor. true-to-type plants were included in the analysis of va r ia nce of the hor ticultur a l per for ma nce of conventional propagated vs. micropropagated plants of turmeric var. co 2.growth and yield parameters were recorded on tissue culture and rhizome derived plants, which showed significant differences in all charactersexcept number of tillers, leaf length and breadth (table 1). in vitro turmeric was significantly taller than the conventional type, throughout the vegetative growth cycle. plant height is a measure of plant vigour, indica ting that in vitro plants established more quickly and grows vigorously than conventional plants (dirk et al., 1996; sheela et al., 2001). the tissue culture plants showed vigorous and fast increase in the length of shoots as well as new shoot emerged out from the base after one week. development was more advanced (76.88±.27 cm) than that reached by conventional plant (65.61±.19 cm) of the same age after 6 months. similar result wa s documented by ber uto et al. (1996) in ranunculus asiaticus and singh et al. (2013) in turmeric. fast growing in vitro plants produced new leaves at a faster rate, resulting in larger leaf area during vegetative growth than that of conventional type. in vitro raised plant gaveapproximately 2.20 more number of leaves and produced higher number of leaves (13.13±.12) as compared to plants from conventional rhizome (10.93±.10) throughout the growing period (table 1). this is in agreement with the finding of neeta et al. (2001), israeli et al. (1988) and hwang et al. (1984), noted that micro-propagated plant retained more healthy leaves than conventional plant due to fast rate of leaf emission. the tissue culture plant showed appreciable vegetative growth, produced longer shoots and more number of leaves, after 6 months of propagation in both the propagation type. presumably, the increase in vegetative growth has contributed to the increase in shoot yield and number of leaves of tissue culture plants of turmeric. t he compa r ison of in vitro plants showed no significant variation for number of tiller and leaves width. tissue culture plants recorded significantly higher weight of finger rhizome (164.58±.58 g) than that of conventional plant (148.30±.30 g) (table 1). an increased of weight of finger rhizome (16.28 g) may be attributed to genetic uniformity of the plant, due to selection of superior types of micropropagated plants (dikash et al., 2012). increased in the weight of finger rhizome ultimately increase in the yield of turmeric plant. this is in support with the finding of neeta et al. (2001). considering the weight of mother and fingers rhizome produced per plant, tissue culture plants, gave significantly better rhizome yield per plant than conventional rhizome. this is consistent with the fact that tissue culture plant has more potential in gr owth, yield a nd r hizome pr oduction tha n conventional type (neeta et al., 2002; dirk et al., 1996; sheela et al., 2001; beruto et al., 1996). the mean rhizome yield plot-1 of in vitro raised plants wa s obser ved mor e (61. 25±. 10 kg) tha n the conventional rhizome yield (45.62±.15 kg). during the pr esent investigation, ther e wa s no significa nt difference in the time taken for maturation for harvest between tissue culture and conventional plant. the enhanced growth rate exhibited by in vitro plants did not delay the plant maturation; however, it has shown less variability in the time taken for rhizome maturation under the sa me tr ea tment. t hey wer e a ble to complete ma tur ation in thr ee weeks ea rlier a s compared to plants from conventional rhizome. among the yield attributes, the number of tillers and the total weight of rhizome plant-1 had the greatest correlations with the yield. estimated fresh rhizome yield plant-1 was highest in tissue culture plants (40.83 t ha-1) than rhizome derived plants (30.14 t ha-1). singh et al. (2013) also observed same trend in turmeric var. lakadong. the tissue culture plant had the lowest rhizome rot incidence (3.87±.40%) when compared to conventional plant (25.58±.25%). babu et al. (1997) reported that micro propagation technique could be used for production of disease-free planting material of elite plants. apart from the production of pathogen free planting material, in vitro propagation of turmeric can also used for the conservation and exchange of germplasm (cheethaparambil et al., 2014). it should be concluded that the present investigation could be beneficial as the tissue culture plants showed suitable agronomic performance than conventional plants and resulted in the increased fingers weight and subsequently mar keta ble rhizome yields. field evaluation of tissue culture and conventional plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 162-165, 2019 165 r evea led tha t in vitro plants wer e super ior in performance over conventional plant exhibiting vigorous vegetative growth, disease free, increased and uniformity of rhizome production. acknowledgment the author is grateful to the directorate of arecanut and spices development, calicut for the financial assistance under goi-midh scheme. comparative studies on growth and yield of conventional and tissue culture plants j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 162-165, 2019 references balachandran, s.m., bhat, s.r. and chandel, k.p.s. 1990. in vitro clonal multiplication of turmeric (curcuma spp) and ginger (zingiberofficinale rosc.). plant cell rep., 8: 521-4. beruto, m., cane, g. and debergh, p. 1996. field per forma nce of tissue cultur ed plants of ranunculus asiaticus l. sci. hortic., 66:229-239. chattopadhyay, i., biswas, k., bandyopadhyay, u.and banarjee, r.k. 2004. turmeric and curcumin biological actions and medical applications. current sci., 87: 44-53. cheethaparambila., geetha, s.p. and indira,b. 2014. in vitro microrhizome and minirhizome production in turmeric (curcuma longa l.) cultivar alleppey supreme and its comparative anatomical and histochemica l a na lysis. int.j.curr.microbiol.app.sci., 3(3): 535-542. dirk, r.v. and rodomiro, o. 1996. field performance of conventional vsin vitro propagules of plantain (musa spp., aab group). hortsci.,31(5):862865. hwang, s.c., chen, c.l., lin, j.c. and lin, h.l. 1984. cultivation of banana using plantlets fr om meristem culture. hortsci.,19: 231-233. israeli, y., reuveni, o. and nameri, n. 1988. genetic var ia bility and perfor ma nce of i n vitro propagated banana plants. in: memoria de la iv congreso international sobre agrofisiologia del banana. eds. c.j.a. guzman and c.r. romero, san jose, costa rica.pp. 94-104 larkin, p.j. and scowcroft, w.r. 1981. somaclonal variation a novel source of variability from cell cultures for plant improvement. theor. appl. genet.,60:197-214. neeta , d., sa lvi, l.g. a nd susan, e. 2002. micr opr opaga tion and field evalua tion of micropropagated plants of turmeric. plant cell tiss. organ cult.,68:143-151. nirmal babu, k., minoo, d., geetha, s.p., sumathi, v. and praveen, k. 2007.biotechnology of turmeric and related species in: turmeric – the genus curcuma.ed. ravindran,p.n., nirmal babu, k.and sivaraman, k., crc press, boca raton, usa.pp107-125 samir, c.d. 2007. influence of indole-3-butyric acid a nd propa ga tion method on gr owth and development of in vitro and ex vitro-derived lowbush blueberry plants. plant. growth regul. 51:245-253. sheela, v.l. and ramachandran, n. 2001. growth, flowering and yield potential of tissue culture banana (musa aab cv. nendran). j. trop. agric., 39:1-4. singh, d., devala, d.k., punyarani, k.s., henary, s.c., brojendro, s.s., brajakishor, s.c. and sunitibala, d.h. 2012. silver nitrate and different culture vessels influence high frequency microrhizome induction in vitro and enhancement growth of turmeric plantlet during ex vitro acclimatization. nat. sci. biol. 4(4):67-78. smith, m.k. 1988. a review of factors influencing the genetic stability of micropropagated bananas. fruits43:219-223. smith, m.k. and drew, r.a. 1990. current applications of tissue cultur e in pla nt pr opa ga tion a nd improvement. aust. j. plant. physiol. 17:267289. smith, m.k. and hamil, s.d. 1996. field evaluation of micr opr opaga ted ginger in subtr opica l queensland. aust. j. exp. agric. 36:347-354. stephens, p.a., barwale-zehr, u.b., nickell, c.d. and widholm, j.m. 1991. a cytoplasmically-inherited, wrinkled-leaf mutant in soybean. j. hered. 82:7173. vuylsteke, d.r., swennen, g.f. and wilson langhe, e. de. 1988. phenotypic variation among in vitro propagated plantain (musa spp. cv. aab). sci. hortic. 36: 79-88. (received on 24.10.2017, revised on 11.12.2019 and accepted on 12.12.2019) introduction carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) is one of the important commercial flowers owing to its excellent keeping quality, wide range of forms and colour, ability to withstand long-distance transport and high rehydration capacity. it ranks next only to rose and chrysanthemum in global floriculture trade (sanyat et al, 2006). it is a herbaceous perennial belonging to the family caryophyllaceae and is widely used for beds, pots, rock gardens, window boxes, bouquets and flower arrangements. besides its aesthetic value, carnation is also used as cardiotonic, diaphoretic, alexiteric, vermifuge and for perfume extraction. in india, carnation is grown commercially in delhi, chandigarh, maharashtra, karnataka, andhra pradesh, tamil nadu, kerala, himachal pradesh and punjab. carnation is multiplied through cuttings, seed and tissue culture for commercial purposes. seed propagation is mainly used in marguerite or chabaud type carnation, while the perpetualflowering carnation is multiplied vegetatively. carnation can be grown round–the-year in polyhouse at temperatures of 18-23°c and 50-60% relative humidity (sehgal, 2001). plant growth regulators play an important role in manipulating growth, flowering and rooting behaviour in influence of auxins on rooting efficacy in carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) cuttings ramesh kumar, nazeer ahmed, o. chand sharma and shiv lal central institute of temperate horticulture srinagar-190 007 (j&k), india e-mail : rameshflori@gmail.com abstract effect of various auxins (iba, iaa and naa) on different types of cuttings was investigated to determine efficacy of auxins in promoting rooting in carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.). auxin and type of cutting significantly affected rooting traits. naa was found to be more effective in promoting early rooting and inducing profuse rooting, root number, fresh and dry weight of roots and longer roots. among the auxins used, earliest rooting (18.69 days), highest rooting percentage (58.70 %), number of roots (13.18), root length (12.26 cm), and, highest fresh and dry weight of roots (4.93g and 45.08 mg), respectively, were obtained with naa @ 500 ppm. tip cuttings responded better in rooting-characteristic of carnation than basal cuttings, and recorded highest rooting percentage (73.02 %) and number of roots (12.25), longest roots (10.04cm) and maximum fresh and dry weight of roots (4.27 g and 43.19 mg), respectively. interaction effect of auxin and cutting type was found to the significant, and highest rooting percentage, (85.26%), number of roots (18.36), longest roots (14.81cm), and highest fresh and dry weight of roots (6.85g and 68.02mg), respectively, observed with naa @ 500 ppm in tip cuttings. key words: carnation, rooting efficacy, iba, iaa and naa flower crops. exogenous auxin application improves rooting efficiency and quality of stem cuttings, while iba and naa stimulate adventitious rooting in cuttings (copes and mandel, 2000). the promoting effect of iba on rooting is mainly due to its conversion to iaa in plant tissue (epstein and lavee, 1984). auxins like indole-3-butyric acid (iba), indole3-acetic acid (iaa) and naphthalene acetic acid (naa) were found to promote rooting in virginia creeper (taleb et al, 2012). climatic conditions of north western himalayan region are highly suitable for commercial cultivation of carnation. in a temperate climate, flowering starts from may and lasts up to october if under polyhouse condition. carnation can withstand extreme low temperatures during winter and survive even frost and snowfall under open condition. despite high yield and quality, long flowering duration and vase life, rehydration capacity, good market demand and winter hardiness, carnation is not taken up for commercial cultivation in north western himalayan region particularly, in kashmir valley owing to lack of availability of quality planting material on a large-scale. therefore the present study was designed to optimize concentrations of auxins (iba, iaa and naa) and to select a suitable plant part for standardization of ex-vitro propagation technique in carnation for large-scale multiplication. j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):157-160, 2014 158 material and methods the experiment was carried out at central institute of temperate horticulture, srinagar during 2010-2011 using carnation variety bizet. cuttings 12-15cm long with 4-5 pairs of leaves were obtained from terminal (tip) and lower (basal) portions of healthy plants. three auxins, namely, iba, iaa and naa, each at 100, 200 and 500mg/l, along with control (distilled water), were used. the experiment was laid out in factorial completely randomized design, with three replications. the basal portion of both type of cuttings was dipped in the respective auxins for 10 minutes while the control was dipped in distilled water. treated cuttings were planted in polythene bags (20x10cm2) filled with sand, under a mist chamber. twenty cuttings were planted separately for recording days to formation of the root initial. temperature was maintained at 18-25°c, and relative humidity at 80-85 % within the mist chamber. the rooting substrate was treated with 0.3% carbendazim to control fungal infection. observations were recorded on different root characteristics of the cuttings at 60 days from planting. the cuttings were picked randomly, and days from planting to formation of root initials were treated as days to rooting. per cent rooting was determined by counting the number of rooted cuttings per replication and dividing this by the total number of cuttings per replication. for number of roots per cutting, all the roots originating from the cuttings were counted, and, the total number of roots was divided by the total number of rooted cuttings. all roots produced per replication were collected and their length was measured; the sum of the length was divided by the total number of cuttings to calculate average root length. the weight of freshly harvested roots was determined and weight per rooted cutting was taken as fresh weight of root. freshly harvested roots of rooted cuttings were dried in an oven at 60°c for 48 hours to a constant weight, and weight of dried roots per rooted cutting was taken as the dry weight of root. all the data were analyzed statistically as per gomez and gomez (1984) and chandel (2004). results and discussion application of auxins improved the rooting efficacy of carnation cuttings over the control, and tip cuttings were found to be better than basal cuttings for root attributes (table 1). auxin treatment significantly reduced time-torooting, and early rooting was recorded with naa 500mg/ l (18.69 days), followed by iba 500mg/l (22.43 days) over the control (33.54 days). with regard to type of cutting, tip cuttings resulted in earliest rooting (23.22 days) compared to the basal cuttings (28.04 days). interaction between auxin and cutting type was found to be significant, and the earliest rooting was observed in naa 500mg/l (17.14 days) in tip cuttings, followed by naa 200mg/l (20.25 days) in basal cuttings. early rooting in tip cuttings compared to that in basal cutting was also reported by kumar et al (2006) in carnation. a high concentration of root promoting substances in leaves and meristematic cells in terminal cuttings most probably resulted in early rooting compared to that in basal cutting (bharathy et al, 2004). delay in rooting in basal cuttings may be due to lack of nutrition, insufficient concentration of auxins or presence of inhibitory substances (nanda et al, 1967). auxin treatments significantly improved rooting percentage, and tip cuttings responded better than basal cuttings. high rate of rooting (58.70%) was recorded in naa 500mg/l followed by iaa 500mg/l (56.39%) over the control (23.22%), whereas tip cuttings resulted in higher percentage of rooting (73.02%) over basal cuttings (25.18%). interaction between auxin and cutting type was significant, and highest rate of rooting was observed in naa 500mg/l (85.26%), followed by iaa 500mg/l (83.54%) in tip cuttings. kumar et al (2006) reported higher rooting in tip cuttings than in basal cuttings in carnation. chmiel (1985) also reported better rooting in carnation stem cuttings with iba, iaa and naa application. table 1. effect of auxins on days to root and rooting percentage in carnation cuttings treatment days to root rooting (%) tip basal mean tip basal mean iba 100mg/l 25.14 32.22 28.68e 65.01 20.24 42.62b iba 200mg/l 22.25 27.45 24.85cd 73.25 25.25 49.25c iba 500mg/l 20.30 24.57 22.43b 77.06 27.69 52.37de iaa 100mg/l 26.61 34.20 30.40f 73.78 23.38 48.58c iaa 200mg/l 23.22 28.31 25.76d 80.65 26.14 53.39e iaa 500mg/l 22.14 26.24 24.19c 83.54 29.25 56.39f naa 100mg/l 23.33 26.17 24.75c 75.25 27.20 51.23d naa 200mg/l 21.87 24.20 23.03b 81.14 29.30 55.22f naa 500mg/l 17.14 20.25 18.69a 85.26 32.14 58.70g control 30.25 36.83 33.54g 35.24 11.21 23.22a mean 23.22a 28.04b 73.02b 25.18a se(d) se m+ cd se(d) se m+ cd at 5% at 5% auxin 0.46 0.32 0.93 0.62 0.43 1.25 cutting type 0.20 0.14 0.41 0.27 0.19 0.56 auxin x 0.65 0.46 1.31 0.87 0.62 1.77 cutting type note: for each experimental factor, any two means within the column or row, followed by the same letter, are not significantly different at 0.05 level of significance ramesh kumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):157-160, 2014 159 data presented in table 2 divulges that number of roots per cutting was significantly affected by auxin and type of cutting. a high number of roots per cutting (13.18) was recorded in naa 500mg/l, followed by iaa 500mg/l (12.04) over the control (4.01). similar results were obtained by suh (1997) in carnation. as for the type of cutting, tip cuttings resulted in the highest number of roots per cutting (12.25) compared to that in basal cuttings (5.83). higher amount of rooting hormones in leaves and better mobilization of food reserves in terminal portions, along with early rooting may be the cause for a higher number of roots in carnation tip cuttings (bharathy et al, 2004). interaction between auxin and cutting-type was significant, and maximum number of roots per cutting was recorded in naa 500mg/l (18.36), followed by iaa 500mg/l (16.12) in tip cuttings. all the auxins improved root length significantly over the control, but naa and iaa were found to be more efficient. root length was greater in tip cuttings than in basal cuttings. average root length was highest in naa 500mg/l (12.26cm) which was at par with iaa 500mg/l (12.25cm); lowest root length (4.73cm) was recorded in the control, while tip cuttings resulted in the longest root (10.04cm) compared to basal cuttings (7.11cm). in the interaction effect, longest roots (14.81cm) were found in naa 500mg/l, followed by iaa 500mg/l (13.61cm) in tip cuttings. early rooting in tip cuttings may have resulted in longer roots as against that in basal cuttings. kumar et al (2006) also obtained better results in most of the root parameters in carnation like earliness to root formation, rooting percentage, number of roots and root length with naa application. data presented in table 3 reveals that fresh and dry weight of roots was significantly affected by auxin treatment and type of cutting. highest fresh and dry weight of roots per cutting was recorded in naa 500mg/l (4.93g and 45.08mg), followed by naa 200mg/l (4.27g and 36.72mg) and lowest recorded in control (1.22g and 16.39mg), respectively, while tip cuttings recorded highest fresh and dry weight of roots (4.27g and 43.19mg) over basal cuttings (1.94g and 15.53mg), respectively. interaction between auxin and type of cutting was significant, and, highest fresh and dry weight was recorded in naa 500mg/l (6.85g and 68.02mg), followed by naa 200mg/l (5.70g and 54.52mg), respectively, in tip cuttings. fresh and dry weight of roots per cutting was lowest in control (0.64g and 9.64mg, respectively) in basal cuttings. higher number of roots, in addition to longer roots, in tip cuttings may have resulted in higher fresh and dry weight, as against that in basal cuttings. similar results were obtained by panahi and morteza (2000) who recorded improved root length, and fresh and dry weight per rooted cutting, in carnation with naa application. auxin and type of cutting significantly affected rooting traits in carnation cuttings. naa was more effective in rooting carnation cuttings; tip cuttings responded better than table 3. effect of auxins on root fresh and dry weight in carnation cuttings treatment root fresh weight (g) root dry weight (mg) tip basal mean tip basal mean iba 100mg/l 2.74 1.01 1.87b 36.49 13.40 24.94c iba 200mg/l 3.15 1.41 2.28c 36.75 14.62 25.68c iba 500mg/l 4.05 1.65 2.85d 40.60 15.70 28.15d iaa 100mg/l 3.60 1.77 2.68d 34.10 12.46 23.28b iaa 200mg/l 4.57 2.02 3.29e 43.83 15.89 29.86e iaa 500mg/l 5.36 2.85 4.10f 48.40 17.20 32.80g naa 100mg/l 4.91 2.20 3.55e 46.11 15.40 30.75f naa 200mg/l 5.70 2.84 4.27f 54.52 18.92 36.72h naa 500mg/l 6.85 3.01 4.93g 68.02 22.15 45.08i control 1.80 0.64 1.22a 23.14 9.64 16.39a mean 4.27b 1.94a 43.19b 15.53a se(d) se m+ cd se(d) se m+ cd at 5% at 5% auxin 0.46 0.32 0.93 0.62 0.43 1.25 auxin 0.17 0.12 0.35 0.40 0.28 0.81 cutting type 0.07 0.05 0.15 0.18 0.12 0.36 auxin x 0.24 0.17 0.50 0.57 0.40 1.15 cutting type note: for each experimental factor, any two means within the column or row, followed by the same letter, are not significantly different at 0.05 level of significance table 2. effect of auxins on root number and root length in carnation cuttings treatment root number cutting-1 root length (cm) tip basal mean tip basal mean iba 100mg/l 6.15 3.14 4.64b 6.72 3.65 5.18b iba 200mg/l 8.22 4.26 6.24c 7.15 4.57 5.86c iba 500mg/l 11.36 5.43 8.39d 8.23 6.17 7.20d iaa 100mg/l 13.18 6.25 9.71e 9.20 7.43 8.31e iaa 200mg/l 14.73 6.81 10.77f 10.25 8.58 9.41f iaa 500mg/l 16.12 7.96 12.04g 13.61 10.90 12.25h naa 100mg/l 13.00 6.45 9.72e 11.42 7.45 9.43f naa 200mg/l 15.55 7.90 11.72g 13.57 8.65 11.11g naa 500mg/l 18.36 8.00 13.18h 14.81 9.72 12.26h control 5.91 2.12 4.01a 5.44 4.03 4.73a mean 12.25b 5.83a 10.04b 7.11a se(d) se m+ cd se(d) se m+ cd at 5% at 5% auxin 0.25 0.17 0.51 0.16 0.11 0.32 cutting type 0.11 0.07 0.22 0.07 0.05 0.14 auxin x 0.35 0.25 0.72 0.22 0.16 0.46 cutting type note: for each experimental factor, any two means within the column or row, followed by the same letter, are not significantly different at 0.05 level of significance influence of auxins on rooting in carnation cuttings j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):157-160, 2014 160 basal cuttings. application of naa 500mg/l resulted in highest rooting percentage (85.26%), number of roots (18.36), longest roots (14.81cm) and highest fresh and dry weight of root (6.85g and 68.02mg, respectively) in tip cuttings. references bharathy, p.v., sonawane, p.c. and sasnu, a. 2004. effect of plant growth regulators, type of cutting and season on rooting of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) cuttings. ind. j. hort., 61:338-341 chandel, s.r.s. 2004. a handbook of agricultural statistics. achal prakashan mandir, kanpur, india, pp b1-129 chmiel, h. 1985. the effect of naa, iba and iaa auxins and their mixture on rooting of carnation cuttings cv. scania. acta hort., 167:162-167 copes, d.l. and mandel, n.l. 2000. effect of iba and naa on rooting douglas fir stem cuttings. new forest, 20:249-257 epstein, e. and lavee, s. 1984. conversion of indole-3butyric acid to indole-3-acetic acid by cuttings of grapevine (vitis vinifera) and olive (olea europea). pl. cell physiol., 25:697-703 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research. 2nd edn., john wiley and sons, inc., new york kumar, s., verma, m.s., lodhi, s.k. and tripathi, s.k. 2006. effect of growth chemicals, type of cutting and season on root formation of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) cutting. int’l. j. agril. sci., 2:596598 nanda, k.k., purohit, a.n., tondon, r. and bala, a. 1967. plant growth substances. in: proc. int’l. symp. plant growth substances, sircar, s.m. (ed.), pp 221-229, calcutta, india panahi, r. and morteza, k. 2000. effects of auxins on rooting and flowering of two cultivars of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.). iranian j. hortl. sci. tech., 1:91-108 sanyat, p.s. and mishra, r.l. 2006. carnation. in: advances in ornamental horticulture. s.k. bhattacharjee (ed), vol. 2, pointer publishers, jaipur, india, pp 66-80 sehgal, o.p. 2001. carnation. in: handbook of horticulture. chadha, k.l. (ed). directorate of information and publications of agriculture, indian council of agricultural research, kab, pusa, new delhi, pp. 548-54 suh, j. 1997. effect of photoperiod to stock plant, temperature, media and plant growth regulators pretreatment on root development and quality of cuttings in carnation plug cuttings. j. korean soc. hortl. sci., 38:303-308 taleb, r.a., hasan, m.k. and hasan, h.s. 2012. effect of different auxins concentrations on virginia creeper (parthenocissus quinquefolia) rooting. world applied sci. j., 16:7-10 (ms received 31 january 2013, revised 08 september 2014, accepted 12 october 2014) ramesh kumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):157-160, 2014 seed germination and early seedling growth indirectly determine crop density, crop growth and, consequently, plant yield particularly, under limited water conditions in arid and semi-arid areas. here, surface soil often dries up rapidly and prevents seed germination and seedling establishment. as a consequence of climate change, there is occurrence of high temperature spells and erratic rainfall, thus causing limited water (drought) and excess water (flood) situations. drought, or limited moisture condition, is considered to be one of the main environmental factors strongly limiting growth and yield of plants worldwide (chaves et al, 2003). horticultural crops in general, and vegetable crops in particular, are sensitive to environmental extremes. relative performance of an individual plant during early stages of its life, i.e., germination and seedling establishment, can have serious effects on subsequent growth and fitness (roach, 1987). brinjal, an important crop of the sub-tropics, is a hardy crop of the solanaceous vegetables. however, scanty work has been reported on germination behaviour and seedling growth in relation to limited water conditions. the present study, therefore, was conducted to determine seed germination and seedling growth response in various brinjal cultivars exposed to various osmotic concentrations. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):262-267, 2013 short communication seed germination and seedling growth in solanum species to water stress under in vitro conditions r.m. bhatt, rashmi, a.d.d.v.s. nageswara rao, r.h. laxman and t.h. singh division of plant physiology and biochemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: rmbt@iihr.ernet.in abstract a study on seed germination and seedling growth was conducted with five cultivars of solanum melongena l. (cvs. arka nidhi, b.p.l.h.-1, arka neelakanth, arka keshav and mattu gulla) and a wild species solanum macrocarpon l. under different levels of osmotic potential induced by polyethylene glycol (peg 8000). germination declined progressively in response to decreasing (more negative) water potential, and no germination was found beyond 0.4mpa in any of the cultivars/species. except for cvs. arka nidhi, b.p.l.h.-1 and mattu gulla, no germination was seen at -0.4mpa cultivar arka neelkanth failed to germinate under any of the osmotic concentrations tested. response in term of root growth was better in arka neelkanth, followed by arka nidhi and b.p.l.h.-1, upto transfer from different levels of osmotic potential to control (0mpa). germination of primed seeds within 24h indicates that many processes leading to normal germination would have been completed during the priming process itself. in contrast to germination, growth extension in radicle was less sensitive to water stress. key words: brinjal, germination, osmotic potential, water stress studies were conducted with five cultivars of solanum melongena l. (cvs. arka nidhi, b.p.l.h.-1, arka neelakanth, arka keshav, mattu gulla) and a wild species, solanum macrocarpon l. seeds were placed on filter paper in 90 mm (dia) glass petri dishes. three replicates of 20 seeds were used per treatment. the petri dishes were placed in an incubator in the dark at 25oc for determining seed germination in relation to water stress. seeds were subjected to different osmotic concentrations (0mpa, -0.2mpa, -0.4mpa, -0.8mpa and -1.0mpa) effected with polyethelene glycol (peg 8000). germination was recorded daily for 10 days. root and shoot length were measured at the end of the experiment (10th day). ungerminated seeds from under various peg concentrations were transferred to petri dishes containing distilled water (0mpa) at the same temperature (25oc), and germination recorded daily for 10 days. root and shoot length were also measured here at the end of the experiment (10th day). in another experiment, seeds were primed for 7 days in -1mpa peg 8000 solution. twenty seeds of each cultivar/species were placed in petri dishes containing distilled water (0mpa). germination was recorded for 10 days. 263 germination pattern was different between cultivars (fig. 1). germination began by day 4 in cvs. arka nidhi, arka keshav, arka neelkanth and solanum macrocarpon l. under the control (0mpa), and by day 5, in cv. b.p.l.h.1. however, earliest germination (within 24h) was seen in cv. mattu gulla under control. in all the cultivars, 50% germination was reached by day 6, except in cvs. arka neelkanth and b.p.l.h.-1. lowest germination (45%) was seen in b.p.l.h.-1 under control. germination was affected significantly when seeds were subjected to various osmotic concentrations. except for cvs. arka nidhi, b.p.l.h.-1 and mattu gulla, there was no germination at -0.4mpa. in cvs. arka keshav and solanum macrocarpon, no germination was observed beyond -0.2mpa. cv. arka neelkanth did not germinate under any of the osmotic concentrations tested. no germination was seen beyond -0.4mpa in any of the cultivars/species. maximum germination under -0.2 and 0.4 mpa was recorded in mattu gulla and arka nidhi (fig. 1). root growth was better in cvs. b.p.l.h.-1, arka nidhi and mattu gulla under water stress as indicated by higher root length compared to the control (table 1). however, shoot growth was significantly low due to stress in all the cultivars/species. when ungerminated seeds from various osmotic concentrations (-0.2mpa, -0.4mpa and -0.6mpa) were table 1. percentage seed germination, root and shoot growth under different levels of water potential after 10 days (a)% germination osmotic concentration cultivar/species 0mpa -0.2mpa -0.4mpa -0.6mpa arka nidhi 77.8 (63.04) 40.0 (39.22) 40.0 (38.14) 0.0 (0.0) b.p.l.h. -1 46.7 (43.09) 45.0 (41.81) 30.0 (32.20) 0.0 (0.0) mattu gulla 100.0 (89.96) 100.0 (89.96) 95.0 (79.52) 0.0 (0.0) arka keshav 84.5 (67.47) 70.0 (56.77) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) solanum macrocarpon 66.7 (54.87) 10.0 (18.43) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) arka neelkanth 55.5 (48.23) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) 0.0 (0.0) cultivar treatment interaction s. em.± 2.15 1.75 4.30 cd (p= 0.01) 8.17 6.67 16.35 figures in parentheses indicate transformed values of per cent germination (b) root length (cm) osmotic concentration arka nidhi 3.46 3.30 6.60 0.00 b.p.l.h. -1 3.55 6.10 7.47 0.00 mattu gulla 3.02 5.30 5.60 0.00 arka keshav 2.08 3.10 0.00 0.00 solanum macrocarpon 3.23 0.00 0.00 0.00 arka neelkanth 2.40 0.00 0.00 0.00 cultivar treatment interaction s. em.± 0.23 0.19 0.46 cd (p= 0.01) 0.86 0.71 1.73 (c ) shoot length (cm) osmotic concentration arka nidhi 2.64 0.50 0.90 0.00 b.p.l.h. -1 3.50 0.90 0.40 0.00 mattu gulla 2.89 1.20 0.60 0.00 arka keshav 1.03 0.40 0.00 0.00 solanum macrocarpon 3.29 0.00 0.00 0.00 arka neelkanth 1.41 0.00 0.00 0.00 cultivar treatment interaction s.em.± 0.13 0.11 0.26 cd (p= 0.01) 0.50 0.40 0.99 seed germination response in solanum spp. under water stress j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):262-267, 2013 264 fig 1. germination behaviour of brinjal cultivars under different levels of water potential bhatt et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):262-267, 2013 265 fig 2. germination pattern of ungerminated brinjal seeds upon transfer to water from different osmotic concentrations j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):262-267, 2013 seed germination response in solanum spp. under water stress 266 transferred to the control (0mpa) concentration, germination began within 24h. in almost all the cultivars, except for b.p.l.h.-1, where germination started on day 3. ungerminated seeds transferred from -0.6mpa to control (0mpa) had >80% germination, except arka neelkanth where seed germination did not cross 67% at 0mpa after transfer from lower osmotic concentrations (fig. 2). in general, roots in these seeds were longer when seeds from lower osmotic concentrations were transferred to 0mpa (table 2). in seeds primed at -1mpa, germination was >60% table 2. percentage seed germination, root and shoot growth upon transfer of ungerminated seeds from different levels of osmotic concentration to water (0 mpa) (a) % germination osmotic concentration cultivar/species -0.2mpa -0.4mpa -0.6mpa arka nidhi 0.0 (0.0) 83.3 (65.85) 83.3 (65.85) b.p.l.h. -1 0.0 (0.0) 98.0 (81.22) 85.0 (67.38) mattu gulla 0.0 (0.0) 100.0 (89.96) 100.0 (89.96) arka keshav 0.0 (0.0) 98.0 (82.63) 96.0 (78.49) solanum 0.0 (0.0) 67.0 (54.92) 100.0 (89.96) macrocarpon arka neelkanth 67.0 (54.92) 67.0 (54.92) 67.0 (54.92) cultivar treatment interaction s. em.± 0.35 0.25 0.60 cd (p= 0.01) 1.34 0.95 2.33 figures in parentheses indicate transformed values of per cent germination (b) root length (cm) osmotic concentration arka nidhi 0.0 5.20 7.40 b.p.l.h. -1 0.0 5.57 6.27 mattu gulla 0.0 2.47 0.90 arka keshav 0.0 5.57 3.07 solanum macrocarpon 0.0 4.83 4.93 arka neelkanth 5.70 6.50 7.43 cultivar treatment interaction s. em.± 0.38 0.22 0.55 cd (p = 0.01) 1.54 0.89 2.17 (c) shoot length (cm) osmotic concentration arka nidhi 0.0 3.47 4.87 b.p.l.h. -1 0.0 2.67 2.73 mattu gulla 0.0 1.53 0.30 arka keshav 0.0 2.97 2.00 solanum macrocarpon 0.0 5.17 5.30 arka neelkanth 3.97 3.83 4.13 cultivar treatment interaction s. em.± 0.28 0.16 0.49 cd (p= 0.01) 1.11 0.64 1.57 fig 3. germination of brinjal cultivars upon priming at -1.0 mpa for 7 days. in all the cultivars, except b.p.l.h.-1 where germination did not cross 40% under control (fig. 3). results indicate that increasing moisture stress beyond -0.2mpa considerably reduces germination in all the cultivars, with significant differences among them. increasing water stress increased the time taken for germination (fig. 1). it is clear from the results that for most of the brinjal cultivars studied, critical water potential required for germination lies between -0.2 and -0.4 mpa. reduction in germination percentage may be attributed to lower diffusion of water under lower water potential. this is further supported by induction of germination within a day upon transfer of the ungerminated seeds under different concentrations, and primed seeds at -1mpa to distilled water (0mpa). root growth improved with increasing moisture stress, but shoot length decreased under the same moisture conditions in almost all the cultivars, as indicated by higher root length under stress (table 1). the water-sensitive phase of seed germination occurs before radicle emergence (bhatt and srinivasa rao, 1987; srinivasa rao and bhatt, 1990). ungerminated seeds under lower water potential germinated within 24h. after transfer to 0mpa (control). this indicates that several processes leading to normal germination may have been completed during the priming process. response of root growth was superior in cv. arka neelkanth, followed by cv. arka nidhi and b.p.l.h.-1 upon transfer from different levels of osmotic potential to control (0mpa). in contrast to germination, growth extension in radicle was less sensitive to water stress in brinjal. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):262-267, 2013 bhatt et al 267 acknowledgement the present work was conducted under “national initiative on climate resilient agriculture” (nicra) project. the authors are grateful to director, indian institute of horticultural research, for providing necessary facilities. references bhatt, r.m. and srinivasa rao, n.k. 1987. seed germination and seedling growth response of tomato cultivars to imposed water stress. j. hortl. sci., 62:221-225 srinivasa rao, n.k. and bhatt, r.m. 1990. differential sensitivity to water stress of seed germination and seedling radicle growth in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). gartenbauwissenschaft, 55:41-44 chaves, m.m., maroco, j.p. and pereira, j. 2003. understanding plant responses to drought f r o m genes to the whole plant. functional pl. biol., 30:29-264 roach, d.a. 1987. variation in seed and seedling size in anthoxanthum odoratum, amer. midland. naturalist, 117:258-264 (ms received 13 february 2013, revised 10 september 2013, accepted 23 september 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):262-267, 2013 seed germination response in solanum spp. under water stress bell pepper (capsicum annuum l.) popularly known as “shimla mirch” is one of the most important vegetable crops of himachal pradesh. the state is a leading supplier of bell pepper fruits to the plains during summer and rainy seasons. the produce is off-season to the plains and fetches a higher price to vegetable growers. however, productivity and quality of produce is low because of the fluctuating environment during its cultivation in the open.productivity of a crop is greatly affected by cultural and physiological factors, which are environment dependent. auxins cause apical dominance, cell elongation by loosening of cell wall and, retard flower and fruit abscission. extent of flower drop in capsicum is 50-95 per centdepending upon season of cultivation, soil fertility, soil moisture, and photoperiod, incidence of pest and diseases and endogenous hormonal levels. training systems are known to open up the plant canopy which is helpful in maximizing solar interception, enhancing photosynthetic efficiency which results in increased yield. the present studies were, therefore, undertaken to study the effect of different concentrations of naa and training systems in checking flower and fruit drop and improving yield in capsicum under polyhouse. the present studies were carried out at the experimental research farm of department of vegetable studies on training systems and naa application on bell pepper production in polyhouse y.r. shukla, deepa sharma1 and upasna tegta department of vegetable science, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry nauni, solan email: deepabanyal@gmail.com abstract capsicum (capsicum annuum l.) is an important off-season vegetable crops grown in the mid-hills of himachal pradesh. production and productivity of this crop is low because of high flower and fruit drop. the present investigation was carried out to find out the best training system and an appropriate concentration of naphthalene acetic acid (naa). two-stem training system was the best for most traits except, number of flowers per plant and days to first picking which were best under control, i.e., on plants not trained at all. two sprays of naa @ 15 ppm proved best for plant height, total number of flowers per plant, per cent flower drop, per cent fruit set, days to first picking, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and total yield per plant. key words: bell pepper, training systems, naa, yield. science, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan, himachal pradesh in a naturallyventilated polyhouse during march-september, 2008. the experimental farm is situated at nauni, about 15 km away from solan on the solan-rajgarh road, at about 30o51´ n latitude and 77o11´ e longitude. the elevation of the farm is 1,260 m above mean sea level, which falls under the midhill sub-temperate zone of himachal pradesh. the experiment was laid out in factorial rbd with three replications. three concentrations of naphthalene acetic acid (n 1 5 ppm spray, n 2 10 ppm spray and n 3 15 ppm spray) with control (no naa application) were applied. naa was applied as of two sprays, once at flower initiation and the second a month later. three systems of training, viz. t 0 (no training), t 1 (two stem training) and t 2 (four stem training) were followed. seedlings were transplanted on 6th march 2008 at a spacing of 60 x 45cm in plots of size 1.8m x 1.8m. the planting density was 37,000 plants/ha. data were recorded on plant height, total number of flowers per plant, per cent flower-drop, per cent fruit-set, days to first picking, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and total yield per plant. standard cultural practices were followed to raise the crop as per the package of practices for vegetable srops developed by the university (anonymous, 2008). 1regional horticultural and forestry research station, neri, hamirpur short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):59-61, 2011 60 data on plant height, total number of flowers per plant, per cent flower-drop, per cent fruit-set, days to first picking, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and total yield per plant is depicted in table1. in general, maximum values for these traits were observed when plants were trained to two stems (t 1 ). training systems are known to open up the plant canopy, thus maximizing solar interception and enhancing photosynthetic activity. apart from this, training systems also provide a convenient and efficient way for spraying and easy harvesting, besides optimizing space in the greenhouse and improving commercial quality of the fruits, resulting in increased yield (cochran, 1933). plant height (145.42 cm) and number of flowers per plant (28.19) were maximum in plants trained to two stems. flower-drop was minimum (57.14) in the two-stem training system. fruit-set (42.86%), number of fruits per plant (12.26) and total yield per plant (908.12g) was also maximum in the two-stem training system. those plants trained to two stems may have increased interception of solar radiation and better air circulation, resulting in improved plant height, number of fruits and fruit yield. vertical training system improved thickness of the fruit wall by 14%, produced more numerous and large-sized fruits and increased early and total yield of commercial fruits as observed by salas et al (2003). similar findings have also been reported by macraw and greig (1986). however, minimum value for days to first picking (92.25 days) was observed in plants that were not trained at all (control). maximum values for traits under study were observed when plants were sprayed with 15ppm naa (n 3 ). maximum plant height was observed in n 3 (147.56 cm). increase in plant height due to application of auxins may be attributed to increased plasticity of the cell wall, which is a irreversible process, resulting in cell elongation. maximum number of flowers per plant (33.93) were recorded in plants sprayed with 15ppm naa (n 3 ). auxins have been reported to increase the total number of flowers through fundamental physiological processes such as nucleic acid synthesis, accumulation of metabolites and activation of enzymes. similar results were reported by yamgar and desai (1987) in chilli under rahuri conditions. flower-drop was found to be minimum (48.35 %) when plants were sprayed with 15ppm naa (n 3 ). a possible reason may be the low auxin content of flowers which induces dissolution of the cell wall in abscission layer of the pedicel leading to flower and fruit drop. maximum (51.65 %) fruit-set was recorded with 15ppm naa spray. it is possible that the level of endogenous auxins was insufficient and became optimal or beneficial only after receiving an optimum naa dose. number of fruits was recorded to be maximum (17.51) in plants sprayed with 15ppm naa. higher number of fruits here may also be due to higher fruit-set, which is directly related to reduced flower-drop. results of the present findings are in line with those of doddamani and panchal (1989), rao et al (1990), lata and singh (1993), barai and sarkar (1999) and sharma et al (1999). maximum fruit-weight (73.67g) and maximum total yield per plant (1292.93 g) was recorded with 15ppm naa spray. however, minimum value for days to first picking (91.33 days) was observed in plants not sprayed with naa (control) and maximum value (96.67 days) was recorded in plants sprayed with 15ppm naa (n 3 ). the possible cause of delay in first picking may be the result of extended physiological processes, stimulated by auxins, thus activating rna-directed protein synthesis. this may have delayed maturation of their fruits physiologically on the plant. similar findings were reported by verlodt (1976). table 1. effect of training systems and naa on various horticultural traits of bell pepper training system plant total per cent per cent days to number fruit total yield height number flower-drop fruit-set first of fruits weight (g) per plant (g) (cm) of flowers picking pper lant per plant t 0 136.5 28.1 62.8(51.8)* 37.9(38.0) 92.25 11.0 60.5 689.2 t 1 145.4 27.7 57.4(49.0) 42.8 (40.9) 97.50 12.2 72.2 908.1 t 2 141.4 27.7 59.4(50.3) 40.5(39.6) 95.50 11.6 66.7 794.2 naa cocn. n 0 135.5 21.2 70.4(57.0) 29.5(32.9) 91.33 6.2 60.6 382.3 n 1 139.5 26.4 63.2(52.5) 36.7(37.4) 95.78 9.7 63.6 618.4 n 2 141.7 29.9 56.1(48.2) 43.8(41.7) 96.56 13.1 68.0 895.0 n 3 147.5 33.9 48.3(43.8) 51.6(46.1) 96.67 17.5 73.6 1292.9 c.d. 0.05 (training system) 6.34 ns 1.12 1.48 1.35 0.12 0.42 140 c.d. 0.05 (naa) 7.32 2.89 3.63 3.62 1.55 0.13 0.49 160 * values in parentheses are arc sine transformed values shukla et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):59-61, 2011 61 references anonymous, 2008. package of practices for vegetable crops. directorate of extension education, dr. y.s. parmar, uniersity of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan himachal pradesh, pp. 26-33 barai, b.k. and sarkar, k.p. 1999. effect of growth regulators on the yield improvement in chilli. env. and ecol., 17:539-542 cochran, h. 1933. factors affecting flower and fruit setting in the pepper. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 29:434437 doddamani, m.b. and panchal, k.v. 1989. effect of plant growth regulators on growth and yield of byadage chilli (capsicum annuum l.). karnataka j. agril. sci., 2:329-332 lata, s. and singh, r.p. 1993. effect of nitrogen levels and growth regulators on growth, yield and quality of chillies. veg. sci., 20:40-43 macraw, b.d. and greig, j.k.1986. effect of transplant age and pruning procedure on yield and fruit set of bell pepper. hort sci., 21:430-431 rao, g.r., rao, g.v.h. and sujatha. 1990. effect of naa, iaa and 2,4-d on bud and fruit drop in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). j. res. andhra pradesh agril. univ., 18:349-354 salas, m.c., urrestarazu, m. and castillo, e. 2003. effect of cultural practices on a sweet pepper crop in a mild winter climate. acta hort., 614:301-304 sharma, n., kohli, u.k. and sinha, b.n. 1999. effect of naa on bell pepper. j. hill res., 12:74-76 verlodt, h. 1976. effect of gibberellic acid and cultural techniques on the yield, leaf abscission and prolonging of harvesting period of capsicum peppers. faculteit landvondwwetem chappen rijksun iversities genet, 412: 1049-1059 yamgar, v.t. and desai, u.t. 1987. effect of naa and planofix on flowering, flower and fruit drop and fruit set in chilli. j. maharashtra agril. univ., 12:34-38 (ms received 21 september 2009, revised 13 april 2011) training systems in bell pepper production j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):59-61, 2011 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 44-47, 2006 management of bacterial wilt of tomato caused by ralstonia solanacearum (smith) yabuuchi et al using biological control agents a. manoj kumar and girija ganesan' department of crop physiology university of agricultural sciences g k. v. k., bangalore-560 065, kamataka, india. e-mail: manojarthik@rediffmail.com abstract biological control agents, glomus mosseae iihr, bacillus subtilis iihr-1, pseudomonas fluorescens iihr*3, trichoderma harzianum iihr pj and t. viride iihr p̂ ^ were evaluated against tomato wilt caused by ralstonia solanacearum in pathogen-infested plots during 2003 -2004. microbial preparations were applied either as transplant root dips or root dip plus soil drench 30 days after transplanting. per cent survivability increased with the use of all biological control agents tested. however, g mosseae treated plants resulted in better survival (25.75 and 28.79% in root dip alone and 60 and 66.67% in root dip plus drench against untreated control 0 and 1.5% during 2003 and 2004 respectively), compared to the rest of the treatments, suggesting g mosseae amendment to pathogen-infested soil would result in substantially higher plant survival against the untreated controls. key words: biocontrol microorganisms, bacterial wilt, survivability, ralstonia solanacearum, tomato introduction tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill. nom. cons.) is one of the widely distributed vegetable crops grown worldwide. tomatoes are a key food crop throughout the tropics and subtropics for low-income group of farmers and are also a valuable cash crop. in india, tomato occupies 4180 ha with annual production of 6.4 million tonnes (anon, 1998). bacterial wilt caused by ralstonia (formerly pseudomonas) solanacearum (smith) yabuuchi et al, (yabuuchi et al, 1995) is a soil borne plant disease of great economic importance. it is endemic in most tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions of the world (hayward, 1991), proving a major limitation to tomato production in karnataka, andhra pradesh, kerala, maharashtra, assam, orissa, jharkhand and north eastern states. the pathogen's host range is rapidly expanding and means of control of the disease seems limited. however, due to the oligogenic nature of plant resistance and because of the variation in aggressiveness of bacterial isolates from different locations around the world, alternative control measures such as biological control have been receiving increased interest. none of the chemicals is effective in achieving desired levels of disease control. hence, biological control is gaining more importance as an ecofriendly means of disease management. bacteria, which are antagonistic towards p. solanacearum have been reported by many workers earlier (anuratha and gnanamanickam, 1990; ciampi panno et al, 1989; fucikovsky et al, 1989 and gallardo et al, 1989). in most cases, field experiments were limited and the degree of protection was in-sufficient for commercial use (tanaka et al, 1990). in many cases protection failed because root colonization of the biological control agent was poor (chen and echandi, 1984). hence, in the present study different biological control agents viz., glomus mosseae iihr, trichoderma harzianum iihr-p ,̂ t. viride iihr-p^ ,̂ bacillus subtilis iihr-1 and pseudomonas fluorescens iihr'̂ s were collected from indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore and tested against wilt causing bacteria of tomato under field conditions and results obtained are presented. material and methods a field experiment was conducted in the r. solanacearum infested plot during 2003 and 2004. twenty five day old tomato seedlings of cv. pkm-1 were transplanted in pathogen-infested soil. three replications were maintained for each treatment with 22 plants/ replication. plants were spaced 75 cm x 50 cm in a plot size of 7.5 m .̂ untreated plots served as control. randomly, ten pathogen-infested soil samples were picked f-orm each 'division of plant pathology, indian institute of horticultural researcli, hesseraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india mailto:manojarthik@rediffmail.com manoj kumar and girija ganesan plot, and were pooled, i.e., 'a composite sample'. similarly, 33 composite samples were collected from 33 plots. the bacterial population of the pathogen-infested plots were determined for all 33 plots by serial dilution on ttz (2, 3, 5, triphenyl tetrazolium chloride) medium. the mean populations of r. solanacearum were 2.4±0.4xl0'cfu g ' and 2.9±0.35xl0' cfu g ' during the year 2003 and 2004, respectively. fungal antagonists viz., t. harzianum and t. viride were multiplied on potato dextrose broth at 27°c for 7 days in b.o.d incubator and the mycelium was blended thoroughly. spore count of vxlo'conidial spores/ml in t. harzianum and 7.4xl0'conidial spores/ml in t. viride was recorded by using heamocytometer. the bacterial antagonists viz., b. subtilis and p. fluorescens were multiplied on nutrient broth at 35°c for 72h at 120 rpm in the incubator shaker. bacterial antagonist population was determined by serial dilution method on nutrient agar medium and were found to be 4 x 1 0 ' c.f.u/ ml {p. fluorescens) and 4.3x10' c.f.u/ ml {b. subtilis). however, glomus mosseae was maintained on eleusine coracana for six months showing 60-70% of root colonization with 20 spores/g soil. at the time of transplanting, roots were dipped in broth containing biological control agents viz., t. harzianum, t. viride, b. subtilis and p. fluorescens for 30 min. and transplanted to the sick plots, in randomized block design (rbd). in case of glomus mosseae, the seedlings were grown on g. mosseae soils and transplanted. in another set of experiment, one soil drench of bio control agents (root dip-i-drench) in the root zone @ 20 ml per plant was given at 30 days after transplanting (dat) in addition to root dip. assessment of treatment effects were recorded as per cent wilt incidence at 90 dat and the wilted plants examined in laboratory for confirmation of the presence of/?, solanacearum. plant height was recorded at 30 dat. data were normalized through angular transformation and subjected to analysis of variance (anova) followed by mean separation by the studentnewman-keuls' test (p=0.05). all the analysis was performed using the sas (1996) package. results and discussion of the five biological control agents used in the investigation, the highest per cent wilt incidence of 94% and 84.9% in tomato in seedling root dip experiment was recorded in t. harzianum and minimum of 74.25% and 71.21% in g. mosseae as against 100% and 98.5% in untreated control for the year 2003 and 2004, respectively, these results indicate that the protection offered by g mosseae was better in both the years as compared to other treatments (table 1). further, the incidence of bacterial wilt in root dip plus soil drench treated with g mosseae was much lower (40 & 33.33%) as compared to 100 and 98.5% in untreated control. however, the maximum wilt incidence of 86.7 and 66.7% was observed in t. harzianum during the successive years 2003 and 2004. decreasing trend of wilt incidence was observed in g mosseae and t. harzianum treated plots, in both the experiments, i.e., seedling root dip and seedling root dip plus soil drench. bacillus subtilis and p. fluorescens treatments showed no change in wilt incidence for both the years, i.e., 80.31% in root dip and 66.67% in root dip plus soil drench. however, wilt incidence was increased in 2004 in both the experiments in t. viride treated plots. glomus mosseae treated plots recorded higher plant growth of 46.17cm and 50.67cm followed by t. harzianum during both the years as against all other treatments (table 1). in the present investigation, some of the tested biological control agents had antagonistic effect on r. solanacearum. among these, bacterial antagonists (b. subtilis & p. fluorescens) performed better than fungal antagonists. however, g mosseae amended infested soil recorded less wilt incidence compared to control and other treatments. the biological control agent must compete with complex biological and physical factors, including soil composition and structure, moisture and ph, which influence the structure of the microbial population (nesmith and jenkins, 1985; weller, 1988), in order to show its better performance under field conditions. anuratha and gnanamanickam (1990) reported that p. fluorescens str. pfcp protected tomato plants from bacterial wilt up to 95% in greenhouse and 36% in the field. similarly, bacillius sp. strain ba-46 controlled the bacterial wilt disease by 21.13% in tomato under greenhouse conditions (silveira et al, 1995). t. harzianum, isolated from sikkim was found effective in controlling ginger wilt caused by r. solanacearum (raj an et al, 2002). arbuscular mycorrhiza forms a beneficial symbiotic association with roots that increased plant ability to absorb phosphorous, minor elements and water, thus enhancing the tolerance of the plant against the pathogen damage (harley and smith, 1983). kobayashi, etal (1991) reported that vam -icharcoal compost proved effective in reducing the level of bacterial wilt of tomato in greenhouse tests. the extracts from mycorrhizal tomato roots infected with glomus fasciculatum reduced populations of p. j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 44-47, 2006 45 managing bacterial wilt of tomato with biological control agents tablel. effect of different microorganisms on survival and growth in tomato in r. solanacearum infected soil treatment wilt incidence (%) plant height (cm) 2003 2004 2003 2004 root dip alone root dip + drench root dip alone root dip + drench glomus mosseae t. harzianum t. viride b. subtilis p. fluorescens control cd (p=0.05) 74.25 (60.04) 94.00 (75.98) 75.76 (61.59) 77.28 (62.47) 80.31 (67.45) 100.0 (88.19) ns 40.00 (38.85) 86.67 (75.71) 46.67 (43.07) 53.33 (46.92) 66.67 (54.99) 100.0 (88.19) 31.63 (22.44) 71.21 (57.56) 84.85 (63.68) 83.33 (62.61) 78.79 (67.31) 80.31 (66.25) 98.50 (84.71) 7.35 (7.32) 33.33 (35.01) 66.67 (54.99) 60.00 (50.77) 53.33 (47.29) 66.67 (54.99) 98.50 (79.93) 21.69 (15.11) 46.17 36.92 32.08 32.58 36.83 31.97 ~ 50.67 39.17 33.83 35.25 38.00 32.83 " * dat days after transplanting; nsnon significant; figures in parentheses are angular transformed values solanacearum in nutrient broth, however, the active principle constituent of vam fungi inhibiting p. solanacearum are yet to be studied (suresh et al, 1991). it could be concluded from the present investigation that, the g. mosseae amended pathogen-infested soil resulted in substantially higher plant survival in r. solanacearum infected soil. in addition to the transplant root dip an additional drench of bioagents at 30 dat was of an added advantage in protecting the plant from bacterial wilt pathogen. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the director, i.i.h.r., bangalore, for providing facilities and mr. puttamada shetty, technician, and ms. n. rama, research associate, for assistance rendered during the study. the authors are also thankful to prof. m. udaya kumar, and dr. rohini sreevathsa, gkvk, bangalore for their support. references anonymous. 1998. national horticulture database. ministry of agriculture, govt, of india, new delhi, pp 51-57. anuratha, c and gnanamanickam, s. 1990. biological control of bacterial wilt caused by pseudomonas solanacearum in india with antagonistic bacteria. pi. soil., 124:109-16. chen, w and echandi, e. 1984. effects of avirulent bacteriocin-producing strains of pseudomonas solanacearum on the control of bacterial wilt of tobacco. pi. path., 33:245-53. ciampi panno, l., fernandez, c , bustamante, p., andrade, n., ojeda, s. and contreras, a. 1989. biological control of bacterial wilt of potatoes caused by pseudomonas solanacearum. am. pota. j., 66:31532. fucikovsky, l., luna, i. and lopez, c. 1989. bacterial antagonists to pseudomonas solanacearum in potatoes and some other plant pathogens, pp 201-6 in.pro. ?"• inter. conf. on pi. patho. bact., klement, z. (ed.). 11-16 june 1989, akademiai kiado, budapest, hungary. gallardo, p., ciampi-panno, l. and guichaquelem, v. 1989. inhabitation in vitro of pseudomonas solanacearum e.f. smith by using the antagonist bc8 strain of pseudomonas fluorescens. revista de mirob., 20:2733 (in portuguese). harley, j.l and smith, s.e. 1983. mycorrhizal symbiosis, london: academic press. hayward, a.c. 1991. biology and epidemiology of bacterial wilt caused by pseudomonas solanacearum. ann.rev. phy.patho., 29:65-89. kobayashi, n., komada, h, kiritani, k and bay petersen, j. 1991. biological control of soil borne diseases with vam fungi and charcoal compost. the biological cont. pi. dis. pro. inter sem. "biolo. cont. pi. dis. and virus vect." held in tsukuba, japan, sep. 17-21, 1990. 153-160. nesmith, w. and jenkins, w. 1985. influence of antagonists and controlled matric potential on the survival of pseudomonas solanacearum in four north carolina soils. phytopathology, 75:1182-7. rajan, rp; gupta, s.r; sarma, y.r; jackson, gv.h. 2002.. diseases of ginger and their control with trichoderma harzianum. ind. phy.patho., 55:173-177. sas. 1996. sas/stat user's guide (book), version 6.12. / hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 44-47,2006 46 manoj kumar and girija ganesan sas institute inc., gary nc, usa. silveira, e.b. da., mariano, r.de, l.r., michereff, s.j., menezes, m and da silveira, e.b. 1995. antagonism of bacillus spp. against pseudomonas solanacearum and effect on tomato seedling growth. fitopatologia brasilliera, 20:605-612. suresh, c.k. and rai, rv. 1991. interaction of pseudomonas solanacearum with antagonistic bacteria and va mycorrhiza. uas, bangalore. curr. res., 20:36-37. tanaka, h., negishi, h. and maeda, h. 1990. control of tobacco bacterial wilt by an avirulent strain of pseudomonas solanacearum m4s and its bacteriophage. amu physiol. pathol. soc. japan, 56:243-246. weller, d. 1988. biological control of soil born plant pathogens in the rhizosphere with bacteria. ann. rev. physiol. pathol, 26:379-407. yabuuchi, e., kosako, y., yano, i., hartta, h., and nishiuchi, y. 1995. transfer of two burkholderia and an alcaligenes species to ralstonia gen. nov.: proposal of ralstonia pickettii (ralston, pallevonia and doudoroff, 1973) comb. nov., ralstonia solanacearum (smith, 1896) comb. nov., and ralstonia eutropha (davis, 1962) comb. nov. micro. immu., 39:897-904. (ms received 4 may, 2006 revised 13 july, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 44-47, 2006 47 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 199 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 199-203, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction onion (allium cepa l.) is one of the most important commercial vegetable crops widely cultivated in india. india ranks 2nd in world’s onion production after china, contributing 21% of world’s onion requirement. in india, an area of 12.85 lakh ha is under onion cultivation with a production of 232.62 lakh mt of onions dur ing 2018 (nhb, 2019) amounting to 12.50 % of area under vegetable cultivation and 12.62 % of vegetable production. indian onion is broadly classified into three types viz. , common onion, sma ll common onion and multiplier onion (fig. 1). many varieties have been develop ed under ea c h typ e of onion, ha ving different traits suitable for different agro climatic zones, seasons, purposes, pest and diseases resistant etc. there are about 27 common onion varieties, two s ma ll c ommon onion va r ieties a nd thr ee multiplier onion varieties commercially available in india (nhrdf). the type and variety has also stake holder preference based on its pungency, which vary widely among types. all the a bove mentioned three types of onion have comprehensible morphological difference among them. primarily common and small common onions are single bulbs but vary largely in size. the broad characteristics of the above three types of onion are presented in table 1. among the above three types of onion, multiplier onion is known for its pungency and flavour which is commonly grown in tamil nadu. about 35,000 ha area is under multiplier onion cultivation in india which is about 2.7 % of area under onion production. about 3,32,500 mt of multiplier onion is being produced in india which is 1.5 % of onion production. around 90% of country’s multiplier onion is produced fr om ta mil nadu a nd andhr a pr a desh, south karnataka, parts of orissa, kerala contribute for the remaining portion. in tamil nadu multiplier onion is onion detopping machine an emerging horticultural enterprising rathinakumari a.c.* and senthil kumaran g. icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru – 560 089, karnataka. india *corresponding author e-mail : carolina.kumari@icar.gov.in abstract onion is the one of the important vegetable crops cultivated in india. multiplier type onion is one among the three major types of onions. tamil nadu accounts for five per cent of country’s area under onion and more than 70 per cent of the area is cultivated by small onion (allium cepa var. aggregatum). around 90 per cent of country’s multiplier onion is produced from tamil nadu. detopping is one of the steps in the on-farm processing carried out after harvest. presently this is done manually by farm women. individual onions are picked and detopping is done by using sickle. this operation is time consuming and highly drudgery in nature. an onion detopping machine to remove the foliage after harvest was designed and developed in the present study. this machine has a capacity of 370 kg/h against 30 kg/h manual practice and works with an efficiency of 98%. the unique design of the detopper is that it is suitable for all sizes of onions. also, the cluster is intact after detopping, which is very important requirement. this multiplier type onion is grown in nagamangala (tk), mandya (dt.) of karnataka state. two farmers of this area have installed this machine and running a successful enterprising. cost involved in using this machine is rs. 200 per quintal against rs. 500 per quintal by manual detopping. owing to the higher capacity by mechanization, the farmers will be able to process the higher volume of produce within a short span of time. hence, this will facilitate the farmers to sell the produce, get good market price and earn higher returns. keywords: aggregatum onion, enterprising, mechanization, onion detopper and multiplier onion 200 rathinakumari and senthil kumaran j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 199-203, 2022 cultivated in an area of 30,255 ha with a production of 2,86,000 mt (www.tn.gov.in). detopping is one of the on-farm processing operations carried out after harvesting and it is removing of the leaves from the onion. onion is harvested when 50% tops begin to collapse on the ground but before the foliage dries down completely (anon, 2011). after digging, the onion is field-cured for 3-5 days, cut at the necks for separation of onion from the tops, graded, shed-cured and stored. separation of onion bulbs from tops is called de-topping and women labourers are engaged for this operation. individual onion is de-topped by sickle thus makes it highly drudgery that requires 12.5 woman-hours/t and time consuming (anon, 2017.). the average weight of each clump of multiplier onion is about 60 g, thus one kg of onion contain about 15 individual onions. when huge quantity of onion needs to be harvested and processed, it needs mechanization. onion detopping machine was designed and developed at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru. this machine has been demonstrated widely at farmers’ a b c fig. 1. types of onion grown in india (a. common onion b. small common onion c. multiplier onion) field. this pa per discusses the entr epreneurial opportunities of this machine. materials and methods process of onion detopping the matured onion is harvested and left in the field for 3-5 days for field curing. afterwards they are detopped and stored or without detopping stored in a well-ventilated storage structures or facilities. the either second category is detopped and sold to trader based on market demand. onion detopping machine the prototype onion de-topper consists of i) feeding chute for feeding onion crop, ii) de-topping unit, iii) collection chutes for the de-topped onion bulbs and tops, iv) main frame and v) power transmission system (fig. 2). the feeding chute is for feeding of the onion crop to the onion de-topping unit. this was fabricated out of ms sheet of 1. 5 mm thickness sheet a nd ha d dimensions of 700 mm x 400 mm x 200 mm (l x w table 1. broad characteristic of indian types of onion s.no. type of onion shape size colour tss pungency storability 1. common global big in size ranges 12° 10.07very onion round in ( 40-60 from light 14° 13.0µmol/g good to shape mm dia.) to dark red brix fw medium 2. common flattish small in scarlet 16°-18° 10.27 good small onion round in ( 25 red in brix µmol/ (bengaluru shape – 35 mm colour g fw rose onion) size dia 3. multiplier 5-6 20 25 red 8°-18° 10.13 very onion bulblets mm in brix µmol/g good (sambar clump in in colour fw onion) shape size source: saraswathi et al. (2017); sabina islam et al. (2019). 201 onion detopping machine x h). the de-topping unit is the key component of the de-topping machine which should detop the onion tops efficiently without damaging the onion bulbs. the detopping unit consists of i) set of de-topping rollers, ii) main frame and iii) power transmission system. the de-topping unit is a set of rollers comprising one roller having cutting edge along its length and the other one a plain roller. the cutting roller is fabricated out of m.s. square shaft having 35 mm cross section and 600 mm length. the plain roller is a g.i. pipe having 600 mm length, 50 mm diameter and 3 mm thickness. four such set of rollers were fabricated and mounted on a main frame. a clearance of 2 mm is provided between the rollers. the frame is fabricated out of m.s angle section of 40x40x5 mm having 1085 mm length and 690 mm width. the rollers were driven by sprocket and chain system and were counter rotated. collection chute was fabricated out of m.s sheet of 1 mm thickness having trapezoidal shape for directing the de-topped onion bulbs into the crates. the collection chute had a dimension of 530 mm width at the upper end, 150 mm at the lower end, 680 mm length and 200 mm height. this was fitted to the main frame at angle of 740 in order to have the free fall of the de-topped onion bulbs. a tray to collect the detopped onion leaves was fabricated and fitted below the rollers. the main frame of the machine was fabricated out of m.s. angle section of 40×40×5 mm. the feeding chute, de-topping unit, collection chute for de-topped onion bulbs, collection tray for onion tops, power transmission systems and electric motor were fitted to the main frame. a three phase, 1440 rpm, 2 hp electric motor was mounted on the main frame with necessary supports and gearbox of 1:30 reduction was fitted to the motor. results and discussion operation details the cured onion crop was fed by the feeding conveyor to the de-topping unit. due to counter rotating of the plain and cutting rollers, the onion tops were drawn in between the rollers and made an orientation of tops down position. the sharp edges of the shearing rollers further de-tops the onion tops and the onion tops were dropped down. due to plurality of the rollers, the rollers conveyed the de-topped onion bulbs further for delivery. the plurality of rollers also ensured higher chances for de-topping the onion tops before the onion crop reaches the delivery. the de-topped onion tops were collected in the collection tray provided below the onion de-topping unit and de-topped onion bulbs wer e collected in cr ates which wer e guided by collection chute. the performance parameters of onion detopping machine is presented in the table 2. fig. 2. diagram of onion detopping machine all dimensions in mm sl.no. performance parameters 1. de-topping efficiency (%) 95.20 ± 1.42 2. effectiveness of de-topping (%) 97.80 ± 0.00 3. per cent damage (%) 2.30 ± 0.29 4. per cent non-detopped onion (%) 2.50±0.25 5. capacity (kg/h) 372.88 ± 7.22 6. cost economics 37 % saving against conventional method table 2. performance parameters of onion de-topping machine the machine has been widely demonstrated in farmers’ field, national exhibitions and farmers’ fairs. adoption of onion detopping machine as an enterprise na ga ma nga la is a ta luk in ma dhya (dt. ) of karnataka state located at 12.82° n 76.76° e and 772 m elevation. this is multiplier onion growing cluster in karnataka. about 2000 ha area in this taluk produces multiplier onion with a production of about 17,000 mt. planting is done during january and j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 199-203, 2022 202 fig. 3. multiplier onion storge matured onion is harvested during march and april. the harvested onion along with top is bundled, and are stored in a well-ventilated facilities for a period of six months (fig. 3). these kind of structures are also funded by government of karnataka. the stored onion is detopped and supplied to the market as per market demand. during lean season, the stored onion is detopped manually by the farm women and supplied to the market. however, during peak demand period, when the farmers’ desired to get better returns, the supply gets hampered due to limited detopping capacity in the existing manual practice and also availability of resources. it is also to be noted that towards the end of storage period, stored onions start sprouting. hence, all the stored onion need to be detopped and supplied to the market. the manual detopping capacity is about 20 30 kg/h. one entrepreneur charged half of the cost meant for manual detopping and yet could gain a profit. while another entrepreneur changed rs.200 per quintal & while manual stopping costs rs. 500 per quintal. he obtained b: c ratio of 2.01:1 for 3 years. hence, farmers are able to take the advantage of market price and sell the produce when the price is at its peak. due to this farmers are benfitted in both ways i.e cost involved in detopping practice and peak market rate (fig. 4). this machine also ensured timeliness of operation thus helped in tapping higher returns during peak market demand period. acknowledgement the authors express their heartfelt gratitude to the director, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru for providing facility and extend his support to carry out this project. fig. 4. icar-iihr onion detopping machine installed at nagamangala as entreprise rathinakumari and senthil kumaran j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 199-203, 2022 203 references anon, 2011. onion growing technology, krishi d ha r s ha n i, m a ha t ma p hu l e k r is hi vidyapeeth, rahuri, maharashtra. page no. 118. anon, 2017. proceedings of brain storming session on challenges of mechanization in onion and g a r lic , ( e dit or s : as hwini p. benke, shailendra s. gadge, yogesh bhagat, vijay mahajan, major singh) 2nd december, 2017, pune: 5-7. h or t ic u lt u r a l st a t is t ic s a t a g la nc e 2 0 1 9 . horticulture statistics division, department of agr ic ultur e, cooper a t ion & fa r mer s welfare, ministry of agriculture & farmers welfare, government of india. saraswathi, t., sathiyamurthy, v.a., tamilselvi, n. a. a nd ha r ish, s ( 201 7). review on a ggr ega tum onion (al lium cep a l. va r. aggregatum don.). int. j. curr. microbiol. app. sci.,6(4):1649-1667. sa bina isla m, anil kha r, shr awa n singh a nd tomar. b.s. 2019. variability, heritability and trait association studies for bulb and antioxidant tra its in onion (allium cepa) var ieties. indian journal of agricultural sciences 89 (3): 450–7. onion detopping machine j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 199-203, 2022 (received: 06.04.2021; revised: 30.01.2022; accepted: 05.07.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 130 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 130-136, 2019 original research paper correlation of leaf parameters with incidence of papaya ring spot virus in cultivated papaya and its wild relatives linta vincent1, soorianathasundaram k.2 and shivashankara k.s.1 1icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india, 2horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india, corresponding author: linta.vincent@icar.gov.in absract papaya ring spot virus (prsv) disease has been the major impediment in papaya cultivation. the disease is transmitted through three aphid vectors and field tolerance towards this disease varies among carica papaya cultivars as well as within the vasconcellea genus. leaf morphological traits are known to have influence on the probing preferences of aphids. hence, this study was conducted to know whether the leaf parameters could contribute to the incidence of prsv possibly by influencing the probing or feeding behaviour of aphid vectors. leaf parameters viz., leaf thickness, leaf epicuticular wax content, presence and type of trichomes, trichome density were correlated with disease incidence at field conditions. the result revealed that leaf thickness along with epicuticular wax content had significant negative correlation with disease incidence. similarly, trichome density had negative impact on disease incidence at 99.92% significance level. high epicuticular wax content and high trichome density in v. cauliflora and v. cundinamarcensis were found to be negatively associated with low to very low infection indicating that these parameters may have limited the vector transmission significantly. keywords: epicuticular wax content, papaya, trichome density and vasconcellea. introduction papaya is ranked as the third most traded tropical fruit (excluding bananas). the area and production of papaya is on the increase in recent years due to its wide ecological adaptability, easiness in cultivation, high palatability, early fruiting, year round bearing, higher productivity and economic returns. papaya is a nutrition basket filled with vitamins (2020 iu of vitamin a, 40 mg of vitamin b1 and46 mg ofvitamin c per 100g of fruit), minerals, carbohydrates, proteins, iron, calcium and phosphorous (dinesh, 2010). however, the production of papaya is hampered by a serious outbreak of viral disease caused by papaya r ing spot vir us (prsv-p). t his vir us a ffects pr oduction a nd pr oductivity by decr ea sing photosynthetic capacity of plant, and subsequently leading to stunted growth, deformed and inedible fruitsand early mortality. prsv is transmitted by several species of aphids in a non-persistent manner. gener a lly, aphids do not colonize pa pa ya and transmission of prsv is through transient aphid vectors.aphis gossypii is the predominant vector followed by a. craccivora and myzus persicae. recent study suggested that m. persicae is more efficient than the other two species with 52.5 % transmission after the first inoculation access period (iap) (kalleswaraswamy and krishnakumar, 2008). field tolerance towards prsv varies between the carica papaya varieties as well as the vasconcellea species. vasconcellea species viz. , v. cundinamarcensis,v. candicans, v. stipulata, v. cauliflora andv. quercifolia are repor ted to be resistant to prsv. even though the genetic variability within the carica genus for prsv resistance is very low, a few varieties have shown tolerance to prsv. this might be due to the non-preference of aphids to these varieties or species in addition to the innate resistance mechanism in vasconcellea genepool. morphological traits such as higher density of simple and glandular trichomes, epicuticular waxes and leaf thickness are reported to hinder the aphid attack in plants (bin, 1979; guer rieri and digilo, 2008; 131 correlation of leaf parameters with incidence of papaya ring spot virus wojcicka, 2015). a preliminary study was carried out to explore the possibility of aphid tolerance in papaya varieties as well as vasconcellea species. materials and methods plant material the experiment was carried outat icarindian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru during the period of june 2016 to august 2017 under open field conditions consecutively in two different locations during kharif and rabi seasons.the experiment plot surrounded by papaya crop with already established with prsv incidence was selected. six cultivars of carica papaya namely arka surya, arka prabhath, red lady, pusa dwarf, pusa nanha and co8, two intergeneric hybrids of arka surya and v. cauliflora (ighi a nd ighii) a nd four wild r ela tives v. cauliflora, v. goudotiana, v. cundinamarcensis and v. parviflora were used in this study. twenty plants of each accession in three replicates were maintained as per the randomized block design. observations characters such as leaf thickness, leaf pubescence, epicuticular wax content and trichome density were recorded after three months of transplanting in the field, since symptoms a ppea r ed in susceptible genotypes after three months of transplanting. leaf thickness was measured using digital vernier caliper (mitutoyo, digimatic caliper). presence of leaf pubescence was visually recorded while the type of the pubescence wa s obser ved under ster eomicroscope (leica m205a) and scanning electron microscope (hita chi, t m3030 plus, ta bletop microscope). epicuticular wax content was estimated as described by ebercon et al. (1977). trichome density was calculated as number of trichomes per centimetre area. these observations were correlated with per cent infection (pi) and per cent disease index (pdi). pdi was calculated after first symptom development in field condition at fortnightly intervals and calculated as per the formula. pdi = where, n = individual ratings, n= total number of leaves/ plant; 5= maximum rating the individual ratings (n) were given using the scale adopted by dhanam (2006) and ranged from 0 to 5 (0 = no disease symptoms; 1 = slight mosaic on leaves; 2 = mosaic patches and/or necrotic spots on leaves; 3 = leaves near apical meristem deformed slightly, yellow, and reduced in size; 4 = apical meristem with mosaic and deformation; 5 = extensive mosaic and serious deformation of leaves, or plant dead). results and discussion leaf thicknessat three months of transplanting ranged from 0.22 mm to 0.40 mm. the thickest leaf was observed in pusa nanha (0.40 mm) which was on par with v. cundinamarcensis (0. 38 mm) a nd v. cauliflora (0.37 mm), followed by v. parviflora (0.35 mm). among the accessions, thinnest leaves were noticed in tnau papaya co8, arka parbhath and igh2 (0.22 mm) which was on par with igh1 and arka surya (0.23 mm). the accessions such as arka surya, arka prabhath, red lady, pusa dwarf, pusa nanha, tnau papaya co8, igh1, igh2 and v. goudotiana lack leaf pubescence on both dorsal and ventral surfaces (fig.1). however, the wild species viz., v. cauliflora, v. cundinamarcensis and v. goudotiana had leaf pubescence with higher trichome density on ventral surface than dorsal surface. trichome density was highest in v. cundinamarcensis (192. 75/cm2) followed by v. cauliflora (25. 25/cm2) a nd v. goudotiana (14.88/cm2). the type of trichome on the leaves were also observed under sca nning electr on micr oscope. v. cundinamarcensis consisted of single celled nonglandular trichomes, whereas v. cauliflora and v. goudotiana comprised of multicellular glandular tr ichomes (fig. 2). tr ichomes wer e pr esent a s extension of veins in v. cauliflora and v. goudotiana, while these were distributed throughout the leaf surface in v. cundinamarcensis. studies suggested that trichome density has more impact on entry of aphids rather than the type of trichomes, as higher trichome density blocked aphids (musetti and neal, 1997). it is the first feature affecting the selection behaviour of an aphid. most of the r esista nt va r ieties or wild r ela tives ar e characterized by presence of trichomes (bin, 1979). however, the gla ndula r tr ichomes might ha ve produced toxic exudates or acyl sugars that repel aphids (goffreda et al., 1989). j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 130-136, 2019 132 linta vincent et al table.1. leaf thickness, leaf epicuticular wax content, trichome density, prsv percentage infection, disease intensity score and pdi at field condition accessions leaf leaf trichome per cent disease per cent thickness epicuticular density infection intensity disease (mm) wax content (number/cm2) (%) score index (%) (g/cm2) arka surya 0.23de 95.00ef nil 100.00a 4/5 65.71a (89.71) (54.16) arka prabhath 0.22e 109.38de nil 100.00a 4/5 61.25b (89.71) (51.51) red lady 0.27cd 143.75c nil 100.00a 4/5 51.04c (89.71) (45.60) pusa dwarf 0.29c 134.38c nil 100.00a 4/5 62.50ab (89.71) (52.25) pusa nanha 0.40a 114.38d nil 25.33e 1 1.56f (29.77) (9.34) tnau papaya co 8 0.22e 96.25ef nil 100.00a 3/4 35.64d (89.71) (36.65) igh1 0.23de 94.38f nil 81.33d 3/4 21.46e (64.66) (27.59) igh2 0.22e 106.25def nil 86.67c 3/4 25.24e (68.60) (28.24) v. goudotiana 0.26cde 114.38d nil 87.66b 4 25.00e (70.35) (29.97) v. cauliflora 0.37ab 200.00a 25.25b 0.00f 0 0.00g (0.286) (0.286) v. cundinamarcensis 0.38ab 170.00b 192.75a 0.00f 0 0.00g (0.286) (0.286) v. parviflora 0.35b 105.00def 14.88b 23.62e 1 2.46f (29.32) (9.02) mean 0.29 123.59 77.63 67.05 29.32 (59.32) (28.74) cv (%) 9.96 3.32 3.17 1.61 5.02 se(d) 0.012 3.353 1.231 0.78 1.18 tukey hsd at 1% 0.045 14.667 4.26 1.73 1.91 values inparentheses are arc sine transformed values a correlation was drawn between the leaf parameters and disease scoring (table.2). epicuticular wax content in leaves was negatively and significantly correlated with percentage of infection. epicuticular waxes are complex mixture of long chain aliphatic and cyclic components such as fatty acids, hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters, terpenoids, sterols, flavanoids and phenolic substances. higher epicuticular wax content might be a reason for reduction in aphid landing or movement, which in turn could have contributed, to inhibition of the sap transmission of prsv. similar negative effects of leaf epicuticular waxes were reported on neonate larval movement of spodoptera frugiperda on zea mays (ostrand et al., 2008), resistance in cabbage to aphids bravicoryne brassicae, sor ghum to gr een bug (schizaphis graminum) and winter wheat to english grain aphid (sitobion avenae) (shepherd et al., j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 130-136, 2019 133 1999). the presence of thick wax content might have affected the probing and feeding by aphids, thereby rejecting the particular variety or species. leaf thickness was negatively correlated with pdi a nd infection per centa ge. lea f thickness wa s positively contributed by the epicuticular wax content, which indirectly influences the disease tolerance or resistance. thick cell wall has been attributed to resist the feeding activity of aphids (guerrieri and digilo, 2008). the association analysis reveals that there is a significant negative correlation between trichome density and infection percentage. surface resistance is the first barrier against aphid attack (wang et al., 2004). either or both of epicuticular wax content or presence of trichomes is known to hinder the aphid movement and stylet insertion (bin, 1979). table.2. correlation between disease incidence and leaf parameters epicuticular leaf trichome per centage per centage wax thickness density disease infection content index epicuticular 1.00 0.62*0.031 0.76*0.004 -0.360.247 -0.61*0.033 wax content leaf thickness 1.00 0.390.201 -0.71*0.009 -0.90*<.0001 trichome density 1.00 -0.390.201 -0.53*0.076 percentage 1.00 0.87*0.000 disease index percentage 1.00 infection first value represents ‘r’ value and second value represents p value. *<0.05 p value shows significant correlation. higher field tolerance to prsv was observed in ‘pusa nanha’, which had thicker leaves. the prsv incidence was significantly low in both v. cauliflora and v. cundinamarcensis, which registered thicker leaves, higher epicuticular wax content and denser trichomes. the preliminary study broadly indicates that leaf thickness, presence of trichomes in higher density and epicuticular wax content in papaya is likely to play a definitive role towards reduction in prsv incidence probably by restricting the aphid vector incidence. higher leaf thickness, epicuticular wax content and trichome density in papaya is found to have negative impact on the incidence of papaya ring spot virus in papaya and these factors may have a role to play in restricting the virus transmission by aphid vector. futur e r esea r ch needs to be focussed on the biochemical constituents of glandular trichomes and its effect on aphids. acknowledgement guida nce a nd technica l suppor t r ender ed by dr. m. krishna reddy, dr.c.vasugi, ms. jayanthi mala, and dr. kalaivannan, icar-iihr are gratefully acknowledged. correlation of leaf parameters with incidence of papaya ring spot virus j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 130-136, 2019 134 linta vincent et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 130-136, 2019 fig. 1: stereo microscope view of leaf ventral surface pubescence 135 correlation of leaf parameters with incidence of papaya ring spot virus j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 130-136, 2019 fig. 2: scanning electron microscope view of leaf ventral surface pubescence at 500m a) v. cauliflora (b) v. cundinamarcensis (c) v. goudotiana 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(received on 23.7.2018, revised on 26.11.2019 and accepted on 30.11.2019) tomato is one of the most popular vegetables grown worldwide with production of 126.24 million tonnes. in india, it occupies an area of 0.54 million ha with production of 8.85 million tonnes and average yield of 16.39 t/ha (fao, 2007). plant growth characteristics range from indeterminate to highly determinate types. branches in the indeterminate types keep growing and producing fruits until adverse temperatures kill the plant. earlier, tomato cultivation was season-bound. production scenario has changed in the last few years. nowadays, tomatoes are grown round the year. however, in the north-western parts of hot, arid regions of india, tomato production and productivity is limited by various biotic and abiotic stresses. in the recent past, despite extreme temperature regimes prevalent and environmental stresses, tomato cultivation has been gaining localized popularity. the main reasons are remunerative prices, availability of hybrid seeds from the private sector to growers, and exploitation of water sources by resourceful farmers. yield potential is very low due to extremes of environmental in the hot, arid region of western rajasthan, thereby upsetting economics of the crop both ways, i.e., low market-price of the produce due to glut, and nonrealization of full potential of hybrids owing to environmental susceptibility. in tomato, when the ambient temperature exceeds 35°c, seed germination, seedling and vegetative short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):194-198, 2012 variability and association studies in tomato germplasm under high-temperature arid region hanif khan and d.k. samadia central institute for arid horticulture, bikaner-334 006, india e-mail: hanif.gene@gmail.com abstract genetic variability and correlation studies were carried out for 12 traits in 23 genotypes of tomato grown during spring-summer of 2009 under hot, arid agro-climatic conditions. genetic variability, heritability and expected genetic advance revealed significant differences for all the traits studied. pcv and gcv were high for fruit weight, number of fruits per plant, plant height and fruit yield per plant. high heritability with high genetic advance as percentage of mean was observed for yield per plant (93.2%) as also for average fruit weight (92.8%), number of fruits per plant (73.4%) and plant height (50.1%) indicating the role of additive gene effects and for effectiveness of selecting for these traits. correlation studies revealed that fruit yield had significant positive correlation with fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter and number of fruits per plant, both at the genotypic and phenotypic levels, indicating mutual association of these traits. negative correlation of days to flowering and days to first harvest on yield per plant suggested indirect selection for earliness for yield improvement. key words: tomato, arid environment, germplasm, variability growth, flowering, fruit set and fruit ripening are adversely affected (miller et al, 2001). in this part of the country, tomato does not set fruit at high temperature and ripening is greatly affected by extremes of high and low temperatures. this warrants development of genotypes for environmentally stressed arid areas, for extended crop-harvest period (samadia, 2006). heat tolerance is generally defined as the ability of a plant to grow and produce economic yield under high temperatures. saeed et al (2007) suggested that a genotype, that produces better yields under high temperature conditions, is heat tolerant. germplasm is considered as a reservoir of variability for various traits (vavilov, 1951). genetic variability is the first step in plant breeding for crop improvement readily available in the germplasm. large diversity for various characters exists is in tomato germplasm but potential variability for marketable fruit production under hot, arid environment is very limited. fruit set and development of colour (lycopene production) under high temperatures with maximum 48oc and minimum 30oc and mean temperature >37oc during fruit harvest period (april and may) in the summer season crop, are major breeding objectives for hot agro-climatic conditions. the experimental material comprised 23 genotypes of tomato including 14 germplasm lines collected from arid and semi-arid regions. five progeny lines of selections too 195 variability in tomato under high temperature were included. the experimental material was grown in randomized block design with three replications, under field conditions in the summer of 2009 at central institute for arid horticulture, bikaner. the climate of this eco subregion is very hot, with dry summers and chilling winters. the material was sown in january in a nursery, and transplanted after 35 days in furrows 20-25cm deep and 10m long, in rows at 60 x 45cm plant spacing and accommodating 22 plants of each genotype in every replication. the crop stood in the field for four months (february 22 to june 20) as a spring-summer crop for evaluation and tomato lines were characterized under hot arid conditions. observations were recorded on five competitive plants in respect of twelve horticultural traits, namely, plant height, number of branches, days to flowering, days to first harvest, number of fruits per plant, fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter, number of locules per fruit, pericarp thickness, total soluble solids (tss) and fruit yield per plant. observations were also recorded on growth habit (determinate/indeterminate), number of flowers per cluster, per cent fruit-set under varying temperature conditions, and fruit colour development (lycopene). during april – june, maximum day temperature was > 40oc, except for six days. to assess yield potential of the genotypes, fruits harvested per plant during the 60 days of harvest period (15th april15th june) were accounted for. data were analyzed using standard procedures of gomez and gomez (1984) and statistical package indostat version 8.5. genotypic and phenotypic co-efficient of variation, heritability (in a broad sense) and genetic advance were calculated following burton and de vane (1953). data pertaining to growth and yield attributes of 23 tomato genotypes are presented in table 1. mean, range and coefficient of variation of 12 characters of the 23 genotypes is presented in table 2. analysis of variance revealed a wide range of variability and highly significant differences among the tomato lines for all the characters studied (tables 1 and 2). however, absolute variability among various characters cannot form the criteria for assigning a specific character as showing the highest degree of variability. genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation (gcv and pcv), expressed as percentage, were high for fruit weight, plant height, number of fruits per plant, and fruit yield per plant; these were moderate for days to flowering, fruit length, fruit diameter, number of branches per plant, number of locules per fruit, pericarp thickness and tss. gcv which indicates the extent of genetic variability in a population, ranged from 3.81% in days to first harvest, to 45.61% in fruit weight results on yield and component characters are in accordance with sharma et al (2009) and satesh et al (2007). gcv estimates were considerably high for yield-component characters such as fruit weight, number of fruits per plant and yield per plant. these, thus, offer a better scope for improvement through selection. differences in magnitude of gcv and pcv were found to be very low (table 2) indicating little influence of environmental factors on expression of the traits observed. in such a situation, selection can be effective on the basis of phenotype alone. similar projections have been made by samadia et al (2006) in tomato. two lines, namely, sm2 l1 p9 and sm2 l2 p3, were found to have the best potential for yield per plant (5.15 kg and 4.46 kg, respectively). these lines were also superior in terms of red ripened quality fruits. of the 23 lines evaluated, 12 were indeterminate in growth habit, four lines semi-determinate and seven determinate. only five lines, viz., ksb-54, ksb-76, sm2 l1 p9, sm2 l2 p3 and sm2 l8 p5, developed fully-red fruit under high temperature (maximum day temperature > 42oc). highest fruit weight was observed in sm2 l1 p9 (95.83g), followed by sm2 l8 p5 (80.40g). maximum pericarp thickness was observed in sm2 l1 p9. pooled data on average number of fruit/plant showed maximum number fruits per plant in ksb54 (102.9), followed by ksb-57 (93.8); however both these lines were indeterminate type, bearing small-sized fruits and failed to develop red fruits in of may and june. all determinate type genotypes, except sm2 l1 p9, stopped fruit-set by 10th may (when maximum day temperature exceeded 45oc). three lines, ksb-54, ksb-57 and sm2 l1 p9, set fruit at high temperatures in the month of may. in the second fortnight of june, indeterminate lines too stopped growing; fruit development was inhibited, followed by their entry into the senescence phase. estimates for heritability are a predictive instrument in expressing reliability of the phenotypic value. it, therefore, helps the breeder select for a particular trait when its heritability is high. in the present study, all the traits exhibited high heritability. highest broad-sense heritability (e” 98%) was recorded for fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter, number of fruits/plant, plant height, number of locules in the trait and tss (obrix). in the present study, fruit weight and yield per plant were seen to be highly variable. based on variability and heritability estimates, it is concluded that improvement by direct or indirect selection in tomato is possible for traits like fruit weight, number of fruits per plant/ per cluster, and yield per plant. genetic advance also showed a pattern similar to that of heritability in broad-sense. genetic j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):194-198, 2012 196 advance, as per cent mean, was higher for a trait of much interest to the breeder, that is, yield per plant (93.2%) as also for average fruit weight (92.8%), number of fruits per plant (73.4%) and plant height (50.1%). genetic advance (as per cent of mean) was the least for days to first harvest (7.5%), followed by days to flowering (17.6). in general, traits that show high heritability, with high genetic advance as per cent of mean, are genetically controlled by additive gene action, indicating easy selection and improvement in the breeding lines; whereas, traits showing high heritability, with moderate or low genetic advance as per cent of mean, can be improved by inter-mating superior genotypes, and subsequent selection in the segregating population. these results corroborate the view of ara et al (2009). high genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance as percentage of mean for number of fruits/plant, yield per plant and average fruit weight suggests their importance in selection for tomato improvement. phookan et al (1998) and mariame et al (2003) also observed similar trends in their study on 29 genotypes of tomato under summer conditions. figure 1 shows average linkage dendrogram of standardized euclidean distance. the more distant genotypes, falling in different clusters are expected to be better parents in a hybridization programme. data on genotypic and phenotypic co-efficient of variation in traits is presented in table 2. phenotypic coefficients of correlation, in general, were higher in magnitude than corresponding genotypic ones thereby, suggesting, an inherent association among the various characters studied. similar observations were made by singh (2005) and samadia et al (2006). days to flowering showed significant negative-correlation with fruit weight, fruit length, fruit table 1. performance of tomato lines per-se under hot, arid agro-climate line df dh fw fl fd f/p ph br/p nl/f pcth tss y/p ksb-4 26.3 59.7 45.10 2.91 3.60 31.7 78.1 6.74 3.8 3.8 5.87 1.428 ksb-5 21.0 58.3 25.05 3.21 4.23 44.1 107.7 8.31 3.1 3.0 7.83 1.099 ksb-11 21.7 57.0 23.53 2.84 3.79 79.8 149.8 10.89 3.6 2.8 6.17 1.879 ksb-13 21.3 54.7 35.20 3.21 3.92 74.3 147.9 9.62 3.2 3.2 8.00 2.616 ksb-29 22.0 59.0 32.83 3.09 4.31 55.0 132.5 8.59 3.4 3.0 6.73 1.805 ksb-30 22.7 57.7 35.63 3.20 4.25 86.7 110.2 9.67 3.0 3.1 7.36 3.093 ksb-41 20.3 60.6 41.57 3.13 4.21 76.6 123.1 8.26 3.2 3.7 6.83 3.186 ksb-54 20.0 55.3 31.30 3.14 3.93 102.9 132.7 8.62 4.0 3.4 6.47 3.220 ksb-57 20.3 53.3 32.13 2.54 3.19 93.8 123.9 7.40 4.1 3.0 6.17 3.015 ksb-58 22.7 57.7 36.04 3.22 3.58 40.4 132.8 7.65 3.5 3.1 5.90 1.453 ksb-60 20.3 57.3 47.67 3.07 3.97 70.9 89.3 8.00 3.9 3.8 7.00 3.358 ksb-72 21.0 55.3 38.57 3.34 4.22 55.6 144.8 6.56 3.3 3.3 7.33 2.140 ksb-74 21.7 58.3 20.44 2.98 3.67 41.8 122.3 7.28 3.0 2.9 7.10 0.854 ksb-76 21.7 60.0 26.97 3.26 3.80 40.8 121.5 9.31 3.2 3.4 7.53 1.100 pkm-1 20.3 53.3 67.60 3.71 4.82 38.6 89.8 6.14 4.2 3.8 6.20 2.610 ksb-29-1 21.7 57.7 34.50 3.14 4.29 66.7 117.0 8.17 3.4 3.5 7.27 2.303 ciah-sel 1 21.3 58.0 32.17 3.20 4.13 82.8 139.7 9.17 3.6 3.6 5.87 2.662 ciah-sel 2 22.3 58.7 21.10 2.89 3.42 69.4 107.1 6.44 3.7 3.0 6.03 1.464 sm2 l1 p9 19.0 59.0 95.83 4.94 6.08 53.7 80.8 5.61 5.2 5.3 7.50 5.152 sm2 l1 p16 18.3 59.6 66.93 4.32 5.45 39.6 61.2 5.56 4.4 5.0 7.37 2.649 sm2 l2 p3 18.3 59.3 53.37 4.38 5.38 83.7 71.2 5.60 4.5 4.9 8.07 4.462 sm2 l2 p4 18.6 60.3 45.64 3.65 4.81 38.5 81.3 5.61 4.3 4.8 7.83 3.363 sm2 l8 p5 17.3 61.7 80.40 4.74 5.79 40.7 73.7 6.31 4.3 5.1 7.37 3.269 cd at (p=0.05) 0.89 1.15 2.51 0.14 0.18 3.56 5.03 0.51 0.15 0.19 0.16 0.195 df= days to flowering, dhr= days to harvest, fw= fruit weight (g), fl= fruit length (cm), fd= fruit diameter (cm), f/p= number of fruits per plant, ph= plant height (cm), br/p= number of branches per plant, nl/f= number of locules per fruit, pcth= pericarp thickness (mm), tss= total soluble solids (obrix), y/p= yield per plant (kg) fig 1. average linkage dendrogram of 23 tomato genotypes. vertical distances are arbitrary, while, horizontal distances indicate linkage between genotypes hanif khan and samadia j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):194-198, 2012 197 diameter, tss, and fruit yield per plant. this indicates that under high temperature conditions, early-flowering lines gave superior performance with respect to fruit yield and quality. similarly, days-to-first-harvest was also negatively associated with fruit length, fruit diameter and yield per plant suggesting, that, early harvest is preferred for indirect selection for higher yield and larger fruit size under high temperature conditions. fruit weight showed significant positive-correlation with fruit length, fruit diameter, tss and yield per plant, whereas it showed negative correlation with number of primary branches. in this study, indeterminatetype lines having higher number of branches had smaller fruits. fruit length showed significant positive-correlation with fruit diameter and yield per plant, whereas, it showed significant negative-correlation with number of fruits and table 3. correlation coefficient for 12 traits in tomato lines df dh fw fl fd f/p ph br/p nl/f pcth tss y/p df -0.115 -0.523** -0.267* -0.277* -0.095 0.366** 0.374** 0.152 0.121 -0.502** -0.522** dh 0.202 -0.280* -0.372** -0.402** -0.146 -0.211 0.128 0.282* 0.163 -0.263* fw 0.878** 0.863** 0.201 -0.187 -0.615** 0.223* 0.624** 0.237* 0.686** fl 0.958** -0.250* -0.149 -.0291* 0.168 0.524** 0.214 0.627** fd -0.178 -0.206 -0.332** 0.147 0.554** 0.234* 0.628** f/p 0.307* 0.285* 0.115 -0.283* -0.424** 0.519 ph 0.738** -0.173 -0.153 -0.181 -0.123 br/p -0.182 -0.193 -0.166 -0.203 nl/f -.0201 -0.208 0.154 pcth 0.283* 0.546** tss 0.156 y/p *, ** significant correlation at 5% and 1%, respectively df= days to flowering, dhr= days to harvest, fw= fruit weight (g), fl= fruit length (cm), fd= fruit diameter (cm), f/p= number of fruits per plant, ph= plant height (cm), br/p= number of branches per plant, nl/f= number of locules per fruit, pcth= pericarp thickness (mm), tss= total soluble solids (obrix), y/p= yield per plant (kg) table 2. analysis of variance (anova) for yield and yield-contributing traits in tomato trait grand mean range se co-efficient of variation heritability % (h) genetic advance gcv pcv ga ga % of mean df 20.84 17-27 0.689 8.89 9.27 92 3.66 17.6 dh 57.93 53-62 0.681 3.81 3.99 91 4.34 7.5 fw 42.14 19.2 97.6 4.964 45.61 45.93 99 39.53 92.8 fl 3.40 2.45 5.02 0.165 18.25 18.42 98 1.26 37.2 fd 4.30 3.12 6.2 0.198 17.65 17.82 99 1.55 36.1 f/ p 59.61 30.5 -107.3 4.827 35.83 36.05 98 44.00 73.4 ph 110.3 59.8 -154.3 5.929 24.47 24.63 98 55.60 50.1 br/p 7.63 5.2 11.3 0.518 18.86 20.26 86 3.05 40.1 nl/f 3.72 3.40 5.20 0.432 15.82 17.50 98 0.55 9.2 pcth 3.63 2.8 5.3 15.64 16.84 93 1.2 28.3 tss 6.93 5.8 8.2 0.154 10.47 10.56 98 1.48 21.4 y/p 2.438 0.790 5.17 0.276 45.48 47.74 91 2.26 93.2 df= days to flowering, fw= fruit weight (g), fl= fruit length (cm), fd= fruit diameter (cm), f/p= number of fruits per plant, ph= plant height (cm), br/p= number of branches per plant, nl/f= number of locules per fruit, pcth= pericarp thickness (mm), tss= total soluble solids (obrix), y/p= yield per plant (kg) branches per plant. fruit diameter also showed positive correlation with tss and yield per plant while showing negative correlation with number of branches/plant. number of fruits/plant showed positive correlation with plant height, number of branches per plant and yield, whereas it showed negative correlation tss and pericarp thickness. pericarp thickness showed significant positive-correlation with fruit weight, fruit length, fruit width and yield per plant. a strong association of number of branches with days to flowering and plant height was noticed; however, it had significant negative-association with fruit weight. hence, selection for early flowering and higher fruit weight and number of fruits per plant can indirectly help improve fruit yield per plant. similar results were noticed by mohanty (2002) and singh et al (2002). variability in tomato under high temperature j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):194-198, 2012 198 references ara, a., raj, n., nazeer, a. and khan, s.h. 2009. genetic variability and and selection parameters for yield and quality attributes in tomato. indian j. hort., 66: 30-35 burton, g.v. and de vane, e.h. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea l.) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-481 fao. 2007. faostat database. food and agriculture organization, rome, italy gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research. 2nd edn., john wiley and sons, new york, usa miller, p., lanier, w. and brandt, s. 2001. using growing degree days to predict plant stages. ag/extension communications coordinator, communications services, montana state university-bozeman, bozeman, mo, usa mariame, f., ravishankar, h. and dessalegne, l. 2003. study on variability in tomato germplasm under conditions of central ethiopia. veg. crops res. bulletin, 58:41-50 mohanty, b.k. 2002. studies on variability, heritability, interrelationship and path analysis in tomato. ann. agril. res., 2:65-69 phookan, d.b., talukdar, p., shadeque, a. and chakravarty, b.k. 1998. genetic variability and heritability in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum) genotypes during summer season under plastic-house condition. indian j. agril. sci., 68:304-306 singh, p., singh, s., cheema, d.s. and dhaliwal, m.s. 2002. genetic variability and correlation study of some heat tolerant tomato genotypes. veg. sci., 29:68-70 saeed, a., hayat, k., khan, a.a. and iqbal, s. 2007. heat tolerance studies in tomato (lycopersicon esculantum maill.). intl. j. agril. biol., 9:649652 samadia, d.k., aswani, r.c. and dhandar, d.g. 2006. genetic analysis for yield components in t o m a t o landraces. haryana j. hortl. sci., 35:116-119 satesh, k., sharma, j.p., singh, a.k., tiwari, s.p. and neerja, s. 2007. harvest index, quality and morphometrical evaluation for identification of superior types in tomato. environ. ecol., 25:399402 sharma, j.p., singh, a.k., satesh, k. and sanjeev, k. 2009. identification of traits for ideotypeselection in tomato. mysore j. agril. sci., 43:222-226 singh, a.k. 2005. genetic variability, correlation and path co-efficient studies in tomato under cold arid region of ladakh. prog. hort., 37:437-443 vavilov, n.i. 1951. the origin, variation, immunity and breeding of cultivated plants. soil sci., 72:483-482 (ms received 17 february 2012, revised 16 july 2012) hanif khan and samadia j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):194-198, 2012 evaluation of lilium hybrids (lilium x hybrida) for growth, flowering and bulb attributes in the hilly regions of uttarakhand narendra singh bhandari*, ranjan srivastava and versha goshwami department of horticulture, g.b. pant university of agriculture & technology pantnagar 263145, uttarakhand, india *email: narendra.bhandari@icar.gov.in the present study was initiated to elucidate performance of 18 exotic lilium hybrids (lilium x hybrida) to assess their suitability for commercial cultivation in the hilly regions of uttarakhand. the investigation was carried out at jilling floritech farm during 2014-15 under protected conditions in randomised block design. all the 18 hybrid varieties showed significant variation for vegetative, flowering and bulb attributes. analysis of data indicated that among the cultivars studied, earliest sprout emergence (4.66 days) was recorded in ‘yellow diamond’ . earliest flower-bud initiation (30.33 days) was recorded in ‘bach’, and flower-bud colour break stage (46.33 days) and flowering (50.00 days) in ‘detroit’. maximum number of flower buds/plant (8.66) was recorded in ‘pollyana’, longest inflorescences (25.23cm) in i’ndian summerset’, maximum flower diameter (17.66cm) in ‘creil’ and ‘golden tycoon’, maximum plant height (145.13cm) in ‘bright dimond’, and maximum stem thickness (1.86cm) in ‘novana’. however, maximum number of bulblets (6.66) per plant was recorded in ‘ceb dazzle’. key words: lilium hybrids, evaluation, vegetative and flowering attributes, bulblets introduction floriculture is being increasingly regarded as a viable diversification from traditional field crops due to its higher returns per unit area and the increasing popularity of “saying it with flowers”. lilium is an important crop grown for cut-flower and pot plant production. lilium is native to asia, europe and north america, and belongs to the family liliaceae with over 100 species (mcrae, 1998). lilium is one of the six major genera of bulbous flowers (geophytes) produced worldwide (hertogh and nard, 1993). in india, lilium was introduced during the 1980’s, and since then, a large number of varieties have been introduced from exotic sources at various central state research centres and agricultural universities. lilium hybrids are gaining popularity in the indian market due to their longstemmed flowers of various colours/shades and a prolonged vas e-life. however, informa tion on production of cut-flowers in lily is sca rce . in uttarakhand, it is one of the promising ornamentals and is fast establishing itself as an important cut-flower crop among growers. therefore, location-specific varietal evaluation has become essential to recommend superior varieties. due to its immense importance a gre at de ma nd in the india n flower ma rket, an experiment was conducted to assess its performance and short-list superior varieties of lilium for hilly regions of uttarakhand. material and methods the present study was carried out at jilling floritech farm, padampuri, nainital, uttarakhand, india, an export oriented unit located in the mid-hills of north himalayas at an altitude of 1817m above mean sea level (29.35°n, 79.60°e). the experimental material consisted of 18 varieties of liliums, viz., amateras, bach, blackout, bright diamond, brindisi, brunello, ceb dazzle, creil, detroit, golden tycoon, hyde park, indian summerset, novana, pavia, pollyana, tresor, vermeer and yellow diamond. the experiment was laid out in ra ndomized block de sign, with 3 replications, under naturally-ventilated polyhouse. forced bulbs of 14"-16" circumference, procured from onings holland flower bulbs bv and vws exportimport of flower bulbs bv, holland, were treated with bavistin @ 2.0 g/l for 30 minutes and planted at a spacing of 15cm x 15cm during february 2014-2015. full dose of well-rotted fym, besides phosphorus and j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 161-165, 2017 162 potassium in the form of single super phosphate (ssp) and muriate of potash (mop), respectively, was incorporated into the soil before planting the bulbs. nitrogen was applied in the form of calcium ammonium nitrate (can) at 20, 40 and 60 days after bulbsprouting. the crop was irrigated lightly through a drip irrigation system, and was raised under uniform cultural conditions. various parameters on plant growth, flowering traits and bulblet yield were recorded in five plants in each variety, in each of three replications. data were statistically analyzed using anova with the help of online opstat (statistics analytical software) developed by department of computer section, ccs, hau, hisar, haryana, india, and as outlined by gomez and gomez (1994). results and discussion results in this study revealed significant differences among all the 18 varieties tested. perusal of data on vegetative characters (table 1) indicates that cultivar ‘yellow diamond’ recorded minimum days (4.66) to sprout-initiation, followed by ‘vermeer’ (5.33) and ‘bright diamond’ (5.33 days), whereas this was maximum in ‘pavia’ (11.66 days). early bulb-sprout is a desirable character as a cultivar consumes fewer resources, and, time from planting to harvest of flowers (sindhu and singh, 2012). plant height is an important criterion for selecting lilium cultivars, as, taller plants are generally preferred for cut-flower production and shorter ones for pots. all the hybrids under our study differed significantly with respect to plant height. results revealed that among all the cultivars, maximum plant height (145.13cm) was recorded in ‘bright diamond’, followed by ‘pollyana’ (143.50cm); however, minimum height was recorded in ‘novana’ (86.53cm). flowering stem diameter/thickness is an important physical-quality parameter in lilium because the strength of a flowering stem is determined by its thickness. significant variation among different varieties of hybrid lilium was recorded for diameter of the flowering shoot in the present study. data indicated that the variety novana recorded maximum flowering stem diameter (1.86cm) and minimum diameter was recorded in ‘pollyana’ (1.03cm). this variation in flower-stalk thickness could be due to a difference in the genetic make up of the lilium hybrids. number of leaves per flowering shoot is also an important character, because, it not only improves aesthetic value but is also involved in photo-synthesis. production of photoassimilates is directly related to number of leaves/ leaf area essential for growth and development of the flowering stem, survival of the mother bulb and development of new daughter-bulbs (bhandari and srivastava, 2016). in the present study, highest leaf number was recorded in the variety pollyana (133.66), significantly at par with ‘blackout’ (121.66) and ‘bright diamond’ (122.66). on the other hand, minimum number of leaves (63.33) was recorded in ‘indian summerset’. these results are supported by earlier findings of negi et al (2014). data presented in table 2 show significant differences for flowering and bulblet production traits. days to flowering signifies earliness or lateness in flowering habit of the genotypes, which is helpful in determining availability of the flowers for a longer period. among all the varieties, ‘bach’ took minimum days (30.33) to flower bud-initiation, followed by ‘detroit’ (32.00 days) and ‘bright diamond’ (33.33 days), and maximum in ‘hyde park’ (40.33 days).findings in this investigation are in close agreement with dhiman (2003) who observed significant variation among lilium hybrids with respe ct to da ys to bud-formation under kullu conditions. lilium variety ‘detroit’recorded minimum days (46.33) to attain colour-break in the first flowerbud, followed by ‘blackout’ (47.00 days), whereas, ‘pavia’ took the longest (69.33). these findings are supported by earlier work (thakur et al, 2015).number of flower buds per shoot is an important character deciding the cost of flowering shoots in the wholesale and retail markets. generally, 4-5 flowers per stem are considered “a” grade quality flowers in lilium. in the present study, performance of ‘pollyana’ was better with maximum number of flower-buds per shoot (8.66),followed by ‘brunello’ (8.33) and ‘ceb dazzle’ (8.33), and was minimum (4.33) in ‘brindisi’. variation in number of buds in these cultivars may be attributed to inherent genetic factors and environmental factors. data recorded on days to taken first-flower opening from planting (and appearance of flower-bud) revealed that the earliest to flower was ‘detroit’ (50.00 days),followed by ‘blackout’ (51.33 days), whereas, ‘pavia’ recorded maximum number of days (75.33). flower-size is an important parameter in cut-flowers. larger blooms are preferred by the consumer and these fetch a better price than the smaller ones. data (table 2) indicated that ‘golden tycoon’ and ‘creil’ re corded maximum flower-diame ter (15.13cm), followed by ‘hyde park’ (17.00cm) and ‘detroit’ ahmad seiar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 161-165, 2017 163 evaluation of lilium hybrids in hilly region j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 161-165, 2017 164 ahmad seiar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 161-165, 2017 165 (16.50cm); however, this was minimum in ‘novana’ (13.03cm). inflorescence length in diffrent lilium varieties differed significantly. among all the hybrids, longest inflorescence (25.23cm) was observed in ‘indian summerset’, followed by ‘pavia’ (25.00cm),and, minimum in ‘brindisi’ (17.26c m). variation in inflorescence length in these cultivars may be attributed to genetic and environmental factors. similar results on growth and flowering in gladiolus under favourable climatic conditions was reported by muhammad et al (2013). among all the lilium hybrids studied, significant differences were observed with respect to bublets production. ‘ceb dazzle’ recorded maximum number of bulblets (6.66) per plant, followed by ‘pollyana ‘(6.33), whereas ‘brindisi’ recorded minimum number of daughter bulblets (3.33) per plant. significant differences in various bulblet characters in lilium hybrids have also reported by kumar et al (2011). acknowledgement the authors are thankful to jilling floritech, padampuri, nainital, for support in experimentation and dean, college of agriculture, gbpua&t, for encouragement and support. references bhandari, n.s. and srivastava, r. 2016. dynamic interventions for programmed lilium (lilium longiflorum l.) production in container system. res. on crops, 17(3):590-594 dhiman, m.r. 2003. evaluation of hybrid lily under kullu condition. j. ornam. hort., 6(2):154-155 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedure for agriculture research, 2nd edition. john wiley and sons, singapore hertogh, a.d. and nard, m.l. 1993. the physiology of flower bulbs: a comprehensive treatise on the physiology and utilization of ornamental flowering bulbous and tuberous plants (eds. de hertogh and l e nard). elsevier sc ie nc e publishers b.v., molenwerf 1, amsterdam, the netherlands, pp. 3-5 kumar, r., patel, v., verma, d., bidyut, c., singh, s. and sindhu, s. 2011. evaluation of asiatic lilium under subtropical mid-hills of meghalaya. adv. res. j. crop improv., 2(2):257-259 mcrac, e.a. 1998. lilies a guide for growers and collectors. timber press, portland, oregon, usa muhammad, a., waquas, a., jamil, s. and muhammad, i. 2013. effect of different planting dates on growth a nd de velopme nt of gladiolus grandiflorus l. under ecological conditions of faisalabad, pakistan. universal j. agril. res., 1(3):110-117 negi, r., kumar, s. and dhiman, s.r. 2014. evaluation of lilium (lilium spp.) cultivars for low hills of himachal pradesh. indian j. sci. res. & tech,. 2(4):8-10 sindhu, s.s., singh, j.p. and singh, r.k. 2012. evaluation of lilium cultivars under northern plains. int’l.j. agril. sci., 8(2):460-461 thakur, p., dhiman, s.r. and gupta, y.c. 2015. evaluation of lilium (lilium spp.) germplasm for growth, flowering and bulb production under mid-hill conditions of himachal pradesh. curr. hort., 3(2):29-31 (ms received 30 november 2016, revised 15 december 2016, accepted 28 december 2016) evaluation of lilium hybrids in hilly region j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 161-165, 2017 papaya is native to central america and is grown in tropical and warmer subtropical areas worldwide. this popular tropical fruit was reputedly called “fruit of the angels”. organic farming is becoming increasingly popular, with a rapidly growing global demand for organic products. it offers considerable benefits over conventional farming system, particularly, with respect to sustainable yield, better quality and hazard-free produce. in fact, organic farming has been the outcome of concerns relating to increased contamination of food and consequent negative effects on human health. organic production system emphasizes use of cultural, mechanical and biological management practices, instead of external inputs such as synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. production is based on management practices for site-specific conditions that enhance ecological balance of a natural system. in india, area under papaya is increasing and, limited information is available on the effect of organic production systems on fruit quality parameters especially, antioxidants and ascorbic acid content. organic practices are important in crops like papaya that are short in duration and bear fruits continuously. papaya is a good source of ascorbic acid too with its content ranging from 60 to100mg/ 100g compared to guava juice (a watery extract of cooked guavas) ranging from 60 to 90mg/100ml (hartzler, 1945). short communication effect of organic practices on fruit quality in papaya cv. surya y.t.n. reddy, s.r. shivu prasad, reju m. kurian, a.n. ganeshamurthy1 and p. pannerselvam1 division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field experiment was conducted during 2009-10 at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore using papaya cv. ‘surya’. ten organic nutrient treatments along with recommended dose of fertilizers and control (no manure/fertilizer) were used totaling twelve treatment combinations of fym, biofertilizers and vermicompost. fruit quality parameters such as total carotenoids, lycopene, tss, average fruit weight and ascorbic acid content were analyzed. among the treatments, application of 50% recommended dose of fertilizers in the form of farm yard manure (fym) applied as azospirillum+phosphate solubilizing bacteria+mycorrhiza+vermicompost showed high level of carotenoids, lycopene and low levels of ascorbic acid. tss and average fruit weight were not affected by various organic nutrient treatments. key words: papaya, organic, cv. surya, quality parameters, fym, biofertilizers, vermicompost carotenoids being the main group of coloring substances in nature are responsible for red, orange and yellow colors in fruits and vegetables. this has attracted many researches as carotenoids possess commercially important properties such as a natural origin, nil toxicity and high versatility, providing both lipoand hydro-soluble colorants and provitamin a. in recent years, importance of lycopene is rapidly increasing due to its pharmacological and anti-cancerous properties (livny et al, 2002) and antioxidant activity (sies and stahl, 1998; di mascio et al, 2002; heber and lu, 2002). antioxidant attributes of carotenoids have been reported to play an important role in their anti-cancerous properties (stahl and sies, 1996; rao et al, 1998). in vitro studies indicated that lycopene was the most efficient carotenoid-scavenger of free-radicals. in papaya, information on effect of organic practices on fruit quality and antioxidant content is scanty. hence, the present study was initiated. a field trial on organic practices of papaya cv. surya was conducted during 2009-2010 at the experimental farm of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. twelve treatments were applied as follows: t 1 – 100% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost, 1division of soil science and agricultural chemistry, iihr, bangalore-560 089 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):88-90, 2012 89 organic practices in papaya t 2 – 75% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost, t 3 – 50% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost, t 4 – 100% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost + azospirillum + mycorrhiza, t 5 – 100% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost + azospirillum + phosphate solubilizing bacteria, t 6 – 75% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost + azospirillum + mycorrhiza, t 7 – 75% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost + azospirillum + phosphate solubilizing bacteria, t 8 – 50% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost + azospirillum + mycorrhiza, t 9 – 50% recommended dose of fertilizer applied as fym + vermicompost + azospirillum + phosphate solubilizing bacteria + mycorrhiza, t 10 100% recommended dose of fertilizers, t 11 50% recommended dose of fertilizer applied as fym+ azospirillum + phosphate solubilizing bacteria + mycorrhiza + vermicompost, and t 12 no manure/ fertilizer plants were spaced at 2m×2m. vermicompost @ 2 kg/plant/year was applied to all treatments except t 10 and t 12 . the trial was laid out in randomized block design, with four replications. six plants were used per treatment. plants were under drip irrigation and the soil (red loam) had available n 100.5 kg/ha, p 2 o 5 36.8 kg/ha, k 2 o 205.0 kg/ha, with initial ph of 6.8. biofertilizers, viz., azospirillum, mycorrhiza and phosphate solubilizing bacteria (psb) were applied @ 50 g/plant/year. fertilizer dosage was split into 4 times/year for treatment t 10 (100% recommended dose of fertilizers). nutrient content of organic manures used in this experiment is as follows: fym: n-0.91%, p-0.166% and k-0.88%; vermicompost: n-1.41%, p-0.299% and k-0.55%. in each treatment, five fruits were selected randomly and a sample of 20 gram pulp was used for quality analysis. carotenoids were extracted from the pulp using the solvent acetone, and lycopene was extracted with petroleum ether, dried using sodium sulphate (anhydrous) to eliminate traces of water and rough impurities. these were analyzed by using uv-spectrophotometer at 450nm and 503nm wavelengths, for estimating carotenoids and lycopene, respectively. all samples were analyzed in triplicate for carotenoids, lycopene and ascorbic acid estimation as per ranganna, 1976 and jensen, 1978. tss of fruits was recorded with a hand-held refractometer. effect of organic practices on tss and fruit weight is presented in table 1. these parameters were found to be non-significant among treatments. however, maximum fruit weight (589.2g) and tss (120brix) were recorded in t 1 (100% recommended dose of fertilizers, applied as fym + vermicompost) and t 6 (75% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost + azospirillum + mycorrhiza). on the contrary, ravishankar et al (2008) reported increased tss due to organic practices in ‘coorg honey dew’ papaya grown in the hilly regions of coorg. the variation content may be due to growth conditions, variety and climate. similar results were reported by ray et al (2008). results on carotenoids, lycopene and ascorbic acid content influenced by different organic treatments are presented in table 2. highest total carotenoids (7.54mg/ 100g) and lycopene content (5.03mg/100g) were recorded in treatment t 11 (50% recommended dose of fertilizer applied as fym + azospirillum + phosphate solubilizing bacteria + mycorrhiza + vermicompost), and lowest total carotenoids (3.17mg/100g) and lycopene (2.04mg/100g) were observed in treatment t 1 (100% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost). higher content of lycopene and carotenoids was due to high table 1. fruit quality in papaya cv. surya as influenced by various organic practices treatment average tss fruit (obrix) weight (g/fruit) t 1 100% rdf fym + vermicompost 589.2 11.0 t 2 75% rdf fym + vermicompost 583.7 10.5 t 3 50% rdf fym + vermicompost 480.7 10.3 t 4 t 1 +azo+mycorrhiza 385.7 9.7 t 5 t 1 +azo+psb 395.5 10.0 t 6 t 2 +azo+mycorrhiza 565.7 12.0 t t 2+ azo+psb 532.7 9.6 t 8 t 3 +azo+mycorrhiza 538.0 10.7 t 9 t 3 +azo+psb+mycorrhiza 483.0 10.4 t 1 0 100% rdf 499.2 9.3 t 1 1 50% rdf fym applied as 489.7 10.8 azo+ psb + mycorrhiza + vermicompost t 12 no manure (control) 423.5 9.5 f-test ns ns s.em± 28.5 0.28 ns: non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):88-90, 2012 90 reddy et al nutritional content in organic treatments involving biofertilizers and vam. anonymous (2012) reported that vam + psb + azotobacter + azospirillum were very effective in papaya, citrus, mango, pomegranate and grape. these enhanced nutrient availability, uptake, imparted biocontrol properties, improved yield and fruit quality. lower content of lycopene and carotenoids were due to nonavailability of nutrient elements sufficient for growth and development of papaya fruits. ascorbic acid content in ripe papaya ranged from 110.0 to 1190.33 mg/100g. treatment t 3 (50% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym + vermicompost) recorded highest (1190.33mg/100g) ascorbic acid content, and lowest (110.00mg/100g) was seen in t 12 (no manure). similarly, dutta et al (2010) reported that application of azotobacter + azospirillum + vam + 2kg fym showed maximum total soluble solids-tss (6.20°brix), total sugars (5.18%) and βcarotene (2320µ/ 100g pulp) content, with minimum acidity, in papaya cv. ranchi. effects of vermicompost may depend not only on chemical compounds in it and physiological its properties, but also its effects on physical properties of the soil. these findings need to be corroborated by further research under laboratory and field conditions. table 2. total carotenoids, lycopene and ascorbic acid content in papaya as influenced by various organic practices treatment total lycopene ascorbic acid carotenoids (mg/100g) (mg/100g) (mg/100g) t 1 100% rdf fym + 3.17 2.04 170.00 vermicompost t 2 -75% rdf fym + 4.45 2.43 150.00 vermicompost t 3 -50% rdf fym + 3.21 2.06 1190.33 vermicompost t 4 t 1 +azo+myco 7.11 2.34 209.67 t 5 t 1 +azo+psb 4.13 2.87 140.00 t 6 t 2 +azo+myco 4.54 2.21 199.67 t 7 -t 2+ azo+psb 4.61 2.56 180.00 t 8 -t 3 +azo+myco 3.58 2.71 230.00 t 9 -t 3 +azo+psb+myco 3.73 3.41 249.67 t 10 -100% rdf 4.06 2.84 190.00 t 11 -50% rdf fym 7.54 5.03 280.67 applied as azo+ psb + myco + vermicompost t 12 no manure (control) 6.06 3.76 110.00 f-test * * * s.em± 0.28 0.02 1.43 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.85 0.06 4.29 *significant @5% references anonymous. 2012. report of the working group on horticulture, plantation crops and organic farming for the xi five year plan (2007-12). pp.187-188 di mascio, p. kaiser, s.p. and sies, h. 2002. lycopene as the most efficient biological carotenoid singlet oxigen quencher. arch. biochem. biophys., 274:179-185 dutta, p., kundu, s. and chatterjee, s. 2010. effect of biofertilizers on homestead fruit production of papaya cv. ranchi. acta hort., 851:385-388 heber, d. and lu, q.y. 2002. overview of mechanism of action of lycopene. exptl. biol. med., 227:920-923 eva r. hartzler.1945. the availability of ascorbic acid in papayas and guavas. j. nutr., 30:355-365 jensen, a. 1978. chlorophylls and carotenoids. in: hellebust, a. and j crargie (eds.). hand book of phytological methods, cambridge univ. press.london. pp. 59-70 livny, o., kaplan, i., reifen, r., polak-charcon, s., madar, z. and schwartz, b. 2002. lycopene inhibits proliferation and enhances gap-junction communication of kb-1 human oral tumor cells. j. nutr., 132:3754-3759 ray, p.k., singh, a.k. and arun kumar. 2008. performance of pusa delicious papaya under organic farming. ind. j. hort., 65:100-101 ranganna, s. 1976. in: manual of analysis of fruit and vegetable products, mcgraw hill, new delhi. pp.77 ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products. second edition, tata mcgraw hill publication co. ltd, new delhi rao, a.v. and agarwal, s. 1998. bioavailability and in vivo antioxidant properties of lycopene from tomato products and their possible role in the prevention of cancer. nutr. cancer, 31:199-203 ravishankar, h., karunakaran, g. and srinivasamurthy. 2008. performance of coorg honey dew under organic farming regimes in the hill zone of karnataka. acta hort., 851:350-355 sies, h. and stahl, w. 1998. lycopene: antioxidant and biological effects and its bioavailability in the human. proc. exptl. biol. med., 218:121-124 stahl, w. and sies, h. 1996. perspectives in biochemistry and biophysics. arch. biochem. biophys., 336:1–9 (ms received 15 april 2011, revised 16 june 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):88-90, 2012 introduction okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench; malvaceae] is an important warm-season vegetable, widely cultivated for its tender, green fruits. india is the largest producer of okra in the world and exports considerable amount of fresh okra to the international market, after fulfilling domestic demand (anon, 2005). in india, okra is mostly grown during pre-kharif (march to june) and kharif season (july to october). it is also grown during early winter season of mild cool temperatures when price remains very high and farmers earn handsome remuneration from such an okra crop. however, traditional cultivation practices promote use of excessive chemical fertilizers, particularly nitrogen, at irregular plant-spacing to obtain more branches and higher fruit-yield. as a result large amount of residual nitrogen remain in the soil after harvesting the crop, which affects ground-water quality, through leaching. also, excess nitrogen encourages nitrate accumulation in fruits. normally, higher amount of nitrogen fertilizer has a positive effect on effect of planting geometry and nitrogen levels on crop growth, fruit yield and quality in okra grown during early winter in terai zone of west bengal j.c. jana, s. guha and r. chatterjee department of vegetable and spice crops uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya pundibari, coochbehar, west bengal 736 165, india e-mail: janajc@rediffmail.com abstract a field-experiment was conducted in early winter of 2006 and 2007 under sub-himalayan terai agroclimatic region of west bengal to evaluate comparative effect of planting geometry and nitrogen levels on growth, yield and fruit quality in okra variety arka anamika. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design and replicated thrice, with four levels of nitrogen, viz., 50 kg, 100 kg, 150 kg and 200 kg ha-1 and four different spacings viz., 30 cm x 15 cm, 30 cm x 30 cm, 45 cm x 30 cm and 60 cm x 30 cm. among different treatment combinations, application of 150 kg n ha-1 and 45 cm x 30 cm spacing recorded the highest number of fruits plant-1 (13.7), individual fruit weight (18.5 gm), fruit yield plant-1 (195.0 g), fruit yield ha-1 (12.2 t) and vitamin c content in fruits (25.3 mg /100 g). fertilization with 200 kg n ha-1 and 45 cm x 30 cm spacing recorded the highest value for nitrate content in fruits (658.1 mg kg-1). the study amply revealed scope for growing okra crop profitably during early winter season of mild, cooltemperature by adopting nitrogen levels of 150 kg ha-1 with plant spacing of 45 cm x 30 cm in the terai agro-climatic region of west bengal. key words: okra, spacing, nitrogen levels, yield and quality fruit size, fruit weight and fruit yield. however, if the dose of nitrogen fertilizer crosses the limit, it increases nitrate accumulation in fruits, and may be toxic to human health (sajjan et al, 2002). adoption of optimum plant geometry facilitates efficient absorption of nutrients and adequate trapping of solar energy to have a positive effect on fruit yield. several workers have standardized nitrogen levels and spacing in okra for pre-kharif and kharif seasons, but rarely for early-winter season. therefore, an attempt was made to standardize nitrogen levels and plant geometry for growth, yield, quality and nitrate accumulation studies in okra during early-winter season of the terai region of west bengal. material and methods a field study was conducted during early-winter season from september to december in 2005 and 2006 at the instructional farm, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, pundibari, coochbehar, west bengal (26o192 862 2 n and 89o232 532 2 e) at an elevation of 43m above msl to arrive at suitable spacing and nitrogen levels for okra variety j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 30-33, 2010 31 arka anamika for better productivity and profitability. the soil was sandy-loam, with high organic carbon (0.96%) and available nitrogen (214.25 kg ha-1), low phosphorus (29.17 kg ha-1) and available potassium (58.56 kg ha-1) with ph 5.13. average monthly rainfall of 131 mm during september and october and no rainfall during the rest of the crop period were recorded. maximum and minimum temperatures during crop period varied between 34.5 to 25.5ºc and 20.5 to 9.9ºc, respectively. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design, with combination of four levels of nitrogen (50 kg (n 50 ), 100 kg (n 100 ), 150 kg (n 150 ) and 200 kg (n 200 ) and four different spacings (30 cm x 15 cm (s 30x15 ), 30 cm x 30 cm (s 30x30 ), 45 cm x 30 cm (s 45x30 ) and 60 cm x 30 cm (s 60x30 ). total number of treatment combinations was 16, which was replicated thrice in plots of 3m x 3m size. an additional dose of 80 kg phosphorus and 80 kg potash ha-1 was applied. inorganic fertilizers n, p and k were applied in the form of urea (46% n), single super phosphate (16% p 2 o 5 ) and muriate of potash (60% k 2 o), respectively. farm yard manure (fym) was applied during land-preparation and the total phosphorus, potash and ¼ of total nitrogen were applied at sowing. remaining ¾ of total nitrogen was top-dressed in three equal splits at 21, 42 and 63 days after sowing. the crop was raised using standard cultural practices. plots were irrigated as and when required. weeding, hoeing and shallow earthing-up were done after each top-dressing of nitrogenous fertilizer. plant protection measures were imposed at regular intervals to ensure optimal harvest. growth and yield attributes, namely, plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf chlorophyll content, number of branches per plant, days to first fruit-picking, number of fruits per plant, individual fruit weight, fruit yield, vitamin c and nitrate content of fruits were recorded and economics of cultivation worked out. chlorophyll content in leaves was measured by a portable chlorophyll meter (spad 502; minolta, japan). vitamin c content in the fruit was estimated by colorimetric estimation (ranganna, 1986). nitrate content of fruits was estimated by the method of woolley et al (1960). data were statistically analyzed by indostat statistical package. results and discussion results revealed that different doses of nitrogen, various spacings and their interaction significantly influenced important growth and yield parameters. there was a significant difference in plant height, number of leaves per plant, chlorophyll content of leaves (table1), number of fruits per plant, individual fruit weight, fruit yield, vitamin c and nitrate content of fruits (table 2) for different spacings and levels of nitrogen. soil application of nitrogen at 150 kg ha1 recorded maximum number of fruits plant-1 (12.0), individual fruit weight (16.8g), fruit yield ha-1 (11.2 t) and vitamin c content of fruits (23.2 mg/100g), whereas, 200 kg n ha-1 gave highest plant height (108.7 cm), number of branches/plant (5.4) and nitrate content in fruits (582.3 mg kg-1). increase in plant height was greater with higher levels of nitrogen fertilizer application and closer spacing. this may be due to increased availability of nitrogen and close competition for sunlight. shanke et al (2003) also recorded similar findings with tallest plants (68.9 cm) at 125 kg n ha-1 and shortest plants of (54.9 cm) with no application of nitrogen in okra variety parbhani kranti. increase in yield table 1. effect of plant-spacing and n level on growth attributes in okra (pooled data of two years) treatment plant number chlorophyll number of days to height of leaves/ content branches/ first fruit (cm) plant of leaves plant picking (spad502 value) s 30x15 100.5 24.6 45.3 2.9 44.4 s 30x30 94.1 26.1 46.9 3.3 46.4 s 45x30 91.0 27.5 48.2 3.9 47.2 s 60x30 87.3 30.1 49.2 5.1 50.3 s em (±) 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.4 cd(p=0.05) 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.8 n 5 0 75.2 23.5 44.8 2.3 44.6 n 1 0 0 85.9 26.4 47.1 3.1 46.6 n 1 5 0 103.1 28.5 49.6 4.4 47.8 n 2 0 0 108.7 29.9 48.2 5.4 49.3 s em (±) 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.4 cd (p=0.05) 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.8 s 30x15 n 50 78.9 20.5 42.7 1.5 41.8 s 30x30 n 50 76.1 22.8 43.5 1.7 44.3 s 45x30 n 50 74.6 24.6 45.6 2.2 44.7 s 60x30 n 50 71.3 26.1 47.5 3.8 47.7 s 30x15 n 100 89.7 23.6 44.4 2.1 43.5 s 30x30 n 100 86.5 26.1 46.3 2.3 46.5 s 45x30 n 100 85.3 26.3 48.3 3.5 46.7 s 60x30 n 100 82.2 29.4 49.2 4.4 49.7 s 30x15 n 150 114.5 27.0 47.6 3.6 45.3 s 30x30 n 150 105.4 26.8 49.4 4.3 47.2 s 45x30 n 150 97.6 28.8 50.2 4.7 47.4 s 60x30 n 150 94.9 31.4 51.0 5.1 51.0 s 30x15 n 200 119.1 27.2 46.5 4.3 47.1 s 30x30 n 200 108.6 28.7 48.5 4.8 47.5 s 45x30 n 200 106.5 30.4 48.9 5.4 50.1 s 60x30 n 200 100.6 33.4 49.0 6.9 52.7 s em (±) 0.63 0.52 0.36 --cd (p=0.05) 1.29 1.07 0.73 ns ns ns = non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 30-33, 2010 planting geometry and nitrogen levels in okra 32 per unit area with increase in levels of nitrogen was also reported by ambare et al (2005). the highest number of fruits/plant (12.4), individual fruit weight (16.4g), fruit yield (161.3g plant-1; and 10.5t ha-1), nitrate content of fruits (357.0 mg kg-1) and vitamin c content of fruits (22.1 mg/100g) were recorded in 45 cm x 30 cm spacing. however, the maximum plant height (100.5 cm) was attained by plants spaced at 30 cm x 15 cm. maximum number of leaves plant-1 (30.1), number of branches plant-1 (5.1), days to first fruit-picking (50.3) and chlorophyll content in leaves (49.2 spad value) were recorded in 60 cm x 30 cm spacing. with reference to interaction effect, highest plant height (119.1 cm) was recorded by the treatment combination of 200kg n ha-1 and 30cm x 15cm spacing, whereas, the treatment combination of 200kg n ha-1 and 60cm x 30cm spacing recorded highest number of leaves plant-1 (33.4). the treatment combination of 150 kg n ha-1 and 45cm x 30cm spacing recorded the highest number of fruits plant-1 (13.7), individual fruit weight (18.5 g), fruit yield (195g plant-1 and 12.2t ha-1) and vitamin c content in fruits (25.3 mg/100g). the treatment combination of 200kg n ha1 and 45cm x 30cm spacing recorded the highest value for nitrate content in fruits (658.1mg kg-1), whereas, the treatment combination of 150 kg n ha-1 and 60cm x 30cm spacing recorded highest chlorophyll content in leaves (51.0 spad value). the reason for better growth may be stimulation of plant growth due to greater absorption and translocation of nutrients due to optimal plant density which might have enhanced fruit weight, fruit number and, subsequently, fruit yield. according to soni et al (2006), a linear vegetative growth contributing character like plant height in okra variety akola bahar recorded maximum value under a closer spacing of 45cm x 15cm, when fed with a higher dose of nitrogen (150 kg ha-1). similar observation was also reported by singh et al (2005). interaction effect of nitrogen and spacing did not influence branch number per plant or days to first fruit-picking. table 2. effect of plant-spacing and n level on yield attributes and quality in okra (pooled data of two years) treatments number of individual fruit fruit yield/per fruit yield/ha vitamin c nitrate content fruits/ plant weight (g) plant (g) (t) content in fruit in fruit (mg/100 g (mg/100g) fresh weight) s 30x15 9.5 13.3 131.6 8.4 18.0 275.3 s 30x30 10.7 14.7 143.0 9.6 20.5 301.7 s 45x30 12.4 16.4 161.3 10.6 22.1 357.1 s 60x30 11.8 15.8 156.5 9.6 22.1 317.7 s em (±) 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.3 3.2 cd(p=0.05) 0.4 0.5 0.9 0.3 0.5 6.5 n 5 0 9.5 13.0 88.3 7.6 16.3 123.7 n 1 0 0 11.1 14.4 147.5 9.1 20.8 242.3 n 1 5 0 12.0 16.8 177.5 11.2 23.2 374.4 n 2 0 0 12.0 16.1 173.3 10.2 22.5 582.3 s em (±) 0.2 0.2 0.5 0.2 0.3 3.2 cd(p=0.05) 0.4 0.5 0.9 0.3 0.5 6.5 s 30x15 n 50 8.6 11.2 81.0 6.0 14.2 97.9 s 30x30 n 50 8.8 12.9 85.0 7.8 16.3 122.9 s 45x30 n 50 10.5 14.1 93.7 9.0 16.5 141.8 s 60x30 n 50 10.1 13.9 93.5 7.8 18.0 132.2 s 30x15 n 100 9.3 12.7 133.0 8.0 18.2 139.1 s 30x30 n 100 10.1 13.8 145.1 9.5 20.6 145.0 s 45x30 n 100 12.6 15.6 158.4 9.8 22.2 232.1 s 60x30 n 100 12.4 15.5 153.4 9.1 22.2 169.0 s 30x15 n 150 9.6 14.2 152.9 10.2 20.3 332.7 s 30x30 n 150 11.3 16.8 168.1 10.9 22.6 380.5 s 45x30 n 150 13.7 18.5 195.0 12.2 25.3 396.2 s 60x30 n 150 13.3 17.7 192.9 11.4 24.8 388.1 s 30x15 n 200 11.0 15.2 159.3 9.5 19.5 531.3 s 30x30 n 200 12.7 15.3 173.8 10.2 22.5 558.5 s 45x30 n 200 12.7 17.6 197.9 11.2 24.6 658.1 s 60x30 n 200 11.4 16.3 186.4 10.0 23.3 581.3 s em (±) 0.38 0.46 0.91 0.30 0.53 6.37 cd (p=0.05) 0.78 0.93 1.85 0.60 1.09 12.98 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 30-33, 2010 jana et al 33 the benefit:cost ratio increased gradually with increase in nitrogen level and wider spacing independently, to a level of 150 kg n ha-1 and 45cm x 30cm spacing, and decreased thereafter. highest benefit:cost ratio of 2.6 was observed in the treatment combination of 150 kg n ha-1 and 45cm x 30cm spacing. from these results, it can be concluded that the treatment combination of 150kg n ha1 and 45 cm x 30 cm spacing resulted in maximum yield and quality parameters like number of fruits plant-1, individual fruit weight, fruit yield and vitamin c content in fruits. the same is recommended to farmers for higher production of quality okra fruits during early-winter season under the terai agro-climatic region of west bengal. references ambare, t,p., gonge, v.s., rewatkar, s.s., mohariya, a. and shelke, t.s. 2005. influence of nitrogen levels and varieties on yield and quality of okra. crop res., 30:80-82 anonymous. 2005. indian horticulture database-2005. national horticulture board, government of india, gurgaon ranganna, s. 1986. analysis and quality control for fruits and vegetable product. 2nd edition. tata mcgrawhill publishing company ltd., new delhi, india sajjan, a.s., shekhargouda, m. and badanur, v.p. 2002. influence of date of sowing, spacing and levels of nitrogen on yield attributes and seed yield in okra. karnataka j. agril. sci., 15:267-274 shanke, b.r., jadao, b.j., ghawade, s.m. and mahorkar, v.k. 2003. effect of different levels of n and p on growth and seed yield of okra (var. parbhani kranti), under akola condition. orissa j. hort., 31:123-124 singh avtar, ramphal and yadav, a.c. 2005. comparative performance of new okra variety hrb-108-2 with standard variety varsha uphar under different levels of nitrogen and plant spacing. haryana j. hortl. sci., 34:387-388 soni, n., bharad, s.g., gonge, v.s., nandre, d.r. and ghawade, s.m. 2006. effect of spacing and nitrogen levels on growth and seed yield of okra. int’l. j. agril. sci., 2:444-446 woolley, j.t., hicks, g.p. and hageman, r.h. 1960. plant analyses for rapid determination of nitrate and nitrite in plant material. j. agril. and food chem., 8: 481-483 (ms received 4 august 2009, revised 15 june 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 30-33, 2010 planting geometry and nitrogen levels in okra mango is one of the most popular and choicest fruits of india. having originated in the indo-myanmar region (mukherjee, 1953), both wild and cultivated forms of mango in india exhibit unusual diversity in fruit forms, flavour and taste (mukherjee, 1948; naik and gangolly, 1950). diverse climatic conditions prevalent in the country, allopolyploidy and cross-pollinated nature of the crop have resulted in high heterozygosity and greater variability of gene pool in these species. over a thousand varieties are said to exist in the country (mukherjee, 1953). western ghats and the peninsular region of india are among the diversity-rich centers for mangifera indica varieties. there are several unique types, growing naturally by the side of streams and rivers, used mainly for pickling. these are called appemidi types, found mainly in uttara kannada district of karnataka. these are used for tender, whole-fruited pickles, called ‘midi’ in the local language. these unique types are gaining importance in the export market because of their suitability for pickling as whole-fruit (tender mangoes) (radhakrishna holla, 2007). with rapid deforestation in several of these areas, surveys were conducted by us to collect for conserving these unique types at our institute. attempts were also made to evaluate these types, as, very little work has been done earlier. the experiment was carried out to study diversity in 33 ‘appemidi’ types collected and maintained in the field genetic diversity in ‘appemidi’ pickle mangoes c. vasugi, m.r. dinesh and r. chithiraichelvan division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: vasuc@iihr.ernet.in abstract mango is an important fruit crop grown extensively in india. an enormous diversity is seen in its flavour, taste and fruit form unique to particular regions of india. a large diversity for unique pickling types, called ‘appemidi’ (tender mangoes), is seen in uttara kannada district of karnataka. with rapid deforestation in several of these areas, surveys were conducted to collect and conserve these unique types. this resulted in collection of 33 unique accessions which have been conserved in the institute’s field gene bank. on evaluation of tender fruit, accessions ‘chansi appe’, ‘dodderi jeerige’, ‘mani bhatta appe’, ‘gorana appe’, ‘isagoor appe’, ‘malange’, ‘gurumurthy appe’ and ‘kashimidi’ were found to possess good traits for tender, whole-fruit pickling. key words: mango, evaluation, appemidi, pickling, conservation j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):224-227, 2013 gene bank of the institute. passport data was collected and documented from the places where these surveys were conducted in uttara kannada district (table 1). in each accession, three trees were selected to represent three replications and basic statistical measures such as mean, sed, cv and sem were worked out. the trees selected were of a uniform age group and grown under standard horticultural practices. ten randomly-selected tender fruits (to the extent possible, before formation of the stony endocarp) were used for biometric observations in each accession and replication. fruit characters like shape, flavour and latex flow were recorded on visual scoring. weight of individual fruits was recorded and expressed in grams. quality parameters like ph, titrable acidity, ascorbic acid content and dry matter content were analyzed as per ranganna (1986). fruit firmness was measured using instron universal testing machine (model 4201) with 3mm dia probe, and was expressed as kg/cm2 force. evaluation for fruit characters the accessions exhibited a wide variability for different fruit characters (table 2, figs. 1 and 2; plates 1 and 2). fruit weight was found to vary between 191.75g in ‘gaddalahalli appe’, to 17.43g in ‘kana appe 1’. different fruit shapes, viz., elliptic (anantha bhatta appe, appemidi, aruna gowda appe), round (dodderi jeerige, gaddalahalli appe, kovesara) and oblong (balekoppa appe, chansi short communication 225 table 1. passport data of mango (mangifera indica l.) accessions used in the study iihr ic no name of the location district state longitude latitude acc. no. accession 19875 ic 391597 adderi jeerige sagar shimoga karnataka 75:03:33 14:16:66 19883 ic 391610 anantha bhatta appe sagar shimoga karnataka 75:03:33 14:16:66 19887 ic 391611 appemidi sagar shimoga karnataka 75:03:33 14:16:66 19893 ic 391617 aruna gowda appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 19905 ic 391627 balekoppa appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20247 ic 391650 chanshi appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 19923 ic 391663 dannalli appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 19926 ic 391668 dodderi jeerige sagar shimoga karnataka 75:03:33 14:16:66 20250 ic 391679 gaddalahalli appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20243 ic 391685 gorana appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 19943 ic 391689 gurumurthy appe kumta uttara kannada karnataka 74:40:00 14:41:66 20246 ic 391691 halasage sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 19953 ic 391707 hittalahalli appe sidhapur uttara kannada karnataka 74:88:33 14:33:33 19954 ic 391708 holekoppada appe sidhapur uttara kannada karnataka 74:88:33 14:33:33 19955 ic 391709 huliappekai sidhapur uttara kannada karnataka 74:88:33 14:33:33 19960 ic 391712 isagoor appe kumta uttara kannada karnataka 74:40:00 14:41:66 19964 ic 391718 jeerige sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20253 ic 391735 kadikai sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20254 ic 391738 kalakai sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20248 ic 391723 kalkuni sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20023 ic 391739 kana appe-1 perla kasargod kerala 75:06:66 12:60:00 20242 ic 391724 kangaramatha sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 19972 ic 391726 kashimidi sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20430 ic 395077 kovesara sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20234 ic 391776 mahabalagiri appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20239 ic 391781 malange sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20013 ic 391787 mani bhatta appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20240 ic 391795 muregeer sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20245 ic 391784 mandamane sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20237 ic 391802 nandgar appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20053 ic 395095 sadamidi sagar shimoga karnataka 75:03:33 14:16:66 20244 ic 391858 shidadakke appe sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 20258 ic 391870 thumbebeedu sirsi uttara kannada karnataka 74:85:00 14:61:66 appe, gorana appe, gurumurthy appe, halasage, hitalahalli appe, holekoppada appe, huli appekai, isagoor appe, jeerige and kashimidi) were recorded. large diversity seen in these types is due to the inherent heterozygosity, coupled with seed propagation; these are found mainly along banks fig 1. fruit weight and ascorbic acid content in ‘appemidi’ types of mango of streams, and their fruit is carried by the water to distant places. a majority of these accessions bear fruit in clusters and are monoembryonic. most are named after the place they are found in or after the farmer who has identified the type. some of the types were observed to have a strong, raw-mango flavour (balekoppa appe, halasage, hittalahalli fig 2. fruit titrable acidity in different appemidi types of mango fr ui t w ei gh t (g ) / a sc or bi c ac id ( m g/ 10 0g ) fr es h w ei gh t ti tr ab le a ci di ty j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):224-227, 2013 ‘appemidi’ pickle mangoes 226 gaddalahalli appe, kovesara, isagoor appe, jeerige, mani bhatta appe, malange, kashimidi, adderi jeerige, anantha bhatta appe, shidadakke appe, aruna gowda appe and gorana appe (19.95, 19.24, 18.98, 18.94, 18.88, 18.65, 17.94, 17.8, 17.6, 16.82, 16.80, 16.2, 16.0, 16.00%, respectively). accessions ‘mandamane’ (11.40%) and ‘hittalahalli appe’ (11.90%) had lower dry weight. in ascorbic acid content of fruit, accession ‘kashimidi’ was significantly high (114.1mg 100g-1 pulp), followed by ‘dannalli appe’ (110.40mg 100g-1 pulp) and ‘isagoor appe’ (109.6mg 100g-1). similarly, accessions halasage, chansi appe, appemidi had higher ascorbic acid content (more than 100mg 100g-1 pulp fresh weight) and low in ‘shidadakke table 2. physical and chemical quality of mango accessions evaluated for whole-fruit pickle accession fruit mango latex fruit firmness acidity p h drymatter ascorbic shape flavour flow weight(g) of fruit (%) (%) acid ( kgcm-2 ) content content (mg100g-1) adderi jeerige oblong medium medium 45.37 12.78 2.72 2.54 17.6 36.60 anantha bhatta appe elliptic medium high 61.53 13.94 2.55 2.52 16.82 68.93 appemidi elliptic strong high 25.23 15.25 2.67 2.98 14.19 101.30 aruna gowda appe elliptic strong medium 57.67 12.99 3.05 2.8 16.2 42.70 balekoppada appe oblong strong high 33.41 18.39 3.34 2.32 14.6 54.94 chansi appe oblong medium medium 47.00 13.63 3.27 2.71 14.60 103.70 dannalli appe oblong strong high 52.50 14.58 1.92 2.89 15.21 110.40 dodderi jeerige round medium medium 46.50 20.19 2.48 2.86 12.48 32.78 gaddalahalli appe round medium medium 191.75 17.09 2.45 2.51 19.24 54.92 gorana appe oblong strong high 63.40 20.62 2.26 3.04 16.00 96.00 gurumurthy appe oblong medium medium 37.50 13.77 2.42 2.62 15.51 27.45 halasage oblong strong medium 34.54 14.79 2.73 2.41 13.85 106.43 hittalahalli appe oblong strong high 39.60 20.83 2.88 2.80 11.90 79.30 holekoppada appe oblong medium medium 55.93 16.2 2.42 2.38 15.22 87.23 huli appekai oblong medium medium 58.4 18.0 2.4 2.6 14.93 35.60 isagoor appe oblong strong high 36.47 18.21 2.85 2.9 18.94 109.60 jeerige oblong strong high 36.3 17.16 3.26 2.26 18.88 45.75 kadikai oblong low low 65.2 16.24 2.55 2.83 19.2 64.80 kalakai oblong medium high 40.00 13.8 3.26 2.94 14.20 45.75 kalkuni oblong low low 43.32 13.7 2.75 2.75 19.95 51.85 kana appe 1 oblong medium high 17.43 12.96 2.32 2.67 15.76 90.28 kangarmatha oblong medium medium 44.50 21.25 2.75 2.91 13.92 95.56 kashimidi oblong strong medium 26.07 12.67 2.66 3.0 17.8 114.10 kovesara round low low 54.01 15.6 2.56 2.85 18.98 76.86 mahabalagiri appe oblong medium medium 50.20 11.58 2.02 2.70 15.10 27.45 malange round strong high 30.77 19.94 3.14 2.28 17.94 36.65 mandamane appe oblong mild low 35.50 11.86 2.91 2.85 11.40 48.03 mani bhatta appe round strong high 173.97 19.66 3.07 2.24 18.65 64.15 muregeer oblong medium medium 26.94 14.68 2.89 2.95 20.08 75.03 nandgar appe oblong strong high 50.50 15.28 2.43 2.72 15.02 64.05 sadamidi oblong strong high 50.40 18.14 2.52 2.83 13.96 42.70 shidadakke appe oblong medium high 51.00 15.39 2.13 2.85 16.80 15.25 thumbebeedu oblong strong high 43.90 15.64 2.35 2.70 15.80 24.40 sed 2.39 1.28 0.85 0.04 1.07 2.62 cv 5.59 9.82 3.90 2.02 8.19 4.96 sem 1.69 0.90 0.06 0.032 0.76 1.85 appe, isagoor appe, jeerige, kashimidi, malange, mani bhatta appe, nandgar appe, sadamidi and thumbe beedu). raw tender-mango with a strong flavour is best suited for pickle making and has a demand in both domestic and international market. latex flow is an important character in evaluating pickling types. latex flow was found to be medium in 13 accessions, high in 16 accessions and low in 4 accessions, viz., kalkuni, kovesara, kadikai and mandamane. ph value of the fruits ranged from 2.24 to 3.04. accession ‘gorana appe’ recorded significantly higher ph (3.04) while ph was lower (2.24) in ‘mani bhatta appe’. dry weight of fruit was significantly higher (20.08% of fresh weight) in ‘muregeer’ and was on par with kalkuni, j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):224-227, 2013 vasugi et al 227 appe’ (15.25mg 100g-1), followed by ‘thumbebeedu’ (24.40mg 100g-1), ‘gurumurthy appe’ (27.45mg 100g-1) and ‘mahabalagiri appe’ (27.45mg 100g-1). titrable acidity was observed to be maximum (3.34%) in balekoppa appe, chansi appe, kalakai, jeerige, malange, mani bhatta appe and aruna gowda appe. firmness was found to vary from 11.58 kg/cm2 in ‘mahabalagiri appe’ to 21.25 kg/cm2 in ‘kangaramatha’. accessions with high acidity and fruit firmness are best suited for pickling, as, these parameters decide taste and quality of the final product. morphological, agronomical and biochemical parameters (rick and holle, 1990; weber and wricke, 1994 and kraemmer et al, 1995) have been widely used for evaluating several crops. knowledge of genetic variability strongly facilitates breeding for wider geographic adaptability. several studies have been conducted from time to time on morphological description of mango (burns and prayag, 1921; mukherjee, 1948; naik and gangolly, 1950; singh and singh, 1956; gangolly et al, 1957; rajan et al, 1999; yeshitela and nessel, 2003; desai and dhander, 2000 and dinesh and vasugi, 2002). one of the characteristic features of mango varieties present in india has been expression of a character in a particular environment where the variety may have originated. in the present study, a given unique indigenous type of mango belonging to western ghat region has shown distinct characteristics. these types are unique in that they are highly acidic, fibrous and rich in the characteristic rawmango flavor; these have medium to high latex-flow and a firm pulp with good keeping quality. the pulp, after pickling, remains firm even for 3-4 years. on the basis of tenderfruit evaluation, accessions chansi appe, dodderi jeerige, mani bhatta appe, gorana appe, isagoor appe, malange, gurumurthy appe and kashimidi possessed good traits for pickling. acknowledgement: for collection of the above mango types, assistance of sri g.m. hegde (sirsi), sri shivanand kalave (sirsi), sri a. mahabalaiah, (avinahally, sagar), sri kallukoppa manjunath, sri subbaraya hegde (sirsi), sri subraya bhat (sullia), sri ananthamurthy jawali (ripponpet) and sri venkatagiri (shimoga) is gratefully acknowledged. references burns, w. and prayag, s.h. 1921. indian mangoes. j. royal hort. soc., 26:755-770 desai, a.r. and dhander, d.g. 2000. variation in physicchemical and morphological characters of some mango varieties of goa. acta hort., 509:243-249 dinesh, m.r. and vasugi, c. 2002. catalogue of mango germplasm, published by iihr, bangalore, pp.160 gangolly, s.p., singh, r., katyal, s.l. and singh, d. 1957. the book of the mango. department of agriculture, bombay, bull. 103 kaemmer, d., weising, k., beyermann,b., borner, t., epplen, j.t and kahl, g. 1995. oligunucleotide fingerprinting of tomato dna. pl. breed., 114:12-17 mukherjee, s.k. 1948. the varieties of mango (mangifera indica l.) bull. bot. soc. bengal, 2:101-33 mukherjee, s.k. 1953. the mango its botany, cultivation, uses and future improvements, especially as observed in india. econ. bot., 7:130-162 naik, k.c., and gangolly, s.r. 1950. classification and nomenclature of south indian mangoes. the madras department of agriculture, superindent printing press, madras, india radhakrishna holla. 2007. guna, vaishistathegala khajane vanya jaathiya maavu thaligagu sujatha sanchike, may 17-23 rajan, s., negi, s.s. and kumar, r. 1999. catalogue of mango germplasm, central institute for subtropical horticulture, lucknow, india ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products, second edition, tata mcgraw hill publishing company ltd., new delhi, pp.1112 rick, c.m. and holle, m. 1990. andean lycopersicon esculentum var. cerasiformie. genetic variation and its evolutionary significance. econ. bot., 44:69-78 singh, l.b. and singh, r.n. 1956. a monograph on the mangoes of uttar pradesh, superintendent of printing, up government, lucknow weber, w.e. and wricke, g. 1994. genetic markers in plant breeding. in: advances in plant breeding, j.pl. breed. suppl.16 yeshitela, t. and nessel, t. 2003. characterization and classification of mango ecotypes grown in eastern hararghe (ethiopia). sarhad j. agri., 19:179-183 (ms received 12 february 2012, revised 04 june 2013, accepted 21 july 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):224-227, 2013 ‘appemidi’ pickle mangoes introduction ashwagandha (withania somnifera dunal.) is an important medicinal plant, of the family solanaceae. it is a perennial branched, evergreen shrub of 30-120 cm height. it is native to the mediterranean region and is also found growing naturally in forests, particularly, in arid and semiarid parts of the world. roots of this plant are mostly used in ayurvedic and unani medicines. these are stout, fleshy, cylindrical, but not thicker than 1-2 cm in diameter and are whitish brown in colour. pharmacological activity of the plant is attributed to presence of several alkaloids like withanine which ranges from 0.13 to 0.31% (nigam and kandalkar, 1995). research has revealed that ashwagandha possesses anti-inflammatory, anti tumor, anti-stress, antioxidant, immuno-modulatory, hemopoeitic and rejuvenating properties. ashwagandha roots are prescribed as medicine for hiccups, several female disorders, bronchitis, dropsy, stomach and lung inflammation, tuberculosis, arthritis and skin diseases. it is also known to improve male potency (vijayabharati, 2002). although an important medicinal plant, it is still seen growing on waste and marginal lands, with little or no analyzing the efficacy of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus on growth of ashwagandha (withania somnifera dunal.) s. manohar, m.r. choudhary, b.l. yadav, s. dadheech and s.p. singh department of horticulture (s k rajasthan agricultural university), skn college of agriculture, jobner 303 329, india e-mail: mrcrau@gmail.com abstract ashwagandha (withania somnifera dunal.) is an important medicinal plant whose roots are prescribed as medicine for several disorders of females, bronchitis, dropsy, stomach problems, lung inflammation, tuberculosis, arthritis, skin diseases and male impotency. the present experiment was designed to work out a suitable dose of organic manures and fertilizers for ashwagandha. treatments consisted of nitrogenous (n) and phosphatic (p) fertilizers at 20 kg ha-1 and 40 kg ha-1 each, and two levels of farm yard manure (fym) and vermicompost and combinations thereof, along with control. the treatments were replicated thrice in randomized block design. results revealed that application of 40 kg ha-1 of n and p each as urea and ssp + 2.5 t ha-1 vermicompost registered significant values for plant height, number of branches per plant, leaf area, yield attributing traits, root (8.60 q ha-1) and seed yield (85.6 kg ha-1) as well as soil physical properties like organic carbon, hydraulic conductivity and water retention at 33 and 1500kpa besides the highest b:c ratio (2.57). key words: organic, inorganic, nitrogen, phosphorus, yield attributes, ashwagandha, withanolides j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):161-165, 2012 manures and fertilizers. use of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers has assumed great importance for sustainable production and for maintaining soil health. these not only supply macroand micro-nutrients, but also improve the physical, chemical and biological health of soil, leading to good crop production. the interactive advantage of combining inorganic and organic sources of nutrients generally results in better use of each component (manna et al, 2005). hence, the present experiment was designed to optimize the dose of organic manures and fertilizers in ashwagandha crop. material and methods the field experiment was conducted in 2004-05 at horticulture farm, department of horticulture, s.k.n. college of agriculture, jobner (rajasthan). results were verified by repeating the experiment under similar soil and climatic conditions for two consecutive years (2005-06 and 2006-07) on progressive farmers’ field. treatments consisted of two levels of nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers, i.e., 20 kg ha-1 and 40 kg ha-1 each, and two levels of farm yard manure (fym) and vermicompost each and combinations thereof, along with control. urea (containing 46% n) and 162 single super phosphate (containing 16% p) were used as sources of nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers. the treatments were replicated thrice in randomized block design. full dose of organic manures, ssp and urea was applied prior to sowing (as basal dose, irrespective of treatments) and thoroughly mixed in soil. seeds of ashwagandha variety ws-20 were sown in rows (20 x 7.5cm) in the first week of september, after treating them with bavistin @ 3g kg-1. light irrigation was applied immediately after sowing, followed by irrigations as required. at 35-40 days after sowing, one hand-weeding and hoeing was done to reduce crop-weed competition. subsequently, manual weeding was also done when required. maturity of the crop was judged by drying up of leaves and development of red colour on berries (170 das). prior to uprooting the plant, light irrigation was applied to ease the harvesting operation. above ground parts were cut and roots were left for drying. five plants were randomly selected in each plot and tagged. observations were recorded on plant height (cm), number of branches per plant and leaf area per plant (cm2), length of root (cm), diameter of root (cm), fresh root yield, dry root yield and seed yield. besides, transpiration rate (µgcm2s-1) was measured in leaves of ashwagandha by a steady-state porometer (scholander et al, 1965), leaf area measured with a leaf area meter, relative leaf water content through the formula of salvik (1974), and total chlorophyll content (mg g-1) calculated using the method of hiscox and israelstom (1979) with slight modifications. total withanolide content (%) in ashwagandha roots was analyzed by the modified spectrophotometer method of mishra (1994); organic carbon by walkely and black’s rapid titration method (jackson, 1967), hydraulic conductivity through constant head method and moisture retention per cent at 33 and 1500 kpa using pressure membrane apparatus described by singh (1980) were also recorded in experimental field. results and discussion findings of present investigation show that application of nitrogen and phosphorus regardless of sources applied, either alone or in combination of organic and inorganic materials, influenced plant height, number of branches per plant and leaf area (table 1). though all the treatments exhibited significant increase in growth parameters over the control, application of nitrogen and phosphorus @ 40 kg ha-1 each through urea and ssp + 5.0 t ha-1 vermicompost (t 14 ), closely followed by t 13 (40 kg ha-1 of n & p each + vc 2.5 t ha-1) was found superior with respect to these growth parameters. these results are in close conformity to those of muthumanickam et al (2002) and vijayabharati (2002). data on various yield and yield attributes revealed that application of integrated sources of nitrogen and phosphorus significantly increased root length, root diameter, fresh root yield, dry root yield and seed yield per hectare table1. effect of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus on plant height, number of branches per plant, leaf area (la) transpiration rate (tr), total chlorophyll content (tcc) and relative leaf water content (rlwc) in leaves of ashwagandha treatment plant height no. of la tr tcc rlwc (cm) branches/ plant (cm2) (µgcm2s-1) (mg g-1) (%) t 0 (control) 43.67 9.70 154.41 5.65 1.188 51.3 t 1 (fym 5 t ha-1) 61.87 11.53 166.48 6.12 1.190 55.2 t 2 (fym 10 t ha-1) 63.87 12.00 168.92 6.45 1.275 60.1 t 3 (vc 2.5 t ha-1) 62.40 12.03 178.72 6.20 1.213 57.5 t 4 (vc 5 t ha-1) 70.00 12.63 242.20 6.38 1.370 63.5 t 5 (n p 20 kg ha-1) 63.87 12.96 200.25 6.14 1.612 52.2 t 6 (n p 20 kg ha-1 + fym 5 t ha-1) 67.27 13.03 232.48 6.20 1.405 58.3 t 7 (n p 20 kg ha-1 + fym 10 t ha-1) 68.20 13.17 277.85 6.62 1.690 60.5 t 8 (n p 20 kg ha-1+ vc 2.5 t ha-1) 67.53 13.10 289.05 6.35 1.752 59.5 t 9 (n p 20 kg ha-1+ vc 5 t ha-1) 72.80 14.51 262.96 6.45 1.770 62.5 t 10 (n p 40 kg ha-1) 69.87 14.04 268.86 6.65 1.850 55.8 t 11 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ fym 5 t ha-1) 70.14 14.20 281.66 6.80 2.111 63.7 t 12 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ fym 10 t ha-1) 70.67 15.20 249.15 8.15 2.274 67.8 t 13 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ vc 2.5 t ha-1) 70.40 14.72 338.79 7.15 2.290 66.2 t 14 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ vc 5 t ha-1) 75.40 16.80 361.49 7.84 2.380 70.4 sem+ 3.89 1.07 16.51 0.36 0.04 1.7 cd (p=0.05) 11.26 3.09 47.82 1.05 0.124 4.9 fym – farm yard manure; vc – vermicompost; n nitrogen, p phosphorus j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):161-165, 2012 manohar et al 163 (table 2). however, among different combinations, maximum values for most of these traits were seen in treatment t 14 (40 kg ha-1 of n & p each + 5 t ha-1 vermicompost). this treatment combination was closely followed by t 13 (40 kg ha-1 of n & p each + vc 2.5 t ha-1) and t 12 (40 kg ha-1 of n & p each + fym 10 t ha-1) whereas, maximum b:c ratio (2.57) was recorded in treatment t 13 . thus, combined application of inorganic fertilizers (n & p) and organic manures (fym and vermicompost) may have supplied adequate amount of nutrients and favoured metabolic rate and auxin activities in the plant, resulting in better yield attributes and higher root and seed yield. positive response by application of inorganic fertilizers on root yield in ashwagandha was also reported by muthumanickam et al (2002) and pakkiyanathan et al (2004). total withanolide content was found to be significant among treatments in all the experiments (table 2). highest withanolide content was reported in treatment t 14 (40 kg ha-1 of n & p each + 5 t ha-1 vermicompost), closely followed by t 13 (40 kg ha-1 of n & p each + vc 2.5 t ha-1), t 8 (20 kg ha-1 of n & p each + vc 2.5 t ha-1) and t 9 (20 kg ha-1 of n & p each + vc 5 t ha-1). withanolides, being alkaloids, are products of nitrogen metabolism. hence, production of withanolides is related to nitrogen supply to the plant. therefore, application of higher n level may have resulted in higher total withanolide content in roots of ashwagandha. vijayabharati (2002) and pakkiyanathan et al (2004) also reported significant increase in total withanolide content in roots of ashwagandha with fertilizer application, compared to the control. physiological parameters such as total chlorophyll content, transpiration rate and relative leaf water content also improved with application of organics. this may be attributed to better root growth, resulting in higher water and nutrient uptake. higher root density had a large influence on plant water status (tr and rlwc) through its effect on water uptake from soil. these results get support from findings of aggarwal et al (1995) who reported that increase in root and leaf growth with organic manures is likely to increase transpiration loss. soil physical properties like organic carbon, hydraulic conductivity and water retention at 33 and 1500 kpa possibly improved with application of fym or vermicompost. this indicates that increase in these parameters may have helped increase absorption of nutrients from soil, enhanced carbohydrate assimilation and production of new tissues which, ultimately, increased vegetative growth. such findings are also reported by vijayabharati (2002). vermicompost also improved physical condition of the soil by accelerating porosity, aeration, drainability and water-holding capacity, justified by our findings where significant effect of vermicompost along with urea and ssp has been recorded on organic carbon of soil, hydraulic conductivity and water retention at 33 and 1500 kpa (figs. 1 and 2). this is also supported by existence of significant positive correlation between these soil parameters and root yield. higher root yield arising from organic material table 2. effect of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus on length and diameter of root, fresh root yield, dry root yield, seed yield, total withanolide content and b:c ratio treatment root length root fresh root dry root seed total b:c (cm) diameter yield yield yield withanolide ratio (cm) (q ha-1) (q ha-1) (kg ha-1) content (%) t 0 (control) 14.40 0.94 6.90 2.78 51.3 0.197 1.09 t 1 (fym 5 t ha-1) 22.09 1.08 11.83 4.08 64.6 0.207 1.41 t 2 (fym 10 t ha-1) 22.11 1.11 13.01 4.70 68.3 0.212 1.46 t 3 (vc 2.5 t ha-1) 22.16 1.07 12.56 4.89 65.6 0.215 1.61 t 4 (vc 5 t ha-1) 23.75 1.14 13.12 5.14 67.6 0.218 1.38 t 5 (n p 20 kg ha-1) 21.62 1.13 13.14 5.75 71.9 0.219 2.35 t 6 (n p 20 kg ha-1 + fym 5 t ha-1) 21.86 1.17 15.02 6.22 74.6 0.232 1.97 t 7 (n p 20 kg ha-1 + fym 10 t ha-1) 25.00 1.19 15.49 6.33 76.6 0.239 1.86 t 8 (n p 20 kg ha-1+ vc 2.5 t ha-1) 22.28 1.18 15.48 6.29 75.9 0.274 2.03 t 9 (n p 20 kg ha-1+ vc 5 t ha-1) 28.05 1.20 16.90 6.89 77.3 0.287 1.78 t 10 (n p 40 kg ha-1) 22.67 1.19 17.28 6.92 81.9 0.224 1.63 t 11 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ fym 5 t ha-1) 23.85 1.22 18.04 8.14 83.6 0.258 2.22 t 12 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ fym 10 t ha-1) 25.89 1.25 19.41 8.65 85.9 0.271 2.20 t 13 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ vc 2.5 t ha-1) 24.58 1.23 19.22 8.60 85.6 0.313 2.57 t 14 (n p 40 kg ha-1+ vc 5 t ha-1) 26.26 1.28 20.28 9.63 87.3 0.336 2.35 sem+ 1.76 0.08 0.90 0.46 6.08 0.020 cd (p=0.05) 5.09 0.23 2.61 1.33 17.62 0.063 fym – farm yard manure; vc – vermicompost; n nitrogen, p phosphorus j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):161-165, 2012 organic and inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus in growth of ashwagandha 164 fig 2. effect of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus on organic carbon (oc) and hydraulic conductivity (hc) of soil at harvest fig 1. effect of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus on water retention (wr) in soil at 33 kpa and 1500 kpa at crop harvest was further substantiated by significant and positive correlation (table 3) between root yield and organic carbon (r=0.590*), water retention at 33 kpa (r=0.717**) and at 1500 kpa (r=0.669**), relative leaf water content (r=0.836**) and transpiration rate (r=0.857**). favourable effect on soil properties caused by formation of higher humus colloidal complex was coupled to higher nutrient content of organic compared to inorganic fertilizers. test of significance further indicated that coefficient of regression of organic carbon, water retention at 33 and 1500 kpa, relative leaf water content and transpiration rate on root yield was positive and significant. this indicates that root yield in ashwagandha increased by 8.038, 1.095, 1.095, 0.232 and 1.873 q ha-1 by a unit increase in organic carbon, water retention at 33 and 1500 kpa, relative leaf water content and transpiration rate, respectively (tables 4 and 5). the x 1, x 2, x 3, x 4, x 5, x 6 and x 7 jointly contributed to dry root yield, and, variation in the yield owing to these parameters was 92.1% (table 5). therefore, these parameters may have contributed to root yield in ashwagandha (muthumanickam et al, 2002). table 3 shows that organic carbon content of the soil is positively and significantly correlated with hydraulic conductivity (r=0.981**), water retention at 33 kpa (0.937**) and 1500 kpa (r=0.878**), relative leaf water content (r=0.714**) and transpiration rate (r=0.605**). in fact, plants do not utilize all of the available nutrients in soil. unutilized nutrients remain in the soil. this increases their availability to the next crop after harvest. highest value for hydraulic conductivity and water retention at 33 and 1500 kpa was table 3. relationship [correlation coefficients (r) matrix] between dry root yield (dry) and organic carbon (oc), water retention (wr) at 33 kpa and 1500 kpa, relative leaf water content (rlwc) and transpiration rate (tr) variable dry root yield organic carbon w r at 33kpa w r at 1500kpa rlwc tr dry root yield 1.000 0.590* 0.717** 0.669** 0.836** 0.857** organic carbon 1.000 0.937** 0.878** 0.714** 0.605* w r at 33kpa 1.000 0.960** 0.837** 0.743** w r at 1500kpa 1.000 0.744** 0.710** rlwc 1.000 0.822** tr 1.000 *significant at 0.05 level; **significant at 0.01 level table 4. relationship [correlation coefficients (r) matrix] between organic carbon (oc) and bulk density (bd), hydraulic conductivity (hc), water retention (wr) at 33 kpa and 1500 kpa, relative leaf water content (rlwc) and transpiration rate (tr) variable organic carbon bulk density hc wr at 33kpa wr at 1500kpa rlwc tr organic carbon 1.000 -0.969** 0.981** 0.937** 0.878** 0.714** 0.605** bulk density 1.000 -0.958** -0.950** -0.859** -0.816** -0.623* hc 1.000 0.939** 0.877** 0.756** 0.630* wr at33 kpa 1.000 0.960** 0.837** 0.743** wr at1500 kpa 1.000 0.744** 0.710** rlwc 1.000 0.822** tr 1.000 *significant at 0.05 level; **significant at 0.01 level j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):161-165, 2012 manohar et al 165 table 5. effect of various soil and physiological parameters on dry root yield and organic carbon in soil variable regression equation r2 dry root yield(y) = 166.169-8.851 (x 1 ) + 4.171 0.921 (x 2 ) – 0.941 (x 3 ) + 0.574 (x 4 ) – 1.169 (x 5 ) + 66.237 (x 6 ) + 0.772 (x 7 ) dry root yield y = 3.567 + 8.038 (x 1 ) 0.348 y = -7.703 + 1.095 (x 2 ) 0.514 y = 1.124 + 1.095 (x 3 ) 0.448 y = -7.698 + 0.232 (x 4 ) 0.675 y = -6.158 + 1.873 (x 5 ) 0.714 organic carbon y = 2.624 – 1.594 (x 6 ) 0.938 y = -0.667 + 0.125 (x 7 ) 0.962 y = -1.006 + 0.105 (x 3 ) 0.877 y = -0.161 + 0.106 (x 4 ) 0.772 y = -0.543 + 1.454 (x 5 ) 0.510 y = -0.311 + 9.696 (x 6 ) 0.366 x 1, x 2, x 3, x 4, x 5, x 6 and x 7 denotes organic carbon, water retention at 33kpa, water retention at 1500kpa, relative leaf water content, transpiration rate, bulk density and hydraulic conductivity, respectively. on the basis of our results, it may be concluded that application of organic manures either alone or in combination with urea and ssp enhanced growth, yield and quality attributes in ashwagandha over control. a comparison of various treatments revealed that application of 40 kg ha-1 of np + 2.5 t ha-1 vermicompost (t 13 ) registered significantly higher values for growth and yield characteristics as also physical properties of soil, besides maximum b:c ratio. references aggarwal, g.c., sekhon, n.k., sidhu, a.s. and mahant. 1995. plant water status of maize and succeeding wheat grown on organically amended soils. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 43:152-55 hiscox, j.d. and israelstom, g.f. 1979. a method for the extraction of chlorophyll from leaf tissue without seen under the treatment t 14 (40 kg ha-1 of np each + vc 5 t ha-1), which was statistically at par with t 13 and t 12 (fig. 2). these results are in close conformity with those of srikanth et al (2000). maceration. can. j. bot., 57:1332-34 jackson, m.l. 1967. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, pp. 498 manna, m.c., swarup. a.m., wanjari, r.h., ravankar, h.n., mishra, b., saha, m.n., singh, y.v., sahi, d.k. and sarap, p.a. 2005. long-term effect of fertilizers and manure application on soil organic carbon storage, soil quality and yield sustainability under sub-humid and semi-arid tropical india. field crop res. 93:264 -280 mishra, 1994. calorimetric method for estimation of total withanolides. 10th all india workshop report on medicinal and aromatic plants, held at trichur, pp. 37981 muthumanickam, d., murugesan and sumaiyah, 2002. effect of different phosphorus sources and soil amendments on the yield and quality of aswagandha (withania somnifera dunal.) under acid soils. j. spices and aromatic crops, 11:11821 nigam, k.b. and kandalkar, v.s. 1995. medicinal and aromatic plants. in: adv. hort., 11:33744 pakkiyanathan, k., pasha, y.n., narayan reddy, y. and sathe, a. 2004. effect of spacing and phosphorus levels on growth and root yield of ashwagandha. ind. j. hort., 61:195-97 salvik, b. 1974. method of studying plant water relations. springer-verlag, berlin scholander, p.f., hammel, h.t., bradstret, e.p. and hemmingsen, e.a. 1965. sap pressure in vesicular plants. science, 148:339-46 singh, r.a. 1980. soil physical analysis. kalyani publisher, ludhiana, pp 163 srikanth, k., srinivasamurthy, c.a., siddaramappa and ramakrishna, v.r. 2000. direct and residual effect of enriched compost, fym, vermicompost and fertilizers on properties of alfisols. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 48:496-99 vijayabharati, j.a.n. 2002. integrated nutrient management of ashwagandha for growth, yield and quality. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, madurai (ms received 28 december 2011, revised 04 july 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):161-165, 2012 organic and inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus in growth of ashwagandha chilli (capsicum annuum l.) is an important spice crop and vegetable crop grown all over india. india is the largest producer of chillies, with annual production of 10.5 lakh tonnes from an area of about 9.6 lakh ha. chillies constitute about 20% of indian spice exports in quantity, and about 14% in value. andhra pradesh is the largest chilli producing state contributing a major share of total production where it is grown in an area of 2.37 lakh ha with production of 7.48 lakh tonnes and productivity of 3164 kg/ha. within andhra pradesh, it is largely grown in guntur, khammam, warangal, prakasam and krishna districts. from guntur, chillies are exported to usa, uk, japan, france, sri lanka, etc. earning rs. 100 crore annually. though the crop has great export potential (besides a huge domestic market), it suffers from low productivity. occurrence of viral diseases and insect pests is significant (gundannavar et al, 2007). the pest spectrum in chilli is complex, with more than 293 insect and mite species debilitating the crop both in the field and in storage (anon., 1987). among these, aphids: myzus persicae suler., aphis gossypii glover; thrips: scirtothrips dorsalis hood., yellow mite, polyphagotarsonemus latus banks, and the fruit borer, helicoverpa armigera hubner, are the most important. a total of 39 and 57 insect pests adoption of integrated pest management (ipm) in chilli (capsicum annuum l.): a case study from guntur district, andhra pradesh k. gurava reddy, a. subbarami reddy and m. chandra sekhara reddy regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur-522034, india e-mail-: reddy.gurava@gmail.com abstract an integrated pest management (ipm) project was implemented in the cropping season 2006-07 in six villages of guntur district. survey was conducted in the six villages and all 150 chilli farmers participating in crop life india (cli) sponsored ipm project were treated as a sample for the study. in the case of sucking pests, 56% of the farmers expressed that mites were an important pest. among the fruit borers, a majority (83.33%) felt that spodoptera litura was a serious problem and; among diseases, 56% opined die-back to be the major problem. more than twothirds of the respondents adopted all components of ipm, with the exception of bioagents where adoption was just 46%. 44% felt leaf spot was a major disease. over 80% adopted border crops, trap crops, scouting techniques and mechanical-control measures. all the respondents followed 10-15 day pre-harvest interval of pesticide application as a measure for obtaining quality produce and better price. problems of post-harvest pests and diseases were not observed in the case of well-dried chillies. key words: integrated pest management, crop life india, adoption short communication were recorded in chilli crop in karnataka in the nursery and in the field, respectively (reddy and puttaswamy, 1983). during the last two decades, insecticidal control of chilli pests especially in the irrigated crop has been characterized by high pesticides use, this has led to problems of residues in the fruits (nandihalli, 1979; joia et al, 2001). besides pest resurgence, insecticide resistance and destruction of natural enemies (mallikarjuna rao and ahmed, 1986), both domestic consumption and export of chilli necessitates production of quality chillies devoid of contamination by pesticides, industrial chemicals and afloatoxins. andhra pradesh uses about 22.5% of the total amount of pesticides produced and marketed in india. guntur district top the state in this, spending rs. 450 crore and 500 crore during 2001-02 and 2002-03, respectively. of this, major consumption was recorded for two major commercial crops, i.e., cotton and chillies (crop life india, 2005). pesticide consumption is on the decline in cotton with introduction of bt cotton, but this is not so in chilli. dry chilli exports from guntur market were rejected in several instances because j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):159-162, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 160 of pesticide residues. hence, this study was undertaken in guntur district. an integrated pest management (ipm) programme was implemented in guntur district during the cropping season 2006-07 in six villages, viz., mandapadu, visadala, bandarupalli, g.g. palem, ravipadu and gogulamudi. the project was supported by crop life india (cli). the project was initiated with a special objective of educating chilli farmers in selected villages on the rational use of crop protection chemicals through integrated pest management approach, thereby mitigating the problem of pesticide residues in harvested produce. with this background, the present study was conducted during september 2007 (after completion of one season) with an objective of gauging the extent of adoption of ipm practices by participating farmers in the project. study-area and sampling guntur, in andhra pradesh, is a major chilli growing district with an area of 56,000 ha and production of 2,74,000 tonnes in this crop (table 2). the district accounts for 24% area and 37% production in the state. the six villages of guntur district, viz., mandapadu, visadala, bandarupalli, g.g. palem, ravipadu and gogulamudi (where project activities carried out) were purposefully selected (table 1). twenty five practitioners of ipm in the project were selected from each village, adding up to a total of 150 farmers. data collection and statistical analysis a questionnaire was developed and translated into telugu, to be used for collecting responses from project farmers. data were collected from respondents by personal interview having drawn up an interview schedule. it was ensured that the questions in the schedule were unambiguous, direct, concise, complete and comprehensive. the respondents were contacted in person, mostly at a common meeting point in the village. assistance of the local project-staff was availed to establish rapport with the respondents. data collected for the study was tabulated, processed and analyzed using simple statistical tools of frequency and percentage. confirmation of results with the respondents to gather a more realistic opinion, a select group of 20 respondents, representing six villages (along with the coordinators of the project), were invited to the rars, lam. they were presented with analyzed results and concurrence was obtained from the respondents. i. profile of respondents literacy status of respondents literacy status of the respondents studied showed that over half of the respondents were educated to the elementary level, while one-fourth had completed high school education. illiterates constituted about 15% and the collegeeducated constituted about 25% of the total number of respondents (table 3). area allocation for chilli by respondents it can be inferred from table 4 that respondents allotted about 50% of their total agricultural land-area to chilli crop. this shows that chilli constituted the major crop. ii. adoption of integrated pest management (ipm) important pests and diseases of chilli crop as perceived by respondents opinion of the respondents differed on important pests and diseases of chilli crop (table 5). as for sucking pests, 56% respondent expressed mites to be a major problem, while the rest of them mentioned thrips. they expressed that severity of thrips was higher, though manageable; but, control of mites was difficult, compared to thrips. as regard fruit borers, a great majority (83.33%) felt that spodoptera table 1. sample villages and respective mandals in guntur district s. no mandal name of the village sample size 1 medikonduru mandapadu 25 2 medikonduru visadala 25 3 tadikonda bandarupalli 25 4 pedanandipadu g.g. palem 25 5 pedanandipadu ravipadu 25 6 pedanandipadu gogulamudi 25 note: twenty five farmers from each village were interacted with. table 2. district-wise area and productivity of chillies in andhra pradesh s.no. district area (ha) productivity (kg/ha) 1 guntur 56000 4900 2 prakasam 20000 1789 3 kurnool 17000 2030 4 mahaboobnagar 10000 1977 5 nalgonda 10000 1929 6 warangal 27000 2665 7 khammam 31000 4115 8 karimnagar 10000 1505 gurava reddy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):159-162, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 161 litura was a major problem. with reference to diseases, 56% felt die-back to be the major problem, while the rest felt it was the leaf spot. status of adoption of various ipm components from table 6 it is observed that adoption of various ipm components in 2006-07 was very high compared to that in 2005-06. more than two thirds of respondents adopted all the components, with the exception of bioagents where the adoption was only 46%. in the case of border crops, trap crops, scouting techniques and mechanical control measures, a great majority (> 80%) of adoption was observed. all the farmers agreed that they could identify beneficial insects like lady bird beetle, spiders and crysopa. regarding pheromone traps the respondents expressed that cli staff facilitated procurement of traps through department of agriculture (doa) subsidized schemes. it can be inferred that project farmers adopted ipm practices to a greater extent in 2006-07 compared to that in the previous season. sources of advice on crop-production issues prior to the project inception, farmer-to-farmer transfer was the major source of advice (55%), followed by dealers (27%) and agricultural officers (17%). in farmer-to-farmer case too, the farmer may have received the information from the dealer, possibility of this trend was agreed to by several farmers. it was evident from the response that all respondents followed 10-15 days preharvest interval of pesticide application as a measure to realize quality produce and better price. productivity of dry chillies productivity of dry chillies during the project period, i.e., 2006-07 (5408 kg/ha) was slightly higher compared to that in 2005-06 (5153 kg/ha). increase in productivity of was not considerable. however, considering that 2005-06 was a very good year for chilli crop, slight increment in productivity is also encouraging. storage of dry chillies regarding storage and post-harvest problems all the farmers cold-stored either part of the produce or the whole, as per their individual requirement and the prevailing price. all the respondents expressed that dry chilli could be safely cold-stored for two to three years. problems of post-harvest pests and diseases were not encountered. but, whenever the produce was stored without adequate drying, rotting of produce was seen to occur. the cost of cold-storage was collected at a fixed price i.e., rs 84/(eighty four rupees) per tikky (thirty five kg) per season. issue of sustainability during discussions, the following positive aspects on the need for sustenance of the project were brought forth: ● in one of the project villages, farmers have been purchasing trap crop (marigold) seedlings @ 2/per seedling. this demonstrates the confidence of the farmer in a particular practice that will potentially table 4. chilli growing area out of the total land-area owned by respondents s. no. village total area under % area area (ha) chilli (ha) under chilli 1 bandarupalli 3.896 2.08 53.38 2 mandapadu 4.160 2.64 63.46 3 visadala 3.064 1.96 63.94 4 g.g. palem 3.440 1.12 32.56 5 ravipadu 2.176 0.88 40.44 6 gogulamudi 2.016 0.64 31.75 average 3.164 1.58 49.94 table 5. important pests and diseases on chilli crop perceived as a problem by respondents s. no. type of pest/disease pest/disease % respondents reporting it to be a problem 1 sucking pests mites 56.00 thrips 44.00 2 fruit borers spodoptera exigua 16.67 spodoptera litura 83.33 3 diseases dieback 56.00 leaf spot 44.00 table 6. status of adoption of different ipm components s. no. ipm component % adoption 2005-06 2006-07 1 pheromone trap 6.00 66.00 2 bird perch 0 67.33 3 border crop 0.67 82.00 4 trap crop 0.67 88.00 5 scouting 4.67 82.33 6 bio-agents 17.67 46.00 7 bio-control agents 10.67 77.33 8 chemical spray 100.00 100.00 9 mechanical control 12.67 82.33 table 3. literacy status of respondents s.no. literacy status % of respondents 1 illiterate 15.00 2 elementary school 55.00 3 high school 5.00 4 college 25.00 total 100.00 adoption of ipm in chilli j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):159-162, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 162 continue even after the project is withdrawn. ● in one of the villages farmers negotiated an agreement with a major export company for exporting chilli. this would help them get a premium price for their produce. references anonymous. 1987. progress report of asian vegetable research and development centre, taiwan, pp 77-99 crop life india. 2005. a report on safe use of pesticides project of crop life india in guntur district of andhra pradesh, india. crop life india, mumbai gundannavar, k.p., giraddi, r.s., kulkarni, k.a., and awaknavar, j.s. 2007. development of integrated pest management modules for chilli pests. karnataka j. agrl. sci., 20:757-760 joia, b.s., jaswinder kaur and udean, a.s. 2001. persisitance of ethion residues on chilli. in: national symposium on integrated pest management (ipm) in horticultural crops, bangalore, 17-19 october 2001 mallikarjuna rao, d. and ahmed. 1986. effect of synthetic pyrethroids and other insecticides on the resurgence of chilli yellow mite, polyphagotarsonemus latus banks. in: proceedings of the national symposium on resurgence of sucking pests. tnau, coimbatore, pp 73-77 nandahalli, b.s. 1979. efficacy of different insecticides in the control of chilli leaf curl and their residues. msc (ag) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore, india reddy, d.n.r. and puttaswamy. 1983. pest infesting chilli (capsicum annuum l.) in the nursery. mysore j. agril. sci., 17:246-251 (ms received 8 august 2009, revised 19 august 2010) gurava reddy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):159-162, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction contamination of environment with the toxic heavy metals has become one of the major causes for concern for human health in both developing and the developed countries. heavy metals in surface-water bodies, groundwater and soils can come from either natural or anthropogenic sources. currently, anthropogenic inputs of metals exceed natural inputs due to increased industrialization and urbanization. industrial wastes, atmospheric fall-outs from crowded cities and other domestic waste figure among the major sources of heavy metals in urban sewage (sorme and lagervist, 2002). wastewater in natural streams or storm-water drains from the cities is let either into lakes or reservoirs in periurban areas, causing heavy metal contamination of these water bodies. due to increased demand for water for the multiple needs of our fast-growing cities, the small and marginal farmers in peri-urban areas are forced to use contaminated water from water bodies for their needs like cultivation of vegetables. soils receiving such water heavy metal contamination of water bodies, soils and vegetables in peri-urban areas: a case study in bangaluru l.r. varalakshmi and a.n. ganeshamurthy division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta bangalore560 089, india e-mail : lrvaral@iihr.ernet.in abstract a study was conducted in peri-urban bangaluru (where city wastewater from four water bodies, viz., bellandur, varthur, byramangala and nagavara tanks, is being used for cultivation of vegetable crops) to assess heavy metal contamination in water, soil and vegetable samples. analyses revealed that concentration of cadmium (cd) and chromium (cr) in waters from all the tanks exceeded recommended levels of 0.01 and 0.1 mg/l, respectively, while content of lead (pb) and nickel (ni) are within safe limits. concentration of cd was highest in the water of bellandur tank (0.039 mg/ l) and of cr was highest in the water of byramangala tank (0.311 mg/l). bellandur and varthur tanks were found highly contaminated with cd, pb and ni. mean concentration of heavy metals in soils receiving sewage water from the four tanks ranged from 1.92 to 2.9 mg/kg for cd, 47.04 to 68.12 mg/kg for pb, 35.08 to 92.78 mg/kg for cr and 48.2 to 57.3 mg/kg for ni. cd and pb content were highest in soils around varthur and bellandur tanks, while, mean concentration of cr was highest in soils around byramangala tank. similar trends were observed for heavy metal content in vegetables. among the vegetables studied, leafy vegetables accumulated higher concentration of heavy metals, followed by root vegetables. cd concentration in all the vegetables grown around varthur and bellandur tanks exceeded the safe limit prescribed under prevention of food adulteration act (pfa 1954). pb and ni concentration exceeded safe limits in all the vegetables in all the tank areas studied. key words: heavy metals, peri-urban, water bodies, soils, vegetables accumulate heavy metals to a varying degree depending on soil properties, heavy metal concentration in water and frequency of irrigation (lokeshwari and chandrappa, 2006). excess levels of metals in soil, water and air may pose health risk to humans and endanger ecosystems. though not essential for plant growth, these metals are absorbed by crops along with other essential plant nutrients and may have adverse effect on soil, plants, animals and humans. bellandur, varthur, byramangala and nagavara tanks are important water bodies of bangaluru city forming a part of the city’s drainage system. untreated and partiallytreated domestic sewerage and industrial wastewater from different parts of the city are drained into these tanks. important industries in bangaluru such as it companies, public sector units, small-scale units (like plating and smelting industries), garment factories, distilleries, etc. release wastewater into storm-water and sewerage drains. ultimately, these waste waters find their way into tanks. the present study was aimed at assessing levels of j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):62-67, 2012 63 heavy metal contamination of vegetable crops in peri-urban bangaluru contamination due to four major toxic, heavy metals, viz. cd, pb, cr and ni in the above-mentioned water bodies, and in the vegetables grown and soils irrigated with contaminated water from these tanks. material and methods study site survey was conducted during 2005-2008 in villages surrounding bellandur tank (bellandur, panatur and yamalur), varthur tank (varthur, ramagondanahalli and siddapura), byramangala tank (byramangala, chikkondanahalli and parasinapalya) and nagavara tank (rampura and bilisiwale). all these villages fall within 2 km. radius from the tank and farmers irrigate vegetable crops using this water by direct pumping. a vegetable farm located away from these tanks that used uncontaminated underground water through borewell was used as the control. sampling and sample preparation water samples from all the four tanks and borewell of the uncontaminated site were collected in washed and thoroughly rinsed polyethylene bottles. the lids were closed upon adding a few drops of toluene to arrest microbial activity. samples were then brought to the laboratory and stored in the refrigerator at 4oc for further analysis. surfacesoil samples (0-15cm) from farmers’ fields were collected in clean plastic bags. these were dried at room temperature, and ground using a clean mortar and pestle, and passed through 2.0 mm sieve. samples of six common vegetables grown using tanks waters and representing two leafy vegetables viz. amaranth (amaranthus tricolor l) and indian spinach – palak (beta vulgaris var. bengalensis roxb.), two root vegetables viz. carrot (daucus carota l.) and radish (raphanus sativus l.) and two fruit-vegetables viz. tomato (lycopersicon esculentum) and french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) were collected from three fields in brown paper bags and brought to laboratory for analysis. the samples were sequentially washed with mild detergent solution, 0.1% hcl, distilled water and , finally, with double distilled water. excess water was dried with blotting paper. the vegetables were cut into small pieces, dried at room temperature and, later in the oven, at 60oc. dried vegetable samples were powdered in a laboratory mixer. soil and vegetable samples from uncontaminated field (control) were also collected and processed similarly. soil and vegetable samples were digested with a tri-acid mixture (hno 3 , hclo 4 and h 2 so 4 in 5:1:1 ratio) (allen et al, 1986). total heavy metal content in water samples, digested soil and vegetable samples was estimated using perkin elmer flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer. standard deviation in each result was workedout. results and discussion heavy metal content in tank waters mean heavy metal concentration (mg/l) of water from the four water bodies is shown in table 1. it ranged from 0.014-0.039 mg/l for cd, 0.039-0.075 mg/l for pb, 0.1200.311 mg/l for cr and 0.027-0.042 mg/l for ni. mean cd, pb, cr and ni content in borewell waters of uncontaminated site was 0.002; below detectable level; 0.015 and 0.0016 mg/l respectively. as per standard guidelines for irrigation water (pescod, 1992), mean cd and cr content in all the tanks exceeded recommended levels of 0.01 and 0.1 mg/l respectively, while content of pb and ni was within safe limits. levels of all the four heavy metals were within safe limits in borewell waters from the uncontaminated site. table 1. heavy metal concentration (mg\l) in various water bodies in peri-urban bangaluru source of irrigation cd pb cr ni water varthur tank no: 36 mean 0.033 0.075 0.289 0.039 minimum 0.019 0.030 0.096 0.012 maximum 0.043 0.136 0.513 0.101 sd 0.009 0.039 0.189 0.036 bellandur tank no: 36 mean 0.039 0.065 0.291 0.042 minimum 0.028 0.022 0.080 0.015 maximum 0.05 0.084 0.538 0.097 sd 0.008 0.025 0.198 0.033 byramangala tank no: 36 mean 0.022 0.059 0.311 0.040 minimum 0.008 0.025 0.098 0.015 maximum 0.038 0.088 0.601 0.100 sd 0.011 0.024 0.215 0.03 nagavara tank no: 24 mean 0.014 0.039 0.120 0.027 minimum 0.010 0.017 0.039 0.008 maximum 0.016 0.060 0.138 0.056 sd 0.002 0.016 0.067 0.018 borewell of uncontaminated site no: 12 mean 0.002 bdl 0.015 0.0016 minimum 0.001 bdl 0.008 0.001 maximum 0.003 bdl 0.025 0.003 0.0008 0.007 0.0008 safe limit* 0.01 0.5 0.1 0.2 *source: pescod, 1992; no: number of samples; bdl: below detectable level sd = standard deviation j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):62-67, 2012 64 cadmium concentration of cd was maximum in bellandur (0.039 mg/l), followed by varthur (0.033 mg/l). byramangala tank water contained 0.22 mg/l cd while nagavara tank water contained the lowest (0.014 mg/l). lead levels of pb (0.5 mg/l) were found not to exceed the limit prescribed in all the tanks. varthur tank recorded highest pb level (0.075 mg/l) followed by bellandur (0.065 mg/l). nagavara tank had the lowest pb level (0.039 mg/l). chromium of all the heavy metals examined, cr content was maximum in all the tank waters. byramangala tank recorded the highest concentration (0.311 mg/l) followed by bellandur tank (0.291 mg/l). nickel ni concentration was found to be maximum in bellandur tank (0.042 mg/l), followed by varthur tank (0.039 mg/l). among the four tanks, bellandur and varthur were found to be highly contaminated with cd, pb and ni. this could be due to a high concentration of plating and smelting units, automobile repair units and it units around drainage lines of these tanks. stormwater carries a heavy load of these metals into water bodies (lokeshwari and chandrappa, 2006). higher levels of cr in byramangala tank can be attributed to wastewaters and effluents released from chromium electroplating industries in its surrounding areas. mean cd, cr and ni content in waters of the four tanks was 20-25 times higher than borewell water from the uncontaminated site. in soils concentration of heavy metals in agricultural soils receiving sewage waters from these tanks ranged from 1.92 -2.90 (mg/kg) for cd, 47.04-68.12 (mg/kg) for pb, 35.0892.78 (mg/kg) for cr and 48.2-57.3 (mg/kg) for ni (table 2). mean cd, pb, cr and ni content of uncontaminated site was 0.90, 39.6, 34.2 and 34.9 mg/kg, respectively. cadmium cd content was highest (2.90 mg/kg) in soils around varthur tank, followed by soils close to bellandur tank (2.38 mg/kg). soils near byramangala and nagavara tank contained 2.06 and 1.92 mg/kg cd, respectively. cd content in soils of all the tank areas studied was found to approach threshold level (1.6-3.0 mg/kg). highest concentration of cd in soils around varthur and bellandur tanks may be attributed to the long-term use of contaminated tank waters for irrigation (sharma et al, 2008). lead mean concentration of pb was also highest in soils around varthur and bellandur tanks (68.12 and 64.9 mg/kg, respectively), followed by soils close to byramangala (55.02 mg/kg) and nagavara tanks (47.04 mg/kg). levels of pb in soils near varthur and bellandur were very close to the threshold level of 90-300 mg/kg (kabata-pendias and pendias, 1984). maximum pb content in these soils was 95.3 and 81.2 mg/kg, respectively. high levels of pb in these soils can be ascribed to their proximity to the national highway and ring road (where traffic density has increased multifold in the past decade), atmospheric deposition from this traffic, and prolonged use of tank water. sharma et al (2009) also reported increased levels of pb in soils near highways in varanasi. table 2. heavy-metal concentration (mg/kg) in soils receiving sewage water from various water bodies in peri-urban bangaluru soil samples cd pb cr ni near varthur tank no: 36 mean 2.90 68.12 56.50 57.3 minimum 1.80 45.70 45.20 36.2 maximum 3.60 95.30 81.30 81.3 sd 0.70 18.70 14.64 19.9 near bellandur tank no: 36 mean 2.38 64.90 51.80 45.7 minimum 1.52 48.70 38.80 27.6 maximum 3.20 81.20 52.50 72.0 sd 0.67 12.50 13.40 14.5 near byramangala tank no: 36 mean 2.06 55.02 92.78 46.1 minimum 1.30 35.60 74.30 38.5 maximum 2.90 65.80 112.30 58.6 sd 0.71 7.67 14.05 79.0 near nagavara tank no: 24 mean 1.92 47.04 35.08 48.2 minimum 1.60 36.70 26.90 37.4 maximum 2.30 58.20 43.50 57.6 sd 0.25 7.67 7.83 9.09 uncontaminated field no: 12 mean 0.90 39.60 34.20 34.9 minimum 0.62 31.50 28.50 25.0 maximum 0.81 51.00 45.00 46.2 sd 0.22 7.47 6.31 8.00 safe limit* 1.6-3.0 90-300 100-120 48-75 *source: kabata-pendias and pendias (1984); no: number of samples sd = standard deviation varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):62-67, 2012 65 chromium mean concentration of cr was highest in soils near byramangala (92.78 mg/kg), followed by varthur (56.5 mg/ kg) and bellandur (51.8 mg/kg). mean concentration of cr was highest in soils near byramangala (92.78 mg/kg). this might be due to the long-term use of tank water contaminated with effluents discharged from chromium electroplating industries. nickel ni content was highest in soils near varthur (57.3 mg/kg), followed by soils near nagavara tank (48.2 mg/ kg). this may be due to effluents discharged from electroplating industries around the tank. values for mean concentration of cd in bellandur and varthur tank soils were similar to that reported from varanasi soils (2.8 mg/kg) by sharma et al (2007), but were lower than cd content (30.72 mg/kg) reported by gupta et al (2008) for soils of titagarh, west bengal. mean pb, cr and ni values observed in this study were higher than that in soils of varanasi but lower than that in titagarh soils. in vegetables cadmium metal concentration in vegetables varied in different tank areas. mean concentration of cd ranged from 2.446.90 mg/kg in vegetables from varthur tank, 2.4-7.23 mg/ kg from bellandur tank, 0.69-1.62 mg/kg from byramangala tank and 0.48-1.87 mg/kg from nagavara tank (fig 1). cd content of vegetables collected from the uncontaminated site ranged from 0.12-1.14 mg/kg. the data showed very high content of cd in almost all the vegetables grown near bellandur and varthur tanks, exceeding the pfa safe limits of 1.5 mg/kg (awasthi, 2000). this may be due to the high concentration of cd in tank waters and their long-term use for vegetable cultivation. in the other two tank areas, only amaranth and spinach contained levels exceeding 1.5 mg/ kg. these leafy vegetables accumulated maximum levels of cd, followed by the root vegetables, carrot and radish. tomato and french bean accumulated the lowest amounts which could be due to selective retention of heavy metals in different parts of the plant. jidesh and kurumthottical (2000) observed that the shoot portion of chilli recorded highest cadmium content followed by roots; least uptake of cd was noted in the fruit. further these differences may be due, in part, to genotypic variations between species for absorption or translocation of toxic metals (michalska, 1997). cd content of vegetables in varthur and bellandur was 6-16 and 6-20 folds higher, respectively than that in vegetables from the uncontaminated site. lead pb concentration in vegetables varied from 3.1210.32 mg/kg near varthur tank, 7.24-16.8 mg/kg in bellandur tank area, 4.83-9.83 mg/kg in byramangala tank area and 2.56-9.48 mg/kg in nagavara tank area (fig 1). mean pb concentration of vegetables grown in uncontaminated soils ranged from 0.73-1.35 mg/kg. pfa safe limit for pb is 2.5 mg /kg (awasthi, 2000). elevated levels of pb in vegetables grown near varthur and bellandur may be attributed to longterm use of tank waters, high levels of pb in these tanks, proximity of the field to highway and due to atmospheric deposition. accumulation of pb in vegetables was: leafy fig 1. heavy-metal content in vegetables grown using contaminated tank waters in peri-urban bangalore heavy metal contamination of vegetable crops in peri-urban bangaluru j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):62-67, 2012 66 vegetables > root vegetables > fruit vegetables. pb content of vegetables in varthur and bellandur tank was 5-8 fold and 10-12-fold higher, respectively, than those grown in the uncontaminated site. chromium mean cr concentration in vegetables ranged from 7.36-16.0, 12.3-24.8, 13.4-30.0 and 8.5-14.5 mg/kg near varthur, bellandur, byramangala and nagavara tanks, respectively (fig 1). cr levels in vegetables from the uncontaminated site ranged from 3.75 -6.50 mg/kg. highest concentration of cr was found in vegetables grown around byramangala tank. excepting tomato and french bean, all the vegetables contained cr levels exceeding the pfa safe limit of 20 mg/kg (awasthi, 2000). mean cr concentration of vegetables grown near varthur and nagavara tanks was well within safe limits while that in amaranth and spinach grown near bellandur was slightly above the safe limit. cr concentration in carrot and radish near this tank was close to the threshold level. effluents discharged into byramangala tank from the surrounding industrial units and long-term use of the tank waters for vegetable cultivation may have caused higher levels of cr to build up in vegetables near byramangala tank (5-fold higher than in vegetables from the uncontaminated site). nickel mean ni concentration in all these vegetables grown near the tanks exceeded the pfa safe limit of 1.5 mg/kg (awasthi, 2000) for human consumption. levels in vegetables near bellandur tank were higher than in other tank areas. mean ni concentration in vegetables ranged from 4.94-9.78 mg/kg near varthur tank, 6.0-11.8 mg/kg near bellandur tank, 4.89-9.82 mg/kg near byramangala tank and 3.0-8.5 mg/kg near nagavara tank (fig 1). ni concentration of vegetables grown in the uncontaminated site ranged from 0.59-1.15 mg/kg. mean ni concentration was: leafy vegetables > root vegetables > fruit vegetables. mean ni concentration in vegetables near bellandur tank was about 10-fold higher than in vegetables from the uncontaminated site. similar results were reported by gupta et al, (2008). average cd level in vegetables grown around different tank areas in the present study (0.48-7.23 mg/kg) was higher than that in vegetables from varanasi (0.5-4.36 mg/kg), and lower than that in titagarh, west bengal. average pb content (2.56-16.80 mg/kg) and cr (8.50-30.0 mg/kg) content of vegetables in the present study was comparable to pb (3.09-15.74 mg/kg) and cr (5.37-27.83 mg/kg) content in vegetables from varanasi, but 3-4 fold lower than that in vegetables from titagarh (21.59-57.63 mg/kg of pb, and 34.83-96.30 mg/kg of cr). mean concentration of ni in vegetables observed in the present study (3.00-11.8 mg/kg) was slightly higher than that in vegetables from varanasi (1.81-7.57 mg/kg) (sharma et al, 2007), but several-fold lower than that observed (42.79-62.70 mg/kg) in titagarh, west bengal (gupta et al, 2008). thus, it can be concluded that waters of four major water bodies of bangaluru were contaminated with heavy metals, especially cd and cr. though levels of heavy metals in the soil were within safe limits, levels in vegetables far exceeded the official indian standards (awasthi, 2000). leafy vegetables accumulated highest concentrations, followed by root and fruit vegetables. vegetables grown with water from varthur and bellandur tanks accumulated higher concentrations of cd, pb and ni, whereas, those grown with water from byramangala tank accumulated very high levels of cr. high levels of heavy metals in tank waters, soils and vegetables can be attributed to discharge of municipal and industrial wastewaters into these water bodies. regular monitoring of heavy-metals in water bodies, soils and vegetables in peri-urban areas is required to prevent build-up of these toxic metals in the food chain leading to potential health hazards. references allen, s.e., grimshaw, h.m. and rowland, a.p. 1986. chemical analysis. in: methods in plant ecology. moore, p.d., chapman, s.b. (eds.).-blackwell scientific publication, oxford, london, pp. 285-344 awasthi, s.k. 2000. prevention of food adulteration act no. 37 of 1954. central and state rules as amended for 1999. 3rd edition, ashoka law house, new delhi gupta, n., khan, d.k. and santra, s.c. 2008. an assessment of heavy metal contamination in vegetables grown in waste water irrigated areas of titagarh, west bengal, india. bull. environ. contam . toxicol., 80:115118 jidesh, c.v. and kurumthottical, s.t. 2000. selective retention of cadmium and lead in different parts of chilli (capsicum annuum l.). j. trop. agri., 38:51-54 kabata-pendias, a. and pendias, h. 1984. trace elements in soils and plants. 2nd edition, boca raton, florida, pp. 365 varalakshmi and ganeshamurthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):62-67, 2012 67 (ms received 02 august 2011, revised 27 june 2012) lokeshwari, h. and chandrappa, g.t. 2006. impact of heavy metal contamination of bellandur lake on soils and cultivated vegetation. curr. sci., 91:622-627 michalska, m. 1997. accumlation of cadmium and lead by different lettuce cultivars. in: proc. int’l. seminar on ecological aspects of nutrition and alternatives for herbicides in horticulture, warsaw-ursynow, poland, pp. 53-54 pescod, m.b. 1992. waste water treatment and use in agriculture. fao irrigation and drainage paper 47, food and agriculture organization of the united nations, rome pfa. 2004. prevention of food adulteration act, 1954, with prevention of food adulteration rules as on 1/10/2004. international law book company, delhi, pp. 147-153 sorme and lagervist, r. 2002. sources of heavy metals in urban waste water in stockholm. sci. total environ., 298:131-145 sharma, r.k., agarwal, m. and marshall, f.m. 2007. heavy metal contamination of soil and vegetables in suburban areas of varanasi, india. ecotox. environ. safe., 66:258-66 sharma, r.k., agarwal, m. and marshall, f.m. 2009. heavy-metals in vegetables collected from production and market sites of a tropical urban area of india. food chem toxicol., 47:583-591 heavy metal contamination of vegetable crops in peri-urban bangaluru j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):62-67, 2012 enhancing growth and yield in banana cv. robusta (aaa) through fertigation with microbial consortium m. senthilkumar, s. ganesh, k. srinivas1 and p. panneerselvam1 faculty of agriculture and animal husbandry, gandhigram rural institute gandhigram 624302, india e-mail: vanmazhaisenthil@yahoo.com abstract studies were carried out at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, to test the effect of fertigation with a consortium of biofertilizers for sustainable production in banana cv. robusta (aaa). the combination of fertigation and consortium of biofertilizers significantly influenced yield and yield-attributing characters in both primary and ratoon crops. fertigation with 100% recommended dose of fertilizers along with the consortium of biofertilizers recorded significantly higher yield compared to soil application of fertilizer, farm yard manure and consortium of biofertilizers. however, yield difference between 100% and 75% recommended dose of fertilizers was not significant. likewise, yield difference between 75% and 50% recommended dose of fertilizers (rdf) too did not differ significantly, although yields declined at 50% rdf. other growth characters such as number of leaves and plant girth were also significantly influenced by the combined application of fertigation and the consortium of biofertilizers in both main and the crops. however, plant height, number of hands per bunch and tss were not affected by these treatments. pulp-to-peel ratio significantly differed in both the main plant and ratoon crops, but days to maturity differed significantly in the ratoon crop. main plant crop yields were higher compared to that in ratoon. n and k accumulation was significantly higher at 100% fertigation with 300g of the consortium of biofertilizers in both the seasons. however, accumulation of phosphorous was higher at 100% fertigation with 300g of the consortium of biofertilizers (cbf) in the plant crop whereas, in the ratoon crop, highest accumulation of p in the stem was observed at 100% rdf+100g cbf, and, in the leaf and fruit, at 100% rdf with 300g and 200g of cbf, respectively. key words: banana, drip irrigation, fertigation, pgpr, biofertilizers, vam j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):240-245, 2013 short communication banana requires a large quantity of nutrients and water for growth and development compared to other fruit crops (ghavami, 1974; robinson and alberts, 1986). demand for water and nutrients can be managed effectively by drip irrigation and fertigation, as, these technologies have revolutionized commercial cultivation of banana in recent years. this technology has resulted in increased fertilizer use efficiency, apart from reducing no3 pollution of ground water. however, total dependency on inorganic fertilizers affects sustainability of the crop in the long run. increase in demand for inorganic fertilizers and anticipated short supply of these are a major threat for optional production in horticultural crops. therefore, there is a need to reduce dependency on the use of inorganic fertilizers, by supplementing nutrients through microbial inoculants. earlier studies have proved the efficacy of fertigation (srinivas et al, 2001) and biofertilizers (jeeva et al, 1988; tiwary et al, 1998) when used individually. therefore, attempts were 1indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560089, india made to study the effect of fertigation in combination with a consortium of biofertilizers on banana cv. robusta (aaa) as, synergetic effects of these two techniques have not been worked out so far for maximizing production in banana. the study was conducted at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, situated at 13º58’ n and 78ºe at an altitude of 890m above msl. the soil of the experimental site was red sandy loam, with low fertility. the soil was acidic in reaction and free from excessive salts, with organic carbon content of approximately 0.92%. it had total nitrogen content of 160kg ha-1, phosphorus and potassium content of around 22kg ha-1 and 232kg ha-1, respectively. field capacity ranged from 14.45 to 31.92% in different layers up to 120cm soil depth. permanent wilting point was low in the top 0-15cm (6.52%), and gradually increased with depth. it was 18.64% at 105-120cm depth. bulk density ranged from 1.62g/cc to 1.55g/cc in the 0-120cm soil layer. the soil was tested for initial level of 241 fertigation in banana with microbial consortium microbial population (azospirillum 0.18 to 0.22 x 104 cfu/ g, phosphate solublizing bacteria (psb) 0.24 to 0.28 x 10 4 cfu/g, and am fungi 4.3 to 5.2 spores g-1 of soil) planting material of banana musa aaa, cavendish sub-group cv. robusta, consisting of healthy suckers weighing about 0.8 to 1.0kg each were planted during the first week of january 2010 at a spacing of 1.5x1.5m (4444 plants ha-1), and its ratoon crop was taken in the year 2011. single super phosphate as per the treatment was applied to the pit before planting. fifteen days later, the consortium of biofertilizers was incorporated. three levels of fertigation: 100% recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) (200:110:200 npkg plant-1crop-1), 75% rdf and 50% rdf, and three levels (100, 200, 300g plant-1crop-1) of the consortium of biofertilizers (cbf) (azospirillum, phosphate solubilizing bacteria and am fungi) were combined with soil application of recommended dose of fertilizers. besides these, there was one treatment with 15kg farm yard manure and 300g consortium of biofertilizers plant-1. these 12 treatment combinations were replicated thrice in randomized block design. there were nine plants in each treatment. nitrogen was applied in the form of calcium ammonium nitrate and potassium as muriate of potash. fertigation was applied from the 60th day of planting at weekly intervals, up to 320 days as per reddy et al, (2002). irrigation was done on daily basis, replenishing 80% of the evaporation loss (hegde and srinivas, 1991). rain, if any fell, was deducted from evaporation; but, rain in excess of evaporation was disregarded. two emitters were placed for each plant at equal distance of 30cm from the pseudostem, with a total discharge rate of 8 litres of water/hour. suckers were removed periodically until flowering, and one sword sucker was retained per plant for the ratoon crop. plant height was measured from ground level to the top of the curve of the bunch-stalk. pseudostem girth was measured 0.3m above ground level after flowering. fruit bunch was weighed and the number of hands and fruits per bunch were recorded. ten fruits were selected at random from the middle part of the bunch for recording fruit weight and pulp–peel ratio. total soluble solids were recorded in the randomly-selected ripe fruits using a hand-held refractometer (erma, japan). data were analyzed using web agri stat package, version wasp 1.0. the data were subjected to one way aanalysis of variance (anova). treatment difference was evaluated using least significant difference (lsd) at pe≥ 0.05. data on various growth characters is presented in table 1 and shows that plant height showed no marked variation due to fertigation and the consortium of biofertilizers, both in the plant and ratoon crops. however, pseudostem girth and number of leaves differed significantly with treatments. combined effect of fertigaton and the consortium of biofertilizers was seen, with retention of more number of leaves untill maturity. in the plant crop, application of 50% fertigation with 300g consortium of biofertilizers resulted in significantly higher number of (9.5) leaves per plant than in 100% rdf through fertigation, 100% rdf through soil application or fym and consortium of biofertilizers. in the ratoon crop, 75% rdf with 100g consortium of biofertilizers resulted in more number of leaves (11.0), indicating the role of the consortium of biofertilizers table 1. effect of fertigation with a consortium of biofertilizers on growth characters in banana cv. robusta treatment no. of leaves at plant height at plant girth at days taken tssobrix maturityplant-1 maturity(cm) maturity(cm) for maturity plant ratoon plant ratoon plant ratoon plant ratoon plant ratoon crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop fym+cbf 7.0 7.3 194.3 192.9 38.0 40.0 410 361 18.3 18.5 100% rdf+100g cbf 9.0 8.9 212.6 223.1 52.3 54.6 360 291 19.1 20.0 100% rdf+ 200g cbf 9.0 9.2 211.2 224.0 52.8 57.7 366 285 19.7 20.5 100% rdf+ 300g cbf 9.3 9.2 214.1 221.2 53.9 58.7 372 280 20.9 21.0 75% rdf+100g cbf 8.1 11.0 215.3 228.3 50.0 56.2 368 288 20.4 20.8 75% rdf+ 200g cbf 8.7 10.3 212.1 220.6 51.9 53.3 371 284 21.0 21.0 75% rdf+ 300g cbf 8.8 9.5 210.7 219.8 51.5 54.6 361 284 21.6 21.6 50% rdf+ 100g cbf 8.6 8.2 204.8 208.9 50.0 51.6 366 300 19.0 19.3 50% rdf+ 200g cbf 9.0 8.6 206.1 210.6 50.5 53.8 366 299 19.1 19.5 50% rdf+ 300g cbf 9.5 9.0 225.0 213.4 51.4 54.5 364 302 19.8 19.0 100% rdf (fertigation) 7.1 8.0 210.0 227.5 52.2 53.0 365 300 20.1 21.0 100% rdf (soil application) 7.0 7.8 192.5 219.0 44.7 49.1 371 330 18.9 18.9 cd (p e≥0.05) 1.17 1.24 ns ns 6.94 7.43 ns 43.51 ns ns j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):240-245, 2013 242 in slow release and mobility of nutrients to the plant even with reduced fertigation level. similarly, plants treated with 100% rdf+300g cbf recorded higher pseudostem girth at maturity in both the plant and ratoon crops; plants with fym + 300g cbf recorded the lowest value for this parameter, followed by application of 100% rdf through soil. days taken to maturity were higher in fym+cbf application and soil application, but lower in fertigation treatments. earliness was observed in plants supplied with a combination of fertigation and consortium of biofertilizers, in both the plant and ratoon crops. even though days taken to maturity did not differ significantly in the plant crop, this parameter differed significantly in the ratoon crop supplied with fertigation and the consortium of biofertilizers. application of fym and the consortium of biofertilizers resulted in late maturity (361 days), followed by that in 100% fertilizer applied through soil (330 days); whereas, plants treated with 100% rdf with 300g of consortium of biofertilizers matured early (280 days). this may be due to a continuous availability of nutrients through fertigation, which facilitates timely application of nutrients directly to the root zone, reducing leaching losses and improving fertilizer use efficiency (srinivas et al, 2001) and hastening maturity. fruit number was higher (99 and 106 in plant and ratoon crops, respectively) with 100% rdf and 100g cbf (table 2). this value was lower in fym (farm yard manure) and cbf (consortium of bio-fertilizers) (62 and 77) as well as 100% rdf applied to soil (79 and 87). fruit weight was higher in 100% rdf+300g cbf both in the plant (260.8g fruit-1) and the ratoon crop (249.4g fruit-1) compared to fym+300g cbf which resulted in lower fruit weight (195.2 and 196.7g fruit-1). banana yield increased significantly with combined application of fertigation and the consortium of biofertilizers. in the plant crop, application of 100%rdf with 300g of consortium of biofertilizers produced higher yield (115mt ha-1), which was nearly 32% higher than 100% rdf applied through soil. however, in the ratoon crop, 100% rdf with 100g of the consortium of biofertilizers resulted in higher yield (109mt ha-1), which was 30% and 43% higher, respectively, than the 100% rdf applied through soil, fym and 300g consortium of biofertilizers. this increase in growth and yield components could be due to reduced nutrient loss by deep-percolation and leaching and, also, by timely application of nutrients directly to the root zone of the plant, thus improving fertilizer use efficiency (srinivas et al, 2001). similar results were reported by mahalakshmi et al (2003) in banana. in both the plant and ratoon crops, yield difference between 100% and 75% rdf combined with biofertilizers consortium was found not significant. likewise, yield differences between 75% and 50% rdf were also not significant. this indicates that the performance of microbial inoculants was better at the reduced rate of inorganic fertilizers which might have enhanced their efficiencies to fix more nitrogen by azospirillum and solubilization of phosphates by psb (rudresh et al, 2005). further, azospirillum is known to produce bioactive substances having an effect similar to that of growth regulators, besides its ability to fix n fixation. therefore, enhanced uptake of nutrients such as n, and auxins, due to azospirillum, may have diverted photoassimilates to the table 2. effect of fertigation and a consortium of biofertilizers on yield characters in banana cv. robusta treatment no. of no. of fruit bunch yield yield ha-1 pulp:peel hands bunch-1 fruits plant-1 weight (g) plant-1 (kg) ratio plant ratoon plant ratoon plant ratoon plant ratoon plant ratoon plant ratoon crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop crop fym+cbf 6.6 5.7 62.0 76.8 195.2 196.7 12.1 15.7 53.8 62.8 2.1 2.4 100 % rdf + 100g cbf 7.0 6.5 98.7 106.2 249.1 228.9 24.6 24.6 109.2 109.5 3.2 3.2 100% rdf + 200g cbf 7.0 6.6 97.5 98.1 250.9 243.6 24.9 24.1 110.9 107.1 3.8 3.3 100% rdf + 300g cbf 7.2 6.4 97.5 95.9 260.8 249.4 25.9 24.0 115.2 106.7 3.3 3.3 75% rdf + 100g cbf 6.6 6.6 95.9 96.7 249.0 238.9 23.9 23.1 106.1 102.6 3.5 3.8 75% rdf + 200g cbf 6.7 6.5 93.4 92.6 249.9 241.2 24.3 22.4 107.8 99.7 3.5 3.3 75% rdf + 300g cbf 6.9 6.4 94.6 94.8 257.8 232.1 24.9 22.0 111.9 97.8 3.3 3.3 50% rdf + 100g cbf 6.3 6.3 90.0 83.2 222.1 240.0 20.7 20.1 92.1 89.3 3.1 2.8 50% rdf + 200g cbf 6.7 6.4 91.4 88.0 227.3 232.0 21.2 20.5 94.0 91.1 3.6 3.0 50% rdf + 300g cbf 6.9 6.4 91.8 85.6 230.1 241.5 21.5 20.8 94.5 92.4 3.7 3.2 100% rdf (fertigation) 6.6 6.3 93.6 90.5 246.0 209.3 23.0 19.0 101.1 84.4 3.2 3.2 100% rdf (soil application) 6.5 6.0 78.9 86.8 230.6 198.0 17.5 17.1 77.8 76.0 2.5 2.5 cd (pe≥0.05) ns ns 12.56 12.95 33.94 31.98 3.10 2.94 13.85 13.10 0.45 0.43 senthilkumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):240-245, 2013 243 developing flower buds and helped convert flowers to femaleness to produce a higher number of fingers. this, in turn, would have increased bunch yield (dhanapal et al, 1978). this improved growth parameter perhaps resulted in higher bunch weight and greater number of fingers per hand. besides, the increase in growth parameters could be due to growth substances produced by vam which are known to mobilize nutrients and make them available to the plant (eswarappa et al, 2002). yield increase can also be attributed to increased number of fingers, increased individual-fruit weight and, thereby, bunch weight (meena and somasundram, 2004). treatments that received 50% rdf + cbf also yielded on par with plants receiving 75% rdf + cbf. this indicates synthesis of beneficial hormones due to vam (glomus fasciculatam) by increased cell division and cell multiplication (azcon and bago, 1994). tiwary et al (1998) also reported that inoculation with biofertilizers in various combinations increased yield in banana by 18-84% over the control, and the response was more pronounced when n dose was reduced to half. in the ratoon crop, there was a decrease in bunch weight in all the treatments, except 100% rdf with 100g consortium of biofertilizers, and, fym with consortium of biofertilizers. thus, yield reduction in the ratoon crop could be basically due to reduced fruit weight as compared to that in the plant crop. though there was an increase in fruit weight at 50% rdf with all the three levels of consortium of biofertilizers, bunch weight was low compared to that in the plant crop, as, there was a reduced number of fruits in the ratoon crop; whereas, plants supplied with fym and 300g of consortium of biofertilizers resulted in higher number of fruits, fruit weight and bunch yield in the ratoon crop. this increase in yield may have been due to the inoculation process which would have assisted the plants absorb nutrients (baset mia et al, 2009). treatment with 100% fertigation and the consortium of biofertilizers recorded higher tss, although the differences were not marked among treatments in both the plant and the ratoon crops. this might be due to a steady accumulation of nutrients especially, k, all through the cropping season thereby resulting in higher levels of sugars in the pulp. tss decreased gradually at lower doses (50% fertigation and the consortium of biofertilizers). this trend was observed in the ratoon crop too which corroborates the report of baset mia et al (2009), that, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (pgpr) improve efficiency of absorption of the applied mineral nutrients by helping the plant scavenge the limiting nutrients. pulp-to-peel ratio significantly differed among treatments in both the plant and ratoon crops. fruits in the combined application of fertigation and consortium of biofertilizers treatment recorded higher pulp:peel ratio. plants that received 100% rdf along with 300g consortium of biofertilizers recorded higher pulp-to-peel ratio (3.8) in the main crop. in ratoon, the treatment 75% rdf with 100g consortium of biofertilizers recorded highest pulp-to-peel ratio (3.8). in general, ratoon crop resulted in reduced pulp-topeel ratio in all the plants compared to the main crop, except in the treatment 75% rdf with 100g of biofertilizers. similar results were obtained by hegde and srinivas (1991) in banana for ratoon crop. plants supplied with fym+ biofertilizers and 100% rdf through soil recorded lowest pulp:peel ratio in both the seasons. table 3. effect of fertigation with a consortium of biofertilizers on nitrogen content at harvest in banana cv. robusta treatment nitrogen (%) plant crop ratoon crop stem leaf fruit stem leaf fruit fym+300g cbf 0.63 0.95 0.63 0.68 0.98 0.73 100 % rdf + 100g cbf 0.97 1.80 1.42 0.98 1.82 1.41 100% rdf + 200g cbf 1.06 1.85 1.51 1.00 1.85 1.48 100% rdf + 300g cbf 1.15 1.87 1.59 1.11 1.89 1.53 75% rdf + 100g cbf 0.95 1.64 1.38 1.00 1.70 1.38 75% rdf + 200g cbf 0.97 1.76 1.35 1.01 1.75 1.34 75% rdf + 300g cbf 1.12 1.80 1.47 1.10 1.78 1.43 50% rdf + 100g cbf 0.86 1.51 1.19 0.83 1.54 1.13 50% rdf + 200g cbf 0.84 1.54 1.20 0.90 1.53 1.18 50% rdf + 300g cbf 0.90 1.52 1.16 0.94 1.49 1.16 100% rdf (fertigation) 0.79 1.54 0.83 0.77 1.52 0.80 100% rdf (soil application) 0.74 1.28 0.79 0.72 1.18 0.79 cd (pe≥0.05) 0.23 0.23 0.18 0.13 0.23 0.18 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):240-245, 2013 fertigation in banana with microbial consortium 244 leaf, stem and fruit sample analysed at harvest revealed that nitrogen accumulation was higher in the leaf, whereas, phosphorus and potassium accumulation was higher in fruits (tables 3-5). similar results were obtained by srinivas et al (2001) also in banana. in both the cropping seasons, nutrient uptake was higher in plants receiving a combined application of fertigation and the consortium of biofertilizers. n and k accumulation was significantly higher at 100% fertigation with 300g consortium of biofertilizers in both the seasons. however, accumulation of phosphorus was higher at 100% fertigation with 300g consortium of biofertilizers in the plant crop, whereas, in the ratoon crop, highest accumulation of p in the stem was observed at 100% rdf+100g cbf. in the leaf and fruit, this was seen at 100% rdf with 300g and 200g of cbf, respectively. the combination of fym + consortium of biofertilizers recorded lowest nutrient uptake in both the crop cycles. higher accumulation of k in fruits indicates that a major portion of k is diverted to the fruit at its late developmental stage, which is associated with sweetness and higher tss. in conclusion, it may be stated that growth and yield of banana can be significantly enhanced with 100% rdf, followed by 75% rdf through fertigation with a combination of a consortium of biofertilizers. it was noted that even a dosage of 50% rdf, combined with the consortium of biofertilizers, gave significantly higher yield than 100% rdf applied to soil. references azcon, a. and bago, b. 1994. physiological characteristics of the host plant promoting on undistributed functioning of the mychorrhizal symbiosis. in: impact of arbuscular mycorrhizas on sustainable agriculture and natrual ecosystems. gaininazzi, s and h schuepp, table 4. effect of fertigation with a consortium of biofertilizers on phosphorus content at harvest in banana cv. robusta treatment phosphorus (%) plant crop ratoon crop stem leaf fruit stem leaf fruit fym+300g cbf 0.11 0.08 0.11 0.11 0.09 0.13 100 % rdf +100g cbf 0.17 0.14 0.21 0.19 0.13 0.20 100% rdf + 200g cbf 0.17 0.16 0.20 0.18 0.16 0.21 100% rdf + 300g cbf 0.18 0.18 0.21 0.18 0.17 0.20 75% rdf +100g cbf 0.17 0.13 0.19 0.17 0.13 0.18 75% rdf + 200g cbf 0.16 0.13 0.20 0.16 0.13 0.19 75% rdf + 300g cbf 0.17 0.14 0.20 0.17 0.13 0.20 50% rdf + 100g cbf 0.14 0.11 0.18 0.15 0.11 0.18 50% rdf + 200g cbf 0.16 0.11 0.17 0.15 0.12 0.19 50% rdf + 300g cbf 0.17 0.12 0.19 0.16 0.12 0.18 100% rdf (fertigation) 0.16 0.13 0.15 0.13 0.11 0.15 100% rdf (soil application) 0.13 0.11 0.14 0.13 0.11 0.13 cd (pe≥0.05) 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.03 table 5. effect of fertigation with a consortium of biofertilizers on potassium content at harvest in banana cv. robusta treatment potassium (%) plant crop ratoon stem leaf fruit stem leaf fruit fym+300g cbf 1.12 1.18 1.81 1.15 1.13 1.80 100% rdf+100g cbf 3.00 3.88 4.05 3.00 3.83 4.06 100% rdf+ 200g cbf 3.08 3.91 4.08 3.10 3.85 4.10 100% rdf+ 300g cbf 3.10 3.93 4.11 3.12 3.90 4.15 75% rdf+100g cbf 2.95 3.70 3.96 3.00 3.70 3.98 75% rdf+ 200g cbf 2.80 3.75 3.98 3.00 3.65 4.00 75% rdf+ 300g cbf 3.00 3.84 3.93 3.11 3.71 4.01 50% rdf+ 100g cbf 2.35 3.01 3.22 2.48 3.11 3.34 50% rdf+ 200g cbf 2.38 3.15 3.33 2.40 3.18 3.38 50% rdf+ 300g cbf 2.40 3.30 3.38 2.44 3.21 3.40 100% rdf (fertigation) 2.95 2.95 3.37 2.55 2.90 3.41 100% rdf (soil application) 1.73 2.50 2.73 1.78 2.60 2.78 cd (pe≥0.05) 0.37 0.64 0.50 0.37 0.46 0.50 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):240-245, 2013 senthilkumar et al 245 (eds.). a.l.s., birthauser, basel pp.47-60 badjugar, c.d., desmukh, s.s., dusane, s.m. and shide, s.s. 2004. influence of n&k fertigation and different plant densities on yield of banana cv grand naine. south indian hort., 52:22-28 baset mia, m.a., sahmsuddin, z.h., wahab, z. and marziah, m. 2009. the effect of rhizobacterial inoculation on growth and nutrient accumulation of tissue cultured banana plantlets under low n fertigation regime. african j. biotech., 8:5855-5866 chandra, r. and shivaraj, j. 1972. influence of exogenous hormones on flowering, flower shedding and fruit set of chilli, (capsicum annum). andhra agri. j., 19:34-44 dhanapal, n.d., purushothaman, d. and nandan, m. 1978. effect of seed inoculation with azospirrillum lipoferum on pearl millet and sorghum. food agri., 10:85-86 eswarappa, h., sukhada mohandas, chandra gowda, k.n. 2002. effect of vam fungi on banana. curr. res., 31:69-70 ghavami, n. 1974. irrigation of valley bananas in honduras, trop. agri. (trinidad), 51:443-446 hegde, d.m. and srinivas, k. 1991. growth, yield, nutrient uptake and water use of‘ banana crops under drip and basin irrigation with n and k fertilization. trop. agri., 68:331-334 jeeva, s., kulasekharan, m., shanmugavelu, k.g. and obilisami, g. 1988. effect of azospirillum on growth and development of banana cv. poovan (aab). south indian hort., 36:1-4 mahalakshmi, m., kumar, n., jayakumar, p. and soorianandhasundaram, k. 2001. fertigation studies in banana under normal system of planting. south indian hort., 49(special):80-85 meena, s. and somasundaram, e. 2004. rate and timing of nitrogen and potassium fertilization on yield and quality of banana cv. poovan. madras agri. j., 91:52-55 reddy, b.m.c., srinivas, k., padma, p. and ragupathi, h.b. 2002. response of robusta banana to n and k fertigation. indian j. hort., 59:342-348 robinson, j.c. and alberts, a.j. 1986. growth and yield response of banana (cultivar ‘williams’) to drip irrigation under drought and normal rainfall conditions in the sub-tropics. sci. hort., 30:187-202 rudresh, d.l., shivapraksah, m.k. and prasad, r.d. 2005. effect of combined application of rhizobium, phosphate solubilizing bacterium and trichoderma spp., on growth, nutrient uptake and yield of chickpea (cicer arietinum l.) appd. soil ecol., 28:139-146 srinivas, k., reddy, b.m.c., chandrakumar, s.s., thimmegowda, ragupathi, h.b. and padma, p. 2001. growth, yield and nutrient uptake of robusta banana in relation to n and k fertigation. indian j. hort., 58:287-293 tiwary, d.k., abu hasan md. and chattopadhyay. 1998. studies on the effect of inoculation with azotobacter and azospirillum on growth, yield and quality of banana. indian agri., 42:235-240 (ms received 22 august 2012, revised 11 september 2013, accepted 22 november 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):240-245, 2013 fertigation in banana with microbial consortium introduction tomato is one of the important vegetable crops grown throughout the world under open and controlled conditions. it serves as a daily component of diet in many countries and also an important source of minerals, vitamins a, b, c good source of iron and antioxidants (grierson and kader, 1986). india produces 12.43 mt. of tomato from an area of 6.34 lakh ha with an average productivity of 19.60 t ha-1. recent hybrids of tomato have shown open field yield potential as high as 100 t ha-1. in order to obtain this high yield levels of new tomato hybrids, farmers’ have to adopt better crop husbandry practices which include balanced and desired levels of nutrient management. calcium is an essential nutrient that plays a key role in the structure of cell walls and cell membranes, fruit growth and development, as well as general fruit quality (kadir, 2004). it enhances resistance to bacterial and viral diseases (usten et al, 2006). the ca taken up from the soil is translocated to the leaves but very little goes from the leaves to the fruit causing imbalance in source sink relationship (kadir, 2004). therefore, plants need a constant supply of ca for vigorous leaf and root development and canopy growth (del-amor and marcelis et al, 2003). magnesium is also a major constituent of cell wall (jones, 1999). it is vital for the process of photosynthesis and therefore for the life of the plant in general. it acts as a cofactor and activator interaction effect of applied calcium and magnesium on alfisols of karnataka and its influence on uptake and yield levels of tomato (solanum lycopersium l.) b.l. kasinath, a.n. ganeshmurthy and a.t. sadashiva icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089 e-mail : kasnath@iihr.ernet.in abstract in a field experiment, interaction effects of applied ca, mg and k on yield and quality of tomato and soil nutrient levels was studied in alfisols of karnataka. the results showed application of mg enhanced fruit yield up to 100 kg mg ha-1 and decreased at higher levels of mg. the application of ca also enhanced the yield of tomato but their combined application at different levels had negative effect of one on the other. the results indicated that optimum combination of mg and ca was 100 and 250 kg ha-1 respectively for obtaining higher yield in tomato. soil p content enhanced with application of both ca and mg. however, applied ca and mg showed significant negative effect on both soil and k content. interaction effect was however, non-significant on soil ph, ec, oc and soil n content. key words: acid, soils, calcium, magnesium, nutrient interaction, tomato of many enzymes and substrate transfer reactions (bergmann, 1992). plants inadequately supplied with mg show delay in reproductive phase. clear understanding of the ratios’ of nutrients such as ca:mg, ca:b, mg:k etc., along with their obsolute content both in soil and plant on growth and quality is lacking (ganeshamurthy and srinivasarao, 2001) and excess of one element induces deficiency of another element. although a lot of research work has been done on the requirement of tomato for major nutrients but insufficient data is available on secondary nutrients such as mg and ca and their interactions effects on yield of tomato under field conditions. hence the study was carried out to evaluate the combined effect of k, ca and mg applications on availability of k, ca and mg and further their effect on the growth and yield of tomato. material and methods the experiment was conducted at icar-iihr, hesaraghatta, bengaluru during the rabi season of 201112. the experiment was laid out in split plot design with three replications. there were four levels of mg as the main plot treatment and three levels of ca as sub-plot treatment. the 12 treatment combinations are presented in table 1. tomato var. arka ananya (f1) was transplanted at 100cm x 60cm after incorporation of fertilizers as per the table 1. the crop was grown up to maturity and fruits were j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):179-184, 2014 180 harvested at regular intervals and yield recorded as sum total of all pickings. soil and plant analysis soil samples were collected and these samples were analysed for n, p, k, ca and mg. analytical methods followed for the analysis of soil samples and plant samples are presented in table 2. whole plant sampling was done from each treatment for recording total biomass production. five plants from each replication were sampled including fruit, leaf and stem. the plant samples were partitioned into leaf, stem and fruit and processed for plant analysis. weight of each plant was recorded separately and dried at 600c in a hot air oven. samples were powdered and processed for estimation of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium and magnesium using standard procedures. analytical procedure followed for the analysis of plant samples are presented in table 2. statistical analysis the data on various observations such as growth, yield and other parameters were tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis (sundaraja et al, 1972). results and discussion fruit yield optimum yield of tomato can be obtained at optimum mg:ca ratio in the soil. any deviation from the optimum would affect adversely the yield of tomato (bombita nzanza, 2006). however, this optimum ratio depends on soil native mg and ca content and other related properties. the data pertaining to yield of tomato hybrid as influenced by four levels of mg and three levels of ca and their interaction is presented in table 3. application of both mg and ca significantly enhanced the fruit yield of tomato. the yield of tomato increased with increasing levels of applied mg up to 100kg mg ha-1 at lower levels of applied ca. however, at higher levels of ca the fruit yields decreased with increasing levels of mg. the lowest mean yield value 64.36 t ha-1 was observed at ca1 (0 kg ca ha -1) application and the highest mean yield of 73.97t ha-1 was obtained at application of mg2 (100kg mg ha -1). a combination of mg2 (100kg mg ha-1) ca3 (250 ca kg ha -1) resulted in highest yield (82.05t ha-1). the results indicate that optimum combination of mg and ca was 100 and 250kg ha-1 table 1: layout of treatment details of magnesium and calcium interaction experiment treatment n:p2o5:k2o mg quantity ca quantity kg ha-1 (kg ha-1) of mgso4 (kg ha -1) of applied used as gypsum (kg) (kg) t 1 180:150:120 0 0 0 0 t 2 180:150:120 0 0 100 342.46 t 3 180:150:120 0 0 250 856.15 t 4 180:150:120 100 1028 0 0 t 5 180:150:120 100 1028 100 342.46 t 6 180:150:120 100 1028 250 856.15 t 7 180:150:120 150 1542 0 0 t 8 180:150:120 150 1542 100 342.46 t 9 180:150:120 150 1542 250 856.15 t 1 0 180:150:120 200 2056 0 0 t 1 1 180:150:120 200 2056 100 342.46 t 1 2 180:150:120 200 2056 250 856.15 table 2: analytical methods followed for analysis of soil and plant samples sl. parameters methodology reference no. soil analysis 1. mechanical analysis hydrometer method piper (1966) 2. ph (1:2.5) potentiometer method jackson (1973) 3. electrical conductivity (ec) conductivity method jackson (1973) 4. organic carbon walkley and black’s wet oxidation jackson (1973) 5. cation exchange capacity leaching with ammonium acetate black (1965) 6. available nitrogen alkaline potassium permanganate method subbiah and asija (1956) 7. available phosphorous molybdo phosphate blue colour method jackson (1973) 8. available potassium flame photometer method jackson (1973) 9. nh4oac extractable calcium (ppm) versanate titration method black (1965) 10. nh4oac extractable magnesium (ppm) versanate titration method black (1965) plant analysis 1. nitrogen micro kjeldahl method jackson (1973) 2. phosphorous vanadomolybdo phosphoric method jackson (1973) 3. potassium flame photometer method jackson (1973) 4. calcium atomic absorption spectrophotometer method lindsay and norwell (1978) 5. magnesium atomic absorption spectrophotometer method lindsay and norwell (1978) kasinath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):179-184, 2014 181 respectively for obtaining highest yield in tomato. several workers have reported similar results. hao and papadopoulos (2004) in a factorial experiment with nutrient solutions containing calcium (150 and 300mg l-1 ) in combination with three levels of magnesium (20, 50 and 80mg l-1) showed that at 300mg ca l-1 and mg 80mg l-1 significantly increased total fruit yield and dry matter. on a sandy loam acidic soil (ph 4.9) charles and jeffery (1983) studied the effects of mg and ca lime sources on yield, quality and up take of tomato. in a two year experiment (1980 and 1981), results showed that marketable fruit yields were lower with the 100% ca (oh)2 or 100% mgo. highest fruit yields were obtained over a relatively narrow range of leaf ca and mg mole ratio. the best yield was reported in ca: mg ratio of 15:5 by bombiti nzanza (2006). interaction of mg and ca on soil and plant nutrients soil nutrients applied mg and ca did not influence the properties of soils like ph, ec and organic carbon (table 4). applied mg and ca had negative effect on soil n levels. with increasing applied mg and ca levels the mean available n content decreased. interaction effects of the combined mg and ca effect found that the lowest available n 109.38kg ha-1was recorded in mg4ca3 treatment and the highest n 125.14kg ha-1 in mg1 ca1 treatment. similar results were observed in groundnut crop by ananthanarayana and hanumantharaju (1992). applied ca and mg significantly influenced soil available p. available p levels increased from 7.2kg/ha-1 in mg1ca1 to 7.95kg ha -1 in mg4ca3 treatment. this indicated synergistic relationship of ca and mg on soil available p. halbrooks and wilcox (1980) also observed in tomato a positive correlation between mg and p absorption in water cultures supplied with 4, 20, 80ppm of p2o5 and 1, 8, 40ppm of mg. the application of mg and ca had significant negative influence on soil available k. applied mg and ca increased exchangeable mg and decreased exchangeable k and ca. as the level of applied ca increased the available k content decreased. interaction effects of applied mg and ca resulted in the lowest available k of 101.8kg k ha-1 in plots that received combined application of 200kg mg ha-1 and 250 kg ca ha-1. highest available k of 124.3kg k ha-1 was recorded table 3: interaction effects of mg with ca on yield of tomato treatments yield (t ha-1) ca1 ca2 ca3 mean (0 kg (100 kg (250 kg (kg ha-1) ca ha-1) ca ha-1) ca ha-1) mg1 (0 kg mg ha -1) 61.45 67.05 64.84 64.45 mg2 (100 kg mg ha -1) 67.14 72.71 82.05 73.97 mg3 (150 kg mg ha -1) 65.79 74.00 75.60 71.80 mg4 (200 kg mg ha -1) 63.06 77.03 69.21 72.10 mean 64.36 72.70 72.92 69.76 s. em± c.d at 5% mg 1.885 6.526 ca 1.022 3.065 mg x ca 2.045 6.131 table 4. interaction effects of different levels of magnesium and calcium on soil nutrients treatment p h ec oc soil n soil p soil k soil soil (dsm-1 at 25.c) (%) (kg ha-1 ) (kg ha-1 ) (kg ha-1 ) cappm mgppm mg1ca1 5.41 0.39 0.64 125.14 7.22 124.3 430.17 92.98 mg1ca2 5.44 0.39 0.67 123.18 744 121.4 493.21 95.41 mg1ca3 5.45 0.40 0.67 120.70 7.59 115.3 558.67 110.06 mg2ca1 5.43 0.40 0.66 122.92 7.43 121.7 477.83 102.60 mg2ca2 5.45 0.41 0.67 119.66 7.52 117.3 526.80 113.32 mg2ca3 5.45 0.39 0.65 118.42 7.72 113.4 585.92 132.46 mg3ca1 5.47 0.39 0.67 120.58 7.65 116.1 514.26 119.86 mg3ca2 5.48 0.43 0.68 115.46 7.69 111.0 582.63 136.93 mg3ca3 5.48 0.43 0.68 113.88 7.87 108.9 636.18 178.62 mg4ca1 5.50 0.40 0.68 117.70 7.79 110.6 565.39 122.70 mg4ca2 5.53 0.43 0.67 112.62 7.83 106.4 641.20 150.51 mg4ca3 5.57 0.43 0.67 109.38 7.95 101.8 694.67 213.64 s.em+ mg ns ns ns ns 0.073 1.72 20.60 8.933 ca ns ns ns ns 0.100 2.09 22.88 11.677 mg x ca ns ns ns ns 0.113 2.36 27.75 16.680 cd at 5% mg ns ns ns ns 5.16 61.72 26.770 ca ns ns ns ns 6.26 68.54 34.987 mg x ca ns ns ns ns 7.07 83.15 49.974 effect of applied ca and mg on yield in tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):179-184, 2014 182 when no ca and mg were applied. potassium is a monovalent cation while both ca and mg are divalent. hence, antagonistic relations are expected naturally among these nutrient elements both in soil and crops (ganeshamurthy, 1983). interaction effects of applied mg and ca resulted in enhancing the soil ca from 430.17ppm in mg1ca1 to 694.67ppm in mg4ca3 treatments, on the other hand it was observed that interaction effects of applied mg and ca resulted in enhancing soil mg from 92.98ppm in mg1ca1 to 213.64ppm in mg4ca3 treatments. ca uptake was affected by major cation even though it is available in soil or nutrient media in sufficient quantity as observed by barber (1995). on the other hand k and mg can restrict the uptake of mg from the roots to upper plant parts (schimanski, 1981). according to bergman (1992) high k indirectly causes damage to plants growth by inducing ca and mg deficiencies plant nutrients application of graded levels of ca and mg in different combinations showed significant changes in plant nutrient contents (table 5). the interaction of mg and ca resulted in lowest fruit n content of 2.39% in mg4 ca3 treatment. similar results were reported by adams et al (1978). the interaction of mg and ca resulted in lowest fruit p content of 0.16% in mg1 ca1 and treatments and the highest p content of 0.19% was observed in mg 2 ca 2 and mg 4ca 2 combination. halbrooks and wilcox (1980) in a field experiment studied the elemental uptake pattern in tomato and obtained similar trends. the interaction of mg and ca resulted in lowest fruit k of 4.04 and 5.57% in mg3 ca3 and mg1ca2 treatments respectively. in general the fruit ca content decreased with increased levels of mg and ca. the interaction effect of applied mg and recorded highest fruit ca of 2.46% in mg1ca1 (control) and lowest of 1.02% was found in mg4ca3 combination. a combined application of mg1 and ca3 recorded 0.31% fruit mg1 on the other hand 0.47% was found in mg4 ca1. the nutrient content in plant leaf and stem showed significant differences as in fruit nutrient content. interaction effects of mg and ca application showed lowest n of 2.10% in mg1 ca1 and mg3ca3 treatments and the highest of 2.70% was observed in mg3ca3 treatment. the p content in leaf and stem found lowest 0.09% and highest 0.19% in mg1ca1 and mg3ca1 treatments. the highest k 2.35% was recorded in mg2ca2 combination. barber (1995) and bergmann (1992) found similar results. the ca content in leaf and stem decreased with increased levels of mg and ca application. the highest ca content (2.73%) in leaf and stem was found in mg1ca1 and lowest (2.17%) was observed in mg4ca3 combination. the results indicated antagonism between mg and ca in uptake process. similar results were found by many workers viz., bergmann (1992) osman and gerald (1985); asiegbu and uzo (1983). table 5. interaction effects of different levels of magnesium and calcium on plant nutrients treatment plant n (%) plant p (%) plant k (%) plant ca (%) plant mg (%) fruits leaf & fruits leaf & fruits leaf & fruits leaf & fruits leaf & stem stem stem stem stem mg1ca1 2.59 2.10 0.16 0.09 4.63 1.37 2.46 2.73 0.38 0.91 mg1ca2 2.42 2.52 0.17 0.13 5.57 1.37 2.05 2.67 0.35 0.87 mg1ca3 2.60 2.37 0.19 0.13 5.54 2.01 1.74 2.49 0.31 0.83 mg2ca1 2.63 2.50 0.18 0.13 4.95 1.98 2.00 2.65 0.41 0.98 mg2ca2 2.44 2.22 0.19 0.16 4.94 2.35 1.88 2.61 0.39 0.91 mg2ca3 2.52 2.55 0.17 0.12 4.64 1.47 1.42 2.57 0.35 0.86 mg3ca1 2.70 2.10 0.16 0.19 4.87 2.09 1.55 2.54 0.45 1.18 mg3ca2 2.66 2.45 0.18 0.09 5.42 1.71 1.58 2.50 0.43 1.10 mg3ca3 2.55 2.70 0.16 0.13 4.04 2.14 1.19 2.44 0.40 1.25 mg4ca1 2.48 2.43 0.18 0.18 5.10 2.50 1.12 2.30 0.47 1.24 mg4ca2 2.41 2.34 0.19 0.10 4.84 1.70 1.06 2.23 0.44 1.07 mg4ca3 2.39 2.00 0.17 0.10 4.85 1.99 1.02 2.17 0.40 1.01 s.em+ mg 0.061 0.054 0.003 0.003 0.126 0.058 0.127 0.059 0.054 0.019 ca 0.046 0.042 0.006 0.005 0.113 0.031 0.170 0.053 0.029 0.016 mg x ca 0.093 0.085 0.012 0.010 0.226 0.062 0.340 0.106 0.058 0.033 cd at 5% mg 0.213 0.189 0.013 0.013 0.436 0.200 0.442 0.205 0.189 0.066 ca 0.139 0.128 0.018 0.016 0.340 0.093 0.510 0.159 0.087 0.050 mg x ca 0.278 0.256 0.036 0.032 0.680 0.186 1.020 0.319 0.174 0.101 kasinath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):179-184, 2014 183 the mg content in leaf stem as affected different levels of mg and ca application resulted lowest mg 0.83% and mg3ca3 treatments respectively. similar results were found by micaela carvajal et al (1999). in nutrient uptake process k, mg and ca are strongly antagonistic (voogt, 1998) resulting in deficiency of depressed element. ca uptake was affected by major cation even though it is available in soil or nutrient media in sufficient quantity as observed by barber (1995). on the other hand k and mg can restrict the uptake of mg from the roots to upper plant parts (schimanski, 1981) according to bergmann (1992) high k indirectly causes damage to plants growth due to ca and mg deficiencies. no significant influence was observed on plant ca content by the application of mg and ca. with increasing applied mg levels the mean fruit ca content decreased. as the level of applied ca increased the plant ca content decreased. the lowest fruit ca of 1.02% was recorded in mg4 (250kg mg ha -1) ca3 (250kg ca ha -1) treatment. in a study on mg uptake by tomato plants schwartz and baryosef (1983) observed that enhanced ca concentration reduced the mg concentration but increased mg concentration had no effect on ca concentration. mirabdulbaghimitra (1993) found that leaf and root ca contents decreased with increasing mg supply there were higher concentration of ca and mg in the leaf compared to fruit, while p was higher in fruit than leaf, with the leaf age ca and mg content increased (asiegbu and uzo, 1983). application of mg and ca had significant negative influence on plant mg content. with increasing mg levels the mean fruit mg content increased in tomato fruits, leaves and stem. in fruits the mg content decreased as the level of ca application increased. similar trend was noticed in leaves and stem. combined application of mg1ca3 resulted in lowest fruit mg of 0.31% in tomato fruits and 0.83% in leaves and stem. paiva et al (1998) while working in tomato crop showed antagonistic effect between ca and mg and reported that the rate of mg uptake depressed by ca. micaela carvajal et al (1999) observed decreased uptake of mg due to cationic antagonism. in order to achieve desired yield and quality levels with hybrid tomato varieties nutrition management of npk and other nutrients like calcium and magnesium play a vital role. as these nutrient elements are antagonistic to each other, proper corrections can to be done through foliar sprays in proper ratios. application of mg and ca produced significant treatment differences in yield. the results indicated that a combination of 100 and 250kg ha-1 of mg and ca respectively was found optimum to obtain higher yields of tomato. interaction effect of ca and mg application at different levels showed positive correlation with soil p and an antagonistic effect on both soil and plant k, but had no significant effect on soil ph, ec, oc and soil n contents. application of different levels of mg and ca showed significant changes in plant nutrient contents. references adams, p., davies j.n. and winsor, g.w. 1978. effects of nitrogen, potassium and magnesium on the quality and chemical composition of tomatoes grown in peat. j. hort. sci., sci. biotech., 53:115-122. ananthanarayana, r. and hanumantharaju, t.h. 1992. interactions of ca and mg with other plant nutrients. in: h.l.s tandon (ed). arnon, d.i. and stout, p.r. 1939. molybdenum as an essential element for higher plants. pl. physiol., 14:599-602 asiegbu j.e. and uzo, j.o. 1983. effects of lime and magnesium on tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill) grown in a fertility sandy loam tropical soil. pl. and soil, 74:53-60 barber, s.a. 1995. soil nutrient bioavailability: a mechanistic approach, 2nd ed. john wiley and sons, inc., new york bergmann, w. 1992. nutritional disorders of plants 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effect of applied ca and mg on yield in tomato 184 interaction of potassium with other nutrients. special publication international seminar on “importance of potassium in nutrient management for sustainable production in india” 3-5 december 2001, new delhi.pp:159-174 grierson, d. and a.a. kader. 1986. fruit ripening and quality of tomato crop. chapman and hall, london. pp: 240-280 halbrooks, m.c. and g.e. wilcox. 1980. tomato plant development and elemental accumulation. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 105:826-828 hao, x. and papadopoulos, a.p. 2004. effects of calcium and magnesium on plant growth, biomass partition, and fruit yield of winter greenhouse tomato. hort. sci., 39:512-515. jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india private limited, new delhi, pp: 498 jones, j.b., 1999. tomato plant culture: in the field, green house and home garden.crs press, llc florida, pp: 11-53 kadir, s.a., 2004. fruit quality at harvest of ‘jonathan’ apple treated with foliar applied calcium chloride. j. of pl. nutrition, 27:1991-2006 lindsay, w.l. and w.a. norwell. 1978. development of a dtpa soil test for zinc, iron, manganese and copper. soil sci. soci. of american j., 42:0421-428 micaela carvajal, vicente martinez and antonio cerda. 1999. influence of magnesium and salinity on tomato plants grown in hydroponic culture. j. pl. nutr., 22:177-190 mirabdulbaghimitra. 1993. influence of raising magnesium supply on fresh and dry matter production and mineral content of tomato plants (lycopersicum esculentum m.) l. 8:3-49 & 57-66 osman m. elamin and gerald e. wilcox. 1985. effect of magnesium fertilization on yield and leaf composition of tomato plants. j. pl. nutr., 8:999-1012. paiva, e.a.s., sampaio r.a. and h.e.p. martinez. 1998. composition and quality of tomato fruit cultivated in nutrient solutions containing different calcium concentration, j. pl. nutr., 21:2653-2661 piper, c.s. 1966. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd. new delhi. pp:102 schimanski, c. 1981. the influence of certain experimental parameters on the flux characteristics of mg-28 on the case of barley seedlings grown in hydro culture. land. forsch. 34:154-165 schwartz, s. and b. bar-yosef. 1983. magnesium uptake by tomato plants as affected by mg and ca concentration in solution culture and plant age. agron. j., 75:267-272 subbiah, b.v. and g. l. asija. 1956. a rapid procedure for the estimation of available nitrogen in soils. curr. sci., 25:259-260 sundaraja, n., nagaraju, m.n. venkataramu and m.k. jaganath. 1972. design and analysis of field experiments, u.a.s. and biostat-i.i.h.r., bengaluru usten, n.h., a.l.yokas and h. saygili, 2006. influence of potassium and calcium level on severity of tomato pith necrosis and yield of greenhouse tomatoes. ishs acta hort., 808: 345-350 voogt, w. 1998. the growth of beefsteak tomato as affected by k/ca ratios in the nutrient solution. glasshouse crops research station naaldwijk, the netherlands kasinath et al (ms received 03 october 2014, revised 29 november 2014, accepted 03 december 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):179-184, 2014 grape (vitis vinifera l.) is one of the important fruit crops of india. however, it is highly susceptible to downy mildew and powdery mildew caused by plasmopara viticola and uncinula necator, respectively (pearson and goheen, 1988). these diseases affect leaves, shoots, flowers and berries causing huge losses both in quality and yield (chadha and shikhamany, 1999). in maharashtra, andhra pradesh and karnataka, where ‘two pruning one yield’ system of grape cultivation is practised, risk of downy mildew infection on inflorescence and young bunch is very high during the first 55-60 days after pruning. though the vines are susceptible to powdery mildew infection at all growth-stages, after the berry-softening stage, the pathogen does not infect berries but infects pedicels. rains and heavy dew facilitate onset of downy mildew, while, powdery mildew incidence occurs when days are cloudy and nights are relatively warm. maximum losses are incurred when the infection appears on bunches. the disease needs to be controlled before a powdery mass of spore inoculum develops in the vineyard. there are a number of registered systemic and nonsystemic fungicides for use on grape in india for management of downy and powdery mildews (nrcgrapes.nic.in/zipfiles/ pesticide list.pdf.). however, to avoid build up of fungicide residues, as well as to prevent development of fungicideresistant strains of these fungi, there is a need for a large bio-efficacy of aureofungin-sol in control of downy and powdery mildews in grape s.d. sawant, indu s. sawant, kaushik banerjee, dinesh shetty, monali waghmare, g. kalbhor, shweta patil and manjusha jadhav national research centre for grapes, pune-412307, india e-mail: ipmsawant@yahoo.co.in abstract bio-efficacy of aureofungin-sol, an antifungal antibiotic, for control of downy mildew and powdery mildew of grape was evaluated during october 2008 april 2009 fruiting season in vineyards at three locations in maharashtra. four to nine sprays of aureofungin-sol, @ 0.108, 0.163 and 0.217 g/l, starting from 12-16 days to 46-75 days after fruit pruning gave good control of downy mildew on leaves and bunches, and increased harvestable yield over the control. similarly, four sprays of aureofungin-sol @ 0.108 g/l at 11 to 20 days’ interval at 65 days after pruning provided complete control of powdery mildew on leaves and bunches. no residue of aureofungin-sol was found in harvest samples above the limit of detection (0.1 mg/kg). key words: plasmopara viticola, uncinula necator, sharad seedless, tas-a-ganesh, harvestable yield, (cymoxanil+mancozeb) 72wp, azoxystrobin 23sc number of effective molecules that can be used judicially in the spray schedule (sawant et al, 2007). aureofungin-sol is a broad-spectrum antifungal antibiotic, developed and manufactured in india. it is an improved formulation of aureofungin, containing 46.15% aureofungin technical and 53.85% solubilizing agent. potential of aureofungin in control of downy and powdery mildews of grape was reported over forty years ago by kadkol and gopalkrishnan (1971) and sinha et al (1970), respectively. while kadkol and gopalkrishnan (1971) used detached infected leaves for their studies on downy mildew, sinha et al (1970) conducted their experiments on hybrid grape seedlings. there is no report of field efficacy of aureofungin, and no practice of its use in commercial vineyards. the present study was conducted to evaluate bio-efficacy of aureofungin-sol, an improved formulation of aureofungin, for controlling downy and powdery mildews of grape at different locations of maharashtra. the field trial was conducted during fruiting season and terminal residues of aureofungin-sol were checked at harvest to confirm food-safety. bio-efficacy trials for control of downy mildew were conducted during october 2008 april 2009 fruiting season on ‘sharad seedless’ trained to the bower system at walwa (dist. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):136-140, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 137 sangli) and golegaon (dist. pune), and on ‘tas-a-ganesh’ (thompson seedless) trained on extended y trellises at the research farm of nrc for grapes (nrcg) (dist. pune). the trial for control of powdery mildew was conducted at nrcg. trials were laid out in rbd with four replications consisting of 12 vines each. data were recorded on two vines placed in the centre, while the rest were treated as guard vines. test sample of aureofungin-sol 46.15% s.p. was obtained from m/s hindustan antibiotics ltd., pune. weather data was recorded and disease-risk was predicted using ‘logic’ developed at nrcg, pune. fungicide sprays were given whenever weather conditions appeared to be favourable for development of the diseases. at nrcg, the first four sprays were aimed at control of downy mildew, and the subsequent four sprays for control of powdery mildew. cymoxanil + mancozeb 72 wp (8%+ 64%) and azoxystrobin 23sc were used as positive controls in downy mildew and powdery mildew trials, respectively. water volume used for sprays was about 1000 lha-1. disease incidence on leaves and bunches was recorded on 0-4 rating scale, where 0= nil, 1= trace to 25, 2= 26 to 50, 3= 51 to 75, and 4= more than 75 % leaf area infected (horsfall and heuberger, 1942). the ratings were recorded for ten leaves and two bunches on ten randomlyselected canes per vine. observations on incidence of downy mildew were recorded periodically, while that on powdery mildew were recorded after the fifth spray. per cent disease index (pdi) was calculated as per mckinney (1923). all data were subjected to anova (panse and sukhatme, 1989). the pdi data were transformed using arcsine transformation. results found significant at p=0.05 only are discussed. aureofungin-sol residue: aureofungin-sol was applied at a standard dose of 0.163gl-1 and double dose of 0.325gl-1 to vines as three consequent foliar sprays at 50, 35 and 20 days before harvest. berry samples of two kg were collected at random from treated and control plots 1 h after the third spray and at harvest. the entire sample (2kg) was crushed in a grinder and 5g of the homogenized sample was taken in a centrifuge tube to which 5 ml ethanol and 5g anhydrous sodium sulphate were added. the mixture was homogenized for 2 min. at 15000rpm and then centrifuged for 5 min. at 5000rpm. the supernatant was collected in another 50ml centrifuge tube. the extraction was repeated twice by adding 5ml ethanol. the supernatant was collected in the same tube, mixed thoroughly and centrifuged again. the supernatant was evaporated at 35oc in a rotary evaporator. the aqueous phase remaining after evaporation was made up to 5ml with a mixture of 10% sodium carbonate solution in water and ethanol (1:9 v/v). from the final extract, 2ml was transferred to an eppendorf tube and centrifuged at 10000rpm for 5 min. the clear supernatant was filtered through 0.2µm membrane-filter, and 10µl of this was subsequently injected in to uplcdad for estimation of residues. the analytical method was validated for per cent recovery. recovery was measured by fortifying untreated blank matrix at 0.25mg/kg (loq) and 1.0mg/kg, in six replicates. recovery was above 80% at both the levels. the limit of detection (lod) was 0.1mg/kg and limit of quantification (loq) was 0.25 mg/l. all field samples were analyzed by the same method. residue analysis was done using acquity ultra performance lc with photodiode array detector, waters corporation. chromatographic separation of the analyte from matrix compounds was achieved using c18 column (acquity uplc ®beh c18-1.7µ (100mm x 2.1mm)). the mobile phase composed of (a) 0.1% formic acid, and (b) methanol, in a gradient program and detection was performed at 380nm. the characteristic uv-visible spectrum (200-500nm) of aureofungin was used for confirmation. bio-efficacy for control of downy mildew at walwa: the vineyard was pruned on 10th october and treatments were applied six times, from 24th october to 18th november 2009. on leaves, the first symptom of downy mildew was observed on 28th october in the untreated (negative) control, and the disease progressed further to cause cent percent infection by 21st november (table 1). pdi in the positive control, i.e., cymoxanil + mancozeb 72 wp (8 %+ 64 %), ranged from 0.00 to 5.31, which was significantly less than negative control for the corresponding date of observation. during this period, aureofungin-sol treatments recorded pdi in the range of 0.00 15.56. in the first observation, pdi in the highest concentration of aureofungin-sol (0.217) was less than in the negative control and on par with positive control. in the last observation, pdi was reduced to 0.00 in all the treatments of aureofunginsol, indicating total control of the disease on par with that obtained with fungicide mixture of cymoxanil + mancozeb 72 wp. j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):136-140, 2011 control of downy and powdery mildews in grape prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 138 disease-incidence on bunches, recorded 15 th december (65 days after pruning) onwards, showed cent per cent infection in the control on all four dates of observation. but, pdi in all aureofungin-sol treatments was in the range of 0.00 to 2.19 (table 1). at any date, pdi in all the three concentrations of aureofungin-sol was on par with and significantly less than in the negative control. in the first two observations, pdi in aureofungin-sol treatments was on par with the positive control; but, subsequently, pdi in aureofungin-sol 0.217ml/l was significantly less than in the (cymoxanil + mancozeb) 72 wp treatment, indicating excellent control of downy mildew by aureofungin-sol. harvestable yield in the negative control was nil, as all bunches were affected with downy mildew. aureofunginsol treatments recorded yields in the range of 21.55 23.15 kg/nine, which were on par with each other and with yields in the positive control (cymoxanil + mancozeb 72 wp) (table 1). at golegaon: until the first week of december, 2008 i.e., up to 41 days after pruning, environmental conditions were not very favorable for downy mildew appearance; therefore, only three preventive sprays were given. however, in the first week of december, weather turned conducive for disease-development due to rains; therefore four, more sprays were given between 8th and 22nd december. cent percent pdi was recorded on leaves as well as bunches in the negative control in both the observations (table 2); but, in aureofungin-sol treatments, pdi was significantly lower (31.06 to 49.81 on leaves, and 52.50 to 64.69 on bunches). even cymoxanil+mancozeb 72 wp treatment did not provide complete control of the disease and showed 27.31 and 33.44 pdi on leaves, and 20.00 to 28.75 on bunches. harvestable yield in the negative control was nil, as all bunches were affected with downy mildew. bunches in the positive control (fungicide treatment) also showed high pdi, because of which the yield was low. harvestable yields in aureofunginsol treatments were significantly higher than in the negative control, though less than in the positive control (table 2). at pune: relatively low downy mildew incidence was observed and pdi in the negative control was in the range of 8.50 to 9.69 on leaves and 20.63 to 27.50 on bunches. pdi in aureofungin-sol at all three concentrations was significantly less than that in the negative control on any day of observation (table 3). pdi at different doses of aureofungin-sol was on par with each other, except that pdi in aureofungin-sol at 0.217g/l dose was significantly less than pdi at 0.108g/l dose on leaves on the last date of observation; and on bunches, on second day of observation. at all the locations, the antifungal antibiotic aureofungin-sol, at 0.108 to 0.217g/l showed good control of downy mildew on leaves and bunches compared to the untreated control, and showed increase in harvestable yield. the fungicide was tested at very high disease-pressure at walwa and golegoan, where, there was cent percent loss in yield due to downy mildew in the negative control vines. at all these three locations, seven to nine sprays were required to provide adequate protection, while, at pune, the disease-pressure was not high, and only four sprays sufficed for satisfactory control of the disease. table 1. bio-efficacy of aureofungin-sol for the control of downy mildew on sharad seedless at walwa treatment dose pdi on leaves pdi on bunches harvestable g / l 28/10/08 4/11/08 18/11/08 21/11/08 15/12/08 17/12/08 19/12//08 22/12/08 yield (kg/ vine) aureofungin-sol 0.108 1.19 1.06 10.44 0.00 0.00 1.25 2.19 2.19 23.15 (4.39) bc (4.89) (18.72)b (0.00)a (0.00)a (5.48) a (7.34) ab (7.34) ab aureofungin-sol 0.163 0.25 0.94 15.56 0.00 0.00 1.25 1.56 1.88 22.15 (1.43) abc (4.80) (23.19)c (0.00)a (0.00)a (5.48) a (6.00) ab (6.67) ab aureofungin-sol 0.217 0.13 0.31 14.94 0.00 0.00 0.94 0.94 1.25 21.55 (1.01) ab (2.74) (22.69)c (0.00)a (0.00)a (3.88) a (3.88) a (4.39) a (cymoxanil + mancozeb) 2.500 0.00 0.38 5.31 0.00 0.00 1.56 2.50 2.81 21.40 72 wp (0.00) a (1.76) (13.28)a (0.00)a (0.00)a (7.09) a (8.94) b (9.61) b control —— 0.69 1.56 35.25 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 0.00 (4.58) c (6.06) (36.40)d (90.00)b (90.00)b (90.00) b (90.00) c (90.00) c sem ± 1.13 1.93 1.00 0.00 0.00 1.34 1.56 1.62 1.07 cd (p=0.05) 3.47 ns 3.08 0.00 0.00 4.13 4.81 5.01 3.43 cv (%) 98.60 95.32 8.76 0.00 0.00 11.95 13.45 13.77 9.72 figures in the parentheses are arsine transformed values of percentages. sawant et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):136-140, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 139 table 2. bio-efficacy of aureofungin-sol for the control of downy mildew on sharad seedless at golegoan treatment dose pdi of downy mildew on leaves pdi of downy mildew on bunches harvestable g / l 8/12/2008 23/12/08 8/12/2008 23/12/08 yield (kg/ vine) aureofungin-sol 0.108 49.81 43.56 60.63 64.69 1.73 (44.87)d (41.28)d (51.14)b (53.55)c aureofungin-sol 0.163 42.50 36.50 59.69 61.25 1.65 (40.67)c (37.14)c (50.62)b (51.50)bc aureofungin-sol 0.217 38.38 31.06 52.50 54.69 1.86 (38.26)b (33.85)b (46.42)b (47.69)b (cymoxanil + mancozeb) 2.500 33.44 27.31 20.00 28.75 3.11 72 wp (35.31)a (31.49)a (26.40)a (32.39)a control —— 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 0.00 (90.00)e (90.00)e (90.00)c (90.00)d sem ± 0.50 0.41 2.63 1.28 0.07 cd (p=0.05) 1.55 1.27 8.11 3.93 0.21 cv (%) 2.02 1.76 8.99 4.63 8.31 figures in the parentheses indicate arcsine transformed values of percentages table 3. bio-efficacy of aureofungin-sol for the control of downy mildew on tas-a-ganesh at pune treatment dose pdi of downy mildew on leaves pdi of downy mildew on bunches g / l 20/12/08 27/12/08 19/01/09 20/12/08 27/12/08 19/01/09 aureofungin-sol 0.108 0.63 0.50 0.25 3.76 3.13 1.88 (4.51)a (3.98)a (2.86)c (11.00)a (10.05)b (6.82)b aureofungin-sol 0.163 0.63 0.45 0.08 2.50 1.88 1.88 (4.41)a (3.76)a (1.36)ab (7.78)a (6.82)ab (6.82)b aureofungin-sol 0.217 0.50 0.44 0.00 1.88 0.63 0.63 (3.98)a (3.76)a (0.00)a (6.82)a (2.27)a (2.27)ab (cymoxanil + 2.500 0.31 0.25 0.19 2.50 1.25 0.00 mancozeb) 72 wp (3.16)a (2.86)a (2.15)bc (9.09)a (4.55)ab (0.00)a control ——— 8.50 9.18 9.69 20.63 25.00 27.50 (16.92)b (17.62)b (18.11)d (26.95)b (29.95)c (31.60)c sem ± 0.46 0.38 0.46 1.63 1.81 1.92 cd (p=0.05) 1.43 1.16 1.41 5.00 5.58 5.93 cv (%) 14.09 11.83 18.66 26.36 33.77 40.50 figures in the parentheses indicate arcsine transformed values of percentages table 4. bio-efficacy of aureofungin-sol for the control of powdery mildew on tas-a-ganesh at pune treatment dose(per l) pdi of powdery mildew on leaves pdi of powdery mildew on bunches harvestable 15/01/09 6/02/09 28/02/09 15/01/09 6/02/09 28/02/09 yield (kg/vine) aureofungin-sol 0.108 g 0.75 0.38 0.00 2.50 1.88 0.00 4.76 (4.93)a (3.46)b (0.00)a (9.09)a (6.82)a (0.00)a aureofungin-sol 0.163 g 0.69 0.38 0.00 1.88 1.25 0.00 5.46 (4.70)a (3.46)b (0.00)a (6.82)a (4.55)a (0.00)a aureofungin-sol 0.216 g 0.56 0.06 0.00 1.25 0.63 0.00 5.71 (4.28)a (0.72)a (0.00)a (4.55)a (2.27)a (0.00)a azoxystrobin 23 sc 1.00 ml 0.56 0.38 0.00 1.86 1.89 0.00 5.66 (4.28)a (3.46)b (0.00)a (6.82)a (6.82)a (0.00)a control —8.25 9.13 9.88 16.25 18.13 18.75 3.79 (16.68)b (17.57)c (18.24)b (23.75)b (25.15)b (25.55)b sem ± 0.32 0.41 0.45 1.64 1.54 0.69 0.18 cd (p=0.05) 0.99 1.25 1.39 5.06 4.74 2.13 0.55 cv (%) 9.28 14.21 24.74 32.18 33.70 27.10 7.08 figures in the parentheses indicate arcsine transformed values of percentages j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):136-140, 2011 control of downy and powdery mildews in grape prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 140 (ms received 10 january 2011, revised 25 july 2011) bio-efficacy for control of powdery mildew pdi of powdery mildew at all three concentrations of aureofungin-sol was significantly less than in the negative control at all three dates of observation on both leaves and bunches (table 4). pdi in aureofungin-sol treatments was on par with pdi in the positive control, i.e., azoxystrobin 23 sc, at all dates of observation. pdi in all treatments was reduced to zero on the last date of observation indicating, that, no active powdery mildew was present on both leaves or bunches in vines treated with aureofungin-sol at all three concentrations, while, in the control, it was 9.88 on leaves and 18.75 on the bunch. harvestable yields in all aureofungin-sol treatments were significantly higher than those in the negative control, and were on par with (0.108 and 0.163 doses) or more (at 0.217 dose) than in the positive control (table 4). studies suggest that even at the lowest dose of 0.108g/l, aureofungin-sol was able to control powdery mildew as effectively as the systemic fungicide azoxystrobin. therefore, for control of powdery mildew, even a dose as low as this can be recommended. earlier studies indicate that sprays of aureofungin are effective in mitigating anthracnose infection in the field and increasing grape yield (bedi et al, 1969). hence, this chemical has a potential to minimize infection by three important grape diseases in india. spray of aureofungin-sol at all three concentrations tested did not result in any visible phytotoxic effects. residue analysis in the zero-day samples, for the standard dose, average residue was found to be 0.74 ±0.02mg/kg grapes. for the double dose, it was 1.34±0.01mg/kg grapes. no residue was found in samples above the limit of detection (0.1mg/kg). acknowledgement the authors acknowledge partial sponsorship from m/s hindustan antibiotics ltd., pune, for conduct of trials. references bedi, p.s., singh, g. and suryanarayana, d. 1969. field testing of aureofungin and other chemicals to control anthracnose disease of grapes in the punjab. hindustan antibiotic bull., 11:251-253 chadha, k.l. and shikhamany, s.d. 1999. the grape improvement, production and post-harvest management. malhotra publishing house, new delhi, pp 579 horsfall, j.g. and heuberger, j.w. 1942. measuring magnitude of a defoliation disease in tomatoes. phytopath., 32:226-232 kadkol, m.v. and gopalkrishnan, k.s. 1971. comparative efficacy of aureofungin in the control of downy mildew of grapes. ind. phytopath., 24:495-499 mckinney, h.h. 1923. a new system of grading plant diseases. j. agril.res., 26:195-218 nrcgrapes.nic.in/zipfiles/pesticide list.pdf. list of chemicals with cib&rc label claim for use in grapes panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1989. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi, 347 p pearson, r.c. and goheen, a.c. 1988. compendium of grape diseases eds. aps press, usa, 93 p. sawant, s.d., sawant, indu s., kulkarni, n.s. and mani, m. 2007. package of practices for the management of major diseases and insect pests on grapes in double pruning –single cropping system. n.r.c.g. extension bulletin no. 1, pune sinha, m.k., uppal, d.k. and jawanda, j.s. 1970. efficacy of certain fungicides against powdery mildew on hybrid seedlings of grapes. hindustan antibiotic bull., 12:142-143 sawant et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):136-140, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction guava (psidium guajava l.) is an important tropical fruit crop of india. although area and production of guava gas increased in the last decade, there has been no significant increase in productivity. therefore, to increase productivity level to its maximum potential, certain important strategies have been identified. these involve adoption of modern, innovative and hi-tech methods. it also includes planting at appropriate plant density, canopy management, quality planting material, support and management system, with appropriate inputs. high density plantations (hdp) have been attempted in various tropical, sub-tropical and temperate fruit crops. hdp technology results in maximization of yield per unit area. however, in high density planting, light interception and other microclimatic conditions (canopy temperature and relative humidity) are important aspects that directly or indirectly affect vegetative growth, yield and quality of the fruit. guava has a higher proportion of ‘shade’ to ‘sun’ leaves and leaves are found photosynthetically inactive under deeper shade constituting an unproductive sink (singh and singh, 2007). singh et al (2005) reported that light interception was higher in guava trees planted at wider spacing and decreased significantly effect of spacing on canopy microclimate, vegetative growth and yield attributes in guava (psidium guajava l.) j.s. brar, h.s. dhaliwal1, j.s. bal, w.s. dhillon and som pal singh2 department of horticulture punjab agricultural university, ludhiana-141004, india e-mail : jsbrar74@rediffmail.com abstract the present investigation was conducted to examine the effect of spacing on variation in canopy microclimate, vegetative growth and yield attributes in guava (cv. allahabad safeda). oservations revealed that with wide plant spacing (from 6x2m to 6x4m), interception of solar radiation increased significantly. similarly, with increase in spacing between plants, mean canopy temperature was need to increase while relative humidity decreased. plant growth in terms of stock and scion girth, tree spread (n-s) and canopy volume increased with wide plant spacing, while tree height decreased with increase in plant spacing. number of fruits per plant, yield per plant and fruiting density was higher at 6x5m and least in 6x2m spacing. wider plant spacing was found to be better owing to maximum absorption of solar radiation and optimum microclimate in the orchard leading to better yield in plants, higher fruiting density and yield efficiency. however, yield/ha was maximum in 6x2m spacing during rainy season and in 6x3m spacing during winter. key words: guava, plant spacing, microclimate, growth, yield 1regional station, punjab agricultural university, bathinda, punjab-151001, india 2deaprtment of agrometeorology, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, punjab-141004, india with depth of the canopy irrespective of planting density. therefore, the present investigation was initiated to study the effect of plant spacing on microclimatic parameters, plant growth and fruit yield in guava. material and methods investigations were carried out at the department of horticulture, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana (india). plants of guava cv. ‘allahabad safeda’ budded onto ‘l-49’ rootstock were planted with four spacings, viz., 6x2m, 6x3m, 6x4m and 6x5m. observations were recorded on growth, fruiting and various meteorological parameters during both rainy (march-september) and winter season (october-february) crop. growth parameters in terms of stock girth, scion girth, tree height, tree spread (east-west and north-south directions) and tree canopy volume were recorded as per standard methods. fruit yields in both rainy and winter season were recorded in terms of number of fruits per tree, yield per tree (kg), fruiting density (per m3) and yield efficiency (kg/m3). observations on light interception, canopy temperature and relative humidity were recorded at 15 day j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):41-45, 2012 42 intervals from april to march by dividing the plant canopy into upper, middle and lower parts. solar radiation was measured thrice a day at 8.00-10.00am, 12.00-2.00pm and 4.00-6.00pm using pyranometer. incoming solar radiation measurements (calcm-2min-1) were made at 30cm above the canopy and at the centre of the upper, middle and lower parts of the tree by turning the face of the pyranometer upwards. the pyranometer was inverted at a height of 30cm above the canopy to point to the tree canopy below and, thus, the quantum of reflected shortwave radiation [albedo (a)] was recorded. radiation/light interception was calculated as difference between incoming radiation received in each of the three parts of tree canopy and was expressed as intercepted radiation at the particular time of observation. radiation intercepted in the upper part = i-(i 1 +a) x 100 = x% i radiation intercepted in the middle part = i-(i 2 +a) x 100 -x% = y% i radiation intercepted in the lower part = i-(i 3 +a) x 100 – (x%+y %) = z% i total light intercepted by the tree canopy = x+y+z where, i denotes the incoming solar radiation received 30cm above the top of tree canopy, and i 1 , i 2 and i 3 in the upper, middle and lower parts of canopy , respectively. similarly, canopy temperature was recorded midway in the upper, middle and lower parts of trees with the help of an infra-red thermometer (model ag-42) and psychron (belfort inst. company, model no 556) was used to record dry and wet bulb temperatures. relative humidity was calculated from dry and wet bulb temperatures using psychrometric tables on the same day and time as solar radiation and tree canopy temperature were recorded. results and discussion vegetative growth: stock and scion girth was significantly affected by different spacings (table 1). with increase in plant spacing, stock and scion girth was found to increase. maximum stock (47.50cm) and scion girth (46.36cm) was recorded in plants at a spacing of 6x5\m and minimum stock (40.16cm) and scion (37.50cm) girth was recorded in plants at a spacing of 6x2m. increase in stock and scion girth with higher plant spacing may be due to less competition between plants for moisture, nutrients and sunlight. similar results were reported by singh and bal (2002), bal and dhaliwal (2003) in plants of guava at a wider spacing. however, tree height decreased with increase in plant spacing. maximum tree height (3.98m) was recorded at 6x2m spacing, while, minimum plant height (3.49m) was recorded at 6x5m spacing. it was observed that wider spacing reduced plant height perhaps due to greater availability of light and space. yadav et al (1981), bal and dhaliwal (2003), gaur et al (2005) and singh et al (2007) also recorded reduced tree height in guava plants in wider spacing. closest spacing, i.e. 6x2m, resulted in highest canopy spread (6.46m), followed by 6.25m spread at 6x3m spacing. minimum canopy spread (5.83m) was observed in plants at 6x4m spacing. canopy spread (n-s) was found to increase significantly with increase in plant spacing. maximum mean tree-spread (5.31m) was observed in 6x5m spacing, which was significantly higher than in 6x3m and 6x4m spacings. this condition results in increased lateral growth at the expense of apical growth (mohammed et al 1984). mitra and bose (1990) also observed greater spread between rows in guava at low-planting density. singh and bal (2002) reported maximum tree spread at wider spacing (6x6m) in e-w direction. maximum mean tree volume (58.35m3) was observed in plants at 6x5m spacing, followed by 55.23m3at 6x4m spacing. trees at closest (6x2m) spacing had minimum (46.79m3) tree canopy. yield characters: in the rainy season crop (table 2), highest number of fruits (521) was recorded in plants at wider (6x5m) spacing. in winter season, the number of fruits per tree recorded highest (130) at 6x4m spacing. minimum number of fruits (61) was found in the closer spacing of 6x2m. similarly, highest yield of 35.20kg plant-1 was obtained with 6x5m spacing during rainy season. fruit yield was lowest (15.10kg plant-1) at the closest spacing (6x2m). similar trend was seen in the winter season. higher fruit number and yield per tree in plants at wider spacing may be due to their larger canopies. similar results were reported table 1. effect of plant spacing on vegetative characters in ‘allahabad safeda’ guava character plant spacing (m) cd at 5% 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 stock girth (cm) 40.16 43.50 43.75 47.50 1.18 scion girth (cm) 37.50 38.33 40.08 46.30 1.10 tree height (m) 3.98 3.92 3.76 3.49 0.05 canopy spread (m) 6.46 6.25 5.83 5.98 0.98 (e-w) canopy spread (m) 3.00 4.05 4.72 5.31 0.05 (n-s) canopy volume (m3) 46.79 54.87 55.23 58.35 1.23 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):41-45, 2012 brar et al 43 by chundawat et al (1992) and kalra et al (1994) in terms of number of fruits and yield per tree in guava. bal and dhaliwal (2002) also obtained maximum fruit number per tree in 6x5m spacing in sardar guava. maximum fruiting density was recorded in 6x5m spacing. lowest fruiting density during both rainy & winter seasons was obtained in plants at 6x3m spacing. spacing had significant effect on yield efficiency in the rainy season crop. yield efficiency significantly increased with increase in plant spacing. maximum yield efficiency was recorded in 6x5m spacing during rainy season (60.2%) and in 6x4m spacing in the winter season (31.2%). least yield efficiency (32.2% and 14.6%) was obtained in plants at 6x2m spacing in the rainy and winter season, respectively. higher fbd, fruit set, fruit retention and optimum microclimatic conditions lead to higher fruiting density in plants at wider spacing. however, singh and bal (2002) reported maximum fruiting density in closer spacing in guava plants. higher fruiting efficiency (yield/ ha) was lower at wider spacing (6x5m) compared to 6x2m spacing. solar radiation interception: plant spacing had significant impact on total annual solar-radiation interception in guava trees. significant increment in radiation received was recorded with increase in plant spacing from 6x2m (59.39%) to 6x4m (70.35%); but, under 6x5m spacing, it reduced to 68.77%. about 80% radiation was intercepted in the top one meter periphery of guava trees, followed by 15-20% in the middle, and, upto 5-10% in the lower parts of plant canopy during both rainy (fig. 1) and winter (fig. 2) crop seasons. reduction in radiation interception at the closest spacing( 6x2m) may be due the somewhat vertical orientation of axillary shoots and leaves, leading to reduced interception. plants at 6x4m spacing were found to intercept higher amount of radiation due to increased foliage and relatively greater horizontal orientation of shoots and leaves. reduction of solar radiation interception at the widest spacing (6x5m) may be due to presence of less dense foliage per unit exposed area. higher tree-density leads to increased light interception table 2. effect of plant spacing on yield characters in ‘allahabad safeda’ guava treatment / character plant spacing (m) cd at 5% 6x2 6x3 6x4 6x5 r w r w r w r w r w fruit numbers 256 61 299 110 392 130 521 115 67.2 15.3 fruit yield (kg/plant) 15.1 6.83 18.1 13.4 25.9 17.3 35.2 16.2 4.64 2.24 fruiting density 5.97 1.8 5.88 1.09 6.84 1.46 9.64 2.61 1.08 0.33 yield efficiency 32.2 14.6 32.9 24.3 46.8 31.2 60.2 27.8 23.9 13.9 yield / ha 12.5 5.69 10.6 7.44 10.74 7.21 11.97 5.40 rrainy season; wwinter season fig 1. effect of plant spacing on solar radiation interception during rainy season (march-september) in different parts of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava trees fig 2. effect of plant spacing on solar radiation interception during winter season (octoberfebruary) in different parts of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava trees fig 3. effect of plant spacing on relative humidity during rainy season crop (march-september) in different parts of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava trees fig 4. effect of plant spacing on relative humidity during winter season crop (october-february) in different parts of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava trees effect of spacing on growth and yield in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):41-45, 2012 44 through greater leaf area and a more even distribution of light (palmer et al, 1992). singh et al (2005) and singh and dhaliwal (2007) found that radiation interception by the guava tree increased with increased spacing. other related findings are also in accordance with the present investigation, eg., intensity of full sunlight (100 per cent) available at the periphery of the round-headed apple tree canopy fell to 34% at a depth of 1m (jackson, 1970, 1976) and 42% at a depth of 2m (heinicke, 1966). in citrus, 90% of the incident solar radiation is absorbed by the first 3 feet (0.9m) of the tree canopy (green and gerber, 1967). relative humidity: relative humidity (rh) in plants exhibited a trend opposite to that canopy temperature. rh reduced as spacing between plants increased. maximum relative humidity (62.3%) was noted in the dense planting and minimum (53.0%) in the widest spacing. relative humidity in the upper 1/3rd part of plant canopy was slightly lower than in the middle and lower parts of the canopy in the rainy season crop (fig. 3) and winter season crop (fig. 4). relative humidity in the upper, middle and lower parts of plants was maximum at 6x2m spacing, i.e., 57.0, 60.0 and 62.1% during rainy season crop and 63.5, 65.2 and 66.1% during the winter season crop, respectively. decrease in relative humidity with increase in plant spacing and depth of plant canopy may be attributable to greater penetration of solar radiation and increased circulation of air, leading to decrease relative humidity. in a similar study, singh and dhaliwal (2007) also recorded maximum average relative humidity in trees of guava cv. sardar planted at the closest spacing. canopy temperature: canopy temperature increased significantly with increase in plant spacing showing maximum temperature of 24.2oc in the widest spacing (6x5m) and minimum of 22.1oc at 6x2m spacing. similarly, canopy temperature was found to decrease constantly with depth of the plant canopy. higher temperature in plants at wider spacing and in the upper parts of plant canopies at all spacing levels may be ascribed toincreased solar radiation penetration. lesser relative humidity may be due to greater hot-air circulation, leading to increase in temperature. singh and singh (2007) also reported that in guava cv. allahabad safeda, canopy temperature was maximum at 2.0m pruning height and minimum in the unpruned trees. singh et al (2007) and singh and dhaliwal (2007) also in canopy temperature with increase in plant spacing. references bal, j.s. and dhaliwal, g.s. 2003. high density planting studies in guava. haryana j. hortl. sci., 32:19-22 chundawat, b.s., kikani, k.p., verma, l.r. and jadav, r.g. 1992. studies on hedge row plantation in ‘allahabad sufeda’ guava. ind. j. hort., 49:134-137 gaur, g.s., yadav, r.k., gangwar, d. and katiyar, p.n. 2005. standardization of planting density and crop regulation treatments in guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. sardar. abstract, 1st international guava symposium, cish, lucknow, p 48 green, b.a. and gerber, j.f. 1967. radiant energy distribution in citrus trees. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 90:77-85 heinicke, d.r. 1966. characteristics of ‘mcintosh’ and ‘red delicious’ apple as influenced by exposure to sunlight during the growth season. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 89:10-13 jackson, j.e. 1970. aspects of light climate within apple orchards. j. appl. ecol., 7:207-216 jackson, j.e. 1976. variability in fruit size and colour within individual tree. rep. east malling. res. stn., pp. 110-115 kalra, s.k., sidhu, p.s., dhaliwal, g.s. and singh, r. 1994. effect of different spacing on yield of guava cv. allahabad safeda. ind. j. hort., 5:272-274 mitra, s.k. and bose, t.k. 1990 guava in : the fruits of india – tropical and sub-tropical (eds. t.k. bose fig 5. effect of plant spacing on canopy temperature during rainy season crop (marchseptember) in different parts of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava trees fig 6. effect of plant spacing on canopy temperature during winter season crop (october-february) in different parts of ‘allahabad safeda’ guava trees brar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):41-45, 2012 45 and s.k. mitra, noya prokash, calcutta) pp. 286301 mohammed, s., wilson, l.a. and prendergast, n. 1984. guava meadow orchard: effect of ultra high density planting and growth regulators on growth, flowering and fruiting. trop. agri., 61:297-301 palmer, j.w., avery, d.j. and wertheim, s.j. 1992. effect of apple spacing and summer pruning on leaf area distribution and light interception. sci. hort., 52:303312 singh, a., dhaliwal, g.s. and hundal, s.s. 2005. effect of planting distance on radiation interception behaviour of guava (psidium guajava l.) j. agromet., 7:220224 singh, a.and dhaliwal, g.s. 2007. solar radiation interception and its effect on physical characteristics of fruits of guava cv. sardar. acta hort., 735:297-302 singh, g., singh, a.k. and mishra, d. 2007. high density planting in guava. acta hort., 735:2235-2241 singh, j. and bal, j.s. 2002. effect of planting density on tree growth, fruit yield and quality of ‘sardar’ guava (psidium guajava l.). j. res. punjab agri. univ., 39:56-62 singh, v.k. and singh, g. 2007. photosynthetic efficiency. canopy micro-climate and yield of rejuvenated guava trees. acta hort., 735:249-257 yadav, e.d., gaikwad, n.r. and patil, a.v. 1981. the relation between tree growth, chlorophyll content and plant density of sardar guava (psidium guajava l.). national symposium on tropical and subtropical fruit crops, bangalore, p: 30 (ms received 18 august 2011, revised 7 december 2011) effect of spacing on growth and yield in guava j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):41-45, 2012 j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 19-23, 2006 response of grape rootstocks to soil moisture stress j. satisha, g s. prakash', g s. r. murti^ and k. k. upreti^ national research centre for grapes p.b. # 3, manjari farm solapur road, pune-412 307, india e-mail: j.satisha@nrcgrapes.res.in abstract studies on root and shoot morphology, endogenous hormones and water use efficiency in five grape rootstocks namely dogridge, 1613 c, salt creek, st. george and vitis champinii clone (vc clone) at three levels of moisture stress viz., no stress (100% irrigation), 50% stress (50% irrigation) and 100% stress (without irrigation) for 14 days revealed that dogridge and salt creek rootstocks maintained the highest ratios of root to shoot length and root to shoot dry weight as compared to other rootstocks. water use efficiency increased with increased soil moisture stress and was the highest in dogridge and salt creek. the abscisic acid content in the leaves of dogridge was maximum at 50% stress followed by that of salt creek. similarly the cytokinin content (both t-zr and dhzr) was minimum in dogridge and salt creek at 50% stress while it was maximum in 1613 c and st.george. the root to shoot length ratio was positively correlated with aba content under moisture stress conditions. the higher levels of abscisic acid content in dogridge and salt creek under soil moisture stress suggested their better drought tolerance capacity through a reduction of stomatal conductance and increased water use efficiency. key words: aba, cytokinins, grape rootstocks, root to shoot length ratio, root to shoot dry weight ratio, water use efficiency introduction in india, use of rootstocks in viticulture is gaining importance as grape is cultivated predominantly under arid and semi arid regions. rootstocks are known for their deep root system to exploit water from deeper layers of soil and also have selective absorption capacity of mineral elements to restrict toxic elements in saline soils. among the several adaptive strategies, improving water use efficiency is perhaps the most relevant mechanism in drought tolerance (lincoln and eduardo, 2002). another important adaptation to moisture stress is that root growth is generally less inhibited than shoot growth. this characteristic is thought to be adaptive, wherein roots continue to explore soil for water while inhibition of shoot growth together with stomatal closure restricts transpiration. abscisic acid (aba) is mostly synthesized in root system and translocated into leaves during moisture stress to close stomata and maintain relative water content in the plant system. the ability to synthesize aba is specific to variety. rootstocks are known to influence the physiological and biochemical processes of scions after budding or grafting (hartmann and kester, 1976). this investigation aims to study the levels of endogenous aba and cytokinin levels in the leaves of commonly employed rootstocks, their root and shoot growth patterns under varying levels of soil moisture stress with the ultimate objective of identifying the drought tolerant rootstocks in terms of increased water use efficiency by production of more aba and increased root growth. material and methods experiments were conducted at the research farm of indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bangalore, india during october-may, 2002-03. the experimental site is situated at 14°n latitude and 77°e latitude. it is in the elevated plain at an altitude of 863 m above the mean sea level. the climate is mild and slightly humid, maximum and minimum temperatures were between 30-34.5 °c and 18-21 "c respectively; the relative humidity was 65-70% in the morning hour (8 a.m) and 30-35% during afternoon (1 rm), while the evaporation rate ranged between 6.25 to 8.3 mm during the experimental period. rooted cuttings of five grape rootstocks namely; dogridge, 1613 c, salt creek, st. george and v c clone from the nursery beds were transplanted to 14" cement pots containing 20 kg potting mixture of red sandy loam soil, farm yard manure and sand (2:1:1). the water holding 'division of fruit crops, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore-560 089, india ^division of plant physiology and biochemistry, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore-560 089, india mailto:j.satisha@nrcgrapes.res.in satisha et al capacity of the potting mixture was 30%. the plants, when attained the age of six months, were subjected to two levels of moisture stress viz., 50% stress and 100% stress and a check was maintained with 100% irrigation (no stress). the period of stress was 14 days. plants were irrigated manually with 1.5 1 of water for control (no stress), 0.75 1 for 50% stress and 100% stress treatment received no irrigation of water. the experiment was designed in factorial randomized design with three replications consisting of two factors viz., irrigation levels and grape rootstocks. each replication consisted of 10 vines. observations were recorded on gas exchange parameters using portable photosynthesis system (model 6200, licor, usa). water use efficiency (wue) was derived from photosynthesis rate and transpiration rate. fully developed immature leaves were collected in icebox and washed in distilled water; 10 g leaf tissue was ground in 80% methanol and filtered using whatman filter paper. residue was incubated overnight with 80% methanol, filtered, filtrates were pooled and dried using rotary flash evaporator at 35 °c under vacuum and the residue was dissolved in distilled water. the water extract was partitioned thrice against di-ethyl ether after adjusting ph to 3.0 with 0.1 n hcl. the ether fraction was dried in the flash evaporator at 35 "c and the residue was dissolved in 5ml tris buffer (20 mm, ph 7.4) for aba esfimation. aqueous phase was partitioned with water saturated nbutanol at ph of 8.0. the butanol fraction was dried under reduced pressure at 35 °c in the flash evaporator and the residue was dissolved in 5ml tris buffer (20 mm, ph 7.4) for estimation of cytokinins like, zeatin riboside (zr) and dihydro zeatin riboside (dhzr). elisa technique was used to quantify aba (weiler, 1982) and cytokinins (barthe and stewart, 1985) employing laboratory raised polyclonal antibodies. the quantity of hormones was expressed as ng/ g fresh weight of the tissue. statistical analysis was performed following gomez and gomez (1984). results and discussion gas exchange parameters photosynthetic rate in all the rootstocks reduced from fully irrigated control to 50 % stress. none of the rootstocks could survive for 14 days without irrigation (100% stress). dogridge rootstock maintained higher photosynthesis on 14* day of stress at 50 % stress. drastic reduction in transpiration rate was recorded on 14* day of stress cycle in all the rootstocks. dogridge and salt creek maintained lower transpiration rate among the rootstocks. water use efficiency increased from control to 50% stress in all the rootstocks, highest being in dogridge. similar results were also reported by allweldt and ruht (1982) in grapevines with marginal reduction in photosynthesis and greater reduction in transpiration under moisture stress conditions. prakash et al (2001) also observed reduction in photosynthesis and transpiration rate of grape rootstocks with increased soil moisture stress. maintenance of high photosynthetic rate and decreased transpiration rate under 50% moisture stress could have contributed for the increased wue in the rootstocks, dogridge and salt creek. endogenous hormones significant differences in hormonal content of rootstocks at all stress levels were observed. aba content of all the rootstocks increased with increased soil moisture stress. at 50% moisture stress, dogridge recorded maximum aba content followed by salt creek, while it was least in 1613 c and st. george. simultaneously, there was a reduction in t-zr content in all the rootstocks with increased moisture stress. but dhar content decreased in all the rootstocks except in dogridge and st. george. among the rootstocks, 1613 c had the highest cytokinin content at 50% stress, while it was least in dogridge and salt creek. reynolds and naylor (1994) and schultz (1998) also reported such increases in aba: cytokinin ratio and decreased stomatal conductance when grape vine pinot noir and reisling were subjected to moisture stress. the variation in aba levels among the rootstocks may be a varietal behaviour as suggested by regina and carbonneau, (1997). in spite of the high aba content in dogridge leaves, there was higher photosynthesis and lower transpiration rate, which might be due to relatively higher stomatal conductance in this rootstock under moistures stress revealing its drought tolerance. morphological parameters as the soil moisture stress increased, root length increased among grape rootstocks with a concurrent reduction in total shoot length. the total root length was maximum in dogridge followed by salt creek and both recorded lowest shoot length. the root to shoot length ratio was maximum in dogridge (3.50) and was minimum in st. george (1.37). similarly, there was an increase in total root dry matter and decrease in shoot dry mass with increased soil moisture stress. the root to shoot dry weight ratio was maximum in dogridge (2.01) followed by salt creek (1.38) and was least in st. george (1.10). increase in aba content of drying roots combined with availability of water drawn j. hon. sci. vol. 1(1): 19-23, 2006 20 response of grape rootstocks to soil moisture stress table 1. influence of moisture stress on gas exchange parameters in grape rootstoclis rootstock rate of photosynthesis (h mol co / m^ /sec) transpiration rate (h mol ho / m^ /sec) stomatal conductance (h mol co^/ m/sec) water use efficiency {\i mol co, / m mol ĥ o) oday 14'" day oday h'" day oday u'" day oday h-'-day dogridge 1613 c salt creek st. george vc clone 13.70 8.33 11.20 11.10 12.03 si 8.30 5.70 6.80 10.60 7.03 s2 9.36 4,83 9.23 7.20 8.40 s3 * * * * * 9.06 7.80 9.33 9.43 9.56 si 9.76 9.46 9.76 10.33 10.06 s2 7.06 8.33 7.63 9.40 7.93 s3 * * * * * 0.82 0.38 0.62 0.62 0.72 si 0.53 0.44 0.58 0.52 0.44 s2 0.35 0.36 0.39 0.38 0.39 s3 * * * * * 1.50 1.05 1.19 1.16 1.25 si 0.84 0.60 0.69 1.02 0.69 s2 1.31 0.58 1.21 0.76 1.06 s3 r s rxs r s rxs r s sem± 1.184 0.324 0.251 0.262 0.420 0.113 0.087 0.196 0.099 0.016 0.013 cd at 5 % ns 0.937 0.726 1.624 ns 0.327 0.253 0.567 ns ns 0.037 table 2. influence of soil moisture stress on endogenous hormonal content in grape rootstocks rootstock abscisic acid) zeatin riboside (ng /g tissue)) (ng / g tissue) oday h'^day oday 14'" day si s2 s3 si s2 s3 r x s 0.029 ns oday r s r x s 0.09 0.040 0.0310.070 ns 0.118 0.0910.204 dihydrozeatin riboside (ng / g tissue) / 14'" day si s2 s3 dogridge 1613 c salt creek st. george vc clone 73.80 17.37 33.41 22.20 13.68 66.37 19.35 32.46 12.17 22.46 163.8 25.92 78.05 31.38 34.42 41.24 63.74 51.28 52.98 75.21 43.41 63.49 52.18 71.16 53.43 32.85 47.12 34.32 30.92 35.16 30.22 40.98 27.04 31.81 51.50 33.56 41.92 27.85 52.97 31.61 26.60 44.42 29.70 30.25 39.62 r rxs r rxs r rxs sem± cd at 5 % 1.908 6.01 2.005 5.914 1.268 3.740 2.835 8.363 1.361 4.288 1.096 3.235 0.693 2.046 1.551 4.575 1.294 4.079 1.176 3.469 14.975 2.193 33.488 4.905 table 3. influence of soil moisture stress on plant morphological characters on m* day of stress cycle in grape genotypes rootstock dogridge 1613 c salt creek st. george vc clone sem± cd at 5% s 1 356.33 189.00 252.66 277.66 201.66 v 23.68 14.976 total root length (cm) s 2 647.66 190.00 420.00 322.66 323.33 s 69.84 44.175 s 3 * * * * * vxs 95.52 60.248 s 1 330.00 170.66 277.00 325.00 266.66 v 8.600 5.439 total shoot length (cm) s 2 183.66 125 191.00 235.33 162.66 s 25.366 16.043 s 3 * * * * * vxs 34.596 21.880 root to shoot length si 1.09 1.17 0.91 0.85 0.75 v 0.130 0.384 s2 3.50 1.52 2.19 1.37 1.99 s 0.082 0.243 ratio s3 * * * * * vxs 0.184 0.543 table 4. influence of soil moisture stress on plant morphological characters on 14"' day of stress cycle in grape genotypes rootstock dogridge 1613 c salt creek st. george vc clone sem± cd at 5% s 1 26.75 28.45 22.91 25.31 32.20 r 2.528 ns total root dry weight (g) s 2 47.89 33.12 40.03 27.91 30.85 s 1.599 4.717 s 3 * * * * * rxs 3.576 10.548 s 1 38.64 28.92 31.38 28.00 29.93 r 1.469 4.415 total shoot dry (g) s 2 24.19 28.59 29.15 25.13 25.34 s 0.946 2.792 weight s 3 * * * * * rxs 2.116 6.244 si 0.69 0.74 0.79 0.98 1.09 v 0.129 0.382 root to shoot dry weight ratio s2 2.01 1.21 1.38 1.10 1.22 s 0.081 0.241 s3 * * * * * vxs 0.183 0.540 s 1: control (100% irrigation) s 2: 50% stress (50% irrigation) s 3: 100% stress (0% irrigation); *: plants died and the observations were not recorded / hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 19-23, 2006 21 satisha et al from the wetter roots have an impact on root growth as revealed by dry et al (2000), where partial root drying treatment recorded higher root length than fully irrigated treatment. sharp (1996) also suggested that aba can maintain root growth under conditions of low soil moisture which results in inhibition of shoot growth. the increased root elongation in dogridge and salt creek under moisture stress may be due to aba mediated regulation of osmotic adjustment in root tips, wall loosening enzymes and restriction of ethylene biosynthesis as hypothesized by sharp et al (1994). the reduction in shoot length of rootstocks at 50% moisture stress may be due to reduced cytokinin available from the roots, suggesting its important role in stomatal conductance. this was confirmed by stoll et al (2000) where, spraying grapevines exposed to water deficit, with cytokinin restored stomatal conductance to values close to that of fully irrigated vines. though aba content of 1613 c and st. george increased marginally, there was a reduction in stomatal conductance. this might be due to accumulation of compounds similar to that of aba that could not be detected by assay system used for aba. parry et al (1988) reported increased accumulation of t-xanthoxin in water stress mutants of tomato at a similar rate as aba in wild mutants of tomato. similarly netting et al (1997) observed an increased accumulation of precursors of aba biosynthesis pathway in aba deficient mutant of tomato. the aba content was positively correlated (r = 0.89) with root to shoot length ratio (fig. i) and negatively correlated (r = -0.69) with transpiration rate (fig. 2). the increased wue, high root to shoot length ratio and root to shoot dry weight ratio in response to increased aba content and reduced cytokinin content under soil 4.5 4 5 3 5 2 5 1 i 5 s3 c « 2 "5 o .c in o 1 o o a. r =0.89 f i g l 0 50 100 150 aba (ng/g tissue) relationship between aba and root to shoot length ratio 200 l | i?" ii 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 r = -0.69 50 100 150 200 aba (ng/g tissue) fig 2. relationship between aba and transpiration rate moisture stress conditions in dogridge and salt creek rootstocks suggests their better drought tolerance capacity than 1613 c and st. george rootstocks. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to mr. jayaram and mr. nageshwara rao for their technical assistance during this investigation. references allweldt, g and ruhl, e. 1982. investigation on gas exchange in grape vine: influence of extended soil drought on performance of several grape vine varieties. vitis, 21:313-324. barthe, ga. and stewart, i. 1985. enzyme immunoassay (eia) of endogenous cytokinin in citrus. j. agri. foodchem., 30:293-297. dry, rr. loveys, b.r. and during, h. 2000. partial drying of the root zones of grape vines. 2. transient change in pattern of root development. vitis, 39:9-12. gomez, a.k. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedure for agricultural research. 2"'' edition. a wileyinter science puwication, new york, pp 187-241. hartmann, h. and kester, d.e. 1976. plant propagation: principles and practices. prentice hall international inc., new jersy. pp 647. lincoln, t and eduardo, z. 2002. plant physiology (ii edn). sinauer associates publishers, sunderband, massachusettes. pp 792. netting, a.g. windsor, m.l. and milborrow, b.v. 1997. endogenous biosynthesis precursors of (+) -abscisic acid. austr j. pi. physiol, 24:175-184. parry, a.d. neill, s. and horgan, r. 1988. xanthoxin levels and metabolism in the wild type and wilty mutants of tomato. planta, 173:397-404. j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1); 19-23, 2006 22 response of grape rootstocks to soil moisture stress prakash, g.s. bhatt, r.m and narendrababu, h.k. 2001. physiological response of grape rootstocks cultivars to moisture stress. indian j. hort., 58:321-327. regina, m.a. and carbonneau, a. 1997. gaseous exchanges in vitis vinifera under a regime of water stress iii. abscisic acid and varietal behavior. perq. agro. bras., 32:579-584. reynolds, a.g. and naylor, a.p. 1994. pinot noir and riesling grapevines respond to water stress duration and soil whc. hort science, 29:1505-1510. schultz, h.r. 1998. water relations and photosynthesis response of two grapevine cultivars of different origin during water stress. acta hort., 427:251-266. sharp, r.e. 1996. regulation of plant growth response to low soil water potentials. hort 5c/., 31:36-39. sharp, r.e. wu, y. voetberg, g.s. saab, i.n. and lenoble, m.e. 1994. confirmation that abscisic acid accumulation is required for maize primary root elongation at low water potential. j.exp. bot., 451743-1751. stoll, m. loveys, b. dry, p and sharp, b. 2000. hormonal changes induced by partial root zone drying of irrigated vines. j. exp. bot., 51:1627-1634. weiler, e. w. 1982. radioimmunoassay for trans zeatin and related cytokinins. planta, 149-155. (ms received 29 june, 2006 revised 14 july, 2006) j. hon sci. vol, 1 (1): 19-23,2006 23 mango (mangifera indica l.), one of the major fruit crops of india, is known as the king of fruits for its sweetness, excellent flavour, delicious taste and high nutritive value (singh, 1968). it is attacked by several pests during its vegetative and reproductive phases, and the pests have been studied in detail (tandon and verghese, 1985). during the reproductive phase of the crop, pests like hoppers and thrips pose a threat to mango production. control of these pests, particularly in organically-grown orchards, is a challenge. during a trial in 2009 at moorapoor village, dharmapuri district, tamil nadu for control of hoppers and thrips using entomo-pathogens, inflorescences showed incidence of thrips. samples of inflorescences collected at random were brought in pin-hole aerated polythene bags to the laboratory, for segregation of the thrips under microscope based on morphological differences. the thrips were held in 80% alcohol until identification. level of infestation was scored as follows: thrips population infestation difenoconazole (no. of nymphs + adults level per inflorescence) no thrips nil 0 1-5 low 1 6-10 medium 2 11-20 heavy 3 > 21 very heavy 4 short communication record of thrips on mango a. krishnamoorthy and p.n. ganga visalakshi division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089, india email: akmurthy@icar.org.in abstract during a trial in 2009 at moorapoor village, dharmapuri district, tamil nadu, for control of mango hoppers and thrips using entomo-pathogens, inflorescences were seen to harbour different species of thrips. close microscopic observation revealed presence of frankliniella schultzei (tryb.), thrips palmi karny, t. hawaiiensis (morgan) and t. subnudula. however, thrips palmi was the predominant species whereas, for the first time frankliniella schultzai and thrips subnudula (karny, 1927) are reported here on inflorescence of mango in india. key words: mango, thrips following thrips species were collected from moorapoor village on mango inflorescences: date of type of orchard species level of collection collected infestation 26/02/2009 organic cultivation frankliniella 1 schultzei 09/03/2009 organic cultivation -do1 20/03/2009 organic cultivation -do1 organic cultivation thrips palmi 3 organic cultivation thrips hawaiiensis 2 organic cultivation thrips subnudula 1 of the four species of thrips collected from mango inflorescence, thrips palmi karny was observed to be dominant, followed by t. hawaiensis (morgan). all the species of thrips however, were seen around the same time but never produced severe lesions on fruits, except in isolated samples. but, the grower reported severe lesions on fruits in 2008, which led to discard of many of the fruits from organic mango export. mango inflorescence is known to be attacked by thrips palmi (verghese et al, 1988). also, megalurothrips distalis (karny), thrips hawaiiensis and haplothrips tenuipennis bagnall have been recorded from andhra pradesh (ramasubbarao and thammiraju, 1994; kannan and rao, 2006a, b). scirtothrips mangiferae hood and s. dorsalis hood were reported by kumar and bhatt (1999) and kumar et al (1994), respectively, from gujarat. j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):110-111, 2012 111 record of thrips on mango scirtothrips mangiferae, s. dorsalis, rhipiphorothrips cruentatus hood were reported on mango from cuttack by sushil kumar et al (2002) and r. cruentatus was reported from haryana (dahiya and lakra, 2001). pantachaetothrips sp., selenothrips rubrocinctus giard, caliothrips impurus priesner, besides scirtothrips dorsalis, were reported on mango rootstock (patel et al, 1997). however, selenothrips rubrocinctus was reported from kerala on mango (ananthakrishnan and muraleedharan, 1974). earlier, frankliniell schultzei (tryb.) has been observed in india on flowers of sesame (kumar and ananthakrishnan, 1984) and groundnut (palmer et al, 1990). whereas, for the first time, f. schultzei and thrips subnudula (karny, 1927) are reported here on inflorescence of mango in india. perhaps more intensive study is warranted on natural-enemy complex of the thrips species collected from mango orchards before biocontrol agents can be applied as a control measure. acknowledgement authors are grateful to dr. kaomud tyagi and dr. h.r. ranganath, for identification of thrips up to the species level. they are also thankful to director, iihr, bangalore, for the facilities provided. references ananthakrishnan, t.n. and muraleedharan, n. 1974. on the incidence and effects of infestation of selenothrips rubrocinctus (giard) (thysanoptera: heliothripinae) on the free amino-acids of some susceptible host plants. curr. sci., 43:216-218 dahiya, k.k. and lakra, r.k. 2001. seasonal occurrence and succession of thrips, rhipiphorothrips cruentatus hood in important horticultural crops of haryana. crop res. (hisar), 21:112-114 kannan, m. and rao, n.v. 2006a. seasonal incidence and population fluctuation of dipteran, isopteran, hymenopteran and thysanopteran pests of mango. j. pl. prot. envir., 3:50-55 kannan, m. and rao, n.v. 2006b. influence of age and stage of the host plant on insect pests of mango (mangifera indica l.). int’l. j. agril. sci., 2: 351-353 kumar, n.s. and ananthakrishnan, t.n. 1984. predatorthrips interactions with reference to orius maxidentex ghauri and carayonocoris indicus muraleedharan (anthocoridae: heteroptera). proc. ind. nat’l. sci. acad., b. 50:139-145 kumar, s. and bhatt, r.i. 1999. field evaluation of plant leaf extracts, oil and neem products against mango hopper (amritodus atikinsoni lethierry) and thrips (scirtothrips mangiferae hood). allelopathy j., 6:271-276 kumar, s., patel, c.b., bhatt, r.i. and rai, a.b. 1994. population dynamics and insecticidal management of the mango thrips, scirtothrips dorsalis hood (thysanoptera: thripidae) in south gujarat. pest mgt. eco. zool., 2:59-62 palmer, j.m. reddy, d.v.r. wightman, j.a. and rao, g.v.r. 1990. new information on the thrips vectors of tomato spotted wilt virus in groundnut crop in india. int’l. arachis newslett., 7:24-25 patel, j.r., patel, m.b., radadia, g.c., shah, a.a. and pandya, h.v. 1997. insect pest management in mango nursery. j. appl. hort. (navsari), 3:125-128 ramasubbarao, v. and thammiraju, n.b. 1994. new record of blossom thrips megalurothrips distalis on mango (mangifera indica). ind. j. agril. sci., 64 : 417-418 singh, l.b. 1968. the mango: botany, cultivation and utilization, p: 438. world crop books, leonard hill, london tandon, p.l. and verghese, a. 1985. world list of insect, mite and other pests of mango, p. 22, technical document no. 5, iihr, bangalore sushil kumar, nair, a.g. and bhatt, r.i. 2002. evaluation of promising and released mango hybrids for multiple pest resistance. j. appl. zool. res., 13:66-68 verghese, a. tandon, p.l. and rao, g.s.p. 1988. ecological studies relevant to the management of thrips palmi karny on mango in india. tropical pest mgt., 34:55-58 (ms received 26 february 2011, revised 26 october 2011) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):110-111, 2012 a rapid protocol for somatic embryogenesis mediated regeneration in banana (musa spp.) cv. nendran lekshmi, r.s., *soni, k.b., swapna alex, deepa s. nair, lekha sreekantan and b.r. reghunath college of agriculture, vellayani, thiruvananthapuram, kerala 695 522, india *e-mail : soni.kb@kau.in abstract a simple and rapid protocol for somatic embryogenesis in banana cv. nendran (aab) using immature male flowers (imf) has been developed. the imf produced palewhite to yellow, globular embryogenic callus on ms medium supplemented with ba (0.05 – 0.50mgl-1) and picloram (0.50 – 2.00mgl -1) with explant response of to 30 per cent. addition of ascorbic acid (20mgl -1) and gelrite© (0.45 per cent) to callus induction medium reduced interference from phenolic exudation. embryogenesis was induced (33.3 to 60 per cent) on semisolid (0.30 per cent gelrite©) ms medium supplemented with ba 2mgl-1 + iaa 0.5mgl-1. the somatic embryos showed 60-80 per cent germination on halfstrength semisolid ms medium with ba 2mgl-1 + iaa 0.5mgl-1. transfer of germinated embryos to semisolid ms medium supplemented with ba 2mgl-1 + naa 1mgl-1 under 14 h light /8h dark photoperiod resulted in hundred percent conversion to plantlets. this protocol takes merely 6 months for producing plantlets from immature flower buds through somatic embryogenesis, without any intermediate liquid cultures. key words: immature male flowers, somatic embryogenesis, picloram, musa spp., nendran introduction bananas and plantains belonging to the genus musa of musaceae family, are perennial herbaceous monocots. musa is a major crop in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, with an approximate production of 70 million tonnes per annum. india is rich in genetically diverse varieties of banana, cultivated over an area of 802.6 (000ha), with production of 297.24 lakh tonnes, contributing 33.4 per cent of the global production share (indian horticulture database, 2015, national horticulture board, ministry of agriculture, govt. of india). owing to female sterility, parthenocarpy and polyploidy, production of new banana cultivars is difficult and time-consuming. genetic manipulation is a promising technique for introducing desired traits in banana. a rapid and effective in vitro regeneration protocol is a prerequisite for any such manipulation techniques. single-cell origin of the somatic embryos and their potential to produce non-chimeric plants makes it a desirable system for genetic manipula tion. somatic-embryogenesismediated regeneration is also a method for large-scale multiplication of banana. immature male inflorescence has been used to initiate embryogenic cultures of several banana and plantain cultivars (cronauer and krikorian, 1983; escalant et al, 1994; cote et al,1996; navarro et al, 1997). compared to soil-grown suckers, imfs show less contamination during micropropagation, and, selection of male buds with desirable characteristics such as high number of hands and fruits per bunch is also possible (resmi and nair, 2007). nendran is a popular banana cultivar in south india where it is relished as a fruit and is used in making sever a l va lue-a dded products. t his var iety is characterized by its fruits having a distinct neck with a thick, green skin, which turns buff-yellow on ripening and has a pale yellow flesh. fruits of nendran are larger, silky, with a firm flesh and are sweet. bananas offer a wonderful nutritious diet due to their high protein content, are easy to digest, especially in infants. attempts made on somatic embryogenesis in nendran j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 117 are scarce. most reports are on cavendish varieties, which involve lengthy procedures (taking 18-26 months for plantlet development). this study was undertaken to develop a rapid and simple protocol for somaticembryogenesis-mediated regeneration system in nendr an, suita ble for ge netic tr ans forma tion experiments. material and methods preparation of explant for inoculation male flower inflorescence was collected from field-grown musa spp. cv. nendran plants, after completion of bunch formation (i.e., 4 weeks after eme rge nc e of the infloresc enc e). bra cts were removed from the inflorescence to reduce its size to 7-8cm length. these explants were then surfacesterilized with 90% ethanol, inside a laminar airflow cabinet. immature male flower (imf) clusters from 0-15 position from inside were separated using a sterile bla de . t he tiny bra cts c overing ma le relative humidity. callus initiated was subcultured onto the same parent medium at monthly intervals for multiplication. induction of somatic embryos calli developed on different treatments were transferred to media of four different compositions: (1) ms+ 2,4-d 2mgl-1 + zeatin 0.2 mgl-1 + gelrite 4% (2) ms+ 2,4-d 2mgl-1 + iaa 1mgl-1+naa 1mgl1 + biotin 1mgl-1+ glutamine 100mgl-1 (3) ms+ba 2mgl-1 + iaa 0.5mgl-1 + gelrite 0.3%, and (4) sh + ms vitamins + glutamine 100mgl-1 + picloram 1mgl-1. sucrose at 4.5% and gelrite at 0.2% was used in all the media. fifteen replications with three clumps each were maintained in this study. cultures were incubated in the dark at 25±2ºc and at 50-60 per cent relative humidity. maturation and germination of embryos somatic embryos were transferred to halfstre ngth ms (ha lf-stre ngth ma cr o nutrie nts) supplemented with ba 2mg l-1 + iaa 0.5mg l-1. cultures were incubated in the dark for 3 weeks for maturation and germination of somatic embryos. conversion of somatic embryos into plantlets germinated embryos were transferred to ms medium supplemented with ba 2mg l-1 + naa 1mgl-1 for development into plantlets. cultures were maintained at a light intensity of 31.4µmolm-2s-1 and 14h light/8h dark photoperiod. plantlets at 3-4 leaf stage were transferred to coir pith compost in protrays and hardened in a mist chamber for a month. plantlets were then transferred to polybags with soil and cow dung (1:1) mixture. results and discussion in the present study, a protocol was developed for plantlet regeneration via somatic embryogenesis in banana cultivar nendran. somatic embryogenesis has been reported in many banana cultivars such as bluggoe (abb), grand naine (aaa) and rasthali (aab) (novak et al, 1989; escalant et al, 1994). however, few reports are available on this route of in vitro culture in the variety, nendran (aab group). somatic embryos are ideal targets for genetic manipulation studies owing to their single cell origin. a rapid protocol for somatic embryogenesis can reduce time taken to develop transformants and their analysis. somatic embryogenesis in banana (musa spp.) cv. nendran j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 fig. 1. imma ture ma le flow ers ino culate d o n ca llus induc t io n me d iu m flowers (hands) were removed without damaging the apical dome and were inoculated onto callus induction medium (fig.1) callus induction from imfs the explants were cultured in 250ml culture bottles containing 40ml ms medium (murashige and s koo g, 19 62 ) s up ple m e n te d w it h v a ri ou s combinations of 2,4-d (0.5 to 4mgl-1), iaa (0.5 – 1mg l-1 ), ba (0.5 – 4mg l-1 ) and picloram (0.5 – 10mg l -1) a long with a sc orbic ac id 20mg l -1 . different combinations of growth regulators used for callus induction (treatments a, b and c) are shown in table i. gelrite© at 0.4% was used as the solidifying agent. ph of the medium was adjusted to 5.7 using 1n naoh or hcl and was autoclaved at 121°c, 1.06 kg cm-2 pre ssure for 20 minutes. culture s we re incubated in the dark at 25±2ºc and at 50-60 per cent 118 immature male flowers were used as explants in this study for establishing an in vitro regeneration system via embryogenesis. imfs have been used as explants for initiating cultures of several bananas and plantain cultivars (becker et al, 2000; khalil et al, 2002; namanya et al, 2004; houllou-kido et al, 2005). as the explants were collected after formation of the complete bunch, it was possible to superior traits of mother plant assure selection of explants for the study, based on visual evaluation of bunch quality, number of hands, pest and disease resistance, etc. sterilization and culture establishment from imfs contamination-free cultures were established with a simple surface-sterilization procedure. dipping the flower bud in 90% ethanol for one minute, or, wiping it with ethanol soaked cotton-swab, was found to be effective. immature flower buds are perfectly and tightly packed within the bracts of the inflorescence. this may be the reason for obtaining contaminationfree cultures with this simple procedure. endogenous bacterial contamination is very low in inflorescence meristems compared to that in the shoot meristem, favouring selection of this explant for in vitro culture. a serious problem encountered in establishing imf culture s in c v. nendran was prese nc e of polyphenols. the explant turned brown in 2 to 3 days after inoculation, and decayed subsequently. in this study, 20 mgl-1 of ascorbic acid was added to the medium in all the treatments, thus reducing the blackening of explants due to phenolic oxidation, and preventing decay of the explants. use of antioxidants like ascorbic acid (namanya et al, 2004) and citrate (soubir et al, 2006) has been shown to avoid browning and improve callus formation in banana. ascorbic acid is a reducing agent and can prevent oxidation of phenolics in the medium and it scavenges oxygen radicals produced during wounding of tissues. in this study, gelrite© was used in the medium as a gelling agent, replacing agar. this too could overcome problems associated with phenolic exudation (fig. 2). spread of exudates was very restricted when gelrite© was used. similar findings have been reported by khatri et al (2005) in callus induction studies using various banana cultivars. they also reported a positive correlation of light with browning, which may be due to the higher physiological activities under light than in the dark. in the present study too, cultures were incubated in the dark to overcome the ill effects of phenolics. effect of growth regulators on callus induction in imfs callus induction was observed on imfs in 45 to 50 days after inoculation on different media tested (table1). explants inoculated onto ms medium supplemented with 2,4-d (0.5 4 mgl-1) and iaa (0.5 – 1 mgl-1) turned brown within a week of inoculation (a1 to a16). however, after 4 weeks of inoculation, the explants exhibited a swelling; and, after another two weeks, callus initiation was observed in treatments a1 to a14. among treatments with a combination of 2,4-d and iaa, callus induction was highest in treatment a9 (45.80 per cent), while treatments a1 & a13 produced the least (8.30 per cent). higher concentration of 2,4-d, above 3.5mgl-1 (a15, a16), did not produce any callus. calli induced in different treatments varied in morphology too (fig. 3a-&-b). ganapathy et al (1999) were a ble to produc e embryogenic callus from male flower buds of five bana na c ultivars on ms or white ’s medium supplemented with 2,4-d, naa, iaa and biotin within 2 to 3 months of inoculation. according to meenakshi et al (2011), imf inoculation in 2,4-d supplemented ms medium could induce 77.70 per cent callus within a few weeks. karintanyakit et al (2014) also reported the effect of 2,4-d on imf in seven banana cultivars, a nd obs er ve d tha t ca llus induc tion wa s genome-specific. imfs inoculated on picloram (0.5-10 mgl-1) supplemented medium (b1 to b11) turned brown at the base within 3 days of inoculation, but induced yellow coloured callus in treatments b4 to b11 (fig. 3c), with the explant response ranging from 15 per cent to 60 per-cent in b4 and b8, respectively, in 45 days. houlloukido et al (2005) made a similar observation in their study where imfs inoculated onto ms medium j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 lekshmi et al fi g. 2. ef fect of soli di fyi ng agen ts on in te rferen ce from p h enol ics in i mf s on call u s in d u ct ion m e di u m : a) i mf s in ocu l ated on cal lu s i n d uc ti on m ed iu m sol id i fi ed w it h agar, an d b ) m ed i um sol id i fi ed wi th gelr it e on 10th d ay fr om i n ocu l ati on . 119 table 1. effect of growth hormones on callus induction in imf of musa spp. cv. nendran treatm 2,4-d ba iaa picloram morphology explant ents (mgl-1) (mgl-1) (mgl-1) (mgl-1) of callus response % a1 0.5 0.5 pale white, hard 8.3 a2 0.5 1 pale white, hard 16.6 a3 1 0.5 pale white, hard 25.0 a4 1 1 pale white, hard 41.6 a 5 1.5 0.5 pale white, hard 33.3 a6 1.5 1 pale white, hard 29.1 a7 2 0.5 pale white, hard 33.3 a8 2 1 pale white, hard 33.3 a9 2.5 0.5 pale white, hard 45.8 a1 0 2.5 1 pale white, hard 25.0 a1 1 3 0.5 pale white, watery 20.8 a1 2 3 1 pale white, watery 20.8 a1 3 3.5 0.5 pale white, watery 8.3 a1 4 3.5 1 pale white, watery 25.0 a1 5 4 0.5 no response 0 a1 6 4 1 no response 0 b1 0.5 no response 0 b2 1 no response 0 b3 2 no response 0 b4 3 yellow, watery 15.0 b5 4 yellow, watery 35.0 b6 5 yellow, watery 35.0 b7 6 yellow, watery 50.0 b 8 7 yellow, watery 60.0 b9 8 yellow, watery 40.0 b10 9 yellow, watery 30.0 b11 10 yellow, watery 40.0 c1 0.05 0.5 yellow, globular 8.3 c2 0.05 1 yellow, globular 20.8 c3 0.05 2 yellow, globular 16.6 c4 0.1 0.5 pale white, globular 16.6 c5 0.1 1 pale white, globular 30.0 c6 0.1 2 pale white, globular 25.0 c7 0.2 0.5 pale white, globular 8.3 c8 0.2 1 pale white, globular 12.5 c9 0.2 2 pale white, globular 8.3 c10 0.5 0.5 pale white, globular 16.6 c11 0.5 1 tiny, yellow, globular, friable 12.5 c12 0.5 2 tiny, yellow, globular, friable 8.3 note: callus initiation occurred in 45-50 days on all the media tested j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 somatic embryogenesis in banana (musa spp.) cv. nendran 120 supplemented with picloram developed necrosis in the first two weeks. however, after two months of inoculation, 80 per cent callus initiation was observed beneath the bracts. smitha and ashalatha (2011) reported the effect of picloram on callus induction from leaf-sheath explants. they obtained a brown, spongy callus with yellow globular structures using low concentrations of picloram in ms medium. at higher concentrations of picloram, a brown compact callus with white globular structures developed. in treatments with ba and picloram (c1 to c12), imfs produced small-to medium-sized, yellow, globular friable callus with a dense yellow cytoplasm in c1,c2 and c3 (fig. 3d), whereas, treatments c4 to c10 produced pale-white, globular callus with a dense cytoplasm (fig. 3e), and, treatments c11 and c12 (fig. 3f) developed yellow, watery callus. among the treatments with ba and picloram combinations in ms medium, c5 produced the maximum (30 per cent) callusing rate. callus initiation occurred in 45-55 days from inoculation in this combination. in a study by smitha and ashalatha (2011), embryogenic callus was obtaine d fr om le af-she a th e xpla nts on ms supplemented with picloram in musa acuminata cv. njalipoovan (ab). in the present study, among all the treatments tested for callus initiation, from phenolics interference was less in ba and picloram combination. callus initiation occurred in 45-55 days of inoculation in this combination. induction of somatic embryos from callus embryogenic potential of the callus induced in various treatments mentioned above was studied in four different media (table 2). but, embryo formation was obs er ve d only on se mis olid ms me dium supplemented with ba 2mgl-1, iaa 0.5 mgl-1 and 0.3 per cent gelrite©. only calli induced in treatments c8, c9 and c10 produced somatic embryos on this medium within 30 days of inoculation. callus from c9 yielded 10 per cent embryo induction, which was the highest response in this study. these monocot embryos seemed elongated, with a glassy appearance (fig. 4). even though callus induction was high in treatments a and b, these failed to produce embryos. according to arnold et al (2002), competence for somatic embryo induction may be the result of varying auxin sensitivity of cells. they observed that although callus initiation was comparatively high in treatments with 2,4-d and iaa, and, that with picloram alone, these culture failed to induce somatic embryos. hence, it can be inferred that somatic embryogenesis may have been influenced by picloram and ba used for callus initiation. rema kantha n e t al (2014) obta ine d direc t j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 fig. 3. morphology of calli induced on ms medium supplemented wit h 2,4-d and iaa: a) pale-white, hard callus formed in treatments a1 to a10, i.e., 2,4-d upto 2.5mgl-1 and iaa (0.5 or 1mgl-1) b) pale-white watery callus formed in treatments a11 to a14 i.e. when 2, 4-d was more than 2.5 mg l-1 c) yellow coloured callus formed on ms medium with picloram (treatments b4 to b11) d) yellow globular callus formed in treatments c1 to c3 (ms medium with ba 0.5mgl-1 and picloram 0.5 to 2mg l-1) e ) pale-white globular callus formed d in treatments c4 to c10 ( ms with ba 0.05 to 0.5 mg l-1 and picloram 0.5 to 2mg l-1) f) yellow callus formed in treatments c11 and c12 (ms with ba 0.5 and picloram 1or 2mg l-1) fig. 4. glassy, elo nga te d mo no co t embr yos developed on se mis o lid ms mediu m supplement ed with ba 2mg l-1 + iaa 0.5mg l-1 on 0.3 per cent gelr ite lekshmi et al 121 table 2. embryogenic response of callus initiated from various treatments sl. treatment for inducing somatic response of callus induced on per cent no. embryogenesis various treatments embryogenesis* a1 to b4 to c1 to a16 b11 c12 1 ms + 2,4-d 2 mgl-1, zeatin 0.2 mgl-1 + _ _ _ gelrite 4% 2 ms+ 2,4-d 2 mgl-1 + iaa 1 mgl-1 + naa 1 _ _ _ mgl1 biotin 1mgl-1 + glutamine 100 mgl-1 + gelrite 0.3% 3 ms + ba 2 mgl-1 + iaa 0.5 mgl-1 + gelrite _ _ embryo c8 c9 c10 0.3% induction only in callus 33.33 60 50 from c8, c9, c10 4 sh+ ms vitamins + glutamine 100 mgl-1 + picloram 1 mgl-1+ sucrose 4.5% + gelrite 0.2% *per cent embryogenesis was calculated as the number of calli showing embryogenesis out of the number of callus clumps inoculated embryogenesis from split shoot tips of grand naine on ms medium supplemented with picloram and ba, used alone or in combination, obtaining the best embryogenic response when used in combination. when they used ba alone, explants produced only shoots. in almost all the protocols reported for somatic embryogenesis from callus, an intermediary liquid medium is involved. maintenance of suspension cultures is a somewhat sophisticated process, even though rate of multiplication realized is high. in our study, we could replace the same with a simple semisolid medium. germination of somatic embryos and plantlet formation somatic embryos induced on semisolid ms with ba 2mgl-1 + iaa 0.5mgl-1 failed to germinate on the same medium; but, when half-strength ms with the same combination of growth regulators was used, 6080% germination was obtained in 3 weeks of inoculation in dark (table 3). at this stage, shoots were pale-white to palegreen in colour (fig. 5a).when germinated embryos were transferred onto ms medium with ba 2mgl-1 + naa 1mgl-1 and incubated at a light intensity of 31.4µmol-2s-1 and 14 h light/8h dark photoperiod, these turned green and developed into complete plantlets (fig. 5b). meenakshi et al (2011) used ba and iaa to supplement ms medium with 0.2 per cent gelrite© for conversion of somatic embryos into plantlets. okole and schulz (1996) and lee et al (1997) reported that high ba concentrations induced only shoot formation. but khalil et al (2002) reported lower rate of shoot formation at ba >5 mgl-1. in the present study, ba concentration maintained at 2mgl-1 on half-strength ms medium resulted in regeneration of soma tic embryos . ganapathi et al (1999) also observed that development of embryos into plantlets wa s good in iaa a nd ba combina tion. better table 3. germination of somatic embryos on semisolid half ms with ba 2mg l-1+iaa 0.5 mg l-1 treatment for no. of embryo clusters no. of clusters per cent germination callus induction inoculated showing germination c8 10 6 60.00 c9 18 13 72.22 c10 15 11 80.00 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 somatic embryogenesis in banana (musa spp.) cv. nendran 122 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 lekshmi et al fig 5. germination of embryo and plantlet development a) germinating embryos in semisolid 1/2ms with ba 2 mgl-1+ iaa 0.5 mgl-1 b) plantlet conversion in ms medium with ba 2 mgl-1 + naa 1 mgl-1 c) plantlet placed for primary hardening in coir-pith compost development of plantlets was observed when iaa was subs titute d with naa 1mgl -1 . ms me dium supplemented with naa and 0.2 per cent gelrite© was used by meenakshi et al (2011) for root development. the plantlets, after primary hardening in coir-pith compost (fig. 5c) and secondary hardening for one month in soil and cow-dung (1:1) mixture in a mist chamber, showed 100% survival. conclusion embryogenic culture system described in this paper demonstrates the potential of immature male flowers as explants for raising highly proliferative, e mb ry oge n ic c ult ur e s wi th s im ple ho rm on e combinations. in most of the protocols reported, liquid me dium is use d for prolife ra tion of the e mb ry os . ma i nt e na n c e o f e mb ryo ge n ic c e ll suspensions is la borious a nd time -consuming. fre que nt subc ultur es ne ede d in the re por ted proc edures may le ad to soma clona l va riation, microbial contamination and, eventually, loss of morphogenetic potential (kulkarni and ganapathi, 2009). the protocol described in our present study does not require any intermediate cell suspension syste m, making it a more convenient and very effective method for small laboratories lacking facilities for continuous agitation. according to georget et al (2000), a common feature of many ba na n a c e ll c u lt ur e p r ot oc o ls is th e s l ow de v e lo pme nt o f c e ll c l us t e rs , m a kin g pl a nt regeneration time-consuming (18-24 months). the current protocol requires just 6 months for producing plantlets from the explant. it is, thus, suitable for ge neti c tra ns forma tion e xpe rim ent s w her e by tra ns form ants c a n be e a sily r e ge ne ra te d a nd evaluated. further refinement of the medium may improve conversion rate, thus making it suitable for mass propagation as well. acknowledgement we gratefully acknowledge funding provided for the study by kerala agricultural university. authors’ contribution statement: lekshmi, r.s. (lekshmirs84@gmail.com), ph.d. student, carried out the work; soni, k.b. is the principal investigator; swapna, a., deepa s. nair, lekha, s. and reghunath, b.r. are members, advisory committee of the student. references arnold, s.v., sabala, i., bozhkov, p., dyachok, j. and filonova, l. 2002. developmental pathways of somatic embryogenesis. plant cell tiss. org. cult. 69:233-249 doi:10.1023/a:10156732 00621 becker, d.k., dugdale, b., smith, m.k., harding, r.m. and dale, j.l. 2000. genetic transformation of cavendish banana (musa spp. aaa group) cv. grande naine via micro-projectile bombardment. pl ant cell rep ., 19:2 29-2 34 do i:1 0.100 7/ s002990050004 cot e, f.x., d omergn e, r., monma rson , s., schwendiman, j., teisson, c. and escalant, j.v. 1996. embryogenic cell suspensions from male flower of musa aaa cv. grand naine. physiol. pl an t, 97 :28 5-2 90 do i: 10 .103 4/ j.139 93054.1996.970211.x cronauer, s. and krikorian, a.d. 1983. somatic embryos from cultured tissues of triploid plantains (musa abb). plant cell rep., 2:289291 doi: 10.1007/ bf00270183. escalant, j.v., teisso n, c. and cote, f.x. 1994. amplified somatic embryogenesis from male flowers of triploid banana and plantain cultivar (musa spp.). in vitro cell dev. biol., 30:181186 doi:10.1007/bf02823029 ganapathi, t.r., suprasanna, p., bapat, v.a., kulkarni, v.m. and rao, p.s. 1999. somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration from male flower buds in banana. curr. sci., 76(9):1228-1231 georget, f., domergue, r., ferrière, n. and côte, f.x. 2000. morphohistological study of the different constituents of banana (musa aaa, cv. grand nain) embryogenic cell suspension. plant cell rep., 19:748-754 doi:10.1007/s002999900188 123 houllou-kido, l.m., kido, e.a., falco, f.c., silva, m.c., figueira, a.v.o., nogueira, n.l., rossi, m.l. and tulmannneto, a. 2005. somatic embryogenesis and the effect of particle bombardment on banana ‘maçã’ regeneration.pesquisa agropecuária brasileira., 40(11):1081-1086 http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1590/s0100-204x2005001100005 indian horticulture database, 2015, http://nhb.gov.in/ area-pro/horst_galance_2016.pdf karintanyakit, p., suvittawat, k., chinachit, w., silayoi, b., and saratultad, p. 2014. the impact of genome and 2,4-d on callus induction from immature male flowers of seven banana cultivars. acta hort. 10 24: 25 3-2 55 d oi: 1 0.1 766 0/ actahortic.2014.1024.33 khalil, s.m., cheah, k.t., perez, e.a., gaskill, d.a. and hu, j.s. 2002. regeneration of banana (musa spp. aab cv. ‘dwarf brazilian’) via secondary somat ic embr yogen esis. pla nt cel l rep ., 20(12):1128-1134 doi 10.1007/s00299-0020461-0 khatri, a., khan, i.a., dahot, m.u., nizamani, g.s., siddiqui, m.a., raza, s. and naqvi, m.h. 2005. study of callus induction in banana (musa sp.) pak. j. biotechnol., 2(1-2):36-40 kulkarni, v.m. and ganapathi, t.r. 2009. a simple procedure for slow growth maintenance of banana (musa spp.) embryogenic cell suspension cultures at low temperature. curr.sci., 96(10):1372-1377 http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci lee, k.s., zapata-arias, f.j.b.h. and afza, r. 1997. histology of somatic embryo initiation and organogenesis from rhizome explants of musa spp. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 51:1–8 doi: 10.1023/ a:1005985401756 meenakshi, s., shinde, b.n. and suprasanna, p. 2011. somatic embryogenesis from immature male flowers and molecular analysis of regenerated plants in banana ‘lalkela’ (aaa). j. fr. & orn. pl . res., 19(2 ): 15 -30 htt p:/ /www.isad.p l/ jofaop.html murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cul tur es. ph ysio l. pla nt , 15 (3 ): 47 3-4 97 doi:10.1111/j.1399-3054 namanya, p., magambo, s.m., mutumba, g.m. and tushem erei rw e, w. 200 4. s omat ic emb ryogen esis fr om immat ur e m ale inflorescences of east african highland banana cv. ‘nakyetengu’. african crop sci. j., 12(1):4349 doi: 10.1007/s11627-014-9598-0 navarro, c., escobedo, r.m. and mayo, a. 1997. in vitro plant regener ation f rom embryogenic cultures of a diploid and triploid cavendish banana. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 51:1725 doi:10.1023/ a:1005965030075 novak, f.j., afza, r., van duren, perea, m., dallos, b., conger, v. and xiaolang, t. 1989. somatic embr yogen esis and pl ant regene rat ion i n suspension cultures of dessert (aa and aaa) and cooking (abb) bananas (musa spp.). biotechnol., 7:147158 doi:10.1038/nbt0289-154 okole, b.n. and schulz, f.a. 1996. micro-cross sections of b anan a an d plan tai ns ( mu sa sp p.) : morphogenesis and regeneration of callus and shoot buds. pl. sci., 116:185-95 doi.org/10.1016/ 0168-9452(96)04381-6 remakanthan, a., menon, t.g. and soniya, e.v. 2014. so mati c emb ryogen esis in ban ana ( mu sa acuminata aaa cv. grand naine): effect of explant and culture conditions. in vitro cell. dev. biol. (plant), 50(1):127-136 doi:10.1007/s11627013-9546-4 resmi, l. and nair, a.s. 2007. plantlet production from the male inflorescence tips of musa acuminata cultivars from south india. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 88:333-338 doi: 10.1007/s11240-0079206-7 smitha, p.d. and ashalatha, s.n. 2011. effect of picloram on somatic embryogenesis from leaf sheath explants in diploid musa acuminata cv. njalipoovan. pl. tiss. cult. biotechnol., 21(1):8387 doi:10.3329/ptcb.v21i1.9612 soubir, t., salil, k.b., ajoy, m., md. sadrul, a. and sarder, n.u. 2006. control of phenolic compound secretion and effect of growth regulators for organ formation from musa spp. cv. kanthali floral bud explants. amer. j. biochem. biotechnol.,2(3):97104 doi:10.3844/ajbbsp.2006.97.104 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 116-123, 2017 somatic embryogenesis in banana (musa spp.) cv. nendran (ms received 20 march 2016, revised 25 march 2016, accepted 30 decenber 2016) introduction the term ‘gladiolus’ is derived from the latin word “gladius”, meaning a sword-shape (leaves of the plant). it belongs to the family iridaceae and is native to the cape region of south africa. it is also known as the queen of bulbous ornamentals, with majestic cut-spikes having florets of a massive form, brilliant colours, attractive shapes, varying sizes and excellent keeping-quality. it is excellent for beds, rockeries, pots, herbaceous borders and cutflowers. gladiolus can be cultivated on all types of soil having a good soil-texture and drainage facility. soil ph ranging from 6.0 to 7.0 is ideal for growth and development of cut-spike production. it is a winter-season crop, but can be grown during the rainy season in low-rainfall areas experiencing a mild climate. increase in cut-flower production and quality cut-spikes can be achieved by adopting advanced techniques like using plant growth regulators (ga 3 ) and adjusting the planting date. not much work has been done on working out suitable planting date and ga 3 requirement in gladiolus under north-west gujarat conditions. the present investigation was undertaken to arrive at the most suitable planting date and gibberellic acid concentration in gladiolus cv. ‘yellow frilled’ for optimal growth and flowering. influence of gibberellic acid and planting date on growth and flowering in gladiolus cv. yellow frilled suman kumari, b.s. patel1 and l.n. mahawer department of horticulture maharana pratap university of agriculture and technology udaipur -313001, rajasthan, india e-mail : mahawer68@yahoo.co.in abstract the present investigation was conducted during 2004-05 rabi season to test the influence of gibberellic acid (ga 3 ) and planting date on growth and flowering in gladiolus cv. yellow frilled, at s.d.a.u., s.k. nagar (gujarat). this was done in a randomized complete block design (rcbd) with three replications and analysed under factorial setup to study the interaction. results revealed that the earliest sprouting in corm, maximum plant height, number of leaves plant-1, leaf area plant-1, early spike emergence, number of spikes plant-1 plot-1, spike length, rachis length, number of florets spike-1, and flowering duration were recorded in the earliest planting date, i.e., 25th october. dipping corm in ga 3 (100pm) also proved to be the best leading to earliest corm sprouting, and various growth/flowering parameters. from these results, it is concluded that in gladiolus, planting on 25th october along with dipping of corms in gibberellic acid (100ppm) at the time of planting, is most effective for improved growth and flowering. key words: gladiolus, corm-dipping, gibberellic acid, flowering, planting date, growth material and methods the present investigation was carried out at hi-tech horti-park, department of horticulture, chimanbhai patel college of agriculture, dantiwada agricultural university, sardar krushinagar (gujarat) located at 24º.19' north latitude and 72º.19’ east longitude at an elevation of 154.52m above msl. it represents north gujarat agroclimatic region. the experiment was conducted on sandy-loam soil with ph 7.8, organic carbon 0.23%, available n 128kg ha-1, p 2 o 5 37kg ha-1 and k 218kg ha-1 under irrigated conditions in a plot size 0.9m x 1.8m, with a spacing of 45cm x 30cm in three replications with randomized complete block design. before planting, the corms were treated with various levels of ga 3, viz., 0, 50 and 100ppm for 30 minutes. the corms were sown on different planting dates, viz., 25th october, 2004 (d 1 ), 5th november, 2004 (d 2 ) and 15th november, 2004 (d 3 ). data was recorded for various parameters, viz., days taken to corm-sprouting, plant height and number of leaves plant-1 at 60 and 90 dap; leaf area plant-1, days taken to spike-emergence, number of spikes plant-1, number of spikes plot-1, spike length, rachis length, numbers of florets spike-1, duration flower of and vase life of cut-flowers. data were statistically analyzed as per panse and sukhatame (1985) at 5% level of significance. 1department of horticulture, sardar krushinagar dantiwara agricultuarl university (s.a.d.u.), sardar krushinagar, dantiwara-385506 (gujarat) j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):114-117, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 115 results and discussion effect of planting date and gibberellic acid on vegetative growth parameters: observations on days taken to corm-sprouting, plant height (30, 60 and 90 dap), number of leaves plant-1 (30, 60 and 90 dap) and leaf area per plant are presented in table 1. days taken to corm-sprouting: earliest corm-sprouting was observed in corms planted on 25th october (8.76 days), while planting on 15th november delayed corm-sprouting. application of 100ppm ga 3 resulted in increased spikelength and this is in agreement with moazzam et al (2011) in tuberose; bhattacharjee (1984) awad and hamid (1985), mukhopadhyay and bankar (1986) and ravidas et al (1992) in gladiolus. the effect of ga 3 in increasing rachis length was in agreement with findings of bhattacharjee (1984) and ravidas et al (1992) in gladiolus. number of days taken to corm-sprouting increased with delay in planting date, which may perhaps be due to low winter-temperatures. similar results were obtained by saini et al (1988) who observed that late planting took significantly longer to induce cormsprout compared to early planting, due to low temperature and this was further supported by laskar and jana (1994) in gladiolus. corm-sprouting was significantly affected by gibberellic acid. number of days taken to sprout was inversely proportional to the concentration of gibberelic acid. sprouting was early with ga 3 100ppm (8.36 days). similar results were reported by janowska et al (2009) in anemone coronaria l. plant height: maximum plant height at 90 days after planting was recorded in corms planted on 25th october (103.30 cm). significant increase in plant height was achieved with gibberellic acid treatment. greater plant height gained in early planting may be due to favourable climatic conditions, particularly higher temperature, prevailing during this period under sarkar krushinagar conditions. similar observations were also recorded by dod et al (1989) in gladiolus. gaastra (1980) reported that with soil moisture and light as non-limiting, higher temperatures accelerated growth. this response is in agreement with results obtained in gladiolus by mahesh and misra (1993), mohanty et al (1994) and delvadia et al (2009) with application of 250 ppm ga 3 in gaillardia pulchella. number of leaves per plant: number of leaves plant-1 was significantly higher in 25th october planted corms compared to the other two treatments (table 1). gibberellic acid treatment too increased leaf number significantly. leaf area per plant: data reveal that leaf area plant-1 was significantly greater in corms planted on 25th october (161.36 cm2), while delayed planting reduced leaf area in 5th november (153.25 cm2) and 15th november (150.21cm2) plantings, respectively. the present results are in close conformity with misra (1997) who found higher leaf length in 30th october plantings in gladiolus. leaf area plant-1 was also higher in ga 3 100ppm (160.72 cm2) application, followed by ga 3 50ppm (156.53 cm2), while, minimum leaf area plant-1 was observed in the control. ga 3 @50-100ppm as foliar spray 40 days after bulb-planting in tuberose resulted in increased leaf length, as reported by moazzam et al (2011). effect of planting date and gibberellic acid on flowering characters: in table 2, data indicates various flower characters like days taken to spike-emergence, number of spikes plant-1, number of spikes plot-1, spike length, rachis length, number of florets spike-1, flower-duration and vase life of cut-spikes. results are discussed under sub-heads. days taken to spike-emergence: number of spikes, number of florets, length of rachis and length of spike were significantly higher in 25th october planting, and in ga 3 (100 ppm) treated corms, compared to late plantings or in other ga treatments. these findings are in line with those of saini et al (1988) and dod et al (1989) in gladiolus. stimulating effect of gibberellins in flower development has also been described by mittal (1967), biswas et al (1983) and jana and biswas (1982). table 1. effect of planting date and ga 3 concentration on vegetative growth in gladiolus cv. yellow frilled gibberellic acid conc. days plant no. of leaf taken to height leaves area (cm2) sprout (cm) 90 dap 90 dap control (0ppm) 10.24 95.70 8.78 147.57 g 1 (50ppm) 9.00 97.79 9.33 156.53 g 2 (100ppm) 8.36 99.03 9.51 160.72 sem ± 0.11 0.66 0.12 1.23 cd (p=0.05) 0.33 1.98 0.37 3.70 planting date d 1 (25th oct.) 8.76 103.30 10.26 161.36 d 2 (5th nov.) 9.23 96.20 9.04 153.25 d 3 (15th nov.) 9.61 93.02 8.32 150.21 sem ± 0.11 0.66 0.12 1.23 cd (p=0.05) 0.33 1.98 0.37 3.70 d x g sem ± 0.19 1.14 0.22 2.14 c.d. (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns = non-significant growth and flowering in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):114-117, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 116 earlier planting may have helped increase photosynthesis, energy available and accelerated for metabolism development of floral characters (arora and sandhu, 1987). the present findings are closer to results of bankar and mukhopadhyay (1980) who reported that october – november planting of gladiolus resulted in the best quality cut-spikes (spike length, rachis length, number and size of florets). this is further supported by khanna and gill (1983). positive effect of gibberellic acid on number of florets per spike, flower-size and flower uniformity was reported by runkle (2006), ravidas et al (1982) and mahesh and misra (1993) in gladiolus, while, jana and biswas (1982) and biswas et al (1983) reported the same in tuberose. flower duration: longer duration was observed in october 25th planting, followed by november 5th planting. the present findings are in conformity with those of misra (1997) and mahesh and misra (1993), also in gladiolus. spike emergence was earlier in 25th october planting and with 100ppm ga 3 treatment. vase life of cut-spikes: highest vase-life of cut-spikes was obtained in early planting, viz., 25th october (7.44 days) compared to late planting, ie., 15th november (6.56 days). vase life of cut-spikes significantly improved with increasing levels of ga 3 in corm-dipping treatment. vase life of cutspikes was also associated with maintenance of fresh weight, size of opened floret, uptake of water, longevity of open floret, pulsing, biocide and number of open florets per spike. mohanty et al (1994) reported increased vase-life in gladiolus in corms treated with growth regulators. ga3 reduced water loss and had anti-senescence properties, leading to enhanced shelf-life of flowers (singh et al, 1994). interaction effect between planting date and gibberellic acid on various growth and flowering characters in gladiolus was found to be non-significant. from the present investigation, it is concluded that gladiolus planting on 25th october along with corm-dip in gibberellic acid @ 50ppm for 30 minutes at the time of planting, is the most effective for improved the growth and flowering under north gujarat conditions. references arora, j.s. and sandhu, g.s. 1987. effect of two planting dates on the performance of fifteen gladiolus cultivars. punjab hort. j., 27:243-249 awad, a.r.e. and hamied, a.a. 1985. anatomical study on gladiolus stem apex as affected by kinetin, gibberellin, ethephon concentrations and gammairradiation doses. acta hort., 167:177-185 bankar, g.j. and mukhopadhyay, a. 1980. a note on effect of time of planting on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus. ind. j. hort., 37:305-308 bhattacharjee, s.k. 1984.the effects of growth regulating chemicals on gladiolus, gartenbauwissenschaft, 49:103-106 biswas, j., bose, t.k. and maiti, r.g. 1983. effect of growth substances on growth and flowering of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.). south ind. hort., 31:129-132 cocozza, m. 1971. gladiolus production and quality. pepinieristes horticultures, maraichers, 119:3136 delvadia, d.v., ahlawat, t.r. and meena, b. j. 2009. effect of different ga 3 concentrations and frequency on growth, flowering and yield in gaillardia cv. lorenziana. j. hort. sci., 4:81-84 table 2. effect of planting date and gibberellic acid concentration on flowering in gladiolus cv. yellow frilled gibberellic acid conc. no. of spikes length of length of days taken to no. of florets duration of vase life per plant spike (cm) rachis (cm) spike emergence per spike flower (days) g 1 (0 ppm) 1.04 56.26 30.51 78.32 8.28 9.44 6.22 g 2 (50 ppm) 1.16 61.08 32.56 76.44 8.88 10.11 7.44 g 3 (100 ppm) 1.33 65.02 34.86 74.61 9.63 10.56 7.67 sem ± 0.05 1.84 0.65 0.53 0.23 0.17 0.25 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.16 5.50 1.95 1.58 0.68 0.51 0.76 planting date d 1 (25th oct.) 1.38 66.21 37.50 75.00 10.36 10.78 7.44 d 2 (5th nov.) 1.18 62.53 31.77 76.59 8.93 10.33 7.33 d 3 (15th nov.) 0.98 53.61 28.66 77.79 7.50 9.00 6.56 sem ± 0.05 1.84 0.65 0.53 0.23 0.17 0.25 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.16 5.50 1.95 1.58 0.68 0.51 ns d x g sem ± 0.09 3.18 1.13 0.92 0.39 0.29 0.44 c.d. (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns = non-significant suman kumari et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):114-117, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 117 dod, v.n., sadawrate, k.t., kulwal, l.v. and vaidya, s.w. 1989. effect of dates of planting and size of corm on growth and flower yield of gladiolus. p.k.v. res. j., 13:164-165 gaastra, p. 1980. climatic control of photosynthesis and respiration. in environmental control of plant growth. evans, l.t. (ed.), academic press, new delhi, pp. 113-118 jana, b.k. and biswas, s. 1982. effect of growth regulators on growth and flowering of tuberose. south ind. hort., 30:163-165 janowska, b., schroeter-zakrzewska, a. and rybus-zaj¹c, m. 2009. effect of benzyladenine and gibberellic acid on the growth and flowering of anemone coronaria l. ‘sylphide’. electonic j. polish agril. univ., 12: pp 2 khanna, k. and gill, a.p.s. 1983. effect of planting time of gladiolus corms on flower and cormel production. punjab hort. j., 23:116-120 laskar, m.a. and jana, b.k. 1994. effect of planting time and size of corms on plant growth, flowering and corm production of gladiolus. ind. agri., 38:89-97 mahesh, k.s. and misra, r.l. 1993. effect of growth regulators on gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 1:12-15 misra, r.l. 1997. residual effect of previous planting seasons on growth and flowering of gladiolus in the following growing season. ann. agril., res. 18:222224 mittal, s.p. 1967. studies on the effect of gibberellin on growth and flowering of dahlia. madras agri. j., 54:103-107 mohanty, c.r., sena, d.k. and das, r.c. 1994. studies on the effect of corm size and pre-planting chemicals treatment of corms on growth and flowering of gladiolus. orissa j. hort., 22:1-4 moazzam, h.a., zeynab, r. and jafar, a. 2011. response of tuberose to gibberellic acid and benzyladenine. hortl. environ. biotechnol., 52:46-51 mukhopadhyay, a. and bankar, g.j. 1986. pre-planting soaking of corms with gibberellic acid, modified growth and flowering of gladiolus cv. ‘friendship’. ind. agri., 30:317-319 panse, v.g. and sukhtame, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar publication, new delhi, pp. 145-156 ravidas, l., rajeevan, p.k. and valsala kumari, p.k. 1992. effect of foliar application of growth regulators on the growth, flowering and corm yield of gladiolus cv. friendship. south ind. hort., 40:329-335 roychoudhauri, n., biswas, j., dhua, r.s. and mitra, s.k. 1985. effect of chemicals on germination, growth, flowering and corm yield of gladiolus. ind. agri., 29:215-217 runkle, e. 2006. recovering from a pgr overdose. greenhouse production news, 16:78 saini, r.s., gupta, a.k. and yamdagni, r. 1988. effect of planting time on the flowering and cormel production of gladiolus (gladiolus floribundus l.). south ind. hort., 36:248-251 shillo, r. and halevy, a.h. 1981. flower and corm development in gladiolus as affected by photoperiod. sci. hort., 15:187-196 singh, j.n., singh, d.k. and sharma k.k. 1994. effect of ga 3 and alar on growth, flowering and seed production of dahlia (dahlia variabilis l.). orissa j. hort., 22:10-12 (ms received 8 july 2009, revised 7 june 2010) growth and flowering in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):114-117, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 143 partial root zone drying irrigation in papaya (carica papaya l.) for enhanced water use efficiency under limited water situations b.l. manjunath*, r.h. laxman, k.k.upreti and h.b. raghupathi icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta, bengaluru 560 089, india *e-mail: blmanjunathagri@gmail.com abstract field experiments were conducted during 2015-17 at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bengaluru, to standardize the partial root zone drying irrigation in papaya with 12 treatments in rbd design. the results indicated that better soil moisture in the root zone could be maintained under drip irrigation by shifting laterals on either side at fortnightly intervals as compared to fixed laterals with thesame amount of water. significantly more primary roots (16.5/plant) were observed when irrigation was scheduled on one side with single emitter meeting 60% of the evaporative demand. prd irrigation through shifting of laterals recorded significantly higher transpiration rate especially at 50% of er (8.05 m mol m-2 s-1) as compared to the control (3.95m mol m-2 s-1). further, the same treatment recorded significantly lower fruit cavity index (0.26) with relatively higher fruit volume (1388 cm3). irrigating papaya only on one side with single emitter resulted in significantly higher t.s.s (13.0%). higher water productivity (23.7 kg/m3) could be obtained by scheduling the irrigation at 40% evaporation replenishment through shifting of laterals with saving of substantial water (1285m3/ha) resulting in higher water use efficiency (237.4 kg/ha.mm). key words: evaporation replenishment, partial root zone drying irrigation, shifting of laterals, water use efficiency introduction papaya (carica papaya l.,) is a common fruit crop grown in the southern region of india. the crop is normally grown under irrigated conditions. availability of timely and assured irrigation is critical for obtaining optimum growth, yield and quality fruits of papaya. since the soil moisture content affects the nutrient uptake and other metabolic processes, water deficiency at any of the growth and developmental stages of papaya will adversely affect the overall production and quality. however, in the recent past owing to scarcity of irrigation water, exploring alternate approaches for judicious use of available water and to bring more area under cultivation assumes significance. in partial rootzone drying (prd) irrigation method, only part of the rootzone is wetted while the remainder is allowed to dry. irrigating part of the root system keeps the leaves hydrated while drying on the other part of the root system promote synthesis and transport of so-called chemical signals from roots to the shoot via the xylem to induce a physiological response (dodd et al., 2015). alternating the wet and dry zones (thus re-wetting dry soil) substantially improves crop yields compared to maintaining fixed wet and dry zones or conventional deficit irrigation and modifies phyto-hormonal (especially abscisic acid) signaling. further, prd irrigation method limits vegetative vigour and improves water use efficiency (kriedmann and goodwin, 2003). however, wetting and drying each side of roots are dependent on crops, growing stage, evaporative demands, soil texture and soil water balance (saeed et al., 2008). further, the level of meeting the crop eva po tr anspir ation dema nd ba sed on the prd irrigation in a given agro-climatic situation needs to be standardized for the crop. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 143-149, 2017 original research paper 144 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 143-149, 2017 keeping this as a backdrop, research trial was initiated at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, to standardize the partial root zone drying irrigation in papaya (carica papaya l.) with the objective of standardising the prd based irrigation scheduling for papaya. material and methods field experiments were conducted from 2015 to 2017 at icarindian institute of horticultural research, hessar agha tta, bengaluru located at latitude13°8’12"n and longitude of 77°29’45"e. the experimental soils was sandy loam in texture with a ph of 6.14 and an ec of 0.067dsm-1 . the maximum temperature during the experimental period ranged from 240c to 360c and the minimum temperature ranged between 100c to 22°c. the period between march to may are the warm months with higher temperatures and evaporation while the period between november to january were the cooler months with low temperature and evaporation. the average relative humidity was higher during september and october months. the average rainfall of the region is around 850 mm with two peak periods of rainfall during junejuly and septemberoctober months. field experiment was conducted in rbd design withfour replications. papaya (cv. red lady) grown with a spacing of 1.8 m x 1.8 m was planted during june 2015 and the treatments were imposed with the crop establishment after 60 days after planting. there were 12 treatments with one or two emitters per plant with differ ent levels of eva potr a nspir a tion replenishment (er) either fixed or alternating the sides of the irrigation at 15 days interval. normal irrigation with two emitters per plant with 80% er served as fully irrigated control. the crop was managed with recommended package of practices except for irr igation. the irrigations were scheduled as per the treatments and alternate partial irrigation was provided by shifting the laterals at fortnightly intervals. the bio-fertilizer consortium (bfc) applied at planting included azotobacter + psb + vam. the observations on all the growth, yield and quality parameters as well as soil moisture and physiological parameters were recorded at periodic intervals. the abscisic acid (aba) pr oduction wa s a na lysed following the hplc procedure as detailed by kelen et al., (2004) with modifications. the relative water content in the leaf samples was anlaysed using standard procedures as per barr and weatherly (1962). all the experimental data were statistically analysedas per panse and sukhatme (1985) and the differences in means were compared at 5 % level of significance. results and discussion soil moisture at rooting depth and relative water content in papaya shifting of the laterals through prd technique enabled maintenance of significantly higher soil moisture content in general as compared to maintaining fixed laterals (table 1). higher soil moisture content (12.4 %) in the dry zone was recorded even with 40% of evaporation replenishment (er) with the shifting of the laterals as compared to fixed laterals. however, it was at par with other levels of er under shifting irrigation. the relative water content of the leaf was in general higher with the shifting of the laterals with higher levels of eras compared to normal irrigation in fixed sites.the higher relative leaf water content under prd treatments may be due to nocturnal net flux of water from wetter roots to the roots in dry soil which may assist in the distribution of chemical signals necessary to sustain the prd effect (stoll, 2000). plant and root growth vegetative growth in general was curtailed with the plant undergrowing stress in different prd treatments (table 2). the plant height progressively declined with the reduction in levels of er and significantly lowest height (1.68 m) was recorded with 40% er even with shifting of laterals with double emitters per plant. similarly, 50% and 60% of er with one or two emitters per plant either with or without shifting the laterals also recorded significantly lower plant growth as compared to normal irrigation with 80% of er (2.18 m). stoll (2000) attributed this to the reduction in zeatin and zeatinriboside concentrations in roots, shoot tips and buds contributing to the reduction in shoot growth and intensified apical dominance under prd irrigation. further, limas et al.,(2015) also observed that the application of 50% water use in prd in the greenhouse study decreased shoot and root dry weight production, with a more pronounced effect on manjunath et al 145 root dry weight compared to full irrigation. this decrease in biomass was associated with a decrease in the net photosynthetic rate in the day of most intense water stress for the plants. the plant canopy spread was significantly higher (5.23 m3) with shifting irrigation meeting 60% er even with one emitter/plant which was similar (5.22 m3) to that of normal irrigation meeting 80% er through two emitters/plant depicting the efficacy of shifting of drip laterals. in general, more roots were produced in papaya when the water was supplied through a single emitter as compared to double emitters/plant. significantly higher number of primary roots (16.5 / plant) were observed when the irrigation was scheduled on one side with single emitter meeting 60% of evaporative dema nd (table 2). the mea n r oot length wa s significantly lower (76.4 cm and 75.1cm, respectively) when adequate irrigation was given through two emitters meeting 80% of the evaporative demand (t1 and t2 treatments). the dry weight of roots was significantly higher (867.5g /plant) when the irrigation was given on one side of the plant meeting 50% of evaporative demand (t7 treatment). the root volume followed a similar trend with the same treatment recording higher values. liang et al, (1996) attributed this enhanced root biomass increase is due to the plant’s ability to explore a greater soil volume potentially increasing soil water and nutrient acquisition. alternate watering or re-watering, after a long period of soil drying, may improve this situation by inducing new secondary roots. apparently, such new roots are succulent enough to sense further soil drying and the ability of roots to absorb nutrients also improves which may also enhance the nutrient uptake from the soil zone when the root zone was partially watered (han and kang, 2002). similar results were also found by skinner et al. (1998) wherein as the non-irrigated furrow began to dry, the root biomass increased as much as 126% compared with the irrigated furrow and the greatest increase was at lower depths where moisture was still plentiful. physiological parameters the photosynthetic ratein papaya imposed with prd irrigation although did not differ significantly, shifting of the laterals with two drippers even at 60% j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 143-149, 2017 partial root zone drying in papaya table 1. soil moisture (in 0-60 cm depth after 24 hours of irrigation) and relative water content (rwc) of leaf as influenced by partial rootzonedrying irrigation treatments inpapaya at sixmonths after planting treatments soil moisture (%) rwc (%) moist zone dry zone normal irrigation-80% er: 2 emitters/plant 12.24 10.48 88.9 normal irrigation-80% er: 1 emitter/plant 12.93 7.09 91.3 shifting irrigation-80% er: 1 emitter/plant 12.60 11.88 94.9 shifting irrigation-60% er: 1 emitter/plant 11.89 8.76 95.1 shifting irrigation-50% er: 1 emitter/plant 11.88 10.89 91.9 shifting irrigation-40% er: 1 emitter/plant 13.01 8.27 87.0 1-side irrigation-60% er: 1 emitter/plant 13.53 8.06 89.5 1-side irrigation-50% er: 1 emitter/plant 12.77 6.94 87.2 1-side irrigation-40% er: 1 emitter/plant 10.23 9.00 94.4 shifting irrigation-60% er: 2 emitters/plant 11.34 11.39 92.7 shifting irrigation-50% er: 2 emitters/plant 9.85 10.10 92.3 shifting irrigation-40% er: 2 emitters/plant 14.42 12.40 88.1 s.em± 0.73 0.58 14.3 c.d (p=0.05) 2.17 1.71 ns 146 table 2. shoot and root growth characteristics of papaya as influenced by partial rootzone drying irrigation treatments plant canopy no. of mean root dry root root treatments height spread primary length weight volume (m) (m2) roots/plant (cm) (g/plant) (cm3) normal irrigation-80% er: 2 emitters/plant 1.75 3.91 13.0 76.4 467.7 383.5 normal irrigation-80% er: 1 emitter/plant 2.18 5.22 15.3 75.1 450.0 1095.0 shifting irrigation-80% er: 1 emitter/plant 2.00 4.86 8.0 82.5 275.0 750.0 shifting irrigation-60% er: 1 emitter/plant 1.95 5.23 14.3 103.0 766.7 2780.0 shifting irrigation-50% er: 1 emitter/plant 1.95 4.02 12.8 87.5 533.3 131.7 shifting irrigation-40% er: 1 emitter/plant 2.15 4.63 11.3 95.2 550.0 1817.5 1-side irrigation-60% er: 1 emitter/plant 2.15 4.33 16.5 101.4 637.5 1518.8 1-side irrigation-50% er: 1 emitter/plant 1.93 3.92 9.8 104.9 867.5 3417.5 1-side irrigation-40% er: 1 emitter/plant 2.05 4.35 10.0 99.6 625.0 1550.0 shifting irrigation-60% er: 2 emitters/plant 1.90 3.27 12.0 104.8 832.5 2132.5 shifting irrigation-50% er: 2 emitters/plant 1.80 3.28 10 105.3 866.8 2232.5 shifting irrigation-40% er: 2 emitters/plant 1.68 3.34 10 99.6 616.8 1550.0 s.em± 0.08 0.40 1.55 4.71 108.1 519.8 c.d (p=0.05) 0.24 1.16 4.50 13.67 312.3 1508.6 of evaporation replenishment recorded relatively better photosynthesis (14.03 µ mol m-2 s-1). further, prd ir rigation thr ough shifting of latera ls recorded significantly higher transpiration rate especially at 50% of er (8.05 m mol m-2 s-1) as compared to the control (3.95m mol m-2 s-1) although it was at par with t5, t8, t9 and t12 treatments. the stomatal conductance could not differ significantly among the treatments in the present investigation (table 3) although stoll (2000) observed in grapes that stomatal conductance of vines under prd irrigation was significantly reduced when compared with vines receiving water to the entire root system. prd results in increased xylem sap aba concentration and increased xylem sap, ph, both of which are likely to result in a reduction in stomatal conductance. it was concluded that a major effect of prd is the production of chemical signals in drying roots that are transported to the leaves where they bring about a reduction in stomatal conductance. the perusal of the data on aba production in different prd treatments indicated higher aba production with one emitter per plant either with fixed or shifting of laterals (278 and 266.8ng/g tissue, respectively) as compared to two emitters at the same level of er (210.6ng/g tissue) indicating that the plant underwent moisture stress with water supply through a single point source leading to higher aba production. stoll et al., (2000) inferred that prd reduces plant water consumption by enhancing aba production in j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 143-149, 2017 manjunath et al 147 the dry half of the roots, a hormonal signal that reduces stomatal aperture and thus, transpiration of the leaves (davies et al., 2001). further, this small narrowing of the stoma ta l opening ma y r educe wa ter loss substantially with little effect on photosynthesis (jones, 1992). a similar study by stoll et al., (2000) showed ten fold increase in aba concentration in the drying roots, but aba concentration in leaves of grapevines under prd increased only by 60% compared with a fully irrigated control. further, it was inferred that there was a nocturnal net flux of water from wetter roots to the roots in dry soil and this may assist in the distribution of chemical signals necessary to sustain the prd effect. quality, fruit yield and water use efficiency assessment of impact of the prd treatments on the quality attributes of papaya indicated that fruit cavity index and t. s. s of pa paya fr uits wer e significantly influenced (table 4). shifting irrigation even at 50% of er recorded significantly lower cavity index (0.26) with relatively higher fruit volume (1388 cm3). further, fixed irrigation using single emitter at 40% of er resulted in significantly higher t.s.s (13.0%). the increased t.s.s under fixed emitters at lower level of er indicates that the plant under stressed situations accumulated more sugars in the fruits. stoll et al., (2000), also observed increased sugar content in grapes with prd and this was attributed to better control of vegetative growth. further in wine grape, the quality parameters of fructose and tannins were improved significantly with prd (fang et al., 2013). although irrigation in papaya meeting 80% replenishment of evaporation even with one emitter per plant resulted in significantly higher number of fruits (54/plant), higher water productivity (23.7 kg/m3) could be obtained by scheduling the irrigation at 40% er through shifting of laterals at fortnightly intervals. this also led to a saving of substantial water (1285m3/ha) resulting in 144.2 % higher water productivity. it is worth to mention that the papaya plants withstood the water stress and functioned normally even when irrigation was scheduled at 40% of er. water use efficiency followed a similar trend with scheduling the irrigation at 40% evaporation replenishment through shifting of laterals at fortnightly interval leading to 159.5 % higher water use efficiency (237.4 kg/ha.mm). dry et al., (2000) stated that this increased wue with prd j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 143-149, 2017 partial root zone drying in papaya treatments photosynthetic transpiration stomatal aba rate rate conductance (ng/g tissue) (µ mol m-2 s-1) (m mol m-2 s-1) (mol m-2 s-1) normal irrigation-80% er: 2 emitters/plant 10.71 2.81 0.21 210.6 normal irrigation-80% er: 1 emitter/plant 9.51 3.95 0.18 278.0 shifting irrigation-80% er: 1 emitter/plant 11.62 5.52 0.25 266.8 shifting irrigation-60% er: 1 emitter/plant 11.05 5.08 0.20 150.6 shifting irrigation-50% er: 1 emitter/plant 13.35 6.54 0.27 149.1 shifting irrigation-40% er: 1 emitter/plant 9.18 4.00 0.13 151.2 1-side irrigation-60% er: 1 emitter/plant 10.34 5.59 0.19 123.4 1-side irrigation-50% er: 1 emitter/plant 11.44 6.65 0.22 134.8 1-side irrigation-40% er: 1 emitter/plant 10.18 7.14 0.28 164.7 shifting irrigation-60% er: 2 emitters/plant 14.03 5.87 0.20 106.0 shifting irrigation-50% er: 2 emitters/plant 9.89 8.05 0.29 99.3 shifting irrigation-40% er: 2 emitters/plant 9.38 6.92 0.20 136.8 s.em± 1.09 0.59 0.04 12.16 c.d (p=0.05) ns 1.73 ns 35.88 table 3. physiological parameters in papaya as influenced by prd irrigation treatments 148 is because the well-watered half of the root ensures the maintenance of fruit growth, while vegetative growth is reduced. the ability of roots to absorb nutrients was also improved when the root zone was partially watered and the partial watering was shifted alternately in a horizontal direction or along the vertical soil profile (han and kang, 2002). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 143-149, 2017 manjunath et al treatments fruit t.s.s. fruits / fruit fruit fruit water water cavity (%) plant volume yield/ yield use produindex (cm3) plant (t/ha) efficiency ctivity (kg) (kg/ha.mm) (kg m -3 ) normal irrigation-80% er: 0.47 10.8 46 1185 37.88 117.43 91.5 9.15 2 emitters/plant normal irrigation-80% er: 0.69 9.9 54 645 40.21 124.66 97.2 9.72 1 emitter/plant shifting irrigation-80% er: 0.60 8.2 39 603 29.44 91.27 71.1 7.11 1 emitter/plant shifting irrigation-60% er: 0.31 8.9 43 1450 33.43 103.64 134.6 13.46 1 emitter/plant shifting irrigation-50% er: 0.31 10.5 51 1053 37.49 116.21 181.2 18.12 1 emitter/plant shifting irrigation-40% er: 0.51 9.6 49 995 39.30 121.83 237.4 23.74 1 emitter/plant 1-side irrigation-60% er: 0.27 8.3 46 940 40.56 125.73 163.3 16.33 1 emitter/plant 1-side irrigation-50% er: 0.64 10.4 50 410 41.50 128.66 200.6 20.06 1 emitter/plant 1-side irrigation-40% er: 0.67 13.0 50 715 37.65 116.70 227.4 22.74 1 emitter/plant shifting irrigation-60% er: 0.54 8.1 35 623 27.21 84.35 109.6 10.96 2 emitters/plant shifting irrigation-50% er: 0.26 8.9 25 1388 19.74 61.19 95.4 9.54 2 emitters/plant shifting irrigation-40% er: 0.44 6.9 33 677 25.63 79.46 154.8 15.48 2 emitters/plant s.em± 0.10 1.02 5.60 308.8 4.68 14.50 20.36 2.03 c.d (p=0.05) 0.29 2.94 16.20 n s 13.54 42.00 58.85 5.88 table 4. quality attributes, yield and water use efficiency of papaya as influenced by different prd irrigation treatments similar results of higher wue were recorded by de la hera et al., (2007) in grapes under prd treatments. further, du et al., (2008) concluded that improved wue, earlier fruit maturity and better quality of table grape without detrimental effects on the fruit yield in arid areas are the advantages of prd irrigation. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the director, icariihr and the head, division of fruit crops, icariihr for providing necessary guidance and facilities for the smooth conduct of the experiment. 149 j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 143-149, 2017 partial root zone drying in papaya (ms received 29 september 2017, revised 28 october 2017, accepted 13 november 2017) ba r r, h. d. a nd wea ther ley, p. e. 1962. a r eexamination of the relative turgidity technique for estimating water deficit in leaves, australian journalof biological sciences, 15:413-428. davies, w.j., wilkinson, s. and loveys, b.r. 2001. stomatal control by chemical signaling and the exploitation of this mechanism to increase water use efficiency in a gr icultur e. new phytologist,153: 449-460. de la hera, m.l., romero, p., gomez-plaza, e., martinez, a. 2007. is partial 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introduction gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflora l.) is one of most popular cut flowers in the domestic and international markets, and is commercially grown in many tropical, subtropical and temperate parts of the world. gladiolus has gained much importance as ‘queen of bulbous flowers’. it belongs to the family iridaceae and is native to south africa. the genus gladiolus has a chromosome number of 2n=30 to 120. this is one of the leading commercial bulbous flowers throughout the world, and ranks next only to tulip in holland and fourth in the international cut-flower trade after rose, carnation and chrysanthemum. the magnificent inflorescence of gladiolus with its attractive spike, florets of different forms, various colours and long durability has made the flower attractive for use in herbaceous borders, bedding, rockeries, exhibition, growing in pots and bowls. performance of any crop depends largely on genotype and environment interaction. as a result, cultivars that perform well in one region may not perform equally well in other regions varying in climatic conditions. results obtained in this study can be utilized in gladiolus improvement for j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):204-209, 2013 performance of gladiolus cultivars under sub-humid southern plains of rajasthan t.c. mahawer, l.n. mahawer and h.l. bairwa aicrp on floriculture, department of horticulture, rca campus maharana pratap university of agriculture and technology udaipur 313001, india email: mahawer68@yahoo.co.in abstract an investigation was carried out during october 2011 may 2012 to evaluate performance of 15 cultivars of gladiolus for cut-flower, corm and cormel production. cultivar ‘iihr-g-12’ gave maximum plant height (108.32cm), spike length (76.43cm), rachis length (58.27cm), number of florets per spike (14.90), number of florets open at a time (3.63), longevity of florets (3.39 days), vase life of spike (14.20 days), number of spikes per plant (2.50), field durability of spike (16.20 days), flowering duration (38.20 days), number of corms per plant (2.55), corm diameter (6.13cm) and fresh weight of cormels per plant (29.42g); while, cv. ‘gunjan’ gave largest floret diameter (10.39cm) and cormels per plants (60.76). earliness in heading (65.87 days), spike emergence (70.43 days), first floret showing colour (82.93 days) and basal floret opening (85.60 days) were observed in cv. ‘iihr-g-12’. significantly high corm fresh weight (70.24g) and leaf width (3.28cm) were noticed in cv. ‘pusa kiran’. however, largest cormel diameter (1.91cm) was seen in cv. ‘delhi pink’, maximum number of tillers per plant in cv. ‘punjab dawn’, whereas, number of leaves plant-1 (9.60) and leaf length (40.41cm) were recorded in cv. ‘dhanvantari’. among the cultivars tested, cv. iihr-g-12 was found to be the best for significantly high spike yield (4.17 lakh), corm yield (4.25 lakh) and cormel yield (49.03q) ha-1. key words: gladiolus, spike, rachis, floret, corm, cormels, durability, longevity, vase life induction of novel colour, earliness, disease resistance and quality-spike parameters. hence, performance evaluation becomes necessary to find a suitable variety for a specific region. thus, testing was done to study performance of 15 cultivars of gladiolus under sub-humid southern plains of rajasthan. material and methods the experiment was carried out during october 2011 may 2012 to study the performance of 15 gladiolus cultivars, namely, ‘anglia’, ‘bis-bis’, ‘chandini’, ‘delhi pink’, ‘dhanvantari’, ‘g.s.-2’, ‘gunjan’, ‘iihr-g-11’, ‘iihr-g12’, ‘jyotsna’, ‘punjab dawn’, ‘punjab morning’, ‘pusa kiran’, ‘shabnam’ and ‘urmil’ in randomized block design, with 3 replications, at aicrp on floriculture project, horticulture farm, rca campus, maharana pratap university of agriculture and technology, udaipur, rajasthan situated at 24º35' north latitude, 24º42' east longitude and at 579.5m above msl altitude. mean maximum (40.1°c) and minimum (23.3°c) temperature, and relative humidity of maximum (73.75%) and minimum (34.30%), were 205 recorded during the experiment. corms of gladiolus cultivars were collected from iari, pusa, new delhi; iihr, bangalore, and aicrp on floriculture project centre, mpuat, udaipur. healthy and uniform sized corms of 3-4 cm diameter were planted in the fourth week of october at a spacing of 30cm x 20cm at 6cm depth. twenty corms of each cultivar per replication were planted on the ridge in each plot. the soil was clay loam in texture, with ph 7.34 and ec 0.54 dsm–1 under irrigated condition. welldecomposed 2.5kg / m2 farm yard manure was incorporated into all the plots two weeks prior to planting. a basal fertilizer dose comprising 150kg n, 200kg p2o5 and 200kg k2o ha -1 was applied at planting and the remaining 150kg of n was applied 45 days after planting (arora et al, 2002). uniform cultural practices were followed throughout the experiment. corms were harvested at 45 days after complete flowering for recording corm and cormels parameters. data on vegetative growth, flowering, corm and cormels production were recorded in five randomly selected plants, and mean values were analyzed statistically. results and discussion a. vegetative parameters table 1 shows that cultivars significantly differed in their vegetative growth characters. among the different cultivars studied, maximum plant height was recorded in ‘iihr-g-12’ (108.32cm), followed by ‘iihr-g-11’ (105.64cm), whereas, minimum plant height was recorded in ‘anglia’ (67.53cm). number of leaves per plant was highest in ‘dhanvantari’ (9.60), which was statistically at par with ‘gunjan’ and ‘pusa kiran’ (9.27 and 9.23, respectively). however, least number of leaves was seen in ‘anglia’ (8.13). broadest leaf was recorded in ‘pusa kiran’ (3.28 cm), while, the narrowest in ‘punjab morning’ (1.61cm). longest leaf was observed in cv. ‘dhanvantari’ (44.50cm), whereas, leaf was shortest in ‘pusa kiran’ (34.04cm). significantly high number of tillers per plant was recorded in ‘punjab dawn’ (2.7), followed by ‘iihr-g-12’ (2.60), while minimum number of tillers were seen in ‘dhanvantari’ and ‘bis-bis’(1.53). variations found in vegetative characters in different cultivars may be due to their genetic make-up and prevailing environmental conditions prevalent during crop growth period. similar trend was reported by shaukat et al (2013) and saleem et al (2013). b. flower parameters gladiolus cultivars significantly differ in their flowering characters. cultivar iihr-g-12 was found to be the earliest in heading (65.87 days), spike emergence (70.43 days), first floret showing colour (82.93 days) and basal floret opening (85.60 days), while, cv. urmil was observed to be very late in heading (91.27 days), spike emergence (96.73 days), first flower showing colour (112.93 days) and basal floret opening (116.10 days). planting of early and late varieties in a judicious manner can prolong the duration of flowering. similar variation in gladiolus cultivars has also been reported by kumar (2009), rajan et al (2010) and choudhary et al (2011). longest spike was recorded in ‘iihr-g-12’ (76.43cm), followed by ‘punjab morning’ (73.80cm) and ‘iihr-g-11’ (72.13cm), while, ‘punjab dawn’ produced the shortest spike (42.20cm). longest rachis was noticed in ‘iihr-g-12’ (58.27cm), followed by ‘iihr-g-11’ (53.20cm); shortest rachis was seen in ‘punjab dawn’ (29.47cm). number of spikes produced per plant was highest in ‘iihr-g-12’ (2.5), followed by ‘punjab dawn’ (2.35), whereas, lowest number was seen in cv. ‘urmil’ (1.33). maximum number of florets per spike was observed in ‘iihr-g-12 (14.9), which was statistically at par with ‘iihr-g-11’, ‘g.s.-2’ and ‘pusa kiran’ (14.77, 14.40, and 13.92, respectively), and minimum in ‘urmil’ (9.93). kumar and yadav (2005) and horo et al (2009) also noticed significant difference in number of florets different cultivars. longest durability of spike (16.2 days) and duration of flowering (38.2 days) was recorded in ‘iihr-g-12’, whereas, ‘urmil’ exhibited the least durability (10.97 days) and duration of flowering (20.53 days). similar results were reported by kumar et al (2009) and choudhary et al (2011). c. vase-life parameters significant variation in vase-life was recorded in different cultivars (table 2). highest cut-spike diameter was observed in ‘pusa kiran’ (0.82cm), which was at par with ‘iihr-g-12’, and minimum was seen in ‘chandini’ (0.48). moreover, highest spike weight was produced by ‘pusa kiran’ (36.8g), followed by ‘bis-bis’ (35.05g), while it was the lowest in ‘chandini’ (23.94g). ‘gunjan’ gave the largest first-floret diameter (10.39cm), followed by ‘shabnam’ (10.21cm), whereas, the smallest was seen in ‘urmil’ (8.48cm). maximum number of florets open at a time per spike was observed in ‘iihr-g-12’ (3.63), followed by ‘shabnam’ (3.33), and the least was seen in ‘dhanvantari’ (2.22). varieties producing higher number of early-opening florets are suitable for display in exhibitions. maximum openfloret longevity was observed in ‘iihr-g-12’ (4.57 days), which was statistically at par with ‘chandini’, ‘g.s.-2’, ‘shabnam’ and ‘jyotsna’, while, the lowest was seen in performance of gladiolus in rajasthan j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):204-209, 2013 206 ta bl e 1. p er fo rm an ce o f gl ad io lu s cu lt iv ar s fo r ve ge ta ti ve a nd f lo w er in g pa ra m et er s c ul tiv ar pl an t n o. o f le af le af n o. o f d ay s sp ik e a pp ea ra nc e b as al n o. o f sp ik e r ac hi s n o. o f fi el d fl ow er in g he ig ht le av es / w id th le ng th til le rs ta ke n to em er ge nc e of f ir st fl or et fl or et s le ng th le ng th sp ik es du ra bi lit y du ra tio n (c m ) pl an t (c m ) (c m ) pe r he ad in g (d ay s) fl or et op en in g pe r (c m ) (c m ) pe r of s pi ke (d ay s) pl an t sh ow ed (d ay s) sp ik e pl an t (d ay s) (d ay s) a ng lia 67 .5 3 8. 13 2. 76 34 .4 4 2. 27 75 .5 9 79 .6 7 86 .4 7 89 .4 7 11 .2 0 45 .2 0 34 .7 3 2. 27 11 .9 8 29 .5 3 b is -b is 73 .4 7 8. 73 1. 83 40 .2 6 1. 53 89 .4 7 94 .4 7 11 0. 53 11 2. 87 10 .8 0 49 .2 7 38 .3 3 1. 40 13 .0 3 25 .4 7 c ha nd in i 72 .7 3 8. 27 1. 81 39 .8 8 2. 50 76 .5 3 82 .6 0 93 .0 0 95 .0 0 11 .0 7 42 .3 3 31 .1 3 1. 93 14 .3 3 35 .8 2 d el hi p in k 86 .4 0 8. 27 1. 68 37 .2 4 1. 67 89 .4 0 93 .8 7 10 6. 87 11 0. 13 10 .8 3 53 .1 3 40 .2 0 1. 67 12 .8 5 26 .1 3 d ha nv an ta ri 78 .8 7 9. 60 2. 74 44 .5 0 1. 53 86 .5 0 91 .8 3 10 5. 53 10 7. 70 13 .1 3 49 .6 7 34 .9 3 1. 40 12 .9 8 34 .2 8 g .s .-2 92 .5 3 8. 73 2. 31 39 .9 5 2. 20 77 .8 6 82 .2 7 90 .2 0 93 .0 3 14 .4 0 60 .7 3 44 .2 0 1. 38 14 .7 5 35 .4 7 g un ja n 81 .9 5 9. 27 2. 71 40 .4 1 1. 60 79 .8 3 84 .3 3 92 .9 3 95 .9 3 12 .2 0 54 .1 3 36 .3 0 1. 47 13 .9 7 28 .5 8 ii h r -g -1 1 10 5. 64 8. 27 2. 22 37 .7 0 1. 93 68 .7 0 73 .9 3 85 .4 0 88 .2 3 14 .7 7 72 .1 3 53 .2 0 1. 73 14 .1 2 36 .9 3 ii h r -g -1 2 10 8. 32 8. 87 3. 13 38 .5 1 2. 60 65 .8 7 70 .4 3 82 .9 3 85 .6 0 14 .9 0 76 .4 3 58 .2 7 2. 50 16 .2 0 38 .2 0 jy ot sn a 81 .0 0 8. 33 2. 18 38 .1 8 1. 70 76 .3 3 81 .2 7 90 .9 3 92 .9 3 11 .7 0 49 .8 7 37 .0 0 1. 73 13 .2 0 35 .0 3 pu nj ab d aw n 73 .8 0 8. 33 1. 90 38 .6 4 2. 70 76 .8 7 81 .8 0 88 .3 3 90 .3 3 12 .1 7 42 .2 0 29 .4 7 2. 35 12 .3 6 33 .6 7 pu nj ab m or ni ng 10 1. 00 8. 67 1. 61 35 .3 7 2. 00 77 .6 7 82 .8 0 93 .7 3 96 .0 7 12 .6 3 73 .8 0 48 .6 0 1. 47 14 .3 3 32 .9 3 pu sa k ir an 99 .0 7 9. 23 3. 28 34 .0 4 1. 80 82 .4 7 87 .8 0 96 .9 3 99 .2 7 13 .9 2 64 .1 3 48 .4 3 1. 80 13 .7 0 26 .4 7 sh ab na m 92 .1 3 8. 20 1. 84 36 .6 1 2. 14 76 .7 7 82 .1 3 90 .9 3 93 .4 3 13 .4 0 60 .4 7 45 .3 3 1. 67 13 .4 3 34 .2 0 u rm il 74 .6 0 8. 50 2. 16 38 .9 1 2. 00 91 .2 7 96 .7 3 11 2. 93 11 6. 10 9. 93 48 .5 3 36 .2 0 1. 33 10 .9 7 20 .5 3 se m ± 2. 55 0. 18 0. 04 0. 79 0. 08 0. 72 0. 74 0. 68 0. 80 0. 38 1. 67 1. 80 0. 08 0. 23 1. 04 c d ( p = 0. 05 ) 7. 38 0. 53 0. 12 2. 29 0. 23 2. 10 2. 15 1. 91 2. 27 1. 06 4. 83 5. 22 0. 21 0. 64 2. 95 5. 14 3. 68 3. 27 3. 57 7. 07 1. 58 1. 53 1. 23 1. 42 5. 21 5. 15 7. 59 7. 45 2. 93 5. 72 mahawer et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):204-209, 2013 207 ta bl e 2. p er fo rm an ce o f gl ad io lu s cu lt iv ar s fo r va se li fe a nd c or m p ar am et er s c ul tiv ar c ut -s pi ke fr es h fl or et n o. o f fl or et n o. o f va se n o. o f n o. o f c or m c or m el c or m c or m el di am et er w ei gh t di am et er fl or et s lo ng ev ity op en ed lif e co rm s co rm el s di am et er di am et er fr es h fr es h (c m ) of s pi ke (c m ) op en a t (d ay s) fl or et s (d ay s) pe r pe r (c m ) (c m ) w ei gh t w ei gh t (g ) a tim e (% ) pl an t pl an t (g ) (g ) a ng lia 0. 71 25 .9 4 8. 73 2. 79 2. 89 72 .0 5 9. 98 2. 34 30 .4 4 4. 23 0. 78 29 .6 6 6. 80 b is -b is 0. 62 35 .0 5 9. 03 2. 81 2. 45 78 .0 6 11 .6 7 1. 33 16 .6 2 4. 37 1. 13 36 .6 2 19 .3 0 c ha nd in i 0. 48 23 .9 4 9. 03 2. 51 3. 3 87 .3 5 12 .7 0 2. 40 26 .6 8 3. 47 0. 58 22 .3 3. 53 d el hi p in k 0. 70 26 .4 4 9. 05 2. 99 2. 66 84 .6 7 10 .8 5 1. 30 11 .3 3 4. 98 1. 91 43 .5 2 21 .7 2 d ha nv an ta ri 0. 67 24 .6 4 8. 95 2. 22 3. 01 74 .4 0 10 .9 8 1. 61 17 .1 3 4. 38 0. 71 34 .7 4 3. 19 g .s .-2 0. 69 24 .1 1 9. 18 2. 27 3. 26 81 .0 4 13 .2 2 2. 33 21 .3 3 4. 2 0. 69 28 .6 2 5. 20 g un ja n 0. 71 25 .5 1 10 .3 9 2. 42 3. 15 77 .0 5 12 .1 0 1. 62 60 .7 6 4. 65 0. 90 48 .2 8 24 .5 0 ii h r -g -1 1 0. 72 27 .2 0 9. 92 3. 04 3. 1 89 .8 4 12 .1 2 1. 95 26 .7 1 4. 38 0. 64 31 .2 8 2. 70 ii h r -g -1 2 0. 77 27 .8 7 9. 75 3. 63 3. 39 93 .2 9 14 .2 0 2. 55 54 .3 8 6. 13 1. 02 68 .4 9 29 .4 2 jy ot sn a 0. 63 25 .0 3 10 .1 7 2. 87 3. 22 88 .8 9 11 .8 7 1. 74 15 .7 0 4. 15 0. 62 27 .3 5 3. 74 pu nj ab d aw n 0. 65 26 .7 0 8. 54 2. 29 2. 95 76 .7 5 10 .3 6 2. 45 36 .3 3 4. 05 0. 80 30 .6 1 7. 76 pu nj ab m or ni ng 0. 65 26 .9 9 10 .1 7 2. 95 3. 2 91 .0 5 13 .0 0 2. 20 11 .6 7 3. 86 0. 72 29 .7 4 2. 48 pu sa k ir an 0. 82 36 .8 0 8. 56 3. 07 3. 07 82 .6 1 12 .2 0 1. 98 18 .0 9 5. 95 0. 98 70 .2 4 12 .2 8 sh ab na m 0. 66 29 .7 7 10 .2 1 3. 33 3. 22 80 .6 0 11 .7 6 1. 33 11 .3 3 4. 27 0. 66 29 .3 1 2. 48 u rm il 0. 62 24 .7 4 8. 48 3. 15 2. 28 70 .1 9 8. 97 1. 54 9. 67 3. 83 0. 78 28 .5 1 3. 49 se m ± 0. 02 0. 52 0. 18 0. 14 0. 08 1. 53 0. 13 0. 07 0. 62 0. 23 0. 04 0. 89 0. 36 c d ( p = 0. 05 ) 0. 06 1. 50 0. 52 0. 41 0. 22 4. 33 0. 36 0. 19 1. 74 0. 64 0. 11 2. 52 1. 01 c v % 5. 37 3. 28 3. 38 8. 83 3. 17 3. 25 1. 90 6. 01 4. 34 8. 77 7. 66 4. 14 6. 24 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):204-209, 2013 performance of gladiolus in rajasthan 208 ‘urmil’ (3.46 days). maximum number of open florets in the vase was noticed in ‘iihr-g-12’ (93.29%), followed by ‘punjab morning’ (91.05%), whereas, this was minimum in ‘urmil’ (70.19%). vase-life was longest in ‘iihr-g-12’ (14.2days), followed by ‘g.s.-2’ (13.22days), ‘punjab morning’ (13.0days) and ‘chandini’, (12.7days), while it was shortest in ‘urmil’ (8.97 days). high longevity and vase-life are desirable traits. similar results for vase-life were recorded by horo et al (2009) and choudhary et al (2011). d. corms and cormels: parameters corms and cormels harvested from different cultivars showed significant variation in number per plant, size and weight. highest numbers of corms per plant were recorded in ‘iihr-g-12’ (2.55), which was statistically at par with ‘punjab dawn’ and ‘chandini’. however, ‘delhi pink’ (1.3) recorded lowest number of corms per plant. although maximum number of cormels per plant was recorded in ‘gunjan’ (60.76), followed by ‘iihr-g-12’ (54.38), minimum number was seen in ‘urmil’ (9.67). largest corm diameter was observed in ‘iihr-g-12’ (6.13cm), which was statistically at par with ‘pusa kiran’ (5.95cm). this was lowest in ‘chandini’ (3.47cm). maximum cormel diameter was noticed in ‘delhi pink’ (1.91cm), followed by ‘bis-bis’ (1.13) and ‘iihr-g-12’ (1.02), while minimum cormel diameter was recorded in ‘chandini’ (0.58cm). heaviest corms were produced by ‘pusa kiran’ (70.24g), which was statistically at par with ‘iihr-g-12’ (68.49g), while, the lightest corms were seen in ‘chandini’ (22.30g). cultivar iihr-g-12 gave highest cormel weight per plant (29.42g), followed by ‘gunjan’ (24.50g). minimum cormel weight was recorded in cvs. shabnam and punjab morning (2.48g). larger and heavier corms are one of the important criteria for selecting of quality corms obtains quality spikes. variation in traits of corms and cormels may be primarily due to genetic constitution of the cultivars which may get further modified owing to the prevailing environmental conditions. wide variation for yield was observed by kumar (2009) and shaukat et al (2013) e. economic parameters the relative economics of the various cultivars were calculated on the basis of formula (table 3). whereas, the data from economic parameters were indicated that cv. ‘iihr-g-12’ recorded highest gross returns (rs. 23,49,324), along with spike (4,16,665), corms (4,24,998) and cormels yield (4903.31kg) production ha-1. the produce obtained was sold @ rs. 2.50 per spike, corm and cormels @ rs. 50/kg. thus the maximum net returns of rs. 1622546 ha-1 were obtained in ‘iihr-g-12’, where the cost of cultivation was rs. 726778 ha-1. among various cultivars, returns per rupee invested (b:c ratio = net returns / total cost of cultivation) was maximum in ‘iihr-g-12’(rs. 2.23), while, it was minimum in ‘urmil’ (rs. 0.69). it is evident from the results that cultivar iihr-g-12 was early to flower, recorded higher spike yield, net returns and b/c ratio, and was the best among 15 cultivars of gladiolus tested under sub-humid southern plains of rajasthan. table 3. relative economics of 15 gladiolus cultivars cultivar yield ha-1 number numbers weight of gross return net return b : cratio of spike of corms cormels (kg) (rs / ha) (rs / ha) anglia 378331.82 389998.44 1133.33 1977492 1250714 1.72 bis-bis 233332.40 221665.78 3216.65 1298328 571550 0.79 chandini 321665.38 399998.40 588.33 1833576 1106798 1.52 delhi pink 278332.22 216665.80 3619.99 1418495 691717 0.95 dhanvantari 233332.40 268332.26 531.66 1280745 553967 0.76 g.s.-2 229999.08 256665.64 866.66 1259995 533217 0.73 gunjan 244999.02 269998.92 4083.33 1491661 764883 1.05 iihr-g-11 288332.18 324998.70 449.10 1555782 829004 1.14 iihr-g-12 416665.00 424998.30 4903.31 2349324 1622546 2.23 jyotsna 288332.18 289998.84 623.33 1476994 750216 1.03 punjab dawn 391665.10 408331.70 1293.33 2064659 1337881 1.84 punjab morning 244999.02 366665.20 413.33 1549827 823049 1.13 pusa kiran 299998.80 329998.68 2046.66 1677327 950549 1.31 shabnam 278332.22 221665.78 413.33 1270662 543884 0.75 urmil 221665.78 256665.64 581.66 1224912 498134 0.69 *production cost rs. 726778, *selling price of spike/ corm – rs. 2.50/, *selling price of cormels – rs. 50.0 kg-1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):204-209, 2013 mahawer et al 209 acknowledgement the senior authors are grateful to director, department of science & technology, government of rajasthan, jaipur, for providing financial support to complete research projects for award of master of science in horticulture, at mpuat-udaipur. references arora, j.s., misra, r.l., singh, k., singh, p. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 2002. geohistorical development of gladiolus. in: technical bulletin no. 14. aicrp on floriculture, icar, new delhi, pp. 2-5 choudhary, m., moond, s.k., kumari, a. and beniwal, b.s. 2011. performance of some gladiolus varieties under sub-humid conditions of rajasthan. crop res., 41:127-130 horo, p., mishra, s. and kispotta, l.m. 2009. evaluation of gladiolus cultivars for cut-flower production in jharkhand. j. orn. hort., 12:206-207 kumar, r. 2009. evaluation of exotic gladiolus under subtropical mid-hills of meghalaya. indian j. agril. sci., 79:115-117 kumar, r. and yadav, d.s. 2005. evaluation of gladiolus cultivars under subtropical hills of meghalaya. j. orn. hort., 8:86-90 rajan, p., attri, j.k., das, b.l., krishna, b.h. and ahmed, n. 2010. performance of gladiolus genotypes for cutflower and corm production under high altitude of uttarakhand. indian j. hort., 67:386-390 saleem, m., ahmad, i. and khan, m.a. 2013. cultivar effects on growth, yield and cormel production of gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus l.). j. orn. hortl. pl., 3:39-48 shaukat, s.a., shah, s.z.a., shaukat, s.k. and shoukat, s.w. 2013. performance of gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflora l.) cultivars under the climatic conditions of bagh azad jammu and kashmir, pakistan. j. central eur. agri., 14:158-167 (ms received 03 december 2012, revised 10 september 2013, accepted 29 september 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):204-209, 2013 performance of gladiolus in rajasthan sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 98 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 98-108, 2019 zinc status in the soils of karnataka and response of horticultural crops to zinc application : a meta-analysis ganeshamurthy a.n.*, rajendiran s., kalaivanan d. and rupa t.r. division of soil science and agricultural chemistry icar-indian institute of horticultural research * corresponding author, email:angmurthy@gmail.com abstract zinc is considered as the fourth important yield limiting nutrient in india, after n, p, and k. from the regular soil analysis data, indian soils (50%) are found to be deficient in zn and the zinc deficiency is likely to increase in future. areas with low soil available zn are often regions with widespread zinc deficiency in humans. zinc malnutrition and deficiency in human is alarming and is gaining attention in recent years. application of zinc to soil and crops is one of the simple and easiest ways to mitigate or alleviate zn deficiency in human. moreover zn uptake, its translocation and yield response of various crops to applied zn are need to be focused for finding sustainable solutions to the problem of zinc deficiency in crops and humans. in this manuscript, importance of zn to plants and human, zn malnutrition problems in india and global level, soil zn status of karnataka, various factors that responsible for zn deficiency in the soils of karnataka and the response of various horticultural crops to zn application in the region is discussed. soil maps are believed to be an important tool to delineate and manage nutrient deficient areas. it also elaborates the effective zn management strategies to improve crop productivity and farm income. keywords: crop production, crop quality, karnataka, horticultural crops, zinc deficiency, zn management review introduction zinc is one of the essential nutrients for plant growth and development. though it is required in small quantity, it is crucial for plant development. in plants, zn is a key constituent of many enzymes and proteins and plays a major role in wide range of processes such as growth hormone production and internode elongation. zinc is absorbed by the plant through roots mostly in divalent ionic form (zn2+) from the soil solution. the primary source of zn in soil is chemical and physical weathering of parent rocks and minerals. mean soil zn concentrations ([zn]soil) varied from 50 and 66 μg of total zn g-1 soil are typical for mineral and organic soils, respectively, with most agricultural soils containing 10 to 300 μg zn g-1(alloway, 1995). secondary inputs of zn to soils arise because of atmospheric (e.g. volcanoes, forest fires, and surface dusts) and biotic (e.g. decomposition, leaching/washoff from leaf surfaces) processes (friedland, 1990). further anthropogenic emission of zn inputs to soil has increased due to industrial revolutions and resulted in buildup of zn in soil particularly as a result of mining and smelting activities (nriagu, 1996). the ratio of zn emissions arising from anthropogenic and natural inputs is estimated to be >20:1 (friedland, 1990). however this is much localized and area specific accumulation that leads to zn contamination in soil and crop zn toxicity. but in general zn deficiency is widely realized across the globe,resulting in substantial losses in crop yields and human nutritional health problems. nearly25% of the world’s population is at risk due to zn deficiency. zinc deficiency affects about 2.2 billion people world-wide (prasad, 2012). many agricultural countries around the world are affected by zinc deficiency (tuerk and fazel, 2009). further it is reported that areas with zinc deficient soils are often regions with widespread zinc deficiency in humans. a basic knowledge of the dynamics of zinc in soils, understanding of the uptake and transport of zinc in crops and characterizing the response of crops to zinc deficiency are essential steps in achieving 99 fig. 1: major soil orders of karnataka sustainable solutions to the problem of zinc deficiency in crops and humans (alloway, 2008). increasing the amount of zinc in the soil and thus in crops and a nima ls/huma ns is consider ed a s a n effective preventative measure. this paper is mainly discusssoil zn status of karnataka and the responses of various horticultural crops to zn application for effective management and utilization of zn in crop production as well as to mitigate the zn deficiency or malnutrition in human/animals. physiographic landforms and land use pattern of karnataka physiographically, karnataka is part of well defined regions of india such as the deccan plateau, the western ghats, and the coastal plains. it is located approximately between 11.5-18.5°n latitude and 7478.5°e longitude. the state can be divided into 1. coastal zone, 2.malnad area (central plateau), 3. northern maidan 4.northern dry maidan and 5. southern karnataka plateau. it is land of rivers, waterfalls, plains, hills, peaks and plateau. the main r iver s a r e ca uver y, hema va ti, tunga bha dr a , godavari, krishna, palar, north and south pennar, etc. it has a dynamic weather due to land’s altitude, topography and the distance from sea. the climate of karnataka ranges from arid to semi-arid to humid tropical. south west and north east monsoon bring rainfall to karnataka and mean annual rainfall is around 1355 mm. it experiences four seasons in a yea r: summer (ma r ch-ma y); monsoon (juneseptember); post-monsoon (october-december); and winter (january-february). the land use pattern of karnataka is described in table 1 and about 55% of total geographical area is put under cultivation. mostly rainfed farming is followed in karnataka and the areasown more than once in a year is very low (only 8% of cultivated area). table 1: the land use pattern of karnataka land use pattern area (in m ha) total geographic area 19.17 reporting area for land utilization statistics 19.05 forest 3.03 not available for cultivation 1.92 other uncultivated land excluding 2.13 fallow land fallow land 1.56 net area sown 10.40 area sown more than once 0.84 total cropped area 11.24 source: directorate of economics and statistics (2015) soils of karnataka soils of karnataka are grouped into different major soil orders viz., alfisols, aridisols, entisols, histosols, inceptisols, ultisols and vertisols (fig. 1). according j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 98-108, 2019 zinc status in the soils of karnataka to soil survey data, the soils of karnataka can be divided under nine groups. they are red sandy soils, red loamy soils, shallow black soils, medium black soils, deep black soils, mixed black and red soils, laterite soils, laterite gravelly soils and coastal alluvium. most of the soils has acidic to neutral to slightly alkaline ph, low-medium organic carbon, medium to high available n and k, low in available p, deficient in zn and sufficient in other micronutrients. soil zn status of karnataka in india, zn is now considered as fourth most important yield limiting nutrient after n, p and k, 100 fig. 3: soil zn status of karnataka respectively. analysis of 256000 soils and 25000 plant samples from all over the india showed that 49% of the soils and 44% of the plant samples were potentially zn deficient and that this was the most common micronutrient problem affecting crop yields in india (arunachalam et al. 2013). deficiency of zn has increased in southern states because of intensive cropping and extensive use of npk fertilizers without micronutrients. further it has been reported from periodic assessment of soils that, by the year 2025, zn deficient soils in india is likely to increase from 49 to 63% as most of the marginal soils brought under cultivation are showing zn deficiency (singh, 2006). families consuming the fa rm produce from zn deficient soil leads to low zn in their blood plasma compared to those who were fed on produce from regular zn supplied soils. therefore application of zn is essential to maintain soil, seeds/crops and blood plasma of humans and animals (singh, 2009). in view of the emerging zn deficiencies in southern states and micronutrient malnutrition problems in rural population, it is inevitable to study soil zn status as well as its response in various horticultural crops. more than 75% of the soil samples in karnataka are found to be deficient in zn (fig.2). this might be due to high soil ph, poor organic matter content, excessive r emova l by cr op intensifica tion a nd fa ulty ma nagement pra ctices like imbala nce fertilizer management. in traditional areca nut growing soils of karnataka, the available zinc content of soils ranged from 2.9 to 8.2 mg/kg with a mean value of 4.17 mg/ kg. similarly thirthahalli area had 4.7 mg zn kg-1 soil; sagar area had 3.7mg zn kg-1 soil and sringeri area had 4.7 mg kg-1 soil whereas, zinc status in soils under mulberry (mysore, tumkur, bangalore, kolar) ranged from 0.40 to 0.69 mg/kg. more than 95% of the samples analyzed were found to be deficient in zinc and the remaining samples recorded just sufficient zinc status in malaprabha right bank command area (ravikumar et al., 2007). agro-ecological regions of karnataka and their zn status is depicted in fig. 2 & 3 (table 2). ganeshamurthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 98-108, 2019 fi g. 2: agro-ecologi cal z on es of kar na ta ka sta te factors affecting zinc availability in soils the total zinc content of the soils is of little importance in predicting the zinc supplying capacity of a soil. the solubility of zinc in soil is controlled by the matrix of iron, aluminium, manganese and other elemental oxides, carbonates, silicates and organic compounds. soil reaction, organic matter, type and extent of clay, calcium carbonate, iron and aluminium oxides, and soil phosphorus affect the zinc availability to plants. let us see some of the major soil factors that affect the zn availability in this region. 101 soil reaction the ph of karnataka soils are mostly in neutral to slightly alkaline range particularly in northern, central and southern plateau region. coastal as well as western ghats region and its surrounding areas have acidic ph range (fig. 4). availability of zinc decreases of zinc with increase in soil ph was attributed to the formation of zinc hydroxides. soil organic matter organic matter status of soils of karnataka is depicted in fig. 5. organic matter can have negative influence j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 98-108, 2019 zinc status in the soils of karnataka table 2: response of banana to zn an on farm study, doddaballapur, karnataka name of yield (t/ha) leaf zn (mg/kg) leaf p (%) the farm no zn zn @0.25% no zn zn @0.25% no zn zn @0.25% cg farm 65.4 74.5 14.2 24 1.16 0.84 ka farm 55.6 58.4 15.0 26 0.96 0.64 ps farm 49.4 60.4 9.0 28 0.91 0.72 mg farm 64.4 74.4 18.0 32 0.48 0.74 fig. 4: soil ph status of karnataka state with the increase in soil ph. the solubility of zinc is highly dependent on ph and decreases by 100 folds for each unit increase in soil ph. the solubility of zinc is maximum in the ph range of 5 to 7 in the mineral soils a nd 4. 5 to 6.0 in the or ga nic soils. zinc deficiencies occur usually in soils of ph 6.0 or more. so expected zinc deficiency is mainly in northern, central and southern plateau region. soil ph may influence the transport of adsorbed zinc to plant tops.stability of soluble and insoluble organic complex of zinc depends on soil ph. the reduced availability fig. 5: spatial distribution of organic carbon in soils of karnataka on available zinc in organic matter rich acid soils of coastal karnataka.the zinc availability increases with increased content of organic matter. organic matter plays an important role on the availability of zinc through the forma tion of soluble orga no-metal complexes and stable metalo-organic complexes. metal complex with fulvic acid fraction of organic matter is highly water soluble. natural complexing agents present in the organic materials effectively enhance concentration of soluble zinc complexes in soil solution through dissolution of sparingly soluble zinc compound and chelation of zinc ions so liberated. 102 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 98-108, 2019 ganeshamurthy et al soil phosphorus the soil p status of karnataka is depicted in fig. 6. a large area is having either sufficient available p in karnataka with high available phosphorus p (30.8 kg p2o5 ha -1) was non-significantly correlated with available zn. considering the above four factors, karnataka soils having high p status in major area shows p induced zn deficiency in many crops either in the form of visible symptoms or hidden hunger of varying degree. soil maps as tools to delineate and manage deficient regions soil testing can be used to diagnose and manage nutrient problems in the farmers’ fields. typical results from icrisat on soil zn status for two districts in karnataka are included here as an example (fig.7). a large contiguous tract of land deficient in zn was identified across bagepalli and gudibanda blocks in fig. 6: soil phosphorus status of karnataka soil or in excess due to accumulations following continuous application of phosphatic fertilizers. phosphorus induced zn disorder in plant is commonly associated with high levels of available p or with the application of p to the soil. four possible causes of p induced zn deficiency (a) slower rate of translocation of zn from roots to top (b) accentuating zn deficiency in plants in presence of high available p (c) simple dilution effect on zn concentration in the top owing to growth response of p. excess p interferes with metabolic functions of zn within the plant cells. when there is slight or more of yield to p application, zn concentration at the top of the plant and uptake of zn reduces (d) metabolic disorder with plant cells related to an imba la nce between p & zn. gr een house experiments have shown that the concentration and uptake of zn increased in the roots and decreased in the leaves, nodes and internodes of vegetables due to the increa sed levels of p application. zn availability in acid soils of fig. 7: block level soil zn status of chikballapur and chitradurga district. 103 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 98-108, 2019 zinc status in the soils of karnataka table 2 : status of zn in agro-ecological regions of karnataka 104 chikballapur district. other blocks viz. gauribidanur and chintamani in chikballapur district also had pockets potentially deficient in zn. the results also showed that almost all blocks in chitradurga district were critically deficient in zn (fig.7) response of horticultural crops to applied zn zinc is applied to crop by soil application, foliar spray, coating/soaking of seeds or seedling in zn solution or slurry. among these methods, soil and foliar application is generally practiced (ganeshamurthy et al., 2015). the optimum micronutrient content of plant tissues of various horticultural crops is depicted (raghupathi et al. 2014). in case of zn, optimum range in most of the fruit crops is 20-50 ppm. further, the response of crops to zn application is reported by many workers across the country. in the following paragraphs, the response of zn along with other micronutrient in many horticultural crops studied in the region is briefly elaborated. zinc and boron deficiency are the most important micronutrient disorders in horticultural crops. foliar spr a y of 0. 15% zinc cor r ects the deficiency (ganeshamurthy et al., 2013). studies in sweet orange have indicated that soil application of zinc sulphate at 1 kg/plant once in every 4 years is the most effective method for controlling zn deficiency in neutral and alkaline soils. foliar spray with zinc sulphate (0.3%) along with humectant (cacl2 at 2%) once in a year during the active flush period is equally effective. effect of zn application in vegetable crops zinc fertilizer application can increase yield from 15 to 25% in french bean, capsicum, chili, onion, tomato and cabbage. screening of a number of tomato varieties for their tolerance to low zinc in the soil indicated that varieties with semi-determinate growth habits like ‘arka saurabh’, ‘arka vikas’ and some f1 hybrids are least tolerant, whereas those with determinate growth like ‘sioux’ and ‘pusa ruby’ are more tolerant and iihr selection 1098 was the most tolerant. tolerant varieties obtained adequate zinc from the soil with the help of more fibrous roots and lowering the ph of the rhizosphere. combined application of b, zn,cu, fe, mn @ 100 ppm and mo @ 50ppm produced the highest tomato fruit yield of 26.7 t ha-1compared to the yield of 24.0 tobtained with zn and 20.0 t ha-1 in control (bhatt et al., 2004). in cabbage, activity of enzyme carbonic anhydrase was found to be a good index of metabolically active zinc. foliar application of 0.5% znso4 recorded minimum mean weight loss (20.16%) of cabbage heads (sarma et al., 2005). application of 20 kg znso4 ha -1 to cauliflower cultivar snowball-16 produced the highest marketable curd yield. performance of the applied znwas distinctly superior when applied in conjunction of 22 kg pha-1. application of 8 kg zn ha-1 gave16% higher yield of potato than control and 4.5% higher than foliar sprays @ 1kg ha-1 (raghav and singh, 2004). foliar spray of1% znso4 to onion produced highest seed yield per plant andunit area with high ger mina tion per centage (kha late et al., 2002), indicating the usefulness of the zn in improving the seed health. folia r spr ayof znso 4@0. 75% to ‘pudukottailocal’cucumber produced maximumfruit set, number of fruit/vine,fruit weight and yield (madhu sudhan and shakila, 2003). in okra, combined spray of zn and mo (20 ppm each) gave highestpod yield of 6.9 t ha-1 compared to2.8 t in control (srihari et al., 1987).significantly higher okra yield of 5.5 t ha-1 was obtained when 40 kg znso4 ha -1was applied as basal soil applicationas compared to 4.1 t ha-1 obtained with 2.5 kg znso4 ha -1 dose appliedto foliage twice and control (raghavand sharma, 2003). effect of zn application in mango from the results of two years data on application of zn to dashehari mango, it is observed that zn application had increased the mango yield and other quality parameters such as tss, ascorbic acid and sugar: acid ratio (singh et al., 2003). application of zn increased the mango yield by 21% and fruit quality a lso enha nced. t hese pa r a meter s a r e fur ther impr oved when zn wa s a pplied with other micronutrients (b and cu). influence of zn on banana yield, leaf zn and p on farm studies conducted in four different farms of doddaballapur, karnataka revealed that foliar spray of zn at 0.25% at regular interval had tremendously increased the banana yield (at the scale of 5.0122.26%) and leaf zn content and reduced the leaf p content in the most cases when compared to the control treatment (where no zn is applied). it showed that application of zn is very useful to the crop growth and development and to attain higher yield. j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 98-108, 2019 ganeshamurthy et al 105 response of mandarin orange to zn application the effect of zn and other micronutrients on yield and quality of mandarin orange has been reported by saraswathy et al. (1998) and dineshbabu and yadav (2005).application of zn along with urea and other micronutrients boosted the number of fruits per tree, fruit weight and yield. in addition, it enhanced fruit juice content, tss, titratable acidity, total sugars and ascorbic acid content of mandarin orange. zinc application on growth and yield of papaya papaya showed clear-cut response to zn and other micronutrients (fe and b) application (pant and lavania, 1998). application of znso4 (0.15%) through foliar spray improved the number of fruits per plant and fruit yield. moreover, application of zn along with other micronutrients further enhanced the plant growth and yield of papaya. effect of application of zn and b on sapota soil application of znso4 (50 g/tree) has increased fruit weight and number of fruits per tree and yield of sapota. increasing the amount of znso4from 50100 mg did not show any significant improvement in these parameters. application of znso4(50 g) along with 25 g borax per tree had further improved fruit weight and number of fruits per tree and yield of sapota and which are at par with that of znso4 (100 g) + borax (50 g) per tree (saraswathy et al. 2004). moreover, the highest yield and fruit weight and numbers has been observed in plants that received znso4(50 g) + borax (25 g) per tree + 0.5% znso4 spray. from the study, it was clear that the combined practices of both soil and foliar application of zn is more beneficial to plant than any single practices. effect of zn and b on pineapple application of znso4 alone and in combination with borax influenced fruit weight and quality parameters of in ‘giant kew’ pineapple. when compared among different levels of znso4 application (0.2, 0.4 and 0.6% foliar spray), though 0.6% znso4 spray was found to be superior, application of 0.4% znso4 spray is effective a nd economica l (kar et al. 2012). further combined application of borax (0.05%) along with znso4 did not show any significant change in these parameters. influence of foliar spray of znso4 on grapes under field trials, foliar application of znso4 @ 0.4% in 5-year old ‘perlette’ grape vines was the most effective in increasing yield, bunch weight and berry weight and quality parameters (dhillon and bindra, 1995). effect of zn application in guava in 7-year old ‘allahabad safeda’ guava, application of foliar spray of 0.6% znso4 produced significantly higher yield and quality of fruits. application of zinc caused 72% fruit set against 64% in control, 166g fruit weight against 143g in control, 499 fruits/tree against 426 in control, 82 kg fruit yield against 60 kg/ tree in control, 11.3% tss against 9.6% in control, 0.36% acidity against 0.43 in control, and 127 mg ascorbic acid against 103 mg in control. bronzing’, a common disorder in guava occurring on the red soils of poor fertility in karnataka was found to be caused due to combined deficiencies of phosphorus, potassium and zinc. severe cases of disorder result in trunk splitting. foliar spray with dap (0.5%), potassium sulphate (0.5%) andzinc sulphate (0.3%) controls the disorder. zinc deficiency alone can be effectively controlled by soil application of zinc sulphate @ 800 g/plant once in 4 years in guava. conclusions wide spread zn deficiency is a reality in soils of karnataka and is equally distributed in all the agroclimatic regions of the state. district level deficiency maps helps to a great extent in management of zn deficiency in soils and crops. horticultural crops respond very significantly to zn application. further, the response and amount of zn required by individual crops vary and it is influenced by climate and soil factors. many site-specific nutrient management studies need to be done for effective management of zn. from the available data, it is obvious that application of zn to horticultural crops enhances the zn content of the produce. this helps in enhancing the availability of zn in the food. aknowledgement the a uthor s thank icar-nbsslup 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(received on 21.5.2018 and accepted on 12.12.2019) untitled-1 french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) is an important leguminous vegetable crop in india. it is also known as kidney bean, snap bean, common bean, haricot bean, tepary bean, bush bean and fras bean. it is used as vegetable when pods are immature and tender. beans are also pickled and cooked beans are served cold in salads. canned and home-prepared red kidney beans are used in salads, meat and fish dishes (begum et al, 2003). french bean is a good source of protein, carbohydrate, calcium, iron, phosphorus and vitamins, particularly, vitamin b. genetic constitution of a variety makes a great contribution to growth, yield and pod quality in french bean. improved varieties, in general, give higher yields if supplied with optimum nutrition and are grown under favourable conditions (farkade and pawar, 2002). french bean does not nodulate with native rhizobia in the plains. consequently, it responds well to application of nitrogen (kushwaha 1991). nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur are classified as major plant nutrients as these are required in relatively large amounts. increase in growth and yield has been registered with higher doses of these nutrients (farkade and pawar, 2002). earlier studies were confined mainly to n, p and k requirement of this crop. not much attention was paid to sulphur nutrition. sulphur deficiency is identified as a yield-limiting factor, particularly, in production of pulse j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):268-270, 2013 short communication studies on french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) varieties under different n, p, k and s levels for growth, yield and economics b.k. sharma, s.s. kushwah, k.s. verma and o.p. singh1 department of vegetable science, college of horticulture rajmata vijayaraje scindia krishi vishwa vidyalaya gwalior, mandsaur 458 001, india e-mail: kushwahhort@rediffmail.com abstract fifteen combinations of three french bean varieties viz., arka komal (v1), swaran priya (v2) and contender (v3) and five fertilizer levels (f120:40:40:20kg/ha npks; f240:40:40:20kg/ha npks; f3 60:60:60:40kg/ha npks; f4 80:60:60:40kg/ha npks, and f5 -100:80:80:50kg/ha npks) were tested in factorial randomized block design, with three replications. among the varieties, swaran priya was superior for growth attributes, yield attributes and yield. among fertilizer levels, f5 (100:80:80:50kg/ha npks) resulted in highest growth parameters, yield parameters and yield of pods. economic evaluation showed that variety swaran priya under f5 (100:80:80:50kg/ha npks) resulted in maximum gross returns, net returns and cost:benefit ratio for green pod production. key words: french bean, varieties, fertilizer levels, growth, yield, economics and oilseed crops. intensive cultivation and use of high-grade fertilizers have resulted in depletion of sulphur in the soil. sulphur has been observed in several legume crops to increase crop yield and quality of the produce (najar et al, 2011). with these facts in view, a field experiment was conducted to evaluate performance of french bean varieties under different fertilizer levels. the experiment was conducted at bahadari farm, college of horticulture, mandsaur, during rabi 2008-09. fifteen combinations of three varieties (v1arka komal, v2 swaran priya and v3 contender) and five fertilizer levels (f120:40:40:20kg/ha npks; f240:40:40:20kg/ha npks; f3 60:60:60:40kg/ha npks; f4 80:60:60:40kg/ha npks, and f5 -100:80:80:50kg/ha npks) were laid out in factorial randomized block design, with three replications. soil in the experimental field was medium-black (vertisol), clayey in texture, with uniform topography. soil ph, ec (dsm-1), available nitrogen (kg/ha), phosphorus (kg/ha), potassium (kg/ha) and sulphur (kg/ha) were 7.10, 0.24, 141, 22, 389 and 27, respectively. seeds were sown on 6th october 2008, at a spacing of 45×15cm. observations were recorded on plant height (cm), number of leaves per plant, number of branches per plant, leaf area (cm2) per plant, days to 50% flowering, number of pods per plant, length of pods (cm), fresh weight (g) of green pods per plant, pod yield (q) per 1department of plant physiology and botany 269 french bean varieties under different n, p, k and s levels hectare, and analyzed statistically as per standard procedures. green pods were harvested between 30th november and 20th december, 2008. economic evaluation of various combinations for fresh-pod production in french bean was done on the basis of existing price of the produce inputs provided. the findings (table1) showed significant influence of variety on various growth parameters. plant height attained was maximum in cv. swaran priya, followed by arka komal and was least in cv. contender. highest number of leaves per plant, leaf area per plant, number of branches per plant was maximum in cv. swaran priya, followed by cv. arka komal and contender. these findings corroborate those of farkade and pawar (2002). days taken to 50% flowering varied from 31.6 to 33 days. application of fertilizers exerted significant influence on growth parameters. maximum plant height, number of leaves per plant, leaf area per plant and number of branches per plant were recorded with application of f5, followed by f4, f3, f2 and f1, respectively. higher dose of npks (these nutrients play important role in photosynthesis as well as energy transport) may have enhanced growth attributes in french bean. similar findings were reported by farkade and pawar (2002) and singh and verma (2002). higher levels of fertilizer delayed flowering by 2 days compared to f-1. higher doses of fertilizer, particularly nitrogen, prolonged the growth period and resulted in delayed flowering. yield parameters and yield showed significant influence of variety (table 1). cultivar swaran priya recorded highest number of pods per plant, fresh weight of green pods per plant, and pod yield per hectare. this was followed by cvs. arka komal and contender. length of pod was maximum in cv. arka komal, followed by swaran priya and contender. higher photosynthetic area could have resulted in improved yield parameters and yield in cv. swaran priya. moniruzzaman et al (2007) also found significant influence of cultivar on these attributes in french bean. fertilizer application had significant effect on yield parameters and yield in french bean. a linear increase in yield parameters and yield was seen with increasing levels of fertilizer. highest number of pods per plant, length of table 1. effect of variety and fertilizer level on growth attributes, yield attributes and yield in french bean treatment plant number number of leaf days number length fresh pod yield height of leaves branches area per to 50% of pods of pod weight of (q) per (cm) per plant per plant plant flowering per plant (cm) green pods hectare (cm2) per plant (g) variety v1 (arka komal) 36.17 57.76 10.45 657.80 33.00 27.04 14.58 64.15 94.38 v2 (swaran priya) 42.09 66.84 11.69 905.56 32.20 33.78 14.22 71.91 104.05 v3 (contender) 35.85 53.69 9.69 640.33 31.60 25.61 14.08 59.49 86.33 s.em± 0.19 0.29 0.14 2.58 0.17 0.28 0.09 0.48 0.95 cd (p=0.05) 0.57 0.81 0.39 7.46 0.49 0.81 0.26 1.39 2.75 fertilizer level (f) f1 (20:40:40:20kg/ha npks) 33.76 51.84 9.36 543.88 30.89 23.69 13.62 61.46 88.79 f2 (40:40:40:20kg/ha npks) 35.52 54.77 9.96 632.82 31.89 25.56 14.03 62.89 91.98 f3 (60:60:60:40kg/ha npks) 38.18 59.74 10.44 715.88 32.33 28.61 14.25 64.80 93.90 f4 (80:60:60:40kg/ha npks) 40.16 63.53 11.01 846.66 32.89 30.93 14.58 66.87 98.03 f5 (100:80:80:50kg/ha npks) 42.58 67.27 12.28 933.59 33.33 35.26 15.00 69.89 101.91 s.em± 0.23 0.33 0.16 3.32 0.20 0.33 0.11 0.62 1.23 cd (p=0.05) 0.66 0.94 0.46 9.63 0.57 0.94 0.30 1.80 3.55 table 2. economic evaluation of various treatments for pod production in french bean treatment pod cost of gross net cost:benefit yield cultivation returns profit ratio (q/ha) (rs./ha) (rs./ha) (rs./ha) v1f1 87.47 15256 43735 28479 1:1.87 v1f2 91.66 15456 45830 30374 1:1.97 v1f3 92.67 16146 46335 30189 1:1.87 v1f4 99.33 16326 49665 33339 1:2.04 v1f5 100.80 16946 50400 33454 1:1.97 v2f1 97.23 15256 48615 33359 1:2.19 v2f2 101.47 15456 50735 35279 1:2.28 v2f3 103.83 16146 51915 35769 1:2.22 v2f4 105.77 16326 52885 36559 1:2.24 v2f5 111.97 16946 55985 39039 1:2.30 v3f1 81.68 15256 40840 25584 1:1.68 v3f2 82.81 15456 41405 25949 1:1.68 v3f3 85.20 16146 42600 26454 1:1.64 v3f4 89.00 16326 44500 28174 1:1.73 v3f5 92.97 16946 46485 29539 1:1.74 french bean pod selling price: rs. 5/kg j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):268-270, 2013 270 pod, fresh weight of green pods per plant, and pod yield per hectare were seen with application of f5 (100:80:80:50kg/ ha npks). this was followed by f4, f3, f2 and f1, respectively. higher availability of nutrients may have resulted in improved growth parameters, yield parameters and yield with application of higher levels of fertilizer. srinivas and nayak (1988), farkade and pawar (2002) and singh and verma (2002) also reported higher growth parameters and yield with higher doses of fertilizer in french bean. economic evaluation of fresh pod production (table 2) revealed highest net returns in cv. swaran priya under f5 (100:80:80:50:kg/ha npks), followed by v2f4 (swaran priya, under 80:60:60:40kg/ha npks). cost:benefit ratio was maximum in v2f5 (swaran priya, under 100:80:80:50:kg/ha npks). singh and verma (2002) also reported higher returns with high-yielding varieties and higher doses of fertilizer. references begum, a., ahad, a., kaisar, m.o., islam, m.m. and anam, m.k. 2003. morphological and reproductive attributes in french bean (phaseolus vulgaris) as influenced by sowing time and fertilizer treatments. pakistan j. biol. sci., 6:1902-1906 farkade, b.k. and pawar, w.s. 2002. growth performance and yield of french bean varieties as influenced by different fertilizer levels. j. soils & crops, 12:142-144 kushwaha, b.l. 1991. response of winter french bean at varying levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in north indian plains. indian j. pulses res., 4:217-218 moniruzzaman, m., rahman, s.m.l., kibria, m.g., rahman, m.a. and kaisar, m.o. 2007. performance of vegetable french bean as influenced by varieties and sowing dates in rabi season. int’l. j. sustain. crop prodn., 2:69-73 najar, g.r., singh, s.r., akhtar, f. and hakeem, s.a. 2011. influence of sulphur level on yield, uptake and quality of soyabean (glycine max) under temperate conditions of kashmir valley. indian j. agri. sci., 81:340-343 singh, n.b. and verma, k.k. 2002. nitrogen and phosphorus nutrition of french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) grown in eastern uttar pradesh under late sown condition. indian j. agron., 47:89-93 srinivas, k. and naik, l.b. 1988. response of vegetable french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) to nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization. indian j. agri. sci., 58:707-708 (ms received 14 may 2012, accepted 21 august 2013, revised 17 september 2013) sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):268-270, 2013 eco friendly, scientific method of crop production envisages use of organics in the soil as a source of nutrients. inorganic nutrients play an important, direct role in yield and its attributes, as well as uptake of nutrients. however, use of organics along with inorganic nutrients not only helps increase the yield of crops, but also acts as a storehouse of nutrients, besides improving physical condition of the soil and quality of the produce. chilli is one of the important commercial crops in the krishna zone. chilli, being a long duration crop, requires proper manuring and fertilizing in the surface soil is because of its shallow root system, for attaining high yields and quality produce (bidari, 2000). the escalating cost of fertilizers, their hazardous polluting effects on environment and quality of the produce, there is a growing awareness among the farming community of the advantages of organic fertilizers. therefore the present investigation was undertaken to study the effect of organic, inorganic and biofertilizers for yield improvement in chillies in vertisols. a field experiment was conducted at regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur, during kharif productivity in chilli (cv. lca 334) as influenced by organic and inorganic nutrient management in vertisols s. bharathi, s. surya kumari and k. uma jyothi regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur522034, india e-mail: bharathi_says@yahoo.com abstract a field experiment was conducted at regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur during the kharif season of 2003-04 and 2004-05 in vertisols with an objective to assess effectiveness of organic nutrient package for yield sustainability and to assess inorganic nutrient management package vis-a-vis organic package for yield and quality in chilli cv. lca 334. farmers of this region generally use very high doses of inorganic fertilizers with improper nutrient balance which has led to deterioration of productivity and quality of both the produce soil. the experiment was carried out in randomized block design with ten treatments, in combinations of organic and inorganic sources. the organic sources used were: green manure (incorporation of pillipesara), neem cake, azospirillum, phosphate solubilizing bacteria, vam and burnt ash, and integrated with 50%, 75% and 100% recommended nitrogen in the form of chemical fertilizer. results revealed that maximum dry chilli yield ( 5397kg ha-1) was recorded in combined application of green manure, neem cake, azospirillum, phosphate solubilizing bacteria, burnt ash along with 100% recommended nitrogen. key words: chilli, organic, inorganic nutrient management 2003-04 and 2004-05. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with ten treatments replicated thrice. treatments were as follows: t1 green manure (sunnhemp) + neem cake @ 2t/ha + azospirillum @ 2kg/ha + burnt ash (crop residue) + phosp obacteria t2 green manure (sunnhemp) + neem cake @ 2t/ha + azospirillum @ 2kg/ha + burnt ash (crop residue) + phosp obacteria + 50% of recommended dose of nitrogen t3 green manure (sunnhemp) + neem cake @ 2t/ha + azospirillum @ 2kg/ha + burnt ash (crop residue) + phospobacteria +75% of recommended dose of nitrogen t4 green manure (sunnhemp) + neem cake @ 2t/ha + azospirillum @ 2kg/ha + burnt ash (crop residue) + phospobacteria +100% recommended dose of nitrogen t5 green manure (sunnhemp) + azospirillum @ 2kg/ha short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):62-65, 2011 63 t6 green manure (sunnhemp) + azospirillum @ 2kg/ ha + 50% of recommended dose of nitrogen t7 green manure (sunnhemp) + azospirillum @ 2kg/ ha + 75% of recommended dose of nitrogen t8 green manure (sunnhemp) + azospirillum @ 2kg/ ha + 100% of recommended dose of nitrogen t9 recommended npk (200-60-80) t10 farmers’ practice (300-200-60) the crop was raised with a spacing of 60cm x 30cm. standard cultural practices recommended were followed and fertilizers were applied as per treatments. green manure crop (sunnhemp) was raised @ 20 kg seed per hectare and was applied at the preflowering stage. by this practice, 30 tonnes of biomass per hectare on freshweight basis was added to the soil. data on growth characters, yield attributes, yield, fruit rot incidence and quality analysis, i.e.,oleoresin and capsanthin content were recorded. data on growth parameters (table 1) revealed that application of organic manure with recommended dose of inorganic nitrogen showed superior performance in respect of growth and yield. maximum plant height (96.2cm) and plant spread (101.5cm) was recorded with 100% recommended inorganic nitrogen in combination with organics-green manure ( sunnhemp) + neem cake @ 2t/ha + azospirillum @ 2kg/ha + burnt ash (crop residue) + phosphobacteria. this is in accordance with findings of montagu and goh (1990) in tomato. number of fruits per plant (which is one of the most vital attributes) considerably increased with combined application of organic and bio fertilizers along with inorganic nitrogen, than treatments which received inorganic fertilizers alone. the highest number of fruits per plant was recorded in t4 (301), followed by t8 (281.5) and these were almost on par with each other, and significantly superior to other treatments. this could be attributed to the solubilization effect of plant nutrients by addition of organics, leading to increased uptake of npk, as reported by subbiah et al (1984). similar and nanthakumar and veeraraghavatatham (1999). lowest number of fruits per plant was recorded in t1 (109) and t5 (101) which received only organics. there was no significant difference among treatments in 100 pod weight and number of primary branches per plant (table 2). the highest dry chilli yield was recorded in t4 (5397 kg/ha) which was almost on par with t8 (4885 kg/ ha). results revealed that combined application of organics with recommended dose of inorganic fertilizers gave superior yield. similar results were reported by nair and peter (1990) in chilli and by (poopathi, 1994) tomato. on the other hand, among the quality parameter analyzed, there was no significant difference in, oleoresin content. however, the highest oleoresin content was recorded in t1 (9.8%) which received only organics. significantl, higher capsanthin (eoa colour value) was recorded in t1 (10056), followed by t5 (9845). this might be due to physiological influence of azospirillum, neem cake and phosphobacteria on the activity of enzymes. similar observations were reported by dhanalakshmi (1989) in tomato. further, fruit rot incidence was also significantly low table 1. effect of organics and inorganics on yield attributes and yield in chilli treatment plant height (cm) plant spread (cm) no of fruits / plant no. of primary branches / plant 03-04 04-05 mean 03-04 04-05 mean 03-04 04-05 mean 03-04 04-05 mean t1: greenmanure 81.7 71.6 76.6 77.6 74.2 75.9 108 110 109.0 3.7 3.3 3.5 +neem cake +azosp + psb+varm+burnt ash t2: t1+50% rec.n 85.1 75.01 80.0 86.4 78.6 82.5 132 120 126.0 4.0 4.5 4.25 t3: t1+75% rec.n 92.2 82.2 87.2 96.7 87.3 92.0 219 210 214.5 3.8 3.8 3.8 t4: t1+100% rec.n 101.2 91.2 96.2 107.6 95.4 101.5 310 300 301.0 4.5 3.9 4.2 t5: green manure 79.9 69.9 74.9 74.4 67.6 76.4 97 105 101.0 3.6 3.7 3.65 +azosp+psb t6: t5+50% rec.n 83.0 73.0 78.0 83.0 83.8 83.4 115 115 115.0 4.0 5.0 4.5 t7: t5+50% rec.n 91.5 81.5 86.5 95.9 84.7 90.3 160 190 175.0 4.3 3.0 3.65 t8: t5+50% rec.n 97.5 87.5 92.5 103.4 93.4 98.4 298 275 281.5 3.9 3.6 3.75 t9: rec. npk (200:60:80) 99.4 89.4 94.4 94.6 92.5 93.2 265 270 267.5 3.8 3.6 3.7 t10: farmers’ 98.3 88.3 93.3 92.2 89.1 90.7 264 260 262.0 4.4 3.9 4.15 practice (300:200:50) cd(p=0.05) 10.64 12.7 11.6 12.69 15.8 14.2 33.6 15.2 21.2 ns ns ns cv% 6.8 9.2 8.0 8.1 10.5 9.3 10.8 8.7 9.8 productivity of chilli in vertisols j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):62-65, 2011 64 table 2. effect of organics and inorganics on yield attributes and yield in chilli treatment 100 pod weight (g) days to 50% flowering yield (kg ha-1) 03-04 04-05 mean 03-04 04-05 mean 03-04 04-05 mean t1: green manure 69.0 72.6 70.8 53.2 59.6 56.4 2690 2590 2640 +neem cake +azosp +psb+varm+burnt ash t2: t1+50% rec.n 71.0 70.0 70.5 58.0 60.0 59.0 2880 2680 2780 t3: t1+75% rec.n 70.6 72.2 71.4 60.5 62.3 61.4 3510 3250 3380 t4: t1+100% rec.n 71.5 72.5 72.0 62.3 60.5 61.8 5494 5300 5397 t5: green manure 72.0 71.0 71.6 58.9 54.4 56.6 2510 2450 2480 +azosp+psb t6: t5+50% rec.n 70.2 71.6 70.9 57.8 60.0 58.9 2790 2500 2645 t7: t5+50% rec.n 70.1 71.5 70.8 60.0 58.0 59.0 3070 2980 3025 t8: t5+50% rec.n 71.7 71.9 71.8 61.0 58.0 59.5 4820 4950 4885 t9: rec.npk (200:60:80) 70.2 70.8 70.6 56.0 60.0 58.0 4020 4780 4400 t10: farmers’ 70.6 70.2 70.4 61.0 57.0 59.0 3957 4650 4304 practice (300:200:50) cd(p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns 739 647 693 cv% 12.5 10.4 11.5 ns = non-significant table 3. effect of organics and inorganics on yield and quality in chilli (mean data 2003-2005) treatment fruit set (%) oleoresin capsanthin damaged pods content (%) content (eao) (% fruit rot incidence) t1:greenmanure+neem cake +azosp 59.8(50.7) 9.8 10056 11.99 (20.36) + psb+vam+burnt ash t2:t1+50% rec.n 58.7(50.0) 9.2 9507 14.03 (22.19) t3:t1+75% rec.n 58.7(50.0) 9.1 9416 15.07 (22.83) t4:t1+100% rec.n 63.2(52.5) 9.1 8809 15.76 (23.43) t5:greenmanure+azosp+psb 56.3(48.9) 9.6 9854 12.20 (20.43) t6:t5+50% rec.n 56.5(48.9) 9.6 9069 14.70 (22.38) t7:t5+50% rec.n 57.5(49.2) 9.5 8896 16.83 (23.92) t8:t5+50% rec.n 62.5(51.8) 9.5 8174 17.20 (24.49) t9:rec.npk(200:60:80) 56.5(48.9) 9.4 7868 20.95 (27.25) t10:farmers practice (300:200:50) 56.3(48.9) 9.4 7858 21.71 (27.77) cd(p=0.05) 2.5 ns 60.68 2.6 cv% 6.8 2.4 6.5 figures in parantheses are angular transformed values in organic treatments t1 (11.99%) and t5 (12.20%). maximum fruit rot was recorded in treatments t9 (20.95%) and t10 (21.71%) which received only inorganic fertilizers. organic manures, however, showed an advantage over the recommended practices in terms of fruit quality (table 3). the highest oleoresin and capsanthin content were seen in ‘organics alone’ treatment, which is consistent with other reports (sharu, 2000). lack of response to organics presumably owes to the present experimental site having been under chemical farming for several previous seasons. moreover, long-term experimentation may be necessary to elucidate beneficial effects of the organics, especially, on aspects relating to soil health. nonetheless, a gradual shift away from the chemical to organic practices seems a prudent choice for sustained crop production and the superior quality of produce. results of the study revealed that maximum dry chilli yield (5397kg ha -1) can be obtained with 100% recommended dose of nitrogen in combination with green manure, neem cake, azospirillum, burnt ash and phosphobacteria, followed by the treatment green manure azospirillum along with 100% recommended dose of nitrogen (4885kg ha-1). however the highest colour value and the lowest fruit rot incidence were recorded in organics. monitoring phosphorous and potassium status in the soil is necessary for timely correction to balance these nutrients. references bidari, b.i. 2000. assesment of yield and quality of byadagi chillies (capsicum annum l.) in relation to soil and management practices in dharwad district. ph.d.thesis university of agricultural sciences, dharwad. bharathi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):62-65, 2011 65 dhanalakshmi, p. 1989. effect of azospirillum inoculum and nitrogen fertilization on growth and yield of tomato. m.sc. thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, agricultural college and research institute, madurai jeyalaksmi, c. and seetharaman k. 1998. evaluation of chilli genotypes against fruit rot disease incited by colletotrichum capsici (syd) butler and bisby. south ind. hort., 46:104-105 montagu, k.d. and goh, k.m. 1990. effects of forms and rates of inorganic fertilizers on the yield and quality indices of tomatoes. nzl. j. crop. hort., sci. 31-37 nair, m. and peter, k.v. 1990. effect of organic, inorganic fertilizers and their combination on yield and storage life of hot chilli. veg. science, 17: 7-10. poopathi, g. 1994. effect of organic gardening in tomato cv.co-3. m.sc.(hort) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore subbiah. k., helkiah. j., ravi kumar. v. and rajagopal, c.k. 1982. effect of combined application of organic and inorganic fertilizers on yield and nutrient uptake of mdu chilli. south ind. hort., 30:45-47 sharu, s.r. 2000. integrated nutrient management in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). m.sc. (ag.) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 108p (ms received 09 march 2010, revised 10 january 2011) productivity of chilli in vertisols j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):62-65, 2011 coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) is one of the important leafy vegetables grown throughout our country. it has a pleasant aroma and is mainly used for garnishing food preparations. (anon, 2001 and shivashankara et at, 2003) its leaves are rich in vitamins a, c and minerals. though many improved varieties are available in coriander as a seed-spice, very little work has been done in improvement of leafy coriander. as such, there is a great paucity of research data in this crop which has tremendous significance in the indian context. presently, in the market some local varieties that are low yielders and some types with low aroma are available. therefore, with an objective of developing leafy coriander varieties with a high yield potential and good aroma, a breeding programme was initiated at the indian institute of horticultural research. this resulted in the development of high-yielding multicut coriander variety, arka isha b. varalakshmi, v. kesava rao1 d.v. sudhakar rao2, r.b. tiwari2 and m. prabhakar division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089, india e-mail : bvl@iihr.ernet.in abstract coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) is one of the important leafy vegetables having a pleasant aroma. very little research work has been done on improvement of leafy coriander and only a few local varieties, low-yielding and with low aroma, are available in the market. research work at indian institute of horticultural research has resulted in development of a leafy coriander variety, arka isha, with a high yield potential and good aroma. it is a multicut variety where the plants are bushy, leaves are broad and leaf lobes are short, and the variety is late flowering. yield is 3.74t ha-1 by pulling at 40 days after sowing, and 11.98t ha-1 by cutting. leaves have 167.05mg 100g-1 of vitamin c, with good aroma and keeping-quality. key words: leafy coriander, variety, yield 1division of plant physiology & biochemistry, iihr, bangalore 2division of post harvest technology , iihr, bangalore a high yielding variety, arka isha. development & performance of coriander variety, arka isha arka isha (coriandrum sativum var. microcarpum l.) was developed through mass selection from iihr acc. no. 19528. it has been tested for five years during kharif and rabi seasons at the vegetable farm, iihr, along with two checks, viz., jaipur local (coriandrum sativum var. microcarpum l., cutting type) and bangalore local (coriandrum sativum var. vulgare l., pulling type). ‘arka isha’ gave an average yield of 3.74t ha-1. by pulling, while the check variety, bangalore local, recorded 2.34t ha-1 (table 1). per cent yield increase in arka isha by pulling, over bangalore local, was 59.7%. by cutting, ‘arka isha’ yielded 11.98t ha-1 (in 3 cuts), which was 55.78% higher table 1. performance of coriander selection ‘arka isha’, at iihr, hessaraghatta, by pulling (yield in t ha-1) variety 1998-99 99-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2010-11* mean kharif rabi rabi kharif rabi rabi rabi arka isha 2.40 2.35 3.33 3.89 5.78 4.44 4.02 3.74 bangalore local 1.63 1.47 2.13 2.44 3.44 2.78 2.52 2.34 cd. (p=0.05) 0.36 0.47 0.38 0.42 0.19 0.25 0.28 0.34 cv (%) 20.30 19.00 15.60 19.20 3.60 8.40 16.50 14.60 per cent increase over bangalore local 59.7 *experiment resumed after a gap, for confirmation of results short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):91-93, 2012 92 varalakshmi et al arka isha table 2. performance of coriander variety ‘arka isha’, at iihr, hessaraghatta by cutting (yield in t ha-1) variety 1998-99 99-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2010-11* season mean kharif rabi rabi kharif rabi rabi kharif rabi arka isha 12.42 13.24 8.79 10.99 13.13 14.44 9.46 13.44 11.98 jaipur local 7.41 7.11 5.27 7.78 7.67 9.90 8.08 8.30 7.69 cd. (p=0.05) 3.05 1.23 0.58 1.44 0.97 1.19 1.79 0.68 1.31 cv (%) 20.60 19.70 12.50 15.40 18.50 16.00 5.65 13.40 16.59 per cent increase over jaipur loca 55.78 *experiment resumed after a gap, for confirmation of results table 3. plant characters of ‘arka isha’ and check varieties sl. character arka bangalore jaipur cd. no. isha local local (p=0.05) 1 days to 50% 50.00 35.00 45.00 4.37 flowering 2 plant 22.20 21.60 20.30 2.13 height (cm) 3 leaf weight/ 8.15 6.32 8.02 1.24 plant (g) 4 stem weight / 2.80 4.40 2.30 0.92 plant (g) 5 plant 14.00 11.30 12.00 2.49 weight (g) 6 days to 40.00 30.00 40.0 4.25 first harvest table 4. essential oil yield and its constituents in ‘arka isha’ and check varieties arka isha bangalore local jaipur local s.em.± leaf herb leaf herb leaf herb leaf herb a. oil yield (%) 0.083 0.053 0.088 0.032 0.043 0.037 0.011 0.005 b. constituents (in relative percentages) : 1. decanol 27.89 55.19 33.49 53.17 32.31 54.03 2.86 6.92 2. e-2-decene-1-ol 17.11 5.92 19.11 5.88 20.22 5.98 4.25 0.69 3. e-2-undecenal 3.35 6.25 4.82 5.98 3.45 7.06 0.93 1.22 4. e-2-dodecenal 6.93 2.75 8.31 3.11 8.31 3.26 0.47 0.27 5. e-2-tetra-decenal 7.11 3.05 8.35 3.09 8.34 3.94 2.42 0.63 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):91-93, 2012 than in jaipur local (7.69t ha-1) (table 2). means of various quantitative parameters are given in table 3. ‘arka isha’ is a late flowering variety compared to the checks. leaves of ‘arka isha’ recorded essential oil content of 0.083%, which was significantly higher than in the check variety. jaipur local (0.043%) (table 4) bangalore local recorded a higher essential oil content of 0.088%. physico chemical composition and keeping quality parameters of ‘arka isha’ and check varieties are depicted in table 5. salient features of coriander variety arka isha ● high yielding, multicut type (3 cuttings can be taken) ● plants bushy, leaves broad and leaf lobes short ● late flowering (50 days after sowing) ● first cutting at 40 days after sowing and subsequent cuttings at 15 day intervals ● yield 3.74t ha-1 by pulling at 40 days after sowing and 11.98t ha-1 by cutting (3 times) ● leaf moisture 82.4 %, total soluble solids 17.6 % and vitamin c content 167.05 mg 100g-1 ● leaf essential oil yield 0.083%, with good aroma ● keeping quality at room temperature (rt) 3 days, and at low temperature 3 weeks, without losing aroma when stored in polythene bags (100pe gauge) 93 (ms received 20 may 2011, revised 10 december 2011 high-yielding coriander variety table 5. physicochemical composition and keeping quality parameters of ‘arka isha’ and check varieties sl. parameter arka bangalore jaipur no. isha local local fresh leaves 1 moisture (%) 82.40 90.00 85.00 2 total solids (%) 17.60 10.00 15.00 3 vitamin c (mg/100g) 167.05 98.36 79.61 4 greenness of leaves (grade) 4.22 4.00 3.91 5 aroma (grade) 3.58 3.25 3.88 three days after storage in polythene bags at room temperature (rt) 1 greenness of leaves (grade) 3.25 2.83 3.25 2 aroma (grade) 3.00 2.83 2.42 3 keeping quality (days) 3.00 2.00 2.00 two weeks after storage in polythene bags at low temperature (refrigerator) 1 greenness of leaves (grade) 3.92 3.33 3.67 2 aroma (grade) 3.17 3.33 3.00 3 keeping quality (days) 14.00 14.00 14.00 three weeks after storage in polythene bags at low temperature (refrigerator) 1 greenness of leaves (grade) 3.70 spoiled spoiled 2 aroma (grade) 2.50 3 keeping quality (days) 21.00 note: grades: 5-very good, 4-good, 3average, 2bad (unsatisfactory), 1-very bad (unacceptable) references anonymous, 2010, production technology of vegetablesa hand book. p 55. published by iihr, bangalore. shivashankara, k.s., roy, t.k., varalakshmi, b., venkateshwarlu, g. and selvaraj, y., 2003. leaf essential oils of coriander (coriandrum sativum l) cultivars, indian perfumer, 47(1):35-37 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):91-93, 2012 sph -jhs coverpage december 2019 number 2 137 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 137-141, 2019 original research paper performance evaluation of ferns for cut green and landscape purpose mini sankar, sudhadevi p.k., geetha c.k., roshmi kurian and shilpa p. department of floricultureand landscaping, college of horticulture kerala agricultural university, vellanikkara, thrissur, india. corresponding author email: drminisankar@gmail.com abstract ferns can be used as ground covers, specimen plants and for group, background and border planting in landscape. they can also be used as fillers in bouquets and flower arrangements. hence, the objective of the study was to evaluate the performance of different fern species and to identify the suitable species for commercial cultivation. eleven species of ferns belonging to different genera viz., adiantum tenerum, asplenium nidus, asplenium longissimum, asplenium scolopendrium, diaplazium acrostichoides, nephrolepis biserrata ‘furcans’, nephrolepis exaltata ‘chidisii’, nephrolepis exaltata, bostoniensis compacta, nephrolepis cordifolia, nephrolepis biserrata miniata and pteris ensiformis were evaluated for growth pattern and suitability for landscape and commercial uses. vegetative characters like eplant height and spread were highest in asplenium nidus and a maximum number of leaves were observed in adiantum tenerum. based on growth pattern they were classified under tall, medium and dwarf groups asplenium nidus and nephrolepis biserrata miniata were grouped under the tall category. the species which come under medium category are asplenium longissimum, diaplazium acrostichoides, nephrolepis biserrata ‘furcans’, nephrolepis exaltata ‘chidisii’, nephrolepis exaltata, bostoniensis compacta, nephrolepis cordifolia, pteris ensiformis and asplenium scolopendrium where as adiantum tenerum comes under dwarf category. all species evaluated were found to be suitable for pot plants. nephrolepis biserrata miniata, nephrolepis biserrata furcans, nephrolepis cordifolia, asplenium nidus and diaplazium acrostichoides can be recommended as houseplants. nephrolepis biserrata-miniata, nephrolepis biserrata furcans and nephrolepis cordifolia can be used as border plants in landscapes. nephrolepis exaltata, bostoniensis compacta, asplenium longissimum and pteris ensiformis were observed to be attractive in hanging baskets. nephrolepis biserrata-miniata, nephrolepis exaltata chidisii, nephrolepis exaltata, bostoniensis compacta and diaplazium acrostichoides are suitable for bouquets and flower arrangements. keywords: cut green, evaluation, ferns and landscape introduction ferns are heterogeneous group of vascular plants widely distributed in humid and shady habitats. they are tropical flowerless plants and most of the species are low growing and herbaceous in nature. ferns are excellent materials, which can provide greenery in a landscape. they are adapted to shady areas and they can be used to enhance the indoor environmental conditions. the great diversity of the ferns make them exceptional landscape materials and the characteristic features of foliage make them excellent fillers in flower arrangements, bouquets etc. large number of fern species having great ornamental value are seen widely grown in kerala especially in western ghat regions. there is a tremendous potential for exploring the commercial and landscape value of these ferns. due to the varied forms, shape and long post harvest life of their fronds, they are highly recommended as filler materials in bouquets and flower arrangements. there are numerous species of ferns grown in kerala, the landscape and commercial value of those are yet to be exploited. there is a need to collect and evaluate those potential groups to introduce new 138 j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 137-141, 2019 species to the floriculture industry in kerala. hence, the study was aimed to collect the ferns available in humid forest regions of kerala and evaluate the performance of different fern species and to identify the suitable species for commercial cultivation. materials and methods the study was carried out in the department of floriculture and landscaping, college of horticulture, vellanikkara. eleven species of ferns from the existing germpla sm collection viz; adiantum tenerum, asplenium nidus, asplenium longissimum, asplenium scolopendrium, diaplazium acrostichoides, nephrolepis biserrata ‘furcans’, nephrolepis exaltata ‘chidisii’, nephrolepis exaltata bostoniensis compacta, nephrolepis cordifolia, nephrolepis biserrata-miniata and pteris ensiformis were selected for evaluation. the exper iment wa s la id out in crd with thr ee replications. standard cultural practices were followed throughout the study period. the observations on following quantitative parameters viz., plant height, plant spread, number of leaves per plant, longevity of leaf on plant, leaf production interval and vase life were recorded. the qualitative traits such as texture of frond, shape of frond, nature of margin, nature of tip, presence of marking/pigments, colour of frond, branching habit and reaction to peat and diseases were also recorded. results and discussion quantitative characters morphological characters of different species of ferns a r e given in the ta ble 1. among vegeta tive characters, plant height is an important parameter and based on the plant height categorization of plants can be done for various landscape uses. plant height was maximum in species asplenium nidus (113.00 cm) and minimum plant height was observed in adiantum tenerum (12.33 cm).the species asplenium nidus was also superior regarding plant spread (144.00 cm ns and 159.00 cm in ew). number of leaves per plant were recorded the highest in adiantum tenerum (159.70). since foliage is the attractive part of ferns, longevity of leaf on a plant is very important and in the present study the ma ximum va lue for this parameter was observed in asplenium nidus (292.30) followed by nephrolepis biserrata miniata (209.30). similar findings were also reported by oloyede, (2012). leaf production interval post ha r vest longevity of fr onds decides the commercial value of ferns since they are mainly used as cut foliage and filler materials. vase life was maximum in asplenium longissimum and asplenium nidus (10 days) and minimum vase life was observed in diaplazium acrostichoides (table 1). qualitative characters among the qualitative characters, leaf texture was smooth in a ll the species except diaplazium acrostichoides in which the textur e wa s rough compared to other species. the shape of frond ranges from reniform to lanceolate. the colour of the fronds ranges from light green to dark green and all species evaluated were resistant to pests and diseases except diaplazium acrostichoides, which was susceptible to leaf spot disease. variation in quantitative and qualitative characters of ferns may be due to the peculiar genetic makeup of each genotype as reported by safeena (2013) and vasco et al. (2013). based on the performance, suitable species for various landscape uses were identified. all species evaluated were found to be suitable for pot plants. nephrolepis biserrata miniata, nephrolepis biserrata fur ca ns, nephrolepis cordifolia, asplenium nidus and diaplazium acrostichoides can be recommended as indoor plants. this is in accordance with the findings of lerner, (2001) who reported the suitability of the ferns as indoor plants. nephrolepis biserrata-miniata, nephrolepis biserrata furcans and nephrolepis cordifolia can be used as border plants in landscapes. adiantum tenerum is a very low growing fern with soft textured attractive leaves and this can be recommended ground covers in shady areas. bharathi et al., (2013) had also reported ferns as excellent as ground cover in shady areas. nephrolepis exaltata bostoniensis compacta, asplenium longissimum and pteris ensiformis were obser ved to be a ttr a ctive in ha nging ba skets. nephrolepis biserrata-miniata, nephrolepis exaltata chidisii, nephrolepis exaltata bostoniensis compacta, nephrolepis cordifolia and diaplazium acrostichoides are suitable as cut foliage can be used for bouquets and flower arrangements. the popularity mini sankar et al 139 of ferns as cut foliage had also been reported by stamps and conover, (1986) and safeena, (2013). hence, it can be concluded that, all ferns evaluated were suitable for landscape and pot plant purpose, nephr olepis biserrata miniata, nephrolepis biserrata fur ca ns, nephrolepis cordifolia, asplenium nidus and diaplazium acrostichoides can be recommended as indoor plants. nephrolepis biserrata-miniata, nephrolepis biserrata furcans and nephrolepis cordifolia can be used as border plants in landscapes. adiantum tenerum is a very low growing fern with soft textured attractive leaves and this can be recommended ground covers in shady areas. nephrolepis exaltata bostoniensis compacta, asplenium longissimum and pteris ensiformis were obser ved to be a ttr a ctive in ha nging ba skets. nephrolepis biserrata-miniata, nephrolepis exaltata chidisii, nephrolepis exaltata bostoniensis compacta, nephrolepis cordifolia and diaplazium acrostichoides are suitable as cut foliage. performance evaluation of ferns for cut green and landscape purpose j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 137-141, 2019 table 1: evaluation of different species of ferns for vegetative characters plant plant plant no. of longevity leaf vase species/varieties height spread spread leaves longevity production life (cm) ns (cm) ew (cm) per plant plant interval (days) aspleniumlongissimum 33.75 44.67 46.00 37.30 152.00 22.00 10.00 nephrolepisexaltatachildsii 37.25 45.00 46.00 29.70 181.00 12.00 7.30 nephrolepisexaltata 40.42 53.33 49.80 26.30 124.30 15.30 6.70 pterisensiformis 57.25 65.00 72.80 63.80 94.30 11.70 4.70 diplaziumacrostichoides 49.83 62.67 61.20 14.50 91.30 19.70 3.30 nephrolepiscordifolia 48.83 57.92 54.30 91.80 181.00 14.00 9.30 nephrolepisbiserrataminata 77.67 82.00 85.70 31.00 209.30 10.70 7.30 adiantumtenerum 12.33 21.33 21.50 157.00 178.30 12.30 7.00 aspleniumscolopendrium 69.67 78.17 77.70 24.30 85.70 24.30 5.70 aspleniumnidus 113.00 144.00 159.70 21.30 292.30 155.70 10.00 nephrolepisbiserrata 27.83 40.08 41.20 34.50 149.00 17.70 6.70 var. furcans range 12.3340.8821.50113.00 144.00 159.70 cd (0.05) 15.23 14.29 17.90 13.60 15.60 6.90 140 mini sankar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 137-141, 2019 table 2: evaluation of different species of fern for qualitative characters presence reaction to species/ texture shape of nature of nature of colour of pests and varieties of frond frond margin of tip marking/ frond diseases pigments aspleniumlongissimum smooth oblong undulate emargi absent dark green resistant nated nephrolepisexaltatasmooth ovate pinnatisect acute absent medium resistant childsii green nephrolepisexaltata smooth lanceolate undulate acute absent light green resistant pterisensiformis smooth linear entire acute absent dark green resistant with white markings diplaziumacrosticrough lanceolate pinnatifide acute absent dark green susceptible hoides to leaf spot and leaf blight nephrolepiscordifolia smooth reniform entire round absent dark green nil nephrolepisbiserrata smooth lanceolate entire acute absent dark green resistant minath adiantumtenerum smooth oblong entire obtuse absent light green resistant aspleniumscolopendsmooth triangular pinnatisect acute absent dark green highly rium susceptible to leaf spot aspleniumnidus smooth oblanceo entire obtuse absent medium resistant late green nephrolepisbiserratasmooth oblong dentate lobed absent light green moderately furcans susceptible to leaf spot diseases 141 performance evaluation of ferns for cut green and landscape purpose j. hortl. sci. vol. 14(2) : 137-141, 2019 references bharati, s. k., manabendra, d. c. and behari, m. p. 2013. .in-vitro propagation of pteridophytes-a review. ind. j. res. ayurveda pharm. 4: 297303. lerner, b. r. 2001. ferns for indoors. indoor hort. 141: 1-3. oloyede, f. a.2012. survey of ornamental ferns, their mor phology a nd uses for envir onmenta l protection, improvement and management. ife j. sci. 14: 245-252. stamps, r.h. and conover, c. a. 1986. cut foliage production in florida. hortsci.21:343. safeena, s. a. 2013. comprehensive studies on evaluation of ornamental filler plants, for production of cut foliage and vase life. ph.dt hesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore. va sco, a. , mor a n, c. r. , a nd ambr ose, b. a. 2013. t he evolution, mor phology, a nd development of fern leaves. plant sci.4:345. (received on 20.11.2017, revised on 20.11.2019 and accepted on 12.12.2019) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 48-51, 2006 effect of drying conditions and embedding materials on post-harvest quantitative parameters in china aster (callistephus chinensis) flowers m. a. meman, a. v. barad and l. j. raval department of horticulture college of agriculture, junagadh agricultural university junagadh, gujarath, india e-mail: asi07@rediffmail.com abstract the study was undertaken to optimize conditions for dry flower production in china aster flowers. the experiment was conducted with eight treatment combinations consisting of two drying conditions viz., room drying (ĉ ) and sun drying (ĉ ) and four media viz. sand (m,), sand:borax (1:1) (m )̂, borax (m,) and silicagel (m )̂ with factorial concept in completely randomized design. per cent weight loss and moisture loss were signiflcantly higher under sun drying and silicagel during the entire process of drying from first day to fourth day. moisture content was higher under room drying and borax from flrst day to fourth day. key words: china aster, drying conditions, embedding media introduction china aster, callistephus chinensis is highly popular among the garden annuals cultivated throughout the world. long cut asters are used in vase and floral decoration, but its potential in dry decoration has not been exploited widely. dry flowers are gaining popularity amongst floriculturists and buyers as it is an inexpensive, everlasting and ecofriendly product. therefore, a study was undertaken to standardize the technology for dry flower production in china aster. material and methods the experiment was conducted at the department of horticulture, college of agriculture, junagadh agricultural university, junagadh (gujarat), during the year 2005-2006. junagadh is situated at an altitude of 60 m above the msl 21.5 "n latitude and 70.5 °e longitude. in this study, eight treatment combinations, consisting of two drying conditions viz. room drying (cj) and sun drying (c )̂ and four media viz. sand (mj), sand:borax (1:1) (m^), borax (m3) and silicagel (m^), were evaluated in factorial completely randomized design with three replications. observations were recorded daily for five days during drying process. plastic trays of 60 cm x 45 cm x 7.5 cm size were used as container in which embedding material was filled. the data were statistically analysed as described by panse and sukhatme (1978). results and discussion weight loss and moisture loss per cent weight and moisture loss were significantly higher under sun drying than room drying from first day to fourth day of drying (tables 1 and 3) while on fifth day, the effect was non significant. both temperature and wind velocity were higher under sun drying than under room drying. at higher temperature, rate of moisture loss or liberation of moisture from flower tissues (transpiration) was more due to higher transfer of heat by conduction and convection. brandenberg et al (1961) and alka singh et al (2003) also observed similar effect in case of seed and zinnia flower drying, respectively. further, it was found that drying media had significant effect on per cent weight loss and moisture loss (tables 1 and 3). maximum per cent weight and moisture loss was recorded in silicagel and minimum in borax up to fourth day. silicagel has a great capacity to absorb moisture up to 30-50 % of its own weight (maureen, 1988 and brandenberg et al, 1961). hiteraction effect of drying conditions and media on per cent weight and moisture loss were found significant (tables 2 and 4). sun drying and silicagel produced maximum weight loss up to fourth day and on fifth day it was found non significant while moisture loss was higher up to third day and on fourth and fifth day it was found non significant. mailto:asi07@rediffmail.com meman et al table 1. effect of drying on per cent weight loss in the flowers of china aster treatment per cent weight loss 1" day 2"'^ day 3"" day 4'" day s"" day (i) condition (c) c, s.em. ± c d . at 5 % (ii) media (m) m, m, m3 s.em.± c d . at 5 % 36.60 (37.23) 47.19 (43.39) 0.10 0.31 42.66 (40.66) 41.80 (40.28) 32.18 (34.56) 51.15 (45.66) 0.14 0.44 43.42 (41.22) 49.22 (44.55) 0.11 0.33 50.93 (45.53) 43.99 (41.55) 35.99 (36.86) 54.39 (47.52) 0.15 0.46 62.50 (52.24) 64.94 (53.69) 0.17 0.52 65.27 (53.89) 62.97 (52.52) 60.27 (50.92) 66.37 (54.56) 0.24 0.73 65.13 (53.81) 66.43 (54.59) 0.10 0.31 66.01 (54.34) 65.29 (53.90) 64.98 (53.72) 66.84 (54.84) 0.14 0.43 67.50 (55.25) 67.91 (55.49) 0.13 ns 66.66 (54.73) 65.66 (54.12) 71.08 (57.47) 67.42 (55.20) 0.19 0.57 table 3. effect of drying on of china aster treatment p' day per cent moisture loss in the flowers per cent moisture loss 2nd (jay 3rd day 4,1, day 5'" day (i) condition (c) c, s.em.± c d . at 5 % (ii) media (m) m, m, m 3 s.em.i c d . at 5 % 17.96 (25.07) 27.38 (31.55) 0.13 0.39 23.82 (29.22) 23.06 (28.70) 12.38 (20.60) 31.41 (34.09) 0.18 0.55 24.14 (29.43) 29.30 (32.77) 0.15 0.45 31.59 (34.19) 24.88 (29.92) 14.67 (22.52) 35.75 (36.72) 0.21 0.64 49.63 (44.79) 54.14 (47.38) 0.27 0.81 57.00 (49.03) 51.74 (46.00) 39.58 (38.98) 59.23 (50.32) 0.38 1.14 55.17 (47.97) 57.21 (49.15) 0.28 0.83 58.91 (50.13) 56.94 (48.99) 48.44 (44.11) 60.46 (51.04) 0.39 1.18 61.41 (51.60) 60.97 (51.34) 0.33 ns 60.62 (51.13) 57.87 (49.53) 64.24 (53.27) 62.03 (51.96) 0.47 1.43 (iii) interaction (cxm) s.em+ c d . at 5 % cv% 0.20 0.62 0.88 0.22 0.66 0.88 0.34 1.03 1.12 0.20 0.61 0.65 0.27 ns 0.83 (iii) interaction (cxm) s.em.i c d . at 5 % c v % 0.25 0.77 1.58 0.30 0.91 1.69 0.53 1.61 2.00 0.55 ns 1.97 0.67 ns 1.43 figures in parentheses are arcsine transformed values figures in parentheses are arcsine transformed values table 2. interaction effect of different drying conditions (c) and media (m) on per cent weight loss in the flowers of china aster treatment per cent weight loss p' day 2"' day 3"' day 4'" day 5'" day c,m, c,m, c.m, c,m, c,m, c^m, c2m3 c,m, 32.95 (35.03) 32.52 (34.77) 31.67 (34.25) 49.27 (44.58) 51.97 (46.13) 51.09 (45.62) 32.69 (34.87) 53.04 (46.74) 48.52 (44.15) 35.93 (36.83) 34.99 (36.27) 54.26 (47.44) 53.32 (46.90) 52.05 (46.17) 36.98 (37.46) 54.52 (47.59) 64.26 (53.29) 60.81 (51.24) 60.04 (50.79) 64.89 (53.66) 66.27 (54.49) 65.22 (53.80) 60.49 (51.06) 67.86 (55.46) 65.19 (53.84) 65.04 (53.76) 64.76 (53.58) 65.53,, (54.05) 66.83 (54.84) 65.53 (54.05) 65.21 (53.85) 68.15 (55.65) 66.42 (54.59) 65.37 (53.95) 71.53 (57.75) 66.69 (54.75) 66.90 (54.88) 65.94 (54.30) 70.64 (57.19) 68.15 (55.65) cxm s.em cd at 5% c v % 0.20 0.62 0.88 0.22 0.66 0.88 0.34 1.03 1.12 0.20 0.61 0.65 0.27 ns 0.83 figures in parentheses are arcsine transformed values j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 48-51, 2006 49 effect of drying conditions and embedding table 4. interaction effect of different drying conditions (c) and media (m) on percent moisture loss in tlie flowers of china aster treatment per cent moisture loss p'day 2"'' day 3"* day 4"* day 5'" day c,m, c.m, c.m, c,m, c,m, c2m2 c2m3 c2m, 14.94 (22.73) 14.65 (22.51) 12.15 (20.40) 30.08 (33.26) 32.71 (34.89) 31.47 (34.12) 12.60 (20.79) 32.74 (34.90) 28.65 (32.36) 17.06 (24.39) 14.11 (22.06) 36.74 (37.31) 34.52 (35.99) 32.70 (34.88) 15.23 (22.97) 34.76 (36.12) 54.66 (47.67) 47.22 (43.41) 39.40 (38.88) 57.26 (49.17) 59.35 (50.39) 56.27 (48.60) 39.75 (39.09) 61.20 (51.47) 56.95 (49.00) 56.59 (48.79) 48.25 (43.99) 58.89 (50.12) 60.87 (51.28) 57.29 (49.19) 48.66 (44.23) 62.04 (51.97) 60.18 (50.87) 57.39 (49.25) 66.05 (54.36) 62.02 (51.96) 61.06 (51.39) 58.34 (49.80) 62.43 (52.20) 62.04 (51.97) cxm s.em cd at 5% c v % 0.25 0.77 1.58 0.30 0.91 1.69 0.53 1.61 2.00 0.55 ns 1.97 0.67 ns 1.43 figures in parentheses are arcsine transformed values table 5. effect of drying on per cent moisture content in the flowers of china aster (callistephus chinensis) per cent moisture content treatment p'day 2"'' day 3"*day 4"'day 5"'day (i) condition (c) c, s.em.± c d . at 5 % (ii) media (m) m, m, m, m, s.em.+ c d . at 5 ' 52.55 (46.46) 43.80 (41.44) 0.14 0.43 45.86 (42.63) 46.67 (43.09) 61.54 (51.67) 38.61 (38.42) 0.20 0.61 46.36 (42.91) 41.87 (40.32) 0.17 0.52 38.11 (38.12) 44.85 (42.04) 59.25 (50.33) 34.27 (35.83) 0.24 0.73 20.84 (27.16) 17.03 (24.38) 0.32 0.97 12.67 (20.87) 17.96 (25.08) 34.33 (35.87) 10.77 (19.16) 0.46 1.38 15.29 (23.02) 13.96 (21.94) 0.40 1.20 10.7 (19.15) 8.99 (17.44) 10.20 (18.63) 0.58 ns 69.04 (17.50) 12.78 11.85 (20.95) (20.15) 25.40 9.51 (30.27) (17.96) 9.55 7.99 (18.00) (16.42) 0.56 1.69 0.81 2.46 (iii) interaction (cxm) s.em.± c d . at 5 % c v % 0.28 0.86 1.12 0.34 1.03 1.42 0.64 1.95 4.43 0.79 ns 6.21 1.15 ns 11.10 figures in parentheses are arcsine transformed values moisture content drying conditions showed a significant influence on per cent moisture content in the flower during entire process (table 5) from first to fourth day while on fifth day it was found non significant. from first to fourth day, moisture content was higher in room dried flowers as compared to sun dried flowers. under sun drying condition, moisture loss from flowers was higher due to increase in temperature during the day time as compared to room drying. this result is in conformity with the findings of pandey (2001) in spices and pandey etal (2000) in coriander and fenugreek leaves. similarly, media showed significate effect on moisture content (table 5). per cent moisture content was maximum in borax up to fourth day and minimum in silicagel throughout the drying process. the per cent moisture loss was higher in silicagel dried flowers due to its strong hygroscopic nature, as compared to borax treatment. interaction effect of drying conditions and media on moisture content was found significant (table 6). room drying and borax medium showed higher moisture content whereas in silicagel and sun drying treatment there was low moisture content up to three days. results from the present study showed that sun drying was better than room drying condition whereas j. hort. sci. vol, 1 (1): 48-51, 2006 50 meman et al table 6. interaction effect of different drying condition (c) and media (m) on per cent moisture content in the flowers of china aster treatment per cent moisture content l«day 2"'' day 3̂ " day 4"' day 5'" day c,m, c,m, c,m3 c,m, c,m, c.m, c.m3 54.67 (47.68) 54.94 (47.84) 61.64 (51.73) 38.94 (38.61) 37.06 (37.50) 38.40 (38.29) 61.44 (51.62) 40.96 (39.79) 52.53 (46.45) 59.68 (50.58) 32.28 (34.62) 35.26 (36.43) 37.17 (37.56) 58.81 (50.08) 14.93 (22.73) 22.33 (28.20) 34.38 (35.90) 11.73 (20.03) 10.44 (18.85) 13.60 (21.64) 34.28 (35.84) 12.59 (20.79) 12.99 (21.12) 25.45 (30.30) 10.13 (18.56) 8.920 (17.38) 12.58 (20.78) 25.36 (30.24) 9.35 (17.81) 12.18 (20.42) 7.41 (15.80) 7.00 (15.35) 8.72 (17.18) 11.52 (19.84) 11.60 (19.91) cxm s.em cd at 5% c v % 0.28 0.86 1.12 0.34 1.03 1.42 0.64 1.95 4.43 0.79 ns 6.21 01.15 ns 11.10 figures in parentheses are arcsine transformed values among the various embedding materials, silicagel was the best to dry china aster. silica gel was found to be the best material for embedding as it can be handled easily and shows a great capacity to absorb moisture. references alka singh, dhaduk, b.k. and shah, r.r. 2003. effect of dehydration on post harvest life and quality of zinnia flowers. j. omam. hort., 6:141-142. brandenberg, r. n., simons, j. w. and smith, l. l. 1961. why and how seeds are dried -the processing of seeds, pp. 295-306. in: "seeds: the year book of agriculture." alfred steferud (ed.) u.s. govt. printing office, washington. maureen foster. 1988. "the flower arrangement encyclopedia of preserving and drying." sterling publication co. inc 387 park avenue south, new york. 160 p. pandey, p. h. 2001. crop drying, pp 30-60. in: "principles and practices of post harvest technology." kalyani publishers, ludhiana. pandey, v. k., sonune, a.v. and philip, s. k. 2000. solar drying of coriander and methi leaves. j. food sci. tech., 37:592-595. panse v.g and sukhatme rv. 1978. "statistical methods for agricultural workers." icar publication. new delhi. (ms received 6 may, 2006 revised 8 july, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 48-51, 2006 51 okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench.] is a warm-season, traditional fruitvegetable crop commercially grown in both tropical and subtropical parts of the world. globally, india is the largest producer, where okra is grown in an area of 4.32 lakh hectares with annual production of 45.28 lakh tonnes and a productivity of 10.5 mt/ha (vigneshwara varmudy, 2011). it is a potential export revenue earner, accounting for 60% of all fresh vegetables exported (sharma and arora, 1993). in india, commercial production of f 1 hybrid in okra is done by hand emasculation and hand pollination which is a tedious process that takes 70 % of the time and labour in cultivation. geneic male sterile (gms) line ms-1 identified by the division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), is being used for development of a commercial f 1 hybrid. male sterility in okra is controlled by a pair of single, recessive genes and can be utilized by hybrid seed production. genetically controlled male sterility (ms1) is an important trait for the production of f 1 hybrid seeds in several crops (kaul, 1998). some male sterile systems have been reported in brassica campestris var. japonica (kato and tokumasu, 1984). in okra, male sterility has not been observed in nature, but, has been induced by gamma radiation studies on inheritance of geneic male sterility (gms) and hybrid seed production in okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench.] m. pitchaimuthu, o.p. dutta and k.r.m. swamy indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore karnataka 560 089, india e-mail: muthu@iihr.ernet.in abstract inheritance of geneic male sterility in gms line ms-1 of okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench.] was studied using f 1 , f 2 and test-cross generations of crosses between gms line ms-1 and normal fertile genotypes, and the varieties arka anamika, parbhani kranti, arka abhay, iihr-108-1-31, iihr-109-20-6, iihr-116-23-6, iihr180-6-3, iihr-161-10-1 and iihr-130-2-10. all the f 1 were found fertile. segregation of pollen fertility in f 2 and test cross generations involving ms1 was segregated in the ratio 1 fertile: 1 sterile, respectively. this indicated that gms trait in the line is controlled by a single recessive gene (ms1ms1). large-scale f 1 hybrid seed production in okra becomes rather slow due to the tedious hand-emasculation, followed by hand-pollination, incurring additional labour and cost of f 1 seed production. in comparison to fertile lines, this saves approximately 70% time and manual labour. use of geneic male sterile (gms) line ms-1 can make f 1 hybrid seed production in okra easy and more economical compared to hand-emasculation. key words: abelmoschus esculentus, geneic male sterility (gms), back cross, generations, recessive allele short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):199-202, 2012 (dutta, 1971). male sterility in okra was seen to be a controlled by a single recessive gene (ms1) when present in the homozygous (ms1ms1) condition. the symbol ms1 was proposed for this gene (dutta, 1980). the gene was stable, not being influenced by environmental factors. anthesis was normal but anther dehiscence was partial. microsporogeneisis was normal upto the tetrad stage. hence, a great future for hybrid seed production is envisaged in a heterosis breeding programme. studies were conducted at iihr during 2002-2003. iihr-ms-1 was crossed with ten fertile parents, namely, arka anamika, parbhani kranti, arka abhay, iihr-108-131-1, iihr-109-1-20-6, iihr-120-11-8-1, iihr-116-12-236, iihr-180-6-3, iihr-161-10-1, iihr-130-2-10. a series of crosses were made to determine the genotype of f 1 progenies by selfing and backcrossing randomly for selected f 1 individuals from each progeny to their respective male fertile (fig. 1) and male sterile parent (fig. 2). data were collected in respect of f 2 and bc 1 for all the ten segregating progenies (tables 1 & 2). segregation ratio of the malesterile character was subjected to chi-square test. test on goodness of fit between expected and observed segregation ratio was calculated as per snedecor and cochran (1967). 200 pitchaimuthu et al fig 2. male-sterile plant showing no pollen grainsfig 1. male-fertile plant showing yellow colored pollen table 1. behaviour of f 2 families in some crosses involving iihr-ms-1 and testers during rabi-summer 2002-03 cross combination of (f 2 ) iihr-ms-1 no. of plants observed no. of plants expected fertile sterile fertile sterile total χ2(3:1) p value iihr-ms-1 x arka anamika 56 27 63.75 21.25 65 2.80 0.20-0.10 iihr-ms-1 x parbhani kranti 50 25 56.25 18.75 75 2.77 0.10-0.05 iihr-ms-1 x arka abhay 68 27 71.25 23.75 95 0.59 0.50-0.30 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-108-1-31-1 70 26 73.50 24.50 96 0.67 0.50-0.30 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-109-1-20-6 61 29 67.50 22.50 90 2.51 0.20-0.10 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-120-11-8-1 69 21 67.50 22.50 90 0.07 0.80-0.70 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-116-12-23-6 66 29 71.25 23.75 95 1.55 0.3.-0.20 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-180-6-3 77 21 73.50 24.50 98 0.67 0.50-0.30 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-161-10-1 65 13 58.50 19.50 78 2.59 0.10-0.05 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-130-2-10 70 18 66.00 22.00 88 0.97 0.50-0.30 total 654 238 669 223 892 14.77 0.22-0.10 pooled chi-square values 1.35 0.33-0.20 heterogeneity 13.42 0.20-0.10 homogeneity 12.88 0.20-0.10 table 2. segregation in bc 1 generation of iihr-ms-1 (male sterile) x f 1 s in okra during rabi season 2002 cross combination (bc 1 ) iihr-ms-1 no. of plants observed no. of plants expected fertile sterile fertile sterile total χ2(3:1) p value iihr-ms-1 x arka anamika 56 27 63.75 21.25 65 2.80 0.20-0.10 iihr-ms-1 x arka anamika 48 31 35.5 35.5 71 1.1 0.30-0.20 iihr-ms-1 x parbhani kranti 41 29 35 35 70 2.06 0.20-0.10 iihr-ms-1 x arka abhay 35 38 36.5 36.5 73 0.12 0.30-0.70 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-108-1-31-1 34 41 37.5 37.5 75 0.66 0.50-0.30 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-109-1-20-6 40 32 36 36 72 0.68 0.50-0.30 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-120-11-8-1 37 41 39 39 78 0.20 0.70-0.50 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-116-12-23-6 30 35 32.5 38.5 65 0.36 0.70-0.50 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-180-6-3 38 30 34 34 68 0.94 0.50-0.30 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-161-10-1 43 35 39 39 78 0.82 0.50-0.30 iihr-ms-1 x iihr-130-2-10 25 35 30 36 66 1.66 0.20-0.10 total 363 347 355 355 710 9.13 0.70-0.50 pooled chi-square values 0.36 0.70-0.50 heterogenity 8.77 0.50-0.30 homogenity 8.56 0.50-0.30 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):199-202, 2012 201 in male sterile plants, anthesis was normal but anther dehiscence was partial, showing a small, longitudinal slit without pollen shed. all the f 1 plants obtained from hybridization between ms and the other ten cultivars (arka anamika, parbhani kranti, arka abhay, iihr-108-1-31-1, iihr-109-1-20-6, iihr-120-11-8-1, iihr-116-12-23-6, iihr-180-6-3, iihr-161-10-1, iihr-130-2-10) were fertile. however, f 2 in all the crosses confirmed 3 fertile: 1 sterile ratio (table 1), further confirmed by segregation behavior (1fertile: 1 sterile) in bc 1 population (table 2). segregation pattern in the crosses indicated that gms trait of iihrms-1 was controlled by a single recessive gene. chi-square test, when applied to the ten individual f 2 progenies, indicated good fit for the expected ratio. test for heterogenity indicated that there classes could be pooled; the total segregating progenies agreed and were quite close to the expected ratio of 3:1 (p=0.30, 0.20). the chi-square test for heterogenity for testing agreement of the progenies gave a chi-square value of 12.88, indicating that the progenies are non significant at 5% level. the 10 f 1 progenies, when backcrossed to their respective fertile parent produced only fertile backcross progenies. the test for heterogeneity gave chi-square value of 8.77 at 9 df, which was non-significant at 5% level, indicating that, the progenies agreed with 1:1 ratio of male fertile to male sterile, and could be pooled. chi-square test of the pooled data gave a good fit for 1:1 segregation g ratio (p=0.70-0.50). chi-square test for homogenity was not significant suggesting that the progenies agreed with one another in whatever ratio obtained. f 1 s of all the cross were fertile this indicating that geneic male sterility is governed by recessive genes and fertility restoration male in fertile genotype is controlled by the dominant gene ms . data on sterile and fertile plants obtained in each test cross combination with chi-square, e are presented in table 2. segregation in the f 2 and backcross populations of the crosses (ms-1 x 130-2-10 and ms-1 x 116-12-23-6)involving one gms line and several tester parents, confirmed 3:1 and 1:1 ratio, respectively. these results were similar to those observed in okra by dutta (1971) and by thombre and deshmukh (2006) in okra gms line mutant. latha et al (2003) corroborated single recessive gene control of tgms in rice and geneic ms in brassica campestris l. (borkato and virmani (1996). the recessive nature of gms mutants facilitates their deployment in hybrid breeding programme, because any pollen fertile line can be used as the male parent to develop a commercial okra hybrid. single gene control of the trait also facilitates its transfer from one genotype to another. this geneic male sterility has been transferred to other commercial varieties like arka anamika, arka abhay, parbhani kranti and other multiribbed variety like bo-13. use of male sterility in hybrid seed production in okra geneic male sterile line of okra was identified by division of vegetable crops , indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), and is being utilized for development of commercial f1 hybrid. male sterility in okra is controlled by a pair of single, recessive genes and can be utilized for hybrid seed production. field designs for maximizing hybrid seed yield using male sterile lines under natural cross – pollination have been standardized , and combining ability of the parents using male sterile lines has been worked out (pitchaimuthu and dutta, 2002) a field design where alternate planting of two rows of the male sterile plants and one row of fertile plants was done keeping a ratio of 2:1 and maintaining a plant population of 4,166 male sterile plants per hectare, which gave hybrid seed yield of 5.66 quintals per hectare, which was 52.56% higher seed yield in comparison with the fertile control (dutta, 1980). using male sterile plants and hand pollination, it takes 3 h to pollinate 274 flowers enough to produce 1 kg of seed. by hand – emasculation and pollinating of 274 perfect flowers takes over 9 h (dutta, 1980). thus, approximately 70% saving in time and manual labour is achieved for producing 1 kg of hybrid seeds using male sterile lines in okra. acknowledgement we appreciate the technical help provided by mr. s.k. ramakrishna rao (technical officer), ms. d. vimala (field technician) and mr. basanna (mali). references borkato, r.p. and vimani, s.s. 1996. genetics of thermosensitive geneic male sterility in rice. euphyt., 88:1-7 dutta, o.p. 1971. effect of gamma irradiation on germination plant growth, floral biology and fruit production in abelmoschus esculentus. third international symp. trop. hort., iihr, bangalore, india, pp. 141156 dutta, o.p. 1980. male sterility in okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench.] and bottle gourd [lagenaria siceraria (mol.) standl.] and utilization in hybrid seed production. ph.d. thesis, uas, bangalore geneic male sterility and hybrid seed production in okra j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):199-202, 2012 202 kaul, m.l.h. 1988. male sterility in higher plants monographs. theoretical and applied genetics, springerverlag, new york kato, m. and tokumasu, s. 1984. male sterility in brassica japonica. japanese j. breed., 34(sulppl.1):178-179 latha, r., thiyagarajan, k. and senthilvel, s. 2003. inheritance of thermo-sensitive genic male sterility in rice. j. genet. breed. 57:98-92 pitchaimuthu, m. and dutta , o.p. 2002. combining ability using genetic male sterile lines in okra. international conference on vegetables, november 11-14, 2002 bangalore, india, pp.109 sharma and arora 1993. improvement of okra. in: advances in horticulturevegetable crops. pp 34364. vol.5: part-1. chadha, k.l. and kalloo, g. (eds), malhotra publishing house, new delhi snedecor, g.w. and cochron, w.g. 1967 statistical methods (6th edn.) oxford and ibh publishers (co.), bombay, pp. 135-337 vigneshwara varmudy 2011. need to boost okra exports: market survey. facts for you, feb., pp. 21-23 thombre and deshmukh s.u. 2006. isolation of genetic male sterile mutant in okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench.] indian j. genet., 66:353354 (ms received 28 december 2011, revised 18 june 2012) pitchaimuthu et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):199-202, 2012 determining composition of volatiles in couroupita guianensis aubl. through headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hs-spme) arpita mandal khan1, k.s. shivashankara and t.k. roy icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560089, india e-mail: meet.arpitakhan@gmail.com abstract composition of volatile components in couroupita guianensis aubl. flowers was analyzed using headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hs-spme), followed by capillary gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (gc-ms) separation and identification. in all, 75 compounds were identified accounting for 96.32% of the total volatiles present. the major groups of compounds present were oxygenated terpenoids (35.66%), alcohols (26.92%), esters (17.36%), mono-and sesqui-terpenoids (8.64%), aldehydes and ketones (4.71%), hydrocarbons (1.68%), phenols (0.18%), acids (0.754%) and heterocyclic compounds (0.42%) constituted a small proportion of the volatile profile. the most abundant individual constituent was eugenol (18.95%) followed by nerol (13.49%), (e,e) farnesol (12.88%), (e,e)-farnesyl acetate (6.68%), trans ocimene (6.02%), nootkatone (4.64%), geraniol (2.94%), 2-isopropenyl-5methyl-4-hexenyl acetate (2.69%), cedr-8-en-13-ol (2.58%), (e,z)-farnesyl acetate (2.40%) and methyl (11e)-11hexadecenoate (2.041%). analytical comparison of composition of volatiles in the flowers, obtained by different methods of extraction, viz., solvent extraction, micro-simultaneous extraction and headspace-solid phase microextraction, revealed specific variations in relative concentrations of the constituent chemicals. linalool was the major chemical (21.5% and 14.9%) in solvent extract and micro-simultaneous extract, respectively, but appeared in negligible quantity (0.16%) in head-space analysis. key words: couroupita guianensis, volatiles, headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hs-spme), capillary gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (gc/ms) introduction couroupita guianensis aubl, or the cannonball tree, has always been a botanical curiosity due to the unique shape of its flowers and fruits. the plant, belonging to the family lecythidaceae, is native to the tropics of the northern part of south america and to the west indies (heywood and chant, 1982). in india, the tree is grown in the vicinity of shiva temples, as, hindus revere it as sacred, it being known as ‘shivalingam’ in hindi. it is a fast growing, evergreen tree attaining a height of up to 30m. the fragrant, orangered flowers are borne on long, thick, tangled extrusions from the trunk. fruits are spherical, brown and large as a cannon ball. besides its ornamental value, the tree has several medicinal properties. infusion from the flowers is used for treating colds and stomach ache (anon., 1950) and the bark is used for treating hypertension, tumors and inflammations (stanz et al, 2009). in brazil, its leaves are widely used as an analgesic (mariana et al, 2010) and for treating skin diseases (satyavati et al, 1976). the flowers emit a strong, 1national research centre for orchids, p.o. pakyong, sikkim-737106, india sweet, spicy fragrance. previous efforts on chemical examination revealed presence of linalool, eugenol, nerol, tryptanthrin, farnesol, indigo, indirubin, isatin, linoleic acid, α, βamirins, carotenoids, sterols and some acidic and phenolic compounds (sen et al, 1974; bergman et al, 1985; wong and tie, 1995; rane et al, 2001; rajamanickam et al, 2009). wong and tie (1995) identified 41 compounds responsible for fragrance in couroupita flowers using solvent extraction, of which eugenol, linalool, (e,e)-farnesol and nerol were the major ones. similar results were obtained by andrade et al (2000) from fresh flowers using the microsimultaneous extraction method. variation in relative concentrations of the major fragrance components occurs due to a difference in the method of extraction employed. the objective of the present study was to identify aroma compounds that most likely represent the fragrance of couroupita guianensis flowers, using the headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hs-spme) technique. hs–spme is now a well-established and very popular technique for head-space (hs) sampling in several fields, including study j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):161-165, 2014 162 of composition of hs volatiles in medicinal and aromatic plants, flowers and fruits where it has assumed an everincreasing importance. hs-spme is an easy and nondestructive method of extraction of volatiles, therefore, a more accurate method than others. solvent extraction and simultaneous micro-extraction method could modify the compounds due to the destructive way of sample preparation besides the high temperatures used for extraction. studies on head-space extraction and analysis of flower volatiles (flamini et al, 2003; deng et al, 2004 and belliardo et al., 2006) report direct sampling using spme to avoid interferences from non-volatile matrix components (pawliszyn, 1997). material and methods plant material fresh, fully opened couroupita guianensis flowers were collected in the morning during the month of may, 2013 from full-grown plants located near the garden of icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru. volatile fragrance constituents were extracted by headspacesolid phase micro-extraction (hs-spme) technique and analyzed using gc–ms/ms. spme extraction of volatiles a manual spme holder and three commercial spme fibers (procured from supelco inc. bellefonte, pa, usa) were used in the study. spme fibers were conditioned in a gc injector port as recommended by the manufacturer, at a temperature of 250°c for 3hrs before use in volatile extraction. spme fiber types dvb/car/pdms (divinylbenzene/carboxen/polydimethylsiloxane), 50/30 μm, highly crossed-linked (supelco inc., bellefonte, pa, usa) were used for extraction of head-space volatile compounds from flowers. extraction process used for head-space volatiles was as per flamini et al (2003) and deng et al (2004). soon after plucking, six couroupita flowers were transferred to each of the two 250ml conical flasks (with screw caps and silicon rubber septum) and capped immediately. the samples were kept at room temperature (25 ±1°c) for 10-15 minutes to accelerate transfer of analytes for reaching equilibration in the head-space. after the equilibration-time was up, sampling was done by inserting pre-conditioned spme fiber into the head-space of the flask for 1 hour at room temperature (25 ±1°c). gc analysis after extraction of head-space volatiles, the spme device was inserted into the injector port for gas chromatographic analysis, and was held in the inlet for 10 minutes for desorption. gc-fid analysis was done using varian-3800 gas chromatograph, equipped with fid detector. nitrogen (1ml/min) was used as a carrier gas. the components were separated on vf-5, capillary column from varian, usa, 30m x 0.25mm i.d., 0.25μm film thickness. the injector temperature was set at 260°c and all injections were made in split mode (1:5). the detector temperature was maintained at 270°c and the temperature programme used for the column was as follows: 50°c for 5 min, followed by an increment of 4°c/min till 170°c, held for 2 min; subsequently, increased by 5°c/min till it reached 250°c and, then, a constant temperature of 250°c was maintained for 7 minutes. the total run-time was 60 minutes. gc/ms analysis gc/ms analysis was carried out in the system consisting of a varian-3800 gas chromatograph coupled to a varian-4000 ion-trap mass spectra detector. the ion trap, transfer line and ion source temperatures were maintained at 190°c, 240°c and 200°c, respectively. a fused-silica capillary column vf-5ms from varian, usa, with 30m x 0.25mm id, 0.25mm film thickness was used for the analysis. helium was used as carrier gas with flow rate of 1ml/min. the mass spectrometer was operated in the external electron ionization mode of 70ev, with full mass scan-range 45–450amu. temperature programmes used for the column were the same as described for gc-fid analysis. total volatile production was estimated by a sum of all gc-fid peak areas in the chromatogram and individual compounds were quantified as relative per cent area. individual volatile compounds were identified by comparing their retention index (ri) which was determined using homologous series of n-alkanes (c5 to c32, procured from sigma-aldrich) as standard (kovats, 1965) and comparing mass spectra with the available two spectral libraries, using wiley and nist-2007. results and discussion gc and gc-ms separation and identification of volatile components of couroupita flowers extracted by headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hs-spme) resulted in identification of 75 compounds (table 1). the total percentage of compounds identified was 96.32%, in arpita mandal khan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):161-165, 2014 163 table 1. volatile components of couroupita guianensis flowers estimated using headspace-solid phase micro-extraction (hsspme) method name of the compound/group retention area index (%) hydrocarbons 1. 1,3,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3-cyclohexadiene 1028 0.058 2. 2-methyl-2-bornene 1045 0.132 3. eicosane 2011 0.569 4. heneicosane 2103 0.707 5. triecosane 2298 0.217 total 1.684 monoterpenoids 6. β-pinene 974 0.143 7. 3-carene 1010 0.112 8. γ-terpinene 1018 0.112 9. β-phellandrene 1027 0.215 10. limonene 1033 0.122 11. cis-ocimene 1039 0.781 12. trans-ocimene 1052 6.021 13. α-terpinene 1057 0.096 14. terpinolene 1075 0.112 15. mentha-1,3,8-triene 1111 0.098 16. allo-ocimene 1127 0.086 total 7.899 sesquiterpenoids 17. α-bergamotene 1445 0.095 18. β-caryophyllene 1455 0.108 19. germacrene d 1468 0.102 20. (z,e)-α-farnesene 1491 0.138 21. (e,e)α-farnesene 1504 0.195 22. bicyclogermacrene 1528 0.098 total 0.736 oxygeneted terpenoids 23. linalool 1095 0.164 24. 6-camphenol 1118 0.112 25. cis-verbenol 1131 0.665 26. 2-pinen-4-ol 1146 0.095 27. cis-limonene oxide 1148 0.103 28. z-thujanol 1165 0.055 29. (-)-borneol 1173 0.121 30. myrtenol 1192 0.132 31. nerol 1223 13.489 32. isogeraniol 1232 1.128 33. geraniol 1258 2.942 34. geranial 1268 1.178 35. nerolidol 1568 0.153 36. caryophyllene oxide 1585 0.112 37. (2z,6e)-farnesol 1682 0.266 38. (z,z)-farnesol 1715 0.924 39. (e,e)-farnesol 1725 12.881 40. (e,z)-farnesol 1742 1.072 41. longifolenaldehyde 1876 0.065 total 35.657 phenolics 42. carvacrol 1304 0.096 43. 2,3,5,6-tetramethylphenol 1321 0.088 total 0.184 table 1. contd. name of the compound/group retention area index (%) alcohols 44. (e)-6-nonen-1-ol 1124 0.095 45. (5-isopropyl-2-methyl-1-cyclopenten-1-yl) 1199 0.064 methanol 46. α-methyl-benzeneethanol 1208 1.490 47. 2-(2,2,4-trimethyl-3-cyclopenten-1-yl) 1233 0.385 ethanol 48. eugenol 1358 18.952 49. methyleugenol 1392 0.112 50. dihydro-β-ionol 1405 0.054 51. (e)-isoeugenol 1463 0.059 52. cedrenol 1603 0.079 53. cedr-8-en-13-ol 1672 2.576 54. z-9-pentadecenol 1749 1.077 55. z-11-pentadecenol 1772 0.403 56. (6e,10e)-3,7,11,15-tetramethyl-1,6,10, 2049 1.577 14-hexadecatetraen-3-ol total 26.923 acids 57. myristic acid 1765 0.652 58. pentadecanoic acid 1821 0.102 total 0.754 aldehydes and ketones 59. isopulegone 1155 0.068 60. nootkatone 1845 4.637 total 4.705 esters 61. methyl salicylate 1193 0.209 62. z-methyl geranate 1298 0.470 63. citronellyl acetate 1348 0.122 64. 2-isopropenyl-5-methyl-4-hexenyl acetate 1375 2.693 65. (z,z)-farnesyl acetate 1810 0.507 66. (e,e)-farnesyl acetate 1818 6.682 67. (e,z)-farnesyl acetate 1838 2.396 68. methyl (11e)-11-hexadecenoate 1883 2.041 69. methyl (9z)-9-hexadecenoate 1892 1.221 70. (3z)-3-hexenyl benzoate 1568 0.121 71. hexyl benzoate 1577 0.132 72. ethyl (9e)-9-hexadecenoate 1969 0.762 total 17.356 heterocyclic compounds 73. 2-methylfuran 603 0.210 74. indole 1289 0.156 75. (e)-3-(4,8-dimethyl-3,7-nonadienyl)-furan 1552 0.053 total 0.419 which the major groups of compounds were: oxygenated terpenoids (35.66%), alcohols (26.92%), esters (17.36%), mono-and sesqui-terpenoids (8.64%) and aldehydes and ketones (4.71%) (fig. 1). hydrocarbons (1.68%), phenols (0.18%), acids (0.754%) and heterocyclic compounds (0.42%) constituted a small proportion of the volatile profile. volatiles in couroupita guianensis flower fragrance j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):161-165, 2014 164 the most abundant individual constituent was eugenol (18.95%), followed by nerol (13.49%), (e,e)-farnesol (12.88%), (e,e)-farnesyl acetate (6.68%), trans-ocimene (6.02%), nootkatone (4.64%), geraniol (2.94%), 2-isopropenyl-5-methyl-4-hexenyl acetate (2.69%), cerd8-en-13-ol (2.58%), (e, z)-farnesyl acetate (2.40%) and methyl (11e)-11-hexadecenoate (2.041%). comparison of volatile composition of couroupita guianensis flowers obtained in the present study with earlier published methods of solvent extraction (wong and tie, 1995) and micro-simultaneous extraction (andrade et al, 2000) revealed some variations in relative concentrations of the constituent chemicals (fig. 2). earlier studies reported linalool as a major constituent imparting aroma to orangeflower (21.5% and 14.9%), respectively in the volatiles profile. however, it appeared in negligible quantity (0.16%) in head-space analysis, where citrus aroma is attributed to higher percentage of nerol (13.49%). eugenol, which is responsible for strong spicy nutmeg or clove-type odor of the flower, registered high percentage (18.9%) in both micro-simultaneous extraction and hs-spme method, but comparatively lower than in the solvent extraction method (41.6%). head space analysis also recorded higher percentage of (e,e)-farnesol (12.88%) and (e,e)-farnesyl acetate (6.68%) among the volatiles. these compounds add an oily floral note to fragrance-profile. presence of ocimine, similarly, was observed only in hs-spme method, and was reported to be negligible when estimated by the other methods. the variation in relative concentrations of major fragrance components observed in earlier studies could be due to different methods of sample preparation. in the earlier studies, 37 to 41 flavour compounds were identified whereas, in the present study, 75 compounds were identified covering 96.35% of all the compounds present. therefore, hs-spme method in our study was found to be better than solvent extraction and simultaneous micro-extraction methods of volatile extraction. references andrade, e.h.a., zoghbi, m.g.b. and maia, j.g.s. 2000. the volatiles from flowers of couroupita guianensis aubl., lecythisus itata miers. var. paraensis (ducke) r. kunth. and eschweilera coriacea (a. pi dc.) mori (lecythidaceae). j. essent. oil res., 12:163-166 anonymous. 1950. wealth of india. csir, new delhi, 2:362 belliardo, f., bicchi, c., cordero, c., liberto, e., rubiolo, p. and sgorbini, b. 2006. headspace-solid-phase microextraction in the analysis of volatile fraction of aromatic and medicinal plants. j. chromatogr. sci., 44:416-429 bergman, j., lindstrom, j.o. and tilstam, u. 1985. the structure and properties of some indolic constituents in couroupita guianensis aubl. tetrahedron, 41:2879-2881 deng, c., song, g. and hub, y. 2004. application of hsspme and gc-ms to characterization of volatile compounds emitted from osmanthus flowers. annali di chimica, 94:921–927 flamini, g., cioni, p.l. and morelli, i. 2003. use of solidphase micro-extraction as a sampling technique in the determination of volatiles emitted by flowers, isolated flower parts and pollen. j. chromatogr. a, 998:229-233 heywood, v.h. and chant, s.r. 1982. in: popular encyclopedia of plants, cambridge university press, cambridge, london. pp. 103 fig 1. relative abundance of various groups of volatile compounds in couroupita guianensis flowers fig 2. variation in percentage of major chemical compounds in couroupita guianensis flower fragrance obtained by solvent extraction, micro-simultaneous extraction and head-space solid phase micro-extraction (hs-spme) techniques arpita mandal khan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):161-165, 2014 165 kovats, e. 1965. gas chromatographic characterization of organic substances in the retention index system. adv. chromatogr., 1:229-247 mariana, m.g.p., sidnei, o.b., catharina, e.f., ricardo, m.k., maria, e.m., fabio, s.m. and patricia, d.f. 2010. antinociceptive activity of fractions from couroupita guianensis aubl. leaves. j. ethnopharma., 127:407–413 pawliszyn, j. 1997. solid phase micro-extraction. theory and practice. new york: wiley-vch. rajamanickam, v., rajasekaran, a., darlinquine, s., jesupillai, m. and sabitha, r. 2009. anthelmintic activity of the flower extract of couroupita guianensis. the internet j. alternative med., 8:107111 rane, j.b., vahanwala, s.j., golatkar, s.g., ambaye, r.y. and khadse, b.g. 2001. chemical examination of the flowers of couroupita guianensis aubl. indian j. pharm. sci., 63:72-73 stanz, b.j., campos-de-la, c.j., epiquien, r.m.a. and canigueral, s. 2009. a first survey on the medicinal plants of the chazuta valley (peruvian amazon). j. ethnopharma., 122:333–362 satyavati, g.v., raina, m.k. and sharma, m. 1976. in: medicinal plants of india, icmr, vol.-1, cambridge printing works new delhi, india, p. 286 sen, a.k., mahato, s.b. and dutta, n.l. 1974. couroupitine a, a new alkaloid from couroupita guianensis. tetrahedron lett., 7:609-610 wong, k.c. and tie, d.y. 1995. volatile constituents of couroupita guianensis aubl. flowers. j. essent. oil res., 7:225-227 (ms received 10 february 2014, revised 15 september 2014, accepted 11 november 2014) volatiles in couroupita guianensis flower fragrance j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):161-165, 2014 introduction pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir.) is commonly grown as a vegetable and its large sized seeds contain appreciable quantities of protein and oil and may serve as a good substitute for edible oil, similar to the oil of summer squash (cucurbita pepo). though a wide range of variability is encountered in this crop, very little attention has been paid to exploiting it in breeding programmes. a thorough knowledge of genetic behaviour of any character is important for formulating appropriate breeding techniques in a crop. the monoecious character, conspicuous and solitary flowers, large seed number per fruit and wide variability for yield, size and shape of the fruit make this crop ideal for commercial breeding. during the last two decades, several workers have utilized heterosis breeding as a tool for yield improvement in pumpkin (sirohi and ghorui, 1993). however, the genetic potential of this crop can be further exploitated to almost perfection. hence, the present investigation was undertaken to determine the magnitude of heterosis for fruit, yield and quality parameters in pumpkin. material and methods the experimental material comprised twelve lines of pumpkin, viz., pusa vishwas (l1), punjab samrat (l2), narendra abhushan (l3), narendra uphar (l4), ambili (l5), studies on heterosis in pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir) n.a. tamil selvi, p. jansirani1 and l. pugalendhi2 department of vegetable crops, horticulture college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003, india e-mail : tamilaaru@gmail.com abstract an investigation was carried out to assess the extent of heterosis for fruit, yield and quality parameters in pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir). the trial was conducted at department of vegetable crops, horticulture college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, during 2009-2010. hybrids developed by line x tester mating design, with twelve lines and three testers along with commercial check mph 1 in pumpkin, were evaluated for fruit weight, fruit number per vine, fruit equatorial diameter, fruit polar diameter, flesh thickness, seed number per fruit, seed weight per fruit, fruit yield per vine and quality parameters, viz., total carbohydrate content, total carotenoid and crude fibre content in the fruit. among the hybrids, kasi harit x avinashi local showed positive and significant heterosis for fruit number per vine, flesh thickness, seed weight per fruit, total carotenoid content and fruit yield per vine. vadhala gundu local x co 2 was the next best, as, the hybrid possessed desirable traits, viz., high fruit number per vine, flesh thickness, total carotenoid content and fruit yield per vine. key words: heterosis, pumpkin, relative heterosis, heterobeltiosis, standard heterosis 1department of spices and plantation crops, horticulture college and research institute, periyakulam, india 2tapioca and castor research station, yethapur, salem 636 119, india virudhachalam local (l6), chakor (l7), ashoka farm aids (l8), vadhalagundu local (l9), karamadai local (l10), karwar local (l11) and kasi harit (l12). these were crossed with three testers viz., arka suryamukhi (t1), avinashi local (t2) and co 2 (t3), and, their resultant thirty six hybrids obtained through line x tester mating design were raised in randomized block design (rbd) during the year 2009-2010 at department of vegetable crops, horticulture college and research institute, coimbatore. observations were recorded on single-plant basis in five randomly selected plants from each replication for different parameters, viz., fruit weight, fruit number per vine, fruit equatorial diameter, fruit polar diameter, flesh thickness, seed number per fruit, seed weight per fruit, fruit yield per vine and quality parameters such as total carbohydrate, total carotenoid and crude fibre content in the fruit. data were analyzed as per kempthrone (1957). performance of f1 hybrids in terms of percentage increase or decrease over the mid-parent (relative heterosis), better parent (heterobeltiosis) and the commercial check (standard heterosis) over mph 1 was calculated for expressing the extent of heterosis (heyes et al, 1955). results and discussion performance of 36 f1 hybrids in the experiment is presented in table 1. among all the hybrids, kasi harit x j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 132 table 1. per se performance of f1 hybrids of pumpkin for fruit, yield and quality parameters hybrid fruit fruit fruit fruit flesh seed seed fruit total total crude weight number equatorial polar thickness number weight yield carotenoid carbohydrate fibre (kg) per vine diameter diameter (cm) per per per content content content (cm) (cm) fruit fruit(g) vine (mg per (g per (per (kg) 100g) 100g) cent) pusa vishwas x 3.60 2.62 17.00 20.07 2.43 201.62 15.62 9.33 0.53 0.98 1.26 arka suryamukhi pusa vishwas x 4.45 1.37 17.57 22.81 2.08 229.87 17.25 5.83 1.03 0.88 0.64 avinashi local pusa vishwas x co 2 4.16 1.25 21.88 19.68 2.62 230.12 16.37 5.29 0.76 0.77 1.02 punjab samrat x 3.57 3.62 25.59 16.88 2.72 152.75 13.87 10.10 1.03 0.92 0.85 arka suryamukhi punjab samrat x 3.76 4.25 19.08 16.68 2.98 273.37 19.62 13.44 1.73 1.31 0.89 avinashi local punjab samrat x co 2 3.06 3.37 16.58 14.41 1.91 339.12 19.00 6.43 1.08 0.71 0.79 narendra abhushan x 2.57 2.50 19.37 14.40 2.22 277.25 20.75 6.42 1.17 0.98 0.98 arka suryamukhi narendra abhushan x 2.78 1.62 20.12 11.47 2.65 298.62 28.62 4.49 1.25 1.02 0.88 avinashi local narendra abhushan x 4.11 2.87 21.87 15.90 3.05 331.87 26.75 11.02 1.20 0.90 1.17 co 2 narendra uphar x 3.27 1.37 19.76 11.75 2.18 268.62 22.75 4.70 1.11 0.82 0.99 arka suryamukhi narendra uphar x 3.71 2.50 17.30 13.15 2.66 191.25 16.62 9.26 2.11 1.37 0.68 avinashi local narendra uphar x 4.08 3.37 18.06 9.66 2.10 219 15.75 13.74 1.14 0.96 1.19 co 2 ambili x 4.74 2.25 18.28 16.76 3.07 227.5 17.12 10.61 1.13 0.84 1.00 arka suryamukhi ambili x 3.76 2.00 15.55 14.03 2.57 234.62 14.87 7.54 1.52 1.17 1.03 avinashi local ambili x co 2 4.07 2.37 21.91 11.45 2.67 203.87 19.00 10.01 0.51 0.44 0.79 virudhachalam local x 4.51 1.37 19.51 20.31 3.08 389.75 34.75 6.92 1.44 0.95 1.01 arka suryamukhi virudhachalam local x 4.59 1.12 23.47 20.66 3.01 309.37 40.50 6.16 1.66 1.30 0.95 avinashi local virudhachalam local x 4.09 1.62 22.73 19.28 2.98 244.12 33.12 6.74 1.19 0.85 0.89 co 2 chakor x 3.60 3.37 21.61 13.83 3.40 425.75 21.18 10.24 1.15 1.01 1.04 arka suryamukhi chakor x 4.41 3.12 24.00 15.87 2.92 220.12 23.12 12.18 1.98 1.27 0.87 avinashi local chakor x co 2 4.18 4.37 21.88 15.87 2.83 270.75 26.62 14.00 1.55 1.15 0.93 ashoka farm aids x 4.35 2.87 21.96 15.53 3.42 273.5 18.00 8.70 1.36 0.91 0.72 arka suryamukhi ashoka farm aids x 3.35 3.50 21.27 14.58 3.52 283.62 22.12 10.30 1.79 1.40 1.30 avinashi local ashoka farm aids x 3.73 2.87 18.5 14.25 2.53 290.62 19.12 6.92 1.03 0.89 0.96 co 2 vadhalagundu local x 2.50 4.25 20.68 11.40 1.71 235.87 18.75 8.35 1.47 1.22 0.87 arka suryamukhi vadhalagundu local x 2.58 3.87 17.02 11.58 1.73 160.5 18.12 6.23 2.08 1.78 0.82 avinashi local vadhalagundu local x 1.94 8.50 14.33 10.77 3.22 250.12 21.00 17.51 2.56 5.10 0.64 co 2 karamadai local x 3.32 4.25 18.50 13.72 2.80 234.75 16.87 9.46 1.95 1.53 0.75 arka suryamukhi karamadai local x 2.39 5.50 20.68 13.6 2.48 209.25 19.62 10.03 2.93 2.11 0.92 avinashi local tamil selvi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 133 avinashi local was the best, since, it exhibited superior mean performance for fruit number per vine, flesh thickness, seed weight per fruit, total carbohydrate content, total carotenoid content and fruit yield per vine, followed by vadhalagundu local x co 2 which showed good mean performance for fruit number per vine, seed weight per fruit, flesh thickness, total carbohydrate content, total carotenoid content and fruit yield per vine. traits showing significant differences were subjected to analysis for heterosis, heterobeltiosis and standard heterosis. data on heterosis for fruit, yield and quality parameters in pumpkin are presented in table 2. fruit weight fruit weight is a primary trait to be considered in any hybrid development programme, as, it contributes directly towards yield in a genotype. heterosis over mid-parent for this trait varied from –27.65% (karwar local x avinashi local) to 56.70% (ashoka farm aids x arka suryamukhi) among the 36 pumpkin hybrids under study. relative heterosis was found to be significant and positive in 15 hybrids for this trait. heterobeltiosis was significant and positive for eight hybrids and non-significant for only one hybrid. estimates for heterobeltiosis were found to range from -41.94% (vadhalagundu local x co 2) to 46.38% (chakor x avinashi local). the highest value for standard heterosis was recorded in ambili x arka suryamukhi (57.49%) and was the least in vadhalagundu local x co 2 (-35.28%), and, non-significant in six hybrids. standard heterosis for this trait was positive and significant in 21 hybrids. nine hybrids registered significant negative standard heterosis for this trait. in all, five cross-combinations recorded significant and positive heterosis for all the three kinds of heterosis, viz., relative heterosis, heterobeltiosis and standard heterosis. as for fruit size, small to medium sized fruits are preferred. among the 36 hybrids, the hybrid ambili x arka suryamukhi showed positive and significant heterosis over the standard parent, followed by the hybrid ashoka farm aids x arka suryamukhi which recorded the highest positive and significant heterosis of all the three kinds. the per se and gca values of parents ambili, virudhachalam local and avinashi local, and sca values of hybrids, also confirmed their superiority. vidhya et al (2002) too reported similar results in pumpkin. fruit number per vine of the various yield components, fruit number per vine is a direct contributor to yield, and, its heterotic vigour contributes towards higher yield (yadav et al, 1989). relative heterosis calculated for fruit number per vine in the 36 hybrids studied ranged from -60.78% (pusa vishwas x co 2) to 82.14% (kasi harit x avinashi local,) and heterobeltiosis values was –73.68% (pusa vishwas x co 2) to 70.00% (kasi harit x avinashi local), while standard heterosis for this character ranged from -79.07% (virudhachalam local x avinashi local) to 37.21% (vadhalagundu local x co 2). among these 36 hybrids, 10 hybrids expressed significantly positive relative heterosis, seven hybrids showed significantly positive heterosis values over the better parent, and just two hybrids expressed significant positive standard heterosis for this trait. the hybrid vadhalagundu local x co 2, followed by kasi harit table 1. contd. hybrid fruit fruit fruit fruit flesh seed seed fruit total total crude weight number equatorial polar thickness number weight yield carotenoid carbohydrate fibre (kg) per vine diameter diameter (cm) per per per content content content (cm) (cm) fruit fruit(g) vine (mg per (g per (per (kg) 100g) 100g) cent) karamadai local x 3.02 3.87 17.43 12.82 3.00 211.62 21.87 9.21 1.65 1.30 1.31 co 2 karwar local x 3.66 2.62 18.76 13.77 1.93 197.12 20.25 6.67 1.83 1.60 1.25 arka suryamukhi karwar local x 2.66 2.87 19.91 14.56 2.50 246.87 20.87 8.77 3.05 3.24 0.93 avinashi local karwar local x co 2 3.21 2.87 16.38 15.23 2.47 234.87 24.12 5.65 3.13 2.80 0.86 kasi harit x 2.09 3.12 17.48 11.82 2.46 125.5 15.37 6.00 2.54 2.16 1.17 arka suryamukhi kasi harit x 2.22 7.37 16.99 13.42 3.55 306 29.37 18.01 3.07 3.57 0.77 avinashi local kasi harit x co 2 2.40 4.12 16.57 11.40 2.28 174.5 21.62 8.25 2.88 2.68 1.05 mph-1 3.01 5.37 13.47 18.06 2.38 262.50 27.12 9.17 1.80 3.25 1.32 sed 0.16 0.38 0.63 0.35 0.24 16.55 0.62 0.21 0.04 0.06 0.04 heterosis in pumpkin j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 134 table 2. heterosis in f1 hybrids with reference to fruit, yield and quality parameters in pumpkin hybrid fruit weight fruit number per vine fruit equatorial diameter fruit polar diameter di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii pusa vishwas x -0.16 -31.81** 19.76** 61.54** 61.54* -51.16** 1.08 -7.92* -3.75 25.57** -10.83** 11.14** arka suryamukhi pusa vishwas x 7.19* -15.81** 47.86** -43.59** -57.69** -74.42** -3.70 -4.81 -0.50 23.94** 1.33 26.30** avinashi local pusa vishwas x -3.56 -21.18** 38.44** -60.78** -73.68** -76.74** 5.90* -4.32 23.92** 11.66** -12.55** 9.00** co 2 punjab samrat x 22.62** -8.19 18.60** 31.82* -6.45 -32.56** 51.76** 37.95** 44.88** 24.98** -3.84 -6.51** arka suryamukhi punjab samrat x 8.92* -3.28 24.95** 19.30* 9.68 -20.93** 4.34 2.90 8.07* 4.75* -4.98* -7.61** avinashi local punjab samrat x -15.30** -21.11** 1.91 -21.74** -28.95** -37.21** -19.92** -27.49** -6.09 -4.91* -17.94** -20.21** co 2 narendra abhushan x -16.40** -39.05** -14.49* 25.00 5.26 -53.49** 6.38* -8.82** 9.70** 16.42** -5.73* -20.28** arka suryamukhi narendra abhushan x -23.11** -34.08** -7.51 -42.22** -50.00** -69.77** 2.45 -5.29 13.94** -22.40** -24.88** -36.47** avinashi local narendra 8.49* -2.66 36.57** -19.30* -39.47** -46.51** -0.85 -4.37 23.85** 13.47** 4.09 -11.97** abhushan x co 2 narendra uphar x 23.85** -2.35 8.76 -52.17** -66.67** -74.42** 22.04** 14.81** 11.89** 21.53** 18.99** -34.95** arka suryamukhi narendra uphar x 16.52** 10.70* 23.29** -32.20** -39.39** -53.49** -1.84 -4.09 -2.05 8.79** -8.04** -27.20** avinashi local narendra uphar x 21.80** 21.75** 35.70** -23.94** -28.95** -37.21** -9.88** -21.04** 2.26 -14.59** -24.22** -46.51** co 2 ambili x 35.14** -6.71* 57.49** 0.00 -21.74 -58.14** 1.95 -11.65** 3.54 44.89** 22.58** -7.20** arka suryamukhi ambili x -7.13* -25.99** 24.95** -34.69** -38.46** -62.79** -19.72** -24.88** -11.96** 0.36 -1.84 -22.28** avinashi local ambili x co 2 -3.44 -19.84** 35.33** -37.70 ** -50.00** -55.81** 0.57 -4.21 24.06** -13.34** -16.27** -36.61** virudhachalam local x 2.92 -34.00** 50.06** 0.00 -15.38 -74.42** 12.38** -0.19 10.47** 41.43** 5.45** 12.46** arka suryamukhi virudhachalam local x -6.87* -32.90** 52.55** -48.57** -65.38** -79.07** 24.91** 20.08** 32.91** 23.13** 7.27** 14.39** avinashi local virudhachalam -19.75** -40.20** 35.95** -44.68** -65.79** -69.77** 7.19** -0.60 28.73** 20.50** 0.13 6.78** local x co 2 chakor x 50.82** 26.82** 19.55** 42.11** 8.00 -37.21** 20.95 ** 5.11 22.36** 8.42** -13.85** -23.39** arka suryamukhi chakor x 50.87** 46.38** 46.74** -1.96 -3.85 -41.86** 24.35 ** 16.72** 35.88** 4.57* -1.17 -12.11** avinashi local chakor x co 2 35.19** 24.77** 39.06** 11.11 -7.89 -18.60* 0.78 -4.32 23.92** 10.20** -1.17 -12.11** ashoka farm aids x 56.70** 20.17** 44.67** -2.13 -32.35** -46.51** 23.69** 7.99* 24.35** 15.09** -11.40** -13.98** arka suryamukhi ashoka farm aids x 0.85 -7.59 11.25* -6.67 -17.65 -34.88** 10.88** 4.61 20.45** -8.36** -16.82** -19.24** avinashi local ashoka farm aids x 6.93 2.97 23.95** -36.11** -39.47** -46.51** -14.38** -19.13** 4.74 -5.90** -18.75** -21.11** co 2 vadhalagundu local x 28.86** 28.08** -16.69** 51.11** 6.25 -20.93** 39.66** 36.33** 17.13** 9.75** 0.77 -36.89** arka suryamukhi vadhalagundu local x 3.72 -14.49* -14.28* 6.90 -3.13 -27.91** 4.81 -5.61 -3.61 -9.54** -18.99** -35.86** avinashi local vadhalagundu -26.67** -41.94** -35.28** 68.57** 55.26** 37.21** -23.17** -37.32** -18.83** -10.44** -15.49** -40.35** local x co 2 karamadai local x 53.45** 38.61** 10.42 70.00** 25.93* -20.93** 21.01** 20.13** 4.74 19.48** 1.57 -24.01** arka suryamukhi karamadai local x -11.63* -20.70** -20.51** 66.04** 62.96** 2.33 4.30 -3.33 -1.27 -2.20 -4.90 -24.71** avinashi local tamil selvi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 135 table 2. contd. hybrid fruit weight fruit number per vine fruit equatorial diameter fruit polar diameter di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii karamadai local x 5.13 -9.87 0.46 -4.62 -18.42* -27.91** -1.96 -17.98 ** 6.23 -2.33 -5.09 -29.00** co 2 karwar local x 16.71** -15.63** 21.63** 55.56** 50.00* -51.16** 14.23** 1.14 12.74** -1.52 -25.59** -23.74 ** arka suryamukhi karwar local x -27.65** -38.67** -11.58* 15.00 -11.54 -46.51** -13.12** -16.76** -7.22* -11.24** -21.34** -19.38** avinashi local karwar local x -16.53** -26.00** 6.68 -11.54 -39.47** -46.51** -17.83** -23.55** -0.99 -2.52 -17.69** -15.64** co 2 kasi harit x -2.33 -11.00 -30.47** 16.28 -16.67 -41.86** 10.08** 8.24* -3.79 2.33 -13.37** -34.53** arka suryamukhi kasi harit x -17.34** -26.46** -26.28** 82.14** 70.00** 18.60* -1.74 -8.11* -6.16 -3.94 -6.12* -25.67** avinashi local kasi harit x co 2 -15.83** -28.42** -20.22** -2.94 -13.16 -23.26** -30.14** -41.09** -23.71** -13.64** -16.48** -36.89** sed 0.14 0.16 0.16 0.33 0.38 0.40 0.42 0.64 0.58 0.25 0.36 0.35 di relative heterosis; dii heterobeltiosis; diiistandard heterosis; * significant at p = 5 per cent level, ** significant at 1 per cent level hybrid flesh thickness seed number per fruit seed weight per fruit fruit yield per vine di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii pusa vishwas x -1.52 -20.73 2.09 27.71** 18.17 -23.19** 14.16** 1.63 -42.40** 97.70** 60.24** 1.81 arka suryamukhi pusa vishwas x -31.56** -32.11** -12.57 -6.17 -33.35** -12.43 -26.01** -44.80** -36.41** -14.47** -25.32** -36.42** avinashi local pusa vishwas x -15.48* -16.16* 9.74 -0.81 -27.83** -12.33 -27.82** -45.42** -39.63** -26.39** -38.17** -42.23** co 2 punjab samrat x 17.20 -1.80 14.14 -41.53** -56.59** -41.81** -20.14** -39.01** -48.85** 62.85** 14.97** 10.14** arka suryamukhi punjab samrat x 3.02 -1.24 25.13* -21.53** -22.31** 4.14 -27.31** -37.20** -27.65** 62.09** 53.06** 46.63** avinashi local punjab samrat x -35.04** -38.68** -19.74* 1.12 -3.62 29.19** -27.96** -36.67** -29.95** -25.86** -26.78** -29.85** co 2 narendra abhushan x -18.16* -37.54** -6.81 5.52 -21.87** 5.62 22.51** -5.14 -23.50** -1.77 -32.11** -29.89** arka suryamukhi narendra abhushan x -19.54** -25.61** 10.99 -14.65** -15.85** 13.76 7.76** -8.40** 5.53* -47.96** -52.53** -50.98** avinashi local narendra abhushan x -8.79 -14.39* 27.75** -1.48 -6.48 26.43** 3.13 -10.83** -1.38 22.22** 16.39** 20.20** co 2 narendra uphar x 4.17 -5.91 -8.38 60.25** 57.44** 2.33 52.30** 27.27** -16.13** -18.49** -40.64** -48.69** arka suryamukhi narendra uphar x -0.47 -11.98 11.52 -24.98** -44.58** -27.19** -32.32** -46.80** -38.71** 17.78** 16.89** 1.04 avinashi local narendra uphar x -22.94** -32.80** -12.04 -9.41 -31.32** -16.57* -34.20** -47.50** -41.94** 66.70** 60.46** 49.92** co 2 ambili x 31.55** 9.82 28.80** 32.41** 31.50** -13.33 5.79 -15.95** -36.87** 44.14** -4.45* 15.77** arka suryamukhi ambili x -11.67 -14.96 7.75 -9.39 -31.97** -10.62 -42.37** -52.40** -45.16** -20.22** -32.08** -17.71** avinashi local ambili x -9.70 -14.40 12.04 -17.10** -36.06** -22.33** -24.57** -36.67** -29.95** 1.80 -9.85** 9.23** co 2 virudhachalam local x 19.90* -5.73 29.32** 63.59** 27.42** 48.48** 84.72** 35.61 ** 28.11** 24.10** -8.19** -24.47** arka suryamukhi virudhachalam local x -4.37 -8.02 26.18** -4.92 -10.29* 17.86* 42.42** 29.60 ** 49.31** -19.74** -21.09** -32.82** avinashi local virudhachalam local x -6.64 -8.78 25.13* -21.85** -23.44** -7.00 19.10** 10.42 ** 22.12** -16.32** -21.32** -26.49** co 2 heterosis in pumpkin j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 136 table 2. contd. hybrid flesh thickness seed number per fruit seed weight per fruit fruit yield per vine di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii chakor x 31.72** 3.42 42.41** 81.56** 42.69** 62.19** -0.29 -30.53 ** -21.89** 70.36** 21.87** 11.67** arka suryamukhi chakor x -7.33 -11.03 22.51* -31.56** -36.17** -16.14* -25.10** -26.00** -14.75** 50.35** 45.02** 32.88** avinashi local chakor x -11.50 -13.69 18.85 -12.27* -15.09** 3.14 -11.98** -12.70** -1.84 65.09** 63.50** 52.75** co 2 ashoka farm aids x 45.36** 20.70* 43.46** -2.56 -30.01** 4.19 -0.35 -25.39** -33.64** 32.62** -8.45** -5.07** arka suryamukhi ashoka farm aids x 20.26** 16.53* 47.64** -22.89** -27.42** 8.05 -20.09** -29.20** -18.43** 19.03** 8.37** 12.38** avinashi local ashoka farm aids x -14.88* -18.80* 6.28 -18.09** -25.62** 10.71 -29.33** -36.25** -29.49** -23.37** -27.16** -24.47** co 2 vadhalagundu local x -30.81** -44.31** -28.27** 11.36 -6.77 -10.14 12.36** -12.28** -30.88** 21.68** -17.40** -8.87** arka suryamukhi vadhalagundu local x -43.03** -43.50** -27.23** -46.31** -53.46** -38.86** -31.12** -42.00** -33.18** -30.45** -38.39** -32.03** avinashi local vadhalagundu local x 4.03 3.20 35.08** -12.52* -21.56** -4.71 -18.25** -30.00** -22.58** 87.48** 73.12** 90.99** co 2 karamadai local x 32.15** 18.52 17.28 21.47** 8.74 -10.57 4.25 -17.18** -37.79** 56.41** 11.59** 3.16** arka suryamukhi karamadai local x -7.66 -17.77* 4.19 -25.37** -39.33** -20.29** -23.97** -37.20** -27.65** 23.30** 18.42** 9.47** avinashi local karamadai local x 9.34 -4.00 25.65* -20.85** -33.63** -19.38** -13.15** -27.08** -19.35** 8.17** 7.60** 0.53 co 2 karwar local x -15.76 -28.90** -18.85 -19.17** -37.84** -24.90** 15.30** -12.43** -25.35** 29.34** -0.41 -27.21** arka suryamukhi karwar local x -13.04 -17.36* 4.71 -25.42** -28.42** -5.95 -23.22** -33.20** -23.04** 20.93** 12.38** -4.33** avinashi local karwar local x -15.38* -20.80* 3.66 -26.14** -26.34** -10.52 -9.18** -19.58** -11.06** -25.97** -34.02** -38.36** co 2 kasi harit x -8.16 -29.39** 3.14 -46.47** -57.92** -52.19** -12.77** -33.87** -43.32** -12.75** -40.80** -34.54** arka suryamukhi kasi harit x 9.02 1.79 48.69** -4.84 -11.27* 16.57* 7.80** -6.00** 8.29** 100.75** 77.65** 96.44** avinashi local kasi harit x co 2 -30.81** -34.41** -4.19 -43.45** -45.28** -33.52** -18.78** -27.92** -20.28** -11.77** -18.61** -10.01** sed 0.21 0.24 0.22 14.46 16.70 18.14 0.54 0.62 0.65 0.18 0.21 0.10 di relative heterosis ; dii heterobeltiosis ;diiistandard heterosis; * significant at p = 5 per cent level, ** significant at 1 per cent level hybrid total carotenoid content total carbohydrate content crude fibre content di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii pusa vishwas x 26.45 ** -1.01 -69.89 ** -41.76 ** -49.52 ** -70.56 ** 22.33 ** -8.70 ** -4.55 arka suryamukhi pusa vishwas x -50.56 ** -70.67 ** -72.96 ** -44.35 ** -64.92 ** -42.50 ** -39.91 ** -53.62 ** -51.52 ** avinashi local pusa vishwas x -39.25 ** -61.01 ** -76.34 ** -50.73 ** -67.17 ** -57.78 ** -14.41 ** -25.72 ** -22.35 ** co 2 punjab samrat x -5.64 -7.07 -71.74 ** -25.09 ** -39.41 ** -42.78 ** 42.26 ** 25.00 ** -35.61 ** arka suryamukhi punjab samrat x -33.84 ** -56.33 ** -59.75 ** -25.59 ** -41.36 ** -3.89 40.71 ** 18.67 ** -32.58 ** avinashi local punjab samrat x -51.62 ** -64.05 ** -78.19 ** -46.20 ** -53.35 ** -40.00 ** 3.27 -22.17 ** -40.15 ** co 2 narendra abhushan x 12.64 -1.01 -69.89 ** -18.83 ** -36.31 ** -34.72 ** 23.27 ** 7.69 -25.76 ** arka suryamukhi narendra abhushan x -45.60 ** -66.00 ** -68.66 ** -47.86 ** -57.63 ** -30.56 ** 6.02 -3.30 -33.33 ** avinashi local tamil selvi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 137 table 2. contd. hybrid total carotenoid content total carbohydrate content crude fibre content di dii diii di dii diii di dii diii narendra abhushan x -33.94 ** -54.43 ** -72.35 ** -42.31 ** -48.16 ** -33.33 ** 21.56 ** 15.27 ** -11.36 ** co 2 narendra uphar x 6.84 -17.17 * -74.81 ** -21.20 ** -37.36 ** -38.06 ** 34.69 ** 25.32 ** -25.00 ** arka suryamukhi narendra uphar x -22.71 ** -54.33 ** -57.91 ** -10.57 ** -28.31 ** 17.50 ** -11.69 * -13.92 * -48.48 ** avinashi local narendra uphar x -23.81 ** -51.39 ** -70.51 ** -44.32 ** -50.76 ** -36.67 ** 31.86 ** 17.24 ** -9.85 ** co 2 ambili x arka 26.79 ** -15.15 * -74.19 ** 27.17 ** 8.10 -36.94 ** 16.28 ** -3.85 -24.24 ** suryamukhi ambili x avinashi -29.84 ** -61.00 ** -64.06 ** -17.50 ** -48.47 ** -15.56 ** 15.08 ** -0.96 -21.97 ** local ambili x co 2 -61.90 ** -77.72 ** -86.48 ** -66.56 ** -77.97 ** -71.67 ** -23.11 ** -24.04 ** -40.15 ** virudhachalam local x -5.24 -6.40 -70.81 ** -5.26 * -27.64 ** -20.00 ** 4.12 -19.84 ** -23.48 ** arka suryamukhi virudhachalam local x -35.24 ** -56.67 ** -60.06 ** -32.79 ** -43.73 ** -7.78 ** -4.98 -24.21 ** -27.65 ** avinashi local virudhachalam local x -43.14 ** -56.96 ** -73.89 ** -44.72 ** -48.60 ** -33.89 ** -21.76 ** -29.37 ** -32.58 ** co 2 chakor x arka 15.76 * 2.02 -68.97 ** 5.02 0.88 -36.11 ** 34.63 ** 20.23 ** -21.21 ** suryamukhi chakor x avinashi -32.36 ** -57.67 ** -60.98 ** -2.93 -32.71 ** 10.28 ** 7.74 0.58 -34.09 ** local chakor x co 2 -15.75 ** -41.77 ** -64.67 ** -10.27 ** -33.05 ** -13.89 ** -0.53 -7.88 -29.17 ** ashoka farm aids x 9.64 -8.08 -72.04 ** -2.33 -21.61 ** -24.44 ** -21.53 ** -37.66 ** -45.45 ** arka suryamukhi ashoka farm aids x -23.71 ** -53.33 ** -56.99 ** -23.59 ** -39.32 ** -0.56 36.48 ** 12.55 ** -1.52 avinashi local ashoka farm aids x -32.70 ** -54.94 ** -72.66 ** -48.89 ** -55.29 ** -42.50 ** -11.52 ** -16.88 ** -27.27 ** co 2 vadhalagundu local x -24.69 ** -45.78 ** -62.52 ** -23.04 ** -46.93 ** -18.33 ** 8.41 -5.95 -34.09 ** arka suryamukhi vadhalagundu local x -32.19 ** -40.67 ** -45.31 ** -27.27 ** -29.49 ** 15.56 ** -1.49 -10.81 * -37.50 ** avinashi local vadhalagundu local x 141.42 ** 126.67 ** 56.68 ** 0.69 -7.58 ** 42.22 ** -34.02 ** -36.95 ** -51.52 ** co 2 karamadai local x 48.91 ** 43.66 ** -53.00 ** 31.21 ** 1.30 8.61 ** -16.20 ** -32.43 ** -43.18 ** arka suryamukhi karamadai local x 3.81 -29.67 ** -35.18 ** 20.08 ** -0.68 62.78 ** -1.08 -17.12 ** -30.30 ** avinashi local karamadai local x -14.14 ** -33.92 ** -59.91 ** -22.26 ** -28.73 ** -8.33 ** 23.29 ** 18.02 ** -0.76 co 2 karwar local x 64.10 ** 61.62 ** -50.84 ** 55.74 ** 40.77 ** 1.67 71.23 ** 60.26 ** -5.30 arka suryamukhi karwar local x 63.64 ** 8.00 ** -0.46 43.53 ** 3.39 * 69.44 ** 21.57 ** 19.23 ** -29.55 ** avinashi local karwar local x co2 90.80 ** 41.77 ** -13.98 ** 73.44 ** 35.42 ** 74.17 ** -4.18 -15.27 ** -34.85 ** kasi harit x 42.34 ** 5.62 -33.64 ** 50.15 ** 8.76 ** 41.39 ** 16.42 ** -12.03 ** -11.36 ** arka suryamukhi kasi harit x 41.72 ** 19.17 ** 9.83 ** 16.07 ** 4.07 ** 70.56 ** -25.96 ** -42.11 ** -41.67 ** avinashi local kasi harit x co2 33.33 ** 31.05 ** -17.67 ** 23.74 ** 23.08 ** 60.00 ** -10.45 ** -21.05 ** -20.45 ** sed 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.04 di relative heterosis ; dii heterobeltiosis ;diiistandard heterosis; * significant at p = 5 per cent level, ** significant at 1 per cent level heterosis in pumpkin j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 138 x avinashi local, exhibited a high positive and significant standard heterosis as also the other two types of heterosis. positive standard heterotic values for fruit number per vine have been reported by singh et al (2000) too in bitter gourd. fruit equatorial diameter relative heterosis of fruit equatorial diameter of 36 pumpkin hybrids ranged from –30.14% (kasi harit x co 2) to 51.76% (punjab samrat x arka suryamukhi), fifteen hybrids recorded significant and positive relative heterosis, and eight hybrids exhibited negatively significant values for relative heterosis for this trait. heterobeltiosis for this trait ranged from –41.09% (kasi harit x co 2) to 37.95% (punjab samrat x arka suryamukhi), eight hybrids recorded positively significant values, while thirteen hybrids recorded negatively significant values for heterobeltiosis. standard heterosis for this trait was positive and significant in eighteen hybrids. the highest value for standard heterosis was recorded in punjab samrat x arka suryamukhi (44.88%), while it was the least in kasi harit x co 2 (-23.71%). the hybrids kasi harit x co 2 and punjab samrat x arka suryamukhi expressed the lowest and the highest values, respectively, for relative heterosis, heterobeltiosis and standard heterosis for this trait. in all, 18 hybrids recorded positive significant standard heterosis for this trait. these results are supported by nisha (1999) in pumpkin, where, the hybrid p5x p4 showed significant heterosis for this trait. fruit polar diameter the heterosis percentage over mid-parent for fruit polar diameter varied from –22.40% (narendra abhushan x avinashi local) to 44.89% (ambili x arka suryamukhi). the observations were positive and significant for 19 hybrids. however, negative and significant heterosis for fruit polar diameter was observed in 10 hybrids. heterobeltiosis for fruit polar diameter was recorded in the range of –25.59% (karwar local x arka suryamukhi) to 22.58% (ambili x arka suryamukhi). four hybrids showed significant and positive heterobeltiosis, while, 20 hybrids showed significant and negative heterobeltiosis. standard heterosis values for this trait ranged from -46.51% (pusa vishwas x co 2) to 26.30% (pusa vishwas x avinashi local). standard heterosis for this trait was positive and significant for six hybrids only. thirty hybrids registered negative significant standard heterosis for this trait. highest values of relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis were noted in the hybrid ambili x arka suryamukhi. this is in line with earlier findings of nisha (1999) in pumpkin. flesh thickness flesh thickness in pumpkin fruits is an important trait to be considered in crop improvement. relative heterosis calculated for flesh thickness in the 36 hybrids was observed to range from -43.03% (vadhalagundu local x avinashi local) to 45.36% (ashoka farm aids x arka suryamukhi). only six hybrids recorded positive and significant relative heterosis for this trait. estimates for heterobeltiosis varied from –44.31% (vadhalagundu local x arka suryamukhi) to 20.70% (ashoka farm aids x arka suryamukhi). significant positive heterobeltiosis was recorded in two hybrids for flesh thickness. standard heterosis for this character ranged from -28.27% (vadhalagundu local x arka suryamukhi) to 48.69% (kasi harit x avinashi local). out of the 36 hybrids, 13 expressed significant positive standard heterosis for this trait. six hybrids recorded positive heterosis for all the three kinds, irrespective of the level of significance. similar reports are also available from vidya et al (2002) in pumpkin. seed number per fruit in the development of hybrids in pumpkin, higher numbers of seeds per fruit is a preferable trait if the aim is to reduce f1 hybrid seed production cost. estimates for relative heterosis for this trait ranged from –46.47% (kasi harit x arka suryamukhi) to 81.56% (chakor x arka suryamukhi). among the 36 hybrids under study, six recorded significant positive relative heterosis, while nineteen hybrids expressed negative and significant relative heterosis for this trait. estimates for heterobeltiosis ranged from – 57.92% (kasi harit x arka suryamukhi) to 57.44% (narendra uphar x arka suryamukhi) for seed number per fruit. of the 36 hybrids, only four recorded significant and positive heterobeltiosis, whereas, 27 recorded significant but negative values. standard heterosis for this trait ranged from -52.19% (kasi harit x arka suryamukhi) to 62.19% (chakor x arka suryamukhi). of the 36 hybrids, six recorded significant positive, and 12 showed significant negative values for standard heterosis for seed number per fruit. the lowest values for relative heterosis, heterobeltiosis and standard heterosis were expressed by the hybrid kasi harit x arka suryamukhi, while, the highest relative and standard heterosis values were expressed by chakor x arka suryamukhi for seed number per fruit. the hybrids virudhachalam local x arka suryamukhi and chakor x arka suryamukhi recorded positive heterosis for all the three kinds for seed number per fruit. these results are supported by varghese and rajan (1993) in snake gourd. tamil selvi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 139 seed weight per fruit though seed is an essential organ for fruit shape development, fewer seeds with lower weight is a trait preferable when used as a vegetable. however, in hybrid vegetable seed production, higher seed weight is preferred. estimates for relative heterosis for this trait ranged from 42.37% (ambili x avinashi local) to 84.72% (virudhachalam local x arka suryamukhi). among the 36 hybrids under study, 10 recorded significant positive relative heterosis, while, 21 hybrids recorded significant negative relative heterosis. here too, the estimates for heterobeltiosis ranged from –52.40% (ambili x avinashi local) to 35.61% (virudhachalam local x arka suryamukhi) for seed weight. of the 36 hybrids, only four hybrids recorded significant and positive heterobeltiosis, whereas, 30 hybrids recorded significant and negative values. standard heterosis for this trait ranged from -48.85% (vadhalagundu local x co 2 and punjab samrat x arka suryamukhi) to 49.31% (virudhachalam local x avinashi local). out of the 36 hybrids, only five hybrids recorded significant positive and 29 showed significant negative values for standard heterosis for seed weight per fruit. least values for relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis were expressed by the hybrid ambili x avinashi local, while, the highest relative and standard heterosis for seed weight per fruit was observed in virudhachalam local x arka suryamukhi. three hybrid combinations recorded positive and significant heterosis, of all the three kinds, for this trait. these results are supported by doijode and sulladmath (1982) too in pumpkin. total carotenoids content among 36 cross-combinations, 11 crosses expressed positive significant relative heterosis, seven hybrids expressed positive and significant heterobeltiosis, and only two recorded positive and significant values for standard heterosis. for this trait, the lowest and the highest heterosis per cent ranged from –61.90 (ambili x co2) to 141.42 (vadhalagundu local x co 2). maximum and minimum values for heterobeltiosis were recorded in vadhlagundu local x co 2 (126.67%) and ambili x co 2 (-77.72%) respectively. standard heterosis values for this trait ranged from -86.48% (ambili x co 2) to 56.68 (vadhlagundu local x co 2). similar results were obtained by srinivasan (2003) too for this trait in pumpkin. total carbohydrate content heterosis percentage estimated over the mid-parent for total carbohydrate content in 36 pumpkin hybrids varied from -66.56% (ambili x co 2) to 73.44% (karwar local x co 2). just nine hybrids recorded significant and positive relative heterosis for this trait. highest and lowest values for heterobeltiosis were recorded in the hybrids karwar local x arka suryamukhi (40.77%) and ambili x co 2 (-77.97%), respectively. only six hybrids showed significant and positive heterobeltiosis, while, 25 hybrids showed significant and negative heterobeltiosis. standard heterosis was positive and significant in 11 hybrids, ranging from -71.67% (ambili x co 2) to 74.17% (karwar local x co 2). in all, 22 hybrids expressed negative significant standard heterosis for this trait, while, only 11 hybrids expressed positive standard heterosis. all the three types of heterosis were found to be lowest for carbohydrate content in the hybrid ambili x co 2. the hybrid karwar local x co 2 expressed highest relative heterosis and standard heterosis values for total carbohydrate content in the fruit. further, only five hybrids were found to be positive and significant for all the three kinds of heterosis for this trait. similar results for these characters were obtained by srinivasan (2003) in pumpkin. crude fibre content among the 36 pumpkin hybrids, relative heterosis for total crude fibre content ranged from –39.91% (pusa vishwas x avinashi local) to 71.23% (karwar local x arka suryamukhi), and, fifteen hybrids recorded significant positive relative heterosis, while 11 hybrids exhibited negative significant values. the highest and the lowest values for heterobeltiosis in this trait were recorded by the hybrid karwar local x arka suryamukhi (60.26%) and pusa vishwas x avinashi local (-53.62%), respectively. ten hybrids showed significant positive heterobeltiosis, while, 18 hybrids showed significant negative heterobeltiosis for this trait. standard heterosis values for this trait ranged from -51.52% (pusa vishwas x avinashi local) to -0.76% (karamadai local x co 2). all the hybrids recorded negative values for standard heterosis for crude fibre content. also, relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis were found to be the highest and the lowest for crude fibre content in the hybrids karwar local x arka suryamukhi and pusa vishwas x avinashi local, respectively. similar results for these characters were obtained by shivanand hegde (2009) in ridge gourd. fruit yield per vine expression of yield is a prime trait to be considered in any hybridization programme. among the 36 pumpkin hybrids in their study, heterosis percentage estimated over the mid-parent varied from -47.96% (narendra abhushan x avinashi local) to 100.75% (kasi harit x avinashi local). heterosis in pumpkin j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 140 twenty hybrids recorded significant and positive relative heterosis. the highest and the lowest values for heterobeltiosis were recorded in kasi harit x avinashi local (77.65%) and narendra abhushan x avinashi local (-52.53%). in all, 16 hybrids showed significant and positive heterobeltiosis for yield per vine. standard heterosis values for this trait ranged from -50.98% (narendra abhushan x avinashi local) to 96.44% (kasi harit x avinashi local). only 14 hybrids recorded positive significant values for standard heterosis. all the three types of heterosis were found to be the highest and the lowest for fruit yield per vine in the hybrids kasi harit x avinashi local and narendra abhushan x avinashi local, respectively. the crosses kasi harit x avinashi local and vadhalagundu local x co 2 recorded positive and significant values for all the three kinds of heterosis. excellence for hybrid combination was also supported by per se performance. a positive and significant heterosis for yield per vine was reported by kushwaha and hari har ram (2002) and singh and rajesh kumar (2002) in bottle gourd. speedy improvement can be achieved by assessing heterosis coupled and knowledge on gene action controlling yield and yield attributes. in the present study, a predominance of non-additive gene action in inheritance was noticed in important traits viz., fruit number per vine, fruit weight, fruit equatorial diameter, fruit polar diameter, flesh thickness, seed number per fruit, seed weight per fruit, total carbohydrate content, total carotenoid and crude fibre content in the fruit, and fruit yield per vine. results from the present study suggest that hybrid combinations, kasi harit x avinashi local and vadhalagundu local x co 2, were the best based on per se performance and heterotic values for fruit number per vine, flesh thickness and quality traits, namely total carotenoids content, total carbohydrate content and yield per vine. hence, these hybrids can be effectively utilized for development of f1 hybrids in pumpkin. these hybrids need to be validated in different locations for yield stability. references doijode, s.d. and sulladmath, u.v. 1982. heterosis and inbreeding depression for certain seed characters in pumpkin (cucurbita moschata poir.). mysore j. agril. sci., 16:170-172 heyes, h.k., immer, f.r. and smith, d.c. 1955. methods of plant breeding. mcgraw hill book co. inc., new york, usa kempthrone, o. 1957. an introduction to genetical statistics. john wiley and sons, inc., new york., usa, pp 458471 kushwaha, m.l. and hari har ram. 2002. heterosis in bottle gourd (langenaria siceraria). prog. hort., 34:174-178 nisha, s.k. 1999. genetic studies in pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir.) through diallele analysis. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, tamil nadu agril. univ., coimbatore, india shivanand hegde. 2009. studies on heterosis in ridge gourd. m.sc. thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india singh, a.k., pandey, u.b. and mamta singh. 2000. studies on heterosis in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). veg. sci., 27:158-161 singh, d.k. and rajesh kumar. 2002. heterosis in bottle gourd (langenaria siceraria). prog. hort., 34:204207 sirohi, p.s. and ghorui, s. 1993. gene effects of certain quantitative characters in pumpkin. veg. sci., 20:158162 srinivasan, m. 2003. studies on genetic parameters and characterization in pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch. ex poir.). m.sc. thesis. tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india varghese, p. and rajan, s. 1993. heterosis for yield characters in snake gourd (trichosanthes anguina l.). golden jubilee symposium of horticultural research: changing scenario. horticultural society of india, bangalore, abstracts of papers, p. 83 vidya, h. mahajan and sirohi, p.s. 2002. heterosis in pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duch). pkv res. j., 26:36-39 yadav, e.d., kale, p.n. and wavhal, k.n. 1989. heterosis for yield, fruit number and weight of fruit in tomato. j. maharashtra agril. university, 14:338-340 (ms received 26 august 2013, revised 25 august 2014, accepted 09 september 2014) tamil selvi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):131-140, 2014 effect of growth regulators on rooting of cuttings in pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cv. ‘bhagwa’ y. ahmad seiar department of fruit science, college of horticulture university of agricultural sciences, gkvk post bengaluru 560 065, india *e-mail: ahmadsameer344@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted at regional horticultural research and extension center (rhrec), uhs, gkvk, bengaluru, in the summer of 2014. ten treatments of growth re gulator formulations we re imposed, inc luding the control, unde r com plete ly randomized design (crd). semi-hardwood cuttings of pomegranate were prepared from healthy twigs 20 to 30cm long, bearing 4 to 5 nodes and a thickness of 0.75 to 1.0cm. the cuttings were treated with a combination of different concentrations (500, 1000 or 1500 ppm) of indole butyric acid (iba), and 500, 1000 or 1500 ppm of naphthalene acetic acid (naa) for 8 hours. results showed that highest sprouting percentage (68.00%), highest rooting percentage (60.40%), maximum number of sprouts (2.09), greatest diameter of sprout (0.59cm), longest roots (18.9cm) and widest diameter of root (1.62mm) were recorded in cuttings treated with iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm, whereas, longest sprout (34.50cm), highest number of primary roots (10.30) and secondary roots (62.70), highest fresh weight of sprout (9.03g), highest dry weight of shoot (4.66g), highest fresh weight of root (2.70g) and the highest dry weight of root (1.63g) per cutting was recorded with iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm. key words: iba, naa, pomegranate, semi-hardwood cuttings introduction pomegra nate (punica granatum. l.) is an ancient fruit crop, belonging to the family punicaceae and genus punica. pomegranate is cultivated in the tropical and sub-tropical parts of the world for its delicious fruits. it is extensively cultivated in india, spain, morocco and othe r countries around the mediterranean, and, in egypt, iran, afghanistan, arabia and baluchistan. in india, among the different states growing pomegranate, maharashtra is the largest producer covering 2/3rd of the total area under pomegranate in the country, followed by karnataka, andhra pradesh, gujarat and rajasthan. karnataka has the distinction of cultivating pomegranate under tropical conditions in an area of 12,042ha, with production of 1,29,547 tons. the most popular varieties suitable for processing and table use are ganesh, mridula, arakta, bhagwa (ke sa r), g-137 and kanda har (jayalakshmi, 2010). pomegranate is commonly propagated by air layering, hard-wood cuttings a nd semi hard wood cuttings, because propagation through stem cuttings is the simplest, effective and most convenient (sharma et al, 2009). auxin is generally accepted as playing a role in initiation and development of adventitious roots. this is the only group of chemicals (synthetic or natural) which consistently improves root formation in cuttings (singh et al, 2009; damar et al, 2014). therefore, the present study was conducted to study the effect of various concentrations and combinations of iba and naa on rooting in pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cuttings of cv. bhagwa. material and methods the present investigation was carried out during the summer of 2014 at regional horticultural research and extension center (rhrec), uhs, gkvk, bengaluru 560065. the experiment was laid out in crd (completely randomized design), with twenty j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 156-160, 2017 157 cuttings per replication. ten treatments were imposed, viz., t1 control, t2 iba 500ppm + naa 500ppm, t 3 iba 500ppm + naa 1000ppm, t 4 iba 500ppm + naa 1500ppm, t5 iba 1000ppm + naa 500ppm, t 6 iba 1000ppm + naa 1000ppm, t 7 iba 1000ppm + naa 1500ppm, t8 iba 1500ppm + naa 500ppm, t 9 iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm, and t 10 iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm. semi-hardwood cuttings of 0.75 to 1.0cm diameter of a length of 20 to 30cm were used. the basal 6 8cm portion of the cuttings was dipped in the growth regulator formulation for 8 hours and the cuttings were planted in a plastic bag (9 x 5 inches) containing a mixture of sand, soil and fym in equal proportions. then, the plastic bags were placed in polyhouse during march. observations were recorded on stem, leaf and root characters. results and discussion days taken to sprouting data indicated significant differences between days taken for the last sprout to appear (table 1). among various levels of growth regulators used, iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm and iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm resulted in significantly early completion of sprouting (25.00 days and 26.00 days, respectively), while, maximum number of days taken for the last sprout to appear was seen in control (36.00 days). damar et al (2014) reported that days taken to sprouting, and, days taken to fifty percent sprouting of cuttings were significantly affected by different growth regulators, but, the earliest sprouting of cuttings was noticed with iba 2000ppm. similarly, cuttings treated with iba 5000ppm took minimum duration to sprout (8.75 days), whereas, it was longest (9.73 days) in the control (srivastava et al, 2008). sprouting percentage sprouting percentage increased significantly with applic ation of growth re gulators. t he highe st percentage (68.00% and 67.10%) of sprouting was recorded with iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm, and, iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm. the least number of cuttings sprouted (26.40) and the lowest sprouting percentage (44.00%) was recorded in the control. bhatt and tomar (2010) obtained maximum number of sprouted cuttings (68.50%) with the growth regulator iba at 500ppm. similarly, singh et al (2009) reported that cuttings treated with iba 100ppm (slow dip) and 2000ppm (quick dip) resulted in maximum (90.96%) sprouting compared to (47.32%) sprouting in the control. iba treatment increased sprouting percentage over the control. this may be attributed to cell division stimulated by the auxin at sprout-union initiation. shoot characteristics a perusal of the data (table 1) reveals that influence of different growth regulators on inducing number of sprouts, diameter of sprout, length of the longest sprout per cutting and number of leaves per cutting, were significant. maximum number of sprouts (2.09) per cutting and greater diameter of the sprout (0.59cm) was recorded with iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm, while, significantly less (1.30) number of sprouts per cutting and the lowest diameter of the sprout (0.37cm) was observed in the control. similarly, among various treatment of growth regulators, iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm, and iba 1500ppm + naa 1500 ppm showed significant results with respect to length of the longest sprout at 120 day after planting (34.50 to 32.40cm, respectively) over the control (23.4cm). as for number of leaves, cuttings treated with iba 1000ppm + naa 1500ppm ga ve the maximum number of leaves per cutting (33.90), while the minimum number of leaves was recorded in untreated cuttings (20.10). the pomegranate cutting treated with iba 2000 ppm produced the maximum number of shoots per cutting, but the minimum number of shoots pe r c utting wa s obse rved in control (damar et al, 2014). this ma y be attributed to increased cell division and elongation at higher iba concentrations and its possible reason for increased activation of shoot growth which probably increased the number of nodes that lead to development of more number of leaves. rooting percentage percentage of rooted cuttings as influenced by various growth regulator combination is presented in table 2. highest (60.40%) rooting percentage was noticed in cuttings treated with iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm, followed by iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm and iba 1500ppm + naa 500ppm (57.60% and 53.10%, respectively) as against the lowest (40.10%) recorded with iba 500ppm + naa 500ppm; the next lowest percentage (40.50%) was recorded in untreated cuttings. sharma et al (2009) observed that treatment with iba 500ppm + borax 1% produced maximum effect of growth regulators on rooting in pomegranate cuttings j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 156-160, 2017 158 ahmad seiar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 156-160, 2017 table 1. effect of growth regulators on days-taken-to-sprouting and shoot characters in cuttings of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cv. ‘bhagwa’ t r e a t m e n t d ay s tak e n fo r sp ro u tin g n um be r of d iam e te r of le ng th o f n u m b e r f re s h d r y th e l as t s pro ut to p e rc e n ta g e s prou ts / s prou t (c m) th e l on ge st ofle a ve s / w eig ht of w eig ht of a p p e a r c u tt i ng s prou t (c m) c u tt i ng s hoo t (g ) s hoo t (g ) t 1 = c o n tr o l 36. 00 44. 00 1.30 0.37 23. 40 20. 10 4.80 2.40 (41. 55) t 2 = ib a 5 00ppm + n a a 500pp m 33.00 46.50 1.50 0.39 25.40 20.90 5.43 2.80 (43.00) t 3 = iba 500ppm+ n aa 1000ppm 33. 30 49. 60 1.90 0.43 26. 50 20. 20 5.50 2.86 (44. 77) t 4 = iba 500ppm + n a a 1500ppm 32. 30 53. 30 1.90 0.41 27. 00 20. 70 5.96 3.10 (48. 00) t 5 = iba 1000ppm + n aa 500ppm 31. 00 51. 66 1.80 0.39 27. 10 26. 50 6.33 3.46 (46. 77) t 6 = iba 1000ppm + na a 1000ppm 32. 00 55. 30 1.90 0.39 26. 10 32. 40 6.96 3.73 (48. 04) t 7 = iba 1000ppm + na a 1500ppm 30. 00 56. 50 1.80 0.41 25. 30 33. 90 7.26 3.80 (48. 73) t 8 = iba 1500ppm + n aa 500ppm 29. 00 59. 80 1.90 0.51 28. 10 32. 30 7.30 4.10 (50. 65) t 9 = iba 1500ppm + na a 1000ppm 25. 00 67. 10 1.90 0.52 34. 50 32. 30 9.03 4.66 (55. 00) t 10 = iba 1500ppm + n a a 1500ppm 26. 00 68. 00 2.09 0.59 32. 40 33. 70 8.73 4.53 (55. 55) cd (p=0.05) 1.96 3.37 0.21 0.03 2.54 2.28 0.61 0.51 s e.m ± 0.66 1.26 0.07 0.01 0.86 0.77 0.20 0.17 note: angular transformation values are presented in parentheses t r e a t m e n t ro o t i n g n um be r of n um be r of le ng th of t he d iam e te r o f th e fre sh w ei ght d ry w eig ht p e rc e n ta g e prim a ry roo ts s e c o n d a ry lon ge s t ro ot lon ge s t ro ot of ro ot of ro ot r o o t s ( c m ) ( m m ) (g) (g) t 1 = control 40.50(39.52) 6.01 29.20 8.3 1.39 1.50 0.85 t 2 = iba 500ppm + n aa 500ppm 40.10(39.28) 6.03 41.10 8.6 1.49 1.60 0.91 t 3 = iba 500ppm + n a a 1000ppm 46.00(42.70) 6.90 45.90 9.9 1.53 2.00 1.16 t 4 = iba 500ppm + n a a 1500ppm 47.30(43.45) 7.04 42.93 11.2 1.41 2.00 1.10 t 5 = iba 1000ppm + n aa 500ppm 49.10(44.48) 7.00 45.70 16.1 1.45 2.10 1.26 t 6 = iba 1000ppm + na a 1000ppm 48.10(43.90) 7.09 55.20 15.5 1.42 2.20 1.30 t 7 = iba 1000ppm + na a 1500ppm 50.30(45.20) 8.90 60.12 16.1 1.47 2.20 1.30 t 8 = iba 1500ppm + n aa 500ppm 53.10(46.77) 9.20 60.08 17.9 1.51 2.40 1.56 t 9 = iba 1500ppm + na a 1000ppm 57.60 (49.37) 10.30 62.70 17.8 1.55 2.70 1.63 t 10 = iba 1500ppm + n a a 1500ppm 60.40 (51.00) 10.20 61.90 18.9 1.62 2.50 1.56 cd (p=0.05) 2.48 0.18 1.40 1.32 0.02 0.24 0.20 s e.m ± 0.84 0.06 0.47 0.44 0.008 0.08 0.06 table 2. effect of growth regulators on root characters in cuttings of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cv. ‘bhagwa’ note: angular transformation values are presented in parentheses 159 effect of growth regulators on rooting in pomegranate cuttings j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 156-160, 2017 root-number (16.47 and 27.12 in semihardwood and hardwood cuttings of pomegranate, respectively). jain and parmar (1993) also recorded a high number of roots in pomegranate cuttings with iba 1000ppm + boron 50ppm. according to singh (1994), a pplica tion of iba to ste m cuttings of pomegranate increased rooting percentage. similarly, melgarejo et al (2000) reported that iba generally increased per cent rooting. damar et al (2014) and barde et al (2010) also observed better rooting percentage with 2000ppm iba which could be attributed to auxin activity causing hydrolysis and tra nslocation of carbohydrate and nitrogenous substances at the base of the cuttings, resulting in accelerated cell elongation and cell division under a suitable environment. root characters data reveals that growth regulators promoted the number of primary and secondary roots per cutting, as compared to the control (table 2). among various growth r egula tor combinations use d, iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm resulted in the maximum number of primary roots (10.3) per cutting and maximum number of secondary roots (62.70) per cutting; while, significantly low number of primary roots (6.01) per cutting and minimum number of secondary roots (29.20) per cutting was recorded in the untreated control. significantly high (18.9cm) primary root length and significantly greater diameter of root (1.62mm) was recorded with iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm, while, the lowest root length (8.3cm) and significantly low diameter of the longest root (1.12mm) was recorded in the control. the next best treatment was iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm with respect to length and diameter of the longest primary root per cutting. srivastava et al (2008) reported maximum number of primary and secondary roots, and average root number (7.68, 49.0 and 75.0, respectively) with 5000ppm iba (up to a certain concentration) in leafless cuttings of kiwifruit. this may perhaps, be due to enhanced hydrolysis of carbohydrates caused by auxin treatment. conclusion in general, all the nine treatments with growth re gula tors ( iba+naa) a pplie d a t va rying concentrations promoted rooting, with the exception of some tre a tments . among the diffe rent concentrations of growth regulators tested, cuttings treated with iba 1500ppm + naa 1500ppm, and those treated with iba 1500ppm + naa 1000ppm recorded highest percentage of rooting, and, these were better for root characters such as number of days taken for root iniation, per cent success, highest number of roots, and length of the longest root. overall, use of higher concentrations of growth regulators gave a better result than with low concentrations for root and shoot pa ra me ters. a probable re ason could be better utilization by the plant of carbohydrates, nitrogen and other nutrients aided by growth regulators. references barde, p., tiwari, r., kanpure, r.n., baghel, b.s. and kumawat, b.r. 2010. effect of biofertilizers and growth regulators on rooting and growth of pomegra na te c uttings. anna. soil re s ., 12(1):46-47 bhatt, b.b. and tomar, y.k. 2010. effects of iba on rooting performance of citrus auriantifolia swingle (kagzi-lime) in different growing conditions. nature and science, 8(7):8-11 damar, d., barholia, a.k., lekhi, r. and haldar, a. 2014. e ffe ct of growth re gula tors and biofertilizers on survival of pomegra nate (punica granatum l.) stem cuttings. plant archives, 14(1):347-350 jain, p.k. and parmar, k.l. 1993. re sponse in hardwood cuttings of pomegranate treated with rooting media, iba and boron. jnkvv res. j., 27(1):56-58 jayalakshmi, k. 2010. studies on anthracnose of pomegra na te ca us ed by colle totr ic hum gloeos porioides , m.sc . (agri.) t he sis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, karnataka, india melgarejo, p., martinez, j., martinez, j.j., martinez, v.r. and amoros, a. 2000. study of the rooting ca pa city of e le ven pome gra na te ( punic a granatum l.) clones, using plastic to cover the soil options me diter rane ene s . se rie a, seminaires mediterraneens, 42:169-173 sha rma, n., anand, r. a nd kuma r, d. 2009. sta nda rdiza tion of pomegra na te ( punic a granatum l.) propagation through cuttings. 160 (ms received 18 october 2015, revised 12 june 2016, accepted 20 december 2016) ahmad seiar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 156-160, 2017 biologic al f or um – an inte rnational j . 1(1):75-80 singh, r.s. 1994. effect of growth substances on rooting of pomegranate cutting. curr. agri., 18:87-89 singh, b., singh, s. and singh, g. 2011. influence of planting time and iba on rooting and growth of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) ‘ganesh’ cutting. acta hortic., 890, 183-188, doi: 10.17660/actahortic.2011.890.24, international symposium on pomegranate and minor including mediterranean fruits srivastava, k.k., hamid, s., das, b. and bhatt, k.m. 2008. effect of indole butyric acid and variety on rooting of leafless cutting of kiwifruit under zero-energy-humidity-chamber. envis bull., 14(1):1-4 introduction strawberry (fragaria x ananassa duch.) is one of the important small-fruit crops, belonging to the family rosaceae. it is a rich source of vitamins, minerals and has a tantalizing flavour and aroma. the added advantage with strawberry is that it gives early and very high returns per unit area compared to other fruit crops because the crop is ready for harvest within six months from planting. though previously concentrated in the temperate region, with advent of day-neutral cultivars, it is now profitably grown in the tropical and sub-tropical regions as well. in india, a sizeable increase in area and production of strawberry has been observed in recent years. being highly remunerative, it has become very popular among growers, especially, closer to towns and cities. in india, maharashtra is a leading state in production of strawberry fruits. it has also become popular in the plains and hilly areas of himachal pradesh, jammu and kashmir, uttar pradesh, rajasthan, punjab and haryana, as a low-volume, high-priced fruit crop, in places where sufficient irrigation facilities exist. in himachal pradesh, strawberry cultivation has gained momentum only in the past few years and the area evaluation of mulch colour for enhancing winter-strawberry production under polyhouse in mid-hills of himachal pradesh bunty shylla and c.l. sharma krishi vigyan kendra dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture & forestry kandaghat, solan 173 215, himachal pradesh, india e-mail:shyllabunty@yahoo.com abstract strawberry cultivation in himachal pradesh is mainly based on outdoor planting using hay as mulch and, very recently, using black polythene as mulch. the bulk of its production under field conditions usually occurs in aprilmay when market price is quite low. in an effort to make the crop remunerative through enhanced winter-production, a polyhouse experiment was set up to investigate influence of mulch colour on off-season fruiting response, fruit size and quality in strawberry (fragaria x ananassa duch.). plants of cv. chandler were planted in september, 2004. irrigation was imposed using the given through t-tape system, from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm. yellow plastic mulch significantly increased number of fruits, effected early and higher total yield compared to black or silver-over-purple plastic mulches. un-mulched bed produced lowest yield and fruit quality. yellow plastic mulch raised soil temperature by at least 2oc compared to the un-mulched bed. key words: strawberry, polyhouse, mulch colour, fruit yield, fruit quality under cultivation is 13 ha, with a total production of 89 mt (anonymous 2006). generally, it is planted in the second fortnight of september under open conditions by traditional methods using hay-mulch and, very recently, using black plastic mulch (to a small extent). the bulk of production under field conditions usually occurs in april-may, when the average market price is quite low. high market-price can be realized if winter-production is enhanced. thus, the key to maintaining profitability in the strawberry industry in himachal pradesh (and thereby, commercialization of the crop) is enhanced winter-production. this can be done under controlled environment, along with use of micro-irrigation system and coloured mulch for better productivity and quality. with this in view, the present study was conducted to assess the effect of mulch colour on growth and cropping in strawberry and to explore the possibility of enhancing winterproduction of this fruit under polyhouse. material and methods the study was conducted at the experimental farm of department of soil science and water management, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, solan, himachal pradesh, during 2004-2005. the experiment was j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 34-37, 2010 35 laid out in completely randomized block design under a polyhouse with misting facilities, and the crop was irrigated through the t-tape irrigation system. uniform runners of cultivar ‘chandler’ were planted in 1x1 m raised-beds at a distance of 20 x 20 cm, in the second fortnight of september with planting density of 16 plants m-2 and 4 rows per bed. plants were mist-irrigated with tubes hanging 1.5 m above the plant-surface. misting was terminated at 4 weeks, and then, the plants were irrigated through two t-tape dripirrigation tubes per bed. after 30 days of planting, the beds were covered with mulch treatments and plants were pulled up through a 5 cm dia perforation in the plastic. treatments included three polyethylene-mulch colours: black (t 1 ); silverover-purple (t 2 ); yellow (t 3 ), plus a bareground treatment i.e., control (t 4 ). the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replicates. recommended basal doses of phosphorus (40 kg ha-1), potash (40 kg ha-1) and fym (50 t ha-1) were applied at the time of preparation of beds. nitrogen was applied in two equal split doses. half the nitrogen was applied one month after planting, and the remaining half after flowering. soil temperatures were monitored on a daily basis, while, soil moisture was recorded at weekly intervals. marketable fruits were harvested for early (15 december to 15 february) and total (15 december to 15 may) yield. mean fruit weight, mean fruit size, fruit number and tss were also recorded and subjected to statistical analysis of variance. results and discussion all growth and yield parameters were significantly influenced by mulching through its modifying effect on hydrothermal regimes and physico-chemical properties of the soil, as also reported by various workers (monescu and ciofu, 1970; tripathi and katiyar, 1984; poling,1994). these are also very efficient in reducing competition from weeds for nutrients and water (shylla et al, 2005). mulch-colour markedly affected plant growth and cropping and these results are in agreement with findings of mohamed (2002). it was possible to produce fruits of good size and taste during winter months under polyhouse, wherein the environment (fig. 3) was quite favourable for growth and harvest of good quality fruits starting from december. a perusal of data presented in table 1 and fig. 1 reveals that maximum average berry weight (13.22 g), length (45.32 mm) and breadth (27.54 mm) was recorded under black polythene mulch which was statistically at par with silver-on-purple polythene mulch (gupta and acharya, 1993; himerlick et al, 1993; gupta and acharya, 1994). this may be attributed to better soil hydrothermal regimes (fig. 3-5), better moisture conservation and suppression of weeds in a crop mulched with black polythene rather than with other mulches (badiyala and aggarwal, 1981; tarara, 2000; sharma and sharma, 2004). maximum number of fruits per m2 was recorded under yellow polythene mulch, which was statistically different from all other treatments. this may be attributed to better moisture conservation, optimum soil temperature and nutrient supply in weed-free plots during fruit development in strawberry. marumoto et al (1991) also reported a positive influence of soil temperature and mulch on growth and cropping in strawberry. black polythene mulch improved fruit quality as indicated by increased total table 1. major effects of mulch colour on growth, yield and quality of strawberry grown under polyhouse treatment berry berry length berry diameter fruit number/m2 tss(%) early yield total yield weight(g) (mm) (mm) (q/ha) (q/ha) t 1 = black polythene much 13.22 45.32 27.54 27.20 10.00 48.81 104.94 t 2 = silver-over-purple 13.22 43.74 24.67 25.60 10.20 51.85 111.48 polythene mulch t 3 = yellow polythene mulch 13.12 41.58 23.59 35.00 8.00 7.61 143.30 t 4 = control (bare-ground) 11.37 40.80 22.89 15.60 9.00 31.47 76.98 cd (p=0.05) 0.09 0.59 1.08 5.96 0.87 17.31 26.98 t 1 = black polythene much, t 2 = silver-over-purple polythene mulch, t 3 = yellow polythene mulch, t 4 = control (bare-ground) fig 1. effect of mulch-colour on fruit quality in polyhouse-grown strawberry j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 34-37, 2010 mulch colour and winter-strawberry production under polyhouse 36 soluble solids (fig. 2). this effect may be attributed to increased soil temperature (fig. 4) and optimum soil moisture (fig. 5), which may have led to early fruit-ripening. these results are in accordance with findings of hassan et al (2000) shylla and chauhan (2004) also reported maximum tss, minimum acidity, maximum tss/acid ratio, with black polythene mulch. fruit size, weight and tss were low in bare-ground, which is congruent with findings of hassan et al (2000) and shylla & chauhan (2004). early yield as well as maximum total yield was observed under yellow polythene mulch, though the fruits were less sweet than in other treatments. this may be attributed to the fact that yellowcoloured sheets faded to a white under polyhouse conditions. similar results of highest yields for ‘chandler’ with whiteon-black mulch were reported by himerlick et al (1993). when the effect of black plastic mulch on early and total yield is compared to that in silver-on-purple plastic mulch, the latter resulted in earlier and greater total yield, though these were statistically at par. mohamed (2002), however, reported silver-on-purple (s/p) plastic mulch to significantly fig 2. effect of mulch colour on fruit yield and tss of polyhouse grown strawberry fig 3. environmental parameters under polyhouse fig 4. effect of mulch colour on soil temperature of polyhouse grown strawberry increase early and total yield over clear or black mulch. besides black polythene mulch, increase in yield using coloured plastic mulch has also been reported by various workers in strawberry (fear and nonnecke, 1989; albregts and chandler, 1993; himelrick et al, 1993; mohamed, 2002). plants on bare-ground had poorest growth and cropping performance, which is in conformity with findings of hassan et al (2000) and shylla and chauhan (2004). under polyhouse conditions, maximum and earliest yields were observed under yellow polythene mulch, while, better quality fruits were obtained under black polythene mulch. till date, strawberry cultivation in the mid-hill zone of himachal pradesh is practiced only in open fields where bulk of the fruit production usually occurs in april-may, fetching a low price in the market. hence, results obtained in the present trial offer a possibility of producing off-season, good quality strawberry under polyhouse during winter months in the mid-hill zone of himachal pradesh. this can fetch a better price and prove to be highly remunerative to strawberry farmers. fig 5. effect of mulch colour on soil moisture of polyhouse grown strawberry j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 34-37, 2010 bunty shylla and sharma 37 acknowledgement the authors are highly grateful to national committee on plasticulture applications in horticulture (ncpah), new delhi, for providing financial assistance. references albregts, e.e. and chandler, c.k. 1993. effect of polythene mulch colour on the fruiting response of strawberry. proc. soil and crop sci. soc. florida, 52:40-43 anonymous. 2006. area and production under fruit crops. directorate of horticulture, h.p., india badiyala, s.d. and aggarwal, g.c. 1981. note on effect of mulches on strawberry production. ind. j. agril. res., 51:832-834 fear, c.d. and nonnecke, g.r. 1989. soil mulches influence reproductive and vegetative growth of ‘fern’ and ‘tristar’ day-neutral strawberries. hortsci., 24:912913 gupta, r. and acharya, c.l. 1993. effect of mulch induced hydrothermal regime on root growth, water use efficiency, yield and quality of strawberry. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 41:17-25 gupta, r. and acharya, c.l. 1994. use black polythene for higher strawberry fruit yield. ind. hort., 39:6-7 hassan, g.i., godara, a.k., kumar, j. and huchche, a.d. 2000. effect of different mulches on the yield and quality of ‘oso grande’ strawberry (fragaria x ananassa). ind. j. agric. sci., 70:184-185 himelrick, d.g., dozier, w.a. jr. and akridge, j.r. 1993. effect of mulch type in annual strawberry plasticulture system. acta hort., 348:207-209 marumoto, t., aoki, m., suzuki, v., kusaka, t., kheng, j. and higashi, t. 1991. effects of rhizosphere conditions on the growth of strawberry. i. effects of nitrogen level, soil temperature and mulch. bull. fac. agri., yamaguchi, 39:23-35 marumoto, t., hayakawa, s., suzuki, v., kusaka, t., kheng, j. and higashi, t. 1991. effects of rhizosphere conditions on the growth of strawberry ii. effects of soil moisture, soil temperature and mulch. bull. fac. agri., yamaguchi, 39:37-46 mohamed, f.h. 2002. effect of transplant defoliation and mulch colour on the performance of three strawberry cultivars grown under high tunnel. acta hort. 567:483-485 monescu, b. and ciofu, r. 1970. the influence of mulching with plastics on the thermal and water conditions of soil. horticultura, 13:63-72 poling, f.b. 1994. strawberry plasticulture in north carolina part ii. preplant, planting and post plant consideration for growing ‘chandler’ strawberry on black plastic mulch. j. small fruit and viticulture, 2:53-79 sharma, r.r. and v.p. sharma 2004. the strawberry. icar, new delhi, india shylla, b. and chauhan, j.s. 2004. influence of orchard floor management practices on cropping and quality of santa rosa plum grown under mid hill conditions. acta hort., 662:213-216 shylla, b. chauhan, j.s. and sharma, uday. 2005. effect of orchard floor management practices on weed control of santa rosa plum. in: short rotation forestry for industrial & rural development. k.s. verma, d.k. khurana, lars christerrson (eds.). ists, nauni, solan, india pp 414-417 tarara, j.m. 2000. microclimate modification with plastic mulch. hortsci., 35:169-180 tripathi, r.p. and katiyar, t.p.s. 1984. effect of mulches on thermal regime of soil. soil tillage res., 4:381390 (ms received 16 june 2009, revised 20 may 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 34-37, 2010 mulch colour and winter-strawberry production under polyhouse j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):246-248, 2013 short communication influence of organic practices on growth and fruit yield in papaya cv. surya y.t.n. reddy, reju m. kurian, a.n. ganeshamurthy1, p. pannerselvam1 and s.r. shivu prasad division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail : nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field trial on organic practices in papaya cv. surya was conducted during 2009-2011 with 10 nutrient combinations involving farm yard manure, biofertilizers and vam along with 100% recommended dose of fertilizers and no manure/ fertilizer treatment. vegetative parameters were recorded periodically. at 18 months after planting, plant height, plant girth and number of leaves were found to be significant. results indicated that, crop growth was better with organic treatments compared to no manure/fertilizer treatment. fruit yield and quality parameters were also recorded. fruit yield and average fruit weight were found to be significant. maximum fruit yield of 32kg/plant (80 t/ ha) was recorded under 75% recommended dose of fertilizer applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost, which was significantly superior to that in 100% recommended dose of fertilizer for the 18-month cropping period. key words: papaya, organic practices, fruit yield 1division of soil science and agricultural chemistry, indian institute of horticultural research organic farming is becoming increasingly popular, with a rapidly growing global demand for organic products. these offer considerable benefits over the conventional farming systems, particularly, with respect to sustainable yield, better quality and hazard-free produce. organic practices, in the long run, improve organic carbon content and, thereby, sustainable yields in addition to improvement in quality. shiva kumar et al (2012) reported papaya yield to increase by 10.2% in organic practices, compared to that under 100% recommended dose of fertilizers. organic farming has been an outcome of the concerns over increasing contamination of food and consequent negative effects on human health. in general, excess use of fertilizers causes environmental hazards with deleterious effects on soil structure, soil microflora and quality of water besides crop productivity in the long run (anon., 1995). fruits, often eaten raw, are more vulnerable to contamination with chemicals due to their residual toxicity compared to cereals and pulses. thus, organic production of fruits is becoming particularly popular. however, in india, data on the exact area of fruit crops under organic cultivation is not available. papaya farming has attained great popularity owing to the quick returns, easy cultivation, adaptability to adverse soil and climatic conditions and above all, delicious taste of its wholesome fruit having multifarious uses. india ranks fourth among papaya producing countries of the world by growing the fruit crop in an area of 1.06 lakh hectares, with production of 41.96 lakh tons (national horticultural board, 2011). nutritional requirement of the papaya plant is typical bacause of a continuous growth behavior like vegetative, flowering and fruiting habit. papaya demands nutrients continuously and in large amounts. use of chemical fertilizers alone is not feasible besides being costly to poor farmers. since, papaya bears fruits and flowers round the year, organic production of papaya plays an important role. papaya also responds well to such production systems compared to other perennial fruit crops. being shallow rooted, papaya readily benefits from organic amendment and soil microflora which play a major role in growth, and productivity and soil health. although use of insecticides and fungicides is relatively low in papaya, nutrition management is important in this crop due to its continuous growth and fruiting. in almost all the states of india, area under papaya is increasing while limited information is available on organic production. therefore, the present investigation assumes importance for adequately marketing of organic papaya. a field trial was conducted during 2009-2011 at the experimental farm of indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, located at a latitude of 130-58’n and longitude of 78oe. the trial was laid out in land kept fallow for three years. there were 12 treatments as follows: t1–100% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm 247 organic practices in papaya yard manure+vermicompost, t2–75% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost, t3–50% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost, t4–100% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost +azospirillum+mycorrhiza, t5–100% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost +azospirillum+phosphate solubalizing bacteria, t6–75% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost+azospirillum+mycorrhiza, t7-75% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm yard m a n u r e + ve r m i c o m p o s t + a z o s p i r i l l u m + p h o s p h a t e solubalizing bacteria, t8–50% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost+ azospirillum+mycorrhiza, t9-50% recommended dose of fertilizer applied as farm yard manure+vermicompost+ azospirillum+phosphate solubalizing bacteria+mycorrhiza, t10-100% recommended dose of fertilizers, t11-50% recommended dose of fertilizer applied as farmyard manure+azospirillum+phosphate solubalizing bacteria+ mycorrhiza+vermicompost and t12-no manure/ fertilizer. the 100% rdf is 250g n+ 250g p2o5 and 500g k2o/ plant/ year. plants were spaced at 2m×2m with a planting density of 2500/ha. vermicompost was applied at the rate of 2kg/ plant/year in all the treatments before planting and again after one year (except in no manure/fertilizer and 100% recommended dose of fertilizers treatments). vermicompost contained 1.41% n, 0.299% p and 1.55% k. the trial was laid out in randomized block design, with four replications. there were six plants/treatment and the plants were under drip irrigation. the soil (red loam) had available n 100.5 kg/ ha, p2o5 36.8 kg/ha, k2o 205 kg/ha, at ph 6.8. biofertilizers, viz., azospirullum, mycorrhiza and phosphate solubalizing bacteria were applied at the rate of 50g/plant/year before planting and again, after one year. the fertilizers were applied four times a year for the treatment 100% recommended dose of fertilizers. nutrient content of organic manures used in this experiment was: fym with n 0.91%, p 0.166% and k 0.88%, and, vermicompost had n 1.41%, p 0.299% and k 0.55%. vegetative parameters were recorded at six monthly intervals. data in this study pertains to 18 months after planting. fruit yield was recorded in different pickings of six plants/plot, and the mean fruit yield was calculated. vegetative parameters different vegetative parameters such as plant height, plant girth and number of leaves after 18 months of planting were influenced by various nutrient treatments (table 1). maximum plant height, plant girth and number of leaves was recorded in treatment t3 (50% recommended dose of fertilizers applied as fym), whereas (t-12: no manure or fertilizer treatment) recorded minimum values for these parameters. shivakumar et al (2012), ravishankar et al (2008), jaizma vega et al (2006) and pire and aceveda (2005) also reported increased growth in organic amendment treatments which was attributed to enhanced physical, chemical and biological characters of soil, creating a favorable environment for development, would have which resulted in better plant growth. shardakhade and rodrigues (2009) reported that, in papaya cv. surya, inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi significantly increased all the growth parameters viz., plant height, stem girth, leaf area and root length. fruit yield fruit yield was found to be significantly influenced by different treatments (table 2). maximum fruit yield (31.9kg/plant and 79.7t/ha) was recorded in treatment t6 (75% rdf applied as fym+vermicompost+ azospirillum+mycorrhiza), and the least was recorded in t-12: no manure/fertilizer treatment. all organic amendment treatments along with 100% rdf increased fruit yield compared to no manure/ fertilizer treatment. this can be attributed to better plant growth in organic treatment amendments. this treatment also induced better plant table 1. vegetative parameters in papaya cv. surya as influenced by various organic treatments treatment plant plant no. of height (m) girth (cm) leaves /plant t1-100% rdf fym + 3.53 51.0 45.0 vermicompost t2 -75% rdf fym + 3.38 53.7 49.9 vermicompost t3 -50% rdf fym + 3.54 54.5 43.5 vermicompost t4 t1+azo+myco 3.15 54.1 43.0 t5 t1+azo+psb 3.20 49.5 39.8 t6 -t2+azo+myco 3.13 52.3 32.9 t7 -t2+ azo+psb 3.15 52.9 31.5 t8-t3+azo+myco 3.22 50.3 30.9 t9-t3+azo+psb+myco 3.47 45.9 26.6 t10-100% rdf 3.42 48.7 26.8 t11-50% rdf applied as 3.51 52.1 49.0 fym+ azo+ psb+ myco + vermicompost t12no manure/fertilizer 3.00 42.3 24.4 s.em.± 0.14 2.1 2.5 cd (p=0.05) 0.41 6.2 7.4 *significant at 5% level; azo= azospirillum sps.; myco= mycorrhiza; psb = phosphate sobubilizing bacteria j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):246-248, 2013 248 growth in terms of plant height and plant girth with resultant increase in fruit yield, thereby being significantly superior to 100% rdf. similar results were reported by ravishankar et al (2008) and shivakumar et al (2012) in papaya cvs. coorg honey dew and surya respectively. references anonymous. 1995. supplementing nutrients through organics. agricultural research station, sankeshwar (karnataka). annual report, pp 17-79 jaizmevega, m.c., rodriguez romero, a.s. and barroso nunez, l.a. 2006. effect of the combined inoculation of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria on papaya (carica papaya l.) infected with the root-knot nematode meloidogyne incognita. fruits paris, 61:151-162 national horticulture board. 2011. database 2011, gurgaon, india, p.103 pire, r. and acevedo, i. 2005. effect of vermicompost as a substrate amendment on pawpaw (carica papaya l.) nutrition. proceedings of the inter-american society for tropical horticulture, 48:97-100 ravishankar, h., karunakaran, g. and srinivasamurthy, d. 2010. performance of coorg honey dew papaya under organic farming regimes in the hill zone of karnataka. acta hort., 851:259-262 shivakumar, b.s., dharmatti, p.r. and renukaswamy, n.s. 2012. influence of organic manures and their combination with fym on fruit yield and economics of papaya cultivation. indian hort. j., 2:13-15 shardakhade, w. and rodrigues, b.f. 2009. studies on arbuscular mycorrhization of papaya. african crop sci. j., 17:155-165 (ms received 25 july 2012, revised 15 june 2013, accepted 20 july 2013) table 2. fruit yield as influenced by various organic treatments in papaya cv. surya treatment no. of fruit yield fruit fruits/plant (kg/plant) yield (t/ha) t1-100% rdf fym + 60.9 22.2 55.5 vermicompost t2 -75% rdf fym + 68.3 23.0 57.5 vermicompost t3 -50% rdf fym + 64.4 21.5 53.7 vermicompost t4 t1+azo+myco 59.3 18.9 47.2 t5 t1+azo+psb 53.5 18.4 46.0 t6 -t2+azo+myco 68.4 31.9 79.7 t7 -t2+ azo+psb 64.5 24.1 60.2 t8-t3+azo+myco 65.6 21.8 54.5 t9-t3+azo+psb+myco 62.3 20.0 50.0 t10-100% rdf 53.7 18.7 46.7 t11-50% rdf applied as 51.3 18.3 45.7 fym+azo+psb+myco+ vermicompost t12no manure/fertilizer 49.2 13.6 34.0 s.em.± 11.1 3.0 8.1 cd (p=0.05) ns 9.1 24.2 *significant at 5% level; nsnon-significant; azo= azospirillum sps.; myco= mycorrhiza; psb = phosphate sobubilizing bacteria reddy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):246-248, 2013 original research paper increasing the efficacy of ga3 sprays in cluster elongation and berry thinning in tas-a-ganesh grape (vitis vinifera l.) in tropical viticulture s.d. shikhamany*, v. swapnil. borade, k. sanjay jeughale and suryakant y. patil r&d division, maharashtra state grape growers’ association, manjri farm post, pune 411 032, india. *e-mail: sdshikhamany@gmail.com abstract in view of the stage specificity for the efficacy of blanket sprays of ga3 for berry thinning, a field trial was laid out to achieve uniform flowering in tas-a-ganesh grapevines subjected to chemical defoliation prior to and hydrogen cyanamide application at fruit pruning in the double pruning and single cropping system during 2013-14 and 2014-15 fruiting seasons in growers’ vineyards around nashik, maharashtra by removing the un-uniformly thick canes. ga3 at different doses was sprayed two or three times to address the variation in uniform flowering, if any in cluster elongation and reducing the berry number/cluster. cane regulation and ga3 sprays were used to achieve uniformity in bud break and flowering. cluster compactness was derived by multiplying the number of berries/ cm length of rachis with berry diameter. regression analysis of the variation has revealed that the cane diameter, through uniformity in bud break, influenced the uniformity in flowering which in turn influenced the cluster compactness through increased efficacy of blanket ga3 sprays in reducing the berry number/ cluster. based on the optimum values of the contributory factors to cluster compactness, cane removal coupled with two blanket sprays of ga3 @ 30 g a.i./ha or retention of all canes coupled with three blanket sprays of ga3 @ 20 g a.i./ha was found to be ideal to obtain loose to well filled clusters. taking together into account the effect of treatments on cluster compactness, yield and quality, retention of all canes coupled with three sprays of ga3 @ 20 g a.i./ha was considered appropriate for table grape production in tas-a-ganesh cv. of grapes. key words: cane regulation, uniform flowering, ga3 sprays, cluster compactness, tas-a-ganesh introduction tas-a-ganesh is a bud sport of thompson seedless grape. similar to thompson seedless, clusters are compact in this variety. blanket sprays are given at the appropriate stage to obtain loose to well filled clusters of thompson seedless in temperate viticulture (weaver and pool, 1967). whereas, growers in the tropical viticulture in peninsular india have resorted to repeated selective dipping of the panicles followed by thinning of the set berries, manually to obta in r equir ed ber r y thinning in ta ble gr a pe production, since the ideal stage of panicles is scattered over a period of 8-10 days. according to turner (1972), the ideal stage for effective berry thinning by ga3 is 1-3 days prior to full bloom (initiation of calyptras-opening of a flower). effective concentration varies with the phenological stage of flowers in a cluster. while the early application of ga3 at a given concentration leads to the death of flower buds, application at full bloom results in increased set and shot berry formation (dass and randhawa, 1968). selective treatment is labour intensive and manual thinning is not only labour intensive but also time consuming. delayed thinning deprives the retained berries from gaining size (winkler et al., 1974; coombe, 1960). moreover, manual thinning often leaves unseen bruises on the retained berries which are prone to decay in transit and storage (chadha and shikhamany, 1999). la ck of uniformity in the phenological development of clusters is attributed to uneven bud break, which in turn to un-uniform thickness of canes in a vine. bud break was found to be faster in thin canes compared to thick canes (reddy and shikhamany, 1990; shikhamany and manjunath, 1992). consider ing the importance of uniform flowering for chemical thinning and that of uniform bud break for uniform flowering, a field trial was j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 82 83 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 shikhamany et al conducted to assess the efficacy of removing the ununiform thick canes (cane regulation) in a vine in a chieving uniform flower ing through inducing uniform bud break coupled with varying number and dose of ga3 sprays at the specified stage on berry thinning, eventually reducing the cluster compactness in tas-a-ganesh grape. material and methods this trial was conducted during cropping season of 2013-14 and 2014-15 on six/seven year old tas-aganesh grapevines in farmers’ vineyards in two locations (palkhed and kothure) around nashik (maharashtra). all the experimental vines were spaced at 2.70 x 1.50 m, grafted on dogridge rootstock and trained to extended y trellis. they were pruned for fruiting in the second week of october and grapes were harvested uniformly on the 140th day after pruning. uniform viticulture practices, namely ethrel sprays for pr e-pr uning defolia tion, hydr ogen cya na mide application for promoting bud break, ga3 sprays for cluster elongation and growth regulator treatment for berry sizing were undertaken in the vineyards under experimentation. no manual thinning was done in any treatment. experiment was laid out in a factorial a x b x c randomized block design replicating the following treatments thrice in each vineyard. factor a season : s1 2013-14 and s2 2014-15 factor b location: l1 (palkhed) and l2 (kothure) factor c treatments (cane regulation coupled with ga3 sprays): t1 cane regulation coupled with three sprays of ga3 @ 20 g a.i./ha each. t2 cane regulation coupled with two sprays of ga3 @ 30 g a.i./ha each. t3 retention of all canes coupled with three sprays of ga3 @ 20 g a.i./ha each. t4 retention of all canes coupled with two sprays of ga3 @ 30 g a.i./ha each. t5 control (growers’ practice of retaining all the canes and spraying ga3 @80 g a.i./ha at 50 per cent bloom. cane regulation, the removal of un-uniform canes in a vine, was done immediately after fruit pruning.the first spray of ga3 was given three days prior to full bloom (approximately at the initiation of calyptra opening in a panicle) stage, repeating on alternate days. ga3 at specified dose was sprayed with blower assisted sprayer irrespective of the volume of spray solution. observations were recorded on canes retained on vines after regulation, cane diameter, uniformity in bud break and flowering, total rachis length and number of berries/cluster, mean berry diameter, yield/ vine, mean weight of cluster and total soluble solids and acids content of berries were recorded. cluster compactness index was calculated using the values of rachis length, berries/cluster and berry diameter. uniformity in bud break number and position of buds breaking on five canes selected at random were recorded every day from the 5th to 12th day after pruning. the day on which highest number of buds broke was taken as the standard (d-day) and given 100 score for each bud. for one day deviation in bud break from the d-day; either early or late, was given 75 for each bud, 50 for each bud deviating by two days and 25 for each deviating by 3 days. the sum of scores was divided by the total number of broken buds and expressed as ‘per cent uniformity of bud break’ uniformity in flowering t he sta ge of inflor escence development specified for giving the first spray of ga3 for thinning was used as the reference. observations were recorded on the number of inflorescences attaining this stage from the 30th day after pruning on the selected canes. the day on which highest number of panicles attained this stage was taken as the standard (d-day) and given 100 score for each panicle. for one day deviation from the d-day; either early or late, a score of 75 was given for each panicle, 50 for each deviating by two days and 25 for each deviating by 3 days. the sum of scores was divided by the total number of panicles and expressed as ‘per cent uniformity of flowering’. cluster compactness index it was derived by multiplying the number of berries per cm of the total length of rachis by berry diameter. berry count and total length of rachis were 84 efficacy of chemical thinning in grape in tropics. recorded after removing the berries in five clusters selected at random from each plot. berry thinning was found to increase the size of retained berries in a cluster (coombe, 1960; winkler et al., 1974). hence, berry diameter was included in the factors determining the cluster compactness in these studies. compactness index for different grades of cluster filling were as follows. compactness index cluster filling >35 compact 30-35 well-filled 25-30 loose <25 straggly statistical analysis significance of the difference in the means of the factors of uniform flowering, cluster compactness, yield and quality as influenced by the treatments was tested by the analysis of variance in factorial a x b x c (2 x 2 x 5) design with twenty tr ea tment combinations and three replications. treatments were evalua ted with refer ence to their effect on the pa ra meter s contributing to the r educed cluster compactness. their effects were compared by the critical difference in the analysis of variance. quadratic functions were fitted for the relationship of the factors of cluster compa ctness, na mely ca ne dia meter, uniformity in bud break, uniformity in flowering and berry diameter with cluster compactness. x-optimum and ymaximum were derived from these functions. multiple linear regression function was fitted for cluster compactness. quadratic and multiple linear regression analyses were performed by the microsoft excel data analysis package. results and discussion effect on cane diameter cane diameter was more in 2013-14 compared to 2014-15. it was not influenced either by the location or treatments (table 1). it was also influenced by the season x treatment interaction. it was significantly more in the first season in t3, t4 and t5, but at par in both the seasons in t1 and t2 (table 3a). it could be due to removal of un-uniformly thin canes in t1 and t2 in 2014-15. the optimum cane diameter for the factors of cluster compactness ranged from 6.49 to 7.67 mm in the present investigations (table 6). the resultant minimum and maximum cane diameter as influenced by the season, location, treatment and the season x trea tment interaction were within the optimum range. effect on uniform bud break uniformity in bud break was significantly less in 2014-15 compared to 2013-14 (table 1). however, this reduced uniformity was within the optimum range (table 6). the main effects of either the location or treatments were not significa nt nor wer e their interaction effects significant on the uniformity in bud break. effect on uniform flowering unifor mity in flower ing wa s less a t l1 compared to l2 and in 2013-14 compared to 2014-15 (table 1). intera ction of sea son with location influenced it. it was reduced significantly in the season-i at l1 compared to other season and location combinations (table 2a). treatments had no effect on uniform flowering. however the interaction of treatments with location and with season x location influenced the uniformity in flowering. t1 at l1 reduced the uniformity compared to control at l2, but t1 was on par with control at l1 and l2 (table 4a), indicating the masking effect of location (grower ’s practices). the very fact that all treatments reduced the uniformity at l1 in season-i compared to l1 in season-ii indicates the dominating effect of season than location (table 5a). this could be due to differential rate of flower development influenced by the weather conditions during flower development (christensen, 1969; negi and randhawa, 1974). less ratio of uniform flowering to uniform bud break (0.93) in 2013-14 compared to 1.17 in 2014-15 reveals the adverse effect of weather on flower development in 2013-14. when the main effects of treatments on cane diameter, uniformity in bud break and uniform flowering considered, none of the treatments differed significantly with the control. as seen from the table 6, the values of these parameters contributing for uniform flowering and uniform flowering itself in control were in the optimum range. this indicates that the growers’ practices in inducing uniform bud break were a pt for achieving a dequate uniformity in flowering required for berry thinning. number of berries per cm length of the rachis is the recognized measure of cluster compactness (chadha and shikhamany, 1999), but berry size also contributes to cluster compactness. at a given number of berries/cm length of rachis, a cluster with berries of 18 mm diameter will be more compact than the one with 16 mm berry diameter. hence the effect of treatments in increasing the rachis length and reducing the number of berries /cluster and the berry diameter were considered. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 85 ta bl e 1: e ff ec t of c an e re gu la tio n an d bl an ke t sp ra ys o f g a 3 on t he f ac to rs o f cl us te r co m pa ct ne ss , y ie ld a nd q ua lit y in t as -a -g an es h fa ct or c an es / c an e u ni fo rm u ni fo rm r ac hi s b er ri es / b er ry c lu st er y ie ld /v in e w ei gh t/ t. s. s. a ci ds vi ne di am et er bu d br ea k fl ow er in g le ng th cl us te r d ia m et er c om pa ct ne ss (k g) c lu st er ( g) co nt en t co nt en t (m m ) (% ) (% ) (c m ) (m m ) in de x (o b ) (g /1 00 m l) a . se as on 1. 20 13 -1 4 26 .7 a 7. 31 b 82 .8 b 77 .2 a 45 .2 57 .5 17 .4 32 .6 10 .4 8 34 0. 5 16 .6 0. 56 4 2. 20 14 -1 5 28 .5 b 6. 87 a 79 .5 a 93 .4 b 45 .1 57 .7 17 .2 30 .7 10 .5 1 38 0. 6 17 .1 0. 55 6 s . e m ± 0. 4 0. 04 0. 7 0. 7 1 .1 1 .2 0 .4 0 .9 0. 22 51 .2 0. 3 0. 00 6 c d a t 5 % 1. 2 0. 13 2. 1 1. 9 n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s b . l oc at io n 1. l 1 30 .7 b 7. 14 81 .3 83 .5 a 47 .8 b 47 .8 a 17 .8 31 .9 11 .9 4b 32 9. 5 16 .3 a 0. 55 9 2. l 2 24 .5 a 7. 05 80 .9 87 .1 b 42 .5 a 67 .4 b 16 .9 31 .4 9 .0 5a 39 1. 6 17 .4 b 0. 56 1 s . e m ± 0. 4 0. 04 0. 7 0. 7 1. 1 1. 2 0. 4 0 .9 0. 22 51 .2 0. 3 0. 00 6 c d a t 5 % 1. 2 n s n s 1. 9 3. 2 3. 4 n s n s 0. 68 n s 0. 9 n s c . t re at m en ts 1. t 1 23 .8 a 7. 13 79 .4 84 .3 47 .3 60 .3 bc 17 .8 33 .8 bc 10 .3 8a b 32 6. 1 16 .5 0. 56 2 2. t 2 22 .4 a 7. 07 81 .7 85 .4 45 .1 54 .7 a 17 .5 28 .9 a 9. 91 a 49 6. 1 17 .6 0. 55 4 3. t 3 30 .4 b 7. 03 83 .2 86 .2 43 .0 55 .1 ab 16 .0 30 .0 ab 11 .0 3b 31 2. 5 16 .8 0. 57 0 4. t 4 30 .6 b 7. 07 80 .8 86 .5 43 .7 56 .7 ab c 17 .4 31 .3 ab c 9. 82 a 31 8. 7 16 .7 0. 55 2 5. t 5 30 .9 b 7. 17 80 .4 84 .0 46 .5 61 .3 c 17 .8 34 .5 c 11 .3 3b 34 9. 4 16 .7 0. 56 1 s . e m ± 0. 6 0. 07 1. 1 1. 1 1. 8 1. 9 0. 6 1. 4 0. 34 81 .0 0. 5 0. 00 9 c d a t 5 % 1. 8 n s n s n s n s 5. 4 n s 4. 1 0. 98 n s n s n s in te ra ct io n a x b * n s n s * ** ** n s n s n s n s n s ** a x c n s ** n s n s n s n s n s n s * n s n s n s b x c ** n s n s * n s n s n s n s n s n s n s * a x b x c ** n s n s ** n s n s n s n s n s n s * n s m ea ns s up er -s cr ib ed w ith t he s am e al ph ab et w ith in c ol um n do n ot d iff er s ig ni fic an tly a t p= 0. 05 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 shikhamany et al 86 effect on rachis length rachis elongation is a desirable effect with respect to reduced cluster compactness. rachis length was more at l1 than l2. neither the season nor treatments could increase the rachis length. but season x location interaction influenced it (table 1). rachis length at l1 was more than l2 in season-i, but was at par in season-ii (table 2b). ga3 sprays given through the treatments just at the initiation of calyptra opening had no effect in rachis elongation. ga3 is effective in rachis elongation only when given a week after cluster emergence (turner, 1972). in light of this, pre-bloom sprays at l1 were more effective in season-1, and season-ii which was more favourable to cluster development. effect on berries/cluster reduced number of berries/ cluster is also a desir a ble cha r a cter in r educing the cluster compactness. the real effect of ga3 included in the treatment is assessed by the reduction in berry number. while not influenced by the season, berries/cluster was less at l1 compared to l2 (table 1). relative reduction in berry number with reference to rachis length of a cluster is a better indicator of ga3 effect than the a bsolute r eduction in r educing the cluster compactness. reduced number of berries/cluster in spite of its increased length at l1 indicates the higher efficacy of ga3 sprays at this location. among the treatments, removal of un-uniformly thick canes coupled with two sprays of ga3 @ 30g/ha (t2) or retention of all canes coupled with three sprays of ga3 @ 20g/ha (t3) r educed the number of ber ries compared to t5-the growers’ practice (table 1). on par efficacy of less number of sprays in t2 could be attributed to the increased uniformity in flowering due to removal of un-uniformly thick canes. interaction of season x location also influenced the berries/cluster significantly. in addition to reduced berry number in both the seasons at l1, it was further reduced in season-ii while increased at l2 (table 2c). it clearly indicates the absolute effect of location, but not the season and confirms the higher efficacy of ga3 sprays at l1in reducing the berry number. effect on berry diameter berry diameter, the yet another component of cluster compactness was not influenced by the season, location or treatments. ga3 sprays included in the treatments might have had an indirect effect on berry diameter by reducing the number. but the effect, if a ny, wa s ma sked by tr ea tment with ba, homobrassinolide or cppu combined with ga given commonly by the growers to increase the berry diameter to 17±1mm required for export. effect on cluster compactness cluster compactness was influenced neither by the season nor the location, but by the treatments (table 1). similar to the number of berries/cluster, cluster compactness was reduced by t2 and t3 compared to the growers’ practice. thus reduction in the cluster compactness was the outcome of reduced number of berries/unit length of the rachis which was enha nced by inducing unifor mity in cluster development by the tr ea tments in the pr esent investigation. contributory factors of cluster compactness major emphasis was given to the identification of contributory factors and their optimum values for the reduced compactness of clusters. regression a na lysis indicated the contr ibution of unifor m flowering in reducing the cluster compactness across the ga3 doses and its number of sprays; although the deter mina tion co-efficient wa s poor. unifor m flowering in turn was dependant on uniform bud break which in turn was dependant on cane diameter. the multiple regression function y= 2.616+3.404x 1 +0.013x2 -0.127x3 -0.449x4 +0.02x5 +1.945x6 was found to determine the cluster compactness by 39.2 per cent, where y = cluster compactness, x1 = cane diameter (mm), x2 = uniformity in bud break (%), x3 = uniformity in flowering (%), x4 = rachis length (cm)/cluster, x5 = berries/cluster and x6 = berry diameter (mm). cane diameter of 7.67 mm, uniformity of 80.8 per cent in bud break, uniformity of 79.4 per cent in flowering, and berry diameter of 18.4 mm were associated respectively with the maximum cluster compactness index of 32.9, 34.1, 32.4 and 32.5. these compactness indices being in the range (30-35) of well-filled clusters, the above values of cane diameter, uniformity in bud break and flowering and berry diameter can be considered optimum. maximum values of uniform flowering associated with the optimum values of cane diameter (6.72 mm) and uniform bud break (71.1 per cent) respectively were 92.1and 93.4 per cent. on the other hand the maximum uniformity in bud break was associated with a cane diameter of 6.49 mm (table 6). thus, a cane diameter in the range of 6.49 – 7.67 mm seems ideal for efficacy of chemical thinning in grape in tropics. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 87 obtaining the well filled clusters by blanket sprays of ga3 in this variety. similarly the uniform bud break in the range of 71.1 – 80.8 per cent and uniform flowering of 79.4 per cent were found optimum. effect on yield efforts were also made to identify the merit of a treatment in sustaining/enhancing the yield and qua lity of gr a pe in a ddition to r educing the compactness, because, canes which are the units of yield have been removed in t1 and t2. yield/vine was not different in the seasons studied, but was more at l1 than l2. treatments t4 and t2 reduced the yield compared to the control, while t3 and t1 were at par with it (table 1). interaction of season x treatment also affected the yield/vine. while all treatments were at par with control in season-i, yield was reduced by all treatments except t3 in season-ii (table 3b). mean weight of cluster and the number of clusters/vine determine the yield. none of the treatments or their interaction with season or location could influence the cluster weight (table 1). this suggests that the yield differences were due to the number of clusters/vine. number of canes was less in 2013-14 and at l2 compared respectively to 2014-15 and l1. it was reduced as result of removal of un-uniformly thick canes in t1 and t2 (table 1). cane-number was influenced by the interaction of season x location, location x treatment and season x loca tion x tr ea tment. sea son’s influence wa s significant at l1 but not at l2 (table 2e). while, canenumber in t2 was at par with t1 at l1, it was less at l2 (table 4c). similarly, t1 and t2 were at par with control in cane-number at l2, but had less number at l1 in 2014-15 and also at l1 and l2 in 2013-14 (table 5c). in spite of reduced number of canes, yield was not reduced in t1 compared to control (table 1). this could be attributed to more number of clusters/cane in t1 compared to control. it was 1.34 in t1 as against 1.05 in control when worked out based on the yield/ vine, mean cluster weight and number of canes/vine. thus, the reduction in yield in t2 was not only due to reduced number of canes/vine but also the less number of clusters/cane (0.89) compared to control. however, the variation in clusters/cane cannot be attributed to the treatments which were imposed at the beginning of the fruiting season, when the number of clusters in a cane are determined during the growth season in the double pruning single cropping system followed in the experimental vineyards. effect on berry quality total soluble solids (tss) content of berries did not vary significantly with either season or treatment, but varied with the location. it was more at l2 than at l1 (table 1). however, interaction of treatments with season x location influenced the tss content. while it did not differ with any treatment compared to control at any location in 2013-14, it was more in t1 at l1, but less at l2 compared to control in 2014-15 (table 5b). tss content is primarily a varietal character, often modified by the diurnal variation in temperature during the ripening period, and is mainly controlled by the genotype x environment interaction (coombe, 1960). although crop load/vine was reported to influence the tss content (coombe, 1992) and yield/ vine va r ied significa ntly with the tr ea tments (table 1), the variation seems to be inadequate to influence the tss content. acids content of berries also did not differ with season, location or treatment (table 1), but was influenced by the interaction of season x location. it was less at l1 in season-i but more in season-ii (table 2d). interaction of location x treatment also influenced the acids content significantly. it was more in t3 compared to control at l1, but on par with that in control at l2. t2 resulted in less acids content compared to control at l2 (table 4b). acids are synthesized mainly in the leaves and very little in the berries. the extent of their translocation from leaves (amerine, 1956; hardy, 1969) and the ability of berries to synthesize acids (hardy, 1968) during ripening are the main reasons for the variation in the acids content of berries. considering the effects of treatments together on cluster compactness, yield and quality, t3 (retention of all canes coupled with three sprays of ga3 @ 20g a.i./ha) is recommended for tas-a-ganesh for table grape production for export. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to shri. ashok gaikwad (palked) and shri. jagannath khapre (kothure) for facilitating these studies in their vineyards. also, thank the office bearers and the chairman, central research committee of the maharashtra state grape growers’ association, pune for supporting these studies. support given by prof. t.s. mungare and shri. t.s. shelke and the guidance provided by the research advisory committee of the association are gratefully acknowledged. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 shikhamany et al 88 ta bl e 2. e ff ec t of s ea so n x lo ca tio n in te ra ct io n a . u ni fo rm f lo w er in g (% ) b . r ac hi s le ng th (c m ) c . b er ri es / c lu st er d . a ci ds c on te nt ( g/ 10 0 m l) e . c an es / v in e 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 l 1 74 .5 a 92 .6 c l 1 50 .5 c 45 .1 b l 1 50 .5 b 45 .1 a l 1 0. 54 5a 0. 57 3b l 1 29 .1 b 32 .3 c l 2 79 .9 b 94 .2 c l 2 39 .9 a 45 .0 b l 2 64 .5 c 70 .3 d l 2 0. 58 3b 0. 53 9a l 2 24 .3 a 24 .7 a s. e m ± 0 .9 5 s. e m ± 1 .5 8 s. e m ± 1 .6 8 s. e m ± 0 .0 08 2 s. e m ± 0 .5 7 c d @ 0. 05 = 2 .7 c d @ 0. 05 = 4 .5 c d @ 0. 05 = 4 .8 c d @ 0. 05 = 0 .0 24 c d @ 0. 05 = 1 .6 m ea ns s up er -s cr ib ed w ith s am e al ph ab et u nd er a p ar am et er d o no t di ff er s ig ni fic an tly ta bl e 3. e ff ec t of s ea so n x tr ea tm en t in te ra ct io n m ea ns s up er -s cr ib ed w ith s am e al ph ab et u nd er a p ar am et er d o no t di ff er s ig ni fic an tly a . c an e di am et er (m m ) b . y ie ld / v in e (k g) 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 t 1 7. 25 de fg 7. 01 bc d t 1 10 .6 7b c 10 .0 9a bc t 2 7. 12 ce fd 7. 02 bc d t 2 10 .5 6a bc 9. 26 a t 3 7. 31 ef g 6. 74 ab t 3 10 .7 0b c 11 .3 5c d t 4 7. 49 g 6. 64 a t 4 10 .1 1a bc 9. 53 ab t 5 7. 40 fg 6. 95 bc t 5 10 .3 5a bc 12 .3 2d s. e m ± 0 .0 98 c d @ 0. 05 = 0 .2 8 s. e m ± 0 .4 86 c d @ 0. 05 = 1 .3 9 m ea ns s up er -s cr ib ed w ith s am e al ph ab et u nd er a p ar am et er d o no t di ff er s ig ni fic an tly ta bl e 4. e ff ec t of l oc at io n x tr ea tm en t in te ra ct io n a . u ni fo rm fl ow er in g (% ) b . a ci ds c on te nt (g / 1 00 m l) c . c an es /v in e l 1 l 2 l 1 l 2 l 1 l 2 t 1 79 .7 a 88 .9 e t 1 0. 56 7a bc 0. 55 7a bc t 1 24 .9 bc d 22 .6 b t 2 83 .6 ab cd 87 .3 de t 2 0. 57 0a bc 0. 53 8a t 2 2 5. 1b cd e 19 .7 a t 3 85 .3 bc de 87 .3 de t 3 0. 58 0b c 0. 56 0a bc t 3 34 .0 f 26 .9 de t 4 87 .3 de 85 .9 cd e t 4 0. 54 3a 0. 56 0a bc t 4 33 .6 f 27 .6 e t 5 82 .1 ab c 91 .4 cd e t 5 0. 53 3a 0. 58 8c t 5 36 .1 f 25 .6 cd s .e m ± 1 .5 0 c d @ 0. 05 = 4 .3 s. e m ± 0 .0 12 9 c d @ 0. 05 = 0 .0 37 s .e m ± 0 .9 c d @ 0. 05 = 2 .6 efficacy of chemical thinning in grape in tropics. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 89 m ea ns s up er -s cr ib ed w ith s am e al ph ab et u nd er a p ar am et er d o no t di ff er s ig ni fic an tly ta bl e 5. e ff ec t of s ea so n x lo ca tio n x tr ea tm en t in te ra ct io n a . u ni fo rm fl ow er in g (% ) b . t ss c on te nt (o b ) c . c an es /v in e 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 20 13 -1 4 20 14 -1 5 l 1 l 2 l 1 l 2 l 1 l 2 l 1 l 2 l 1 l 2 l 1 l 2 t 1 65 .4 a 85 .0 de 94 .0 fg 92 .8 fg t 1 15 .9 ab 17 .6 bc d 18 .7 cd 13 .9 a t 1 24 .7 21 .5 25 .0 23 .8 t 2 74 .4 b 79 .4 bc d 92 .8 fg 95 .2 fg t 2 16 .4 ab c 17 .7 bc d 16 .9 bc d 19 .3 d t 2 22 .5 17 .8 27 .8 21 .6 t 3 77 .2 bc 80 .7 cd 93 .3 fg 93 .8 fg t 3 16 .5 ab cd 16 .4 ab c 15 .3 a 18 .9 cd t 3 33 .5 25 .0 34 .5 28 .8 t 4 80 .6 cd 76 .1 bc 93 .6 fg 95 .8 g t 4 15 .8 ab 17 .0 bc d 15 .7 ab 18 .2 bc d t 4 32 .2 29 .7 35 .0 25 .4 t 5 74 .7 bc 78 .4 bc 89 .5 ef 93 .3 fg t 5 16 .0 ab c 16 .9 bc d 15 .9 ab 17 .8 bc d t 5 32 .8 27 .5 39 .4 23 .8 s. e m ± 2 .1 3 c d @ 0. 05 = 6 .1 s. e m ± 1 .0 05 c d @ 0. 05 = 2 .9 s. e m ± 1 .3 c d @ 0. 05 = 3 .7 ta bl e 6. q ua dr at ic e qu at io ns o f th e re la tio ns hi p am on g ca ne d ia m et er , un ifo rm ity in b ud b re ak a nd flo w er in g a nd cl us te r co m pa ct ne ss in t as -a g an es h x y e qu at io n r 2 x -o pt y -m ax c an e d ia m et er u ni fo rm b ud b re ak y = -1 93 .8 +8 4. 7x -6 .5 3x 2 0. 08 0 6. 49 80 .8 c an e d ia m et er u ni fo rm fl ow er in g y = 40 0. 98 -9 1. 98 x+ 6. 85 x2 0. 08 0 6. 72 92 .1 c an e d ia m et er b er ry di am et er y = 21 .6 31. 23 4x +0 .0 93 x2 0. 00 3 6. 63 17 .5 c an e d ia m et er c lu st er c om pa ct ne ss y = -9 2. 4+ 32 .6 9x -2 .1 32 x2 0. 03 3 7. 67 32 .9 u ni fo rm b ud b re ak u ni fo rm fl ow er in g y = 37 .7 4+ 1. 57 x0. 01 1x 2 0. 05 0 71 .1 93 .4 u ni fo rm b ud b re ak c lu st er c om pa ct ne ss y =33 1. 53 +9 .0 5x -0 .0 56 x2 0. 06 6 80 .8 34 .1 u ni fo rm fl ow er in g c lu st er c om pa ct ne ss y =11 8. 83 +3 .8 1x -0 .0 24 x2 0. 23 0 79 .4 32 .4 b er ry d ia m et er c lu st er c om pa ct ne ss y = -1 80 .9 3+ 23 .2 1x -0 .6 31 x2 0. 02 0 18 .4 32 .5 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 shikhamany et al 90 references amerine, m.a. 1956. the maturation of wine grapes. wines and vines 37(10): 27-32. chadha, k.l. and shikhamany, s.d. 1999. the grapeimprovement, production and post harvest management (isbn: 81-85048-40-1). malhotra publishing house, new delhi, india, pp.129130. chr istensen, p. 1969. sea sona l cha nges a nd distr ibution of nutr itiona l elements in thompson seedless grapevines. amer. j. enol. vitic. 20: 176-190. coombe, b.g.1960. relationship of growth and development to changes in sugars, auxins and gibberellins in fruit of seeded and seedless varieties of vitis vinifera l. plant physiol. 35: 241-250. coombe, b.g. 1992. research on development and ripening of the grape berry. amer. j. enol. vitic. 43:101-10. dass, h.c. and randhawa, g.s. 1968. effect of gibberellins on seeded vitis vinifera with special reference to induction of seedlessness. vitis 7: 10-21 hardy, p.j. 1968. metabolism of sugars and organic acids in immature grape berries. plant physiol. 43: 224-228. hardy, p.j. 1969. selective diffusion of basic and acidic products of co2 fixation into the transpiration stream in grapevine. j. expt. bot. 20: 856-862. negi, s.s. and randhawa, g.s. 1974. improvement of gr apes with special reference to tr opical conditions of peninsular india. indian j. genet. 34a: 1268-1275. reddy, n.n and shikhamany, s.d. 1990. comparative efficacy of spray and dip treatments with h2cn2 on bud break in thompson seedless grape vines under tr opica l india n conditions. gartenbauwissenchaft 55(1): 27-30. shikhamany, s.d. and manjunath, g.o. 1992. effect of hydrogen cyanamide and date of pruning on bud break and subsequent shoot growth, yield and quality in thompson seedless grape. proc. intl. symp. recent advances in vitic. oenol.,14-17 february,1992, hyderabad, india. a.p. grape growers’ association, hyderabad. pp. 181-187. turner, j.n. 1972. practical use of gibberellin in a gr iculture a nd horticulture. outlook on agriculture 1:14-20. weaver, r.j. and pool, r.m. 1967. response of t hompson seedless gr a pes to pr e-bloom thinning. vitis 6:303-308 winkler, a.j., cook, j.a., kliewer, w.m. and lider, l.a. 1974. general viticulture. university of california press, berkeley, usa. pp 138-196 & 338-370. (ms received 21 april 2018, revised 30 may 2018, accepted 25 june 2018) efficacy of chemical thinning in grape in tropics. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 82-90, 2018 mango (mangifera indica l.) is the most important fruit crop of india. previously, vast areas were under mango cultivation in kerala. vellari manga, karpooram manga, chenka varikka, moovandan, kotookonam varikka, chandrakaran, koonan, kalkandamanga, karakka manga, chappikudiyan and kilichundan are some of the traditional mango varieties of kerala. however, due to changes in the socio-economic situation land-use pattern and shrinking homesteads, area under mango cultivation has reduced. moreover, there has been a shift in preference of the people towards new varieties and grafts, which resulted in genetic erosion of the traditional mango germplasm. in southern kerala particularly, trivandrum, kollam, pathanamthitta and alappuzha districts, there has been over 15% reduction in area between the years 2000-01 and 2003-04 (fib, 2006). many of our traditional varieties have gone extinct. the remaining few varieties are confined to homesteads and avenues. therefore, there is an urgent need to at least catalogue available traditional genetic resources, which are on the verge of extinction. radha and manjula (2000) earlier evaluated 12 distinct polyembryonic types of mango in the j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):228-233, 2013 short communication 1dept. of plant biotechnology, college of agriculture, vellayani, thiruvananathapuiram, kerala, india evaluation of traditional mango (mangifera indica l.) varieties of southern kerala s. simi and k. rajmohan1 department of pomology and floriculture, college of horticulture kerala agricultural university, vellanikkara 680 656, india e-mail: simishibu@gmail.com abstract investigations were carried out at the department of pomology and floriculture, college of agriculture, vellayani, to characterize traditional mango varieties of southern kerala, based on utility of fruits. wide publicity was made about the proposed study and an extensive survey was conducted. fifty traditional mango types could be located from thiruvananthapuram, kollam, pathanamthitta and alappuzha districts. on evaluation three utility groups were identified, viz., pickling, table and dual purpose types, based on the survey. variability could be observed for floral, fruit and quality attributes. flowering round the year was observed in vellari type-1, thali, kizhakkan thali and ambalathara local. karpoora varikka with carotenoid content higher than most leading, superior varieties was identified. varieties with high content of total sugars were nedungolan, vellari type-2, perakka manga, inamanga, neenda karpooram, velutha muvandan, karpoora varikka and ambalathara local. pickling type mangoes gave highest average ascorbic acid content (46.02mg/ 100g). average titrable acidity (%) and crude fibre content were also the highest in pickling types (1.22% and 1.18%, respectively). in organoleptic evaluation, perakka manga, nedungolan, karpooram manga, vellari type-2, neenda karpooram, muthalamookan, inamanga, ambalathara local, kotookonam varikka and velutha muvandan ranked on top in overall acceptability. these traditional varieties with desirable traits can be used for developing molecular markers to identify particular genes of interest and transfer them to desirable cultivars through genetic engineering. key words: mangifera indica l., traditional varieties, flowering, physico-chemical central part of kerala based on vegetative, floral and fruit characters. quality parameters of the genus mangifera its varieties were studied by bihari et al (2012). in the present study, an attempt has been made to evaluate traditional mango varieties of southern kerala based on their utility. publicity about the study was made in various mass media modes like newspapers, the television and all india radio to locate the traditional mango varieties. field visits and survey were undertaken to locate individual trees to collect samples. the snowball sampling technique was used for identifying endangered ecotypes in the four districts of southern kerala. the standard descriptor prescribed by ipgri (2006) was used as a guideline to describe vegetative, floral and fruit characters. it being a sample survey, ‘summary statistics’ tool was employed: arithematic mean, range and weighted average. based on responses obtained from the survey, mango varieties were classified into three utility groups as: pickling, table and dual types. average of data obtained from two years’ study was taken. trees were 229 evaluation of mango varieties of kerala classified as ‘early flowering’ if flowering started in november december, as ‘intermediate’ if flowering started in january – february, and ‘late’ if they flowered after march. ten fruits each were taken at maturity and subjected to analysis. fruit pulp was analyzed for acidity (ranganna (1977), ascorbic acid content (sadasivam and manikam, 1992), total carotenoids (jensen, 1978), total soluble solids (tss), total and reducing sugars, and crude fibre content (saini et al, 2001). organoleptic evaluation was made in the laboratory by ten judges, including a group of teachers and students. sensory analysis was done using a four-point scale. major quality attributes scored for were: appearance (fruit shape, skin colour), flesh colour, flavour, taste and texture. weighted average was calculated by assigning a weight of 6 for taste, 5 for texture, 4 for flavour, 3 for skin colour, 2 for flesh colour and 1 for fruit shape, to obtain overall acceptibility. the accession scoring the highest weighted average was judged as the best. results on evaluation of traditional mango types of southern kerala are discussed below. fifty mango types were located and these were grouped into three types as pickling (32%), table (34%) and dual (34%) types based on utility of the fruits. a list of the mango types, location collected from and district from which collected is given in table 1. flowering in mango is an important physiological event that sets the on set of fruit production (ramírez and davenport, 2010). varietal influence in secondary (offseason) flowering has been observed in a few varieties. in the present study, frequent secondary flowering was reported in vellari type-1, thali, kizhakkan thali and ambalathara local (table 2). of these, vellari type-1 is used for pickling. ambalathara local too had good organoleptic scores for fruit shape, flesh colour, texture and taste. hence, both can be said to be economically very important. secondary flowering helps obtain fruits offseason. composition of the mango fruit, in general, differed with the cultivar (table 3). a remarkable variability in acidity was seen among varieties. varieties nedungolan, perakka manga, chadayamangalam local, natumav type-3, mylapore manga, kundara manga, and cheriya kilichundan quality to be designated as varieties lower acidity (< 0.19%). varieties with a high ascorbic acid content were: natumav type-1, natumav type-2, chadayamangalam local, kalluketty, kandiyoor local, vellayani local, thali manga, mavelikkara local and kizhakkan thali (>57.14mg/100g). among fruits, mango is a good source of carotenoids. in the present study, we identifyied a variety, karpoora varikka, with carotenoid content (7.97mg/100g) higher than most leading, superior varieties. perakka manga (3.84), kolambi (2.69), velutha muvandan (2.65) and manacaud local-2 (2.00) are some varieties rich in carotenoid content. the varieties differed greatly in tss which ranged from 8.77 (natumav type-2) to 25.710b (perakka manga). perakka manga and karpoora varikka can be recommended as varieties with high tss. among the 50 traditional types analyzed, high content (>4.3%) of reducing sugars was detected in the varieties pulichi, kolambi, perakka manga, mylapore manga, neenda karpooram, karpooram manga and ambalathara local, which resulted in better tasting fruits. organoleptic and chemical evaluation of fruits of 44 mango varieties under agro-climatic conditions of punjab in pakistan by syed (2009) revealed excellent quality with maximum flavour, taste, colour of fruit, pulp, least fibre and acidity in cvs. chausa, anwar retaul, dushehari, ss-i, ssii, ss-iii and hussain pasand-ii. variability in fibre content was observed among varieties. nedungolan, vellari type-2, perakka manga, fig 1. ogranoleptic evaluation of the traditional mango varieties collected from southern kerala accession/variety j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):228-233, 2013 230 table 1. list of traditional mango types collected from southern kerala acc. local name location district latitude longitude altitude no (m above msl) i pickling types 1 karutha muvandan mavelikkara alappuzha 9.2670o n 76.5500o e 15 2 natumavu type-1 karunagapally kollam 9.6024842o n 76.3404436o e 8 3 vellari type-1 kalliyoor trivandrum 8.4324437o n 77.0147040o e 53 4 kalkanda vellari manacaud trivandrum 8.4743837o n 76.9491484o e 19 5 vazhapazhithi kalliyoor trivandrum 8.4324437o n 77.0147040o e 53 6 pulichi plamoottukada trivandrum 8.401648o n 77.087119o e 24 7 natumavu type-2 eara alappuzha 9.443399o n 76.541992o e 12 8 chadayamangalam local chadayamangalam kollam 8.873123o n 76.869393o e 43 9 komanga vallikkal pathanamthitta 9.2647581o n 76.787041o e 31 10 puliyan cherthala alappuzha 9.6831330o n 76.3373290o e 9 11 natumav type-3 parakode pathanamthitta 9.148208o n 76.760830o e 46 12 manacaud local-1 manacaud trivandrum 8.470421o n 76.944771o e 17 13 kalluketty vayalar alappuzha 9.7167037o n 76.3376786o e 7 14 natumav type-4 mavelikkara alappuzha 9.268378o n 76.534o e 15 15 natumavu type-5 vayalar alappuzha 9.7167037o n 76.3376786o e 7 16 eara local eara alappuzha 9.443399o n 76.541992o e 12 ii table types 17 muthalamookkan karunagapally kollam 9.6024842o n 76.3504436o e 8 18 nedungolan chadayamangalam kollam 8.873123o n 76.869393o e 43 19 vellari type-2 paripally kollam 8.804893o n 76.762351o e 57 20 kolambi chadayamangalam kollam 8.873123o n 76.869393o e 43 21 perakka manga eara alappuzha 9.443399o n 76.541992o e 12 22 kasthuri kalliyoor trivandrum 8.4324437o n 77.0147040o e 53 23 inamanga varkala trivandrum 8.7333000o n 76.7167000o e 47 24 panchasara varikka plamoottukada trivandrum 8.401648o n 77.087119o e 24 25 kappa manga adoor pathanamthitta 9.156651o n 76.730766o e 43 26 kandiyoor local kandiyoor alappuzha 9.252969o n 76529675o e 10 27 thenga manga chiranikkal pathanamthitta 9.174182o n 76.758532o e 66 28 mylapore manga plamootukada trivandrum 8.401648o n 77.087119o e 24 29 kolimanga mavelikkara alappuzha 9.268378o n 76.534o e 15 30 kundara manga thykkal alappuzha 9.694750o n 76.302689o e 8 31 neendakara manga cherthala alappuzha 9.6831330o n 76.3373290o e 9 32 neenda karpooram parakode pathanamthitta 9.148208o n 76.760830o e 46 33 karpooram manga eara alappuzha 9.443399o n 76.541992o e 12 iii dual types 34 cheriya kilichundan chadayamangalam kollam 8.873123o n 76.869393o e 43 35 valiya kilichundan karunagapalli kollam 9.6024842o n 76.3504436o e 8 36 velutha muvandan eara alappuzha 9.443399o n 76.541992o e 12 37 kotookonam varikka vellayani trivandrum 8.431408o n 76.987016o e 24 38 champavarikka ambalathara trivandrum 8.453766o n 76.950623o e 16 39 kallu varikka vellayani trivandrum 8.431408o n 76.987016o e 24 40 vellamkolli karunagapally kollam 9.6024842o n 76.3504436o e 8 41 vellayani local vellayani trivandrum 8.431408o n 76.987016o e 24 42 thali manacaud trivandrum 8.4743837o n 76.9491484o e 19 43 karpoora varikka plamoottukada trivandrum 8.401648o n 77.087119o e 24 44 kotamanga cherthala alappuzha 9.6831330o n 76.3373290o e 9 45 karimbu mavu parakode pathanamthitta 9.148208o n 76.760830o e 46 46 mavelikkara local mavelikkara alappuzha 9.268378o n 76.534o e 15 47 kizhakkan thali paripally kollam 8.804893o n 76.762351o e 57 48 ponnadan manga cherthala alappuzha 9.6831330o n 76.3373290o e 9 49 manacaud local-2 manacaud trivandrum 8.4743837o n 76.9491484o e 19 50 ambalathara local ambalathara trivandrum 8.453766o n 76.950623o e 16 simi and rajmohan j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):228-233, 2013 231 inamanga, neenda karpooram, kandiyoor local, karpooram manga and ambalathara local recorded lower fibre content. of the three utility groups, average crude fibre content was highest (0.58 to 2.92%) in the pickling types, followed by table types (0.4 – 2.4%). overall acceptability depends on concentrations of specific components, nutritional or any other hidden attributes of food, and its palatability or sensory quality. variety perakka manga scored best in overall acceptability, followed by nedungolan and karpooram manga (fig.1). perakka manga, nedungolan, karpooram manga, vellari type-2, neenda karpooram, muthalamookan, inamanga, ambalathara local, kotookonam varikka, and velutha muvandan ranked at top positions in overall acceptability. these can be recommended as excellent edible varieties, suited for cultivating in the tropical environment. a similar study was made on physico-chemical quality characteristics of some mango cultivars growing under the mediterranean subtropical climate in spain (pleguezuelo et al, 2012). ‘osteen’ and ‘tommy atkins’, cultivars of mango with highquality fruits, were recommended for their performance and sustainable yield in subtropical, marginal environment. physico-chemical analysis of fruit samples of 28 elite strains of punjab revealed that variability found in the indigenous mango population for various qualitative and quantitative attributes not only contributes to biological diversity, nutritional security and livelihood, but can also be used for crop improvement (singh et al, 2012). kotookonam varikka, kallu varikka, champa varikka, kasthuri and vellari type-1 were more widely prevalent in thiruvananthapuram district. muvandan was distributed mainly in alappuzha district. natumanga types were more numerous in pathanamthitta district. nedungolan (karpooram) was distributed from nilamel, kilimanoor and nearby regions (trivandrum district) up to chadayamangalam. mylapore manga was mostly located in the southern parts of trivandrum district. vellari type-2 was found more commonly in varkala, parippally and chadayamangalam regions. kolambi manga was located mostly in kollam district (chadayamangalam and places nearby). muthala mookan was mostly located in chettikulangara, karunagapalli (kollam district) and cherthala (alappuzha). mavelikkara and cherthala of alappuzha district can be considered as hotspot areas for traditional mangoes in south kerala, as, many varieties are concentrated in their area. traditional mango varieties flowering round the year and those with desirable characters like high tss, reducing sugars, vitamin c and carotenoids that can be recommended for growing in tropical environment, could be identified in this study. in view of the importance of these traditional mango varieties with rare and desirable qualities, and their adaptability to our environmental conditions, these should be conserved. kerala agricultural university and state department of agriculture, kerala, have been promoting multiplication of the local varieties through grafting. a concerted effort to exploit genes coding for desirable traits through biotechnological interventions in these genetic resources that stand on the verge of extinction, is the need of the hour. acknowledgement the authors express their sincere gratitude to keral agricultural unversity and kscste for providing funds and facilities to carry out doctoral research work. table 2. flowering behaviour of traditional mango varieties/ accessions in kerala class (type) pickling table dual total season of flowering early (nov -dec) 7 (43.75%) 5 (29.41%) 10 (58.82%) 22 (44.00%) intermediate (janfeb) 9 (56.25% ) 12 (70.59%) 7 (41.18%) 28 (56.00%) late (after march) 0 0 0 0 regularity of flowering regular 13 (81.25%) 14 (82.35%) 15 (88.24%) 42 (84.00%) intermediate 3 (18.75%) 2 (11.76%) 2 (11.76%) 7 (14.00%) irregular 0 1 (5.88%) 0 1 (2.00%) secondary flowering rare 13 (81.25%) 16 (94.12%) 13 (76.47%) 42 (84.00%) intermediate 2 (12.5%) 1 (5.88%) 1 (5.88%) 4 (8.00%) frequent 1 (6.25%) 0 3 (18.75%) 4 (8.00%) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):228-233, 2013 evaluation of mango varieties of kerala 232 table 3. fruit quality characters of traditional mango varieties/ accessions in kerala acc. no. tss carotenoid vitamin c titrable crude total reducing pulp (obrix) content content acidity fibre sugars sugars % (mg/100g) (mg/100g) (%) (%) (%) (%) i pickling types 1 12.71 1.66 18.75 1.08 0.89 6.06 1.54 61.64 2 13.77 0.55 68.75 1.66 1.14 6.90 2.27 46.44 3 11.69 0.32 45.00 0.32 0.65 5.06 3.33 70.58 4 10.69 0.36 42.00 1.20 0.82 4.90 1.60 67.73 5 9.69 1.46 9.52 0.32 0.75 5.33 2.94 58.43 6 15.00 0.69 46.88 1.15 2.80 10.81 5.00 61.66 7 8.77 0.5 119.05 1.40 1.40 2.90 1.36 50.59 8 11.69 0.34 90.72 0.18 0.92 3.36 2.11 58.06 9 13.78 0.87 36.92 1.28 0.67 5.55 1.58 54.38 10 10.69 0.58 23.81 0.83 1.20 3.90 1.50 33.71 11 11.69 0.56 12.31 0.13 2.92 7.27 1.98 61.3 12 12.77 1.38 37.50 0.42 1.20 5.97 2.08 61.54 13 11.77 0.59 66.67 2.80 0.90 2.31 0.90 62.00 14 12.77 0.21 47.62 0.57 0.82 2.01 1.20 49.23 15 9.69 0.28 46.20 2.20 1.50 3.50 1.70 44.00 16 14.73 0.68 24.62 4.03 0.58 5.33 1.63 73.38 average 11.99 0.69 46.02 1.22 1.188 5.07 2.05 61.02 range 8.77-15.00 0.21-1.66 9.52-119.05 0.13-4.03 0.58-2.92 2.01-10.81 0.9-5.0 33.71-73.38 ii table types 17 14.61 0.98 9.23 0.30 0.61 9.11 3.45 81.87 18 19.00 1.10 12.50 0.12 0.40 13.90 4.10 78.26 19 16.61 1.88 24.62 0.26 0.47 14.29 2.50 76.98 20 17.78 2.69 25.00 0.96 0.63 12.69 5.71 69.96 21 25.71 3.84 33.33 0. 19 0.52 18.40 6.10 70.74 22 12.18 1.29 12.50 0.40 0.90 10.26 3.64 64.88 23 18.66 0.88 31.25 0.26 0.60 15.10 3.08 61.34 24 19.79 1.58 9.52 0.38 0.76 6.45 3.45 77.92 25 13.78 1.12 28.57 1.00 1.61 6.56 1.69 79.58 26 14.77 1.50 62.50 0.26 0.45 6.15 3.85 56.03 27 15.69 1.36 24.62 0.23 0.50 11.11 4.17 79.29 28 15.78 1.69 23.80 0.13 2.40 9.10 5.41 59.62 29 15.67 0.62 33.33 0.52 1.30 8.70 2.60 66.26 30 15.78 1.38 9.52 0.13 0.88 8.82 3.17 80.41 31 15.78 0.98 3.08 0.25 0.64 8.88 4.17 76.34 32 18.66 1.11 12.31 0.20 0.60 22.20 5.40 74.30 33 19.71 1.25 31.20 0.41 0.46 13.70 4.33 75.87 average 17.06 1.49 22.76 0.35 0.81 11.50 3.93 72.33 range 12.18-25.71 0.62-3.84 3.08-62.5 0.12-1.00 0.40-2.40 6.15-22.2 1.69-6.10 56.03-81.87 iii dual types 34 17.78 1.83 18.75 0.19 0.71 10.26 3.20 75.61 35 15.70 1.45 12.50 0.72 0.80 9.09 2.82 66.14 36 19.71 2.65 31.20 0.31 0.75 13.92 3.70 67.53 37 17.68 0.69 37.10 0.32 0.97 10.88 3.77 75.60 38 14.67 1.88 12.31 0.35 0.59 11.11 3.03 68.60 39 13.67 1.12 12.50 0.68 1.00 7.41 3.64 70.67 40 12.77 1.36 37.50 0.25 0.76 5.63 3.33 70.21 41 13.77 0.67 61.90 0.62 0.80 7.20 2.00 72.65 42 12.71 0.93 57.14 0.50 0.47 8.08 2.33 51.59 43 20.66 7.97 24.62 1.20 0.84 13.79 2.67 70.57 44 14.78 0.73 23.50 0.40 0.75 7.90 3.10 64.17 45 12.18 0.80 46.88 0.45 0.67 6.25 2.30 68.09 46 15.78 0.96 71.43 0.70 1.30 6.67 2.78 49.84 47 13.77 1.10 57.14 0.66 0.79 6.67 1.87 61.78 48 13.77 1.20 12.40 0.58 0.70 7.17 3.17 41.00 49 14.73 2.00 12.31 0.50 0.97 7.89 3.90 66.90 50 17.78 0.96 27.69 0.35 0.54 13.40 5.33 80.53 average 15.41 1.66 32.76 0.52 0.79 9.02 3.11 65.97 range 12.18-20.66 0.67-7.97 12.31-71.43 0.25-1.20 0.47-1.30 5.63-13.92 1.87-5.33 41.00-80.53 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):228-233, 2013 simi and rajmohan 233 references bihari, m., kumar, r., singh, k., kumar, a., prasad, a., narayan, s. and pandey, s.k.n. 2012. quality parameters studies on mangifera genus and varieties. indian j. hort., 69:272-276 f.i.b. 2006. farm guide-2006. government of kerala. kerala books and publishing society, kakkanad, kochi, india, 210 p. ipgri. 2006. descriptors for mango (mangifera indica l.). international plant genetic resources institute, rome, italy, p. 60 jensen, a. 1978. chlorophylls and carotenoids. handbook of phycological methods (eds. hellebust, j.a. and crigie, j.s.). cambridge university press, london, uk, pp. 59-70 pleguezuelo, c.r.r., zuazo, v.h.d., fernandez, j.l.m. and tarifa, d.f. 2012. physico-chemical quality parameters of mango (mangifera indica l.) fruits grown in a mediterranean subtropical climate (se spain). j. agri. sci. tech., 14:365-374 radha, t. and manjula, c. 2000. characteristics of some polyembryonic mango types grown under kerala conditions. acta hort., 509:135-142 ramírez, f. and davenport, t.l. 2010. mango (mangifera indica l.) flowering physiology. scientia horti., 126:65-72 ranganna, s. 1977. manual of analysis of fruit and vegetable products. tata mc.graw hill publication co. ltd., new delhi, p. 634 sadasivam, s. and manikam, a. 1992. biochemical methods for agricultural sciences. wiley eastern ltd., new delhi, p. 246 saini, r.s., sharma, k.d., dhankhar, o.p. and kaushik, r.a. 2001. laboratory manual of analytical techniques in horticulture. agrobios (india), jodhpur, p. 135 singh, n.p., jerath, n., singh, g. and gill, p.p.s. 2012. physico-chemical characterization of unexploited mango diversity in sub-mountain zone of northern india. indian j. pl. genet. resour., 25:261-269 syed, s.a. 2009. evaluation of mango cultivars for productive and commercial plantation under punjab conditions of pakistan. acta hort., 820:147-152 (ms received 19 november 2012, revised 16 september 2013, accepted 01 october 2013,) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(2):228-233, 2013 evaluation of mango varieties of kerala introduction bunch size in banana is manipulated to enhance the size of fingers to suit market demands in south east asian countries. nutrients are supplied to the banana plant through soil and foliage, by de-navelling (removal of male inflorescence) and feeding nutrients post-shooting through the distal stalk-end of rachis (venkatarayappa et al, 1976; prasanna kumari amma et al, 1986; ancy et al, 1998 and ancy and kurien, 2000). de-navelling serves the twin purpose of saving mobilization of food into an unwanted sink in the banana plant and earning additional income when the excised male bud is used as vegetable (singh, 2001). therefore, an attempt was made to enhance bunch yield by feeding n, k and s through the excised distal stalk-end of rachis after de-navelling and to determine the movement of these nutrients into the bunch of “ney poovan” banana. material and methods a field experiment was conducted during 19982002 on healthy ‘ney poovan’ banana (musa sp. l., ab) plants at the flowering stage. the crop was raised on red clay-loam soil with ph 5.7, organic carbon 0.3%, cation exchange capacity 8.7 cmol (p+) kg-1, exchangeable k 1.1 cmol (p+) kg-1, and available s 22 mg kg-1. the rachis at the distal end of the bunch was excised along with the male bud by giving a slant cut immediately after all of the pistillate (female) flowers had set fruit and after 4 bracts were shed. one half-kilogram (500g) aliquots of fresh cow dung were blended to form a slurry with the required quantity of fertilizer [5-25 g of ammonium sulphate (as) / 2.5-12.5 g of sulphate of potash (sop)] and 100 ml of water. cow dung contained 22.4% moisture, 1.47% of n, 1.05% of k and 0.39% s on oven-dry basis, which corresponded to 5.7g n, 4.07g k and 1.51g s in 500 g fresh cow dung. the blend was placed in a enhancing fruit yield in ‘ney poovan’ banana (musa paradisiaca l.) by de-navelling and feeding n, k and s through distal stalk-end of the bunch s.c. kotur and s.v. keshava murthy division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta bangalore 560 089, karnatak, india e-mail: sckotur@iihr.ernet.in abstract de-navelling and feeding ammonium sulphate (as) (5-25 g/plant) with or without potassium sulphate (2.5-12.5 g/ plant) blended in 500 g of fresh cow-dung and applied to the distal stalk-end of the bunch of ‘ney poovan’ banana (musa sp. l., ab) showed that the nutrients moved from the blend into the bunch and significantly enhanced weight of the fruits and of the bunch, compared to retention of flower, de-navelling (removal of male inflorescence) and application of 500 g cow-dung only to the excised distal stalkend of the bunch. de-navelling caused 7.1% (5623 g) higher bunch yield, which increased to 13.9% (5980 g) when cow dung alone was applied after de-navelling. when cow dung was blended with 5 g of as and 2.5 g of sulphate of potash, the response was 66.5% (9362 g) over de-navelling and application of cow dung alone and 78.3% (9362 g) over retention of male bud throughout (5250 g). a significantly higher n content, n uptake, ndff (nitrogen derived from fertilizer), fertilizer n uptake, utilization of fertilizer and k and s content were observed when cow-dung enriched with as and sop was applied. nitrogen content and all the parameters of n use were distinctly higher in the basal portion of the bunch indicating the flow of the applied nutrients upward from the de-navelled end. results showed that application of 5 g ammonium sulphate and 2.5 g sulphate of potash blended in 500 g of fresh cow dung to the distal stalk-end of the bunch of ‘ney poovan’ banana was the most promising in boosting the yield, improving the nutritional composition in respect of n, k and s without adversely affecting the fruit quality. key words: bunch size, nutrient feeding, de-navelling, ‘ney poovan’ banana, musa sp., n, k, s j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 53-56, 2010 54 polythene bag and tied securely later to dip the excised rachis into the slurry. treatments used were as follows: control: male bud retained on the bunch till harvest t1 – de-navelling, by excision of rachis along with the male bud, 10 cm away from the last hand t2 – [t1 + dipping if cut end in the slurry of cow dung and 100 ml water] t3 – [t2 + 5 g of as] t4 – [t2 + 10 g of as] t5 – [t2 + 15 g of as] t6 – [t2 + 20 g of as] t7 – [t2 + 25 g of as] t8 – [t3 + 2.5 g sop] t9 – [t4 + 5 g of sop] t10 – [t5 + 7.5 g of sop] t11 – [t6 + 10 g of sop] t12 – [t7 + 12.5 g of sop] treatments were replicated thrice in completely randomized block design. harvesting was done at maturity. the bunch was divided into the top portion and bottom portion, each carrying 5 hands. the finger and rachis from the middle of each half of the bunch was sampled, cut into pieces, dried in an oven at 70oc and powdered for n analysis by kjeldahl method. the dry powder was used to estimate 15n abundance in a mass spectrometer. potassium was determined using flame-photometry and s content, by turbidimetry in the digest of the fruit sample in di-acid (9:4 nitric:perchloric acid). nitrogen derived from fertilizer (ndff) in the fruit was calculated as under: 15n abundance in the fruitndff (%) = _________________________ x 100 15n abundance in the fertilizer results and discussion weight of the bunch and fruit weight of the bunch showed significant increase as a result imposition of de-navelling (t17%), applying cow dung (t3-14%), blending as (23-67%) and as+sop (29-78%) over the control. the highest increase was observed with 5g of as and 2.5g of sop blended in cow dung (t8) and fed to the bunch followed by 10g of as alone (t4). doses of both as and as+sop treatments than these showed relatively reduced response compared to t8 and t4. the trend of improvement in fruit weight of both top and bottom portions in the bunch closely conformed to that in bunch weight. substantial increase in yield of banana fruits may be attributed to presence of other mineral and bio-chemical ingredients in cow dung. the bottom portion of the bunch, which lies closer to the exogenously applied nutrients, accounted for 46% of the total weight, relative to that of the top portion of the bunch (19-57%) which is located farther from the applied nutrient blend. this was more pronounced in the case of as+sop blends. except treatments 15g+7.5g and 20g+10g of as+sop in all the other as+sop treatments the bottom portion gained 5299% weight compared to 35-69% in the top portion. overall result of this would be plumper fingers in the bottom-half, having improved marketability of the whole bunch. removal of male bud caused increase in bunch weight and also improved nutrient composition of the fruits because of conservation and utilization of energy for finger development (which would be otherwise lost for opening of the remainder of the flowers); and removal of a strong and active sink competing for photosynthates despite its small size relative to the bunch (kurien et al, 2000; ancy and kurien, 2000; singh, 2001). further, translocation of nutrients into the infructescence from such exogenous feeding in ‘poovan’ (ab), ‘monthan’ (aab) and ‘nendran’ (aab) varieties has been reported by buragohain and shanmugavelu (1986), sobhana and arvindakshan (1989) and ancy and kurien (2000) who fed urea solution directly to the cut-end of the stalk. ancy and kurien (2000) reported blackening and rotting of fruits when urea was fed at >50 g and found significant decline in weight of the bunch at 100 g dose. in this study, urea and/or sop were fed as a blend in the cow dung and no adverse effects on quality parameters like peel:pulp ratio and tss were observed (either for as alone or for as+sop). however, as levels higher than 10 g, and, 5g of as + 2.5g of sop caused reduction in fruit weight but were superior to control. ammonium sulphate used in this study can be effectively replaced by urea to supply additional n to the bunch stalk-end as the latter is reported to enhance urease activity in fruits (ancy et al, 1998). this may facilitate hydrolysis of urea to nh 3 (and to the nh 4 + form thereafter) for easy absorption and assimilation of n, to effect enhanced bunch yield. fruit composition contents of n, k and s in the fruit generally improved with application of cow dung alone, or, when blended with fertilizers. when de-navelling alone was done, the effect was significant in respect of k in both portions of the bunch, and, of s in the top portion of the bunch (table 1). further improvement in k content in the top portion of the bunch occurred when cow dung was enriched with fertilizers. composition of the fruit improved with respect to n, k and s significantly when cow dung was blended with as and as+sop. this effect was most pronounced at j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 53-56, 2010 kotur and keshava murthy 55 t ab le 1 . e ff ec t of d en av el li n g an d f ee d in g n u tr ie n ts t h ro u gh t h e st al k -e n d o f ‘n ey p oo va n ‘ b an an a on f re sh w ei gh t of b u n ch , fr u it w ei gh t an d i ts c om p os it io n t re at m en t b un ch f ru it n i n p i n k i n c a in m g in s in f e in f ru it w ei gh t ( g) w ei gh t ( g) f ru it ( % ) fr ui t (% ) fr ui t (% ) fr ui t (% ) fr ui t (% ) fr ui t (% ) (m g kg -1 ) t o p b o tt o m t o p b o tt o m t o p b o tt o m t o p b o tt o m t o p b o tt o m t o p b o tt o m t o p b o tt o m t o p b o tt o m c o n tr o l 52 50 25 78 20 67 0. 25 0. 29 0. 10 0. 10 1. 19 1. 17 0. 94 0. 94 0. 10 0 0. 09 6 0. 02 0 0. 02 4 66 51 t 1 56 23 27 90 22 31 0. 02 6 0. 30 0. 10 0. 09 1. 32 0. 29 0. 89 0. 79 0. 09 4 0. 09 3 0. 02 4 0. 02 5 58 49 t 2 59 80 30 42 23 28 0. 25 0. 30 0. 09 0. 09 1. 36 1. 31 0. 80 0. 67 0. 09 2 0. 08 0 0. 02 4 0. 02 7 51 43 5g a s ( t 3) 64 74 30 74 27 69 0. 37 0. 46 0. 12 0. 10 1. 44 1. 49 0. 96 1. 17 0. 11 0 0. 11 7 0. 03 3 0. 03 5 81 70 10 g as a s ( t 4) 87 78 40 72 36 95 0. 33 0. 40 0. 12 0. 12 10 49 1. 34 1. 40 1. 50 0. 12 4 0. 11 9 0. 02 5 0. 02 8 92 13 4 15 g a s ( t 5) 69 39 34 32 28 08 0. 36 0. 34 0. 11 0. 11 1. 45 1. 41 0. 97 1. 21 0. 11 8 0. 11 1 0. 02 9 0. 03 5 74 12 0 20 g a s ( t 6) 81 55 37 13 36 57 0. 32 0. 37 0. 10 0. 10 1. 49 1. 41 1. 07 1. 18 0. 10 7 0. 11 3 00 25 0. 03 1 75 10 1 25 g a s ( t 7) 77 26 37 88 31 74 0. 33 0. 42 0. 10 0. 10 0. 41 1. 42 0. 96 0. 98 0. 10 4 0. 11 1 0. 02 8 0. 03 1 71 11 6 5g a s + 2 .5 g 93 62 43 54 41 19 0. 32 0. 36 0. 12 0. 13 0. 62 1. 55 1. 18 1. 44 0. 12 1 0. 11 7 0. 02 7 0. 03 3 98 13 9 s o p ( t 8 ) 10 g a s + 5 g 73 42 42 22 23 97 0. 37 0. 45 0. 11 0. 12 0. 46 1. 46 0. 94 1. 15 0. 11 6 0. 10 0 0. 03 7 0. 03 5 92 11 6 s o p ( t 9 ) 15 g a s + 7 .5 g 67 80 34 34 26 91 0. 31 0. 36 0. 11 0. 11 0. 51 1. 45 1. 15 1. 15 0. 11 4 0. 10 9 0. 03 1 0. 03 6 85 10 6 s o p ( t 10 ) 20 g a s + 1 0g 69 43 34 98 27 77 0. 31 0. 35 0. 11 0. 11 0. 43 1. 42 1. 08 1. 03 0. 11 4 0. 10 4 0. 02 9 0. 03 4 82 85 s o p ( t 11 ) 25 g a s + 1 2. 5g 73 42 34 71 31 51 0. 33 0. 34 0. 11 0. 11 0. 45 1. 37 1. 05 1. 05 0. 10 7 0. 10 7 0. 02 7 0. 03 4 75 10 1 s o p ( t 11 ) s e m ( ± ) 22 6. 2 12 0. 3 12 1. 2 0. 00 9 0. 00 7 0. 00 3 0. 00 2 0. 03 2 0. 02 4 0. 00 3 0. 00 4 0. 00 19 0. 00 32 0. 00 07 0. 00 06 2. 2 5. 4 c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) 66 0. 1 35 3. 8 34 8. 7 0. 02 5 0. 02 2 0. 00 7 0. 00 6 0. 09 5 0. 06 9 0. 08 9 0. 01 1 0. 00 56 0. 00 93 0. 00 20 0. 00 17 6. 4 15 .7 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 53-56, 2010 enhancing fruit yield in banana 56 5g of as with or without sop, and generally higher levels of these showed reduction in the mineral composition of the fruit. n use parameters studied in respect of ndff and fertilizer uptake by fruit, there was improvement upto 10g of as and 15g of as+7.5g of sop. however, addition of more as or as+sop showed no further improvement of ndff in both the portions of the bunch. maximum absorption of n was observed at 15g as+7.5g sop among treatments. fertilizer use decreased significantly with increased amount of n in the blend. this was most pronounced between 5 and 10g of as in the bottom portion, with or without sop. it is noteworthy that n content (table 1) and all the parameters of n use (table 2) were distinctly higher in the bottom portion of the bunch due to its proximity to exogenous source of n compared to that in the top portion indicating the upward flow of applied nutrients from the de-navelled end. utilization of fertilizer decreased with increasing input of fertilizer n in the blend which is phenomenon observed in fertilizer experiments. among various treatments, blending 5g of as and 2.5g of sop in cow dung showed maximum utilization (41.53%) of applied n. in conclusion, it is stated that de-navelling caused 7.1 % higher bunch yield which increased to 13.9% when cow dung alone was applied. when cow dung was blended with 5 g of as and 2.5 g of sop, the response was 66.5% increase over de-navelling and application of cow dung alone, and 78.3% increase over retention of male bud until harvest. acknowledgement the authors gratefully thank the director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for encouragement and facilities, and, shri n.k. kacker, technical officer, for technical help. references ancy, t.k., kurien, s., augustin, a. and balachandran, p.v. 1998. urease activity in banana fruit. j. pl. nutrition, 21:2127-40 ancy, t.k. and kurien, s. 2000. bunch stalk feeding of urea in banana, musa (aab group) ‘nendran’. sci hort., 84:205-12 buragohain, r. and shanmugavelu, k.g. 1986. studies on the effect of post-shooting application of urea in ‘vayal vazhai’ banana (abb). banana newslett., 9:16-8 kurien, s., anil, b.k., rajeevan, r.k., bharathan and krishnan, s. 2000. phosphorus mobilization to uneconomic tissues and effects of bunch trimming regimes in banana. sci. hort., 82:25-35 prasanna kumari amma, s., babylatha, a.k., pushkaran, k. and kurien, t.k. 1986. studies on the effect of removing terminal hands and male bud on the yield and fruit size of banana musa (aab group) ‘palayankodan’. south ind.hort., 34:204-9 singh, h.p. 2001. banana. in: handbook of horticulture, chadha, k.l. (ed.). p.152, indian council of agricultural research, new delhi. sobhana, a. and aravindakshan, m. 1989. translocation of banana after shooting. j. nuclear agri. and biol., 18:243-5 venkatarayappa, t., narasimham, b. and venkatesan, c. 1976. effect of post-shooting application of urea on development and composition of banana fruit. south ind. hort., 19:109-17 table 2. effect of feeding various levels of ammonium sulphate and sulphate of posash on different parameters of n use in fruits of ‘ney poovan’ banana treatment ndff (%) fertilizer n uptake (g) fertilizer utilization (%) top bottom mean top bottom total top bottom total 5g as 1.74 7.34 4.68 0.065 0.300 0.365 6.45 30.04 36.49 10g as 2.72 9.61 6.30 0.109 0.418 0.527 5.53 20.90 26.43 15g as 1.63 9.05 4.97 0.063 0.285 0.348 2.08 9.49 11.57 20g as 2.38 9.63 6.17 0.086 0.385 0.471 2.16 9.62 11.78 25g as 2.79 9.11 6.02 0.109 0.370 0.479 2.19 7.39 9.58 5g as + 2.5g sop 2.51 6.66 4.59 0.113 0.303 0.416 11.31 30.22 41.53 10g as + 5g sop 2.30 7.19 4.64 0.115 0.332 0.447 5.74 16.61 2.35 15g as + 7.5g sop 4.43 9.07 6.60 0.143 0.259 0.402 4.77 8.64 13.41 20g as + 10g sop 3.97 2.89 3.45 0.130 0.087 0.217 3.26 2.17 5.43 25g as + 12.5g sop 3.23 4.93 4.10 0.109 0.189 0.298 2.18 3.78 5.96 sem (±) 0.152 0.382 0.197 0.0073 0.202 0.332 0.324 1.084 1.083 cd (p=0.05) 0.450 1.143 0.582 00223 0.604 0.997 0.964 3.223 3.224 (ms received 23 september 2009, revised 24 march, 2010) kotur and keshava murthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 53-56, 2010 markingnut (semecarpus anacardium l.) of family anacardiaceae is an important but under-utilized fruit crop of india. it is a native of indio-malaysian region and is commonly grown in the hotter parts of india. the tree has edible fruit (hypocarp) and kernel. the pericarp contains bhilawan shell liquid (b.s.l.) which is a rich source of phenols (chopra et al, 1956). inside the pericarp, protected by a hard shell, is a white kernel which is sweet and is as nutritious as the almond. the kernel is a rich source of protein (26.4%), fats (36.4%), carbohydrates (28.4%) and minerals (3.6%) (steinmetz, 1966). the kernels are sold from rs.120 to 210 per kg, depending upon quality. in view of the importance of this fruit and its high price, demand for its planting material is increasing. however, no specific/recommended variety is available, although wide variability exists throughout the length and breadth of india. attempts made to collect locally available germplasm in marathwada (m.s) by naikwade et al (1989), nanapure (1999) and dahiwade (2000) are worth mentioning. the existing trees, scattered in hilly areas short communication variability in markingnut (semecarpus anacardium l.) accessions from marathwada region of maharashtra state n.a. deshmukh, d.p. waskar and p.b. sable department of horticulture marathwada agricultural university parbhani – 431 402, maharashtra, india e-mail: nishantd1@indiatimes.com abstract a survey was conducted in markingnut growing area (aurangabad, beed, hingoli, nanded and parbhani districts) of marathwada region in maharashtra (india) during 2005-07 to assess existing natural variability for superior genotypes and good fruit-quality among 264 markingnut seedling trees and 27 superior clones. all the genotypes showed considerable variability with respect to physico-chemical characters. fruit weight varied from 5.0 (pd-2) to 15.88 g (hd-5) and hypocarp weight from 3.37 (ad-2 and pd-1) to 10.67g (hd-5). individual pericarp weight ranged from 1.59 (pd-2) to 5.21 g (hd-5) and kernel weight ranged from 0.16 (pd-2) to 1.07 g (hd-5). there was wide variation in chemical characteristics. also, t.s.s. varied from 5.67 (bd-3) to 13.100b (nd-3) and titratable acidity from 0.22 (ad-1) to 1.93% (bd-3). kernel protein content ranged from 13.22 (ad-2) to 25.75% (hd-5), carbohydrate content from 17.92 (pd-3) to 26.91% (ad-3), fat content from 31.57 (hd-3) to 40.59% (pd-4) and pericarp oil (b.s.l) content from 27.80 (bd-4) to 41.74% (hd-2). on the basis of physico-chemical characters assessed, genotypes hd-5 and nd-3 were found to be most promising. keywords : markingnut, elite seedlings, variability of the region, exhibit wide variation in fruit characters. therefore, a study was conducted to assess variation in physico-chemical characteristics of markingnut fruits and to identify superior clones and elite seedlings in marathwada region of maharashtra state. a survey was conducted in markingnut growing areas of aurangabad (ad), beed (bd), hingoli (hd), nanded (nd) and parbhani (pd) of marathwada region of maharashtra state (india) during 2005-06 and 2006-07 to identify elite germplasm and to assess natural variability existing among populations. the survey was undertaken as suggested by gupta and rai (1996). the 1extent of variation in physico-chemical traits of fruits collected from different locations was estimated. twenty fruits from selected trees were randomly taken for measuring physical attributes such as weight, length, breadth and hypocarp to pericarp ratio, following standard procedure. t.s.s. was estimated in terms of 0brix with the help of hand refractometer. titratable acidity was estimated by titrating 10 ml. juice against 0.1 n naoh using phenolphathalene as indicator (a.o.a.c, j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 71-74, 2010 72 1980). protein content (n x 6.25) was estimated by conventional micro-kjeldhal method. crude fats and pericarp oil (b.s.l) were estimated with soxhlet apparatus using petroleum ether as the solvent (ranganna, 1997). data were analysed using randomized block design (r.b.d.) as per panse and sukhatme (1985). data pertaining to physical and chemical quality attributes of markingnut fruits showed significant difference and a high degree of variability for all the characters studied. (tables 1 and 2). fruit weight varied from 5g in pd-2 to 15.88g in hd-5 genotypes. higher fruit weight is a preferred character in markingnut. average weight per fruit in nd-3 (14.22g) was at par with hd-5. maximum hypocarp weight was observed in hd-5 (10.67g) followed by nd-3 (9.74g) genotypes which were on par with each other, whereas, minimum hypocarp weight was seen in ad-2 and pd-1 (3.37g each). hypocarp length and diameter was found to be maximum in hd-5 (2.69 cm and 3.01 cm, respectively), followed by nd-3 genotypes. minimum hypocarp length and diameter was recorded in pd-2 (1.51cm and 2.03cm). variation in markingnut genotypes for the above characters was earlier reported by naikwade et al, 1989; nanapure, 1999 and dahiwade, 2000. pericarp weight, kernel weight, pericarp length and breadth, and, hypocarp to pericarp ratio also varied significantly (table 1). maximum pericarp weight was recorded in hd-5 (5.21 g). pericarp weight in nd-3 (4.48 g, nd-2 (4.13 g), hd-3 (4.03 g) and ad-4 (3.99 g) was at par, while, minimum pericarp weight was recorded in pd-2 (1.59 g). highest kernel weight was recorded in hd-5 (1.07 g) followed by nd-3 (0.96 g) whereas, lowest kernel weight was observed in pd-2 (0.16 g). high kernel weight is a preferred character in markingnut. pericarp length was found to be maximum in nd-3 (2.89 cm) followed by hd1 (2.85 cm), hd-3 (2.83 cm), hd-5 (2.80 cm), nd-2 (2.79 cm) and ad-5 (2.72 cm) genotypes, while, pd-1 (1.75 cm) showed minimum pericarp length. pericarp breadth recorded highest in nd-3 (2.91 cm), followed by hd-5 (2.86 cm) table 1. physical attributes of some superior markingnut genotypes collected from marathwada region sl. no. genotypes fruit hypocarp hypocarp hypocarp pericarp kernel pericarp pericarp weight weight length breadth weight weight length breadth (g) (g) (cm) (cm) (g) (g) (cm) (cm) 1 ad-1 9.15 5.71 2.30 2.71 3.44 0.59 2.44 2.17 2 ad-2 5.06 3.37 1.75 2.09 1.69 0.32 1.95 2.03 3 ad-3 8.36 5.50 1.54 2.14 2.87 0.43 2.01 2.07 4 ad-4 11.55 7.57 2.02 2.58 3.99 0.52 2.48 2.38 5 ad-5 12.74 8.84 2.20 2.31 3.90 0.86 2.71 2.78 6 ad-6 7.90 4.94 2.14 2.44 2.96 0.32 2.39 2.10 7 bd-1 7.46 4.89 2.05 2.37 2.57 0.23 2.13 2.00 8 bd-2 12.26 8.33 2.29 2.52 3.93 0.60 2.42 2.37 9 bd-3 9.06 6.24 2.25 2.66 2.82 0.38 2.52 2.29 10 bd-4 5.60 3.60 1.78 2.46 2.00 0.36 2.23 2.36 11 bd-5 7.40 4.93 2.11 2.53 2.47 0.32 2.20 2.38 12 hd-1 11.04 7.49 2.27 2.56 3.55 0.78 2.85 2.27 13 hd-2 9.75 6.27 2.38 2.67 3.48 0.45 2.52 2.62 14 hd-3 10.40 6.37 2.41 2.71 4.03 0.76 2.83 2.64 15 hd-4 12.19 8.25 2.17 2.53 3.94 0.61 2.61 2.45 16 hd-5 15.88 10.67 2.69 3.01 5.21 1.07 2.80 2.86 17 nd-1 7.67 4.86 1.97 2.25 2.82 0.31 2.11 1.99 18 nd-2 12.46 8.33 2.17 2.59 4.13 0.75 2.79 2.53 19 nd-3 14.22 9.74 2.48 2.83 4.48 0.96 2.89 2.91 20 nd-4 8.23 5.10 1.95 2.06 3.13 0.45 2.10 2.03 21 nd-5 11.58 7.68 2.30 2.67 3.90 0.53 2.50 2.43 22 nd-6 9.27 5.38 2.40 2.73 3.89 0.62 2.56 2.32 23 pd-1 5.28 3.37 1.66 2.24 1.92 0.23 1.75 1.89 24 pd-2 5.00 3.41 1.51 2.03 1.59 0.16 1.82 1.72 25 pd-3 7.21 4.25 2.09 2.43 2.96 0.37 2.23 2.12 26 pd-4 10.45 7.39 2.22 2.70 3.06 0.57 2.39 2.17 27 pd-5 6.97 4.76 1.89 2.36 2.21 0.41 2.45 2.27 mean 9.41 6.19 2.11 2.49 3.22 0.52 2.40 2.30 cd (p=0.05) 1.89 0.95 0.25 0.27 0.54 0.11 0.18 0.17 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 71-74, 2010 deshmukh et al 73 and ad-5 (2.78 cm), whereas, minimum pericarp breadth was recorded in pd-2 (1.72 cm) genotype, which shows a wide range of variability. data revealed (table 2) wide variations in chemical composition in all the 27 superior genotypes. t.s.s. content varied from 5.670b in bd-3 to 13.100b in nd-3. genotypes pd-1 (12.420b) and nd-2 (12.280b) showed high t.s.s. content. titratable acidity was found to be minimum in ad1 (0.22%) and maximum in bd-3 (1.93%). kernel protein content was found to be maximum in hd-5 (25.75%) followed by ad-5 (25.01%) and hd-1 (24.99%) and minimum in ad-2 (13.22%). total carbohydrate content was estimated to be highest in ad-3 (26.91%), followed by bd-2 (26.53%) and hd-5 (26.46%), while, lowest was seen in pd-3 (17.92%). fat content ranged from 31.57% in hd-3 to 40.59% in pd-4. fat content in hd-1 (40.44%) was at par with that in pd-4. pericarp content oil (b.s.l.) also showed considerable variability among the genotypes tested. the genotype hd-2 (41.74%) showed highest pericarp (b.s.l.) oil content, followed by bd-2 (41.47%), while, lowest pericarp (b.s.l.) oil content was seen in bd-4 (27.80%). based on physico-chemical studies conducted for two consecutive years, it may be inferred that genotypes hd-5 and nd-3 were promising. these genotypes had highest fruit and kernel weights and the selection was based on their performance in farmers’ fields where soil, climate and cultural practices vary from farmer to farmer. seedling and clonal selections have been the most suitable methods for fruit crop improvement. selection has resulted in development of better cultivars in various fruit crops (bagade and patil, 1989 and keskar et al, 1990). present work shows that, in markingnut too, there is scope for selecting better genotypes from the naturally-existing variability. references a.o.a.c. 1980. official methods of analysis (9th edn). association of official analytical chemists. washington, d.c. bagade, t.r. and patil, v.s. 1989. chakradhar lime, a new thornless and seedless selection in lime (citrus table 2. chemical attributes of some superior markingnut genotypes collected from marathwada region sl. no. genotypes t.s.s(0b) acidity(%) protein(%) total carbohydrate fat oil content content(%) content(%) (b.s.l)(%) 1 ad-1 10.69 0.22 17.86 20.99 34.34 33.18 2 ad-2 6.51 1.77 13.22 18.11 32.83 31.49 3 ad-3 9.88 0.26 20.31 26.91 35.48 32.38 4 ad-4 6.39 1.60 22.22 22.52 31.76 30.66 5 ad-5 11.25 1.06 25.01 24.45 34.03 39.38 6 ad-6 10.57 0.27 22.25 22.25 33.68 36.04 7 bd-1 9.66 1.80 16.73 19.91 32.24 32.60 8 bd-2 7.64 0.34 23.73 26.53 37.72 41.47 9 bd-3 5.67 1.93 19.35 20.70 32.24 35.91 10 bd-4 12.07 0.54 14.67 25.39 38.48 27.80 11 bd-5 8.67 0.32 14.09 22.73 39.43 34.02 12 hd-1 12.30 1.15 24.99 19.93 40.44 34.31 13 hd-2 8.75 1.68 20.21 21.88 35.42 41.74 14 hd-3 10.42 1.09 13.90 21.32 31.57 31.74 15 hd-4 11.47 0.95 23.54 23.97 33.55 36.66 16 hd-5 12.00 0.55 25.75 26.46 35.88 38.92 17 nd-1 8.81 1.60 24.02 24.56 35.04 39.59 18 nd-2 12.28 0.28 16.06 22.60 31.82 35.99 19 nd-3 13.10 0.80 24.13 25.61 34.63 36.44 20 nd-4 12.06 0.29 23.15 25.77 38.41 32.59 21 nd-5 6.67 0.54 22.79 23.65 34.44 31.29 22 nd-6 8.24 0.69 17.61 20.77 35.93 39.63 23 pd-1 12.42 1.88 14.63 23.63 32.06 39.31 24 pd-2 6.55 0.63 20.70 25.81 32.36 34.71 25 pd-3 9.43 1.27 22.54 17.92 32.24 31.85 26 pd-4 10.56 0.75 17.06 19.18 40.59 30.41 27 pd-5 11.95 0.30 24.81 22.27 39.78 39.65 mean 9.78 0.91 20.20 22.81 35.05 35.18 cd (p=0.05) 0.42 0.22 0.81 0.55 0.39 0.6 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 71-74, 2010 variability in markingnut 74 aurantifolia swingle). ann. pl. physiol., 3:95-97 chopra, r.l., nayar, s.l. and chopra, i.c. 1956. glossary of indian medicinal plants. c.s.i.r., new delhi pp 330 dahiwade, g.b. 2000. survey for selection of superior markingnut (semecarpus anacardium l.) strains in beed district. m.sc. (agri.) thesis submitted to marathwada agricultural university, parbhani (m.s.). gupta, p.n. and rai, m. 1996. gene pool sampling struggles during collection of fruit crops. pp 55-63. in: genetic resources of tropical fruits: collection, evaluation and conservation strategies. (eds.) gupta, p.n., m. rao and k.p.s. chandel, nbpgr, new delhi keskar, b.g., karnale, a.r., dhawale, b.c. and chaudhari. 1990. g-137: a promising clonal selection of pomegranate. j. mah. agril. univ., 15:107-108 naikwade, m.m., shinde, g.s. and patil, v.k. 1989. selection of promising types of markingnut in marathwada region. j. mah. agril. univ., 14:118-119 nanapure, s.p. 1999. survey for selection of superior markingnut (semecarpus anacardium l.) type in aurangabad and parbhani districts. m.sc. (agri.) thesis submitted to the marathwada agricultural university, parbhani, maharashtra panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar publication, new delhi. p 108 ranganna, s. 1997. manual of analysis of fruit and vegetable products. tata mcgraw-hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi. pp 1-3 steinmetz, i. 1966. ann. rep. nutri. res. lab., hyderabad. (ms received 24 december 2008, revised 15 february 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 71-74, 2010 deshmukh et al antioxidant-rich amaranth varieties, arka samraksha and arka varna b. varalakshmi, v. kesava rao1 and g. naik2 division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089 e-mail : bvl@iihr.ernet.in abstract amaranth improvement in india hither to was concerned with development of high-yielding varieties, and hardly any research efforts have been made for its nutritional improvement. keeping this in view, at indian institute of horticultural research two high-yielding amaranth varieties, arka samraksha and arka varna with high antioxidant activity, low amounts of nitrates and oxalates were developed using modified bulk method of selection from segregating population of the crosses iihr-4 x iihr-70 and iihr-7 x iihr-30 . arka samraksha is a high-yielding (10.9 t/ha in 30-35 days), pulling-type variety with green leaves and stem, antioxidant activity of 499mg (aeac units) and minimum nitrate content of 27.3 mg and 1.34 g oxalates per 100 g fresh leaf weight. arka varna also a pulling type, high-yielding variety (10.6 t/ha in 30-35 days) with green leaves and a pink stem, high antioxidant activity of 417 mg (aeac units), low nitrate content of 37.6 mg and 1.42 g oxalates per 100 g fresh leaf weight. key words: amaranth, antioxidant activity, nitrates, oxalate amaranth (amaranthus tricolor l.) is one of the important leafy vegetables grown throughout the country. from a nutritional point of view, it enjoys a competitive rank among vegetables, being a very good source of vitamins like vitamin a (carotene), vitamin c, folic acid, riboflavin, thiamine and minerals like iron and calcium. these phytochemicals act as powerful antioxidants protecting cells and organs from damage caused by free-radicals and neutralizing their damaging effects. icmr recommends a daily intake of 400g of vegetables /day/ adult, which comprises 125g of leaf vegetables (anon., 2009). regular consumption of these leafy vegetables can substantially improve the health of our population. nitrates and oxalates present in leafy vegetables in our nutrition for concern. while nitrates may get converted into potential carcinogens like nitrosamines, oxalates can form calcium oxalate (kidney stones). although levels of oxalates and nitrates present in amaranth do not pose a serious nutritional problem under normal consumption habit, lines that have lower levels of these chemicals are certainly desirable (ara der marerosian et al, 1979). amaranth improvement in india has been focussed on developing highyielding varieties, and very limited research work has been done on nutritional improvement (varalakshmi et al, 1998, 2001).therefor, at iihr, research efforts aimed at developing high-yielding amaranth varieties possessing high antioxidant activity with low nitrate and oxalate content resulted in the present amaranth varieties, arka samraksha and arka varna. characteristic features and nutritional composition of these two varieties are given in tables 1 and 2. arka varna recorded maximum content of potassium (918mg%), calcium (471.2g%) and magnesium (201.8mg%), whereas arka samraksha recorded maximum iron (11mg%) and zinc (0.63g%) content. salient features of arka samraksha’ and arka varna’: arka samraksha: this variety was developed by modified bulk method of selection from segregating population of the cross iihr-4 x iihr-70, in f 6 generation: high-yielding amaranth variety with high antioxidant activity of 499mg (aeac units) and minimum nitrate content (27.3mg) and 1.34g oxalates per 100g fresh weight of leaves. it is a pulling type amaranth with green leaves and stem; yields 10.9t/ha in 30-35 days. 1 division of plant physiology & biochemistry, iihr, bangalore 2 principal scientist (rtd.), ches, bhubaneshwar short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):163-165, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 164 arka varna: this was developed by the modified bulk method of selection from segregating population of the cross iihr-7 x iihr-30, in f 6 generation. it is a high-yielding amaranth variety, with high antioxidant activity of 417mg (aeac units), nitrate content of 37.6mg and 1.42g of oxalates per 100g fresh weight of leaves. it is a pulling type amaranth variety with green leaves and pink stem, yields 10.6 t/ha in 30-35 days. performance of ‘arka samraksha’ and ‘arka varna’ at iihr, bangalore: arka samraksha is a green-leaved pulling type amaranth line which was tested for its yield, antioxidant capacity, nitrate and oxalate content for three years (from 2008 to 2010) at iihr experimental farm, hessaraghatta. average fresh-greens yield of arka samraksha was 10.91t/ha by pulling, 30 -35 days after sowing and, increase over the check variety, arka suguna, was 41.8% and over the local check 77.4%. it recorded maximum antioxidant activity of 499mg (aeac units) and minimum nitrate content of 27.3mg, and 1.34g of oxalates per 100g fresh weight of leaves. it also recorded 4.0% leaf protein. average fresh-greens yield of arka varna was 10.58t/ha by pulling in 30-35 days after sowing, and the increase over check variety, arka suguna, was 37.6%, and over the local check 72.0%. it recorded antioxidant activity of 417mg (aeac units), nitrate content of 38.2mg and 1.42g of oxalates per 100g fresh weight of leaves. further, it has recorded 4.1% of leaf protein (table 3). performance at different locations: the two varieties were tested at central horticultural experiment stations of iihr at bhubaneswar, and at hirehalli, for yield and quality during rainy season (june-july) of the year 2009 (table 4). at central horticultural experiment station, bhubaneswar, ‘arka samraksha’ recorded fresh-greens yield of 13.9t/ha by pulling, which was superior to the checks ‘arka suguna’ (8.54t/ha) and ‘local’ variety (8.75t/ha). it recorded antioxidant capacity of 315.2mg (aeac units) table 1. characteristic features of amaranth varieties arka samraksha and arka varna trait arka arka arka local samraksha varna suguna check check leaf color green green green green stem color green pink green green petiole color green pink green green leaf shape lanceolate ovate ovate ovate days to 50% flowering 40.0 40.8 40.0 35.0 plant height (cm) 36.1 38.2 28.4 25.6 branch number 8.2 8.1 7.3 7.3 leaf number 57.8 50.0 41.2 44.6 leaf weight (g) 61.3 59.2 56.7 38.9 stem weight (g) 89.2 89.8 48.3 55.9 total plant weight(g) 161.3 154.1 115.1 92.2 yield in t/ha 10.9 10.6 7.69 6.15 antioxidant activity 499 417 419.6 389.2 (mg/100g fresh wt.) nitrate content 27.3 38.2 65.8 82.4 (mg/100g fresh wt.) oxalate content 1.34 1.42 1.61 1.42 (mg/100g fresh wt.) table 2. nutritional composition of amaranth varieties arka samraksha and arka varna nutritional component arka arka arka local samraksha varna suguna check check moisture (%) 86.1 86.5 87.3 86.8 protein (%) 4.0 4.1 3.4 3.5 p (mg%) 50.9 61.0 44.0 50.9 k (mg%) 715.9 918.0 717.6 627.0 ca (mg%) 463.6 471.2 357.5 420.4 mg (mg%) 199.5 201.8 182.9 179.5 s (mg%) 60.4 50.2 42.2 54.1 fe (mg%) 11.1 6.2 11.5 9.0 mn (mg%) 0.67 0.71 0.52 0.62 zn (mg%) 0.63 0.61 0.53 0.59 cu (mg%) 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.13 varalakshmi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):163-165, 2011 arka varna arka samraksha prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 165 table 3. mean performance of amaranth varieties arka samraksha and arka varna for total yield, antioxidant activity, nitrate and oxalate content during 2008-2010 at iihr, bangalore variety total plant yield kg/plot yield antioxidant activity nitrates oxalates/100g fr. weight (g) (4m2) (t/ha) mg (aeac units/ (mg/100g fr. leaf wt. ) leaf wt. 100g fresh wt.) arka samraksha 161.3 4.36 10.91 499.0 27.3 1.34 arka varna 154.1 4.23 10.58 417.0 38.2 1.42 arka suguna (c) 115.1 3.08 7.69 419.6 65.8 1.61 local check 92.2 2.46 6.15 389.2 82.4 1.42 mean 133.2 3.55 8.87 428.8 58.2 1.65 c.d. (p=0.01) 47.5 1.27 3.17 39.7 15.6 0.13 cv (%) 8.6 8.05 9.08 15.7 13.6 13.4 table 4. performance of amaranth varieties arka samraksha and arka varna for quantitative / qualitative traits during kharif 2009 at ches, bhubaneswar and hirehalli ches, bhubaneswar ches, hirehalli variety yield (t/ha) antioxidant activity nitrates (mg / yield antioxidant activity nitrates (mg/ 100g oxalates (100g (mg aeac units / 100g fr. leaf wt.) (t/ha) (mg aeac units/ fr. leaf wt.) fr. leaf wt.) 100g fr. leaf wt.) 100g fr. leaf wt. arka samraksha 13.87 315.2 29.9 7.56 520.6 34.2 1.2 arka varna 9.47 214.0 27.9 6.67 596.4 15.0 1.2 arka suguna (c) 8.54 99.2 172.6 4.31 399.1 40.3 1.1 local check 8.75 183.2 88.2 4.11 433.4 64.9 1.2 mean 11.69 190.9 73.7 5.5 474.4 67.4 1.2 c.d. (p=0.05) 6.08 36.3 31.7 1.41 42.1 15.6 0.052 cv (%) 13.3 15.3 19.2 6.6 15.3 14.2 7.3 and 29.9mg nitrates per 100g of fresh weight of leaves. at ches, hirehalli, by pulling, it recorded 7.56t/ha, which was significantly higher than in the check, arka suguna (4.31t/ ha) and ‘local’ variety (4.11t/ha). it recorded antioxidant activity of 520.6mg (aeac units), 34.2mg nitrates and 1.22g of oxalates per 100g fresh weight of leaves. ‘arka varna’ at bhubaneswar recorded fresh-greens yield of 9.47t/ha by pulling, which is superior to the checks ‘arka suguna’ (8.54t/ha) and ‘local variety’ (8.75t/ha). it recorded an antioxidant capacity of 214mg (aeac units) and 27.9mg nitrates per 100g fresh weight of leaves. at hirehalli, by pulling it recorded 6.67t/ha, which was significantly higher than in the checks, ‘arka suguna’ (4.31t/ ha) and ‘local variety’ (4.11t/ha). it recorded antioxidant capacity of 596.4mg (aeac units), 15.0mg nitrates and 1.22g oxalates per 100g fresh weight of leaves at hirehalli. references anonymous. 2009. nutrient requirements and recommended dietary allowances for indians. icmr report, nin, hyderabad, pp. 320 ara der marderosian, john beutler, walter pfendner, jefefry chambers, robert yoder, eileen weinsteiger and joseph senft. 1979. nitrate and oxalate content of vegetable amaranth. in: proceedings of the second amaranth conference, rodale press, inc. emmaus, pa, usa pp. 31-41 varalakshmi, b., naik, g., pratap reddy,v.v. and pandey, s.c. 1998. arka suguna: new multicut amaranth. ind. hort., 42:14-15 varalakshmi, b., pratap reddy, v.v., naik, g., celia chalam v. and pal, d.k. 2001. ‘arka arunima’: a new multicut amaranth. ind. hort., 46:29-30 (ms received 6 may 2011, revised 6 july 2011) nutrient-rich new amaranth varieties j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):163-165, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no g × e interaction and heterosis in elite tomato hybrids for growth, earliness and fruit parameters in diverse agro-climatic zones of punjab naveen garg*, s.k. jindal1, m.s. dhaliwal1 and d.s. cheema1 regional research station, punjab agricultural university bathinda 151 001, punjab, india *e-mail: naveen@pau.edu abstract six promising tomato hybrids selected from a pool of 60 f 1 hybrids were evaluated for seven traits, along with the check hybrid (th-1) at two locations falling under different agro-climatic zones of punjab, india. g × e interaction was significant for early yield, fruit weight and total fruit yield, whereas, it was non-significant for fruit number, locule number, pericarp thickness and vine length. overall higher mean-early-yield, fruit number, fruit weight and total yield at ludhiana, rather than at bathinda, may be due to higher organic carbon, available phosphorus and available potash and low electrical conductivity of the experimental soil at ludhiana. pooled analysis showed that hybrid th-21 had the maximum early-yield (3.73 tha-1 ), fruit weight (72.7 g) and locule number (2.65), whereas, th-23 had the highest fruit number per vine (53.7) and total fruit yield (51.2 tha-1). the magnitude of pooled standard heterosis was maximum for vine length (140.7%), followed by early yield (114.8%), total yield (88.3%), fruit number (49.7%), fruit weight (27.6%), pericarp thickness (16.4%) and locule number (-21.6%). on the basis of stability and superiority for fruit weight, fruit number, early and total yield, th-21 was found to be the most promising hybrid, followed by th-23. key words: fruit number, fruit weight, hybrid, stability, tomato, yield introduction tomato (solanum lycopersicum l.) is one of the most important vegetable crops of punjab, cultivated over 7,580 hectare in 2014-15 and produced 1,85,900 metric tonnes with average productivity of 24.525 metric tonnes ha-1 (anon., 2015). at the national level, productivity of tomato has increased from 15.74 metric tonnes ha-1 in the year 2001 to 19.45 metric tonnes ha1 in 2011 (anon., 2014). this substantial increment is partly due to availability and adoption of high-yielding tomato hybrids in the country. tomato hybrids are very popular among farmers because of earliness, high yield, uniformity of the produce and higher adaptability to unfavorable environment (yordanov, 1983). the high cost of hybrid seeds is not an obstacle in their popularity as it is compensated by the realized higher profits obtained from their cultivation (cheema and dhaliwal, 2005). three f 1 hybrids of tomato, viz. th-2312, th802 and th-1, have thus far been released for commercial cultivation at the state level the punjab agricultural university. the last hybrid, i.e. th-1, was released in the year 2003 (singh et al, 2004). before recommending any hybrid for commercial cultivation, its evaluation in diverse agro-climatic locations is very important owing to the genotype × environment interactions due to variations in soil fertility, irrigationwater quality and other agro-climatic conditions pre va le nt a t differe nt zones. genetic stability (homeostasis) in the hybrids refers to reduced genotype × environment interaction. a majority of quantitative traits are significantly affected by environmental factors, and, heterosis too is dependent on environment. therefore, evaluation of a given tomato hybrid, when grown at different locations, is necessary for obtaining reliable information on its overall performance. this kind of information is of great importance to tomato breeders, as, it can help them make intelligent decisions j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 124-130, 2017 1department of vegetable science, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141004, india 125 on cultivar selection (atanassova and georgiev, 2007). there fore, the present study was conducted to estimate g × e interaction among seven promising tomato f1 hybrids, and, to ascertain the magnitude and direction of heterosis over a standard check hybrid for plant growth, yield and fruit parameters two, in diverse agro-climatic zones of punjab. material and methods six promising f1 hybrids of tomato were selected for multi-location testing from a pool of 60 hybrids evaluated at ludhiana for two years. these six elite hybrids, along with one standard check hybrid,i.e. th-1, were evaluated in a randomized comple te bloc k de sign (rcbd) , with thre e replications, at two diverse locations falling under different agro-climatic regions of punjab, i.e. vegetable research farm, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana (e 1 ) (30o 54’ n latitude, 75o 48’ e longitude, 247 amsl altitude) and jodhpur romana farm, regional research station, punjab agricultural university, bathinda (e2) (30 o 9’ 36" n latitude, 74o 55’ 28" e longitude, 211 amsl altitude) during october 2010 to may 2011. seeds were sown in well-prepared nursery beds in end-october, 2010. seedlings were transplanted on the southern side of the beds prepared in east-west direction at a spacing of 1.20 m × 0.30 m, in end-november, 2010. ten plants from each entry were transplanted in single row in each replication. recommended cultural and plant-protection measures were followed for raising the crop (anon., 2013). irrigation was applied needed and at regular intervals at ludhiana; however, at bathinda, irrigation was not applied for three weeks in april, though needed by the crop, due to non-availability of good quality canal water (the tube-well water-being saline-sodic, was not used for irriga tion pur pos e ). mea n monthly a gr ometeorological recorded during the crop season at both the loc a tions are pre se nted in ta ble 1. characteristics of the experimental soil (0-15 cm soil profile) at the two locations are presented in table 2. observations were recorded for seven characters, viz., early yield (t ha-1), fruit number per vine, fruit weight (g), locule number, pericarp thickness (mm), vine length (cm) and total fruit yield (t ha-1). a total of five pickings were made from mid-april to end-may. yield obtained in the first picking was treated as ‘early yield’. average weight of ten randomly-chosen fruits from the second, third and fourth pickings was used for estimating fruit weight. locule number and pericarp thickness were estimated from ten randomly-selected fruits from the third picking. vine length was recorded after the final picking on five randomly-chosen, competitive plants. data were analyzed for analysis of variance (anova) using the computer software programme cpcs1. heterosis over the check hybrid was estimated and tested for significance using standard methods (rai and rai, 2006). results and discussion the mean sum of squares due to genotype was significant for all the traits in both the environments (table 3), revealing genotypic variability for the traits studied. pooled analysis (table 3) showed that the mean squares due to environment were significant for all the traits except locule number and pericarp thickness, revealing the important role played by environment in the expression of most traits. g × e interaction was significant for three traits, viz., early yield, fruit weight and total yield, which meant that performance of the hybrids for these traits was significantly different under the two environments; whereas, environmental conditions did not influence expression of the other traits, viz., fruit number per vine, locule number, pericarp thickness and vine length. overall mean early-yield, fruit number per vine, fruit weight and total fruit yield at ludhiana (3.44 t ha-1, 52.8, 62.6 g and 48.3 t ha-1 respectively) were significantly higher than those at bathinda (2.46 t ha-1, 37.9, 58.6 g and 36.5 t ha-1 respectively) (table 4). this may be due to the higher organic carbon, available phosphorus, available potash and low electrical conductivity of the experimental soil at ludhiana, compared to that in bathinda (table 2). secondly, deficit irrigation during the month of april at bathinda may also have been responsible for reduction in yield and yield contributing traits. according to kalloo (1986), phosphorus application markedly increases early-yield, whereas, high nitrogen and potash improve the number of fruits and total fruit yield in tomato. earline ss is one of the mos t importa nt advantages of heterosis breeding in tomato facilitating the advantage of high prices during the early season, particularly, in regions with short growing-season such as in punjab (atanassova and georgiev, 2007). all the experimental hybrids, except th-11, gave significantly higher early-yield than th-1 in both the environments (table 4). pooled analysis showed that maximum earlyj. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 124-130, 2017 heterosis in elite tomato hybrid for punjab 126 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 124-130, 2017 naveen garg et al 127 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 124-130, 2017 heterosis in elite tomato hybrid for punjab 128 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 124-130, 2017 naveen garg et al 129 yield was produced in th-21 (3.73 t ha-1), which was statistically at par with th-22 (3.62 t ha-1) and th-23 (3.42 t ha-1). however, due to presence of g × e interaction for this trait, results with respect to the location differed significantly. hybrid th-22 gave maximum early-yield (4.73 t ha-1) at ludhiana, whereas at bathinda, hybrid th-21 produced the highest early-yield (3.44 t ha-1) which was statistically at par with th-23 (3.01 t ha-1) (table 4). pooled standard heterosis over th-1 ranged from 74.6% (th13) to 114.8% (th-21). fruit number is an important yield-contributing trait in tomato. maximum fruit number was recorded in th-23, which was statistically at par with th-13 at both the locations. the same trend was observed in total fruit yield, showing a close correlation between these two traits (table 4). all the experimental hybrids gave significant, positive standard heterosis over th1 for these traits at both the locations, except th-21 and th-22 for fruit number at bathinda (table 5). pooled standard heterosis ranged from 10.6% (th-21) to 49.7% (th-23) for fruit number and from 39.6% (th-22) to 88.3% (th-23) for total fruit-yield. garg and cheema (2014) also reported standard heterosis upto 102.28% and 165.88% over th-1 for fruit number per plant and total fruit-yield, respectively. on the other hand, th-21 recorded maximum fruit weight at both the locations (table 4). standard heterosis of 57.8% exhibited by th-21 for total fruit-yield was contributed to mainly the 27.6% increase in fruit weight and 10.6% increase in fruit number (table 5). locule number and pericarp thickness are important fruit-quality parameters which influencing fruit flavour, firmness, shelf-life and transportation to distant locales. locule number in all the hybrids varied from 2.00 to 2.65 (table 4). maximum locule number (2.65) was seen in th-21, which was statistically at par with th-1 (2.55) and significantly higher than all the other hybrids. on the other hand, minimum locule number (2.00) was recorded by th-16, which was at par with th-22 (2.05), th-23 (2.07) and th-13 (2.15) (table 4). all the hybrids, excepting th-21, exhibited significant, negative standard heterosis over th-1, ranging from -7.8% (th-11) to -21.6% (th-16) (table 5). garg and cheema (2014) also observed standard heterosis over th-1 as ranging from -39.94% to 50.15% for locule number. table 5. heterosis over th-1 (%) for seven traits exhibited by six elite f 1 hybrids of tomato evaluated at two locations of punjab f1 hybrid early yield fruit number per vine fruit weight e1 e2 pooled e1 e2 pooled e1 e2 pooled th-11 3.9 8.9 6.4 25.8* 22.1* 23.9* 6.2 -0.9 2.7 th-13 63.3* 85.9* 74.6* 45.9* 43.0* 44.4* 8.4* -3.1 2.7 th-16 69.0* 87.9* 78.4* 37.5* 34.9* 36.2* 1.3 -8.9* -3.8 th-21 87.1* 142.4* 114.8* 12.2* 9.1 10.6* 28.4* 26.7* 27.6* th-22 120.2* 76.5* 98.3* 21.4* 9.0 15.2* 13.9* -1.0 6.5* th-23 77.7* 112.0* 94.8* 46.2* 53.2* 49.7* 10.1* 6.8 8.5* e1= at ludhiyna e2= at bathinda table 5. contd……. f1 hybrid locule number pericarp thickness vine length total fruit yield e 1 e 2 pooled e 1 e 2 pooled e 1 e 2 pooled c 1 c 2 pooled th-11 -5.3 -10.3* -7.8* 16.4* 16.4 16.4* 119.6* 124.2* 121.9* 33.6* 75.1* 54.4* th-13 -16.0* -15.4* -15.7* 14.8* 9.0 11.9* 130.6* 150.7* 140.7* 58.1* 95.0* 76.5* th-16 -20.0* -23.1* -21.6* 11.5* 11.6 11.6* 123.9* 151.3* 137.6* 39.5* 66.9* 53.2* th-21 8.0 0.0 4.0 16.4* 11.1 13.8* 117.2* 138.0* 127.6* 44.3* 71.3* 57.8* th-22 -16.0* -23.1* -19.6* 9.8* 7.9 8.9* 134.6* 139.1* 136.9* 38.4* 40.8* 39.6* th-23 -20.0* -17.9* -18.9* 13.1* 7.9 10.5* 122.4* 133.8* 128.1* 61.2* 115.3* 88.3* *significant at 5% level j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 124-130, 2017 heterosis in elite tomato hybrid for punjab 130 references anonymous , 2013. pa c ka ge of pra c tic e s for cultivation of vegetables. punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, punjab, india, pp. 30-36. anonymous, 2014. food and agriculture organization of the united nations. faostat.fao.org. anonymous, 2015. ve geta ble a re a , yie ld and production. punjabhorticulture.com (accessed on 13th november 2015) atanassova, b. and georgiev, h. 2007. expression of heterosis by hybridization. in: genetic improvement of solanaceous crops. vol. 2: tomato. razdan, m. k. and mattoo, a. k. (eds.). science publishers, enfield, new hampshire, united states of america, pp. 113-152 cheema, d. s. and dhaliwal, m. s. 2005. hybrid tomato breeding. j. new seeds, 6(2):1-14. gar g, n. a nd che ema , d. s. 2014. ge ne tic improvement of tomatoes involving rin, nor and alc alleles. lambert academic publishing, germany. kalloo, g. 1986. tomato (lycopersicon esculentum miller). allied publishers pvt. ltd., new delhi, india, pp. 203-210. rai, n. and rai, m. 2006. heterosis breeding in vegetable crops. new india publishing agency, new delhi, india, pp. 7-9. singh, s., dhaliwal, m. s. and cheema, d. s. 2004. th-1: a new tomato f 1 hybrid. j. res. punjab agri. univ. 41(3): 414. yordanov, m. 1983. heterosis in the tomato. in: monographs on theoretical and applied genetics, vol. 6: heterosis. frankel, r. (ed.). springerverlag berlin, heidelberg, germany, pp. 189219 pericarp thickness in all the hybrids varied from 6.20 mm to 7.22 mm. maximum pericarp thickness (7.22 mm) was obse rved in t h-11, which was sta tistica lly at par with t h-21 (7.05 mm) and significantly higher than in all the other hybrids. on the other hand, minimum pericarp thickness (6.20 mm) was seen in th-1, which was significantly lower than in all the other hybrids (table 4). all the experimental hybrids showed significant, positive standard heterosis over th-1, ranging from 8.9% (th-22) to 16.4% (th11) (table 5). standard heterosis ranging from -21.88% to 71.51% was also reported by garg and cheema (2014) for pericarp thickness. vine length in tomato also contributes fruit yield (atanassova and georgiev, 2007). all the experimental hybrids had significantly higher vine length than th-1 under both the environments (table 4). pooled analysis showed that maximum vine length was recorded in th-13 (170.8 cm), which was at par with th-16 (168.5 cm), th-22 (168.5 cm), th-23 (162.2 cm) and th-21 (161.6 cm). the magnitude of standard heterosis over th-1 varied from 121.9% (th-11) to 140.7% (th-13) (table 5). high yield is one of the most importa nt a dva nta ge s of he te ros is bre e di ng in t oma to. maximum pooled fruit-yield was exhibited by th23 (51.2 t ha-1 ), followed by th-13 (48.5 t ha-1) and th-21 (43.5 t ha-1 ) (table 4). all the experimental hybrids showed significant, positive heterosis over th-1 ranging from 39.6% (th-22) to 88.3% (th23) (table 5). standard heterosis for total fruit-yield in toma to ra nge s from 66.56 to 165.88% , a s reported by garg and cheema (2014). g × e interaction was significant for earlyyield, fruit weight and total fruit-yield (table 4). all the hybrids showed significant differences in earlyyield and total fruit-yield, across the two locations. howe ve r, two hybrids, i.e ., t h-21 and t h-1, exhibited at-par values for fruit weight across the two locations (table 4). therefore, on the basis of stability and superiority for fruit weight, fruit number, early and total yield, th-21 is the most promising hybrid, followed by th-23. (ms received 21 november 2015, revised 28 march 2016, accepted 28 december 2016) j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 124-130, 2017 naveen garg et al india produces 12.43 million tonnes of tomato from an area of 6.34 lakh hectares. the average productivity is 19.60 t ha-1. karnataka state is one of the leading producers of tomato having 0.483 lakh hectares with a production and productivity of 15.80 lakh tones and 32.70t ha-1, respectively (anon., 2010). tomato farmers want to have high quality tomatoes for fetching better price in the market. this can be achieved through better crop production practices, which included balanced nutrition and better water management practices. tomato farmers use high inputs including fertilizers to attain high productivity. many a times, a skilled application of np fertilizers is a general rule rather than an exception. this has caused huge nutrient imbalances in tomato soils. as a result deficiencies of secondary and micronutrients are becoming common which affects both yield and quality. recently magnesium deficiency is found to be one of the major constraints in obtaining high yields and quality of tomato. in many acid soils addition of dolomite lime stone in the crop rotation helps in alleviating mg deficiency both through direct supply of mg and through correction of ph of the soil. the studies on different crops have shown that, mg application in red soils of karnataka, have increased the yields by 1520%. crop response to applied mg varied from short communication critical limit of soil and plant magnesium in tomato-growing soils of south karnataka b.l. kasinath, a.n. ganeshmurthy and n.s. nagegowda icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail: kasnath@iihr.ernet.in abstract response of tomato to a blanket application of 50kg mg ha-1 was studied at 20 locations on soil available mg ranged from 40.6ppm to 172.4ppm. this range can be classified exchangeable mg low to high status. these plots were selected from intensive tomato growing areas of southern karnataka. the yield responses obtained from these plots were used to calculate the soil and plant mg critical levels. using scattered plot technique soil mg limit of 74ppm is arrived as critical soil mg for tomato crop. similarly a plant critical limit of 0.39% was established to separate deficient plants from those having sufficient magnesium. key words: alfisols, calcium, critical limit, nutrient interaction, tomato 8 to 84%. the response depends on crop species, location and soil type. further it has been observed that where the exchangeable mg is lower than 0.5 [cmol(p+) kg-1 ], application to soil responded well in all crops (ganesha murthy and hegde, 1980), where in study was undertaken to assess the critical levels of mg for tomato in soils of karnataka. forty-eight soil samples were collected from tomato growing fields from kolar, chikkaballapura, bangalore, tumkur, belgum and hassan districts of karnataka. these samples were analysed for available magnesium content using different extractants viz., 1n nh4oac and 0.02 m cacl2. these samples were analyzed for available magnesium using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. simple fertilizer trials were conducted at 20 sites selected from the above 48 samples based on available mg content ranging from low to high in the year 2009-10 in order to assess the critical limit of mg in soil and plant. two treatments were imposed in twenty locations. first treatment was recommended dose of fertilizers (180:150:120 npk kg ha-1) and second treatment was recommended dose of fertilizers (180:150:120 npk kg ha-1) + 50kg mg ha-1. tomato hybrid arka ananya was used for this experiment with a spacing of 100cm x 60cm. from these plots soil samples were drawn and j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):209-212, 2014 210 available magnesium was estimated by using 1n nh4oac and 0.05mcacl2 extracts. soil analysis was done at three different stages of plant growth such as initial, flowering and harvesting stages. plant sample: whole plant samples were collected from each treatment for recording total biomass production. five plants from each replication were also sampled for fruit, leaf and stem separately. the plant samples were partitioned into leaf, stem and fruit, washed. weight of each plant was recorded separately after drying at 70oc in a hot air oven. samples were powdered and processed for estimation of nutrients accumulated in plant. nutrient estimated from the plant tissue included nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium and magnesium using standard procedures at different stage of initial, flowering and harvesting stage. statistical procedure: cate and nelson (1965) scatter plot technique was used to find out the critical limits of soil and plant magnesium in tomato growing belts of southern karnataka. in this approach per cent yield value were obtained for a wide range in different location. scattered plot diagram were drawn as percent yield (y axis) and soil test level (x axis). the percent yield was calculated using the formula. yield at 0 level of a nutrient percent yield = ———————————————— yield where all factors are adequate critical limit of soil magnesium: data on available mg in the 48 samples collected from different tomato growing districts are presented in table 1. in bengaluru urban district, the available mg ranged from 61.6 to 154.2ppm, whereas, in tumkur and bengaluru rural, it varied from 61.6 to 70.6 and 64 to 73.6ppm, respectively. in chikkaballapura district, the available mg ranged from 67.2 to 71.2 ppm. these soils, being alfisols, are inherently acidic and available soil mg was in medium to low range. asiegbu and uzo, 1983 reported soil available mg of 0.64mg/100g in alfisols. similar results were also reported by other authors. response to applied mg in simple fertilizer experiments conducted over 20 sites is presented in table 2. the response varied from 77.3 to 102.4%. the degree of response was in proportion to the level of soil available mg. osman and gerald, 1985 suggested that application of 56kgha-1 corrected mg deficiency and yield was increased significantly in tomato crop. response to applied mg in indian soils in various crops is reported by several workers. deshbandhu et al, 2003 found that udic ustochrepts application of 60kg mg ha-1 increased the mustard yield by 22-23%. table 1. available soil mg (ppm) extracted by two extractants in selected samples sample no. available soil mg cacl2 nh4oac 1 53 78.8 2 44.8 46.2 3 42.6 61.6 4 60.6 70.6 5 50.2 95.2 6 53.2 55.2 7 50 48.4 8 96 116 9 101.6 150.4 10 78.4 151.2 11 105.4 143.4 12 106.2 132.6 13 135.2 139.4 14 40.8 53.8 15 56 56.4 16 50.2 40.6 17 103.4 115 18 104.8 124.2 19 92.4 94.8 20 75.2 97.2 21 99.6 71.2 22 68.4 68.8 23 67.4 74.2 24 105.2 74.4 25 104.4 138.2 26 110.4 135.4 27 77.2 78.8 28 55.6 73.6 29 47.6 64 30 130 161.6 31 104.6 172.4 32 93.2 98 33 67.6 80.6 34 64.6 73.4 35 69.4 81.4 36 56 74.8 37 52.2 61.6 38 55.6 79.2 39 73 91.2 40 62.8 136.8 41 54.8 68.8 42 50.4 67.2 43 57.2 70.4 44 52.8 71.2 45 55.2 74.4 46 58 75.6 47 61.6 74 48 57.2 78.4 soil critical-limit bray’s per cent yield was plotted against soil available mg (fig 1). using this scattered plot technique of cate and nelson (1965) a critical limit of 74 ppm soil mg was estimated. similarly the critical level was estimated using kasinath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):209-212, 2014 211 nelson and anderson’s (1977) statistical method. the critical in both cases was found to be 74ppm. a soil mg status of 0.64 meq/100g of soil was critical limit of soil magnesium in tomato crop as reported by asiegbu and uzo, 1983. these soils are very sandy and hence the cec being very low the critical level was very low. the soils under present study are medium textured and good in cec. hence the critical level was high. lin qiming, 1985 reported a critical limit of soil available mg in the soil was less than 26 ppm in soil which was derived from red earth and sandy paddy soils derived from alluvial deposit in rice. plant critical-limit the plant mg levels were significantly related to soil available mg levels and the response to applied mg was also related to plant mg levels to work out the plant critical mg level, similar to soil mg, plant mg content was plotted against bray’s per cent yield and presented in fig 2. a critical table 2. effect of magnesium on yield in tomato var. arka ananya in alfisols of south karnataka location initial tomato yield bray’s per cent response soil mg (t ha-1) per cent increase (q ha-1) (ppm) npk+ npk yield (nh4 mgso4 oac) 1. (bu) 74 74.25 66.00 88.89 12.50 82.50 2. (bu) 78.4 67.25 67.50 100.37 -0.37 -2.50 3. (bu) 61.6 80.50 62.25 77.33 29.32 182.50 4. (bu) 154.2 73.00 71.25 97..60 2.46 17.50 5. (bu) 79.2 72.50 70.50 97.24 2.84 20.00 6. (bu) 79.2 72.00 71.75 99.65 0.35 2.50 7. (bu) 74.4 74.50 66.00 88.59 12.88 85.00 8 . (bu) 75.6 74.75 66.75 89.30 11.99 80.00 9. (bu) 80.6 72.75 72.50 99.66 0.34 2.50 10. (bu) 81.4 73.00 74.75 102.40 -2.34 -17.50 11. (bu) 73.4 71.75 63.50 88.50 12.99 82.50 12. (bu) 74.8 73.75 65.50 88.81 12.60 82.50 mean 82.232 73.33 68.19 92.79 7.96 51.46 13. (tm) 70.6 72.25 65.25 90.31 10.73 70.00 14. (tm) 61.6 81.75 64.25 78.59 27.24 175.00 mean 66.1 77.00 64.75 84.45 18.99 122.50 15. (br) 73.6 72.20 64.50 89.58 11.63 75.00 16. (br) 64 78.00 63.92 81.41 22.83 145.00 mean 68.8 75.10 64.21 85.50 17.23 110.00 17. (cb) 68.8 72.50 63.00 86.90 15.08 95.00 18. (cb) 67.2 71.25 61.25 85.96 16.33 100.00 19. (cb) 70.4 71.75 63.00 87.80 13.89 87.50 20. (cb) 71.2 70.50 63.25 89.72 11.46 72.50 mean 173.50 71.50 62.63 87.60 14.19 88.75 bu = bengaluru urban, tm = tumkur, br = bengaluru rural, and cb= chikkaballapura fig1. brays per cent yield v/s soil magnesium determining critical mg concentration in soil. fig. 2. scatter plot between bray’s per cent yield v/s plant mg concentration for determining the plant critical mg limit of 0.39 to 0.41 per cent mg were established using scatter plot and statistical procedure respectively. schwartz and bar-yosef, 1983 observed that critical limit were 0.13 % in shoots of tomato crop where they used the whole plant of tomato instead of index leaves. ward and miller, (1969) reported that in green house tomato critical limit of mg at tissue level was 0.30 % among the four locations, the response was highest in tumkur districts (18.98 %) followed by bangalore rural (17.23 %) chikkaballapura district (14.19 %) and bangalore urban (7.96 %). this indicated that mg application to those soils having available mg below critical limits can respond to applied mg and farmers can get higher yields of tomato on these soils. using scattered plot technique a soil mg limit of 74 ppm is arrived as critical soil mg for tomato crop. similarly a plant critical limit of 0.39 % was established to separate deficient plants from those having sufficient magnesium. critical limit of soil and plant magnesium in tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):209-212, 2014 212 table 3. effect of applied mg on plant mg content and yield in tomato location initial soil mg mg nutrient tomato yield (t ha-1) bray’s per cent response (ppm) (nh4oac) content of leaves npk+mgso4 npk per cent increase (q ha -1) (% dw) yield 1. (bu) 74 0.39 74.25 66.00 88.89 12.50 82.50 2. (bu) 78.4 0.4 67.25 67.50 100.37 -0.37 -2.50 3. (bu) 61.6 0.34 80.50 62.25 77.33 29.32 182.50 4. (bu) 154.2 0.48 73.00 71.25 97..60 2.46 17.50 5. (bu) 79.2 0.43 72.50 70.50 97.24 2.84 20.00 6. (bu) 79.2 0.41 72.00 71.75 99.65 0.35 2.50 7. (bu) 74.4 0.4 74.50 66.00 88.59 12.88 85.00 8. (bu) 75.6 0.41 74.75 66.75 89.30 11.99 80.00 9. (bu) 80.6 0.42 72.75 72.50 99.66 0.34 2.50 10. (bu) 81.4 0.43 73.00 74.75 102.40 -2.34 -17.50 11. (bu) 73.4 0.38 71.75 63.50 88.50 12.99 82.50 12. (bu) 74.8 0.39 73.75 65.50 88.81 12.60 82.50 mean 82.232 0.37 73.33 68.19 92.79 7.96 51.46 13. (tm) 70.6 0.32 72.25 65.25 90.31 10.73 70.00 14. (tm) 61.6 0.36 81.75 64.25 78.59 27.24 175.00 mean 66.1 0.39 77.00 64.75 84.45 18.99 122.50 15. (br) 73.6 0.33 72.00 64.50 89.58 11.63 75.00 16. (br) 64 0.36 78.00 63.50 81.41 22.83 145.00 mean 68.8 0.38 75.00 64.00 85.50 17.23 110.00 17. (cb) 68.8 0.37 72.50 63.00 86.90 15.08 95.00 18. (cb) 67.2 0.39 71.25 61.25 85.96 16.33 100.00 19. (cb) 70.4 0.4 71.75 63.00 87.80 13.89 87.50 20. (cb) 71.2 0.34 70.50 63.25 89.72 11.46 72.50 mean 173.50 7.76 71.50 62.63 87.60 14.19 88.75 bu-bengaluru urban, tm-tumkur, br-bengaluru rural , and cb-chikkaballpur references anonymous, 2010. national horticulture mission indian horticulture data base; pp.173-176 asiegbu j.e. and j.o. uzo. 1983. effects of lime and magnesium on tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill) grown in a fertility sandy loam tropical soil. pl. and soil, 74:53-60 cate, r.b.j.r and nelson, l.a. 1965. technical bulletin on international soil testing service. north carolina agriculture experiment station. pp.1-15 deshbandhu, r.s., singh, s.k., mishra, and singh, r.n. 2003. response of mg application to different crops. fertilizer news, 45:61-63 ganeshamurthy, a.n. and hegde. d.m. 1980. soil health and nutritional security secondary nutrients, proceedings of indian society of soil science platinum jubilee symposium-, pp.1-20 lin qiming. 1985. study on the effect of magnesium fertilizer on rice and the diagnostic indices of magnesium nutrition of rice. in: international symposium on the role of sulphur, magnesium and micronutrients in balanced plant nutrition. pp.234-245 nelson, l.a. and anderson. r.a. 1977. in: soil testing, correlating and interpreting the analytical results. a.s.a. spl.publ.29.19 osman m. elamin and gerald e. wilcox. 1985. effect of magnesium fertilization on yield and leaf composition of tomato plants. j. pl. nutr., 8:999-1012 schwartz, s. and bar-yosef, b. 1983. magnesium uptake by tomato plants as affected by mg and ca concentration in solution culture and plant age. agron. j., 75:267-272 ward, g.m. and m.j. miller. 1969. magnesium deficiency in greenhouse tomatoes. can. j. pl. sci., 49:53-59 kasinath et al (ms received 29 october 2014, revised 05 december 2014, accepted 08 december 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):209-212, 2014 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 24-27, 2006 low cost strategy for micropropagation of lilium asiatic hybrid cv. toscana r. k a u r , neetu thakur and d. r. sharma department of biotechnology university of horticulture & forestry nauni, solan 173230 (h.p.), india e-mail: rkaur uhf@rediffmail.com abstract a low cost protocol for in vitro propagation of lilium cv. toscana has been developed through incorporation of cost-effective media components. ms medium supplemented with 0.75 mg i* bap (6-benzylaminopurine) and 0.5 mg 1' naa (a-naphthalene-acetic acid) was prepared with tapioca granules, table sugar and tap water in different combinations in place of agar-agar, sucrose and distilled water, respectively. culture medium containing all the cost effective components was found to be the best for in vitro establishment of cultures yielding 6.00 bulblets per explant and medium supplemented with tapioca granules as cost effective component was found to be the best for in vitro multiplication of bulblets giving 3.70 bulblets per in vitro formed bulblet five weeks from third subculture. tapioca supplemented ms medium containing 1 mg i' naa was significantly better than all the other modified media giving 86.62% in vitro rooting, 2.86 average root number and 4.60 cm average root length. for hardening of in vitro rooted bulblets, coco peat, peat moss and coco peat in combination with peat moss were found to be at par giving 100% survival. key words: lilium, micropropagation, low-cost strategy introduction lilium, a monocot belonging to the family liliaceae, is one of the leading cut flowers of the world. it has become commercially important due to its bold, beautiful and fascinating form of flowers, long vase life and capacity to rehydrate after long transportation. lilium is native to the northern hemisphere and is widely distributed over china, south canada, siberia and extends upto florida in usa. in india, lilium is found in nilgiri hills and in the himalayan region. lilium can be propagated by both sexual and asexual means. most commercially grown cultivars are propagated through scaling, a technique which produces 3-4 bulbs from each bulbscale depending upon bulbscale size and variety. though a bulb under ideal conditions may yield anywhere between 50 to 100 bulblets, this rate is far too low to meet the present day demand for planting material. also, reduced vigour of bulbs with repeated cycles of vegetative propagation is reported which may be due to accumulation of soil borne diseases (van aartrijk and blom-bamhoom, 1983). thus, mass propagation through tissue culture is needed for research and development of the lilium industry. cost effective micropropagation would facilitate commercialization of the technology. in this paper, we describe a rapid and low-cost protocol for micropropagation of lilium using cheaper medium components. material and methods bulbs of lilium cv. toscana were collected from a private nursery at darang, palampur (hp), india. bulbscales were excised from mother bulbs of 12cm -14 cm diameter stored in saw dust at 5°c for six weeks after harvest. the scales were surface sterilized in 0.2% solution of bavistin (carbendazim) for 8-9 min., washed with sterile water and treated with 0.1% solution of hgcl^ for 3 min., followed by thorough washing with sterile water. for in vitro establishment of cultures, basal segment each of about icm^ was excised from surface sterilized scales and inoculated onto standard ms medium (murashige and skoog, 1962) and ms medium modified by replacing sucrose, distilled water and agar-agar with table sugar, tap water (potable drinking water) and tapioca granules (manihot esculentum), respectively (table 1). ms medium (standard and modified) was supplemented with bap (0.75 mg 1') and naa (0.5 mgl-'). on formation of in vitro bulblets, these were separated and individually subcultured both on standard as mailto:uhf@rediffmail.com kaur et al well as modified media (table 1). after 3-4 subcultures each of 4-5 weeks, in vitro induction of rooting was attempted in in vitro formed bulblets on ms standard medium and ms modified media supplemented with naa (table 2). all the media compositions shown in tables 1 & 2 were supplemented with 3 mg/1 thiamine-hcl, 0.1 g/1 inositol, 3% sucrose; ph was adjusted to 5.8 before autoclaving at 121 °c and 15 psi for 15 min. cultures were maintained at 25±2°c under 16 h photoperiod provided by cool, white, fluorescent lamps (40 |a,mole m'^s'). survival and establishment of in vitro rooted bulblets was studied after transplanting the bulblets into pots containing different soil mixtures (table 3). these were kept at 25 "c under 16 h photoperiod of 3000 lux intensity and 75% relative humidity. all experiments were repeated thrice with 72 replicates. data recorded for different parameters were subjected to completely randomized design (crd) (gomez and gomez, 1984). statistical analysis based on mean values per treatment was made using analysis of variance (anova) technique of crd. results and discussion pre-treatment of bulbscale segments with 0.2 % carbendazim solution for 8-9 min. followed by 0.1 % solution of hgcl2 for 3 min. yielded 94% cultures free from contamination. in vitro induction of bulblets and in vitro multiplication of bulblets on standard ms medium supplemented with 0.75 mg 1 ' bap and 0.5 mg 1' naa was carried out to standardize a general protocol for micropropagation of lilium cv. toscana. the same protocol was modified by adding different but cheaper components into the medium. there were significant differences among different media in terms of number of bulblets per explant as well as the rate of multiplication of bulblets. among these media, the maximum number of bulblets per explant (8.0) was produced on m^ medium (table 1) having all the cost effective components such as tapioca granules, table sugar and tap water. the least effective modified medium was m^ having tapioca alone as the cost effective component,which produced 1.24 bulblets per explant. . in vitro induced bulblets when multiplied on modifified m^ medium gave the maximum multiplication rate of 3.70 bulblets per in vitro bulblet. the lowest multiplication rate of 1.46 bulblets per bulblet was obtained on m^ medium (table 1). for induction of rooting, in vitro formed bulblets were separated and cultured singly on various rooting media (table 2). out of four modified media, r̂ having tap water as the cost effective component was the best, yielding 86.62% rooting, 2.86 average root number and 4.6 cm average root length. it was followed by r̂ with 74.25 % rooting, average root number 2.19 and average root length 1.35 cm. out of all the cost effective media, the least effective medium for in vitro induction of rooting was r̂ table 1. in vitro establishment of scale segments and in vitro bulblet multiplication ot lilium cv. toscana on standard ms medium (1962) and modified ms medium ms basal medium +bap (0.75 mgl') + naa (0.5 mgl') mj (standard medium) mj (modified medium) mj (modified medium m^ (modified medium) m, (modified medium) type of gelling agent agar-agar (8g/l) agar-agar (8g/l) agar-agar (8g/l) tapioca granules (125/1) tapioca granules (125/1) type of sugar used (30 gl') sucrose table sugar sucrose sucrose table sugar type of water used distilled water distilled water tap water distilled water tap water no. of bulblets per basal segment (at! from seven weeks inoculation) 11.20 3.20 4.40 1.24 8.00 rate of multiplication of bulblets (at six weeks from subculture) 5.75 3.20 3.70 1.95 1.46 table 2. in vitro induction of rooting in in vitro bulblets of lilium cv. toscana on standard ms medium (1962) and modified ms at six weeks from culture ms basal medium +naa(lmgl-') r, (standard medium) rj (modified medium rj (modified medium r̂ (modified medium rj (modified medium) cd at 5% type of gelling agent agar-agar (8g/l) agar-agar (8g/l) agar-agar (8g/l) tapioca granules (125/1) tapioca granules (125/1) type of sugar used (20 gl') sucrose table sugar sucrose sucrose table sugar type of water used distilled water distilled water tap water distilled water tap water rooting percentage 100.00 74.25 86.62 59.58 72.41 4.94 no. of roots per bulblet 3.42 2.19 2.86 1.65 2.02 0.62 root length (cm) 4.42 1.35 4.60 0.45 0.86 j. hon. sci. vol. 1(1): 24-27, 2006 25 low cost strategy for micropropagation of lilium having tapioca as the cost effective component, yielding 59.58% rooting, average root number 1.65 and average root length 0.45 cm. r3 medium was significantly better than the other modified media. rj and r̂ were statistically at par with respect to rooting percentage and number of roots per bulblet. in vitro rooted plantlets, generated on different modified media, were transferred to different potting mixtures (table 3). a total of 600 plantlets were transferred. 100% survival rate was achieved on pj, p^ and p̂ and only 61.88% of in vitro rooted bulblets survived on p3 at one month from transplantation. tissue culture has a number of advantages in lilium propagation. though the advantages of micropropagation are tremendous, cost is a limiting factor. attempts have been made in the present investigation to explore the possibility of cost reduction in micropropagation of lilium. in the present study 94% cultures free from contamination were obtained by treating the explants with 0.2% carbendazim solution for 8-9 min. and 0.1% solution of hgci^ for 3 min. priyadarshi and sen (1992) achieved a high rate of sterilization using bavistin (0.2%). novak and petru (1981) rybczynski and gomolinska (1989) and dabrowaski et al (1992) recommended the use of sodium hypochlorite for successful sterilization of bulbscales of lilium for in vitro culture. mj medium consisting of table sugar, tapioca and tap water gave reasonably high number of in vitro bulblets per explant (table 1). earlier attempts by sharma et al (1992) in 'colt'a rootstock of cherry, ganapathi et al (1992) in banana and okuno et al (1996) in brassica campestris, tried to bring down the cost of in vitro muliplication on ms medium containing tap water and table sugar as cost effective components of culture medium. the present results are also supported by some earlier findings in lilium cultivars by jeong et al (1996). in the present investigation, out of four modified media, r3 medium containing tap water was more effective in in vitro induction of rooting. sharma and singh (1995) in ginger and kaul (1998) in kiwifruit suggested the use of table 3. effect of various potting mixtures used for iiardening of in vitro rooted bulblets of lilium cv. toscana medium p, p. p. p4 potting mixture coco peat peat moss sand •. soil: fym coco peat: peat moss 1:1:1 1:1 % survival at one month from transplantation to field 100.00 100.00 61.86 100.00 commercial grade sugar and tap water over sucrose and distilled water, respectively, for in vitro shoot multiplication chandra et al (1990) used table sugar for microtuberization and micropropagation of potato, and, glucose and fructose were found to be better than sucrose in stimulating the formation of embryos in anther culture of many genotypes of triticum aestivum (chu et al, 1990). last and brettell (1990) orshinky et al (1990). nene et al (1996) suggested that agar agar can be successfully replaced by tapioca in chickpea micropropagation and tobacco regeneration. sorvari et al (1997) used starch as the gelling agent in in vitro germination of encapsulated somatic embryos of carrot (daucus carota). from the above studies, it may be concluded that table sugar, tapioca and tap water in culture medium can be effectively used at different stages of micropropagation of lilium asiatic hybrid cv. toscana. the use of commercial grade sugar in place of the more expensive sucrose, tapioca granules in place of agar-agar and tap water instead of distilled water, could reduce the cost of in vitro raised plants thus making micropropagation in this variety a viable proposition for commercialization. further, this can be also tried for other commercially important cultivars of lilium and ornamental crops. references chandra, r., upadhyay, m. d. and chaudhary d. r. 1990. a simplified low cost medium for potato micropropagation. in: proc. second int'l. conf. biotech. lari, new delhi. chu, c. c , hill, r. d. and brule-babel, a. l. 1990. high frequency of pollen embryoid formation and plant regeneration in triticum aestivum l. on monosaccharide containing media. pi. scl, 66:255-62. dabrowski, j., dabski, m., kozak, d., saniewski, m., beijersbergen, j. c. m. and bogatko, w. 1992. influence of some growth regulators on regenration of lily bulbs in vitro. acta hort., 325:537-41. ganapathi, t. r., mohan, j. s. s., suprasanna, p., bapat, v. a. and rao, p. s. 1995. a low cost strategy for in vitro propagation of banana. curr. scl, 68:646-49. gomez, k. a and gomez, a. a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research, p 680. s^'edn., john wiley & sons, singapore. jeong, j. h., lee, j. k. and roh, m. s. 1996. in vitro propagation of bulbscale section of several korean native lilies. acta hort., 414:269-76. kaul, s. 1998. studies on micropropagation and hardening of kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa). msc. thesis /. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 24-27, 2006 26 kaur et al submitted to dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan, india. last, d. i. and brettell, r.i. s. 1990. embryo yield in wheat anther culture is influenced by the choice of sugar in the culture medium. pi. cell rep., 9:14-16. murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. pi, 15:473-97. nene, y. l., sheila, v. k. and moss, j. p. 1996. tapioca a potential substimte for agar in tissue culture media. curr. set, 70:493-94. novak, f. j. and petru, e. 1981. tissue culture propagation of lilium hybrids. sci. hortic, 14:191-99. okuno, k., matsumoto, k. and hisatima, s. 1996. a trial of improvement of micropropagation of brassica compestris cultivar kukitachina by cost stimulations. j. soc. high tech. agri., 8:253-63. orshinky, b. r., mcgregor, l. j., johnson, g. i. e., huel, p. and kartha, k. k. 1990. improved embryoid induction and green shoot regeneration from wheat anthers cultured in medium with maltose. pi. cell. rep., 9:365-69. priyadarshi, s. and sen, s. 1992. a revised scheme for mass propagation of easter lily. pl cell tissue & organ culture., 30:193-97. rybczynski, j. j. and gomolinska, h. 1989.6benzyladenine control of the initial bulblet formation of wild hly (lilium martagon l.). acta hort., 251:18389. sharma, d. r., chauhan, p. s., kaur, r. and srivastava, d. k. 1992. micropropagation of colt a semi-dwarf rootstock of cherry. indian j. hort., 49:209-12. sharma, t. r. and singh, b. m. 1995. a simple and cost effective medium for propagation of ginger {zingiber officinale). indian j. agric. sci., 67:50608. sorvari, s., toldi, o., ahanen, k., viinamaki, t, hakonen, t. and tahvonen, r. 1997. using polysaccharide and galactomannans as gelling agents in capsule formation of artificial seeds. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 122:878-83. van-aartrijk, j. and blom-barnhoorn, g. j. 1983. adventitious bud formation from bulbscale explants of lilium speciosum thunb: in vitro effects of wounding, tiba and temperature. pflanzenphysiol, 110:353-63. (ms received 29 march, 2006 revised 17 july, 2006) j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1); 24-27,2006 27 introduction passion fruit (passiflora edulis sims.) is a native of brazil and is highly valued for its juice. the juice has excellent aroma, blending qualities and has potential in tropical humid south indian conditions. in the north-eastern states of india, it has attained the status of a commercial fruit crop. area under cultivation of passion fruit in these regions is rapidly increasing. traditionally, two cultivars of passion fruit, viz., ‘purple’ (passiflora edulis. sims.) and ‘yellow’ (passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa) are grown. lately, a hybrid between purple and yellow cultivars, ‘kaveri’, released by central horticultural experiment station, chettalli (iihr), kodagu, karnataka, has become very popular in passion fruit growing regions of the country owing to its high yield and excellent fruit quality (singh et al, 1991). passion fruit is a woody, herbaceous, perennial climber that essentially needs to be trained on a support system. in countries like australia and kenya, commonly, the trellis system with ‘one wire’ and ‘three wires’ is adopted in passion fruit cultivation (melville, 1952; gachanja and gurnah, 1980 and gurnah & gachanja, 1980). these systems are cheap, simple to construct and should be erected at a height of 2m (avent, 1958 and malan, 1948). however, the three-wire trellis was considered to be better than singlewire trellis in south africa and queensland (malan, 1948 yield and quality of passion fruit in relation to training systems v.v. sulladmath, k. srinivas and r.h. laxman1 division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089 e-mail : vijay@iihr.ernet.in abstract four different training systems, viz., kniffin, high trellis, tatura and bower were evaluated in passion fruit cv. kaveri. kniffin system with 4 arms recorded highest cumulative yield of 67.22 t/ha with a cost:benefit ratio of 1:4.25, followed by kniffin 2 arm and 6 arm, respectively. kniffin system was also the most ideal system of training for passion fruit, facilitating easy cultural operations. although tatura system recorded highest cumulative yield/vine (43.57kg), it registered lowest yield/ha, largely due to lower plant population/ha (1250 vines/ha). fruit quality parameters like tss, vit. c, carotene content and titrable acidity were not significantly influenced by different training systems. similarly, interception of photosynthetically active radiation (par) by the canopy did not differ significantly among training systems. though photosynthetic rate did not differ significantly, shaded leaves in the canopy did not contribute photosynthates and were parasitic on the vine. key words: passion fruit, kniffin, high trellis, tatura, bower, photosynthetically active radiation(par) and wills, 1948). in this study, an attempt has been made to evaluate different training systems for ‘kaveri’ passion fruit under mild tropics of south india. material and methods field experiments were carried out during 2006-08 at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, on passion fruit cv. kaveri. the trial was conducted using randomised block design (rbd) with four training systems, viz., kniffin (2 arm, 4 arm and 6 arm); high trellis (single cordon and double cordon); tatura (4 arm, 8 arm and 12 arm) and bower (2 cordons and 4 cordons). these 10 treatments were replicated 5 times with 4 vines / treatment. three-month old cuttings were planted at a spacing of 3m x 2m under three systems of training, viz., kniffin, high trellis and bower (1666 vines/ha), while, in the case of tatura, the spacing was 4m x 2m (1250 vines/ha). recommended cultural practices were followed in toto and light pruning of extended laterals was carried out at the end of each harvest season. vines were irrigated with drip system fitted with 2 emitters / vine (4 lph). mature fruits were harvested at weekly intervals and data on yield/vine were recorded. there were 28 pickings during 2006-07, and 30 pickings during 2007-08. cumulative yield obtained in two years was analyzed. 1division of plant physiology and biochemistry, iihr, bangalore j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):46-50, 2012 47 ten mature fruits in each treatment were sampled and the fresh weight and volume was recorded. pulp from ripe fruits was extracted and pulp weight, juice weight, seed weight and peel weight were recorded. photosynthetic rate was measured using a portable photosynthesis system li-cor 6200 in (i)completely exposed, (ii)partially-shaded and (iii)shaded leaves in the canopy. interception of photosynthetically active radiation (par) under different canopy systems was measured using li-cor line quantum sensor. total carotenoids were estimated as per leskovar et al (2004). two grams of the sample were ground with a mixture of 50ml hexane:acetone:ethanol (50:25:25) containing 0.05% (w/v) butylated hydroxytoluene. extracted mixture was allowed to separate into 2 layers. the upper layer was collected, lower layer discarded and volume was made up. absorbance was read at 470nm for calculating total carotenoids and expressed as beta carotene units using a standard curve. vitamin c content was estimated using modified method of davis and masten (1991). samples were extracted in 3% metaphosphoric:acetic acid mixture using a set of chilled pestle and mortar. the homogenate was filtered and centrifuged at 4oc. supernatant solvent (1ml) was mixed with 2ml of 1.7mm 2, 6-dichlorophenolindophenol (2,6-dcpip) in 3ml cuvettes. absorbance at 520nm was recorded one minute after mixing the reagents. metaphosphoric acid;acetic acid:mixture was used as a blank and reduction in absorbance was taken for calculating vitamin c content and expressed as mg/100g fresh weight. results and discussion a. yield parameters cumulative fruit yield per vine was highest under tatura system of training (43.57 kg/vine), followed by kniffin (39.76kg/vine) and bower system (38.03kg/vine). there was no significant difference in yield between kniffin and bower; but, between tatura and high trellis, differences were significant (table 1). however, data on first year annual yields and also cumulative yields/vine, recorded under the treatments (i.e., number of arms under kniffin and tatura and number of cordons under high trellis and bower), did not show any significant difference, except for tatura (8 arm) which recorded 25.54kg fruits in the second year. however, the general trend remained consistent during both years. this tendency could be due to the highly vigorous nature of ‘kaveri’ passion fruit, which may have enabled the vines to cover the entire support system and yield to its full potential. gachanja and gurnah (1980) also reported similar results under kenyan conditions for purple passion table 1. effect of different training systems on fruit yield, photosynthetic rate and % light interception in passion fruit cv. kaveri treatment no. of fruits / vine fresh weight of fruits/vine (kg) cumulative photosynthetic per cent 2006-07 2007-08 cumulative 2006-07 2007-08 cumulative fruit rate light yield yield yield (t/ha) (µmol m-2s-1) interception kniffin system 2 arms (t1) 338.70 312.30 671.00 19.29 39.89 20.60 66.45 10.07 82.72 (9.10) 4 arms (t2) 343.24 316.80 660.04 19.55 40.335 20.80 67.22 09.93 84.81 (9.15) 6 arms (t3) 319.30 310.80 630.10 19.57 39.05 19.48 65.05 10.58 84.22 (9.11) mean 333.74 319.96 653.70 19.47 39.76 20.29 66.24 10.19 83.92 high trellis single cordon (t4) 244.18 317.10 561.28 19.43 33.95 14.52 56.56 09.98 81.85 (9.28) double cordon (t5) 252.52 296.94 549.46 17.40 32.44 15.04 54.04 09.97 83.06 (9.07) mean 248.35 307.02 555.37 18.41 33.19 14.78 55.30 09.98 82.46 tatura 4 arms (t6) 275.44 425.48 700.92 26.60 43.10 16.50 53.87 09.99 82.54 (9.24) 8 arms (t7) 276.90 417.82 694.72 25.54 42.24 16.70 52.80 10.73 83.10 (9.13) 12 arms (t8) 277.84 454.84 732.68 28.54 45.37 16.83 56.71 09.67 83.99 (9.12) mean 276.72 432.71 709.44 26.89 43.57 16.67 54.46 10.13 83.21 bower 2 cordon (t9) 297.48 346.16 643.64 21.23 39.19 17.96 65.29 09.77 83.37 (9.20) 4 cordon (t10) 286.16 333.36 619.52 20.06 39.88 16.82 61.44 10.36 82.60 (9.09) mean 291.82 339.76 631.58 20.64 38.03 17.39 63.36 10.07 82.99 s em+ 12.58 15.86 24.80 0.91 1.25 0.89 1.91 0.75 0.09 cd (p=0.05) 36.11 45.52 71.19 2.61 3.59 2.55 5.48 ns ns figures in parentheses indicate square root transformation values ns = non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):46-50, 2012 training systems in passion fruit 48 fruit, wherein, single-wire trellis out-yielded three-wire trellis with low pruning; while, with selective pruning, three-wire trellis system out-yielded single-wire indicating a direct relationship between type of pruning and trellis system. cumulative yield in terms of number of fruits/vine was nonsignificant among treatments within each training systems, but differences among training systems per se were significant (table 1). tatura recorded higher average cumulative number (709.44 fruits/vine), while, high trellis recorded the least fruit number (555.37 fruits/vine). the kniffin system recorded higher number of fruits/vine during its first year of bearing compared to that in the second year, while the other systems exhibited a reverse trend (with initial lower yields, followed by higher yields during the second year). three-wire kniffin system (6 arm) produced several lateral spreading on the ground, which possibly encourage incidence of soil-borne diseases. one-wire trellis is a commonly used system in victoria, australia and in kenya (melville, 1952; ministry of agriculture, 1976). three-wire trellis was found to be better in queensland and south africa (malan, 1948; wills, 1948). cumulative yields were highest in the kniffin system (66.24 t/ha), followed by bower (63.36t / ha.) system (table 4). however, tatura system, which gave highest yield per vine (43.57kg/vine), recorded lowest yield per ha (54.46t/ ha), mainly due to lower plant population per hectare (1250 vines/ha) compared to other systems (1666 vines/ha). costa et al (1991) also reported lowest yields in ‘kiwi’ fruit under tatura system compared to t-bar, free spindle and gdc (geneva double cordon) systems. in view of highest cumulative yield in kniffin system and the benefits it offers (in term of easier and less cumbersome cultural operations), this is the most ideal training system tested by us for ‘kaveri’ passion fruit. b. physico-chemical parameters of fruit fruit parameters like fruit length, fruit breadth, fresh fruit weight, juice weight, peel and seed weight recorded significant variation with varying training systems (table 2). training system had a significant influence on linear dimensions of the fruit like fruit length and breadth, with high trellis system recording highest values (6.11cm and 5.86cm, respectively). the same system also recorded highest values for fruit weight (72.16g), juice weight (14.08g) and juice % (19.58). high trellis and bower systems recorded higher peel weight compared to the other systems. increase in fruit size parameters in high trellis system was mainly due to restricted extension-growth of the laterals, which perhaps resulted in reduction in fruiting wood. in the present study, high trellis system was unable to fully support the highly vigorous ‘kaveri’ passion fruit vines and their growth was restricted. this resulted in matting of the laterals table 2. effect of different training systems on physico-chemical parameters in passion fruit cv. kaveri treatment physical parameters of the fruit chemical parameters of the fruit length diameter fresh volume juice juice peel seed tss titrable vit. c carotene (cm) (cm) weight (ml) weight (%) weight weight (%) acidity (mg/ content (g) (g) (g) (g) (%) 100g) (mg/100g) kniffin system 2 arms (t1) 5.52 5.10 58.72 80.73 9.20 15.61 15.66 1.81 15.6 2.56 19.6 2.71 4 arms (t2) 5.59 5.25 59.25 84.73 9.77 16.35 17.60 1.67 15.6 2.37 19.5 2.76 6 arms (t3) 5.65 5.13 62.45 87.27 10.21 16.27 17.68 2.00 15.6 2.74 19.1 2.65 mean 5.58 5.16 60.14 84.24 9.72 16.07 16.98 1.82 15.6 2.55 19.4 2.70 high trellis single cordon (t4) 6.07 5.83 73.31 94.12 13.89 18.98 24.66 3.37 15.6 2.68 19.1 2.74 double cordon (t5) 6.15 5.89 71.02 88.74 14.28 20.18 24.02 2.99 15.6 2.40 19.6 2.83 mean 6.11 5.86 72.16 91.43 14.08 19.58 24.34 3.18 15.6 2.54 19.4 2.78 tatura 4 arms (t6) 5.70 5.25 61.22 79.83 10.66 17.27 15.22 2.27 15.2 2.74 19.4 2.69 8 arms (t7) 5.68 5.11 60.89 78.99 10.47 17.16 15.28 2.17 16.0 2.86 19.6 2.85 12 arms (t8) 5.68 5.26 60.13 79.99 9.99 16.52 15.76 2.11 15.2 2.68 19.4 2.77 mean 5.68 5.20 60.74 79.60 10.37 16.98 15.42 2.18 15.6 2.76 19.5 2.77 bower 2 cordon (t9) 6.02 5.56 69.10 96.59 12.70 18.42 28.50 3.39 14.8 2.53 18.9 2.60 4 cordon (t10) 6.03 5.64 68.41 95.99 12.06 17.61 25.74 3.30 15.0 2.71 19.6 2.83 mean 6.02 5.60 68.75 96.29 12.38 18.01 27.12 3.34 14.9 2.62 19.3 2.71 sem+ 0.092 0.102 3.17 3.59 1.07 1.284 1.17 0.187 0.021 0.67 1.43 0.51 cd (p=0.05) 0.26 0.29 9.10 ns 3.08 ns 3.36 0.538 ns ns ns ns ns = non-significant sulladmath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):46-50, 2012 49 and a reduction in the number of fruiting axils. buel (1956) and gurnah and gachanja (1980) opined that in passion fruit, reduction in fruiting wood was the main factor for increased fruit size. reynold et al (1985) also reported significant effect of training system on berry number per cluster, cluster weight and berry weight in ‘seyal blanc’ grapes and ascribed the same to presence of perennial fruiting wood and greater leaf area. c. fruit quality training system, in general, had the least influence on fruit quality parameters. kniffin and high trellis recorded higher tss values (15.69obrix), followed by tatura. bower system recorded the least tss values (14.9ºbrix). but, whether shading of fruits or lower photosynthetically active radiation (par) observed under this system had any influence on reduced tss values needs to be investigated. tatura system recorded higher titrable acidity (2.76%) while high trellis recorded the least acidity (2.54%). vitamin c content was almost equal in kniffin, high trellis and tatura, while bower recorded the lowest values (19.25mg/100g). carotene content was not significantly influenced by training system, and values ranged between 2.70 and 2.78mg / 100g. similar results were reported by avent (1958) and gurnah and gachanja (1980). d. light interception and photosynthetic rate interception of photosynthetically active radiation (par) by the canopy did not differ significantly among training systems (table 1). overall, the canopy intercepted 82.46% to 83.92% of par among different training systems. data on gas exchange of leaves exposed in the canopy and receiving par of around 1200µe m -2s-1 recorded photosynthetic rates ranging from 9.67 to 10.73µmol m-2s-1 across the training systems and did not differ significantly from each other (table 1). since, there were no significant differences in the photosynthetic rates of the exposed leaves training system wise, the quantification of the photosynthetic rates of the leaves exposed to different light regimes in the canopy was done at training system level. results showed that in partially-shaded leaves receiving par of around 400µe m-2s-1, photosynthetic rate ranged from 2.0 to 2.86µmol m-2s-1 in kniffin, high trellis and tatura training systems, and were on par. bower system recorded 0.94µmol m-2s-1 par (fig 1). shaded leaves in the canopy receiving par around 50µe m-2s-1 recorded a negative photosynthetic rate, ranging from –0.21 to –0.42µmol m-2s-1 under all the training systems meaning, that leaves were respiring but not contributing any photosynthate and were parasitic on the vine. hence, shading within the canopy must be avoided to enhance light-use and encourage photosynthetic efficiency of the canopy. similar trend was reported by poni et al (2007) who reported in grapes, that canopy lightinterception showed no convincing evidence of serving as a reliable predictor of yield, as observed by us in the present study. however, detailed studies are needed to quantify canopy photosynthesis under different training systems. table 3. cost-benefit ratio of different training systems in passion fruit cv. kaveri treatment expenditure (rs./ha) cumulative yield (t/ha) income in cost benefit non-recurring * recurring (2006-08) during 2006-08 lakhs(rs./ha)# ratio kniffin system 2 arms (t1) 1,73,824 89,973 66.45 3,80,700 4.22 4 arms (t2) 1,92,453 89,973 67.22 4,03,320 4.25 6 arms (t3) 2,10,082 89,973 65.05 3,90,300 4.09 mean — — 66.24 — — high trellis single cordon (t4) 2,62,183 89,973 56.56 3,39,360 3.51 double cordon (t5) 2,62,183 89,973 54.04 3,24,240 3.36 mean — — 55.30 — — tatura 4 arms (t6) 2,66,432 83,333 53.87 3,23,220 3.59 8 arms (t7) 3,13,380 83,333 52.80 3,16,800 3.47 12 arms (t8) 3,36,328 83,333 56.71 3,40,260 3.70 mean — — 54.46 — — bower 2 cordon (t9) 2,96,760 89,973 65.29 3,91,740 4.02 4 cordon (t10) 2,96,760 89,973 61.44 3,68,640 3.78 mean — — 63.36 — — *total life span of the training structures is taken as 40 years and land rent @ rs. 20,000/per ha/year # cost of passion fruit = rs. 6/kg training systems in passion fruit j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):46-50, 2012 50 f. cost:benefit ratio of different training systems kniffin training system was the most efficient with cost-benefit ratio ranging from 4.09 to 4.25 (table 3), whereas, the other systems recorded lower cost-benefit ratios, viz., bower (3.78 – 4.02) and tatura (3.47 – 3.70). high trellis system was the least efficient and, therefore, unsuitable for ‘kaveri’ passion fruit. acknowledgement the authors express their gratitude to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for providing support and facilities for undertaking this work and to shri k.n. ramachandran, technician, for assistance in the field. references avent, k.i. 1958. growing passion fruit in victoria. fruit world and market grower, 10:33-37 buel, e.p. 1956. training and pruning the passion vine. trop. agri., 3:18-12 costa, g., biasi, r., guilian, r. and succi, f. 1991. comparison of kiwifruit training systems. acta hort., 297:427-434 davis, s.h.r., and masten, s.j. 1991. spectrophotometric method for ascorbic acid using dichlorophenolindophenol: elimination of the interference due to iron. anal. chim. acta, 248: 225-227 gachanja, s.p. and gurnah, a.m. 1980. pruning and trellising purple passion fruit. i. yields and seasonal trends. j. hortl. sci., 55:345-349 gurnah, a.m. and gachanja, p. 1980. pruning and trellising purple passion fruit, ii disease incidence, fruit size and quality. j. hortl. sci., 55:351-354 leskovar, d.i., haejeen, b., crosby, k.m., maness, n. franco, j.a. and perkins–veazie, p. 2004. lycopene, carbohydrates, ascorbic acid and yield components of diploid and triploid watermelon cultivars are affected by deficit irrigation. the j. hortl. sci. & biotech., 79:75-81 malan, e.f. 1948. granadilla production. farming in south africa, 23:625-626 melville, f. 1952. passion fruit cultivation in western australia. j. agri. of western australia (3rd series) pp 737-742 ministry of agriculture. 1976. horticulture handbook 3. passion fruit. agril. info. centre, nairobi, kenya poni, s., bernizzoni, f. and civardi, s. 2007. the issue of canopy efficiency in the grape vine : assessment and approaches for its improvement. proc. int’l. workshop on grapevine. acta hort., 754:163-173 reynolds, a.g., pool, r.m. and mattick, l.r. 1985. effect if training system on growth, yield, fruit composition and wine quality of sauvignon blanc. amer. j. enol. vitic., 26:156-164 singh, h.p., yadav, i.s. and jalikop, s.h. 1991. studies on improvement of passion fruit. south ind. hort., 39:12-17 wills, j.m. 1948. passion fruit growing in southern queesnland. queensland agril. j., 66:325-50 (ms received 6 january 2011, revised 30 january 2012) sulladmath et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):46-50, 2012 introduction fruit flies are widely distributed around the world. agarwal and sueyoshi (2005) reported 243 species of fruit flies from india. fruit flies lay eggs inside fruits and, upon hatching, the larvae start feeding on pulp, thus making the fruits unfit for human consumption. fruit flies have a high reproductive potential, with short and overlapping generations. as a result, there can be sudden outbreaks (bateman, 1972). availability of both cultivated and wildfruit hosts round the year enables intenance of their population; hence,fruit flies are a major pest of cultivated fruit crops. the melon fly, bactrocera cucurbitae (coquillett) (diptera: tephritidae), attacks over 81 plant species (dhillon et al, 2005). it is a serious economic pest on cucurbit crops, viz., cucumber (cucumis sativus l.), gherkin (cucumis anguria l.), bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.), ridge gourd (luffa acutangula roxb.), snake gourd (trichosanthes anguina l.), water-melon (citrullus lanatus l.), muskmelon (cucumis melo l.), pumpkin (cucurbita moschata duchesne), etc. extent of loss by melon flies ranges from 30 to 100%, depending on the cucurbit species and season. fruit infestation by melon fly management of melon fly, bactrocera cucurbitae (coquillett) infesting gherkin:an areawide control programme adopted in peninsular india h.m. praveen, m. nandeesh, m.r. chandra mouli, g.v.g. rao and s.vijaysegaran1 global green company limited #14, 80 feet road,4th block, koramangala bangalore – 560 034, india e-mail : chandramouli.mr@globalgreengroup.com abstract an area-wide control (awc) programme was undertaken for management of melon fly, bactrocera cucurbitae (coquillet), in 3 km2 area in kashapura village of gauribidanur taluk, chickaballapura district, karnataka state in peninsular india from 52nd week of 2007 to 30th week of 2010. implementation of the awc programme included field sanitation, male annihilation technique (mat) through para-pheromone, cue lure, and bait application technique (bat). this awc programme resulted in steady decline of melon fly population in the grid area, and corresponding reduction in per cent fruit fly infested gherkin fruits. in the awc (grid) area, flies trapped per day (ftd) led to attaining suppression (1 to 0.1 ftd) and eradication levels (<0.1 ftd), which is acceptable to the indian gherkinprocessing industry. whereas, in the non-grid area, fruit fly populations perpetuated at infestation level (>1 ftd) during majority of weeks under observation. key words: bactrocera cucurbitae, gherkin, mat, bat, area-wide control (awc), ftd in bitter gourd has been reported to vary from 41 to 89% (lall and sinha, 1959; narayanan and batra,1960; kushwaha et al,1973; gupta and verma, 1978; rabindranath and pillai, 1986). melon fly has been reported to infest 95% of bitter gourd fruits in papua new guinea, and, 90% snake gourd and 60 to 87% pumpkin fruits in solomon islands (hollingsworth et al, 1997). singh et al (2000) reported 31.27% damage to bitter gourd and 28.55% to watermelon in india. in nepal, melon fly preferred young and immature summer squash fruits and caused a loss of 9.7% female flowers. of the total fruits set, more than one-fourth (26%) fruits dropped or were damaged just after set, and 14.04% fruits were damaged during the harvesting stage due to melon fly infestation, yielding only 38.8% fruits of marketable quality in summer squash (sapkota et al, 2010). gherkin is a mini-cucumber grown in peninsular india by small and marginal farmers, mainly for export under contract-farming. like any other cucurbit crop, gherkin is severely affected by tephritid fruit flies such as melon fly, b. cucurbitae, and cucurbit fly, dacus ciliatus loew. melon fly damages gherkin in three ways: i) oviposition injury by the female on fruits and vegetative parts, ii) larval feeding1entomologist emeritus, brisbane, australia, j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):68-74, 2012 69 damage on ovaries and fruit pulp, and iii) decomposition of fly-damaged fruit tissue by invading saprophytic microorganisms (viraktamath et al, 2004). fruit fly damage on gherkins reaches 25% during months congenial to the fruit fly (august to october), whereas, level of damage acceptable to the gherkin processing industry is less than 0.3%. therefore, effective management of fruit flies is very important for successful cultivation and export of gherkins. management of fruit flies through plot-specific approach by individual growers is ineffective due to poor protocol-compliance, and, availability of other cucurbits as alternate hosts. therefore, an area-wide control programme need to be implemented as an effective strategy for management of melon fly. area-wide control (awc) programme for integrated management of fruit flies comprising field sanitation, male annihilation technique (mat) and bait application technique (bat) was tested in peninsular india, where gherkin has been grown for over 22 years and fruit flies are a major threat to this industry. material and methods the present awc programme for management of melon fly was implemented in a three km2 area in kashapura village of gauribidanur taluk, chickaballapura district, karnataka state in the peninsular india. gherkin and other traditional crops like maize, ragi, sunflower, groundnut, chilli, tomato and castor were under cultivation in the study area. other cucurbits like pumpkin, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, bitter gourd and snake gourd were also seen growing in kitchen gardens located in the area. gherkin, as a main crop, was sown in three seasons a year viz., april – june, july september and november – february, in the grid area. grid area: a three km2 area in kashapura village, where the awc programme was implemented was divided into 50m x 50m grid forming the central zone and surrounding 25m x 25m grid forming the buffer zone (fig. 1). central zone: area in the grid where cue lure blocks were installed at every 50m distance. buffer zone: area surrounding the central zone where cue lure blocks were installed at every 25m distance. non-grid area: area outside the grid area, where awc programme was not implemented. gherkin growers in this area followed plot-specific protocol of installation of cue lure blocks and protein-bait sprays. male annihilation technique (mat): cue lure pheromones laced with chlorpyriphos-impregnated blocks (nomate life time®, from agriland biotech limited, gujarat, india) were used for mass-trapping and killing male fruit flies. cue lure blocks were replaced once every month throughout the year. bait application technique (bat): commercial proteinbait (prima protein®, from pupuk alm sdn bhd, malaysia) solution comprising proteins and sugars mixed with malathion 50ec @ 0.2% was used to attract and kill adult male and female fruit flies under the awc programme. strip-application of protein bait was undertaken twice a week on every fifth row of the gherkin plot. sugar-bait spray consisting of jaggery 10% and malathion 50ec @ 0.2% was undertaken on the border crop (maize/jowar) grown around gherkin fields on the same day as protein-bait spray application. monitoring: to monitor fruit fly population on the gherkin crop, cue lure and chlorpyriphos-impregnated blocks suspended in water-bottle traps (fig. 2) were installed in gherkin fields for both population-estimation and fruit-fly control. for evaluating the effectiveness of mat and bat, number of fruit flies trapped was recorded on a weekly basis from the 52nd week of 2007 to 28th week of 2010. number of fruit flies trapped per day (ftd) was calculated using the following formula: number of fruit flies caught in the trap fruit flies trapped per day (ftd) = ---------------------------------------------------------number of traps x number of days fig 1. map of kashapura showing area of awc program implementation. j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):68-74, 2012 management of melon fly infesting gherkin 70 effectiveness of the awc programme was rated based on the following ftd index area index for fruit flies ftd range infestation >1.0 suppression 1.0 to 0.1 eradication <0.1 exclusion 0 regression function analysis: to analyze influence of ftd in the awc programme, represented by per cent fruit fly infested gherkin fruits, regression function analysis was carried out as shown below: y= b 0 + b 1 x + b 2 d i y = per cent fruit damage x = ftd d i = dummy variable, d i = 1 for the grid and d i = 0 for the non-grid sanitation: field-sanitation practices like removal of neglected/abandoned gherkin crops and alternate hosts, and destruction of fruits rejected during the buying activity, were followed uniformly in the entire grid. public awareness: farmers’ meetings in schools and public places were conducted in the grid area. during the meetings, pamphlets were distributed and banners displayed on fruitfly management to create public awareness of the awc programme. per cent fruit-fly infested gherkin fruits: fruits from the grid and non-grid area were examined daily on arrival at processing units during the three seasons, and percentage of fruit-fly infestation was calculated on weight basis. fruit fly hotspot identification and suppression: in the awc programme, to identify fruit fly hotspots within the grid, traps were continuously monitored. location where more than four flies were trapped per week in a monitoring trap were considered as hotspots. these hotspots frequently turned out to be abandoned gherkin plots or spots with alternate hosts for fruit flies in the grid. in these hotspots, fruit flies were suppressed by installing water-bottle traps (fig. 3) containing 250ml of fruit-juice bait [fresh watermelon juice 500ml+sodium benzoate 10g+ammonium carbonate 0.8g+insecticide (malathion 50 ec) 3ml and water 486.2ml]. results and discussion fruit flies trapped per day (ftd) the awc programme was initiated in the 52nd week of 2007 in kashapura (fig. 4). in the grid area, 1.21 ftd was recorded before implementation of awc and, subsequently, it reduced to 0.07 ftd during the 4th week of 2008. thereafter, ftd was less than 0.50,except in the 5th week of 2010 and 28th week of 2010, with 0.72 and 0.84 ftd, respectively. during the corresponding period in the non-grid area, higher number of fruit flies were trapped with highest ftd of 3.55 in the 45th week of 2009, followed by 3.25 in the 28th week of 2009, 2.83 in the 5th week of 2010 and 2.37 in the 29th week of 2008 (annexure i). per cent fruit-fly infested gherkin fruits in the grid area, highest per cent of (1.94) fruit-fly infested gherkin fruits were recorded in the 17th week of 2009, followed by 1.42 (15th week of 2009), 1.18 (30th week of 2009), 0.91 (1st week of 2008) and 0.83 (7th week of 2009). during the rest of the period of awc programme, less than 0.7 % (fig. 6) infested gherkin fruits were recorded. fig 2. water bottle trap containing cue lure block impregnated with insecticide fig 3. fruit-juice bait trap praveen et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):68-74, 2012 71 annexure 1. no. of fruit flies (bactrocera cucurbitae) trapped per day (ftd) in the grid and the non-grid areas. month calendar no. of fruit flies trapped per day (ftd) from december 2007 to july 2010 year week 2008 2009 2010 grid non-grid grid non-grid grid non-grid dec-2007 52 1.21 january 1 0.90 0.03 0.36 1.83 2 0.38 0.03 0.38 1.17 3 0.22 0.01 0.36 2.00 4 0.07 0.33 0.02 0.24 1.67 5 0.08 0.59 0.14 0.29 0.72 2.83 february 6 0.09 0.03 0.07 0.36 1.33 7 0.15 0.37 0.01 0.19 0.48 1.00 8 0.09 0.01 0.14 0.38 0.88 9 0.42 0.01 0.14 0.20 0.63 march 10 0.09 0.01 0.29 0.08 0.63 11 0.01 1.00 0.10 0.38 12 0.02 0.86 0.10 0.75 13 0.03 1.36 0.06 0.50 april 14 0.05 0.93 0.06 0.50 15 0.02 0.04 0.25 16 0.02 0.02 0.25 17 0.01 0.00 0.00 m a y 18 0.01 0.02 0.13 19 0.01 0.02 0.13 20 0.00 0.02 0.50 21 0.04 0.50 22 0.00 0.02 0.38 june 23 0.00 0.06 0.50 24 0.01 0.01 0.04 0.50 25 0.01 0.96 0.01 0.10 0.75 26 0.00 0.66 0.01 0.16 0.63 july 27 0.01 0.25 0.01 0.22 1.13 28 0.04 1.51 0.04 0.05 0.84 3.25 29 0.04 2.37 0.11 0.02 0.46 2.00 30 0.10 1.10 0.07 0.02 0.42 1.25 31 0.02 0.90 0.03 0.29 august 32 0.07 0.09 0.26 33 0.14 0.15 0.17 34 0.02 0.20 0.43 35 0.03 0.09 0.36 september 36 0.03 0.07 0.26 37 0.00 0.09 0.21 38 0.05 0.06 0.31 39 0.34 0.08 0.19 october 40 0.10 0.66 0.08 0.29 41 0.24 0.86 0.03 0.24 42 0.26 0.64 0.10 0.67 43 0.27 0.69 0.23 0.95 44 0.15 0.45 0.15 1.81 november 45 0.10 0.16 0.07 3.55 46 0.13 0.24 0.04 1.29 47 0.19 0.38 0.15 1.69 48 0.10 0.40 0.10 1.52 december 49 0.09 0.45 0.07 0.69 50 0.05 0.55 0.04 0.64 51 0.00 0.36 0.01 0.48 52 0.05 0.33 0.02 0.43 management of melon fly infesting gherkin j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):68-74, 2012 72 annexure 2. per cent fruit fly infested gherkin fruits date of grid non-grid date of grid non-grid date of grid non-grid observation observation observation 23-nov-08 0.40 10-mar-09 0.00 26-oct-09 0.00 3.46 24-nov-08 0.31 11-mar-09 0.00 27-oct-09 0.00 5.34 25-nov-08 0.79 08-jul-09 0.00 1.20 28-oct-09 0.86 1.80 26-nov-08 0.43 10-jul-09 0.42 1.02 29-oct-09 0.84 3.08 27-nov-08 0.35 11-jul-09 0.44 30-oct-09 1.18 1.06 29-nov-08 0.62 13-jul-09 0.33 1.24 31-oct-09 0.00 4.52 01-dec-08 0.91 14-jul-09 0.28 0.98 02-nov-09 0.00 3.66 03-dec-08 0.40 15-jul-09 0.33 1.32 03-nov-09 0.44 3.14 31-jan-09 0.00 16-jul-09 0.21 1.25 04-nov-09 0.34 3.66 01-feb-09 0.10 17-jul-09 0.41 0.40 07-nov-09 0.50 1.44 03-feb-09 0.37 19-jul-09 0.41 10-nov-09 0.61 1.11 05-feb-09 0.33 20-jul-09 0.18 0.16 01-jul-10 0.00 0.33 09-feb-09 0.15 21-jul-09 0.21 0.22 02-jul-10 0.10 0.38 10-feb-09 0.31 22-jul-09 0.18 0.42 03-jul-10 0.40 0.39 11-feb-09 0.00 23-jul-09 0.12 1.22 04-jul-10 0.47 0.53 12-feb-09 0.38 25-jul-09 0.21 0.84 05-jul-10 0.09 0.26 13-feb-09 0.00 26-jul-09 0.28 0.22 08-jul-10 0.33 0.53 14-feb-09 0.10 27-jul-09 0.22 0.40 11-jul-10 0.19 0.66 15-feb-09 0.13 28-jul-09 0.00 1.20 16-jul-10 0.22 0.69 17-feb-09 0.22 29-jul-09 0.59 1.30 17-jul-10 0.38 0.33 20-feb-09 0.00 30-jul-09 0.42 0.96 19-jul-10 0.49 0.86 21-feb-09 0.00 13-oct-09 0.40 1.16 20-jul-10 0.11 0.30 24-feb-09 0.00 14-oct-09 0.48 1.46 21-jul-10 0.22 0.32 28-feb-09 0.07 15-oct-09 1.42 3.38 22-jul-10 0.22 0.33 01-mar-09 0.08 16-oct-09 0.54 0.72 24-jul-10 0.27 0.28 03-mar-09 0.15 17-oct-09 1.94 5.64 25-jul-10 0.13 1.20 04-mar-09 0.00 18-oct-09 0.00 4.38 30-jul-10 0.16 0.93 05-mar-09 0.00 19-oct-09 0.20 3.22 31-jul-10 0.21 0.33 06-mar-09 0.23 20-oct-09 0.66 07-mar-09 0.83 23-oct-09 0.00 2.22 08-mar-09 0.00 24-oct-09 0.44 3.02 09-mar-09 0.19 25-oct-09 0.26 5.30 during the corresponding period in the non-grid area, high percentage of 5.64, 5.34, 5.30, 4.52, 4.38, 3.66, 3.66 infested gherkin fruits were recorded from 42nd week to 45th week of 2009. however, during the other weeks of observation, per cent fruit-fly infested gherkin fruits was higher compared to that in the grid area. suppression of fruit flies in the hotspot: in the grid area, fruit fly hotspots were identified based on trap catches (ftd). before installation of fruit juice traps, hotspots recorded a maximum of 16 and 9 fruit flies during jan.-feb. 2009 (4 hotspots) and oct. 2009 (5 hotspots), respectively. three weeks after installing fruit-juice bait traps, number of fruit flies trapped dropped down to zero. cumulative frequency of melon fly cumulative frequency (fig. 5) of fruit flies trapped per day recorded from the 28th week of 2009 to the 30th week of 2010 for grid and non-grid areas showed that the curve for the grid area was low and stabilized, whereas in the non-grid area, it progressively increased. during the above period, cumulative ftd in the grid area was 21.51 compared to 148.13 in the non-grid area. this shows a continuous reduction in fruit fly population in the grid area with implementation of awc programme. relationship between per cent fruit-fly infested gherkin and ftd in the grid area: a correlation analysis was carried out between fruit-fly infested gherkin fruits in the factory and ftd for the grid area. the resultant correlation coefficient was 0.0218, which suggests a positive correlation between fruit-fly infestation and ftd. multi-linear regression analysis was carried out to examine the influence of number of fruit flies trapped per day and presence or absence of awc program on extent of fruit damage (table 1). both the grid and non-grid variables had significant praveen et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):68-74, 2012 73 implementation of awc programme resulted in steady decline in b. cucurbitae population in the grid area and a corresponding reduction in per cent fruit-fly infested gherkin fruits. correlation analysis for the grid area leads to the conclusion that there is a positive relationship between per cent fruit-fly infestation and ftd. this positive correlation means that as ftd decreases, correspondingly, per cent fruit-fly infestation also decreases. however, the relationship was statistically not found very strong. in awc programme, there was a decrease in per cent infestation of damaged fruits as per coefficient for dummy variable. r2, coefficient of multiple determination, explained about 28.34% variation in per cent infested fruits. presently in india, gherkin cultivation is under the contract farming system involving small and marginal farmers in rural areas. however, implementation of the awc program by individual farmers is not economically feasible. therefore, a collaborative community-approach involving the state and union governments and research organizations is the only way out for management of fruit flies through the awc programme. acknowledgement we would like to thank mr. vineet chhabra, managing director and group ceo, global green company limited for permission to publish this work. the authors are also thankful to dr. c.a. viraktamath, dr. b. mallik, mr. b.v. ramakrishna, department of entomology, university of agricultural sciences, gandhi krishi vignana kendra, bangalore, india for reviewing the manuscript, for statistical analysis and their valuable inputs. references agarwal, m.l. and sueyoshi, m. 2005. catalogue of indian fruit flies (diptera: tephritidae). oriental insects, 39:371-433 bateman, m.a. 1972. the ecology of fruit flies. ann. rev. ent., 17:493-518 fig 4. fruit flies (bactrocera cucurbitae) trapped per day (ftd) of in the grid and non-grid areas table 1. regression analysis for estimating relationship between the grid and non-grid area variable regression ‘t’ value ‘p’ value coefficient intercept 1.19 5.76 0.0000007** no. of ruit fly 0.32 2.45 0.015855* trapped per day (ftd) dummy variable for -0.90 -3.85 0.0002** grid = 1, and non-grid = 0 r2 = 0.2834, or 28.34% fig 6. per cent fruit fly (bactrocera cucurbitae) infested gherkin fruits in the grid and the non-grid areas. fig 5. cumulative frequency of bactrocera cucurbitae ftd in the grid and non-grid areas influence on percentage of fruit infestation. with the number of fruit flies trapped per day decreasing by one, per cent fruit-fly infestation also came down. implementation of the awc programme has been effective in maintaining stabilized, lower fruit-fly population (ftd) in the grid area compared to non-grid area. in the grid area, fruit fly populations were at suppression (1.0 to 0.1 ftd) and eradication level (<0.1 ftd), which is acceptable to the indian gherkin-processing industry. whereas, in the non-grid area, fruit fly populations were seen at infestation level (>1 ftd) during most of the weeks under observation. these results are in conformity with areawide control of fruit flies in mauritius (sookar et al, 2006) where the population of ceratitis capitata and ceratitis rosa decreased significantly with simultaneous decrease in infestation levels in peach fruit orchard. management of melon fly infesting gherkin j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):68-74, 2012 74 dhillon, m.k., ram singh, naresh, j.s. and sharma, h.c. 2005. the melon fruit fly, bactrocera cucurbitae: a review of its biology and management. j. insect sci., 5:16p gupta, j.n. and verma, a.n. 1978. screening of different cucurbit crops for the attack of the melon fruit fly, dacus cucurbitae coq. (diptera: tephritidae). haryana j. hortl. sci., 7:78-82 hollingsworth r., vagalo m. and tsatsia, f. 1997. biology of melon fly, with special reference to the solomon islands. in: allwood, a.j. and drew, r.a.i. (editors.) management of fruit flies in the pacific. proc. australian country indus. agri. res., 76:140-144 kushwaha, k.s., pareek, b.l. and noor, a. 1973. fruit fly damage in cucurbits at udaipur. udaipur univ. res j., 11:22-23 lall, b.s. and sinha, s.n. 1959. on the biology of the melon fly, dacus cucurbitae (coq.) (diptera: tephritidae). sci. & cul., 25:159-161 narayanan, e.s. and batra, h.n. 1960. fruit flies and their control. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, india, 68 pp rabindranath, k. and pillai, k.s. 1986. control of fruit fly of bitter gourd using synthetic pyrethroids. entomon, 11:269-272 sapkota, r., dahal, k.c. and thapa, r.b. 2010. damage assessment and management of cucurbit fruit flies in spring-summer squash. j. entom. and nemat, 2:7-12 singh, s.v., mishra, a., bisan, r.s., malik, y.p. and mishra, a. 2000. host preference of red pumpkin beetle, aulacophora foveicollis, and melon fruit fly, dacus cucurbitae. ind. j. ent., 62:242-246 sookar, p., permalloo, s., gungah, b., alleck, m., seewooruthun, s.i. and soonnoo, a.r. 2006. an areawide control of fruit flies in mauritius. fruit flies of economic importance: from basic to applied knowledge. proc. 7th internatl. sym. fruit flies econ. importance, brazil, 261-269 viraktamath, c.a., mallik, b., chandrashekar, s.c., ramakrishna, b.v. and praveen, h.m. 2003. insect pests and diseases on gherkins and their management. university of agricultural sciences, bangalore, india 65pp (ms received 23 december 2010 revised 24 january 2012) praveen et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):68-74, 2012 introduction boron deficiency is widespread in alfisols of southern india, and, is a major constraint in vegetable production (satisha and ganeshamurthy, 2012). response of vegetables to boron application in southern india has been reported by several workers (edward raja, 2007; kotur, 1993; sharma and brar, 2008). in general, vegetables of brassicaceae and leguminaceae families are more sensitive to b deficiency than are other crops, and respond to added b (gupta 1983; gupta and cutcliffe, 1975; 1978). information on b requirement in cabbage and french bean has been summarized by gupta (1979) and edward raja (2007). however, information on b requirement or tolerance by cabbage and french bean, specifically in alfisols, is limited. moreover, these two crops are not only sensitive to b deficiency, but also to excess b (bradford, 1966; gupta, 1983). farmers in southern india generally grow french bean and cabbage under rotation and apply b frequently. effect of directly-applied and residual boron on nutrition in french bean-cabbage cropping sequence under alfisol a.n. ganeshamurthy division of soil science and agricultural chemistry icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560089, india e-mail: angmurthy@gmail.com abstract effects of directly-applied-to-the-soil and residual boron (b) in soil were assessed in french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) cabbage (brassica oleracea var. capitata l.) cropping sequence and cycle under alfisol, with either low or adequate hot-water-soluble boron (hws-b) content. the experiments focussed on effects of various levels of applied b on leaf tissue b and crop yield, hws-b content in the year of b application, and in subsequent years. response of the crops to applied b reflected initial soil b levels. application of the highest level of b (8kg ha-1) reduced crop yield at site-i throughout the four years of experimentation. applied b up to 2kg ha-1enhanced french bean yields at site i, while at site ii, at all the levels of applied b, yields were reduced in the first two crops; during the third and fourth crop, yields in plots receiving 1kg b ha-1 were higher than those in plots that did not receive supplemental b. in both french bean and cabbage, high b concentrations caused toxicity symptoms manifested as browning of leaf margin. these symptoms appeared in both french bean and cabbage under all the plots receiving b e” 4kg ha-1. monitoring hws-b content at harvest in each crop during the experiment indicated that applied b diminished rapidly in these soils. however, at site ii, residual hws-b was above the critical level throughout the period of experimentation. a single application of higher amounts of b fertilizer led to b toxicity and caused yield suppression in these vegetables. french bean, being a sensitive crop, should be grown preferably on residual b rather than subjecting it to direct application of b in any vegetable cropping system under red soils. key words: alfisols, cabbage, french bean, hws-b, b toxicity, tissue b, residual b, yield, cropping sequence therefore, it is desirable to obtain information on effects of residual b on succeeding crops that may be sensitive to high levels of b in soil. the objectives of this study were to determine the effects of various levels of b applied in the first crop, in a rotation cycle, on plant tissue b concentrations, and, yield of french bean and cabbage in the year of application and in years following b application. material and methods field experiments were conducted at two locations in the research farm of indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, during 2009-2012 in randomized block design comprising five levels of b, and four replicates. french bean was grown in kharif (monsoon season, juneseptember), followed by cabbage in rabi (post monsoon season, october-february) each year, for four years. soil characteristics of the two experimental sites are presented in table 1. the initial hot-water-soluble b (hws-b) content j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):185-190, 2014 186 at the two locations prior to initiating experiments ranged from 0.27 to 0.61mg kg-1 soil, and initial soil ph was within the range of 5.6-6.7. boron was applied at 0, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0 and 8.0 kg boric acid (containing 17.4% b) to the soil by mixing it with 50:50:25 n:p2o5:k2o for french bean, and 150:125:100kg n:p2o5:k2o for cabbage. full dose of boron was applied only in the first year, and just npk fertilizer was applied in subsequent years. fertilizers were broadcasted for incorporation into the soil prior to planting. the experiment plots were 8.0m x 20.0m in size. french bean was sown at 40cm row-to-row, and plant-to-plant spacing of 5cm. cabbage was grown at 45cm x 30cm. the first crop of french bean was planted in july 2009, while cabbage was planted on the same plot in september 2009, after harvesting french bean. standard cultural practices recommended by iihr for french bean and cabbage were followed (prabhakar et al, 2010). the crop was irrigated with tube-well water which contained only traces of b. mean annual precipitation in the experimental area during 20092012 was 974.5mm. both french bean and cabbage were harvested at the maturity stage (for vegetable purpose). data on the central rows alone in each plot were used for yield calculation. vegetable quality parameters like pod colour, disorders and marketable yield were recorded. during the growth season, both the crops were thoroughly examined for visible symptoms of b deficiency and b toxicity. french bean crop was harvested in the second half of september, while, cabbage was harvested in the second half of december each year. leaf tissue samples comprised recently-matured leaves from 20 plants per plot, taken at pre-bloom stage. in cabbage, leaf tissue samples were collected just prior to head-formation. the entire leaf blade of the most-recently matured leaf was detached at the point of intersection of lamina and petiole. leaf tissue samples in both the crops were collected randomly from each plot. all the samples were brought to the laboratory, washed thoroughly in b-free water, dried, ground, ashed and extracted with 2n hcl. the diluted extract was analyzed for b content by azomethine-h colorimetric method using systronics spectrophotometer. soil samples (0-15cm depth) were taken, at the end of each crop cycle after harvest, from all the plots (eight cores per plot) and were analyzed for hws-b as per gupta (1979). analysis of variance was conducted for each site too. results and discussion the experimental soils contained 0.27mg kg-1 of hwb at site i and 0.67mg kg-1 at site ii (table 1). applied b significantly affected yield in both french bean and cabbage throughout the four years of experimentation. the yield (averaged over four crops) for french bean was 11.67t ha-1 at site i, and 9.35t ha-1 at site ii; while, for cabbage, this was 37.0 and 40.06t ha-1, respectively. applied b enhanced the yield (table 2) of french bean at site i up to 2kg ha-1, while at site ii, applied b at all the levels showed diminished yield in the first two crops; during the third and fourth crop, yield in plots receiving 1kg b ha-1 was higher than in plots not receiving any b. at both the sites, application of highest levels of b (8kg b ha-1) reduced the yield in all the four years of experimentation. on the other hand, applied b significantly increased the yield in cabbage up to 4kg b ha-1 at site i, and 1kg b ha-1 at site ii in the first crop (i.e., year i). subsequently, the response improved in second and third crops. in the fourth crop, yield levels were significantly higher: up to 8.0kg b ha-1 at site i, and up to 4kg b ha-1 at site ii (table 2). applied b enhanced b levels in french bean tissue from 19.2 to 154.0mg kg-1 in the first crop (year i) at site i, and from 36.2 to 174.0mg kg-1 at site ii (table 3). in cabbage, tissue b concentration in the first crop increased from 11.6 to 79.8mg kg-1 at site i, and from 15.6 to 111.6mg kg-1 at site ii. toxicity of b manifested as browning of leaf margin in both french bean and cabbage at high concentrations of tissue b. at both 4 and 8kg b ha-1, toxicity symptoms were visible in the first two crops (years i and ii), but disappeared in the third crop. symptoms were more severe at site ii than at site i. it has been reported that b concentration of >60mg kg-1 in french bean leads to appearance of toxicity symptoms, and yield reduction occurs at tissue concentrations of >109mg kg-1 (gupta and cutcliffe, 1984). table 1. soil physic-chemical properties at experimental sites soil characteristics site i site ii soil classification typic haplustert typic haplustert soil texture loamy sand siltyclayloam bulk density 1.46g cm3 1.42g cm3 p h 5.6 6.7 ec 0.27ds m-1 0.31ds m-1 organic c 5.24g kg-1 5.03g kg-1 mineralizable n 242kg ha-1 212kg ha-1 bray’s p 27.3kg ha-1 21.5kg ha-1 exchangeable k 149kg ha-1 164kg ha-1 exchangeable ca 1240kg ha-1 1370kg ha-1 exchangeable mg 278kg ha-1 321kg ha-1 extractable s 11.36mg kg-1 13.48mg kg-1 dtpa zn 0.620mg kg-1 0.590mg kg-1 dtpa cu 0.371mg kg-1 0.422mg kg-1 dtpa mn 4.32mg kg-1 5.710mg kg-1 dtpa fe 56.4mg kg-1 62.14mg kg-1 hws-b 0.27mg kg-1 0.61mg kg-1 ganeshamurthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):185-190, 2014 187 they also reported that 16mg kg-1 of b in the case of cabbage and 26mg kg-1 of b in the case of french bean caused deficiency symptoms in the plant. in our study, deficiency symptoms were noticed in both french bean and cabbage in control plots alone, at site i. hwb content in soil after harvest in each crop is presented in table 4. availability of applied b diminished rapidly at both the experimental sites. little is known about b availability and response of vegetable crops to b in asian soils, including india. however, b is a nutrient deficient in indian soils, particularly in lighttextured, low organic-matter containing soils, and, in heavyrainfall areas (singh et al, 2009). in the indian soils, hwsb level below 0.5mg kg-1 is considered as critical for most crops (katyal and rattan, 2003; rao et al, 2008). soil at site i in our experiment had 0.27mg kg-1 hws-b and, site ii had 0.61mg kg-1 hws-b. therefore, soil at site i is seen to be deficient in available b, while, soil at site ii had sufficient available b. hence, crops grown at site i were expected to respond better to applied b those grown at site ii. however, application of this nutrient of boron fertilizer at higher levels may lead to accumulation of this nutrient in soils at levels toxic to plants. robertson et al (1975) concluded that 1.5mg kg-1 b in soil at harvest was toxic. in the present study, applied b at 2kg b ha-1 prior to planting significantly increased pod yield in french bean at site i; while, even as low as 1kg b ha-1, did not increase pod yield at site ii. yield in cabbage as a follow-up crop (after application of 2kg b ha-1) significantly increased at site i, as also at 1kg b ha-1 at site ii. in the subsequent crops, the level of response to residual b gradually improved at site i, and, after the third cropping year, both french bean and cabbage responded significantly well to 4kg ha-1 b applied at the onset of the experiment. at site ii, french bean yield at all the levels of applied b remained suppressed (following b application), even in the fourth crop in french bean-cabbage rotation cycle. cabbage yield, however, remained significantly higher than in control at 1kg b ha-1 throughout the four years; but, at 2kg b ha-1, the favourable response could be observed only third year onwards. at higher applied b levels, yield remained lower than in control. this confirms earlier reports that french bean is highly sensitive to excess b, compared to cabbage (bradford 1966; gupta and cutcliffe, 1984). bradford (1966) and gupta and cutcliffe (1984) speculated that b perhaps got fixed in the soil, or leached out quickly from the root zone. gupta and cutcliffe (1984) also stated that beans were not as sensitive to b toxicity as that reported by robertson et al (1975). it was observed that bean yield was suppressed at high levels of b application (> 8kg ha-1) in these light-textured soils. however, such yield-suppression was not observed in the subsequent crops. however, yield suppression at much lower levels of applied b can be attributed to a reduced leaching-loss, as, the crop was irrigated with drip system, and, soil b fixation here is not as high (as, it can reduce availability of applied b to very low levels). in the first crop of french bean, applied b enhanced b levels in tissues of the bean from 19.2mg kg-1 in plots receiving no external b, to 154.0mg kg-1 in plots receiving 8kg b ha-1at site i, and, 39.2-174.0mg kg-1, respectively, at site ii (table 3). in cabbage, tissue b concentration in the table 2. effect of applied boron on french bean and cabbage yield (t ha-1) applied b(kg ha-1) 2009 2010 2011 2012 french cabbage french cabbage french cabbage french cabbage bean bean bean bean site i (hws-b* 0.61mg kg-1) 0 9.4 34.1 10.2 36.3 9.8 35.6 10.6 32.5 1 14.3 37.7 14.0 39.1 13.7 37.4 12.4 34.1 2 14.1 40.3 14.5 42.3 14.8 41.0 15.1 39.4 4 9.9 35.2 10.6 37.2 12.2 39.4 14.0 39.0 8 6.0 33.6 7.6 32.8 9.7 34.2 11.4 33.8 lsd (0.05) 2.1 2.2 1.8 2.7 1.5 2.1 1.1 2.3 site ii (hws-b* 0.61mg kg-1) 0 10.6 41.6 11.9 43.7 9.0 40.8 9.90 41.6 1 10.7 44.9 11.4 46.2 9.6 44.6 10.7 44.7 2 9.1 39.8 9.6 41.9 8.9 43.9 9.9 43.7 4 8.0 36.2 9.1 38.2 8.9 39.2 8.7 41.2 8 7.1 30.1 8.3 29.4 7.3 31.4 8.4 38.3 lsd (0.05) 1.0 1.9 1.2 2.3 ns 2.0 1.2 1.8 *hot-water-soluble boron lsd = least significant difference effect of directly-applied and residual boron in vegetable crop sequence j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):185-190, 2014 188 first crop (year i) increased from 11.6mg kg-1 in plots receiving no external b, to 79.8mg kg-1 in plots receiving 8kg b ha-1. this was 15.6-111.6 mg kg-1 at sites i & ii, respectively, in both french bean and cabbage, with high concentrations of b in plant tissue. toxicity of b manifested as browning of leaf margin. the symptom appeared in both french bean and cabbage in all the plots receiving b at the rate of e” 4kg ha-1. typical symptoms included chlorosis and dwarfing of plants in french bean, and, chlorosis and bunched appearance in plants of cabbage. chlorosis worsened with progress of time and resulted in a burnt appearance, with the leaf margin curling up. this was also evident in suppressed crop yield. it has been reported that b concentrations greater than 60mg kg-1 cause toxicity symptoms in bean, and that yield reduction occurs at tissue concentrations greater than 109mg kg-1 (gupta and cutcliffe, 1984). robertson et al (1975) estimated b threshold level for bean plants as 100mg kg-1. mackay et al (1962) and gupta (1983) also observed b toxicity in beans when b concentration exceeded 160 and 125mg kg-1, in the respective papers. in the present study, toxicity symptoms appeared when tissue concentration of b exceeded 48.7mg kg-1 in french bean and 51.3mg kg-1 in cabbage. reduction in leaf area and appearance of stunted growth of plant (following toxicity) and a reduced photosynthesis, may be the reason for yield reduction observed in this study. in our experiment, although cabbage was grown after the french bean crop (without any direct application of b), higher levels of applied b (>4kg b ha-1) showed toxicity symptoms and resultant reduced yield. cabbage was less sensitive to excess b, compared to other crops. gupta and cutcliffe (1984) did not record toxicity symptoms in cabbage even at tissue concentrations as high as 132mg kg-1 in calcareous soils. but, this level is reported as toxic for a number of other crops, as summarized by gupta (1979). in sand culture studies on response to b in cabbage, the top portion of 55-day-old plants contained 12mg kg-1 b (agarwala et al, 1977). in the present study, b levels were considerably higher than this value and, hence, both deficiency-symptoms and yield-suppression occurred at high levels of applied b. results of our study indicates that b application rate of 8.0kg ha-1 to a previous crop is detrimental to the subsequent (follow-up) crop in a rotation cycle. application of 2-4kg b ha-1 to sensitive crops can be practiced without b toxicity, in french bean grown in subsequent years. cabbage was found to be more tolerant than french bean to b toxicity, as, yield-suppression occurred only at higher levels of applied b. information on residual b in soils, particularly in horticultural cropping systems, is lacking. data based on hws-b content at harvest in each crop indicate that availability of applied b diminished rapidly in these soils (table 4); but the residual levels were, still, high enough to influence a subsequent crop in the cropping system. postharvest soil analysis at conclusion of the first french bean crop showed that hws-b rose to 1.36mg kg-1 from 0.27mg kg-1, and rose to 2.16mg kg-1 from 0.61mg kg-1 in plots receiving 8kg b ha-1 at site i and site ii, respectively. even at site i, applied b @ 2kg ha-1 left behind residual b above a critical level in the soil, after the first crop of french bean table 3. effect of applied boron on boron concentration (mg kg-1) in leaf tissue of french bean-cabbage cropping sequence applied b (kg ha-1) 2009 2010 2011 2012 french cabbage french cabbage french cabbage french cabbage bean bean bean bean site i (hws-b* 0.61mg kg-1) 0 19.2 11.6 19.6 10.9 19.0 10.0 19.0 10.0 1 31.5 23.7 29.5 19.3 22.7 16.4 22.7 16.4 2 48.7 38.4 41.2 30.1 30.2 22.6 30.2 22.6 4 70.3 51.3 60.4 44.8 47.5 35.5 49.7 31.5 8 154.0 79.8 107.5 64.7 65.0 56.7 65.0 56.7 lsd (0.05) 14.1 8.9 9.4 7.8 8.8 6.9 9.6 8.1 site ii (hws-b* 0.61mg kg-1) 0 39.2 15.6 36.9 14.5 35.1 14.1 34.8 13.6 1 58.6 39.6 51.6 37.4 49.3 30.6 42.3 24.1 2 71.4 68.4 64.3 56.7 52.5 41.1 51.5 36.1 4 97.3 89.1 86.9 80.1 79.4 64.5 64.0 61.5 8 174 111.6 158.5 82.6 138.5 81.3 111.5 79.8 lsd (0.05) 11.5 8.3 5.7 6.3 5.9 7.1 6.0 7.8 *hot-water-soluble boron lsd = least significant difference ganeshamurthy j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):185-190, 2014 189 was harvested. at the end of eight crops in french beancabbage rotation cycles, these levels diminished to 0.83 and 1.44mg kg-1, respectively. these levels were above the critical hws-b levels in soil. hence, both french bean and cabbage yield in these plots remained suppressed throughout the four-year cropping cycle. residual levels of applied b in plots receiving 2kg b ha-1 at site i fell below the critical level only after six crops. in all other plots receiving higher levels of b, residual hws-b levels were higher than the critical level of 0.5mg kg-1. however, residual hws-b level was above the critical level in all the plots at site ii throughout the period of (four years) experimentation. these observations suggest that a single application of high level of b fertilizer to these soils can lead to residual b toxicity, thereby, causing yield suppression in vegetables. moreover, b sensitive french bean crop should be grown preferably on residual b than on directly applied b in any vegetable cropping system in red soils. the four-year experiment on assessing direct and residual effects of applied boron (b) showed that application of highest levels of b in the study (8kg ha-1) reduced crop yield in eight crops, spread over four years. applied b enhanced the yield of french bean under low available b soil up to 2kg ha-1, while, high available b soil (at all the levels of applied b) reduced yield during the first two crops; during the third and fourth crop, the yield improved. in both french bean and cabbage, high b in plant tissue resulted in toxicity. hws-b content at harvest in each crop indicated that availability of applied b diminished rapidly in these soils. a single application of high level of b-containing fertilizer table 4. effect of applied boron on hot-water-soluble b (mg kg-1) content in soil at the end of crop cycle applied b(kg ha-1) 2009 2010 2011 2012 french cabbage french cabbage french cabbage french cabbage bean bean bean bean site i (hws-b* 0.27mg kg-1) 0 0.27 0.23 0.25 0.22 0.21 0.19 0.22 0.21 1 0.41 0.36 0.38 0.32 0.35 0.30 0.32 0.28 2 0.76 0.71 0.76 0.67 0.70 0.49 0.55 0.37 4 1.06 0.98 1.01 0.91 0.94 0.82 0.86 0.74 8 1.36 1.17 1.20 1.01 1.06 0.94 0.97 0.83 lsd (0.05) 0.17 0.09 0.11 0.08 0.14 0.16 0.08 0.09 site ii (hws-b* 0.61mg kg-1) 0 0.61 0.55 0.61 0.54 0.59 0.48 0.55 0.41 1 0.89 0.81 0.82 0.70 0.73 0.68 0.70 0.64 2 1.19 1.06 1.10 0.95 0.99 0.83 0.85 0.71 4 1.59 1.44 1.51 1.32 1.38 1.19 1.25 0.98 8 2.16 1.85 1.94 1.77 1.80 1.59 1.63 1.44 lsd (0.05) 0.11 0.19 0.08 0.13 0.06 0.12 0.10 0.09 *hot-water-soluble boron lsd = least significant difference to these soils leads to accumulation of b in toxic proportions, and causes yield suppression in vegetables. french bean, being a low accumulator of b and being a more sensitive crop, should be grown preferably on residual b rather than subjecting it to direct application of b-containing fertilizer to soil in any vegetable cropping system in red soils. references agarwala, s.c., farooq, s. and sharma, c.p. 1977. growth and metabolic effects of boron deficiency in some plant species of economic importance. geophytology, 7:79-90 bradford, g.r. 1966. boron. in: h.d. chapman (ed). diagnostic criteria for plants and soils.university of california, riverside, california, usa, pp. 33-61 edward raja, m. 2007. boron nutrition and boron application in crops. advances in plant and animal boron nutrition. pp. 117-124 gupta, u.c. 1979. boron nutrition of crops. adv. agron., 31:273-307 gupta, u.c. 1983. boron deficiency and toxicity symptoms for several crops as related to tissue boron levels. j. pl. nutr. 6:387-395 gupta, u.c. and cutcliffe, j.a. 1975. boron deficiency in cole crops under field and greenhouse conditions. commun. soil sci. pl. anal., 6:l8l-188 gupta, u.c. and cutcliffe, j.a. 1978. effect of methods of boron application on leaf tissu concentration of boron and control of brown-heart in rutabaga. can. j. pl. sci., 58:63-68 effect of directly-applied and residual boron in vegetable crop sequence j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):185-190, 2014 190 gupta, u.c. and cutcliffe, j.a. 1984. effects of applied and residual boron on the nutrition of cabbage and field beans. can. j. soil sci., 64:571-576 katyal, j.c. and rattan, r.k. 2003. secondary and micronutrients: research gaps and future needs. fert. news, 48:9-20 kotur, s.c. 1993. response of cauliflower to lime and boron in a boron deficient soil. indian j. hort., 50:4344349 mackay, d.c., langille, w.m. and chipman, e.w. 1962. boron deficiency and toxicity in crops grown on sphagnum peat soils. can. j. soil sci., 42:302-310 prabhakar, m., hebbar, s.s. and nair, a.k. 2010. production technology of vegetables – a-handbook. indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india rao, c.s., wani, s.p., sahrawat, k.l., rego, t.j. and pardhasaradhi, g. 2008. zinc, boron and sulphur deficiencies are holding back the potential of rainfed crops in semi-arid india. experience from participatory watershed management. int. j. pl. prodn., 2:89-99 robertson, l.s., knezek, b.d. and belo, j.o. 1975. a survey of michigan soils as related to possible boron toxicities. commun. soil sci. pl. anal., 6:359-373 satisha, g.c. and ganeshamurthy, a.n. 2012. micronutrient management in horticultural crops. 5th indian horticultural congress, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india, 6-9 november 2012 sharma, s.p and brar, j.s. 2008. nutritional requirement of brinjal. agri. rev., 29:79–88 singh, m.v., narwal, r.p., bhupal raj, g., patel, k.p. and sadana, u.s. 2009. changing scenario of micronutrient deficiencies in india during four decades and its impact on crop responses and nutritional health of human and animals. proc. int’l. pl. nutr. colloquium xvi, department of plant sciences, university of california, davis, california, usa ganeshamurthy (ms received 27 january 2014, revised 21 october 2014, accepted 02 december 2014) j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):185-190, 2014 bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) or ‘karela’ is considered to be native to tropical asia, particularly eastern india and southern china. bactrocera cucurbitae coq., commonly known as melon fly, is highly polyphagous and it’s preferred hosts are bitter gourd, musk melon, snap melon, and snake gourd (srivastava and butani, 1998). in bitter gourd, this pest causes upto 60% yield losses (fischer and busch, 1989). various insecticidal schedules have been tested against this important pest throughout the country. in a field trial conducted at hyderabad, reddy (1997) reported the pesticide triazophos to be one of the most effective against this pest. the present study was, therefore, undertaken to determine dissipation of triazophos residue in bitter gourd fruit, for evaluation of safety in applying it. the experiment was carried out during juneoctober, 2003 at the university research farm, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, kalyani, nadia, west bengal in a randomized block design with the variety meghna. the crop sown on 30.06.2003 was raised following recommended agronomic practices. the treatments were: triazophos (tarzan 40ec) @ 0.06% a.i. (1.5 ml/lt. of water), 0.12% a.i. (3 ml/lt. of water) with an untreated control, replicated thrice, with a plot size of 15 m x 7.5 m. triazophos was sprayed twice, first at 45 days from sowing and the second at 15 days from the first spray. short communication persistence and dissipation of triazophos in bitter gourd r. banerji, s. k. sahoo1, s. jha and h. banerjee2 department of agricultural entomology bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya mohanpur, nadia -741 252, india e. mail : shyamalsahoo@yahoo.co.in abstract triazophos (trazan 40 ec) @ 0.06% a.i. (1.5 ml/lt. of water) and 0.12% a.i. (3 ml/lt. of water) were sprayed on bitter gourd at fruiting stage during kharif, 2003. first spray was done at 45 days after sowing and next at 15 days after first spraying. fruit samples for residue estimation were collected after second application of pesticide. the maximum initial residue of 0.31 and 0.79 ppm were recorded after 2 h of second spray. no residue could be detected after 7 days following application at 0.06% a.i./ha and after 15 days of spraying following spray at double the recommended dose. half-life values of triazophos used @ 0.06% and 0.12% a.i. were found to be 0.75 and 1.55 days, respectively. key words : bitter gourd, triazophos, residue, half-life 1 corresponding author address: malda krishi vigyan kendra, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, b.s. farm, ratua, malda, west bengal, pin-732205, india. 2 department of agricultural chemicals fruit samples were collected randomly from treated and untreated plots at 0 (2 h), 1, 3, 7 and 15 days after second application of the pesticide. finely chopped 50 g sample was of the fruit was blended using 100 ml distilled acetone in a remi-automix blender for 3-4 minutes. extracts were then filtered through a buchner funnel using 150 ml acetone. the combined titrate was concentrated in a rotary vacuum evaporator to 5-6 ml. the filtrate was then partitioned thrice with dichloro methane (50 ml x 3). the combined dichloro methane extract was dried over anhydrous sodium sulphate and evaporated using a rotary vacuum evaporator to concentrate it. the residue was subjected to column clean-up using activated charcoal : celite : neutral alumina (2:2:1). the column was eluted with dichloro methane : n-hexane (9:1) and evaporated to dryness. finally, the volume was made upto 5 ml with distilled hexane. the residue was finally estimated using glc equipped with flame photometric detector (fpd). the detector, the column and the injection temperatures were 250, 210 and 220oc, respectively. retention time for triazophos was 6.1 minutes. flow rates of hydrogen, nitrogen and air was 20 ml/min., 5 ml/min. and 50 ml/min., respectively. data relating to residual fate and persistence, as well as, dissipation pattern of triazophos in bitter gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 82-83, 2008 page 82 83 fruit have been summarized in table 1. this indicates that two sprays of triazophos @ 0.06 and 0.12 % a.i./ha recorded a residue of 0.31 and 0.79 mg/kg, respectively, at zero days, which was above mrl (0.1-0.2 mg/kg) which dissipated to bdl and 0.03 mg/kg, respectively, at 7 days after the second spray. after one day, the average residues remaining were 0.16 ppm and 0.33 ppm, showing 43.39% and 58.23% dissipation, respectively. thereafter, triazophos residue declined to 0.10 and 0.02 ppm showing a reduction of 87.34% and 93.55%, respectively. no residue could be detected after 7 days in the case of t1, while, it was so after a lapse of 15 days for t2. dissipation rate followed first order reaction kinetics. correlation coefficient was significant (0.995 and 0.974, respectively), which indicated statistical conformity of dissipation data to first order kinetics. half-life values (rl 50 or t1/2) were found to be 0.75 (t1) and 1.55 (t2). this was in agreement with those reported for triazophos residues in brinjal (raj et al, 1999; reddy et al, 2001). thus, from the half-life values calculated, it could be deduced that the compound was of very low persistence. it is known that the potential of a table 1. residues of triazophos in bitter gourd fruit days after residue(ppm) second spray 0.06% a.i. 0.12% a.i. mean residue level(range) %dissipation mean residue level(range) %dissipation 0 0.31(0.25-0.37) 0.79(0.71-0.85) 1 0.16(0.13-0.21) 48.39 0.33(0.31-0.35) 58.23 3 0.02(0.01-0.04) 93.55 0.10(0.09-012) 87.34 7 bdl 100 0.03(0.03-0.04) 96.20 15 bdl 100 bdl 100 regression equation (r-value) y= 2.54 – 0.40 x(-0.995) y= 2.76 – 0.19 x(-0.974) half-life (rl 50) days 0.75 1.55 bdlbelow detectable level limit of detection <0.01 µg/g pesticide to contaminate vegetables and other foods increases with increasing mobility and half-life. thus, this insecticide can be safely used in bitter gourd at the doses mentioned. references fischer. c. p. and busch, p. e. 1989. pest status : temperate europe and west asia, in: robinson, a.s. and hopper, g. (eds.). fruit flies, their biology, natural enemies and control. world crop pest., 3: 37-50 raj, m. f., shah, p. g., patel, b. k., patel, b. a. and patel, j. a. 1999. dissipation of triazophos from brinjal and okra fruits. pesticide res. j., 11: 102-105 reddy, a.v. 1997. evaluation of certain new insecticides against cucurbit fruit fly (dacus cucurbitae coq.) on bitter gourd. ann. agril. res., 18: 252-254 reddy, k. n., sultan. m. a., reddy, d. j. and babu, t. r. 2001. dissipation of triazophos residue in brinjal. pestology., 25: 51-53 srivastava, k. p. and butani, d. k. 1998. cucurbits. in: pest management in vegetables (part i). research periodicals and book publishing hosue, india, pp.294 (ms received 24 december 2007, revised 19 april 2008) persistence and dissipation of triazophos j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 82-83, 2008 tuberose is an important flower crop grown in india for its beautiful and fragrant flowers. flower spikes have varied uses in bouquets and vases, while loose flowers are used for making garlands/ ‘venis’ and other floral arrangements. maharashtra enjoys a congenial climate for tuberose cultivation. tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa linn.) needs an improved package of practices for better yield and quality of flowers. irrigation schedule and quantity of water applied are important factors deciding production. scarcity of water has compelled the stakeholders to think seriously about water management in the crop. pressurized irrigation system comprises drip, micro-sprinklers, spray guns, etc. the suitability of a method depends upon the crop and its planting density. to study the performance of tuberose under different irrigation systems, a trial was conducted at the precision farming development centre, m.p.k.v., rahuri. the experiment was conducted at the experimental farm of precision farming development centre, rahuri. three treatments, viz., drip irrigation, micro-sprinkler and surface irrigation (conventional) were studied. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with seven replications. tuberose cv. suvasini (double) was short communication effect of various irrigation methods on growth, flowering and yield of tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa linn.) m.r. deshmukh precision farming development centre, dr. a.s. college of agricultural engineering, mahatma phule krishi vidyapeeth, rahuri-413722, india e-mail: mrdesh101@yahoo.co.in abstract tuberose flower has very good fragrance and is suitable for loose and cut flowers. although crop improvement has been researched upon in various institutes and state agricultural universities, irrigation management in this crop has not been given much emphasis. this factor is important and crucial in crop production. a field trial was conducted at precision farming development centre, rahuri, with the objective of studying performance of tuberose cv. suvasini double under three irrigation systems, viz., drip, micro-sprinkler and surface irrigation (conventional method). irrigation through drip and micro-sprinkler was applied at 0.85 pe; and in the conventional method of irrigation, the interval was set at 60 mm cpe with 6 cm depth of irrigation. micro-sprinkler system proved to be the best and gave a flower yield of 6.77 lakh spikes/ ha with better flower quality, than drip or surface method of irrigation. b:c ratio was also higher under micro-sprinkler (2.68 ). key words: tuberose, micro-sprinkler, drip planted at 40 x15 cm spacing in 1.60x12.0 m size beds. recommended dose of 200:300:300 kg npk / ha was applied. before planting, the bulbs were treated with 0.2% carbendazim for 30 minutes. irrigation through drip and micro-sprinkler was applied at 0.85 pe and, in the surfacemethod of irrigation, the interval was set at 60 mm cpe with 6 cm depth of irrigation water. details of the irrigation methods are as under: irrigation system/ drip microsurface parameters sprinkler method lateral size 16mm 16mm border irrigation, lateral spacing 2.2 m 2.2 m size of border emission spacing 60 cm 2.0 m = 12x 1.6 m average discharge 4 lph 44 lph operational pressure 1 kg/cm2 1 kg/cm2 uniformity coefficient 90% 94% average discharge and emission uniformity were computed by the formula of by keller and karmelli (1974). recommended dose of fertilizer was given in 30 splits. irrigations were scheduled for every alternate day. depth of water to be applied per plant was calculated using the equation j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):94-97, 2012 95 irrigation methods influencing tuberose cultivation d = pe x kc x kp where d = depth of water to be applied (mm) kc = crop co-efficient (0.8, 1.0 and 1.2 for 3 months, respectively) kp = pan factor (0.7) pe = sum of pan evaporation for two days (mm) volume of water to be applied for the treatment was computed by the equation v = d x a x n where v = volume of water (l) table 1. performance of tuberose under various irrigation methods parameter year (t1) drip (t2) micro(t3) convencd at 5% (microtube) sprinkler tional method average plant height at bud 99-00 59.179 63.439 50.619 4.859 stage (cm) 00-01 59.107 64.446 49.909 0.288 01-02 59.158 63.978 48.460 0.236 pooled 59.148 63.954 49.663 1.695 average no. of leaves/plant at 99-00 96.094 106.136 91.800 6.140 onset of flowering 00-01 95.766 108.129 90.978 0.349 01-02 96.032 107.663 89.944 0.459 pooled 95.964 107.309 90.907 2.181 no. of flowers/spike 99-00 49.206 55.460 44.381 2.053 00-01 49.259 55.617 44.421 0.596 01-02 49.618 56.184 43.972 0.412 pooled 49.494 55.986 44.124 0.212 average spike length (cm) 99-00 107.774 110.374 99.456 3.086 00-01 107.970 111.316 99.689 1.768 01-02 107.869 110.989 99.446 0.161 pooled 107.880 111.009 99.485 0.450 length of rachis (cm) 99-00 48.571 51.570 41.857 2.997 00-01 49.353 52.010 35.809 0.473 01-02 48.842 51.915 38.786 0.336 pooled 48.922 51.832 38.817 4.365 wt. of spike (g) 99-00 36.226 39.143 30.803 3.126 00-01 36.796 39.934 30.657 0.692 01-02 36.637 39.799 30.378 0.448 pooled 36.677 39.829 30.466 0.238 yield of bulbs (t/ha) 99-00 36.106 45.201 31.039 8.731 00-01 37.803 47.564 31.073 2.709 01-02 36.967 46.469 30.865 0.252 pooled 36.973 46.477 30.867 0.160 yield of bulblets (t/ha) 99-00 13.641 16.147 10.034 4.032 00-01 14.256 17.144 9.910 1.256 01-02 13.930 16.669 9.758 0.139 pooled 13.934 16.674 9.760 0.009 spike yield (lakh/ha) 99-00 5.241 6.650 4.423 0.760 00-01 5.241 6.817 4.530 0.314 01-02 5.192 6.763 4.390 0.112 pooled 5.198 6.767 4.395 0.007 duration of opening of 99-00 20.071 22.500 19.071 0.750 flowers from 1st to last 00-01 19.960 22.453 18.976 0.425 on the spike in field (days) 01-02 19.997 22.532 18.840 0.310 pooled 19.993 22.504 18.906 0.151 bulb diameter (cm) 99-00 2.689 3.140 2.090 0.268 00-01 2.683 3.339 2.019 0.247 01-02 2.692 3.254 1.967 0.128 pooled 2.690 3.252 1.995 0.007 average amt. of water applied/year (cm) — 156.97 156.97 196.0 — j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):94-97, 2012 96 d = depth of water (mm) a = area of one plot (m2) n = number of plots or replications per treatments time of operation (hr) of drip irrigation system for each treatment was calculated using the equation to = v / q. eu.n. n where to = time of application of the operation of drip irrigation unit for the respective treatment (hr) v = volume of water to be applied for each application for all three replications of treatment (l) q = average discharge of emitters in the respective treatments (lph) eu = emission uniformity of the drip irrigation unit n = number of emitters per treatment n = number of plots per treatment observations on plant height, number of leaves, number of flowers per spike, average spike length, length of rachis (cm), weight of spike (g), yield of bulbs (t/ha), yield of bulblets (t/ha), spike yield, days for opening of flowers and, diameter of bulb (cm) were recorded. results presented in table 1 depict significant effect of various irrigation systems on growth and yield in tuberose cv. suvasini. pressurized irrigation, viz., sprinkler and drip, proved better than the surface method of irrigation. microsprinkler was the best and gave significantly better values [mean plant height at bud stage (63.95 cm), number of leaves per plant at onset of flowering (107.30), number of flowers per spike (55.98), spike length (111.00 cm), length of rachis (51.83 cm), weight of spike (39.82 g), yield (6.76 lakh spikes / ha), yield of bulb (46.47 t/ha) and bulblet yield (16.67 t/ha) and bulb diameter (3.25 cm)]. flower spikes lasted longer under micro-sprinkler irrigation. results obtained in microsprinkler were superior over the other irrigation systems because of maximum area wetted and better microclimate. the active root zone in tuberose lies at 30 cm soil depth. micro-sprinkler created favourable conditions for bulb development, bulblet multiplication, better growth and yield of spikes, etc. these results are in agreement with beattii et al (1993) who reported very marked differences in response to irrigation methods in asiatic lilies. table 2. cost economics in tuberose cultivation cost economics drip (microtube) microsprinkler conventional fixed cost (rs./ha) 40000 85000 — a) life (seasons) 7 7 — b) depreciation 5143 10929 — c) interest 5600 11900 — d) repairs & maintenance 800 1700 — e) total (b+c+d) 11543 24529 — cost of cultivation (rs./ha) 55391 55391 55391 seasonal total cost (1e + 2) (rs./ha) 66934 79920 55391 water used (mm) 1569.7 1569.7 1960.0 yield of produce ( spikes/ha) 519800 676700 439500 selling price (rs./ spike) 0.15 0.15 0.15 a) income from produce (5 x 6) (rs.) 77970 101505 65925 b) income form bulbs (rs.) 93750 112500 75000 c) total (a + b) 171920 214005 140925 net seasonal income (7-3) (rs.) 104986 134085 85534 additional area cultivated due to saving of water (ha) 0.25 0.25 — additional expenditure due to additional area (3rd x 9th) (rs.) 16734 19980 — additional income due to additional area (7 x 9) (rs.) 42980 53501 — additional net income (11 10) (rs.) 26246 33521 — gross cost of production ( rs.) (3+ 10) 83668 99900 55391 gross income (7+11) (rs.) 214900 267506 140925 gross b:c ratio (14/13) 2.57 2.68 2.54 net extra income due to irrigation system over conventional 45698 82072 — (12 + 8 drip 8th conventional) (rs.) net profit per mm water used (8/4) 66.88 85.42 43.64 wue (5/4) (spikes/ha mm) 331.15 431.10 224.23 deshmukh j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):94-97, 2012 97 overhead method of irrigation produced plants with greater height and good yield. similar results were reported by shillo (1992) who stated that tuberose was a popular garden plant besides its use on cut flower; each rhizome of the plant has a potential to produce one flower; but, flowering percentage is related to rhizome size and the irrigation method. in field trials on cv. pearl, it was observed that plants irrigated with micro-sprinklers had maximum height and number of leaves. each spike had as many as 60 flowers/ spike and averaged 115 cm in length. performance of tuberose under drip irrigation was found to be better than in conventional irrigation system. low performance of these systems compared to that with micro-sprinkler can be attributed to the growing conditions and soil water status which, in these methods, is not as congenial. ramaswamy et al (1979) also reported similar results in their study on influence of various methods of irrigation on flowering and yield in tuberose. total amount of water applied through micro-sprinkler and drip was 156.97 cm/ year as against 196.0 cm /year in the surface method of irrigation. cost economics presented in table 2 reveal that maximum b:c ratio of 2.68 was obtained with micro-sprinkler method of irrigation. references beattie, d.j., blodgett, a.m. and holcomb, e.j. 1993. effects of root removal, irrigation methods and ancymidol on flowering of asiatic lilies. plant growth regulator society of america (quarterly) 21:64-72 keller, j. and karmeli, d. 1974. trickle irrigation design parameters. part ii, hort. rev., 17:678-684 ramaswamy, n., paulraj, c. and chocklingam, p. 1979. studies on the influence of different irrigation methods on flowering and yield of tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa l.). annamalai. univ. agri. res. annua, 7:29-33 shillo, r. 1992. the tuber community holds the answer to flowering problems in polyanthes tuberosa. acta hort., 325:139-148 (ms received 03 august 2010, revised 17 april 2012) irrigation methods influencing tuberose cultivation j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):94-97, 2012 eggplant (solanum melongena l.) is an important, popular and nutritious vegetable grown in asia and other parts of the world. ability of brinjal to respond well to tissue culture has allowed application of various, powerful biotechnology techniques in this crop for management of genetic resources and improvement (magioli and mansur, 2005). several studies on morphogenetic potential in brinjal have been undertaken to demonstrate relative importance of explant type, genotype and growth regulators in in vitro regeneration response. bhatia et al (2004) reported optimum age and size of explants to be important for achieving good regeneration in tomato. curuk et al (2002) reported that young hypocotyl explants showed rapid shoot regeneration. cell aggregate size (total cell mass) is also important in determining organogenetic competence, cell division and further response of an explant (compton, 2000). however, no effort has been made to assess and document the effect of age and size of explant on shoot regeneration response in eggplant. manjarigota is a round, striped, tastier and preferred brinjal variety in india, and hypocotyl explant was seen to be highly responsive to regeneration (prakash et al, 2008). hence, we made an effort to document the effect of size and age of hypocotyl explants on in vitro morphogenetic response in brinjal cv. manjarigota. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):203-205, 2012 effect of age and size of hypocotyl explant on in vitro shoot regeneration in eggplant d.p. prakash, b.s. deepali1, y.l. ramachandra2, lalitha anand1 and vageeshbabu s. hanur1 college of horticulture, munirabad-583 233 koppal, uhs bagalkot, karnataka, india e-mail: prakashdp@gmail.com abstract in the present study, effect of size and age of hypocotyl explant on in vitro organogenetic responses was assessed in eggplant cv. manjarigota. size and age did not affect callus-initiation response, but showed marked influence on shoot regeneration response. hypocotyl explants 1.5cm long showed highest shoot regeneration response (77.4%); either increase or decrease in size resulted in reduced response. five to 15 day old hypocotyl explants showed direct shoot regeneration from cut ends, whereas 20-30 day old hypocotyl explants showed indirect shoot regeneration from callus produced on cut ends. five day old explants were most responsive, with highest (91.23%) and thirty day old explants least responsive with reference to shoot regeneration response (20.85%). shoot regeneration frequency decreased with increasing age, whereas shoot regeneration efficiency increased with increasing age of hypocotyl explants. key words: eggplant, shoot regeneration, age and size, hypocotyl explants breeder seed of eggplant cv. manjarigota was obtained from division of vegetable crops, iihr, bangalore during 2003-05 and 2008-10 experimental periods. aseptic cultures of explants were raised as per the protocol of prakash et al (2007). hypocotyl segments (after removing apical meristem and the basal root stubs) were cultured on shoot regeneration medium as per murashige and skoog (1992) [srm: full strength ms major and minor salts, organics and vitamins, 3% sucrose (w/v), 0.8% agar (w/v), 2µm bap and 0.05µm naa]. ph of the medium was adjusted to 5.75±0.05 prior to autoclaving. cultures were incubated at 25±1°c with 16/8h photoperiod under light intensity of 30-40 µem-2s-1. to study the effect of size, hypocotyl explants of different sizes (short 0.5cm, medium 1.0cm, long 1.5cm and very long 2.0cm) were cultured on srm in 20 replications in glass petri dishes twice over. to study the effect of age, hypocotyl explants of different ages (5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 days after germination) were cultured on srm in four replications in petri dishes and the experiment was repeated. data were subjected to anova to test significance of the observed results. comparison between mean values of treatment was made by lsd to identify best treatments. the best combination of cytokinin (bap) and auxin 1division of biotechnology, indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089 2department of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta, shimoga 577 451, india 204 prakash et al (naa) obtained from among the various concentrations tested (prakash et al, 2008) was used for inducing shoots in hypocotyl explants. size of hypocotyl explant did not affect callus initiation response, but, significantly affected shoot regeneration. long-sized (1.5cm) hypocotyl explants were most responsive (77.4%) (fig.1). decrease or increase in size of the explant resulted in reduced regeneration response. similarly, frary and earle (1996) reported reduction in shoot regeneration response with increasing or decreasing size of explants, whereas, 1 cm long hypocotyl explants were optimum for shoot regeneration in tomato (bhatia et al, 2004). in our study, explants of all ages showed callus initiation response (100%) after 3-5 days of culture (data not shown). hypocotyl explants 5-15 old days showed direct shoot regeneration from the cut end (fig. 2-a) after 13-15 days of culture. these gave rise to shoots at one end, and adventitious roots at the other end, indicating polarity. hypocotyl explants 20-30 days old gave rise to shoots from profuse and compact callus produced at the cut ends after 3-4 weeks of culture. furthermore, age significantly affected both frequency (no. of explants showing regeneration response/no. of explants cultured) and efficiency (average no. of shoots per explant) of shoot regeneration on the hypocotyl explant (table 1). explants five and 30 days old showed highest (91.23%) and lowest (20.85%) shoot regeneration response, respectively. shoot regeneration frequency decreased with increase in age, whereas, efficiency increased with increase in age of hypocotyl explants. thirty days old explants showed highest shoot regeneration efficiency (1.9/explant). this may be perhaps due to the ability of young, undifferentiated or recently differentiated cells of hypocotyl explants to redirect their developmental programme and, thereby, produce new shoots faster than do old explants (curuk et al, 2002). tissues are known to lose organogenetic competence with increase in age (pastori et al, 2001) and, in such cases, intermediate callus phase appears to be necessary for organogenesis. the intermediate callus phase may be responsible for the delayed response in older explants. similarly, in previous studies on eggplant, callus-mediated shoot regeneration response appeared after 3-4 weeks of culture on 4-6 week old explant, irrespective of genotype, explant type and growth regulators (magioli and mansur, 2005). murashige (1974) reported that ratio of the phytohormones in culture medium controls organogentic response of a tissue in a crop plant. however, in our laboratory, five-day-old hypocotyl explants showed shoot regeneration from cut ends without callus phase on all growth regulator combinations tested (prakash et al, 2008). therefore, under the present culture conditions, age of explant was found to be a critical factor that decided the mode of organogenesis in vitro and frequency of shoot regeneration in eggplant. fig 2. organogentic response in (a) 5-day old (b) 30-day old hypocotyl explants of eggplant on shoot regeneration medium fig 1. effects of size of hypocotyl explants on organogenetic response in eggplant cv. manjarigota (cd for regeneration response 14.15; significant at p ≤≤≤≤≤ 0.01) table 1. effect of age of hypocotyl explant on organogenetic response in eggplant cv. manjarigota age of hypocotyl regeneration no. of shoots/ explant (days old) frequency*(%) explants 5 91.23a ± 0.019 1.076a ± 0.033 10 73.75b ± 0.019 1.096ba ± 0.033 15 72.42bc ± 0.016 1.125b ± 0.024 20 60.69bc ± 0.016 1.380 b ± 0.020 25 36.97d ± 0.022 1.610b ± 0.046 30 20.85d ± 0.016 1.900b ± 0.126 sem 3.58 0.062 cd at p:0.01 10.87 0.33 values are mean ± se of 15 replications; *fractions were converted into percentage; percentage data was subjected to angular transformation before analysis j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):203-205, 2012 205 in conclusion, use of optimum-size explants appears to be necessary for obtaining good shoot regeneration. young hypocotyl explants were rapid and hastened the process of shoot regeneration. this can save time and other inputs in future basic research and crop improvement studies in eggplant. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to national agricultural technology project (natp), icar, for financial assistance in the form of competitive grants programme. thanks are also due to director, iihr, for encouragement. references bhatia, p., ashwath, n., senaratna, t. and midmore, j.d. 2004. tissue culture studies of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum). pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 78:1-21 compton, m.e. 2000. interaction between explant size and cultivar affects shoot organogenic competence of watermelon cotyledons. hortsci., 35:749-50 curuk, s., elman, c., schlarman, e., sagee, o., shomer, i., cetiner, s., gray, d.j. and gaba, v. 2002. a novel pathway for rapid shoot regeneration from the proximal zone of the hypocotyl of melon (cucumis melo l.). in vitro cell. dev. biol., 38:260-267 frary, a. and earle, e.d. 1996. an examination of factors affecting the efficiency of agrobacterium-mediated transformation of tomato. pl. cell rep., 16:235-240 magioli, c. and mansur, e. 2005. eggplant (solanum melongena l.): tissue culture, genetic transformation and use as an alternative model plant. acta bot. bras., 19:139-148 murashige, 1974. plant propagation through tissue cultures. ann. rev. pl. physiol., 25:135-166 murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised method for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. plant., 15:473-497 pastori, g.m., wilkinson, m.d., steeke, s.h., sparks, c.a., jones, h.d. and parry, m.a.j. 2001. age dependent transformation frequency in wheat varieties. j. exptl. bot., 52:857-63 prakash, d.p., deepali, b.s., asokan, r., ramachandra, y.l., shetti, d.l., lalitha anand and vageeshbabu s. hanur. 2008. effect of growth regulators on in vitro complete plant regeneration in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) ind. j. hort., 65:371-376 prakash, d.p., deepali, b.s., asokan, r., ramachandra, y.l., lalitha anand and vageeshbabu s. hanur. 2007. effect of explant type and growth regulators in the transformation of brinjal (solanum melongena l.) cv. manjarigota. j. hortl. sci., 2:94-98 (ms received 07 january 2012, revised 09 july 2012) in vitro shoot regeneration in eggplant j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):203-205, 2012 192 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 192-196, 2018 development of moringa infusion for green tea and its evaluation pushpa chethan kumar1*, shamina azeez2 and t.k. roy2 *1division of post harvest technology and agricultural engineering, 2division of crop physiology and biochemistry, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru, karnataka, india 560 089 *email: pushpa0908@gmail.com abstract moringa oleifera leaves are known for its high nutritional quality. its leaves are commonly used for culinary purposes and it was explored as a potential nutraceutical in recent decades. tea or herbal infusions have become an integral part of daily diet for a population who concerned about a healthy lifestyle. many herbs or plant parts have been used as infusions which provide health promoting phytochemicals to the consumers. therefore moringa infusions were prepared along with some herbs/flavouring agents such as tulsi, ginger and lemon grass. total polyphenol content in the infusions ranged between 685 and 1567 mg gae/100 ml. among phenolic acids detected, gallic acid was highest in all the treatments. infusion containing moringa and tulsi scored high in organoleptic evaluation. thus, moringa infusion can become an add-on variety to the tea/herbal infusion consumers. keywords: moringa, herbs, infusion, polyphenols introduction herbal infusion has become an integral part of urban populations’ diet today. health conscious people prefer nutritious and refreshing drink which relaxes them and relieves. a study by cbi (centre for promotion of imports from developing countries), ministry of foreign affairs, netherlands, showed that in europe, tea consumers are increasingly looking for high value specialty tea which are unique in flavour (www.cbi.eu/market-information/tea/trends). green tea, black tea, infusions with herbs/fruits; fruit /herbal teas are becoming important premium products. tea and herbal infusions are the major contributors for phenolic acids and other antioxidants in today’s diet (atoui et al., 2005; horzic et al., 2009; mcalpine et al., 2016; shahidi, 2000). consumption of tea is linked to reduce risk in development of chronic diseases such as cvd (cardiovascular disease), different types of cancer, diabetes mellitus and obesity. kuriyama et al. (2006) studied the association between consumption of green tea and mortality for over 11 years. the results showed that green tea consumption is inversely associated with mortality due to all causes and due to cvd. another study by imai and nakachi (1995) showed the a ssocia tion between gr een tea consumption and cvd and disorders of liver in japanese population. results indicated that increased green tea consumption (e”10 cups) has decreased serum concentrations, triglycerides and an increased hdl (high density lipoprotein) with decreased ldl (low density lipoprotein) and vldl (very low density lipoprotein). a study by iso et al. (2006) reported a reduction of 33% risk for developing type 2 diabetes in subjects who has consumed six or more cups of gr een tea per day, compa red to those consuming less than one cup in a week. apart from tea leaves, medicinal plants, herbs and spices have also been shown to have bioactive compounds which benefits health (azeez et al., 2016; vats and gupta, 2017). hence the present study was conducted to develop moringa infusion along with herbs and estimation of their bioactive compounds. fresh leaves of moringa oleifera cv. bhagya were harvested in early hours of morning from the field of icar-indian institute of horticulture research (icar-iihr), bengaluru. leaves were separated from the twigs manually, washed with potable water, drained and subjected to solar-tunnel drying. the dried leaves were powdered using lab scale stainless steel blender. leaves of tulsi (ocimum sanctum) and lemon 193 moringa green tea infusion j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 192-196, 2018 grass (cymbopogon citratus) were obtained from the field of medicinal and aromatic plants icar-iihr. ginger (zingiber officinale) was procured from local market. leaves were washed with potable water, drained and oven dried (55 °c). ginger rhizome was washed with potable water, peeled, cut in to small pieces and dried in oven at 55 °c. all the samples were powdered using lab scale stainless steel blender. standardization of addition of herbs along with moringa was done based on sensory analysis. tea bags were prepared from moringa (t1), moringa + tulsi (t2), moringa + ginger (t3) and moringa + lemon grass (t4) as detailed in table 1. a sample of 0.5 g of each treatment was prepared in tea bags and dipped in 50 ml of hot distilled water (85-90 °c) for about two minutes, allowed to cool, and filtered using whatman 1 filter paper. table 1: treatments and ratio of ingredients used for the preparation of infusion. treatments ingredients ratio t1 moringa 100 t2 moringa + tulsi 100:40 t3 moringa + ginger 100:40 t4 moringa + lemon grass 100:60 total phenol content was analyzed in aqueous infusion according to folin-ciocalteu procedure as described by jayasekara et al. (2011). in brief, an aliquot of 0.25 ml of infusion extract was mixed with 5 ml of 2% na2co3, allowed to stand for five minutes. then 0.25 ml of folin-ciocalteu reagent (50%) was added and incubated in dark for 30 min at room tempera tur e. absor ba nce was rea d at 650 nm. calibration was achieved with an aqueous gallic acid solution and total phenol content was expressed as gallic acid equivalent. standard solutions of phenolic acids were prepared in 80% ethanol. chromatographic/ms grade organic solvents were used as the mobile phase for liquid chromatography. all mobile phases were filtered thr ough membr a nes (0. 45 μm). differ ent concentrations of individual compounds were made to obtain standard curves for individual phenolic acids which were identified and quantified by their molecular weight (pa r ent ma ss m/z) a nd most abunda nt fragmented daughters. the mobile phase consisted of an aqueous phase of 0.1% formic acid in water (a) and organic phase of 0.2% formic acid in methanol (b). the initial gradient was composed of 90% aqueous phase and organic phase (10%), which was held for 2.5 min. after 4 min, the gradient was changed to aqueous phase (70%) and organic phase (30%), held for 1 min. at 5 min, linear gradient was followed after arriving at aqueous phase (60%) and organic phase (40%) for 5 min. at 10 min the gradient was again changed to aqueous phase (80%) and organic phase (20%) for 2 min. and final step with aqueous phase of 90% and organic phase of 10% for 2 min. this condition was held for 1 min for equilibrating before the next injection. the flow rate was maintained at 0.3 ml/min. the analytical column used was 2.1 x 50 mm uplc beh c18 column (waters) with particles of 1.7 μm and a column temperature of 25 °c. exactly 2 μl of sample was injected. the eluted metabolites from uplc column effluent were monitored. sensory evaluation was done by a group of 10 semi trained panellists who were well acquainted with green tea consumption. numerical scoring test was used to evaluate moringa infusion. scorings were provided as 90 for excellent, 80 for good, 70 for fair and 60 for poor. a completely randomized experimental design was used for this study and data were analyzed using wasp statistical software (wasp 2.0, icar research complex for goa, ela, goa, india.) (jayade et al., 2015). total phenolics and total flavonoids content is presented in table 2. total phenol content ranged between 685 and 1567 mg gae/100 ml of infusion. the results revealed that total phenol content was high in infusion containing moringa and tulsi (t2) followed by t4 which contains lemon grass along with moringa, however no significant difference was observed. the least content of polyphenol was found in t3 which had ginger with moringa. but, maraes-de-souza et al. (2008) reported less phenolic content in the infusions prepared from fresh herbs. total phenolic content in fresh leaves of tulsi was 1.25 mg gae/g as observed by sailaja et al. (2010) and in ginger it was 840 mg/ 194 pushpa chethan kumar et al 2006). however, author has not discussed about the variation in phenol content in tea prepared from different herbs. in the present study, the lesser content of phenols in treatments t3 compar ed to other treatments might be due to antagonistic or synergistic effects among compounds in the infusion (baptistaa et al.1998). phenolic acid profile revealed that most of the phenolic acids were present in all the treatments (table 3). gallic acid was the major phenolic acid followed by trans-cinnamic acid in all the treatments. horzic et al. (2009) found gallic acid in different types of tea but it was not detected in linden and chamomile infusion. caffeic acid was found highest in infusion containing tulsi compar ed to other tr eatments. sundaram et al. (2012) and zgorka and glowniak (2001) have also reported the occurrence of caffeic acid in tulsi leaves. thus, presence of most of the phenolic acids in moringa infusion provides a variety and medicinal advantage to the herbal infusion consumers. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 192-196, 2018 table 2: total polyohenol content of moringa infusions total polyphenol treatments (mg gae/100 ml infusion) t1 (moringa) 1550a t2 (moringa + tulsi) 1567a t3 (moringa + ginger) 685b t4 (moringa + lemon grass) 1559a values are the mean of three replications (n=3). values with the same superscript in each column do not differ significantly. table 3: profile of phenolic acids in moringa infusions phenolic acids µg/100 ml t1 t2 t3 t4 salicylic acid 244.38 933.02 49.72 126.72 2,4-dihydrobenzoic acid 25.13 229.61 34.55 62.11 gallic acid 1045.30 539.26 3516.51 17524.83 ferulic acid 64.54 208.47 20.28 117.01 gentisic acid 90.98 55.23 59.53 80.18 chlorogenic acid 23.47 25.23 5.70 9.50 ortho-coumaric acid 17.78 71.72 74.06 nd para-coumaric acid 94.47 14.60 28.40 nd procatechuic acid 104.28 53.23 90.53 84.11 para-hydroxybenzoic acid 1.63 0.42 0.58 1.10 syringic acid nd nd 0.44 nd trans-cinnamic acid 299.21 261.41 109.72 228.69 caffeic acid 24.81 13662.80 56.29 58.96 3-hydroxy benzoic acid 1.47 1.31 1.25 0.24 benzoic acid 76.77 5.28 13.58 33.70 vanillic acid 132.36 17.77 45.19 31.73 sinapic acid 19.97 nd nd 29.16 ellagic acid 57.03 nd nd nd nd-not detected 100g dw in water extract (shirin and prakash, 2010). high phenol content in tea containing lemon grass and low phenol content in tea containing tulsi was observed by naithani et al. (2006). herbal tea containing two species of tulsi and lemon grass showed 786 and 2651 mg gae/100g of sample, respectively (naithani et al., 195 sensory evaluation by semi trained panellists revealed that among the treatments, t2 scored the highest (82.4) followed by t1 (77.5), t3 (77.5) and least by t4 (75). the high sensory score of t2 could be due to the fact that the evaluators had already developed taste for tulsi as it is being used for ethnomedicinal purposes from ancient times in india (cochen, 2014). since moringa infusion is a new product, it might be difficult for people to accept it as an infusion. health conscious people have to slowly develop the taste for it because of its nutritional quality. it could be concluded from the study that moringa oliefera, being a rich source of bioactive compounds can also be used for infusion preparations as new product by adding variety to the green or black tea consumers. even though moringa along with tulsi scored high organoleptically, moringa infusion will be best from the health point of view as it provides more total phenols. acknowledgment the authors thankfully acknowledge the support received from icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india. references alpine mc, m.d. and ward, w.e. 2016. influence of steep time on polyphenol content and antioxidant capacity of black, green, rooibas and herbal tea. beverages., 2(17): 2-12. azeez, s., antony, j., leela, n.k. and anto, r.j. 2016. antioxidant and cytotoxic effects of essential oil, water and ethanol extracts of major indian spices. indian j hortic., 73(2):229-235. atoui, a.k., mansouri, a., boskous, g. and kefalas, p. 2005. tea and herba l infusions: their antioxidants activity and phenolic profile. food chem., 89: 27-36. baptistaa, j.a.b. tavaresa, j.f.p. and carvalhob, r.c.b. 1998. comparision of catechins and aromas among different green teas using hplc/ spme-gc. food res int., 31(10): 729-736. cochen, m.m. 2014. tulsiocimum sanctum: a herb for all reasons. j ayurveda integr med., 5(4): 251-259. horzic, d., komes, d., belscak, a., ganic, k.k., ivekovic, d. and karlovic, d. 2009. the composition of polyphenols a nd methylxanthines in teas and herbal infusions. food chem., 115: 441-448. imai, k. and nakachi, k. 1995. cross sectional study of effects of dr inking gr een tea on cardiovascular and liver diseases. bmj., 310(6981): 693-696. iso, h., date, c., wakai, k., fukui, m and tamakoshi, a. 2006. the relationship between green tea and total caffeine intake and risk for self-reported type 2 diabetes among japanese adults. ann intern med., 144(8): 554-562. jayade, k. g., deshmukh, p. d. and khot, p. g. 2015. statistical analysis software for agricultural research data analysis. int j ad res comput sci softw eng., 5: 885–90. jayasekara, s., molan, a.l., garg, m. and moughan, p.j. 2011. variation in antioxidant potential and total polyphenol content of fresh and fullyfermented sri lankan tea. food chem., 125: 536-541. kuriyama, s., shimazu, t., ohmori, k., kikuchi, n., nakaya, n., nishino, y., tsubono, y. and tsuji, i. 2006. green tea consumption and mortality due to cardiovascular disease, cancer and all causes in japan. jama netw open. 296(10): 1255-1265. maraes-de-souza, r.a., oldoni, t.l.c., regitano-d ar ce, m. a. b. a nd alenca r, s. m. 2008. antioxidant activity and phenolic composition of herbal infusions consumed in brazil. cyta j food., 6(1): 41-47. naithani, v., nair, s. and kakkar, p. 2006. decline in antioxidant capacity of indian herbal teas during storage and its relation to phenolic content. food res int., 39: 176-181. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 192-196, 2018 moringa green tea infusion 196 sailaja, i., shaker, i.a. and ratna, y.k. 2010. antioxidant activity and phenolic contents in ocimum sanctum and ocimum bascilium. asian j bio sci., 5(1): 1-5. shahidi, f. 2000. antioxidant in food and food antioxidants. food/nahrung. 44(3): 158-163. shir in, a.p. r. and prakash, j. 2010. chemical composition and antioxidant properties of ginger root (zingiber officinale). j med plant res., 4(24): 2674-2679. sundaram, r.s., ramanathan, m., rajesh, r., sateesh, b. a nd sa r a va na n, d. 2012. lc-ms quantification of rosemaric acid and ursolic acid in the ocimum sanctum linn. leaf extract (holy basil, tulsi). j liq chromatogr relat technol., 35: 634-650. vats, s. and gupta, t. 2017. evaluation of bioactive compounds a nd a ntioxida nt potentia l of hydroethanolic extract of moringa oleifera lam. from rajasthan, india. physiol mol biol plants., 23(1): 239-248. zgorka, g. and glowniak, k. 2001. variation of free phenolic acids in medicinal plants belonging to the lamiaceae family. j pharm biomed anal., 26(1): 79-87. (ms received 30 august 2018, revised 12 november 2018, accepted 28 december 2018) j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 192-196, 2018 pushpa chethan kumar et al chilli (capsicum annuum l.) an important condiment and vegetable crop is cultivated and raised for both green and dry fruits. important chilli growing states of india are andhra pradesh, maharashtra, karnataka, orissa and tamil nadu, accounting for more than 70% acreage. andhra pradesh ranks first in india both in area and production, with 2.04 lakh hectares producing 323 thousand tones (anon., 2010). however, the crop suffers many diseases such as anthracnose, powdery mildew, wilts, viral diseases, etc. of late, fusariam wilt has become a serious problem in chilli-growing irrigated tracts of andhra pradesh particularly, in black cotton soils, leading to 25% yield loss (madhkar and naik, 2000). symptoms include leaf chlorosis, vascular discoloration and wilting of plants. high temperature and high moisture are conducive for disease development. reducing soil moisture is an important step for managing the disease. if economically viable, soil fumigants and solarization may be used to reduce pathogen population in the soil. successful management of these wilt diseases is vital to ensure economic viability of chilli production. chemical management is an important tool for control of diseases, including soil-borne diseases. in addition, identification of effective fungicides would enable consolidation of different components required to formulate integrated disease management evaluation of fungicides, soil amendment practices and bioagents against fusarium solani causal agent of wilt disease in chilli g. bindu madhavi and s.l. bhattiprolu regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur 522 034, india e-mail : gopireddy_bindu@yahoo.co.in abstract chilli is affected by the wilt disease caused by fusarium solani, under irrigated conditions. in absence of resistant cultivars, the disease needs to be controlled by management practices. in vitro evaluation of six fungicides by poisoned food technique showed that a combination of carbendazim+mancozeb was effective in inhibiting mycelial growth (93.6%), followed by carbendazim alone (92.4%). in vivo soil drench using the same fungicides proved effective in controlling the pathogen. integration of different treatments, including seedling dip, with carbendazim, addition of vermicompost, drenching with fungicide, and application of trichoderma viride was found to be effective in managing the disease, in comparison to individual treatments. key-words: chilli, fusarium solani, fungicides, trichoderma viride, soil amendment isolation of the fungus the wilt fungus was isolated from roots of chilli plants (cv. lca) 334 grown at rars, lam, by the standard isolation method under aseptic conditions. infected tissues of the root were cut into small pieces of 1-2 mm size and surface-sterilized with 0.1% mercuric chloride solution for 30 sec and washed repeatedly (thrice) in sterile distilled water and placed in petri plates containing sterilized pda, and incubated at 28+oc. the culture thus obtained was purified by single-spore isolation and identified as fusarium solani based on morphological description given by barnett (1960). soil used for all pot-culture experiments, black cotton soil sterilized with 5% formaldehyde solution was used, for raising chilli plants. each plant was raised individually in 2kg capacity plastic bag. three replications, each comprising 20 plants, were taken for each treatment. in vitro evaluation of fungicides four systemic (carbendazim 0.1%, benomyl 0.1%, tebuconazole 0.5%, thiophanate methyl 0.1%) and one nonsystemic (pencycuron 0.5%) and one combination of systemic and contact (carbendazim + mancozeb 0.2%) short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):141-144, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 142 fungicides, were evaluated against f. solani. all fungicides were tested at their recommended dose of concentration. poisoned food technique recommended dose of fungicide was added to molten pda just before pouring it into plates. twenty milliliter of medium with the desired concentration of fungicide was poured into each sterilized petriplate. suitable checks were laid for comparison. five millimeter mycelial disc of f. solani was taken from the periphery of 10 day old culture and placed in the centre of the plate, and incubated at 28+ oc. growth of the fungus was measured by measuring its diameter in two directions and the average value was recorded. final-growth reading was recorded when growth of the fungus in the control plate was full. per cent inhibition of growth was calculated using the formula given by vincent (1947). evaluation of fungicide by soil-drenching sterilized soil was filled in polythene bags of size 7.5cm width and 20cm length. to evaluate six fungicides by soil-drenching, f. solani was mass-multiplied on sorghum grain and the culture was placed at the root zone in the chilli plant. all the test-fungicides were drenched at the rate of one libe fungicide solution/bag, and allowed to percolate to the corresponding depth. their efficacy in inhibiting fungal growth was evaluated by recovering the fungus from the soil of rhizosphere. evaluation of trichoderma species four isolates of trichoderma viride collected from different chilli growing areas of andhra pradesh were categorized as i, ii, iii and iv, and evaluated under in vitro conditions for their antagonistic activity against the wilt pathogen, by dual-culture technique (huang and hoes, 1976). mycelial discs, of 5mm diameter each of bioagents and the pathogen, were taken from the margins of actively growing cultures and transferred onto potato dextrose agar medium in petri plates on the opposite sides. the petri plates were subsequently incubated at 28+1oc. colony diameter of the test-fungus upto the zone of inhibition was recorded for each bioagent, and per cent growth inhibition of the test pathogen was calculated. mass multiplication of biocontrol agent trichoderma viride effective isolate of t. viride identified in in vitro studies was mass-multiplied in potato broth and mixed in talc powder, and further used in pot-culture experiments. evaluation of the integrated disease management module for wilt disease a pot-culture experiment was conducted in factorial randomized block design during 2008-09 and 2009-10 crop seasons at regional agricultural research station, lam, guntur. different treatments including seedling dip in fungicide, soil amendment with vermicompost, addition of biocontrol agent t. viride, drenching of effective fungicide and combination of all these treatments were evaluated to develop a reliable, eco-friendly integrated disease management approach. vermicompost was taken as soil amendment based on reports of significant superiority in reducing the fusarium wilt disease incidence in fenugreek (kamlesh mathur et al, 2006) best isolate of t. viride isolated was applied at the rate of 10g/pot at the time of inoculation of f. solani. similarly the fungicides which proved effective in in vitro studies were used for seedling dip for 30 minutes before planting and also for drenching treatments. incidence of wilt was recorded after 10 days of inoculation. among different fungicides tested carbendazim + mancozeb was found to be highly effective in inhibiting the growth of f. solani (93.6%) followed by carbendazim (92.4%) and benomyl (91.34%). tebuconazole (83.1%) and thiophanate methyl (80.1%) were also found effective in inhibiting the mycelial growth of f. solani whereas the pencycuron (4.1%) was least effective or ineffective for control of f. solani (table1). the results are in conformity with the findings of previous workers (verma and vyas, 1977; haware et al, 1978; hiremath et al, 1981; nene et al, 1991 and naik et al, 2007). among four isolates, t. viride i was the most effective (80.2 % inhibition of the pathogen), t. viride isolate ii showed a growth inhibition of 67.5 % whereas the other two isolates of t. viride iv and t. viride iii were less effective with 62.7 and 63.5% (table 2) inhibition, respectively. wang et al (1995) found that t. viride had strong antagonistic activity towards f. solani under in vitro conditions. different species of trichoderma have been reported to be effective against fusarium sp causing wilt in chilli, cumin and gladiolus (suneel anand and harender raj gautam, 2006) j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):141-144, 2011 bindu madhavi and bhattiprolu prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 143 pot culture experiment in soil drenching, all the systemic fungicides were found effective at any concentration and at any depth of inoculum tried viz., 10 and 15 cm in the soil column. among them carbendazim+mancozeb and carbendazim, recorded 100 percent inhibition of mycelial growth at 1000, 2000 and 3000 ppm at both depths followed by benomyl which recorded 90 percent inhibition with 2000 and 3000 ppm at 10cm depth (table 3). whereas tebuconazole and table 1. inhibition of mycelial growth in fusarium solani by different fungicides s.no. treatment mean radial per cent growth of growth fungus (cm) inhibition 1 carbendazim + mancozeb (0.2%) 0.57 93.60 2 benomyl (0.1%) 0.77 91.34 3 carbendazi-m(0.1%) 0.67 92.47 4 tebuconazole(0.15%) 1.50 83.08 5 thiophanate methyl(0.1%) 1.70 80.82 6 pencycuron(0.1%) 8.50 4.13 7 control 8.87 sem+ 0.05 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.15% table 2. inhibition of mycelial growth in fusarium solani by different trichoderma viride isolates s.no. fungal isolate radial growth per cent inhibition (cm) of growth 1 trichoderma viride i 1.78 80.2 2 trichoderma viride ii 2.93 67.5 3 trichoderma viride iii 3.33 63.5 4 trichoderma viride iv 3.55 62.7 5 control (f. solani alone) 9.00 sem ± 0.04 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.12 cv% 1.90 table 3. effect of drenching with different fungicides on inhibition in mycelial growth of f. solani at various depths chemical soil depth percent inhibition (cm) of growthconcentration 1000 2000 3000 carbendazim + mancozeb 10 100 100 100 m-45 (0.2%) 15 100 100 100 carbendazim (0.1%) 10 100 100 100 15 100 100 100 benomyl (0.1%) 10 90 100 100 15 90 100 100 tebuconazole (0.15%) 10 50 100 100 15 00 50 100 thiophenate-methyl (0.1%) 10 00 00 50 15 00 00 50 pencycuron (0.1%) 10 00 00 00 15 00 00 00 thiophanate methyl were effective at 3000 ppm when applied at 10 and 15 cm depths. contact fungicide pencycuron was ineffective in all 3 concentrations at 10 and 15 cm depths. the results are in conformity with the findings of previous workers (verma and vyas,1977; haware et al, 1978; hiremath et al,1981 and nene et al, 1991). integrated disease management of chilli wilt. of all the treatments integration of seedling root dip with carbendazim, addition of vermicompost, drenching of fungicide carbendazim+mancozeb and soil application of t. viride was found to be effective with minimum (table 4) mortality of plants (5.83 %). the present findings are in conformity with the earlier reports, integration of disease management practices are more effective in controlling fusariam wilt in gladiolus (suneel anand and harender raj gautam, 2006), collar and root rot in strawberry (bhardwaj and gautam, 2004) and soil borne diseases in vegetable nurseries (steven et al, 2003) next best treatment was the drenching with carbendazim+mancozeb (16.1%) followed by seedling root dip in carbendazim (21.6%) for 30 minutes. similar findings were reported by earlier workers. seedling dip in carbendazim at 0.1 and 0.2% significantly reduced the table 4. efficacy of different treatment combinations in management of wilt disease of chillies caused by f. solani in potculture during 2009 and 2010 s.no. treatment per cent per cent per cent of plants of plants of plants dead dead dead (2009) (2010) pooled (2009 &2010) 1 t1 : seedling dip24.60 17.60 21.60 carbendazim @0.1% (29.73) (24.80) (27.69) 2 t2 : vermicompost44.00 36.60 33.60 100g/kg soil (41.55) (37.23) (35.43) 3 t3: t1+t2 30.60 24.30 26.11 (33.58) (29.53) (30.72) 4 t4: drenching with 11.60 20.60 16.10 fungicide (19.91) (26.99) (23.75) 5 t5: application of 07.30 30.30 18.80 trichoderma viridi (15.68) (33.40) (25.70) @10g/pot 6 t6: (t3+t4+t5) 0.00 11.60 5.83 (0.00) (19.91) (13.94) 7 t7: uninoculated 0.00 0.00 0.00 check (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) 8 t8: inoculated 97.60 99.60 97.16 check (81.09) (98.00) (80.19) sem ± 1.13 1.83 2.59 c.d. (p=0.05) 3.41 5.56 7.86 figures in parentheses are transformed values control of fusarium wilt in chilli j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):141-144, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 144 tomato wilt incidence caused by fusarium oxysporum f.sp lycopersicii (saini et al, 2005). in general, soil amendments found effective against the pathogen by changing ph and also by enhancing the growth of biocontrol agents. addition of vermicompost with other treatments like seedling root dip (26.1%) and integrated treatment (5.83%) is effective when compared with individual treatments. kamalesh mathur et al (2006) also found that the addition of vermicompost was significantly superior in reducing the fusarium wilt of fenugreek. application of t. viride (18.8%) alone was not much effective in reducing the disease in vitro studies, the reasons may be the climatic and the soil conditions at the time of application. similar observations were reported by de cal et al (1995) and saini et al (2005). although disease resistant varieties are preferred over management of soil borne diseases such as fusariam wilt there are not many alternatives except to take up drenching with fungicide particularly when the wilt has already appeared in the field. based on the investigation in the abscence of resistant cultivar, drenching of systemic fungicide such as carbendazim+mancozeb can be recommended as immediate control measure to protect against wilt. finally adoption of integrated disease management was suggested for effective control of wilt disease. references anonymous. 2010. http://www.ikisan.com barnett, h.l. 1960. illustrated genera of imperfect fungi. 2nd edition, burgess publishing company, minneapolis bhardwaj, u. and gautam h. r. 2004. mulching with transparent polythene and root dip in fungicides for the management of collar and root rot of strawberry. indian phytopath., 57:48-52 de cal, a., pascual, s., larena, i. and melgare, j. 1995. biological control of fusarium oxysporium f. sp. lycopersici. pl. pathol., 44:909-917 haware, m.p., nene, y.l. and rajeswari, r. 1978. eradication of fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri transmitted in chickpea seed. phytopathol., 68:13641367 haung, h.c. and hoes, j.a. 1976. penetration and infection of sclerotina sclerotiorum by coniothyrium minitans. can. j. bot., 54:406-410 hiremath, p.c., sulladmath, v.v. and ponnappa, k.m. 1981. chemical control of betelvine decline. pesticides, 15:11-12 kamlesh mathur, bansal, r.k. and gurjar, r.b.s. 2006. organic management of fusarium wilt of fenugreek (trigonella foenumgraecum l.) a seed spice. j. mycol. pl. pathol., 36:94-95 madhukar, h.m. and naik, m.k. 2004. evaluation of bioagents against fusarium wilt of chilli (capsicum annuun var. annuum) proc. 15th int’l. plant protection congress on plant protection towards 21st century, beijing (china), pp. 540 naik, m.k., madhukar, h.m. and devika rani, g.s. 2007. evaluation of fungicides against fusarium solani, the causal agent of wilt of chilli. veg. sci., 34:173176 nene, y.l., reddy, m.v., haware, m.p., ghanekar, a.m. and amin, a.s. 1991. field diagnosis of chickpea diseases and their control. icrisat, information bulletin, no. 28, hyderabad, india saini, a.k., indu jalali and vijay pal. 2005. eco-friendly management of fusarium wilt-root-knot nematode complex in tomato. j. mycol. pl. pathol., 35:309311 stevens, c., khan v.a., kabana, r., ploper l.d., bakkan p.a., collins, d.j., brown, j.e., wilson, m.a. and igmedge, e.c.k. 2003. integration of soil solarization and chemical, biological and cultural control for the management of soil-borne diseases of vegetables. pl. soil, 253:493-496 suneel anand and harender raj gautam. 2006. use of soil solarization, biocontrol agents, fungicide corn dip and soil amendments for management of fusarium wilt pathogen of gladiolus. j. mycol. pl. pathol., 36:201204 verma, r.k. and vyas, s.c. 1977. effect of seed treatment with systemic fungicides in gram wilt control. pesticides, 11:20-21 vincent j.m. 1947. distortion of fungal hyphae in the presence of certain inhibitors. nature, 150:840 wang k., zhang, z., chen, j.n., fan, z., niu, b.s and wang, k.c. 1995. a study on the occurrence of root rot of pea (pisum sativum) and the technique for its integrated control. nigerian j. agril. forestry sci. tech., 5:1-5 (ms received 27 december 2010, revised 23 september 2011) bindu madhavi and bhattiprolu j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):141-144, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction bitter gourd is an important cucurbitaceous vegetable. diverse morphological characters of m. charantia provide a relatively broad phenotypic species-variation. bitter gourd crop improvement programmes need an understanding of the nature and degree of genetic divergence available in the germplasm. mahalanobis’s d2 statistics is a powerful tool for determining degree of divergence between populations, and relative contribution of different components to the total divergence, in isolation of suitable parents. this technique provides a basis for selection of genetically divergent parents in a hybridization programme. therefore, the present investigation was carried out to examine the nature and magnitude of genetic divergence in 33 bitter gourd genotypes with different geographical origins and distribution. material and methods thirty three genotypes of bitter gourd having diverse origin were evaluated at the college of agriculture, thiruvananthapuram, during the period august – november, 2009. genotypes were evaluated using randomized block design, with two replications. plants were grown at a spacing of 2.0m × 2.0m adopting the package of practices recommended by kerala agricultural university (kau, 2007). observations were recorded on four randomly j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):152-155, 2012 studies on genetic divergence in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) j. resmi and i. sreelathakumary department of olericulture, college of agriculture kerala agricultural university, vellayani thiruvananthapuram-695 522, kerala, india e-mail: myidresmi@gmail.com abstract genetic divergence study was conducted on 33 bitter gourd genotypes for twenty characters. these genotypes were grouped into five clusters irrespective of geographic divergence, indicating no parallelism between geographic and genetic diversity. cluster-i was the largest comprising 11 genotypes, followed by clusters-iii and v with 10 genotypes each. clusters-ii and iv comprised one genotype each. as regards cluster means, clusters-ii and iv performed better in most of the biometric characters studied. maximum inter-cluster distance was observed in clusters-iii and iv, followed by clusters-ii and iii, and clusters-i and iv. intra-cluster distance was highest in cluster i. key words: bitter gourd, genetic divergence, d2 statistics selected plants of each genotype in each replication for eleven characters, viz., days to seedling emergence, vine length (cm), internodal length (cm), number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, days to first male flower emergence, days to first female flower emergence, location of the node where first male flower or first female flower appeared, sex ratio, days to first fruit harvest, fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), number of fruits per plant, average fruit weight (g), yield per plant (kg), number of seeds per fruit, 100-seed weight (g), incidence of fruit fly infestation (%) and mosaic incidence (%). genetic divergence was estimated using d2 statistics of mahalanobis (1928) and the populations were grouped into clusters as per rao (1952). results and discussion analysis of variance indicated that the genotypes differed significantly in all the characters studied except fruit fly infestation percentage. having computed d2 values for all possible pairs, the thirty three genotypes were classified into five groups of gene constellations. these indicated a large genetic diversity (table 1). maximum number of genotypes (11) grouped under cluster-i, followed by clusters-iii and v, with 10 genotypes each. clusters-ii and iv comprised one genotype each. commercially cultivated varieties like co-1, preethi, konkan tara and priya grouped under cluster-i, while pusa do mousami and 153 arka harit figured under cluster-iii. this result showed that almost all commercially cultivated varieties of bitter gourd in our country may have originated from closely related sources. commercially released cultivars from southern part of the country like priyanka and mdu-1 grouped singly in clusters-ii and iv respectively, indicating that these genotypes were distinctly different from the rest of the germplasm studied. intraand inter-cluster distances are an index of genetic diversity among clusters as shown in table 2. intercluster distances were greater than intra-cluster distances, revealing a considerable amount of genetic diversity among the genotypes studied. intra-cluster distance was highest in cluster-i (1197.78), followed by clusters-iii and v (1149.66 and 903.03, respectively). highest inter-cluster distance was observed in clusters-iii and iv (2515.57), followed by clusters-ii and iii (2088.12) and clusters-i and iv (1856.82). genetic distance (d2) between clusters-i, iii and v was larger than in cluster-iv. minimum inter cluster distance was observed between clusters-i and v (1022.33) indicating close relationship among genotypes. data clearly indicated that the genotypes did not cluster according to their geographical distribution. in general, the pattern of distribution of genotypes from various regions into different clusters was seen to be random. similar observations were also reported by lovely (2001) in ash gourd, kale et al (2002) and lakshmi et al (2003) in pumpkin, kandasamy (2004) in melon, maharana et al (2006) in ivy gourd, and by devmore et al (2007) and dey et al (2007) in bitter gourd. one possible reason may be that it is very difficult to establish the actual place of origin of a genotype. free and frequent exchange of genetic material among breeders in the country makes it very difficult to maintain the real identity of a genotype. absence of relationship between genetic diversity and geographical distance indicates that forces other than geographical origin (such as exchange of genetic stock, genetic drift, natural mutation, spontaneous variation or natural and artificial selection) may be responsible for the genetic diversity. another possibility may be that estimates of diversity based on characters used in the present investigation may not be sufficient to account for variability caused by some other traits of physiological / biochemical nature (which could be important in depicting the total genetic diversity in a population). therefore, selection of genotypes for hybridization should be based on genetic diversity other than geographic divergence. cluster means of 33 genotypes (table 3) showed that mean values of clusters varied in magnitude for all the 20 characters studied. as regards cluster means, clusters-ii and iv performed better for most of the biometric characters studied. among the clusters studied, clusters-iii was table 1. grouping of 33 bittergourd genotypes into clusters cluster number of treatment no. genotypes i 11 mc 1 (thiruvalla, pathanamthitta, kerala) mc 2 (co-1, tnau, coimbatore) mc 4 (preethi, kau, thrissur) mc 12 (konkan tara, kkv, dapoli) mc 15 (priya, kau, thrissur) mc 21 (vellathuval, idukki, kerala) mc 22 (chathamangalam, kozhikode, kerala) mc 26 (thripunithara, ernakulam, kerala) mc 27 (charuplasseri, palakkad, kerala) mc 29 (ic 68326, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 32 (ic 85612, nbpgr, thrissur) ii 1 mc 20 ( priyanka, kau, thiruvalla ) iii 10 mc 3 (ic 68314, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 6 (pusa do mausami, iari, new delhi) mc 7 (kuzhipalam, thiruvananthapuram, kerala) mc 8 (ic 85632, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 9 (anchal, kollam, kerala) mc 11(arka harit, iihr, bangalore) mc 14 (ic 85603, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 17(ic 85627, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 28 (kadakkal, thiruvananthapuram, kerala) mc 33 (pala, kottayam, kerala) iv 1 mc 10 (mdu-1, tnau, madurai) v 10 mc 5 (kalpetta, wayanad, kerala) mc 13 (ic 85650, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 16 (haripad, alappuzha, kerala) mc 18(ic 50523, nbpgr, thrissur), mc 19 (kattakada, thiruvananthapuram, kerala) mc 23 (ic 113878, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 24 (ic 85636, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 25 (ic 470569, nbpgr, thrissur) mc 30 (chennai, tamil nadu) mc 31(ic 85642, nbpgr, thrissur) table 2. average interand intra-cluster distance in thirty three genotypes of m. charantia cluster i ii iii iv v i 1197.78 1570.86 1566.15 1856.82 1022.33 ii 0.00 2088.12 1545.21 1595.39 iii 1149.66 2515.57 1167.00 iv 0.00 1822.31 v 903.03 diagonal elements: intra-cluster values; off -diagonal elements: intercluster values j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):152-155, 2012 genetic divergence in bitter gourd 154 generally poor, and clusters-i and v were found to be intermediate. it is also evident that except clusters-iii and v (represented by small fruited genotypes), all other clusters showed higher yield potential than cluster-i, represented by most of the commercially cultivated varieties. cluster-i consisted of 11 genotypes with mediumsized fruits and shortest internode, male and female flowers at lower nodes, earliness in fruit harvest, and highest mosaic resistance. cluster-ii (mc 20) had a single genotype, with earliness in seedling germination, longest internode, lowest sex ratio as well as highest fruit length, fruit girth, average fruit weight, yield per plant and number of seeds per fruit. cluster-iii comprised genotypes with smallest fruits, shorter vine-length and less number of branches, with lower fruit yield. cluster-iv consisted of a single genotype (mc 10) with medium-sized fruits, longest vine-length, highest number of primary and secondary branches, number of fruits per plant and 100-seed weight, along with lowest fruit fly infestation. cluster-v comprised 10 genotypes of small-sized fruits, with lowest fruit yield. the best cluster with yield and other component characters was represented by clusterii followed by cluster-iv. based on these results, mahalanobis’s d2 was found to be a useful tool in grouping genotypes phenotypically and geographically. findings revealed that in bitter gourd, there is a vast scope for developing new varieties with greater yield potential and to better other attributes of economic table 3. cluster means of eleven quantitative traits in bitter gourd cluster days to vine internode number of number of days to days to node node sex ratio no. seedling length length primary secondary first male first female number number emergence (cm) (cm) branches branches flower flower where where emergence emergence first male first female flower flower appeared appeared i 8.59 358.59 2.92 20.02 35.64 38.18 42.18 13.05 15.77 18.65 ii 7.75 468.75 5.58 13.25 19.50 44.25 51.00 16.50 23.25 17.17 iii 8.33 240.38 2.99 10.70 18.95 39.23 43.23 14.08 17.15 21.99 iv 11.75 572.50 3.28 21.00 26.50 51.00 54.50 17.75 20.00 17.19 v 10.08 348.25 2.99 19.00 32.50 41.88 30.38 19.05 24.20 22.18 table 3 (contd.) cluster means of eleven quantitative traits in bitter gourd cluster days to fruit fruit no. of average yield no. of 100-seed incidence mosaic no. first fruit length girth fruits per fruit per plant seeds per weight (g) of fruit fly incidence harvest (cm) (cm) plant weight (g) (kg) fruit infestation (%) (%) i 52.06 24.56 16.90 22.16 189.95 2.97 20.45 20.15 5.84 21.68 ii 59.55 38.83 25.53 14.75 578.75 5.89 33.00 21.60 8.75 41.00 iii 55.03 15.82 14.23 14.33 116.01 1.33 15.65 15.00 4.62 46.45 iv 56.50 33.66 8.48 34.25 183.05 4.41 16.00 25.10 4.57 38.00 v 53.33 16.75 15.62 17.58 125.72 1.32 17.95 18.73 5.45 34.05 importance, using this elite germplasm. in crop improvement programmes, intercrossing among genotypes with outstanding mean performance for these characters would prove to be effective. to develop early varieties with higher yield, selection from cluster-i would be effective, as, it showed higher yield with early maturity. it is clear that for attaining maximum yield with highest number of fruits from an early crop, cluster-ii would be a good candidate. to breed good varieties from the small-fruited group, selection from cluster-v will prove to be highly useful and selection from cluster-iv will be useful for breeding long, slenderfruited varieties with higher demand in specific regions of our country. references anonymous. 2007. package of practices recommendations– crops. directorate of extension, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, p 334 devmore, j.p., dhonukshe, b.l., apte, u.b. and jadhav, b.b. 2007. genetic divergence in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). south ind. hort., 55:20-23 dey, s.s., behera, t.k., munshi, a.d. and sirohi, p.s. 2007. studies on genetic divergence in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). ind. j. hort., 64: 53-57. kale, v.s., patil, b.r., bindu, s. and paithankar, d.h. 2002. genetic divergence in pumpkin (cucurbita j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):152-155, 2012 resmi and sreelathakumary 155 moschata). j. soils crops, 12:213-216 kandasamy, r. 2004. morphological, biochemical and molecular characterization in landraces of melon (cucumis melo l.). ph.d. thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 141 p. lakshmi, l.m., haribabu, k. and reddy, g.l.k. 2003. genetic divergence in pumpkin. ind. j. hort., 60:363367 lovely, b. 2001. evaluation of genetic divergence in ash gourd. m.sc. (ag.) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 76 p. mahalanobis, p.c. 1928. a statistical study of the chinese head measurements. j. asiatic soc., 25:301-377 maharana, t., mandal, p., sahoo, g.s. and mahapatra, b. 2006. multivariate analysis of genetic divergence in kunduru [coccinia grandis (l.) (voigt)]. abstracts. first international conference on indigenous vegetables and legumes, 12-15 december 2006, hyderabad, india 70 p. rao, c.r. 1952. advanced statistical methods in biometric research. john wiley and sons, inc., new york, p 390 (ms received 13 january 2011, revised 02 august 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):152-155, 2012 genetic divergence in bitter gourd introduction kinnow mandarin is a fairly important crop as it has a great variety of beverage, industrial and medicinal uses due to its attractive colour, distinctive flavour and is a rich source of vitamins b & c, β-carotene, calcium and phosphorus (sogi and singh, 2001). post-harvest shelf-life of kinnow fruit at room temperature is very limited (jawanda and singh, 1973) and can be extended to a maximum of 45 days under refrigerated storage conditions. the fruit should be processed to extend its availability and to minimize glut in the market in peak season of production. like in all fresh products, quality of kinnow mandarin juice changes with time. several parameters influence the rate of microbial spoilage, enzymatic degradation, induce chemical change and deterioration in flavour, or turn bitter upon extraction. for improving taste, aroma, palatability and nutritive value, and for reducing the bitterness, kinnow juice was blended with other, highly nutritive fruit juices, namely pomegranate and aonla, with spice extracts like ginger. all these fruits are greatly valued for their refreshing juice with nutritional and medicinal properties. ginger juice has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. jain and khurdiya (2005) and studies on physico-chemical, sensory and microbiological quality of kinnow juice blends under refrigerated storage r.l. bhardwaj and s. mukherjee department of horticulture (pht), s.k.n. college of agriculture jobner 303328, india e-mail: rajubhardwaj3@gmail.com abstract various fruit juice blends were prepared as (i) kinnow juice:aonla juice:ginger juice in 100:0:0; 95:5:0; 92:5:3 ratios and kinnow juice:pomegranate juice:ginger juice in 90:10:0; 87:10:3 ratios for improving flavour, palatability, nutritive value and medicinal value. the juice blends were preserved by pasteurization at 75oc or 85oc for 15 minutes, and, by adding potassium meta-bisulphite (kms) at 500 or 750 ppm. these blends were stored in 200ml colourless glass bottles under refrigerated conditions (4±±±±±1oc) for six months and tested at three month intervals for physicochemical sensory quality and microbial population. individual effect of juice blending ratio, processing temperature and kms treatment was found to be significant for prolonging storage life and for maintaining an acceptable quality of the juice blends. the blend of kinnow:pomegranate:ginger juice at 87:10:3 ratio, followed by kinnow:aonla:ginger juice @ 92:5:3, processed at 75oc for 15 min with 750 ppm kms, was the most effective for obtaining superior physico-chemical and sensory quality of the blend. however, minimum microbial population was recorded in the juice processed at 85oc (and not 75o c) with the same treatment combination. key words: kinnow juice, juice blends, microbial quality, physico-chemical properties, ready-to-serve j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) reported that juice/pulp of two or more fruits may be blended in various proportions for preparation of nectar, rts beverages, etc. ranote and bains (1982), mehta and bajaj (1983) and bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) conducted studies on use of chemical preservatives and processing of juice at high temperature (this checks growth of micro-organisms and reduces loss of quality). to popularize kinnow mandarin, pomegranate, aonla and ginger juice and their blends among the masses, it is necessary to seek meaningful information on juice processing technologies to examine untested, old concepts in various fields of juice processing, de-bittering and storage. therefore, this study was aimed at standardizing processing temperatures for thermal processing, chemical preservatives and blending ratio of kinnow mandarin juice in relation to physico-chemical parameters, sensory quality and microbial safely during storage. material and methods the experiment was conducted during 2008-09 to study factors affecting the above parameters. fully mature, freshly harvested kinnow, pomegranate and aonla fruits, 167 and well-developed ginger rhizomes, were procured for the purpose from lal kothi mandi, jaipur, and brought to postharvest technology laboratory, s.k.n. college of agriculture, jobner. juice preparation fruits were washed in clean tap-water to remove dust particles and reduce microbial load on the surface of fruits and ginger rhizomes. peeled kinnow fruits were crushed in a screw-type juice extractor machine for extraction of juice. pomegranate fruits were cut into sectors arils separated and passed through a juicer. aonla and ginger were sliced with stainless steel knives and crushed in a mixer-cum-juicer. the juices were placed for 24 hours under refrigeration (4±2oc) for sedimentation. the clear juice was then siphoned off. the juice was filtered through muslin cloth and divided into five lots. various juice blends and their ratios type of juice blends blending treatment ratio denoted as kinnow juice:aonla juice:ginger juice 100:0:0 k 1 kinnow juice:aonla juice:ginger juice 95:5:0 k 2 kinnow juice:aonla juice:ginger juice 92:5:3 k 3 kinnow juice:pomegranate juice:ginger juice 90:10:0 k 4 kinnow juice:pomegranate juice:ginger juice 87:10:3 k 5 each lot was divided into two sub-lots and heated separately at 75oc or 85oc for 15 minutes, respectively, in a double-jacketed stainless steel kettle. again, each sub-lot was divided into two lots. known quantity of potassium meta-bi-sulphite (500 or 750 ppm) were dissolved in a small quantity of water as per treatments and mixed well with the blended juice. treated juice blends were filled into presterilized, 200ml capacity bottles as quickly as possible and shut tightly using a crown corking machine. these were stored at refrigerated (4±1oc) condition and analyzed at 90 day intervals for upto six months. methods of analysis used physico-chemical parameters including total soluble solids (tss) of the fruit juice were determined by a refractometer (zeiss make), values corrected to 20oc and expressed as obrix. acidity (in terms of citric acid) was determined using aoac (1984). vitamin ‘c’ (ascorbic acid) content of the juice was estimated by 2, 6-dichlorophenolindonenol dye titration method (aoac, 1984). total sugars in the juice were determined by the method of lane and eynon (1923) and limonin in the juice was estimated using modified burulian reagent (vaks and litshitz, 1981) method. non-enzymatic browning (neb) in the juice was determined by the alcohol extraction method (klin and nagy, 1988). microbiological study was carried out by a series of dilution and spread plate methods (ranganna, 1994). to assess consumer preference, organoleptic quality of the juice was tested by a panel of ten semi-trained judges, using the 9 point hedonic scale (amerine et al, 1965). all estimations were carried out in triplicate, determinations were made for each attribute and data on physico-chemical, sensory quality and microbial population were statistically analyzed using completely randomized design (cochran and cox, 1950). results and discussion effect on physico-chemical properties total soluble solids (tss): retention or slight increase in total soluble solids in the juice during storage is desirable for preserving juice quality. total soluble solids of the juices increased with storage time, which might be due to hydrolysis of polysaccharides into monosaccharides and oligosaccharides. total soluble solids were significantly affected by blending ratio (k 3 and k 5 ), processing temperature (t 1 ) and potassium meta-bi-sulphite (p 2 ) during storage. minimum increase (10.0% and 6.4%) in total soluble solids was recorded in k 5 treatment in both years of experimentation, respectively, and was statistically superior to other treatments. similar increase in total soluble solids with increase in storage period was observed in juice blend of mandarin, sweet orange and lemon by mehta and bajaj (1983) and bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011). increase in total soluble solids during storage was observed in our study in juice blended with ginger juice with added potassium metabi sulphite (750 ppm) at 75oc processing temperature. this may be due to ginger juice checking microbial growth which, otherwise, would have had higher tss due to the higher metabolic rate. similar results were also reported by deka and sethi (2001) in mango juice blends. addition of potassium meta-bi-sulphite also resulted in lower rate of hydrolysis of polysaccharides, which ultimately reduced increase in total soluble solids. similar result was also reported in stored litchi juice (sethi, 1985) and in kinnow juice blends (bhardwaj and mukherjee, 2011). total sugars: results revealed that total sugar content was significantly affected by blending with ginger juice, by the processing temperature and addition of potassium meta-bisulphite. total sugar content in the juice increased during storage, which may have been due to the hydrolysis of polysaccharides into monosaccharides and oligosaccharides. minimum increase (21.5% and 26.03%) in total sugar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 quality of kinnow juice blends under refrigeration storage 168 content was recorded in k 5 treatment in both years of experimentation, respectively. perhaps the ginger juice checked microbial growth. change in total sugar content of the beverage was almost negligible during storage for six months in bael:papaya (2:3) pulp blend (tandon et al, 2007). similar results were reported by deka and sethi (2001) in mango juice blends and by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow juice blend. minimum increase in the level of total sugars in processed juice blends during storage could be due to inactivation of enzymes that are responsible for reducing acidity and for conversion of polysaccharides into simple sugars. the present findings are also in line with earlier reports by ranote and bains (1982) in kinnow juice. potassium meta-bi-sulphite also reduced conversion of polysaccharides and acids into monosaccharides and oligosaccharides. these results are in close conformity with findings of kalra and tandon (1985) in mango pulp. acidity: there was a significant reduction in titratable acidity during storage. this might be due to conversion of acids into salts and sugars by enzymes, particularly, invertase (kumar et al, 1992). maximum acidity of 0.68 and 0.66 % was recorded in the kinnow juice blended with ginger juice and aonla juice (k 3 ) in both years of experimentation, respectively. minimum decrease (17.10% and 18.91%) in acidity was observed in k 5 treatment in the two years, respectively, and could be due to the inhibitory effect of ginger juice on enzymes involved in conversion of acids into sugars and salts. similar results were reported by deka (2000) in limeaonla, mangopineapple and guavamango blends by tiwari (2000) in guava and papaya blended rts; by dhaliwal and hira (2001) in carrot juice blends; and, by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow juice blend. highest acidity (0.64% and 0.61%) was seen in lowtemperature processing (75oc), perhaps due to inactivation of enzymes. but, high temperature treatment for longer duration decreased acidity sharply during processing. similar results were also reported by ghorai (1996) in heatprocessed kinnow juice. juice treated with potassium metabi-sulphite showed higher retention of acidity (0.63% and 0.60%) during storage in both years of experimentation, respectively. this could be due to alteration in metabolism and enzymatic activity. these findings are in close conformity with findings of goyle and ojha (1998) in orange juice. ascorbic acid: ascorbic acid (vitamin c) content of the juice decreased during storage, probably due to oxidation of ascorbic acid in the presence of oxygen by both enzymatic and non-enzymatic catalysts (mapson, 1970). among the juice blends, beverages prepared with aonla juice were superior in ascorbic acid content, but, the rate of decrease was very slow with ginger juice blend. ginger juice may have decelerated the oxidation process. maximum ascorbic acid (43.70 mg/100ml juice and 43.20 mg/100ml juice) was recorded in kinnow juice blended with aonla juice (5%) and ginger juice (3%) (k 3 ) in both years of experimentation, respectively. these findings are in conformity with studies of jain and khurdiya (2005) who reported that indian gooseberry juice had the highest vitamin c content (478.56 mg/100ml juice). hence, indian gooseberry juice was blended with other fruit juices for preparation of blended, ready-to-serve beverages with higher vitamin c content. in the present investigation, maximum retention of ascorbic acid (28.4 mg/100ml juice and 28.0 mg/100ml juice) was observed in low-temperature (75oc) processing was done. this might be due to lower oxidation of ascorbic acid. similar results were also obtained by ranote and bains (1982) in kinnow juice and by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow juice blend. comparatively lower loss in ascorbic acid content was observed in juice samples preserved with higher concentration (750 ppm) of potassium meta-bisulphite, because, this reduced oxidation of ascorbic acid. similar results were reported by khurdiya (1979) in phalsa juice. limonin content: gradual increase in limonin content in juice blends with increase in storage period may be due to conversion of a chemical compound, limonate-a-ring lactone (non-bitter), into limonin (bitter) (premi et al, 1994). among juice blends prepared with ginger, aonla and pomegranate juice and processed at low temperature (75oc), or preserved by high concentration potassium meta-bi-sulphite (750 ppm), exhibited significantly less limonin content compared to pure, unprocessed kinnow juice. this is because of blending of non-bitter juice with the bitter one in a proper ratio reduced formation of limonin during storage. minimum limonin content (0.138 mg/ml juice and 0.181 mg/ml juice) was recorded at the end of the storage period in kinnow juice blended with pomegranate juice (10%) and ginger juice (3%). guadagni et al (1993) reported that blending citrus juice with sugar in a proper ratio also reduced bitterness. similar results were reported by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow juice blend. beneficial results of juice processing at 75oc might be due to inhibition of oxidation of the d-ring lactone into limonin during storage. these results are well supported by berry (2001) in citrus juice. similarly, higher concentration of potassium meta-bi-sulphite effectively inhibited hydrolysis of d-ring lactone and lactone rings into limonin, during storage. sethi et al (1980) reported bhardwaj and mukherjee j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 169 bitterness (limonin) to be absent in canned kinnow juice preserved with 700 ppm sulphur dioxide. non-enzymatic browning (neb): linear increase in nonenzymatic browning (neb) was observed during six months of storage, irrespective of the juice blend. this may be due to non-enzymatic reaction of organic acid with sugars, or oxidation of phenols which leads to formation of brown pigments. khurdiya and anand (1981) also reported a gradual increase in browning and formulation of hydroxylmethylfurfural (dark pigment) in stored phalsa beverage. minimum increase (25.88%) in non-enzymatic browning in juice blended with aonla juice (5%) and ginger juice (3%) could be attributed to suppression of polyphenol oxidase activity by ascorbic acid (arogba et al, 1998), abundantly found in aonla juice. similar results were reported by jain et al (2003) in aonla juice and by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow juice blend. pomegranate juice was also effective in reducing non-enzymatic browning due to its higher sugar content. beneficial results of heat processing of the juice might be due to inhibition of the formulation of hydroxylmethylfurfural and other dark pigments. similar findings were reported later by kim et al (1993) in apple juice. juice treated with potassium meta-bisulphite showed minimum non-enzymatic browning, due to inactivation of enzymes and the protective action of bcarotene. sensory evaluation in the present study, results indicated that flavour, colour and organoleptic score (bitterness) of juice blends decreased with advancement in storage period (tables 1 to 4). colour, flavour, taste, appearance, as well as higher nutritional elements in the blends, were found to be superior compared to non-blended (pure) juices. juice blend of kinnow juice (87%) + pomegranate juice (10%) + ginger juice (3%) recorded higher score for colour (7.33 and 7.23), flavour (7.53 and 7.73) and organoleptic taste (7.74 and 7.94) at the end of storage in both years of experimentation, respectively. the explanation for this is that ginger juice checks microbial and enzymatic activities in stored juice. (which produce off-flavour and change natural colour and taste). tandon et al (2007) reported that blending papaya pulp with bael pulp was very effective in checking browning and in improving the appearance of the beverage. they also observed that beverage prepared from 2:3 blend of bael:papaya pulp scored maximum (7.4 out of 10.0) at six months of storage. this result is supported by gowda (1995) in mango and papaya blend and by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow juice blend. beneficial results of thermal processing might be due to inhibition of polyphenol oxidase and enzymes involved in discolouration development of offflavour during storage. similar results were reported by kim et al (1993) in apple juice. potassium metabi-sulphite was found effective for retaining good flavour, colour and organoleptic taste of the juice during the entire storage period. mehta and bajaj (1983) reported colour retention during storage to be better in citrus juice preserved with 700 ppm potassium meta-bi-sulphite. all the samples were found acceptable for upto six months of storage. overall qualities including colour, flavour and organoleptic scores were better in juice blended in the ratio kinnow juice:pomegranate juice:ginger juice (87:10:3) processed at 75oc and fortified with 750ppm potassium meta-bi-sulphite. microbial population untreated fruit juices and pulp were highly contaminated with bacteria, yeast and mold. data presented in tables 1 to 5 show minimum increase in bacteria, yeast and mold population when the juice was blended with ginger juice and processed at 85o c temperature with addition of potassium meta-bi-sulphite (750 ppm). this result is supported by attri et al (1998) who reported that blends of sand pear juice with apple, apricot and plum could be stored at room temperature for six months, without any spoilage. ejechi et al (1998) reported that heating mango juice to 55oc for 15 minutes and supplementing it with nutmeg (4% v/v) and ginger (4% v/v) markedly inhibited microbial growth. similar results were also reported by deka (2000) who notified negligible growth of molds and yeasts in lime-aonla and mango–pineapple spiced rts beverages. spoilage was further reduced during storage from the inhibitory effect on microorganisms and antioxidative properties of spices. deka and sethi (2001) observed no bacterial growth in spice mixed fruit juice rts beverages. in microbiological analysis of stored juice samples, it all the samples were found contaminated with a variety of bacterial, fungal and mold species, but these were within the acceptable limit. juice blended with 3% ginger juice (k 5 ) was lowest in bacterial (2.1x103 and 2.5x103 tvc/ml juice), mold (1.2x103 and 1.3 x103 cfu/ml juice) and yeast (9.0x102 and 9.9x102 cfu/ml juice) population as recorded at the end of storage period (six months) in the two years of experimentation, respectively. similar results were also reported by bhardwaj and mukherjee (2011) in kinnow juice blend. processing juice at 85oc for 15 minutes holding time could be considered effective processing time and temperature, to minimize microbial growth in juice blends. ghorai (1996) reported j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 quality of kinnow juice blends under refrigeration storage 170 table 2. effect of blending ratio, processing temperature and potassium meta-bi-sulphite (kms) on physico-chemical quality of juice after three months of refrigerated storage (4±±±±±1oc) treatmentss tss (obrix) total sugars (%) acidity (%) ascorbic acid limonin (mg/ml) †neb at 640nm (mg/100ml) year 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 juice blend k 1 12.6 13.0 8.17 8.67 0.65 0.62 20.3 20.0 0.226 0.263 0.091 0.078 k 2 12.0 12.3 8.12 8.62 0.71 0.69 45.3 44.8 0.170 0.207 0.096 0.082 k 3 11.8 12.2 7.99 8.49 0.72 0.69 45.2 44.8 0.158 0.195 0.091 0.078 k 4 13.5 13.8 8.90 9.40 0.63 0.60 18.88 18.3 0.135 0.172 0.076 0.062 k 5 12.7 13.0 8.72 9.22 0.66 0.63 18.45 17.9 0.122 0.159 0.071 0.057 s. em. ± 0.107 0.112 0.071 0.057 0.004 0.004 0.263 0.257 0.002 0.002 0.001 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.306 0.320 0.204 0.163 0.010 0.010 0.752 0.734 0.005 0.007 0.002 0.003 temperature t 1 12.2 12.6 8.47 8.97 0.69 0.66 30.3 29.9 0.146 0.183 0.090 0.076 t 2 12.8 13.1 8.29 8.79 0.66 0.63 28.9 28.4 0.180 0.217 0.080 0.066 s. em. ± 0.068 0.071 0.045 0.057 0.002 0.002 0.166 0.162 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.193 0.202 0.129 0.163 0.007 0.006 0.476 0.464 0.003 0.004 0.002 0.002 potassium meta-bi sulphite (kms) p 1 12.6 13.0 8.46 8.96 0.67 0.64 29.4 28.9 0.167 0.204 0.086 0.073 p 2 12.4 12.7 8.30 8.80 0.68 0.64 29.9 29.4 0.159 0.196 0.084 0.078 s. em. ± 0.06 0.071 0.045 0.057 0.002 0.002 0.166 0.162 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.193 0.202 0.129 0.163 0.007 0.006 0.476 0.464 0.003 0.004 0.002 0.002 *, **, k 1 k 5 , tvc: as in table 1; t 1 = processing at 75o for 15 min; t 2 = processing at 85o for 15 min; p 1 = kms 500 ppm; p 2 = kms 750 ppm †neb = non-enzymatic browning each value is a mean of 3 replications (n=3) table 1. physico-chemical, sensory and microbiological quality of freshly prepared juice and blends at the time of processing and storage parameter fresh fruit juice (year 2008) fresh fruit juice (year 2009) k 1 k 2 k 3 k 4 k 5 k 1 k 2 k 3 k 4 k 5 tss (obrix) 11.5 11.0 11.0 12.5 12.0 12.0 11.5 11.0 12.0 12.5 acidity % 0.79 0.84 0.83 0.76 0.76 0.77 0.82 0.81 0.74 0.74 ascorbic acid 26.4 50.9 50.3 24.0 23.3 23.6 48.1 47.6 21.4 20.5 (mg/100 ml juice) total sugars (%) 7.20 7.20 7.20 8.00 7.90 7.35 7.36 7.30 8.10 7.95 limonin (mg/ml) 0.156 0.109 0.098 0.083 0.080 0.226 0.189 0.107 0.090 0.092 non-enzymatic 0.065 0.071 0.068 0.055 0.050 0.060 0.066 0.065 0.052 0.048 browning, at 640nm *flavour 8.5 8.0 8.0 8.8 8.9 8.4 7.9 7.9 8.7 8.8 *colour 8.5 8.4 8.3 8.8 8.8 8.5 8.4 8.3 8.9 8.9 *bitterness 8.2 8.4 8.5 8.8 8.9 8.2 8.4 8.5 8.7 8.9 **total viable 9.5x103 8.7x10-3 7.5x103 8.9x103 7.2x103 1.0x104 9.0x103 8.0x103 9.0x103 7.8x103 microbial count **yeast 4.0x103 3.6x103 3.3x103 3.7x103 2.3x103 5.0x103 4.2x103 3.6x103 4.0x103 2.6x103 **mold 4.9x103 4.4x103 4.0x103 4.5x103 4.1x103 5.1x103 4.7x103 4.2x103 4.7x103 4.4x103 k 1 = kinnow juice (100%); k 2 = kinnow juice (95%) + aonla juice (5%); k 3 = kinnow juice (92%) + aonla juice (5%) + ginger juice (3%), k 4 = kinnow juice (90%) + pomegranate juice (10 %); k 5 = kinnow juice (87%) + pomegranate juice (10%) + ginger juice (3%) *= score out of 9 marks, **= cfu/ml juice each value is a mean of 3 replications (n=3) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 bhardwaj and mukherjee 171 table 4. effect of blending ratio, processing temperature and potassium meta-bi-sulphite on physico-chemical quality of juice after 6 months of refrigerated storage (4±±±±±1oc) treatment tss (obrix) total sugars (%) acidity (%) ascorbic acid limonin (mg/ml) †neb at 640nm (mg/100ml) year 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 juice blend k 1 13.5 13.6 9.13 9.54 0.59 0.57 17.8 17.6 0.254 0.297 0.108 0.093 k 2 12.8 13.0 9.05 9.47 0.67 0.64 43.4 42.9 0.194 0.237 0.111 0.097 k 3 12.5 12.6 8.82 9.24 0.68 0.66 43.7 43.2 0.179 0.222 0.107 0.093 k 4 14.3 14.5 9.85 10.27 0.58 0.55 17.2 16.7 0.153 0.196 0.087 0.073 k 5 13.2 13.3 9.60 10.02 0.63 0.60 17.1 16.7 0.138 0.181 0.081 0.066 s. em. ± 0.104 0.100 0.108 0.093 0.005 0.004 0.432 0.421 0.002 0.002 0.001 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.297 0.287 0.308 0.267 0.015 0.010 1.234 1.205 0.005 0.006 0.003 0.003 temperature t 1 12.8 13.0 9.43 9.85 0.64 0.61 28.4 28.0 0.165 0.208 0.105 0.090 t 2 13.6 13.8 9.15 9.57 0.62 0.60 27.2 26.8 0.203 0.246 0.093 0.079 s. em. ± 0.066 0.063 0.068 0.059 0.003 0.004 0.273 0.267 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.188 0.181 0.195 0.169 0.010 0.010 0.780 0.762 0.003 0.004 0.002 0.002 potassium meta-bi sulphite (kms) p 1 13.38 13.5 9.39 9.81 0.63 0.60 27.4 27.0 0.191 0.234 0.102 0.087 p 2 13.18 13.3 9.19 9.61 0.64 0.61 28.2 27.8 0.177 0.220 0.096 0.081 s. em. ± 0.066 0.063 0.068 0.059 0.003 0.004 0.273 0.267 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.188 0.181 0.195 0.169 0.010 0.010 0.780 0.762 0.003 0.004 0.002 0.002 *, **, tvc, k 1 -k 5 , t 1 , t 2 , p 1 , p 2 : as in tables 1and 2 (n=3) †neb = non-enzymatic browning each value is a mean of 3 replications (n=3) table 3. effect of blending ratio, processing temperature and potassium meta-bi-sulphite (kms) on sensory and microbiological quality of juice after three months of refrigerated storage (4±±±±±1oc) treatment *flavour *colour *bitterness tvc yeast mold year 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 juice blend k 1 7.25 7.39 7.36 7.45 6.56 6.70 1.8x103 1.8x103 9.8x102 1.0x103 1.2x103 1.3x103 k 2 6.74 6.88 7.29 7.38 6.97 7.11 1.5 x103 1.5 x103 7.8 x102 8.6 x102 1.0 x103 1.1 x103 k 3 6.81 6.95 7.33 7.42 7.23 7.37 1.1 x103 1.1 x103 6.4 x102 7.1 x102 8.5 x102 8.9 x102 k 4 8.00 8.18 7.93 8.00 7.77 7.91 1.6 x103 1.7 x103 8.4 x102 9.1 x102 1.1 x103 1.1 x103 k 5 8.39 8.53 8.04 8.12 8.11 8.25 1.1 x103 1.2 x103 6.4 x102 7.1 x102 8.5 x102 8.9 x102 s. em. ± 0.047 0.048 0.088 0.083 0.050 0.056 9.950 9.114 10.910 9.911 14.440 13.546 cd (p=0.05) 0.135 0.137 0.252 0.237 0.144 0.160 28.447 26.049 31.190 28.326 41.271 38.718 temperature t 1 7.62 7.76 7.74 7.83 7.28 7.41 2.3x103 2.3 x103 1.2 x103 1.3x103 1.6x103 1.7x103 t 2 7.27 7.41 7.44 7.53 7.38 7.52 6.4 x102 6.6 x102 3.1 x102 3.8 x102 4.0 x102 4.5 x102 s. em. ± 0.030 0.030 0.056 0.052 0.032 0.035 6.295 5.764 6.90 6.268 9.133 8.568 cd (p=0.05) 0.086 0.887 0.159 0.150 0.091 0.101 17.990 16.475 19.73 17.915 26.102 24.487 potassium meta-bi sulphite (kms) p 1 7.40 7.54 7.51 7.59 7.08 7.31 1.8 x103 1.8 x103 9.4 x102 1.0 x103 1.2x103 1.3x103 p 2 7.49 7.63 7.67 7.76 7.17 7.42 1.1 x103 1.2 x103 6.1 x102 6.7 x102 8.0x102 8.4 x102 s. em. ± 0.030 0.030 0.056 0.052 0.032 0.035 6.295 5.764 6.900 6.268 9.133 8.568 cd (p=0.05) 0.086 0.887 0.159 0.150 0.091 0.101 17.990 16.475 19.730 17.915 26.102 24.487 *, **, tvc, k 1 -k 5 , t 1 , t 2 , p 1 , p 2 : as in tables 1and 2 (n=3) each value is a mean of 3 replication (n=3) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 quality of kinnow juice blends under refrigeration storage 172 table 5. effect of blending ratio, processing temperature and potassium meta-bi-sulphite (kms) on sensory and microbiological quality of juice after six months of refrigerated storage (4±±±±±1oc) treatment *flavour *colour *bitterness tvc yeast mold year 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 2008 2009 juice blend k 1 6.25 6.45 6.11 6.00 5.77 5.97 2.8x103 3.4x103 1.3x103 1.4x103 1.8x103 1.9 x103 k 2 5.60 5.80 6.14 6.05 6.24 6.44 2.5 x103 2.9 x103 1.1 x103 1.2 x103 1.5 x103 1.6 x103 k 3 5.71 5.91 6.20 6.10 6.52 6.72 2.1 x103 2.5 x103 9.4 x102 1.0 x103 1.3 x103 1.4 x103 k 4 7.09 7.29 7.12 7.00 7.27 7.47 2.5 x103 3.0 x103 1.1 x103 1.2 x103 1.6 x103 1.7 x103 k 5 7.53 7.73 7.33 7.23 7.74 7.94 2.0 x103 2.5 x103 9.0 x102 9.9 x102 1.2 x103 1.3 x103 s. em. ± 0.054 0.056 0.079 0.085 0.054 0.040 14.776 14.098 12.44 11.412 21.242 18.741 cd (p=0.05) 0.154 0.161 0.277 0.244 0.156 0.113 42.232 40.293 35.57 32.616 60.712 53.563 temperature t 1 6.70 6.90 6.72 6.62 6.65 6.85 3.4 x103 3.4 x103 1.8 x103 1.9 x103 2.5 x103 2.6 x103 t 2 6.18 6.38 6.44 6.34 6.76 6.96 1.3 x103 1.4 x103 3.4 x102 4.3 x102 4.7 x102 5.3 x102 s. em. ± 0.034 0.036 0.050 0.054 0.034 0.025 9.345 8.916 7.87 7.217 13.435 11.853 cd (p=0.05) 0.098 0.102 0.143 0.154 0.098 0.072 26.710 25.484 22.49 20.628 38.398 33.876 potassium meta-bi sulphite (kms) p 1 6.38 6.58 6.45 6.35 6.55 6.70 2.9x103 2.9 x103 1.3 x103 1.4 x103 1.7 x103 1.8 x103 p 2 6.49 6.69 6.71 6.61 6.70 6.82 1.8 x103 1.9 x103 9.0 x102 9.8 x102 1.2 x103 1.5 x103 s. em. ± 0.034 0.036 0.050 0.054 0.034 0.025 9.345 8.916 7.87 7.217 13.435 11.853 cd (p=0.05) 0.098 0.102 0.143 0.154 0.098 0.072 26.710 25.484 22.49 20.628 38.398 33.876 *, **, tvc, k 1 -k 5 , t 1 , t 2 , p 1 , p 2 : as in tables 1and 2 (n=3) each value is a mean of 3 replications (n=3) considerable reduction of microbial population in kinnow juice in heat-processing at 900c for 10 minutes. potassium meta-bisulphite produces sulphur dioxide which, is turn, acts as a preservative and checks oxidation of juice constituents and growth of microorganisms. sethi et al (1980) reported that kinnow juice preserved with 700ppm of sulphur dioxide remained unspoilt upto six months. it may be concluded that formulations of mixed (blend) fruit juice beverage can be developed to satisfy consumer taste and preference. these juice blends can be stored effectively for a period of six months. the juice blend kinnow juice 87%+pomegranate juice 10% + ginger juice 3%, and followed by kinnow juice 92% + aonla juice 5% + ginger juice 3%, processed at 75oc for 15 minutes with 750 ppm potassium meta-bi-sulphite proved to be the most effective treatment for superior physico-chemical and sensory score of the juice blends. minimum microbial population (bacteria, 2.0 x 103 and 2.5 x 103 tvc/ml juice; yeast, 9.0 x 102 and 9.9 x 102 cfu/ml juice; mold, 1.2 x 103 and 1.3 x 103 cfu/ml juice) was recorded in juice processing at 850 c temperature with same treatment combination. references amerine, m.a., pangbron, r.m. and rossler, e.a. 1965. principles of sensory evaluation of food. academic press, new york and london aoac. 1984. official methods of analysis. 12th ed., association of official agricultural chemists, washington d.c. arogba, s.s., afiboye, o.l., ugbokop, l.a., essienttes, s.y. and afolabi, p.o. 1998. properties of polyphenol oxidase in mango (mangifera indica) kernel. j. sci. food agri., 17:459-463 attri, b.l., lal, b.b. and joshi, v.k. 1998. physico-chemical characteristics, sensory quality and storage behaviour of sand pear juice blended with temperate fruit juices/ pulp. ind. food packer, 52:36-39 berry, s.k. 2001. bitterness in citrus juice and some solutions. ind. food packer, 4:67-71 bhardwaj, r.l. and mukherjee, s. 2011. effects of fruit juice blending ratios on kinnow juice preservation at ambient storage condition. african j. food. sci., 5:281–286 cochran, w.g. and cox, g.m. 1950. experimental design. john wiley inc., new york, pp 106-110 deka, b.c. and sethi, v. 2001. preparation of mixed fruit juice spiced rts beverages. ind. food packer, 42:58-61 deka, b.c. 2000. preparation and storage of mixed fruit juice spiced beverages. ph.d. thesis, i.a.r.i., new delhi dhaliwal, m. and hira, k.c. 2001. effect of storage on physico-chemical and nutritional characteristics of carrot-beet root and carrot-black carrot juices. j. food sci. & technol., 38:343-347 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 bhardwaj and mukherjee 173 ejechi, b.o., souzey, j.a. and akpomedaya, d.e. 1998. microbial stability of mango juice preserved by combined application of mild heat and extracts of two tropical spices. j. food prot., 61:725-728 ghorai, k. 1996. studies on processing aspects of kinnow mandarin juice. ph.d. thesis i.a.r.i., new delhi gowda, i.n.d. 1995. studies on blending of mango and papaya pulp for ready-to-serve beverage making. proceeding of the national seminar on post-harvest technology of fruits, bangalore, pp. 387-394 goyle, a. and ojha, t. 1998. effect of storage on vitamin c, microbial load and sensory attributes of orange juice. j. food sci. & technol., 35:346-348 guadagni, d.g., maier, v.p. and turmbaugh, j.c. 1993. effect of some citrus constituents on taste thresholds for limonin and naringin bitterness. j. sci. food agri., 24:1277-1288 jain, s.k. and khurdiya, d.s. 2005. vitamin c enrichment of fruit juice based ready-to-serve beverages through blending of indian gooseberry (emblica officinalis gaertn.) juice. p. foods hum. nutr., 59:63-67 jain, s.k., khurdiya, d.s., gaur, y.d. and ladha, m.l. 2003. thermal processing of aonla juice. ind. food packer, 32:46-49 jawanda, j.s. and singh, k.k. 1973. kinnow holds out promise for punjab. punjab hort. j., 13: 89-93 kalra, s.k. and tandon, d.k. 1985. physico-chemical change in mango pulp during ambient storage in glass containers. j. food sci. technol., 22:350-353 khurdiya, d.s. 1979. nature and retention of anthocyanin pigment in phalsa (grewia subinaequalis l.) juice. ph.d.thesis, i.a.r.i., new delhi khurdiya, d.s. and anand, j.c. 1981. effect of storage temperature on quality of phalsa beverage. j. food sci. technol., 15:18-16 kim, d.m., smith, n.l. and lee, c.y. 1993. apple cultivar variations in response to heat treatment and minimal processing. j. food sci. technol., 58:1111-1114 klin, m. and nagy, s. 1988. an improved method to determine non-enzymic browning in citrus juice. j. agril. food chem., 36:1271-1274 kumar, r., kaushik, r.a. and chharia, a.s. 1992. effect of post-harvest treatment on the quality of mango during storage. haryana j .hort. sci., 21:49-53 lane, j.h. and eynon, l. 1923. determination of reducing sugar by fehling’s solutions with methylene blue as indicator. j. soc. chem. ind., 42:32-37 mapson, l.w. 1970. vitamins in fruits in: hulme, a. c. (ed.) the biochemistry of fruits and their products, vol. 1, academic press, london, pp 369-384 mehta, u. and bajaj, s. 1983. effect of storage and method of preservation on the physico-chemical characteristics of citrus juices. ind. food packer, 37:42-51 premi, b.r., lal, b.b. and joshi, v.k. 1994. distribution pattern of bittering principle in kinnow fruits. j. food sci. & technol., 31:140-141 ranganna, s. 1994. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruits and vegetable products. 2nd edn., tata mc.graw hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi ranote, p.s. and bains, g.s. 1982. juice of kinnow fruits. ind. food packer, 36:23-33 sethi, v., anand, j.c. and sexana, s.k. 1980. kinnow orange in juice and beverage making. ind. j. hort., 28:13-15 sethi, v. 1985. a simple and low cost preservation of litchi juice. ind. food packer, 39:42-48 sogi, d.s. and singh, s. 2001. studies on bitterness development in kinnow juice ready-to-serve beverage, squash, jam and candy. j. food sci. technol., 38:433-438 tandon, d.k., kumar, s., dikshit, a. and shukla, d.k. 2007. storage study on bael-papaya blended rts beverage. ind. food packer, 73:91-95 tiwari, r.b. 2000. studies on blending of guava and papaya pulp for rts beverage. ind. food packer, 2: 69-72 vaks, b. and litshitz, a. 1981. debittering of orange juice by bacteria, which degrade limonin. j. agri. food chem., 29:1258-1261 (ms received 20 november 2011, revised 09 july 2012) quality of kinnow juice blends under refrigeration storage j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):166-173, 2012 221 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 221-226, 2018 influence of growth regulating chemicals on growth and flowering in jasmine (jasminum sambac.ait.) d. dhanasekaran department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture annamalai university, annamalai nagar 608 002 tamil nadu, india e-mail:dhansflora@gmail.com abstract jasmine is an important commercial flower crop in tamil nadu. the crop has a main flowering season during march to october and an off-season from november to february. during this off-season, flowering is very poor or there is no flowering in many growing areas. in recent years, growth regulators are valuable in floriculture for manipulating growth and flowering of many crops and hence and attempt has been made to induce flowering during off season using growth regulators in jasmine in the floriculture unit of the department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, tamil nadu during november, 2016 to february, 2017. the treatment comprises of three concentrations of each of two growth promoting substances viz., naa and ga3 and two growth retardants (cycocel and maleic hydrazide). the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with three replications. among the various treatments, application of naa @ 75 ppm (t6) recorded the highest plant height (130.6 cm and 178.5 cm at 90 and 180 dap respectively), number of primary shoots (21.68 and 35.68 at 90 and 180 dap respectively), number of nodes (9.86 and 15.89 cm at 90 and 180 dap respectively) and number of leaves (1250.0 and 2689.5 at 90 and 180 dap respectively). earliness in flowering (26.38 dap) and maximum duration of flowering (171.00 days) was noticed in (ga3@ 150 ppm t3). from the above studies, it is inferred that application of ga3 @ 150 ppm could be recommended for enhanced growth and higher flower yield in jasminum sambac. keywords : jasmine, growth regulators, naa,ga,ccc, mh,off-season flowering introduction jasmine is one of the oldest fragrant flowers. a serious limiting factor is that the flower ing of jasminum sambac is seasonal. there are peak and lean productive seasons with consequent gluts and scarcity which affect the price trends greatly. regulation of plant growth and development using natural plant hormones for greater production has received the utmost attention (leetham et al., 1978). growth and flowering responses of flower crops to these chemical substances have been intensively studied with a view to have compact plants with greater number of flowers and also to hasten or delay flowering according to the needs of the grower (cathey, 1980). regulation of flowering in jasmine has immense practical value. timing of the peak flowering to coincide with the time of gr eatest dema nd a nd generally modifying the flowering sequence to avoid peak production at about the same time would confer great advantage to the grower and consumers. it is in this respect that the possibility of using plant growth regulators for regula tion assumes significance. keeping this in view, the present investigation was therefore taken to study the effect of growth regulators and their concentration on growth and flowering of jasmine (jasminum sambac ait.). an experiment was formulated with two growth promoters (ga3 and naa) and two growth retardants (ccc, mh) at three concentrations each were taken up in the floriculture unit during november, 2016 to february, 2017. thirteen treatments comprising ga3 at 50, 100 and 150 ppm, naa at 25, 50, 75 ppm, cycocel at 500, 1000 and 1500 ppm and maleic hydrazide at 1000, 2000 and 3000 ppm concentration and a control was replicated thrice. three year old 222 dhanasekaran j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 88-94, 2018 jasmine plants were selected from the floriculture unit of the depa r tment of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, tamil nadu for the experiment. four plants were maintained for each treatment per replication along with a control and conventional pruning during second fortnight of october, 2016. after pruning, when the new shoots appeared with sufficient number of leaves, the freshly prepared gibberellic acid (ga3), naphthalene acetic acid (naa), 2-chloroethyl–trimethyl ammonium chloride; chlorocholine chloride (cycocel ccc) and maleic hydrazide (mh) were sprayed once as per the treatments. the data on vegetative parameters viz., plant height, number of primary shoots, number of nodes, intermodal length, number of leaves and flowering parameters viz., days taken for flowering, duration of flowering, flower yield and hundred flower weight were recorded. the statistical analysis of the data was done by adopting the standard procedure given by panse and sukhatme (1967). t he r esults of the investiga tion undertaken with a view to study the effect of certain plant growth regulators on flowering and yield of jasmine (jasminum sambac ait.) are presented in table1 and 2. among the var ious treatments, application of naa @ 75 ppm (t6) recorded the highest plant height (130.6 cm and 178.5 cm at 90 and 180 dap, respectively) and it was followed by (t3) gibberllic acid @150 ppm which recorded the value of 127.8 cm and 175.5 cm at 90 and 180 dap, respectively. the pgr’s when applied as foliar spray, were absorbed by the leaves and readily translocated in both xylem and phloem tissues r esulting in distribution throughout the plant system. this might be the reason for the enhancement in plant height. the least plant height (98.9 cm and 142.1 cm at 90 and 180 dap respectively was observed in t8 (cycocel @ 1000 ppm). cycocel has dwarfening effect on the plant (dole and wilkins, 1999). this causes the internodes to shorten and stems to harden due to thickness. among the various treatments the maximum number of primary shoots was registered in naa @ 75 ppm (t6) which recorded the highest values (21.68 and 35.68 at 90 and 180 dap, respectively). this was followed by the treatment naa @50 ppm (t5) which recorded the value of 19.88 and 33.18 at 90 and 180 dap, respectively. significant differences were observed among the growth regulators tried in jasmine. foliar spray of gibberellic acid (ga3 @150 ppm (t3) resulted in more number of internodes (17.98 and 43.59 at 90 and 180 dap respectively), which is followed by (t9) cycocel @1500 ppm (17.00 and 41.69 at 90 and 180 dap respectively). however least number of nodes was registered in t13 (control) with a value of 8.27 and 23.09 at 90 and 180 dap respectively. the data presented in table 1 clearly shows that the length of internodes was significantly increased by the application of naa @ 75 ppm (t6) (9.86 and 15.89 cm at 90 and 180 dap respectively). this was followed by (t3) gibberellic acid @150 ppm (8.96 and 14.59 at 90 and 180 dap respectively). the maximum number of leaves per plant was recorded in the treatment t3 ga3 @150 ppm (1250.0 and 2689.5 at 90 and 180 dap, respectively). this might be attributed to the enhanced vegetative growth in early phase due to exogenous application of ga3 which would have favoured the increased photosynthesis and co2 fixation. the least number of leaves was registered in t13 (control) a value of 794.4 and 2070.2 at 90 and 180 dap respectively. the increased effect could be corroborated with the findings of sridhar et al (2013) and pappaiah and muthusamy (1978) in jasminum auriculatum. the increased effect of naa @ 75 ppm for the above characters might be due to the fact that naa would have promoted vegetative growth by inducing active cell division in the apical meristem. increase in growth attributes due to the application of the naa in the present study is in consonance with the findings of sridhar et al (2013). similar results were also derived by pal et al., (1980) in jasmine and grisha et al (2012) in daisy. earliness in flowering (26.38 dap) was noticed in plants sprayed with ga3 @ 150 ppm (t3) followed by ga3 @100 ppm (t2) with took 30.38 days. this might be attributed to the enhanced vegetative growth in early phase attributed by exogenous application of ga3 which would have favoured the increased photo synthesis and co2 fixation. further, it would have favoured convenience of factors influencing floral initiation ie., carbohydrate pathway and photo periodic pathway with ga3 pathway. these results are in accordance with findings of baskaran et al.,(2007) and devadanam et al., (2007) in gladiolus. delayed 223 growth regulations in jasmine j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 88-94, 2018 ta bl e 1. e ff ec t of g ro w th r eg ul at or s on v eg et at iv e pa ra m et er s of j as m in e (j as m in um s am ba c a it .) pl an t he ig ht n o. o f p ri m ar y n um be r of n od es in te rm od al le ng th n um be r o f l ea ve s pe r t re at m en ts (c m ) sh oo ts pl an t 90 18 0 90 18 0 90 18 0 90 18 0 90 18 0 d a p d a p d a p d a p d a p d a p d a p d a p d a p d a p t 1 g a 3@ 5 0 pp m 11 7. 1 16 5. 3 15 .6 8 27 .3 8 13 .8 8 35 .5 9 6. 06 10 .8 7 10 60 .0 24 25 .8 t 2 g a 3@ 1 00 p pm 12 4. 2 17 1. 4 17 .5 8 29 .9 8 14 .6 6 37 .3 9 7. 86 13 .1 7 11 95 .6 25 98 .8 t 3 g a 3@ 1 50 p pm 12 4. 8 17 5. 5 18 .0 8 30 .5 8 17 .9 8 43 .5 9 8. 96 14 .5 9 12 50 .0 26 89 .5 t 4– n a a @ 2 5 pp m 12 0. 1 16 8. 3 13 .7 8 24 .5 8 10 .9 2 28 .5 9 6. 96 11 .9 7 89 9. 5 22 12 .2 t 5– n a a @ 5 0 pp m 12 7. 2 17 2. 4 19 .8 8 33 .1 8 10 .2 7 27 .0 9 8. 06 13 .2 7 84 9. 4 21 44 .2 t 6– n a a @ 7 5 pp m 13 0. 6 17 8. 5 21 .6 8 35 .6 8 11 .5 7 30 .0 9 9. 86 15 .8 9 94 9. 7 22 80 .2 t 7– c yc oc el @ 5 00 p pm 11 1. 5 15 9. 1 7. 98 16 .3 8 15 .5 2 39 .1 9 4. 26 8. 27 11 59 .0 25 48 .8 t 8– c yc oc el @ 1 00 0 pp m 98 .9 14 2. 1 9. 68 18 .7 8 16 .0 2 39 .7 9 1. 26 3. 01 12 29 .0 26 53 .3 t 9– c yc oc el @ 1 50 0 pp m 10 2. 4 14 7. 9 11 .8 8 21 .6 8 17 .0 2 41 .6 9 1. 76 4. 27 12 04 .5 26 08 .3 t 10 – m h @ 1 00 0 pp m 11 0. 5 15 7. 0 4. 58 11 .7 8 12 .2 2 31 .5 9 4. 16 8. 17 99 9. 9 23 48 .2 t 11 – m h @ 2 00 0 pp m 10 5. 0 15 0. 9 6. 28 14 .2 8 12 .3 2 32 .1 9 2. 36 5. 57 10 07 .4 23 57 .8 t 12 – m h @ 3 00 0 pp m 10 7. 6 15 3. 9 9. 98 19 .1 8 13 .1 33 .7 9 3. 26 6. 87 11 10 .3 24 89 .8 t 13 c on tr ol (w at er sp ra y) 11 4. 4 16 2. 2 2. 08 7. 88 8. 27 23 .0 9 5. 16 9. 67 79 4. 4 20 70 .2 s. e .d 0. 96 1. 23 0. 34 0. 81 0. 33 0. 83 0. 42 0. 58 5. 98 14 .6 3 c .d (p = 0. 05 ) 2. 01 0. 72 1. 7 0. 69 1. 75 0. 89 1. 22 12 .5 30 .5 8 224 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 88-94, 2018 dhanasekaran ta bl e 2. e ff ec t of g ro w th r eg ul at or s on f lo w er in g pa ra m et er s of j as m in e (j as m in um s am ba c a it .) t re at m en ts d ay s ta ke n fo r to ta l d ur at io n of fl ow er y ie ld p er p la nt ( g) m ea n hu nd re d fl ow er fir st fl ow er fl ow er in g (d ay s) 90 d a p 12 0 d a p w ei gh t ( g) in iti at io n (a ft er fo r f lo w er (u p to p ru ni ng ) em er ge nc e) t 1 g a 3@ 5 0 pp m 36 .4 8 15 2. 90 38 4. 14 52 6. 32 58 8. 96 t 2 g a 3@ 1 00 p pm 30 .3 8 16 8. 50 44 3. 34 59 4. 52 59 5. 66 t 3 g a 3@ 1 50 p pm 26 .3 8 17 1. 00 46 0. 34 61 5. 72 60 0. 76 t 4– n a a @ 2 5 pp m 43 .9 8 14 2. 30 36 4. 64 47 8. 32 56 3. 66 t 5– n a a @ 5 0 pp m 47 .0 8 14 1. 10 36 6. 14 50 1. 32 56 5. 16 t 6– n a a @ 7 5 pp m 39 .6 8 16 4. 90 40 2. 14 54 7. 32 58 2. 36 t 7– c yc oc el @ 5 00 p pm 40 .8 8 15 9. 60 42 0. 14 56 8. 32 57 6. 76 t 8– c yc oc el @ 1 00 0 pp m 33 .3 8 16 5. 90 42 5. 34 57 3. 52 58 7. 46 t 9– c yc oc el @ 1 50 0 pp m 50 .1 8 14 7. 60 35 9. 54 47 3. 22 57 1. 06 t 10 – m h @ 1 00 0 pp m 54 .2 8 13 5. 50 34 1. 54 45 1. 22 55 7. 96 t 11 – m h @ 2 00 0 pp m 57 .4 8 13 3. 40 32 3. 04 42 9. 22 55 0. 16 t 12 – m h @ 3 00 0 pp m 60 .5 8 12 7. 70 30 4. 54 40 7. 22 54 3. 96 t 13 c on tr ol (w at er sp ra y) 53 .2 8 12 0. 20 28 2. 54 38 2. 22 53 3. 96 s. e .d 1. 32 1. 18 7. 58 9. 89 0. 91 c .d (p = 0. 05 ) 2. 76 3. 18 15 .8 5 19 .6 8 1. 92 225 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 88-94, 2018 growth regulations in jasmine flowering was recorded in t12 mh @ 3000 ppm (60.58 days). this might be due to lesser mitotic activity and preservation of bio-synthesis of gibberellic acid like substances. these results are in agreement with the findings of sen and maharana (1971) and dutta et al., (1993) in chrysanthemum. dalal et al., (2009) stated that the delayed flowering might be due to influence of growth retardants in reducing the partition of carbohydrates to floral organ when compared to control. maximum flowering duration was in ga3 @150 ppm (t3), which recorded 171.00 days, followed by ga3 @ 100 ppm (t2) with168.5 days. this might be attributed to the enhanced vegetative growth in early phase attributed by exogenous application of ga3 would have favoured carbohydrate pathway. the longevity of flowering was also observed by sridhar et al., (2013) in jasminum auriculatum and dalal et al., (2009) in chrysanthemum. the minimum dur ation of flowering was recorded in control (t13) with120.20 days. among the various treatments significant increase in flower yield per plant was recorded in ga3 @ 150 ppm (t3) with a value of 460.34 and 615.72 g plant-1 at 90 and 120 dap respectively. this is followed by ga3 @ 100 ppm (t2) 443.34 and 594.52 g plant -1 at 90 and 120 dap respectively. the increase in weight of flowers might be due to the production of more number of secondary shoots at early stage, which then had sufficient time to accumulate reserve carbohydrates for proper flower bud differentiation. the lowest yield was observed in t13 -control (282.54 and 382.22 g plant-1) at 90 and 180 dap respectively. among the treatments, ga3 @ 150 ppm (t3) recorded the highest value of 600.76 g followed by ga3 @100 ppm (t2 ) (595.66g). the lowest hundred bud weight was recorded in t13 control (533.96 g). this might be attributed to the enhanced vegetative growth in early phase attributed by exogenous application of ga3 which would ha ve fa vour ed the incr ea sed photosynthesis and co2 fixation. in the present study, the data on extended duration of flowering and hundred bud weight due to the application of ga3 @ 150 ppm might also be a cause for increase in yield. earlier reports indicated that the growth and yield of jasminum grandiflorum was enhanced by application of ga3 (bhattarcharjee, 1983), narayana gowda (1985) and sridhar et al., (2013).similar findings were also recorded by amit kumar et al., (2011) in african marigold, shinde et al., (2010) in chrysanthemum. from the above studies, it is inferred that application of ga3 @ 150 ppm could be recommended for enhanced growth and higher flower yield in jasminum sambac. references amit kumar, kumar,j., mohan,b., singh,j.p., rajbeer and ram,n. 2011. effect of plant growth regulators on growth, flowering and yield of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) cv. pusa narangi gainda. asian j. hort., 6(2): 418-422. baskaran, v., misra,r.l. and abirami,k. 2007. effect of plant growth regulators of corm production in gladiolus. j. ornamental hort. sci., 4(1): 7880. bhattacharjee, s. k., 1983, growth and flowering of jasminum grandiflorum l. as influenced by growth regulating chemicals. singapore j. primaryindustries, 11(1): 34-38. cathey, m. h. , 1980, phosphon a nd ccc for contr olling height of chr ysa nthemum. floriculture ex., 135: 12-13. deva da nam, a. , shinde, b. n., sa ble, p. b. and vedpathak,s.g. 2007. effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators on flowering and vase life of tuberose (polyanthus tuberose l.). j. soil and crops, 17(1): 86-88. dole, j.m. and h.f. wilkins 1999. floriculture principles and species; prentice hall. inc, u.s.a, 555-558. dutta, j.p., seemandhini, r. and khader,m.a. 1993. regulation of flowering in chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum indicum l.)cv.co-1 by use of growth regulators. south indian hort., 41(5):293-299 dalal. s.r, karale, g.d. and momin, c.k. 2009. effect of growth regulators on growth, yield and quality of chrysanthemum under net house conditions. asian.j.hort., 4(1):161-163. 226 (ms received 25 november 2017, revised 26 july 2018, accepted 13 december 2018) j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 88-94, 2018 dhanasekaran grisha, r.,shirol,a.m., kulkarni, b.s., reddy,b.s. and anupa,t. 2012. studies on effect of different plant growth regulators on growth, flowering and quality of daisy (aster amellus l.) cv. dwarf pink. int. j. agric. env. biotech. 5(2): 127-131. leetham, d. s., goodwing,p.b. and higgins, t.j.v. 1978. phytohormones and related components, a comprehensive treatise vol. 2, elsevier, amsterdam. narayana gowda, j. v., 1985. effect of gibberellic acid on growth and flowering of rose cv. superstar. the indian rose annual, iv: 185188. panse, v.g. and sukhatme,p.v.(1967). statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi. pal, p., maity, r. g. and bose, t. k.1980. effect of growth regulators on jasminum sambac var. double. national seminar on production technology for commercial flower crops, 20 and 30 august, tamil nadu agricultur al university, coimbatore, pp. 35-38. pappaiah, c. m. and muthuswamy, s., 1978. effect of growth regulators on growth, flowering and quality and essential oil content of jasminum auriculatum var. parimullai. south indian horti., 26: 66-71 sen, s.k. and maharana, t. 1971. growth and flowering response of chrysa nthemum to growth regulator treatments. punjab hort. j., 11:276-279. shinde, k.h. , praekh,n.s., upadhay,n.v. and patel, h.c. 2010. investigation of different levels of gibberellic acid (ga3) and pinching treatments on gr owth, flower ing a nd yield of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) cv. iihr-6 under middle gujarat conditions. asian j. hort., 5(2): 416-419. sridhar, p., angadi,s.g., kiranmai,s. and anil kumar. 2013. effect of growth promoters and growth retardants on different growth parameters in jasmine (jasminum auriculatum vahl.). plant archives., 13(1): 569-571. ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk) is a hardy fruit tree which can be successfully grown in arid and semi-arid zones of indian states particularly haryana, rajasthan, madhya pradesh and gujarat, where most of other fruit plants fail to grow due to lack of irrigation facilities. ber fruit is very popular among consumers due to its high nutritive value and comparatively lower market price. the fruit of ber is considered more nutritive than apple for its higher protein, beta-carotene and vitamin c contents (rai and gupta, 1994). in punjab, the commercial cultivation of ber is largely focused on single cultivar ‘umran’. however, submontane region of state having higher relative humidity, sanaur-2 cultivar is recommended due to its higher tolerance to powdery mildew disease as compared to umran. but heavy fruit drop is a major obstacle for expansion of ber industry in this region. the bulk of fruit drop occurs at early stage of fruit development i.e, during second fortnight of december. many reasons such as hormonal imbalance, abortion of embryo and inclement weather have been ascribed to drop immature fruits in ber (singh et al, 1991). application of naa and znso 4 alone or in combinations short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 161-163, 2009 effect of growth regulator and nutrients spray on control of fruit drop, fruit size and quality of ber under sub-montane zone of punjab p.p.s. gill and j.s. bal department of horticulture punjab agricultural university ludhiana 141 004, punjab, india e-mail: timgill740@rediffmail.com abstract the effect of foliar spray of plant growth regulators and nutrients on fruit drop, fruit size and quality was studied in ber cv sanuar-2 at krishi vigyan kendra, hoshiarpur, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during 2005-2006. plants were sprayed with naa (20, 30 or 40 ppm), kno 3 (0.5, 1.0 or 1.5%) and znso 4 (0.3, 0.4 or 0.5%) during the last week of october and again superimposed in the last week of november. all the treatments resulted in decreased fruit drop compared to control. minimum fruit drop (69.6%) was recorded with application of naa (30 ppm) while maximum was recorded in control. plants sprayed with kno 3 (1.5%) exhibited maximum fruit size, fruit weight while this was minimum in control trees. palatability rating of fruits was maximum with kno 3 (1.5%) which also exhibited maximum fruit size, fruit weight and minimum was observed in control trees besides producing fruits with on attractive colour. total soluble solids were not affected by treatments. maximum vitamin c (104.2 mg/100 g pulp) content was observed in naa (30 ppm), followed by kno 3 (1.5%) treatment. results indicated that naa (30 ppm) spray was better for fruit retention; however, fruit quality in terms of size, colour and palatability rating was better with kno 3 (1.5%). key words: ber, fruit drop, fruit quality, plant growth regulators, nutrients were effective in reducing fruit drop in ber cv umran (yadav et al, 2004). similarly, foliar application of kno 3 (1.5 %) alone or in combination with urea at pea size stage increased fruit size and quality in cv. umran (yadav, 2001). keeping in view of above findings, the present study was undertaken to find out the efficacy of foliar sprays of naa, kno 3 and znso 4 in checking the fruit drop and improving quality of ber cv. sanaur. the present investigation was carried out at ber orchard of krishi vigyan kendra, hoshiarpur, a centre of punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, during 2005-2006, planted at 7.5 x 7.5 meters under square system. four-yearsold plants of uniform vigour of ber cv. sanaur-2 maintained under uniform cultural practices and plant protection measures were selected. aqueous solution of different chemicals viz; naphthalene acetic acid (20, 30 and 40 ppm), kno 3 (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%) and znso 4 (0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 %) were applied as foliar spray. the different nutrient solutions were prepared separately by dissolving the required quantity of salts in water. the trees were sprayed in last week of 162 october and november months. the control trees were sprayed with water. ten treatments including control were laid out in completely randomized block design with three replications. in each replication, four branches were tagged and fruits from these were counted just before the first spray. the fruit drop was estimated at the time of harvesting by counting the number of fruits retained in labelled branches. fruits were harvested at optimum maturity. thirty fruits per replication were taken at random to determine physicochemical characteristics. fruit size (length x breadth) was measured with the help of vernier calipers. fruit weight was measured with electronic balance and expressed in gram. the colour of fruits was recorded with ‘royal horticultural society colour chart’ (wilson, 1938). palatability rating in terms of general appearance, taste and flavour were recorded by panel of five judges. total soluble solids were measured with hand refractometer and the values were corrected to 20oc with the help of temperature correction chart. total acids were determined by titrating the known weight of finely blended pulp with 0.1n naoh using phenolphthalein as an indicator. vitamin c content was determined by titrating the juice against 2, 6-dichlorphenol indophenol dye solution to a light pink colour which persisted for 15 seconds. the results were expressed as mg/100 g of fruit flesh. the data were analysed statistically by randomized block design (rbd) method using cpcs-1 computer software package. a. fruit drop and physical characteristics of fruit the data on fruit drop, fruit colour, fruit size and weight are presented in table 1. all the sprayed treatments, except kno 3 (1.0% and 1.5%) significantly decreased fruit drop over control. the decrease in fruit drop, however, seemed to vary with different chemicals and their concentrations employed. minimum fruit drop (69.6%) was recorded in naa 30 ppm treatment which was statistically on par with naa 20 pppm, znso 4 (0.4%) and znso 4 (0.5%) treatments. however, the maximum fruit drop of 82.7 per cent was observed in control trees. reduction in fruit drops of ber with naa applications have also been reported by earlier workers (bal et al, 1984 and singh et al, 2001). the effect of znso 4 in controlling the fruit drop might be due to the higher availability of photosynthates and promotes auxin synthesis necessary for fruit set and growth. application of kno 3 (1.0 and 1.5%) and znso 4 (0.5%) resulted attractive yellowish green colour (yg 154 b) fruit as compared to green coloured (yg 150 b) fruits in rest of the treatments including control. significantly higher fruit size was registered in naa (30 ppm), kno 3 (0.5 & 1.0%) and znso 4 (0.5%) treatments as compared to control. the maximum fruit size was recorded in kno 3 (1.5%) closely followed by znso 4 (0.5%) treatment. the minimum fruit size was recorded in control. similarly, the maximum fruit weight of 24.0 g was recorded in kno 3 (1.5%) and minimum of 20.2 g was observed in control. similar increase in fruit weight with foliar application of kno 3 was noted by ebraheim et al (1993) in ‘balady’ mandarins. increase in fruit size with znso 4 was also reported by samant et al (2008). auxins are known to play fundamental role in determining fruit growth (arteca, 1996). these results are in agreement with findings of singh et al (2001), who observed higher fruit size and weight with znso 4 , k 2 so 4 and naa treatments. lal et al (2001) also observed increase in fruit weight of ‘umran’ ber with application of potassium in combination with nitrogen. table 1. effect of plant growth regulators and nutrients on fruit drop, fruit colour, fruit size and fruit weight of ber cv. sanaur-2 treatment fruit drop (%) fruit colour fruit length (cm) fruit breadth (cm) fruit weight (g) naa 20 ppm 70.5 (57.1) *yg-150 b 4.45 2.96 21.2 naa 30 ppm 69.6 (56.5) yg-150 b 4.62 3.02 22.9 naa 40 ppm 76.9 (61.3) yg-150 b 4.50 2.98 21.8 kno 3 0.5% 77.5 (61.7) yg-150 b 4.57 3.00 22.4 kno 3 1.0% 80.6 (63.8) yg-154 b 4.60 3.05 22.1 kno 3 1.5% 81.7 ( 64.7) yg-154 b 4.71 3.09 24.0 znso 4 0.3% 74.0 (59.3) yg-154 b 4.43 2.93 21.4 znso 4 0.4% 71.8 (57.9) yg-150 b 4.43 2.94 21.8 znso 4 0.5% 72.6 (58.4) yg-154 b 4.66 3.03 23.8 control 82.7 (65.4) yg-150 b 4.38 2.90 20.2 cd at p=0.05 (1.92) -0.13 0.10 2.06 figures in parenthesis indicate arc sine transformed values * yg = yellow green j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 161-163, 2009 gill and bal 163 b. quality of fruit data on quality parameters of fruit are presented in table 2. the palatability rating of fruits was increased by various foliar sprays as compared to control. significantly higher palatability rating was observed in naa 40 ppm, kno 3 (1.5%), znso 4 (0.4%) and znso 4 (0.5%) treatments as compared to control. the highest palatability rating (16.5) was recorded with kno 3 (1.5%) treatment and the fruits were marked ‘excellent’. the minimum palatable rating was observed in control. tss content was not influenced by the spray treatments. all the treatments significantly decreased acid content of fruits as compared to control except, naa (20 ppm) and znso 4 (0.4 & 0.5%) treatments, where it was statistically at par. tss / acid ratio was unaffected by different treatments. vitamin c content of fruit ranged from 84.7 mg/ 100g in control to 104.2 mg/100 g in naa 30 ppm treatment. significantly higher vitamin c content was recorded in naa (30 & 40 ppm) and kno 3 (1.5%) treatments as compared to control. similar results were also reported by singh et al (2002). references arteca, r. 1996. plant growth substances: principles and applications. pp 57., chapman & hall, new york bal, j.s., singh, s.n., randhawa, j.s. and jawandha, j.s. 1984. effect of growth regulators on fruit drop, size and quality of ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk). indian j. hort., 41:182-185 ebrahiem, t.a., ahmed, f.f. and assy, k.g. 1993. behavior (ms received 6 april 2009, revised 26 october 2009) table 2. effect of plant growth regulators and nutrients on fruit quality characteristics ber cv. sanaur-2 treatment palatability rating (max. 20) tss (%) acidity (%) tss/acid ratio vitamin c (mg/100g) naa 20 ppm 14.6 15.4 0.40 38.9 93.3 naa 30 ppm 14.7 16.2 0.38 43.2 104.2 naa 40 ppm 15.9 17.2 0.34 50.5 101.6 kno 3 0.5% 15.2 16.0 0.35 46.0 88.3 kno 3 1.0% 15.4 15.8 0.32 49.5 93.3 kno 3 1.5% 16.5 16.9 0.35 48.6 102.1 znso 4 0.3% 14.8 15.9 0.35 45.8 99.5 znso 4 0.4% 15.8 15.6 0.41 37.7 98.2 znso 4 0.5% 15.7 16.2 0.42 38.9 93.6 control 14.6 15.4 0.45 34.0 84.7 cd at p=0.05 0.9 ns 0.06 ns 10.44 of balady mandarin tree (c. reticulata) grown in sandy loam soil to different forms and concentrations of potassium foliar sprays. j. agric. sci., 24:215-227 lal, g., dhaka, r.s. agarwal, v.k. goyal, s.k. and pareek, c.s. 2001. a note physico chemical attributes of umran ber as affected by application of nitrogen and potassium. haryana j. hort. sci., 30:204-205 rai, m. and gupta, p.n. 1994. genetic diversity in ber. indian j. hort., 39:42-47 samant d., mishra, n.k. and lal, r.l. 2008. effect of micronutrient sprays on fruit yield and quality during storage in ber cv. umran under ambient conditions. indian j. hort., 65:399-404 singh, r., godara, n.r., singh, r. and dahiya, s.s. 2001. response of foliar applicatoin of growth regulators and nutrients in ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk) haryana j. hort. sci., 30:161-164 singh, r., godara, n.r. and ahlawat, v.p. 2002. qualitative attributes as affected by foliar sprays of nutrients and growth regulators in ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk.) cv. umran. haryana j. hort. sci., 31:23-25 singh, z., dhillon, b.s. and sandhu, a.s. 1991. relationship of embryo degeneration with fruit drop and its pattern in different cultivars of ber. indian j. hort., 48:277-281 wilson, r.r. 1938. horticultural colour charts. wilson colours ltd in collaboration with the royal horticultural society and british council. yadav, b., rana, g.s. and bhatia, s.k. 2004. response of naphthalene acetic acid, urea and zinc sulphate on fruit drop in ber (zizyphus mauritiana lamk). haryana j. hort. sci., 33:181-182 yadav, p.k. 2001. note on foliar application of urea and potassium sulphate on yield and quality of ber. curr. agri., 25:129-130 effect of growth regulators and nutrient spray on fruiting in ber j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 161-163, 2009 introduction rose (rosa spp.) is one of the most popular flowering shrubs in india as well as in other countries. valued for their beautiful and, often, fragrant blooms, roses have been cultivated in gardens for centuries as vines, shrubs, specimen plants, ground-covers and container-plants. commercial rose cultivation under open-field and protected structures is gaining importance with area under its cultivation increasing day by day. there is a need to provide adequate protection against various insect pests to improve quality and yield of the flowers. a large number of insects attack different parts of the rose plant from the very early stages of growth. the most common pests are thrips, aphids, scales, chaffers, termites, whiteflies, leafhoppers, mites, etc. among these pests, thrips (scirtothrips dorsalis hood) is very important (ananthakrishnan and jagdish, 1968; nair et al, 1991; onkarappa and mallik, 1998). the larvae and adults of s. dorsalis cause damage at all the stages in a flower (murugan, 2000). scirtothrips dorsalis alone can cause 28-95% damage (gahukar, 2003). due to extensive cultivation of rose by humans, the crop now needs to be managed using less pollutant-chemicals. it is important to know the insectpest complex in rose. several insecticides like monocrotophos, endosulfan and lambda cyhalothrin have been recommended for managing s. dorsalis. however, management of thrips, scirtothrips dorsalis hood, on rose under open-field and protected conditions jayalaxmi narayan hegde, a.k. chakravarthy*, m.k. nagamani*, and m.s. prabhakar** college of horticulture, banavasi road, sirsi 581 401, india e-mail : jnh.sahana@rediffmail.com abstract investigation on management of thrips, scirtothrips dorsalis hood on roses under open-field and protected conditions was conducted during 2008-10 at bengaluru. clothianidin 50 wdg 20g a.i./ha proved best in terms of efficacy and cost. vertimac, spinosad and garlic barrier agriculture (gb ag ) were comparable in efficacy. gb ag was on par with clothianidin besides being eco-friendly. gb ag was found effective as a new molecule. neem seed kernel extract (nske) proved to be superior to neem oil, pongamia oil and the commercial neem product, nimbecidine. nske was also found to reduce thrips density to the extent of 64% 88%. in rose fields where pest suppression measures are hardly practised, farmers can apply nske, monocrotophos or imidacloprid. based on the cost of vertimac and spinosad, these can be recommended where cost-effective, as in commercial polyhouses growing roses. key words: thrips, scirtothrips dorsalis, rose, management, open-field and protected conditions pest-suppression achieved is not to the level desired (sridhar and rani, 2003; dhanajaya, 2007; murugan and jagadish, 2004). reddy et al (2001) reported that application of fipronil, followed by thiamethoxam, acetamiprid and dimethoate, were effective in controlling rose thrips. to know the efficiency of botanicals and biopesticides against damage caused by rose thrips, the present investigation was carried out. material and methods field trials were conducted in the botanical garden of lalbagh and protected cultivation in a polyhouse at ramohally, bengaluru (12º56’ n and 77º35’ e at 930m amsl). the experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design, with 5 replications. there were a total of thirteen treatments including control (table 1). each treatment was imposed twice at six-day intervals. observations on number of thrips were made a day before treatment (pre-count) and at 3 and 5 days after treatment. thrips (nymphs and adults) counts were recorded in five randomly-selected plants in each replication, on every date of observation. on each plant, three partially-opened flowers (one each from top, middle and bottom of the canopy), three young shoots (one each from top, middle and bottom of the canopy) and three young leaves (one each from top, middle and bottom of the canopy) were selected. the flowers, shoots and leaves were beaten against a black card-board sheet (0.3×0.3m) *university of agricultural sciences, gkvk, bangalore **pest control india, bangalore, karnataka j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):118-122, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 119 separately, and the thrips that fell onto the black sheet were counted separately for each part, and averaged per plant. observations were repeated for five plants, and numbers of thrips were averaged. the data was subjected to anova after square root transformation. results and discussion pre-treatment number of thrips in all the plots ranged from18.10 to 18.60 per plant, and treatment differences were non-significant (table 1) in 2008 at lalbagh. all the treatments were significantly effective in reducing thrips numbers compared to control. however, clothianidin 50 wdg @20g a.i./ha was the most effective treatment, which recorded minimum thrips-density on all dates of observation. this insecticide reduced thrips-density from 18.80/plant to 1.18/plant at 5 days after the second spray (dass). mean thrips-density/plant was 3.97. this insecticide proved superior to all other treatments. vertimac 1.9ec (0.03%) was on par with clothianidin which recorded thrips-density ranging from 18.20/plant to 1.30/plant, with mean density of 4.05 per plant. next in the order of efficacy were imidacloprid (0.1%), spinosad (0.04%), gb ag (0.2%), chlorfenafyr (0.1%), fipronil (0.2%), monocrotophos (0.15%). clothianidin, vertimac, spinosad and gb ag were comparable in their efficacy, even though the latter two were statistically significantly-different. in the control plot, rosethrips density per plant increased from 18.23 to 29.20 at 5 days after second spray, with a mean value of 25.45. among botanicals, gb ag registered minimum thrips-number and brought down thrips population from 18.20/plant (pre treatment) to 1.98/plant (5 das), with mean thrips-density of 4.59 per plant; its efficacy was comparable with that of insecticides. neem seed kernel extract (nske) @ 5% proved better than neem oil (2%), pongamia oil (2%) or nimbecidine (0.2%). vertimac proved to be better than spinosad. data on effect of insecticides, botanicals and biopesticides against thrips at lalbagh in 2009 are presented in table 2. pre-treatment number of thrips in all the plots ranged from 27.04 to 27.94, and treatments were statistically non-significant. data indicated that on all dates of observation treatments were all significantly superior to control, thereby reducing the thrips’ population. however, clothianidin 50 wdg @20g a.i./ha proved to be the best on all dates of observation. this insecticide reduced thripsdensity from 27.53/plant to 1.99/plant at 5 das. thrips density in spinosad (0.04%) treatment was on par with clothianidin where mean thrips-density was 7.20 per plant. gb ag was on par with clothianidin and spinosad, registering mean thrips-density of 7.59 per plant. next in the order of efficacy were vertimac (0.03%), chlorfenafyr (0.1%), imidacloprid (0.1%), fipronil (0.2%) and monocrotophos (0.15%). among the botanicals tested, gb ag registered table 1. efficacy of botanicals, biopesticides and chemicals against rose thrips under open-field conditions at lalbagh, bangalore during 2008 treatment particulars *number of thrips per plant on different days pre-treatment i spray ii spray mean count 3-das 5-das 3-das 5-das t1 nske @5% 18.10(4.37) 10.74(3.42) 6.40(2.72) 4.84(2.41) 3.16(2.04) 6.29 (2.99)f t2 neem oil @2% 18.46(4.41) 15.36(4.04) 12.16(3.62) 8.92(3.15) 8.28(3.05) 11.18 (3.65)h t3 pongamiaoil @ 2% 18.40(4.40) 16.04(4.12) 13.20(3.77) 10.80(3.43) 9.06(3.17) 12.28 (3.78)i t4 nimbecidine @0.2% 18.60(4.42) 16.64(4.20) 14.80(3.97) 12.20(3.63) 10.16(3.34) 13.45 (3.91)j t5 gb ag @0.2% 18.20(4.38) 8.58(3.09) 4.98(2.44) 2.82(1.95) 1.98(1.72) 4.59 (2.72)c t6 spinosad45sc @0.04% 18.10(4.37) 8.86(3.13) 4.70(2.39) 2.44(1.85) 1.86(1.69) 4.47 (2.71)c t7 vertimec -1.9ec @0.03% 18.20(4.38) 8.24(3.04) 4.24(2.28) 2.42(1.84) 1.30(1.51) 4.05 (2.61)a t8 chlorfenapyr–10sc.15% 18.40(4.40) 8.66(3.12) 6.44(2.72) 3.38(2.09) 2.16(1.78) 5.16 (2.79)d t9 fipronil 5 sc @0.2% 18.50(4.40) 9.26(3.20) 7.24(2.87) 3.80(2.19) 2.32(1.82) 5.66 (2.89)e t10 clothianidin 50 wdg 18.80(4.45) 8.06(3.01) 4.48(2.34) 2.16(1.78) 1.18(1.47) 3.97 (2.61)a @20g a.i./ha t11 monocrotophos @0.15% 18.60(4.43) 10.60(3.40) 8.60(3.09) 4.78(2.40) 3.52(2.12) 6.88 (3.09)g t12 imidacloprid@200sl-0.1% 18.00(4.36) 8.403.06) 4.78(2.40) 2.74(1.93) 1.42(1.55) 4.34 (2.66)b t13 control (no spray) 18.23(4.38) 21.00(4.68 24.60(5.06) 27.00(5.29) 29.20(5.49) 25.45 (4.98)l s.em.± c.d. at 5% t 0.021 0.042 d 0.012 0.025 t x d 0.048 0.090 das – days after spray *average of three mature flowers, young shoots and leaves five replications figures in parentheses indicate √x+1 transformation j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):118-122, 2011 management of thrips in rose prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 120 table 2. efficacy of botanicals, biopesticides and chemicals against rose thrips under open-field conditions at lalbagh, bangalore during 2009 reatment particulars *number of thrips per plant on different days pre-treatment i spray ii spray mean count 3-das 5-das 3-das 5-das t1 nske @5% 26.26(5.31) 16.29(4.15) 12.57(3.68) 10.30(3.36) 5.52(2.55) 11.17 (3.81)f t2 neem oil @2% 27.14(5.30) 24.43(45.04) 16.42(4.17) 10.30(3.36) 7.16(2.85) 14.58 (4.15)g t3 pongamia oil @2% 27.04(5.29) 25.62(5.15) 17.22(4.26) 11.82(3.58) 8.23(3.04) 15.72 (4.27)h t4 nimbecidine @0.2% 27.15(5.30) 25.94(5.19) 18.00(4.35) 12.62(3.69) 9.14(3.18) 16.43 (4.34)i t5 gb ag @0.2% 27.34(5.32) 15.42(4.05) 8.31(3.05) 4.28(2.19) 2.35(1.83) 7.59 (3.31)ab t6 spinosad45sc @0.04% 27.18(5.30) 14.52(3.94) 8.04(3.01) 4.04(2.24) 2.21(1.79) 7.20 (3.26)a t7 vertimec -1.9ec @0.03% 27.28(5.32) 15.34(4.04) 9.25(3.20) 5.28(2.50) 2.22(1.79) 8.02 (3.37)b t8 chlorfenapyr–10sc0.15% 27.32(5.31) 15.61(4.07) 10.16(3.34) 6.29(2.70) 2.90(1.97) 8.74 (3.48)c t9 fipronil 5 sc @ 0.2% 27.52(5.34) 16.66(4.20) 11.29(3.50) 6.71(2.77) 3.77(2.18) 9.61 (3.60)d t10 clothianidin 50 wdg 27.53(5.33) 13.38(3.92) 8.24(3.04) 4.02(2.24) 1.99(1.72) 6.91 (3.25)a @20g a.i./ha t11 monocrotophos @0.15% 27.54(5.34) 20.68(4.65) 19.48(3.03) 7.36(2.89) 4.03(2.24) 12.89 (3.68)e t12 imidacloprid@ 200sl-0.1% 27.94(5.38) 15.37(4.04) 11.33(3.51) 6.25(2.69) 4.10(2.25) 9.26 (3.56)d t13 control (no spray) 27.56(5.34) 32.55(5.79) 33.37(5.86) 34.64(5.96) 33.03(5.83) 33.40 (5.76)k s.em. ± c.d.at 5% t 0.032 0.063 d 0.019 0.038 t x d 0.072 0.142 das – days after spray *average of three mature flowers, young shoots and leaves from five replications figures in parentheses indicate √x+1 transformation table 3. efficacy of botanicals, biopesticides and chemicals against rose thrips under polyhouse at ramohally during 2008 treatment particulars *number of thrips per plant on different days pre-treatment i spray ii spray mean count 3-das 5-das 3-das 5-das t1 nske-5% 25.18(5.19) 17.28(4.27) 9.38(3.22) 5.46(2.54) 4.32(2.30) 9.11 (3.48)d t2 neem oil @2% 25.10(5.08) 19.32(4.50) 18.00(4.35) 14.8(3.97) 11.00(3.46) 15.78 (4.27)h t3 pongamia oil @2% 25.20(5.11) 20.96(4.68) 18.40(4.40) 15.22(4.03) 11.82(3.58) 16.60 (4.26)i t4 nimbecidine @0.2% 25.14(5.11) 21.00(4.68) 19.50(4.52) 16.48(4.18) 12.74(3.70) 17.43 (4.43)j t5 gb ag @0.2% 25.63(5.15) 15.90(4.11) 8.96(3.15) 4.92(2.43) 4.04(2.24) 8.46 (3.40)c t6 spinosad @45sc@0.04% 25.14(5.11) 15.58(4.07) 8.24(3.04) 3.98(2.23) 3.28(2.07) 7.77 (3.29)b t7 vertimec-1.9ec@0.03% 25.00(5.09) 15.62(4.07) 8.18(3.02) 3.96(2.23) 3.04(2.01) 7.70 (3.29)b t8 chlorfenapyr-10sc @0.15% 25.40(5.13) 16.14(4.13) 8.46(3.07) 4.98(2.44) 3.72(2.17) 8.33 (3.39)c t9 fipronil 5 sc @0.2% 25.12(5.11) 19.60(4.53) 11.24(3.49) 7.12(2.84) 5.16(2.48) 10.78 (3.69)e t10 clothianidin 50 wdg 25.60(5.15) 15.12(4.01) 7.20(2.86) 4.02(2.24) 2.78(1.94) 7.28 (3.24)a @ 20g a.i./ha t11 monocrotophos @0.15% 25.40(5.13) 21.40(4.73) 15.31(4.03) 12.77(3.71) 10.42(3.38) 14.98 (4.19)g t12 imidacloprid-200sl @0.1% 25.80(5.17) 15.74(4.09) 11.38(3.51) 9.14(3.18) 6.52(2.74) 10.70 (3.74)f t13 control (no spray) 25.40(5.14) 30.40(5.60) 33.40(5.86) 35.80(6.06) 38.20(6.26) 34.45(5.79)l s.em. ± c.d.at 5% t 0.021 0.042 d 0.012 0.025 t x d 0.047 0.094 das – days after spray *average of three matured flowers, young shoots and leaves from five replications figures in parentheses indicate √x+1 transformation minimum thrips population and brought down thrips population from 27.34/plant (pre-treatment) to 2.35/plant on 5 das, with mean thrips-density of 7.59 per plant. its efficacy was comparable to that of chemical insecticides. nske 5% proved better than neem oil (2%), pongamia oil (2%) and nimbecidine (0.2%). neem oil and pongamia oil were found superior to the commercial neem product nimbecidine. jayalaxmi narayan hegde et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):118-122, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 121 table 4. efficacy of botanicals, biopesticides and chemicals against rose thrips under polyhouse at, ramohally during 2009 treatment particulars *number of thrips per plant on different days pre-treatment i spray ii spray mean count 3-das 5-das 3-das 5-das t1 nske @5% 34.54(5.96) 24.38(5.04) 12.28(3.64) 7.30(2.88) 4.04(2.24) 12.00 (3.95)f t2 neem oil @2% 34.64(5.96) 28.28(5.41) 18.86(4.45) 16.22(4.14) 13.22(3.77) 19.15 (4.75)j t3 pongamia oil @2% 34.04(5.91) 29.32(5.50) 18.80(4.45) 15.37(3.04) 13.95(3.86) 19.36 (4.76)j t4 nimbecidine @0.2% 33.10(5.93) 30.40(5.60) 20.20(4.60) 16.12(4.13) 14.393.91) 20.26 (4.86)k t5 gb ag @0.2% 34.43(5.94) 20.32(4.61) 8.30(3.05) 4.20(2.28) 2.66(1.91) 8.87(3.52)c t6 spinosad45sc@0.04% 34.33(5.95) 19.71(5.55) 8.18(3.03) 4.07(2.25) 2.12(1.76) 8.52(3.51)b t7 vertimec-1.9ec@0.03% 34.35(5.95) 19.24(4.49) 9.17(3.19) 5.27(2.50) 2.40(1.81) 9.02 (3.60)d t8 chlorfenapyr-10sc @0.15% 34.18(5.93) 19.65(4.54) 12.59(3.68) 8.96(3.11) 6.56(1.74) 11.94 (4.00)g t9 fipronil 5 sc @0.2% 34.72(5.97) 21.58(4.75) 11.31(3.50) 6.62(2.76) 3.93(2.21) 10.86 (3.84)e t10 clothianidin 50 wdg 34.64(5.97) 18.26(4.38) 8.06(3.01) 4.12(2.26) 1.97(1.72) 8.10 (3.47)a @20g a.i./ha t11 monocrotophos @0.15% 34.56(5.96) 22.37(4.83) 17.33(4.28) 15.55(4.07) 13.20(3.76) 17.11 (4.58)i t12 imidacloprid-200sl @0.1% 34.40(5.94) 21.14(4.70) 15.41(4.05) 32.46(366) 9.42(3.22) 19.61 (4.32)h t13 control (no spray) 35.11(6.00) 35.30(6.02) 34.37(5.94) 35.34(6.03) 34.57(5.96) 34.90 (5.99)m s.em. ± c.d. at 5% t 0.015 0.029 d 0.008 0.017 t x d 0.033 0.065 das – days after spray *average of three mature flowers, young shoots and leaves from five replications figures in parentheses indicate √x+1 transformation clothianidin was found to be the most effective, recording minimum thrips-number on all date of obsevation. this insecticide reduced thrips density from 25.60 per plant (pre-treatment count) to 2.78 per plant at 5 das, with mean thrips-density of 7.28 per plant. next best in the order of efficacy were spinosad and vertimac, which were on par with each other statistically. mean thrips-density per plant was 7.70 in spinosad and vertimac. next best were: gb ag (0.2%) and chlorfenafyr (0.1%). clothianidin, vertimac, spinosad, gb ag and chlorfenafyr were comparable in their efficacy, even though the latter two were statistically significantly-different from the first two. nske was superior to monocrotophos and imidacloprid recording 4.32 thrips/ plant (compared to 6.52 thrips/plant with imidacloprid and 10.42 thrips/plant with monocrotophos at 5 das) (table 3). gb ag registered minimum thrips-density. nske proved better than neem oil (2%), pongamia oil (2%) and nimbecidine (0.2%). spinosad proved better over vertimac. neem oil and pongamia oil were found superior to the commercial neem product, nimbecidine. pre-treatment population of thrips in all the plots ranged from 34.10 to 34.90 per plant, and treatmentdifferences were statistically non-significant (table 4). there were significant differences among all treatments when the means were compared. clothianidin was found to be the best at reducing thrips-density per plant from 34.64 (pre-treatment) to 1.97 at 5 das, with mean thrips count of 8.10 per plant. next best in order of efficacy were spinosad, gb ag, vertimac and fipronil. nske was found to be superior to imidacloprid and monocrotophos. nske reduced thrips-density per plant from 34.54 (pre-treatment) to 4.04 at 5 das. neem oil and pongamia oil were superior to the commercial neem product nimbecidine. in control, thrips-density per plant was high at 5 das (34.57/plant) in the control. even though statistically significant differences were observed among treatments, reduction in density of thrips with clothianidin, spinosad, gb ag and vertimac were comparable (mean thrips-density per plant was 8.10, 8.52, 8.87 and 9.02/plant, respectively). gb ag, in addition, is eco-friendly and sustains pollinators and biocontrol agents. among the botanicals tested, gb ag registered minimum thrips-density per plant at 5 das (2.66). nske proved to be better than neem oil (2%), pongamia oil (2%) or nimbecidine (0.2%). spinosad proved better than vertimac. continuous and indiscriminate use of chemical insecticides against rose thrips has led to development in insects of resistance and resurgence, and has led to environmental pollution. it is important to manage the pest rationally. the two-year experiment conducted at two locations, showed that clothianidin was most effective in reducing thrips-density. when per cent control was calculated, it was noticed that monocrotophos reduced thripsmanagement of thrips in rose j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):118-122, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 122 numbers from 58% to 62% under the polyhouse, compared to that in open-field at lalbagh where 82% to 85% control was realized. similar results were obtained with imidacloprid too, where the control ranged from 70% to 75% under polyhouse, and 85% to 92% in lalbagh under open-field. this is due to the, regular and continuous use of common insecticides like monocrotophos and imidacloprid in cultivation. this has exposed thrips to insecticides in open fields and polyhouses, and has resulted in development of resistance to insecticides in thrips. in the botanical gardens, lalbagh, no chemicals are used and rose is being grown organically. therefore, all the chemicals used resulted in effective suppression of thrips. gb ag was found to be equally effective as the newer molecules. nske was also found to reduce thrips-density from 64% to 88%. nske proved superior to neem oil, pongamia oil and the commercial neem product, nimbecidine. hence, for effective management of rose thrips, in those rose plots where control measures are hardly applied, farmers can opt for nske, monocrotophos or imidacloprid. with respect to effectiveness, clothianidin proved to be the best. next in order of efficacy was gb ag which, in addition, is eco-friendly with the advantage of sustaining pollinators and biocontrol agents. it is recommended in situations where thrips population is in the initial stage of build-up; or, it can be alternated with application of clothianidin. based on the cost, vertimac and spinosad, can be recommended wherever cost-effective, like in commercial rose-polyhouses and in other similar situations. these results are comparable with those of nair et al (1991) who reported dimethoate and phosphamidon @0.05%, monocrotophos and endosulfan @0.1% reduced damage to the plant bud. dadmal et al (2001) reported that neem-based insecticides, viz., achock (1%) recorded 66.18 % and nske @5% recorded 61.37 % reduction in thrips population 4 days after spray. balasingam et al (2003) reported neem seed water-extract and garlic sap extract to record lowest thrips count across seasons and highest dry-pod yields in chilli. references ananthakrishan, t. n. and jagadish, a. 1968. biological and ecological studies on anaphothrips flavicinctus (karny). j. bombay nat. hist., 65:243 balasingam, b., vijeyaratnam, s. and jeganathan, k. 2003. efficacy of botanical pesticides and chemical prothiofos against thrips scirtothrips dorsalis in chilli. annals of the sri lanka dept. agric., 5:321-323 dandmal, m.s., pawar, n.p., ghawde, s.m., and kale, k.b. 2001. efficacy of plant products and chemical insecticides against the citrus thrips, scirtothrips citri moulton. pest mgt. econ. zool., 9:93-95 dhananjaya. 2007. incidence and management of spider mite and thrips under naturally ventilated polyhouse condition. m.sc.(agri.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad (india), 88p gahukar, r.t. 2003. factors influencing thrips abundance and distribution on rose flowers in central india. j. entomol. res., 27:271-179 murugan, d.p. 2000. host range, bio-ecology and managment of scirtothrips dorsalis hood (thysanoptera : thripidae) damaging rose around bangalore. m.sc. thesis, university of agricultural sciences, gkvk, bangalore,.96p murugan, d.p. and jagadish, a. 2004. control of scirtothrips dorsalis hood damaging rose flowers. j. appl. zool. res., 15:140-152 nair, v.v., reghunath, p. and visalakshi, a. 1991. control of thrips scirtothrips dorsalis hood on rose. entomon, 16:327-329 onkarappa, s. and mallik, b. 1998. distribution and management of scirtothrips dorsalis hood (thysanoptera: thripidae) on rose. procs. int’l. symp. pest mgt. hortl. crops, bangalore, pp. 165167 reddy, k.m.s., revannavar, r. and noor samad 2001. evaluation of some botanical insecticides against aphid, macrosiphum rosae linn. (homoptera: aphididae). j. aphidol., 15:79-82 (ms received 12 may 2011, revised 25 november 2011) jayalaxmi narayan hegde et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):118-122, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction gloriosa superba l., a climber belonging to the family liliaceae, is a major high-value medicinal crop. it is one of the major medicinal plants in india cultivated for its seeds which are exported to developed countries for pharmaceutical use. in india, the plant is usually found in the himalayan foot-hills, central india, tamil nadu, andhra pradesh and bengal. seeds and tubers contain valuable alkaloids, viz., colchicine and colchicoside as major constituents, and are used for treating gout and rheumatism. due to the action of colchicoside on spindle-fibre formation during cell-division, the plant has been identified as a potential anti-cancer drug. in the indian systems of medicine (ism), the tubers are used as tonic, antiperiodic, antihelmenthic and also against snake-bite (gupta et al, 2005). gloriosa could be found in the wild on natural fences a decade back, but now, it has been domesticated for economic gain (as all parts of the plant find diverse uses in ism). though g. superba enjoys extensive natural distribution and selective cultivation, the species is now endangered due to over-exploitation of its tubers and poor variability for qualitative and quantitative traits in glory lily (gloriosa superba l.) r. chitra1, k. rajamani and m. jawaharlal horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641 003, india e-mail: chitra.varadharaj@gmail.com abstract glory lily (gloriosa superba l.) is one of the major medicinal plants of india cultivated for its seeds which are exported to developed countries for pharmaceutical use. identifying germplasm is an important component for efficient and effective management of plant genetic resources. variability for qualitative and quantitative traits was investigated in 18 genotypes of g. superba collected from different regions of tamil nadu and andhra pradesh. for qualitative traits, these genotypes were subjected to diversity analysis based on nbpgr descriptors. fourteen qualitative and twenty quantitative traits of g. superba were evaluated to assess morphological variations among the genotypes collected. in qualitative traits, a large number of genotypes of the 18 clustered together, at 77% similarity in two clusters. dendrogram constructed on the basis of twenty quantitative traits for the same set of genotypes did not reveal any clear pattern in grouping, and the genotypes were grouped into seven different clusters. cluster analysis based on qualitative and quantitative traits revealed a different group of genotypes for each of the data-set. this clearly indicated that less variation existed between genotypes with respect to morphological traits. these easily observable morphological traits are useful tools for preliminary evaluation, because, they offer a fast and reliable approach for assessing extent of diversity in g. superba genotypes. key words: gloriosa superba, morphological traits, cluster analysis seed-germination. growing demand for seeds of g. superba in the international market and wide popularity of the plant among farmers makes it necessary to induce variability and develop lines with high-yield, high colchicine content, dwarf stature and leaf-blight resistance. in this medicinal plant, knowledge of genetic variability existing within the species will greatly aid exploitation of the variability directly as cultivars and, indirectly, as its use as base material in breeding programmes. material and methods eighteen accessions, collected from different regions of the important gloriosa growing states viz., tamil nadu and andhra pradesh, were grown in the field in a randomized block design with three replications, at the medicinal plants unit, botanical garden, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, during 2007 2008 (table 1). planting was done in plots with three 5 m long rows, with inter-and intra-row spacing of 150 cm and 30 cm, respectively. the plots were irrigated at weekly intervals. recommended agronomic practices and plant protection measures were followed to 1agricultural research station, tnau, bhavanisagar, tamil nadu j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 38-41, 2010 39 table 1. details of gloriosa superba genotypes collected in 2007 sl.no. germplasm collected genotype designation 1. nallampalayam cultivated gs 01 2. kallimanthayam cultivated gs 02 3. sathyamangalam wild gs 03 4. aruppukotai wild gs 04 5. aruppukotai cultivated gs 05 6. kankayam cultivated gs 06 7. kallimanthayam wild gs 07 8. ottanchadram cultivated gs 08 9. moolanur cultivated gs 09 10. jeyankondam cultivated gs 10 11. udangudi cultivated gs 11 12. viralimalai cultivated gs 12 13. pudukottai cultivated gs 13 14. andhra cultivated – i gs 14 15. andhra wild gs 15 16. z-melur cultivated gs 16 17. poondurai wild gs 17 18. andhra cultivated -ii gs 18 wild : sourced from natural habitat cultivated : sourced from farmers’ fields in the respective location fig 1. dendrogram of gloriosa superba genotypes for qualitative traits using upgma based on jaccard’s coefficient ensure a normal, healthy crop. diversity, in terms of morphological variations among the genotypes collected, was documented as per singh et al (2003). morphological characters identified in the descriptor for gloriosa superba (saravanan and buvaneswaran, 2003) such as habit, stembranching, tuber shape, leaf arrangement, lamina margin, lamina colour, flower shape and biotic-stress susceptibility, were used for morphological characterization. observations were made on five randomly-selected plants of each genotype for qualitative and quantitative traits. qualitative traits depicting an array of characters were converted into binary characters (sneath and sokal, 1973) based on variations present in each trait. the presence or absence of a phenotype was given the score of 1 and 0, respectively. quantitative data generated on various traits were standardized to zero mean and a unit variance. sequential agglomerative hierarchical non-overlapping (sahn) clustering was performed on squared euclidean distance matrix using dice coefficient for quantitative and binary data, respectively, using unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (upgma). analysis of data was done using ntsyspc version 2.02 (rohlf, 1994). results and discussion all the accessions collected were climbers, as reported earlier by le roux and robbertse (1994). all other characters, however, showed great variation among accessions. for instance, leaf-shape variation included ovate, lanceolate and linear. based on tuber-shape, of the 18 accessions studied, 10 had l-shape and 8 had v-shape. leaf arrangement was mostly opposite, but alternate arrangement was also seen. leaf lamina colour in gloriosa was predominantly pale-green or dark-green. however, a few accessions showed dark-green lamina with pale-green streaks. as for leaf-blight susceptibility, most accessions showed no visible sign of susceptibility, while and others exhibited either low or high susceptibility (table 2). cluster analysis grouped 18 genotypes in two major clusters where similarity coefficients ranged from 50.5 to 100 (fig 1). the maximum number of genotypes figured in cluster i, having 10 genotypes with a high degree of similarity (64-100%). this clearly indicated that less variation existed between genotypes with respect to morphological traits. minimal variation between genotypes for morphological characters can be attributed to low divergence due to a greater gene flow between populations (eg., pollination, new introductions etc.) (doulaty baneh et al, 2007). additionally twenty phenotypic quantitative characters were evaluated to assist diversity comparison. per cent variation for individual traits varied from 0.05 (number of leaves per plant) to 13.55 (hundred fresh-seed weight) (table 3). of the twenty traits observed, hundred fresh-seed weight showed highest variation, ranging from 5.88 g (gs 17) to 12.49 g (gs 15). pod girth, dry-seed yield per plant and dry-seed recovery also showed considerable amount of variation. a minimum of 125.26 and maximum of 621.18 numbers of leaves per plant were observed in gs j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 38-41, 2010 variability in glory lily 40 17 and gs 15, respectively. the number of pods per plant was maximum in gs 15 (46.17), and minimum in gs 17 (4.33). dry-seed yield per plant was 4 g and 97.78 g in gs 17 and gs 15, respectively. in the present study, variation in mean performance of the genotypes may be due to interaction between environment and genotype as reported by chandran (1987). comparatively small difference between characters indicated that variability was primarily table 2. phenotype variants observed for various qualitative traits across 18 gloriosa superba genotypes trait score phenotype no. of genotypes plant habit 1 annual stem 18 with perennial rootstock 2 biennial 3 perennial mode of reproduction 1 asexual 18 2 sexual 3 asexual & sexual plant growth habit 1 climbing 9 2 erect 9 stem branching 1 profuse 8 2 sparse 10 tuber shape 1 ‘v’ shape 8 2 ‘l’ shape 10 stem pubescence 1 glabrous 18 2 sparse 3 medium 4 dense leaf arrangement 1 alternate 4 2 opposite 14 lamina margin 1 ovate 5 2 lanceolate 10 3 linear 3 leaf base 1 obtuse 18 apex of upper leaf 1 with tendril 18 2 without tendril lamina colour 1 pale green 9 2 dark green 6 3 dark green 3 with pale green streaks flower colour 1 yellow and red 2 yellow 3 red 18 4 white flower shape 1 linear 10 2 narrow lanceolate 8 biotic-stress 1 very low or no 11 susceptibility visible sign of (leaf blight) susceptibility 3 low 5 5 intermediate 7 high 2 9 very high due to genotypic differences, and scope for selection based on these components would be much greater in g. superba. dendrogram construction based on twenty quantitative traits for 18 genotypes showed the genotypes to be grouped into seven different clusters (fig 2). cluster i had the maximum number of genotypes (five genotypes). cluster to cluster composition revealed that clusters i, iii, iv, v and vi comprised cultivated genotypes of g. superba from tamil nadu. cluster ii and vii included wild genotypes from tamil nadu. on the contrary, clusters v and vi were composed of cultivated genotypes types from andhra and tamil nadu. the distribution pattern of genotypes of diverse origin in a single cluster indicates that genetic diversity observed within g. superba was not related to geographic origin. differences noted in plant characters probably occurred over time, with free movement of plant material from location to location, and due to spontaneous induced mutations over time. thus, for crop improvement gloriosa plants should be selected on the basis of quantified degree of divergence as opposed to geographic origin of the genotype. these easily-observable morphological traits are a useful tool for preliminary evaluation, because, they offer a fast and reliable approach for assessing extent of diversity in g. superba genotypes. references chandran,v.j. 1987. studies on the evaluation of intervariental crosses of tomato (lycopersicum esculentum mill.) in f 2 and f 3 generations. m.sc (hort.) thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india doulaty banch, h., grassi, f., mohammadi, a., nazemieh, a., de mattia, f., imazio, s. and labra, m. 2007. the use of aflp and morphological markers to study iranian grapevine germplasm to avoid genetic fig 2. dendrogram of gloriosa superba genotypes for quantitative traits using upgma based on squared euclidean distance of standardized data mean j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 38-41, 2010 chitra et al 41 erosion. j. hortl. sci. & biotech., 82:745-752 gupta, l.m., rana, r.c., raina r. and meenakshi gupta. 2005. colchicine content in gloriosa superba l. j. res., (skuast-j), 4:238-241 le roux, l.g. and robbertse, p.j. 1994. tuber ontogeny, morphology and vegetative reproduction of gloriosa superba l. south african j. bot., 60:321-324 rohlf, f.j., 1994. ntsys-pc: numerical taxonomy and multivariate analysis system. version 2.2. state university of new york, stony brook, new york table 3. mean, range, coefficient of variation and standard deviation for vegetative / reproductive quantitative traits in glory lily traits mean range cv (%) sed cd (0.05) plant height 136.78 54.49 180.93 0.63 0.49 0.97 stem girth 0.67 0.49 0.90 1.60 0.006 0.012 no. of leaves per plant 373.09 125.26 621.18 0.05 0.11 0.22 no. of branches per plant 9.68 3.33 18.17 4.75 0.26 0.52 days to 50% flowering 29.02 27.00 32.50 1.20 0.20 0.39 no. of flowers per plant 26.81 7.33 57.83 2.03 0.26 0.52 no. of pods per plant 19.50 4.33 46.17 4.11 0.44 0.89 pod setting percentage 69.61 57.22 79.80 3.87 1.51 3.00 pod length 6.40 4.60 8.07 1.50 0.05 0.10 pod girth 7.50 4.14 8.58 10.57 0.45 0.90 number of seeds per pod 51.46 30.65 77.83 3.85 1.22 2.43 fresh pod weight 6.44 3.70 – 8.57 1.74 0.06 0.12 fresh seed weight per pod 5.28 2.69 7.84 2.64 0.07 0.15 fresh pod yield per plant 138.86 16.47 400.16 3.66 2.79 5.53 fresh seed yield per plant 117.01 11.95 362.34 4.39 2.80 5.54 fresh seed recovery 80.91 71.65 90.41 2.94 1.31 2.60 dry seed recovery 29.78 22.71 35.41 5.75 0.96 1.90 100 fresh seed weight 9.21 5.88 12.49 13.55 0.50 0.99 100 dry seed weight 2.65 2.14 3.34 0.75 0.01 0.02 dry seed yield per plant 33.47 4.00 97.78 7.55 1.30 2.58 saravanan, s. and buvaneswaran, c. 2003. gloriosa superba l. cultivation in tamil nadu: a socioeconomic analysis. adv. pl. sci., 16:23-28 singh, b.m., mahajan, r.k., umesh srivastava and pareek, s.k. 2003. minimal descriptors of agri-horticultural crops. part iv: medicinal and aromatic plants. national bureau of plant genetic resources, pusa campus, new delhi, pp 59-64 sneath, p.h.a. and sokal, r.r. 1973. numerical taxonomy. w.h. freeman (ed.), san fransisco (ms received 13 april 2009, revised 26 february 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 38-41, 2010 variability in glory lily j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 104-107, 2007 introduction french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) is one of the most important legume vegetables grown for its tender green pods. globally it is grown in an area of 0.68 million ha with total production of 4.7 million metric tonnes and productivity is 6.91 tonnes / ha. in india, it is grown in an area of 0.15 million ha with annual production of 0.42 million metric tonnes (anonymous, 2006). the crop is susceptible to various biotic and abiotic stresses. among the various biotic stresses, rust caused by uromyces phaseoli (reben wint) has become endemic in bean producing areas. the yield loss due to this disease is 78 to 90 % (grafton et al, 1985) and it is serious during rabi. the disease incidence will be less during kharif season. the disease is more severe in tropics than in the temperate region and the pathogen will be more active under moderate temperature of 17 to 270 c and relative humidity of more than 95 %. the popular varieties like contender, pant anupama, pusa parvathi, arka komal, arka suvidha etc., are susceptible to rust disease. although chemical control using sulphur fungicides and propioconozole are recommended, the induction of genetic resistance will have breeding french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) for resistance to rust (uromyces phaseoli reben wint.) t. s. aghora, n. mohan, r. g. somkuwar1 and girija ganeshan division of vegetable drops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india e-mail: aghor@iihr.ernet.in abstract french bean is an important legume vegetable grown for its tender, green pods for both fresh consumption and processing. rust, caused by uromyces phaseoli, limits successful cultivation of this crop. popular varieties like contender, pant anupama, pusa parvathi, arka komal, arka suvidha, etc., are susceptible to this disease. the french bean variety, arka bold, having resistance to rust was used in hybridization with arka komal, a popular bush variety with high yield and slender, long green pods but susceptible to rust. inheritance studies indicated that resistance to rust was controlled by a single, dominant gene. pedigree method of breeding was followed for incorporating rust resistance in to commercially cultivated varieties. breeding lines with resistance to rust were selected to f 2 generation onwards. these were advanced up to f 7 , wherein, a promising line, (arka bold x arka komal) 99-17-2-1-4-12-3, with resistance to rust with high pod yield and good pod quality was selected and named arka anoop and released for commercial cultivation. keywords: french bean, rust resistance, the greater merit over the chemical control. hence, the present study was taken up with the objective of developing a french bean variety with resistance to rust disease along with high yield and good pod quality and also to study the genetics of disease resistance. material and methods the source of resistance to rust was found in arka bold (mohan et al, 1997). the hybridization was done between arka bold and arka komal (a bushy variety with high yield and slender long pods) in both combinations during 1999 at iihr, bangalore. subsequently, f 1, f 2, b 1 and b 2 populations were raised and evaluated for resistance to rust. artificial screening for rust was done by spraying uredospore suspension uniformly on both sides of the leaves. the concentration of spore suspension was maintained at 107 spores / ml. percent disease index (pdi) was calculated as per the method given by stavely (1983). the disease scoring was done on a 09 scale where 0 = no pustules; 1 = small brown pustules covering less than 1% of leaf area; 3 = typical pustules covering 1-10 % of leaf area; 5= typical pustules covering 1125 % of leaf area; 7= typical pustules covering 1present address:national research center for grapes, pune, maharashtra 104 105 26 50 % of leaf area and 9= typical pustules covering more than 51 % of leaf area combined with withering of leaves. per cent disease index (pdi) was calculated by using the formula given by wheeler (1969), pdi = where χ represents the diseased leaves within the sample plants in the respective class such as 0, 1, 3, …9. data obtained from the two crosses and two testcrosses were subjected to χ2 analysis. based on the disease reaction in f 1, f 2, b 1 and b 2 population, the inheritance of resistance to rust was worked out. the plants with pdi less than 5 % were considered as resistant and those showing pdi more than 5 % as susceptible for formation of classes for test. data of two crosses and two testcrosses were subjected to analysis to test the goodness of fit against assumed phenotypic ratio of 3:1(resistant and susceptible respectively) for single dominant gene controlling rust resistance. pedigree method of selection was followed up to f 7 generation. replicated yield trials were conducted for selected breeding lines. results and discussion all the f 1 plants in the cross arka bold (r) and arka komal (s) and its reciprocal were resistant indicating the dominance over susceptibility and had shown that cytoplasmic genes are not involved in resistance. in f 2 population of 196 plants, observed segregation ratio for resistance to susceptibility, was 146: 50 as against expected ratio of 147:49 (table 1). in the reciprocal cross, 216 plants were resistant and 68 were susceptible as against expected ratio of 213:71 respectively. further, the test cross progeny of arka bold (r) and arka komal (s) segregated in the ratio of 55 resistant to 50 susceptible plants as against the expected ratio of 53: 53 respectively out of 106 test cross plants. in another test cross progeny of arka komal (s) and arka bold (r), the ratio was 54:48 as against 51:51. the calculated χ2 value for both the f 2 and testcrosses were non significant with high probability of 0.87 to 0.89 and 0.55 to 0.63, respectively. f 2 population of both the crosses showed a good fit of 3:1 between resistant and susceptible and test cross progeny indicated the segregation in 1:1 ratio (table 2). the cross, arka bold x arka komal indicated dominance of resistance to rust over susceptibility in f 1 progeny. this was similar in the reciprocal cross also. the pattern of segregation in f 2 population along with the two test cross generations followed mendelian ratio of dominance and application of χ2 test for f 2 and test cross generations indicated that resistance to rust was inherited as a single dominant gene in french bean variety, arka bold. these findings are in conformity with augustin et al, (1972a, b), stavely (1984), stavely and grafton (1985), grafton et al, (1985), finke et al, (1986), sayler et al, (1995) and yuebin (1995) who reported that the resistance to rust is monogenically controlled. further, pedigree method of breeding was followed and segregants with resistance to rust were selected from f 2 generation onwards and were advanced up to f 7 generation, wherein, a promising line (arka bold x arka komal)-99-17-2-1-4-12-3 possessing resistance to rust with high yield and good pod quality was selected and named as table 1. frequency of resistant and susceptible plants in parents and f 1 ’s sl crosses first parent second parent f 1 f 2 test bc with no. cross r parent. r s r s r s r s r s r s 1 b x a 87 0 0 89 78 0 147 49 55 50 91 0 2 a x b 0 89 87 0 85 0 216 68 54 48 105 0 r=resistant, s=susceptible, a=arka komal, b=arka bold, bc=back cross. table 2. frequencies of f 2 and test cross progenies with their χχχχχ2 estimates sl no crosses observed expected total chi square probability ratio ratio r s r s 1 b x a 146 50 147 49 196 0.03 0.87 2 a x b 216 68 213 71 284 0.02 0.89 pooled 350 120 360 110 470 0.18 0.68 test crosses 1 (b x a) x a 55 51 53 53 106 0.24 0.63 2 (a x b) x a 54 48 51 51 102 0.35 0.55 pooled 109 99 104 104 208 0.96 0.33 table χ2 @ 1df. 3.84 r=resistant, s=susceptible, c=contender, a=arka komal, b=arka bold, k=kpv-1, bc=back cross. rust resistance in french bean j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 104-107, 2007 106 arka anoop (fig 1 and 2). replicated yield trials conducted at iihr, hessaraghatta for three years from 2003 to 2005) during rabi season showed that the new variety, arka anoop had a significantly higher number of pods per plant (42.50) as compared to check (table 3). it also recorded an average pod yield of 19.78 t /ha, as against a yield of 14.29 and 8.24 t/ha in the check varieties arka komal and contender, respectively. the percent yield increase in arka anoop over check varieties arka komal and contender was 38.42 and 140.05 respectively. arka anoop was completely resistant fig 1. arka anoop a new french bean variety fig 2. french bean var. arka anoop (on either side) showing resistance to rust with susceptible check in the middle table 3. average plant and pod characters of french bean var. arka anoop compared with parents and checks sl. no. characters arka anoop arka komal arka bold contender p=0.05 cv % 1 days to 50 % flowering 32.50 32.00 33.0 32.50 1.41 2.05 2 days to pod maturity 45.00 45.50 47.0 43.50 1.45 1.97 3 plant height 58.50 57.50 55.0 52.50 2.33 4.72 4 pod length (cm) 17.60 15.75 14.5 14.25 1.03 2.93 5 pod width (cm) 1.00 1.05 1.55 1.00 0.11 4.24 6 number of pods per plant 42.50 31.58 22.5 15.50 2.35 6.98 7 ten pod weight (g) 88.50 56.00 75.0 51.00 11.00 5.79 table 4. average pod yield (t/ha) and rust index (pdi) of french bean var. arka anoop between 2003-2005 during rabi sl. no. varieties pod yield (t/ha) average rust pdi average % yield % yield increase increase over over arka contender komal 2003 2004 2005 2003 2004 2005 1 arka bold (res. parent) 14.50 15.20 14.80 14.83 2.15 1.86 2.64 2.22 2 arka komal (susc. parent) 17.11 16.10 9.67 14.29 27.90 36.45 56.84 40.40 3 arka anoop 18.71 19.38 21.24 19.78 2.35 1.79 1.58 1.91 38.42 140.05 4 contender (susc. check) 9.92 8.70 6.10 8.24 45.36 51.30 74.36 57.01 cd (p=0.05) 2.43 1.92 1.76 5.79 2.83 4.85 cv % 14.04 5.92 5.20 7.66 11.26 9.53 aghora et al table 5. average pod yield (t/ha) of arka anoop during kharif season sl. no. varieties 2003 2004 2005 average % increase over increaseover arka komal % contender 1 arka bold (res. parent) 15.50 14.30 14.90 14.90 2 arka komal (susc. parent) 18.00 18.50 17.22 17.90 3 arka anoop 18.83 21.13 19.90 19.95 15.85 69.00 4 contender (susc. check) 10.50 12.25 12.69 11.81 cd(p=0.05) 0.71 2.82 3.59 cv % 4.22 7.85 15.00 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 104-107, 2007 107 to rust with very low pdi of 1.91 whereas, the check varieties, arka komal and contender were susceptible (table 4). yield trials were also conducted during kharif seasons for three years from 2003 to 2005 wherein, arka anoop gave an average green pod yield of 19.95 t /ha, while in parents arka bold and arka komal, the yields were 14.9 and 17.9 t/ha, respectively (table 5). the per cent yield increase in arka anoop over check varieties arka komal and contender was 15.85 and 69.00 in that order (table 5). the yields in the check varieties were comparatively better during kharif due to low or no incidence of rust. the study confirmed that the resistance to rust in french bean variety, arka bold was controlled by single dominant gene. further, it also revealed that the selected breeding line, arka anoop was resistant to rust with average yield potential of 19.8 t/ha. references anonymous, 2006. faostat. http://faostat.org augustin e., coyne, d. p and schuster m. l. 1972a. inoculation methods, sources of resistance and genetics of the reaction to brazilian rust race b 11 in phaseolus vulgaris. ann rep bean improvement cooperative 15:44 augustin e., coyne, d. p and schuster m. l., 1972b. inheritance of resistance in phaseolus vulgaris to uromyces phaseoli var. typica brazilian rust race b 11 and of plant habit. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 96:526-531 grafton, k. f., weiser, g. c., littlefield, l. j and stavely, j.r. 1985. influence of resistance to two races of leaf rust in dry edible bean. crop sci. 25:537-539 finke,m. l., coyne,d. p. and steadman, j. r. 1986. the inheritance and association of resistance to rust, common bacterial blight, plant habit and foliar abnormalities in phaseolus vulgarisl. euphytica 35:969-982 mohan n., aghora, t. s., somkuwar r. g. and girija, g. 1997. sources of resistance to rust in french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.). ind. j. agril. sci., 67:85-86 sayler, r. j., ewing, j. d., and mcclean, p. e, 1995. monogenic and epistatic resistance to bean rust infection in common bean. physiol. mol. pl. path., 47:173-184 stavely, j. r., 1983. a rapid technique for inoculation of phaseolus vulgaris with multiple pathotypes of uromyces phaseoli. phytopath., 73:676-679 stavely, j. r., 1984. genetics of resistance to uromyces phaseoli in a phaseolus vulgaris line resistant to most races of pathogen. phytopath., 74:339-344 stavely, j. r. and grafton, k. f., 1985. genetics of resistance to eight races of uromyces appendiculatus in phaseolus vulgaris , cultivar, mexico-235 phytopath., 75:1310 wheeler, b. e. j., 1969. an introduction to plant disease. john wiley and sons ltd., london, p.301 yuebin, 1995. preliminary studies on kidney bean rust resistant breeding. acta hort., 402:115-119 (ms received 13 november 2007, revised 31 december 2007) rust resistance in french bean j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 104-107, 2007 introduction interaction between water resources and agriculture in australia australian annual water use is approximately 920 kilolitres (kl) per capita, 60kl above the oecd average. yet, it is the driest continent, second only to antarctica (abs, 2010a,b). rainfall distribution across the continent is not uniform (figure 1). up to two thirds of the continent is arid or semi-arid (abs, 2010c); the northern region is relatively j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 focus irrigating horticultural crops with recycled water: an australian perspective nanthi s. bolan1, kerrie bell1, anitha kunhi krishan1 and jae-woo chung2 centre for environmental risk assessment and remediation (cerar) university of south australia, sa-5095 e-mail: nanthi.bolan@unisa.edu.au abstract access to water has been identified as one of the most limiting factors in economic growth of australia’s horticultural sector. water reclaimed from wastewater (sewage) is being increasingly recognized as an important resource and agricultural sector is currently the largest consumer of this resource. an overview of the australian experience of using reclaimed wastewater to grow horticultural crops is presented in this paper: from regulations governing it and treatment processes, to management and risk-minimization practices that ensure this resource is used in a sustainable manner, not impacting adversely human health or environment. a case study covering socio-economic and environmental implications of recycled-water irrigation is also presented. key words: irrigation, water recycling, water treatment, nutrients, sodicity, salinity 1cooperative research centre for contaminants assessment and remediation of the environment (crc care),university of south australia, sa-5095 2department of environmental engineering, gyeongnam national university of science and technology, 150 chilam-dong, jinju, gyeongnam, 660-758, republic of korea wet and receives heavy summer rainfall, while in the south, the climate is more mediterranean and experiences long, dry periods particularly, in summer. rainfall also varies greatly from year to year, more so than in any other continental region (abs, 2010a). prior to european colonization, australian native plants thrived-with their adaptations to this somewhat harsh and changing climate. but, with colonization, came widespread clearing of indigenous vegetation, and a strong economy developed built on farming-introduced crop species. while agriculture no longer dominates the australian economy, it continues to contribute substantial export income to the national account and plays a crucial role in feeding the nation and in sustaining rural populations (dsewpc, 2008). to support production of crops whose water requirements are higher than natural rainfall, storage of water, diversion of, and extractions from natural water bodies, have become standard farming practices in a large area of australia. the agricultural sector occupies approximately 54% of the land (abs, 2010c) and is the largest consumer of water in australia (table 1). in 2008-9, the total water-use by the agricultural sector was 6696 gl, 47% of the total for australia. a majority of the water used was either selfextracted (52%), or distributed by water suppliers (47%). table 2 outlines the extent of water use by various types of agriculture in each state and territory. in the northern regionsfig 1. australia’s total rainfall 2005-2006 (including an outline of murray darling basin) source: australian bureau of statistics, 2010c kilometres 2 where rainfall is more reliable-the predominant enterprises are beef cattle grazing, sugar and tropical fruit farming (abs 2010c). in the south, where summers are generally dry, dryland cereal farming, sheep grazing and dairy farming (in areas of higher rainfall) predominate (abs, 2010c). in 2007-08, 28% of all agricultural establishments reported some irrigation activity; grapes, vegetables, cotton and nurseries/cut flowers/cultivated turf are some of the most intensively irrigated with 96, 93, 85 and 83%, respectively, of their growing areas under irrigation (abs, 2010c). while the gross value of irrigated agricultural production in 2006-07 was 34% of the total gross agricultural production, irrigated farmland represents only 1% of the total land used for agriculture, most of which is within the confines of murray darling basin (mdb) (abs, 2010c). known as australia’s ‘food bowl’, the mdb catchment covers an area of over 100 million ha and contains australia’s three longest rivers; a majority of the land is either dedicated to agriculture (67%) or has been conserved as native forest (32%) (abs, 2010c). extractions from the rivers within the mbd are a major irrigation source in the region and, historically, water allocation has not been well-managed; over-extraction has driven a decline in health of the river systems. policy changes to return environmental flows to the rivers, coupled with 8-10 years of drought have seen water allocation decline, placing an increasing pressure on irrigators. despite water conservation steps taken across several states which have seen 43% reduction in water consumption throughout the country over a period of drought (from 24,909 gl in 2000-01 to 14,101 gl in 2008-09), irrigators are still challenged with ongoing reduction in water allocation (abs, 2010a). in the face of these shortages, water reclaimed from wastewater (sewage) is being increasingly recognized as an important resource and provides benefits for the community and the environment by: increasing available water resources, returning critical environmental flows to failing waterways, and decreasing nutrient and contaminant load pumped to surface and coastal waters. table 1. water consumption (gl) in australian major sectors and states/territories 2008-09 state or territory agriculture forestry mining manufacturing electricity water other household and fishing and gas supply industries and waste 2008-09 nsw 2 001 1 66 150 92 1 329 387 536 vic. 1 435 1 6 158 123 558 367 342 qld. 2 144 6 118 148 82 297 249 308 sa 788 2 22 88 2 64 79 122 wa 325 89 257 61 27 111 176 326 tas. 264 3 18 50 22 30 69 nt. 35 21 22 1 9 27 39 act 2 7 11 27 aust. 2000-01 14 989 40 321 549 255 2 165 1 106 2 278 2004-05 12 191 47 413 589 271 2 083 1 063 2 108 2008-09 6 996 101 508 677 328 2 396 2 108 1 768 source: australian bureau of statistics (abs), 2010a table 2. water consumption in the australian agriculture industry 2008-09 nsw vic. qld. sa wa tas. n t act total m l m l m l m l m l m l m l m l m l nursery & floriculture 16 584 14 345 10 358 3 819 10 658 1 249 373 1 104 58 490 mushroom & 70 001 81 787 87 878 95 621 61 397 30 896 4 175 26 431 782 vegetable growing fruit and tree nut growing 229 944 329 071 147 374 270 544 55 592 7 176 7 755 154 1 047 610 sheep, beef cattle 848 754 291 778 539 343 260 247 112 964 100 911 22 621 246 2 176 863 and grains other crop growing 618 967 17 324 1 229 013 17 648 15 273 1 989 417 233 1 900 863 dairy cattle farming 178 627 672 686 104 898 125 023 62 594 119 048 3 1 262 879 poultry farming 11 297 4322 4 538 1 897 1 497 360 4 26 23 940 deer farming 13 327 201 52 35 630 other livestock farming 27 275 23 761 20 798 13 324 4 744 2 783 36 2 92 724 total 2 001 462 1 435 401 2 144 201 788 326 324 771 264 446 35 380 1 793 6 995 781 source: australian bureau of statistics (abs), 2010a bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 3 table 3. effluent generated and reused in australia 2001-02 2004-05 region effluent reuse % waste water % reuse water collected reuse discharged for reuse gl/year gl/year gl/year gl/yr nsw 694 61.5 8.9 636 53 7.7 vic. 448 30.1 6.7 385 70 15.0 qld. 339c 38 c 11.2 310 45 12.7 sa 101 15.2 15.1 84 20 19.2 wa 126 12.7 10.0 124 15 10.8 tas. 65 6.2 9.5 58 5 7.9 nt. 21 1.1 5.2 13 2 13.3 act 30 1.7 5.6 27 2 6.9 total 1824 166.5 9.1 1634 212 11.5 source: radcliffe (2004); australian bureau of statistics (abs), 2006 fig 2. reuse water consumption by major sectors in australia (source: australian bureau of statistics, 2010a) fig 3. reuse water consumption within the australian agricultural sector and as percentage of total water consumption (source: australian bureau of statistics, 2010a) reclaimed water: its origins and use ‘treated’ sewage water (commonly known as wastewater, recycled water, or reclaimed water) has been under-utilized in australia, although increase in its reuse has been seen since mid-nineties (abs, 2004; anderson and davis, 2006). the australian bureau of statistics collects information about the patterns of recycled water in australia and uses the term ‘re-use water’ to describe water that has been recycled from sewerage, stormwater or other effluents. there has been a steady increase in the volume of water reuse in agriculture and, currently, around 11.5% of total wastewater generated is reused (abs, 2000; abs, 2004; abs, 2010a) (table 3). extent of treatment which the reclaimed water undergoes before it is supplied is dependent on the proposed end-use; the most stringent requirements apply when people are likely to come in direct contact with water. reclaimed wastewater is currently not recycled to provide a potable resource; there are a number of residential developments that have adopted a dual reticulated-system, whereby, highquality recycled water is provided in a second pipeline for toilet flushing and garden irrigation. a majority of the recycled water is used as a non-potable resource for agriculture, dual reticulated systems, for irrigation of community sportsgrounds, parks and gardens, and to supply to the industry (abs, 2010a). figure 2 shows distribution of reuse waterconsumption across the australian economy in 2008-09; agriculture used the largest amount at 103 gl, just under one third of the total supplied (abs, 2010a). however, this represents only 1% of the total volume of water used by the agricultural sector (abs, 2010a). figure 3 shows both distribution of reuse waterconsumption in the agricultural sector and reuse waterconsumption as percentage of total water-use for each enterprise-type. while beef, sheep and grain production use the largest volume of reuse water, this amounts to just 1% of the industries’ total water-use (abs, 2010a). fruits production and floriculture use the greatest amount as a proportion of their total water-use (10%), followed by vegetable and mushroom production (4%). this may be a reflection of the relative proximity of these industries to major waste-water treatment plants which supply a majority of the reuse-water and are located close to densely populated urban areas; in 2008-09, nearly two-thirds of reuse water was supplied by major urban water providers that had at least 50,000 connections (abs, 2010a). wastewater treatment and public health hazards in reclaimed water untreated wastewater, or sewage, originates from domestic households, commercial premises and industrial activities. it does not include stormwater which is the rainfall recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 4 run-off from sealed surfaces, including roofs and roads. it typically consists of 99.9% water and 0.1% impurities which include: dissolved and suspended organics, pathogens, nutrients, trace elements, salts, refractory organics, priority pollutants and heavy metals (dinesh et al, 2006). as an irrigation source for edible crops, some of these contaminants either present a risk to human health or a hazard to soil, plants and water resources. table 4 provides an outline of chemical and biological content of untreated wastewater and summarises hazards associated with each contaminant. varying degrees of treatment can be applied to remove or reduce these contaminants in wastewater. the aim of wastewater treatment is to produce water fit for the purpose, i.e., when used as intended, will not threaten human health or degrade the receiving environment. the extent of treatment required is usually regulated by public health or environmental protection authorities. governance of reclaimed water-use regulations governing use of reclaimed water are not uniform throughout australia; each state and territory has the responsibility of managing natural resources and public health in its jurisdiction. legislation for wastewater reuse is covered by acts relating to food safety, public health and/or environment protection. as such, with the state public health authority and /or environmental protection agency rests the responsibility of policing reclaimed-water reuse. many states require enterprises which practice irrigation with reclaimed wastewater, or supply reclaimed wastewater for the purpose of irrigation, to produce and adhere to environmental (irrigation) management plans and/ or user agreements. the plans should include a study of irrigation-site characteristics and specify how the wastewater will be applied, so that its use will not threaten human health or adversely impact the receiving environment. the need for user-agreements, to ensure utilization of the wastewater in an approved manner, varies across jurisdictions as do requirements for ongoing monitoring, audits and reviews. extent of the relevant authorities’ ongoing involvement in a scheme depends on size, the risk associated with reuse and sensitivity of the receiving area. quality requirements for reclaimed-water irrigation of edible crops currently, each state authority holds the responsibility for defining quality of the water that can be used to irrigate fruits/vegetables; guidelines for reclaimed-water use exist in each state and territory (power, 2010). recycled-water guidelines set targets for removal of pathogens, nutrients, toxicants and salts. health-based targets receive the greatest emphasis, and microbial contaminants present the greatest risk to human health; studies have shown that in achieving targets for pathogen removal, chemical hazards that threaten human health are also reduced to acceptable levels. analyses of treated-reclaimed water in two major schemes in australia indicated that chemical quality of the reclaimed water was generally consistent with requirements of australian drinking water guidelines (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). values above the levels in these guidelines were deemed acceptable because of the lower exposure inherent in consuming irrigated-produce compared to drinking-water (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). both the national and state guidelines for recycled water use were, until recent times, centered around matching defined classes of water (based largely on their pathogen burden, biochemical oxygen demand and turbidity), with preapproved uses. the highest quality a+ recycled water could be used in residential dual reticulation systems and the lowest classes, c or d, could only be used for irrigation of non-food crops, e.g. instant turf, woodlots, flowers. table 5 provides examples of the water-classes. risk-assessment based framework for reclaimed water quality – a new approach in 2006, in the face of increasing pressure on freshwater resources, national water quality management strategy-australian guidelines for water recycling: managing health and environmental risks (agwr) was released (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). the agwr was produced in an effort to establish consistent standards for reclaimed water schemes across the country and, to introduce the risk management framework promoted by the world health organization‘s guidelines for drinkingwater quality (who, 2008). the agwr does away with the class-based system and advocates a risk-assessment based approach. each scheme is individually assessed; water quality targets, treatment processes and additional preventative measures are tailored to produce a safety level consistent with proposed end-use of the reclaimed water. the emphasis is no longer on end-of-line testing, but on developing a multi-barrier approach, to reduce the risk to an acceptable level known as “tolerable risk”. to carry out risk-assessment, all the hazards involved in generating and using reclaimed water through a proposed scheme are identified. an assessment of the likelihood of each hazard occurring is made and its potential impact bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 5 source: stevens d (2006); australian and new zealand environment and conservation council and agriculture and resource management council of australia and new zealand (2000) solids – suspended, colloidal and particulate organic solids ● shield microbes from disinfection ● organic contaminants and heavy metals adsorb onto particulates ● clog irrigation systems ● proteins, fats, carbohydrates represent a biologica oxygen demand (bod) which can deplete oxygen and lead to putrefaction ● interferes with disinfection processes and can facilitate formation of disinfection by-products ● organics which are not susceptible to standard wastewater treatment processes can impact environmental health, be carcinogenic or cause endocrine disruption in endpoints further along the food chain. examples are: pesticides, chlorinated hydrocarbons, refractory organics & pharmaceutical products. ● known or suspected carcinogens, mutagens, teratogens or acutely toxic pollutants ● include salts such as sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, boron, bicarbonate, chloride & sulfate ● chloride, sodium & boron are phytotoxic ● reduces in yield, induces foliar injury ● increases hardness and likelihood of scale or corrosive damage to distribution systems and irrigation equipment ● excessive nutrient loading can leach into groundwater or reach surface waters ● can cause plant damage if applied inappropriately ● excessive quantities can be toxic to plants, soil flora and animals. these can accumulate in soil, ground water, plants and be present in produce destined for human consumption ● disease can be transmitted through exposure to pathogens, particularly by ingestion ● bacteria (e. coli, salmonella, shigella, vibrio cholera) protozoa (cryptosporidium parvum, e. hystolytica, giardia lamblia) ● helminths (ascaris lumbricoides, taenia spp.) ● viruses (hepatitis a, enteroviruses) ● helminths in reclaimed water can be transmitted by meat to humans range of values in untreated wastewater contaminant potential hazard routine measurement biodegradable dissolved organics stable organics priority pollutants salinity – dissolved inorganic elements nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus heavy metals/ micronutrients nickel, copper, iron, chromium, manganese, lead, mercury & zinc pathogens escherichia coli (e. coli) no./100ml cryptosporidium no./l giardia no./l viruses no./l biological oxygen demand (bod) mg/l total dissolved solids (tds) mg/l suspended solids (ss) mg/l total nitrogen (tn) mg/l total phosphorus (tp) mg/l find example trigger values 104-109 0.85 x 103 to 1.4 x 103 0.8 x 103 to 3.2 x 103 5-105 230-450 500-1500 35-75 10-30 table 4. summary of hazardous contaminants in untreated wastewater recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 6 determined; if the resultant product of likelihood and impact are above tolerable levels of risk, then measures must be taken to reduce the risk to a tolerable level. risk assessment is carried out largely in relation to hazards to human health and, in this regard, microbial pathogens are the greatest threat (nrmmcep & hcahmc, 2006). the agwr national guidelines are not mandatory, and several states have elected not to adopt the new approach at this point in time (power, 2010). table 6 summarizes water-quality targets in each state for reclaimed-water use on produce that may be consumed raw and, an intermediate quality of reclaimed water which requires some additional precautions. the general requirements are very similar throughout various jurisdictions. from sewerage to sustainable irrigation source: the treatment process wastewater reclamation processes are traditionally broken down into preliminary, primary, secondary and tertiary treatment processes, though, it is possible to find a significant overlap at wastewater treatment plants (figure 4). ● at the preliminary stage, large debris and finer abrasive material are removed to prevent damage to downstream equipment. ● primary processes are predominantly physical. sedimentation is used to remove approximately 65% of the solid content of raw sewage, and approximately 35% of the biochemical oxygen demand (bod). sedimentation also removes a proportion of the heavy metals which, being cations, bind to negatively charged organic matter and clay particles. fifty to ninety percent of parasitic eggs and 25% of bacteria can also be removed at this stage. ● secondary processes are biological. bacteria remove soluble and colloidal wastes by assimilating organic matter, to form new microbial biomass, and by producing gas through the use of organic matter for endogenous respiration. microbial mass (including the assimilated organic matter) is removed by table 5. water quality standards and applications for water classes a-d in south australia class application microbiological criteria chemical/physical criteria a primary contact recreation residential non-potable <10 e. coli/100ml specific removal of turbidity ≤ 2 ntubod unrestricted crop irrigation dust suppression with viruses, protozoa and helminths may <20mg/l chemical content unrestricted access municipal use with public access be required to match use b secondary contact recreation restricted crop irrigation <100 e. coli/100ml specific removal of bod <20mg/lss <30mg/l irrigation of pasture and fodder for grazing animals viruses, protozoa and helminths may be chemical content to dust suppression with restricted access municipal required match use use with restricted access c passive recreation municipal use with restricted access <1000 e. coli/100ml specific removal of bod <20mg/lss <30mg/l restricted crop irrigation irrigation of pasture and viruses, protozoa and helminths may chemical content to fodder for grazing animals be required match use d restricted crop irrigation irrigation for turf production <10 000 e. coli/100ml helminths may need chemical content to silviculture to be considered for pasture and fodder match use source: doh&eps sa (1999) fig 4.typical process-train for treatment of wastewater to acceptable quality for irrigation of produce consumed raw (source: dinesh et al, 2006) raw sewage preliminary treatment primary treatment sludge treatment secondary treatment with nand p removal biosolids membrane ultrafiltration membrane filtration sand filtration dissolved air flotation filtration uv disinfection chlorination chlorination log reductions in pathogens treatment process 6.0 virus 5.0 protozoa 5.0 bacteria bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 7 sedimentation. this biological removal takes place in lagoons & wetlands, trickling filters and activated sludge. biological nutrient removal (bnr) can be incorporated into the activated sludge process; cycles of anaerobic and aerobic conditions maximize removal of phosphate by poly-p accumulating organisms and enhance nitrogen removal by nitrification-denitrification. ● tertiary processes such as nutrient removal, filtration and disinfection are employed as an additional step australia australian guidelines for water recycling (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006) south australia, victoriasouth australian reclaimed water guidelines – treated effluent (sa epa 1999); guidelines for environmental management: use of reclaimed water (epa victoria, 2003) new south wales, northern territory, western australia interim nsw guidelines for management of private recycled water schemes (department of water and energy nsw, 2008); guidelines for management of recycled water systems (dh & fnt, 2009); guidelines for the use of recycled water in western australia (wa doh, 2009) tasmania environmental guidelines for the use of recycled water in tasmania (tasmanian department of primary industries, water and environment, 2002) actwastewater environment protection policy wastewater reuse for irrigation environment protection policy (environment act, 1999) who guidelines for drinking-water quality. third edition incorporating the first and second addenda, vol. 1, recommendations (world health organization, 2008) ● to be determined on a case by-case basis, depending on technology ● could include turbidity and disinfection criteria ● e. coli <1 per 100ml ● have adopted agwr risk assessment approach; these systems are assessed on a case by case basis ● e. coli : <1 cfu/100ml ● turbidity <2 ntu (95% ile) ● <5 ntu (maximum ● ph: 6.5-8.5 ● disinfection: cl 0.2-2mg/l residual ● uv: to be announced ● ozone: tba ● median value of <10 thermotolerant coliforms per 100ml ● ph: 5.5-8.0 ● bod <10mg/l ● nutrient, toxicant and salinity controls ● thermotolerant coliforms – median value of < 10 cfu/100ml ● disinfection: ≥ 1mg/l chlorine residual after 30 minutes or equivalent level of pathogen reduction ● ph 6.6 – 8.0 (90% compliance) ● turbidity: ≤ 2ntu ● bod <20mg/l ● ss<30mg/l ● disinfectant residual (eg. minimum chlorine residual) or uv dose ● e. coli less than 100cfu/100ml ● south australia ● <100 e. coli /100ml ● <20 mg/l bod ● <30mg/l ss ● chemical content to match use ● specific removal of viruses, helminths and protozoa may be required ● e. coli: <10cfu/100ml ● turbidity: <5 ntu (95% ile) ● ph: 6.5-8.5 ● disinfection: cl 0.2-2mg/l residual ● uv: to be announced ● ozone: tba ● median value of < 1,000 thermotolerant coliforms per 100ml ● ph 5.5 – 8.0 ● bod < 50mg/l ● nutrient, toxicant and salinity controls ● thermotolerant coliforms – median value of <1000 cfu/ 100ml ● biological oxygen demand/ suspended solids monitoring ● ph: 6.58.0 (90% compliance) provide an overview on how to set up a regulatory framework; these are not regulations by themselves table 6. water quality objectives for irrigation with reclaimed wastewater jurisdiction parameters given for irrigation of produce requiring addition of on-site preventative measure water quality objectives for irrigation of produce that can be consumed raw recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 ● victoria ● < 100 e. coli/ 100ml ● ph: 6-9 ● <20/30 mg/l bod/ss 8 to achieve sufficient removal of coliforms, parasites, salts, trace organics and heavy metals to make the water suitable for unrestricted irrigation of food crops. these steps can be carried out concomitantly with the earlier processes, for example: bnr, or employed as additional stages. ■ nutrient removal through precipitation (as in the case of p) and gaseous emission (as in the case of n, though denitrification) ■ filtration facilitates finer scale solid-removal, further reducing turbidity and pathogen numbers. the capacity for removing undesirable components increases with finer filtration systems, but it also carries increasing cost. ■ disinfection by uv light, chlorine, lagoons or ozone reduces the number of pathogens present in the waste stream by inactivation. key environmental hazards contaminants in reclaimed water that present greatest risk to the receiving environment include. boron, cadmium, chlorine disinfection residuals, nitrogen, phosphorus, sodium and chloride. each of these hazards, and the emerging area of organic contaminants, are discussed below. nutrients human and domestic wastes contribute large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus to sewage. only 50% of the nitrogen and 60% of the phosphorus are removed during treatment, so, concentration of these major nutrients is still high in treated sewage than in irrigation water from other sources (kelly et al, 2006). residual levels of nutrients in treated wastewater can be of great benefit to irrigators. recycled wastewater has been shown to produce increased crop yields compared with traditional fertilizer application in vines, lettuce and celery (sheikh et al, 1998). kelly et al (2006) explain that plants grow best when nutrient concentration at the root surface is maintained close to the plant uptake rate. reclaimed water may better meet crop nutrient requirements because rate of irrigation is directly related to evapo-transpiration which increases with crop leaf area. while the use of treated wastewater can benefit crop nutrient management, applying it in excess can be detrimental to both the crop and local environment. nutrient load supplied to a crop is determined by nutrient concentration of the reclaimed water and irrigation depth (which is usually in the range of 300mm to 1000mm in australia ) (kelly et al, 2006). table 7 outlines macronutrient uptake of a range of vegetables and nutrient load supplied by an irrigation depth of 1000mm from wastewater treated to the tertiary level; data demonstrate that at this level of irrigation, some nutrients would be supplied in excess of requirement, thereby likely resulting in loss of nutrients through leaching and surface runoff. nitrate is the most mobile form of nitrogen in soil and can be subject to leaching if nitrate and water are applied in excess of the plant’s needs. this is a particular risk in colder, wetter seasons where plant growth is slow (kelly et al, 2006) nitrate can reach surface waters through run-off, contaminate ground water and impact public health if the water is used as a potable resource; it can potentially cause eutrophication of groundwater dependent ecosystems. australia has some of the oldest and least fertile soils in the world; therefore, p in the waste water is generally of great benefit to crops here. reclaimed wastewater typically contains less than 3mg/l of soluble p, which is rapidly adsorbed onto soil particles after irrigation (kelly et al, 2006). when plant demand is low, p accumulation and immobilization in the soil is more likely than leaching or overfertilization; an exception is sandy soils, where there is some risk of leaching off (kelly et al, 2006). the main concerns associated with phosphorus are its potential toxicity to australian natives who have evolved on our low p soils, and the run-off or accidental discharges to water bodies leading to eutrophication (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). to prevent excess nutrients from negatively impacting the land and associated ecosystems, several states mandate that nutrient budgets, particularly for nitrogen and phosphorus, be constructed as part of irrigation management table 7. crop macronutrient uptake and supply in reclaimed water (kg/ha) crop typical nutrient content (kg/ha) yield n p k ca mg (t/ha) cabbage 50 147 24 147 36 13 capsicum 20 41 4 69 52 7 carrot 44 210 19 270 175 10 cauliflower 50 181 28 225 127 18 celery 190 308 97 700 290 38 cucumber 18 66 12 120 34 8 lettuce 50 100 18 180 10 3 potato 40 264 23 310 66 21 tomato 194 572 133 856 348 87 reclaimed watera 1000mm 82 11.5 468 399 308 a nutrients applied in 1000mm from virginia pipeline scheme, south australia source: kelly et al (2006) bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 9 plans ((doh and epa sa, 1999). the nutrient input should be equal to crop requirement; this mass-balance approach must also take into account the effect of water-use efficiency, leaching rate and nutrient losses from soil and water (kelly et al, 2006). these calculations are further complicated by the fact that crop water requirements may not always match crop nutrient requirements, and the depth of irrigation may vary with season. if mass-balance of nutrients cannot be demonstrated, a monitoring programme must account for the fate of nutrients (doh and epa sa, 1999). heavy metals and metalloids most heavy metals and metalloids are very effectively removed from wastewater in the treatment process such that their levels are very low in the reclaimed water. boron and cadmium are the only two heavy metals included in the list of key environmental hazards in the current australian guidelines for water recycling they are not as readily separated from reclaimed water during standard treatment (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). metals get partitioned to the biosolids formed during sedimentation processes, because their cationic nature causes them to sorb strongly to negatively-charged organic matter and clays (bolan et al, 2003; stevens and mclaughlin, 2006). arsenic, which exists as an oxyanion, partition to biosolids through binding to iron or aluminium oxide in sludges; molybdenum and selenium exhibit this behaviour to a lesser extent and should be treated with some caution (stevens and mclaughlin, 2006). at low levels, some heavy metals are considered as micronutrients; but, above the plant requirement, foliar application can produce phytotoxicity (bolan et al, 2011a). by virtue of their persistent nature they can also accumulate in the soil, thereby resulting in soil biota toxicity, phytotoxicity through root uptake and entry into the food chain, leading to negative impact on food quality and human health. the trigger values and cumulative contaminant loading in soil in the australian and new zealand guidelines for fresh and marine water, shown in table 8, were determined with an aim of preventing these detrimental impacts (anzecc and armcanz, 2000). boron boron (b) in wastewater originates principally from household water softeners and cleaners as sodium perborate; its presence in waste water can be reduced to negligible level if b use in detergents is phased out (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). boron is not retained in biosolids because it exists as an uncharged species within the normal ph range of wastewater and, thus, remains in the reclaimed water (page and chang, 1985). boron is a micronutrient at very low levels; it has a narrow safety margin and if leaching fractions are insufficient, it can accumulate in the soil profile and cause reduction in yield and also phytotoxicity in sensitive species (unkovich et al, 2006). toxicity initially presents in older leaves as yellow and brown speckling pattern between leaf veins and leaf edges (bolan et al, 2011a; bennett, 1994). boron can theoretically be managed by leaching it out from the soil; however, it is often absorbed onto soil particles. dudley (1994) found that three times more water was required to leach out b than na + or cl -. any deterioration in soil structure would impede this process. an alternative to leaching is to grow crop species more tolerant to boron. cadmium cadmium (cd) presents the highest health-risk of all heavy metals in reclaimed water; it is loosely bound to soil and causes phytotoxicity at relatively low levels; it is a particular threat to humans and animals because toxicity occurs at a threshold lower than for plants. consequently, there are national and international schemes to monitor cd concentration in foods (naidu et al, 1997; stevens and mclaughlin, 2006). table 8. contaminant guidelines for metals and metalloids in irrigation water element anzecc and armcanz (2000) australian cumulative longshortdrinking loading term term water limit trigger trigger guidelines (kg/ha) value value health (mg/l) (mg/l) (mg/l) aluminium 5 20 0.2 arsenic 20 0.1 2.0 0.007 boron 0.5 0.5-0.15 0.3 cadmium 2 0.01 0.05 0.002 chromium-(vi) 0.1 1 0.05 cobalt 0.05 0.1 copper 140 0.2 5 2.0 fluoride 1 2 1.5 iron 0.2 10 lead 260 2 5 0.01 lithium 2.5 2.5 manganese 0.2 10 0.5 mercury 2 0.002 0.002 0.001 molybdenum 0.01 0.05 0.05 nickel 85 0.2 2 0.02 selenium 10 0.02 0.05 0.01 uranium 0.01 0.1 vanadium 0.1 0.5 zinc 300 2 5 source: nrmmcep and hcahmc (2006) recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 10 improvement in the quality of trade wastes has lowered cd level in sewage (oliver et al, 2005) such that the current australian guidelines for recycled water considers that low risk is associated with level of cd in reclaimed water (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). rather, greater risk is associated with cd already present in soils (commonly from historical use of superphosphate containing cd) displaying increased mobility in the presence of chloride in reclaimed water (weggler et al, 2004; nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). maximum permissible level (mpc) of cd in vegetables in australia is 0.1mg cd/kg fresh weight for root, tuber and leafy vegetables (warne et al, 2007). potatoes are of particular concern because they have been shown to contribute more than half the dietary intake of cd (stenhouse, 1992; mclaughlin et al, 1994). probability of potatoes having cd levels above mpc increases when the irrigation source has salinity levels greater than 2.0 ds/m. growers are advised to use irrigation water with lower salinity level (warne et al, 2007; mclauglin et al, 1994). organic contaminants three main groups of organic contaminants are found in reclaimed wastewater (ying, 2006; mueller et al, 2007) ● natural organic matter (nom) consisting of refractory molecules like fulvic and humic acids ● disinfection by-products formed during chlorination ● synthetic organic compounds including pesticides, organohalothanes, pthalates, aromatic hydrocarbons, surfactants, endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals and personal care products the fraction of nom present in reclaimed water that can be readily degraded is a function of treatment technology (ying, 2006); more stringent the technology, smaller the fraction of nom that remains after treatment. fulvic and humic acids are believed to be formed from breakdown of organic matter and are somewhat resistant to microbial breakdown (bolan et al, 2011b). although nom can induce putrefaction in stored reclaimed water (by depleting oxygen), there is little concern regarding discharge of nom onto agricultural land because it should eventually get broken down by natural microbial populations (ying 2006). where chlorine disinfection is used nom, contributes to formation of chlorine disinfection by-products (singer, 1999) and increases the amount of chlorine required for disinfection this warrants maximising its removal by filtration. disinfection by-products (dbp) can be formed by reaction of chlorine with nom (singer 1999). trihalomethanes are the most well known of the dbps. they have been shown to be carcinogenic in animals at high doses and are implicated in a form of bladder neoplasia in humans (singer, 1999; villanueva et al, 2007). chloramination is another chemical disinfection process; it can trigger formation of n-nitrosodimethylamine which has been demonstrated to be carcinogenic, mutagenic and clastogenic (kim and clevenger, 2007). synthetic organic compounds represent a wide range of chemicals. some are susceptible to wastewater treatment processes, while others fall into the group of stable organics that may remain in very small amounts in reclaimed water. many have been implicated to be endocrine disrupting chemicals (edcs) which interfere with normal hormone communication systems; they impact adversely growth, reproduction and development (epa sa, 2008). there is limited data on their presence in wastewater, and due to their potential to cause adverse environmental and human health impacts, further monitoring and research is warranted (holmes et al, 2010). chlorine residuals when disinfecting water, if sufficient dose of chlorine is administered, a small amount of this chemical may remain after the disinfection process is over. this residual chlorine provides ongoing disinfection whilst the treated water is in storage or in transit in the distribution system. while this prevents pathogens from multiplying to dangerous levels and from biofilms developing within the infrastructure, chlorineresidues can harm terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). chlorine is phytotoxic and has been shown to produce chlorosis and reduce weight in geranium and begonias at 2mg/l, and in peppers and tomatoes at 8mg/l (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). current australian guidelines for water recycling suggest that levels below 1mg/l chlorine can be considered as low risk for irrigation, while levels between 1-5mg/l should pose little risk for most crops. as the target level of free chlorine postdisinfection is 1.5mg/ l-with a critical limit of 2mg/l (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006) well managed disinfection processes are not likely to generate chlorine levels that present unacceptable hazard for irrigation. aquatic organisms are far more sensitive to chlorine and, although discharge to water bodies produces a diluting effect, chronic effects of chlorine residuals must be considered and this practice should be avoided by irrigators. salinity and sodicity soil salinity and sodicity result from excess of salts and imbalance of type of salt in the soil profile, respectively. bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 11 irrigating with reclaimed water carries the risk of inducing soil salinity and/or sodicity, because, reclaimed water often contains high levels of salts, in particular sodium (rengasamy, 2006). the salts enter wastewater streams from drinking water, detergents, water softeners, residential kitchens and industrial wastes (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). soil salinity is encountered when elevated concentration of soluble salts in the soil-water solution induces osmotic stress in the vegetation. sodicity is an increase in the proportion of sodium relative to divalent cations and adversely affects soil structure. salinity managing soil salinity has been identified as one of the most important area for developing a sustainable recycled-water scheme (naidu and sumner, 1998; stevens et al, 2003). salts that contribute to salinity include: na+, k+, ca2+, cl-, mg2+, so 4 2and hco 3 -; but sodium and chloride ions exert the greatest environmental impact because their solubility in water renders them more available for interactions in soil (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). salinity is measured by either electrical conductance (ec) in decisiemen per metre (ds/m) or total dissolved salts (tds) in mg/l. reclaimed wastewater can have tds values ranging from 200mg/l to 3000mg/l (table 9) (feigin et al, 1991). reclaimed water can induce soil salinity when salts become concentrated in the soil through evaporation, the principle signs of which relate to osmotic stress. at high enough level, individual ions can directly induce toxicity. salinity reduces plant growth because increased osmolarity makes it difficult for plants to absorb water and nutrients. in response to reduced water uptake, plants produce the hormone abscisic acid which signals stomata to close, reducing transpiration water losses. consequently, carbon dioxide absorption is reduced and photosynthesis slows down leading to diminished plant growth (hartung and davies, 1994). by virtue of their free-draining nature, sandy soils are less prone to developing soil salinity than soils with high clay content; in sandy soils, the saline solution leaches through the soil profile, and is less susceptible to evaporative concentration. table 10 provides root-zone salinity tolerance of a range of vegetables. in relation to plants’ comparative sensitivity to salinity, unkovich et al (2006) put forward the following generalities: ● vegetable crops are most sensitive to salinity ● woody crops are generally very sensitive to salinity; however, saline-tolerant rootstocks are available and can be used to improve salinity tolerance ● sensitivity to salinity increases with clay content ● for some species, sensitivity to salinity increases on foliar contact with irrigation water to prevent salt accumulation, a leaching fraction must be incorporated into the crop’s irrigation requirements to drive salts below the root zone. however, the given climatic variations in rainfall and evaporation throughout the year, supplying correct leaching volumes can be difficult. maintaining the soil structure such that the leaching fraction can permeate various soil layers is also critical, and this is further complicated by sodicity (see below). while it is possible to ‘store’ salts in the space between root zone and the water table, this is not a long-term solution and it is likely that the leached salt will ultimately reach groundwater. in cases where the ground water is already saline, there is little impact. salinisation of a potable groundwater source can impact drinking water supplies or reduce suitability of that water-source for irrigation. these threats can be minimized by choosing a site where the underlying groundwater will not be affected by addition of salt. monitoring of the groundwater may be required if the resource is sensitive (doh and epa sa, 1999). there is some danger in incorporating a leaching fraction into irrigation requirements because australia has large areas of land susceptible to anthropogenic induced (secondary) salinity through rising water tables. salt has accumulated in our landscape largely though thousands of years of rainfall-evaporation cycles (dimmock et al, 1974). historically, in the presence of deep-rooted native plants, salt accumulated either below the root zone or made its way into groundwater (which gradually became saline). the comparatively shallow roots of horticultural crops have a lower capacity to intercept and use water percolating through the soil profile, thereby allowing greater volume of water to recharge the water table. this movement of water table 9. irrigation water salinity ratings based on electrical conductivity ec (ds/m) approximate water plant tds (mg/l)a salinity suitability rating <0.65 <390 very low sensitive crops 0.65 1.3 390-780 low moderately sensitive crops 1.3 2.9 780-1740 medium moderately tolerant crops 2.9 5.2 1740-3120 high tolerant crops 5.2 8.1 3120-4860 very high very tolerant crops >8.1 >4860 extreme generally too saline source: reid and sarkis (2006) recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 12 can mobilize salts accumulated below the root zone and induce rising water tables. once the water table reaches within 2 meters of the surface, salts can move upwards through the soil profile by capillary forces (ayers and westcot, 1976). so, while saline reclaimed water can directly induce salinity or worsen pre-existing salinity, excess irrigation can also induce salinity through a rising water table. sodicity reclaimed waters frequently have higher levels of sodium ions compared to other cations and can induce sodicity or saline-sodicity (bond, 1998). sodium ions enter the soil as free sodium salts [sodium chloride (nacl), sodium carbonate (na 2 co 3 ), sodium bicarbonate (nahco 3 ) and sodium sulfate (na 2 so 4 ); sodicity develops when free sodium ions bind to cation exchange sites on clays and, by this mechanism, remain in the soil while other free salts are leached downwards (naidu and sumner, 1998; rengasamy, 2006). in situations where the other free salts remain, the soil is known as saline-sodic and the soil structure remains intact. the extent to which sodium ions bind to cation exchange sites on a clay particle is determined by the ratio of sodium ions to calcium and magnesium ions in the soil solution. this can be expressed either as percentage of sodium which occupies the cation exchange capacity of claythe exchangable sodium percentage (esp), or the ratio of sodium ions to calcium and magnesium ions in the soil solution the sodium adsorption ratio (sar). sar is commonly used because it is easier to calculate for a soil solution (naidu and sumner, 1998). it is also used to assess sodicity of irrigation waters. in australia, water with sar greater than 6 is considered to have a potential to cause sodicity; the sar of recycled water is in the range of 2.6-20, with an average of 6 while the average salinity is 1.2 ds/m (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). sodic soils have poor physical characteristics because the high levels of sodium interfere with structural integrity of clay particles when the soil is wetted (laurenson et al, 2010). normally, clay particles contribute to stabilization of soil aggregates which creates spaces within the soil matrix; spaces that can be occupied by water, air and roots dispersion of clay particles destroys these aggregates and closes the soil matrix. as a consequence, sodic soils display the following characteristics and problems (rengasamy, 2006): ● reduced porosity and permeability ● reduced infiltration and hydraulic connectivity ● surface-crust formation which impedes infiltration and promotes run-off and erosion ● difficult to cultivate ● an impediment to development of a root network and ● expose plant roots to anoxic or waterlogged conditions and slow the plant growth reduced drainage can also lead to further accumulation of salts through poor downward movement of irrigation water and evaporative concentration. clays with low hydraulic connectivity are more prone to developing sodicity because these have a low leaching fraction (rengasamy, 2006); these soils retain water in their profile which, if subjected to evaporation, leaves salts behind. table 10. root-zone salinity tolerance in some vegetables and in grape common name scientific name mean root maximum irrigation water % yield loss salinity salinity before yield loss (ds/m) (ds ec e ) tolerance (ec e ds/m) sandy soil loamy soil clayey soil asparagus asparagus officinalis 4.1 5.2 3.0 1.7 2.0 bean phaseolus vulgaris 1.0 1.9 1.1 0.6 19.0 broccoli brassica oleracea 2.8 3.3 2.8 1.6 9.2 carrot daucus carota 1.0 3.3 1.2 0.7 14.0 cucumber cucumis sativus 2.5 3.3 2.4 1.4 13.0 grape vitis spp. 1.5 3.3 1.9 1.1 9.6 lettuce lactuca sativa 1.3 3.3 1.5 0.9 13.0 onion allium cepa 1.2 3.3 1.3 0.8 16.0 bell pepper capsicum annuum 1.5 3.3 1.6 0.9 14.0 potato solanum tuberosum 1.7 3.2 1.8 1.1 12.0 spinach spinacia oleracea 2.0 4.2 2.4 1.4 7.6 tomato lycopersicon esculentum 2.3 3.5 2.0 1.2 9.9 source: unkovich et al (2006) bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 13 management irrigation methods and management when reclaimed water is used as an irrigation source, the crop irrigation requirement must be carefully calculated to avoid the effects of hydraulic loading, which include: waterlogging, poor crop-growth and health, mobilization of salts and contaminants, rising water tables and run-off (nrmmcep and hcahmc, 2006). irrigation requirement is essentially the difference between crop water requirement and rainfall, but also must take into account seasonal changes in rainfall, homogeneity of water infiltration and leaching requirement (christen et al, 2006). while leaching is often necessary to drive salts below the root-zone, it is important that it is not at the expense of a rising water table. a balance must be reached between the total water requirement of the crop and preserving normal hydrologic function. regional and local groundwater levels should be monitored so that changes, if any, can be detected and managed appropriately. pathogen content of reclaimed water is often a limiting factor with regards to the irrigation method; for example, class a water can be applied to crops that are eaten raw by any irrigation method; water consistent with class b can only be used to irrigate such crops by furrow or dripper irrigation, and class c must be applied by sub-surface drippers. furrow or flood irrigation has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive and low in manpower requirement but, unless it is well-designed and managed, infiltration can vary greatly throughout the irrigation space. because sprinklers commonly apply water directly on foliage, their use on produce consumed raw is limited to class a water. even with class a water, direct ion toxicities (with saline-reclaimed water) and an increased propensity to develop fungal disease can be a concern with foliar application of water (christen et al, 2006): the most efficient system with the least environmental and human risk is generally considered to be drip irrigation (christen et al. 2006). although installation carries quite high overhead costs and dripper systems require the most maintenance, they provide the following benefits (christen et al. 2006); ● limited contact of reclaimed water with workers and plants ● even distribution of water and the best control over application rate ● reduced risk of environmental impact – less likelihood of causing run-off besides less water-penetration past root-zone, if well managed downsides to the dripper systems are: a persistently wet area can develop around the dripper, leading to deep percolation; they are prone to clogging, and they require a filtration system (christen et al, 2006). table 11 outlines relative suitability of each system in relation to a range of parameters. best practice management best practice irrigation with reclaimed water cannot be achieved by a one-solution-fits-all approach because there are a multitude of variables that must be considered, and each enterprise is unique. irrigation schemes using reclaimed water should be tailored to optimize the economic returns to the grower whilst also minimizing impact on the receiving environment. this can be best achieved by undertaking comprehensive risk assessment of the whole scheme and designing an irrigation management plan to minimize the risk of adverse outcome. south australia has been a leader in reclaimed-water use; the guidelines wastewater irrigation management plan (wimp) a drafting guide for wastewater irrigators, developed by south australian environmental protection agency (epa sa, 2009) provide a framework for achieving the best practice. in summary, the guidelines recommend that an initial risk assessment should be carried out to identify potential hazards. the results provide an indication of the level of planning and management required and form the rationale behind the plan. risk assessment should be based on potential health impacts, soil, site and wastewater characteristics, as follows: ● soil properties examined should include: soil texture, top-soil depth, depth to drainage or root-impeding layers, infiltration rates, soil water-holding capacity and soil chemistry ● site characterization must make assessment of topography, slope, soil homogeneity (to determine sampling intensity), history of waste storage or disposal on site, depth to ground water and seasonal or permanent water tables, areas of drainage hazard and separation distances from sensitive areas ● wastewater analysis should describe reclaimed water with reference to: total solids, suspended and volatile solids, total p, inorganic p, total kjeldahl n, nh 4 +-n, k, so 4 2-, bod, ph, electrical conductivity, sar, ca, mg, organic c, na and zn ● potential health impacts must be addressed with relevant state health authorities recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 14 hazards identified through the risk assessment process and the corresponding risk minimization strategies form the backbone of a management plan. the epa guidelines state that the plan should include (epa sa, 2009): ● soil suitability or limits for wastewater irrigation, and any treatment necessary to improve the soil ● constituents of the wastewater which would limit disposal to land and any strategy that will be employed to counteract the limiting effect, e.g. pretreatment ● mass balance equations for hydraulic load, organics, nutrients and salts ● suitable crops, including requirements to prevent accumulation of pollutants in the soil or crop ● sustainable wastewater application rate to maximize plant nutrient assimilation and water efficiency ● a soil moisture monitoring system to schedule irrigation to crop moisture requirements ● an irrigation layout that allows different application rates to be delivered to soils with varying drainage capacities ● the human resources and training that will be required to operate and maintain the scheduling and monitoring equipment ● the capacity of the wastewater storage to cope with severe weather, particularly a 1:10 wet year or severe storm table 11. advantages and disadvantages of three commonly used methods of irrigation parameter irrigation method suitability drip sprinkler furrow irrigation system suitability salinity level tds: mg/l suitability based on salinity low tds <900 high high medium moderate tds 900-2000 high medium medium high tds 2000-3000 high low low risk associated with exposure type risk level occupational exposure ingestion risk low medium medium contact risk low high high aerosol risk low high low effect on irrigation equipment: water quality issue risk level risk of clogging precipitation high ss 100mg/l low high high & corrosion high potential precipitates low medium high >100 mg/l hco3high biological activity low medium high > 10000 bacteria/l ph<6 , >8 low low medium risk of surface run-off soil texture risk level run-off sand low low low loam low medium medium clay low high high risk of deep percolation soil texture risk level deep percolation sand medium high extreme loam low low high clay low low medium suitability of irrigation soil texture system suitability system based on soil type sand low high not suitable loam high medium high clay medium low medium suitability of system for type of crop suitability for establishment crop establishment small-seeded crop low high medium large-seeded crop low high high transplants or cuttings high medium medium disease risk associated crop type disease risk with irrigation method large surface-area crops low high medium root crops low medium medium cucurbits and tomatoes low high medium vines low medium medium source: christen et al (2006) bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 15 ● potential long-term impact of the planned wastewater irrigation on soil structure or nutrient accumulation additionally, a review-schedule for the management plan should be detailed, and an outline of the long-term management plan including expected timescale for accumulation of contaminants in soil or groundwater and a planned response to accidental discharge. lastly, monitoring and maintenance programs should be outlined and adhered to. case study: northern adelaide plains irrigation scheme the northern adelaide plains reclaimed water scheme (or virginia pipeline scheme), south australia, provides irrigation for over 20 different types of crops in an area of approximately 200 km2 (keremane and mckay, 2007; laurenson et al, 2010). it was the first and largest scheme of its type in australia and remains one of the largest reclaimed water schemes in the southern hemisphere (keremane and mckay, 2007; water, 2004a). it supplies approximately 180 gl of tertiary treated, class a wastewater from the bolivar waste water treatment plant (wwtp) to horticultural growers on the northern adelaide plains, through over 100 km of pipelines (water, 2004 a; laurenson et al, 2010). in 2008, the scheme encompassed 400 connections with capability to supply upto 105 ml/day during peak seasons (wig, 2009); it delivers nearly half the water required by growers at virginia (wig, 2009). the water is used to irrigate a wide range of fruit and vegetables, which supply local and interstate markets, including: beans, broccoli, cabbage, capsicum, carrots, cucumber, eggplants, lettuce, melons, onions, parsnips, pears, potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, zucchini, nuts, olives and wine grapes (marks and boon, 2005). the scheme is a joint venture between virginia irrigators association (representing the growers), water sa (the state water authority responsible for wastewater treatment) and a private company, water infrastructure group, tyco (keremane and mckay, 2007; wig, 2009). establishment of this scheme in 1999 was largely driven by local growers facing shortage of irrigation water. groundwater had been the traditional irrigation-source in the region (kelly et al, 2003). in face of deterioration of this resource, both due to reduction in supply and salt water intrusion, it was recognized that ground water had been over-allocated and was being extracted at an unsustainable rate (marks and boon, 2005; thomas, 2006). growers were seeking alternative sources of water and some had gained licenses to irrigate with class c water from the bolivar wwtp (laurenson et al, 2010). meanwhile, 40gl per annum of sewage effluent that was being released from bolivar wwtp into the spencer gulf, had been linked to dramatic losses of sea grass and occasional algal blooms and, was affecting the fishing industry (marks and boon, 2005). under a mandate to reduce wwtp’s impact on marine environment and need for an additional water source for growers in the northern adelaide plains, the bolivar plant was upgraded to produce a class water for unrestricted irrigation. bolivar wwtp is the largest of four metropolitan wastewater treatment plants in adelaide, processing approximately 70% of adelaide’s wastewater, @ approximately 160ml per day (water, 2004a). water is now treated to a tertiary level, including biological nutrient removal, lagoon detention, dissolved air flotation filtration (daff) and chlorination. lagoon detention achieves pathogen-removal through sedimentation, sunlight and microbial predation; however, the lagoons do facilitate some build-up of algae and daff treatment removes this suspended load (marks and boon, 2005). health constraints the specifications for class a water in south australia are: <10 e.coli/100ml, turbidity ≤ demand ≤ the water is considered as fit for ‘unrestricted use’ – meaning, direct wetting of produce eaten raw is acceptable. however, both health and environmental safety precautions apply: ● growers are educated in personal hygiene practices relating to contact with water ● it cannot be used to wash food nor in the production process and ● spray-drift control must be implemented to ensure the spray does not reach another property the distribution company which sells most of the produce in the area employs quality assurance assessors to carry out audits on both the growers’ management practices and the quality of produce sold in terms of food safety – the reported compliance with safety practices is very high around 98-99% (marks and boon, 2005). effect on produce the growers are guaranteed water of <1500mg/l total dissolved salts (approximately equivalent to 2.34ds/m recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 2ntu, biological oxygen 20mg/l (refer table 5). in terms of human health, 16 j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 bolan et al irrigation of horticultural crops with recycled-water in australia 17 j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 recycled-water irrigation of horticultural crops in australia ec); ec is continually monitored at the wttp and the water is sometimes diluted (i.e. shandying) with mains water in summer to achieve this level (marks and boon, 2005). by comparison, salinity in the aquifers that supply bore water ranges between 500 to over 2000mg/l (nabcwmb, 2007). respondents to social appraisal of the scheme undertaken in 2004, including wholesale purchasers, commented that the salt made the produce taste better than the interstate produce, although it was slightly less attractive in appearance (marks and boon, 2005). interestingly, cuartero and fernandez-munoz (1999) have shown that tomatoes grown in saline conditions can show both positive and negative effects; fruit size and weight are reduced, while taste is enhanced. some growers had experienced difficulty in growing particular vegetables like cucumbers and tomatoes; they felt that salinity level in the reclaimed water was to blame. however, these difficulties were not universal and factors that differ from farm to farm (such as pre-existing salinity or fertilizer regime use) may be important in determining crop response to reclaimed water (marks and boon, 2005). while theoretically, the levels of phosphorus and nitrogen generally remain higher in reclaimed water, farmers participating in social appraisal had conflicting beliefs in the fertilizing capacity of water from bolivar (marks and boon, 2005). in an ideal situation, nutrient inputs from both reclaimed water and fertilizer application should match the crop’s requirement. in practice, achieving this-particularly, as the nutrient loading is inextricably coupled with the plants’ water requirements is difficult (laurenson et al, 2010). some farmers had continued to apply fertilizer at the same rates; however, a local businessman reported he no longer sold as much fertilizer in the area because of the nutrients in the reclaimed water (marks and boon, 2005). environmental effects water irrigation management plan (wimp) is part of the licensing requirements of the scheme; it must justify how irrigation with reclaimed water will be managed in order to prevent any negative impact on environmental endpoints (doh and epa sa, 1999; keremane and mckay, 2007). the wimp includes a monitoring program, administered through the epa, to determine effect of the reclaimed water on groundwater and soil; the results are independently assessed on annual basis. growers are provided with advice on how to manage irrigation with reclaimed water so as to avoid negative impact on soil and groundwater. although salt load in the bolivar reclaimed water is high (1097 mg/l tds) (kelly et al, 2001) compared to typical surface waters in south australia, (329 mg/l tds) (unkovich et al, 2004), salinity in the local aquifers which supply bore water ranges between 500 and >2000mg/l (nabcwmb, 2007). irrigation with either groundwater or the reclaimed water warrants particular care with respect to maintaining a leaching fraction that will drive the salt below the root zone, yet, avoid salinization of the underlying groundwater. a social appraisal found that many stakeholders believed that overwatering was occurring, either in an effort to leach salts out or to make full use of water allocation (marks and boon, 2005). groundwater levels in the local aquifers were in decline prior to 2000. since then, these have generally risen, so that by 2003 they had recovered to 1980’s levels (nabcwmb, 2007). while it may be difficult to differentiate between effects of reduced groundwater extraction and increased inputs, in 2003, rising water tables beneath irrigation areas in virginia region were suspected to be due to excessive leaching. hence, a need to improve water use efficiency was identified (marks and boon, 2005). in response, the “obs[ervation] wells network” used for monitoring ground water levels and salinity in the region was expanded, and a shallow water-table monitoring network was also instigated (marks & boon, 2005). reclaimed waters frequently have higher levels of sodium ions compared to other cations and threaten to degrade soil structure through sodicity (bond, 1998). it might be expected that continued irrigation with reclaimed water could induce structural changes in soil. however, despite annual evaluations through the epa as a requirement of the water irrigation management plan, there have been no reported deleterious effects of class a water on soil properties in the region. benefits of the scheme virginia pipeline scheme has provided a secure water resource during a period known to be one of the driest on record (wig, 2009). in some cases, the reclaimed water replaced groundwater resources and in others, provided a water source where framers were unable to receive groundwater allocation: as one grower commented during the social appraisal “if i didn’t have ‘bolivar water’, i wouldn’t be growing anything. it is hard to get a bore water quota” (marks and boon, 2005). the scheme has ensured long-term economic sustainability of adelaide’s food bowl. the recycled water is sold at a reduced rate compared to mains water. about $50 million worth of the produce grown in the area each year uses reclaimed water (wig, 2009). water 18 infrastructure group (2009) translates this to $1 billion benefit to the district over the first 10 years of the project. environmentally, the scheme results in 35% of water being recycled at bolivar wwtp (water, 2004b), reduces discharge of harmful nutrients into the marine environment; reduces demand for groundwater extractions and contributes to reducing south australia’s dependence on the pressured surface-water systems (water, 2004a). as one proponent eloquently summed it up: “the scheme has operated for 10 years with no human-health issues and no detrimental environmental impact, proving that recycled water can provide a safe and sustainable water resource” (wig, 2009). acknowledgement we would like to thank crc care for providing funding (no 2-3-09-07/08) to undertake research on landfill site remediation; part of the review was derived from this project. references anderson, j. and davis, c. 2006. reclaimed water use in australia: an overview of australia and reclaimed water. in: growing crops with reclaimed wastewater (ed: d. stevens), csiro publishing, victoria, australia, p 5 australian bureau of statistics. 2000. water account australia 1993-4 to 1996-7, abs catalogue no: 4610.0. commonwealth of australia, canberra, australia australian bureau of statistics. 2004. water account australia 2000-01 (corrigendum), abs catalogue no: 4610.0. commonwealth of australia, canberra, australia australian bureau of statistics. 2006. water account australia 2004-05, abs catalogue no: 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and sparrow, l.a. 2007. final report of national cadmium committee (ncmc) water infrastructure group. 2009. 10 years of recycled water use at water infrastructure groups’ virginia pipeline scheme: ten years of irrigating fresh vegetables with recycled water in australia. media release – 7 october 2009. water infrastructure group, tyco international ltd. water, s.a. 2004a. bolivar eip. sa water, government of south australia, adelaide, south australia, australia. water, s.a. 2004b. virginia angle vale reuse extension. sa water, government of south australia, adelaide, south australia, australia weggler, k, mclaughlin, m.j., graham, r.d. 2004. effect of chloride in soil solution on the plant availability of biosolid-borne cadmium. j. envirtl. quali., 33:496504 world health organisation (who). 2008. guidelines for drinking-water quality, third edition, incorporating the first and second addenda, vol. 1, recommendations. who ying, g. 2006 .organic compounds in reclaimed water and their potential risks to the environment and human health. in: growing crops with reclaimed wastewater (ed: d. stevens), csiro publishing, victoria, australia, pp 159-170 bolan et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):1-20, 2011 introduction china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees], belonging to the family asteraceae, is a very popular annual flowering plant grown throughout the world. in india, it is grown traditionally for loose flower, cut flower, vase arrangement, floral decorations, for making garlands and venis for hair decoration. it is extensively grown in karnataka, tamil nadu, west bengal and maharashtra by marginal and small farmers. dwarf cultivars are used as potted plants suitable for hedges and window boxes (rao et al, 2012). the genus callistephus has only a single species, chinensis, with diploid (2n) chromosome number 18 (huziwara, 1954). information on nature and magnitude of variability among traits in a germplasm is the pre-requisite for improving a desired flower trait. genotypic and phenotypic co-efficient of variability are useful in detecting amount of variability present in the genotype. the main purpose of 1department of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, koch vihar, west bengal. 2section of economics and statistics, 3section of seed science and technology, iihr, bengaluru genetic variability for quantitative traits in china aster [callistephus chinensis (l.) nees] gayatri khangjarakpam1, rajiv kumar, g.k. seetharamu1, t. manjunatha rao, m.v. dhananjaya, r. venugopalan2 and k. padmini3 division of ornamental crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail : flori_rajiv@yahoo.co.in abstract a field study was conducted to estimate genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in 20 genotypes of china aster for 15 traits during the year 2012-13 in randomized complete block design, with three replications. results revealed that the magnitude of phenotypic co-efficient of variation (pcv) was higher than genotypic co-efficient of variation (gcv) for all the traits studied. narrow differences between gcv and pcv were recorded in all the characters except flowering duration, vase-life and shelf-life, indicating little environmental influence on expression of these characters. high (>20%) gcv and pcv were recorded for plant height, number of branches and leaves per plant, flower diameter, number of ray and disc florets/flower head, stalk length, and, number and weight of flowers/plant. heritability estimates ranged from 28.30% (flowering duration) to 99.54% (flower diameter). high heritability (>60%) was observed for all the traits except flowering duration. high heritability, coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean, was recorded for flower diameter, stalk-length, number of branches/plant, weight of flowers/plant, days to first flower opening, days to 50 per cent flowering, plant height, number of leaves/plant, number of ray and disc florets/flower head, number of flowers/plant, indicating a possible role of additive gene action. thus, these traits can be improved through selection and breeding. key words: china aster, genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance estimating heritability and genetic parameters, that compose heritability estimate, is to compare expected gains from selection based on alternative selection strategies (holland et al, 2003). several flower traits in china aster have been studied using quantitative genetic approaches (rao, 1982; negi et al, 1983; ravikumar and patil, 2003). the present study was conducted to ascertain the extent of genotypic variability, heritability and genetic advance to identify potential economic traits for selection. material and methods the study was carried out at an experimental field of division of ornamental crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, during the year 201213 in randomized complete block design, with three replications. experimental material comprised of 20 genotypes, viz., kamini, poornima, shashank, violet cushion, phule ganesh pink, phule ganesh white, phule ganesh purple, matsumoto apricot, matsumoto red, j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):141-144, 2014 142 at a spacing of 30cm x 30cm during the second week of october 2012. uniform cultural practices were imposed on all the genotypes. five uniformly-grown plants per replication were tagged for recording various biometric observations. genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were estimated according to burton and dewane (1953) based on an estimate of genotypic and phenotypic variance. broad sense heritability (h2) was estimated as per weber and moorthy (1952). genetic advance as per cent mean was worked out as per johnson et al (1955). statistical package ‘biostat iihr, version 1.0’ was used for statistical analysis of data. results and discussion genetic variability analysis of variance showed significant differences among genotypes for all the traits studied (table 1). extent of variability was measured in terms of variance, genotypic co-efficient of variation (gcv), phenotypic co-efficient of variation (pcv), along with per cent heritability (h2) and genetic advance as per cent mean (table 2). phenotypic co-efficient of variation was higher than genotypic co-efficient of variation for all the characters, which indicated greater genotype x environment interaction. ravikumar and patil (2003) also reported higher pcv than gcv for various traits in china aster. however, narrow differences between gcv and pcv were observed for all the characters excepting flowering duration, vase life and shelf life, indicating minimal environmental influence on expression of these characters. table 2. estimate of genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance for various traits in china aster trait gv pv gcv pcv heritability genetic genetic (%) (%) (%) advance advance as per cent mean plant height (cm) 108.75 113.38 23.19 23.68 95.92 20.61 45.84 number of branches/plant 10.55 10.71 23.32 23.51 98.46 6.59 47.34 number of leaves/plant 2599.79 2666.13 27.37 27.71 97.51 102.42 54.98 plant spread (cm) 6.46 6.74 9.19 9.38 95.92 5.03 18.17 days to first flower opening 103.22 105.55 14.63 14.79 97.79 20.47 29.48 days to 50% flowering 132.95 136.73 14.77 14.98 97.24 23.10 29.60 flower diameter (cm) 1.73 1.74 25.10 25.15 99.54 2.70 51.52 number of ray florets/flower head 767.84 802.64 24.96 25.52 95.66 54.61 49.19 number of disc florets/flower head 1421.67 1490.74 20.45 20.94 95.37 74.07 40.17 flower stalk length (cm) 136.78 138.16 43.25 43.47 99.00 23.85 88.23 flowering duration (days) 2.61 9.24 5.76 10.84 28.30 0.94 3.35 vase life (days) 0.61 0.81 10.98 12.58 76.24 1.24 17.34 shelf life (days) 0.17 0.25 11.59 14.05 67.99 0.58 16.15 number of flowers/plant 468.25 499.41 43.50 44.92 93.76 41.80 84.03 weight of flowers/plant (g) 2362.33 2405.44 45.55 45.97 98.21 98.33 92.17 gv: genotypic variance; pv: phenotypic variance; gcv: genotypic coefficient of variation; pcv: phenotypic coefficient of variation table 1. mean, range and coefficient of variation for various traits in china aster trait mean±sem range coefficient minimum maximum of variation (%) plant height (cm) 44.96 ± 1.24 29.06 60.77 4.78 number of 13.92 ± 0.23 11.13 22.86 2.91 branches/plant number of 186.28 ± 4.70 128.86 258.33 4.37 leaves/plant plant spread (cm) 27.67 ± 0.42 23.9 33.45 1.89 days to first 69.42 ± 0.88 55.60 87.66 2.20 flower opening days to 50% 78.04 ± 1.12 62.11 97.00 2.48 flowering flower 5.24 ± 0.05 3.75 8.19 1.70 diameter (cm) number of ray 111.00 ± 3.40 40.33 149.06 5.31 florets/flower head number of disc 184.35 ± 4.79 123.13 255.06 4.50 florets/flower head flower stalk 27.03 ± 0.67 16.00 58.05 4.35 length (cm) flowering 28.04 ± 1.48 23.44 32.11 9.17 duration (days) vase life (days) 7.15 ± 0.25 5.83 8.66 6.13 shelf life (days) 3.59 ± 0.16 2.93 4.66 7.95 number of 49.74 ± 3.22 22.44 81.89 11.22 flowers/plant weight of 106.68 ± 3.79 34.66 178.16 6.15 flowers/plant (g) matsumoto rose, matsumoto scarlet, matsumoto pink, matsumoto white, matsumoto yellow, local white, iihrh13a, iihr-c 1, iihr-h 3, iihr-i 1 and iihr-g 13. thirty two plants per genotype per replication were planted gayatri khangjarakpam et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):141-144, 2014 143 high genotypic and phenotypic co-efficient of variation were recorded for weight of flowers/plant, number of flowers/plant, flower stalk length, number of leaves/plant, flower diameter, number of ray florets/flower head, number of branches/plant, plant height and number of disc florets/ flower head, indicating the presence of maximum variability among the genotypes studied. negi et al (1983) also reported high gcv and pcv for plant height, number of flowers/ plant, stalk length and flower weight in china aster. moderate genotypic co-efficient was recorded for days to 50% flowering, days to first flowering, shelf-life and vase-life. low genotypic co-efficient of variation was recorded for plant spread and duration of flowering. low gcv for plant spread in gerbera has been reported by kumar et al (2012). traits like plant height, number of branches and leaves/plant, flower diameter, number of ray florets/flower head, number of disc florets/flower head, flower stalk length and weight of flowers/plant showed high genotypic coefficient of variation, coupled with a narrow difference between genotypic and phenotypic co-efficients of variation. hence, these traits can prove to be effective in improving the crop through selection and breeding. such a high genotypic co-efficient of variation, together with heritability estimates, would be useful in arriving at the amount of advancement to be achieved through selection (burton, 1952). heritability and genetic advance magnitude of heritable variability is the most important aspect having a close bearing on response to selection (panse, 1957). in the present experiment, heritability estimates ranged from 28.30% (flowering duration) to 99.54% (flower diameter). magnitude of heritability in broad sense was high for all the characters except flowering duration. patil and rane (1995) and ravikumar and patil (2003) also reported high heritability for most of the quantitative traits in china aster. such high heritability estimates are helpful in making a selection for superior genotypes on the basis of phenotypic performance of quantitative traits. heritability and genetic advance increase the efficiency of selection in a breeding programme by assessing the influence of environmental factors and the nature of gene action. johnson et al (1955) suggested that heritability, along with genetic advance was more useful in predicting selection of the best individuals. in the present study, high heritability, coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean was recorded for flower diameter, flower stalk length, number of branches/plant, weight of flower/plant, days to first flower opening, days to 50% flowering, plant height, number of leaves/plant, number of ray florets/head, number of disc florets/head and number of flowers/plant indicating, that, these traits are controlled by additive gene action. therefore, these traits can be improved through pure-line selection and breeding. high heritability, coupled with high genetic advance as per cent, mean has also been reported for flower diameter and number of ray florets/flower head (raghava and negi, 1994), plant height, number of branches/plant, flower stalk length (aswath and parthasarathy, 1993) and weight of flowers/plant (rao, 1982; negi et al, 1983; ravikumar and patil, 2003) in china aster. high heritability, associated with high genetic advance, is more useful for improvement of a character through selection. high heritability, with moderate genetic advance was recorded for plant spread, vase-life and shelf-life, which are attributed to the presence of both additive and nonadditive gene effects indicating, that, these characters can be improved through hybridization and selection in later generations. high heritability and moderate genetic advance has been reported for plant spread (rao, 1982) and vaselife (kumar et al, 2012) in china aster and gerbera, respectively. the present study revealed that traits like plant height, number and leaves/plant, flower diameter, number of ray and disc florets/flower head, flower stalk length, and, number and weight of flowers/plant showed high genotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance as per cent of mean, which may be attributed to additive gene effects. thus, these characters can prove useful for selection and breeding in china aster. references aswath, c. and parthasarathy, v.a. 1993. heritability and correlation studies in china aster (callistephus chinensis nees.). ind. j. hort., 50:89-92 burton, g.w. 1952. quantitative inheritance in grasses. in: proceedings of the 6th international grassland congress, 1:277–273, pennsylvania state college, aug.17-23, national publishing company, washington d.c. burton, g.w. and dewane, e.m. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (fistula arundanaceae) from replicated clonal material. agron j., 48:478481 genetic variability for quantitative traits in china aster j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):141-144, 2014 144 holland, j.b., nyquist, w.e. and cervantes-martinez, c.t. 2003. estimating and interpreting heritability for plant breeding: an update. pl. breed. rev., 22:109–112 huziwara, y. 1954. karyotype analysis in bellies, callistephus and solidago. kromosomo, 21:773-776 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soyabeans. agron. j., 47:314-318 kumar, r., deka, b.c. and venugopalan, r. 2012. genetic variability and trait association studies in gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) for quantitative traits. ind. j. agril. sci., 82:615–619 negi, s.s., raghava, s.p.s., sharma, t.v.r.s. and srinivasan, v.r. 1983. studies on variability and correlation in china aster (callistephus chinensis nees.). ind. j. hort., 40:102-106 panse, v.g. 1957. genetics of quantitative characters in relation to plant breeding. ind. j. genet., 17:318328 patil, s.s.d. and rane, d.a. 1995. studies on heritability estimates in china aster. j. maharashtra agri. univ., 20:137-138 raghava, s.p.s. and negi, s.s. 1994. genetic analysis of various quantitative traits in china aster (callistephus chinensis nees.). ind. j. hort., 51:106-110 rao, t.m. 1982. studies on genetic variability and correlation in china aster (callistephus chinensis nees.). m.sc. (hort.) thesis, uas, bangalore rao, t.m., kumar, r. and gaddagimath, p.b. 2012. china aster. extension bulletin. director, iihr, bengaluru, p. 20 ravikumar, h. and patil, v.s. 2003. genetic variability and character association studies in china aster (callistephus chinensis) genotypes. j. orn. hort., 6:222-228 weber, c.r. and moorthy, b.r. 1952. heritable and nonheritable relationships and variability for oil content and agronomic characters in the f2 generation of soybean crosses. agron. j., 44:202-209 (ms received 02 august 2013, revised 03 may 2014, accepted 15 july 2014) gayatri khangjarakpam et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):141-144, 2014 introduction among various commercially grown cut flowers, lilium has just opened its way in cut flower market in our country, and enjoys a status of pride among cut flowers in world, being next only to tulip. lilium ranks 6th among top ten cut flowers of the world. in production of cut flowers, one of the most important aspects is to deliver the flowers in garden – fresh condition to the market. about 28-32% annual loss has been recorded in flowers due to traditional methods of growing and poor post-harvest handling measures (dadlani, 1997). although vase life and quality of flowers are genetically decided, it can be manipulated to certain extent by improved production technology and by adopting effective post-harvest handling measures. early senescence poses difficulties in transport and long distance marketing of flowers. the quality and vase life of cut flowers can be improved by loading them with sugars immediately after harvest as pulsing treatment. different biocides/ antioxidants have also been used as supplement to the pulsing solutions (khan et al, 2007; singh et al, 2007). however, efforts made with regard to lilium are meagre. therefore, in order to delay the senescence and reduce the j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 138-142, 2009 effect of pulsing treatments for enhancing shelf-life of cut asiatic lilium cv. elite s.a. wani, m.a.a. siddique, f.u. khan, z.a. qadri, f.a. khan1, q.a.h. dar and s. ali division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir shalimar campus-191121, srinagar (j&k), india e mail: yagaous@gmail.com abstract studies were conducted on cut asiatic lilium cv. elite to assess the effectiveness of various floral preservatives as pulsing treatments for delaying senescence and prolonging vase life. uniform spikes of lilium at bud colour break stage were brought to the laboratory in the morning and placed in 8 different pulsing solutions consisting of sucrose (suc) 5%, aluminium sulphate (as) 400 ppm, silver thio-sulphate (sts) 2.0 mm and citric acid (ca) 1000 ppm alone and in combination with sucrose. distilled water without any chemical served as the control. among individual treatments, sts 2.0 mm maintained better water relations and flower quality compared to others. sts also showed superiority over other treatments when combined with suc 5% by providing largest flower size (16.74 cm) with maximum vase life (17.29 days) owing to most-favourable water relations parameters. key words: lilium, pulsing treatment, vase life 1division of post harvest technology post-harvest losses the present work was planned to find out the effective pulsing treatments for prolonging the vase life and quality of cut lilium. material and methods lilium cv. elite was grown in the experimental fields of the division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, skuast-k, shalimar during the summer of 2006-07. healthy, good looking, stout and uniform sized spikes (90 cm) with comparable flower bud diameter (1.80 cm) were harvested in the morning at bud colour break stage, brought to the laboratory and pre-cooled at 10c for a period of 45 minutes. the spikes were re-cut and placed in various preservative solutions comprised of sucrose (suc 5% t 1 ), aluminium sulphate (as 400 ppm t 2 ), silver thio-sulphate (sts 2.0 mm t 3 ), citric acid (ca 1000 ppm t 4 ), t 1 + t 2 (t 5 ), t 1 + t 3 (t 6 ), t 1 + t 4 (t 7 ) and water as control (t 8 ) for 12 h. all the treatments were replicated thrice with five spikes as one sample unit. the volume of solution provided to each spike was 200 ml. the vases were kept in the laboratory at room temperature (20 ± 2 0c) with 70 ± 5% relative humidity under natural light. various post harvest parameters were estimated at every two day’s intervals as under: 139 • water uptake (g/spike)(w u ) = [c + s] 1 – [c+s] 2 • water loss (g/spike)(w l ) = [c + s +f] 1 – [c+s+ f] 2 • water balance (g/spike)(w b ) = w u – w l • water loss/water uptake ratio = w l / w u • fresh weight changes (%) – (f w ) = fw 1 – fw 2 x 100 fw 1 where, c = weight of container (g); s = weight of solution (g); f = weight of flower spike (g); fw 1 = initial weight of flower spike; fw 2 = final weight of flower spike; 1 = initial; 2= final vase life of the spike was recorded from the day of anthesis of the first flower bud to the senescence of last flower. the diameter of second flower was measured with the help of measuring scale when it was full open. data obtained were analyzed for critical difference among the various treatments under completely randomized design (gomez and gomez, 1984). results and discussion water uptake data presented in table 1 revealed that different pulsing treatments have significant effect on water uptake in cut lilium spikes. sucrose 5% + sts 2.0 mm (t 6 ) exhibited the highest water uptake throughout the vase period followed by sucrose 5% + as 400 ppm (t 5 ) and sucrose 5% + citric acid 1000 ppm (t 7 ) against the minimum water uptake in control (t 8 ), which in turn was also reflected in their cumulative water uptake of 32.55 (t 6 ), 29.87 (t 5 ), 27.44 (t 7 ) and 19.11 g/spike (t 8 ). sucrose and other chemicals also individually improved daily as well as cumulative water uptake significantly with aggregated amounts in order of 19.95 g/spike (sucrose 5% t 1 ), 22.35 g/spike (ca 1000 ppm – t 4 ), 23.60 g/spike (as 400 ppmt 2 ) and 24.50 g/ spike (sts 2.0 mm – t 3 ). data also showed that the rate of water uptake was faster during early days (day 2 to day 8) and thereafter gradually declined during later days (day 8 to day 14) to reach minimum on 14th day. these results are also in close agreement with those of gowda (1994), who observed that solutions of sucrose, sts alone or in combination improved water uptake in gladiolus. maintenance of higher water uptake in pulsing solution of sucrose may be attributed to its role in absorbing more water through lowering the osmotic potential of flower tissues. aluminium sulphate, silver thio-sulphate and citric acid are well known germicides which inhibit the vascular blockage caused by various micro organisms and used for improving the shelf life of cut flowers. the higher water uptake in combined treatments of sucrose plus other biocides may be attributed to their additive role by clearing the path of water movement through inhibiting the vascular blockage (khan et al, 2007). water loss data presented in table 2 revealed that various pulsing treatments had significant influence on water loss behaviour of cut asiatic lilium throughout the period compared with control which could also be evidenced from the cumulative data on water loss. the pattern of daily as well as cumulative water loss was similar to that of the water uptake, i.e. it was faster during the early days and declined afterward wherein t 6 showed maximum water loss which was followed by t 5 , t 7 , t 2 , t 4 , t 1 , t 8 and t 3 with the cumulative water loss of 17.73, 17.35, 16.69, 15.91, 14.88, 13.99, 13.86 and 11.47 g/spike, respectively. our results are in close conformity with those of gowda and murthy (1992) who reported that water uptake and thus water loss was significantly higher in sucrose + sts treatments in case of cut gladiolus. water balance statistical analysis of the data portrayed that different pulsing solutions have significant consequence on table 1. effect of pulsing treatment on daily water uptake (g/spike) in cut lilium cv. elite treatment daily water uptake (g/spike) cumulative water days after pulsing uptake (g/spike) 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 t 1 -suc 5% 2.87 4.51 4.63 3.61 3.21 1.01 0.11 19.95 t 2 -as 400 ppm 3.06 4.84 4.96 4.31 3.91 2.11 0.41 23.60 t 3 -sts 2.0 mm 3.08 5.01 5.16 4.71 4.01 2.46 0.61 24.50 t 4 -ca 1000 ppm 3.00 4.62 4.79 3.91 3.61 1.81 0.16 22.35 t 5 -suc 5% + as 400 ppm 2.98 5.82 5.98 5.31 4.51 3.01 2.26 29.87 t 6 -suc 5% + sts 2.0 mm 3.10 6.00 6.21 5.91 4.81 3.51 3.01 32.55 t 7 -suc 5% + ca 1000 ppm 3.13 5.64 5.71 5.01 4.31 2.71 0.93 27.44 t 8 -control 3.11 4.32 4.46 3.21 3.01 0.94 0.06 19.11 cd (p=0.05) 0.005 0.005 0.011 0.010 0.007 0.006 0.012 0.038 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 138-142, 2009 effect of pulsing treatment on shelf-life of asiatic lilium 140 water balance of cut lilium spikes. data (table 3) revealed that in general, water balance increased during initial days (day 2 to day 4) and subsequently decreased to reach minimum at day 14. it is also interesting to note that all the combined treatments sustained a positive water balance throughout the post harvest life with greatest amount in “sucrose 5% + sts 2.0 mm” (0.40 g/spike) followed by “sucrose 5% + as 400 ppm” (0.11 g/spike) and “sucrose 5% + ca 1000 ppm” (0.03 g/spike) on the last day of observation, whereas, all other treatments showed negative values owing to more water loss through transpiration than absorption. this disparity in water balance due to various pulsing treatments was also apparent in case of cumulative water balance with greatest quantity in “sucrose 5% + sts 2.0 mm” (14.80g /spike), followed by “sucrose 5% + as 400 ppm” (12.52 g/spike), “sucrose 5% + ca 1000 ppm” (10.75 g/spike) against the minimum of 5.25 g/spike in control. the differences in water balance were the outcome of the water uptake and water loss behaviour (table 4). instrumental role of sugars in improving the water uptake and restricting the stomatal closer might have resulted in improved water balance. antimicrobial agents further supplemented the water balance by inhibiting vascular blockage (reddy et al, 1996). table 2. effect of pulsing treatment on daily water loss (g/spike) in cut lilium cv. elite treatment daily water loss (g/spike) cumulative water days after pulsing loss (g/spike) 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 t 1 -suc 5% 1.00 2.33 3.16 3.21 2.90 1.11 0.28 13.99 t 2 -as 400 ppm 1.09 2.38 3.31 3.31 2.98 2.06 0.51 15.91 t 3 -sts 2.0 mm 1.08 2.41 3.36 3.36 3.01 2.39 0.66 11.47 t 4 -ca 1000 ppm 1.01 2.35 3.26 3.26 2.91 1.88 0.21 14.88 t 5 -suc 5% + as 400 ppm 1.10 2.48 3.48 3.51 3.11 2.46 1.21 17.35 t 6 -suc 5% + sts 2.0 mm 1.13 2.51 3.52 3.61 3.21 2.51 1.26 17.73 t 7 -suc 5% + ca 1000 ppm 1.12 2.46 3.41 3.41 3.06 2.41 0.82 16.69 t 8 -control 1.15 2.26 3.11 3.16 2.86 1.06 0.26 13.86 cd (p=0.05) 0.042 0.008 0.010 0.011 0.009 0.009 0.004 0.039 table 3. effect of pulsing treatment on daily water balance (g/spike) in cut lilium cv. elite treatment daily water balance (g/spike) cumulative water days after pulsing balance (g/spike) 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 t 1 -suc 5% 1.87 2.18 1.47 0.40 0.31 -0.10 -0.17 5.96 t 2 -as 400 ppm 1.97 2.46 1.65 1.00 0.93 0.05 -0.10 7.96 t 3 -sts 2.0 mm 2.00 2.60 1.80 1.35 1.00 0.07 -0.05 8.77 t 4 -ca 1000 ppm 1.99 2.27 1.53 0.65 0.70 -0.07 -0.05 7.02 t 5 -suc 5% + as 400 ppm 1.88 3.34 2.50 1.80 1.40 0.55 1.05 12.52 t 6 -suc 5% + sts 2.0 mm 1.97 3.49 2.69 2.30 1.60 1.00 1.75 14.80 t 7 -suc 5% + ca 1000 ppm 2.01 3.18 2.30 1.60 1.25 0.30 0.11 10.75 t 8 -control 1.96 2.06 1.35 0.05 0.15 -0.12 -0.20 5.25 cd (p=0.05) 0.010 0.010 0.005 0.008 0.009 0.038 0.039 0.300 table 4. effect of pulsing treatment on daily water loss/water uptake ratio in cut lilium cv. elite treatment daily water loss/water uptake ratio days after pulsing 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 t 1 -suc 5% 0.34 0.51 0.68 0.88 0.90 1.09 2.56 t 2 -as 400 ppm 0.35 0.49 0.66 0.76 0.76 0.97 1.24 t 3 -sts 2.0 mm 0.35 0.48 0.65 0.71 0.75 0.97 1.08 t 4 -ca 1000 ppm 0.33 0.50 0.68 0.83 0.80 1.03 1.34 t 5 -suc 5% + as 400 ppm 0.36 0.42 0.58 0.66 0.68 0.81 0.53 t 6 -suc 5% + sts 2.0 mm 0.36 0.41 0.56 0.61 0.66 0.71 0.41 t 7 -suc 5% + ca 1000 ppm 0.35 0.43 0.59 0.68 0.71 0.88 0.88 t 8 -control 0.36 0.52 0.69 0.98 0.95 1.12 4.43 cd (p=0.05) 0.002 0.050 0.035 0.018 0.047 0.203 0.047 wani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 138-142, 2009 141 water loss/water uptake ratio data reflected that in general, water loss/water uptake ratio of cut lilium spikes increased gradually with time to reach maximum on the last day of the treatments (table 4). pulsing of spikes in sucrose 5% in combination with other preservatives resulted in lesser values of water loss/ water uptake ratio as compared with the individual chemicals whereas, the maximum water loss/ water uptake ratio was recorded in control. water loss/ water uptake ratio on day 14 clearly indicated that among the combined treatments, t 6 maintained a better ratio (0.41) as compared to t 5 (0.53) and t 7 (0.88) whereas individual treatments gave better result with t 3 (1.08) followed by t 2 (1.24), t 4 (1.34) and t 1 (2.56) against a poor ratio of 4.43 in control. though the treatments which showed more water uptake also accompanied with more water loss, the differences in water loss/water uptake ratio in various treatments may be attributed to the differences in degree of water loss due to various treatments. the lowered water loss/water uptake ratio in treated spikes as compared to control was in line with the finding that water balance significantly increased by sucrose plus metallic salts when compared to control in case of gladiolus (reddy et al., 1996). fresh weight change as evidenced from the data fresh weight change differed significantly among the treatments and the difference increased with time in the vase (table 5). fresh weight was found to be increased in all the treatments up to day 6 and then decreased sharply from day 8 to the last day. spikes treated in pulsing solutions of sucrose plus other chemicals in combination (t 5 , t 6 and t 7 ) were able to maintain a positive value of fresh weight change even on last day indicating a gain in their fresh weight while as all other treatments including control showed negative values owing to loss in their fresh weight. at day 6 the maximum fresh weight gain of 20.13 per cent was exhibited by t 6 followed by other treatments of sucrose in combination with other metabolites and the chemicals alone which were at par with each other. superiority of t 6 in maintaining the fresh weight was sustained even at day last where a fresh weight gain of 2.01 per cent was recorded as compared to 1.51 and 0.96 per cent increase in fresh weight by t 5 and t 7 , respectively. stimart (1983) reported that there was initial increase in fresh weight followed by decline and the increase being larger in flowers kept in sucrose than those kept in de-ionized water. decline in fresh weight of spikes may be attributed to decrease in water relation parameters. beside, the second peak (climacteric rise) in the respiratory drift, which is considered to decide the final senescence stage (swarup, 1993) and decrease in pool of dry matter and respirable substrates especially in petals might be considered as other important factors responsible for decrease in fresh weight of lilium spikes. flower size data pertaining to the effect of various pulsing treatments on floral attributes described that various floral traits varied significantly on account of different pulsing solutions (table 6). combined treatments of sucrose with other chemicals exhibited better results in terms of floral attributes as compared with individual effect of different chemical preservatives. a maximum size of flower in terms of flower diameter (16.74 cm) was recorded in “sucrose 5% + sts 2.0 mm”, followed by “sucrose 5% + as 400 ppm” (15.61 cm) and “sucrose 5% + ca 1000 ppm” (15.21 cm) against the lowest flower diameter (13.81 cm) in control, while sucrose and other chemical treatments individually gave flower diameter in between. our results also confirm the findings of khan et al (2007). therefore, in the present studies sts in combination with sucrose might have inhibited the vascular blockage by acting as antimicrobial agents thus enhanced water uptake and there by increased cell growth/ volume hence improved the flower size. table 5. effect of pulsing treatment on fresh weight change (%) of cut lilium cv. elite treatment fresh weight change (%) days after pulsing 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 t 1 -suc 5% 11.83 17.71 19.01 11.01 7.04 -2.01 -3.85 t 2 -as 400 ppm 12.01 17.54 18.46 8.01 3.11 0.22 -1.98 t 3 -sts 2.0 mm 12.33 18.12 19.03 8.54 4.33 0.56 -1.79 t 4 -ca 1000 ppm 11.93 17.94 18.01 8.22 1.51 -1.58 -2.31 t 5 -suc 5% + as 400 ppm 12.71 18.49 19.73 12.11 7.32 3.01 1.51 t 6 -suc 5% + sts 2.0 mm 13.01 19.72 20.13 13.72 8.49 4.32 2.01 t 7 -suc 5% + ca 1000 ppm 11.73 18.02 19.52 10.74 5.31 2.49 0.96 t 8 -control 13.02 19.03 19.72 7.76 2.11 -2.22 -3.91 cd (p=0.05) 0.032 0.035 0.019 0.047 0.032 0.054 0.030 effect of pulsing treatment on shelf-life of asiatic lilium j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 138-142, 2009 142 flower longevity sucrose 5% along with sts 2.0 mm (t 6 ) also resulted in maximum flower longevity of the 1st and 2nd flower (5.08 and 4.98 day) as well as the days taken to open 2nd flower (2.50 day) while among the individual treatments the highest longevity of the 1st and 2nd flower (4.81 and 4.43 day) and days taken to open 2nd flower (1.75 day) was recorded with t 3 against the minimum values of these attributes (3.93, 3.54 and 1.00 day) in control. sucrose in combination with preservative (sts) showed significant increase in flower longevity as sucrose supply the necessary energy requirements while as sts is known to work as anti-ethylene and biocide agents. vase life a significant improvement in vase life of cut lilium was witnessed due to various pulsing treatments. combined treatments again showed their superiority as exhibited highest vase life with maximum of 17.29 day in t 6 , followed by t 5 (16.01 day) and t 7 (14.61 day), while the vase life of cut lilium in individual treatments remained between 12.01 day and 14.34 day against a minimum vase life (11.34 day) recorded in control. similar results have also been reported by earlier workers (reddy et al, 1996). starvation in sugar pool, plugging of vascular tissues by micro-organisms and damage by ethylene have been identified as the major cause of poor keepability of many cut flowers (van doorn, 2004). applied sugars might have recompensed the starved sugars while as sts improved the water balance and protect the flowers from the damaging effect of ethylene and thus maintained an improved vase life of flowers. pulsing of spikes in sucrose 5% + sts 2.0 mm for a period of 12 hours proved most influential in maintaining a good water relations which consequently improved flower quality and vase life by about 6 days as compared to control. therefore, the technique may be exploited for the transport and shipment of lilium spikes to fetch the beautiful return and promote the floriculture industry. references dadlani, n.k. 1997. product diversification in floriculture. flori. today, 8: 5-9 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1984. statistical procedure for agricultural research (2nd ed). john wiley and sons, inc. new york, usa gowda, j.v.n. 1994. prolonging cut flower life. rose news, 12:3-5 gowda, j.v.n. and murthy, g.m.a. 1992. effect of aluminium, calcium and sucrose on post harvest life of gladiolus. proc. nat. semi. comm. flori. india held at indoamerican hybrid seed company, bangalore khan, f.u., khan, f.a., hayat, n. and bhat, s.a. 2007. influence of certain chemicals on vase life of cut tulip. indian j. plant physiol., 12:127-132 nowak, j. and mynett, k. 1985. the effect of sucrose, silver thio-sulphate and 8-hydroxyquinoline citrate on the quality of lilium inflorescence cut at the bud stage and stored at low temperature. scientia hort., 25: 299-302 reddy, b.s., singh, k. and saini, a.s. 1996. effect of sucrose and citric acid on the post harvest physiology of tuberose cv. double. haryana j. hort. sci., 25:163-167 singh, k., singh, r. and kapoor, m. 2007. effect of vase and pulsing solutions on keeping quality of standard carnation (dianthes caryophyllus linn.) cut flowers. j. ornam. hort., 10:20-24 stimart, p. 1983. effect on physiological factors of flower zinnia. j. hort. sci., 14:62-73 swarup, v. 1993. floriculture industry in india. j. ornam. hort., 1:18-26 table 6. effect of pulsing treatment on floral attributes of cut lilium cv. elite treatment flower diameter longevity of days taken to open longevity of vase life (day) (cm) 1st flower (day) 2nd flower 2nd flower(day) t 1 -suc 5% 14.01 4.47 1.25 4.30 12.01 t 2 -as 400 ppm 14.61 4.49 1.50 4.32 12.34 t 3 -sts 2.0 mm 14.91 4.81 1.75 4.43 14.34 t 4 -ca 1000 ppm 14.31 4.64 2.00 4.32 13.61 t 5 -suc 5% + as 400 ppm 15.61 5.04 2.00 4.78 16.01 t 6 -suc 5% + sts 2.0 mm 16.74 5.08 2.50 4.98 17.29 t 7 -suc 5% + ca 1000 ppm 15.21 4.98 2.00 4.57 14.61 t 8 -control 13.81 3.93 1.00 3.54 11.34 cd (p=0.05) 0.046 0.101 0.005 0.082 0.021 (ms received 15 september 2008, revised 8 june 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 138-142, 2009 wani et al introduction gladiolus (gladiolus hybridus hort.) is a glamorous bulbous flower combining beauty and perfection. it is one of the most attractive and popular bulbous flowers muchacclaimed for its majestic spikes possessing attractive, elegant and delicate florets. it is said to be the ‘queen of bulbous flower crops’ and is commonly called ‘sword lily; it belongs to the family iridaceae with its origin in south africa. india, with its varied climatic conditions in different parts, offers the possibility of growing gladiolus round the year, in one or the other part of the country. however, phenotypic expression of a character is governed mainly by genetic makeup of the plant, the environment in which it grows and interaction between genotype and the environment. genotype environmental interactions (gxe) pose a major problem in developing new cultivars and choosing suitable cultivars for any specific location, to identify the most desirable genotypes. presence of a high (gxe) interaction complicates breeding work because it is difficult to predict how genotypes selected under a given stability analysis for earliness and corm characters in gladiolus (gladiolus hybridus hort.) naik kirtimala, s.k. nataraj, b.s. kulkarni and b.s. reddy biotechnology centre, p.b.7648, hulimavu, b.g. road, bangalore-560 076, india e-mail: kirtiflori@gmail.com abstract a field study was conducted in gladiolus (gladiolus hybridus hort.) in the floriculture field of department of floriculture and landscaping, krcch (university of agricultural sciences, dharwad) during 2005-2006. fourteen promising cultivars were planted under three environments, viz, shade-house, polyhouse and the open condition, and tested for various characters related to earliness. genotypes x environment interactions were significant for days to spike emergence and days from first floret to last floret opening. for days to corm sprouting, genotypes sylvia (4.24), american beauty (7.87), candiman (9.6), white prosperity and priscilla (12.09) showed low mean values, i.e., early sprouting. for days taken from first to last floret opening, genotypes eighth wonder (15.87), melody (14.51), friendship (14.49), pricilla (14.29), pacifica (13.80), white prosperity (13.80) and vedanapoli (13.56) were stable, with high mean values. on the basis of mean performance, the genotype vedanapoli was stable for number of daughter corms per plant (2.22). genotypes pacifica (6.13cm) and eighth wonder (6.09cm) were stable for corm diameter, with high mean values. though ‘vedanapoli’ showed unpredictable performance for average weight of corm, ten cormel weight and number of cormels per plant, it gave the highest corm yield per plant and showed predictable performance for corm diameter, exhibiting a great promise for hybridization with consistent corm yield outcome. key words: gladiolus, stability, environment set of conditions will perform under a different set of conditions (ceccarelli, 1989). stable genotypes are of great importance because environmental conditions may vary from season to season and year to year. although a number of gladiolus varieties are recommended for cultivation, information on stability is lacking on flowering attributes, yield and quality parameters of corms and cormels which are a major source of propagation in this crop. therefore, the present study was undertaken taking fourteen gladiolus genotypes under three different environments. material and methods the present experiment was laid out at the floricultural field of department of floriculture and landscaping, kittur rani channamma college of horticulture (university of agricultural sciences, dharwad) during 2005-2006. fourteen promising cultivars, viz., american beauty, sylvia, melody, summer sunshine, vedanapoli, magic, copper king, red ginger, candiman, priscilla, jester yellow, white friendship, white prosperity, eighth wonder and pacifica were planted under three environments, viz., shade-house, j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):41-45, 2011 42 polyhouse and the open condition, and tested for various characters related to earliness. corms of optimum size 45cm dia were planted at 30x30cm spacing at a depth of 56cm. beds of 45cm height and 65cm width were prepared by thoroughly digging to 30cm depth. well-decomposed fym was applied @25 t ha-1 and mixed well into the soil. recommended dose of npk fertilizer @ 100:60:60kg ha-1 (anony., 2002) was applied through urea, ssp and mop, respectively. fifty percent of nitrogen and the full dose of phosphorus and potash were applied as basal dose, and the remaining fifty per cent of nitrogen was applied 45 days after planting. uniform cultural practices were imposed throughout experimentation. observations were recorded on number of days taken for corms to sprout, days taken to spike initiation, days taken for first floret opening, days taken from first floret to last floret opening, number of daughtercorms per plant, number of cormels per plant, diameter of daughter corms, and average weight of daughter-corms and cormels. analysis was made following three replications and observations were recorded from five labeled plants. stability was analyzed with spar package for analysis using eberhart and russell (1966) model, which provided three parameters of stability, i.e mean, regression co-efficient (b i ) computed using students t-test and deviation mean squares (s2d i ), computed using f-test. results and discussion analysis of variance (table 1) for genotypes was highly significant for days to corm sprouting, spike emergence, days taken for spike initiation, days taken for first floret opening and days taken from first floret to last floret opening, indicating significant difference among genotypes. such variation was also reported earlier by arora and sharma (1991) in gladiolus. significant difference among environments was also observed for all characters, except days to spike emergence. similar difference was also observed by mishra and gupta (2005) in carnation. significant linear portion of environmental variance indicated considerable additive environmental variance. environmental variance was observed to be of considerable magnitude as indicated by significance of environment (linear) component for number of cormels per plant and corm diameter. similar results were obtained by dhaduk et al (2004) in tomato. genotype x environment interaction was not significant for days taken to spike emergence and days taken for first floret opening. hence, the genotypes are seen to be stable for these traits across environments. genotype x environment interaction and pooled deviation mean squares (non-linear) were found to be significant for all the corm characters, indicating contribution of both linear and non-linear components to ge interaction variance for these characters. variance due to environment + (genotype x environment) and variance due to environment (linear) were highly significant for all characters, except days required for first flower opening. significant pooled deviations were observed for all the characters indicating that this quantum of variance, which is unpredictable, formed a major part of the genotype x environment interaction among genotypes. the non-significant genotype x environment (linear) interactions for these characters and significant pooled table 1. pooled analysis of variance (mean square) for earliness and corm characters in gladiolus s.n source of df days days for days days from number number corm average variation for corm spike for first first to of corms of cormels diameter corm sprouting initiation floret last floret per plant per plant (cm) weight opening opening (g) 1 genotype 13 68.52** 180.94** 179.56** 6.13 1.256** 4576.20* 2.14** 1310.8** 2 environment 2 15.93** 11.17 14.95 19.38** 0.36 8726.34** 1.70** 770.75 3 genotype x 26 0.46** 4.56 9.23 2.39** 0.154** 1103.96** 0.17** 206.01** environment 4 environment 28 1.56** 5.02* 9.6 3.60** 0.169** 1648.41** 0.28** 246.35** +(genotype x environment) 5 environment 1 31.86** 22.34* 29.96 38.76** 0.73* 17452.7** 3.40** 1541.47* (linear) 6 genotype x 13 0.59** 3.9 5.34 2.11 0.14 1426.32 0.18 92.50 environment (linear) 7 pooled 14 0.31** 4.8* 12.18** 2.48** 0.15** 725.76** 0.15** 296.69** deviation 8 pooled error 78 0.07 3.5 7.52 0.07 0.03 2 0.018 1.55 * and ** indicate significance at 5% and 1%, respectively, df degree of freedom naik kirtimala et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):41-45, 2011 43 deviation mean squares suggest a greater importance of non-linear component of the genotype-environment interaction and presence of both predictable and unpredictable components in the genotype x environment interaction. such pooled deviations were also reported by narayannakutty (2005) in snake gourd. significant genotype x environment interaction leads to identification of stable genotypes. stability parameters, viz., mean, regression coefficient (b i ) and deviation from regression (s2d i ) were computed using eberhart and rusell model (1966) given in table 2, 3 & 4. an ideal genotype, according to eberhart and russell (1966), would be one having high mean, unit regression co-efficient (b i =1) and low deviation mean squares (s2d i =0). if regression co-efficient (b i ) is greater than unity with high mean values, the genotype is considered to possess below-average stability and is highly sensitive to environments. regression co-efficient (bi<1) with high mean values indicates above-average stability and can adapt to poor environments. if regression co-efficient (b i ) is equal to unity (b i =1) with high mean values, this indicates average sensitivity to environmental changes and adaptation to various environments. stable genotypes are those that interact less with the environment, giving consistent performance across environments. an ideal genotype, according to eberhart and russell (1966), is one that interacts less with the environment with high mean values, regression coefficient (b i =1) close to unity and (s2d i =0) not deviating significantly from zero. for days to corm sprouting (table 2), genotypes sylvia (4.24), american beauty (7.87), candiman (9.6), whiteprosperity and priscilla (12.09) showed low mean values, which is advantageous for earliness and regression coefficient around unity, with non-significant deviation from regression. hence, these genotypes were stable and predicable. genotype x environment interactions were significant for days taken to corm sprouting and days from first floret to last floret opening, suggesting variable performance of cultivars under different environments. variance due to environment + (genotypex environment) and variance due to environment (linear) were highly significant for all characters except for day taken for first floret opening. genotype x environment interaction was not significant for days taken for spike emergence and days taken for first floret opening and, hence, the genotypes were stable for these traits across environments. therefore, stability for these characters has not been tabulated for days taken from first to last floret opening (table 1). genotypes eighth wonder (15.87), melody (14.51), friendship (14.49), priscilla (14.29), pacifica (13.80), white prosperity (13.80) and vedanapoli (13.56) were stable, with high mean values and regression coefficient around unity but were unpredictable, as observed by their significant deviation from regression coefficient. such varied responsiveness of genotypes in changing environments has been earlier reported by deshraj and mishra (1998) in gladiolus for the same traits. this parameter is an important estimate for determining self-life of gladiolus. but, due to the influence of environment on genotype, it is unpredictable. therefore, flowering duration is seen to ultimately depend on the season and the environment. on the basis of mean performance, genotype vedanapoli was stable for the number of daughter-corms per plant (2.22) (table 3). genotypes sylvia, priscilla, american beauty and copper king showed high mean values, with (b i =1), but were not predictable as these showed significant deviation from the regression slope. genotype melody produced the maximum number of cormels (170.96) table 2. stability parameters for corm sprouting and days from first to last floret opening variety number of days taken from days required first to last floret for sprouting opening mean b i s2d i mean b i s2d i american 7.87 0.29 0.04 12.33 -0.04 0.51** beauty sylvia 4.24 0.95 -0.02 10.09 0.68 3.60** melody 9.29 1.09 0.46** 14.51 2.16 4.20** summer 14.42 1.27 0.04 12.44 2.68 6.85** sunshine vedanapoli 18.62 1.36 0.00 13.56 -0.20 2.98** copper king 18.53 1.32 1.13** 12.78 0.69 4.47** red ginger 6.22 0.40 0.10* 12.25 1.75 0.17** candiman 9.60 0.37 -0.01 12.80 0.16 0.77** priscilla 12.09 0.52 -0.02 14.29 0.95 7.17** jester 15.04 1.21 1.31** 11.73 0.95 0.46** yellow white 13.60 0.38 0.47** 14.49 0.67 1.16** friendship white 10.56 1.67 0.06 12.91 2.14 0.62** prosperity eighth 20.24 1.66 0.45** 15.87 0.43 0.28** wonder pacifica 12.96 1.52 -0.02 13.80 0.98 1.19** mean 12.38 13.13 sem± 0.39 0.36 1.11 0.94 *, ** deviation from regression differed significantly from zero at p = 0.05 and p = 0.01, respectively stability analysis in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):41-45, 2011 44 and was seen to be stable for this trait, whereas, the other genotypes showed unpredictable performance for number of cormels due to their significant deviation from the regression slope. varied response for yield of rhizomes was earlier reported (khar et al, 2005) in ginger grown under different environments. genotypes pacifica (6.13cm) and eighth wonder (6.09cm) were stable for corm diameter, with high mean values (table 4). genotypes summer sunshine, candiman, jester yellow and white prosperity showed high mean values, but were linearly not predictable. such response of genotypes in changing environments was reported earlier by ibrahim and george (1985) for tuber diameter in the sweet potato. genotypes summer sunshine, copper king, red ginger, candiman and white friendship were stable, with high mean values and non-significant regression coefficient, but were linearly unpredictable for weight of 10 cormels per plant. genotypes melody, priscilla and white prosperity were stable but showed low mean values and, hence, were poorly adapted to different environments. genotypes summer sunshine, vedanapoli, candiman, priscilla and jester yellow showed high mean values, but were linearly unpredictable for average weight of corms. genotypes white friendship, white prosperity and pacifica table 4. stability parameters for average corm weight per plant and corm diameter as influenced by variety and environment in gladiolus variety average corm weight (g) corm diameter (cm) mean b i s2d i mean b i s2d i american 51.34 -0.47 56.53** 5.42 0.40 0.56** beauty sylvia 29.33 0.77 15.76** 4.30 0.53 0.37** melody 40.70 0.81 93.87** 5.12 1.72 -0.01 summer 98.25 3.00 2138.94** 7.16 3.32 0.17** sunshine vedanapoli 55.80 0.53 340.51** 5.69 0.17 0.00 copper king 41.98 0.65 16.26** 5.04 0.55 0.05** red ginger 47.44 1.26 208.86** 5.81 1.20 -0.01 candiman 97.33 1.71 840.02** 7.65 1.61 0.05** priscilla 65.56 1.06 111.94** 5.88 0.28 0.30** jester 71.32 2.28 162.81** 6.50 0.72 0.11** yellow white 47.61 0.93 0.38 5.74 1.22 0.12** friendship white 39.85 1.15 -0.42 5.97 1.27 0.41** prosperity eighth 49.64 -0.41 160.26** 6.09 -0.10 0.00 wonder pacifica 39.97 0.72 0.28 6.12 1.11 -0.01 mean 55.43 5.89 12.17 1.64 0.28 0.80 * deviation from regression differed significantly from zero at p = 0.05 ** deviation from regression differed significantly from zero at p = 0.01 table 3. stability parameters for number of corms and cormels per plant as influenced by varieties and environment in gladiolus variety no. of corms per plant no. of cormels per plant mean b i s2d i mean b i s2d i american 2.18 2.68 0.63** 62.13 -0.01 1919.58** beauty sylvia 3.44 2.63 0.06** 104.64 2.09 364.42** melody 1.33 -0.70 -0.01 170.96 1.56 -0.33 summer 1.53 0.87 0.06** 42.27 0.19 1211.73** sunshine vedanapoli 2.22 1.02 0.04 118.81 3.91 1547.87** copper king 2.02 2.62 0.93** 25.11 0.16 156.24** red ginger 1.53 2.25 0.00 74.60 0.85 447.94** candiman 1.82 0.78 0.00 35.98 -0.10 75.19** priscilla 2.76 3.76 0.18** 88.04 1.17 194.85** jester 1.09 0.15 -0.01 51.58 0.23 556.27** yellow white 1.60 0.99 0.11** 76.51 0.39 2417.17** friendship white 1.40 -2.10 0.00 40.44 0.78 563.57** prosperity eighth 1.42 -0.48 0.02 95.73 1.31 657.82** wonder pacifica 1.29 -0.48 0.02 91.89 1.44 39.03** mean 1.83 77.05 0.27 1.72 10.76 0.76 ** deviation from regression differed significantly from zero at p = 0.01 were stable and predictable, but showed lower mean values and were, hence, poorly adapted to different environments. the present study demonstrates that excepting time taken from first to last floret opening, all the other characters studied are not influenced by environment to any great extent. in view of improvement in flowering habit, there is a further need for studies on this aspect. as corms are the main source of propagation in gladiolus, genotypes showing high yields with stables performance across environments should be selected. hence for mass production of corms, vedanapoli and melody can be considered as ideal genotypes. references anonymous. 2002. package of practices for horticultural crops. uas, dharwad arora, j.s. and sharma, s.c. 1991. genotype x environment interaction of some quantitative traits in gladiolus. ind. j. hort., 48:83-86 ceccarelli, s. 1989. wide adaptation: how wide? euphytica, 40:197-205 deshraj, a. and mishra, r.l. 1998. stability analysis in naik kirtimala et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):41-45, 2011 45 gladiolus-ii: floral characters. j. orn. horti., 1: 13-16 dhaduk, l.k., mehta, d.r. and pandya, h.m. 2004. phenotypic stability analysis in tomato (lycopersicone sculentum mill). veg. sci., 31: 60-62 eberhart, s.a. and russell, n.a. 1966. stability parameters for comparing varieties. crop sci., 6:36-40 ibrahim, k.k. and george, k. 1985. stability parameters association in sweet potato [ipomea batataus (l.) lam.] and their implications in breeding strategies. (ms received 22 september 2010, revised 7 april 2011) south ind. horti., 4:83-90 khar, a., asha devi, a., mahajan, v. and lawande, k.e. 2005. genotype x environment interactions and stability analysis in elite lines of garlic (allium sativum l.). j. spices & aromatic crops., 14:21-27 mishra, s. and gupta, y.c. 2005. stability analysis in carnation. progressive horti., 37:406-411 narayanankutty, c., jaikumaran, u. and karuppaiyan, r. 2005. genotype x environment interaction and stability analysis in snake gourd (trichosanthes anguina). ind. j. agril. sci., 75:763-765 stability analysis in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):41-45, 2011 india faces the challenge of a burgeoning population and increasing demand for food, fibre and fuel. crop intensification is a well-recognized solution for increasing productivity in a system (gangwar and katyal, 2001). food of the future, potato holds a potential for higher quantity and quality produce per unit area besides spanning over a short duration of 60-80 days (rawal et al, 2003). malwa region of madhya pradesh, particularly mandsaur and neemuch districts, experience acute water scarcity during summer every year. the region largely grows soybean in kharif, and wheat, gram, garlic and onion in the rabi season. generally, two crops are taken a year which not only limits productivity of a system, but also its land-utilization efficiency. hence, a need is felt for crop intensification and diversification to make farming sustainable and economically viable. therefore, the present study was planned to evaluate different crop sequences in the malwa region of madhya pradesh. a study was conducted to evaluate different crop sequences under limited period of irrigation at farmers’ fields short communication evaluation of potato-based crop sequences for crop diversification in malwa region of madhya pradesh s.s. kushwah, o.p. singh1 and b.s. gupta2 department of vegetable science college of horticulture, mandsaur – 458001, india e-mail : kushwahhort@rediffmail.com abstract a study was conducted to evaluate different crop sequences under limited-period irrigation conditions at farmers’ fields in four villages of malwa region of madhya pradesh during 2007-08. six crop sequences, viz., soybean-garlic, soybean-onion, soybean-wheat, soybean-potato, green gram-radish-potato and green gram-potato-wheat were compared. results revealed that crop sequence had remarkable influence on various competition indices. highest potato equivalent yield (506.25q/ha) was recorded in green-gramradish-potato crop sequence, followed by soybeangarlic, green-gram-potato-wheat and soybean-potato crop sequences. land utilization index (lui) was highest in green-gram-potato-wheat crop sequence and minimum in soybean-garlic and soybean-potato (both at 0.64) crop sequences. green-gram-radish-potato crop sequence attained highest production efficiency (200.89kg/ha per day). highest cost of input, output and net returns were obtained in greengram-radish-potato crop sequence whereas, cost: benefit ratio was maximum under soybean-onion crop sequence, followed by soybean-wheat and green-gram-radishpotato sequence. key words: limited irrigation, crop diversification, crop sequence, potato in four villages of malwa (mandsaur-neemuch) region, madhya pradesh, during 2007-08. six crop sequences, viz., soybean (js-71-05)-garlic (g-1), soybean (js-335)-onion (agrifound light red), soybean (js-335)-wheat (wh-147), soybean (js-335)-potato (kufri. jyoti), green gram (jm721)-radish (japanese white)-potato (kufri. laukar), green gram (jm-721)-potato (kufri. jyoti)-wheat (lok-1) were compared in randomized block design with four replications. varieties were selected on the basis of their suitability to fit into the crop sequence and their adaptability in the region, and, acceptance among farmers. standard package of practices was followed to raise the crops. potato crop in the green gram–potato–wheat crop sequence was harvested on 18th december, without allowing maturing and curing after dehaulming in the field so that wheat crop could be sown by 25th december. yield of various crops was recorded and converted into potato equivalents on the basis of price (govindakrishnan et al, 1990). land utilization index (lui) was calculated by dividing the total number of days different crops of a sequence remained in the field in a period 1department of plant physiology 2department of extension education j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):166-168, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 167 spanning 365-days. production efficiency was calculated by dividing potato equivalent yield (pey) by total number of days held by different crops of a sequence in the field. economic analysis was carried out on the basis of cost of different inputs and produce prevalent in the region at the time of the experiment. formulae used for calculation of potato equivalent yield (q/ha) and production efficiency (kg/day/ha) are given below: yield of the produce (q/ha) x price of the produce (`./q) potato equivalent yield (pey) (q/ha) = ------------------------------------------------------price of potato (`./q) potato equivalent yield production efficiency (kg/day/ha) = ------------------------------------------------------duration of the sequence (days) results revealed that crop sequences had a remarkable influence on various competition indices. highest pey (506.25q/ha) was recorded with green-gram–radishpotato crop sequence, followed by soybean-garlic, greengram-potato-wheat and soybean-potato crop sequences. soybean-wheat crop sequence yielded lowest (119.33q/ha) pey. higher yield of potato due to longer crop duration than in potato crop under green-gram-potato-wheat crop sequence, higher prices of green gram; and, inclusion of short duration radish crop all resulted in superior performance of green-gram-radish-potato crop sequence compared to other crop sequences. similar positive effect of crop duration on tuber yield has also been reported by praharaj et al (2001). chatrath and singh (2010) found delay in sowing to have a negative impact on wheat yield. land utilization index (lui) was highest in green-gram-potatowheat crop sequence, and minimum with soybean-garlic and soybean-potato (both 0.64) crop sequences. rest of the crop sequences showed lui in the range of 0.68-0.70. production efficiency of a cropping sequence can form a good criterion for selection, particularly under conditions of limited period irrigation. data (table 1) showed that green-gram-radishpotato crop sequence attained highest production efficiency (200.89 kg/ha/day), followed by soybean-garlic (170.52 kg/ ha/day), soybean-potato (156.89 kg/ha/day) and soybeanonion (142.10 kg/ha/day). soybean-wheat crop sequence showed lowest production efficiency. data on cost of input and output (table 2) showed that maximum expenditure was incurred on green-gram-radish-potato crop sequence, followed by soybean–garlic and, minimum under soybeanwheat crop sequence. higher cost of seed and greater requirement of labour under these crop sequences could be a reason for the higher cost of inputs. maximum output was realized under green-gram-radish-potato crop sequence, followed by soybean-garlic. similarly, highest net return was table 1. effect of cropping sequence on various competition indices crop sequence yield (q/ha) potato land production 1st crop 2nd crop 3rd crop equivalent utilization efficiency yield (q/ha) index (lui) (kg/ha/day) soybean garlic 21.3 95.3 397.31 0.64 170.52 soybean onion 23.5 312.6 356.66 0.68 142.10 soybean wheat 24.6 48.8 119.33 0.70 46.80 soybean potato 24.1 275.5 368.69 0.64 156.89 green gram radish-potato 15.2 133.4 263.5 506.25 0.69 200.89 green gram potato -wheat 14.8 248.7 33.5 372.95 0.78 130.85 sem ± 15.05 cd (p=0.05) 45.34 table 2. cost of input, output and net returns under different cropping sequences crop sequence input (rs./ha) cost output (rs./ha) total net *c:b ratio return (rs/ha) 1st crop 2nd crop 3rd crop total 1st crop 2ndcrop 3rdcrop total soybean garlic 7950 73500 81450 31950 285900 317850 236400 1 : 3.90 soybean onion 7950 41530 49480 35250 250080 285330 235850 1 : 5.77 soybean wheat 7950 12650 20600 36900 58560 95460 74260 1 : 4.50 soybean potato 7950 55310 63260 36150 258800 294950 193290 1 : 3.06 green-gramradish potato 4560 31950 55310 91820 52800 121400 230800 405000 313180 1 : 4.41 green-gram potato -wheat 4560 55310 12650 72520 51200 202160 45000 298360 225840 1 : 4.11 expenditure includes cost of all inputs used for raising the crop, e.g., seed, fertilizer, labour etc. prevailing at the time of study. for calculating economics under different crop sequences, grain/bulb/root/tuber yield was considered. prevailing prices of soybean, garlic, onion, wheat, potato, green gram and radish were: rs. 15, 30, 8, 12, 8, 40 and 10 per kilogram, respectively *c:b = cost:benefit potato-based crop sequences j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):166-168, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 168 with green-gram-radish-potato crop sequence, followed by soybean–garlic crop sequence. soybean–wheat crop sequence resulted in lowest net return. cost:benefit ratio showed maximum receipt per rupee invested under soybean-onion crop sequence, followed by soybean-wheat and green-gram-radish-potato crop sequences. it is important to note that, presently, soybean-garlic and soybean-onion are popular crop sequences in the region. these can beneficially replaced with green-gram-radish-potato and soybean-potato crop sequences, respectively for better returns. references chatrath, r. and singh, s.k. 2010. productivity improvement in rice-wheat cropping system. ind. farming, 60:12-17 gangwar, b. and katyal, v. 2001. productivity, stability and profitability of rice (oryza sativa)based crop sequences in west bengal and orissa. ind. j. agron., 46:387-394 govindakrishnan, p.m., upadhyay, n.c., grewal, j.s. and premchand. 1990. an analysis of potato based crop sequences. ind. j. agron., 35:40-43 praharaj, c.s., kumar, d., sharma, r.c. and paul khurana, s.m. 2001. potato-wheat-paddy: a new emerging alternative crop rotation for indo-gangetic plains. j. ind. potato assoc., 28:44-45 rawal, s., lal, s.s., singh, b.p., paul khurana, s.m. and kumar, p. 2003. evaluation of potato, rice and wheat varieties for rice-potato-wheat system. j. ind. potato assoc., 30:95-96 (ms received 14 march 2011, revised 16 july 2011) kushwah et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):166-168, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 75 an internal nutrient cycle or nutrient turnover has long been recognized in perennial fruit crops (o’kennedy and titus, 1980; chapin and kedrowaki, 1985, williams, 1991). this involves nutrient movement from plant parts not subjected to pruning for long periods (framework) to seasonal growth, which occurs once or more often in a year and remobilization from current season’s growth to framework at the end of the growing season. the quantity involved in this ‘turnover’ is often enough to meet a dominant fraction of nutrient requirement in seasonal growth. this phenomenon has been studied in great detail in deciduous fruit plants where periods of dormancy and growth follow in succession in a year. however, in tropical fruit plants that show no dormancy, the phenomenon needs to be verified. there is reasonable ground to undertake such a study in tropical fruit plants like the mango which grows continuously but has its own cyclic growth-pattern during a year. mango is a rain-fed fruit plant with a massive framework and a vast root system. the crop puts forth flushes at least twice a year: a minor flush some time after harvest (if conditions are favourable) and a major reproductive flush mid-winter (that lasts upto fruit harvest carried out in the month of june). to verify the phenomenon of nutrient movement, the latter period was chosen when chances of major nutrient movement are expected. requirement by new growth during this phase is considerable short communication nutrient dynamics of annual growth-flush in mango (mangifera indica l.) s.c. kotur and s.v. keshava murthy division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, karnataka, india e-mail: sckotur@iihr.ernet.in internal nutrient dynamics in mango (cv. alphonso) were studied during its annual growth flush (january – june, 2002). the study consisted of sampling mature leaves and growth belonging to the previous thirteen seasons at least (representing the seasonal growth of the previous six years) at fruit-set and post-harvest stages of plant growth. the samples were analyzed for n, p, k, ca and mg. the study indicated that phosphorus moved from 2nd, 3rd and 4th internodes to current season’s growth and accumulated at other internodes, potassium moved from mature leaves to the new growth and accumulated in all the other internodes. calcium and magnesium moved from 9th and older internodes to current season’s growth, whereas, n was mostly remobilized from much older parts and by absorption from soil. the results imply that fertilizer application in productive mango trees should aim at keeping nutrient reserves of the permanent framework well-supplied to achieve sustained fruit production. key words: mangifera indica, mango, nutrient dynamics, current season’s growth, internal nutrient reserve while the season preceding this shows subdued growth, resulting in moderate accumulation of nutrients in the main frame. six mango plants aged 15 years, uniform in growth and having been raised on red sandy loam soil (typic haplustalf) belonging to thyamgondlu series with ph 6.1, organic carbon 0.62%, cation exchange capacity 9.2 cmol kg-1 and planted at a spacing of 10m × 10m under rain-fed condition, were selected for this study. from these plants leaves from and thirteen internodes (apex downward) were sampled for analysis before onset of growth, and, again after fruit harvest (when there was complete cessation of growth) during january–june, 2002. it was assumed that changes in nutrient concentrations between these two sampling periods accounted for changes in the nutrient level (stored over a period of six years) due to their movement to the current season growth. samples were thoroughly dried in a forced-draft hot air oven at 70æ% c, powdered, weighed and analyzed for n, p, k, ca and mg by standard analytical procedures (jackson, 1967). changes in nutrient content concentration of nitrogen in mature leaf was more or less at par during preand post-fruiting stages (0.75– 0.77%), but distinctly higher than that in the internodes (fig 1). at both the stages, there was negative gradient observed j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 75-77, 2010 76 in n concentration as internodes aged. in respect of phosphorus, pre-fruit set stage contained generally higher concentration in 2nd to 4th internode and the trend reversed from 5th internode onwards (fig 1). at pre-fruit set stage, 1st internode showed significantly lower p concentration (0.07%) compared to the 2nd to 6th internodes (0.09 – 0.14%), but, had the same p concentration as that in mature leaf. at post-harvest stage, p concentration showed a gradual increase from the 1st to the 6th internode (0.07–0.09%). significant increase in p concentration (0.09–0.12%) was evident between 6th and 9th internodes which stabilized around 0.13–0.14% at 11th to 13th internodes. concentration of k was significantly higher at the post-harvest stage (0.73– 1.86%) compared to the pre-fruit set stage (0.20–0.69%). in the latter stage (fig. 1), the 1st internode contained significantly lower k concentration (0.35%) than either the mature leaf (0.65%) or 2nd internode (0.69%). from the 7th to the 13th internode, concentration of k fell again from 0.69% to 0.20%, the reduction being significant at 12th and 13th internodes. at post-harvest stage, mature leaf contained distinctly lower k concentration (0.32%) than internodes. the trend in variation of ca concentration was similar at both stages of growth. calcium concentration at pre-fruit set and post-harvest stages varied from 0.92% and 1.16% in the 1st internode, to 1.52% and 2.19% in the 3rd internode, respectively. at both the stages, ca concentration declined to 0.67–0.68% upto the 8th internode. as internode maturity increased, in the pre-fruit set stage ca concentration increased to 1.02% and 1.20% in the 11th and 13th internode respectively. magnesium concentration in various plant parts did not vary between the two stages of growth (fig 2). at 8th, 10th and 11th internodes, mg concentration showed significant increase to 0.24, 0.12 and 1.19%, respectively. in the case of post-harvest stage, mature leaf and 1st fig. 2. changes in concentration (%) of leaf and internodes (1-13) at pre-fruit set and post-harvest stages of annual growth in ‘alphonso’ mango in respect of (a) calcium and (b) magnesium fig. 1. changes in concentration (%) of leaf and internodes (1-13) at pre-fruit set and post-harvest stages of annual growth in ‘alphonso’ mango in respect of (a) nitrogen (b) phosphorus and (c) potassium post-harvest stage pre-fruit set stage post-harvest stage pre-fruit set stage position of internode position of internode j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 75-77, 2010 kotur and keshava murthy 77 internode showed the same mg concentration (0.12%), which significantly increased to 0.16% at the 3rd internode. from then onwards, mg concentration decreased rapidly upto the 6th internode (0.16–0.09%), while it decreased gradually between 8th and 13th internodes (0.07-0.06%). dynamics of nutrient mobilization growth taking place between pre-fruit set and postharvest stages is the major growth phase in annual growth cycle of the mango. during this phase, the plant puts forth flower-panicles profusely, along with considerable vegetative flush. the plant carries the crop load for a period of at least 4 months. during this period, flowerpanicles, vegetative flush and the fruit act as a sink for nutrients and photosynthates. therefore, to meet the nutrient demand of these plant parts, nutrients need to move from older plant parts to the new growth (in addition to nutrients absorbed from the soil). although plants absorb nutrients from soil, this source is not sufficient to meet the plant’s demand since, the rate of nutrient absorption is inadequate. a change in nutrient concentration encountered in the internodes between these growth stages provides some insight into the movement of nutrients. no decrease in n concentration was seen either in the leaf or the internodes at the post-harvest stage. on the other hand, n concentration increased in all the internodes. this indicates possibility of n mobilization from old parts of the tree (like primary/ secondary branches, trunk and root) in addition to n absorption from soil. there was significant decrease in p concentration in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th internodes at the post-harvest stage, indicating movement of p to the new growth to meet the plant’s requirement. further, it was seen that 7 th to 13 th internodes had higher p concentration at the post-harvest stage indicating that p absorbed from soil/fertilizer and p mobilized from older plant parts accumulated in these internodes for future use. in the case of k, considerable part of requirement of new growth came from mature leaf, since k concentration in the mature leaf at post-harvest stage was only half of that at the pre-fruit set stage. however, k absorbed from soil accumulated in all the nodes (1st to 13th) as in the case of n, resulting in two-fold increase in mean k concentration. during the next growth phase i.e., between august november, k may move from these internodes to the newly emergent seasonal growth. calcium and mg moved from mature (8th to 11th) internodes to younger internodes, and further to the new growth during the post-harvest stage. magnesium too moved from older leaves to the new growth. growth is a physiological, biochemical and cytological process confined to terminal portions of plants. it sets in motion several other processes of the plant, of which movement of nutrients from older plant parts to the newly emerging growth is important. therefore, the permanent framework of a tree including trunk and branches of different order, play an important role in supplying nutrients required for seasonal growth of leaves, flowers and fruits. this implies that fertilizer application in productive mango trees should aim at keeping nutrient reserves of the permanent framework well-supplied, to achieve sustained fruit production. nonnetheless, immediate response to applied fertilizer is elusive in practice. references jackson, m.l. 1967. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi o’kennedy, b.t. and titus, j.t. 1980. changes in apple bark storage proteins at the onset of growth. in: mineral nutrition of fruit trees, atkinson, d., jackson, j.e., sharples, n.d. and walker, w.w. (eds.), butterworth, london, pp. 193 chapin, s.f and kedrowski, r.a. 1965. seasonal changes in n and p fractions and autumn retranslocation in evergreen and deciduous tanga trees. physiol. plant., 64:376 williams, c.f. 1991. vine nitrogen requirement, utilization of n sources from soils, fertilizers and reserves. proceedings of international symposium on ‘nitrogen in grapevine’, seattle, w.a., pp 622 (ms received 2 march 2009, revised 1december 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 75-77, 2010 nutrient dynamics in mango final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 147 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 147-156, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction the mango is the national fruit of india and is a highly popular among the ma sses owing to its excellent flavour, delicious taste, delicate fragrance a nd a ttr a ctive colour. ina dequa te postha r vest handling and management cause major losses in nutr itiona l a nd qua lity a ttr ibut es, pa thogenic outbreaks, and economical losses all along the supply chain, from farm to fork. fresh mangoes are per isha ble in na tur e tha t r equir e c oor dina ted activity by growers, storage operators, processors, a nd r eta iler s to ma inta in qua lit y a nd r edu ce wastage. in mango, major postharvest losses are due to the loss of quality in terms of firmness, high physiological weight loss and spoilage. in spite of the highest production, india contributes a small share of less than 5% in export market due to its postharvest losses. about 20–30% of the fruits grown in india are lost due to improper handling practices (nhb, 2018). however, it is a climacteric fruit, the upsurge in respiration rate after harvesting becomes faster which shortens the shelf life. the shelf life reduction due to rapid fruit ripening, senescence attack of biotic and abiotic stresses (zhu et al. 2013). the researchers made a ttempts to extend the shelf life and to reduce spoilage of fruit viz. edible coating (ali et al. 2011), modifed or c ont r olled a tmos p her e s tor a ge ( m a r t ins a nd resende 2015), low temperature storage (aghdam and bodbodak, 2013), application of fungicides (sripong et al. 2015), and hot water treatment. s omet imes , du e t o r edu c ed ox yge n level in controlled atmospheric storage develops off-flavor in fruits. there is lacking in availability of storage facilities viz. controlled atmospheric storage and modified atmospheric storage at farmers in india and setting up infrastructures for advanced storage facilities is ver y costly. also, a cold chain to effect of various pre-harvest treatments on shelf life and morphological characteristics of fruits of mango (mangifera indica l.) var. ‘amrapali’ vishwakarma p.k.*, masu m.m. and singh s. department of horticulture, b. a. college of agriculture, anand agricultural university, anand 388110, gujarat, india *corresponding author e-mail : pradeepkumar5953@gmail.com abstract the mango is considered as ‘king of fruits’ in india due to its delicious taste and nutritional status. extension of fruit shelf life is a prime importance for availability of fresh fruit in market for longer duration and distance transportation. india is the largest producer and a prominent exporter of mango in the world.in this context, the study was conducted to evaluate the effect of preharvest spray of different chemicals and plant growth regulators (pgrs) on mango var. ‘amrapali’ for shelf life and its quality. as ‘amrapali’ has regular bearer with very good flavor and taste with a late maturing character, selected for shelf life studies. the fruits of mango weresprayed with chemicals viz. cacl2 1%, cacl2 2%, ca(no3)2 1%, ca(no3)2 2%, kno3 1%, kno3 2%, ga3 25 mg/l, ga3 50 mg/l, ethrel 0.1 ml/l and ethrel 0.2 ml/l prior to harvest. after harvesting, fruits were stored under ambient storage condition. among all the treatments, ga3 25 mg/l treatment recorded significantly highest fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit volume and fruit weight at harvest and at fully ripe stage. application of cacl2 2% resulted in significantly minimum physiological loss in weight consistently from 2nd day to 16th day of storage besides significantly highest shelf life and quality. hence, this intervention can contribute in preserving physical and chemical quality attributes for maximum acceptance by consumers. keywords: cacl2, ga3, pre-harvest, pgrs and storage 148 vishwakarma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 147-156, 2022 manage the time–temperature conditions is adequate f or t he p r e s er va t ion a nd t r a ns p or t a t ion of perishables in the proper temperature range to slow down the biological decay processes and deliver safe and high-quality produce to consumers is a lacuna. hence, preharvest spray of chemicals are very economical to extend the shelf life of fruits. p ot a s s iu m p la ys a n imp or t a n t r ole in photosynthesis, synthesis of carbohydrates, oils, f a t s a nd pr oteins. i t is a lso involved in the transportation of photosynthates towards the sink and enhances the production of protein (lu et al., 2016). potassium is an important nutrient for fruit weight and quality. potassium is required for the pr oduction a nd tr a nspor t of pla nt sugar s tha t increase the weight of fruit (jaiswal et al. 2021). ethrel releases ethylene gas, influences the growth and development of fruits. ethrel is responsible for early development of many fruits characterized by a high rate of ethylene evolution and hastens the ripening process with uniform colour development (dhillon, 2013). calcium is known to be essential plant nutrient involved in a number of physiological processes concerning membrane structure, function and enzyme activity (jones and lunt, 1967). it has received considerable attention in recent years due to its desirable effects in delaying ripening and senescence, increasing firmness, reduce respiration, extending storage life and reducing the incidence of physiological disorders and storage rots. preharvest application of these compounds hinders the fruit r ipening wit hout a ffecting the edible qua lity. preharvest application of cacl2 extends the shelf life and restrict the microbial infection without any detrimental effect and protects against post-harvest deterioration and extend shelf life (saure, 2005). gibberellic acid has been found to enhance the fruit size, increase the yield, and improve the physicoc hemic a l c h a r a c t er is t ic s of f r u it s t hr ou gh modification of va rious physiological and biochemical pr ocesses (pandey and sinha , 2013). gibberellic acid in proper concentration and at appropriate time have been found to better results in fruits quality, yield, size, decrease fruit drop, incr easing sugar content, improve the physicochemical characteristics and extend the post-harvest life of fr uits thr ough modifica tion of va r ious physiological and bio-chemical processes of plant (pandey and sinha, 2013). gibberellins have been useful in enhancing fruit retention and improving the size and quality of fruits. further, gibberellic a c id ha s a ntisenesc ent pr oper ty a nd help in maintaining cell wa ll integr ation and prevents growth of pathogen in the fruits and extend shelf life (prasad, 2006). being a climacteric fruit, weight loss increases r a pidly dur ing stor a ge per iod due to surge in respiration rate and transpiration process. however, it can be minimized by supplementary application of chemicals and plant growth regulators on fruits for maintaining fruit quality and extending their shelf life (vishwakarma and masu, 2018; bisen and thakur, 2012). now a day, the mango va riety ‘amrapali’ grown commercially throughout the country because of its dwarf stature. it has very good fla vor, ta s t e a nd high in vit a mins a nd carotenoids content as compared to other verities of mango with a late maturing character, selected for shelf life studies.considering these points, the present study was designed to study the effect of preharvest spray of different chemicals and plant growth regulators on shelf life extension of mango fruits under ambient storage condition. materials and methods the experiment was conducted at horticultural resea r ch fa r m a nd postgr a dua te la bor a tor y, department of horticulture, bansilal amrutlal college of agriculture, anand agricultural university, anand during summer season of the year 2016. the climate of anand region is semi-arid and sub-tropical type. the temperature was in the range of 25 to 40 oc with 52 to 73 % relative humidity during experiment time in the month of june, 2016. there were eleven treatments embedded in completely randomized design replica ted thr ice. thirty-three unifor m sizedfourteen-year old trees of mango var. ‘amrapali’ were selected and preharvest sprayed with different chemicals (cacl2 1 %, cacl2 2 %, ca(no3)2 1 %, ca(no3)2 2 %, kno3 1 %, kno3 2 %), ethrel 0.1 ml/l and ethrel 0.2 ml/l) along with control at twenty days before anticipated date of harvest while, ga3 25 mg/l and ga3 50 mg/l were sprayed at marble stage. mature and uniform sized ten fruits per replication were harvested from the representative trees and kept in ambient storage condition (32±1 oc). when the outer layer of fruits starts to spoil like discoloration, shr iveling a nd visible sign of biotic spoila ge 149 effect of various pre-harvest treatments on shelf life of mango (anthracnose) considered as end of shelf life and noted as spoiled (rahman et al., 2007). results and discussion effect of preharvest treatments on physical parameters of mango fruit the fruit size is an important consideration for consumer preference. the effect of treatments on fruit size viz. length and diameter were found to be significant at harvest as well as at fully ripe stage (table 1). the fruit length (10.20 cm) at harvest stage was found significantly maximum with ga3 25 mg/l treatment followed by the treatments of kno31 %, ethrel 0.2 ml/l, ga3 50 mg/l, ca(no3)2 1% and 2% while at fully ripe stage significantly maximum fruit length l (10.16 cm) was recorded with ga3 25 mg/ followed by treatments of ethrel 0.2 ml/l, ga3 50 mg/ l, ca(no3)2 1% and 2%. the maximum fruit diameter (6.16 cm) at harvest stage was found significant in treatment of ga3 25 mg/l and ca(no3)2 1% followed by ca(no3)2 2%, cacl2 1%, ga3 50 mg/l, ethrel 0.1 ml/l, kno3 2% while, at fully ripe stage after storage under ambient condition the diameter of fruits (6.14 cm) was found significantly maximum in treatment of ga3 25 mg/l followed by ca(no3)2 1% and 2%, ga3 50 mg/l, ethrel 0.1 ml/l and kno3 2%. the significant effect of treatments was found on fruit volume at harvest as well as at fully ripe stage. preharvest sprayed with ga3 25 mg/l reported significantly highest fruit volume (150.54 cc) at harvest followed by kno3 1% and at fully ripe stage (fruit volume 130.62 cc) also found maximum in treatments of ga3 25 mg/l followed by kno3 1% and ethrel 0.2 ml/l under ambient storage condition (table 1). the fruit weight was significantly influenced by various chemicals and plant growth regulators at everyday up to last ripening stage. application of ga3 25 mg/l depicted significantly maximum fruit weight (170.50 g) at harvest and consistently up to 16th day of storage period under ambient condition as compared to rest of the treatments (table 2). the lowest fruit weight, length, diameter and volume were recorded in the control at both the stages i.e. at harvest and fully ripe stage. the fruit size of mango was greatly influenced by different treatments of chemicals. in comparison to all treatments gibberellic acid influenced significantly in terms of fruit weight, volume, length and diameter. it table 1. effect of preharvest treatments on fruit length (cm.), fruit volume (cc.) and fruit diameter (cm.) in mango fruit var. ‘amrapali’. treatments fruit length (cm) fruit diameter (cm) fruit volume (cc) at at fully at at fully at at fully harvest ripening harvest ripening harvest ripening stage stage stage t1: cacl2 1 % 9.45 cde 9.41cd 6.05ab 6.02ab 126.33de 101.58de t2: cacl2 2 % 9.27 de 9.25d 5.53c 5.50cd 124.61e 104.16cd t3: ca(no3)2 1% 9.83 abc 9.80abc 6.13a 6.08ab 127.87cde 104.12cd t4: ca(no3)2 2% 9.80 abc 9.77abc 6.06ab 6.04ab 133.73c 111.29b t5: kno3 1 % 10.05 ab 10.01ab 5.44cd 5.41de 148.88ab 129.95a t6: kno3 2 % 9.65 bcd 9.62bcd 5.90ab 5.87ab 123.10e 98.22e t7: ethrel 0.1 ml/l 9.25 e 9.21d 5.95ab 5.93ab 115.43f 101.43de t8: ethrel 0.2 ml/l 9.99 ab 9.96ab 5.82b 5.78bc 142.23b 126.33a t9: ga3 25 mg/l 10.20 a 10.16a 6.16a 6.14a 150.54a 130.62a t10: ga3 50 mg/l 9.85 abc 9.82abc 5.96ab 5.93ab 131.88cd 107.42bc t11: control 8.32 f 8.29e 5.23d 5.21e 101.02g 77.73f sem± 0.123 0.126 0.089 0.089 2.112 1.612 c.d. 0.364 0.373 0.264 0.262 6.234 4.758 c. v. % 2.223 2.284 2.653 2.648 2.822 2.574 note: treatment means with the letter/letters in common are not significantly different by duncan’s new multiple range test at 5 % level of significance. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 147-156, 2022 150 ta bl e 2. e ff ec t of p re ha rv es t tr ea tm en ts o n fr ui t w ei gh t (g ) of m an go v ar . ‘ a m ra pa li’ . t re at m en ts f ru it w ei gh t (g ) in s to ra ge a t am bi en t co nd it io n (d ay s) a t ha rv es t 2n d 3r d 4t h 5t h 6t h 7t h 8t h 9t h 10 th 11 th 12 th 13 th 14 th 15 th 16 th t 1: c ac l 2 1 % 13 7. 7e 13 4. 64 de 13 2. 45 fg 12 9. 93 f g 12 8. 54 ef 12 6. 57 ef 12 5. 08 ef 12 2. 32 ef 12 1. 44 ef 12 0. 03 ef 11 7. 27 f g 11 5. 05 f g 11 3. 63 cd 11 2. 01 ef 11 0. 94 cd 10 8. 30 de t 2: c ac l 2 2 % 13 8. 1e 13 6. 28 d 13 4. 32 ef 13 2. 25 ef g 13 0. 23 ef 12 8. 85 de f 12 7. 43 de f 12 5. 36 de f 12 3. 95 de f 12 2. 29 de 12 0. 92 d ef 11 7. 91 ef 11 5. 11 cd 11 3. 70 de f 11 2. 17 cd 10 9. 83 cd t 3: c a( n o 3) 2 1% 14 6. 2d 14 3. 68 c 14 1. 53 de 13 9. 13 de 13 5. 99 de 13 3. 98 cd e 13 1. 92 cd e 12 9. 63 cd e 12 7. 69 cd e 12 5. 70 cd e 12 4. 03 cd ef 12 2. 52 cd ef 12 1. 60 bc 11 9. 92 cd e 11 7. 66 c 11 3. 82 cd t 4: c a( n o 3) 2 2% 14 9. 3d 14 6. 78 c 14 4. 72 cd 14 2. 15 cd 14 0. 26 cd 13 7. 51 c d 13 4. 98 cd 13 3. 18 cd 13 1. 38 cd 12 9. 61 cd 12 6. 97 c de 12 5. 35 cd e 12 3. 47 bc 12 1. 87 bc de e 11 9. 17 bc 11 7. 53 cd t 5: k n o 3 1 % 16 4. 4b 16 2. 63 a 15 8. 75 ab 15 6. 05 ab 15 3. 93 ab 15 1. 87 ab 14 7. 80 ab 14 5. 14 ab 14 3. 30 ab 14 1. 33 ab 13 8. 53 a b 13 7. 22 a b 13 4. 76 a 13 2. 54 a b 13 0. 53 a b 12 8. 91 ab t 6: k n o 3 2 % 13 8. 6e 13 5. 89 d 13 4. 52 ef 13 2. 51 ef 13 1. 11 ef 12 9. 58 de f 12 8. 04 de f 12 5. 98 de 12 3. 84 de 12 2. 63 de 11 9. 95 ef 11 8. 77 de f 11 6. 95 bc 11 5. 58 cd e 11 3. 06 c 11 1. 06 cd t 7: e th re l 0 .1 m l/l 13 2. 4f 13 0. 26 e 12 6. 00 gh 12 4. 25 gh 12 2. 97 fg 12 0. 95 fg 11 8. 93 fg 11 6. 65 fg 11 4. 73 fg 11 2. 40 fg 10 9. 76 gh 10 7. 87 gh 10 6. 01 de 10 4. 27 fg 10 1. 73 de 99 .3 6e f t 8: e th re l 0 .2 m l/l 15 8. 4c 15 5. 63 b 15 1. 67 bc 14 7. 57 bc d 14 5. 62 bc 14 3. 27 bc 14 0. 60 bc 13 6. 86 bc 13 4. 51 bc 13 3. 08 bc 13 0. 74 bc 12 8. 89 bc 12 5. 73 ab 12 3. 97 bc d 12 0. 67 bc 11 8. 65 bc d t 9: g a 3 25 m g/ l 17 0. 5a 16 7. 18 a 16 4. 14 a 16 0. 34 a 15 8. 99 a 15 6. 38 a 15 3. 79 a 15 0. 46 a 14 7. 31 a 14 5. 02 a 14 3. 41 a 14 2. 22 a 13 5. 37 a 13 5. 29 a 13 2. 86 a 13 0. 92 a t 10 : g a 3 50 m g/ l 15 5. 8c 15 3. 23 b 15 0. 06 c 14 8. 13 bc 14 5. 59 bc 14 2. 74 bc 14 0. 21 bc 13 7. 18 bc 13 5. 03 b c 13 3. 08 bc 13 0. 54 b cd 12 8. 65 bc d 12 6. 81 ab 12 4. 70 ab c 12 0. 86 bc 11 9. 42 bc t 11 : c on tr ol 12 4. 9g 12 3. 29 f 12 1. 83 h 11 9. 5h 11 6. 9g 11 5. 8g 11 3. 36 g 11 1. 93 g 10 9. 60 g 10 7. 42 g 10 5. 0h 10 3. 9h 10 2. 1e 10 0. 4g 96 .6 5e 96 .0 0f se m ± 1. 55 0 1. 67 7 2. 28 3 2. 53 3 2. 68 3 2. 75 6 2. 82 8 2. 85 8 2. 91 0 2. 78 4 2. 90 6 2. 96 7 3. 00 5 3. 04 0 3. 44 4 3. 14 4 c .d . 4. 57 5 4. 95 0 6. 73 9 7. 47 8 7. 91 8 8. 13 7 8. 34 7 8. 43 5 8. 59 1 8. 21 7 8. 57 9 8. 75 7 8. 86 9 8. 97 3 10 .1 68 9. 28 0 c . v . % 1. 82 6 2. 01 0 2. 78 8 3. 15 1 3. 38 4 3. 53 0 3. 68 5 3. 79 5 3. 92 5 3. 80 8 4. 05 0 4. 19 2 4. 33 1 4. 44 9 5. 14 2 4. 77 7 n ot e: t re at m en t m ea ns w ith th e le tte r/ le tte rs in c om m on a re n ot s ig ni fic an tly d iff er en t by d un ca n’ s n ew m ul tip le r an ge t es t a t 5 % le ve l o f si gn ifi ca nc e. vishwakarma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 147-156, 2022 151 might be due to the involvement of gibberellic acid in promoting cell elongation and cell enlargement of fruit (jagtap et al. 2013; lal et al. 2013). as, ga3 level in developing cell is low, the exogenous application of ga3 helps to increase its level in different parts of the fruits, which ultimately helps its growth. the cell elongation stimulated by exogenous gibberellins through altering the rheological properties of the cell wall; as a consequence, the water potential of the cell is lowered allowing for water uptake and greater accumulation of food materials and therefore an increase in cell volume (derbyshire et al., 2007; brahmachari and rani, 2000). in the present study, results of ga3 sprays are in line with those reported by el-sese (2005) where balady mandarin trees sprayed with ga3 resulted in increased yield as of increased fruit weight, length and diameter. the results are also supported by mostafa et al. (2001) on pear and elsharkawy and mehaisen (2005) on guava. marschner (1986) indicated that application of ga3 and/or iaa on higher plants caused elongation in the primary cells in the young tissues and growth centers. the bigger size and good quality fruits was also observed in plum by gonzález-rossia et al. (2006), bhomick and banik (2011) in mango and singh et al. (2009) & katiyar et al. (2008) in guava. effect of preharvest treatments on storage studies ther e wer e significant differ ences observed in physiological loss in weight due to various preharvest treatments of fruits from harvest to everyday up to 16th day (table 3). among the treatments, cacl2 2 % consistently r ecor ded significa ntly minimum physiological loss in weight of fruits (1.12 % to 19.91%) from 2nd day to 16th day of storage period respectively, it was found on par with kno3 (2%). the significant effect of various treatments was observed on shelf life of mango fruit during storage periods and cacl2 2 % was found most effective treatment for extending the shelf life. after storage at a mbient temper atur e ca cl 2 2 % was recor ded significantly maximum shelf life (16. 60 da ys) compared to rest of the treatments (fig. 1) while ethrel treated fruits were recorded lowest shelf life. there was a significant difference observed in the marketable fruit percentage and spoilage of the fruits during storage under ambient condition. the treatments were significantly influenced at harvest and everyday up to last ripening stage (table 4). there were 100 % marketable fruits and no spoilage in fruits was recorded in all the treatments up to 12th day of storage periods. significantly maximum marketable fruit percentage (90.93%) and minimum spoilage (9.07%) were found in treatment of cacl2 2 % followed by cacl21% at 13 th and 14th day of storage. significantly maximum marketable fruit percentage and minimum spoilage were found in treatment of cacl2 2 %, cacl21%, ga325 mg/l & 50 mg/l after 15 th day of storage under ambient condition. treatment with cacl2 2 %, a lso r ecor ded significa ntly highest marketable fruit percentage and minimum spoilage at 16th day of storage followed by treatment of ga325 mg/l and 50 mg/l. moisture content of the fruits is an impor ta nt consideration for its freshness and stability to the storage for a longer duration. the physiological loss in weight in mango fruits was tended to increase during the storage irrespective of the treatments. this could be due to increased moisture loss and enhanced shriveling (lata et al. 2017). fruits sprayed with cacl2 2 % retained the minimum physiological loss in weight and spoilage per cent and maximum shelf life & marketable fruit per cent as compared to rest of the treatments. as calcium is known to increase fruit cell wall turgidity, serves as a semipermeable membrane, it is also supposed to reduce water diffusion over the fruit cuticle to reduce the differences in osmotic potential, which slows down the evapotranspiration a nd r espir a tion r a te in fr uits due to r educ ed endogenou s s ubs tr a te c a ta bolism a nd a lter ed membra ne permeability (ver cesi et al., 2018). higher concentrations of cacl2 might be require for the dr iving for ce f or wa ter diffusion, a nd to (t1: cacl2 1%, t2: cacl2 2 %, t3: ca(no3)2 1%, t4: ca(no3)2 2%, t5: kno3 1 %, t6: kno3 2 %, t7: ethrel 0.1 ml/l, t8: ethrel 0.2 ml/l, t9: ga3 25 mg/l, t10: ga3 50 mg/l and t11: control) fig. 1. effect of preharvest treatments on shelf life (days) of mango var. ‘amrapali’. effect of various pre-harvest treatments on shelf life of mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 147-156, 2022 152 ta bl e 3. e ff ec t of p re ha rv es t tr ea tm en ts o n ph ys io lo gi ca l l os s in w ei gh t (% )o f fr ui t of m an go v ar . ‘ a m ra pa li’ t re at m en ts st or ag e pe ri od ( d ay s) 2n d 3r d 4t h 5t h 6t h 7t h 8t h 9t h 10 th 11 th 12 th 13 th 14 th 15 th 16 th t 1: c ac l 2 1 % 2. 24 a 3. 85 c 5. 68 c 6. 68 de 8. 11 bc d 9. 19 b 11 .2 2b c 11 .8 5c 12 .8 5d 14 .8 7d 16 .4 8b c 17 .5 1c de 18 .6 8d ef 19 .4 7c d 21 .3 8c d t 2: c ac l 22 % 1. 12 f 2. 13 h 4. 33 g 5. 43 h 6. 53 g 7. 66 c 9. 15 d 10 .2 6d 11 .4 7e 12 .4 4e 14 .3 5d 15 .6 6f 16 .6 6g 18 .4 8d 19 .9 1e t 3: c a( n o 3) 21 % 1. 76 d 3. 23 e 4. 87 de 7. 02 bc 8. 40 bc 9. 80 b 11 .3 7b c 12 .6 9b c 14 .0 5b c 15 .1 9c d 16 .2 2c 16 .8 5d ef 18 .0 0e fg 19 .5 5c d 22 .1 8b c t 4: c a( n o 3) 22 % 1. 68 d 3. 10 e 4. 81 ef 6. 07 f 7. 90 cd 9. 62 b 10 .8 2b c 12 .0 1c 13 .1 9c d 14 .9 5c d 16 .0 4c 17 .3 0c de 18 .3 6e f 20 .1 8c 21 .2 9c d t 5: k n o 31 % 1. 97 b 3. 48 d 5. 12 d 6. 41 e 7. 66 de 10 .1 3b 11 .7 4b 12 .8 7b c 14 .6 4b 15 .7 7b cd 16 .5 6b c 18 .0 6c de 19 .4 1c de 20 .6 3c 21 .6 2c d t 6: k n o 3 2 % 2. 06 c 2. 72 f 4. 42 g 5. 71 g 6. 71 fg 7. 74 c 9. 24 d 10 .6 8d 11 .5 6e 13 .5 0e 14 .6 2d 16 .6 5e f 17 .6 7f g 18 .7 8d 20 .4 7d e t 7: e th re l 0 .1 m l/l 1. 63 ab 4. 83 a 6. 16 b 7. 13 b 8. 66 b 10 .1 8b 11 .9 0b 13 .3 5b 15 .1 2a b 17 .1 1a b 18 .5 3a 19 .9 5a b 21 .2 6a b 23 .1 8a b 24 .9 7a t 8: e th re l 0 .2 m l/l 1. 81 cd 4. 31 b 6. 90 a 8. 13 a 9. 60 a 11 .2 9a 13 .6 5a 15 .1 3a 16 .0 4a 17 .5 2a 18 .6 9a 20 .6 8a 21 .7 9a 23 .8 8a 25 .1 6a t 9: g a 32 5 m g/ l 2. 00 bc 3. 79 c 6. 02 b 6. 82 cd 8. 35 bc 9. 86 b 11 .8 1b 13 .6 6b 15 .0 0a b 15 .9 4b cd 16 .6 4b c 18 .7 0b c 20 .7 0a bc 22 .1 2b 23 .2 5b t 10 : g a 35 0 m g/ l 1. 70 d 3. 74 c 4. 98 de 6. 60 de 8. 43 b c 10 .0 6b 11 .9 9b 13 .3 7b 14 .6 3b 16 .2 5a bc 17 .4 7b 18 .6 5b c 20 .0 4b cd 22 .4 8b 23 .4 1b t 11 : c on tr ol 1. 30 e 2. 35 g 4. 57 fg 6. 42 e 7. 25 ef 9. 25 b 10 .4 0c 12 .2 6c 13 .9 9b c 15 .9 3b cd 16 .7 7b c 18 .2 0c d 19 .5 9b cd e 22 .6 3a b 23 .1 4b se m ± 0. 05 9 0. 05 2 0. 07 9 0. 09 2 0. 19 0 0. 30 3 0. 37 5 0. 31 2 0. 35 2 0. 40 4 0. 29 9 0. 44 9 0. 50 0 0. 38 4 0. 42 7 c .d . 0. 17 5 0. 15 5 0. 23 2 0. 27 3 0. 56 2 0. 89 3 1. 10 6 0. 92 0 1. 03 8 1. 19 1 0. 88 2 1. 32 5 1. 47 5 1. 13 4 1. 26 0 c . v . % 5. 86 2. 65 9 2. 58 5 2. 43 3 4. 13 7 5. 50 2 5. 79 1 4. 30 1 4. 39 1 4. 53 8 3. 12 2 4. 31 5 4. 48 6 3. 16 3 3. 29 5 n ot e: t re at m en t m ea ns w ith th e le tte r/ le tte rs in c om m on a re n ot s ig ni fic an tly d iff er en t by d un ca n’ s n ew m ul tip le r an ge t es t a t 5 % le ve l o f si gn ifi ca nc e. vishwakarma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 147-156, 2022 153 table 4. effect of preharvest treatments on marketable fruit (%) and spoilage fruit (%) of mango var. ‘amrapali’ marketable fruit (%) spoilage fruit (%) treatments storage period (days) storage period (days) 1 to 1 to 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th t1: cacl2 1 % 100 90.10 ab 76.67b 54.41a 42.40b 00 9.90fg 23.33d 45.59c 57.60e t2: cacl2 2 % 100 90.93 a 79.55a 56.63 a 45.16a 00 9.07g 20.45e 43.37c 54.84f t3: ca(no3)2 1% 100 85.87 f 71.95e 42.86 bc 36.43c 00 14.13b 28.05b 57.14ab 63.57d t4: ca(no3)2 2% 100 86.56 ef 73.99cd 44.11bc 34.40cd 00 13.44bc 26.0c 55.89ab 65.60cd t5: kno3 1 % 100 87.04 def 73.44de 42.48 c 32.34de 00 12.96bcd 26.56bc 57.52a 67.66bc t6: kno3 2 % 100 86.84 def 73.81cd 45.45b 33.68d 00 13.16bcd 26.19c 54.55b 66.32c t7: ethrel 0.1 ml/l 100 86.18 ef 74.35cd 43.15bc 30.63ef 00 13.82bc 25.65c 56.85ab 69.37ab t8: ethrel 0.2 ml/l 100 88.22 cd 75.12bc 43.05bc 30.00f 00 11.78de 24.88cd 56.95ab 70.00a t9: ga3 25 mg/l 100 87.50 de 74.51cd 56.26a 43.10ab 00 12.50cd 25.49c 43.74c 56.91ef t10: ga3 50 mg/l 100 89.15 bc 76.66b 56.55a 43.59ab 00 10.85ef 23.34d 43.45c 56.41ef t11: control 100 80.14 g 68.03f 43.42bc 30.91ef 00 19.86a 31.97a 56.58ab 69.09ab sem± 0.437 0.503 0.822 0.684 0.437 0.503 0.822 0.684 c.d. 1.290 1.484 2.426 2.020 1.290 1.484 2.426 2.020 c. v. % 0.869 1.171 2.964 3.238 5.887 3.398 2.740 1.870 note: treatment means with the letter/letters in common are not significantly different by duncan’s new multiple range test at 5 % level of significance. strengthen the walls of epidermal cells that might had resulted in improved resistance to the fruit cell degradation, when the cells meet free flow of water (sekse, 1997). preharvest spray of cacl2 restricts the microbial infection without any detrimental effec t, ma inta ins cell turgor a nd dela ys lipid peroxidation, thereby extending shelf life of fruits ( s a u r e, 2 0 0 5 ) . t he c a lc iu m c omp ou nds significantly thickened the middle lamella of fruit cells owing to increa sed deposition of calcium pectate and thereby maintained the cell wall rigidity which inhibits the penetr a tion a nd spr ea d of pathogens in fruits (gupta et al. 1987). this could be one of the reasons for reduction in physiological loss in weight and biotic and abiotic spoilage during storage under ambient condition for 2% calcium chloride treated mango fruits. the similar view of results was also reported in persimmon cv. karaj (bagheri et al. (2015), in pear cv. leconte (sajid et al., 2014), in papaya (lata et al., 2018; yadav and varu, 2013; ramkrishna et al., 2001), in plum (kirmani et al., 2013), in mango(bhusan et al., 2015; karemera et al., 2014; singh et al., 2012) and ber (jawandhaet al., 2009; yadav et al., 2009) for physiological loss in weight, shelf life and r edu ce spoila ge du r ing a mb ient st or a ge a fter calcium treatments. conclusion quality evaluation and maintenance is must to be realized in all segments as consumer s will not a cc ep t a pr oduc t when it does not ha ve the requirements or desired quality attributes that may cause major impact on the commercialization chain, especially exportation.the results obtained from present investigation concluded that, ga3 25 mg/l treatment found better in response to improve the physical charactertics of fruit like fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit volume and fruit weight during storage period. whereas, application of cacl2 2% effectively improved the shelf life of fruits and marketable fruit percentage while, minimizing the physiological loss in weight and spoilage percentage of fruits under ambient storage condition. the study effect of various pre-harvest treatments on shelf life of mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 147-156, 2022 154 shows that preharvest spray of calcium chloride is eco-safe and could be done for improving shelf life of mango fruits for better marketability. acknowledgements authors gratefully thankful for the facility provided by the anand agricultural university,anand, india during the course of this investigation. references aghdam, m.s. and bodbodak, s. 2013. postharvest hea t tr eatment for mitigation of chilling inju r y in f r u it s a nd vege t a b les . fo o d bioprocess tech., 7:37–53. ali, a. , m uha mma d, m. t. m. , sija m, k. a nd siddiqui, y. 2011. effect of chitosan coatings on the physicochemica l characteristics of eksotika ii papaya (carica papaya l.) fruit during cold storage. food chem., 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(received: 23.04.2021; revised: 17.09.2021; accepted: 18.02.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction tuberose is grown on a wide range of soil and climatic conditions but it flowers best in warm and humid climate. among four types of tuberose, the double floret type is mainly cultivated for cut flowers, whereas single types are grown for loose flower production and also for extraction of essential oil. the post harvest management is one of the most important factors in the production and marketing of cut flowers. at present flower growers are not aware of standardized post harvest technology including the harvesting time and use of floral preservatives to extend the vase life. available literature indicated the meager work done on date of harvesting and hence an attempt is made to standardize the date of harvesting and use of floral preservatives in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cv. double to extend the vase life of cut flower during rainy season. material and methods the present investigation was conducted at department of horticulture, college of agriculture, junagadh agricultural university, junagadh (gujarat) effect of date of harvest and floral preservatives on vase life of cut flowers in tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa l.) cv. double d. k. varu and a. v. barad department of horticulture, college of agriculture junagadh agricultural university, junagadh-362 001, india e-mail: dkvaru@yahoo.com abstract studies conducted to find out the effect of date of harvesting and floral preservatives on vase life and quality of tuberose cv. double revealed that among treatments, harvesting on 1st october (d 8 ) was better for longer vase life, whereas, 15th august (d 5 ) for minimum loss of water, maximum fresh weight of the spike and percentage of opened florets. similarly, harvesting on 15th september (d 7 ) was found better for longest floret longevity as well as loss uptake ratio. in case of floral preservatives, the treatment 500 ppm aluminum sulphate + 4% sucrose (c 6 ) was found better for longer vase life, maximum uptake of water, lowest loss-uptake ratio and maximum fresh weight of spike, whereas, 400 ppm 8-hqs + 4% sucrose (c 8 ) for maximum floret longevity and floret circumference as well as maximum percentage of opened and lowest percentage of neck bent florets. the treatment, 50 ppm silver nitrate + 4% sucrose (c 3 ) exhibited lowest loss of water. in case of interaction effect, 1st october with 500 ppm aluminum sulphate + 4% sucrose (d 8 c 6 ) was found superior for maximum vase life of spike, highest uptake of water and fresh weight of spike. key words : tuberose, vase life, floral preservatives during rainy season of the year 2003 and 2004 in the factorial c r d. the treatments comprised of different floral preservatives like t 1 sucrose @ 4%, t 2 aluminum sulphate @ 500 ppm, t 3 -silver nitrate @ 50 ppm, t 4 -8hqs @ 400 ppm, t 5 citric acid @ 300 ppm and their combinations with sucrose @ 4% (t 6 , t 7 , t 8 , t 9 ) and t 10 distilled water (control). the trial was repeated at fortnightly interval during the season with each of the 8 dates of harvesting (d 1 15th june, d 2 -1st july, d 3 -15th july, d 4 1st august, d 5 -15th august, d 6 1st september, d 7 15th september, d 8 -1st october) starting from 15th june, 2003 to 1st october, 2003. the same was repeated for second year during 2004. observation on mean temperature, relative humidity and evapo-transpiration rate were recorded. healthy, uniform and homogenous spikes were selected and harvested at one or two floret opening stage. spikes were made to uniform length through trimming. observations like uptake of water, water loss, loss-uptake ratio, fresh weight of spike, percentage of opened, partial opened, neck bent and abscised florets as well as floret longevity, floret circumference and vase life of the spikes were recorded. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 148-152, 2007 148 149 results and discussion vase life of spike maximum vase life of spike (14.34 days) was observed at 1st october (d 8 ) date of harvesting, whereas, among preservatives, highest (14.44 days) was recorded in 500 ppm aluminum sulphate+ 4% sucrose (c 6 ) (table 1). the interaction was also found to be significant with their combination (d 8 c 6 ). similarly minimum vase life (10.63 and 9.82 days) was noted at d 6 (1st september) and under control (c 10 ), respectively, as well as in their interaction (d 6 c 10 ). the extended vase life might be due to decreased loss of water as well as loss-uptake ratio, tends to increase the water balance in the spike because of lower range of temperature and evapo transpiration with higher range humidity. aluminum sulphate is responsible for lowering the ph of petal and acidifying the holding water, this might have reduced the bacterial growth and improved water uptake. it also reduces transpiration by inducing the stomatal closure. exogenous sucrose serves as source of energy and respiratory substrate for the maintenance of osmotic potential in flowers. the translocated sucrose accumulates in the flowers increasing its osmotic concentration which improves the ability of the tissue to absorb water and maintain turgidity. similar results were also reported by gowda (1990) and reddy and singh (1996) in tuberose. floret longevity and circumference maximum floret longevity (4.45 days) was recorded in spikes harvested on 1st september (d 6 ). among floral preservatives, highest floret longevity (4.46 days) was recorded in the c 8 treatment (400 ppm 8-hqs + 4% sucrose) (table 1). highest floret circumference (7.06 cm) was registered in 1st july (d 2 ) harvested spikes and the treatment 400 ppm 8-hqs + 4% sucrose (c 8 ) recorded (7.91 cm). the interaction effect was significant for floret longevity, but not for circumference. uptake of water, loss of water and water loss-uptake ratio the uptake of water, loss of water and water lossuptake ratio were significant (table 2) and recorded the best values (83.10 g, 46.85 g and 1.53) in spikes harvested on 15th june (d 1 ), 15th august (d 5 ) and 1st october (d 8 ), table 1. effect of date of harvesting and floral preservatives on vase life of spike, floret longevity and circumference of tuberose. treatments vase life (days) floret longevity (days) floret circumference (cm) 2003 2004 pooled 2003 2004 pooled 2003 2004 pooled date of harvesting d 1 11.97 12.65 12.31 3.55 3.63 3.59 6.78 6.84 6.81 d 2 11.72 11.87 11.80 4.16 4.16 4.16 7.26 6.85 7.06 d 3 12.84 10.87 11.86 3.87 3.81 3.84 6.59 7.09 6.84 d 4 11.30 10.52 10.91 4.09 3.86 3.97 6.27 6.09 6.18 d 5 12.55 13.96 13.25 3.87 3.87 3.87 5.36 6.08 5.72 d 6 10.97 10.30 10.63 4.22 4.67 4.45 6.70 6.71 6.71 d 7 12.80 15.03 13.92 3.81 4.12 3.96 6.59 6.72 6.65 d 8 14.25 14.43 14.34 3.86 4.16 4.01 6.42 6.56 6.49 s.em.± 0.108 0.123 0.66 0.021 0.037 0.11 0.063 0.063 0.18 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.30 0.34 2.20 0.06 0.10 0.38 0.18 0.18 0.59 floral preservatives c 1 13.12 13.61 13.36 3.78 3.94 3.86 6.11 5.85 5.98 c 2 13.09 13.26 13.17 4.14 4.65 4.39 6.77 6.64 6.70 c 3 10.90 11.40 11.15 3.78 3.61 3.70 5.84 5.57 5.70 c 4 12.25 12.16 12.20 4.39 4.05 4.22 7.45 7.86 7.65 c 5 12.15 12.56 12.36 3.62 3.96 3.79 6.21 6.67 6.44 c 6 14.37 14.50 14.44 4.37 4.56 4.46 6.92 7.28 7.10 c 7 11.96 12.06 12.01 3.60 3.66 3.63 5.85 5.67 5.76 c 8 12.72 12.37 12.54 4.44 4.49 4.46 7.84 7.99 7.91 c 9 12.92 12.51 12.71 3.73 3.89 3.81 6.39 7.03 6.71 c 10 9.52 10.13 9.82 3.42 3.55 3.49 5.60 5.63 5.62 s.em.± 0.121 0.137 0.18 0.023 0.041 0.12 0.070 0.070 0.17 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.34 0.38 0.56 0.06 0.12 0.38 0.20 0.20 0.53 interaction d x c s.em.± 0.34 0.39 0.55 0.07 0.12 0.19 0.20 0.20 0.29 c.d.(p=0.05) 0.96 1.09 1.55 0.18 0.33 0.55 0.55 0.56 ns vase life of cut flowers in tuberose j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 148-152, 2007 150 respectively. this may be due to increased uptake of water associated with reduced loss of water resulting in optimum water balance in the spike. the highest loss-uptake ratio (2.58) was recorded in the spike harvested on 1st august (d 4 ). in case of floral preservatives, maximum uptake of water (77.42 g) and lowest loss-uptake ratio (1.42) were registered in 500 ppm aluminum sulphate + 4% sucrose (c 6 ), whereas, the minimum loss of water (72.40 g) was with 50 ppm silver nitrate (c 3 ). the interaction effect was also found significant and recorded superior at combinations 1st october harvesting + (500 ppm aluminum sulphate + 4 % sucrose) (d 8 c 6 ) for uptake of water and loss-uptake ratio, whereas, d 5 c 3 for loss of water. both aluminum sulphate and sucrose, help in increased uptake and reduced loss of water. these results are in agreement with the findings of reddy et al (1995) and reddy and singh (1996) in tuberose. fresh weight of spike (g) maximum fresh weight (60.72 g) at 14th day was recorded in 15th august (d 5 ) harvested spikes, which was at par with harvesting dates d 8 , d 7 , d 3 & d 2 (table 3). the higher fresh weight might be due to higher water uptake coupled with lowest loss of water. low temperature and high humidity during october might have reduced transpiration thus lowering water loss from the spikes. significantly highest spike fresh weight (68.71 g) was observed with 500 ppm aluminum sulphate + 4% sucrose (c 6 ), whereas, the lowest fresh weight (44.63 g) was recorded in control (c 10 ). it may be due to the fact that both aluminum sulphate and sucrose improve the water retention of the spike. sucrose has been shown to act as an oxidisable respiratory substrate and antidesiccant and, thus, increases the fresh weight. similar results were also obtained by reddy and singh (1996) and bhaskar et al (2000) in tuberose. percentage of opened and partially opened florets maximum percentage of opened florets (46.39 %) was recorded in d 5 (harvesting at 15th august) and among floral preservatives c 8 (400 ppm 8-hqs+ 4 % sucrose) recorded highest (58.20%). similarly, for percentage of partial opened florets, maximum (5.34 and 5.11%) was observed in d 6 (harvesting at 1st september) and c 7 (50 ppm silver nitrate + 4% sucrose), respectively (table 3). the interaction effect was found non significant for both. table 2. effect of date of harvesting and floral preservatives on uptake of water, loss of water and loss-uptake ratio during vase life of tuberose. treatments uptake of water (g) loss of water (g) loss-uptake ratio 2003 2004 pooled 2003 2004 pooled 2003 2004 pooled date of harvesting d 1 84.53 81.67 83.10 137.23 124.87 131.05 1.68 1.58 1.63 d 2 39.90 69.27 54.58 71.17 114.43 92.80 1.91 1.73 1.82 d 3 34.97 39.70 37.33 59.03 71.03 65.03 1.74 1.97 1.86 d 4 25.43 25.87 25.65 61.33 60.50 60.92 2.6 2.57 2.58 d 5 26.93 27.27 27.10 38.20 55.50 46.85 1.56 2.22 1.89 d 6 44.67 31.17 37.92 77.70 59.07 68.38 1.77 1.98 1.87 d 7 53.03 71.33 62.18 104.80 105.33 105.07 2.15 2.15 2.15 d 8 74.50 86.93 80.72 111.60 125.40 118.50 1.57 1.48 1.53 s.em.± 0.344 0.695 6.71 0.594 0.911 9.69 0.029 0.041 0.14 c.d. (p=0.05) 0.96 1.95 22.41 1.66 2.55 32.33 0.08 0.12 0.46 floral preservatives c 1 53.62 61.38 57.50 80.88 92.92 86.90 1.52 1.63 1.57 c 2 64.50 72.13 68.31 93.33 104.63 98.98 1.66 1.9 1.78 c 3 36.79 37.17 36.98 72.17 72.63 72.40 2.18 2.42 2.3 c 4 45.42 47.38 46.40 87.63 88.58 88.10 1.98 2.14 2.06 c 5 36.67 52.58 44.63 73.13 85.75 79.44 2.05 1.87 1.96 c 6 72.13 82.71 77.42 89.58 109.21 99.40 1.35 1.48 1.42 c 7 37.75 40.50 39.13 75.54 69.96 72.75 2.1 1.94 2.02 c 8 47.38 52.63 50.00 96.58 99.33 97.96 2.12 2.18 2.15 c 9 47.50 51.67 49.58 81.29 86.75 84.02 1.76 1.9 1.83 c 10 38.21 43.38 40.79 76.21 85.42 80.81 2.02 2.14 2.08 s.em.± 0.385 0.777 2.29 0.664 1.018 3.72 0.032 0.046 0.07 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.08 2.18 7.30 1.86 2.85 11.88 0.09 0.13 0.24 interaction d x c s.em.± 1.09 2.20 5.67 1.88 2.88 7.18 0.09 0.13 0.19 c.d. (p=0.05) 3.05 6.16 16.03 5.26 8.06 20.31 0.26 0.37 0.55 varu and barad j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 148-152, 2007 151 table 3. effect of date of harvesting and floral preservatives on fresh weight of spike, percentage of fully opened and partial opened florets during vase life. treats fresh weight (g) opened florets (%) partial opened florets at 14th days at 12th days at 12th days 2003 2004 pooled 2003 2004 pooled 2003 2004 pooled date of harvesting d 1 50.67 51.17 50.92 26.03 27.63 26.83 3.40(10.59) 3.72(12.84) 3.56(11.69) d 2 52.40 52.53 52.47 39.37 29.72 34.55 3.70(12.66) 3.81(13.55) 3.75(13.10) d 3 54.57 50.50 52.53 45.16 42.28 43.72 5.25(26.59) 4.37(18.06) 4.81(22.13) d 4 44.10 44.10 44.10 37.67 33.07 35.37 3.97(14.75) 3.95(14.59) 3.96(14.67) d 5 67.60 53.83 60.72 50.24 42.54 46.39 4.35(17.89) 4.59(20.05) 4.47(18.95) d 6 55.33 45.77 50.55 43.30 28.42 35.86 5.01(24.11) 5.67(31.15 5.34(27.52) d 7 55.80 51.43 53.62 28.57 33.03 30.80 5.18(25.81) 4.78(21.89) 4.98(23.81) d 8 59.33 57.33 58.33 31.82 32.29 32.05 4.79(21.98) 3.94(14.51 4.37(18.06) s.em.± 0.618 0.607 2.56 0.260 0.305 3.21 0.021 0.025 0.28 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.73 1.70 8.55 0.73 0.85 10.71 0.06 0.07 0.93 floral preservatives c 1 64.96 56.50 60.73 32.62 31.33 31.97 4.32(10.59) 4.49(12.84) 4.40(11.69) c 2 61.83 59.63 60.73 41.51 36.86 39.19 3.9912.66) 4.06(13.55) 4.03(13.10) c 3 58.25 47.67 52.96 25.68 16.50 21.09 4.43(26.59) 4.69(18.06) 4.56(22.13) c 4 47.25 42.71 44.98 51.48 48.89 50.19 4.17(14.75) 3.85(14.59) 4.01(14.67) c 5 46.63 49.92 48.27 35.42 32.37 33.89 4.76(21.68) 4.17(16.40) 4.47(18.95) c 6 69.67 67.75 68.71 44.86 42.79 43.83 4.94(23.40) 4.54(19.65) 4.74(21.49) c 7 50.04 49.38 49.71 27.76 18.81 23.29 5.26(26.68) 4.96(23.63) 5.11(25.13) c 8 46.79 46.58 46.69 56.53 59.87 58.20 4.05(15.41) 3.95(14.63) 4.00(15.02) c 9 55.75 47.54 51.65 35.62 29.86 32.74 4.16(16.31) 4.51(19.36) 4.34(17.80) c 10 48.58 40.67 44.63 26.22 18.94 22.58 4.47(19.02) 4.31(17.54) 4.39(18.27) s.em.± 0.691 0.679 2.25 0.291 0.341 1.92 0.024 0.028 0.15 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.93 1.90 7.20 0.81 0.95 6.15 0.07 0.08 0.49 interaction d x c s.em.± 1.95 1.92 4.64 0.82 0.96 5.09 0.07 0.08 0.54 c.d. (p=0.05) 5.47 5.37 13.12 2.31 2.70 ns 0.19 0.22 ns the result may be due to higher uptake of water with low transpiration because of low temperature with slight changes in relative humidity and evapo-transpiration. the 8-hqs has germicidal and chelating properties, which might have reduced the stem blockage and maintained the water conductivity. sucrose prevents the moisture stress by increasing the osmotic concentration and water absorption. similar beneficial effect of sucrose was also noted by mukhopadhyay, (1982); reddy et al (1997); singh et al (1994) and nagaraju et al (2002) in tuberose. percentage of neck bent and abscised florets significantly lower percentage of neck bent and abscised florets (34.14 & 1.44%) were registered at 15th july (d 3 ) and 15th june (d 1 ), respectively, (table 4). the results might be due to optimum water balance in the spike, which could have lowered the concentration of abscissic acid (aba) and ethylene. among floral preservatives, the lowest (24.12 and 2.72%) were observed in c 8 (400 ppm 8-hqs + 4% sucrose) and c 1 (4% sucrose), respectively. the interaction was significant for abscised florets only. the 8-hqs initiates the activities of cytokinin, which might have decreased the ethylene production thereby resulting in lower percent of neck bent florets. sucrose also antagonizes the effects of abscissic acid in delaying the senescence. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the dean, p.g. studies, junagadh agril. university, junagadh, for providing necessary facilities. references bhaskar v. v., rao p. v. and reddy, y. n. 2000. effect of certain chemicals on the post harvest vase life of cut tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cv. double. j. orn. hort., (new series), 3:6-11 gowda, j. v. n. 1990. effect of sucrose and aluminum sulphate on the post harvest life of tuberose cv. double. curr. res., 19:14-16 mukhopadhyay, t. p. 1982. effect of chemicals on the development and vase life of tuberose. south ind. j. hort., 30:281-84 nagaraju, h. t.; narayangowda, j. v. and nagaraja, g. s. 2002. effect of certain chemicals on tuberose vase life. floriculture research trend in india. proceedings vase life of cut flowers in tuberose j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 148-152, 2007 152 table 4 . effect of date of harvesting and floral preservatives on percentage of neck bent as well as abscised florets at 12th day of vase life of tuberose. treatment neck bent florets (%) abscised florets (%) 2003 2004 pooled 2003 2004 pooled date of harvesting d 1 34.22 36.05 35.14 *1.44(1.07) 1.44(1.06) 1.44(1.07) d 2 36.06 38.21 37.13 2.62(5.87) 2.60(5.78) 2.61(5.82) d 3 35.74 32.53 34.14 3.92(14.39) 3.96(14.68) 3.94(14.54) d 4 39.80 36.59 38.19 4.04(15.32) 3.80(13.44) 3.92(14.37) d 5 36.82 35.91 36.36 3.79(13.37) 3.93(14.42) 3.86(13.89) d 6 40.81 39.30 40.05 3.55(11.61) 2.75(6.56) 3.15(8.92) d 7 37.49 36.26 36.87 4.80(22.06) 4.68(20.90) 4.74(21.48) d 8 39.55 38.44 38.99 4.35(17.91) 4.29(17.43) 4.32(17.67) s.em.± 0.385 0.543 1.00 0.025 0.017 0.15 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.08 1.52 3.33 0.07 0.05 0.49 floral preservatives c 1 33.33 29.61 31.47 2.62(5.85) 2.83(6.99) 2.72(6.40) c 2 22.99 28.01 25.50 4.57(19.87) 4.37(18.06) 4.47(18.96) c 3 39.10 53.74 46.42 3.44(10.81) 3.15(8.90) 3.29(9.84) c 4 35.00 22.61 28.80 4.07(15.53) 3.57(11.77) 3.82(13.59) c 5 44.90 34.46 39.68 3.85(13.86) 3.15(8.90) 3.50(11.25) c 6 28.58 31.46 30.02 3.69(12.59) 3.51(11.32) 3.60(11.95) c 7 53.53 58.73 56.13 2.83(7.03) 3.08(8.46) 2.95(7.73) c 8 34.88 13.35 24.12 3.65(12.31) 3.30(9.86) 3.47(11.06) c 9 36.06 36.36 36.21 3.82(13.56) 3.28(9.74) 3.55(11.58) c 10 47.21 58.28 52.75 3.12(8.71) 4.10(15.78) 3.61(12.00) s.em.± 0.431 0.607 5.60 0.028 0.020 0.25 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.21 1.70 17.91 0.08 0.05 0.79 interaction d x c s.em.± 1.22 1.72 7.18 0.08 0.06 0.51 c.d. (p=0.05) 3.41 4.81 ns 0.22 0.15 1.44 * a figure out of parentheses indicates square root transformed value of the national symposium on indian floriculture in the new millennium, 2002:346-347 reddy, b. s., singh, k., gupta, a. k., singh, a., sathyanarayana reddy, b., kartar, singh and amarjeet, singh. 1995. post harvest life of tuberose as affected by 8-hydroxy quinoline sulphate and sucrose, adv. agril. res. india, 3:208-214 reddy, b. s. and singh, k. 1996. effects of aluminium sulphate and sucrose on vase life of tuberose. j maharashtra agril. univ., 21:201-203 reddy, b. s., kartar, singh, gangadharappa, p. m., singh, k. and sathyanarayana and reddy, b.1997. post harvest life of tuberose cv. double as affected by different metallic salts, citric acid and 8-hqs. karnataka j. agrci. sci. 10 : 1049-1054 singh, k.; b. satyanarayana reddy and a. k. gupta 1994. role of ga, 8-hqs and sucrose in extending post harvest vase life of tuberose flowers cv. double. floriculture technology, trades and trends, oxford & ibh publ. pvt. ltd., culcutta, p. 419-524 (ms received 17 july 2007, revised 26 october 2007) varu and barad j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 148-152, 2007 biological suppression of major mealybug species on horticultural crops in india m. mani, a. krishnamoorthy and c. shivaraju division of entomology and nematology indian institute of horticultural research bangalore -560 089, india e-mail: mmani1949@yahoo.co.in abstract mealybugs, known to be ‘hard to kill pests’, live in protected areas and most stages in their life cycle are covered in a waxy coating. several insecticides are found ineffective against mealybugs. fortunately, mealybugs being sessile insects are more amenable to biological control. the exotic parasitoid, leptomastix dactylopii how., was found to be highly effective in suppressing citrus mealybug, planococcus citri (risso.) permanantly on citrus, sapota, guava, pomegranate and coffee. this is one of the recent successes in classical biological control attempts in india. however, the australian ladybird beetle, cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls., often provides spectacular control of heavy infestation of p. citri on acid lime, lemon, sweet orange, pummelo, crossandra and custard apple. though anagyrus dactylopii (how.), is a potential parasitoid of pink hibiscus mealybug, maconellicoccus hirsutus (green), on grapes, releases of c. montrouzieri only help in suppression of the pink hibiscus mealybug on grapes, ber, guava, sapota, custard apple, citrus and hibiscus. the encyrtid parasitoid, tetracnemoidea indica (ayyar), was able to check the oriental mealybug, planococcus lilacinus (ckll.) on acid lime and pomegranate. the predators, c. montrouzieri and spalgis epeus westwood, also play a major role in suppression of p. lilacinus on guava, ber, sapota and chow-chow. the local parasitoid, a. dactylopii was seen to play a major role in suppression of spherical mealybug, nipaecoccus viridis (maskell) on citrus and jackfruit. nevertheless, releases of c. montrouzieri are found highly effective in controlling n. viridis on acid lime and pummelo. similarly release of c. montrouzieri is found to be highly effective in controlling striped mealybug, ferrisia virgata (ckll.), on guava, tuberose and acalypha in 30-40 days of release. a local parasitoid, aenasius advena comp., also plays a major role in suppression of f. virgata on guava, mango, guava, hibiscus, fig, citrus, etc. release of the coccinellid predator, c. montrouzieri, was found very effective in controlling the mango coccid, rastrococcus iceryoides (green) on mango and also on the medicinal plant decalepis hamiltonii. the encyrtid, praleurocerus viridis (agarwal), was found very effective in reducing populations of r. iceryoides on guava. spalgis epeus was found to be the predominant predator of the papaya mealybug, paracoccus marginatus williams and de granara willink, but releases of the exotic parasitoid, acerophagus papayae (noyes & schauff), only provide excellent control of p. marginatus within 3-4 months of release. the second successful classical biological control attempt on mealybugs in india. the brinjal mealybug, coccidohystrix insolita (green), is known to attack brinjal, coleus, hibiscus, etc. cryptolaemus montrouzieri effectively controlled mealybugs on these three crops in 30-40 days of release. verticillium lecanii zimm. (phule bugicide @ 2g/l) is found to be effective in killing the mealybug. other fungal pathogens, viz., beauveria bassiana (bals.) vuill and metarhizium anisopliae (metch.), are also seen to infect mealybugs in rainy season under humid conditions. key words: mealybug, biocontrol, classical biocontrol, parasitoid, predator focus introduction mealybugs (pseudococcidie: homoptera) are highly polyphagous and inflict direct damage to crops by sucking their sap from trunk, cordons, buds, spurs, aerial roots, leaves, shoots, nodes, flower panicles, fruits and roots. mealybugs have become very serious pests on various crops due to elimination of natural biocontrol agents or due to the pest developing resistance to insecticides due to indiscriminate and frequent application. mealybugs are generally called ‘hard to kill pests’. perhaps the most important factor is their habitat. mealybugs live in protected areas such as cracks and crevices of the bark, at the base of leaf petioles, on the underside of leaves and inside the fruit bunch, and most of the stages of this insect are covered with a waxy coating. on several occasions, insecticides do not reach j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 86 mani et al the target-pest nor are these very effective against mealybug. luckily, mealybugs (being sessile insects) are more amenable to biological control in horticultural crop ecosystems. biological suppression of eight major mealybug species attacking various horticultural crops is discussed hereunder. 1. citrus mealybug [planococcus citri (risso.), (pseudococcus citri)] adult female mealybug has a yellow body partly visible through the dorsal median stripe, and lays about 300 amber coloured eggs. this is a major pest of citrus, grape, pomegranate, ber, custard apple, hibiscus, etc. this mealybug is probably the most cosmopolitan and generally destructive species of the family. there is little valid evidence suggestive of its origin but, by elimination, it is speculated that it may be endemic to china. the host list of p. citri is endless as it attacks any flowering crop. eggs are laid in groups covered by ovisac wax threads and hatch in 5-8 days. male citrus mealybugs have four nymphal stages called instars. the first nymphal stage lasts for 6-8 days; the second, 5-8 days; the third 2.5 days and the fourth, 3 days. approximately four days into the second instar, a black tinge develops around the insect body. two days later, the nymph starts spinning a cocoon around itself. this cocoon is continuously spun, increasing in density until the winged, adult mealybug is ready to emerge two molts later. female mealybugs have only three nymphal stages. the first nymphal stage lasts for 68days; the second, 59 days and the third, 69 days. females lay 200 to 400 eggs, averaging 300 eggs, in a life-time. life cycle is completed in 30-40 days. p. citri damage p. citri eggs adult female planococcus citri is mobile in the crawler stage, and colonizes in safe sites on trees, under twigs or at the bases of fruit (where navels are deformed), inside big-group fruits, between thick leaves or under leaves on thick twigs. mealybugs invade tree-surfaces, extract plant sap and excrete honey-dew that provides a medium for growth of the sooty mould. sooty mould and white wax grow on plants thus reducing photosynthesis, deforming fruits and thereby lowering their price. insects also release toxins and cause drop of fruits and leaves and result in dried twigs. nymphs and adult-females extract plant sap and this stops plant growth; leaves become yellow and drop off. citrus (sweet orange, acid lime, lemon, pummelo) the mealybug is known to cause 38% to 65% damage on various citrus species in india. planococcus citri was noticed to be attacked by more than 20 natural enemies in citrus orchards. anagyrus sp., blepyrus insularis (cam.), diversinervus sp., tetrastichus sp., microterys sp., cryptochaetum sp., scymnus coccivora (ayyar), pullus pallidiocollis mst., nephus sp., chrysopa sp., micraspas cardoni (wse.), pseudaspidimerus uttami kap., cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. and spalgis epeus westwood were recorded in kodagu (anon., 1980). in assam, c. montrouzieri and entomophthora fumosa speare1922 were observed on p. citri (chowdhury and majid, 1954). coccidoxenoides perminutus [c. peregrinus (timberlake), krishnamoorthy and mani, 1989b], mallada boninensis (okamoto), chrysoperla lacciperda kimmins, anisochrysa basalis walker and chrysoperla carnea (seph.) (krishnamoorthy and mani, 1989a) were found to attack p. citri in citrus orchards. the encyrtid parasitoid, c. perminutus, played a dominant role in suppression of p. citri on acid lime and lemon (mani, 1994b). the parasitoid can be multiplied on 5-10 day old laboratory-bred p. citri. several plant products and deltamethrin were found to be safe to c. perminutus (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2002a). the exotic parasitoid, leptomastix dactylopii how., was imported from west indies into india during 1983 for trials against p. citri (nagarkatti et al, 1992). it was multiplied on 15-20 day old p. citri and p. lilacinus reared on pumpkin fruits (mani, 1995a). leptomastix. dactylopii breeds very well on third instar female mealybug nymphs and on young females. ripe pumpkins with 15-20 days old mealybugs are held in cages. one to two days old, adult-mealybug infested pumpkins are used for oviposition. the life cycle of the parasitoid is completed in about 15 days. males develop j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 87 slightly faster than females. only one parasitoid emerges per host. parasitoids are then collected from the cage using an aspirator and fed on 50% honey solution in clean glass vials. females are honey-yellow to brownish-yellow in colour with dark brown to blackish markings. they have a small ovipositor. males are smaller than females and have extensive blackish m a r k i n g s (krishnamoorthy and singh, 1987). i n o c u l a t i v e releases of l. dactylopii in citrus orchards gave excellent control of p. citri, causing up to 100% parasitism within 3 months of release in karnataka (manjunath, 1985b; krishnamoorthy and singh, 1987; nagarkatti et al, 1992). leptomastix dactylopii, along with c. perminutus, reduced its population from 1342 in february to 15 in may, i.e., in 90 days of the parasitoid activity (mani, 1994b). dichlorvos, dicofol, several fungicides and plant products are safe to l. dactylopii (mani et al, 1993). leptomastix dacylopii gave good control of p. citri on citrus in california, spain and italy. the australian ladybird beetle, cryptolaemus montrouzieri mulsant, was first introduced from australia into india in the year 1898. it was widely used in controlling citrus mealybug. a simple method involving multiplication of the mealybug and c. montrouzieri on pumpkin fruit was standardized in india (chacko et al, 1978). ten beetles to be released per coorg mandarin tree was recommended in karnataka. by fifth week of release of the predator, mealybug population was reduced to negligible level. however, release of the predator needs to be repeated whenever the mealybug reappears (singh, 1978). threshold temperature for the activity of c. montrouzieri is about c. montrouzieri larva l. dactylopii adult c. perminutus adult 20oc. mani and krishnamoorthy (2007c) also reported that c. montrouzieri, when released @ 2000 adults /ac. against p. citri, resulted in decline in mealybug population from 126.64/plant in august, to 0.40/plant in november. mean 99.68% reduction in mealybug population on acid lime was achieved using the predator within three months of release. cryptolaemus montrouzieri gave partial to complete control of p. citri on citrus in spain, turkey, eastern australia and south africa. planococcus citri was observed on pummelo (citrus grandis swingle). with release of c. montrouzieri @30 larvae/plant on pummelo, the population of p. citri declined from 313.84/plant in august, to 2.63/plant in october (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2008a). guava naturally-occurring predators, s. epeus c. lacciperda and c. montrouzieri, were able to suppress the numbers from 1420 mealybugs per plant in august to 20.4/ plant in september, i.e., at 45 days from withdrawal of insecticides (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1990b). in another orchard, releases of the exotic parasitoid, l. dactylopii, were found to be highly effective against p. citri, reducing mealybug population from 1084/plant in may, to 4.36 in august. the local platygasterids allotropa citri mues. and c. perminutus also played an important role in suppression of p. citri on guava (mani, 1994a). grape planococcus citri was found to cause severe damage in many vineyards resulting in up to 60% loss of fruit bunches in karnataka and maharashtra (mani and kulkarni, 2007). cryptolaemus montrouzieri was found far superior to chemical control in suppression of mealybug on grapevine. a mean of 0.4% bunch damage was recorded in the biocontrol plot compared to 38.4% bunch damage in the plot that followed farmers’ practices (mani and krishnamoorthy, biological suppression of mealybugs p . citri on grapes p. citri on hibiscus j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 88 2008b). efficacy of c. montrouzieri in controlling p. citri has been reported in vineyards at black sea coast area and in turkey. inoculative releases of l. dactylopii gave good control of p. citri on grape in uzbekistan. recovery of l. dacylopii was made from p. citri infesting table-grapes and wine-grapes in maharashtra and karnataka. ber two parasitoids, c. perminutus and allotropa sp., and the predator c. montrouzieri, were recorded on p. citri infesting ber. these three natural-enemies, along with l. dactylopii, were able to check the mealybug very effectively from causing further damage/spread (mani, 1993). sapota the local parasitoid, c. perminutus, was able to reduce mealybug population from 156/shoot in january to 0.46/shoot in february, i.e., within 40 days of parasitoid activity. in another orchard, l. dactylopii was able to suppress the population from 112 in march to 2.16 in april, i.e., within 30 days of parasitoid activity on p. citri (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1997a). pomegranate mealybug is also a major pest of pomegranate (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1989e). leptomastix dactylopii and c. perminutus were found to be effective in suppressing the mealybug population from 180.3/plant in june to 4.5/ plant in august within 30 days of parasitoid activity. cacoxenus perspicax (knab) was also recorded on p. citri (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2000). custard apple planococcus citri is known to occur on custard apple. the predators, chiefly s. epeus and c. montrouzieri, played an important role in clearing mealybug populations (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1989a; mani and krishnamoorthy, 2007d). leptomastix dactylopii was recovered in large numbers from p. citri infesting custard apple, indicating a good scope for utilizing the parasitoid in custard apple ecosystem (mani et al, 2007). leptomastix dactylopii was also found to be effective against p. citri on custard apple in queensland, australia. crossandra releases of c. montrouzieri reduced mealybug population from 99.80/plant in october to 1.52/plant in february, i.e., within 90 days of release. brumoides suturalis f. and cheilomenes sexmaculata (f.) were also observed as feeding on p. citri although in negligible numbers (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2007b). coffee releases of c. montrouzieri were able to clear p.citri on coffee in wynad, kerala and coorg, karnataka (chacko et al, 1978; singh, 1978). the exotic l. dactylopii got established and gave excellent control of p. citri on coffee (manjunath, 1985b; nagarkatti et al, 1993; reddy and bhat, 1993). hibiscus planococcus citri is found to cause very severe damage to h. rosasinensis. releases of c. montrouzieri were able to clear p. citri on hibiscus. 2. pink hibiscus mealybug [maconellicoccus (phenacoccus) hirsutus (green)] adult females are pink and sparsely covered in white wax. eggs are orange in colour, laid in a loose, cottony, terminal ovisac. it is known to attack grapes, guava, hibiscus, ber, okra, acid lime, phalsa, sapota, pomegranate, custard apple, etc. females die shortly after depositing eggs. freshlylaid eggs are orange, and turn pink before hatching. eggs are found in egg sacs. first instar nymphs (crawlers) of the pink hibiscus mealybug disperse by walking and on the wind. male mealybugs have four nymphal instar stages while the females have three. nymphs too can walk considerable distances to find suitable host plants. their life cycle take about 25-30 days. the reddish-brown adult males are smaller than females and have one pair of wings. males have two long waxy ‘tails’. the pink hibiscus mealybug has a high rate of reproduction (females can deposit upto 600 eggs) and produces upto 15 generations per year. the mealybug feeds on soft tissues of many plant species and injects a toxic saliva that causes curling of leaves. the entire plant may be stunted while shoot tips develop a bushy appearance. buds may not flower and stems may get twisted. fruits also may be deformed. the mealybug excretes honeydewp. citri on pummelo p. citri on custard apple mani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 89 which encourages development of a black sooty-mold. very high mealybug populations can kill plants. the mealybug is found on stems, leaves, buds, fruits and roots of many plants. on hibiscus, the mealybug usually infests young twigs, causing deformed terminal growth (due to shortening of internodes), deformed leaves and thickened twigs. in grapevines, the mealybug feeds on sprouts that develop after pruning; heavily infested bunches shrivel and drop. curled leaves mimic viral damage; however, this pest is not known to vector any disease. grapevine mealybug has become a major pest of grapevine, particularly in peninsular india (manjunath, 1985a; mani and thontadarya, 1987c). six parasitoids, namely, anagyrus dactylopii (how.), allotropa sp. nr. japonica ashm. gyranusoidea mirzai (agarwal), alamella flava agarwal, leptopilinia sp. and chartocerus sp. nr. walkeri hayat, and seven predators, viz., scymnus sp., s. coccivora, c. montrouzieri chrysopa sp., spalgis epeus, cacoxenus perspicax (knab) and triommata coccidivora (felt) were recorded. among these, a. dactylopii and s. coccivora were seen to be of considerable importance. anagyrus dactylopii caused up to 70% parasitism in nature (mani et al, 1987). male and female anagyrus dactylopii completed their development in 14.75 and 22 days, respectively, and a progeny of 39.3 was produced (mani and thontadarya, 1988d). third instar nymph and adult female of m. hirsutus were found suitable for breeding of a. dactylopii (mani and thontadarya, 1989). a maximum of 182 offspring was produced at 30oc (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1992). the parasitoid was found to be least affected by application of dichlorvos, diazinon, phosalone, fish oil rosin soap and commonly used fungicides (mani and thontadarya, 1988c). under field conditions, a positive and significant relationship was found between populations of a. dactylopii and m. hirsutus (mani and thontadarya, 1987b). allotropa japonica bred very well on 15-20 day old m. hirsutus. it completed its life cycle in 25.5 days at 25.5oc. dicofol, copper oxychloride, mancozeb and captofol were less harmful to a. japonica (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1989c). m. hirsutus eggs male mealybug female mealybug scymnus coccivora completed its development on m. hirsutus in about 20-23 days; adult males and females lived for 60.5 and 68.7 days, respectively. females produced an average of 46.5 eggs each. a grub of s. coccivora consumed 308 eggs or 62 nymphs or 6.55 adult females (mani and thontadarya, 1987d). a single larva of m. boninensis was found to consume about 240 mealybug nymphs of m. hirsutus (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1989b). the coccinellid predator, c. montrouzieri, was known to feed on about 1000 eggs or 300-500 mealybug nymphs (mani and thontadarya, 1987a). it takes about 30 days to complete its lifecycle. the optimum temperature for development of c. montrouzieri maximum was found to be 30oc (babu, 1986). a simple method of mass culture of c. montrouzieri on mealybug infested ripe pumpkin was standardized. the culture of mealybugs is maintained on ripe pumpkins (cucurbita maxima d.) in a laboratory. pumpkins with ridges and grooves are selected with a small stalk to enable easy handling. these are cleaned with water to remove dust particles. systemic fungicides like bavistin or benlate @2g/litre of water are swabbed onto the fruits as a prophylactic measure against fungal fruit-rot. open wounds, if any, are sealed with molten paraffin wax. ovisacs of the mealybug are then placed on the pumpkin for 48h. mealybug-infested pumpkin is then transferred to a wooden cage (30 x 30 x 30 cm) with a sliding glass-door on one side and cloth covering on all other sides. in course of time, crawlers that emerge from ovisacs settle on the surface of the pumpkin and develop into fully mature mealybugs. details of this technique are given by chacko et al (1978) and singh (1978). in about 20-25 days after mealybug infestation on the pumpkin, cryptolaemus adults are released into the cage through its sleeve. adult beetles, besides feeding on shoot damage bark damage bunch damage biological suppression of mealybugs j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 90 mealybugs, lay eggs singly or in groups near mealybug colonies. grubs are visible in about a week. initially, these feed on eggs of the mealybug and on smaller nymphs; later, they feed on all stages of the mealybug. cannibalism is observed when mealybug population is low. full grown grubs pupate on the pumpkin, or, anywhere inside the breeding cage. the first beetle emerges in about 30 days from date of exposure of the mealybugs to beetles. beetles continue to emerge for 510 more days. the beetles are collected in glass vials using an aspirator. each breeding cage yields about 200 beetles. these are fed with honey solution (50%) or honey-agar in the laboratory. in about 10-15 days, when the adult beetles complete their mating and pre-oviposition, these are ready for field-release. performance of the beetle was evaluated in maharashtra, andhra pradesh, karnataka and tamil nadu. a release rate of 2000ac (ten-day old) adult beetles were recommended for release during the evening time to control grape mealybug. besides the commonly-used fungicides, dichlorvos, chlorpyriphos and fish oil rosin soap may be used, along with c. montrouzieri, in integrated pest management (ipm) programme in vineyards in india (mani and thontadarya, 1988a, b; babu, 1986; manjunath, 1986). it is advisable to release c. montrouzieri preferably in juneaugust and, if necessary, in mid december-mid january. according to kamal (1951), complete control of m. hirsutus could be achieved in egypt by introducing anagyrus kamali moursi from java. introduction of a. kamali with c. montrouzieri resulted in outstanding control of m. hirsutus in the caribbean islands (kairo et al, 2000). such introductions should also be tested against m. hirsutus in india. beetles released for oviposition cryptolaemus on mealybugs larvae feeding on mealybugs ber cryptolaemus montrouzieri is useful for control of m. hirsutus on ber. release of c. montrouzieri resulted in reduction in mealybug population from 62.50/plant to 0.85 within 30 days (mani et al, 2007). guava local natural-enemy complex was very poor on m. hirsutus infesting guava. releases of c. montrouzieri @20/ plant were found to be highly satisfactory in suppressing m. hirsutus on guava from 1348 in june, to 4.60 in august (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2001). pomegranate mealybug was also recorded as a serious pest for the first time on pomegranate in india (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1991b). releases of the predator, c. montrouzieri, were found to be very effective in controlling m. hirsutus on pomegranate. custard apple parasitism did not exceed 5% on mealybugs in custard apple orchards. but, the predators (chiefly s. epeus and c. montrouzieri) played an important role in clearing mealybug populations (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1989a). releases of c. montrouzieri were made @30 larvae/plant twice at 15-day interval. mealybug population declined from 3507.50/ plant in july to 0.00 in september (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2007d). acid lime cryptolaemus montrouzieri @25/plant reduced mealybug population from 39.40/shoot in january to 1.30 in mid-march, i.e., within 50 days of release. anagyrus dactylopii and t. coccidivora were recorded in negligible numbers on m. hirsutus (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1999). seasonal incidence of grape mealybug mani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 91 phalsa the pink mealybug, m. hirsutus, is known to occur on leaves, flowers and fruits. the coccinellid, c. montrouzieri, and the lycaenid, s. epeus, were known to prey on mealybugs in the field (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1996c). hibiscus maconellicoccus hirsutus appears in severe form on hibiscus rosa-sinensis l. cryptolaemus montrouzieri, when released @20 grubs/plant, reduced mealybug population from 84.3/plant in march to 0.9/plant in may (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2008d). sapota the mealybug, m. hirsutus, appeared on sapota in april. release of c. montrouzieri @20/plant resulted in decline of mealybug population from 54.20/plant in april to 1.50/plant on june (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2008c). pink mealybug on pomegranate cryptolaemus on pomegranate mealybug pink mealybug on ber spalgis on mealybugs spalgis larva spalgis adult m. hirsutus on acid lime 3. oriental mealybug [planococcus lilacinus (ckll.)] adult females are grayish-pink in color. females give birth to young ones. it is known to attack cocoa, guava, ber, citrus, black pepper, cashew, pomegranate, guava, coffee, sapota, custard apple, etc. female insects lay 55-152 eggs in a white, cottony envelop on the stem or on leaf petioles. the eggs hatch within 24 hours. eggs develop within the female, and females give ‘live birth’ to the crawler lifestage. the nymphal period of the pest is between 20-25 days. younger females are maroon in colour. body-color is visible underneath the waxy covering. in the field, adult females of p. lilacinus may be easily distinguished from p. citri by the far more globose shape of the former. the mealy wax that covers the body appears in thick, almost segmental, clumps. a central, long strip appears on its back and it has 18 lateral, wax filaments. legs are present and well developed. citrus group the encyrtid parasitoid, tetracnemoidea indica, was able to check mealybug on acid lime. due to the activity of t. indica, mealybug population reduced from 256.0/plant to 4.50/plant in 55 days on acid lime (mani, 1995b). five day old mealybug nymphs were found to be suitable for breeding t. indica (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1995). the parasitoid could be conserved by application of fenvalerate (0.01%), neem seed kernel extract (5%) and commonly-used fungicides (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1996b). guava spalgis epeus was the predominant predator on guava, and c. montrouzieri s u p p l e m e n t e d suppression of mealybugs in six months. in addition to female mealybug ants tending to mealybugs tetracnemoidea indica biological suppression of mealybugs j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 92 these, brumus suturalis and s. coccivora were also seen to feed on p. lilacinus in guava orchards (mani, 1995b). sapota cryptolaemus montrouzieri was highly effective in checking the population of p. lilacinus (mani, 1995b). pomegranate this was a serious pest on pomegranate (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1990a). it was predated by spalgis epeus, hyperaspis maindronii sic., scymnus severini weise., eublemma sp., leucopis lutecornis malloch, and was parasitized by anagyrus sp. (nair, 1975). triommata coccidivora, s. epeus, c. montrouzieri, s. coccivora and c. perspicax were reared from p. lilacinus. withdrawal of insecticides in pomegranate resulted in large-scale appearance of both s. epeus and c. montrouzieri. these predators were responsible for bringing down the mealybug population in four months to negligible numbers (mani, 1995b). tetracnemoidea indica played a significant role in reducing mealybug population from 180 per plant in june to 4.50 in august, i.e., within 55 days of the parasitoid activity on pomegranate (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2000). ber the parasitoid, aprostocetus purpureus (cam.), and predator, s. epeus, were recorded on p. lilacinus (mani, 1995b). a steep decline in the mealybug population from 45.40 to 0.40 was observed within 30days due to predation by s. epeus (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1996a). chow-chow fruits of chow-chow were found covered with planococcus lilacinus. release of c. montrouzieri was found to give effective control of p. lilacinus on chowchow (krishnamoothy and mani, 1998). 4. spherical mealybug [nipaecoccus viridis (maskell)] it attacks citrus, pomegranate guava, grape, ber, jackfruit, brinjal, etc. adult females have a purple body, p. lilacinus on pomegranate p. lilacinus on chow chow covered by a fluffy ovisac with cottony threads containing purple eggs. it has a body approximately 4mm long x 3mm wide colored black or purple to blue-green, with thick, white or pale-yellow wax. the female produces an ovisac with a wax that is sticky to touch. it lays about 500-800 eggs. eggs hatch in about 5-10 days into dark-red or purplish nymphs. the nymphs congregate in dense colonies on tender shoots and flower-stalk bases where they acquire a waxy covering, and produce large quantities of honeydew. the sticky, stringly ovisac is well adapted to adhere to feet of birds and, probably, accounts for rapid and widerspread dispersal. mealybugs reproduce continuously, throughout the year. in high densities, waxy secretions may appear as a continuous layer of wax which obscures individual mealybugs. the wax may turn yellow in older infestations. specimens do turn black in 70% alcohol. citrus group anagyrus dactylopii was found parasitizing up to 90% on citrus medica and c. aurantium in a field near aligargh, uttar pradesh. the mealybug disappeared within a month of parasiteid activity (subba rao et al, 1965). severe infestation of n. viridis on citrus was wiped out with liberation of c. montrouzieri @10 beetles per tree in andhra pradesh (tirumala rao and david, 1958). due to release of c. montrouzieri, the population of n. viridis declined from 221.3 in march to 1.40/plant in june. the parasitoids, anagyrus agraensis, a. dactylopii and a. mirzai, also played an important role in suppression of n. viridis on acid lime (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2002b). nipaecoccus viridis is known to attack pummelo (citrus grandis swingle). cryptolaemus montrouzieri was released @30 larvae/plant in august in a pummelo orchard. the population of n. viridis declined from 165.48/plant in august to 0.65/plant in october (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2008a). mango release of cryptolaemus grubs cleared mealybug colonies on mango at hindupur, andhra pradesh (anon., 1987). ber eight parasitoids, anagyrus agraensis (saraswat), anagyrus sp. nr. almoriensis (shaffee et al), a. dactylopii, a. mirzai, a. flava, gyranusoidea flava (shaffee et al), coccophagus sp., mealybug on ber mani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): isocoated_v2_eci.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: rgb2cmyk.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: yes gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: no gray to knockout: no pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: yes cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: yes delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 93 chartocerus sp., and three predators, c. perspicax, t. coccidivora and s. epeus, were recorded on n. viridis infesting ber. among these, anagyrus spp. and s. epeus were seen to be widespread and were frequently collected. releases of c. montrouzieri supplemented local naturalenemies in controlling mealybug on ber (mani, 1993). custard apple nipaecoccus viridis is known to occur on custard apple. there was no parasitism on the mealybug in custard apple orchards. but the predators, chiefly s. epeus and c. montrouzieri, played an important role in clearing the mealybug population (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1989a). jackfruit it is sporadic and severe on jack. the encyrtid a. dactylopii and the drosophilid predator cacoxenus persipicax (knab) effectively reduced the mealybug population from 2.96 to 0.10 within a month (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1997b). 5. striped mealybug [ferrisia virgata (ckll.)] it attacks citrus, guava, custard apple, tuberose, acalypha, jackfruit, ixora, caesalpinia, etc. adult females are grey, with a pair of dorsal stripes on the body and two long tails. the body is covered with long, slender glassy threads. mealybug eggs hatch immediately after being laid. the entire life cycle takes about 40 days. the female lays 300-400 eggs which hatch in a few hours. hatchability ranges from 96.2 to 99.1%. and the young nymphs move away quite rapidly. the nymphs are full-grown in about six weeks. the female is distinctive upto 5mm long, with a pair of conspicuous, longitudinal sub-median dark stripes; long glassy wax threads, a pronounced tail about half the length of the body, and a powdery, waxy secretion. the abdomen gently tapers to well-developed anal lobes, each with an apical seta about 280 micrometres long, and a small, elongate, sclerotized area on the ventral surface. the 8-segmented antenna is about 490-560 micrometres long. legs are wellsilken thread from the egg-mass anagyrus dactylopii female mealybug developed and slender. it feeds on young shoots, berries and leaves. in dry weather, this insect may move down to below the ground and inhabit roots. this mealybug is favoured by dry weather: there are many records referring to heavy attacks following periods of prolonged drought. guava aenasius advena comp. and blepyrus insularis (cam.), s. coccivora, m. boninensis, b. suturalis and s. epeus, c. sexmaculata were recorded on f. virgata (mani et al, 1990; mani, and krishnamoorthy, 1989d). chrysoperla lacciperda and c. carnea were observed on f. virgata in guava orchards (krishnamoorthy and mani, 1989a). a single larva of m. boninensis was able to prey on about 345 nymphs of f. virgata (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1990b). blepyrus insularis was reaved on 5-10 old nymphs of f. virgata (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1991a). the key parasitoid, a. advena, could be conserved by application of diazinon, phosalone and dichlorvos (mani, 1992). cryptolaemus montrouzieri @10 15 adults/tree gave excellent control of f. virgata. the population of mealybugs was reduced from 145.3 to 2.8/plant within 40 days of release (mani et al, 1990). mango at times, fruits were found covered with f. virgata in tamil nadu and karnataka. release of c. montrouzieri was recommended for suppression of the mealybug. pomegranate scymnus coccivora and c. montrouzieri were able to reduce the population of f. virgata in tamil nadu (karuppuchamy, 1994). custard apple ferrisia virgata is known to attack custard apple. mealybug on jackfruit mealybug on guava aenasius advenaf. virgata cryptolaemus clearing mealybugs pupation of cryptolaemus on shoots biological suppression of mealybugs j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 94 the predators, chiefly s. epeus and c. montrouzieri, played an important role in clearing mealybug populations (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1989a). releases of australian ladybird beetle, c. montrouzieri, were made @30 larvae/plant twice, at 15-day intervals. the mealybug population declined from 3507.50/plant in july, to 0.00 in september (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2007d). pummelo ferrisia virgata is known to attack pummelo (citrus grandis swingle). release of c. montrouzieri @30 larvae/plant reduced mealybug population from 248.85/plant in august, to 7.75/plant in october (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2008a). tuberose following the release of c. montrouzieri, mealybug population declined from 190.26/ plant in july to negligible numbers in september (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2007a). acalypha release of c. montrouzieri resulted in reduced mealybug population from 247.82 in december to 11.85 in february. the plants were completely cleared of mealybugs within 40 days of release (mani, 2008). poinsettia the plants were completely cleared of mealybugs with release of c. montrouzieri. 6. mango mealybug [rastrococcus iceryoides (green)] it attacks mango, sapota, guava, hibiscus, fig, citrus, etc. adult females are oval, yellowish-cream in colour and meaybug on custard apple crypyolaemus clearing mealybugs covered in lateral waxy processes. nymphs are brown, but turn white later. adult females are oviparous and eggs are honey-yellow. females lay eggs numbering 450-585. pre-oviposition and oviposition periods are 7-8.5 and 5.77.3 days, respectively, and the egg stage lasts for an average of 6.6 days. female and male nymphs moult 3 and 4 times, respectively. post-embryonic development lasts for 20.431.0 days in females and 18.0-26.0 days in the males. the insects are abundant during april-june. overwintering takes place in adult females, and the coccid is active from february to october during which period 6-9 generation cycles are completed. rastrococcus iceryoides sucks sap from leaves, tender terminal shoots, inflorescences and fruits. the pest also produces honeydew on which sooty mold develops. on heavily infested mango plants, reduced fruit-set was seen and young fruits shed. guava the encyrtid, praleurocerus viridis agarwal and s. coccivora, were found very effective in reducing the population from127 mealybugs/plant to negligible numbers, within a month, due to the activity of natural enemies (mani and krishnamoorthy, 1998). mango several natural enemies were recorded on r. iceryoides in up and karnataka. anagyrus pseudococci girault, gyranusoidea sp., praleurocerus viridis, allotropa sp., microterys flavus (howard), dinocarsis sp., promuscidea unfasciaventris girault, metastenus concinnus walker, tetrastichus sp., cybocephalus sp., s. coccivora, monomorium floricola (jerdon), coccophagus sp. and proctolaelaps sp. were recorded from malihabad. but, p. unfasciativentris and a. pseudococci were most important (tandon and lal, 1978). according to narasimham and chacko (1988), the parasitoids anagyrus sp. nr. dactylopii (how.), anagyrus sp., coccophagus sp. c. sexvittatus hayat (pseudococci ferrisia on tuberose ferrisia on poinsettia ferrisia on acalypha female mealybug rastrococcus egg-mass mani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 95 group), allotropa sp, and predators leucopis sp., c. perspicax, s. epeus. predatory ants camponotus sp., myrmicaria brunnea saunders and oecophylla smaragdina (f.) were also known to attack r. iceroides. upto 42% parasitism was observed in nature (tandon and lal, 1978). the parasitoid, anagyrus pseudococci gir., and the predator, cacoxenus perspicax (knab.), were important in nature. an individual c. montrouzieri consumed about 350 mealybug eggs or 500 nymphs during its larval stage of development. the coccinellid predator, c. montrouzieri, was found very effective in controlling r. iceryoides. reduction in fruit damage from 40-50% to 0.00 was observed in different mango varieties (mani et al, 1995). substantial control of r. iceryoides was obtained in the celebes with c. montrouzieri. decalepis hamiltonii this is an important medicinal plant. release of c. montrouzieri reduced mealybug population from 48.75/plant in january to 1.26/plant in march. 7. brinjal mealybug [coccidohystrix insolita (green) (=phenacoccus insolitus; centrococcus insolitus)] it attacks brinjal, tomato, capsicum, croton, stored potato, etc. adult females are light yellowish-green in color, with many long, glassy filaments. these are small, oval, softbodied insects measuring 3-4mm in length, covered in white, mealy wax. they have reproductive potential of laying 200300 eggs, majority of which are females, resulting in explosive outbreaks. eggs incubate beneath their body cavity for about 4-5 days. there are three nymphal instars which last for 22-25 days. their total lifespan under normal conditions from egg to adult under is 26-30 days. both nymphs and adults suck sap from leaves and tender shoots. heavy clustering of mealy bugs is usually seen under the surface of leaves as a thick mat, with a waxy secretion. they also excrete copious amounts of honeydew on which the sooty mould fungus grows. affected plants appear sick and black, resulting in reduced fruiting capacity. it is also a notorious pest of stored potato tubers. stored tubers are found to be infested during july-october, when bud-sprout occurs. brinjal anisochrysa bonensis (okaomota), b. sutarilis, hyperspis maindroni sicard leptomastix nigrocoxalis compere, l.lyciae noyes and hayat were known to attack c. insolita. a single larva of c. montrouzieri is known to consume about 1100 nymphs. the mealybug, c. insolita, attacking brinjal crop was controlled effectively by the predator c. montrouzieri within 20 days of release (krishnamoorthy and mani, 1996). hibiscus mealybug population declined from 145.6/plant in february to 0.6/plant in april 2003. there was 99.6% reduction in the population of c. insolitus within 60 days of appearance of the lycaenid predator, s. epeus (mani and krishnamoorthy, 2008d). coleus release of c. montrouzieri reduced mealybug population within 40 days. 8. papaya mealybug (paracoccus marginatus williams and granara de willink.) adult females are light yellowish-white. eggs are greenish-yellow. body content: when crushed on white paper, the body is yellow; when preserved in alcohol, it turns black. it attacks papaya, brinjal, tapioca, okra, acalypha, anona, etc. it is native to mexico, having been first observed there in 1955 and, later, found to spread to the west indies, hawaii, florida, guam, palau, pouerto rico and sri lanka. in india, it was first reported in tamil nadu in july 2008 and it spread fast to andhra pradesh, karnataka, maharashtra and kerala. it might have been introduced into india from sri lanka (suresh et al, 2010). the adult female deposits about 500 eggs into her ovisac over a period of one to two weeks. eggs hatch in ten days later and the crawlers, which are mobile, disperse. there are four instar stages in the female and five in the male. the fifth instar male is a pupa in which the nymph undergoes metamorphosis into a winged adult. mean development time from egg to adult male and female is 2830 days and 24-26 days, respectively. longevity of adultrastrococcus on mango rastrococcus on decalepis hamiltonii biological suppression of mealybugs j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 96 male and female was 2.31 and 21.15 days, respectively. overall, 53-59% of the adult population was female. prereproductive and reproductive period of the female was 6.29±0.02 and 11.16±0.02 days, respectively. acerophagus papayae (noyes and schauff), anagyrus loecki (noyes and menezes), and pseudoleptomastix mexicana (noyes and schauff ) offered control of papaya mealybug, p. marginatus in puerto rico, the dominican republic, guam and sri lanka. the local predator, s. epeus, though found in larger numbers, was unable to suppress mealybugs effectively. all the above three parasitoids were imported from puerto rico in august 2010 and releases were made in peninsular india. mealybugs on brinjal fruit mealybugs on brinjal leaf cryptolaemus clearing mealybugs on coleus coccidohystrix on hibiscus acerophagus papayae established very well and brought spectacular control of papaya mealybug in andhra pradesh, karnataka, maharashtra, tamil nadu and kerala (rabindra, 2010; jonanathan et al, 2011; mundale and nakat, 2011; pokharkar et al., 2011; shylesha et al, 2011; krishnamoorthy et al, 2011; kalyanasundaram, et al, 2011). pathogens verticillium lecanii zimm. was isolated from whiteflies and developed as biopsticide and named ‘phule bugicide’ at mahatma phule krishi vidyapeeth (rahuri, maharashtra) for control of mealybugs. a rate of 20g formulated material/10 litres of water is recommended to control the mealybugs. two to three sprays at 15-day intervals in rainy season are needed. addition of milk powder @5g/10 litre water helps improve control of mealybugs. foliar sprays of fungal pathogens, viz., beauveria bassiana (bals.) vuill and metarhzium anisopliae (metch.) in rainy season under humid conditions were also found to infect mealybugs (kulkarni et al, 2007). liquid formulations a (vgta50512) and b (vgta502105) of the entomopathogenic fungus, verticillium lecanii (zimmermann) viegas, at 1% concentration of liquid formulation gave highest mortality of 90.5% (formulation a) and 92.22% (formulation b) on m. hirsutus (chavan and kadam, 2010). future thrust ● inundative releases of indigenous enemies, where largescale multiplication is feasible, should be attempted for control of mealybugs ● application of conventional/ broad-spectrum insecticides interferes with activity of naturally-occurring biocontrol agents in horticultural ecosystems. to overcome this, nonconventional chemicals like botanicals, biopesticides, etc. can be applied in mealybug management programmes, without affecting the key, local natural-enemies ● key natural-enemies can be conserved using safer pesticides. all the commonly-used pesticides should be screened for safety to key parasitoids and predators, and this information should be made available ● biological control is the backbone of integrated pest management. proven or promising natural-enemies should be included as a major component in ipm programmes. ● publicity through various media on the use of biocontrol agents in suppression of mealybugs helps create awareness among farmers leaf damage fruit damage acerophagus papayaean exotic parasitoid female mealybugspalgis epeus an indigenous predator mani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 97 ● research institutes and other government organizations are unable to supply natural enemies to farmers in large numbers due to several limitations. at present, there are very few commercial insectaries in india. many more large-scale multiplication units need be established in all the states to ensure timely supply of proven naturalenemies to the farmer ● stringent-quarantine issues are to be addressed at international and national level ● importation of natural enemies is to be strengthened ● exploitation of insect pathogens for mealybug management to be explored references 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cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 98 mani, m. 1992. contact toxicity of different pesticides to the encyrtid parasitoids aenasius advena and blepyrus insularis of the striped mealybug ferrisia virgata. trop. pest mgt., 38:386-390 mani, m. 1993. studies on mealybugs and their natural enemies in ber orchards. j. biol. control, 7:75-80 mani, m. 1994a. effectiveness of the exotic encyrtid 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viridis (newstead) (homoptera: pseudococcidae) on jackfruit. entomon, 22:161-163 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1998. regulation of rastrococcus iceryoides (green) on guava. insect environment, 4:71 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 1999. maconellicoccus hirsutus on acid lime in india. insect environment , 5:73-74 mani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 99 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 2000. biological suppression of the mealybugs planococcus citri (risso) and planococcus lilacinus (ckll.) on pomegranate in india. entomon, 28:187-189 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a 2001. suppression of maconellicoccus hirsutus (green) on guava. insect environment, 6:152 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 2002a. selectivity of different pesticides to citrus mealybug parasitoid coccidoxinoides peregrina (timberlake) j. insect sci., 15:49-52 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 2002b. biological suppression of spherical mealybug nipaecoccus viridis (newstead) (hemiptera, pseudococcidae) on acid lime in india. entomon , 27:423-424 mani, m. and 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control, 22:169-172 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 2008b. biological control of planococcus citri (risso) on grapevine with cryptolaemus montrouzieri in india. ind. j. pl. prot., 36:125-127 mani, m. krishnamoorthy, a. 2008c. field efficacy of australian ladybird beetle cryptolaemus montrouzieri mulsant in the suppression of maconellicoccus hirsutus (green) on sapota. j. biol. control, 22:471-473 mani, m. and krishnamoorthy, a. 2008.d biological suppression of the mealybugs coccidohystrix insolitus and maconellicoccus hirsutus on hibiscus rosa-sinensis. ind. j. pl. prot., 36:32-34 mani, m., krishnamoorthy, a. and gangavisalakshi, p.n. 2007. natural parasitisation by the exotic parasitoid, leptomastix dactylopii howard on planococcus citri on custard apple. j. biol. control, 21:157-158 mani, m., krishnamoorthy, a. and pattar, g.l. 1995. biological control of the mango mealybug, rastrococcus iceryoides (green) (homoptera: pseudococcidae). pest mgt. hortl. ecosystems, 1:15-20 mani, m., krishnamoorthy, a. and pattar, g.l. 2007. suppression of pink mealybug, maconellicoccus hirsutus on ber, zizhyphus mauritiana . ind. j. agril. sci., 77:135 mani, m., krishnamoorthy, a. and singh, s.p. 1990. the impact of the predator cryptolaemus montrouzieri mulsant on pesticide resistant populations of the striped mealybug, ferrisia virgata (ckll.) on guava in india. insect sci. applic., 11:167-170 mani, m., krishnamoorthy, a. and srinivasa rao, m. 1993. toxicity of different pesticides to the exotic parasitoid, leptomastix dactylopii how. ind. j. pl. prot., 21:98-99 mani, m. and kulkarni, n.s. 2007. citrus mealybug planococcus citri (risso) homoptera: pseudococcidae) a major pest of grapes in india. entomon, 32:235-236 mani, m. and thondarya, t.s. 1987a. development and feeding potential of the coccinellid, cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. on grape mealybug, maconellicoccus hirsutus (green). j. biol. control, 1:19 22 mani, m. and thontadarya, t.s. 1987b. population dynamics of the mealybug maconellicoccus hirsutus (green) and its natural enemies in the grapevine ecosystem. j. biol. control, 1:93-97 mani, m. and thontadarya, t.s. 1987c. record of mealybug species on grapevine in karnataka. curr. sci., 56:1192 mani, m. and thontadaraya, t.s. 1987d. biological studies on the grape mealybug predator scymnus coccivora (ayyar). j. biol. control, 1:89-92 mani, m. and thontadarya, t.s. 1988a. response of cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. (coccinellidae, biological suppression of mealybugs j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 100 coleoptera) to commonly used pesticides in vineyards. j. biol. control, 2:17-20 mani, m. and thontadarya, t.s. 1988b. field evaluation of cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. in the suppression of maconellicoccus hirsutus (green) on grapevine. j. biol. control, 2:14 16 mani, m. and thontadarya, t.s. 1988c. studies on the safety of different pesticides to the grape mealybug natural enemies, anagyrus dactylopii (how.) and scymnus coccivora ayyar. ind. j. pl. prot., 16:205-210 mani, m. and thontadarya, t.s. 1988d. biology of the grape mealybug parasitoid anagyrus dactylopii (how.) 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of nipaecoccus vastator (maskell) (homoptera: coccidae), a serious pest of citrus spp. from india. ind. j. ent., 27:109 110 suresh, s., jothimani, r., sivasubramaniam, p., karuppuchamy, p., samiayyapan, r. and jonanthan, e.r. 2010. invasive mealybugs of tamil nadu and their management. karnataka j. agril. sci., 23:6-9 tandon, p.l. and lal, b. 1978. the mango coccid, rastrococcus iceryoides green (homoptera, coccidae), and its natural enemies. curr. sci., 47: 46-48 tirumala rao, v. and david, l.a. 1958. the biological control of a coccid pest in south india by the use of beetle cryptolaemus montrouzieri muls. ind. j. agril. sci., 28:545 552 mani et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction successful sexual hybridization involves a series of events including pollen germination, pollen-tube growth, fertilization, embryo and endosperm development and seed maturity, leading to germination (debbarama et al, 2013). these events can be hampered by somatoplastic sterility, cytoplasmic-genic male sterility and structural differences in chromosomes. a very important and useful biotechnological tool for raising hybrid progeny in intractable crosses is embryo rescue. a given cross may fail for any of a number of reasons: seedlessness in either or both parents, inimical influence of endosperm resulting in inhibited embryo development, poor fruit-set / heavy fruit-drop at initial stages of the cross, distant crossing (interspecific / intergeneric / intervarietal breeding resulting in embryo abortion), genetic incongruity of parental genomes, mismatch in ploidy levels, etc. embryo culture is one of the earliest forms of in vitro culture applied to practical problems and is probably the tissue culture technique that has proven of greatest value to breeders (dunwell, 1986). at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, the authors have focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue: a non-conventional breeding strategy in horticultural crops leela sahijram, jaya r. soneji1, anitha naren2 and b. madhusudhana rao division of biotechnology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: leelas@iihr.ernet.in abstract production of interspecific and intergeneric hybrids is useful for transfer of desirable genes from wild species into cultivated species. in many instances, progeny from wide crosses is difficult to produce owing to several barriers. post-zygotic barriers such as endosperm abortion and, at later stages, embryo degeneration are of common occurrence, leading to low fertility; but these have been overcome through the use of embryo rescue and several hybrids have been developed. this approach is especially useful in horticultural crops, more so in fruit crops. in our laboratory, we have developed protocols for hybrid embryo rescue in several top-of-the-line fruit crops that suffer from an inability to cross naturally (e.g., distant crosses, use of seedless parent/s) or instances where initial fruit drop is very high. thus, interspecific, intergeneric and intervarietal hybrids have been generated in mango, banana, seedless grape, papaya and seedless citrus using embryo rescue. culture of embryos has also been demonstrated in rose, capsicum, hot pepper, onion and tomato. among the very important strategies under non-gm biotechnologies figure techniques of hybrid embryo rescue, and related applications like ovule / ovary / placental cultures through sequential embryo culture. embryo culture applied to practical problems is a tissue culture technique that has proven to be of greatest value to breeders. key words: hybrid embryo rescue, horticultural crops, in vitro culture, non-conventional breeding successfully developed technologies using excised hybrid embryo / sequential embryo culture in a number of horticultural crops (leela sahijram, 2007, 2009, 2011). the authors have raised hybrids in seedless grape & lime, in difficult crosses of papaya, and in mango, banana, rose, etc. the underlying principle of embryo rescue technique is aseptic isolation of the embryo and its transfer to a suitable medium for facilitating its development under optimal conditions. the potential these techniques hold is a viable alternative to parasexual hybridization and somatic embryogenesis (stewart, 1981). failure to produce a hybrid may be due to either preor post-fertilization incompatibility. if fertilization is possible between two species or genera, the hybrid embryo may abort before maturation. if fertilization does occur, the embryo resulting from an interspecific or intergeneric cross can oftentimes be rescued and cultured to produce a whole plant. such a method is referred to as embryo rescue. it is a tissue culture technique used in various breeding programs engaged in creating new genotypes. the procedure involves dissection of the developing embryo out from its environment present address: 1polk state college, department of biological sciences, winter haven, florida 33881, usa 2shri murugappa chettiar research centre, taramani, chennai 600 113, india 2 and culturing it on a synthetic medium. in certain instances, ovule culture may need to be applied preceding excised embryo culture. plant breeders usually rescue inherently weak, immature or hybrid embryos to prevent their degeneration. successful production of plants from cultured embryos depends largely upon maturation stage and composition of the medium besides, of course, the genotype. abortion of embryos at one or the other stage of development is a characteristic feature of distant hybridization. hybrid embryo rescue is a popular approach for raising hybrids. currently, embryo rescue holds great promise for not only effecting wide crosses but also for obtaining haploid plants, and for shortening breeding cycle in presence or absence of a protracted dormancy. the technique of embryo culture embryo culture is the sterile isolation and growth of an immature or mature embryo in vitro, with the goal of obtaining a viable plant. the first attempt to grow embryos of angiosperms was made by hannig in 1904 (bridgen, 1994) who obtained viable plants from in vitro isolated embryos of two crucifers cochleria and raphanus. in 1924, dietrich grew embryos of different plant species and established that mature embryos grew normally but those excised from immature seeds failed to achieve the organization of a mature embryo. they grew into seedlings, skipping the stages of normal embryogenesis and without completion of the dormancy period. laibach (1925, 1929) demonstrated practical application of this technique by isolating and growing the interspecific cross linum perenne x l. austriacum that otherwise aborted in vivo. embryo culture is now a well-established and useful branch of plant tissue culture and the subject has been reviewed by researchers (sharma et al, 1996; reed, 2004; raghavan, 2003; taji et al, 2002; leela sahijram, 2007, 2010; bhojwani et al, 1999; bhojwani and razdan, 1996; chadha et al, 2000; chawla, 2002). there are broadly two types of embryo culture: (i) mature embryo culture is the culture of mature embryos derived from ripe seeds. this type of culture is done when embryos do not survive in vivo or become dormant for long periods of time, or, is done to eliminate inhibition of seed germination. seed dormancy of many species is due to chemical inhibitors or mechanical resistance present in structures covering the embryo (rather than dormancy of the embryonic tissue). excision of embryos from the testa and culturing them in nutrient media may bypass such seed dormancy. some species produce sterile seeds (which may be due to incomplete embryo development). embryo culture procedures may yield viable seedlings. embryos excised from the developing seed at or near the mature stage are autotrophic and can be grown on a simple inorganic medium with a supplemental energy source. seeds having hard seed coats are sterilized and soaked in water for a few hours to a few days. sterile seeds are then split open and the embryos excised out. (ii) immature embryo culture, also known as embryo rescue, is the culture of immature embryos to rescue embryos from wide crosses, crosses involving seedless parent/s, or where fruit fall is heavy in early stages of embryo development. this is mainly used to avoid embryo abortion, with the purpose of producing a viable (hybrid) plant. wide hybridization, where individuals from two different species of the same genus or different genera are crossed, often leads to failure of the cross. there are several barriers which operate at preand post-fertilization levels to prevent successful gene transfer from wild into cultivated species. pre-fertilization barriers include all factors that hinder effective fertilization, which is usually due to inhibition of pollen-tube growth by the stigma or upper style. postfertilization barriers hinder or retard development of the zygote after fertilization and inhibit normal development of the seed. this frequently results from failure of the hybrid endosperm to develop properly, leading to starvation of the hybrid embryo or results from embryo-endosperm incompatibility where the endosperm produces toxins that kill the embryo. raghavan (1976) discussed evidence suggesting that embryos of inviable hybrids possessed a potential for initiating development, but were inhibited from reaching adult size with normal differentiation. endosperm failure generally results in eventual starvation of the abnormal embryo. isolation and culture of hybrid embryos prior to abortion circumvents these strong post-zygotic barriers. production of interspecific and intergeneric hybrids is the most impressive and conspicuous application of embryo rescue and culture technique, particularly, for subsequent valuable gene transfer from wild species. there are normally no problems of disinfection of embryos in such cultures. florets are removed at the proper time, and, either the florets or the ovaries are sterilized. ovules can then be removed from the ovaries. the tissue within the ovule in which the ovule is embedded is already sterile. for mature-embryo culture, j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 3 either single, mature seeds are disinfected or, if the seeds are still unripe, then the still-closed fruit is disinfected. the embryos can then be aseptically removed from the ovules. the most important aspect of embryo culture work is selection of the medium necessary to sustain continued growth of the embryo. younger the embryo, more stringent is its requirement. although mature embryos can be grown on basal salt-media with a carbon-energy source such as sucrose, young embryos, in addition, require various vitamins, amino acids and growth regulators and, in some cases, natural endosperm extracts. young embryos should be transferred to a medium with high sucrose concentration (8-12%) which approximates the high osmotic potential of intracellular environment of the young embryo-sac, and, a combination of hormones that supports growth of heart-stage embryo (i.e., a moderate level of auxin and a low level of cytokinin). reduced organic nitrogen in the form of aspargine, glutamine or casein hydrolysate is always beneficial. malic acid is often added to the culture medium. after 1-2 weeks (when the embryo ceases to grow), it must be transferred to a second medium with normal sucrose concentration, low levels of auxin and a moderate level of cytokinin, which allows for renewed embryo growth, with direct shoot growth in many cases. where the embryo does not show direct shoot formation, it can be transferred to a medium for callus induction, followed by shoot induction. when the embryos have grown into plantlets in vitro, they are generally transferred to sterile soil and grown to maturity under greenhouse conditions. applications of embryo culture: prevention of abortion in wide crosses: development of intergeneric hybrids is possible: raphanus sativus x brassica napus; actinidia deliciosa x a. eriantha; actinidia deliciosa x a. arguata. carica and citrus also produced distant hybrids from their relatives using embryo rescue. in peach, a cross between an early japanese cultivar sunago wase and a chinese cultivar yuhualu resulted in ‘zaoxialu’ – an extra-early maturing hybrid (55 days to maturity, in hanzhou, china). some hybrids obtained through embryo rescue have recombined desirable genes like diseaseand pest-resistance in various agricultural crop species (table 1), besides inducing earliness. embryo rescue is also used to recover crosses between diploids and tetraploids. production of haploids: embryo culture can be used for production of haploids or monoploids. kasha & rao (1970) developed a technique to produce barley monoploids. interspecific crosses are made with hordeum bulbosum as the pollen parent, and the resulting hybrid embryos are cultured. but, these exhibit h. bulbosum chromosomeelimination, resulting in monoploids of the female parent h. vulgare. overcoming or breaking seed-dormancy: seed dormancy can be caused by numerous factors, including endogenous inhibitors, specific light-requirements, low temperature, dry-storage requirements and embryo immaturity. seeds of many species exhibit orthodox dormancy which, is, inhibition of germination by presence of certain plant hormones in tissues surrounding the embryo within a seed. examples of such species include apples, pears, peaches, cedars, hemlocks, pines, firs, maples and roses. dormancy can be a vexatious problem for growers and hybridizers alike. embryo culture allows rapid testing of seed viability where seed dormancy can be circumvented. removal of pericarp and testa from around the embryo removes the source of hormones that inhibit germination and, if all else is in place, allows the embryo to germinate and grow. it is a well-established technique, but, many previously-published protocols for embryo culture have complex and expensive culture requirements. seed dormancy in iris is due to the presence of a stable chemical inhibitor in the endosperm. in american basswood (tilia americana), the seed is borne within a tough, indehiscent pericarp where the resistance is mechanical. naturally-vegetatively propagated plants like bananas and colocasia produce seeds that do not germinate table 1: resistance traits transferred to a variety of agricultural crops using embryo rescue s.no. species crossed resistance trait/s 1 lycopersicon esculentum x virus, fungi, nematodes l. peruvianum 2 solanum melongena x brinjal fruit & shoot borer s. khasianum (leucinodes arbonlis) 3 solanum tuberosum x potato leaf-roll virus s. etuberosum 4 brassica oleracea x triazene resistance b. napus 5 brassica napus x cabbage aphid b. oleracea (kale) 6 triticum aestivum x salt-tolerance thinopyrum scirpeum 7 hordeum sativum x powdery mildew and spot-blotch h. vulgare 8 hordeum vulgare x powdery mildew h. bulbosum 9 oryza sativa x o. minuta blast (pyricularia grisea); bacterial blight (xanthomonas oryzae) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue in horticultural crops 4 in nature, probably due to recalcitrant dormancy. these stand to benefit from embryo culture (leela sahijram and doreswamy, 2000). shortening the breeding cycle: species that exhibit seed dormancy factors localized in the seed-coat, pericarp, endosperm, or all three benefit from removal of these inhibitors to promote seed germination, eg., brussels sprout, rose, apple, oil palm and iris. hollies (ilex) embryos remain in the immature heart stage even though the fruits may have reached maturity. it takes three years for ilex opaca seeds from mature berries to complete their embryonic development and to begin germination. through embryo rescue, hybrid plants from this can be obtained in 2-3 weeks. rosa normally takes a year to come to flowering; through embryo culture it was shown that it was possible to produce two generations in a year. prevention of embryo abortion with early-ripening stone fruits: early-ripening varieties of peach, cherry, apricot and plum produce sterile seeds (ramming, 1985) which do not germinate under natural conditions and, eventually, decay in the soil. seed-sterility here may be due to incomplete embryo-development. in early-ripening stone fruits, transport of water and nutrients to the immature embryo is cut off too soon sometimes, resulting in embryo abortion. precocious germination has been prevented in prunus through ovule culture, where the integument acts as a natural inhibitor (ramming, 1985). ‘makapuno’ coconuts are prized for their characteristic soft endosperm which fills the whole nut. these nuts fail completely to germinate because the endosperm invariably rots before the germinating embryo can emerge out of the shell. embryo culture has been practiced as a general method in horticultural crops including avocado, peach, nectarine and plum. two cultivars, ‘goldcrest peach’ and ‘mayfire nectarine’ have resulted from embryo culture and are now commercially grown. embryos for propagation/ conservation/ germplasm exchange: embryos are excellent material for in vitro preservation (leela sahijram and rajasekharan, 1998) and propagation (leela sahijram and doreswamy, 1989; 2000; 2004a), especially in conifers and in gramineae family. as per ipgri, rome, it is compulsory to exchange germplasm of coconut internationally using embryo cultures (otherwise, shipping of whole nuts is cumbersome besides requiring huge cargo-space on flights or ships). germination of seeds of obligatory parasites: parasitic plants produce seeds that can be germinated to produce plantlets only on their chosen host-plant. germination of seeds of obligate parasites in vivo without the host plant is impossible, but is achievable with embryo culture. insectivorous plants have also been shown to propagate successfully on a synthetic medium using these techniques. embryo rescue in fruit crops embryo rescue techniques in fruit crops have played an important role in breeding new, early-maturing seedless triploid types as well as obtaining distant hybrids preventing embryo degeneration at early development stage/s and shortening breeding cycle. application and progress of embryo rescue in fruit crop breeding was reviewed and several problems, e.g., suitable culture-period, nutrient and environment conditions studied (yi hualin et al, 2001). with interspecific crosses, intergeneric crosses, and crosses between diploids and tetraploids, the endosperm often develops poorly or not at all. a synthetic medium can compensate for lack of support from endosperm. mango mango (mangifera indica l.) is the leading fruit crop of india. in controlled crosses in breeding programmes of this crop, fruit-set in relation to the original number of flowers pollinated is extremely low, sometimes as low as 0.01% (iyer, 1991). therefore, our aim was to develop an embryo rescue based technology for improving breeding success. the mango has long been known to be a difficult system in traditional breeding programmes (brooks, 1912; mukherjee et al, 1968; singh et al, 1980) because of certain of its inherent characteristics which include: 1. long juvenile phase 2. high level of heterozygosity resulting in unpredictable outcome in hybridization 3. heavy fruit-drop leading to low retention of crossed fruits 4. one seed per fruit 5. polyembryony in some cultivars 6. large acreage required for meaningful assessment of hybrids classically, barring a few hybrid varieties resulting from planned hybridization programmes, almost all known cultivars have resulted from selection of chance seedlings from natural cross pollination. in florida and south africa, for example, none of the cultivars developed has come from a breeding programme. j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 5 modern horticultural and industrial requirements in mango breeding (iyer and degani, 1997) emphasize: 1. precocious bearing 2. dwarf tree habit 3. heavy and regular bearing 4. freedom from physiological disorders 5. resistance to major pests and diseases 6. good shipping qualities and shelf-life 7. ideal tree architecture floral biology and pollination in mango the total number of flowers in a panicle may vary from 1000 to 6000 (mukherjee, 1953). initial fruit-set in mango is directly related to the proportion of perfect (hermaphrodite) flowers to staminate flowers, although, the final fruit-set does not necessarily depend on this ratio. this proportion becomes critical for optimum fruit-set in a cultivar when the proportion drops to 1%. in self-pollinated cultivars like ‘dashehari’, ‘langra’, ‘chausa’ and ‘bombay green’, embryological studies have shown that although fertilization takes place after selfpollination, degeneration of endosperm occurs 15 days postpollination in the self-incompatible parent. the selfincompatibility system operating in mango therefore appears to be of the sporophytic type. leela sahijram and doreswamy (1987, 1988) initiated work on hybrid embryo culture and nucellar embryogeny in mango. in vitro hybrid embryo rescue was demonstrated successfully in mango (mangifera indica l.) breeding by leela sahijram and doreswamy (1990, 1991, 1992) and leela sahijram et al (2005). immature hybrid embryos from controlled crosses involving cvs. amrapali, alphonso and arka anmol as the female parent and ‘kerala dwarf’ as the male parent were successfully rescued using excised embryo culture. leela sahijram et al (2000) showed that determination of hybrid embryo success rate in mango was genotype-dependent while leela sahijram and ravindra (1997) worked out protocols for maturation of immature zygotic embryos from an intervarietal cross involving cvs. amrapali and kerala dwarf. breeding objectives in mango: developing cultivars with (i) regular bearing (ii) dwarf tree habit with precocity in bearing (iii) attractive, good-sized (300-500g), shape, good quality fruits (taste, flavour and firm flesh without fibre), high pulp:stone ratio with regard to improvement of rootstocks by breeding, the main desirable features are: 1. polyembryony (a recessive trait) 2. dwarfing influence on the scion 3. tolerance to adverse soil conditions (ph, calcareous soil, etc.) 4. good scion-compatibility in the late 1980s, the authors initiated embryo rescue work the on controlled cross ‘mulgoa’ x ‘neelum’ and successfully obtained hybrid plantlets in vitro. however, the hybrids on transfer to soil could not survive for more than four months. with this experience, another strategy was applied to the further crosses carried out by the group. the delicate and vulnerable hybrid vitroplantlets were micrografted ex vitro onto the rootstock seedling as has been elaborated later in this paper. breeding for special objectives dwarfness for orchard management and fruit quality: owing to the obvious benefits of comparatively dwarf trees for orchard management and fruit quality, attempts were focused on obtaining hybrids with a dwarf tree framework. breeding for dwarfness is important in mango, since, a consistent dwarfing effect of any rootstock has not been established to date. indian cultivars found to be useful as a source of imparting dwarfness include ‘kerala dwarf’, ‘amrapali’, ‘janardhan pasand’ and ‘nileshwar dwarf’ (singh, 1990; iyer and subramanyam, 1986). controlled crossing was effected initially for three consecutive years by the authors, using following mango varieties identified on the basis of breeding priority: s. no. cross-combination 1. ‘amrapali’ x ‘kerala dwarf’ – (akd) 2. ‘alphonso’ x ‘kerala dwarf’ – (alk) 3. ‘arka anmol’ x ‘kerala dwarf’ – (ankd) 4. open-pollinated totapuri (optp) young fruitlets from these crosses involving monoembryonate cultivars were harvested at 4-6 weeks post-pollination and excised embryos cultured in vitro. in akd, 67.24% (39 out of 58) excised embryos cultured on defined media formed normal plantlets in vitro, while, in optp 15 out of 20 (75%) embryos cultured formed plantlets. season i data on in vitro culture and regeneration response is presented in table 2. type of initial response in ‘alphonso’ j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue in horticultural crops 6 x ‘kerala dwarf’ (alk) is shown in table 3 which draws attention to the fact that nearly 93% of fruitlets from a controlled cross may be lost to unforeseen circumstances. table 4 shows the same cross in year ii up to transfer of hybrid plantlets into mini-pots. table 2: data on controlled crossing in ‘alphonso’ x ‘kerala dwarf’ in year i parameter result total no. of panicles used for crossing 487 total no. of flowers used as female parent 2646 fruit set (no.) 208 % fruit set 7.86% no. of fruits lost to leaf hopper infestation/ 193 (92.8%) sooty mold no. of exciseable hybrid embryos 15 ratio of panicle to fruit set 1:0.42 ratio of flowers crossed to fruit set 176.4:1 table 3: data on culture and regeneration response of hybrid embryos in mango in season i parameter ankd* optp** no. % no. % a. no. of embryos 243 na 232 na inoculated b. no. of embryos 185 76.13 170 73.28 forming plantlets in vitro c. no. of plants 206 84.77 134 57.76 transferred from culture vessel into minipot d. no. of potted plants 48 25.95 24 14.12 surviving primary transplantation e. no. of potted plants 10 4.11 2 0.86 surviving secondary transplantation *ankd: ‘arka anmol’ x ‘kerala dwarf’; **optp: open-pollinated ‘totapuri’; na: not applicable table 4: data on controlled crossing and hybrid plants transferred ex vitro in ‘alphonso’ x ‘kerala dwarf ’ cross in year ii parameter result no. of panicles used for crossing 221 no. of flowers used as female parent 857 average no. of flowers crossed/panicle 3.878 initial fruit-set (no.) 57 no. of fruits lost to fruit drop 7 % fruit-set 6.65% no. of fruits used for embryo excision 50 no. of cultures contaminated in vitrovent vessels 7 no. of cultures showing no response 4 no. of plants transferred to mini-pots 39 comparative analysis of reproduction parameters for three years on controlled crossing in this cross is presented in table 5. table 5. comparative analysis of reproduction parameters for three years on controlled crossing in ‘alphonso’ x ‘kerala dwarf’ parameter year i year ii year iii no. of panicles used for 496 221 487 crossing no. of flowers used as 3531 857 2646 female parent fruit-set (no.) 164 57 208 % fruit-set 4.64% 6.65% 7.86% ratio of flowers crossed to 22:1 15:1 13:1 fruit-set no. of fruits used for embryo 109 50 15 excision a comparison was made between survival rate of hybrids of ‘amrapali’ x ‘kerala dwarf’ and open-pollinated ‘totapuri’ (table 6). table 6: comparative survival rate of plantlets at different stages of development in vitro and ex vitro particulars ‘amrapali’ x open-pollinated ‘kerala dwarf’ ‘totapuri’ % of embryos forming 67.24 75.1 plantlets in vitro % survival of plants from 56.40 51.0 test-tube to pot success % in survival from 100.00 80.3 pot stage to field although the rate of ‘normal plantlet’ formation in vitro in akd during the first season (fig.1) was very high (67.24%), mortality from the stage of culture vessel to fieldplanting (through mini-pots and later, into large pots) was very high too (48.7%), ie., only 20 hybrid plantlets out of 39 akd survived to the field-planting stage (survival rate 51.3%). in optp, only 20% of the plantlets survived fieldplanting. in the following season, in alk, 88 hybrid embryos out of a total of 109 from the controlled cross formed plantlets in vitro (ie., 80.73%). of the 88 hybrid plantlets transferred extra vitrum, only 2 survived to the field-establishment stage (ie., 2.27% survival rate). in the same year (1999), 105 embryos of optp formed plantlets in vitro out of 127 embryos cultured (ie., 82.68%). four optp plantlets survived upto the final field-establishment stage (ie., 3.81% survival rate). in the third season, in ankd, 244 hybrid embryos were excised and cultured in vitro of which 177 formed normal plantlets (72.5%). in optp, of the 232 embryos, 166 formed plantlets in vitro ie., 79.55%. plantlets were transplanted into soil in minipots and subsequently, into large pots. in ‘amrapali’ x ‘kerala’ dwarf (akd), 69.23% cultures responded, with shoot and root induction. upon j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 7 normal plantlet development, the hybrid vitroplants were transplanted extra vitrum in a phased manner into minipots. eight weeks later, these hybrid plants were transferred to larger pots and finally, into the field. field-established plants showed overall survival percentage of 34.4% in akd and 20.0% in optp. in the controlled cross alphonso x kerala dwarf (alk) and open-pollinated totapuri (optp), induction of rooting was achieved in 70.9% and 72.4% cultures, respectively, in season ii. performance of alk and optp was comparable (77.8 and 77.5%, respectively) on medium containing 1500 mg/l casein hydrolysate (ch) and 6% sucrose (w/v). optp responded best (87.5%) on medium containing 1000 mg/l ch + 3% sucrose (w/v). cultures showing both shoot and root induction were transplanted extra vitrum into large, polyvinyl pots. in all, 80.7% cultures of alk and 82.7% of optp were transferred to soil. after 4 – 5 months, the plants were transferred to large earthen pots. finally, an overall survival percentage of 4.54% and 3.81%, respectively, of alk and optp plants was obtained. in season iii (year 2000), 84.77% of ankd cultures and 57.76% of optp cultures developed into plantlets in vitro. overall percentage survival in ankd was found to be 4.11, and 0.86 in optp. controlled crosses between the parental lines ‘alphonso’ x ‘kerala dwarf’ (alk) were repeated owing to poor survival in the earlier cross. embryo excision was carried out at 6-8 weeks post-pollination (wpp). of these, 78% of vitroplants were transferred to mini-pots (leela sahijram et al, 1999, 2009). direct crossing between these parental lines (alk) was repeated. zygotic embryos here too were excised at 6 – 8 weeks post-pollination. in all, during five seasons of explanting, various controlled crosses were made with ‘kerala dwarf’ as the male parent. cultivars amrapali, alphonso, arka anmol and ratnagiri alphonso were used as the female parent. openpollinated totapuri, alphonso and ratnagiri alphonso were also used in the study. zygotic embryos were excised aseptically at 5 to 8 weeks post-pollination and inoculated onto modified semisolid ms medium with complex growth addenda. factors detrimental to initial embryo growth and development were found to be fungal/ bacterial contamination, excessive exudation of phenolics into the medium, and failure of the embryo to respond. a protocol was earlier also worked out for the cross ‘mulgoa’ x ‘neelum’. using immature zygotic embryos as starter explants, leela sahijram et al (1996) could also induce somatic embryogenesis in mango embryos / nucellus and elucidate factors influencing the same. these plantlets did not survive beyond four months of ex vitro transfer. ex vitro shoot-tip grafting (ex vitro stg) in the earlier seasons, transfer of vitroplants to soil resulted in very high mortality despite a healthy status of these plants at transplanting. hence, a novel technique of ex vitro shoot-tip grafting (ex vitro stg) was devised by the authors (leela sahijram, 2009; anon., 2002) using ‘totapuri’ as the rootstock. the hybrids were grown to maturity and evaluated. further multiplication of these hybrids was done onvarious rootstocks. ‘totapuri’ (rootstock) stones were germinated in the traditional manner in seed pans on a sand medium. shoot apices of the hybrid plantlets were excised and grafted ex vitro onto the rootstock using the epicotyl grafting technique. diameter of the scion shoot apex at the cut surface was 2 4 mm. graft-union established successfully in 3 weeks table 7. comparison between cross-combinations in crosses effected during five years season cross no. of % embryos % cultures survival % from combination* embryos forming plantlets surviving transplant mini-pot stage excised for in vitro culture into mini-pot to larger pots/field 1998 akd 58 67.24 56.80 34.48 o p t p 20 75.00 50.00 20.00 1999 alk 109 80.73 80.73 1.83 o p t p 127 82.67 82.67 2.36 2000 ankd 243 76.13 84.77 4.11 o p t p 232 73.28 57.76 0.86 2001 alk 50 70.80 78.00 0.00 2002 alk 15 73.33 60.00 66.70 opra 63 63.49 45.00 72.22 o p t p 23 60.86 92.85 92.31 opa 17 35.29 66.70 100.00 *akd= amrapali x kerala dwarf; optp= open-pollinated ‘totapuri’; alk= ‘alphonso’ x ‘kerala dwarf’; ankd= ‘arka anmol’ x ‘kerala dwarf’; opra= open-pollinated rathnagiri alphonso; opa= open-pollinated alphonso j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue in horticultural crops 8 fig 1. hybrid embryo rescue in mango cross ‘amrapali’ x ‘kerala dwarf’: a. in vitro growth of embryo; b. secondary root induction; c. hybrid vitroplantlets ready for transfer; d. etiolated seedling of cv. totapuri for receipt of graft; e. ex vitro shoot-tip grafting; f. graft-union secured: g. polybagged graft; h. development in minipots; i. field-establishment of hybrid; j. flowering hybrid; k. fruit induction; l. mature fruits a b c d e f g h i j k l j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 9 and, at the end of 8 weeks, the scions showed vigorous growth and development. overall graft success rate was 79.54%. ex vitro stg was carried out using vitroplantlets of alphonso x kerala dwarf, open-pollinated alphonso (opa), ratnagiri alphonso (opra) and totapuri (optp) with a success rate of 66.7%, 100%, 72.2% and 92.31%, respectively. these grafts were transferred to polybags of size 9" height x 7" diameter containing sand, soil and vermicompost @ 1:1:1 at 10-12 weeks. further, the grafts were transferred to larger pots containing sand, soil and farmyard manure @ 1:1:1, at 6 months. these grafts were further field-planted and hybrids evaluated for desirable traits (fig. 1). results of crosses effected during five years are compared and summarized in table 7. molecular studies on putative mango hybrids obtained through embryo culture morphological parameters of the two parents in a cross and their hybrid progeny can be compared to look for clear-cut differences. morphological traits, however, are subject to environmental influences and can be misleading. besides, these lack power of resolution to identify hybrids at juvenile stages, for which it becomes necessary to wait until plant maturity (debbarama et al, 2013). distant crosses rescued through embryo rescue can be confirmed for hybridity using molecular markers such as rapd, aflp, etc. therefore, testing of hybridity using molecular markers is advantageous, as, it obviates these hindrances. molecular markers miniand micro-satellite dna markers are highly polymorphic in many species due to a variable number of tandem repeats. dna fingerprints obtained by hybridization of miniand micro-satellite probes with genomic dna were shown to be useful for cultivar identification. dna fingerprint information for identification of nucellar and zygotic seedlings was attempted. for this purpose, dna was isolated using ctab method from fully mature leaves of 6 month old seedlings (stones with single-plants, as well as polyembryonic seedlings) and from field-grown mother trees. dna samples were quantified using spectrophotometer and confirmed for presence of dna using agarose gel electrophoresis. to multiply jeffrey’s minisatellite probe (33.6 plasmid dna was used as the probe), the plasmid was incorporated into dh5a e. coli competent cells and cultured on lb agar medium with ampicillin @ 50mg/ml. single colonies from the transformed ones were isolated and inoculated onto the same medium. after adequate growth of the culture, the plasmid was isolated and checked for presence of minisatellite 33.6 (700 bp dna) on 0.8% agarose gel, using restriction enzymes bam h1 and ecor1. further development of the non-radioactive labelled probe (33.6 minisatellite), restriction digestion of the plant genomic dna and southern transfer/hybridization was worked out. pcr-amplification using issr primers issr primers ubc 814, 835, 841, 844, 848, 868, 873, 881, 898, 901 were used. the reaction mixture (20µl) contained 10mm tris-hcl (ph 8.3), 50 mm kcl, 2.0 mm mgcl 2 , 0.2 mm mixed dntp, 1 mm primer, 0.5 unit taq polymerase and 25 ng/µl of genomic dna. dna amplification was obtained through 40 cycles (92o c for 1 min, 42o c for 1 min 30 sec and 72o c for 1min 30 sec), followed by extension at 72o c for 8 min. of the ten issr primers used, only six (ubc 835, 841, 848, 868, 873, 898) showed amplification. bands amplified in the hybrids were similar to that in the parents suggesting that these were true hybrids. forward and reverse primers, viz., 1f1r, 5f5r, 6f6r and 9f9r were also used, of which 1f1r, 6f6r and 9f9r showed amplification. seedless grapes the second food crop to be fully sequenced genomically after rice is the grape. improvement in grape is slow and time-consuming since the crop is heterozygous and exhibits pronounced inbreeding depression (leela sahijram, 2011). thompson seedless is the ruling variety of grape in india and other parts of the world, but, is susceptible to downy mildew disease caused by the fungal pathogen plasmopara viticola. obtaining a downy mildew resistant thompson seedless would be a boon to the global viticulture industry, resulting in massive savings in pesticide-use while providing a cleaner, safer environment. seedless grapes are stenospermocarpic, in that, these form embryos successfully, but the embryo does not develop, and aborts due to inability of the ovular wall to expand. these embryos can, however, be rescued before they abort by initially culturing the whole ovule; after about eight weeks, the developing embryo can be dissected out from the ovule and grown on a different medium. this is termed ‘sequential embryo culture’. ramming (1990) pioneered hybrid embryo rescue in seedless grape breeding. sequential hybrid embryo rescue was carried out by the authors using ‘thompson seedless’ as the maternal parent and 15 different pollen-donor parents j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue in horticultural crops 10 fig 2. sequential embryo culture in thompson seedless grape breeding: a. grape bunch at six weeks post-pollination with seed traces; b. enlarged longitudinal section of fruitlet; c. in ovulo embryo culture; d. excised embryo under high magnification; e. germination of hybrid embryos; f. transfer of plantlets to liquid medium; g. hybrids transplanted into polybags; h. plants ready for shifting to glasshouse; i. acclimatization in glasshouse; j. field-establishment of hybrids a b c d e f g h i j j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 11 (tables 8) variously resistant to downy mildew disease caused by the deuteromycetan fungal pathogen (leela sahijram, 2005), as mentioned above. open-pollinated ‘thompson seedless’ was also used by the authors who used a 2-step in vitro procedure: in ovulo embryo culture followed by ex ovulo embryo culture (sequential embryo transfer) to rescue immature embryos of these conventionally intractable crosses (kanamadi et al, 1996, 1999a,b,c; leela sahijram and kanamadi, 2004; leela sahijram et al, 2005a,b; anon., 2005). in our studies (leela sahijram, 2004b), we found that pollen-donor parent overwhelmingly determined the outcome of crossing and success rate thereof (table 9). from the directed crosses, of the 1500 hybrids generated and grown in the glasshouse, about 700 were transferred to the field (fig. 2), established to maturity and evaluated for downy mildew resistance while retaining desirable pomological qualities of the seed-parent. in some crosses involving seedless x seedless parents, the authors have demonstrated through histological studies that the zygote does not develop beyond first cell division (i.e., 2-cell stage). table 9. comprehensive data on crossing ‘thompson seedless’ (female parent) and 15 pollen-donor parents resistant to downy mildew sl. male parent no. of total no. of ovules obtained total total total no. of no. panicles no.of 6-11 weeks post-pollination no. of no. of no. of fully used buds berries ovules apparently developed used 6 7 8 9 10 dissected recovered viable plants in a cross embryos regenerated 1 v. tilifolia 5 700 31 53 81 289 165 28 24 2 madras field 4 1070 21 41 24 48 303 134 38* 54 court 3 f. veltiner 4 630 8 26 76 0 276 110 36* 39 4 v. candicans 6 1230 0 0 29 10 446 39 2* 3 5 s. v. 12375 1 80 na 0 0 0 0 6 s. v. 23501 2 230 0 5 123 5 0 2 7 s.v. 18315 4 460 55 103 14 247 172 20 11 8 s. v. 12309 3 360 10 30 18 146 58 21* 27 9 catawaba 3 360 12 1 47 192 60 7* 18 10 james 3 210 23 51 43 195 117 16 15 11 riparia x 3 180 114 20 161 134 21 20 rupestris 12 s. v. 12364 6 415 41 44 104 269 189 35* 48 13 v. assamica 3 210 19 92 191 111 20* 26 14 s. v. 18402 3 220 17 34 225 51 8 7 15 v. lanata 1 100 8 44 8 3 0 total 51 6455 3107 1353 255* 294 opts# 52 37 11 8 total no. of crosses = 15 source: leela sahijram et al, 2005b average no. of buds used per panicle = 127 ovules harvested at an age ranging from 6-11 weeks post-pollination *no. of apparently viable embryos but some of the apparently non-viable embryos also developed into plantlets #open-pollinated thompson seedless table 8. data for year i on crossing ‘thompson seedless’ (female parent) with 14 downy mildew resistant pollen-donor parents, and, open-pollinated ‘thompson seedless’ sl. pollen-donor total no. no. of % hybrid no. parent used of ovules fully plants cultured developed recovered from hybrid the cross plantlets recovered 1 vitis tilifolia 165 28 16.97 2 ‘madras field court’ 134 57 42.54 3 fruehort veltliner 110 48 43.64 4 vitis candicans 39 3 7.69 5 ‘sv 23501’ 5 0 0.00 6 ‘sv 18315’ 172 14 8.14 7 ‘sv 12309’ 58 33 56.90 8 ‘catawaba’ 60 23 38.33 9 ‘james’ 117 19 16.241 10 ‘riparia x rupestris’ 134 25 18.66 11 ‘sv 12364’ 189 64 33.86 12 vitis assamica 111 26 23.42 13 ‘sv 18402’ 51 11 21.57 14 vitis lanata 8 0 0.00 15 open-pollinated 37 13 35.14 thompson seedless total 1390 364 26.19 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue in horticultural crops 12 bharathy et al (2003, 2005) in their study on ‘thompson seedless’, ‘flame seedless’ and eight other varieties of grape found embryo recovery to increase significantly with application of benzyladenine a cytokinin at pre-flowering and flowering stages. maximum embryo recovery (47.57%) was obtained with ‘thompson seedless’ (ts) × ‘concord’, followed by ts × sv18402 (29.75%). murthy et al (2006) achieved field-establishment and screened embryo-rescued hybrid seedlings of grape with special reference to downy mildew. molecular markers: leela sahijram and raghavendra (2005), raghavendra et al (2006) and leela sahijram and bhaskara reddy (2009) from the authors’ laboratory carried out molecular studies using issr markers in seedless grape hybrids generated by the authors and confirmed their hybridity. papaya leela sahijram and doreswamy (1993) tested the efficacy of using placental cultures for rescuing hybrid embryos from controlled crosses involving carica papaya and vasconcellia cauliflora. they were able to induce transient expression of anthocyanin gene (inky-blue in colour) in placental cultures of hybrid papaya. intergeneric and interspecific crosses were used for hybrid embryo rescue and hybrid plants were recovered. vitroplantlets were transplanted into soil ex vitro (fig. 3). seedless lime prasad et al (1996) emphasized the importance of embryo rescue in improving seedless lime quality. controlled crossing between ‘seedless lime’ and acid lime resulted in immature zygotic embryos that were rescued in vitro (fig. 4) and grown to maturity in the field. the objective here was to develop a hybrid of acid lime with resistance to citrus canker. role of embryo culture techniques in improvement of fruit quality in seedless lime was elucidated by prasad et al (1996). rao et al (2011) highlighted the importance of genetic resources in citrus fruits and their exploitation in citrus improvement programmes using various in vitro techniques such as embryo rescue, nucellus culture, etc. banana c o m m e r c i a l l y popular varieties are seedless owing to their triploid status. protocols have been developed for rescuing excised hybrid embryos from crosses involving musa acuminata and m. balbisiana (fig. 5). hybrid plants were raised to maturity in the field and evaluated (doreswamy and leela sahijram, 1991, 1993; chadha and leela sahijram, 2000). the hybrids were added to the germplasm pool in the institute for further use in breeding. olive acebedo et al (1997) found the growth of plantlets derived from in vitro germinated embryos in the greenhouse to be normal. thus, embryo culture can increase the efficiency and shorten the time for starting initial progeny evaluation and thereby speeding up seedling development in olive breeding programmes. vegetable crops wide-hybridization to a vegetable breeder and cytogeneticist is the first step in transferring genes from fig 4. breeding seedless lime x acid lime: hybrid embryos rescued in vitro (left) and potted hybrids (right) fig 3. intergeneric breeding strategy in papaya: hybrid plantlets in vitro (top) and transfer to soil (bottom) fig 5. rescued interspecific cross musa acuminata x m. balbisiana: a. excised embryo on semisolid medium; b. germination; c. plantlet development; d. profuse rooting in the hybrid banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 13 wild species into cultivated ones. embryo rescue technique has been successfully demonstrated in tomato, capsicum, chillies, okra and radish. in india, embryo culture work has been initiated in okra for rescuing interspecific hybrids. the following literature is by no means an exhaustive account of work done. tomato smith (1944) and demirel & seniz (1997) made observations on the possibility of utilizing embryo culture for improvement of tomato. for in vitro breeding in tomato, aragao et al (2002) used three culture media in combination with distinct accessions, crossing generations, and periods of time after artificial pollination, and evaluated them to identify more efficient protocols to recover interspecific hybrids between lycopersicon esculentum and l. esculentum. bhattarai et al (2009) found germination of immature seeds to be a better alternative to culture of excised immature embryos in hastening tomato breeding programmes. capsicum / chilli in the state of meghalaya in india, chilli is the third most important spice crop after ginger and turmeric. however, diseases namely, tobacco mosaic virus, root rot, tomato spotted wilt virus, etc. lead to considerable decline in yield. capsicum chinense, c. annuum and c. frutescens were crossed with each other and embryos rescued between 27-33 days after pollination. highest percentage of embryo growth was observed on ms medium with 0.5 mg/l ga 3 and 0.05 mg/l naa. hybrid plants were obtained and their hybridity confirmed using morphological as well as rapd markers (debbarama et al., 2013). radish intergeneric herbicide-resistance transfer to radish has been recently accomplished using embryo rescue (mithila and hall, 2012). for introgressing auxinic herbicide (dicamba) resistance from wild mustard (sinapis arvensis) into radish (raphanus sativus; 2n=18), embryo regeneration and hybrid plant production was achieved involving several hundred reciprocal crosses performed between these two species. upon altering cultural conditions and media composition, a high frequency of embryo regeneration and hybrid plant establishment was achieved. okra as resistance is not available in cultivated species of okra [abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench.], interspecific crosses were made between a. esculentus and a. moschatus (resistant wild species) to develop resistant varieties. post-zygotic incompatibility was found to operate between the species. crossed seeds were shriveled and non-viable. in vitro embryo rescue to overcome the incompatibility revealed that culturing 12 and 15 day old embryos of a. esculentus var. kiran (a high yielding line) x a. moschatus and a. esculentus var. anakomban (a landrace) x a. moschatus on ms medium supplemented with ba 0.5 mg l-1 and cw 150 ml l-1 yielded transplantable hybrids. embryos of crosses a. moschatus x a. esculentus (i.e., reciprocal cross) turned brown by the 11th day of pollination and could not be cultured in vitro (rajamony et al, 2006). the authors’ laboratory has initiated work on in ovulo and ex ovulo culture of okra embryos (fig. 6) with a view to generating interspecific hybrids in the long run. in another study (fatokun, 1987), crosses were made between members of two west african okra types, ‘soudanien’ and ‘guineen’. all crosses succeeded in both directions but f 1 plants that showed hybrid vigour for plant stature were partially sterile. cytological observations of these f 1 plants revealed abnormal meiosis which resulted in production of microspores of variable size. frequency of viable pollen (indicated by acetocarmine staining) was low in the hybrids: 35.80% (u.i.92× u.i.313) and 39.41% (1bk-1×u.i.215). number of seeds produced per fruit was also low in the hybrids and only a few of these seeds were viable. brinjal incompatibility barrier was overcome in brinjal in f1 hybrids of the interspecific cross involving solanum melongena and s. macrocarpon. reciprocal crosses made by the breeder resulted in f2 progeny. bc1 backcross 1, [bc(h1 x m) pl. 3] (fig. 7), was rescued and has been transferred to soil for evaluation (leela sahijram and padmini, unpublished data 2013). fig 6. in ovulo embryo culture in okra j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue in horticultural crops fig 7. hybrid plantlet of brinjal rescued from an interspecific cross 14 artichoke globe artichoke breeders have two important problems: lengthy seed-to-seed cycle, and seed-borne diseases caused by fungal pathogens. both problems can be solved by embryo rescue. embryos were collected from five cultivars in different post-pollination stages (cravero and crointy, 2007). root induction was poor, but shoot development per explant was better. twenty days were required as the optimal time for embryo rescue. ornamental crops van tuyl and lim (2003) reviewed interspecific hybridization and polyploidization as tools in ornamental plant breeding. several crops in floriculture have benefitted from in vitro interventions in breeding programmes. some of the successes are reported herein. rose marchant et al (1994) used embryo culture for production of f1 hybrids in english rose. rout et al (1999) reviewed advances made in the biotechnology of rose and holeman (2009) outlined a simplified method of embryo culture in rose. hybrid / zygotic embryos were rescued form controlled crosses and open-pollination, respectively, in rose cultivars. mohapatra and rout (2005) in their study on embryo rescue in floribunda roses rescued immature embryos from “arunima’ and “shocking blue’ roses. time required for breeding roses through conventional breeding, for example, is very long. it is occasionally hampered by premature abortion of the developing embryo, resulting in few or no viable seeds (rout et al., 1999). rose is highly heterozygous. lack of germination is due to mechanical restriction of embryo-expansion by presence of a thick, hard pericarp or due to dormancy regulated by growth inhibitors present within the achene. there are also a few reports of culture of mature embryos in vitro. embryo rescue in rosa hybrida and english roses is also reported from elsewhere. gudin (1994) also demonstrated the usefulness of embryo rescue in rosa hybrida l. lilies / liliums in order to introduce new traits such as disease resistances, flower shape and colour from wild species into the cultivar assortment of lily, it is necessary to overcome interspecific crossing barriers. several techniques like the cut-style method, the grafted-style method and in vitro isolated ovule pollination technique, have been developed to overcome pre-fertilization barriers. post-fertilization barriers can be circumvented by in vitro pollination and/or rescue methods as embryo, ovary-slice and ovule culture. using these techniques, wide interspecific lily crosses with species and cultivars from the different sections of the genus lilium (l. longiflorum, l. henryi, l. canadense, l. pardalinum, l. concolor, l. dauricum, l. candidum, l. rubellum, l. martagon, asiatic and oriental hybrids) could be made (van tuyl et al, 2000; van tuyl et al, 2002) and breakthroughs achieved. interspecific hybrids have been developed in liliums using early-stage ovule culture in vitro (wang et al, 2009). yuan et al (2003) demonstrated shortening of breeding cycle in spider lilies (lycoris spp.) through embryo culture. differential ovule development following self and cross pollination and the basis of self-sterility in narcissus triandrus (amaryllidaceae) was shown by sage et al, 1999. earlier, hayashi et al (1986) demonstrated ovary-slice culture in lilium formosanum wallace and ikeda et al in 2003 produced seedlings from ovules excised at a time when they contained zygote stage of the hybrid product and cultured them in lilium spp. pelargonium as a means of integration of in vitro techniques in ornamental plant breeding, bentvelsen et al (1990) made interspecific crosses in pelargonium by applying embryo rescue methods. some reports of artificial hybrids are available but no evidence of natural hybridization is seen. alstroemeria interspecific hybridization in the genus alstroemeria is hindered by post-fertilization barriers (buitendijk et al, 1995). histological analysis revealed poor endosperm development from 18 days after pollination onwards, followed by malformation and abortion of embryos. to create interspecific hybrids between alstroemeria aurea, a. pelegrina, a. magnifica, a. inodora and a. psittacina in diallelic combinations, an ovule culture technique was developed. influence of age of ovules, sucrose concentration of medium and temperature and light during culture were tested. harvesting ovules before the onset of endosperm degeneration, i.e. at 14 days after pollination, cutting them into halves and culturing the micropylar halves in a rotating liquid culture medium containing 6% sucrose at 21 °c in the dark, led to successful embryo rescue. germinated embryos were sub-cultured in vitro until rhizomes were formed, a prerequisite for successful transfer to the greenhouse. full grown plants all showed interspecific morphological traits j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 15 and analysis of chromosome complement confirmed their hybrid nature. diploid hybrid plants were obtained in all the 20 interspecific 2x-2x combinations. a total of 260 interspecific hybrid plants were produced. half-ovule culture of 2x-4x and 4x-2x crosses resulted in 43 triploid hybrid plants. because interspecific hybrids were obtained in 100% of the interspecific combinations, it is expected that the described technique can be applied to overcome postfertilization barriers in most crosses within the genus alstroemeria. chunsheng and bridgen (1996) studied the effect of genotype, culture medium and developmental stage of the embryo on in vitro responses of ovule cultures in the interspecific hybrids of alstromeria. cacti embryo rescue and plant regeneration has been successfully demonstrated in cacti following interspecific crosses in the genus hylocereus (aroldo and noemi, 2010). gynogenesis has also been shown to be possible in the vine cacti hylocereus and selenicereus by benega-garcia et al (2009). other ornamental crops in primulas, kato et al (2001) obtained different genomic combinations in inter-section hybrids from crosses in primulas through embryo rescue. two types of triploids with different genome combinations were generated. interspecific hybridization in rhododendron has been shown to be possible using embryo rescue in the genus rhododendron (tom eeckhaut et al, 2007). other attempts at embryo rescue include that in narcissus and zinnia (miyajima, 2006) and ornithogalum (josephina, 1990). kasten and kunert (1991) devised a method for culture of isolated immature embryos of various lupins (lupinus species); custers (1995) overcame interspecific crossing barriers in tulips using embryo rescue by successful direct transfer of tulipa kaufmanniana regel germplasm into that of t. gesneriana l. tuber crops: cassava cassava is one of the most-planted tuber crops in the tropical world. importance of cassava is growing as a food security crop in sub-saharan africa, where malnutrition is a menace. however, a major hindrance in fast improvement of the crop is a long generational-cycle in this crop, poor germination of the seeds, and low multiplication-rate of the stem cuttings. in vitro germination of 495 seeds from a backcross population was done. each genotype was multiplied for sufficient planting material, hardened in the greenhouse and transplanted to the field. percentage germination of the seeds in embryo culture was high (66%). raising plantlets in the greenhouse was found to be useful to select healthy plants and, thus, obtain a uniform stand in the field. the genotypes were planted in a single row trial and harvested eight months after planting. transplanted plantlets gave 98.89% establishment. yield-related traits were significantly high compared to results from past experiments. the high percentage of plant recovery from seed through to the field, is a means of overcoming some problems associated with traditional methods of cassava breeding through direct seed planting, to generate planting material (akinbo et al, 2010). basic studies carried out using embryo culture: in addition to applied uses of embryo culture, the procedure is useful in basic studies. growing embryos outside the ovule (ex ovulo) is an excellent way to study nutrition and metabolism of the embryo at various stages of its development. the technique can also be used to examine growth requirements of embryos, effects of phytohormones and environmental conditions on zygotic embryogenesis, and the regeneration potential of whole embryos or their segments (bridgen, 1994). embryo culture can be used to localize sites of germination promoters and inhibitors, for studies on embryogenesis, and for cryopreservation. embryo culture is useful in understanding precocious germination. studies have shown that seed tissues play an important role in regulating development of embryos in situ. cotyledon growth stops almost immediately upon excision of immature embryo, indicating probable cessation of cell division, as seen in cotton. an embryo is programmed to germinate even when it is very small. in situ the embryo may not germinate because it lacks the germination-mrna. but, removal of the seed from its environment activates the required machinery of embryo cells to synthesize the information necessary for germination. it has been shown in cotton that germination-specific mrna is normally transcribed when cotyledons are about 3/5th their final size. however, to check precocious germination that may lead to vivipary (a lethal development), translation of mrna is prevented by simultaneous appearance of abscisic acid (aba) in the seed. embryo excised at this stage undergoes precocious germination which suggests, that, aba is contained in tissues surrounding the embryo rather than j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 hybrid embryo rescue in horticultural crops 16 in the embryo itself. this conclusion is also supported by the fact that exogenous application of aba to excised embryos also prevents their precocious germination. accumulation of aba during late stages of seed development has been shown to occur in a number of plants. other non-conventional approaches to breeding crop plants include: 1. induction of haploidy through androgenesis or gynogenesis and subsequent diploidization, as a shortcut to breeding 2. generation of triploids through endosperm culture 3. in vitro mutation breeding 4. development of biotic/abiotic stress-resistant plants by challenging plant tissues in vitro with the specific stressant 5. somatic hybridization using protoplast isolation, culture and fusion 6. production of transgenics using one or more of the following technologies: (i) microinjecting foreign dna (ii) use of biolistics (gene gun/ helium gun) (iii) vector-mediated transformation conclusion a very important and valuable biotechnological tool for raising hybrid progeny in intractable crosses is embryo rescue. it is most often used to rescue embryos from interspecific and intergeneric crosses and from embryos that do not fully develop naturally (as in early-ripening and seedless fruit crops where the embryo aborts). distantly related plant species in a breeding programme (‘wide hybridization’) may result in no/aborted hybrid embryos. seedless parents may be unable to produce seeds in a cross. alternately, breeding may be hindered owing to heavy fruitdrop in the early stages of fruit development. in all such cases, hybrid embryo rescue is a very powerful and useful tool and an indispensable technique. the method also can be used to rescue seedless triploid embryos, produce haploids, overcome seed dormancy, or determine seed viability. it is useful in understanding embryo morphogenesis and precocious germination. as research continues with this technique, new and valuable uses will be developed to assist biotechnological breeding of plants. embryo rescue / culture as a technique has found wide acceptance and utilization. many interspecific and intergenetic hybrids have been successfully produced by culturing immature embryos that normally do not survive to maturity in situ. embryo culture techniques are also used to rescue embryos from early maturing fruit varieties, to hasten maturation in some species and to overcome dormancy requirements in others. in ovulo embryo culture facilitates embryo development from the zygote stage to maturity when the ovule is cultured. a few interspecific and intergeneric hybrids have been made by first accomplishing fertilization in vitro, then culturing the ovules to maturity. self-incompatibility in some species can be circumvented with these techniques. the potential of these may be a viable alternative to parasexual hybridization and somatic embryogenesis. references acebedo, m.m., lavee, s., linan, j. and troncoso, a. 1997. in vitro germination of embryos for speeding up seedling development in olive breeding programmes. sci. hort., 69(3-4):207-215 akinbo, o., m. labuschagne and m. fregene. 2010. embryo rescue as a method to develop and multiply a backcross population of cassava (manihot esculenta crantz) from an interspecific cross of manihot esculenta ssp. flabellifolia. afr. j. biotechnol. 9(42):7058-7062 anon. 2002. new technology: ex-vitro shoot tip grafting in hybrid vitroplants of mango obtained through embryo rescue in vitro. iihr newslett., bangalore, india, xxiii oct.-dec. 2002, 4:2 anon. 2005. promising technologies: hybrid embryo technology developed in grape. icar news, new delhi, india, july-sept 2005, 11(3):1-2 aragao, f.a.s., ribeiro, c.s da c., casali, v.w.d. and giordano, l. de b. 2002. tomato embryo culture for introgression of genes of lycopersicon peruvianum in l. esculentum. hortic. bras., 20(4):605-610 aroldo cisneros and noemi tel-zur. 2010. embryo rescue and plant regeneration following interspecific crosses in the genus hylocereus (cactaceae). euphytica 174(1):73-82 benega-garcia, r., cisneros, a., schneider, b. and tel-zur, n. 2009. gynogenesis in the vine cacti hylocereus and selenicereus (cactaceae). plant cell rep., 28:719–726 bentvelsen, g.c.m., stemkens, h.g.w. and tjeertes, p. 1990. interspecific crosses in pelargonium and the application of embryo rescue methods. in: jong j. de (ed.): integration of in vitro techniques in ornamental plant breeding. procs. of symposium, nov. 11-14, 1990 j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):1-20, 2013 leela sahijram et al 17 bharathy, p.v., karibasappa, g.s., biradar, a.b., kulkarni, d.d., solanki, a.u., patil, s.g. and agarwal, d.c. 2003. influence of pre-bloom sprays of benzyladenine on in vitro recovery of hybrid embryos from crosses of ‘thompson seedless’ and 8 seeded varieties of grapes (vitis spp.). vitis, 42(4):199-202 bharathy, p.v., karibasappa, g.s., patil, s.g. and agarwal, d.c. 2005. in ovulo rescue of hybrid embryos in flame seedless grapes influence of pre-bloom sprays of benzyladenine. sci. hortic., 106(3): 353-359 bhattarai, s.p., de la pena, r.c., midmore, d.j. and palchamy, k. 2009. in vitro culture of immature seed for rapid generation advancement in 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whereby phosphorus gets fixed as capo 4 . these soils are dominated by silt and clay-sized carbonate fractions, which provide enhanced surface area for p-fixation (srinivasa rao et al, 1991). on the contrary, available potassium content of most salt-affected soils is higher due to predominance of k-rich micaceous minerals in arid and semi-arid regions (kapoor et al, 1980). also, dissolution of muscovite saturated units releases large amounts of k in sodic soil environments (pal, 1985). besides, higher volatilization losses of available nitrogen occur under highly alkaline conditions (rao and batra, 1983). however, gypsum application results in decreased ph and esp, possibly due to replacement of exchangeable na+ by calcium of the gypsum. so it can be expected that net negative charge will increase marginally, resulting in higher cec. also, most salt-affected soils are deficit in availablemicronutrient content. therefore, application of gypsum and growing salt-resistant crop are important features for successful management of saltresponse of beet root tubers to gypsum, p levels, boron and iron sulphate in salt-affected soils n. sunitha, p.k. basavaraja and b.n. dhananjaya department of soil science and agricultural chemistry university of agricultural sciences gandhi krishi vigyan kendra, bangalore – 560 065 india e-mail: pujarikbraj@gmail.com abstract a field-experiment was conducted in salt-affected soils of dodda seebi tank command area of tumkur district, karnataka during rabi season of 2007 to study effect of gypsum, p level, borax and iron sulphate on beet root tuber yield and nutrient uptake. treatments included two main-plot treatments, viz., m0: control (without gypsum) and m 1 : gypsum application @ 9.0 t ha-1 and eight sub-plot treatments, viz., s 1 : phosphorus @ 100 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1, s 2 : phosphorus @ 150 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1, s 3 : s 1 + borax @ 5 kg ha-1, s 4 : s 2 + borax @ 5 kg ha-1, s 5 : s 1 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1, s 6 : s 2 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1, s 7 : s 3 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1 and s 8 : s 4 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1. recommended n and k were applied to all treatments. the experiment was laid out in split plot design with three replications. beet root, a salt-tolerant crop, was sown for testing its performance in salt-affected soils. significantly higher tuber yield of 12.70 t ha-1 was realized when the crop received gypsum @ 9.0 t ha-1 compared to control (7.73 t ha-1), besides higher nutrient uptake by the tubers. among the nutrients, application of p at higher level (150 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1) plus recommended nk along with borax and iron sulphate realized higher tuber yield (15.72 t ha-1) as well as nutrients uptake by tubers. crop that received gypsum in combination with p at a higher level plus recommended nk, along with borax and iron sulphate, resulted in highest tuber yield (19.72 t ha-1) and nutrient uptake. key words: salt-affected soil, beet root, gypsum, tuber yield, nutrient uptake affected soils. some salt-tolerant crops are rice, sugarcane, barley, sugar beet and beet root. beet root or garden beet (beta vulgaris l.), belonging to the family chenopodiaceae, is an important root vegetable crop grown in almost all states of the country. in karnataka, it is cultivated in an area of 2,693 hectares with production of 50,493 tons (anon, 1995). it is generally grown during the winter season because goodquality tubers rich in sugar with intense red colour are obtained during cool weather, when temperatures vary between 18.3 and 21.10c. however, at temperatures below 100c, the plants start wilting before attaining marketable root size (nath et al, 1987). the crop grows well under fairly-deep, friable, well-drained loamy soil. however, high yields are obtained from deep, rich alluvial or silt-loam soils. the plant is sensitive to soil-acidity and yields get adversely affected at soil ph below 5.8. even though soil ph of 6 to 7 is considered to be ideal for the beet root crop, it does well in alkali soil with ph as high as 9 to 10. keeping all these points in view, the present study was undertaken to study effect of gypsum, p level, boron and iron sulphate on beet root tuber yield and nutrient uptake. j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 57-60, 2010 58 a field-experiment was conducted in salt-affected soils of dodda seebi tank command area, tumkur district of karnataka, during the rabi season of the year 2007 under irrigated conditions. soils at this experimental site are alkaline in reaction (ph 8.5) with high solublesalt content (ec 1.42 ds m-1), and, low in organic carbon (3.01g kg-1); and available nitrogen content (145kg ha-1); whereas, available phosphorus, potassium and sulphur content in the soil were medium. the soils are sufficient with respect to exchangeable calcium [13.02 cmol(p+) kg-1] and magnesium [2.92 cmol(p+) kg-1] content, whereas, dtpa extractable iron (4.20 ppm), manganese (1.16 ppm), zinc (0.56 ppm) and copper (0.30 ppm), including hot water soluble boron (0.41 ppm) content of the soil are below the critical level with an esp of 35.20. it is a typical, salt-affected soil and particularly, alkali or sodic soil. the treatments included two main plot treatments, viz., m0: control (without gypsum) and m 1 : gypsum @ 9.0 t ha-1 and eight sub-plot treatments, viz., s 1 : phosphorus @ 100 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1, s 2 : phosphorus @ 150 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1, s 3 : s 1 + borax @ 5 kg ha-1, s 4 : s 2 + borax @ 5 kg ha-1, s 5 : s 1 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1, s 6 : s 2 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1, s 7 : s 3 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1 and s 8 : s 4 + feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1. the experiment was laid out in a split-plot design with three replications. beet root, a salt-tolerant crop, was sown for testing its performance in salt-affected soils. recommended dose of nitrogen (63 kg n ha-1) and potassium (63 kg k 2 o ha-1) were applied in all treatments, whereas, phosphorus was applied at two different levels (100 and 150 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1). beet root was spaced at 30 cm between rows and 22.5 cm between plants and the crop was raised as per recommended management practices under irrigated conditions. apart from taking tuber yield observations, tubers were analyzed for nutrient composition. nutrient uptake by tubers was worked out using the following formula: nutrient uptake nutrient concentration dry weight by tubers = in tubers (% or ppm) x of tubers in ( kg or g ha-1) 100 kg ha-1 tuber samples from four plants were collected from each plot at harvest and washed with clean water, cut into small pieces and dried in an oven. dry weight of the samples was recorded. the samples were powdered and analyzed for major (npk), secondary (s) nutrients and micronutrients (fe, mn, zn, cu and b). one gram of powdered sample was pre-digested with 5 ml of concentrated nitric acid and kept overnight. this was digested on a hot-plate with diacid mixture (hno 3 :hclo 4 in 10:4 ratio) until a snow white residue was formed which was cooled and made up to a known volume with distilled water. this extract was used for analysis of major nutrients (except nitrogen), secondary nutrients and micronutrients, as described by piper (1966). for determination of nitrogen, plant sample (0.5 g) was digested with concentrated sulphuric acid in presence of the digestion mixture by boiling, till a bluish green residue was formed. nitrogen in the digested sample was determined by micro-kjeldahl distillation method (piper, 1966). tuber yield and nutrient uptake by tubers was statistically analyzed by procedures outlined by sundararaj et al (1972). tuber-yield data (table 1) indicated that application of gypsum @ 9.0 t ha-1 (m 1 ) recorded significantly higher tuber yield (12.70 t ha-1) over control (7.73 t ha-1), irrespective of the nutrients applied. similarly, application of p at a higher level (150 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1) plus recommended nk along with borax @ 5 kg ha-1 and feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1 (s 8 ) recorded significantly higher tuber-yield (15.72 t ha-1) over all the other treatments, irrespective of the gypsum applied. however, treatment s 6 consisting of application of p at a higher level plus recommended nk along with feso 4 , and, s 7 consisting of application of recommended npk along with borax and feso 4 were found to be on par with treatment s 8 . application of gypsum in combination with p at the higher level plus recommended nk along with borax and feso 4 recorded significantly higher tuber-yield (19.72 t ha-1) over all the other treatment combinations, except m 1 x s 6 (17.65 t ha-1) and m 1 x s 7 (15.83 t ha-1). increased yield here may also be due to higher availability of nutrients in the soil (prakash et al, 1994). table 1. beet root tuber yield (t ha-1) as influenced by gypsum, p level, borax and iron sulphate treatment tuber yield (t ha-1) m0: control m 1 : gypsum mean (no gypsum) 9.0 t ha-1 s 1 : rec. nk + p 5.03 6.66 5.84 @ 100 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1 s 2 : rec. nk + p 6.03 8.37 7.19 @ 150 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1 s 3 : s 1 + borax 5.71 9.52 7.61 @ 5 kg ha-1 s 4 : s 2 + borax 7.93 13.33 10.62 @ 5 kg ha-1 s 5 : s 1 + feso 4 7.16 10.55 8.85 @ 25 kg ha-1 s 6 : s 2 + feso 4 9.84 17.65 13.74 @ 25 kg ha-1 s 7 : s 3 + feso 4 8.37 15.83 12.09 @ 25 kg ha-1 s 8 : s 4 + feso 4 11.74 19.72 15.72 @ 25 kg ha-1 mean 7.73 12.70 m s m x s sem ± 0.95 1.61 2.23 cd (p=0.05) 1.76 4.57 6.04 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 57-60, 2010 sunitha et al 59 data on major and secondary nutrient uptake by tubers as influenced by gypsum and other nutrients presented in table 2 revealed that application of gypsum @ 9.0 t ha-1 recorded significantly higher n, p and k uptake (39.08, 9.44 and 24.47 kg ha-1, respectively) over control (20.34, 4.26 and 13.10 kg ha-1 for n, p and k, respectively). among the nutrients, treatment s 8 recorded significantly higher n, p and k uptake irrespective of gypsum application (44.96, 11.66 and 30.22 kg ha-1, respectively), followed by the treatment s 6 . however, treatment s 7 was found to be on par with treatment s 8 with respect to n and p uptake. application of gypsum (m 1 ) in combination with s 6 recorded significantly higher n uptake (56.90 kg ha-1) by the tubers over all the other treatment combinations, except m 1 x s 8 and m 1 x s 7 ; whereas, m 1 x s 8 recorded significantly higher p and k uptake (15.87 and 39.11 kg ha-1, respectively) by the tubers over all the other treatment combinations, except m 1 x s 6 and m 1 x s 7 . increased n uptake by beet root tubers could be due to higher content of mineralized nitrogen in the soil (chawla, 1969).increased uptake of phosphorus may be attributed to acidulation of native p and reduction in fixation of added p due to gypsum application and, thus, subsequent enhancement in dry matter production (verma and singh, 1996). increased uptake of potassium may be due to greater root growth, enabling the plant to explore wider areas for uptake (jaggi et al, 1995). significantly higher uptake of sulphur (8.41 kg ha-1) by the tubers was recorded by application of gypsum, over control (3.78 kg ha-1), irrespective of the different nutrients applied. similarly, treatment s 8 , irrespective of gypsum application, recorded significantly higher s uptake (10.11 kg ha-1) over all the other treatments (3.03 to 8.01 kg ha-1). application of gypsum in combination with s 8 recorded significantly higher s uptake (13.53 kg ha-1) compared to other treatment combinations (2.15 to 11.20 kg ha-1). increased sulphur content in soil by gypsum application may have resulted in increased s-uptake by the tubers. these results are in conformity with findings of nagaich et al (1998). data on micronutrient uptake by tubers as influenced by gypsum and nutrients presented in table 3 indicated that application of gypsum @ 9.0 t ha-1 recorded significantly higher fe, mn, zn, cu and b uptake (185, 196, 189, 164 and 0.12 g ha-1, respectively) over control (80, 80, 83, 58 and 0.04 g ha-1 for fe, mn, zn, cu and b, respectively), irrespective of the nutrients applied. similarly, treatment s 8 recorded significantly higher fe, mn, zn, cu and b uptake (238, 233, 230, 201 and 0.14 g ha-1, respectively) over all the other treatments, irrespective of the gypsum applied. however, treatment s 6 was found to be on par with treatment s 8 with respect to mn, zn and b uptake. besides, treatments s 7 and s 4 were also found to be on par with treatment s 8 with respect to b uptake by root tubers, irrespective of the gypsum applied. application of gypsum (m 1 ) in combination with s 8 recorded significantly higher fe, mn, zn, cu and b uptake (332, 336, 311, 303 and 0.19g ha-1, respectively) over all the other treatments combinations. however, application of gypsum (m 1 ) in combination with s 6 was found to be on par with m 1 x s 8 combination with respect to mn, zn and b uptake by tubers. besides, treatment combinations m 1 x s 7 and m 1 x s 4 were also found to be on par with m 1 x s 8 with respect to b uptake. higher uptake of iron by tubers may perhaps be due to higher availability of fe in the soil as a result of improvement in soil conditions due to gypsum application, added feso 4 and its absorption by the crop. a plausible reason for higher uptake of mn may be its increased availability in the soil as a result of nitrogen and sulphur application (as these are synergistically related) (biswas et al, 1995). similarly, increased uptake of zn and cu by tubers could be due to higher availability of these elements in the soil (as, the applied nitrogen, sulphur and table 2. major and secondary nutrient uptake (kg ha-1) by beet root tubers as influenced by gypsum, p level, borax and iron sulphate treatment n p k s m 0 m 1 mean m 0 m 1 mean m 0 m 1 mean m 0 m 1 mean s 1 11.71 18.93 15.32 2.04 4.19 3.11 7.84 11.86 9.85 2.15 3.91 3.03 s 2 14.47 25.04 19.75 2.82 5.68 4.25 9.59 15.77 12.68 2.82 5.46 4.13 s 3 13.98 29.08 21.53 2.77 6.59 4.68 9.28 18.04 13.66 2.39 6.44 4.42 s 4 20.20 41.46 30.83 4.18 9.51 6.84 11.34 25.44 18.39 3.62 9.44 6.53 s 5 18.50 33.34 25.92 3.87 7.71 5.79 13.80 20.15 16.97 3.22 7.68 5.45 s 6 26.49 56.90 41.69 5.78 13.52 9.65 16.49 34.41 25.45 4.83 11.20 8.01 s 7 23.57 51.76 37.66 5.12 12.46 8.78 15.08 30.96 23.02 4.53 9.62 7.07 s 8 33.78 56.14 44.96 7.47 15.87 11.66 21.33 39.11 30.22 6.69 13.53 10.11 mean 20.34 39.08 4.26 9.44 13.10 24.47 3.78 8.41 m s m x s m s m x s m s m x s m s m x s sem ± 10.10 2.84 3.92 1.10 1.03 2.31 2.10 2.38 2.93 0.49 0.54 0.78 cd (p=0.05) 18.60 8.23 11.36 2.00 3.20 6.20 3.80 7.16 10.13 0.91 1.58 2.25 *treatment details, please see table 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 57-60, 2010 response of beet root to salt-affected soils 60 iron increased availability of zn and cu in the soil since these are synergistically related) (biswas et al, 1995). increased uptake of b by tubers might be due to boron application, either alone or with feso 4 , as these are synergistically related. these results are in conformity with findings of vinay singh and dixit (1994). from this study, it can be inferred that significantly higher tuber yield is realized when the crop receives gypsum @ 9.0 t ha-1. in salt-affected soils, non-availability of nutrients to the crop plant is the main constraint. application of gypsum as an amendment for reclamation resulted in increased nutrient availability in the soil due to enhanced nutrient uptake by tubers. application of p at a higher level (150 kg p 2 o 5 ha-1) plus recommended nk along with borax @ 5 kg ha-1 and feso 4 @ 25 kg ha-1 also significantly increased tuber yield and nutrient uptake. interaction between gypsum and nutrients also resulted in highest tuber yield and nutrient uptake. it can be concluded that combined application of gypsum and p at a higher level, plus recommended nk along with borax and feso 4 , rather than applying these chemicals individually, is a better option for enhancing tuber yield and nutrient uptake in salt-affected soils. references anonymous. 1995. statistical data on horticultural crops. department of horticulture, lal bagh, bangalore, p. 13 biswas, d.r., ali, s.a. and khera, m.s. 1995. introduction on the uptake of p and zn, cu, fe and mn by gobhi sarson. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 43:280-281 chawla, v.k. 1969. available n and p status of saline-sodic soils. agri. water. mgt., 5:41-50 jaggi, r.c., dixit, s.p. and bhardwaj, s.k. 1995. nutrient table 3. micronutrient uptake (g ha-1) by beet root tubers as influenced by gypsum, p level, borax and iron sulphate treatment fe m n zn cu b m 0 m 1 mean m 0 m 1 mean m 0 m 1 mean m 0 m 1 mean m 0 m 1 mean s 1 46 82 64 44 80 62 42 86 64 31 64 48 0.02 0.05 0.04 s 2 56 107 82 54 109 82 52 116 84 39 92 66 0.03 0.07 0.05 s 3 51 126 89 58 137 98 54 136 95 40 105 73 0.03 0.09 0.06 s 4 73 183 128 84 196 140 81 194 138 58 151 105 0.05 0.13 0.09 s 5 69 146 108 75 162 119 75 157 116 53 128 91 0.03 0.09 0.06 s 6 102 256 179 107 286 197 112 264 188 77 238 158 0.05 0.16 0.11 s 7 100 245 173 91 258 175 102 244 173 71 233 152 0.06 0.16 0.11 s 8 144 332 238 130 336 233 148 311 230 98 303 201 0.08 0.19 0.14 mean 80 185 80 196 83 189 58 164 0.04 0.12 m s m x s m s m x s m s m x s m s m x s m s m x s sem ± 12 14 19 7 14 19 7 13 18 17 14 17 0.03 0.02 0.02 cd (p=0.05) 35 47 66 19 42 58 22 44 62 49 42 59 0.07 0.07 0.07 *for treatment details, please see table 1 uptake and tuber yield of potato as influenced by phosphate and fym in an acid alfisol. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 43:391-394 kapoor, b.s., singh, h.b. and goswami, s.c. 1980. analcime in a sodic profile. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 28:513-515 nagaich, k.n., tridevi, s.k. and fajesh lekhi. 1998. effect of sulphur and potassium fertilization on onion (allium cepa l.). south ind. hort., 45:266-271 nath, p., velayudhan, s. and singh, d.p. 1987. vegetables for the tropical regions. icar, new delhi pal, d.k. 1985. potassium release from muscovite and biotite under alkaline conditions. pedology, 35:133-136 piper, c.s. 1966. soil and plant analysis. hans publishers, bombay, p. 368 prakash, v., sharma, n.i. and singh, r. 1994. effect of soil amendment on soil properties and yield of rice and barley in salt affected soil. curr. agri., 18:35-40 rao, d.l.n. and batra, l. 1983. ammonia volatilization from applied nitrogen in alkali soils. pl. & soil, 70:219 srinivasa rao, c.a., subaiah, g.v. and pillai, r.n. 1991. nutrient status of black soils of telugu ganga project area in nellore district of andra pradesh. andhra agri. j., 38: 201-205 sundararaj, n., nagaraju, s. and venkata ramu, m.n. 1972. design and analysis of field experiments. univ. agri. sci., bangalore. verma, s.k. and singh, s.s. 1996. effect of n, p and s and their interaction on yield and uptake by linseed. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 43:72-75 vinay singh and dixit, h.c. 1994. response of cauliflower to boron and iron application. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 39:25-26 (ms received 4 may 2009, revised 17 march 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 57-60, 2010 sunitha et al inroduction turmeric (curcuma longa l.) an important spice cum medicinal plant belonging to the family zingiberaceae is considered to be well acclimatized for growth under low light intensities. a certain degree of shade has a crucial role in affecting the plant growth, yield and quality. turmeric requires heavy input of fertilizers being a nutrient exhaustive crop (subramanian et al, 2001). in order to present wastage of nutrients, which not only hike cost of production but also pollute environment, it is necessary to adopt a strategy for judicious combination of chemical fertilizers, organic manures and biofertilizers to promote, nurture and facilitate sustainable farming for healthier and economical production. in india, though sufficient research on nutritional aspects of turmeric is available (venkatesha et al, 1998), studies on the standardization of fertilizer requirement under shaded condition are scanty. with this background, the present investigation was taken up to study the influence of partial shade and integrated nutrient management on the biochemical attributes and yield parameters of turmeric. effect of shade and integrated nutrient management on biochemical constituents of turmeric (curcuma longa l.) s. padmapriya, n. chezhiyan and v. a. sathiyamurthy1 department of spices and plantation crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641 003, india e-mail: spadmapriyaa@yahoo.co.in abstract a field experiment was conducted to study the effect of partial shade, inorganic, organic and biofertilizers on biochemical constituents and quality of turmeric. the study was laid out in split plot design, consisting of two main plots viz., open and shade. the sub-plot treatments consisted of different doses of inorganic fertilizers, organic manures, biofertilizers and growth stimulants constituting of 40 different treatment combinations. the treatment combinations, viz., shade with application of 100 % recommended dose of npk + 50 % fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya showed increased total chlorophyll content, total phenol content and registered the highest yield per plot. on the contrary, provision of shade decreased the curing percentage as compared to open condition. among the quality characters, the highest curcumin (5.57 %) and essential oil (5.68 %) content were registered in the treatment, shade with application of 50 % fym + coir compost + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya. key words: turmeric, shade, chlorophyll, phenol, curcumin, oleoresin, biofertilizers, panchakavya 1present address: department of vegetable crops, horticultural college and research institute, tnau, coimbatore 641 003 material and methods the experiment was conducted at the college orchard, tnau, coimbatore during the period 2002-04. the experiment was laid out in split plot design with 40 treatment combinations replicated twice. the genotype cl 147 owing to its superiority for yield and quality under shaded condition was used for the present study. the following are the treatment details, main plot m 1 – open m 2 – shade (sesban (sesbania sesban) + castor (ricinus communis)) sub-plot s 1 100% npk + 100% fym (30 t ha-1) (recommended dose – 125: 60: 90 kg npk ha-1) s 2 100% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) s 3 100% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 t ha-1) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 123-129, 2007 123 124 s 4 100% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 t ha-1) s 5 100% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya s 6 100% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) s 7 100% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) s 8 100% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya s 9 50% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) s 10 50% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) s 11 50% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) s 12 50% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya s 13 50% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) s 14 50% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1)+ azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) +phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) s 15 50% npk + 50% fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1)+ 3 % panchagavya s 16 50% fym + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) s 17 50% fym + coir compost (10 t ha-1)+ 3 % panchagavya s 18 50% fym + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) +phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya s 19 50% fym + azospirillum (10 kg ha -1) + phosphobacteria (10kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya s 20 absolute control (without any organic manures & fertilizers) the experimental plot size was 3 m2 (2 x 1.5 m) and ridges and furrows were formed at a spacing of 45 x 20 cm. recommended dose of fym and digested coir compost (dcc) were applied basally on the ridges and furrows of the respective treatments. chemical fertilizers were applied in five splits (basal, 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after planting). the seeds of the shade crops viz., sesban and castor were sown on the bunds in alternate rows. after 60 days of sowing, the first pruning was done by removing excess shoots and branches to get optimum shade for the growth and development of turmeric. subsequent pruning was done regularly at an interval of 30days. a shade level of around 25 – 30 per cent was maintained throughout the crop period with the aid of lux meter. the recommended package of practices was followed uniformly irrespective of the treatments imposed. total chlorophyll was estimated by adopting the method of yoshida et al (1971) and expressed as mg g-1 of fresh weight. the total phenol content was estimated according to mallick and singh (1980) and expressed as mg per g of tissue using to catechol as standard. soluble protein content was estimated with tca extract of leaf sample following the method of lowry et al (1957) and expressed in mg g-1 fresh weight. the curing percentage of the rhizome was recorded by using the following formula and expressed in percentage. weight of the cured rhizome curing percentage = x 100 fresh weight of the rhizome curcumin content was estimated as per the methods of asta (manjunath et al, 1991). the essential oil content was estimated as per the methods described in asta (anon, 1968). results and discussion it was observed that all the biochemical parameters expressed an increased trend upto 180 days after planting and decreased thereafter. i. total chlorophyll content the total chlorophyll content varied significantly due to shade and application of fertilizers. the treatment combination m 2 s 8 (partial shade + 100 % npk + 50 % fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya) showed increased total chlorophyll content 1.589, 1.953 and 1.764 mg g-1 in 135, 180 and 225 days after planting respectively. whereas, it decreased in the treatment m 1 s 20 (open + absolute control) with 1.110, 1.445 and 1.325 mg g-1 at all the three stages respectively (table 1). the increase in chlorophyll content under shaded padmapriya et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 123-129, 2007 125 condition is an adaptive mechanism commonly exhibited in plants to maintain the photosynthetic efficiency as observed by attridge (1990). moreover the inhibition of the chloroplast inhibiting chlorophyllase enzyme may also have lead to greater accumulation of chlorophyll in plants under shaded condition. hence the increase in biomass production under shade could be substantiated by high level of chlorophyll content (sreekala, 1999). in early stages of crop growth, increased absorption of nutrient would have caused the assimilation of chlorophyll pigment, which helps in synthesis of photosynthates used for rhizome development (ramanujam and jose, 1984). hence, application of 100% npk would have caused the accumulation of higher amount of chlorophyll pigment which helped in the synthesis of enhanced amounts of photosynthates which were further utilized for rhizome development. ii) total phenol content phenols are the physiologically active secondary compounds produced by all higher plants which on deposition in the cell wall regions would directly influence the resistance mechanisms (bradley et. al, 1992). provision of shade was found to have profound influence on the phenol content in all the stages. increased score (70.76, 91.03 and 74.13 µg g-1 ) at 135, 180 and 225 days, respectively was observed in the treatment shade (m 2 ) compared to open condition . among the sub plots, the treatment s 8 (100 % npk + 50 % fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya) recorded greater value in 135 dap (105.25 µg g-1), 180 dap (123.69 µg g-1) and 225 dap (112.07 µg g-1) (table 2). experiments in ginger revealed that incidence of disease were high under open condition compared to shaded / intercropped situation (jayachandran et al, 1991). the probable reason for this may be that the plants grown under shaded condition contain more of essential oil possessing bactericidal and fungicidal properties thereby conferring resistance under shade (raskin, 1992). iii) soluble protein it increased linearly from third month after planting, reached a peak at sixth month and decreased thereafter. greater protein content (40.42, 88.88 and 76.93 table 1. effect of shade and integrated nutrient management on chlorophyll content (mg g-1) at 135, 180 and 225 days after planting in turmeric treatments total chlorophyll (mg g-1) 135 dap 180 dap 225 dap m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean s 1 1.357 1.462 1.410 1.682 1.816 1.749 1.563 1.622 1.593 s 2 1.385 1.489 1.437 1.722 1.850 1.786 1.594 1.648 1.621 s 3 1.328 1.445 1.386 1.673 1.795 1.734 1.551 1.598 1.575 s 4 1.314 1.427 1.371 1.659 1.764 1.712 1.536 1.578 1.557 s 5 1.374 1.475 1.425 1.700 1.823 1.762 1.578 1.632 1.605 s 6 1.460 1.521 1.491 1.761 1.893 1.827 1.614 1.678 1.646 s 7 1.485 1.552 1.519 1.795 1.922 1.859 1.631 1.710 1.671 s 8 1.514 1.589 1.552 1.825 1.953 1.889 1.663 1.764 1.714 s 9 1.290 1.412 1.351 1.642 1.752 1.697 1.522 1.564 1.543 s 10 1.187 1.332 1.260 1.552 1.645 1.599 1.411 1.512 1.462 s 11 1.350 1.278 1.314 1.485 1.575 1.530 1.362 1.496 1.429 s 12 1.258 1.384 1.321 1.617 1.715 1.666 1.491 1.536 1.514 s 13 1.421 1.510 1.466 1.745 1.875 1.810 1.608 1.660 1.634 s 14 1.474 1.538 1.506 1.782 1.911 1.847 1.622 1.692 1.657 s 15 1.508 1.575 1.542 1.811 1.941 1.876 1.648 1.742 1.695 s 16 1.238 1.380 1.309 1.608 1.689 1.649 1.477 1.525 1.501 s 17 1.159 1.310 1.235 1.523 1.621 1.572 1.375 1.508 1.442 s 18 1.274 1.399 1.337 1.622 1.726 1.674 1.509 1.555 1.532 s 19 1.224 1.354 1.289 1.582 1.680 1.631 1.453 1.518 1.486 s 20 1.110 1.265 1.188 1.445 1.542 1.494 1.325 1.468 1.397 mean 1.336 1.435 1.385 1.662 1.774 1.718 1.527 1.600 1.563 135 dap 180 dap 225 dap m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m s ed 0.007 0.021 0.029 0.029 0.005 0.011 0.016 0.016 0.005 0.015 0.022 0.021 cd (p=0.01) 0.421 0.056 0.170 0.079 ns 0.031 0.130 0.043 0.345 0.041 0.142 0.058 cd (p=0.01) 0.084 0.042 0.075 0.059 0.061 0.023 0.048 0.032 0.069 0.031 0.058 0.043 ns : non significant effect of shade and inm on turmeric j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 123-129, 2007 126 mg g-1) was recorded in the treatment, open + 100 per cent npk + 50 per cent fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha1) + 3 % panchagavya (m 1 s 8 ) at 135, 180 and 225 days after planting respectively. while the treatment m 2 s 20 (shade + absolute control) exhibited the lowest values (table 3). generally soluble protein content is a measure of rubisco activity in plants and the lower content of soluble protein in shade can be reflected on the lower activity of rubisco carboxylase (broadman, 1977). yield per plot combined application of shade + 100 % npk + 50 % fym (15 t ha-1) + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya showed the highest per plot yield (19.20kg) which was nearly one and half times the absolute control (table 4). turmeric being a nutrition exhaustive crop, a linear increase in fresh rhizome yield was recorded with increased levels of npk and organic manures. response to fertilizer application was the highest under shade as compared to open condition. the increased response of nutrients under shade may be due to higher photosynthetic efficiency and better partitioning of assimilates. the increased yield due to increased dose of fertilizers was in agreement with previous works of balashanmugam and chezhiyan (1986) in turmeric. increased values for rhizome characters in shade might be due to increased translocation of nutrients from the source and conversion as carbohydrates to the sink through glycolytic pathway (bisht et al, 2000). combined application of inorganic and organic amendments resulted in increased number and weight of mother rhizomes. similar conclusions were derived by maheswarappa et. al.(1997). curing percentage the curing percentage exhibited significant differences under open and shaded condition. the treatment m 1 s 18 (open + 50% fym + coir compost (10 t ha-1) + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + panchakavya (3%) (soak + spray)) recorded the highest curing percentage (26.76 %) and the treatment m 2 s 20 (shade table 2. effect of shade and integrated nutrient management on total phenols (µg g-1) at 135, 180 and 225 days after planting in turmeric treatment total phenols (µg g-1) 135 dap 180 dap 225 dap m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean s 1 74.65 77.10 75.88 87.77 91.24 89.51 73.53 78.48 76.01 s 2 81.47 83.64 82.56 93.26 103.64 98.45 86.66 87.74 87.20 s 3 72.24 73.90 73.07 82.25 88.28 85.27 68.74 72.59 70.67 s 4 69.10 70.29 69.70 78.40 85.55 81.98 62.44 69.98 66.21 s 5 79.35 82.25 80.80 91.47 98.47 94.97 79.24 83.33 81.29 s 6 90.20 93.60 91.90 99.14 111.11 105.13 95.47 98.45 96.96 s 7 97.26 100.00 98.63 107.58 121.69 114.64 100.03 106.63 103.33 s 8 103.25 107.25 105.25 117.52 129.85 123.69 107.88 116.25 112.07 s 9 62.25 66.25 64.25 74.42 81.14 77.78 59.88 63.21 61.55 s 10 42.25 45.99 44.12 57.14 69.45 63.30 45.28 50.78 48.03 s 11 36.00 42.20 39.10 53.21 63.18 58.20 40.23 43.95 42.09 s 12 53.35 57.38 55.37 68.52 76.98 72.75 52.75 54.77 53.76 s 13 86.25 90.48 88.37 95.83 107.58 101.71 91.22 92.22 91.72 s 14 93.45 96.30 94.88 102.24 118.50 110.37 98.54 102.58 100.56 s 15 100.00 103.65 101.83 112.33 125.14 118.74 103.69 111.11 107.40 s 16 50.00 34.65 42.33 65.99 73.65 69.82 48.52 53.27 50.90 s 17 38.29 44.26 41.28 54.44 65.21 59.83 40.85 47.99 44.42 s 18 59.25 62.48 60.87 70.10 79.36 74.73 57.14 59.47 58.31 s 19 46.65 50.59 48.62 62.24 70.10 66.17 46.25 51.11 48.68 s 20 33.90 33.00 33.45 48.57 60.47 54.52 36.55 38.77 37.66 mean 68.46 70.76 69.61 81.12 91.03 86.08 69.74 74.13 71.94 135 dap 180 dap 225 dap m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m s ed 0.378 1.838 2.561 2.599 0.416 1.842 2.573 2.606 0.522 1.602 2.269 2.265 cd (p=0.01) ns 4.984 ns 7.048 26.460 4.997 11.070 7.066 33.230 4.344 13.470 6.144 cd (p=0.05) 4.801 3.720 5.779 5.260 5.282 3.729 5.926 5.274 6.634 3.242 5.876 4.585 ns : non significant padmapriya et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 123-129, 2007 127 table 3. effect of shade and integrated nutrient management on soluble protein (mg g-1) at 135, 180 and 225 days after planting in turmeric treatment soluble protein (mg g-1) 135 dap 180 dap 225 dap m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean s 1 30.37 28.43 29.40 79.64 75.28 77.46 69.29 61.72 65.51 s 2 36.19 34.14 35.17 81.27 77.69 79.48 71.64 63.75 67.70 s 3 36.26 34.41 35.34 78.56 74.39 76.48 68.49 59.39 63.94 s 4 35.07 32.35 33.71 77.92 73.47 75.70 67.23 59.10 63.17 s 5 37.51 34.72 36.12 80.74 76.49 78.62 70.84 62.86 66.85 s 6 39.14 36.56 37.85 84.24 78.84 81.54 73.26 65.74 69.50 s 7 39.34 37.10 38.22 86.95 80.74 83.85 75.13 66.95 71.04 s 8 40.42 37.38 38.90 88.88 82.39 85.64 76.93 68.95 72.94 s 9 30.90 28.56 29.73 76.69 73.12 74.91 66.47 58.78 62.63 s 10 28.62 25.58 27.10 72.47 67.48 69.98 62.83 55.12 58.98 s 11 27.15 24.24 25.70 68.95 64.26 66.61 60.5 52.74 56.62 s 12 29.61 26.42 28.02 75.74 71.64 73.69 64.28 57.12 60.70 s 13 35.54 32.40 33.97 82.86 78.13 80.50 72.84 64.82 68.83 s 14 39.86 37.12 38.49 85.23 79.36 82.30 74.37 66.10 70.24 s 15 40.38 37.27 38.83 87.36 81.49 84.43 75.84 67.49 71.67 s 16 30.01 27.13 28.57 74.89 70.42 72.66 64.01 56.37 60.19 s 17 27.21 25.24 26.23 70.49 65.38 67.94 61.65 54.91 58.28 s 18 30.21 27.22 28.72 76.14 72.84 74.49 65.99 57.96 61.98 s 19 28.14 25.45 26.80 74.10 69.49 71.80 63.75 55.96 59.86 s 20 25.26 23.60 24.43 66.04 61.40 63.72 59.10 50.26 54.68 mean 33.36 30.77 32.06 78.46 73.72 76.09 68.22 60.30 64.26 135 dap 180 dap 225 dap m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m s ed 0.129 1.036 1.434 1.466 0.109 1.003 1.387 1.418 0.122 1.219 1.684 1.723 cd (p=0.01) 8.222 2.810 4.599 3.975 ns 2.720 4.281 3.846 7.796 3.305 5.110 4.673 cd (p=0.05) 1.641 2.097 3.027 2.966 1.382 2.030 2.898 2.870 1.556 2.466 3.504 3.488 ns : non significant + absolute control) with the least score (15.42 %) (fig 1). this indicated the influence of environment on curing percentage. on the contrary, fresh rhizome yield was more under partial shade. this may be due to higher amount of moisture present in the rhizomes resulting in plumpy rhizomes with lower curing percentage and thereby lower recovery of cured produce, while higher curing percentage in open may be due to production of slender rhizomes with low moisture content. moreover the addition of organic manures along with biofertilizer combination would have resulted in increased nutrient uptake resulting in greater dry weight of rhizomes. similar conclusion was obtained by latha et al (1995) in turmeric. quality parameters curcumin and essential oil highest curcumin (5.57 %) and essential oil (5.68 %) content were registered in the treatment m 2 s 18 (shade + 50 % fym + coir compost + azospirillum (10 kg ha-1) + phosphobacteria (10 kg ha-1) + 3 % panchagavya). the lowest values were documented in the treatment m 1 s 20 (open + absolute control) (table 4). the increased synthesis and content of curcumin under shade might be due to the increased activity of pal (phenyl ammonia lyase), the key enzyme involved in curcumin biosynthesis (chempakam et al, 2000). the nitrogen concentration of rhizome expressed a significant positive correlation and k concentration showed negative correlation with curcumin content (kumar et al, 1992). the present findings are in agreement with the earlier work of upadhayay and misra (1999) who opined that greater uptake of nutrients increased the essential oil content of turmeric rhizomes. effect of shade and inm on turmeric fig. 1. effect of shade, inorganic, organic and bio fertilizers on curing percentage in turmeric genotype cl 147 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 123-129, 2007 128 references anonymous. 1968. official analytical methods. 2nd edn., american spice trade association, 38:9-10 attridge, t. h. 1990. light and plant responses. edward arnold, a division of hodde and stoughtton ltd., pp:82-101 balashanmugam, p. v. and chezhiyan.n. 1986. effect of differential application of nitrogen on growth and yield of turmeric (curcuma longa l.). madras agric. j., 73(6):439-442 bradley, d. j., kjellborn p and lamb. c. j 1992. elicitor and wound induced oxidative cross-linking of the plant cell wall proline rich protein; a novel, rapid defense response. cell, 70:21-30 bisht, j. k., chandra s. chauhan v. s and singh. r. d 2000. performance of ginger and turmeric with fodder tree based silvi-horti system in hills. india j. agric. science, 70:431-433 broadman, n. k. 1977. comparative photosynthesis of sun and shade plants. ann. rev. pl. physiol., 28:355-377 chempakam, b., zachariah t. j and babu. l 2000. development of curcumin content in turmeric rhizomes at different stages of rhizome growth. in: centennial conference on spices and aromatic plants research and development, iisr, calicut held on 27 to 30th sep., 2000.pp. 173-177 jayachandran, b. k,.meerabai m salam m. a mammen m. k and mathew k. p 1991. performance of ginger under shade and open conditions. indian cocoa, arecanut and spices j., 15:40-41 kumar, g. v. v., reddy k. s, rao m. s and ramavatharam n. 1992. soil and plant characters influencing curcumin content of turmeric. ind. cocoa, arecanut and spices j., 15:102-105 latha, p., giridharan m. p and naik b. j. 1995. performance of turmeric (curcuma longa l.) cultivars in open and partially shaded conditions under coconut. j. spices and aromatic crops, 4:139-144 lowry, o. h., rose brought n. t, farr l. a and randall. r. j.. 1957. protein measurement with folin phenol reagent. j. biol. chem., 193:265-275 maheswarappa, h. p., nanjappa v and. hegde. m. r 1997. influence of sett size, plant population and organic manure on yield components, yield and qualitative characters of arrow root grown as intercrop in coconut garden. j. root crops, 23:131-137 table 4. effect of and integrated nutrient management on rhizome yield per plot (kg), curcumin (per cent) and oleoresin (%) content in turmeric treatment rhizome yield per plot (kg) curcumin (%) essential oil (%) m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean m 1 (open) m 2 (shade) mean s 1 14.31 15.85 15.08 4.23 5.07 4.65 4.41 5.12 4.77 s 2 14.72 16.44 15.58 4.40 5.16 4.78 4.60 5.28 4.94 s 3 14.24 15.30 14.77 4.18 5.00 4.59 4.30 5.04 4.67 s 4 13.70 15.19 14.44 4.16 4.98 4.57 4.13 5.00 4.57 s 5 14.44 15.92 15.18 3.95 4.86 4.41 3.86 4.90 4.38 s 6 14.57 17.14 15.86 4.46 5.20 4.83 4.65 5.34 5.00 s 7 16.03 17.70 16.86 4.42 5.18 4.80 4.62 5.30 4.96 s 8 16.60 19.20 17.90 4.77 5.40 5.09 4.88 5.50 5.19 s 9 13.53 15.06 14.30 4.18 4.98 4.58 4.19 5.02 4.61 s 10 12.48 13.27 12.87 4.00 4.88 4.44 3.91 4.91 4.41 s 11 11.80 13.20 12.50 4.02 4.88 4.45 3.98 4.93 4.46 s 12 13.07 14.01 13.54 3.92 4.85 4.39 3.84 4.87 4.36 s 13 14.58 17.09 15.84 4.22 5.04 4.63 4.36 5.08 4.72 s 14 15.56 17.47 16.51 4.80 5.42 5.11 4.90 5.53 5.22 s 15 16.55 19.09 17.82 4.80 5.50 5.15 4.91 5.57 5.24 s 16 12.95 13.97 13.46 4.81 5.51 5.16 4.95 5.62 5.29 s 17 12.02 13.14 12.58 4.38 5.14 4.76 4.56 5.25 4.91 s 18 13.18 14.63 13.90 4.82 5.57 5.20 5.00 5.68 5.34 s 19 12.62 13.81 13.22 4.50 5.24 4.87 4.69 5.38 5.04 s 20 11.27 12.28 11.78 3.84 4.75 4.30 3.72 4.80 4.26 mean 13.91 15.49 14.70 4.34 5.13 4.74 4.42 5.21 4.81 rhizome yield per plot curcumin essential oil m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m m s m at s s at m s ed 0.182 0.520 0.740 0.736 0.007 0.007 0.012 0.010 0.007 0.013 0.019 0.018 cd (p=0.01) 11.61 1.411 4.749 1.995 0.427 0.019 0.264 0.027 0.422 0.034 ns 0.049 cd (p=0.05) 2.319 1.053 1.978 1.489 0.085 0.014 0.065 0.020 0.084 0.026 0.063 0.036 ns : non-significant padmapriya et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 123-129, 2007 129 mallick, g. p. and singh m. b 1980. in: plant enzymology and histo enzymology. kalyani publishers, new delhi, p. 286 manjunath, m. m., sattigeri v. v and nagaraj. k. v 1991. curcumin in turmeric. spice india, 4:7-9 ramanujam, t. and jose. j. s 1984. influence of light intensity on chlorophyll and anatomical characters of cassava leaves. turrialba, 34:267-274 raskin, 1992. salicylate: a new plant hormone. plant physiol., 99:799-803 sreekala, g. s. 1999. biomass production and partitioning of photosynthates in ginger (zingiber officinale) under different shade levels. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, kau, thrissur, india subramanian, k. s., sivasamy n and thangaraj. t 2001. integrated nutrient management for turmeric. spice india, 14:25-26 upadhyay, d. c and misra. r. s 1999. nutritional study of turmeric (curcuma longa linn.) cv. roma under agroclimatic conditions of eastern uttar pradesh. prog. hort., 31:214-218 venkatesha, j., khan m. m and farooqi a. a 1998. effect of major nutrients (npk) on growth, yield and quality of turmeric (curcuma domestica val.) cultivars. in: proc. natl. seminar on water and nutrient management for sustainable production and quality of spices, pp. 52-58 yoshida, s., forno d. a and cock. j. h 1971. laboratory manual for physiological studies of rice. irri, philippines, pp. 36-37 (ms received 8 june 2007, revised 17 august 2007) effect of shade and inm on turmeric j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 123-129, 2007 introduction ginger, the rhizome of zingiber officinale roscoe, is one of the most widely used spices of the family zingiberaceae. india is the largest ginger producing country in the world, with annual production of 7,95,028 tons from an area of 1,38,479 ha recorded in 2008-09 (spices board of india, 2011). other important ginger-producing countries are china, indonesia and nepal. during 2008-09, india exported 5000 tonnes of ginger valued rs. 3,482.5 lakh to major importing countries like bangladesh, saudi arabia, u.k, u.s.a, spain, morocco, etc. peeling, in the case of ginger, is an important unitoperation where fully mature rhizomes are scraped with bamboo-splits having pointed ends, to remove the outer skin before drying to accelerate the drying process. deep scraping with knife needs to be avoided to prevent damage to oil-bearing cells present just beneath the outer skin. excessive peeling results in reduction of essential oil content in dried produce. peeling in ginger is a highly laborious and time-consuming operation that needs to be done immediately after harvest. peeled rhizomes are washed before drying. dry ginger so-obtained is valued for its aroma, flavour and pungency (balakrishnan, 2005). indian dried gingers are usually rough-peeled or scraped as opposed to jamaican gingers, which are cleandevelopment of hand-operated mechanical ginger peeler e. jayashree and r.viswanathan1 division of crop production & post harvest technology, indian institute of spices research, kozhikode673 012, india e-mail : ejayasree05@yahoo.com abstract ginger, an underground rhizome, is valued as a spice and is used in both dry and fresh form. the process of peeling is labour-intensive and is a time-consuming operation in post-harvest handling of ginger done manually by women labour. to reduce time and labour requirement, a mechanical ginger peeler having a square mesh drum was developed. peeling trials were conducted for varying drum loads (6kg, 8kg and 10kg), varying drum speeds (35rpm, 40rpm and 45rpm) and for different peeling durations (5 min, 10 min and 15 min). optimum machine parameters for maximum efficiency were: drum load of 8 kg per batch, operated at drum speed of 40rpm for peeling duration 15 min. peeling efficiency and material loss at optimum conditions were determined to be 55.60% and 4.68%, respectively. dry ginger obtained after mechanical peeling was found to contain essential oil at 2%, oleoresin 4.6%, moisture content 9.82% and crude fibre content 2.5%. key words: ginger, mechanical peeling, material loss, peeling efficiency, quality 1department of food and agricultural process engineering, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003, india peeled. the rhizomes are peeled or scraped only on the flat side and much of the skin between the fingers remains intact. this is known as rough or unbleached ginger and bulk of the ginger produced in kerala is of this quality. kerala accounts for over 60% of the total dried ginger produced and about 90% of india’s ginger export trade (madan, 2005). since ginger is an important crop of commerce, mechanization in various handling operations is of urgent need. hence, the present study was undertaken to develop a mechanical peeler for partial peeling of ginger and to evaluate its peeling efficiency. material and methods studies on mechanical peeling of ginger were conducted at the college of agricultural engineering, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore in january 2009 using a square-mesh drum ginger-peeler developed at the university.the ginger peeler developed (fig. 1 and 2), consists of a peeling drum of size 700 x 500 mm, fabricated using mild steel square-mesh having mesh openings of size 16mm x 16mm. the square-mesh drum enabled ginger skin removal due to abrasion, and facilitated perforation of the peeled skin to along with water into the wash-water tank. the square-mesh drum was welded on both sides to a circular, mild steel flat-frame size 20 mm width x 5 mm thickness. on either side of the mesh-drum, mild steel sheet covers of j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):75-80, 2012 76 20 swg were welded on to the circular frame to cover side openings. on the surface of the drum, an opening of size 390 mm x 390 mm was provided so as to feed the material. the opening was provided with a door of 390 mm x 390 mm to load and unload which could be closed with a self-locking, lever type lock. a hollow, galvanized-iron shaft was used to mount the peeling drum. diameter of the hollow shaft was determined using the following formula [considering that the shaft for ginger peeling unit is subjected to bending and torsion only, and the axial load acting on the shaft is zero (khurmi and gupta, 2006)]. …. 1 where, d o is diameter of the shaft, mm; p is axial load, n; m t is twisting moment, n mm; m b is bending moment, n mm; [τ ] is design shear stress, n mm-2 ; k b is combined shock and fatigue factor applied to m b ; k t is combined shock and fatigue factor applied to m t ; τ is shear stress, n mm-2; σ b is bending stress, n mm-2; α is column action factor. for revolving shaft with gradual loading, values for k b =1.5, k t =1 and [τ ] = 56 mpa = 56 n mm2 i. torque transmitted to the peeling drum the peeling drum was manually operated. considering human energy to be 0.1 hp (sahay, 2006), torque transmitted to the drum by manual rotation at a maximum speed of 50 rpm was calculated using the following formula: ......2 where, hp is horse power transmitted to the peeling drum =1 hp= (746 w), n is speed of the peeling drum, rpm, t t is torque transmitted, nm. maximum rotational speed of the peeling drum (assumed) = 50 rpm 74.6 x 60 hence,torque transmitted= -----------------------14.25 n m = 14250 n mm 2 x 3.14 x 50 fig 1. square-mesh drum ginger peeler fig 2. schematic diagram of the ginger peeler developed j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):75-80, 2012 jayashree and viswanathan 77 ii. bending moment of the shaft the bending moment was calculated by taking into account load acting on the drum. assuming that mass of the peeling drum = 20 kg, mass of ginger to be peeled = 10 kg per batch, total mass = 30 kg. mass of the peeling drum and ginger was considered as a uniformly-distributed load acting over a span-length of 0.92m. this was converted into equivalent point load acting at the centre of the shaft. bending moment diagram for the shaft is shown in fig. 3. considering that the shaft is simply supported, maximum bending moment occurs at the centre of the shaft, and is calculated as (psg, 1988): ....3 assuming and substituting all the values in equation (1). is calculated as: = 17350.78 hence, 0d = 25.88 mm ≈ 26 mm however, the shaft selected for fabrication of the peeler had an outer and inner diameter of 33 and 27 mm, respectively, and a length of 1540 mm. two bushes of 40 mm length, 27 mm inner diameter and 33 mm outer diameter were welded at the centre of the drum-cover on either side. the bush was reinforced with three spokes made of mild-steel flats sized 230 mm length x 20 mm width x 5 mm thickness, radiating from the centre towards the outer surface, and, welded on both the sidecovers. a fabricated v-block made of mild-steel flat sized 40 mm width x 6 mm thickness to a height of 40 mm rests on the outer frame of water-holding tank. the shaft with the drum was supported by the vblock. the water-holding tank was fabricated from mildsteel sheet of 20 swg thickness to a size of 820 mm length, 770 mm width and 450 mm depth. the top of the tank was welded with a frame made of angle section of size 32 x 32 x 3 mm thickness. the frame of the tank supports the vblock which, in turn, supports the shaft and the drum. a 250 mm long handle was provided at one end of the hollow shaft to rotate the drum manually. two ‘a’ shaped frame supports made of mild steel flat of size 25 mm x 6 mm were fastened to the waterholding tank by bolt and nut. each a-frame was 50 mm wide at the top, 550 mm wide at the bottom with a height of 830 mm. on the top of each ‘a’ frame, v-block support of height 100 mm made of mild-steel flat of size 25 x 6 mm were provided to rest the drum during unloading. a mildsteel drain pipe of 35 mm diameter was provided at the bottom of the tank and extended outside for removal of wash water. experiments on peeling of ginger were conducted till adequate peeling of ginger was obtained in all the trials. a three-factor, completely randomized block design was followed to determine the effects of drum capacity, rotational speed and peeling duration on peeling efficiency and material loss in ginger. peeling experiments were conducted for three varying drum capacities (6, 8 and 10 kg), for three different rotational speeds (35, 40 and 45 rpm) and for three peeling durations (5, 10 and 15 min.). all the experiments were replicated thrice. quality of the peeled ginger was evaluated in terms of peeling efficiency and material loss. to assess quality, a sample of 10% of the total weight was taken. the skin on the surface of the ginger was manually peeled and collected. weight of the ginger skin before peeling was assessed in a fresh sample by manually separating the skin from ginger. peeling efficiency and material loss was evaluated as follows (ali et al, 1991): ....4 ….5 where, η p is peeling efficiency of ginger (%); lm is materialfig 3. bending-moment diagram of shaft hand-operated ginger peeler j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):75-80, 2012 78 loss of ginger (%); w ts is theoretical weight of the skin on fresh ginger (g); w p is weight of the skin removed by handtrimming after mechanical peeling (g); w 1 is total weight of ginger before peeling (g); w 2 is total weight of ginger after mechanical peeling (g.) quality of dry ginger was estimated in terms of essential oils by aoac (1975) method, oleoresin by asta (1968) method, moisture content by asta (1968) method, and amount of crude fibre was determined by the method of sadasivam & manickam (1992). data on peeling efficiency and material loss was analyzed using agres (version 7.01, pascal intl software solutions) statistical software. multiple regression models were predicted using essential regression (version: 2.21) statistical software. results and discussion a square-mesh drum ginger peeler was developed. design specifications of the peeler developed are presented in table 1. experiments on mechanical peeling of ginger were conducted by varying drum load for various peeling durations (fig. 4a). as drum load increased from 6 kg to 10 kg for peeling duration of 10 min, peeling efficiency decreased from 40.15% to 38.15%. but, for a given drum-load of 6 kg, as peeling duration increased from 5 min to 15 min, peeling efficiency increased from 34.12% to 51.23%. peeling efficiency thus decreased with increase in drum-load, and increased with increase in peeling duration. as drum speed varied from 35 rpm to 45 rpm, for peeling duration of 10 min at a constant drum load of 8 kg, peeling efficiency increased from 39.86% to 44.56% (fig. 4b). a decrease in peeling efficiency was observed with increase in drum-load. peeling efficiency reduced from table 1. specifications of manually-operated square mesh drum ginger peeler s.no. component specifications 1. peeler drum material mild-steel square-mesh holding capacity 10 kg length 700 mm diameter 500 mm mesh opening size 16 x 16 mm side covers of the drum mild steel sheet 20 swg thick inlet 390 x 390 mm door 390 x 390 mm end support for mesh mild-steel flat of size 20 x 5 mm 2. shaft material hollow, galvanized iron pipe outer diameter 33 mm inner diameter 27 mm length 1540 mm 3. bush (2 nos.) material mild-steel pipe size 40 x 33 x 3 mm 4. water holding tank material mild-steel 20 swg thick sheet size 820 x 770 x 450 mm top-end support mild-steel l-angle of size 32 x 32 x 3 mm ‘v’ block support ms flat, 40 x 6 mm height of ‘v’ block support 45 mm 5. handle material mild-steel flat of size 25 x 3 mm length 250 mm 6. ‘a’ frame support (2 nos.) material mild-steel flat of size 25 x 6 mm size of ‘a’ frame 830 x 150 x 550 mm ‘v’ block support mild steel flat of size 25 x 6 mm height of ‘v’ block 40 mm 7. drain pipe material mild-steel pipe size diameter 35 mm fig. 4 peeling efficiency in square mesh drum ginger peeler for varying a. drum load & peeling duration, b. drum speed & peeling duration, c. drum load & drum speed fig. 4a fig. 4b fig. 4c jayashree and viswanathan j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):75-80, 2012 79 42.25% to 41.49% as drum load increased from 6 kg to 10 kg at a drum speed of 40 rpm for 10 min peeling duration (fig. 4c). but, as drum speed increased from 35 rpm to 45rpm at a drum load of 6 kg, peeling efficiency increased from 40.15% to 45.53%. statistical analysis showed that the effect of all independent variables like drum load, drum speed and peeling duration were highly significant (p<0.01) in determining peeling efficiency of ginger in the mechanical peeler. however, interactions between independent variables were non-significant. singh and shukla (1995) reported that during abrasive peeling of potatoes in an abrasive drum-type peeler, peeling efficiency increased with time. similarly, peeling efficiency increased with increase in drum speed. however, in the case of increasing material load in the peeler, this trend was not seen beyond 6 min of peeling. this was so because, at the initial stage, peeling occurred only on the outer surface of potatoes. but, as peeling continued beyond 6 min, at higher batch loads some potatoes were over-peeled while some other were under-peeled. material loss during ginger peeling decreased from 2.45% to 2.28% (fig. 5a) as drum load increased from 6 kg to 10 kg for peeling duration of 10 min and drum speed of 35 rpm. but, for drum load of 6 kg and drum speed of 35 and rpm, the peeling duration increased from 5 min to 15 min, material loss increased from 1.29% to 4.58%. material loss thus decreased with increase in drum-load and increased with increasing peeling duration. material loss was also found to increase as drum speed and peeling duration increased. material loss increased from 1.21% to 1.49% as drum speed increased from 35 rpm to 45 rpm (fig. 5b). but, at a drum speed of 45 rpm, as the peeling duration increased from 5 min to 15 min, material loss increased from 1.21% to 4.51%. decrease in material loss was observed with increase in drum load. material loss reduced from 2.58% to 2.33% as drum load increased from 6 kg to 10 kg at a drum speed of 40 rpm for 10 min peeling duration (fig. 5c). but, as drum speed increased from 35 rpm to 45 rpm at a drum speed of 6 kg and peeling duration of 10 min, material loss increased from 2.45% to 2.75%. significance of the effect of drum-load, drum-speed and peeling duration on material loss was statistically analyzed. it was observed that material loss was significantly influenced by drum load, drum speed, peeling duration and by interactions between independent variables. peel loss in potatoes in an abrasive drum peeler was evaluated by singh and shukla (1995) who reported peel loss to vary from 3.80 to 10.37 % for batch-load varying from 5 kg to 20 kg, time varying from 4 min to 10 min and speed varying from 30 to 50 rpm. peel loss increased linearly with peeling time, drum speed and loading intensity. relationship between peeling efficiency (η p ) and material loss (m l ) for various drum loads (l), drum speeds (s) and peeling duration (t) in a square-mesh drum peeler was predicted by multiple regression models as follows: η p = 16.41 + 1.156t + 0.229 s 0.250 l + 0.02683 t s 0.04617 t l+ 0.00475 s l ... (6) (r2=0.97) m l = -1.051+ 0.443 t + 0.0099 s 0.174 l 0.0017 t s – 0.0066 t l+ 0.00517 s l ... (7) (r2= 0.96) from equation (6), it is evident that peeling efficiency was positively correlated with peeling duration and drumspeed and negatively correlated with drum load. coefficients of independent variables indicated that influence of peeling duration was the highest, followed by drum load and drum speed. equation 7, explains that material loss was positively fig. 5 material loss in square mesh drum ginger peeler for varying a. drum load & peeling duration b. drum speed & peeling duration c. drum load & drum speed hand-operated ginger peeler j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):75-80, 2012 80 correlated with peeling duration and drum speed, and negatively correlated with drum-load. the coefficients of independent variables indicated that influence of peeling time was highest, followed by drum load and drum speed. analysis of variance for linear regression model to determine peeling efficiency indicated that the regression model was highly significant (p <0.01) as evident from the f-value calculated (118.27) and r2 value (0.97). analysis of variance for linear regression model to determine material loss describes that the regression model is highly significant (p<0.01) as observed from the f-value (40.55) and r2 value (0.96). hence, the models developed were adequate to describe the relationship between all treatment combinations of drum-load, drum speed and peeling time with respect to peeling efficiency and material loss of ginger in the squaremesh drum mechanical peeler. the result of trials conducted on mechanical peeling of ginger, have revealed that peeling of ginger was associated with material loss. for production of dry ginger of commercial grade, it is necessary to minimize material loss so that the quality is not affected. maximum output from the peeler was obtained at a drum-load of 8 kg for drum speed of 40 rpm and for peeling duration of 15 min. at these conditions, peeling of ginger was sufficient to produce commercial grade dry ginger. peeling efficiency at optimum machine parameters was 55.60% and material loss was 4.68%. quality of the sun-dried ginger obtained at optimum operating conditions of the square-mesh drum ginger peeler was determined and was found to have essential oils at 2%, oleoresin 4.6%, moisture content 9.82% and crude fibre content of 2.5% (table 3). table 3. quality of mechanically peeled ginger constituent value (%) essential oils 2.0 oleoresin 4.6 moisture 9.82 crude fibre 2.5 references ali, y., jain, g.c., kapdi, s.s., agrawal, y.c. and bhatnagar, s. 1991. development of brush type ginger peeling machine. ama in asia, africa, and latin america, 22:71-73 aoac. 1975. official methods of analysis. association of official analytical chemists, benjamin franklin station, washington. p 563 asta. 1968. official analytical methods. 2nd edn., american spice trade association, new jersey balakrishnan, k.v. 2005. postharvest and industrial processing of ginger. in: ginger the genus zingiber (eds. ravindran, p.n. and k. nirmal babu). crc press, massachusettes, pp. 391434 khurmi, r.s. and gupta, j.k. 2006. a textbook of machine design. eurasia publishing house (pvt.) limited, new delhi madan, m.s. 2005. production, marketing and economics of ginger. in: ginger the genus zingiber. (eds. ravindran, p.n. and k. nirmal babu). crc press, massachusettes, pp. 435-468 psg. 1988. psg tech design data. compiled by: faculty of mechanical engineering, p.s.g. college of technology, coimbatore, tamil nadu, india sadasivam, b. and manickam, a. 1992. biochemical methods for agricultural sciences. wiley eastern ltd., new delhi, and tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india sahay, j. 2006. elements of agricultural engineering. standard publishers and distributors, new delhi singh, k.k. and shukla, b.d. 1995. abrasive peeling of potatoes. j. food engg., 26:431–442 spices board of india. 2011. goi, http:// www.indianspices.com sreekumar, m.m., sankarikutty, b., nirmala menon, a., padmakumari, k.p., sumathikutty, m.a. and arumughan, c. 2002. fresh flavoured spice oil and oleoresin. spice india, 15:15-19 (ms received 07 february 2012, revised 12 april 2012) table 2. statistical analysis of peeling data parameter peeling efficiency material loss f-value cd (5%) se f-value cd (5%) se drum load (l) 10.52** 0.97 0.48 112.36** 0.76 0.038 drum speed (s) 61.26** 0.97 0.48 952.82** 0.76 0.038 peeling duration (t) 757.29** 0.97 0.48 4743.75** 0.76 0.038 l x s 0.15ns 1.68 0.84 12.08** 0.13 0.066 s x t 1.99 ns 1.68 0.84 46.11** 0.13 0.066 l x t 1.72 ns 1.68 0.84 17.10** 0.13 0.066 jayashree and viswanathan j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):75-80, 2012 j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 28-32, 2006 development of diagnostic leaf nutrient norms and identification of yield limiting nutrients using dris in rose grown under protected conditions k. anjaneyulu division of soil science & agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: anjaney@iihr.emet.in abstract leaf samples collected from protected cultivation units of rose around bangalore (karnataka) and hosur (tamil nadu), when flower buds were at pea size, were processed and analyzed for various nutrients and thus, the data bank was established. by using diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris), nutrient expressions, which have shown higher variance and lower coefflcient of variation, were selected as norms viz, n/p(13.02), k/n(0.85), n/s(11.10), p/s(0.853), k/p(11.0), n/ca(2.18), n/mg(7.18) etc. in addition, five nutrient ranges have been derived using mean and standard deviation as low, deficient, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient to serve as a guide for diagnostic purpose. the optimum n ranged from 2.53 to 2.96% , p from 0.19 to 0.23%, k from 2.23 to 2.72%, ca from 1.15 to 1.59%, mg from 0.41 to 0.55% and s from 0.21 to 0.27%. among the micronutrients, the optimum zn ranged from 28 to 64 ppm, fe from 176 to 240 ppm, mn from 107 to 175 ppm and cu from 13 to 21 ppm for roses under protected conditions. the diagnosis of nutrient imbalance (dris indices) indicated that the most common yield limiting nutrients were potassium and magnesium among the macronutrients and iron and zinc among the micronutrients in protected cultivation units of rose. key words: nutrients, norms, dris indices, rose, protected conditions introduction nadu, 320 leaf samples were collected from various with the introduction of liberalization policy in p™tected cultivation units of rose during the years 2002 agriculture, rose cultivation in poly-houses became popular ^^^ 2003. at each site, composite samples of recently in india especially in karnataka and tamil nadu for the matured 5*leaflets (jones et al, 1991) were collected from export of quality cut flowers. as the nutrient removal is 50 plants to develop leaf nutrient norms/standards. it is very high under protected cultivation due to removal of long essential to select a specific part of the same physiological stalks/stems for export purpose, its nutrient requirements age at a definite location on the plant at definite stage of have to be carefully monitored through plant/leaf analysis growth (when flower buds were at pea size). for high productivity and quality. for efficient fertilizer r̂ j >. i • ^ <, , r \ • , \ a a • , , decontamination and analysis of samples programme, leaf nutrient standards are required to be j j r developed, as no established norms are available for roses tissue samples were decontaminated by washing grown under protected conditions. there are a few reports first with tap water to remove the dirt or soil, then in 0.2% in the literature on the use of diagnosis and detergent solution and in n/10 hcl solution to remove recommendation integrated system (dris) in ornamental residues of chemical spray materials on the leaf surface plants ( mourao filho 2004)^ therefore, an investigation ^^^^^^^ j , ^^^^ .^ ĵ ,g ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^j^^jjl^^ ^^^^^ was earned out to develop leaf nutnent norms using dris, , „ , , r, 7 , • ,̂ r̂ -,̂ t̂ which in addition predicts the yield-limiting nutrients in (^hargava and raghupathi, 1993). excess water on the the order of importance (beaufils, 1973). surface of the leaves was removed by pressing between the matfriai and methods ^"''̂ ^ °^ blotting paper and the leaves were dried in an oven at 70-75°c for 48 h. after complete drying, the samples establishment of data bank impling in a survey conducted in karnataka and tamil analyzed for different nutrients (except nitrogen) by were powdered in a cyclotec mill, and were stored in leaf sampling polycarbyl containers for analysis. the samples were mailto:anjaney@iihr.emet.in anjaneyulu digesting ig tissue in di-acid mixture (9:4 ratio of nitric acid and perchloric acid) by using standard analytical methods (jackson, 1973). nitrogen was estimated by microkjeldhal method whereas phosphorus, potassium and sulphur by vanado-molybdate, flame-photometer and turbidity methods, respectively. calcium, magnesium and the micronutrients fe, mn, cu and zn were analyzed by using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (perkinelmer-a-analyst-200). thus, the data bank was established for the whole population. computation of dris norms by using dris, the whole population was divided into two sub-groups namely low and high yielding (beaufils, 1973; bailey et al, 1997; walworth and sumner, 1987) based on the production of number of flowers/plant/year. from the experience of the growers, 175 flowers/plant/year was considered as the cut off yield between low and high performing gardens. the cut off yield was positioned in such a way that the high yielding sub-population reflects conditions that are deemed desirable (beaufils, 1973). however, letzsch and sumner (1984) have shown that the actual cut off value used has little effect on the norms developed as long as it is not too low. each parameter was expressed in as many forms as possible, e.g. n/p, p/n, nxp etc. a x^-test was run for each form of expression to ensure that each sub-population is normally distributed after which the mean, variance, standard deviation for all forms of expressions were calculated together with the coefficient of variation. expressions having comparable means (by ttest) and significant variance ratios between the two subpopulations were retained as being discriminatory. among different forms of expressions, the one showing higher variance ratio (variance of low yielding / variance of high yielding) was selected as norm (letzsch, 1985; walworth and sumner, 1987). dris indices dris provides a means of ordering nutrient ratios into meaningful expressions in the form of indices. the dris indices were calculated as described by walworth and sumner (1987) by using the following formula, as an example for one nutrient is shown below: n = l/10[-f (p/n)-f(k/n)+f(n/ca)+f(n/mg)-f(s/n)-f(fe/ n)-i-f(n/mn)-hf(n/zn)f(cu/n)-i-f(n/dw)] and f(n/p) = where, f (n/p) = n/p 1 n/p 1000 1 n/p n/p 1000 cv when n/p < n/p cv hen n/p > n/p where n/p, the actual value of the ratio of n and p in the plant under diagnosis; n/p, the value of the norm (which is the mean value of the high yielding unit); cv, coefficient of variation for population of high yielding units. similarly, the indices for other nutrients have been calculated using appropriate formulae. the absolute sum values of the nutrient indices generate an additional index called nbi, the nutritional balance index (walworth and sumner, 1987). leaf nutrient guides/ranges derived from mean and standard deviation five leaf nutrient guides/ranges have been derived using mean and standard deviation as deficient, low, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient. the optimum nutrient range is the value derived from "mean -4/3sd (standard deviation) to mean + 4/3sd". the range "low" was obtained by calculating "mean 4/3 sd to mean 8/ 3sd" and the value below "mean 8/3 sd" was considered as deficient. the value from "mean •¥ 4/3 sd to mean + 8/ 3 sd" was taken as high and the value above "mean -i8/3 sd" was taken as excessive (bhargava and chadha, 1993). results and discussion leaf nutrient concentrations the leaf nutrient status under different protected cultivation units varied differently. for the entire population of roses, the leaf n concentration varied from 2.16 to 3.11% indicating that the nitrogen content was low at least in some of the low yielding gardens when compared to optimum value. p ranged from 0.138 to 0.266% whereas potassium varied from 1.15 to 2.80% for the entire population (table 1). among the micronutrients, fe ranged from 110 to 268 ppm and was generally considered high but was not high under protected cultivation as most of the plants were showing deficiency symptoms in the low yielding gardens though the lowest iron concentration recorded was 110 ppm in a garden, which is normal for many crops. dris ratio norms forty-five nutrient expressions chosen as diagnostic norms from high yielding population are presented in j. hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 28-32, 2006 29 dris norms for rose grown under protected conditions table 1. mean and range of leaf nutrient concentrations for the wliole population nutrient n p k ca mg s fe mn zn cu table 2. unit % % % % % % ppm ppm ppm ppm range 2.16-3.110 0.14-0.266 1.15-2.800 0.68-1.770 0.22-0.560 0.17-0.320 110-268 38-193 18-136 02-022 mean 2.558 0.198 2.194 1.179 0.358 0.229 174 97 43 10 dris ratio norms for rose grown under conditions selected ratios n/p k/n n/ca n/mg n/s n/fe n/mn n/zn cu/n k/p p/ca p/mg p/s p/fe p/mn p/zn cu/p k/ca k/mg k/s fe/zn mn/zn cu/zn norms 13.020 0.853 2.182 7.183 11.110 0.015 0.030 0.069 4.304 11.000 0.170 0.556 0.853 0.001 0.002 0.005 56.070 1.873 6.155 9.467 4.505 2.397 0.252 cv (%) 14 16 24 28 19 29 45 48 47 15 29 27 12 29 42 46 47 32 31 23 45 48 35 selected ratios k/fe k/mn k/zn k/cu ca/mg s/ca ca/fe mn/ca ca/zn cu/ca s/mg fe/mg mn/mg mg/zn cu/mg s/fe mn/s s/zn cu/s mn/fe cu/fe cu/mn — norms 0.013 0.026 0.059 0.293 3.324 0.201 0.007 83.120 0.031 8.850 0.657 483.800 262.200 0.009 28.260 0.004 438.400 0.006 46.800 0.552 0.059 0.112 — protected cv (%) 35 44 51 39 20 29 27 40 41 42 30 22 28 37 38 28 43 44 44 28 39 42 — table 2. it was established that a particular nutrient expression should have a high variance and low coefficient of variation, to be chosen as diagnostic norm between high and low yielding population, for greater diagnostic precision (walworth and sumner, 1987 and angeles et al, 1993). based on this principle, these 45 nutrient expressions were chosen as diagnostic norms viz. n/p (13.02), k/n(0.85), n/s(n. 10), p/s(0.853), k/p(l 1.0), n/ca(2.18), n/mg(7.18) etc. and have shown lower cv values compared to others and may have greater physiological rationale (raghupathi et al, 2004). maintaining the ratios of some expressions at optimum when they were with large coefficient of variation was much less critical for the performance of the crop. therefore, the nutrients considered as yield building components, need to be kept in a state of relative balance for maximum efficiency of dry matter production (raghupathi et al, 2004). identification of yield limiting nutrients by dris indices the nutrient imbalance in plants was diagnosed through dris indices. dris provides a means of ordering nutrient ratios into meaningful expressions in the form of indices. a dris index is a mean of the deviations of ratios containing a given nutrient from their respective normal or optimum values. thus, the relative abundance of each nutrient was evaluated by comparing all ratios containing that nutrient (n/p, nxk, ca/n etc.) with the dris norms. as the value of each ratio function was added to one index sub-total and subtracted from another prior to averaging, all indices were balanced around zero (table 3). thus, the nutrient indices sum to zero indicating an optimum level, negative values a relative deficiency and positive values a relative excess of that nutrient (beverly, 1991). the yield limiting nutrients were differing from garden to garden though some of the nutrients were more prominent. the order in which the nutrients were limiting the yield indicated that most often more than one nutrient was limiting the yield (table 3). however, the diagnosis of nutrient imbalance indicated that the most common yield limiting nutrients are found to be potassium and magnesium among the macronutrients and zinc and iron among the micronutrients in the protected cultivation units growing rose crop. nutritional balance index (nbi) the absolute sum values of the nutrient indices generate an additional index called nutritional balance index (walworth and sumner, 1987). the overall imbalance of the nutrient was assessed based on the sum of indices irrespective of sign (table 3). higher the sum value, larger will be the plant nutritional imbalance and, therefore, the lower will be the yield. however, the yield cannot be predicted from sum of indices irrespective of the sign because of the influence of unmeasured factors that affect the yield but not included in the calculation of dris indices (sumner, 1977). leaf nutrient guide and classification of gardens five leaf nutrient guides/ranges have been derived using mean and standard deviation as deficient, low, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient and presented (table 4). the optimum leaf n for rose ranged from 2.53 to 2.96% but the variation in the range was not wide. however, jones et al, (1991) reported a wider range (3 to 5%) for roses grown outside. the classification of the gardens j. hort. sci. vol. 1 (1): 28-32, 2006 30 anjaneyulu table 3: dris indices for various nutrients in selected low yielding rose gardens s.no 1 2 3 4 5 6 n 166 -89 9 -27 38 4 p 109 151 46 26 64 -17 k -101 -16 -109 -174 28 135 ca -72 -22 23 24 15 184 mg -78 -152 -10 -10 -116 -154 s 227 -60 33 35 -64 10 table 4. leaf nutrients guide for rose under protected conditions nutrient n p k ca mg s unil % % % % % % t deficient <2.08 <0.13 <1.75 <0.69 <0.25 <0.15 low fe -179 -23 -18 125 -72 -18 2.09-2.52 0.14-0.18 1.76-2.22 0.70-1 .14 0.26-0.40 0.16-0.20 mn 9 2 52 32 178 5 zn -89 88 -51 -146 -217 -155 optimum 2.53-2.96 0.19-0.23 2.23-2.72 1.15-1.59 0.41-0.55 0.21-0.27 cu 8 121 25 115 146 6 sum order of limiting 1038fe>k>zn>mg 724mg>n>s>fe 376k>zn>fe>mg 714k>zn>n>mg 938zn>mg>fe>s 688zn>mg>fe>p high 2.97-3.39 0.24-0.27 2.73-3.17 1.60-2.03 0.56-0.69 0.28-0.33 nutrients excess >3.40 >0.28 >3.18 >2.04 >0.70 >0.34 fe mn zn cu ppm ppm ppm ppm <uloo <38.00 <11.00 <4.00 112.00-175.00 39.00-106.00 12.00-027.00 5.00-012.00 176.00-240.00 107.00-175.00 28.00-064.00 13.00-021.00 241.00-304.00 176.00-244.00 65.00-092.00 22.00-030.00 >305.00 >244.00 >93.00 >31.00 surveyed indicated that nitrogen was at optimum in 85% of the gardens whereas it was limiting only in 9% of the gardens (table 5). the optimum p ranged from 0.19 to 0.23% indicating a lower requirement of p compared to n (table 4). it was observed that p was rarely a limiting factor for flower production in roses. thus, the p concentration was at optimum in 86% of the gardens and was higher in 11% of the gardens. the optimum k ranged from 2.23 to 2.72%. the requirement of k is always next only to nitrogen for roses as it is involved not only in the production of flowers but also in improving the quality. potassium was found to be low in 21% of the gardens indicating that k was a yield-limiting factor. the optimum concentration range for calcium was from 1.15 to 1.59% and was similar to the results reported by jones et al (1991). among the gardens surveyed, 25% of the gardens were low in magnesium. thus, magnesium status of many individual gardens was low when compared to optimum range (table 4). only 6% of the gardens had recorded lower sulphur table 5. classification of rose gardens into various nutrient categories nutrient n p k ca mg s fe mn zn cu deficient 0 0 2% 0 0 0 5% 0 5% 0 / hort. sci. vol. 1(1): 28-32, 2006 low 9% 3% 21% 8% 25% 6% 23% 0 30% 0 optimum 85% 86% 74% 78% 72% 77% 66% 91% 62% 88% high 6% 11% 3% 14% 3% 14% 6% 9% 3% 7% excess 0 0 0 0 0 3% 0 0 0 5% content indicating that sulphur was not a yieldlimiting factor in most of the gardens. jones ef a/ (1991) reported a wider optimum ranges for many nutrients for roses grown outside. among the micronutrients, zinc was found to be low in 30% of the gardens whereas iron was low only in 23%of the gardens. the optimum zinc concentration ranged from 28 to 64 ppm whereas iron ranged from 176 to 240 ppm. thus, zinc was found to be the most yieldlimiting factor in most of the protected cultivation units followed by iron. most of the gardens recorded optimum levels for manganese and copper. it can be concluded that the leaf nutrient standards developed can be used for efficient fertilizer programming and to correct the nutrients in question for obtaining optimum flower yield and quality in rose crop grown under protected conditions. references angeles, d.e., sumner, m.e. and lahav, e.1993. preliminary dris norms for banana. j. pl nutrition, 16:1059-1070 bailey, j.s., beattie, j.a.m. and kilpatrick, d.j. 1997. the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris) for diagnosis of nutrient status of grassland swords. 1 model establishment. pl & soil 197:127135 beaufils, e.r. 1973. diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris). soil scl bull, 1:1-132. university of natal pitermariburg, south africa. beverly, r.b.1991. a practical guide to the dris. athens: micro-macro publ., usa, 87p bhargava, b.s. andchadha, k.l.i 993. leaf nutrient guides 31 dris norms for rose grown under protected conditions for fruit crops. in: advances in horticulture fruit crops, vol. 2, pp 973-1030, chadha, k.l. and pareek,o.p. (eds.), malhotra publ. house, new delhi. bhargava, b.s. and raghupathi, h.b.1993. analysis of plant material for macro and micronutrients. in: methods of analysis of soils , plants, waters and fertilizers. pp 48-82, tandon, h.l.s (ed.). fertilizer development and consultation organization, new delhi. jackson, m.l.1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india, new delhi. 498 p jones, j.b. wolf, b and mills, h.a.i991.plant analysis handbook. micro-macro publ., usa letzsch, w.s.i985. computer program for selection of norms for use in the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris). commun. soil sci. pl analysis, 16:339-347 letzsch, w.s. and sumner, m.e.1984. effect f population size and yield level in selection of dris norms. commun. soil sci. pi. analysis, 15:997-1006 mourao filho, f.a.a. 2004. dris: concepts and applications on nutritional diagnosis in fruit crops, sci. agric, (piracicaba, braz.) 61:550-560 raghupathi, h.b., reddy,y.t.n., kurian reju and bhargava, b.s. 2004. diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in mango by dris and pca approaches. j. pi. nutrition, 27:1131-1148 sumner, m.e.i977. application of beaufils diagnostic indices to corn data published in literature irrespective of age and condition. pi. & soil, 46:359363 walworth, j.l. and sumner, m.f.1987. the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system. in: adv. soil 5d., 6:149-188 (ms received 3 april, 2006 revised 24 may, 2006) j. hon. sci. vol. 1 (1): 28-32, 2006 32 influence of fermented cocopeat on seedling vigour in some vegetables, marigold and pigeon pea s.c. kotur* division of soil science and agricultural chemistry icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india e-mail : sckotur@gmail.com abstract seedlings of four solanaceous, two cruciferous, five cucurbitaceous vegetables, and, marigold and pigeon pea were grown in pro-trays filled with ‘arka fermented’ coco-peat or on conventional raised bed. seedlings grown on raised bed were superior in all the crops excepting capsicum. pigeon pea recorded significantly longer tap root in pro-trays with the root getting matted at the base of the coco-peat plug. the plug is rendered redundant at transplanting. to enhance the vigour of ‘arka ananya’ tomato seedlings in pro-trays, modification in growth medium was attempted by blending soil in various proportions and adding 0.2% humic acid to the irrigation water. blending cocopeat:soil at 3:1 ratio caused some improvement compared to that with cocopeat alone or 1:1 and 1:3 blends of cocopeat:soil. soil alone, placed in the pro-tray, also failed to equal the high seedling vigour produced by conventional raised bed method. addition of 0.2% humic acid in water used for irrigating pro-trays showed no improvement in seedling vigour. reduced vigour of seedlings raised in pro-trays in several vegetables, and poor performance of such seedlings in tomato, cabbage and cauliflower crops in the field, indicates a need for further improvement in the technology. key words: seedling vigour, cocopeat, pro-tray, raised bed, humic acid, vegetables, marigold, pigeon pea introduction growing seedlings in pro-trays using fermented cocopeat as a growth medium has become highly popular among farmers. seedlings from pro-trays are easy to grow, uniform in growth, easy to transport and suffer no transplantation shock. above all, this obviates on-farm raising of seedlings by farmers (prabhakar et al., 2004). in crops like hybrid capsicum, tomato and marigold where seed costs are high, pro-trays are a boon and give assured germination. as these seedlings differ from those conventionally grown in raised bed using soil, production practices also differ. a comparison of pro-tray and raised-bed grown seedlings of ‘indra’ capsicum showed that the former were more vigorous and went on to yield 33% higher when transplanted, compared to that in the latter (kotur, 2008). the reverse was true in the case of ‘tetris’ cauliflower (kotur, 2013a), ‘omphalus’ cabbage (kotur, 2013b) and ‘arka ananya’ tomato (kotur, 2014). these studies showed that vigour of the seedling at transplantation was the key to final crop performance. to resolve this disparity, different solanaceous, cruciferous and cucurbitaceous vegetable crops besides *former principal scientist (soil science) marigold and pigeon pea (which are also raised in nurseries) were evaluated. material and methods solanaceous crops, viz., capsicum, chilli, brinjal and tomato; crucifers, viz., cabbage and cauliflower; cucurbits, viz., cucumber, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, bitter gourd and water melon; also, marigold and pigeon pea, were sown simultaneously in march 2012 in (i) pro-trays using ‘arka fermented’ cocopeat and (ii) conventional raised beds. the pro-trays were made of moulded, recycled high-impact polystyrene (hips), 27×53cm in outer size, with 98 plugs/ holes/ conical cavities of 3.0 × 2.0 × 4.5cm dimension (volume 20cm3), arranged in a grid of 14 × 7 holes with perforation provided at the bottom for drainage. microbial consortium, containing n-fixers, p-solubilizers and plant growth promoters, was applied to 6-day old seedlings @ 10g litre-1 irrigation water in pro-trays and @ 20g litre-1 in raised beds. observations were recorded on 16-day old seedlings in cucurbitaceous crops, marigold and pigeon pea, and on 25-day old seedlings in solanaceous crops, this being j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):191-195, 2014 192 the suitable age for field transplantation. seedlings grown in pro-trays were hardened a week prior to sampling by shifting the pro-trays to outside the glasshouse in which they were raised. the seedlings were carefully extracted and washed in running tap water, taking care to preserve the root mass. in another study, ‘arka ananya’ tomato was grown in completely randomized factorial experiment, with 3 replications. factor 1 consisted of tomato seedlings grown both in pro-trays and raised beds, and irrigated with (i) ordinary irrigation water and (ii) 0.2% humic acid (v/v) dissolved in irrigation water. factor 2 comprised 6 table 1. seedling vigour in various crops as influenced by germination on conventional raised seed bed using soil, or in pro-tray using ‘fermented cocopeat’ crop / variety girth length of length of dry matter of dry matter of (mm) shoot (cm) root (cm) shoot (mg) root (mg) soil coco soil coco soil coco soil coco soil coco peat peat peat peat peat solanaceous vegetable crops capsicum (indra) 2.6 3.4 21.5 25.1 7.8 9.4 61.2 75.8 10.4 16.9 (± 2.24) (±0.31) (± 3.21) (± 2.11) (± 1.82) (± 0.67) (± 8.92) (±9.71) (± 2.81) (± 2.97) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** chilli (arka lohit) 2.3 1.6 20.5 22.5 8.3 9.5 219.9 77.9 40.2 19.1 (± 0.31) (± 0.15) (± 2.25) (± 2.59) (± 2.31) (± 1.83) (± 29.81) (± 4.95) (± 4.81) (± 1.49) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** tomato (arka ananya) 4.0 2.5 17.2 20.6 12.4 7.3 222.1 152.0 10.4 21.3 (± 0.43) (± 0.29) (± 1.18) (± 3.39) (± 2.18) (± 2.07) (± 17.72) (± 19.81) (± 2.81) (± 2.04) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** brinjal (nidhi) 2.3 2.1 9.9 13.5 7.9 8.3 142.3 126.5 40.2 15.2 (± 0.80) (± 0.28) (± 1.09) (± 3.67) (± 1.64) (± 0.64) (± 21.93) (± 3.67) (± 4.81) (± 0.98) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** cruciferous vegetable crops cauliflower (tetris) 2.7 2.3 13.2 12.6 10.1 8.6 354.3 89.1 55.6 14.5 (± 0.34) (± 0.19) (± 3.42) (± 1.22) (± 1.52) (± 1.45) (± 35.41) (± 9.1) (± 6.81) (± 2.62) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** cabbage (omphalus) 3.0 2.1 8.8 10.2 13.5 11.5 512.2 111.8 79.4 18.9 (± 0.45) (± 0.21) (± 2.27) (± 2.28) (± 4.88) (± 1.19) (± 34.72) (± 9.81) (± 9.13) (± 4.12) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** cucurbitaceous vegetable crops cucumber (delicious) 2.2 1.9 14.2 19.2 8.2 11.3 221.4 95.2 14.2 9.2 (±0.23) (± 0.18) (± 0.96) (± 1.14) (± 0.62) (± 1.01) (±19.14) (± 0.79) (± 1.21) (± 0.81) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** bottle gourd (arka bahar) 3.8 3.3 16.9 21.0 8.9 12.2 375.9 112.7 27.9 10.5 (± 0.40) (± 0.46) (± 1.45) (± 1.49) (± 0.75) (± 3.97) (± 16.38) (± 10.15) (± 8.88) (± 3.08) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** ridge gourd (arka sujata) 4.9 3.5 18.3 21.7 6.8 12.2 402.1 143.7 18.6 45.3 (± 0.54) (± 0.50) (± 6.33) (± 5.79) (± 0.98) (± 4.26) (± 21.60) (± 7.93) (± 4.88) (± 3.41) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** bitter gourd (arka harit) 4.4 3.4 15.6 19.7 5.2 8.3 262.7 161.8 12.1 28.6 (± 0.28) (± 0.91) (± 3.47) (± 5.95) (± 1.08) (± 0.64) (± 16.38) (± 9.61) (± 5.24) (± 6.10) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** water melon (arka manik) 3.9 2.7 20.2 10.7 5.2 6.2 406.8 78.0 13.4 15.1 (± .47) (± 0.50) (± 6.23) (± 1.03) (± 0.64) (± 1.97) (± 20.87) (± 4.98) (± 2.62) (± 4.21) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** other crops marigold (mg-25) 2.4 1.6 16.3 10.7 9.9 8.6 181.5 43.6 14.9 11.8 (± 0.43) (± 0.11) (± 2.04) (± 1.23) (± 2.71) (± 1.68) (± 7.76) (± 2.97) (± 6.17) (± 3.99) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** pigeon pea (rural local) 1.6 1.5 20.4 20.9 10.1 19.1 210.7 148.0 30.0 34.1 (± 0.13) (± 0.27) (± 1.99) (± 2.03) (± 2.63) (± 6.9) (± 15.63) (± 5.46) (± 2.56) (± 1.59) t-stat ** ** ** ** ** (t-stat at p=0.01) kotur j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):191-195, 2014 193 treatments in which the first five consisted of seedlings grown in pro-trays filled with various growth media: (i) cocopeat alone, (ii) cocopeat : soil in 3:1 proportion, (iii) cocopeat : soil in 1:1 proportion, (iv) cocopeat : soil in 1:3 proportion and (v) soil alone. the sixth treatment was conventional raised-bed (1m × 3m, raised to 20cm height) in the field. microbial consortium was applied to 6-day old seedlings @ 10g litre-1 irrigation water in pro-trays and @ 20g litre-1 water in raised beds as explained earlier. each treatment unit was raised as a single pro-tray (96 seedlings), or as 100 seedlings on a raised bed. twenty five randomly selected seedlings were sampled and length of the shoot and root measured. the girth of the seedling was determined at ground level using a pair of vernier callipers. physicochemical properties of various growth media were determined using standard analytical procedures (jackson, 1973). the seedlings were separated into shoot and root portions and dried in an oven at 70°c for 48 hours to determine dry matter. mean values for each seedling were analyzed statistically as described by cochran and cox (1957). results and discussion vigour parameters (in respect of length of shoot and root, table 1) of seedlings grown in soil (on raised-bed in the field) and in pro-trays using fermented cocopeat revealed that in all the crops, excepting ‘indra’ capsicum and ‘nidhi’ brinjal were superior in the raised-bed. the differences were statistically significant in respect of most parameters and for most crops. the root system in pro-tray grown seedlings showed profuse growth of secondary roots but failed to match the overall root system observed in raised-bed seedlings. in the raised-bed, seedlings were more robust, thicker and had a prominent tap root. in the case of brinjal too, the raised-bed seedlings showed significantly higher dry matter in shoot and root. in ‘omphalus’cauliflower, the root of seedlings from raised-bed was shorter than that in pro-tray grown seedlings; but, in respect of rest of the parameters, raised-bed seedlings were superior. in pigeon pea, roots were nearly twice as long in pro-tray grown seedlings as in raised-bed, but, were coiled and matted to a thickness of about 2-3mm at the base of the plug in the protray. this extra-long root is likely to be useless, as, the farmer is unlikely to unfurl the root mass and transplant the tap root deeply. observation of the seedlings in cucurbits revealed the shoot portion ending abruptly at the ground level, from which roots appeared to emanate as adventitious roots along a weak tap-root. in seedlings grown on raised-bed, however, the tap-root was more prominant. the highly porous and favourably moist cocopeat, in comparison to soil, did not favour proper root growth in most cases except in capsicum in terms of overall vigour, and in pigeon pea, for length of tap root. in the second experiment, 0.2% humic acid in the irrigation water was included, as, humic acid is known to favour root proliferation and growth leading to higher crop yield (ravichandran, 2011). in the present study, no significant improvement in vigour of tomato seedlings was seen in terms of length and dry weight of shoot and root, and girth of the seedlings, with inclusion of humic acid in irrigation water (table 3). blending cocopeat with soil in proportions of 3:1 to 1:3 improved bulk density, phw, exchangeable ca and mg, but reduced the moisture content at field capacity, available p and s, and all the dtpaextractable micronutrients in growth medium (table 2). blending soil with cocopeat was done to impart soil-like structural properties to cocopeat assuming, that, this would promote root growth. significant improvement in seedling vigour was achieved in cocopeat:soil medium ratio of 3:1, compared to cocopeat alone, in respect of seedling girth and dry weight of shoot and root; but, the effect diminished as the proportion of soil in the medium increased. vigour of the seedlings in raised-bed was significantly superior table 2. physico-chemical properties of growth media composed of soil, cocopeat and their blend in different proportions growth media moisture bulk p h ec organic p exchangeable available dtpa (cocopeat: (%) density (1:2.5)w (dsm -1) carbon (%) (bray-i) cation (cmol kg-1) s (kg ha-1) extractable (µg g-1) soil bed) (g cm-3) (kg ha-1) k ca mg fe mn zn cu cocopeat 325 0.17 5.90 0.621 0.68 21.8 0.24 1.85 0.41 78 48 63 5.6 1.7 only (4:0) cocopeat: 59 0.26 6.21 0.512 2.3 16.7 0.58 2.40 0.47 60 41 57 5.5 1.9 soil (3:1) cocopeat: 61 0.39 6.61 0.485 7.6 14.4 1.04 3.45 0.65 41 36 40 5.0 2.0 soil (1:1) cocopeat: 74 0.77 6.92 0.306 9.2 14.2 1.92 5.93 1.17 30 26 30 4.8 2.7 soil (1:3) soil only (0:4) 25 1.64 7.12 0.247 12.5 14.1 2.31 7.15 1.34 21 23 16 3.8 2.9 influence of fermented cocopeat on seedling vigour in some crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):191-195, 2014 194 table 3. effect of application of humic acid and various growing media on the success percentage and vigour of ‘arka ananya’ tomato seedlings treatment % girth of length of dry weight success seedling seedling (mg) (cm) shoot root shoot root irrigation water used water 87.6 3.14 19.0 9.3 192 29 humic acid (0.02%) 84.1 3.10 18.6 9.1 189 28 sem (±) 1.22 0.66 0.67 0.74 1.2 0.7 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns seedling raising media protray grown seedlings cocopeat alone 97.3 2.75 20.5 8.9 152 21 cocopeat:soil 96.8 3.10 19.8 8.8 198 30 (3:1) (1:4) cocopeat: soil (1:1) 89.0 2.90 18.5 8.8 185 29 cocopeat: soil (1:3) 74.5 2.89 18.4 9.0 171 27 soil alone 63.2 2.74 18.1 7.8 171 26 raised bed 94.3 4.35 17.5 12.2 268 42 grown seedlings sem (±) 1.53 0.65 0.55 0.82 5.7 2.1 cd (p=0.05) 4.54 1.94 1.63 2.45 17.0 6.2 compared to that in all the growth media containing cocopeat, and also those grown in soil alone filled in pro-trays. success percentage of the seedlings was the highest and at par in cocopeat only placed in pro-trays, and in raised-bed with only soil (97.3 and 94.3%, respectively), but, sharply decreased as the proportion of the soil in cocopeat:soil medium increased from 3:1 to 1:3 (96.3 to 74.3%). this was lowest in pro-trays filled with soil alone. this was due to the fact that the medium filled into cavities of the tray collapsed with, time leading to hardening and caking of the medium which eventually turned hostile to the roots of seedlings. poor growth of the seedlings, their root system in particular, in cocopeat may be due to presence in the medium of some biochemical compounds. these impediments need to be overcome before the desirable physical properties of this growth medium can be exploited. in earlier studies (kotur, 2013a; kotur, 2013b; kotur, 2014), it was observed that weaker pro-tray grown seedlings (figures 1-3) transplanted to the field of ‘ananya’ tomato, ‘tetris’ cauliflower and ‘omphalus’ cabbage, recorded yield reduction of 20, 17 and 22%, respectively, compared to seedlings grown on conventional raised-bed. pro-tray seedlings on being transplanted showed poor growth in the field, especially poor root system, at harvest (figures 4-6). this is a disturbing prospect considering the widespread popularity of pro-tray raised seedlings grown in cocopeat in a wide range of crops, including important commercial crops like tobacco and sugarcane. the large area covered using this technology, and the resultant effect on production, is difficult to ignore. results of this study indicate that cocopeat used in pro-trays, in general, adversely affects seedling vigour in many vegetable crops, and in pigeon pea and marigold. blending the soil with cocopeat in any proportion and/or irrigating protrays with 0.2% humic acid, failed to improve seedling vigour vis-a-vis seedlings grown conventionally on raised-beds. under these circumstances, there is an imminent need to: (i) enhance the growth and vigour of seedlings in cocopeatbased nursing of seedlings using alternatives like compost tea, which is reported to increase significantly shoot and root length in tomato seedlings (anon., 2013-14), or, to modify the growth medium differently than attempted in this study to ensure parity at least with conventional raised-bed grown seedlings; and (ii) assess comparative performance in the field of the crop raised from the two kinds of seedling to determine efficacy of the pro-tray seedling technology. fig 1. pro-tray grown (left) and raised-bed grown (right) seedlings of ‘arka ananya’ tomato at transplanting fig 2. pro-tray grown (left) and raised-bed grown (right) seedlings of ‘omphalos’ cabbage at transplanting fig 3. pro-tray grown (left) and raised-bed grown (right) seedlings of ‘tetris’ cauliflower at transplanting fig 4. roots of pro-tray grown (left) and raisedbed grown (right) seedlings of ‘arka ananya’ tomato at harvest fig 5: roots of ‘omphalos’ cabbage plants at harvest from pro-tray grown (left) and raised-bed grown seedlings fig 6: roots of plants at harvest grown from protray grown (left) and raised-bed grown seedlings of ‘tetris’ cauliflower kotur j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):191-195, 2014 195 references anonymous. 2013-14. annual report, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, p. 57 cochran, w.g. and cox, g.m. 1957. experimental designs, 2nd edition, john wiley and sons, new york jackson, m.l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. second edition reprint, prentice hall of india ltd., new delhi kotur, s.c. 2008. fertilizer management of capsicum (capsicum annuum) as influenced by method of raising seedlings, depth of placement and doses of p using 32p-labelled superphosphate. indian j. agril. sci., 78:757-60 kotur, s.c. 2013a. fertilizer management of cauliflower (brassica oleracea var. botrytis) as influenced by method of raising seedlings, depth of placement and doses of p using 32p-labelled superphosphate. int’l j. innovative hor., 1:15-20 kotur, s.c. 2013b. fertilizer management of cabbage (brassica oleracea var. capitata) as influenced by method of raising seedlings, depth of placement and doses of p using 35s-labelled superphosphate. indian j. fert., 9:42-48 kotur, s.c. 2014. effect of nursery raising practices of seedlings and phosphatic fertilizer management in tomato (solanum lycopersicon) crop on growth and yield. indian j. agril. sci., 84:523-526 prabhakar, m., prabhakar, b.s., mandhar, s.c., hebbar, s.s., srinivas v., eswar reddy, s.g. and anjula, n. 2004. quality of vegetable seedling production. technical bulletin no. 24, p. 16, indian institute of horticultural reseach, bangalore ravichandran, m. 2011. humic acids: a mystique substance in sustainable crop production. j. indian soc. soil sci., 59:s49-s57 (ms received 27 may 2013, revised 26 march 2014, accepted 27 june 2014) influence of fermented cocopeat on seedling vigour in some crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 9(2):191-195, 2014 197 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 197-201, 2018 seed yield and quality as affected by weed management practices in bitter gourd p. anitha*, s. nirmala devi and p. sainamole kurian all india-co-ordinated vegetable improvement project, college of horticulture, kerala agricultural university vellanikkara, thrissur 680 656. *email: anitha.p@kau.in abstract effect of weed management practices on seed yield and quality of bitter gourd var. preethi was studied during 2016-17. the results showed that highest seed yield (0.73t/ha) was recorded in the treatment pendimethalin @0.75 a.i. /ha plus one hand weeding at 40 das followed by mulching using black polythene (0.65t/ha) which were on par. the lowest seed yield (0.18t/ha) was in weedy check. weed control efficiency was highest (100%) in mulching with black polythene followed by application of pendimethalin +one hand weeding at 40das (97.97). seed quality in terms of percentage germination (82.52) , vigour index i(1924.15) and vigour index ii ( 27.24) were significantly superior in mulching with black polythene and was on par with weed free check and application of pendimenthalin + one hand weeding at 40 das. highest seedling length (26.10cm) and seedling fresh weight (2.45g) were also recorded in the same treatment. however, there was no significant difference between treatments for seedling dry weight. key words: bitter gourd, weed, seed quality, seed yield, germination, vigour index introduction seed quality plays an important role in the production of agronomic and horticultural crops. characteristics such as trueness to variety, germination percentage, purity, vigour, a nd appearance a re impor ta nt to fa r mer s pla nting cr ops. a close understanding of weed management is essential for obtaining higher crop yields and preserving seeds quality. weed management is the most important aspect while producing good quality seed and maximizing crop yields. producing a competitive and high-yielding crop begins with the seed. it is important to begin with seed that will germinate and emerge uniformly and quickly, producing a vigorous seedling that can compete with emerging weeds (duar y, 2014). her bicides are chemicals that are normally used to combat weeds present in a crop and an ideal herbicide should be highly effective at the same time conserve seed quality. rapid germination of seeds and emergence of seedlings is a n impor ta nt deter mina nt of successful cr op establishment (hydecker et al., 1973). seed quality is one of the key factors affecting successful farming. poor quality seeds genera lly show decrease in germination and emergence of seedlings. weed management in seed production is important to avoid weed competition and to get seeds of high quality and purity. vegetable seed growers employ various weed ma na gement pr a ctices. t he effect of weed management practices on efficiency of weed control and purity and quality of produced seeds is a matter of concern to the seed growers. therefore, the present study was undertaken to find out the effect of various weed management practices on the seed yield and seed quality in bitter gourd var. preethi. the study was conducted with nine treatments and three replications in randomized complete block design in the year 2016-17. the plot size consisted of 4.5mx 3m. the experiment consisted of following treatments namely, t1 pre emergent application of pendimethalin@0.75 a.i/ha t2 t1+one hand weeding at 40das t3 stale seed bed by glyphosate @1kg a.i./ha 15 days before sowing 198 anitha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 197-201, 2018 t4 t3+one hand weeding at 40das t5 mulching with black polythene t6 straw mulch t7 hand weeding at 20, 40, 60 das t8 weed free check t9 weedy check the bitter gourd var. preethi was raised during 2016-17 as per the kerala agricultural university package of practices recommendations, cr ops (2011). percentage weed control was estimated over the weedy check, by counting the number of weeds present in each plot. ripe fruits were harvested for seed extraction, seeds extracted were dried to moisture content of 8.0% and per hectare yield was computed and seeds stored in plastic containers in the ac with a temperature of 22 ± 5 ºc. stored seeds were kept for germination study after three months in a sterile sand medium and percentage germination was computed. twenty days after germination, twenty seedlings were up rooted and average fresh weight, seedling length, were noted and kept for drying in an oven. after attaining constant weight, average seedling dry weight was measured. seed quality parameters such as vigour index i and vigour index ii were estimated as detailed by per abdulbaki and anderson, 1972. the effect of weed management practices on seed yield and quality is presented in table 1. highest seed yield (0.73t/ha) was recorded in the treatment pendimethalin @0.75 a.i./ha + one hand weeding at 40 das (t 2) followed by mulching using black polythene (0.65t/ha) (t5), straw mulch(t6) ( 0.56t/ha) and these were on par. the lowest seed yield (0.18t/ ha) was in weedy check (t9) followed by t3 (stale seedbed by glyphostae@1.0kga.i//ha 15 days before sowing (0.36t/ha). application of pendimethalin as preemergent @0.75kg a.i/ha alone (t1) for weed control, recorded seed yield on par (0.54t/ha) with weed free check (t8) (0.51t/ha). it was clear that application of herbicides alone for weed control (t1 and t3) resulted in reduction in seed yield in bitter gourd. similar results are reported by young and yenish (2000) in wheat, smith and wilson (2002) in phaseolus vulgaris, khan, et al., (2006) in green gram. weed control efficiency was 100% in mulching with black polythene (t5) followed by t2, (pendimethalin +1 hand weeding at 40das) i.e. 97.97% which were on par. the remaining treatments differed significantly with respect to efficiency of weed control. the lowest weed control efficiency (54.53) was noted in weedy check (t9). bowman et al., (1986) and ismail et al., (2009), reported similar results. va r iou s w eed ma na gement t r ea t ment s affected seed quality significantly. mulching with black polythene (t5) was significantly superior with respect to percenta ge germination (82.52) a nd vigour index i (1924.15) and vigour index ii (27.24) and this was on par with pendimenthalin + one hand weeding at 40 das (t2). highest seedling length (26.10cm) and seedling fresh weight (2.45g) were also recorded in the same treatment. seed quality p a r a met er s s u c h a s p er c ent a ge g er mina t ion (58%,45.9%), seedling dry weight,(0.35g, 0.29g), vigour index i (1040.60, 1146.82) and vigour index ii (20.06, 13.41) respectively were significantly low in t1 and t3 treatments where herbicide only wer e used for weed contr ol. i t s howed tha t application of herbicide alone considerably reduced the seed yield and other seed quality parameters in bitter gourd. shalno and zheljazkov (2011) also r epor t simila r r esults in cor ia nder, sha w a nd ratnayake (2017) in cassia obtusifolia, where normal seedlings, seedling emergence and seedling length were consider ably reduced by herbicide a p plic a t ion. i t wa s a lso c lea r t ha t her b ic ide application along with one hand weeding at 40 das (t2 and t4) recorded seed quality characters such as germination % (74.7%, 74.12%) seedling length (24.85cm, 24.82cm), seedling fresh weight (2.14g, 2.19g) seedling dry weight (0.36g, 0.32g), vigour index i (1854.00, 1638.47) and vigour index ii (26.61, 23.52) which are on par. however, t2 and t4 differed significantly with respect to seed yield and percentage weed control where t2 performed superior in these characters. similar results were obtained by drew. j.l and robert, g. w (2005) where they found that pendimenthalin applied as pre-emergent herbicide provided acceptable weed control in the irrigated chickpea. however, seedling dry weight did not vary significantly in various weed control treatments. 199 seed yield and quality in bitter gourd table.1. effect of weed management treatments of seed quality in bitter gourd var. preethi treatments seed germiseedling seedling seedling vigour vigour % yield nation length fresh dry index i index ii weed t/ha (%) (cm) weight weight control (g) (g) t1 preemergent application of pendimethalin@0.75 a.i/ha 0.54 58.00 17.90 2.00 0.35 1040.60 20.06 88.57 t2t1+one hand weeding at 40das 0.73 74.70 24.85 2.14 0.36 1854.00 26.61 97.97 t3 -staleseedbed by glyphosate @1kg a.i./ha 15 days before sowing 0.36 45.90 19.74 2.19 0.29 1146.82 13.41 67.50 t4 t3+one hand weeding at 40das 0.48 74.12 24.82 1.91 0.32 1638.47 23.52 72.73 t5 mulching with black polythene 0.65 82.52 26.10 2.45 0.33 1924.15 27.24 100.00 t6 straw mulch 0.56 51.58 22.80 2.44 0.23 1178.80 11.66 91.48 t7 hand weeding at 20, 40, 60 das 0.49 62.67 16.85 2.00 0.34 1057.20 21.20 71.73 t8 weed free check 0.51 70.90 19.75 1.15 0.42 1185.77 29.66 81.43 t9 weedy check 0.18 62.77 16.83 2.11 0.32 1057.73 20.26 54.43 cd (p=0.05) 0.13 4.74 3.54 0.27 ns 238.73 7.43 3.08 the study revealed that there was significant influence of various weed management treatments on seed yield and quality of bitter gourd. there was 100% weed control efficiency in mulching with black polythene (t5). among the treatments with herbicides and its combinations, pendimethalin + one hand weeding at 40das gave 97.7% weed control efficiency along with high seed yield and seed quality parameters and hence can be recommended for weed control in the seed production plot of bitter gourd (fig.1 and fig.2). j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 197-201, 2018 acknowledgment the authors are thankful to the project coordinator, all india co-ordinated research project (vegetable crops), varanasi for the financial support rendered and the college of horticulture, kerala agricultural university, vellanikkara, thrissur for the facilities provided during the course of the study. 200 fig.1. seed yield affected by weed management in bitter gourd fig.2. germination of seeds affected by weed management in bitter gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 197-201, 2018 anitha et al 201 (ms received 31 august 2017, revised 14 october 2018, accepted 24 december 2018) references abdulbaki and anderson, 1972. vigour deterioration in soybean by multiple criteria. crop. sci. 13:630-637. bowman, j.e. hartmen, g; mc clay, r.p. sinclair j.r. hummel j.w. and wax l.m. 1986. effect of weed control a nd row spa cing in conventional tillage, reduced tillage and non tillage on soybean quality. plant disease 70: 673-676 drew. j.l and robert. g.w. 2005. chemical weed control in dry land and irrigated chickpea. weed technology: 19(4): 959-965. duary, b. 2014. weed prevention for quality seed production of crops. s atsa mukhapatra annual technical issue 18: 2014 heydecker w; higgins.j. and gulliver r.l.1973. acceler a ted ger mina tion by osmotic treatment. natura : 246: 42-44 isma il. c; atilla , y; yusuf. t; leuvent. o 2009. glyp hosa te r educed s eed a nd lea f concentrations of calcium, magnesium, manganese and iron in non-glyphostae resistant soybean. european j. agron. 31(3): 114-119 kerala agricultural university, 2011. package of practi ces recomme ndations: crops. kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 680 656. khan, ms , chaudhry,p, wani pa , zaidi, a 2006. biotoxic effects of the herbicides on growth, seed yield, and grain protein of green gram. j. appl. sci. environ. management 10(3); 141-146 shaw,d.r and ratnayake.s 2017. effects of harvestaid herbicides on sickle pod (cassia obtusifolia) seed yield and quality. weed technol. 6 :(4):985-989 shalnov.i and zheljazkov.v. 2011. effect of herbicides on yield a nd qua lity of coriandrum sativum l. j. essential oil res. 7 :( 6):633639. smith,j,a and wilson r.g.2002. influence of harvestaid herbicides on dry bean (phaseolus vulgaris) desiccation, seed yield, and quality. weed technol. 16(1):109-115. young, f.l and yenish ,j,p.2000. effect of pre harvest glyphosa te applic a tion on seed a nd seedling quality of spring wheat (triticum aestivum). weed technol. 14(1):212-217. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 197-201, 2018 introduction basella (indian spinach) is an important leafy vegetable grown for its fleshy stem and leaves. the nutritive value of young shoots and leaves is very high in terms of minerals (ca, fe) and vitamins (a, b, c). fresh tender leaves and stems are consumed as leafy vegetable upon cooking. owing to the mucilaginous nature of its leaves and stems, it is also used as a poultice. the juice of leaves is prescribed as remedy for constipation, especially in children and pregnant women (burkill, 1935). in spite of its nutritional significance, very little effort has been made to improve yield in this leafy vegetable. further, the local cultivars available are poor yielders. therefore, for improvement of basella, iihr, bangalore collected germplasm from different districts of karnataka under the network project on ‘improvement of under utilized vegetable crops’ and used it in the present investigation. yield is a complex trait influenced by genetic factors interacting with environment. success in any breeding programme for improvement depends on existing genetic genetic variability in indian spinach (basella alba l.) b. varalakshmi and devaraju1 division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: bvl@iihr.ernet.in abstract evaluation of eleven germplasm lines of the indian spinach (basella) revealed maximum leaf weight/plant in iihr-1 (160.5g), followed by iihr-18 (111.6g) and iihr-3 (98.3g). results of genetic studies revealed that phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for all the traits studied, indicating environmental influence on expression of these characters. moderate heritability along with high genetic advance was recorded for leaf weight and total plant weight, indicating the presence of additive gene effects. hence, selection can be employed for improvement of these characters in basella. higher plant weight was found to be significantly and positively associated with branch number, leaf number, leaf weight and stem weight. leaf number had the maximum direct positive effect on total plant weight, followed by leaf length. indirect effects of other characters through these characters were also seen to be positive. thus, for yield improvement in basella, emphasis may be laid on indirect selection through leaf characters like leaf number, leaf length and leaf weight. key words: basella alba, indian spinach, genetic variability, heritability, path analysis variability in the base-population and on efficiency of selection. for successful selection, it is necessary to study the nature of association of the trait of interest with other relevant traits and, also the genetic variability available for these. path coefficient provides a better index for selection than mere correlation coefficient, thereby separating the correlation coefficient of yield and its components into direct and indirect effects. therefore, the present study was undertaken to understand the nature and magnitude of variability, heritability and correlation coefficients for different quantitative parameters in indian spinach. the information on such aspects can be of great help in formulating an appropriate breeding strategy for genetic upgradation of this under-utilized vegetable crop. material and methods the experiments were carried out at the vegetable farm, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore during summer of 2005 and 2006. experiments were laid out in randomized block design with eleven germplasm lines in three replications during both the years. the plot size of 2.0 m x 3.0 m consisted of 40 plants per replication. four week old seedlings were planted at 50 cm x 30 cm 1department of horticulture, chamarajanagar, karnataka. j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 21-24, 2010 22 spacing. recommended agronomical practices were followed to raise the crop. observations on various quantitative characters and on yield were recorded on ten randomly-selected plants from each replication viz., branch number, leaf number, leaf weight (g), stem weight (g), plant height (cm) and total yield per plant (g). leaf characters like petiole length (cm), leaf length (cm) and leaf width (cm) were recorded in 10 leaves from the randomly selected plants under each replication. pooled data of two years were analyzed as per panse and sukhatme (1984) for analysis of variance. phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation (pcv and gcv), heritability in broad-sense and genetic advance as percent of mean were calculated as per procedures given by burton and de vane (1953) and johnson et al (1955). correlation coefficient was worked out as per al-jibouri et al (1958) and path coefficient analysis done as per dewey and lu (1959). results and discussion means for various characters of these eleven germplasm lines of basella are presented in table 1. analysis of variance revealed significant difference among germplasm lines for all the traits studied. these differences indicated presence of a wide variability and considerable scope for improvement in basella. maximum leaf weight was recorded in iihr-1(160.55 g), followed by iihr18(111.66 g) and iihr-3(98.33 g). upon assessing yield stability through multi-location trials, these genotypes may be used for large-scale cultivation if found suiyable. estimates for various genetic parameters are presented in table 2. wide range of variation was observed in most of the characters like branch number (2.30-5.36), leaf number (15.33-40.56), leaf weight (34.16-160.55 g), stem weight (22.50-78.33 g) and total plant weight (68.50260.43 g). presence of this high variability for the above parameters can form basis for effective selection of superior table 1. mean values of 11 genotypes for some quantitative parameters in basella sl. no genotype branch leaf leaf stem plant petiole leaf leaf total plant number number weight weight height length length breadth weight (g) (g) (cm) (cm) (cm) (cm) (g) 1 iihr1 5.36 36.76 160.50 78.33 23.17 1.53 10.64 8.16 260.43 2 iihr2 4.46 30.80 83.34 63.00 40.36 2.79 11.22 6.76 162.50 3 iihr3 4.62 29.56 98.30 56.94 19.67 2.21 11.70 8.28 177.33 4 iihr4 5.00 33.76 95.83 69.16 40.63 2.64 11.50 6.84 214.16 5 iihr7 2.30 17.38 45.50 36.36 26.66 1.92 9.91 7.16 101.16 6 iihr8 3.83 21.00 70.83 39.58 19.33 1.97 10.28 7.97 160.83 7 iihr9 3.73 28.76 54.30 40.33 34.90 2.25 10.25 6.55 124.16 8 iihr10 3.01 15.33 57.39 23.83 21.95 1.85 10.74 7.24 106.33 9 iihr11 3.91 18.25 34.16 22.50 21.16 2.50 8.89 5.50 68.50 10 iihr13 4.00 25.26 58.33 33.30 40.81 2.34 11.10 7.75 91.66 11 iihr18 4.56 40.56 111.67 70.83 29.26 1.46 10.18 7.70 185.00 mean 4.07 27.04 79.11 48.56 28.90 2.13 10.58 7.26 150.19 significance ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** cd (p=0.01) 1.28 9.28 37.04 27.03 8.95 0.39 1.43 1.17 62.20 c.v (%) 11.12 12.09 16.48 19.60 10.91 6.47 4.77 5.67 14.58 ** significant at p=0.01 table 2. means, coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance for some traits in basella sl.no trait mean genotypic phenotypic genotypic phenotypic heritagenetic g.a.as variance variance coefficient of coefficient of bility(h2) advance % mean (gv) (pv) variation variation (ga) (gcv) (pcv) 1 branch number 4.07 0.56 1.79 18.45 32.86 31.53 0.87 21.34 2 leaf number 27.04 58.66 122.75 28.32 40.97 47.78 10.91 40.33 3 leaf weight (g) 79.11 1139.50 2159.84 42.66 58.74 52.76 50.51 63.84 4 stem weight (g) 48.56 299.95 843.33 35.66 59.79 35.57 21.28 43.81 5 plant height (cm) 28.90 67.04 126.71 28.32 38.94 52.91 12.27 42.44 6 petiole length (cm) 2.13 0.16 0.28 19.07 24.80 59.18 0.65 30.23 7 leaf length (cm) 10.58 0.39 1.91 5.92 13.08 20.54 0.59 5.53 8 leaf breadth (cm) 7.26 0.51 1.53 9.88 17.03 33.65 0.86 11.80 9 total plant weight (g) 150.19 2876.81 5753.09 35.71 50.50 50.00 78.12 52.02 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 21-24, 2010 varalakshmi and devaraju 23 lines in basella. the degree of variability shown by different parameters can be judged by the magnitude of gcv and pcv. gcv showed that the extent of genetic variability in the population ranged from 5.92 (leaf length) to 42.66 (leaf weight). perusal of data in table 2 shows a considerable difference between pcv and gcv values for all the characters studied. this indicates presence of greater environmental influence on expression of all these characters and selection may not be effective in improvement of basella. further, gcv values were low in magnitude compared to pcv values for all the characters studied. this also indicates that direct selection is not effective in these characters and that heterosis breeding can be resorted to for further improvement. similar observations were made by rastogi et al (1995) in chinese cabbage, which is a leafy vegetable. with the help of gcv alone, it is not possible to determine the extent of heritable variation. thus the estimates for heritability indicate effectiveness with which selection may be expected to exploit existing genetic variability. broadsense heritability was moderate for petiole length (59.91%), leaf weight (52.76%), plant height (52.91%) and total plant weight (50%) (table 2). similarly, moderate heritability for petiole length was reported earlier by varalakshmi and pratap reddy (1997) in vegetable amaranth. johnson et al (1955) reported heritability along with genetic advance to be more useful than heritability alone for predicting the resultant effect of selecting the best individual genotype, as, it suggests the presence of additive gene-effects. moderate heritability along with high genetic advance was recorded by leaf weight and total plant weight, indicating presence of additive gene-effects. selection can therefore be employed for improvement of these parameters in basella. branch number, leaf number, stem weight, plant height, petiole length, leaf length and leaf breadth recorded moderate to low heritability and genetic advance. this suggests that environmental effects constitute a major part of total phenotypic variation and, hence, direct selection for these characters is likely to be less effective. all possible correlation coefficients between total plant weight and its component characters were estimated at phenotypic (p) and genotypic (g) levels and are presented in table 3. from these associations, it is seen that higher plant weight was significantly and positively associated with branch number, leaf number, leaf weight and stem weight. in the present investigation, interrelations among these parameters were also positive and significant. leaf breadth exhibited positive and significant association with leaf weight, leaf length and negative, significant association with petiole length. this signifies that indirect selection for increased leaf breadth, leaf length and reduced petiole length is likely to improve leaf weight in basella. similar positive and significant association of plant weight with leaf weight and stem weight was reported by kader mohideen and muthukrishnan (1979) and varalakshmi and pratap reddy (1997) in vegetable amaranth. though correlation analysis can quantify the degree of association between two characters, it does not provide reasons for such as association. simple linear correlation table 3. genotypic (r g ) and phenotypic (r p ) correlation coefficient among various characters in basella character branch leaf leaf stem plant petiole leaf leaf total number number weight weight height length length breadth plant weight branch (r g ) 1.000 0.933** 0.877** 0.910** 0.146 0.013 0.468 0.269 0.843** number (r p ) 1.000 0.626* 0.627* 0.588 0.302 0.196 0.383 0.236 0.663* leaf (r g ) 1.000 0.815** 0.963** 0.316 -0.277 0.394 0.319 0.790** number (r p ) 1.000 0.783** 0.827** 0.485 0.136 0.415 0.362 0.773* leaf (r g ) 1.000 0.915** -0.135 -0.541 0.505 0.710* 0.958** weight (r p ) 1.000 0.876** 0.207 -0.130 0.345 0.413 0.911** stem (r g ) 1.000 0.174 -0.281 0.572 0.511 0.957** weight (r p ) 1.000 0.399 0.062 0.364 0.270 0.869** plant (r g ) 1.000 0.558 0.464 -0.326 -0.075 height (r p ) 1.000 0.480 0.315 -0.019 0.271 petiole (r g ) 1.000 0.198 -0.766* -0.390length (r p ) 1.000 0.309 -0.147 0.004 leaf (r g ) 1.000 0.440 0.524 length (r p ) 1.000 0.689* 0.466 leaf (r g ) 1.000 0.564 breadth (r p ) 1.000 0.486 total plant (r g ) 1.000 weight (r p ) 1.000 ** significant at p=0.01, * significant at p=0.05 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 21-24, 2010 genetic variability in indian spinach 24 coefficient is designed to detect presence of linear association between two variables. it cannot be assumed to imply absence of functional relationship between the two variables. path coefficient analysis resolves this mystery by breaking total correlation into components of direct and indirect effects. therefore, path analysis was performed to assess direct and indirect effects of different characters on total plant weight (table 4). leaf number had the maximum direct positive effect (2.015) on total plant weight, followed by leaf length (1.760). indirect effects of other parameters through these parameters were also positive. rest of the parameters, like, branch number, leaf weight, stem weight, plant height, petiole length and leaf breadth exhibited negative, direct effect on total plant weight and the indirect effects seen via these parameters were also negative. thus, the positive direct and indirect effects of leaf number and leaf length led to significant and positive correlation with total plant weight. this indicates that positive selection for these parameters could contribute to higher leaf yields in basella. in conclusion, it may be stated that for yield improvement in basella, emphasis may be laid on indirect selection through leaf parameters like leaf number, leaf length and leaf weight. acknowledgement the senior author wishes to thank director general, icar, new delhi, for providing financial assistance to carry out this work under icar network project on “improvement of underutilized vegetable crops”. references al-jibouri, h.h., miller, p.a. and robinson, h.f. 1958. genotypic and environmental variances and covariances in upland cotton crosses of interspecific origin. agron. j., 50:633-37 burkill, i.h. 1935. a dictionary of the economic products of the malay peninsula, crown agents, london burton, g.w. and de vane, e.w. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:47881 dewey, d.r. and lu, k.h. 1959. a correlation and path coefficient analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agron. j., 51:515-18 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:314-18 kader mohideen, m. and muthukrishnan, c.r. 1979. studies on correlation, multiple regression and path analysis as related to yields of vegetable amaranth (amaranthus tricolor). proc. 2nd amaranth conf. pp: 74-90. rodale press, pennsylvania panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1984. statistical methods for agricultural workers. indian council of agricultural research, new delhi rastogi, k.b., korla, b.n., joshi, a.k. and thakar, m.c., 1995. variability studies in chinese cabbage (brassica chinensis l.). adv. hort. forest., 4:101-107 varalakshmi, b. and pratap reddy, v.v. 1997. variability, heritability and correlation studies in vegetable amaranth. ind. j. hort., 54:167-170 table 4. direct and indirect effects of various characters on total plant weight at the genotypic level in basella character branch leaf leaf stem plant petiole leaf leaf genotypic number number weight weight height length length breadth correlation branch number -0.197 1.880 -0.714 -0.473 -0.210 -0.008 0.823 -0.257 0.843** leaf number -0.184 2.015 -0.664 -0.501 -0.455 0.192 0.693 -0.305 0.790** leaf weight -0.173 1.642 -0.815 -0.476 0.195 0.375 0.889 -0.679 0.958** stem weight -0.179 1.940 -0.745 -0.520 -0.251 0.194 1.007 -0.489 0.957** plant height -0.028 0.636 0.110 -0.090 -1.443 -0.386 0.816 0.312 -0.075 petiole length -0.002 -0.558 0.441 0.146 -0.805 -0.692 0.347 0.733 -0.390 leaf length -0.092 0.793 -0.411 -0.297 -0.669 -0.136 1.760 -0.421 0.524 leaf breadth -0.053 0.643 -0.578 -0.265 0.470 0.530 0.774 -0.957 0.564 ** significant at p=0.01 direct effects are shown in bold figures on the main diagonal (ms received 17 july 2009, revised 8 february 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 21-24, 2010 varalakshmi and devaraju introduction national botanical research institute, lucknow, is a pioneer in chrysanthemum collection. banerji and dwivedi (2008) reported new chrysanthemum cultivars at the institute evolved during the last decade. chrysanthemum (c. morifolium ramat.) is an ornamental plant belonging to asteraceae family. origin of chrysanthemum is traced to china. from china, chrysanthemum spread through out the world. the name chrysanthemum morifolium has been changed to dendranthema grandifolium tzvelev (heywood and humphries, 1977; anderson, 1987). spontaneous mutation has played an important role in evolution of many present day garden chrysanthemums and 30% of the garden chrysanthemums here evolved as bud sports (wasscher, 1956) and the rest by induced mutation, hybridization and seedling selection. largeflowered chrysanthemum cultivars are used as potted plant. in the present study, ten large-flowered chrysanthemum cultivars were selected and characterized. which included vegetative and floral characters. morphological and biochemical characterization is an important parameter for dus (distinct, uniform and stable) testing and is equally important for registration of new cultivar under the protection of plant variety and farmer’s rights (ppvrf), new delhi. such information is very useful and can be exploited by breeders, growers and nurserymen in the future. morphological and biochemical characterization of chrysanthemum b.k. banerji, atul batra and a.k. dwivedi floriculture section, national botanical research institute rana pratap marg, lucknow-226001, india e-mail : banerjibk@yahoo.co.in abstract ten large flowered chrysanthemum cultivars, viz., ‘beat rice may’, ‘beauty’, ‘casa grande’, ‘jet snow’, ‘john weber’ , ‘miss maud jeffries’, ‘penny lane’, ‘shanker dayal’, ‘snow ball’ and ‘s.s. arnold’ from national botanical research institute (nbri), lucknow, were evaluated for morphological and biochemical characterization. morphological data were recorded on vegetative and floral characters. biochemical characterization included analysis of anthocyanins, carotenoides, chlorophyll content (chlorophyll a, b and total) and flavonoids. results on morphological and biochemical parameters clearly indicated distinctness among cultivars with reference to differences in morphological characters and chemical composition of pigments. key words: chrysanthemum, morphology, anthocyanin, carotenoids, flavonoids material and methods ten large-flowered chrysanthemum cultivars, viz., ‘beat rice may’ (reflexed), ‘beauty’ (incurving), ‘casa grande’, (irregular), ‘jet snow’ (incurving), ‘john weber’ (reflexed), ‘miss maud jeffries’ (reflexed), ‘penny lane’ (reflexed), ‘shanker dayal’ (incurved), ‘snow ball’ (incurved) and ‘s.s. arnold’ (incurved) were selected for morphological and biochemical characterization. data were recorded on plant height, number of branchs, stem diameter, plant spread (east-west and north–south), leaf number, leaf size (length, width and petiole length), leaf colour, chlorophyll content (chlorophyll a, b and total) at the time of flowering. chlorophyll estimation (chlorophyll a, b and total) was carried out in mature leaf as per arnon (1949). estimation of anthocyanin, carotenoids and flavonoids was done as per williams et al (1981), wettstein (1957) and ivankosalec et al (2005), respectively. characterization of flowering was done using parameters like, days to bud initiation, days to first colour appearance, days to full bloom, number of flowerheads per plant, flower colour, flower-head size (across), flower head-weight, flower-head height, number of ray florets per head and size of ray floret (length and width). for biochemical analysis, ray florets were collected from which anthocyanins, carotenoids and flavonoids were estimated. colour of foliage and flowers was matchedto royal horticultural colour chart (anonymous, 1966) (table 1). j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):51-55, 2012 52 results and discussion maximum plant height (120.3cm) was recorded in ‘jet snow’ and minimum (50.4cm) in ‘shankar dayal’ while, the remaining cultivars grew in height between these two values (table 2). stem diameter of seven cultivars, viz., ‘beat rice may’, ‘beauty’, ‘casa grande’, ‘jet snow’, ‘shankar dayal, ‘snow ball’ and ‘s.s. arnold’ ranged between 0.6 and 0.7cm while that in ‘john weber’, ‘miss maud jeffries’ and ‘penny lane’ range from 0.7 to 0.76cm. stem colour was green in all cultivars. plant spread in northsouth direction ranged from 21.9-32.31cm and in the east – west direction from 24.20 to 32.92cm. chrysanthemum cultivars show a wide variation in leaf number. minimum number of leaves (22.60) was produced in ‘penny lane’ and maximum (45.89) ‘beat rice may’ (table 2). the remaining cultivars had leaf number ranging from of 24 to 36. largest leaf size (length, width and petiole length) was observed in cultivar ‘jet snow’ and in ‘john weber’. rest of the cultivars, i.e., ‘beat rice may’, ‘beauty’, ‘casa grande’, ‘miss maud jeffries’, ‘penny lane’, ‘shanker dayal’, ‘snow ball’ and ‘s.s. arnold’ fell in between and recorded almost similar size of leafe (table 2). earliest bud initiation was seen at 49.40 days of planting in ‘beat rice may’. cultivar ‘miss maud jeffries’ took 82.6 days, while the rest of the cultivars took 49.4 to 82.6 days for bud initiation. earliest color appearance in the flower-head was observed in ‘penny lane’ which took 61.9 days, while, cultivars ‘miss maud jeffries’ and ‘shankar dayal’ exhibited first color appearance at 90.2 days of planting. the rest of the cultivars had these values in between. earliest full-bloom of flower-head was recorded at 69.4 days of planting in cultivar ‘beauty’, while, cultivar ‘jet snow’ took 99.4 days to full-bloom. the remaining eight cultivars, i.e., ‘beat rice may’, ‘casa grande’, ‘john weber’, ‘miss maud jeffries’, ‘penny lane’, ‘shanker dayal’, ‘snow ball’ and ‘s.s.arnold’ bloom in between 69 and 99 days (table 2). the smallest flower (11.5cm) was recorded in cultivar ‘beat rice may’, while, the largest flower (18.5 cm) was recorded in cultivar ‘casa grande’; the remaining eight cultivars recorded flower-size in between these values. the lowest flower-head height. (7.0cm) was seen in cultivar ‘shankar dayal’ and maximum flower-height of 11.9cm was observed in ‘casa grandi’. the remaining eight cultivars had a flower-head size that ranged from 7.0 to 10.0cm (table 2). cultivar ‘jet snow’ had the heaviest flower-head weight (>48.0g) while, the lightest flower head was approximately (16.0g) in ‘beauty’. all the cultivars of chrysanthemum included in the present investigation had flower-heads with hundred per cent ray florets. cultivar ‘jet snow’ produced 139 ray florets per flower-head the least number of ray florets/head among the ten cultivars studied. cultivar ‘miss maud jeffries’ had 415 ray florets per head, the maximum number among the ten cultivars. the range of number of ray florets/ flower-head was 148 to 367. qualitative analysis of chlorophylls ‘a’, ’b’ and total chlorophtll clearly indicated that each cultivar had specific chlorophyll composition, that was distinct among cultivars (fig. 1). pigment analysis in ten cultivars revealed that anthocyanin to be present in three cultivars, viz., beauty (0.093), john weber (0.081) and s.s.arnold (0.039), while, carotenoids and flavonoids were need to be present in all the cultivars studied. however, range of these varied from cultivar to cultivar thereby imparting different levels of color intensity (fig. 2). morphological and biochemical characterization of cultivars has also been carried out in various ornamental crops, viz., bougainvillea (banerji et al, 2009 and tewari et al, 2009), mini chrysanthemum (banerji et al, 2011a,), annual chrysanthemum (banerji et al, 2011b,), table 1. names of chrysanthemum cultivars, type of flower and flower-heads and colour of foliage name of cultivar flower foliage flower-head type colour code colour code beat rice may reflexed green green group 147a fan 3 white yellow-white group 158c fan 4 beauty incurving green green group 139a fan 3 white yellow-white group 158d fan4 casa grande irregular green green group 139a fan 3 white white group 155c fan 4 jet snow incurving green green group 139a fan 3 white white group 155c fan 4 john weber reflexed green yellow-green group 147a fan 3 white white group 155a fan 4 miss maud jeffries reflexed green green group 137a fan 3 white white group 155c fan 4 penny lane reflexed green green group 139a fan 3 white white group 155d fan 4 shankar dayal incurved green green group 137a fan 3 white white group 155dfan 4 snow ball incurved green green group 139a fan 3 white white group 155c fan 4 s.s. arnold incurved green green group 139a fan 3 white white group 155b fan 4 banerji et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):51-55, 2012 53 t ab le 2 . v eg et at iv e an d f lo ra l ch ar ac te rs o f te n l ar ge -f lo w er ed c h ry sa n th em u m c u lt iv ar s b ea t r ic e m ay b ea ut y c as a g ra nd e je t sn ow jo hn w eb er m is s m au d pe nn y la ne sh an ka r d ay al sn ow b al l s. s a rn ol d je ff ri es ve ge ta tiv e ch ar ac te r pl an t h ei gh t ( cm ) ± se 71 .5 0 ± 3. 87 60 .4 ± 4. 41 94 .8 ± 4. 63 12 0. 3 ± 5. 10 88 .6 ± 5. 32 81 .0 ± 5. 62 62 .3 ± 2. 98 50 .4 ± 4. 31 60 .0 0 ± 5. 64 62 .6 ± 4. 65 pl an t s pr ea d n -s (c m ) ± se 24 .9 1 ± 1. 89 28 .3 2 ± 2. 11 27 .0 1 ± 2. 92 30 .2 3 ± 2. 01 21 .9 0 ± 2. 11 26 .0 ± 2. 99 27 .7 2 ± 3. 10 25 .9 9 ± 2. 89 23 .4 0 ± 3. 11 32 .3 1 ± 2. 91 ew (c m ) ± s e 26 .0 0 ± 3. 01 32 .9 2 ± 3. 11 31 .9 9 ± 3. 00 29 .6 1 ± 2. 19 24 .2 0 ± 2. 61 28 .3 2 ± 2. 56 32 .9 1 ± 2. 51 31 .9 7 ± 3. 01 27 .7 1 ± 2. 19 28 .3 1 ± 2. 51 st em d ia m et er ( cm ) ± se 0. 65 ± 0. 61 0. 66 ± 0. 13 0. 69 ± 0. 08 0. 60 ± 0. 05 0. 74 ± 0. 02 0. 76 ± 0. 08 0. 70 ± 1. 33 0. 61 ± 0. 06 0. 60 ± 0. 51 0. 67 ± 0. 45 le af n um be r ± se 45 .8 9 ± 2. 65 33 .9 8 ± 1. 66 36 .1 2 ± 2. 99 24 .1 0 ± 2. 86 31 .6 3 ± 2. 54 32 .6 0 ± 2. 59 22 .6 0 ± 3. 94 25 .0 0 ± 2. 49 27 .8 1 ± 3. 41 34 .4 0 ± 2. 77 le af s iz e ( cm ) ± s e l en gt h 8. 75 ± 0. 88 10 .8 0 ± 0. 75 9. 33 ± 0. 13 11 .1 0 ± 0. 39 7. 66 ± 0. 54 10 .1 0 ± 0. 26 9. 33 ± 0. 27 9. 81 ± 0. 36 9. 00 ± 0. 32 10 .8 0 ± 0. 75 w id th 5. 50 ± 0. 70 7. 50 ± 0. 70 5. 16 ± 0. 36 8. 50 ± 0. 40 5. 50 ± 0. 62 5. 50 ± 0. 57 6. 66 ± 0. 13 6. 71 ± 0. 16 5. 50 ± 0. 13 5. 50 ± 0. 62 p et io le l en gt h 2. 00 ± 0. 35 2. 66 ± 0. 36 2. 33 ± 0. 27 2. 66 ± 0. 33 1. 33 ± 0. 27 2. 83 ± 0. 23 3. 00 ± 0. 02 2. 16 ± 0. 12 2. 12 ± 0. 02 2. 01 ± 0. 23 fl or al c ha ra ct er d ay s to b ud in iti at io n ± s e 49 .4 0 ± 2. 38 56 .2 0 ± 2. 77 69 .1 0 ± 3. 23 76 .3 0 ± 4. 21 67 .8 0 ± 3. 56 82 .6 0 ± 4. 40 59 .8 0 ± 2. 67 76 .7 0 ± 3. 99 69 .8 0 ± 3. 82 64 .7 0 ± 4. 67 d ay s to fi rs t c ol or a pp ea ra nc e ± s e 68 .9 0 ± 2. 89 66 .7 0 ± 5. 21 78 .9 0 ± 3. 80 81 .0 0 ± 2. 67 72 .9 0 ± 3. 45 90 .2 0 ± 2. 79 61 .9 0 ± 3. 22 82 .4 0 ± 1. 88 79 .3 0 ± 2. 67 69 .1 0 ± 3. 10 d ay s to f ul l b lo om ± s e 77 .0 0 ± 3. 43 69 .4 0 ± 2. 56 89 .7 0 ± 2. 67 99 .4 0 ± 3. 87 75 .9 0 ± 4. 12 96 .0 0 ± 3. 10 73 .9 0 ± 4. 71 90 .2 0 ± 2. 90 84 .8 0 ± 4. 01 93 .6 0 ± 4. 66 fl ow er h ea d si ze (c m ) ± s e a cr os s 11 .5 0 ± 0. 35 12 .6 0 ± 1. 18 18 .5 0 ± 1. 32 14 .5 0 ± 1. 06 15 .4 0 ± 0. 32 12 .2 0 ± 1. 06 12 .5 0 ± 1. 06 14 .5 0 ± 0. 37 13 .5 0 ± 0. 34 11 .7 0 ± 0. 41 h ei gh t 8. 20 ± 0. 21 8. 40 ± 0. 10 11 .9 0 ± 0. 47 9. 80 ± 0. 11 10 .1 0 ± 0. 21 8. 10 ± 0. 32 8. 70 ± 0. 18 6. 80 ± 0. 45 7. 50 ± 0. 04 7. 10 ± 0. 88 fl ow er h ea d w ei gh t ( g) ± s e 41 .0 0 ± 0. 70 15 .9 0 ± 1. 46 28 .0 0 ± 1. 13 48 .5 0 ± 1. 06 25 .0 0 ± 2. 12 44 .7 0 ± 2. 29 18 .5 0 ± 2. 47 29 .7 0 ± 1. 41 42 .7 5 ± 2. 67 17 .9 0 ± 1. 04 n um be r o f r ay fl or et s ± se 26 1. 00 ± 7. 07 17 1. 00 ± 5. 82 23 1. 00 ± 6. 32 13 9. 00 ± 6. 56 14 8. 00 ± 3. 47 41 5. 00 ±1 1. 30 16 0. 00 ± 6. 71 36 7. 00 ±1 0. 6 19 0. 00 ±1 0. 3 15 4. 00 ± 5. 47 r ay fl or et s iz e (c m ) ± se l en gt h 6. 00 ± 0. 04 2. 21 ± 0. 13 5. 32 ± 0. 13 5. 67 ± 0. 20 5. 27 ± 0. 30 7. 52 ± 0. 10 2. 31 ± 0. 21 5. 75 ± 0. 19 6. 67 ± 0. 71 6. 72 ± 0. 11 w id th 0. 68 ± 0. 02 0. 41 ± 0. 04 0. 93 ± 0. 03 0. 67 ± 0. 05 0. 50 ± 0. 06 0. 48 ± 0. 02 0. 32 ± 0. 03 0. 91 ± 0. 07 0. 72 ± 0. 10 0. 82 ± 0. 07 characterization of chrysanthemum j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):51-55, 2012 54 catharanthus (dwivedi et al, 2011), gladiolus (dwivedi and banerji, 2008), hibiscus (singh et al, 2009), marigold (singh et al, 2008) and rose (datta and singh, 2004). the present information will be useful to breeders for planning trait-specific breeding programmes in chrysanthemum. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to dr. c.s.nautiyal, director, national botanical research institute(csir), lucknow, for providing facilities. references anderson, n.o. 1987. reclassification of the genus chrysanthemum l. hort.sci., 22:313 anonymous. 1966. royal horticulture society colour chart in association with the flower council of holland. the royal horticultural society, london arnon, d.i. 1949. copper enzymes in isolated chloroplast polyphenil oxidase in beta vulgaris. pl. physiol., 24:1-15 banerji, b.k. and dwivedi, a.k. 2008. new chrysanthemum cultivars released at national botanical research institute, lucknow. ywc association of delhi, 60th chrysanthemum show bulletin, 06 december, 2008 pp 30-32 banerji, b.k., singh, v.n., saxena, m., verma, a.k. and dwivedi, a.k. 2008. characterization of chlorophyll variegated bougainvillea for utilization in landscaping. in proceeding of homi bhabha centenary daf-brns national symposium of landscaping for sustanable environment nov. 20-21, 2008. held at barc, mumbai. abstract no. pp-23, page no. 170-171 banerji, b.k., preeti srivastava, misra, p., dwivedi, a.k. and batra, a. 2011a. 1. research round-up: characterization of mini chrysanthemum. nbri news lett. june 2011, 38:25-29 banerji, b.k., dwivedi, a.k. and a. batra. 2011b. morphological characterization of annual chrysanthemum – a review, floriculture today, 16:30-33 datta, s.k. and singh, m.s. 2004. characterization of rosessix more hybrid tea cultivars. the indian rose annual, 20:102-110 dwivedi, a.k. and banerji, b.k. 2008. morphological characterization of gladiolus for hybridization. in: ‘national symposium on recent advances in floriculture, 4-6 march, n.a.u. navsari, gujarat abstract no.p1-31: 28 dwivedi, a.k., verma, a.k. and banerji, b.k. 2011. morphological and anatomical studies on catharanthus roseus. prog res., 6:51-55 heywood, v.h. and humphries, c.j. 1977. anthemideaesystemic review. p 851-898. in v.h.heywood, j.b. harborne and b.l. turner (eds). the biology and chemistry of compositae. academic-new york ivankosalec, s., marina, b. and sanda, v. 2005. flavonoids analysis and antimicrobial activity of commercially available propolis products. acta pharma, 55:423430 fig 1. chlorophyll content of ten large-flowered chrysanthemum cultivars fig 2. biochemical analysis of pigments of ten large-flowered chrysanthemum cultivars large flowered chrysanthemum cultivars a: beat rice may, b: beauty, c: casa grande, d: jet snow, e: john weber, f: miss maud jeffries, g: penny lane, h: shankar dayal, i: snow ball, j: ss arnold large flower chrysanthemum cultivars a: beat rice may, b: beauty, c: casa grande, d: jet snow, e: john weber, f: miss maud jeffries, g: penny lane, h: shankar dayal, i: snow ball, j: ss arnold banerji et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):51-55, 2012 55 singh, v.n., saxena, m., banerji, b.k. and dwivedi, a.k. 2009. characterization of eight single whorl genotype of hibiscus. in: national conference on floriculture for livelihood and profitability. session -1. genetic diversity and crop improvement in ornamental crops. 33: 29 singh, v.n., saxena, m., verma, a.k., dwivedi, a.k. and banerji, b.k. 2008. characterization of french marigold genotype (tagetes patula l.) under lucknow condition. paper presented in 4th national symposium on scenario of agriculture in changing climatic condition. helt at svbp university of agriculture and tchnology, meerut, u.p. 18-19 october, 2008. abstract no. 2. 78, page no. 222. tewari, t., banerji, b.k., dwivedi, a.k., singh, v. n., saxena, m. and verma, a.k. 2009. characterization of fifteen cultivars of bougainvillea and their use in landscape gardening. abstract number pp-22: 169 wasscher, j. 1956. the importance of sports in some florist’s flowers. euphytica, 5: 163-170 wettstein, d. 1957. chlorophyll letale und der submikroskopische formwechsel der plastiden. expl. cell res., 12: 427–434 [non-english] williams, c., horborne, j. and mayo, s.j. 1981. anthocyanin pigments and leaf flavonoids in the family araceae. phytochem., 20:217-234 (ms received 20 october 2011, revised 18 february 2012) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):51-55, 2012 characterization of chrysanthemum introduction orchard efficiency analysis is an approach to evaluate production potential of an orchard against an ideal orchard, with reference to the established norms of contributing factors. some efforts have been made in the past to analyze orchard efficiency in mango (rao and mukherjee, 1982), litchi (roy et al, 1984) and citrus (srivastava and singh, 2007). findings in these efforts were limited to identification of factors contributing to higher yield, in terms of leaf nutrient content, pest and disease incidence, and, feeder root density in mango and litchi; while, in citrus, this was in terms of soil physico-chemical character, and available nutrient content in soil. in grapevines, nutrition makes limited contribution to yield. shikhamany et al (1984) observed little difference in nutrient status of highand lowyielding vines of ‘thompson seedless’. in addition to yield, quality is an important aspect in commercial value of grapes. quality in table grapes is assessed not just in terms of obrix and acid content, but also physical appeal and berry firmness, attributes managed by standard cultural practices. yield and quality in grapes depends on efficient management of the inputs. thus, efficiency of a vineyard basically means efficiency in vineyard management. the present study was carried out to set a benchmark for assessing efficiency of white seedless grape vineyards for table grape production s.d. shikhamany*, swapnil v. borade, sanjay k. jeughale and suryakant y. patil research and development unit maharashtra state grape growers’ association manjri farm post, pune-411 037, maharashta, india *e-mail: sdshikhamany@gmail.com abstract efficiency of two table grape vineyards each of thompson seedless and tas-a-ganesh located around nashik, maharashtra, were assessed over two cropping seasons based on a score-card developed assigning weights and matrices for various attributes of yield and quality, in accordance with their relative contribution going by established facts on a 100 point scale. the objectives of the study were to draw up a benchmark to evaluate the efficiency of table grape vineyards, analyze the reason for low efficiency, and suggest remedial measures. in addition to the yield, bunch and berry characters are important in table grape production. skilful management of attributes for yield and quality using available technologies determines efficiency of a vineyard. in general, the efficiency of vineyards was better during the 2014-15 cropping season compared to 2013-14, and that of ‘thompson seedless’ vineyards was higher than tas-aganesh. in ‘thompson seedless’, efficiency of vineyard-1 was better than vineyard-2 as also in tas-a-ganesh. based on their total score, individual vineyards were ranked as excellent/very good/ good/ average/ below average, yearwise. lacunae in management leading to poor scores were identified to serve as a guide to improvement. key words: vineyard efficiency, white table grape, score card, evaluation, analysis efficiency, and to analyze reasons for poor scores, to suggest remedial measures. material and methods to assess the efficiency of vineyards, two vineyards each of ‘thompson seedless’ and ‘tas-a-ganesh’ were selected around nashik, maharashtra. twenty five vines were selected at random while walking diagonally in northwest to south-east and south-west to north-east (13 in one diagonal, and 12 in another) in each vineyard measuring about four acres. all the vines selected were in prime bearing age (6-7 years), spaced at 2mx3m and trained onto extended y trellises. observations on vine growth parameters yield and quality attributes reflecting efficiency in vineyard management were recorded in each variety during the cropping seasons of 2013-14 and 2104-15. average yield of 25 vines was used for arriving at yield/acre. vine growth parameters were recorded in five canes selected at random on each vine. bunch and berry characters were recorded in five replicates of ten bunches each, collected @ two representative bunches from each vine. observations on cvs. thompson seedless and tas-a-ganesh are presented in tables 1 and 2, respectively. j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):27-32, 2016 28 table 3. score card for assessing vineyard efficiency s. no. parameter metrics weight 1. yield/acre >12t/ acre = 40 pointsreduction of 4 points for every 1.0t reductionin yield from 12t/ acre 40 2. vine parameters 20 a. cane diameter 7.17.5mm = 2; 6.1-7.0 or 7.6-8.0mm = 1.5;6.1-6.5 or 8.1-8.5mm = 1.0;5.6-6.0 or 8.69.0mm = 0.5 02 b. no. of canes/m2 6.1-7.0 canes = 55.1-6.0 or 7.1-8.0 =44.1-5.0 or 8.1-9.0 = 33.1-4.0 or 9.1-10 =2<3.1 and >10.0 =1 05 c. sub-cane/cane ratio 1.0 point for 1.0 ratio 0.1 point for every increase of 0.1ratio, maximum being 3.0 for 3.0 03 d. cluster/cane ratio >1.6=5; 1.41-1.60=4; 1.21-1.40=3 1.01-1.20=2; 0.81-1.00=1; <0.81=0 05 e. uniformity in bud break (%) >80%=3; 71-80%=2 ; 61-70%=1 03 f. uniformity in flowering (%) >90%=2; 86-90%=1.5; 81-86%=1.0; 76-80%=0.5; <76%=0) 02 3. bunch characters 25 a. mean bunch-weight 400-450g=3. for reduction of every 50g below 400g, and increase over 450g, a reduction of 0.5 point made 03 b. compactness index 30-32= 5; for reduction of every 1.0 index value below 30 and above 32, a reduction of 1.0 point made 05 c. total length of rachis (cm) 0.05 points for every cm of length 03 d. no. of berries/bunch 0.02 points for each berry 02 e. un-uniform berry size (%) 0% =6; 0.1-1.0%=5; 1.1-2.0%=4; 2.1-3.0%=3; 3.1-4.0%=2; 4.1-5.0%=1; >5% =0 06 f. blemished berries (%) 0% =6; reduction of 0.3 points for increase of every 0.1%; 0 point for >2% 06 4. berry characters 15 a. diameter 15.1-16.0mm = 116.117.0mm =217.118.0mm =318.119.0mm =419.120.0mm =5 05 b. specific gravity for increase of every 0.01 in specific gravity, 1.0 additional point earned, with 0 score for specific gravity1.0 05 c. tss / acid ratio 14° brix =1.0; for increase of every 1°brix over 14°b, 0.5 additional point earned, with maximum at 3.0 for 18°b 03 d. titrable acids (g%) 0.51-0.55 g% = 2.00.46– 0.50 or 0.56 – 0.60 = 1.0<0.46 or > 0.60 = 0 02 total 100 table 1. performance of ‘thompson seedless’ vineyards s. no. parameter 2013-14 2014-15 vy-1 vy-2 vy-1 vy-2 1. yield/acre (tonnes) 29.76 12.4 40.0 40.0 2. vine growth characters a. cane diameter (mm) 2.0 1.5 2.0 2.0 b. no. of canes/m2 4.0 5.0 4.0 4.0 c. sub-cane/cane ratio 2.81 2.64 2.80 2.42 d. cluster/cane ratio 1.48 1.35 1.44 1.23 e. uniformity in bud break (%) 84.1 82.0 79.3 76.1 3. bunch characters a. mean bunch-weight (g) 349.7 420.7 452.8 389.7 b. compactness index 32.7 36.3 31.7 32.16 c. total length of rachis (cm) 2.0 1.0 3.0 3.0 d. no. of berries/bunch 82.5 83.1 48.8 91.2 e. un-uniform berry size (%) 2.6 4.7 0.54 4.83 f. blemished berries (%) 4. berry characters a. diameter (mm) 16.6 19.3 19.2 18.2 b. specific gravity 1.07 1.08 1.03 1.02 c. tss (°brix) 16.0 17.9 14.8 14.7 d. acidity (g%) 0.52 0.48 0.54 0.42 vy = vineyard table 2. performance of ‘tas-a-ganesh’ vineyards s. no. parameter 2013-14 2014-15 vy-1 vy-2 vy-1 vy-2 1. yield/acre (tonnes) 29.88 21.76 29.52 22.84 2. vine growth characters a. cane diameter (mm) 7.4 7.2 6.8 6.9 b. no. of canes/m2 5.4 5.4 6.6 4.6 c. sub-cane/cane ratio 3.40 3.46 2.50 2.32 d. cluster/cane ratio 1.62 1.73 1.19 1.22 e. uniformity in bud break (%) 82.9 82.6 79.9 78.8 3. bunch characters a. mean bunch-weight (g) 342.9 338.1 306.4 315.7 b. compactness index 31.9 35.7 31.3 29.9 c. total length of rachis (cm) 49.7 43.8 45.4 47.4 j. no. of berries/bunch 75.9 89.9 79.0 80.5 k. un-uniform berry size (%) 3.5 3.2 5.4 4.7 l. blemished berries (%) 4. berry characters a. diameter (mm) 17.5 17.4 17.9 17.6 b. specific gravity 1.06 1.06 1.03 1.04 c. tss content (°brix) 16.1 17.1 16.5 18.1 d. acidity (g%) 0.54 0.58 0.57 0.54 vy = vineyard j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):27-32, 2016 shikhamany et al 29 a score-card was devised by assigning 60% weight to yield and yield attributes (vine growth parameters contributing to yield) and 40% to quality parameters of bunch and berry, based on weightage as suggested by chadha and shikhamany (1989) for evaluating table grape varieties/ hybrids. weight and the other metrics concerning various attributes of yield and quality are based on their relative contribution as per established norms (table 3). cane diameter: this was measured midway between 3rd and 4th node. total shoot-length and leaf area on a cane are related positively (shikhamany, 1983). cluster weight and total soluble solids (tss) content of berries is determined by leaf area available/bunch (chelvan et al, 1985; purohit et al, 1975). cane diameter in the range of 7.0-7.5 was found to be optimum for both the varieties under study (shikhamany, unpublished data). no. of canes/m2: number of canes is a unit of production in grapes. number of canes/vine was positively correlated with yield/vine, mediated through number of clusters/vine. higher number of canes is an outcome of higher number of shoots which result in shading the buds, consequently, reducing their fruitfulness (buttrose 1970). cane density of 5-6/m2 is considered optimum (shikhamany, 1983). sub-cane/cane ratio: significance of the sub-canes in production lies in the fact that basal buds on lateral branches of the canes are highly fruitful. the number of lateral shoots on main shoot depends upon the stage and level of pinching of the main shoot and treatment with ccc prior to pinching. a higher number of sub-canes/cane translates as more number of clusters/cane. cluster/cane ratio: in addition to number of sub-canes, the number of clusters/cane depends on management of budfruitfulness, coupled with increased bud-break and retention of the emerged clusters. cluster/cane ratio is positively correlated with yield/vine, but negatively with cluster weight (shikhamany et al, 2015). on the other hand, increase in this ratio reduces tss content in the berries (shikhamany, 1983). optimum ratio of clusters to cane was found to vary between 2.0-2.5 per cane, in diameter ranging 7.0-7.5mm, with reference to bunch-size and sugar content in berries for table grape purpose in these varieties (shikhamany, unpublished data). uniformity in bud-break: uniformity in phenological development of shoot and cluster depends upon uniformity in bud-break. efficiency of ga3 sprays for cluster-elongation depends on this phenomenon. judicious shoot-pinching after back-pruning to develop fruiting units (sub-canes) of uniform diameter, pre-pruning defoliation (and removal of canes of abnormal size) and, judicious use of hydrogen cyanamide at forward-pruning, are cultural operations applied to obtain uniform bud-break. uniformity in fruitset, to a large extent, depends on uniformity in flowering. thresh-hold level of uniformity is 70-75% in these varieties (shikhamany, unpublished data). uniformity in flowering: uniformity in phenological stages of berry growth and development depend on uniformity in berry-set, which is determined by uniformity in bud-break. effect of ga3 for berry-thinning (turner, 1972) and growth regulators / girdling for berry size are stage-specific. thus, for effective and economical berrythinning and sizing, uniformity in cluster development is very important. optimum level of uniformity was in the range of 90-95% for these varieties (shikhamany, unpublished data). bunch characters mean bunch-weight: yield per vine is a function of mean bunch-weight in any variety. while the number of clusters/ cane, excess vigour of the bearing-shoot, and inadequate leaf area available/ bunch reduce bunch weight, number of berries/bunch and mean berry size increase it (shikhamany et al, 2015). cluster-thinning in relation to cane diameter (shikhamany et al, 2015), shoot-topping (chelvan et al, 1985), girdling (bhujbal and wavhal, 1972) and use of growth regulators (shikhamany, 1996) have all been shown to increase bunch weight. bunch compactness index: loose and well-filled bunches are preferred for table purpose in domestic as well as international markets. compact bunches rot due to mutual berry pressure during ripening, and are bruised in boxes when packed and transported. bunch compactness index was derived by the following formula: number of berries in a bunch compactness index = bunch/total length of rachis of the bunch (cm) x mean berry diameter (mm) bunches with >35 compactness index were graded as compact; between 31-35 a well-filled; 25-30 a loose, and <25 as straggly. total length of rachis: this is the sum of length of the main rachis and all its branches, measured in cm. pre-bloom ga3 sprays at the right concentration and right stage elongate vineyard efficiency analysis j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):27-32, 2016 30 the main rachis and its branches. ineffective sprays result in inadequate elongation and higher bunch compactness, indicating inappropriate spray of ga3. no. of berries/bunch: number of berries in a bunch not only increases bunch weight, but also its compactness. berries are thinned manually at 6-7mm dia stage, or, ga3 sprays just before and at calyptras-fall stage. manual thinning is not only expensive, it is also less effective. achieving uniformity in flowering and identification of the correct stage for thinning sprays, are the main tasks in chemical thinning. two to three sprays of ga3 at 10/15ppm on alternate days, commencing from the fourth day prior to full-bloom (depending upon uniformity in the stages of cluster development) effectively reduces the number of berries in a bunch. optimum number of berries was 90100, depending upon the diameter of berries in a bunch. early spray/ high concentration of ga3 and spray under cloudy or humid weather results in the drop of almost all flower buds, while, delayed sprays/low ga3 concentration results in less thinning and, may be, more number of shot berries. uniformity of berries in a bunch: uniformity refers to an absence of un-uniform berries with reference to shot berries and water berries. while shot berries are attributed to a faulty stage/ coverage of ga3 spray on the bunches (for either berry-thinning or berry-enlargement, water berries result from a higher fruit/leaf ratio. maximum permissible limit of un-uniform berries in a bunch in overseas markets is 5%. blemished berries: berries with blemishes of powdery mildew, sun-burn or pink pigmentation are grouped under this trait. maximum permissible limit for such berries in a bunch is just 2%. berry characters berry diameter: bold berries are preferred for table purpose. berries with a diameter more than 16mm alone are accepted in eu markets. timely berry-thinning (before 6mm stage), coupled with girdling and growth-regulator treatments, are ways for increasing berry diameter. specific gravity of berry: berries with more sugar and pulp have a greater specific gravity at harvest. this trait is decided mainly by leaf to fruit ratio. berries with a higher specific gravity are less prone to chilling-injury and stay longer in the cold-chain in transit and storage. tss content of berries: eating quality and consumer preference are determined mostly by total soluble solids (tss) content of the berries. leaf to fruit ratio and stage of harvest mainly determine tss content of berries. optimum tss is 16ob for these varieties in the overseas market, but is more than 18ob in the domestic market. low tss content is associated with low specific gravity. with even an adequate leaf to fruit ratio, grapes harvested early tend to have lower tss content. content of titratable acids in berry: acid content in the berry straightaway indicates the stage of harvest. early harvest is indicated by high level of acids and results in reduced bunch-weight and yield/vine. optimum range of acids is 0.5 – 0.6g/100ml of juice. results and discussion efficiency evaluation efficiency of the selected vineyards was assessed as per a score card and values are presented separately for ‘thompson seedless’ (table 4) and tas-a-ganesh (table 5) vineyards. as per the score-card, vineyard efficiency across vineyards and varieties, was higher in the 2014-15 cropping season (73.13 score), compared to 201314 (68.05 score). average score for ‘thompson seedless’ over the years and vineyards (75.35) was higher compared to that in ‘tas-a-ganesh’ (67.2). although a comparison between varieties is not appropriate, ‘tas-a-ganesh’ (being table 4. assessment of efficiency of ‘thompson seedless’ vineyards s. no. parameter score 2013-14 2014-15 vy-1 vy-2 vy-1 vy-2 1. yield/acre 29.76 12.4 40.0 40.0 2. vine growth characters (16.81) (15.64) (16.8) (14.92) a. cane diameter (mm) 2.0 1.5 2.0 2.0 b. no. of canes/m2 4.0 5.0 4.0 4.0 c. sub-cane/cane ratio 2.81 2.64 2.80 2.42 d. cluster/cane ratio 4.0 3.0 4.0 3.0 e. uniformity in bud break (%) 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 f. uniformity in flowering (%) 1.0 0.5 2.0 1.5 3. bunch characters (18.36) (17.52) (19.58) (17.34) a. mean bunch weight (g) 2.5 3.0 3.0 2.5 b. compactness index 4.8 3.0 5.0 5.0 c. total length of rachis (cm) 2.41 2.56 3.00 2.82 d. berries/bunch 1.65 1.66 0.98 1.82 e. un-uniform berry size (%) 4.4 2.3 5.0 2.2 f. blemished berries (%) 2.6 5.0 2.6 3.0 4. berry characters (8.9) (12.65) (8.5) (6.75) a. diameter (mm) 1.6 4.3 4.2 3.2 b. specific gravity 3.5 4.0 1.5 2.0 c. tss (°brix) 2.0 2.95 1.4 1.35 d. acidity (g%) 1.8 1.4 1.4 0.2 total score 73.83 58.21 84.88 79.01 vy = vineyard figures in parentheses indicate sub-total of the corresponding character shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):27-32, 2016 31 a clone of ‘thompson seedless’) renders it relevant. within a variety over the two seasons, vineyard -1 scored better over vineyard-2 in ‘thompson seedless’ as also in ‘tas-aganesh’. in an year-wise analysis, vineyard-1 scored better over vineyard-2 in both the years in the two varieties. when the scale (excellent: >90; very good = 81-90; good = 71-80; average = 61-70; below average = <61) was applied for grading the vineyards, ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard-1 in 2014-15 was graded as ‘very good’; ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard-1 in 2013-14, ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard-2 in 2014-15, and ‘tas-a-ganesh’ vineyard-1 in 2013-14, were graded as ‘good’. grading of the other vineyards in different cropping seasons is as follows: average: ‘tas-a-ganesh’ vineyard-1 in 2014-15, and ‘tas-a-ganesh’ vineyard-2 in both the seasons below average: ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard-2 in 2013-14 efficiency analysis level of perfection/shortcoming in management, contributing to the differential rating of the vineyards, is analyzed below: table 5. assessment of efficiency of tasaganesh vineyards s. no. parameter score 2013-14 2014-15 vy-1 vy-2 vy-1 vy-2 1. yield/acre 29.88 21.76 29.52 22.84 2. vine growth characters (17.0) (17.5) (15.0) (13.5) a. cane diameter (mm) 2.0 2.0 1.5 1.5 b. no. of canes/m2 4.0 4.0 5.0 3.0 c. sub-cane/cane ratio 3.0 3.0 2.5 2.3 d. cluster/cane ratio 5.0 5.0 2.0 3.0 e. uniformity in bud break (%) 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 f. uniformity in flowering (%) 0.0 0.5 2.0 2.0 3. bunch characters (19.41) (17.09) (15.45) (15.88) a. mean bunch-weight (g) 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 b. compactness index 5.0 3.5 5.0 5.0 c. total length of rachis 2.49 2.19 2.27 2.37 d. no. of berries/bunch 1.52 1.80 1.58 1.61 e. un-uniform berry size (%) 3.5 3.8 1.6 2.3 f. blemished berries (%) 4.9 3.8 3.0 2.6 4. berry characters (8.95) (8.55) (7.45) (9.0) a. diameter (mm) 2.5 2.4 2.9 2.6 b. specific gravity 3.0 3.0 1.5 2.0 c. tss content (°brix) 2.05 2.55 2.25 3.0 d. acidity (g%) 1.4 0.6 0.8 1.4 total score 75.24 64.9 67.42 61.22 vy = vineyard figures in parentheses indicate sub-total of the corresponding character very good: performance of ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard1 in 2014-15 rated very well. the main contributory factors were yield, management of cane-diameter, uniformity in flowering, cluster compactness, and mean bunch-weight. management of cane number/m2, sub-cane development, cluster/cane ratio, berry diameter and uniformity in berries also contributed to this rating. lacunae in management were mainly in berry-thinning and quality components, namely, a greater proportion of blemished berries, lower specific gravity, lower tss, and high acid content of the berries. analysis indicated that the bunches had a lower leaf to fruit ratio. desired berry diameter was achieved with the help of growth regulators, and the grapes were harvested prematurely. good: ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard-1 and ‘tas-aganesh’ vineyard-1 fell under this category in 2013-14; ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard-2 in 2014-15 also fell under this. the main reasons for this rating in ‘thompson seedless’ vieyard-1 were yield and quality. management of cane diameter and bud-break here was excellent. mean bunchweight being very good, the low yield can be attributed to a lower number of bunches harvested. despite no. of canes/ m2, sub-cane/ cane ratio and cluster/cane ratio being very good, fewer number of bunches indicates loss of clusters, due mainly to inadequate pest / disease management. lacunae in quality management were attributable to lack of adequate berry diameter, uniform berries, berry specific-gravity, tss content of berries, and reduced berry scorching. a normal level of acid in the berries is indicating of harvest at the right stage. thus, low specific gravity, coupled with low tss content and smaller berry diameter, indicates a lower leaf to fruit ratio. ‘thompson seedless’ vineyard-2 also rated ‘good’ in 2014-25. in spite of ranking ‘excellent’ in yield, and ‘very good’ in yield-attributes (namely, mean bunchweight, number of berries/bunch, number of canes/m2 and sub-cane/ cane ratio), it scored lower in cluster/cane ratio, uniformity in bud-break and flowering, and mainly, in bunch and berry quality parameters. low acidity indicates delayed harvest. hence, inadequate leaf to fruit ratio is the reason for simultaneous reduction in tss content and berry specific-gravity. lacunae here are: inadequate management of bud-fruitfulness, bud-break and optimum leaf to fruit ratio. among ‘tas-a-ganesh’ vineyards, vineyard-1 alone rated ‘good’ in 2013-14. the main contributing factor was vineyard efficiency analysis j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):27-32, 2016 32 yield/vine. mean bunch weight was average, yet yield was good because of a very good rating in cluster/cane ratio, number of canes/m2 and sub-cane/cane ratio. despite excellent cane diameter, the average bunch-weight can be attributed to a higher cluster/cane ratio. other virtues in management were: induction of uniform bud-break, berrythinning and blemish-free berries. the shortcomings were: inadequate management of berry-quality including tss, acidity, berry sizing, uniformity in berries and berry specificgravity. premature harvest and inadequate leaf to fruit ratio were the contributing factors. average: in ‘tas-a-ganesh’, vineyard-1 in 2014-15 and vineyard-2 in both the years rated as ‘average’. vineyard-1 scored low on account of yield attributes and bunch / berry characters, in spite of having a good score in yield. good yield was attributable to higher number of bunches/vine, and not from cluster/cane ratio or mean bunch weight. clusters were loose to well-filled. neither rachis elongation nor number of berries/bunch was managed well. small berries would have contributed to less compactness of berries. vineyard-2 of ‘tas-a-ganesh’ rated ‘average’ in both the years. all the parameters of evaluation were ‘average’ in range, except the yield-attributes in 2013-14. although cluster/cane ratio was excellent, yields suffered because of a lower number of canes and lower bunch-weight. below average: thompson seedless vineyard-2 in 201314 rated ‘below average’. although better in berry quality, this vineyard was rated so mainly because of very low yield, compact bunches and un-uniform berries. in spite of adequate cane density and excellent bunch-weight, yield was ‘below average’ because of a low cluster/cane ratio. lack of management in bud-fruitfulness was poor in this vineyard. acknowlegement the authors are grateful to chairman and office bearers, central research committee, maharashtra state grape growers’ association, pune, for supporting this research. they also thank shri ashok gaikwad, arun more, jagannath khapare and suresh kalamkar for facilitating the study in their vineyards. support of shri t.s. mungare and t.s. shelke, and guidance provided by research advisory committee of the association, are gratefully acknowledged. references bhujabal, b.g. and wavhal, v.n. 1972. effect of cane girdling on yield and quality of grapes. res. j. mahatma phule agri. univ., 3:62-63 buttrose, m.s. 1970. fruitfulness in grapevines: the response of different cultivars to light, temperature and day length. vitis, 9:121-125 chadha, k.l. and shikhamany, s.d. 1989. the grape: improvement, production and post harvest management (isbn: 81-85048-40-1), malhotra publishing house, new delhi, india, pp. 129-30 chelvan, r.c., shikhamany, s.d. and chadha, k.l. 1985. contribution of leaf area towards bunch development in ‘thompson seedless’ grape. indian j. hort., 42:156-60 purohit, a.g., shikhamany, s.d. and kumar, p.b. 1975. effect of number of leaves per bunch on growth and quality of tropical grape variety anab-e-shahi (vitis vinifera l.). indian j. hort., 36:36-41 rao, d.p. and mukherjee, s.k. 1982. orchard efficiency analysis of mango (mangifera indica l.). indian j. hort., 39(3&4):158-66 roy, r.n., rao, d.p. and mukherjee, s.k. 1984. orchard efficiency analysis of litchi. indian j. hort., 41:1621 shikhamany, s.d. 1983. effect of time and different doses of n and k on growth, yield and quality of ‘thompson seedless’ grapes (vitis vinifera l.). ph.d. thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore, india shikhamany, s.d. 1996. comparative effect of different growth regulators on ripening and export quality of ‘thompson seedless’ grape. draksha vritta, 16:101104 shikhamany, s.d., chelvan, r.c. and chadha, k.l. 1984. evaluation of low-yielding vines of ‘thompson seedless’ for nutrient indices by dris analysis. indian j. hort., 41:166-170 shikhamany, s.d., jeughale, s.k., khapare, k.n. and venugopalan, r. 2015. variation in relation between yield and yield attributes in ‘thompson seedless’ grape and its clones. j. hortl. sci., 10:8-12 srivastava, a.k. and singh, s. 2007. analysis of citrus orchard efficiency in relation to soil properties. j. pl. nutrition, 30:2077-90 turner, j.n. 1972. practical use of gibberellins in agriculture and horticulture. outlook on agriculture, 1:14-20 (ms received 08 october 2015, revised 10 june 2016, accepted 13 june 2016) shikhamany et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):27-32, 2016 gladiolus is one of the most attractive bulbous cutflower crops. its wide open, good textured, impressive coloured spikes have high demand in both international and domestic markets. in recent years, demand for gladiolus has increased owing to its durability in long-shipping and for its fantastic colour range-from blue to white, red, yellow, pink, mauve and combinations of all the these colours. the spikes of gladiolus are used mainly for garden display, interior decoration and bouquet making. total area under bulbous ornamentals in the world is 50,000ha, of which gladiolus occupies 9500ha. major gladiolus growing countries in the world are the netherlands, uk, usa, japan, south africa and australia. us is a major producer of gladiolus and exports 6.5 million gladiolus spikes while its import is around 13 million cut stems per year. in india, it is grown in an area of 25,000ha with production of 753 lakh spikes. it is commercially cultivated in west bengal, himachal pradesh, karnataka, uttar pradesh, punjab and new delhi (rupa rani et al, 2007). gladiolus is grown round the year in tropical regions of karnataka and maharashtra. in tamil nadu, it is grown in a few places like ooty and kodaikanal. gladiolus is rich in varietal wealth, and every year there is addition of new cultivars. hence, an evaluation of various cultivars was carried out to assess suitability of growing these in the eastern ghats of tamil nadu. the experiment was conducted at horticultural short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):206-208, 2012 evaluation of gladiolus cultivars in eastern ghats of tamil nadu a. sankari, m. anand and r. arulmozhiyan horticultural research station, yercaud-636 602 tamil nadu, india e-mail: sathatnau@yahoo.co.in abstract gladiolus grandiflorus l. genotypes were evaluated for growth and floral parameters in eastern ghats of tamil nadu, under yercaud conditions. significant differences were recorded for all traits studied. among 42 genotypes evaluated, ‘pusa shagun’ and ‘pusa swarnima’ recorded quality spikes with higher vase life indicating their suitability for use in floral arrangement, while, genotypes like ‘thumbolina’, ‘priscilla’ and ‘candyman’ were found superior in characters like corm number, corm weight and corm diameter. taking into account various growth and floral characters of the genotypes studied, pusa swarnima, pusa shagun, thumbolina, priscilla and candyman can be recommended for cut-flower production in the eastern ghats of tamil nadu. key words: genotypes, spike length, corms, gladiolus research station, yercaud, from 2006 to 2009. forty two genotypes of gladiolus were used in the study namely, thumbolina, white prosperity, big time supreme, morello, apollo, charms glow, priscilla, her majesty, western song, tropic sea, american beauty, summer sunshine, red sea, red ginger, intrepid, candyman, red majesty, pacifica, jester, peter pears, darshan, sylvia, shobha, alderbaran, pusa swarnima, eighth wounder, marvelous, souvenir, punjab dawn, pascal, novalux, red beauty, pink glory, pusa shagun, prabha, jacksonville gold, gpg, bis bis, green bay and melody. the site of experiment is geographically situated between 17o04' to 11o05' north latitude and 78o05' to 78o23' east longitude at an altitude of 1500m above mean sea level (amsl). average maximum and minimum temperature during the course of study was 31.0oc and 12.4oc, respectively. mean annual rainfall in yercaud recorded was 1572mm in 47 rainy days. average relative humidity was 75 per cent. soil of the experimental plot was lateritic with ph ranging 4.5 – 6.0. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, with three replications. corms of 42 different genotypes were planted in a plot of 1.8m x 1.2m size, with a spacing of 30cm x 30cm. fym @25t/ha was applied 15 days prior to planting during land preparation. uniform package of practices was followed throughout the experiment. growth and floral parameters, viz., days to corm sprouting, days to flowering, spike length, number of florets per spike, number of open flowers at a given time, vase life, corm weight and number of cormels 207 table 1. comparative performance of gladiolus genotypes in eastern ghats of tamil nadu (pooled mean for the years 2006-09) cultivar plant days to no. of corm diameter corm days to no. of spike spike flower no. of vase life height corm corms (cm) weight(g) flowering florets length weight diameter days florets in water (cm) sprouting per spike (cm) (g) (cm) remained (d) open alderbaran 103.9 13 17 5.6 50.4 97 10 101.2 62.1 9.9 5 10 american beauty 87.7 12 1 5.7 53.3 95 14 96.5 62.2 12.7 6 11 appollo 85.8 14 45 6.0 45.1 107 12 131.7 66.0 10.2 5 12 big time supreme 87.1 14 31 5.5 47.2 110 14 91.9 61.8 11.6 5 11 bis bis 101.7 15 2 4.7 45.5 86 11 102.2 61.7 9.1 6 9 candyman 91.5 12 4 7.0 63.7 103 13 114.4 56.2 13.0 5 10 charms flow 69.1 10 7 6.0 55.9 94 7 94.1 49.6 11.2 7 12 darshan 97.1 15 8 5.9 42.0 97 16 95.4 62.4 12.0 7 12 eighth wonder 80.2 10 21 5.7 53.1 90 17 129.0 68.2 12.2 8 11 green bay 102.2 17 1 4.9 44.3 100 12 93.3 61.3 10.1 5 12 gpg 81.7 16 11 4.2 21.5 101 10 79.8 51.8 10.4 5 8 her majesty 83.5 10 2 4.1 47.8 88 2 119.2 68.5 12.1 6 11 intrepid 82.8 11 16 6.6 56.8 92 16 108.2 57.5 12.5 6 10 jacksonvillie gold 79.2 10 3 5.1 39.7 100 12 79.4 54.3 11.3 5 12 jester 72.2 11 36 5.7 51.1 93 12 82.9 59.2 10.3 5 10 legend 105.7 13 22 5.4 49.3 89 16 141.5 64.7 8.9 10 14 marvellous 86.3 14 10 4.8 42.5 97 16 132.1 73.0 11.6 6 11 mayur 73.7 12 13 5.8 53.0 84 10 96.7 65.1 10.1 4 9 melody 95.2 16 2 3.7 33.8 72 10 70.7 57.9 11.9 6 11 morello 50.4 9 3 5.0 28.1 87 10 85.4 54.5 11.9 4 11 novalux 72.7 10 16 6.4 56.2 69 14 112.3 60.5 10.8 6 11 pacifica 87.1 11 1 4.7 29.4 96 15 135.8 71.4 9.7 8 11 pascal 87.8 10 5 5.0 45.4 79 13 93.9 63.0 8.3 6 11 peter pears 80.2 13 5 5.3 48.5 100 14 113.6 66.2 10.3 6 11 pink glory 94.7 15 5 4.8 47.5 93 18 135.1 72.4 12.1 7 11 prabha 84.7 10 16 4.9 51.0 94 13 128.4 57.6 10.4 6 11 priscilla 95.8 11 34 6.5 69.5 105 19 107.5 63.5 12.9 8 14 punjab dawn 74.2 11 1 5.0 33.0 78 14 79.2 59.2 10.7 8 10 pusa shagun 91.0 9 8 6.3 64.2 91 16 142.7 70.7 11.0 7 12 pusa swarnima 69.5 12 38 5.3 55.4 96 19 136.3 72.4 12.5 8 12 red beauty 108.7 14 19 5.9 60.1 93 14 118.8 61.7 12.1 7 11 red ginger 89.4 13 26 6.4 58.5 104 14 138.8 64.9 12.3 7 12 red majesty 75.7 10 2 5.7 51.7 97 12 108.6 64.2 11.7 5 11 red sea 77.6 11 11 6.3 41.6 97 12 116.0 64.2 10.5 5 10 shobha 70.2 14 7 6.2 53.6 87 14 119.6 61.1 12.4 8 11 souvenir 96.7 13 24 4.7 38.9 92 15 125.7 67.8 12.2 6 10 summer sunshine 79.3 11 11 6.3 54.2 108 15 158.0 62.2 11.6 6 12 sylvia 69.4 14 22 6.2 57.0 95 12 118.6 72.0 10.7 5 10 thumbolina 76.8 12 84 5.6 51.5 83 15 75.8 60.5 13.4 6 12 tropic sea 87.2 9 29 5.3 34.7 106 18 136.8 67.5 10.0 6 13 western song 64.2 9 1 4.0 28.6 65 12 79.7 71.6 9.5 6 10 white prosperity 77.7 12 5 4.8 41.8 88 13 92.4 65.7 12.9 6 12 sem (±) 13.02 0.83 5.33 1.07 5.47 7.57 1.76 11.77 4.23 0.82 0.67 0.90 cd ( p=0.05 ) 25.91 1.64 10.61 2.13 10.87 15.06 3.51 23.41 8.41 1.64 1.34 1.79 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):206-208, 2012 evaluation of gladiolus cultivars in eastern ghats 208 per plant, were recorded and analyzed statistically for assessing suitability of the cultivars for cultivation in yercaud region of tamil nadu. results revealed significant variation among the 42 cultivars with respect to all the parameters studied (table 1). plant height varied from 50.4 to 108.7cm, with cultivar red beauty recording the tallest plants, while, cv. morello had the shortest plants. similar results on variation in vegetative characters were observed by swain et al (2008). flower and cormel characters were significantly influenced by the cultivar. ‘morello’ recorded minimum number of days (9d) to sprouting of corm, while, cultivar green bay recorded maximum number of days (17d). similar results on vegetative characters were observed by mishra (1997) in gladiolus. cultivar western song was found to be the earliest (65 days) to first floret opening. ‘big time supreme’ was late in opening (110 days). early and late cultivars can both be used to prolong bloom period. similar variations in early and late cultivars of gladiolus had been reported by aswath and parthasarathy (1996) and swain et al (2008) in gladiolus. length of the spike is the most important character in gladiolus. in the present study, longest spike (142.7cm) was recorded in cv. pusa shagun, followed by cv. legend (141.5cm), red ginger and pusa swarnima (138.8cm), while, cv. melody recorded the shortest spike length of 70.7cm. the weight of spike was maximum in marvellous (73.0g) and minimum in ‘charms glow’ (49.6g). there was a significant difference in the number of florets among cultivars. the number of florets per spike ranged from 10 to 19. highest number of florets was observed in ‘pusa swarnima’ and ‘priscilla’ (19). hence, these were regarded as suitable for bouquet making. dimri (2002) and swain et al (2008) also noticed significant difference in floret number among different cultivars. the variety thumbolina exhibited higher flower diameter (13.4cm) among the cultivars tested, and minimum flower diameter was seen in ‘pascal’ (8.3cm). similar findings were observed by swain et al (2008) in the diameter of cut flowers. in a cut flower, keeping quality is the most important character influencing marketability of the flowers. vase life of the spike in water under ambient conditions was found to be best in cvs. ‘priscilla’ and ‘legend’ (14 days), followed by cv. tropic sea. rupa rani et al (2007) observed that cv. american beauty was the best in terms of duration of flowering under natural condition. number of corms per plant was found to be significantly different among cultivars. cultivars also recorded a wide variation in the number of cormels per mother corm, which ranged from 0 to 84. the variety thumbolina recorded highest number of cormels. swain et al (2008) reported wide variation in corm and cormel production in different cultivars of gladiolus. corm weight (69.5g) was higher in cv. priscilla, while corm diameter was the greatest in candyman (7.0cm). corm diameter and corm weight are important parameters for producing quality spikes, with more number of florets of a larger size. wide variation in corm and cormel production was also reported by aswath and parthasarathy (1996) and kamble et al (2004) in different cultivars of gladiolus. it is evident from the study that cvs. pusa shagun and pusa swarnima recorded good quality spikes with higher spike length, number of florets per spike, number of flowers that remained open at a given time and, vase life, indicating their suitability for use in floral arrangement. however, cvs thumbolina, priscilla and candyman were found to be better with respect to corm number, corm weight and corm diameter. hence, with regards to various growth and floral characters, cultivars pusa swarnima, pusa shagun, thumbolina, priscilla and candyman can be recommended for cut flower production in the eastern ghats of tamil nadu, under yercaud conditions. references aswath, c. and parthasarathy, v.a. 1996. evaluation of gladiolus cultivars. j. hill res., 9:147-149 dimri, d.c. 2002. performance of some promising gladioli cultivars under low hills of uttaranchal. prog. hort., 34:265-267 kamble, b.s., reddy, b.s., gangadharappa, p.m. and kulkarni, b.s. 2004. evaluation of quality parameters, flower and yield. harayana j. hort., 33:74-75 mishra, h.p. 1997. performance of gladiolus genotypes under calcareous soil for north bihar. ind. j. hort., 14:77-92 rupa rani, prasad, k.k. and rakesh ranjan. 2007 studies on varietal performance in gladiolus. orissa j. hort., 35:35-38 swain, s., rath, c.s. and seithi, b.k. 2008 evaluation of gladiolus cultivars for quality flowers and corm yield under eastern ghat in high land zone of orissa. orissa j. hort., 36:122-123 uppal, s. and arora, j. 1994. evaluation of different cultivars of gladiolus under varying dates of planting. punjab hort. j., 34:129-134 (ms received 13 april 2012, revised 30 july 2012) sankari et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):206-208, 2012 mango is an important fruit crop of india grown in an area of 12.22 million ha with production of 104.1 million tonnes (nhb, 2009). in mango, the average national productivity is around 6.42 t/ha, which is very low compared to countries like israel, mexico, brazil and philippines. one of the reasons for this low productivity is presence of several old, senile mango orchards. improving the productivity of old, unproductive mango orchards plays an important role in augmenting production and productivity of mango in the country. in old and dense mango orchards, light interception and photosynthetic potential of trees is reduced. thinning of overcrowded branches to facilitate air circulation improves photosynthetic efficiency, fruit yield and quality. lakso (1980) reported a close relationship between light interception, photosynthesis and fruit yield in fruit tree orchards. gross (1997) reported judicious pruning of mango trees for maintaining a good balance between vegetative growth and fruiting. beneficial and favourable effects of pruning in mango have been reported on light interception and chlorophyll content of leaves (schaffer and gauye, 1989), growth parameters (lal et al, 2001) and fruit yield (lal and mishra, 2007; rao and shanmugavelu, 1976; burondakar et al, 1997; shinde et al, 2003), fruit colour (whitey, 1984) and regularity in bearing (rao, 1971) ‘alphonso’ is one of the commercial varieties of studies on rejuvenation of old, unproductive ‘alphonso’ mango trees in orchards y.t.n. reddy and reju m. kurian division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake p.o., bangalore-560089, india email: nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field trial on pruning was conducted from 2004 to 2009 to induce rejuvenation of twenty six year old, unproductive ‘alphonso’ mango trees, at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. in the study, three treatments imposed comprised of two pruning treatments, namely 30cm and 45cm pruning of third order branches from the point of origin, and a control (no pruning). pruning increased the mean cumulative fruit yield for four years, which was almost double that of control, although the two pruning treatments were on par. maximum mean cumulative fruit yield (86.3kg/plant) was obtained with 30cm pruning, whereas control treatment recorded a fruit yield of 47.2kg/plant. fruit quality attributes such as average fruit-weight, tss, acidity and shelf-life were not affected by the two pruning treatments, for rejuvenation of ‘alphonso’ mango. key words: pruning, rejuvenation, mango, fruit yield, fruit quality mango mainly grown in the states of karnataka, maharastra, tamil nadu, gujarat and andra pradesh. it is a dual purpose variety used both for table purposes and processing. it is also exported to other countries. in alphonso, productivity is around 4.5 t/ha, which is very low compared to other mango varieties, due to many reasons. with this in view, rejuvenation through pruning was applied in the existing, old alphonso trees at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. a field trial was conducted from 2004 to 2009 on twenty six year old alphonso mango trees where the fruit yield was around 40 to 50 kg/plant. the trees were under rainfed conditions on red loam soils, with available soil nitrogen 262 kg/ha, available soil phosphorus 9.62 kg/ha and available soil potash 141.1 kg/ha under ph 7.26. the plants were spaced at 10mx10m. three pruning treatments were imposed, namely, 1. pruning of third order branches 30cm from origin. 2. pruning of third order branches 45cm from origin and 3. no pruning (control). the treatments are illustrated in the following figure: the pruning treatments were decided and fine tuned based on earlier experience under an natp trial where branches 5m and 4m from ground level were pruned for improving productivity of alphonso mango orchards. regular and uniform cultural practices were imposed on pruned and short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):145-147, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 146 control trees. the trial was laid out in randomized block design with 10 replications and single tree as a unit/ treatment. pruning treatments were imposed during september, 2004 and trees were pruned with a hand-saw. after pruning, the cut ends were applied with copper oxychloride paste. this was followed by three insecticidal sprays after emergence of sprouts, at intervals of 20 days, for control of shoot borer and other pests. shoots were thinned to manageable levels thus avoiding overcrowding and only the healthy and vigorous ones were retained. no flowering was observed during december 2004/ january 2005 in any of the pruned trees. fruit yield and quality parameters were recorded during the fruiting season (mayjune) of 2006 to 2009, and data were statistically analyzed as per standard procedures (panse and sukhatme, 1985). fruit quality parameters were estimated as per standard procedures (ranganna, 1986). fruit yield: fruit yield as influenced by different pruning treatments during 2006 2009 are presented in table 1. fruit yield in terms of number of fruits plant-1 and fruit yield per plant were found to be significant during the years 2007 to 2009. during all the years of study, pruning treatments improved fruit yield and a pronounced effect was seen with pruning of third-order branches 30cm from their point of origin. although difference in fruit yield among 30 and 45cm pruning treatment was not much and at par among the treatment. in case of pruning third order branches 30cm from origin the fruit yield was almost double compared to no pruning treatment (control). mean cumulative fruit yield was higher for pruning treatments of 30 and 45cm. similar result of increased fruit yield was reported by lal and mishra (2007, 2008) in mango cvs. chausa and dashehari, respectively. rao and shanmugavelu (1975, 1976), rao and khader (1979) and shanmugavelu and selvaraj (1985) also reported increased yield of mango growing to the redistribution of the endogenous normonal substances to favour flowering and fruiting in different varieties. fruit yield in seven cultivars improved with pruning (anon., 1979). it appears that the apparently quiescent fruit-bearing buds were activated by pruning treatment owing to redistribution of the endogenous hormonal substances, to favour flowering and fruiting. pooled fruit yield data for four years showed increased fruit yield by pruning 30 and 45cm away thirdorder branches from point of origin. fruit quality attributes: fruit quality attributes such as average fruit weight, tss, acidity and shelf-life as influenced by different pruning treatments are presented in table 2. the average fruit weight during 2007 and 2008, tss during 2008 and acidity during 2009 were found to be vary significantly among different pruning treatments. in general, pruning treatments reduced the fruit size due to a higher number of fruits plant-1. tss, acidity and shelf-life were not affected by different treatments. similar results were reported by lal and mishra (2008) in dashehari mango. table 1. fruit yield of alphonso mango as influenced by pruning treatment no of fruits plant-1 fruit yield plant-1 ( kg plant-1 ) 2006 2007 2008 2009 cumulative mean 2006 2007 2008 2009 cumulative mean t 1 -pruning third order 273.6 596.7 235.6 400.4 1506.3 376.6 65.7 145.2 51.8 82.4 345.2 86.3 branches 30 cm from origin t 2 -pruning third order 270.9 502.2 255.3 356.9 1385.3 346.3 67.7 121.5 54.1 72.5 315.8 78.9 branches 45 cm from origin t 3 -contro(no pruning) 206.3 190.0 186.2 211.1 793.6 198.4 49.5 48.4 46.9 44.2 189.0 47.2 f. test ns ** * ** * ns ** * ** * s.em± 33.5 41.3 20.1 34.7 49.3 8.4 10.5 2.7 6.37 15.6 c.d. (p=0.05) __ 124.0 63.6 104.2 137.9 __ 31.4 8.5 19.1 46.8 c.d. (p=0.01) __ 170.9 __ 140.8 __ __ 48.3 __ 26.4 __ reddy and kurian ns = non-significant, ** = significant at p0.01 and * = significant at p0.05 j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):145-147, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 147 fruit quality parameters of alphonso mango, thus, were not influenced by different pruning treatments. references anonymous, 1979. mango workers’ meeting, panaji, goa, 2-5 may, 1979. research report on mango. pp357 burondakar, m.m., gunjate, r.t., and magdum, m.b. 1997. rejuvenation of old and overcrowded alphonso mango orchards with pruning and use of paclobutrazol. acta hort., 409:209-210 gross, e.r. 1997. pruning mango to increase yield. acta hort., 455:538-542 lakso, a.n. 1980. aspects of canopy photosynthesis and productivity in the apple tree. acta hort., 114:100109 lal, b., rajput, m.s., rajan, s. and rathore, d.s. 2001. effect of pruning on rejuvenation of old mango trees. ind. j. hort., 57:240-242 lal, b. and mishra, d. 2007. effect of pruning on growth and bearing behaviour of mango cv. chausa. ind. j. hort., 64:268-270 lal, b. and mishra, d. 2008. studies on pruning in mango for rejuvenation. ind. j. hort., 65:405-408 national horticultural board. 2009. database of horticultural crops 2009 gurgaon, india panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers. fourth edition, icar, new delhi table 2. fruit quality of alphonso mango as influenced by pruning treatment average fruit weight (g) tss (0brix) acidity (%) shelf life (days) 2006 2007 2008 2009 mean 2006 2007 2008 2009 mean 2006 2007 2008 2009 mean 2006 2007 2008 2009 mean t 1 pruning 241.5 243.9 220.3 206.1 227.9 17.5 17.0 18.0 16.9 17.3 0.201 0.268 0.202 0.201 0.218 13.2 12.5 13.2 12.9 12.9 third order branches 30 cm from origin t 2 pruning 250.2 242.3 213.7 205.9 228.0 17.0 17.9 18.2 16.8 17.5 0.268 0.268 0.201 0.268 0.251 13.5 13.0 13.5 13.5 13.3 third order branches 45 cm from origin t 3 -control 245.7 256.1 253.3 210.4 241.4 16.5 17.2 17.1 17.0 16.9 0.268 0.201 0.268 0.201 0.234 13.0 13.0 13.0 13.2 13.0 (no pruning) f. test ns * * ns ns ns * ns ns ns ns * ns ns ns ns s.em± 3.9 2.5 1.9 3.3 1.2 0.9 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.2 0.5 0.02 0.6 1.0 0.4 0.3 c.d. (p=0.05) __ 7.5 5.7 __ __ __ 0.9 __ __ __ __ 0.06 __ __ __ __ ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products second edition, tata mcgraw hill publication co. ltd., new delhi rao, v.n.m. 1971. a note on pruning as a remedy for irregular bearing mango. andhra agri. j., 16: 242-245 rao, v.n.m. and shanmugavelu, k.g. 1976. studies on the effect of pruning in mango. prog. hort., 8:21-28 rao, v.n.m. and shanmugavelu, k.g. 1975. pruning – a new technique for mango growers. agri. agro. industries j., september. pp 5-7. rao, v.n.m. and khader abdul, j.b.m. md. 1979. more about mango pruning. ind. hort., 25:135. shanmugavelu, k.g. and selvarajan, m. 1985. studies on the effect of pruning on certain varieties of mango. second int’l. symp. mango (abstract) p37 schaffer, b. and gauye g.o. 1989. effects of pruning on light penetration, specific leaf density and chlorophyll content of mango. sci. hort., 41:55-61 shinde, a.k., patil, b.p., pujari k.h. and godse s.k. 2003. pruning management in alphonso mango for sustainability of fruit yield. ind. j. agril. sci., 73: 641-644 whitey, a.w. 1984. crop management – a review. proceedings of the first australian mango research workshop, cairns, queensland and csiro, melbourne, pp196-201 (ms received 28 september 2010, revised 13 june 2011) rejuvenation of old, unproductive mango trees ns = non-significant, ** = significant at p0.01 and * = significant at p0.05 j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):145-147, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no effect of calcium, boron and sorbitol on fruit-set, yield and quality in mango cv. himsagar h.d. talang*, p. dutta, c. mukhim and s. patil department of fruits and orchard management bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya mohanpur, west bengal-741252, india *e-mail: hammylliende@gmail.com abstract an investigation was carried out to study the effect of foliar spray of micronutrients, viz, calcium and boron and sorbitol on fruit-set, yield and fruit quality in mango (mangifera indica l). cv. himsagar, at bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, regional research station, gayeshpur. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design (rbd), with three replications. results revealed that boric acid (0.02%) + sorbitol (2.0%) were the most effective for enhancing fruit-set (1.58%), yield (48.51 kg tree-1), fruit weight (165.6 g), tss (18.59°brix), total sugars (14.92%) and ascorbic acid content (20.32 mg 100 g-1), while, calcium nitrate (ca-0.06%) + boric acid (b-0.02%) proved to be the most effective for increasing shelf life in mango cv. himsagar, at ambient room temperature. key words: mango, calcium nitrate, boric acid, sorbitol, fruit quality introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) is the ‘national fruit’ of india. india is the largest producer of mango in the world, producing 184.31 lakh tonnes from an area of 25.16 lakh ha with a productivity of 7.3 mt/ha, and, shares about 45.1 % of the total mango production in the world. in the mango, several problems are associated with fruit-set, yield and quality due to an imbalance in supply of nutrients resulting in poor plant health, fruit quality and increase in fruit-drop. further, unhealthy plants are more prone to attack from insectpests and diseases. attempts were made by several researchers earlier to enhance productivity and quality of mangoes through foliar application of nutrients. calcium spray is known to increase productivity of mango, basically due to reduced abscission (kumar et al, 2006; wahdan et al, 2011). jutamanee et al (2002), singh and maurya (2004) and singh et al (2013) showed enhanced mango productivity with boron application. boron treatment also resulted in improved fruit quality in terms of weight, tss, total sugars and colour (pandey and singh, 2007; dutta, 2004; abdallah, 2006). the effects seen may be attributed to boron on enhanced pollen germination, pollen-tube growth and sugar synthesis/accumulation. therefore, keeping in view the importance of nutrients on fruitset, yield and quality, this study was undertaken in mango cv. himsagar with the objective of finding the most effective and optimum concentration of micro – nutrients tested to improve fruit-set, yield and quality of fruits. the experiment was conducted at regional research station, gayeshpur, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, west bengal, during 20112013. twelve-year-old trees of mango cv. himsagar of uniform vigour and size, planted at 10m x 10m distance and maintained under uniform cultural prac tice s, we re s ele c te d for the study. se ven treatments comprising calcium nitrate (0.06%), boric acid (0.02%), sorbitol (2.0%) alone or in combination (i.e., calcium nitrate @ 0.06% + boric acid @ 0.02%; calcium nitrate @ 0.06% + sorbitol @ 2.0%; and, boric acid @ 0.02% + sorbitol @ 2.0%) and control (water spray) were tested as foliar spray solutions by applying at about 50% initiation of panicles in the tree. treatments were laid out in randomized block design, * icar research complex for neh region ,umiam -793103,meghalaya,india j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 166-169, 2017 167 with three replications. data were recorded on percent fruit-set, yield (kg tree-1), fruit weight (g), total soluble solids in °brix (with the help of a digital refractrometer), acidity (calculated by titrating the fruit pulp aliquot against 0.1n naoh, as suggested in a.o.a.c., 1984, ascorbic acid (by reduction of 2,6dichlorophenol indophenol dye) and total sugars (ranganna, 1986). results presented in table 1 indicate that application of micronutrients and sorbitol significantly inc reased fruit-set. highest fruit-set (1.90) was recorded with boric acid (b-0.02%) + sorbitol (2%), followed by boric acid (b-0.02%) (1.83); and, the lowest (1.54) was observed in control. increase in fruit-set with application of boron and carbohydrates was also been observed by stino et al (2011) and singh et al (2013). table 1 also shows that plants sprayed with boric acid (0.02%) + sorbitol (2.0%) gave the highest yield (39.82 kg/tree), whereas control recorded the lowest yield (32.13 kg/tree). similar results were obtained by negi et al (2010) and singh et al (2013). boron improves pollen grain germination and pollen-tube elongation, consequently leading to higher fruit-set and, finally, the yield (abd-allah, 2006). further, it is evident from table 1 that highest average fruit-weight (234.33g) was recorded with calcium nitrate (ca-0.06%) + sorbitol (2%), which was at par with boric acid (b-0.02%) + sorbitol (2%) (231.75g); whereas, lowest average fruit weight (202.83g) was recorded in control. it is seen in table 2 that total soluble solids content in the fruit was significantly affected by various treatments with micronutrients and sorbitol. pooled data for the two years showed that maximum tss was recorded with boric acid (b-0.02%) + sorbitol (2%) (19.15 °brix),and, the minimum tss (1 6.50 °br ix) wa s re c or de d in con trol. da t a presented in table 2 indicate that acidity was not a f f e c te d s i gni f ic a n tl y b y a p pl ic a ti on o f micronutrients or sorbitol. however, pooled data shows that the highest acidity (0.22%) was recorded in control, and, the lowest (0.11%) with boric acid (b-0.02%) + sorbitol (2%). these results are in close conformity with finding of sanna and abd elmegeed (2005). negi et al (2009) pointed out that increase in tss by boron could be due to a more rapid translocation of sugars from the leaves to the de ve lo pi ng f r ui ts . f ur t he r, ou r t re a tme nt s significantly increased total sugars content in the fruit (table 2). pooled data reveals that maximum total sugars (15.30%) we re re corded in pla nts treated with boric acid (b-0.02%) + sorbitol (2%), which was significantly higher than total sugars content in all the other treatments, including control (13.36%). these findings are in conformity with findings of banik et al (1997) and negi et al (2009). increase in total sugar content may be due to a bre akdown of c omple x polyme rs into s imple substances by hydrolytic enzymes. boron facilitates sugar transport within a plant, and it is reported that borate reacts with sugars to form a sugar-borate c omplex that is more ea s ily ava ila ble to the transverse membrane (gauch and duggar, 1954). it is obvious from table 2 that ascorbic acid content of the fruits significantly increased with application of micronutrients and sorbitol. maximum ascorbic acid content (28.39 mg/100g pulp) was observed in fruits treated with calcium nitrate (ca0.06%) + boric acid (b-0.02%) followed by calcium nitrate (ca-0.06%) + sorbitol (2%) (26.55 mg/100g pulp), whereas, the lowest (23.09 mg/100g pulp) was recorded in control. similar findings were reported by negi et al (2009) and singh et al (2013). higher level of ascorbic acid with application of boron may be due to higher sugar c ontent in the fruit as, ascorbic acid is synthesized from sugars. it is clear from table 1 that shelf-life (number of days, at ambient room temperature) of fruits recorded highest (9 days) in calcium nitrate (ca0.06%) + boric acid (b-0.02%), whereas, the lowest wa s obse rved in control which was, howe ver, statistically at par with boric acid (b-0.02%) (5 da ys) . t he inc r ea s e in s he lf-life by ca lc ium treatment may be due to the action of calcium in imparting firmness to the fruit, and maintenance of structure a nd function of the cell wa ll, thereby leading to enhanced shelf-life (ramkrishna et al, 2001). thus, it may be concluded that in our studies, boric acid (b-0.02%) + sorbitol (2%) is the most effective treatment in improving fruit set, yield, fruit weight, tss and total sugars, while, calcium nitrate (ca-0.06%) + boric acid (b-0.02%) proved to be the most effective for incre asing ascorbic acid content and shelf-life in mango cv. himsagar. acknowledgement the first author is thankful to department of science and technology, government of india, new delhi, for providing financial assistance. effect of calcium ,boron and sorbitol on mango crop j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 166-169, 2017 168 talang et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 166-169, 2017 169 abd-allah, a.s.e. 2006. effect of spraying some macro and micro nutrients on fruit set, yield and fruit quality of washington naval tree s. j. appl. sc i. res., 2(11):1059-1063 a.o.a.c.1984. (official method of analysis). 14th edition, association of official agriculturist chemists. washington d. c., usa, p 16 banik, b.c., mitra, s.k., sen, s.k. and bose, t.k. 1997. interaction effects of zinc, iron and boron sprays on flowering and fruiting of mango cv. fazli. indian agriculturist, 41(3):187-192 dutta, p. 2004. effect of foliar boron application on panicle growth, fruit re tention and physic o-chemical characters of mango cv. himsagar. indian j. hort., 61(3):265-266 guach, h.g. and duggar, w.w. jr. 1954. the physiological action of boron in higher plants: a review and interpretation. univ. maryland agril. expt’l. stn. tech. bull. (a), 80 jutamanee, k., eoomkham, s., pichakum, a., krisanapook, k. and phavaphutanon, l. 2002. effects of calcium, boron and sorbitol on pollination and fruit set in mango cv. namdokmai. acta hort., 575(2):829-834 kumar, m.r., reddy, y.n., chandrasekhar, r. and srihari, d. 2006. effect of calcium and plant growth regulators on flowering and yield of mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. baneshan. j. res. angrau., 34(1):21-25 negi, s.s., singh, a.k. and singh, c.p. 2009. effect of foliar application of nutrients on fruit-set, yield and quality of mango cv. dashehari. haryana j. hortl. sci., 38(1&2):20-22 negi, s.s., singh, a.k. and rai, p.n. 2010. effect of foliar application of nutrients on pollen, flowering, fruitset, fruit drop and yield in mango cv. dashehari. the hort. j., 23(2):45-48 pandey, r. and singh, c.p. 2007. effect of pre-harvest foliar spray of micronutrients on chemical properties of mango fruit cv. langra. pantnagar j. res., 5:56-61 ramkrishna, m., haribabu, k., reddy, y.n. and puroshotham, k. 2001. effect of pre-harvest application of calcium on physico-chemical changes during ripening and storage of papaya. indian j. hort., 58(1):228 ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality controls for fruit and vegetable products, 2nd edn., pp. 89-90, tata mcgraw hill co. ltd., new delhi sanna, e. and abd-migeed, m.m.m. 2005. effect of spraying of sucrose and some nutrient elements on fagri kalan mango trees. j. appl. sci. res., 1(5):341-346 singh, j. and maurya, a.n. 2004. effect of micronutrients on bearing of mango (mangifera indica) cv. mallika. prog. agri., 4(1):47-50 singh, a.k., singh, c.p., shant lal and pratibha. 2013. effect of micronutrients and sorbitol on fruit set, yield and quality of mango cv. dashehari. prog. hort., 45(1):4348 stino, r.g., abd el wahap, s.m., habashy, s.a. and kelani, r.a. 2011. productivity and fruit quality of three mango cultivars in relation to foliar sprays of calcium, zinc, boron or potassium. j. hortl. sci. & orn. pl., 3(2):91-98 wahdan, m.t., habib, s.e., bassal, m.a. and qaoud, e.m. 2011. effect of some chemicals on growth, fruiting, yield and fruit quality of “succary abiad” mango. the j. amer. sci., 7(2):651-658 references (ms received 19 february 2016, revised 15 september 2016, accepted 20 december 2016) j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 166-169, 2017 effect of calcium, boron and sorbitol on mango crop genetic diversity in early cauliflower (brassica oleracea var. botrytis l.) germplasm h.m. santhosha1, b. varalakshmi2 and n.c. narase gowda1 department of horticulture, university of agricultural sciences gkvk campus, bangalore-560 065, india e-mail: san3070@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted to study genetic divergence in 51 genotypes of cauliflower. data was recorded for 16 quantitative characters. the genotypes were grouped into 14 clusters. a majority of the genotypes grouped together in cluster 14 (with 14 genotypes), followed by cluster 12 (with 8 genotypes). intra-cluster value was maximum in cluster 8 and minimum in cluster 2. maximum inter-cluster distance was observed between clusters 8 and 10, followed by that between clusters 10 and 13 and between clusters 8 and 12. hence, genotypes iihr-323-13, iihr-2145 and iihr-277-14 of cluster 8, and genotypes iihr-263 and iihr-272 of cluster 10 present the best choice for hybridization. highest mean value for plant weight, leaf number, curd diameter, curd size, net curd-weight , net plot yield, yield per hectare and marketable curd-weight was also observed in cluster 10, which indicates that genotypes included in this cluster are potential parents for hybridization programmes aimed at increasing cauliflower yields. key words: cauliflower, genetic diversity, hybridization introduction cauliflower (brassica oleracea var. botrytis l.) is one of the important cole crops grown for its curd in india. information on genetic divergence of plant material is vital to a plant breeder for efficient choice of parents for hybridization. it is an established fact that genetically diverse parents are likely to contribute desirable segregants. more diverse the parents greater the chances of obtaining high heterotic f 1 s and broad-spectrum variability in segregating generations (murthy, 1965; murthy and arunachalam, 1966; moll et al, 1974). improvement in yield and quality can be normally achieved by selecting genotypes with desired character-combinations existing in nature or inducing through hybridization. parents identified on the basis of divergence analysis are expected be more promising in hybridization for both cross-and self-pollinated crops. mahalanobis’s d2 statistic has been proved to be a powerful tool in quantifying genetic divergence in germplasm and has successfully used in various crops (mahalanobis, 1936). very little information is available on genetic divergence. in cauliflower, the present study was carried out to ascertain nature and magnitude of genetic diversity among 51 germplasm lines of early cauliflower, using d2 statistic. this shall be eventually helpful in planning 1 unniversity of horticultural sciences, bagalkot 2 division of vegetable crops, iihr, hessaraghatta, bangalore-89 appropriate breeding programmes for developing of superior varieties/hybrids. material and methods the experiment was conducted at indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), hessaraghatta, bengaluru. twenty three days old seedlings of 51 genotypes of early cauliflower (brassica oleracea var. botrytis l.) were transplanted from the nursery to the field and were grown during kharif 2008-09. sixty plants represented each genotype per replication. standard package of practices was followed to raise a good crop, in randomized complete block design (rcbd) at spacing of 50cm between rows and 40cm between plants, with two replications. observations were recorded on 10 randomly selected plants in each replication, for 16 quantitative parameters, namely, days to 50% curd initiation, days to 50% curd maturity, plant weight, leaf number, leaf length, leaf breadth, leaf weight, stalk length, stalk weight, curd depth, curd diameter, curd size, net curdweight, net plot-yield, yield per hectare and marketable curd weight. to assess genetic diversity among the 51 genotypes of early cauliflower, mahalanobis d2 statistic (mahalanobis, 1936) was used, following the procedure given by rao j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):21-24, 2011 22 (1952). grouping of genotypes into clusters was done using tocher’s method, as described by rao (1952). statistical analysis of data was carried out using the statistical program genres at iihr, bangalore. results and discussion analysis of variance revealed significant variation among genotypes in early-cauliflower for all 16 quantitative characters studied (table 1). d2 values ranged from 6.83 to table 1. classification of 51 early-cauliflower genotypes into 14 different clusters cluster no. no. of accessions genotype 1 4 iihr-73 iihr-78-7 iihr-385 iihr-391 2 2 iihr-375 iihr-384 3 2 iihr-381 iihr-386 4 2 iihr-249 iihr-264-3 5 2 iihr-380 iihr-389 6 2 iihr-223-10 ns-60 7 2 iihr-266 iihr-324-1-5 8 3 iihr-214-5 iihr-277-14 iihr-323-13 9 3 iihr-217-1-4 iihr-371 iihr-392 10 2 iihr-263 iihr-272 11 3 iihr-231-4 iihr-318-2 iihr-345 12 8 iihr-249-5 iihr-250 iihr-265-2 iihr-305 iihr-311-3 iihr-316 iihr-343-1 iihr-387 13 2 iihr-376 iihr-377 14 14 iihr-352 iihr-368 iihr-369 iihr-370 iihr-372 iihr-373 iihr-374 iihr-378 iihr-379 iihr-382 iihr383 iihr-388 iihr-390 early kunwari fig 1. dendrogram of early-cauliflower genotypes for quantitative traits, using average degree of linkage (between groups) foot note: 1. iihr-73 2. iihr-78-7 3. iihr-214-5 4. iihr-217-1-4 5. iihr223-10 6. iihr-231-4 7. iihr-249 8. iihr-249-5 9. iihr-250 10. iihr-263 11. iihr-264-3 12. iihr-265-2 13. iihr-266 14. iihr272 15. iihr277-14. 16. iihr-305 17. iihr-311-3 18. iihr-316 19. iihr-318-2 20. iihr-323-13 21. iihr-324-1-5 22. iihr-343-1 23. iihr-345 24. iihr-352 25. iihr-368 26. iihr-369 27. iihr-370 28. iihr-371 29. iihr-372 30. iihr-373 31. iihr-374 32. iihr-375 33. iihr-376 34. iihr-377 35. iihr-378 36. iihr-379 37. iihr-380 38. iihr-381 39. iihr-382 40. iihr-383 41. iihr-384 42. iihr-385 43. iihr-386 44. iihr-387 45. iihr-388 46. iihr-389 47. iihr-390 48. iihr-391 49. iihr-392 50. early kunwari 51. ns-60 santhosha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):21-24, 2011 23 table 2. inter-cluster and intra-cluster (in bold type-face) distances among 14 clusters in early-cauliflower, based on d2 analysis cluster 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1 8.09 7.29 6.13 8.56 6.03 8.75 8.11 9.72 9.16 9.82 7.85 9.04 8.16 8.21 2 2.84 5.55 6.11 4.57 7.91 8.31 11.88 9.31 6.31 9.27 6.01 9.58 7.73 3 2.98 7.22 3.64 9.44 8.85 9.89 6.85 9.35 8.32 8.14 5.61 6.95 4 3.09 5.97 7.62 7.76 12.55 10.01 6.05 10.83 7.24 10.61 8.72 5 3.21 8.29 7.53 9.84 7.47 8.14 8.03 7.32 6.91 6.71 6 3.31 5.48 11.27 12.20 6.46 8.28 8.37 12.67 9.71 7 3.42 9.80 12.28 7.93 7.50 9.24 12.09 9.46 8 10.13 11.63 14.10 8.26 13.21 10.40 10.90 9 9.30 12.61 10.77 10.94 6.73 9.37 10 3.74 11.57 6.92 13.40 10.25 11 6.73 10.55 10.03 9.39 12 7.33 11.33 9.60 13 4.02 8.88 14 9.08 table 3. cluster means for 16 quantitative characters and relative contribution of individual characters to total divergence in earlycauliflower, based on d2 analysis cluster no. characters dci dcm pw ln ll lb lw sl sw cd c dia. cs ncw npy y/ha mcw 1 40.00 56.30 507.50 14.80 30.00 14.50 189.50 3.30 26.60 4.20 7.70 34.20 157.50 9.00 11.10 294.00 2 38.80 54.00 617.90 15.30 32.70 16.10 227.70 3.20 24.10 5.00 9.70 49.30 199.80 11.00 13.50 365.00 3 37.50 54.50 500.40 14.40 28.40 14.30 170.60 3.20 23.10 4.20 8.40 35.70 145.00 9.10 11.30 303.80 4 37.00 52.50 681.40 17.40 31.30 14.60 299.50 3.30 19.30 4.80 8.90 41.40 198.90 10.70 13.30 366.40 5 38.50 53.00 539.60 15.40 31.40 15.30 190.40 3.10 23.10 4.30 9.00 38.90 182.30 9.60 11.80 324.30 6 43.00 57.00 741.10 18.10 34.60 17.60 327.40 2.90 27.00 4.60 8.90 42.50 195.80 10.30 12.70 386.80 7 41.30 54.50 738.80 17.90 37.40 17.40 306.50 3.10 27.50 4.40 8.50 39.10 205.30 12.00 14.90 408.50 8 40.80 58.00 453.80 15.20 35.30 16.30 184.40 3.20 22.70 4.10 6.30 27.80 126.10 7.90 9.10 271.80 9 37.30 54.00 370.20 13.50 24.20 12.20 130.20 3.10 20.50 4.10 7.00 30.50 121.20 5.80 7.20 221.20 10 38.30 56.00 802.30 18.70 33.80 17.30 314.50 3.30 28.30 4.80 10.00 50.70 235.60 12.50 15.40 462.10 11 43.70 56.30 515.80 15.60 33.20 14.90 196.20 3.20 28.40 4.50 7.40 35.10 143.80 8.50 10.50 291.40 12 39.00 54.10 640.70 16.00 31.50 14.10 242.20 3.70 30.70 4.80 9.40 46.80 197.30 10.00 12.40 370.60 13 37.50 55.00 294.10 11.50 23.50 12.10 95.30 3.70 24.60 3.40 6.50 22.40 104.30 5.30 6.60 177.70 14 39.00 54.60 523.00 14.90 30.70 15.70 198.00 3.10 23.10 4.60 8.20 37.40 168.40 9.00 11.10 309.20 percentage 4.16 0.08 16.94 0.16 0.24 0.47 1.73 2.75 3.22 1.10 7.29 9.02 6.51 13.49 5.88 26.98 contribution dci = days to 50% curd initiation ll = leaf length (cm) sw = stalk weight (g) ncw = net curd-weight (g) dcm = days to 50% curd maturity lb = leaf breadth (cm) cd = curd depth (cm) npy = net plot-yield (kg/6m2) pw = plant weight (g) lw = leaf weight (g) c dia. = curd diameter (cm) y/ha = yield/hectare (tons) ln = leaf number sl = stalk length (cm) cs = curd size (cm2) mcw=marketable curd-weight (g) 469.19, showing a high divergence among germplasm lines. similar observations were also reported by varalakshmi et al (2010) in cauliflower. on the basis of relative magnitude of d2 values, the 51 germplasm lines of early-cauliflower were grouped into 14 clusters (fig. 1) with an assumption that those within a cluster had smaller differences in d2 values among themselves than those of other clusters. depending on their genetic divergence, cluster 14 had the highest number of genotypes (14), indicating that less variation existed among the genotypes for these quantitative traits, followed by cluster 12 and 1 (each with 8 and 4 genotypes), respectively. clusters 8, 9, 11 had 3 genotypes each, while, cluster 2 to 7, 10 and 13 had two genotypes each. distribution of genotypes in different clusters is shown in table 1. inter-cluster distances were higher than intra-cluster distances, indicating presence of a wider genetic diversity among genotypes included in these clusters (table 2). these results are in conformity with finding of quamruzzaman et al (2007) in cauliflower. occurrence of such diversity contributes to heterosis and is, therefore, useful in identifying transgressive segregation. intra-cluster distance varied from 2.84 to 10.13, with cluster 8 showing the maximum distance. maximum intercluster distance (table 2) was observed between cluster 8 and 10 (14.1). genotypes of clusters with maximum intercluster distance are expected to be genetically more genetic diversity in early cauliflower j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):21-24, 2011 24 divergent. selection of parents for hybridization should be done from two clusters having higher inter-cluster distance, to aim for higher variability. therefore, genotypes iihr323-13, iihr-214-5 and iihr-277-14 from cluster 8, and genotypes iihr-263 and iihr-272 from cluster 10 are the best choice to be parents for hybridization. differences in cluster-means (table 3) existed for almost all characters. highest mean value for plant weight (802.3g), leaf number (18.7), curd diameter (10.0cm), curd size (50.7cm2), net curd-weight (235.6g), net plot yield (12.5kg/ 6m2), yield per hectare (15.4t), and marketable curdweight (462.1g) was observed in cluster 10. cluster 12 recorded maximum stalk-length (3.7cm) and stalk-weight (30.2g) while cluster 6 recorded maximum leaf-breadth (17.6cm) and leaf-weight (327.3g). clusters 7 and 2 showed highest mean value for leaf length (37.4cm) and curd depth (5.0cm), respectively. cluster 13 ranked lowest in plant weight (294.1g), leaf number (11.5), leaf breadth (12.1cm), leaf length (23.5cm), leaf weight (95.3g), curd depth (3.4cm), curd size (22.4cm2), net curd-weight (104.2g), net plot-yield (5.3kg/ 6m2), yield per hectare (6.6t) and marketable curd-weight (177.7g). cluster 4 ranked lowest for days to 50% curdinitiation (37.0days), days to 50% curd-maturity (52.5days) and stalk-weight (19.3g). cluster 6 showed the lowest mean for stalk-length (2.9cm) while cluster 8 had the lowest curddiameter (6.3cm), respectively. lower yield in cluster 13 may be due to smaller size of curd. based on cluster-mean, cross between genotypes of cluster 10, 12, 6, 7, 2, 8 & 11, with genotypes of cluster 13 and 4 should result in production of highly transgressive segregants for yield-contributing characters. also, this stands to increase variability and scope for selection of superior lines. important characters identified to be responsible for maximum divergence were marketable curd-weight (26.98%), followed by plant weight (16.94%), net plot-yield (13.49%) and curd size (9.02%) (table 3). this confirms the existence of ample divergence among genotypes with respect to these traits, and hence, selection of best genotypes for these traits will help increase curd-yield in cauliflower. from these studies, it is concluded that highest intercluster distance between clusters, namely, 8 (iihr-32313, iihr-214-5, iihr-277-14 iihr-263) and iihr-272, iihr 263 of clusters 10 indicated the presence of large diversity among genotypes cluster segregants. hence genotypes of cluster 8 and 10 may be used as parents in hybridization for obtaining useful segregants. references mahalanobis, p.c. 1936. on the generalized distance in statistics. proc. nat’l. instt. sci. (india), 2:49-55 moll, r.w., salhauaonam, w.s. and robinson, h.f. 1974. quantitative genetics empirical results relevant to plant breeding. adv. agron., 26:277-313 murthy, b.r. 1965. heterosis and combining ability in relation to genetic divergence in flue-cured tobacco. ind. j. genet., 25:46-56 murthy, b.r. and arunachalam, v. 1966. the nature of genetic divergence in relation to breeding system in crop plants. ind. j. genet., 26:188-198 quamruzzaman, a.k.m., rahman, m.m., nazim uddin, m.n., siddiky, m.a. and prodhan, m.d.h. 2007. genetic diversity in cauliflower (brassica oleracea l. var. botrytis). ind. j. hort., 64:50-52 rao, c.r. 1952. advanced statistical methods in biometrical research. john wiley and sons inc., new york varalakshmi, b., pushpalatha, a. and girigowda, j.r. 2010. genetic diversity in early cauliflower (brassica oleracea l. var. botrytis). ind. j. hort., 67:281283 (ms received 21 october 2010, revised 15 april 2011) santhosha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):21-24, 2011 spices are high-value export oriented crops, which play an important role in agricultural economy of the country. among the spices turmeric is one of the most important and popular spice and also a traditional item of export. it is grown extensively in andhra pradesh. turmeric is a nutrient loving plant and removes large amount of nutrients from soil, so sufficient quantities of nutrients have to be applied in order to meet its nutritional requirements and to obtain higher yields (dubey and singh, 2004). drip irrigation system is a very efficient method of supplying water to plant (banker et al, 1993). fertigation through drip irrigation facilitates precise application of fertilizers, as it delivers nutrients to the roots where it can be effectively utilized and results in greater uptake and nutrient use efficiency (elfving, 1982). though turmeric is grown on a commercial scale the information on effect of fertigation in turmeric is lacking. hence attempts were made in the present investigation to find out the effect of fertigation levels on growth and yield of turmeric cv mydukur. the present investigation was carried out at horticultural research station, anantharajupet. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with effect of fertigation on growth and yield of turmeric cv. mydukur syed sadarunnisa, c. madhumathi, g. srinivasa rao and b. sreenivasulu horticultural research station anantharajupet – 516105, india e-mail:sadarsyed@gmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted at horticultural research station, anantharajupet, to study the effect of fertigation on growth and yield of turmeric to standardize the quantum of fertilizers to be given through fertigation for improving the productivity of turmeric. this experiment was carried out in a randomized block design with 4 replications. the treatments consisted of t1 (100% rdf through drip), t2 (75% rdf through drip), t3 (50 % rdf through drip), t4 (100 % rdf through soil and drip irrigation) and control (100 % rdf through soil and conventional irrigation). rdf, i.e., recommended dose of fertilizers comprised of 180 kg n, 60 kg p2 o5 and 120 kg k2o ha-1. in the case of t1-t3, n and k alone was applied through drip, while, phosphorus was applied as basal dose. data of three seasons showed that, there was significant difference between farmers’ practice and fertigation treatments and it was observed that the treatment in which 100% fertilizers was applied through drip recorded the maximum plant height (99.36 cm), number of tillers per plant (3.41) and fresh rhizome yield (12.24 t acre-1) this was on par with the treatment in which 75% fertilizers were applied through drip. the b:c ratio was highest (1.49) in plants supplied with 75% rdf through drip. this shows that, fertigation with 75% rdf through drip in turmeric is profitable. key words: fertigation, turmeric, growth, yield 4 replications. the details of the treatments are given below. t1 -100% recommended dose of n & k through drip t2 -75% recommended dose of n & k through drip t3 50% recommended dose of n & k through drip t4 100% recommended dose of n & k through soil and irrigation by drip t5 -100% recommended dose of n & k through soil and conventional irrigation recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) comprised of 180 kg n, 60 kg p2 o5 and 120 kg k2o ha-1. in the case of t1-t3, n and k in the form of urea and muriate of potash alone was applied through drip while phosphorus in the form of single super phosphate was applied to soil as basal application. in t4 and t5 fertilizers were applied to soil in split doses. t4 was given drip irrigation and t5 was given conventional irrigation. inline drippers with a discharge rate of 4 l hr-1 was followed for all the plants spaced at 30x 15cm. irrigation was given daily except on rainy days. conventional irrigation was given to t5 once in a week. the scheduling interval of fertigation was followed at weekly short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 78-80, 2010 79 intervals for 13 weeks starting from 5th to 17th week after planting in the field. observations on morphological characters and yield were recorded and presented in the table 1. a perusal of data presented in table 1 showed that plant height was significantly more in the treatments provided with fertigation. this might be due to enhanced growth under high water levels because of better turgidity of cells, leading to cell enlargement and better cell wall development (madhumathi et al, 2004). however, the lowest plant height was recorded in treatments provided with conventional method of fertilizer application and irrigation. data pertaining to number of tillers per plant also showed significant difference between fertigated and non fertigated plants. the highest number of tillers per plant (3.51) was recorded with application of 100% recommended dose of n and k through drip. sashidhar et al (1997) reported that high n was beneficial for all vegetative characters. better uptake of nutrients in drip irrigated plants ensures photosynthetic efficiency, thereby causing greater synthesis, translocation and accumulation of carbohydrates (ghanta et al, 1995). data on fresh rhizome yield presented in table 1 revealed that yield registered a maximum in fertigated compared to conventional methods. though yield per plant was higher in t1 (100% recommended dose of n and k through drip), and in t2 (75% recommended dose of n and k through drip). significant difference in growth and yield between fertigated plants and plants under conventional irrigation might be due to constant and continuous supply of water and nutrients in soluble form to wetted area of the root zone, ensuring better availability of nutrients (mahalakshmi et al, 2001). however, low yields were recorded in treatments in which fertilizer application and irrigation were conventional. this might be due to loss of added nutrients through run-off, leaching and other factors. a comparison of morphological and yield characters reveals that application of n and k at 100% and 75% recommended dose of fertilizers through drip resulted in significantly higher yield compared to 50% or full soil application. accordingly, the benefit:cost ratio was highest (1.49) in plants supplied with 75% recommended dose of fertilizer through fertigation. hence, fertigation with 75% recommended dose of fertilizer is profitable. table 1. effect of fertigation on growth and yield characters in turmeric cv. mydukur treatment plant height(cm) no of tillers per plant yield (t acre-1) b:c 2005-06 06-07 07-08 mean 2005-06 06-07 07-08 mean 2005-06 06-07 07-08 mean ratio t1 (100% 100.1 99.98 98.00 99.36 3.28 3.88 3.38 3.51 13.23 11.88 10.72 12.24 1.38 recommended dose of n & k through drip) t2 (75% 98.63 97.13 90.95 95.57 2.95 3.60 3.30 3.28 11.71 11.60 10.73 11.57 1.49 recommended dose of n & k through drip) t3 (50% 98.05 95.23 82.80 92.03 2.60 2.71 2.70 2.67 10.03 10.56 9.64 10.34 1.36 recommended dose of n & k through drip) t4 (100% 94.63 96.13 78.30 89.69 2.35 2.83 2.50 2.56 10.36 10.85 10.31 10.57 1.05 recommended dose of n & k through soil and irrigation by drip) t5 (100% 93.30 89.05 71.50 84.62 1.88 1.95 1.75 1.86 8.47 10.09 8.96 9.22 0.72 recommended dose of n & k through soil and conventional irrigation) sem± 1.02 1.25 1.51 0.19 0.11 0.10 0.52 0.07 0.13 cd (p=0.05) 3.13 3.84 4.65 0.60 0.34 0.33 1.60 0.24 0.39 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 78-80, 2010 fertigation on growth and yield of turmeric 80 references banker, m.c., mane, m.c., khade, k.k. and kanjie, s.t. 1993. comparative performance of drip vs conventional method of irrigation on banana. proc. all india symp. sprinkler, drip irrigation, pp. 89-92 dubey, a.k. and singh a.k. 2004. response of turmeric (curcuma longa l.) to split doses and time of nitrogen application under mid altitude of arunachal pradesh. progressive hort., 36:245-248 elfving, d.c. 1982. crop response to trickle irrigation. hort. rev., 4:1-48 ghanta, p.k., dhua, r.s. and mitra, s.k. 1995. effect of varying levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium on growth, yield and quality of papaya (carica papaya l.). ann. agril. res., 16:405-408 madhumathi, c., syed sadarunnisa., and purushotham, k. 2004. fertigation studies in robusta banana. proceedings of national seminar on banana industry: present scenario and future strategies, b.c.k.v., kalyani, west bengal, pp. 120-124 mahalakshmi, m., kumar, n., jeyakumar, p. and soorianathasundaram, k 2001. fertigation studies in banana under high density planting system. south ind. hort., 49:80-85 shashidhar, t.r., sulekeri, g.s. and gasti, v.d. 1997. effect of different spacing and n levels on growth attributes and dry matter production of turmeric (curcuma longa l.) cv amalapuram. mysore j. agril. sci., 31:225-229 (ms received 28 july2010, revised 20 february 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 78-80, 2010 syed sadarunnisa et al final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 204-208, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction india is the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter of dry chilli. dry chillies are widely cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical countries like india, japan, mexico, turkey, united states of america and african countries (asati and yadav, 2004). chilli (capsicum annuum l.) is one of the important commercial crops of india, which belongs to the solanaceae family. it is grown almost all agro-ecological sub regions of the country. the dry chillies are used in a number of culina r y pur poses such a s vegeta bles, spice, condiments, sauce, pickles and chutneys (patel et al., 2015). according to third advanced estimate of 201920, that in the country the area, production and productivity of dry chilli was reported to be 7.03 lakh ha, 17.52 lakh tones and 2.49 tones/ha, respectively. among the states in india, andhra pradesh, telangana, karnataka, madhya pradesh, west bengal and orissa account for more than 75% of the area in cultivation and total dry chilli production (spice board of india, 2019-20). red chilli cultivation plays an important role in economic conditions of farmers, especially marginal and small farmers at one side and help to meet out the nutritional requirements of the people on the others side. india’s agriculture produce market has entered into the ages of unlimited competition due to global market opening and increased competition of such as dda agreement, fta (free trade agreement) expansion, a block economy. although spice such as red chilli remained competitive in the market, but the production of this ca tegor y of spice ha s been decr ea sing significantly due to many challenges, such as rapid reduction of labor force due to industrial and house hold pr oducts manufacture a nd a geing society, incr ea sed la bour cost a nd pa r ticula r gr owing condition. considering the current agricultural system, we need to develop new mechanization technologies for chilli crops cultivation and engineering technology for production of high-quality products in order to win the international competition. constraints in dry chilli cultivation practices and mechanization of harvesting in southern india yella swami c.1*, senthil kumaran g.1, naik r.k.2, reddy b.s.3 and rathinakumari c.a.1 1division of post harvesting technology and agricultural engineering icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india 2department of farm machinery and power engineering, svcaet&rs, igkv, raipur 3icar-central research institute for dryland agriculture, hyderabad, india *corresponding author e-mail : yellaswami@gmail.com abstract dry chilli production in india condition faces many challenges apart from adverse weather conditions, labor-intensive production practices and higher overall production costs are limiting profitable dry chilli cultivation. therefore, a study was carried to know the key constraints in current chilli production practices in eight major production districts of three states. a systematic research and development approach is essential to know the range of constraints and farmers preferences over technological options for field operations. the harvesting operation alone demands 43% of labour 360.5 man-days/ha. so, red chilli harvesting mechanization is a definite immediate requirement to reduce labour input. farmers (47%) prefer small size self-propelled chilli harvester over tractor operated equipment. in the production catchments, farmer also inferred to change the cultivation practices to mechanize chilli production operations, but 18% of farmers hesitant to adopt one-timeharvesting chilli varieties due to suspicion about the yield potentials. keywords: chilli harvester, mechanization and self-propelled machine. 205 constraints in dry chilli cultivation practices and mechanization j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 204-208, 2022 the present study aims to analyze the constraints in the conventional production system and to assess the mechanization needs in dry chilli harvesting. the mechanization urgency also arises partly due to new breeding hybrids which are in development stage to obtain synchronized fruiting for once-over harvesting operation to combat labour shortage in harvesting the produce. materials and methods andhra pradesh state in india appeared as the largest regional dry chilli production site, followed by karnataka and telangana states. present study was carried out during 2019 kharif season. the current status of dry chilli cultivation practices and constraints faced by the farmers was carried in these states covering total eight districts and a total of 100 farmers (table 1). farms producing chilli for self-consumption were excluded and farms that are producing for commercial purposes were included. the data collected pertaining to the production zones in the districts, where relatively large areas are in chilli cultivation. the data in table1 represents the states, districts and the number of surveyed farmers in each district. we collected data and analyzed the information related to the cultivation practices, labour requirement for cr itica l oper a tions, possession of a gr icultur e ma chiner y, production cost a nd pr efer ence of prioritized new machines development. the farm categories were distinguished based on area in chilli production by each farmer i.e., into less than 0.5 ha, 0.5 ha-1 ha, and greater than 1 ha and analyzed them separately (choi, et al., 2010). results and discussion regional cultivation patterns and overview of farms in guntur, prakasham and kurnool districts of andhra pr adesh the chilli is seeded or seedlings were transplanted in a row, mostly ridges and furrow pattern. large farmers make beds and carryout planting in single and double row. row spacing maintained for chilli cultivation are 60, 80, 90 and 100 cm and plant to plant spacing maintained are 30, 45 and 60 cm were common depending on soil type and its fertility status, irrigation facility and rainfed cultivation. similar cultivation practices, row spacing a nd pla nt to pla nt spa cings wer e followed in karnataka and telangana states also depending on farmers resources base. the data presented in table 2 illustrates the summary of the various regions ‘cultivation patterns for chilli cultivation.. the data on land holding and percent cropped area of dry chilli growing farmers were recorded. cultivation area < 0.5 ha was the most common and constituted 41.50% of chilli growers, whereas, area ranging 0.51 ha area contributes 31%. however, > 1.0 ha contributed 27.30% of chilli growers. the average cultivation area was about 0.86 ha/farmer. the various machineries have been adopted by farmers for chilli production. the tractor, power tiller, mini tiller, trailers a nd cleaner equipments consume 49.50%, 105, 5.5%, 30% and 4%, respectively. more than 50% of the growers have basic tillage, seed bed preparation and to some extent interculture and weeding implements. however, none of the growers had postharvest machines like dryers, cleaner, grader etc. a small 4% of farmers reported that they were using winnower fans to clean the produce after drying. the operations viz., transplanting and harvesting of chilli a r e a ppea red a s highly la bour-intensive operations in dry chilli production. though semi-automatic indigenously developed seedlings transplanters are available, farmers are not adopting due to high initial cost of machine and lack of awareness. but farmers opined that, red chilli harvester is need of the hour, since farmers need to engage the labour multiple times for timely harvesting. therefore, to create a design direction for chilli table 1. state and district wise distribution of the surveyed farms andhra pradesh karnataka telangana districts guntur prakasham kurnool bellary raichur warangal khammam mahaboob nagar no. of farmers 20 10 10 15 10 15 10 10 surveyed 206 swami et al harvester, development of chilli harvesting machine matching to tractor or medium size power source is pr efer red over self-pr opelled impor ted pepper harvester, because it is easier to apply to india’s chilli cultivation practices. it is deemed better developing the self-propelled chilli harvester machine as an add-on to considering the power requirement and sloppy field conditions. harvesting process the chilli production process was categorized into different unit operations and labor man days required for each operation wise accounted such as to raise table 2. state and district wise cultivation patterns for chilli state / districts cultivar pattern row to plant to bed districts row plant width spacing space (cm) (cm) (cm) andhra guntur tejaswini, line sowing/planting, 60 and 20, 30, 70 and pradesh bydagi and ridge-furrow and 90 45 and 80 syngenta planting on beds 60 2043 (single and double (planting row planting) on bed prakasham tejaswini, line sowing/planting, 60, 90 only) aparna, indo-5, ridge-furrow and and 100 lca-206 planting on beds kurnool aparna, super 10 line sowing/planting, 45, 60 and tejaswini ridge-furrow and and 90 planting on beds (single and double row planting) karnataka bellary bydagi, demon line sowing/planting, 45, 60 20, 30 70 and f1 (east and ridge-furrow and and 80 and 45 80 west) planting on beds (single and double row planting) raichur tejaswini, line sowing/planting, 60, 80 syngenta 5531 ridgefurrow and and 90 and bydagi planting on beds telangana warangal tejaswini, superplanting on beds, 80 and 30, 45 70 and 10 and indo-5 ridgefurrow method 90 and 60 80 khammam tejaswini, line sowing/planting, 80 and aparna and ridge-furrow method 90 superb-10 mahaboob bydagi, ridge-furrow, line 80 and nagar tejswini, sowing/planting 90 demon f1 (east west company) seedlings, field preparation, transplanting, fertilizer and pesticide application, harvesting, and post harvesting processes etc. harvesting is a labor-intensive process that requires large amount of labor force, because it is a difficult for laborers to work continuously in a hot, humid confined space for a long period of time. in red chilli production practices, cultivar planted, number of runs the produce picked and yield potential of cultivar were the major cost determining factors in harvesting operation. generally, in the surveyed production catchments of andhra pradesh, karnataka and j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 204-208, 2022 207 tela nga na sta tes, teja swini a nd bya da gi predominantly grown hybrids. normally recorded yields of tejaswini and byadagi hybrids were 7.41 to 9.88 tones ha-1 on dry chilli produce basis. the labor cost in harvesting season ranged from rs. 250 –300/ day per person. the data in table 3 indicates the number of picking times, average yield per picking and harvesting labor costs as recorded by farmers. the number of picking times reported by majority of growers were three and the proportion of average produce picked 20%, 55% and 25%, respectively in first, second and third pickings. the data on cost of cultivation indicates that, the total production cost worked out was rs. 1,39,668/ -ha-1 and harvesting alone single largest operation accounted 23% of input cost. the agriculture inputs namely, fertilizers and crop protection chemicals accounted rs 41,708/-ha-1. after the inputs cost, the harvesting cost was the second highest investment in dry chilli production and due to partial mechanization, the tillage and planting bed preparation come down to about rs 13,000/-ha-1 manual labour involved and difficulties faced in hiring chilli cultivation practices the data presented in table 4 shows the comparison and analysis of drudgery felt and difficulties faced by the chilli crop growers in labor hiring at different stages of production operations as reported by the farmers in selected surveyed regions. the total average labour utilized was about 360.5 man-days/ha. among various unit operations, the harvesting requires highest labour (43%), followed by crop management (29.54%) constraints in dry chilli cultivation practices and mechanization table 3. picking wise chilli yield and harvesting costs picking 1st 2nd 3rd total chilli yield (t/ha) 1.74 4.78 2.17 8.70 yield in per cent 20% 55% 25% —harvesting cost (rs./ha) 7,440 20,460 9,300 37,200 table 4. drudgery proneness and labour deficiency (%) in chilli cultivation operations operation per cent labour drudgery proneness difficulty in engaged of operation labour hiring transplanting 7.62 22 6 plant protection crop management 33 6 fertilizing 29.54 14 6 harvesting 43.0 94 82 and transplanting (7.62%), respectively. therefore, it is important to mechanize the harvesting operation and the second aspect is to change the present practice of individually raising seedling to community-based raising practice or implement plug seedling raising system to reduce the amount of labor force for dry chilli production. harvesting operation was the most drudgery prone and difficult to get sufficient labour as opined by 94% and 82% farmers, respectively. the data in table 5 infers the survey result of farmers’ preference for adoption of new technologies, adopting one-time-harvest variety of crop and development of chilli fruit harvesting machine. majority of the farmers preferred mechanization with small power sources and matching machines such as power tiller (34%), rotary tiller (13%) and about 24% with tractor operated larger machines. about 78% of farmers responded positively to change cultivation practices towards more mechanized activities and 38% expressed willingness to adopt new cultivars and developed harvesting ma chinery. other 44% of farmers answer ed to consider the issues after observing the efficiencies of the technologies in other farmers fields in two to three seasons. in contrast to table 6, the farmers responded that, harvester (85.70%) was the most prioritized new machine for mechanization, followed by pest control devices, stakes installation and remover devices, dried chilli cleaner and seedlings transplanter. therefore, j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 204-208, 2022 208 mecha nized har vesting is the most pr ior itized developmental activity to reduce the amount of labor effort and production cost. conclusions dry chilli is one of the widely grown spice crops in the country. so, an investigation and analysis were carried out to know the labour requirement and farmers preferential pattern in mechanization of various operations for competitive production and reduce cost of cultivation. the investigation covered contiguous production catchments in eight districts in southern india. the cultivation area per farmer under chilli production was 0.83 ha in the catchments and most of the grower s satisfied with the existing implements and machines in tillage, weeding and intercultural operations. total labour required to meet all the field operations in chilli cultivation was 360.50 ma n-da ys/ha and 43% dema nded by harvesting operation alone. in the surveyed districts 47% farmers preferred promotion of small farm mechanization and development of low horse power sources matching machines. therefore, design of chilli harvester and development of self-pr opelled ha r vester wer e pr ior itized a ctivities in pr oduction oper a tions mechanization. about 85.70% of farmers responded positively to change the present manual picking to mechanized harvesting practices and 44% expressed willingness to adopt new one-time-harvest variety of chilli cultivars. references asati, b.s and yadav, d.s. 2004. diversity of horticulture crops in north eastern region envis bull him eco 12: i-ii. choi, y, jun, h.j, lee, c.k, lee, c.s, yoo, s.n, suh, s.r. and choi s. r. 2010. development of a mechanical harvesting system for red peppersurveys on conventional pepper cultivation and mechanization of pepper harvesting. journal of bio system engineering. 35( 6), pp.367-372 http://www.indianspices.com/sites/default/files/ majorspicestatewise 2021.pdf patel, v. k., gupta, s. p. and patel, k. l. 2015. economics performance of chilli (capsicum annuum l.) cultivation in raigarh district of chhattisgarh state. international journal of agricultural science and research. 5(4): 363-368. swami et al table 5. farmers preference for mechanization of red chilli cultivation operation and power sources preference % major machines for mechanization power tiller 34 tractor 24 rotary tiller 13 other modes 29 changes of cultivation method for yes 78 mechanization no 22 adoption of new one-time-harvest yes 38 cultivar of chilli and developing consider 44 machinery no 18 table 6. priority and preference of developing new technologies (%) harvester plant staking staking cleaner transplanterprotection remover installer 85.70 21.20 12.10 9.10 6 3 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 204-208, 2022 (received: 31.08.2021; revised: 04.01.2022; accepted: 12.01.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf in the western part of west bengal, the soil is red and laterite and climate is somewhat semi-arid, where mosambi sweet orange is performing well under rainfed condition (ghosh and chattopadhyay, 1998). to harness beneficial effect of rootstock, the sweet orange was grown on different rootstocks which were standardized suitable for other regions in the country (kumar ram and ganapathy, 1992; sharma et al, 2002; kusuma grace et al, 2005). for successful cultivation of sweet orange, standardization of suitable rootstock for a locality is of utmost need. because, a combination which is satisfied under one set of agro-climatic condition, may or may not fail entirely in other condition. information about suitable rootstock for any sweet orange variety is unavailable for west bengal, particularly for red lateritic zone, which is emerging as potential area for ‘mosambi’ cultivation. hence, an investigation was undertaken with five rootstocks to find out the suitable rootstock using scion of ‘mosambi’ sweet orange. the trial was laid out (planted) at regional research station, jhargram (of bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya) during 1997, in randomized block design with four replications having four plants each. the experimental site was laterite having ph 5.6, available j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 153-155, 2007 performance of mosambi sweet orange on different rootstocks grown in laterite soil in west bengal s. n. ghosh and ranjan k. tarai1 department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur-741252, india e-mail : profsnghosh@rediffmail.com abstract a rootstock trial was laid out on sweet orange cultivar ‘mosambi’ budded on five rootstocks viz., jambhiri, karna khatta, kichili, rangpur lime and sour orange. tree growth was maximum on jambhiri and minimum on rangpur lime. fruit yield (both in number and weight) was highest on karna khatta, rootstock followed by rangpur lime while, fruit size and juice content were maximum on rangpur lime. total soluble solids and ascorbic acid content were highest in karna khatta, while t.s.s. to acid ratio was maximum in rangpur lime. foliar nitrogen content was highest in karna khatta followed by rangpur lime. on the basis of four seasons data in respect of yield and fruit quality, karna khatta and rangpur lime were the observed as suitable rootstocks for ‘mosambi’ sweet orange grown on laterite soil of west bengal. key words : mosambi sweet orange, rootstock, rainfed, laterite soil nitrogen 300.0 kg/ha, available phosphorus 30.6 kg/ha and available potassium 101.0 kg/ha. the five rootstocks employed for ‘mosambi’ sweet orange were jambheri, karna khatta, kichili, rangpur lime and sour orange maintaining row-to-tow and plant-to-plant distance of 5.0 m apart. uniform cultural practices were given to all the plants maintained under rainfed condition. the data on growth parameters such as plant height, basal girth of scion and spread of the tree were recorded 7 years after planting. the yield and fruit quality characteristics like fruit weight, juice percentage, t.s.s., acidity and ascorbic acid content were studied for four years (2003 to 2006). the observations on yield and physico-chemical characteristics of fruits were recorded at maturity. the leaves collected in september (bhargava, 1999) were subjected to analysis of nitrogen following kjeldahl method (jackson, 1973), phosphorus by vandomolybdo phosphoric acid method and potassium by flame photometer (jackson, 1973). growth parameters, viz., height and basal girth significantly varied in mosambi on different rootstocks (table 1) measured 7 years after planting. mosambi on jambhiri rootstock produced vigorous tree, having maximum height and spread, while on karna khatta, it was 1krishi vigyan kendra, gajapati (orissa university of agriculture and technology) r. udyagiri, orissa short communication 153 154 semi-vigorous and on rangpur lime, the growth was minimum. growth of sweet orange tree was maximum on jambhiri (jatti khatti) followed by karna khatta while on rangpur lime rootstock, growth was minimum. similar observations were made by mehrotra et al (1984) in punjab. fruit production in ‘mosambi’ significantly varied on different rootstocks (table 1). the fruit yield in most of the combinations increased like a tide with one year more followed by less in next year. maximum number of fruits per tree were produced by ‘mosambi’ trees on karna khatta irrespective of the years with an average of 91 fruits/tree followed by rangpur lime (63 fruits/tree). mosambi on kichili and sour orange rootstock showed less fruit production. results from the rootstock trial conducted at various locations, indicated that sweet orange tree on jatti khatti rootstock produced maximum yield (kumar ram and ganapathy, 1992; sharma et al, 2002), while in the present investigation karna khatta resulted highest yield constantly. like number of fruits, fruit yield in ‘mosambi’ was highest on karna khatta rootstock (11.7 kg/tree) followed by rangpur lime (10.3 kg/tree) and minimum on sour orange (2.4 kg/tree) and kichili (3.2 kg/tree). the fruit weight of mosambi sweet orange on different rootstocks showed significant differences (table 2). fruit weight was maximum on rangpur lime rootstock (164 g) followed by on jambhiri (146g). fruit weight was minimum on kichili and karna khatta (127-129 g). for getting premium price, individual fruit weight in orange is considered to be one of the important criteria in west bengal and other parts of the country. kusuma grace et al (2005) also recorded highest fruit weight of sathgudi sweet orange on rangpur lime rootstock, grown at tirupati (andhra pradesh). juice content of mosambi fruit varied significantly on different rootstocks (table 2). it was highest on rangpur lime (58%) and lowest on sour orange and kharna khatta (51%). kusuma grace et al (2005) recorded highest juice volume of sathgudi fruit on rangpur lime rootstock. total soluble solids (tss) content of ‘mosambi’ sweet orange on different rootstocks varied each other (table 2). ‘mosambi’ on karna khatta rootstock showed highest t.s.s. (9.70b) and lowest on jambhiri (8.20b). acidity content in mosambi fruit was not differ significantly on different rootstock. t.s.s. : acid ratio, which determine the organoleptic taste, was more in the fruits from rangpur lime rootstock followed by karna khatta (31.3). however, t.s.s. : acid ratio was not varied so much among the fruits from different rootstocks. ascorbic acid content in ‘mosambi’ fruits greatly differ on different rootstocks. the fruits on karna khatta rootstock recorded highest amount of ascorbic acid (64.0 mg/100 ml juice) followed by on kichili (60.8 mg/100 ml) and lowest on sour orange (50.3 mg/100 ml). foliar phosphorus and potassium content in leaves of ‘mosambi’ on different rootstocks were not significantly table 1. effect of rootstocks on plant growth and fruit yield of mosambi sweet orange plant growth 7 year after planting number of fruits/plant average rootstock height basal girth plant spread (cm) yield/plant (cm) (cm) eastnorth2003 2004 2005 2006 average (kg) west south jambhiri 240 20 208 215 3 15 79 83 45 6.6 karna khatta 238 19 202 173 75 50 125 113 91 11.7 kichili 233 20 207 210 13 0 37 51 25 3.2 rangpur lime 220 20 176 170 22 32 115 83 63 10.3 sour orange 226 19 184 179 23 4 39 0 17 2.4 c.d. (p=0.05) 4.1 n.s. 3.8 3.9 5.4 3.2 8.8 6.2 5.8 0.7 table 2. effect of rootstocks on physico-chemical characteristics and foliar n, p and k status of mosambi sweet orange. rootstock fruit weight juice t.s.s. acidity t.s.s./ acid ascorbic nitrogen phosphorus potassium (g) (%) (0b) (%) ratio acid (mg/ 100ml juice) jambhiri 146 53 8.2 0.29 28.3 57.6 2.18 0.21 1.0 karna khatta 129 51 9.7 0.31 31.3 64.0 2.94 0.15 0.8 kichili 127 53 8.3 0.29 28.6 60.8 1.79 0.17 1.2 rangpur lime 164 58 8.5 0.27 31.5 59.8 2.63 0.20 0.9 sour orange 141 51 8.8 0.31 28.4 50.3 1.68 0.15 0.9 c.d. (p=0.05) 4.5 1.3 0.2 n.s. 1.2 0.40 n.s. n.s. ghosh and tarai j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 153-155, 2007 155 (ms received 24 july 2007, revised 26 october 2007) differ among themselves (table 2). however, nitrogen content in leaves was significantly varied among the rootstocks and it was highest in ‘mosambi’ on karna khatta (2.94%) rootstock which resulted maximum fruits production in every year. foliar nitrogen content in ‘mosambi’ was also higher on rangpur lime rootstock which gave highest fruit weight with good fruit yield. differential status of nitrogen in leaves of ‘mosambi’ on different rootstocks may be due to differential absorbing ability of the rootstocks. foliar nitrogen content was lowest in sour orange (1.68%) followed by kichili (1.79%), which resulted poor fruit production. it was interestingly noted that there was a direct relationship with the foliar n content and fruit production references bhargava, b. s. 1999. leaf analysis for diagnosing nutrients need in fruit crops. ind. hort., 43:6-8 ghosh, s. n. and chattopadhyay, n. 1998. performance of seven sweet orange cultivars under rainfed semi-arid region of west bengal. haryana j. hort. sci., 27:153156 jackson, m. l. 1973. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, ed. 2, pp. 111-182 kumar ram and ganapathy, m. m. 1992. performance of mosambi on different rootstocks. ind. j. hort., 49:222-226 kusuma grace, j., ranganayakulu, c. and seshadri, k. v. 2005. effect of rootstocks on the fruit quality of sathgudi sweet orange grown on different rootstocks. ind. j. hort., 62:300-302 mehrotra, n. k., jawanda, j. s. and vu, v. k. 1984. a comparative evaluation of rootstocks for valencia orange under arid-irrigated conditions of punjab. punjab hort. j., 24:19-26 sharma, j. n., thatai, s. k. and josan, j. s. 2002. effect of different rootstock on tree vigour, yield and fruit quality of campbell valencia sweet orange. ind. j. hort., 59:135-39 performance of mosambi in laterite soil j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 153-155, 2007 introduction radish (raphanus sativus l.) is an important root vegetable crop in europe and asia. it is predominantly cultivated for tender roots, and also for succulent foliage and immature pods which are used in preparation of various vegetable dishes. crop is propagated by seeds. seed storage is widely practiced for preservation of genetic resources especially for medium to long term conservation and it is popular amongst conservationist in view of easy handling, economical and able to maintain genetic stability on conservation. seeds are readily equipped to survive for a period that varies in different species. as a living entity it retains viability to a specific period and eventually it deteriorates and dies. the process of seed deterioration is rather irreversible and it cannot be eliminated totally. further, decrease in seed viability during storage can neither be completely stopped nor eliminated. however the process of seed deterioration reduces under suitable storage conditions. such information on an extent of recovery of viable seeds possible at different stages during long term conservation is lacking in radish. improper handling of seeds long-term seed storage studies in radish (raphanus sativus l.) s.d. doijode indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089 e-mail: dsd@iihr.ernet.in abstract radish is an important root vegetable crop widely cultivated for its tender roots as well as for succulent foliage and immature pods which are used largely in salad and in culinary purposes and propagated through seeds. the information on storability as well as on extent of recovery of quality seeds upon conservation is inadequate. seeds of radish cv. pusa reshmi were stored in moisture permeable, semi-impermeable and impermeable containers under different storage conditions for 25 years. seed longevity was significantly improved from 2 to 25 years with controlled storage condition and it enabled to maintain high seed quality for 25 years. the percentage of seed germination was 88 in seeds stored in moisture impervious container at 5°c and –20°c storage. seeds stored in moisture semi-impermeable containers also showed fairly high viability (79%) at 5°c storage, while seeds were succumbed to chilling injury when stored in moisture permeable containers. the extent of recovery of viable seeds was 89 per cent at 5°c and 88 per cent at –20°c after 25 years of storage. seedlings from stored seeds were normal, healthy vigorous and free from morphological variations. seed storage in radish in laminated aluminium foil pouches at 5°c was effective as well as cost effective in maintaining high viability (89%) for longer period (25 years) and useful in germplasm conservation avoiding thereby frequent growing of crop and genetic erosion. key words: radish, seeds, storage, low temperature, viability, vigour, germination during storage likely to affects the seed quality and storability. high storage temperature and high seed moisture during storage enhances the process of seed deterioration and affect the seed quality (bass, 1980). low seed moisture discourages the fungal growth (christensen and kaufman, 1965) thereby seeds remain viable for longer period (minkov et al, 1974). sowing of poor quality seeds affects the crop yield (frohlich and henkel, 1964). seed longevity is an important component of germplasm collection and conservation. the present experiment was conducted with the view to know the seed longevity status on long term conservation and to ascertain the extent of recovery of viable seeds possible in a given period. such information is lacking in radish and an experiment was conducted to determine optimal conditions for long term seed storage as well as to generate information on extent of recovery of germplasm possible in a given period. material and methods radish cv pusa reshmi seeds were conserved under different storage conditions. well dried seeds (6.5 % mc) were packed in moisture permeable (kraft paper); semij. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 61-63, 2010 62 impermeable (polyethylene, 0.3 ml) and impermeable (laminated aluminium foil pouches) containers and stored at ambient (16-35°c), low (5°c) and sub-zero (-20°c) temperatures for 25 years. seeds were removed periodically and tested for viability and vigour. the seed viability was expressed in percentage of germination. seeds were germinated in clelands seed germinator at an alternate temperature of 20-30°c for 16 and 8 hr, respectively. normal seedlings were used for evaluation purposes. seedling growth parameters such as shoot length and root length were recorded on seven days old seedling. dry weight was recorded on seedlings dried at 65°c for 48 hr. vigour indices i and ii were calculated by multiplying percentage of germination with seedling length and dry weight respectively (abdul-baki and anderson, 1972). the data was statistically analysed for variance and means were compared by using protected least significant differences test at the 0.05 level. results and discussion radish seeds are small and have relatively good storage life under ambient conditions (doijode, 2005). the initial seed viability (99%) was reduced to 88% after 25 years of storage under controlled storage conditions. the percentage of germination was 28 in moisture permeable; 79 in semi-impermeable and 89 in impermeable containers stored seeds at 5°c (fig.1), whereas none of the seeds germinated when stored in moisture permeable and semi impermeable containers at –20°c storage. however, seeds showed high germination (88%) when stored in moisture impermeable container at –20°c. seeds exhibit high longevity in moisture impermeable containers both at low (5°c) and sub-zero (-20°c) temperatures. seeds stored in moisture semi-impermeable container at 5°c also showed higher storability. villareal et al (1972) also reported that seed storage in polyethylene bags was effective especially under dry conditions. the loss of seed viability was greater in seeds stored in moisture permeable containers when exposed to chilling temperature as the moisture content was increased to 18.4%. the seedling vigour in terms of shoot length, root length, dry weight and vigour indices were also preserved with controlled storage conditions (table 1). seedlings raised from stored seeds were normal and did not show any morphological variations. high storage temperatures promote the seed deterioration and reduce the seed longevity (fonseca et al, 1980). further the process of seed deterioration was greater in moisture permeable containers due to higher humidity thereby affecting the seed quality (bass and clark, 1974). harrington (1972) opined that seed deterioration was slower at cooler temperature. apart from the seed viability, seed quality in terms of seedling vigour was also well preserved with low temperature storage. high seed quality at initial stages contributes greatly to the longer conservation, and on storage for higher production (doijode, 2006). the results suggest that radish seeds conserved at low temperatures exhibit high viability and vigour. in this both moisture semi impermeable and impermeable containers are effective in maintaining high viability at low (5°c) and sub zero (-20°c) temperatures. table 1. seedling characteristics of radish seeds after 25 years of storage storage storage vigour vigour vigour dry weight root length shoot length temperature (°c) containers index ii index i (mg) (cm) (cm) 5 moist per 4.6 5.8 3.8 4.0 319 106 moist semi 5.2 6.3 4.4 11.3 908 348 moist imp 5.3 6.2 4.5 12.7 1023 400 -20 moist per — — — — — — moist semi — — — — — — moist imp 13.0 13.8 4.8 12.6 2358 422 cd at 5% 0.57 1.83 ns 0.65 234 26 fig 1. seed viability after 25 years of storage in radish j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 61-63, 2010 doijode 63 as simple and cost effective seed storage technique, radish seeds can be stored effectively as well as economically in laminated aluminium pouches at 5°c. the ideal seed storage method is the one which is readily accessible, inexpensive and capable of maintaining high genetic quality on long term storage. seed germplasm can be kept in moisture semi impermeable containers at 5°c. the recovery of viable seeds was 89 per cent after 25 years of storage at 5°c, which is effective and economical and breeder can effectively conserve germplasm for longer period. references abdul-baki, a.a. and anderson, j.d. 1972. physiological and biochemical deterioration of seeds. in seed biology (ed kozlowski t.t.) academic press new york pp 283-309 bass, l. n. 1980. seed viability during long term storage. hort. rev. 2:117-141 bass, l. n. and clark, d.c. 1974. effect of storage conditions, packaging material and seed moisture content on longevity of safflower seeds. proc. assoc. seed analyst, 64:120-128 christensen c.m. and kaufman, h.h. 1965. deterioration of stored grains by fungi. ann. rev. phytopath., 3:69-84 doijode, s.d. 2005. storage potentials of seed germplasm in radish. vegetable sci., 32:196-197 doijode, s.d. 2006. seed quality in vegetable crops. in handbook of seed science and technology, basra, a.s., (ed) haworth press new york pp 723-748 fonseca, j.r, freire a. de, freire, m.s. and zimmerman f.j.p. 1980. conservation of bean seeds under three methods of storage. revista brasileira de sementes, 2:19-27 frohlich, h. and henkel, a. 1964. the probables of the duration of viability and the quality of out door cucumber seeds. dtsch. gartenb., 11:130-132 harrington, j.f. 1972. seed storage and longevity. in seed biology, kozlowski t.t (ed) academic press new york, pp 145-245 minkov i., ivanov, l., rusev d. and gadzhonova, p. 1974. investigation on storage conditions for certain vegetable seeds and the determination of their natural weight losses. gradinarska i lozarska nauka 11: 49-58 villareal, r.l., balagedan, j.b. and castro, a.d. 1972. the effect of packing materials and storage conditions on the vigour and viability of squash (cucurbita maxima), patola (luffa acutangula) and upo (lagenaria siceraria ) seeds. philippines agriculturist 56:59-76 (ms received 3 july 2009, revised 2 november 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 61-63, 2010 long term seed storage studies in radish studies on genetic divergence in pomegranate (punica granatum l.) using srap markers c. kanupriya, d. manmohan kumar, p. nischita, m. gayathri, k.v. ravishankar and p. sampath kumar1 division of biotechnology icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru, 560089, india e-mail: kanu@iihr.ernet.in abstract pomegranate genotypes have been characterized mainly on the basis of morphological traits; but, these traits are affected to a large extent by environmental and cultivation conditions, resulting in their ambiguous discrimination. molecular markers are more suited for accurate discrimination of genotypes and cultivars. sequence-related amplified polymorphism (srap) markers were used in the present study to analyze polymorphism among the important pomegranate genotypes grown in india. the total number of bands generated by 30 srap primers for 12 genotypes was 1448, with an average of 48.3 bands per primer. polymorphism varied from 2.7 to 73.9, with an average of 40.95%. similarity-value based on jaccard’s coefficient ranged from 0.63 (between cvs. naina and amlidana) to 0.95 (between cvs. kabul yellow and jalore seedless). upgma (un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean) analysis was performed and a dendrogram was constructed using jaccard’s similarity matrix. the 12 genotypes used grouped into 5 clusters. srap markers were found suitable for determining variability among the pomegranate genotypes studied. key words: pomegranate, molecular markers, srap, genetic diversity j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):125-129, 2015 introduction pomegranate (punica granatum l.) is commercially cultivated in iran, afghanistan, india and the mediterranean countries. iran is believed to be its primary centre of origin. in india, pomegranate occurs naturally just in the western himalayan regions of the states of jammu and kashmir, himachal pradesh and uttarakhand. in recent years, the area under this crop has increased substantially, mainly because of its versatility, adaptability, drought resistance, low maintenance-costs and a steady high yield (narzary et al, 2010). in the global food industry, pomegranate figures among a novel category of exotic plant sources termed as ‘super fruit’. extracts from this plant (juices, seed-oil and peel) have been reported as exhibiting a strong antioxidant activity helpful in preventing cancer and cardiovascular diseases (shishodia et al, 2006). therefore, breeding for useful traits in this crop has gained importance. to do this, determination of genetic relationships and precise identification of the genotypes (to conserve genetic diversity) is required. pomegranate genotypes have been mainly evaluated in the past based on morphological characters; but, these traits are affected by the environment and cultivation conditions, and do not result in a clear discrimination (kumar, 1999). molecular or dna-based markers are more suitable for accurate discrimination between genotypes and cultivars. as per literature, most of the studies on pomegranate diversity have been made using molecular markers such as randomly amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) (sarkhosh et al, 2009; hasnaoui et al, 2010), amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp) (jbir et al, 2008, 2009), and, simple sequence repeat microsatellites (ssr) (pirseyedi et al, 2010; ebrahimi et al, 2010), but not using srap. srap (sequence-related amplified polymorphism) is a pcr-based marker developed by li and qurios (2001). the technique of srap consists of preferential amplification of open reading frames (orfs) using pcr. for this purpose, a combination of two types of primers is employed. the first type (forward primer) is 17 bp long, and consists of a fixed sequence of 14 nucleotides, rich in c and g, with three selective bases at the 3' end. 1division of fruit crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru, 560089, karnataka, india 126 this primer preferentially amplifies exonic regions (which are generally rich in these two nucleotides). the second type of primer (reverse) of 18 bp contains a sequence of 15 nucleotides rich in a and t, and three selective bases at the 3' end. this primer preferentially amplifies intronic regions and the regions with promoters (as these are rich in the nucleotides a and t) (ferriol et al, 2003). therefore, this method is widely used for assessing genetic diversity and species diversity (budak et al, 2004). with this unique primer design, srap markers are known to be more reproducible, stable and less-complex than the other molecular markers. we used srap markers in our study to analyze the diversity in 12 important pomegranate genotypes found in india. material and methods the study was conducted at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india. twelve cultivars/ hybrids were selected for this study from the available pomegranate germplasm collection at the institute. the plant material used was young leaves, sampled from adult trees. total dna was extracted from the leaf using a modified cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (ctab) method (kanupriya et al, 2013). integrity and quality of the dna so isolated was determined by agarose gel electrophoresis (0.8%). dna quantification was done using genequant uvspectrophotometer (ge healthcare biosciences ltd., england), and diluted as per standard procedure. a set of 30 srap primer combinations was used for amplifying dna from 12 genotypes (table 1) of pomegranate. additional information on primers is presented in table 2. pcr was carried out with an initial denaturing temperature of 94°c for 5min, followed by 5 cycles at 94°c of 1min each, 35°c for 1min, 72°c for 1min, followed by 35 cycles at 94°c for 1min, 50°c for 1min, 72°c for 1min; and, a final extension at 72°c for 5min (li and quiros, 2001). pcr products were separated on 2% agarose gel. the size of all the amplification products was estimated from comparison with a standard molecular-weight dna ladder (1kb). bands were scored as discrete variables, using “1” to indicate presence and “0” to indicate absence of any particular band. the data was then statistically analyzed by winboot software to obtain jaccard’s similarity matrix, and, the corresponding dendrogram was drawn for obtaining clusters using ntsys pc 2.11 software (rohlf, 2000) results and discussion the total number of bands generated using 30 srap primers for the 12 genotypes was 1448, with an average of table 1. twelve genotypes of pomegranate used in this study and their description sl. genotype description no. 1 amlidana f1 hybrid of a cross (ganesh x nana); grows well under tropical climate; with quality fruit attributes, is superior to the sour variety daru, whose trees come up naturally in the temperate regions of north india; fruits provide a more acidic (16.18%) anardana and higher fruit yield/tree; short-statured trees suitable for high-density planting, increased fruit yield/unit area 2 ruby early maturing, thin skin, red aril, sweet, soft-seeded; selection resulting from progeny of <(ganesh x kabul) x yercaud-f2 x (ganesh x gul shah red)f2> 3 bhagwa larger fruit size; sweet, bold and attractive aril; glossy, very attractive; saffron-coloured, thick skin makes it suitable for distant markets; less susceptible to fruit spot or thrips compared to other pomegranate varieties; considering all these attributes, ‘bhagawa’ is recommended for cultivation in pomegranate-growing regions of maharashtra. 4 ganesh a selection from ‘alandi’, developed by dr. cheema at pune; soft seeded with pinkish flesh and juice of agreeable taste; heavy bearer. 5 jodhpur red medium-size fruit, with hard rind; fleshy aril, light pink, sweet, juicy; seed moderately-hard; a favourite cultivar in rajasthan, the plant is erect, bearing medium-size fruits (150g to 170g each); seeds hard, red in colour; juice slightly acidic with tss 14 to 16%; reported as highly susceptible to cracking 6 jalore seedless known cultivar from rajasthan and gujarat; bears small-sized (90g to 110g), round fruits; seeds normally small and soft; juice agreeable in taste and red in colour. 7 kabul yellow this plant has yellow pigmentation in petiole base, leaf margins, flower buds and fruit rind 8 naina this is an exotic variety from sri lanka 9 daya this is an exotic variety from sri lanka. 10 daru it is a sour pomegranate, which grows wild on himalayan foothills. though its sugar content is over 10 per cent, yet it tastes sour due to high acid content. its seeds are sundried to make anardana. it can withstand cold and dry conditions and is considered to be important source of resistance to diseases and pests 11 muscat this is a favourite variety of kohlar (maharashtra) dueto its large and sweet fruits with soft seeds. it is highly suitable for pune and sholapur areas of maharashtra and some parts of karnataka. 12 nana this is miniature plant and is grown for ornamental purposes. it is believed to be drought tolerant and does not yield fruits/ flowers. kanupriya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):125-129, 2015 127 fig. 1. gel profile showing pcr products obtained from the srap primer combination me7 + em7 [1-12 serially represents pomegranate varieties (genotypes) amlidana, bhagwa, daru, daya, ganesh, jodhpur red, jalore seedless, kabul yellow, muscat, nana, naina and ruby, respectively; l is 1kb ladder] 48.3 bands per primer. the total number of srap loci (table 2) are arranged in ascending order (percentage polymorphism) from the primer pair me1+em9 to the primer pair me1+em3. highest number of bands (92) was observed in the primer pair me7+em7 (fig. 1). polymorphism per cent varied from 2.7 to 73.9, with an average of 40.95%. similarity-value, based on jaccard’s coefficient, ranged from 0.63 (between cvs. naina and amlidana) to 0.95 (between cvs. kabul yellow and jalore seedless) (table 3). upgma (un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean) analysis was made, and a dendrogram was constructed using jaccard’s similarity matrix involving data generated from 30 srap primers on 12 genotypes of pomegranate (fig. 2). these genotypes grouped into four clusters. ‘amlidana’ and ‘bhagwa’ were placed in one cluster. ‘amlidana’ is the progeny of ‘ganesh’ and ‘nana’, while, ‘bhagwa’ is a selection of unknown parentage. it is likely that these share some common ancestors. ‘daru’, found growing wild in the himalayan foothills, separated itself from the rest of the genotypes. it is a sour pomegranate growing in the wild in himalayan foothills. it is commercially an important genotype, since, its seeds are sun-dried to turn into anardana. this genotype withstands cold and dry conditions, and is considered an important source of resistance to diseases and pests. the third cluster was made up of seven phenotypically divergent genotypes, viz., daya, muscat, jalore seedless, kabul yellow, nana, ganesh and jodhpur red, while, the fourth and last cluster consisted of cvs. naina and ruby. all these genotypes are phenotypically divergent; cvs. muscat, jalore seedless and kabul yellow are grown in dry regions of the north-west of india, while, cv. daya is originally from sri lanka. ‘nana’ is an ornamental pomegranate variety of very short stature. parentage of ‘naina’ is not known, and, it is likely that it shares with ruby common ancestors. similarity-value based on jaccard’s coefficient clearly demonstrates that the genotype, naina, is divergent from amlidana; while, the genotypes kabul yellow and jalore seedless are greatly similar to each other. overall similarity between genotypes was high, reflecting weak genetic differentiation even among genotypes belonging to various geographical regions. apart from the genotype, the nature of the markers used in a study also has an influence on the picture emerging on genetic diversity, since, the preferential amplification-region differs with the marker used. aradhya et al (2006) used aflp analysis to assess genetic diversity within a pomegranate collection maintained at national clonal germplasm repository (ncgr), davis, california, table 2. primer combinations in srap markers used in the study, showing their amplification and polymorphism sl. primer total number polymorphism percentage no. of srap loci 1 me1+em9 46 34 73.9 2 me4+em9 43 39 72.0 3 me7+em9 39 27 69.2 4 me4+em2 67 13 64.2 5 me3+em3 33 21 63.6 6 me2+em7 34 21 61.8 7 me9+em9 57 33 57.9 8 me8+em3 28 15 53.5 9 me8+em6 55 29 52.7 10 me8+em5 72 36 50.0 11 me1+em8 47 23 48.9 12 me10+em5 45 21 46.6 13 me9+em3 45 21 46.6 14 me7+em4 45 20 44.4 15 me1+em1 21 9 42.8 16 me8+em7 62 26 41.9 17 me2+em5 41 17 41.4 18 me4+em3 58 22 37.9 19 me8+em9 19 7 36.8 20 me8+em8 55 19 34.5 21 me7+em6 35 11 31.4 22 me4+em4 51 15 29.4 23 me2+em4 31 7 22.5 24 me7+em7 92 20 21.7 25 me10+em3 61 13 21.3 26 me9+em7 60 12 20.0 27 me10+em8 24 4 16.6 28 me8+em4 43 6 13.9 29 me1+em5 54 6 11.1 30 me1+em3 37 1 2.7 and reported that despite the different origin of individual accessions, diversity was very low. accessions from the same place were analyzed recently for evaluating diversity, by parvaresh et al (2012) using microsatellite markers. they genetic divergence studies in pomegranate using srap markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):125-129, 2015 128 table 3. pair-wise genetic distance calculated using jaccard’s similarity matrix between 12 genotypes of pomegranate using srap markers genotype amlidana bhagwa daru daya ganesh jodhpur jalore kabul muscat nana naina ruby red seedless yellow amlidana 1.00 bhagwa 0.89 1.00 daru 0.70 0.76 1.00 daya 0.77 0.81 0.79 1.00 ganesh 0.75 0.75 0.82 0.86 1.00 jodhpur red 0.74 0.76 0.74 0.85 0.87 1.00 jalore seedless 0.74 0.78 0.76 0.88 0.89 0.87 1.00 kabul yellow 0.75 0.76 0.74 0.86 0.89 0.87 0.95 1.00 muscat 0.77 0.80 0.75 0.89 0.86 0.86 0.92 0.93 1.00 nana 0.74 0.77 0.76 0.85 0.85 0.83 0.92 0.89 0.90 1.00 naina 0.63 0.67 0.76 0.75 0.76 0.75 0.77 0.77 0.78 0.81 1.00 ruby 0.65 0.70 0.79 0.77 0.80 0.76 0.80 0.81 0.81 0.82 0.90 1.00 fruit crop. this is corroborated by molecular analysis carried out in various countries by researchers quoted above, and by our present work using srap markers. however, it may be noted that the material analyzed in this study represents a fraction of the germplasm conserved worldwide. future studies need to explore germplasm available elsewhere and attempt to relate the diversity observed to other traits, for identifying parents for breeding programmes. these can range from agronomic and quality-related traits (such as antioxidant content), to novel uses of pomegranate, such as in aesthetics. generally, our study confirmed the narrow genetic base reported in p. granatum, and emphasizes a need to widen the existing genetic diversity through further exploration. although srap markers in our study were able kanupriya et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):125-129, 2015 fig. 2. dendrogram based on upgma analysis by jaccard’s similarity matrix using data generated from 30 srap primers for 12 genotypes of pomegranate reported a high level of genetic diversity within a group and a low level among groups. moslemi et al (2010) and yuan et al (2007) also reported a low diversity in iranian and chinese genotypes, using aflp markers. on the other hand, narzary et al (2010) reported a high genetic diversity across natural populations of the western himalayan region of india, based on inter-simple sequence repeat (issr) markers. as seen in fig. 1, srap markers showed good stability, repeatability and also clear bands, which facilitated easy scoring. srap markers preferentially amplify the orf regions of dna, and have been demonstrated to be more powerful at revealing genetic diversity among closely-related cultivars than are ssr, issr or rapd markers as such in other crops like buffalo grass (budak et al, 2004), okra germplasm (gulsen et al, 2007), cucurbit pepo germplasm (ferriol et al, 2003) and brassica (li and quires, 2001). the weak genetic differentiation seen between genotypes of pomegranate is attributed to an inherently narrow genetic base. the family punicaceae is monogeneric, comprising just two species, p. granatum l. and p. protopunica l., the latter restricted to island of socotra. this narrow genetic base, along with domestication of the desirable genotypes, human selection and clonal propagation, has led to high levels of genetic uniformity in this ancient 129 to determine variability among the pomegranate accessions tested, a combination of multiple molecular techniques (aflp, issr and ssrs) may lead to a more accurate estimation of genetic diversity, and, relate the diversity observed to qualitative traits in future studies. references aradhya, m. 2006. http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/ cgc_reports/woody2006/ncgrdavis2006.html budak, h., shearman, r.c., parmaksiz, i., gaussoin, r.e., riordan t.p. and dweikat, i. 2004. molecular characterization of buffalo grass germplasm using sequence-related amplified polymorphism markers. theor. appl. genet., 108:328-334 ebrahimi, s., sayed tabatabaei, b.e. and sharifnabi, b. 2010. microsatellite isolation and characterization in pomegranate (punica granatum l.). iranian j. biotech., 8:156-163 ferriol, m., pico, b. and nuez, f. 2003. genetic diversity of a germplasm collection of cucurbita pepo using srap and aflp markers. theor. appl. genet., 107:271-282 gulsen, o., karagul, s. and abak, k. 2007. diversity and relationships among turkish okra germplasm by srap and phenotypic marker polymorphism. biologia bratislava, 62:41-45 hasnaoui, n., mars, m., chibani, j. and trifi, m. 2010. molecular polymorphism in tunisian pomegranate (punica granatum l.) as revealed by rapd fingerprints. diversity, 2:107-113 jbir, r., hasnaoui, n., mars, m., marrakchi, m. and trifi, m. 2008. characterization of tunisian pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cultivars using amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis. sci. hortic., 115:231-237 kanupriya, c., nischita, p. and ravishankar, k.v. 2013. an efficient method of genomic dna isolation from pomegranate. indian j. hort., 70:584-586 kumar, l.s. 1999. dna markers in plant improvement. biotech. adv., 17:143-183 li, g. and quiros, c.f. 2001. sequence-related amplified polymorphism (srap), a new marker system based on a simple pcr reaction: its application to mapping and gene tagging in brassica. theor. appl. genet. 103:455-461 moslemi, m., zahravi, m. and bakhshi khaniki, g. 2010. genetic diversity and population genetic structure of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) in iran using aflp markers. sci. hortic., 126:441-447 narzary, d., rana, t.s. and ranade, s.a. 2010. genetic diversity in inter-simple sequence repeat profiles across natural populations of indian pomegranate (punica granatum l.). pl. biol., 12:806-813 parvaresh, m., talebi, m., ebrahim, b. and tabatabaei, s. 2012. molecular diversity and genetic relationship of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) genotypes using microsatellite markers. sci. hortic., 138:244-252 pirseyedi, s.m., valizadehghan, s., mardi, m., ghaffari, m.r., mahmoodi, m., zahravi, m., zeinalabedini, m. and khayam nekoui, s.m. 2010. isolation and characterization of novel microsatellite markers in pomegranate (punica granatum l.). int’l. j. mol. sci., 11:2010-2016 rohlf, f.j. 2000. ntsys-pc: numerical taxonomy and multivariate analysis system, version 2.2. exeter software. setauket, new york, usa sarkhosh, a., zamani, z., fatahi, r. and ranjbar, h. 2009. evaluation of genetic diversity among iranian softseed pomegranate accessions by fruit characteristics and rapd markers. sci. hortic., 121:313-319 shishodia, s., adams, l., bhatt, i.d. and aggarwal, b.b. 2006. anticancer potential of pomegranate. in: pomegranates. ancient roots to modern medicine, 1st edn. taylor and francis group, boca raton, fl, usa, pp. 107-116 yuan, h., yin, y., qu, j., zhu, l. and li, y. 2007. population genetic diversity in chinese pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cultivars revealed by fluorescent-aflp markers. j. genet. genom., 34:1061-1071 (ms received 24 march 2015, revised 15 september 2015, accepted 28 september 2015) genetic divergence studies in pomegranate using srap markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):125-129, 2015 effect of nutrients and plant growth regulators on fruit retention, yield and physicochemical characteristics in aonla cv. na-10 s.n. ghosh, b. bera1, s. roy1, a. kundu1 and s.k. dutta roy department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur – 741252, india e-mail : profsnghosh@yahoo.co.in abstract to check pre-mature fruit drop in aonla cv. na-10, an investigation was undertaken during 2007 and 2008 in a seven year old private orchard at jhargram, paschim midnapore, west bengal, where the soil is red laterite and ph ranges between 4.5 and 5.5. treatments included foliar spray of urea (0.2%) + dap (0.2%), znso 4 (0.5%), borax (0.4%), naa (10 and 20 ppm), vermiwash (3 ml/l), humaur (2 ml/l) and water spray (control). results of two years of investigation revealed that spray of naa at 10 ppm was the best to increase fruit retention, followed by naa 20 ppm, vermiwash and borax, which consequently resulted in the highest fruit yield of 54.9, 52.0, 46.8 and 36.2 kg/plant, respectively, against 13.8 kg in the control. fruit weight was maximum with 0.5% znso 4 spray, followed by naa 10 ppm. fruit quality with regard to tss, total sugar and ascorbic acid content was better in all the treated fruits compared to control. key words: aonla, fruit quality, laterite soil, growth regulators, nutrients, yield short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 164-166, 2009 1mps farm, dahijuri, jhargram, paschim midnapore aonla (emblica officinalis gaertn.), is being grown in diverse soil and climate for its high nutritive and therapeutic value. in west bengal, the demand for aonla fruits has been progressively increased due to its popularity for preparation of chip bits and morabba. its cultivation has been gradually expanded and red laterite zone of the state is now being utilized for the purpose. in red and laterite soils of west bengal, the plant starts bearing at the age of 2nd year and reaches its full bearing capacity at the age of 8th year. one of the major constraints of aonla cultivation in this zone is occurrence of heavy fruit drop. although, fruit drop in aonla is a common phenomenon (allemullah and ram, 1990), the fruit drop in laterite soil is severe and it continued till harvest resulting low yield of mature fruits. to check the pre-mature fruit drop in aonla and to improve the yield and fruit quality, an investigation was carried out with the application of major and minor nutrients and plant growth regulators. the experiment was carried out on seven year old budded plants of aonla cv. na-10 planted at a spacing of 5 m x 5 m during 2007 and 2008 in a private farm which is situated near the regional research station of bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, jhargram, paschim midnapore, west bengal. the soil of the experimental orchard was laterite having surface soil ph 5.5. there were eight treatments viz., t 1 urea 0.2% + dap (di-ammonium phosphate) – 0.2%, t 2 -znso 4 – 0.5%, t 3 -borax – 0.4%, t 4 -naa-10 ppm, t 5 naa-20 ppm, t 6 vermiwash – 3 ml/l, t 7 -humaur 2 ml/l and t 8 -water spray (control). the humaur is a bio-organic foliar nutrient, manufactured by hindustan antibiotics ltd., pimpri, pune and reported to have enzymes, vitamins and organic acid precursor. the plants were sprayed with the chemicals after sunset three times i.e., on 25th may, 5th july and 5th august of 2007 and 2008. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block dsign with four replications. the plants were fertilized with 40 kg fym, 200g n, 100g p 2 o 5 and 100g k 2 o/plant/year. observations were recorded on per cent fruit retention, yield and physico-chemical composition of fruits. the acidity, total sugar and ascorbic acid content were estimated as per the methods suggested by a.o.a.c. (1990). for recording fruit retention, 4 shoots /plant in four directions were tagged and counted when the fruits were pea size and final counting was made at maturity and thereby percentage of retention was calculated. it is evident from the data presented in table 1 that fruit drop in aonla is severe in laterite soil and gave only 165 2.5% retention as observed from the control plants. it was also observed that fruit drop in aonla was mainly associated with the hormonal imbalances as naa 10 ppm sprayed gave maximum fruit retention of 22.3% followed by naa 20 ppm, which resulted in second best fruit retention (17.1%). singh et al (2007) also observed reduce fruit drop in aonla with naa 10 ppm at faizabad (u.p). beneficial effect of naa application in reducing fruit drop may be explained from the fact that it maintains the on-going physiological and biochemical process of inhibition of abscission (tomaszewska and tomaszewska, 1970). besides, hormone and micronutrient were observed to be one of the controlling factors for improving fruit retention in aonla. among the two micronutrients, boron gave the better result in aonla than zinc in controlling fruit drop. it is well known that boron play a significant role in carbohydrate transport and various physiological processes like nitrogen metabolism, active salt absorption, hormone metabolism, fat metabolism, etc. within the plant (nason and mcelroy, 1963). it was further observed that vermiwash application, a bye-product of vermi-compost, showed a beneficial effect on fruit retention (13.4%) in aonla. beneficial effect of vermiwash in fruit retention may be explained as it contain most of the macro and micronutrients, hormones, enzymes etc. in minute quantity which may helped to activate and regulate many physiological processes within the plant. it was interestingly noted that nitrogen and phosphorus application in the form of urea and di-ammonium phosphate had no positive role in fruit retention, although beneficial effect of urea spray on fruit retention and yield was observed in many fruit crops like mango (sharma et al. 1977), guava (arora and singh, 1970), cashew (ghosh and chatterjee, 1990), etc. fruit yield in aonla was directly co-related with the fruit retention under different treatments (table 1). the highest yield of 54.9 kg/plant was recorded from the plant treated with naa 10 ppm followed by naa 20 ppm (52.0 kg/plant) and they were statistically at par among themselves in fruit production. the highest fruit yield in naa treated plants was due to highest fruit retention as compared to other treatments. vermiwash application gave the 2nd highest yield in aonla (46.8 kg/plant) after naa (10 and 20 ppm). micronutrients (zn and boron) and humaur application also showed better result in yield improvement in aonla as compared to control. no response of urea and dap application was observed with regard to their effect on yield enhancement as compared to control. from this investigation, it is clearly understood that application of micronutrients and hormones like naa are needed in addition to macronutrients during fruit setting and development process for obtaining a good harvest of aonla in laterite soil. fruit weight was significantly the highest (31.3 g) in the plants sprayed with znso 4 at 0.5% followed by naa 10 ppm (29.4 g) and 20 ppm (28.4 g). beneficial effect of zinc in improving fruit weight was also observed by langthasa and bhattacharyya (1993) in assam lemon, wali and sharma (1997) in kinnow mandarin and ghosh and besra (2000) in sweet orange. it was noted that all the treatments i.e., macro and micronutrients and plant growth regulators sprayed helped to increase fruit weight significantly as compared to control. fruit length and breadth were also improved due to different treatments but they were not statistically significant. similarly pulp content was also slightly improved due to different nutrients and plant growth regulator application and was maximum under 0.5% table 1. effect of nutrients and plant growth regulators on fruit retention, yield and fruit quality in aonla cv. na 10 (average of two years) treatment fruit yield/ fruit fruit fruit pulp tss acidity total vit. c retention plant weight length breadth (%) (0b) (%) sugar (mg/100g) (%) (kg) (g) (cm) (cm) (%) urea – 0.2% + dap-0.2% 2.8 (9.63) 14.2 21.3 4.0 4.3 93.2 8.7 1.1 4.9 545 znso 4 – 0.5% 6.1 (14.30) 29.4 31.3 4.6 4.8 95.2 8.4 1.1 4.9 540 borax – 0.4% 8.6 (17.05) 36.2 25.6 4.4 4.5 92.0 8.6 1.1 4.7 518 naa – 10 ppm 22.3 (28.18) 54.9 29.4 4.5 4.7 93.7 9.5 1.5 5.1 528 naa – 20 ppm 17.1 (24.43) 52.0 28.4 4.5 4.6 92.7 9.3 1.2 5.2 566 vermiwash – 3ml/l 13.4 (21.47) 46.8 27.6 4.4 4.7 92.6 9.0 1.2 4.9 535 humaur – 2 ml/l 4.9 (12.79) 23.5 22.9 3.9 4.5 93.0 9.0 1.0 5.1 563 control (water spray) 2.5 (9.10) 13.8 20.0 3.8 4.3 92.1 8.2 1.0 4.6 488 cd(p=0.05) 2.1 4.2 1.2 ns ns ns 0.4 ns 0.2 6.5 figures in parentheses are angular transformed value j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 164-166, 2009 nutrients and plant growth regulators spray in yield of aonla 166 zinc sulphate spray (95.2%) but the treatments were not statistically significant. total soluble solids and total sugar content were significantly more in the fruits treated with naa 10 ppm, naa 20 ppm, vermiwash and humaur, which resulted 9.0 to 9.50b in t.s.s. and 4.9 to 5.2% total sugars as compared to 8.20b and 4.6% of tss and total sugars, respectively in control. fruit acidity was not significantly improved due to different treatments. however, ascorbic acid content was significantly better in all the treated plants as compared to control. the ascorbic acid content in fruit was estimated as the highest in fruits in treatment with naa 20 ppm (566 mg/100 g), which was closely followed by humaur (563 mg/100 g) and lowest in control (488 mg/100 g). singh et al (2007) also observed higher ascorbic acid content in aonla fruits treated with micronutrients (0.5% znso 4 and 0.4% cuso 4 ) and plant growth regulators (10 ppm naa and 25 ppm ga 3 ). references a.o.a.c. 1990. official methods of analysis. association of official agriculture chemists (15 th edn.) washington, d. c allemullah mohammad and sant ram 1990. causes of low fruit set and heavy fruit drop in indian gooseberry. ind. j. hort., 47:270-277 arora, j.s. and singh, j.r. 1970. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium spray on guava. j. jap. soc. hortl. sci., 391:55-62 ghosh, s.n. and besra, k.c. 2000. effect of zinc, boron and iron spray on yield and fruit quality of sweet orange cv. mosambi grown under rainfed laterite soil. ind. agri., 44:147-51 ghosh, s.n. and chatterjee, m.l. 1990. studies on effect of foliar application of urea alongwith insecticides on yield and incidence of tea mosquito in cashew. cashew bull., 27:13-18 langthasa, s. and bhattacharyya, r. k. 1993. effect of foliar application of chelated and non-chelated zinc on growth and yield of assam lemon. hort. j., 6:35-38 nason, a. and mcelroy, w.d. 1963. modes of action of the essential mineral elements. in : plant physiology, ed., f. c. steward. academic press, new york sharma, j.s., thakur, r.s. and chadha, k.l. 1977. effect of foliar application of urea on yield parameters of mango. indian j. hort., 34:11-26 singh, j.k., prasad, j. and singh, h.k. 2007. effect of micro-nutrients and plant growth regulators on yield and physico-chemical characteristics of aonla fruits in na-10. ind. j. hort., 64:216-18 tomaszewska, e. and tomaszewska, m. 1970. endogenous growth regulators in fruit and leaf abscission. zeszyty nauk biol., copernicus univ. torun pol. 23: 45-53 wali, p. and sharma, o. n. 1997. effect of soil and foliar application of zinc on yield and quality in kinnow mandarin – a mandarin hybrid. haryana j. hort. sci., 26:213-15 (ms received 29 december 2008, revised 22 september 2009) ghosh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 164-166, 2009 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 introduction the mango (mangifera indica l.) originated in northeastern india, the indo-myanmar border region, and in bangladesh, where it is still found as a wild tree bearing very small fruits. it is also known to occur in the lower himalayan tract, near nepal, bhutan and sikkim. as per mukherjee (1953), mango has been cultivated for the past 4000 years at least, with over 1000 varieties under cultivation during this time. the genus mangifera belongs to the order sapindales in the family anacardiaceae. detailed classification is as follows: division : magnoliophyta class : magnoliopsida sub-class : rosidae order : sapindales family : anacardiaceae genus : mangifera the five species, m. sylvatica, m. khasiana, m. andamanica, m. indica and m. camptosperma reported to be found in india, are distinctly different from each other. mango breeding in india past and future m.r. dinesh*, k.v. ravishankar and donald sangma division of fruit crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560 089, india *e-mail: mrdinesh@iihr.res.in abstract the mango (mangifera indica l.) is one of the most important tropical fruits of india in which improvement has been attempted since the early 20th century. the species, m. indica, having originated in india, has a large diversity within the country. extensive surveys have located several wild species of importance, many of them figuring in the iucn red list. conservation and evaluation of these species, as well as the large seedling diversity, needs attention as these could be a source for important traits. strategies of in situ, ex situ and ‘onfarm’ conservation should from a priority at this juncture. hybridization has resulted in several hybrids. widening of genetic base in polyembryonic varieties and identification of zygotic embryos through markers is the need of the hour for utilization in breeding programmes. although several of these have not become popular, they can be very well used as pre-breeding lines. use of molecular markers for selection will greatly reduce time taken for developing improved varieties. strategies other than hybridization, viz., selection among open-pollinated progenies, should be adopted for identifying better recombinants, as, a large number of progenies are available in this method. key words: mango, mangifera india l., breeding, polyembryonic, monoembryonic m. indica is the most important species of the genus, as a producer of the most delicious tropical fruit, the mango. it is closely related to m. longipes griff. and m. sylvatica roxb. mango (mangifera indica l.) is the most important fruit crop in india with considerable socio-economic significance. it is known as the ‘king of fruits’ owing to the delicious quality of the fruit rich in vitamins and minerals. its long period of domestication is evident from its mention in the ancient indian scriptures. ancient indians valued mango not merely for the sentiment or religious consideration, but also they realized its importance in the economic and cultural life of their society. mughal kings promoted the practice of planting the best varieties: lakhi bagh (one lakh tree) planted by akbar the great is wellknown in history. ain-i-akbari, an encyclopedia written in 1590 ad gives an ample understanding of mango in that period. however, research with specific objectives started by the turn of the last century. mango is rich in vit a, c, flavonoids, carotenes, glucosides, sterols, terpenes, aromatic acids, essential oils, fatty acids and phenolics. it is a powerfully nutritive fruit, containing most of the essential substances needed by the human body. focus 2 mango is a highly heterozygous crop, and it is this high heterozygosity in cultivars that is exploited in hybridization. there are inherent difficulties in obtaining large hybrid populations, which makes accurate genetic analysis in mango very difficult (iyer and schnell, 2009). despite the drawbacks ailing mango breeding (like high heterozygosity and occurrence of only a single seed per fruit), breeding is successful owing to a number of positive attributes in the species, like, the wide range of available genetic variation, and the ease with which a selected hybrid can be propagated vegetatively (iyer and schnell, 2009). however, in spite of the large variability, adequate headway has not been made in crop improvement. genetic diversity an impediment or a strength? bompard (1993) listed more than 60 species worldwide, with the highest diversity found in the heart of the distribution area of the genus mangifera, i.e., the malayan peninsula, borneo and sumatra. in india, more than one thousand varieties are grown (mukherjee, 1953), all of which belong to mangifera indica l. field gene-bank collections made in the country, to a very great extent, represent this vast gene pool. the vast diversity in indigenous mango varieties, mainly of seedling origin, has remained unexplored. however, there are still regions within the country that have not been explored for mango wealth. this unexplored genetic diversity can be a source of very important traits. it is possible that desirable traits like disease or pest resistance are available in this gene pool. it is in this context that the concepts of ‘on-farm conservation’ and ‘custodians of genetic diversity’ assume great importance. the unep-gef tft project successfully identified 54 farmers who were conserving genetic diversity in their own orchards for various purposes, viz., better pollination, to regularity of bearing, to fruits to be used for different purposes. one example is identification of some seedlingtypes in chittoor, wherein varieties with a high carotenoid content and excellent shelf-life were noticed (dinesh et al, 2015). hence, not withstanding problems of nomenclature ambiguity there is a scope for locating genotypes with desirable traits by germplasm surveys, evaluation and characterization. chances for improvement from germplasm survey in the heterozygous perennial mango are definitely higher than that through hybridization programmes, in our experience. hence, if the vast diversity is adequately assessed and utilized, it can be a boon for improvement. in situ, ex situ and on-farm conservation the large gene-pool in mango needs to be conserved. in situ conservation, so far, has not been able to prevent genetic erosion due to several factors. ex situ conservation has the limitation of a variety not expressing itself fully due to the environmental effect. this also needs a large area, which is a difficult proposition. hence, the concept of ‘core collection’ needs to be adopted. however, for a heterozygous population, it is to be seen very critically whether a suitable representative sample can be selected. under these circumstances, ‘on-farm conservation’ is one of the strategies that can be satisfactorily adopted. dinesh et al (2015) observed that several of the seedling-types being grown as heirloom varieties, are conserved in farmers’ orchards. andhra pradesh is home to many juicy type of mangoes known as ‘rasalu’ types, viz., chinnarasam, peddarasam, cherukurasam, etc. registration of these varieties with ppv&fra can result in conservation and, further, the farmer can also receive royalty for his sustained effort. past approaches and present modifications in a fruit crop like the mango which has a very wide genetic base of monoembryonic varieties, nomenclature ambiguity is one of the major impediments. very few studies on diversity have been made. choice of ideal parents has remained a problem (dinesh, 2003). lavi et al (1998) opined that parents should not be chosen on the basis of phenotype alone, since, offspring-performance is quite unpredictable. several studies have shown that genetic studies can only be a pointer, as in a heterozygous crop like mango, progeny performance remains quite unpredictable (iyer, 1991; dinesh, 2003). however, the key to solving this problem is to raise a large number of progeny. in this context, the suggestion of iyer (1991) to raise a large number of f2 populations is noteworthy. in the past, number of progenies obtained from a particular cross has been very low. hence, selection of recombinants was limiting. lack of stable morphological pre-selection indices has further not helped selection, while the time taken for improvement too is not reduced. exploiting heterozygosity in mango owing to propagation by seeds and due to crosspollination, high heterozygosity is present in mango. in a cross between two heterozygous varieties, segregation in f1 is similar to that obtained in f2 population obtained from crossing homozygous lines. in mango, where a limited progeny population hampers meaningful selection, exploitation of heterozygosity to raise a large number of progenies, is required for better selection. two approaches j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 dinesh et al 3 that can help increase variability in a progeny population are: (i) raising half-sibs, and (ii) open-pollinated progenies. progenies so raised are evaluated for various characters and their parentage validated. polyembryonic varieties as parents the genetic base of polyembryonic varieties in mango is very narrow, unlike in monoembryonic varieties. major mango producing countries, viz., australia, philippines, etc. have polyembryonic types as a commercial variety. polyembryonic types, in india, are mainly located in western ghats, in the coastal and north-eastern regions of the country. due to their propagation by nucellar seedlings, no large diversity is noticed in these types. polyembryony in mango is genetically controlled. leroy (1947) opined that the presence of one or more recessive genes results in adventive embryony. sturrock (1968) also observed that when monoembryonic varieties were crossed with polyembryonic varieties, the resultant progenies indicated monoembryony as a dominant trait. however, arnon et al (1998) observed that dominant genes controlled polyembryony. brettell et al (2004) also opined that dominant genes controlled polyembryony. in addition, they concluded that this varied with location. pre-selection indices in mango breeding mango is perennial in nature and because of its long juvenile-phase, evaluation of progenies takes a long time which needs a large area. pre-selection indices help overcome this problem to a great extent. pre-selection involves selection from seedling progenies even at the juvenile stage for adult characteristics, based on wellestablished correlations. some correlations worked out in mango have shown leaf flavour to be directly correlated with fruit flavour (majumder et al, 1972; whiley et al, 1993). emergence of new growth flush simultaneously with fruiting, or immediately after harvest, indicates that the tree is going to be regular in bearing (sharma et al, 1972). higher phloem to xylem ratio was found to be associated with the dwarf stature. if this ratio exceeds 1.0, the trees tend to be least vigorous; if this value is 0.6 to 1.0, the trees will have medium vigour; those with a ratio less than 0.6 will be the most vigorous (kurian and iyer, 1992). higher amount of phenolics in the apical bud has also been shown to be associated with the dwarf stature (iyer, 1991). majumder et al (1981) had earlier reported that lower stomatal density was an indication of dwarf stature. pre-selection indices are pointers to selection prior to the main selection of a trait in question. these are extremely important as they save time, space and money. the concept of pre-selection index is not very new. van mons first reported it in 1835, and mitschurin in 1969, based mainly on their practical experience. in mango, there is a need to look for morphological, molecular and biochemical markers. campbell and zill (2009), using leaf aroma, screened thousands of seedlings at their juvenile stage. need for diversity studies mango, being highly heterozygous, has a large diversity that has resulted from propagation by its seeds. this, in turn, has resulted in ambiguity in nomenclature as, the same variety is known by different names in different regions. diversity studies would help choose parents, so that heterosis can be exploited for various traits. souza et al (2011) evaluated genetic variability of mango (mangifera indica l.) accessions, of which 35 originated from brazil, six from usa, and one from india. these accessions were found to have considerable genetic variability, demonstrating the importance of analyzing each genotype in a collection, to efficiently maintain a germplasm collection. start codon targeted (scot) markers were used to investigate genetic diversity of 73 mango accessions inchina, and, the studies resulted in these accessions being grouped into four (a, b, c, d) clusters. this corresponded well with their geographical origin and known history, indicating its importance for germplasm characterization, improvement, management and conservation (luo et al, 2012). ravishankar et al (2013) evaluated genetic diversity and relationship among 269 mango (mangifera indica l.) cultivars of the indian peninsula using ‘sequence tagged microsatellite site (stms)’ markers. gao et al (2013) studied 200 accessions of mango (mangifera) from exotic and domestic sources as test material. their result showed that the germplasm cluster developed did not completely correlate with their geographical origin and type of embryo. through an eco-geographic survey covering three regions of the state of andhra pradesh, 31 accessions of ‘beneshan’ (bn acc-l to bn acc-31) were selected, and their fruit and leaf samples collected to study intra-cultivar heterogeneity, based on morphological fruit traits and microsatellite markers, respectively, by begum et al (2012). in situ characterization and evaluation of fruit samples revealed phenotypic variation among ‘beneshan’ accessions. of the 109 mango-specific simple sequence repeats (ssrs) validated, 23 were polymorphic. highly polymorphic mango breeding in india past and future j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 4 microsatellites like ssr-80, ssr-87, ssr-28, and ssr-89 were more useful in differentiating these ‘beneshan’ accessions. dillon et al (2013) evaluated eleven (11) microsatellites markers for their usefulness in identifying varieties, validating progeny and parents, and to estimate genetic diversity in populations. the markers proved ideal for fingerprinting varieties, with an average of 8.36 alleles per locus, identified to distinguish all of the 105 accessions tested, used 25 est-ssr markers to study the extent of pcr amplification, polymorphism and heterozygosity across a diverse selection of varieties of m. indica and related mangifera spp. available at australian national mango genebank (anmg). these markers exhibited polymorphisms xable of identifying a total of 86 alleles, with an average of 5.38 alleles per locus and distinguished all the mangifera selections. the study has been utilized for identifying progeny and parents for selection, and, application of this extended panel will further improve and help design mango hybridization strategies for increased breeding efficiency. thus, genotyping mangifera accessions with microsatellite markers can quickly reveal genetic diversity among accessions. sane et al (2015) studied genetic variability among 11 mango genotypes using intersimple sequence repeat (issr) primers. of the primers tested, di-nucleotide and tri-nucleotide repeats gave clear and reproducible band profiles. highest similarity was observed among ‘dwarf rumani’ and ‘creeping’. ‘moreh’ and ‘sabre’ (both being polyembryony types) grouped together in cluster 2. the high degree of polymorphism and reliable amplification confirmed utility of dna markers for genetic diversity studies in mango. diversity studies and relatedness of accessions help the breeder choose parents, so that recombinants with desirable traits can be developed. genetic studies as pointers genetic studies carried out using over a thousand hybrid progenies by sharma and majumder (1989) showed that dwarf stature, regular bearing and precocity are controlled by recessive genes. regularity in bearing appeared to be linked to precocity, and, the character contributing to biennial bearing is dominant over those governing the regular-bearing habit. sharma (1987) opined that additive genes controlled flesh color. however, iyer (1991) observed that light-yellow colour was dominant over orange-yellow in the progenies of alphonso x neelum cross. dinesh (2003), in a study carried out using half-sib analysis, found that fruit characters like fruit weight, tss and pulp percentage were controlled by non-additive factors, and heritability was low. lavi et al (1998) concluded that parents should not be chosen on the basis of phenotype, since, offspring performance is quite unpredictable. as for skin colour, it was found that when red coloured varieties were crossed with green coloured varieties, gradation of colour in the progenies indicated that fruit colour was controlled by a number of loci (sharma, 1987; iyer & subramanyam, 1987). presence of a beak on the fruit seems to be dominant, as, all of the progeny had the beak on their fruits when ‘totapuri’ was used as one of the parents (iyer and subramanyam, 1979). bunch-bearing was found to be dominant over single-fruiting (sharma et al, 1972). in open-pollinated progenies, lavi et al (1989) observed no maternal effect on juvenile period and fertility, but there was maternal effect on harvest season and fruit colour, and a slight effect of maternal parent on fruit size and taste. cytoplasmic inheritance was observed for resistance to bacterial canker as all the progenies were found to be susceptible when neelum was used as the female parent, irrespective of the male parent used (sharma and majumder, 1989). iyer (1991) observed that recessive genes mediated internal breakdown (spongy tissue). sharma and majumder (1989) found that dominant genes controlled susceptibility to mango malformation, as, crosses with ‘bhadauran’ (a resistant variety) did not yield any resistant hybrid. improvement in the hybridization technique, using a few flowers in a larger number of panicles for crossing, and then, covering the panicles with polythene bag instead of the muslin bag, resulted in raising a large number of hybrid progenies. in fact, one of the main reasons for success in later work on hybridization was the use of information on gene donors, and prevention of indiscriminate crossing among varieties. work carried out extensively so far on a identifying resistance source for some of the pests and diseases has proved futile. varieties found to be resistant resistance initially have not been found to be genetically resistant. use of these varieties in breeding programmes resulted in progenies, which too were susceptible. mango, as a breeding material is difficult to handle, because of its long juvenile phase, high heterozygosity with only a small number of hybrid progenies recoverable. however, information obtained on inheritance of characters, summarized as follows should be of help in planned hybridization: 1. upright habit of the tree as dominant over spreading, and, spreading as dominant over dwarfness. dinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 5 2. dwarfness found to be governed by recessive genes 3. strong linkage found between bearing and fruit quality 4. biennial bearing tendency found to be dominant over regular-bearing 5. regularity of bearing controlled by recessive genes, found to have close linkage with precocity in bearing 6. bunch-bearing habit observed to be dominant over single-fruit bearing 7. presence of beak, marked with sinus, dominant 8. transgressive segregation for fruit size observed in f1 hybrids 9. red skin-colour found to be dominant and gradations in skin colour of f1 suggestive of the role of multiple genes; also the case with flesh colour 10. resistance to floral malformation seems to be controlled by recessive genes 11. cytoplasmic inheritance found in the case of bacterial canker, and 12. spongy tissue observed to be genetically controlled bretell et al (2004) observed that several important fruit-quality aspects such as fruit weight, fruit shape, ground skin-colour, fruit width and pulp depth had a high heritability and could, therefore, be readily selected in a breeding programme. for non-ordered traits scored in discrete categories (blush colour, bloom, lenticel colour, embryo type and flavour), an estimate was made of data consistency from multiple scores for individual hybrids at different times and locations. relatively high consistency value was recorded for fruit flavour, and in combinations involving ‘kensington pride’. analysis of blush colour and fruit flavour in twelve families of hybrids confirmed that these characters have a strong genetic component; a high frequency of hybrids with red or burgundy blush can be recovered from crosses where one of the parents has an intense red-blush colour. singh et al (2004) observed a wide magnitude of phenotypic coefficient of variation with high genetic advance for yield per plant and fruit weight in 31 chance seedlings of mango. yadav and dinesh (1999) evaluated genotypes of dwarf stature so that these could be used further in breeding programmes, and, progenies of dwarf stature could be isolated. varieties ‘kerala dwarf’ and ‘janardhan pasand’ were found to be the most suitable for use as donor parents in a breeding programme. dinesh (2003) observed that nonadditive variance controlled several quantitative characters in mango. it was noticed that heritability was low, and chances of hybrid vigour manifesting for these characters in f1 generation were bright. selection of progenies can be made based on fruit size, i.e., medium-sized fruits have good tss and selecting was more than the genotypic coefficient emphasizing the greater manifestation of characters and lesser influence of environment. outcome of research in mango improvement with improvement in hybridization techniques, several improved varieties have been released in india from various regions (misra et al, 2011). adoption of these in different environments depends on genotype x environment interaction. some of these are listed below. mallika this hybrid between neelum and dashehari was released from iari, new delhi. it has a strong tendency to regular bearing. fruits, on average, weigh about 350-400g and have a deep yellow pulp, high tss, good odour, uniform fruit size and moderate keeping quality (singh et al, 1972). amrapali this is from the parentage dashehari x neelum. plants are dwarf and have a regular bearing habit. fruits weigh, on average, about 180-250g being borne on clusters, are sweet to taste and have a good keeping quality. ratna this is a hybrid from the cross, alphonso x neelum, released by fruit research station, vengurla. it is regularbearing, produces medium-sized fruits weighing, on average, about 250g. the pulp is orange in colour and is free from spongy tissue or fibre. sindhu this is a hybrid progeny derived by backcrossing ratna with alphonso, released by fruit research station, vengurla. fruits are borne in clusters and weigh, on average, about 150-220g. the pulp is deep yellow with good sugar: acid blend. fruits are almost seedless, with a very thin stone, although fruits weighting above 200g have a well-developed seed. konkan ruchi this is a hybrid from the parentage, neelum x alphonso. it bears medium-sized fruits. konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli, developed this variety, especially for pickle-making. mango breeding in india past and future j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 6 konkan raja this is a hybrid from the parentage, bangalora x himayuddin, developed by konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli. it has a compact growth habit and bears large-sized fruits (616g) in clusters. it is good in taste; immature fruits are useful in salad making. pulp percentage is relatively high (83%), with good t.s.s. (16.8°brix). it is a regularbearing variety. alphonso 900 this is a selection from the variety, alphonso. it is an early-bearer with uniform-size fruits of excellent quality, pleasing flavour, good in sugar:acid blend, attractive fruit colour and a long shelf-life, suitable for processing. konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli, developed this variety. sai sugandh this is a late variety, maturing in june. it is semivigorous, with fruits showing prominent lenticels and a beak. fruits are medium in size, of good quality, but susceptible to anthracnose. konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli, developed this variety. pusa arunima this is from the parentage, amrapali x sensation, released by indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. fruits are medium-sized, with an attractive skin colour. the pulp is deep yellow with tss of around 20°brix. pusa surya this is a selection from the variety, eldon, released by indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. it bears medium-sized fruits, has a red peel colour (similar to that of ‘sensation’). pusa prathibha this is a hybrid between the cross, dashehari x amrapali, developed by indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. it is a regular-bearing variety, with an attractive fruit shape, bright-red peel and orange pulp. it has oblong, uniform-sized fruits and good sugar: acid blend. the plants are semi-vigorous. pusa shresht this is a hybrid between the cross, amrapali x sensation, developed by indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. trees are semi-vigorous, regularbearing, with elongated fruits and an attractive red peel. the pulp is orange in colour, fibreless and firm when ripe, has a moderate sugar:acid blend, with uniform fruit-size (228g). it contains good amounts of beta-carotene and ascorbic acid. pusa pitamber this is a hybrid between the cross, amrapali x lal sundari, developed by indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. the plants are semi-vigorous, regularbearing, with attractive oblong fruits. fruits turn a uniform yellow on ripening. it has a good sugar:acid blend and uniform-sized fruits. pusa lalima this is a hybrid between the cross, dashehari x sensation, developed by indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. the plants are semi-vigorous, regularbearing, with attractive oblong fruits and bright-red peel on yellowish green background, with an orange pulp and good sugar:acid blend. ambika this is a hybrid between the cross, amrapali x janaradhan pasand, developed by central institute for subtropical horticulture, lucknow. the fruits of this variety are medium in size, with a slight sinus and beak, and a broadly pointed apex. peel is smooth and tough. fruits are bright yellow with a dark-red blush. pulp is firm, with scanty fibre. tss of this variety is 21obrix. it is a late-maturing variety. arunika this is a hybrid between the cross, amrapali x vanraj, developed by central institute for subtropical horticulture, lucknow. fruits of this variety are attractive, and with a red-blush, high tss (24obrix) and high in carotenoids. pulp is firm. it is a regular bearer and plants are dwarf. pant chandra this is a clonal selection of ‘dashehari’ from govind ballabh pant university of agriculture & technology, pantnagar. plants are tall, with an erect growth habit. fruit at maturity remains green. it is a mid-season variety. fruits weigh upto 150g. fruit pulp is reddish-yellow, with total soluble solids at 18%, and having a pleasant aroma. pant sinduri this is a clonal selection of ‘dashehari’ from govind ballabh pant university of agriculture & technology, pantnagar. trees are medium in height, with a round topdinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 7 canopy. fruit is yellow, with a pink shoulder. average fruit weight is 200g. fruit pulp is yellow, with a pleasant aroma. total soluble solids vary from 16 to18%, with an average yield of upto 150kg per tree. fruits mature from the last week of may to the first week of june. pkm-1 this is a hybrid released from horticultural research station, periyakulam. it is of the parentage, chinnaswarnarekha x neelum. it is regular in bearing, produces good quality fruits in clusters. pkm-2 this is a hybrid released from horticultural research station, periyakulam. it is from the parentage, neelum x alphonso. it is regular in bearing and produces good quality fruits in clusters. neeleshan gujarat this is a hybrid from the parentage, neelum x baneshan, developed by agricultural experimental station, nau, paria, gujarat. it is a mid-season variety maturing in may. it is semi-vigorous and is a poor yielder. neeleswari this is from the parentage, neelum x dashehari, developed by agricultural experimental station, nau, paria, gujarat. it is a mid-season variety maturing in may. it is vigorous and a moderate yielder. fruits are medium in size and good in quality, with high pulp content. in appearance, the fruits are similar to ‘langra’. neelgoa this is a hybrid from the cross, neelum x mulgoa, developed at fruit research station, sangareddy, andhra pradesh. it has high flowering-intensity and percent perfect flowers. shape of the fruit is similar to ‘banganapalli’. it is semi-vigorous and a moderate yielder. fruits are medium in size, good in quality with a high pulp-content. neelphonso this is from the parentage, neelum x alphonso, developed by agricultural experimental station, navasari, agricultural university, paria, gujarat. it has low floweringintensity. fruits are large in size and excellent in quality, but with low pulp content. niranjan this is an off-season bearing selection from the variety, ‘royal special’. ‘niranjan’ flowers thrice a year (august, october and december). flowering intensity is highest during december. it has a low flowering intensity in general, and moderate percentage of perfect flowers. fruits are round, with low pulp content. this varity was released by gujarat agricultural university. sonpari this is a hybrid from the cross, alphonso x baneshan, developed by agricultural experimental station, navasari, agricultural university, paria, gujarat. fruits are round and weigh about 550g. the peel attains golden-yellow colour when ripe, with tss of about 19.3°brix. au-rumani this is a hybrid by the combination, rumani x mulgoa, released by fruit research station, kodur. it bears large fruits of good flavor. it is a heavy yielder, with moderately firm pulp. kmh 1 (kodur mango hybrid 1) this is a hybrid released by fruit research station, kodur. it is from the parentage, cherukurasam x khader. plants are semi-dwarf, regular in bearing; fruits are fibreless with high brix value and low acidity. manjeera this was released from fruit research station, sangareddy. it is from the parentage, rumani x neelum. it produces round fruits, with a firm pulp, and bears regularly. the pulp of the fruit is yellow with tss of about 19obrix. swarna jehangir this is a hybrid from the cross, china suvarnarekha x jehangir, developed at fruit research station, sangareddy. it is a late variety, maturing in june. fruits weigh upto 450g. tss of the fruit is 19obrix, acidity 0.58%, and pulp content about 77%. neeluddin this is from the parentage, neelum x himayuddin, developed at fruit research station, sangareddy, andhra pradesh. it is a mid-season variety maturing in may-june. it has moderate flowering-intensity, with medium percentage of perfect flowers. fruits are large, with average weight of 435g, with tss and acidity at 18o brix and 0.46%, respectively. mango breeding in india past and future j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 8 neeleshan this was developed at fruit research station, sangareddy, andhra pradesh. it is a hybrid between the cross neelum x baneshan. it is a mid-season variety bearing ovalshaped fruits weighing upto 400g tss is 18.2obrix, and the pulp content 72%. sabri this is a hybrid between the cross, gulabkhas x bombay green, developed at bihar agricultural university, sabour, and bhagalpur. it is semi-vigorous with low yield potential. fruits are small but good in quality, with tss of 19-20obrix. mahmood bahar this is a hybrid from the cross, bombay green x kalapadi, developed by bihar agricultural university, sabour, bhagalpur. it is a mid-season variety where fruits mature in may. it is semi-vigorous and a moderate yielder. fruits are medium in size and good to taste. al fazli this is from the parentage, alphonso x fazli, released by fruit research station, sabour. it is superior to fazli and does not have spongy tissue. fruits are sweet to taste. jawahar this is a hybrid between the cross, gulabkhas x mahmood bahar, developed by bihar agriculture university, sabour (bihar). it is a mid-season variety. fruits are medium in size with average weight of 215g. the pulp is light-yellow, sweet to taste, pleasant in flavor and remains firm even after ripening. tss, acidity and pulp percentage are 22.5obrix, 0.14% and 79.5%, respectively. menaka ‘menaka’ is a selection arising from ‘gulabkhas’ seedling. it is a regular-bearing and late-maturing variety; fruits are attractive with deep-red basal portion. pulp is deepyellow, sweet and pleasant in flavour, low in fibre and firm. fruit shape is oblong-oblique. average fruit weight is 300g, tss of the fruit is 20obrix, acidity 0.14% and pulp content 75%. subhash this is a selection from seedlings of ‘zardalu’. it is a mid-season variety. ripe fruits are bright yellow as in ‘zardalu’, with the shape of ‘langra’ fruit. fruits are medium in size, with an average weight of 220g. tss and acidity of the fruits are 24obrix and 0.29%, respectively. pulp content is 76%. sundar langra this is from the cross, sardar pasand x langra. it is regular-bearing and the fruit resembles ‘langra’ in shape and size. fruits are medium-sized and sweet to taste (hoda and ramkumar, 1993). arka neelachal kesari this is a variety released from central horticultural experiment station, bhubaneswar. it is a clonal selection from ‘gulabkhas’. fruits are medium-sized and average fruit weight is 220g per fruit; pulp is light-yellow, sweet to taste and excellent in quality, with a good sugar-acid blend. arka aruna this was developed at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. it is from the parentage, banganapalli x alphonso. it is regular-bearing; pulp is free from fibre or spongy tissue, pale-yellow in colour, moderately firm, good for making mango bars. fruit size is large. plants are dwarf in stature. arka puneet this was developed at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. it is from the parentage, alphonso x banganapalli. it has an attractive fruit skin colour, mediumsized, fruits free from spongy tissue, with good keeping quality and sugar-acid blend. arka anmol this was developed at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. it is from the parentage, alphonso x janardhan pasand. it is regular-bearing, has fruits with uniform yellow skin colour. it is free from spongy tissue, has good keeping quality and a good sugar-acid blend. arka neelkiran this was developed at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. it is from the parentage, alphonso x neelum. it is regular-bearing, with medium-sized fruits free from spongy tissue, good pulp colour, excellent skin colour, and the tree is semi-vigorous. arka udaya this is from the cross amrapali x arka anmol. fruits weigh 225 to 250g, and are oval in shape; pulp is deeporange in colour, firm and fiberless. tss is 21°brix, and pulp recovery is over 70%. fruits have an excellent shelfdinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 9 life. it is a late-season variety, with a semi-vigorous growth habit. breeding for biotic and abiotic stress resistance several insect pests, viz., hoppers, mealy bugs, stem borer, fruit fly, stone weevil, and diseases, viz., anthracnose, powdery mildew, etc. attack mango during various stages of growth. apart from this, disorders such as spongy tissue and malformation also cause considerable damage. as mentioned elsewhere in this article, no reliable source of resistance is available so far for most of these maladies. however, large-scale screening has helped identify some varieties as tolerant, although this needs further confirmation. as for abiotic stress like salinity, rootstock breeding has been attempted in israel. reddy et al (2003), in a study spanning 21 years, observed that ‘vellaikulamban’ as rootstock imparted dwarf stature to ‘alphonso’. among polyembryonic rootstocks, the variety ‘muvandan’ was found to be the most vigorous. one rootstock, 13-1, developed in israel, is resistant / tolerant to soil stresses, viz., calcareous soils, saline irrigation-water and heavy, nonaerated soils (gazit and kadman, 1980). wide hybridization there is a need to study crossability between species, as, this would facilitate introgression of genes from wild types. a species like m. magnifica is completely free from fibre. m. rufocostata and m. swintonioides have the offseason bearing habit, m. paiang and m. foetida have good quality fruits. the variety, ‘wani’, of the species, m. caesia from bali & borneo, has a distinctive taste. m. casturi, a newly described species occurring in south kalimanatan, is a prolific bearer with small, black, sweet fruits. these species offer a good potential in breeding (bompard, 1993; kostermans & bompard, 1993). angeles (1991) reported m. altissima as not being affected by serious pests like hoppers, tip borers or seed borers. hence, there is a need to evaluate these species. biotechnological approach use of various biotechnological methods for studying crop genetics and applying it as a tool for fruit crop improvement, is of recent origin. use of molecular markers, in vitro selection and regeneration, identification of linkage for specific traits, and construction of genetic maps, gene pyramiding, allele mining, etc. are some of the recent developments. discovery of molecular markers has led to detailed genetic analysis and use of newer approaches to improvement in crop plants. most fruit tree breeding programmes follow the scheme of classical recurrent selection. this results in multiple breeding and production populations. in addition, trees have a long juvenile period. all these lead to a long breeding period. with the advent of mango breeding in india past and future j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 diversity in mango fruit for shape, size and peel colour 10 marker assisted breeding (mab), we can plan to reduce this period. the technique has shortened the time required for developing new cultivars. mab has also made the process more cost-effective than selection based exclusively on the phenotype. however, basic research is needed to understand molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying the trait under study. mab is based on identification of heritable dna-sequence differences (polymorphisms). this combines both traditional breeding strategies and molecular tools for selecting plant material with the traits of interest, such as colour, size, or, biotic/ abiotic stress resistance. several types of markers are used in plant breeding, like ssr (simple sequence repeats), aflp (amplified fragment length polymorphism), scar (sequence characterized amplified region), etc. with the advent of next generation sequencing (ngs), availability of genomic resources such as wholegenome sequences and high-density genotyping platforms, has increased for crops. these are helping understand important structural and regulatory genes, as well as molecular polymorphisms associated with important agronomic traits (verde et al, 2012; dirlewanger et al, 2012). in mango, recently, several groups have made an attempt to develop genomic resources. using whole-genome sequence data, ravishankar et al (2015) developed over eighty thousand microsatellite markers for mango. similarly, using transcriptome data, luo et al (2014) developed est-ssr markers; kuhn and david (2014) developed snp markers, for mango. shudo et al (2013) developed cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (xs) markers for identifying true hybrids in the f1 progeny in mango. however, efforts need to be made to develop high-density linkage and association maps that can help breeders identify qtls and genes responsible for particular traits. future line of work conservation of indigenous germplasm plays role in any crop improvement programme. in the case of mango, where a large population of seedling germplasm located in the orchards, conservation and evaluation is important. this can help locate traits of interest, especially, biotic and abiotic-stress tolerance. there is a need to widen the genetic base in polyembryonic varieties. rootstock breeding for abiotic-stress tolerance and high-density planting should be accelerated. marker assisted selection for progenies derived from polyembryonic parents, and, extensive development and use of half-sibs for exploitation of heterozygosity, can help mango improvement programmes. recognizing farmers who maintain diversity as ‘custodians of diversity’ and linking the seedling-types with the market, can help conserve invaluable seedling-types while paving the way for registration of indigenous seedling derived mango varieties. references angels, d.e. 1991. mangifera altissima. in: verheij, e.w.m. and coronel, r.e. (eds) edible fruits and nuts, plant resources of south east asia 2. pudoc, wageningen, pp. 206-207 arnon, y., czosnek, h. gazit s. and degani, c. 1998. polyembryony in mango (mangifera indica l.) is controlled by a single dominant gene. hortsci., 33:1241-1242 begum, h., reddy, t.m., malthi. s., reddy, b.p., archack, s., nagaraju, j. and siddiq, e.a. 2012. molecular analysis for genetic distinctiveness and relationships of indigeneous landraces with popular cultivars of mango in andhra pradesh, india. the asian and australian j. pl. biotech., 6:24–37 bompard, j.m. 1993. the genus mangifera rediscovered the potential contribution of wild species to mango cultivation. acta hort., 341:69-77 brettell, r.i.s., johnson, p.r., kulkarni, v.j., muller, w. and bally, i.s.e. 2004. inheritance of fruit characters in hybrid mangoes produced through controlled pollination. acta hort., 645:319-326 campbell, r.j. and zill, g. 2009. mango selection and breeding for alternative markets and uses. acta hort., 820:189-193 dillon, n.l., bally, i.s.e., wright, c.l., hucks, l., innes, d.j. and dietzgen, r.g. 2013. genetic diversity of the australian national mango genebank. sci. hortic., 150:213-226 dinesh, m.r. 2003. genetical studies in mango (mangifera indica l.). j. appl. hort., 5:27-28 dinesh, m.r., rajan, s., sanjay kumar singh, singh, i.p., ravishankar, k.v., reddy, b.m.c., parthasarathy. v.a., bhuwon sthapit., ramanatha rao, v. and sandya, b.s. 2015. heirloom/seedling mango varieties of india – potentialities and future. indian j. pl. genet. resour., 28:17-30 dirlewanger, e., quero-garcía, j., le dantec, l., lambert, p., ruiz, d., dondini, l., et al. 2012. comparison of the genetic determinism of two key phenological traits, flowering and maturity dates, in three prunus species: peach, apricot and sweet cherry. heredity, 109:280-292 dinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 11 gao, a.p., chen, y.y., jonathan, h.c., zhu, m., huang, j.f., luo, h.y. and he, y.h. 2013. aflp analysis on the genetic diversity of two hundred accessions of mango in china. acta hort., 992:295-307 gazit, s. and kadman, a. 1980. ‘13-1’ mango rootstock selection. hortsci., 15:669 hoda, m.n. and ram kumar. 1993. improvement of mango. proc. national seminar on irregular bearing in mango problem and strategy (july 12-13, 1991), pusa. pratan kamal printing press, muzaffarpur, bihar, india, pp. 34-35 iyer, c.p.a. 1991. recent advances in varietal improvement in mango. acta hort., 291:109-132 iyer, c.p.a. and schnell, r.j. 2009. in: the mango botany, production and uses, breeding and genetics, litz r.e. (ed.) cabi, wallingford, uk, 2nd ed, pp. 67–96 iyer, c.p.a. and subramanyam, m.d. 1979. improvement of mango by selection and hybridization. annual report of indian institute of horticultural research, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, p. 16 iyer, c.p.a. and subramanyam, m.d. 1987. improvement of mango by selection and hybridization. annual report of indian institute of horticultural research, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, p. 11 kostermans, a.j.g.h. and bompard, j.m. 1993. the mangoes: their botany, nomenclature, horticulture and utilization, academic press, london, uk kuhn, d.n., dillon, n.l., innes, d.j., wu le-shin and mockaitis, k. 2016. development of single nucleotide polymorphism (snp) markers from the mango (mangifera indica) transcriptome for mapping and estimation of genetic diversity. acta hortic., 1111:315-322 kurian, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1992. stem anatomical characters in relation to tree vigour in mango. sci. hortic., 50:245-248 lavi, u., tomer, e. and gazit, s. 1989. inheritance of agriculturally important traits in mango. euphytica, 44:5-10 lavi, u., tomer, e. and hillel, j. 1998. components of genetic variance and genetic correlations of mango traits. sci. horti., 75:11-25 leroy, j.f. 1947. la polyembryonic chez les citrus son interet dans la culture et lamilioration, revenue internationale de botanique appliquee, paris, 27:483-495 luo, c., wu, h.x., yao, q.s., wang, s.b. and xu, w.t. 2014. development of est-ssr and trap markers from transcriptome sequencing data of the mango. genetics and molecular research gmr, 14(3):7914-7919 luo, c.h., xin-hua he., hu chen., ying hu and shi-jin ou. 2012. genetic relationship and diversity of mangifera indica l. revealed through scot analysis. genet. resour. crop evol., 59:1505–1515 majumder, p.k., singh, r.n., sharma, d.k. and mukerjee, s.k. 1972. preliminary studies on inheritance in mangifera indica l. acta hort., 24:101-106 majumder, p.k., sharma, d.k. and singh, r.n. 1981. breeding for dwarfness in mango (mangifera indica l.). nat’l. symp. tropical & subtropical fruit crops, bengaluru, p. 3 misra, a.k., pandey, g. and chandra, r. 2011. subropical fruit varieties, aicrp (stf) (mango, guava, litchi, grapes). all india coordinated research project on subtropical fruits, central institute for subtropical horticulture, rehmankhera, lucknow-227107, pp 32 mukherjee, s.k. 1953. the mango its botany, cultivation, uses and future improvements, especially as observed in india. econ. bot., 7:130 ravishankar, k.v., dinesh, m.r., mani, b.h., padmakar, b. and vasugi, c. 2013. assessment of genetic diversity of mango (mangifera indica l.) cultivars from indian peninsula using sequence tagged microsatellite site (stms) markers. acta hort., 992:269-276 ravishankar., k.v., dinesh, m.r., nischita, p. and sandya, b.s. 2015. development and characterization of microsatellite markers in mango (mangifera indica l.) using next-generation sequencing technology and their transferability across species. mol. breed., 35:93 reddy, y.t.n., reju m. kurian., ramachander, p.r., gorakh singh and kohli, r.r. 2003. long-term effects of rootstocks on growth and fruit yielding patterns of ‘alphonso’ mango (mangifera indica l.). sci. hortic., 97:95-108 sane, a., dinesh, m.r., ravishankar, k.v., ravishankar, h. and vasugi, c. 2015. implications of polyembryony on the growth performance in mango cultivars. acta hort., 1066:47-54 sharma, d.k. 1987. mango breeding. acta hort., 196:6167 sharma, d.k. and majumder, p.k. 1989. further studies on inheritance in mango. acta hort., 231:106-111 sharma, d.k., majumder, p.k. and singh, r.n. 1972. inheritance pattern in mango (mangifera indica l.). procs. symp. recent advances in horticulture, u.p. institute of agricultural sciences, kanpur, pp. 66-68 mango breeding in india past and future j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 12 shudo ayano, kazuhiko tarora, yuko makishi, ryotaro ichi, ken takahashi, masato matsumura, sayaka shimabuku, noboru matsuda, satoshi nakasone and naoya urasaki. 2013. development of xs markers and their application in breeding for mango, mangifera indica l. euphytic, 190:345-355 singh, r.n., majumder, p.k., sharma, d.k. and mukherjee, s.k. 1972. some promising mango hybrids. acta hort., 24:117-119 singh, j., singh, r.r., dubey, p.s. and singh, u.k. 2004. studies on genetic variability and character association for yield and quality traits in mango chance seedlings. j. appl. biol., 14:37-39 souza, i.g.b., valente1, s.e.s., britto, f.b., de souza, v.a.b. and lima, p.s.c. 2011. rapd analysis of the genetic diversity of mango (mangifera indica) germplasm in brazil. genet. mol. res., 10:3080-3089 sturrock, t.t. 1968. genetics of mango polyembryony. procs. florida state horticultural society, 81:311314 verde, i., bassil, n., scalabrin, s., gilmore, b., lawley, c.t. and gasic, k. 2012. development and evaluation of a 9k snp array for peach by internationally coordinated snp detection and validation in breeding germplasm. plos one, 7:35668 whiley, a.w., mayers, p.e., saranah, j. and bartley, j.p. 1993. breeding mangoes for australian conditions. acta hort., 341:136-145 yadav, i.s. and dinesh, m.r. 1999. breeding for dwarf genotypes in mango. j. appl. hort., 1:24-26 (ms received 28 august 2015, revised 17 november 2015, accepted 02 january 2016) dinesh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):1-12, 2016 introduction vegetatively propagated crops are a group of plants highly suitable for application of mutation breeding for various reasons. continuous vegetative propagation has led to less variability in the amla plant populations. induction of mutation is considered an important breeding tool to create new variation for economic traits. moe and han (1973) stated that improvement of a crop cultivar was usually accomplished by adding one or more desirable attributes to the initial, commercially grown strain and, hence, mutagenesis was the simplest means to achieve desirable breeding objectives. induction of mutations in vegetatively propagated plants has been investigated extensively by various authors, from broertjes to spiegel roy. induction of mutations in amla (emblica officinalis gaertn.) has been receiving increasing attention recently for crop improvement (pathak, 2003). adequate information on sensitivity of different varieties of amla to different doses of gamma rays is not available. the present investigation purports to assess sensitivity of amla to different gamma ray treatments in terms of survival percentage and degree of crop growth inhibition. the degree of growth inhibition in a woody plant like amla was determined by growth characteristics such as height, spread, number of buds or leaves and fresh and dry weight. the traits, viz., fifty per cent bud survival and inhibition of growth, were radiosensitivity of amla (emblica officinalis gaertn.) varieties treated with gamma rays b. senthamizh selvi, v. ponnuswami1 and n. kumar2 department of spices and plantation crops horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore-641 003, india e-mail: selvi_215@yahoo.com abstract investigations were carried out at the horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, during 2003-2005 to work out radiosensitivity of five varieties of amla (emblica officinalis gaertn.) exposed to different doses of gamma rays. scions of five amla varieties, viz., bsr-1, kanchan, krishna, na-7 and chakaiya, were irradiated with different doses (1.0 to 5.0 kr) and these were grafted on to rootstocks. based on the sensitivity study, ld 50 for 100% survival ranged from 1.0 to 2.0 kr for all the five varieties. all the amla varieties could survive upto 10-20% at lower doses (upto 2.5 kr). key words : amla, sensitivity, ld 50 1department of vegetable crops, horticultural college and research institute, coimbatore 641 003 2directorate of agribusiness management, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003 used as biological parameters to determine sensitivity of amla varieties to different doses of gamma rays. material and methods the present investigation of induced mutation breeding in amla (emblica officinalis gaertn.) was undertaken in the horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, from 2003-2005. improved amla varieties, bsr –1, krishna, kanchan, chakaiya and na-7 (maintained at the central orchard of the horticultural college and research institute, tnau), which can be readily propagated by cleft-grafting, were chosen for the study. a physical mutagen (gamma rays) was employed in the present study. amla scions with dormant buds were treated with gamma rays. scions of pencilthickness, consisting of 10 nodes (dormant buds) from seven year old mother trees, were collected and treated under a temperature range of 25± 2°c. the scions were stored by wrapping in a wet gunny-cloth at room temperature until treatment, and thereafter, till grafting on to rootstock. the treated scions were cleft-grafted the same day on one-year old amla seedling rootstocks. both the gamma ray exposed and untreated grafts were planted in pots and these received uniform standard operations after-care. sensitivity studies a preliminary study was conducted to fix the optimal dose of gamma ray irradiation on survival of grafts j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 108-111, 2007 108 109 (scions treated with gamma ray). the range of gamma ray (kr) doses as 1.00, 2.00, 3.00, 4.00 and 5.00. different criteria adopted for assessing sensitivity were: graft survival: the survival of the gamma-ray treated grafts was recorded at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days from grafting and expressed as percentage. degree of growth inhibition: the degree of growth inhibition was expressed in terms of the following parameters, measured 90 days after grafting: 1. length of the primary shoot (cm) 2. number of leaves (90 days from grafting) 3. fresh weight of the primary shoot (g) results and discussion the biological effect of gamma rays (sensitivity) on amla (emblica officinalis gaertn.) growth and development was studied based on four v 1 m 1 growth criteria. the plant parameters studied were: survival, primary shoot length, number of leaves and fresh weight of the primary shoot. per cent survival percentage of survival of the scions after irradiation showed highly significant differences among different doses of gamma rays. there was progressive reduction in per cent graft-survival, with increase in dose (table 1). the highest dose of 5.0 kr recorded 16% survival as compared to 92% in the control. the ld 50 values for survival in the variety bsr-1 ranged from 1.00 to 2.00 kr. however, survival percentage as comparatively low in ‘kanchan’ as compared to ‘bsr-1’ on wild amla rootstock. ld 50 for survival was reckoned to between 1.00 and 2.00 kr. as registered in the other two varieties, a relatively low survivability of treated scions was observed in different doses of gamma rays of the variety krishna. percentage survival ranged from 8.69 to 58.33. survival percentage of na-7 amla variety was table 1. survival percentage of amla varieties in v 1 m 1 generation following gamma ray irradiation variety dose of gamma ray survival percentage primary shoot length number of leaves fresh weight of primary (kr) (%) (cm) shoot (g) bsr-1 control 92.00 21.88 22.00 5.66 1.0 60(65.22) 26.50(121.12) 26 (118.18) 6.87(121.38) 2.0 44(47.83) 23.23(106.17) 21(95.45) 6.76(119.40) 3.0 36(39.13) 16.63(76.01) 19(86.36) 5.55(98.40) 4.0 24(26.09) 12.50(57.13) 17(77.27) 4.33(76.50) 5.0 16(17.39) 7.93(36.24) 11(50.00) 2.89(51.06) kanchan control 96.00 20.26 18.00 5.80 1.0 56(58.33) 23.50(115.99) 20(111.11) 6.53(112.59) 2.0 40(41.67) 22.00(108.59) 19(105.56) 6.60(113.80) 3.0 36(37.50) 14.00(69.10) 16(88.89) 5.45(93.97) 4.0 24(25.00) 12.00(59.23) 14(77.78) 3.89(67.07) 5.0 12(12.50) 6.30(31.10) 11(61.11) 2.50(43.10) krishna control 92.00 21.80 18.00 7.07 1.0 56(58.33) 21.43(98.30) 18(100.00) 6.00(84.87) 2.0 40(43.48) 20.90(95.87) 17(94.44) 5.55(78.50) 3.0 28(30.43) 19.47(89.31) 16(88.89) 4.80(67.89) 4.0 16(17.39) 16.63(76.28) 12(66.67) 4.30(60.82) 5.0 8(8.69) 6.53(29.95) 10(55.56) 3.20(45.26) na-7 control 96.00 22.40 20.00 6.25 1.0 52(54.17) 20.63(92.10) 22(110.00) 7.01(112.16) 2.0 36(37.50) 19.50(87.05) 18(90.00) 6.45(103.20) 3.0 28(29.17) 9.65(43.08) 15(75.00) 5.18(82.88) 4.0 28(29.17) 5.63(25.13) 13(65.00) 5.55(88.80) 5.0 12(12.50) 3.40(15.18) 11(55.00) 2.87(45.92) chakaiya control 88.00 23.00 22.00 6.00 1.0 52(59.09) 22.45(97.61) 24(109.09) 6.85(114.17) 2.0 36(40.90) 19.53(84.91) 20(90.09) 6.01(100.17) 3.0 12(13.64) 18.43(80.13) 17(77.27) 6.00(100.00) 4.0 8(9.09) 12.15(52.83) 13(59.09) 5.30(88.30) 5.0 8(9.09) 9.68(42.09) 12(54.55) 3.25(53.80) * values in parantheses are per cent values over control radiosensitivity of amla to gamma rays j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 108-111, 2007 110 found to be inversely related to increasing doses of gamma rays. the ld 50 sensitivity dose for survival for na-7 variety ranged from 1.00 to 2.00 kr the highest dose of gamma rays (5.00 kr) recorded 8% survival rate in ‘chakaiya’ as compared to 88.88 % in the untreated control. the ld 50 dose for survival was 1.00 to 2.00 kr. in general, mutagenic treatments of scions from different amla varieties in the present study resulted in lower percentage of survival. success of the irradiated scions when grafted depends upon union of cambium layers of the stock and scion and consequent production of normal conducting tissue. snow (1933) demonstrated that meristematic activity of cambium in the region of graft-union is stimulated by indoleacetic acid, and this view is shared by several researchers. that the level of auxin concentration in plants drops after exposure to ionizing radiation is also wellrecognized. irradiation immediately lowers free-acid auxin levels in the crop plant and the inactivation of auxin generally increases with increasing exposures (skoog, 1935). in this regard, gordon and weber (1955) clearly showed that in vivo auxin synthesis was nonexponential with increment in gamma exposure but, that, the extent of inhibition of synthesis increases with increased dose. moreover, mutagenic treatments cause chromosomal aberrations, which adversely affect cell-division. the lower percentaged of survival of grafts observed after treatment of the scion-wood with gamma rays may be attributed to a drop in auxin levels and to chromosomal aberrations caused by mutagenic treatments. further, it was also observed, in the present study, that the survival percentage of amla grafts decreased gradually as the dose of gamma rays increased, but, the decrease was rather sharp at 4 and 5 kr for all the five amla varieties. this was further exemplified by the sensitivity of ld 50 doses required to cause 50% lethality. according to viswanathan et al (1992), reduced survival per cent at higher doses of gamma radiation may be mainly due to cell death and higher rate of ionization in the nuclei. the drastic decrease in survival percentage under different doses of irradiation may be due to physiological imbalance and damages caused at the molecular level, which results in chromosomal aberrations causing considerable cytological changes. primary shoot length the primary-shoot length on 90th day from grafting of the irradiated scion of bsr-1 variety was lower than that in the control, particularly, at higher doses (3.00, 4.00 and 5.00 kr), but at lower doses (1.00 and 2.00 kr), there was a slight increase in the primary shoot length as compared to the untreated control. ld 50 values for this trait ranged from 4.00 to 5.00 kr. in the variety ‘kanchan’, an increase of 15.99 and 8.59% over the control was recorded in 1.00 and 2.00 kr treatments, respectively whereas, the primary-shoot length at different doses showed a decreasing trend with 3.00, 4.00 and 5.00 kr of gamma rays. the ld 50 dose of gamma rays for this trait was noticed to be between 4.00 and 5.00 kr. reduction in primary-shoot length of the treated plants of ‘krishna’ showed linearity with the increasing dose of gamma rays. reduction in the primaryshoot length ranged from 98.3 to 29.95% of control, indicating a drastic reduction for this character at higher doses. fifty per cent reduction in lethality was obtained between doses of 4.00 and 5.00 kr. gamma ray irradiated na-7 amla grafts registered a reduction in primary-shoot length showing an inverse relationship to increase in dose of gamma rays and the reduction ranged from 20.63 to 3.4 cm as dosage increased from 1.00 kr to 5.00 kr. the ld 50 value for this trait ranged between 3.00 and 4.00 kr. the percentage of reduction ranged from 97.61 to 42.09 in the variety chakaya. the ld 50 sensitivity value was observed in the dose range of 4.00 and 5.00 kr. it is seen clearly that length of the primary-shoot gets gradually reduced in proportion to increase in dose of gamma rays. this reduction in shoot length of amla is considered to be a combined effect of mortality of a few cell initials, delay in sprouting and slow growth-rate. reduction in growth of mutagen-treated meristems of the shoot is a cumulative expression of at least three different types of cytologically identifiable effects (evans, 1965). positive explanations for the reduction in plant height have been offered for reduced crop growth at different stages following mutagenic treatments, such as auxin destruction (skoog, 1935), inhibition of auxin synthesis (gordon, 1954), failure of the assimilatory mechanism (quastler and baer, 1950), production of diffusible growthretarding substances (mackey, 1951), changes in specific activity of enzymes (haskins and chapman, 1956) and inhibition of dna synthesis (mikaelson, 1968). growth indices of the physiological effects, viz. number of leaves and fresh weight of shoot were also studied. number of leaves and fresh weight of primary shoot gamma ray treatments in the present study recorded marked inhibitory effect in respect of number of leaves. fifty per cent reduction in the number of leaves per plant was observed between doses of 4.00 to 5.00 kr in all senthamizh selvi et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 108-111, 2007 111 the varieties. inhibition occurred at 3.00 kr for bsr-1, kanchan and krishna, and, 3.00 and 5.00 kr for na-7 and chakaiya. this may be due to direct effect of the mutagens on the growing points of amla varieties. depending upon the physiological and developmental stage these might have been killed or inactivated by various doses of the toxic mutagen and, hence, the reduction in number of leaves. however, stimulatory effects of ionizing radiation were obtained for fresh weight of shoot and production of leaf at lower doses of gamma rays. the increase was significant in some cases, but was less in magnitude indicating that such physiological stimulation are is not likely to be exploited on a commercial scale for crop improvement. the basis for stimulatory responses obtained, though small in magnitude, is of significant interest. in general, there was a clear and perceptible variation in susceptibility of amla varieties to injury by gamma ray. there is a considerable variation in the ld 50 values and the differences exhibited were greater between levels of the mutagen and between varieties. in most of the cases, no exposure produced those exact levels of survival and hence ld 50 values were determined by interpolation from the survival-curve. a possible explanation for this differential sensitivity could be that frequency of cells involved in the different treatments may be higher. thus, the present study clearly indicated that survival percentage is a reliable criterion for arriving at the optimum dose of irradiation in amla (emblica officinalis gaertn.). better survival percentage of plants seen at lower doses may be due to radiation resistant-nature of the biological material upto a certain dose. this is evident from the result that higher doses of the mutagen resulted in poor survival percentage. references evans, h. j. 1965. effects of radiation in meristamatic cells. rad. bot., 5:171-182 gordon, s. a. 1954. occurrence, formation and inactivation of auxins. ann. rev. pl. physiol., 5:341-378 gordon, s. a. and weber, r. p. 1955. studies on the mechanism of phytohormone damage by ionizing radiations. i. the radiosensitivity of indoleacetic acid. pl. pysiol., 30:200-210 haskins, f. a. and chapman, h. w. 1956. effects of irradiation, maleic hydrazide, temperature and age on enzyme activity in seedlings of corn (zea mays l.). physiol. plant., 9:355-362 mackey, j. 1951. neutron and x-ray experiments in barley. hereditas, 37:421-464 mikaelsen, k. 1968. effects of fast neutrons on seedling growth and metabolism in barley. in: neutron irradiation of seeds. ii. tech. rep. series no. 92. iaea, vienna pp. 63-70 moe, c. c. and han, j. j. 1973. methods of inducing mutations in cassava and possible uses of the mutant. in: induced mutation in vegetatively propagated plants. iaea, vienna pp. 67-75 pathak, r. k. 2003. genetic improvement in aonla. in: status report on genetic resources of indian gooseberry – aonla (emblica officinalis gaertn.) in south and southeast asia, ipgri, new delhi pp 30-31 quastler, h. and baer. m. 1950. inhibition of plant growth by radiation iii. successive radiation effects and homologous responses. biol. abstr., 24:30984 skok, j., chorney w., and. rakosnik. e. j. 1965. an examination of stimulatory effects of ionizing radiation in plants. rad. bot., 5:281-292 skoog, g. 1935. the effect of x-irradiation on auxin and plant growth. j. cell. comp. physiol., 7:227-270 snow, r. 1933. the nature of cambial stimulus. new phytol., 32:285-296 vishwanathan, t. v., sunil, k. p., mahato k. c. and jaya, m. 1992. effect of gamma irradiation on the m 1 generation of kaempferia (kaempferia galanga l.). south ind. hort., 40:146-150 (ms received 3 july 2007, revised 17 october 2007) radiosensitivity of amla to gamma rays j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 108-111, 2007 introduction spices are aromatic materials used for flavoring and seasoning foods. they are valued not only as piquant flavoring agents, but also as appetizers. some spices possess antioxidant properties, while others are used as preservatives. many of the spices have medicinal properties and have profound effect on human health. awareness on nutritional aspects of natural foods has increased the demand for natural products. spices, being materials of plant origin, are more appealing to consumers than are synthetic food additives. ginger (zingiber officinale roscoe) is widely used around the world in foods as a spice in fresh and dried form. ginger adds to flavour of a meal, creating a fresh, spicy pungent taste and is now becoming a valued commodity all over the world. although there is substantial consumption of fresh ginger worldwide, most of the produce is converted into dry ginger (balakrishnan, 2005). products made from fresh ginger include ginger preserve, ginger candy, ginger pickles, soft drinks like ginger cocktail, salted ginger, and alcoholic beverages like ginger wine, ginger brandy and ginger beer. though ginger is widely available in different forms, scope for product diversification in this crop remains very high (premavalli, 2005). thermal processing of fruits and vegetables into jams, jellies, squashes, nectars, sauces and so on is well known j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):174-179, 2012 qualitative changes during storage of different ginger-based spice sauces e. jayashree, t. john zachariah, f.p.p. evangelin and r. susheela bhai indian institute of spices research marikunnu p.o, kozhikode-673 012, india e-mail: ejayasree05@yahoo.com abstract ready-to-eat sauces have become a trend in all kinds of meals. five ginger-based sauces viz., ginger, ginger-black pepper, ginger-nutmeg, ginger-kokum and ginger-nutmeg-kokum were prepared as per standard procedures. physical, biochemical, microbiological and rheological properties of the sauces were recorded at regular intervals for 135 days. there was no significant variation in physical properties (total soluble solids) during storage but colour value varied significantly. variation in chemical parameters like ph, content of moisture, proteins, carbohydrates and total sugars was non-significant, but variation in titratable acidity and reducing sugars was significant. storage period did not affect total plate count, consistency index and flow behavior index of the sauces, which remained constant during the entire storage period. sensory score of the sauces showed that acceptability was high for ginger sauce, followed by ginger-black pepper and ginger-nutmeg sauce. key words: ginger, sauce, quality, storage, nutmeg, kokum (garcinia indica) all over the world. the term ‘sauce’ is familiar in case of tomato, onion, chilli, mango, orange, etc. where spices are used minimally. sauce is a liquid or semi-solid preparation served with foods or used in preparation of foods. a sauce may contain up to 60% solids if it is a newtonian base. sauces go through high levels of biochemical changes due to their high moisture content. as biochemical changes occur, solids disperse rapidly into the medium causing rheological changes. the present work was, therefore, taken up to develop a value-added product from ginger, i.e., ginger sauce, by standardizing raw materials used and assess the shelf-life of the product. material and methods studies on storage of ginger sauces were conducted during september 2010 at iisr, peruvannamuzhi farm, kozhikode, kerala. fresh ginger procured from the local market was washed, peeled and cleaned with water to remove surface impurities. other raw materials like black pepper, nutmeg rind, kokum (garcinia indica) etc. were obtained from indian institute of spices research (iisr) experimental farm, peruvannamuzhi. ingredients for each sauce were first processed individually by grinding them into a fine paste. the sauces were prepared as per srivastava and kumar (1994). spice 175 storage of ginger-based sauces combinations used in the preparation of sauces are detailed in table 1. the sauces were transferred into washed and sterilized (121oc for 10 min.) glass bottles, capped by a crown corking machine and in-bottle pasteurization was done at 80oc for 20 min. sauce bottles were then stored at room temperature for 135 days and the quality of stored sauces studied at regular intervals. physical properties like total soluble solids (tss) were measured using attago (rx 100) digital refractometer (aoac, 2007) and sauce colour was analyzed using a colourflex ez spectrophotometer (hunter associates laboratory, usa). moisture content of the sauce samples was determined by the toluene distillation method (asta, 1997) ph was measured by the method of aoac (2007); titratable acidity, protein, total carbohydrates, reducing sugars and total sugars were quantified by the method of sadasivam and manickam (2008). microbial analysis was done by the total plate count method (frazier and westhoff, 2006). rheological measurements were carried in a concentric cylinder [brookfield rheometer (dv-iii+)], using a small sample adapter (13r/rp, 19.05 mm diameter with a depth of 64.77 mm) and spindle sc4-27 (11.76 mm of diameter and 33.02 mm length), (brookfield engineering laboratories, ma, usa). brookfield tc-500 thermostatic bath (brookfield engineering laboratories, ma, usa) was used for adjusting temperature of the sample to 60oc. apparent viscosity (ç ap ), shear stress (τ ) and shear rate (γ ) data were obtained using rheocalc software (version v2.3, brookfield engineering laboratories, ma, usa). each experimental run to the upward curve lasted for 4 min. corresponding to 9.6 s × 25 points, with shear rate range from 2.80 to 70 /s, and 4 min to the downward curve with shear rate range from 70 to 2.80 /s. response of the sauce after application of yield stress was similar to shear thinning flow. therefore, herschel bulkley model was applied to obtain flow behaviour of these sauces, represented as: τ−τ0=κ(γ )n where, τ is shear stress (pa), τ 0 is yield stress (pa), γ is shear rate (/s), k is consistency coefficient (pa.sn), and n is flow behaviour index (dimensionless). sensory (organoleptic) evaluation was conducted on the sauce samples using quantitative analysis as per ranganna (1991). colour, taste, texture, flavor/aroma and overall acceptability were evaluated using the scale of 1 as dislike extremely; 5 as neither like nor dislike; 9 as like extremely. analysis of variance (anova) was performed to evaluate the effect of sauce type and storage quality of the sauce. freshly prepared sauces were initially analyzed for quality and thereafter, at 15, 30, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120 and 135 days of storage. three replicates of each treatment were used for quality analysis. data obtained during storage for various properties of ginger sauces were analyzed using agres (version 7.01, pascal intl software solutions) statistical software. results and discussion initial biochemical quality parameters of raw materials used for sauce preparation like ginger, black pepper, kokum and nutmeg rind are detailed in table 2. tss and colour values tss in the sauce initially for treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 was 28.41, 28.31, 28.51, 28.61 and 28.2o brix, respectively, and it increased during the storage period to 28.43, 28.33, 28.53, 28.64 and 28.23obrix, respectively. however, this increase was found to be non-significant (table 3). vidhya and anandhi (2011) reported no change in tss in wood apple jam and fruit bar stored for 90 days. table 1. spice combinations used in ginger sauce preparation treatment constituents quantity of the sauce t 1 ginger 6.5 kg fresh ginger t 2 ginger + black pepper 6.5 kg fresh ginger, 600 g dry black pepper t 3 ginger + nutmeg 2.5 kg fresh ginger 2.5 kg fresh nutmeg rind t 4 ginger + kokum 2.5 kg fresh ginger 2.5 kg dry kokum t 5 ginger + nutmeg 1kg fresh ginger, 1kg fresh + kokum nutmeg rind, 1 kg dry kokum table 2. major biochemical constituents of raw materials used in ginger-based sauce preparation parameter (*dwb) ginger black nutmeg kokum pepper rind total starch (g /100 g) 65.1 60.2 60.1 60.1 total sugars (g /100 g) 3.1 4.1 6.1 4.1 protein (g /100 g) 2.2 2.5 1.1 1.1 pectin (g /100 g) 0.2 0.1 5.4 2.1 fats (g /100 g) 1.1 1.2 6.1 8.1 essential oils (%) 1.2 1.7 1.1 2.1 oleoresin (%) 2.3 2.9 2.2 2.1 n = 3; *dwb: dry weight basis j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):174-179, 2012 176 colour values were measured in terms of lightness (‘l’), redness (‘a’) and yellowness (‘b’) as per hunter scale and showed significant increase during storage. initial values for l* for treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 corresponded to 20.83, 13.41, 33.69, 2.72 and 5.72; initial values for a* corresponded to 5.61, 5.71, 17.54, 5.40 and 25.79 and initial values for b* corresponded to 22.40, 16.61, 26.82, 4.01 and 8.81 (table 3). at 135 days of storage, values for l* for treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 increased to 20.93, 13.52, 33.78, 2.81 and 5.79, respectively; values for a * corresponded to 5.67, 5.95, 17.79, 5.30 and 25.70, and values for b* corresponded to 23.32, 16.85, 27.98, 4.07 and 8.56. analysis of variance indicated increase in the values of l*, a* and b* to be significant (pd” 5%). from the colour values obtained, it may be interpreted that ginger sauce was darker, less green and yellower. ginger-black pepper sauce was close to black, less green and yellower; ginger-kokum sauce was lighter, less red and less yellow; and ginger-nutmeg sauce was lighter, less red and less yellow. but, ginger-nutmeg-kokum sauce was darker, redder and less yellow. this observation for colour remained the same throughout storage period of 135 days (table 3). consistency in colour during storage was also reported by ahmed et al (2004) for coriander leaf puree and ahmed (2004) for ginger paste. ph and titratable acidity ph values for the five sauces showed non-significant increase during storage. initial ph determined for treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 was 4, 3.5, 3.75, 3.2 and 4.2, respectively. vidhya and anandhi (2011) reported a constant value of ph during storage of wood apple jam and fruit bar for a period of 90 days. increase in titratable acidity was found in treatments t 2 (from 0.25 to 0.26%), t 3 (0.49 to 0.52%) and t 5 (0.49 to 0.54%). titratable acidity for treatment t 1 increased from 0.13 to 0.14% after 60 days, and, reduced to 0.12% towards the end of the storage period, while, for treatment t 5 , table 3. variation in total soluble solids content and colour values during storage of ginger-based sauces sauce storage period (days) 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 total soluble solids content (°brix) t 1 28.41 28.42 28.42 28.42 28.42 28.43 28.43 28.43 28.43 28.43 t 2 28.31 28.32 28.33 28.33 28.33 28.33 28.33 28.33 28.33 28.33 t 3 28.51 28.52 28.52 28.52 28.53 28.53 28.53 28.53 28.53 28.53 t 4 28.61 28.63 28.63 28.63 28.63 28.63 28.64 28.64 28.64 28.64 t 5 28.21 28.22 28.22 28.22 28.22 28.22 28.22 28.22 28.23 28.23 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.01 storage period (p)= 0.02 s × p = 0.04 colour value (l*) t 1 20.83 20.84 20.85 20.86 20.87 20.89 20.90 20.91 20.91 20.93 t 2 13.41 13.42 13.43 13.45 1.46 13.47 13.48 13.49 13.49 13.51 t 3 33.69 33.70 33.71 33.72 33.73 33.74 33.75 33.76 33.76 33.78 t 4 2.72 2.73 2.74 2.75 2.76 2.77 2.78 2.79 2.79 2.81 t 5 5.70 5.71 5.72 5.73 5.74 5.75 5.76 5.77 5.77 5.79 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.1 storage period (p) = 0.21s × p = 0.3 colour value (a*) t 1 5.61 5.57 5.62 5.62 5.62 5.62 5.63 5.67 5.67 5.67 t 2 5.71 5.78 5.83 5.83 5.87 5.87 5.89 5.91 5.93 5.95 t 3 17.54 17.61 17.68 17.69 17.71 17.71 17.73 17.75 17.77 17.79 t 4 5.40 5.38 5.36 5.35 5.34 5.34 5.34 5.31 5.31 5.30 t 5 25.79 25.78 25.76 25.76 25.75 25.74 25.73 25.73 25.72 25.70 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.04 storage period (p) = 0.06s × p = 0.1 colour value ( b*) t 1 22.40 22.87 22.96 22.99 23.24 23.26 23.28 23.28 23.30 23.32 t 2 16.61 16.71 16.72 16.73 16.77 16.79 16.81 16.81 16.83 16.85 t 3 26.82 27.12 27.18 27.26 27.72 27.42 27.44 27.89 27.92 27.98 t 4 4.01 4.03 4.04 4.07 4.07 40.07 4.07 4.07 4.07 4.07 t 5 8.81 8.66 8.60 8.56 8.56 8.56 8.56 8.56 8.56 8.56 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.04 storage period (p) = 0.06s × p = 0.1 jayashree et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):174-179, 2012 177 titratable acidity increased from 0.49 to 0.57% after 30 days, and reduced to 0.54% towards the end of the storage period at 135 days. the increase in acidity may be due to conversion of some amount of sugar to acids (babskey and toribo, 1986). increase in titratable acidity was reported in stone apple rts (rayaguru, 2008), hot pepper paste (bozkurt and erkmen, 2004) and pistachio nut paste (gamli and hayoglu, 2007). moisture content increase in moisture content of the sauces was observed during storage. initially, moisture content of sauces in treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 corresponded to 65.14, 63.12, 64.11, 62.12 and 64.11%, respectively. towards the end of storage period, it corresponded to 65.17, 63.14, 64.12, 62.15 and 64.19%, respectively (table 4). however, this change was found to be non-significant. carbohydrate and protein content the amount of carbohydrates in the sauces in treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 showed non-significant increase from initial values of 7.63, 7.63, 7.63, 7.64 and 7.64 g/100 ml, to final values of 7.65, 7.64, 7.65 and 7.65 g/100 ml, respectively (table 5). protein content of the sauces in treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 was 9.01, 9.14, 9.24, 9.32 and 9.42 g/100 ml, and increased to 9.02, 9.15, 9.25, 9.33 and 9.47 g/100 ml, respectively. no significant variation in the amount of protein was observed during storage. reducing and total sugars content the amount of reducing sugars in all the sauces followed an increasing trend during storage (table 6). initial table 4. variation in titratable acidity and moisture content during storage of ginger-based sauces sauce titratable acidity (%) storage period (days) 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 t 1 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.14 0.13 0.12 0.13 0.13 0.12 t 2 0.25 0.25 0.24 0.25 0.24 0.26 0.26 0.26 0.26 0.26 t 3 0.49 0.54 0.55 0.55 0.53 0.55 0.53 0.52 0.52 0.52 t 4 0.23 0.21 0.24 0.24 0.21 0.23 0.25 0.24 0.22 0.22 t 5 0.49 0.53 0.57 0.50 0.53 0.54 0.54 0.54 0.54 0.54 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.01 storage period (p) = 0.01s × p = 0.03 moisture content (%) t 1 65.14 65.16 66.16 65.16 65.17 65.17 65.17 65.17 65.17 65.17 t 2 63.12 63.13 63.13 63.13 63.13 63.13 63.14 63.14 63.14 63.14 t 3 64.11 64.11 64.11 64.12 64.12 64.12 64.12 64.12 64.12 64.12 t 4 62.12 62.14 62.14 62.14 62.14 62.14 62.15 62.15 62.15 62.15 t 5 64.11 64.18 64.18 64.18 64.19 64.19 64.19 64.19 64.19 64.19 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.01 storage period (p) = 0.01s × p = 0.03 table 5. variation in carbohydrate and protein content during storage of ginger-based sauces sauce carbohydrate content (g /100 ml)* storage period (days) 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 t 1 7.63 7.62 7.63 7.63 7.64 7.64 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 t 2 7.62 7.62 7.63 7.63 7.63 7.63 7.63 7.64 7.64 7.64 t 3 7.63 7.63 7.63 7.64 7.64 7.64 7.64 7.64 7.64 7.64 t 4 7.64 7.64 7.64 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 t 5 7.64 7.64 7.64 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 7.65 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.02 storage period (p) = 0.02s × p = 0.04 protein content (g /100 ml)* t 1 9.01 9.02 9.02 9.02 9.02 9.02 9.02 9.02 9.02 9.02 t 2 9.14 9.13 9.13 9.14 9.14 9.14 9.15 9.15 9.15 9.15 t 3 9.24 9.24 9.24 9.24 9.25 9.25 9.25 9.25 9.25 9.25 t 4 9.32 9.32 9.33 9.33 9.33 9.33 9.33 9.33 9.33 9.33 t 5 9.42 9.41 9.42 9.43 9.45 9.47 9.47 9.47 9.47 9.47 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.01 storage period (p) = 0.02s × p = 0.2 *on fresh weight basis of sauce storage of ginger-based sauces j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):174-179, 2012 178 table 6. variation in reducing sugar content (g/100 ml) during storage of ginger-based sauces sauce storage period (days) 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 t 1 5.84 6.06 6.48 6.60 7.70 8.41 9.25 9.32 9.35 9.38 t 2 6.97 7.22 7.72 8.33 9.18 9.70 10.69 10.92 10.95 10.98 t 3 6.91 7.27 7.92 8.29 9.21 10.19 10.80 10.96 10.99 11.03 t 4 6.87 6.99 7.40 7.80 8.42 9.23 10.13 10.65 10.68 10.71 t 5 6.15 6.71 7.30 7.92 8.96 9.49 10.22 10.25 10.38 11.03 cd (pd”0.05) sauce (s) = 0.37 storage period (p) = 0.01s × p = 0.024 *on fresh weight basis of sauce table 7. variation in consistency and flow-behavior during storage of ginger-based sauces sauce consistency index storage period (days) 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 105 120 135 r2 se t 1 29.52 29.52 29.52 29.52 29.52 29.52 29.52 29.52 29.52 29.52 0.91 0.04 t 2 35.14 35.14 35.14 35.14 35.14 35.14 35.14 35.14 35.14 35.14 0.92 0.03 t 3 39.82 39.82 39.82 39.82 39.82 39.82 39.82 39.82 39.82 39.82 0.94 0.05 t 4 31.31 31.31 31.31 31.31 31.31 31.31 31.31 31.31 31.31 31.31 0.95 0.07 t 5 34.61 34.61 34.61 34.61 34.61 34.61 34.61 34.61 34.61 34.61 0.96 0.05 flow-behavior index t 1 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.57 0.91 0.04 t 2 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.46 0.92 0.03 t 3 1.61 1.61 1.61 1.61 1.61 1.61 1.61 1.61 1.61 1.61 0.94 0.05 t 4 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.95 0.07 t 5 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.66 0.96 0.05 n = 3; r2: regression co-efficient, se: standard error amount of reducing sugars in treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 corresponded to 5.84, 6.97, 6.91, 6.87 and 6.15 g/100 ml, and after 135 days of storage, it increased significantly to 9.38, 10.98, 11.03, 10.71 and 11.03 g/100 ml, respectively. in spite of the increasing trend in reducing sugars, the amount of total sugars during storage in treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 remained constant at 18.33, 22.41, 20.83, 19.81 and 20.15 g/100 ml, respectively (table 6). thus, storage period did not have significant influence on the amount of total sugars. the change in sugar content can be explained to be due to sucrose reduction (reducing sugar reduction) into stable glucose (yosuf et al, 1989). consistency and flow-behaviour index rheological properties evaluated for the sauces using brookfield rheometer indicated that the flow of ginger sauces was non-newtonian. therefore, herschell bulkley model was applied and consistency index (k) and flowbehaviour index (η) were derived. initially, sauces in treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5 had consistency index of 20.52, 35.14, 39.82, 31.31 and 34.61, and flow-behaviour index of 0.57, 0.46, 1.61, 0.61 and 0.66, respectively (table 7). values for both the properties remained constant even at storage for 135 days. ahmed et al (2007) reported that under steady shear deformation tests, shear stress – shear strain data could adequately be represented in herschell bulkley model up to a temperature of 30oc. total plate count in the treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 and t 5, there was no indication of bacterial or fungal growth, as the colonies were too few to count by the total plate count method. therefore, the processed sauces were free from contamination both due to external and internal factors. this was due to retention of optimum levels of tss and acidity initially (at the time of preparation) which prevented deteriorative reactions that influence the product (relekar et al, 2011). no bacterial or fungal growth during storage was reported by gokoglu et al (2009) for pomegranate sauce for eight months and by ahmed (2004) for storage of ginger paste. overall acceptability score sensory analysis showed that ginger sauce had the best flavour and taste, with overall acceptability score of 8.0; the next was ginger-pepper sauce with acceptability score of 7.1, followed by ginger-nutmeg sauce with a score of 6.4 (table 8). ginger-kokum and ginger-nutmeg-kokum sauces had a near-similar acceptability score of 5.3. jayashree et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):174-179, 2012 179 table 8. sensory score (hedonic scale*) for overall acceptability of ginger sauces sauce storage period (days) 0 30 60 90 120 135 t 1 8.5 8.5 8.4 8.3 8.1 8.0 t 2 7.5 7.5 7.4 7.4 7.3 7.3 t 3 6.6 6.5 6.5 6.4 6.4 6.2 t 4 6.0 5.5 5.5 5.4 5.3 5.3 t 5 5.5 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.3 5.1 cd (pd”5%) sauce (s) = 0.01 storage period (p) = 0.01s × p = 0.02 *hedonic scale score: 1 as dislike extremely; 5 as neither like nor dislike; 9 as like extremely to summarize the study on storage of five gingerbased sauces, ginger, ginger-black pepper, ginger-nutmeg, ginger-kokum and ginger-nutmeg-kokum for a period of 135 days, it was found that there was no significant variation in physical properties like total soluble solids content during storage, but colour value varied significantly. other parameters like ph, moisture content, protein content, total carbohydrates and total sugars did not show significant differences during storage. but, variations in titratable acidity and content of reducing sugars were significant. storage period did not affect total plate count, consistency index and flow-behaviour index of the sauces, which remained constant during the entire storage period. sensory score based on overall acceptability indicated that acceptability score was highest for ginger sauce, followed by ginger-black pepper and ginger-nutmeg sauces. references ahmed, j. 2004. rheological behavior and colour changes of ginger paste during storage. int’l. j. food sci. tech., 39:325-330 ahmed, j., shivhare, u.s. and singh, p. 2004. colour kinetics and rheology of coriander leaf puree and storage characteristics of the paste. food chem., 84:605611 ahmed, j., ramaswamy, h.s., and sashidhar, k.c. 2007. rheological characteristics of tamarind (tamarindus indica l.). lwt food sci. tech., 40:225-231 aoac, 2007. official methods of analysis. association of official analytical chemists (2nd edn.), washington dc asta, 1997. official analytical methods of the american spice trade association (4th edn.), new jersey babskey, n.e. and toribo, j.l. 1986. influence of storage on the composition of clarified apple juice concentrates. j. food sci., 5:564-565 balakrishnan, k.v. 2005. postharvest and industrial processing of ginger. in: ginger the genus zingiber, ravindran p.n. and babu k.n. (eds.). crc press, boca raton, fl, pp. 391434. bozkurt, h. and osman erkmen. 2004. effects of production techniques on the quality of hot pepper paste. j. food engg., 64:173-178 frazier, w.c. and westhoff, d.c. 2006. microbiology of foods. mcgraw-hill publication company limited, new delhi, pp. 212 gamli, f.o. and ibrahim, h. 2007. the effect of different packaging and storage conditions on the quality of pistachio nut paste. j. food engg., 78:443-448 gokoglu, n., osman, k.t. and pinar, y. 2009. effects of pomegranate sauce on quality of marinated anchovy during refrigerated storage. lwt food sci. tech., 42:113-118 premavalli, k.s. 2005. ginger as a spice and flavorant. in: ginger the genus zingiber. ravindran, p.n. and babu, k.n. (eds.). crc press, boca raton, fl, pp. 509–525. ranganna, s. 1991. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products (2nd edn.). tata mcgraw hill publishing company limited, new delhi rayaguru, k., md.k. khan and n. r. sahoo. 2008. effect of storage on quality of stone apple ready-to-serve beverage. j. agril. engg., 45:62-68 relekar, p.p., naik, a.g. and padhiar, b.v. 2011. qualitative changes in value-added products of sapota cv. kalipatti during storage. ind. j. hort., 68:413-418 sadasivam, s. and manickam, a. 2008. biochemical methods for agricultural sciences (6th edn.), new age international (p) limited, new delhi srivatsava, r.p. and kumar, s. 1994. fruit and vegetable preservationprinciples and practices. international book distributing co., lucknow, pp. 200207 vidhya, r. and anandhi, n. 2011. formulation and evaluation of preserved products utilizing underexploited fruit, wood apple (limonia acidissima). american-eurasian j. agri. & environ. sci., 10:112-118 yousuf, m.y., khan, l. and kamal, x. 1989. biochemical changes in sugarcane juice. j. food sci. tech., 26:214-213 (ms received 03 march 2012, revised 11 july 2012) storage of ginger-based sauces j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):174-179, 2012 introduction yield, being a polygenic character, is largely influenced by environmental fluctuations. thus, direct selection on the basis of phenotypic variability is rarely effective as the response to selection depends upon magnitude of the genetic variability, degree of habitability and, the trait. partitioning of correlation coefficient into direct and indirect effects can be useful in providing information leading to improved yield or other, related characters. therefore, the present studies were made to evaluate breeding material through variability/co-variability for isolation of superior genotype/s in tomato. material and methods the material comprising 35 genotypes of tomato, namely, sel 53, sel 52, sel 19, sel 6, sel 31, sel 33, sel 15, sel 11, sel 5, sel 49, sel 16, sel 18, sel 17, sel 34, sel 41,sel 39, sel 1, sel 7, sel 12, sel 36, sel 35, sel 46, sel 3, sel 27, sel 26, sel 4, sel 24, sel 25, sel 1-1, sel 47, sel28, sel 51, ‘punjab chhuhara’, ‘punjab kesri’ and ‘punjab upma’ sourced from punjab agriculture university, ludhiana, were grown in completely randomized block design, replicated five times, during 2002-03. the nursery was raised starting studies on genetic diversity in growth, yield and quality traits in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) rajiv saini, a.s. sidhu1, daljeet singh and ajay kumar2 department of vegetable crops punjab agricultural university ludhiana-141 004, india e-mail : rajivsaini22@rediffmail.com abstract evaluation of 35 genotypes of tomato for yield, quality and fruit characters under net-house revealed that pcv was higher than gcv for most traits. high heritability, with moderate to high gcv and genetic gain, was recorded for number of fruits per plant, yield per plant, fruit weight, number of fruit-clusters per plant, polar diameter and number of flower-clusters per plant indicating, that, these characters could be improved by simple selection. total yield per plant had positive and highly significant correlation with number of fruit-clusters per plant, number of flowerclusters per plant and fruit weight. number of locules per fruit showed positive and significant correlation with fruit weight and equatorial diameter but, significant negative correlation with polar diameter. maximum direct contribution to total yield per plant was made by number of fruits per plant, followed by number of locules per fruit. key words: tomato, heritability, pcv, gcv, growth, yield, quality traits 30th october 2002. seedlings were transplanted into a nethouse, on beds, in december 2002. distance between rows and plants was 135 cm and 45cm, respectively. ten plants were grown in each row, and 5 representative plants were selected at random from each cultivar/genotype for data recording on number of fruits per plant, number of fruits per cluster, yield per plant, fruit weight, number of fruitclusters per plant, number of flower-clusters per plant, pericarp thickness, number of locules per fruit, polar diameter and equatorial diameter. mean values of 35 genotypes in each replication were used for analysis of variance. genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were calculated using the formula of burton and de vane (1953). correlation coefficient at the phenotypic and genotypic levels was estimated for analysis of variance and co-variance for all characters, as suggested by al-jibouri et al (1958). path coefficient analysis was done by the method of dewey and lu (1959). results and discussion a wide range of variability was recorded for number of fruits per plant (10.0-62.8), yield per plant (0.34-1.56kg), fruit weight (22.4-66.4g), number of fruit clusters per plant (4.8-22.2) and number of flower clusters per plant (12.21indian institute of horticulture research, hessaraghatta, bangalore-560089, karnataka 2farm advisory service scheme, amritsar-143001, punjab j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):21-24, 2013 22 35.0). this was accompanied by higher values for genetic coefficient of variation (gcv) for number of fruits per plant, number of fruit-clusters per plant, number of flower-clusters per plant and number of locules per fruit. pericarp thickness and equatorial diameter showed a wide range of variability, but the corresponding values for gcv were lower. similarly, for the number of locules per plant and number of fruits per cluster, variability observed was not reflected in the gcv values (table 1). relatively low level of genetic variability was recorded for polar diameter, number of fruits per cluster and number of locules per fruit. almost similar results were reported by bhutani et al (1983), kumar and tewari (1999), mittal et al (1996), and, parthasarathy and aswath (2002). data further revealed higher values of heritability for number of fruits per plant (95.84%), yield per plant (99.97%) and polar diameter (95.65%). fruit weight, number of flowerclusters per plant and number of fruit-clusters per plant showed values of 90.87%, 90.02% and 85.32%, respectively. moreover, yield and yield components also recorded a fairly high degree of genetic advance. therefore, there exists a tremendous scope for isolation of superior genotypes to improve yield through simple selection. similarly, number of fruits per plant, yield per plant, fruit weight and number of fruit-clusters per plant were highly heritable, where, heritability values were 95.84, 99.97, 90.87 and 85.32%, respectively, with high to moderate level of genetic advance (80.32, 59.35, 55.25 and 63.08%, respectively) burton and de vane (1953) suggested that high gcv, along with high heritability and genetic advance, gave a better clue for selection of genotypes. polar diameter and equatorial diameter also registered higher heritability, but, the corresponding values for genetic advance were rather low. the present study is in agreement with reports by sidhu and singh (1989), pujari et al (1995) and phookan et al (1998). studies on correlation between characters (table 2) play an important role in deciding on the most efficient breeding procedures. stronger the association of a trait with yield, more is the chance of success in selection a programme. total yield per plant had a positive and highly significant correlation with number of fruit-clusters per plant (r=0.5459) and number of flower-clusters per plant (r=0.4952). total yield per plant also showed positive and significant correlation with fruit weight (r=0.2475). similar results were reported by dudi and kalloo (1982). fruit weight had positive and significant correlation with equatorial diameter (r=0.3607) and polar diameter (r=0.2749). number of locules per fruit also showed positive and significant correlation with fruit weight (r=0.2627) and equatorial diameter (r=0.5768), but a negative and significant correlation with polar diameter (r=-0.19). similar results were reported by mulge and arvindkumar (2002). fruit number showed highly positive and significant correlation with total yield (r=0.6046), number of flower-clusters per plant (r=0.8901), and number of fruit-clusters per plant (r=0.8829). genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients were both partitioned into direct and indirect effects with the aid of path analysis (table 3). partitioning the total genotypic association between total yield and other characters revealed that maximum direct contribution was made by fruit number. fruit number also showed positive and significant correlation with total yield per plant. locule number per fruit also made a direct contribution. positive indirect effect was recorded in the case of number of flowerclusters per plant (via fruit number), number of fruit-clusters per plant (via fruit number), number of fruits per cluster (via fruit number) and fruit weight via number of fruits per cluster. considering direct and indirect effects of the various characters, it may be concluded that fruit number, number of locules per fruit, number of flower-clusters per plant and table 1. range, mean, variability and genetic advance as % of mean for various characters character range mean variability (%) habitability expected genetic pcv gcv (%) advance (%) of mean number of fruits/plant 10.00 62.80 24.98 40.68 39.83 95.84 80.32 number of fruits/cluster 2.00 3.60 2.68 23.42 13.79 34.69 16.73 yield per plant (kg) 0.34 1.56 0.98 28.77 28.77 99.97 59.35 fruit weight (g) 22.40 66.40 42.37 29.53 28.14 90.87 55.25 number of fruit clusters/plant 4.80 22.20 10.75 35.89 32.15 85.32 63.08 pericarp thickness 0.36 0.66 0.54 20.06 12.60 39.41 16.29 number of locules/fruit 2.00 4.00 2.57 29.89 13.98 21.86 13.46 polar diameter (cm) 3.16 6.08 4.64 16.75 16.38 95.68 33.00 equatorial diameter (cm) 3.08 5.00 4.27 10.29 9.10 78.23 16.58 number of flower-clusters/plant 12.20 35.00 18.89 28.59 27.13 90.02 53.02 rajiv saini et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):21-24, 2013 23 fruit weight were characters that need to be emphasized upon in improving yield. however, simultaneous improvement in number of fruits/plant and average fruit weight seems far fetched. the same was reported by mohanty (2000). the present investigation was carried out to evaluate various tomato genotypes for genetic diversity. heritability, genetic advance, correlation coefficient and direct & indirect effects were estimated by path analysis. both phenotypic good genotypic coefficients of variation were high for table 2. phenotypic and genotypic correlation coefficient among various characters in tomato character no. of number yield/ fruit no. of no. of pericarp no. of polar fruits/ of fruits/ plant weight fruitflowerthickness locules/ diameter plant cluster (kg) (g) clusters/ clusters/ (cm) fruit (cm) plant plant no. of fruits/cluster (p) 0.2408* (g)0.3164 yield/plant (kg) (p)0.5948* 0.0234 (g)0.6046 0.0319 fruit weight (g) (p)-0.5639* -0.3296* 0.2319* (g)-0.5533 0.4286 0.2475 no. of fruit-clusters/plant (p)0.7967* -0.3299* 0.5041* -0.4102* (g)0.8829 -0.1285 0.5459 -0.4704 no. of flower-clusters/plant (p)0.8254* -0.2117* 0.4698* -0.4708* 0.9490* (g)0.8901 -0.0869 0.4952 -0.5240 0.9727 pericarp thickness (cm) (p)-0.0997 -0.1828** 0.0184 0.1264 -0.0234 0.0026 (g)-0.1742 -0.2925 0.0281 0.2070 -0.1484 -0.1238 no. of locules/ fruit (p)-0.1224 -0.0747 -0.0604 0.1186 -0.0916 -0.1540** -0.1621** (g)-0.2778 -0.1294 -0.1295 0.2627 -0.1893 -0.2581 -0.1394 polar diameter (cm) (p)-0.0749 0.0082 0.1348 0.2645* -0.1531** -0.1301 0.3222* -0.0773 (g)-0.0730 0.0247 0.1383 0.2749 -0.1746 -0.1405 0.5093 -0.1900 equatorial diameter (cm) (p)-0.2224* -0.2798* -0.0605 0.3185* -0.0954 -0.1378 0.2783* 0.2520* 0.2517* (g)-0.2514 -0.4256 -0.0677 0.3607 -0.1410 -0.1694 0.4281 0.5768 0.2000 r at 5% = 0.1487 * significant only at 5% r at 1% = 0.1938 ** significant both at 5% and 1% table 3. direct and indirect values of path coefficient for various characters in tomato character no. of no. of fruit no. of no. of pericarp no. of polar equatorial fruits/ fruits/ weight fruitflowerthickness locules/ diameter diameter plant cluster (g) clusters/ clusters/ (cm) fruit (cm) (cm) plant plant no. of fruits/ plant p=07265 0.1131 -0.4159 0.4230 -0.0920 0.0182 0.0353 0.0115 -0.2250 g=11.1640 -1.8183 0.5545 -6.0680 -3.3368 0.0633 -0.3056 -0.0246 0.3762 no. of fruits/ cluster 0.1750 0.4698 -0.2431 -0.1752 0.0236 0.0334 0.0216 0.0013 -0.2829 3.5318 -0.7476 0.4294 0.8831 0.3259 0.1062 -0.1423 0.0083 0.6368 fruit weight (g) -0.4097 -0.1549 0.7375 -0.2178 0.0525 -0.0231 -0.0343 -0.0405 0.3221 -6.1775 2.4632 -1.0021 3.2329 1.9643 -0.0752 0.2889 0.0928 -0.5398 no. of fruit clusters/plant 0.5788 -0.1550 -0.3026 0.5309 -0.1057 0.0043 0.0265 0.0235 -0.0965 9.8571 0.7385 0.4714 -6.8726 -3.6465 0.0539 -0.2082 -0.0589 0.2111 no. of flower clusters/plant 0.5997 -0.0995 -0.3472 0.5038 -0.1114 -0.0005 0.0445 0.0199 -0.31394 9.9370 0.7997 0.5250 -6.6848 -3.7489 0.0450 -0.2839 -0.0474 0.25535 pericarp thickness (cm) -0.0725 -0.0859 0.0932 -0.0124 -0.0003 -0.1826 0.0468 -0.0494 0.2815 -1.9443 1.6811 -0.2074 1.0200 0.4641 -0.3632 -0.1533 0.1718 -0.6407 number of locules/fruit -0.0889 -0.0351 0.0875 -0.0487 0.0172 0.0296 -0.2887 0.0188 0.2549 -3.1017 0.7437 -0.2632 1.3008 0.9677 0.0506 1.0999 -0.0641 -0.8631 polar diameter (cm) -0.0544 -0.0039 0.1951 -0.0813 0.0145 -0.0588 0.0223 -0.1533 0.2545 -0.8150 -0.1421 -0.2755 1.1999 0.5268 -0.1850 -0.2090 0.3374 -0.2992 equatorial diameter (cm) -0.1616 -0.1314 0.2349 -0.0506 0.0154 -0.0508 -0.0728 -0.0386 0.1951 -2.8068 2.4461 -0.3615 0.9693 0.6352 -0.1555 0.6344 0.0675 -1.4964 p explained variation = 0.762 p unexplained variation = 0.238 g explained variation = 0.707 g unexplained variation = 0.293 genetic diversity in growth, yield and quality in tomato j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):21-24, 2013 number of flower-clusters per plant, number of fruit-clusters per plant and yield per plant. total yield per plant had positive and highly significant correlation with number of fruitclusters per plant, number of flower-clusters per plant and fruit weight. maximum direct contribution to total yield per plant was made by number of fruits per plant, followed by number of locules per fruit. references al-jibouri, h.a., millar, p.a. and robinson, h.f. 1958. genotypic and environmental variance and covariance in an upland cotton cross of interspecific origin. agron j., 50:633-636 bhutani, r.d., kalloo, g. and pandita, m.l. 1983. genetic variability studies for yield and physicochemical traits of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). haryana. j. hortl. sci., 12:96-100 burton, g.w. and de vane, e.h. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea) for replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-481 dewey, d.r. and lu, h.h. 1959. correlation and path coefficient analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agron. j., 51:515-18 dudi, b.s. and kalloo, g. 1982. correlation and path analysis studies in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 11:22-26 kumar, t.p. and tewari, r.n. 1999. studies on genetic variability for processing characters in tomato. indian j. hort., 56:332-336 mittal, p., parkash, s. and singh, a.k. 1996. variability studies in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.) under sub-humid conditions of himachal pradesh. south indian hort., 44:132-134 mohanty, b.k. 2000. genetic variation, component association and direct and indirect selection in collections of tomato. prog. hort., 32:26-31 mulge, r. and aravindkumar, j.s. 2002. influence of environments on association of growth, earliness and quality parametes in tomato. international conference on vegetables, nov. 11-14, 2002, bangalore, ii-68-p. 78 parthasarathy, v.a. and aswath, c. 2002. genetic diversity among tomato genotypes. indian. j. hort., 59:16266 phookan, d.b, talukdar, p., shadeque, a. and chakravarty, b.k. 1998. genetic variability and heritability in tomato genotypes during summer season under plastic-house condition. indian j. agril. sci., 68:304306 pujari, c.v, wagh, r.s., and kale, p.n. 1995. genetic variability and heritability in tomato. j. maharashtra agril. univ., 20:15-17 sidhu, a.s. and singh, s. 1989. genetic variability and correlation for yield and quality characters in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum mill.). indian. j. agril. sci., 59:810-812 (ms received 14 march 2013, accepted 09 april 2013, revised 13 may 2013) j. hortl. sci. vol. 8(1):21-24, 2013 rajiv saini et al introduction coleus forskohlii briq. family lamiaceae, is the only naturally occurring species in coleus to have fasciculated tuberous roots and it is indigenous to the indian sub continent. it is a perennial, aromatic herb that grows wild on sun exposed arid and semiarid hill slopes of the himalayas, deccan plateau, eastern ghats, eastern plateau and rain shadow regions of the western ghats in india. the tuberous root extracts of c. forskohlii are good source of a diterpene, forskolin which is exclusive to this species (shah et al, 1980). forskolin is used for the treatment of eczema, asthma, psoriasis, cardiovascular disorders and hypertension where decreased intracellular camp level causes disease development (rupp et al, 1986). in ayurveda, the tuberous roots of coleus are used as drug for heart diseases, abdominal colic, respiratory disorder, insomnia and convulsions (ammon and muller, 1985). it also contains essential oil in tubers which has very attractive and delicate odour with spicy note (misra et al, 1994). it has potential uses in food flavouring industry and can be used as an antimicrobial agent (chowdhary and sharma, 1998). variation in coleus genotypes based on forskolin and essential oil content has been reported earlier (vishwakarma et al, 1988; hegde, 1992; nanaiah, 1993; prakash and krishnan, 1994). since chemical characters are dependent j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 143-147, 2009 analyzing variability in coleus forskohlii briq. using rapd markers c. kavitha, e. vadivel1, r. sivasamy2 and k. rajamani horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641 003 e mail: ckavi_2k@yahoo.com abstract coleus forskohlii briq. is an indigenous medicinal plant with high traditional use in india. genetic analysis of 37 diverse c. forskohlii genotypes was performed using 25 rapd primers, which yielded 117 bands, of which 60 (51.28%) were polymorphic providing an average of 3.75 bands per primer. there were no genotype-specific products. the number of bands per primer varied from 1 (opz 8 & 16) to 7 (opz 11). similarity matrix was constructed using jaccard’s coefficient and the data matrix of coefficient of similarity was subjected to cluster analysis using unweighted pair group methodology with arithmetic average (upgma). cluster analysis resulted in grouping of 37 genotypes into two major clusters. the results indicated that rapd could be used for genetic diversity analysis in c. forskohlii using higher number of primers as it is reliable, easy, rapid and cost-effective. key words: coleus forskohlii, genetic diversity, rapd 1directorate of extension education, tnau, coimbatore-641003 2department of biotechnology, bharathiyar university, coimbatore-641046 on environment, it is essential to characterize this medicinally important plant at genetic level. for any crop improvement programme, the assessment of genetic diversity and identification of superior genotypes are indispensable. earlier, only morphological markers were used to assess the genetic diversity and for the identification of superior genotypes. though they are important for initial genetic evaluation studies, morphological characters may change with environmental conditions. the diversity analysis of the 37 c. forskohlii genotypes by using morphological markers did not reveal any clear understanding (kavitha et al, 2007). hence, markers based on differences in dna sequences between individuals, generally detecting more polymorphisms than morphological markers are preferred (bostein et al, 1980 and tanksley et al, 1989). among the dna-based markers, randomly amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) provides excellent tool to study the genetic diversity and genetic relationship and to eliminate duplicates in germplasm (virk et al, 1995). rapd technique has been successfully used to genetically profile many different medicinal plant species. the present work was taken up to systematically characterize the c. forskohlii germplasm collection by rapd markers and this is probably the first attempt to estimate genetic diversity in c. forskohlii at molecular level. 144 material and methods plant material thirty seven genotypes collected from different coleus growing regions of tamil nadu and karnataka and maintained in the botanical garden of tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore were taken for the diversity analysis (table 1). dna isolation and pcr amplification dna was isolated from 40 mg of young leaf tissue following the protocol of wilkie (1997). mercaptoethanol (1%) and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (pvp) (2%) were added to the extraction buffer to remove the phenolics contaminants. to check the quality and quantity of the isolated genomic dna, gel electrophoresis was carried out on 0.8% agarose gel. dna concentration for pcr amplification was estimated by comparing the band intensity of a sample with the band intensities of known dilutions that gave good amplifications. the dilutions were carried out by dissolving the genomic dna in appropriate quantity of te buffer (ph 8.0). dna from the 37 genotypes of c. forskohlii was amplified in pcr using a set of 25 arbitrary oligonucleotide decamer primers (operon technologies, alameda, california, usa). 15 ìl reactions containing 10-20 ng of table 1. morphological description of coleus forskohlii genotypes for genetic diversity analysis genotype salient features cf 1 sub-erect growth, glabrous stem, pale green round small leaves, pale purple flowers, sparse roots cf 2 sub-erect growth, glabrous stem, dark green round large leaves, pale purple flowers, dense roots cf 3 sub-erect growth, medium pubescence, dark green leaves, violet flowers, sparse roots cf 4 sub-erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green leaves, violet flowers, sparse roots cf 5 sub-erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green large leaves, violet flowers, sparse roots cf 6 erect growth, dense pubescence, pale green small leaves, violet flowers, dense fibrous roots cf 7 sub-erect growth, sparse pubescence, dark green large leaves, violet flowers, dense fibrous roots cf 8 sub-erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green leaves, violet flowers, sparse roots cf 9 sub-erect growth, medium pubescence, pale green small leaves, violet flowers, dense fibrous roots cf 10 erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green large leaves, violet flowers, sparse fibrous roots cf 11 erect growth, medium pubescence, pale green large leaves, violet flowers, sparse fibrous roots cf 12 sub-erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green large leaves, violet flowers, sparse fibrous roots cf 13 erect growth, dense pubescence, pale green small leaves, violet flowers, dense fibrous roots cf 14 sub-erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green large leaves, violet flowers, sparse fibrous roots cf 15 sub-erect, medium pubescence, dark green small leaves, lilac flowers, small tubers cf 16 sub-erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green leaves, violet flowers, sparse fibrous roots cf 17 erect growth, medium pubescence, pale green small leaves, violet flowers, dense fibrous roots cf 18 erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green leaves, violet flowers, sparse fibrous roots cf 19 sub-erect growth, medium pubescence, variegated leaves, non flowering, small tubers cf 20 sub-erect growth, dense pubescence, pale green large leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 21 erect growth, dense pubescence, dark green small densely packed leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 22 erect, sparse pubescence, dark green small leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 23 very erect growth, medium pubescence, pale green small leaves, violet flower, dense fibrous roots cf 24 sub-erect growth, dense pubescence, dark green small densely packed leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 25 erect growth, medium pubescence, pale green small densely packed leaves, non flowering, tuberous cf 26 sub-erect growth, dense pubescence, dark green small leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 27 sub-erect, sparse pubescence, pale green large leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 28 erect growth, dense pubescence, pale green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 29 sub-erect growth, dense pubescence, pale green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 30 erect growth, sparse pubescence, pale green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 31 erect growth, dense pubescence, dark green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 32 sub-erect growth, dense pubescence, dark green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 33 erect, sparse pubescence, pale green large leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 34 sub-erect, medium pubescence, pale green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 35 sub-erect, dense pubescence, pale green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 36 sub-erect growth, medium pubescence, pale green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots cf 37 sub-erect growth, dense pubescence, pale green leaves, non flowering, tuberous roots j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 143-147, 2009 kavitha et al 145 genomic dna, 1.5 mm of assay buffer. 0.5 mm each of datp, dttp, dgtp and dctp, 1.5 ìm of primer, 0.25 mm mgcl 2 and 0.03 units of taq dna polymerase (bangalore genei pvt ltd, bangalore). amplifications were performed in ptc thermal cycler (mj research inc.,) programmed for an initial denaturation at 94º c for 5 min., 44 cycles of 1 min. denaturation at 94ºc, 1 min. annealing at 37º c and 2 min. extension at 72ºc and a final extension of 10 min. at 72ºc and then at 4ºc till storage. pcr amplified products (15ìl) were subjected to electrophoresis in a 1.2 % agarose gel in 1x tbe buffer at 100 volts for 3.5h using aplex submarine electrophoresis unit. the ethidium bromide stained gels were documented using alpha imager tm 1200 – documentation and analysis system (alpha innotech corportion, usa). data analysis rapd bands were scored by considering only the clear and unambiguous bands. markers were scored for the presence and absence of the corresponding band among the different genotypes. the scores ‘1’ and ‘0’ were given for the presence and absence of bands, respectively. polymorphism information content (pic) or expected heterozygosity scores for each rapd marker were calculated based on the formula hn = 1“pi2, where pi is the allele frequency for the ith allele (nei, 1973). the data obtained for rapd profiling was subjected to cluster analysis. similarity matrix was constructed using jaccard’s coefficient for rapd profiling and the similarity values were used for cluster analysis. sequential agglomerative hierarchical non – overlapping (sahn) clustering was done using unweighted pair group methodology with arithmetic averages (upgma) and data analysis was done using ntsyspc version 2.02 (rohlf, 1994). results and discussion in the present study, c. forskohlii germplasm collection was assessed for diversity at dna level, to define its core diversity and identify individual genotypes. as the first step, the rapd analysis was carried out using a set of 25 decamer random primers for dna amplifications through pcr. this profiling showed only 16 out of the 25 primers yielding unambiguous markers detectable as distinct bands. in the subsequent analysis, all the 16 primers produced polymorphic bands, a total of 117 distinct bands from 37 dna templates of different genotypes, among which 60 (51.28%) bands were polymorphic (table 2, fig 1 and 2). the range of polymorphic bands in c. forskohlii genotypes was 1-7. the average number of bands per primer was 3.75. there was no genotype specific product. rapd data from the 16 primers was used for cluster analysis. the pic values ranged between 0.06 and 0.42 (table 2). the mean pic score for all loci was 0.24. the mean pic score was greater than 0.24 for 50% of the rapd primers. the pic value provides an estimate of the discriminatory power of a marker by taking into account not only the number of alleles at a locus but also the relative frequencies of these alleles. cluster analysis was performed on jaccard’s similarity coefficient matrices calculated from rapd markers to generate a dendrogram of 37 genotypes of c. table 2. primers used for rapd analysis and outcome from pcr amplification s.no. primer name primer sequence polymorphic bands total number of bands % polymorphism pic 1 opz 01 5’-tctgtgccac-3’ 4 10 40.00 0.38 2 opz 02 5’-cctacgggga-3’ 2 6 33.33 0.16 3 opz 03 5’-cagcaccgca-3’ 6 8 75.00 0.24 4 opz 04 5’-aggctgtgct-3’ 3 8 37.50 0.14 5 opz 05 5’-tcccatgctg-3’ 4 5 80.00 0.25 6 opz 06 5’-gtgccgttca-3’ 2 7 28.57 0.41 7 opz 07 5’-ccaggaggac-3’ 4 11 36.36 0.28 8 opz 08 5’-gggtgggtaa-3’ 1 5 20.00 0.06 9 opz 09 5’-caccccagtc-3’ 4 7 57.14 0.42 10 opz 10 5’-ccgacaaacc-3’ 3 6 50.00 0.17 11 opz 11 5’-ctcagtcgca-3’ 7 12 58.33 0.29 12 opz 12 5’-tcaacgggac-3’ 5 8 62.50 0.33 13 opz 13 5’-gactaagccc-3’ 7 9 77.77 0.18 14 opz 15 5’-cagggctttc-3’ 2 5 40.00 0.07 15 opz 16 5’-tccccatcac-3’ 1 4 25.00 0.10 16 opaw03 5’-ccatgcggag-3’ 5 6 83.33 0.37 mean 60 117 51.28 0.24 analyzing variability in coleus using rapd markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 143-147, 2009 146 forskohlii (fig. 3). all the genotypes could be placed in the range of 0.07 to 0.97 of similarity indices. the dendrogram, based on the similarity index, is indicative of considerable level of polymorphism among the genotypes at dna level. the dendrogram obtained through cluster analysis revealed two major clusters. the dendrogram clearly depicted the variability present in the c. forskohlii germplasm and it separated 37 genotypes into two major clusters. the first cluster consisted of two genotypes cf 1 and cf 2 which were distinctly different from the rest of genotypes by possessing round shaped leaves and being non tuberous in nature. the second cluster enclosed the remaining 35 genotypes and was again grouped into two sub clusters. the sub cluster i consisted of tuberous and non tuberous genotypes whereas the sub cluster ii consisted of only tuberous genotypes. the genotypes in these sub clusters were also again divided into sub sub clusters and there was not a clear discrimination between the genotypes. the reason might be the gene responsible for the tuber bearing habit might not have been amplified with the primers used for the study. moreover, higher percentage of similarity of almost 50 per cent among the genotypes could be attributed to the lot of missing data points fig 1. a section of rapd profile of c. forskohlii genotypes for primer opz 11 fig 2. a section of rapd profile of c. forskohlii genotypes for primer opz 13 fig 3. dendrogram of 37 coleus forskohlii genotypes based on 60 rapd markers constructed using upgma based on jaccard’s coefficient j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 143-147, 2009 kavitha et al 147 as the number of primers and amplified products analysed were relatively less. similar report in andrographis paniculata was also reported (padmesh et al, 1999). pejie et al (1998) reported that 150 polymorphic bands make possibly a reliable estimate of genetic similarities among genotypes within the same species. in the present study, a total of 60 distinct bands were produced by the 16 primers out of 25 primers used. hence, it is suggested that further genetic diversity analysis in c. forskohlii with more number of primers for rapd or the advanced marker system producing a large number of informative polymorphic markers per primer pair that are highly reliable and reproducible (mueller and wolfenbarger, 1999 ; mullis et al, 1986) has to be attempted. although the data presented here are not conclusive to infer the phenetic relationship between the various genotypes, they reflect the utility of rapd in the analysis of genetic variability distribution within this important indigenous medicinal plant. this is probably the first report which deals with the analysis of genetic diversity at the molecular level in c. forskohlii. references ammon, h.p.t. and muller, a.b. 1985. forskolin: from an ayurvedic remedy to a modern agent. planta medica, 46: 473-477 bostein, d., white, r. m., skolnick and davis, r.w. 1980. construction of a genetic linkage map in man using restriction fragment length polymorphisms. amer. j. hum. genet., 32: 314 -331 chowdhary, a.r. and sharma, m.l. 1998. gc-ms investigations on the essential oil from coleus forskohlii briq. indian perfumer, 42 : 15-16 hegde, l.n. 1992. studies on germplasm evaluation, induced autotetraploidy and hybridization in coleus forskohlii (willd.) briq. (syn. c. barbatus benth.). ph.d. thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore kavitha, c., vadivel, e., rajamani, k. and thangamani, c. 2007. analysis of variability for qualitative and quantitative traits in coleus forskohlii briq. j. hort. sci., 2: 44-46 misra, l.n., tyagi, b.r., ahmad, a. and bahl, j.r. 1994. variablity in the chemical composition of the essential oil of coleus forskohlii genotypes. j. essent. oil res., 6: 243-247 mueller, u.g. and wolfenbarger, l.1999. aflp genotyping and fingerprinting. trends ecol. evol., 14: 389-394 nanaiah, k.m. 1993. studies on hybridization, chromosomal doubling, grafting and leaf anatomy in coleus forskohlii briq. ph.d., thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore nei, m. 1973. analysis of gene diversity in subdivided populations. proc. natl. acad. sci., usa. 70: 33213323 padmesh, sabu, p.k.k., seeni, s. and pushpangadan, p. 1999. the use of rapd in assessing genetic variability in andrographis paniculata nees., a hepatoprotective drug. curr. sci., 76:833-835 pejie, i., ajmone-marsan, p., morgante, m., kozumplick, v., castiglioni, p., taramino, g. and motto, m.1998. comparitive analysis of genetic similarity among maize inbred lines detected by rflps, rapds, ssrs and aflps. theor. appl. genet., 97: 1248-1255 prakash and krishnan, r. 1994. comparative performance of accessions and intervarietal hybrids in coleus forskohlii briq. j. root crops, 20: 70-73 rohlf, f.j. 1994. ntsys-pc: numerical taxonomy and multivariate analysis system. version 2.2. state university of new york, stony brook, new york rupp, r.h., de souza, n.j. and dohadwalla, a. n. 1986. proceedings of the international symposium on forskolin: its chemical, biological and medical potential. hoechst india limited, bombay. pp. 19-30 shah, v., bhat, s.v., bajwa, b.s., dornaeur, h.and de souza, n.j. 1980. the occurrence of forskolin in labiatae. planta medica, 39: 183-185 tanksley, s.d., young, n.d., paterson, a.h. and bonierbale, m.w. 1989. rflp mapping in plant breeding: new tools for an old science. bio -tech., 7: 257-264 virk, p.s., brian, v.f.l., jackson, m.t. and newbury, j.1995. use of rapd for the study of diversity within plant germplasm collections. heredity, 74: 170-179 vishwakarma, r.a., tyagi, b.r., ahmed, b. and hussain, a.1988. variation in forskolin content in the roots of coleus forskohlii. planta medica, 54: 471-472 wilkie, s. 1997. genomic dna isolation, southern blotting and hybridization. in: plant molecular biologya laboratory manual. (clark, m.s. ed.) springerverlag, new york.pp. 3-53 (ms received 20 december 2008, revised 2 july, 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 143-147, 2009 analyzing variability in coleus using rapd markers final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 118-123, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) is a popular and second important cucurbit grown throughout tropical and sub-tropical region. due to the rising demand for salad cucumber in off-season, protected cultivation can be followed to increase the yield and quality (singh et al., 2012). parthenocarpy along with gynoecious sex expression is an asset for protected cultivation of cucumber. cultivation of parthenocarpic hybrids is gaining attention of the growers as it is a reliable and profita ble ventur e. t he ma jor fa ctors limiting cucumber cultiva tion a r e soil-bor ne r oot knot nematodes and soil salinity. to overcome the problems in cucumber cultivation, an eco-friendly technique exploited is vegeta ble gr a fting with r esista nt rootstocks. grafting was confined to woody perennials but now vegetable grafting has gained importance to combat biotic and abiotic stress. though cultivated area of gr a fted cucubita ceous pla nts ha s incr ea sed tremendously in foreign countries, but the commercial use of vegetable gra fting is a relatively recent innovation in india and scientific information is meagre. sakata et al. (2008) showed that cucumber could be grafted onto different wild and cultivated rootstocks, including cucurbita interspecific hybrids, cucumis spp., bottle gourd, wax gourd, fig-leaf gourd, african horned cucumber, sponge gourd and ridge gourd. however, survival, growth and yield of grafted plants depend on stock-scion compatibility, grafting method and post-grafting management. due to change in root system, the physiology and metabolic process of plants are affected in grafted plants. the studies on use of parthenocarpic variety as scion in grafting is limited. grafting can also increase yield since grafted plants are resistant to soil borne diseases, have strong root systems and increased photosynthesis (davis et al., 2008). cucumber adapts well to grafting and has few compatibility problems with the usual rootstocks performance of parthenocarpic and non-parthenocarpic grafts of cucumber gowda p.p.1*, rafeekher m.2 and sarada s.1 1department of vegetable science, college of agriculture, vellayani 2department of fruit science, college of agriculture, vellayani, kau, thiruvananthapuram, kerala, india. *corresponding author e-mail : pooja.praju94@gmail.com abstract effect of rootstock on yield and quality of cucumber scion was studied at department of vegetable science, college of agriculture, vellayani, thiruvananthapuram, kerala during february-may, 2021. parthenocarpic and non-parthenocarpic cucumber scions were grafted onto five different cultivated cucurbit species i.e. pumpkin, bottle gourd, oriental pickling melon, culinary melon and ash gourd. significant variations were observed for all the traits under this study. the highest vine length (4.37 m) was observed in heera scion grafted onto lagenaria siceraria rootstock followed by heera scion grafted onto cucurbita moschata rootstock (4.13 m). the diameter of rootstock hypocotyl was higher in case of kpch-1 grafted onto bottle gourd (1.48 mm) and heera grafted onto bottle gourd (1.43 mm). kpch-1 grafted on bottle gourd (29.33 days) and culinary melon (31 days) rootstocks showed early female flower initiation. the greater number of fruits was observed in graft combination of kpch1 and bottle gourd (32) followed by parthenocarpic grafts with pumpkin (30.33) and ash gourd (30.33) rootstocks. a greater fruit weight was observed in graft combination of heera and bottle gourd (7.51 kg) followed by heera grafted onto pumpkin (7.38 kg). results of this experiment suggest that these graft combinations can be employed in sustainable vegetable cultivation. keywords: cucumber, grafts, non-parthenocarpic, parthenocarpic, rootstock and scion 119 performance of parthenocarpic and non-parthenocarpic grafts of cucumber j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 118-123, 2022 (echebarria, 2001). edelstein et al. (2004) observed that number of leaves, stem length, and fresh weight of melon plants increased when grafted onto other cucurbitaceous rootstocks. chao and yen (2013) observed that cucumber gra fted onto cucumis rootstock showed good rootstock scion combination, better tolerance to soil-borne diseases, better growth, yield and quality. hang et al. (2005) observed that when scion and rootstock have hollow hypocotyls as in cucurbits, the hole insertion and one cotyledon grafting methods are preferred. materials and methods the experiment was conducted in rain shelter during february-may, 2021 at department of vegetable science, college of agriculture, vellayani, kerala. the experimental site was located at 8.5o30’ north latitude and 76.9o54’ east longitude at an altitude of 29 m above mean sea level. predominant soil type of the experimental site was red loam of vellayani series, texturally classified as sandy clay loam. in this experiment, two different scions were used: a pa r thenoca r pic hybr id kpch-1 a nd a nonparthenocarpic variety, heera. five rootstocks were used, namely, pumpkin (cucurbita moschata) var. ambili, bottle gourd (lagenaria siceraria) var. arka bahar, ash gourd (benincasa hispida) var. kau local, culinary melon (cucumis melo var. acidulus) var. mudicode local and oriental pickling melon (cucumis melo var. conomon) var. vishal. considering the early germination of cucumber (scion) compared to rootstocks, rootstocks were sown four days earlier than scions. depending on the result of standardization, ten days old scion was grafted onto fourteen days old rootstocks. alar and cycocel 20 ppm each were used to control height of rootstocks. based on the stem grith of rootstocks and scion, grafting methods were employed. for culinary melon, oriental pickling and ash gourd where the stem size were similar to scion, one cotyledon grafting was used. in case of pumpkin and bottle gourd whose stem girth is higher than that of cucumber, hole insertion method was employed. the protrays were shifted to graft healing chamber (e”85 % humidity) immediately after grafting. graft union formation was noticed within seven days and thereafter the grafts were shifted to 75 % shaded net house. the grafted plants were planted in the main field (rain shelter) after twelve days of grafting. the experiments were laid in a randomized complete block design with three replications of ten plants each at a spacing of 1.5 m × 0.5 m on raised beds. standard cultural practices were followed to raise a healthy crop under protected condition. diameter of rootstock hypocotyls was recorded using vernier calliper. the vine length of each graft was measured using a scale after final harvest. for determining earliness, the node number and days at which the first pistillate flower appeared was recorded for each plant. the number of fruits per plant and yield per plant was recorded as an average of all ten plants in each replication. for quality assessment, five random fruits were selected from each replication. fruit length and diameter were measured. the total soluble solids (tss) content was measured using a handheld refractometer (erma, japan). the data obtained in evaluation trial was analyzed using wasp (web agriculture statistical package) 2.0 software through anova techniques. results and discussion the present study revealed that the vegetative and yield parameters of the grafted plants were significantly affected by scion-rootstock combinations (table 1 and 2). significant difference was observed in vine length with respect to rootstocks and scions used in this study. among the ten graft combinations, the highest vine length (4.37 m) was observed in heera scion grafted onto bottle gourd rootstock followed by heera scion grafted onto pumpkin rootstock (4.13 m). generally, vigorous rootstocks increase the vine length of scions. however, the root and shoot vigour imparted by these rootstocks did not reflect in higher yield. this is confirmed by a lack of correlation between yield and root parameters. similar differences in vine length were also obtained by mohamed et al. (2012) who stated that grafted watermelon plants were more vigorous than self-rooted ones and had a larger central stem diameter and recorded 32 per cent higher main vine length than that of non-grafted counterpart. selvi and pugalendhi (2018) also observed the increase in vine length through grafting in bitter gourd. improved plant growth of grafts is measured by phenomena of stronger and more extensive root growth, increased water and plant nutrient uptake as well as endogenous hormone production (islam et al., 2013). 120 gowda et al the diameter of rootstock hypocotyl reflects the vigor of the grafts. the diameter of rootstock hypocotyl was higher in case of kpch-1 grafted onto bottle gourd (1.48 mm) and heera grafted onto bottle gourd (1.43 mm). growth and development of grafted plants was better than that of non-grafted plants throughout the growing period. high vigor was noticed in grafts with high diameter of rootstock hypocotyl. similar results were observed by aishwarya (2019). earliness coupled with high yield is an important trait for commercial cultivation of vegetable crops. a significant influence of the rootstocks was observed on earliness in terms of the appearance of pistillate flower at the lower nodes and also number of days to female flower initiation. early flowering was observed in grafts than the control. kpch-1 grafted on bottle gourd (29.33 days) and culinary melon (31 days) rootstocks showed early female flower initiation whereas, heera grafted onto pumpkin took greater number of days (48.33 days). these results are similar to pal et al. (2020) and bigdelo et al. (2017). however, a reverse trend of delayed flowering in grafted plants was observed by hamed et al. (2012) and selvi and pugalendhi (2018). in cucurbits, node at which first female flower appears is also considered as important trait to measure earliness. the number of nodes of female flower initiation was lower for the graft of kpch-1 on bottle gourd (3.33) and oriental pickling melon (3.67) than the non-grafted control (4th node). parthenocarpic gynoecious hybrid bears only fema le flowers and in case of heer a, the graft combinations of heera on ash gourd (8) and culinary melon (8.33) showed female flowers at lower nodes (table 1). significant difference was observed for traits like number of fruits per vine, fruit yield, average fruit weight and days to first fruit harvest. number of fruits were higher in case of parthenocarpic grafts than the non-parthenocarpic graft combinations. the greater number of fruits was observed in graft combination of kpch-1 and bottle gourd (32.00) followed by parthenocarpic grafts with pumpkin (30.33) and ash gourd (30.33) rootstocks. in non-parthenocarpic graft combination, the grafts with oriental pickling melon (27.67) followed by ash gourd (26.33) and bottle gourd (26.00) produced a greater number of fruits than the control (25.67). these graft combinations produced 5 to 10 per cent higher fruits per plant. in cucumber, table 1. vegetative and flowering parameters of grafts graft diameter of vine days to node of rootstock length 1st female 1st female combinations hypocotyl (cm) (m) flower flower kpch-1 on culinary melon 1.20 1.77 31.00 4.00 heera on culinary melon 1.21 4.00 47.30 8.33 kpch-1 on oriental pickling melon 1.24 1.91 32.00 3.67 heera on oriental pickling melon 1.23 2.30 47.00 11.00 kpch-1 on pumpkin 1.36 2.53 31.67 4.67 heera on pumpkin 1.37 4.13 48.33 9.00 kpch-1 on ash gourd 1.34 2.63 31.67 4.67 heera on ash gourd 1.26 2.27 45.33 8.00 kpch-1 on bottle gourd 1.48 2.46 29.33 3.30 heera on bottle gourd 1.43 4.37 44.33 9.00 kpch-1 0.90 2.73 33.67 4.00 heera 0.97 3.60 46.00 10.00 cd (0.05) 0.10 0.34 3.17 1.50 sem 0.05 0.25 2.27 0.81 sd 0.17 0.89 7.86 2.82 cv 4.94 7.10 4.84 13.34 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 118-123, 2022 121 performance of parthenocarpic and non-parthenocarpic grafts of cucumber graft fruits per fruit yield days to first fruit tss combinations vine (kg) harvest (ob) kpch-1 on culinary melon 28.00 3.48 41.00 2.20 heera on culinary melon 25.00 3.89 57.00 3.60 kpch-1 on oriental pickling melon 25.67 3.06 40.67 2.07 heera on oriental pickling melon 27.67 5.20 56.67 2.20 kpch-1 on pumpkin 30.33 4.09 41.33 2.27 heera on pumpkin 24.67 7.38 57.67 2.97 kpch-1 on ash gourd 30.33 5.09 41.00 2.17 heera on ash gourd 26.33 6.33 54.67 1.97 kpch-1 on bottle gourd 32.00 5.25 40.00 2.03 heera on bottle gourd 26.00 7.51 54.00 2.27 kpch-1 29.00 4.82 43.00 2.07 heera 25.67 7.14 55.67 2.00 cd (0.05) 3.63 0.89 2.66 0.63 sem 0.69 0.44 2.25 0.13 sd 2.40 1.52 7.80 0.48 cv 7.78 10.06 3.24 16.12 table 2. fruit yield parameters of cucumber grafts ‘shelper’ rootstock provided increase in the number of marketable fruits and 35.5 and 39.5 % increase in yield, compared to non-grafted plants (kohatsu et al., 2013). a gr ea ter fr uit weight wa s obser ved in gr a ft combination of heera and bottle gourd (7.51 kg) followed by heera grafted onto pumpkin (7.38 kg). however, in case of kpch-1, higher fruit yield was observed in the graft combination of bottle gourd (5.25 kg), followed by ash gourd (table 2). fruit yield depends on number of fruits and average fruit weight. in the present study, fruit yield was directly proportional to the average fruit weight. higher number of fruits was noticed in parthenocarpic grafts whereas higher fruit yield was observed in non-parthenocarpic grafts, which is due to high average fruit weight of non-parthenocarpic grafts (fig.1). ea r ly fr uit ha r vesting wa s noticed in ca se of parthenocarpic graft combinations with bottle gourd (40 days) followed by ash gourd (41 days) and culinary melon (41 days) than the control (43 days). the graft combination of heera with bottle gourd fig. 1. graphical representation of average fruit yield per vine cm culinary melon, opm oriental pickling melon, bg bottle gourd (54 days) and ash gourd (54.67 days) rootstock showed early fruit harvesting than that of nonparthenocarpic control (table 2). earliness of any vegetable crop is directly measured through days to first harvest which could fetch premium price and catch the early market. days to first harvest had the positive direct effect with days to female flower initia tion a nd node of pistilla te flower appearance. five to ten per cent increase in yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 118-123, 2022 122 was observed in grafted plants than the non-grafted control. fruit tss was observed to be higher with non-parthenocarpic scion combined with culinary melon rootstock (3.6 ob) and pumpkin (2.96 ob) against the control (2.0 ob). parthenocarpic nongrafted cucumber has total soluble solids of 2.06 ob which wa s lower tha n t ha t of gr a fts with rootstock pumpkin (2.26 ob) and culinary melon (2.20 ob). quality parameters are not affected by rootstock-scion combination as previously reported by selvi and pugalendhi (2018) in bitter gourd. conclusion it can be concluded that grafted plants performed better tha n non-gr a f ted contr ol in cuc umber. gr a fting ca n be commer cia liz ed in pr otec ted cultivation of cucumber for parthenocarpic and non-parthenocarpic cultivars. according to this study, both scions, kpch-1 and heera performed better with the bottle gourd rootstock for almost all vegetative and yield attributing traits. therefore, this graft combination can be used in sustainable horticulture with higher yield. further, grafting can be utilized to combat biotic and abiotic stress in cucurbitaceous vegetables. acknowledgement this research was a part of doctoral programme of fir st a uthor and financial support from ker ala agricultural university. the study was supported b y i carj rf / sr f 2 0 18 -2 1 . f ir s t a ut hor is recipient of icar-jrf/srf fellowship. references aishwarya, d. v. 2019. standardization of grafting in b it t er gou r d. m . s c . t hes i s , k er a la agricultural university, thrissur. bigdelo, m., hassandokht, m. r., rouphael, y., colla, g., soltani, f. and salehi, r. 2017. e va lu a t i on of b it t er a p p le ( c i t r u l l u s c ol o c yn t h is ( l. ) s cha r a d) a s pot entia l rootstock for watermelon. australian j. crop sci. 6: 727–732. chao, h. and yen, y. 2013. effect of cucumis and cucurbita rootstocks on vegetative traits, yield and quality in ‘tainan no. 1’ cucumber. j. hortic. sci. 8(1): 51-54. gowda et al davis, a. r., veazie, p. p., sakata, y., galarza, s. l., mavoto, j. v., lee, s. g., huh,y.c., sun, z., miguel, a., king, s. r., cohen, r. and lee, j. m. 2008. cucurbit grafting. crit. rev. plant sci., 27: 50-78. echeba rr ia, p. h. 2001. influence of yield on different rootstocks on yield and quality of greenhouse grown cucumber. acta hortic. 559: 139-144. edelstein, m., burger, y., horev, c., porat, a., meir, a. and cohen, r. 2004. assessing the effect of genetic and anatomic variation of cucurbita rootstocks on vigour, survival and yield of grafted melons. j. hortic. sci. biotechnol. 79: 370–374. hamed, h. k., ebr ahim, z. , gholam, s. and g hola ma b b a s , s . 2 0 1 2 . e va l u a t ion of different rootstocks and grafting techniques on graft union per c ent , yield a nd yield c omponent s of water melon cv. ‘crimson sweet’. world appl. sci. j. 18(5): 645-651. hang, s. d., zhao, y. p., wang, g. y. and song, g. y. 2 0 05 . veg et a bl e g ra f ti ng . c hi n a agriculture press, beijing, china. islam, s. m., bashar, h. m. k., howlader, m. i. a., sar ker, j. u. a nd al-ma mun, m. h. 2013. effect of gr a fting on wa ter melon growth and yield. khon kean j. 41: 284-289. kohatsu, d. s., zucareli, v., brambilla, w. p., elizabeth, o., silva, t. r. b. and rodr igu es, j. d. 20 13 . p er oxida s e a nd polyphenol oxidase activity on the yield of gr a fted a nd ungr a fted cucumb er pla nts. african j. of agric. res. 8(3): 279-283. mohamed, f. h., el-hamed, k. e. a., elwan, m. w. m. and hussien, m. a. n. e. 2012. impact of grafting on watermelon growth, fr uit yield and qua lity. veg. crops res. bulletin, 76: 99-118. pa l, s. , rao, e. s. , hebbar, s.s., sr ir am, s., pitchaimuthua, m. and ra o, v. k. 2020. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 118-123, 2022 123 performance of parthenocarpic and non-parthenocarpic grafts of cucumber j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 118-123, 2022 as ses s ment of f us a r ium wilt r es is ta nt citrullus sp. rootstocks for yield and quality t r a it s o f gr a f t ed wa t er melon. s c i e n t i a horticulturae, 272: 109497. sakata. y., ohara, t. and sugiyama, m. 2008. the history of melon and cucumber grafting in japan. acta hortic. 767: 217228. selvi, n. a. t. and pugalendhi, l. 2018. role of cucur bita ceous r ootstocks on vegeta tive growth, fruit yield and quality of bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) scions through grafting. the j. anim. plant sci. 28(3), http:/ /www.thejaps.org.pk/docs/accepted/2018/283/09.pdf singh, a. k., singh, b., sindhu, s. s., singh, j. p. and savir, n. 2012. study of protected v/s open field conditions on insect pest incidence to minimize insecticide application for quality production of high value horticultural crops. indian. j. plantprot. 5(1): 75-80. (received: 18.10.2021; revised: 18.02.2022; accepted: 19.02.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction sapota (manilkara zapota (royen) commonly known as “chikku”, is one of the delicious tropical fruits. it was introduced into india in the 1800’s from mexico via sri lanka. this climacteric fruit is well-adapted to the tropical parts of country. it is a hardy tree that can be cultivated in saline soils too. sapota is cultivated mainly in the southern states of india, with maximum area under it in karnataka. apart from its use as fresh fruit, various processed products like pulp powder, fig, juice, flakes, etc., are becoming popular. therefore demand for the fruits has increased in recent years. two main types of sapota are found, based on fruit shape, viz., ‘round’ and ‘oval’. but, like in the other tree crops, due to occurrence of heterozygocity, there are several intermediates types. studies on fruit variability was reported by dinesh and reddy (2000) avaiyo and singh (1991) ponnuswamy and irulappan (1987 and 1989). saraswathy et al (2010) observed that number of fruits per tree and canopy-spread had positive correlation with fruit-yield per tree. quality traits like total sugars and ascorbic acid content had negative correlation with fruit-yield. in the present study, an effort has been made to categorize the available variability into groups based on fruit characters, analyze the variability and study correlations among various fruit characteristics, which would be useful in further breeding programmes. genetic correlation and cluster analysis in sapota (manilkara zapota) a. rekha, m.r. dinesh, r. venugopalan1 and b.n.s. murthy division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089, india e-mail : arekha@iihr.ernet.in abstract sapota is classified into two main types based on fruit shape as ‘round’ and ‘oval’. however, there are several intermediates, as, it is a heterozygous tree crop. in this study, an effort was made to group available variability in sapota based on fruit characters and to analyze it. this helps in selection of parents for use in further breeding programmes. cluster analysis revealed four definite clusters. high variability was observed for fresh-fruit weight, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight at ripening, pulp weight, peel weight, number of seeds and tss. correlation studies among fruit parameters indicated positive relationship between all the parameters studied, except tss which had negative relationship with the rest of the fruit parameters. selection of distantly placed cultivars in breeding programs stands to result in better progeny for further evaluation. key words: sapota, fruit parameters, variability, correlation, clusters material and methods germplasm collected from various sources in karnataka, andhra pradesh, tamil nadu and gujarat was maintained in a field gene bank, with four trees per accession, at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. twenty accessions were selected for the study, which included an important commercial cultivar, cricket ball. five mature fruits from each accession were selected after pooling the fruits from all four trees and observations were recorded in five replications, i.e., fruits were harvested five times as and when fruits matured. observations were recorded on 25 fruits per accession on morphological characters like fresh-fruit weight, fruit length, fruit breadth (at the broadest region), ripe-fruit weight, pulp weight (after scraping the pulp from peel), peel weight, number of seeds per fruit, tss (obrix), seed length and seed breadth. some morphological parameters like leaf length and leaf breadth were also included in cluster analysis, as, variations in leafsize were observed. for this purpose, five fully-mature leaves from each accession were selected. the means of all 12 characters were subjected to squared eucledien cluster analysis and a dendrogram was derived using ward’s method (1963). variability studies were made using fruit characteristics in 17 accessions of sapota. observations on fresh-fruit weight, fruit length, fruit breadth, ripe-fruit 1 section of economics and statistics j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):101-104, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 102 weight, pulp weight, peel weight, number of seeds per fruit and tss (obrix) were recorded and subjected to analysis of variation (anova). phenotypic correlation was calculated. results and discussion fruit variability studies on fruit parameters involving 17 accessions showed that fresh-fruit weight at harvest ranged from 54.48g to 143.95g, with maximum in the variety co-1 and minimum in ‘jhumakiya’. maximum fruit length of 7.23cm was observed in ‘co-1’, and minimum (4.46cm) in ‘jhumakiya’. fruit girth was maximum in var. bombay with 5.65cm, and minimum (4.33cm) was recorded in the variety pilipatti. at ripening, 25% reduction in fruit weight was observed in all the accessions studied. peel weight varied between 13.25g and 35.00g in ‘jhumakiya’ and ‘hybrid’, respectively. maximum number of seeds was found in the variety guruvayya with an average of six seeds per fruit and, the minimum of one seed per fruit was observed in var. gavaraiah, followed by ‘co-1’. tss (obrix) was maximum in pilipatti (20.39) and minimum in guruvayya (15.02). coefficient of variation was maximum in peel weight (28.38%), followed by number of seeds (24.72%) and the minimum (7.23%) was observed for fruit girth, followed by 9.54% in fruit length (table 1). analysis of variance showed high variability for fruit characteristics among all the varieties. all the characters except fruit length and tss exhibited variability within a variety (table 2). phenotypic correlation correlation studies among the eight fruit parameters under study revealed significant positive relationship for all parameters except number of seeds/fruit and tss, where it was found to be negative. correlation indicated that ripefruit weight, fruit length, fruit breadth, pulp weight, and peel weight contributed to fresh-fruit weight. tss showed negative correlation with all the parameters, indicating that increase in fruit weight affected quality of the fruit through tss, as reported by saraswathy et al (2010). number of seeds per fruit did not show significant correlation with any character, but had significant negative correlation with fruit length. this shows that seed number can influence fruit shape (table 3). cluster analysis cluster analysis clearly indicated affinity and relationship between different sapota accessions (fig. 1). there were two main clusters, further divided into two subclusters i.e., a total of four sub-clusters). the first sub-cluster comprised seven varieties. the second sub-cluster included six accessions. the third sub-cluster had two accessions which were distinct. the fourth sub-cluster was composed of five accessions. all accessions within each cluster showed a close relationship. the first cluster (including subclusters 1 and 2) had 13 accessions comprising of small, oval fruit types. the first sub-cluster included the accessions calcutta round, co-2, vavilavalasa, kirtibarti, mohangooti, table 1. fruit parameters in 17 sapota varieties variety fruit fruit fruit ripe fruit pulp peel no. of tss weight length girth weight weight weight seeds (obrix) (g) (cm) (cm) (g) (g) (g) 1. cricket ball 112.70 5.16 5.13 103.67 69.99 31.20 3.35 18.75 2. calcutta round 98.30 5.03 5.39 87.90 49.83 27.58 3.49 18.74 3. pilipatti 64.46 5.33 4.33 58.69 37.58 17.14 2.80 20.39 4. gavaraiah 134.62 6.60 5.62 119.34 89.21 30.78 1.52 17.99 5. mohangooti 81.74 6.06 4.59 75.76 57.63 17.86 3.10 19.56 6. krishna rao 125.93 6.37 5.49 100.31 70.67 33.45 5.38 18.20 7. jumakiya 54.48 4.46 4.38 49.42 30.70 13.25 3.66 16.49 8. kirti barti 91.95 5.68 5.02 82.29 57.00 22.09 2.12 17.45 9. hybrid 139.30 7.19 5.49 125.80 86.50 35.00 2.16 17.12 10. bombay 108.99 5.17 5.65 97.56 67.97 28.18 4.19 17.69 11. seedless 90.02 5.71 4.95 82.98 58.70 22.36 2.24 18.15 12. dwarapudi 62.50 5.19 4.57 57.24 40.68 14.04 3.20 17.97 13. vavilavalasa 94.82 4.94 5.47 82.72 60.33 23.15 3.35 18.31 14. co1 143.95 7.23 5.59 131.77 92.71 41.01 1.78 16.77 15. co2 93.76 5.19 5.57 82.49 55.42 22.33 3.70 19.01 16. unknown 89.24 5.58 5.00 83.07 59.09 21.42 2.08 17.57 17. guruvayya 113.05 6.04 5.39 101.69 70.36 28.89 6.23 15.02 range 54.48 4.46 4.33 49.42 30.70 13.25 1.52 15.02 to 143.95 to 7.23 to 5.65 to 131.77 to 92.71 to 35.00 to 6.23 to 20.39 cv (%) 13.85 9.54 7.23 15.83 18.89 28.38 24.72 8.85 j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):101-104, 2011 rekha et al prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 103 table 2. analysis of variance (anova) of fruit characteristics df fruit weight fruit length fruit girth ripe weight pulp weight peel weight no. of seeds tss replication 4 38.22** 0.59(ns)* 5.31** 26.43** 9.47** 22.57** 3.17** 0.92(ns)* treatments 16 18.22** 10.45** 7.75** 13.54** 10.96** 5.71** 12.44** 3.55** *ns= non-significant ** significant at 1% level table 3. phenotypic correlation among various fruit parameters of sapota 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. fruit weight — 0.657** 0.753** 0.988** 0.899** 0.846** 0.026 0.191 2. fruit length — 0.503** 0.635** 0.737** 0.385** -0.248* 0.039 3. fruit girth — 0.726** 0.741** 0.492** 0.117 0.114 4. ripe fruit weight — 0.901** 0.850** 0.023 0.220* 5. pulp weight — 0.611** 0.130 0.135 6. peel weight — 0.094 0.196 7. no. of seeds — 0.263 8. tss — * significant at 5% level ** significant at 1% level fig 1. dendrogram derived using ward’s method for twenty varieties of sapota variety number scale 1-cricket ball, 2-calcutta round, 3pilipatti, 4gutti, 5gavaraiah, 6mohangooti, 7krishna rao, 8oval, 9-jhumakiya, 10kirtibarti, 11hybrid, 12bombay, 13pakala oval, 14seedless, 15-dwarapudi, 16-vavilavalasa, 17co 1, 18-co 2, 19-unknown, 20-guruvayya genetic correlations and cluster analysis in sapota j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):101-104, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 104 seedless, and an unknown collection from gujarat. the second sub-cluster included varieties like gutti, oval, jhumakiya, pilipatti, pakala oval, and dwarapudi. despite having round fruit-shape, the accessions calcutta round, co-2 and vavilavalasa were also grouped here in the first sub-cluster. affinity of the varieties may be due to heterozygosity and seedling selection. the second group encompassing sub-clusters 3 and 4 had seven accessions, consisting mainly of large-fruit types. ‘hybrid’ and ‘co-1’, grouped in the third sub-cluster, were morphologically identical and were closely placed. hence, the unknown hybrid collection and co-1 seem to be identical. the fourth sub-cluster had five accessions, namely, guruvayya, krishna rao, cricket ball, bombay and gavaraiah. the accessions guruvayya, krishna rao and gavaraiah showed morphological similarities too. but, inclusion of ‘cricket ball’ and ‘bombay’ in this group is not justified should fruit shape be considered as a factor in clustering, as these bear roundshaped fruits. these observations reveal that affinities and grouping of varieties depend chiefly on fruit size. the study thus shows a high variability for fruit parameters like fresh-fruit weight, fruit length, fruit girth, fruit weight at ripening, pulp weight, peel weight, number of seeds and tss, among different cultivars. correlation studies showed relation among various fruit characteristics. though fruit weight was directly related to all the fruit parameters studied, it affected tss negatively. this indicated that excessive increase in fruit weight reduced quality of the fruit and, hence, selection should be preferably made for optimum fruit weight. cluster analysis also revealed affinity among different cultivars. selection of distantly placed cultivars in breeding programs bought to result in better progeny for further evaluation. acknowledgment the authors are thankful to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore for providing facilities to carry-out the above studies. references avaiyo, y.v. and singh, s.p. 1991. physico-chemical study of mature sapota (achras zapota l.) fruits of different cultivars. orissa j. hort., 19:83-96 dinesh, m.r. and reddy, b.m.c. 2000. fruit evaluation studies in sapota (achras zapota l.) j. appld. hort., 2:19-20 ponnuswamy, v. and irulappan, i. 1987. evaluation of the chemical composition of fruits of different varieties and hybrids of sapota. south ind. hort., 35:446-47 ponnuswamy, v. and irulappan, i. 1989. a research note on the study of range, mean and coefficient of variability in sapota varieties (achras zapota l.). south ind. hort., 37:112-114 saraswathy, s., parameswari, c., parthiban, s., selvarajan, m. and ponnuswami, v. 2010. evaluation of sapota genotypes for growth, yield and quality attributes. electronic j. pl. breed., 1:441-446 ward, j.h. 1963. hierarchic grouping to optimize an objective function. j. amer. stat. assoc. 58:236-239 (ms received 20 may 2011, revised 17 august 2011) rekha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):101-104, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):85-100, 2011 apple is an important fruit crop grown in the temperate region of india. it accounts for 43.30 per cent of total area under fruits and 80.18 per cent of total fruit production in jammu and kashmir. it is major cash crop and is the backbone of economy in the state. it is grown in almost all the districts of kashmir valley, in an area of 1.27 hectares with annual production of 1354.6 thousand metric tons (anonymous, 2009). apple productivity in the state has been on the increase since the past two decades because, farmers have adopted recent technologies. although farmers grow only a few varieties, there is a tremendous diversity in apple germplasm in the departmental and farmers’ orchards that remains to be exploited. although a lot of work has been done on quality and yield parameters a few, existing varieties dominating kashmir valley, on quality and yield parameters varietal assessment in other varieties has not been conducted so far. to assess these varieties of apple on the basis of physico-chemical characteristics and yield parameters, the present study was undertaken in local orchards of pulwama district in south kashmir. investigations were carried out during 2008-09 in farmers’ orchards of shopian area of the district. the following 20 cultivars were selected, viz., stark’s earliest, varietal assessment, heritability estimates and correlation studies in apple cultivars of south kashmir amit kumar and md. yasir mir krishi vigyan kendra, skuast-k, malangpora, pulwama – 192 308, india e-mail: khokherak@rediffmail.com abstract a study was conducted to assess agronomic performance and heritability estimates among different cultivars of apple in district pulwama of kashmir valley. twenty cultivars aged 20 to 22 years were selected for the present study. data were collected on physical and chemical characters of fruit and yield of the tree. results revealed that ‘red delicious’ (315.43kg) and ambri (310.40kg) difenoconazoled highest yield among all the cultivars. red delicious apple recorded maximum fruit weight (182.63g). maximum tss (16.35%) and total sugars (12.11%) with least acidity (0.07%) was recorded in ambri apples. all the characters studied showed high heritability estimates except for cropping efficiency (61.06%) which scored least heritability. length (0.843) and breadth (0.854) of fruit positively and significantly correlated with weight of the fruit. acidity was negatively correlated with all other biochemical characters. key words: heritability, correlation, varietal assessment, apples, cropping efficiency tropical beauty, orange sweet, galia beauty, king david, black ben davis, parlins beauty, early shanburry, tamma, rome beauty, benoni, lord lambourne, laxton’s superb, cox’s orange pippin, red gold, american apirouge, starkrimson, red delicious, sunheri and ambri. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized block design (crbd) with three replications. plants raised on seedling rootstock with a spacing of 5 x 5m aged 20 to 22 years were selected for the study. four representative branches from each treatment in each replication were selected randomly in the four directions of tree canopy to ensure precision. data recorded for yield efficiency was calculated as per westwood (1993) and expressed in kg/ cm2. other yield and fruit characters like yield per plant (kg), fruit weight (g), fruit length (mm), fruit breadth (mm) and biochemical analysis, viz., tss (obrix) were recorded. acidity (%), reducing sugars (%), total sugars (%) and tss/ acid ratio were estimated according to ranganna (1979). data thus obtained were analyzed following standard procedures (panse and sukhatme, 1995). coefficient of variability was calculated as per burton and devane (1953) while heritability, genetic advance and genetic gain were calculated as per johnson et al (1955). short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):81-84, 2012 82 amit kumar and yasir mir data of mean values pertaining to various yield and fruiting characters are presented in table 1. mean values for yield efficiency ranged between 0.08 kg/cm2 (orange sweet) to 0.37 kg/cm2 (sunheri). maximum fruit yield (315.43kg) per plant could be harvested from ‘red delicious’ followed by ‘ambri’ (310.40kg/plant), while minimum yield was recorded in ‘orange sweet’ (50.43 kg/plant). cultivar ‘red delicious’ also had maximum fruit weight (182.63g), which differed statistically from all other cultivars, whereas, lowest fruit weight (46.60g) registered in cv. ‘stark’s earliest’. while working with different cultivars, farooqui et al (1986) also recorded maximum fruit weight in red delicious apple. maximum fruit length (73.57mm) and fruit breadth (77.13mm) was seen in fruits of ‘red delicious’ (which were statistically at par with all other cultivars) however, minimum fruit length (39.35mm) and fruit breadth (47.66mm) was recorded in ‘stark’s earliest’. in agreement with present investigations, diwakar et al (1981) and singh et al (2005) observed similar findings with respect to fruit weight, fruit length and fruit breadth in different cultivar of apple. titrable acidity ranged from 0.14% (ambri) to 0.78% (orange sweet). cultivar ‘ambri’, with highest total soluble solids-tss (16.35%) and tss/acid ratio (116.78%) significantly differed from other cultivars. lowest tss (10.21%) and tss/acid ratio (13.17%) was recorded in ‘orange sweet’. maximum reducing sugars (7.44%) registered in ‘starkrimson’, followed by ‘rome beauty’ (7.40%) whereas, minimum was recorded in ‘red gold’ (4.44%). cultivar ‘ambri’ recorded highest total sugars (12.11%) which was statistically superior to all other cultivars. lowest total sugars were recorded in ‘stark’s earliest’ (6.73%). kumar and verma (2001) also reported similar values for various biochemical characters in cv. ‘starkrimson’. data on variability parameters are presented in table 2. in the present study, phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for all the traits studied. phenotypic coefficient of variation (99.90%) and genotypic coefficient of variation (96.50%) were highest for tss/acid ratio. lowest values were observed for fruit breadth at 11.97% (phenotypic coefficients of variation) and 11.37% (genotypic coefficient of variation), respectively. among heritability estimates values, maximum estimates were observed for fruit weight (99.50%) closely followed by yield per plant (99.14%) and total sugars (98.02%) while, lowest values were recorded for yield efficiency (61.06%). genetic gain (genetic advance as per cent of mean) was found to be maximum for tss/acid ratio (192.01%) followed by acidity (118.85%). minimum value of genetic gain (22.24%) was recorded for fruit breadth. table 1. performance of various apple cultivars on yield and fruiting characters in pulwama district of south kashmir variety yield yield/ fruit fruit fruit acidity tss tss/ reducing total efficiency plant weight length breadth (%) (%) acid sugars sugars kg/cm2 (kg) (g) (mm) (mm) ratio (%) (%) stark earliest 0.35 235.03 46.60 39.35 47.66 0.25 10.40 41.60 5.16 6.73 tropical beauty 0.27 213.90 53.33 42.59 50.57 0.35 13.15 38.55 6.75 10.36 orange sweet 0.08 50.43 90.15 57.39 64.92 0.78 10.21 13.17 4.76 7.55 galia beauty 0.24 250.50 60.32 41.26 55.21 0.70 12.61 18.08 5.77 8.21 king david 0.16 75.03 73.13 51.33 57.47 0.51 13.60 26.96 6.27 9.31 black ben davis 0.21 135.57 53.30 46.43 56.24 0.31 13.69 44.81 6.28 9.63 parlins beauty 0.31 200.83 72.07 49.68 57.19 0.64 11.87 18.59 6.85 9.15 early shanburry 0.24 265.70 90.37 57.51 64.43 0.76 10.65 14.06 6.27 8.41 tamma 0.21 150.33 56.53 46.43 53.44 0.49 13.37 27.52 6.88 9.59 rome beauty 0.15 85.17 56.57 43.34 54.32 0.29 13.25 45.69 7.40 10.05 benoni 0.22 200.47 60.17 48.33 54.22 0.36 11.22 31.52 5.36 7.42 lord lambourne 0.14 120.57 86.60 59.19 65.51 0.35 12.25 35.34 5.50 8.08 laxton’s superb 0.24 130.57 73.53 45.28 57.40 0.33 12.40 38.31 6.17 8.66 cox’s orange pippin 0.18 190.40 91.80 51.84 62.24 0.37 11.41 31.26 6.37 7.66 red gold 0.33 190.47 66.27 46.28 56.79 0.32 11.65 37.94 4.44 7.79 american apirouge 0.30 230.10 68.38 44.40 55.30 0.34 13.52 40.07 6.60 9.57 starkrimson 0.33 125.47 87.96 56.56 62.67 0.39 14.10 36.15 7.44 11.34 red delicious 0.35 315.43 182.63 73.57 77.13 0.20 13.67 71.25 5.27 9.15 sunheri 0.37 95.80 60.30 52.97 52.73 0.32 15.27 47.72 7.18 11.24 ambri 0.36 310.40 70.30 59.02 66.30 0.14 16.35 116.78 7.15 12.11 cd (p=0.05) 0.10 11.74 3.39 3.16 3.63 0.07 0.42 25.78 0.30 0.33 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):81-84, 2012 83 high heritability estimates, along with high genetic gain, were also noticed by barua (2000) and sharma et al (2005) in different cultivars of apple for these characters. yield efficiency showed a positive and highly significant correlation with yield per plant (0.654), tss (0.425), tss/acid ratio (0.471) and total sugars (0.413), but a negative correlation with acidity (-0.562). fruit weight was positively, and highly significantly, correlated with fruit length (0.870) and fruit breadth (0.902). acidity was positively, and highly significantly, correlated with tss (0.570). however, it was negatively, but highly significantly, correlated to tss/ acid ratio (-0.764), reducing sugars (-0.315) and total sugars (-0.470). total soluble solids showed positive and highly significant correlation with tss/acid ratio (0.682), reducing sugars (0.651) and total sugars (0.913). tss/acid ratio was positively, and highly significantly, correlated with reducing sugars (0.520) and total sugars (0.710). similar trend was noted with regard to reducing and total sugars. significant correlation in fruit characters suggests scope or direct and indirect, effective selection for further improvement. table 2. estimates of heritability, genetic advance and genetic gain in various apple cultivars character mean cv coefficient of variance heritability genetic genetic phenotypic genotypic advance gain yield efficiency 0.25 24.25 38.87 30.37 61.06 0.12 48.89 yield/ plant 178.61 3.98 42.93 42.75 99.14 156.60 87.68 fruit weight 75.02 2.73 38.59 38.50 99.50 59.34 79.10 fruit length 50.64 3.77 16.41 15.97 94.72 16.22 32.03 fruit breadth 58.59 3.75 11.97 11.37 90.20 13.03 22.24 acidity 0.37 12.04 60.10 58.89 95.99 0.44 118.85 tss 12.73 1.99 12.58 12.42 97.49 3.22 25.26 tss/acid ratio 60.31 25.86 99.90 96.50 93.30 115.79 192.01 reducing sugar 6.19 2.94 14.42 14.12 95.85 1.76 28.47 total sugar 9.10 2.23 15.86 15.70 98.02 2.91 32.03 table 3. correlation of genotypic (above diagonal) and phenotypic (below diagonal) level among various characters in apple cultivars character yield yield/ fruit fruit fruit acidity tss tss/ reducing total efficiency plant weight length breadth acid sugars sugars ratio yield efficiency 1 0.654** 0.100 0.065 0.039 0.562** 0.425** 0.471** 0.160 0.413** yield/ plant 0.505** 0.303* 0.179 0.260* 0.071 0.062 0.131 0.106 0.011 fruit weight 0.065 0.304* 0.870** 0.902** 0.003 0.013 0.003 0.025 0.043 fruit length 0.073 0.177 0.843** 0.954** 0.043 0.203 0.221 0.101 0.191 fruit breadth 0.058 0.248 0.854** 0.878** 0.041 0.108 0.175 0.169 0.071 acidity 0.373** 0.064 0.001 0.042 0.048 0.570** 0.764** 0.315* 0.470** tss 0.372** 0.066 0.012 0.192 0.095 0.537** 0.682** 0.651** 0.913** tss/acid ratio 0.326* 0.127 0.001 0.191 0.158 0.741** 0.643** 0.520** 0.710** reducing sugar 0.164 0.096 0.238 0.077 0.175 0.299* 0.639** 0.490** 0.813** total sugar 0.323* 0.005 0.040 0.183 0.085 0.448** 0.898** 0.676** 0.796** 1 significant at **0.01 % and 0.05 % it is concluded from the present study that most of the area in the district is covered by ‘red delicious’ and ‘ambri’ (a local strain) apples, which give high yield and quality fruits. references anonymous. 2009. annual report, directorate of horticulture, srinagar, j&k barua, u. 2000. genetic divergence studies in apple (malus x domestica borkh). m.sc. thesis submitted to dr. ysp uhf, nauni, solan, 96pp. burton, g.w. and devane, r.w. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacia) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-481 divakar, b.l., shukla, p.d. and adhikari, k.s. 1981. physical and biochemical changes during maturation in apple variety ‘early shanburry’. prog. hort., 13:61-65 farooqui, k.d., dalal, m.a. and ahanger, h.u. 1986. genetic upgrading of apple. prog. hort., 18:19-23 variability in apple cultivars of south kashmir j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):81-84, 2012 84 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.w. 1955. estimates of genetic and environmental variability in soyabean. agron. j., 47:314-318 kumar, j. and verma, h.s. 2001. performance of apple cultivars under low altitude conditions of kullu valley. haryana j. hortl. sci., 30:139-142 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1995. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, 326pp. sharma, g., chua, g.d. and sharma, o.c. 2005. studies on (ms received 10 january 2011, revised 5 january 2012) evaluation and variability parameters in low-chilling apples (malus x domestica borkh). acta hort., 696:157-162 singh, s.c., pant, k.p., dimri, d.c. and nautiyal, m.c. 2005. a note on flowering season and fruiting characteristics of some apple cultivars. acta hort., 696:49-51 westwood, m.n. 1993. temperate zone pomology. portland, oregon, timber press, p 428 amit kumar and yasir mir j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):81-84, 2012 introduction cut flowers like rose, gladiolus, tuberose, chrysanthemum, etc. have greater demanded in both local and international markets. among these, tuberose is one of the most important cut flowers. the tuberose is grown under a wide range of soil and climatic conditions, but flowers best in warm and humid climates. among four types of tuberose, the double type is mainly cultivated for cut flowers. post-harvest management is one of the most important factors in the cut flower industry. the components of cut-flower quality are size, stage of florets, fragrance and freshness of flowers. vase life of cut flowers is dependant on many factors. standardization of the stage of harvest and stem length for longer vase life is needs to be done for any new cultivar. hence, the effect of harvest-stage and spike length on vase life was studied in this experiment. material and methods healthy spikes of tuberose cv. double were used in this investigation. the trial was conducted with 16 different treatments comprising four lengths of stem and four stages of harvest, during the year 2003-04 in factorial effect of stem length and stage of harvest on vase-life of cut flowers in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cv. double d.k. varu and a.v. barad department of horticulture, college of agriculture junagadh agricultural university, junagadh 362 001 e-mail: dkvaru@yahoo.com abstract a study was carried out to explore the effect of length of stem and stage of harvest on vase life and display quality of tuberose. as regards stem length, 90 cm stem length (l 4 ) had longest vase life, maximum uptake of water, minimum loss-uptake ratio, maximum fresh weight and percentage of opened florets, and, lowest percentage of abscised floret; whereas, 60 cm stem length (l 2 ) enhanced longevity of individual florets. in the case of stage of harvest, significantly high vase life, least loss of water, minimum loss-uptake ratio and lowest physiological loss of weight were recorded in two-florets open stage (s 3 ). maximum percentage of opened florets and lowest percentage of abscised florets were observed in three-florets open stage (s 4 ), whereas, maximum uptake of water and fresh weight of spike were seen in one-floret open stage (s 2 ). interaction effect of stem length and harvest stage was also found to be significant showing that 75 cm of stem length with one-floret open stage (l 3 s 2 ) was superior for maximum vase life of spike as well as lowest physiological loss of weight. key words: stem length, stage of harvest, tuberose, vase life c.r.d. with three replications, at p.g. laboratory, department of horticulture, junagadh agriculture university, junagadh (gujarat). the same was repeated in the second year (2004-05). spikes were harvested in the evening with lengths of 45 cm (l 1 ), 60 cm (l 2 ), 75 cm (l 3 ) and 90 cm (l 4 ) at unopened floret (s 1 ), first-floret open (s 2 ), secondfloret open (s 3 ) and third-floret open (s 4 ) stage. freshly harvested spikes were placed in glass bottles filled with distilled water as per treatment combinations. observations for vase life and qualitative parameters were recorded and data were analyzed in fcrd. results and discussion vase life of spike vase life of tuberose cut-flower was significantly affected by various stem lengths and was maximum in 90 cm stem length (13.72 days) and 75 cm stem length (l 3 ). minimum vase life (12.55 days) was recorded in 45 cm stem length (l 1 ). better vase life in longer stems could be due to higher water uptake, water conductivity and water balance with higher turgidity and freshness of the spike. longer stems also contained higher amounts of reserve carbohydrates. j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 42-47, 2010 43 these results are supported by work of de and barman (1998) and singh et al (2000) in tuberose; renu et al (1994) in rose; sangama and singh (1999), satpute and patel (2002); barman and rajni (2004) in gladiolus, and, singh and sangama (2002) in gerbera. in the case of stage of harvest, significantly maximum vase life of 14.02 days was recorded in twoflorets open stage (s 3 ) followed by one-floret open stage (s 2 ). similarly, interaction also significantly influenced vase life. maximum vase life of 14.52 days was observed in the treatment combination l 3 s 2 . the vase life of spike started to increase from the unopened stage of harvest and was maximum at two-florets open stage, but reduced at the threeflorets open stage. this may be due to higher uptake of water, water status and freshness of the spike, with lower weight-loss. these results are in accordance with observations made by de and barman (1998) and singh et al (2000) in tuberose; ahn et al (1996) and de and bhattacharjee (1999) in rose; barman and rajni (2004) in gladiolus; nagaraja and gopinatha (2001) in gerbera; brahmankar et al ( 2005) in golden rod and khalighi and shafie (2000) in carnation. longevity of individual florets it was obvious that among stem lengths, significantly longer vase life of individual floret (3.24 days) was recorded in 60 cm of stem length (l 2 ) and l 4 . harvest of spikes in the unopened-florets stage (s 1 ) significantly increased longevity of individual florets (3.31 days), followed by twoflorets open stage (s 3 ). the interaction effect was also found significant (tables 1 and 2). water uptake highest uptake of water (74.63, 82.79 & 94.00 g) at 6th, 8th and 12th day of vase life was recorded in stem length 90 cm (l 4 ), followed by 75 cm (l 3 ) (tables 3 & 4). similarly, for stage of harvest, maximum water uptake (60.21, 65.04 & 67.88 g) at 6th, 8th and 12th day of vase life, respectively, was recorded in one-floret open stage (s 2 ). the result was also found to be significant for interaction and maximum-uptake of water was registered in the combination l 4 s 2 . increased water-uptake might be due to a greater area of xylem as well as more amounts of carbohydrates responsible for higher absorption and retention of water in a longer stem. similar reasons were also assigned by de and barman (1998) and singh et al (2000) in tuberose; sangama and singh (1999), satpute and patel (2002) and barman and rajni (2004) in gladiolus; renu et al (1994) in rose, and brahmankar et al (2005) in golden rod. loss of water minimum water-loss (43.67, 53.92 & 63.75g respectively) at 6th, 8th and 12th day of vase life of the spike was observed in 45 cm of stem length (l 1 ), followed by 60 cm (l 2 ) (tables 3 & 4). likewise, for stage of harvest, lowest values for loss of water (50.29, 59.17 & 71.21 g) at 6th, 8th and 12th day were recorded in two-floret open stage (s 3 ). interaction effect of stem length and harvest stage on loss of water was significantly higher in the combination l 2 s 3 . this may be due to lower amount of carbohydrates, less area of xylem and poor water conductivity in the shortest stem, as also lowest rate of transpiration and ethylene production at an advanced stage. the result is in conformity j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 42-47, 2010 vase-life of cut flowers in tuberose table 1. effect of stem length and stage of harvest on longevity of individual florets and vase life of spike in tuberose (days) treatments longevity of individual floret (days) vase life of spike (days) 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled l 1 2.63 2.68 2.65 12.50 12.59 12.55 l 2 2.88 2.87 2.87 13.13 13.33 13.23 l 3 2.88 3.00 2.94 13.51 13.78 13.64 l 4 3.22 3.51 3.37 13.71 13.73 13.72 s.em. ± 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.19 0.13 0.11 cd (p=0.05) 0.12 0.11 0.29 0.53 0.38 0.32 stage of harvest s 1 3.35 3.38 3.36 11.79 12.03 11.91 s 2 2.71 2.77 2.74 13.48 13.82 13.65 s 3 2.90 3.10 3.00 13.94 14.10 14.02 s 4 2.63 2.82 2.73 13.63 13.48 13.35 s.em± 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.19 0.13 0.11 cd (p=0.05) 1.12 0.11 0.08 0.53 0.38 0.32 interaction l x s s.em± 0.08 0.08 0.11 0.37 0.266 0.23 cd (p=0.05) 0.24 0.22 0.36 1.07 0.76 0.64 cv (%) 5.04 4.42 4.73 4.88 3.45 4.22 44 table 3. effect of stem length and stage of harvest on uptake of water, loss of water and loss uptake ratio at 6th, 8th and 12th day during vase life in tuberose (pooled) treatments uptake of water at (g) loss of water at (g) loss-uptake ratio at 6th day 8th day 12thday 6th day 8th day 12th day 6th day 8th day 12th day length of spike l 1 48.46 51.46 52.75 43.67 53.92 63.75 0.91 1.07 1.23 l 2 43.75 52.38 52.71 49.42 63.08 71.38 1.20 1.23 1.39 l 3 56.63 60.71 64.42 58.00 67.63 74.96 1.04 1.13 1.17 l 4 74.63 82.79 90.04 66.63 81.42 93.04 0.90 0.99 1.04 s em± 0.54 0.50 0.49 0.369 0.56 0.581 0.056 0.033 0.048 cd (p=0.05) 1.53 1.40 1.39 1.04 1.58 1.63 0.25 0.15 0.22 stage of harvest s 1 58.54 63.67 66.13 55.04 68.92 76.33 0.96 1.12 1.19 s 2 60.21 65.04 67.88 61.79 75.88 80.71 1.12 1.26 1.29 s 3 54.13 60.13 64.08 50.29 59.17 71.21 0.89 0.96 1.11 s 4 50.58 58.50 61.83 50.58 62.08 74.88 1.09 1.08 1.25 s em± 0.54 0.50 0.49 0.369 0.56 0.58 0.06 0.04 0.03 c d (p=0.05) 1.53 1.40 1.39 1.04 1.58 1.63 0.25 0.19 0.12 interaction l x s s em± 1.09 0.98 0.99 1.38 1.12 1.16 0.13 0.07 0.08 c d (p=0.05) 3.06 2.76 2.78 3.89 3.16 3.27 0.40 0.23 0.25 cv (%) 4.76 3.89 3.73 3.32 4.13 3.75 8.41 8.32 6.41 with that of de and barman (1998) and singh et al (2000) in tuberose. loss-uptake ratio except for 60 cm spike length, all treatments (45, 75 & 90 cm) showed a lower and similar loss-uptake ratio. this indicates that spike length did not affect the ratio significantly. fresh-weight of spike significantly higher fresh-weight of spike (116.00, 104.33, 95.07, 86.80, 80.94,76.51 and 72.98 g) at 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th & 14th days was noticed consistently, with spikes of 90 cm stem length (l 4 ) (tables 5 & 6). likewise, minimum fresh-weight was recorded in 45 cm stem length (l 1 ). j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 42-47, 2010 varu and barad table 2. interaction effect of stem length and stage of harvest on longevity of individual floret and vase life of spike (days) treatments longevity of individual floret (days) vase life of spike (days) 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled l 1 s 1 2.83 2.85 2.84 10.00 10.23 10.12 l 1 s 2 2.50 2.50 2.50 12.67 13.13 12.90 l 1 s 3 2.77 2.90 2.83 13.50 13.67 13.58 l 1 s 4 2.40 2.47 2.43 13.83 13.33 13.58 l 2 s 1 3.40 3.33 3.37 12.00 12.23 12.12 l 2 s 2 2.83 2.37 2.60 13.00 13.47 13.23 l 2 s 3 2.78 2.97 2.88 14.07 14.23 14.15 l 2 s 4 2.48 2.80 2.64 13.43 13.40 13.42 l 3 s 1 3.68 3.83 3.76 12.17 12.67 12.42 l 3 s 2 2.83 2.93 2.88 14.33 14.70 14.52 l 3 s 3 2.67 2.80 2.73 13.90 14.20 14.05 l 3 s 4 2.33 2.43 2.38 13.63 13.53 13.58 l 4 s 1 3.50 3.48 3.49 13.00 12.97 12.98 l 4 s 2 2.67 3.27 2.97 13.93 13.97 13.95 l 4 s 3 3.40 3.73 3.57 14.30 14.30 14.30 l 4 s 4 3.32 3.57 3.44 13.60 13.67 13.63 s.em. ± 0.08 0.08 0.11 0.372 0.266 0.229 cd (p=0.05) 0.24 0.22 0.36 1.07 0.76 0.64 cv (%) 5.04 4.42 4.73 4.88 3.45 4.22 45 table 5. effect of stem length and stage of harvest on fresh weight and physiological loss of weight of spike during vase life of tuberose (pooled) treatments fresh weight of spike (g) plw (%) 2ndday 4th day 6th day 8th day 10th day 12th day 14th day length of spike l 1 53.67 44.42 41.23 36.88 33.55 30.40 28.20 40.87 l 2 73.00 63.83 54.54 47.09 44.75 40.98 36.78 42.59 l 3 92.42 81.67 74.51 69.77 64.78 61.00 56.11 32.64 l 4 116.00 104.33 95.07 86.80 80.94 76.51 72.98 31.29 s em± 0.85 0.76 0.53 0.63 0.54 0.46 0.42 0.65 cd(p=0.05) 2.38 2.15 1.50 1.77 1.53 1.29 1.19 1.84 stage of harvest s 1 85.83 76.00 69.90 61.64 57.96 54.03 49.66 36.13 s 2 83.92 73.58 68.53 62.26 58.45 54.15 50.11 34.82 s 3 82.75 73.08 65.78 61.25 56.97 53.26 50.40 33.66 s 4 82.58 71.58 61.12 55.40 50.65 47.45 43.90 42.78 s.em± 0.85 0.76 0.53 0.63 0.54 0.46 0.42 0.65 cd (p=0.05) 2.38 2.15 1.50 1.77 1.53 1.29 1.19 1.84 interaction l x s s em± 1.69 1.53 1.07 1.26 1.08 0.92 1.17 1.31 cd (p=0.05) ns ns 3.01 3.54 3.05 2.58 3.38 3.68 cv (%) 4.94 5.09 3.95 5.13 4.74 4.30 4.27 8.69 table 4. interaction effect of stem length and stage of harvest on uptake of water, loss of water and loss uptake ratio at 6th, 8th and 12th day during vase life (pooled) treatments uptake of water (g) loss of water (g) loss-uptake ratio 6th day 8th day 12th day 6th day 8th day 12th day 6th day 8th day 12th day l 1 s 1 45.67 51.33 53.67 48.33 62.67 70.83 1.08 1.26 1.36 l 1 s 2 52.67 56.50 57.33 50.67 63.00 71.83 0.97 1.14 1.28 l 1 s 3 53.83 55.33 53.67 38.83 46.50 59.17 0.71 0.84 1.12 l 1 s 4 41.67 42.67 46.33 36.83 43.50 53.17 0.89 1.03 1.18 l 2 s 1 54.50 57.17 58.50 51.83 66.33 71.00 0.96 1.18 1.24 l 2 s 2 41.33 47.67 51.83 63.17 81.50 96.17 1.64 1.79 1.94 l 2 s 3 40.83 47.33 48.00 20.50 31.00 40.17 0.45 0.63 0.84 l 2 s 4 38.33 57.33 52.50 62.17 73.50 78.17 1.75 1.31 1.54 l 3 s 1 63.00 67.33 70.67 61.83 74.83 84.83 0.99 1.12 1.21 l 3 s 2 48.00 52.00 57.50 47.83 57.83 58.00 1.01 1.13 1.02 l 3 s 3 58.50 63.67 63.67 76.17 78.67 84.83 1.34 1.25 1.36 l 3 s 4 57.00 59.83 65.83 46.17 59.17 72.17 0.83 1.00 1.11 l 4 s 1 71.00 78.83 81.67 58.17 71.83 78.67 0.82 0.91 0.97 l 4 s 2 98.83 104.00 104.83 85.50 101.17 96.83 0.87 0.97 0.93 l 4 s 3 63.33 74.50 91.00 65.67 80.50 100.67 1.05 1.09 1.11 l 4 s 4 65.33 73.67 82.67 57.17 72.17 96.00 0.88 0.98 1.17 s.em ± 1.09 0.98 0.99 1.38 1.12 1.16 0.13 0.07 0.08 cd (p=0.05) 3.06 2.76 2.78 3.89 3.16 3.27 0.40 0.23 0.25 cv (%) 4.76 3.89 3.73 3.32 4.13 3.75 8.41 8.32 6.41 spikes harvested at the unopened-floret stage (s 1 ) at 2nd, 4th, 6th day of storage recorded significantly higher fresh-weight (85.38, 76.00 & 69.90 g), whereas, in the onefloret stage, fresh-weight was 62.56, 58.45 & 54.15 g at 8th, 10th & 12th day, respectively; at the two-floret stage, fresh-weight was 50.4 g at 14th day. interaction effect was also found to be significant. it is a fact that longer spikes have greener biomass with higher uptake of water, water-retention, food materials, etc. which resulted in higher fresh-weight of the spike, while, lower rate of respiration, transpiration and ethylene production at less advanced stages might be responsible for maximum freshweight. these results are in accordance with observations reported by de and barman (1998) in tuberose; satpute and patel (2002) and barman and rajni (2004) in gladiolus and brahmankar et al (2005) in golden rod. j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 42-47, 2010 vase-life of cut flowers in tuberose 46 table 7. effect of stem length and stage of harvest on percentage of opened and abscised florets during vase life in tuberose treatments opened florets (%) abscised florets (%) 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled length of stem l 1 43.50 33.65 38.57 *5.89 (33.69) 5.72 (31.71) 5.80 (32.70) l 2 49.17 39.28 44.23 5.42 (28.40) 5.21 (26.14) 5.32 (27.26) l 3 47.56 40.08 43.82 5.31 (27.16) 5.12 (25.12) 5.21 (26.18) l 4 49.05 42.85 45.95 5.23 (26.36) 5.01 (24.15) 5.12 (25.24) s.em. ± 0.78 0.79 0.56 0.04 0.03 0.02 cd (p=0.05) 2.25 2.28 1.57 0.11 0.087 0.07 stage of harvest s 1 37.80 29.61 33.70 6.28 (38.49) 6.10 (36.25) 6.19 (37.36) s2 40.57 32.03 36.30 5.51 (29.37) 5.34 (27.50) 5.42 (28.43) s 3 52.08 44.12 48.10 5.45 (28.68) 5.24 (26.44) 5.34 (27.55) s 4 58.82 50.11 54.46 4.61 (20.22) 4.38 (18.22) 4.50 (19.21) s.em. ± 0.78 0.79 0.56 0.04 0.03 0.02 cd (p=0.05) 2.25 2.28 1.57 0.11 0.08 0.07 interaction l x s s.em. ± 1.57 1.59 1.12 0.08 0.05 0.05 cd (p=0.05) 4.50 4.55 3.14 0.22 0.16 0.13 cv (%) 5.74 7.05 6.33 2.38 1.79 2.12 table 6. interaction effect of stem length and stage of harvesting on fresh weight and physiological loss of weight of spike during vase life in tuberose (pooled) treatments fresh weight of spike (g) plw (%) 6th 8th 10th 12th 14th day day day day day l 1 s 1 44.45 38.22 33.15 28.75 25.97 46.86 l 1 s 2 43.77 38.27 34.68 31.60 28.83 38.57 l 1 s 3 42.43 38.83 36.58 33.67 31.67 35.36 l 1 s 4 34.25 32.20 29.80 27.58 26.32 42.68 l 2 s 1 55.25 45.43 46.60 42.92 38.82 37.30 l 2 s 2 56.78 46.18 42.45 39.27 35.28 46.77 l 2 s 3 55.93 51.83 48.87 45.60 42.75 33.88 l 2 s 4 50.18 44.90 41.08 36.15 30.27 52.42 l 3 s 1 80.33 74.76 70.25 66.93 58.88 29.59 l 3 s 2 78.61 76.50 73.80 67.23 61.97 25.46 l 3 s 3 72.08 67.33 61.63 57.60 53.60 35.92 l 3 s 4 67.00 60.48 53.45 52.23 49.98 39.58 l 4 s 1 99.58 88.13 81.83 77.52 74.97 30.78 l 4 s 2 94.97 88.08 82.87 78.48 74.35 28.48 l 4 s 3 92.67 87.00 80.80 76.18 73.57 29.48 l 4 s 4 93.05 84.00 78.27 73.85 69.05 36.44 s.em± 1.069 1.259 1.084 0.92 0.85 1.31 cd (p=0.05) 3.01 3.54 3.05 2.58 2.39 3.68 cv (%) 3.95 5.13 4.74 4.30 4.28 8.69 physiological loss of weight data on influence of stem length on loss of weight (%) showed that this was significantly affected, and the minimum value (31.29%) was recorded in 90 cm stem length, at par with l 3 (tables 5 and 6). stage of harvest had significant effect and a lower plw% (33.66) was recorded at two-floret open stage (s 3 ); however, this was at par with s 2 . interaction effect was also found to be significant in the combination l 3 s 2 . this may be due to higher uptake of water concomitant with lower loss of water and higher waterretention in the spike. percentage of opened and abscised florets among various stem lengths, the longest spike length (l 4 ) significantly promoted opening of florets (45.95%), followed by l 2 (tables 7 and 8). this might have been due to higher water-uptake and water balance with higher turgidity and increased amounts of carbohydrates, which promote respiration. similarly, the maximum number of opened florets (54.46%) was recorded in the three-florets open stage of harvest (s 4 ), followed by two-florets open (s 3 ). the treatment combination l 2 s 4 performed better with maximum number of opened florets (59.56%). highest number of opened florets seen at advanced stage might be due to sufficient accumulation of carbohydrates, enhancing petal movement. similar results were found by de et al (1996) in cut rose; sangama and singh (1999), satpute and patel (2002) and barman and rajni (2004) in gladiolus, and, brahmankar et al (2005) in golden rod. similar results were also observed for percentage of abscised florets. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to dean (p.g. studies), junagadh agriculture university, junagadh, for providing necessary facilities. references ahn, gwiyeon, park, joong choon, ahn, g.y. and park, j.c. 1996. effect of cultivars and harvest seasons on quality preservation of cut rose. j. korean soc. hortl. sci., 37:598-602 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 42-47, 2010 varu and barad 47 barman, d. and rajni, k. 2004. effect of harvest maturity and spike length on post harvest life of gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 7:204-026 brahmankar, s.e., b.k. dhaduk and singh, a. 2005. effect of harvesting stages and chemical preservatives on post harvest life of golden rod (solidago canadensis linn.) panicles, j. orn. hort., 8:23-26 de, l.c. and barman, d. 1998. vase life of cut tuberose spikes as affected by stage of harvest, stalk length and sucrose. orissa j. hort., 26:66-69 de, l.c. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 1999. effect of chemicals for tight bud opening of rose cv. ‘super star’ at different stages of maturity. ann. agril. res., 20:206211 jain, a.k., gupta, a.k. and garg, s.c. 2003. indian horticulture database, national horticulture board, gurgaon, p. 8 khalighi, a. and shafie, m.r. 2000. effects of chemical and temperature treatments on longevity and harvesting stages on cut flower longevity and some other characteristics of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.). iranian j. agril. sci., 31:119125 nagaraja, g.s. and gopinatha, k.s. 2001. effect of the stage of harvest on the vase life of gerbera (gerbera jamesonii hook.). mysore j. agril. sci., 35:20-25 renu, rajan, bhattacharjee, s.k. and rajan, r. 1994. influence of some harvest factors on the post harvest life of “eiffel tower” roses. orissa j. hort., 22:1921 sangama and singh, k.p. 1999. effect of flower spike length on various floret qualities in gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 2:144-45 satpute, s. and patel, n.l. 2002. effect of spike lengths and chemical substances on vase life and quality of gladiolus (gladiolus grandiflorus l.) cv. ‘white prosperity’. gujarat j. applied hort., 1:1-14 singh, k.p. and sangama. 2002. influence of cultivars and flower stalk length on vase life gerbera. in: floriculture research trend in india. proceedings of the national symposium on indian floriculture in the new millennium, 2002, pp 324-325 singh, kushal, arora, j.s. and singh, k. 2000. effect of harvesting stages, sucrose, bap and ga 3 on bud opening and vase life of tuberose. j. orn. hort. 3:111-113 table 8. interaction effect of stem length and stage of harvest on percentage of opened and abscised florets during vase life in tuberose treatments opened florets (%) abscised florets (%)* 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled l 1 s 1 35.46 25.89 30.67 7.08 (49.06) 6.92 (46.92) 7.00 (47.98) l 1 s 2 44.76 35.23 39.99 6.05 (35.66) 5.86 (33.39) 5.96 (34.51) l 1 s 3 45.43 35.15 40.29 5.45 (28.71) 5.27 (26.80) 5.36 (27.75) l 1 s 4 48.33 38.33 43.33 4.98 (23.79) 4.82 (22.22) 4.90 (23.00) l 2 s 1 33.56 23.71 28.63 5.93 (34.15) 5.79 (32.47) 5.86 (33.31) l 2 s 2 43.59 33.65 38.62 5.50 (29.24) 5.35 (27.60) 5.42 (28.41) l 2 s 3 55.01 45.19 50.10 6.11 (36.37) 5.88 (33.60) 6.00 (34.97) l 2 s 4 64.53 54.59 59.56 4.15 (16.21) 3.82 (13.63) 3.99 (14.89) l 3 s 1 36.15 29.86 33.01 6.47 (40.92) 6.30 (38.64) 6.39 (39.77) l 3 s 2 41.60 34.70 38.15 4.30 (17.47) 4.16 (16.27) 4.23 (16.86) l 3 s 3 50.49 43.82 47.16 4.94 (23.39) 4.76 (21.67) 4.85 (22.52) l 3 s 4 61.98 51.93 56.95 5.52 (29.44) 5.27 (26.73) 5.39 (28.06) l 4 s 1 46.02 38.99 42.50 5.66 (31.00) 5.41 (28.26) 5.53 (29.62) l 4 s 2 32.33 24.53 28.43 6.19 (37.35) 5.99 (34.83) 6.09 (36.08) l 4 s 3 57.38 52.33 54.86 5.29 (26.98) 5.04 (24.37) 5.16 (25.66) l 4 s 4 60.45 55.57 58.01 3.78 (13.30) 3.63 (12.15) 3.70 (12.72) s.em± 1.57 1.59 1.12 0.08 0.05 0.05 c d (p=0.05) 4.50 4.55 3.14 0.22 0.16 0.13 cv (%) 5.74 7.05 6.33 2.38 1.79 2.12 * figures in parentheses indicate square root transformed values (ms received 15 december 2009, revised 17 march 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 42-47, 2010 vase-life of cut flowers in tuberose gladiolus (gladiolus hybridus hort.) is an important bulbous cut-flower crop and is famous for keepingquality and exhaustive range of spike colour. gladiolus hybrids currently under cultivation seem to have developed genetically form 23 sps. (arora et al. 2002). in the cutflower industry, gladiolus occupies the fourth place in international cut-flower trade (bhattacharyaji, 2003). the most common method of improving gladiolus is through hybridization. since gladiolus is highly heterozygous (misra and saini, 1990), it is essential to evaluate the wide germplasm available before adopting hybridization programmes to exploit the diversity in growth and flowering traits. an investigation was carried out on seven gladiolus varieties representing diverse morphological characters. these varieties were crossed by the half diallel method and were also selfed. the seeds were sown in seed beds and the material was carried to four cycles to obtain the required size of corms. twenty one hybrids, along with their parents, were planted in a polyhouse in january, 2007 at kittur rani chennamma college of horticulture (university of agricultural sciences, dharwad), arabhavi in randomized block design with two replications in raised beds with spacing of 30 x 20 cm short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 177-180, 2009 genetic variability in gladiolus for growth and flowering characters (gladiolus hybridus hort.) p. hemanth kumar and b.s. kulkarni department of floriculture and landscaping k.r.c. college of horticulture, arabhavi -591 310, india gokak, belgaum dist, karnataka e-mail: balajikrcch@gmail.com abstract gladiolus sylvia x melody exhibited early corm-sprouting (6.82 days). the hybrid melody x summer sunshine (84.63 cm), followed by american beauty x pricella (84.12 cm) were tall. maximum stem girth was observed in american beauty x summer sunshine (35.31 mm), followed by vedanapoli x magic (33.71mm) and american beauty x melody (33.47 mm). number of leaves per plant was higher in melody x magic (9.62), followed by salvia x magic (9.49) and melody x vedanapoli (9.42). the length was maximum (67.32 cm) in melody x summer sunshine followed by summer sunshine x pricella (67.57 cm), american beauty x vedanapoli (67.00 cm) and vedanapoli x pricella (66.06 cm). the hybrid salvia x melody was earliest to initiate flower bud (60.58 days) and first floret opening (69.04 days). the total duration of flowering was maximum in vedanapoli x magic. key words: half-diallel, genetic variability, flowering, gladiolus and the data were collected for five randomly selected plants from each parents and f 1 ’s. observations on different growth and flowering parameters were recorded in five randomly selected plants from each parent and f 1 and statistically analyzed to find out the significance of differences (cochran and cox, 1964). analysis of variance revealed that all the growth and flowering characters were highly significant except leaf width (table 1). among the parents cv. sylvia exhibited and late sprouting (20.60 days) was observed in cv. magic (table 2). among the hybrids, sylvia x melody exhibited early sprouting (6.82 days), vedanapoli x magic (22.92 days) and summer sunshine x vedanapoli (20.67 days) were late to sprout. the cv. priscilla produced tallest plants (79.40 cm) at 90 days after planting followed by summer sunshine (78.94 cm) while sylvia (58.49 cm) was the shortest. swaroop et al. (2005) reported that cv. sylvia had shorter plants (74.33 cm) plant height, which closely confirms present investigation. among the hybrids, highest plant height (84.63 cm) was observed in melody x summer sunshine, followed by american beauty x priscilla (84.12 cm) and summer sunshine x priscilla (82.54 cm), while, the lowest plant height (57.58 cm) was recorded in sylvia x melody. 178 maximum stem girth (32.17 mm) was observed in the cv. american beauty, followed by vedanapoli (31.61 mm) and summer sunshine (30.95 mm), while, the hybrids american beauty x summer sunshine exhibited maximum stem girth (35.31 mm), followed by vedanapoli x magic (33.71 mm), american beauty x melody (33.47 mm). the minimum stem girth (22.18 mm) was recorded in sylvia x magic (table 2). table 1. mean sum of squares for vegetative parameters in a 7 x 7 diallele cross of gladiolus (gladiolus hybridus hort.) sl. no. trait sources cd at cd at treatment error 5% 1% 1 days to sprouting 47.29** 2.67 4.90 5.90 2 plant height 142.55** 13.84 10.50 13.77 3 stem girth 31.86* 4.58 5.91 7.75 4 no. of leaves 0.5946** 0.21 1.26 1.66 5 leaf length 105.62** 10.19 0.88 1.15 6 leaf width 0.42 0.16 1.13 1.46 7 days required for bud initiation 84.59** 5.17 6.27 8.22 8 days required for first floret opening 87.44** 7.49 7.46 9.81 9 days required for first to last floret opening 4.34** 1.13 2.92 3.84 10 duration of flowering 10.89** 1.20 3.01 3.94 d. f. 27 27 *significant at 5% level, **significant at 1% level table 2. mean performance of parents and hybrids (f 1 ’s) with respect to vegetative parameters in gladiolus (gladiolus hybridus hort.) sl.no. parent days to plant stem girth no. of leaf length leaf width sprouting height (cm) (mm) leaves (cm) (cm) 1 a. beauty 8.03 73.04 32.17 8.57 59.00 3.66 2 sylvia 6.90 58.49 20.69 8.06 47.80 3.82 3 melody 11.07 71.56 22.97 8.56 50.87 4.07 4 s. sunshine 15.59 78.94 30.95 8.54 63.25 4.89 5 vedanapoli 18.47 76.38 31.61 9.20 57.81 7.03 6 magic 20.60 65.49 28.28 8.09 53.35 3.85 7 priscilla 13.26 79.40 29.51 8.44 69.07 3.21 hybrid 1 a. beauty x sylvia 20.20 66.96 26.56 8.14 54.11 3.45 2 a. beauty x melody 18.89 62.53 33.47 8.02 57.49 3.91 3 a. beauty x s. sunshine 15.26 73.49 35.31 7.99 60.83 4.28 4 a. beauty x vedanapoli 15.74 81.07 30.94 7.96 67.0 3.70 5 a. beauty x magic 19.69 68.75 26.61 8.62 52.26 4.11 6 a. beauty x priscilla 11.01 84.12 30.87 8.18 62.29 4.55 7 sylvia x melody 6.82 57.58 25.97 8.86 52.00 3.83 8 sylvia x s. sunshine 16.44 62.73 22.28 8.45 52.49 3.03 9 sylvia x vedanapoli 11.12 68.36 27.44 7.93 54.24 4.22 10 sylvia x magic 13.12 59.63 22.18 9.49 44.52 3.77 11 sylvia x priscilla 7.29 66.07 31.10 9.14 51.63 3.97 12 melody x s. sunshine 10.60 84.63 27.25 8.20 67.62 3.90 13 melody x vedanpoli 8.40 66.07 22.42 9.42 53.68 4.20 14 melody x magic 17.24 66.25 31.15 9.62 52.82 4.18 15 melody x priscilla 12.52 70.24 26.24 8.44 57.07 3.86 16 s. sunshine x vedanpoli 20.67 79.53 33.12 8.56 64.71 4.75 17 s. sunshine x magic 22.28 68.96 25.24 9.10 52.30 3.74 18 s. sunshine x priscilla 13.56 82.54 29.43 7.64 67.57 4.05 19 vedanpoli x magic 22.92 57.49 33.71 9.34 48.22 4.72 20 vedanpoli x priscilla 15.27 81.26 24.04 8.16 66.06 3.65 21 magic x priscilla 18.56 71.07 29.73 9.01 58.40 3.62 s. em± 1.63 3.69 2.14 0.45 3.19 0.40 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 177-180, 2009 hemanth kumar and kulkarni 179 vedanapoli produced maximum number of leaves per plant (9.20), followed by american beauty (8.5) and melody (8.56). among the hybrids, melody x magic recorded maximum number of leaves per plant (9.62), followed by sylvia x magic (9.49) and melody x vedanapoli (9.42). minimum number of leaves (7.64) was observed in hybrid summer sunshine x priscilla. number of leaves may be related to stored food reserve in the corms (sharma and gupta, 2003). the length of leaves was maximum (69.07 cm) in cv. priscilla, followed by summer sunshine (63.25 cm). among the hybrids melody x summer sunshine (67.62 cm) recorded maximum leaf length, followed by summer sunshine x priscilla (67.0 cm) and vedanapoli x priscilla (66.06 cm), while, minimum length (44.52 cm) was observed in sylvia x magic. maximum width of leaves at mid-point was recorded in summer sunshine x vedanapoli (4.75 cm), table 3. mean performance of parents and f 1 hybrids with respect to flowering in gladiolus (gladiolus hybridus hort.) sl.no. parent days for bud days for first floret days for first to duration of initiation opening last floret opening flowering 1 a. beauty 62.81 70.67 14.38 15.11 2 sylvia 66.14 72.97 12.12 10.66 3 melody 63.25 72.80 13.68 15.77 4 s. sunshine 66.86 75.12 14.57 12.40 5 vedanapoli 77.71 85.18 14.57 15.86 6 magic 80.93 88.72 13.34 17.92 7 priscilla 71.88 80.40 13.69 17.28 hybrid 1 a. beauty x sylvia 68.93 77.34 13.23 14.69 2 a. beauty x melody 61.76 69.71 10.57 12.69 3 a. beauty x s. sunshine 68.10 76.90 15.30 15.69 4 a. beauty x vedanapoli 70.16 77.57 15.22 15.33 5 a. beauty x magic 82.11 89.11 13.42 14.06 6 a. beauty x priscilla 61.24 71.68 13.07 16.28 7 sylvia x melody 60.58 69.04 11.51 12.95 8 sylvia x s. sunshine 68.07 76.46 15.24 9.33 9 sylvia x vedanapoli 63.94 71.87 13.72 16.69 10 sylvia x magic 65.74 71.43 10.15 15.68 11 sylvia x priscilla 69.19 79.29 11.16 14.24 12 melody x s. sunshine 68.73 76.40 14.16 16.33 13 melody x vedanpoli 62.18 70.43 15.16 13.75 14 melody x magic 69.93 78.47 11.89 15.88 15 melody x priscilla 67.34 75.24 12.40 15.89 16 s. sunshine x vedanpoli 74.69 82.37 15.25 16.75 17 s. sunshine x magic 78.62 89.93 13.78 16.56 18 s. sunshinex priscilla 66.23 73.86 13.34 11.57 19 vedanpoli x magic 82.21 90.52 15.40 19.35 20 vedanpoli x priscilla 73.90 84.62 13.18 13.91 21 magic x priscilla 77.22 84.62 14.40 18.92 s. em± 2.27 2.73 1.06 1.09 followed by vedanapoli x magic (4.72 cm) and american beauty x priscilla (4.55 cm), and, minimum (3.03 cm) was recorded in sylvia x summer sunshine. data (table 3) on number of days for flower bud initiation revealed that cv. american beauty was the earliest to exhibit flower bud initiation (62.81 days), followed by melody (63.25 days) while the hybrid sylvia x melody was the earliest (60.58 days) followed by american beauty x priscilla (61.24 days) and american beauty x melody (61.76 days). the hybrid vedanapoli x magic (82.21 days) was the last to initiate flower bud. arora and khanna (1985) reported that time taken for spike emergence varied significantly among various cultivars. these findings are closely confirmed with the present results. further, neeraj et al. (2000) suggested that gladiolus can be grouped as early, mid, late and may be cultivated for longer duration of flowering and garden display. the cv. american beauty took genetic variability in gladiolus j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 177-180, 2009 180 less days (70.67 days) for first floret opening followed by melody (72.80 days) and sylvia (72.97 days) while the hybrid sylvia x melody took less (69.04 days) days for first floret opening followed by american beauty x melody (69.71 days) and sylvia x magic (71.43 days). where as the hybrid vedanapoli x magic took maximum (90.52 days) number of days for first floret opening. the range for days for first floret opening was between 69.71 to 90.52 days. similar range for first flowering was observed by swaroop et al. (2005). the variety summer sunshine and vedanapoli (14.5 days) took more number of days for first to last floret opening followed by american beauty (14.38 days) while the hybrids vedanapoli x magic took more number of days (15.40 days) followed by summer sunshine x vedanapoli (15.25 days) and sylvia x summer sunshine (15.24 days). the parents sylvia exhibited shorter flowering duration (10.66 days) followed by summer sunshine (12.40 days) and american beauty (15.11 days). while the hybrid sylvia x summer sunshine reported shorter flowering duration (9.33 days) followed by summer sunshine x priscilla (11.57 days) and american beauty x melody (12.69 days). where as the hybrid vedanapoli x magic exhibited wider flowering duration (19.35 days). the range for flowering duration was observed between 11.33 to 19.35 days, while saini et al. (1991) reported a range of 17 to 25.9 days in the field experiment. considerable morphological variation was observed for all the characters except for the leaf width among the various parents and f 1 ’s. hence these characters could be considered as useful selection criteria for further improvement in gladiolus. among 21 hybrids, american beauty x vedanapoli, american beauty x priscilla, melody x summer sunshine, summer sunshine x vedanapoli, summer sunshine x priscilla, vedanapoli x magic, and vedanapoli x priscilla were found to be promising for various growth characters and american beauty x melody, sylvia x melody, melody x vedanapoli, summer sunshine x priscilla and american beauty x priscilla were found to be promising for various flowering characters. references arora., j. s. and khanna, k. 1985, evaluation of gladiolus cultivars. j. of res. punjab agril. univ., 22:635-662 arora j.s., misra r.l., singh k., singh, p. and bhattacharjee s.k., 2002. gladiolus. technical bulletin no.14. publlished by all india coordinated research project on floriculture, division of floriculture and landscaping, indian agriculture research institute, new delhi110 012, india, pp 110 bose, t. k. and yadav, l, p., 1989. commercial flowers. naya prokash publications, culcutta, pp 267-350 cochran, w.g. and cox, j.m, 1964. experimental designs. john wiley & sons, london misra, r.l. and saini, h.c. 1990.correlation and pathcoefficient studies in gladiolus. ind. j. hort., 47:127132 neeraj, mishra, h.p. and jha, p.b. 2000. evaluation of gladiolus germplasm under north bihar conditions. ind. j. hort., 57:178-181 saini, r.s., gupta, a.k. and yamdagni, r. 1991. performance of different cultivars of gladiolus (gladiolus floribundus l.) under hissar conditions. south ind. hort. 39:99-101 sharma, t.r. and gupta, r.b. 2003. effect of corm size and spacing on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus. j. orn. hort., 6:352-356 swaroop, k., singh, k.p and singh, k.p. 2005. performance of gladiolus under delhi conditions. j. orn. hort., 8:31-35 (ms received 7 august 2007, revised 24 august 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 177-180, 2009 hemanth kumar and kulkarni introduction apricot (prunus armeniaca l.) is an important fruit crop of the mid-hill and dry temperate regions of the country. in india, apricot is grown on an area of 2400 ha producing 10000 mt annually, for table purpose as well as dehydrated products. overall productivity is 4.1t/ha, which is very low in comparison to the global average of 7.11t/ha (fao, 2008). in india, although j & k boasts of the highest productivity (2.89 t/ha), it is less than half that of the international figure. in this content, there is a need to improve quality, production and productivity to meet domestic and export demand. apricot is a perishable fruit, having a short-shelf life (3-5 days) at ambient conditions (2-4 weeks shelf-life under cold storage). the short shelf-life of this fruit is due to its short shelf-period from commercial ripening to degradation processes like senescence (egea et al, 2007; agar and polate, 1995). to increase the supply of apricot fruits, there is an urgent need to study ways in which its marketing period can be extended, while ensuring high-quality. an inverse relation exists between fruit tissue calcium levels and fruit respiration rate. by spraying calcium chloride solution fruits during their development, their rate of respiration at picking time can be reduced (faust et al, 1972). role of calcium in maintenance and modulation of various cell functions is effect of pre-harvest application of calcium chloride and gibberellic acid on shelf-life and post-harvest quality of apricot (prunus armeniaca l.) cv. harcot s. lal, d. kumar, d.b. singh, n. ahmed, r. kumar and g.a. dar central institute of temperate horticulture old air field, po: rangreth-190007, india e-mail: shiveith@gmail.com abstract pre-harvest application of calcium chloride (0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 %) and gibberellic acid (10, 20 and 30 ppm ) at 80% blooming, fruit-set and at 15 days before harvest were carried out on 5-year old trees of apricot cv. harcot. all the treatments significantly reduced physiological loss in fruit weight, fruit diameter and spoilage percentage during storage. however, cacl 2 @ 1.5% was found to be most effective in minimizing weight loss in fruits during storage compared to control. fruits quality (tss, titrable acidity, tss/ta, ascorbic acid, total sugar, etc.) was also found to be better (even at 8 days of storage at ambient condition with this treatment) compared to control. hence, it can be concluded that pre-harvest foliar application in apricot cv. harcot with cacl 2 @ 1.5% at three stages, i.e., 80% blooming, at fruit-set and 15 days before harvest, enhances shelf-life of the fruit from 3-5 days storage to 8 days storage, and can maintain good fruit quality under ambient storage-condition for up to 8 days. key words : pre-harvest, harcot, calcium chloride, gibberellic acid, ambient condition storage based on its presence in the in membrane and in on cellwall ca2+ in an integral part of the cell wall where it provides stability, resulting in cell-wall rigidity. haggag (1987) and el-shemy (1998) reported that spraying ‘anna’ apple fruits from mid-june to august with calcium nitrate or calcium chloride improved their keeping quality. both treatments reduced fruit-softening, gave firm fruits and reduced the severity of physiological disorders during storage. rease et al (1999) reported that calcium chloride sprays increased ca2+ concentration in apricot fruits and improved their shelflife by increasing fruit-firmness. nutrient and plant growth regulators like ga 3 have been extensively used for improving quality, delaying degradation in storage and, thereby, increasing the shelf-life of various fruits (kher et al, 2005). ga 3 on fruits and plants acts as an anti-senescence agent (ahmed et al, 2001), in turn controlling transpiration and respiration rate (a.o.a.c., 1985) thus reducing fruit weightloss during storage. apricot cv. harcot grown under the karewa condition of temperate region (characterized by low precipitation and high evapo-transpiration) suffers from nutrient deficiency, particularly calcium, due to its high fixing rate, besides low soil-fertility resulting from continuous and exhaustive growth of the fruit trees. nutritional status of the tree has a striking and important role in controlling prej. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):46-51, 2011 47 and post-harvest quality of fruits. with this view, the present study was conducted to evaluate preand post-harvest treatments with calcium chloride, and gibberellic acid as a pre-harvest treatment in maintenance of apricot cv. harcot fruit quality under ambient storage conditions. material and methods the present research was carried out at the research farm of central institute of temperate horticulture (cith), srinagar, during the years 2008-09 and 2009-10. the experimental farm is situated at a latitude of 34o05n and a longitude of 74o50e at 1640m above mean sea level experiencing a maximum temperature of 19.63oc and a minimum of 6.52oc. average annual rainfall is 60.72mm, relative humidity 58.35 % with evaporation rate of 2.45. the soil is clay-loam to silt-clay, ph 6.81 and ec 0.36 dsm-1 estimated the during growing seasons 2008-09 & 2009-10. the trees were spaced 3.5m x 3.5m along and across the rows, respectively. trees were grown under drip irrigation and uniform cultural practices suitable for commercial fruit production. commercially grown apricot cv. haricot was selected for the study. treatments comprising 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 % cacl 2 and ga 3 @ 10, 20 and 30 ppm were applied at 80% blooming, fruit-set and 15 days prior harvest in two successive seasons, 2008 and 2009. however, control trees were treated with regular water. all the treatments were applied with a knapsack sprayer. fruits were harvested at optimal (commercial) maturity stage. healthy fruits free from physiological or pathological disorders were selected and washed with chlorine water, and air dried. each treatment during the two seasons of the study was replicated three times; each replicate was represented by four boxes. each box was lined with butter paper and contained three kg of fruit. boxes were stored at ambient conditions (27-28oc) and 70-80% rh. fruit spoilage % and percentage physiological loss in weight was determined every two days by examining for physical properties all fruits packed in the boxes. determination of chemical constituents was also carried out every two days using four fruits per box. titrable acidity (ta) was determined by titration to ph 8.1 with 0.1m naoh solution and expressed as grams of citric acid per 100g of juice (a.o.a.c., 1984). total soluble solids (tss) were determined using atago digital refractrometer, calibrated using distilled water, and recorded as obrix at 22oc. total sugars were estimated as per the method described by ranganna (2001). results were expressed as perentage. ascorbic acid was determined employing the method described by ruck (1963) and results were expressed as mg per 100g of juice. the data (average of 2 years) was statistically analyzed using fcrd by the online statistical analysis package (opstat) by the computer section, ccs haryana agricultural university, hisar. results and discussion effect of application of cacl 2 and ga 3 on physical properties of apricot cv. harcot stored at ambient conditions physiological loss in weight (plw%): data presented in table 1 show the effect of cacl 2 and ga 3 on percent weight-loss in apricot cv. harcot fruits stored at ambient conditions during 2008 and 2009 seasons. minimum percent physiological weight reduction (5.76) was recorded in with cacl 2 1.5%, followed by cacl 2 1% (6.65) and cacl 2 0.5% (6.73) compared to control (8.11). these results are similar to the findings of tomola et al (1998) and tabatabaie and malakouti (1998) who recorded minimum weight-loss in apple fruits treated with various concentrations of calcium chloride. data on storage intervals showed that there was a gradual increase in weight loss percentage during storage in selected cultivar. the maximum physiological loss in weight (14.92 %) was found after 8 days of storage in all table 1. effect of various concentrations of cacl 2 and ga 3 on fruit plw (%) and fruit spoilage (%) plw (%) fruit spoilage (%) treatment 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean cacl 2 0.5% 0 3.48 7.04 9.07 14.08 6.73 0 2.08 5.19 20.40 30.06 11.54 cacl 2 1% 0 3.30 6.52 9.18 14.25 6.65 0 1.54 5.72 19.57 30.46 11.46 cacl 2 1.5% 0 2.33 6.20 8.12 12.17 5.76 0 1.03 3.80 16.82 26.33 9.59 ga 3 10 ppm 0 4.03 6.64 9.62 15.37 7.13 0 1.70 5.62 22.00 31.04 12.07 ga 3 20 ppm 0 4.08 7.10 9.67 16.00 7.37 0 1.92 5.30 23.96 32.32 12.70 ga 3 30 ppm 0 5.15 7.29 9.22 15.03 7.34 0 1.72 5.52 23.29 34.66 13.03 control 0 5.13 7.89 10.03 17.52 8..11 0 2.37 6.36 24.83 39.33 14.58 mean 0 3.93 6.95 9.27 14.92 0 1.76 5.36 21.55 32.03 factors c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factors c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factor (t) 0.27 0.13 0.09 factor (t ) 0.50 0.25 0.18 factor (d) 0.23 0.11 0.08 factor (d ) 0.42 0.21 0.15 factor (t x d) 0.61 0.30 0.21 factor (t×d) 1.13 0.56 0.40 t=treatment, d=days, t x d = treatment x days j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):46-51, 2011 effect of cacl 2 and ga 3 on shelf-life and quality of apricot fruits 48 the treatments as compared to 0 day of storage i.e., 0.0%. the increase in loss percentage of fruit weight with the increase in storage period was also reported by el-shemy (1998) on “canino” apricot. these results are also inline with the findings of bidabe (1970) who found that there was a weight loss in apple fruits as the storage period was further prolonged. per cent fruit spoilage: table (1) clearly indicates that there was an evident trend for decreasing fruit spoilage% due to the used treatments. per cent fruit spoilage appeared to be increased with increasing the storage period. minimum per cent fruit spoilage (9.59) was recorded in treatment cacl 2 1.5 % followed by cacl 2 1% (11.46) and cacl 2 0.5% (11.54) as compared to control (14.58) (fig. 1-3). elham et al (2007) also reported similar types of results in apricot fruits. data regarding storage intervals showed that there was a gradual increase in fruit spoilage percentage during storage in selected variety. the maximum fruit spoilage (32.03 %) was found after 8 days of storage in all the treatments as compared to 0 day of storage i.e., 0.0%. similar trend was previously obtained, by fataliev (1985) who found that percent spoilage was increased with increasing of storage period in apple fruits. fruit diameter: application of treatments significantly affected the fruit diameter during storage and maximum fruit diameter (44.62 mm) was recorded with treatment of cacl 2 1.5 % followed by cacl 2 1% (44.591 mm) and cacl 2 0.5 % (43.37 mm) (table 2). the possible reason may be that calcium chloride at higher concentrations served as a semi-permeable membrane around the fruit-surface resulting in reduction in evapo-transpiration and in the rate of respiration. data on storage interval showed a gradual decrease in fruit-diameter during storage, and minimum fruit diameter (37.62mm) was found at 8 days of storage in all the treatments compared to 0 day of storage (44.42mm). these results are in accordance with kher et al (2005) who reported decreased fruit diameter with increase in storage-period. effect of application of cacl 2 and ga 3 on chemical properties of apricot cv. harcot stored at ambient conditions total soluble solids (obrix) comparison of treatment means (table2) showed an increase in tss in all the treatments, and maximum (19.59) t.s.s. obrix in control followed by ga 3 20 ppm (17.73) and table 2. effect of various concentrations of cacl 2 and ga 3 on fruit diameter (mm) and tss (o brix) fruit diameter (mm) tss (obrix) treatment 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean cacl 2 0.5% 47.14 45.85 43.23 41.63 39.00 43.37 14.99 15.91 16.04 16.63 14.833 15.682 cacl 2 1% 47.44 45.720 44.94 43.63 41.21 44.59 13.44 14.36 16.10 17.00 16.00 15.38 cacl 2 1.5% 47.70 46.45 44.96 43.19 40.79 44.62 18.51 15.53 15.66 16.33 16.00 16.40 ga 3 10 ppm 45.94 44.81 44.04 43.14 42.61 44.11 14.70 15.72 15.82 16.70 18.34 16.25 ga 3 20 ppm 44.43 43.03 42.45 40.65 38.70 41.85 17.13 18.36 17.65 17.18 18.33 17.73 ga 3 30 ppm 36.56 34.86 33.04 32.15 29.92 33.30 16.00 17.20 16.48 17.33 17.33 16.86 control 41.75 40.07 37.07 35.27 31.09 37.05 17.73 17.59 19.07 21.08 22.47 19.59 mean 44.42 42.97 41.39 39.95 37.6 16.07 16.38 16.69 17.46 17.61 factors c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factors c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factor (t) 1.05 0.52 0.37 factor (t) 1.22 0.61 0.43 factor (d) 0.88 0.44 0.31 factor (d) 1.03 0.52 0.36 factor (t x d) n.s. 1.17 0.83 factor (t x d) n.s. 1.37 0.97 t=treatment, d=days, t x d= treatment x days fig 1. cacl 2 1.5% (8 days after storage at ambient condition) fig 3. control (8 days after storage at ambient condition) fig 2. cacl 2 1% (8 days after storage at ambient condition) j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):46-51, 2011 lal et al 49 ga 3 30ppm (16.86); whereas, the minimum was recorded with cacl 2 1% (15.382) . this might be due to calcium chloride (1%) forming a thin layer on the surface of fruits thereby delaying the degradation process. it may have also reduced evaporation from the fruits preventing reduction in moisture and in hydrolysis of polysaccharides, resulting in a lower increase in t.s.s. these results are similar to the findings of badshah et al (1994) and hussain et al (2001). data on storage-interval means depict a gradual increase in tss percentage with increasing storage-interval. maximum t.s.s. obrix (17.61) was seen at 8 days of storage compared to 0 day of storage (6.07). this increasing trend in t.s.s. in response to prolonged storage was probably due to hydrolysis of polysaccharides and the concentrated juice resulting from dehydration. these results are in accordance with findings of farooqi et al (1973) and wills et al (1980) on apple fruits, who reported t.s.s. of apple fruits to increase during storage. titrable acidity (%) data on titrable acidity (table4) showed that treatment cacl 2 1.5% gave the highest value (1.249%), whereas lowest value (1.117%) was observed in control. this may be due to lower oxidation in fruits, confirming the finding of drake and spayed (1983). they found ‘golden delicious’ apples, when treated with cacl 2 had higher titratable acidity than untreated apples. calcium decreased the degradation of acids, thus maintaining integrity of the cells. these results are in accordance with findings of hussain et al (2001) and wojcik (2001). data on storage interval showed an increase in acidity in all treatments during storage. on 0 day of storage, titrable acidity was 1.30%, which decreased to 1.00% at 8 days of storage. vitamin c (ascorbic acid mg/100g juice) comparison of different treatments and storage intervals in table 4 depicts highest ascorbic acid content table 4. effect of different concentration of cacl 2 and ga 3 on fruit tss/acid and total sugar (%) tss/acid total sugar (%) treatment 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean cacl 2 0.5% 13.61 13.42 12.47 12.73 13.24 11.36 11.53 12.10 12.33 12.63 11.99 cacl 2 1% 13.97 13.68 14.51 16.54 15.98 14.84 11.13 11.30 12.00 11.86 12.10 11.68 cacl 2 1.5% 13.49 16.47 15.80 16.43 5.633 16.25 11.43 11.50 12.33 12.53 12.93 12.14 ga 3 10 ppm 16.94 13.84 13.97 14.58 14.89 14.29 10.12 10.50 11.06 11.43 12.03 11.03 ga 3 20 ppm 14.17 12.66 14.51 13.27 13.72 13.62 10.15 10.33 11.06 11.83 12.28 11.13 ga 3 30 ppm 13.95 14.94 15.02 17.86 18.19 16.09 10.19 10.86 11.77 12.49 13.33 11.73 control 14.44 14.93 15.21 16.22 17.17 15.38 10.41 10.53 11.16 11.46 11.83 11.08 mean 13.40 14.30 14.63 15.34 15.47 10.68 10.93 11.64 11.99 12.45 factors: c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factors: c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factor (a) 1.22 0.61 0.43 factor (a) 0.16 0.08 0.05 factor (b) n.s. 0.51 0.36 factor (b) 0.13 0.06 0.04 factor (a x b) n.s. 1.37 0.97 factor (a x b) 0.36 0.18 0.13 t=treatment, d=days, t x d= treatment x days table 3. effect of different concentration of cacl 2 and ga 3 on fruit titrable acidity (%) and vitamin c (mg/100g juice) titrable acidity (%) vitamin c (mg/100gm pulp) treatment 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean 0 day 2 days 4 days 6 days 8 days mean cacl 2 0.5% 1.31 1.24 1.15 1.19 1.05 1.22 11.83 11.60 11.30 10.83 10.20 11.15 cacl 2 1% 1.38 1.31 1.13 1.21 1.05 1.22 11.86 11.70 11.40 10.86 10.60 11.28 cacl 2 1.5% 1.38 1.32 1.11 1.25 1.05 1.24 12.10 11.80 11.50 11.20 10.90 11.50 ga 3 10 ppm 1.29 1.20 1.03 1.13 0.98 1.13 10.50 10.20 10.00 9.40 9.20 9.86 ga 3 20 ppm 1.38 1.31 1.20 1.25 1.10 1.192 10.43 10.30 9.73 9.20 8.90 9.71 ga 3 30 ppm 1.20 1.16 0.96 1.09 0.88 1.06 10.70 10.40 9.60 9.10 8.60 9.68 control 1.19 1.11 0.96 1.03 0.88 1.03 10.33 10.20 9.10 8.26 7.90 9.16 mean 1.30 1.24 1.16 1.08 1.00 11.11 10.88 10.37 9.83 9.47 factors c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factors c.d. (5%) se(d) se(m) factor (a) 0.042 0.021 0.015 factor (a) 0.079 0.039 0.028 factor (b) 0.036 0.018 0.012 factor (b) 0.067 0.0337 0.023 factor (a x b) n.s. 0.047 0.033 factor (a x b) 0.178 0.089 0.063 t=treatment, d=days, t x d= treatment x days j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):46-51, 2011 effect of cacl 2 and ga 3 on shelf-life and quality of apricot fruits 50 (11.50mg/100g juice) in fruits treated with cacl 2 1.5%, and the lowest in control (9.16mg/100gm pulp). perhaps calcium chloride delayed oxidation in fruits, resulting in higher ascorbic acid content. these results are in accordance with kropp and ben (1985) on apples who found a slight decrease in ascorbic acid content in fruits treated with various coating and packaging materials compared to control. data on storage-interval showed that in all the treatments, ascorbic acid content decreased as storageperiod extended. these results are similar to those of rana et al (1992) who reported juice and ascorbic acid content of apples to decrease with storage. tss / titrable acidity (ta) data on tss/acid ratio are presented in table 3. maximum average tss/ta ratio during storage was recorded with cacl 2 1.5% (16.257), followed by ga 3 20ppm (16.095). kher et al (2000) too reported maximum average tss/acid ratio in storage with 60ppm naa (29.48), followed by 90ppm ga 3 (28.53) in guava. data on storage-interval means showed a continuous increase in tss/acid ratio from the second day upto 8 days of storage. this increasing trend may have resulted from considerable decrease in acid content and low decrease in tss of fruits during storage. total sugars (%): total sugars showed an increasing trend in all the treatments (table7). maximum sugar percentage (12.14) was found with cacl 2 1.5% and minimum (11.03) with ga 3 10ppm followed by control (11.08). calcium pectate is an important component of the cell wall, therefore, adequate amounts of calcium may help reduce conversion of acids into sugars. these results are supported by the study of bhadra and sen (1997) on custard apple who reported a gradual increase in sugar content and decrease in acidity in fruits treated with calcium coating-materials. sheikh et al (2000) and el-shemy (1998) also reported calcium chloride as pre-harvest spray on ‘le conte’ pear fruits to result in higher levels of reducing sugars than in control during storage. data on storage-interval means showed a continuous increase in total sugars from 0 day to 8 days of storage. this gradual increase in total sugar percentage may have occurred due to increased dehydration of fruits resulting in higher levels of concentrated juice. these results are supported by badshah et al (1994) and gul et al (1990) who found the sugar content in apple and mango to increase with storage. based on results of this study, it can be concluded that pre-harvest foliar application of cacl 2 @ 1.5% in apricot cv. harcot at three stages, i.e., 80% blooming, fruit-set, and 15 days prior to harvest enhances the shelf-life of fruits and results in better quality under ambient storage conditions, up from 3-5 days of storage to 8 days. references a.o.a.c. 1985. official methods of analysis of the association of official analytical chemists agar, t. and polate, a., 1995. effect of different packing materials on the storage quality of some apricot varieties. acta hort., 384:625-631 ahmed, f.f. and morsy, m.h. 2001. response of ‘canino’ apricot trees grown in the new reclaimed land to application of some nutrients and ascorbic acid. the fifth arabian hort. conf. ismalia, egypt, pp 27-34 a.o.a.c. 1984. official methods of analysis, 14th ed., association of official analytical chemists, washington d.c. u.s.a badshah, n., haroon u.r. and safi, s. 1994. role of calcium in prolonging the shelf life of apples. sarhad j. agri., 10:639-645 bhadra, s. and sen s.k. 1997. post harvest storage of custard apple (annona squamosa l.) fruit var. local green under various chemical and wrapping treatments. ind. j. interacademicia, 18:322-328 bidabe, b., le lezec, m, and babin, j. 1970. apple quality in relation to picking and eating time. arboriculture fruitiere, 17:26-33 egea, m.i., martinez-madrid, m.c, sanchez-bel, p., muricia, m.a. and romojaro, f. 2007. the influence of electron-beam ionization on ethylene metabolism and quality parameter in apricot (prunus armeniaca l. cv builda). swiss soc. food sci. tech., 40:10271035 elham z. motty, abd el , mohamed, h. el-shiekh, mohamed, f.m. and fawzy shahin, m.i.f. 2007. effect of preharvest calcium and boric acid treatments on characteristics and storability of “canino” apricot fruits, res. j. agri. biolo. sci., 3:430-439 el-shemy mervat, a. 1998. effect of some treatments on physical and chemical characteristics and storability of ‘anna’ apple fruits. ph.d. thesis, tanta univ., fac. agri., hort. dept., kafr el-sheikh fa0. 2008. http://faostat.fao.org/site/567/default.aspx#ancor farooqi, w.a. and hall, e.g. 1973. effect of wax coating on apple and pears during storage and ripening. austr. j. exptl. agri., 13:200 j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):46-51, 2011 lal et al 51 fataliev, a.i. 1985. effect of treating apple fruits with calcium salt on their resistance to infection during storage. vestniksel’s skokhozyaistvennol nauki (barku, azerbaijan, ussr), 5:51-52 faust, m. and shear, c.b. 1972. the effect of calcium on respiration of apples. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 97:437-439 gul, s., ishtiaq, m. and shah, s.h. 1990. studies on the effect of storage on the quality of sweetorange. sarhad j. agri., 6:433-436 haggag, m.n. 1987. effect of pre-harvest and post -harvest calcium treatments on storage behavior of ‘le conte’ pears. alex. j. agril. res., 32:175-188 hussain, m.a., mahdy, e.l. and ibrahim, t.k. 2001. effect of calcium chloride and gibberellic acid treatments on ‘anna’ and ‘dorest’ golden apples during storage. assiut. j. agril. sci., 32:185-200 kher, ravi and bhat shanoo. 2005. effect of pre-harvest application of plant growth regulators (ga 3 , naa and ccc) on post-harvest quality of guava (psidium guajava l.) cv. sardar, j. res., 4:88-95 kropp, k. and ben, t. 1985. trials on applying a protective coating to reduce transpiration and improve fruits health. j. hort. sci., 55:242-246 rana, g.s., kartar, s. and singh, k. 1992. studies on extending post–harvest life of sweet orange fruits. cropes higar. supplement pp 154-157 ranganna, s. 2001. sugar estimation. in: ranganna, s. (ed.), handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products, 2nd ed., tata mcgraw-hill publn., new delhi rease, j.t., darke s.r. and staiff, d.c. 1999. calcium sprays, time of harvest, and duration in-cold-storage affects fruit quality of ‘d’ anjou’ pears in a critical year. j. pl. nutrition, 22:1921-1929 ruck, j.a. 1963. chemical methods of analysis of fruits and vegetables. dept. agri. canada, publication no. 1154 sheikh, a.f. 2002. effect of preharvest calcium treatments on characteristics and storability of ‘le conte’ pear fruits. zagazig j. agril. res., 29:492-523 tabatabaie, s.j. and malakouti, m.j. 1998. the effect of calcium on fruit firmness and quality in ‘red delicious’ apple. soil & water j., 12:43-49 . tomala, k., montanes, v.j. and monge, l. 1998. effect of calcium sprays on storage quality of ‘sampion’ apples. procs iii int’l symp. on mineral nutrition of deciduous fruit trees. acta hort., 448:59-65 wills, r. banbridge, b.h. and stock, p.a. 1980. use of flesh firmness and other objective tests to determine consumer acceptability of ‘delicious’ apple. aust. j. exptl. agri. & ani-hus., 206:252-256. wojcik, p. 2001. ‘jonagold’ apple fruit quality as influenced by fall sprays with calcium chloride at high rates. j. pl. nutr., 24:1925-1936 (ms received 11 december 2010, revised 16 april 2011) j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):46-51, 2011 effect of cacl 2 and ga 3 on shelf-life and quality of apricot fruits introduction india is the largest producer of garlic in the world with an annual production 5,65,000 tones at an average productivity of 4.74 t /ha (shanmugasundaram. 2005), which is much lower than the potential productivity. garlic, being a nutrient loving crop, responds well to added fertilizers in the soil. warade et al (1995) stated that continuous application of inorganic fertilizers deteriorate the soil. therefore, to maintain soil fertility in order to supply plant nutrients in balanced proportion for optimum growth, yield and quality of crop, under different agroecological situations an integrated use of inorganic and organic source of plant nutrients is to be practiced. keeping this in view, an experiment was conducted to study the response of organic and inorganic fertilizers on growth, yield and quality of garlic. material and methods a field experiment was carried out at department of horticulture, marathwada agricultural university, parbhani. maharashtra, india during rabi 2005 on response of organic and inorganic fertilizers on garlic, variety yamuna safed 3 by adopting randomized block design with eight treatments viz., t 1 -100 % recommended dose of fertilizers (rdf),t 2 50 % rdf + 50 % n through vermicompost, t 3 -25 % rdf+ 75% n through vermicompost, t 4 -50 % rdf + 50 % n through neem cake, t 5 -25 % rdf +75 % n through neem cake, t 6 -50 % rdf +50 % n through fym, response of garlic to organic and inorganic fertilizers m. b. patil, d. s. shitole, s. b. shinde and n. d. purandare department of horticulture marathwada agriculture university parbhani431 402, india e-mail: sorsbdn@yahoo.co.in abstract an experiment was carried out to study the response of organic and inorganic fertilizers on growth, yield and quality of garlic (allium sativum l.) cv. yamuna safed-3. the results revealed that the combined application of 25% rdf with 75% n through fym @ 20 t/ha gave higher marketable bulb yield of 19.34t/ha as compared to other treatments which were statistically on par with 100% rdf (18.53 t/ha ) and 50% rdf + 50% n supplied as fym (18.94 t/ha). it is suggested that for better biometric observations, bulb characters and marketable bulb yield in garlic, combined use of inorganic and organic source of nutrient supply is preferable. key words: organic, biometric, garlic t 7 -25 % rdf +75 % n through fym and t 8 –control (no manures and fertilizers ). the soil was medium black with ph 7.6 containing 0.74 % organic carbon, 255.02 kg / ha n, 18.32 kg/ha p 2 o 5 , 327.68 kg/ha k 2 0. the garlic variety yamuna safed-3 was (clove) planted at 15 x 7.5 cm spacing in 1.95 m x 1.35 m plots. the organic manures were applied 10 days before sowing. the inorganic chemical fertilizers, as per the above treatments, were applied through urea, single superphosphate and muriate of potash. growth parameters were recorded 30, 45, 60, 90, 105 and 120 days after planting (dap). statistical analyses of biometrical characters were done following panse and sukhatme (1967). results and discussion the data on the plant height number of leaves, bolting percentage, days to maturity, neck thickness, polar diameter, equatorial diameter, and shape index are presented in table 1 which revealed that there were significant differences between organic and inorganic fertilizer treatments. at 120 dap, the maximum plant height of 71.90 cm was observed in the treatment 25 % rdf+75 % n through fym and found significantly higher than the control, closely followed by application of 100 % rdf (19.64 cm) and 25 % rdf + 75% n through neem cake (71.34 cm). treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 , t 5 , t 6 and t 7 did not show significant differences. the control (t 8 ) showed the lowest plant height (70.06 cm) which may be due to addition of no organic or inorganic fertilizers. similar finding was reported by waghachaure (2004) in onion. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 130-133, 2007 130 131 significantly higher number of leaves per plant (10.80) at 120 dap was produced under the treatment 25% rdf + 75% n through fym as compared to other treatments. the second best treatment in this regard was t 6 . treatments t 1 , t 2 , t 3 , t 4 , t 5 and t 6 were statistically on par with each other. the lowest number of leaves per plant (9.73) was observed in the control. as regards bolting percentage, it was observed that the treatment t 7 (25% rdf+ 75 % n through fym) showed a value of 17.70%. significantly higher bolting (37.68%) was observed in the treatment t 3 treatment t 6 recorded the earliness in bulb maturity (126.10 days) and found to be significantly higher than the treatment t 3 and t 8 control. the next best treatment for attaining early maturity was treatment t 7 (25% rdf + 75 % n – through fym) (126.67 days), which was statistically at par with the treatments t 1, and t 5 . the treatment t 8 (control) took maximum days (133.00 days) for bulb maturity. the lowest neck thickness (0.93 cm) in garlic bulbs was recorded in the treatment t 7 . maximum neck thickness in garlic bulbs (1.24 cm) was recorded in the treatment t 1, which was found statistically at par with the treatments t 2, t 3 and t 8. as regards polar diameter, maximum polar diameter of bulb (4.7 cm) was recorded in the treatment t 7, which was significantly higher than the other treatments except t 1 and t 6 . significantly minimum polar diameter (3.6cm) was recorded in the treatment control (t 8 ). similar trend was observed in respect of equatorial diameter of garlic bulbs. maximum equatorial diameter of bulb (5.2 cm) was recorded in the treatment t 7 (25% rdf+75% n through fym) the lowest equatorial diameter of bulb (4.4 cm) as found in the treatments t 3 (25% rdf+ 75 % n through vermicompost) and were statistically similar with each other. highest shape index of garlic bulb (0.90) was recorded in the treatment t 6 and t 7 while significantly lowest shape index of bulb (0.81) was recorded in the treatment control t 8. thus, positive influence of combined treatment t 7 on biometric characters of garlic could be attributed due to solubilization of plant nutrients exerted by addition of farm yard manure on native and applied plant nutrients as well as chelating effect on metal ions leading to subsequent uptake of npk by plant (subbiah et al, 1982). further, fym might have enhanced the use efficiency of chemical fertilizer. the data on bulb characters and yield of garlic shown in the table 2. significant differences in respect of fresh weight of bulb and cured weight of bulb were observed in treatments receiving organic and inorganic fertilizers. maximum fresh weight of bulb (35.60 g) was recorded in the treatment t 7, which was significantly higher than other treatments except treatment t 6 . the treatments t 2 , t 3 , t 5 and t 8 were statistically at par with each other. significantly lower fresh weight of bulb (24.00 g) was recorded in the treatment t 8 . the trend observed in respect of cured weight of bulb (33.40 g) was also similar in the treatment t 7, which was significantly higher than other treatments except the treatments t 1 and t 6 . significantly lower cured weight of bulb (20.40 g) was recorded in the treatment t 8 . similar finding was reported by lal et al (2004) in onion. the maximum number of cloves per bulb (22.00) was recorded in the treatment t 8 followed by t 3 (20.00) and t 2 (19.00). table 1. effect of organic and inorganic fertilizers on biometric characters of garlic cv. yamuna safed-3 sl. no. treatment plant height no. of leaves bolting maturity neck polar equatorial shape (cm) at 120 dap at 120 dap (%) (days) thickness diameter diameter index (cm) (cm) (cm) t 1 100 % rdf 71.64 10.26 21.19 127.33 1.24 4.5 5.1 0.89 t 2 50 % rdf+50% n through vermicompost 71.12 10.33 24.04 130.67 1.16 4.0 4.5 0.84 t 3 25 % rdf+75 % n through vermicompost 71.00 10.20 27.34 132.33 1.13 3.8 4.4 0.86 t 4 50 % rdf+ 50 % n through neem cake 71.26 10.20 24.00 130.33 1.10 4.4 4.9 0.88 t 5 2 5% rdf+ 75 % n through neem cake 71.34 10.13 28.99 129.67 1.04 4.0 4.7 0.86 t 6 50 % rdf+ 50 % n through fym 70.96 10.40 19.89 126.10 0.99 4.5 5.1 0.90 t 7 25 % rdf+ 75 % n through fym 71.90 10.80 17.70 126.67 0.93 4.7 5.2 0.90 t 8 control 70.06 9.73 37.68 133.00 1.22 3.6 4.4 0.81 se ± 0.50 0.09 0.84 1.52 0.04 0.07 0.07 0.01 cd(p=0.05) 1.58 0.29 2.56 4.60 0.14 0.22 0.24 0.04 response of garlic to fertilizers j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 130-133, 2007 132 the lowest number of cloves per bulb (12.00) was found in the treatment t 7. as regards clove length, maximum length of clove (3.50cm) was recorded in the treatment t 7 . the treatments t 2 (2.60), t 3 (2.40) and t 5 (2.70) were statistically at par with each other. the minimum length of clove was measured in the control treatment t 8 (2.30 cm). maximum diameter of clove (1.35 cm) was recorded in the treatment t 7. significantly lower clove diameter (1.08 cm) was recorded in the control. as regards clove weight, maximum mean weight of clove was recorded in the treatment t 7 (2.73 g), which was significantly superior to the rest of the treatments except treatment t 6 . the treatments t 2 (1.40g), t 3 (1.26 g) and t 5 (1.66 g) were statistically at par with each other. significantly lower weight of clove (0.88g) was recorded in the treatment t 8 . highest bulb yield per plot was recorded in the treatment t 7 (5.10 kg) followed by the treatment t 6 (4.97 kg) and treatment t 1 (4.95 kg), which were significantly superior over to rest of the treatments under study. the lowest bulb yield per plot (4.50 kg) was recorded in the treatment t 8 . as regards yield per hectare, the treatment t 7 recorded the highest bulb yield (19.33 q / ha). the treatments t 1 and treatment t 6 were statistically at par with the treatment t 7. lowest bulb yield (17.05 t/ha) was recorded in the treatment t 8 . similar results were reported by shamra et al (2003) in onion. biometric observations as well as bulb characters and yield of garlic were significantly influenced by the combined use of inorganic chemical fertilizers with organic sources of nutrients. this might be due to gradual and steady release of nutrient during the growth period as well as table 2. response of organic and inorganic fertilizer on biometric observations of garlic cv. yamuna safed-3 sr. no. treatment mean fresh mean cured mean length of diameter weight bulb bulb bulb wt (g) weight of number clove(cm) of clove of clove yield / yield / bulb (g) of cloves (cm) / bulb (g) plot (kg) ha(q) /bulb t 1 100 % /rdf 32.73 30.26 14.00 3.00 1.30 2.13 4.95 188.26 t 2 50 % tdf + 50 % n through vermicompost 29.44 27.17 19.00 2.26 1.21 1.40 4.67 177.15 t 3 25 % rdf + 75 % n through vermicompost 28.61 25.46 20.00 2.40 1.09 1.26 4.63 175.50 t 4 50 % rdf + 50 % n through neem cake 31.46 29.06 15.00 2.90 1.27 1.93 4.77 180.81 t 5 25 % rdf + 75 % n through neem cake 30.93 28.66 17.00 2.70 1.24 1.66 4.77 180.68 t 6 50 % rdf + 50 % n through fym 34.33 31.93 14.00 3.20 1.32 2.40 4.97 189.33 t 7 25 % rdf + 75 % n through fym 35.60 33.40 12.00 3.50 1.35 2.73 5.10 193.31 t 8 control 24.00 20.40 22.00 2.30 1.08 0.88 4.50 170.47 se ± 0.90 1.09 16.00 0.01 0.30 0.11 0.05 2.00 cd (p=0.05) 2.75 3.30 1.04 0.30 0.10 0.34 0.18 6.07 enhanced biological activity and proper nutrition to the crop (nair and peter, 1990 ; sharma and bhal, 1995; hangarge et al, 2001). thus, for better biometric and bulb character and marketable yield of garlic, combined use of inorganic and organic sources of nutrient supply is suggested. references hangarge, d. i., rant r. s,, more s. d., dholane, l. p. and birajar, r. r. 2001. response of chilli to integrated nutrient supply system. j. soils and crops, 10:188-192 lal, s., yadav, a. c., mangal., j. b. avtarsingh and batra, v. k. 2002. effect of fym and irrigation level on growth and yield of onion cv. hissar, 2. haryana j. hortl. sci., 31:256-258 nair, m. and peter, p. v. 1999. organic, inorganic fertilizers and their contribution on yield and storage life of hot chilli. veg. sci., 17:710 sharma, n. k. and bhalla, p. j. 1995. influence of integrated nutrient management on growth, yield and economics in okra (abelmoschus esculentus ) (l.) moench. veg. sci., 22:1-4 panse, v. g. and sukhatme, p. v. 1967. statistical method for agriculture workers icar, new delhi shanmugasundaram, s. 2004 vegetables and surmountable challenges. the hindu survey of indian agriculture. subba rao, t. s. s. and ravisankar, c. 2002. effect of organic manures on growth and yield of brinjal. south ind. hort., 49 (special):288 -291 tripathy. p. bhattahcarya, b. and maity, t. k. 2004. response of okra (abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench) to integrated nutrient management system cv. utkal gourav. the orissa j. hort., 32:14-18. patil et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 130-133, 2007 133 tupe, s. a. 1996 studies on effect of bio-organic soil enricher (celrich) application on growth and yield of okra and physico-chemical changes in lateritic soil of konkan. m.sc. (agri). thesis, kkv, dapoli. waghachaure, d. d. 2004. effect of integrated nutrient management on growth, yield and quality of onion cv. phule suvarna. m.sc. (agri). thesis, mau, parbhani warade, s. d. desale. s. b. and shinde, k. g. 1995. effect of organic and inorganic and biofertilizer on yield of onion bulb. j. maharashtra agri. univ., 20:467-468 yadav, v. s. and yadav, b. d. 2002. effect of nicast (organic manure) in comparison to recommended dose of manure and fertilizers in onion. south ind. hort., 49 (special):157-159 (ms received 4 may 2007, revised 10 december 2007) response of garlic to fertilizers j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 130-133, 2007 introduction chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) of the family asteraceae is a popular flower crop. among the two types, viz., standard and spray, spray chrysanthemums are dwarf and ompact-growing types. these are suitable for pot culture and are used mostly as cut-flowers. chrysanthemum is a partial sciophyte and, therefore direct sunlight significantly affects quantity and quality of flower in this crop. performance of the crop is different under protected or partially protected conditions compared to the open-field. standardization of planting time is one of the most important non-monetary inputs for crop production. it is essential in planning staggered planting to ensure longer flowering-duration to capture market for longer part of the year. in view of the above, an experiment was carried out to assess performance of the cultivars under open-field and polyhouse by planting a number of spray chrysanthemum cultivars on different dates. comparative performance of spray chrysanthemum cultivars under polyhouse and open-field cultivation at different dates of planting subhendu s. gantait and p. pal1 department of floriculture, medicinal & aromatic plants faculty of horticulture, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya pundibari, cooch behar – 736165, india e-mail : ssgflori@gmail.com abstract fifteen cultivars of spray chrysanthemum were evaluated in polyhouse and open-field, with three planting dates from mid-july to mid-august during 2003-05. overall plant growth, flower stem length, number of flowers per plant, shelf life and vase life of flower were found to be maximum under 15th july planting compared to 30th july and 15th august plantings both under polyhouse and open-field conditions. flower size and flower yield (g/plant) was highest under 30th july planting in polyhouse condition, whereas, in open-field it was the 15th july planting. early flowering was recorded in 15th august planting both in polyhouse and open-field. cultivar arati showed maximum flower stem length and flower yield. some of the other cultivars, viz., yellow anemone, sarad mala, apsara violet and aditi also exhibited high yield both under polyhouse and open-field conditions. polyhouse always recorded higher yield than open-field. cultivar yellow anemone planted on 15th july recorded highest number of flowers per plant regardless of growth environment. highest flower yield (794.94g) per plant was recorded in cv. arati in 30th july planting under polyhouse, while, it was maximum in 15th july planting in open-field. key words: chrysanthemum, polyhouse, planting time, open-field material and methods field experiment was conducted at horticultural research station, mondouri (23on, 83oe and 9.75m altitude), bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, nadia, west bengal, india during two consecutive winter seasons, 200304 and 2004-05. the soil was clay-loam at ph 6.8, organic carbon 0.58, total n 156.8 kg/ha, available p 2 o 5 50.4 kg/ha and available k 2 o 208.5 kg/ha. treatments included fifteen genotypes, each raised at three dates of planting (dop), viz., 15th july (mid-july), 30th july (end of july) and 15th august (mid-august), with three replicatios. the experiment was laid out in split-plot design both under polyhouse and in the open field with a plot size of 1m x 1m. standard package of practice was followed. a total of three north-south oriented polyhouses were used in the experiment. each polyhouse was 20m long, 5m wide and 4m in height. temperature was recorded from 1st september to 31st december during various growth stages of the crop. thermal regime inside the polyhouse was always higher than that on the outside. on an average, difference in temperature inside 1department of floriculture and land scaping, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia -741 252, west bengal, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):123-129, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 124 the polyhouse and outside during day or night was 9.0oc and 5.0oc, respectively. during crop growth period, daytemperature inside the greenhouse varied from 20.5oc to 29.8oc, and night temperature varied from 18.0oc to 28.2oc. though variation in day and night temperatures was almost similar upto end of october, beyond this temperature difference in the polyhouse was more pronounced during the day. during the period of crop growth, bss was recorded to vary from 1.2 to 10.7 hour and relative humidity inside the polyhouse varied from 71 to 100%. treatments applied in the experiment are detailed below. sl. date of symbol sl. cultivar symbol no. planting no. 1. 15th july p 1 1. amal v 1 2. sarad mala v 2 3. kundan v 3 4. kelvin victory v 4 5. nanako v 5 2. 30th july p 2 6. red gold v 6 7. kelvin brisk v 7 8. tata red v 8 9. arati v 9 10. jaya v 10 3. 15th aug. p 3 11. yellow anemone v 11 12. white anemone v 12 13. aditi v 13 14. lokenath v 14 15. apsara violet v 15 observations on growth, flowering and yield parameters were recorded and subjected to statistical analysis as per panse and sukhatme (1967). results and discussion a perusal of results of two years (2003-04 & 200405) and mean data in the experiment (tables.1-4) revealed that treatments (cultivar, planting date and growth environment) resulted in significant variation in growth, flowering and yield characters under study. among the three planting dates, early planting (15th july) significantly influenced plant height (105.31cm), leaf area index (iai) (9.03), number of branches (59.13) per plant, flower stem length (77.17cm), flower yield in terms of number of flowers (411.36) per plant and shelf-life (24.96 days) of flowers in pooled data of two years, under polyhouse condition. similar observations were found in open-field conditions. this may be due to the fact that early planting received a higher number of long days and witnessed higher temperature during the vegetative growth phase, thereby influencing both vegetative and reproductive characters, whereas, flower yield (g/plant) was found to be maximum (467.44g) in the 30th july planting under polyhouse. in the open-field, production was maximum (322.55g) under 15th july planting. delayed planting (15th august) of chrysanthemum both under polyhouse and openfield showed reduced vegetative growth, stem length of flower and lowest flower yield (both in numbers and weight of flowers per plant). similar findings were recorded by machin (1955) and meher et al (1999) in chrysanthemum. delayed planting took minimum time for flower bud emergence (fbe) and optimum bloom from date of planting, both under polyhouse and open-field. among these, plants under open field took relatively less time (73.14 days and 116.85 days, respectively) compared to polyhouse. diameter and weight of individual flower varied significantly owing to planting date. maximum diameter (5.01cm) and weight (2.33g) of individual flower were recorded under midplanting (30th july), followed by early planting (15th july) under polyhouse. but, in the open-field, maximum flower diameter (4.67cm) and individual flower weight (1.88g) was found under 15th july planting (though, these were at par with records of the 30th july planting). vase life of cutflower polyhouse was found to be significantly superior in 30th july planting; but, in the open-field, this was so in the 15th july planting. these findings corroborate results of przymeska and lisiecka (2001) on flowering and quality of flowers in chrysanthemum. table 1. effect of planting time on growth of spray chrysanthemum cultivars dop plant height lai no. of days days flower (cm) branches required required to stem length per plant to fbe flowering (cm) polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen house field house field house field house field house field house field p 1 15th july 105.31 74.99 9.03 6.36 59.03 42.53 95.93 88.93 142.33 135.32 77.17 57.95 p 2 30th july 95.75 66.02 8.70 5.94 51.93 33.15 89.21 81.24 134.19 126.31 71.49 52.47 p 3 15th august 71.28 52.81 7.96 5.07 31.34 18.47 81.24 73.14 124.95 116.85 45.71 36.47 sem ± 1.584 0.894 0.173 0.216 1.150 0.687 0.240 0.337 0.190 0.195 0.361 0.441 cd (p=0.05) 4.391 2.478 0.57 0.69 3.19 1.90 0.67 0.93 0.53 0.54 1.00 1.22 contd…. gantait and pal j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):123-129, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 125 table 2. effect of planting time on flowering of spray chrysanthemum cultivars dop flower individual no. of flower shelf-life vase-life diameter flower flowers weight (g) of flower of flower (cm) weight per plant per plant (days) (days) polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen house field house field house field house field house field house field p 1 15th july 4.73 4.67 2.00 1.88 411.36 321.32 437.26 322.55 24.96 22.38 21.93 19.80 p 2 30th july 5.01 4.65 2.33 1.85 382.45 281.63 467.44 289.79 24.85 21.27 22.07 18.67 p 3 15th august 4.62 4.41 1.96 1.49 266.62 175.38 268.02 155.35 20.48 17.03 19.30 16.80 sem ± 0.011 0.028 0.023 0.033 2.458 5.666 13.703 11.197 0.062 0.125 0.069 0.077 cd (p=0.05) 0.03 0.08 0.06 0.09 6.81 15.71 37.98 31.04 0.17 0.35 0.19 0.21 table 3. growth, attributes of different cultivars of spray chrysanthemum cultivar plant height lai no. of days days flower (cm) branches required required to stem length per plant to fbe flowering (cm) polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen house field house field house field house field house field house field v 1 amal 68.05 62.97 4.94 3.65 22.90 18.68 80.04 76.96 125.79 121.00 43.45 37.83 v 2 sarad mala 89.01 66.76 6.49 2.68 82.63 45.12 94.88 82.96 133.71 126.04 75.49 53.79 v 3 kundan 65.86 53.59 7.04 4.61 33.07 20.96 75.45 68.21 124.79 117.71 54.33 41.63 v 4 kelvin victory 94.15 54.72 7.62 6.80 20.12 15.67 68.63 58.88 133.83 120.00 70.38 41.63 v 5 nanako 63.11 42.39 6.11 1.54 13.88 9.85 60.63 57.96 115.75 110.71 40.68 21.50 v 6 red gold 93.44 74.46 8.39 7.40 63.24 56.98 92.08 84.04 135.08 128.33 61.51 56.67 v 7 kelvin brisk 116.03 70.20 10.2 6.66 12.51 5.83 65.75 59.96 131.67 124.67 75.73 39.69 v 8 tata red 102.07 80.91 8.94 6.69 34.19 21.56 99.08 95.75 138.96 134.17 73.76 60.72 v 9 arati 130.39 75.04 8.57 4.70 62.08 26.58 96.00 90.38 133.67 126.67 87.42 68.25 v 10 jaya 92.98 72.15 7.17 5.80 44.09 28.65 100.38 91.63 140.38 130.29 59.24 53.66 v 11 yellow anemone 80.73 49.57 12.72 8.54 116.36 96.76 95.25 82.54 138.04 131.46 51.66 50.79 v 12 white anemone 99.08 75.51 7.35 4.76 24.26 14.23 99.75 91.13 138.50 132.67 82.74 67.17 v 13 aditi 89.08 69.81 13.44 7.68 118.44 67.42 101.46 90.88 142.00 129.33 75.86 60.50 v 14 lokenath 99.36 70.38 8.21 6.53 36.60 23.43 102.58 92.96 140.25 131.58 59.38 33.83 v 15 apsara violet 78.37 51.58 11.28 8.80 26.05 18.73 99.92 92.33 134.92 127.75 60.21 46.84 sem ± 2.000 1.578 0.412 0.647 3.043 1.107 0.450 0.442 0.428 0.413 0.663 0.706 cd (p=0.05) 5.544 4.374 1.19 1.98 8.44 3.07 1.25 1.23 1.19 1.14 1.84 1.96 contd…. performance of spray chrysanthemum cultivars cultivars grown under polyhouse exhibited better yield and yield attributes in all respects compared to that under open-field conditions. these results corroborate findings of saud and talukdar (1999) in chrysanthemum. among various cultivars, arati (v 9 ) recorded maximum plant height (130.39cm), stem length (87.42cm) of cut-flowers and yield, both in number (703.58) and weight (704.42g)) of flowers per plant, whereas cultivar aditi (v 13 ) recorded maximum leaf area index (13.44) and number of branches (118.44) per plant, regardless of growth conditions. cultivars nanako and kundan were found to be dwarf varieties, with a plant height of 63.11cm and 65.86cm, respectively. under openfield, cultivars tata red (80.91cm), arati (75.04cm), red gold (74.46cm) were noticed as tall varieties, whereas nanako (42.39cm), yellow anemone (49.57cm), apsara violet (51.58cm) appeared to be dwarf. variation in plant height has been observed among different cultivars of spray chrysanthemums by chezhi-yan et al (1985). genotypic differences were also reported for plant height and canopy (altmann and streitz, 1995). among the various cultivars, nanako took the least time to attain optimum-bloom stage under polyhouse as well as open-field conditions. emergence of flower bud and occurrence of optimum bloom was found to be earlier in open-field than in the polyhouse in all culivars. days taken to flower bud emergence (chezhi-yan et al, 1985) and days taken to attain optimum bloom stage (gupta and dutta, 1997; singh and dadlani, 1989) were studied in different cultivars of spray chrysanthemum. cultivar arati j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):123-129, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 126 table 4. yield and yield related attributes of different cultivars of spray chrysanthemum cultivar flower individual no. of flower shelf-life vase-life diameter flower flowers weight (g) of flower of flower (cm) weight (g) per plant per plant (days) (days) polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen house field house field house field house field house field house field v 1 amal 4.27 4.23 1.46 1.43 272.33 241.55 319.88 290.11 23.67 21.63 20.50 19.33 v 2 sarad mala 4.72 4.56 1.91 1.62 484.56 376.93 553.29 404.08 25.00 22.46 21.00 19.50 v 3 kundan 4.65 4.40 2.23 1.85 251.30 184.91 366.88 219.58 25.38 22.04 24.50 20.33 v 4 kelvin victory 3.20 2.93 2.33 1.73 277.56 106.04 350.21 121.77 28.67 22.83 19.83 16.83 v 5 nanako 2.99 2.63 1.81 1.50 57.29 42.91 96.44 54.31 17.50 14.79 18.33 15.67 v 6 red gold 4.66 5.24 1.86 1.53 280.89 263.07 361.71 297.53 25.46 20.33 24.17 22.50 v 7 kelvin brisk 5.48 4.43 4.43 3.32 77.10 21.90 291.03 73.41 24.08 15.46 22.33 16.50 v 8 tata red 6.14 5.37 2.74 2.51 334.71 227.30 530.01 352.22 22.46 19.67 20.67 18.17 v 9 arati 5.93 5.37 2.58 2.10 703.58 431.11 704.42 510.54 26.50 22.83 19.67 17.33 v 10 jaya 5.39 5.03 2.35 1.83 396.69 326.48 523.11 311.88 24.46 22.17 18.83 16.67 v 11 yellow anemone 4.31 4.63 1.11 1.07 690.38 633.69 448.95 386.83 17.79 16.79 20.67 18.67 v 12 white anemone 6.04 5.34 2.07 1.31 252.38 159.56 302.62 132.04 24.83 22.04 22.83 20.17 v 13 aditi 4.75 4.73 1.72 1.34 404.05 291.94 390.19 218.16 24.71 22.29 18.83 16.00 v 14 lokenath 4.97 5.78 1.97 2.13 342.11 240.73 398.64 286.75 22.42 21.21 24.17 21.67 v 15 apsara violet 4.32 4.00 0.89 0.82 477.19 343.59 251.15 179.19 18.50 16.88 20.17 17.00 sem ± 0.042 0.041 0.052 0.050 5.370 5.720 11.449 10.870 0.242 0.246 0.243 0.240 cd at (p=0.05) 0.12 0.11 0.14 0.14 14.89 15.86 31.74 30.13 0.67 0.68 0.67 0.66 produced longest stem both under polyhouse and open-field conditions. maximum flower diameter (6.14cm) was recorded in cv. tata red under polyhouse, which was at par with flower diameter of ‘white anemone’ (6.04cm); whereas, cv. kelvin brisk produced the heaviest (weight of individual flower) flower (4.43g) compared to other cultivars under polyhouse. in the open-field, lokenath (v 14 ) registered maximum size (diameter) of flower (5.78cm) and ‘kelvin brisk’ (v 7 ) produced the heaviest (3.32g) flowers. though ‘arati’ produced maximum number (703.58) of flowers under polyhouse, other cultivars like yellow anemone, sarad mala, apsara violet and aditi were also found to be highyielding cultivars producing 690.38, 484.56, 477.19 and 404.05 number of flowers. cultivar nanako produced lowest number (57.29) of flowers per plant. in the open-field, ‘yellow anemone’ was found to produce maximum number of flowers per plant (633.69), whereas ‘kelvin brisk’ yielded the minimum number (21.90) of flowers per plant. flower yield in cultivars grown in open-field, was far lower when grown under polyhouse. in the open-field, arati recorded maximum flower yield (510.54g) and cultivars, viz., sarad mala, yellow anemone and tata red also produced fairly good quantity of flowers (404.08g, 386.83g and 352.22g per plant, respectively). plants grown under polyhouse exhibited better shelf-life and vase-life of flowers compared to those grown under open-field. life of flowers on the plant was highest (28.67 days) in cv. kelvin victory, whereas longest vase-life (24.50 days) of flowers was recorded in ‘kundan’. similar variations in flower size, shelf-life and vase-life of flowers in spray chrysanthemums have previously been recorded by saud and talukdar (1999). interaction effect between planting time and cultivar on plant height, days to flower-bud emergence optimum bloom and vase life did not show any significant difference between polyhouse and open-field. however, variations were statistically significant for leaf area index, number of branches per plant, flower stem length, flower diameter, individual flower weight, number of flowers per plant, flower yield and shelf-life between polyhouse and open-field grown crop. conclusion overall plant growth, flower stem length, number of flowers per plant, shelf life and vase life of flower was found to be maximum in 15th july planting compared to 30th july or 15th august planting, both under polyhouse and open-field conditions. flower size and flower yield (g/plant) was highest under 30th july planting under polyhouse, whereas, in open-field this was so in 15th july planting. cultivar arati showed maximum flower stem length and flower yield, and cultivars, viz., yellow anemone, sarad mala, apsara violet and aditi exhibited high flower yield both under polyhouse and open-field conditions. polyhouse cultivation recorded higher flower yield than that under openfield. gantait and pal j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):123-129, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 127 table 5. effect of planting time and cultivar on growth and flowering in chysanthemum treatment plant no. of days required days required stem length height lai branches/plant to fbe to flowering (cm) of cut flower polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen house field house field house field house field house field house field p 1 v 1 77.74 71.88 4.71 3.80 29.75 24.25 87.88 85.88 135.13 130.00 54.28 48.68 p 1 v 2 97.50 76.79 7.18 2.97 116.70 65.65 103.50 94.38 143.13 136.13 88.49 63.28 p 1 v 3 73.51 60.88 6.15 5.17 40.30 27.28 83.63 76.25 133.63 128.13 64.55 47.70 p 1 v 4 109.64 63.87 8.11 7.67 24.70 20.63 74.75 65.75 142.00 127.88 87.65 46.78 p 1 v 5 74.01 43.79 7.12 1.93 18.85 12.90 67.00 64.38 125.25 120.88 48.08 25.40 p 1 v 6 111.19 85.44 9.06 8.36 82.73 76.60 97.38 91.50 143.88 137.88 73.00 68.48 p 1 v 7 137.25 83.12 10.48 7.19 16.50 7.28 71.88 65.88 138.25 131.38 88.05 45.45 p 1 v 8 109.68 91.88 10.98 7.18 42.83 26.43 107.63 104.25 148.00 143.75 83.13 71.05 p 1 v 9 148.46 87.41 8.64 4.67 78.33 37.53 101.38 97.38 141.38 134.88 96.88 78.93 p 1 v 10 107.15 84.87 8.15 5.86 62.23 41.13 107.13 98.25 148.38 138.00 72.08 63.48 p 1 v 11 95.57 59.02 13.08 9.95 138.95 124.33 101.88 89.88 145.38 141.75 63.88 60.15 p 1 v 12 112.64 88.15 7.47 5.66 31.05 19.73 105.75 99.13 146.50 141.63 94.93 79.60 p 1 v 13 110.79 82.90 14.01 8.05 144.40 95.53 108.38 99.50 150.38 139.00 93.55 74.65 p 1 v 14 118.59 78.76 8.98 7.63 51.43 34.53 111.38 104.25 150.25 141.13 73.98 38.78 p 1 v 15 96.03 66.03 11.39 9.32 33.48 24.20 109.38 100.25 143.38 137.38 75.10 56.85 p 2 v 1 71.71 66.11 5.13 3.68 26.18 21.08 79.75 76.75 125.13 121.25 47.08 42.88 p 2 v 2 93.19 69.17 7.21 2.54 88.23 45.75 95.13 83.50 133.38 126.00 81.01 57.25 p 2 v 3 69.49 57.98 6.48 4.33 36.33 24.15 75.63 67.88 125.50 117.75 60.33 43.15 p 2 v 4 97.80 56.51 7.77 6.40 20.98 16.45 68.75 59.00 134.00 120.13 79.80 43.65 p 2 v 5 68.29 48.30 5.87 1.50 15.70 11.28 61.38 58.34 116.38 110.88 43.70 22.25 p 2 v 6 97.04 73.75 8.99 7.76 73.18 63.55 92.38 84.13 135.38 128.50 69.03 63.45 p 2 v 7 117.93 73.23 10.57 6.81 14.15 5.90 66.00 59.88 132.38 124.38 82.53 39.93 p 2 v 8 104.80 82.05 8.24 6.60 37.78 23.18 99.50 96.63 139.25 134.13 78.13 63.48 p 2 v 9 141.98 74.89 8.81 4.79 69.40 26.55 96.00 90.88 134.00 127.00 90.18 73.98 p 2 v 10 98.39 72.38 7.02 7.72 46.38 30.98 101.13 92.50 141.25 131.63 66.48 59.23 p 2 v 11 90.28 47.65 12.83 8.85 128.38 103.68 95.75 82.63 138.63 131.50 58.75 55.38 p 2 v 12 101.88 73.37 8.06 4.70 25.88 13.83 100.25 91.88 138.63 133.25 90.30 70.95 p 2 v 13 95.87 72.46 13.31 7.96 124.53 68.25 103.13 91.13 143.13 129.75 87.73 65.45 p 2 v 14 103.872 72.53 8.85 6.12 43.15 22.88 102.75 92.13 140.38 131.50 67.68 34.98 p 2 v 15 83.73 49.91 11.33 9.29 28.73 19.80 100.63 91.38 135.50 127.00 69.68 51.05 p 3 v 1 54.69 47.93 4.97 3.46 12.78 10.70 72.50 69.25 117.13 111.75 29.00 21.95 p 3 v 2 76.35 54.31 5.07 2.54 42.98 23.95 86.00 74.00 124.63 116.00 56.96 40.85 p 3 v 3 54.58 41.92 8.48 4.33 22.58 11.45 67.13 60.50 115.25 107.25 38.10 33.93 p 3 v 4 75.01 43.79 6.99 6.32 14.68 9.93 62.38 51.88 125.50 112.00 43.70 34.45 p 3 v 5 47.04 35.09 5.34 1.20 7.10 5.38 53.50 51.13 105.63 100.38 30.28 16.85 p 3 v 6 72.08 64.19 7.11 6.09 33.83 30.80 86.50 76.50 126.00 118.63 42.50 38.08 p 3 v 7 92.91 54.27 9.55 5.98 6.88 4.33 59.38 54.13 124.38 118.25 56.63 33.70 p 3 v 8 91.73 68.81 7.60 6.30 21.98 15.08 90.13 86.38 129.63 124.63 63.03 47.63 p 3 v 9 100.73 62.84 8.25 4.65 38.53 15.65 90.63 82.88 125.63 118.25 75.20 51.85 p 3 v 10 73.42 59.21 6.35 3.83 23.68 13.85 92.88 84.13 131.50 121.25 39.18 38.28 p 3 v 11 56.33 42.05 12.25 6.83 81.75 62.28 88.13 75.13 130.13 121.13 32.45 36.85 p 3 v 12 82.73 65.02 6.51 3.93 15.85 9.13 93.25 82.38 130.38 123.13 63.00 50.95 p 3 v 13 60.57 54.06 13.01 7.03 86.40 39.45 92.88 82.00 132.50 119.25 46.30 41.40 p 3 v 14 75.61 59.85 6.81 5.83 15.23 12.90 93.63 82.50 130.13 122.13 36.48 27.73 p 3 v 15 55.36 38.79 11.13 7.80 15.95 12.20 89.75 85.38 125.88 118.88 35.85 32.63 sem ± 4.900 2.733 0.763 0.821 5.271 1.918 0.879 0.866 0.941 0.915 1.148 1.222 cd (p=0.05) ns* ns* 2.36 2.45 14.61 5.32 ns* ns* ns* ns* 3.18 3.39 *ns = non-significant performance of spray chrysanthemum cultivars j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):123-129, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 128 table 6. effect of planting time and cultivar on flower yield and other flower tracts in cyrysanthemum treatment weight (g) of flower number of flower yield shelf-life of vase-life of individual diameter (cm) flowers per (g/plant) flower (days) flower (days) flower plant polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen polyopen house field house field house field house field house field house field p 1 v 1 1.34 1.53 4.20 4.33 316.82 290.92 363.30 351.63 25.25 23.88 21.50 21.00 p 1 v 2 2.05 1.90 4.85 4.85 551.59 541.59 605.88 586.86 27.13 24.50 21.50 21.00 p 1 v 3 2.30 2.13 4.65 4.45 312.96 235.31 431.71 289.81 26.63 24.50 26.50 21.50 p 1 v 4 2.38 1.90 3.25 3.00 332.14 148.73 424.54 172.55 31.00 26.88 21.00 18.00 p 1 v 5 1.80 1.70 2.83 2.65 72.85 56.74 115.92 79.63 18.38 16.13 19.00 16.50 p 1 v 6 1.85 1.75 4.68 5.48 330.56 319.53 422.49 372.90 28.00 23.75 25.50 23.50 p 1 v 7 3.80 3.65 5.10 4.58 97.65 31.04 290.21 108.23 25.13 17.25 24.50 18.00 p 1 v 8 2.38 2.80 6.00 5.63 410.76 292.91 578.18 488.13 23.25 21.75 21.50 20.50 p 1 v 9 2.18 2.23 5.68 5.35 791.46 521.28 717.30 613.98 29.00 25.63 20.50 18.50 p 1 v 10 2.30 1.95 5.43 5.18 460.96 406.15 597.25 416.31 25.50 23.75 19.50 18.00 p 1 v 11 1.08 0.95 4.25 4.63 798.16 760.87 486.42 340.15 18.75 18.00 20.50 19.50 p 1 v 12 2.10 1.50 5.98 5.75 284.77 209.18 351.68 181.45 26.38 24.63 23.50 21.50 p 1 v 13 1.60 1.43 4.58 4.68 459.17 369.37 408.88 278.16 25.63 24.00 19.50 18.50 p 1 v 14 1.85 1.78 4.83 5.23 399.71 339.53 426.36 333.44 24.00 22.50 24.00 22.50 p 1 v 15 1.03 0.93 4.68 4.33 550.79 386.67 339.35 224.98 20.38 18.63 20.50 18.50 p 2 v 1 1.65 1.48 4.43 4.28 292.28 266.02 380.07 331.75 24.13 22.00 20.50 19.50 p 2 v 2 2.28 1.63 5.10 4.58 520.27 426.37 627.61 429.36 26.25 23.63 22.00 19.50 p 2 v 3 2.60 1.98 4.80 4.48 296.46 212.61 493.44 247.73 27.13 22.88 24.50 20.50 p 2 v 4 2.55 2.10 3.43 3.13 300.05 112.49 405.99 148.88 31.88 25.13 19.50 17.00 p 2 v 5 1.90 1.53 3.33 2.78 62.98 43.77 126.45 58.06 18.13 15.38 19.50 16.00 p 2 v 6 2.00 1.70 4.80 5.33 299.46 278.23 401.51 331.12 26.88 21.50 24.50 22.50 p 2 v 7 4.53 3.58 5.53 4.45 87.16 22.27 358.71 78.63 25.75 16.13 23.00 16.50 p 2 v 8 3.00 2.55 6.35 5.43 361.33 273.75 651.56 398.27 24.50 20.50 22.00 18.50 p 2 v 9 2.73 2.18 6.03 5.13 753.57 424.85 797.94 523.59 27.88 23.75 21.00 18.00 p 2 v 10 2.65 1.88 5.80 5.08 418.89 352.26 625.01 335.01 26.00 24.25 20.50 17.50 p 2 v 11 1.23 1.28 4.43 4.75 758.91 721.32 584.03 558.46 18.13 17.38 22.50 19.00 p 2 v 12 2.28 1.30 6.23 5.48 267.18 165.14 338.66 137.54 27.63 24.63 25.00 20.50 p 2 v 13 2.00 1.48 5.03 4.73 425.40 305.77 484.70 241.09 26.75 22.88 19.00 16.00 p 2 v 14 2.30 2.23 5.58 6.13 379.41 264.67 497.63 344.58 22.38 21.63 25.00 22.00 p 2 v 15 0.90 0.83 4.38 4.03 513.38 354.93 238.19 182.75 19.38 17.38 22.50 17.00 p 3 v 1 1.35 1.28 4.18 4.10 207.89 167.71 216.26 186.97 21.63 19.00 19.50 17.50 p 3 v 2 1.40 1.33 4.20 4.25 381.82 252.83 351.38 196.02 21.63 19.25 19.50 18.00 p 3 v 3 1.80 1.45 4.50 4.28 144.48 106.82 175.51 121.22 22.38 18.75 22.50 19.00 p 3 v 4 2.05 1.20 2.93 2.68 200.51 56.91 220.10 43.90 23.13 16.50 19.00 15.50 p 3 v 5 1.53 1.05 2.83 2.45 36.04 28.21 46.95 25.23 16.00 12.88 16.50 14.50 p 3 v 6 1.73 1.38 4.50 4.93 212.64 191.45 261.14 188.54 21.50 15.75 22.50 21.50 p 3 v 7 4.95 2.73 5.80 4.28 46.49 12.41 224.17 33.41 21.38 13.00 19.50 15.00 p 3 v 8 2.85 2.18 6.08 5.05 232.05 115.24 360.28 170.28 19.63 16.75 18.50 15.50 p 3 v 9 2.85 1.90 6.08 5.63 656.72 347.20 597.97 394.04 22.63 19.13 17.50 15.50 p 3 v 10 2.10 1.68 4.95 4.83 310.22 221.02 347.08 184.33 21.88 18.50 16.50 14.50 p 3 v 11 0.98 0.98 4.25 4.50 514.07 418.36 276.42 261.88 16.50 15.00 19.00 17.50 p 3 v 12 1.83 1.13 5.93 4.80 205.18 104.37 217.53 77.13 20.50 16.88 20.00 18.50 p 3 v 13 1.55 1.13 4.65 4.80 327.56 200.68 278.07 135.22 21.75 20.00 18.00 13.50 p 3 v 14 1.75 2.38 4.50 6.00 247.19 117.99 271.93 182.24 20.88 19.50 23.50 20.50 p 3 v 15 0.75 0.70 3.90 3.65 367.41 289.17 175.40 129.86 15.75 14.63 17.50 15.50 sem ± 0.091 0.087 0.073 0.071 9.302 9.907 19.831 18.827 0.419 0.426 0.422 0.415 cd (p=0.05) 0.25 0.24 0.20 0.20 25.79 27.46 54.97 52.19 1.16 1.18 ns* ns* *ns = non-significant gantait and pal j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):123-129, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no 129 references altmann, a. and streitz, d. 1995. multiflora chrysanthemum for outdoor production. gartenbau magazin, 3:12-14 chezhi-yan, n., ponnuswami, v., thamburaj, s., khader a., nanjan, k. and gunasekaram, n. 1985. evaluation of spray chrysanthemum cultivars. south ind. hort., 33:279-82 gupta, v.n. and dutta, s.k. 1997. influence of artificial long-day treatment on expansion of blooming period in garden chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum moriflium ramat.) proc. of the nat’l. conf. chrysanthemum, 4-5 dec., lucknow, pp. 93-97 machin, b.j. 1955. dissertation for b.sc. (hons.), university of nottingham, uk. commercial flower vol. 1, 2nd edition (2003). eds. bose, yadav, pal, das and parthasarathy, p 486 meher, s.p., jitode, d.j., turkhede, a.b., darange, s.o., ghato, p.u. and dhawad, c.s. 1999. effect of planting time and growth regulator treatments on flowering and yield of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat). crop res. hissar, 18:345-348 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, india, p. 381 przymeska, j. and lisiecka, a. 2001. flowering of spray chrysanthemum cultivars (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev) in year-round cultivation depending on the date of planting. prace-z-zakresunauk-rolniczych, 91:163-174 saud, b.k. and talukdar, m.c. 1999. performance of spray chrysanthemum inside and outside low-cost plastic greenhouse, j. interacademicia, 3:25-28 singh, b. and dadlani, n.k. 1989. chrysanthemum varietal wealth. ind. hort., 36:30-31 (ms received 6 november 2010, revised 27 june 2011) performance of spray chrysanthemum cultivars j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(2):123-129, 2011 prinect color editor page is color controlled with prinect color editor 4.0.70 copyright 2008 heidelberger druckmaschinen ag http://www.heidelberg.com you can view actual document colors and color spaces, with the free color editor (viewer), a plug-in from the prinect pdf toolbox. please request a pdf toolbox cd from your local heidelberg office in order to install it on your computer. applied color management settings: output intent (press profile): graycoated_hdm.icc rgb image: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no rgb graphic: profile: ecirgb.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no cmyk image: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no cmyk graphic: profile: isocoated_v2_eci.icc rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no preserve black: no device independent rgb/lab image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent rgb/lab graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray image: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no device independent cmyk/gray graphic: rendering intent: perceptual black point compensation: no turn r=g=b (tolerance 0.5%) graphic into gray: yes turn c=m=y,k=0 (tolerance 0.1%) graphic into gray: no cmm for overprinting cmyk graphic: no gray image: apply cmyk profile: no gray graphic: apply cmyk profile: no treat calibrated rgb as device rgb: no treat calibrated gray as device gray: yes remove embedded non-cmyk profiles: no remove embedded cmyk profiles: yes applied miscellaneous settings: colors to knockout: yes gray to knockout: yes pure black to overprint: no turn overprint cmyk white to knockout: yes turn overprinting device gray to k: no cmyk overprint mode: set to opm1 if not set create "all" from 4x100% cmyk: no delete "all" colors: no convert "all" to k: no introduction in vitro mutagenesis is a valuable tool for improvement of a crop, especially when these is a need to add one or two easily identifiable characters in an otherwise well adapted variety, without disturbing its basic genotype. at current levels of plant breeding research, mutation breeding is highly suitable, when natural variation does not provide gene(s) for desired traits. mutation breeding is more effective than hybridization even when desired genes are present, but, tightly linked to undesirable genes. frequency of spontaneous mutation is quite low (approximately 10-6 for an individual gene), hence, attempts have been made to accelerate the rate artificially using physical and chemical mutagens. attempts to induce variability in citrus have been made by various workers with desirable results like seedlessness in sweet orange and grapefruit cultivars (davis and albrigo, 1994) and salt tolerance in troyer citrange (garcia-augustin and primo-millo, 1995). however, in rough lemon no specific information is available about ld 50 dose and the degree and direction of variation caused. in the present study, variability induced by gamma rays was studied with respect induction of mutation in rough lemon (citrus jambhiri lush.) using gamma rays h.k. saini and m.i.s. gill department of horticulture punjab agricultural university ludhiana – 141 004, india e-mail: tegisaini@yahoo.com abstract the present investigation was carried out to study variability induced by gamma rays with respect to vegetative characters and ld 50 dose in rough lemon. rough lemon seeds were gamma irradiated at doses of 0, 4, 6 and 8 kr along with control. seed germination decreased with increasing dose of gamma radiation. seedling height and leaf size also decreased with increasing dose of gamma radiation, whereas, apical branching, number of branches/seedling, number of variegated / albino seedlings and number of leaves increased with increasing dose of gamma radiation. maximum variability for seedling height, number of leaves, leaf size, colour, internode length, and per cent apical branching was observed at two months from sowing in seeds treated with 8 kr dose of gamma radiation. variability for all characters was, however, found to be minimum in the control. keywords: gamma rays, citrus, rough lemon, variability, seeds to vegetative characters and ld 50 dose in rough lemon seeds. material and methods the present research was conducted at the tissue culture laboratory, department of horticulture, pau, ludhiana, during 2007-08. seeds from healthy fruits of rough lemon were collected in august-september and exposed to gamma rays (after air-drying) at dosage of 0, 4, 6 and 8 kr from 60co source emitting 110 kr per hour. a hundred seeds were cultured on ms medium and each treatment was replicated thrice, so that there were three hundred seeds receiving each treatment. emerging seedlings were counted, at 10 day interval from sowing. ld 50 dose was determined from the number of seed germinated upto 45 days from sowing, as, no seedling emerged after this period. in vitro grown two-month old seedlings were used for measuring various growth parameters like height, internode length, number of leaves per seedling, and, leaf length and width, number of apical shoots per seedling, per cent apical shooting and per cent variegated and albino seedlings were recorded. data were analyzed as per completely randomized block design (snedecor and cochran, 1999). j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 41-44, 2009 42 results and discussion germination of seeds was severely affected with increasing dose of gamma radiation. at 45 days from sowing, seed germination was maximum in control (63.45%), followed by 4 kr (58.48%) treatment. ld 50 value was observed at 8 kr. seed germination decreased with increase in dose of gamma-radiation. similar results were reported by gregory and gregory (1965) using x-ray treatment and hearn (1984) with gamma radiation in citrus. data on seedling height in gamma irradiated rough lemon seeds after two months of sowing are presented in table 1. maximum seedling height was observed in control (7.79 cm) and minimum in 8 kr (3.76 cm) treatment (fig 1a). seedling height in different gamma ray treatments ranged from 5.8-9.0 cm in the control, 5.3-8.8 cm in 4 kr, 2.0-9.4 cm in 6kr and 0.4-7.0 cm in 8 kr treatment. likewise, kerkadzi (1985) observed decrease in seedling height with increasing gamma radiation dose in citrus. reduction in height was also reported by legave et al (1989) and waqar et al (1992) in kinnow seedlings. a majority of the seedlings in control were of medium height, while, in 8kr treatment seedlings were dwarf. the proportion of dwarf seedlings varied from none in control to 64.90% in 8 kr treatment. in the medium height category, proportion of seedling varied from 35.37% in 8 kr to 100% in control, whereas, their proportion ranged from none (control, 4 kr and 8 kr) to 12.43% in 6 kr treatment under the tall seedlings category. radiation treatments probably induced some changes at the gene level that ultimately reflected in substances that trigger biochemical processes controlling different aspects of growth. these substances, identified as auxins, gibberellins, ethylene and abscisic acid called phytohormones, initiates biochemical reactions and induce changes in chemical patterns that lead to various modifications and variations in plant characters, viz., height, branching and stem thickness, as reported by whittwer (1971). table 1. effect of different doses of gamma rays on germination and height in rough lemon seedling treatment germination (%) seedling height (cm) per cent seedlings in each category average range low<3 cm medium 3-9 cm high >9 cm control 80.00 (63.45)* 7.79 5.8-9.0 0.00 (0.00) 100.00 (89.96) 0.00 (0.00) 4 kr 68.60 (58.48) 6.70 5.3-8.8 44.75 (41.96) 52.75 (46.56) 0.00 (0.00) 6 kr 65.80 (53.58) 5.52 2.0-9.4 33.53 (35.37) 55.12 (47.92) 12.43 (20.63) 8 kr 55.62 (50.06) 3.76 0.4-7.0 64.90 (53.65) 35.37 (36.48) 0.00 (0.00) cd (p=0.05) 7.31 1.55 1.25 1.37 __ __ * figures in parentheses are transformed values fig 1. effect of different doses of gamma radiation on (a) seedling height (b) branching and (c) leaf colour j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 41-44, 2009 saini and gill control 4kr 6kr 8kr a 8kr control b 8kr 6kr control c significant reduction in leaf size was found with increasing dose of gamma rays (table 2) and, thus, the minimum leaf size (length 0.93 and breadth 0.43 cm) was observed in 8 kr treatment, followed by 6 kr. variability for leaf colour was maximum in 8 kr treated seedlings, while, it was minimum in control (table 2, fig 1c). the proportion of variegated leaves varied from none in control to a maximum of 59.54% in 8 kr treatment. in the albino category, the proportion varied from none 43 (control, 4 kr and 6 kr) to 19.34% in 8 kr treatment. in the normal leaf category, proportion varied from 43.34% in 8kr treatment to 100 per cent in control. the maximum average number of leaves per seedling 2 months from sowing was observed in 8 kr treatment (8.20), followed by 6 kr (7.60), whereas, the minimum average number of leaves per seedling was observed in the control (table 2). swaminathan (1965) reported that besides causing various phytohormones to malfunction and cause changes in chemical patterns leading to morphological variations, radiation treatments also caused quantitative and qualitative alteration in hereditary material. morphological effects due to radiation treatment have been reported in leaves and branches (sparrow and gunckel, 1956). these are generally recessive to the normal type or the condition they arise from, thereby suggesting that mutations induced are due to destruction of the gene. non-significant results were obtained for internode length in gamma ray treated rough lemon seedlings. the present findings are in conformity with jawaharlal et al (1991) in acid lime, thereby, indicating varietal or genetic specificity of each genotype to radiation. most of the illeffects of gamma radiation treatment started immediately after treatment and were manifest in terms of decreased sprouting capacity with increasing the dose. with increase in the dose of gamma rays, there was increase in per cent apical branching and the number of apical branches per seedling (table 3, fig 1b). maximum per cent branching was observed in 8 kr (41.76%) treatment with (3.90) apical branches per seedling, followed by 6 kr (19.34%) with 0.66 apical branches per seedling. results indicate that gamma rays at doses of 6 and 8 kr can be used to create sufficient variability in rough lemon genotypes. these mutants can be further exploited for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. references davis, f.s. and albrigo, i.g. 1994. citrus. cab international, wallingford, uk, pp 254 garcia-augustin, p. and primo-millo, e. 1995. selection of a nacl tolerant citrus plant. pl. cell rep., 14: 314-18 gregory, w.c. and gregory, m.p. 1965. induced mutation in quantitative characters. experimental basis for mutations to hardiness in citrus. proc. soil crop sci. soc. fla., 25:372-76 hearn, c.j. 1984. development of seedless orange and grapefruit cultivars through seed irradiation. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 109:270-73 jawaharlal, m., sambandamoorthy, s. and irulappan, t. 1991. effect of gamma-ray and ems on seed germination and seedling growth in acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle). south ind. hort., 39:332-36 kerkadzi, i.g. 1985. induced mutations in subtropical crops. v. biological and genetic effect of treating citrus with gamma-radiation. subtrop kul., 4:104-10 legave, j.m., tisne-agostini, d. and jacquemond, c. 1989. physiological effects induced by acute gammairradiation of clementine (citrus reticulata blanco). fruits paris., 44:329-33 table 2. effect of different doses of gamma rays on number of leaves, leaf size and leaf colour in rough lemon seedling treatment number of leaf size leaf colour (%) leaves /seedling length (cm) breadth (cm) variegated albino normal control 2.23 2.07 1.07 0.00 (0.00)* 0.00 (0.00) 100.00 (89.96) 4 kr 9.73 1.80 0.85 15.16 (22.90) 0.00 (0.00) 79.69 (63.30) 6 kr 9.63 1.21 0.61 73.79 (59.54) 11.65 (19.94) 63.02 (52.52) 8 kr 11.30 0.93 0.43 31.09 (33.87) 0.00 (0.00) 47.14 (43.34) cd (p=0.05) 1.86 0.43 0.13 7.03 __ 3.60 * figures in parentheses are transformed values table 3. effect of different doses of gamma rays on internode length, apical branching and number of branches/seedling in rough lemon treatment internode apical number of length branching branches/ (cm) (%) seedling control 0.42 0.00(0.00)* 0.00 4 kr 0.56 44.40(41.76) 1.10 6 kr 0.63 11.00(19.34) 1.66 8 kr 0.93 5.00(12.87) 3.90 cd (p= 0.05) ns 1.54 0.19 *figures in parentheses are transformed values gamma ray induced mutation in rough lemon j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 41-44, 2009 44 (ms received 4 november 2008, revised 18 february 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 41-44, 2009 saini and gill snedecor cw and cochran wg. 1999. statistical methods. 6th edition. oxford and ibh publ. co, calcutta, pp 593 sparrow, a.h. and gunckel, j.e. 1956. the effect of plants on chronic exposure to gamma-radiation from radio cobalt. proc int conf peaceful uses of atomic energy, 17:52-59 swaminathan, m.s. 1965. a comparison of mutation induction in diploid and polyploids. radiation bot., 5:619-41 waqar, a., wasim, a. farooqi and sattar (jr), a. 1992. effect of gamma irradiation on the morphology of kinnow seedlings. proc first intl. seminar on citriculture in pakistan, 2-5 dec, 1992 whittwer, s.h. 1971. radiation induced mutation in crop plants. outlook agri.,6:205-17 introduction sweet orange (citrus sinensis), the 2nd most important group of citrus, constituted 23% of total citrus production (singh, 2001) in india. mosambi is the choicest variety due to its sweet taste and pleasant aroma. application of water through drip irrigation along with some mulching materials may be helpful for getting quality fruits. several workers established the usefulness of drip irrigation in citrus for better plant growth and higher production of quality fruits in addition to other economical benefits of cultivation (deidda et al, 1994; kanber et al, 1996; tayde and ingle, 1999). very little information is available regarding the effect of drip versus basin irrigation on growth, yield and fruit quality of sweet orange. hence, a long term investigation on the above line was carried out in laterite soil. material and methods the experiment was conducted in sub-tropical weather at the regional research station, jhargram of bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, situated at 22on effect of basin versus drip irrigation on quality production in mosambi sweet orange s.n. ghosh and p.p. pal department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya mohanpur – 741 252, india e-mail: profsnghosh@yahoo.co.in abstract an investigation was undertaken to find out the effect of basin and drip irrigation on growth, production, fruit quality, foliar n, p, k values and soil moisture status in mosambi sweet orange grown in laterite soil. treatments included drip irrigation at 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 epan with and without black polythene mulching, basin irrigation @ 30 liter/plant at 18 days interval + black polythene mulching and control (no watering + black polythene mulching). the plants receiving irrigation at 0.8 epan + polythene mulching resulted 136 fruits per plant with superior in fruit quality in terms of highest tss (11.20b), sugar (8.5%) and vitamin c (47.8 mg/100ml) content. maximum fruit weight of 166 g and diameter of 7.0 cm were recorded in the fruits of the plants which received irrigation at 1.0 epan + polythene mulching. foliar nitrogen content was highest (2.65%) in plants with drip irrigation at 0.8 epan + polythene mulching while phosphorus and potassium content were non-significant among the treatments. irrigation (drip or basin) of the plants during dry months resulted lower shoot drying as compared to no irrigation. key words : citrus sinensis, drip irrigation, basin irrigation, fruit yield, fruit quality, laterite soil latitude and 87oe longitude with an altitude of 78.8 msl during 2005 to 2008 (4 consecutive years). the sweet orange cv. mosambi were planted during 1997 at a spacing of 5x5 m. the soil of the experimental site was laterite with a ph of 5.5. the treatments consisted of : t 1 = irrigation at 0.6 epan; t 2 = irrigation at 0.8 epan; t 3 = irrigation at 1.0 epan; t 4 = t 1 + black polythene mulching; t 5 = t 2 + black polythene mulching; t 6 = t 3 + black polythene mulching; t 7 = basin watering @ 30 litres/plant at 18 days interval + black polythene mulching, t 8 = control (no watering + black polythene mulching). the basin watering @ 30 litre/plant was found to be the best for this area as proposed by chattopadhyay and ghosh (1992). the irrigation through drip and basin was provided from january to june in each year. the treatments were laid out in a randomized block design with four replications with four plants in each replication. four emitters/plant at four sides were placed at 90 cm away from the trunk with a discharge rate of 4 l hr-1 emitter-1. the amount of water applied was determined by employing the formula of j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 25-29, 2010 26 biswas and mallick (1999), v = epan x kc x kp x a. where, v = volume of water applied to each plant per day (mm3); epan = pan evaporation multiplied by 0.6, 0.8 or 1.0 at the irrigation level (mm/day); a = area of wetting (mm2) [i.e., 60% of canopy area]; kc = crop factor (i.e., 0.8) and kp = pan coefficient (i.e., 0.8). the crop coefficient (kc) was adopted from the value suggested by doorenbos and pruitt (1977). thus, the amount of water required for mosambi plant through drip in january to june (average of 4 years) has been presented below: the vegetative growth parameters viz., height, basal girth and spread of sweet orange plants under different treatments were recorded at the beginning and at completion of the experiments and the growth was expressed as percentage of promotion. observation on fruit retention from marble stage to harvest and number of fruits per plant at maturity was made. physico-chemical analysis of fruit was based on ten randomly selected mature fruits from each plant. for chemical analysis of the fruits, the methods were followed as described by a. o. a. c. (1990). leaf n was month pan interval water evaporation watering requirement/plant (cm) (days) (litres) 1.0 0.8 0.6 epan epan epan january 0.23 3 9.1 7.3 5.5 february 0.33 2 8.7 7.0 5.2 march 0.47 0 6.2 5.0 3.7 april 0.57 0 7.5 6.0 4.5 may 0.60 0 7.9 6.3 4.7 june 0.53 0 7.0 5.6 4.2 determined using micro-kjeldahl method, p by vandomolybdophosphoric acid method and k by flame photometer. foliar n, p and k content from different treatments was estimated during last 2 years and average was mentioned. the dry shoots and branches available after pruning of the plants in december were weighed separately to know the condition of the plants under different treatments. results and discussion judicious application of water directly to the root zone could improve plant growth and development as observed in table 1. all growth parameters of mosambi plants were directly proportional to the amount of irrigation water applied through drip. as the amount of irrigation water increased, the growth of plants with respect to height, girth and canopy spread also proportionately increased and the findings was in consonance with castle and lopez (1993). mulching the plant with black polythene also had a great influence on growth characters. it was observed that plant respond well when irrigated at 1.0 epan as compared to 0.6 and 0.8 epan, but mulching with black polythene further enhanced the rate of growth. pruning of dry shoots is considered to be one of the cultural practices in sweet orange cultivation as shoots are dried up every year due to various reasons. it was found from the results in table 1 that irrigated plants (drip or basin) showed lower shoot drying as compared to control plants (no watering) and indicated that regular watering in dry periods is not only needed for fruit production but also for maintenance of plant health and vigor. unlike vegetative growth, fruit production did not proportionately increase with the increase in amount of irrigation water (table 2). the pooled data of 4 years showed that the plants under t 5 gave highest production (136 fruits plant-1) closely followed by t 6 (133.5 fruits plant-1). the table 1. effect of drip versus basin irrigation on plant growth in mosambi sweet orange treatmentplant growth (percent promotion) pruned dry height basal girth plant spread shoot (kg) east-west north-south t 1 = irrigation through drip at 0.6 epan 38.3 50.0 87.1 105.3 2.1 t 2 = irrigation through drip at 0.8 epan 44.9 50.6 97.6 110.9 2.0 t 3 = irrigation through drip at 1.0 epan 45.0 56.4 114.6 124.8 0.7 t 4 = t 1 + black polythene mulch 44.0 54.4 107.2 114.2 0.9 t 5 = t 2 + black polythene mulch 52.1 64.0 113.6 120.8 1.5 t 6 = t 3 + black polythene mulch 67.3 67.5 143.4 131.2 1.9 t 7 = basin watering + black polythene mulch 35.4 49.3 84.4 85.2 0.6 t 8 = control 31.5 49.0 79.3 78.8 2.9 cd (p=0.05) 4.2 2.5 3.4 3.2 0.4 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 25-29, 2010 ghosh and pal 27 plants under t 8 resulted lowest fruit production and was about to half of the fruits produced by t 5 . the highest fruit production under t 5 may be due to maximum fruit retention (68.6%) which consequently resulted in the maximum number of fruits per plant. it is clear from the result (table 2) that a regular and low amount of moisture supply is essential for retention of more number of fruits in sweet orange as compared to sudden application of high amount of water (t 7 ). it is well established that water is very much essential during growth and development of fruits as water helps mobilization of nutrients and food materials to the growing fruits. increase in fruit production due to irrigation through drip was also reported by tayde and ingle (1999) who found that drip method of irrigation produced significantly maximum yield of bigger size fruits. it was further noted that number of fruits plant-1 was decreased from 2008. it might have been due to reduction of economic life of the plants which were raised on the rootstock like rough lemon (citrus jambhiri). it was already established that productivity of sweet orange would be decreased from 10-15 years of orchard life if rough lemon is used as rootstock (chohan et al, 1980). fruit weight and size was significantly increased with the increase in volume of water (table 3) and the effect was enhanced with the black polythene mulching. maximum fruit weight (168 g) and size (7.0 cm) were measured from the plants in t 6 followed by the plants in t 5 . minimum fruit weight (114 g) and size (5.8 cm) were noticed from control plants where no irrigation was provided. these observations were in line with the findings of sepaskhah and kashefipur (1986) who obtained highest yield in sweet lime under drip irrigation at 0.75 epan while, maximum weight of fruit, pulp and juice percentage resulted from higher water application through drip. larger fruit size in drip irrigated plants may be due to constant available soil moisture during fruit development stage (brestler, 1977). the juice recovery percentage (table 3) was significantly increased with the increase in amount of water and highest juice recovery (60.2%) was found from the plants in t 6 followed by t 5 (57.6%). the lowest juice recovery was noted from control plants (45.5%). patil et al (1997) also noted more juice and less pomace in the fruits of nagpur mandarin under drip system. it is evident from the data in table 3 that total soluble solids content was significantly improved due to irrigation table 2. effect of drip versus basin irrigation on fruit yield in mosambi sweet orange treatment number of fruits/plant fruit@ 2005 2006 2007 2008 pooled retention (%) t 1 = irrigation through drip at 0.6 epan 61 98 125 100 96.0 53.6(47.06) t 2 = irrigation through drip at 0.8 epan 68 120 170 115 118.3 69.2(56.29) t 3 = irrigation through drip at 1.0 epan 52 118 135 110 103.8 67.5(55.24) t 4 = t 1 + black polythene mulch 76 105 150 100 107.8 66.4(54.57) t 5 = t 2 + black polythene mulch 99 130 190 125 136.0 68.6(55.92) t 6 = t 3 + black polythene mulch 86 126 192 130 133.5 67.9(55.49) t 7 = basin watering + black polythene mulch 50 90 126 95 90.3 51.2(45.69) t 8 = control 36 85 80 82 70.8 45.4(42.36) cd (p=0.05) 10.2 4.1 7.5 4.5 3.8 4.8 * figures in the parantheses are angular transformed values @ from marble stage to harvest table 3. effect of drip versus basin irrigation on physico-chemical characteristics of fruits in mosambi sweet orange treatment fruit fruit juice total total acidity vitamin weight diameter recovery soluble sugar (%) c mg/ (g) (cm) (%) solids (%) 100 ml (0brix) (juice) t 1 = irrigation through drip at 0.6 epan 132 6.5 46.0 (42.71) 8.5 7.4 0.40 45.0 t 2 = irrigation through drip at 0.8 epan 138 6.5 52.2 (46.26) 9.0 7.5 0.39 45.5 t 3 = irrigation through drip at 1.0 epan 144 6.8 56.0 (48.45) 10.1 8.0 0.39 45.8 t 4 = t 1 + black polythene mulch 139 6.6 56.0 (48.45) 10.0 8.0 0.35 47.5 t 5 = t 2 + black polythene mulch 155 6.9 57.6 (49.37) 11.2 8.5 0.36 47.8 t 6 = t 3 + black polythene mulch 168 7.0 60.2 (50.89) 10.2 8.1 0.36 47.6 t 7 = basin watering + black polythene mulch 146 6.7 48.0 (43.85) 8.4 7.4 0.39 44.5 t 8 = control 114 5.8 45.5 (42.42) 7.9 7.3 0.38 42.1 cd (p=0.05) 3.5 0.2 2.4 0.4 n.s. n.s. 1.3 * figures in the parantheses are angular transformed values j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 25-29, 2010 effect of type of irrigation on sweet orange production 28 either through drip or basin and it was maximum in fruits of the plants in t 5 (11.20b) followed by the plants in t 6 (10.20b). this observation corroborated with the findings obtained by tayde and ingle (1999) who recorded higher tss content in the fruits of drip irrigated plants than other methods. the total sugar and acidity content in the fruits were not significantly differ among the treatments, however, vitamin c content in fruits varied significantly due to different treatments and it was highest by fruits of the plants received drip irrigation in t 5 (47.8 mg/100ml) closely followed t 6 (47.6 mg/100 ml). sepeskhah and kashefipur (1994) also recorded higher vitamin c content in drip irrigated plants. the vitamin c content was lowest in fruits of the plants with no irrigation (42.1 mg/100 ml). foliar n, p and k content was analyzed to know the leaf nutrient status under different treatments as it has been established that fruit yield and quality is very much related with the n, p and k values of leaf (bhargava, 1999). it was found that n, p and k values in all the treatments were in optimum range (ghosh, 2004). the nitrogen content was significantly highest (2.65%) in the plants with irrigation at 0.8 epan + black polythene mulching followed by in plants (2.40%) with irrigation at 1.0 epan + black polythene mulching. the phosphorus and potassium content in the leaves were not varied significantly among the treatments (table 4). acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the department of food processing industries and horticulture, government of west bengal for providing financial assistance for the study. thanks are also to the associate director of research, regional research station, b.c.k.v., jhargram for providing all sorts of help and cooperation for carrying out the investigation smoothly. references a.o.a.c. 1990. official method of analysis. assoc. official analytical chemists. 15th edn. washington, d.c., u.s.a. bhargava, b.s. 1999. leaf analysis for diagnosing nutrients need in fruit crops. ind. hort., 43:6-8 biswas, r.k. and mallick, s. 1999. performance of drip irrigation in papaya cultivation in new alluvial agroclimatic zone of west bengal. ann. agril. res., 20:116-117 brestler, e. 1977. trickle irrigation : principle and application to water management. adv. agron., 29:343-393 castle, j.r. and lopez, j.g. 1993. response of young clementine citrus trees to drip irrigation. citrus subtropical fruit j., 735:313-323 chattopadhyay, n. and ghosh, s.n. 1992. studies on the interval of watering during dry period on fruit retention, yield and quality of sweet orange cv. mosambi under rainfed condition. orissa j. hort., 20(special): 60-63 chohan, g.s., thatai, s.k. and sharma, j.n. 1980. the influence of rootstocks on tree growth, yield and fruit quality of valencia orange in punjab. ind. j. hort., 37:41-44 deidda, p., filigheddu, m.r. and dettori, s. 1994. progress report on influence of irrigation system on yield and fruit quality in valencia orange. proc. 7th int’l. citrus cong., italy, 8-13 march, 1994 doorenbos, j. and pruitt, w.o. 1977. crop water requirements. irrigation and drainage. f.a.o.u.n., rome, italy, paper no. 24. ghosh, s.n. 2004. integrated management practices for sweet orange production under rainfed laterite soil of west bengal, india. proc. int’l. soc. citriculture, pp. 551-557 kanber, r., koksal, h., onder, s. and eylen, m. 1996. effects of different irrigation methods on yield, evaporation and root development of young orange table 4. effect of drip versus basin irrigation on foliar npk status of mosambi sweet orange treatment foliar content (per cent dry weight basis) nitrogen phosphorus potassium t 1 = irrigation 2.00 (8.13) 0.10 (1.81) 1.20 (6.29) through drip at 0.6 epan t 2 = irrigation 2.10 (8.33) 0.12 (1.81) 1.30 (6.55) through drip at 0.8 epan t 3 = irrigation 2.20 (8.53) 0.12 (1.81) 1.40 (6.80) through drip at 1.0 epan t 4 = t 1 + black 2.30 (8.72) 0.12 (1.81) 1.40 (6.80) polythene mulch t 5 = t 2 + black 2.65 (9.28) 0.16 (2.56) 1.80 (7.71) polythene mulch t 6 = t 3 + black 2.40 (8.91) 0.16 (2.56) 1.70 (7.49) polythene mulch t 7 = basin watering 1.98 (8.12) 0.14 (1.81) 1.20 (6.29) + black polythene mulch t 8 = control 1.90 (7.92) 0.10 (1.81) 1.10 (6.02) cd (p=0.05) 0.25 n.s n.s * figures in the parantheses are angular transformed values j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 25-29, 2010 ghosh and pal 29 trees. turkish j. agri. forestry, 20:163-172 patil, v.s., damke, m.m. and panchbhai, d.m. 1997. performance of nagpur mandarin fruits under different irrigation systems. proc. nat’l. symp. citriculture. pp. 145-146. sepaskhah, a.r. and kashefipour, s.m. 1994. relationships between leaf water potential, cwsi, yield and fruit quality of sweet lime under drip irrigation. agri. water mgt., 25:13-21 sharma, h.g., rajput, s.s., sharma, g.l. and pandey, v.k. 1999. drip irrigation: an effective alternative for water management in horticultural crops. intensive agri., 37:7-10 singh, shyam. 2001. citrus industry in india. in: citrus. ed. shyam singh and s.a.m.h. naqvi. international book distributing co. lucknow, india. pp. 3-41 tayde, g.s. and ingle, h.v. 1999. studies on the effect of irrigation methods on yield and quality of nagpur mandarin. abst. int’l. symp. citri., 23-27 november, 1999. nrc citrus, nagpur, p. 90. (ms received 29 july 2009, revised 2 march 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 25-29, 2010 effect of type of irrigation on sweet orange production chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev.) has earned tremendous popularity as an ornamental flower crop. it is valued as a potted plant and is the commercially cultivated cut flower crop in many countries and widely grown in open fields in india for their loose flowers. chrysanthemum has longer post harvest life and it continues to look attractive even when semi dry. it has wide range of colours, shape and sizes. however, mainly for the sake of decoration of surroundings and participating in flower shows, there is a need for evaluation of chrysanthemum cultivars, suitable for post harvest quality. the present experiment was carried out at horticultural research station, department of horticulture, gandhi krishi vigyan kendra, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore during the year 1999 – 2000. ten varieties namely ravikiran, chandrika yellow star, red gold, nilima, kasturishaventigae, cassa, arka swarna, arka ravi and button type local were used for this experiment and it was laid out in a randomized complete block design (rcbd) replicated thrice. fully opened flowers were harvested. flower stems were cut atleast four inches above the soil line to avoid taking woody plant tissues. immediately evaluation of post harvest quality of some cultivars of chrysanthemum v. baskaran1, r. jayanthi, t. janakiram2 and k. abirami1 department of horticulture, university of agricultural sciences, gkvk campus, bangalore560065, karnataka, india e-mail: vbaski01@gmail.com abstract a study was conducted to evaluate the performance of ten chrysanthemum cultivars for better post harvest quality under open field condition at university of agricultural sceinces, bangalore. flowers were harvested at fully open stage or nearly so. the results showed that the maximum stalk girth (0.32 cm) was recorded in cv. cassa and the maximum flower diameter (8.14 cm) was recorded in cv. ravikiran, cultivar cassa recorded the maximum flower weight (3.59 g). maximum number of ray florets were recorded by cv. nilima (253.2). the maximum length of ray florets were recorded in cv. ravikiran (3.96 cm). maximum fresh weight, final weight and water loss (88.33, 40.63 and 47.67g respectively) from the spray type flowers were recorded in cv. arka swarna. longer vase life of 16 days was also recorded in cv. arka swarna. based on the performance studies it was observed that arka swarna, ravikiran, red gold, nilima and arka ravi performed better post harvest quality and may be selected for cut flower production. key words: chrysanthemum, post harvest quality, vase life 1 present address: directorate of medicinal & aromatic plants research (dmapr), boriavi, anand, gujarat 2 division of floriculture & landscaping, iari, new delhi110012 after harvest, stems of the flowers were graded based on their flower stalk length. post harvest quality was evaluated under room conditions. on every alternate day, stem ends were cut. observation on flower stalk length, stalk girth, flower diameter, flower disc diameter, number of ray florets per head, length of ray florets, fresh weight of spray, final weight of the spray, water loss of the spray and total vase life were recorded. vase life was considered to be terminated when colour fading or petal wilting was noticed. flower colours were identified by using the royal horticulture colour chart (anon, 1938). data were recorded and statistically analysed. significant differences were observed for the various quantitative traits (table 1). the maximum length of the stalk was observed in nilima (17.52 cm) and the minimum length was observed in button type local (4.67 cm). stalk length variation among different cultivars may be due to their genetic characters. this has been reported by halevy and mayak (1981). the maximum stalk girth was observed in cv. cassa (0.32 cm) and the minimum was in button type local (0.11 cm). the highest flower diameter (8.14 cm) was recorded in cv. ravikiran and the short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 81-83, 2010 82 lowest was in button type local (2.07 cm). the diameter of the disc varied from 0.11 cm in button type local to 1.38 cm in cv. arka ravi. the highest flower weight (3.59g) was recorded in cv. cassa, while button type local exhibited the lowest value (0.48g) among the cultivars studied. number of ray florets per head showed a very wide range of variation ranging from a minimum of 47.33 in cv. cadda and maximum of 253.20 in cv. nilima. the cultivars button type local (0.74 cm) and ravi kiran (3.96 cm) recorded the lowest and highest length of ray florets respectively. similar type of variations were observed in 324 cultivars of chrysanthemum collected from different sources (negi et al, 1978). table 2 revealed that cv. arka swarna recorded the maximum fresh weight, final weight and water loss (88.33, 40.63 and 47.67 g respectively) from the spray type flowers. increase in fresh weight can occur only when the rate of water absorption is greater than the transpiration rate. (rogers, 1973). water loss due to decline in uptake of water coupled with transpiration leads to water deficit, which ultimately reduces turgidity in cut flower. this has been reported by halevy and mayak (1981). cultivar arka swarna recorded longer duration of vase life with 16 days followed by cv. ravikiran (10 days) and cv. red gold (9 days). shortest duration of vase life was recorded in cv. cassa (4 days). this might be due to varietal differences among the cultivars and may be an inherent trait (gondhali et al, 1997). zagory and reid (1986) and weitte et al (1991) reported that stem plugging due to microorganisms reduces the vase life of cut flowers. thus, the present study reveals that cultivars like arka swarna, ravikiran, red gold, nilima and arka ravi recorded better post harvest quality and may be selected for cut flower production. while cultivars like cassa, chandrika, yellow star and kasturi shaventigae exhibited least post harvest quality and so could be selected for loose flower purpose. references anonymous, 1938. horticultural colour charts. the british colour council in collabration with the horticulture society, henry stone and suns limited. banburry, united kingdom table 1. mean performance of chrysanthemum cultivars for different quantitative traits cutivars stalk length stalk girth flower flower disc flower number of length of (cm) (cm) diameter diameter weight (g) ray florets ray floret (cm) (cm) per head (cm) ravikiran 14.62 0.28 8.14 0.28 3.27 231.00 3.96 chandrika 11.22 0.17 4.49 0.62 1.28 213.70 1.49 yellow star 15.05 0.23 5.85 0.75 2.46 248.00 3.05 redgold 13.20 0.19 6.40 1.25 2.26 149.20 2.78 nilima 17.52 0.26 5.32 0.19 3.08 253.20 2.36 kasturi shaventige 7.89 0.19 3.28 0.41 0.80 204.83 1.23 cassa 14.81 0.32 4.78 1.08 3.59 47.33 2.28 arka swarna 7.03 0.19 4.22 0.83 1.64 209.33 1.29 arka ravi 15.58 0.22 5.41 1.38 2.36 79.50 2.17 button type local 4.67 0.11 2.01 0.11 0.48 116.33 0.74 mean 12.16 0.22 4.99 0.69 2.12 175.24 2.13 s.em± 0.92 0.01 0.25 0.08 0.30 13.27 0.09 cd (p=0.05) 2.75 0.03 0.75 0.25 0.89 39.44 0.29 cv (%) 13.21 9.34 8.79 21.52 24.48 13.12 7.95 table 2. performance of chrysanthemum cultivars for vase life cultivars fresh final water total weight weight loss vase life (g) (g) (g) (days) ravikiran 29.27 22.27 7.00 10.00 chandrika 26.43 11.53 14.90 6.00 yellow star 24.53 17.43 7.10 8.00 redgold 35.02 18.53 16.67 9.00 nilima 29.43 19.53 9.90 9.00 kasturi shaventige 12.33 9.46 2.87 8.00 cassa 26.80 11.60 15.20 4.00 arka swarna 88.33 40.63 47.67 16.00 arka ravi 23.47 11.73 11.73 9.00 button type local 22.40 9.43 12.97 9.00 mean 31.82 17.22 14.60 8.70 cv(%) 2.58 2.09 6.33 11.68 sem± 0.47 0.21 0.53 0.59 cd (p=0.05) 0.41 0.62 1.59 1.74 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 81-83, 2010 baskaran et al 83 gondhali, b.v., yadav, e.d. and dhemre, j.k. 1997. evaluation of chrysanthemum for cut flowers. orissa j..hort., 25: 10-13 halevy, a.h. and mayak, s. 1981. senescence and post harvest physiology of cut flowers, part-ii, hort. rev., 3: 59-143 negi, s.s., nancharaiah and raghava, s.p.s. 1978. some promising varieties of chrysanthemum. south indian hort., 26: 22-24 rogers, m.n. 1973. a historical and critical review of post harvest physiology research on cut flowers. hort. sci., 8: 189-194 weitle, y., de. d. van, w.g. 1991. the mode of action of bacteria in the vascular of cut rose flowers. acta hort., 298: 167-170 zagory, d. and reid, m.s. 1986. role of vase solution microorganisms in the life of cut flowers. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 111: 154-158 (ms received 12 march 2009, revised 17 august 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 81-83, 2010 post harvest quality of chrysanthemum introduction kiwifruit, native to central china, is a rich source of vitamin c and minerals like k, ca, and p. at present, it is cultivated on a commercial scale in new zealand, italy, usa, china, germany and spain. in india, it is successfully grown commercially in the mid-hill region of himachal pradesh since 1963 and has become one of the most important fruit crops. the kiwifruit, however, is a long-gestation crop, with fruit-growth extending to over 30 weeks, covering an entire growing-season of the temperate climate. the fruit takes a long time to mature because of a period of slow-growth spanning 3-4 weeks, which separates the two phases of rapid growth. various growth regulators like naa, 2,4,5-t, ethrel and 2,4-d have been successfully used in the past for slashing down the period of slow fruit-growth. it has been reported that the growing period of fig fruit was reduced to 60 days from the normal 120 days by application of 2,4,5-t (25ppm ). celical et al (1997) reported that ethrel application at 250-500 ppm (at the end of slow-growth period ii) stimulated growth and shortened the time to maturity, without any adverse effect on fruit quality. despite the virtues that hold it in high esteem and its tremendous potential for cultivation, very little information is available with regard effect of growth regulators on growth and harvest maturity in kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa) sanjeev kumar banyal and shashi kumar sharma regional horticultural and forestry research station bhota -177001, india e-mail: skbanyal@gmail.com abstract the present study was conducted in the experimental farm of department of pomology, uhf, solan. three plant growth regulators, viz., naa, 2,4,5-t and ethrel were sprayed at different concentrations at stage ii of fruit growth to study their effect on growth pattern, maturity and quality of fruits. none of the treatments were found to be effective in hastening harvest maturity (by slashing the period of slow-growth) although, size of the fruits increased with some treatments. quality parameters like tss, ascorbic acid, and sugar content increased in all treatments, while titratable acidity and flesh firmness decreased. physical and biochemical analysis of fruits revealed that the fruits attained optimum maturity at 190 days after full bloom. key words: kiwifruit, growth regulators, yield, growth phases to fruit-growth and maturity in kiwifruit. the present study was, therefore, conducted to define various phases of fruitgrowth in and kiwifruit study the effect of some pgr’s on the pattern of fruit-growth and maturity. material and methods the experimental area was located at an altitude of 1200 msl. seven year old vines of cv. abbott, planted at a distance of 2.5m x 2.5m, were selected for the experiment. eight hormonal concentrations, viz., 2,4,5-t (20 and 40 ppm), naa (25 and 40 ppm), ethrel (100 and 300 ppm), 100ppm ethrel + 10ppm naa, and 300ppm ethrel + 10ppm naa were applied at 60 days after full bloom. the experiment was laid out in rbd with three replications per treatment. fruit growth was recorded in terms of fruit-length and fruit diameter at weekly intervals, from 15 days after fruit set until harvest. values obtained for fruit length and diameter were then plotted on a graph to determine different phases of fruit growth. to determine the effect of treatments on hastening fruit maturity, five samples were taken at weekly intervals, commencing approximately two weeks before anticipated date of harvest. these fruits were then subjected to various physical and biochemical analyses such as firmness, juice content, tss, titratable acidity, sugars, j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):25-28, 2011 26 etc. for estimation of optimum time taken to fruit-maturity. results and discussion pattern of fruit growth fruit growth (in terms of increase in length and diameter) was recorded at weekly intervals and is presented in figure 1. the growth curve shows that fruit-growth followed double sigmoid pattern showing 9-10 weeks of rapid growth (phase i), followed by 3-4 weeks of slow-growth (phase ii) and, another period of rapid growth (phase iii) for 11-12 weeks as fruits approached maturity. growth rate declined 3-4 weeks before the fruits turned fully mature. growth pattern of the fruits can thus be divided into three phases: phase i 0-70 days from full bloom (dffb) phase ii 71-98 days from full bloom phase iii 99-183 days from full bloom plant growth regulator treatments applied with the aim of reducing the total period of slow-growth (phase i) failed to enhance growth-rate during this phase. fruits in all treatments followed a similar pattern of growth. although application of growth regulators increased the final fruitsize, these had no effect on hastening maturity. similar results were obtained by harris et al (1953) in peach when they applied 11ppm 2,4,5-t. application of 2,4,5-t, however, did not influence fruit growth in peaches in a study conducted by hidgon (1950). fruit length it is evident from data presented in table 1 that all the treatments increased fruit-length over the control. net increase in fruit-length was maximum (38.89mm) in treatment t8 (300ppm ethrel + 10ppmnaa), which was significantly higher than in all other treatments. untreated fruits (control) were showed lowest net increase in fruitlength. increased fruit-size 10.5% on application of 2,4,5-t was also observed by crane and brooks (1952) in apricot. table 1. effect of various growth regulator treatments on fruit length (mm) treatment dateð t 1 t 2 t 3 t 4 t 5 t 6 t 7 t 8 t 9 m a y 09 18.76 17.89 19.60 17.83 20.88 18.57 18.35 19.06 18.07 16 22.61 22.10 22.94 22.33 22.95 22.90 22.51 23.26 21.95 23 26.16 26.02 25.98 26.02 26.97 26.68 26.30 26.46 25.20 30 29.17 29.16 28.86 29.18 30.78 30.38 29.72 29.47 28.12 june 06 31.98 31.81 31.43 31.89 33.18 33.48 32.68 32.46 30.45 13 34.43 33.98 33.54 33.91 35.28 35.95 35.04 35.14 32.36 20 36.44 35.77 35.33 35.60 37.09 37.76 37.03 37.65 33.99 27 38.32 35.92 36.49 36.80 38.59 38.86 38.46 40.09 35.40 july 03 39.52 36.93 37.47 37.90 39.55 39.50 39.48 42.49 36.63 10 40.16 37.39 38.03 38.42 40.06 39.94 39.95 43.59 37.09 17 40.50 37.60 38.36 38.67 40.45 40.17 40.24 44.40 37.35 24 40.83 37.75 38.53 38.78 40.69 40.28 40.40 44.62 37.50 31 41.05 37.86 38.62 38.86 40.91 40.53 40.50 44.76 37.61 aug 07 41.23 38.28 39.05 39.29 41.09 40.89 40.88 44.87 38.15 15 41.59 38.85 39.63 39.86 41.77 41.34 41.46 45.56 38.83 22 42.07 39.63 40.41 40.56 42.52 42.23 42.23 46.36 39.59 29 42.73 40.54 41.34 41.37 43.33 43.14 43.15 47.25 40.55 sep 05 43.44 41.47 42.30 42.31 44.24 44.08 44.13 48.17 41.54 12 44.24 42.46 43.35 43.28 45.17 45.23 45.19 49.18 42.61 19 45.15 43.52 44.48 44.31 46.16 46.52 46.32 50.02 43.72 26 46.14 44.63 45.65 45.44 47.17 47.87 47.54 51.23 44.78 oct 03 47.15 45.83 46.91 46.62 48.35 49.16 48.80 52.29 45.74 10 48.24 47.08 48.08 47.86 49.55 50.35 50.12 53.49 46.55 17 49.32 48.37 49.17 47.86 50.76 51.36 51.33 54.70 47.23 24 50.21 49.56 50.15 50.04 51.90 52.36 52.29 55.92 47.55 31 50.53 50.40 50.29 50.97 52.67 53.27 52.98 56.82 48.08 nov 07 50.75 50.93 51.43 51.48 53.08 53.78 53.41 57.53 48.29 14 50.87 51.25 51.62 51.72 53.30 54.09 53.60 57.95 48.43 net increase 32.11 33.36 32.02 33.89 32.42 35.52 35.25 38.89 30.36 *year 1999 t 1 =20 ppm 2,4,5-t t 4 = 50 ppm naa t 7 =100 ppm ethrel +10 ppm naa t 2 =40 ppm 2,4,5-t t 5 = 100 ppm ethrel t 8 =300 ppm ethrel +10 ppm naa t 3 =25 ppm naa t 6 = 300 ppm ethrel t 9 =300 ppm ethrel +10 ppm naa banyal and sharma j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):25-28, 2011 27 fig 1. fruit growth pattern in kiwifruit cv. abbott taha and abbas (1987) also observed an increase in fruitsize with application of naa on ‘hungarian best’, ‘rose’ and ‘cheletano’ apricots. this increase in fruit-size by application of growth regulators may have been due to accelerated starch hydrolysis and mobilization of food material from other plant-parts to the fruit. harvest maturity fruits subjected to various hormonal treatments were analyzed for physico-chemical attributes on different harvest dates, ranging from 176 to 204 days from full bloom. among the various parameters evaluated as indices for maturity in kiwifruit by several workers, tss and flesh-firmness have been suggested to be the most reliable (rana, 1997). tss table 3. effect of growth regulator treatment and harvest date on kiwifruit flesh firmness (kg/cm2) date/treatment d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 mean (176 dffbð ) (183 dffbð ) (190 dffbð ) (197 dffbð ) (204 dffbð ) t1 (20 ppm 2,4,5-t) 10.97 10.32 9.48 8.82 7.97 9.51 t2 (40 ppm 2,4,5-t) 9.96 9.81 9.14 8.67 7.78 9.07 t3 (25 ppm naa) 10.93 0.44 9.80 8.99 8.19 9.67 t4 (50 ppm naa) 10.00 9.83 9.24 8.38 7.62 9.02 t5 (100 ppm ethrel) 10.10 9.84 9.27 8.65 7.91 9.15 t6 (300 ppm ethrel) 9.12 8.95 8.22 7.78 7.00 8.21 t7 (100 ppm ethrel + 10 ppm naa) 10.96 10.33 9.71 8.93 8.42 9.67 t8 (300 ppm ethrel + 10ppm naa) 9.34 9.31 8.92 8.57 7.50 8.78 t9 (control) 10.73 10.45 79.62 78.82 8.04 9.53 mean 10.26 9.92 9.27 8.63 7.83 *dffb = days from full bloom effects cd (p = 0.05) treatment 0.16 date 0.14 treatment x date 0.10 table 2. effect of various growth regulator treatments on fruit retention (%) and fruit yield (kg/vine) treatment mean fruit yield retention(%) (kg/vine) t 1 (20 ppm 2,4,5-t) 75.00 3.57 t 2 (40 ppm 2,4,5-t) 68.75 3.18 t 3 (25 ppm naa) 83.33 4.17 t 4 (50 ppm naa) 77.08 3.73 t 5 (100 ppm ethrel) 79.17 3.83 t 6 (300 ppm ethrel) 75.00 3.28 t 7 (100 ppm ethrel+ 10 ppm naa) 9.17 3.65 t 8 (300 ppm ethrel +10 ppm naa) 75.00 4.27 t 9 (control) 91.58 4.27 cd (p = 0.05) 5.05 0.52 effects treatment 0.10 date 0.08 treatment x date 0.16 content in the range of 6-8% was recorded between d2 at 183 dffb to d3 harvesting date at 190 dffb. rana (1997) also reported optimum harvesting time for cv. abbott to be when tss ranged from 8.6 to 8.8. this was observed on the third harvest date (at 190 dffb) in our study. optimum flesh-firmness (9.08-8.16 kg/cm2) was also recorded on the third (d3) harvest date at 190 dffb, which suggests that this is the optimum harvest time. in the present study, all treatments enhanced tss content over the control on all harvest dates, but, optimum tss content was attained only during the second and third harvest dates in all treatments. this indicates that the various hormonal treatments had no effect on hastening of fruit maturity. effect of growth regulators in kiwifruit j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):25-28, 2011 28 references celical, f.g. , kaynas, k., ozelkok, s. and ertan, u. 1997. effect of ethephon on fruit development and ripening of the fig (ficus carica l.) variety “bursha siyahi”. acta hort., 441:145-150 crane, j.c. and brooks, r.m. 1952. growth of apricot fruits as influenced by 2,4,5-t application. proc.amer. soc. hortl. sci., 59:218-224 harris, r.w., crane, j.c., hansen, c.j. and brooks, r.m. 1953. 2,4,5-t sprays on stone fruits. calif. agri., 7:8-9 hidgon, r.j. 1950. the effect of 2,4,5-t on the development table 4. effect of growth regulator treatment and harvest date on kiwifruit tss (%) date/treatment d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 mean (176 dffb ð) (183 dffb ð) (190 dffb ð) (197 dffb ð) (204 dffb ð) t1 (20 ppm 2,4,5-t) 5.13 6.16 7.78 8.54 9.31 7.39 t2 (40 ppm 2,4,5-t) 4.92 6.97 8.01 8.92 9.43 7.65 t3 (25 ppm naa) 5.37 6.34 8.24 9.06 9.67 7.74 t4 (50 ppm naa) 5.09 6.50 8.33 9.22 9.79 7.79 t5 (100 ppm ethrel) 5.73 6.97 8.52 9.71 10.31 8.25 t6 (300 ppm ethrel) 5.79 7.02 8.83 9.92 10.44 8.40 t7 (100 ppm ethrel + 10 ppm naa) 5.16 6.92 8.07 8.97 9.78 7.78 t8 (300 ppm ethrel + 10ppm naa) 5.19 6.59 7.99 8.93 9.92 7.72 t9 (control) 4.20 5.89 8.17 8.17 9.3 7.15 mean 5.18 6.60 8.22 9.05 9.77 ð dffb = days from full bloom effects cd (p=0.05) treatment 0.16 date 0.14 treatment x date 0.10 and ripening of eighteen varieties of peach fruits. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 58:7179 rana, vishal singh. 1997. studies on standardization of maturity indices and physiological changes during growth, maturation and senscense of kiwifruit (actinidia deliciosa). ph.d. thesis. dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, solan, h.p., india taha, s.m. and abbas, a.s. 1987. effect of spraying urea and naa on apricot cv. cheletaro. iraqi. j. agri. sci. “zanco”. 5 (supplement):7-24 (ms received 2 september 2010, revised 15 march 2011) banyal and sharma j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):25-28, 2011 in any experiment, formulation of certain hypotheses (called as null hypothesis) about the population under study form a basis for making all possible pairwise comparisons among treatments. if the seeds of the test treatments are scarce or limited in quantity, as in the case of breeding trails, the experiment cannot afford to sufficiently replicate the treatments in the design. in any crop improvement programme, an essential activity is to evaluate the germplasm accessions (test treatments) with a set of standard/commercial varieties (check). while evaluating larger number of test treatments in a field, use of traditional complete block designs (such as rbd) will directly increase within block homogeneity leading to erroneous conclusions. moreover, as the number of test treatments increases the experimental area and all other augmented bib design – an alternative statistical design in germplasm evaluation trials r. venugopalan, k. r. m. swamy1 and m. k. chandraprakash section of economics and statistics indian institute of horticultural research bangalore-560089, india e-mail : venur@iihr.ernet.in abstract randomized block design (rbd) is commonly employed to evaluate a set of germplasm accessions (test treatments) along with local checks. in such a trial, if the test treatments under evaluation are more in number and the availability of the seeds is limited, then an alternate experimental design has to be employed. as a remedy, balanced incomplete block design (bibd), which estimates treatments contrasts with more precision and the treatments are not repeated in all the blocks, unlike rbd, may be used. such a constructed layout, not only saves the precious seed material of the test treatments, but also directly reduces the cost of all the related inputs such as labour, water, fertilizers, pesticides etc. foregoing thoughts were elucidated in the evaluation of 100 accessions of okra along with four check varieties (arka anamika, arka abhay, parbhani kranti and pb7) evaluated using augmented bib design with six blocks in the division of vegetable crops at i.i.h.r., bangalore during kharif 2005. results showed that by adopting bib experimental design, instead of regular complete block design 60.2% of the land area required for conducting germplasm evaluation in okra had been reduced. key word: accessions, augmented balanced incomplete block design, control, germplasm, okra, test treatments related inputs, such as, labour, water, fertilizers, pesticides, etc will also increases. in such a situation, there is a need to adopt a design to test the new material with the local checks without loosing the precision of the experimental results. this could be possible by adopting a new experimental set up, wherein the scarce material are singly replicated in the design, and the local checks or the control treatment(s) is (are) added in each block at least once. such a design is called an augmented design. a general theory of augmented design is well explained in the literature (federer, 1963; federer and raghavarao, 1975; federer, 1998; may et al, 1989; puri et al, 1984; schaalje et al, 1987; tania and street, 2002). one hundred accessions of okra were evaluated along with four check varieties (arka anamika, arka abhay, 1 division of vegetable crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 84-88, 2008 short communication table 1. layout plan of okra 100 accessions:(4 checks : a, b, c and d) block 1 1 10 12 a 2 9 11 b 3 5 14 18 c 4 13 17 15 d 6 19 7 block 2 21 33 22 27 d 26 34 c 23 25 32 a 24 35 28 31 b 29 30 36 block 3 a 38 39 45 50 b 37 44 49 c 40 46 48 d 41 51 43 42 47 52 block 4 53 60 d 54 61 59 a 58 65 66 c 56 57 69 64 67 b 55 70 62 63 block 5 71 72 a 78 b 73 85 c 75 77 84 90 80 89 86 88 d 74 81 82 76 block 6 92 96 c d 91 95 a 94 99 b 93 98 97 100 8 16 20 83 87 68 note: sl. no. 1-100 are the test treatments (okra accessions) ; a, b, c and d are check varieties page 84 85 augmented bib design for germplasm evaluation trails j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 84-88, 2008 1 2 8 3 3 3 1 5 1 3 7 .9 1 .2 7 .4 2 .5 4 .1 11 .9 1 3 .8 2 .4 4 .9 1 8 .2 0 .1 9 9 0 1 0 7 6 4 3 7 4 8 1 5 8 .9 1 .2 7 .4 4 .5 4 .1 1 7 .4 1 6 .6 1 .9 4 .9 1 8 .0 0 .3 0 3 0 1 2 8 0 4 3 7 5 2 1 3 2 .9 0 .9 7 .9 2 .5 4 .1 1 9 .2 1 4 .5 2 .0 4 .9 1 8 .3 0 .3 4 3 0 2 3 5 3 3 3 4 4 1 3 8 .9 2 .9 11 .9 2 .5 4 .1 2 1 .3 1 5 .1 2 .1 4 .9 1 8 .6 0 .3 9 1 0 9 7 4 b 4 3 7 1 6 1 4 0 .9 2 .1 9 .9 2 .5 3 .1 1 8 .1 1 3 .5 2 .0 4 .9 1 7 .5 0 .3 0 8 0 11 7 8 4 3 7 5 0 11 0 .9 2 .4 1 0 .9 2 .5 4 .1 1 8 .3 1 5 .8 1 .8 4 .9 1 8 .9 0 .3 3 7 0 3 4 8 s el 8 7 4 3 7 2 0 1 4 2 .9 2 .4 1 2 .4 3 .5 4 .1 2 5 .7 1 3 .5 2 .1 4 .9 1 5 .5 0 .4 0 0 0 5 6 1 4 3 7 3 3 1 4 1 .9 2 .4 1 0 .9 2 .5 4 .1 2 0 .3 11 .1 2 .1 6 .9 1 8 .3 0 .3 7 7 0 1 4 1 3 6 4 5 8 0 0 1 3 5 .9 2 .7 11 .9 3 .5 3 .1 2 0 .9 11 .3 2 .4 4 .9 2 0 .2 . 4 1 6 0 1 8 1 5 0 4 5 8 1 4 1 6 3 .9 2 .8 1 0 .9 1 .5 4 .1 1 4 .6 1 5 .4 1 .8 4 .9 1 7 .4 0 .2 4 0 0 4 6 0 4 3 7 3 2 1 5 0 .9 2 .2 11 .9 2 .5 3 .1 1 4 .9 1 6 .5 2 .0 5 .9 1 7 .8 0 .2 5 2 0 1 3 1 2 4 4 5 7 9 2 1 4 5 .9 2 .2 11 .9 1 .5 4 .1 1 3 .5 1 6 .8 2 .0 4 .9 1 9 .7 0 .2 5 0 0 1 7 1 4 2 4 5 8 0 6 1 4 3 .9 3 .0 9 .9 2 .5 3 .1 1 3 .4 1 0 .8 2 .1 7 .9 1 6 .4 0 .2 0 4 0 1 5 1 3 8 4 5 8 0 2 1 6 1 .9 2 .2 1 2 .1 2 .5 4 .1 1 5 .9 1 8 .1 1 .8 4 .9 1 8 .2 0 .2 7 7 4 6 6 3 4 3 7 3 5 1 7 6 .9 2 .4 11 .4 2 .5 3 .1 2 0 .4 2 1 .5 2 .1 4 .9 1 8 .8 0 .3 7 7 0 1 9 1 5 1 4 5 8 1 5 1 2 7 .9 3 .0 1 2 .4 3 .5 4 .1 1 7 .9 1 3 .8 2 .0 7 .9 1 7 .9 0 .3 11 0 7 7 0 4 3 7 4 2 1 4 7 .9 2 .4 11 .9 2 .5 4 .1 1 4 .1 1 7 .8 2 .0 4 .9 1 5 .4 0 .2 0 3 0 b -2 2 1 3 5 6 s el 8 6 6 9 2 3 7 s el .8 6 1 3 4 .4 2 .7 9 .3 3 .5 4 .1 1 3 .6 1 6 .3 1 .7 5 .1 1 7 .4 0 .3 6 1 7 3 3 7 6 0 2 8 2 2 3 1 1 2 6 .4 2 .7 9 .4 3 .5 4 .1 1 5 .9 1 9 .0 1 .9 5 .1 1 6 .3 0 .3 8 2 7 2 2 3 6 0 6 9 2 4 2 1 4 4 .4 2 .1 9 .3 1 .5 4 .1 1 0 .2 1 5 .0 1 .9 5 .1 2 1 .7 0 .3 4 7 7 2 7 7 9 5 2 1 8 8 7 8 2 6 4 0 9 s el 8 7 -1 6 9 2 9 0 1 4 3 .4 3 .0 7 .8 2 .5 4 .1 1 3 .1 1 6 .0 2 .1 6 .1 2 0 .0 0 .3 8 7 7 3 4 7 8 0 -a 2 8 2 2 3 2 1 5 2 .4 2 .7 9 .5 2 .5 3 .1 1 2 .8 1 8 .7 2 .5 8 .1 2 0 .7 0 .3 9 0 7 2 3 3 6 7 -1 6 9 2 4 8 -1 1 2 5 .4 3 .0 9 .8 3 .5 3 .1 8 .9 1 3 .0 2 .4 9 .1 2 2 .4 0 .3 2 5 7 2 5 3 7 8 i ii 6 9 2 5 9 1 5 5 .4 3 .1 9 .5 3 .5 4 .1 11 .5 1 5 .0 1 .9 5 .1 2 0 .2 0 .3 5 7 7 3 2 7 8 5 2 1 8 8 7 2 1 0 3 .4 1 .9 9 .5 1 .5 4 .1 1 4 .0 1 5 .5 1 .8 5 .1 1 6 .2 0 .3 5 1 7 2 4 3 7 6 6 9 2 5 7 1 2 7 .4 2 .7 9 .5 1 .5 4 .1 1 4 .6 1 6 .7 2 .9 11 .1 2 1 .2 0 .4 3 3 7 3 5 7 7 2 2 8 2 2 3 0 1 2 5 .4 2 .7 9 .3 3 .5 4 .1 1 7 .2 1 3 .0 1 .9 5 .1 1 5 .4 0 .3 8 7 7 2 8 7 8 3 2 1 8 8 7 7 1 3 3 .4 2 .4 9 .5 2 .5 4 .1 2 0 .4 1 7 .0 1 .9 5 .1 1 8 .5 0 .4 9 9 7 3 1 7 8 7 -a 2 1 8 8 7 3 8 9 .4 3 .0 8 .3 4 .5 3 .1 1 2 .7 1 6 .0 2 .1 1 0 .1 2 0 .0 0 .3 7 9 7 2 9 7 8 9 2 8 2 2 3 3 1 5 1 .4 2 .1 9 .3 1 .5 4 .1 1 9 .1 2 0 .0 2 .1 5 .1 2 0 .0 0 .5 0 2 7 3 0 7 8 8 2 1 8 8 7 4 1 3 4 .4 2 .2 8 .8 1 .5 3 .1 1 5 .3 1 6 .3 2 .0 5 .1 1 7 .5 0 .3 9 2 7 3 6 7 7 3 2 8 2 2 3 1 1 2 4 .4 2 .4 6 .8 3 .5 3 .1 1 2 .0 1 7 .0 2 .1 7 .1 2 0 .2 0 .3 6 7 7 3 8 4 9 7 e c 1 3 3 3 3 6 1 7 6 .6 3 .0 9 .1 1 .7 2 .6 1 8 .7 1 7 .8 2 .4 4 .9 1 7 .2 0 .2 7 3 5 3 9 4 2 1 s el 8 6 i ii 6 9 3 0 2 1 6 4 .6 2 .7 8 .1 1 .7 3 .6 1 2 .6 1 3 .8 2 .1 9 .9 1 9 .4 0 .1 8 9 5 b -3 4 5 8 7 8 2 1 8 8 9 4 1 7 3 .6 2 .5 9 .6 0 .7 3 .6 1 5 .4 1 7 .6 2 .0 4 .9 1 9 .1 0 .2 4 0 5 5 0 9 3 7 2 8 2 2 7 8 1 7 4 .6 2 .1 9 .6 0 .7 3 .6 2 0 .6 1 4 .8 2 .1 4 .9 1 5 .9 0 .2 8 4 5 3 7 7 7 1 2 8 2 2 2 9 1 6 2 .6 2 .1 8 .6 1 .7 3 .6 1 3 .8 1 7 .8 2 .4 4 .9 1 7 .2 0 .1 8 8 5 4 4 8 2 3 2 8 2 2 4 1 1 4 5 .6 3 .4 8 .6 0 .7 3 .6 1 8 .5 1 9 .3 2 .1 4 .9 1 7 .1 0 .2 6 9 5 4 9 9 3 3 2 8 2 2 7 7 1 9 0 .6 4 .7 7 .6 1 .7 3 .6 2 0 .6 1 7 .3 2 .1 4 .9 2 0 .3 0 .3 6 2 5 4 0 4 2 3 s el 8 6 6 9 3 0 4 1 6 6 .6 4 .0 8 .2 0 .7 2 .6 1 5 .8 1 7 .1 1 .8 4 .9 1 7 .8 0 .2 3 1 5 t ab le 2 . m ea n p er fo rm an ce o f o k ra a cc es si on s an d c h ec k v ar ie ti es b -1 t c r . n o i c . n o p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) s te m d ia m et er at b as e (c m ) in te rn o d al l en g th (c m ) n o . o f b ra n ch es / p la n t f ir st fl o w er in g n o d e o n m ai n s te m n o . o f f ru it s / p la n t f ru it le n g th (c m ) f ru it d ia m et er (c m ) n o .o f r id g es / f ru it a vg . f ru it w ei g h t (g ) y ie ld / p la n t (k g ) 86 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 84-88, 2008 venugopalan et al 4 6 9 2 6 2 8 2 2 7 2 1 7 6 .6 4 .3 8 .6 1 .7 2 .6 8 .5 1 5 .6 1 .8 4 .9 1 6 .4 0 .2 8 2 5 4 8 9 3 0 2 8 2 2 7 4 1 6 1 .6 3 .9 9 .1 0 .7 4 .6 1 3 .9 1 3 .8 2 .4 9 .9 1 6 .7 0 .1 8 4 5 4 0 4 2 3 s el 8 6 6 9 3 0 4 1 6 6 .6 4 .0 8 .2 0 .7 2 .6 1 5 .8 1 7 .1 1 .8 4 .9 1 7 .8 0 .2 3 1 5 4 0 4 2 3 s el 8 6 6 9 3 0 4 1 6 6 .6 4 .0 8 .2 0 .7 2 .6 1 5 .8 1 7 .1 1 .8 4 .9 1 7 .8 0 .2 3 1 5 4 6 9 2 6 2 8 2 2 7 2 1 7 6 .6 4 .3 8 .6 1 .7 2 .6 8 .5 1 5 .6 1 .8 4 .9 1 6 .4 0 .2 8 2 5 4 8 9 3 0 2 8 2 2 7 4 1 6 1 .6 3 .9 9 .1 0 .7 4 .6 1 3 .9 1 3 .8 2 .4 9 .9 1 6 .7 0 .1 8 4 5 4 1 8 1 0 2 8 2 2 3 6 5 1 9 3 9 2 5 2 2 7 9 1 5 4 .6 3 .6 1 0 .1 2 .7 4 .6 2 3 .9 1 7 .3 2 .1 5 .9 1 7 .2 0 .3 6 5 5 4 3 8 2 2 2 8 2 2 4 0 1 7 1 .6 4 .2 9 .7 0 .7 3 .6 1 4 .2 1 6 .5 1 .9 4 .9 1 8 .5 0 .3 2 2 5 4 2 8 1 3 2 8 2 2 3 7 1 6 8 .6 4 .1 9 .1 2 .7 3 .6 2 3 .1 1 0 .3 1 .8 4 .9 1 6 .6 0 .3 3 9 5 4 7 9 2 9 2 8 2 2 7 3 1 8 8 .6 4 .7 9 .6 3 .7 2 .6 2 0 .9 1 6 .8 2 .3 6 .9 1 8 .9 0 .3 3 1 5 5 2 9 4 1 2 8 2 2 8 0 1 7 8 .6 4 .4 9 .7 1 .7 3 .6 2 0 .3 1 3 .8 2 .2 4 .9 1 7 .6 0 .3 0 8 5 b -4 5 3 9 4 5 2 8 2 2 8 2 1 5 9 .1 3 .1 9 .7 2 .2 2 .9 6 .0 1 3 .8 2 .4 9 .1 2 0 .9 0 .1 3 8 0 6 0 9 7 8 2 8 2 2 8 9 1 3 5 .1 3 .0 1 0 .2 2 .2 3 .9 7 .4 1 5 .8 2 .2 8 .1 1 7 .5 0 .1 2 2 0 5 4 9 6 0 2 8 2 2 8 3 11 5 .1 2 .7 9 .2 3 .2 3 .9 1 6 .9 1 5 .8 2 .1 5 .1 1 8 .2 0 .2 9 8 0 6 1 9 8 3 2 8 2 2 9 2 1 6 2 .1 2 .4 9 .7 3 .2 2 .9 1 7 .1 1 6 .6 1 .8 5 .1 1 9 .3 0 .3 2 8 0 5 9 9 7 6 2 8 2 2 8 8 1 5 7 .1 2 .8 8 .7 2 .2 3 .9 1 2 .1 2 3 .3 2 .4 5 .1 1 8 .4 0 .2 1 8 0 5 8 9 7 4 2 8 2 2 8 7 1 3 0 .1 3 .0 9 .7 1 .2 2 .9 9 .1 1 8 .8 2 .4 7 .1 1 7 .4 0 .1 5 0 0 6 5 1 0 7 0 1 4 0 9 0 2 1 4 8 .1 2 .5 7 .2 1 .2 3 .9 6 .3 1 0 .8 2 .4 6 .1 2 0 .6 0 .1 4 0 0 6 6 1 0 7 5 1 4 0 9 0 6 1 7 5 .1 3 .0 8 .7 2 .2 2 .9 1 8 .6 2 0 .3 2 .4 5 .1 1 7 .1 0 .3 2 0 0 5 7 9 7 0 2 8 2 2 8 6 1 7 0 .1 3 .0 8 .7 1 .2 2 .9 1 7 .9 1 8 .3 2 .0 5 .1 2 4 .7 0 .4 7 1 0 6 9 1 0 8 6 1 4 0 9 1 2 1 6 7 .1 2 .7 9 .2 1 .2 3 .9 1 3 .3 2 1 .3 2 .0 5 .1 2 1 .9 0 .3 0 5 0 6 4 1 0 0 2 2 8 2 2 6 6 1 6 5 .1 2 .4 9 .7 1 .2 2 .9 7 .8 1 8 .3 2 .1 5 .1 2 0 .6 0 .3 7 2 0 6 7 1 0 8 3 1 4 0 9 1 0 1 3 7 .1 3 .0 9 .9 3 .2 3 .9 1 2 .0 2 0 .3 2 .5 9 .1 2 1 .5 0 .2 7 0 0 5 5 9 6 4 2 8 2 2 8 4 1 3 2 .1 3 .0 8 .7 3 .2 3 .9 1 2 .9 1 6 .8 2 .0 5 .1 1 6 .8 0 .2 0 2 0 7 0 1 0 8 9 1 4 0 9 1 5 1 7 4 .1 2 .5 1 0 .6 3 .2 3 .9 7 .0 1 6 .8 2 .1 5 .1 2 0 .6 0 .4 4 3 0 6 2 9 8 5 2 8 2 2 9 3 2 2 7 .1 3 .0 8 .7 3 .2 3 .9 1 6 .2 2 1 .3 1 .8 5 .1 2 1 .3 0 .3 5 5 0 6 3 9 8 9 2 8 2 2 9 4 2 0 5 .1 3 .0 8 .7 2 .2 2 .9 7 .3 1 3 .8 2 .2 6 .1 1 9 .3 0 .1 4 1 0 b -5 7 1 11 1 0 2 8 2 2 9 8 1 2 2 .4 2 .5 5 .6 1 .5 3 .1 2 2 .9 1 8 .2 2 .2 7 .1 1 9 .4 0 .4 3 4 2 7 2 11 1 6 1 4 0 9 2 7 1 6 3 .4 3 .0 9 .6 1 .5 4 .1 2 1 .6 1 8 .2 2 .1 1 0 .1 1 9 .3 0 .4 0 7 2 7 8 11 1 7 0 1 4 0 8 8 0 1 5 8 .4 3 .0 8 .6 4 .5 2 .1 1 4 .4 1 8 .1 2 .0 5 .1 1 8 .3 0 .2 5 5 2 7 3 11 1 8 1 4 0 9 2 9 1 7 5 .4 3 .0 9 .1 1 .5 4 .1 1 8 .5 2 2 .2 2 .5 8 .1 1 6 .6 0 .1 3 5 2 8 5 1 2 2 2 1 4 0 8 7 7 1 5 5 .4 3 .0 1 0 .0 1 .5 2 .1 1 6 .5 1 8 .7 2 .2 5 .1 1 7 .7 0 .2 8 4 2 7 5 11 3 0 1 4 0 8 7 2 2 3 0 .4 3 .0 9 .9 3 .5 5 .1 11 .5 1 8 .2 1 .9 5 .1 1 6 .9 0 .1 8 7 2 7 7 11 6 6 1 2 8 8 8 5 1 6 5 .4 3 .0 9 .7 2 .5 4 .1 2 1 .0 1 5 .7 1 .8 7 .1 1 9 .0 0 .3 9 0 2 8 4 1 2 1 5 1 2 8 9 0 3 1 6 2 .4 3 .0 9 .9 1 .5 3 .1 11 .5 2 0 .7 2 .0 8 .1 1 9 .2 0 .2 1 4 2 9 0 1 2 7 3 e c 3 2 9 4 0 2 1 8 1 .4 2 .7 9 .8 2 .5 3 .1 2 0 .0 1 7 .2 2 .1 5 .1 2 0 .1 0 .3 9 2 2 8 0 11 7 3 1 2 8 8 8 9 1 4 0 .4 3 .0 9 .8 2 .5 5 .1 8 .9 1 9 .2 2 .1 5 .1 1 9 .1 0 .1 6 4 2 8 9 1 2 6 5 e c 3 2 9 3 8 0 1 5 4 .4 3 .0 9 .8 2 .5 3 .1 1 9 .6 1 9 .2 2 .2 5 .1 1 8 .4 0 .3 5 1 2 8 6 1 2 5 4 e c 3 2 9 3 5 7 1 3 3 .4 2 .7 9 .8 2 .5 4 .1 1 6 .0 2 0 .2 2 .1 7 .1 1 8 .2 0 .2 8 3 2 8 8 1 2 5 6 e c 3 2 9 3 6 0 1 8 6 .4 2 .8 9 .8 2 .5 3 .1 1 6 .1 1 7 .2 2 .4 9 .1 1 9 .9 0 .3 1 5 5 b -3 t c r . n o i c . n o p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) s te m d ia m et er at b as e (c m ) in te rn o d al l en g th (c m ) n o . o f b ra n ch es / p la n t f ir st fl o w er in g n o d e o n m ai n s te m n o . o f f ru it s / p la n t f ru it le n g th (c m ) f ru it d ia m et er (c m ) n o .o f r id g es / f ru it a vg . f ru it w ei g h t (g ) y ie ld / p la n t (k g ) 87 augmented bib design for germplasm evaluation trails j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 84-88, 2008 b -5 t c r . n o i c . n o p la n t h ei g h t (c m ) s te m d ia m et er at b as e (c m ) in te rn o d al l en g th (c m ) n o . o f b ra n ch es / p la n t f ir st fl o w er in g n o d e o n m ai n s te m n o . o f f ru it s / p la n t f ru it le n g th (c m ) f ru it d ia m et er (c m ) n o .o f r id g es / f ru it a vg . f ru it w ei g h t (g ) y ie ld / p la n t (k g ) 7 4 11 2 3 1 4 0 9 3 4 1 2 3 .4 3 .0 6 .1 3 .5 5 .1 2 0 .1 1 5 .2 1 .7 5 .1 1 8 .0 0 .3 5 2 2 8 1 11 7 6 1 2 8 8 9 1 1 4 1 .4 2 .4 7 .6 0 .5 5 .1 1 0 .5 1 6 .2 1 .7 5 .1 2 4 .2 0 .2 4 8 2 8 2 11 7 8 1 2 8 8 9 3 1 4 2 .4 2 .4 9 .6 2 .5 3 .1 1 2 .0 1 6 .2 2 .1 5 .1 1 4 .0 0 .3 4 3 2 7 6 11 4 5 1 2 8 8 8 3 1 7 6 .4 2 .2 9 .8 0 .5 4 .1 2 5 .3 1 8 .7 1 .7 5 .1 1 8 .9 0 .4 6 8 2 b -6 9 2 1 2 7 6 e c 3 2 9 4 0 7 1 4 5 .4 3 .0 9 .6 1 .5 3 .9 8 .6 1 5 .6 2 .5 4 .6 1 9 .6 0 .2 3 5 7 9 6 1 4 5 7 2 8 2 2 6 9 1 2 0 .4 3 .0 7 .5 0 .5 2 .9 1 0 .8 1 5 .1 2 .4 4 .6 1 8 .6 0 .2 6 4 7 9 1 1 2 7 5 e c 3 2 9 4 0 6 1 2 2 .4 3 .0 9 .9 2 .5 3 .9 6 .3 1 5 .6 2 .1 5 .6 1 9 .8 0 .1 9 2 7 9 5 1 4 5 4 2 8 2 2 6 9 1 6 5 .4 2 .8 9 .6 1 .5 3 .9 1 5 .8 1 7 .6 2 .1 4 .6 1 9 .6 0 .3 7 6 7 9 4 1 4 4 4 e c 1 6 9 3 5 9 1 2 7 .4 2 .8 9 .6 3 .5 2 .9 1 3 .0 1 8 .6 2 .1 4 .6 1 8 .5 0 .3 0 1 7 9 9 1 5 0 8 e c 1 6 9 3 7 8 1 2 6 .4 3 .0 7 .5 2 .5 3 .9 1 5 .5 1 9 .1 2 .3 4 .6 1 8 .8 0 .3 5 6 7 9 3 e c 3 2 9 4 2 2 11 6 .4 2 .4 9 .6 1 .5 3 .9 9 .8 1 7 .6 1 .8 4 .6 1 6 .2 0 .2 1 5 7 9 8 1 5 0 1 e c 1 6 9 3 6 2 11 5 .4 3 .0 1 0 .0 0 .5 2 .9 1 3 .8 1 6 .1 1 .8 4 .6 1 9 .1 0 .3 2 8 7 9 7 1 4 9 7 e c 1 6 9 3 6 2 1 3 9 .4 2 .8 9 .6 1 .5 2 .9 9 .9 1 8 .6 2 .1 4 .6 2 0 .0 0 .2 6 6 7 1 0 0 1 5 1 2 e c 1 6 9 3 8 4 1 2 4 .4 3 .0 9 .0 2 .5 3 .9 1 8 .2 2 3 .6 2 .1 4 .6 1 9 .7 0 .4 2 5 7 8 7 1 4 3 7 4 3 1 3 6 .4 3 .0 1 0 .0 2 .5 3 .9 1 3 .6 2 0 .8 2 .2 4 .6 1 9 .0 0 .3 2 3 7 1 6 1 4 1 4 5 8 0 5 1 3 6 .4 2 .7 9 .6 1 .5 3 .9 8 .2 1 7 .6 2 .8 8 .6 2 3 .7 0 .2 7 3 7 2 0 1 6 7 4 5 8 3 1 1 5 4 .4 3 .0 8 .5 1 .5 2 .9 9 .3 1 9 .1 1 .9 4 .6 1 9 .3 0 .2 4 5 7 8 3 11 8 0 1 2 8 8 9 4 11 4 .4 2 .4 8 .5 1 .5 2 .9 11 .5 1 7 .6 1 .8 4 .6 1 9 .3 0 .2 8 7 7 8 7 1 2 5 5 e c 3 2 9 3 5 9 1 2 3 .4 2 .7 9 .5 1 .5 4 .9 11 .3 1 6 .8 2 .1 4 .6 2 0 .4 0 .2 9 9 7 6 8 1 0 8 5 2 8 2 2 9 6 1 4 2 .4 2 .7 9 .6 2 .5 3 .9 5 .8 1 8 .1 2 .2 7 .6 2 1 .2 0 .1 9 4 7 7 9 11 7 2 1 2 8 8 8 9 1 4 2 .4 3 .0 9 .5 2 .5 4 .9 7 .1 2 .4 5 .6 1 7 .4 0 .1 8 3 7 s e m 1 5 .2 1 .4 1 .4 0 .7 9 0 .6 3 5 .8 0 2 .2 1 0 .8 3 0 .6 3 1 .5 7 0 .0 9 c d @ 5 % 3 2 .5 3 .1 3 .1 1 .6 9 1 .3 5 1 2 .3 4 .7 1 1 .7 8 1 .3 5 3 .3 6 0 .1 9 c v (% ) 7 .0 9 1 0 .9 1 0 .8 2 5 .0 11 .9 2 4 .7 9 .0 8 .2 1 7 .6 6 5 .8 3 2 0 .2 ( a ) a . a n am ik a 1 3 8 .3 2 .4 8 .2 1 .6 3 .8 1 7 .3 1 8 .0 2 .0 5 .1 1 8 .6 0 .3 ( b ) a . a b h ay 1 3 1 .8 2 .4 9 .5 2 .1 3 .6 1 8 .7 1 8 .5 1 .8 5 .1 1 8 .9 0 .3 ( c ) p .k ra n ti 1 4 8 .1 2 .9 9 .8 2 .6 3 .5 1 9 .2 1 8 .6 1 .9 5 .3 1 7 .2 0 .3 ( d ) p b -7 1 5 4 .3 2 .8 9 .3 1 .5 3 .6 1 8 .0 1 4 .6 1 .8 5 .0 1 7 .9 0 .2 s e m 7 .2 0 .2 0 .7 0 .3 0 .3 2 .7 1 .0 0 .0 9 0 .3 0 .7 0 .0 4 c d @ 5 % 1 5 .5 0 .4 1 .5 0 .8 0 .6 5 .9 2 .2 0 .2 0 .6 1 .6 0 .0 9 c d @ 1 % 2 1 .5 0 .6 2 .0 1 .1 0 .8 8 .1 3 .1 0 .3 0 .8 2 .2 0 .1 2 c v ( % ) 7 .0 1 0 .9 1 0 .8 2 5 .0 11 .9 2 4 .7 9 .0 8 .2 7 .6 5 .8 2 0 .2 88 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (1): 84-88, 2008 venugopalan et al parbhani kranti and pb-7) using augmented bib design with 6 blocks in the division of vegetable crops at iihr, bangalore during kharif 2005. check varieties were replicated in each of the six blocks once and the 100 test treatments were randomly allotted to six blocks. the plot size maintained was 3m x 1.2m; spacing provided was 60 x 30 cm. recommended cultural practices were adopted in raising the crop. the layout plan of the experimental plan is given in table 1. observations on yield and yield related characters, namely, plant height (cm), stem diameter at base (cm), inter nodal length (cm), number of branches / plant, first flowering node on the main stem, number of fruits/plant, fruit length (cm), fruit diameter (cm), number of ridges / fruit, average fruit weight (g) and fruit yield / plant (kg) were recorded. statistical analysis of the data was performed using standard augmented design procedure (federer, 1963; federer and raghavarao, 1975; federer, 1998; may et al, 1989; schaalje et al, 1987; tania and street, 2002). the mean performance of the test entries (okra accessions) and the check varieties for different characters is presented in table 2 along with standard error of mean (sem) and coefficient of variation, cv%. perusal of the results showed that 45 accessions outperformed all the four check varieties in terms of yield/ plant (kg). remaining test treatments (55, out of which three did not germinate) performed below normal as compared to local checks. among the four checks, arka anamika, arka abhay, parbhani kranti were on par in terms fruit yield (300 g/ plant) and they differed significantly from pb-7 (200 g/ plant). the highest fruit yield of 503 g/plant was recorded in accession t 29: tcr 789 (ic 282233), followed by 499 g/plant in the accession t 28: tcr 783 (ic 218877), which exceeds the average check varieties performance by 67.6% and 66.3%, respectively. these two accessions could be used as a potential parent in future hybridization programme. utility of bib design vs complete block designs the advantage of using this augmented bib design is that there is a considerable reduction in experimental area, as the entire layout (total of 124 entries; 100 test treatments each repeated once in the entire set up and four check varieties repeated in all six blocks) was accommodated in an area of 1004 m2. on the contrary, if rbd was used for evaluating these 104 entries with a minimum of three replications, the area required would have been 2527 m2. thus, by adopting this experimental augmented bib design, about 60.2% of the land area required for the experiment is reduced. this, in turn, reduces the cost of all the related inputs, such as labour, water, fertilizers, pesticides etc. to conclude, the utility of such an incomplete block design in breeding trials, instead of regular complete block design is to optimize the use of inputs like seeds, water, labour, nutrients and pesticides in field experiments and subsequently useful for improving input use efficiency in crop production keeping in view the importance of the experimental design, a user-friendly program in c language is also developed to perform statistical analysis of the data. the programme takes care of both equal and unequal number of test treatments across different blocks. the efficacy of the programme in producing consistent results is tested by running and debugging the codes using data for different characters. references federer, w. t. 1963. procedures and designs useful for screening material in selection and allocation with a bibliography. biometrics, 19: 553-587. federer, w. t. 1998. recovery of interblock, intergradient, and intervarietal information in incomplete block and lattice rectangle designed experiments. biometrics, 54:471-481. federer, w. t. and raghavrao, d. 1975. on augmented design. biometrics, 31:29-35. may, k. w., kozub, g. c. and. schaalje, g. b. 1989. field evaluation of a modified augmented design (type 2) for screening barley lines. can. j. pl. sci., 69:9-15. puri, p. d., sharma, v. and gulati, r. c. 1984. augmented balanced factorial experiments, sankhya b. 46: 36-43. schaalje, g. b., lynch, d. r. and kozub, g. c. 1987. field evaluation of a modified augmented design for early stage selection involving a large number of test lines without replication. potato res., 30:35-45. tania prvan and street d. j. 2002. an annotated bibliography of application papers using certain classes of fractional factorial and related designs. j. stat. planning and inference. 106:245-269. (ms received 29 june 2007, revised 26 may 2008) introduction despite tremendous advances made in agriculture, agrarian output remains weather and climate dependent. frost or low temperature stress is the single, weather-related phenomenon causing losses greater than any other environmental or biological hazard. frost induced freezing is one of the severest stresses as, it causes ice formation, dehydration and cell deformation leading to an irreversible condition leading to death or malfunction of plant cells. major causes of damage to subtropical fruit species are excessive cooling of the plant surface and subsequent freezing of interor intra-cellular water. as plants are immobile, they face certain stress under natural conditions. to withstand freezing, cold-hardy plants have developed mechanisms to regulate ice formulation in their tissues. but, subtropical plants lack this intrinsic defense mechanism against frost or low temperature. even when all other aspects of crop production are well-managed, just one night of sub-zero temperatures can lead to complete crop loss in many subtropical fruit prediction models for frost / low-temperature stress in subtropical fruit plantations shashi kumar sharma dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry institute of biotechnology and environmental science, neri p.o. khagal, distt. hamirpur 177001, india e-mail: shashi_uhf@yahoo.com abstract during winters, frost is a phenomenon of common occurrence in subtropical lower himalayan region. in the recent past, it has caused considerable economic losses to fruit growers. recommendations for protection against frost do exist, but benefits to orchards are rare due to lack of information on the level of low temperature these crops may experience in a frosty event. studies have been conducted at regional horticultural and forestry research station, neri, hamirpur, himachal pradesh on development of prediction models for minimum temperature and temperatureevolution during a frost event. variables like sunset-time temperature, temperature drop and humidity increase from sunset time until two hours, have been found to explain about 74% of the total variation observed in minimum temperature. evolution of temperature during a frosty night showed that temperature drop after sunset was an inverse exponential function of time after sunset. it justified about 67% of the total variation in temperature-evolution trend. thiel’s inequality coefficient for predicted versus actual values indicated good to very good forecasting performance of the regression lines developed. further decomposition of inequality into bias, variance and covariance proportions also supported fitness of these lines for future prediction. based on the information generated, a grower-friendly frost protection guide-chart (s-chart) has been developed. the chart provides information on intensity and duration of temperature below the critical level of damage for different fruit species. it also serves as a guide for the level of protection needed and for automation of protection methods against frost and low temperature damage. key words: minimum temperature forecasting, temperature evolution, forecasting performance, s-chart species (snyder and melo-abreu, 2005). quantum of damage caused depends mainly on how fast temperature drops and to what extent the plant supercools before freezing (pearce, 2001). lower himalayan region has been classified as subtropical (thornwaite, 1948), but, repeated occurrence of frost during winters renders the region sub-optimal for growing subtropical fruit. in winters, these fruit species usually experience freezing situation due to reduction in sensible heat content of the air (net energy loss through radiation from the surface to the sky, i.e., radiation frost) near the plant surface. to prevent damage to fruit plantations due to frost-induced freezing several protective measures are recommended such as, wetting of plant or soil surface, fogging with water or thermohysteric compounds or covering technique using plastic, paper or foam (uhf, 2010). for effective application of protection systems against lethal damage, reliable prediction of intensity and duration of frost is necessary. weather services, to which the general public j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):56-61, 2012 57 prediction models for cold stress in subtropical fruits has considerable access, are quite broad and generalized as these use synoptic and/or meso-scale models for regional forecasts. local or micro-scale predictions are typically unavailable. therefore, empirical predictions that can be calibrated for local conditions are urgently needed. it is clear that in the years to come, climatic variability will play an even greater role than in the past, and precise prediction of low temperature will be, greatly significant. therefore, to facilitate decision-support system on ‘if and when’ frost protection is needed, the present studies were designed so as to develop an effective forecasting methodology against frost or low temperature stress. material and methods the studies were conducted in subtropical lower himalayan region at three high-frost prove locations having geographic coordinates as: i) 31o40’07" n, 76o34’46" e, altitude 950 masl, ii) 31o41’44" n, 76o21’52" e, altitude 605 masl and iii) 31o54’32" n, 76o17’06" e, altitude 523 masl. automatic temperature and humidity recorder (madge-tech, rhtemp101) was installed at these locations for continuous data recording during winters of 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. prediction of minimum temperature (t dip ) during a radiation frost event was made on the basis of the following explanatory variables: i. t max highest temperature (oc) recorded during day-time ii. t 530 temperature (oc)recorded at sunset (5:30pm) iii. td 5630 temperature drop (oc) within one hour after sunset iv. td 5730 temperature drop (oc) within two hours after sunset v. rh min minimum relative humidity (%) recorded during day-time vi. rh 530 relative humidity (%) recorded at sunset vii. rhd 5630 increase in relative humidity (%) within one hour after sunset viii. rhd 5730 increase in relative humidity (%) within two hours after sunset data for all locations and years were pooled and analyzed as per gupta and kapoor (1976). minimum temperature observed (t dip ) during a radiation frost event was confidened a dependent variable, whereas, the other variables (individually or in combination) were taken as explanatory variables. mathematical measure of average relationship between dependent and explanatory variables, in terms of original units of data, was obtained by the principle of least squares (gupta and gupta, 1996). prediction line for temperature at different levels of time (t i ) during a frost event, i.e., temperature-evolution after sunset, was derived by different polynomial fitting procedures for obtaining the line of best fit. it was factored-in as time-defined drop in temperature after sunset until the next morning at 7:30 am. all the curve-fitting was done using spss and sx statistical packages. significance of the regression coefficients was tested by standard t-test and overall significance of regression was tested using f-test. coefficient of determination (adjusted r2) was taken as the criterion for selecting suitable regression or prediction line. to test the significance of discrepancy between theory (predicted values) and experiment (actual values), chi square (χ2) test of goodness of fit was applied. further, forecasting performance of the prediction models was judged through prediction realization diagram as per theil (1966) and koutsoyiannis (1991). a systematic measure of accuracy of the prediction model was obtained through theil’s inequality coefficient, which was decomposed into bias, variance and covariance proportions of partial inequality, for insight into sources of prediction errors. observations were also recorded on actual level of damage to fruit plantations at experimental sites. twenty per cent damage to the foliage was considered critical, beyond which effective frost protection was deemed necessary. for devising frost protection guide chart, polynomial curve fitting was done with reference to sunset time temperature, and temperature evolution after sunset. frost protection guide chart was developed for very sensitive, sensitive or less sensitive fruit species as defined by badiyala (2008) and sharma (2011). the chart so developed was designated as ‘shashi’s chart or s–chart’. results and discussion descriptive statistics of various temperature and humidity related variables are presented in table 1. minimum temperature (t dip ) during a frost event varied from -0.8oc to 3.2oc. confidence limit of this variable indicates that for most of the frost events, minimum temperature was between 1.0oc to 2.33oc. during the period of study, maximum day temperature ranged from 13.5oc to 15.3oc. sunset time temperature was recorded as 7.1oc, to 12.8oc with average value of 10.9oc and confidence limit of 9.5oc to 10.3oc. after sunset, the temperature dropped to between 0.40oc j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):56-61, 2012 58 and 3.30oc within an hour. average drop was about 2.1oc. for a majority of frost events, this drop was within the confidence limit of 1.89oc to 2.25oc. within two hours, temperature drop after sunset was between 0.60oc to 5.90oc, with average drop of 3.48oc. confidence limit for this variable was 3.18oc to 3.78oc. minimum relative humidity in a day ranged between 35.5% and 65.2% whereas, at sunset-time, it ranged between 46% and 72.3%. confidence limit for these variables was 48.1% to 52.9% and 43.1% to 48.9%, respectively. within the hour increase in humidity after sunset was recorded at 10 to 26% and within two hours increase ranged between 16% and 36%. confidence limit of this variable was within 20.3% to 32.9%. prediction of minimum temperature during a frost event minimum temperature during a frost event (t dip ) was regressed upon the above-described variables one by one, or in different combinations regression lines with significant coefficients of independent variables are presented in table 2. from line 1, it is evident that sunset time temperature (t 530 ) explained around 52 % of the total variation in minimum temperature (t dip ) during a radiation frost event. this variation in the dependent variable (t dip ) could explain upto 61% (regression line 2) when temperature-drop upto two hours after sunset (t 5730 ) was considered along with sunset temperature (t 530 ). incorporation of increase in humidity at two hours after sunset (rhd 5730 ) as an additional explanatory variable, further improved the value of adjusted r2 to 74% (regression line 3). this implies that temperature at sunset, drop in temperature and increase in relative humidity within two hours of sunset significantly influenced minimum temperature of a forthcoming frost event. these variables have been found to explain around 74% of the total variation in minimum temperature during this event. gaussian identification procedure developed by krasovitski et al (1996) also emphasized that temperature drop rate after sunset definitely determines minimum temperature of a frost event. reports on correlation of minimum temperature with increase in relative humidity after sunset in combination with sunset time temperature are rare. prediction of temperature evolution after sunset during a radiation frost event: among the polynomial expressions tested, the following inverse exponential curve (regression eq. 4) defined temperature at ith hour after sunset, with highest value of coefficient of determination (adjusted r2) taking hours after sunset (i) and sunset time temperature (t 530 ) as t i = t 530 – (0.27* t 530 *i)/e(o.1*i) …..(adj. r2 =0.6745) …reg. eq. (4) i = hours after sunset {at sunset/5:30pm i=0, at sunrise/ 7:30am i=14} t i = temperature at ith hour after sunset t 530 = temperature at sunset (5:30 pm) explanatory variables. this equation explained that temperature dropped after sunset as 0.27th of the product of t 530 and 1/10th inverse of exponential progression of time after sunset, i.e., (i). these explanatory variables explained about 67% of the total variation in the trend of temperatureevolution during a frost event. krasovitski et al (1996) also asserted that pre-night period air temperature played a vital role in temperature evolution during the night. snyder and melo-abreu (2005) suggested updating night temperatures by taking pre-night temperature as the reference when predicting air-temperature trend during a frost event. they demonstrated that air temperature trend calculation used a square root function from two hours after sunset, until sunrise the next morning. table 1. descriptive statistics of variables during radiation frost events variable minimum maximum mean confidence limit t d i p -0.80 3.20 1.03 1.00 2.33 t max 8.90 17.80 13.90 13.50 15.30 t 5 3 0 7.10 12.70 10.90 9.50 10.30 td 5630 0.40 3.30 2.07 1.89 2.25 td 5730 0.60 5.90 3.48 3.18 3.78 rh min 35.50 65.20 50.00 48.10 52.90 rh 530 46.00 72.30 67.40 43.10 48.90 rhd 5630 10.00 26.00 19.22 12.00 22.45 rhd 5730 16.00 36.00 24.70 20.30 32.90 table 2. regression lines for prediction of minimum temperature during a radiation frost event regression regression line r2 adj. r2 f cal (0.05) line no. 1. t dip =-2.06+0.285 (t 530 )* 0.5556 0.5155 * 2. t dip =-1.86+0.426 0.6593 0.6141 * (t 530 )*-0.499 (td 5730 )* 3. t dip =-1.63+0.368 0.7518 0.7374 * (t 530 )*-0.558 (td 5730 )* +0.041 (rhd 5730 )* *significant at 5% level shashi kumar sharma j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):56-61, 2012 59 evaluating forecasting performance of prediction models regression line 3 with highest coefficient of determination (adjusted r2) and highest number of significant explanatory variables were considered as prediction models for minimum temperature of a frost event. forecasting performance of this line has been represented through ‘prediction–realization diagram’ presented in fig 1. which shows that distribution of the points of predicted versus actual values of minimum temperature are well distributed around the line of perfect forecast. the χ (11.84) calculated is lower than the tabulated value of χ (0.05, 25), and signifies acceptance of regression line 3 for predicting the minimum temperature of a radiation frost event at 5% level of significance. further, ‘theil’s inequality coefficient’ (u=0.317) also indicates that as per sharma and julia (1996) scale, regression line 3 depicts very good forecasting performance to judge its ability as a forecasting model. partial coefficients of inequality indicated that the major contribution to inequality existing during forecasting performance evaluation was due to imperfect covariance (uc =0.908). the systematic errors (um and us) contributed very little to the inequality. prediction and realization diagram of regression line 4, i.e., forecasting model for estimating temperatureevolution after sunset during a radiation frost event, is presented in fig 2. the points for predicted versus actual values were well-oriented around the line of perfect forecast. majority of the points figured in the underestimation zone, but value of χ (27.04) was found to be less than the tabulated value χ (0.05, 49) which indicated that regression line 4 was acceptable at 5% level of significance fig 1. evaluation of prediction performance of estimated regression line 3 fig 2. evaluation of prediction performance of estimated regression line prediction models for cold stress in subtropical fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):56-61, 2012 60 for prediction of post-sunset temperature-evolution during a radiation frost event. theil – u (0.455) also indicated good forecasting ability of the line as per the sharma and julka (1996) scale. partial coefficients of inequality indicated that inequality existed mainly due to imperfect covariance (uc) and unequal central tendency (bias proportion, um). from a forecaster’s stand-point, if the total inequality coefficient (u) cannot attain the desirable level 0, the most desirable level of um is h”0. the same is expected for inequality due to imperfect covariance (uc). as predictions are rarely equal to actual outcomes, this type of error is of the non-systematic type. if us‘“0, this might be called ‘systematic’ and is due to forecaster’s neglect (theil, 1962 and 1966). distribution of inequality of line 3 is very close to desirable distribution, i.e., umh” ush” 0 and uch”1; thus, it has greater level of acceptance as a model for prediction of low temperature during a frost event. regression line 4 also possessed good forecasting performance, but the value of uc was a bit farther from 1, which indicates that forecasting performance of this line stands to be improved further in future with incorporation of more information into the forecasting process. frost protection guide chart the ‘s–chart’ presented below depicts that sunset time temperature below 11.7oc was critical for ‘very sensitive’ fruit crop species, as, whenever this situation prevailed, over 20% damage to foliage was observed. hence, it can be inferred, that, very sensitive crops should be given protection against frost whenever sunset time temperature goes below 11.7oc. duration for which this protection is needed will be higher for lower temperatures. medium sensitive crops like mango and litchi were affected (>20% foliage damage) only when sunset-time temperature was below 9.3oc. when this was below 8oc, almost all the crops were affected by frost. further, it is depicted in the chart that when the sunset-time temperature is 10oc, sensitive crops will need protection after about eight and half hours after sunset, i.e., after 1:30am in the night; these plants will need protection for the next four and half hours. similarly, if the sunset-time temperature is 8oc, the sensitive and medium-sensitive crops will need protection. the sensitive crops will need protection from after about four and half hours after sunset, whereas medium sensitive crops will need protection after eight and half hours after sunset, i.e., after 1:30am (protection for the next four and half hours). thus information presented in the chart may be utilized for automation of frost protection systems. (e.g. if you have a mango orchard, programme the frost protection system to get operational at 1:30 am whenever sunset-time temperature is below 8oc. if this temperature is above 9.3oc, do not bother to get the system operational). in general, it can be speculated that growers of sensitive crop should be at alert whenever sunset time temperatures start sliding below 11.7oc. along with growers of sensitive crop, growers of medium sensitive fruit crops too should be cautions whenever sunset-time temperatures go below 9.3oc. when sunset time temperature goes below 8oc, all shashi kumar sharma most of the sub-tropical fruit crops need protection medium sensitive crops (mango, litchi etc.) and very sensitive crops need protection very sensitive crops (papaya, banana etc.) need protection j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):56-61, 2012 61 fruit growers should be at alert for frost protection of their crop. method of protection to be adopted can also be opted for on the basis of duration for which protection is needed. in a similar study, krasovitski et al (1996) used earth surface-temperature as a guide for optimal application of frost protection methods. from the above results, it is concluded that frost is a phenomenon of common occurrence in the lower subtropical himalayan region of himachal pradesh, and sub-zero temperatures are not uncommon here. minimum temperature of frost event may be predicted well on the basis of sunset time temperature, temperature-drop and humidity increase within two hours of sunset. evolution of temperature during a frosty night may be predicted with sufficient accuracy on the basis of sunset-time temperature. further, frost protection guide chart can be used for assessing the level of protection needed for a target crop at various sunset-time temperatures. automation of frost protection methods can also be facilitated with help of this guide chart. acknowledgement financial assistance for the studies provided by rastriya krishi vikas yojana, ministry of agriculture, govt. of india is gratefully acknowledged. references dunn, e. 2010. how to use water mist to reduce frost damage to fruit trees. www.ehow.com/how_5805520 fuller, m.p. and wisniewski, m. 1998. the use of infrared thermal imaging in the study of ice nucleation and freezing in plants. j. thermal biol., 23:81-89 ge, x. and wang, x. 2009. estimation of freezing point depression, boiling point elevation and vaporization enthalpies of electrolyte solutions. ind. engg. chem. res., 48:2229-2235 groenzin, h., li, i. and shultz, m.j. 2008. the single crystal basal face of ice investigating with sum frequency generation. the j. chem. phy., 128:214510 gupta, c.b. and gupta, v. 1996. tests on small samples and goodness of fit. in: an introduction to statistical methods (20th revised ed.). vikas publishing house pvt. ltd., new delhi 781p. gupta, s.c. and kapoor, v.k. 1995. fundamentals of mathematical statistics. (9th edn.), sultan chand and sons, new delhi, india, pp. 3.1-3.15 gusta, l.v., wisniewsky, m. nesbitt, n.t. and gusta, m.l. 2004. the effect of water, sugars and proteins on the pattern of ice nucleation and propagation in acclimated and non acclimated canola leaves. pla. physiol., 135:1642-1653 hollis, j.m., lovas, f.j., jewell, p.r. and coudert, l.h. 2002. interstellar antifreeze: propylene glycol. the astrophy. j., 571:l59-l62 koutsoyiannis, a. 1991. testing the forecasting power of an estimated model. in: theory of econometrics (2nd ed.), elbs with mac millan pp. 165-171 laporta, n., zacchini, m., bartolini, s., viti, r. and roselli, g. 1994. the frost hardiness of some clones of olive cv. ‘leccino’. j. hortl. sci., 69:341-345 mancuso, s. 2002. electrical resistance changes during exposure to low temperature measure chilling and freezing tolerance in olive tree (olea europea l.) plants. pl., cell and environ., 23:291-299 pearce, r.s. 2001. plant freezing and damage. ann. bot., 87:417-424 sakai, a. and larcher, w. 1987. frost survival of plants: responses and adaptation to freezing stress. in: ecological studies., 62. springerverlag, berlin snyder, r.l. and melo-abreu, j. paulo, de. 2005. frost protection: fundamentals, practice and economics. fao, in: envir. natural resource series,z 10:1-12 soleimani, a. lessani, h. and talaie, a. 2003. relationship between stomatal density and ion leakage as indicators of cold hardiness in olive (olea europea l.). acta hort., 618:521-525 theil, h. 1962. economic forecast and policy. north holland. pp. 1-48 theil, h. 1966. applied economic forecasting. north holland. pp. 26-36 thornwaite, c.w. 1948. an approach towards a rational classification of climate. geograph. rev., 38:55-94 uhf. 2010. http://www.yspuniversity.ac.in/package/packfruitcrops wisniewski, m., fuller, m., glenn, d.m., palta, j., carter, j., gustta, l., griffith, m. and duman, j. 2001. factors involved in ice nucleation and propagation in plants: an overview based on new insights gained from the use of infrared thermography. buvisindi –icel. agril. sci., 14:41-47 (ms received 11 january 2012, revised 17 april 2012) prediction models for cold stress in subtropical fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):56-61, 2012 introduction medicinal plants traditionally occupied an important position in rural and tribal lives of india and are considered as one of the most important sources of medicines since the dawn of human civilization. one such an important medicinal plant is medicinal coleus (coleus forskohlii briq.). the tuberous roots of coleus are rich source of forskolin, a diterpenoid activates cyclic adenosine monophosphate or amp in the cells (bhat et al, 1977). coleus forskohlii is the only known natural source of forskolin. due to its multifaceted pharmacological effects, forskolin is used for treatment of eczema (atopic dermatitis), asthma, psoriasis, cardiovascular disorders and hypertension, where decreased intracellular camp level is believed to be a major factor in the development of disease process (rupp et al, 1986). extent of genetic variation in coleus forskohlii is limited. continuous vegetative propagation for many years has reduced the vigour and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress, causing low yields. hence, yield and quality is enhanced possibly by developing studies on correlation and path analysis in mutants of coleus (coleus forskohlii briq.) for yield and forskolin content in v 2 m 1 generation m. velmurugan, k. rajamani, p. paramaguru, r.gnanam1 and j.r. kannan bapu2 department of spices, plantation crops and medicinal plant unit tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore – 641 003, india e-mail: hortmrvelu@yahoo.com abstract the present investigation was carried out during 2003-2007 involving terminal cuttings of coleus ecotype ‘garmai’. genotypic correlation coefficient between yield and its components in mutants of coleus was studied, viz., plant height, number of branches plant-1, number of leaves plant-1, number of tubers plant-1, tuber length and tuber girth were found to have positive and highly significant correlation with yield. however, forskolin and essential oil content showed negative correlation with yield. path analysis of component characters on yield of coleus in v 2 m 1 generation exerted positive direct effect through the characters plant height, number of leaves plant-1 and number of tubers plant1. similarly, direct effect was observed to be negative through number of branches plant-1 (-0.930), total amount of alkaloids (-0.066) and forskolin content (-0.026). the current investigation resulted in residual effect of 0.158 indicating the accuracy and appropriate selection of component character for crop improvement programme. weightage must be given to component characters exhibiting positive attributes towards fresh tuber yield in coleus. however, some traits with negative attributes are also chosen for getting improved quality, i.e., forskolin content, without much inhibition on fresh tuber yield plant-1. key words: coleus forskohlii, correlation, path analysis a mutant in this species with high tuber yield and improved forskolin content through induced mutations. the ultimate goal of crop improvement in coleus is to improved tuber yield and forskolin content. being a complex trait, the tuber yield is largely influenced by many component characters. information on strength and direction of correlation of these component characters on tuber yield and inter se association among them would be useful in designing breeding programmes for yield improvement. the relationship between yield and its component characters is likely to vary according to the genetic material used and environment under which the material is evaluated as well as due to interaction of these factors. therefore, it is worthwhile to study the heritable association between variables (genotypic correlation) for identification of important yield components so that weightage can be given to these characters of importance in further breeding programmes (johnson et al, 1955). the current investigation confines to correlation and path analysis in mutants of coleus in v 2 m 1 generation. present address: 1 agricultural college and research institute, madurai 2 agricultural research station, aliyarnagar j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 63-67, 2009 64 material and methods the present investigation was carried out at medicinal plant unit, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore during 2003-2007. terminal cuttings of coleus ecotype ‘garmai’ was obtained from manjini in salem district of tamil nadu, where this crop is grown commercially by the farmers in a larger extent. based on preliminary experiments, it is concluded that the ld 50 value for gamma rays was 3.00 kr and for ems it was noticed at 1.00 % concentration which was exposed for a period of 3.00 h. based on the sensitivity studies, mutagenic treatments were formulated viz., at 1 – control, at 2 2.50 kr gamma rays, at 3 3.00 kr gamma rays, at 4 3.50 kr gamma rays, at 5 0.50 % ems, at 6 1.00 % ems, at 7 1.50 % ems, at 8 2.50 kr gamma rays + 0.50% ems, at 9 2.50 kr gamma rays + 1.00% ems, at 10 2.50 kr gamma rays + 1.50% ems, at 11 3.00 kr gamma rays + 0.50% ems, at 12 3.00 kr gamma rays + 1.00% ems, at 13 3.00 kr gamma rays + 1.50% ems, at 14 3.50 kr gamma rays + 0.50% ems, at 15 3.50 kr gamma rays + 1.00% ems, at 16 3.50 kr gamma rays + 1.50% ems. while imposing the treatments, terminal cuttings were treated with gamma rays and ems separately. but for combination of mutagenic treatments, cuttings were initially treated with respective ems concentration and immediately then they were exposed to gamma radiation and planted in field in randomized block design (rbd) with 600 plants in each treatment. total number of branches (including primary, secondary and tertiary branches) and leaves produced from planted terminal cutting following mutagenic treatment was represented as first vegetative generation and designated as v 1 m 1 generation plants. secondary shoots were considered as the second vegetative generation. secondary shoots were obtained by cutting back the primary shoot and planted for the study of v 2 m 1 generation. the mutants were evaluated by adopting standard recommended cultural practices (hegde, 2001 and rajamani, 2003) for crop cultivation. the biometrical traits viz., plant height, number of branches plant-1 and number of leaves plant-1 were observed at 180 days after planting. similarly, yield parameters like length and girth of tuber and fresh tuber yield plant-1 were also recorded. after the harvest of tubers, the quality traits like forskolin (mersinger et al,1988), essential oil (a.s.t.a, 1960) and total alkaloids (kokate et al, 2001) were estimated by adopting standard procedures. in v 2 m 1 generations, the genotypic correlation coefficients and phenotypic correlation coefficient were estimated according to johnson et al (1955). the significance of the genotypic correlation coefficients was tested by referring to the standard table given by snedecor and cochran (1967). path coefficient analysis was carried out according to dewey and lu (1959) by partitioning the genotypic correlation into direct and indirect effects. results and discussion the correlation coefficients between yield and its components and inter correlations among various yield attributes were estimated. in general, genotypic correlation coefficients were of higher in magnitude than phenotypic correlation indicting the lesser influence of environmental factors. being a complex trait, tuber yield is largely influenced by many component characters. the relationship between yield and its component characters is likely to vary according to the genetic material used and environment under which the material is evaluated as well as due to interaction of these factors (table 1 and 2). the highest positive and significant genotypic correlation of yield was observed with tuber girth (0.997) and it was closely followed by number of leaves plant-1 (0.962) and number of tubers plant-1 (0.958). other traits exhibited positive and significant genotypic correlations with yield are tuber length (0.934), plant height (0.906) and number of branches plant-1 (0.847). while the characters viz., forskolin (-0.782) and essential oil content (-0.167) showed negative correlation with yield. intercorrelation showed that the plant height had positive and highly significant association with number of branches plant-1, number of leaves plant-1, number of tuber plant-1, tuber length and tuber girth. number of tuber plant-1 exhibited positive and highly significant association with tuber length and tuber girth. each of these characters not only had positive association with each other but also highly significant with yield. the yield exhibited positive and significant phenotypic correlation with plant height, number of branches plant-1, number of leaves plant-1, number of tuber plant-1, tuber length and tuber girth. however, the forskolin and essential oil showed negative correlation with yield. this apparent negative correlation at genetic level would have arisen from repulsion linkage of gene(s), controlling the direct and indirect effects. conversely, positive association was due to the coupling phase of linkage. this is in agreement with the earlier findings of geetha and prabhakaran (1987), j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 63-67, 2009 datta et al 65 table 1. effect of gamma rays (kr) and ems on mean values for different traits in v 2 m 1 generation in coleus treatment biometrical traits at yield trait quality trait 180 days from planting plant number number number length girth fresh total essential forskolin height of of of of of tuber-yield alkaloid oil content (g) (cm) branches leaves tubers tuber tuber plant-1(g) content(g) (ml) plant-1 plant-1 plant-1 (cm) (cm) at1 control 63.50 53.50 235.00 24.50 24.70 3.45 510.00 1.20 0.10 0.40 at2 2.50 kr gamma rays 62.00 51.00 222.50 21.00 22.50 3.25 505.00 1.19 0.09 0.52 at3 3.00 kr gamma rays 60.55 50.50 216.50 20.50 20.69 3.00 471.66 1.25 0.11 0.50 at4 3.50 kr gamma rays 59.20 49.95 211.00 19.00 19.00 2.95 430.85 1.25 0.09 0.48 at5 0.50 % ems 58.00 49.00 229.50 23.50 23.50 3.30 497.55 1.19 0.10 0.42 at6 1.00 % ems 56.50 48.65 215.00 21.00 21.00 3.00 462.90 1.15 0.11 0.45 at7 1.50 % ems 55.00 48.05 203.00 18.00 19.80 2.85 433.20 1.10 0.09 0.40 at82.50 kr gamma rays 55.10 46.50 210.50 21.50 20.90 3.20 492.40 1.21 0.07 0.40 + 0.50% ems at9 2.50 kr gamma rays 53.60 45.00 200.00 18.50 19.10 3.18 477.60 1.20 0.18 0.45 + 1.00% ems at10 2.50 kr gamma rays 53.00 44.95 192.00 18.00 18.45 3.12 445.18 1.17 0.09 0.62 + 1.50% ems at11 3.00 kr gamma rays 52.50 44.00 182.00 16.50 17.65 3.00 420.00 1.14 0.12 0.46 + 0.50% ems at12 3.00 kr gamma rays 50.00 43.70 178.50 14.50 17.00 2.95 409.28 1.10 0.10 0.46 + 1.00% ems at13 3.00 kr gamma rays 49.00 42.80 160.00 13.00 16.20 2.65 389.30 0.96 0.09 0.55 + 1.50 % ems at14 3.50 kr gamma rays 45.50 41.20 148.00 12.00 15.00 2.45 375.50 1.10 0.10 0.50 + 0.50% ems at15 3.50 kr gamma rays 43.10 40.15 131.50 10.50 14.33 2.30 305.00 1.26 0.14 0.61 + 1.00% ems at163.50 kr gamma rays 42.35 39.80 108.00 9.00 13.40 2.05 290.55 1.09 0.10 0.63 + 1.50% ems bhandari and gupta (1991), prabhakar et al (1994) and shanmugasundaram (1998). correlation coefficients between the characters revealed that those characters exerted positive association among others are prone for improvement and underlined the fact that one component character leads to the concurrent improvement of the other component characters. the present findings are concurrent with shanmugasundaram (1998) in turmeric and kavitha (2005) in coleus. the present information on strength and direction of correlation of these component characters on tuber yield and inter se association among them would be useful in designing breeding programmes for yield improvement. correlation coefficient between any two characters would not give a complete picture for a situation like yield, which is controlled by several other traits, either directly or indirectly. in such situations, path coefficient analysis furnishes a means of measuring direct effect of each trait as well as indirect effect via other characters on yield. so information on direct and indirect effect on yield is important, which is explicable by path analysis proposed by wright (1921) and illustrated by dewey and lu (1959). the interrelationships of the component characters on yield provide the likely consequences of their selection for simultaneous improvement of desirable characters with yield. the path analysis of component traits on yield of coleus mutants showed positive direct effects through the characters viz., plant height (0.979), number of leaves plant1 (0.422), number of tubers plant-1 (0.169), tuber length (0.386), tuber girth (0.048) and essential oil content (0.008) (table 3). the direct effect was the highest for plant height (0.979) followed by number of leaves plant-1 (0.422), while the trait, number of branches plant-1 had the highest indirect effect (-0.930). since correlation of these characters with yield is positive, preference should be given to these characters in selection programme to isolate superior mutants with genetic potential for improving yield. a similar line of work was reported by viswanathan et al (1993) in abrus precatorius and srivastava and chauhan (1998) in bauhinia variegata. the direct effect was observed to be negative through number of branches plant-1 (-0.930), total alkaloids (-0.066) and forskolin content (-0.026). this vivid conflict statistics on coleus mutants and yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 63-67, 2009 66 between the correlation and path coefficient analysis arouse largely from the fact that correlation simply measures the mutual association without regard to causation, while path specifies the relative importance of each causal factor. so information on direct and indirect effect on yield is important which is explicable only by means of path analysis. it is also evident from the study that direct selection can be made on tuber characters as they are true components relating to yield and selection on these will be rewarding. the current investigation resulted with the residual effect of 0.158 indicating precision on selection of component characters. most of the breeding programmes preferred with residual effect lesser than one. it indicates that accuracy and appropriate selection of component character for crop improvement programme. this is supported by the earlier works of nandi et al (1992), maurya et al (1998), shanmugasundaram (1998), ushanandhinidevi (2004) in turmeric and kavitha (2005) in coleus. on a wholesome, the weightage must be given to component characters exhibiting positive attributes towards the fresh tuber yield table 2. effect of gamma rays (kr) and ems (per cent) on genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficient in coleus mutants in v 2 m 1 generation x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 1 0 x 1 1 0.983** 0.958** 0.943** 0.934** 0.888** 0.415 -0.250 -0.697** 0.906** 1 0.983** 0.959** 0.929** 0.938** 0.852** 0.471 -0.140 -0.435 0.909** x 2 1 0.928** 0.919** 0.930** 0.818** 0.418 -0.284 -0.688** 0.847** 1 0.931** 0.910** 0.933** 0.785** 0.465 -0.181 -0.445 0.854** x 3 1 0.980** 0.955** 0.968** 0.406 -0.197 -0.805** 0.962** 1 0.972** 0.957** 0.901** 0.449 -0.108 -0.552* 0.963** x 4 1 0.985** 0.981** 0.467 -0.192 -0.751** 0.958** 1 0.973** 0.852** 0.453 -0.152 -0.590* 0.951** x 5 1 0.924** 0.381 -0.233 -0.779** 0.934** 1 0.875** 0.436 -0.130 -0.514* 0.937** x 6 1 0.291 -0.178 -0.897** 0.997** 1 0.464 0.055 -0.328 0.919** x 7 1 0.215 -0.247 0.321 1 0.331 0.046 0.370 x 8 1 0.008 -0.167 1 0.192 -0.085 x 9 1 -0.782** 1 -0.541* x 10 1 1 # upper values refers to genotypic correlation coefficient * significant at 5 % level # lower values refers to phenotypic correlation coefficient ** significant at 1 % level x 1 : plant height x 4 : number of tubers plant-1 x 2 : number of branches plant-1 x 5 : length of tuber x 3 : number of leaves plant-1 x 6 : girth of tuber x 7 : total alkaloids x 8 : essential oil x 9 : forskolin table 3. effect of gamma rays (kr) and ems (per cent) on path analysis in coleus mutants in v 2 m 1 generation x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 yield x 1 0.979 0.318 0.338 -0.179 -0.386 -0.048 -0.043 -0.004 0.018 0.993 x 2 0.952 -0.930 0.392 0.155 0.359 0.040 -0.028 -0.002 0.018 0.956 x 3 0.968 -0.989 0.422 0.166 0.368 0.047 -0.027 -0.002 0.021 0.974 x 4 0.896 -0.991 0.414 0.169 0.380 0.048 -0.031 -0.001 0.019 0.903 x 5 0.944 -0.981 0.403 0.166 0.386 0.045 -0.025 -0.002 0.020 0.956 x 6 0.897 -0.882 0.409 0.166 0.356 0.048 -0.019 -0.001 0.023 0.997 x 7 0.419 -0.451 0.171 0.079 0.147 0.014 -0.066 0.002 0.006 0.321 x 8 -0.252 0.306 -0.083 -0.032 -0.090 -0.009 -0.014 0.008 0.000 -0.166 x 9 -0.704 0.742 -0.340 -0.127 -0.301 -0.043 0.016 0.000 -0.026 -0.783 # residual effect: 0.158 diagonal element direct effects x 1 : plant height x 2 : number of branches plant-1 x 3 : number of leaves plant-1 x 1 0 : fresh tuber yield plant-1 x 7 : total alkaloid content x 8 : essential oil content x 9 : forskolin content x 4 : number of tubers plant-1 x 5 : length of tuber x 6 : girth of tuber x 1 0 : fresh tuber yield plant-1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 63-67, 2009 datta et al 67 of coleus. however, certain traits with negative attributes are also chosen for getting improved quality i.e., forskolin content without much inhibition on fresh tuber plant-1. references a.s.t.a. 1960. official analytical methods of the american spice trade association, new york, pp. 41-42 bhandari, m.m. and gupta, g.s. 1991. association analysis of opium poppy linn. int’l. j. trop. agri., 9 (1): 42-44 bhat, s.v., bajwa, b.s., dornauer, h., desouza, n.j. and fehlilhaber, h.w. 1977. structure and stereochemistry of new labdane diterpenoid from coleus forskohlii. tetrahedron lett., 19:1669-1672 dewey, d.r. and lu, k.h. 1959. a correlation and path coefficient analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agron. j., 51:515-518 geetha, v. and prabhakaran, p.v. 1987. genotypic variability, correlation and path coefficient analysis in turmeric. agril. res. j. kerala, 25:249-254 hegde, l. 2001. crop improvement in coleus forskohlii briq. in : national seminar on transfer of technology of medicinal and aromatic crops, held on 20-22 february, bangalore, pp. 92-96 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimation of genetic variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:314-318 kavitha, c. 2005. genetic diversity studies in coleus forskohlii briq. ph.d thesis, tnau, coimbatore kokate, c.k., prohit, a.p. and gokhale, s.b. 2001. pharmacognosy, nirali prakasam publ., warangal, india. maurya, k.r., kumar, r., de, n. and singh, s.n. 1998. correlation and path analysis performance studies of some turmeric (curcuma domestica val.) genotypes. in: national seminar on recent development in spices production technology, bihar agricultural college, sabour. pp. 11-12 mersinger, r., donauer, h. and rainhard, e. 1988. formation of forskolin by suspension cultures of coleus forskohlii. planta med., 54:200-204 nandi, a., lenka, d. and singh, d.n. 1992. path analysis in turmeric. ind. cocoa, arecanut and spices j., 17:54-55 prabhakar, m., singh, j. and srivastava, l.j. 1994. genetic variation and correlation studies for some important characters associated with solasodine yield in solanum khasianum clarke. ind. j. forestry, 17:26-31 rajamani, k. 2003. cultivation technology of coleus forskohlii. in: state level sem. medicinal plants, held at trichy, pp: 53-58 rupp, r.h., de souza, n.j. and dohadwalla, a.n. 1986. in: proceedings of the international symposium on forskolin: its chemical, biological and medical potential. hoechst india ltd., bombay, pp. 19-30 shanmugasundaram, k.a. 1998. evaluation and selection for certain quantitative and qualitative characters in turmeric (curcuma domestica val.). m.sc. (ag.) thesis, tnau, coimbatore snedecor, g.w. and cochran, c.w.g. 1967. statistical methods. the iowa state university press, iowa, u.s.a. srivastava, a. and chauhan, k.c. 1998. path coefficient analysis between shoot dry weight and other characters in bauhinia variegata linn. progeny. j. tree sci., 15:111-113 ushanandhinidevi, h. 2004. induction of mutagenesis in turmeric (curcuma longa l.) through gamma rays for variability and quality improvement. ph.d thesis, tnau, coimbatore vishwanathan, t.v., sunil, k.p. and sujatha, r. 1993. path analysis for lethality in gamma irradiated population of indian liquorice (abrus precatorius l.) south ind. hort., 41:101-105 wright, s. 1921. correlation and causation. j. agril. res., 20:557-585 (ms received 30 april 2008, revised 12 february 2009) statistics on coleus mutants and yield j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 63-67, 2009 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 focus biotechnology of coconut v. a. parthasarathy , anitha karun1 and m. k. rajesh1 indian institute of spices research p. b. no. 1701, p.o. marikunnu calicut673 012, india e-mail: parthasarathy@spices.res.in abstract biotechnology of coconut (cocos nucifera l.) is a relatively recent area compared to similar work in other crops. it started as tissue culture in the eighties, which led to the development of molecular markers in late nineties with the use of rapds. since then, considerable research has been carried out and protocols for tissue culture regeneration almost perfected. embryo culture is being very successfully applied to germplasm transfer. molecular markers such as aflp, ssr, etc., were used to develop qtl maps. the entire gamut of coconut biotechnology is under review in this paper. key words: biotechnology, coconut, cocos nucifera introduction research on coconut (cocos nucifera l.) tissue culture started in the eighties following success in oil palm tissue culture. it was initially thought that application of tissue culture techniques in coconut would result in success but it proved otherwise. culture medium developed for oil palm was indubitable for coconut and it was later proved that the coconut palm is highly recalcitrant to in vitro manipulations and every stage of the procedure brought its share of problems (verdeil et al, 1998). it was emvisyed that this technique would also help in rapid propagation of elite hybrids. success obtained in coconut embryo culture and its use in germplasm collection was one of the major achievements in this direction. research on coconut tissue culture was thus aimed at solving problems of phenol production using anti-oxidants other than activated charcoal, and by production of embryogenic calli and regeneration of plants. this research is of paramount importance because, unlike in other crops, biotechnological research on coconut is being carried out intensively at present only at the central plantation crops research institute (cpcri), kasaragod, kerala, india and a few laboratories abroad, although sporadic attempts have been made in several other laboratories (iyer, 1993, 1995). any breakthrough resulting in coconut biotechnology would be of great importance to the country, in general, and coconut growing states in particular. tissue culture of coconut was carried out in several countries besides india, including uk (wye college), france (irho/cirad), usa (florida university), the philippines, australia, indonesia and sri lanka. as a result of these programmes, only a few clonal plantlets could be produced over several years, and a repeatable and commercial protocol is yet to be developed (iyer and parthasarathy, 2000; parthasarathy and bose, 2001). a viable micropropagation protocol for desired coconut hybrids/selections is thus fundamental to disseminating benefits of various breeding programmes to the farming community. the technique thus perfected could also be used for mass multiplication of disease resistant/ tolerant types, especially, in the context of the epidemic and devastating nature of root (wilt) disease in kerala. this disease is estimated as causing a loss of over 960 million nuts annually. other international ramifications are deadly diseases like lethal yellowing, which is reported to be spreading at a rate of 100km/year in mexico and would eventually wipe out all the country’s estates (veredeil et al, 1998). recently, a lot of interest is seen on molecular aspects of coconut and latest marker technologies including microsatellite and aflp, are being used. molecular markers the use of biochemical and molecular markers in coconut is a recent one. biochemical markers like isozymes and molecular markers like restricted fragment length polymorphism (rflp), random amplified polymorphic 1 central plantation crops research institute, kasaragod-671 124, india j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 2 dna (rapd), amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp), inter simple sequence repeats (issr) and sequence tagged microsatellites (stm) are presently being studied. a comprehensive review on application of molecular markers was first presented by rohde (1993) and later by ashburner (1999). fernando and gajanayake (1997) have reported protocols for detection of isozyme polymorphism in coconut leaf tissue. they found esterases to be useful for studying the genotypic variations in coconut. cardena et al (1998) used electrophoretic patterns of leaf peroxidases, endopeptidases and coomassie blue stained proteins in four cultivars and two hybrids. the polymorphism detected fitted the expression of two alleles of a dimeric peroxidase, two monomeric endopeptidase and a pair of active, and, null alleles of a coomasie blue stained protein. they concluded that protein markers would broaden the alternatives available to coconut breeders. geethalakshmi et al (2000) observed limited polymorphism in esterases and polyphenol oxidase while polymorphism for peroxidase was absent. however, earlier attempts by meunier et al (1992) and carpio (1980) failed to achieve any success. preliminary studies of rohde (1993) helped in molecular characterization of the nuclear genome, which provided evidence for existence of truncated, copia-like repetitive sequences indicat-ing that retro-elements may have played a role in genera-tion of genetic diversity in coconut. rohde et al (1995) de-scribed a novel approach for analysis of coconut germplasm using coconut specific primers complementary to the copia-like ecori elements. pcr amplification of spacer regions for a sub-set of tandemly arranged repeats detected polymorphisms which allowed analysis of biodiversity within coconut populations. rohde (1996) subsequently described inverse sequence tagged repeat (istr) analysis. duran et al (1997) analyzed 48 coconut genotypes using different dna marker techniques, namely, rapd, microsatellite primed pcr and istr. all three approaches detected a large amount of dna polymorphism among genotypes and allowed identification of genotypes by individual specific fingerprint. use of polymorphic microsatellites for assessing genetic diversity in coconut is gaining popularity of late (karp, 1999). cirad, in collaboration with cogent, developed a set of 14 microsatellite markers with sufficient discrimination power for practical identification of coconut cultivars. these projects culminated in developing standard protocols without the use of radioactive probes as well as in development of dedicated statistical software, gene class 2, adapted to use in coconut producing countries (baudouin and lebrun, 2002). hautea et al (2000), perera et al (1999) and perera (2001) used microsatellites (simple sequence repeat ssr) to assess genetic diversity of selected germplasm. ssr data indicated high degree of allelic diversity for microsatellite markers within the tall populations. diagnostic ssr markers were identified for use in hybridity testing and two diagnostic markers were identified for use in hybrid test. perera et al (2000a) used eight pairs of ssr primers to analyze genetic diversity in 130 individuals of coconut comprising 75 tall and 55 dwarf individuals, representing 94 different coconut ecotypes from around the world. fifty-one alleles were detected, with an average of 6.4 alleles per locus. fifty alleles were detected in tall coconuts (mean alleles/locus 6.3) compared with only 26 in dwarf (mean alleles /locus 3.3). the average diversity value in talls (0.589) was also significantly higher than that in dwarfs (0.348). using eight ssrs, they were able to uniquely discriminate 116 of the 130 individuals. a phenetic tree based on d ad (absolute distance) values clustered individuals into five groups, each mainly composed of either talls or dwarfs. perera et al (2000b and 2000c) also used ssr to study polymorphism. they used 39 coconut-specific microsatellite primers developed from an enriched small insert genomic library. eighteen of these were used to assay sri lankan coconuts. the outbreeding tall variety (typica) accounted for most of the diversity, in contrast to inbreeding varieties, nana (dwarfs) and intermediate (aurantiaca) types. partitioning of genetic variability revealed that, for dwarf and intermediate forms, most variation was observed between rather than within forms. in contrast, tall forms exhibited as much variation within as between forms. a reduction in allelic variability was observed in dwarfs compared with talls and the pattern of allelic distributions suggested that sri lankan dwarfs were introductions. they used twelve pairs of microsatellite primers to screen a collection of global coconut germplasm. eighty four alleles were detected in talls as compared to 42 in dwarfs with average diversity value at 0.703, which was significantly higher than that detected in the dwarf sample (0.374). they concluded that dwarfs were a sub set of the tall coconuts and directly evolved from talls and from ‘niu vai’ types of tall types (southeast asia and pacific origin). genetic diversity in coconut populations across the entire geographic range was assessed using ssr and aflp by teulat et al (2000). merrow et al (2003) used 15 simple sequence repeat (ssr) microsatellite dna loci to analyze genetic parthasarathy et al 3 variation within eight coconut cultivars from florida. parentage analysis of ‘fiji dwarf’ cultivar was also carried out using these loci. red malayan dwarfs were found to be genetically distinct from green and yellow ones. also, genetic identity of ‘red spicata’ was found to be more towards ‘fiji dwarf’. devakumar et al (2006) carried out assessment of genetic diversity of 21 indian and 24 exotic coconut accessions using eight ssr primers. the eight coconut microsatellite loci studied distinguished a total of 48 alleles, with an average of 6 alleles per locus. genetic diversity values were low for most dwarfs and high for the tall accessions, which was in accordance with their breeding behaviour. however, kulasekharam orange dwarf showed genetic diversity higher than many talls. ‘within population’ variation (58%) was found to be higher than ‘among population’ variation (42%). microsatellite analysis of lethal yellowing disease tolerant genotypes (vanuatu tall and sri lankan green dwarf) and the susceptible genotype (west african tall) was carried out by konan et al (2007). a total of 58 alleles were detected by the 12 microsatellite loci analyzed. genotypes of the susceptible west african tall cultivar were found to be less genetically clustered to the genotypes of the (two) tolerant cultivars. fingerprinting based on microsatellites aided in identification of suitable parents for use in crossing programmes to develop a segregating mapping population for marker-assisted selection of lethal yellowing resistance genes. nagaraju et al (2002) were the first to standardize dna amplification fingerprinting (daf) in coconut. they used daf and aflp markers to study phylogenetic relationships among coconut accessions grown in india. aflp approach was found to be more efficient as the number of primer combinations that detected polymorphic dna markers were more in contrast to daf. however, the number of polymorphic bands identified using selected primers in both the techniques was comparable. genetic similarities among the accessions were determined. in daf, out of 300 primers screened, 28 (9.33%) detected polymorphism producing an average of 5 polymorphic bands, while, in aflp, 55 (86 %) primer combinations generated polymorphic bands (6.42). dendrogram of the coconut accessions by upgma cluster analysis indicated grouping of all the dwarf accessions as one in daf as well as aflp analysis. daf technique was later used by jayadev et al (2005) to identify molecular markers which could differentiate between coconut root (wilt) disease tolerant and susceptible palms. of the 16 primers screened, three primers viz., ubc 66, ubc 84 and ubc 729 could differentiate resistant from susceptible coconut palms. use of rflp and rapd has also been reported. rflp markers were used by lebrun et al (1998a, 1998b, 1999) to study the spread and domestication of coconut through genetic diversity. they used 289 palms, representative of 26 tall and 16 dwarf ecotypes, originating from major coconut areas. twenty cdna probes from oil palm, rice, maize and coconut, and one cytoplasmic probe from wheat, were hybridized on digested dna using four restriction enzymes. based on molecular polymorphism, they defined two main groups of tall coconut palms, originating from south east asia and pacific ocean, and another as originating from the indian subcontinent and from west africa. cultivars from east africa and from the andamans shared markers in both the groups, whereas panama tall appeared to be derived from the first one. all the dwarfs (except niu leka) formed a highly homogenous group related to the first group of talls. lebrun et al (1999) reported rflp analysis to be an efficient and powerful technique to obtain a precise picture of coconut diversity and of the ways in which the crop has spread and evolved. everard et al (1996) and ashburner et al (1997), and later, wadt et al (1999) described the use of rapd in coconut. ashburner et al (1997) studied diversity in coconut in the south pacific region. they reported a moderate level of genetic diversity, although very few rapd markers were found to be unique to specific populations. upadhyay et al (2002) screened 100 random primers and found only 53 primers to amplify coconut dna and 34 primers detected polymorphism between west coast tall and chowghat orange dwarf. analysis of genetic distances revealed that all dwarf accessions grouped together whereas tall accessions showed much heterogeneity. dewi hayati et al (2000) used rapd to analyze genetic diversity in four dwarf populations from east java. they found that variability of coconut population grown outside east java was higher than that at grown in east java, since these coconut populations were collected from seeds of open pollinated plants. application of aflp in coconut was reported by perera et al (1998). they generated 322 amplification products from 42 genotypes with eight pairs of primers (eco ri and mse i). overall, maximum variation was detected in the tall (typica) rather than the intermediate (aurantiaca) and dwarf (nana) forms. a hierarchical analysis of j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 biotechnology of coconut 4 molecular variance (amova) was used to quantify and partition levels of variability as between and within form components. they found that for inbreeding dwarf and intermediate forms, maximum variation was observed between, rather than within, forms. in contrast, outbreeding tall forms exhibited as much variation within, as between, forms. these observations have important implications for maintenance and collection of coconut germplasm. morphologically, aurantiaca group is considered to be intermediate between tall and dwarf accessions. estimation of genetic relatedness based on aflp analysis identified aurantiaca group as being more similar to dwarf rather than tall group. in addition, putative duplicate accessions were identified in aurantiaca group. thirty three coconut accessions representing different geographical regions of the world, maintained at the international gene bank in india, were analyzed using 19 issr primers (manimekalai and nagarajan, 2006). a total of 199 issr markers were generated, out of which 154 were polymorphic. least similarity was found between nicobar tall and chowghat orange dwarf, both accessions from india. coconut accessions from southeast asia, south asia and south pacific formed separate groups, which was generally in accordance with origin and their dispersal. the first linkage map on coconut was reported by rohde et al (1999) first using a population of 52 f 1 plants from the myd 20 x lag 07 (laguna tall) using istr. initial analysis of this mapping population identified 51 polymorphic istr markers, 43 of which could be arranged into 12 linkage groups comprising a total of 542 recombination units. subsequently, herran et al (2000) and lebrun et al (2001) constructed the linkage map. herran et al (2000) work was identical to that of rohde et al (1999) using identical mapping populations while lebrun et al (2001) used the rennell island tall (rit) population. they reported total genome length to be 1971 cm for the rit map, with 5-23 markers per linkage group. qtl analysis for yield characters in two consecutive sampling periods identified nine loci, while, three and two qtls were detected for the number of bunches and one and three qtls for the number of nuts. their study indicated that cosegregation of markers with these qtls provided an opportunity for marker-assisted selection. baudouin et al (2006) investigated genetic factors that controlled fruit characters in coconut. qtl analyses was performed for fruit component weights and ratios in the segregating progeny of a rennell island tall genotype, complemented by the linkage map previously constructed by lebrun et al (2001). of the 52 putative qtls identified for the 11 traits studied, 34 grouped in six small clusters. interestingly, qtls for fruit component weight, endosperm humidity and fruit production were found at different locations in the genome, suggesting the need for selecting qtls for individual traits, for efficient marker-assisted selection for yield. cardena et al (1999) described prospects for marker assisted breeding of lethal yellowing resistant coconuts. shalini et al (2007) reported identification of molecular markers based on mite resistance in coconut. mite resistant and susceptible accessions were collected and analyzed using rapd and ssr primers. nine ssr and four rapd primers were identified with mite resistance using single marker analysis. when stepwise multiple regression analysis of rapd and ssr data was done, a combination of five markers could account for 100% of association with mite resistance. tissue culture coconut is a difficult crop to manipulate in vitro. however, after eeuwens (1976) initial standardization of media and successful report of callus induction from various explant sources like stem, leaf, and inflorescence, a few laboratories around the world initiated intensive research. till 1995, work on coconut tissue culture was carried out sporadically in quite a few laboratories. unlike many crops, coconut was posing several problems. besides, the number of laboratories working on this crop was also less. appreciating this, an international collaborative project was initiated in 1995 consisting of researchers from france, cote d’ivoire, u.k., germany, philippines and mexico. results of this collaboration led to solving a large number of problems encountered in coconut tissue culture (hocher et al, 1998). the most commonly used basal medium at present is the y3 formulation (eeuwens, 1976). however, del rosario (1984) found no difference between murashige and skoog (1962) and y3 media. her work indicated that glucose was better than sucrose for callus growth. a major problem in coconut tissue culture has been browning of tissue and its consequent death. to address this problem, the antioxidant used is activated charcoal (ac), which adsorbs even auxins and kinetins such as 2,4-d and benzyl amino purine to the tune of 99.4% and and 97.8%, respectively, at 5 days after culture media preparation (ebert et al, 1993). this kind of inactivation of media supplements results in excessive use of auxins and cytokinins in the media in the media. oropeza and taylor (1994) used radio labelled 2,4 d to study uptake by the coconut inflorescence j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 parthasarathy et al 5 explants. the tissue took up most of the radioactivity within 24 h. at this time, the volume of the explant was only about one tenth of that of the external medium and the uptake of 2,4 -d occurred against a concentration gradient. thus, uptake of radio-labelled 2,4 -d by coconut inflorescence cannot be explained by simple diffusion. alternately, 2,4 d may be taken up by facilitated diffusion. they emphasized the importance of ph for 2,4 -d uptake by coconut explants. another auxins used was 2,4,5 -t which led to formation of nodular calli on the inflorescence explants (buffard morel et al, 1988). naa and iaa resulted in direct embryogenesis in leaf explants (raju et al,1984). plantlet development was first achieved at cpcri, kasaragod, from tender leaf tissue explants taken from 1-2 year old wct seedlings (raju et al, 1984). however, this was not reproducible in subsequent trials. profuse callus induction was achieved from immature zygotic embryos. regeneration of somatic embryos from the embryogenic callus has been achieved but plantlet differentiation is not regular. several experiments in this direction are in progress. somatic embryogenesis is usually indirect in coconut and has to pass through callogenesis. raju et al (1984) observed direct embryogenesis and embryoids were reported to arise from vascular tissue but blake (1989) reported this to be unusual as this area normally gives rise to root primordia. karunaratne and periyaperuma (1989) reported that the embryogenic capacity of leaf explants was related to their physiological maturity in young palms of coconut. leaf tissues from 12 to 24 month old palms were embryogenic but their potential was quickly lost with onset of juvenility. even in young palms, explants of tender leaves responded differently as per their maturity. only a particular leaf in a particular physiological state produces embryogenic cells and only a portion of this leaf yielded embryogenic explants (karunaratne et al, 1991). this may be one of the reasons why experiments of raju et al(1984) were difficult to repro-duce. sporadic reports of success were reported with leaf ex-plants by other workers too (blake and eeuwens, 1982; shirke et al, 1993; de siqueira and inoue, 1992; verdeil et al, 1993, 1994). buffard morel et al (1992) reported successful production of somatic embryos from leaf explants. their study was supported by detailed histological observation. according to them, the primary formations resulted from mitotic divisions of perivascular cells and differentiation of a cambium-like layer insured the growth of nodular calli. tissue culture with other explants such as zygotic embryos, leaf base, apical meristem and endosperm was also tried (verdeil and buffard morel, 1995). calli initiated from embryos, leaves, leaf bases, and the apical meristem could not be regenerated (neera bhalla sarin et al, 1986). callus induction from anthers and rachilla did not give repeatable response (sarin and suman bagga, 1988). but, root explants (jones, 1983), and sub-apical and leaf explants due to their limited embryogenic potential (karunaratne et al, 1991) are of limited use. immature inflorescences and immature embryos have been found to be promising. blake and eeuwens (1978) reported initial success using inflorescence tissue for callus production. they used immature rachillae on y3 medium (eeuwens, 1976) supplemented with 0.5µm naa. branton and blake (1986) produced plantlets in 9 months from immature rachilla explants through somatic embryogenesis of nodular callus by reducing 2,4-d concentration in y3 medium to 100µm 2,4-d, with 5µm each of 2ip and bap, and 0.25% ac. areza et al (1993) soaked the inflores-cence tissue in antioxidants, viz., citric acid (50mg/l) and ascorbic acid (100mg/l), prior to slicing and culturing in y3 medium supplemented with activated charcoal (ac), which resulted in reduced browning. verdeil et al (1994) reported successful embryo maturation via somatic embryogenesis from inflorescence explants, which further regenerated into plantlets. they cultured immature inflorescences of coconut belonging to three different genotypes (pb-121, pb-111 & myd) on agar medium supplemented with ac (0.2%) and a range of 2, 4d (0.15 to 0.35 mm). globular, white callus emerged from immature floral meristems, depending on inflorescence age and 2, 4-d levels. immature inflorescences were most successful among the various explants tried, and plantlet regeneration was successful even though transfer of plantlets to nursery is yet to be achieved. use of plumular tissues taken from germinating embryos was another source from where success was forthcoming, because of the juvenile nature of the tissue (hornung, 1995). bufford morel et al (1995) used young, non-chlorphyllous leaves and immature inflorescences in eeuwens inorganic nutrients supplemented with morel and wetmore vitamins, 30g/l sucrose, 2 g/l activated charcoal and 40 to 60 g/l 2,4 d. they observed calli 6 8 months after culture initiation. they observed a multicellular pathway, which led to formation of meristematic and epidermised structures with low 2,4 d (40 to 60 g/l). the first stage of development of these structures was characterised by fragmentation of the cambium-like zone and formation of complex meristematic structures, followed by their epidermisation. they observed a unicellular pathway, which led to the appearance and individualization of embryogenic cells j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 biotechnology of coconut 6 isolated by thick wall, with dense cytoplasm, a high nucleocytoplamsic ratio, and single, large nucleolus, and, starch and protein reserves. this pathway was the result of presence of high 2,4 -d concentration (80 120 g/l). chan et al (1998) developed a protocol using plumules of zygotic embryos. they used y3 medium supplemented with 0.1mm of 2,4-d, 2.5 g/l ac, solidified with 3g/l gelrite. cultures were incubated for 3 months in darkness at 27oc. calli bearing embryogenic structures were cultured on the same medium with 1µm 2,4-d and 50µm bap under a photoperiod of 12-hour light at 27oc, and subcultured every three months. plantlets were produced at 6 to 9 months. a procedure for regeneration of complete plantlets via organogenesis from plumular tissues of coconut was outlined by rajesh et al (2005). callus was induced from plumular tissues in y3 media supplemented with either 2,4d (74.6µm) alone or 2,4-d (74.6 µm) in combination with tdz (4.54 µm). the frequency of callus induction increased and browning of explants decreased when cytokinin (tdz) was added along with auxin (2,4-d) in callus induction medium. calli were subcultured at monthly intervals on media containing low levels of 2,4-d and a constant level of either cytokinins (ba and tdz) of polyamines (spermine and putrescine). higher percentages of embrogenic calli, somatic embryoids and meristemoids were obtained on y3 media supplemented with either spremine or ba. plantlets with balanced shoot and root formation were transferred to pots and established in the greenhouse. histological studies of differentiated tissues confirmed development of shoot buds (organogenesis) and typical bipolar embryoids (somatic embryogenesis). induction of somatic embryogenesis and plantlet regeneration from callus cultures of unfertilized ovaries isolated from immature female flowers of coconut was reported by perera et al (2007). ovary explants, when cultured on a medium containing 100 µm 2, 4-d and 0.1% activated charcoal gave rise to callus. embryogenic calli were sub-cultured onto somatic embryogenesis induction medium containing 5µm abscisic acid, followed by subculture on plant regeneration medium (supplemented with 5 µm 6-benzylaminopurine). somatic embryos formed were bipolar and germinated into normal plantlets. griffis and litz (1997) used anthers and filaments, unfertilized ovaries and immature leaf pieces. both callus initiation and direct initiation of somatic proembryos could be stimulated with addition of 2,4 -d to the culture medium. in a few cases, somatic embryos arose directly on filaments attached to immature anthers after several months in culture. unfertilized ovaries cultured in media supplemented with 2,4 -d and diethylstilbestrol (des) monitored for 24 months indicated substantial fresh weight gain and numerous unusual morphogenic changes in ovaries on y3 medium supplemented with 5 or 15 mg/l des , 25 or 50mg/l 2,4 -d and 3 mg/l 2ip. several unferilized ovaries formed callus and adventitious roots but not somatic embryos. on similar media, some immature leaf tissues from seedling formed callus at the cut ends while others formed roots, or numerous somatic proembryos directly. some pro embryos also developed haustoria like tissues or roots with obvious bipolarity, but further shoot apical development did not take place except in one case. abscisic acid is also reported to induce somatic embryogenesis in coconut. recently, fernando and gamage (2000) induced nodular callus from 7-9 month old immature zygotic embryos in bm72 medium supplemented with 24 µm 2,4-d. this callus was subcultured onto a medium supplemented with 2.5 7.5 µm abscisic acid for 3 7 weeks, with subsequent subculture at 5 week intervals on media containing gradually reduced concentrations of 2,4 -d. they found incorporation of aba to enhance production of somatic embryos. these emrbyos formed normal plants. studies by samosir et al (1999) indicated that development and maturation of coconut somatic embryos could be improved by using aba alone, or, with any of the osmotically active agents preferably poly ethylene glycol (peg). immature zygotic embryos were more likely to undergo somatic embryogenesis than mature explants. samosir et al (1998) used longitudinally sliced mature zygotic explants cultured on medium supplemented with 125-µm 2,4-d and 2.5 g/l activated charcoal. plantlets successfully produced by application of naa (10µm) which allowed for normal seedling growth to occur. control of ethylene and polyamines was found to improve somatic embryogenesis in coconut. adkins et al (1998) used cotyledonary slices from embryos cultured on medium with additives like aminoethoxyvinylglycine (avg) and silver thiosulphate (sts) which could reduce ethylene production, or used polyamines such as spermine, putrescine and spermidine. somatic embryogenesis was promoted by supplementation with avg (2µm) or sts (3µm) or by the addition of putrescine (7.5µm) and spermine (1µm). sts also aided somatic embryo proliferation, maturation, and germination. use of zygotic embryo culture for germplasm collection, storage and retrieval was standardized and put j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 parthasarathy et al 7 in to practice in india (karun and sajini, 1994; karun et al, 1996). koshy and kumaran (1997) collected 15 accessions from the indian ocean islands of mauritius, madagascar and seychelles (anon, 1998), and later, parthasarathy (2001) used this technique to collect four accessions from sri lanka. sucrose might be important in early stages of coconut embryo cultures to maintain high chlorophyll concentration and a high number of chloroplasts. continuous growth of the resulting plantlets in sucrose containing medium, however, can hamper development of photoautotrophy and, in turn, affect plantlet performance upon its transfer to soil. in vitro conservation coconut is a recalcitrant species where nuts do not undergo maturation drying and are shed at relatively high moisture content level (parthasarathy, 1999). one of the earliest reports on cryopreservation of coconut embryos was reported by chin et al (1989). they found that embryos cryoprotected with 10% dmso showed highest per cent survival when cryopreservation was followed by 10% glycerol treatment. earlier, bajaj (1985) reported only elongation of whole embryos or proliferation of cut ends of transverse halves of the embryo after cryopreservation. he did not observe normal development. he used 7% dmso and 4% sucrose as cryoprotectants and found the percentage of survival to be low (17 25%). karunaratne et al (1985) reported one of the earliest attempts to preserve coconut embryos in culture in a dormant state. they devised a special ‘survival medium’, which suppressed the growth of embryos for a period of 5 months. assy-bah and engelmann (1992a) found that immature embryos of coconut (7 to 8 months after pollination) could withstand rapid freezing in liquid nitrogen after 4 h of pregrowth on semisolid medium containing 600g/l glucose and 10% to 15% glycerol or sorbitol. in these conditions, survival ranged from 10% to 43% and one embryo developed into a rooted plantlet 2.5 months after freezing. while, in a later study, (assy-bah and engelmann, 1992b) observed mature embryos (10 12 months after pollination) of four varieties of coconut to withstand cryopreservation in liquid nitrogen, which developed into plants. pretreatment consisted of 4 h desiccation in the air current of a laminar flow cabinet followed by 11 to 20 h culture on medium containing 600g/ l glucose and 15% glycerol. they carried out freezing and thawing with recovery rates between 33% and 93% of frozen embryos, depending on the variety. assy-bah and engelmann (1993) developed optimal conditions for medium-term conservation of zygotic embryos. after 6 months of storage on medium devoid of sucrose and containing 2g ac/l, 100% embryos developed into whole plantlets within 5 months upon transfer to recovery medium. after a 12-month storage period on medium containing 15g/ l sucrose and devoid of activated charcoal, 51% of the embryos germinated within 2 months upon transfer to recovery medium. presence of sucrose in the storage media was reported to initiate embryonic response to cellular expansion and elongation as well as cell division in the epidermal layer to keep pace with expanding tissues (mkumbo and hornung,1997). engelmann et al (1995) studied factors affecting cryopreservation of coconut embryos. they concluded that embryos should be used only when they are in an optimal physiological state, notably, their maturity and metabolic status. modifications in recovery conditions can greatly increase survival rate of the zygotic embryos. critical moisture content of 20% was found to be essential for successful cryopreservation of coconut zygotic embryos using the desiccation method (karun et al, 2005). a simple cryopreservation technique involving pre-growth desiccation with sucrose was developed for coconut zygotic embryos by sajini et al (2006). results showed that 1m sucrose was insufficient for dehydration of embryos. using 3m sucrose for 24 h, the moisture content of embryos was reduced to 27% which resulted in 29% plantlet recovery in pots. karun et al (2006) developed a protocol for cryopreservation of coconut pollen. germinability and pollen-tube growth in fresh, oven-dried and cryopreserved pollen was studied. germination medium consisted of 8% sucrose, 1% gelatin, 1% agar and 0.01% boric acid. germination percentage of cryopreserved pollen was found to be 38.54, which was significantly less than that in fresh pollen (46.65%). however, pollen tube growth was more vigorous in cryopreserved pollen. there was also significant palm-to-palm variation with regard to germination and pollen-tube growth. recently, several basic studies on physiological and biochemical aspects of somatic embryogenesis and regeneration have been were published. based on the reaction of coconut callus to somatic embryogenesis induction medium (sei), magnaval et al (1997) observed 3 types of responses, namely, (i) the traits that were modified by sei condition and varying over time; (ii) traits modified by the sei condition but constant over (iii) traits unchanged j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 biotechnology of coconut 8 by the si condition over time. they studied specific nutritional requirement of coconut callus during these phases. in another study, the same team (magnaval et al,1995) classified the calli into five groups based on amino acid composition by the clustering method. dussert et al (1995) presented a detailed study on nutrient uptake and in vitro growth of coconut callus. another aspect of research worth a mention is the photosynthetic ability of in vitro grown coconut plantlets. triques et al (1997) studied various photosynthetic parameters using complementary approaches. transmission electron microscopic ( tem) studies revealed complete ultrastructural organization of chloroplasts in plantlets at the end of the in vitro culture process (6 weeks under light). studies by rival et al (1999) proved that coconut belonged to a class of plants in which in vitro grown leaves may contribute to autotrophy, and then, play an active part in planted acclimatization as indicated by a dramatic decrease in pepc/ rubisco activity ratio and an increase in photochemical activity of psii. conclusion the above review would show the ample effort that has been put into research on coconut biotechnology. unfortunately, in india coconut biotechnology has so far been carried out only at cpcri. if one goes 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(eds.) current advances in coconut biotechnology, kluwer academic publishers, the netherlands pp89 – 97. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 1-12, 2007 parthasarathy et al final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single 287 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 287-291, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage sharon jacob1 and sobhana a.2 1department of post harvest technology, college of agriculture, vellanikkara, kerala agricultural university, thrissur 680656, kerala, india 2professor and head, fruit crops research station, thrissur, india *corresponding author email : jacobsharon1930@gmail.com abstract cashew cultivars, based on flowering behaviour, are categorized into three types, viz., early season, mid-season and late season. in late season type, the harvesting of cashew nuts coincides with the rainy season during which the quality of matured nuts are affected by increased pest and disease attack. this loss can be reduced if the nuts are harvested before it reaches its complete maturity. in this context, present study was conducted in immature cashew kernel to find out suitable storage treatments to enhance the shelf life. immature cashew kernels were stored in different concentrations of brine solution (5%, 10% and 15%), sugar syrup (50°b, 60°b and 70°b) and by drying in hot air oven until the moisture content of kernel reaches 2-3 per cent. storage period was for four months and the observations like tannin content, microbial content and organoleptic qualities of kernels stored in each treatment were analysed at the beginning and at the end of the storage. the treatment with 10% brine and 70°b sugar syrup for four months were found as best for storing immature cashew kernels. keywords: cashew, immature kernels, organoleptic qualities and storage introduction cashew, an important horticultural crop of india, has a great socio-economic significance in this country. it is native of brazil and the lower amazons. the demand for raw and processed cashew nut is high in both internal and export markets. according to the annual report of cepci (2019), india continued to be the largest producer of cashew nut in the year 20172018 and the state that contributed maximum towards production is maharashtra (33%), followed by andhra pradesh (14%), kerala (11%) and karnataka (11%). at present cashew kernels are consumed directly or used for various food preparations. raw cashews contain 5% water, 30% carbohydrates, 44% fat and 18% protein. in a 100 gram reference quantity, raw cashews provide 553 calories, 67% of the daily value (dv) in total fats, 36% dv of protein, 13% dv of dietary fiber and 11% dv of carbohydrates (usda, 2015). the research efforts are concentrated mostly on mature kernels, and immature kernels gained little attention. in kerala, sprouted cashew nuts are eaten as raw and also after cooking. considerable quantities of cashew nuts are produced during rainy season in kerala, especially in the late season flowering varieties like madakkathara-2 and sulabha, which are inferior in quality and are being wasted. the occurrence of late season flowering is mostly observed in hilly regions of kerala like wayanad and idukki districts. the quality of nut is affected mainly by the infestation of pests and diseases during this season. it is estimated that more than 50% of the crop is lost annually due to pests and diseases in cashew (haribabu et al., 1983). if the nuts are harvested before it reaches complete maturity and if those can be economically utilized, the loss during rainy season can be reduced to a great extent. therefore, in this experiment, the immature nuts were harvested in tender form, when the shells were not hardened and were green in colour. the shell is soft and can be cut with a knife and kernel can be extracted. the kernels can be put to use in a variety of ways like serving as a snack or it could be relished as salads by combining with mango and sweets like tikka and cashew cake can be prepared 288 jacob and sobhana (anandkumar et al., 2011). if we can store these immature kernels, it can be used round the year. in this context, the storage studies of immature cashew kernels were studied in college of agriculture, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, india. materials and methods the immature cashew nuts were collected from cashew research station, madakkathara, thrissur, india. inflorescences of cashew tree were tagged at the time of anthesis and the nuts were harvested after 55 days. this is the stage before the nuts turn from green to grey colour. the harvested tender nuts were cut into halves using sharp knife and the kernels were scooped out. the outer covering of kernel (i.e.,) testa, was removed and these kernels were washed thoroughly in water followed by steam blanching for two to three minutes. brine solutions of 5%, 10% and 15% concentrations were prepared and poured in sterilized glass bottles, to which the pre-treated kernels were added. three replications were kept for each treatment. similarly immature kernels were stored in sugar syrups of 50°b, 60°b and 70°b concentrations. permissible qu a ntity of pr es er va tive wa s a dded to ever y treatments. another treatment under storage studies was by drying. the pre-treated kernels were dried in hot air oven for two days, until the moisture content of the kernels were reduced to 2-3% and then stor ed in gla ss conta iners after complete cooling. observations taken were tannin content, microbial content and organoleptic evaluation of kernels at first and fourth months of storage. tannin content tannin content of the kernels were estimated using folin-denis method at first and fourth months of storage. microbial count in microbial analysis, total bacterial, fungal and yeast counts were evaluated for both stored kernels and keeping solution. organoleptic evaluation organoleptic evaluation was carried out by a panel of judges consisting of 15 members. the evaluation was carried out at beginning and ending of the storage per iod. different orga noleptic pa r ameter s like appearance, colour, texture, flavour, taste, mouth feel and overall acceptability were evaluated. result and discussion tannin content tannin content could not be detected in any of the treated kernels at both first and fourth months of s tor a ge. it might be b eca us e of the pr ima r y processing steps like washing and steam blanching employed before storage treatments. anand (1970) reported loss of tannins during pre-treatments like soaking, blanching and brining of fruits during p r epa r a t ion of a onla p r eser ve. acc or ding t o afoakwa et al. (2007), blanching of bamba ra groundnuts before ca nning r educed the ta nnin content. thus, these pre-treatments and storage tr ea tments wer e found to be ver y effective in r emoving ta nnin content of imma tur e ca shew kernels. table 1. microbial count of the keeping solution in different storage treatments treatments bacteria (107 cfu/ml) fungi (103 cfu/ml) yeast (104cfu/ml) 1 mas 4 mas 1 mas 4 mas 1 mas 4 mas 5% brine 7.67 (0.93) 6.33 (0.86) 1.67 (0.42) 4.67 (0.75) 1.33 (0.36) 1.67 (0.42) 10% brine 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.33 (0.10) 0.00 0.00 15% brine 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 50°b syrup 5.00 (0.77) 1.67 (0.26) 1.33 (0.36) 2.00 (0.48) 0.00 1.67 (0.42) 60°b syrup 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 70°b syrup 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 cd (5%) 0.11 0.32 0.20 0.14 0.07 0.10 mas months after storage (values in the parenthesis are logarithmically transformed) cfu/ml colony forming unit per ml j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 287-291, 2021 treatments 289 qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage microbial count the microbial count of both kernels and keeping solution is presented in table 1 and table 2. among the seven treatments of storage, the bacterial count was beyond permissible limit both in the solution and kernels stored in 5% brine as well as in 50°b sugar syrup. the fungal population was within the acceptable limit for all the treatments. the yeast population was also found above the permissible limit for 5% brine and 50°b sugar syrup. this might be due to the less concentration of salt and sugar content in both these treatments which might not be sufficient to control the microbes. ranken et al. (1997) reported that placing vegetables in 8-11% of salt content inhibited the microorganisms that may cause spoilage of vegetables. thus, the immature cashew kernels can be stored for four months without microbial attack in 10% brine, 15% brine, 60°b sugar syrup and 70°b sugar syrup. storage after drying was also found to contain permissible limit of microbial population. organoleptic evaluation among the seven treatments of storage, kernels stored in sugar syrup were the most accepted ones, both at the first and last months of storage (fig 1). according to ponting (1973), sugar uptake by the product kept in sugar solution, through osmotic process, modified the composition and taste of the fina l pr odu ct. in this ex per iment, the s cor es obtained for flavour (6.40-7.07) and taste (6.007.07) were higher for kernels in sugar syrup. the uptake of sugar in the kernel might have resulted in the incr ea sed t a ste a nd fla vour lea ding to enhanced palatability and higher score. kernels preserved in 70° b sugar syrup had the highest overa ll accepta bility scor e (7. 40) followed by kernels in 60° b (7.00) and 50° b (6.60) sugar syrup; higher sugar level might have resulted in more absorption. kernel stored in 15% brine was the least accepted trea tment which might be due to its high salt content that made it unpalatable after four months of st or a ge. r os s e t a l. ( 2 00 2) r ep or ted t ha t macadamia kernel pieces, which were immersed in salt solution, became unacceptable on extended storage. kernels in 10% brine was found better than 5% and 15% brine solutions in sensory parameters like appearance, colour, texture, flavour and overall acceptability. ac c or ding t o h u t t on ( 2 0 0 2 ) , s a l t a c t a s a preserva tive against microbial growth and also impa r ts char a cter istic fla vour. all the qua lity parameters of organoleptic evaluation were found better for kernels stored in 10% brine after four months of storage compared to the first month. the preservative action of salt leading to enha nced storage life has been reported in many vegetables. ba r wa l et a l. (2 00 5) r ep or ted tha t b la nc hed cauliflowers steeped in 10% and 15% salt solution were found acceptable up to 180 days. in dry storage, the dried kernels had an off taste after four months of storage which could be attributed to the rancidity of the kernels as experienced in nuts with table 2. microbial count of the kernels preserved in different storage treatments treatments bacteria (107 cfu/ml) fungi (103 cfu/ml) yeast (104cfu/ml) 1 mas 4 mas 1 mas 4 mas 1 mas 4 mas 5% brine 5.67 (0.82) 4.33 (0.73) 0.67 (0.20) 1.67 (0.42) 0.33 (0.10) 1.00 (0.30) 10% brine 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.33 (0.10) 0.00 0.00 15% brine 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 50°b syrup 3.33 (0.63) 1.00 (0.30) 3.33 (0.63) 3.00 (0.60) 0.33 (0.10) 1.67 (0.42) 60°b syrup 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 70°b syrup 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 drying 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.33 (0.10) 0.00 0.00 cd (5%) 0.04 0.03 0.12 0.17 ns 0.06 mas months after storage (values in the parenthesis are logarithmically transformed) cfu/ml colony forming unit per ml ns non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 287-291, 2021 treatments 290 high fat content. according to mexis and kontominas (2009), the rancid taste of nuts during sensory evaluation occurred due to lipid oxidation. young (2007) reported that rancidity was considered as the first sign of deterioration of nuts, since most edible nuts are rich in oil content. hence the dried immature kernels cannot be used as such for consumption after a storage period of four months. conclusion according to the findings, tender cashew nuts can be stor ed sa fely for f our months in pr eser ve (70°brix) and also in 10% brine added with allowed preservatives. this can be followed anywhere in the world, where the mature nuts are affected due to any biotic or abiotic problems. acknowledgement the author s ar e ver y much grateful to kera la agr ic u lt u r a l univer s it y, t hr is s u r, i ndia f or providing immense support and sufficient facilities for the conduct of this experiment. (a) (b) figure 1. effect of different treatments on sensory attributes immature cashew kernel at (a) first month and (b) fourth month of storage t 1 kernels preserved in 5% brine; t 2 kernels preserved in 10% brine; t 3 kernels preserved in 15% brine; t 4 kernels preserved in 50º brix sugar syrup; t 5 kernels preserved in 60º brix sugar syrup; t 6 kernels preserved in 70º brix sugar syrup; t 7 kernels preserved by drying references afoakwa, e. o., budu, a. s. and merson, a. b. 2007. response surface methodology for studying the effect of processing conditions on some nutritional and textural properties of bambara groundnuts (voandzei subterranean) during canning. int. j. food sci. nutr. 58: 270-281. anand, j. c. 1970. retention of added vitamin c in amla preserves. indian food packer 24(5): 19-20. anandkumar, s., kumar, v., and anandraj, n. 2011. processing and value addition of cashew nut [abstract]. in: souvenir and abstracts1st international symposium on cashew nut, 9-12 dec. 2011, madurai, 129p. barwal, v. s., sharma, r. and singh, r. 2005. pr eser va tion of ca uliflower by hur dle technology. j. food sci. technol. 42(1): 26-31. cepci [the cashew export promotion council of india], 2019. in: 63rd annual report 2017-2018 of the cashew export promotion council of india, kaju india 2019, the global cashew summit (6th ed.). 13th-15th february, 2019, taj palace, diplomatic enclave, delhi pp. 5-11. jacob and sobhana j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 287-291, 2021 291 (received on 06.06.2021, revised on 13.07.2021 and accepted on 30.07.2021) haribabu, r. s., rath, s., and rajput, c. b. s. 1983. tea mosquito bug on cashew in india. j. plant. crops 14:1-10. hutton, t. 2002. technological functions of salt in the manufacturing of food and drink products. british food j. 104(2): 126-152. mexis, s. f. and kontominas, m. g. 2009. effect of γ-irradiation  on  the  physicochemical  and sensory properties of cashew nuts (anacardium occidentale l.). food sci. technol 42: 1501– 1507. ponting, j. d. 1973. osmotic dehydration of fruits – recent modifications and applications. process biochemistry 8: 18–20. ranken, m. d., kill, r. c. and baker, c. g. j. 1997. food industries manual (24th ed.), blackie academic & professional, glasgow. ross, a. i., mason, r. l., nottingham, s., keilar, s. and kowitz, t. 2002. the effect of water, brine and ethanol flotation on the quality and shelf life of macadamia kernels. food aus. 54(12): 584-587. usda [united states department of agriculture], 2015. full report (all nutrients): 12087, nuts, cashew nuts, raw, database version sr 27. agricultural research service – united states department of agriculture. 2015. retrieved 8 august 2020. young, c.t. 2007. nuts. kirk-othmer encyclopedia of chemical technology. pp. 1-42. available: https://doi.org/10.1002/ 0471238961.1421201925152114.a01.pub2. [30th may 2020]. j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 287-291, 2021 qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 00 contents.pdf 01 shalini.pdf 02 sheikh.pdf 03 debanath.pdf 04 nimbolkar.pdf 05 satisha.pdf 06 kaur.pdf 07 nitin kumar.pdf 08 varsha.pdf 09 ravishankar.pdf 10 swamini.pdf 11 vijaykumar.pdf 12 usha bharathi.pdf 13 yogalakshmi.pdf 14 adams.pdf 15 lakshman.pdf 16 yella swami.pdf 17 varalakshmi.pdf 18 sharon.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 22 event report.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 202-208, 2018 evaluation of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) genotypes under coastal ecosystem of tamil nadu c.t. sathappan department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, tamil nadu 608 002 email : sathap5p@rediffmail.com abstract genetic variability existing among genotypes is the prime and basic factor for the improvement of any character in a successful breeding programme of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.). though the attempts made so far to exploit the available variability have culminated in the release of a few improved region specific selections as varieties from different centers in india, still, varieties suited to coastal eco-system are yet to be identified. hence, an experiment was laid out to study the performance of 21 genotypes of polianthes tuberosa l. collected from varied geographical locations. the trial was conducted in the floriculture unit of the department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university under randomized block design replicated thrice to assess the genetic variability for eleven economic characters. the results showed that the genotype pt-15 recorded relatively superior mean performance with respect to all characters. high pcv and gcv were observed for number of leaves per plant, plant height and rachis length. low variability in terms of pcv and gcv was observed for length of the flower and time taken for flowering. high pcv and gcv values of more than 60 per cent was observed for bulb volume followed by yield of flowers per plant, rachis length and duration of flowering. the genotypes viz., pt-15 (kuzhumani, thiruchirappalli district), pt-3 (ravanthavadi, dharmapuri district) and pt-10(perumalpatti, dindugul district) were identified as superior genotypes which are suitable for the coastal region based on per se values and can be utilized for future breeding programmes. key words: tuberose -polianthes tuberosapcv and gcv – heritability introduction tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l. ) is a n ornamental bulbous plant belongs to the family amaryllidaceae. it is an important, popular flower crop being cultivated on a large scale for its scented flower in many parts of the world and in plains of india. among the ornamental bulbous plants valued for their beauty and fragrance of the flowers, the tuberose occupies a very selective and special position. there are four tuberose cultivars popularly grown in india viz., single, double, semi double and variegated. the cultivar single occupies the foremost position than the others because of great demand for its waxy white flowers of sweet lingering fragrance. in order to make its successful cultivation, the knowledge a nd performa nce of different germplasm is essential and the germplasm which perform better than others are only to be grown commercially in a particular location rather than to go for growing all the known germplasm so that maximum benefit can be derived out of total land area under the crop. it is also essential to develop varieties suited to specific climatic conditions and which can be further utilized for genetic improvement of tuberose. genetic variability existing among genotypes is the prime and basic factor for the improvement of any character in a successful breeding programme. hence, ther e is a need for assessing the breeding material under consideration for the extent of genetic variability available with it for various characters that a plant breeder would like to improve upon. further, it is known that often most of the characters are interrelated because of the integrated structure of the plant, due to which a change in one character influences the other. therefore, direct selection based on a single character, may not be so effective a nd it is a lso necessa ry to study the 202 203 evaluation of tuberose in tamil nadu j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 202-208, 2018 interrelationship among the characters for improvement through breeding. for a sound breeding programme, a thorough knowledge of the mean performance, magnitude of genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance is essential. attempts made so far to exploit the available variability have culminated in the release of a few improved region specific selections as varieties from different centers in india. still, varieties suited to coastal eco-system are yet to be identified. nevertheless, there still exists an ample scope to exploit the available variability to identify genotypes to suit coastal ecosystem. this will also pave the way for future breeding programmes. hence, an experiment was laid out to study the performance of 21 genotypes of polianthes tuberosa l. collected from varied geographical locations and were raised to assess the genetic variability for eleven economic characters and the interrelationship existing among them. with a view to identify superior genotypes, a field trial was carried out in the floriculture unit of the department of horticulture, annamalai university with following 21 genotypes collected from diverse sources of tuberose. the genotypes are nomenclature as pt (polianthes tuberosa) prefixed with collection number 1 to 21. the experiments were laid out under randomized block design with three replications. genotypes source of collection pt -1 farmers field at pachamalayankottai, dindugul dt., pt -2 farmers field at perungudi, madurai dt., pt -3 farmers field at ravanthavadi, dharmapuri dt., pt-4 farmers field at iyngunam, thiruvannamalai dt., pt-5 farmers field at thuraiyur, thiruchirapalli dt., pt -6 farmers field at sempatti, dindugul dt., pt -7 farmers field at nilakottai, dindugul dt., pt -8 farmers field at davasimalai, dindugul dt., pt -9 farmers field at pallapatti, dindugul dt., pt-10 farmers field at perumalpatti, dindugul dt., pt -11 farmers field at naduppatti, dindugul dt., pt -12 farmers field at kidathalaimedu, nagappatinum dt., pt -13 farmers field at nanjangud, mysore dt., pt -14 farmers field at belgaum, karnataka. pt -15 farmers field at kuzhumani, thiruchirappalli dt., pt -16 farmers field at viralipatti, dindugul dt., pt -17 farmers field at andapattu, thiruvannamalai dt., pt -18 farmers field at erumpoondi, thiruvannamalai dt., pt -19 farmers field at kodaginaikenpatti, dindugul dt., pt -20 farmers field at kattampundi, thiruvannamalai dt., pt -21 farmers field at t. narsipur, mysore dt., 204 sathappan the following observations viz., time taken for sprouting, plant height, number of leaves per plant, time taken for flowering, duration of flowering, spike length, rachis length, length of the flower, diameter of the flower, number of flowers per spike, yield of flowers per plant, number of bulblets per plant, weight of bulbs per plant, bulb diameter, bulb volume and vase life were recorded. the statistical analysis of data was done by adopting the standard statistical procedure given by panse and sukhatme (1978). a critical assessment of genetic variability among the genotypes is a pre-requisite for initiating appropriate breeding procedures in crop improvement programme. it is also an effective tool in the hands of breeders to design the testing procedures more precisely for identifying superior genotypes. the analysis of variance (table 1) revealed significant differences among all entries for almost all the traits. this justifies the present effort to isolate superior genotypes from the available germplasm. in the present study, the variation that existed among the 21 genotypes were estimated using co-efficient of variation. pt-15 recorded the highest mean value for number of flowers per spike (48.27), which exceeded the grand mean value of 35.50. this genotype was recognized for highest mean values for spike lenth (47.12cm), rachis length (31.70cm) and flower yield (55.58 g).the estimates of gcv would be more useful for the assessment of the heritable portion of variation (allard, 1970). in the present study, the traits like number of leaves per plant (28.54 % & 28.49%), plant height (24.84 % & 24.81%, duration of flowering (22.11 &22.07%), spike length (20.39% & 20.38%) and time taken for sprouting (15.67% & 15.63%) recorded high values for pcv and gcv whereas, low pcv and gcv values were noted for time taken for flowering(7.41% & 7.37%) length of the flower (7.05% & 6.75%), and bulb volume (10.57% & 10.57%). in tuberose, pcv and gcv were found to be high for 100 floret weight, rachis length, number of flower stalks per plant and weight of spike were reported by gurav et al., (2005). similarly in gladiolus high pcv and gcv for number of cormels per plant and average weight of cormels per plant were reported by desh raj and misra, (1996). comparison of gcv and pcv values for different traits indicated that the values of pcv were higher as compared to gcv for all characters which are suggestive that the apparent variation is not only due to genotype, but also due to the influence of environment. these results are in agreement with the results of deepti singh and santosh kumar (2008) in marigold. heritability is the ratio of genotypic variance to the phenotypic variance or total variance. it signifies the heritable portion of phenotypic variance which also serve as a reliable index of transmission of characters from parents to their off springs (falconer, 1981).the genetic coefficient of variation alone may not offer full scope to access the relative amount of heritable variation present in the genotypes under study. hence, a quantitative estimate of that portion of variability that is due to genetic effect is most important. this estimate is termed as heritability, which has a close bearing on its response to selection of genotypes, can be based on phenotypic performance. thus heritability precisely provides information on the relative efficiency of selection and to determine the extent to which different char acters will r espond to selection procedure (table 2). in the present study, the highest heritability estimated in broad sense was observed for bulb volume (99.96%) followed by yield of flowers per plant (99.77%), duration of flowering (99.66%), nu mb er of lea ves p er p la nt ( 9 9 . 6 3 % ) . t he heritability for all other traits was in the range of 91 to 97%. these results go in line with the findings of wricke et al., (1982), mahanta et al., (1997) in gerbera. the results reported in gladiolus (katwate et al., 1998), african marigold (singh et al., 2000), niharika pattnaik and mohan (2002), bhanupratap et al., (2003) and in dahlia, singh (2003), srinivas and naraya na gowda (2003) also cor relate the findings of the present study. johnson et al., (1955) were of the view that the heritability values along with estimates of genetic gain would be more useful and reliable than heritability value alone. heritability would provide information only on the magnitude of inheritance of a quantitative character, while genetic advance will be helpful in for mulating appropriate selection procedure. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 202-208, 2018 205 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 202-208, 2018 evaluation of tuberose in tamil nadu g en ot yp es ti m e pl an t n um be r ti m e d ur at io n sp ik e l en gt h of n um be r y ie ld o f b ul b v as e lif e ta ke n fo r he ig ht of ta ke n fo r of le ng th th e flo w er of fl ow er s/ vo lu m e (d ay s) sp ro ut in g (c m ) le av es / flo w er in g flo w er in g (c m ) (c m ) fl ow er s/ pl an t (c c) (d ay s) pl an t (d ay s) (d ay s) sp ik e (g m ) pt -1 10 .0 5 45 .8 5 40 .6 5 79 .9 5 9. 40 25 .0 5 5. 01 33 .0 6 36 .4 0 17 .0 0 15 .4 2 pt -2 10 .2 6 51 .1 0 39 .7 0 79 .1 5 10 .6 0 25 .2 5 5. 02 34 .0 1 33 .1 6 16 .9 2 11 .2 2 pt -3 9. 50 75 .8 5 55 .6 5 68 .9 5 16 .3 9 39 .9 5 5. 77 43 .1 9 46 .8 4 20 .0 7 17 .7 7 pt -4 10 .1 3 48 .2 0 43 .9 5 73 .2 5 12 .6 0 34 .9 5 5. 02 36 .3 8 35 .3 5 15 .0 7 14 .9 0 pt -5 10 .0 5 43 .2 5 35 .2 5 80 .2 0 13 .0 7 36 .0 1 5. 01 29 .3 4 36 .0 1 15 .9 7 13 .4 6 pt -6 13 .0 8 42 .1 5 31 .8 5 81 .2 0 7. 03 35 .0 1 5. 03 30 .8 0 37 .0 1 16 .0 1 12 .6 3 pt -7 12 .0 6 39 .3 5 40 .7 5 86 .9 5 13 .4 5 34 .2 0 5. 06 30 .6 5 35 .6 5 15 .1 1 11 .8 5 pt -8 12 .7 0 37 .9 5 27 .3 5 84 .9 0 12 .3 5 30 .5 1 5. 02 34 .5 5 36 .3 5 16 .7 5 13 .6 7 pt -9 12 .6 6 39 .1 5 33 .2 0 74 .8 5 9. 65 35 .4 5 5. 01 34 .9 0 35 .7 4 17 .5 5 12 .9 2 p t10 9. 62 60 .6 5 47 .6 5 71 .1 5 14 .1 1 38 .9 0 5. 38 41 .4 3 40 .8 1 18 .0 1 15 .9 7 p t11 13 .0 8 56 .1 5 29 .9 5 75 .7 5 12 .6 5 28 .1 5 5. 00 40 .0 6 37 .2 7 15 .7 6 12 .6 2 p t12 13 .0 1 56 .7 0 26 .8 5 80 .2 0 10 .0 7 28 .4 2 5. 05 38 .9 8 36 .4 5 16 .6 0 13 .5 0 p t13 10 .2 7 55 .1 0 18 .8 0 77 .2 0 11 .6 5 27 .5 5 5. 00 37 .0 5 37 .4 9 17 .0 1 14 .6 7 p t14 10 .1 7 54 .8 5 37 .7 5 74 .5 0 10 .7 5 27 .8 5 5. 01 29 .3 9 34 .8 5 17 .5 0 15 .7 2 p t15 7. 07 89 .2 5 61 .4 5 66 .0 5 17 .2 7 41 .7 2 6. 24 48 .2 7 55 .5 8 23 .0 5 18 .2 9 p t16 10 .6 0 44 .1 5 36 .3 0 72 .3 5 12 .9 0 22 .2 2 4. 98 36 .8 3 36 .9 2 16 .5 0 15 .6 2 p t17 10 .1 8 46 .1 5 37 .9 5 73 .6 5 12 .0 6 27 .6 5 4. 96 32 .9 1 38 .5 2 17 .7 7 12 .6 3 p t18 10 .1 3 51 .2 0 40 .0 0 73 .1 5 13 .6 9 28 .8 5 4. 97 35 .6 0 37 .8 5 16 .5 0 13 .7 7 p t19 10 .1 1 55 .5 5 42 .5 5 75 .9 5 10 .9 8 24 .0 5 5. 02 34 .3 1 40 .1 7 17 .0 1 12 .6 2 p t20 10 .0 3 53 .5 0 35 .6 5 73 .3 5 13 .2 7 27 .3 5 5. 01 35 .3 9 36 .0 0 16 .0 2 11 .6 0 p t21 14 .4 5 34 .1 0 16 .1 5 88 .2 0 6. 30 17 .9 5 4. 40 28 .5 4 32 .0 7 15 .0 0 11 .0 2 m ea n 0. 91 51 .4 3 7. 11 76 .7 0 11 .9 1 30 .3 3 5. 09 35 .5 0 37 .9 3 17 .0 1 13 .9 0 se .d 0. 08 0. 39 0. 44 0. 40 0. 10 0. 13 0. 07 0. 24 0. 16 0. 02 0. 09 c d (p =0 .0 5) 0. 16 0. 81 0. 93 0. 84 0. 22 0. 27 0. 14 0. 50 0. 34 0. 05 0. 20 ta bl e 1. m ea n pe rf or m an ce o f di ff er en t ge no ty pe s fo r va ri ou s ch ar ac te rs o f tu be ro se 206 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 202-208, 2018 sathappan s. n o. c ha ra ct er s pv pc v (% ) gv gc v h er ita bi lit y g en et ic g en et ic (% ) (b s) (% ) ad va nc e ad va nc e as pe r ce nt o f m ea n 1. t im e ta ke n fo r s pr ou tin g 2. 92 15 .6 7 2. 91 15 .6 3 99 .5 4 3 .5 0 32 .1 3 2. pl an t h ei gh t 16 3. 29 24 .8 4 16 2. 96 24 .8 1 99 .8 0 26 .2 7 51 .0 7 3. n um be r o f l ea ve s/ pl an t 11 2. 26 28 .5 4 11 1. 84 28 .4 9 99 .6 3 21 .7 4 58 .5 9 4. t im e ta ke n fo r f lo w er in g 32 .3 7 7. 41 32 .0 3 7. 37 98 .9 3 11 .5 9 15 .1 1 5. d ur at io n of fl ow er in g 6. 94 22 .1 1 6. 92 22 .0 7 99 .6 6 5 .4 1 45 .4 0 6. sp ik e le ng th 38 .2 9 20 .3 9 38 .2 6 20 .3 8 99 .9 0 12 .7 3 41 .9 8 7. l en gt h of th e fl ow er 0. 12 7. 05 0. 11 6. 75 91 .6 3 0 .6 7 13 .3 1 8. n um be r o f f lo w er s/ sp ik e 24 .1 6 13 .8 4 24 .0 4 13 .8 0 99 .4 9 10 .0 7 28 .3 7 9. y ie ld o f f lo w er s/ pl an t 25 .2 6 13 .2 5 25 .2 0 13 .2 3 99 .7 7 10 .3 2 27 .2 3 10 . b ul b vo lu m e 3. 23 10 .5 7 3. 23 10 .5 7 99 .9 6 3 .7 0 21 .7 6 11 . v as e lif e 4. 08 14 .5 4 4. 06 14 .5 1 99 .4 9 4 .1 4 29 .8 1 ta bl e 2. m ag ni tu de o f va ri ab ili ty an d es tim at es o f he ri ta bi lit y, g en et ic a dv an ce a nd g en et ic a dv an ce a s p er c en t of m ea n fo r va ri ou s ch ar ac te rs i n tu be ro se ( p ol ia nt he s tu be ro sa l .) 207 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 202-208, 2018 evaluation of tuberose in tamil nadu in the present study the traits viz., bulb volume, yield of flowers per plant, duration of flowering and number of leaves per plant recorded high heritability va lues combined with higher values of genetic advances as per cent of mean. high heritability combined with moderate values of genetic advance over the mean values were observed for time taken for flowering and length of the flower. this suggests substantial additive gene effect governing these characters and phenotypic selection will be useful in improving these traits. bindiya et al, (2018) also observe that the in tuberose plant height exhibited positive correlation with number of spikes per plant, spike length and number of leaves. this results in accordance with the findings of gurav et al. (2005) in tuberose, syamal and kumar (2002) in dahlia, palai et al., (2003) in hybrid tea rose and srinivas and narayana gowda (2003) in african marigold, singh kanwar and saha (2006) in french marigold, anil singh and nalini singh (2007) in balsam, kanwar and bharadwaj (2009) in french marigold, deepti singh and santosh kumar (2008) and nilima gobade et al. (2017) in marigold. as per the above investigation the genotypes suited for this location were identified as pt-15, pt-3 and pt-10 were found to be best. from the various genetic parameters viz., gcv, pcv, heritability and genetic advance studied in this experiment, seven characters viz., bulb volume, yield of flowers per plant, duration of flowering and number of leaves per plant were identified for primary selection as they had high gcv, pcv, high heritability along with genetic advance. considering these characters, the three genotypes pt-15, pt-3 and pt-10 which showed significantly superiority in mean performance were identified for further purification and multiplication for their commercial exploitation in coastal tamil nadu condition. references allard, r.w. 1970. in principles of plant breeding, john wiley and sons inc., new york, usa. anil, k. singh and nalini singh. 2007. studies on genetic variability and heritability in balsam (impatiens balsamina). j. ornamental hort., 10(2): 128130. bhanu pratap, tiwari, g.n. and singh, a.k. 2003. estimation of genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in marigold (tagetes erecta l.). in the abstracts of national symposium on recent advances in indian floriculture. iari, new delhi, p.74. bindiya c. na ik, b. s. ka mble, sha nta ppa tir a ka nna na va r a nd sa vita pa r it, 2018, evaluation of different genotypes of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) for growth, flowering and yield characters, int.j.curr.microbiol. app.sci. 7(7): 4135-4141. deepti singh and santosh kumar, 2008. assessment of african marigold genotypes in uttarkand. j. ornamental hort., 11(2): 112-117. desh raj and misra, r.l. 1996. genetic variability in gladiolus. j. ornamental hort., 4 (1-2): 1-8. falconer, d.s. 1981. introduction to quantitative genetics. ronalds press co., new york. gurav,s.b., katwate,s.m., singh,b.r., kahade, d. m., dha ne, a.v. a nd sabale,r. n. 2005. qua ntita tive genetic studies in tuber ose (polianthes tuberosa 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and correlation studies in dahlia. j. ornamental hort., 5(1): 40-42. wricke, g., weher, w.e. and ottleben, r. 1982. analysis of genetic variance of quantitatively inher ited cha r a cter istics of ger ber a . z. pflancznzuchat., 89(4): 329-336. sathappan j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 202-208, 2018 (ms received 19 september 2017, revised 14 june 2018, accepted 30 december 2018) development of intermediate-moisture slices of papaya (carica papaya l.) by hurdle technology akanksha shrivastava and i.n. doreappa gowda* division of post-harvest technology icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *e-mail: dore@iihr.res.in abstract papaya fruits are highly perishable, with over 25% post-harvest losses which further rise during storage. to prevent these losses, we attempted to convert papaya slices into intermediate moisture (im) slices using a novel combination-technology which included a combination of osmotic removal of water by sugar syrup (60ob) containing various preservatives/additives, and, added use of chemicals such as cacl2, citric acid, sodium metabisulphite or potassium metabisulphite (kms), to reduce water activity. the osmosed slices were surfacedried and analyzed for physico-chemical characters and sensory attributes. further, the product was stored upto six months at lt (low temperature) (4±1oc) and assessed for composition, stability and sensory attributes. steam blanching of papaya slices, followed by osmosis in sugar solution of 60ob syrup containing a combination of preservatives, viz., citric acid 0.5%, cacl2 0.5%, sodium metabisulphite 75ppm and kms 350ppm, was superior as a treatment in terms of quality and stability of the product. these findings can help reduce postharvest losses in papaya by providing a technology for preparing a ready-to-eat (rte), nutrient rich intermediate-moisture product with good taste and flavour. key words: papaya, preservation, intermediate moisture food (imf), quality, rte introduction papaya ranks among the top five nutritionally beneficial fruits (alongside guava, watermelon, grapefruit and kiwifruit) among the common fruits, based on nutritional score and percentage recommended daily allowance (rda). the fruits have appreciable amounts of protein (0.42g), folate (102.12 µg), fibre (4.69g), copper (0.12mg), potassium (502.32mg), magnesium (57.96mg), pantothenic acid (0.53mg); are high in antioxidants (85.57), total carotene (2,740mg), beta carotene (888mg) and vitamin c (168.08mg) per 100g fruit (krishna et al, 2008). during storage, in addition to physical loss in fruit weight, considerable losses also occur in essential nutrients notably, vitamins, minerals and compromised fruit quality. papaya is highly perishable and is difficult to preserve in the fresh form for long periods at ambient temperature and humidity. to prevent these losses, and to better utilize the fruit, processing and value-addition is very essential. hurdle technology is a simple technology where a combination of preservation parameters are used at optimum levels to ensure maximum lethality of harmful microorganisms, so that damage to organoleptic properties of food is kept at a minimum. this technique was first introduced by leistner (1992). the method is attractive, since, hurdles are used at low concentrations that do not adversely affect sensory quality of a product while maintaining stability and safety of the food item (leistner and gorris, 1995). the hurdle concept emphasizes complex interactions between temperature, water activity, ph, redox potential, etc. that are significant for microbial stability and safety of food (leistner and rodel, 1979). the present studies were made with an objective of preserving of ripe papaya slices using hurdle technology. material and methods slice preparation and various hurdle treatments in papaya papaya fruits were procured from the orchards of icar-indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), and from the neighbouring farm, hesaraghatta, bengaluru. semi-ripe fruits collected of uniform-size, shape and j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):67-71, 2016 68 ripeness were weighed, washed, peeled and cut into uniform sized slices, followed by steam blanching for 2 min at 60°c. the slices were then dipped in 60°brix sugar syrup containing different preservatives or additives in the ratio of 1:2 (slices:sugar) in various treatments and placed for osmosis for 12 hours at ambient temperature (25-30°c). at the end of the osmotic process, papaya slices were separated from the osmotic solution and weighed to assess the extent of water removed by osmosis. surface-moisture removal of the product was done with the help of a cabinet tray drier at 55-60°c for 4 hours for achieving the desired level of moisture. moisture content in all the samples was maintained in the range of imf (intermediate moisture food) by controlled drying in the cabinet tray drier. various hurdle treatments imposed were: t1 (control steeping in 60°b sugar syrup + citric acid 0.5%); t2 (steeping in 60°b + kms 700ppm + citric acid 0.5%); t3 (steeping in 60°b + kms 700ppm + cacl2 0.5% + citric acid 0.5%); t4 (steeping in 60°b + cacl2 0.5% + nams 150ppm + citric acid 0.5%); t5 (steam blanching + steeping in 60°b + cacl2 0.5% + nams 75ppm + kms 350ppm + citric acid 0.5%); t6 (steam blanching + steeping in 60°b + cacl2 0.5% + sodium benzoate 150ppm + citric acid 0.5%) and t7 (steam blanching + steeping in 60°b + cacl2 0.5% + sodium benzoate 150ppm + nams 150ppm + citric acid 0.5%). physical and biochemical analysis papaya pulp (10g) was placed in a hot air oven overnight and subsequently weighed at hourly intervals until no further decrease in weight occurred. for calculating the moisture content, the formula mentioned below was applied: moisture content (%) = (w1– w2/ w1) × 100 where, w1= initial weight, w2= final weight water activity was measured using a water activity meter (model: hygrolab, rotronic). total ascorbic acid content in papaya samples was estimated by the volumetric method (ranganna, 1991), carotenoid content by spectrophotometer (model: sp-3000 plus) at 452nm, using β-carotene as the standard (ranganna, 1991). total antioxidant activity was measured by the frap method (benzie and strain, 1996) . organoleptic evaluation organoleptic evaluation was done initially (after drying the sample) and, subsequently, at three and six months of storage, by a panel of eight semi-skilled judges using a hedonic rating system of 100 points (with a maximum score of 30 each for colour and texture, and 40 for flavour) (stone and sidel, 1985). statistical analysis was performed for factorial completely randomized design (fcrd). analysis of variance (anova) was conducted to arrive at significant differences between various factors. results and discussion chemical composition of the fresh papaya fruits used in the study is presented in table 1. ripe fruits had tss 11.25°b, acidity 0.36% and ascorbic acid 40.2mg/100g, with total antioxidant content at 45.27mg/100g. these are in conformity with values obtained by zaman et al (2006). variation in physico-chemical and processing parameters can be attributed to varietal characteristic, seasonal conditions and level of fruit maturity. similar observations were made by goukh et al (2010), othman (2009) and campostrini & glenn (2007) in papaya fruit. moisture content in fresh papaya samples was fairly high (86.49%) and this can support microbial growth. therefore, various combinations of different preservatives, osmotic removal of water and blanching treatment were used for reducing moisture content. similar conclusion was drawn by mishra et al (2015). hurdle-processed papaya slices were analyzed for physico-chemical properties and sensory attributes at the initial stage prior to storage, and at six months of storage at (i) ambient and (ii) low temperature conditions. the best hurdle treatments were identified on the basis of retention of nutritional quality along with high organoleptic scores, apart from the product storage stability. at the initial stage (table 2a), moisture content table 1. composition of fresh papaya fruits used in product preparation composition value moisture (%) 86.49 total solids (ts) (%) 13.51 total soluble solids (tss ) (°b) 11.25 total titratable acidity (%) 0.36 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 40.2 reducing sugars (%) 2.21 non-reducing sugars (%) 1.26 total sugars (%) 3.47 total carotenoids (mg/100g) 0.842 total antioxidants (mg equivalent of ascorbic acid /100g) 45.27 akanksha shrivastava and doreappa gowda j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):67-71, 2016 69 among different treatments was in the range of 35.19 to 45.96%, with a maximum in t6 (steam blanching + steeping in 60°b + cacl2 0.5% + sodium benzoate 150ppm + citric acid 0.5%) and the minimum was recorded in t1 (control steeping in 60°b sugar syrup + citric acid 0.5%) (table 2b). in treatment t1 (control), 17.2% decrease was observed in moisture content, while the other treatments showed a range from 34.6 to 42.8% during the entire storage period. decrease in titrable acidity during storage is attributable to acid hydrolysis of polysaccharides, and nonreducing sugars to similar components, where the acid is utilized for converting these sugars to hexose sugars or complexes in presence of metal ions (sagar and kumar, 2006). reduced in acidity in the segments during storage was observed in osmo-dehydrated ripe pineapple slices preserved using hurdle process (michael, 2012). at three months of storage, t6 (steam blanching + steeping in 60°b + cacl2 0.5% + sodium benzoate 150ppm + citric acid 0.5%) showed maximum moisture content (47.94%) and lowest acidity (0.206%), which could be the reason of spoilage, as, effectiveness of the preservative (i.e., sodium benzoate) used in this treatment depends on the level of acidity. at the initial stage (i.e., at the onset of storage), ascorbic acid content among the different treatments imposed was in the range of 33.63 36.49mg/100g; but, at six months of storage, t1 showed a 21.27% decrease in ascorbic acid content compared to that at the initial stage. the reason for this could be thermal degradation of ascorbic acid during processing, and subsequent oxidation and light reaction (brockmann et al, 1998). in comparison to other blanching treatments, t1 (control) with no blanching treatment showed a drastic change (from 2.88mg/100g in the initial period, to 1.48 mg/ 100g at six months after storage) in carotenoid content. storage for six months resulted in a gradual decline in total antioxidant content. however, decrease was higher in control compared to that in the hurdle-processed papaya samples. treatments involving preservatives (kms, nams, etc.), registered more stability in total carotenoids and antioxidant content in comparison to control, as, these preservatives prevent oxidation reaction that leads to deterioration of the respective constituents. organoleptic evaluation results of organoleptic evaluation are presented in tables 3(a) & (b). table 3. sensory evaluation of hurdle-processed papaya slice product treatment colour texture flavour overall (30 marks) (30 marks) (40 marks) acceptability (100 marks) (a) at the initial stage (on set of storage) t1 23.35 22.54 31.36 76.47 t2 23.18 22.56 30.25 75.96 t3 23.13 23.04 30.79 77.35 t4 23.16 23.31 28.60 75.08 t5 24.61 25.39 32.30 82.29 t6 23.69 24.27 28.57 76.56 t7 24.54 25.08 32.32 82.08 (b) at six months of storage t1 9.52 7.84 11.43 28.79 t2 19.38 17.02 22.47 58.86 t3 20.29 18.05 23.06 61.39 t4 20.68 20.02 23.56 64.62 t5 21.65 21.41 25.06 68.14 t6 t7 21.40 21.31 24.82 67.70 table 2. chemical composition of hurdle-processed papaya samples treatment titratable moisture ascorbic total total acidity content acid carotenoids antioxidants (%) (%) (mg/100g) (mg/100g) (mg equivalent of ascorbic acid /100g) (a) at the onset of storage t1 0.321 35.19 36.49 2.88 41.21 t2 0.315 36.46 35.7 2.19 38.63 t3 0.311 37.85 34.97 2.12 32.63 t4 0.315 36.82 35.07 2.13 37.18 t5 0.270 41.48 34.97 2.60 40.22 t6 0.315 45.96 33.63 2.12 33.86 t7 0.308 44.19 33.66 2.30 34.39 f-test * * * * * s.e±m 0.015 0.386 0.282 0.029 0.061 cd 0.0403 1.094 0.810 0.078 0.175 (p=0.05) *significant at 5% treatment titratable moisture ascorbic total total acidity content acid carotenoids antioxidants (%) (%) (mg/100g) (mg/100g) (mg /100g) (b) at six months of storage t1 0.121 17.2 15.22 1.48 12.26 t2 0.262 34.6 34.51 3.06 26.96 t3 0.257 36.6 32.24 1.83 26.61 t4 0.259 34.9 30.44 1.90 27.05 t5 0.254 41.3 32.66 2.41 34.71 t6 t7 0.260 42.8 31.13 2.23 27.87 f-test * * * * * s.e±m 0.008 0.421 0.264 0.032 0.052 cd 0.022 1.194 0.749 0.091 0.146 (p=0.05) *significant at 5%; : product get spoiled before the end of 6 months processing of papaya slices using hurdle technology j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):67-71, 2016 70 higher score for overall acceptability was recorded in low-temperature storage in treatment t5 (82.65) upto six months of storage (68.14). these results are in conformity with findings in osmo-dehydrated ripe pineapple slices using hurdle processes (michel, 2012), in mango powder (hymavathi and vijaya 2005), in mango slices (jose et al, 2008), in osmo-air dehydrated pineapple fruits (rashmi et al, 2005), in sun-dried sapota (vaghani and chundawat, 1997), in minimally processed papaya by a combination of methods (lopez et al, 1994), in high hydrostatic pressure-processed mango puree (guerrero, 2006), in minimally processed chinese cabbage (ahn et al, 2005), and, in minimally processed fruits by combined methods (alzamora et al, 1995). in conclusion, it is stated that for preparation of good quality hurdle-processed papaya slices with stability and higher organoleptic scores, a treatment combination consisting of steam blanching + steeping in 60°b sugar syrup + cacl2 0.5% + nams 75ppm + kms 350ppm + citric acid 0.5%), followed by a combination of steam blanching + steeping in 60°b sugar syrup + cacl2 0.5% + sodium benzoate 150ppm + nams 150ppm + citric acid 0.5%) produced good results. in these hurdle combinations, even though a lower concentration of preservatives was used, inclusion of blanching in the methodology retained good colour, quality and stability in the product. apart from preservation of slices, these combinations helped obtain fresh fruit like quality in the product as, moisture could be maintained in the range prescribed for imf (intermediate moisture foods). acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the erstwhile and present directors, and heads of pht division, icar-indian institute of horticulture for providing facilities to carry out this work. references ahn, h.j., kim, j.h., kim, j.k., kim, d.h., yook, h.s. and byun , m.w. 2005. combined effects of irradiation and modified atmosphere packaging on minimally processed chinese cabbage (brassica rapa l.). food chem., 89(4):589-597 alzamora, s.m., cerrutti, p., guerrero, s. and lopez-malo, a. 1995. 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(eds.). the avi publishing co. inc., westpot, connecticut, usa, 2:489 campostrini, e. and glenn, d.m. 2007. ecophysiology of papaya: a review. braz. j. pl. physiol., 19(4):413424 goukh, a.a.a., shattir, a.e.t. and mahdi, e.f.m. 2010. physico-chemical changes during growth and development of papaya fruit. ii: chemical changes. agri. biol. j. n. am., 1(5):871-877 guerrero, b.j.a., barbosa, c.g.v., moraga, b.g. and moraga, b.m.j. 2006. effect of ph and ascorbic acid on high hydrostatic pressure-processed mango puree. fig 2. hurdle-processed papaya slices at six months after storage under low temperature (4°c) fig 1. hurdle-processed papaya slices at the initial stage, just prior to storage akanksha shrivastava and doreappa gowda j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):67-71, 2016 71 j. food proc. pres., 30:582-596 hymavathi, t.v. and vijaya, k.v. 2005. carotene, ascorbic acid and sugar content of vacuum dehydrated ripe mango powders stored in flexible packaging material. j. food composition & analysis, 18(1-2):51-59 jose, a.u., hector, e. and lourdes, d. 2008. colour behaviour in mango (mangifera indica) slices selfstabilized in glass jars by hurdle technology during storage. african j. biotechnol., 7(4):487-494 krishna, k.l., paridhavi, m. and patel, j.a. 2008. review on nutritional, medicinal and pharmacological properties of papaya (carica papaya linn.). nat. product radiance, 7(4):364-373 leistner, l. 1992. food preservation by combined methods. food res. int’l.,25:151 leistner, l. and gorris, l.g.m. 1995. food preservation by hurdle technology. trends in food sci. technol., 6:4146 leistner, l. and rodel, w. 1979. microbiology of intermediate moisture foods. in: procs. int’l. meeting on food microbiology and technology. jarvis, b., christian, j.h.b. and h.d. michener. (eds.). medicina viva servizio congress, prama, itlay, p. 35 lopez, m.a.e., palou, e., welti, j., corte, p. and argaiz, a. 1994. shelf-stable high moisture papaya minimally processed by combined methods. food res. int’l., 27:545-553 michael, j. 2012. standardization of preservation of osmodehydrated ripe pineapple slices by using hurdle processes. m.sc. (hort.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bengaluru, india. mishra, b.b., gautam, s., chander, r. and sharma, a. 2015. characterization of nutritional, organoleptic and functional properties of intermediate-moisture shelf stable ready-to-eat carica papaya cubes. food biosci., 10:69-79 ranganna, s. 1991. manual of analysis of fruit and vegetable products. (2nd edn.), tata mcgraw hill publication. co. ltd., new delhi, india, p. 1112 sagar, v.r. and kumar, r. 2006. preparation and storage of ready-to-eat dehydrated gooseberry (aonla) shreds. j. food sci. technol., 43(4):349-352 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):67-71, 2016 (ms received 07 october 2015, revised 05 may 2016, accepted 19 may 2016) processing of papaya slices using hurdle technology 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. short communication diversity assessment of nerium accessions for growth and flower yield rajiv g .1*, jawaharlal m .2, allen j.j.3 and ganesh s.3 1assistant professor, srm college of agricultural sciences, chengalpattu, tamil nadu, india 2dean, srm college of agricultural sciences, chengalpattu, tamil nadu, india 3kerala agricultural university, thrissur, kerala, india *corresponding author email : florirajiv91@gmail.com abstract thirty nerium accessions were evaluated for growth and flower yield. each accession had specific vegetative and flowering traits, among them acc-19 (rasipuram pink double) recorded the maximum plant height (236.84 cm) and flower yield per plant (333.09g). acc-2 (panamarathanpatty white single) recorded the maximum number of primary branches (6.80). leaf area (33.61 cm2), early flower bud initiation (90.47), flower bud length (3.40), number of inflorescences per plant (24.17), number of flowers per plant (10.67) were maximum in acc-12. accessions 12 (rasipuram pink single) displayed profuse blooming and long-lasting blooming characteristics, which made them an excellent choice for commercial cultivation and landscaping. keywords: commercial, evaluation, flower, genotype, landscape and nerium introduction nerium (nerium oleander l.) is an evergreen shrub belongs to the apocynaceae family native to northern africa and the mediterranean region. globally, it is well acclaimed as ornamental due to its abundant and long-lasting flowering habit and for its heat, salinity and drought tolerance capacity (adome et al., 2003). nerium oleander l. is one of the important ornamental flowering shrubs which finds a place in all gardens. this ornamental shrub is suitable for commercial cultivation all over the tropical region. the nerium is used as loose flowers for religious purposes, garland making and worship in home and temples. in addition, they are preferred for growing as shrubs in the garden along a boundary wall to mask some areas of lawn. in recent days, nerium has great demand in landscape architecture for the beautification of home gardens, industrial gardens, public gardens, road dividers in highways, railway stations, airport surroundings and historical monuments. the ornamental plant market is extremely dynamic and demands constant novelties. to meet such needs, advances in genetic improvement programs aligned with the demands of consumers are crucial. these flowering plants exhibit considerable diversity with respect to growth habits, flower colors, shape, size and color patterns. these flowers are relatively easy to grow, begin flowering as young plants, continue to produce flowers throughout the year. the proper selection of nerium cultivars is critical for success and expected to increase yield by enhancing the number and size of flowers. cultivars that respond well in local climatic conditions protect themselves from the depredation of insect, pest and diseases and as result, vigorous growth occurs to face the seasonal hazards. the selection of suitable cultivars depends on the purpose for which crop has to be grown (i.e.) used for loose flowers, ornamental shrubs and pot culture and also adaptability to specific growing places. the present study was conducted at the department of floriculture and landscaping, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block design with two replications and thirty genotypes as treatments. five plants from each genotype for each replication were randomly selected for recording observation on growth, flowering and flower yield parameters. the variability among nerium accessions is presented in fig.1. the data collected under field experiment in randomized block design subjected to analysis of variance (anova) using agres 3.01 and agdata software. the mean values of the treatments were compared using lsd at 5 per cent level of significance. 2 rajiv et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 f ig . 1 : d iv er si ty i n fl ow er c ol ou r of d if fe re nt n er iu m a cc es si on s 3 diversity assessment of nerium accessions for growth and flower yield the vegetative growth was measured in terms of plant height (cm), number of primary branches, leaf length (cm), plant spread and leaf area (cm2). significant differences were observed in plant height during crop growth of nerium accessions at 12th month after planting. the plant height ranged between 74.63 to 236.84 cm. acc.19 recorded the maximum plant height of about 236.84 cm and it was on par with acc.20 (234.67 cm) and minimum plant height (74.63 cm) was recorded in acc.18. the variation in plant height among the accessions could be due to genetically controlled factors, which varies among the genotypes as well as influenced by the growing environmental conditions. this result was in accordance with sharova et al. (1977) and further reported that the increased plant height in certain accessions might be associated with the rapid meristematic activity, probably due to rapid cell division and elongation during the growth period. similar variation in plant height among cultivars was also observed in nerium (rajiv et al., 2018), crossandra (bhosale et al., 2018; priyanka et al., 2017) .with respect to the number of branches per plant, acc.2 recorded a maximum number of primary branches (6.80) which was on par with acc.3 (6.58 nos.). whereas, acc.18 recorded the minimum number of pr imar y bra nches (3.65). increased number of branches leads to the production of more leaves which in turn enhances the yield of flowers by increasing the source and sink relationship. a similar trend was noticed by chowdhuri et al. (2016) in different china aster genotypes, gupta et al. (2015) in dahlia; ramachandrudu and thangam (2010) in crossandra. among the accessions highest leaf length was recorded in acc.9 (27.80 cm) followed by acc.11 (24.79 cm). the lowest leaf length was registered in acc.18 (8.89 cm). the highest leaf area was observed in acc.12 (33.61 cm2) which was on par with acc.16 (33.39cm2). the lowest leaf area was observed in acc.18 (9.38 cm2). the differences in the length and leaf area might be due to the genetic influences of the genotypes and this variability may be associated with ada pta bility to the climatic conditions (costa et al., 2009). similar observations were made by pal et al. (2018) in balsam, priyanka et al. (2017) in crossandra and in hibiscus (seeruttun and ranghoo-sanmukhiya, 2013). significant results were obtained for plant spread in different nerium accessions. acc.3 recorded maximum plant spread 152.18 cm (n-s) and 156.77 cm (e-w) which was on par with the acc.12 (151.36 cm and 153.66 cm) and the minimum plant spread was recorded with acc.18 (76.28 cm and 79.47 cm). an increase in plant spread might be due to the production of more number of branches and by the genetic nature of the plant. variation in plant spread is due to additive gene effects (vidalie et al., 1985). the data related to flowering and flower yield parameters of different nerium accessions are presented in (table.1). the number of days taken for flower initiation varied significantly among the accessions. the earliest flower buds appeared in acc.12 (90.47 days), while acc.24 recorded the maximum number of 115.75 days. the differ ence in flower initia tion indica ted tha t supplementa ry dr y ma tter accumula tion dur ing favorable climatic conditions might be the reason for earliness. similar results were obtained in china aster (rai and chaudhary, 2016) and chrysanthemum (srilatha et al., 2015). significant differences were observed in flower weight, the maximum flower weight (0.94 g) was recorded by acc.20 which was statistically on par with acc.19 (0.90 g) and the minimum flower weight (0.15 g) was recorded in acc.18. the variation in flower weight might be primarily determined by the size of the flower head and number of whorls of the variety, which may be influenced by the inherent characteristics of the particular cultivar and the environment. similar variation was also observed in china aster (rai and chaudhary, 2016) and chrysanthemum (talukdar et al., 2003) with respect to flower diameter, the acc.20 r ecor ded maximum flower diameter (5.15 cm) followed by acc.19 (5.13 cm). the minimum flower diameter was recorded in acc.18 (2.49 cm). with regard to flower bud length, it was observed that acc.12 (3.40 cm) recorded maximum flower bud length, which was statiscally on par with acc.14 (3.34 cm) and acc.28 (3.30 cm). minimum flower bud length was recorded by acc.18 (2.62 cm). number of inflorescences per plant and number of flowers per inflorescence varied significantly among the accessions which directly influenced the yield of the plant. the number of inflorescences per plant ranged from 7.17 to 24.17. the highest number of inflorescence (24.17 nos.) was recorded in acc.12 followed by acc.3 (24.04) and acc.14 (23.0 nos.), while the lowest number of inflorescences per plant was recorded in acc.24 (5.34). number of flowers per inflorescence 4 table 1 : evaluation of nerium accessions for flowering parameters accession days single flower flower number number yield / no. taken flower flower diameter bud of infloreof flowers g / initation weight (cm) length scences per infloreplant (days) (g) (cm) per plant scences acc. 1 100.82 0.27 4.79 3.08 16.73 9.58 197.33 acc. 2 96.17 0.24 4.86 3.08 18.12 8.89 183.75 acc. 3 97.53 0.27 4.80 3.29 24.04 10.09 262.52 acc. 4 109.89 0.30 4.89 3.20 11.17 9.51 151.57 acc. 5 97.28 0.24 4.03 2.88 14.67 10.67 171.02 acc. 6 94.37 0.27 4.97 3.38 10.83 8.83 140.63 acc. 7 114.08 0.24 4.62 3.12 14.67 9.00 172.17 acc. 8 107.83 0.21 4.86 3.26 11.83 8.50 120.89 acc. 9 113.98 0.25 4.91 3.20 12.17 8.83 135.47 acc. 10 104.73 0.27 4.46 3.12 14.67 9.35 136.05 acc. 11 113.58 0.23 4.39 3.14 13.50 9.89 172.61 acc. 12 90.47 0.29 4.80 3.40 24.17 10.67 265.37 acc. 13 98.10 0.23 4.84 3.26 10.00 7.51 115.65 acc. 14 93.87 0.27 4.74 3.34 23.00 10.00 258.33 acc. 15 98.89 0.23 4.60 3.26 9.33 8.33 126.23 acc. 16 109.09 0.24 4.13 3.26 12.00 8.00 127.87 acc. 17 120.12 0.23 4.42 3.06 9.83 7.67 134.03 acc. 18 91.14 0.15 2.49 2.62 8.13 6.30 98.87 acc. 19 100.63 0.90 5.13 3.00 18.83 4.83 333.09 acc. 20 101.41 0.94 5.15 2.96 17.98 4.67 329.49 acc. 21 104.37 0.67 4.26 2.94 15.42 4.33 281.29 acc. 22 103.65 0.24 4.84 3.18 12.51 9.67 148.01 acc. 23 95.82 0.27 4.59 3.24 14.67 8.67 160.12 acc. 24 115.75 0.67 4.56 2.92 9.17 4.33 191.02 acc. 25 120.89 0.57 4.17 2.90 11.93 4.83 209.45 acc. 26 104.13 0.24 4.79 3.14 12.00 9.33 136.81 acc. 27 119.82 0.50 4.20 2.85 11.31 3.85 193.33 acc. 28 92.00 0.29 4.99 3.30 14.67 9.17 216.18 acc. 29 106.79 0.70 5.08 2.88 10.17 4.17 290.45 acc. 30 98.37 0.25 4.87 3.00 9.35 8.90 156.78 mean 103.85 0.36 4.61 3.11 13.90 7.95 187.21 se(d) 4.37 0.02 0.18 0.13 0.60 0.35 7.83 cd (p=0.05) 12.66 0.05 0.52 0.36 1.74 1.02 22.71 cv (%) 5.95 6.74 5.54 5.71 6.12 6.24 5.92 rajiv et al 5 diversity assessment of nerium accessions for growth and flower yield ranged from 3.87 to 10.67. the highest number of flowers per inflorescence (10.67) was recorded in acc.5 and acc.12 followed by acc.3 (10.09). acc.27 (3.85) recorded the lowest number of flowers per inflorescence. number of inflorescences per plant and number of flowers per inflorescence, this might be due to the transport of photosynthetic assimilates to the developing floral buds which might be triggered by the amount of endogenous growth regulators in the flower (halevy, 1987). variations in the number of flowers per plant are related to recurrent blooming habit due to their genetic makeup (manjula, 2005). the variation in the number of flowers may be due to the genetic nature of the cultivar and also the effect of agroclimatic conditions. the varietal differences for yield potential may also be due to attributed additive gene effect. this was in accordance with the findings of pr a sha nta et al. (2016) in tuber ose a nd ramachandrudu and thangam, (2010) in crossandra. flower yield per plant per year showed significant differences among the nerium accessions. the highest flower yield was recorded by acc.19 (333.09 g) followed by acc. 20 (329.49g) and the lowest flower yield per plant per year were recorded by acc.18 (98.87 g). the variation among the accessions with respect to flower yield might be due to increased flower size with a number of whorls in nerium. further, being a genetic factor, variations were expected among the accessions of nerium. the higher yield might be due to incr eased morphological parameters viz., plant height, more branches and leaf a r ea which a ttr ibutes in pr oduction of mor e photosynthates resulting in greater accumulation of dry matter which in turn leads to the production of more flowers per plant. similar results were observed in crossandra (ramachandrudu and thangam, 2010), priyanka et al. (2017), rose (shahrin et al., 2015) and china aster (tirakannanavar et al., 2015). references adome, r.o., gachihi, j.w., onegi, b., tamale, j. and apio, s.o., 2003. the cardiotonic effect of the crude ethanolic extract of nerium oleander in the isolated guinea pig hearts. african health sciences, 3(2): 77-82. bhosale, p.b., kadam, m.b., katwate, s.m., & pawar, b.g. 2018. evaluation of different genotypes of crossandra. international journal of applied research, 4(3): 204-206 chowdhuri, t., rout, b., sadhukhan, r., & mondal, t. 2016. performance evaluation of different varieties of china aster (callistephus chinensis l. ness) in sub-tropical belt of west bengal. international journal of pharmaceutical science invention, 5(8): 15-18. costa, a.s., loges, v., castro, a.c.r., guimaraes, w.n.r.,and nogueira, l.c. 2009. heliconia genotypes under partial shade: i. shooting and blooming. acta horticulturae, 813: 609-614. halevy, a. h. 1987. assimilate allocation and flower development in j. g. e. ather ton (ed. ), ma nipula tion of flower ing. london, butterworths p. 363-378. manjula, g. 2005. performance of rose cultivars under naturally ventilated polyhouse. (msc. thesis), uas, dharwad. pra sha nta, m. , pa r ul, p. , a nd guy, a. 2016. evaluation of tuberose genotypes for vegetative, floral and bulb yielding attributes under the valley conditions of gar hwal himalayas. international journal of agriculture sciences, 8(62): 3522-3524. pr iya nka , ka mble b. s. , anur a dha r. w. , naveenakumar and am, s. 2017. evaluation of differ ent cr ossandr a genotypes under ghata pr abha comma nd a r ea. journal of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry, 6(6): 252-254. rai, t. and chaudhary, s. 2016. evaluation of china aster (callistephus chinensis nees) cultivars under mid-hill conditions of himachal pradesh. the bioscan, 11(4): 2367-2370. rajiv, g., jawaharlal,m., subramanian, s.,  sudhakar, d., uma, d. 2018. studies on morphological characteristics and categorization of nerium accessions based on utility. electronic journal of plant breeding, 9 (3 ): 1100 -1106. ramachandrudu, k., and thangam, m. (2010). cha ra cteriza tion a nd evalua tion of loca l ger mpla sm of cr ossa ndr a (crossandra undulaefolia salisb.). journal of ornamental horticulture, 13(2): 138-141. 6 rajiv et al seeruttun, b., and ranghoo-sanmukhiya, v. (2013). molecular characterisation of some hibiscus species cultivated in mauritius. international journal of life sciences biotechnology and pharma research, 2(3): 358-366. sharova, n.l., rybak, y.g. and marins, w.e., 1977. development of gladiolus under the influence of micronutrients. kishinev, moldavian ssr, stiinca, pp.11-17. srilatha, v., kumar, k. s., and kiran, y. d. 2015. evaluation of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev) varieties in southern zone of andhra pradesh. agricultural science digest-a research journal, 35(2): 155-157. pal,s., singh, a.k., sisodia,a., pal a.k., and tiwari, a. 2018. evaluation of double whorled balsam (impatiens balsamina l.) genotypes for growth, flowering and seed attributes. journal of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry, 7(2): 2901-2904 talukdar, m. c., mahanta, s., sharma, b., and das, s. 2003. extent of genetic variation for growth a nd flor a l cha r a cter s in chrysa nthemum cultivars under assam condition. journal of ornamental horticulture, 6(3): 207-211. tirakannanavar, s., katagi, a., jagadeesha, r., and ha lesh, g. 2015. studies on genotypic evaluation and correlation studies in china aster (callistephus chinensis (l.) nees). indian research journal of genetics biotechnology, 7(2): 179-186. vidalie, hl., rivera, lm., and charperiter, s. 1985. first result of performance of gerbera cultivated on rock wool. revue horticoley, 262:13-18. 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction passiflora quadrangularis l. commonly known as giant granadilla, belongs to passifloraceae family consists of about 700 species and 16 genera and among them only two gener a, passiflora and tetrapathaea are cultivated (feuillet, 2004) and about 520 species of the genus passiflora are distributed to neotropics and africa (ulmer and macdougal, 2004). the most important genus is passiflora, with the most common commercial species being the purple passion fruit (passiflora edulis) for the fresh market and the more acid yellow passion fruit (passiflora edulis f. flavicarpa) for the juice industry (tripathi et al., 2014). leaves of purple and yellow passion fruit are used as leafy vegetable in manipur and also used as folk traditional medicine as anti-diabetic (singh et al., 2014). the total area under passion fruit cultivation is about 0.014 million hectares with a production of 0.082 million tonnes in india during 2020 (anon, 2020). p. quadrangularis l. is a lesser-known member of the genus also grown for its fruit as well as vegetable. it is locally known as vegetable squash by the adi tribe of arunachal pradesh. this novel p. quadrangular is helps the rural sectors in mitigating the malnutrition and hence enabling them a quality life. during investigation it was observed that p. quadrangularis l. is grown by the adi tribe of arunachal pradesh and sold as squash in the market. however, ver y few systema tic, inventor y a nd documentation about the passiflora species found in northeast india and sporadic attempts have been made on characterization of passion fruit found in arunachal pradesh. therefore, the present research was initiated to explore and document for the morphological and biochemica l cha r a cter istics fea tur es of p. quadrangularis l. found in east siang district of arunachal pradesh. morphological and biochemical characterization of passiflora quadrangularis l. a source of vegetable from east siang district, arunachal pradesh, india shankar k.1* and singh s.r. 1department of fruit science, college of horticulture & forestry central agricultural university, pasighat 791 102, arunachal pradesh, india, 1present address: division of fruits and horticultural technology, icar indian agricultural research institute, pusa, new delhi -110 012, india. *corresponding author email: rawkripa.s99@gmail.com abstract present research investigation was aimed at morphological and biochemical assessment of passiflora quadrangularis l. commonly known as giant granadilla and locally called as vegetable squash grown as vegetable crop by the adi tribe of arunachal pradesh. seven genotypes collected during survey were characterized for different morphological and biochemical traits. results showed that average fruit weight was 432.57g/fruit, with juice content 100.11 ml/fruit, vitamin c content 25.79 mg, vitamin a content 1.65 mg, mean total flavonoids content was 16.75 mg/100 g of fruit juice, total soluble solids 12.040 brix, antioxidant activity (dpph) 6.07 %, titratable acidity 1.69 %, total carbohydrates 9.95 %, phenol content 338.38 mg/100 g of leaf was noted among the genotypes tested. the mean anthocyanin content in leaf was 1.20 mg/100 g, tendril 0.90 mg/100 g and petiole 1.69 mg/ 100 g among the genotypes. seed protein profiling of passiflora quadrangularis l. with sdspage showed diverse molecular weights ranging from 11 kd to 163.53 kd. however, monomorphic banding pattern among the protein profiling of giant granadilla was recorded among the selected genotypes. the results of the study show that the collected genotypes are belonged to passiflora quadrangularis l. and are good source of nutritive value which can be used as source of vegetable. keywords : giant granadilla, passiflora quadrangularis, sds-page and vegetable source 2 shankar and singh j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 materials and methods survey was carried out in east siang district of arunachal pradesh during the year 2019-2020 which is located at 28p 03’n, 95p 20’n covering an area of 1865 sq. km. and having the altitude of 176.57m above msl and represent a mild subtropical zone with cool, dry winter, a warm summer and a moderate season. the identification and description of the plant were adopted from de jesus et al. (2017). during the survey, passiflora species viz. purple passion fruit, yellow passion fruit and giant granadilla were found growing in east siang district. data on passion fruit uses wer e obta ined thr ough inter view of knowledgeable elderly people of adi tribe (both genders of 30-75 ages) inhabiting in the east siang district to which the p. quadrangularis l. identified on the basis of vernacular name, regional floras and published literatures (singh et al., 2003). totally seven genotypes were collected during the survey and the passport information of the collected genotypes are presented in table 1. the collection of fruits and leaves have been done from different direction of single plant. fifty fruits were collected from each genotype and ever y r eplica tion ha d 10 fr uits with five replications.recorded morphological traits viz., leaf length (cm), leaf breadth (cm), flower length (cm), number of flowers/node, peduncle length (cm), fruit length (cm), fruit breadth (cm), fruit weight (g), number of fruits/vine, fruit yield (kg/vine), peel weight (g), seed length (cm), seed breadth (cm), number of seeds/fruit and seed weight/fruit. biochemical traits viz., juice content (ml/fruit), total soluble solid content (°brix), titratable acidity (%) (aoac, 2006), vitamin c content (mg/100 g) (ra nga nna , 1986), total carbohydrate (%) (hedge, 1962), reducing sugar (%) (somogyi, 1952), vitamin a (mg/100 g) (bayfield and cole, 1980), total flavonoid (mg/100 g) (vijay and rajendra, 2014), and antioxidant activity (%) (aoac, 2006). anthocyanin content (mg/100 g) of leaf, tendril and petiole (malick and singh, 1980), vitamin c content of leaf (mg/100 g) (ranganna, 1986) and phenol content of leaf (mg/100 g) using folinciocalteu reagent (malick and singh, 1980) and chlorophyll content of leaf (mg/g) (arnon, 1949) and shelf life (days) at room temperature were estimated for the collected genotypes. seed protein extraction seed protein extraction was as described lowry et al. (1951) in seven genotypes and was carried out protein banding pattern was determined using sds-page as described by laemmli (1970). 0.2 g of seeds were soaked overnight in phosphate buffer (ph 7.0) solution. seeds were crushed with a solution of trishcl 0.06 m (ph 7.4), 10 mm urea, 1 mm edta, 0.1% tca, 2.5% glycerol, 0.5% sds and 1.25% βmercaptoethanol. electrophoresis was performed in vertical electrophoresis unit and gel run at 25 ma. silver staining was performed as described by mortz et al. (2001) and sensitizing with 0.02% sodium thiosulphate solution. the reaction was stopped with 12% acetic solution. gel was washed thoroughly but gently with double distilled water until protein bands became clea rly visible for bands scoring. t he electrophorograms developed on protein mobility and density expressed in rm values. the gels were scored as presence (+) or absence (-) of protein bands. depending upon the presence (+) or absence (-) of bands, similarity index between the genotypes were calculated (nei and li, 1979). data analysis the statistical analysis viz., standard error of mean, coefficient of variance and test of significance were performed by following singh and chowdhury (1985). results and discussion mor phologica l cha r a cter s a r e impor ta nt for identification and documentation of horticultural traits for crop improvement. a large variability having unique characters was recorded for morphological traits of fruits and other plant parts of the collected giant granadilla (fig 1a and fig 1b). there are no significant variations in different qualitative traits recorded. all the accessions had quadrangular stem, large green cordate leaves having entire margin and leaf lamella . leaf had deep sinus, stipule a nd heterophylly was absent. all the lines showed axillary tendrils bearing 2.33 to 3.00 flowers/node. flowers had light red color petals and sepals are green from outside and whitish pink from inside with yellowishgreen ovary. the flowers possess yellowish green stamens with violet dots, blue, brown speckled corona. all the lines produced light yellowish brown oblong fr uits possessing da rk brown seeds. the sa me qualitative characters were also reported by lim, 2012. among the genotypes leaf length varied from9.95 to 12.08 cm, leaf width from8.89 to 11.14 cm. 3 morphological and biochemical characterization of passiflora quadrangularis l. flowers are 8.40 to 9.41 cm in length which was maximum among other cultivated passion fruit. significant variation for quantitative traits like peduncle length, fruit length, fruit breadth, fruit weight and peel weight, seed length, seed breadth, number of seeds/fruit and weight of seeds/fruit were recorded (table 2a and 2b). this passiflora species is commonly used as vegetable in unripe stage having an average yield of 15.88 to 23.89kg/vine. fruit juice content of giant granadilla was about 53.39 to 131.04 ml/fruit which was maximum in comparison to other passiflora species because of bigger size of fruits. this finding was similar with the result of arjona and matta, 1991. ba sed on the yield and yield a ttributing tr aits genotypes for leaf length (p7; 12.08 cm), number of flowers per node (p6; 3.67), fruit weight (p1; 488.33), number of fruits/vine (p2; 51.33), peel weight (p1; 352.33), number of seeds/fruit (p1; 172) and flower length (p7; 9.41 cm) were identified. selecting the genotypes with large leaf and flower aid in imparting table 1 : list of collected passiflora quadrangularis l. genotypes from east siang district, arunachal pradesh, india and their sources s.no. genotypes code source latitude longitude altitude 1 passiflora quadrangularis l. p1 pasighat, arunachal pradesh 280 03' n 950 20' n 156 m 2 passiflora quadrangularis l. p2 chf, pasighat, 280 04' n 950 19' n 183 m arunachal pradesh 3 passiflora quadrangularis l. p3 baptist church, pasighat, 280 05' n 950 18' n 192 m arunachal pradesh 4 passiflora quadrangularis l. p4 agami house, pasighat, 280 06' n 950 31' n 168 m arunachal pradesh 5 passiflora quadrangularis l. p5 police line, pasighat, 280 05' n 950 32' n 166 m arunachal pradesh 6 passiflora quadrangularis l. p6 teachers residence, pasighat, 280 03' n 950 19' n 159 m arunachal pradesh 7 passiflora quadrangularis l. p7 tekang, pasighat, 280 04' n 950 22' n 212 m arunachal pradesh table 2a : morphological characters of passiflora quadrangularis l. genotypes from east siang district, arunachal pradesh genotyps leaf leaf flower number peduncle fruit fruit fruit length breadth length of flowers/ length length breadth weight (cm) (cm) (cm) nodes (cm) (cm) (cm) (g) p1 9.95 8.89 9.15 2.33 2.37 14.60 9.59 488.33 p2 11.64 11.14 8.40 2.67 1.96 13.42 9.11 463.67 p3 10.99 9.48 9.11 2.67 2.50 13.89 11.04 476.67 p4 10.51 9.70 8.77 3.00 2.62 12.19 10.08 408.00 p5 11.25 9.65 9.40 2.33 2.42 11.82 9.84 407.00 p6 11.46 10.19 8.57 3.67 2.52 12.83 10.80 402.67 p7 12.08 10.59 9.41 2.67 2.65 12.43 10.44 381.67 mean 11.12 9.95 8.97 2.76 2.43 13.03 10.13 432.57 cv (%) 3.18 6.54 5.92 1.14 3.81 4.19 5.96 9.93 se (m)+ 0.78 0.55 0.46 0.38 0.08 0.69 0.52 12.32 c.d (5%) 1.31 1.62 1.36 0.54 0.24 1.59 1.55 3.34 4 table 2b : morphological characters of passiflora quadrangularis l. genotypes from east siang district, arunachal pradesh no. of peel fruit seed seed no. of seed genotypes fruits/ weight yield length breadth seeds/ weight/fruit vine (g) (kg/vine) (cm) (cm) fruit (g) p1 48.00 352.33 23.44 0.77 0.61 172.00 9.33 p2 51.33 320.67 23.86 0.69 0.59 168.00 9.13 p3 42.00 343.33 20.05 0.65 0.61 156.67 8.78 p4 45.33 306.33 18.45 0.68 0.59 157.67 9.03 p5 42.67 304.33 17.36 0.71 0.64 149.67 8.34 p6 45.00 349.67 18.19 0.72 0.64 153.00 9.07 p7 40.67 296.67 15.55 0.71 0.65 168.00 8.83 mean 45.00 324.76 19.56 0.70 0.62 160.71 8.93 cv (%) 8.04 2.38 4.76 1.10 1.24 2.96 1.60 se (m)+ 4.69 4.90 2.23 0.01 0.02 2.75 0.19 c.d (5%) 2.83 27.11 1.58 0.04 0.04 8.10 0.55 fig. 1a : fruits of passiflora quadrangularis l. shankar and singh 5 maximum photosynthate accumulation to the sink leading to high crop yield. biochemical characteristics biochemical characterization also revealed that the tss content of fruit juice was ranging from 10.26 to 13.44 °brix which is in agreement with data of ramaiya et al. (2021) in p. quadrangularis. the higher tss may be due to the fact the fruit tree is grown under natural water scarce condition without care and management and eventually increasing the t ss content meghwa l et al. (2004). in gia nt granadilla, citric acid is the predominated organic acid followed by malic acid that is about 1.49 to 1.80 % which is in conformity to the data of velente et al. (2011). the high acidity may be due to the prevalence of primary organic acids, such as malic and citric acid, in mature fruits, which accumulate in the mesocarp cells during the fruit development process and are controlled by both genetic and environmental factors. ascorbic acid varied from 22.45 to 29.53 mg/100 g in fruit juice and 44.78 to 50.15 mg/100 g in fresh leaf and finding similar with ramaiya et al. (2021). total carbohydrate content data showed variation from 9.49 to 10.75 % and is in agreement with shanmugam et al. (2018). reducing sugar content was about 5.00 to 5.68 % and similar results were reported by patel et al. (2014). t he increasing suga r is due to the hydrolysis of starch to sucrose as fruit approach to ripening (pandy and deen, 2018). vitamin a (mg/100 g) content was recorded between 1.62 to 1.69 mg/100 g of fruit juice and data was in agreement with oliveira et al. (2014); homnava et al. (1990) and it may be due to biosynthesis genes controls its accumulation and composition in fruit during maturity. the dpph free radical scavenging antioxidant (%) activity was recorded as 5.91 to 6.28 % which is in conformity with loizzo et al. (2019) and marroquin et al. (2011). as these fruits are known to contain a variety of antioxidant compounds, and ascorbic acid (vitamin c) which implying that fruits high in vitamin c are powerful antioxidants as reported by esti et al. (2002). chlorophyll content of leaves were ranging from 1.56 to 1.69 mg/g which was an agreement with do valle et al. (2018). phenol content was as 319.67 to 351.32 mg/100 g of fresh leaf and similar data was reported by rudnicki et al. (2005) and marroquin et al. (2011). anthocyanin (mg/100 g) content in leaf, petiole and tendril varied from 1.17 to 1.24 mg/100 g, 1.59 to 1.76 mg/100 g and 0.85 to 0.94 mg/100 g respectively which was in agreement with aizza et al., 2019 and reis et al., 2018. the anthocyanin, phenol and chlorophyll concentration of petioles, tendrils and leaves might differ according to a variety of external and internal factors such as genetic, agronomic and climatic factors (kayesh et al., 2013). shelf life (days) of passiflora quadrangularis genotypes at room temperature was recorded maximum for genotype p1 which is 27.22 days at room temperature. it is due to fig. 1b : leaf, flower and ovary colour of passiflora quadrangularis l. morphological and biochemical characterization of passiflora quadrangularis l. 6 table 3 : biochemical parameters in fruits of passiflora quadrangularis l. genotypes from east siang district, arunachal pradesh juice vit. c tss vit. a total flaantiotitratatotal reducing shelfgenotype content (mg/100 (o (mg/100 vonoids xidant actible acicarbohysugar lif (ml/fruit) g) brix) g) (mg/100 g) vity (%) dity (%) drates (%) (%) (days) p1 123.78 29.53 13.21 1.67 17.42 6.28 1.80 10.75 5.54 27.22 p2 131.04 29.04 12.74 1.61 16.62 6.22 1.49 9.49 5.54 25.57 p3 124.38 22.45 11.90 1.69 16.37 5.98 1.72 9.83 5.29 22.25 p4 92.67 25.66 13.44 1.62 17.20 6.01 1.69 10.29 5.00 18.67 p5 95.03 25.68 11.73 1.64 15.78 6.09 1.69 9.29 5.14 18.67 p6 53.39 23.26 10.97 1.64 16.40 5.91 1.68 9.51 5.21 19.00 p7 80.49 24.93 10.26 1.67 17.45 6.00 1.77 10.48 5.68 25.67 mean 100.11 25.79 12.04 1.65 16.75 6.07 1.69 9.95 5.34 22.43 cv (%) 4.65 5.35 3.13 1.75 0.69 2.50 2.42 1.59 0.68 3.11 se (m)+ 2.69 0.80 0.22 0.02 0.07 0.09 0.02 0.09 0.02 1.70 c.d (5%) 7.93 2.35 0.64 0.05 0.20 0.26 0.07 0.27 0.06 1.01 leaf petiole tendril genotypes anthocyanin vit. c phenol chlorophyll anthocyanin anthocyanin (mg/100 g) (mg/100 g) (mg/100 g) (mg/g) (mg/100 g) (mg/100 g) p1 1.24 47.69 351.32 1.67 1.76 0.94 p2 1.19 50.15 336.33 1.56 1.73 0.92 p3 1.24 47.67 343.00 1.64 1.69 0.91 p4 1.19 44.78 319.67 1.61 1.74 0.89 p5 1.18 46.06 324.33 1.66 1.69 0.92 p6 1.17 48.72 345.00 1.69 1.59 0.88 p7 1.22 46.72 349.00 1.57 1.64 0.85 mean 1.20 47.40 338.38 1.63 1.69 0.90 cv (%) 1.81 3.75 3.34 1.11 0.80 1.81 se (m)+ 0.01 1.03 12.39 0.01 0.01 0.01 c.d (5%) 0.04 3.03 9.55 0.03 0.02 0.03 table 4 : biochemical parameters in leaves, petioles and tendrils of passiflora quadrangularis l. genotypes from east siang district, arunachal pradesh the thick exocarp which prevents easy decay under biotic and abiotic stress. present investigation recorded a total 70 numbers of bands having molecular weights ranging from 11 kd to 163.53 kd. all the seven selected genotypes found in east siang district, arunachal pradesh exhibited monomorphic banding pattern in the protein profiling of giant granadilla. beena and beevy, (2015) also reported the highest molecular weight i.e., 69.94 kd was generated by passiflora foetida var. hispida, while the lowest (12.95kd) wa s pr oduced in passiflora foetida var. gossippifolia in passiflora species. shankar and singh 7 anonymous. 2020. passion fruit area and production. in: ministry of agr icultur e a nd fa rmer s welfare, horticultural statistics-agricoop, government of india. 2020, p. 9. aoac. 2006. official methods of analysis of aoac international, 18thedn (gaithersburg, usa: association of official analytical chemists), pp. 210. aoshima, h., tsunoue, h., koda, h. and kiso, y. 2004. aging of whiskey increases 1,1-diphenyl2-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activity. j. agric. food chem., 52(16): 5240-5244. arjona, h.e. and matta, f.b. 1991. postharvest quality of passion fruit as influenced by harvest time and ethylene treatment. hort. sci., 25: 1278-1281. ar non, d. i. 1949. copper enzymes in isolated chloroplasts: polyphenol oxidase in beta vulgaris. plant physiol., 24: 1–15. ballesteros, v.d., alvarez-rivera, g., ibanez, e., parada-alfonso, f. and cifuentes, a. 2019. integrated strategy for the extraction and pr ofiling of bioa ctive meta bolites fr om passiflora mollissima seeds combining pressurized-liquid extraction and gas/liquid chr oma togr a phy–high r esolution ma ss spectrometry. j. chromatography a., 1595: 144-157. bayfield, r.f. and cole, e.r. 1980. colorimetric estimation of vitamin a with trichloroacetic acid. methods enzymol., 67: 180-195. beena, v.l. and beevy, s.s. 2015. genetic diversity in two species of passiflora l. (passifloraceae) by ka r yotype a nd pr otein profiling. the nucleus, 58(2): 101-106. de jesus, o. n., de oliveira, e. j., faleiro, f. g., tl, s. and girardi, e. a. 2017. illustrated morphoa gr onomic descr iptor s for passiflora spp. embr a pa ma ndioca e fr uticultur a livrocientifico (alice), p. 122 do valle, k. d., chaves, v. b. s., pereira, l. d., dos reis, e. f., salazar, a. h. and da silva, d. f. p. 2018. chlorophyll content and degrees day accumulation in passion fruit species in the southwest of goias, br azil. comunicata scientiae, 9(3): 351-355 fig. 2 : sds-page protein profiling of seven genotypes of passiflora quadrangularis l. from east siang district, arunachal pradesh from the study of morphological, biochemical and seed protein profiling it could be concluded that all seven genotypes belong to same species i.e., passiflora quadrangularis l. locally known as vegetable squash (by adi tribe of arunachal pradesh). as its green fruits and leaves are nutritious this novel underexploited passiflora species can be explored for commercial cultivation as a source of vegetable in the future. because of its higher fruit yielding capability, the fruits also have a lot of potential in the food processing industry. acknowledgement we are obliged to the department of fruit science, college of hor ticultur e & for estr y, centr a l agricultural university, pasighat, arunachal pradesh, india for the cooperation during the research work on this underutilized fruit crop. references aizza, l.c.b., sawaya, a.c.h.f. and dornelas, m.c. 2019. identification of anthocyanins in the corona of two species of passiflora and their hybr id by ultr a -high-per for ma nce chromatography with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (uhplc-esi-ms/ ms). biochem. systematics ecol., 85: 60-67. alquezar, b., rodrigo, m.j. and zacarias, l. 2008. carotenoid biosynthesis and their regulation in citrus fruits. tree for. sci. biotech., 2(1): 2335. morphological and biochemical characterization of passiflora quadrangularis l. 8 esti, m., cinquanta, l., sinesio, f., moneta, e. and di matteo, m. 2002. physicochemical and sensory fruit characteristics of two sweet cherry cultivars after cool storage. food chem., 76: 399-405. feuillet, c. 2004. passiflora ceae (passionflower family). in: n., mori, s.a., henderson, a., stevenson, d. w. a nd hea ld, s. d. 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passiflora quadrangularis. in: edible medicinal and non-medicinal plants. springer, dordrecht. pp. 181-186. loizzo, m.r., lucci, p., nunez, o., tundis, r., balzano, m., frega, n.g., lanfranco, c., sabrina, m., daria, f., encarnacion, m. and pacetti, d. 2019. native colombian fruits and their by-products: phenolic profile, antioxidant a ctivity a nd hypoglyca emic potential. foods, 8(3): 89. lowry, o.h., rosebrough, n.j., farr, a.l. and randall, r.j. 1951. protein measurement with the folin phenol reagent. j. biol. chem., 193: 265-275. malick, c.p. and singh, m.b. 1980. plant enzymology and histo enzymology. kalyani publishers. new delhi, p. 286. marroquin, m.n., cruz, s.m. and caceres, a. 2011. antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds in three species of passifloraceae (passiflora edulis, p. incarnata, p. ligularis ) fr om guatemala . pr oceedings of inter na tiona l symposium on medicinal and aromatic plants. june 19, 2010. shiraz, iran. pp. 93-98. meghwal, p.r. azam, m.m. 2004. performance of some a onla cultiva r s in a r id r egion of rajasthan. indian j. hortic. 61: 87-88. mortz, e., krogh, t.n., vorum, h. and gorg, a. 2001. improved silver staining protocols for high sensitivity protein identification using matrixassisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight analysis. proteomics, 1(11), 1359-1363. nei, m. and li, w. h. 1979. mathematical model for studying genetic variation in terms of restriction endonuclease. proc. nat. acad. sci., 76, 52695273. oliveira, g., castillos, f., renard, k. and bureau, s. 2014. compa r ison of nir a nd mir spectroscopic methods for determination of individual sugars, organic acids and carotenoids in passion fruit. food res. int., 60: 154–162. pandey, s. and deen, b. 2018. studies on the pattern of changes biochemical constitutes of ber (zizyphus mauritiana la mk. ) fr uits cv. na r endr a ber selection-1. int. j. curr. microbiol. appl. sci., 7(4): 636-640. patel, r.k., singh, a., prakash, j., nath, a. and deka, b.c. 2014. physicobiochemical changes during fruit growth, development and maturity in passion fruit genotypes. ind. j. hort.71(4): 486-493. ramaiya, s.d., lee, h.h., xiao, y.j., shahbani, n.s., zakaria, m.h. and bujang, j.s. 2021. organic cultivation practices enhanced antioxidant activities and secondary metabolites in giant granadilla (passiflora quadrangularis l.). plos one. 16(7): e0255059 ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products. tata mcgraw hill publishing co. ltd., new delhi. pp.190-210. shankar, k., et al 9 reis, l.c.r.d, facco, e.m.p., salvador, m., flores, s.h. and de oliveira rios, a. 2018. antioxidant potential and physicochemical characterization of yellow, purple and orange passion fruit. j. food sci. technol., 55(7): 2679-2691. rudnicki, m., de oliveira, m.r., pereira, t.v., reginatto, f.h., dal-pizzol, f. and moreira, j.c.f. 2005. antioxidant and antiglycation properties of passiflora alata and passiflora edulis extracts. food chem.,100(2007): 719724. shanmugam, s., gomes, i.a., denadai, m., dos santos lima, b., de souza araujo, a.a., nar ain, n., maria t.s. l., neta, m.r. s., lucindo, j.q.j. and thanga ra j, p. 2018. uhplc-qqq-ms/ms identifica tion, quantification of polyphenols from passiflora subpeltata fruit pulp and determination of nutritional, antioxidant, α-amylase and αglucosida se key enzymes inhibition properties. food res. int., 108: 611-620. singh, h.b., singh rs, sandhu js. 2003. herbal medicine of manipur: a colour encyclopedia, daya publishing house, new delhi. singh, r.k., chowdhury, b.d. 1985. biometrical method in quantitative genetic analysis. 2nd ed. kalyani publishers, ludhiana, new delhi. pp. 54-57. singh, s.r., phurailatpam, a.k., wangchu, l., nga ngba m, p. a nd cha nu, t. m. 2014. tr a ditiona l medicina l knowledge of underutilized minor fruits as medicine in manipur. int. j. agric. sci., 4(8): 241-247. somogyi, m. 1952. notes on sugar determination. j. biol. chem., 195: 19-23. tripathi p.c., karunakaran, g., sakthivel, t., sankar v. and senthilkumar, r. 2014. cultivation of pa ssion fruit. technical bulletin, centr al hor ticultur al experiment sta tion india n institute of horticultural research chettalli-571 248, kodagu, karnataka. ulmer, t. and macdougal, j.m. 2004. passiflora: passion flowers of the world. timber press portland, p. 430. valente, a., albuquerque, t.g., sanches-silva, a. and costa, h.s. 2011. ascorbic acid content in exotic fruits: a contribution to produce quality data for food composition databases. food res. int. 44(7): 2237–2242. vijay, d.t. and rajendra, s.b. 2014. estimation of total phenol, tannin, alkaloid and flavonoid in hibiscus tiliaceus l. wood extracts. res. rev.j. pharmacog. phytochem., 2(4): 41-47. morphological and biochemical characterization of passiflora quadrangularis l. the tulip (tulipa gesneriana l.) is excellent for cut flowers, garden display and pot culture. in india, tulips thrive well in temperate regions of jammu & kashmir, himachal pradesh, uttranchal and other similar hilly regions. there is a good scope for growing tulips for cut flowers in temperate regions. the short vase life of tulip, however, is a major bottleneck in exploiting its utility on a wider scale and even restricts distant marketing. therefore, post harvest handling plays an important role in enhancing keeping quality of cut flowers. post harvest application of various growth regulators have been used in vase solutions to enhance the vase life of cut flowers (salvi et al, 1999). however, pre harvest 1plant physiology section, division of post harvest technology management is also equally important to improve the post harvest behavior and quality gibbrellic acid (ga 3 ) and paclobutrazol (pp 333 ) have been reported to increase the yield and post harvest quality of many flowers (harbaugh and wilfret, 1979; singh et al, 1999). paclobutrazol results in retardation of vegetative growth and diversion of assimilates to reproductive growth, giving increased yield potential with better quality flowers. keeping above facts in view, the present investigation was carried out to analyze the effect of pre harvest application of ga 3 and effect of pre-harvest application of ga 3 and pp 333 as bulb dip and foliar spray on quality and vase life of cut tulip cv. cassini f. u. khan, f. a. malik, f. a. khan1 and nelofar division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences & technology of kashmir shalimar campus, srinagar-191121, india e mail: fukhanskuastk@rediffmail.com abstract an experiment on effect of pre-harvest application of ga 3 and pp 333 as bulb dip and foliar spray on quality and vase life of cut tulip cv. cassini was carried out. healthy scapes of uniform size were cut in a slanting manner at bud colour break stage and placed in conical flasks containing distilled water for vase life studies. bulb dip in ga 3 (100 ppm) followed by foliar spray of ga 3 (100 ppm) significantly improved overall water uptake, prevented water loss and resulted in maximum water balance. the treatment also exhibited the maximum flower diameter (7.40 cm), scape length (16.26 cm) and vase life (9.33 days). however, the lowest water loss to water uptake ratio was recorded with bulb dip plus foliar spray with 200 ppm ga 3 . data indicated that ga 3 (100 ppm) as bulb dip plus foliar spray proved instrumental in maintaining the quality and vase life of cut tulip as compared to other treatments. key words: cut tulip, quality, vase life, gibberellic acid, paclobutrazol paclobutrazol on post harvest behavior and vase life of cut tulip cv. cassini. the present experiment was carried out at the division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, skuast-k, shalimar, srinagar during 2003-04. healthy and uniform sized bulbs of tulip cv. cassini were dipped in different concentrations of ga 3 (100, 200 and 300 ppm) and pp 333 (10, 20 and 30 ppm) for 30 minutes. the growing media prepared by mixing soil + compost + sand in the ratio of 2:1:1 was filled in clay pots measuring 20 cm in diameter. air dried bulbs were planted in pots following the randomized block design. when plants reached 3-leaf stage, three concentrations of ga 3 (100, 200 and 300 ppm) and pp 333 (10, 20 and 30 ppm) were applied as foliar spray to wet the leaves completely. there were a total of 19 treatments including control (distilled water). uniform cultural practices like application of fertilizers, weeding, irrigation and plant protection measures were adopted. the healthy looking scapes of uniform size were cut in a slanting manner at bud colour break stage leaving only one leaf on each scape. after taking the initial weight, scapes were placed in conical flasks containing 250 ml of distilled water. all the treatments were replicated thrice with five flasks in j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 156-158, 2007 short communication 1plant physiology section, division of post harvest technology 156 157 each replication. the weight of each flask, with and without flower scape, were recorded on alternate days and per cent fresh weight gain, cumulative water uptake, water loss, water balance and water loss-water uptake ratio were calculated (venkatarayappa et al, 1980). days taken to flower, flower diameter, scape length and vase life calculated from the day of full flower to the day when petals expressed first sign of wilting, were also recorded and the method of gomez and gomez (1984) was applied for analysis of variance. perusal of the data presented in table 1 revealed that per cent fresh weight gain of scapes decreased due to the bulb dip treatments in ga 3 as well as pp 333 . however, scapes which received foliar sprays of ga 3 and pp 333 showed significant increase in fresh weight gain. in case of combined application of bulb dip + foliar spray, only lower doses of ga 3 (100 ppm) and pp 333 (10 ppm) increased the fresh weight gain while higher doses of ga 3 (200 and 300 ppm) and pp 333 (20 and 30 ppm) significantly reduced the fresh weight gain. increased fresh weight gain of tulip scapes by foliar sprays of ga 3 could be attributed to the ability of ga 3 to maintain higher soluble sugar content in the perianth tissue and membrane properties (sultan and farooq, 1999). data also showed that both cumulative water uptake and water loss increased remarkably due to various hormonal treatments, however, 100 ppm of ga 3 applied as bulb dip plus foliar spray exhibited the maximum water balance (14.17 g/scape) with minimum water loss-water uptake ratio (0.72) followed by foliar spray of 100 ppm ga 3 . this may be due to the fact that ga 3 increases water uptake capacity and reduces the water loss by maintaining better water loss-water uptake ratio. these results are in agreement with the findings of rekha et al (2001) in gladiolus and emongor (2004) in lilium. pre harvest application of plant growth regulators significantly influenced the cut flower quality and vase life of tulip (table 2). it is obvious from the data that days taken to flower decreased due to application of ga 3 as well as pp 333 , ga 3 application also resulted in earliness of flowering when given as foliar spray. similar results were also reported by nasr and shalabi (1996) in zantedeschia. both ga 3 and pp 333 treatments also caused an increase in diameter of flowers although these results were insignificant. pre harvest application of ga 3 resulted in an increased scape length whereas pp 333 caused a decrease in scape length. the maximum scape length (16.26 cm) was recorded with (ga 3 100 ppm) as bulb dip plus foliar spray followed by ga 3 (300 ppm) as foliar spray. this rapid growth by the application of ga 3 is due to the higher number of cells formed as well as elongation of individual cell by way of more utilization of photosynthates (su and kwack, 1989; ramesh et al, 2001; sharma et al, 2001). shortened scape length due to the application of pp 333 is also in accordance with the result of kwack and kwack (1990). results pertaining to the vase life revealed that foliar application of ga 3 significantly increased the vase life of cut tulip while pp 333 resulted in reduced vase life of tulip. however, the maximum vase life (9.33 day) was recorded with bulb dip plus foliar spray of 100 ppm of ga 3 followed by the foliar spray of 100 ppm ga 3 alone. similar results were reported by dutta et al (1993) in chrysanthemum, ichimura and goto (2000) in narcissus and gaur et al (2003) in gladiolus. it is concluded from the findings of the present experiment that longer vase life and maximum flower diameter of tulip cut flowers can be achieved by application of 100 ppm ga 3 as bulb dip and /or foliar spray to maintain high water balance through low water loss –water uptake ratio. references dutta, j. p., seemanthini, r., khader, m. a. and ramdas, s. 1993. regulation of flowering by growth regulators in chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum indicum linn.) cv. co.l. south indian hort., 41:293-299 emongor, v. e. 2004. effects of gibberellic acid on post harvest quality and vase life of gerbera cut flowers (gerbera jamesonii). j. agron., 3:191-195 gaur, g. s., choudhary, t. c. and trivedi, j. d. 2003. effect of ga 3 and iaa on growth flowering and corm production in gladiolus cv. eurovision. farm sci. j., 12:1-3 gomez, k. a. and gomez, a. a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research (second edition). john wiley and sons. inc. new york, usa harbaugh, b. k. and wilfret, g. j. 1979. gibberellic acid (ga 3 ) stimulates flowering in caladium hortulanum birdsey. hort. sci., 14:72-73 ichimura, k. and goto, r. 2000. effect of ga 3 on leaf yellowing and vase life of cut narcissus tazetta var. chinensis flowers. j. japanese soc. hort. sci., 69:423-427 kwack, h. l. and kwack, b. h. 1990. effects of paclobutrazol and gibberellin on extent of leaf yellow netting and growth of lonicera japonica var. aureo reticulata. j. korean soc. hort. sci., 31:311-315 nasr, m. n. and shalabi, h. g. 1996. production of zantedeschia as flowering pot plant by using growth regulators. alexandria j. agric. res., 41:247-262 effect of pre-harvest application of growth regulators on tulip j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 156-158, 2007 158 ramesh, k. m., selvarajan, m. and chezbiyan, n. 2001. effect of certain growth substances and salicylic acid on the growth and yield of china aster (callistephus chinensis l. nees) cv. kamini. orissa j. hort., 29:2 rekha, m. k., shankaraiah, v., reddy, k. c., srihari, d. and sarma, p. s. 2001. effect of preservative solutions with sucrose on vase life of cut gladiolus spikes at room temperature. j. res. angrau, 29:44-49 salvi, b. r., rajeevan, p. k., valsalakumari, p. k. and geetha, c. k. 1999. chemical regulation of post harvest life of jasminum sambac. j. orn. hort., 2:141-143 sharma, c. p., maurya, a. n., srivastava, o. p. and ashok, m. 2001. role of ga 3 , maleic hydrazide and ethrel in modifying vegetative and floral characters of chrysanthemum morifolium ram. orissa j. hort., 29:2 singh, d. b., mehra, s. and bensam, n. c. 1999. effect of paclobutrazol on flowering of chrysanthemum. j. ornam. hort., 2:92-96 su, j. k. and kwack, b. h. 1989. studies on the flower stalk elongation of tulipa gesneriana l., j. korean soc. hortl. sci., 30:343-355 sultan, s. m. and farooq, s. 1999. effect of sucrose and ga 3 on the senescence of cut flowers of narcissus tazetta cv. kashmir local. adv. hort. sci., 13:105:107 venkatarayappa, t., tsujita, n. j. and murr, d. p. 1980. influence of cobaltous ion (co2+) on the post-harvest behaviour of ‘samantha’ roses. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 105:148-151 (ms received 5 december 2006, revised 13 september 2007) khan et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 156-158, 2007 marker-trait association for fruit characters in mango (mangifera indica l.) cultivars b. padmakar1, m.r.dinesh2, k.v. ravishankar1* 1division of biotechnology, 2division of fruit crops icar-indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author: e-mail: kvravi@iihr.res.in, fax: +91-80-28466291 ph: +91-80-28466420 extn: 406 (off.), +91-9480050523 (mob.) abstract in the present study, putative marker-trait associations were identified within a core collection of mango cultivars by simple-sequence-repeat marker based association study. a panel of 48 mango var ieties which represented the core collection of the south-west region of india, were characterized at the molecular level using 31 simple sequence repeat markers. morphological characterization included important fruit characteristics viz., fruit weight, total soluble solids (tss), pulp content and acidity. the study on population structure revealed two sub-groups in the core collection. association analysis, computed by gene ral line ar model (glm), using tassel resulted in the identification of seven markers being associated with the trait titrable acidity where as one marker each of the traits fruit weight and tss. these traitspecific markers were highly significant at p<0.05 and explained a good amount of phenotypic variation by exhibiting substantial r2 values ranging from 0.71 to 0.86 for acidity, 0.61 for tss and 0.59 for fruit weight. this is the first report on marker-trait associations (mta) in mango. key words: marker-trait association, fruit characters, mango, mangifera indica l. introduction the genus mangifera belongs to the family anacardiaceae, and mangifera indica l. (mango) is the most important species in this genus for commercial fruit production. mango has been under cultivation in india for more than 4000 years (de candolle, 1884; mukherjee, 1951). india is considered as the world’s richest diversity centre for mango. the narrow genetic base of modern crop cultivars is the most serious obstacle to sustain and improve crop productivity due to the rapid vulnerability of genetically uniform cultivars by potentially new biotic and abiotic stresses (van esbroeck et al, 1999). plant genetic resources comprising of wild plant species, modern cultivars and their crop wild relatives, which are the important reservoirs of natural genetic variations, originated from a number of historical genetic events as a response to environmental stresses and selection through crop domestication (ross-ibarra and gaut, 2007; meilleur and hodgkin, 2004). an efficient exploiting of these ex situ c onserved genetic diversities is vital to overcome future problems a ssoc iated with the narrowness of the genetic base of modern cultivars. association mapping was first introduced into plant genetics in 2001 (thornsberry et al, 2001). this depends on the population structure and linkage disequilibrium (ld) pattern in plants (flint-garcia et al, 2003). many important crops have a long and complex domestication and breeding history, together with the limited gene flow in most wild plants and populations exist as complex population structures (sharbel et al, 2000; flint-garcia et al, 2003). when performing association a nalysis based on these popula tions without considering the effects of population structure, spurious association between genotype and phenotype variation may be detected because of the unequal allele frequency distribution between subgroups (knowler et al, 1988). recently, j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 170-178, 2017 171 with the development of statistics, independent markers that are distributed through whole genome are successfully used to detect population structures (pritchard et al, 2000a, b). the resolution of association mapping depends on the extent and distribution of ld ac ross the ge nome within a given popula tion (remington et al, 2001). in mango, information on genetic diversity, population structure, and ld is very meagre. hence, the objectives of our present research were to assess the genetic diversity in the germplasm collection, to investigate the population structure of the germplasm and, fina lly, to detect the putative ma rker-trait associations. material and methods plant material a set of 48 mango cultivars, from a pool of 269 cultivars of the indian peninsular region were selected as core-collection, which are being maintained in the field genebank collection of the indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india, were taken for the study. the total genomic dna was extracted from leaf mate ria l by modified ctab me thod (ravishankar et al, 2000). the dna quantification was c arr ied out using a gene qua nt uvspectrophotometer (ge health care bio-sciences ltd) a nd inte grity wa s e xa mine d by aga rose gel electrophoresis (1.0%). morphological characterization the genotypes were characterized for traits such as fruit weight (g), tss (ºb), acidity (%) and pulp content (%). mature, naturally ripened fruits were used for recording observations on fruit weight, tss, acidity and pulp content. the mean of five randomly chosen fruits in each variety was used for analysis. tss was determined using a refractometer. pulp content was calculated using the following formula: {total fruit wt (g) [stone wt (g) + peel wt (g)]} x 100/total fruit wt (g) titrable acidity was determined by titration in terms of citric acid with naoh 0.1n where 10ml of the sample was taken and dissolved in water to make up the volume to 100ml and filtered through muslin cloth. 10ml of the aliquot was titrated against 0.1n naoh using a few drops of 1% phenolphthalein indicator till the pink colour persisted as an end-point (ranganna, 1977). acidity was calculated as per cent anhydrous citric acid as per the formula given below: titre × normality of alkali × volume made up × eq. wt. of acid × 100 % acidity = -------------------------------------------------------volume of sample taken for estimation × wt./ volume of sample × 1000 molecular characterization a set of 31 ssr loci containing 20 ssrs developed in our laboratory (ravishankar et al, 2011) was used for genotyping the core mango germplasm. the remaining 11 ssr markers were selected from other studies (schnell et al, 2005; duval et al, 2005; viruel et al, 2005). pcr amplification was performed using labelled forward primers with fluorophores fam and hex at their 5’ end. pcr reaction conditions were e mploye d a s pe r ra vis hanka r e t al ( 2011). amplification products were initially screened on 3% agarose gel electrophoresis and, then, hex and fam amplified products were pooled. pooled pcr products were separated to determine product-size by capillary electrophoresis using an automated dna sequencer abi 3730 dna analyzer (applied biosystems, foster city, ca) at the facility at icrisat, hyderabad. existing genetic diversity within the core collection was assessed by analyzing the following parameters: number of alleles per locus (a), observed he te roz ygosity ( ho, dire ct count), expe c ted heterozygosity (he=1 pi2 where, pi is the frequency of the ith alle le ) (ne i 1973) and polymorphic information content (pic) was arrived at as per botstein et al (1980). this was done using cervus 3.0.3 software (kalinowski et al, 2007). additionally, genetic relationship among genotypes was calculated by computing the dissimilarities through simple ma tc hing c o-e ffic ient a nd a de ndr ogra m wa s constructed using ward’s minimum variance method and darwin 5.0 software (perrier et al, 2003). population structure analysis structure 2.3.1 (pritchard et al, 2000a) was used for evaluating the structure, i.e., to identify the admixture among cultivars, and, to predict the number of populations present among the 269 cultivars under study. the number of subgroups (k) was set from 2 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 170-178, 2017 marker-trait association in mango 172 to 10. for each k, six runs were performed separately by setting the burn-in length and mcmc iterations to 100,000. the model choice criterion implemented in the structure to detect true k is an estimate of the posterior probability of data for a given k, pr(x | k) (pritchard et al, 2000a). this value, called ‘ln p(d)’ in structure output, is obtained by first computing the log likelihood of data at each step of the mcmc. from this k, which is the second order rate of change of likelihood, the function with respect to k was computed and plotted against k, for detecting the number of true populations (evanno et al, 2005). structure harvester (earl, 2009), which harvests data from structure results and generates k (evanno et al, 2005), was used to predict the true number of populations. cultivars with membership probabilities e” 0.8 were assigned to the corresponding sub-group and lines while membership probabilities < 0.8 were assigned to a ‘mixed’ sub-group. association analysis with available genotyping, phenotyping and structure-based q-matrix data, association analysis was computed using the general linear model (glm) module by selecting f-test with 1000 permutations, with software trait analysis by association, evolution and linkage (tassel) 2.10 (bradbury et al, 2007). results and discussion morphological characterization fruit weight ranged from 20g to 898g, with a mean of 288.9g per fruit. tss values (ºbrix) ranged from 8.85 to 23.9, with a mean value of 17.6. per cent titrable acidity values ranged from 0.12 to 6.02, with a mean value of 0.714. pulp content in the fruit ranged from 26.6% to 79.8%, with a mean value of 65.07% (table 1), which showed considerable variation for various traits among the varieties studied. a wide variability, existing for different traits in mango varieties from different regions, has been reported earlier (lakshminarayana, 1980). molecular characterization a total of 31 ssr loci, randomly distributed across the genome, were used for evaluating genetic diversity in the core mango germplasm consisting of 48 cultivars. all the 31 ssr loci studied were polymorphic across the 48 cultivars, and a total of 380 alleles were detected (table 2). average number of alleles per locus was 12.25, ranging from 3 to 22. mean pic value was 0.768, with a range of 0.516–0.936. choice of germplasm is one of the key fac tors determining resolution in association mapping. for de tec ting more number of allele s, the selec ted germplasm should theoretically include all the genetic variation available in a particular species, because, a divers e ge rmpla sm include s a more extensive recombination in its history, and allows for high level of resolution. in the present study, 31 ssr loci, likely distributed randomly across the genome, were used for detecting genetic diversity in a germplasm containing 48 mango cultivars. a total of 380 alleles, with an average of 12.25 alleles per locus, were detected in the entire population; the average pic was 0.768. the genetic diversity detected was much higher than that reported by singh and bhat (2009), he being 0.651 and pic 0.483. the main reasons for this difference are the germplasm under study and the ssrs used. the high genetic diversity detected in our study was mainly due to the broad range of germplasm used and more number of dinucleotide-type ssrs used, which are considered to have higher mutation rates than the other types (vigouroux et al, 2002). the dendrogram developed (fig. 1) clustered the mango varieties into two main groups, which were further sub-grouped into several sub-clusters based on their genetic relationship. these groupings are incongruent with results of the structure. fig. 1. dendrogram of 48 mango cultivars generated through ward’s minimum variance method using dissimilarity matrix, computed by simple-matching coefficient through darwin software j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 170-178, 2017 padmakar et al 173 cultivar fruit weight (g) tss (obrix) acidity pulp content (%) akhadya 203.70 19.60 0.32 60.10 allanpurbaneshan 360.00 17.90 0.25 73.19 alphonso 246.20 19.00 0.32 66.90 appemidi 111.00 15.50 2.88 63.06 aryasamaj 281.00 14.90 0.19 69.61 asiquot 465.00 18.00 0.38 76.93 bandarbandal 481.20 19.50 0.25 76.66 banganapalli 440.00 18.50 0.12 61.70 bombaygreen 350.00 21.50 0.32 65.00 chandrakaran 56.20 23.70 0.80 26.60 chettalli 436.50 11.10 0.19 79.80 cipia 387.00 18.70 0.19 68.09 dwarfrumani 201.00 14.50 0.12 76.83 goakodur 183.00 13.20 0.83 67.38 gulabkhas 231.00 20.00 0.19 75.46 guruvam 225.50 15.20 0.38 64.10 halsage 99.00 8.85 3.78 52.30 hamlet 898.00 14.30 2.43 69.00 himayatpasand 492.50 20.70 0.12 63.30 holekoppodaappe 81.90 9.40 6.02 45.06 hydersaheb 242.50 18.80 0.25 58.20 jeerige 177.00 16.00 1.47 63.61 kadikai 292.70 15.90 0.70 75.65 kalapadi 150.00 19.50 0.44 31.90 kanaappe-1 22.60 22.10 1.21 46.46 karol 202.00 22.00 0.64 66.60 khuddus 178.00 20.40 0.25 69.37 lazzatbaksh 20.00 13.80 0.13 64.20 mahamoozda 245.00 20.70 0.13 59.10 malaimisri 248.00 14.70 0.19 70.60 malgesh 271.50 14.70 0.25 69.31 moreh 237.00 17.50 0.51 61.44 muffarai 351.50 23.90 0.76 70.35 mulgoa 362.50 20.80 0.27 64.40 mutwarpasand 837.50 12.60 0.64 77.00 navneetham 440.00 20.70 0.38 75.07 neelum 256.00 20.00 0.40 57.00 nekkare 170.00 15.50 0.38 43.20 papayarajugoa 467.50 20.80 0.32 75.90 peddarasam 463.70 14.80 0.12 71.90 rangoongoa 320.00 20.00 0.61 71.60 ratnagirialphonso 220.00 20.00 0.32 74.34 rumani 200.00 19.20 0.25 75.40 sardar 236.20 19.20 0.14 59.70 shendriya 225.50 19.00 0.38 64.92 shidadakkeappe 171.70 10.80 2.63 66.98 totapuri 471.00 17.50 0.25 70.50 vellaikulamban 161.00 18.70 0.19 67.60 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 170-178, 2017 marker-trait association in mango table 1. list of traits and their morphological characteristics within the core collection 174 polymorphic observed expected information locus no. of alleles heterozygosity (ho) heterozygosity (he) content (pic) miiihr03 4 0.543 0.666 0.59 miiihr04 11 0.532 0.792 0.754 miiihr05 9 0.63 0.699 0.653 miiihr12 6 0.646 0.686 0.631 miiihr13 8 0.646 0.825 0.79 miiihr15 19 0.596 0.888 0.868 miiihr17 22 0.708 0.937 0.923 miiihr18 15 0.25 0.789 0.767 miiihr19 20 0.688 0.902 0.883 miiihr23 20 0.354 0.912 0.895 miiihr24 17 0.479 0.835 0.808 miiihr26 22 0.479 0.949 0.936 miiihr28 13 0.667 0.845 0.816 miiihr30 15 0.729 0.901 0.882 miiihr31 16 0.563 0.835 0.812 miiihr32 17 0.688 0.886 0.868 miiihr34 14 0.75 0.859 0.835 miiihr35 12 0.583 0.874 0.85 miiihr36 21 0.75 0.9 0.883 miiihr37 18 0.604 0.87 0.847 mishrs1 13 0.5 0.873 0.835 mishrs4 12 0.393 0.877 0.846 mishrs18 8 0.595 0.699 0.644 mishrs37 9 0.333 0.702 0.668 mishrs48 3 0.375 0.642 0.516 micr008 4 0.25 0.758 0.658 micr009 7 0.649 0.778 0.729 micr018 5 0 0.758 0.677 micr030 10 0.435 0.859 0.823 lmma7 4 0.625 0.708 0.616 lmma11 6 0.13 0.577 0.533 population structure in order to understand the genetic structure of the population under study, a model-based approach in the structure software was used to subdivide ea c h cultiva r to the c or res ponding s ubgroup. structure software was run for the number of fixed subgroups k from 2 to 10, and six runs were performed for each k. as the structure software overestimates the number of subgroups (pritchard and wen, 2004), and it is difficult to choose the ‘‘correct’’ k from the ln probability of data, ln p(d). thus, the true number of populations in the present study has been predicted by computing the k (evanno et al, 2005), which is the second order rate of change of the likelihood function with respect to k, using structure harvester (earl, 2009). the resulting plot (fig. 2) between k and k clearly showed the number of populations of k=2 is true. the structure derived subgroups were corresponded as p1 and p2. p1 subgroup was the largest with 25 cultivars, followed by p2 sub-group having 19 cultivars. additionally, 4 cultivars that had < 0.8 membership in each of the two j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 170-178, 2017 padmakar et al table 2. list of ssr markers used and their characteristics 175 fig. 2. graph of k (assumed population number) versus dk (second-order rate of change of likelihood function with respect to k) predicting the probability that k=2 is true (obverlap of words in the diagram are due to immutable software and may be ignored) sub-groups, and had a mixture of the two sub-groups, were assigned to a mixed sub-group. out-breeding and the wide range of agroclimatic conditions prevalent in this country continue to contribute to diversity in this crop that has a complex ge ne tic ba ckground. there fore , unde rstanding population structure and relationships in mango germplasm is of significant importance for mango improvement and association analysis. evaluation of population structure is of considerable interest, as, it is a prerequisite for answering several other questions suc h a s e stimation of migra tion, ide ntifying conservation units, and, specifying phylo-geographical patterns (manel et al, 2005). for statistical inference, model-based approaches such as bayesian clustering are more suitable (pritchard et al, 2000a or 2000b). in the present study, analysis of k (which is the secondorder rate of change of likelihood function with respect to k) clearly predicted the probability of a number of populations of k=2 as true. association analysis in pla nt syste ms, linka ge ma pping ha s traditionally been the most commonly employed method to explain natural phenotypic variation in terms of simple j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 170-178, 2017 marker-trait association in mango 176 changes in dna sequence: experimental crosses are made to generate a family with known relatedness, and, attempts are made to identify co-segregation of genetic markers and phenotypes within this family. in vertebrate systems, association mapping (also known as linkage disequilibrium mapping) is increasingly being used as the mapping method of choice. association mapping involves looking for genotype-phenotype correlation in unrelated individuals, and, is often more rapid and cost-effective than traditional linkage mapping. association mapping is not a controlled experiment, but rather, a natural experiment. genotype and phenotype data are collected from a population in which relatedness is not controlled by the experimenter, and c orrelations be twee n ge ne tic marke rs a nd phenotype are sought within the population. this opensystem-design provides higher mapping resolution than the closed system of controlled crosses; but it is difficult to infer as to when and where the recombination occurred. unlike in vertebrates where controlled crosses may be expensive or impossible, the scientific community in plants can exploit advantages of both controlled crosses and association mapping to increase statistical power and mapping resolution. besides, this strategy contributes to detection of genetic basis of variation exhibited in various traits of economic importance. j u s t a f e w r e po rt s a r e a va il a bl e on association-mapping-based identification of markertrait associations in plants such as maize (harjes et al, 2008;kump et al, 2011; tian et al , 2011), arabidopsis (brachi et al, 2010), barley (ramsay et al, 2011), wheat (zhang et al, 2010; letta et al, 2013) and rice (huang et al, 2011). in the case of pe re nn ia l t re e c rop s (whe r e de ve lopme nt of ma pping popula t ions is a ma jor c ons tra in t), association ma pping is considered as a pivotal strategy for diss ecting complex tra its a nd for identifying genes responsible for trait-variations. therefore, in the present study, we selected a diverse panel of 48 mango cultivars as a core from a set of 269 cultivars. the core was exploited for phenotyping, genotyping and for also identifying population structure. data thus generated was used for identifying putative marker-trait associations. of the 31 s sr m a rke r s s c r e e ne d, ni ne sh owe d significant association with three traits (table 3); se ve n we re a ss oc iated with the tra it, a cidity; whereas, there was one marker for fruit weight, and one for tss. these trait-specific markers were hi ghl y s ign if ic a nt a t p< 0. 0 5 a nd e xp la i ne d considerable amount of phenotypic variation by exhibiting substantial r2 values, ranging from 0.71 to 0.86 for acidity, 0.61 for tss and 0.59 for fruit padmakar et al table 3. list of identified marker-trait associations and their characteristics trait locus p-value r2_marker_value acidity miiihr17 9.9 x 10-4 0.885 acidity mishrs1 0.004 0.864 acidity miiihr36 9.9 x 10-4 0.841 acidity miiihr30 0.033 0.781 acidity miiihr23 0.025 0.751 acidity miiihr24 9.9 x 10-4 0.712 acidity miiihr12 9.9 x 10-4 0.533 fruit weight miiihr04 0.047 0.593 tss miiihr37 0.048 0.614 weight. we could not conduct linkage disequilibrium and linkage decay studies, as no linkage map is available for mango yet. in a recent study in peach and nectarine cultvars, significant association was observed between markers and pomological traits (forca da et al, 2013). t he marke r bppct015 showed significant association with harvest date, flavonoid and sorbitol content, also, two genotypes of cppct028 showed association with harvest date, total phenolics and total sugars. to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on identification of marker-trait association using association studies in mango. thus, ide ntification of trait-specific markers can play a vital role in marker-assisted s e l e c ti on (m as ) fo r a c c e le r a t in g ma n go improvement programs. acknowledgement the authors acknowledge financial support from department of biotechnology, new delhi, for studies on markers. j. hortl. sci. vol. 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p., barbieri, m., ferri, m. and hormaza, j.i. 2005. fingerprinting, embryo type and geographic diffe rentiation in mango (mangifera indica l., anacardiaceae) with microsatellites. mol. breed., 15:383-393 zhang, z., ersoz, e., lai, c-q. et al. 2010. mixed linear model approach adapted for genome-wide association studies. nature genet., 42:355-360 b. padmakar et al (ms received 07 december 2016 , revised 15 december 2016, accepted 25 december 2016) j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 170-178, 2017 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 112-114, 2007 introduction gladiolus is considered as an easy to grow bulbous ornamental because of its wide adaptability to varying agroclimatic regions. it is grown extensively in the tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world. yield as well as quality of flower spikes and daughter corms depends on several factors, of which size of the mother corm and spacing, play an important role. therefore, the present study was undertaken to work out the optimum size for the mother corm in gladiolus cv. white prosperity and ideal spacing for the sowing corms under kashmir conditions. material and methods experiments were conducted for two consecutive years (2005 and 2006). nine treatments were imposed with three corm sizes (dia in cm), viz., 4.1-4.5, 4.6-5.0 and 5.15.5 and three plant spacings (cm), viz., 10 x 20, 15 x 20 and 20 x 20 between plants and rows. corms were planted at a depth of 5 cm in the first week of march during both years. experiments were laid out in randomised block design with three replications. observations were recorded on effect of spacing and corm size on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus cv. white prosperity under kashmir conditions z. a. bhat and f. u. khan division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants s.k. university of agricultural sciences & technology of kashmir shalimar, srinagar – 191 121, india e-mail:zahoorflori2003@gmail.com abstract a study was carried out during 2005 2006 at the division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, skuast-k, shalimar, to determine the effect of corm size (4.1-4.5, 4.6-5.0 and 5.1-5.5 cm) and spacing (10 x 20, 15 x 20 and 20 x 20 cm) on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus cv. white prosperity. largersized corms (5.1-5.5 cm) with wider plant spacing (20 x 20 cm) gave the best performance. number of days taken to spike emergence, plant height, number of leaves plant-1, spike length, number of florets spike-1 and diameter of floret were observed to be significantly better with larger-sized corms. minimum days taken to slipping were also found to be due to larger size of the corms. number of corms plant-1, corm weight, diameter of corm, number of cormel plant-1 and cormels weight plant-1, in terms of both quality and quantity, showed increasing trend with an increasing corm-size and spacing. therefore, wider spacing and larger corm size may be recommended for realising better quality and higher production in gladiolus cv. white prosperity under kashmir conditions. key words: gladiolus, corm size, spacing, vegetative growth, flower quality vegetative growth, floral and corm production parameters. spikes were harvested when the lowermost florets developed colour. corms were lifted from the soil two months after harvest of spikes. two years data collected from 5 plants/plot each year were analysed statistically (chandel, 1975). results and discussion vegetative characters the results clearly indicate a significant influence of corm size on growth, flowering in gladiolus (table 1). bigger corms took significantly less number of days (20.16 and 18.77) to corm emergence, but, per cent corm emergence did not show any significant effect during 2005 and 2006. bigger sized corms also produced taller plants (71.22 and 73.45 cm) and more number of leaves (7.78 and 8.71) plant-1, as also observed by mukhopadhyay and yadav (1984) and islam et al. (2000). this could be due to higher amounts of stored food reserves in large corms. out of the three spacings, viz., 10 x 20, 15 x 20 and 20 x 20 cm, the spacing of 20 x 20 cm showed early 112 113 emergence of corms as compared to closer spacings (10 x 20 cm) also corroborated by langhlans and smith, 1966. however, the per cent corm emergence was found to the non-significant in different spacings. number of leaves plant-1 (7.51 and 8.79) and plant height (71.37 and 73.31) significantly increased with wider spacing i.e. 20 x 20 cm (table 1). maximum plant height resulted from corms planted at a spacing of 20 x 20 cm during both the years. wider spacing gives more space to the plant to derive nutrients from the soil and reduces competition between plants for nutrients and light (sujatha and singh, 1991; yadav and singh, 1996). reduction in plant height under higher densities may be due to greater competition between plants for various factors. floral characters flower quality was also significantly influenced by corm size. larger corms produced significantly longer spikes (99.11 and 101.66cm) and maximum number of florets (17.83 and 19.36) spike-1 during the years, viz., 2005 and 2006, respectively (table 1). spike emergence, number of florets spike-1 and diameter of the floret were also reported to increase with increase in size of mother corms, by mukhopadhyay and yadav (1984), yadav and singh (1996), and, islam et al (2000). the widest spacing (20 x 20 cm) resulted in maximum spike length (98.72 and101.20 cm), floret diameter (10.95 and 11.78 cm) and number of florets (17.77 and 19.19) spike-1 (table 1). similar findings have also reported by other workers earlier (banker and mukhopadhyay, 1980; sujatha and singh, 1991). corm and cormel production corm and cormel production was significantly affected by different corm grades used in planting. significantly higher number of corms (2.28 and 2.62) and cormels (36.11 and 43.38) plant-1 were produced in a corm size of 5.1-5.5 cm (table 2). similarly, weight and size of the corm significantly increased with increase in size of corm at planting. this may also be due to availability of more food material stored in bigger sized mother corms that helped in better plant growth, corm and cormel production. these results are in agreement with earlier table 1. effect of corm size and spacing on growth and flowering in gladiolus cv. white prosperity treatment days taken to % corm plant height no. of leaves no. of days spike length no. of floret sprouting sprouting (cm) plant-1 taken to spike (cm) florets diameter emergence spike-1 (cm) 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 corm size (cm) 4.1-4.5 21.38 19.87 98.14 99.10 68.94 71.28 7.06 8.15 81.75 83.33 88.33 90.83 16.50 17.82 9.71 10.52 4.6-5.0 20.66 19.18 99.32 98.15 70.77 73.05 7.43 8.47 80.83 82.33 95.27 98.30 17.00 18.37 10.55 11.30 5.1-5.6 20.16 18.77 98.45 99.25 71.22 73.45 7.78 8.71 79.17 80.83 99.11 101.66 17.83 19.36 10.72 11.62 cd (p=0.05) 0.69 0.72 ns ns 2.01 1.87 0.18 0.18 0.15 0.20 1.96 2.03 0.78 0.79 0.58 0.60 spacing (cm) 10 x 20 21.38 19.97 98.17 98.25 69.01 71.75 7.28 8.24 81.15 82.72 87.22 89.72 16.66 18.03 9.55 10.49 15 x 20 20.44 19.00 98.09 97.14 71.05 72.65 7.47 8.30 80.64 82.22 97.27 99.87 16.88 18.33 10.48 11.27 20 x 20 20.38 18.86 99.00 99.12 71.37 73.38 7.51 8.79 79.96 81.55 98.72 101.20 17.77 19.19 10.95 11.78 cd (p=0.05) 0.69 0.72 ns ns 2.01 1.87 0.18 0.18 0.15 0.20 1.96 2.03 0.78 0.79 0.58 0.60 table 2. effect of corm size and spacing on corm and cormel production in gladiolus cv. white prosperity treatment no. of corms plant-1 no. of cormels weight of 10 corms weight of cormels diameter of corm plant-1 (g) plant-1 (g) (cm) 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 2005 2006 corm size (cm) 4.1-4.5 1.91 2.08 28.42 34.88 402.86 400.07 24.73 30.00 5.30 5.70 4.6-5.0 2.08 2.32 31.71 36.77 442.25 447.32 27.70 33.83 5.43 5.83 5.1-5.6 2.28 2.62 36.11 43.38 464.43 480.55 31.05 35.55 5.50 5.90 cd (p=0.05) 0.19 ns 2.45 1.43 20.65 29.10 2.05 1.04 0.07 0.13 spacing (cm) 10 x 20 1.85 2.26 27.21 30.94 412.66 420.50 24.18 31.11 5.22 5.62 15 x 20 2.03 2.33 32.04 40.38 420.81 442.12 28.22 32.88 5.47 5.87 20 x 20 2.38 2.43 36.98 43.72 476.07 465.42 31.07 34.38 5.53 5.93 cd (p=0.05) 0.19 ns 2.45 1.43 20.65 29.10 2.05 1.04 0.07 0.13 effect of spacing and corm size in gladiolus j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 112-114, 2007 114 findings of mukhopadhyay and yadav (1984), patil et al (1995) and islam et al (2000). widest plant spacing (20 x 20 cm) significantly increased the number of corms (2.38 and 2.43) and cormels (36.98 and 43.72) plant-1, and weight of cormels (31.07 and 34.38 g) plant-1 and size of corm (5.53 and 5.93 cm) plant -1 during both years of experimentation. present findings are, thus, in agreement with many earlier workers (mukhopadhyay and yadav, 1984; arora and khanna, 1987, and, sujatha and singh, 1991). the availability of more light for synthesis of photosynthates and more area for better root growth and nutrient absorption in widest spacing may have enhanced the production of bigger corms and cormels. the positive response of wider spacing on corm and cormel production has also been reported by mukhopadhyay and yadav (1984) and patil et al (1995). references arora, j. s. and khanna, k. 1987. spacing effects on flower and corm production of gladiolus cv. sylvia. ind. j. hort., 44:96-99 bankar, g. j. and mukhopadhyay, a. 1980. effect of corm size, depth of plating and spacing on the production of flowers and corms in gladiolus. ind. j. hort., 37: 403-408 chandel, s. r. s. 1975. handbook of agricultural statistics, achal prakashan, parmat, kanpur islam, m. s., chowdhury, s. s., hafiz, a. s. m. g. and malik, m. a. 2000. the effect of corm size on the production of flower, corm and cormel in gladiolus. bangladesh j. agril. res., 25:33-37 mukhopadhyay, t. p. and yadav, l. p. 1984. effect of corm size and spacing on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus. haryana j. hortl. sci., 15:18-24 patil, s . s. d., katwate, s. m. and patil, m. t. 1995. effect of different spacing and corm size on the flower and corm production of gladiolus. j. maharashtra agri. univ., 20:122-123 sujatha, k. and singh, k. p. 1991. effect of different planting densities on growth, flowering and corm production in gladiolus. ind. j. hort., 48:273-276 yadav, m. p. and singh, h. k. 1996. influence of corm size and their spacing on growth and flowering of gladiolus cv. sylvia. prog. hort., 28:96-100 langhans, r. w. and smith, d. r. 1966. lily bulb size. bull. n.y.st. flower grs., 242:8 (ms received 12 march 2007, revised 7 november 2007) bhat and khan j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 112-114, 2007 incidence of rodent pests in cumin (cuminum cyminum l.) and their management vipin chaudhary and r.s. tripathi1 directorate of medicinal and aromatic plants research boriavi-387 310, anand e-mail: vipin_cima@yahoo.com abstract infestation pattern and extent of damage by rodent pests and their management in cumin crop using secondgeneration anticoagulant rodenticides were studied at farmers’ fields in jodhpur district. monthly trapping throughout the crop season revealed presence of four species, viz., tatera indica (45.16%), meriones hurrianae (29.03%), gerbillus gleadowi and, an arboreal species, funambulus pennanti (25.81%). damage to cumin crop was almost on par at the vegetative growth stage and flowering stage, recording 11.00 and 13.50% reduction in plant stand, respectively. efficacy of two anticoagulant rodenticides viz., difethiaone (0.0025%) and bromadiolone (0.005%) was evaluated by two census methods simultaneously, viz., live burrow count (lbc) and census baiting (cb). two treatments of either of the anticoagulants, one at vegetative growth and another at flowering stage, resulted in >80% reduction in pest rodent population. cost:benefit ratio obtained with bromadiolone (0.005%) baiting was 1:10.8. thus, poison baiting with anticoagulant rodenticides may be practiced twice at (i) vegetative growth and (ii) flowering stage, for effective rodent management in cumin. key words: rodents, cumin, anticoagulant, rodenticide, bromadiolone introduction india, ‘the land of spices’ enjoys a pre-eminent position in the worlds spice trade. over 60% of all spices are grown in india in almost every state and union territory owing to varying climatic conditions. rajasthan is a major producer of seed spices (coriander, cumin, fenugreek, fennel, etc.) in the country totalling about 45% area under these crops. in western rajasthan cultivation of cumin in rabi is predominant due to the crop’s requirement for moderatelycool and dry climate with low humidity. rajasthan alone produces 56% of the cumin in the country (sree kumar, 1994). average yield of cumin is 0.5 t ha-1, which is quite low, and can be potentially increased to 0.7-0.8 t ha-1 by protecting the crop against pests and disease and by using improved varieties. among various pests, field rodents take a heavy toll in cumin at pre-harvest stages. arid lands support very high populations of rodents which cause immense losses to various production systems (tripathi and chaudhary, 2006). rodents start their destructive activity from the time of crop-sowing and continue until harvest. on an average, 5-10% damage is attributed to rodents in various field crops. however, such information is lacking in seed spices in general, and cumin in particular; therefore, 1ainp on rodent control, central arid zone research institute, jodhpur 342 003 the present study was attempted to work out damage caused by and infestation pattern of rodent pests in the cumin crop, and their management using second generation anticoagulant rodenticides. material and methods the study was conducted at farmers’ fields in rampura village of jodhpur district (73.030e and 26.290n). the crop was sown during november, 2005 and harvested in march-april, 2006. rodent species composition and infestation pattern: rodents were live-trapped by laying sherman traps during the crop season for three consecutive nights in the third week of every month. rodent species were identified and trap indices (no. of rodents trapped /100traps /night) for each species were worked out. live-burrow count method was also employed to study the pattern of infestation at different crop-growth stages. damage estimation: six plots of 0.5ha were selected at different places for estimation of damage. in each plot, ten randomly selected samples of 1 m2 each were taken on transect along the diagonal. damage to the plant stand was assessed at vegetative growth stage and flowering/fruit set j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 64-67, 2010 65 stage by counting the number of damaged and healthy plants along liveburrows in each sample. damage to a plant stand at the respective crop-growth stage was estimated as: % damage = no. of damaged plants x 100 total no. of plants (damaged + healthy) rodenticide evaluation: two second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, namely, difethialone (0.0025%) and bromadiolone (0.005%) were evaluated for managing rodents infesting the cumin crop. the rodenticial trials were carried out in three replicates each of 0.5 ha with a gap of 25 m between subsequent replicates. an area of the same size, wellseparated by a railway track of about 200 m, was left as the control/reference plot. rodenticide treatments were given at two different stages of crop-growth, or, as pulsed treatment. the first treatment was given at vegetative-growth stage and the second treatment at flowering stage. post-treatment census was made 10 days after treatment because these rodenticides are known to yield maximum kill between 7 and 10 days. test-rodenticides were baited randomly in the treatment plots. two methods, viz., burrow and station-baiting were adopted for treating the study-plots. prior to poison-baiting, the burrows in each treatment plot were plugged; on the next day, reopened (live) burrows were baited with 10-15 g of the respective poisonbait. similarly, 50-100g test-bait was also placed in the baitstations @ 15-20 stations per plot. efficacy of the rodenticide was assessed by two census methods viz., live burrow count (lbc) and census baiting (cb) methods simultaneously, before and after treatment, following chaudhary et al (2005). rodent-control success with each test-rodenticide was worked out using the formula: per cent control success = 100 (1-[(t 2 x c 1 )/(t 1 x c 2 )]) where t 1 = pre-treatment population of rodents in treatment plots t 2 = post-treatment population of rodents in treatment plots c 1 = pre-treatment population of rodents in reference plots c 2 = post-treatment population of rodents in reference plots data on preand posttreatment census following two methods, viz., live burrow count and census baiting were subjected to paired t-test for statistical analysis to compare rodent control success with rodenticide application. similarly, analysis of variance (anova) was applied for comparing the effectiveness of both methods of evaluation. results and discussion species composition and infestation pattern: three rodent species, viz., tatera indica, meriones hurrianae and funambulus pennanti were trapped from the crop-field and surrounding area. the trapping showed predominance of t. indica (45.16%), followed by m. hurrianae (29.03%) and f. pennanti (25.81%) (table 1). however, live-burrows of m. hurrianae were in greater numbers in crop-fields. the species, being a diurnal rodent, recorded poor trap-ability, compared to the nocturnal t. indica. among the three rodent species trapped, t. indica was seen to inhabit peripheral bunds while, m. hurrianae was found in the main field. initially, when the field was under preparation for sowing, rodent-burrow density was lower (7-22 burrows ha-1) in the field than in the surrounding fallow land (56-87 burrows ha-1). during germination and further vegetative growth upto the flowering stage, rodents from the surrounding fallow land established their population in the crop-field mainly in the peripheral regions, recording a burrow-density of 50-75 burrows ha-1at 15 days after sowing. however, at maturity, when irrigation and other inter-cultural operations were resumed, the central portion of the field was also infested with rodents, recording a burrow-density of 20-35 burrows ha-1 (table 2). similar trends in infestation pattern have been reported by tripathi et al (2004) and chaudhary et al (2005) in moth-bean crop. table 1. trap index and rodents population composition in cumin field period species of rodent trapped/100 traps/night total mh* ti* fp* november, 2005 2.00 3.33 1.33 6.66 december, 2005 0.66 1.33 0.66 2.66 january, 2006 0.66 0.66 0.66 2.66 february, 2006 1.33 2.00 1.33 4.66 march, 2006 0.66 0.66 1.33 3.33 april, 2006 0.66 1.33 1.33 2.00 per cent composition 29.03 45.16 25.81 *mh: meriones hurrianae; ti: tatera indica; fp: funambulus pennanti table 2. distribution pattern of live rodent-burrows in cumin fields treated with rodenticide mean live burrow count at different crop growth stages/ha (nos.) before crop sowing after sowing (in crop field) surrounding tilled 15 30 60 90* 120 fallow land fields das das das das das 56-87 7-22 50-75 35-65 25-45 50-75 20-35 das days after sowing j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 64-67, 2010 rodent pest management in cumin crop 66 damage: damage to cumin crop during vegetative growth stage was more pronounced at the peripheral region, as burrows were mainly concentrated in this region. at a liveburrow density of 0.67/m2, reduction in plant-stand to the tune of 9.55% was recorded. in the reference field, however rodent damage was higher (10.99%) at a live-burrow density of 0.55/m2. at flowering stage, damage to the plant-stand was reduced to 4.9% in the treatment plots due to reduced infestation (0.30 burrow/m2) following rodenticidal treatments. however, in the untreated/ reference plots, damage was 2.7 times higher (13.50%) than in the treated plots (table 3). baiting treatments difethialone (0.0025%): baiting with freshlyprepared difethialone (0.0025%) baits, at vegetative-growth as well as flowering stage, yielded significant reduction in rodent population. rodent control success after the first pulse of treatment at vegetative growth stage was 82.40 and 80%, with live-burrow count (lbc) and census baiting (cb) methods, respectively. follow-up treatment at flowering stage yielded an almost similar rate of success of 86.45 and 84.55% with respective methods of evaluation (tables 4 and 5). analysis of pooled data for both the methods revealed mean control-success of 81.20 and 85.50% after the first and second treatments respectively, with overall mean success of 83.35% (table 6). bromadiolone (0.005%): similar trend in control-success was observed in bromadiolone treatments, also registering significant reduction between preand posttreatment pest population. bromadiolone (0.005%) baiting at vegetative growth stage fetched 82.1 and 77.9% control-success as assessed by live-burrow count and census baiting methods, respectively. as with difethialone (0.0025%), a second pulse of treatment with bromadiolone (0.005%) at flowering stage yielded a slightly higher control-success of 85% (lbc method) and 82.50% (cb method) (tables 4 and 5). analysis of pooled data for both the methods revealed mean controlsuccess of 80.0 and 83.75% after the first and second treatments respectively, with overall mean success of 81.90% (table 6). anova between evaluation methods and treatments showed non-significant difference, indicating that efficacy of different methods remained the same. similar trend was reported by chaudhary et al (2005) and chaudhary and tripathi (2005) in evaluating secondgeneration anticoagulant rodenticides in arid agroecosystems. mathur and prakash (1984) advocated that burrow-counting method of census was more realistic in arid regions that are predominantly inhabited by m. hurrianae. in the present study, thus, two methods of census have been followed to draw a more accurate/valid inference. non-significant difference between treatments also indicated that both the rodenticides were equally efficient at controlling rodent population in the fields. table 5. bio-efficacy of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides by census-baiting (cb) method in cumin crop treatment vegetative growth stage flowering/ fruit setting stage pre-treatment post-treatment control pre-treatment post-treatment control (g) (offered) (g) (consumed) (%) (g) (offered) (g) (consumed) (%) difethialone (0.0025%) 500 95 80.00* 500 75 84.55* bromadiolone (0.005%) 500 105 77.90* 500 85 82.50* reference 500 475 ns 500 485 ns *significant difference between preand posttreatment census (p<0.05; t test); ns: non-significant table 3. rodent damage in cumin at different crop growth stages plot type vegetative growth stage/ flowering/ fruit set stage seedling stage burrow damage burrow damage density/m2 (%) density/m2 (%) treatment 0.67 9.55 0.30 4.90 reference 0.55 10.99 0.65 13.50 table 4. bio-efficacy of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides by live-burrow count (lbc) method in cumin crop treatment vegetative growth stage flowering/ fruit set stage pre-treatment post-treatment control pre-treatment post-treatment control (nos.) (nos.) (%) (nos.) (nos.) (%) difethialone (0.0025%) 130 23 82.40* 115 15 86.45* bromadiolone (0.005%) 100 18 82.10* 90 13 85.00* reference 150 151 ns 130 135 ns *significant difference between preand posttreatment census (p<0.05; t test); ns: nonsignificant vipin chaudhary and tripathi j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 64-67, 2010 67 in the present study, a second treatment with rodenticide at crop-flowering stage yielded better control and the result was similar to earlier reports by buckle et al (1984), malhi et al (1993) and sheikher and jain (1997). the present results are also in agreement with findings of mathur et al (1997), sheikher and sood (2000), sridhara et al (2000) and tripathi et al (2004) who reported similar control with bromadiolone and difethialone in various crops/cropping systems. economics : in the reference, field-yield of 400kg/ha was recorded, whereas, in the treated fields, it was 442 and 434 kg ha-1. in difethialone (0.0025%) and bromadiolone (0.005%) treated plots, respectively, registering an increased yield of 42 and 34 kg ha-1 with respective treatments. among the two test-rodenticides, only bromadiolone is registered in india, therefore, the cost: benefit ratio could be worked out for bromadiolone only, which was 1:10.80 (table 7). references buckle, a.p., rowe, f.p. and hussain, a. 1984. field trials of warfarin and brodifacoum wax block baits for the control of rice field rat rattus argiventer in peninsular malaysia. trop. pest mgt., 30:51-58 chaudhary, v. and tripathi, r.s. 2005. bio-efficacy of second-generation anticoagulants in pearl millettable 6. control of rodents by second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides estimated by burrow-count and census-baiting methods in cumin crop rodenticidal treatment control success (%) vegetative growth stage flowering/ fruit set stage overall success lbc cb mean lbc cb mean (mean of both the stages) difethialone (0.0025%) 82.40 80.00 81.20 86.45 84.55 85.50 83.35 bromadiolone (0.005%) 82.10 77.90 80.00 85.00 82.50 83.75 81.90 table 7. economics of rodenticide application (ha-1) expenditure head quantity cost of two required/ha applications of bromadiolone ha-1 (0.005%) (rs.) bait carrier @ rs.6/kg 06 kg 36 rodenticidal concentrate 120 g 120 @rs.1000/kg man-hours @ rs.75/day one day 75 total cost of treatment — 231 amount of grain saved 34 kg 2720 (rs/ha) @ rs.80/kg net benefit (rs/ha) — 2489 cost:benefit ratio — 1:10.8 moong-moth bean cropping system in indian arid region. ind. j. pl. prot., 33:167-171 chaudhary, v., mohd idris and tripathi, r.s. 2005. field evaluation of second generation anticoagulant rodenticides in moth bean crop. j. arid leg., 2: 116-119. malhi, c.s. chopra, c.s. and parshad, v.r. 1986. poison baiting of rodents in wheat. ind. j. agril. sci., 55:125-128 mathur, r.p. and prakash, i. 1984. methods used in the field evaluation of anticoagulant rodenticides in india. in: vert. pest control mgt. materials: fourth symposium. astm stp 817 (ed. kaukeinen, d.e.), am. soc. testing and material, philadelphia, pp. 256-261 mathur, r.p., leirs, h. and schockaert, e. 1997. effectiveness of various rodent control measures in cereal crops and plantations in india. belg. j. zool., 127: suppl. 1, 137-144 sheikher, c. and jain, s.d. 1997. rodents in cauliflower & cabbage: population, damage & control. intl. j. pest mgt., 43:63-69 sheikher, c. and sood, p. 2000. acceptance and bioefficacy of difethialone as rodenticide and its suitability in the fields. ind. j. agril. sci., 70:312-316 sree kumar, b. 1994. production and export of seed spices with special reference to rajasthan. spic. ind. 7:6-8 sridhara, s., ravindra babu, t. and ajay, p. 2000. laboratory and field evaluation of difethialone. all india coordinated research project on rodent control, uas, bangalore, pp. 1-25 tripathi, r.s. and chaudhary, v. 2006. rodent pest management in arid zone crops. in: vertebrate pests in agriculture the indian scenario, shankunthala sridhara (ed). scientific publisher, jodhpur (india). pp 227-246 tripathi, r.s., chaudhary, v. and mohd. idris. 2004. incidence of rodent pests and their management in pulse crop under arid agro-ecosystem. pestology, 28:67-70 (ms received 7 september 2009, revised 17 june 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 64-67, 2010 rodent pest management in cumin crop the species, renanthera imschootiana rolfe, popularly known as ‘red vanda’ found generally across south-east asian region of the asian continent, was first described by rolfe in the kew bulletin (williams, 1874). it was sent to kew garden by m. van imschoot of ghent, belgium in 1891. it is classified as an ally to vanda group of orchids (rao, 2000) belonging to tribe: vandeae and subtribe: aeridinae (dressler, 1993; pridgeon et al, 1999). in india, it is found endemic to manipur, mizoram and nagaland of north-eastern india, which is a part of the indo-burma mega bio-diversity hot spot. the only species of this genera available in india, was botanically described (hynneiewta et al, 2000; schuiteman and vogel, 2000; williams, 1894) with distribution, but no attempt has been ever made earlier from india for registration with national body for national identity and conservation for long term applications in breeding of orchids. relevance of the species to cites convention it is one of the species listed in the appendix-i for the rare and endangered species listed in cites (convention on international trade in related endangered species of wild fuana and flora) during 1975. the species of orchids are prohibited for exports as per ‘foreign trade development and regulation act’, 1992 in india. a limited work has been done on breeding with the above species as one of the parent short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 181-183, 2009 characterization and evaluation of a rare orchid renanthera imschootiana rolfe from manipur & nagaland r. devadas, r.c. upadhyaya and p. khatiwara national research center for orchids icar, pakyong, sikkim-737 106 e-mail: r.devdas@gmail.com abstract the orchid renanthera imschootiana rolfe is the only species under the genus available in india at manipur and nagaland, which is a part of indo-burma mega diversity hot-spot. the only collection, nrco-coll-77 (1998)/ic 566525 of this species available with us was evaluated and characterized as per ‘common descriptors of orchids’ developed at this center. monopodial nature in habit, un-branched raceme with a length of 32.2 cm having attractive dominant red-purple (rhs-60a) flowers and petals coloured grayed orange (rhs-164c) with shade is typical of this species. broad, lateral sepals with attractive dominant crimson/red purple colour flower having medium-range vase life of 23.7 days, imparts high breeding value to this species for developing new hybrid derivatives. key words: renanthera imschootiana, orchid in abroad and india, but over exploited due to indiscriminate collections in the forest areas mainly because of amateur breeders and hobby growers with a craze to possess the rare orchids. these reasons led to the tremendous erosion of orchid genetic diversity and it warrants conservation measures in-vitro and ex-vitro (hegde, 1997). the attempts on conservation of the species to propagate and multiply are very limited across the world, but good initiative was taken to develop the tissue culture protocol for in-vitro multiplication at this center (anonymous, 2000). major emphasis has been given for multiplication, characterization and evaluation of the only surviving collection i.e., ‘nrcocoll-77’ (1998) of this species for the conservation at this center in the capacity of ‘national active germplasm site’ (nags). the collection has been multiplied vegetatively and characterized for the over last two years as per common descriptors for orchids developed at this center. the color rating was done as per the royal horticultural society (rhs) color chart. the general descriptions for the morphological characters of the collection based on mean data (quantitative) and expressivity of qualitative characters like color pattern observed for two years is shown in table 1 and the flowering pattern of this collection of species from the date of spike initiation at pakyong, sikkim (altitude 1,300 msl) is shown in table 2. 182 salient features/description of collection (ic 566525) the species, being a monopodial epiphyte, has grown from a height of 35 cm during 1999-00 to more than 58 cm in 2006-07 (fig. 1a & b). the stem is stout with leaves linear in shape measuring 7.8 cm x 1.6 cm with 14 leaves. generally the inflorescence is un-branched raceme, but in the year 2007-08 the branching of raceme was recorded with a length of 38.2 cm. the flower size measures 4.7 cm x 2.9 cm. the species is peculiarly characterized with short (1.7 cm) and lanceolate shaped dorsal sepal and broader and free lateral sepals with a length of 2.8 cm (fig. 1c & d). the red-purple (rhs-60a) is the dominant color of the flower (lateral sepal & lip) and petals were colored grayed orange (rhs-164c) with shade. the petals were observed smaller with a length of 1.3 cm and spotted. the lip size recorded 0.6 cm x 0.2 cm having presence of callus. the throat and column are yellow in color (rhs-8a). the flowering traits like, spike initiation, flower bud initiation, days to 1st flower opening and days to 1st flower withering, showed consistency for the two years, except number of raceme branches and number of flowers. the broader lateral sepals with attractive dominant red-purple/crimson color and grayed orange with reddish spots of petals in center of flower, having medium range vase life of 23.7 days have high breeding value for developing new hybrid derivatives at both national and international level. table 1. morphological observations on nrco-coll-97 (1998) / ic 566525 character detail plant height > 58 cm number of leaves 14 leaf shape linear leaf length 7.8 cm leaf width 1.6 cm rachis length 32.2 cm peduncle attitude semi-erect inflorescence type raceme position of flowers along peduncle general appearance of sepals some incurving & & petals some spreading flower length in front view 4.7 cm flower breadth in front view 2.9 cm dorsal sepal shape lanceolate dorsal sepal length 1.7 cm dorsal sepal main color grayed-orange (164c) lateral sepal shape oblong lateral sepal length 2.8 cm lateral sepal main color redpurple (60a) sepal color pattern dorsal: shaded; lateral: colored petal shape spathulate petal length 1.3 cm petal main color grayed-orange (164c) petal color pattern shaded & spotted lip length 0.6 cm lip width 0.2 cm lip shape of lateral lobe triangular lip main color red – purple (60a) color of throat yellow (8b) column length 0.4 cm column color of anther cap yellow (8b) lip callus present table 2. flowering pattern in renanthera imschootiana rolfe. at nrco, pakyong, sikkim nrco-id & year spike initiation days to flower days to 1st flower no. of no. of raceme days to 1st flower bud initiation opening flowers branches withering nrco-coll-77 (2005-06) 18.03.2006 35 49 13 01 27 nrco-coll-77 (2006-07) 07.04.2007 33 44 35 02 21 mean 34 46.5 24 1.5 23.7 s.d. 1.14 3.54 15.56 0.7 4.24 fig 1. a flowering plant shape and colour of sepals and petals of r. imschootiana rolfe. (a) entire plant (c) single flower (b) shape and colour of dorsal & lateral sepals (d) colour and shape of petals j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 181-183, 2009 devadas et al 183 acknowledgement the authors greatly acknowledge ex-director, dr. r. c. upadhyaya for collection of this rare attractive species from manipur in the year 1998-99. the author also thanks shri. kunja bihari gupta for proper maintenance of this species. references anonymous 2000. national research center for orchids, pakyong, sikkim annual report. in-vitro germination of orchid species and hybrids: biotechnological intervention in orchids and bulbous flowering crops. pp 11 dressler, r.l. 1993. phylogeny and classification of the orchid family. cambridge university press hegde, s.n. 1997. orchid conservation in sancturies. in: souvenir & abstracts of ‘national seminar on developemntal biology and commercialization of orchids’ and orchid show on 12-13th april, 1997 at gangtok, sikkim. pp 3 hynniewta, t.m., kataki, s.k. and wadha, b.m. 2000. orchids of nagaland. renanthera lour., botanical survey of india, calcutta. p 258 pridgeon, a.m., cribb, p.j., chase, m.w. and rasmussen, f.n. 1999 genera orchidacearum. vol. 1. oxford: oxford university press rao, a.n. 2000. some important indian orchids for breeding and planting purposes. p 7. in: souvenir & abstracts of ‘national seminar on developmental biology and commercialization of orchids’ and orchid show on 12-13th april, 1997 at gangtok, sikkim schuiteman, a. and ed de vogel. 2000. orchid genera of thailand, loas, cambodia and vietnam. national herbarium netherland, universiteit leiden, the netherlands. pp 71 williams, b.s. 1874. the orchid-growers manual. victoria and paradise nurseries, upper holloway, london.pp 691 (ms received 20 december 2008, revised 24 july 2009) rare orchid from manipur and nagalandet al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 181-183, 2009 gladiolus is a very popular bulbous flowering plant with its magnificent inflorescence. it is grown in herbaceous border, bed, rockery, pot and also for cut flowers. the flowers, varying in colour with attractive shades are most suitable as cut flowers as the flowers have good shelf-life. however, major constraint for gladiolus cultivation is the corm dormancy. plant growth regulators play an important role in breaking dormancy and promote more number of quality corm productions in gladiolus (bhattacharjee, 1983). in spite of its importance, very little information is available on effect of growth regulators on gladiolus corm production. hence, an experiment was laid out to study effects of growth regulators and their application methods in gladiolus. the experiment was conducted during 2002-04 in the division of floriculture and landscaping, iari, new delhi, on gladiolus cultivar pusa jyotsna. healthy corms of uniform size (8-10 cm circumference) were planted at a spacing of 30 cm x 20 cm. in total, there were 49 treatments viz., control, ba 25, 50 and 100 ppm; kinetin 125, 250 and 500 ppm; naa 100, 250 and 500 ppm; iaa 100, 250 and 500 ppm; ga 3 200, 500 and 1,000 ppm; mh 500, 1,000 and 1,500 ppm; tiba 500, 1,000 and 1,500 ppm; and cycocel 1,000, 1,500 and 3000 ppm, with two methods of application (corm dipping and spraying). data were recorded on various parameters of corm production. statistical analysis was carried out according to gomez and gomez (1983). randomized block design was followed for data interpretation. short communication effect of plant growth regulators on corm production in gladiolus v. baskaran1, r.l. misra and k. abirami1 division of floriculture and landscaping indian agricultural research institute new delhi -110 012, india e-mail: vbaski01@gmail.com abstract experiments (spraying and dipping) were carried out to study the effect of different plant growth regulators with two methods of application on gladiolus cv. pusa jyotsna for various parameters of corm production. spraying tiba at 500 ppm produced maximum number of corms. maximum number of cormels was produced by dipping corms in kinetin at 500 ppm concentration. corm weight was maximum by dipping with 200 ppm of ga 3 . spraying ga 3 at 500 ppm resulted in maximum weight of cormels per plant and maximum diameter of corms. dipping in 500 ppm of ga 3 produced maximum volume of corms. propagation co-efficient was maximum in ba at 100 ppm as spray treatment, whereas it was minimum in the case of tiba at 1500 ppm. this may be due to growth retardation. key words: plant growth regulators, corm, gladiolus results indicated that all the growth hormones exhibited highly significant role in characters pertaining to corm production. maximum number of corms was produced by use of tiba 500 ppm as spraying followed by spraying of ba 100 ppm. in general, ba 100 ppm increased number of corms per plant followed by kinetin 250 ppm irrespective of modes of application. it shows that ba, like other cytokinins, characteristically causes more splitting than increasing the size of corms. present results are in conformity with the work of deutch (1974) and vlahos (1989) in achimenes; nightingale (1979) and raju (2000) in lilies and sehgal (1984) in gladiolus. the lowest number of corms was obtained by use of naa 250 ppm as corm dipping. this was mainly due to inhibition of lateral root development by auxin. maximum number of cormels was produced by kinetin 500 ppm as corm dipping followed by spraying of ga 3 at 500 ppm and iaa 100 ppm. these results are in conformity with the findings of saniewski and puchalski (1983) in muscari spp. by use of cytokinin. elmeligy (1982), dua et al (1984) and mahesh (1992) reported increased number of cormels in gladiolus by ga 3 treatment. the corm weight was maximum in corm dipping with 200 ppm of ga 3 followed by 500 ppm ga 3 and lowest weight was recorded in kinetin 250 ppm. the superiority of ga 3 at low concentrations in improving corm weight when compared at higher concentrations might be due to exhaustion of assimilates towards stem elongation at higher concentrations. similar results were reported by bose et al 1present address: national research centre for medicinal and aromatic plants, boriavi, anand, gujarat j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 78-80, 2009 79 table 1. effect of growth hormones on corm production in gladiolus (pooled data) treatment(ppm) number of number of weight of weight of corm volume of propagation corms cormels one corm (g) cormels per diameter the corm co-efficient (%) per plant per plant plant (g) (cm) (cm3) control 2.27 11.17 31.73 3.05 4.70 32.84 99.59 corm dipping ba 25 2.22 16.83 30.67 2.72 3.89 50.11 221.80 ba 50 2.37 20.83 28.17 3.66 4.10 46.84 220.90 ba 100 2.52 34.17 21.37 4.33 3.59 36.35 185.44 naa 100 1.47 13.83 36.37 2.57 4.21 59.19 176.56 naa 250 1.32 11.83 44.80 2.22 4.43 61.98 166.81 naa 500 1.97 18.83 34.87 4.05 4.11 56.38 181.92 iaa 100 2.27 14.83 35.28 3.37 4.05 53.21 217.50 iaa 250 1.77 19.73 31.83 4.00 4.28 49.07 126.41 iaa 500 1.97 17.73 41.37 3.63 4.36 60.32 210.95 ga 3 200 2.57 22.23 66.37 4.51 4.66 71.08 319.73 ga 3 500 1.68 17.23 52.40 3.57 5.63 75.45 216.47 ga 3 1000 1.88 19.73 35.00 3.97 4.36 65.88 211.97 mh 500 2.33 29.57 29.73 4.13 3.61 48.11 223.59 mh 1000 1.58 20.23 34.93 3.95 4.01 55.35 164.34 mh 1500 1.53 18.75 49.17 3.65 4.53 58.84 158.50 kinetin 125 2.18 14.48 26.03 2.95 4.01 46.98 176.09 kinetin 250 2.52 26.92 20.53 4.85 3.79 39.84 172.88 kinetin 500 2.37 38.92 22.63 5.66 3.95 42.60 179.06 tiba 500 1.82 16.58 33.73 3.42 3.90 55.30 172.25 tiba 1000 1.72 11.18 34.93 2.60 4.43 57.66 157.92 tiba 1500 1.67 17.88 31.23 3.81 4.07 52.05 123.75 cycocel 1000 1.67 13.58 49.03 3.03 4.60 67.51 207.36 cycocel 1500 1.72 12.28 52.13 2.71 5.30 71.06 194.19 cycocel 3000 2.22 19.38 43.70 3.91 4.68 64.51 237.84 spraying ba 25 3.05 22.85 30.13 4.82 4.32 42.93 213.88 ba 50 3.25 22.05 33.93 4.70 4.59 40.70 266.75 ba 100 3.58 27.52 36.73 5.02 4.58 30.32 337.86 naa 100 2.00 19.85 35.43 4.31 4.69 52.42 126.74 naa 250 1.90 20.85 36.93 4.44 4.78 56.78 119.69 naa 500 2.15 30.85 34.73 5.14 4.39 45.64 148.19 iaa 100 2.56 37.35 35.43 5.62 4.50 46.68 193.69 iaa 250 2.88 20.85 32.73 4.42 4.83 38.31 204.88 iaa 500 2.47 17.85 36.73 4.04 4.88 49.66 186.28 ga 3 200 2.86 15.85 49.17 3.54 5.15 60.48 276.86 ga 3 500 2.30 38.85 37.93 6.14 5.63 62.96 180.53 ga 3 1000 3.05 23.17 37.53 4.82 4.70 58.24 271.42 mh 500 2.52 15.87 34.73 3.95 4.74 37.32 151.71 mh 1000 3.02 14.17 35.13 3.22 4.77 44.78 213.05 mh 1500 3.32 20.97 37.93 4.72 5.10 43.91 277.31 kinetin 125 3.20 18.17 25.53 3.88 4.76 40.92 162.17 kinetin 250 3.52 20.67 22.13 5.01 4.33 32.64 163.46 kinetin 500 3.34 20.17 28.93 4.77 5.01 34.82 205.30 tiba 500 3.77 31.23 33.23 5.54 4.53 39.70 303.36 tiba 1000 3.17 20.67 29.33 4.52 5.01 42.08 185.80 tiba 1500 2.32 14.87 28.23 3.62 4.72 36.95 101.21 cycocel 1000 2.57 16.67 33.33 3.91 4.90 53.49 151.71 cycocel 1500 3.57 19.57 36.53 4.58 5.44 55.91 311.45 cycocel 3000 2.82 15.17 34.03 3.79 5.24 49.12 178.77 cd (p=0.05) 0.97** 6.20** 11.31** 1.05** 1.04** 11.39** 30.49** ** significance at 1% probability level growth regulators in gladiolus corm production j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 78-80, 2009 80 (1980) in hippeastrum hybridum; bhattacharjee (1983), sujatha and bhattacharjee (1992) and raju (2000) in lilies; dua et al (1984), ravidas et al (1992) and mahesh (1992) in gladiolus. maximum weight of cormels per plant was observed by application of ga 3 500 ppm as spraying followed by kinetin 500 ppm as corm dipping. results are in agreement with the work of winkler (1969), dua et al (1984), lopez oliveras et al (1984), mukhopadhayay and bankar (1986) and mahesh (1992) in gladiolus. the cormels weight per plant was minimum in plants treated with naa 250 ppm as corm dipping. ga 3 500 ppm gave the maximum diameter of the corm followed by cycocel 1500 ppm as dipping or spraying treatments. the diameter of the corm was minimum in case of ba 100 ppm spraying. many workers reported similar effects in gladiolus (bhattacharjee, 1984, dua et al, 1984 and mahesh, 1992) and in hippeastrum hybridum (bose et al, 1980). maximum volume of the corm was achieved by corm dipping with ga 3 500 ppm followed by ga 3 200 ppm and the minimum in case of plants sprayed with ba 100 ppm. from these findings it is inferred that all these chemicals have potential in increasing corm size in terms of volume, as these would have participated in cell enlargement in the corms except cytokinins like ba and kinetin as these would have participated in cell division. an increase in volume with corresponding increase in weight may prove best for flowering in the next season. propagation co-efficient reveals that multiplication rate by which, at a glance, one can visualize over all corm and cormel production per plant. the propagation co-efficient was maximum in ba 100 ppm as spraying treatment followed by ga 3 at 200 ppm as corm dipping treatment indicating that these treatments are the best for good development of gladiolus corms and cormels. reason may be due to ba 100 ppm would have encouraged other lateral buds present in the corm, inactive form, to accelerate the growth. in fact, corm starts forming just after sprouting and cormel starts forming normally at the time of spike formation. in the case of ga 3 200 ppm, the weight of corm was high and hence had a high propagation co-efficient. the propagation co-efficient was least in case of control followed by tiba 1500 ppm as spraying treatment. this may be due to growth retardation. references bhattacharjee, s.k.1983. response of lilium tigrinum kergawl (tiger lily) to soil drench application of growth regulating chemicals. progressive hort., 15: 204-209 bhattacharjee, s.k.1984. the effects of growth regulating chemicals on gladiolus. gartenbauwissensechaft, 49: 103-106 bose, t.k., jana, b.k. and mukhopadhyay, t.p. 1980. effects of growth regulators on growth and flowering in hippeastrum hybridum scientia hort., 12: 195-200 deutch, b. 1974. bulblet formation in achimenes longiflora. physiol. plant., 30: 113-118 dua, i.s., sehgal, o.p. and chark, k.s. 1984. gibberellic acid induced earliness and increased production in gladiolus. gartenbauwissenschaft, 49: 91-94 el-meligy, m.m. 1982. effect of gibberellin and radiation on corm formation and anthocyanin content in gladiolus. agril. res. rev., 60: 265-280 gomez, k. a. and gomez, a. a. 1983. statistical procedures for agricultural research. an irri book, john wiley and sons, new york lopez oliveras, a.m., lopez perez, d.and pages pallares, m. 1984. vegetative propagation of gladiolus: influence of exogenous gibberellic acid application and division of the mother corm. anales del instituto nacional de investigaciones agrarias, no. 27: 29-45 mahesh, k.s. 1992. effect of growth regulators on gladiolus var. snow princes. m.sc. thesis, iari, new delhi. mukhopadhyay, a. and bankar, g.j. 1986. pre-planting soaking of corm with gibberellic acid, modified growth and flowering of gladiolus cultivar ‘ friendship’. ind. agric., 30: 317-319 nightingale, a.e. 1979. bulbil formation on lilium longiflorum thunb. cv. nellie white by foliar application of pba. hort. sci., 14: 67-68 raju, d.v.s. 2000. effect of plant growth regulators and disbudding on growth and development of asiatic hybrid lily cv. corrida. m.sc. thesis, iari, new delhi ravidas, l, rajeevan, p.k. and valsakumari, p.k. 1992. effect of foliar application of growth regulators on the growth, flowering and corm yield of gladiolus cv. friendship. south ind. hort., 40: 329-335 saniewski, m. and puchalski, j. 1983. the synergistic effect of benzyladenine and cycloheximide in muscari bulblet formation. prace instytutu sadownictwa i kwiaciarstwa w skierniewicach, b, 8:167-177 sehgal, o.p. 1984. studies on vegetative propagation of gladiolus. ph.d. thesis, iari, new delhi sujatha, k. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 1992. influence of growth regulating chemicals in lilium longiflorum thunb. var. formosum. ann. agril. sci., cairo, 2: 547-552 vlahos, j.c. 1989. effects of ga 3 , ba and naa on dry matter partitioning and rhizome development in two cultivars of achimenes longiflora dc, under three levels of irradiance. acta hort., no. 251 , pp. 79-92 winkler, g. 1969. investgations on the effect of growth substances on the corm yield of gladioli. arch. gartenb., 17: 325-340 (ms received 25 august 2008, revised 27 january 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 78-80, 2009 baskaran et al banana production and productivity enhancement through spatial, water and nutrient management m.m. mustaffa and v. kumar national research centre for banana tiruchirapalli620 102, india e-mail: directornrcb@gmail.com abstract bananas and plantains globally the fourth important food crop, recorded wide variation in production and productivity in most of the banana growing regions. this is attributed mainly to the variety, type of planting material used, season and method of planting besides management techniques such as water and nutrients. among all the commercial varieties of banana, owing to comparatively higher yield potential and better marketability both in domestic and export markets the cavendish group of bananas such as grand naine, williams, robusta are preferred over other cultivars of banana. planting sword suckers is beneficial and more ideal conventional planting material than the water suckers, butts and bits of rhizomes. however, the in-vitro banana plants of dwarf cavendish and robusta are superior to conventional suckers due to their vigorous growth, early flowering (19 days) and reduced crop duration by 29 and 22 days, respectively. with reference to plant spacing and planting density which is determined by varieties grown, soil fertility status, prevailing climatic conditions etc. and maintenance of lower density of 625-1000 plants ha-1 recorded low productivity at <30t ha-1, while, high density of 5000 plants ha-1 recorded 120t ha-1. however, time taken for maturity was distinctly longer in higher densities, with 120 and 160 days bunch grade and fruit quality are, however determined by pre-harvest bunch management practices. influence of method of irrigation, fertilizer application and the role of nutrient elements, organic farming, inm and use of bunch sleeves on yield and fruit quality in different commercial cultivars under various conditions is discussed. key words: bananas, planting density, drip and fertigation, nutrition, bunch sleeves introduction bananas and plantains are popular globally not only for their nutritional value but also for their economic importance, especially, to small and marginal farmers in developing countries. these are grown in over 130 countries across the world in an area of 10.1 million ha producing 121.85 million tonnes (fao, 2009). world banana production is concentrated in africa, asia, the caribbean and latin america because of the climatic conditions. among the various continents, asia has the lion’s share of 60% of the global banana production and india, china, philippines and indonesia are the major producers in the south, south-east asian regions. india contributes 48% of the total production in asia from 37% of total area (table 1). globally, india stands first both in area and production, but has a very meager share of < 0.05 % of the international banana trade. bananas with year round availability provide a permanent source of income not only to the farmers and rural populations, but also to the traders and retailers, thus, j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 playing an important role in poverty alleviation. the fruit is composed of mainly water and carbohydrates and provides energy (104 k calories per 100g). in addition to being a rich source of carbohydrates, with edible fibre, vitamins, table 1. major banana producing countries in the world. country area production productivity (000 ha) (million tons) (t/ha) 2001 2009 2001 2009 2001 2009 india 466 748 14.20 26.99 30.50 35.87 brazil 513 491 5.74 6.58 11.18 13.41 philippines 400 415 5.06 7.48 12.65 13.56 indonesia 285 315 3.60 5.45 8.14 15.49 china 259 269 5.40 8.04 20.84 23.20 ecuador 298 227 8.03 6.13 26.94 27.07 cameroon 312 082 2.25 0.79 7.21 9.72 mexico 074 078 1.97 2.36 26.62 29.99 columbia 444 062 4.20 1.58 9.45 25.15 costa-rica 054 042 2.32 2.22 42.96 52.54 others 5207 7473 41.79 56.02 total 8310 10100 94.56 121.85 source : fao stat (2001, 2009) nhb (2009) focus 2 mustaffa and kumar growth of the banana industry in india fig 1. area, production and productivity of banana in india over the years table 2. year-wise area, production and productivity of bananas and plantains in india year area % of production % of productivity ( 000’ha) total (000’mt) total fruit ( mt/ha) fruit production area 1991-92 383.9 13.4 7790.0 27.2 20.3 2001-02 466.2 11.6 14209.9 33.0 30.5 2002-03 475.3 12.5 13304.4 29.4 28.0 2003-04 498.6 10.7 13856.6 30.4 27.8 2004-05 589.6 11.9 16744.5 34.0 28.4 2005-06 569.5 10.7 18887.8 34.1 33.2 2006-07 604.0 10.9 20998.0 35.3 34.8 2007-08 658.0 11.2 23823.0 36.3 36.2 2008-09 709.0 11.6 26217.0 38.3 37.0 2009-10 770.3 12.2 26469.5 37.0 34.4 2010-11 830.0 13.0 29780.0 39.8 35.9 table 3. state-wise area, production and productivity of banana in india state 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 area production productivity area production productivity area production productivity (000’ ha) (000’ mt) (mt/ ha) (000’ ha) (000’ mt) (mt/ ha) (000’ ha) (000’ mt) (mt/ ha) tamil nadu 124.4 6667.0 53.6 113.7 4980.0 43.8 125.4 8253.0 52.5 maharashtra 80.0 4960.0 62.0 85.0 5200.0 61.2 82.0 4303.0 65.8 gujarat 60.9 3571.6 58.7 61.9 3779.8 61.0 64.7 3978.0 61.5 a p 80.1 2804.0 35.0 80.6 2819.6 35.0 79.3 2774.8 35.0 karnataka 75.4 1918.8 25.4 104.4 2132.3 20.4 111.8 2281.6 20.4 m p 28.8 1498.0 51.9 33.0 1459.8 44.2 38.1 1719.6 45.2 bihar 31.3 1373.6 43.9 31.5 1435.3 45.6 31.9 1517.1 47.6 u p 30.4 1138.6 37.4 32.4 1346.1 41.5 west bengal 39.8 954.1 23.9 41.0 982.2 23.9 42.0 1010.1 24.0 assam 47.9 852.6 17.8 53.4 805.2 15.0 47.6 723.6 15.2 others 140.2 1617.4 11.5 135.5 1735.8 12.8 175.3 1873.1 10.7 total 708.8 26217.2 37.0 770.3 26469.5 34.3 830.5 29779.9 35.9 (nhb, 2011) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 potassium, phosphorus, calcium and with minimum fat bananas are the safest and cheapest fruit ensuring nutritional security to people of all age groups and economic status. india produces about 30 million tonnes of bananas from an area of 0.83 million ha (nhb, 2011). among horticultural crops, contribution of banana to agricultural gross domestic product (agdp) is the highest (singh, 2007). interestingly, in india there has been appreciable increase in area production and productivity of banana during 1962-2011 (fig. 1) and 1991-2011 (table 2) owing to technological interventions. in many banana growing states of india, there has been a steady increase in area, production and productivity (table 3) which is partly due to increased area under cultivation and largely due to adoption of high yielding varieties like grand naine, robusta and other cavendish clones, virus free quality planting material and improved production technologies etc. there is a need to focus on standardization of improved production technologies suitable for different systems of cultivation to realize potential yields in many commercial cultivars for targeted banana production. selection of high-yielding varieties, planting of healthy, disease-free planting material, choosing the right planting density, need-based and timely application of inputs, viz., irrigation water and nutrients, maintenance of weed-free conditions, etc., are important to bridge the gap between actual yield and potential yield per unit area. commercial varieties of banana india is home to a wide range of musa cultivars belonging to various groups, from delicate diploids of aa 3 and ab to the hardy, seeded balbisiana clones. owing to high yield and export potential, cavendish group of bananas (such as grand naine and robusta) are the major commercial cultivars of banana, while poovan is ideal for subsistence farming. rasthali, ney poovan, karpuravalli, monthan, thellachakkarakeli, nendran and virupakshi command regional preferences. scenario of production technologies in banana season of planting in india, planting season varies from area to area and in most parts, very cold or hot seasons are unsuitable (naik, 1949 and jacob, 1952). planting during winter leads to initial exposure to unfavorable conditions of hot summer and heavy winds during critical stages of growth. in general, planting banana before commencement of the monsoon stands to help the plants build up rapid growth and establishment before onset of the cold weather (sham singh et al, 1963). but, in view of the divergent climatic and soil conditions prevalent in our country, bananas are grown all through the year. in israel, which experiences severe cold winter, planting is generally done during march, i.e., spring planting is the rule. in the sub-tropics, planting is done during the dry season with pre-irrigation to facilitate better establishment (holder and gumbs, 1981). in the sub-tropics of south africa, summer planting helps to avoid winter flowering. in north-western australia, where the summer is very hot, planting during winter (june-july) is practiced. in puerto rico, planting during december facilitates harvesting during february – april, which fetches a very high price. under nigerian conditions, planting during january to may is often prone to cyclone damage; august to december planting is found ideal. in bangladesh, september-october and february-march are the two main seasons for successful banana cultivation (haque, 1984). planting material sword suckers are the best but poor suckering is undesirable. butts and bits are equally good as suckers but delay flowering (bhan and majumdar, 1956). young or old suckers, and rhizomes express no significant variation in flowering and fruit yield. sword suckers have more vigorous growth and heavier bunches in 11 months compared to water suckers that take 15 months (srivastava, 1963). germination of the ‘robusta’ suckers stored under shade for 7, 14 or 21 days before planting was 100%, 63% and 36%, respectively (marykutty et al, 1979). grouping of uniform suckers ensures uniform growth in a block and helps all plants to production and productivity of banana popular banana cultivars grown in different regions of india state cultivars andhra pradesh grande naine, robusta, thellachakkarakeli (cavendish), bontha (bluggoe), amrithapani, karpurachakkarakeli (mysore). assam robusta, honda, chini champa (mysore), malbhog, manohar, kachkel, bhimkol, athiakol, jatikol, digjowa (silk) bihar alpon, chinia, chini champa (mysore), malbhog (silk), muthia, kothia, gauria (bluggoe), kanthali (pisang awak). gujarat grande naine, basrai, gandevi, mahalakshmi, harichal, lacatan, shrimanti. karnataka elakki bale (ney poovan),grande naine, mysore, robusta, rasa bale (silk), hoo bale, karibale (bluggoe), jwaribale (pome), boodi bale. kerala nendran, njali poovan (ney poovan), palayankodan (mysore), poovan (silk), monthan, red banana, madhya pradesh grande naine, basrai, shrimanti, robusta, mahalakshmi, maharashtra grande naine, shrimanti, basrai, robusta, mahalakshmi, safedvelchi, rajeli (plantain) tamil nadu grande naine, robusta, poovan (mysore), monthan (bluggoe), karpuravalli (pisang awak), rasthali (silk), nendran, ney poovan, sevvazhai (red banana), pachanadan (pome), virupakshi/sirumalai (hill banana), matti, namarai, peyan, sanna chenkadali, elavazhai (leaf purpose). uttar pradesh grand naine west bengal amrit sagar, mortamon (silk), champa (mysore), giant governor, grand naine, lacatan, kanthali (pisang awak) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 4 spotless grand naine karpuravalli robusta monthan hill banana nendran commercial cultivars of banana rasthali j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 poovan mustaffa and kumar 5 ney poovan udhayam red banana virupakshi production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 6 derive equal benefit from sunlight. freshly lifted suckers have higher establishment, reduced crop cycle, larger bunches and higher yields than suckers stored for 10 days (patel and chundawat, 1988). use of tissue culture planting material was found superior with vigorous, uniform plant growth, precocity of flowering and harvest as well as higher yield in dwarf cavendish and robusta (daniells, 1988 and reddy and kumar, 1996), nendran (pradeep et al, 1992) and cavendish bananas (robinson and anderson, 1990) as compared to the conventional suckers. planting depth and method of planting in general, bananas are planted adopting any of the two main methods of planting, namely, holes and furrows (simmonds, 1966). depth of planting varies with type of soil and planting material (robinson, 1995). since growth of suckers usually takes place from the middle and upper parts of the corm, there is a tendency for successive shoots to be borne close to the soil surface and even above the soil surface (simmonds, 1966). in plants established from suckers, root system is adventitious, and unfavourable conditions increase sensitivity of the plant to water stress. reducing the extent of root system tends to result in plants less securely anchored. such plants are prone to toppling under the weight of an early maturing bunch, especially, in windy or wet seasons. the entire mat may get uprooted, leaving the area unproductive for the life of the plantation. the larger pit sizes of 2 feet cube gave the heavier bunches and hands than the pit sizes of 1 or 1.5 feet cubes and the sucker production increased with pit size (ahmed and mannan, 1970). robinson (1995) reported that shallow planting depth could cause a plant to dry out and thereby induce a superficial root system in both mother plant and the suckers. bakhiet et al (2003) observed differences in the time to corm germination when type of planting material differed. days from planting to shooting, and from planting to harvest of the mother plant crop, significantly decreased with increasing planting depth; but, the time from shooting to harvest did not statistically differ. planting depth of 60cm resulted in significantly shorter interval between harvests. planting in deep holes seem to hasten flowering, whereas maturation is controlled by temperature during bunch development, as observed by robinson (1981); whereas, fraser and eckstein (1998) reported a tendency for longer cycle with deep planting, using tissue culture derived banana plantlets. here, bunch weight increased with planting depth, the largest bunch been observed at 60cm. number of hands per bunch and bunch weight in plants planted in 60cm holes was significantly higher; number of fingers per hand, however, did not vary with planting depth (bakhiet and elbadri, 2005). planting of suckers in larger holes is required in under-prepared or less uniform soil-tilth conditions. bunch mass and the number of fingers were higher in ‘nanicao’ plants planted at 30cm depth, than in those planted at a lesser depth of 10cm (manica, 1976; obiefuna, 1983). for tissue-cultured plants, the recommended planting depth is 10cm deeper than their level in the polybags. the smaller size of in-vitro plantlets and pared suckers make it possible to establish a banana plantation using shallower planting holes. reducing the size of planting hole may accelerate establishment of plants, given that the root-bearing zone is located at the level of a mineral rich topsoil layer. deep planting increased bunch weight and reduced time to flowering, over successive ratoon crops. spacing / planting density optimum density that is defined as the density at which gross margin per hectare per annum is maximized over the entire plantation life varies with locality, cultivar, soil type and fertility, and management level. choice of spacing depends upon cultivar and, further, varies from region to region depending upon cultural practices of the area in recent years, there has been considerable emphasis on high-density planting wherein yield of an individual plant cannot be increased beyond a certain limit. total yield and net returns can be increased per unit area by adopting closer spacing as this also reduces weed growth and provides protection against wind damage. plant population under various planting systems s.no. method of spacing (m) population planting density (no./ha) 1. conventional plantingd i) warf cavendish 1.5x1.5 4440 ii) robusta and nendran 1.8x1.8 3080 iii) rasthali, poovan, 2.1x2.1 2260 karpuravalli, monthan 2. high-density planting a) paired-row planting system i) dwarf cavendish 1.2x1.2x2.0 5200 ii) robusta, grand naine, 1.5x1.5x2.0 3800 poovan, rasthali and ney poovan b) 3 suckers/hill (1 foot apart 1.8x3.6 4500 in the pit) robusta nendran) 1.8x3.0 5550 mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 7 in india, planting of banana cv. amritsagar at 6 x 6 ft spacing yielded 63.8 % more fruits than those at 8 x 8 ft however; the wider spacing recorded the heaviest fruits and bunches (ahmed and mannan, 1970). under west bengal conditions in cv. ‘jahajee’, highest profit was obtained from double dose of fertilizer at closer spacing of 2mx2m (sarma and roy, 1972). under the same conditions in cv. ‘giant governor’, decrease in plant density from 2500 pl/ha to 1125pl/ha, induced early flowering and fruit maturity. weight of bunch and other yield parameters increased with decrease in plant density (chattopadhyay et al, 1980). in hill banana, under coorg conditions yields were 32, 39 and 50 t/ha for 2.4mx2.4m, 2.4mx1.8m and 1.8mx1.8m spacing respectively (mustaffa, 1983). in ‘robusta’ (aaa), ‘nendran’ (aab) and ‘monthan’ (abb) bananas, root number increased with increasing density. number of roots was greatest at flowering and, abb had higher number and longer roots than aaa/aab (mohan and madhava rao, 1984). in basrai banana, the highest yield was 67.82 t/ha at 1.5mx1.2m spacing than plants spaced at 1.5mx1.5m or 1.5mx1.8m (singh and kashyap, 1992). at vellayani, kerala, a spacing of 1.75mx1.75m was adjudged the best for nendran (anil et al, 1995). in basrai banana in anand, gujarat, highest yield (93.27 t/ha) was obtained at a spacing of 1.2mx1.2m. the combination of narrow spacing (1.2mx1.2m) and 15th june planting, recorded highest yield of 107.7 t/ha. planting two suckers per hill at 2mx2m spacing (5000 pl./ha) with higher doses of nutrients, i.e., 360:250:500g npk recorded highest bunch weight and economic yield than three suckers per hill with conventional planting and lower dosage of nutrients in robusta grown under sandyclay loam soils of chikmagalur in karnataka (thippesha et al., 2007). observations on incidence of leaf spot indicated that 3 suckers/hill recorded least incidence (selvarajan et al, 2001). however, maximum nematode population was recorded in planting three suckers per hill and was least in the paired row system (anon., 2001). final decision on the most suitable optimum planting density will rely not only on marketable yield but also on profit margin and convenience of the planting system adopted. for hot, dry areas receiving higher heat units/heat stress, high density of > 3000 plants/ha is recommended whereas, for mild subtropics with cold winter, comparatively low density with < 2000 plants/ha is advisable. in plantations with short life-spans of 1 or 2 cycles, much higher optimum density is recommended, whereas for longer life-span plantations (five or more ratoons), lesser density would be ideal. the yield increased with increasing density from 1120 to 3360 and for fresh consumption, a density < 2500/ha is recommended in south africa, light transmission through the canopy was found to be 14% under 2222pl/ha and 30% under 1000 plants/ha and a lai of 6.3 was attained at 2222 plants/ha (robinson and nel, 1985). in ‘williams’ banana, yield in higher densities (1666 plants/ha) were distinctly higher (51.0 to 56.4 t/ha/year) than in the lower density (1250 pl/ha), i.e., 39.1 to 48.9 t/ha/year in burgershall and levubu stations of s. africa (robinson et al, 1985). in brazil, among densities ranging from 625 to 2500 plants/ha, the best results were recorded in 2500 plants/ha (37t/ha) (lichtemberg et al, 1986). closer spacing of 1.5m between plants made it difficult to select the next sucker (daniels et al, 1987). at amiad and ginosar, israel, a rectangular 3 x 2.8m layout was used and 2, 3 or 4 plants planted per hole (2381, 3571 and 4091/ha). average bunch weight decreased from 35-36kg to 27.5kg, and total yield increased from 80-82t to 112t/ha. time between flowering and harvest was distinctly longer the higher densities (with extremes of 120 and 160 days) because of a lag of about 4 leaves under high density (israeli and nameri, 1988). at san carlos, brazil, first and second harvests were best at high densities (hexagonal planting, 1,720 plants/ha) or double-rows (1704 plants/ha) compared to the traditional density (1,111 plants/ha). the hexagonal, monoculture system was most productive in the third cycle. in colombia, under hdp of accommodating 3332 to 5000 plants/ha, flowering was delayed by 3 to 5 months, but was compensated by higher yields. yield from high-density plot in double rows (2,587 plants ha 1) was 1035 boxes/ ha against 680 boxes from a triangular plan (1,600 plants/ha). in south africa, ‘williams’ banana were grown under densities of 1000, 1250, 1666 and 2222 plants/ha for 5 successive cycles. the yield was significantly higher in 2222/ha in all the cycles. however, spread of the harvest increased with density, indicating a strong competition. density of 1666/ha was finally recommended for reasons of cost (inputs), income, less spread of harvest and ease of operation (robinson and nel, 1989). under south african conditions, based on plant vigour, optimum density per hectare for ‘williams’ was between 2005 and 2339; for ‘valery’, ‘grand naine central america’ and ‘grand naine israel’, it was between 2339 and 2618; and for the smaller ‘dwarf cavendish’ plants, it was 2618 plants/ha. the invitro plants of ‘grande naine’ planted at 5.0m x 2.5m spacing with three plants per hole production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 8 (2,400 plants/ha), twelve months later a new planting was inserted between the existing plants. the first crop took 14 months and the second 12 months to mature. annual yields of 73.1 t/ha and 77.7 t/ha, with more than 90% of fruits qualifying as ‘extra’ (cabrera et al, 1998). water management worldwide, water is the most limiting non-biological factor in banana production, and copious irrigation is required at all stages of growth. it is estimated that a good crop of banana requires 25mm/week for satisfactory growth. the total water requirement of banana plants is about 9001200mm for an entire life cycle and this can be met through both natural precipitation (rainfall) and supplementary irrigation. in the tropical conditions, water requirement is 900-1800mm per crop (stover and simmonds, 1987). maintaining optimum moisture at all stages of growth is very critical, and providing good drainage facility to drain out excess water from the root zone is equally important to promote growth and enhance productivity. in general, irrigation of banana plantations every 3-4 days during the hot period and at 7-8 days interval during cool weather is recommended. in the banana growing regions, effective rf and supplementary irrigation / irrigation need varies widely. in honduras, parts of ecuador, colombia and windward islands, the total precipitation range is 1500-3500mm distributed over 8 months, a condition that warrants drainage during monsoon; whereas, there is a need for supplementary irrigation during dry summer months (jaramillo, 1984). however, in costa rica and panama, there is a welldistributed rainfall of 2500-4500mm and, thus, no supplementary irrigation is required. in contrast, in israel, the entire water need is met through supplementary irrigation (1050-1500 mm/annum). in semi-tropics, irrigation of banana plantations during dry months increased yield by 15-20 % (daniels, 1984). drip irrigation it is one of the best methods of irrigation in areas experiencing water scarcity. here, water is allowed to reach the root zone of the crop in small quantities. drip irrigation has the advantage of coverage of large areas with less water, requiring very less labour but providing more uniform irrigation and is also fertigation and salinity friendly. in india, drip irrigation is superior to the conventional basin-irrigation in terms of ensuring more vigorous growth, higher yields, minimal weed growth and high water use efficiency (hegde and srinivas, 1989). in addition to economy of water use, drip irrigation activates uptake of nutrients. for banana, replenishment of evaporation losses up to 80 % was found to be optimal for realizing higher yields. drip irrigation and fertigation techniques drip irrigation and fertigation has the most significant role for achieving not only higher productivity and water use efficiency, but also to attain sustainability with economic use and productivity. fertigation could help in long run for efficient and uniform application of water and fertilizer, with minimum manpower, to improve productivity and quality of the produce. at coimbatore, under the garden land system, highest bunch weight (26 kg) was recorded under conventional planting with 50% n and k fertigation and 3 suckers/hill with 100 % (110:330 g/plant) n and k fertigation. planting 2 suckers per hill at a spacing of 1.8mx1.8m (6000 plants/ha) with 50% rdf fertigation was found to be highly economical. it gave a maximum total yield (135.78 t/ha) with high cost–benefit ratio of 3.75. at thrissur with nendran (aab), planting 2 suckers/pit (3086 plants/ha) with 75% fertilizer recorded significantly higher bunch weight and total yield (31.90t/ha) than the control (20.90t/ha). at jalgaon, grand naine (aaa) grown under conventional planting recorded earliest flowering (287.7days). maximum bunch weight (14.95kg) was recorded in 3suckers/hill with 75% n and k fertigation. total yield of 82.8 t/ha was recorded in 2 plants/hill with 75% n and k fertigation. for export quality fruits (over 20cm length and 12cm girth), 3 suckers/hill under paired row system with 75% n and k fertigation was found superior (anon., 2008). robusta banana grown under sandy-loam conditions of coimbatore, irrigation @ 25 litre/day and fertigation with 100% rdf of 200:300g n& k recorded the most vigorous plant growth, earliest flowering and harvest, highest bunch weight (44.53 kg) and yield (111.33 t/ha) under the normal planting system. hdp population of 5000 pl/ha + 40 litres of water/day + 75% rdf fertigation (450:675g n & k plant1) recorded yield increase of 209.7% over conventional planting (mahalakshmi et al, 2000). fertigation gives flexibility in application of fertilizers to meet specific crop requirements at various stages of growth. application of n in the form of urea, and k in the form of muriate of potash (mop) through the system, could be advantageous. mop may be dissolved in water and kept overnight to facilitate complete dissolution, while urea can be dissolved instantly. these fertilizers allowed into the mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 9 system on either daily or weekly basis and may be stopped 10-15 days prior to harvest of bunches. apart from straight fertilizers, specific formulations of water-soluble fertilizers needed for the banana crop (based on crop growth stage) can also be used in fertigation. commercially available fertigation-grade water soluble fertilizers are found highly effective in banana even in places where quality of irrigation water is not fully suitable for the drip system. banana under drip irrigation performed better in growth and flowered earlier in comparison to that under surface irrigation application of urea through the irrigation system was more efficient and significantly more yields were obtained with fertigation than with hand-broadcasting on soil surface (arscott, 1970). in israel, banana cultivation with very frequent irrigation was seen to be very successful (lahav and kalmar, 1981). in hawaii, drip irrigation doubled the yield as compared to a well-maintained sprinkler system (young et al, 1985). under drip irrigation, banana plants flowered 15 days earlier and recorded higher yields with higher finger, hand and bunch weight as compared to basin-irrigation (hedge and srinivas, 1991). daily or weekly fertigation significantly increased the yield compared to monthly fertigation, but no advantage was seen with daily over weekly fertigation on loamy soils. banana is a heavy feeder both in respect of nutrients and water. fertigation proved successful in commercial banana cultivars like robusta (mahalakshmi et al, 2000), nendran (pandey et al, 2001) and ney poovan with fertilizer and water economy and fertigation can save 20 to 30 % on fertilizer while improving yield and quality compared to conventional fertilizer application (srinivas, 1996). thadchayini and thiruchelvan (2005) obtained highest yield (41,000kg ha-1) in the drip system, 31 % higher than in surface irrigation. nutrient management in banana leaf nutrient concentration banana leaf samples are normally taken just before or following floral emergence and when all the female hands are visible (martin-prevel, 1977). however, age of the tissue to be sampled depends on nutrients being diagnosed for (fox et al, 1989). in most banana producing countries, lamina of the third leaf is sampled for tissue analysis. however, samples of central vein of the third leaf and petiole of the seventh leaf are also used. lamina of the third leaf is sampled by removing a strip of tissue 10cm wide on both sides of the central vein, and discarding everything but the tissue that extends from the central vein to the centre of the lamina. arunachalam et al (1976) reported that maintenance of optimum levels of nitrogen in lamina-3 and midrib-3 in banana varieties varies with crop age. this aspect should be taken into account in leaf analysis-based nutrient recommendation programme for banana. maximum nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content in leaf were recorded in a treatment receiving 100 % recommended dose of fertilizer along with organic booster-slurry to increase nutrient concentration in banana leaf (ziauddin, 2009). hewitt (1955) reported that 2.6% n in the leaf is adequate for banana, while murray (1962) showed that water requirement in banana at different growth stages sl. crop-growth stage duration quantity no. (weeks) of water (litre /plant) 1 after planting / ratoon 1-4 4-8 2 juvenile phase 5-9 8-10 3 critical growth stage 10-19 12 4 flower bud differentiation stage 20-32 16-20 5 shooting stage 33-37 20 and above* 6 bunch development stage 38-50 20 and above* critical levels of leaf npk in different cultivars cultivar location leaf nutrient concentration (%) reference/s n p k robusta the caribbean / 2.90 0.29 0.48 3.80 twyford and coulter (1964) and twyford (1967) west indies dwarf cavendish india 3.18 3.43 0.46 0.54 3.363.76 arunachalam (1972) robusta india 3.29 0.44 3.11 ramaswamy and muthukrishnan (1974) 1.70 2.30 0.17 0.24 4.00 4.50 vadivel (1976) 0.90 2.26 0.11 0.32 3.60 5.60 ashok kumar (1977) 2.30 2.44 0.22 0.25 3.97 4.19 krishnan and shanmugavelu (1980) 3.51 0.15 3.43 kotur and mustaffa (1984) jahaji india 1.98 0.26 3.07 hazarika and mohan (1990) basrai india 2.80 0.52 3.80 ray et al (1993) robusta india 2.98 0.32 2.53 mahalakshmi (2000) 3.01 0.36 2.28 kavino (2001) 2.09 0.10 4.48 nalina (2002) production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 10 <1.5% nitrogen is designated as deficient for banana. bhangoo et al (1962) obtained highest yield in giant cavendish banana grown in honduras with 2.8 %nitrogen. ramaswamy and muthukrishnana (1974) reported a level of 3.3 % n to be optimum in robusta banana. results obtained by jambulingam et al (1975) suggested that leaf k should be above 4.3%for optimum production. later work by arunachalam et al (1976) showed that adequate levels of nutrient in banana leaf ranged from 3.18-3.43, 0.46-0.54, 3.36-3.76, 2.3-2.4 and 0.25-0.28 % for n, p, k, ca and mg, respectively. ram and prasad (1988) observed an increasing trend in content of nitrogen up to flowering in banana. according to ray et al(1988), leaf content of 2.8:0.52:3.8% npk at shooting was a good indicator for satisfactory productivity in robusta banana. weerasinghe et al (2004) showed the need to maintain nitrogen content of the third youngest leaf (lamina3) at 3.5 % at five months of age (early vegetative stage), and at 3.0 % during the rest of the growth cycle, to obtain high yields in ‘kolikuttu’ banana. elements absorbed in excessive quantities can reduce plant yield directly through toxicity, or indirectly by reducing the concentration of other nutrients below critical range. fertigation and npk uptake banana requires high levels of nutrients for ideal growth and production. it is estimated that a crop of fifty two tonnes in one hectare removes 320:32:925kg n:p 2 o 5 :k 2 o every year (lahav and turner, 1983). uptake of nutrients was higher in sucker grown banana plants compared to tissue culture plants due to greater accumulation of dry matter by the former. uptake of nutrients in banana increased in fertigation treatments compared to conventional methods of fertilizer application. a treatment of 25 % n through urea+50 % n as ammonium sulphate +25 % n as calcium ammonium nitrate exhibited higher nutrient uptake (bhalerao et al, 2010). fertigation schedule based on trials conducted at the national research centre for banana, tiruchirapalli, in commercial cultivars of banana, a weekly fertigation schedule has been developed. fertigation and crop growth parameters application of n, p and k through fertigation influenced vegetative growth, number of hands and fingers, bunch weight and fruit yield in banana (hedge and srinivas, 1991). significantly higher plant height and girth was observed with application of nitrogen and potassium, each at the rate of 200g per plant (srinivas, 1996). banana plants effectively utilized the accurately placed fertilizer in solution form in the active root zone area, resulting in vigorous growth, early flowering and early bunch development. similarly, leaf area index (which is a measure of source-size) was significantly higher with drip irrigation over the furrowirrigated control. bhalerao et al (2010) studied the effect of different sources of nitrogen on growth and yield in banana cv. grand naine under drip irrigation. combined application of 25 %n through ammonium sulphate + 25 % n through calcium ammonium nitrate was beneficial in terms of attaining maximum plant vigour, early flowering and lower crop duration. fertigation and yield-attributing characters post-shoot application of k (44th to 47th week after planting) favoured growth and development of bunches with better fruit-filling, resulting in increased finger weight, length and mid-circumference (yadav et al, 1988). in cv. robusta, fertigation treatment (200:30:300g npk/plant) registered the maximum bunch weight, with corresponding highest number of hands and fingers (mahalakshmi et al, 2000). application of 240g n/plant in four split doses at 2, 4, 6 and 8 map recorded significantly higher pseudostem height and girth, number of leaves/plant, number of fingers/bunch, yield, total sugar and sugar acid ratio in cv. ‘jahajee’ (naresh babu et al, 2004). critical levels of nutrients in banana cvs. robusta and ney poovan nutrient conc. robusta ney poovan n (%) 1.67-3.43 2.23-3.35 p (%) 0.12-0.21 0.12-0.23 k (%) 2.28-4.14 2.68-4.78 ca (%) 0.48-1.70 0.40-1.28 mg (%) 0.33-0.58 0.14-0.65 s (%) 0.03-0.18 0.06-0.13 fe (ppm) 53-196 58-189 mn (ppm) 112-417 142-516 zn (ppm) 8-38 14-37 cu (ppm) 10-32 11-33 yield limit 30 kg/plant 12 kg/plant weekly fertigation schedule for banana (g/plant/week) weeks after planting urea total m o p total (total no. of weeks) (g/plant) (g/plant) 9 to 18 week 15 150 8.0 80 (10 weeks) 19 to 30 week 10 120 10 120 (12 weeks) 31 to 40 week 7.0 70 12 120 (10 weeks) 41 to 46 week nil nil 10 50 (5 weeks) total —— 340 —— 375 mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 11 drip, fertigation and yield banana crop under drip irrigation resulted in increased yield, higher number of hands with more length and girth of fruits. weekly fertigation with proportionate quantities of 200:30:300g npk/plant/year starting with 9th week after planting, effectively increased yield of banana cv. robusta (mahalakshmi et al, 2000). similarly, increase in level of nitrogen and potassium fertigation improved growth and fruit yield was significantly higher with more finger weight with 1:2 nitrogen and potassium fertilizers, compared to 1:1 ratio fertigation with 75 % rdf through surface drip-irrigation increased fruit yield in both the main and ratoon crops of banana by 9.12 and 12.85 %, respectively (dinesh kumar and pandey, 2008). drip irrigation and quality parameters drip irrigation significantly increased total sugars / reducing sugars and total soluble solids in banana fruits (somogyi, 1952; natesh beena et al, 1993). in tissue-culture raised banana cv. dwarf cavendish, application of 300g nitrogen in 5 splits significantly increased the tss (23.80 brix), reducing sugars (6.38%), total sugars (17.48%) and sugar acid ratio (tirkey et al, 2003). dinesh kumar and pandey (2008) recorded statistically significant values of tss, total sugars and reducing sugars with application of 75 % rdf and the increased total sugars in banana might be due to higher uptake of nitrogen and potassium by the plant. in general, it is observed that banana requires larger quantity of potassium, moderate quantity of nitrogen and relatively lower dose of phosphorus for growth and yield. requirement of nitrogen and potassium for banana in higher amounts was reported as early as 1921 by fawcett, and was later confirmed by norris and ayyar (1942). nalina (2002) justified that application of 150 % of recommended dose of npk (165:5.5:495g plant-1) in four splits, viz., 2, 4, 6 and 8 months after planting, was essential to increase growth and development, yield and quality of tissue-culture banana. daniells and armour (2010) observed that banana utilized about 50 % of the applied fertilizers, while the remaining nutrients were held in the soil. nutrients in growth and development banana, an exhaustive user of water and nutrients due to its large rhizosphere, rapid growth and high yielding nature, demands large quantities of nutrients from organic and inorganic sources (lahav, 1973). major nutrients like nitrogen (n), phosphorus (p) and potassium (k) play an important role in the vegetative and reproductive phases of crop growth, depending on the cultivar. for optimum growth and fruit yield, banana requires maintaining optimum levels of nutrients, often supplied only in part by the soil (swennen, 1990). nitrogen on growth and leaf production many experiments confirm a positive influence of nitrogen on plant growth, flowering and productivity in banana cultivars (arunachalam et al, 1976; mustaffa, 1983). ramaswamy and muthukrishnan (1973) suggested that increased nitrogen application gave the highest number of functional leaves. increase in level of nitrogen significantly increased height and girth in banana (chattopadhayay et al, 1980). application of 120g nitrogen (half dose of nitrogen as foliar spray and the other half as soil application) recorded maximum pseudostem height and girth in cv. giant cavendish (ghosh et al, 1989), while, application of 200g nitrogen (100%) through soil recorded taller plants (anon., 1996). application of 200g nitrogen (100%) recorded higher number of leaves per plant in cv. robusta (anon, 1996) and had a positive influence on leaf production, length and breadth (ghosh et al, 1989). soorianathasundaram et al (2000) found that in cv. nendran, pseudostem height was higher when plants received 75 % of nitrogen as urea, than at 50 %; whereas, pseudostem girth was maximum in plants when the entire n was supplied as urea. application of 200g n as ammonium sulphate, or as can 50g or as urea, and 100g as ammonium sulphate recorded favorable growth (anon, 2004). application of 300g nitrogen in both the first and second crop recorded maximum pseudostem height and circumference at shooting stage and significantly reduced phyllochron in cv. robusta (pandey et al, 2005). effect on flowering bhan and muzumdar (1956) found that shooting was earlier by about 31 days with lowest level of nitrogen (100g n/plant). similar results were reported by ramaswamy and muthukrishnan (1974). flowering was delayed considerably with no nitrogen application (kohli et al, 1984). the required net assimilation was presumably reached early in the plants receiving higher dose of nitrogen, thus hastening the process of initiation and emergence of inflorescence (chattopadhayay et al, 1980; israeli and lahav, 1986; ghosh et al, 1989; singh et al, 1990; praburam and sathiyamoorthy, 1993; parida et al, 1994; hansan et al, 2001). production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 12 effect on fruit maturity croucher and mitchell (1940) reported that fruit maturity was earliest at lower level of nitrogen. similar findings were reported by champion (1970) and butler (1960). arunachalam et al (1976) reported that nitrogen shortened maturation period by 14 days and time from planting to shooting by 10 days, thus, reducing the entire crop cycle by one month in cavendish banana. praburam and sathiyamoorthy (1993) found that application of 200g nitrogen per plant recorded the earliest flowering in 283.2 as well as least total crop duration (404 days) in cv. rasthali. plants receiving 100 % n as urea were the earliest to shoot (265 days), while, reduction in supply of inorganic n delayed shooting markedly in cv. nendran (soorianathasundaram et al, 2000). effect on yield and fruit characters as early as in 1940, croucher and mitchell reported that in banana cv. gros michel, increased yields could be obtained by application of nitrogen. similar findings were recorded by brown and eastwood (1940), gopalan nayar (1953), teaotia and dubey (1971) in cv. harichal. in robusta application of 180g nitrogen per plant produced higher yield (44.23t/ha) in comparison to 90g and 270g of nitrogen (randhawa et al, 1972). application of nitrogen increased the number of hands, number of fruits and weight of fruit in cvs. dwarf cavendish, giant cavendish, robusta and lacatan (arunachalam et al, 1976), giant governor (venketasan et al, 1985) and in karpura chakrakeli (ghosh et al, 1989). in banana cv. robusta, application of 150 to 260g n plant-1 registered vigorous plant growth, early flowering, highest bunch weight and yield (randhawa et al 1973; kotur and mustaffa, 1984; kohli et al, 1984; mustaffa, 1988). according to geetha nair et al (1990), in nendran, application of 400g n in four splits increased fruit length up to 26.6cm. soorianathasundaram et al (2000) reported that in cv. nendran, application of 100% nitrogen as urea recorded heaviest bunches (10.80kg); whereas, under jalgaon conditions, application of 200g nitrogen per plant as calcium ammonium nitrate (can) and ammonium sulphate in combination with urea at 75% dose, resulted in increased bunch weight (11.3 kg) in cv. ney poovan (anon, 2004). effect on fruit quality soil application of n increased sugar content and fruit acidity; but, when partially replaced by foliar application, fruits recorded higher tss and ascorbic acid content, and less titrable acidity (ghosh et al, 1989). meena and somasundaram (2004) reported that in var. poovan, 150 % recommended n and k in 3 or 4 splits registered maximum tss (19.6%), lower acidity (0.25%) or sugar-acid ratio (51.2%) compared to the control (15.9%, 0.30% and 37.7%, respectively). effect on status of soil and leaf n concentration with the initial application of higher dose of nitrogen fertilizer, the n was not adequately reduced to ammonium due to an inefficient nitrate reductase system. after the second dose of fertilizer, nitrogen content of the leaf tissue increased with increase in level of nitrogen applied (twyford and coulter, 1964). excess nitrate accumulation results in poor plant metabolite production and often limits yield (parr, 1967). randhawa et al (1972) found maximum leaf nitrogen (3.03 %) in 270g nitrogen application per plant in cv. robusta. seven months after planting, leaf nitrogen rose to a maximum of 3.29% at 170g n /plant (ramaswamy and muthukrishnan, 1974). valsamma and mathew (1980) suggested that nutrient status of the third leaf at shooting ranged from 1.33 to 2.08 % nitrogen. kohli et al (1984) recorded the highest leaf nitrogen content of 2.94 % at the shooting stage with application of 350g nitrogen per plant dosage of nitrogen in banana, regardless of the cultivars, soil or climate, amount of total nitrogen uptake by the plant is closely related to total dry matter production (lahav, 1995). he also found that excess nitrogen in banana promoted pseudostem elongation, resulting in lodging and consequently loss of yield. an over-supply of nitrogen increases the time needed for fruit-filling and affects fruit quality. research carried out by follett (2001) indicated that excess of nitrogen increased nutrient loss into environment through leaching, denitrification and volatilization and these losses have a potential to pollute the environment. daniells and armour (2010) reported that lower rate of 300kg ha-1 each of n and k fertilizer resulted in higher yields and saved rs.32500 ha-1 as against each 500kg of n & k ha-1. they also found that lowering the application of nitrogen reduced the rate of soil acidification and in turn reduced the decline in cation exchange capacity and lime requirement in queensland, australia. efficiency of various sources of nitrogen in cv. ney poovan was assessed by keshavan et al(2011) who found that combined application of 25 % n as can + 25 % n as urea + 50 % n as ammonium sulphate resulted in better vegetative growth, physiological attributes mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 13 and soil leaf nutrient status culminating in increased yield in terms of bunch weight (12.1kg), number of hands (11.8), number of fingers (59.3) and finger weight (173.3g) over control. significance of phosphorus fertilization phosphorus is essential for better development of rhizome and a strong root system. it also plays a vital role in overall development of the plant and flower set. the plant can store p longer and can utilize it for fruit production and development. phosphorus is a mobile nutrient, moving from older leaves to younger leaves, and in turn, to the bunch. uptake of this macronutrient is reported to peak between two to five months after planting, i.e., at the vegetative phase (80%) and, thereafter, the uptake is reduced. requirement of phosphorus in banana is much less than nitrogen and potassium (norris and ayyar, 1942; martin-prevel, 1964; turner, 1969; jauhari et al, 1974; vadivel, 1976). requirement of p under indian conditions varied from 35 to 225g plant-1 (shanmugam and velayutham, 1972). phosphorus has a promotive effect on the young root system and stimulates growth. in excess, however, it has depressing effects on number, weight and size of fingers (croucher and mitchell, 1940; katyal and chadha, 1961). response to application of phosphorus has been reported to be poor with no significant effect on day to maturity, number of hands or fingers bunch-1 (bhan and majumdar, 1956; osborne and hewitt, 1963; pillai et al, 1977). jagirdar and ansari (1966) observed that in cv. basrai, the stem girth increased when p was applied along with k at 48 and 96 lb acre-1, respectively. according to ramaswamy (1974), number of hands bunch-1, bunch weight, fruit size and volume increased for up to 60g of p 2 o 5 plant-1. knight (1988) found that tissue culture bananas responded positively to increase in phosphorus levels. banana had a slow response to phosphorus (lin and fox, 1987) and, later, it was confirmed that banana plants obtained adequate phosphate from soils through mycorrhizal association (fox et al, 1989). kurien et al (2000) reported that movement and mobilization of phosphorus occurred mainly in the male inflorescence, rhizome, fruit and fruit peduncle of the banana plant system. growth and yield of banana suffered due to low p from the regular fertilizer dose, while, finger number was not strongly influenced by p level, although single fruit weight showed a strong positive relationship to increased p supply. it was observed that 50% reduction in p application resulted in 23 % reduction in single fruit weight (hongwei et al, 2003 and 2004). harthi and yahyai (2009) concluded that application of 100g p plant-1 yr-1 produced highest yield in cv. williams. barakat et al (2011) found that regular p source could be substituted by rock phosphate along with n and k nutrients for better growth and yield. influence of potassium on banana banana, being a potassium loving crop, has a very high demand for this nutrient. in india, the applied dose of k varies from 800 to 1600 kg ha-1 (kumar et al, 2008). potassium now occupies an important place not only with regard to its content in plant tissues, but also for its role in physiological and biochemical functions. it is commonly known as “quality mineral nutrient” and is the most important element in banana nutrition. its concentration in the plant system is much higher than all other nutrients, or even, all the mineral nutrients combined. results of many experiments have showed that adequate supply of k fertilizers not only increases growth and yield in banana, but also improves quality of the fruit, physiology of the plant and offers resistance against biotic and abiotic stresses. potassium application at early stages recorded maximum plant growth parameters closely associated with yield. (bhargava et al 1993). lahav (1972) also recorded highest growth with 290g k plant-1 in cv. williams. robusta registered maximum pseudostem height, girth, number of leaves and leaf area with application of 300-400g k plant-1 (mustaffa, 1987; 1988 and 2000). likewise, hasan and chattopadhyay (2000) observed enhanced growth and yield-attributing parameters with application of 300-600g k plant-1. khoreiby and salem (1991) and ray et al (1993) also observed vigorous plants, maximum leaf area and extended leaf longevity in dwarf cavendish and basrai cultivars when fed with 300 or 500g of k plant-1. influence of npk on banana increase or decrease in one nutrient element may substantially enhance or deplete availability of other elements. considerably greater response to nutrients was observed when these were applied together rather than separately in banana at uttar pradesh (ram and prasad, 1989). fertilizer range of 100-180: 15-100: 186-400 g of npk plant-1 improved growth and yield in cv. robusta as observed by many workers (kohli et al, 1976; randhawa and iyer, 1978; nanjan et al, 1980; pillai and khader, 1980) in india, whereas, dwarf cavendish showed increased growth and yield when supplied with 72-200:90-96:150-480 g of npk plant-1 (teaotia et al, 1972; chattopadhyay and bose, 1986; shelke and nahate, 1996). koen et al (1976) reported increased yield in dwarf cavendish with application of 450:36.8:210g npk plant-1 in levuba. application of production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 14 300:300g of n&k plant-1 in banana cv. harichal registered higher yield (pandit et al, 1992 and pathak et al, 1992). guerrero and gadbau (1996) observed that increased growth and yield in cv. williams was due to application of recommended dose of 550:750g n&k plant-1. ray et al(1993) recorded higher yield by application of 200:100:300gnpk plant-1 in cv. basrai and in grand naine banana application of 165:62.5:495g npk plant-1 showed increased yield (nalina, 2002). in contrast, suma et al (2007) and pujari et al (2010) observed highest number of hands (8.35) and fingers bunch-1 (121.67) with 200:40:200g npk plant-1 in cv. grand naine. harthi and yahyai (2009) observed that application of higher dose of fertilizer (900:150:750g plant-1 year-1) resulted in low bunch weight and reduction in fruit weight in cavendish cv. williams. similar results were reported by butler (1960) and pujari et al (2010). foliar fertilization in banana banana is a highly exhaustive crop and requires large quantities of mineral nutrients for rapid growth and development, readily responding to applied nutrients. it is reported that a mature banana plant removes 221:52:981g n, p 2 o 5 and k 2 o per plant, respectively. in general, a large quantity of nutrients applied to soil is lost through run-off, leaching and fixation in the soil. in low fertility soil with cation exchange capacity (cec) of 5-10m.eq./100g with 1400-2000mm rainfall/year, as much as 165:22:376:89:36 kg of n, p, k, ca and mg were lost (which represent 60-85% of applied fertilizers). besides soil application, supplementary foliar spray of n as urea was found effective in increasing bunch weight by improving finger size besides improving fruit quality. ramasamy (1976) reported that foliar application of p along with soil application of 110g and 330g each of n and k 2 o increased bunch weight and reduced crop duration by 13 days, with a cost:benefit ratio of 1:2.7 against 1:2.3 in conventional soil application. banana is known to respond well to foliar nutrition, especially to major, secondary and micronutrients. however, it is best to use this mode to correct nutrient needs difficult to attain through soil application. foliar spray of major nutrients is a contingent measure to boost yields whenever the crop suffers from nutrient deficiency. foliar application of 1.0 % urea and 2.0 % muriate of potash as mixture increased bunch weight and fruit quality (vijayaraghavan and ayyamperumal, 2000). foliar application of 2,4-d @25ppm either alone or in combination with fertilizer application (110:30:330 g npk plant-1) resulted in favourable growth in red banana (selvarajan and doraipandian, 2000). kumar and jeyakumar (2001) reported that foliar application of znso 4 (0.5%) + feso 4 (0.2%) + cuso 4 (0.2%) + h 3 bo 3 (0.1%) during 3rd, 5th and 7th month after planting, in addition to the recommended dose of npk @ 110:35:330g pl-1 year-1, improved bunch weight, besides enhancing fruit quality. foliar spray of sulphate of potash (1.5%) along with recommended dose of fertilizer had a positive impact on bunch weight and fruit quality, as reported by ramesh kumar and kumar (2007). bio-fertilizers on growth / yield in banana use of biofertilizers is found to be essential not only to reduce the quantum of inorganic nutrients or organic manures to be applied, but also to increase the beneficial soil flora and fauna, thereby increasing fertility of the soil. jeeva et al (1988) reported that azospirillum inoculation + 100% n application enhanced height and girth of the pseudostem, leaf production, leaf area and increased bunch weight by 8.2% compared to non-inoculated control plants which received 100% n alone. in-vitro derived banana plants inoculated with vam and/or with phosphate solubilizing bacteria (phosphobacteria) was significantly taller and produced greater dry matter compared to the untreated plants (alonso reyes et al, 1995). studies on azatobacter chrococcum as a nitrogen fixer and bio-stimulant for banana revealed that bacterial inoculation (20 l/h) stimulated plant height, number of leaves and shoots, and pseudostem diameter. bacterial inoculation also favoured fruit development and could compensate for 20% of n fertilizer without changing yields, corresponding to 30g n/ plantlet. fertilizer schedule for important commercial banana cultivars variety 3rd month 5th month 7th month urea super m o p urea super m o p urea super m o p poovan, ney poovan rasthali, karpuravalli dwarf 100 300 150 200 250 150 200 cavendish, robusta, grand naine nendran, monthan 100 300 200 200 300 150 250 mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 15 organic manures on soil physical properties application of organic manures and amendments to soil increases crop yield by enhancing the latter’s physical properties besides improving availability of nutrients, to the plant and organic carbon and cation exchange capacity of the soil. soil physical characteristics such as texture, compaction and drainage influence banana growth and development, and limit the effective soil depth and aeration in the rhizosphere. owing to their effect on water retention capacity, permeability and water-air-balance, presence of coarse fragments (above 15% by volume) is considered as a limiting factor for root growth in banana. majumdar et al (2002) reported that application of 50 % rdf along with 10t ha-1 vermicompost improved soil porosity and reduced bulk-density of the soil. mustaffa et al (2004) observed that application of organic manures (2.5kg compost + 1kg vermicompost + 1kg neem cake + 2.5kg poultry manure plant-1 at 3rd, 5th and 7th month after planting) improved soil physical-properties. the effect of organic farming practices in banana on soil quality improvement was due to increased cation exchange capacity, lesser bulk-density and, in turn, increased porosity (mei et al, 2007). singh et al(2009) found application of organic manures (fym @ 330qha-1 + pongamia oil cake @ 8.30qha-1 + neem oil cake @ 8.30qh-1 + sterameal @ 8.30qh-1 + rock phosphate @ 8.30qha-1 + wood ash @ 8.30qha-1) increased the physical properties and water holding capacity of the soil. phirke and mahorkar (2010) concluded that fortification of soil with organic manures like nitrogen fixers, phosphate solubilizing microbes, vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizae (vam) and bio-fertilizers not only increased soil porosity, but also infiltration of water in banana fields. organic manures on growth continuous use of inorganic fertilizers leads to undesirable changes in the soil and environment, ultimately endangering the very sustainability of farming (sharma, 1988). inclusion of organic manures in the nutrient schedule of banana not only supplies micronutrients, but also improves physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil. banana responds positively to large amounts of mulch and organic matter. heavy organic manuring is required to equalize chemical fertilization in banana (lahav, 1973). soil application of 0.5kg of neem cake along with 10g pseudomonas fluorescens plant-1 at 3rd, 5th and 7th month after planting enhanced growth of banana. mustaffa et al (2004) reported that application of organic manures significantly improved growth parameters in cvs. rasthali and karpuravalli. soil application of powdered neem seed or neem cake at 100g plant-1 at planting and subsequently at 3 or 4 months’ interval positively influenced growth in banana. ratan et al (2008) concluded that application of organic manures such as vermicompost, fym, poultry manure, neem cake and its combinations recorded equal leaf nutrient status compared to100 % inorganic fertilizers in cv. grand naine. sundararaju and kiruthika (2009) found that application of paecilomyces lilacinus 10g plant-1 + neem cake 100g plant-1 improved growth characters like pseudostem height, girth, number of leaves, number of roots, root length and root weight in cv. robusta. athani et al (2009) opined that in-situ vermi-composting increased pseudostem height, girth, number of functional leaves, leaf area and leaf area index in cv. rajapuri. badgujar et al (2010) recorded higher pseudostem height, pseudostem girth, total number of leaves, days taken to shooting and less number of days for harvesting with application of 20 kg fym + 1 kg neem cake + 200: 40:200g npk plant-1. organic manures on yield attributes application of 8.25t ha-1 cattle manure along with cattle-shed washings and slurry at every four months increased yield attributes in banana (herath et al, 1977). mustaffa et al (2004) studied the influence of different organic manures on cvs. rasthali and karpuravalli and concluded that application of 2.5kg compost + 1kg vermicompost + 1kg neem cake + 2.5kg poultry manure at 3rd, 5th and 7th month after planting recorded maximum values for yield parameters. application of organic amendments such as farmyard manure, green leaves, wood ash, neem cake and other oil cakes produced bunches weighing 2530kg as compared to 10-12kg under normal production systems in chengalikodan (menon et al, 2004). on the contrary, navarro (2005) calculated that there was no difference in bunch weight between chemical fertilization or organic fertilization in banana under soil and climatic conditions of the central-southern part of tolima, colombia. pushpakumari et al (2008) revealed that application of coir pith compost increased bunch weight (18.9t ha-1) compared to application of fym (17.4t ha-1), poultry manure (17.9t ha-1) or vermicompost (17.0 t ha-1) in banana. they also confirmed that different organic sources could be effectively used as a substitute for chemical fertilizers without any reduction in bunch yield in cv. nendran. bhalerao et al (2009) studied the influence of 100 % organic manures (fym + green manure + neem cake 1.0kg + bio-fertilizer) on cv. grand naine and found lesser yield of banana over that production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 16 with inm practices. thomas (2009) elucidated that oil cakes from neem, marotti, castor, groundnut and mustard markedly influenced yield in banana owing to their higher nutrient content. anusuya (2009) found that application of vermicompost alone gave equally good performance with reference to bunch weight, on par with 100 % recommended dose of fertilizers. in egypt, barakat et al (2011) found that application of bio-fertilizers along with compost, rock phosphate and feldspar recorded maximum bunch weight, with better fruit characteristics in cv. williams. organic manures on fruit quality in general, application of organic manures resulted in better quality fruits. in-situ green manuring with sunnhemp and mulching with banana residues improved fruit quality in terms of tss, sugars, acidity and sugar:acid ratio (sathyanarayana and babu, 1992). menon et al (2004) observed that application of organic amendments, viz., fym, green leaves, wood ash, neem cake and groundnut cake improved the quality of fruits and organic manures produced uniform golden yellow bunches at maturity, and fetched 4 to 5 times higher price in cv. chengalikodan. mustaffa and kumar (2008) found that combined application of compost, vermi-compost, neem cake and poultry manure recorded maximum tss, acidity, total sugars and starch content in rasthali and karpuravalli cultivars. moniem et al (2008) observed that application of 100 % rdf through fym or banana compost registered values statistically on par as regard fruit quality parameters. in cv. grand naine, application of vermicompost (3kg plant-1) and castor cake (3kg plant-1) produced superior quality fruits with shelf life (patel et al, 2010). integrated nutrient management (inm) proper manuring and fertilizer application is required in banana for obtaining high yields. moreover, continuous use of chemical fertilizers affects soil health, thereby reducing organic matter content and beneficial soil microorganisms. considering the present concerns on soil health and environmental security, there is a need to opt for integrated nutrient management involving sources of organic manures, organic cakes and bio-fertilizers, including mycorrhizae, besides chemical fertilizers. hence, an integrated nutrient management (inm) system is needed to be introduced with the aim to achieve efficient use of chemical fertilizers in conjunction with organic manures. in inm, a combined application of organic and inorganic sources of nutrients, maintains plant nutrients in soil and improves nutrient-use efficiency, which is essential for sustainable crop production. organic matter acts as a source and a sink for plant nutrients besides providing an energy substrate for soil micro organisms. thus, it enhances activity of soil flora and fauna, as well as the intrinsic soil properties, soil nutrient capital, water-holding capacity. soil structure, in turn, makes it less susceptible to leaching and erosion. therefore, inm practices are essential to maintain / enhance soil quality and sustainability of an agro-ecosystem (carter, 2002). conjunctive use of fym with recommended levels of inorganic fertilizers improves soil fertility giving increased yield of the crop. availability of fym in adequate quantities to meet the requirement of the banana for integrated and conjunctive use with inorganic fertilizers is a major problem. however, there is scope for supplementing fym with green manures, vermicompost, bio-fertilizers and commercial organic formulations (bhalerao et al, 2009). integrated nutrient management in banana is being practiced and experimented in various parts of our country. bhalerao et al (2009) observed that combined application of 100 % recommended dose of npk along with 10kg fym plant -1 and azospirillum and phosphate solubilizing bacteria 25g plant-1 increased pseudostem height, girth took, minimum days to flower and crop duration, and yield attributes. similar trend was reported by mustaffa et al (2004); bhalerao et al (2009), hazarika and ansari (2010); badgujar et al (2010) and barakat et al (2011) in banana. the remaining nutrients are to be supplied through external sources such as inorganic fertilizers and / or organic/biological sources. consequently, several inorganic fertilizer combinations have been recommended for optimum yield in banana but, in the long run, these cannot sustain fertility status of the soil. in recent times, much attention has been given to integrated use of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers to meet the economic need of farmers for sustainability in terms of crop productivity and soil fertility (hazarika and ansari, 2010a). inm on quality parameters combined application of nitrogen (300g), potassium (200g), karangi cake (1000g) and planofix (150 ppm) significantly improved the quality parameters such as tss, acidity, sugars, and sugar:acid ratio and ascorbic acid (singh et al,2000). naby and sonbaty (2005) found that application of fym with mineral npk gave highest fruit chemical properties (tss and total sugar) in banana. balakrishnan et al (2006) reported that application of 75 %rdf + 25 %rdf through vermicompost increased pulp weight, peel weight, and lowered pulp:peel ratio in cv. poovan. application mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 17 of 50 %banana compost + 50 % mineral fertilizers enhanced fruit quality in terms of increased total soluble solids, total sugars, lower starch and total acidity (eman et al, 2008). thangaselvabai et al(2009) recommended application of azospirillum along with npk in two splits for increasing fruit quality in cv. rasthali. application of vermicompost and castor cake each @ 3kg pl-1 produced superior quality fruits and enhanced shelf life in cv. grand naine (patel et al, 2010). banana bunch sleeves for enhancing bunch grade worldwide, wind is considered as the single most serious threat faced by banana and plantain growers. winds of even moderate speed damage fruits through scarring of the peel surface in several ways (by blowing dust and debris that hit the delicate outer skin and cause cellular damage and, subsequently, scarring of fruits). in addition, fruits are attacked by sucking pests, including different types of thrips such as red rust thrips, flower thrips and fruit scarring beetles right from bunch emergence until harvest of bunch. in majority of the cases, insects feeding on immature fruits is the main cause of peel damage, especially in regions with high populations of sucking pests. due to pre-harvest damage caused by these sucking insect pests, farmers suffer significant losses. in general, most fruit scarring pests cause superficial peel damage which does not affect eating quality of the fruit. however, it negatively affects the fruit’s external appearance and market value. since quality standards are rather rigid in the export market, fruits having external blemishes caused by pests, are totally unacceptable to the discerning export market. significance of bagging banana bunches covering the bunch with dried banana leaves is practiced in many commercial banana growing countries as a measure to avoid any damage to the fruits and protect the fruit from insect attack, thereby ensuring better bunch quality. for centuries, old banana leaves have been wrapped around maturing bunches in new guinea. in 1936, it was demonstrated that covering bunches with hessian bags protect to them against winter-chilling which improved the quality. later, paper bags were used, although to a limited extent. in recent years, the practice of covering the bunch with polythene sleeves during development to protect fruits intended for the export market has gained momentum and has become an important cultivation practice especially in the banana exporting countries. bagging is done to protect bunches from low temperature and is followed in countries like india (gopalakrishna and deo, 1960) and australia (berrill, 1956). bunch covers are also effective against sunburns and blemishes caused by wind-blown dust and by birds (samson, 1980). chillet and jannoyar (1996) reported that bagging raised the temperature around bunches and reduced the shooting-to-harvest interval under temperate conditions, as, bagging changed the microclimate around the bunch. bunch covers are effective in increasing yields of bunches maturing during winter months. some growers also experimented with double bunch covers (often, a clear cover placed inside a coloured cover) to provide greater warmth for the winter bunches. research findings of malaysian agricultural research & development institute (mardi), suggest that skin injuries to cavendish banana can be greatly reduced (up to 90%) by wrapping the fruit bunch. colour of bunch covers although several colours gave excellent results, the banana industry standardized blue bags for many years. more recently, blue, green, yellow and clear (with or without silver sides) have been used. the bunch covers consistently increased bunch weight by about 25 %. the bag comes as a tube which slides up the bunch and is tied loosely only at the top and left open at the bottom. this allows air movement and prevents possible overheating inside the bag. at the centre for tropical horticulture, alstonville, nsw, experiments showed that while yield increases of 25 to 30 % could be expected in some seasons, no significant yield increase occurred in some others. however, covered bunches always produced fruit that was much better in appearance, than the uncovered bunches. fruits from covered bunches were more uniform in size and fullness from the front to the back and top to the bottom of the bunch, than in uncovered bunches. banana bunches emerging in september and were covered with blue polythene sleeves, combined with use of paper inserts, to avoid sunburn. results revealed that bunches covered with blue polythene yielded 22% more, and this increase rose to 28% if a newspaper was placed over the top hand. covering also raised the percentage of top-grade fruits and the paperprotection enhanced quality by reducing sunburn (rippon and turner, 1970). types of bunch covers various types of covering—dry banana leaves, canvas, drill cloth, sisal sacks, or burlap or so-called ‘hessian’ bags (made of jute), have been put over banana bunches intended for export, especially, to enhance fruit development in winter and to avoid blemishes. type of bunch cover to be recommended depends upon climatic conditions production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 18 prevalent in the region. generally, thick, non-perforated polythene covers which favour heat build-up inside, are found best suited for cooler, sub-tropical banana growing regions; whereas, for tropical growing environments, comparatively thinner and perforated bunch covers (that allow better aeration inside the cover) are more suitable. banana bunch covers are usually designed with 100 gauge thick, white or blue polythene sleeves, normally of 80cm width; but, plantains (nendran) owing to the lateral orientation of fruit, require a width of 100cm. the tubular/ hollow sleeve should be slid up the bunch from the bottom. bagging of the bunch is done with six to 10 % ventilation, with the bags at about 20-30 cm above the first hand, and leaving the bottom-end open so there is no accumulation of floral remnants or moisture which, otherwise, may cause fungal infection at a later stage. in general, the length of polythene sleeves varies from 1.0m to 1.5 depending on the length of the bunch. in the case of very long bunches in udhayam banana, bunch-cover 2.0m long is required. recently, polypropylene bunch covers that allow better aeration inside the cover have been found equally effective. unlike the polythene sleeves, these do not require holes. bunch trimming effect on yield and fruit quality of polyethylene bunch covers (applied one week after abscission of the last female flower bract) and bunch-trimming (by removal of the distal one or two hands of the bunch) was investigated. bunch covering increased fruit weight per bunch by 4 % and decreased the period from bunch emergence to harvest by 5 days. however, yield reduced by 5 %with trimming one hand per bunch, and by 13-15 % with trimming two hands. these yield declines occurred without accompanying improvement in fruit grade. thus, bunch trimming was found unprofitable in north queensland (daniels et al, 1987). timing of covering the bunch the timing of bunch-covering during development of bananas was examined to arrive at the optimum, for fruit quality. covers open or sealed, were applied at various stages of bunch development. sealed covers increased the severity of maturity-bronzing whenever applied. maturity-bronzing was slightly less when open covers were applied when the last female bract lifted on the bunch (early), compared to a week or so later when the fingers had curled up. bunch weight did not increase by application of open covers, but sealed covers increased bunch weight by up to 9%. this was due to the increased finger length along the entire bunch. application of covers (both open and sealed) at earlier than conventional time increased finger length at the proximal end of the bunch, the effect being greater the earlier the covers were applied. open covers reduced the time taken from bunch emergence to harvest by 5-11 days, compared to no covering. very early and early covering gave the largest reduction, whereas, sealed bunch covers delayed harvest by up to 16 days, compared to no covering. there was a non-significant reduction of 2-4 days in fruit greenlife, related to delay in bunch-filling caused by sealed covers. sealed covers led to some fruit abnormalities, including severe spotting by deightoniella sp., in slightly s-shaped fruits, and a dull fruit-appearance. early application of open bunch covers is recommended to reduce maturity-bronzing as it also increases finger length, and bunch-filling time is reduced by about 1.5 weeks. it is cautioned that the cover should not be put on until bracts have lifted from the fruits (about 21 days after “shooting”) so that the young fingers will be firm enough to resist friction from the cover. benefits of bunch covers wrapping produces bananas high in quality and free from insect bites, fungi or bacteria as well as physical injuries such as abrasions, blemishes and cuts. bunch covers protect fruits against wind damage, fruit-scarring by the adjacent leaf/petiole, sunburn, damage due to dust, light hail, bird feeding and improve fruit quality and increase the yield. more importantly, significant reduction in insect pest damage to the fruit peel can be achieved by covering the bunch shortly after bunch emergence, preferably before emergence of the first hand. in addition to the benefits of producing blemishless fruits, there is significant reduction in post harvest anthracnose disease on the fruit from sleeved bunches. the net effect of bunch-cover use is better quality fruit and increased marketable yield. overall, bunch covers help produce larger individual bananas with less skin damage, thereby fetching better market price and higher profits. in addition, polythene bunch covering advances fruit maturity by 7-10 days. effect of bunch cover on finger grade (mm), finger length (cm) and bunch weight (kg) of tissue culture banana cv. williams treatment grade (mm) finger bunch length (cm) weight (kg) control 30.94 a 19.07 a 8.62 a dull blue 33.33 a 20.03 a 10.44 a shiny blue 33.44 a 20.37 a 9.16 a lsd ns ns ns mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 19 precautions to be exercised in spite of the benefits, bunch covers can cause problems such as sun burn when polythene sleeves are used during very hot periods. however, these can be easily overcome by: ● use of reflective covers ● maintaining sufficient number of leaves on the plant is a must as these provide additional shade to the bunch covers/ bunch ● polypropylene covers which are aerated & biodegradable though there has been many success stories achieved by the farmers from certain banana growing regions particularly in the states of maharashtra, gujarat and tamil nadu who have achieved very high yields of export quality bananas, attention is warranted for the adoption of technologies right from the selection of high-yielding varieties, planting of healthy planting material preferably the tissue cultured plants, drip and fertigation techniques, better mat and bunch management practices for equally enhancing the production and productivity of bananas in other parts of the country as well. among the techniques for enhanced production, it is important to choose ideal plant spacing with high density planting and maintenance of ideal plant population depending on cultivar and management level play a vital role to bridge the gap between actual yield and the potential yield from a unit area. it is also essential to enhance the input use efficiency of major inputs of water and nutrients through adequate nutrient diagnostics and need based application at correct proportion and in time to avoid deficiency/excesses of nutrients. proper bunch management practices also ensure harvest of good grade bunches with blemish less fruits thus in turn confirms comparatively premium price and profit to the banana growers as well as healthy and hygienic fruits to the 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(eds.). aipub, trichy, pp. 338-339 somogyi, n. 1952. notes on sugar determination. j. biol. chem., 200:145-154 soorianatha sundaram, k., kumar, r. k. and shanthi, h. 2000. influence of organic nutrition on the productivity of banana cv. nendran. south indian hort., 45:109114. srinivas, k. 1996. response of banana to irrigation and post shooting potassium nutrition. in: banana: technological advancements. singh, h.p. and s. uma (eds.) pp. 304-05. srivastava, r.p. 1963. selection of planting materials for banana. allahabad farming, 37: 18-20 stover, r.h. 1984. canopy management in valery and grand naine using leaf area index and photosynthetically actual radiation measurements. fruits, 39:89-93 stover r.h. and simmonds, n.w. 1987. bananas, 3rd ed. longman, harlow. 468pp suma, a., menon, rema, cehriyan, anita and shakuntala. 2007. bio-regulators for yield improvement in banana var. nendran. in: national symposium on banana, trichy, p. 120 sundararaju, p. and kiruthika, p. 2009. effect of biocontrol agent, pacilomyces lilacinus along with neem cake and botanicals for the management of meloidogyne incognita on banana. indian j. nematol., 39:201206 swennen r. 1984. a physiological study of the suckering behaviour in plantain (musa cv. aab). ph.d. thesis, no. 132, ku leuven, faculty of agric., belgium. 180pp *swennen r. 1990. plantain cultivation under west african conditions. a reference manual. international institute of tropical agriculture, ibadan, nigeria. 24-26 swennen r. and vuylsteke, d. 1987. morphological taxonomy of plantain (musa cultivars aab) in west africa. pp. 165-171 in: banana and plantain breeding strategies, (g.j. persley & e.a. de langhe, eds). aciar proceedings 21, canberra, australia swennen r., de langhe, e., janssen, j. and decoene, d. 1986. study of the root development of some musa cultivars in hydroponics. fruits 41:515-524 teaotia, s.s. and dubey, p.s. 1971. effect of sources of nitrogen on growth and yield of banana musa cavendishii (l) var. harichal. progressive horticulture, 3:39-44 teaotia, s.s., tripathy, r.s. and gangwar, b.n. 1972. effect of irrigation and fertilizer levels on growth, yield and quality of banana (musa cavendishii). prog. hort., 3:57-63 thadchayini, t and thiruchelvam, s. 2005. an economic evaluation of a drip irrigation project for banana cultivation in jaffna. in: proc. of water professionals’ day symp., sri lanka thangaselvabai, t.g., suresh, s., prem joshua, j., and sudha, k.r., 2009. banana nutrition a review. agric. rev., 30:24-31 thangaselvabai. t.g., leo justin, g., nirmal hohnson, s.b. and jayasekhar, m. 2009a. influence of nutrients on quantitative and qualitative traits of banana. indian j. agriculture, 43:274 -78 thippesha, d.; srinivas, v.; mahanthesh, b.; janardhan, g. and vishnuvardhana. 2007. effect of different planting systems on flowering and crop duration with different levels of nutrition and spacing in banana cv. robusta (aaa). asian journal of horticulture, 2: 280-284 thomas,g.v. 2009. biological techniques for nutrient management in banana. in: banana: new innovations, singh h.p. and m.m. mustaffa (eds.). pp. 153-160 tirkey, t., agarwal, s. and pandey, s.d. 2003. effect of organic manures on growth, maturity and yield of banana cv. dwarf cavendish. south indian hort., 50:19-24 production and productivity of banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 28 tiwary, d.k., hasan, m.a. and chattopadhyay, p.k. 1998. studies on the effect of inoculation with azotobactor and azospirillum on growth, yield and quality of banana. indian agriculturist, 42:235-240 turner, d.w. 1969. research into fertilizers for bananas. agriculture gazette, 80:511-513 turner, d.w. and barkus, b. 1980a. plant growth and dry matter production of the ‘williams’ banana in relation to supply of potassium, magnesium and manganese in sand culture. scientia horticulturae., 12:27-45 twyford, i.t. and coutler, j.k. 1964. foliar diagnosis in banana fertilizer trails. plant. anal. & fertilizer prob., 4:357-370. upadhayay, s. 1988. effect of npk fertilizers on growth and quality of banana cv. harichal. progressive horticulture, 20:257-262 vadivel, e. 1976. studies on the growth and development of robusta banana in relation to k nutrition. m.sc. (ag.) thesis, tamil nadu agrl. univ., coimbatore valsamma, s and mathew, m. 1980. nitrogen nutrition in rainfed banana cv. palayankodon, m.sc., (hort.), thesis, kau, vellanikara. venkatesan, o. k., reddy, v. and rangacharlu, v. s. 1985. studies on the effect of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash fertilization on the growth and yield of banana. indian j. hort., 22:175-84 vijayaraghavan, h. and ayyamperumal, a. 2000. foliar nutrition of n and k for banana cv. poovan. in: banana improvement, production and utilization, singh h.p. and k.l. chadha (eds.). aipub, trichy, pp. 292-296 wade, n.l., kavanagh, e.e.,and jan, s.c. 1973. sunscald and ultraviolet light injury of banana fruits. j. hort. sci., 68:409-419 weerasinghe, s.s. and ruwanpathirana, k.h. 2002. influence of bagging material on bunch development of banana (musa spp.) under high density planting system. annals of sri lanka depart. agri., 4: 47-53 weerasinghe, p., premalal, n.h.r. and seranasinghe, s.n.k. 2004. influence of nitrogen on crop performances and leaf nitrogen status of dense planted banana. in: annual report of sri lanka dept. agriculture. yadav, i.s., singh, h.p. and singh, k.d. 1988. response of banana to different levels and frequency of potassium application. south indian hort., 36:167-171 young, s.c.h., sammis, t.w. and wu, i.p. 1985. banana yield as affected by deficit irrigation and patterns of lateral layouts. transactions of asae 28:507-510 ziauddin, s. 2009. integrated nutrient management studies in banana (cv. ardhapuri). asian j. hort., 4:126-130 mustaffa and kumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):1-28, 2012 french bean, phaseolus vulgaris l. is a diploid (2n = 22), with relatively a small genome 633 mbp (arumuganatham and earle, 1991). it is one of the most important legume vegetables, grown for its tender green pods either for fresh consumption or for processing as canned, frozen or freeze dried products. though, french bean is a short duration crop, it is prone to several biotic and abiotic stresses. diseases however, are the most important production constraints. among the diseases, mungbean yellow mosaic virus (mymv) has become epidemic in bean growing areas, which is easily transmitted by whitefly, bemisia tabaci (nariani, 1960 and thongmeearkjom et al, 1981). resistance breeding is the most effective strategy to overcome the yield loss due to this disease in beans (beebe et al, 1995; singh et al, 2000; morales, 2001). it is preferred over other methods as it is least expensive and eco friendly. identification of resistant lines through conventional methods under field screening is time consuming and it requires short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 167-169, 2009 identification of rapd marker linked to mungbean yellow mosaic virus resistance in french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) k.v. ravishankar1, t.s.aghora, n. mohan, a.h. naveen and m. krishnareddy2 division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: aghor@iihr.ernet.in abstract mungbean yellow mosaic virus (mymv) causes yield loss up to 80 % and is becoming problematic in french bean growing areas. molecular marker linked selection to mymv resistance is helpful in rapid identification of genotypes carrying resistant genes. hence, the present study was undertaken to identify the rapd marker associated with mymv resistance in french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.). bulk segregant analysis (bsa) was used to identify rapd marker linked to mymv resistance. more than 140 random decamers were surveyed for identification of polymorphic markers between the dna bulks of resistant and susceptible f 2 individuals and their contrasting parents. ninety eight per cent of these primers amplified dna in both parents and bulks. twenty two primers produced specific bands for resistant parent which was absent in the susceptible parent. out of 22 primers, four primers produced specific fragments viz., opg 13 458 , opx 5 670 , opw 17 380 and opp 07 730 , respectively in resistant parent and bulk, which were absent in susceptible parent and bulk. amplification of individual dna samples of segregating f 2 resistant individuals using putative marker, opp 07 730, a decamer revealed polymorphism in all four resistant and four susceptible f 2 segregants, indicating that the marker opp 07 730 was associated with mymv resistance in ic-525260, a resistant genotype. key words: bulk segregant analysis, mymv, phaseolus vulgaris l., rapd marker 1division of biotechnology 2division of plant pathology evaluation of the resistant lines in hot spots. moreover, the incidence of disease at the testing site may not be at the desired level. the disease incidence is seasonal and cannot be created as and when desired by artificial means. therefore, identification of molecular marker linked to mymv resistant genes helps in rapid identification of resistant genotypes, thus reducing the time required for the development of resistant varieties. hence, the present study was carried out to identify random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) marker associated with mymv resistant gene in french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.). population development: the present investigation was carried out at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. mymv resistant parent ic-525260 (aghora et al, 2008) was crossed with susceptible parent ic-525283 during kharif 2007. the f 1 seeds were collected and were advanced to f 2 , which was screened for resistance during summer 2008. disease scoring was done on 1-9 scale (singh et al, 2004) at pod maturity stage and based on the score, 168 plants were grouped into resistant and susceptible segregants. segregants with scores of less than 5 were grouped under resistant and 5.0 and above were grouped as susceptible. leaves of these plants were used for dna extraction. the genomic dna of the parents and f 2 population was extracted by following modified ctab (cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide) dna extraction method and was quantified using uv-spectrophotometer at 260 nm absorbance (ravishankar et al, 2000). rapd analysis and marker development: genomic dna was used as template for polymerase chain reaction (pcr). pcr amplification was carried out in 25 µl reaction volume, containing reaction buffer of ph 9.0, 15 mm mgcl 2, 2.5µl of 3µm primer (operon primers), 2.5µl of 1mm dntps, 0.5 u of taq dna polymerase and 50 ng genomic dna. amplification was performed using thermocycler (eppendorfmaster cycler gradient) with initial denaturation at 94°c for 4 minutes, followed by 35 cycles of denaturation at 94°c for 30 seconds, annealing at 38°c for 2 seconds and extension at 72°c for 90 seconds and final extension at 72°c for 8 minutes. pcr amplified products were separated on 1.5% agarose gel (1x tae buffer). the amplified products were visualized under uv-transilluminator. bulk segregant analysis (bsa): bsa was employed to identify rapd marker linked to mymv resistance. dna was extracted from each of 15 resistant and susceptible f 2 segregants, separately. the parents were screened along with resistant and susceptible bulks using 140 rapd random primers (opg 01-20, opp 01-20, opr 01-20, ops 01-20, opw 01-20, opx 01-20, opy 01-20). in conventional breeding, selection of resistant genotype depends on artificial screening. this process is complex and time consuming. whereas, molecular marker assisted selection helps in tagging the resistant gene. once the gene of interest is tagged with molecular marker, selection for that gene can be made based on the marker rather than the phenotype. moreover, selection can be performed at the seedling stage itself thus it helps in rapid screening (tanklesy, 1983; beckmann and soller, 1986). an attempt was made to identify the rapd marker associated with mymv resistance in ic 525260 using bulk segregant analysis. for marker identification, screening of each segregant in mapping population with all the primers is time consuming. hence, bulk segregant analysis was employed. the screening of contrasting bulks (resistant and susceptible) made from individuals of same phenotype of segregating population suggested that testing the entire population is required only when polymorphism between the bulks is detected. this helps in considerable saving of time particularly when used with pcr based technique such as rapd (williams et al, 1990). bulk segregant analysis was used to detect markers linked to many disease resistant genes including uromyces appendiculatus resistance in common bean (haley et al, 1993), leaf rust resistance in barley (poulsen et al, 2000) and angular leaf spot in common bean (nietsche et al, 2000). in the present study, 140 rapd primers were surveyed for identification of polymorphic markers between the dna bulks of resistant and susceptible f 2 individuals and their parents. ninety eight per cent of these produced dna amplification in both parents and bulks. twenty two primers produced specific bands for resistant parent which was absent in the susceptible parent. out of 22 primers, four primers viz., opg 13, opx 5, opw 17 and opp 7 produced specific fragments viz., opg 13 458 , opx 5 670 , opw 17 380 and opp 7 730 , respectively in resistant parent and resistant bulk, which were absent in susceptible parent and susceptible bulk. amplification of individual dna samples out of the bulk with putative marker, opp 07 730 a decamer with sequence gtccatgcca revealed polymorphism in all four resistant and four susceptible f 2 segregants (fig. 1). from the results, it was concluded that the rapd marker opp 07 730 was associated with resistance to mymv in ic 525260. this marker can be effectively used for rapid screening of large scale population for resistance to mymv in french bean. similarly, rapd markers linked to disease resistance in various crops were identified and reported earlier namely, bgmv resistance in french bean (urrea and mikals, 1996); mymv resistance in mung bean (selvi et al, 2006); powdery mildew resistance (pm1) in wheat (hu et al, 1997); tmv resistance (tm-2) in tomato (ohmori et al, 1995) and tomato spotted wilt virus resistance (sw-5) in tomato (stevens et al, 1995). fig 1. rapd marker opp 07 730 linked to mymv resistance using bulk segregant analysis j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 167-169, 2009 ravishankar et al 169 lane, ssusceptible parent; r resistant parent; bssusceptible bulk; brresistant bulk; 1, 2, 3, 4 individual susceptible f 2 segregants; 5, 6, 7, 8 individual resistant f 2 segregants and m dna marker 100 bp. arrow indicates the polymorphic band of size approximately 730 bp associated with mymv resistance in phaseolus vulgaris. references adam-blondon, a.f., sevignac, m., bannerot, h. and dron, m.1994. scar, rapd and rflp markers linked to dominant gene (are) conferring resistance to anthracnose in common bean. theor. and appl. genet., 88:863-870 aghora, t.s., mohan, n. and krishana reddy, m. 2008. identification of stable sources of resistance to mung bean yellow mosaic virus in french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.). ind. j. virol., 19:281 arumuganatham, k. and earle, e. d.1991. nuclear dna content of some important plant species. pl. mol.biol.rep., 9:208-218 beckmann, j. s. and soller, m. 1986. restriction fragment length polymorphisms and genetic improvement of agricultural species. euphytica, 35:111-124 beebe, s. e., ochoa, i., skroch, p., nienhuis, j. and tivang, j.1995. genetic diversity among common bean breeding lines developed for central america. crop sci., 35:1178-1183 haley, s., mikals, p. n., stavely, j. r., byrum, j. d. and kuully, e.1993. identification of rapd markers linked to a major rust resistance gene block in common bean. theor. and appl. genet., 86:505-512 hu, x. y., ohm, h. w. and dweikat, i.1997. identification of rapd markers linked to the gene pm 1 for resistance to powdery mildew in wheat. theor. and appl. genet., 94:832-840 jones, c.j., edwards, k.j., castaglione, s., winfield, m.o., sala, f. van dewiel, c., bredemeijer, g., vosman, b., matthes, m., daly, a., brettschneider, r., bettini, p. buiatti, m., maestri, e., malcevschi, a., marmiroli, n., aert, r., volckaert, g., rueda, j., linacero, r., vazquez, a. and karp, a. 1997. reproducibility testing of rapd, aflp and ssr markers in plants by a network of european laboratories. mol. breed., 3:381-390 morales, f. j. 2001. conventional breeding for resistance to bemisia tabaci transmitted geminiviruses. crop prot., 20:825-834 nariani, t. k., 1960, yellow mosaic of mung (phaseolus aureus l.) ind. phytopath., 13:24-29 nietsche, s., borem, a., carvalho, g. a., rocha, r. c., paulajr, t, j., debarros e. g. and moreisa, m. a.2000. rapd and scar markers linked to a gene confirming resistance to angular leaf spot in common bean. j. phytopath., 148:117-121 ohmori, t., murata, m. and motoyoshi, f. 1995. identification of rapd markers linked to the tm-2 locus in tomato. theor. and appl. genet., 90:307-311 poulsen, d. m. e., henry, r. j., jhonston, r. p., irwin, j. a. g. and ress, r. g. 2000. the use of bulk segregant analysis to identify a rapd marker linked to leaf rust resistance in barley. theor. appl. genet., 91:270-273 ravishankar, k.v., lalitha anand and dinesh, m.r. 2000. assessment of genetic relatedness among a few indian mango varieties using rapd marker. j. hort. sci. biotech. 75:198-201 selvi, r., muthiah, a. r., manivannan, n., raveendran, t. s., manickam and samiyappan, 2006, tagging of rapd marker for mymv resistance in mung bean (vigna radiate (l.) wilczek). asian j. plant sci, 5:277280 singh, r. a., de. r. k., gurha, s. n., ghoush, a. and vishwa, d. 2004. the mung bean yellow mosaic virus disease. (technical bulletin) indian institute of pulse research, kanpur singh, s. p., morales, f. j., miklas, p. n. and teran, h. 2000. selection for bean golden mosaic resistance in intra and interracial bean populations. crop sci., 40:1565-1572 stevens, k. r., lamb, e. m. and rhoads, d. d.1995. mapping the sw-5 locus for tomato spotted wilt virus resistance in tomato using rapd and rflp analysis. theo. appl. genet., 90: 451-456 tanksley, s. d.1983. molecular markers in plant breeding. plant. mol. biol. rep., 1:3-8 thongmeearkjom, p., kittipakorn, k. and surin, p. 1981. outbreak of mungbean yellow mosaic disease in thailand. thai. j. agric. sci., 14:201-206 urrea, a. c. and mikals, n. p. 1996. a co-dominant randomly amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) marker useful for indirect selection of bean golden mosaic virus resistance in common bean. j. amer. sco. hort. sci., 121:1035-1039 williams, j. g. k., kubelik, a. r. and livak, k. j., 1990. oligonucleotide primers of arbitrary sequence amplified dna polymorphisms which are useful as genetic markers. nucleic acids res., 18:6531-6535 (ms received 15 june 2009, revised 26 october 2009) identification of rapd marker linked to mungbean yellow mosaic virus resistance in frenchbean j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 167-169, 2009 mango is an important fruit crop of india, being the ‘king of fruits’. india is the global leader in mango production, with 104.1 million tonnes from an area of 12.02 million ha (nhb, 2009). our national average productivity is estimated at 6.42 t/ha. reasons for the low productivity are many, an important one being that most of our commercial varieties are alternate or irregular bearers. to combat the alternate bearing habit in mango, many investigations have been made. use of chemicals and pruning is one of them. however, results on effect of pruning and chemicals vary depending on the variety, location, dose of the chemical and time of application (maas, 1989; rao and ravishankar, 1992; srihari and rao, 1996, 1996a; rao et al, 1997; joganande et al, 2003; jayavalli, 2006) in varieties like ‘alphonso’, not much work has been done on pruning or on use of chemicals. hence, the present investigation was carried out on mango flowering and fruit yield. a field trial was conducted from 2005 to 2009 on 16year old alphonso mango crop raised on the polyembryonic rootstock ‘peach’. trees were spaced at 10m × 5m under rain-fed condition on red loamy soil of ph 7.21 and available n 249 kg/ha, available p 14 kg/ha and available k 149.4 kg/ha. seven treatments were applied as follows: t 1 : pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 t 2 : pruning + 1% kh 2 po 4 short communication effect of pruning and chemicals on flowering and fruit yield in mango cv. alphonso y.t.n. reddy and reju m. kurian division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india e-mail : nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field trial was conducted from 2005 to 2009 on pruning and spray of various chemicals to study their effects on flowering and fruit yield in ‘alphonso’ mango, at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. seven treatments were imposed, with pruning of fruited shoots as a common treatment, followed by chemical sprays and a control. over the five years, flowering parameters (% vegetative, dormant or flowering shoots) were found to be nonsignificant among different treatments. treatments increased fruit yield compared to control. the best treatment was t 3 (pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 + 1% kno 3 spray) which recorded mean fruit yield of 63.9 kg / plant, compared to a fruit yield of 33.0 kg / plant in control. key words: fruit quality, pruning, mango, chemicals, fruit yield t 3 : pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 + 1% kno 3 t 4 : pruning + 1% kh 2 po 4 + 1% kno 3 t 5 : pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 + 1% thiourea t 6 : pruning + 1% kh 2 po 4 + 1% thiourea t 7 : control (no pruning or chemical spray) pruning treatments were imposed after fruit harvest during august by pruning 15-20 cm of fruited shoots, followed by spray of 1% k 2 hpo 4 or 1% kh 2 po 4 during october (t 1 and t 2 ); treatments t 3 to t 6 at the time of bud-break (december). spray solution @ 4 litres / tree was used along with a wetting agent. the trial was laid out in rbd design with 4 replications and a single tree as a unit / treatment. regular and uniform cultural practices were followed. flowering parameters were recorded in january-february and fruit yield parameters during the fruiting seasons 20062009. data were statistically analyzed as per standard procedure of panse and sukhatme (1986). type of shoots: percentage of vegetative, dormant and flowering shoots were found to be non significant among various treatments during the different years of observation. however in general, pruning along with chemical sprays reduced percentage of vegetative shoots and increased percentage of flowering shoots compared to control. similar results were reported by maas (1989); but, on the contrary, j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):85-87, 2012 86 reddy and reju beneficial effects of pruning + chemicals spray were reported in mango by joganande et al (2003) and chadha and pal (1993). the difference in response to pruning and chemicals was due to the varieties studied under varying environmental and growth conditions. panicle length, shoot length and number of days to 50% flowering during different years were found to be nonsignificant among treatments. similar results were earlier reported (maas, 1989; chadha and pal, 1993). these attributes were not influenced by pruning or chemical sprays. fruit yield: fruit yield as affected by pruning and spray of chemicals is presented in table 1. number of fruits/plant and fruit yield/plant was found to be significant between treatments in the years 2007 to 2009. cumulative fruit yield was also significantly different in treatments compared to control. all the treatments increased fruit yield, and, the most pronounced effect was seen in the treatment pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 + 1% kno 3 . hence, mean fruit yield was almost twice (63.9 kg / plant) that in the control (33.0 kg / plant). similar results have been reported by several workers (jaganande et al, 2003; chadha and pal, 1993). increased fruit yield owing to pruning and chemicals was due to increased number of flowering shoots and reduced vegetative / dormant shoots, in general, compared to the control. phosphoric acid and potassium nitrate may have acted synergistically to increase the number of flowering shoots, thereby increasing fruit yield. cost-benefit ratio: mean cumulative fruit yield for four years and cost:benefit ratio were worked out and are presented in table 2. maximum cost:benefit ratio (1:3.8) was obtained with the treatment pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 + 1% kno 3 , whereas, control treatment recorded the least cost:benefit ratio (1:1.54) indicating superiority of the treatment. references chadha, k.l. and pal, r.n. 1993. biennial bearing in mango. in: advances in horticulture, vol. 4. fruit crops, malhotra publishing house, new delhi, pp 2025-2045 jognande, n.d., dalal, s.r., gonge, v.s., panchbhai, d.m. and anuje, a.a. 2003. possibility of induction of flowering in mango variety pairi through chemical spray. national seminar on mango, gau, junagadh, june, 14-15, p. 30 jayavalli, r. 2006. studies on canopy management and induction of off season bearing under high density planting in mango cv. neelum. m.sc. (hort.) thesis submitted to hcri, periyakulam, tamil nadu mass, e.f. 1989. potassium nitrate foliar spray induces bloom in mango orchards. better crops int’l. 5:4-5 table 2. effect of pruning and chemicals on cost:benefit ratio in mango cv. alphonso treatment gross net cost: returns returns benefit (rs.) (rs.) ratio pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 102750 75250 1:2.25 pruning + 1% kh 2 po 4 110250 82750 1:2.50 pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 + 1% kno 3 159750 129500 1:3.80 pruning + 1% kh 2 po 4 + 1% kno 3 129750 98750 1:2.65 pruning + 1% k 2 hpo 4 + 1% thiourea 124250 93250 1:2.45 pruning + 1% kh 2 po 4 + 1% thiourea 127500 96500 1:2.60 control (no pruning 82500 54250 1:1.54 or chemical spray) table 1. fruit yield in mango cv. alphonso as influenced by pruning and chemical sprays treatment no. of fruits / plant fruit yield (kg / plant) 2006 2007 2008 2009 cumulative mean 2006 2007 2008 2009 cumulative mean pruning+1% k 2 hpo 4 200.1 183.7 27.7 388.5 800.0 200.0 42.8 43.5 7.1 71.0 164.4 41.1 pruning+1% kh 2 po 4 210.2 156.0 58.2 438.0 862.4 215.6 44.9 38.7 14.2 78.7 176.5 44.1 pruning+1% k 2 hpo 4 + 198.5 299.7 91.7 647.5 1237.4 309.3 40.0 79.5 21.9 114.5 255.9 63.9 1% kno 3 pruning+1% kh 2 po 4 + 178.5 247.5 68.0 481.7 975.7 243.9 39.5 62.0 17.0 89.2 207.7 51.9 1% kno 3 pruning+1% k 2 hpo 4 + 195.6 235.0 85.7 465.0 981.3 245.3 40.6 56.5 19.3 83.2 199.6 49.9 1% thiourea pruning+1% kh 2 po 4 + 189.1 210.0 67.5 486.2 952.7 238.1 42.1 52.7 17.0 92.5 204.3 51.0 1% thiourea control (no pruning 141.5 121.2 24.0 348.2 634.9 158.7 30.4 28.4 6.1 67.2 132.1 33.0 or chemical spray) f-test ns * ns * * ns * * * * s. em ± 8.1 23.9 18.7 29.4 42.3 5.9 6.6 3.7 10.5 18.3 c.d. (p= 0.05) 72.0 90.5 127.6 20.1 10.9 30.9 54.7 *significant at 5% ns: non-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):85-87, 2012 87 national horticultural board. 2009. database of horticultural crops, 2009, new delhi panse, y.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers. fourth edition, icar, new delhi, pp. 201-215 rao, m.m. and ravishankar, h. 1992. chemical induction of flowering on fruited shoots in “off” phase alphonso mango trees. karnataka j. agril. sci., 5:180-193 rao, m.m., srihari, d., patil, v.s. and madalageri, m.b. (ms received 08 march 2011, revised 16 june 2012) pruning and chemicals in flowering and fruit yield in mango 1997. further studies on chemical induction of flowering on fruited shoots in “off” phase alphonso mango trees. karnataka j. agril. sci., 10:598-601 srihari, d. and rao, m.m. 1996. induction of flowering in off phase mango trees by soil application of paclobutrazol. acta hort., 455:491-495 srihari, d. and rao, m.m. 1996a. induction of flowering directly on de-blossomed shoots in the “off” phase of alphonso mango trees. j. res. angrau, 25:48-50 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):85-87, 2012 quality in coriander leaves as influenced by growing conditions r. surya1*, t. geethumol1 and p. anitha2 1college of horticulture, department of plantation crops and spices 2 college of horticulture aicvip, dept. of olericulture e-mail: suryavavahorti8.sr@gmail.com abstract a study was conducted in the plains of kerala to investigate the performance of coriander leaf for its quality aspects in open and rain shelter conditions. the study suggested that significantly higher herbage and biomass yield (g/ plant) was observed from plants grown in rain shelter (9.21 and 12.78) compared to the open field (8.41 and 11.34). among the varieties, arka isha recorded the highest herbage and biomass yield (10.46 and 14.13g/plant) followed by co-1 (8.97and 12.70).there was a significant higher vitamin c content (mg/100g) in open field (189.72) compared to rain shelter ( 124.55) and volatile oil ranging from 0.05-0.06 % in both the growing conditions and were on par. total chlorophyll content was recorded more in open field (1.98) than in rain shelter (1.92) among the varieties, total chlorophyll was more in co4(2.33). however, this need to be confirmed by further studies. keywords: coriander leaves, uses, vitamin c, volatile oil, chlorophyll introduction coriander (coriandrum sativum l.), belongs to the family apiaceae, is an important annual spice herb, mainly cultivated for its fruits as well as for its tender green leaves. the crop, indigenous to southern europe and the mediterranean region, is the most important seed spice grown in india. its name has been derived from greek word “koris”, meaning bed-bug, because of unpleasant, foetid bug like odour of the green unripened fruits. it is one of the finest aromatic and culinary herbs and is considered as a delighters’ choice. india is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of coriander seeds in the world accounting approximately 80 per cent of total world production. the herb is grown for its grain in 44,700 hectares in india and as a herb it is grown in nearly 20,000 to 25,000 ha. during the year 2014, 37.5 lakh metric tonnes of coriander leaves were traded through various agr icultura l ma rkets indica ting the commercial importance of the herb (giridhar et al., 2015). recent understanding of the neutraceutical and medicinal properties of leaves elevated the status of this herb. the leaves and stem tips are rich in numerous antioxidant polyphenolic flavonoids such as quercetin, kaempferol, rhamnetin and epigenin. it is one of the richest herbal sources for vitamins especially vitamin a, c and k (girenko, 1982). leaves are also rich in β-carotene, water, dietary fiber, fats, protein and minerals like calcium, phosphorus, manganese, zinc, iron and magnesium. the quality of coriander leaves is affected by growing conditions, especially vitamin c, chlorophyll content and volatile oil. however, there is limited research on management aspects for the efficient utilization of coriander leaves for its various end uses. t he present study entitled” per for ma nce evaluation of coriander genotypes in different growing conditions” was laid out during rabi season (october 2016december 2016) in two different growing conditions viz. rain shelter and open field by following randomized complete block design (rbd) with five treatments (genotypes/varieties) namely, co-1, co2, co-3, co-4 and arka isha and four replications. herbage yield from tagged plants in each replication was recorded and the biochemica l analysis for estimation of volatile oil, vitaminc and chlorophyll content of each variety was done by using standard procedures recommended by clevengers (1982) and sadasivam and manickam (1992). the data was statistically analyzed by using opstat online package software, to find out the effect of growing conditions on the quality of the varieties. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 188-191, 2018 188 short communication 189 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 188-191, 2018 the results of the herbage, biomass yield and various quality parameters are presented in the table 1 and table 2. significantly higher herbage yield (g/ plant) was observed from plants grown in rain shelter (9.21) compared to the open field (8.41). among the varieties, arka isha recorded the highest herbage yield (10.46) followed by co-1 (8.97), co-3 (8.68) and the performance of co-2 (8.19) and co (cr-4) (7.75) were on par with each other. the interaction effect of growing conditions varieties with respect to herbage yield was not significant. similarly, biomass yield (g/plant) was significantly higher in rain shelter (12.78) than the open field (11.34). arka isha was significantly superior (14.13) followed by co1(12.70) with respect to biomass yield. the varieties co-2(11.56) and co-3 (11.37) were on par with each other. co (cr-4) was significantly inferior (10.52) to all of the varieties and the interaction effect was not significant. in general, the growing conditions and the varieties did not have any effect in the volatile oil content (%). the volatile oil ranged from 0.05 -0.06 percentage. the mean value (mg/100g) for vitamin c in coriander leaves was observed significantly higher in open field (189.72) compared to the rain shelter (124.55). also among the varieties, co-3 (190.80) and co-1(166.95) recorded significantly higher vitamin c followed by arka isha (165.63), co-2 (147.08) and co-(cr-4) with 115.23. in general, growing conditions had no significant effect on total chlorophyll content of leaves. however, chlorophyll ‘b’ was recorded maximum in rain shelter condition (0.60) compared to the open field (0.47). total chlorophyll content was recorded more in open field (1.98) than rain shelter (1.92). among the varieties, the total chlorophyll content ranged from 1.55(co-2) to 2.33 in co (cr4). similar results were reported by varalakshmi et al., (2012) and palanikumar and rajamani (2012). table 1. effect of growing conditions on herbage and biomass yield of coriander treatments herbage yield (g) /plant biomass yield (g)/plant varieties rain shelter open field mean rain shelter open field mean co-1 9.48 8.46 8.97 13.50 11.89 12.70 co-2 8.56 7.82 8.19 12.03 11.09 11.56 co-3 8.84 8.53 8.68 11.93 10.80 11.37 co(cr-4) 8.10 7.40 7.75 11.86 9.18 10.52 arka isha 11.07 9.84 10.46 14.55 13.72 14.13 mean 9.21 8.41 12.78 11.34 cd(0.05) growing conditions 0.48 0.53 varieties 0.77 0.83 interaction ns ns gener a lly, cor ia nder lea ves possess comparatively less oil than the seeds. no significant effect was observed for different varieties with respect to volatile oil (%). this might be because the essential oil content may be the cumulative resultant of a number of internal cellular factors and it is a varietal character. the essential oil content (percentage) among the varieties ranged from 0.05 to 0.06. the variation among the varieties might be due to the difference in the synthesis of volatile oil due to some promotive or inhibiting mechanism through some biochemical reactions within the genotype. total chlorophyll content was recorded more in open field (1.98mg) than rain shelter (1.92mg) (fig 1) however; chlorophyll b was more in rain shelter than in open field. this may be due to the low light intensity available in the rain shelter, so plants tend to produce more chlorophyll b to capture a wider range spectrum of light. in general, the vitamin c content in leaves was observed significantly high in the open field compared to the rain shelter (fig 2). this might be due to high light intensity in open leading to more production of vitamins compared to rain quality of coriander leaves 190 surya et al chlorophyll a chlorophyll b total chlorophyll (mg/100g) (mg/100g) (mg/100g) varieties rain open mean rain open mean rain open mean shelter field shelter field shelter field co-1 1.33 1.03 1.18 0.59 0.40 0.50 1.92 1.44 1.68 co-2 1.08 1.19 1.14 0.45 0.37 0.41 1.53 1.57 1.55 co-3 1.37 1.53 1.45 0.54 0.52 0.53 1.91 2.05 1.98 co(cr-4) 1.51 1.24 1.38 0.58 0.46 0.52 2.10 2.56 2.33 arka isha 1.56 1.67 1.62 0.86 0.60 0.73 2.16 2.28 2.22 mean 1.37 1.33 0.60 0.47 1.92 1.98 cd(0.05) growing ns 0.02 ns conditions varieties 0.08 0.04 0.10 interaction 0.11 0.05 0.15 table 2. contd... table 2. effect of growing conditions on quality parameters in coriander volatile oil (%) vitamin c(mg) varieties rain shelter open field mean rain shelter open field mean co-1 0.06 0.06 0.06 124.55 209.35 166.95 co-2 0.06 0.05 0.05 116.60 177.55 147.08 co-3 0.06 0.06 0.06 148.40 233.20 190.80 co(cr-4) 0.05 0.05 0.05 127.20 103.25 115.23 arka isha 0.06 0.06 0.06 106.00 225.25 165.63 mean 0.06 0.05 124.55 189.72 cd(0.05) growing conditions ns 12.45 varieties ns 19.69 interaction ns 27.84 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 188-191, 2018 fig 2. effect of growing conditions on vitamin c fig 1. effect of growing conditions on chlorophyll content 191 j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 188-191, 2018 quality of coriander leaves acknowledgement the authors wish to acknowledge the kerala agricultural university for the fund and the college of horticulture, vellanikkara for the facilities provided during the course of study. references clevenger s, j. f. 1982. appa r a tus for determination of volatile oil. j. am. pharmacol. assoc.17: 346-348. girenko, m. m. 1982. initial material and basic trends in breeding of some uncommon species of vegetables (in russ. eng. detr. ). bull. vir vavilova, 120: 33-37. giridhar, k., suryakumari, s., and naid, n. l. 2015. in search of ideal multi-cut coriander. spice india 28(10): 10-16. pa la nikuma r, m. ra ja ma ni, k. 2012. physiological and biochemical analysis of coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) genotypes under different seasons. crop res. 44. 208-216 sadasivam, s. and manickam, a. 1992. (2nd ed.). biochemical methods. new age international (p) limited publishers and tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore. varalakshmi, b., rao. v. k., rao, s. d.v., tiwari, r. b., and m. prabhakar. 2012. high-yielding multicut coriander variety, arka isha. j. hort. sci.7 (1):91-93. (ms received 03 august 2017, revised 30 october 2018, accepted 21 november 2018) introduction cherry is known to be native of south-east europe and asia minor and, as far east as northern india and china. diverse forms of sour cherry exist in eastern europe and western region of russia and the himalayas. in india, cultivation of cherry is confined to jammu and kashmir, himachal pradesh and uttarakhand. the state of jammu and kashmir is a major cherry-growing state, with productivity of 3.2 mtha-1. (anonymous, 2006) which is for less than the highest global productivity. although there are sizeable, potentially well-suited areas for cherry cultivation in india, this fruit has not made much progress due to non-availability of quality planting material and desirable rootstocks. traditionally, ‘paja’ (prunus cerasoides) is the only rootstock used in india. however, delayed incompatibility has rendered this rootstock fairly inferior in commercial production. clones of sour cherry (prunus cerasus), though, have been selected, propagated and used commercially as rootstocks. generally, these rootstocks are cold-hardy and perform better in wet and heavy soils than do p. avium and p. mahaleb. the rootstocks can be propagated by mound-layering, but, the rate of multiplication is low. for augmenting supplies to meet an upsurge in demand, rapid and mass multiplication of cherry rootstock is essential. proliferation and rooting efficiency studies in sour cherry (prunus cerasus) using in vitro techniques s.r. singh, a.s. sundouri, m.k. sharma, k.k. srivastava and h.a. dar division of pomology sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir shalimar, srinagar 191 121, india abstract murashige and skoog’s medium (ms) and woody plant (wp) medium supplemented with iba and bap at different concentrations were tested for culture proliferation in sour cherry. ms medium supplemented with 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.1 mg l-1 iba, and, woody plant medium fortified with 2 mg l-1 bap + 0.1 mg l-1 iba recorded maximum proliferation efficiency. ms medium supplemented with bap @ 0.1 mg l-1 and devoid of auxin recorded optimum elongation of micro-shoots. ms medium fortified with 2 mg l-1 iba gave highest rooting percentage and average number of roots per explant. bap and iba in ms medium were ideal for proliferation indices like number of shoots per explant, average length of shoots (mm) and percentage of shoots with desired length for rooting, and, can be used in a multiplication programme. key words: cherry, ms medium, woody plant medium (wpm), indole–3-butyric acid, benzylaminopurine micropropagation represents the greatest use of tissue culture, especially for multiplying rootstocks. many temperate fruit and nut species orchards are planted with trees that are propagated by budding or grafting the desired scion cultivar onto a suitable rootstock. with experimental systems moving towards ultra-high density plantings, budded or grafted trees may be too expensive, and the use of these planting systems may have to depend on alternative means of propagation. potential advantages of tissue culture include micro-propagation of the rootstock/scion in a short period of time, yielding true-to-type propagules and aiding rapid mass multiplication. however, reports of mass multiplication in cherry are scanty and the literature sporadic, especially so in sour cherry. the present study addresses massmultiplication of sour cherry with an objective of studying proliferation efficiency and rooting percentage in cultures. material and methods during the year 2006-07, shoot tips measuring 23 cm in length, procured from mature trees of sour cherry growing in the main campus of sher-e-kashmir university agricultural sciences and technology of kashmrr, shalimar (j&k), were used as the source of explants in the present investigation. new and actively-growing shoots were selected for isolation of explants. the investigation involved j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 48-52, 2010 49 two different media, i.e., murashige and skoog medium (ms) and woody plant medium (wp), along with two growth regulators, i.e., an auxin-indole–3-butyric acid (iba) and a cytokinin-benzylaminopurine (bap). for shoot proliferation, iba and bap each at four different concentrations viz., 0.00, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 mgl-1 and 0, 1, 2 and 3 mg/l, were used respectively. observations like days taken to initiation of proliferation, number of shoots per explant, average length of shoots and percentage of shoots with desired length for rooting, were recorded at 5 ± 1 week in the proliferation medium. cultures were transferred to shoot elongation medium supplemented with benzylaminopurine at concentration levels of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 mgl-1 within 4 ± 1 weeks of shoot proliferation. maximum shoot length (mm) was recorded within 4 ± 1 weeks of sub-culture. these shoots were finally cultured on different concentrations of iba, viz., 1, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 mgl-1 for rooting. each treatment comprised of 20 explants with one explant per test tube. rooting percentage and number of roots/rooted explants were recorded 4 ± 1 week from inoculation in the rooting media, whereas, average root length (mm) was recorded 10 days after transfer of micro-cuttings (showing root initiation) to hormone-free basal media. data obtained from various treatments were analyzed in completely randomized design (crd). results and discussion effects of bap and iba on various proliferation parameters like days to initiation of proliferation, number of shoots per explant, average length of shoots (mm) and percentage of shoots with desired length for rooting, in ms medium, were found to be statistically significant (table 1). ideal hormonal combination was found to be 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.10 mg l-1 iba, as it recorded the lowest number of days (21.23) taken for initiation of proliferation and highest average number of shoots (14.62) per explant. the highest number of days taken for initiation of proliferation (35.25) recorded in a medium with no growth regulator (bap or iba). days taken for initiation of proliferation with 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.05 iba and 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.10 mg l-1 iba, were at par. the present findings are in close agreement with findings of banno et al (1989) who recommended supplementation of 1 mg l-1 bap with 0.10-0.50 mg l-1 iba for obtaining maximum shoot proliferation in japanese pear explants. highest (21.24 mm) average length of shoots was recorded with 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.05 mg l-1 iba, followed by (19.50 mm) that with 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.10 mg l-1 iba. the lowest average length of shoots (10.88 mm) was observed at 1.50 mg l-1 bap + 0.15 mg l-1 iba. the highest percentage (82.35%) of shoots with desired length for rooting was recorded in 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.10 mg l-1 iba, followed by 71.58% in 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.15 mg l-1 iba. the lowest percentage of shoots with desired length (30.36%) was recorded in medium with no growth regulators (bap or iba). similar results were reported by kumar and bist (2002) who recorded maximum average length of table 1. effect of bap and iba concentration on proliferation of sour cherry on murashige & skoog (ms) medium bap iba days taken to number of average length shoots with concentration concentration initiation of shoots per of shoot optimum length (mg l-1) (mg l-1) proliferation explant (mm) for rooting (%) 0.00 0.00 35.25 2.18 12.34 30.36 0.00 0.05 32.29 4.13 14.36 42.86 0.00 0.10 33.62 6.46 17.22 46.91 0.00 0.15 34.52 4.52 13.26 37.54 0.50 0.00 29.14 7.81 14.62 39.75 0.50 0.05 27.32 10.64 13.86 58.58 0.50 0.10 25.16 12.38 15.26 69.73 0.50 0.15 26.20 11.35 15.13 53.16 1.00 0.00 24.51 9.27 14.81 48.21 1.00 0.05 22.17 11.96 21.24 64.18 1.00 0.10 21.23 14.62 19.50 82.35 1.00 0.15 25.31 12.06 16.25 71.58 1.50 0.00 26.21 8.19 11.38 41.43 1.50 0.05 24.42 9.83 16.22 59.31 1.50 0.10 23.16 10.29 12.16 76.41 1.50 0.15 31.37 8.23 10.88 57.29 cd (p=0.05) 1.05 1.19 0.46 2.12 sem (+) 0.52 0.58 0.22 1.04 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 48-52, 2010 in vitro proliferation and rooting in sour cherry 50 shoots at a hormonal regime of 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.05 mg l-1 iba. effect of bap and iba in wp medium on days taken for initiation of proliferation, number of shoots per explant, average length of shoots (mm) and percentage of shoots with desired length for rooting, was found to be significant (table 2). bap at 2 mg l-1 + 0.1 mg l-1 iba was found ideal for proliferation and multiplication as it recorded lesser number of days for initiation of proliferation (24.13 days), highest number of shoots (12.73) per explant, and, highest percentage of shoots with desired length for rooting (73.81%). the highest average length (mm) of shoots was, however, recorded with 1 mg l-1 bap + 0.05 mg l-1 iba. the highest number of days (39.32) taken for initiation of proliferation, lowest number of shoots (2.64) per explant, and, lowest percentage of shoots (15.62%) with desired length for rooting was achieved when no growth regulator (bap or iba) was used. the lowest average length (mm) of shoots (8.32 mm) was recorded with 3 mg l-1 bap + 0.15 mg l-1 iba. these findings are in close conformity with results of a number of workers who used either bap or a combination of bap and iba for studying proliferation and multiplication. dwivedi and bist (1999) found that bap and iba interacted significantly for increase in the number of shoots per culture. hammerschlag et al (1987) observed highest shoot proliferation in peach with 2 mg l-1 ba + 0.01 mg l-1 iba. requirement for higher concentration of iba (0.10 mg l-1) in the present study may be due to differential response of genotypes of prunus. the highest average length (mm) of shoots was reported by kumar and bist (2002) at 1.0 mg l-1 bap + 0.05 mg l1 iba, which further confirms these results and who obtained better proliferation on wp medium than on other media in studies on media requirement for micropropagation of apricot cultivars. this response was thought to be due to lower ammonium content in wp medium (snir, 1984) and murai et al (1997), seen commonly in prunus. similarly, better proliferation on wp medium was achieved by dwivedi and bist (1999) in studies on in vitro propagation of lowchill pear cv. gola. the present results are contradictory to that of a number of workers who reported that only bap resulted in shoot proliferation. shibli et al (1996) reported highest rate of multiplication on ms medium with ba (1 mg l-1) in almond. similar results were also reported by sharma et al (1992) in cherry rootstock colt. effect of media and bap on elongation of shoots was also found to be statistically significant (table 3). ms medium supplemented with bap 0.1 mg l-1 recorded maximum elongation (44.83 mm) of shoots, while, wp medium fortified with bap 0.3 mg l-1 recorded minimum elongation (27.18 mm). ms medium and wp medium, each supplemented with 0.3 mg l-1 bap, recorded elongation that was statistically on par. elongation recorded on ms + 0.2 mg l-1 bap, and, wp + 0.1 mg l-1 bap was also statistically on par. lower bap levels generally result in reduced axillary shoot proliferation and cause elongation of table 2. effect of bap and iba concentration on proliferation of sour cherry on woody plant medium (wpm) bap iba days taken to number of average length shoots with concentration concentration initiation of shoots per of shoot optimum length (mg l-1) (mg l-1) proliferation explant (mm) for rooting (%) 0.00 0.00 35.25 2.18 12.34 30.36 0.00 0.00 39.32 2.64 13.61 15.62 0.00 0.05 37.17 3.09 14.24 19.35 0.00 0.10 36.72 5.73 12.26 28.12 0.00 0.15 36.93 4.51 12.13 18.75 1.00 0.00 33.94 7.01 16.23 36.11 1.00 0.05 29.23 9.76 19.55 41.93 1.00 0.10 26.25 11.19 14.24 65.38 1.00 0.15 27.19 8.47 15.21 58.62 2.00 0.00 26.07 10.42 11.19 53.85 2.00 0.05 24.67 11.64 13.64 67.24 2.00 0.10 24.13 12.73 13.92 73.81 2.00 0.15 25.17 9.17 12.18 66.91 3.00 0.00 28.52 8.13 9.46 41.38 3.00 0.05 25.45 9.81 12.28 58.33 3.00 0.10 27.82 10.71 12.02 60.97 3.00 0.15 29.64 7.54 8.32 51.36 cd (p=0.05) 1.17 0.40 0.65 2.73 sem (+) 0.57 0.19 0.32 1.34 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 48-52, 2010 singh et al 51 shoots. these findings are in accordance with results of tabachnik and kester (1977) who reported maximum shoot elongation at 0.1 mg l-1 bap during in vitro shoot culture of almond. results on shoot elongation in the present study too are in agreement with those of norton and norton (1986) who reported maximum shoot elongation at 0.1 mg l-1 bap in prunus species. effects of iba and media on rooting behaviour were highly significant (table 4). highest rooting percentage (76.47%) was observed on ms medium, followed by 69.52% on wp medium, both supplemented with 2 mg l-1 iba. wp medium supplemented with 1 mg l-1 iba recorded lowest rooting percentage (37.45). wp medium supplemented with 1.5 mg l-1 and 2.5 mg l-1 iba recorded rooting percentages that were statistically on par. supplementation of iba @ 2 mg l-1 gave highest average number of roots per explant (7.75) on ms medium followed by (5.29) on wp medium. average number of roots per explant of upto 2.38 was recorded on wp medium supplied with 1 mg l-1 iba. average number of roots per explant recorded with wp + 2 mg l-1 iba, and, ms + 2.5 mg l-1 was statistically at par. results pertaining to various rooting characteristics are in table 3. effect of culture medium and bap concentration on elongation of micro-shoots in sour cherry medium bap length concentration of micro-shoots (mg l-1) (mm) ms 0.1 44.83 ms 0.2 36.27 ms 0.3 29.44 wp 0.1 38.16 wp 0.2 32.21 wp 0.3 27.18 cd (p=0.05) 2.38 sem (+) 1.09 ms = murashige and skoog medium; wp = woody plant medium table 4. effect of iba concentration and culture medium on rooting of explants in sour cherry iba medium rooting average no. root concentration percentage of roots length (mg l-1) per explant (mm) 1.00 ms 41.66 4.43 37.46 1.00 wp 37.45 2.38 32.46 1.50 ms 61.11 6.09 68.73 1.50 wp 51.73 4.57 41.25 2.00 ms 76.47 7.75 53.92 2.00 wp 69.52 5.29 35.78 2.50 ms 59.24 5.21 32.58 2.50 wp 52.48 3.62 27.13 cd (p=0.05) 3.52 1.39 3.17 sem (+) 1.66 0.65 1.49 ms = murashige and skoog medium; wp = woody plant medium close agreement with that of a number of workers who studied in vitro rhizogenesis on various rooting media. ranjit and kester (1988) obtained 75% rooting in cherry rootstock colt at 2 mg l-1 iba in modified ms medium and recorded maximum number of roots per shoot at the same concentration of iba, whereas, poniedzialek et al (1986) reported higher rooting percentage and average number of roots per explant at 2 or 3 mg l-1 iba in studies on in vitro rooting sour cherry cv. schattenmorelle. these data are in accordance with findings of ozzambak et al (1997), who reported maximum root length on 1.5 mg l-1 iaa during in vitro rhizogenesis of sour cherry cv. heimanns rubinweichsel. the results are also in contradiction with a number of workers who reported optimum rooting at lower levels of iba than that observed in the present study. sharma et al (1992) obtained 100% rooting in colt on ms medium fortified with 1 mg l-1 iba. feliciano and assis (1983) obtained 100% rooting in embryo-cultured peach seedlings of cascata-163 on ms + 1 mg l-1 iba and half-strength ms + 1 mg l-1 iba. incubation of microshoots on root induction media for 10-15 days in the dark are in close agreement with the work of hammerschlag (1982) who reported that a week’s treatment was necessary for 100% rooting in the plum rootstock ‘myrobalan’ (prunus cerasifera). references anonymous, 2006. statement showing the kind wise/district wise area and production under major horticulture crops in jammu and kashmir state. directorate of horticulture, jammu and kashmir india p. 1-2 banno, k., yoshida, k., hayashi, s. and tanabe, k. 1989. in vitro propagation of japanese pear cultivars. j. jap. soc. hortl. sci., 58:37-42 dwivedi, s.k. and bist, l.d. 1999. in vitro propagation of low-chill pear cv. gola. ind j. hort. 56:189-193 feliciano, a.j. and assis, m. 1983. in vitro rooting of shoots from embryo-cultured peach seedlings. hortsci., 18:705-706 hammerschlag, f. 1982. factors affecting establishment and growth of peach shoots in vitro. hortsci., 17:85-86 hammerschlag, f.a., bauchan, g.r. and scorza, r. 1987. factors influencing in vitro multiplication and rooting of peach cultivars. pl. cell, tiss. and org. cult., 8:235-242 kumar, r. and bist, l.d. 2002. micropropagation of hawthorn (crataegus oxyacantha linn.) through shoot tip culture. ind. j. hort., 59:435-439 j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 48-52, 2010 in vitro proliferation and rooting in sour cherry 52 murai, y., harada, h. and yamashita, h. 1997. in vitro propagation of apricot (prunus armeniaca l.) cv. “bakush junkyon’. j. jap. soc. hortl. sci., 66:475480 norton, c.r. and norton, m.e. 1986. light quality and shoot proliferation in micropropagated prunus, spiraea and rhododendron. international congress on plant tissue and cell culture, 6: 434 ozzambak, e., hepaksoy, s., altman, a. and ziv, m. 1997. investigations on in vitro rooting and acclimatization of sour cherry cv. heimanns rubinweichsel. acta hort., 447:153-154 poniedzialek, w., lech, w. and malodobry, m. 1986. effect of growth regulators on rooting of sour cherry in tissue culture. acta hort., 179, 847-851 ranjit, m. and kester, d.e. 1988. micropropagation of cherry rootstock, ii. investigation and enhanced rooting of 46-1 mazzard by co-culture with “colt.” j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 113:150-154 sharma, d.r., chauhan, p.s., kaur, r. and srivastava, d.k. 1992. micropropagation of colt-a semi-dwarf rootstock of cherry. ind. j. hort., 49:209-212 shibli, r.a., joradat, a., ajlouni, m.m. and aljanabi, s. 1996. in vitro multiplication of bitter almond (prunus amygdalus) from north jordan, in vitro, 32:32-34 snir, i. 1984. in vitro propagation of “canino” apricot. hortsci., 19:229-230 tabachnik, l. and kester, d. e. 1977. shoot culture for almond and almond peach hybrid clones in vitro. hortsci., 12:545-547 (ms received 12 march 2009, revised 25 february 2010) j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 48-52, 2010 singh et al economic feasibility of vegetable production under polyhouse: a case study of capsicum and tomato d. sreenivasa murthy, b.s. prabhakar1, s.s. hebbar, v. srinivas2 and m. prabhakar1 section of economics and statistics indian institute of horticultural research hesarghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089, india e-mail : srinivasiihr@yahoo.co.in abstract polyhouse cultivation of vegetables is emerging as a specialized production technology to overcome biotic and abiotic stresses and to break the seasonal barrier to production. it also ensures round the year production of highvalue vegetables, like capsicum, especially, during off-season. cost is the major issue in sustaining this technology. the present study examined the economic viability of production of capsicum and tomato in a naturally ventilated polyhouse of medium cost category with drip irrigation system. data were generated by cost accounting method for estimating the feasibility of production and was analyzed by using project evaluation methods, like pay back period (pbp), benefit cost ratio (bcr), net present value (npv) and internal rate of return (irr). cultivation of capsicum in a polyhouse was found to be highly feasible as reflected in higher values of npv (rs.3,23,145/500 m2), bcr (1.80) and irr (53.7%) with payback period of less than two years. breakeven price for capsicum production in a polyhouse (rs.11.80 /kg) was lesser than average wholesale price. production of tomato in a polyhouse was found not feasible, as the breakeven price was more than the average market price and all the project appraisal parameters indicated that it was not feasible. only at about 48% premium price over the prevailing market price or reduction of cost of polyhouse structure by 60% from rs.400 to rs.160 /m2, could make the tomato production viable in a poly house. key words: capsicum, economics, polyhouse, production, tomato, vegetables j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 148-152, 2009 1. division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore 560 089 2. progressive farmer, bangalore introduction the main objectives of cultivation of vegetables in a polyhouse condition are, to protect the crop against biotic (pests, diseases and weeds) and abiotic (temperature, humidity light,) stresses and to ensure round the year production of high-value quality vegetables like capsicum especially, during the off-season. vegetable cultivation in polyhouse, not only increases the productivity but also, enhances the quality of vegetables and it is being practiced in more than fifty countries all over the world. however, in india, it is a new phenomenon and is still in its initial stage (singh, 1998; singh et al, 1999; phookan and saikia, 2003; rai et al, 2004; singh and asrey, 2005). the cost of the polyhouse structure plays the decisive factor for adoption and sustainability of vegetable production. the cost of a polyhouse mainly depends on the quality of materials used for the structure and glazing and others like drip and mist systems. polyhouses are of various sizes ranging from 1000 to 10,000 m2 depending on the requirement. polyhouses differ in terms of cost as (a) low cost ranging from rs.250-400/ m2, (b) medium cost ranging from rs.500-1000/ m2 and (c) high cost polyhouse rs.10002000/ m2. the present study was taken up to examine the economic viability of production of capsicum and tomato in a naturally ventilated polyhouse of medium cost category with drip irrigation and misting system. material and methods in a mission mode project on ‘protected cultivation of vegetables and flowers in plains and hills’ under the national agricultural technology project (natp) sponsored by one of the world bank projects of indian council of agricultural research (icar), experiments were carriedout on standardization of production and protection technologies for capsicum and tomato and its economic feasibility in a naturally ventilated polyhouse at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore during 2002-2004. capsicum and tomato were selected, as these two crops are known to be best suitable and mostly grown under 149 greenhouse in the world. capsicum is a season specific crop, winter being the best suitable season in the tropics. it is a high volume and high value vegetable compared to tomato. on the other hand, tomato is a high volume and relatively low value crop, but in demand throughout the year. though tomato is grown nearly in all seasons, the yields are low during summer and monsoon. data were generated by cost accounting method from 2002 to 2004. economic feasibility of investment on production of capsicum and tomato under polyhouse conditions was evaluated by using project evaluation measures. payback period (pbp), benefit cost ratio (bcr), net present value (npv) and internal rate of return (irr) were used for project evaluation. except pbp, which is an undiscounted measure, all others, bcr, npv and irr, are discounted measures of project worthiness (berry et al, 1979; gittinger, 1982). a discount rate of ten per cent was used in the present study to estimate these parameters. the average reference rate of interest given by the different financial institutions for the investment of long term projects was used as a decision criterion for selection of the discount rate. these project evaluation measures were derived based on certain assumptions. first and the foremost assumption was that the life span of present project is six years. normally 5-6 months are required for one crop and hence, in the present study two crop seasons were included for every annual cash flow. for estimating the cash flows, actual data was used for first two years and the remaining years the cash flows were extrapolated appropriately based on the available information. an attempt was also made in the study to estimate the cost of production of the tomato and capsicum under polyhouse cultivation, which provides indication to farmers whether the cultivation of tomato and capsicum earning profit over the market price or not i.e, breakeven in terms of cost of production and market price. for this purpose, cost of production was estimated by accounting all costs included in the cultivation under polyhouse and compared with the prevailing market price. estimation of cost of production is bit tricky as three types of costs were involved viz. establishment, annual production and seasonal costs. annul and seasonal production costs were used directly and it is only a question of apportion the cost of establishment. it is well-known fact that ‘depreciation’, a systematic and rational process of distributing the cost of tangible assets over the life of assets, is used to apportion the cost. straightline depreciation method was used in the present study to apportion the total value of the assets like gi pipes, polythene sheets, irrigation equipments, etc., depending on their life span. once the annual costs of all items were estimated, the cost of production (rs/kg) per crop (season) was estimated. the price prevailed in the market during same period was also obtained and compared for the profitability of production. results and discussion cost of establishment polyhouse production is a capital-intensive technology requiring a substantial investment especially during the initial establishment period. the details of cost components in establishing a poly house are given in table 1. a non-land capital investment of rs.2,36,000 (rs.47.20 lakh ha-1) was required for erecting 500 m2 polyhouse. this includes, costs on initial land preparation, basic structure gi square tubes, low-density polyethylene sheet (ldpeuv stabilized 200micron thick), 40 mesh nylon net, drip irrigation and mist system and construction costs. the ldpe sheet normally lasts for 2-3 years and needs to be replaced depending on wear and tear. break-up of these establishment costs indicates that the major cost of establishment was incurred on gi frame (58.5%) followed by that on polythene sheet (12.7%) and labour (13.6%). irrigation-fertization system, misting and shade net accounted for 3.8, 5.1 and 2.1% of the total establishment costs, respectively. the other costs involved in the establishment of polyhouse was grouped under miscellaneous costs such as initial land preparations costs, preparing bunds and making furrows, weeding, neem cake applied to soil, etc. which accounted for about rs.5000/500 m2. table 1. cost of establishment of a polyhouse structure (2001-02) sl no particulars 500 m2 per ha 1 structure and sheet 2,00,000(84.8) 40,00,000 a gi pipe 138000(58.5) 2760000 b polythene sheet 30000(12.7) 600000 c labour 32000(13.6) 640000 2 irrigation and fertigation system 9,000(3.8) 1,80,000 3 misting 12,000(5.1) 2,40,000 5 shade net (500 m2 @ rs. 20 per m2) 10,000(4.2) 2,00,000 6 miscellaneous (initial land preparation cost, preparing the land for planting, initial weeding, incidental chargers, etc.) 5,000(2.1) 1,00,000 total cost 2,36,000(100) 47,20,000 figures in parentheses are the percentage to the total of that column j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 148-152, 2009 economic feasibility of vegetable production under polyhouse 150 variable costs of cultivation of tomato and capsicum in polyhouse normally two crops are taken in a year, as the crop duration for both crops is about six months. two types of expenses are incurred on cultivation of vegetables in a polyhouse. (1) inputs like farmyard manure (fym), fumigating agents and mulching materials that are used annually. in the present case, these inputs lasted for two crop seasons and were grouped under annual variable costs. (2) inputs used during each cropping period, such as nutrients; plant protection chemicals, seeds etc., were grouped as seasonal variable costs. the average annual variable cost for a poly house cultivation was rs.10,340/500 m2 (rs. 2.06 lakh ha-1), comprising cost on fym, mulching and the fumigation (table 2). the mechanism of fumigation and mulching as well as the recommended doses of fym were same for both capsicum and tomato. the details on cost of these items are given in the table. the details on seasonal variable costs (working expenses) incurred on cultivation of tomato and capsicum in a poly house are given in table 3. the average cost of cultivation under poly house was rs.12,494/500 m2 (rs.2,49,880/ha) for tomato and rs.16,334/500 m 2 (rs.3,26,680/ha) for capsicum. the cost for capsicum was more because of its higher requirement of plant protection chemicals. the break-up of costs indicated that the highest cost was incurred on labour in both capsicum and tomato cultivation indicating that poly house cultivation is both capital and labour intensive. in capsicum, nearly 44% of the working costs were incurred on labour and 26.3% in capsicum. tomato requires more labour for training plants and harvesting fruits. the cost incurred on plant protection was lower than that in open field production because of lower intensity of pests and diseases in the polyhouse. the other costs include twines, staking material costs and annual irrigation costs (imputed). the investment made on the table 2. annual working expenses (rs.) of tomato and capsicum cultivation sl no items capsicum/tomato 500 m2 per ha 1 fym (8 t /500 m2) 4,000 80,000 2 formaldehyde (37%) @ 400 ml/m2 4,000 80,000 3 mulching 2,340 46,800 4 total 10,340 206,800 table 3. expenditure on cultivation of tomato and capsicum under polyhouse (2003-04) sl no particulars tomato capsicum 500 m2 per ha 500 m2 per ha 1 labour cost * 5450 109000 4300 86000 2 seedling cost ** 750 15000 2400 48000 3 chemical fertilizers 1140 22800 3828 76560 4 plant protection costs (pesticides and insecticides) 704 14080 3006 60120 5 other capital costs (twines, staking material costs, irrigation costs and miscellaneous) 4450 89000 2800 56000 total 12494 249880 16334 326680 * the no.of seedling in tomato was 750/500 m2 and in capsicum it was 2400/500 m2 ** human labour for tomato cultivation was 73 man days/500 m2 and for capsicum it was 57 man days/500 m2 # fertilizers used were can, ssp, mop and 19 all wsf note : standard plant protection procedures were followed for the management of pests and diseases irrigation structure for polyhouse cultivation like pump sets, mist units, drips systems, and conveyance pipes was separately accounted under establishment costs. . the average yield of capsicum during 2003 and 2004 was 126 t/ha/season in a polyhouse compared to about 22.3 t/ha/season in the open field. cash flows of tomato and capsicum production the cash inflows and outflows were worked out for the project period of six years. actual costs and returns during 2002-03 and 2003-04 in tomato and capsicum was documented and used for the cash flows. during this period four crops were taken. for remaining periods the costs and returns were projected based on the actual costs and returns. the year-wise details on the cost structure are given in table 4. the polythene sheets which were used in polyhouse is normally replaced every two years and hence, every alternate years there is an additional costs, as seen in 3rd year, 5th years etc. economic feasibility of production of tomato and capsicum in polyhouse economic feasibility indicators (pbp, npv, bcr, and irr) were worked out for both tomato and capsicum using the cash flows presented in table 4. the details of the economic feasibility indicators are given in table 5. sreenivasa murthy et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 148-152, 2009 151 table 4. cash flow of costs and returns of tomato and capsicum (500 m2) year tomato capsicum slno costs returns costs returns 1 base year 2001-02 236000 0 236000 0 2 first year 2002-03 35328 65859 43008 183707 3 second year 2003-04 35328 65859 43008 183707 4 third year 50865 65859 58545 183707 5 fourth year 35328 65859 43008 183707 6 fifth year 50865 65859 58545 183707 7 sixth year 35328 65859 43008 183707 table 5. economic feasibility of polyhouse cultivation of tomato and capsicum (2003-04) slno economic indicator capsicum tomato 1 payback period (years) 1.5 more than 10 2 net present value (rs/500 m2) 3,23,145 -1,13,046 3 benefit cost ratio 1.80 0.69 4 internal rate of return (%) 53.71 -11.50 ••••• (10% discount rate) ••••• actual market price prevailing in bangalore market during different months was taken for calculating returns capsicum: the pay back period for polyhouse production of capsicum was found to be less than two years or four production seasons. total net returns (undiscounted) for six years period was of rs.115.4 lakhs/ha (rs.5.77 lakhs/500 m2) with an annual average net return of rs.19.2 lakhs/ha (rs.0.96 lakhs/500 m2). net present value (npv) of the total net returns at 10 % discount rate for six years period worked out to be rs 64.62 lakhs/ha (rs 3.23 lakhs/500 m2) with the benefit cost ratio (bcr) of rs.1.80. internal rate of return (irr) in polyhouse production of capsicum is likely to be 53.71 per cent per annum. therefore, production of capsicum in a polyhouse is highly feasible and profitable. the breakeven price for capsicum production in a polyhouse was rs.10.25/kg and for both production and marketing was rs.11.80/kg (table 6). the average wholesale price prevailed in bangalore market during 2003 was rs.15.80 per kg. tomato: production of tomato in a polyhouse was not found to be economically feasible. even continuous cultivation of tomato for six years was not even sufficient to recover the investment made. it takes nearly eleven years of continuous production to make it breakeven. the net present value of tomato production at 10% discount rate was negative (rs.1.13 lakhs/500 m2), the benefit cost ratio (bcr) was less than one (0.69) and the internal rate of returns to investment was negative (-11.50% per annum), suggesting that the tomato production in poly house is not economical. table 6. estimate of cost of production of tomato and capsicum (per season) in polyhouse (500 m2) particulars cost details tomato capsicum apportioned cost of fixed inputs frame work (10 years) 10,000 10,000 polyhouse sheet (2 years) 7,769 7,769 shade net (5 years) 1,000 1,000 drip and fertigation (5 years) 900 900 misting (10 years) 600 600 fym 2,000 2,000 formaldehyde 2,000 2,000 black polyethylene mulch 1,170 1,170 sub total 25,439 25,439 working expenses 12,494 16,334 interest on fixed inputs 11,800 11,800 interest on working expenses 817 565 total expenditure (rs.) 50550 54130 yield (kg)* 7,775 5,280 cost of production (rs./kg) 6.50 10.25 *average yield realized for two seasons in polyhouse with about 48% premium price over the prevailing market price, tomato cultivation in a polyhouse is likely to be economical (table 7). if the present cost of a poly house structure is brought down by 60% from rs.400/ m2 to rs.160, then only it will be feasible (table 7). table 7. sensitivity analysis of costs and returns for tomato production in polyhouse (500 m2) premium payback npv (rs) bcr irr (%) period (@10% (10% (yrs) discount) discount) no reduction and at not market price sufficient -1,13,046 0.69 -0.115 premium price 20 % premium price 7.5 -74207 0.80 4.50 30 % premium price 6.5 -48891 0.87 6.49 40 % premium price 5.5 -23576 0.94 8.35 50 % premium price 3.5 1740 1.00 10.12 cost reduction 20 % reduction 9.5 -81930 0.76 2.05 30 % reduction 8.5 -60475 0.81 3.46 40 % reduction 7.5 -39021 0.87 5.22 50 % reduction 6.5 -17566 0.94 7.50 60 % reduction 4.5 3889 1.02 10.67 20 % reduction in cost and premium price no premium price 7.5 -81930 0.76 2.05 20 % premium price 6.5 -31298 0.91 7.22 30 % premium price 5.5 -5983 0.98 9.48 40 % premium price 4.5 19335 1.06 11.62 50 % premium price 3.5 44649 1.13 13.67 economic feasibility of vegetable production under polyhouse j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 148-152, 2009 152 with twenty per cent of reduction in the cost of polyhouse structure from rs.400 to rs.320/m2 and a premium price of 35% over the existing market price the tomato production in polyhouse is also likely to be feasible. the breakeven price for tomato production in a polyhouse was rs.6.50/kg (not including marketing costs) as against the average wholesale price of rs.4.90/kg prevailed in bangalore market during the same period, which makes it very difficult to economically produce tomato in a polyhouse. an alternative technology to grow vegetables in a net house, where it is possible to reduce the cost of the structure to the extent of rs.160 to rs. 200/ m2, is being developed. the major policy implications based on the present study are as follows: cultivation of capsicum under polyhouse with initial investment emerged as a profitable and economically viable option to increase the farmers’ income. besides yield, the quality of fruits was found to be superior in terms of its size, colour and shining. thus, there is a need to further strengthen existing institutional credit to provide initial capital requirement. the technology should also be promoted under different government and non-government schemes, as the returns for this technology is high. protected technology breaks the seasonal barriers of production and thus, ensures availability of the capsicum throughout the year. by proper crop planning, i.e. coinciding production with the higher market price, the returns could further be enhanced. this aspect should be emphasized while delivering this technology to the farmers. higher establishment costs as shown in case of tomato proved to be the major constraint for the viability of this technology. therefore, research efforts should be initiated to reduce the cost of establishment of poly house so that this protected technology may be used for large number of vegetable crops. production of vegetables under low-cost net house instead of polyhouse is already showing promising results. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to the natp, icar, new delhi for providing funds for investigation and to the director, iihr, bangalore for facilitating the conduct of the investigation. references berry, p.j. hopkins, j.a. and baker, c.b. 1979, financial management in agriculture, danville, illinois; the interstate printers & publishers, inc, usa gittinger, j.p. 1982, economic analysis of agricultural project, the john hopkins university press; baltimore, usa phookan, d.b. and saikia, s. 2003. vegetable production under naturally ventilated plastic house cum rain shelter. plasticulture intervention for agriculture development in north eastern region, edt. by k.k. satapathy and ashwani kumar, pp. 127-141 rai, n., nath, a., yadav, d.s. and patel, k.k. 2004. effect of polyhouse on shelf-life of bell pepper grown in meghalaya. national seminar on diversification of agriculture through horticultural crops, held at iari regional station, karnal, from 21-23rd february, pp. s.p.22 singh, r. and asrey, r. 2005, low cost polyhouse technology for off-season vegetable production, icar news, 11:april–june 2005 singh, 1998. vegetable production under protected conditions: problems and prospects. indian soc. veg. sci. souvenir: silver jubilee, national symposium dec. 12-14, 1998, varanasi, u.p. india pp. 90 singh, n., diwedi, s.k. and paljor, e. 1999. ladakh mein sabjion kei sanrakshit kheti. regional research laboratory of drdo, leh. pub. by d.r.d.o., leh. 56 a.p.o (ms received 2 march 2009, revised 3 september, 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 148-152, 2009 sreenivasa murthy et al introduction salinity is a major abiotic stress adversely affecting productivity and quality. papaya (carica papaya l.) is next only to mango as a rich source of pro-vitamin a (subhas chander and rao, 2004). growth of certain papaya cultivars under salt stress and some biochemical parameters associated with salt stress tolerance were studied and the results are reported. material and methods six papaya cultivars, viz., pusa dwarf, surya, solo, co5, tainan and red lady were subjected to salt stress continuously for six months with saline water irrigation having ec value of 0.6, 2.0 and 4.0 dsm-1 during the year 2004-05. among the six varieties, cv. red lady was more sensitive to salt while cv. tainan was resistant to salt stress by excluding the sodium cation from the plant system. on this basis, these two cultivars were selected for further biochemical analysis. sixth leaf from the top of the tree in these two cultivars (red lady and tainan) was taken for biochemical oxidative stress and changes in antioxidant and biochemical constituents in papaya (carica papaya l.) under salt stress m. subhas chander, r. palaniappan1 and c. s. bujji babu division of plant physiology and biochemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore – 560 089, india e-mail : subhas@iihr.ernet.in abstract six papaya cultivars viz., pusa dwarf, surya, solo, co5, tainan and red lady were subjected to saline water salt stress continuously for a period of six months with saline water irrigation having an ec value of 0.6, 2.0 and 4 dsm-1. among these, red lady was more sensitive while tainan resisted salt stress. under salt stress of 4 dsm1, yield reduced by 10% in tainan and by 24% in red lady compared to unstressed controls. t.s.s. measurement showed that quality of fruits was not affected by saline irrigation in both cvs. malondialdehyde levels estimated after six months period of stress, as thiobarbituric acid reacting substances, did not increase in tainan in contrast to substantial increase in red lady under stress conditions. there was substantial increase in levels of antioxidant compounds namely, carotenoids, phenols and flavonoids in tainan compared to red lady. in tainan there were significant increases in reducing and total sugars and sucrose under conditions of stress in contrast to sharp decreases in red lady. under conditions of stress, there was considerable accumulation of total and reducing sugars and sucrose, across the varieties, possibly contributing to osmotic adjustment. association of salt stress tolerance in tainan with soluble sugar accumulation could be used as a breeding tool for selecting salt tolerant papaya genotypes. key words : oxidative stress, antioxidants, salt stress, carica papaya 1division of soil science and agricultural chemistry analysis after 20 saline irrigations imposed at intervals of 10 days. the cleaned samples were cut into 0.5 cm squares, mixed thoroughly and dried at 60°c in an oven. dried samples were powdered in a mixer and stored for biochemical analysis. estimation was done on a duplicate set of samples. oxidative stress in the samples due to salt stress was measured as a change in malondialdehyde content, estimated at six months of stress, as thiobarbituric acid reacting substances (tbars) as described by egert and tevini (2002). five hundred mg of control and stressed samples was extracted with 10 ml of a mixture of 10 ml 5% aqueous tca and 1 ml of 0.05% methanolic bht. the homogenate was centrifuged and 2 ml of supernatant was mixed with 4 ml of saturated solution of tba. the mixture was heated in a boiling water for bath 30 min, cooled and centrifuged and tbars measured at 532 nm in a spectrophotometer. 0.5 g control and stressed samples of both cultivars were repeatedly extracted with ar grade acetone, filtered and combined and made upto 100ml. the acetone extracts were directly used for estimation of total j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 134-138, 2007 134 135 carotenoids as described by egert and tevini (2002). similarly 80% ethanol extracts of the samples were prepared and 50 ml portions of those extracts were defatted by extraction with hexane thrice. total phenols were estimated in defatted extracts as per the method described by sadasivam and manickam (1996). flavonoids were estimated in the same extracts by the method of kim et al (2003). the undefatted 80% alcohol extracts were used to estimate soluble carbohydrates. reducing sugars and total sugars after inversion and, sucrose specifically, were estimated as described by ashwell (1957). results and discussion the response of cvs. tainan and red lady to saline water irrigation is shown in table 1. average fruit weight was 1.3 kg in ‘red lady’ and 1.4 kg in ‘tainan’. the yield reduced by 10% in cv. tainan and 24% in cv. red lady, when salt stress was 4.0 dsm-1, compared to the unstressed control. however, quality of fruit was not affected by saline irrigation in both the cvs. as evidenced from tss data. the yield parameters and quality in both cvs. did not differ significantly from control when salt stress was 2 dsm-1. cv values reveal considerable variation in yield and number of fruits under salinity, particularly in red lady. exposure of plants to excessive levels of salts results in increased production of reactive oxygen species (ros) in plants. ros include the superoxide radical (o2 ), hydrogen peroxide (h 2 o 2 ), hydroxyl radical (oh) and singlet oxygen, which come from endogenous sources as byproducts of normal and essential reactions such as energy generation in mitochondria and detoxification reactions. (harinasut et al, 2003). excess levels of ros are the initiators of a chain reaction that leads to degradation of cellular components. damage is brought about by the oxidation of photosynthetic pigments, membrane lipids, proteins and nucleic acids by ros. this state of damage caused by ros is denoted by the term oxidative stress. one major characteristic of oxidative stress is increased lipid peroxidation wherein the polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufa) in the plant cells are oxidized. the end product of pufa oxidation is malondialdehyde (mda). mda estimation serves as a measure of the degree of oxidative stress experienced by the tissue (hodges and forney 2000). mda estimation in cv. red lady at two levels of stress (table 2) revealed an increase of 3.5% and 44.8% mda over the control. this was in accordance with the salt sensitive trait of the cv. red lady observed in the field. in contrast, there was no change in mda content in cv. tainan subjected to the same degree of stress. thus, there was practically no oxidative stress in the plants indicative of the salt tolerant trait of the variety. mda levels of tissues table 1. response of papaya to saline water irrigation sl. parameter cv. tainan cv. red lady c.d. (p=0.05%) cv % no. control saline saline control saline saline (0.6 dsm-1) treatment treatment (0.6 dsm-1) treatment treatment (2.0 dsm-1) (4.0 dsm-1) (2.0 dsm-1) (4.0dsm-1) 1 yield (tonnes/ha) 60 58 54 55 49 42 2.95 27.0 2 average fruit weight (kg/fruit) 1.40 1.40 1.30 1.30 1.20 1.15 0.15 14.5 3 number of fruits 45 44 40 39 37 30 3.90 26.3 4 t.s.s. 12.3 11.3 11.9 13.8 14.0 14.0 0.70 13.5 table 2. oxidative stress and antioxidant compounds in two papaya cvs. red lady and tainan, susceptible and tolerant respectively to salinity stress sl. no. parameter cv. tainan cv. red lady control t1 (saliniy t2 salinity control t1 (salinity t2 (salinity 2 dsm-1) 4 dsm-1) 2 dsm-1) 4 dsm-1) 1 oxidative stress/ 0.143 0.140 0.145 0.116 0.120 0.168 malondialdehyde (mda, (+3.5% ) (+44.8%) in terms of a 532 /40 mg dry leaf powder) 2 total carotenoids 65.510 85.96 75.59 68.920 69.900 56.280 (mg/g dry leaf) (+31.2%) (+15.4%) (+ 1.3%) (-18.3%) 3 total phenols (mg 28.930 39.73 32.07 28.200 31.270 21.670 gallic acid/g dry leaf) (+ 37.3%) (+ 10.9%) (+ 10.9%) (-23.2%) 4 total flavonoids (mg 6.730 10.14 7.59 6.910 7.670 4.730 catechin/g dry leaf) (+50.7%) (+12.8%) (+ 11%) (-31.6%) oxidative stress in papaya under imposition of salt stress j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 134-138, 2007 136 also served inversely as a measure of cellular membrane integrity (basra et al, 1997). plants contain antioxidant compounds which play an important role in detoxifying and regulating levels of ros. these include carotenoids, ascorbic acid, glutathione, α-tocopherol, phenols and flavonoids (harinasut et al, 2003). under conditions of various types of stress, plants protect themselves by synthesis of increased levels of various antioxidant compounds (mandhania et al, 2006). carotenoids are important as antioxidant compounds. they protect chloroplasts against photosensitized oxidation by quenching singlet oxygen, i.e., they function as radical scavengers, effectively binding the ros and preventing cellular damage (bosland and votava, 2000). results in table 2 show increased formation of carotenoids (+ 31.2% to 15.4% over control) under conditions of salinity stress in papaya cv. tainan as compared to cv. red lady. the increased carotenoid concentration under of salt stress in tainan could be a contributory factor for the tolerant trait of the variety. a drought tolerant wheat genotype under water stress, similarly, had the highest carotenoid content (sairam and saxena, 2000). decrease in carotenoid concentration in cv. red lady under stress is indicative of increased oxidative stress, possibly contributing to the salt sensitive nature of the cultivar. phenolic and flavonoid antioxidants act by free radical scavenging (subhas chander and rao, 2004). tomato lines having a high level of polyphenols had the most powerful antioxidant potential (minaggio et al, 2003). results presented in table 2 show that in papaya cv. tainan, there was an increase of 37.3% and 10.9% in total phenol content of samples from salt stress of 2 dsm-1 and 4 dsm-1 , respectively, over the content in unstressed control. in cv. red lady, the increase was only 10.9% over control under low salt stress of 2 dsm-1, and, it decreased by 23.2% under high stress of 4 dsm-1. in view of the stress tolerance shown by cv. tainan under field conditions, increased total phenolic content under stress in this case could be one of the detoxification systems that the plant has developed to limit oxidative damage due to excess formation of ros, by radical scavenging, which is considered crucial for tolerance (sarad et al, 2004). flavonoids are low molecular weight, polyphenolic compounds found in plants. recent studies provide evidence that accumulation of antioxidant compounds such as flavonoids is one component of a whole set of antioxidant defenses, which help plants to withstand environmental stress (munne-bosch, 2005). the cv. tainan contained 50.7% and 12.8% more flavonoids over control under salt stress of 2.0 dsm-1 and 4 dsm-1 respectively (table 2). the corresponding increase in the cv. red lady was only +11% over control under 2 dsm-1 salt stress and under higher salt stress of 4 dsm-1, the flavonoid content decreased by 31.6%. thus flavonoids accumulation in the cv. tainan could be contributing to the salt tolerance by free radical scavenging. there was ‘considerable’ to ‘substantial’ accumulation of sugars in both the cultivars under stress conditions. there were also some sharp differences. across the varieties there was an accumulation of 26.1% more reducing sugars in 2 dsm-1 stressed samples, compared to the control. also, across varieties, total sugars increased by 12.1% and 10.4% and sucrose increased by 10.2% and 19.5% over the control under 2 dsm-1 and 4 dsm-1 stress conditions, respectively (table 3). thus, salt stress is associated in general with higher sugar levels, more specifically sucrose content. in cv. tainan, there was a significant increase of (i) 44.8% and 78% reducing sugars (ii) 15.6% and 45.2% total sugars and (iii) 18.9% and 21.5% sucrose under 2 dsmtable 3. sugar accumulation in salt stressed papaya across varieties sl. no. treatment sugar level (mg/g dry leaf powder) reducing sugars total sugars sucrose 1 control 19.06 37.68 51.76 2 t1 (2 dsm-1) 24.04 42.24 57.02 3 t2 (4 dsm-1) 14.90 41.58 61.84 4 c.d. (p=0.05) 1.93 1.19 4.37 5 cv% 5.76 1.70 4.45 table 4. sugar accumulation in salt stressed papaya cvs. red lady and tainan sl. no. parameter cv. tainan cv. red lady c.d. (p=0.05) cv% control t1 (salinity t2 (salinity t1(salinity t2 (salinity 2 dsm-1) 4 dsm-1) control 2 dsm-1) 4 dsm-1) 1 reducing sugars (mg/g dry leaf) 10.24 14.83 18.23 27.88 33.24 11.57 2.73 5.76 2 total sugars (mg/g dry leaf) 33.93 39.24 49.25 41.43 45.23 33.91 1.69 1.70 3 sucrose (mg/g dry leaf) 52.01 61.85 63.18 51.51 52.18 60.51 6.19 4.45 subhas chander et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 134-138, 2007 137 1 and 4 dsm-1 stress conditions, respectively, over control (table 4). in contrast, in cv. red lady, lesser increase of 19.2% more reducing sugars, 9.2% more total sugars and 1.3% more sucrose over control was observed under 2 dsm1 stress, and, under higher salinity of 4 dsm-1, there was 58.5% decrease in reducing sugars and 18.2% decrease in total sugars, compared to the control. there was a significant increase of 7.8% in sucrose content in cv. tainan, compared to cv. red lady across treatments. cv% values reveal variation in reducing sugar and sucrose content under salinity, both across varieties and between cvs. tainan and red lady. thus, there was significant and substantial accumulation of reducing and total sugars and sucrose levels in salt stressed cv. tainan in contrast to lesser increase or sharp decrease in similarly stressed cv. red lady. thus, cv. tainan, which resisted salt stress in the field, is associated with increased soluble sugar accumulation. salt stress resulted in increase in sucrose content in tomato significantly (ko et al, 1999). this has been shown to be due to increased sucrose phosphate synthase (sps) gene expression under conditions of salt stress. soluble carbohydrates have a potential role in adaptation to drought and salt stress and, sucrose is believed to be instrumental in maintaining membrane phospholipids in the liquidcrystalline phase and in preventing structural changes in soluble proteins (kerepesi and galiba, 2000). the accumulation of sugars observed is in accordance with the role ascribed to such accumulated solutes in contributing to osmotic adjustment under conditions of stress, leading to maintenance of water uptake and cell turgor and removal of free radicals and stablization of macromolecules, organelles and membranes (neto et al, 2004). drought and salt tolerant genotypes of wheat accumulated more soluble carbohyderate than did sensitive ones (kerepesi and galiba, 2000). both ionic and nonionic stresses increased the concentration of reducing sugars, sucrose and fructans. under salt stress conditions, salt tolerant cultivars accumulated soluble carbohydrate fructan, which decreased in salt sensitive cultivars. kerepesi and galiba (2000) conclude that water soluble carbohydrates content could be a useful marker for selecting genotypes that are more drought or salt-tolerant. the reducing and total sugar and sucrose content in papaya cultivars red lady and tainan show the same trend (table 4). as in the case of wheat, soluble sugar content increased in the tolerant cv. tainan, as against much lesser increase and very considerable decrease in the sensitive cv. red lady. thus, this information on soluble sugar accumulation could be useful as a breeding tool for selecting salt-tolerant papaya genotypes. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, iihr, for providing facilities and encouragement. references ashwell, n. j., 1957. colorimetric analysis of sugars. in: methods in enzymology ii. sp. colowick and n.o. kaplan (eds.), academic press, new york, 73-105 basra, r. k., basra, a. s., malik, c. p. and grover, i.s. 1997. polyamines involved in the heat shock protection of mung bean seedlings. bot. bull. acad. sin., 38:165-169 bosland, p. w. and votava, e. j. 2000. in peppers : vegetable and spice capsicums. crop production science in horticulture series. cabi publishing, pp. 90-91 egert, m. and tevini, m. 2002. influence of drought on some physiological parameters symptomatic for oxidative stress in leaves of chives (allium schoenoprasum), envir. & exptl. bot., 48:43-49 harinasut, p., poonsopa, d., roengmongkol, k. and charoensataporn, r. 2003. salinity effects on antioxidant enzymes in mulberry cultivar. sci. asia, 29:109-113 hodges, d. m. and forney, c. f. 2000. the effects of ethylene, depressed oxygen and elevated carbon dioxide on antioxidant profiles of senescing spinach leaves. j. exptl. bot., 51:645-655 kerepesi, i. and galiba, g. 2000. osmotic and salt stress induced alteration in soluble charbohydrate content in wheat seedlings. crop sci., 40:482-487 kim, d., chun, o. k., kim, y. j., moon, h. and lee, c. y., 2003. quantification of polyphenolics and their antioxidant capcity in fresh plums. j. agri. food chem., 51:6509-6515 ko, j. h., jin, e., cho, m. h. and lee, s. h. 1999. salt stress induced alterations of gene expression related to sucrose metabolism in tomato root. pl. biol. 1999. amer. soc. pl. biologists. http://abstracts.aspb.org/ pb1999/public/p43/2401.html mandhania, s., madan, s. and sowhney, v. 2006. antioxidant defence mechanism under salt stress in wheat seedlings. biol. plant., 50:227-231 minoggio, m., bramati, l., simonetti, p., gardana, c., lenali, l., santangelo, e., mauri, p.l., spigno, p., soressi, g.p. and prietta, p.g. 2003. polyphenol oxidative stress in papaya under imposition of salt stress j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 134-138, 2007 138 pattern and antioxidant activity of different tomato lines and cultivars. annals of nutrition and metabolism, 47:64-69 munne-bosch, s. 2005. the role of α-tocopherol in plant stress tolerance. j. pl. physiol., 162:743-748 neto, a. d. a., prisco, j. t., eneas-filho-j., lacerda, c. f., silva, j. v., costa,. p. h. a. and gomes-filho, e. 2004. effects of salt stress on plant growth, stomatal response and solute accumulation of different maize genotypes. brazilian j. of pl. physiol., 16:31-38 sadasivam, s. and manickam, 1996. biochemical methods. 2nd ed. new age international publ. pvt. ltd., new delhi. sairam, r. k. and saxena, d. c. 2000. oxidative stress and antioxidants in wheat genotypes: possible mechanism of water stress tolerance. free radical res., 184: 55-61 sarad, n., rathore, m., singh, n. k. and kumar, n. 2004. genetically engineered tomatoes: new vista for sustainable agriculture in high altitude regions. paper presented at 4th international crop science congress, brisbane, australia. subhas chander, m. and rao, v. k. 2004. in fruits in nutritional security. tech. bull. 18. published by director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. (ms received 28 august 2007 revised 19 december 200) subhas chander et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 134-138, 2007 introduction cape gooseberry (physalis peruviana l.), commonly known as rasbhari, is a quickgrowing herbaceous crop belonging to the family solanaceae. the fruit resembles tomato in shape but is smaller in size. it is ideal as a jamfruit owing to its rich pectin content. apart from being rich in food value, plants of cape gooseberry are high yielding and the crop is highly remunerative due to low production costs and a short juvenile period. this potential cash crop can also be grown as an intercrop. however, ultimately, its growth and yield depends upon orchard management practices, with nutrient management being one of the prime considerations for higher yield. inorganic fertilizers are commonly used by most farmers because of relatively quick availability of nutrients to the plant, but their continuous use leads to damage to the ecosystem and soil health. moreover, indiscriminate use of high amounts of chemical fertilizers results in deficiency of nutrients other than those applied. thus, there is need to lay emphasis on management of natural resources like biofertilizers, etc. biofertilizers are not a substitute but a supplement to chemical fertilizers for maximizing yield and also, to maintain a balance in the agro-ecosystem. there are reports of usefulness of these biofertilizers in other crops effect of integrated nutrient management strategies on growth and yield of cape gooseberry (physalis peruviana l.) savreet sandhu and bikramjit singh gill department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture khalsa college, amritsar -143002, india e-mail: savreetz@gmail.com abstract an investigation was undertaken during 2009-10 to study the impact of integrated nutrient management on growth and yield of cape gooseberry genotype ‘aligarh’. treatments consisted of application of biofertilizers (azotobacter, azospirillium and pseudomonas) applied alone or in combination, with 75% and 100% npk, plus full dose of fym. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with twenty treatments replicated thrice. seedlings inoculated with azotobacter + 100% npk + fym gave maximum plant height, stem thickness, shoot number per plant and fruit yield per plant. treatment of azotobacter inoculation + 75% npk +fym gave maximum leaf area and minimum days to fruit picking. biological routes to improving soil fertility and soil health for optimum crop production, therefore, form a vital component of integrated nutrient management. key words: cape gooseberry, aligarh, biofertilizers, npk, fym, growth, yield of solanaceae family, such as tomato, but none in cape gooseberry. with this in view, the present experiment was undertaken to work out an optimum combination of biological and chemical sources of nutrients in cape gooseberry. material and methods the investigation on integrated nutrient management in cape gooseberry was carried out at an experimental orchard and laboratory of department of horticulture, khalsa college, amritsar during 2009-10. for raising a nursery, seeds of cape gooseberry genotype ‘aligarh’ were sown on 15 june 2009 in raised nursery beds measuring 1m x 1m. seedlings were transplanted a month after sowing i.e., in mid july (when these attained a height of 20cm) in well-prepared field beds measuring 2m x 3m. plant-to-plant and row-to-row spacing was 1m x 1m. a unit of 6 plants/ plot comprised a single treatment. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design. twenty treatment combinations were replicated thrice. non-symbiotic biofertilizers (azotobacter, azospirillium and pseudomonas), well known for their broad spectrum utility in various crops, were used in the experiment. these were applied as seedling treatment @ 1.5kg/ha and mixed proportionately in combined applications. standard dose of npk (10, 10 and 5g/plant) and fym j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):29-32, 2011 30 (1kg/plant) was used as the control. source of fertilizer applied was calcium ammonium nitrate (n 25%) for nitrogen, single super phosphate (p 16%) for phosphorus, and, muriate of potash (k 60%) for potassium. all of the phosphorus and potassium was applied during final preparation of the soil before making the beds, while, half of the nitrogen was applied 30 days after transplanting and the rest was applied after 25 days. effect of different combinations of chemical and biological fertilizers on crop growth was recorded in terms of plant height, plant spread (n-s and e-w), stem thickness, shoot number per plant and leaf area, as per standard procedures. apart from this, days to fruit picking from transplanting, and fruit-yield per plant, were also recorded. total fruit yield was recorded on the basis of four pickings. treatment details t 1 azotobacter t 2 azospirillium t 3 pseudomonas t 4 azotobacter + azospirillium t 5 azotobacter + pseudomonas t 6 azospirillium + pseudomonas t 7 azotobacter + azospirillium + pseudomonas t 8 azotobacter + 100% npk t 9 azotobacter + 75% npk t 10 azospirillium + 100% npk t 11 azospirillium + 75% npk t 12 pseudomonas + 100% npk t 13 pseudomonas + 75% npk t 14 azotobacter + 100% npk +fym t 15 azotobacter + 75% npk + fym t 16 azospirillium + 100% npk + fym t 17 azospirillium + 75% npk + fym t 18 pseudomonas + 100% npk + fym t 19 pseudomonas + 75% npk + fym t 20 control (recommended dose of npk and fym) results and discussion plant height and plant spread (n-s and e-w) increased significantly by biofertilization application compared to the control (table 1). maximum height was recorded in azotobacter inoculation of seedlings + 100% npk + fym (t 14 ). increase in height may be due to the fact that nitrogen is fixed by azotobacter and, n being a constituent of protein and chlorophyll, plays a vital role in photosynthesis. it enhances accumulation of carbohydrates which, in turn, increase growth of plants (mahmoud and amara, 2000). the reason for increased plant height and plant spread may be the build up of colonies of the applied biofertilizer inoculates and their growth promoting effects, including synthesis of plant growth promoting substances. this increase in vegetative growth may also be attributed to enhanced availability of nutrients at vital periods of growth, greater synthesis of carbohydrates and translocation, improved water status of plants, and, increased nitrate reductase activity. plant spread improved significantly with inoculation of biofertilizers due to increased cell metabolism resulting from enchanced enzyme activity, chlorophyll content and photosynthetic processes (kumar et al, 2006). stem thickness was also found to increase significantly with application of biofertilizers compared to the control (table 1). maximum value was recorded in azotobacter inoculation of seedlings + 100% npk + fym (t 14 ), followed by azotobacter inoculation of seedlings + 75% npk + fym (t 15 ). increase in stem thickness can be attributed to stimulative activity of the microflora in rhizosphere, leading to increased nutrient availability and, thereby, vigorous plant growth. singh and singh (2004) reported that azotobacter inoculation increased n levels in soil. this increase in n status might be partly attributed to stimulative effect of plant bioregulators which, in turn, increased the rate of nutrient absorption and translocation within the plant system consequently, more n accumulated in the plant parts (awasthi et al, 1998) resulting in overall tree growth. when all three nutrient sources, viz. fym, inorganic fertilizer and biofertilizer (azotobacter) were applied, it resulted in better plant growth. this can be attributed to improved nutrient and water availability, leading to plant growth from development of better root system with concomitant increase in number of rootlets. this is corroborated by findings of prahraj et al (2002). increased plant growth might be due to more efficient absorption of nutrient elements because of the better root system developed by biofertilization. increase in plant-growth can also be ascribed to n addition through biological nitrogen fixation by azotobacter (bhattacharya et al, 2002). azotobacter inoculation of seedlings + 75% npk + fym (t 15 ) showed minimum number of days to first picking of fruits from date of transplanting seedlings compared to the control (table 1). this may be due to the ellaboration of small quantities of growth promoting substances like ga, iaa, cytokinins, vitamin b, etc., by azotobacter, which, along with npk and fym might have improved the physiology of plants causing a shift from the vegetative to the reproductive phase (nair and najachandra, 1995). sandhu and gill j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):29-32, 2011 31 maximum leaf area was observed in the treatment azotobacter inoculation of seedlings + 75% npk + fym. it can be inferred that biofertilization, along with npk and fym, helps proliferation of roots which, ultimately, results in sturdy and healthy plants showing resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. moreover, this also promotes better nutrient uptake and carbohydrate accumulation in leaves, resulting in healthy leaf growth. maximum shoot number per plant and fruit yield per plant was obtained in azotobacter inoculation to seedlings + 100% npk + fym (t 14 ). the reason for increased number of shoots and fruits per plant is due to solubilization effect of plant nutrients by addition of fym, as evidenced by increased uptake of n, p, k, ca and mg by the crop during the vegetative as well as reproductive phase. these results are in accordance with findings of patil et al (2004). improvement in these parameters might be due to the secretion of ammonia into the rhizosphere in the presence of root exudates, which helps to modify nutrient uptake by plants, thus maximizing shoot number, fruit size and ultimately, the yield (harikrishna et al, 2002; sengupta et al, 2002). another reason may be the accelerated mobility of photosynthates from source to sink as influenced by organics and their accumulation in the fruit. this improved translocation was possible perhaps due to better sink capacity resulting in higher number of fruits per plant. in conciusion, effect of integrated nutrient management on growth and yield of cape gooseberry shows that the integrated use of biofertilizers, organic manures and chemical fertilizers in combination at an appropriate time, could help in achieving the goal of high fruit yield and safe environment and pave the way for sustainable fruit production. thus, integrated nutrient management strategy utilizes a judicious combination of biofertilizers, inorganic fertilizers and organic manures to bring about improvement in soil fertility and helps in protecting the environment and producing higher crop yields than when applied singly. references awasthi, r.p., godara, r.k. and kaith, n.s. 1998. interaction effect of va mycorrhizae and azotobacter inoculation on micronutrient uptake by peach seedling. hort. j., 11:1-5 bhattacharya, p., jain, r.k. and paliwal, m.k. 2002. biofertilizers for vegetables. ind.hort., 44:12-13 harikrishna, b.l., channal, h.t., hebsur, n.s., dharmatti, p.r. and sarangamath, p.a. 2002. integrated nutrient management (inm) on availability of nutrient uptake and yield of tomato. karnataka j. agril. sci., 15: 275-278 kumar, m., singh, s., sharma, s.k., dahiya, d.s. and beniwal, l.s. 2006. effect of biofertilizers on growth table 1. effect of integrated nutrient management strategies on growth and yield of cape gooseberry treatment plant plant spread plant spread stem leaf area shoot days to fruit height (cm) n-s (cm) e-w (cm) thickness (cm) (sq. cm) number /plant fruit picking yield/ plant t 1 85.10 40.00 44.70 1.06 44.90 10.00 210.33 363.63 t 2 82.89 39.90 40.86 1.03 41.01 9.33 211.00 313.33 t 3 80.50 37.13 45.20 1.01 43.16 8.00 208.66 303.30 t 4 91.50 41.33 46.09 1.06 46.59 9.66 200.16 359.00 t 5 88.19 41.13 45.20 1.07 44.41 10.00 216.00 331.00 t 6 93.40 42.41 46.80 1.10 47.45 11.66 213.00 347.33 t 7 94.00 42.10 47.40 1.14 48.15 10.66 204.00 386.60 t 8 99.30 44.13 49.00 1.20 50.01 10.66 207.33 450.00 t 9 114.80 46.70 51.09 1.31 52.65 11.66 203.33 407.30 t 1 0 107.40 45.20 50.33 1.25 51.18 11.33 202.66 431.00 t 1 1 103.10 44.80 49.80 1.22 50.34 11.00 206.00 420.10 t 1 2 97.60 43.03 48.03 1.16 49.36 11.00 205.66 398.20 t 1 3 98.00 43.59 48.53 1.18 48.98 11.00 209.00 371.90 t 1 4 136.50 53.90 63.00 1.43 56.59 16.00 198.00 512.00 t 1 5 133.10 50.00 59.06 1.42 58.13 14.66 192.00 501.40 t 1 6 130.50 48.13 60.59 1.40 54.31 13.33 194.66 483.10 t 1 7 123.40 50.76 55.33 1.37 55.40 11.66 197.00 469.00 t 1 8 119.50 48.83 53.00 1.36 54.01 12.66 194.33 450.30 t 1 9 112.30 46.00 50.90 1.28 53.80 11.66 200.00 491.90 t 20 (control) 90.80 39.03 40.33 1.08 45.75 10.33 218.00 334.80 cd (p=0.05) 15.39 8.77 11.59 0.13 3.74 2.93 7.75 19.75 cv% 8.95 11.95 13.94 6.74 4.55 15.71 2.29 2.94 sem± 5.37 3.06 4.02 0.04 1.30 1.02 2.70 6.90 integrated nutrient management in cape gooseberry j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):29-32, 2011 32 and flowering of marigold cv. pusa narangi. haryana j. hort. sci., 35:71-72 mahmoud, h.a.f. and amara, m.a.t. 2000. response of tomato to biological and mineral fertilizers under calcareous soil conditions. bull. fac. agri. univ. cairo, 51:151-174 nair, s.k. and najachandra, g. 1995. nitrogen fixing bacteria associated with plantation and orchard crops of kerala. final report icar ad-hoc research project. pp. 1-65 patil, m.b., mohammed, r.g. and ghade, p.m. 2004. effect of organic and inorganic fertilizers on growth, yield and quality of tomato. j. maharashtra agril. univ., 29:124-127 prahraj, c.s., kumar, d. and sharma, r.c. 2002. integrated use of fertilizers and biofertilizers along with plant growth promoting bacteria for higher efficiency in potato (solanum tuberosum). in: extended summaries of the 2nd international agronomy congress on balancing food and environment security a continuing challenge. new delhi, india. pp. 232-235 sengupta, s.k., dwivedi, y.c. and kushwah, s.s. 2002. response of tomato to bio-inoculants at different levels of nitrogen. veg. sci., 29:186-188 singh, a. and singh, r.p. 2004. effect of bioand chemical fertilizers on nutrient status of olive tree. haryana. j. hort. sci., 33:27-29 (ms received 23 november 2010, revised 25 march 2011) sandhu and gill j. hortl. sci. vol. 6(1):29-32, 2011 final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single 301 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 301-308, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f 1 hybrids of coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das1, shivanna m.b.2 and prakash n.s.1* 1central coffee research institute, coffee board, crs (p.o) 577 117, chikkamagaluru dist., karnataka, india 2department of p. g. studies and research in applied botany, jnana sahyadri, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta 577451, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : drccri2020@gmail.com abstract four f 1 hybrids of arabica coffee (coffea arabica l.) developed with the primary objective of pyramiding the s h 3 gene for leaf rust resistance in a commercial variety ‘chandragiri’ for achieving the long-lasting resistance to leaf rust, have been evaluated in field. two hybrids (s.5083 and s.5084) were derived from a donor heterozygous to s h 3, while the other two hybrids (s.5085 and s.5086) were developed from donor homozygous to s h 3. among the hybrids, s.5086 recorded superior yield performance during individual years with a maximum yield of 1611 kg/ha during 2020-21 and the four year mean yield of 1313 kg/ha. the hybrid exhibited maximum heterosis over mid parent (29.10%) and better parent (17.12%) and s.5086 progeny also manifested high field tolerance to leaf rust pathogen as the entire plant population was free from the disease incidence throughout the study period. the findings of the present study established the efficiency of f 1 breeding strategy with simultaneous pyramiding of rust resistance genes for development of vigorous, high yielding and durable rust resistant f 1 hybrids in arabica. the f 1 hybrid, s.5086 with promising performance in terms of crop yield and high field tolerance to leaf rust has potential implications for commercial exploitation. key words: coffee, f 1 hybrids, durable resistance, pyramiding and s h 3 gene c off ee, t he mos t p op u la r b ever a ge c r op is cultivated in over 50 countries across continents with high export potential. the foreign exchange revenues from coffee exports constitute substantial share in the national economies of the producing countries. the turnover of the world coffee industry is over $ us 40 billion annually and the industry provide direct employment as well as livelihood opportunities to approximately 20 million people in cultivation, on-farm processing, value addition and trade. india is the 7th largest producer of coffee with a cultiva ted a r ea of 4. 59 la kh ha a nd a nnua l a ver a ge pr odu ct ion of 3 . 2 0 la kh m t, whic h a ccounts for a bout 3. 5 % of the wor ld coffee production a nd 4.5% sha re in globa l expor ts. commercial coffee comes from two species viz., coffea arabica l. and coffea canephora pierre ex a. froehner that are popularly referred as arabica and robusta coffees, respectively. arabica coffee types manifest susceptibility to major diseases and pests while r obusta is mor e toler a nt to these diseases and pests but the bean and liquor quality of robusta is inferior to arabica. among the various diseases that affect arabica, coffee leaf rust (clr) caused by an obligate parasitic fungus, hemileia vastatrix berk et br is the most prominent one that cause severe crop losses to an extent of 70% in susceptible cultivars, if proper control measures are not adopted (anon., 2014). the wet weather with intermittent rainfall & sunshine, relative humidity over 80% and temperatures between 220 & 240c are the ideal conditions for clr flare-ups. introduction 302 das et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 301-308, 2021 therefore, breeding for rust resistance has been pur sued on highest prior ity in severa l ar abica growing countries including in india, that resulted in develop ment of s ever a l c off e e va r iet ies manifesting varying levels of resistance to clr. however, because of the adaptive ability of the h. vastatrix, br ea kdown of resista nce under field conditions has been experienced in the commercial varieties due to evolution of new virulent rust races from time to time. at present, a s many as 45 different physiological races of rust with ability to infect different coffee genotypes are distributed in various coffee-growing countries (rodrigues et al., 1993 a nd pra ka sh et al. , 2005). t he wea ther conditions that prevail in indian coffee growing regions are highly favourable for leaf rust pathogen. as a result, high disease build up as well as race mutation leading to the evolution of new virulent races of rust with ability to overcome the resistance in varieties released for cultivation has been a common phenomenon. at present, over 35 different rust races are found distributed in coffee tracts of india. therefore, development of varieties with long lasting resistance in field is the priority of arabica coffee breeding in india. the host resistance to coffee leaf rust is reported to be governed by nine resistance genes, designated as s h 1 to s h 9, distributed across the coffee gene pool. among the commercially cultivated species, four resistance factors (s h 1, s h 2, s h 4, s h 5) were identified in c. arabica the only tetraploid species of the genus while four other factors (s h 6, s h 7, s h 8, s h 9), were reported from diploid species, c. canephora and s h 3 factor from another diploid species c. liberica [wagner and bettencourt, 1965 ; vishveshwara, 1974 ; bettencourt and rodrigues, 1988] . it ha s been well esta blished tha t the resistance genes identified in c. arabica, are less durable under field situations while the genes viz., s h 6, s h 7, s h 8, s h 9 introgressed from the diploid species either fr om c. canephora or fr om c. liber ica (s h 3) a r e fou nd to ma nifest dur a ble resistance. hence, the resistance breeding strategies ha ve b een ma inly focu s ed on p yr a miding of resistance genes of diploid origin into selected a r a bica genotypes by using the na tur a l interspecific hybrids as donors. in order to expedite the pyramiding of resistance genes into outstanding cultivars by conventional breeding and to reduce the required time frame, f 1 breeding strategy is gaining significance. fur ther, because of the domina nt nature, the resistance genes are expected to express in f 1 s resulting in long lasting resistance. with this objective, development of f 1 hybr ids has been pursued as a priority of arabica coffee breeding in india since 2011. the present communica tion highlights the field performance of four such f 1 hybrids in respect to vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust. materials and methods the plant material included in the present study comprised of four f 1 progenies, s.5083, s.5084, s.5085 a nd s. 5086 gener a ted fr om recipr oca l c r os s es b e t ween t wo a r a b ic a genot yp es , ‘chandragiri’ and sln.10 (table 1). two elite plants of s ln. 10 , cha r a cter ized a s homoz ygous a nd heterozygous for s h 3 gene for rust resistance were used in crossing programme, in order to validate the differential response of hybrids, if any. all the four progenies were planted in a compact plot at research farm of central coffee research institute, balehonnur, karnataka, india (13º 22’ n, 75º 25’ e at an elevation of 2787 msl), during the year 2012. the weather data pertaining to the study period is furnished in table 2. in all, 60 plants per progeny were planted in a conventional square design at a spacing of 5’x5’ under a two-tier shade canopy, the top cover of evergreen natural forest trees and lower canopy comprising of fast-growing leguminous trees like erythrina lithosperma miq. (dadap). the plants were trained on topped single stem system a nd standard agronomic pra ctices recommended for semi-dwarf arabica genotypes were followed. the progenies have been evaluated for vegetative vigour, field tolerance to leaf rust and crop yield. 303 vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to rust in coffee evaluation of agronomic characteristics for agronomic evaluation in respect of vegetative vigour, data was collected from 20 plants for each progeny (five plants per replication) for three crop seasons till the bush canopy was totally covered. for assessment of vegetative vigour, data on the growth parameters such as stem girth, bush spread, number of primary branches, length of the longest primary, table 1. details of parents and cross combination of f 1 hybrids accession no. parents/f 1 cross combination and their response to leaf rust pathogen s.3827 sln.10 (double cross hybrid) susceptible to 5 races of rust; selected two plants homozygous {caturra x cioccie} and heterozygous to s h 3 gene (donors for s h 3 gene x introgressed from a diploid species c. liberica and also for {caturra x s.795} good liquor quality attributes) s.4202 chandragiri resistant plant selected from the base population that remained tolerant to all prevailing races of rust in india. it’s a c. canephora introgressed line. s.5083 chandragiri sln.10 – heterozygous to s h 3 s.5084 sln.10 chandragiri heterozygous to s h 3 s.5085 chandragiri sln.10 – homozygous to s h 3 s.5086 sln.10 chandragiri homozygous to s h 3 number of nodes per primary, inter nodal length and yield component characters such as number of bearing nodes per primary, number of fruits per node was recorded. the fruit yield per plant and progeny yield was recorded during harvest season i.e., nov. dec. for four crop seasons from 2017 to 2020. data was also collected from chandragiri and sln.10 the parents. table 2. weather data pertaining to the study period (2017-2020) months 2017 2018 2019 2020 tem. rainfall rh% tem. rainfall rh% tem. rainfall rh% tem. rainfall rh% january 22 0 (0) 67 23 0 (0) 81 21 0 (0) 82 23 0(0) 74 february 24 0 (0) 65 24 0 (0) 79 25 0 (0) 62 24 0(0) 61 march 26 13 (0) 65 26 26 (4) 82 25 24 (3) 79 25 23(2) 72 april 27 48 (4) 74 26 108 (16) 78 27 59 (5) 77 26 77(9) 80 may 25 195 (10) 76 25 356 (17) 82 26 39 (6) 87 25 219(14) 84 june 23 404 (23) 85 23 692 (20) 88 25 199 (20) 87 23 270(20) 89 july 22 556 (30) 88 22 1179 (28) 86 24 530 (28) 89 22 440(27) 88 august 23 560 (20) 87 21 1169 (20) 91 23 1204 (31) 86 21 1057(20) 87 september 24 261 (17) 86 23 128 (10) 88 23 538 (21) 88 22 466(17) 88 october 24 109 (6) 87 23 150 (8) 84 24 431(22) 88 22 163(11) 85 november 23 11 (2) 82 23 28 (2) 78 25 48(2) 84 21 44(5) 79 december 22 1 (1) 69 22 25 (1) 78 25 9(1) 85 21 1(1) 85 tem.-average temperature, rainfall rainy days in parenthesis, rh-relative humidity j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 301-308, 2021 304 data analysis and estimation of heterosis among f 1 hybrids analysis of va riance was carr ied out for ea ch character as suggested by gomez and gomez (1984). wherever the treatment differences were found significant, critical differences (cd) were worked out at five per cent probability level and values were furnished. the treatment differences that were not significant are indicated as ‘ns’. relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis manifested by each f 1 hybrid wa s calculated over mid parent (mph%) = [(f1-mp)/mp x 100] and better parent, (bph%) = [(f1-bp/bp x 100], respectively. evaluation of coffee leaf rust (clr) incidence: observations on leaf rust incidence were recorded during peak periods of disease expression i.e., mayjune months during pre-monsoon season and sept.oct. months during post-monsoon season, for four successive years, from 2017 to 2020. data on clr incidence was recorded on individual plants and plants with less number of pustules were also treated as susceptible to assess the population susceptible/ resistant in each progeny. the disease build-up on susceptible plants was also scored using the 0-9 scale of eskes and toma-braghini (1981 cf eskes 1989), where 0 = plants are free from the symptoms; 1= presence of one diseased branch. likewise, grades were assigned based on progression of disease and 9= maximum disease incidence. finally, the plants were grouped into four categories viz., 1= tolerant (free from clr incidence), 2 = moderately tolerant (mild infection without any defoliation); 3= susceptible (medium levels of incidence) and 4= highly susceptible (high disease build up coupled with defoliation). results and discussion agronomic evaluation – growth characters all the four f 1 hybrid genotypes evaluated in the present study exhibited vigorous vegetative growth with compact bush stature which is expected when both the parents are semi-dwarfs. the data in respect of vegetative, yield and yield component characters is presented in table 3. table 3. character means and analysis of variance for different morphological and yield component characters among different f 1 hybrids f 1 hybrid/ stem bush no. of length of no. of internodal no. of no. of avg. fruit parental girth spread primary longest nodes length bearing fruits yield per line (cm) (cm) branches primary per (cm) nodes/ per plant (cm) primary branch node (kg) s.5083 38.5 349.5 19.1 98.9 20.0 5.2 9.9 14.7 1.95 s.5084 39.5 366.1 19.1 98.5 20.2 4.9 8.8 14.9 1.78 s.5085 37.0 333.7 19.8 94.3 19.5 4.7 9.1 14.0 1.89 s.5086 36.1 341.2 19.8 94.3 19.2 4.6 8.9 13.7 1.98 chandragiri 36.2 322.2 20.0 87.4 19.1 4.9 8.6 12.3 1.69 (parent 1) sln.10 37.3 341.6 21.3 92.3 19.0 5.0 8.7 12.9 1.37 (parent 2) sem± 1.9 12 0.5 5.3 1.5 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.14 cd @ 5% ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns from the data it is apparent that the hybrids exhibited uniform vegetative vigour with marginal differences in various characters. among the f 1 progenies, s.5084 recorded superior growth in terms of stem girth (39.5 cm), number of nodes (20.2), bush spread (366.1); number of fruits per node (14.9). in contrast, s.5086 recorded more compact growth pattern as reflected in most of the growth parameters recorded, compared to other f 1 hybrid progenies (table 3). analysis of variance carried out for each character revealed that the character means among different hybrids are significant at p<0.05 with their parent populations except number of nodes per primary. these variations in terms of growth characters can be attributed to the gr owth pa tter n of the pa r ents a nd their cr oss combination used for generation of hybrids. prakash et al (2006) evaluated 17 elite hybrid progenies for growth parameters, field tolerance to rust, clean coffee das et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 301-308, 2021 305 yield and bean characteristics in a specific agroclima te in india. analysis of va r ia nce of five mor phologica l cha r a cter s r evea led significa nt differences between the genotypes in respect of four characters (stem girth, bush diameter, length of longest pr ima r y a nd number of pr ima r ies per pla nt) establishing tha t the genotypes a re moder ately heterogeneous for plant architecture. heritability was high (60%) for yield and 64% for field tolerance to leaf rust indicating low genotype x environment interaction for these traits. heterosis for crop yield data on year wise clean coffee yield among the f 1 progenies and the parents is presented in table 4. in general, the production trend over the years from 2017-18 to 2020-21 has shown alternate bearing pattern which is common in arabica coffee. further, there has been an increase in quantum of yield both in parents and hybrids over the years. all the hybrids recorded higher yields over parents both during the on and off years. statistical analysis of year wise yields showed significant differ ences among different genotypes and also the parents (table 4). during the lean cropping years of 2017-18 and 2019-20, the mean crop yields (clean coffee) among the four hybrid progenies varied from 996 kg/ha (s.5083) to 1102 kg/ ha (s.5086) and 1161 kg/ha (s.5085) to 1232 kg/ha (s.5086), respectively. during the high cropping years i.e., 2018-19 and 2020-21, the mean yields ranged from 1233 kg/ha (s.5084) to 1424 kg/ha (s.5083) and 1415 kg/ha (s.5084) to 1611 kg/ha (s.5086). among the hybrids, s.5086 recorded superior and consistent performance during individual years with a maximum yield of 1611 kg/ha during 2020-21 and the four year mean yield of 1313 kg/ha. among the f 1 hybrids, the relative heterosis (mph%) ranged from 15.83% (s.5084) to 29.10% (s.5086) while heterobeltiosis ranged from 5.08% (s.5084) to 17.12% (s.5086). among the four f 1 hybrids, s.5086 recorded superior yield performance. among the two pa r enta l lines, the yield in ‘chandragiri’ ranged from 887 kg/ha (2017-18) to 1303kg/ha (2020-21) while in sln.10, the year wise yields ranged from 741 kg/ha to 1041 kg/ha. analysis table 4. year wise clean coffee yields in f 1 hybrids and parental lines f 1 hybrid clean coffee yield (kg/ha) progeny/parents 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 s.5083 996 1424 1179 1557 s.5084 978 1233 1086 1415 s.5085 1069 1325 1161 1457 s.5086 1102 1307 1232 1611 chandragiri 887 1224 1070 1303 sln.10 741 987 883 1041 sem ± 31.17 73.17 55.56 46.70 cd at p = 5% 93.96 220.56 167.48 140.77 of relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis revealed that all the hybrids exhibited maximum relative heterosis (mph%) that ranged from 20.7% (s.5084) to 37.5% (s.5086) during the high cropping year, 2020-21 except in s.5085. as regards to heterobeltiosis, all the hybrids except s.5083 recorded high bph% that ranged from 10.26% (s.5084) to 24.24% (s.5086) during the low cr opping yea r, 2017-18. t hese differences in relative heterosis and heterobeltiosis, could be attributed to the yield of the parents during the respective years. among the four f 1 hybrids, s.5086 recorded high bph% in all the years that ranged from 15.14% (2019-20) to 23.64 (2017-18) except during 2018-19. bertrand et al. (2005) evaluated the performance of f 1 hybr id pla nts der ived fr om c. arabica for production variables and reported that the f 1 hybrids produced between 22% (trial 1) and 47% (trial 2) more fresh berries than the parental lines in two separate trials. this difference was highly significant for trial vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to rust in coffee j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 301-308, 2021 306 2 (p = 0.00). from the studies on genetic parameters of timor hybrid derived arabica genotypes at iac, brazil, mistro et al. (2007) reported that the greatest yield ga ins were achieved when selection wa s performed based on plot means and years of high yields. it was reported that under normal climate conditions, coffee yields usually increase from the first until the fourth/fifth year. thereafter, the biennial yield cycles begin, characterized by the alternate high and low yields. from the results of the present study, it is apparent that both the parental lines and the hybrids reflected the alternate bearing behaviour. however, the consistency in production has been recorded in the hybr ids in cor r esponding on a nd off yea r s of production, alternatively. dula (2019) reviewed the heterosis and combining ability studies for yield of coffea arabica varieties in ethiopia. from the studies conducted by mesfin and bayetta (1983), the extent of heterosis for yield was up to 60% over better parent. out of nine f 1 hybrids, only one hybrid exhibited negative heterosis of -8%. the highest yielding hybrids melko-ch2 and ababuna showed 20% and 18% heterosis over the better parent respectively. given the fact that the genetic distance and combing ability of the parental lines is critical for achieving the maximum extent of heterosis in f 1 hybrids, the heterobeltiosis to the extent of 23.64% over better parent and 37.5% over mid parent for yield in best performing f 1 hybrid (s.5086) in the present study is a significant point to consider for commercial exploitation. coffee leaf rust incidence data on coffee leaf rust (clr) incidence among the four f 1 hybrids and parental lines is furnished in table 5. among the hybrids, the leaf rust incidence ranged from nil (s.5086) to 51% (s.5083) while in the two parental lines, the clr incidence ranged from 2.8% to 30% in chandragiri and 22% to 73% in sln.10 during different years of study. from the data in respect of individual f 1 hybrids, it is apparent that the two hybrid progenies, s.5083 and s.5084 recorded relatively high susceptibility as 46.1% and 50.9% of population manifested susceptibility during 2019-20, the year that recorded high rust flare up due to favourable weather conditions. the parental lines also recorded maximum susceptibility (30% in chandragiri and 73% in sln.10) during the high rust year (201920). in contrast, the remaining two f 1 hybrid progenies (s.5085 and s.5086) maintained high levels of field tolerance as the entire population of these two hybrids are free from the rust incidence. the high rust incidence manifested during the 2019-20 could be attributed to the favourable weather conditions i.e., high rain fall coupled with maximum number of rainy days during july and august months as well as ideal temperatures (190c to 240c). the quantum of rainfall though higher during july and august 2018, the number of rainy days were low thereby the rust incidence was relatively low compared to 2019. however, inspite of the favourable weather conditions during 2018 and 2019, the disease build up levels were recorded to be very low, in the hybrids s.5083, s.5084 and parent variety ‘chandragiri’, the disease build up was characterized by the non-sporulating necrotic spots (group 2), indicating the high levels of tolerance. further, the high levels of field tolerance to leaf rust in f 1 hybrid progenies (s.5085 and s.5086) could be attributed to the integration of the s h 3 gene in these hybrid populations as the sln.10 parent used as s h 3 donor is homozygous to s h 3. in fact, the very objective of the f 1 hybrid breeding programme was to pyramid the maximum number of s h genes for rust resistance in a proven commercial arabica genotype to ensure long lasting resistance to leaf rust. the resistance in chandragiri is governed by the s h genes of tetraploid arabica origin (s h 1,2,4,5) and s h genes (s h 6, s h 7, s h 8, s h 9) introgressed to c. arabica from diploid species, c. canephora (robusta coffee). the f 1 hybrids evaluated in the present study were developed with the primary aim of pyramiding of s h 3 gene of c. liberica origin in order to improve durability of resistance in chandragiri. two plants of sln10, homozygous and heterozygous to s h 3 gene were consciously selected and used as donor parents (paternal) in crossing programme. apparently, the two hybrid progenies, s.5083 and s.5084 were derived from the heterozygous donor while the other two hybrid progenies, s.5085 and s.5086 were developed fr om the homozygous donor pla nt. t hus, the variability for field tolerance to leaf rust in these four f 1 hybrid pr ogenies, could be attributed to the differences in pyramiding/ integration of s h 3 gene from heterozygous and homozygous donor plants. analysis of the selected f 1 plants representing the susceptible and resistant plants in different hybrid progenies with scar marker linked to s h 3 gene confirmed the presence of the s h 3 gene (un-published das et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 301-308, 2021 307 data). this inference lend credence from the findings of shigueoka et al. (2014) evaluated nine arabica coffee progenies with an objective to select highyielding coffee progenies with resistance to coffee leaf rust for the state of parana in brazil. it was reported that the plant population of several genotypes derived from ‘sarchimor’ and ‘catucai’ were susceptible to coffee leaf rust and complete resistance was broken in several coffee plants of ‘catucai’ germplasm. however, the interesting observation reported was that the genotype ‘f 6 of catuai x (catuai x ba-10 coffee)’ probably a carrier of s h 3 gene manifested complete resistance in more than 80% plants and inferred that the genotypes were heterozygous to s h 3 gene. infact, there were several other earlier reports from brazil that the coffee genotypes carrying s h 3 gene manifested complete resistance to leaf rust (fazuoli et al., 2005, pereira et al., 2005. sera et al., 2007). the findings of the present study also in conformity with that of the earlier reports on high levels of field tolerance manifested by the two f 1 hybrids, s.5086 & s.5085 der ived fr om cr osses employing sln10 pla nt homozygous to s h 3 gene. conclusion the findings of the present study are of high applied value and clearly established the efficiency of f 1 breeding strategy for development of vigorous, high yielding and durable rust resistant f 1 hybrids in arabica. the extent of heterosis in arabica coffee is found to be dependent on the genetic distance and combining ability of the parental genomes. the two f 1 hybrids, s.5086 & s.5085 that recorded promising table 5. leaf rust incidence (% population) in different f 1 hybrids acc. no 2107-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 s.5083 10.3 44.5 50.9 10 s.5084 8.2 12.8 46.1 11 s.5085 0.0 0.0 0.0 5.0 s.5086 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 chandragiri 2.8 20 30 30 sln.10 22.0 60 73 60 performance in terms of crop yield coupled with high field tolerance to leaf rust have potential implications for commercial exploitation. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the director of research, central coffee research institute, coffee board, for the support and encouragement received throughout the research study. anonymous. 2014. coffee guide, coffee board, bangalore, india, p 262. bertrand, b.h., etienne, c.c., charrier, a. and baradat, p. 2005. coffea arabica hybrid perfor mance for yield, fertility and bean weight. euphytica 141 (3): 255-262. bettencourt, a. j. and rodrigues jr., c. j. 1988. principles and practice of coffee breeding for resistance to rust and other diseases. p 199-235. in coffee vol.4 agronomy. cla rck, r. j. macrae, r. 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(received on 23.05.2021, revised on 24.07.2021 and accepted on 27.07.2021) das et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 301-308, 2021 00 contents.pdf 01 shalini.pdf 02 sheikh.pdf 03 debanath.pdf 04 nimbolkar.pdf 05 satisha.pdf 06 kaur.pdf 07 nitin kumar.pdf 08 varsha.pdf 09 ravishankar.pdf 10 swamini.pdf 11 vijaykumar.pdf 12 usha bharathi.pdf 13 yogalakshmi.pdf 14 adams.pdf 15 lakshman.pdf 16 yella swami.pdf 17 varalakshmi.pdf 18 sharon.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 22 event report.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf molecular exploration of guava (psidium guajava l.) genome using ssr and rapd markers: a step towards establishing linkage map b. padmakar1, d. sailaja2 and c. aswath3* division of biotechnology icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560089, india *e-mail: aswathiihr@gmail.com abstract in the present study, molecular evaluation of two guava mapping populations (mp), mpi comprising 94 f1 progenies and mpii comprising 46 f1 progenies, was carried out using simple sequence repeat (ssr) and random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) markers. a pseudo-test cross strategy was implemented where ‘kamsari’ x ‘purple local’ and ‘purple local’ x ‘allahabad safeda’ were crossed, and, these showed variation in fruit quality traits such as seedstrength (hardness/softness), fruit weight, tss and pulp color. a set of 30 rapd markers was used for genotyping mpi while a set of 55 ssr markers was used for genotyping mpii. in case of mpi, 30 rapd markers generated 214 scorable markers, of which 80 markers were specific to ‘kamsari’, 14 markers to ‘purple local’ and the remaining 120 were intercross markers. as for mpii, 55 polymorphic ssr markers resulted in generation of 207 alleles (with a maximum of 4 alleles and a minimum of 3 alleles per locus), of which 108 alleles were specific to ‘purple local’ while 99 were specific to ‘allahabad safeda’. genotypic data thus generated can be further exploited for constructing genetic linkage maps and mapping complex qtls governing fruit quality traits in guava. key words: guava, genotyping, m13-tailed pcr, ssr, rapd j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):130-135, 2015 introduction guava (psidium guajava l.), belonging to the family myrtaceae, is a diploid with 2n=22 and comprises approximately 430 mbp genome. it is popularly known as the apple of the tropics or the poor man’s apple. guava is believed to be native to mexico (rios et al, 1977) and is present throughout south america, europe, africa and asia. its edaphoclimatic adaptability, prolific bearing, hardiness to biotic and abiotic stresses and medicinal properties impart a great value to this fruit crop. besides, it is a rich source of nutrients, vitamins and minerals; it also has a pharmaceutical potential by way of having antioxidant, antimicrobial and antidiabetic properties (shruthi et al, 2013). a major traditional use of the fruit is that of an anti-diarrheal. other uses reported include treatment of gastroenteritis, dysentery, stomach ailments, antibacterial colic pathogenic germs of the intestine (gutierrez et al, 2008). guava, a dualpurpose fruit, is used as a fresh fruit and as also after processing into a variety of forms like puree, paste, jam, jelly, nectar, syrup, ice cream or juice. ssr or microsatellite is a pcr (polymerase chain reaction)based molecular marker technique with advantages such as abundance, high polymorphism, codominance and primer transferability. ssr markers are widely used for constructing genetic maps (oliveira et al, 2008; ogundiwin et al, 2009; wang et al, 2010; das et al, 2012; pauly et al, 2012; liu et al, 2013; serba et al, 2013; zhang et al, 2013). ssr markers have also been utilized for molecular characterization and genetic diversity assessment of guava germplasm resources (nimisha et al, 2013). ssr markers in guava were developed by risterucci et al (2005, 2010) and were applied in germplasm characterization and for assessing existing genetic variability (risterucci et al, 2005; valdés-infante et al, 2007; viji et al, 2010; aranguren et al, 2010; santos et al, 2011; coser et al, 2012; noia et al, 2012; josé et al, 2012; angélica et al. 2012). ssr markers have been earlier used for cultivar identification (kanupriya et al, 2011), discrimination of wild guava species (nogueira et al, 2012) and for assessing genetic homogeneity of guava plants derived from somatic embryogenesis (rai et al, 2012). guava ssr markers so developed have also 1current address: centre for biotechnology, jawaharlal nehru technological university, hyderabad, telangana, india 2department of biotechnology, gokaraju rangaraju institute of engineering & technology, hyderabad, telangana, india 3division of ornamental crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, karnataka, india 131 developing a linkage map for guava using ssr and rapd markers been used across different species of myrtaceae (briceno et al, 2010; rai et al, 2013). additionally rapd markers have been considered as the markers of choice for crops like guava that lack sufficient genomic resources. here, rapd markers were used with an objective of linkagemap enrichment by reducing inter-marker distance and substituting missing linkage between the mapped ssr and srap markers in guava linkage-maps (padmakar et al, 2015). a strategy frequently employed for mapping f1 populations in tree species and in perennials is the two-way pseudo-test cross mapping strategy (grattapaglia and sederoff, 1994) because it has been found to be efficient for mapping several heterozygous species. guava, being a perennial, exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity and heterozygosity (chandra and mishra, 2007) which makes the underlying molecular mechanisms for phenotypic expression of various economically important traits difficult to understand. therefore, linkage maps of progenies segregating for important economic traits such as fruit quality and yield, are required to be developed. in guava, only a few reports (valdés-infante et al, 2003; rodriguez et al, 2007; lepitre et al, 2010) are available on construction of molecular linkage-maps. here we report development of intra-specific linkage maps in guava using ssr markers, along with genotyping of the mapping population by rapd markers. this could be used for further enrichment of the available linkage-maps in guava. material and methods plant material three cultivars of psidium guajava maintained in the field germplasm bank at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, india, namely ‘kamsari’, ‘purple local’ and ‘allahabad safeda’ were used as the parental lines for developing mapping populations. a hybridization programme was undertaken by crossing the varieties ‘kamsari’ and ‘purple local’ (dinesh and vasugi, 2010) for developing mapping population i (mpi), and ‘purple local’ x ‘allahabad safeda’ for mapping population ii (mpii) so as to develop hybrids suitable for table purpose as well as for processing. the mapping population developed was evaluated morphologically for traits like seedstrength (hardness/softness), fruit weight, tss and pulp color. dna extraction in the case of mpi, a set of 94 f1 progenies was shortlisted (based on morphological data on seed-strength and fruit weight, as these two traits showed positive correlation) whereas, in the case of mpii, a set of 46 f1 progenies was shortlisted (based on pulp color) for molecular characterization. genomic dna was extracted from mature, healthy leaf material using the modified ctab method of kanupriya et al (2011). quality of the dna extracted was determined on 0.8% agarose gel electrophoresis and quantified using genequant uv-spectrophotometer (ge healthcare biosciences ltd. u.k.) molecular characterization in the case of mpii, ssr-based genotyping of padmakar et al (2015) was employed using 160 ssr primers (risterucci et al, 2010) to characterize parental lines along with their mapping population. genotyping of mpi-specific parental lines was done using a set of 200 rapd markers (table 1). pcr amplification was performed in 25ìl reaction mixture containing 50mm kcl, 1mm tris-hcl (ph 8.8), 0.01% gelatin, 1.5mm mgcl2, 0.2mm each of dntp, 0.3ìm primer, 100ng genomic dna and 0.5 units of taq dna polymerase (bangalore genei, india). pcr was performed on a master cycler gradient (eppendorf ag, hamburg, germany) thermal cycler, with the following temperature profile: initial denaturation at 94°c for 3 min, 40 cycles of 2s at 94°c, 2s at 35°c, and 1 min at 72°c, and a final extension at 72°c for 10 min. amplification products were screened on 1.5% agarose gel for confirmation of amplification. pcr was performed thrice for checking the reproducibility of the polymorphic markers identified. data analysis in the case of ssr markers, raw data generated from the genetic analyzer was analyzed and compiled using peak scanner v1.0 software (applied biosystems, usa) for detection of alleles. allelic profile of the ssr markers within a mapping population and their segregation pattern was identified by comparison with parental profiles. allelic data so generated was then converted into the binary format, with 1 and 0 indicating presence and absence of the corresponding allele, respectively, within that population. as for rapd markers, polymorphic markers were scored in table 1. list of rapd decamers used in the present study s. no. rapd primer 1 opa1 – opa20 2 opb1 – opb20 3 opc1 – opc20 4 oph1 – oph20 5 opn1 – opn20 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):130-135, 2015 132 the binary format by assigning ‘1’ for presence of the band and ‘0’ for absence of the band. genetic linkage maps were constructed for the parental lines ‘purple local’ and ‘allahabad safeda’ of mpii using segregation data generated for 46 mapping-population progeny, as per padmakar et al (2015). results and discussion guava is even now considered an orphan crop with respect to availability of genomic resources, as, the present day genomic technologies have still to be applied to this crop. till date, only few reports are available on molecular characterization of germplasm and mapping populations in guava. generating saturated genetic maps and functional markers in guava has become a major challenge which, in turn, plays a vital role in improvement of guava inbreeding programs. hence, the present study focussed on application of biotechnological tools alongside genetics tools such as genotyping and linkage mapping. high-quality genomic dna was extracted from a total of 94 progenies of mpi and 94 progenies of mpii along with their respective parental lines genotyping by ssr markers is a proven technique used in several areas of plant genetics research and development. in the case of mpii, only 120 primers (out of 160 ssr primer pairs screened) successfully amplified both the parental lines. the parental polymorphism rate observed between ‘purple local’ and ‘allahabad safeda’ was 45.83%, using a set of 55 polymorphic ssr primer pairs. initial confirmation was done on 3% agarose gel (fig. 1); and then, 4 primers were multiplexed into one tube and processed for gene scan analysis. high-throughput genotyping of the mapping population resulted in identification of 207 alleles, with a minimum of three alleles and a maximum of four alleles per primer. of these, 108 alleles (52.17%) were found to be specific to ‘purple local’ and 99 alleles (47.83%) specific to ‘allahabad safeda’. markers showing segregation distortion were not considered for linkage analysis because these affect the detection power of qtl when qtl and sdms, or loci, are closely linked. similar omission of segregation-distorted markers in map construction was reported earlier (grattapaglia and sederoff, 1994; hackett et al, 2000; jones et al, 2003; grando et al, 2003; sudarshini et al, 2014) especially in the case of perennial tree crops where pseudo-test cross strategy was employed. independent linkage maps were constructed for each parent using double pseudo-test cross mapping strategy (grattapaglia and sederoff, 1994) for ‘purple local’ and ‘allahabad safeda’ of mpii only. a set of six and five linkage groups (table 2) were observed in ‘purple local’ and ‘allahabad safeda’ respectively. maternal ‘purple local’ map had a total of 49 marker loci distributed over six linkage groups (fig. 2), with 13 markers remaining unlinked. this maternal framework map covered 746.5cm of the total map distance. number of markers per linkage group ranged from three to 15. linkage distance spanned by individual linkage groups ranged from 47.5cm (pl6) to 199.6cm (pl1). the linkage groups had an average length of 124.4cm and average marker interval length of 15.2cm. paternal ‘allahabad safeda’ map had 44 markers distributed over five linkage groups (fig. 3), with nine markers remaining unassigned. this paternal framework map covered 580.9cm of the total map distance, with a minimum of three and a maximum of 15 markers ordered into five linkage groups. linkage distance spanned by individual linkage groups ranged from 23.3cm (as5) to 245.4cm (as4). average length of the linkage groups was 116.2cm and average spacing was 13.2cm. as the number of markers mapped was low, the number of linkage groups observed was not equivalent to the haploid number of chromosomes. similar study on development of partial linkage maps using just ssr markers has been reported in jute (das et al, 2012). these maps can be further enriched with more markers and, thereby, used for mapping putative qtls. table 2. characteristics of parental linkage maps p1: purple local p2: allahabad safeda lga pl-lg t m b cmc as-lg t m b cmc 1 pl1 15 199.6 as1 7 53.1 2 pl2 8 118.1 as2 11 130.0 3 pl3 10 128.7 as3 8 129.1 4 pl4 8 113.0 as4 15 245.4 5 pl5 5 139.6 as5 3 23.3 6 pl6 3 47.5 total 49 746.5 44 580.9 min. 3 47.5 3 23.3 mean 8.1 124.4 8.8 116.2 max. 15 199.6 15 245.4 alinkage group, btotal markers, clg length (in centimorgan) fig. 1. agarose gel (3%) showing amplification pattern of ssr marker among mapping population ii and parental lines ‘purple local’ (pl) and ‘allahabad safeda’ (as) padmakar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):130-135, 2015 133 fig. 3. genetic linkage map of the parent ‘allahabad safeda’; map distances in centimorgans (cm) are indicated to the left, and loci to the right of each linkage group developing a linkage map for guava using ssr and rapd markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):130-135, 2015 fig. 2. genetic linkage map of the parent ‘purple local’; map distances in centimorgans (cm) are indicated to the left, and loci to the right of each linkage group 134 in the case of mpi, 100 rapd primers were initially screened in parental lines that revealed 30% polymorphism. these 30 decamers were used further for genotyping the mapping population. a total of 214 scorable bands were produced, with an average of nine bands per primer. size of the amplified products ranged from 250bp to 2kb (fig. 4) of the 214 bands scored, 94 (43.92%) were polymorphic and segregated as test cross markers, of which 80 markers were specific to ‘kamsari’ and 14 markers were specific to ‘purple local’. the remaining 120 common fragments that segregated in 3:1 ratio were treated as intercross markers. rapd data thus generated can be further used for enriching the available genetic maps of ‘kamsari’ and ‘purple local’ reported by our group (padmakar et al, 2015). linkage maps thus constructed will be further used for enrichment and, thereby, utilized as reference maps for identifying complex quantitative trait loci (qtls) associated with fruit quality traits in guava. this would also help in identifying trait specific marker(s) for executing marker assisted selection (mas)-based guava breeding programs. acknowledgement we thank department of biotechnology (dbt), new delhi, india, for providing financial support. references aranguren, y., valecillos, c. and fermin, g. 2010. assessment of the variability of 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zhang, r., wu, j., li, x., awais khan, m., chen, h., korban, s.s. and zhang, s. 2013. an aflp, srap, and ssr genetic linkage map and identification of qtls for fruit traits in pear (pyrus l.) plant mol. biol. repr., 31:678-687 (ms received 19 september 2015, revised 22 november 2015, accepted 29 november 2015) developing a linkage map for guava using ssr and rapd markers j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):130-135, 2015 introduction in india, vegetables are grown in an area of 5.8 million hectares with production of 87.5 million tonnes, of which, melons are grown on an area of 1,66,000 ha (more, 2001). the main areas under muskmelon cultivation are riverbeds of jamuna, ganges, narmada rivers in the north and pennar, kaveri, krishna and godavari rivers in the south (singh, 1998). muskmelon (cucumis melo l., 2n = 24) is the most common dessert vegetable crop grown all over the world. it is highly relished because of its flavour, sweet taste and refreshing effect. it is a good source of dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. however, very little work has been carried out on improvement of the muskmelon crop. for any crop improvement programme aimed at achieving maximum productivity, a detailed knowledge of genetic variability and diversity of various quantitative characters, and their contribution to yield, is essential. correlation studies help to find the degree of interrelationship among various characters and to evolve selection criteria for improvement. path coefficient analysis provides better index for selection than mere correlation coefficient by separating correlation coefficients of yield genetic analysis in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) rukam s. tomar1, g.u. kulkarni and d.k. kakade main vegetable research station anand agricultural university, anand-388 110, india e-mail: rukam@rediffmail.com abtract fifty genotypes of muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) were evaluated for variability, correlation, path analysis and divergence for yield and its contributing characters. analysis of variance showed significant variation for all the characters, indicating presence of sufficient variability in the material studied. genotypic correlations were higher than those of their respective phenotypic correlation coefficients in majority of the cases suggesting, that, genotypic correlations were stronger, reliable and free from environmental influences. path analysis based on genotypic association revealed that number of fruits per plant and moisture percentage was the main yieldattributing characters in fruit yield of muskmelon. total soluble solids exhibited positive direct effect on fruit yield per plant. thus, number of fruits per plant, moisture percentage and total soluble solids may be given more weightage for an effective selection to improve fruit yield in muskmelon. on the basis of relative magnitude of d2 values, all the genotypes were grouped in seven clusters. maximum genetic distance was observed between clusters ii and v, while clusters iii and vii displayed the lowest degree of divergence. total soluble sugars followed by total soluble solids and fruit yield per plant contributed the most towards divergence. key words: muskmelon, variability, correlation, path analysis, genetic divergence and its component into direct and indirect effects. therefore, the present study was carried out to find out all possible component characters for improvement of this crop through character association, path-coefficient analysis and genetic diversity. material and methods the experiment was carried out at the main vegetable research station, anand agricultural university, anand, during 2004-05. the experimental material comprised of 50 genotypes of muskmelon from different sources in india (table 1). the experimental site is situated at an altitude of 45.1 m above mean sea level, lying between latitude 22°-35' north and longitude 77°-55' east. the genotypes were grown in randomized block design with three replications at a spacing of 150 x 90 cm in a plot size of 6 x 4.5 m. observations were taken on 10 randomly selected plants from each plot. observations were recorded on the number of the node on which first female flower appeared, days to first picking, fruit weight (kg), fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), flesh thickness (cm), number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant (kg), moisture content (%), 1 current address:national research centre for groundnut, post bag no. 5, ivanagar road, junagadh 362 001, gujarat j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 112-118, 2008 113 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 112-118, 2008 total soluble solids (tss in %), total soluble sugars (mg g1) and acidity (%). moisture content of fruit was determined as per standard procedures given by official methods of analysis, association of analytical chemists (anonymous, 1980), while total soluble solids were determined by zeiss hand refractometer. total soluble sugars and acidity percentage were determined by methods given by dubios et al (1956) and ranganna (1976), respectively. analysis of variance proposed by panse and sukhatme (1978) was followed to test the significance of difference between genotypes for all the characters studied, while, correlation coefficient and path coefficient analysis was carried out using methods given by singh and choudhary (1977) and wright (1921), respectively. genetic divergence was estimated by calculating mahalanobis d2 statistics (mahalanobis, 1936) between different pairs of genotypes. different clusters were then generated through tocher’s method as given by rao (1952). results and discussion the analysis of variance showed significant variation for all the characters indicating presence of sufficient variability in the material studied. genotypic variance contributed a major proportion of total variance in characters like fruit yield per plant, number of the node on which first flower appeared, days to first picking, fruit girth, flesh thickness, number of fruits per plant, total soluble solids, total soluble sugars and acidity percentage suggesting, that, these characters were under the control of the genetic system, whereas, characters like fruit weight, fruit length and moisture percentage showed differences between genotypic and phenotypic variance, indicating that environment played an important role in expression of these traits. moderately high genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation was observed for fruit yield per plant, followed by acidity percentage, number of fruits per plant and total soluble sugars. moderate estimates of gcv and pcv were obtained for the number of the node at which first female flower appeared and fruit weight. moderately low estimates were also observed for total soluble solids, flesh thickness and fruit girth, whereas, fruit length recorded low estimates and days to first picking and moisture percentage exhibited very low gcv and pcv in comparison to other traits (table 1). very high heritability estimates were obtained for total soluble sugars, total soluble solids and fruit yield per plant and high heritability estimates were observed for acidity percentage. number of days to first picking, moisture percentage, node at which the first female flower appeared, number of fruits per plant, fruit girth, flesh thickness and fruit weight exhibited moderately high estimates of heritability. fruit length recorded moderately low heritability, characters like moisture percentage and days to first picking showed moderately high estimates of heritability, but, genetic advance as per cent of mean was low because of lower values of gcv and pcv indicating presence of a lower amount of variability for these traits in the population studied. however, traits like fruit yield per plant, acidity percentage, total soluble sugars, number of fruits per plant, number of the node at which first female flower appeared and fruit weight (having very high to moderately high heritability) coupled with high to moderately high genetic advance (as per cent mean) suggested that these characters can be improved by effective selection of genotypes. for a majority of the characters, genotypic correlation coefficient was higher than that of their respective phenotypic correlation coefficient indicating, that, genotypic correlations were stronger, reliable and free from environmental influences. fruit weight showed positive and significant genotypic and phenotypic table 1. source of genotype sr. no. source genotype 1 anand agricultural amm-99-199, mm-68, mmm-45, university, anand, amm-15, gmm-2, amm-31, gujarat amm-49, amm-35-2, amm-99-135, amm-02-25, amm-99-125, mmm-77, mmm-66, amm-02-27, amm-16-1, amm-26, mmm-61, mmm-75, amm-00-25, gmm-1, amm-02-26, amm-21, amm-01-18, amm-10, amm-43, amm-27, amm-99-112, amm-02-22, amm-01-19, amm-02-20, amm-99-122, amm-01-24, amm-8, amm-99-113, amm-19, amm-00-7, amm-00-11, amm-7, amm-00-6, mmm-67 2 iari, new delhi pusa madhuras, dm 1 3 gbpuat, pantnagar, pmm 96-20, pmm 97-10 uttarakhand 4 punjab agricultural punjab sunhari, hara madu, university, ludhiana, mm -28 punjab 5 nduat, faizabad, ndm 15, ndm 21 uttar pradesh 6 rau, durgapura, rm 50 rajasthan genetic analysis in muskmelon 114 association with fruit yield per plant, fruit length, fruit girth, flesh thickness and moisture percentage, while negative and significant correlation was seen with total soluble solids (fig 1). these results are in accordance with those of kalyanasundaram (1976), singh and nandpuri (1978), chonkar et al (1979), parthasarathy and kalyanasundaram (1979), kalloo et al (1983), swamy et al (1985), lal and singh (1997) and yadav and ram (2002). similarly, fruit yield was positively correlated with fruit weight, fruit girth, flesh girth, flesh thickness, number of fruits per plant and moisture percentage at both the genotypic and phenotypic level, while, it had significant and positive correlation with fruit length at the genotypic level only. on the other hand, it showed significant and negative correlation with total soluble solids at both the phenotypic and genotypic level. the results are akin to those reported by singh and nandpuri (1978), chonkar et al (1979), kalloo et al (1983), swamy et al (1985), dhaliwal et al (1996), lal and singh (1997) and somkuwar et al (1997). therefore, fruit yield may be improved by selecting genotypes with higher fruit weight, fruit length, and fruit girth, number of fruits per plant, flesh thickness and moisture percentage, with less total soluble solids. path coefficient analysis revealed that fruit weight had a positive direct effect on fruit yield. it showed negative indirect effect through total soluble solids and acidity percentage and positive indirect effects through moisture percentage, fruit girth, total soluble sugars and flesh thickness. though fruit length had a positive correlation with yield, it showed negative direct effect and had maximum positive indirect effect through fruit weight. it had negative indirect effect through total soluble solids, acidity percentage and number of fruits per plant. fruit girth had a positive direct effect on fruit yield and positive indirect effect through moisture percentage and total soluble sugars, while, it had a negative indirect effect through total soluble solids and acidity percentage. flesh thickness had a positive direct effect on yield and positive indirect effect through moisture percentage, total soluble sugars and fruit girth and had a negative indirect effect through total soluble solids and acidity percentage. number of fruits per plant had the maximum positive direct effect on fruit yield and negative indirect effect through moisture percentage and total soluble sugars. moisture percentage had higher positive direct effect on yield. it had a positive indirect effect through total soluble sugars and fruit girth and a negative indirect effect through total soluble solids and acidity percentage (table 2). kalloo et al (1982b), vijay (1987) and somkuwar et al (1997) reported that the number of fruits per plant and fruit weight had a positive direct effect on fruit yield per plant. however, average fruit weight fruit yield per plant (kg)1.5 1 0.5 0 -0.5 -1 a= number of the node at which the first female flower appeared; b=days to first picking; c= fruit weight (kg); d=fruit length (cm); e= fruit girth (cm); g=flesh thickness; h=number of fruits per plant; i= moisture (%); j= total soluble solids; k= total soluble sugars; l=fruit acidity (%) fig 1. correlation of average fruit weight and fruit yield per plant with other characters in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.) tomar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 112-118, 2008 115 table 2. estimates of genotypic and phenotypic variance and other genetic parameters for fruit yield and yield-attributing characters in cucumis melo l. number days to fruit fruit fruit flesh number fruit moisture total total acidity of the first weight length girth thickness of fruits yield per content soluble soluble (%) node at picking (kg) (cm) (cm) (cm) per plant plant (%) solids sugars which the (kg) (tss (mg g-1) first female in %) flower appeared genotypic 0.85 2.96 0.016 0.43 16.63 0.053 1.08 0.55 1.88 1.91 5.64 0.002 variance phenotypic 1.06 3.37 0.021 1.68 21.43 0.071 1.37 0.58 2.23 1.92 5.65 0.002 variance gcv (%) 21.46 2.24 20.66 3.80 11.09 11.20 27.61 32.66 1.54 12.67 26.99 30.77 pcv (%) 24 2.39 24.04 7.53 12.59 12.91 31.07 33.31 1.68 12.78 27 31.70 broad sense 80 87.81 73.82 25.46 77.63 75.29 79.07 96.12 84.59 99.66 99.94 94.19 heritablility(%) ga (as per 39.53 4.32 36.56 3.93 20.18 20.02 50.54 65.93 2.92 26.04 55.58 61.52 cent mean) pandita et al (1997) observed that the number of fruits and early picking of fruits per plant had the highest positive direct effect on yield per plant. total soluble solids had significant and negative correlation with fruit yield though this showed a high, positive direct effect on fruit yield. it had a positive indirect effect through acidity percentage table 3. path coefficient analysis showing direct and indirect effect of morphological characters on fruit yield in muskmelon sl. character no of days to fruit fruit fruit pulp no. of moisture ) total total acidity genotypic no node at first weight length girth thickfruits (% soluble soluble (%) correlation which picking (kg) (cm) (cm) ness per solids sugars with fruit female (cm) plant (%) (mg g-1) yield per flower plant appears 1 no. of the node -0.06 0.02 0.03 -0.03 0.07 0.05 -0.28 0.22 -0.17 0.00 0.02 -0.14 at which the first female flower appeared 2 days to first 0.02 -0.05 -0.04 0.02 -0.07 -0.03 0.12 -0.16 0.10 0.06 -0.03 -0.06 picking 3 fruit weight -0.02 0.01 0.15 -0.09 0.27 0.18 -0.07 0.79 -0.66 0.26 -0.26 0.57 ** (kg) 4 fruit length -0.03 0.01 0.18 -0.07 0.33 0.22 -0.23 1.05 -0.87 0.24 -0.27 0.56 ** (cm) 5 fruit girth -0.02 0.01 0.14 -0.09 0.29 0.17 -0.17 0.76 -0.61 0.28 -0.33 0.44 ** (cm) 6 flesh thickness -0.02 0.01 0.15 -0.09 0.27 0.18 -0.14 0.80 -0.64 0.27 -0.30 0.49 ** 7 number of 0.02 -0.01 -0.01 0.02 -0.06 -0.03 0.90 -0.11 0.10 -0.09 0.01 0.74 ** fruits per plant 8 moisture -0.02 0.01 0.13 -0.09 0.24 0.16 -0.11 0.90 0.75 0.25 -0.28 0.44 ** (%) 9 total soluble 0.01 -0.01 -0.13 0.08 -0.23 -0.15 0.11 -0.90 0.76 -0.30 0.30 -0.45 ** solids (%) 10 total soluble 0.00 0.00 -0.03 0.01 -0.06 -0.04 0.06 -0.16 0.16 -1.39 1.34 -0.11 sugars (mg g-1) 11 acidity (%) 0.00 0.00 0.03 -0.02 0.07 0.04 -0.01 0.18 -0.17 1.37 -1.36 0.13 residual effect -0.0291 ** significant at level and negative indirect effect through moisture percentage, total soluble sugars and fruit girth. total soluble sugars and acidity percentage had non-significant association with fruit yield. however, both these traits exhibited very high, negative direct effect on fruit yield. total soluble sugars had high a positive indirect effect on fruit yield through genetic analysis in muskmelon j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 112-118, 2008 116 table 4. cluster groups of 50 genotypes formed on the basis of d2 statistics in muskmelon cluster number of genotype genotypes i 24 amm-99-199, mm-68, mmm-45, amm-15, mm-28, gmm-2, amm-31, amm-49, amm-35-2, amm-99-135, ndm-21, amm-02-25, ndm -15, amm-99-125, pmm-97-10, mmm-77, mmm-66, amm-02-27, amm-16-1, amm-26, mmm-61, mmm-75, amm-00-25, gmm-1 ii 12 amm-02-26, rm-50, amm-21, punjab sunehri, amm-01-18, amm-10, amm-43, amm-27, amm-99-112, amm-02-22, pmm-96-20, hara madhu iii 2 amm-01-19, amm-02-20 iv 2 amm-99-122, amm-01-24 v 8 amm-8, amm-99-113, amm-19, pusa madhuras, amm-00-7, amm-00-11, dm-1, amm-7 vi 1 amm-00-6 vii 1 mmm-67 acidity percentage, while, acidity percentage had a high, positive indirect effect through total soluble sugars. therefore, based on path analysis, it can be said that number of fruits per plant and moisture percentage were table 5. intra-and inter-cluster distance between genotypes of muskmelon cluster i ii iii iv v vi vii i 35.45 83.55 40.9 69.70 70 50.56 41.45 ii 40.00 91.00 49.43 138.78 54.87 78.24 iii 22.12 60.12 68.54 45.49 21.35 iv 18.23 124.24 21.46 44.22 v 41.24 104.56 81.54 vi 0.00 30.54 vii 0.00 table 6. cluster mean and contribution of various characters in muskmelon sl. character number of clusters contribution (%) no towards divergence i ii iii iv v vi vii 1 no of node at which 4.50 4.40 6.70 4.00 4.33 3.67 2.33 0.00(0) female flower appear 2 days to first picking 77.01 76.80 75.68 76.33 76.81 75.67 81.67 0.53(14) 3 fruit weight (kg) 0.60 0.60 0.91 0.85 0.66 0.62 0.81 0.11(11) 4 fruit length (cm) 17.50 17.15 18.85 18.57 17.18 17.41 17.94 0.00(0) 5 fruit girth (cm) 36.03 36.36 40.75 43.4 38.35 36.52 40.81 0.00(12) 6 flesh thickness (cm) 2.01 2.02 2.50 2.40 2.15 2.06 2.31 0.00(0) 7 fruits per plant 40.20 3.81 2.51 2.64 3.32 5.41 3.91 0.41(12) 8 fruit yield per plant (kg) 2.55 2.21 2.10 2.15 2.03 3.28 3.14 2.11(49) 9 moisture (%) 89.00 88.74 91.90 91.11 89.30 90.26 90.90 0.00(0) 10 total soluble solids (%) 11.23 11.50 8.61 8.63 10.74 9.15 8.81 22.25(201) 11 total soluble sugars (%) 4.75 6.77 4.85 6.54 3.01 6.25 5.25 74.45(926) 12 acidity (%) 0.16 0.01 0.15 0.01 0.21 0.11 0.13 0.00(0) � data in parentheses indicate number of times the character appeared first in ranking towards contribution to total divergence in yield the main yield-attributing characters in fruit yield of muskmelon because of its high, positive direct effect and positive correlation with fruit yield per plant. in addition to moisture percentage and number of fruits per plant, total soluble solids also exhibited a positive direct effect on fruit yield per plant. thus, it can be advocated that number of fruits per plant, moisture percentage and total soluble solids deserve more weightage for effective selection of genotypes to improve fruit yield in muskmelon. on the basis of mahalanobis’s d2 values, seven clusters were formed from fifty accessions from different geographical areas. these seven clusters formed from 50 genotypes could be grouped depending upon the genetic constitution of the strains (table 4). genetic diversity observed among the genotypes may be due to factors like history of selection, heterogeneity, selection under diverse environments and genetic drift. results further indicated that the maximum number of similar genotypes (24) appeared in cluster i. clusters ii and v were composed of 12 and 8 genotypes, respectively, whereas, clusters iii, iv and vi, vii were composed of two genotypes and a single genotype, respectively. kalloo et al (1982a) and singh and lal (2000) studied 45 and 51 diverse genotypes of muskmelon, respectively, for yield and yield-related traits and grouped them into 14 and 13 clusters, respectively. more and seshadri (2002) evaluated 98 geographically diverse muskmelon genotypes obtained from 10 countries. based on statistical significance, these 98 genotypes were classified into 12 clusters. intra-and inter-cluster average values ranged from 0.00 to 41.24 (table 5). since clusters vi and vii consisted of a single genotype, the intra-cluster distance was zero (0). the maximum intra-cluster distance was observed for tomar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 112-118, 2008 117 cluster v (41.24). the inter-cluster distance was maximum between clusters ii and v (138.78), followed by clusters iv and v (124.24), clusters v and vi (104.56) and clusters i and ii (83.55). the minimum inter-cluster distance was observed between clusters iii and vii (21.35), followed by clusters iv and vi (21.46). data further reveals that there was good scope for selection within a cluster as indicated by the high magnitude of intra-cluster distance among clusters. cluster vi and vii, with single genotype, indicated an independent identity and importance, due to various unique characters possessed by the genotypes. mean values of clusters for various characters are presented in table 6. almost all the clusters were highly distinct from each other in all the characters studied. cluster iii exhibited the highest mean value for the number of the node at which the first female flower appeared (6.7), fruit weight (0.91), fruit length (18.85), flesh thickness (2.50) and moisture content (91.90). cluster ii exhibited highest values for total soluble solids (11.50) and total soluble sugars (6.77), and cluster vi for number of fruits per plant (5.41) and fruit yield per plant (3.28). clusters iv, v and vii exhibited highest value for fruit girth (43.4), acidity percentage (0.21) and days to first picking (81.67), respectively. cluster ii showed the lowest mean values for fruit weight (0.60), fruit length (17.15), flesh thickness (2.02) and moisture percentage (88.74); cluster i exhibited the lowest mean value for fruit weight (0.60) and fruit girth (36.03); cluster v had the lowest mean values for fruit yield per plant (2.03) and total soluble sugars (3.01), and, cluster iii for number of fruits per plant (2.51) and total soluble solids (8.61). clusters iv, vi and vii showed the lowest mean values for acidity percentage (0.01), days to first picking (75.67) and the number of the node at which the first female flower appeared (2.33), respectively. contribution of different traits to diversity indicates that total soluble sugars (74.45) provide the highest contribution to diversity, followed by total soluble solids (22.25) and fruit yield per plant (2.11). thus, these three characters need more attention for improvement of muskmelon. references anonymous. 1980. official methods of analysis. the association of analytical chemists, washington, usa chonkar, v.s., singh, d.n. and singh, r.l. 1979. genetic variability and correlation studies in muskmelon. ind. j. agril. sci., 49:361-363 dhaliwal, m.s., tarsem, lal., dhiman, j.s. and lal, t. 1996. character association and causation in muskmelon. ind. j. agril. res., 30:80-84 dubios, m. gilles, k.a., hamilton, j.k.; rebers, p.a. and smith, f. 1956. colorimetric method for determination of sugar and related substances. analytical chem., 28:350-352 kalloo, g. dixit, j. and sindhu, a.s. 1982a. genetic divergence in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). genetica agraria, 36:1-7 kalloo, g. dixit, j. and sindhu, a.s. 1982b. path analysis in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). ind. j. hort., 39: 243-264 kalloo, g. dixit, j. and sindhu, a.s. 1983. studies of genetic variability and character association in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). ind j. hort., 40:7985 kalyanasundaram, p. 1976. evaluation of three muskmelon cultivars. south ind. hort., 24:18-23 lal, t. and singh, s. 1997. genetic variability and selection indices in melon (cucumis melo l.). veg. sci., 24:111-117 mahalanobis, p.c. 1936. on the generalized distance in statistic. proc. nat’l. instt. sci., (india), 2:49-55 more, t.a. 2001. muskmelon. in: text book of vegetables tuber crops and spices, thamburaj, s. and singh, narendra (eds.). indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, pp. 238 – 253 more, t. a. and seshadri, v. s. 2002. studies on genetic divergence in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). j. mah. agril. univ., 27:127-131 pandita, m.l., dahiya, m.s. and vashistha, r.n. 1990. correlation and path coefficient analysis in round melon. res. & dev. rep., 7:106-110 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, pp. 152-157 parthasarathy, v.a. and kalyanasundaram, p. 1979. association between certain fruit characters in muskmelon (cucumis melo l. var. reticulas). auara, annamalai university agricultural research annual, 7-8:7-11 ranganna, s. 1976. analysis of fruit and vegetable products. mcgraw-hill publishing company ltd., new delhi, india. rao, c.r. 1952. advanced statistical methods in biometrical research, john wiley and sons, inc., new york. pp. 236-278 singh, daljit and nandpuri, k.s. 1978. a note on correlation studies in muskmelon. ind. j. hort., 35:52-53 singh, r.k. and chaudhary, b.d. 1977. biometrical genetic analysis in muskmelon j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 112-118, 2008 118 (ms received 3 december, 2007, revised 20 august, 2008) methods in quantitative genetic analysis. kalyani publishers, new delhi, pp. 54-68 singh, s.p. 1998. production technology of vegetable crops. agriculture research communication centre, haryana, india, pp. 244-249 singh, s. and lal, t. 2000. genetic divergence among five muskmelon cultivars. horticultura brasileria, 20:171-173 somkuwar, r.g. more, t.a. and mehra, r.b. 1997. correlation and path coefficient analysis in muskmelon (cucumis melo l). ind. j. hort., 54:312-316 swamy, k.r.m., dutta, o.p., ramchander, p.r. and wahi, s.d. 1985. variability studies in muskmelon (cucumis melo l). madras agril. j., 72:1-5 vijay, o.p. 1987. variability, correlation and path analysis in muskmelon (cucumis melo l.). ind. j. hort., 44:233-238 wright, s. 1921. correlation and causation. j. agril. researchers, 20:557-587 yadav, r.k. and ram h.h. 2002. correlation and path coefficient analysis in muskmelon. haryana j. hortl. sci., 31:74-76 tomar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 112-118, 2008 introduction cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) is a highvalue export crop. yields in fruit crops is determined primarily by flowering and subsequent fruit-set from these flowers. the cashew produces innumerable flowers, of which less than 10% are bisexual. under normal conditions, nearly 85% of the flowers are fertilized of which only 4-6% reache maturity. very little is known about factors controlling yield in cashew and in particular the extent to which yield is influenced by flowering behaviour. cashew is reported to be a cross-pollinating tree crop (pavithran and ravindranathan, 1974; free and williams, 1976; palaniswami et al, 1979). cashew flowers are borne on an inflorescence that is an indeterminate panicle. each flowering panicle possesses both hermaphrodite and male flowers (rao and hassan, 1957; ascenso and mota, 1972; kumaran et al, 1976; thimmaraju et al, 1980), and, other than these, abnormal flowers have also been reported (masawe, 1994; mota, 1973). cashew trees require 4-5 months to complete equential anthesis in the panicle (pavithran and ravindranathan, 1974). distribution of staminate and hermaphrodite flowers and fruit-set in the canopy of cashew genotypes d. sharma1 s.g. college of agriculture and research station indira gandhi krishi vishwavidyalaya jagdalpur – 495 006, chhattisgarh, india e-mail:dsharma_hort@yahoo.co.uk abstract production of staminate(s) and hermaphrodite (h) flowers was studied in the north, east, south and west sides of the cashew tree canopy from december 2003 to may 2005 at s.g. college of agriculture and research station, igkvv, jagdalpur (c.g.). flower production was recorded daily on selected plants throughout the main flowering season and, subsequently, yield of each plant was recorded. results showed differences in number of flower types on different sides of the tree. however, there was consistently greater number of staminate flowers than hermaphrodite flowers during both early and late flowering . significant variability between genotypes and sides was recorded for sex ratio (s/h). hybrid-255 showed highest sex ratio for north, south and west sides and vridhachalam-2 for the east side. differences in fruit-set and nut-yield were also found between sides. hybrid 30/1 had highest per cent fruit-set. highest number of fruits carried to maturity was recorded in hybrid-30/1. distribution of yield over the tree-canopy showed that south side had significantly high nut yield, followed by west side. key words: anacardium occidentale, cashew, flower distribution, sex type, side of canopy 1present address: department of horticulture, indira gandhi krishi vishwavidyalaya, raipur – 492 006 the cashew tree normally bears nuts with attached false fruit (the cashew ‘apple’) on the periphery of the canopy. casual observation suggests that one side of the tree may have higher nut-set than another. existence of such differences has not been established, nor is the distribution of flower types between sides (e.g. sunny or shaded side) or whether yield is directly related to flower distribution. it is important for future breeding work or developing cashew ideotype, as well as orchard establishment to determine whether high yield is predetermined by number, distribution in time and / or ratio among flower types. material and methods the present investigation was carried out at s.g. college of agriculture and research station, igkv, jagdalpur (c.g.) during flowering seasons of 2003-04 and 2004-05. the material comprised of 14 varieties of cashew, released from different parts of the country, receiving the same cultural treatment. the experiment was carried out in randomized block design with three replications. fourteen cashew genotypes, each represented by four individuals, j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 45-49, 2009 46 vegetatively propagated by softwood grafting were selected. the genotypes were hybrid-3/28, hybrid-3/33, hybrid-30/ 1, hybrid-10/19, vridhachalam-1, vridhachalam-2, hybrid68, hybrid-255, hybrid-367, hybrid-320, hybrid-303, selection-1, selection-2 and vengurla-4. each genotype was planted in a block of four trees at spacing of 7.5 x 7.5 m. the cashew tree canopy of each selected tree was marked on four sides i.e., north, south, east and west using a compass. from each marked side, a total of four young panicles (2 for flowering and 2 for fruiting) of almost the same size by (visual appearance) were selected at random for taking observation during the entire flowering and fruiting period (december to may). each panicle was tagged and numbered. counting of the type of opened flower within each panicle was carried out daily by detaching them from the cashew panicle using fine forceps. care was taken to ensure that the residual parts of labelled panicles were not physically damaged. two types of flowers namely, staminate and hermaphrodite, were observed throughout the flowering period. both flower types were morphologically distinct with each other, male flowers usually having five sepals, five petals, one large exerted stamen and 7-9 small inserted stamens, with each stamen comprising an anther and a short filament. the large stamen was nearly twice the length of small stamens. the large stamen and most of the small stamens produced pollen. hermaphrodite flowers were similar to the staminate flowers but had a well-developed gynoecium, which consisted of an ovary, style and a stigma that was normally longer than the large stamen but occasionally shorter or of equal size. analysis of variance was carried out as per panse and sukhatme (1978). results and discussion flowering : number of days to flower was taken as the number of days, from 30th november, for appearance of the first flower of each type (staminate or hermaphrodite) to open. thus, 1st december was considered as the first day, and so on. number of days to flower varied between genotypes (table 1). among the genotypes, hybrid-30/1 was clearly the earliest, producing the first flowers on sixth day on the north side, together with production of male flowers on the east side. vridhachalam-1 was the next earliest. there were differences between genotypes in the date of first flower opening and in the time and duration of peak flowering. there is, therefore, a possibility for carrying out selection for earliness to flower as well as duration of flowering. this characteristic is important, as extended flowering may lead to undesirably late nut/fruit production. some genotypes such as hybrid-30/1 and vridhachalam-1 peaked early and yielded over a short period, while others, like selection-1 and vengurla-4, yielded over a wider span of time. the genotype selection-1 was considerably later than all other 13 genotypes, taking nearly 36 days. with respect to sides of a tree, the east side produced flowers first, taking on average 22.56 days, followed by south (26.18 days) which was very close to the west side (26.93 days). flowering in the north side took more time (35.07 days) than other sides. in terms of different flower types, all genotypes produced staminate flowers first followed by hermaphrodite ones. flower type: it was observed that at bastar, flowering was early on the east and south sides of the tree. production of all flower types increased with time, as shown in fig. 1. the figure shows mean number of flowers per panicle on each side (of on average over all fourteen genotypes). however, it was seen that the production of staminate flowers increased dramatically compared to hermaphrodite flowers. the trend in production of staminate flowers was similar in all the genotypes, with two phases, i.e. an early peak and a late peak. major production of table 1. mean number of days taken from 30 nov. (2004 and 2005) for first flower to open on different sides in various cashew genotypes side type genotype mean 3/28 3/33 30/1 10/19 vri-1 vri-2 h-68 h-255 h-367 h-320 h-303 sel-1 sel-2 v-4 type side north s 39 28 14 30 15 39 29 34 36 33 30 52 33 39 32.21 35.07 h 42 31 18 36 22 46 38 39 46 39 38 56 38 42 37.93 south s 28 20 8 18 9 29 23 22 28 27 22 39 24 34 23.64 26.18 h 31 23 14 25 12 32 30 29 32 34 29 45 30 36 28.71 east s 23 18 6 15 8 26 18 17 26 24 19 36 22 32 20.71 22.56 h 27 24 12 21 12 31 27 19 31 31 24 25 35 24.54 west s 29 23 10 20 10 32 27 23 29 27 23 40 25 34 25.14 26.93 h 33 29 14 26 15 37 34 25 34 35 29 28 36 28.85 mean s 29.75 22.3 9.5 20.75 10.5 31.5 24.25 24 29.75 27.75 23.5 41.8 26 34.8 h 33.25 26.8 14.5 27 15.25 36.5 32.25 28 35.75 34.75 30 50.5 30.3 37.3 oa 31.5 24.5 12 23.88 12.88 34 28.25 26 32.75 31.25 26.75 46.1 28.1 36 s= staminate, h= hermaphrodite, oa= overall average j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 45-49, 2009 sharma 47 staminate flowers was more pronounced in the early part of flowering season. but, during the middle part, all genotypes tended to produce more hermaphrodite flowers. however, the number of hermaphrodite flowers was relatively low compared to the number of staminate flowers. later, all the genotypes showed higher production of staminate flowers. the total number for each type of flower is given in table 2. the proportion of staminate and hermaphrodite flowers also varied with genotype. staminate flowers were always more in number and ranged from 1005.25 to 1977.83, while hermaphrodite flowers ranged from 150 to 613 per panicle. genotype vridhachalam-2, produced the lowest number of total flowers (1274.25) and staminate flowers (1005.25). the lowest number of hermaphrodite flowers (150) was produced by hybrid-10/19. hybrid-255 produced the highest total number of flowers (2590.83) and hermaphrodite flowers (613). in india, damodaran (1966) observed 486 flowers per healthy panicle, while, hanamashetti et al (1986) reported a range of 165 to 837flowers. heard et al (1990) observed 16 panicles over 50 days in australia and noted a mean number of 443 flowers per panicle. in most cases, the first flowers to open were staminate, as reported by moranda (1941), rao and hassan (1957), northwood (1966) and pavithran and ravindranathan (1974). for most of the season, staminate and hermaphrodite flowers opened at the same time, but the number of staminate flowers was considerably greater than number of hermaphrodite flowers. there were highly significant differences in the number of male flowers between genotypes and between the sides in the same clone. by contrast, difference in number of hermaphrodite flowers varied significantly between clones while there were was significant difference between sides. sex ratio: the ratio of hermaphrodite to staminate flowers is shown in table 2 which shows significant variability between genotypes and sides. on an average, it ranged from 0.10 to 0.31 among genotypes, whereas, for the east side from 0.09 to 0.29, west side from 0.10 to 0.40, south side from 0.14 to 0.40 and north side 0.05 to 0.26. mean sex ratio was observed to be highest for the south side (0.25) and lowest for north side (0.14). hybrid-255 showed highest sex ratio for north, south and west sides and vridhachalam-2 for east side whereas, selection-1 had low sex ratio for all the four sides. however, considering overall number of flowers, summed over sides, hybrid-255 stood out with high sex ratio (0.31) and selection-1 lowest (0.10). the others had moderate ratios. the ratio of hermaphrodite to staminate flowers varied between genotypes and different sides in the same genotype. in most genotypes, higher ratio was found on the south side. present results are in agreement with those reported by chakraborty et al (1981)who reported that panicles on the south side gave maximum number of hermaphrodite flowers and higher sex ratio. they also suggested that distribution of flowers was influenced by light and temperature. it has been claimed by wunnachit and sedgeley (1992) that the number of hermaphrodite flowers can be used as a selection criterion. heard et al (1990) reported that pollination was not a limiting factor in cashew production. nut yield: the distribution of nut yield (kg) on different sides of the tree, number of hermaphrodite flowers and fruit set is presented in table 3. average fruit set (%) ranged from 2.23 to 4.28% among genotypes and, on the east side, it varied from 1.56 to 2.67; west side from 1.56 to 3.34, south side from 4.67 to 9.12 and north side, 1.20 to 2.10. in general the south side had highest fruit set, followed by west, east and north, in all the genotypes. hybrid 30/1 had highest per cent fruit set (4.28), followed by hybrid303 (4.02). selection-1 had the lowest fruit set (2.23). highest fruit set in north was recorded in hybrid3/33 (2.10), whereas, highest values for south (9.12), east (2.67) and west sides (3.34) were observed in hybrid-30/1. distribution of yield over tree canopy showed the south side as having significantly highest nut yield, followed by the west side. nut yield increased with increase in number of hermaphrodite flowers and fruit set. data on average yield data showed that hybrid303 gave maximum nut yield (4.02), followed by hybrid-68 (3.94), and the lowest was recorded in vridhachalam-2 (0.72). in the present study the yield of cashew genotypes showed significant differences between the genotypes or between the sides of the same fig 1. comparison of flower-sex type during flowering in cashew n u m b e r o f fl o w e rs reproductive biology in cashew genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 45-49, 2009 48 t ab le 2 . n u m b er o f st am in at e an d h er m ap h ro d it e fl ow er s p er p an ic le ( fr om f ou r tr ee s) o f c as h ew g en ot yp es f ro m d if fe re n t si d es o f tr ee c an op y si de t y p e g en ot yp e se (m )+ c d (5 % ) m ea n 3/ 28 3/ 33 30 /1 10 /1 9 v r i-1 v r i-2 h -6 8 h -2 55 h -3 67 h -3 20 h -3 03 se l-1 se l-2 v4 ty pe si de n or th s 88 0. 32 11 13 .5 5 11 37 .0 9 66 5. 18 10 07 .7 4 62 7. 28 87 6. 56 98 8. 92 10 26 .6 6 80 2. 09 97 4. 16 13 08 .5 3 90 3. 08 97 6. 18 28 .0 1 60 .5 2 94 9. 10 53 9. 39 h 15 2. 96 12 8. 48 24 1. 26 57 .0 0 87 .0 3 11 4. 06 10 0. 08 25 9. 91 15 1. 36 87 .5 6 19 9. 88 62 .2 6 87 .3 4 86 .3 4 8. 37 18 .0 8 12 9. 68 sr 0. 17 0. 12 0. 21 0. 09 0. 09 0. 18 0. 11 0. 26 0. 15 0. 11 0. 21 0. 05 0. 10 0. 09 0. 14 so ut h s 24 52 .3 2 23 58 .1 2 29 74 .6 1 17 22 .9 3 19 24 .6 5 15 92 .3 2 24 87 .8 9 25 87 .0 0 28 59 .9 9 16 98 .5 5 25 23 .2 5 24 99 .1 2 22 92 .4 4 18 64 .3 7 67 .1 0 14 4. 96 22 74 .1 1 14 31 .4 4 h 82 2. 16 43 2. 16 96 7. 30 27 0. 00 48 1. 71 47 9. 90 50 2. 62 10 42 .1 0 81 3. 56 29 4. 52 94 6. 80 34 4. 62 36 7. 50 47 7. 90 38 .0 3 82 .1 6 58 8. 78 sr 0. 34 0. 18 0. 33 0. 16 0. 25 0. 30 0. 20 0. 40 0. 28 0. 17 0. 38 0. 14 0. 16 0. 26 0. 25 ea st s 13 20 .4 8 13 10 .0 6 27 74 .4 9 14 41 .5 5 11 35 .3 3 80 4. 20 13 21 .2 9 24 12 .9 5 15 40 .0 0 94 3. 64 21 11 .1 6 14 74 .2 0 11 57 .8 0 10 99 .7 7 43 .9 4 94 .9 2 14 89 .0 7 87 7. 74 h 38 2. 40 29 2. 00 35 7. 33 12 9. 60 19 7. 34 22 0. 58 22 7. 96 38 4. 96 37 8. 40 19 9. 00 45 4. 46 14 1. 18 16 8. 92 19 5. 78 17 .2 1 37 .1 6 26 6. 42 sr 0. 29 0. 22 0. 13 0. 09 0. 17 0. 27 0. 17 0. 16 0. 25 0. 21 0. 22 0. 10 0. 15 0. 18 0. 19 w es t s 16 34 .8 8 17 68 .5 9 22 10 .4 9 10 47 .0 2 13 40 .7 7 99 7. 21 17 27 .3 5 19 22 .4 5 19 06 .6 6 12 73 .9 1 15 33 .3 8 17 40 .9 6 14 35 .6 7 12 98 .7 8 46 .0 3 99 .4 4 15 59 .8 7 96 4. 35 h 55 4. 48 31 5. 36 71 0. 11 14 3. 40 24 5. 92 26 1. 47 28 1. 34 76 5. 02 54 8. 68 21 4. 92 50 2. 86 17 5. 93 20 0. 23 24 3. 97 23 .8 3 51 .4 4 36 8. 83 sr 0. 34 0. 18 0. 32 0. 14 0. 18 0. 26 0. 16 0. 40 0. 29 0. 17 0. 33 0. 10 0. 14 0. 19 0. 23 a ve ra ge s 15 72 .0 0 16 37 .5 8 22 74 .1 7 12 19 .1 7 13 52 .1 2 10 05 .2 5 16 03 .2 7 19 77 .8 3 18 33 .3 3 11 79 .5 5 17 85 .4 9 17 55 .7 0 14 47 .2 5 13 09 .7 7 46 .2 9 99 .9 8 15 68 .0 3 h 47 8. 00 29 2. 00 56 9. 00 15 0. 00 25 3. 00 26 9. 00 27 8. 00 61 3. 00 47 3. 00 19 9. 00 52 6. 00 18 1. 00 20 6. 00 25 1. 00 21 .8 6 47 .2 1 33 8. 43 sr 0. 30 0. 18 0. 25 0. 12 0. 19 0. 27 0. 17 0. 31 0. 26 0. 17 0. 29 0. 10 0. 14 0. 19 0. 01 6 0. 03 5 to ta l 20 50 .0 0 19 29 .5 8 28 43 .1 7 13 69 .1 7 16 05 .1 2 12 74 .2 5 18 81 .2 7 25 90 .8 3 23 06 .3 3 13 78 .5 5 23 11 .4 9 19 36 .7 0 16 53 .2 5 15 60 .7 7 s = s ta m in a te , h = h e rm a p h ro d it e , s r = s e x r a ti o t a b le 3 . c o m p a ri so n o f n u m b er o f h er m a p h ro d it e fl o w er s a n d fr u it -s et p er p a n ic le to y ie ld (k g p er tr ee ) o f ca sh ew g en o ty p es o n d if fe re n t si d es o f tr ee c an op y s id e t y p e g en o ty p e s e (m )+ c d ( 5 % ) 3/ 28 3/ 33 30 /1 10 /1 9 v r i1 v r i2 h -6 8 h -2 5 5 h -3 6 7 h -3 2 0 h -3 0 3 s el -1 s el -2 v -4 n o rt h n h f 15 2. 96 12 8. 48 24 1. 26 57 .0 0 87 .0 3 11 4. 06 10 0. 08 25 9. 91 15 1. 36 87 .5 6 19 9. 88 62 .2 6 87 .3 4 86 .3 4 8. 37 18 .0 8 f s 1. 33 2. 10 2. 00 1. 87 1. 44 1. 56 1. 87 1. 42 1. 50 1. 64 2. 12 1. 12 1. 42 1. 78 y 0. 60 1. 00 1. 06 1. 44 0. 40 0. 40 1. 91 0. 79 0. 78 1. 07 2. 12 0. 78 0. 60 1. 43 s ou th n h f 82 2. 16 43 2. 16 96 7. 30 27 0. 00 48 1. 71 47 9. 90 50 2. 62 1 0 4 2 .1 0 81 3. 56 29 4. 52 94 6. 80 34 4. 62 36 7. 50 47 7. 90 38 .0 3 82 .1 6 f s 5. 75 7. 50 9. 12 6. 08 6. 98 5. 58 8. 45 7. 71 7. 02 7. 14 8. 36 4. 67 8. 51 8. 78 y 3. 53 2. 61 4. 85 4. 69 1. 94 1. 43 8. 64 4. 31 3. 65 4. 65 8. 35 2. 17 3. 62 7. 07 e as t n h f 38 2. 40 29 2. 00 35 7. 33 12 9. 60 19 7. 34 22 0. 58 22 7. 96 38 4. 96 37 8. 40 19 9. 00 45 4. 46 14 1. 18 16 8. 92 19 5. 78 17 .2 1 37 .1 6 f s 1. 74 2. 27 2. 67 1. 97 1. 79 1. 88 2. 33 1. 85 2. 08 2. 05 2. 58 1. 56 1. 77 2. 06 y 0. 78 0. 98 1. 42 1. 52 0. 50 0. 48 2. 37 1. 03 1. 08 1. 33 2. 58 0. 78 0. 75 1. 66 w es t n h f 55 4. 48 31 5. 36 71 0. 11 14 3. 40 24 5. 92 26 1. 47 28 1. 34 76 5. 02 54 8. 68 21 4. 92 50 2. 86 17 5. 93 20 0. 23 24 3. 97 23 .8 3 51 .4 4 f s 2. 14 3. 14 3. 34 2. 06 2. 14 2. 20 2. 78 2. 27 2. 65 2. 45 3. 04 1. 56 2. 11 2. 34 y 0. 97 0. 97 1. 78 1. 59 0. 60 0. 56 2. 84 1. 27 1. 38 1. 59 3. 04 0. 78 0. 90 1. 88 a ve ra ge n h f 47 8. 00 29 2. 00 56 9. 00 15 0. 00 25 3. 00 26 9. 00 27 8. 00 61 3. 00 47 3. 00 19 9. 00 52 6. 00 18 1. 00 20 6. 00 25 1. 00 21 .8 6 47 .2 1 f s 2. 74 3. 75 4. 28 2. 99 3. 09 2. 80 3. 86 3. 31 3. 31 3. 32 4. 02 2. 23 3. 45 3. 74 0. 82 1. 69 p f r 40 .2 7 34 .7 2 56 .4 9 34 .4 2 36 .8 2 30 .2 4 46 .4 2 42 .4 8 42 .0 1 40 .6 6 51 .1 5 34 .9 7 47 .4 8 46 .4 0 5. 03 10 .3 6 y 1. 47 1. 39 2. 28 2. 31 0. 86 0. 72 3. 94 1. 85 1. 72 2. 16 4. 02 1. 13 1. 47 3. 01 0. 36 0. 75 n h f = n u m b er o f h er m ap h ro d it e fl o w er s, f s = f ru it s et , y = y ie ld , p f r = p er c en t fr u it r et en ti o n j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 45-49, 2009 sharma 49 genotype. this could be related to the pattern of flowering. however, it is worth noting that the south side recorded highest yield. there was continuous production of hermaphrodite flowers from tonset of flowering till the end, while, production of male flowers decreased over time. further, it was seen that hermaphrodite flowers produced very early or too late had few or no nuts thus indicating the importance of hermaphrodite rather than staminate flowers in determining yield potential as in the philippines (moranda, 1941). the highest magnitude of fruits carried to maturity (% fruit retention) was recorded in hybrid -30/1 (56.49%) and was at par with hybrid -303, selection-2, hybrid -68 and vengurla-4. lowest fruit retention was noted in vridhachalam-2 (30.21%). it would greatly help devise future strategies if more studies are carried out on yield performance on different sides of cashew tree across a wide range of locations. nevertheless, present results are in agreement with earlier reports and further show that selection for floral behaviour could give beneficial results for cashew production and for development ofa cashew ideotype. references ascenso, j.c. and mota i.m. 1972. studies on the flower morphology of cashew (anacardium occidentale l.). agronomia moçambicana, 6:107-118 chakraborty, d.k, sadhu, m.s. and bose, t.k. 1981. studies on sex expression in cashew (anacardium occidentale l.). prog. hort., 13:1-3 damodaran, v.k. 1966. the morphology and biology of the cashew flower, anacardium occidentale l. ii. anthesis, dehiscence, receptivity of stigma, pollination, fruit set and fruit development. agri. j. kerala, 4:78-84 free, j.b. and williams, i.h. 1976. insect pollination of anacardium occidentale l., mangifera indica l., blighia sapida koeng and persea americana mill. trop. agri.., 53:125-139 hanamashetti, s.i., khan, m.m., mahabaleshwar, h., mallik, b. and sulladmath, u.v. 1986. flowering and sex ratio in some cashew (anacardium occidentale l.) selections. j. plantation crops, 14:68-70 heard, t.a., vithanage, v. and chacko, e.k. 1990. pollination biology of cashew in the northern territory of australia. austr. j. agril. res., 41:101-1114 kumaran, p.m., vimala, b. and murthy, k.n. 1976. on occurrence of pistillate and neutral flowers in cashew. j. plantation crops, 4:82-84 masawe, p.a.l. 1994. aspects of breeding and selecting improved cashew genotypes. ph.d. thesis, the university of reading moranda, e.k. 1941. cashew culture. philippine j. agri., 12:89-106 mota, m.i. 1973. flower abnormalities in cashew (anacardium occidentale l.). agronomia mocambicana, 7:21-35 northwood, p.j. 1966. some observations on flowering and fruit-setting in the cashew, (anacardium occidentale l.), trop. agri., 43:35-42 palaniswami, v., shahul hameed, a. and vijayakumar, m. 1979. vegetative propagation in cashew-work done at vridhachalam. in: bhaskara rao, e.v.v., hameed khan,h. (eds.) proc. international cashew symposium, kerala, india. acta hort.,108: 67-70. panse, v.g. and sukhatme. p. 1978. statistical method for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, pp : 70-99 pavithran, k. and ravindranathan, p.p. 1974. studies on floral biology in cashew, (anacardium occidentale l.). j. plantation crops, 2:32-33 rao, v.n.m. and hassan, m.v. 1957. preliminary studies on the floral biology of cashew (anacardium occidentale l.). ind. j. agril. sci., 27: 277-288 thimmaraju, k.r., narayana reddy, m.a., suryanarayana reddy, b.g. and sulladmath, u.v. 1980. studies on the floral biology of cashew ( anacardium occidentale l.). mysore j. agril. sci., 14:490-497 wunnachit, w. and sedgley, m. 1992. floral structure and phenology of cashew in relation to yield. j. hortl. sci., 67:769-777 (ms received 28 january 2009, revised 5 june 2009) reproductive biology in cashew genotypes j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 45-49, 2009 209 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 209-212, 2018 effect of configuration of calyx in cowpea flowers on infestation by spotted pod borer, maruca vitrata (fab.) (lepidoptera: crambidae) a. n. nasiya-beegum and madhu subramanian department of agricultural entomology kerala agricultural university, thrissur email: nasiyakau@gmail.com abstract twenty cowpea accessions were evaluated for resistance to the spotted pod borer, maruca vitrata in the department of agricultural entomology, college of horticulture, kerala agricultural university, thrissur. the calyxes of the flowers were examined and the accessions were categorized into two groups, partially free (major portion of the sepals free, the basal portion tight) and semi tight (major portion of the sepals tight, only the tip free). significant variation was observed in terms of damage to cowpea flowers due to spotted pod borer. the highest extent of flower damage (50.39 %) was recorded in case of bhagyalakshmy. categorization of the different accessions on the basis of the configuration of calyx indicated that ec 100092, palakkadanthandanpayar, tvx – 944, ec 300039, ic 20645 and ic 52110 had semi tight calyx characterized by tight sepals with tips alone being free. all these accessions had consistently low levels of infestation ranging from zero to 3.16 per cent. the accessions c – 152, kanakamony, pkm – 1, anaswara, ic 20431, sreya, hridya, mysore local, ic 52105, kashikanchan, vellayani jyothika, malika, bhagyalakshmy and lola had major portion of sepals free with their basal portion tight. hence, they were grouped as partially free. free sepals would provide the first instar borer larvae some extent of concealment as well as enable it to bore into the flower more easily. tight calyx, thus, could possibly have a deterrent effect on the first instar larvae entry. key words: calyx, resistant, cowpea, pod, maruca vitrata introduction cowpea , vi gna ung uic ulat a ( l. ) , is a n important legume of the tropics and subtropics. it is an important source of dietary protein in the predominantly cereal based diet followed across asia. cowpea is used as a grain legume, vegetable and also as a fodder. the legume pod borer, maruca vitrata (fab.) is the most important insect pest of cowpea, causing yield loss of up to 60 per cent. it occurs throughout the tropics and subtropics of central and south america, asia and africa. the wide geographical distribution, broad host range and ability to infest different plant part like flower buds, flowers, pods and seeds make it a formidable pest. the destructiveness at flowering and pod development constitutes a significant constraint to the productivity of cowpea. maruca vitrata attacks cowpea during the reproductive phase. the female moth lays eggs on or near the flower buds (sharma, 1998). the larvae feed on buds, flowers and pods. flowers, pods and leaves are often webbed together. being an internal f eeder, ma na gement of t he p e s t t hr ou gh conventional chemical means is difficult, though application of insecticides remains the primary strategy. exploitation of host plant resistance, which is among the most effective and durable strategies ha s ha r dl y b een a t t emp t ed i n c a s e of cowpea.configuration of calyx was an important morphological attribute in conferring resistance to the borer. 210 nasiya-beegum and madhu subramanian j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 209-212, 2018 the present investigation was carried out as a field tria l at college of hor ticulture, ker ala agricultural university, thrissur (100 31’n latitude and 76017’e longitude at an elevation of 40 m above mean sea level) from december 2014 to june 2015. all agronomic pr a ctices wer e followed as per packa ge of pr a ctices recommenda tions (kau, 2011). t he data were collected fr om two cr op seasons. the experimental site had a warm humid tropical climate. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized design (crd) with 20 treatments and 10 replications, with one polybag containing one plant constituting one replication. field evaluation of twenty cowpea accessions was carried out by raising cowpea plants in polybags at a spacing of 30 x 15 cm, 45 x 15 cm and 2 x 2 m for bush, semi trailing and trailing types, respectively. two weeks prior to planting, the variety lola was sown along the border around the plot to serve as multiplication foci for the test insect, m. vitrata. further, neonate larvae of m. vitrata were collected in large numbers from infested cowpea fields and released on the border plants at early flowering phase to ensure adequate pest population. observations on the pod borer incidence were recorded at three days interval starting from first flowering up to two months after flowering. five plants were selected at random from ea ch a c cess ion a nd pod bor er incidence wa s observed. the calyx of the flowers was examined and the accessions were categorized into two groups as follows. 1. partially free major portion of the sepals free, the basal portion tight. 2. semi tight major portion of the sepals tight, only the tip free. (figure 1 & 2) fig 1. partially free fig 2. semi tight categorization of the different accessions on the basis of the configuration of calyx indicated that ec 100092, palakkadanthandanpayar, tvx – 944, ec 300039, ic 20645 and ic 52110 had semi tight calyx characterized by tight sepals with tips alone being free. the accessions c – 152, kanakamony, pkm – 1, anaswara, ic 20431, sreya, hridya, m ys or e loc a l, i c 5 2 1 0 5 , k a s h ika nc ha n, vellayanijyothika, malika, bhagyalakshmy and lola had major portion of sepals free with their basal portion tight. hence, they were grouped partially f r ee. t he a c c es s ions v i z . , e c 1 0 0 0 9 2 , palakkadanthandanpayar, tvx – 944, ec 300039, ic 20645 and ic 52110 had semi tight calyx having tight sepals with tips alone being free.all these accessions had consistently low levels of infestation ranging from zero to 3.16 per cent (table 1). the remaining 14 accessions, which had free sepals, suffered higher borer infestation. free sepals 211 cowpea calyx and infestation would provide the first instar borer larvae some extent of concealment as well as enable it to bore into the flower more easily. tight calyx, thus, could possibly have a deterrent effect on the first instar larvae oviposition, which, however, need to be confirmed. anithakumari (1992) also had reported that free configuration of calyx had a significant p os itive inf lu enc e on the level of p od b or er infestation. anit ha ku ma r i ( 1 9 9 2 ) ob s e r ved t he configuration of calyx as an important morphological attribute in conferring resistance to the spotted pod borer m. vitrata and reported that accessions under the moderately resistant group (v98, v30, v95, v61 and v75) possessed tight or semi tight calyx. those accessions under the moderately susceptible group (v13, v41, v90, v89 and v2) were with partially free calyx and the calyx was free for five of the table 1. configuration of calyx among cowpea accessions accession percent damage to cowpea flowers configuration of calyx c – 152 36.89 partially free kanakamony 1.91 partially free pkm – 1 9.75 partially free ec 100092 0.00 semi tight palakkadanthandanpayar 4.88 semi tight anaswara 4.88 partially free tvx – 944 5.80 semi tight ec 300039 1.96 semi tight ic 20431 9.88 partially free sreya 6.60 partially free hridya 1.11 partially free mysore local 10.75 partially free ic 52105 8.39 partially free kashikanchan 29.46 partially free ic 20645 1.02 semi tight vellayani jyothika 15.43 partially free malika 20.28 partially free bhagyalakshmy 50.39 partially free ic 52110 0.00 semi tight lola 31.76 partially free accessions under the highly susceptible group (v12, v1, v57, v86 and v100). it was thus found, that t he a c c es s ions ha d s ome inher e nt def ens e mechanism at varying levels when the different groups were compared. in this experiment significant variation was observed in terms of damage to cowpea flowers due to spotted pod borer. the highest flower damage (50.39 %) was recorded in case of bhagyalakshmy. categorization of the different accessions on the basis of the configuration of calyx indicated that ec 100092, palakkadanthandanpayar, tvx – 944, ec 300039, ic 20645 and ic 52110 had semi tight calyx characterized by tight sepals with tips alone being free. all these accessions had consistently low levels of infestation ranging from zero to 3.16 per cent. the accessions c – 152, kanakamony, pkm – 1, anaswara, ic 20431, sreya, hridya, j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 209-212, 2018 212 mysore local, ic 52105, kashikanchan, vellayani jyothika, malika, bhagyalakshmy and lola had major portion of sepals free with their basal portion tight. hence, they were grouped as partially free. free sepals would provide the first instar borer larvae some extent of concealment as well as enable it to bore into the flower more easily. tight calyx, thus, could possibly have a deterrent effect on the first instar larvae entry. anithakumari, v. (1992). host resistance in cowpea (vigna ungiculata (l.) walp) to the pod borer maruca testulalis (geyer ) (pyr a lida e: lepidopter a). m. sc. (ag) thesis, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 98p. kau (kera la agr icultur al univer sity) (2011). package of practices recommendations: (ms received 22 september 2017, revised 09 november 2018, accepted 21 december 2018) nasiya-beegum and madhu subramanian j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 209-212, 2018 references crops (14th ed.). kerala agricultural university, thrissur, 360p. sharma, h. c.(1998). bionomics, host plant resistance, and management of the legume pod borer, marucavitrata - a review.  crop prot. 17(5): 373-386. final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 245 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 245-248, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. short communication effect of tree age on fruit characteristics, seed emergence and seedling growth in rambutan (nephelium lappaceum l.) rashied tetteh1*, lawrence misa aboagye1, eric ansah osafo1, robert darko1, augustine dassah2 and jennifer obirih-opareh1 1csir-plant genetic resources research institute, p.o. box 7, bunso, eastern region, ghana. 2university for development studies, box tl 1350, tamale, ghana. *corresponding author e-mail : rashbalm@yahoo.com, rashiedt62@gmail.com abstract rambutan (nephelium lappaceum l.) is an important exotic fruit from asia, which is gaining popularity due to its nutritional benefits. the objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of tree age on fruit characteristics, seed emergence and seedling growth of rambutan. the study was conducted at the csir-plant genetic resources research institute, bunso, ghana. fruits of rambutan were harvested from 8, 10, 25 and 40 years old trees at different locations of the field genebank. for each tree age, three trees were used as replicates. fruits harvested from trees of different ages were assessed for total fruit weight, pulp weight, pericarp weight, seed weight, percentage seed emergence, seedling plant height and number of leaves at monthly intervals. fruits harvested from 8, 10, 25 and 40 years old trees did not show significant difference in fruit characteristics and seed emergence. significant (p<0.05) differences were observed in plant height and number of leaves at 5 and 6 months after emergence, respectively. keywords: fruit characteristics, rambutan, seed emergence, seedling growth, tree age rambutan (nephelium lappaceum l.) is a tropical fruit that belongs to the sapindaceae family (wall, 2006). it is closely related to several other edible tropical fruits, including the lychee, longan, pulasan, and mamoncillo (morton, 1987). it originated in malaysia and has been widely cultivated in south-east asia including t ha iland, malaysia, indonesia , singapore the philippines and sri lanka (tindall et al., 1994). the rambutan tree is of medium evergreen height. thailand is the largest producer of rambutan growing 450,000 tonnes in the world, followed by indonesia at 100,000 tonnes, and malaysia, 60,000 tonnes (le bellec, 2014). tree age plays an important role in fruit quality, but studies to determine its effect are rare in fruit crops. ozeker (2000) reported that 20-year-old trees of ‘marsh’ seedless grape fruit produced bigger fruit with thinner rinds compa red with 34-year-old trees. bramlage (1993) observed that pome fruit harvested fr om young tr ees wer e highly susceptible to postharvest disorders. lower quality apples were obtained from trees of old age (smith, 2003). khalid et al. (2012) in their studies reported that fruits harvested from old trees (35-year-old) had slightly inferior quality as compared to fruit produced from18year-old tr ees. however, no studies have been published on the effect of tree age on fruit quality of rambutan. thus, there is a need for comprehensive research to determine the possible variation in fruit quality in relation to tree age. the present study aimed to assess the effect of tree age on rambutan fruits characteristics, seed emergence and seedling growth. in this study, fruits of rambutan were obtained from young and mature trees at csir-plant genetic resources research institute field genebank (n 06o 17.839, w 000o 27.595, alt 198.3 m above sea level), bunso, eastern region, ghana during the harvesting season in july, 2018. the climate of the area is semiequatorial type and the vegetation is moist-deciduous rainforest, with mean minimum annual temperature of 21.4oc and a mean maximum annual temperature of 31.3oc (aboagye, 2005). the area experiences bimodal rainfall pattern from april to july and from september to the middle of november. it has a mean 246 tetteh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 245-248, 2022 annual precipitation of 1455 mm; with the dry season starting from the middle of november to march. physiologically matured fully ripe fruits (red cultivar) were harvested at maturity at random from trees of different ages at four locations at the same time. these comprised of 8 years old trees, 10 years old trees, 25 years old trees and 40 years old trees. for each tree age, three trees were used as replicates. thirty fruits were sampled at random from each tree. during seedlings establishment, insect pests such as leaf miners and ants were controlled using k-optimal insecticide (landa-cyhalothrin 15 g l-1 +acetamiprid 20 g l-1: ec) at a recommended rate of 40 ml to 15 l of water at two weeks interval. weeds were controlled using a hoe as and when necessary. whole fruit weight and its components (i.e. pericap, pulp, aril and seed) were determined using an electronic balance. thirty fruits were sampled from each tree of different age for all replicates. for fruit dry mass,10 fruits were harvested and separated manually into pericarp, pulp and seed for dry mass determination. samples were dried at 80oc for 48 hours in an oven and weighed using an electronic balance. for germination test, fresh seeds extracted from 30 fruits of each rambutan tree were sown in polybags of dimension 15.5cm x 20.5cm filled with topsoil. the completely randomised design was used with three replicates. seeds sown were watered daily and kept under shade trees. percentage seed emergence was computed at 21 days after sowing, as a ratio of the total number of seeds germinated to the total number of seeds sown multiplied by 100. growth of rambutan seedlings was assessed by the number of leaves and plant height at monthly intervals for a period of six months. plant height was measured with a metre rule in centimetres. statistical analyses wa s conducted using spss statistics 21 (ibm, chicago, il, usa). one-way anova was used to test the effects of treatments. when a significant difference was detected, tukey’s hsd test was performed to identify significant differences among trees of different ages. the results showed no significant differences (p>0.05) in total fruit weight, pericarp, seed and aril fresh weight of rambutan fruits harvested from trees of different ages. rambutan fruits harvested from 8 to 40 years old trees were in the range of 26.26 to 29.99g in total fresh weight, 12.32 to 14.97g in pericarp weight, 11.40 to 12.86g in aril weight and 2.24 to 2.73g in seed weight while percentage seed emergence was in the range of 94.44 to 96.67%. on rambutan fruit dry weight basis, no significant differences were observed in pericarp, seed and aril from fruits harvested from trees of different ages (table 2). averagely, rambutan fruit characteristics on dry weight basis were in the range of 2.29g to 3.08g for pericarp, 1.43g to 1.63g for seed and 0.36g to 0.50g for aril. fig. 1 shows the number of leaves per plant of rambutan seedlings recorded at monthly intervals after seed emergence. no significant difference was observed in number of leaves at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 mae. at 6 mae, the number of leaves differed significantly among seedlings established from trees of different ages. rambutan fruits harvested from 10 years old trees had the highest number of leaves at 6 mae, but age fresh weight (g) % seed (years) total fresh weight pericarp aril seed emergence 8 26.26 (2.08) 12.32 (1.31) 11.40 (0.86) 2.53 (0.17) 94.44 (1.92) 10 28.99 (7.40) 14.97 (4.47) 11.61 (2.60) 2.41 (0.46) 95.56 (5.09) 25 28.36 (2.40) 13.46 (1.89) 12.17 (0.60) 2.73 (0.13) 95.56 (1.92) 40 27.28 (2.53) 12.49 (1.71) 12.86 (1.40) 2.24 (0.06) 96.67 (3.33) anova n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. each value is the mean of three replicates and the standard deviation is shown in parentheses. one-way anova: n.s= not significant. table 1. rambutan fruit characteristics and percentage seed emergence 247 effect of tree age on fruit characteristics, seed emergence and seedling growth was not significantly different from trees which were 8 and 25 years old. rambutan seedlings from 40-yearold trees obtained the lowest number of leaves. leaves are the principal photosynthetic organs of plants (wright et al, 2004). the production of leaves represents an increase in the photosynthetic surface area for plants. koch et al. (2004) and tozer et al. ( 2015) reported that the size of leaves (e.g., leaf surface area, leaf dry mass and leaf length) profoundly affects a variety of biological processes, for instance, plant gr owth, surviva l, r eproduction, and ecosystem function. in the present study, the increase in number of leaves indicates a higher photosynthetic activity in seedlings from fruits harvested from 10 years old trees. besides, the increase in number of leaves in seedlings from 10 years old rambutan trees could also impact on plant-water relations and nutrient uptake positively. table 2. rambutan pericarp, seed and aril dry weight. age (years) dry weight (g) pericap seed aril 8 2.44 (0.26) 1.62 (0.18) 0.44 (0.26) 10 3.08 (0.83) 1.63 (0.21) 0.36 (0.17) 25 2.16 (0.10) 1.61 (0.02) 0.37 (0.03) 40 2.29 (0.28) 1.43 (0.13) 0.50 (0.07) anova n.s. n.s. n.s. each value is the mean of three replicates and the standard deviation is shown in parentheses. one-way anova: n.s= not significant. rambutan seedlings plant height at monthly intervals after seed emergence obtained from fruits harvested from different tree ages is shown in fig. 2. no significant difference was observed in plant height at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 months after emergence. however, at 5 mae, a significant differ ence (p<0.05) was observed. rambutan fruits harvested from 10 years old trees had the highest plant height at 5mae, but was not statistically different from tress which were 8 and 25 years old. rambutan fruits sampled from 40 years old trees obtained the lowest plant height at 5mae. the increase in seedling plant height from fruits harvested from 10 years old trees may be attributed to the increase in number of leaves observed in the present study. similarly, lyngdoh et al. (2014) indicated that seedling attributes after 12 months showed that seedlings obtained from young and fig. 1. number of leaves per plant of rambutan seedlings at months after emergence from trees of different ages. each value is the mean of three replicates and the vertical bars indicates standard error. oneway: *p<0.05, n.s.=not significant. when a significant difference was detect ed, tukey’s hsd te st was performed t o identify significant differences among the 4 treatments. different letters above the bar indicate significant difference. fig. 2. plant height of rambutan seedlings at months after emergence form trees of different ages. each value is the mean of three replicates and the vertical bars indicates standard error. one-way: *p<0.05, n.s.=not significant. when a significant difference was detected, tukey’s hsd test was performed to identify significant differences among the 4 treatments. different letters above the bar indicate significant difference. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 245-248, 2022 248 tetteh et al middle-aged plantations of livistona jinkensiana (between 18 to 45 years) performed better than those beyond 50 years. raja et al. (2004) also found that seeds collected from middle-aged trees of areca nut which were 45 years old consistently had highest shoot length, root length, number of roots, seedling dry weight and vigour index compared to seeds collected from trees aged 7,14,21 and 28 years. mao et al. (2014) reported a significant effect on relative height growth rate by altering their biomass allocation among pinus thunbergia seedlings obtained from different age classes. tree age had no significant effect on rambutan fruit char a cter istics a nd seed emergence. however, seedlings established from fruits harvested from trees of different ages showed significant differences in number of leaves per plant and plant height. fruits harvested from 10 years old trees exhibited better seedling growth. seedlings obtained from rambutan fruits from middle-aged trees can be considered for nursery establishment. acknowledgement the authors acknowledge the council for scientific and industrial research-plant genetic resources research institute (csir-pgrri) for the plant material and facilities. we are also grateful to mr. nicholas badger, benjamin kwakye adu and all staff at the seed store of csir-pgrri for their support during the study. references aboagye, l.m., 2005. variation in yield of nutmeg (myristica fragrans houtti) in relation to temperature and rainfall in ghana. ghana j. hort., 4: 12-18. bramlage, w.j., 1993. interaction of orchard factors and mineral nutrition on quality of pome fruit. acta hortic., 326:15–28 khalid, s., malik, a.u., saleem, b.a., khan, a.s., khalid, m.s. and amin, m. 2012. tree age and canopy position affect rind quality, fruit quality and rind nutrient content of ‘kinnow’mandarin (citrus nobilis lour× citrus deliciosa tenora). sci. hort., 135:137-144. koch, g. w., sillett, s.c., jennings, g.m. and davis, s.d., 2004. the limits to tree height. nature, 428: 851–854. le bellec, f., 2014. “rambutan”. fruitrop, 223: 28–33. lyngdoh, n., kumar, m., kumar, n. and pandey a.k., 2014. effect of a ge of planta tion on seed characters and growth performance of tokopatta (livistona jinkensiana griff.) seedling. j. appl. nat. sci., 6:672-676. mao, p., han, g., wang, g., yu, j. and shao, h. 2014. effects of age and stand density of mother trees on early pinus thunbergii seedlings establishment in the coastal zone, china. sci. world j.: 1-9. morton, j.f. 1987. “rambutan”, in fruits of warm climates”. center for new crops & pla nt products, purdue university department of horticulture and landscape architecture, w. lafayette, in. pp 262–265. ozeker, e. 2000. determination of fruit characteristics of ‘marsh seedless’ grapefruitcultivar in izmir (turkey). pakistan j. biol. sci., 3:69–71. raja, k., palanisamy, v. and selvaraju, p. 2004. effect of palm age on seed germination and seedling vigour in areca nut (areca catechu l.). madras agric. j., 91: 326-328. smith, t.j., 2003. apple orchard blocks evaluation. ht tps :// ext ension.wsu. edu/chela n/ dougla s/ a gricultur e tr eefr uit/hor ticultur e apple_orchard_block_ evaluation. tindall, h.d.1994. sapindaceous fruits: botany and horticulture. in horticultural reviews. vol. 16, edited by janick, j. london: john wiley & sons. pp 143-196. toz er, w. c., rice, b. a nd westoby, m. 2015. evolutionary divergence of leaf width and its correlates. am. j. bot.. 102: 367–378. wa ll, m.m. 2006. ascor bic acid a nd miner a l composition of longan (dimocarpus longan), lychee ( litc hi c hine nsis) and ra mbuta n (nephelium lappaceum) cultivars grown in hawaii. j. food compos. anal., 19: 655-663. wright, i.j., reich, p.b., westoby, m., ackerly, d.d., baruch, z., bongers, f., cavender-bares, j., chapin, t., cornelissen, j.h., diemer, m. and flexas, j. 2004. the worldwide leaf economics spectrum. nature, 428: 821–827. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 245-248, 2022 (received: 10.06.2021; revised: 18.05.2022; accepted: 26.06.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf introduction orchids, one of the largest and important groups of flowering plants, are known for their lovely blooms. they exhibit a great diversity of color, shape, size and shelf-life in their flowers. when there is a need to mass propagate a new orchid hybrid or variety within a short time period, tissue culture is the only method currently available. among the commercially important orchids, dendrobium accounts for a major share of the total micropropagated tropical orchids (malabadi et al, 2005). as orchid protocorms are very fragile and need proper and steady nutrient supply for complete differentiation into plantlets, their transportation is usually difficult and expensive. artificial seeds, also referred as synthetic seeds, are produced by encapsulation of protocorm like bodies in an alginate matrix. this system serves as a low cost, high volume propagation system (redenbaugh et al, 1987). micropropagation through shoot-tips is successful. however, it is time consuming and laborious. thus, there is a necessity to develop a sound synthetic seed production (encapsulated plb’s) technology applicable for rapid mass propagation and long-term conservation of orchids. beneficial effects of ethylene inhibitors on in vitro regeneration and somatic embryogenesis were documented in several crops. ethylene action and biosynthesis inhibitors like silver nitrate increased embryogenesis in carrot (roustan et al, 1990), salicylic acid in brassica (palmer, 1992) and cocl 2 in carrot (roustan et al, 1989). there has been increasing evidence that occurrence of morphogenesis and differentiation in cultured plant cells is associated with ethylene (biddington, 1992). even there are some indirect evidences which suggest that methane could be involved in the differentiation process (mustafa et al, 1991; hagege et al, 1994). preliminary studies in our laboratory indicated the possible role of methane in differentiation or regeneration of chick pea, (chandra et al,1997). the above studies in other crops prompted us to examine the role of methane and ethylene on plb’s production in orchid – dendrobium ‘sonia’. the objective of the present study was to increase the efficiency of mass production of plb’s in orchid – dendrobium ‘sonia’ in order to develop sound synthetic seed technology (for rapid propagation). in order to achieve this, effect of various ethylene inhibitors and ethrel (supplemented to ms basal + bap 4.44 µm medium) on protocorm like bodies production in orchid – dendrobium ‘sonia’ was studied. 1 present address : division of biotechnology, i.i.h.r., hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore –560 089, india. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 13-18, 2007 influence of ethylene inhibitors and ethrel on production of protocorm like bodies in orchid dendrobium ‘sonia’ g. v. s. saiprasad1 and p. raghuveer division of plant physiology i.a.r.i, new delhi-110 012, india e-mail: gvssaiprasad@yahoo.co.in abstract to increase the efficiency of production of protocorm like bodies, ethylene inhibitors like silver nitrate, salicylic acid and cobalt chloride at three concentrations, viz., 2, 5 and 20 µm and ethrel at 0.7, 1.4 and 14.0 µm were tested, by supplementing ms basal with bap 4.44 µm. the explant used was fractionated protocorm like bodies (plb). ethylene and methane gases evolved by the explant in the culture container were measured at 20 and 40 days after inoculation (dai). among various ethylene inhibitors tested, the maximum number of plb’s were produced in media containing silver nitrate (5 µm), cobalt chloride (2 µm) and salicylic acid (20 µm). all ethrel treatments produced succulent, vitrified and deformed plb’s. no ethylene evolution was observed in any of the ethylene inhibitor treatments. only in ethrel treatments was evolution of ethylene observed. methane evolution was observed in all the ethylene inhibitor treatments. absolute amounts of methane evolved could not be related to the observed plb production. however, when the evolution of methane was more than 1 nano mole g-1 fw h-1, poor plb production was observed. key words: somatic embryogenesis, methane, silver nitrate, cobalt chloride, salicylic acid j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 13-18, 2007 14 material and methods preparation of fractionated plb explant initially shoot-tip explants of orchid – dendrobium ‘sonia’ were cultured on ms medium supplemented with bap 4.44 µm + naa 5.38 µm for 120 days, which produced several clumps of plb mass (saiprasad et al, 2001). these plb clumps whose apical portion is severed and basal portion was fractioned into 2-3 parts of 0.4-0.5 cms, were used as explants. these explants were inoculated under aseptic conditions to culture tubes containing sterilized nutrient media. preparation of filter-sterilized ethylene inhibitors and ethrel all ethylene inhibitors and ethrel were first dissolved in appropriate solvent or sterile distilled water. tarsons reusable filter sterilized unit containing 47 mm diameter 0.2 mm bacterial filter membrane was first autoclaved as described below and was taken inside laminar air flow unit. the aqueous solution was slowly filtered and was stored in well stoppered glass bottles inside refrigerator (0oc) and used depending on the requirement. culture tubes and sterilization of nutrient media murashige and skoog (1962) basal medium (containing 0.8% agar, 3% sucrose) supplemented with bap 4.44 µm and ph adjusted to 7.5 ± 0.1 was autoclaved at 15 lb/psi for 15 min. at 121oc and was allowed to cool down to 50-60oc, then previously filter sterilized chemicals (ethylene inhibitors and ethrel) were added as per the required concentration in the laminar air flow unit. this was then poured into previously autoclaved culture tubes (150mm x 25mm). about 20 ml of medium was poured into each culture tube. effect of ethylene inhibitors and ethrel ethylene inhibitors, silver nitrate, salicylic acid and cobalt chloride, all at 3 concentrations each (final) viz., 2, 5 and 20 µm and ethrel at 0.7, 1.4 and 14.0 µm supplemented to murashige and skoog (1962) medium with bap 4.44 µm medium (control) were tested.influence of these ethylene inhibitors and ethrel on plb’s production as a function of ethylene/methane evolved was studied. culture conditions the cultures were incubated at a temperature of 25 ± 2°c, with a 16 h light and 8 h dark photoperiod (irradiance of 50-60 mme m-2 s-1) for about 6 weeks. measurement of ethylene/methane ethylene/methane were measured at 20 and 40 days after inoculation (dai). cotton plugs of culture tubes were replaced by airtight serum caps and were incubated for 24 h before taking observations. preliminary experiments conducted showed a virtual linear relationship between inoculation time and ethylene/methane evolution up to 24 h. hence, ethylene and methane were measured always for 24 h after incubation. for each assay, 2 ml of gas samples were with drawn from each tube and were injected into gas chromatogram (sigma 2000, perkin-elmer, usa) equipped with porapak n 80/100 mesh column and a flame ionization detector (fid). carrier gas (nitrogen) flow was maintained at 20 cm3 min-1. column temperature was maintained at 60°c and that of injector and detector at 200°c. standard ethylene (105 vpm) and methane (108 vpm) obtained from edt research, london were used for calibration and injected in a similar way as samples. data recorded number, fresh weight (fw) and dry weight of plb’s and amount of ethylene or methane evolved in n mol per g-1 fw h-1 were recorded at 20 and 40 dai. three culture tubes were used per treatment with single explant for measuring ethylene/methane production along with data on fresh and dry weight and six replications were used for evaluating the number of plb’s. the data were recorded at both 20 and 40 dai and were analyzed with completely randomized design by following standard methods (gomez and gomez, 1984) using microstat software developed by barreto, hj, raun, wr; cimmyt, mexico. means were evaluated at p=0.05 level of significance using duncan’s new multiple range test. each experiment was repeated twice. results and discussion effect of ethylene inhibitors and ethrel (a) plb’s production maximum production of plb’s was recorded in agno 3 (5 µm), followed by cocl 2 (2 µm) and salicylic acid (20 µm) treatments at both 20 and 40 dai (table 1 and 2). decreased production of plb’s was observed when concentration was either increased or decreased beyond the optimum level cited for the respective ethylene inhibitors (plate. 1a, 1b and 1c). all ethrel treatments have only resulted in production of succulent, vitrified and deformed structures, except 1-2 plb’s at 0.7 µm ethrel treatment. at higher concentration of ethrel treatments browning and drying of tissue was observed (plate 1d). saiprasad and raghuveer 15 (b) fresh weight and dry weight maximum fresh weight was recorded in agno 3 (5 µm), followed by cocl 2 (2 µm) treatments at both 20 and 40 dai. agno 3 (2 µm), salicylic acid (5 µm) and all ethrel treatments recorded significantly lower fresh weight than control. dry weight observations recorded similar pattern as that of fresh weight, at both 20 and 40 dai measurements. (c) methane and ethylene significant differences in methane evolution were observed among the different ethylene inhibitors and ethrel treatments both at 20 and 40 dai (table 1 and 2). in all the treatments the rate of methane evolved at 20 dai was much higher than that evolved at 40 dai. the absolute amounts (rate) of methane evolved was not related to the plb’s production response at both 20 and 40 dai. in general, at 40 dai when the evolution of methane is more than 1.0 nano mole per gram fw h-1 (agno 3 2 µm and all ethrel treatments) succulent, vitrified and deformed structures other than plb’s were produced (plate 1). these tissues latter turned brown and died. ethylene production was observed in all ethrel treatments only, but could not be detected in ethylene inhibitor treatments. the amount of ethylene evolved was observed to increase with the increase in concentration of ethrel at both 20 and 40 dai (table 1 and 2). table 1: effect of various ethylene inhibitors and ethrel on production of plb’s, fresh weight, dry weight, methane and ethylene at 20 dai ethylene inhibitors no. of plb’s/ fresh weight dry weight n moles g-1 fw h-1 culture tube (mg) (mg) methane ethylene silver nitrate 2 µm 5.17 (2.38)e 92.05ef 10.03de 1.347g nd silver nitrate 5 µm 26.17 (5.15)a 167.30a 14.71a 0.999g nd silver nitrate20 µm 13.17 (3.69)c 135.50bc 12.65abc 1.315g nd cobalt chloride 2 µm 21.50 (4.68)b 158.06ab 14.53ab 2.307ef nd cobalt chloride 5 µm 11.83 (3.50)cd 123.00cd 11.68cd 2.758de nd cobalt chloride 20 µm 9.83 (3.19)d 131.75c 12.45abcd 1.253g nd salicylic acid 2 µm 6.67 (2.67)e 115.07cde 12.16bcd 5.810a nd salicylic acid 5 µm 6.67 (2.67)e 112.08cde 10.93cde 4.473b nd salicylic acid 20 µm 12.00 (3.52)cd 106.53de 10.77cde 1.908f nd ethrel 0.7 µm 1.50 (1.40)f 80.03fg 9.17ef 2.100f 0.158b ethrel 1.4 µm 0.00 (0.71)g 78.06fg 8.95ef 3.254cd 0.161b ethrel 14 µm 0.00 (0.71)g 67.33g 7.57f 3.610c 1.654a ms basal + bap 4.44 µm (control) 13.67 (3.75)c 156.47ab 14.25ab 2.380ef nd c.d. (p=0.05) 0.323 24.337 2.402 0.559 0.174 means followed by common letters within a column are non-significant at 5% figures in parentheses indicate transformed values; nd : not detected table 2. effect of various ethylene inhibitors and ethrel on production of plb’s, fresh weight, dry weight, methane and ethylene at 40 dai ethylene inhibitors no. of plb’s/ fresh weight dry weight n moles g-1 fw h-1 culture tube (mg) (mg) methane ethylene silver nitrate 2 µm 9.33 (3.13)e 207.00e 16.03e 1.055bc nd silver nitrate 5 µm 44.17 (6.65)a 854.69a 67.54a 0.364g nd silver nitrate20 µm 32.17 (5.70)b 616.86bc 48.42bc 0.521efg nd cobalt chloride 2 µm 40.50 (6.39)a 700.02b 54.54b 0.418fg nd cobalt chloride 5 µm 26.50 (5.19)cd 504.84cd 38.36cd 0.375g nd cobalt chloride 20 µm 22.67 (4.80)d 634.03bc 49.93b 0.349g nd salicylic acid 2 µm 11.50 (3.46)e 630.02bc 49.49b 0.646def nd salicylic acid 5 µm 10.00 (3.23)e 458.05d 36.10d 0.730de nd salicylic acid 20 µm 28.50 (5.36)bc 587.21bcd 44.35bcd 0.874cd nd ethrel 0.7 µm 2.17 (1.56)f 136.78e 14.36e 1.183b 0.085c ethrel 1.4 µm 0.00 (0.71)g 103.22e 11.97e 1.287b 0.199b ethrel 14 µm 0.00 (0.71)g 80.91e 9.85e 1.518a 0.265a ms basal + bap 4.44 µm (control) 25.67 (5.07) cd 597.83 bc 45.93bcd 0.680de nd c.d. . (p=0.05) 0.443 138.02 10.145 0.241 0.028 means followed by common letters within a column are non-significant at 5% figures in parentheses indicate transformed values. nd : not detected influence of growth regulators in orchid tissue culture j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 13-18, 2007 16 ethylene produced by plant tissue (explant)/tissue grown in vitro may accumulate in large quantities in the culture vessels and hence, likely to influence the growth and development in such system. there are several reports in literature which support that ethylene influences callus growth, shoot regeneration and somatic embryogenesis in vitro (biddington, 1992; sankhla et al, 1995). surprisingly no ethylene could be detected in the control treatment. such a result would suggest either ethylene has no role in plbs production or no detectable ethylene evolution occurred as a result of interaction between explant and ms medium supplemented with bap (4.44 µm). however when ethylene was supplemented to the media in the form of ethrel it resulted in significant levels of ethylene evolution. in these ethrel treatments plbs production was arrested and plb’s formed were deformed, succulent and vitrified and even these tissues turned brown within next 20-30 days. thus, this clearly indicates that, ethylene adversely effects plb/multiple shoot formation. ethylene in the culture medium supplemented to control treatment, however, did not prevent methane accumulation. in fact methane evolution at 40 dai measurement was significantly higher (more than 100% increase) than control treatment. the efficiency of plb production varied with the ethylene inhibitors tested. most ethylene inhibitor treatments significantly increased the plb production. number of protocorm like bodies produced was observed to be dependant on the specific ethylene inhibitor and concentration of inhibitor used. for instance, enhanced plb production was observed only in 5 µm agno 3 (% increase 72.07), 2 µm cocl 2 (% increase 57.77) followed by 20 µm agno 3 (% increase 25.32) at 40 dai. it is interesting to note that other ethylene inhibitor treatments recorded either significantly lower plb production or on par with control. in these treatments no significant amount of ethylene was detected and reasons for the specific concentration response is not known. blocking the conversion of acc to ethylene by ethylene inhibitors (agno 3 , cocl 2 and salicylic acid) inhibiting the acc oxidase was studied extensively by several workers. addition of agno 3 promoted shoot bud regeneration in wheat and tobacco (purnhauser et al, 1987), in brassica (palmer, 1992), in rice (adkins et al, 1993), in silk tree (sankhla et al, 1995), in muskmelon (yadav et al, 1996) and in potato (zobayed et al, 2001; naik et al, 2003). inhibition of ethylene production by cocl 2 resulting in increased shoot regeneration was reported, for instance in brassica oleracea (sethi et al, 1990); in brassica campestris (palmer, 1992); in pearl millet (pius et al, 1993) and in silk tree (sankhla et al, 1995). inhibition of ethylene production by salicylic acid was reported in carrot (roustan et al, 1992) and in brassica campestris (palmer, 1992). critical evaluation of ethylene inhibitor and ethrel treatments indicates presence of methane at varying concentrations. in all the treatments, ethylene evolution was suppressed. methane level higher than 1 n mol g-1 fw h-1 at concentration (ìm) 2.0 5.0 20.0 concentration (ìm) 0.7 1.4 14.0 saiprasad and raghuveer j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 13-18, 2007 concentration (ìm) 2.0 5.0 20.0 concentration (ìm) 2.0 5.0 20.0 fig 1. effect of various ethylene inhibitors and ethrel supplements to ms basal +bap 4.44 µm on production of plb’s/multiple shoots by frctionated plb explants of dendrobium sonia at 40 dai 17 40 dai has inhibited plb development and promoted either callus or vitrified deformed plb production. this study raises a few questions, i.e., what is the source (primary and secondary substrate) of methane production in ethylene inhibitor treatments? absence of ethylene in these treatments suggests that in the orchid system production of acc particularly from s-adenosyl methionine could be severely inhibited. it is speculated that acc synthase, may be absent or inactive leading to negligible synthesis of acc. however, it has to be experimentally verified. the fact that ethylene action/biosynthesis inhibitors particularly agno 3 and cocl 2 has enhanced effect on plb’s production, which also supports acc is not formed in the orchid system. it has also to be experimentally verified, (i) what methane concentration would be beneficial for plb’s production/multiple shoot production and (ii) what methane concentration contributes to callus/vitrified or deformed plb’s production. (iii) why only methane was evolved at the exclusion of ethylene in this orchid system. the efficiency of production of protocorm like bodies can be increased by supplementing ethylene inhibitors like agno 3 (5 µm) or cocl 2 (2 µm) to ms basal + bap 4.44 µm medium. however, poor plb’s production in ethrel treatments indicated that ethylene in the culture medium could adversely affect plb’s production in this orchid. acknowledgement the senor author thanks all the members of the plant tissue culture laboratory in the division of plant physiology at indian agricultural research institute (iari), new delhi, for their constant support and help in carrying out this work. he also acknowledges indian council of agricultural research (icar) for providing financial assistance in the form of senior research fellowship (srf) for carrying out his doctoral work at iari, new delhi. references adkins, s. w., ratchanee,k., gray, s. j. and adkins, a. l. 1993. effect of ethylene and culture environment on rice callus proliferation. j. exptl. bot., 44: 1829-1835. biddington, n. l. 1992. the influence of ethylene in plant tissue culture. pl. gr. regulation.11: 173-187. chandra, r., khetarpal, s. and polisetty, r. 1997. effect of plant growth regulators on evolution of ethylene and methane by different explants of chickpea. biol. plant., 40 : 337-343. gomez k. a. and gomez a. a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research, 2nd edition, john wiley and sons, new york. hagege, d., kevers, c., genus., j. and gaspar, t. 1994. ethylene production and polyamine content of fully habituated sugar beet calli. j. pl. physiol., 143: 722725. malabadi, r. b., mulgund, g. s. and kallappa, n. 2005. micropropagation of dendrobium nobile from shoot tip section. j. pl. physiol., 162: 473-478. murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. plant. 15: 473-497. mustafa, m. d., parthasarathy, m. and mallaiah, b. 1991. methyl methane sulphonate (mms) induced multiple shoot from cotyledon cultures of cucumber (cucumis sativus l. var .pointsett.). adv. pl. sci., 4: 419-422. naik, p. s., chanemougasoundaram, a. and sarkar, d. 2003. effect of cobalt chloride on potato micropropagation. j. ind. potato assocn., 30: 33-34. palmer, c. e. 1992. enhanced shoot regeneration from brassica campestris by silver nitrate. pl. cell rep., 11: 541-545. pius, j., george, l., eapen, s. and rao, p. s. 1993. enhanced plant regeneration in pearlmillet (pennisetum americanum) by ethylene inhibitors and cefotaxime. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 32: 91-96. purnhauser, l., medgyesy, p., czaka, m., dix, p.j. and marton, l. 1987. stimulation of shoot regeneration in triticum aestivum and nicotiana plumbaginifolia viv. tissue cultures using the ethylene inhibitor agno 3 . pl. cell rep., 6: 1-4. redenbaugh, k., viss, p. r., slade, d. and fujii, j. a. 1987. scale-up artificial seeds in : plant tissue and cell culture. green, c. e., somess, d. a., haekett, w. p. and bicsbor, d. d. (eds.). alan r liss, new york, pp 473-493. roustan, j. p., latche, a. and fallot, j. 1989. stimulation of daucus carota somatic embryogenesis by inhibitors of ethylene synthesis; cobalt and nickel. pl. cell rep., 8: 182-185. roustan, j. p., latche, a. and fallot, j. 1990. control of carrot somatic embryogenesis by agno 3 , an inhibitor of ethylene action : effect on arginine decarboxylase. pl. sci., 67 :89-95. roustan, j. p., latche, a. and fallot, j. 1992. influence of ethylene on the incorporation of 3,4(c 14 ) methionine into polyamines in daucus carota cells during somatic embryogenesis. pl. physiol. biochem., 30: 201-205. saiprasad, g. v. s., subba rao, i. v. and veera reddy, p. influence of growth regulators in orchid tissue culture j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 13-18, 2007 18 2001. in vitro propagation of orchid – dendrobium ‘sonia’. ind. j. pl. physiol., 6: 284-288. sankhla, d., sankhla, n. and davis, t. d. 1995. promotion of in vitro shoot formation from excised roots of silk tree by an oxime ether derivative and other ethylene inhibitors. pl. cell rep., 15: 143-146. sethi, u., basu, a. and mukherjee, s. g. 1990. control of cell proliferation and differentiation by modulators of ethylene biosynthesis and action in brassica hypocotyl explants. pl. sci., 69: 225-229. yadav, r. c., saleh, m. t. and grumet, r. 1996. high frequency shoot regeneration from leaf explants of muskmelon. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 45: 207-214. zobayed, s. m. a., armstrong, j. and armstrong, w. 2001. micropropagation of potato: evaluation of closed, diffusive and forced ventilation on growth and tuberization. ann. bot., 87: 53-57. saiprasad and raghuveer j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 13-18, 2007 (ms received 15 september 2006, revised 4 june 2007) final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 237 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 237-244, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction turmeric (curcuma longa l.), revered as “golden spice”, is a r hizoma tous cr op belonging to zingiberaceae family. the crop is native to tropical southeast asian region (ferreira et al., 2013). india is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of this crop. the economic produce of the crop is the processed dried rhizome which varies in color from lemon yellow to dark orange. the earthy flavor of turmeric is contributed by its essential oil (eo) constituents. the turmeric eo is compr ised of monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes compounds, namely, ar-turmerone, curlone, β-sesquiphellandrene, αphellendr ene, a r-cur cumene, α-ter pinolene, βcaryophyllene, etc. leela et al. (2002) reported that eo of turmeric rhizome grown in kerala, india contained ar-turmerone (31.1 %), curlone (10.6 %) and ar-curcumene (6.3 %) as the main components. many factors namely genotypes/varieties, soil type, clima te, a ltitudina l va ria tion, etc. decides the differential accumulation of these terpenoids resulting in non-uniform flavor profile of turmeric (anandaraj et al., 2014).the turmeric rhizome eo is reported to have numerous biological activities. it is reported to have anti-oxidant, anti-hyperlipidemic, hypoglycemic, anti-diabetic, cytotoxic, anti-inflammatory, antiarthritic, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, antibacterial and anti-fungal activities. (dosoky and setzer, 2018). ma ny studies have proven the effectiveness of elic it or s like c hitos a n, c a r r a geena n, s odiu m alginate, salicylic acid and others to improve the essential oil components in medicinal and aromatic plants (ahmed et al., 2020; shabbir et al., 2017). due to its numerous beneficial bio-activities, the need arises to increase the bioactive essential oil constituents in turmeric rhizome. based on the above facts, the study was conducted to test the hypothesis that the foliar application of elicitors like chitosan, salicylic acid and phenylalanine in t u r mer ic wo u ld inc r ea s e t he es s ent ia l oil constituents in its rhizome. elicitors induced changes in essential oil constituents of turmeric (curcuma longa l.) rhizome sivaranjani r.* and zachariah t.j. division of crop production and post-harvest technology, icar – indian institute of spices research, kozhikode 673012, kerala, india *corresponding author e-mail : ranjanigop@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted at iisr, kozhikode to study the effect of foliar application of chemical elicitors, namely, chitosan (100, 200 and 500 ppm), phenylalanine (0.1, 1 and 10 mm) and salicylic acid (0.01, 0.1 and 1 mm) on volatile constituents of turmeric rhizome essential oil (eo). three genotypes (pragati, rajapuri and acc.849) which vary in growth duration and volatile profile were taken for the study in randomized block design with three replications. the highest eo content in pragati (6%) and acc. 849 (5.3%) was found in phenylalanine (1 mm) treatment. no significant changes in eo content were observed in the genotype rajapuri. phenylalanine and salicylic acid were found to have positive influence on ar-turmerone, the major sesquiterpenoid in pragati. acc.849 and rajapuri did not produce any significant changes to ar-turmerone content in elicitor treated samples. moreover, the treatment related variation in the total monoterpenes and total sesquiterpene content was found significant among the genotypes. multivariate analysis using partial least square discriminant analysis supported the variation observed among the treatments and variable importance in projection score identified the metabolites responsible for variation among treatments. keywords: chitosan, essential oil, phenylalanine and salicylic acid 238 sivaranjani and zachariah j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 237-244, 2022 materials and methods plant material and treatments the experiment was conducted at icar indian institute of spices research (iisr), kozhikode, kerala at rainfed condition in randomized block design with three r eplications. t he soil pa r ameters of the experimental plot were as follows: ph (4.3-4.6); organic carbon content (2.0-2.1 %) and n, p and k content in the range of 235-272 kg/ha, 10-23 kg/ha and 344-503 kg/ha, respectively. average minimum and maximum temperatures were 23.8 and 31.9 º c with mean annual rainfall of 2313 mm. three different varieties/genotypes namely pragati (a short-duration dwarf variety released from icar – iisr), rajapuri (traded variety from central indian region) and acc. 849 (germplasm collection from sangli region of maharashtra) which have inherent variation in the content of essential oil constituents were selected for the study. the experiment included the treatments viz., 1. control, 2. c1 chitosan at 100 ppm, 3. c2 chitosan at 200 ppm, 4. c3 chitosan at 500 ppm, 5. p1 phenylalanine at 0.1 mm, 6. p2 phenylalanine at 1 mm, 7. p3 phenylalanine at 10 mm, 8. s1 salicylic acid at 0.01 ml, 9. s2 salicylic acid at 0.1 mm, 10. s3 salicylic acid at 1 mm. the stock solutions of elicitors, chitosan (cht) at 2000 ppm, salicylic acid (sa) and phenylalanine (phe) solution at 100 mm concentration each were prepared and different dilutions were made freshly with 0.02 % tween 20 on the day of spray. the elicitors were sprayed at rhizome development stage, i.e. 120-150 dap depending upon the growth duration of the genotypes. plants sprayed with 0.02 % tween 20 ser ved a s the contr ol. once the a bove gr ound vegetative parts are dried, rhizomes are harvested, cleaned, cured by boiling them in hot water and dried in the sun for two weeks until the moisture content of the samples were brought down to 10-12 %. hydro-distillation and gc-ms analysis of volatile constituents hydro-distillation of essential oil from the dried and powdered rhizomes were done as per the method prescribed in aoac, 2005. the separation and identifica tion of eo constituents were done in shimadzu gc/ms fitted with rtx-5 (5 % phenyl and 95 % di-methyl polysiloxane) column with the dimension of 30 m x 0.25 mm x 0.25 μm. the temperature programming of the column was set as follows: 60° c for 5 min, then gradient increase to 110° c at the rate of 5° c min-1, to 200° c at the rate of 3° c min-1 and finally to 240° c at the rate of 5° c min-1 with hold time of 3 minutes. ion source and interface temperature was set as 220° c and 240° c, respectively. other operational parameters include column oven temper a tur e a t 60° c, injection temperature at 250° c and helium flow rate at 1.0 ml/ min. the eo was injected in split mode (split ratio – 1:160) and ion fragments in the range of 40 – 650 m/ z were scanned with a scan speed of 1428. the mass spectra of the components were compared with the standard mass spectral library of nist/wiley and identified by similarity search (adams, 2007). the identification was confirmed based on their retention indices calculated using the formula suggested by vanden-dool and kratz (1963) by injecting homologous series of n-alkanes standard (c8-c40). statistical analysis the data were analysed in sas software and the treatment means (± s.e.) were compared by duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt) (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05). multivariate analysis namely partial least square discriminant analysis (pls-da) was conducted on the identified metabolites using metaboanalyst 5.0. metabolites with significant differences among treatments were identified based on the variable importance in projection (vip) scores (xia and wishart, 2011). results and discussion the essential oil content of turmeric genotypes showed significant variation in response to elicitor treatment (fig 1). in the genotype pragati, the treatments p3, c2 and s2 showed 13, 11 and 5 % increase in eo content, respectively over control. whereas, rajapuri genotype did not produce any statistically significant increase in the treated plants. in the genotype acc.849, the treatments p3 (9 %) and s1 (9 %) has given significant increase in eo content as compared to control. by comparing the results, variation towards elicitors influence were found among the genotypes studied. phenylalanine and salicylic acid treatments were effective in the genotype pragati and acc. 849 whereas, chitosan increased the eo content in pragati. our results were in consonance with earlier reported results of various crops (pirbalouti et al., 2019; poorgadhir et al., 2020). researchers all over the world tried to influence the terpenoid pathway to 239 fig. 1. essential oil content of elicitor treated turmeric rhizomes (** indicates significant (p<0.01) differences among treatments) elicitors induced changes in essential oil constituents of turmeric enhance the volatile profiles of industrially relevant crops. the augmented production of terpenoids without transgenic approaches could be achieved in a limited extent using the application of elicitors (hussain et al., 2012; ahmed et al., 2020). the elicitors increased the content of essential oil by increasing photosynthetic carbon assimilation products as well as increasing the expression of key enzymes involved in terpenoid biosynthetic pathway (srivastava et al., 1990; ahmed et al., 2020; vosoughi et al., 2020). few studies were available on the effect of chitosan, salicylic acid and phenylalanine on growth, physiology and curcumin content of turmeric, but our study is a first report on elicitor’s effect on turmeric’s volatile constituents. the eo constituents analyzed using gc-ms threw more light on the effect of these elicitors on major volatile aroma compounds of turmeric rhizome. the statistically analyzed full data set is available in tables s1-s3. major sesquiterpenoid compounds identified in the eos of genotypes used in the study were arturmerone (principal aromatic sesquiterpenoid), cur lone (a lso known a s β-tur mer one), βsesquiphellandrene, ar-curcumene, germacrone and zingiberene. among monoterpene compounds, αphellandrene, α-terpinolene, 1,8 cineole and cymene8-ol occupied significant share in the turmeric eo. in the genotype pragati, relative peak area percentage of α-terpinolene showed significant increase in c2 (3.57 %) and c3 (3.54 %) as compared to control (3.29 %). all other treatments showed significant reduction of this compound. elicitor treatments increased the content of ar-turmerone with the highest content detected in s3 (51.68 %) followed by p1 (51.49 %). phenylalanine and salicylic acid were found to have positive influence on ar-turmerone content. the sesquiter penoid compounds cur lone a nd sesquiphellandrene has showed mutual exclusivity in chitosan treatments where former showed significant reduction whereas later showed significant increase in the content (c1 7.56%; c2 7.13 % and c3 7.24 %) as compared to control (6.93 %). chitosan treatments also produced significant increase in zingiberene content (c1 – 7.22 %; c2 – 6.58 % and c 3 – 6. 75 %). t hese two sesquiter penoids, sesquiphellandrene and zingiberene was responsible for the modest increase in its content in chitosan treated plants (fig. 2). in ra ja pur i genotype, ma jor monoter penoid compounds, α-terpinolene and 1,8-cineole did not produce significant variation among treatments. the content of ar-turmerone was also not significant among treatments. on the contrary, the content of curlone was increased in p3 as compared to control. salicylic acid j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 237-244, 2022 240 treatments produced some noticeable changes in the content of β-sesquiphellandrene and germacrone content as other treatments are either on par or registered lower content as compared to control. the influence of elicitors on monoterpene and sesquiterpene groups was also found negligible in this genotype (fig. 2). overall, influence of elicitors on volatile profile of this genotype is minimum. in the genotype acc.849, the main monoterpene compound α-terpinolene showed significant reduction in its content in elicitor treated plants as compared to control. the content of 1,8-cineole was the highest in salicylic acid treatment. treatment related significant increase or decrease was not noted down in the content of ar-turmerone. likewise, except in c1 (6.24 %), all other treatments did not exhibit changes in the content of curlone. another major sesquiterpene compound, βsesquiphellandrene showed significant increase in p1 (16.57 %) and p2 (15.95 %) treatments over control (14.93 %). likewise, p2 (24.57 %) showed significant increase of zingiberene content over control (22.88 %). by comparing the results, the phenylalanine treatments had good influence on the volatile content of the genotype acc.849. the phenylalanine treatment produced significant decrease in monoterpene content in this genotype. on the other hand, salicylic acid produced increase in total monoterpene compounds with subsequent r eduction in sesquiter penoid compounds (fig. 2) in this genotype. the 2d plot of pls-da showed more pronounced treatment related variation in the genotype pragati and acc.849 (fig. 3). in the genotype pragati, p1 treatment group is found distinct and distant from all other group. likewise, c1 treatment also showed distinct grouping as compared to other groups. when this was compared with vip score, we found that compounds like ar-curcumene, zingiberene, β-sesquiphellandrene, ar-turmerone, α-bergamotane, α-bisabolene, curlone, α-himachalane and nerolidol with score >1 are the source of variation among the treatment groups. the previous results of absence of major influence of elicitors on the volatile constituents of the genotype rajapuri was confirmed in the pls-da also. the 2d score plot of this genotype showed no distinct grouping of any treatments compared to control. if sesquiterpene compounds dominated the variation caused in the genotype pr agati, the equa l influence of some monoterpene a nd sesquiterpene compounds a re observed in acc.849. compounds with >1 vip score ar e isobor neol, α-phella ndrene, 4-terpineol, βfa rnasene, α-humulene, curlone, α-ter pinolene, camphor, 1, 8 cineole, nerolidol, ar-curcumene and cymene. in the 2d score plot, the treatments c1 and sivaranjani and zachariah j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 237-244, 2022 fig. 2. monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes content of elicitor treated turmeric rhizomes 241 p1 showed distinct grouping as compared to control and other treatment groups. the results of multivariate analysis confirmed the differential influence of elicitors on volatile constituents for the three genotypes studied. our research finding of increased eo content in elicitor treated plants were supported by previous studies which showed that foliar application of elicitors like chitosa n, salicylic acid a nd phenyla la nine increased the quantity and quality of essential oil in different crops (reham et al., 2016; ahmed et al., 2019; garde-cerdán et al., 2018; alizadeh et al., 2020; goudarzian et al., 2020; momeni et al., 2020). foliar application of chitosan not only enhanced eo content but also increased the concentrations of monoterpene compounds namely limonene, 1,8cineole, β-thujone and α-humulene in sage plant (vosoughi et al., 2018). similar results were observed in our study in the genotype pragati. fig. 3. 2d score plot of pls-da analysis of elicitor treated turmeric rhizomes a) pragati b) rajapuri c) acc.849 the foliar spray of phenylalanine as growth regulator and elicitor to improve the volatile profiling of few crops were available. in grapes, foliar spray of phenylalanine increased the relative content of volatile compounds such as benzyl alcohol, total benzenoids (aromatic compounds) and total positive compounds wherea s tota l ter penoids a nd hexen-1-ol wer e decreased as compared to control (garde-cerdán et al. , 2018). in our study a lso, we found tha t phenylalanine treatment increased the content of βsesquiphellandrene and zingiberene in the genotype acc.849 and increased the content of ar-turmerone in the genotype pragati. phenylalanine application increased not only the growth and metabolism of cr ops, but a lso the biosynthesis of seconda r y metabolites including terpenoids (gonda et al., 2018; poorghadir et al., 2020). elsayed et al. (2022) reported that foliar spray of phenylalanine increased elicitors induced changes in essential oil constituents of turmeric j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 237-244, 2022 242 the monoterpene hydrocarbons in bitter fennel, which was not observed in our study. alternately, we found increase in sesquiterpenoid hydrocarbon content in phenylalanine treatment especially in pragati and acc.849 genotypes. likewise, foliar spray of salicylic acid was reported to improve the eo yield and constituents by increasing the growth, nutrient uptake and induction of enzymes involved in terpenoid biosynthesis (pirbalouti et al., 2014; mohammadi et al., 2019). our study also found the positive influence of sa licylic a cid on sesquiterpenoid in general and ar-turmerone content in particular in the genotype pragati. momeni et al. (2020) studied the effect of foliar spray of chitosan and salicylic acid on eo content and constituents of mediterranean thyme (thymbra spicata l.). they reported that the content of carvacrol, the predominant essential oil constituent is also increased in the plants sprayed with salicylic acid and chitosan. the increase in volatile constituents like ar-turmerone, curlone and β-sesquiphellandrane observed in our study is in congr uence with a b ove mentioned literatures. we also observed increase in photosynthetic pigments and photosynthetic rate with the elicitor application (sivaranjani et al., 2022) in turmeric which could have increased the supply of base carbon compounds to terpenoid biosynthesis. being a vegetatively propagated crop, genetic improvement to increase beneficial volatile constituents in turmeric rhizome is a limiting factor which could be alleviated by elicitor application to considerable extent. our study was first of its kind in this direction by including varied turmeric genotypes in the field experiment. since this is an open field experiment under natural growing conditions, the concentration-dependent decrease or increase in volatile constituents were not observed in our study. conclusion the influence of different elicitors was not uniform among different genotypes. the study concluded that the short duration turmeric genotype, pragati has responded well with respect to eo content by elicitors application. phenylalanine treatments increased the percentage of sesquiterpenoids in pragati and acc.849 genotypes. chitosan at 200 ppm, phenylalanine at 1 mm and salicylic acid at 0.1 mm could be sprayed to incr ea se the a r-tur mer one content in these genotypes. references adams, r. p. 2007. identification of essential oil components by gas chromatography/ mass spectrometry, 4th edn., allured publishing co. aoac. 2005. official methods of analysis. 18th edn., aoac international, rockville, md. ahmed, k. b. m., khan, m. m. a., jahan, a., 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vosoughi, n., gomarian, m., pirbalouri, a. g., khaghani, s. h. and malekpoor, f. 2020. the effects of water deficit stress and chitosan on cineole synthase gene expression and 1, 8cineole content in sage (salvia officinalis). modern genetics journal, 14(4): 327-336. vosoughi, n., gomarian, m., pirbalouti, a. g., khaghani, s. and malekpoor, f. 2018. essential oil composition and total phenolic, flavonoid contents and antioxidant activity of sage (salvia officinalis l.) extract under chitosan application and irrigation frequencies. ind. crops prod., 117: 366-374. xia, j. and wishart, d. s. 2011. web-based inference of biological patterns, functions and pathways from metabolomic data using metaboanalyst. nature protocols,6(6): 743-760. 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf effects of shade on microclimate, canopy characteristics and light integrals in dry season field-grown cocoa (theobroma cacao l.) seedlings *s. agele, b. famuwagun and a. ogunleye department of crop, soil & pest management federal university of technology, akure, nigeria *e-mail: ohiagele@yahoo.com abstract effect of shade regimes on gradients of microclimate, canopy extent (leaf area index: lai) and light integrals in dry season field-grown cocoa (cacao) seedlings was investigated in a rainforest zone of nigeria. the shade regimes tested were: unshaded/open-to-sun, dense shade and moderate shade. shade intensity affected solar radiation transmission through cacao canopy, photosynthetic active radiation (par) and canopy light attenuation (extinction coefficient, k). intensity of transmitted radiation below the canopy from incident radiation was highest for open-to-sun, followed by moderate and dense shade, respectively. the temporal trend of intercepted radiation showed that intercepted radiation increased from december to may, and, the values were highest for open-to-sun, followed by moderate and dense shade. the ratio of transmitted (io) to incident (i) radiation (io/i) was higher for open sun. significant differences were found between open-to-sun (unshaded) and moderate and dense shade intensity for value of canopy extinction coefficient (k). the association of growing degree days (gdd), and, total leaf number (tln) and leaf area index (lai), were characterized by high coefficient of determination (r2) for the respective open, dense and moderate shade treatments. inverse of the slope of the regression of relationship between estimated thermal time (ocdays) and corresponding total leaf number (tln) denotes leaf appearance rate (phyllochron, in ocdays/leaf). rate of leaf appearance was faster in open sun compared with to that in moderate or dense shade intensity. characteristics of the cacao canopy development were measured by leaf area index (lai), a parameter which affects the intercepted photosynthetic active radiation (par). higher lai was obtained in no shade (open sun) compared to that in moderate or dense shade treatments. unshaded plants had a higher radiation use efficiency (rue) and rue values were significantly higher compared to the other two treatments. low light intensity and lai for under-storey cacao had negative implications for growth and biomass development. air temperatures within the cacao field were highest for open sun cacao, followed by moderate and dense shade, respectively; the values increased from december to april, with peak values seen in april. key words: cacao, cocoa, shade, canopy, lai, extinction, radiation, temperature, drought j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 introduction cocoa (cacao), as a major cash crop in nigeria, has contributed immensely to the country’s economy. for instance, it has since become the second largest foreign exchange earner after crude oil (sanusi et al, 2006; oluyole and kayode, 2010) and has provided jobs for people. in fact, the crop has engaged about ten million persons, who live and work in the cocoa belt (sanusi et al, 2006). the modest growth in nigeria’s cocoa sub-sector has, however, been traced among other things to favourable weather conditions (kohler et al, 2010). cocoa is highly susceptible to drought and, hence, its cropping pattern is related to rainfall distribution. annual total rainfall in the cocoa growing region of west africa is less than 2000 mmbimodal rainfall distribution pattern (anim-kwapong and frimpong, 2005). the dry and hot weather of about 3 months results in soil water deficit that can affect cocoa seedlings establishment in field. however, irrigation can be introduced during the establishment phase to minimize seedling mortality, especially, in the dry season characterized by little or no rainfall. drip irrigation is economical and effective in water management, as, it increases soil moisture availability to meet the crop’s demand for growth and yield (animkwapong and frimpong, 2005). cacao is a shade-tolerant species where appropriate shading can lead to adequate photosynthetic rate, growth and seed yield (alex-alan et al, 2007). shading also helps reduce the effects of unfavourable ecological factors such 48 as low soil-fertility, wind velocity and excessive evapotranspiration (miyaji et al, 1997). the trees used for shade greatly contribute to the pool of soil organic matter, carbon sequestration and maintenance of biodiversity (lobao et al, 2007). in regions with low access to inorganic fertilizers, specifically, the multi-strata plantation that provides shade is used for maintaining soil fertility, with subsequent increase in nutrient availability in cacao (isaac et al, 2007). trees used for shading also reduce wind speed and evapotranspiration (beer et al, 1998), consequently, decreasing humidity stress during the dry season (anim-kwapong, 2003). this is essential for survival and establishment of cocoa seedlings in the dry and seasonally humid environments, since, these are highly susceptible to dehydration (alex-alan et al, 2007). cocoa is intercropped around the world in planned systems with other species of economic value (almeida et al, 2002). in ghana and ivory coast, for example, 50% of the total cacao farm area is under mild shade, whilst, an average of 10% in ghana and 35% in ivory coast is managed under no shade (padi and owusu, 1998). in a shade and fertilizer trial conducted with amazon cocoa over a 20-year period in ghana, yield of heavily shaded plots was about half as that under non-shade treatment (ahenkorah et al, 1987). despite this, the authors inferred that the economically viable life of an unshaded amelonado cocoa farm in ghana may not be over 15 years of intensive cropping. this means that cocoa can be produced without shade (under open sun), with adequate management practices, and, water and nutrient replenishment (alex-alan et al, 2007). although shade is commonly used for improving the establishment and growth of crops (beer, 1987; pilar, 2005), there is inadequate knowledge on the combined effects of shade and irrigation on cacao in nigeria. the specific objectives in this study were to examine the effect of shade and irrigation regime on the gradients of microclimate, canopy extent (leaf area index, lai) and light integrals of field-grown cacao seedlings in the dry season in a rainforest zone of nigeria. material and methods experimental site and conditions the experiment was conducted using one-year-old field-grown cacao seedlings that were irrigated during the previous dry season (january 2012 to april 2013) of the first year of planting. the study was carried out on the research farm of department of crop, soil and pest management, federal university of technology, akure, located in the southern part of ondo state, nigeria, at latitude 7º18’ and longitude 5º8’. the treatments imposed were 3 by 2 factorial combinations of shade regimes (open sun, dense and moderate), and irrigation intervals of 5 and 10-days, arranged in split-plot design. the shade regime encompassed the main plot, while irrigation intervals constituted the subplot treatment. twenty cacao seedlings were selected per plot at random and tagged, from the dense-shaded, open sun and moderate-shaded plots. shade was provided by a plantain crop planted densely for the dense-shade plot, in scattered form for the moderate-shade plot, and none for the open sun plot. a gravity-drip irrigation system was laid out in the field for application of water to the cacao seedlings at 5day intervals. the gravity-drip irrigation system included a pumping machine with a good water source, pipes, drip lines, overhead tank (with stand) and pressure control valves, at the onset of the experiment. irrigation water was discharged via point source emitters on drip lines laterally installed per row of the plot. plant leaf area and canopy extinction coefficient the beer–lambert law describes absorption of light by plant pigments in solution. this function demonstrates that absorption of light will be more or less exponential with increase in intercepting area down through the canopy. extinction (attenuation of light through the canopy) is affected by changing availability, quality and direction of incident light and, thus, proportion of the light intercepted by the canopy. light extinction coefficient (k), according to the beer–lambert law (as modified by sheehy and cooper, 1973), is: k = [log e (i / io)] /lai…………4 k = -ln (i io) / lai …………...5 where i and io are irradiance values upon and under the canopy, respectively, and lai is leaf area index of leaves causing light attenuation, and k is the extinction coefficient or slope of the curve when the natural log (in) i/ io is plotted against lai. agele et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 49 cacao leaf area index (lai) and canopy light integrals (incident, transmitted and absorbed radiation, the ratio of radiation measurements below and above the canopy and par) were measured using lai2000 (plant canopy analyzer model, delta t, uk) equipment. to avoid error in non-destructive lai measurements caused by direct solar radiation, measurements with lai2000 were conducted only at dawn, or, when the sky was completely overcast during the day. number of leaves per plant was estimated as the product of time period (days) over which leaves were initiated, and, average rate of leaf appearance (rla) was obtained by dividing this by total leaf number (tln). rate of leaf appearance (phyllochron) was calculated as inverse slope of the regression that determined leaf appearance rate (phyllochron in ocd/leaf). the growing degree days (gdd) (accumulated thermal time: ocd) attained during growth (period of experiment) was calculated from the daily maximum (tmax) and minimum (tmin) temperatures measured at the meteorological station located 500m from the experimental site. values for cardinal temperatures for cacao are: base (tb) = 15ºc; optimum (to) = 22ºc, and maximum (tm) = 34ºc. the cardinal temperatures used were 15ºc for base temperature (below which no development takes place) and 34ºc for maximum temperature (above which development is zero). growing degree days (gdd) value was computed during the growth of cacao using the following algorithm: gdd = σ([tmax + topt] * day 1-x /2) tb ………..6 where tmax represents maximum air temperature, topt represents optimum temperature, and tb represents base (minimum) temperature in cacao; 1-x represents time intervals during which measurements were made (day one to the last day). calculation of the gdd considers a linear, ascending function between the base and optimum temperatures, and, a linear, descending function between optimum and maximum temperatures. the degree days calculated and summed over duration of the experiment (133 days from mid-december to april) gave thermal time accumulated during growth. the calculation considers a linear, ascending function between the base and optimum temperatures, and, a linear, descending function between optimum and maximum temperatures. in addition, coefficient of light extinction was computed from lai 2000 (plant canopy analyzer model) equipment as the ratio of solar radiation measured below and above the canopy. growth parameters in cacao growth parameters on which data were collected includedd cacao seedling height measured from the base of the cacao to the apical shoot using meter rule; stem girth (collar diameter of the seedling) measured using vernier callipers; and, number of leaves, branches and flowers per plant. growth parameters were assessed at the onset of irrigation (december, 2013) and at the termination of irrigation (april, 2013); number of flowers per plant was assessed in february, april and june 2013, respectively. other variables derived from measurements observed were: growing degree days (gdd), leaf area index (lai), photosynthetic active radiation (par), transmitted radiation, and canopy extinction coefficient (k). table 1 shows the activities on field, with respective dates. data analysis data collected were subjected to analysis of variance (anova) using spss (16.0), and significant means were separated by tukey test. results and discussion the growth season was grouped into major (april to mid august) and minor (mid-august to december) rainy season, and, dry (december to march) season. the minor season is characterized by more overcast sky with lower air temperatures and higher relative humidity, compared to the major rainy season (table 1). the rainy season had table 1. mean seasonal relative humidity, temperature, vapour pressure deficit, leaf area index and photosynthetically active radiation shaderegimes par (μmol/m2/s) lai rh(%) vpdkpa temperature(°c) sunshinehour a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c a b c open sun (unshaded) 755 957 1031 1.8 2.4 1.5 70 64 33 1.9 1.6 3.1 35 32 37 5.2 4.5 6.6 moderate 459 648 893 1.3 2.1 1.3 72 70 35 1.5 1.3 2.8 33 31.4 34 5.2 4.5 6.6 dense 285 423 603 1.5 1.9 1.05 76 73 36 1.3 1.2 2.6 31.6 30.7 33 5.2 4.5 6.6 major(a) and minor rainy season (b) and dry season (c), relative humidity (rh), temperature (t) and vapour pressure deficit (vpd), photosynthetically active radiation (par: µmol/m2/s), leaf area index (lai,µmol/m2/s) effects of shade on field-grown seedlings of cocoa j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 50 highest number of leaves/plant was obtained in open sun over moderate or dense shade. lai measured between 10th to 21st month after transplanting, especially in april, august and december, is presented in table 2. this showed significant difference among treatments for lai measured in december. highest lai was recorded under open sun, over moderate or dense shade. for lai measurements made in april, the values were higher for moderate compared to the dense shade treatment. characteristics of solar radiation and light integrals within cacao plantation as affected by shade and irrigation regimes the characteristics of solar radiation (light integrals), the incident and transmitted radiation, transmission through plant canopy and, in particular, photosynthetic active radiation (par) intensity, its interception (capture) within cocoa, and use efficiency were affected by various shade regimes. temporal trends in radiation (and par) regimes within cacao are shown in fig. 2. results indicated that unshaded (open sun) plants had significantly higher photosynthetic active radiation (par) intensity compared to moderate or dense shaded plots. moderate shade also had significantly higher par over dense shaded plots. fig. 3 shows the temporal trend of intercepted radiation within cacao field as affected by different shade regimes. intercepted radiation from transmitted light through cacao canopy measured each month was highest in april. across the months of observation (december to may), opento-sun had the highest value for incident radiation, followed by moderate and dense shade, respectively. transmitted radiation below the canopy from incident radiation above the canopy (shown in fig. 3) showed no significant difference among treatments. effect of shade density on trends in light distribution (transmitted radiation below the canopy, fig. 3) showed significant reduction in the quantum of light received by cacao under plantain shade and were found compared to fig 1. effect of shade on leaf development =lsd bar (pd”0.05) fig 2. temporal trends in par within the shaded and unshaded cacao higher mean relative humidity (71%) and lower air temperatures (32.8oc) compared to the dry season. also, higher air temperature and vpd, and lower relative humidity, were found for the unshaded, open sun cacao compared to the shaded plants. effect of shade on canopy development in cacao effect of shade on canopy development was measured as number of leaves per plant and leaf area index (lai). results showed significant differences among the shade treatments for number of leaves per plant (fig. 1). the table 2. time dynamics of leaf area index (lai) in cacao as affected by shade regime shade regimes periods of measurements april august december1 0 mat* 15 mat 21mat dense 1.35 1.63 1.88 moderate 1.93 2.55 2.69 open-to-sun (unshaded) 3.55 3.90 4.68 lsd (0.05) 1.03 0.71 1.40 *mat (months after transplanting) agele et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 51 ‘no shade’ (open sun) which had direct access to full solar radiation. temporal trend of the ratio of transmitted to incident radiation is presented in fig. 4. the trends closely followed the pattern observed by time dynamics of intercepted radiation. under dense shaded plots, more than 60% of the transmitted light was either absorbed or reflected by the broad leaves of plantain (shade plant) (fig. 4). significant differences were found between moderate and dense shaded plots. cacao, under dense plantain shade, received the least incident radiation throughout the period of measurement. shade regimes affected growing degree days (gdd), leaf area index (lai), incident and transmitted radiation (light integrals), canopy extinction coefficient (k) and air temperatures within cacao the summary of pattern of growing degree days (gdd), light integrals (incident and transmitted radiation), photosynthetically active radiation (par), leaf area index (lai), and extinction coefficient (k) are presented in table 2. accumulated thermal time (growing degree days; gdd), lai and par were higher for open sun compared to dense or moderate shade. effect of shade on cacao canopy light integrals, in particular the ratio of transmitted to incident radiation (io/i), was higher for open sun. canopy light attenuation (extinction coefficient, k) was significantly lower for open sun compared to the shaded cacao. the estimated canopy par extinction coefficient values (k) showed significant differences among the open sun (unshaded) and the moderate and dense shade intensities. fig. 5 and 6 show the relationship between growing degree days (gdd) and total leaf number (tln), and, between growing degree days (gdd) and leaf area index fig 3. temporal trends in radiation interception within cacao field as affected by shade intensity fig 4. temporal trends in the ratio of transmitted radiation to incident radiation within cacao field as affected by shade intensity table 3. summary of patterns of growing degree days (gdd), leaf area index (lai), photosynthetic active radiation (par), incident (io) and transmitted (i) radiation, phyllochron, extinction coefficient (k) and air temperatures within cacao as affected by shade regimes shade regimes gdd(ocd) lai par incident transmitted io/iratio phyllochron extinctionco air (ì.m-2.s-1) radiation radiation (ocd/leaf) efficient (k) temperature (io)(ì.m-2.s-1) (i)(ì.m-2.s-1) (oc) open sun(unshaded) 183.3 3.83 623.3 1373.3 399.3 0.29 3.2 0.37 32.3 moderate 121.4 1.91 535.8 1373.3 206.7 0.15 2.8 0.96 30.7 dense 102.5 2.51 481.5 1373.3 140.2 0.10 2.6 0.73 29.4 open : y = 3.191x – 5474 dense : y = 2.612x – 4477 moderate : y = 2.859x – 4899 r2 = 0.919 r2 = 0.942 r2 = 0.950 fig 5. association of growing degree days (gdd) with number of leaves per plant in cacao effects of shade on field-grown seedlings of cocoa j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 52 (lai), respectively. the relationships were characterized by high coefficient of determination (r2) for the respective open, dense and moderate shade treatments. inverse slope of the regression of a relationship between estimated thermal time (0cdays) and the corresponding total leaf number (tln) denotes leaf appearance rate (phyllochron, in 0cd/leaf). rate of leaf appearance was faster in open sun compared to that in moderate or dense shade intensity. in fig.7, the temporal trend of air temperature within the cacao field is presented, and open sun had the highest temperature, followed by moderate and dense shades, respectively. air temperature in open sun was higher than that in moderate and dense shade, respectively (fig. 7). air temperature increased from december to april, with temperature peak in april. characteristics of radiant energy (availability, transmission, interception /capture) and use efficiency, leaf area index (lai), transmitted radiation and canopy extinction coefficient (k) as affected by shade regimes the gradients of microclimate / canopy characteristics and radiant (light) energy characteristics (incident and transmission), capture and use efficiency of par and dynamics of leaf area within cocoa were seen to be affected by the shade regime. higher intensity of solar radiation (incident and transmitted through the cacao canopy) and photosynthetic active radiation (par) obtained in the unshaded compared to the moderate and dense shades, appeared to have translated into better vigour of growth and canopy formation in the former treatment. acheampong et al (2013) reported that biomass accumulation and overall development in cacao depended on intensity of the par. however, it has been reported that cacao exhibited low light compensation point and, that, light was not a major limiting factor in assimilate production in the young cacao in nursery. maximum photosynthesis occurs in cacao at about 20% intensity of full sunlight (hutcheon, 1976; acheampong et al, 2013). ‘no shade’ treatment had advantage over moderate and dense shade treatments in terms of radiation energy available and its usage for dry matter accumulation during the period. in addition, acheampong et al (2013) state that light penetration through cacao canopy is a factor of leaf area index (lai) which depends on the variety, age, planting density, leaf size and whorled leaf arrangement, which can alter solar energy more into diffuse light thus promoting interception and transmitted components of incident radiation. despite this, shade offered by the plantain stand reduced transmitted light, par and photo activity of the canopy of the understory cacao and weed species. plantain shade significantly reduced the fraction of solar radiation transmission (visible components) through the canopy to the understorey cacao plants, and, the resultant reduced growth was observed in this study. shade-irrigation treatments significantly reduced soil temperature within the cacao field. this finding is supported by the report of acheampong et al (2013) that density of the shade plant on cacao canopy plays a major role in temperature regulation within a cacao field. the high shadedensity led to reduced soil temperature, while, un-shaded plots registered higher temperatures. this condition may open : y = 0.063x – 106.8 dense : y = 0.020x – 34.23 moderate : y = 0.027x – 46.28 r2 = 0.883 r2 = 0.536 r2 = 0.966 fig 6. association of growing degree days (gdd) with leaf area index (lai) in cacao fig 7. temporal trends in air temperature within the cacao field agele et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 53 have increased the evapo-transpiration and moisture loss from soil and leaf surface, consequently, leading to young shoot dieback and wilting. the significantly higher soilmoisture content recorded under moderate and dense shade treatments owing to soil cover would have aided moisture conservation (reduction in soil evaporation). shade conserves soil moisture and reduces soil temperature and surface evaporation (beer, 1987; de almeida and valle, 2007; kohler et al, 2010; moser et al, 2010). open-to-sun cocoa was better in terms of leaf development [measured as leaf area index (lai)] and transmitted radiation, but with low extinction coefficient (k). this result is consistent with reports of chazdon et al (1996) and beer et al (1998) which state that shaded crops in agro-forestry systems are at a disadvantage in growth and yield characteristics under circumstances of lowintensity radiation. robinson (1996) and lobao et al (2007) also found shaded crops to have lower photosynthesis rate than exposed leaves due to lower transmitted par. leaf area index (lai) in this study was higher in open-to-sun, and this observation agrees with israeli et al (1995) and turner (1998) wherein lai was lower in shaded crops compared to that in open-to-sun. improved leaf area in the plant and leaf area index (lai) and, radiation use efficiency and low extinction coefficient (k), enhanced growth and vigour of young cacao in the field (carr, 2011; acheampong et al, 2013). values for canopy extinction coefficient (k) were higher for shaded regimes compared to that in open-to-sun, supporting turner (1998), korner (2002) and carr (2011), who stated that canopy light attenuation (canopy extinction coefficient) depended on the amount of light transmitted through canopies (diffuse radiation). higher extinction coefficient value was obtained in the shaded cacao compared to open-to-sun, due to lower transmitted light (diffuse radiation). the estimated values for canopy extinction coefficients (k) support the fact that shade intensity affects attenuation of light and other radiation characteristics within a canopy. goudriaan and monteith (1990) affirmed that low extinction coefficient enhanced growth when the plant canopy was fully developed and distributed uniformly. tree canopy and canopy size are known to strongly influence radiation intensity above the canopy and transmission within the canopy layers; tree canopy characteristics relate to effectiveness at reducing the radiant energy load in a vegetated community. thus, canopy characteristics determine the extent of radiation-load reduction, evaporative demand, and, the subsequent cooling effect. vegetation and, hence, canopy size determine the surface roughness of landscapes, air movements and the cooling effect by heat/thermal dissipation (monteith and unsworth, 1990; kuttler, 2008). canopy, via absorption of radiation, enhances convective heat transfer and heat exchange, with little heat storage (low heat capacity/low sensible heat storage). the properties of a vegetation in terms of canopy extent and size can bring about changes in the ratio of sensible to latent heat of vaporization (monteith and unsworth, 1990). a large canopy enhances evaporation and transpiration from plants (et), vapour release and cooling effect (kutter, 2008) the relationship between growing degree days (gdd) and total leaf number (tln) and leaf area indices (lai) affirms that as gdd increases, tln and lai increase. this result is in support of reports of kuttler (2008) and ruttanapreserr et al (2013) who point that growing degree days (gdd) is a weather characteristic of agricultural value. gdd plays an important role in accelerating growth, maturity and yield in crops. the open-to-sun treatment gave the highest values for lai per gdd, a result consistent with reports of ruttanapreserr et al (2013) and sruthi et al (2014) who used lai as a tool for determining physiological quantity and vegetative canopy structure in plants. the time course of the incident radiation within the cocoa field showed that open-to-sun had higher values across the months of experiment, compared to moderate and dense shades, respectively. this is in support of animkwampong and frimpong (2005). in addition, the trends of ratio of transmitted to incident radiation on the cacao field showed that open-to-sun had an advantage over moderate and dense shade, respectively, across the months of the experiment. ofori-frimpomg et al (2007) and acheampong et al (2013) affirmed the importance of light in a cacao field. time dynamics of air temperature within the cacao field followed the trend obtained in radiation interception by cacao for the shade intensities evaluated. open-to-sun cacao had the greatest values compared to that in the shaded regimes. air temperature is a measure of how hot or cold the air is. miranda et al (1994) and tschoegi (2000) stated that air temperature affected growth and reproduction in cacao, with warmer temperature promoting biological growth. the capability of plants for producing dry matter depends largely upon availability, capture and use efficiency (or degree of exploitation) of radiant energy (solar effects of shade on field-grown seedlings of cocoa j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 54 radiation). development of plant leaf area and, hence, leaf area index (lai) are important to light interception. however, efficiency of light interception resulting from any given la1 is influenced by leaf characteristics (canopy architecture) such as type, size, shape, and display of leaves. efficiency of light transmission through leaves alters light interception efficiency. practically speaking, due to overlapping of leaves, la1> 1 is required to cover the land surface (anim-kwampong and frimpong, 2005) when leaves intercept the most light, while, efficiency is dependent upon the degree of its transmission through leaves. at high la1 values, mutual shading occurs; leaves at the bottom of the canopy receive very low light intensity while the uppermost leaves are exposed to light far above that required for maximal photosynthesis (light saturation). leaf area index (lai) and canopy dynamics, leaf appearance rate and light interception effect of temperature and light on leaf expansion has been reported in crops (spitters, 1990). canopy development (leaf area index) is influenced by thermal time. the number of fully expanded leaves is a product of thermal time elapsed since leaf emergence, (viz., leaf appearance rate (phyllochron). the pattern and rate of leaf appearance were different in shade and irrigation treatments; however, greater thermal time is required to initiate leaves under a non-shaded cacao. vegetative growth and development rate depends upon the prevailing weather conditions for growth. in particular, hydrothermal regimes following seedling transplanting and establishment affect the subsequent rate of leaf appearance. cacao developed comparatively large leaf area despite a dwindling soil moisture status during the dry season. this trait is essential to its survival and growth. thermal environment for growth is usually expressed in units of thermal time. total number of leaves/plant (tln) and leaf area index (lai) were found to be related to thermal time. the relationships were characterised by high r2 value. the supra-optimal temperature environment of the dry season appears to have raised optimum temperature for leaf emergence. this shows that more thermal time is needed to produce a leaf, hence, the decreased thermal energy efficiency of dry-season cacao. cacao leaf appearance rate is affected by temperature and soil, and, air draughts and shade enhanced the differences in radiation energy (light intensity) (tschoegl, 2000). conclusions gradients of microclimate and canopy (lai) and radiant energy (incident and transmission) characteristics within cacao, interception (capture) and use efficiency of photosynthetic active radiation (par), and canopy extinction coefficient (k) differed under the shade and irrigation regimes imposed. the characteristics of solar radiation within cacao field which include incident and transmitted radiation and photosynthetic active radiation (par) were better for open-to-sun compared with moderate or dense shade. unshaded + irrigated plants had higher radiation use efficiency (rue) compared to shaded + irrigated; rue values were significantly high compared to moderate and dense shade treatments. transmitted radiation below the canopy was highest for open-to-sun, followed by moderate and dense shade treatments, respectively. the ratio of transmitted (io) to incident (i) radiation (io/i) was higher for open-to-sun. canopy development affected intercepted photosynthetic active radiation (par): higher lai was obtained for ‘no shade’ (open-to-sun) compared to moderate or dense shade treatments. intercepted radiation from transmitted light through cacao canopy for each month was highest in april. across the months of observation (december to may), open-to-sun had the highest value for incident radiation, followed by moderate and dense shade, respectively. temporal trends of the ratio of transmitted to incident radiation followed closely the pattern observed in time dynamics of intercepted radiation. inverse of the slope of regression of the relationship between estimated thermal time (ocdays) and corresponding total leaf number (tln) denote the leaf appearance rate (phyllochron in ocd/leaf). rate of leaf appearance was faster in open-to-sun compared to moderate or dense shade. temporal trends in values of air temperature showed an increase from december to april, peaking in april. moderate and dense shade improved soil moisture content and reduced the soil temperature during dry season, compared to ‘no shade’ treatments combined with irrigation. air temperature within the cacao canopy under shade was lower than that in open-to-sun. low light intensity and lai for the under-storey in cacao had a negative implication for growth and biomass development. references acheampong, k., hadley, p. and daymond, a. 2013. photosynthetic activity and early growth of four cacao genotypes as influenced by different shade regimes under west african dry and wet season conditions. exptl. agri., 49:31-42. issn 0014-4797 agele et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 55 doi:10.1017/s0014479712001007 ahenkorah, v., halm, b.j., appiah, m.r., akrofi, g.s. and yirenkyi, j.e.k. 1987. twenty years’ results from a shade and fertilizer trial on amazon cocoa 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turner, d.w. 1998. ecophysiology of bananas: the generation and functioning of the leaf canopy. procs. int’l. symp. banana in subtropics. v. galan sauco (ed.). acta hort., 490:211221 agele et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):4756, 2016 (ms received 20 december 2015, revised 20 april 2016, accepted 25 april 2016) standardization of plant species and growing medium for vertical garden system: a new urban horticulture concept s. rameshkumar dept. of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, annamalai university, tamilnadu, india 608 002. e-mail: rameshflora@yahoo.com abstract vertical gardens are becoming a common component in contemporary garden designs at urban living space because of shrinking land spaces. successful growing of plants in vertical garden systems depends up on growing container, plants chosen, growing media, etc. hence a study was carried out in the department of horticulture, annamalai university, during the year 2013, with the objectives to study the influence of coir pith, stockosorb and geohumus as components of growing media along with fym, vermicompost and leaf mould compost on growth and performance of ornamental plants for establishment of vertical garden and to study the performance of ornamental plants viz., philodendron erubescens cv. ‘gold’, chlorophytum comosum cv. ‘variegatum’ and polyscias fruticosa plants in wooden containers for establishment of vertical garden. the experiment was laid out in completely randomized design in wooden containers, with ten treatment combinations of various growing media mixtures comprising red soil, river sand as basic components in combination with organic manures (fym, vermicompost, leaf mould compost, coir pith) and hydrogels (stocksorb and geohumus). the plant growth characters and ornamental value index were observed. among the three ornamental plants used, polyscias fruticosa and philodendron erubescens are performed better as ornamental plants in vertical garden system with the growing media of red soil : river sand : vermicompost @ 1:1:1/2 + stockosorb(25g). keywords: chlorophytum comosum, coir pith, hydrogels, leaf mould compost, philodendron erubescens, polyscias fruticosa, vermicompost, vertical garden. short communication introduction vertical gardens ar e becoming a common component in contemporary garden designs because of shrinking land spaces and multiplying high-rises with scanty space available for gardening. though, the concept of the vertical garden was first used during 600 bc at the hanging gardens of babylon and then it was not used often by successive gardeners like persians, mughals, europeans and others. today, with the rapid growth of industrial cities and for want of horizontal space for other utilities this concept was picked up rapidly by contemporary gardeners. vertical gardens are living walls which are covered with vegetation. there are two major types of vertical garden: living wall and green facade. the living wall is a kind of vertical garden in which ornamental plants are pre-planted onto panels or planters. successful growing of plants in vertical garden systems depends up on design of the vertical garden system, growing container, irrigation arrangement, plants chosen, growing media, etc. the shade loving indoor ornamental pla nts like philodendron sp. , asparagus sp. , chlorophytum sp., polyscias fruticosa, aglaonema, rhoeo spathacea, sempervivum, etc. are considered as suitable options based on their ornamental features, however, studies revealing the suitability of plants for vertical garden system is lacking in india. the members of araceae, asparagaceae and araliaceae families viz., philodendron erubescens, chlorophytum comosum and polyscias fruticosa respectively are used in this study by virtue of their textural properties and easy adoptability in tropical to sub tropical conditions. the growing medium is the most important component that decides the success of a vertical garden system. three functions of growing media are to support plant in soil, to hold and offer water j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 108 109 rameshkumar and nutrients and to facilitate plant roots to get sufficient amount of oxygen (ingram et al., 2003). role of a convenient growing media is to provide physical, chemical and biological characteristics required by plants and also to provide the conditions for production of plants in containers (ingram et al., 2003; sahin and anapali 2006). composition of plant growing media may vary depending on several reasons. commonly used materials for the composition of media ar e river sand, red soil, sawdust, peat, perlite and vermiculite. increasing cost of these media components and shortage of the mineral media like peat, perlite and vermiculite a r e t he r ea s ons t o f ind s u it a b le a lt er na t ive components from organic manures and hydrogel compounds for plant growing containers used in vertical garden system. further, restricted volume of media and competition due to higher planting density may cause a confined root system. in due course of maintenance this system needs heavy applications of fertilizer and water to maintain proper plant growth. in line with the above facts a study was carried out with the objectives to study the influence of coir pith, stockosorb and geohumus as components of growing media along with fym, vermicompost and leaf mould compost on growth and performance of ornamental plants in wooden containers for establishment of vertical garden and to standardize the growing media mixtures suitable for establishment of vertical garden. in this experiment living wa ll system of vertical garden was established with fabricated iron frames to hold the planter boxes made in country wood in alter nate r ows. the wooden box wa s fa br ica ted with t wo slits in the fr ont side to accommodate two rows of plants to cover the sides of the wall. on top of the planter box another row of ornamental plant was planted to cover the gap existing in alternate rows of the vertical frame. the ver t ic a l ga r den syst em ma de of wooden box container (90cm×30cm×30cm) was designed to grow 24 numbers of plants that is essential to establish a green cover over the surface of container ( plat e 1 ) . t he ex p er iment wa s la i d ou t in completely randomized design, replicated thrice with ten treatment combinations of various growing media mixtures comprising red soil, river sand as ba sic components in combina tion with organic manures (fym, vermicompost, leaf mould compost, coir pith) and hydrogels (stocksorb and geohumus). control treatment was maintained with normal soil. for each replication five plants were tagged for recording non destructive parameters. treatment details t 1 c ont r ol ( n or ma l s oil wit ho u t a ny amendments) t2red soil + river sand + fym + coir pith (1:1:1:1) t 3red soil + river sand + fym (1:1:1)+ stockosorb (25 g) t4red soil + river sand + fym (1:1:1)+ geohumus (25 g) t5red soil + river sand + leaf mould compost + coir pith (1:1:1:1) t6red soil + river sand + leaf mould compost (1:1:1)+ stockosorb (25 g) t7red soil + river sand + leaf mould compost (1:1:1)+ geohumus (25 g) t8red soil + river sand + vermicompost+ coir pith (1:1:1/2:1) t9-red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/ 2) + stockosorb (25 g) t10red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/ 2) + geohumus (25 g) the plant growth characters like days taken for establishment, plant height, number of shoots, shoot girth, number of leaves per plant, leaf area, bioma ss pr oduc tion, chlor ophyll content a nd ornamental value index were observed from five plants at monthly intervals and data on 150 says after planting was interpreted in results. ornamental value index was given to the plants in each treatment by visually assessing the ornamental features of the plants in terms of their foliage colour, compactness, texture, height and overall look. ten point headonic s c or ing t echniqu e wa s a dop ted to gr a de t he ornamental value of the plants. j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 110 standardization for vertical garden system grade no. ornamental features grade point g1 establishment: shoots and leaves growing and stretching against geotropic movement. 10, 9 …… to …..1 and 0 g2 compactness : from densely packed foliage to space loose fronds and dried up plant 10, 9 …… to …..1 and 0 g3 number of stems per poly bag : from 10 to 3 and dried up plant 10, 9 …… to …..1 and 0 g4 texture : from fine to course and dried up plant 10, 9 …… to …..1 and 0 g5 freshness of plants: from firm turgid to flaccid condition and dried leaves 10, 9 …… to …..1 and 0 g6 overall out look 10, 9 …… to …..1 and 0 gp1 + gp2 + gp3 + gp4 + gp5+ gp5 ornamental value index = 6 the statistical analysis of data was done by adopting the standard statistical procedure given by panse and sukhatme (1967). results of the present experiment envisaged that the gr owth pa r a meter s viz. , da ys ta ken for establishment, plant height, number of shoots/ branches, shoot girth, number of leaves plant-1 and leaf area were significantly increased due to the addition of organic growing media components and hydrogels (table 1). in general, addition of hydrogels viz., stockosorb and geohumus performed better than the coir pith in growing media as a component. among the organic components used in media, vermicompost performed better in terms of all the growth parameters of the ornamental plants. in all the three ornamental plants, t9 [red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/2) + stockosorb (25g)] has exhibited greater influence in terms of all the growth parameters with quicker establishment of plants. this was followed by t10 [red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/2) + geohumus (25g)]. enhancement of growth in all the three ornamental plants due to above mentioned two growing media combinations might be attributed to the addition of vermicompost and hyogels particularly stocksorb and geohumus in addition to normal components of a growing media like red soil and river sand. enhancement in the growth attributes due to vermicompost in the present research is in line with the reports of (rajamanickam et al. 2008) who revealed enhanced growth parameters in plants grown in potting mixture, treated with vermicompost. the report of (golchin et al. 2006) in pistachio nut seedlings was also in conformity of the present research. further, the enhanced performance of ornamental plants grown in media containing vermicompost could be attributed by the fact that vermicompost contains major and minor nutrients for the plants in available forms besides enzymes, a ntibiotics, vita mins, beneficia l microorganisms and other plant growth hormones and have definite advantage over other organic; manures in respect of growth (meerabai and raj, 2001). the positive influence of hydrogel compounds on ornamental plants in the vertical plant growing containers might be due to the facts that hydrogels maintain a conductive soil environment that facilitates water and nutrient absorption for plant root and shoot growth in periods of water stress. the highly crosslinked polyacrylamide hydrogels can absorb and hold up to 400 times their weight of water (bouranis et al., 1995), which aid faster establishment of ornamental plants in containers where media volume is restricted. as reported by sarvas (2007); abedi-koupai and asadkazemi (2006) in different experiments on the effects of hydrogels on plant growth, the present experiment also indicated increased growth attributes like total bio mass under limited water availability. the quality parameters of the ornamental plants grown in vertical garden containers can be determined by a ssessing the total chlor ophyll content a nd j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 111 rameshkumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 ta bl e 1. e ff ec t of g ro w in g m ed ia o n gr ow th o f di ff er en t or na m en ta l pl an t sp ec ie s gr ow n in v er ti ca l ga rd en s ys te m . p hi lo de nd ro n er ub es ce ns c hl or op hy tu m c om os um p ol ys ci as fr ut ic os a t re at m en t pl an t n o. o f sh oo t n o. o f le af pl an t n o. o f sh oo t n o. o f le af pl an t n o. o f sh oo t n o. o f le af n o. he ig ht br an ch es gi rt h le av es ar ea he ig ht br an ch es gi rt h le av es ar ea he ig ht br an ch es gi rt h le av es ar ea (c m ) pl an t-1 (c m ) pl an t-1 (c m 2 ) (c m ) pl an t-1 (c m ) pl an t-1 (c m 2 ) (c m ) pl an t-1 (c m ) pl an t-1 (c m 2 ) t1 32 .3 2 1. 98 3. 25 13 .5 6 17 .2 4 13 .7 4 4. 78 2. 14 17 .3 4 7. 39 34 .1 5 6. 90 3. 14 23 6. 34 9. 85 t2 40 .3 9 2. 79 3. 88 15 .3 9 18 .3 7 14 .7 2 5. 87 2. 76 20 .2 2 8. 99 46 .6 2 8. 32 3. 76 26 0. 57 12 .1 1 t3 42 .1 5 3. 61 4. 65 17 .2 9 20 .6 4 15 .5 4 7. 05 3. 53 23 .3 5 10 .9 3 49 .3 2 9. 97 4. 53 28 6. 45 14 .6 1 t4 41 .2 4 3. 21 4. 22 16 .2 9 19 .6 7 15 .1 5 6. 46 3. 10 21 .6 7 10 .0 3 48 .1 3 9. 13 4. 10 27 2. 91 13 .3 8 t5 39 .5 3 2. 39 3. 56 14 .5 8 18 .0 3 14 .3 1 5. 33 2. 72 18 .8 7 8. 28 45 .1 8 7. 62 3. 42 24 9. 55 11 .0 9 t6 41 .3 1 3. 18 4. 28 16 .4 6 19 .9 1 15 .0 2 6. 58 3. 16 21 .9 1 10 .2 2 48 .2 1 9. 32 4. 16 27 4. 15 13 .5 2 t7 40 .2 8 2. 81 3. 87 15 .5 1 18 .9 6 14 .7 5 5. 89 2. 70 20 .1 2 9. 13 46 .7 8 8. 46 3. 70 26 1. 36 12 .3 4 t8 43 .0 1 4. 02 5. 08 18 .0 6 21 .3 5 15 .9 3 7. 63 3. 86 24 .7 4 11 .6 7 50 .9 7 10 .8 1 4. 86 29 7. 87 15 .6 3 t9 44 .7 8 4. 82 5. 72 19 .6 7 22 .9 5 16 .7 6 8. 75 4. 14 27 .6 4 13 .2 6 54 .3 7 12 .6 1 5. 61 32 2. 04 18 .0 2 t1 0 43 .8 5 4. 45 5. 40 18 .8 6 22 .0 4 16 .3 4 8. 19 4. 09 26 .0 8 12 .4 1 52 .8 6 11 .6 7 5. 25 30 9. 02 16 .7 7 se d 0. 41 0. 17 0. 15 0. 37 0. 33 0. 18 0. 26 0. 18 0. 65 0. 33 0. 53 0. 30 0. 14 5. 21 0. 46 cd 0. 83 0. 36 0. 31 0. 76 0. 68 0. 38 0. 53 0. 36 1. 32 0. 68 1. 07 0. 61 0. 27 10 .5 4 0. 93 (p =0 .0 5) t 1 c on tr ol ( n or m al s oi l w ith ou t an y am en dm en ts ) t 6 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + l ea f m ou ld c om po st ( 1: 1: 1) + s to ck os or b (2 5 g) t 2 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + fy m + c oi r pi th ( 1: 1: 1: 1) t 7 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + l ea f m ou ld c om po st ( 1: 1: 1) + g eo hu m us ( 25 g ) t 3 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + fy m ( 1: 1: 1) + s to ck os or b (2 5 g) t 8 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + v er m ic om po st + c oi r pi th ( 1: 1: 1/ 2: 1) t 4 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + fy m ( 1: 1: 1) + g eo hu m us ( 25 g ) t 9 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1: 1/ 2) + s to ck os or b (2 5 g) t 5 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + l ea f m ou ld c om po st + c oi r pi th ( 1: 1: 1: 1) t 10 r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1: 1/ 2) + g eo hu m us ( 25 g ) 112 standardization for vertical garden system j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 ta bl e 2. e ff ec t of g ro w in g m ed ia o n gr ow th o f di ff er en t or na m en ta l pl an t sp ec ie s gr ow n in v er tic al g ar de n sy st em . p hi lo de nd ro n er ub es ce ns c hl or op hy tu m c om os um p ol ys ci as fr ut ic os a t re at m en t to ta l c hl or op hy ll o rn am en ta l to ta l c hl or op hy ll o rn am en ta l to ta l c hl or op hy ll o rn am en ta l n o. bi om as s co nt en t va lu e bi om as s co nt en t va lu e bi om as s co nt en t va lu e g pl an t 1 (m g g1 ) in de x g pl an t 1 (m g g1 ) in de x g pl an t 1 (m g g1 ) in de x t1 16 2. 23 1. 53 5. 39 41 .3 1 1. 49 4. 03 28 2. 06 1. 65 6. 12 t2 18 5. 02 2. 34 7. 08 48 .0 0 2. 22 5. 61 33 6. 70 2. 53 8. 39 t3 21 5. 10 1. 98 7. 69 55 .3 9 1. 94 6. 25 39 3. 86 2. 20 8. 93 t4 19 9. 45 2. 41 7. 36 51 .7 5 2. 31 5. 92 36 6. 41 2. 42 8. 66 t5 17 4. 15 2. 65 6. 82 44 .9 8 2. 54 5. 35 31 2. 15 2. 83 8. 13 t6 20 3. 68 2. 36 7. 43 52 .3 3 2. 24 5. 96 37 1. 44 2. 50 8. 70 t7 18 8. 64 2. 57 7. 12 48 .3 8 2. 43 5. 66 34 3. 36 2. 72 8. 42 t8 22 6. 25 2. 45 7. 96 58 .5 6 2. 33 6. 51 35 9. 50 2. 65 9. 19 t9 24 9. 35 2. 73 8. 54 64 .0 9 2. 62 7. 30 57 0. 20 2. 91 9. 56 t1 0 23 8. 14 2. 58 8. 25 61 .6 4 2. 46 6. 82 41 7. 56 2. 77 9. 46 se d 4. 70 0. 08 0. 11 1. 42 0. 09 0. 12 9. 56 0. 08 0. 10 cd 9. 51 0. 17 0. 22 2. 88 0. 18 0. 24 19 .3 4 0. 17 0. 20 (p = 0. 05 ) t 1c on tr ol ( n or m al s oi l w ith ou t an y am en dm en ts ) t 6r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + l ea f m ou ld c om po st ( 1: 1: 1) + st oc ko so rb ( 25 g ) t 2r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + fy m + c oi r pi th ( 1: 1: 1: 1) t 7r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + l ea f m ou ld c om po st ( 1: 1: 1) + g eo hu m us ( 25 g ) t 3r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + fy m ( 1: 1: 1) + st oc ko so rb ( 25 g ) t 8r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + v er m ic om po st + c oi r pi th ( 1: 1: 1/ 2: 1) t 4r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + fy m ( 1: 1: 1) + g eo hu m us ( 25 g ) t 9r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1: 1/ 2) + s to ck os or b (2 5 g) t 5r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + l ea f m ou ld c om po st + c oi r pi th ( 1: 1: 1: 1) t 10 -r ed s oi l + r iv er s an d + v er m ic om po st ( 1: 1: 1/ 2) + g eo hu m us ( 25 g ) rameshkumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 ornamental value index. these values of all the three ornamental plants were significantly varied due to different combinations of growing media mixtures (table 2). the highest total chlorophyll content (2.73 mg g-1, 2.62 mg g-1and 2.91 mg g-1 respectively for philodendron sp, chlorophytum sp and polyscias sp) and ornamental value index (8.54, 7.30 and 9.56 respectively for philodendron sp, chlorophytum sp and polyscias sp) were observed in the plants grown in t9 [red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/2) + stockosorb (25g) ]. the next best treatment in terms of the results obtained in these parameters was t10 [red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/2) + geohumus (25g)]. the best results obtained in these quality parameters might be attributed to the enhanced growth in terms of plant height, number of shoot plant-1, number of leaves plant-1, leaf area and total biomass plant-1. best performance of all the three ornamental plants with highest values in quality parameters in the present study due to addition of organic growing components like vermicompost and leaf mould compost is in accordance with the reports of meerabai and raj (2001) in ornamental plants and hidalgo and harkess (2002) in poinsettia. enhancement in the quality parameters of the ornamental plants due to addition of hydrogels like stocksorb and geohumus might be attributed to the enhanced water availability in the medium which increased the turgidity and freshness of the foliage (bouranis et al., 1995). by considering the mean performance of all the three ornamental plants (table 3) it is concluded that polyscias fruticosa and philodendron erubescens pla nts ca n be used a s or na menta l pla nts for establishment of vertical garden system. to use chlorophytum comosum as a component in this system a modification in the planting position is needed. the physio-chemical properties of the growing media mixtures and growth attributes and quality parameters of the three ornamental plants evinced that media combinations of red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/2) + stockosorb (t9) or red soil + river sand + vermicompost (1:1:1/2) + geohmus (t10) can be used to establish the above ornamental plants in wooden containers of a vertical garden system fabricated in iron frames. ornamental features philodendron chlorophytum polyscias and growth parameters erubescens comosum fruticosa planting position in side slit bottom layer side slit top layer top side planter box (horizontal) (horizontal) (normal planting) plant texture coarse fine medium coarse days taken for 17.77 25.33 9.27 establishment total biomass 204.20 52.64 375.32 (g plant -1) dry matter production 40.65 10.71 74.04 (g plant -1) chlorophyll content 2.36 2.25 2.51 (mg g-1) ornamental value index 7.36 5.94 8.55 performance ranking ii iii i table 3. mean performance of ornamental plants grown in wooden containers of vertical garden system. 113 standardization for vertical garden system j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 slits in the box to refer hole marks as in right side picture fig 1. fabrication of planter boxes for vertical garden system marking to make holes for planting over slits making planting holes out side front view after making holes planting 114 115 rameshkumar j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 108-115, 2018 references abedi-koupai, j. and asadkazemi, j., 2006. effects of a hydr ophilic polymer on the field per for ma nce of a n or na menta l pla nt (cupressus arizonica) under reduced irrigation regimes, iranian polym. j., 15 (9): 715 –725. boura nis, d. l. , a. g. t heodoropoulus, j. b. drossopoulus. 1995. designing synthetic polymers as soil conditioners, commun. soil sci. plant anal.,26: 1455 – 1480. golchin, a., nadi, m. and mozaffari, v. 2006. the effects of vermicompost produced from various organic solid wastes on growth of pistachio seedlings. acta hort., 726: 301-305. hidalgo, p.r. and r.l. harkess. 2002. earthworm castings as a substrate for poinsettia production. hort. sci., 37(2): 304 308. ingram, d. l., r. w. henley, and t. h. yeager . 2003. growth media for container grown ornamental plants. environmental horticulture department, florida cooperative extension service, inst. of food and agri. sci., university of florida, bul 241. meerabai, m. and raj. 2001. biofarming in vegetables. kisan world, 28(4): 15. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers, icar, new delhi. ra jama nicka m, c. , bala subr a ma nia m, s. a nd na ta r a ja n, s. 2008. studies on nur ser y management in papaya (carica papaya l.) cv. co2, proceedings of second interna tional symposium on papaya, pp. 74. sahin, u., and o. anapali. 2006. addition of pumice affects physical properties of soil used for container grown plants. agric. conspec. sci. 71:59-64. sarvaš, m. pavlenda, pavel & takáčová, e. (2007). effect of hydrogel application on survival and growth of pine seedlings in reclamations. jour. of for.sci., 53(5). (ms received 12 august 2017, revised 03 march 2018, accepted 24 june 2018) 505 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 original research paper taxonomic revision of the cultivated species of mimusops (sapotaceae) in egypt, with new records azza el-hadidy 1 , rim hamdy 2 * and gehad abd el-mohsen 3 1,2 botany and microbiology department, faculty of science, cairo university, giza 12613, egypt 3 phytochemistry lab, applied research center for medicinal plant (nodcar), giza 12561, egypt. *corresponding author email : rimhamdy@yahoo.com/ rhamdy@sci.cu.edu.eg abstract during the process of updating horticultural records of this genus in egypt, five problems were identified: lack of publications, lack of clarity between species, numerous errors of identifications, loss of earlier documented records of identity, as well as, the introduction and cultivation of new plants during the 19th century added to the complexity of the problem. in this study, the taxonomic aspects of genus mimusops, were thoroughly studied to identify the most reliable characters for taxon delimitation. our assessment was based on morphological characters representing habit, leaves, petioles, flowering pedicels, buds, floral parts, fruit and seed. fieldwork have revealed the presence of four species, of which mimusops kummel and m. zeyheri are new records. the latter species is represented in egypt by m. zeyheri var. laurifolia. this variety has been neglected by many authors. additionally, mimusops elengi l. was believed to be cultivated in egypt, but no materials have been encountered that could confirm it. the specimens earlier identified as m. elengi actually belong either to m. kummel or to m. laurifolia. a detailed description of the genus and species with photographs, an identification key, and synonymy for each taxon are provided. keywords : cultivated species, new records, mimusops, sapotoideae, sapoteae, taxonomy introduction sapotaceae juss. (1789) is a well-marked family characterized by its well-developed system of latex; two-armed, unicellular trichomes; often coppery leaves beneath; axillary, ramiflorous or cauliflorous inflorescence; simple or complex flower structure; oppositipetalous stamens; and sometimes with staminodes. it is a woody tropical and subtropical family, and is represented by 59 genera with 1250 species, of worldwide distribution. [pennington, 1991; govaerts et al., 2001; swenson et al., 2007; gautier et al. 2013]. sapotaceae is a member of ericales (apg iii, 2009), sister to ebenaceae and primulaceae (rose et al. 2018). recent molecular analyses (swenson & anderberg, 2005; smedmark et al., 2006), place mimusops l. in the tribe sapoteae (=mimusopeae sensu pennington, 1991) of subfamily sapotoideae; while sapoteae s.str. only includes subtribe mimusopinae and manilkarinae (with the exception of northia) proposed earlier by pennington (1991). moreover, sapoteae has been circumscribed as monophyletic, with the monophyletic mimusops (smedmark et al., 2006, gautier et al., 2013). mimusops is a palaeotropical genus (with exception of m. elengi in australia), with 47 species (govaerts et al., 2001). members of mimusops are unarmed trees and shrubs, and diagnosed by minute caducous stipules; complex flower structure with biseriate calyx of 4 sepals each; corolla-lobes 8, always 3-segmented (one erect median clasping the opposing stamen and two laterals attached dorsally); stamens 8, in one whorl; staminodes 8 , well developed, alternating with the stamens, hairy, inflexed and often forming a sheath round the gynoecium; ovary 8-loculed; fruit 1-6-seeded; seeds generally with shiny brown testa, and with a small, basal to basi ventral seed-scar. in ancient egypt, mimusops laurifolia was considered as a sacred tree. the twigs were used at funerals and have been found in the egyptian tombs with mummies. in the tomb of djoser (3rd dynasty, saqqara), the fruits of persea were deposited as offerings; while in the tomb of tutankhamun (18th dynasty, luxor), the leaves and twigs were used in making funerary garlands and floral this is an open access article distributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. mailto:rhamdy@sci.cu.edu.eg el-hadidy et al 506 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 bouquets (täckholm, 1951; darby et al., 1977; friis 1981). for egypt, a relatively few short accounts of mimusops have been published (bircher, 1960; diwan et al., 2004; hamdy et al., 2007; youssef et al., 2012; youssef & hamdy, 2013; gamal, 2018). table (1) summarizes the available information about the genus in egypt. it is clear that different authors have treated differently the cultivated species. this has led to a considerable confusion in species identifications. the introduction and cultivation of new plants in egypt during 19th century has added to the complexity of this problem. schweinfurth (1883) recorded one species: mimusops schimperi hoscht. ex a. rich. [currently treated as m. laurifolia (forssk.)friis] from egyptian tombs. he identified the evergreen folded leaves frequently found with egyptian mummies. later, m. laurifolia has appeared regularly in the egyptian texts. delchevalerie (1899) and sickenberger (1901) reported the occurrence of m. elengi l. in the gardens of el rhodah and cairo respectively. this has been followed by later investigators and has appeared regularly in the egyptian literature (bircher, 1960; diwan et al. 2004; hamdy et al. 2007; hamdy, 2010; youssef & hamdy, 2013). in the study of the gardens of the hesperides, bircher (1960) cultivated eleven species of mimusops s.l. in al-saff garden. this includes species with 3-merous flowers (now included in manilkarinae); while only three are conspecific to mimusops. these are: m. elengi, m. caffra (a new addition), and m. laurifolia (=m. schimperi). she stated that all the species were cultivated in her garden. today, al-saff garden has been vanished due to urbanization and land degradation. recently in diwan et al. (2004), the number of species had been reverted to only two (m. caffra and m. elengi) with short notes in arabic. hamdy et al. (2007) listed the plant distribution of three species in three historic gardens in egypt (zohriya, orman, and zoo). they reported mimusops elengi, m. laurifolia, and m. caffra in orman; m. elengi and m. laurifolia in zohriya; and m. laurifolia in the zoological garden. hamdy (2010) reported three species in aswan, of which mimusops kummel bruce ex a.dc. had been added. however, m. kummel sensu hamdy was actually m. laurifolia. both of youssef et al. (2012) and youssef & hamdy (2013) listed three species which were previously recorded; while gamal (2018) only recorded m. laurifolia. the aim of the present study is to update the list of the cultivated species of the genus mimusops in egypt; to provide an identification key for these species; to study thoroughly the taxonomic parameters for taxon delimitation; and to give a detailed description with photographs, and synonyms for each taxon. these data are presented for the first time. table 1 : historical review of mimusops species cultivated in egypt. (+=present, -=absent, ×=present but cited under a synonym, *= a new record). taxa s c h w e in fu rt h ( 1 8 8 3 ) d e lc h e v e ra le ri e ( 1 8 9 9 ) s ic k e n b e rg e r (1 9 0 1 ) t ä c k h o lm ( 1 9 5 1 ) b ir c h e r (1 9 6 0 ) d iw a n e t a l. (2 0 0 4 ) h a m d y e t a l. ( 2 0 0 7 ) h a m d y ( 2 0 1 0 ) y o u ss e f e t a l. ( 2 0 1 2 ) y o u ss e f & h a m d y ( 2 0 1 3 ) g a m a l (2 0 1 8 ) p re se n t st u d y ( 2 0 2 0 ) m. elengi l. + + + + + + + + m. caffra e. mey. ex a.dc. + + + + + + + m. kummel bruce ex a.dc. * m. laurifolia (forssk.)friis × × × + × + + + + m. zeyheri sond. var. laurifolia engl. * 1 1 1 1 3 2 3 3 3 3 1 4 taxonomic revision of the cultivated species of mimusops 507 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 materials and methods in this study, morphological data were scored from examination of egyptian herbarium specimens, digital photographs of the authentic material kept in bm, br, c, ft, k and lg; examination of fresh material collected during conducted investigations; and the contribution sources of heine (1963), meeuse (1963), hemsley (1968), friis (1981, 2003, 2006), kupicha (1983), pennington (1991) and govaerts et al. (2001). the herbarium study was based on the examination of specimens kept in the major egyptian herbaria (cai, caim, mazhar, orman, and aswan) [acronyms follow holmgren et al., 1990]. living material included those collected during investigations in different botanical garden of cairo [egyptian museum, el-nahr and el-zohriya]; giza [national gene bank (ngb), mazhar, orman, and the zoological gardens]; and aswan [plant island]. these investigations were performed to obtain fresh material for the in vivo study of the vegetative, floral, and fruit characters; for preparing exsiccate; and to make field observation in several localities. voucher specimens have been deposited in the cairo university herbarium (cai). the examined representative specimens were geographically arranged according to the phytogeographical territories of egypt proposed by el hadidi (2000: 14-22). localities and collectors are given in appendix 1. for each species, nomenclature, authentic type specimens and synonyms are given with photographs of fresh material, as well as, phenology using the information from herbarium labels and investigations. type and authentic material seen by the authors are followed by (!). citation of the authors follows brummitt and powel (1992). results and discussion i. the genus mimusops l. in egypt the present work resulted in a total number of four cultivated species, of which mimusops kummel bruce ex a.dc. and m. zeyheri sond. are new additions. today, both are only cultivated in el-zohriya garden. this is attributed to the introduction and cultivation of new plants in our egyptian gardens. mimusops zeyheri is a polymorphic taxon, in which two varieties are currently accepted: var. zeyheri and var. laurifolia engl. (engler, 1904). the relationship of staminode length to its stamens and corolla lobes was successfully employed for the authors to recognize m. zeyheri var. laurifolia engl. in egypt. all herbarium specimens, identified by earlier investigators as m. elengi have been reidentified either as m. laurifolia or as m. kummel. therefore, the occurrence of m. elengi in egypt has not been supported by this research. ii. taxonomy mimusops l., sp. pl., ed., 1: 349 (1753) gen. pl., ed.5, 165 (1754). synonyms: elengi adans., fam. pl.2: 166 (1763). binectaria forssk., fl. aegypt.-arab. 82 (1775). type: b. laurifolia forssk. phlebolithis gaertn., fruct. sem. pl. 1:201 (1788). type: p. indica gaertn. imbricaria comm. ex juss., gen. pl. 152 (1789). type: i. barbonica j.f.gmel. radia noronha, verh. batav. genootsch. kunsten 5(4):3 (1790). “nom. nud. mimusops sect. quaternaria a.dc.in dc., prodr. 8: 202 (1844). mimusops sect. imbricaria (comm. ex juss.) hartog, j. bot.17: 358 (1879). semicipium pierre, not. bot. 10 (1890). type: s. boivinii hartog ex pierre. kaukenia kuntze, revis. gen. pl. 2:406 (1891). mimusops subgenus imbricaria (comm. ex juss.) engl. in engl. & prantl, nat. pflanzenfam. 4(1):142 (1891). description : unarmed trees or shrubs, with abundant to scarce milky latex. young vegetative parts commonly adpressed-pubescent with ferruginous, brownish, cinereous or yellowish indumentum, later glabrous or glabrescent. leaves thinly to firmly coriaceous, simple, alternate or spirally arranged, clustered at the end of branches or not, with brochidodromous venation, and with ± thickened paler margin; petiolate or subsessile; stipules minute and caducous. flowers bisexual actinomorphic, 1-4(-8), borne in the axils of persistent or fallen leaves, sometimes on brachyblasts (short, stout spur shoots), pedicelled; pedicel shorter to longer than the petiole, not or slightly accrescent in fruit, adpressed-pubescent. calyx of 8 sepals; sepals in two dissimilar whorls of el-hadidy et al 508 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 4, free or slightly connate at base, persistent, not or slightly accrescent in fruit, hairy on both surfaces but less internally; outer sepals valvate; inner narrower, and paler in colour. corolla gamopetalous, white, cream, yellowish, brownish or pink, frequently as long as calyx or slightly longer, rarely shorter; corolla-tube frequently much shorter than the lobes; corolla-lobes 8, 3-segmented; median segment entire, erect and clasping the stamen, sometimes incurved against the gynoecium; the two lateral segments shorter to longer than the median segment, entire (undivided) or further divided. stamens 8, opposite to the corolla lobes, in one whorl, inserted at the top of the corolla-tube and adnate to it; anthers relatively large, extrorse, apiculate, frequently hairy and longer than the filaments; filaments free or partly fused with the staminodes; staminodes 8, well developed, alternate with the stamens, simple, with entire or dentate apex, commonly inflexed and connivent to form a conical sheath concealing the gynoecium, densely pilose dorsally and along margins. ovary ovoid to globose or cylindrical, hairy, 8-loculed; locules uniovulate; style slender, exserted from the floral parts or not, glabrous or with few scattered hairs. fruit indehiscent, baccate, fleshy to rather leathery, ovoid to ellipsoid or globose, with persistent calyx at the base and remnants of the style at the apex, 1-6-seeded; seeds laterally compressed, with hard and shining testa; attachment scar small, basal or basi-ventral, circular or ellipsoid; embryo with copious endosperm, and thin foliaceous cotyledons. a paleotropical genus, with the exception of m. elengi in australia. it comprises 47 species, with 25 species in africa; 15 in madagascar and the comoros; 3 in the mascarenes; one in seychelles; and 3 in the indo pacific (one in asia through malesia to the pacific, one in andamans islands, and one in sri-lanka) [govaerts et al., 2001]. key to mimusops species cultivated in egypt: 1a. leaves firmly coriaceous, obcordate, cuneiform or obovate, 2-7 cm long, lateral veins 5-8 pairs, margin revolute; petiole 0.5 1cm long; bole twisted, seldom straight……1. m. caffra b. leaves coriaceous to thinly coriaceous, may be obovate, never obcordate or cuneiform, (4 -) 7 14.5 cm long, lateral veins 10–25 pairs, margin unrevolute; petiole 1 –5 cm long; bole straight 2 2a. flowering pedicels (1.5–) 2–4 cm long, longer than petiole; flower buds 7–10 mm long, 2.0–2.5 times as long as broad, acute; calyx 10 –12 mm long; corolla 9 –12 mm long; stamens 5 –6 mm long; gynoecium 12–15 mm long; style 10–12 mm long, distinctly exserted; leaves at least 5 times as long as the petiole, lateral veins 15 –25 pairs ............................................. 2. m. kummel b. flowering pedicels 1.0–2.0 cm long, shorter than petiole; flower buds 3–7 mm long, 1–2 times as long as broad, blunt to rounded or acute; calyx 5–10 mm long; corolla 6–9 mm long; stamens 2–5 mm long; gynoecium 4–11 mm long; style 2–9 mm long, included or slightly exserted; leaves up to 5 times as long as the petiole, lateral veins 10–15 pairs ......................................................... 3 3a. leaves clustered at the end of branches; flower buds blunt or rounded, 3-5×3-4 mm, 1.00–1.25 times as long as broad; corolla-tube 4 mm long, longer than corolla-segments; lateral segments irregularly incised; stamens c.2 mm long; gynoecium 4-5 mm long; style 2-3 mm long, included, hairy below; fruiting calyx reflexed; fruit green when ripe, 1-4 seeded; seed scar basi ventral, circular; bole buttressed .................................... 3. m. laurifolia b. leaves not clustered; flower buds acute, 5–7 × 3– 5 mm, 1.5–2 times as long as broad; corolla-tube 1–2 mm long, shorter than corolla-segments; lateral segments entire; stamens 4 –5 mm long; gynoecium 7–11 mm long; style 5–9 mm long, included or slightly exserted, glabrous; fruiting calyx clasped to the fruit or spreading; fruit brittle yellow or orange when ripe, 1–seeded; seed scar basal, oblate; bole not buttressed...4. m. zeyheri 1. mimusops caffra e. mey. ex a. dc. in dc., prodr.8: 203 (1844) “coast red milkwood” type: southern africa (eastern region): pondoland or natal. between umtentu and um zimkulu rivers, 1837, drège j.f. s.n., k000435321, isotype, (k image!). homotypic synonym: kaukenia caffra (e. mey. ex a.dc.) kuntze, revis. gen. pl. 2:406 (1891). taxonomic revision of the cultivated species of mimusops 509 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 heterotypic synonym: =mimusops revoluta hochst. apud krauss, flora 27: 825 (1844). type: southern africa: port natal. in woods on the dunes near durban, 1840, krauss f. 76, k000435320, isotype, (k-image!). description: much branched, shrub or smallto medium-sized tree, up to 15 m high, with milky latex, and rounded crown; bark dark grey, rough, shallowly and longitudinally fissured, wrinkled; bole seldom straight, often twisted, and not buttressed. young vegetative parts densely adpressed-pubescent, with yellowish-brown to ferruginous indumentum, soon glabrescent. leaves firmly coriaceous, not clustered, petiolated; blade obovate, obcordate or cuneiform, 2.0–7.0 cm long, 1.0–4.0 cm wide, 2–2.5 times as long as broad; apex retuse, emarginated or rounded; base acute; margin yellowish, thickened, and revolute; upper surface glaucous, glossy, with yellowish-brown to ferruginous hairs when young, soon glabrous; lower surface pale green, mat, adpressed-pubescent, with persistent fulvous indumentum along the midrib; midrib prominent below and flush above on both s urf ace s; l ater al veins 5– 8 pai rs; petiole canaliculate towards the leaf base on upper surface, dilated at the base, 0.5–1.0 cm long, shorter than the leaf blade (leaf blade = 5– 15 x petiole), adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous indumentum. inflorescence (1–) 2–3(–4)–flowered; flower 10– 20 mm in diam.; flower buds 8–10×3–5 mm, 2–3 times as long as broad, acute, pedicelled; pedicel erect to ascending or commonly deflexed, dilated at apex, 20–30 mm long, not accrescent in fruit, sulcate when dry, longer than the petiole (pedicel= 3–4 × petiole), densely adpressed-pubescent, with fulvous indumentum. calyx 8–10 mm long; calyx tube c. 1.0 mm long; outer calyx lobes lanceolate, 8– 9×2 –3 mm, with a dorsal midvein ceases below the acute apex, and with 1–2 lateral veins along the midvein on each side, densely adpressed-pubescent with fulvous indumentum outside and inside (less inside); inner calyx-lobes shorter, paler, and narrower, deltoid lanceolate, 7–8×1 mm, with a prominent, dark brown, median dorsal groove, and with fulvous hairs. corolla white or cream, as long as the calyx; corolla-tube 1–2 mm long; median segment lanceolate, 8–9 × 0.5–1.0 mm, pluri nerved, with acute apex and involute margins; lateral segments 6–7 mm long, slightly shorter than the median segments, each shallowly to deeply divided into two narrowly deltoid laciniae. stamens 5–6 mm long; filaments subulate, 2.0–2.5 mm long, hairy at base; anthers lanceolate, 3–4×1 mm, apiculate (apicula c. 0.5 mm long), hairy on and along the connective tissue; staminodes deltoid lanceolate, 3–4 mm, shorter than the stamens and corolla-segments, acute, densely pilose outside (especially along the margins). gynoecium 9–11 mm long; ovary ovoid to globose, with black brown colour at apex and base, 1.5–2.0 x 1.0–1.5 mm, pilose; style black or reddish-brown, slender, 7–9 mm long, as long as corolla or slightly exserted, sparsely hairy below; stigma c. 0.2 mm wide, hairy. fruiting calyx clasped to the fruit; fruit orange-red or red when ripe, globose or subglobose to ovoid, 2.0–2.5 x 1.5–2 cm, 1.0–1.5 times as long as broad, with rotundate or shortly rostrate apex (beaked/pointed tip), usually crowned by the persistent style at least when young, 1-seeded, ovoid to ellipsoid, 10-15 x 7-9 x 5-7 mm, glabrous; testa brown, shiny, with basal ellipsoid seed scar. (fig.1) phenology: flowering season may-july. global distribution: native to the coastal scrub of southern africa (cape province to natal) northwards to mozambique in south tropical africa. taxonomic note: unfortunately, our specimens are without fruits. therefore, characters of the fruit and seed are derived from authentic specimens and from literature of meeuse (1963), baehni (1965), and kupicha (1983). uses: as ornamental tree. 2. mimusops kummel bruce ex a.dc. in dc., prodr. 8: 203 (1844) “red milkwood” type: northeast tropical africa: ethiopia. tigre. in faucibus montium et ad declivia septentrionalia montis scholoda, 20june -31december 1837, schimper g.h.w. 280, k000435270, lectotype by hemsley, 1968 (k, image!). homotypic synonym: kaukenia kummel (bruce ex a.dc.) kuntze, revis. gen. pl. 2: 40 (1891). el-hadidy et al 510 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 fig,. 1 : field photographs of mimusops caffra e. mey. ex a. dc. a: trunk; b: twig with leaves and inflorescences; c: inflorescence; d: corolla longitudinally sectioned and opened, ventral view; e: corolla opened with 3 corolla-lobes, showing median and 2 lateral segments; f: corolla and one sepal removed, showing gynoecium [aswan botanic garden (plant island); abdelmohsen s.n. (cai)]. heterotypic synonyms: = imbricaria fragrans baker in oliv., fl. trop. afr. 3: 509 (1877). type: west tropical africa: south nigeria. yoruba, s.d., barter c. 1217: k000435260, holotype (k, image!). =mimusops fragrans (baker) engl. in engl. & prantl, nat. pflanzenfam. 4(1): 152, fig. 82 n-s (1891). =binectaria fragrans (baker) kuntze, revis. gen. pl. 2: 406 (1891). =mimusops djurensis engl., monogr. afr. pflanzenfam. 8: 75, tab. 30/b (1904). type: northeast tropical africa: sudan. seriba ghattas, im lande der djur reise nach central africa & sudan, 11 april 1869, schweinfurth g. 1379, k000435271 & schweinfurth g. 2428, k000435273, isosyntypes, (k, images!). =mimusops langenburgiana engl., monogr. afr. pflanzenfam. 8: 70, tab. 28/d (1904). type: east tropical africa: tanzania. rungwe district, near tukuya [langenburg], s.d., goetze s.g.864, br0000006282295, isotype, (br, image!). = mimusops stenosepala chiov., atti reale accad. italia, mem. cl. sci. fis. 11: 47 (1940). type: northeast tropical africa: ethiopia. neghelli, poscoli, 16 march 1937, senni l. 1015, ft 002542, holotype (ft, image!). description: small-to large-sized evergreen tree, up to 25 m high, with milky latex; crown much branched; bark dark grey, longitudinally fissured and wrinkled; b a c stamen ssttaammiinnooddee d e f taxonomic revision of the cultivated species of mimusops 511 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 bole straight, not buttressed. young vegetative parts densely adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous hairs, soon glabrescent. leaves coriaceous, not clustered, broadest part at the middle or above and petiolated; blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic, ovate-oblong or obovate (5.0-)7.0-14.5 cm long, 2.0-5.0 cm wide, 2-4 times as long as broad; apex frequently acuminate to cuspidate or acute, rarely emarginated or obtuse; base acute or cuneate; margin entire; upper surface dark green, glossy, densely adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous indumentum, later glabrous; lower surface paler, mat, with persistent ferruginous hairs along the midrib; midrib prominent on both surfaces; lateral veins 15-25 pairs; vein reticulation obscure above, obscure or slightly raised beneath; petiole canaliculate, sulcate when dry, 0.5-2.0(-2.5) cm long, much shorter than the leaf blade [blade = 5-9 × petiole], densely adpressed-pubscent, with ferruginous indumentum. inflorescence (1 -)2-4–flowered; flowers 10 -13 mm in diam.; flower buds 7-10 × 4-5 mm, 2-2.5 times as long as broad, acute, pedicelled; pedicel erect to ascending, or commonly recurved, slender, (15 -) 20-40 (-50, not in ours) mm long, longer than the petiole [pedicel= (1.5-) 2-3×petiole), densely adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous hairs. calyx 10-12 mm long; calyx-tube c. 1 mm long; outer calyx lobes lanceolate, 10-11 × 2-3 mm, with acute apex, paler margin, and densely pubescent with ferruginous hairs on both surfaces (less hairy inside especially at the darker base); inner calyx-lobes slightly shorter and narrower, 9 –10 × 1–2 mm, acute, with brown dorsal groove, with paler hairs. corolla white or cream, 9-12 mm long, as long as calyx or slightly shorter; corolla-tube 1–2 mm long; median segment oblong elliptic or lanceolate, 9-10×2.0 mm, with 2-3 pairs of prominent lateral veins along the prominent midvein, apex acute to obtuse; lateral segments 8–10 mm long, as long as the median segments or slightly shorter, entire or often divided into 2 -3 lanceolate-linear laciniae. stamens 5-6 mm long; filaments reddish brown, 2.0-3.5 mm long; anthers lanceolate, 2.5-4.0 × 1.0-1.5 mm, hardly longer than filaments, with an apiculate apex (apicula 0.3–0.5 mm long), hairy on and along the connective tissue; staminodes deltoid lanceolate or lanceolate-linear, 4-6(-7) mm long, gradually or abruptly narrowed above into an acute apex with an extended, paler and glabrous tip (1-2 mm long), frequently as long as the stamens or shorter, rarely slightly longer, shorter than the corolla segments, externally densely pilose throughout except the extended apex. gynoecium 12–15 mm long; ovary ovoid, 2–3 × 1–2 mm, densely covered with ferruginous hairs; style reddish-brown, slender, 10-12 mm long, distinctly exserted, glabrous; stigma 0.2–0.3 mm wide, hairy. fruiting calyx clasped to the fruit; fruit yellowish-orange or orangered, ellipsoid to ovoid, 2.0 –2.5 × 1.0–1.5 cm, 2.0–2.5 times as long as broad, with acute to obtuse or commonly with shortly rosrate/beaked apex, usually crowned by the persistent style at least when young, glabrous, 1 seeded; seed ellipsoid, laterally compressed, 18–20 × 9 ×7 mm; testa brown, shiny, with basi –ventral scar; scar ellipsoid, c. 3.5 × 2 mm, (fig. 2). phenology: flowering season may-july, october; fruiting season: january, june, october. global distribution: it is widely distributed in tropical africa. it occurs in west and west-central africa (ghana, guinea, ivory coast, nigeria, togo, central africa, and cameroon); northeast africa (ethiopia, somalia, and sudan), east africa (kenya, tanzania, and uganda), and malawi in south tropical africa. taxonomic notes: it is unique by its entire or divided lateral segments with lanceolate-linear laciniae, as well as the anthers hardly longer than filaments. in all our cultivated specimens, the staminodes are 4 –6(–7) mm long, frequently as long as stamens or shorter, rarely slightly longer. hamdy et al. (2010) reported the occurrence of mimusops kummel from aswan, but it was actually belong to m. laurifolia (forssk.) friis. in zohriya garden, the tree was initially mistaken for m. elengi l. both species are within the same range of leaves (shape, size, apex, lateral veins, and petiole). however, indumentum colour, floral and fruit characters are diagnostic to distinguish both. in mimusops kummel, the indumentum is with ferruginous hairs [vs. rufous hairs] along the midrib beneath, narrower (10-13 mm wide) flowers [vs. 15 20 mm wide]; longer (10-12 mm long) calyx [vs. 7-9 mm long]; shorter (1-2 mm long) corolla-tube [vs. 2 4 mm long]; entire or divided lateral segments [vs. entire]; longer (10-12 mm long) style [vs. 3-5 mm long]; narrower (1.0-1.5 mm wide) fruit [vs. 1.5-2.5 mm wide], and with an ellipsoid seed scar [vs. circular]. el-hadidy et al 512 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 fig. 2 : field photographs of mimusops kummel bruce ex a. dc. a: trunk; b: twig with leaves, inflorescences, fruits, and seeds; c: lateral segments with its entire or divided laciniae, viewed from below; d: corolla opened with stamens and staminodes, dorsal view; e: corolla and most sepals removed showing gynoecium; f: fruit (above) and seed (below); g: seed, lateral view; h: seed with seed-scar, ventral view [zohriya garden; abdelmohsen s.n. (cai)]. taxonomic revision of the cultivated species of mimusops 513 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 uses: as ornamental tree 3. mimusops laurifolia (forssk.) friis, kew bull. 35(4): 787, figs. 1-3 (1981) “persea” type: arabian peninsula: yemen. bayt al faqih “beit el fakih”, 1763, forsskål p. 359, c10001840 and forsskål p. 360, c10001841, syntypes (c, images!). homotypic basionym: binectaria laurifolia forssk., fl. aegypt.-arab.: cx no. 252,82, cent iii no. 54 (1775). heterotypic synonyms: =m. kauki vahl, symb. bot. 1:27 (1790) [non l., 1753]. =m. schimperi hochst. ex a. rich., tent. fl. abyss. 2:22 (1851). type: northeast tropical africa: ethiopia. tacazze; infra dscheladscheranne, 09 december 1839, schimper w.g. 697, lg0000090026638 (lg, image!), isosyntype; tigre; “inter dscheladscheranne et selassaquilla”, in convalle fluvii tacazze, 01 may 1840, schimper w.g. 873, k000435265, syntype (k, image!). = mimusops kummel sensu hamdy, gard. hist. 38 (2): 276 (2010) [non bruce ex a. dc., 1844]. description: small-to medium-sized, evergreen tree, up to 15 m high, with milky latex; crown rounded; bark brown, longitudinally fissured and wrinkled; bole straight and buttressed. young vegetative parts densely adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous indumentum, later glabrescent. leaves subcoriaceous, densely clustered at the end of branches or on spurs (c. 2.0–3.0 cm long) if present (not in ours), broadest part at the middle or below and petiolated; blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic or lanceolate, 4.0–12.0 cm long, 2.0–5.0 cm wide, leaf blade 2–3 times as long as broad; apex acute or bluntly apiculate, rarely emarginate; base cuneate or obtuse; margin yellow, entire; upper surface dark green, glossy, densely adpressed-pubescent with ferruginous hairs, later glabrous; lower surface paler, mat, with persistent ferruginous hairs on and along the midrib; midrib prominent below and flush above on both surfaces; lateral veins 10–15 pairs; petiole pale in colour, canaliculated towards the leaf base on upper surface, sulcate when dry, 2.0–5.0 cm long, shorter than the leaf blade [blade = 2–4×petiole], adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous indumentum. inflorescence (1–)2– 4–flowered; flowers 10–12 mm in diam.; flower buds 3.0–5.0 × 3.0–4.0 mm, 1.0–1.25 times as long as broad, with blunt or rounded apex, pedicelled; pedicel erect to patent, 10–20 mm long, accrescent in fruit (up to 2.5 cm long), shorter than the petiole (petiole = 2– 3× pedicel), adpressed-pubescent with ferruginous hairs. calyx 5.0–7.0 mm long; calyx tube c. 1.0 mm long; outer calyx-lobes green, lanceolate, 5.0–6.0 × 2.0–3.0 mm, with obtuse apex, and with white or paler stripe along the margin, adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous hairs on both surfaces (less hairy inside); inner calyx-lobes paler, narrower, oblong-lanceolate, 4.0–5.0 × 2.0 mm, as long as or slightly shorter than the outer ones, dorsally with a distinct green median groove ceases below the ± mucronulate apex, hairy on both surfaces (less hairy inside).corolla yellowish white, 6.0–7.0 mm long, as long as the calyx or slightly longer; corolla-tube c.4 mm long, slightly longer than the corolla lobes; median segment narrowly spathulate or spathulate-oblong, 2.0–3.0 × 0.5–1.0 mm, with descending lateral veins along the midvein which ceases below the ± acute apex, and with uneven margin above; lateral segments c.3.0 mm long, as long as the median segments or slightly longer, each irregularly divided (incised) into narrowly oblong lanceolate to linear laciniae. stamens c. 2.0 mm long; filaments subulate, c. 0.5 mm long; anthers lanceolate, c. 2.0 × 1.0 mm, apiculate (apicula c. 0.2 mm long), hairy; staminode lanceolate-linear, c. 2.5 mm long, slightly longer than stamens, slightly shorter than the corolla-lobes or subequal, densely hairy throughout. gynoecium 4.0–5.0 mm long; ovary globose or subglobose, ribbed, c.2.0 mm wide, hairy (more along ribs); style reddish, ± slender, included, 2.0–3.0 mm long, hairy below and glabrous above; stigma reddish, c. 0.3 mm wide, hairy. fruiting calyx reflexed; fruit green, ovoid to ellipsoid, 3.0–4.0 × 2.0–2.5 cm, with acute or commonly with shortly rostrate (beaked) apex, glabrous, 1–4–seeded, 1.5–2 times as long as broad; seeds ellipsoid, laterally compressed, 17–20 × 10–12 × 10 mm; testa pale (toffee) or dark brown, shiny; scar small, basi-ventral, circular, 2.0–3.0 mm in diam, (fig. 3). phenology: flowering season: march-june, october; fruiting season: june-august, october. el-hadidy et al 514 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 fig. 3 : field photographs of mimusops laurifolia (forssk.) friis. a: trunk; b: twig with leaves and inflorescence (flower buds); c: twig with leaves, and fruit; d: corolla opened with 3 corolla-lobes, showing median and 2-lateral segments; e: corolla longitudinally sectioned and opened showing stamens and staminodes, ventral view; f: gynoecium; g: seed, lateral view; h: seed with seed-scar, ventral view [zoological garden; abdelmohsen s.n. (cai)]. global distribution: this species is restricted to the mountains around the red sea and the gulf of aden. it occurs in northeast tropical africa (djibouti, ethiopia, eritrea, and somalia) and arabian peninsula (saudi arabia, n yemen) in temperate asia. records from sudan (northeast tropical africa), uganda (east tropical africa), and ancient egypt are presumably due to introduction (friis, 1981, 2003). taxonomic notes: in orman (giza) and plant island (aswan), this species was regarded by earlier investigators as mimusops elengi l. however, both species can be discriminated by floral and fruit characters. mimusops laurifolia has blunt or rounded flower buds; lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate calyx lobes with obtuse apex; shorter (6–7 mm long) flowers; corolla-tube longer than corolla-lobes; irregularly incised (divided) lateral segments; stamens with short (c. 0.5 mm long) filaments; short (c. 2.5 mm long) staminodes with acute apex; and green fruit with 1–4–seeded. in contrast, mimusops elengi possesses acute flower buds; narrowly ovate calyx lobes with acuminate apex; longer (8–12 mm long) flowers; corolla-tube shorter than corolla-lobes; entire taxonomic revision of the cultivated species of mimusops 515 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 (undivided) lateral segments; stamens with longer filaments (1–3 mm long); longer (4–6 mm long) staminodes with toothed apex; and orange-red fruit with 1(–2)–seeded. uses: fruit is edible; planted as shade or ornamental tree. 4. mimusops zeyheri sond., linnaea 23: 74 (1850); engl., monogr. afr. pflanzenfam. 8:73 (1904). “common red milkwood” description: small-to medium-sized, evergreen tree, up to 20 m high, with milky latex; crown much branched, spreading, and rounded; bark brown and reticulately fissured; bole straight, not buttressed. young vegetative parts densely adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous indumentum, soon glabrescent. leaves coriaceous or thinly coriaceous, not clustered, broadest part at the middle, above or below and petiolated; blade elliptic to oblong-elliptic or obovate, sometimes lanceolate, (4–) 6–11 cm long, 2.0–5.5 cm wide, leaf blade 2–3 times as long as broad; apex acute to obtuse or commonly bluntly apiculate, rarely rounded or emarginate; base cuneate or acute; margin yellow, thickened, entire; upper surface dark green, glossy, with ferruginous hairs, later glabrescent, and with conspicuous vein reticulation; lower surface pale green, mat, with raised vein reticulation, more tardily glabrescent than above, with persistent ferruginous hairs on and along the midrib, indumentum sometimes becoming greyish; midrib prominent on both surfaces, lateral veins 10–15 pairs; petiole canaliculate, dilated at the base, 1.0–3.5 cm long, shorter than the leaf blade (leaf blade = 3–5 × petiole), adpressed pubescent, with ferruginous hairs. inflorescence 1–3 (–5, not in ours)–flowered; flowers 10–15 mm in diam.; flower buds 5–7 × 3–5 mm, 1.5–2.0 times as long as broad, acute or subacute, pedicelled; pedicel erect to ascending or commonly recurved, slender, sulcate when dry, 10–17 mm long, slightly accrescent in fruit, subequal or commonly shorter than the petiole (petiole = 1–3 × pedicel), adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous indumentum. calyx 7–10 mm long, not accrescent in fruit; calyx-tube c.1.0 mm long; outer calyx-lobes lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 8.0– 9.0×3.0–4.0 mm, with paler margin, acute, dorsally ±3-nerved below, densely adpressed-pubescent, with ferruginous hairs outside and inside (less inside); inner calyx-lobes shorter, narrower, and paler, 6–7×2–3 mm, acute, dorsally with brown median groove, and with greyish-white hairs. corolla white, 6-9 mm long, shorter to longer than calyx; corolla-tube 1–2 mm long; median segments elliptic to oblong-elliptic or lanceolate with a narrow basal attachment, 5–7 × 1 mm, acute or obtuse at the ± mucronulate apex, sometimes serrate-denticulate; lateral segments lanceolate, 4–6 mm long, entire (undivided), shorter to longer than the median segments, pluri–nerved, apex acute to obtuse or serrate -denticulate at the mucronulate apex. stamens 4–5 mm long; filaments subulate, 1.5–2.5 mm long, glabrous; anthers lanceolate, 2.5–3.5×1.0–1.5 mm, with dark brown apiculate apex (apicula 0.3–0.5 mm long), hairy on and along the connective tissue; staminodes elongated deltoid to deltoid-lanceolate or lanceolate-subulate, either acute and shorter than stamens and corolla lobes or long acuminate-caudate and subequal or slightly longer than stamens and as long as the corolla lobes, densely pilose throughout outside except the paler tip. gynoecium 7–11 mm long; ovary ovoid to globose, 2–3 × 1–2 mm, densely pilose; style yellowish, slender, 5–9 mm long, included or slightly exserted, glabrous; stigma reddish-brown, 0.3–0.5 mm in diam., hairy. fruiting calyx clasped to the fruit or spreading; fruit green, turning into brittle yellow or orange when ripe, with orange pulp, ellipsoid to ovoid, 2.0–4.0 × 1.5– 2.5 cm, 1.5–2 times as long as broad, with acute to obtuse or with shortly rostrate/beaked apex, usually crowned by the persistent style at least when young, glabrous, 1-seeded; seed obovoid, c. 18 × 9–10× 6–7 mm, glabrous; testa brown, shiny; scar basal, oblate (horizontal), 1.5 ×1.7– 2 mm. (fig. 5). global distribution: it is widely distributed in south tropical africa (angola, malawi, zambia, mozambique, and zimbabwe) northwards to tanzania in east tropical africa, and southwards to southern africa (botswana, natal, and transvaal). in egypt, m. zeyheri tends in the direction of var. laurifolia. var. laurifolia engler, monogr. afr. pflanzen fam. 8: 73, tab. 27/c (1904). type: south tropical africa: malawi, 1895, buchanan j. 304, bm000925409, isotype, (bm, image!), (fig. 5). el-hadidy et al 516 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 fig. 4 : field photographs of mimusops zeyheri sond.var. laurifolia engl. a: trunk; b: twig with leaves, inflorescence and fruits (below); c: flower, lateral view; d: corolla longitudinally sectioned and opened, ventral view; e: corolla and one sepal removed, showing gynoecium; f: fruit and seed, lateral view; g: seed with seed-scar, ventral view [zohriya garden; abdelmohsen s.n. (cai)]. petiole 2.0-3.5 cm long, 2-3 times as long as the pedicel; corolla-segments not serrate-denticulate at apex; staminodes deltoid lanceolate, 2–3 mm long, acute, shorter than stamens and corolla lobes (nearly half the corolla-lobes). taxonomic note: the specimens were misidentified as m. obovata sond. since both have entire lateral segments. however, mimusops zeyheri var. laurifolia engl. has longer (2.0–3.5 cm) petioles [vs. shorter, less than 1 cm long]; flowering pedicels are shorter than the petioles [vs. longer than the petioles]; both median and lateral segments are different in shape and size [vs. subequal in shape and size]; and staminodes are shorter than stamens and corolla-lobes [vs. as long as stamens and corolla-lobes]. phenology: flowering season april, june-july, october; fruiting season june, september-october. use: as ornamental tree. taxonomic revision of the cultivated species of mimusops 517 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 505-519, 2022 references adanson, m. 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(received : 09.10.2021; revised : 12.01.2022; accepted : 12.01.2022) j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 packaging technology for export of jasmine (jasminum sambac ait.) flowers m. jawaharlal, s.p. thamaraiselvi and m. ganga department of floriculture and landscaping horticultural college and research institute tamilnadu agricultural university, coimbatore – 641 003 india e-mail: jawaharflori@yahoo.com abstract a study was conducted to standardize packaging technology for export of jasmine flowers. experiments were laid out in fcrd in three replications, with 12 chemical treatments, and packing with unit packing boxes and thermocol boxes under gel-ice cold condition. effects of various chemical treatments and their interaction with packaging were studied and observations were recorded on visual quality (freshness index, flower-opening index, colour retention index and fragrance score) of flowers and physiological parameters associated with post harvest quality of flowers. export suitability of the package was also studied and cost:benefit ratio (cbr) worked out. chemical treatment of flowers with 4% boric acid, packing in aluminum-foil lined boxes and further packaging in thermocol boxes under gel-ice cold condition was found to be significantly superior to control, and recorded a shelf life of 42.88h. this package also recorded maximum freshness index (70 to 90%), minimum flower-opening index (10.5 to 50%) and maximum colour retention index (77.77 to 88.88%) of flowers. cbr was 1:2.5. key words: jasmine flowers, j. sambac, chemical treatment, packing, packaging, export suitability introduction jasmine (jasminum sambac ait.) is the oldest of fragrant flowers cultivated by man. the flowers are used for various purposes, viz., making garlands and bouquets, for religious offerings, etc. these are also used for production of essential oils in the form of ‘concrete’ and ‘absolute’ used in cosmetic and perfumery industries. j. sambac, called ‘gundumalli/madurai malli’ in tamil nadu, has several cultivars, namely, motia, single mogra, double mogra, ramanathapuram local, oosimalli, soojimalli, ramabanam and iruvatchi (abdul khader and kumar, 1995). though cut flowers constituted a major share of flower exports over the past two decades, recently, export of the traditional group of flowers, especially jasmine flowers, has picked up. this is because of increasing demand for these from the indian population settled in middle east countries and the united states of america. strung flowers of j. sambac have good export demand in long distance markets like the us. it takes around 36–48h from india to new york market by air. the flowers are very delicate and show signs of wilting with abrupt loss of fragrance within 24 -36 h after harvest. one of the major problems faced by exporters is lack of suitable packaging technology for export. in view of the increasing demand for fresh flowers and the need for developing reliable export packaging technology catering to distant overseas markets, the present study was undertaken. the objective was to standardize export packaging technology in jasmine flowers. material and methods unopened, fresh flower-buds of j. sambac constituted the experimental material. investigations on packaging were carried out under gel-ice cold conditions. the design adopted was crd with 2 factors (chemical treatment and packaging material). chemical treatments used were based upon earlier, published results (nirmala and reddy, 1994; madhu, 1999; karruppaiah et al, 2006). details of chemical treatments are: t 1 sucrose 2%, t 2 sucrose 4%, t 3 boric acid 2%, t 4 boric acid 4%, t 5 salicylic acid 25 ppm, t 6 salicylic acid 50 ppm, t 7 ascorbic acid 50 ppm, t 8 – ascorbic acid 100 ppm, t 9 naa 50 ppm, t 10 naa 100 ppm, t 11 distilled water, t 12 no soaking (control). three types of packing boxes were used: box a – aluminium-foil lined cardboard boxes of dimensions 14 x 11 x 14cm; box b 0.5mm thick polypropylene boxes of dimensions 16 x 11 x 4cm, and box c 0.3mm thick polypropylene boxes of dimension 10 x 7 x 4 cm. thermocol box of dimension 60 cm x 45 cm x 30 cm capable of holding 50, 40 and 50 boxes a, b & c, respectively, was used for 181 packaging technology for export of jasmine flowers packaging. butter paper was used as the lining material inside boxes a, b and c. aluminum-foils and butter paper were used for lining between boxes packaged in thermocol boxes. ten grams of fresh-flower buds of uniform size were treated with the chemicals, air dried and packed in boxes a, b, and c lined with butter papers. these boxes, in turn, were packed in thermocol boxes with intermittent gel-ice layers, lined with aluminum-foil and butter paper. this package was stored under ambient conditions and observations were recorded at 24h and 36h after storage. visual observations like freshness index, floweropening index, colour retention index, fragrance index and shelf life were recorded based on hedonic scale scoring (1999). physiological paramaters such as moisture content, physiological loss in weight (plw), membrane integrity (mi) (barrs and weatherley, 1962), relative water content (rwc), peroxidase activity (srivastava, 1987) and catalase activity (diby paul and sharma, 2005) were analyzed. shelf life of flowers was recorded as time taken to wilting of 50% of flowers. export suitability of the best package developed was evaluated for us market (new jersey) and cost : benefit ration (cbr) was worked out. standard procedure of sukhatme and amble (1985) was adopted for statistical scrutiny of data. results and discussion visual and physiological parameters 24 hours after packaging among packing boxes, no significant differences were noticed for freshness index, moisture content, rwc and total carbohydrates 24h after packaging. flowers packed in box a (aluminium-foil lined box) recorded the least floweropening index of 39.69% (table 1) and maximum colourretention index of 74.07% (table 2) as also the lowest plw of 2.24% (table 3) and maximum membrane integrity of 58.51% (table 4). activity of peroxidase and catalase was found to be non-significant. with regard to chemical treatments, boric acid at 4% (t 4 ) recorded maximum freshness index (81.63%), followed by boric acid at 2% (t 2 ) at 81.41% (table 1). the same treatments were at par with each other and recorded the least flower-opening index (5%) and maximum colourretention index (88.88%) (table 2). in the case of physiological parameters, treatments with boric acid at 4% (t 4 ) and 2% (t 2 ) recorded the least plw (1.83 and 1.85, respectively), maximum moisture content (57.14 and 56.99%) (table 3), maximum rwc (85.72 and 85.49%) and maximum membrane integrity (47.14 and 47.31% respectively) (table 4). activities of enzymes such as peroxidase (17.96 change in od/g/min.) (fig. 1) and catalase (40.96µg h 2 o 2 /g/min.) (fig. 2) were found to be highest in boric acid 4% treatment. in the case of b x t (packing box and chemical treatment) interaction, except for flower-opening index and plw, all other parameters recorded non-significant values. data on fragrance score indicated that the control recorded higher fragrance score of ‘3’ (strong) while all other treatments recorded a score of ‘2’ (mild). visual and physiological parameters 36 hours after packaging in the case of chemical treatments, boric acid at 4% (t 4 ) recorded maximum freshness index (71.75%) (table 1), lowest flower-opening index (29.17%) and maximum colour-retention index (77.77%) (table 2). the same treatment also recorded the least plw (2.83%) and maximum values for moisture content (50.23%), rwc (75.34%) and membrane integrity (53.08%). highest activity of the enzymes peroxidase (38.21 change in od/g/min.) and catalase (37.73µg h 2 o 2 /g/min.) were also recorded in treatment t 4 compared to all other treatments and control. among packing boxes, box a (aluminium-foil lined boxes) exhibited significance and recorded maximum freshness-index of 52.42% (table 1) and maximum colour retention index of 57.40% (table 2). as for physiological parameters, box a recorded the least plw of 4.76% (table 3) and highest values for moisture content (36.69%), rwc (55.04%) and membrane integrity (68.74%) (table 4). highest activity of enzymes like peroxidase (26.21 change in od/g/min.) (fig. 1) and catalase (39.60µg h 2 o 2 /g/min.) (fig. 2) were also registered in flowers packed in box a. among b x t interaction effect, b 1 t 4 (packing box a + boric acid 4%) was found to be significantly better for maximum freshness index (74.15%), least flower-opening, highest colour-retention index (88.88%), least plw (2.59%) along with maximum moisture (51.91%), rwc content (77.86%) and membrane integrity (51.90%) and highest activities of peroxidase (37.08 change in od/g/min.) and catalase (31.06µg h 2 o 2 /g/min.). decrease in fragrance level was noticed in the control. all treatments recorded a fragrance score of ‘2’ (mild) at 36 hours after packaging. shelf-life of jasmine flowers among packing boxes, box a (b 1 ) exhibited maximum shelf life of 35.63h. among chemical treatments, boric acid 4% (t 4 ) recorded higher shelf life of 40.96h j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 182 t ab le 1 . e ff ec t of c h em ic al t re at m en t an d t h er m oc ol p ac k ag in g on f re sh n es s in d ex a n d f lo w er o p en in g in d ex o f j. s am ba c p ac ki ng f re sh n es s in d ex f lo w er o p en in g in d ex t re at m en t 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n t 1 74 .2 1 74 .3 6 70 .2 2 72 .9 3 42 .8 5 41 .2 8 30 .2 2 38 .1 2 53 .7 5 56 .2 5 50 .0 0 53 .3 3 75 .1 5 80 .0 0 75 .5 0 76 .8 8 (5 9 .5 8 ) (5 9 .6 8 ) (5 6 .9 9 ) (5 8 .7 5 ) (4 0 .8 8 ) (3 9 .9 7 ) (3 3 .3 3 ) (3 8 .0 6 ) (4 7 .1 5 ) (4 8 .6 0 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 6 .9 2 ) (6 0 .2 1 ) (6 3 .6 2 ) (6 0 .4 4 ) (6 1 .4 2 ) t 2 77 .8 1 74 .0 0 71 .3 1 74 .3 7 42 .1 8 42 .1 4 30 .1 4 38 .1 5 41 .2 5 43 .7 5 50 .0 0 45 .0 0 75 .0 0 80 .0 0 75 .0 0 76 .6 7 (6 2 .0 4 ) (5 9 .4 4 ) (5 7 .6 8 ) (5 9 .7 2 ) (4 0 .4 9 ) (4 0 .4 7 ) (3 3 .2 8 ) (3 8 .0 8 ) (3 9 .9 5 ) (4 1 .4 0 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 2 .1 2 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 3 .6 2 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 1 .2 8 ) t 3 85 .1 7 80 .1 1 78 .9 6 81 .4 1 73 .2 2 70 .4 1 70 .1 4 71 .2 6 15 .0 0 0 0 5. 00 42 .5 0 45 .0 0 15 .0 0 34 .1 7 (6 7 .7 2 ) (6 3 .7 0 ) (6 2 .8 6 ) (6 4 .7 6 ) (5 8 .9 2 ) (5 7 .1 1 ) (5 6 .9 4 ) (5 7 .6 6 ) (2 2 .7 7 ) (1 .6 5) (1 .6 5) (8 .6 9) (4 0 .6 8 ) (4 2 .1 2 ) (2 2 .7 7 ) (3 5 .1 9 ) t 4 84 .3 2 81 .2 6 79 .3 2 81 .6 3 74 .1 5 70 .8 2 70 .2 8 71 .7 5 15 .0 0 0 0 5. 00 36 .2 5 38 .7 5 12 .5 0 29 .1 7 (6 7 .0 0 ) (6 4 .5 7 ) (6 3 .1 2 ) (6 4 .9 0 ) (5 9 .5 4 ) (5 7 .3 7 ) (5 7 .0 3 ) (5 7 .9 8 ) (2 2 .7 7 ) (1 .6 5) (1 .6 5) (8 .6 9) (3 7 .0 1 ) (3 8 .4 9 ) (2 0 .6 9 ) (3 2 .0 6 ) t 5 70 .8 2 72 .8 5 73 .2 1 72 .2 9 41 .2 5 40 .4 8 30 .7 7 37 .5 0 48 .7 5 51 .2 5 50 .0 0 50 .0 0 73 .1 2 80 .0 0 15 .0 0 56 .0 4 (5 7 .3 7 ) (5 8 .6 8 ) (5 8 .9 2 ) (5 8 .3 2 ) (3 9 .9 5 ) (3 9 .5 0 ) (3 3 .6 8 ) (3 7 .7 1 ) (4 4 .2 8 ) (4 5 .7 1 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (5 8 .8 6 ) (6 3 .6 2 ) (2 2 .7 7 ) (4 8 .4 2 ) t 6 72 .3 1 74 .2 8 72 .8 5 73 .1 5 46 .2 5 37 .6 2 31 .2 8 38 .3 8 45 .0 0 47 .5 0 50 .0 0 47 .5 0 74 .1 5 78 .0 0 75 .5 0 75 .8 8 (5 8 .3 3 ) (5 9 .6 2 ) (5 8 .6 8 ) (5 8 .8 8 ) (4 2 .8 4 ) (3 7 .8 2 ) (3 3 .9 9 ) (3 8 .2 2 ) (4 2 .1 2 ) (4 3 .5 6 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 3 .5 6 ) (5 9 .5 4 ) (6 2 .1 8 ) (6 0 .4 4 ) (6 0 .7 2 ) t 7 72 .8 4 73 .8 5 71 .2 8 72 .6 6 43 .7 5 33 .5 1 28 .1 4 35 .1 3 41 .2 5 43 .7 5 50 .0 0 45 .0 0 75 .0 0 79 .0 0 75 .0 0 76 .3 3 (5 8 .6 7 ) (5 9 .3 4 ) (5 7 .6 6 ) (5 8 .5 6 ) (4 1 .4 0 ) (3 5 .3 6 ) (3 2 .0 2 ) (3 6 .2 6 ) (3 9 .9 5 ) (4 1 .4 0 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 2 .1 2 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 2 .8 9 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 1 .0 3 ) t 8 73 .2 2 74 .2 8 73 .1 4 73 .5 5 42 .5 0 32 .1 6 28 .2 4 34 .3 0 42 .5 0 45 .0 0 50 .0 0 45 .8 3 75 .0 0 80 .0 0 75 .0 0 76 .6 7 (5 8 .9 2 ) (5 9 .6 2 ) (5 8 .8 7 ) (5 9 .1 4 ) (4 0 .6 8 ) (3 4 .5 3 ) (3 2 .0 9 ) (3 5 .7 6 ) (4 0 .6 8 ) (4 2 .1 2 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 2 .6 0 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 3 .6 2 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 1 .2 8 ) t 9 80 .1 2 79 .2 3 74 .2 8 77 .8 8 69 .9 6 32 .7 1 28 .1 4 43 .6 0 33 .7 5 36 .2 5 50 .0 0 40 .0 0 74 .5 0 80 .0 0 80 .0 0 78 .1 7 (6 3 .7 1 ) (6 3 .0 6 ) (5 9 .6 2 ) (6 2 .1 3 ) (5 6 .8 2 ) (3 4 .8 7 ) (3 2 .0 2 ) (4 1 .2 4 ) (3 5 .5 0 ) (3 7 .0 1 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (3 9 .1 7 ) (5 9 .7 7 ) (6 3 .6 2 ) (6 3 .6 2 ) (6 2 .3 4 ) t 1 0 80 .3 1 79 .1 4 76 .3 1 78 .5 9 70 .1 2 32 .7 1 28 .2 4 43 .6 9 45 .0 0 47 .5 0 50 .0 0 47 .5 0 73 .1 5 75 .0 0 80 .0 0 76 .0 5 (6 3 .8 5 ) (6 2 .9 9 ) (6 1 .0 0 ) (6 2 .6 1 ) (5 6 .9 2 ) (3 4 .8 7 ) (3 2 .0 9 ) (4 1 .2 9 ) (4 2 .1 2 ) (4 3 .5 6 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 3 .5 6 ) (5 8 .8 8 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 3 .6 2 ) (6 0 .8 7 ) t 1 1 70 .4 1 70 .8 2 70 .1 1 70 .4 5 41 .2 8 32 .7 1 28 .1 4 34 .0 4 48 .7 5 51 .2 5 50 .0 0 50 .0 0 75 .0 0 79 .0 0 75 .0 0 76 .3 3 (5 7 .1 1 ) (5 7 .3 7 ) (5 6 .9 2 ) (5 7 .1 3 ) (3 9 .9 7 ) (3 4 .8 7 ) (3 2 .0 2 ) (3 5 .6 2 ) (4 4 .2 8 ) (4 5 .7 1 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 2 .8 9 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 1 .0 3 ) t 1 2 78 .5 2 70 .1 4 70 .8 6 73 .1 7 41 .5 0 34 .5 6 28 .2 8 34 .7 8 46 .2 5 48 .7 5 50 .0 0 48 .3 3 75 .0 0 78 .0 0 75 .0 0 76 .0 0 (6 2 .5 5 ) (5 6 .9 4 ) (5 7 .4 0 ) (5 8 .9 6 ) (4 0 .0 9 ) (3 5 .9 9 ) (3 2 .1 1 ) (3 6 .0 7 ) (4 2 .8 4 ) (4 4 .2 8 ) (4 5 .0 0 ) (4 4 .0 4 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 2 .1 8 ) (6 0 .1 1 ) (6 0 .8 0 ) m ea n 76 .6 7 75 .3 6 73 .4 9 75 .1 7 52 .4 2 41 .7 6 36 .0 0 43 .3 9 39 .6 9 39 .8 7 41 .6 7 40 .2 1 68 .6 5 72 .7 3 60 .7 1 67 .3 6 (6 1 .4 0 ) (6 0 .4 2 ) (5 9 .1 4 ) (6 0 .3 2 ) (4 6 .5 4 ) (4 0 .2 3 ) (3 6 .7 2 ) (4 1 .1 6 ) (3 8 .7 0 ) (3 6 .3 9 ) (3 7 .7 7 ) (3 7 .6 2 ) (5 6 .2 9 ) (5 9 .0 8 ) (5 1 .2 4 ) (5 5 .5 4 ) s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % p ac ki ng ( b ) 0. 96 n s n s 0. 53 1. 07 * 1. 42 ** 0. 47 0. 94 * 1. 25 ** 0. 90 1. 80 * 2. 39 ** t re at m en t (t ) 1 .9 3 3. 86 * 5. 13 ** 1. 07 2. 14 * 2. 84 ** 0. 94 1. 88 * 2. 50 ** 1. 80 3. 60 * 4. 78 ** b x t 3. 35 n s n s 1. 86 3. 71 * 4. 93 ** 1. 64 3. 27 * 4. 34 ** 3. 13 6. 24 * 8. 29 ** v al u es i n p ar en th es es a re a rc si n e tr an sf o rm ed t 1 s u cr o se 2 % t 7 a sc o rb ic a ci d 5 0 p p m b 1 b ox a t 2 s u cr o se 4 % t 8 a sc o rb ic a ci d 1 0 0 p p m b 2 b ox b t 3 b o ri c ac id 2 % t 9 n a a 5 0 p p m b 3 b ox c t 4 b o ri c ac id 4 % t 1 0 n a a 1 0 0 p p m , t 5 s al ic y li c ac id 2 5 p p m t 1 1 d is ti ll ed w at er t 6 s al ic y li c ac id 5 0 p p m t 1 2 c o n tr o l jawaharlal et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 183 t ab le 2 . e ff ec t of c h em ic al t re at m en t an d t h er m oc ol p ac k ag in g on c ol ou r re te n ti on i n d ex a n d f ra gr an ce o f j. s am ba c p ac ki ng c o lo u r r et en ti o n i n d ex ( % ) f ra gr an ce s co re t re at m en t 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 b 1 b 2 b 3 t 1 66 .6 6 55 .5 5 66 .6 0 62 .9 4 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (5 4 .7 4 ) (5 2 .5 7 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) t 2 66 .6 6 66 .6 6 66 .6 6 66 .6 6 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) t 3 10 0 88 .8 8 92 .0 0 88 .8 8 88 .8 8 77 .7 7 77 .7 7 77 .7 7 2 2 2 2 2 2 (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) t 4 10 0 88 .8 8 92 .0 0 88 .8 8 88 .8 8 77 .7 7 77 .7 7 77 .7 7 2 2 2 2 2 2 (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) t 5 66 .6 6 55 .5 5 66 .6 6 62 .9 6 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (5 2 .5 8 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) t 6 66 .6 6 55 .5 5 55 .5 5 59 .2 5 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (5 0 .3 8 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) t 7 66 .6 6 55 .5 5 66 .6 6 62 .9 6 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (5 2 .5 8 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) t 8 66 .6 6 55 .5 5 66 .6 6 62 .9 6 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (5 2 .5 8 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) t 9 88 .8 8 77 .7 7 77 .7 7 81 .4 7 77 .7 7 66 .6 6 66 .6 6 81 .4 7 2 2 2 2 2 2 (7 1 .2 3 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 5 .0 8 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (6 5 .7 4 ) t 1 0 88 .8 8 77 .7 7 77 .7 7 81 .4 7 77 .7 7 66 .6 6 66 .6 6 81 .4 7 2 2 2 2 2 2 (7 1 .2 3 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 2 .0 1 ) (6 5 .0 8 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (7 1 .2 3 ) (5 4 .7 7 ) (6 5 .7 4 ) t 1 1 66 .6 6 55 .5 5 55 .5 5 59 .2 5 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (5 0 .3 8 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) t 1 2 66 .6 6 55 .5 5 55 .5 5 59 .2 5 44 .4 4 44 .4 4 33 .3 3 40 .7 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 (5 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (4 8 .1 9 ) (5 3 .3 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (4 1 .8 0 ) (3 5 .2 5 ) (3 9 .6 1 ) m ea n 74 .0 7 65 .7 3 69 .4 3 69 .7 4 57 .4 0 57 .0 0 46 .2 9 53 .7 0 f ra gr an ce s co re (6 0 .2 6 ) (5 4 .8 8 ) (5 7 .8 0 ) (5 7 .6 5 ) (5 0 .0 7 ) (5 0 .0 7 ) (4 4 .7 7 ) (4 8 .3 1 ) s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % ● v er y s tr o n g – 4 p ac ki ng ( b ) 1. 01 2. 03 * 2. 69 ** 0. 80 1. 60 * 2. 13 ** ● s tr o n g – 3 t re at m en t (t ) 2 .0 3 4. 06 * 5. 39 ** 1. 61 3. 21 * 4. 26 ** ● m il d – 2 b x t 3. 53 n s n s 2. 79 5. 57 * 7. 39 ** ● l ea st , a n d u n d es ir ab le – 1 v al u es i n p ar en th es es a re a rc si n e tr an sf o rm ed packaging technology for export of jasmine flowers j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 184 t ab le 3 . e ff ec t of c h em ic al t re at m en t an d t h er m oc ol p ac k ag in g on p h ys io lo gi ca l lo ss i n w ei gh t an d m oi st u re c on te n t in j . sa m ba c p ac ki ng p l w ( % ) m o is tu re c o n te n t (% ) t re at m en t 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n t 1 2. 59 2. 57 2. 97 2. 71 5. 72 5. 87 6. 98 6. 19 51 .9 5 52 .0 5 49 .1 5 51 .0 5 30 .0 0 28 .9 0 21 .1 5 26 .6 8 (9 .2 5) (9 .2 2) (9 .9 1) (9 .4 6) (1 3 .8 2 ) (1 4 .0 1 ) (1 5 .3 1 ) (1 4 .3 8 ) (4 6 .1 1 ) (4 6 .1 8 ) (4 4 .5 1 ) (4 5 .6 0 ) (3 3 .1 9 ) (3 2 .5 0 ) (2 7 .3 7 ) (3 1 .0 2 ) t 2 2. 21 2. 60 2. 86 2. 56 5. 78 5. 79 6. 99 6. 19 54 .4 7 51 .8 0 49 .9 2 52 .0 6 29 .5 3 29 .5 0 21 .1 0 26 .7 1 (8 .5 4) (9 .2 7) (9 .7 3) (9 .1 8) (1 3 .9 0 ) (1 3 .9 1 ) (1 5 .3 1 ) (1 4 .3 7 ) (4 7 .5 6 ) (4 6 .0 3 ) (4 4 .9 5 ) (4 6 .1 8 ) (3 2 .9 0 ) (3 2 .8 8 ) (2 7 .3 3 ) (3 1 .0 4 ) t 3 1. 48 1. 98 2. 10 1. 85 2. 68 2. 96 2. 99 2. 88 59 .6 2 56 .0 8 55 .2 7 56 .9 9 51 .2 5 49 .2 9 49 .1 0 49 .8 8 (6 .9 8) (8 .0 8) (8 .3 2) (7 .7 9) (9 .4 1) (9 .9 0) (9 .9 4) (9 .7 5) (5 0 .5 6 ) (4 8 .5 0 ) (4 8 .0 3 ) (4 9 .0 3 ) (4 5 .7 1 ) (4 4 .5 9 ) (4 4 .4 8 ) (4 4 .9 3 ) t 4 1. 56 1. 87 2. 06 1. 83 2. 59 2. 92 2. 97 2. 83 59 .0 2 56 .8 8 55 .5 2 57 .1 4 51 .9 1 49 .5 7 49 .2 0 50 .2 3 (7 .1 7) (7 .8 5) (8 .2 4) (7 .7 5) (9 .2 5) (9 .8 2) (9 .9 1) (9 .6 6) (5 0 .2 1 ) (4 8 .9 6 ) (4 8 .1 8 ) (4 9 .1 2 ) (4 6 .0 9 ) (4 4 .7 5 ) (4 4 .5 4 ) (4 5 .1 3 ) t 5 2. 91 2. 71 2. 67 2. 76 5. 88 5. 95 6. 92 6. 25 49 .5 7 51 .0 0 51 .2 5 50 .6 1 28 .8 8 28 .3 4 21 .5 4 26 .2 5 (9 .8 1) (9 .4 7) (9 .3 9) (9 .5 6) (1 4 .0 2 ) (1 4 .1 1 ) (1 5 .2 4 ) (1 4 .4 6 ) (4 4 .7 5 ) (4 5 .5 7 ) (4 5 .7 1 ) (4 5 .3 4 ) (3 2 .4 9 ) (3 2 .1 5 ) (2 7 .6 4 ) (3 0 .7 6 ) t 6 2. 76 2. 57 2. 67 2. 67 5. 38 6. 24 6. 87 6. 16 50 .6 2 52 .0 0 51 .0 0 51 .2 1 32 .3 8 26 .3 3 21 .9 0 26 .8 7 (9 .5 5) (9 .2 2) (9 .3 9) (9 .3 9) (1 3 .4 0 ) (1 4 .4 5 ) (1 5 .1 8 ) (1 4 .3 5 ) (4 5 .3 5 ) (4 6 .1 5 ) (4 5 .5 7 ) (4 5 .6 9 ) (3 4 .6 7 ) (3 0 .8 6 ) (2 7 .8 8 ) (3 1 .1 4 ) t 7 2. 71 2. 61 2. 86 2. 73 5. 63 6. 65 7. 19 6. 49 50 .9 9 51 .7 0 49 .9 0 50 .8 6 30 .6 3 23 .4 6 19 .7 0 24 .6 0 (9 .4 7) (9 .2 8) (9 .7 3) (9 .4 9) (1 3 .7 1 ) (1 4 .9 3 ) (1 5 .5 4 ) (1 4 .7 2 ) (4 5 .5 6 ) (4 5 .9 7 ) (4 4 .9 4 ) (4 5 .4 9 ) (3 3 .5 9 ) (2 8 .9 5 ) (2 6 .3 3 ) (2 9 .6 2 ) t 8 2. 67 2. 57 2. 68 2. 64 5. 75 6. 78 7. 18 6. 57 51 .2 5 52 .0 0 51 .2 0 51 .4 8 29 .7 5 22 .5 1 19 .7 7 24 .0 1 (9 .3 9) (9 .2 2) (9 .4 1) (9 .3 4) (1 3 .8 6 ) (1 5 .0 8 ) (1 5 .5 3 ) (1 4 .8 2 ) (4 5 .7 1 ) (4 6 .1 5 ) (4 5 .6 8 ) (4 5 .8 5 ) (3 3 .0 4 ) (2 8 .3 1 ) (2 6 .3 8 ) (2 9 .2 4 ) t 9 1. 98 2. 07 2. 57 2. 21 3. 00 6. 73 7. 19 5. 64 56 .0 8 55 .4 6 52 .0 0 54 .5 1 48 .9 7 22 .9 0 19 .7 0 30 .5 2 (8 .0 8) (8 .2 6) (9 .2 2) (8 .5 2) (9 .9 6) (1 5 .0 2 ) (1 5 .5 4 ) (1 3 .5 1 ) (4 8 .5 0 ) (4 8 .1 4 ) (4 6 .1 5 ) (4 7 .6 0 ) (4 4 .4 0 ) (2 8 .5 7 ) (2 6 .3 3 ) (3 3 .1 0 ) t 1 0 1. 96 2. 08 2. 36 2. 13 2. 99 6. 73 7. 18 5. 63 56 .2 2 55 .4 0 53 .4 2 55 .0 1 49 .0 8 22 .9 0 19 .7 7 30 .5 8 (8 .0 4) (8 .2 8) (8 .8 3) (8 .3 8) (9 .9 5) (1 5 .0 2 ) (1 5 .5 3 ) (1 3 .5 0 ) (4 8 .5 8 ) (4 8 .1 0 ) (4 6 .9 6 ) (4 7 .8 8 ) (4 4 .4 7 ) (2 8 .5 7 ) (2 6 .3 8 ) (3 3 .1 4 ) t 1 1 1. 89 2. 91 2. 98 2. 59 5. 87 6. 73 7. 19 6. 60 49 .2 9 49 .5 7 49 .0 8 49 .3 1 28 .9 0 22 .9 0 19 .7 0 23 .8 3 (7 .8 9) (9 .8 1) (9 .9 3) (9 .2 1) (1 4 .0 1 ) (1 5 .0 2 ) (1 5 .5 4 ) (1 4 .8 6 ) (4 4 .5 9 ) (4 4 .7 5 ) (4 4 .4 7 ) (4 4 .6 0 ) (3 2 .5 0 ) (2 8 .5 7 ) (2 6 .3 3 ) (2 9 .1 4 ) t 1 2 2. 14 2. 98 2. 91 2. 68 5. 85 6. 54 7. 17 6. 52 54 .9 6 49 .1 0 49 .6 0 51 .2 2 29 .0 5 24 .1 9 19 .8 0 24 .3 5 (8 .4 0) (9 .9 3) (9 .8 1) (9 .3 8) (1 3 .9 9 ) (1 4 .8 1 ) (1 5 .5 2 ) (1 4 .7 7 ) (4 7 .8 5 ) (4 4 .4 8 ) (4 4 .7 7 ) (4 5 .7 0 ) (3 2 .6 0 ) (2 9 .4 5 ) (2 6 .4 0 ) (2 9 .4 8 ) m ea n 2. 24 2. 46 2. 64 2. 45 4. 76 5. 82 6. 40 5. 66 53 .6 7 52 .7 5 51 .4 4 52 .6 2 36 .6 9 29 .2 3 25 .2 0 30 .3 8 (8 .5 5) (8 .9 9) (9 .3 3) (8 .9 6) (1 2 .4 4 ) (1 3 .8 4 ) (1 4 .5 1 ) (1 3 .6 0 ) (4 7 .1 1 ) (4 6 .5 8 ) (4 5 .8 3 ) (4 6 .5 1 ) (3 7 .1 4 ) (3 2 .5 1 ) (2 9 .7 8 ) (3 3 .1 4 ) s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % p ac ki ng ( b ) 0. 08 0. 17 0. 22 ** 0. 13 0. 26 * 0. 35 ** 0. 57 n s n s 0. 37 0. 74 * 0. 99 ** t re at m en t (t ) 0 .1 7 0. 34 0. 45 ** 0. 26 0. 52 * 0. 70 ** 1. 14 2. 28 3. 02 0. 74 1. 49 * 1. 98 ** b x t 0. 29 0. 59 0. 78 ** 0. 46 0. 91 * 1. 21 ** 1. 98 n s n s 1. 29 2. 58 * 3. 43 ** v al u es i n p ar en th es es a re a rc si n e tr an sf o rm ed jawaharlal et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 185 t ab le 4 . e ff ec t of c h em ic al t re at m en t an d t h er m oc ol p ac k ag in g on r w c a n d m i of j . sa m ba c u n d er g el -i ce c ol d co n d it io n p ac ki ng r w c ( % ) m em b ra n e in te g ri ty ( % o f so lu te l ea k ag e) t re at m en t 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 2 4 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g 3 6 h o u rs a ft er p ac k in g b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n b 1 b 2 b 3 m ea n t 1 77 .9 2 78 .0 8 73 .7 3 76 .5 8 44 .9 9 43 .3 4 31 .7 3 40 .0 2 62 .8 6 62 .7 4 68 .9 9 64 .8 6 77 .0 1 78 .2 1 86 .7 3 80 .6 5 (6 2 .1 2 ) (6 2 .2 3 ) (5 9 .2 6 ) (6 1 .2 0 ) (4 2 .1 2 ) (4 1 .1 6 ) (3 4 .2 7 ) (3 9 .1 8 ) (5 2 .4 8 ) (5 2 .4 0 ) (5 6 .2 1 ) (5 3 .7 0 ) (6 1 .4 8 ) (6 2 .3 3 ) (6 9 .1 1 ) (6 4 .3 1 ) t 2 81 .7 0 77 .7 0 74 .8 8 78 .0 9 44 .2 9 44 .2 5 31 .6 5 40 .0 6 60 .0 9 63 .0 4 68 .0 9 63 .7 4 77 .5 2 77 .5 5 86 .7 9 80 .6 2 (6 4 .9 0 ) (6 1 .9 6 ) (6 0 .0 2 ) (6 2 .3 0 ) (4 1 .7 1 ) (4 1 .6 9 ) (3 4 .2 2 ) (3 9 .2 1 ) (5 0 .8 4 ) (5 2 .5 8 ) (5 6 .6 5 ) (5 3 .0 2 ) (6 1 .8 4 ) (6 1 .8 6 ) (6 9 .1 7 ) (6 4 .2 9 ) t 3 89 .4 3 84 .1 2 82 .9 1 85 .4 9 76 .8 8 73 .9 3 73 .6 5 74 .8 2 44 .4 2 48 .3 2 49 .2 0 47 .3 1 50 .6 2 51 .7 8 55 .9 9 52 .8 0 (7 1 .8 2 ) (6 6 .8 3 ) (6 5 .8 5 ) (6 8 .1 7 ) (6 1 .3 9 ) (5 9 .3 9 ) (5 9 .2 0 ) (6 0 .0 0 ) (4 1 .7 9 ) (4 4 .0 3 ) (4 4 .5 4 ) (4 3 .4 5 ) (4 5 .3 5 ) (4 6 .0 2 ) (4 8 .4 5 ) (4 6 .6 1 ) t 4 88 .5 4 85 .3 2 83 .2 9 85 .7 2 77 .8 6 74 .3 6 73 .7 9 75 .3 4 45 .0 7 47 .4 3 48 .9 2 47 .1 4 51 .9 0 51 .4 7 55 .8 8 53 .0 8 (7 0 .8 7 ) (6 7 .8 6 ) (6 6 .1 6 ) (6 8 .2 9 ) (6 2 .0 8 ) (5 9 .6 8 ) (5 9 .3 0 ) (6 0 .3 5 ) (4 2 .1 6 ) (4 3 .5 2 ) (4 4 .5 4 ) (4 3 .3 5 ) (4 6 .0 9 ) (4 5 .8 4 ) (4 8 .3 8 ) (4 6 .7 7 ) t 5 74 .3 6 76 .4 9 76 .8 7 75 .9 1 43 .3 1 42 .5 0 32 .3 1 39 .3 7 65 .4 7 63 .9 1 66 .4 8 65 .2 9 78 .2 4 78 .8 3 86 .3 1 81 .1 3 (5 9 .6 8 ) (6 1 .1 2 ) (6 1 .3 8 ) (6 0 .7 3 ) (4 1 .1 5 ) (4 0 .6 8 ) (3 4 .6 2 ) (3 8 .8 2 ) (5 4 .0 5 ) (5 3 .1 0 ) (5 4 .6 6 ) (5 3 .9 4 ) (6 2 .3 5 ) (6 2 .7 7 ) (6 8 .7 3 ) (6 4 .6 1 ) t 6 75 .9 3 77 .9 9 76 .4 9 76 .8 0 48 .5 6 39 .5 0 32 .8 4 40 .3 0 64 .3 2 62 .8 0 67 .4 3 64 .8 5 74 .3 9 81 .0 3 85 .9 1 80 .4 4 (6 0 .7 3 ) (6 2 .1 7 ) (6 1 .1 2 ) (6 1 .3 4 ) (4 4 .1 7 ) (3 8 .9 3 ) (3 4 .9 5 ) (3 9 .3 5 ) (5 3 .3 5 ) (5 2 .4 4 ) (5 5 .2 5 ) (5 3 .6 8 ) (5 9 .7 0 ) (6 4 .4 0 ) (6 8 .3 7 ) (6 4 .1 6 ) t 7 76 .4 8 77 .5 4 74 .8 4 76 .2 9 45 .9 4 35 .1 9 29 .5 5 36 .8 9 63 .9 1 63 .1 4 68 .1 1 65 .0 5 76 .3 1 84 .2 0 88 .3 3 82 .9 5 (6 1 .1 1 ) (6 1 .8 5 ) (6 0 .0 0 ) (6 0 .9 9 ) (4 2 .6 6 ) (3 6 .3 7 ) (3 2 .9 1 ) (3 7 .3 1 ) (5 3 .1 0 ) (5 2 .6 4 ) (5 5 .6 7 ) (5 3 .8 0 ) (6 1 .0 0 ) (6 6 .9 0 ) (7 0 .6 6 ) (6 6 .1 9 ) t 8 76 .8 8 77 .9 9 76 .8 0 77 .2 2 44 .6 3 33 .7 7 29 .6 5 36 .0 2 63 .2 2 62 .8 0 68 .6 8 64 .9 0 77 .2 8 85 .2 4 88 .2 6 83 .5 9 (6 1 .3 9 ) (6 2 .1 7 ) (6 1 .3 3 ) (6 1 .6 3 ) (4 1 .9 1 ) (3 5 .5 1 ) (3 2 .9 8 ) (3 6 .8 0 ) (5 2 .6 9 ) (5 2 .4 4 ) (5 6 .0 2 ) (5 3 .7 2 ) (6 1 .6 7 ) (6 7 .7 8 ) (7 0 .5 9 ) (6 6 .6 8 ) t 9 84 .1 3 83 .1 9 77 .9 9 81 .7 7 73 .4 6 34 .3 5 29 .5 5 45 .7 9 48 .3 1 48 .9 9 60 .8 0 52 .7 0 52 .1 3 84 .8 1 88 .3 3 75 .0 9 (6 6 .8 4 ) (6 6 .0 8 ) (6 2 .1 7 ) (6 5 .0 3 ) (5 9 .0 8 ) (3 5 .8 6 ) (3 2 .9 1 ) (4 2 .6 2 ) (4 4 .0 2 ) (4 4 .4 2 ) (5 1 .2 5 ) (4 6 .5 7 ) (4 6 .2 2 ) (6 7 .4 2 ) (7 0 .6 6 ) (6 1 .4 3 ) t 1 0 84 .3 3 83 .1 0 80 .1 3 82 .5 2 73 .6 3 34 .3 5 29 .6 5 45 .8 8 48 .1 6 49 .0 6 62 .0 0 53 .0 7 53 .1 6 84 .8 1 88 .2 6 75 .4 1 (6 7 .0 1 ) (6 6 .0 0 ) (6 3 .7 2 ) (6 5 .5 8 ) (5 9 .1 9 ) (3 5 .8 6 ) (3 2 .9 8 ) (4 2 .6 8 ) (4 3 .9 4 ) (4 4 .4 6 ) (5 1 .9 6 ) (4 6 .7 9 ) (4 6 .8 1 ) (6 7 .4 2 ) (7 0 .5 9 ) (6 1 .6 1 ) t 1 1 73 .9 3 74 .3 6 73 .6 2 73 .9 7 43 .3 4 34 .3 5 29 .5 5 35 .7 5 65 .7 8 65 .4 7 69 .3 0 66 .8 5 78 .2 1 84 .8 1 88 .3 3 83 .7 8 (5 9 .3 9 ) (5 9 .6 8 ) (5 9 .1 8 ) (5 9 .4 2 ) (4 1 .1 6 ) (3 5 .8 3 ) (3 2 .9 1 ) (3 6 .6 5 ) (5 4 .2 3 ) (5 4 .0 5 ) (5 6 .4 1 ) (5 4 .9 0 ) (6 2 .3 3 ) (6 7 .4 2 ) (7 0 .6 6 ) (6 6 .8 0 ) t 1 2 82 .4 5 73 .6 5 74 .4 0 76 .8 3 43 .5 8 36 .2 9 29 .6 9 36 .5 2 70 .5 0 65 .9 9 71 .2 2 69 .2 4 78 .0 5 83 .3 9 88 .2 2 83 .2 2 (6 5 .4 9 ) (5 9 .2 0 ) (5 9 .7 1 ) (6 1 .4 7 ) (4 1 .3 0 ) (3 7 .0 3 ) (3 3 .0 0 ) (3 7 .1 1 ) (5 7 .1 7 ) (5 4 .3 6 ) (5 6 .9 5 ) (5 6 .1 6 ) (6 2 .2 1 ) (6 6 .2 4 ) (5 6 .9 4 ) (6 1 .7 9 ) m ea n 80 .5 1 79 .1 3 77 .1 6 78 .9 3 55 .0 4 43 .8 5 37 .8 0 45 .5 6 58 .5 1 58 .6 4 64 .1 0 60 .4 2 68 .7 4 77 .1 8 82 .2 8 76 .0 6 (6 4 .2 8 ) (6 3 .1 0 ) (6 3 .6 6 ) (6 3 .0 1 ) (4 8 .1 6 ) (4 1 .5 0 ) (3 7 .8 5 ) (4 2 .5 1 ) (4 9 .9 9 ) (5 0 .0 4 ) (5 6 .2 5 ) (5 1 .0 9 ) (5 6 .4 2 ) (6 2 .2 0 ) (6 5 .1 9 ) (6 1 .2 7 ) s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % s e d c d 5 % c d 1 % p ac ki ng ( b ) 1. 10 n s n s 0. 57 1. 15 * 1. 52 ** 0. 69 1. 37 * 1. 82 ** 1. 13 2. 25 * 2. 99 ** t re at m en t (t ) 2 .2 0 4. 39 * 5. 83 ** 1. 15 2. 30 * 3. 05 ** 1. 38 2. 75 * 3. 65 ** 2. 26 4. 51 * 5. 99 ** b x t 3. 81 n s n s 2. 00 3. 98 * 5. 29 ** 2. 39 n s n s 3. 92 7. 82 * 1 0 .3 8 * * v al u es i n p ar en th es es a re a rc si n e tr an sf o rm ed packaging technology for export of jasmine flowers j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 186 packaging technology adopted for export of jasmine flowers loose flower of harvested jasmine strung flowers of jasmine treating flowers with boric acid 4% packing in aluminium-foil lined boxes packaging in thermocol boxes with intermittent gel-ice layers aluminium-foil lining thermocol packages ready for air lifting export packages loaded onto reefer vans [this technology has been filed for patenting (patent application no.1370/che/2010)] jawaharlal et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 187 (table 5 and fig. 3). interaction of b x t indicated that b1t4 (box a + boric acid 4%) was better, with a shelf life of 42.88h (table 5, fig. 3) which was on par with b 1 t 3 (42.60h) compared to other treatment interactions and the control, b 1 t 12 (32.00h). in the present investigation, it was observed that treatments differed significantly in extending shelf life of jasminum sambac flowers. among chemical treatments, boric acid proved effective by registering higher levels of moisture, relative water content, lowest rates of plw, three to six fold increase in activity of peroxidase and catalase, and maximum accumulation of carbohydrates. this, in turn, reduced solute leakage from flowers, indicating increased membrane integrity of flowers. all these factors proved effective in retaining freshness index of flowers, thus delaying wilting. boric acid was used earlier as a mineral salt that could increase osmotic concentration and pressure potential of petal cells, thus improving their water balance and longevity in cut flowers (halevy, 1976; van meeteren, 1989). in agreement with present findings, the potential of boric acid in prolonging post harvest life of flowers has also been reported in jasmine earlier (mukhopadhyay et al, 1980), oncidium (tatt, 1982), rose cv. grussen teplitz (kumar and bhattacharjee, 2002) and carnation (serrano et al, 2006). in the present study, experiments carried out under gel-ice cold condition in thermocol boxes proved beneficial in maintaining low temperature around the flowers. among the packaging boxes, aluminium-foil lined boxes proved effective in significantly extending shelf life of jasmine flowers. cumulative effects of these treatments in thermocol packaging can be summarized as follows: treatment beneficial effect chemical treatment anti-oxidant effect, improving water (boric acid) balance, delayed ethylene production aluminium-foil impermeability to water vapor and lined box gases gel-ice pads creation and maintenance of low temperature in the package; temperature as measured by hand held hygrometer in the thermocol package: 4.2oc (initial) 16.5oc (final, 36h after packaging) thermocol boxes thermal insulation, resistance to moisture and weathering physiological loss in weight (plw), moisture content, relative water content (rwc) and membrane integrity of flowers are traits inter-related to each other. increased plw leads to decline in fresh weight of flowers, which expresses visually as symptoms of wilting of flowers, as reported in carnation (nichols, 1966) and rosa damascena (sharma, 1981). relative water content of flowers manifests water status of petals. it is obvious that when moisture content is higher and weight loss is lower, relative water content stays high. in the present study, moisture levels of 40 to 50% resulted in ‘nil’ plw which, in turn, registered higher relative water content of 70 to 90%. rapid decline in moisture content of flowers four days after vase-holding was identified as the main cause of flower senescence in rosa hybrida table 5 . effect of chemical treatment and thermocol packaging on shelf life (hours) of j. sambac under gel-ice cold condition packing b 1 b 2 b 3 mean treatment t 1 34.22 34.00 34.00 34.07 t 2 34.62 34.00 34.00 34.21 t 3 42.60 40.00 39.00 40.53 t 4 42.88 40.00 40.00 40.96 t 5 32.22 32.00 32.00 32.07 t 6 32.26 32.00 32.00 32.09 t 7 32.40 32.00 30.00 31.47 t 8 32.10 32.00 30.00 31.37 t 9 40.20 38.22 38.00 38.81 t 1 0 40.00 38.40 38.00 38.80 t 1 1 32.00 30.00 30.00 30.67 t 1 2 32.00 30.00 30.00 30.67 mean 35.63 34.39 33.92 34.64 sed cd 5% cd1% packing (b) 0.65 1.31* 1.73** treatment (t) 1.31 2.62* 3.47** bxt 2.27 3.54* 5.02** table 6. economics of export packaging technology per kilogram of j. sambac flowers (tested for long distance market new jersey, us) particulars of packaging per kg of flowers cost (rs.) best package boric acid 4% + aluminum foil lined box packing + thermocol packaging + gel-ice cold condition 1. average cost of flowers/kg 100/2. cost of packaging technology 2.1. chemical treatment with 4% boric acid/kg 20/of flowers 2.2. packing (aluminium foil lined boxes) 36/2.3. packaging (thermocol box) 540/2.4. lining (aluminium foil, gel-ice pads and 27/butter paper) 2.5. transport cost (handling, clearing & 153/forwarding and freight) 3. total expenditure (1+2) 876/4. income / kg of flowers 2115/( average: $ 47 per kg of flowers) cbr 1 : 2.5 packaging technology for export of jasmine flowers j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 188 ‘samantha’ by xue and lin, (1999). similar reduction in moisture content due to rapid water loss in petals was reported in rosa hybrida too (carpenter and rasmussen, 1973) and anthurium cv. ozaki red (paull et al, 1985). it has been reported in gladiolus flower senescence that decrease in rwc (relative water content) of tepals caused dehydration of tissues and, in turn, wilting (zahed hossain et al, 2006). catalase (cat) and peroxidase (pod) activities result in reduced production of h 2 o 2 and play a key role in plant antioxidative system (monk et al, 1989). senescence symptoms are characterized by increased activity of peroxidase enzyme which, in turn, leads to increased production of peroxides and free radicals (fridovich, 1975). these free radicals are involved in ethylene production (beauchamp and fridovich, 1970) and promotion of senescence (mishra et al, 1976). increased activity of peroxidase and catalase during wilting of florets has been reported earlier in gladiolus (yamane et al, 1999). testing suitability of packaging material for export of j. sambac and its economics the best package, b 1 t 4 , for j. sambac was tested for export suitability by m/s vanguard exports, located at coimbatore in tamil nadu, india, to the us market and was found to be suitable, with acceptable levels of flower freshness, colour and fragrance. this packaging technology for export to a long-distance market (new jersey) was also found to be economically feasible, with cost:benefit ratio of 1:2.5 (table 6). conclusion from the present investigation, it may be concluded that for the export of j. sambac flowers, a packaging technology of treatment with 4% boric acid + packing in aluminum-foil lined boxes and, further packaging in thermocol under gel-ice cold condition, was found to be highly suitable. flowers in this package recorded shelf life of 42.88h, with a cost:benefit ratio of 1:2.5. references abdul khader, j. and kumar, n. 1995. genetic resources of jasmine. in: advances in horticulture. vol.12. ornamental plants, chadha, k.l. and s.k. bhattacharjee (eds.), malhotra publishing house, new delhi, pp. 121-132 barrs, h.d. and weatherley, p.e. 1962. a re-examination of the relative turgidity technique for estimating water deficit in leaves. austr. j. biol. sci., 15:413-428 beauchamp, c. and fridovich, i. 1970. a mechanism for the production of ethylene from methional: the generation of the hydroxyl radical by xanthine oxidase. j. biol. chem., 245:4641-4646 carpenter, w.j. and rasmussen, h.p. 1973. water uptake rates by cut roses (rosa hybrida) in light and dark. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 98:309-313 diby paul and sharma, y.r. 2005. pseudomonas fluorescens mediated systemic resistance in black pepper (piper nigrum l.) driven through an elevated synthesis of defense system. arch. phytopath. plant prot., 38:139-149 fridovich, i. 1975. superoxide dismutases. annu. rev. biochem., 44:147-159 halevy, a.h. and mayak, s. 1981. senescence and postharvest physiology of cut flowers. part 2, hort. rev., 3:59-143 halevy, a.h. 1976. treatments to improve water balance of cut flowers. acta hort., 64:223-230 karuppaiah, p., ramesh kumar, s. and rajkumar, m. 2006. effect of different packages on the post harvest behaviour and shelf life of jasmine (jasminum sambac). intl. j. agril. sci., 2:447-449 kumar, v. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 2002. shelf life of rose loose flowers as influenced by dipping treatments with different chemicals and cool storage. orissa j. hort., 30:87-90 madhu, g.r. 1999. studies on the effect of different packaging materials and chemicals on the post-harvest life of jasmine flowers. m.sc.(ag.) thesis. annamalai univeristy, annamalainagar, tamil nadu mishra, s.d., gaur, b.k., bedeker, v.w. and singh, b.b. 1976. isolation, identification and significance of free radicals in senescing leaves. acta botanica, 4:131138 monk, l.s., fagerstedt, k.v. and crawford, r.m.m. 1989. oxygen toxicity and superoxide dismutase as an antioxidant in physiological stress. physiol. plant., 76:456-459 mukhopadhyay, t.p., bose, t.k., maiti, r.g., misra, s.k. and biswas, j. 1980. effect of chemicals on the postharvest life of jasmine flowers. national sminar on production technology of commercial flower crops. tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, pp. 47–50 nichols, r. 1966. ethylene production during senescence of flowers. j. hortl. sci., 41:279-290 nirmala, s. and reddy, t.v. 1994. shelf life of jasminum jawaharlal et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 189 sambac flowers as influenced by packaging and ventilation. in: floriculture technology trades and trends. prakash, j. and bhandary, k.r. (eds), new delhi, pp. 546 – 554 paull, r.e., chen, n.j. and james, d. 1985. physiological changes associated with senescence of cut anthurium flowers. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 110:156-162 serrano, m., asuncion, a., maria, t.p., maria, c.m.m. and felix, r. 2006. preservative solutions containing boric acid delay senescence of carnation flowers. post harvest biol. technol., 23:133–142 sharma, v. 1981. biochemical changes accompanying petal development in rosa damascena. pl. biochem. j., 8:13-16 srivastava, s.k. 1987. peroxidase and polyphenol oxidase in brassica juncea plants infected with macrophomina phaseolina (tassi.) goid and their implication in disease resistance. j. phytopath., 120:249-254 sukhatme, p.v. and amble, v.n. 1985. statistical methods for agricultural workers icar, new delhi, 553 p. tatt, o.h. 1982. uses of solutions with trace elements to influence the flowering and shelf life of flowers of oncidium ‘goldiana’. orchid rev., 90:262-266 van meeteren, u. 1989. water relations and early leaf wilting of cut chrysanthemums. acta hort., 261:129-135 xue, q.h. and lin, r. 1999. senescence of china rose cut flower and its relationship to moisture content, lipid peroxidation and protective enzyme activity. j. fujian agri. univ., 28:304-308 yamane , k., saneyuki, k. and nobuaki, f. 1999. changes in activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and peroxidase during senescence of gladiolus florets. j. jap. soc. hortl. sci., 68:798-802 zahed, h., mandal, a.k.a., datta, s.k. and biswas, a.k. 2006. decline in ascorbate peroxidase activity – a prerequisite factor for tepal senescence in gladiolus. j. pl. physiol., 163:186–194 (ms received 11 july 2011, revised 06 august 2012) packaging technology for export of jasmine flowers j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(2):180-189, 2012 focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india k.e. lawande, anil khar, v. mahajan, p.s. srinivas, v. sankar and r.p. singh directorate of onion and garlic research rajgurunagar, pune, maharashtra -410505, india e-mail: anil.khar@gmail.com abstract onion and garlic research in india has produced 45 open-pollinated and two f 1 hybrids in onion and approximately 25 varieties in garlic. red onion is used for domestic consumption and export while the white onion is used mostly for processing. improvement in garlic has been largely through clonal selection and mutation breeding. somaclonal variations for development of varieties have not been used till now. research on biotechnology for crop improvement in onion and garlic in india is in a nascent stage. while research on crop production has seen tremendous improvement, research on organic production and precision farming, good agricultural practices and mechanization needs to be carried out in future. similarly, studies on plant protection have identified researchable issues for future work. this paper gives a brief overview of onion and garlic research scenario in india and technologies needed to be developed and practised. key words : onion, garlic, improvement, biotechnology introduction onion and garlic, members of alliaceae family, are cultivated throughout the world for food, therapeutic and medicinal value. in india, onion and garlic have been under cultivation for the last 5000 years. as per fao (faostat, 2010), onion is grown in 0.8 mha with production of 8.2 mt and productivity of 10.16t/ha, whereas, garlic is grown in 0.015 mha with production of 0.65 mt and productivity of 4.32 t/ha in india. maharashtra is the leading state in onion production followed by uttar pradesh and orissa, whereas, madhya pradesh is the major garlic producing state, followed by gujarat and up (anon., 2010). india ranks second to china in area and production in both onion and garlic, but ranks 102nd for onion and 74th for garlic in terms of productivity (faostat, 2010). production and productivity not only depends upon area and cultural practices but also on genotype and environment of the crop. in india, major area under onion and garlic cultivation is in tropical areas as compared to the high yielding countries where maximum areas under these crops fall under temperate regions. onion and garlic are both day and temperature sensitive crops and perform very well under temperate conditions. secondly, most of the farmers in india use their own seed material for cultivation, which is not regulated properly for varietal admixture and consists of a heterogeneous material which reduces productivity. whereas in other countries, farmers use only well recognized and high performing commercially released varieties for cultivation. india is a traditional grower and exporter of both the crops and it assumes number one position in onion export in the world. both the commodities are going to continue their importance in trade and india has to remain always in competitive situation. but, be competitive, we need to improve our productivity level by gearing up research and development. in the case of research, a critical analysis of what has been done and what is required is always required for strategic planning. onion breeding systematic breeding programme was started as early as 1960 at pimpalgaon baswant, nashik and later at iari, new delhi. early varieties developed through selection viz., n-2-4-1 and pusa red are still dominating onion production. the programme was further strengthened under a coordinated project by institutes of the indian council of agricultural research at national horticultural research and development foundation and state agricultural universities (saus). as a result, 45 varieties of onion (including two f 1 hybrids and 6 varieties of multiplier onion) have been developed and released. onion is mainly rabi 92 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 90-118, 2009 table 1. onion varieties developed by different organizations in india sl. no. organization onion variety colour of bulb 1. agril. dept., maharashtra state n-2-4-1 red n-53 red n-257-9-1 white 2. mahatma phule krishi vidyapeeth (mpkv), baswant-780 red rahuri, maharashtra phule safed white phule swarna yellow phule samarth red 3. indian agricultural research institute (iari), pusa red red new delhi pusa white flat white pusa white round white pusa ratnar red pusa madhavi red early grano yellow brown spanish (long day) brown 4. indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), arka niketan red bangalore, karnataka arka kalyan red arka bindu red arka pragati red arka pitambar yellow arka lalima (f1 hybrid) red arka kirtiman (f1 hybrid) red 5. haryana agricultural university (hau), hissar hissar 2 red hos-1 red 6. national horticultural research and development foundation agrifound dark red red (nhrdf), nashik, maharashtra agrifound light red red agrifound white white agrifound rose red agrifound red (multiplier) red l-28 red 7. vpkas, almora vl-1 (long day) red vl-3 (long day) red 8. rajasthan agricultural university (rau), rajasthan udaipur 101 red udaipur 102 white udaipur 103 red 9. chandrashekhar azad university of agriculture and kalyanpur red round red technology (csauat), kanpur, up season crop, but it can also be cultivated in kharif and late kharif. based on seasonal requirement, varieties have been recommended e.g., in kharif season, varieties baswant– 780, n-53, agrifound dark red, arka kalyan and bhima super; in late kharif, varieties baswant–780, phule samarth, bhima red and agrifound light red and in rabi season, varieties n-2-4-1, arka niketan, agrifound light red, pusa red, pusa madhavi, bhima raj, bhima red can be cultivated. bhima super, bhima red and bhima raj have the potential to grow in all three seasons, viz., kharif, late kharif and rabi season in maharashtra. several white coloured varieties, e.g., phule safed, pusa white round, pusa white flat, agrifound white, punjab selection, udaipur–102 are also cultivated by farmers. a comprehensive list of varieties released from various research institutes / universities are furnished in table1. varieties developed by various organizations listed above have been tested at different locations under the allindia coordinated vegetable improvement project (aicvip) and based on their performance; these varieties lawande et al 93 10. punjab agricultural university (pau), ludhiana, punjab punjab selection red punjab red round red punjab naroya red punjab-48 white punjab white white 11. tamil nadu agricultural university (tnau), coimbatore, co-1, (multiplier) red tamil nadu co-2 red co-3 red co-4 red mdu-1 red 12. regional agricultural research station (rars), durgapura, rajasthan rajasthan onion -1 red aprita (ro-59) red 13. punjabrao deshmukh krishi viswavidyalya, akola, maharashtra akola white white 14. dogr, rajgurunagar bhima raj red bhima super red bhima red red table 2. onion varieties recommended through aicrp for release and cultivation sl.no. variety organization recommended zones* year of identification 1 punjab selection pau, ludhiana iv, vii & viii 1975 2 pusa redi ari, n. delhi iv, vii, viii 1975 3 pusa ratnar iari, n. delhi iv & vi 1975 4 s-131 iari, n. delhi 1977 5 n-257-9-1 agrl. dept., m.s. 1985 6 n-2-4-1 agrl. dept., m.s. 1985 7 line-102 iari, n. delhi i, iv, vi, vii 1987 8 arka kalyan iihr, bangalore iv, vi, vii, viii 1987 9 arka niketan iihr, bangalore iv,vii, viii 1987 10 agrifound dark red nhrdf, nashik iv 1987 11 vl-3 vpkas, almora i 1990 12 agrifound light red nhrdf, nashik vi, viii 1993 13 punjab red round pau, ludhiana iv 1993 14 pbr-5 pau, ludhiana vi 1997 15 l-28 nhrdf, nashik iv & vii 2006 16 hos-1 hau, hissar vi 2006 17 bhima raj nrcog, rajgurunagar vi 2007 18 bhima red dogr, rajgurunagar vii 2009 19 pkv white pdkv, akola vi 2009 20 rhor-s1 mpkv, rahuri vi, viii 2009 *details of zones under aicrp vegetables: zone i = himachal pradesh & u.p. hills, zone ii = west bengal & assam, zone iii = sikkim, meghalaya, manipur, nagaland, mizoram, tripura, arunachal pradesh and andaman & nicobar islands, zone iv = punjab, terai region of u.p. & bihar, zone v = chhattisgarh, orissa & andhra pradesh, zone vi = rajasthan, gujarat, haryana & delhi, zone vii= madhya pradesh & maharashtra and zone viii = karnataka, tamil nadu & kerala have been recommended for different zones. so far, 20 varieties have been recommended for cultivation under specific agro-climatic zones (table 2). biennial habit of onion, coupled with longer time taken for breeding and difficulties in attaining / maintaining genetic uniformity (due to high degree of natural crosspollination and rapid inbreeding depression) have made this crop unattractive to breeders for further improvement. though a number of varieties have been developed in india, there is still enough scope to develop varieties with high total soluble solids (tss) suitable for dehydration, shortday yellow varieties for export, varieties resistant to diseases and insect pests and suitability in different seasons. indian varieties pose problems of bolting and doubling of bulbs, especially in the september – october planting. there is a need to develop bolting resistant varieties for this season. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 94 uniformity in colour, shape and size is also lacking. true breeding lines need to be developed. breeding for white onion onion varieties for dehydration should be pure white, globose in shape, thin necked, free from greening and moulds, with high pungency, tss and yield, and, show field tolerance/resistance to diseases and pests. wider seasonal adaptability is also an important character for continuous supply to industries for dehydration. some indigenous as well as exotic onion varieties were evaluated for dehydration ratio by saimbhi et al (1970) who found dry matter to range from 7.4 to 16.2%. white onions are preferred for dehydration purpose and various technical requirements have been mentioned by anand (1972). sethi et al (1973) reported that for dehydration purposes, globe shaped varieties with 5 – 7.5 cm diameter were preferred, as slicing was easy. bajaj et al (1979) identified cv. punjab-48 as most suitable for dehydration on account of its tss (14.6%). varietal characteristics, storage and drying behaviour of four commercial genotypes were studied by maini et al (1984) and they concluded that roopali was better-suited both for storage and dehydration. kalra et al (1986) found s-74 to be most suitable, followed by punjab-48 for dehydration, with tss 14.3 and 13%, respectively. raina et al (1988) recorded maximum (15.8%) tss in texas yellow, followed by punjab selection (13.3%), udaipur-102 (13.5%) and punjab-48 (13.4%). saimbhi and bal (1996) observed tss ranging from 14.0 to 16.2% and cultivar pwo-1 was found most suitable for processing. bhagchandani et al (1980) reported pusa white flat and pusa white round as suitable varieties with the least losses under storage. storage loss in variety punjab-48 was studied by saimbhi and randhawa (1982) and found losses in storage to be greatest in large bulbs and least in the small ones. generally, indian white onion varieties have low tss (10-14%), which is not suitable for dehydration. after assessing indian varieties and land races which do not have high tss, jain food park industries, jalgaon, introduced white creole, which was further subjected to selection pressure for high tss and they developed v-12 variety with tss range of 15-18% (personal communication). elsewhere in india, attempts were made to develop white onion varieties suitable for different seasons by various research institutes (table 3). white lines are required mostly for processing. high tss (>18%) is the main requirement in these varieties. tss in any variety is a function of genotype, environment and cultural practices. long day onion grown under mild climate is high in tss, whereas, short-day onion maturing under short winters does not develop high tss. internationally, long-day and intermediate short-day varieties have been developed mostly from usa, spain, israel, mexico, etc. introgression of genes from long-day varieties can help develop high tss in shortday types. besides tss, resistance and greening of outer scales is also a major concern. in processing, the globose shape is preferred as there is less wastage in topping and telling by the machine. development of globose shape would be a further priority in onion improvement. breeding for yellow onion indians do not prefer yellow onion but these find international market in european. minimum requirements for export are: bigger sized (>60 mm diameter), less pungent and single-centered types. as is evident, most work has table 3. performance of white onion varieties developed in india sl. no. name of the variety source tss(%) average yield (t/ha) 1. pusa white round iari, new delhi 11.13 30.0 – 32.5 2. pusa white flat iari, new delhi 10.00 32.5 – 35.0 3. udaipur 102 rau, udaipur 10.06 30.0 – 35.0 4. agrifound white nhrdf, nashik 10.76 20.0 – 25.0 5. phule safed mpkv, rahuri 10.13 25.0 – 30.0 6. pkv white pdkv, akola 09.55 25.0 – 30.0 7. gujarat white onion jau, junagadh — 30.0 – 32.5 8. n-257-9-1 agril. deptt., m.s. 10.00 25.0 – 30.0 9. punjab-48 pau, ludhiana 11.00 30.0 – 32.5 10. v-12 jain food park, jalgaon 15.00 35.0 – 40.0 11. nimar local land race, m.p. 12.50 25.0 – 30.0 12. talaja local land race, bhavnagar 12.00 25.0 – 30.0 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 95 been done in european countries and usa whereas, in india, research on onion has not been of any great significance. “numex starlite”, a new yellow-onion variety developed by corgan and holland (1993), was resistant to bolting, pyrenochaeta terrestris and the short-day type was obtained by 5 recurrent selections from texas grano 502 prr. among the 12 short-day onion cultivars assessed at hermosillo, mexico (warid and loaiza, 1996), all the yellow cultivars had high yields. seville, 9003c, bravo, quest and sweet perfection gave [and were graded jumbo (3-4 inches in diameter)] highest marketable yields of the 30 yellow cultivars tested over 2 years (shock et al (2000) and had the most numerous bulbs. texas ‘grano 1015 y’, a mildly pungent, sweet, short-day yellow onion variety, was developed by pike et al (1988) through original, single-bulb selection from texas early grano 951 through 5 generations of selections. similarly, “texas grano 1030 y” was developed from f 2 selections of texas early grano 502 x ben shemen by pike et al (1988), which is a late maturing mildly pungent short-day onion variety. very little work has been done in india for development of yellow onion varieties, particularly for export. only two varieties were developed, viz., phule swarna from mpkv, rahuri and arka pitambar from iihr, bangalore and were released at the state / institute level. yield of these varieties was comparatively less than in commercial red onion varieties. mohanty et al (2000) assessed 12 varieties of onion during kharif season and found lowest bulb diameter of 4.2 cm in arka pitambar, along with low yields. development of hybrids india is a major onion growing country and more than 30 open-pollinated cultivars have been released for cultivation at the national and state level, besides local cultivars (lawande, 2005). statistical evidence indicates that productivity of onion in india is quite low. in order to increase productivity, development and cultivation of f 1 hybrids is a must. f 1 hybrids have been reported to be high-yielders, have uniformity in colour, size and good storage life. onion breeding was started in the early thirties, based on male sterility found in onion in california during 1925 from the cultivar italian red 13-53 (jones and emsweller, 1937). later, hybrid onion seed was produced commercially by utilizing cytoplasmic genetic male sterility (cms) in usa, an outcome of identification and exploitation of cms system in onion (jones and davis, 1944). at present, hybrid onion is predominantly used in usa, canada, uk, the netherlands, germany, israel and japan and its popularity is increasing in france, italy, hungary, spain, australia and new zealand due to higher yield, uniformity, better storage life, availability and exploitation of stable male-sterile lines and the long-term vision of varietal protection. however, no local hybrids are grown in south america, many parts of africa, asia, poland, spain, yugoslavia, czechoslovakia and greece. lack of exploitation of onion hybrids in these countries may be due to non-availability of the diverse inbred lines and little effort made for identification of stable male sterile lines with maintainer lines. in india, sen and srivastava (1957) attempted, for the first time, to develop f 1 hybrids in onion (as early as in 1948) using exotic male sterile lines and indian local male stocks but these male sterile lines were unstable under short photoperiods in india. studies by joshi and tandon (1976) and pal and singh (1999) showed a good amount of heterosis in onion in india at 84.5% over the better parent, 58.6% over the top parent and 74.5% over the control. for tss, the hybrid showed 6% heterosis over the top parent. heterosis for yield, earliness, uniformity in maturity, bulb size and shape, storage quality and dry matter has been reported by some workers (joshi and tandon, 1976; madalgeri and bojappa 1986). on the other hand, openpollinated varieties may be equally good, if not superior, to hybrids which may be due to the narrow genetic base of inbred lines involved in f 1 hybrid development (swarup, 1990; khar et al, 2000). an advantage of 5-10% increase in yield in hybrids is generally not economical considering the technical difficulties encountered in production of hybrids seeds, besides the high cost of seeds. narrow genetic base of inbred lines involved in developing f 1 hybrids may be one of the major reasons for the low level of heterosis. there can be good control over seed production and distribution as hybrids involve three parents. some of the male sterile lines developed in india are not stable and the inbred lines developed are not pure. the work gained momentum in the eighties at iihr (bangalore), iari (new delhi) and mpkv (rahuri). at iari, male sterility was found in a commercial variety, pusa red (anon., 1986). only two hybrids, arka kirtiman and arka lalima, have been released by iihr after development of cms lines along with the maintainer, by pathak et al (1986). aghora and pathak (1991) reported heterosis in bulb-yield of upto 28.5% over the best commercial variety in short-day onion, but due to difficulties in getting stable cms lines further, the work could not gain momentum. some of the exotic hybrids perform well during late kharif under indian conditions and yields are almost double that in the indian varieties at directorate of onion and garlic j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 96 research, but these have very low tss, storage life and are yellow in colour, which has no consumer preference in india. these can be used to capture the european and japanese markets where there is a great demand, but it is possible only through a cool chain. however, exotic hybrids are required to be tested at different locations for yield and commercialization. further, plant quarantine rules need to be followed strictly to check entry of new diseases. farmers are therefore advised not to grow exotic hybrids in a large scale unless prior tested under indian conditions. development of f 1 hybrids in short-day types in india was emphasized 20 years ago and has remained an important area of research. private seed companies have recently started selling f 1 hybrids. trials conducted at directorate of onion and garlic research on exotic f 1 hybrids in yellow type exhibited very good performance in late kharif and rabi seasons. of the 90 exotic varieties tested during 20002008, more than 20% and higher yield was recorded in 10 varieties during late kharif over bhima super, and 16 during rabi season over n-2-4-1 under maharashtra conditions (table 4). yield increase was recorded upto 60.87% in late kharif and 57.41% in rabi over the respective checks of best openpollinated varieties. further, f 1 hybrids developed under a hybrid network programme at directorate of onion and garlic research using two cms lines indicated very high percentage of heterosis over standard checks ranging from 17 to 59% over n 2-4-1, and 11 to 50% over alr. but, later, instability in male sterile lines became a bottleneck. some of the male sterile lines introduced are being evaluated for stability and crosses are being made with inbred lines to identify the best combiner. yield levels in varieties developed has reached a plateau. variability in germplasm has also been exhausted. there are two alternatives to create variability: by (i) mutation breeding and (ii) hybridization with exotic varieties. exotic onions are mostly long-day types. in some of the intermediate-day types, bigger sized bulbs are obtained under indian conditions, but are unable to flower. mutation breeding creates variability but results are not predictable. an alternative is to make crosses between long-day or intermediate-day type exotic onions under temperate conditions i.e., in a phytotron or in temperate northern hills. hybrids, after testing, can be exploited or further selection can be made for desirable characters and inbred lines can be developed for developing hybrids. table 4. performance of exotic hybrids/varieties of onion under the indian plains (2000-2008) exotic onion variety late kharif yield (t/ha) % increase over bhima super rabi yield (t/ha) % yield increase over n-2-4-1 hn 9539 54.03 22.34 — — hn 9733 31.13 -29.52 65.90 52.55 hn 9935 36.09 -18.29 68.00 57.41 hy 3404 57.36 29.89 56.45 30.67 dps 2023 60.87 37.84 59.80 38.43 early supreme white 54.65 23.75 41.50 -3.94 cougar 56.50 27.95 67.84 57.04 dps 1008 31.80 -27.99 52.50 21.53 dps 1009 31.12 -29.54 64.45 49.19 dps 1024 38.62 -12.55 66.05 52.89 dps 1031 5.10 -88.45 54.30 25.69 dps 1034 59.66 35.10 58.60 35.65 dps 1043 — — 61.45 42.25 linda vista 50.58 14.53 59.59 37.93 mercedes 47.93 8.53 63.27 46.46 lexus 59.66 35.10 63.83 47.75 reforma 37.67 -14.70 66.53 53.99 gobi 42.22 -4.39 52.67 21.92 kalahari 53.10 20.23 38.04 -11.94 rio-tinto 54.37 23.11 34.52 -20.09 serengeti 55.87 26.52 50.85 17.71 arka kirtiman (c ) — — 26.90 -37.73 arka lalima (c ) 25.86 -41.44 26.20 -39.35 bhima super (c ) 44.16 — — n-2-4-1 (c ) — — 43.20 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 97 male sterile lines developed at various institutes also need to be tested at different locations for stability and for transfer of trains into the background of the best-selected varieties and genotypes with diverse nature, along with development of maintainer lines. constant upgradation and improvement of parental lines by reciprocal recurrent selection and introgression of genes from long-day types will elevate the genetic potential of parental lines. development of 100% homozygous lines through haploidy by anther culture and diploidization is the best option for developing of quality inbred-lines. training of elite farmers for seed production and making available ample seed of f 1 hybrids at reasonable rates is the need of the day. besides, unless the potential of f 1 hybrids is proved through frontline demonstrations vis-à-vis farmers’ own material and released open-pollinated varieties, hybrids will not take off. improvement of garlic being an asexually propagated crop, methods of improvement through crosspollination are not viable in garlic. most of the varieties developed are through introductions and clonal selection. based on temperature and day-length response, garlic has been classified as having long-day and short day varieties. it has also been classified as having hard neck and soft neck varieties. hard-neck varieties bolt and flower but these flowers are usually sterile, while soft-neck varieties do not flower at all. hard neck varieties cannot be braided for storage whereas softneck varieties can be braided and stored. hard neck (longday varieties) is characterized by big bulbs, less number of cloves (10-15), ease of peeling and, generally, have low storage life. typical examples are agrifound parvati and chinese garlic. because of big size, their productivity is higher and these fetch a good price in local and international markets. soft-neck (short-day) varieties are characterized by small bulbs, more number of cloves (20-45), more aroma and are, generally, good storers e.g., indian garlic varieties g41, g1, g50, g282, etc. on the basis of consumption, area and production statistics, garlic is an important commodity in the indian market, yet, public or private research on this crop has been less than encouraging. the main reason for this may be its asexual nature which limits breeding methods and area under its cultivation. at the international front, there are a few reports of flowering and seed production, but even now garlic is considered a sexually sterile species. breeding methods for development of garlic are limited to clonal selection and mutagenesis among conventional methods, and somaclonal variation among biotechnological approaches. in india, most varieties have been developed through clonal selection and one or two through introduction. national horticultural research and development foundation (nhrdf) has been at the forefront of garlic research (with maximum number of varieties developed under their research programmes), followed by agricultural universities, viz., gujarat agricultural university (gau), punjab agricultural university (pau), mpkv, rahuri, etc. most of the varieties developed in these institutes are shortday type and can be grown under tropical and sub tropical climates. some temperate varieties have also been released at the national level and prominent among them is agrifound parvati. other temperate varieties of significance are vlg1 (vpkas, almora), skuag 1 (skuast, srinagar), darl 52 and solan local (yspuhf, solan). besides these, varieties selected by farmers over the years are also available in the market, e.g., jamnagar local, ooty local, jeur local etc. at present, there are 25 varieties in garlic (table 5). table 5. varieties of garlic and their important horticultural traits variety institution year of release photoperiod colour yield potential (t/ha) g-41 (agrifound white) nhrdf 1989 short day white 13 g1 (yamuna safed) nhrdf 1991 short day white 15-17 g-50 nhrdf 1996 short day white 15-20 g282 nhrdf 1990 short day white 17-20 g323 nhrdf 1990 short day white 17-20 godavari mpkv 1987 short day white 10-11 shweta mpkv short day white 10-11 t-56-4 pau short day white 8-10 bhima omkar dogr 2009 short day white 8-10 gg4 jau 2009 short day white ooty1 tnau intermediate white 15-17 g313(agrifound parvati) nhrdf 1992 long day purple 17-22 vlg1 vpkas intermediate white 14-15 darl52 darl 2003 intermediate white 12-15 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 98 garlic breeding traditional garlic-breeding research has been limited to evaluation for yield and other morphological characters to identify the best genotypes (figliuolo et al, 2001; khar et al, 2005c, 2005e). genetic studies have revealed positive interaction between plant-height, bulb-weight, bulb-diameter and mean clove-weight (zhila, 1981). significant positive correlation between clove and bulb mean-weight, negative correlation between clove mean-weight and clove-number has also been reported (baghalian et al., 2005). variation in yield is explained by leaf number and bulb mean-weight. therefore, these important characteristics could help in garlic selection programme and yield improvement (baghalian et al, 2006). although garlic is propagated vegetatively, considerable variation has been found in morphological traits (shashidhar and dharmatti, 2005; khar et al, 2006). major characters found to contribute to genetic diversity are bulb weight, diameter, yield, number of cloves per bulb, maturity, plant height, number of green leaves and bulbing period. diversity assessment on the basis of morphological (panthee et al, 2006; baghalian et al, 2005), physical-chemical, productive and molecular characteristics (mota et al, 2004), allicin content (baghalian et al., 2006), pungency (natale et al, 2005), productive and qualitative characteristics (resende et al, 2003) and chemotaxonomic classification (storsberg et al, 2003) have been studied. in diversity assessment, baghalian et al, (2005) did not detect any significant relationship between genetic diversity and geographical origin. therefore, probably, genetic factors have more influence than ecology. allicin is a major chemical constituent of garlic and is use in pharmaceuticals. multiple factors, viz., genotype, environment, s fertilization and light spectrum (huchette et al, 2005), relative water content, soil type and harvesting date (yang et al, 2005) have been found to influence allicin content in garlic bulbs, whereas, baghalian (2005) found no significant correlation between ecological condition and allicin content. production of true seed in garlic (allium sativum and a. longicuspis) has been known for several years. it was with the discovery of fertile clones by etoh (1986) that efforts were started to induce flowering and seeds in garlic. with the advent of flowering garlic, jenderek and hannan (2004) were able to evaluate reproductive characteristics and true seed production in garlic germplasm and were successful at producing s1 bulbs in a few fertile clones. this represented valuable material for studies on garlic genetics (jenderek 2004). jenderek and zewdie (2005) studied within and between family variability for important bulb and plant traits and observed that bulb weight, number of cloves, and clove weight were the main factors contributing to yield, and concluded that vegetative propagation of garlic over the centuries had produced highly heterozygous plants. koul et al (1979) studied prospects for garlic improvement in the light of its genetic and breeding systems and simon and jenderek (2004) made a comprehensive review about flowering, seed production and genesis of garlic breeding. cultivated garlic, being non-flowering, has limited variability. breeders depend upon natural clonal mutations and selection of superior clones from the germplasm. induced mutations and somaclonal variation are the best way to broaden germplasm. biotechnological approaches micropropagation studies: different organogenic responses have been studied in several in vitro culture systems in onion. in general, two types of tissue have been used for induction of shoot cultures; inoculation of scale bases excised from the basal parts of bulbs or onion sets (kahane et al, 1992) and immature flower buds (mohammed yaseen et al, 1995, asha devi and khar, 2000). callus has been induced on a wider range of explant tissues including bulb, set or seedling radicle (dunstan and short, 1978), shoot tip, seed and root tip (khar et al, 2005a). micropropagation through regeneration of axillary buds from basal plates (seabrook, 1993), development of somatic embryos from basal plate, roots derived from anther bigger cloves > 1.5 g enhances yield 0.5 g 1 g 1.5 g j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 99 (suh and park 1995), meristematic root tubercles (mrt’s) (tapia, 1991) has been reported. callus formation and regeneration from different explants has been reported from root tips (khar et al, 2005c), shoot tips (khar et al, 2003), apical meristem with one leaf primordium (lee et al, 1988), young leaves (lu et al, 1982), protoplasts (fellner and havranek, 1994) and through embryogenesis via. culture of sprout-leaf (wang et al, 1994). ayabe and sumi (1998) developed a novel tissue culture method, stem disc culture, wherein the restricted part of the under-developed stem of the garlic clove, called the “stem disc” was used for differentiation of twenty to thirty shoots consistently from a single clove within one month of culture. somaclonal variation reports on somaclonal variation among garlic regenerants are limited. novak (1980) reported variation in a range of phenotypic characters including plant height, leaf number, bulb weight and shape and number of cloves within a bulb. vidal et al (1993) found a somaclone possessing consistently higher bulb yield than its parental clone. alzahim et al (1999) tried to detect somaclonal variation through rapd and cytological analysis and concluded that no association existed between the rate of variation for molecular and cytological characters either by comparing cultivars or examining individual regenerants. in garlic, it being a sterile plant and vegetatively propagated, genetic variation can be induces only by somaclonal variation, induced mutations or genetic transformation (novak 1990; kondo et al, 2000). restoration of fertility and, therefore, of sexual reproduction would permit genetic studies and classical breeding. in addition, fast propagation of desired genotypes via. true seeds would be expected to result in reduction of storage costs and fewer injuries caused in the production field by viruses, diseases and pests transmitted by infected propagules. for induction of flowering, tizio (1979) suggested that gibberelic acid with adenine or biotin could stimulate normal development of some flowers on pieces of garlic flower-stalk growth in vitro, while inhibiting formation of aerial bulbils on the inflorescence. however, no seeds were produced. genetic transformation as monocotyledons, the allium species were predisposed to be recalcitrant to transformation. it has, therefore, been relatively under-studied with respect to application of biotechnology. successful transformation of one onion cultivar, mediated by agrobacterium tumefaciens was reported by eady et al (2000) using immature embryos as inoculated explants. zheng et al (2001) developed a reproducible agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation system both for onion and shallot with young callus derived from mature embryos with two different agrobacterium strains. in india, khar et al (2005b) reported that in onion, callus proved to be the best explant source for genetic transformation, followed by shoot tip and root tips. aswath et al (2006) devised a new selection system for onion transformation that does not require use of antibiotics or herbicides, using escherichia coli gene that encodes phosphomannose isomerase (pmi). through a single genetic transformation in onion. eady et al (2008) were able to develop “tear-free onion” by suppressing the lachrymatory factor synthase gene, using rna interference silencing. untill 1998, no report on garlic transformation was published. barandiaran et al (1998) reported transfer of uida gene into different garlic tissues, including regenerable calli, through biolistic particle delivery. garlic tissues showed a high endogenous nuclease activity, preventing exogenous dna expression. since then, genetic transformation in garlic has been reported through indirect (kondo et al, 2000) as well as direct (sawahel, 2002) transformation system. park et al (2002) were the first to generate transgenic plants resistant to chlorsulfuron, a sulfonylurea herbicide. haploid induction attempts to produce haploid plants via. androgenesis have failed (keller and korzun, 1996). campion et al (1985) were successful only in getting anthers containing microspores with 1-3 nuclei after which the tapetum degenerated and the microspores died. first reports on successful haploid induction via. gynogenesis were given by muren (1989) using unpollinated ovaries and were subsequently followed by other researchers. several attempts to improve the haploid induction procedure using different culture conditions or altering media components were tested later. variation in gynogenic response among long-day onion accessions was studied by bohanec and jakse (1993) and they reported that genotype of the donor plant had a crucial influence on haploid induction ability and that the less labourintensive, single step flower induction procedure was an efficient method for obtaining high frequency homozygous embryo induction rate. campion et al (1995) regenerated haploid plants via gynogenesis and also revealed their homozygosity based on morphological, isozymic and molecular studies. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 100 virus-free garlic garlic is affected by a viral mixture including mainly potyvirus, carlavirus and allexivirus. this causes 78% bulbweight reduction (conci et al, 2005). elimination of diseases, particularly viruses, is an important concern in production of planting material in garlic. production of virus-free garlic plants has been attained through shoot tip culture (penaiglesias and ayuso, 1982), meristem tip culture (li et al, 1995) and by thermotherapy in combination with meristem tip culture (senula et al, 2000) and chemotherapy (senula et al, 2000). improved methods for multiple shoot formation and virus-free garlic stocks have been developed (conci et al, 2005) leading to development of superior clones (izquierdo and gomez, 2005). for virus identification electron microsocopy, daselisa test (fajardo et al, 2002) and rt-pcr techniques are being routinely used. rt-pcr tests have been developed for detection of onion yellow dwarf virus oydv), garlic carla virus (gclv) and mite-borne viruses (garlic mite-borne filamentous virus) (bertaccini et al, 2004). virus-free garlic stocks exhibit an increase in yield and other morphological traits (fajardo et al, 2002). it has also been found that virusfree plants reinfected in 2-3 years of cultivation in the open field (melo et al, 2006). molecular markers allium is a large genus of approximately 600 species and classification of such a large genus has proved difficult and many ambiguities still remain. havey (1991) suggested that there could be a role for genetic markers in systematic studies of allium. bark et al (1994) studied introgression of a. fistulosum genes into a. cepa background using restriction fragment length polymorphism (rflp) analysis. van heusden et al (2000) presented a genetic map based on amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp) in an interspecific cross of a. roylei and a. cepa and reported one of the allinase genes (a key enzyme in sulphur metabolism) and a sequence characterised amplified region (scar) marker linked to the disease resistance gene for downy mildew on the map. gokce et al (2002) sequenced the genomic region corresponding to the cdna revealing the closest rflp to male sterility (ms) gene in their efforts on molecular tagging of the ms locus in onion. mapping studies in onion have thus far been scarce. king et al (1998) presented a low-density genetic map of restriction fragment length polymorphism (rflp) based on an interspecific cross showing, that, genomic organization of onion was complex and involved duplicated loci. reasons for delay in molecular marker studies in onion are: biennial nature of onion, it’s severe inbreeding depression and its huge genome size. while rapds have been used successfully for genetic studies in allium, the size of the genome may cause many problems, such as rather poor reproducibility and high backgrounds. simple sequence repeats (ssrs), also called microsatellite markers, are codominantly inherited and reveal high levels of polymorphism. fischer and bachmann (2000) identified a set of informative stms (sequence tagged microsatellite sites) markers for which can be used for distinguishing accessions and for studying interspecific taxonomic analysis using close relatives of a. cepa. garlic has been cultivated for millennia, but the taxonomic origins of this domestication process have not been identified. modern taxonomy subdivides the world’s garlic germplasm into five distinct groups: sativum, ophioscordon, longicuspis, subtropical and pekinense (fritsch and friesen, 2002). the longicuspis group from central asia is recognized as the most primitive, the one from which the other group were derived (maab and klaas, 1995; etoh and simon, 2002; fritsch and friesen 2002). central asia was hypothesized to be the primary centre of garlic evolution and diversity (fritsch and friesen 2002), and recent studies on primitive garlic types in the tien-shan mountains strongly support this assumption (etoh, 1986; kamenetsky et al, 2003). a wide range of morphological diversity has been observed in garlic including flowering ability, leaf traits, bulb traits, plant maturity, bulbing response to temperature and photoperiod, cold hardiness, bulbil traits and flower traits (simon and jenderek, 2003). maab and klaas (1995) included subtropical and pekinense clones in their study, and suggested that the subtropical clones were clearly separated from all other types, while the pekinense subgroup was relatively similar to the stalking type. rapd techniques have been mostly reported for characterization of garlic germplasm from different researchers all over the world. rapds have been used for characterization of australian (bradley et al, 1996), taiwanese (hsu et al, 2006), brazilian (buso et al, 2008), chinese (xu et al, 2005), chilean (paredes et al, 2008), guatemalan (rosales et al, 2007) and indian garlic (khar et al, 2008). in addition to this, aflp (amplified fragment length polymorphism) technique has also been used to characterize garlic (ipek et al, 2003; lampasona et al, 2003; volk et al, 2004; ipek et al, 2005). ipek et al (2003) compared aflps, rapd and isozymes for diversity assessment of garlic and detection of putative duplicates in germplasm collections and concluded that there was good correlation between the markers and demonstrated j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 101 that genetic diversity among closely-related clones, which could not be differentiated with rapd markers and isozymes, was detected by aflps. therefore, aflp is an additional tool for fingerprinting and detailed assessment of genetic relationships in garlic. most of the reports have concluded that diversity assessment is not correlated with geographical location though a few studies reported correlation between geographical locations and the diversity (lampasona, 2003). volk et al (2004) reported that 64% of the u.s. national plant germplasm system’s garlic collection, held at the western regional plant introduction station in pullman, washington, usa, and 41% of commercial garlic collections, were duplicates. rapid characterization of garlic accession is important for avoiding duplicate genotypes. for this purpose, ipek et al (2008) developed several locus-specific polymerase chain reaction (pcr) based dna markers and tested them for characterization of garlic clones and concluded that locusspecific markers could be used as another tool for rapid characterization of garlic germplasm collection. markers have also been used to clarify the taxonomic status of other well-characterized locally grown garlics (ipek et al, 2008; figliuolo and stefano, 2007). geneic fidelity of micropropagated crops (al zahim et al, 1997, 1999), traits like pollen fertility (etoh et al, 2001) and marker related to white rot (nabulski et al, 2001) have also been reported. a wide range of morphological diversity has been observed in garlic including flowering ability, leaf traits, bulb traits, plant maturity, bulbing response to temperature and photoperiod, cold hardiness, bulbil traits and flower traits (simon and jenderek, 2003). with the reporting of flowering garlic, linkage maps have been developed (ipek et al, 2004; zewdie et al, 2005) which will help tag important genes in future. production technology there has been spectacular increase in area and production over the last 27 years in both crops but productivity remains almost static. there is a vast scope for increasing the productivity by enhancing genetic potential of varieties through resistance-breeding, innovations in agrotechniques, sustenance of productivity through better management of pests and diseases and improving postharvest life. nursery management in india, onion is mainly grown by transplanting. onion seeds are sown on raised-beds in the nursery. the width of bed should be about 0.6 to 1 m and length may vary according to level of the soil (pandey, 1989). according to shinde and sontakke (1986), 10-15 cm raised-beds of about 3-6m length and 1 m width are prepared. about 70 cm distance is kept between two beds for irrigation and intercultural operations. seeds are sown in lines at a distance of 4-5 cm and seeds sown not beyond 2-3 cm depth in soil. to check post-emergence damping-off, drenching of the nursery with 0.1% brassicol/copper oxychloride or 0.2% captan should be done (srivastava, 1978). in north india, nursery sowing of kharif onion from may to june is recommended. according to sharma and kumar (1982), higher yield was obtained when nursery was raised in late june or early july. bhonde et al (1987) recommended 30th august transplanting for kharif onion production in nasik area. further, singh and singh (1974) found that 5-6 week old seedlings performed better than 4 or 7 week old seedlings. planting material selection in garlic garlic is propagated by cloves, which are carefully detached from composite bulbs without damage or injury to get higher sprouting in field. usage of different sizes of garlic mother cloves as planting material varies in different regions of india and in other countries. generally, cloves of medium to big size are recommended for production of bulbs for consumption, whereas smaller cloves for further propagation. an investigation was carried out in nasik, maharahstra during three successive rabi seasons and results revealed that largest clove size and widest spacing were significantly better than other clove sizes and spacings adopted (lallan singh et al, 1996). however, large clove size and planting in ridges or furrows produced the highest marketable bulb yield, as per kotgirwar et al (1998). bulb yield increased with increasing clove size. bulb weight, dm and diameter were higher with larger cloves (ramniwas et al, 1998). similar results were also observed by alam et al (2000). bulb diameter and bulb weight per ten bulbs increased with increasing clove size. the highest bulb yield (20.92 t/ha) was also obtained with sowing the largest clove in garlic cv. lcc-1 at punjab (brar and gill, 2000). studies conducted at dogr revealed that among the various sizes of mother cloves evaluated for planting, mother clove size of 1.4-1.6 g recorded higher marketable bulb yield combined with minimum storage loss (sankar and lawande, 2009). based on research work conducted in mother clove selection at various places suggested that requirement of seed bulbs differs from variety to j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 102 variety and depends on bulb size, bulb weight, number of cloves and weight of cloves. average mother clove size for planting should be more than 1.0 g and seed rate should be 500 – 950 kg/ha., depending upon planting material availability. water management onion and garlic are very shallow-rooted bulb vegetable corps and are very sensitive to moisture stress conditions particularly during bulb initiation and development. frequent irrigation is, therefore, necessary for better bulb development. excess moisture or waterlogged condition during these stages leads to development of diseases like basal rot and purple blotch. similarly, continuous irrigation towards maturity leads to secondary rooting which, in turn, develops new sprouts and such bulbs do not keep longer in storage. withholding irrigation for two-three weeks prior to harvest in onion is very essential. however, for garlic, some amount of light moisture is necessary at harvest for easy uprooting of bulbs. the most common method of irrigation is basin or border-strip flooding or furrow irrigation. root system is normally restricted to top 3 cm in both the crops and roots seldom penetrate deeper than 15 cm. water requirement depends mostly on soil type, evaporation, and crop stage. considerable research work on method and scheduling of irrigation water has been done to net higher bulb yield. according to saha et al (1997), optimum exploitation of yield potential of taherpuri onion, with maximum efficiency of irrigation-water use and 10 to 20% depletion of field-capacity moisture are the most suitable criteria for irrigation. ramamoorthy et al (2000) reported onion cv. co4 to be irrigated at iw/cpe values of 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 or 1.2 during kharif and summer seasons. bulb yield increased as iw/cpe value increased. water use efficiency was greatest when onion was irrigated at iw/cpe of 1.2. nam et al (2007) observed that the distribution rate of large size of garlic bulbs (above 45 mm diameter) ranged as 58.976.5% under irrigation, but 39.4% under water-stressed condition. yield of garlic decreased significantly under noirrigation. irrigation at 3-day intervals significantly affected number of leaves per plant, plant height at maturity, bulb yield, bulb weight, number of cloves per bulb and clove weight, while, increase in number of days between irrigation intervals negatively affected growth and yield (ahmed et al, 2007). micro-irrigation studies at mpkv, rahuri revealed that highest bulb was obtained with drip irrigation at 100% cpe. waterexpense efficiency was higher with all rates of drip irrigation than with surface irrigation (patel et al, 1996). studies on the efficacy of the micro-sprinkler irrigation revealed increased yield of garlic with decrease in micro-sprinkler spacing by 38% (pawar et al, 1998). the micro-sprinkler irrigation method was suitable for irrigating a close-growing crop like garlic by closely spacing the micro-sprinklers. among the irrigation methods evaluated, drip irrigation at 100% pe recorded the highest marketable bulb yield in both the crops with 30-40% water saving in comparison with surface irrigation (sankar et al, 2008, 2009). fertigation drip irrigation with the recommended rate of solid fertilizer in 2 applications gave the highest bulb yield (496.35 q/ha) while drip fertigation at 50% of the recommended rate gave the highest bulb quality in onion (chopade et al, 1998). optimum yield and acceptable bulb quality of onion was obtained from drip irrigation, combined with fertigation using npk liquid fertilizer @150:125:200 kg/ha balasubramanyam et al, 2000. in the case of garlic, higher yield response was obtained by fertigation than by soilapplication of n. split application of n at 120 kg/ha produced higher yields. overall results indicated that with n fertigation improved bulb yield, nue, and wue (mohammad and zuraiqi, 2003). higher yields of garlic were obtained by p application at 80 kg/ha through drip-fertigation. according to rumpel and dysko (2003), higher marketable yields were produced when 50 kg n/ha was applied through fertigation micro irrigation in onion and garlic fertigation in onion and garlic j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 103 (41% increase). application of water-soluble fertilizers @ npk 100:50:80 kg /ha as basal +50 kg n in onion and npk 50:50:80 + 50 kg n in seven splits in garlic through dripirrigation was the best treatment in terms of yield and cost: benefit ratio (sankar et al, 2005b). integrated nutrient management (inm) nutrient management in onion and garlic production is mainly by application of inorganic fertilizers. proper application of organic manures, crop residues, green manure, suitable crop rotation, balanced application of fertilizers based on soil-testing important. this can be achieved through integrated nutrient management practices. according to goto and kimoto (1992), the highest commercial yields of onion bulbs were obtained by application of castor-bean cake along with p and k and, fym combined with npk. warade et al (1996) obtained the highest bulb yield (22.7 t/ha) with 40 tonnes of fym and biofertilizer inoculation along with npk, thereby saving 25% on nitrogen alone. bhonde et al (1997) revealed that treatment of fym @ 15 t/ha + azotobactor seedling dip and nimbicidin application indicated a possibility of replacement of inorganic fertilizers under organic farming. thilakavathy and ramaswamy (1998) also opined that 2 kg/ha of azospirillum and phosphobacteria with 45 kg n and 45 kg p was more remunerative compared to 60:30:30 kg of npk/ha. reddy and reddy (2005) found that among various treatment combinations, vermicompost at 30 t/ha + 200 kg n/ha recorded the highest plant height and number of leaves per plant in onion, but was at par with vermicompost at 30 t/ ha + 150 kg n/ha in terms of bulb length, bulb weight in an onion-radish cropping system. studies conducted at dogr recommended a dose of 150kg n + 50kg p + 80kg k + 45kg sulphur/ha. for rabi onion and 100kg n + 50kg p + 50kg k + 45 kg sulphur/ha for garlic along with integration of 10 tons of fym + 10 tons of poultry manure and use of azotobacter @ 4kg/ha. the results revealed vermin compost treatment to increase scorodose accumulation in garlic bulbs and was directly related to harvest index, resulting in greater yield and bulb quality (arguello et al, 2006). micronutrient application gupta and ganeshe (2000) revealed that zinc sulfate (25kg/ha) + borax (10kg/ha) promoted yield marginally by 45.8kg/ha in garlic over the control (recommended dose of n, p and k). application of boron at 0.1% + sodium molybdate at 0.05% (w/v) recorded the highest healthy bulb yield and reduced premature field-sprouting of cloves (selvaraj et al, 2002). foliar application of urea + zinc + copper resulted in lowest decay and total loss in stored onions (singh et al, 2002). improved plant growth and yield characters were observed at 0.03% boron and zinc at 0.025% (sharangi et al, 2003). abd-el-moneem et al (2005), observed reduction in basal rot infection in garlic when cloves were treated with zn and cu before planting. srivastava et al (2005) reported that boric acid at 0.1% and zinc sulfate at 0.4% resulted in maximum bulb yield and total soluble solids. nitrate reductase (nr), catalase (cat), peroxidase (pod) and superoxide dismutase (sod) activities, soluble protein content, photosynthetic pigment content, sugar, protein content and some other photosynthetic parameters in garlic leaves were highest in a treatment with 0.3 g/pot of zinc (yang et al, 2005). organic production of onion and garlic although organic vegetable production provides better quality food and a balanced environment, almost 2540% lesser yield was recorded in organic farming system in both the crops in initial years. however, bulb yield increased consistently in succeeding years in the same field. organic production experiment conducted at dogr revealed that with soybean as the preceding crop in kharif season, followed by onion or garlic in rabi season with application of either poultry manure (alone or in combination with fym) along with biofertilizers (combined with foliar application of organic growth stimulants and organic plant protection measures) gave comparatively better yield and good storage-life in both the crops. according to sankar et al (2009), higher marketable bulb yield in white onion along with better post-harvest storage-life was obtained with combined application of fym (fym 50% as equivalent to recommended dose of npk) + poultry manure (50% as equivalent to recommended dose of npk) + biofertilzers + foliar application 3% panchakavya . weed management crop-weed competition and extent of losses monocotyledonous weed population was found to increase upto 60 dat and decreased in subsequent stages. dicotyledonous weed numbers were found to increase with advancement in crop age (singh and singh, 1990). the critical period of crop-weed competition in onion occurred from 15 to 45 days after transplanting (shuaib, 2001), 21-28 days in the first season and 42-49 days in the second season, depending on the competing weed species j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 104 and their densities in garlic and reduction of bulb yield was upto 85% (qasem, 1996). dogr experiment results revealed that yield losses in onion and garlic were to the tune of 12 – 94.8% depending upon types of weed flora, their intensity and duration of crop – weed competition. chemical weed control in onion and garlic in onion and garlic, very close spacing and a shallow root system make mechanical method of weed control difficult and, sometimes, damage developing bulbs. in garlic, application of 0.9kg fluchloralin/ha preplanting + 1.25kg nitrofen/ha 15 days after transplanting was most effective in decreasing weed population and resulted in bulb yield of 3.76t/ha compared with 3.85t with 2 hand-weedings (patel et al, 1985). according abdel and haroun (1990), goal (oxyfluorfen 23.6%) at 0.75 litres/ha applied 3 weeks after transplanting or stomp pendimethalin 50% at 2.0 litres applied after transplanting and before irrigation gave the best control, resulting in highest bulb yield. tamil selvan et al (1990) reported that post-sowing application (3 days after sowing) of oxyfluorfen at 0.1-0.6kg/ ha gave more effective control of weeds in onion. integrated weed management practices vinay singh (1997) suggested that mulching at 30 dat gave maximum bulb yield (26.33t/ha), followed by 3 hand-weedings at 30, 60 and 90 dat. pendimethalin at 1.0 kg a.i./ha + 1 manual weeding at 60 dat proved to be the most economical with a cost:benefit ratio of 2:3.1. well prepared and pre-irrigated seedbed plots covered with 50 µm-thick, transparent, polyethylene mulch for 6 weeks prior to onion planting gave the lowest number and weight of weeds/m2 and higher seedling emergence (abdallah ,1998). in the case of garlic, weed competition for only 14 days from crop emergence was sufficient to reduce yield, while, weed-free periods of 35 or 28 days from crop emergence failed to produce bulb-yields higher than weedinfested plots. the minimum weed-free period required to produce a bulb size was 2149 days from crop emergence. sharma et al (1983) reported that the most effective treatments were 1kg oxadiazon/ha post-emergence, followed by 0.95kg fluchloralin/ha pre-planting, which controlled both monocot and dicot annual weeds and gave higher net returns than weed-free control in garlic. application of oxadiazon at 1.5 kg/ha and pendimethalin at 1.0kg/ha + hw at 65 dap was most effective with high yield, net return, and cost:benefit ratio at sirmour, himachal pradesh (ankur et al, 2002; singh et al, 2002). cropping systems in recent years, soil fertility fertilizer use research is focused on cropping sequence. due to increased fertilizer prices and consideration for ecological sustainability, interest is focused on intensive cropping system, especially legume crops, in a sustainable crop sequence as an alternative or supplement to chemical fertilizers. both onion and garlic are short-duration and shallow-rooted crops and are suitable for various cropping patterns including intercropping and sequential cropping, depending upon location, nature of soil and climatic conditions. arya and bakshi (1999) observed that onion cultivation was more profitable when okra and radish, as one of the component vegetables, are grown in the vegetable sequence. studies conducted at dogr revealed that in kharif season followed by onion or garlic in rabi are ideal cropping sequences under western maharshtra conditions in terms of yield, soil health and cost benefit ratio (sankar et al, 2005 and 2006). the highest intercrop yield was obtained when sugarbeet was sown in ridges, 60cm apart, and with 25cm between sugarbeet and onion. a gradual decrease in onion and garlic yield was observed with increasing interand intra-spacing. the highest land equivalent ratio (ler) was obtained from sugarbeet-onion intercropping which was higher than sugar beet-garlic intercropping. insect pest management a significant portion of onion and garlic yield is lost due to a major pest, onion thrips, thrips tabaci. it remains the major pest species worldwide while other species like frankliniella occidentalis and f. fusca though recorded in some areas, but never reached damaging levels. some of the principal alternate hosts include cabbage, cotton, tomato, cucumber, melons, pumpkins, strawberries and many flowering plants. according to larentzaki et al (2007) volunteer onion plants, weeds such as amaranthus hybridis and chenopodium album and soil within and around onion fields, are the potential overwintering sites of the adult pest. in maharashtra, yield losses were estimated at 50% in rabi season if control measures were not taken (srinivas and lawande, 2004). in addition to direct damage, thrips attack aggravates the fungal pathogen alternaria porri, that causes purple blotch through mechanical transmission (bhangale and joi, 1983). similarly, severity of stemphylium blight also increases in the presence of large numbers of thrips. thrips tabaci also acts as a vector of the iris yellow j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 105 spot virus which has a detrimental effect on bulb and seed yield (gent et al, 2004 and hoepting et al, 2007). management of thrips monitoring monitoring of thrips can be helpful in initiating appropriate control measures at the right time because of their small size, cryptic behaviour, egg-deposition inside the plant tissue and propensity to hide themselves in tight spaces. thrips generally migrate to a new field from the old plantings. however, no distinct immigration trends were noticed (gangloff, 1999). sticky traps are commonly used for detecting thrips populations. various colours were found attracting different species of thrips in various geographical areas (cho et al, 1995; diraviam and uthamasamy, 1992; fernandez and lucena, 1990). yellow and bright blue traps are widely used. population dynamics and forecasting positive (hamdy and salem, 1994) or negative (warriach et al, 1994) or no (el-gendi, 1998) correlations were obtained between maximum temperature and thrips populations. relative humidity and rainfall had a negative effect on thrips population. heavy rains wash thrips off the plants down to the soil, causing a sudden decline in their population. thrips are especially problematic during hot, dry years because more number of generations are produced and the enjoy decreased mortality due to lack of rainfall (shelton, 2003). according to a study, two population peaks – one in the month of august, and the other in januaryfebruary, occur in western maharashtra (srinivas and lawande, 2004). during this period, hot and dry climate prevails and thrips multiply faster to reach harmful proportions. cultural methods good crop-management practices such as removing alternate weed hosts on bunds, and destruction of culls of onion and garlic, avoiding successive plantings of onion and garlic or other preferred hosts, are all helpful in reducing thrips population. because of their swift movement and mobility, practices like crop-rotation or isolation from the immigration source have little effect on thrips infestation. thrips are carried by wind. therefore, planting in upwind direction could be helpful in escaping infestation from old plantings to some extent, in the initial stages. planting date: by making adjustments in transplanting dates, onions can be made tolerant to early thrips-attack and satisfactory yields can be obtained with minimum chemical intervention. in maharashtra, onions are grown in all three seasons, viz., kharif, late kharif and rabi. onion crop planted in the months of september and october (late kharif) had less severe attack by thrips and required little crop protection, compared to rabi crop planted in novemberdecember. yield loss of 50% was observed in 15th november planted crop (srinivas and lawande, 2004). mulching : thrips are colour-sensitive and coloured mulches may be employed for their control. reflective mulch with aluminum paint (scott et al, 1989) repelled 33-68% of the thrips and was found to be more effective, particularly, at the seedling stage rather than at plant maturity (lu, 1990). however, reflective mulches were not promising in new zealand (toor et al, 2004). irrigation : thrips damage may get magnified if the crop is under water stress. adequate irrigation throughout the growing season is critical in minimizing damage (fournier et al, 1995). the stages of thrips in the soil were strongly affected by water content of the soil (bieri et al, 1989). field trials at dogr suggested that sprinkler irrigation reduced thrips population considerably, compared to drip and surface-irrigation. in garlic, sprinklers were not that effective, mainly due to the closer-inner leaf alignment that protects thrips from splashes of water. fertilization : the role of plant nutrition on onion thrips infestation is not clear. thrips infestation did not vary when the crop was supplied with organic manure or mineral nutrition (goncalves, 2004). higher doses of nitrogen make the plant succulent and make it vulnerable to sucking-pests. barriers : thrips are weak fliers and can be carried by wind. therefore, planting live-barriers like maize can effectively block adult thrips from reaching onion plants. two rows of maize or an inner row of wheat and outer row of maize surrounding onion plots (250sq.m) blocks adult thrips upto 80% (srinivas and lawande, 2006). this practice brings down insecticide application by half. highest benefit:cost ratio can be obtained with maize + wheat barrier around onion and garlic. biological control predators were found to be effective in reducing thrips population from 20-70% in greenhouses and polytunnels upon release; however, in open fields, their incidence is very low. a parasitoid ceranisus sp was recorded in india but the incidence of parasitoid was low in the field as well. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 106 at dogr, the minute pirate bug, orius sp., was found to be effective on thrips in garlic. natural occurrence of this predator on garlic was observed, though not regularly. crops like sunflower and maize attracted the predator, which later migrated to garlic (but only at the later stages of the crop). orius spp. was widely reported against different thrips in protected cultivation of vegetables and flowers (tommasini et al, 1997). general predators like green lacewing did not prefer onion and garlic, mainly due to pungency and leaf volatiles. recently, another anthocorid bug, blaptostethus sp., has been identified as a potential predator of onion thrips. however the predator lacks fieldestablishment and fast multiplication on the garlic crop. spray formulations of beauveria bassiana were recommended for control of thrips. but, their efficacy was best under laboratory and greenhouse conditions only. under laboratory and greenhouse conditions, besides b. bassiana, metarrhizium anisopliae, paecilomyces fumosoroseus and verticillium lecani effectively killed t. tabaci and frankliniella sp., (kubota, 1999). mortality of thrips was highest with b. bassiana at 260c and 75% rh (murphy et al, 1998). such high humidity seldom occurs under field conditions for long periods. plant resistance in india, screening for resistance against thrips was started long ago in maharashtra, punjab, gujarat and other parts of the country. although the commercial varieties n2-4-1 and pusa ratnar were found resistant to t. tabaci in punjab (darshan singh et al, 1986; brar et al, 1993), the former was susceptible to thrips in maharashtra. the variety b-780 is moderately resistant to thrips. in bihar, pusa red and n-53 had lowest thrips population during winter and monsoon, respectively. many germplasm lines were identified as being resistant to thrips elsewhere in india. however, till today, no promising or consistent variety of onion is available in india for thrips resistance. some wild species like a. galanthum and a. ampeloprasam and some genotypes of a. fistulosum were found highly resistant to thrips (srinivas et al, 2007b). however, breeding-hurdles with these species need to be worked out before going in for resistance breeding programme. botanicals and mineral oils neem, karanj and annona were less effective in controlling thrips than were insecticides (gupta and sharma, 1998; altaf hussain et al, 1999; srinivas and lawande, 2000a). recent trials at dogr suggested that mineral oil sprays @ 2% could bring down thrips population by 48%. chemical control effective management of thrips on onion relies primarily on foliar sprays of insecticides. insecticide load on the crop can be brought down considerably by following economic thresholds and use of the insecticide at critical stages of growth. economic threshold for onion was 30 thrips per plant during rabi season (srinivas and lawande, 2000b). thrips control is critical during bulb initiation that begins in the seventh week after planting, through bulb formation. highest benefit:cost ratio was obtained when thrips control was undertaken in 45-75 days old crop (srinivas and lawande, 2008). sometimes, late-planted crop suffers poor establishment when thrips incidence is higher. seedlings, seedling-root dip with carbosulfan (0.025%) or imidacloprid (0.04%) for 2h before planting protects young plants upto 30 days (srinivas and lawande, 2007a). it is commonly observed that re-infestation occurs soon, even after a good kill of thrips with insecticide sprays. studies at dogr showed that eggs lay in leaves and external immigration of thrips was the main source of reinfestation. among different insecticides evaluated, occurrence of re-infestation was very low with fipronil and profenofos. in india, insecticides like dimethoate, cypermethrin, etc., were recommended for thrips control. among the relatively new insecticides, carbosulfan, methomyl, lambda cyhalothrin, profenofos, spinosad and fipronil were found effective in suppressing thrips population. a non-chemical, kaolin particle-film was evaluated against onion thrips. this reduced oviposition and increased mortality rate under laboratory conditions. due to the importance of continuous coverage of plant material with film, better application methods need to be developed. frequent application may also be required to cover newly-expanding foliage (larentzaki et al, 2008). disease management seed-borne diseases infestation by seed-borne fungi during storage is one of the major factors for quick loss of seed viability. upmanyu and sharma (2007) reported that purple blotch disease at above 60% severity caused significant reduction in seed-yield and quality. at 100% disease severity, 14% j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 107 loss in yield was observed. about 24 species of fungi have been identified in onion seeds produced under different climatic regions. though all these species are found associated with onion seed and many are proven crop pathogens, only a few have been experimentally proved to be truly seed-borne (maude, 1989). generally, some pathogenic fungi detected in seed just after harvest but, in the course of storage, get eliminated and predominated by storage fungi like aspergillus niger. only a. niger and fusarium spp. were transmitted from the seed to seedlings and sets (koycu and ozer, 1997). soil-borne diseases there are several important soil-borne fungal pathogens that infect alliums and produce common symptoms. early attack can result in failure of emergence or collapse of seedlings, aggravated by drought. the major root-infecting fungal diseases of onion and garlic are: white rot (sclerotium cepivorum), pink root (phoma (pyrenchaeta) terrestris), basal rot (fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cepae, f. oxysposum f. sp. allii), southern blight (sclerotium rolfsii), onion smut (urocystis cepulae) and damping-off (pythium spp., fusarium spp., rhizoctonia solani). gupta et al (1983) reported 75-80% loss in onion nursery due to damping-off in warm and humid areas. common fungi reported to be responsible for damping-off of seedlings are species of pythium, phytophthora, fusarium and rhizoctonia. singh (2007b) reported that curvularia sp. was also associated with onion dampingoff. fusarium caused delayed seedling emergence and seedling damping-off in addition to root and basal rot (srivastava and quadri, 1984). fusarium basal rot of onion and garlic occurs worldwide and is a common problem in onion seed crop. in india, pre-harvest spray of carbendazim (0.1%) resulted in least decay of stored onion after 5 months from storage (srivastava et al, 1996). crop rotation of 4-5 years with non-host crop has been found effective in eliminating the disease. mixed cropping with tobacco and sorghum is also effective in reducing disease severity (srivastava and pandey, 1995). green-manuring increases antagonistic microbial population in the soil. good drainage, deep ploughing in hot summer and avoiding injury during cultural practices reduces disease incidence. girija et al (1998) found three lines viz., iihr 141, iihr 506 and selection 13-1-1 to be consistently resistant to fusarium oxysporum in the field under different growing seasons. fungal antagonists, trichoderma viride, t. harzianum, t. hamatum, t. koningii, t. pseudokoningii, and bacterial antagonists, pseudomonas fluorescens and bacillus subtilis were effective against f. oxysporum under in vitro conditions (rajendran and ranganathan, 1996). smut (urocystis cepulae) is found in almost all onion-growing states. chemical seedtreatment with thiram or captan (0.3%) checks soil-borne infection. soil application of these fungicides in the nursery reduces seedling infection. though pink root rot is not reported from india so far, a similar disease induced by fusarium solani has been reported from rajasthan by mathur et al, (2007). since pink root caused by phoma terrestris often occurs in association with fusarium basal rot, chances for confusion are therefore always associated with this disease, which needs due care and a thorough investigation. root rot of onion is caused by rhizoctonia solani and sclerotinia sclerotiorum (singh and singh, 1984). rhizoctonia solani has also been found to be associated with black scurf of white onion (singh, 2008a). foliar fungal diseases major foliar diseases of onion and garlic in india are purple blotch (alternaria porri), stemphylium blight, stemphylium vericariuno, anthracnose or twister disease, downy mildew and black mold. all these diseases can defoliate the crop prematurely. purple blotch the fungus is seed-borne but its role in initiating disease outbreaks in hot climates is not well studied. the pathogen survives in crop debris as dormant mycelium and can remain viable for 12 months (gupta and pathak, 1988); but, this is reduced to less than 2 months if the debris is buried (pandotra, 1965). temperature, relative humidity and host-nutrition play an important role in infection (khare and nema, 1982). spore-germination on leaves decreased with increase in nitrogen dose to the host, while, the reverse was true for potassium. seed-treatment with thiram (0.25%), crop rotation and summer ploughing are recommended for control of the disease (gupta and pathak, 1987). sources of resistance have been reported by many workers (pathak et al, 1986; dhiman et al, 1986). onion varieties, agrifound light red (sharma, 1997), 53-3 (pandotra, 1965), agrifound dark red, red globe (sugha et al, 1992), vl piyaz 3 (mani et al, 1999) and ro 59 (mathur et al, 2006) were reported to be moderately resistant. application of mancozeb (0.25%) and captafol j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india 108 @ 0.2% (gupta, et al, 1986a) iprodione @ 0.25% (gupta et al, 1996), metalaxyl and dinocap (upadhyay and tripathi, 1995; srivastava et al, 1996) were found effective in controlling the disease. stemphylium leaf blight the disease is found in onion in all parts of the country but causes severe losses in northern india (gupta and pandey, 1986a). it has been reported in garlic too (sinha et al, 1995; 1998). about 90% loss in seed yield was recorded. the disease is more severe in rabi than in kharif season. another species of the same fungus, s. botryosum, causes black stalkrot (singh and sharma, 1977a). it is presumed that the fungus survive on alternate hosts in the absence of onion crop. it infects plants after long, warm periods when leaves remain wet. cultural control methods include long rotations with non-host crops, good fielddrainage and reduced plant density to contain the diseases. since the pathogen survives on dead plant tissues, sanitation of the field and collecting and burning the crop refuse reduces disease incidence. barnwal and prasad (2005) observed lowest disease intensity in a crop sown in the last week of november as compared to that sown in october. irrigation at 10 day intervals and high doses of nitrogen resulted in reduced disease incidence (srivastav et al, 2005). a large number of fungicides have been tested by many workers but 3 to 4 sprays of 0.25% mancozeb offer best control, with higher benefit:cost ratio (gupta et al, 1996b). for onion seed crop, fortnightly sprays of 0.25% mancozeb or 0.25% iprodione are recommended (srivastava et al, 1995). rahman et al (2000) reported that leaf blight diseases caused by alternaria porri, colletotrichum sp., stemphylium sp. and cercospora sp., singly or combined, could be controlled by four sprays of mancozeb @ 0.3%, starting from 45 days after transplanting. among the newer fungicides, two sprays of hexaconazole (0.1%) were found most cost-effective (barnwal et al, 2006). foliar spraying of leaf extracts (20%) of azadirachta indica and datura metel was also quite effective while, pseudomonas fluorescens was comparatively less effective (barnwal et al, 2003). colletotrichum blight / anthracnose / twister disease characteristic fieldsymptoms are curling, twisting, chlorosis of leaves and abnormal elongation of the neck (false stem). bulbs are smaller in size; some may rot before harvest while others rot in store. ebenebe (1980) conclusively proved that the onion twister disease and onion anthracnose are caused by colletotrichum gloeosporioides whose perfect stage is glomerella cingulata. since the pathogen survives on crop refuse, sanitation and destruction of infected plant-debris helps reduce the disease. application of benomyl @ 0.2% as soiltreatment is recommended (remiro and kirmati, 1975). spraying mancozeb @ 0.25% also gives good control. cultivars ipa 3, belem, ipa 9, franciscana ipa 10, vale ouro ipa ii and roxinha de belem were found resistant (assuncao et al, 1999). downy mildew downy mildew (peronospora destructor) is a serious problem in all parts of the world where onions are grown in cool and humid conditions. bulbs used for seed production should be selected from healthy fields for management of the disease. crop rotation for 3-4 years with non-host crop should be practised. late planting, poor drainage, higher dose of fertilizer and frequent irrigation should be avoided, as these practices encourage high disease-incidence (ahmad and karimullah, 1998). spraying mancozeb@ 0.25% and ziram @ 0.1% at 10-12 day intervals is recommended (marikhur et al, 1977). bulb and seedling-dip in ridomil mz @ 0.25% for 12 hrs followed by 2 foliar sprays gave effective disease control. allium roylei posses resistance to downy mildew (kofoet and zinkernagel, 1990). metalaxyl and cyomaxanil proved most effective in reducing disease severity upto 88% (palti, 1989). the low degree of fertility exhibited by hybrids between a. cepa and other allium species restricts successful introgression of disease resistance. onion lines ic-48045, ic-32149, ic-49371 and dop-2 have been reported to be resistant to downy mildew (sharma, 1997). bacterial diseases bacterial decay of onion is widely distributed in warm climates and causes severe problems. seedling blight is caused by pseudomonas siccata (moniz and patel, 1958). moniz and bhide (1964) reported infection by p. gladioli pv. alliicola in field crops as causing seedling blight of onion, resulting in streaking of leaves and premature death. the same pathogen is also known to cause stalk rot (swarup et al, 1973) and bulb rot (kumar et al, 2001). brown rot is caused by p. aeruginosa (gupta et al, 1986), while soft rot is induced by many bacteria, i.e., pectobacterium carotovorum (patel, 1972), pseudomonas marginalis pv. marginalis (raju and raj, 1980a) and erwinia carotovora pv. carotovora (raju and raj 1980b). j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 lawande et al 109 in the recent past, not much work has been done on bacterial diseases of alliums in the country. the best way to control bacterial diseases of onion is to grow the crop under bestpossible condition of tilth, fertilization, drainage, crop rotation and freedom from weeds. it is necessary to dry the crop quickly after harvest. during rainy season, artificial curing is required. resistant varieties are not known. it appears that at present, all onion cultivars are susceptible to bacterial infection and bulb decay. viral and mycoplasmal diseases in india, onion yellow dwarf virus was reported by dhingra and nariane (1963) and gupta and pandey (1986b). it also affects garlic and leek. it is transmitted by aphids or mechanically, to onion. this disease is a common problem in seed production. due to variability in n-terminal region of the viral coat protein in different isolates, elisa may not be a preferred method for detection. as an alternative, a rapid and reliable detection protocol of rt-pcr was standardized by arya et al (2006). irish yellow spot virus is a relatively new disease of onion. it has recently become widespread in western counties, especially in the us. in india, it was first reported from jalna and nashik region of maharashtra by ravi et al (2006). now, it has been reported from some other oniongrowing states of the country. garlic is more vulnerable to viral infection. some of these viruses are members are of the potyvirus group garlic mosaic virus (ahlawat, 1974; sastry, 1980), onion yellow dwarf virus and others are carla virus garlic latent virus (majumdar et al, 2007), shallot latent virus and carnation latent virus. storage diseases black mold (aspergillus niger) is the most important post harvest disease under hot climates. in india, it is very common wherever onion or garlic is stored (gupta and srivastava, 1992). aspergillus niger invades onion bulbs preferably through injured portion of the outer scales and colonizes bulbs, roots, neck, flowers, peduncle and leaves of onion plants in the field in that order of preponderance (rajasab and rao,1992). pre-harvest spray (0.2%) of carbendazim (12%) + mancozeb (63%) and iprodion, 20 days before harvesting, proved effective (ahir and maharishi, 2008). onion smudge is the next important disease and had not been recorded in onion bulbs until the report of singh (2007c). the pathogenic fungus embellisia alli is known to cause garlic bulb canker in many countries. until interception of e. allii in garlic bulbs imported from china by the indian plant quarantine authorities, it was not known to occur in india (latha et al, 2007). but in the same year, it was isolated from garlic bulbs collected from himachal pradesh. it was the first report of e. allii from the indian 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the bolting type. tsitologiya-i-genetika, 15:46-48 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 91-119, 2009 onion and garlic research in india focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 introduction in the recent past, there has been massive investment in horticulture both in public and private sectors with the expectation that it would increase profitability of farmers, besides enhancing employment opportunities for the rural poor, while simultaneously providing consumers with good quality products. but, the above expectations remain largely unfulfilled due to several research gaps. effective use of micronutrients in horticulture is one such research gap. micronutrients can tremendously boost horticultural crop yield and improve quality and post-harvest life of horticultural produce. the purpose of this article is to highlight areas where the potential of micronutrients has not been fully realized. according to stout (1962), “if plants are considered as biological machines, their bodies are constructed from macro-elements, their working parts consist of proteins and enzymes revolving about n atoms and the ‘micronutrients’ provide the special lubricants required for a variety of energy transfer mechanisms within the plants”. this statement from a scientist who was importance of micronutrients in the changing horticultural scenario in india m. edward raja division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research bangalore -560 089, india e-mail: medward@iihr.ernet.in abstract sustenance and well-being of humankind are linked to the stocks of essential nutrients in the bio-geosphere and the capacity for cycling and manipulation. micronutrients play a major role in crop production due to their essentiality in plant metabolism and adverse effects that manifest due to their deficiency. besides affecting plant growth, micronutrients also play a major role in disease resistance in cultivated crop species. a hitherto lesser-understood phenomenon is their role in determining quality and the post harvest life of harvested produce. in the indian context, this situation has become alarming due to the widespread occurrence of micronutrient imbalance throughout the country. though soil application of soluble forms of micronutrients has been widely practiced in the past, it calls for introspection, considering the nature of occurrence of micronutrient related maladies. novel approaches include application of crop-specific foliar formulations of micronutrients, application of chelated forms of micronutrients and the genetic biofortification of crops. in view of the importance of micronutrients in human diet, it is felt that biofortification of horticultural crops will play a definite and major role in addressing nutritional security of the nation in the coming years. keywords: micronutrient, horticultural crops, deficiency, foliar nutrition, organic farming involved in identification of mo as essential micronutrient, succinctly portrays the importance of micronutrients in plant metabolism. micronutrients assume significance in horticultural crop production due to their ability to: ● improve quality, size, colour, taste and earliness, thereby enhancing their market appeal ● improve input use efficiency of npk fertilizers and water ● provide disease resistance, thereby reducing dependence on plant protection chemicals ● increase post-harvest/shelf life of horticultural produce thereby avoiding wastage ● prevent physiological disorders and increase marketable yield ● enhance nutritional security by biofortification in the 20th century, revolution in crop yield increase began with the discovery of micronutrients starting with iron (fe) in 1868, and ending with molybdenum (mo) in1938. this led to a paradigm shift from “scientific discovery” to 2 “scientific management”, which included three scientific components to increase productivity, viz., ◆ genetic components (improvement in heterosis, disease and pest resistance) ◆ physiological components (better photosynthetic efficiency, decreasing photorespiration, etc.) ◆ management components (precision in fertility, avoiding nutrient deficiency or toxicity, improvement in organic matter status, etc.) and appropriate use of information on climate, soil, water and specific characteristics of cultivars, etc. in the crop production system, there are about 16 non-controllable, limiting factors (light intensity, day-night temperatures, etc.) and around 40 controllable, limiting factors (soil-available npk, micronutrients, soil ph, organic matter, etc). limiting factors translate to inputs. some inputs have a cost component like, nutrients and compost while some do not, like, timeliness of operation, crop rotation to avoid allelopathy-related problems, etc. judicious management of controllable and non-controllable factors is necessary for successful crop production. controllable stresses are of two types: liebigs type and mitchserlich type. in the former, unless a limiting factor is corrected, no response to other inputs will be seen (eg., soil acidity, soil salinity and nitrogen deficiency). but, in the mitchserlich type, limiting factors do not hinder correction of other factors. micronutrients in crop production in the early stages, micronutrient disorders were described as diseases (stiles, 1946). subsequently, their essentiality as nutrients was confirmed and great strides were made in horticultural crop production by the use of micronutrients. heart rot of root vegetables in europe was cured by b application; “pecan rosette” of pecan trees was cured by zn in florida, and, mottle leaf of citrus by zn, and exanthema of citrus in california and australia by cu. in australian soils, anderson (1956) proved the essentiality of mo for n 2 fixation and increased clover yield from 1 to 5 t/ ha by addition of 30 g of the micronutrient per hectare. this effect equalled the effect of a thousand kilograms of lime application, since, lime releases soil mo. stout (1962) wondered at the power of a tiny amount of mo. by comparing it with uranium, he observed that “a gram of mo may harness more energy by greater conversion of sunlight into plant materials than can be obtained from a gram of uranium’. we, in india, are unable to replicate the dramatic response to micronutrients observed in australia. the first important reason is the soil wealth of india. a majority of soils do not exhibit extremes in important physical and chemical properties like ph, texture, water-holding capacity, organic matter, npk fertility and micronutrients. another reason is that we do not have vast expanses of b deficient soils similar to those found in eastern and southern china, nor do we have tracts of fe deficient soils as occur in australia, spain and italy. micronutrient deficiencies in india, by themselves, do not restrict yield drastically but do so by acting additively with other stresses, reducing yield substantially. micronutrient scenario in india about 40-55% of indian soils are moderately deficient in zn, while 25-30% are deficient in b. deficiency of other micronutrients occurs under 15% of soils (takkar and kaur, 1984). these deficiencies/limitations by themselves do reduce yield significantly but, combined with 2 or 3 of the other 40 controllable yield-limiting factors/ stresses, these act additively and reduce yield substantially. in the indian scenario, micronutrient deficiencies are of the mitscherlich type. almost all micronutrient deficiencies or toxicities in india fall in the mild to moderate category, with exception of b deficiency in mango and cauliflower in konkan and chota nagpur regions, respectively. since skilled manpower and infrastructure to identify the micronutrient disorders/toxicities especially at hidden hunger stage itself by leaf/soil analysis are limiting in india, the damage done to indian horticulture is enormous. unfortunately, this is not fully recognized by decision makers and scientists. as 80-90% of indian soils are deficient in nitrogen and phosphorus, their deficiencies are visible in terms of leaf colour, size, growth-habit, flowering and yield. correction of these disorders is therefore more visibly convincing. but, 70-80% of micronutrient disorders in horticultural crops occur as hidden hunger. leaf and soil analysis alone can detect it at the right stage. in a country of around 2 to 3 million farm-holdings with horticulture as the main enterprise, it is next to impossible to carry out leaf or soil analysis of micronutrients to detect hidden hunger. this is another reason why we do not take advantage of micronutrient correction. the changing horticultural scenario in 1860, the air and water systems were so pure in the world that it was necessary to add chlorine in the form of sodium chloride for healthy growth of plants. whereas, by 1954, purification of air and water became a herculean task, to prove chloride as an essential micronutrient by t.c. broyer. at present, chloride content j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 3 has reached “toxic” levels from being “deficient”. there is a tremendous change in yield-potential of crops, and soils health and its nutrient supplying potential. hence, farmers need to be made aware of this changed scenario. increasing the density of banana plants from 2500 to 4400 plants/ha, and mango from 100 plants/ha to 250 plants/ha (with use of dwarfing rootstocks and hormone sprays for regular-bearing) has resulted in severe depletion of soil nutrients. in india, traditional tomato varieties with yield potential of 30t/ha and f1 hybrids with a potential of 150t/ha, are being grown in the some soil type. with the help of fertigation, cropping intensity has increased from 100% to 300% in several parts of the country. the quantity of nutrients removed and the rate, at which these are removed, are vastly different. physical, chemical and biological health of soil was not a major problem prior to “green revolution” of 1960’s, whereas, in the present horticultural scenario of heavy npk fertilizer use, fertigation and precision-farming, soil health and balanced nutrition has become a casualty. there is 30 to 40% decline in organic matter, with adverse effect on micronutrient availability. decline in availability of organic manures due to greater use of inorganic fertilizer, has made micronutrient supply precarious. replacing micronutrients that have been removed, or, increasing organic matter to make native nutrients available, has not received sufficient attention. need-based input management of fertilizers, pesticides and water is more of an option than a necessary practice by farmers of the country owing to the poor dissemination of information generated in research. the widespread micronutrient disorders are believed to be a reason for stagnation in agricultural productivity. how to get “macro” effect out of “micronutrients” ? a. identifying and eliminating liebig stresses : liebig law of minimum states that only an increase in the factor most-limiting will result in an increase in yield. otherwise, the inputs are wasted. moisture stress, salinity, soil acidity, extreme deficiencies of npk, if left uncorrected, cannot result in a response to micronutrients. overcoming soilsalinity in grape by using salt-resistant rootstock ‘dogridge’ paved the way for response to other inputs in horticultural practices in maharashtra. b. enhancing response to micronutrients by the law of maximum : since micronutrient disorders in india are predominately of the mitschertich type, correcting another stress is not a pre-requisite for obtaining response from micronutrient application. this law states that the largest net response to an input comes when there are no other limiting factors. the magnitude of response (to micronutrients) will increase as more and more limiting factors (abiotic and biotic stress) are corrected. the corollary to this law is that the attained yield is greater than the sum of individual parts because various parts interact to multiply the value of others. c. inter-disciplinary approach, a must : only by following an interdisciplinary approach, we can maximize returns from micronutrient application. identification and simultaneous correction of other stresses, along with micronutrient stress, can give a highly significant, profitable and visible response. hence, the present practice of evaluating micronutrient response by applying it alone will limit magnitude of the response. a blueprint approach of identifying and correcting all possible limiting factors including micronutrients has to be done. in india, micronutrients have been so far used for increasing only crop yield, while, other quality parameters like colour, size, and firmness are seldom taken into consideration. another important area where micronutrients can play an important role is disease resistance, since they function as enzyme activators and play an important role in lignin biosynthesis and other diseases resistance mechanisms. predominant micronutrient disorders and their management in horticultural crops though deficiencies of micronutrients were initially referred to as “diseases” in fruit crops, that lead has been lost. a non-exhaustive list of common micronutrient disorders that are observed in horticultural crops is furnished in table1. apart from handling sporadically-visible deficiencies, a systematic research in this area is only a recent development. this paper highlights the intricacies of micronutrients like b, fe and zn, which have a great potential in all areas of horticultural crop production mentioned earlier. boron (b) b nutrition in horticulture crops b deficiency and response to it have been recorded in 132 crops in more than 80 countries over the last 60 years. it is estimated that over 15 million ha worldwide are annually fertilized with b. it is through field bean, a vegetable-cumpulse (vicia faba) that essentiality of b was proved. the fact that b is needed for successful fertilization is of critical importance. though monocots need less b than dicots, they also suffer from b deficiency due to low b at seed set. since b is the only micronutrient that affects all components of horticulture (yield, quality, post-harvest life, disease resistance and use-efficiency of other inputs), it is to be micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 4 given highest importance, to derive maximum benefit. a number of soil and environmental factors affect boron uptake horticultural crops. knowledge of these will improve assessment of b deficiency and toxicity under various conditions. chemistry of boron availability b is mobile in soil and immobile in plants. it is the only micronutrient lost to leaching. when b is released from soil minerals, or is mineralized from organic matter or added to soils through irrigation water / foliar application, part of it remains in the soil solution, while, part is adsorbed by soil particles. minerals that contain b are either very insoluble (tourmaline) or very soluble (hydrated boron minerals). these do not usually determine solubility of b in the soil solution, which is controlled mainly by boron adsorption reactions. equilibrium exists between soil solution and the adsorbed b (russell, 1973). since plants, including papaya, obtain b from the soil solution and the adsorbed pool of b acts as a buffer against sudden changes in level of b in the soil solution, it is important to know how boron is distributed between the solid and liquid phases of soil. factors affecting the amount of b adsorbed by soils, and, availability of boron in soils include: ph, soil texture, soil moisture, temperature and management practices such as liming. parent material in general, soils derived from igneous rocks and soils in tropical and temperate regions of the world, have much lower b content than soils derived from sedimentary rocks, or those in arid or semi-arid regions. soils of marine or marine shale origin are usually high in b. low b content can be expected in soils derived from acid granite and other igneous rock, fresh-water sedimentary deposits and in coarse-textured soils low in organic matter (liu et al,1983). plant availability of b is also reduced in soils derived from volcanic ash and soils rich in aluminium oxides (lebeder, 1968). soil reaction (ph) soil reaction is one of the most important factors affecting availability of b in soils and its uptake. when the soil solution has high ph, b becomes less available to plants. therefore, applying lime to acid soils can sometimes result in b deficiency symptoms in plants. the level of soluble b in soils has close correlation with ph of the soil solution (berger and troug, 1945). b uptake by plants growing in soil with the same water-soluble b content was greater when ph of the soil solution was lower (wear and patterson, 1962). boron adsorption from soils increased when ph rose to the range of 3-9. soil texture and clay minerals coarse-textured soils often contain less available b than fine-textured soils. for this reason, b deficiency often occurs in sandy soil (fleming, 1980; gupta, 1983). the level of native b is closely related to clay content of the soil (elrashidi & o’ connor, 1982). at the same water-soluble b content, b uptake was highest in plants growing in the soil with the coarsest texture (wear & patterson, 1962). it increased as the clay content increased. of the clay types commonly found in soil, illite adsorbed more b than either kaolinite or montmorillonite. kaolinite in acid red soils absorbed the least. it was found that b adsorption was greater for fe and al coated kaolinite or montmorillonite than for uncoated clays. they concluded that hydroxy fe table 1. relative sensitivity of selected horticultural crops to micronutrient deficiencies crop sensitivity to micronutrient deficiency b cu fe mn m o zn bean low low medium medium medium low broccoli medium medium high medium high —cabbage medium medium medium medium medium —carrot medium medium ——medium low low cauliflower high medium high medium high —celery high medium —— medium low —cucumber low medium —— medium —— — lettuce medium high —— high high medium onion low high —— high high medium pea low low —— high medium low radish medium medium —— high medium —spinach medium high high high high high table beet high high high high high medium tomato medium medium high medium medium medium turnip high medium —— medium medium —— source: lucas and knezek (1991 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 5 and al compounds present as silicates or as impurities were dominant over clay mineral species per se in determining b adsorption characteristics. soil moisture boron availability generally decreases as soils become dry, so that boron deficiency is more likely in plants suffering from water deficit. this may be because plants encounter less available b when they extract moisture from soil at a lower depth during dry conditions. wetting and drying cycles increased the amount of b fixed. flood irrigation resulted in leaching of b. temperature boron adsorption rises with higher soil temperatures and reduces availability. however, this may reflect on interaction between soil temperature and soil moisture, since b deficiency is often associated with dry summer conditions. high sunlight and low temperature also aggravate b deficiency. organic matter many researchers have suggested that levels of soil organic matter influence availability of b to plants. the strongest evidence that organic matter affects availability of soil b is derived from studies that show positive correlation between levels of soil organic matter and amount of available b and uptake by plants (gupta, 1983, chang et al 1993). the association between b and soil organic matter is caused by assimilation of b by soil microbes. although b present in soil organic matter is not immediately available to plants, it seems to be a major source of available boron when released through mineralization. irrigation water water used for irrigation also has b content and water from semi-arid regions or saline soils has boron content of 0.001 ppm to 0.01ppm low boron concentration and its impact what makes b unique among all other micronutrients in horticultural crops is its effect on reproductive physiology. low b affects the plant right from seed-set to fruit-set and formation (fig 1). this is because of its role in cell wall development, cell elongation and membrane stability. higher b content needed for reproductive parts sexual reproduction is more sensitive to low b than vegetative growth, and a marked reduction in fruit-set can occur without expression of b deficiency symptoms in vegetative parts. the most intricate aspect of b nutrition is highlighted by the fact that reproductive parts in both monocots and dicots require 2-4 times more b. the vast difference in b in low supply and adequate supply needs to be kept in mind while supplying b for optimum yield. maintaining high b levels in reproductive parts is a vital component of efficient b management for yield in horticultural crops. boron mobility in horticultural crops: horticultural crops vary widely in their boron mobility in phloem; hence, b deficiency is more widespread than any other micronutrient deficiency (gupta, 1983). occurrence of brown heart in turnip, radish and storage roots of rootabaga and hollow stem in cauliflower and broccoli are due to b deficiency (shelp and shattuck, 1987a; shelp et al, 1987, 1992a). poor fruit and seed set in nut crops, even when there is no source: dell and huang (1997) fig 1. life-cycle of an angiosperm emphasizing stages when inadequate boron supply may directly or indirectly impact reproductive development. consequences of b deficiency shown at (a)–(f) are: (a) impaired inflorescence/flower formation; (b) infertile or aborted pollen; (c) reduced recognition of pollen by the stigmatic surface; (d) impaired pollen germination; (e) impaired pollen tube growth in astylar tissue leading to reduced seed and fruit set; (f) impaired seed development, eg, hollow heart, shrivelled seed; (g) abnormal seedlings, reduced seedling vigour micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 6 symptom on leaves, indicates that b deficiency is physiological in nature (nyomora et al, 1997). for tissue analysis, growing tissues are sampled in b immobile plants; whereas, in plants where b is mobile, even fruits and mature leaves are sampled. for b management in anticipated b deficiency, foliar spray is adequate in b mobile plants (apple), whereas, in b immobile (mango) plants; correction is difficult. both soil and foliar spray, especially at flowering, are essential in b immobile plants. prognosis and diagnosis of b deficiency prognosis by b analysis is done for ascertaining b deficiency for preventive management, whereas, diagnosis is done for curative management. critical b concentration for different crops varies between 3-7 mgkg-1 (for wheat) to 50-75 mgkg-1 (for mango), indicating the vast difference in crop requirement for b and the need for a sensitive prognosis programme for optimum fruit and vegetable production. young, fully expanded leaf (yfel) seems to be ideal for forecasting the response to b application. source: brown and shelp, 1997table 2. boron distribution (mg b kg -1) in shoots of field-grown apple and walnut leaf age crop apple walnut (malus domestica) (juglans regia) old 50 304 mature 57 225 young, expanded 56 127 expanding 73 62 meristematic 70 48 table 3. critical boron concentration (mg b kg-1) or concentration range in leaves of plants for prognosis for b deficiency species leaf and plant-age or growth-stage critical country and source b concentration or range (mg/kg) bean yfel – 37 daysafter sowing 20–24 columbia; howeler et al (1978) (phaseolus vulgaris) yfel – 75 days after sowing 16–18 broccoli yfel blade when 5% heads formed 9–13 canada; gupta and cutcliffe (1973, 1975) (brassica oleracea) brussel’s sprout yfel blade when5% heads formed 7–10 (b. oleracea) cauliflower yfel blade when 5% heads formed 8–9 (b. olreacea) potato yfel – 7 weeks after sowing 24 australia; pregno andarmour (1992) (solanum tuberosum) rutabaga youngest mature leaf blade at 5–6 leaves 37–44 canada gupta and cutcliffe (1972) (brassica napobrassica) wheat yeb – booting 3–7 thailand; rerkasem and loneragan (1994) (triticum aestivum) mango young leaves 50-75 india; agarwala (1988) (mangifera indica) tomato f1 hybrid young leaves 35-40 india; iyengar and edward raja (1988) (lycopersicon escule1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 fig 2. leaf-b concentration (mg kg-1 dry wt) in field-grown apple and walnut. leaves were collected at the end of the growing season in 1995 in the pomology orchard, davis, california, usa. the two species were grown in close proximity and received the same irrigation. b distribution in leaves also highlights b mobility and its effect. in a b mobile plant (apple), the meristem has more b than do old leaves, but, is low in meristem in immobile plant (walnut) apple walnut (terminal leaflet) edward raja 7 table 4. boron concentration in plant parts exhibiting b deficiency symptoms species plant organ showing b in affected plant reference deficiency symptom part(mg-1kg) wheat (triticum aestivum) youngest emerged leaves < 1 huang et al (1996) ear at booting 3–7 rerkasem and loneragan (1994) carpels at booting <6 rerkasem and lordkaew (1996) anthers at anthesis <9 rutabaga (brassica napobrassica) youngest mature leaves 2–7 gupta and cutcliffe (1972) mango (mangifera indica) fruit <20 ram et al (1989) effect of b on yield metabolic requirement for b varies with plant and plant species. the data (table 4) highlight that vegetative parts exhibit b deficiency symptoms at low b levels, while, the reproductive parts show symptoms at higher b levels. monocots like wheat are known to exhibit symptoms at lower b concentrations than dicots like sunflower, which need 10 times more b. the fastest response to any nutrient deficiency is observed in the case of b. within 3 hours of withholding b, root growth stops, and, deficiency symptoms are visible even when adequate b is present in the soil but is unavailable, due to low soil-mixture or poor transpiration (dell and huang, 1997). plant factors and prognosis for b deficiency plant species differ in their capacity to take up b even when grown in the same soil. these differences generally reflect different boron requirements for growth. in most dicotyledonous species such as papaya, the requirement is 80-100 mg. difference in b demand of graminaceous and dicotyledonous species is probably related to difference in their cell wall composition. interestingly, these two plant groups also differ in their capacity for silicon uptake, which is usually inversely related to b and ca requirement (loomis and durst, 1992). all three elements are located mainly in the cell wall. reports on ca/b interaction are thus far inconclusive (gupta, 1979). however, these interactions are likely to have a physiological basis. both elements are likely to have similar structural functions in the cellwall and at cell-wall plasma membrane interface, and, similar interactions in uptake & shoot transport, and in iaa transport. these common features also explain certain similarities in symptoms of calcium and boron deficiency in peanut seeds and lettuce (crisp and reid, 1964). revolution in mango yield in india by b nutrition using the brazilian experience in india, mango is grown in about 1.6 milion ha, with productivity of 6-7t/ha, compared to 20-25 t/ha in mexico/brazil and 25-30 t/ha in south africa. poor micronutrient nutrition, especially b, is one of the causes for such a huge yield gap (edward raja et al, 2005). deficiency of b results in poor and non-uniform flowering, low fruit-set, increased fruit drop and poor quality produce. mango is a b loving crop and the critical level ranges between 75-100 ppm (agarwala, 1988). rossetto et al (2000) recorded tremendous response to b by application of 300g borax/tree as soil application. this response varied from 200% for cv.tommy atkins to 500% for cv. haden 2h and vandyke, but one cultivar winter did not respond to b(table 5). this highlights the tremendous potential of b for increasing yield in mango. but another point to note here is that brazilian soils have low ph and hence availability of applied b is high. edward raja et al (2005) observed a significant yield response to b in cultivar alphonso in konkan, which has climate and soil similar to that in brazil. why is widespread b deficiency seen in mango in konkan region (india)? 1. since b is the only micronutrient lost to leaching, heavy rainfall (2200mm/yr) in the region results in low soil b status (<0-3 ppm) fig 3. young fruits of mango cv. van dyke. fruit with leatherycolor typical of low boron (left) and normal green fruit (right) source: rossetto et al (2000) micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 8 2. since b uptake by xylem occurs through passive uptake, high humidity (60-80%) in the region also reduces b uptake by mango trees 3. probable mismatch between need and availability; boron is needed in nov/dec when flowering and fruitset occurs (as, it is important in pollination). since 90% of mango is grown as rain-fed crop, the soil becomes dry in december when available is b low and b demand is highest. this mismatch between availability and need is probably another major reason for hidden hunger and visible deficiency of b in india, and in konkan in particular occurrence of boron deficiency and response in papaya among fruit crops, papaya is extremely susceptible to boron deficiency common in latisols and old slate alluvial soils in upland areas of taiwan (wang and ko, 1975; chang, 1993). this is more likely when papaya trees are planted in sandy soils during dry season. one of the earliest signs of boron deficiency is mild chlorosis in mature leaves which become brittle, and tend to curl downwards. a white “latex” exudate may flow from cracks in the upper part of the trunk, from leaf stalk, and from the underside of main veins and petiole. death of the growing points is followed by regeneration of side-shoots that ultimately die. in fruiting plants, the earliest indication is flower-shedding. when fruits develop, they are likely to secrete white latex. later, the fruit becomes deformed and lumpy. the deformation is probably a result of incomplete fertilization, as most of the seeds in the seed-cavity are either abortive, poorly developed or absent. if symptoms begin when the fruit is very small, it does not grow to full size. papaya fruits having a rugged surface and secreting latex are typical symptoms of boron deficiency. in studies on boron deficiency in papaya in taiwan, samples were taken from the 10th leaf blade (without petiole), counted from the 1st leaf (the mostrecently-matured leaf, with a leaf blade that has only just fully-developed, and which has a brownish colored petiole). standard sampling of this kind can effectively reflect variations in boron content in different orchards. boron content of the tenth blade of papaya trees with deformed fruits was always found to be lower than 20 ppm, while that of leaves from normal trees was generally 25-155 ppm. curative management of boron deficiency for tree crops application of b as borax at planting is suggested for example, borax @ 10g/banana plant, 50100g/mango plant, 20-25g/papaya plant should be applied, supplemented with foliar spray at 25% flowering. at flowering, solubor (20% b) is an ideal source of b for foliar spray, followed by boric acid (17% b). boron is a phytotoxic element and care should be taken to avoid toxicity. older leaves show toxic symptoms of necrosis of margins. slow-release b source in soil, with foliar spray of solubor, is an ideal approach to avoid toxicity and deficiency in highrainfall areas. zinc (zn) zinc nutrition in horticultural crops among micronutrients, zn occupies an important place due to its ability to positively influence plant growth and development. zinc enhances seed-viability, seedlingvigour and imparts resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses (cakmak, 2008). zinc is highly immobile in soil and its deficiency is common in mango, banana, guava, litchi, apple, grape and pomegranate. little-leaf and rosette symptoms are the most common visual indicators of zn deficiency. table 5. average yield of four mango cultivars, expressed in kilograms per hectare, over a six year period (1993-1998), showing the effect of soil boron application in half the blocks in the last three years, plus, the medium leaf-content of boron; each figure is the mean of 27 observations (3 rootstocks, 3 blocks, 3 years) in votuporanga, sp, brazil boron cultivar kg ha -1 leaf boron mg kg-1 kg ha -1 leaf boron mg kg -1 yield 1993-94-95 july 95 1996-97-98 dec.98 increment blocks without boron winter 8,379 a* 8.2 19,489 a* 7.7 2.3 tommyatkins 6,816 a 9.0 9,807 b 7.6 1.4 van dyke 6,608 b 8.4 2,697 c 8.2 0.7 haden 2h 1,951 b 8.7 3,375 c 8.1 1.7 mean 5,188 8.5 8,842 8.1 ‘without boron’ effect ‘with boron’ effect yield increment block showing boron winter 6,426 a* 8.2 17,114 a* 26.2 2.6 effect, from 1996 tommy atkins 4,288 a 9.1 16,272 a 29.9 3.8 van dyke 1,288 b 7.6 16,874 a 23.9 13.1 haden 2h 1,406 b 10.0 14,820 a 29.6 10.5 mean 3,352 8.7 16,270 27.4 mean, followed by the same letter, does not differ by tukey test at 5% source: rossetto et al (2000) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 9 chemistry of zn availability in horticultural crops a. soil reaction (ph) among soil chemical factors, soil ph plays the most important role in zn solubility in soil solution. in ph range between 5.5 and 7.0, zn concentration in soil solution decreases 30 to 45-fold for each unit increase in soil ph, thus increasing the risk of zn deficiency in plants (marschner, 1993). increasing soil ph stimulates absorption of zn to soil constituents (eg. metal oxides, clay minerals) and reduces adsorption of the adsorbed zn. lindsay (1991) reported that at ph 5.0, concentration of zn2+ in soil solution is sufficiently high, about 10-4 m (6.5 mg/ kg). when soil ph increases from 5 to 8, concentration of soil solution zn2+ reduces by nearly 1000 times and becomes nearly 10-10 m (approx. 0.007 mg kg–1). consequently, increase in soil ph is associated with very sharp decrease in concentrations of zn in plant tissues (marschner, 1995). b. moisture transport of zn to root-surface in soils occurs predominantly by diffusion, and this process is highly sensitive to soil ph and moisture (wilkinson et al, 1968). soil moisture is a key physical factor providing suitable medium for adequate zn diffusion into plant roots. the role of soil moisture is very critical in soils with low zn availability (marschner, 1993). zinc nutrition in plants is, therefore, adversely affected under water stress conditions, particularly in regions where topsoils are usually dry during later stages of crop growth. occurrence of zn deficiency stress and consequent decrease in crop yield were found to be more severe under rainfed (compared to irrigated) conditions (bagchi et al, 2007). c. organic matter soil organic matter plays a critical role in solubility and transport of zn to plant roots (marscher, 1993). in a study with 18 different soils, there was a strong inverse relationship between content of soil organic matter and soluble zn concentration in the rhizosphere (catlett et al, 2002). these results indicate that the pool of readily available zn to plant roots may be extremely low in soils with high ph, and, reduced levels of organic matter and soil moisture (takkar, 1999; cakmak et al, 1999). removal of micronutrients by different crops indicates that removal of micronutrients is not substantial compared to soil reserves of both available and total micronutrients (graham, 2002). available zn levels in mango orchards of peninsular india indicate adequate soil reserves of zn, but leaf zn status indicates deficiency in a majority of the soils, due to a combination of low moisture, low organic matter and high ph (agarwala, 1988). zinc deficiency correction in tree crops confusion prevails in the minds of growers and scientists regarding the right choice for zn amendment [znso 4 or znedta (chelate) and its mode of application]. all studies have indicated that 0.5% znso 4 as foliar spray is better than other treatments for correction of zn deficiency, and this method is more efficient in economic and environmental terms. but, 2 – 4 foliar sprays are essential for consistent correction and to obtain leaf zinc concentration of 25 – 75 ppm, required for optimum yield. apart form foliar spray, applying composted manure is essential for making soil zn too available to the plant. hence, no exclusive, single method is advisable. use of chelated zn sources for soil or as foliar spray is not needed, since these are par with znso 4. zn-solublizing bacteria can mitigate the widespread zinc deficiency in fruit grapes. subramaniam et al (2006) observed that a strain of pseudomonas fluorescens solubilized soil-zn. along with zn-solubiling bacteria, foliar spray of b, mn and fe resulted in increased yield and quality in grapes. iron (fe) iron nutrition in horticultural crops iron deficiency is easy to identify but difficult to correct. iron is chemically unavailable in the soil, and physiologically unavailable in the plant. the paradox is that soil has about 10000-100000 ppm total iron, but the plant needs only 30-50 ppm. it is not the quantity of iron that is important but the quality. description of the thirsty sailor crying in the midst of the seawater, “water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink” aptly describes availability of soil-iron to the plant. another paradox in iron nutrition is lime-induced iron chlorosis in plants, wherein, deficient leaves have more fe than healthy leaves, making leaf analysis for fe unreliable for judging iron-nutrition. diagnosis of iron chlorosis in tree crops prognosis of fe deficiency is a challenging task, since iron deficiency (iron-chlorosis) is an important nutritional disorder in horticultural crops, in general, and tree crops, in particular. it does not occur due to low level of fe in the soil but from impaired acquisition and use by plants. the most prevalent cause of iron chlorosis is bicarbonate levels in soils (pestana et al, 2003) or the bicarbonate present in irrigation water (tagliarani and rombola, 2001). prognosis micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 10 of iron deficiency is important, since correction is a costly and tedious process. soil tests for annual crops, soil tests are useful but, for tree crops, it is of limited value since the roots are deep and unevenly distributed. soil tests for lime-induced chlorosis need to focus on a. use of extractants capable of chelating the metal b. determination of active lime-content c. lime in silt-clay and fractions of soil plant analysis a. visual scoring: this is a fast and economical method (samz and montanes, 1997). the score ranges from 0 (without symptom) to 5 (trees with dead branches and pale young leaves). it can be quantified by spad apparatus that measures leaf transmittance at two wavelengths, 650 and 950 nm, and is a measure of chlorophyll. but the limitation is that by the time chlorosis appears, correction is no longer possible. b. plant analysis: leaf analysis is still the common method and is based on growth rate of plants and their nutrient content. but, it has several limitations in lime-induced chlorosis, viz., i. chlorosis parad: this is the phenomenon of absence of correlation between leaf fe concentration and degree of chlorosis. iron concentrations on dry weight basis are frequently more in chlorotic leaves than in green leaves, which is due to inactivation of fe. ii. analysis of active iron : analysis of active iron [(fe (ii)] is carried out using extractants like acetic, nitric and hydrochloric acids, o-phenanthrolone (rashid et al, 1990). but these methods also have limitations as they remove fe from phytoferrin, which is part of the pigment and make fe not available for other metabolic role. more over by the time the active fe is estimated, it may be too late for correction. iii. flower analysis : flower analysis is the currently more acceptable method for deciduous fruit trees and citrus, since correction is possible before fruit set. the fe content in flowers is well correlated with leaf chlorophyll status in deciduous trees with the exception of sweet orange where it is negatively correlated (pestana et al, 2003). iv. nutrient ratios in flowers : since fe analysis of flowers is not acceptable for both deciduous and evergreen tree crops, some phenomena like increase in k in flowers due to iron chlorosis is used for prognosis. the k: zn ratio in the flowers is fairly consistent and a value above 450 indicates the potential for preventive correction of iron chlorosis. v. enzyme assay : inspite of all the refinements in mineral analysis, the difficulty in differentiating metabolic / active fe from non-active fe is still difficult. the assay for enzyme chlorophyllase activity is another useful option for assaying for chlorosis for its prevention especially hidden hunger. this form of iron chlorosis is looming large over tree crops like grapes, mango, citrus and banana grown in winter months in calcareous soils. correction of fe chlorosis though fe is one of the most abundant elements in soil, its deficiency in plant tissues is a major challenge. shortterm correction by organic manures (produced in india) is not suitable due to inadequate quality standards (cn ratio, humification, ph, exchange capacity). a wide cn ratio induces fe deficiency rather than correct fe deficiency, by producing bicarbonates from the co 2 released from undecomposed carbon. citrus, mango, grape and apple are known for their susceptibility to fe deficiency, but prognosis is at its infancy. presently, applying organic manure and use of multi-nutrient sprays are the only feeble attempts in iron deficiency management. the estimate of loss by hidden hunger for fe has not been done, since, it is not recognized. iron deficiency prevention by use of ideal rootstocks about 1/3rd of indian soils are calcareous, and iron deficiency is a major nutritional problem in such soils (ray chaudry and govindarajan, 1969). they are highly buffered, with ph 7.5 to 8.2, and have bicarbonate affecting soil and plant fe availability. chlorophyll content decreases and carotenoid pigment increases in such soils. the iron deficiency occurs as visible and hidden hunger. this limeinduced chlorosis delays fruit-ripening, resulting in impaired quality in peach and orange (pestna et al, 2001). mandarins, limes and lemons are moderately tolerant to fe deficiency. work of pestana et al (2000) indicated that troyer citrange rootstocks are very tolerant. nikolic et al (2000) observed differential foliar tolerance to iron chlorosis in grape. kadman and gazit (1984) identified mango rootstocks tolerant to fe deficiency. edward raja (2009) identified mango cultivars tolerant to fe deficiency. correction of fe deficiency is the most difficult if suitable rootstock is not available. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 11 iron chlorosis in ornamental crops ornamental crops like rose, gerbera, gladiolus, and chrysanthemum are susceptible to fe deficiency. crops like jasmine (jasminum auriculatum and j. sambac and crossandra suffer fe deficiency. free calcium carbonate and high ph are the reasons for the incidence of iron chlorosis. jasminum grandiflorum is tolerant to iron chlorosis (kannan and ramani, 1988). remedial measures like soil or foliar application are only temporary. identification of high yielding, efficient cultivars of crop plants should be the goal to manage iron chlorosis on a longterm basis. edward raja (1990) screened 22 chrysanthemum cultivars for tolerance to iron and observed that only four cultivars were tolerant to chlorosis. since chrysanthemum is highly susceptible to fe deficiency, crossing these tolerant cultivars with susceptible ones may help manage chlorosis by transferring the tolerance. in polyhouse grown rose, fe deficiency is a serious problem, resulting in 20 – 30% of roses getting rejected as unmarketable. of the ten cultivars screened for tolerance, cv. kanfetti and first red were found to be moderately tolerant. chen and barak (1983) observed that foliar spray of feso 4 with a non-ionic surfactant l-77, and, application of fe-1 eddha, were effective in correcting iron chlorosis in soil at ph 7.7. chemical degradation in soil / irrigation water and iron deficiency due to increasing use of chemical fertilizers, the quality of irrigation water is deteriorating. monitoring irrigation-water quality in grape orchards around bangalore indicated increasing level of bicarbonate (hco 3 ) 1.1 to 4.6 meq/l and no 3 -n from traces to 0.8 meq/l over a period of 10 years from 1998 (table 6). no 3 -n enhances rhizosphere ph by physiological alkalinity and hco 3 makes fe inactive in the leaf and results in chlorosisparadox. this is danger in all horticultural crops, especially grape, since hidden hunger for fe deficiency will only increase in future. a study on build-up of heavy metals like zn and cu in grape orchards of rural bangalore revealed that heavy metal content increased by 60 to 120% over a period of 10 years. these heavy metals, when present in excess induce iron chlorosis. hence, balanced nutrition with adequate humified organic manures, alone can reduce the dangers of widespread iron chlorosis. therefore, foliar correction of micronutrients, especially zn, is recommended. else, zn toxicity induced fe deficiency, coupled with poor quality irrigation, will further aggravate fe-deficiency in horticultural crops. table 6. change in quality of irrigation water over a period of 10 years in grape orchards in bangalore district parameter unit value in 1998 in 2008 p h — 6.50 7.12 ec dsm-1 0.44 0.909 cl meq/l 1.88 2.572 no 3 meq/l traces 0.820 so 4 meq/l 0.160 0.180 co 3 meq/l 0 0 hco 3 meq/l 1.102 4.590 ca meq/l 2.200 2.699 meq/l 1.822 1.922 na meq/l 1.89 2.464 rsc meq/l traces traces sar meq/l 0.660 1.666 manganese (mn) occurrence of mn deficiency in acid lime in orchards of southern india have been reported by edward raja (1992). mn deficiency in older trees (25-30) of mango has also been recorded (edward raja, unpublished data). cobalt (co) the beneficial effect of cobalt in nodulation is wellknown and hence it is imperative that adequate cobalt supply is made to lignin vegetables like french bean, garden pea, pea and other vegetable beans, and take advantage of their capacity for symbiotic n 2 fixation. economy in n also assures better soil-health due to reduced no 3 pollution and better organic matter status even in marginal soils. nickle (ni) ni as a micronutrient it is becoming apparent that ni is likely a far more limiting factor in agriculture than previously supposed (bai et al, 2006; wood and reilly,2006). thus potential sources of ni fertilizers are likely to be increasingly required, depending on usage situations. discovery of field-level nickel deficiency in agriculture provides an opportunity to correct micronutrient deficiencies using biomass of hyperaccumulating plants. ni is increasingly recognized as an essential mineral nutrient element for higher plants. ni deficiency was discovered to be the cause of a mysterious malady of pecan, termed “mouse-ear”, and of an increasingly common replant malady in old or second generation, pecan orchards. this has established a need for commercial ni fertilizers (wood et al, 2004). deficiency can also have a major impact on primary and secondary metabolism (bai et al, 2006) and can also potentially influence plant resistance to certain diseases (wood and reilly, 2006). walker et al micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 12 (1985) observed that ni was needed in cowpea in reproductive stages. according to brown et al (1984), ni has a wide range of functions in plant growth, plant senescence and n metabolism. diagnosis of micronutrient disorders micronutrient management at the field level involves prognosis and diagnosis, followed by correction of the disorder. for diagnosis of hidden hunger, leaf analysis is being practiced. according to loneragan (1997), expertise in diagnosis of micronutrients is the most challenging aspect of micronutrient management, since, it poses more difficulties than macronutrients. most of the difficulties arise from experimental material (seeds, fertilizers and sampling / analysis of farmers’ crops) and experimental trials. the concept of ‘critical level’ by cate and nelson (1962) and optimum leaf nutrient norms by beaufils (1967) have been used by many research workers to develop leaf nutrient norms to diagnose leaf tissue to check whether it is deficient or healthy. though these efforts are an improvement over the earlier diagnostic methods, we need to exercise circumspection in using these data. a perusal of table 7 indicates leaf nutrient norms developed for mango for commercial cultivars of india and south africa. the former is for a yield of 7-10/ha and the latter for a yield level of 30 t/ha. productivity of mango in india is the lowest (6.8 t/ha) in the world. therefore, development of leaf nutrient norms for such low yields is a point worth considering and hence the question. is it relevant to analyze the leaf for low and unprofitable yield ? one more caution to be exercised is checking variability in leaf nutrient norms. the optimum value of manganese for alphonso (table 7) ranges between 13408 ppm. can a plant be healthy at this vast range ? also, the fe value for alphonso is vastly different from fe value for totapuri. in this context, only diagnosis based on some metabolic function like photosynthesis or, any enzyme in which the nutrient is structurally associated, is relevant. valenzuele and romero(1988) recommended the use of biochemical indicators like penexidare, catalane, chlorophyll, carotenoid and anthocynain to analyze fe deficiency. success in diagnosis is fundamental to success in correction and profitable yield/quality. dris and micronutrient diagnosis dris is one of the important methods for diagnosing the limiting nutrient and its strength lies in diagnosis by ratio norms. though research work on dris as a tool for nutrient diagnosis, was initiated as early as in 1988 (bhargava and chadha, 1988) no leaf analysis lab in the country uses nutrient ratio norms for providing service to farmers. leaf nutrient standards for low, optimum and high ranges in high yielding orchards (using standard deviation from the mean) also need to be validated in the field before being used in leaf analysis service. identifying limiting nutrients without analyzing b content, the most important micronutrient for horticultural crops is also is of limited use. if the leaf is not analyzed for b, even if another nutrient is identified as most limiting may not help in the response to that nutrient, since b figures in the liebig stress category. soil test values and tree micronutrient status since leaf analysis is more useful than soil test for making nutrient management decisions in perennial crops, not much work has been done on this aspect. but, work conducted earlier indicated poor relationship between soil test and plant micronutrient status. conventional soil tests are generally done to predict soil capability for supplying micronutrients during growth. the fundamental requirement of a soil test is that it should extract all or proportionate amount of plant-available nutrient which should correlate with or predict crop-response to application of the nutrient tested. viets (1952) opined suggested that micronutrients are found in five chemical pools : 1. water soluble 2. exchangeable 3. absorbed, chelated or complexed 4. secondary clay minerals and metal oxides 5. primary minerals edward raja and iyengar (1986) fractionated alfisoils (red soil), vertisoils (black soil) and high altitude soils for native and applied zn, and found that only the first 3 fractions (watersoluble, exchangeable and complexed zn fractions) contributed to uptake by tomato, but more than 80-90% of applied zn accumulated in the last two fractions. the incubation study on fate of applied zn in seven different soil types established that bulk of the applied zn became unavailable within 48 h of application to soil (iyengar and edward raja, 1988). in calcearous and clayey soil, about 70-80% applied zn became unavailable (dtpa extractable), whereas, in the acidic and high organic-matter rich coffee soils of kodagu, 30-40% of the applied zn was still available. hence, soil application to correct zn deficiency is recommended mainly in acid soils rich in organic matter. since use-efficiency of applied micronutrients (zn, mn, fe and cu) is very low (3-5%), it is better to resort to foliar spray than soil application to correct micronutrient disorders in perennial fruits (alloway, 2008). j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 13 photosynthesis and micronutrient deficiency micronutrient deficiencies affect carbohydrate pools and photosynthesis. reduction in chlorophyll content leads to chlorosis in leaves, ultimately affecting the chloroplast system and photosynthesis (balakrishnan et al, 2000). fe, mn and zn levels affect the chlorophyll content. micronutrient disorders exercise their influence by affecting photosynthesis and carbohydrate accumulation/translocation and there is a need for determining adverse effects of micronutrient disorders by effect on photosynthetic apparatus and photosynthesis. this approach would give a better idea of adverse effects of deficiencies. micronutrients and quality of horticultural crops horticultural crops differ in quality, which can affect profitability for the same level of productivity. micronutrients have the capacity to improve quality, size, colour, taste, and earliness of horticultural produce. sufficient data are available to show the positive effect of boron on juice purity in sugar beet. this occurs due to decrease in excess nitrogen content in roots. it has been suggested that b might be involved in regulation and uptake of nitrate ions. part of the effects of deficiency are due to toxic accumulation of nitrates in the plant. it has been amply demonstrated that increased doses of nitrogen in boron deficient condition (which may happen in intensive orchards among different european countries) may reduce b uptake and suppress yield. with an aim of studying the role of boron on sugar transport in grapes, and its effect on the coloration of red wines, borax carried out field trials in l rioja in 1999. application of b resulted in better coloured red wine. as mentioned earlier, mango is a b-loving crop and, therefore, continuous adequate quantity of b is essential for yield, quantity and post-harvest life. soil application in july at 100-150g borax/plant followed by foliar spray in dec. jan. and march is essential for high yield, quality and postharvest life. trials conducted in konkan and maharashtra indicated that adequate b resulted in reduction in spongy tissue from 35% to 10%. work conducted in farmer-fields indicated that 1% solubor resulted in higher yield (8t/ha) and enhanced postharvest life from 4 days to 14 days in b-sprayed plants (edward raja, 2009). flowering was early by 3 weeks and, therefore, harvest was advanced by 3 weeks, enabling farmers to market their produce early to get a better price. the quality of horticultural produce in terms of colour, size, tss and nutrients/nutraceuticals are important factors in deciding consumer acceptance and marketability, ultimately deciding the profitability to the producer. micronutrients have a definite and significant effect on quality. fruit-cracking due to cuticle damage is a serious problem in tomato grown under protected cultivation in south africa. the study by jobin et al (2002) indicated that b+ca spray on the fruit resulted in reduced fruitcracking. application of micronutrients (zn, fe and b) by spray on kinnow mandarin increased yield, juice and ascorbic acid content besides reducing acidity and improving tss (mishra et al, 2006). boron is needed for cell-wall synthesis and reduction in cracking in tree fruits. studies by singh et al (2003) indicated that b application by spray @ 0.1 to 0.4% along with ga 3 (10 to 100 ppm) resulted, in increase in yield and reduced cracking of fruits in pomegranate. the marketable yield increased by 10-15% and profit by 20%. a study conducted in mexico on the effect of ca, b and zn on quality and storage of peach indicated that pulp firmness, tss, titrable acidity and storage life improved with b applied as pre-harvest spray. in greenhouse production systems, yield and quality of tomato was a problem. in a study on the effect of b on tomato, smith and comtrink (2004) observed that b application increased ca, mg & zn content, besides improving firmness, colour, total solids, and shelf-life in tomato. micronutrients and input-use efficiency all studies on response to micronutrients involve application of macronutrients, and, any yield increase due to application of micronutrient necessarily indicates that the efficiency of applied npk fertilizers is enhanced. indian micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 table. 7. optimum leaf nutrient norms for important mango cultivars parameter alphonso totapuri all varieties of (india) (india) south africa n % (range) 0.78 1.65 0.84 1.53 1.0 1.2 p % (range) 0.02 033 0.064 0.147 0.08 0.1 k % (range) 0.77 1.73 0.52 1.10 0.8 1.1 ca % (range) 0.76 1.63 1.67 3.20 2.0 3.3 mg % (range) 0.40 0.65 0.40 0.65 0.2 0.3 s % (range) 0.035 0.131 0.0147 0.215 0.1 0.2 fe mg/kg 657 963 48 86 190 310 (range) mn mg/kg 13 408 57 174 170 150 (range) zn mg/kg 7.8 18.3 25 33 30 75 (range) cu mg/kg 14.3 17.8 3.10 8.00 9 18 (range) boron mg/kg 40-80 (3-0.6 mo) (range) yield (t/ha) 6 10 30 source: south africa mango growers year book 2003 / iihr, folder no-45-0 2007 14 farmers use about 2 million tons of fertilizers, valued at rs.4,00,000 crore and a subsidy of rs.48,000 crore is borne by the government, for fertilizers. if micronutrient application can save even 20% on fertilizers, the benefit is substantial, besides the added benefits to environment. more important is the fact that in b-deficient soils, water stress can damage crops more fiercely than in b-sufficient soils. in some studies on oilseed rape (brassica napus) in b-deficient soils (without added boron), water stress treatment significantly increased root dry weight, but decreased shoot dry weight, resulting in decreased shoot/root ratio. applied boron may improve the translocation of n compounds (miley et al, 1969). french bean is a poor nodulating legume, hence, inorganic n fertilizer is applied (due to inadequate symbiotically-fixed n). low availability of fe and zn in the soil were identified as one of the causes for poor nodulation. supplying fe and zn resulted in better nodulation and n fixation, according to hemantaranjan and garg (1986). it is well-established that fe is an integral part of the nitrogenfixing complex i.e, nitrogen-fixing enzyme (nitrogenase), leg hemoglobin and terridoxin (evans and russell, 1971). subsequent study by hemantaranjan (1988) indicated that application of chelated iron as fe-edta and fe-eddha at 5-10 ppm increased functional nodules and n-fixed symbiotically and total dry matter in french bean. dry matter yield increased from 25 g to 46.3 g with fe-eddha, nitrogen content from 360 mg n/pot to 673 mg n/pot, an increase of above 60% n fixed. rai et al ( 1984 ) also recorded increased n fixation in lentil due to fe application. but, excess fe decreased n fixation, indicating a need for the correct dose of micronutrients and a possibility of toxicity. application of 5 to 10 ppm zn and fe individually, and together, resulted in better ‘functional nodulation’ and seed in varanasi soils ph 7.5. these findings encourage us to focus on micronutrient nutrition of legumes in general, and french bean in particular, for reducing inorganic n use in vegetable cultivation. molybdenum is also involved in functional nodulation and n fixation in legumes along with fe and, hence, adequate mo supply is also needed to encourage symbiotic n fixation and reduce dependence on fertilizer nitrogen. molybdenum is needed in a very low quantity. in bold-seeded legumes like french bean, pea, cowpea and garden pea, the seed itself can be enriched, since seed legumes have the capacity to accumulate molybdenum to a very high level. when garden pea had 0.17 ppm molybdenum (which is low), it responded to soil application of mo, whereas, it failed to respond to external application of mo when the seed had 0.65 ppm of mo. gurley and gidden (1969) corrected mo deficiency in soybean by seed enrichment to 20-30 times the normal seed-mo level, thereby avoiding the deficiency. cobalt too has been involved in enhancing nitrogen fixation and improving n economy. micronutrients and disease resistance / tolerance in plants importance of adequate nutrition for disease resistance in humans is something most people accept from personal experience. although this vital principle is also wellrecognized in plant science, it is often ignored in practical agriculture. this is especially true of micronutrients. of the many reviews dealing with plant nutrition and disease (graham, 1983), few have seriously considered micronutrients. however, the role of mn was treated at length (huber and wilhelm, 1988), and the flurry of research on siderophores in disease control (swinburne, 1986) has brought fe to prominence in plant pathological literature. manganese of the micronutrients, mn may prove to be the most important in development of resistance in plants to both root and foliar diseases of fungal origin. availability of mn to plant roots and soil microorganisms varies mercurially over time, depending on many environmental and soil biotic factors. consequently, mn availability is subject to manipulation by both higher plants and microorganisms. as mn is required in larger concentrations by higher plants than by fungi and bacteria, there is an opportunity for the pathogen to exploit this difference in requirement. the role of mn in mitigating diseases in horticultural crops has been presented in table 8. whereas, effects of nutrition on disease are normally limited to the deficiency range (graham, 1983), there are a few indications in literature that suppressive effects of mn operate well into the sufficiency range of the host plant. this would appear to indicate either that (i) mn requirement of the host plant for disease resistance is higher than for yield (ii) that mn is somehow involved in lowering the inoculum potential of soil-borne, pathogens. several mechanisms have been proposed for the role of mn in disease resistance, but lignification was found to be the most prominent. some of the possible roles of manganese are outlined below: ◆ manganese is involved elsewhere in the biosynthetic pathway of phenols and lignin. mn deficiency leads to a decrease in soluble phenols (brown et al, 1984), j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 15 table 8. effects of mn deficiency reported on plant diseases in horticultural crops horticultural plant disease pathogen effect grapes phylloxera phylloxera decrease palm leaf spot excerohilum decrease rostratum cucumber mildew erysiphe decrease cow pea mildew decrease onion rot storage fungi decrease erysitre polygone legume vegetables canker rhizoctonia decrease potato late blight phytophthora decrease infestans stem canker rhizoctonia decrease solani swede mildew erysiphe decrease cruciferarum tomato bacterial pseudomonas decrease speck syringae wilt fusarium decrease oxysporum wilt verticillium decrease asbo-abum virus tomato decrease mosaic virus pumpkin mildew erysiphe decrease sclerotiorum scab streptomyces decrease scabies late blight phytophthora decrease infestans sugar beet insect root borer decrease sugar beet leaf spot cercospora sp. decrease source: huber and wilhelm (1988) which are frequently implicated in disease resistance (bell, 1981) ◆ photosynthesis is severely inhibited by mn deficiency. it has been argued that decrease in root exudation of organic materials may follow and result in weaker rhizofloral population, less able to compete with potential root pathogens in the rhizosphere (graham and rovira, 1984). however, while photosynthetic capacity in mn-deficient leaves responds quickly to foliar-applied mn, evidence of ineffectiveness of foliar applied mn in controlling take-all (reis et al, 1982; huber and wilhelm, 1988) suggests that this mechanism is not important in this disease ◆ direct inhibition of the pathogen is commonly suggested as a mechanism of mn action. although mn is essential for microbial growth (bertrand and javillier, 1912), the requirement is nearly 100 times lower than requirement in higher plants. both organisms exploit this marked difference in requirement between host and pathogen copper control of foliar pathogens by topical applications of cu salts was been well-established by the turn of the 20th century. this was almost 30 years before cu was recognized as an essential nutrient in both higher and lower plant life. whereas cu is required by lower plant forms in minute amounts (bortels, 1927), it is particularly toxic in higher concentrations (keast et al, 1985). copper has been used extensively as a fungicide at concentrations 10 to 100 times greater than those normally needed as a foliar spray, to cure cu deficiency (0.1-0.2kg ha-1). most of its fungicidal properties have been used against foliar pathogens, since cu added to soil is quickly adsorbed, and only a low concentration remains in the soil solution. zinc zinc is important for integrity and stability of biological membranes (chvapil, 1973; bettger and o’dell, 1981). in plant root membranes specifically, it has been suggested that zn may be important in preventing root membranes from leaking (graham et al, 1987). this hypothesis has particular relevance to the finding that zoospores of phytophthora cinnamomi were attracted to zn-deficient eucalyptus marginata and e. sieberi roots than to zn-adequate roots. many studies showed that zn reduced plant diseases, which probably may be related to the toxic effects of zn directly on the pathogen, rather than through the plant’s metabolism. thus, studies on artificial media (usually agar) in the absence of host plants have shown that high concentrations of zn can inhibit growth or development of microorganisms. somashekar et al (1983) demonstrated that 50 ppm of zn resulted in growth reduction in penicillium citrinum by 28%, cachliobolus miyabeanus by 89% and cladosporium cladosporoides by 12%. cripps et al (1983) showed that 3 ppm of znso 4 inhibited growth in trametes versicolor and stereum strigosazonatum by 100%, trichoderma and alternaria by 64%. epicoccum by 43%, but did not inhibit the growth of curvularia or penicillium. hooley and shaw (1985) determined that more than 7.5m m zn was required to inhibit one strain (6500p) of phytophthora dreschsleri by 50%, but only 5.5 mm zn was required to inhibit strain 6503imi to the same degree. all these results showed that zn could have a similar effect on pathogens that attack horticultural crops. in a survey, it was observed that level of zn in the micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 16 soil was lower in soils conducive to root rot (phymatotrichopsis omnivorum) of cotton (smith and hallmark, 1987) and infection of ginseng by pseudomonas cichorii (gvozdyak and pindus, 1988). although these reports are correlative, the interpretation is that zn is important in reducing fusarium root rot of chickpea, cicer arietinum (gaur and vaidya, 1983) and rhizoctonia bataticola rot of groundnut, arachis hypogea (murugesan and mahadevan, 1987). boron boron has also been reported to have beneficial effects in reducing plant disease; many of these effects have previously been reported by graham (1983), as have the lack of effects. these are (i) its role in formulation of carbohydrate-borate complexes controlling carbohydrate transport and cell membrane permeability or stability (ii) its role in metabolism of phenolics, with its primary role in synthesis of lignin (lewis, 1980). since then, b has also been shown to reduce diseases such as clubroot of cabbage, caused by plasmodiaphora brassicae in sweden (vladimirskaya et al, 1982) and other crucifers (dixon and webster, 1988); fusarium solani in bean phaseolus vulgaris l. (guerra and anderson, 1985); verticillium alboatrum in tomato (dutta and bremner, 1981); rhizoctonia solani in mungbean, pea and cowpea (kataria, 1982; kataria and grover, 1987); rhizoctonia bataticola in groundnut (murugesan and mahadevan, 1987) and tomato yellow leaf curl virus in tomato (zaher, 1985). boron has been shown to decrease expression of the potato wart disease (synchytrium endobioticum) of potato (hampson and hard, 1980) and club root of crucifers. in both cases, the disease is expressed by formation of a tumor or a gall; and in both reports, b decreased the severity of diseaseexpression. boron did not, however, diminish initial infection of the host. one consequence of b deficiency is increase in indoleacetic acid (iaa) concentration because of inhibition of iaa oxidase activity (coke and wittington, 1968), presumably by accumulation of phenolics. similar conditions may occur in tumors and galls. potato wart tumors have elevated levels of auxin-like substances (reingard and pashkar, 1959). this increase in auxin (or auxin-like) activity has been explained by an increase in auxin protectors (tandon, 1985). it is worthwhile to note that, in a variety of tomato in which tumors were not found following successful infection, tomatine, an auxin antagonist, was present (hampson and haard, 1980). the auxin protectors from potato wart have been isolated, and shown to contain ferulic acid and caffeic acids covalently bound to a protein and chlorogenic acid. interestingly, both chlorogenic and caffeic acid have been identified in the necrotic areas of b-deficient celery, apium graveolens l (perkins and aronoff, 1956), and ferulic and vanillic acid in b-deficient oil palm (elaeis guineensis) (rajaratnam and lowry, 1974). in addition, it is common to use borate as a buffer during plant tissue extraction to prevent conjugation of phenolics with proteins. these observations suggest that b may suppress gall or tumor formation by suppressing high concentrations of auxin or auxin-like substances. gall formation itself is not a defense mechanism of the plant i.e., galls are incited by the pathogen (dixon, 1984). thus b, by suppressing high levels of auxin or auxin-like substances, may also suppress gall formation. there is no conclusive evidence that explains how b decreases disease caused by vascular pathogens. the association of b with lignin synthesis (lewis, 1980) makes it tempting to suggest that b may suppress infection of the stele by a lignified physical barrier at the endodermis. it may be argued that this barrier would be of little consequence if, as suggested by mai and abaci (1987), fusarium enters just behind the root cap, a region of the root with little lignification. however, if b deficiency weakens the lignification of other parts of the root system, successful infection may be more likely at other locations on the root axis. indeed, dutta and bremner (1981) observed that b depressed the symptoms of verticillium wilt in tomato, and roots of b-supplied plants showed no vascular discoloration. this suggests that b inhibited invasion of xylem by the pathogen. iron older literature sheds little light on the role of fe in disease resistance, since it is relatively sparse compared with that of cu, mn and b. however, the sophistication of microbial fe-acquisition systems suggests that microbes have a high requirement compared to higher plants and higher utilization efficiency. in this respect, fe appears to stand in contrast to cu, mn and b, for which microbial requirements are relatively low. addition of cu, mn and b to deficient soils generally benefits the host, whereas the effect of fe fertilization in disease resistance cannot be predicted. copper was antagonistic to fe in the f. oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici, although lycomarismin has no known function in fusarium wilt disease. fe decreased tolerance of fusarium wilt in tomato without affecting development of the fungus (waggoner and dimond, 1953). j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 17 iron stimulated and cu inhibited spore germination (strakhov and yaroshenko, 1959; halsall and forrester, 1977; vedie and le normand, 1984). though its key role in oxidative phosphorylation is known, fe is directly or indirectly involved in all plant synthesis, but especially high fe requirement for syntheses of the phytoalexin wyerone is of interest in the present context (swinburne, 1986). iron is essential for production of the host-attacking exoenzymes of fungi, such as pectin methylesterase of fusarium oxysporum (sadasivam, 1965) and endoand exo-glucanase by phoma herbarum, a leaf spot pathogen of peanut (shinde and gangawane, 1987). molybdenum there have been few reports associating mo with response of plants to disease and no reports have been found to specifically address effects of mo deficiency (graham 1983). however, dutta and bremner (1981) demonstrated that mo applied to tomato roots reduced the symptoms of verticillium wilt. miller and becker (1983) also reported that mo suppressed verticillium wilt in tomato. molybdenum had a direct effect by reducing production of roridin e, a toxin produced by myrothecium roridum (fernando, 1986) and in slightly inhibiting zoosporangia formation by phytophthora cinnamomi and p. dreschleri (halsall and forrester, 1977). soil-application of mo decreased nematode populations (haque and mukhopadhyua, 1983). it is not known whether mo within the host plays any specific role in protecting plants from disease. because of the requirement for mo by the enzymes nitrogenase and nitrate reductase, any effect of mo deficiency on pathogenesis may be indirect through an effect on n metabolism (shkolnik, 1984). silicon (si) although si is not regarded as a full-fledged essential element for growth of higher plants, it is evident from recent work that it plays a critical role in biochemical pathways leading to resistance to certain pathogens. adatia and besford (1986) observed that cucumber powdery mildew that could not be controlled by repeated application of fungicide, could be controlled by silica. meyer et al (2008) observed that silicon helped in powdery mildew control in grape, strawberry and cucumber, but in gerbera, the reduced uptake limited its role in disease. in view of this, judicious use of silicon (separately, or along with biopesticides) and balanced nutrition can control diseases in horticultural crops in an integrated way. role of micronutrients in improving post-harvest life and marketability of horticultural produce low storability of horticultural produce is wellknown in a tropical country like india, but, the energy intensive cold-storage units escalate cost of storage. however, the capabilities of some micronutrients in complementing these techniques are well-known. boron has a synergistic role with ca in fruit-tree nutrition, since both are needed for fruit quality. brown heart disease of pear is a serious storage disorder affecting the storagelife when controlled atmosphere storage is done. studies conducted in south africa indicated that storage life of mango, citrus, avacodo and grape improved with increased ca and b content in the fruit (kruger et al, 2003). wojcik and wojick (2003) indicated that preand postharvest b spray on the fruit supplemented with soil b, resulted in better ca status in pears and increased storage life, higher firmness and titrable acidity. the fruits also had lower membrane permeability and were less sensitive to internal browning than control fruits. poor storability of melons in brazil was solved by pre harvest spray of ca and b from fruit-set to harvest. storage life could be increased by higher ca binding to the cell wall which, increased methoxylated pectin in cells of the melon skin (chitara and praca, 2004). india paid a heavy price by losing export market for alphonso mango to spongy tissue. micronutrients can prevent occurrence of some of the disorders, in that cause reduction in marketable yield, while simultaneously increasing the profit of farmers and exporters. zinc and b play a direct role in reducing physiological disorders. zinc stabilizes membrane permeability and b (by increasing the mobility of ca to the fruits. mn, cu and fe) also plays a positive role by increasing photosynthesis and providing carbohydrates supply for good ca uptake. internal browning (chocolate) of grape in brazil was associated with plants having abnormal yellowing and malformed clusters, with small berries and darkbrown pulp. this was corrected by supplying b (0.1% spray at flowering). edward raja (2009) observed that spongy tissue in mango cv. alphonso, a calcium-related disorder observed in acid soils of konkan, india, could be rectified by correcting severe b and zn deficiencies by foliar and soil application. improving root health by dolomite application (to eliminate al toxicity), and facilitating better light-penetration by pruning, resulted in enhanced carbohydrate accumulation, and translocation and better ca uptake by roots. micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 18 bitter pit, a serious physiological disorder in apple, was reduced by sprays of zn and cu (schmitz and engel, 1973). the immobile calcium oxalate in fruits is solubilised by zn and ca is released to the fruit. chvapil (1973) reported that zn is tightly bound to cell membranes in leaves and it has the greatest affinity for cell membranes, followed by cu, fe, ca and co. this points out to the possibility of zn and cu sprays releasing ca from various chelating and complexing agents. smith and green (1982) observed fewer cork spots in apples with higher b in the fruit-flesh and more of higher quality fruits. according to shear (1975), both soil and foliar spray of b can increase fruit ca and reduce ca-related physiological disorders. shear and faust (1971) showed increased movement of ca into leaves sprayed with b. proper and timely application of micronutrients can help correct several physiological disorders of fruits, thereby increasing their marketability. role of micronutrients in enhancing nutritional security through horticultural crops horticulture products are protective tools which have to be nutrient-dense, since, nutritive value of the cereals is deteriorating due to growth-dilution and declining soilhealth. horticultural crops have minerals in better availableform compared to cereals like wheat and rice. enhancement of nutritional security by biofortification and organic farming is gaining ground in the present agricultural paradigm. fe and zn deficiencies are becoming publichealth issues. these can be addressed to a great extent by consumption of fruits and vegetables. seventeen minerals are needed for human health and even boron has qualified for 5 out of 6 criteria for essentiality in human nutrition (3rd international conference on boron, 2005). phloem-immobile micronutrients like fe, b, v and cr cannot be increased in food crops by spray-application. according to welch (1997), macronutrient treatment can influence concentration of betacarotene and micronutrients in carrot. root vegetables from acid soils have adequate fe, zn, n, cu, mo and se for better human health. biotechnology can play a major role in human nutrition by producing tangerines rich in micronutrients. horticulture must change in ways that will closely link food production to human health and nutritional requirements. holistic food system models hold promise in providing sustainable interventions to these complex nutrition and health problems. sustainable solutions to micronutrient malnutrition can only be found in forming a nexus between agricultural production and human health. the magnitude of the problem is so great that we must use every tool at our disposal to eliminate this scourge from the world. crop phenology and micronutrients the mean crop removal of all micronutrients does not exceed 600 g/ha, whereas the total micronutrients exceed more than several tons/meter depth, the maximum feeding zone of any horticultural crop. this opens up great potential for solving the problem of micronutrient disorders of horticultural crops in india, since micronutrient reserves in indian soils are adequate for thousands of crops. when 5 ppm zn can be adequate for 2500 crops of wheat in australia, it is definitely adequate for 10000 crops of mango (considering its very low removal at 44 g/ha). it should be clear from table 9 that perennial fruit crops like mango and grape remove much less micronutrients than to vegetables which, in turn, remove much less than a wheat crop does, since, dry matter produced by a cereal crop is much higher than that by fruits or vegetables. though all micronutrients are essential for the entire crop growth, each nutrient is needed at some phenological stage of growth in larger quantity, to maintain crop productivity. boron is needed both at the time of planting or sowing for root growth, at the reproductive stage for pollination and, at maturity stage, to avoid fruit-drop, cracking and, also, for mobilization of calcium for better shelf-life. since it is highly immobile in the plant, it is continuously needed. but, reproductive parts need more b than do vegetative parts (rerkasem et al, 1996). it is better to give a foliar spray at pre-bloom for pome fruits and, a pre-bloom and post-bloom spray for other fruits. since b is phloemmobile, in some fruits like apple, one spray at flowering is sufficient, whereas, for b immobile crops like mango, prebloom and post-bloom sprays are essential (edward raja et al, 2005). though fe is needed throughout the plants life, fe nutrition becomes a problem at flowering due to poor photosynthate supply to roots. root-health is very important in iron and calcium nutrition, since these are taken up in the table 9. micronutrient removal (g/ha) by major horticultural crops crop zn m n fe cu b m o mango 44 68 150 13 28 2 papaya 68 110 140 22 48 3 banana 110 380 190 14 68 4 grape 130 240 180 22 62 4 tomato 110 180 210 48 64 7 cabbage 140 220 240 22 68 7 beans 95 128 120 48 48 4 mean 99 189 176 27 55 4 source: cakmak (1993), south africa mango growers handbook (2002, 2003) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 19 root-tip region only. spray of fe as 0.5% feso 4 at flowering, along with b, is always helpful. for leguminous vegetables, it is needed at seed-sowing for nodulation (hemantranjan, 1998). since mn is also phloemimmobile, it needs to be continuously available to the plant, more so, at fruit-set (since it is essential for photosynthesis). leaves adjacent to fruits are important for fruit growth and their mn level needs to be at an optimum. an acidified rhizosphere always ensures enough mn. nitrate n should be avoided at flowering. since mn is important for disease resistance, a continuous supply keeps the plant healthy. copper is also needed, more at the reproductive stage than at the vegetative stage. it is immobile. protection of plants with copper fungicide at flowering ensures copper availability for reproductive growth. molybdenum is partially mobile and is needed for nodulation in legume vegetables. it is needed more in the early stage of crop-growth and in crops that need high n, like banana/ tomato that need it more in acid soils. if seeds are enriched with mo or seed-dressing is done, there is less need for mo at the late stage of a crop. zinc is also a partially mobile; it is required at an early stage of crop growth or during early establishment of tree crops. in sensitive crops like grape, mango and citrus, a spray (0.3% znso 4 ) at pre-bloom, followed by a spray at the reproductive phase, is helpful, since it can protect leaves and fruits from reactive oxygen species (cakmak, 2000). in situations where topsoil is removed by leveling during cold season, zn deficiency affects crop establishment. hence, zn is needed more at the early and late stages for fruit membrance stability and to mobilize ca for preventing physiological disorders. micronutrient toxicity micronutrient excess is as much a problem as deficiency and skill is needed in micronutrient correction. since farmers are prone to using excess micronutrients, this creates a problem rather than solving a problem. some of the common toxicity problems encountered with micronutrients are discussed below. boron toxicity occurs due to saline irrigation water and saline soils. citrus and beans are extremely sensitive to b toxicity. copper toxicity occurs due to natural pollution by mine ores or anthropogenical reason due to use of fertilizers and fungicides. copper accumulates more in the root and damages it more than the shoot. it induces k, ca, mg and fe deficiencies and causes fe chlorosis. new approaches in micronutrient nutrition according to marshner (1995), rhizosphere modification in some crop species by type i and type ii mechanisms is a fe-stress response for better iron nutrition. in this process, a plant spices very susceptible to fe deficiency may be grown adjacent to a fe efficient genotype, to benefit from the rhizosphere modified with higher available iron. a banana cultivar with high available mn in its rhizosphere can benefit an acid lime crop susceptible to mn-deficiency. thus, rhizosphere modification can help in micronutrient nutrition of crops by complementary existence. bio-fortification in horticultural crops nearly 40 – 50% of world population suffers from fe and zn deficiencies (welch, 1999, 2002). bio-fortification of food crops by breeding is one of the priority research areas of breeders (welch and graham, 2004). but bioavailability of fe and zn in grains is low due to the presence of phytic acid, which reduces their uptake in the digestive system (cakmak, 2002). due to low phytic acid content in fruits and vegetables, horticultural crops lend themselves for bio-fortification. iyengar and edward raja (1988) observed some vegetables like okra getting enriched with zn in pods (edible portion) when zinc level in soil was high. hence, exploiting fruits and vegetables not only for vitamins but also for critically deficient fe and zn, has a great potential in addressing nutritional security of the nation. it is wellknown that plants differ in their efficiency for uptake of nutrients from soils and in certain situation, options other than fertilizer-application (to correct micronutrient disorders) are considered. in tackling iron chlorosis (especially, induced chlorosis), breeding resistant varieties in soybean and sorghum is on for the past 25 years. breeding is considered in the following situations : 1. when the cost of correction is high 2. when the method of correction is difficult 3. when the deficiency affects yield and quality very severely (liebig stress) 4. when agronomic correction may result in environmental pollution 5. when agronomic correction produces produce with low nutritional value discussing the present technologies and future prospects it can be observed that sustainable and cost effective correction of fe deficiency is possible by developing fe efficient cultivars or rootstocks for sensitive crops. breeding for tolerance to zinc deficiency has been well-identified for managing zn deficiency in beans (hacisalihoglu et al, 2004). another alternative is development of transgenic crops. the zn transporter protein micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 20 of arabidopsis was transferred to barley, which resulted in correction of zinc deficiency (ramesh et al, 2004). for enriching fe content of rice seeds, transgenic rice was developed with ferritin gene, but increase in fe content was inadequate (qu et al, 2005). micronutrient management in acid soils the western coast of peninsular india and parts of eastern and northeastern india has acidic soils, which need to be managed differently for micronutrient disorders. in these soils, aluminium and manganese are present at toxic levels (pandey et al, 1994), while mo and b are usually deficient (edward raja et al, 2005). other micronutrients like zn, fe, cu, are adequately available in these soils. since b is the only mobile micronutrient in soil, it gets lost by leaching (like nitrogen). since acid soils are distributed in high-rainfall regions, its deficiency is a perennial problem. but, the fact is that b-uptake by plants at identical watersoluble b content was greater at lower soil solution ph (wear and patterson, 1962). hence, plants can manage with lower soil b in acid soils, than in high ph soils (calcareous soils). but, due to loss by leaching of fertilizer, slow release b sources like colemanite have a large potential for b-loving crops like, mango. vegetables like cauliflower, carrot and turnip need to be supplied with adequate b. deficiency of molybdenum is a problem in acid soils. but, liming for eliminating al-toxicity can increase available mo in soil and solve the problem. use of molybdenum-rich seeds of legume vegetables, or seed treatment at sowing, also mitigates the problem. foliar nutrition in micronutrient: an option or management compulsion in horticultural crops hamilton et al (1943) were the first to establish potential of foliar nutrition in fieldlevel nutrition management, by proving the influence of urea spray the nnutrition in apple. initial research on the potential of this technique was confined to supplying macronutrients like npk, since, deciduous crops like apple (whose root systems are inactive throughout winter and early spring) have to be compensated for the time lost. this became all the more important when high-yielding clones were introduced and advances in horticultural technology doubled the yield of apple and there was a need for providing the extra nutritional requirement. controlling physiological disorders by directly spraying on the fruits is also widely followed in apple. but, in india, foliar sprays are still optional as their vast potential is yet to be recognized in terms of increased yield, quality and post-harvest life. crop-specific micronutrient foliar formulations each crop is specific in its micronutrient requirement, based on its metabolic requirement, capacity to modify its root-soil interface, exploit the rhizosphere-soil nutrients, better root geometry, faster specific rate of absorption at low concentration (low kw), improved internal root-distribution and superior utilization or low functionalrequirement for the nutrient (graham et al, 1992). in the alfsoils of iihr, bangalore, abundant in available mn, three crops growing side-by-side exhibited contrasting response to mn application. while acid lime exhibited deficiency, guava exhibited sufficiency and banana exhibited toxicity for mn (edward raja, unpublished data). the most scientific approach would be to identify micronutrient disorder at the micro-farming level by leaf and soil analysis and suggest a farm/site specific recommendation. in the indian context, with more than 2 million farm holdings in horticulture, it is impossible to provide farm-specific advice, due to lack of infrastructure for leaf/soil analysis and lack of manpower to interpret it. hence, crop-specific foliar micronutrient strategy was proposed as one of the strategies to overcome this problem (edward raja, 2009) this involves identification of the predominant micronutrient disorder of a crop in agroecologically similar regions, developing a micronutrient formulation, incorporating the deficient nutrient in proportion to intensity of the deficient nutrition. this is similar to iodinefortified common-salt promoted for public health. this concept is totally different from the existing market for micronutrient foliar formulations in india, which have following basic inadequacies : 1. all the existing market micronutrient formulations in india are meant to correct zn deficiency, which is the predominant disorder in rice, wheat and maize, whereas, the predominant micronutrient disorder affecting both vegetative and reproductive growth in horticultural crops is that of boron deficiency. this is a basic and fundamental flaw in the existing foliar micronutrient correction strategy in india 2. reproductive parts need 2-3 times more b than do vegetative parts. hence, foliar spray of b is a must 3. in rainfed crops like mango, foliar spray is the only efficient method for correction of micronutrient disorders 4. in view of chemical, physical and biological soil degradation, root health will become a problem in the future and foliar nutrition will gain significance 5. soil-applied micronutrients like zn, fe, cu and mn have j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 edward raja 21 low efficiency (3-5%), whereas, foliar nutrients have an efficiency of 20-40%. in view of this foliar nutrients having micronutrients are more of a compulsion than an option, especially in cropspecific foliar formulations micronutrient management in organic farming of horticultural crops organic farming has an in-built advantage of providing balanced nutrition especially for micronutrients, since, presence of adequate organic matter makes them available to the plant. except copper, all micronutrients are available adequately in organically-farmed soils. why micronutrient disorders are not common in organic farming ? 1. moderate and severe micronutrient disorders are uncommon in organic farming since crop growth rate is not as fast as in conventional farming. in the latter, application of fertilizers of high nutrient content (urea: 44% n; dap: 46% n) results in accelerated growth rate. 2. high organic-manure (fym+ vermicompost) application results in many organic acids, which complexes micronutrients in the soil (especially fe, mn, cu, and mn) and makes available to plants. humic acid and fulvic acid levels are very high, resulting in adequate available micronutrients. 3. in organic farming, balanced nutrition is achieved by avoiding extreme nutrient deficiencies like p-induced zn deficiency, n-induced b deficiency and heavy-metal induced fe deficiency. due to crop residue recycling and application of composts like vermicompost, nutrient reserves are recycled and made available to the plant. soils have zn, cu, mo fe and mn in abundant quantity. but since crop residue recycling is the basic credo of organic farming, micronutrient depletion does not occur. deficiency of b is likely to be encountered in organic farming practiced in high-rainfall areas, with coarse soil texture and an undulating topography. 4. the rhizospheric ph is maintained near neutral (<>) in organic farms due to crop rotation, avoiding some organic inputs which form acid in soils, thereby resulting in better micronutrient nutrition. 5. microbial activity, is very high and this also releases minerals from soil. 6. root health is very good in organic farming, and therefore, nutrient uptake is higher. 7. toxic elements like al, mn and na are generally absent. 8. less leaching-loss or run-off loss of b due to better soil structure. 9. root-penetration upto deep sub-soils, which thereby supplies micronutrients. techniques to enhance micronutrient uptake in organic farming 1. use of mycorrhiza (vam) for mobilization of zn and p 2. enriching fym with rock phosphate releases zn, ca and mg/ s into soil 3. use of gypsum for supplying calcium and sulphur 4. use of dolomite provides ca and mg wherever needed and increases availability of molybdenum 5. since mango is highly susceptible to fe deficiency, use 13-1, fe-deficiency resistant rootstock from israel when mango is grown in calcareous soils 6. use of boradeaux mixture/burgundy mixture should be encouraged for controlling diseases in soils of high ph, so that copper deficiency is eliminated 7. by leaf analysis, the limiting micronutrient is identified and a spray of such micronutrients can be given (zn, mn, fe, ca, b and mo) in consultation with an organic certifying agency 8. use of neem cake is recommended in high ph calcareous soils, since it can recycle soil fe, mn, zn, and cu and make them available to the plant by rhizosphere acidification. fe deficiency in fruits and flower crops has been corrected by this method. neem decoction can be used for drenching, if chlorosis is seen when a farm is converted from a conventional one to organic-farming system certain modifications have to be made in nutrient management to overcome problems caused by the earlier system. a 3-year period is required to correct the system. conventional farms have depleted organic matter and high available-phosphorus, which creates problems of availability, uptake and translocation of micronutrients. increasing n and k to the level of p is one method; another is to encourage availability, uptake and translocation of micronutrients by increasing organic-matter status. the key for exploiting the enormous micronutrient reserves of indian soils is to increase the organic matter status through on-farm and off-farm bulky, organic inputs viz., crop residues and green manures. crop residues like fallen leaves, pruned crop-wastes etc., are to be used for increasing soil organic matter status. instead of adding inorganic p fertilizer to soil, fym can be enriched with rock phosphate at 20% ratio (so that excess p in the soil is micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 22 avoided) thereby reducing the risk of p-induced zinc deficiency. the increase in organic-matter status itself increases availability of soil micronutrients owing to the chelating ability of humic and fulvic acids in the compost. micronutrients and future challenges in horticulture production though some more essential micronutrient is added to the existing list, it is doubtful if they will have as much importance as the already identified ones. hence, it is essential to tap expertise in diagnosis and treatment of micronutrient deficiencies and toxicities. experimental techniques for detecting micronutrient disorders need to be refined. analysis of leaves for manganese and boron deficiency detection presents a severe problem, since old leaves accumulate b and mn in the margins and give a wrong picture. delayed sampling of deficient leaves also presents a problem in diagnosis. fertilizers and additives affect availability of micronutrients indirectly and these problems are attributed to other factors. the present strategy on micronutrients revolves only around increasing the yield of horticultural crops. farmers’ interest will be taken care of when micronutrients are used not only to increase biological yield, but also marketable yield, by improving quality and postharvest life, ultimately bringing profits to the farmer. as discussed earlier, the role of b. zn, mn and fe is paramount in realizing this objective. public interest will be adequately taken care of if it receives horticultural produce of high quality, since worldwide, clinical and subclinical deficiencies of these micronutrients have been noticed (cakmak, 2008). besides, pesticide residues are increasing to harmful levels due to exclusive dependence on curative management by chemical pesticides. a shift to preventive management, using balanced lignin biosynthesis and preventing oxidative stress nutrition and using mn, b, zn and cu, as part of integrated disease and pest management will go a long way in implementing “value addition” at the farm level. to operationalize the strategy, following action is required: 1. micronutrient correction should be done by mobilizing soil reserves of fe, zn, mn, cu and b by humidified organic manures (vermicompost) 2. use of zn-enriched npk fertilizers (like iodized common salt) as was done in turkey (cakmak et al, 1999). this will also simultaneously enhance the useefficiency of npk fertilizers due to removal of zn deficiency on mild or moderate stress [mitscherlich type or bevere stress (lieberg type)] 3. use crop-specific 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ear of pecan: a nickel deficiency. hortsci., 39:87-94 zaher, n.a.m. 1985. responses of tomato yellow leaf curl virus diseased plants to spraying with some microelements. egypt. j. phytopathol., 17:73-82 micronutrients in horticultural crops j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 1-27, 2009 introduction water deficit stress is a serious and frequently encountered abiotic stress in the terrestrial surface. its deleterious effects on plant growth and productivity are well documented. plant responses to water stress are believed to be complex as these operate at various levels of plant organization. several in-built physiological and biochemical mechanisms provide resistance to plants against stress. an understanding of the processes linked to these mechanisms is vital for optimizing crop growth and productivity under stress. plants respond and adapt to water stress by altering cellular metabolism, thus invoking stress tolerance. alteration in endogenous concentrations of growth regulators along with accumulation of osmolytes, modifications in antioxidant cascade, changes in protein profiles and induction of gene expression in plants under stress are important characteristic metabolic changes that invoke stress tolerance at the cellular level. alteration in endogenous concentrations of growth regulators under stress helps plants through better turgor maintenance and efficient water usage by influencing stomatal functioning, hydraulic conductivity and morphological adaptation (fig 1). progress made in plant adaptation to water stress is an outcome of advances made in analytical techniques on plant growth regulators in water stress tolerance g. s. r. murti and k. k. upreti division of plant physiology and biochemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake p.o., bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: gsrm@iihr.ernet.in abstract the present review provides an insight into the relationship between plant growth regulators and water stress with emphasis on metabolic events that regulate growth regulator balance and physiological responses. possible mechanisms by which aba controls stomatal function and growth under stress, and interacts with proteins and important osmo-protectants, have been discussed. aba involvement in signal transduction and root-shoot communication through its effects on gene and gene products is also included. a brief description of involvement of other growth regulators such as cytokinins, ethylene, polyamines and brasssinosteroids in water stress tolerance is also provided. salient achievements in exploiting the potential of growth regulators in the resistance to water stress in some horticultural crops are also given. gaps in existing information on plant growth regulator research in water stress tolerance have been summarized. key words: abscisic acid, brassinosteroids, cytokinins, ethylene, polyamines, water stress endogenous growth regulator analysis, and, powerful and reliable molecular and genetic techniques. the aim of this review is to provide comprehensive information on physiological, biochemical and molecular aspects of growth regulators in stomatal control, signal transduction, induction of proteins and gene expression under water stress. because of the vast pool of information, emphasis is laid on abscisic acid (aba). a brief account of other growth regulators such as cytokinins, ethylene, polyamines and brassinosteroids involved in stress tolerance fig 1. water stress induced response of growth regulators in plants j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 focus 73 74 is also provided. studies on the use of growth regulators for amelioration of water stress in some horticultural crops are also included. a) abscisic acid i) aba biosynthesis and accumulation water stress affects aba biosynthesis, leading to its accumulation. evidence for aba biosynthesis has been obtained by radio label 18o experiments, molecular genetic analysis of auxotrophs and biochemical studies. aba biosynthesis takes place in the cytosol through the carotenoid biosynthetic pathway (milborrow, 2001) (fig 2). zeaxanthine, produced after cyclization and hydroxylation of trans-lycopene via β-carotene, is converted into violaxanthine (nambara and marion-poll, 2005). 9-cis-epoxy carotenoid dioxygenase (nced) enzyme cleaves violaxanthine to a c 15 product, cisxanthoxine, and a c 25 metabolite (schwartz et al, 2003). the aba is produced from cis-xanthoxine via the intermediate abscisic aldehyde through involvement of the enzyme abscisic aldehyde oxidase. during water stress, activities of the enzymes associated with of biosynthesis aba and relative mrna are induced in abundance in leaves/roots. inhibition of catabolism of aba is also important in stress-induced aba accumulation. aba is catabolised in plants into its hydroxylated products, phaseic acid (pa) and dihydrophaseic acid (dpa) (zhou et al, 2004) or converted into the physiologically inactive glucose ester (boyer and zeevaart, 1982). studies have revealed that pa and dpa levels increase in parallel to aba. however, their levels under stress increase even after the aba content has reached a plateau. in contrast, upon rehydration of plants, aba level shows a decrease but pa or dpa levels either increase or remain unaltered. jia and zhang (1997) stated that inhibition of aba catabolism also contributed to aba accumulation in plants under stress. however, there is no evidence for aba release from esters under stress. water stress substantially accumulates aba in a number of plant species including horticultural crops such as tomato, french bean, onion, etc. the enzyme nced is proposed to be a key enzyme in aba accumulation (qin and zeevaart, 2002). the amount accumulated depends upon factors such as severity of stress, cultivar, species, tissue and the developmental stage. the increased aba content plays an important role in stress tolerance following its action on stomatal regulation, root-shoot communication, induction in stress proteins and associated genes, osmolyte synthesis, senescence-promotion thereby reducing plant water use, and on maintenance of the antioxidant pool. aba concentrations are considered a vital tool in selection and breeding of varieties for drought tolerance. ii) aba-induced stomatal regulation under water stress drought stress induces stomatal closure in the leaves of many plant species. using this mechanism, plants are able to restrict water loss through transpiration. this response is associated with decline in leaf turgor and/or water potential (maroco et al, 2002). further, this regulatory mechanism is found to be linked more to the soil moisture content than to leaf water status, thereby suggesting that stomata are responsive to chemical signals produced by dehydrating roots (davies and zhang, 1991). sensitivity of the stomata to aba varies widely in different species and cultivars, and, is dependent upon leaf-age, temperature, ambient co 2 concentration, plant nutritional status, ionic status of xylem sap and leaf-water status (dodd et al, 1996). differences in stomatal response to aba may be a consequence of differences in the quantity of aba reaching the active site in the guard cell. xylem aba concentration and stomatal conductance showed linear inverse relationship, and the scope of relationship varied diurnally with the most sensitive stomatal closure recurring at lower water potential (tardieu and simmoneau, 1998). the stomatal aperture is regulated by turgor potential of surrounding cells. the guard cell volume is actively responsive to signals produced under stress in order to regulate co 2 efflux for photosynthesis and transpirationalfig 2. biosynthetic pathway of aba (milborrow, 2001) murti and upreti j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 75 water loss. the aba increase in guard cells reduces plant water loss through transpiration by promoting stomatal closure (harris and outlaw, 1991). the influx or efflux of k+ , balanced by flux of anions in the guard cell, regulates guard cell volume (hetherington and quatrano, 1991). macrobbie (1991) showed that externally applied aba evoked efflux of k+ and anions from the guard cells. blatt (1990) found very rapid activation of k+ channel by aba. rapidity of this response and lack of modulation by other cytoplasmic factors suggest that aba is activating this channel directly. progress is also made in deciphering electrical responses triggered by aba in the plasmalemna of guard cells (blatt and theil, 1993, macrobbie, 1997, schoeder, 1992). the cellular electrical changes induced by aba are an outcome of the depolarization effect which reflects a net influx of cations (thiel et al, 1992). depolarization is the driving force for k+ efflux through outward k+ channel. ca+2 play an important role in aba-mediated stomatal closure. ca+2 participate as an intracellular secondary messenger in mediating aba effects on stomatal aperture and/or plasma membrane channel. aba is shown to induce an increase in guard cell ca+2 concentrations, which precedes stomatal closure (irving et al, 1992). aba is also shown to evoke alkalization of the cytoplasm of guard cells (irving et al, 1992), which is necessary in aba activation of the k+ channel (blatt and armstrong, 1993). the aba–induced rise in internal ca+2 concentration is contributed by an influx of external ca+2 as well as ca+2 released from intracellular stress (gilroy et al, 1991, mcainsh et al, 1991). inositol 1, 4, 5 – triphosphate is an essential intermediate for triggering cellular ca +2 mobilization. protons can directly affect stomatal aperture and/ or its sensitivity to aba. maintenance of optimum apoplastic ph for stomatal opening is vital for stomatal activity (wilkinson and davies, 1997). feeding artificial sap of ph 7.0 to intact leaves of aba deficient tomato mutant flacca increased stomatal aperture and transpirational water loss compared to feeding sap buffered to ph 6.0 (schwartz et al, 1994). other studies also shown revealed that reduced ph sensitizes stomata to aba (anderson et al, 1994) as guard cells take up aba more efficiently at more acidic ph and its receptivity to internally located molecular receptors is enhanced. patonnier et al (1999) gave evidence for involvement of apoplastic sugars in deciding guard cell sensitivity to aba. there is an increase in the concentration of apoplastic sugars with reduction in soil water potential, concomitant with a decrease in stomatal conductance. effects of sugars on stomata are specifically on an increase in the anion efflux channel activity of the guard cell. as aba also induces anion loss and reduces turgor in guard cell, it is imperative that sugars and aba act synergistically in closure of stomata (hedrich and morten, 1993). recent studies have depicted h 2 o 2 as an important stress signal transduction molecule promotory to stomatal closure (luan, 2002). zhang et al (2001) showed that aba increases h 2 o 2 production. iii) root to shoot communication and involvement of aba several investigators have reported that shoot growth is more inhibited in plants experiencing water stress than is root growth (munns and sharp, 1993, passioura and gardner, 1990, sauter et al, 2001). some studies have also found faster root growth in limited soil water environment (munns and sharp, 1993). inhibition of shoot growth and increase in root weight under stress cannot be explained in terms of reduction in photosynthesis, water or nutrient supply. investigations have revealed the association of aba in the process by which root weight increases in response to water stress (blackman and davies, 1985, carmi and heuer, 1981, zeevaart et al, 1991). creelman et al (1990) and robertson et al (1990) showed that exogenous aba application caused greater reduction in shoot growth than in root growth. evidences of sustained increase in root growth have also been found (biddington and dearman, 1982; watts et al, 1981). mutant research also depicted a role for aba in differential regulation of shoot and root growth. saab et al (1990) reported that aba-deficient roots grew more slowly at low water potential than the normal ones, while, shoots grew faster. sharp et al (1994) reiterated that exogenous aba application to aba deficient plants led to increase in root growth. the ratio between root and shoot is sensitive to environment and there is coordination among the two via long-distance transport of substrates or through a signal (munns and crammer, 1996). passioura and stirzaker (1993) opined function of feed-forward signals under adverse soil conditions. in feed-forward controls, plants sense the environment and communicate the status to other plant parts by a signal, and can also provide advance warning of a changing environment. roots sense soil conditions and send plant growth regulators in water stress tolerance j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 76 signals to leaves that slow down growth before supply of water/nutrients becomes limiting. the feed-forward signal from roots to the aerial plant parts under water stress is demonstrated to be operating through aba. jackson (1993) provided evidence for influence of roots on shoot development via transport of hormones in the xylem. aba moves readily in the phloem (hoad, 1995). it is found in substantial quantities in the phloem exudate, and increases rapidly in plants exposed to soil water deficit (hoad, 1995). the function of phloem aba is unclear. hoad (1975) and lovey (1984a), employing radio tracer techniques, observed that the aba synthesized in leaves appeared later in roots and xylem sap. this suggested the possibility of aba translocation from leaves. munns and crammer (1996) suggested that turgor reduction in leaves, under the influence of water stress and thus induced aba levels, would cause recirculation of aba in phloem and xylem sap resulting in promotion of early stomatal closure to prevent turgor loss. under stress, there is increase in xylem aba concentration concomitant with reduction in leaf growth (zhang and davies, 1990, hartung et al, 1994). munns (1990) observed a direct relationship between xylem aba increase and decline in leaf growth. however, jackson (1993) concluded that aba in xylem sap was not associated with leaf growth reduction. munns (1992), using exogenous feeding of aba to detached shoots at concentrations equivalent or greater to that found in sap of intact plants, observed significant reduction in leaf area at a concentration not found in the intact plant in drying soil. however, this response is species-dependent (dodd and davies, 1996, munns and king 1988, hartung et al, 1994, bano et al, 1993). aba action on root are different from that in the shoot. root expansion is often inhibited by exogenous application of aba (barlow and pilet, 1984, crammer and jones, 1996). however, there are contrasting reports of aba stimulating root growth (biddington and dearman, 1982; watts et al, 1981). saab et al (1990) observed that the relationship between aba and root growth is completely different from that in shoot, in that, higher aba levels improve rather than reduce root growth at low water potential. glinka and reinhold (1971) reported that aba increased the flow of water by increasing the hydraulic conductivity of roots and enhancing ion uptake, which caused an increase in the water potential gradient between soil and root. external application of aba increased waterabsorbing area of the root which helped the plant to cope with drought conditions. gaither et al (1975) revealed that aba stimulated growth of excised root tips. contrasting effects of aba seen on roots and shoots may be due to differences in receptors, compartmentation control or interaction effects with other molecules. however, this aspect needs further investigation. aba involvement in the inhibition of cell expansion in leaves of water stressed plants indicates that aba is an essential component of long-distance signaling pathway from root to shoot. the pathway may or may not involve interaction with other growth regulators. this suggests the possibility of xylem sap containing compound(s), preferably precursors of aba or aba-unrelated compounds, that stimulate the rate of aba synthesis in growing cells (dodd and davies, 1996, munns, 1992). other growth regulators, such as cytokinins (stoll et al, 2000) and ethylene (hussain et al, 2000), may act in concert with aba, either in the xylem sap or in growing cells. iv) signal transduction signal transduction is molecular description of the regulatory network that relates perception of signal to cellular response (fig 3.). interesting researches have been made in signal transduction processes from sensing drought stress signal to the expression of various genes. regulation of stomata is a well-described response of plants to water stress (harris and outlaw, 1991, kearns and assmann, 1993). aba regulates stomatal aperture by promoting stomatal closure or by inhibiting stomatal opening through induction of changes in osmotic potential, mechanical properties of guard cells, or gene expression (hetherington, 2001). phosphorylation processes and protein kinases are thought to have an important role in signal transduction cascades in plants (redhead and palme, 1996). fig 3. sequence of events associated with water stress tolerance murti and upreti j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 77 aba-dependent stomatal regulation under stress has also been shown to operate through involvement of cytoskeleton reorganization (luan, 2002) by virtue of changes in elastic properties of guard cells. eun and lee (1997) reported changes in reorganization of the actin structure of guard cell. guanosine triphosphate protein atrac1 was identified in arabidopsis as central component in aba-mediated disruption of the guard cell actin cytoskeleton (lemichez et al 2001). aba signal can also be transmitted to the guard cell nucleus to alter the pattern of gene expression, leading to alteration in profiles of protein involved in water transport, ion transport, or carbon metabolism (dodd et al, 1996, pospisilova and dodd, 2005). besides, several genes encoding g-protein, protein kinase and the transcription factor involved in signal transduction pathways are induced by aba as also by water stress (palme, 1993). mutant research has given important information on aba involvement in water stress signal transduction pathways (giraudat et al, 1994). vp1 and abi1, abi2 and abi3 mutants have been extensively characterized and genes cloned. among them, the abi 1 gene product functions in stomatal closure and acts as a negative regulator of aba–dependent gene expression. the dehydration-inducible atcdpk1 encoding cdpk, by contrast, functions as a positive regulator. thus, protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylative processes might be involved in aba-responsive signaling during stress. in aleurone protoplast, mapk is induced actively by aba. a relationship between aba-induced mapk activation and aba-induced gene expression showed involvement of mapk in signal transduction. v) induction of osmo-protectants by abscisic acid water stress is found to increase the concentration of compounds (such as proline and glycine betaine in plants) that help in reducing cellular injuries via modifications in the osmo-regulation process. free proline acts as an important osmo-protectant (handa et al, 1983, yoshiba et al, 1997, heuer and nadler, 1998) and as a storage compound for reduced carbon and nitrogen during water stress (hare et al, 1998). accumulation of proline in the leaves under stress is an important plant adaptation process. exogenous aba is shown to up-regulate proline biosynthesis in plants experiencing water stress (stewart 1980, ober and sharp, 1994). stewart (1980) showed that the metabolic cause of aba-induced proline is a consequence of stimulated proline biosynthesis from glutamic acid. pesci (1987) stated that the inhibition of utilization of precursor(s) of proline for protein synthesis does not contribute to proline accumulation by aba. verslues and bray (2005) reported that aba deficient mutants had less ability to accumulate proline. applied aba can also induce proline accumulation in turgid leaves and aba accumulation precedes that of proline in wilting leaves. proline is synthesized from glycine via the involvement of an enzyme pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase (p5cs) (yoshiba et al, 1997). savoure et al (1997) and yoshiba et al (1997) reported induction of expression of p5cs gene by stress and exogenous aba both in wild-type and in aba-deficient (abai) and aba insensitive (aba1 and aba2) mutants. the other osmoprotectant which has gained prominence in ascribing plant tolerance to stress is glycine betaine. aba is shown to increase its synthesis under water stress conditions (unayayar et al, 2004, gao et al, 2004). increase in glycine betaine by aba is found to be the result of induction of betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme (gao et al, 2004). these observations reveal the enhancement of osmotic protectant pool in stressed plants as an alternate mechanism by which aba copes with stress responses. vi) aba and stimulation of protein expression under water stress water stress induces metabolic alteration resulting in synthesis and/or accumulation of a wide range of proteins (pareek et al, 1998, bray, 1988, 1991, bartels et al, 1996; cohen and bray 1990, piatkowski et al, 1990, plant et al, 1991, yokota et al, 2002). an analysis of proteins provides insight into the complexity of stress-response and in stress tolerance mechanism (ramgopal, 1987, borkird et al, 1991). studies have shown activation of some proteins by water stress as well as aba and the information achieved has been useful in describing aba involvement in cellular signaling processes in plant-stress interactions (chandler and robertson, 1994). water stress alters translatable mrna and protein species in many plant species. these include a group of small molecular weight proteins such as lea (late embryogenesis abundant), rab (responsive to aba) and dehydrins (dehydration-induced proteins). synthesis of aba is the common dominant factor in induction of all these proteins. lea protein accumulates during the development of seed, with a correlative increase in aba level (skriver and mundy, 1990). these proteins are present in the embryo until the seed starts germinating. bartels et al (1996) showed plant growth regulators in water stress tolerance j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 78 that lea proteins can be induced in plants by desiccation stress or by treatment with aba. one of the lea proteins, α -amylase inhibitor, is induced by drought stress in embryos, concomitant with accumulation of aba (nedeva and nikolova, 1997). similarly, aba-induced proteins were seen in aleuronic layers (hong et al, 1992) and leaves and roots (mundy and chua, 1988) due to water stress and aba. close et al (1993) reported that d-11 family of lea proteins is related to dehydration-tolerance and expression of most of these is found to be regulated by aba (hong et al, 1992). the aba-deficient mutant of tomato showed no distinct aba-responsive proteins when subjected to water stress, compared to the wild type (bray, 1988). aba treatment to flacca resulted in the synthesis of polypeptides similar to wild type. studies of cohen and bray (1990) employing cdna probes developed against three of the aba responsive proteins confirmed the above findings. singh et al (1989) showed that a low water potential environment is required for protein accumulation in response to aba application. the stress responsive proteins have been thought to function in detoxification of cells during dehydration (bartels and sankar, 2005). vii) aba regulated gene expression during water stress a number of genes that respond to water stress at the transcriptional level have been found to be induced by aba (skriver and mundy, 1990, delasny et al, 1994). it appears that cellular dehydration induced by water stress triggers production of aba which, in turn, induces expression of various genes. however, not all the genes induced by water stress are responsive to aba. thus, there is existence of aba-dependent and aba-independent signal transduction cascade between initial signal of stress and expression for specific gene. genes expressed during stress help in protecting cells from stress injury by producing proteins involved in the signal transduction mechanism (shinozaki and yamaguchi-shinozaki, 1997). genes under aba control have been isolated from different plant species (skriver and mundy, 1990). depending upon the way these have been isolated, the genes have been named either rab or lea genes (galau et al, 1986, mundy and chua, 1988). these genes have been effectively used as a tool to develop molecular models of aba action. aba and water stress regulatory lea genes have been cloned (skriver and mundy, 1990, ingram and bartels, 1996). these genes have been found to be transcriptionally regulated (galau et al, 1986). the functions of gene products have been predicted from sequence homology with known proteins and are thought to play a role in protecting cells from water stress. cis and trans factors involved in aba-induced gene expression have been analyzed extensively (ingram and bartels, 1996; giraudat et al, 1994, chandler and robertson, 1996; shinozaki and yamaguchi-shinozaki, 1997). several genes are induced by water stress in abadeficient (aba) and aba-insensitive (abi) mutants. this revealed that these plants do not require aba but do respond to it under conditions of stress (chen and gusta, 1983, jayaprakash et al, 1998). analysis of aba inducible genes revealed that several genes require protein biosynthesis for their induction by aba, suggesting that two independent pathways exist between aba production and gene expression during stress. these pathways involve either aba responsive gene expression or aba dependent / independent gene expression. some such genes are rd29alilti, kin1, cor6.6lkin and cor47lrd17 (yamaguchishinozaki and shinozaki, 1993, izawa et al, 1993). the promoter region of the rd29a gene was analyzed and a novel cis-acting element responsible for dehydration was identified. a 9-bp conserved sequence, tacgacat, termed as dehydration responsive element (dre) is essential for regulation of dehydration-responsive gene expression. the dre has been demonstrated to function as a cis-acting element involved in induction of rd29a expression. drerelated motifs have been reported in promoter regions of water stress inducible genes such as kin 1, cor 6.6 and rab 17 (nelson et al, 1996; wang et al, 1995). this suggested that dre related motifs are involved in drought-responsive but aba-independent gene expression. two independent families of dreb proteins, dreb1 and dreb2 have been reported to function as trans-acting factors in signal transduction pathways under water stress (jin et al, 1998). many changes in mrna levels observed during stress reflect transcriptional inactivation. exogenous aba can also induce these changes. successes have been made in understanding of transcriptional control mechanisms of aba and stress induction by identification of cis-acting regulatory sequences and isolating the corresponding nucleotide sequences (yamaguchi-shinozaki et al, 1989, iturriaga et al, 1996). abre motifs are not involved in aba regulated stress-inducible genes (iwasaki et al, 1995). the distinctsequence motif is essential for aba response. genes that are induced by aba and encode other potential transcriptional factors include the box gene, athb-07, and murti and upreti j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 79 several myb homologous genes from a. thaliana and c. plantagineum (nelson et al, 1996). comparison of available promoter sequences of aba and stress-inducible genes revealed that acgt cores were conserved in many promoter elements of these inducible genes (shen and ho, 1996, iturriaga et al, 1996). existence of acgt core sequence in the promoter region of these genes suggests that these genes may be mediated by aba (izawa et al, 1993, busk et al, 1997). a 50-bp aba responsive element (abre) is capable of conferring aba inducibility. many aba-responsive genes contain more than one sequence element with an acgt core. involvement of these in aba or stress-response needs to be investigated. the most efficient, characterized cis-element is the one that contains cacgtc with the gbox acgt core element (shen and ho, 1996). g-box related abres have been observed in aba-responsive genes, though their function needs to be identified. several bzip transcription proteins that respond to water stress and aba treatment have also been identified and these are found to be involved in aba-dependent pathway (nakagawa et al, 1996). em gene is another abaresponsive gene that has been found to accumulate in response to both aba and water stress (morris et al, 1990). b) cytokinins cytokinins are involved in many aspects of plant growth and development such as seed germination, apical dominance, photo-morphogenesis, chloroplast biogenesis, maintenance of assimilate mobilization, translocation and senescence, and in the regulation of stomatal functioning and root to shoot communication under stress. these are synthesized primarily in the roots (chen et al, 1985, binns, 1994), although some amounts can be synthesized by shoot apex and other plant tissues. most of the naturally-occurring cytokinins are n6substituted adenosine molecules with branched five-carbon side-chain [zeatin (z) and isopentenyladenine]. the riboside derivatives and nand olinked glycosides of the free bases have also been identified and their biological activity established (brzobohaty et al, 1994, murti and upreti, 2000, binns, 1994). the two pathways for biosynthesis of cytokinins include de novo biosynthetic pathway (chen and melitz, 1979, taya et al, 1978) and trna pathway (skoog and armstrong, 1970, hall, 1970). the de novo biosynthetic pathway has been found associated for majority of the biologically active cytokinins. the key step in cytokinin biosynthesis is the formation of n6(∆2 – isopentenyl) adenosine -5’monophosphate from ∆ 2– isopentenyl pyrophosphate and adenosine-5’monophosphate catalyzed by isopentenyl transferase (ipt) (renske et al, 1992, mok and mok, 2001). in the other pathway, trna is degraded and isomerized to cis–zeatin by cis-trans isomerase (mok and mok, 2001). cytokinins are irreversibly degraded by cytokinin oxidases to inactive products that lack the n6-side chain (brzobohaty et al, 1994, galuszka et al, 2001). cytokinin levels are also regulated in tissues via their oand nglucosylation conjugation reactions (brzobohaty et al, 1994). conn (1993) reported release of cytokinins from their o-glucosides by the action of specific β-glucosidase present in plants. cytokinins have also been found to be regulated by other hormones, particularly, auxins (dunleavy and ladley, 1995). water stress leads to a decline in leaf cytokinin concentration (naqvi, 1999, pospisilova et al, 2000), although it is difficult to predict the actual changes in any specific cytokinin. plants under water stress are known to exhibit reduced cytokinin concentration in the xylem sap and this response is usually rapid. cytokinin activity returns to normal levels upon release of stress. the reduction is presumed to be a consequence of either reduced cytokinin biosynthesis, or enhanced degradation, or both. zhu et al (2004) reported that changes in the levels of z and zr (zeatin riboside) in the xylem sap of apple trunk depended upon drought cycles. during the first cycle of drought and rewatering, levels of z and zr in the sap of drought treated-trees decreased significantly, while, in the second, z continued to decline but zr did not change significantly. in the third cycle, there was no difference in z concentration between drought treatments. masia et al (1994) suggested that a decrease in cytokinins transport from root to shoot occurs during the onset of water stress. pillay and beyl (1990) reported reduction in cytokinin concentration in a drought-susceptible cultivar of tomato. upreti et al (1998) and upreti and murti (2004a) reported fig 4. influence of soil moisture stress on endogenous hormones in grape genotypes plant growth regulators in water stress tolerance j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 80 a decline in levels of zr and dhzr (dihydrozeatin riboside) in stressed leaves of french bean and onion. satisha et al (2005) witnessed a decline in cytokinins in grape genotypes under soil moisture deficit conditions (fig 4.). upreti and murti (2004b) observed that the decline in cytokinin under stress depended upon leaf-age with young leaves showing greater reduction. water stress led to a decline in root nodulation in bean plants, which is linked to a decline in cytokinins in roots/nodules (upreti and murti, 1999a). stoll et al (2000) showed that under partial root-drying there was reduction in cytokinin concentration, concomitant with an increase in the xylem sap ph in grapevine. goiocchea et al (1995) reported a decrease in cytokinins in alfalfa under drought, and this was related with accelerated rate of senescence. in desert-grown almond trees, cytokinins showed peak concentrations in the morning and a rapid decrease in the afternoon; these fluctuations preceded daily variation in stomatal conductance (fusseder et al, 1992). the precise mechanism and cellular site of cytokinin action are not well understood. brault and maldiney (1999) propounded that cytokinins acted at the plasma membrane in association with other signaling molecules. in this context, cytokinins have been shown to antagonize many physiological processes mediated by aba (cowan et al, 1999). some important processes induced by aba and reversed by cytokinins are stomatal closure, leaf senescence and leaf expansion. this antagonism of aba and cytokinins may be an outcome of metabolic interactions as cytokinins share a common biosynthetic origin with aba. cowan and railton (1987) showed that a range of cytokinins reduced the incorporation of labeled mevalonic acid into aba. cytokinins have been shown to exert a response in stomata opposite to that of aba. this increases stomatal aperture and transpiration in many plant species (pospisilova et al, 2000). evidences showing cytokinins overriding the effects of aba on stomata (pospisilova et al, 2000, blackman and davies, 1985) revealed that reduction in cytokinins under stress would amplify shoot response to increasing concentrations of aba. davies (1995), thus, conceptualized that cytokinins act as the negative signal in plants undergoing drying. the mechanism of cytokinin action on guard cell involves direct action of membrane hyperpolarization by stimulation of adenylate cyclase activity that leads to increase in intracellular adenosine 3’,5’-cyclic monophosphate content, stimulation of guanylate cyclase activity or interaction with a calcium calmodulin system (pospisilova and dodd, 2005, incoll et al, 1990 morsucci et al, 1991). the antagonism of cytokinins to aba-induced stomatal closing may result from interactions in signal transduction pathway of both compounds, perhaps via the involvement of cytosolic calcium (hare et al, 1997). stomatal opening is regulated by hydraulic as well as chemical signals, the relative importance of these signals being dependent on the growth-stage and growth-condition (whitehead, 1998). both naturally-occurring and synthetic cytokinins increase transpiration rate and increase stomatal aperture (incoll et al, 1990, incoll and jewer, 1987). however, stomatal responses to cytokinins are found to be variable. blackman and davies (1983) revealed that z alone did not affect stomatal opening, but partially reversed abainduced stomatal closure. in contrast, zr or kinetin decreased stomatal opening and had no affect on abainduced stomatal closure. although cytokinin oxidase has been reported long back in the catabolism of cytokinins, little work has been carried out in relation to their involvement in stress tolerance. manju et al (2001) revealed 3-fold increase in the activity of cytokinin oxidase in roots under stress and suggested it to be a regulatory enzyme of cytokinin level in roots of stressed plants. c) ethylene ethylene is the simplest olefinic gaseous hormone known to regulate a wide range of plant developmental processes. it is biosynthesized by conversion methionine to ethylene via the intermediates s-adenosyl methionine (sam) and 1-amino cyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (acc) and enzymes acc synthase and acc oxidase (fig. 5), (yang and hoffmann, 1984). water stress is found to enhance ethylene level in french bean (upreti et al, 1998, 2000), orange (ben-yehoshua and aloni, 1974), avacado (adato and gazit, 1974), vicia faba (el-beltagy and hall, 1974) and in many other plant species (narayana et al, 1991, guin, 1976, irigoyen et al, 1992). the increase in ethylene under stress is of adaptive significance as it helps plants to cope with stress by reducing water-loss through increased senescence of fruits/leaves and reduced growth. the magnitude of ethylene changes under stress depend upon growth stage and stress duration (upreti et al, 2000). the biochemical mechanism that provokes ethylene biosynthesis under stress is still not clearly understood and some reports also show variation in response. naylor (1972) murti and upreti j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 81 suggested greater availability of methionine as a result of increased rate of protein breakdown under stress, leading to elevated levels of ethylene. beltrano et al (1997) revealed that increased production of free radicals under water stress facilitated greater conversion of acc to ethylene. increase in ethylene level in response to stress is evident primarily by increased synthesis of acc (yang and hoffmann, 1984). xu and qi (1993) reported that a slowly developing drought did not promote ethylene or altered acc levels, while, rapidly developing drought enhanced both ethylene and acc levels. narayana et al (1991) also reported more ethylene upon rapid loss of water. upreti et al (2000) found increase in ethylene under mild and moderate stress and decline in its concentration under severe stress regimes. beltrano et al (1997) observed slight changes in ethylene in leaves under moderate or severe conditions. wright (1980) and hoffmann et al (1983) showed that aba interacted with ethylene metabolism by regulating acc levels. also, aba accumulation in sufficient quantity is found to be inhibitory to ethylene production (spollen et al, 2000). d) polyamines polyamines are important growth regulatory polycationic molecules known to be involved in a wide range of developmental events including embryogenesis, root development and senescence (galston and kaur-sawhney, 1990; tiburcio et al, 1997) and also in plant responses to stress (flores 1991; galston et al, 1997; kumar et al, 1997). in plants, polyamines are biosynthesized by decarboxylation of either ornithine or arginine in the reaction catalyzed by enzymes ornithine decarboxylase (odc) and arginine decarboxylase (adc) (fig. 5) (boucherneau et al, 1999). this step leads to formation of putrescine, which in turn, by subsequent addition of aminopropyl moiety, produces spermidine (spd) and spermine (spm), respectively, in reactions catalyzed by spd synthase and spm synthase. the aminopropyl moiety results from decarboxylation of sadenosylmethionine (sam) by the enzyme sam decarboxylase. the dynamics of polyamines metabolism are complex due to existence of degradation and conjugation pathways and of transport and uptake mechanisms (martintanguy, 2001, federico and angelini, 2001). besides biophysical effect, through their positive charge at physiological ph, polyamines may be involved in signal transduction pathway, through effects on calcium fluxes (thomas et al, 1993) and interaction with transcriptional factors (wang et al, 1999) and protein kinases (datta et al, 1987). polyamines also interact with other growth regulators (altaman, 1989). polyamines and ethylene synthesis are linked through their common precursor, sam. several investigations have revealed that polyamines and ethylene inhibit each other’s biosynthesis and action as a result of sharing a common intermediate (tiburcio et al, 1997). polyamines have also been shown to increase aba in plants subjected to water stress (upreti and murti, 1999b). water stress leads to accumulation of free or conjugated polyamines in many plant species, indicating that polyamine biosynthesis play an important role in plant response to stress (boucherneau et al, 1999, liu et al, 2007). the increase in polyamines under stress may be a result of their de novo synthesis or reduced degradation (alcazar et al, 2006a, kao, 1997). however, the exact mechanism by which polyamine biosynthesis under stress are altered still remains to be elucidated. there are also some reports of decrease or no alteration in the levels of polyamines, thereby revealing competition in the mechanism of its biosynthesis under stress conditions. differences in polyamine metabolism under stress depend upon plant species/cultivar, duration of stress, developmental stage, etc. (liu et al, 2007). upreti and murti (2005) reported cultivar differences in polyamine changes in french bean under water stress (fig 6). moreover, the response of stress on an individual polyamine varied with duration of stress. putrescine, which increased initially with stress, declined under severe stress regimes. in contrast, spermidine levels consistently declined and spermine levels progressively increased with stress. spermine level under stress was related to aba and to stress tolerance of the cultivar. differential response of water stress to changes in individual polyamines is also shown by turner and stewart (1986).fig 5. biosynthesis of ethylene and polyamines (liu et al, 2007) plant growth regulators in water stress tolerance j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 82 exogenous polyamine applications have been tried for providing evidence of its role in counteracting stress. polyamine treatment increased endogenous polyamine levels in plants under stress (tiburcio et al, 1997; bagini and torrigianni, 1992) and also reversed stress-induced changes in growth and cellular injuries. stress-mitigating effects of individual polyamines, however, were different, because of differences in their absorption, transport and utilization among various plant species. several lines of evidences have shown the positive function of polyamines in combating stress as being related to their antioxidative (ormrod and beckerson, 1986), free radical scavenging (schuber, 1989; malmberg et al, 1998), effects on aba synthesis (upreti and murti, 1999b) and membrane stabilizing properties. evidences provide a role of polyamine in modulation of stomatal aperture, an effect similar to that of aba, possibly by targeting k+ arabidopsis transporter (kat1)-like inward k+ channel in guard cells (liu et al, 2000). investigations on gene expression associated with polyamines under drought have been made and reports indicate presence of a complicated transcriptional profiling (gonzalez de mejia et al, 2003). the mrna of some polyamine biosynthetic genes is rapidly induced immediately after stress in some species and, in others; it is induced when stress is exerted for a certain period. this indicates that polyamine genes are differentially regulated under stress (malmberg et al, 1998). the possible reason for differential expression of polyamines genes under stress is still unclear. recent studies of alcazer et al (2006b) depict up-regulation of polyamine biosynthetic genes by water stress as an aba-dependent response. e) brassinosteroids brassinosteroids are naturally occurring compounds, well-documented for their role in plant growth and development (clouse and sasse, 1998). their growthregulatory activity is suggested to be a result of their influence on metabolic processes associated with photosynthesis, and nucleic acid and protein biosynthesis (sasse, 1997). brassinosteroids have also been shown to counteract stress effects in plants (khripach et al, 2000). brassinosteroid biosynthesis is divided into the sterolspecific pathway involving conversion of squaline to compesterol and brassinosteroid specific pathway involving compesterol to brassinosteroid (agarwal and gehlot, 2000). in brassinosteroid-specific pathway, compesterol undergoes a series of hydroxylation, reduction, epimerisation and oxidation reactions leading to formation of the oxidised form of brassinolide (fujijoka and sakurai, 1997; choe et al, 1997). the last step in brassinosteroid synthesis is c-6 oxidation of castasterone. brassinosteroids are reported to form 2, 3-glucosyl and acyl-conjugates at 3-position of its moiety (fig. 7) (abe et al, 1996). exogenous application of brassinosteroids is found to stimulate nucleic acid and protein synthesis and activates the atp driven proton pump. there are also reports that fig 6. free polyamines levels in french bean under water stress fig 7. possible biosynthetic pathway of brassinosteroid (brosa, 1999) fig 8. effect of brassinosteroies on cytocinin-t-zr content and nitrogenase activity in nodulated roots of french bean under water stress murti and upreti j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 83 these interact with other hormones such as auxins, ethylene and cytokinins in evoking physiological responses (brosa, 1999). information on changes in brassinosteroid content during water stress is lacking. foliar application of the epibrassinolide is found to improve plant resistance to water stress by influencing nitrogenase activity and cytokinins levels in the roots (fig 8.) (upreti and murti, 2004c). xu et al (1994) reported a decline in stomatal opening and transpiration rate following brassinolide foliar application, and the treatment enhanced the effect of simultaneouslyapplied aba. rajasekharan and blake (1999) found delay in stomatal closure induced by water stress following homobrassinolide treatment. f) plant growth regulators and stress amelioration in some horticultural crops besides conventional breeding and recent transgenic approaches, application of growth regulators in amelioration of water-stress tolerance has been attempted in a wide range of crops. in spite of a good number of studies, commercial success in growth regulator technology in combating stress effects is scant. this is because of the dependence of growth regulator action on factors such as crop species, cultivar, growth stage, stress severity, method of application, sensitivity of tissue, etc. potential of aba as an anti-transpirant compound (to lower plant-water use) has been attempted in bell pepper while transplanting seedlings from greenhouse to the field or for hardening tissue-culture grown plants (berkowitz and rabin, 1988). dipping of roots prior to transplanting exhibited greater survival of seedlings than those dipped in water. this facilitates the nursery industry to minimize maintenance-cost, extended marketing period and reduces the risk of dehydration during storage and transport. this effect of aba, however, lasts for a short period due to faster breakdown of aba in plants. to reduce aba breakdown, sharma et al (2005) employed aba-analogs in tomato seedlings and found them to be effective in lowering plant water use for a longer period. the effectiveness of abaanalogs, however, depended upon crop species, as these did not confer any positive effect in marigold (sharma et al, 2005). moreover, aba treatment besides lowering transpiration also reduced photosynthesis rate in plants. but, lovey (1984b) in his studies on grape stated that aba effects on transpiration were much higher than on photosynthesis. rajasekharan and blake (1999) revealed that feeding of aba through xylem, prior to imposing of water stress in pinus bankisana improved tolerance by manipulating water use efficiency and reducing membrane damage. pospisilova and batkova (2004) found aba treatment to be effective in ameliorating negative effects of water stress in french bean and sugar beet by improving plant water-balance through its effects on stomatal conductance and transpiration rate. positive effects of aba were also seen upon rewatering stressed plants. water-stress leads to a decline in cytokinin pool in the plants and, hence, the potential of benzyl adenine for mitigating stress response in plants was explored. rulcova and pospisilova (2001) witnessed a faster recovery of bean plants from water-stress following application of benzyl adenine. however, effects of the treatment broadly depended upon the concentration of benzyl adenine and were independent of method of application. pospisilova and batkova (2004) further observed that the role of benzyl adenine in lowering stress-effects was species-specific. metwally et al (1997) found benzyl adenine and 4-cppu to be effective in increasing the photochemical activity in stressed and rehydrated beans plants. upreti and murti (2000) reported that priming of french bean seeds with benzyl adenine improved seed-germination and seedlinggrowth under osmotic stress. triazole compounds such as cycocel and paclobutrazol have been shown to impart tolerance to water stress in many plant species (fletcher et al, 2000). the precise mechanism by which these impose such effects is not very clear. one possibility is that this occurs through increased production of aba by inhibiting gibberellin synthesis. when gibberellin synthesis is inhibited, more precursors in the terpenoid pathway accumulate and are diverted to aba production. increased aba helps in plant water-balance, growth reduction and increased antioxidant content/activity (davis and curry, 1991). sankhla et al (1989) found soil-drenching treatment with paclobutrazol as important in minimizing water-stress injuries in fruits of ber trees. still and pill (2004) found foliar application or seed-priming with paclobutrazol to improve water-stress tolerance in tomato seedlings, by increasing xylem pressure potential and lowering electrolyte-leakage and chlorophyllloss. swietlik and miller (1983) observed an increased plant-water status in apple trees subjected to water stress. similar effects with paclobutrazol are reported in strawberry (navarro et al, 2007), peach (george and nissen, 1992) and pea (wang and lin, 1992). paclobutrazol is also found to improve resistance of micropropagated plantlets of chrysanthemum to desiccation (roberts and matthews, plant growth regulators in water stress tolerance j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 84 1995). paclobutrazol treatments are also found to induce morphological adaptation to water-stress in landscape plant phillyrea angustifolia, allowing the plants to overcome transplant shock occurring later in transplanting. paclobutrazol is also stated to improve water stress tolerance in many ornamental perennials and bedding plants (channey, 2003). prakash and ramachandran (2000) reported cycocel as an effective anti-transpirant in brinjal grown under glasshouse conditions. misra and pradhan (1972) stated that cycocel and b-9 were effective antitranspirants for tomato plants grown under water-deficit conditions. upreti and murti (2000) found that seed-priming with mepiquate chloride offered good germination in beans under osmotic stress. exogenous application of brassinosteroid has gained attention to modulate stress tolerance in the recent past. but there are only few reports that depict their successes in horticultural crops. upreti and murti (2004c) reported increase in pod yield in french bean under water stress following epibrassinolide treatment, by checking stress induced decline in root nodulation (table 1). summary endogenous growth regulators are vital components of plant growth and development under water stress conditions. several reports have shown that water stress alters the level of growth regulators, and the resulting balance of growth regulators helps in providing better stressadaptability to plants through their effect on stomatal functioning, plant water-balance and growth manipulation. there is either increase or decrease in the level of growth regulators in plants under stress. while stressed plants invariably show an increase in aba and a decrease in cytokinin, the effects of stress on ethylene and polyamines in plants are variable. among growth regulators, researches on aba have received wide attention in view of its involvement in stomatal functioning, osmotic adjustment, root to shoot signaling, gene expression and protein modification. apoplastic aba level that regulates stomatal aperture is controlled by synthesis, degradation, delivery and transportation of aba within the plant. other factors such as intercellular movement of calcium and potassium, together with ph and sugars, are vital in regulation of abamediated stomatal closure. water-stress alters protein synthesis and some of these proteins are also sensitive to aba. the characteristic features of proteins help in establishing aba-dependent stress perception-response pathway. however, information on aba-specific proteins associated with stress-responses lacks clarity. studies on aba-sensitive and aba-deficient mutants have indicated a role of aba in stress adaptation mechanism in plants. at the molecular level, aba-responsive genes have been identified and their expression has been characterized. evidences show that some genes are up-regulated while others are down-regulated, resulting in net synthesis of the genomic product offering resistance against stress. however, information regarding aba interaction with stress-responsive genes and the precise function of abaresponsive genes still remains unidentified. documentation of specific genes expression is important in genepyramiding associated with water-stress tolerance for developing superior tolerant genotypes. significant crosstalk and interconnections are involved in stress-signaling. systematic approaches with genomic analysis will help in resolving the complex network of signaling mechanism and elucidate the stress mechanism. aba-dependent signaling is also important in induction of antioxidant-defense response. an interaction between calcium and the reactive oxygen species is table 1. effect of brassinosteroids on nodule number, mass of nodulated roots and pod-yield in french bean treatment conc. (µm) stress (d) nodule number nodulated root mass pod-yield (g plant-1) (g plant-1) control stressed control stressed control stressed control 4 39.3 23.0 1.57 1.20 119.7 79.3 8 46.0 18.0 1.87 0.97 126.5 64.1 epibrassinolide 1 4 54.0 33.7 2.07 1.60 126.7 95.3 1 8 58.0 20.3 2.13 1.23 135.3 68.9 5 4 72.3 50.3 2.90 2.43 157.6 128.7 5 8 78.3 42.7 3.07 1.50 160.8 89.6 homobrassinolide 1 4 43.0 29.0 1.90 1.63 126.7 85.4 1 8 48.7 22.7 2.20 1.13 120.4 67.7 5 4 64.0 45.3 2.60 2.00 145.8 111.5 5 8 62.0 35.7 2.70 1.30 148.7 75.6 murti and upreti j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 85 important in this respect. there are gaps as to how aba regulates reactive oxygen species or how aba-induced antioxidant defense is regulated. answers to these will certainly strengthen knowledge on aba involvement in stress-tolerance mechanisms in plants. growth regulators, aba, cytokinins, polyamines, etc., are synthesized both in leaves and roots of plants and are transported freely in the xylem sap and phloem, and partitioned in different tissues. aba and cytokinins are interpreted as signals in stressaffected plants. although there is a great deal of information on regulation of fluxes of these compounds in relation to water-stress, information on links between stress induced changes in soil conditions and generation of the signal is incomplete. there is also insufficient information on longdistance signaling via other chemicals, although some evidences of aba interacting with ethylene and cytokinin have been provided. changes in polyamine content under water-stress are well-understood, but their functional significance in stress responses and defense needs to be elucidated. brassinosteroids are well known for their functions at various physiological levels but their association in stressmediation or stress-tolerance has not been fully explored. exogenous application of growth regulators has been shown to accelerate the rate of plant acclimation to water stress. the effects of treatment, however, have been found to be dependent upon the species, cultivar, growth stage and stress-severity, because of which treatment responses are inconsistent. systematic efforts are needed to further strengthen the scope of growth regulators in this area of research. references abe, h., asakawa, s and natsume, m. 1996. interconvertable metabolism between testosterone and its conjugate with fatty acid in cultural cells of lily. procs. pl. growth regl. soc. amer., 23:9 adato, i and gazit, s. 1974. water deficit stress, ethylene production and ripening in avocado fruits. pl. physiol., 53:45-46 agarwal, s and gehlot, h. s. 2000. an update on brassinosteroids. p.149-178. in: advances in plant physiology, vol. 3, hemantarajan, a. 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hort., 99: 133-141 plant growth regulators in water stress tolerance j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 73-93, 2007 short communication evaluation of ornamental sunflower for value addition kirtimala b. naik*, s.k. nataraj, d. p. kumar, y. g. shadakshari, g.k. seetharamu, r. veugopalan and k.v. jayaprasad college of horticulture, gkvk campus, bengaluru 560 065 *e-mail: kirtiflori@gmail.com abstract an experiment was conducted at college of horticulture, gkvk, campus, bengaluru, uhs, bagalkot during 2012-13 to study the suitability of ornamental sunflower for dry flower production. highest flower weight loss was with corn meal and silica gel (90.75 and 88.45 per cent). silica gel followed by borax powder took least number of days for drying of flower heads (9.40 and 12.60 days respectively). colour retention in dried ornamental sunflower was highest with control treatment and silica gel with a score of 4.63 and 4.44. flower appearance was best with silica gel (4.44) which was at par with control with a score of 3.81. best texture score of (4.31) was highest with silica gel followed by control (shade), corn meal and alum powder which recorded 3.63, 3.31 and 3.25 respectively. best flower shape after drying period as with silica gel (4.38).the results reveal silica gel and corn meal as best drying agents in ornamental sunflower. key words: drying, dessicants, embedding, sensory, appearance introduction floriculture is fast emerging industry in the world. in recent years, there has been a revival of interest in producing field-grown cut flowers. as fresh flowers are short-lived and are available only during a particular season and wastage of huge number of fresh flowers due to lack of proper marketing channel and some unavoidable circumstances during blooming season, some flowers were identified which could be easily dried, preserved and processed in nature. standardisation of drying techniques is important to determine the exact method of drying for extending the post harvest dry flower quality in sunflower. therefore research on different dessicants of drying to retain the flowers original colour and form for a longer period is important. flower drying is one of the alternative techniques that could be used to preserve flowers for a longer period. there are several methods of preservation available and in many cases their results last for years and may be used for many occasions. it can be made into permanent or semipermanent decorations. dried flowers do not have to be used in arrangements immediately. they can be stored for several months without deteriorating. by investing in this industry the country is still able to increase its export earnings. information on preserving flowers to retain quality standards such as colour, lack of shrivelling are limited. as very meagre work has been done in this regard that too in a flower like ornamental sunflower, an attempt was made to know the exact method of drying ornamental sunflower. dana and lerner (2002) reported that the most satisfactory desiccants used are sand, borax and silica gel. an experiment was conducted at college of horticulture, gkvk, campus, bengaluru, uhs, bagalkot during 2012-13 to study the suitability of ornamental sunflower for dry flower production. the flowers were harvested at fully opened stage with bursting of not more than 50% pollen and dried separately in sun and shade for a period of 7 days. on the basis of visual appearance of colour, shape of petals and texture shade drying was considered a suitable method to dry sunflower flowers. this was followed by drying the flowers in different embedding materials. observations viz. visual colour, shape of petals, texture and overall appearance were recorded and finally the sensory evalua tion of these dr ied flower s wa s conducted by a panel of judges. the design followed in this experiment was simple crd adopting fisher’s j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 116-118, 2018 116 117 naik et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 116-118, 2018 method of analysis of variance technique as given by panse and sukhatamane (2002) by using sas package v9-3 available at statistical cell, iihr with six treatments and four replications. the drying treatments followed were as follows 1) silica gel, 2) sand, 3) borax, 4) corn meal, 5) alum, 6) control (without embedding). flower weight after drying duration decreased significantly with corn meal and silica gel (1.75 and 2.16 g respectively) followed by alum powder (2.43 g). weight loss was significantly more with corn meal and silica gel (90.75 and 88.45 per cent) followed by alum powder (87 per cent). silica gel, a drying agent has the capacity to absorb large quantities of moisture (upto 40 per cent) and could quickly dehydrate cut flowers robberts (1997). major drawback of air drying method is that it is weather dependant and the quality of the product is not good (datta, 2004). silica gel followed by borax powder took least number of days for drying of flower heads (9.40 and 12.60 days respectively (table 1). drying time varies depending on the flower thickness and the drying agent used musgrove (1998). similar results were recorded by rengaswamy et al. (1999); dahiya et al. (2004); sangama (2004); safeena et al. (2006) and salma (2010). sensory evaluation by a panel of judges mean highest score for colour retention in dried ornamental sunflower was scored by flowers dried in control treatment and silica gel with a score of 4.63 and 4.44 (table 2). shade drying since olden times is known to retain colour. the flowers embedded in silica gel were found to produce good quality dry flowers as this desiccant prevents the direct removal of moisture from flowers by acting as an intermediate. this prevents shrinkage of the flower and degradation of colouring pigments safeena et al. (2006). mean highest score for appealing appearance was registered by flowers dried in silica gel (4.44) which was at par with control with a score of 3.81. similar results were reported by barnett (1996) and datta (2004) in drying experiment in differ ent flowers. table 1. dry flower attributes of ornamental sunflower genotype m-17r dried in various embedding material embedding treatment fresh weight of dry weight of weight loss days taken for flower head (g) flower head (g) (%) drying borax powder (t1) 18.05 3.34 81.48 12.60 sand (t2) 18.46 3.10 83.21 14.87 silica gel (t3) 18.69 2.16 88.45 9.40 alum powder (t4) 18.73 2.43 87.00 17.40 corn meal (t5) 18.94 1.75 90.75 19.20 control (shade) (t6) 17.94 3.20 82.10 14.73 sem 0.34 0.19 1.09 0.34 cd at 1% 1.00 0.55 3.18 0.99 f-test ns * * * cv % 4.16 15.00 2.85 5.15 *significant @ p= 0.01 ns non significant @ p = 0.01 flowers dried in silica gel maintained best texture of flower heads with highest score (4.31) followed by control (shade), corn meal and alum powder which recorded 3.63, 3.31 and 3.25 respectively. mean highest score for retaining best flower shape after drying period was with silica gel (4.38). the phenomenon of embedded drying is that during desiccation, the water content of the flower is completely absorbed by the surrounding desiccant material. silica gel in powder form is the quickest acting desiccant. silica gel keeps the flower colour well and could be used to dry the flowers, which are difficult to preserve (peggy, 1978). similar results were also by keisarlourdusamy et al. (2003) in gomphrena, dahiya et al. (2004) in annual chrysanthemum, safeena (2006) in rose and salma (2010) in dendrobium. 118 ornamental sun flower for value addition j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 116-118, 2018 table 2. mean scores of sensory evaluation of dried sunflower flower genotype m-17r embedding treatments colour retention appearance texture shape borax powder (t1) 2.88 3.06 2.94 2.81 sand (t2) 3.00 2.69 2.94 2.75 silica gel (t3) 4.44 4.44 4.31 4.38 alum powder (t4) 3.44 3.13 3.25 3.19 corn meal (t5) 3.31 2.81 3.31 3.31 shade (t6) 4.63 3.81 3.63 3.22 sem 0.27 0.32 0.20 0.22 cd @ 1% 0.80 0.94 0.58 0.65 f-test * * * * cv % 14.96 14.00 11.51 13.39 score: 5=very good, 4=good, 3=average, 2=poor, 1=not acceptable*significant @ p= 0.01 ns non significant @ p = 0.01 references barnett, g., 1996, drying flowers. website: www.aggiehorticulture.tamu.edu/plant answers/misc/ dry flwrs. dahiya, s., unnikrishnan, d., gupta, a. k., sehrawat, s. k. and siddiqui, s., 2004, dehydration of annual chrysanthemum (c. coronarium), acta hort., 620 (2): 385-388. dana, m. n. and lerner, b. r., 2002, preserving plant ma ter ia ls. website:http:// w ww. a g c o m . pu rd u e . e d u / a g c o m / pu b s / menu.htm. datta, s. k., 2004, dehydrated flowers and floral craft. j. rural tech., 1(2):97-100. keisa r lour duswa my, d. , va divel, e. a nd azhakiamanavalan, r. s., 2003, studies on critical stages of harvest of annual flowers for dry flower production, s. ind. hort., 51(1-6): 241-243. musgrove, m. b., 1998, drying and preserving flowers and plant materials for decorative use. website: www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/a/anr-1115/anr1115.pdf. panse, v.s and sukhatamane, p.v., 2002, statistical methods for agriculture workers, icar, new delhi, pp: 152155. *peggy, b., 1978, preserving flowers with silica gel. inform. services. canada development of agriculture, ottawa: 21. rengaswamy, p., arumugam, t., jawaharlal, m., ashoka, a. d. and vijaykumar, m., 1999, dry flowers. a profitable floriculture industry. kisan world, 26(10): 61. robber ts, a. , 1997, dr ying flower s. website: www.aggie-horticulture.tamu. edu/plant answers/misc/dry flrs. safeena, s. a., patil, v. s. and naik, h. b., 2006, response of drying in hot air oven on quality of rose flowers. j. of ornl. hort., 9(2): 114-117. salma, r., 2010, studies on dehydration of dendrobium orchid flowers. m.sc. thesis, univ. agri. sci. bengaluru. sangama, 2004, dehydration and product diversification of helichrysum flowers. j. ornl. hort., 7(3-4): 376-380. (ms received 10 september 2017, revised 18 march 2018, accepted 29 june 2018) cross-infectivity of ralstonia solanacearum from marigold grown in andaman islands k. sakthivel, v. baskaran, k. abirami, k. manigundan and r.k. gautam icar-central island agricultural research institute, port blair 744 101 andaman & nicobar islands, india e-mail: vbaski01@gmail.com abstract bacterial wilt disease, caused by ralstonia solanacearum, is one of the major concerns for marigold cultivation in andaman islands. cross-infectivity potential of the bacterial wilt pathogen, isolated from marigold, was tested in other common vegetable-hosts of the island. pathogen identity was confirmed by morphological identification and biolog based phenotypic fingerprinting. cross-infectivity tests revealed tomato to be the most susce ptible among the three solanace ous hosts tested. highest wilt incidence was observed in tomato and marigold (100%) plants, followed by 55.6% in brinjal and 22.3% in chilli, upon artificial soil inoculation. our study enlightens pathogenic potential of the bacterial wilt pathogen in important vegetable crops of andaman islands and can help formulate suitable management practices for successful management of the pathogen. key words: marigold, ralstonia solanacearum, bacterial wilt, andaman islands introduction marigold is one of the most popular traditional crops grown in andaman and nicobar islands. it has gained popularity due to ease in its culture, wide adaptability, profuse flowering, short juvenility, large blooming period, attractive color, shape, size and good keeping quality, attracting the attention of flower growers. demand for marigold flowers is increasing very rapidly among the local farmers. one of the major constraints faced in cultivation of marigold in the island is wilt disease which is highly prevalent due to the climatic conditions prevalent on the island. yield loss due to the bacterial wilt disease caused by the pathogen, ralstonia solanacearum, is one of the major concerns for farmers in marigold cultivation. it is a gramnegative, soil-borne bacterium belonging to the 5 subdivision of proteobacteria (yabuuchi et al, 1995) and has been described as a ‘species complex’ due to its complex phenotypic and genotypic diversity (palleroni and doudoroff, 1971). it has a wide host range that includes over 450 plant species belonging to about 50 families (hayward, 1991) and is spread worldwide in tropical, sub-tropical and temperate regions. r. solanacearum species were classified into five races based on host range (buddenhagen et al, 1962), and six biovars based on utilization of disaccharides and hexose alcohols (hayward, 1964). on the molecular basis, the species is divided into four phylotypes (fegan and prior, 2005) corresponding to four, broad genetic groups, each related to a geographic origin (phylotype i: asian origin; phylotype ii: american origin; phylotype iii: african origin, and phylotype iv: indonesian/australian origin). each phylotype can be further subdivided into ‘sequevars’ (sequence variants) according to the nucleotide polymorphism of the egl gene (fegan and prior, 2005). solanaceous vegetables are among the major horticultural crops grown in the island for livelihood security of farmers. land area available for cultivation is limited in the island and, hence, farmers grow flowers and vegetables as mixed cropping. yie ld loss is notice d in solana ceous vegetables due to the wilt disease. therefore, we attempted a study on the cross-infectivity of the pathoge n isola te d from marigold in c ommon solanaceous vegetables of the island, viz., brinjal, tomato and chillies, to ultimately help in isolation of bacteria was done by the method of by kelman (1954). briefly, stem pieces j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 179-181, 2017 short communication 180 of 2-3cm excised from infected plants were washed five times in sterilized, deionized water and blotdried for 15 min on an autoclaved paper towel. stem pieces were then placed in test tubes containing 5 ml sterile water (for bacterial exudation) for about 5-10 min. a loopful of ooze was then streaked onto cpg agar (gl-1, casamino acids 1; peptone 10; glucose 10; agar 15; ph 7.2) amended with 2,3,5 triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (1%), and incubated for 36-48 hrs at 28-30°c. fluidal, white colonies with a pinkish centre were picked up and maintained in 15% glyce rol stock at -80 c for long-term storage. biolog based phenotypic fingerprinting all the isolates were subjected to biologbased phenotypic fingerprinting, using the microlog system (biolog, inc., hayward, ca). the bacterial solution (pre pa re d as per the ma nufa cture r ’s instructions) was pipetted into each of the 96 wells in the biolog micropla te, and the pla te s we re incubated at 28-30 c for 16–24h and read using an automated plate reader (biolog, inc.). cross-infectivity assay a virulent isolate of ralstonia solanacearum from the ma rigold pla nt wa s use d for cr oss inoculation assay with other important solanaceous hosts, viz., tomato (solanum lycopersicum), brinjal (solanum melongena) and c hillie s ( capsic um annuum). soil inoculation technique suggested by kumar (2006) was followed, as described earlier, and the treated plants were incubated at 28-32°c under glasshouse conditions. three replications of each crop were maintained in each pot, and, for each crop three pots were used. wilt incidence was recorded at regular intervals upon inoculation with ba cterial suspension, a nd wilt perce ntage wa s calculated using the following formula: w ilting percentage = n um ber of plants wilted x100 total num ber of plants inoculated bacterial colonies isolated from infected marigold plants were confirmed by both morphological and biological (biochemical phenotypic) approaches. morphologically, the isolates were identified as r. solanace arum by the ir typic a l fluidal c olony morphology (kelman, 1954) showing a spiral, pink centre on cpg agar. further, the identification was confirmed using 71 carbon sources and 23 chemical sensitivity assays using biolog based phenotypic fingerprinting, which confirmed the identity of the virulent isolate as r. solanacearum (>0.80 similarity coefficient). the isolate was named mga_rs1 and stored as a water slant, and glycerol stock at 20°c, for short-term and long-term storage, respectively. cross-infectivity assay pe rformed with marigold ralsonia solanacearum isolate (mga_rs1) on three important solanaceous vegetables, viz., tomato, brinjal and chilli revealed that mga_rs1 could infect all three hosts, with minor variation in incubation time. kumar et al (2006) also reported that ralstonia solanacearum isolates from ginger could induce wilt in other commercially-important zingiberaceae plants like small cardamom, large cardamom and turmeric, when inoculated in the greenhouse. our result also revealed that the virulent strain isolated from marigold could induce wilt symptoms in tomato and marigold plants relatively earlier (7 days post-inoculation) compared to that in brinjal (12 dpi) or chilli (20 dpi) upon artificial inoculation (table 1). in marigold and j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 179-181, 2017 sakthivel et al table 1. cros s-p athogen icity of rals tonia solanac e arum isolate d fr om m ar igold on solanaceous vegetables crop marigold tomato brinjal chilli days to first wilt 7 7 12 20 percent wilt incidence 100 100 55.5 22.3 tomato, average wilting percentage observed was 100%, as, it could cause wilt in all the nine plants inoculated within two weeks of incubation, whereas, in the case of brinjal and chilli, the wilt percentage was 55.6% and 22.3%, respectively (fig. 1). mga_rs1 could induce wilt in 5 plants out of nine brinjal plants and in two plants in chilli at five week intervals. earlier, mondal et al (2011) reported that r. solanacearum isolated from marigold (host) could infect solanaceous vegetables like tomato and brinjal within 12-15 days fig 1. weekly p rogre ss of wi lt of mari gold cau sed b y a ralstonia solanacearum isolate on various solanaceous crops c hilli 181 hayward, a.c. 1991. biology and epidemiology of ba cte ria l wil t ca us ed by ps e udomonas solanace ar um . annu. r ev. phytopathol ., 29:65-87 kelman, a. 1954. the relationship of pathogenicity in ps e udomonas solanac e arum to colony appearance on a tetrazolium chloride medium. phytopathol., 44:693-695 kumar, a. 2006. methods for sc reening ginger (zingiber officinale rosc.) for bacterial wilt resistance. indian phytopathol., 59:281-286 mondal, b., bhattacharya, i. and khatua, d.c. 2011. crop and weed host of ralstonia solanacearim in west bengal. j. crop & weed, 7(2):195199 palleroni, n.j., and doudoroff, m. 1971. phenotypic characterization and deoxyribonucleic acid homologies of pseudomonas solanacearum. j. bacteriol., 107:690-696 ramesh, r., gauri, a.a. and gaitonde, s. 2014. genetic diversity of ralstonia solanacearum infecting solanaceous vegetables from india reveals the existence of unknown or newer sequevars of phylotype i strains. eur. j. pln. pathol. online publication. doi. 10.1007/s10658014-0487-5 yabuuchi, e., kosako, y., yano, i., hotta, h. and nishiuc hi, y. 1995. tra nsfe r of two burkholderia and an alcaligenes species to ralstonia gen. nov: proposal of ralstonia pickettii (ralston, palleroni and doudoroff, 1973) comb. nov., ralstonia solanacearum (smith 1896) c omb. nov. a nd ralstonia eutropha (davis 1969) comb. nov. microbiol. immunol., 39:897-904 period of incubation. also, our re sults a re in concurrence with findings of ramesh et al (2014) who reported 93% of ralstonia solanacearum isolates collected from various hosts all over india to be pathogenic to eggplant and tomato. the succulent habit of tomato plants (compared to brinjal and chilli) could be the reason for early infection in tomato. hundred percent wilt incidence was noticed in marigold, as, it is the host pla nt for this particula r pathogen. percentage of wilt incidence was comparatively low in chilli and brinjal, which could be due to the hardy nature of these crop plants. solanaceous vegeta ble s and marigold are important crops grown in the island and yield loss in these crops may be of serious concern to farmers. our present finding showed that the wilt pathogen of marigold has an equal potential of infecting important solanaceous vegetables like tomato, chillies and brinjal. our finding is a preliminary study which can help develop effective management practices for controlling the bacterial wilt pathogen that ca uses serious economic loss in solanaceous vegetables and marigold. references buddenhagen, i.w, sequeira, l. and kelman, a. 1962. de signa tion o f r ac e s of ps e udomonas solanacearum. phytopathol., 52:726 (1962) fegan, m. and prior, p. 2005. how complex is the ‘ralstonia solanacearum species complex’? in: bacterial wilt disease and the ralstonia solanacearum species complex. c. allen, p. prior and a.c. hayward (eds.), ame rican phytopathological society, st. paul, mn, usa, pp. 449-461 ha ywa r d , a. c. 19 64. ch a r a c te ri s ti c s o f p s e ud om on as s o la na c e ar u m. j . a p pl . bacteriol., 27:265 -277 cross-infectivity of ralstonia solanacearum from marigold (ms received 30 december 2015, revised 22 july 2016, accepted 19 december 2016) j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 179-181, 2017 introduction basal hands of a banana bunch are often larger in size than the terminal hands. these are usually discarded or sold as third quality fruits in the market. thus, at least two or three hands in a bunch fail to reach the finger quality standards required for the specialized markets thereby reducing income to the producers. dehanding consists of removing two or three terminal hands of each bunch and is a routine practice in banana production system for export. by removing the terminal hands, it may be expected that dry matter would be redistributed among the remaining hands of the bunch thus helping to increase the size of the remaining hands (rodriguez et al, 1988). keeping the above aspects in view the present investigation was carried out. material and methods the experiment was conducted in the research station of all india coordinated research project on tropical fruits at mondouri of bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia, west bengal on the dessert cultivar, martaman (musa aab). one hundred and twenty four (124) plants of cv. martaman spaced at 1.8 m ´ 1.8 m were selected for bunch trimming with three replications laid out in augmented 2 factor factorial crd. the experiment consisted of different intensities of hand removal viz. 1, 2, or 3 hands (h 1 , h 2 and h 3 respectively) and time of hand removal viz. immediately after opening of hand, one week after opening of last hand, two weeks after opening of last hand (t 1 , t 2 , t 3 respectively) along effect of bunch-trimming on yield and quality in banana m. a. hasan, r. ray chowdhury, s. sarkar and s. mathew department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya mohanpur, nadia-741252, india e-mail:mdahasan@yahoo.com abstract the experiment consisted of different intensities of hand removal viz. 1,2 and 3 hands (h 1 , h 2 and h 3 respectively) and time of hand removal i.e., immediately after opening of last hand (t 1 ), one week after opening of last hand (t 2 ), and two weeks after opening of last hand (t 3 ). results were statistically analysed using augmented 2 factor factorial crd. the time of hand removal did not show any significant difference on yield while hand weight, finger weight, finger length, finger diameter and volume of finger increased with the increase in number of hands removed. it is suggested that removal of three hands between one and two weeks after opening of last hand is beneficial for improving yield and finger quality of banana cv. martaman (musa aab). key words: banana (musa aab) , bunch trimming, production, quality with control. allocation of bunch trimming treatments were done on the bunches which had opened on the same day with uniform length, finger size and having nine hands. the floral remnants and male buds were removed. observations on yield, hand weight, finger weight, finger volume, finger density, pulp weight, peel weight, pulp/peel ratio, pulp thickness, peel thickness, tss, sugar and acidity were recorded. for statistical analysis, principal component analysis was followed, based on correlation matrix. results and discussion it was evident that hand removal had significant effect on bunch weight, yield, hand weight, finger weight, finger length, diameter, pulp weight, peel weight, pulp thickness, peel thickness, total sugar, reducing and nonreducing sugar, acidity and tss/acid ratio. the highest bunch weight of 14.95 kg was recorded with removal of one hand (h 1 ). time of hand removal and interaction effect of number of hands removed and time of hand removal (h ´ t) significantly affected bunch weight. bunch weight of 15.14 kg was recorded with removal of one hand after one week of opening of last hand (h 1 t 2 ) followed by removal of one hand after two weeks of opening of last hand (h 1 t 3 ) and immediately after opening of last hand (h1t1). however, the untrimmed plants yielded a maximum bunch yield of 15.20 kg as compared to trimmed bunches. among the various intensities of hand removal, one hand removal (h 1 ) showed yield of 46.14 t/ha. the time of hand removal did not show any significant difference on yield j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 159-161, 2007 short communication 159 160 although hand weight, finger weight, finger length, finger diameter and volume of finger increased with the increase in number of hands removed. increase in fruit weight due to dehanding might be due to higher rate of fruit filling because of reduction in sink size (jullien et al, 2001). removal of one hand showed highest finger density of 0.969 g/cc. on the contrary, pulp weight, peel weight, pulp thickness, total sugar and reducing sugar improved significantly with the increasing intensity of hand removal. but in case of acidity content and tss/acid ratio, the data showed a reverse pattern i.e., removal of one hand (h 1 ) produced fruits having lowest acidity (0.482%) and higher tss/acid ratio (38.24) compared to two hands (h 2 ) and three hands (h 3 ) removal. hand removal after two weeks of opening of last hand produced maximum hand weight (1.909 kg), finger weight (149.43 g), finger length (12.0 cm), pulp: peel ratio (3.06) and also the sugar content of fruit. finger diameter (4.18 cm), finger volume (154.23 cc), density of finger (0.969 g/cc), pulp weight (112.169), peel weight (37.27 g) and pulp thickness (3.91 cm) were higher in t 2 table 1. effect of intensity and time of hand removal on bunch characters treatment weight of bunch (kg) yield (t/ha) weight of hand (kg) weight of finger (g) number of hand removal (h) h 1 14.95 46.14 1.821 141.99 h 2 13.17 40.63 1.833 145.33 h 3 12.75 39.36 2.002 153.27 s.em (±) 0.168 0.518 0.004 0.592 cd (p=0.05) 0.496 1.528 0.012 1.746 time of hand removal (t) t 1 13.61 41.99 1.862 144.85 t 2 13.63 42.06 1.885 149.43 t 3 13.64 42.08 1.909 146.30 s.em (±) 0.168 0.518 0.004 0.592 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns 1.746 treatment length of finger diameter volume density (cm) of finger (cm) of finger (cc) of finger (g/cc) number of hand removal (h) h 1 11.74 4.02 146.6 0.969 h 2 11.89 4.11 150.60 0.965 h 3 12.20 4.25 158.17 0.968 s.em (±) 0.038 0.034 0.559 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.112 0.100 1.649 0.003 time of hand removal (t) t 1 11.86 4.09 150.02 0.965 t 2 11.96 4.18 154.23 0.969 t 3 12.00 4.11 151.13 0.967 s.em (±) 0.038 0.034 0.559 0.001 cd (p=0.05) 0.112 ns 1.649 0.003 treatment total soluble solids total sugar (%) reducing sugar non-reducing acidity tss: acidity (0birx) (%) sugar (%) (%) ratio number of hand removal (h) h 1 18.35 16.29 8.25 7.63 0.482 38.24 h 2 18.36 16.44 8.62 7.43 0.494 37.15 h 3 18.33 16.78 8.83 7.55 0.527 34.75 s.em (±) 0.041 0.009 0.007 0.01 0.003 0.183 cd (p=0.05) ns 0.027 0.021 0.029 0.009 0.540 time of hand removal (t) t 1 18.35 16.38 8.49 7.49 0.486 37.93 t 2 18.34 16.46 8.55 7.51 0.504 36.41 t 3 18.34 16.67 8.66 7.61 0.513 35.80 s.em (±) 0.041 0.009 0.007 0.010 0.003 0.183 cd (p=0.05) control vs rest s.em (±) 0.137 0.031 0.025 0.036 0.010 0.645 cd (p=0.05) 0.286 0.065 0.052 0.075 0.021 1.345 note: h 1 = removal of one hand, h 2 = removal of two hands and h 3 = removal of three hands; t 1 =removal of hand (s) immediately after opening of last hand, t 2 = removal of hand (s) one week after opening of last hand, and t 3 = removal of hand (s) two weeks after opening of last hand hasan et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 159-161, 2007 161 treatment. time of hand removal did not show any significant variation in tss content. interaction effect of number of hand removal and time of hand removal significantly affected bunch weight, hand weight, finger weight, finger length, finger diameter, finger volume, density of finger, pulp weight, peel weight, pulp: peel ratio, pulp thickness, tss, total sugar, reducing sugar and tss/acid ratio. in respect of bunch weight and yield the untrimmed bunches yielded maximum. this result is supported by the findings of irizarry et al (1992) who reported that three hands removal reduced total yield. mandal and sharma (2000) also reported that removal of 1, 2 and 3 lower hands reduced yield by 9, 12.7 and 17.4%, respectively in cultivar alpan. removal of three hands after two weeks of opening of last hand (h 3 t 3 ) produced fruits with maximum hand weight (2.020 kg) followed by h 3 t 1 . removal of the hands after one week of opening of last hand (h 3 t 2 ) recorded maximum finger weight (156.33) followed by h 3 t 3 and h 3 t 1 treatments. control plants yielded the lowest finger weight (119.09 gm) as compared to treatment of hand removal irrespective of its time of removal. h 3 t 3 also produced fruits with maximum length (12.33 cm), finger diameter (4.28 cm), pulp: peel ratio (3.15), and pulp thickness (4.01 cm). arcila et al (2002) found that longer size fruit was attained with hand tear off at 20 days after flowering and leaving 4-6 hands per bunch in banana hybrid fhia-21. removal of three hands after one week of opening of last hand (h 3 t 2 ) produced fruits with maximum volume (160.93 cc) closely followed by h 3 t 3 . the same interaction (h 3 t 2 ) proved beneficial in respect of density of finger and also pulp weight. total sugar content was highest (16.85) in h 3 t 2 interaction. in respect of tss : acid ratio, h 1 t 1 i.e., removal of one hand immediately after opening of last hand proved to be the best. loss of biomass was partially compensated by increasing fruit weight, length and circumference. treatments of hand removal at different time increased fruit weight, length and diameter through redistribution of dry matter content by reducing competition for photosynthate among the different hands. references arcila, m. i., valencia, j. a., bclalcazar carvajal, s. and morales, osorno, h. 2002. effect of tear off on the quality and production of the hybrid of plantain ‘fhia-21’. augura, pp.446-449 irizarry, h., rivera, e. and rodriguez, j. a.1992. bunch and ratoon management for profitable production of high quality bananas. j. agri. univ. puerto rico, 76:119-129 jullien, a., munier, jolian, n. g.; malezieux, e.; chillet, m. and ney, b. 2001. effect of pulp cell number and assimilate availability on dry matter accumulation rate in a banana fruit (musa sp. aaa group “grande naine” (cavendish sub group) annals bot., 88:321-330 mandal, b. k. and sharma, s. b.2000. productivity of banana (cv. alpan) as influenced by removal of terminal hands from the bunch. orissa j. hort., 28:46-50 rodriguez, j. a., irizarry, h. and rivera, e. 1988. effect of bunch trimming on yield and quality of plantains (m. acuminata x m. balbisiana, aab). asociacion de bananeros de uraba, pp.537-541 table 2. effect of intensity and time of hand removal and their interaction on finger parameters treatment weight of pulp (g) weight of peel (g) pulp : peel ratio pulp thickness (cm) peel thickness (cm) number of hand removal (h) h 1 105.88 36.11 2.94 3.73 0.271 h 2 109.05 36.28 3.01 3.83 0.273 h 3 115.87 37.15 3.12 3.98 0.269 s.em (±) 0.410 0.709 0.066 0.034 0.004 cd (p=0.05) 1.209 ns ns 0.100 ns time of hand removal (t) t 1 108.59 36.26 3.00 3.81 0.275 t 2 112.16 37.27 3.01 3.91 0.270 t 3 110.05 36.00 3.06 3.82 0.269 s.em (±) 0.410 0.709 0.066 0.034 0.004 cd (p=0.05) 1.209 ns ns ns ns control vs rest s.em (±) 1.427 2.393 0.222 0.120 0.014 cd (p=0.05) 2.977 4.992 ns 0.250 0.029 note:h 1 = removal of one hand, h 2 = removal of two hands and h 3 = removal of three hands; t 1 =removal of hand (s) immediately after opening of last hand, t 2 = removal of hand (s) one week after opening of last hand, and t 3 = removal of hand (s) two weeks after opening of last hand (ms received 16 july 2007, revised 1 october 2007) bunch-trimming in banana j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 159-161, 2007 introduction dolichos bean (lablab purpureus l.), also known as lablab bean or indian bean, is one of the important indigenous legume vegetables of india, grown for its tender green pods. besides fresh pods, immature green seeds are also used as vegetable and dry seeds as pulse. both pods and seeds of dolichos are a rich source of protein, minerals, vitamins and fiber. india is one of the primary centers of origin and diversity of pole-type vegetable dolichos bean (lablab purpureus var. typicus). the present study was initiated with the objective of understanding extent of variability for pod-yield and pod-colour in the germplasm recently collected from different sources. material and methods fifty seven germplasm lines of dolichos bean collected from different geographical regions of tamil nadu, pondicherry and karnataka were evaluated during 200608 (between september-february) in the experimental farm at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore. the evaluation of dolichos (lablab purpureus l.) germplasm for pod yield and pod related traits n. mohan, t.s. aghora and devaraju division of vegetable crops indian institute of horticultural research hesarghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: nmohan@iihr.ernet.in abstract fifty seven pole type vegetable dolichos bean (lablab purpureus var. typicus) germplasm lines collected from tamil nadu, karnataka and pondicherry were evaluated in a replicated experiment at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for pod yield and pod -related traits during 2006-08. significant differences were recorded for all traits studied. iihr 177 was the earliest to flower in 43 days and pods matured in 65 days. iihr 6 recorded maximum pod length (16.5 cm) , and, ten-pod weight was maximum in iihr 7 (122 g). pod width was high in iihr 11 (4.05 cm). number of pods per plant ranged from 10 to 91, with the maximum in iihr 159. maximum pod-yield was recorded in iihr 150 and iihr 159 (576.0 g/plant). six different pod-colors (green, light green, purple, purple green, pink and creamywhite) were recorded. maximum number of lines (52.63%) had green pod. the present study indicates existence of a wide range of variability for pod characters, namely, pod-maturity, pod -length, tenpod weight, number of pods per plant and podcolour. high yielding lines with different pod types can serve as potentially useful parents in further breeding. key words: dolichos, germplasm, variability experimental design was rbd with three replications, with each of the lines in a row of three meter length, with a spacing of 15 cm between plants and 1.5 m between rows. the crop was staked and supported and recommended package of practices was followed to raise the crop. five plants were randomly labeled in each line and data were recorded on seven characters, namely, days to 50% flowering, days to pod maturity, pod-length, pod-width, 10 pod-weight, and, number of pods and pod-yield per plant. the mean value from five plants of each line for each trait in three replications, was computed. the replicated mean data was subjected to statistical analysis. pod-colour was recorded for all 57 accessions by visual observation. results and discussion analyzed mean data, and, range for the 57 accessions with respect to seven characters (along with place of collection and pod-colour) are given in table 1. significant differences were observed in all the characters studied. days to 50% flowering ranged from 43 to 83 days. iihr 177 was the earliest to flower in 43 days, followed by j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 50-53, 2009 51 table 1. source of collection, pod-yield and pod-related traits in 57 germplasm accessions in dolichos sl. line place from which collected days to days to podpod10no.of yield pod colour no. 50% podlength width pod pods per flowering maturity (cm) (cm) weight (g) per plant plant (g) 1. iihr-1 tirchy, tamil nadu 61.5 81.5 9.0 3.9 92.0 15.5 141.5 light green 2. iihr 2 dindigul, tamil nadu 63.0 82.0 5.9 2.5 93.0 33.5 306.0 green 3. iihr 3 coimbatore, tamil nadu 76.0 93.0 5.8 2.2 54.0 41.0 210.5 green 4. iihr 4 trichy, tamil nadu 65.5 84.5 5.8 1.8 72.0 21.0 150.6 green 5. iihr 5 dindigul, tamil nadu 83.0 100.0 10.0 1.7 62.0 31.5 192.7 light green 6. iihr 6 dindigul, tamil nadu 65.0 83.0 16.5 2.9 91.0 30.5 270.5 green 7. iihr 7 dindigul, tamil nadu 63.0 83.5 14.5 3.5 122.0 18.5 230.5 purple 8. iihr 8 siva gangai, tamil nadu 63.5 84.5 10.5 3.7 92.5 38.5 364.0 green 9. iihr 9 pollachi, tamil nadu 54.0 74.5 6.0 2.3 53.0 45.5 236.9 green 10. iihr 10 dindugal, tamil nadu 58.5 78.5 16.0 3.2 112.0 25.5 278.0 green 11. iihr 11 kumbakonam, tamil nadu 64.0 83.5 11.5 4.1 111.0 13.5 155.0 green 12. iihr 12 trichy, tamil nadu 63.5 83.5 11.5 1.5 61.0 27.0 172.5 purple 13. iihr 13 lalgudi, tamil nadu 64.0 84.0 11.0 3.4 82.0 20.5 171.5 green 14. iihr 14 madurai, tamil nadu 69.5 89.5 11.0 3.5 81.5 20.0 167.0 green 15. iihr 15 madurai, tamil nadu 64.0 83.5 12.5 2.5 83.0 22.5 188.5 purple 16. iihr 16 thiruvarur, tamil nadu 54.5 75.0 14.5 1.3 65.5 24.0 161.7 purple green 17. iihr 17 madurai, tamil nadu 64.0 84.5 10.3 3.8 102.5 18.5 185.5 green, broad 18. iihr 18 sivagangai, tamil nadu 61.5 82.5 12.5 2.2 76.0 27.5 199.5 green 19. iihr 19 thiruvarur, tamil nadu 55.5 75.0 12.5 1.4 73.0 31.5 320.0 purple 20. iihr 139 vellore, tamil nadu 62.5 80.0 11.5 3.0 79.0 25.5 198.3 green 21. iihr 140 kancheepuram, tamil nadu 65.0 79.5 6.5 1.9 80.5 23.5 185.2 green 22. iihr 141 kancheepuram, tamil nadu 59.5 78.0 12.5 1.5 82.0 18.5 148.4 green 23. iihr 142 pondicherry 64.5 82.0 6.5 1.5 59.0 73.5 429.4 purple 24. iihr 143 pondicherry 53.5 73.5 13.5 1.7 92.5 34.0 308.1 green 25. iihr 144 pondicherry 63.5 82.0 9.8 3.0 83.5 26.5 211.3 green 26. iihr 145 thiruvannamalai, tamil nadu 62.5 80.0 10.5 2.0 69.5 34.0 228.2 green 27. iihr 146 thiruvannamalai, tamil nadu 61.5 80.0 11.0 1.7 74.5 42.0 241.5 creamy-white 28. iihr 147 kancheepuram, tamil nadu 63.5 83.5 11.5 1.9 71.5 25.0 177.5 creamy-white 29. iihr 148 villupuram, tamil nadu 61.5 81.0 14.5 1.7 49.5 31.5 153.8 purple 30. iihr 149 kancheepuram, tamil nadu 66.5 85.5 9.3 2.0 92.5 41.5 380.5 purple 31. iihr 150 villupauram, tamil nadu 66.5 85.0 9.8 2.2 105.0 57.5 576.9 creamy-white 32. iihr 151 pondicherry 62.0 81.5 7.5 2.3 66.0 23.5 147.5 green 33. iihr 152 salem, tamil nadu 60.0 80.0 13.5 1.4 73.0 29.5 207.7 purple green 34. iihr 153 thiruvannamalai, tamil nadu 62.5 82.0 14.5 1.9 69.5 34.5 232.4 purple 35. iihr 154 thiruvannamalai, tamil nadu 60.5 80.5 16.0 1.9 108.0 36.5 387.1 purple 36. iihr 155 chidambaram, tamil nadu 63.0 82.0 16.0 2.5 109.5 37.5 398.8 green 37. iihr 156 chidambaram, tamil nadu 67.5 86.5 11.5 2.7 82.5 57.5 471.2 green 38. iihr 157 chennai, tamil nadu 62.5 82.5 12.5 2.7 104.0 51.0 515.2 green 39. iihr 158 villupuram, tamil nadu 58.5 87.5 13.5 1.6 73.0 37.5 269.4 green 40. iihr 159 pondicherry 60.0 80.5 9.5 1.8 64.0 91.0 576.2 green 41. iihr 160 kancheepuram, tamil nadu 62.0 80.0 9.0 4.0 83.5 26.5 211.3 green 42. iihr 161 chidambaram, tamil nadu 64.0 84.5 10.0 3.1 83.0 24.5 194.2 pink 43. iihr 162 chidambaram, tamil nadu 55.5 75.5 8.5 1.6 54.5 44.5 239.9 green 44. iihr 163 nelamangala, kanataka 64.0 83.5 15.5 2.3 73.0 51.5 370.5 green 45. iihr 164 dobbsspet, karnataka 61.5 81.0 11.0 2.0 72.5 25.5 183.1 purple 46. iihr 165 tumkur, karnataka 62.0 82.0 14.5 2.0 64.0 25.5 156.6 purple 47. iihr 167 tumkur, karnataka 58.5 78.5 10.0 1.9 52.5 53.0 275.5 light green 48. iihr 168 tumkur, karnataka 64.5 84.0 8.5 3.3 92.0 18.0 160.3 light green 49. iihr 169 nelamangala, karnataka 58.5 78.5 7.0 1.2 64.0 10.0 69.5 light green| 50. iihr 170 nelamangala, karnataka 65.5 83.5 7.5 1.8 62.0 82.5 501.0 creamy-white 51. iihr 171 nelamangala, karnataka 62.0 81.5 7.5 1.8 54.5 67.5 365.5 creamy-white 52. iihr 172 nelamangala, karnataka 64.5 83.0 14.5 2.4 92.5 43.5 397.5 creamy-white 53. iihr 173 nelamangala, karnataka 65.5 83.5 7.5 2.1 57.0 38.5 210.0 light green 54. iihr 174 tumkur, karnataka 63.0 83.5 15.8 2.5 111.0 32.5 355.5 creamy-white 55. iihr 175 tumkur, karnataka 63.5 83.5 8.2 2.4 62.0 25.5 151.5 green 56. iihr 176 tumkur, karnataka 57.0 76.0 10.5 2.0 63.5 76.5 486.5 green 57. iihr 177 tumkur, karnataka 43.0 65.0 9.0 1.8 71.5 75.0 535.0 green mean 62.4 81.9 11.0 2.3 78.6 36.1 270.4 range 43.0 65.0 5.75 1.15 49.5 10.0 69.5 –83.0 -100 -16.5 4.1 -122.0 -91.0 -576.9 cd (p=0.05) 2.2 2.57 1.32 0.59 5.19 3.21 34.08 cv % 1.8 1.6 6.19 13.07 3.37 4.54 6.45 germplasm evaluation in dolichos j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 50-53, 2009 52 iihr 143 (53.5 days). pod-maturity ranged from 65 to 100 days. iihr 177 was early to pod maturity in 65.0 days, followed by iihr 143 (73.5 days). pod-length ranged from 5.75 to 16.5 cm and iihr 6 recorded maximum pod length. pod-width ranged from 1.15 to 4.05 cm with maximum pod-width recorded in iihr 11. pods were narrow in iihr 169. ten pod weight ranged from 49.5 -122 g and maximum ten-pod weight was recorded in iihr 7. number of pods per plant ranged from 10 to 91, with maximum pod number in iihr 159. pod-yield per plant ranged from 69 to 576.9 g and maximum pod-yield was recorded in iihr 150 and iihr 159 with 576.9 and 576.2 g/plant, respectively (fig.1 and 2). the results indicated existence of wide variability for each of the seven traits studied. similar findings were reported (baswana et al, 1980; desai et al, 1996; anon. 2000; singh et al, 2004; bendale et al, 2004; nahar and newaz, 2005). lines found promising for six of the characters are shown in table 2. there are five lines for earliness; six lines for pod-length; 12 for pod-width; nine for high podweight; six for high pod-number and eight lines for high pod-yield. wide variations were recorded for pod-colour with six types, namely, green, light-green, purple, purpletable 2. grouping of dolichos germplasm for pod maturity, yield and pod related traits traits germplasm no. of lines early maturity (65-75 days) iihr 9, iihr 16, iihr 19, iihr 143, iihr 177 5 pod length (>15 cm) iihr 6, iihr 10, iihr 154, iihr 155, iihr 163, iihr 174 6 pod width (> 3.0 cm) iihr 1, iihr 7, iihr 8, iihr 10, iihr 11, iihr 13, iihr 14, iihr 17, iihr 144, iihr 160, iihr 161, iihr 168 12 ten pod weight (> 100 g) iihr 7, iihr 10, iihr 11, iihr 17, iihr 150, iihr 154, iihr 155, iihr 157, iihr 174 9 pod number /plant ( >65) iihr 142, iihr 159, iihr 170, iihr 171, iihr 176, iihr 177 6 pod yield per plant (>400 g) iihr 142, iihr150, iihr 156, iihr 157, iihr 159, iihr 170, iihr 176, iihr 177 8 table 3. grouping of dolichos germplasm based on pod-colour pod colour green lightpurple purpledeep creamy green green pink white no. of germplasm lines 30 6 11 2 1 7 per cent 52.63 10.53 19.30 3.51 1.75 12.28 fig 1. iihr-150 (pod-yield 576.9 g /plant) fig 2. iihr-159 (pod-yield 576.2 g/plant) fig 3.variation in podin some germplasm lines of dolichos green, pink and creamy-white. details for pod-colour are presented in table 3. in 30 lines (52.63%), pod colour was green. 11 lines (19.3%) had purple pods, seven lines creamwhite pods and six lines had light-green pod-colour (fig. 3). two lines had purplegreen pods and one line with deep pink pods, indicating wide variation for pod-colour. similar variation in pod-colour was observed in dolichos germplasm collected by avrdc in bangladesh (anon, 2000). the present study on 57 lines of dolichos revealed occurrence of wide variability for pod-yield, pod-maturity, podlength, ten-pod weight, number of pods per plant and podcolour. high-yielding germplasm lines and lines with different pod-types can be utilized further in breeding programmes. lines with colour variation can be used as phenotypic markers in genetic and hybridization studies. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 50-53, 2009 mohan et al 53 references anonymous, 2000. annual report, avrdc, world vegetable center, tainan, taiwan, p. 82 baswana, k.s., pandita, m. l., dhankhar, b.s. and partap, p. s. 1980. genetic variability and heritability studies on indian bean (dolichos lablab var. lignosus l.) haryana j. hortl. sci., 9:52-55 bendale, v.w., topare, s.s., bhave, s.g., mehta, j.k. and madav, r.r. 2004. genetic analysis of yield and yield components in lablab bean [lablab purpureus (l.) sweet]. orissa. j. hort., 32:99-101 desai, n.c., tikka, s.b.s and chauhan, r.m. 1996. genetic variability and correlation studies in indian beans (dolichos lablab. var. lignosus). new botanist, 23:197-204 nahar, k and newaz, m.a. 2005. genetic variability, character association and path analysis in lablab bean (lablab purpureus l.) intl. j. sustain. agril. tech., 1:35-40 singh, d., dhillon, n.p.s., singh, g.j and dhaliwal, h.s. 2004. evaluation of semphali (dolichos lablab l.) germplasm under rainfed conditions. haryana j. hortl. sci., 33:267-268 (ms received 6 october, 2008 revised 15 june 2009) germplasm evaluation in dolichos j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 50-53, 2009 among the agricultural commodities exported from india, cashew held the fifth position contributing 0.35% of the total export earnings of the country in 2007-08 (pillai, 2008).the productivity of cashew in india is moderate. as suggested by bhat et al (2007), keeping in view the changing global scenario, there is a need to produce cashew at an internationally competitive price by reducing the cost of production and increasing production per unit area. maharashtra now ranks first in both production and productivity of cashew in the country. the average productivity in the state of maharashtra is 1.5 t ha-1 against a national average of 800 kg ha-1. this is due to a strong research back-up and development of high yielding, bold-type hybrid varieties by dr. b.s. konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli, and efforts made by extension officers of the state department at transfer of technologies and in popularizing the varieties developed. however, there is still scope for increasing productivity to 2.5 t ha-1 with some refinements in management practices. among the various factors influencing cashew yield, the narrow sex ratio is of primary importance. therefore, growth regulators are gaining importance in cashew cultivation for overcoming problems associated with fruit set, development and, final retention. konhar and mech (1988) reported highest fruit retention in cashew with nutron 500 ppm, followed by etherl 50 ppm and planofix 45 ppm. similarly, kumar et al (1994) found effect of ethrel® on flowering, sex-expression and yield in cashew m.s. gawankar1, r.d. sawale, s.n. pawar and s.a. chavan regional fruit research station vengurle 416 516, india e-mail: gawankarms@yahoo.co.in abstract a field trial was conducted at regional fruit research station, vengurle, dist. sindhudurg, (maharashtra) to assess the efficacy of ethrel® in relation to flowering behavior and yield enhancement in cashew on seven year old cashew trees of vengurle -7 variety during 2008-09. three sprays of ethrel® @ 100 ppm, 200 ppm and 400 ppm along with water spray were given before flushing, after flushing and during fruit-set. control consisted of no. spray. among treatments, ethrel® @ 100 ppm significantly increased number of flowering panicles m-2 (12.0), number of perfect flowers per panicle (52.8), fruit-set m-2 (28.8) , number of nuts per panicle (2.9) and yield tree-1 ( 1.51 kg tree-1) than control and water spray. thus, lower concentration of ethrel® had a beneficial effect on cashew. key words : cashew, ethrel®, foliar spray, sex ratio, nut yield short communication ethrel®50 ppm, naa 25 ppm and 2, 4-d 4 ppm to be most effective in improving sex ratio and yield. the present investigation was under-taken to assess efficacy of ethrel®in flowering behavior and yield enhancement in cashew. an experiment was conducted on seven year old cashew trees of vengurle-7 (v-7) hybrid grown on lateritic soils during the fruiting season of 2008-09 at regional fruit research station, vengurle, dist. sindhudurg, maharashtra. the experiment was designed in randomized block design, with five treatments and four replications. the climate of the region is warm and humid, with an annual rainfall of 2916 mm and temperature range of 17.40 c to 32.90 c. the research center is situated at an elevation of 9 m above mean sea level. three sprays of each treatment were given as follows: i) before the vegetative flush, ii) after the vegetative flush and iii) during fruit-set. recommended package of practices was followed uniformly, including plant protection. observations were recorded number of laterals before and after spray, number of flowering panicles per m2, flowering duration, number of staminate and perfect flowers, fruit-set per m2, number of nuts per panicle, nut weight and nut yield. number of staminate and perfect flowers was recorded every day till completion of flowering. sex ratio was calculated using the formula developed by abdul halim hassan et al (1988) for calculating sex ratio in oil palm, i.e., 1all india coordinated research project on cashew j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 68-70, 2010 69 sex ratio = flowers ofnumber total flowersperfect ofnumber results were statistically analyzed following the procedure given by panse and sukhatme (1985). various biometric observations were recorded at specific stages and are presented in tables 1 and 2. effect of ethrel®spray on growth and flowering it is evident from data presented in table 1 that the mean number of laterals m-2 was significantly higher in the control (t 1 ), water spray (t 2 ) and ethrel®400 ppm (t 5 ) than ethrel®100 or 200 ppm (t 3 and t 4 , respectively). however, after the sprays, water spray (t 2 ) was significantly superior to the other treatments with respect to number of laterals, followed by control (t 1 ) and ethrel®400 ppm (t 5 ) which were at par with each other and significantly superior over ethrel®100 ppm (t 3 ) and ethrel® 200 ppm (t 4 ). further, regarding growth and flowering behavior in cashew, it was observed that water spray (t 2 ) resulted in better vegetative growth of trees, which is clear from higher percent increase in the laterals after spray, and was followed by ethrel® 100 ppm. however, the concentrations of ethrel®, viz., 200 and 400 ppm (t 4 and t 5 ) resulted in negligible increase in the laterals after spray, i.e., 20.5 and 26.5, respectively and percent increase in laterals in these two treatments was 1.0 and 1.1%, respectively over the control (3.7%). in respect of flowering behaviour, ethrel® treatments of 100, 200 and 400 ppm (t 3 , t 4 & t 5 ) showed a positive impact and produced significantly higher number of flowering panicles, i.e., 12, 10 and 11m-2, than in control (t 1 ) or water spray (t 2 ), i.e., 7.3 m-2. effect of ethrel® spray on sex-expression and yield the total number of staminate flowers was significantly higher (629.0) under water spray (t 2 ) than in rest of the treatments (table 2). this was followed by control (t 1 ) which was also significantly superior to ethrel® treatments. among ethrel® treatments, ethrel® 200 ppm (t 4 ) and 400 ppm (t 5 ) were at par and were also significantly superior to ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ). results of the present study clearly indicated that the number of staminate flowers was directly related to the number of laterals per m2. higher number of laterals under water sprays and control resulted in higher number of staminate flowers. ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ) produced an average of 52.8 and 400 ppm (t 5 ) 48.8 total number of perfect flowers, which was at par but significantly superior to the remaining treatments. higher number of perfect flowers under ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ) and 400 ppm (t 5 ) can be attributed to the role of ethrel® in increasing the number of perfect flowers. percent increase in perfect flowers over control was highest under 100 ppm ethrel® (t 3 ), followed by ethrel® 400 ppm (t 5 ). this is in agreement with previous investigations in cashew by table 1. effect of ethrel® spray on growth and flowering in cashew sl. no. treatment mean number mean number % increasein mean number mean of of laterals before of laterals after number oflaterals of flowering flowering spray/m2 spray/m2 after spray panicles /m2 duration(days) 1. t 1 control (no spray) 27.0 28.0 3.7 7.3 102.5 2. t 2 water spray 26.0 32.0 23.1 7.3 101.3 3. t 3 ethrel 100 ppm 18.3 19.3 5.5 12.0 101.0 4. t 4 ethrel 200 ppm 20.3 20.5 1.0 10.0 104.0 5. t 5 ethrel 400 ppm 26.2 26.5 1.1 11.0 102.5 sem± 0.8 0.6 0.8 1.9 cd (p=0.05) 2.5 1.9 2.4 ns ns = non-significant table 2. effect of ethrel® spray on sex expression and yield in cashew sl. treatment total total % increase sex ratio total % % mean mean mean mean no. no. of no. of in perfect no. of flowers perfect fruit no. of yield nut staminate perfect flowers flowers staminate flowers set /m2 per nuts (kg/ tree) weight flowers flowers over control panicle (g) 1. t 1 control(no spray ) 515.3 19.0 -0.04 534.3 96.4 3.6 17.3 1.6 0.88 8.2 2. t 2 water spray 629.0 12.8 -33.0 0.02 641.8 98.3 2.0 23.8 1.6 0.93 8.3 3. t 3 ethrel 100 ppm 240.0 52.8 178 0.19 292.8 82.0 18.0 28.8 2.9 1.51 8.5 4. t 4 ethrel 200 ppm 347.3 20.0 5.3 0.05 367.3 94.6 5.4 18.0 2.0 0.95 7.0 5. t 5 ethrel 400 ppm 371.0 48.8 157 0.12 419.8 88.4 11.6 18.0 2.4 0.88 8.2 sem± 34.2 8.2 38.9 1.5 1.4 1.4 0.2 0.06 0.4 cd (p=0.05) 105.4 25.2 120.2 4.7 4.2 4.3 0.7 0.19 ns ns = non-significant effect of ethrel on cashew j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 68-70, 2010 70 mariappan et al (1995) and gajbhiye et al (2007). further, under water spray, there was a decline in number of perfect flowers compared to control. therefore, sex ratio was also higher under ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ), followed by ethrel® 400 ppm (t 5 ). this is in agreement with previous findings of mariappan et al (1995) in cashew. dorajeerao et al (2001) reported that clones having broader sex-ratio were high yielders. ethrel® 200 ppm (t 4 ) recorded less number of perfect flowers (20.0) and higher percentage of staminate flowers (94.6%), resulting in lower sex ratio. in the present investigation ethrel® at 100 ppm might have exert its effect on sex expression by manipulating endogenous auxin corresponding the reduction in staminate flowers as reported by mariappan et al (1995). in the case of total number of flowers, water spray (t 2 ) was at par with control and was significantly superior over ethrel® treatments. among ethrel® treatments, ethrel® 400 ppm (t 5 ) was at par with ethrel® 200 ppm (t 4 ) and significantly superior to ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ). this was mainly due to higher number of staminate flowers under water spray and control. further, it was observed that the percentage of staminate and perfect flowers was negatively correlated and, therefore, higher percentage of perfect flowers (18%) was observed with ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ). similarly, in the case of mean fruit set per m2, it was significantly higher (28.8) under ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ) than in the remaining treatments. this can be attributed to higher number of perfect flowers and higher percentage of perfect flowers under ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ). the present findings are in conformity with results of mariappan et al (1995) in cashew. finally, the mean yield per tree was also significantly higher under ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ) than in the remaining treatments. this can be attributed to the availability of significantly higher sinks under ethrel® 100 ppm (t 3 ) in respect of perfect flowers, fruit set m-2 and number of nuts per panicle. gajbhiye et al (2007) and mohan and rao (1995) also reported highest nut yield with ethrel® spray. however, the mean nut weight was not significantly influenced by spray treatments. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to dr. b.s. konkan krishi vidyapeeth, dapoli, for providing funds and facilities to carry out this work. references abdul halim hassan, mohamad ali sekak and mohd hanif harun. 1988. plant growth regulators in oil palm, in: proceedings of the international congress of plant physiology, new delhi, february 15-20, 1988, i:451– 458 bhat, m.g., yadukumar, n. and nayak, g.m. 2007. cashew research achievements, technologies developed and research and development strategies. national seminar on research, development and marketing of cashew. in: souvenir and extended summaries, icar research complex for goa, 20-21st november, 2007 pp.3-15 dorajeerao, a.v.d., ravisankar, c. and reddy, m .l. n. 2001. influence of flowering phases on nut yield of different cashew clones. j. plantation crops, 28: 55-60 gajbhiye, r.c., jalgaonkar, v.n., bendale, v.w. and gawankar, m.s. 2007. effect of growth regulator to improve fruit set and yield in cashew. national seminar on research, development and marketing of cashew. in: souvenir and extended summaries, icar research complex for goa, 20-21st november, 2007 pp. 136-137 konhar, t. and arun mech. 1988. effect of growth regulators on flowering, fruit set and fruit retention in cashew. ind. cashew j., 18:17-19 kumar, d.p., khan, m.m. and melanta, k.r. 1994. effect of growth regulators on sex expression, fruit-set, retention and yield of cashew. in: proc. of the xi symposium on plantation crops. marriappan, s., prabhakaran, j. and sambandamoorthy, s. 1995. effect of growth regulators on sex expression and fruit set in cashew (anacardium occidentale l.). the cashew ix: pp11-13 mohan, e. and rao, m.m. 1995. effect of growth regulators and pruning on the growth and yield of cashew. environment & ecology, 13:675-679 panase, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1985 . statistical methods for agricultural workers. 4th edition, icar, new delhi. pillai p.b. 2008. excerpt of speech delivered during 53rd annual general meeting held on 30.09.2008. the cashew, xxii: 11 (ms received 5 october 2009, revised 4 february 2010) gawankar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 5 (1): 68-70, 2010 introduction pomegranate (punica granatum l.) fruit deserves special attention of consumers interested in nutritional food with excellent taste. dietary supplementation with pomegranate is believed to relate with cancer prevention (afaq et al, 2003). the tree is deciduous in low wintertemperature areas but, in tropical and subtropical areas, it is evergreen or partially deciduous. high-quality fruits can be produced where there are cool winters and hot, dry summers. it enjoys reputation for its healthy, dietetic and medicinal properties. the fruit is now gaining importance in temperate regions due to its hardy nature and capacity to tolerate drought, frost and alkaline conditions. in spite of the economic importance of pomegranate, information on its physicochemical composition is under temperate conditions meagre and, therefore, the present investigation was undertaken to evaluate important cultivars for their physical and chemical characteristics under the temperate conditions of kashmir valley. material and methods the investigation was conducted at the central studies on physical and chemical characteristics of pomegranate cultivars in kashmir valley m. m. mir, a. q. jhon1, f. u. khan1 and nelofar1 central institute of temperate horticulture srinagar – 211007, india e-mail: mirmaqbool_05@yahoo.co.in abstract ten pomegranate (punica granatum l.) cultivars, namely, kabuli kandhari, chawla, ganesh, mridula, jyoti, g-137, dholka, bedana, kandhari and local check were evaluated for different physical and chemical characteristics of fruit at the central institute of temperate horticulture, srinagar, during 2004. fruit weight, diameter and volume was significantly higher in cv. bedana compared to the rest of the cultivars. cultivar kandhari recorded significantly less rind thickness when compared to other cultivars. cultivar chawla exhibited less cracking per cent followed by kandhari. total soluble solids and total sugars were highest in cv. kandhari whereas less acidity was recorded in cvs. ganesh and g-137% acidity was lowest in cv. g-137 (0.41) and highest in cv. bedana (0.81). highest ascorbic acid content was found in cv. kabuli kandhari. the highest anthocyanin content was observed in cv. ganesh and lowest in cv. chawla. juice content was found to be maximum in bedana. the lowest anar butterfly attack was observed in cv. bedana. the data revealed overall superior performance of cv. bedana and kandhari with regard to physical and chemical characteristics and these can be recommended for commercial cultivation in the karewa belt of kashmir valley. key words: pomegranate, physical and chemical characteristics of fruit 1present address:division. of floriculture, skuast-k, shalimar, srinagar-191121 institute of temperate horticulture, srinagar, in 2004. ten pomegranate cultivars of five years age having uniform vigour were evaluated in a randomized block design replicated thrice. five plants per replication in each cultivar were taken randomly for recording data. the plants were raised under uniform cultural practices. fruits were harvested when most of them were red in colour and were transferred to the laboratory to sort for size and uniformity of shape. fruit shape, colour and general appearance was recorded on a hedonic scale. the chemical constituents of the edible portion were estimated as per methods detailed in a.o.a.c. (1984). the tss of fruit juice was estimated with a hand-refractometer. anthocyanin content was estimated as per ranganna (1986). results and discussion most of the physical characters studied showed significant difference among cultivars (table 1). cultivar bedana had the maximum fruit weight, diameter and volume (232.12g, 7.68 cm and 237.62 cm3, respectively), whereas, lowest values in these parameters were recorded in cv. ganesh. local check recorded an average 188.12 g of fruit j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 139-142, 2007 139 140 weight plant-1 and was significantly superior to five but not cultivars cvs. bedana, kandhari, dholka and g-137. variation in fruit weight and diameter was in accordance with findings of bist et al (1994). the minor deviation with respect to fruit weight may be due to variations in the form, as, sometimes they are obscurely ridged and many-sided, as reported by nath and randhawa (1959). mmaximum specific gravity was recorded in cv. chawla (1.036) followed by local check (0.990) and jyoti (0.986). lowest specific gravity was exhibited by cv. ganesh (0.950). generally, fruit weight, diameter and volume are directly proportional to each other. increase in fruit size, volume and weight and decrease in specific gravity was also reported by dhillon and kumar (2004) and khodade et al (1990). it is obvious from the data that lowest rind-thickness was observed in cv. kandhari (2.92 mm) which was significantly less compared to rest of the cultivars under test. higher rind-thickness was recorded in cv. chawla (4.95 mm). rind weight is also an important factor in pomegranate as it constitutes the nonedible part of the fruit. the lowest rind-weight was registered in cv. mridula (50.41 g fruit-1), followed by cvs. chawla and jyoti. these results are in close conformation with findings of bist et al (1994) and misra et al (1983). it is evident from the data that cv. bedana recorded maximum number of seeds/ fruit (546.94), followed by kandhari (502.99) and local check (486.33). the latter two cultivars were statistically at par with each other. the results obtained are in agreement with findings of misra et al (1983). as regards aril-weight, cv. dholka (0.316 g) was significantly superior to the rest of the cultivars. the least aril-weight was recorded in cv. ganesh (0.210 g), followed by kabuli kandhari (0.213 g) and mridula (0.216 g). increase in aril-weight with advancement of maturity in cv. kandhari was also observed by dhillon and kumar (2004). maximum cracking was registered in cv. g-137 (31.40%), followed by ganesh (26.30%) and jyoti (25.17%). lowest cracking incidence was observed in cv. chawla (6.32%). variability in this trait is attributed to the fact that some fruits may have higher rind-thickness due to which these do not crack easily. secondly, variation in cracking may be also due to a sudden change in the climate at the time of maturity, besides variable moisture and tolerance of cultivars to cracking (bankar and prasad, 1992). the results are also supported by the findings of shulman et al (1984). analysis of variance (anova) revealed that highest scoring index for fruit shape in cvs. bedana and kandhari (4.00 points each), followed by dholka (3.93 points) and ganesh (3.92 points). the lowest scoring index was noticed in cv. g-137 (1.73 points). the highest fruit colour value was recorded in cv. kandhari (4.00 points), followed by bedana and kabuli kandhari. these cultivars were, however, statistically at par but significantly superior to rest of the cultivars. regarding the general appearance of the fruit, highest scoring index was observed in cv. bedana (3.57), followed by cvs. dholka (3.50) and kandhari (3.44) lowest scoring index was observed in cv. jyoti (1.50) table 1. physical characteristics of different pomegranate cultivars cultivar fruit fruit fruit specific rind rind number aril cracking fruit fruit general anar weight diameter volume gravity thickweight of weight (%) shape colour appea butterfly (g) (cm) (cm3) ness (g) seeds (g) -rance incidence (mm) fruit-1 (%) kabuli 174.36 6.86 169.45 0.985 4.22 71.37 482.09 0.213 19.24 4.00 3.93 3.30 12.49 kandhari chawla 166.91 6.63 152.74 1.036 4.95 54.62 438.16 0.256 06.32 2.73 3.33 2.84 10.09 ganesh 110.28 5.76 100.28 0.950 3.10 52.52 275.88 0.210 26.30 3.92 4.00 2.80 08.33 mridula 143.06 6.36 134.97 0.973 3.24 50.41 426.62 0.216 19.50 3.80 2.46 2.35 12.38 jyoti 162.36 6.50 144.31 0.986 3.91 57.17 449.14 0.233 25.17 2.40 0.46 1.50 10.25 g-137 189.49 7.09 187.21 0.971 3.41 75.15 423.00 0.270 31.40 1.73 2.40 2.48 08.51 dholka 216.61 7.38 211.13 0.965 3.58 70.73 468.33 0.316 19.54 3.93 2.60 3.50 09.94 bedana 232.12 7.68 237.62 0.966 4.13 73.75 546.94 0.289 18.15 4.00 2.73 3.57 08.36 kandhari 222.88 7.49 220.69 0.956 2.92 69.36 502.99 0.305 16.52 4.00 2.66 3.44 11.26 local 188.06 7.06 184.59 0.990 4.15 74.45 486.33 0.233 21.20 3.06 1.80 2.50 11.42 check se d 9.35 0.06 4.13 0.015 0.25 4.73 12.60 0.008 0.78 0.17 0.26 0.17 0.61 cd 19.66 0.11 8.68 0.03 0.54 9.95 26.48 0.017 1.64 0.36 0.55 0.36 1.30 (p=0.05)) cv (%) 6.34 0.98 2.90 1.94 8.45 8.93 3.43 4.03 4.71 6.40 12.23 7.59 7.36 mir et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 139-142, 2007 141 which was inferior to even local check (2.50). the findings revealed that cvs. bedana, dholka, kandhari, kabuli kandhari and chawla were best with regard to these traits. as far as anar butterfly incidence is concerned, it was higher in cv. kabuli kandhari (12.49%) and lower in cv. ganesh (8.33%). this difference in anar butterfly incidence in the cultivars may be due to variable biological behavior of the cultivars and their inherent capacity to tolerate the incidence. the tss of the juice in different cultivars ranged from 13.56 (cv. chawla) to 15.770 brix (cv. bedana). however, cvs. bedana, kandhari, mridula, dholka and kabuli kandhari were statistically at par. the findings are in conformity with that reported by parmar and kakushal (1982) and bist et al (1994). the highest total sugars were registered in cv. kandhari (9.75%), followed by cvs. bedana (9.62%) and mridula (8.56%). the lowest sugar content was recorded in cv. chawla (7.81%). results obtained in the present study are in accordance with findings of malhotra et al (1983) and jagtap et al (1992). fruit acidity ranged from 0.41 (cv. g137) to 0.81% (cv. bedana). intervarietal differences were highly significant. increase in tss and decrease in acidity during fruit development was in accordance with findings of kumar and purohit (1989). the total soluble solids/ acid ratio ranged from 19.48 (cv. bedana) to 38.12 (cv. g-137). the cultivar g137 was significantly superior to the rest of the cultivars. as far as ascorbic acid is concerned, cv. bedana, at par with cvs. kabuli kandhari and mridula, recorded the highest ascorbic acid content of 13.36, 13.26 and 13.10 mg/ 100ml, respectively compared to the rest of the cultivars. lower ascorbic acid content was observed in cv. chawla (9.40 mg/ 100 ml). the variation in ascorbic acid content has also been reported by malhotra et al (1983) and jagtap et al (1992) in pomegranate. cultivar ganesh registered the highest anthocyanin content (20.30 mg/ 100 g), followed by cv. kabuli kandhari (19.37 mg/ 100g) and cv. kandhari (18.34 mg/ 100 g), whereas, the lowest anthocyanin content was recorded in cv. chawla (10.34 mg/ 100g). the variation in anthocyanin content among cultivars is attributed to genetic make up of the plant. significant varietal difference was also reported by legua et al (2000). the juice percentage was significantly higher in cv. bedana (50.83%), dholka and g-137 compared to the other cultivars. siddappa (1943) also reported that cultivars differed in their juice content due to differences in their genetic constitution. from the present study it can be concluded that cvs. kandhari, bedana and dholka are superior in physico-chemical characteristics and may be recommend for commercial cultivation under srinagar conditions and can be used for further improvement of the crop. references afaq, f., saleem, m. and mukhtar, h. 2003. pomegranate fruit extract is a novel agent for cancer chemoprevention. studies in mouse skin. 2ndannual aacr intl. conf. on frontiers in cancer prevention res., cancer epidem. biomar., 12:1351s-part 2 suppl. s a.o.a.c. 1984. official methods of analysis. association of official agricultural chemists. 14 th edn., washigton, d.c banker, g. j. and prasad, r. n. 1992. performance of important pomegranate cultivars under arid region. ann. arid zone, 31:181-183 bist, h. s., srivastava, r. and sharma, g. 1994. variation in some promising selections of wild pomegranate (punica granatum l.). hort. j., 7:67-70 table 2. chemical composition of different pomegranate cultivars cultivar total total sugars acidity tss/ acid ascorbic anthocyanin juice soluble solids (%) (%) (%) ratio acid (mg 100-1 ml) (mg 100-1 g) content (%) kabuli 15.46 8.16 0.64 24.20 13.26 19.37 45.88 kandhari chawla 13.56 7.81 0.45 30.79 09.40 10.34 49.72 ganesh 14.42 8.19 0.43 33.84 12.94 20.30 41.71 mridula 15.61 8.56 0.76 20.58 13.10 15.35 46.13 jyoti 14.03 8.50 0.44 32.03 12.15 11.24 47.42 g-137 15.49 8.33 0.41 38.12 11.31 13.21 50.39 dholka 15.55 8.38 0.52 30.13 10.65 14.42 50.55 bedana 15.77 9.62 0.81 19.48 13.36 16.27 50.83 kandhari 15.74 9.75 0.57 27.69 10.33 18.34 49.80 local check 13.85 8.05 0.47 29.70 9.76 14.18 48.92 se d 0.28 0.19 0.021 2.13 0.74 1.13 1.07 cd (p=0.05)) 0.60 0.40 0.04 4.48 1.56 2.38 2.25 cv (%) 2.35 2.74 4.73 9.11 7.86 9.09 2.73 studies on pomegranate in kashmir valley j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 139-142, 2007 142 dhillon, w. s. and kumar. a. 2004. some physicobiochemical changes during fruit development in pomegranate. ind. j. hort., 61:219-222 jagtap, d. b., desai, u. t. and kale, p. n. 1992. chemical composition of some indigenous and exotic cultivars of pomegranate. maharashtra j. hort., 6:10-12 khodade, m. s., wavhal, k. n. and kale, p. n. 1990. physio-chemical changes during growth and development of pomegranate fruit. ind. j. hort., 47:21-27 kumar, b. p. and purohit, a. g. 1989. studies on fruit growth and development in pomegranate. j. maharashtra agri. univ., 14:187-189 legua, p., melgarejo, p., martinez, m. and hernandez, f. 2000. evaluation of anthocyanin of four pomegranate cultivars (punica granatum l.) during fruit development. options mediterraneans series-a, seminaires-mediterraneens., no. 42:93-97 malhotra, v., khajuria, h. n. and jawanda, j. s. 1983. studies on physico-chemical characteristics of pomegranate cultivars. ii: chemical composition. punjab hort. j., 23:158-161 misra, r.s., srivastava, r. p. and kuksal, r. p. 1983. evaluation of some pomegranate cultivars for valley areas of garhwal hills. prog. hort., 15:24-26 nath, p. and randhawa, g. s. 1959. classification and description of some varieties of pomegranate. ind. j. hort., 16:191-201 parmar, c. and kaushal 1982. wild fruits of sub himalayan region. kalyani publishers, new delhi, ludhiana ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products. tata mcgraw hill publishing co. ltd. new delhi shulman, y., fainberstein, l. and lavee, s. 1984. pomegranate fruit development and maturation. j. hortl. sci., 59: 265-274 siddappa, g. s. 1943. pomegranate juice. ind. farming, 4: 196-198 (ms received 16 february 2007, revised 17 october 2007) mir et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 139-142, 2007 effect of plant growth regulators and micronutrients on reproductive attributes of acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle) in hasta bahar cropping season h.k. deshmukh*, d.h. paithankar, p.k. nimbolkar1, r.k. dewangan and c. awachare1 department of horticulture, p.g.i. dr. panjabrao deshmukh krishi vidyapeeth akola 444104, maharashtra, india *e-mail: hdeshmukh975@gmail.com abstract plant growth regulators and micronutrients at various combinations [ga3 50ppm + cycocel 1000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%; ga3 50ppm + cycocel 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%; ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 2.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% boron 0.1%; ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 3.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%; ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 1000ppm (foliar application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%; and, ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%] were sprayed before flower emergence in acid lime. minimum days taken to emergence of flower bud (39.57), duration of flowering (24.07), days to 50% fruit set (6.54) and days taken to fruit maturity (145.90) were observed with application of ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 3.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1% (t5), whereas, fruit drop (5.92%) was minimum with ga3 50ppm + cycocel 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1% (t3). treatment t3 also increased the number of flowers per meter length of shoot (49.65) as well as fruit yield (8.90). key words: acid lime, growth regulators, nutrients, flower set, fruit set j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):63-66, 2016 introduction acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle) belongs to the family rutaceae. it originated in india and has a chromosome number of 2n=18. among the various types of citrus fruits grown, acid lime occupies about 3.7 per cent of the total area under citrus in the country. the area under acid lime cultivation in maharashtra alone is 49.30 hectares, with a production of 739.53mt and productivity of 15.0mt (anon., 2013). acid lime flowers thrice a year, i.e., in the months of january-february, june-july and september-october, under vidharbha condition and these seasons are generally known as ambia, mrig and hasta bahar, respectively. a bulk of the flowering occurs in ambia bahar (60%), followed by mrig bahar (30%) and hasta bahar (10%). hence, the market is glutted with ambia bahar fruits, that are harvested in june-july, leading to the lowest price of the fruit during a year in this period. hasta bahar flowering occurs in october-november, and the fruits are ready for harvest in march-may, which is predominately the off-season for acid lime fruits (thirugananavel et al, 2007). in vidharbha region, it is highly difficult to regulate bahar treatment during september-october due to the absence of sufficient rains. here, manipulation of hasta bahar flowering with the use of plant growth regulators and other chemicals can serve as an alternative to realize maximum yields during summer, which fetch 6 to 8 times the price of ambia bahar, and 3-4 times the price of mrig bahar season. keeping the above in view, the present study was aimed at investigating the effect of different combinations of plant growth regulators and micronutrients on reproductive attributes in acid lime in the hasta bahar season. material and methods a field experiment was conducted in randomized block design (rbd), with three replications, during the year 2013-2014 at the acid lime orchard, college of horticulture, dr. panjabrao deshmukh krishi vidyapeeth, akola, maharashtra, situated at 307-457m above mean sea level, of 20.42°n latitude and 72.02°e longitude. uniformsized trees were selected, and the required dose of manures, fertilizers, irrigation and other plant protection measures 1division of fruit crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560089, karnataka, india 64 were applied. treatment combinations used included: t1 (control), t2 (ga3 50ppm + cycocel 1000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%), t3 (ga3 50ppm + cycocel 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%), t4 [ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 2.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% boron 0.1%], t5 [ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 3.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%], t6 [ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 1000ppm (foliar application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%] and t7 [ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1% (foliar application)]. in all the above treatments, water stress for one month was improved from 15th september to 15th october 2013. spray of plant growth regulators and micronutrients was scheduled as: (i) ga3 was applied in the first fortnight of june, (ii) cycocel and paclobutrazol were sprayed at release of trees from water stress (i.e., 15th september), (iii) spray of kno3, zinc and boron 2 to 3 days prior to release of water stress (i.e., 15th october). observations were recorded on days taken to emergence of flower-bud, number of flowers per meter length of shoot, duration of flowering, days required for 50% fruit set, fruit drop (%), days to fruit maturity, and yield (t/ha). results and discussion days required for emergence of flower-bud in acid lime was significantly influenced by plant growth regulators and micronutrients (table 1). after imposition of the treatments, minimum number of days required for emergence of flower-bud (39.57) was observed in treatment t5 [ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 3.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1%], which was significantly superior to all the other treatments. maximum number of days taken for emergence of flowerbud (54.67) was seen in treatment t1. similar results were obtained earlier in acid lime, treated with micronutrients and paclobutrazol (baskaran et al, 2010; haribabu and rajput 1982). similarly, khanduja et al (1974) observed in grape-vine, that zinc promoted nucleic acid synthesis, in turn influencing the formation of flower-bud primordia. arora (1969) also observed earlier flowering in guava with application of zinc. it is clear from table 1 that the number of flowers per meter length of shoot was significantly influenced by growth regulators and micronutrients in our study on acid lime. maximum (49.65) number of flowers per meter length of shoot was observed in treatment t3 which was significantly superior to all the other treatments, followed by t5 (44.25) and t2 (42.63), which were at par with each other. the lowest number of flowers per meter length of shoot (21.40) was recorded in control (t1). duration of flowering in acid lime under various treatments in our study was found to be non-significant (table 1). kachru et al (1971) demonstrated that gibberellic acid inhibited flowering in mango, as, higher levels of ga3 are antagonistic to formation of flower primordial; high levels of endogenous auxins and low levels of endogenous gibberellin favour flower-bud initiation. paclobutrazol and cycocel are known inhibitors of gibberellin biosynthesis. reduced levels of endogenous gibberellins resulting from action of these chemicals may favour early and profuse flowering in mango (kurian and iyer, 1993). growth retardants (paclobutrazol and cycocel) have anti-gibberellin effect which, in turn, checks vegetative growth and promotes early flowering. results depicted in table 1 reveal that the table 1. effect of different concentrations/ combinations of ga3, cycocel, kno3, zinc, boron and paclobutrazol on flowering parameters, fruit set, fruit drop and fruit maturity of acid lime (citrus aurantifolia swingle). treatment days taken flowers per duration days to fruit days yield to emergence meter length of flowering 50% fruit drop taken kg/plant of flower bud of shoot set % to fruit maturity t1 54.67 21.40 31.33 11.05 12.36 (3.52) 164.50 11.64 t2 46.87 42.63 29.33 9.36 6.85 (2.62) 156.70 30.58 t3 44.56 49.65 27.67 8.40 5.92 (2.43) 154.40 32.29 t4 42.77 40.20 26.45 7.68 8.62 (2.94) 149.60 25.63 t5 39.57 44.25 24.07 6.54 7.96 (2.82) 145.90 31.12 t6 51.08 32.40 30.87 10.88 9.25 (3.04) 161.30 20.43 t7 49.12 36.40 30.45 9.48 9.03 (3.00) 157.70 24.41 ‘f’-test * * ns * * * * se(m)± 1.44 1.00 1.56 0.51 0.25 2.88 0.66 cd (p=0.05) 4.46 3.08 4.82 1.59 0.80 8.89 2.04 ns = non-significant; * deshmukh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):63-66, 2016 65 number of days required for 50% fruit set in acid lime under various treatments was significantly influenced by plant growth regulators and micronutrients. treatment t5 recorded minimum (6.54) number of days for 50% fruit-set, followed by t4 (7.68) and t3 (8.40), while, maximum number of days taken for 50% fruit-set was recorded in treatment t1 (11.05). application of cycocel and paclobutrazol (known antigibberellins) cause effective translocation of carbohydrates besides causing a positive effect of cytokinins and auxins in conversion of vegetative buds to flower buds. similar results were reported in lemon (monselise et al, 1966), mango (maiti et al, 1971) and ‘eureka’ lemon (nir et al, 1972). greenburg et al (1993) observed higher fruiting in orange cv. ‘shamouti’ on application of paclobutrazol. data depicted in table 1 reveal that fruit drop in acid lime is significantly influenced by plant growth regulators and micronutrients. minimum fruit drop was recorded in treatment t3 (5.92%), which was significantly superior to all the other treatments, followed by t2 (6.85%), t5 (7.96%) and t7 (9.03%). treatment t1 (12.36%) showed maximum fruit drop. haribabu and rajput (1979) reported in kagzi lime that spraying zinc sulphate inhibited abscission, thereby reducing flower and fruit drop. the number of days required to fruit maturity in acid lime was found to be significantly influenced by plant growth regulators and micronutrients (table 1). significantly lower number of days (145.90) were required for fruit maturity in treatment t5, which was significantly superior to all the other treatments. treatments t3 (154.40 days), t2 (156.70 days) and t7 (157.70 days) were at par with each other. however, treatment t1 (control) took maximum number of days for fruit maturity (164.50). paclobutrazol advances flowering, and ultimately results in early maturity of the fruits. significantly high yield (8.90t/ha) was obtained in treatment t3, followed by t5 (8.62 t/ha), which was significantly superior to all the other treatments; minimum yield (3.22 t/ha) was seen in t1 (control). appropriate combinations and concentrations of growth regulators and micronutrients (ga3 50ppm+ cycocel 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zinc 0.3% + boron 0.1%, and utilization of these at the appropriate stage, along with water stress, is effective in regulation of hasta bahar. this is achieved by maximizing the number of fruits and increasing fruit yield harvested during march-april when the demand is higher and prices are at an all-time high. based on the above findings, appropriate combinations and concentrations of growth regulators, and, micronutrients, i.e., ga3 50ppm+cycocel 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% +zinc 0.3% + boron 0.1%, along with imposition of water stress, was found by us to be effective. this can be very well achieved by applying t3 and t5 for increasing fruit yield to be harvested during march april. thus, timely application of the treatments ga3 50ppm + cycocel 2000ppm + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1% (t3), and, ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 3.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 0.2% + zn 0.3% + boron 0.1% (t5) promise higher returns to the acid lime grower. references anonymous. 2013. area and production of citrus in india and maharashtra. http//www.nhm.gov.in arora, j.s. 1969. nrutitional studies in mango and guava. ph.d. thesis submitted to banaras hindu university, varanasi, uttar pradesh, india baskaran, a., renuga, r. and saraswathy, s. 2011. advancement of flowering in acid lime by soil applied paclobutrazol. madras agri. j., 97:388-389 greenburg, j.e., goldschidt, e. and goren, r. 1993. potential and limitation of the use of pbz in citrus orchard in israel. acta hort., 329:58-61 haribabu, r.s. and rajput, c.b.s. 1982. effet of zinc, 2, 4d and gaç on flowering in kagzi lime. punjab hort. j., 22(3-4):140-144 kachru, r.b., susan, r.n. and guam, e.k. 1971. inhibition of ûowering in mango (mangifera indica l.) by gibberellic acid. hort. sci., 6:140-141 khanduja, s.d., balasubramanyan, v.r. and saraswat, j.b. table 2. details of treatments applied treatment treatment details t1 control t2 ga3 50ppm + cycocel 1000ppm + kno3 (0.2%) + zn (0.3%) + boron (0.1%) t3 ga3 50ppm + cycocel 2000ppm + kno3 (0.2%) + zn (0.3%) + boron (0.1%) t4 ga3 50ppm +paclobutrazol 2.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 (0.2%) + zn (0.3%) + boron (0.1%) t5 ga3 50ppm + paclobutrazol 3.5g a.i./tree (soil application) + kno3 (0.2%) + zn (0.3%) + boron (0.1%) t6 ga3 50ppm + kno3 (0.2%) + zn (0.3%) + boron (0.1%) + paclobutrazol 1000ppm (foliar application) t7 ga3 50ppm + kno3 (0.2%) + zn (0.3%) + boron (0.1%) + paclobutrazol 2000ppm (foliar application) effect of growth regulators and micronutrients in acid lime j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):63-66, 2016 66 1974. zinc improves fruit set in grapes. indian hort., 19(4):36 kurian, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1993. chemical regulation of tree size in mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. alphonso. i. effects of growth retardant treatments on vegetative growth and tree vigour. j. hortl. sci. & biotechnol., 68:349-354 maiti, s.c., mukhopadhyay, a.k. and sen, p.k. 1971. effect of growth retardants on flowering and apical dominance of mango. curr. sci., 40(14):388 monselise, s.p., goren, r. and halevy, a.h. 1966. effect of b-nine, cycocel and btoa on flower bud induction of lemon trees. proc. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 89:195-200 nir, i., gorena, r. and leshem, b. 1972. effect of water, ga3 and ccc on flower differentiation in ‘eureka lemon’ trees. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 97(6):774-778 thirugananavel, a.r., amula, w., baby rani, k., indira, p., mareeswari and s. parthiban. 2007. studies on regulation of flowering in acid lime. res. j. agril. biol. sci., 3(4):239-241 deshmukh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):63-66, 2016 (ms received 29 september 2015, revised 06 june 2016, accepted 08 june 2016) of the various seasonal flowers, gaillardia (gaillardia pulchella foug.) is an important flower crop of the asteraceae family. it is commonly known as “blanket flower” and is a native of america. gaillardia is fast gaining prominence as a commercial crop, owing to its wide adaptability to varying soil and climatic conditions, better resistance to pest and diseases, hardy nature, long duration of flowering and attractive flower colour. in the saurashtra region of gujarat, flowers of gaillardia are extensively used in preparation of garlands and for decoration purpose during weddings, religious ceremonies, festivals and social gatherings. it is widely marketed as a loose flower and often as a substitute for marigold and chrysanthemum, whenever these flowers are in short supply or out of season. in recent years, idea of regulating plant growth, flower yield and quality by application of plant growth regulators has assumed significant importance. therefore an attempt was made to study the response of gaillardia to gibberellic acid at three different concentrations and frequencies. the present experiment was conducted at the horticultural instructional farm, department of horticulture, j.a.u., junagadh during winter season of the year 200405. the experiment was laid out in a randomized block design (rbd) with three replications and ten treatments including control. the treatments comprised of three short communication effect of different ga 3 concentration and frequency on growth, flowering and yield in gaillardia (gaillardia pulchella foug.) cv. lorenziana d.v. delvadia, t.r. ahlawat and b.j. meena department of horticulture junagadh agricultural university junagadh-362 001, india e-mail: tahlawat@jau.in abstract the present experiment was conducted at the horticultural instructional farm, department of horticulture, j.a.u., junagadh during the winter 2004-05. the experiment comprised of ten treatments, viz., three concentrations of ga 3 (50, 150, 250 ppm) at three frequencies (single, double and triple spray at 30, 45 and 60 days from transplanting) and control. each treatment was replicated thrice in randomized block design. of the different treatments, ga 3 250 ppm single spray recorded maximum plant height and plant spread. number of branches per plant was highest under double spray of ga 3 at 50 ppm. longest flowering duration, maximum flower diameter and maximum shelf-life were observed with single spray of 250 ppm ga 3 . it also registered maximum number and weight of flowers per plant besides highest flower yield. keywords: gaillardia, ga 3 , growth, flowering, yield concentrations of ga 3 (50, 150 and 250 ppm) and three frequencies single, double and triple sprays. ga 3 was sprayed thrice, starting from 30 days of transplantation and at 15 days intervals for second and third sprays. the seedlings of gaillardia were transplanted at a spacing of 45 x 45 cm. uniform cultural practices were followed to raise a good crop. five plants were selected randomly from the net plot in each treatment and tagged for the purpose of recording different observations. characters such as plant height, plant spread, number of branches per plant and shelflife were recorded at full bloom stage. the duration from first flower opening to final harvesting was recorded as flowering span. flower diameter was measured using vernier caliper. number and weight of flowers per plant was computed by summing up number and weight of flowers obtained during each plucking from randomly selected five plants. the data were expressed per plant. while flower yield was calculated by multiplying average weight of flower with total number of flowers per plant. the data thus generated were statistically analyzed. effect on growth parameters plant height was significantly influenced by ga 3 at all levels (table 1). the maximum height was recorded with j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 81-84, 2009 82 a single spray and triple spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm (45.20 cm and 43.24 cm respectively). ga 3 was known to increase the plant height by influencing the internodal length, attributable to both cell division and cell elongation (reddy and sulladmath, 1983). increased auxin content was reported due to the application of ga 3 and resulting in apical dominance, which may also have contributed to the increased plant height (scott et al, 1967). promotion in plant height as a consequence of ga 3 application was earlier reported by makwana (1999) in gaillardia. a somewhat similar trend was observed in plant spread where all treatments registered a significant increase in plant spread over control. a single spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm registered the maximum plant spread (39.10 cm). according to verma (1991) it was due to the formation of new cells in meristematic region and an increase in size and mass of cells produced. similar findings were also reported by singh et al (1991) in marigold. a significant increase in number of branches per plant was observed with the application of a single spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm, double spray of ga 3 at 50, 150 and 250 ppm and a triple spray of ga 3 at 150 and 250 ppm. of the above treatments, ga 3 50 ppm double spray yielded the highest number of branches per plant (24.33). increase in the number of branches with ga 3 treatment may be due to the hyper elongation of internodal length and a resultant increase in nodal count on the main axis. consequently these nodes increased number of dormant buds from where the primary branches may have originated (krishna kumar and ughreja, 1998). this confirms the report on an increase in number of branches with ga 3 application in gaillardia by patel (1998). effect on flowering traits the influence of varying ga 3 levels on flowering traits and shelf-life of gaillardia indicated significant differences in the flowering span, flower diameter and shelf life as affected by various treatments (table 2). ga 3 250 ppm single spray, ga 3 50 ppm double spray and ga 3 250 ppm triple spray recorded a significant increase in flowering span. advanced bud formation and onset of flowering in ga 3 treated plants was attributed to enhanced flowering duration (dutta et al, 1993). prolonged flowering duration owing to ga 3 was also documented by dahiya and rana (2001) in chrysanthemum. a 250 ppm single spray, 250 ppm triple spray, 150 and 50 ppm single spray of ga 3 showed a significant increase in flower diameter over control. they were all at par with each other. the enlargement in flower size is caused by drawing of photosynthates to the flower as a consequence of increased sink activity (zieslin et al, 1974). according to dutta et al (1993) the enhancement in flower size might be due to an increase in the length of the petals and pedicels accompanied by increased number of petals. it is in conformity with the observations of meher et al (1999) in chrysanthemum. a single spray of ga 3 at 150 and 250 ppm significantly enhanced the shelf-life of flowers. these treatments were at par with each other. the maximum shelf life (72.80 h) was observed when the plants were subjected to a single spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm. ga 3 reduces water loss and has anti-senescence properties leading to enhanced shelf-life of flowers (singh et al, 1994). similar results were table 1. effect of various ga 3 concentrations and frequencies on vegetative growth in gaillardia treatment plant height plant spread no. of at full at full branches/ bloom (cm) bloom (cm) plant t 1 ga 3 50 ppm single 25.40 35.60 15.00 t 2 ga 3 150 ppm single 34.25 37.96 13.68 t 3 ga 3 250 ppm single 45.20 39.10 16.68 t 4 ga 3 50 ppm double 39.80 27.96 24.33 t 5 ga 3 150 ppm double 39.89 22.13 19.68 t 6 ga 3 250 ppm double 41.54 29.06 17.00 t 7 ga 3 50 ppm triple 39.60 26.83 11.33 t 8 ga 3 150 ppm triple 42.42 24.87 15.68 t 9 ga 3 250 ppm triple 43.24 29.90 19.67 t 10 control 22.96 20.10 12.00 s. em + 0.82 0.68 1.04 c. d. (p = 0.05) 2.44 2.02 3.10 c. v. % 3.61 4.14 10.64 table 2. effect of varying ga 3 levels and frequencies on flowering traits and shelf life in gaillardia treatment flowering flower shelf-life span diameter of loose (days) (cm) flowers (hours) t 1 ga 3 50 ppm single 80.33 5.85 68.20 t 2 ga 3 150 ppm single 75.00 5.86 71.10 t 3 ga 3 250 ppm single 91.33 6.30 72.80 t 4 ga 3 50 ppm double 86.00 5.75 63.33 t 5 ga 3 150 ppm double 71.66 5.55 65.80 t 6 ga 3 250 ppm double 63.33 5.49 60.73 t 7 ga 3 50 ppm triple 58.33 5.67 69.43 t 8 ga 3 150 ppm triple 74.66 5.71 70.40 t 9 ga 3 250 ppm triple 85.33 5.95 67.87 t 1 0 control 73.33 5.32 68.10 s. em + 3.38 0.12 0.90 c. d. (p = 0.05) 7.06 0.50 2.72 c. v. % 5.42 5.20 4.05 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 81-84, 2009 delvadia et al 83 also reported by dutta and seemanthini (1998) in chrysanthemum. effect on yield characters significant differences in flower yield and its associated traits were observed with application of ga 3 (table 3). with the sole exception of ga 3 250 ppm double spray, all other treatments recorded a significant increase in number of flowers over control. maximum numbers of flowers (150.48) were observed with a single spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm. this is attributed to the production of large number of laterals at an early stage of growth, which then had sufficient time to accumulate reserve carbohydrates for proper flower bud differentiation (dutta et al, 1993). increasing number of flowers per plant was observed because of the production of large number of branches and more plant spread due to ga 3 application. this result finds support from the findings of poshiya et al (1995) in gaillardia. all treatments proved significantly superior over control in increasing weight of flowers per plant. single spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm registered the highest flower weight (341.60 g). this treatment was at par with a single spray of ga 3 at 50 and 150 ppm, a double spray of ga 3 50 ppm and a triple spray of ga 3 at 150 ppm. increase in weight of flowers per plant with ga 3 may be attributed to the production of more number of flowers with larger size and more florets. dehale et al (1993) also observed similar results in chrysanthemum with ga 3 application. a significant increase in flower yield was observed by the application of ga 3 at all levels. a single spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm recorded the highest flower yield (18.06 t/ ha). the increase in flower yield was due to the production of more number of flowers per plant and improvement in weight of flowers per plant. similar results were reported by pandya (2000) in marigold. it can thus be inferred that a single spray of ga 3 at 250 ppm was found best for optimum growth and production of gaillardia flowers under south saurashtra conditions of gujarat. references dahiya, d.s. and rana, g.s. 2001. regulation of flowering in chrysanthemum as influenced by ga 3 and shadehouses of different intensities. south ind. hort., 49:313-314 dehale, m.h., deshmukh, p.p. and moharkar, v.k. 1993. influence of foliar application of ga 3 on quality of chrysanthemum. j. soils and crops, 3:135-137 dutta, j.p. and seemanthini, r. 1998. growth and flowering response of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora cv. tzvelev.) to growth regulator treatments. orissa j. hort., 26:70-75 dutta, j.p., seemanthini, ramdas and khader. a.m.d. 1993. regulation of flowering by growth regulators in chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum indicum l.) cv. co-1. south ind. hort., 41:293-299 krishna kumar and ughreja, p.p. 1998. effect of foliar application of ga 3 , naa, mh and ethrel on growth, flowering and yield of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ram.) cv. iihr-6. j. applied hort., 4:20-26 makwana, m.k. 1999. the effect of plant growth regulators on growth, yield and quality of gaillardia (gaillardia pulchella) cv. lorenziana. m.sc. (agri.) thesis, gau, sardar krushinagar meher, s. p., jitode, d.j., turkhede, a.b., darange, s.o., ghatol, p.u. and dhawad, c.s. 1999. effect of planting time and growth regulator treatments on flowering and yield of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat). crop res., 18:345-348 pandya, p.n. 2000. effect of plant growth regulators on growth, yield and vase life of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) cv. lemon yellow. m. sc. thesis gau, sardar krushinagar patel, s.l. 1998. effect of plant growth regulators on growth, flowering and flower yield of annual (gaillardia pulchella) var. lorenziana. m.sc. (agri). thesis, gau, sardar krushinagar table 3. effect of different ga 3 levels and frequencies on yield characters in gaillardia treatment no. of total flower flowersper weight of yield plant flowersper (t/ha) plant(g) t 1 ga 3 50 ppm single 120.20 320.20 15.68 t 2 ga 3 150 ppm single 131.80 323.90 16.08 t 3 ga 3 250 ppm single 150.48 341.60 18.06 t 4 ga 3 50 ppm double 104.53 319.80 15.09 t 5 ga 3 150 ppm double 97.25 290.10 14.21 t 6 ga 3 250 ppm double 91.30 288.03 14.06 t 7 ga 3 50 ppm triple 110.67 312.93 15.35 t 8 ga 3 150 ppm triple 122.10 323.10 15.85 t 9 ga 3 250 ppm triple 102.93 312.43 15.52 t 1 0 control 82.20 259.50 12.51 s. em + 3.14 9.53 0.41 c. d. (p = 0.05) 10.14 28.10 1.33 c. v. % 5.32 5.18 5.10 effect of gibberellic acid on gaillardia j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 81-84, 2009 84 poshiya, v.k., katariya, g.k. and chovatia v.p. 1995. effect of growth substances on growth and yield in gaillardia. j. applied hort., 1:99-100 reddy, y.t.n. and sulladmath, u.v. 1983. effect of growth regulators on growth and flowering of china aster (callistephus chinensis nees). south ind. hort., 31:95-98 scott, t.k., case, d.b. and jacobs w.p. 1967. auxin gibberellin interaction in apical dominance. pl. physiol., 42:1329-1333 singh, j.n., singh, d.k. and sharma k.k. 1994. effect of ga 3 and alar on growth, flowering and seed production of dahlia (dahlia variabilis l.) orissa j. hort., 22:10-12 singh, m.p., singh, r.p. and singh, g.n. 1991. effect of ga 3 and ethrel on the growth and flowering of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.). har. j. hortl. sci., 2:81-84 verma, v. 1991. “a text book of plant physiology”. emkay publications, delhi. 518p zieslin, n., brian, i. and halevy, a.h. 1974. the effect of growth regulators on growth and pigmentation of baccara rose flowers. pl. cell physiol., 15:341-349 (ms received 19 august 2008, revised 4 march 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 81-84, 2009 delvadia et al introduction to feed balanced nutrition to its 1000 million populations, india needs 92 million tonnes of fruits. sapota constitutes 1.8% of the share of the country’s total fruit production, with an annual production of 8.3 lakh metric tonnes (anon., 2004). as sapota is an evergreen tree producing several vegetative and floral flushes during the year, and consequently fruits, requires a substantial amount of nutrients for maximizing yield and quality. hence, its nutrient requirements need to be carefully monitored through modern nutrient management strategy, i.e., leaf analysis, for high productivity. it was planned to develop leaf nutrient standards for sapota using the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris), which provides a means for simultaneous identification of imbalances, deficiencies and excesses in crop nutrients and ranking them in order of importance (beaufils, 1973) as no established standards are yet available for this purpose. this methodology was used successfully to interpret results of foliar analysis in crops such as grape (bhargava and raghupathi, 1995) and rose (anjaneyulu, 2006). dris norms for identifying yield-limiting nutrients in sapota (manilkara achras (mill). fosberg) cv. cricketball k. anjaneyulu division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: anjaney@iihr.ernet.in abstract diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris) identified forty-five nutrient expressions as diagnostic norms from data colleted by surveying seventy-four sapota gardens in karnataka and dividing the whole population into two sub-groups, namely, low and high yielding, during the year 2005-06. these expressions have shown higher variance and lower coefficient of variation found to have greater diagnostic precision, viz., n/k (0.989), mg/n (0.264), n/zn (0.117), mg/k (0.258), zn/k (8.609), s/mg (0.666), mg/zn (0.031) etc. the nutritional balance index indicated an overall imbalance of nutrients based on the sum of indices, irrespective of the sign. the diagnosis of nutrient imbalance through dris indices indicated that potassium, followed by nitrogen, was the most yieldlimiting nutrient among major nutrients and as were copper and zinc among micronutrients. in addition, five nutrient ranges were derived using mean and standard deviation as low, deficient, optimum, high and excess for each nutrient to serve as a guide for diagnostic purposes. optimum n in the leaf ranged from 1.60 to 1.85%, p from 0.10 to 0.13%, k from 1.63 to 1.85%, ca from 0.54 to 0.74%, mg from 0.42 to 0.47% and s from 0.28 to 0.37%. among micronutrients, optimum iron concentration in the leaf ranged from 113 to 161 ppm, mn from 21-31 ppm, zn from 14 to 17 ppm and cu from 5 to 7 ppm for ‘criketball’ variety of sapota. key words: sapota, index tissue, nutrient norms, dris, nutritional balance index material and methods sample collection for establishment of standard values or norms through dris, 370 leaf samples were collected from seventy-four sapota gardens in karnataka during 2005-06. at each site, a composite sample of recently matured tenth leaf from the apex was collected as index tissue. leaf samples were decontaminated following standard methods (bhargava and chadha, 1993). excess water was removed by pressing the leaves between folds of a blotting paper. the petioles were dried in an oven at 75oc for 72 h and powdered in a cyclotec mill before storing. the samples were analyzed for different nutrients (except nitrogen) by digesting 1g of the material in di-acid mixture (9:4 ratio of nitric and perchloric acids) using standard analytical methods (jackson, 1973). nitrogen was estimated by the micro-kjeldhal method, whereas phosphorus, potassium and sulphur by vanado-molybdate, flame-photometer and turbidometric methods, respectively. calcium, magnesium and the micronutrients fe, mn, cu and zn were analyzed j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 115-118, 2007 115 116 using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (perkinelmer-a-analyst-200). thus, a data bank was established for the entire population. dris norms computation using dris, the whole population was subdivided as highand low-yielding (beaufils, 1973) by earmarking 14 tonnes/ha as the cut-off yield among gardens, although letzsch and sumner (1984) indicated that the actual cutoff value had little effect on developing norms as long as it was not too low. each parameter was expressed in as many forms as possible, e.g., n/p, p/n, n´p, etc. and mean values for each nutrient-expression, together with their associated cvs and variances, were then calculated for the two populations. the mean values (in the high-yielding populations) of nutrient-expression were chosen as diagnostic norms. in making the selection, three basic principles were borne in mind: (i) to ensure that norms were based on gaussian distribution of yield versus nutrientexpression values, otherwise calculated means (norms) for nutrient expressions that might differ from the true values at maximum crop yield. (ii) to select nutrient expressions for which variance ratios were relatively large, thereby, maximizing the potential of such expressions to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy plants. (iii) to select equal number of nutrient expressions for all the nutrients since this was an absolute requirement of the mathematical model (walworth and sumner, 1987). dris indices dris provides a means of ordering nutrient ratios into meaningful expressions in the form of indices. dris indices were calculated as described by walworth and sumner (1987) using the following formula, with example of one nutrient as shown below: n = 1/10[-f (p/n)-f(k/n)+f(n/ca)+f(n/mg)-f(s/n)-f (fe/n)+f(n/mn)+f(n/zn)-f(cu/n)+f(n/dw)] n/p 1000 where, f (n/p) = ——— 1 | ——— when n/p > n/p n/p cv n/p 1000 and f (n/p) =1 ——— | ———— when n/p < n/p n/p cv where n/p : the actual value of the ratio of n and p in the plant under diagnosis n/p : value of the norm (which is mean value of the high-yielding unit) cv : coefficient of variation of high yielding population similarly, indices for other nutrients have been calculated using appropriate formulae. the absolute sum (positive and negative) values of nutrient indices generate an additional index called the nbi, nutritional balance index (walworth and sumner, 1987). leaf nutrient guides/standards by using mean and standard deviation, five petiole nutrient guides/ranges have been derived, viz., deficient, low, optimum, high and excess, for each nutrient. the optimum nutrient range is the value derived from “mean 4/3sd (standard deviation) to mean + 4/3sd”. the range “low” was obtained by calculating “mean 4/3 sd to mean 8/3sd” and the value below “mean 8/3 sd” was considered as deficient. the value from “mean + 4/3 sd to mean + 8/3 sd” was taken as high and the value above “mean + 8/3 sd” was taken as excessive (bhargava and chadha, 1993). results and discussion leaf nutrients concentration range the nutrient concentration in leaf varied in different orchards of sapota. leaf n concentration varied from 1.26 to 1.97%, with a mean of 1.573%, indicating that nitrogen content did not vary much among different gardens. however, n was low in some low-yielding gardens when compared to the optimum value. variation in leaf potassium concentration was high compared to nitrogen indicating, that, the former may be low in most of the low-yielding gardens. similarly, among secondary nutrients, calcium and sulphur showed higher variation in their concentration (table 1). similar trend was noticed for micronutrients in the entire population. dris ratio norms dris identified forty-five nutrient expressions as diagnostic norms that have a higher variance and low table 1. mean and range of nutrient concentrations in sapota nutrient range mean n (%) 1.26 – 1.97 1.573 p (%) 0.05 – 0.18 0.099 k (%) 1.00 – 2.05 1.562 ca (%) 0.21 –0.94 0.566 mg (%) 0.32 – 0.53 0.421 s (%) 0.14 – 0.42 0.283 fe (ppm) 59 – 198 119 mn (ppm) 10 – 47 21 zn (ppm) 10 – 27 14 cu (ppm) 2 – 10 05 anjaneyulu j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 115-118, 2007 117 coefficient of variation between high-and low-yielding populations (table 2). going by basic principles, n/k (0.989), mg/n (0.264), n/zn (0.117), mg/k (0.258), zn/k (8.609), s/mg (0.666), mg/zn (0.031), involving macroand micronutrients which have shown lower cv values compared to others, were selected and these ratios might have a greater physiological rationale. potassium is known to play a key role in n uptake and translocation, whereas mg and n are vital constituents of chlorophyll (raghupathi et al, 2004). hence, maintaining correct ratios of these nutrients is obviously important for the quantum of yield in any crop. maintaining the ratios of some expressions at optimum when they were with large coefficient of variation was much less critical for performance of the crop. therefore, nutrients considered as yield-building components, need to be maintained in a state of relative balance for each to be utilized with maximum efficiency for dry matter/yield production (anjaneyulu, 2006). dris indices and nbi in table 3, dris indices are presented along with the order in which nutrients limited yield. thus, dris simultaneously identified imbalances, deficiencies and excesses in crop nutrients and ranked them in order of importance. dris index is a mean of the deviations of ratios containing a given nutrient, from their respective normal or optimum values. as the value of each ratio function was added to one index sub-total and subtracted from another prior to averaging, all indices were balanced around zero. thus, the nutrient indices that sum up to zero indicate an optimum level, negative values as relative deficiency and positive values as relative excess of that particular nutrient (mourao filho, 2004). the absolute sum values of the nutrient indices generated an additional index called the nutritional balance index (nbi) which indicated an overall imbalance of nutrients in each low-yielding orchard, based on the sum of indices, irrespective of sign. higher the nbi, larger is the plant nutritional imbalance and thus, lower the yield. the yield-limiting nutrients differed from garden to garden, though some of the nutrients were more prominent. thus, diagnosis of nutrient imbalance through dris indices indicated the most yield-limiting nutrient was potassium followed by nitrogen among major nutrients, and, copper and zinc, among micronutrients. copper was usually not a yield-limiting factor in many fruit crops such as grape, mango, etc. in these areas. however, copper was observed to be a yield limiting factor in most of the low-yielding sapota gardens (table 3) after potassium, as these gardens did not receive copper fungicidal sprays for disease management. leaf nutrient standards by using mean and standard deviation, five leaf nutrient guides/ranges have been derived as deficient, low, optimum, high and excess, for each nutrient (table 4). optimum leaf n for sapota ranged from 1.60 to 1.85%, whereas, the optimum p range was low, indicating a lower requirement of p compared to n. it was observed that p table 2. dris ratio norms for sapota selected ratios c.v.% selected norms c.v% norms ratios p/n 0.063 32 k/cu 0.365 28 n/k 0.989 14 ca/mg 1.292 25 ca/n 0.340 29 ca/s 2.004 30 mg/n 0.264 16 fe/ca 228.6 46 s/n 0.178 29 ca/mn 0.028 38 fe/n 71.71 33 ca/zn 0.039 28 mn/n 13.69 41 ca/cu 0.121 40 n/zn 0.117 14 s/mg 0.666 19 n/cu 0.354 25 fe/mg 274.7 35 p/k 0.062 32 mg/mn 0.022 32 ca/p 6.067 51 mg/zn 0.031 16 mg/p 4.543 31 mg/cu 0.093 28 s/p 3.043 40 fe/s 434.5 46 fe/p 1219 39 s/mn 0.014 35 p/mn 0.005 40 zn/s 53.94 36 zn/p 152.7 34 s/cu 0.063 37 p/cu 0.022 38 fe/mn 5.892 45 ca/k 0.336 32 fe/zn 8.386 38 mg/k 0.258 13 fe/cu 25.28 41 s/k 0.173 27 zn/mn 0.730 34 fe/k 70.44 36 mn/cu 4.862 48 mn/k 13.34 41 zn/cu 3.102 30 zn/k 8.609 19 — — — table 3. diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in low =yielding sapota gardens most limiting optimum excess nbi k-269 cu-149 zn-120 mn-84 s-38 p12 fe86 mg101 n111 ca350 (sum)1320 k-196 cu-99 zn-57 mn-54 n-3 p23 s41 fe57 mg82 ca206 818 k-162 cu-91 zn-77 n-27 s9 mn10 p16 fe52 mg68 ca202 714 k-306 cu-181 mn-120 n-83 zn-77 mg56 s78 ca123 fe223 p287 1534 k-359 zn-130 n-99 cu-44 ca19 s33 p36 mg48 fe157 mn339 1264 k-280 n-89 mn-76 zn-12 p40 mg50 cu51 s72 ca73 fe171 914 k-206 mn-179 cu-113 n-5 ca 46 p46 zn48 mg49 s139 fe175 1006 k-83 cu-78 s-77 p-17 n1 zn6 mg14 fe36 ca47 mn151 510 dris norms for sapota j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 115-118, 2007 118 was generally much less a limiting factor in sapota production. requirement for k is always next only to nitrogen, as this nutrient is involved not only in production but also in improving the quality of sapota. among the gardens surveyed, calcium and magnesium status of many individual gardens was optimum compared to their optimum ranges. similarly, sulphur was not a yield-limiting factor in most of the gardens. among micronutrients, copper and zinc were found to be deficient in most of the low-yielding gardens. the concentration of copper was as low as 2 ppm and zinc 10 ppm in many low-yielding gardens. however, iron and manganese were low only in very few gardens. it can be concluded that yield-limiting nutrients in sapota gardens can be corrected by following efficient fertilizer application based on leaf nutrient norms developed. references anjaneyulu, k. 2006. development of diagnostic leaf nutrient norms and identification of yield limiting nutrients using dris in rose grown under protected conditions. j. hort. sci., 1:28-32 anonymous. 2004. horticulture heralding a golden revolution, dept. agri. and co-op., ministry of agriculture, government of india beaufils, e. r. 1973. diagnosis and recommendation integrated system (dris). soil sci. bull. 1:1-132 university of natal pitermariburg, south africa bhargava, b. s. and chadha, k. l.1993. leaf nutrient guides for fruit crops. in: advances in horticulture-fruit crops, vol. 2, pp 973-1030. chadha, k. l. and pareek, o. p. (eds), malhotra publ. house, new delhi bhargava, b. s. and raghupathi, h. b. 1995. current status and new norms of nitrogen nutrition for grapevine (vitis vinifera). ind. j. agril. sci., 65:165-169 jackson, m. l.1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india, new delhi. pp 498 letzsch, w. s and sumner, m. e.1984. effect of population size and yield level in selection of dris norms. commun. soil sci. pl. analysis, 15:997-1006 mourao filho, f. a. a. 2004. dris: concepts and applications on nutritional diagnosis in fruit crops. sci. agri. (piracicaba,braz.), 61:550-560 raghupathi, h. b., reddy, y. t. n., kurian,reju and bhargava, b. s. 2004. diagnosis of nutrient imbalance in mango by dris and pca approaches. j. pl. nutrition, 27:1131-1148 walworth, j. l. and sumner, m. e. 1987. the diagnosis and recommendation integrated system. in: adv. soil sci., 6:149-188 table 4. leaf nutrient standards for sapota cv. cricketball nutrient deficiency low optimum high excess n (%) <1.34 1.34 – 1.59 1.60 – 1.85 1.86 – 2.12 >2.12 p (%) <0.06 0.06 – 0.09 0.10 – 0.13 0.14 – 0.17 >0.17 k (%) <1.40 1.40 – 1.62 1.63 – 1.85 1.86 – 2.10 >2.10 ca (%) <0.32 0.32 – 0.53 0.54 – 0.74 0.75 – 0.97 >0.97 mg (%) <0.36 0.36 – 0.41 0.42 – 0.47 0.48 – 0.53 >0.53 s (%) <0.19 0.19 – 0.27 0.28 – 0.37 0.38 – 0.46 >0.46 fe (ppm) <65 65 – 112 113 – 161 162– 210 >210 mn (ppm) <11 11 – 20 21 – 31 32 – 42 >42 zn (ppm) <10 10 –13 14 – 17 17 – 21 >21 cu (ppm) <03 3 4 5 – 7 8 – 10 >10 (ms received 15 february 2007, revised 22 october 2007) anjaneyulu j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 115-118, 2007 limonium (limonium sinuatum l.) is the modern name of ‘statice’ and sometimes it is also called as ‘sea lavender ’. limonium belongs to the family plumbaginaceae and genus limonium. it is native of europe, mediterranean regions, asia, the canary islands and africa. limonium adds variety in terms of colour, flower size and shape to the beautiful world of flowers. the production of annual statice is of special interest as the flowers can be used either fresh or dried and are available in an assortment of colours. the plants are grown in the border, rockery and for cut flowers in greenhouses. they are used as filler in baskets and other flower arrangements. the flowers may be dried and used as everlasting ones. eventhough the crop has great significance in the market, there are some bottlenecks associated in its cultivation. nonavailability of planting material, lack of improved varieties and high market fluctuation are some of the problems often faced by the farmers. efforts in the field of crop improvement lead to the introduction of different cultivars having different forms and colours. although general cultural short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 184-186, 2009 evaluation of annual statice (limonium sinuatum l.) cultivars s.k. nataraj, p.m. gangadharappa, b.s. reddy, k.b. naik, s.j. prashanth and d.p. prakash biotechnology centre p.b.-7648, hulimavu, b.g. road bangalore-560 076, india e-mail:natflori@gmail.com abstract a field study was conducted during rabi season of 2003-2004 to evaluate the potential of statice cultivars as cut flower crop in the field of department of floriculture and landscape gardening, k.r.c. college of horticulture, arabhavi. the experiment was laid out as a randomised block design with four replications. the panicles of each variety were harvested when calycys of individual flower have mostly opened and showing colour. the cultivar turbo white recorded maximum plant height (21.78 cm), panicle length (80.94 cm), stem diameter (0.61 cm), no. of leaves (186.60), maximum fresh weight of panicles (530.09 g/plant), plant spread 62.15 cm2 and remained superior over others. the results are in agreement with the findings of angadi (2000) in china aster. maximum panicle production per plant (25.64) was recorded in cv. turbo white, which was on par with the cultivar turbo carmine (22.54). the results were in line with the findings of kumar et al. (1998) in annual statice turbo white. the cultivar turbo white was good in quality parameters by recording maximum panicle length, girth and number of branches per panicle. it was also vigorous in vegetative growth. therefore, the cultivar could produce better quality panicles and found to be suitable for semi arid regions. key words: evaluation, annual statice, growth, yield, quality. k.r.c. college of horticulture, arabhavi – 591 310, uas, dharwad, karnataka information for this crop is available, very few studies describe the flowering habits and yield potential of various cultivars. therefore, a systematic attempt was made to evaluate the varieties for their performance during 2003-04 rabi (november) season under ghataprabha command area in the field of k.r.c. college of horticulture, arabhavi during the year 2003-04. the experiment consisted of five cultivars of annual statice collected from m/s. indo american hybrid seeds, bangalore. the experiment was laid out as randomised block design with four replications. healthy and uniform sized seedlings of 45 days old were transplanted in the field at a spacing of 60 cm x 45 cm with one seedling per hill. recommended dose of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (100:100:100 kg/ha) were applied. at the time of transplanting, half the dose of nitrogen and full dose of phosphorus and potassium were applied as basal dose and the remaining dose of nitrogen was top dressed at 30 days after transplanting. 185 the panicles of each variety were harvested when calycys of individual flower were almost opened and their colour was seen. the data collected on various vegetative and flowering parameters from the five randomly tagged plants in each plot (2.6 m x 2.25 m) were subjected to statistical analysis and the significance level among treatments was compared at 5% probability level. the cultivars differed significantly with respect to plant height (table 1). the cultivar turbo white recorded maximum plant height (21.78 cm) and remained superior over others, while the cv. turbo blue recorded minimum plant height (14.08 cm) and was followed by turbo peach (14.64 cm) whereas, the cv. turbo yellow (17.69 cm) and turbo carmine (16.24 cm) were medium in plant height. among the cultivars, turbo white recorded significantly higher plant spread (62.15 cm2), while turbo peach recorded minimum spread (47.67 cm2) and was on par with turbo blue (49.96 cm2). turbo carmine and turbo yellow were at par by recording 57.10 cm2 and 55.97 cm2 per plant, respectively. the results are in agreement with the findings of angadi (2000) in china aster. leaves are the functional units for photosynthesis on which growth and yield are greatly dependent. number of leaves was significantly more in cv. turbo white (186.60), while it was least in turbo blue (128.20) followed by turbo peach (129.07). production of more leaves in turbo white might be due to vigorous vegetative growth in terms of more plant height and spread. similar variation in leaf production among cultivars has been reported previously by vijayalaxmi (1998) in marigold. the cultivars of annual statice differed significantly for number of panicles produced per plant and plot. maximum panicle production per plant (25.64) was recorded in cv. turbo white, which was on par with turbo carmine (22.54). the least panicle production was observed in turbo peach (16.68). similar trend was observed for panicle yield per plot also. the superiority of the cv. turbo white was mainly due to higher leaf number. the lesser number of panicles in turbo peach was possibly due to the poor performance during vegetative phase. the results are in line with the findings of kumar et al. (1998) in annual statice. the cultivars differed significantly in fresh weight of panicles per plant. turbo white recorded maximum fresh weight of panicles (530.09 g/plant) and cv. turbo yellow weighed minimum (290.60 g/plant). the cv. turbo carmine produced 402.71 grams of fresh panicle per plant and stands next best to turbo white, while cv. turbo blue (324.69 g/ plant) and cv. turbo peach (318.47 g/plant) were at par. the increased flower yield in cv. turbo white was due to increased number of panicles per plant. similar variation in yield among cultivars was also reported by whipker and hammer (1994) in annual statice. panicle quality is more precisely measured in terms of panicle length, girth and number of branches per panicle. significant variations were observed among the cultivars with respect to panicle length. among the cultivars, turbo white produced the largest panicle (80.94 cm), while turbo blue produced the shortest panicle (28.47 cm). the cvs. turbo yellow (59.42 cm) and turbo carmine (52.80 cm) stored next best ones to cv. turbo white. stem diameter varied significantly, which ranged from 0.39 cm to 0.61 cm. cultivar turbo white recorded maximum stem diameter (0.61 cm) and cv. turbo peach, the minimum (0.39 cm). the cvs. turbo carmine (0.45 cm), tubro blue (0.43 cm) and turbo yellow (0.41 cm) were at par. similarly, number of branches per panicle also differed significantly among the cultivars. it ranged between 2.67 in turbo blue to 5.07 in turbo white. the cultivars turbo carmine (3.87), turbo yellow (3.67) and turbo peach (3.14) were statistically at par. the cultivar turbo white was good in quality parameters by recording maximum panicle length, girth and number of table 1. growth, yield and quality parameters of five cultivars of annual statice (limonium sinuatum l.) cultivar plant plant number no. of panicle fresh panicle stem no. of days to height spread of panicles yield per weight of length diameter branches 50 per cent (cm) (cm) leaves per plant plot panicle / (cm) (cm) per panicle flowering (5.85 m2) plant (g) turbo white 21.78 62.16 186.60 25.64 512.67 530.09 80.94 0.61 5.07 82.67 turbo carmine 16.24 57.10 146.74 22.54 449.34 402.71 52.80 0.45 3.87 75.00 turbo yellow 17.69 55.97 140.34 19.00 380.00 290.60 59.42 0.41 3.67 70.00 turbo peach 14.64 47.67 129.07 16.68 333.34 318.47 33.22 0.39 3.14 90.68 turbo blue 14.08 49.06 128.20 19.80 396.00 324.69 28.47 0.43 2.67 78.34 cv% 4.52 4.490 6.600 10.760 10.640 8.420 3.110 3.48 7.720 2.000 sem± 0.150 1.425 5.544 1.287 25.454 15.120 0.915 0.010 0.164 0.919 cd at (p=0.05) 0.460 4.648 18.085 4.198 83.028 45.522 2.984 0.032 0.535 2.997 performance of limonium sinuatum j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 184-186, 2009 186 branches per panicle. it was also vigorous in vegetative growth. therefore, the cultivar could produce better quality panicles. while cultivars turbo peach and turbo blue were poor with respect to quality parameters and cvs. turbo carmine and turbo yellow were fairly good on quality parameters. similar variation among cultivars was observed by kumar et al. (1998) and whipker and hammer (1994) in annual statice. from this study, it can be concluded that cvs. turbo white and turbo carmine are promising for cut flower production. references angadi, m. 2000. performance of china aster (callistephus chinensis nees) cultivars. m.sc. (hort) thesis. university of agricultural sciences, dharwad kumar, r., kaur, k. and singh, m. 1998. effect of time of planting and spacing on flower production b e h a v i o u r o f s t a t i c e ( l i m o n i u m s i n u a t u m ) cultivars. indian j. hort. sci. 55:172-176 vijayalakshmi, p. 1998. evaluation of dwarf marigold (tagetes patula l.) varieties under northern transitional tract of karnataka. m.sc. (agri.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad whipker, b.e. and hammer, p.e. 1994. growth and yield characteristics of field grown limonium sinuatum. hortscience, 29:638-640 (ms received 15 november 2008, revised 23 september 2009) nataraj et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 184-186, 2009 in banana, higher yields are related to faster production of bigger leaves. banana is a gross feeder of nutrients and has restricted root zone thus requires heavy fertilizer application in this limited root area. as most of soils are deficient in nitrogen and phosphorus, application of these two plant nutrients together with organic manure play an important role to get good crop returns (datt and sundharam 2005). although, a lot of work has been done on nutrient requirement of banana with respect to production under different set of edaphic conditions, such information is lacking under punjab conditions, where banana has been recently introduced and gaining importance. therefore, a need was felt to study the response of various levels of nitrogen and phosphorus and their application on growth, yield and quality of banana and thereby formulate a fertilizer schedule under prevailing agro climatic conditions of punjab. the present investigation was undertaken during 2007-08 at the punjab agricultural university, ludhiana on the first ratoon crop of banana cv. grand naine. the treatments consisted of six levels of nitrogen (n) at 150, 200 (in 4 and 5 splits), 250 (in 4 and 5 splits) and 300 g (in 5 splits) per plant as urea; phosphorus (p 2 o 5 ) at 60 and 90 g per plant as single super phosphate. thus, there were 12 treatment combinations. a common dose of 200 g potash (k 2 o) was applied in 5 split doses as muriate of potash. full effect of different levels of n and p on ratoon crop of banana cv. grand naine tejinder kaur, m.i.s. gill and h.s. dhaliwal department of horticulture punjab agricultural university, ludhiana – 141 004, india e-mail: tejinder_pau@yahoo.co.in abstract an investigation was carried out to study the effect of various levels of n and p on growth and yield of banana cv. grand naine in first ratoon crop at punjab agricultural university, ludhiana. the treatments consisted of six levels of nitrogen at 150, 200 (in 4 and 5 splits), 250 (in 4 and 5 splits) and 300 g (in 5 splits) per plant as urea, phosphorus at 60 and 90 g per plant as single super phosphate. application of n and p at the rate of 200 g n in 5 splits + 60 g p 2 o 5 per plant to ratoon crop of banana cv. grand naine proved to be the best among all treatment combinations. this also resulted in maximum plant growth, early shooting and fruit maturity. in addition, the fruit yield per plant (18.9 kg) was maximum with the above mentioned treatment. finger length increased with increase in dose of n from 150 g to 200 g per plant. key words: banana, ratoon crop, nutrition, nitrogen, phosphorus, fertilization, punjab dose of single super phosphate was applied in may while, urea and muriate of potash were applied from may to september, 2007. all plants were under uniform cultural practices, except the fertilizer treatments. observations on plant height, girth, number of leaves (recorded at shooting stage), crop duration (time recorded after the complete harvest of the main crop in april) and yield attributing characters like number of fingers per hand, number of hands per bunch, finger length and bunch weight were recorded. the data recorded were statistically analyzed as per split plot design method (chao and lincoln, 1969). data presented in table 1 indicate that nitrogen and phosphorus application significantly influenced pseudo stem height, girth, and number of leaves at all levels tried. though application of 200 g n in 5 splits and 60 g p 2 o 5 produced the tallest plants (216 cm) with larger pseudo stem girth (57.4 cm), it was at par with 200 g n in 4 splits and 60g p 2 o 5 . within nitrogen treatments the highest average height attained by plants treated with 200 g n in 5 splits was 210.5 cm. however, it was only 3.5 cm more than that at the maximum level of n applied (300 g n), showing thereby that increase in height of plants by application of n beyond 200g per plant was less rapid. these results are in agreement with other workers (das and khatna, 1974 and short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 68-70, 2009 69 t ab le 1 . r es p on se o f gr ow th a tt ri b u ti n g ch ar ac te rs , fl ow er in g an d c ro p d u ra ti on i n b an an a cv . g ra n d n ai n e to v ar io u s le ve ls o f n a n d p g ro w th c h ar ac te r c ro p d u ra ti o n (t im e ta k en f or ) y ie ld a tt ri b u ti n g c h ar ac te r t re at m en t p se u d o st em p se u d o st em l ea f n o . s ho ot in g s h o o ti n g to b un ch n o . o f h an d s n o . o f fi n g er s f in ge r h ei g h t ( cm ) g ir th ( cm ) (n o . o f d ay s) ha rv es ti ng w ei gh t( kg ) p er b u n ch p er h an d le n g th (c m ) (n o . o f d ay s) n ( g /t re e) p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 p 1 p 2 n 1 1 5 0 g n 20 5 20 1 5 2 .5 5 0 .8 1 2 .7 1 1 .3 93 98 .0 11 0 11 0 17 .6 15 .3 7. 5 7. 0 16 .0 14 .0 18 .0 17 .5 in 5 s p li t d o se s n 2 2 00 g n 21 5 20 5 57 .4 55 .7 14 .5 13 .8 79 93 .0 90 10 8 18 .0 17 .2 9. 3 8. 6 20 .2 16 .6 19 .3 18 .2 in 4 s p li t d o se s n 3 2 00 g n 21 6 20 5 57 .8 55 .8 14 .6 13 .4 79 93 .0 90 10 8 18 .9 17 .7 9. 7 8. 8 20 .6 16 .7 19 .7 18 .5 in 5 s p li t d o se s n 4 2 50 g n 21 2 20 4 54 .7 53 .2 13 .4 12 .5 85 10 8 10 7 11 9 17 .4 16 .8 8. 0 7. 6 18 .4 14 .1 18 .8 17 .6 in 4 s p li t d o se s n 5 2 50 g n 20 8 20 2. 7 54 .4 53 .0 12 .6 12 .1 85 10 8 10 7 11 9 16 .3 15 .8 8. 9 7. 6 17 .5 13 .9 18 .2 18 .0 in 5 s p li t d o se s n 6 3 00 g n 21 2 20 3. 2 54 .3 53 .7 12 .8 12 .7 98 11 5 11 0 11 7 17 .5 16 .0 8. 3 7. 3 17 .6 14 .4 18 .3 17 .9 in 5 s p li t d o se s c d ( p = 0 .0 5 ) n = 1 .3 2 p = 2 .2 1 n = 2 .3 0 p = 1 .4 3 n = 1 .4 2 p = n s n = 3 .0 5 p = 1 .7 1 n = 1 .5 3 p = 0 .9 2 n = 1 .4 2 p = 0 .8 1 n = 1 .2 3 p = 0 .7 2 n = 1 .3 3 p = 0 .8 2 n = 0 .7 2 p = 0 .4 2 n x p = 3 .0 2 n x p = n s n x p = n s n x p = 4 .2 2 n x p = 2 .1 4 n x p = n s n x p = n s n x p = n s n x p = n s p 1 = 6 0 g p 2 05 p 2 = 9 0 g p 2 05 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 68-70, 2009 effect of n and p on banana ratoon crop 70 parida et al, 1994). the result of the experiment also did not record much difference in height of banana plants due to application of p at the rate of 60 g and 90 g p 2 o 5 per plant, but lower dose of 60 g p 2 o 5 was significantly better than 90 g p 2 o 5 . this is in agreement with findings of kohli et al (1976), who reported that due to low requirement of p in banana, lower doses of p is generally recommended. nitrogen was found to be most effective in increasing the pseudostem girth at 200 g n. p did not record any significant difference in pseudostem girth (mahakal and gupta 1973). significant increase in leaf number was observed with application of n. the highest average leaf number was recorded in 200 g n in 5 splits which was at par with 200 g n in 4 splits. no marked variation was noted with respect to leaf production due to interaction between n and p. among p, both the treatments failed to show any effect on leaf number. plants supplied with 200 g n in 4 or 5 splits and 60 g p 2 o 5 took a shorter time for shooting and subsequently the time taken for harvest also reduced significantly (79 and 99 days, respectively), when compared to lower level of 150 g n and 60 g p 2 o 5 (93 and 111 days, respectively) as well as other treatment combinations. owing to earlier production of leaves with larger leaf area per plant and better disposition of photosynthetic area, the required net assimilation was reached early in plants receiving higher dose of nitrogen, hastening the process of initiation and emergence of inflorescence (parida et al, 1994). earlier studies by israeli and lahav (1986) and singh et al (1990) suggested that an optimum supply of nutrients stimulated early shooting and shortened the duration. effect of nitrogen was more pronounced than phosphorus in decreasing the shooting as well as harvest duration. plants receiving 200 g n took significantly less number of days to shooting and harvesting as compared to 300 g n. decrease in duration to shoot and harvest between 60 g p 2 o 5 and 90 g p 2 o 5 was 16 and 11 days, respectively and corresponding figure to nitrogen was 20 and 14 days, respectively. these results are in agreement with observations of kohli et al (1981). in case of yield attributing characters, bunch weight, number of hands per bunch, number of fingers per hand and finger length, increased significantly due to treatment with nitrogen and phosphorus when applied singly. application of 200 g n (5 splits) and 60 g p 2 o 5 gave the highest bunch weight (18.9 kg). the increase in bunch weight was associated with corresponding increase in number of hands per bunch, number of fingers per hand and finger length, which were found to be highest in 200 g n (5 splits) and 60 g p 2 o 5 (9.7, 20.6 and 19.7 cm, respectively). the increased dry matter at harvest due to application of nutrients might have contributed to higher bunch characters, which may be attributed to timely availability of required amounts of nutrients at flower bud initiation (basagarahally, 1996 and armugam and manivannan, 2001). references armugam, s. and manivannan, k. 2001. response of in vitro raised banana cv. robusta to different levels of n and k application. south ind. hort., 49:362-63 basagarahally, r. 1996. micropropagation and nutritional studies of tissue cultured plants of banana cv. grand naine. ph.d (hort). thesis, uas, bangalore chao, r. and lincoln, l. 1969. statistics methods and analysis 2nd ed. mcgraw hill, new delhi, p.116-17 das, g.c. and khatna, n. 1974. effect of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash on growth and yield of banana clone dwarf cavendish. orissa j. hort., 2:39-42 datt, r. and sundharam, k.p.m. 2005. indian economy. naya udyog 1: 529-30 israel, y. and lahav, e. 1986. banana. in: crc handbook of fruit set and development (ed. monsalise, s.p.). crc press, florida, p. 45-73 kohli, r.r., chacko, e.k. and randhawa, g.s. 1976. effect of spacing and nutrition on growth and fruit yield of robusta banana. ind. j. agril. sci., 46:380-86 kohli, r.r., reddy, y.t.n. and iyenger, b.r. 1981. response of robusta banana to nitrogen. national symp. on trop and sub-trop. fruit crops, bangalore (abs. p.55) mahakal, k.g. and gupta, p.k. 1973. effect of nitrogen alone and in combination with phosphate and potash on growth and production of basrai banana (musa cavendishii lamb.) p.k.v. res. j., 1:188-90 parida, g.n., ray, d.p., nath, n. and dora, d.k. 1994. effect of graded levels of npk on growth of robusta banana. ind. agri. 38:43-50 singh, h. p., yadav, i. s. and singh, k. d. 1990. response of plant crop of dwarf cavendish (musa cavendishii-aaa) to nitrogen and potassium, growing in a sandy loam soil in the sub-tropics. j. potassium res.6:60-69 (ms received 9 february 2009, revised 22 may 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 68-70, 2009 tejinder kaur et al 217 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 217-220, 2018 occurrence of powdery mildew disease of gerbera in kerala n.m. praveen*1, reshmy vijayaraghavan1, s. beena1 and s. krishnan2 1department of plant pathology, college of horticulture, kerala agricultural university, kerala, india-680 656 2dept of agricultural statistics, college of horticulture, kerala agricultural university, kerala, india-680 656 email: pn40785@gmail.com, drreshmydhanesh@gmail.com, reshmy.v@kau.in abstract a purposive sampling survey on the hilly tracts of wayanad, kerala revealed the existence of powdery mildew disease in gerbera crops, grown under both protected and open field condition. among the other fungal diseases of gerbera, powdery mildew disease causes decisive damage to the ornamental cut flower crop, thereby decline in the industrial value of the crop. symptom of the disease include as white powdery mat on the upper surface of leaf lamina that gradually turned pale yellow to brown. powdery mildew existed in two locations of wayanad viz., ambalavayal and chulliyode where highest per cent disease severity (pds) of 50.72 was observed at chulliyode and 47.2 per cent was observed at ambalavayal during novemberdecember. in ambalavayal, the disease was non-significant and no correlation existed between weather parameters and disease progress. but, in chulliyode, correlation studies revealed that it was significant with positive correlation to relative humidity and a reverse relation existed with temperature and rainfall. the weather data clearly depicts that at a low rainfall of 96 mm and above average relative humidity of 80.27 per cent during november-december was the congenial factor influencing the disease development. but during summer, decline in relative humidity (78.37%) and rainfall (63.13 mm) caused a slight reduction in mean per cent disease severity of 49.12 per cent and 33.6 per cent at chulliyode and ambalavayal respectively. morohological and cultural characters of the pathogen depicts presence of two distinct organism viz., golovinomyces cichoracearum (erysiphe cichoracearum) and podosphaera sp. as the causative organism of the disease. golovinomyces cichoracearumproduced hyaline, septate mycelia with globose conidia with irregular peripheral end formed in a chain and podosphaera sp. produced superficial, hyaline, coenocytic mycelium with oval or ellipsoidal, catenate conidia with dimension ranging from 22.1-30.18 x 13.36-18.08ìm formed in unbranched erect conidiophores. keywords: gerbera, golovinomyces cichoracearum, podosphaera sp., per cent disease severity introduction gerbera is a perennial herb, native to tropical regions of south america, africa and asia belongs to asteraceae family. it is the most popular cut flower with increasing commercial significance, these plants were grown throughout the world in a wide range of climatic conditions and are in great demand in the floral industry as cut flower as well as potted plant due to its beauty, color, long vase life and ability to rehydrate after long transportation. fungal, bacterial and viral diseases being the major constraints that bring down the growth of the cut flower industry. among the fungal disease, powdery mildew affects the yield and economic profitability of the cut flower cultivation. powdery mildew disease observed mainly in the hilly tracts due to the favorable humid and temperature prevailing in those locations. hence, the present study is focused on to study the occurrence of powdery mildew disease in wayanad district of kerala, its correlation with the weather parameters and also the disease causing pathogen. a purposive sampling survey on the occurrence of powdery mildew diseases of gerbera in wayanad district was conducted during the months of julyaugust, november-december and march-april to get a complete profile on the occurrence of diseases 218 praveen et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 217-220, 2018 prevailing during rainy, winter and summer season. the disease incidence and disease severity were recorded based on extent of symptoms produced by the pathogen. the severity of disease was assessed by adopting a standard score chart of 0-6 scale developed by kumar et al (2012). during sampling survey, the extent of intensity and severity were recorded for powdery mildew disea se a nd wa s cor r ela ted with the wea ther parameters viz., temperature, relative humidity (rh) and rainfall prevailing during each seasons. pathogenicity of obligate parasites causing powdery mildew diseases was proved by detaching an infected leaf containing a single colony and inoculating onto a fresh healthy leaf. the whole leaf sample was covered with plastic bag and observations were taken for symptom development. uninoculated plants were maintained under same condition and were treated as control (warkentin et al., 1995). symptoms of powdery mildew on gerbera was studied under natural conditions during the survey. a temporary mount of fungal pathogen was prepared by using a strip of transparent cellophane tape (10 cm long) which was held in between the thumb and the forefinger. the sticky side of the tape was fir mly pr essed onto the lea f sur fa ce of a spor ula ting colony. after gently removing the cellophane tape, the sticky surface carrying fungal spores and hyphae was carefully placed over drops of lactophenol cotton blue kept at the centre of a clean glass slide. the tape was gently pressed and the extended ends of the tape is held over the ends of the slide and observed under the light microscope where the characteristics of spores and sporulatingstrucutures were studied (narayanasamy., 2011). for further confirmation, the isolates were sent to national center for fungal taxonomy (ncft), new delhi where the cultures were also deposited under different accession numbers. survey was conducted in mainly two locations of wayanad district viz., ambalavayal and chulliyode for assessing the incidents of powdery mildew in the district. the disease was devastating in nature with a pdi of 93.6 and 95.2 per cent in ambalavayal and chulliyode during november-december respectively. per cent disease severity of the disease with the maximum of 57.4 per cent at chulliyode and a minimum of 32.7 per cent at ambalavayal was also found to be very high compared to other diseases observed during the survey powdery mildew existed in two locations viz., ambalavayal and chulliyode of wayanad district with more severity at chulliyode. mean per cent disease severity was maximum during november-december with 50.72 per cent in chulliyode and 47.2 per cent in ambalavayal. in ambalavayal, the disease was nonsignificant and no correlation existed between weather parameters on disease progress. but, in chulliyode, correlation studies revealed that it was significant with positive correlation to relative humidity and a reverse relation existed with temperature and rainfall. the weather data clearly depicts that at a low rainfall of 96 mm and above average relative humidity of 80.27 per cent dur ing november-december wa s the congenial factor influencing the disease development. but during summer, decline in relative humidity (78.37%) and rainfall (63.13 mm) caused a slight reduction in mean per cent disease severity of 49.12 per cent a nd 33.6 per cent at chulliyode a nd ambalavayal, respectively. the correlation analysis that clearly depicted the major weather factors that influenced the spread of powdery mildew were low temperature, high relative humidity and sparse but less intense rainfall. this might be the one of the reason why powdery mildew was not noticed during the monsoon season. as a testimonial to the above conclusion, kumar et al. (2012) detailed weather parameters most congenial for powdery mildew which included high relative humidity (80-95%), moderate temperature (20-28oc) and low light intensity or shade. similarly, the results are in accordance with leah et al. (2012), who showed that the disease exhibited positive correlation with rh and negative with temperature. infected samples collected during the sampling survey were used to inoculate the powdery mass onto fresh healthy leaves whereby the symptoms appeared three weeks after inoculation. the development of symptom after inoculation was very slow due to obligate nature of the pathogen. dispersed white powdery growth was observed above the leaf lamina, thus confirmed the pathogenicity of the isolate. similarly, baiswar et al. (2010) confirmed the pathogenicity of the powdery mildew pathogen, podosphaera sp. in gerbera by dusting conidia on healthy plants 219 powdery mildew on gerbera in kerala symptoms of powdery mildew were found to be as similar as that observed in other crops. symptoms appeared as distinct white powdery mould on the upper surface of leaf lamina. these spots later enlarged to form white powdery mat which gradually turned pale yellow to brown (plate 1). it was observed that immature leaves were severely affected compared to mature ones leading to complete death of the plant. the description of powdery mildew symptom was in conformity with the findings put forth by other workers (ferronato et al., 2008; and rossman, 2009; baiswar et al. 2010 and troisi et al., 2010). morphological characterisation of the isolates revealed the existence of two distinct pathogens viz. , erysiphe sp. a nd podosphaera sp. light microscopy revealed the presence of hyaline, septate mycelia, globose oidia with irregular peripheral end formed in chains where the characters were similar to that of erysiphe sp. troisi et al (2010) from italy while studying etiology of powdery mildew in gerbera reported erysiphe cichoracearum as the causative agent. podosphaera sp. produced superficial, hyaline, coenocytic mycelium with oval or ellipsoidal, catenate plate 1. powdery mildew symptom conidia with dimension ranging from 22.21-30.18μm x 13. 36-18. 08μm for med in unbr a nched er ect conidiophor es wher e these cha r a cter s a r e in conformity with those reported by baiswar et al. (2010) where they deta iled the mor phologica l characters podosphaera sp. in gerbera jamesonii from india (plate 2 and plate 3). based on the host and morphological characteristics, the powdery mildew pa thogens wer e identified a s golovinomyces cichoracearum (pr eviously known a s erysiphe cichoracearum) and podosphaera species. plate 3. conidia of podosphaera sp.plate 2. conidia of golovinomyces cichoracearum j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 217-220, 2018 220 references baiswar, p., chandra, s., kumar, r. and ngachan, s. v. 2010. fir st r epor t of a na mor phic podosphaera on gerbera jamesonii in india. plant pathol. 59: 802. fa r r, d. f. a nd rossma n, a. y. 2009. phytophthoracryptogea. fungal databases, systematic botany and mycology laboratory, ars, usda. [online]. availa ble: http:// nt.arsgrin.gov/fungal databases/ [15 january 2016]. ferronato, m. l., neto, l., and tomaz, r. 2008. gerbera diseases in the state of parana, scientia agraria 9(4): 481-489. kumar, s., tomar, k. s., and shakywar, r. c. 2012. response of gerbera varieties against powdery mildew diseases under polyhouse condition. hort. flora. res. spectrum 1: 286-288. leah l. granke, l. l., layla, e. crawford, e., and mary, k., and hausbeck, m. k. 2012. factors a ffecting a ir bor ne concentr a tions of podosphaera xanthii conidia and severity of gerbera powdery mildew. hortscience 47(8): 1068–1072. narayansamy, p. 2011. microbial plant pathogendetection and diagnosis: fungal pathogens. springer, netherland, 291p. troisi, m., bertetti, d., garibaldi, a., and gullino, m. l. 2010. first report of powdery mildew caused by golovinomyces cichoracearum on gerbera (gerbera jamesonii) in italy. plant dis. 94(1): 130. warkentin, t. d., rashid, k. y., and zimmer, r. c. 1995. effectiveness of detached leaf assay for determination of the reaction of pea plants to powdery mildew. can. j. plant pathol. 17: 8789. (ms received 10 october 2017, revised 16 november 2018, accepted 04 december 2018) j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(2) : 217-220, 2018 praveen et al introduction auxinic herbicides (e.g., 2,4-d, dicamba and picloram) were the first synthetic herbicides discovered and have been in use for more than seven decades. these have been a favorite choice among growers worldwide as they selectively control broad-leaf weeds in cereal crops. owing to this, they are not recommended for use in commercially important dicot crops such as canola, radish or soybean. biotypes of some broad-leaf weeds such as kochia, yellow star thistle, and wild mustard, have evolved resistance to auxinic herbicides due to selection pressure. auxinic herbicide-resistant (r) wild mustard biotypes were found to be highly resistant to picloram and dicamba (104-fold) (heap and morrison, 1992). genetic analysis of wild mustard auxinic herbicide resistance suggests that the resistance is determined by a single dominant gene (jugulam et al, 2005; jasienuik et al, 1995). further, we recently reported identification of morphological and molecular markers linked transfer of auxinic herbicide resistance from wild mustard (sinapis arvensis) into radish (raphanus sativus) through embryo rescue j. mithila and j. christopher hall1 kansas state university, manhattan ks, usa, 66506 e-mail : mithila@k-state.edu abstract the discovery of auxinic herbicides (e.g., 2,4-d, dicamba, picloram) for selective control of broad-leaf weeds in cereal crops revolutionized modern agriculture. these herbicides are inexpensive and do not generally have prolonged residual activity in soil. although cultivated species of brassicaceae (e.g., radish and other vegetables) are susceptible to auxinic herbicides, some biotypes of wild mustard (sinapis arvensis, 2n = 18) were found to be highly resistant to picloram and dicamba. inter-generic hybrids between wild mustard and radish (raphanus sativus, 2n = 18) were produced by traditional breeding coupled with in vitro embryo rescue/ovule culture. to increase frequency of embryo regeneration and hybrid plant production, several hundred reciprocal crosses were performed between these species. upon altering cultural conditions and media composition, a high frequency of embryo regeneration and hybrid plant establishment was achieved. a protocol was also optimized for in vitro clonal multiplication of inter-generic hybrids produced by embryo rescue. to evaluate transfer of auxinic herbicide resistance from wild mustard into hybrid plants, several screening tests (involving in vitro, molecular-based as well as whole plant-based tests) were performed. results indicated that hybrids of r. sativus x s. arevensis were resistant to auxinic herbicides suggesting, that, the resistance trait was transferred to these hybrids from the wild mustard. this research for the first time demonstrates the possibility of transfer of auxinic herbicide resistance from wild mustard to radish. key words: auxinic herbicide,embryo rescue, radish, resistance, transfer, wild mustard to auxinic herbicide resistance in wild mustard (mithila et al, 2012). the family brassicaceae consists of a number of economically important species, including oilseed canola, and vegetable crops such as cabbage, cauliflower, radish and broccoli. this family also comprises an excellent reservoir of genes for many economically important traits and is extremely conducive to gene transfer techniques. radish is an important vegetable crop grown across the globe. transfer of agronomically desirable traits among brassica members, for example, between wild mustard and canola, has been previously reported (bing et al, 1995; inomata, 1988; momotaz et al, 1998). however, to our knowledge, there are no reports describing transfer of agronomically important traits from wild mustard to radish. in this research, we tested the feasibility of transfer of auxinic herbicide resistance from wild mustard to radish following both traditional breeding and embryo rescue methods. 1department of environmental biology, university of guelph, guelph, ontario, canada, n1g 2w1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):29-33, 2012 30 mithila and christopher hall material and methods raising wild mustard and radish parental plants to produce hybrids auxinic herbicide -r wild mustard and -susceptible (s) radish plants were raised from seed. seeds were sown in 6" plastic pots containing ‘promix’, and placed in a growth chamber with 16-h photoperiod and 22/15oc day/night temperature. light intensity and relative humidity were maintained at 350µmol.s-1m-2 and 65-75%, respectively. each pot contained one plant and the plants were irrigated when required and fertilized weekly with 20:20:20 (n:p:k). to confirm resistance to dicamba, wild mustard plants were treated with dicamba (banvel, basf, usa) at 200g ae/ ha at threeto four-leaf stage of development (procedure for dicamba application is described later; we used dicamba in all experiments in this research, because it is a widely used auxinic herbicide in agriculture for control of broadleaf weeds). all the plants survived dicamba treatment and were used for further experimentation. to produce hybrid plants between auxinic herbicide – r wild mustard and radish, reciprocal crosses were performed between these plants following the procedures described by jugulam et al (2005) for wild mustard. intergeneric hybrids failed to develop in vivo, as, the siliques (narrow, elongated seed-capsule) did not grow completely, i.e., it ceased growth before reaching maturity. therefore, an in vitro method was sought for completion of embryo maturation and plantlet formation. to achieve plantlet regeneration via embryo rescue, we followed two strategies. in the first approach, siliques from crosses between dicamba-r wild mustard and –s radish were harvested after ∼10-12 days of pollination. these siliques were disinfested with 70% ethanol for 1–2 min, followed by 20% commercial bleach (sodium hypochlorite, 5.25%) containing three to four drops of tween-20 for 15–20 min, and subsequently, rinsed four to five times with sterile deionized water. embryos/ ovules from the siliques were excised aseptically with forceps and scalpel for culture on petri dish containing 15 ml of one of the following two media: (a) ms (murashige and skoog, 1962) salts with gamborg vitamins, sucrose (3%), 500 mg/l casein hydrolysate, or, (b) ms salts with gamborg vitamins, sucrose (3%), 0.5 mg/l naa, 2.5 mg/l kinetin; ph of the media was adjusted to 5.8, and 8g of agar was added prior to autoclaving at 121oc for 20 min. in the second strategy, immature siliques were harvested 3-5 days post-pollination and surface-sterilized (as described above), followed by aseptic culture of the entire silique on medium a or b. the siliques were allowed to grow on the media for ∼ 2 weeks, after which ovules were excised out from the siliques and cultured in a petri dish containing fresh medium (a or b) for ovule maturation and regeneration into plantlets. all cultures were incubated in a growth room at 24oc under light (16-h photoperiod; 50µmol s-1 m-2) provided by cool, white fluorescent lamps (philips canada, scarborough, on). after four weeks of embryo/ovule culture, regenerated hybrid plantlets were transferred individually to ‘magenta’ boxes (300 ml plastic vessels, magenta corp., chicago il, usa) containing medium (c): ms salts with gamborg vitamins and sucrose (1.5%); ph of medium c was also adjusted to 5.8, and 8g of agar was added before autoclaving at 121oc for 20 min. at four weeks upon transfer to medium c, the hybrid plants produced well-developed root and shoot system. at this stage, these hybrid plants were clonally multiplied by sub-culturing nodal segments in magenta boxes containing medium c. in vitro hybrid plants with well-developed roots and shoots were transferred to soil (‘promix’) and grown in a growth room under the same conditions as described, earlier for wild mustard and radish parental plants. assessment of transfer of auxinic herbicide resistance into hybrids (i) in vitro assay: previously, mithila and hall (2005) developed an in vitro assay to assess sensitivity of plants (explants) to auxinic herbicides. we used this protocol for initial screening to identify hybrid plants possessing auxinic herbicide resistance. for this assay, about 50-60 seeds of wild mustard auxinic herbicide-r and –s radish were surface-sterilized with 80% alcohol for 2-3 minutes and, then, treated with 30% bleach containing a drop of tween-20, for 12-15 min. subsequently, the seeds were rinsed 4-5 times with sterile distilled water. sterilized seeds were cultured aseptically on medium c (described above) in magenta boxes. cultures were incubated in a growth room (under the same conditions as described above). after 6-7 weeks, stem segments of about 1 cm were excised aseptically using a scalpel from the seedlings of auxinic herbicide-r wild mustard and –s radish, as well as from clonally propagated hybrid plants, and cultured on medium (d) containing ms salts with gamborg vitamins, sucrose (3%) and various doses of dicamba or picloram (0, 1, 5 or 10m); ph of medium d was adjusted to 5.8, and 8g of agar was added before autoclaving at 121oc for 20 min. at 3-4 weeks from initial culture, response of stem segments to dicamba was recorded. j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):29-33, 2012 31 (ii) molecular assay: recently, we developed a genetic map describing aflp (amplified fragment length polymorphism) markers closely linked to auxinic herbicide resistance in wild mustard (mithila et al, 2012). the two closest flanking regions on either side of r locus were located at a distance of 1.58 and –6.35 map units. these dna markers were sequenced. to further assess transfer of auxinic herbicide resistance from wild mustard to radish, primers from the sequence of the closest marker (1.58 map units) were designed in the present stud (forward primer: ggccgcgagacattggtga and reverse primer: tctctcgtgaccctttacaattag) and synthesized. genomic dna was extracted from leaf tissue of hybrid plants as well as auxinic herbicide-r, -s wild mustard (auxinic herbicide-s wild mustard dna was used as a negative control) and –s radish using dneasy® plant mini (qiagen, mississauga, on, canada) following manufacturer’s protocol. using the above-described primers, a pcr (polymerase chain reaction)-based assay was performed for detecting presence or absence of the pcr product (∼ 220 bp length) that corresponded to the closest aflp marker. the following pcr conditions were used: initial denaturation at 94oc for 3 min, followed by 30 cycles at 94oc for 30 seconds, 56oc for 30 seconds and 72oc for 45 seconds, with a final extension at 72oc for 7 min. (iii) whole-plant based assay: whole-plant screening was performed to validate transfer of auxinic herbicide resistance from wild mustard into hybrid plants. in vitro grown hybrid plants were established in soil. auxinic herbicide-r wild mustard and –s radish plants were raised in a growth chamber as described earlier. seedlings were treated with dicamba (200g ae ha-1) at three-to-four leaf stage of development using a motorized hood-sprayer. the sprayer was equipped with a flat-fan nozzle (8002 e) and calibrated to deliver 200 l/ha at 276 kpa. one and two weeks after treatment, the seedlings were visually rated for injury. hybrid plants were classified as r or s by comparing the injury response with that in wild mustard auxinic herbicide-r and –s radish seedling response. susceptibility of the plants to dicamba was assessed based on symptoms of epinasty (downward curling of leaf and stem tissue) followed by death, whereas, r plants should show little or no response to dicamba. results and discussion inter-generic hybrids of radish and wild mustard failed to develop in vivo as the siliques were not able to grow completely, and ceased to develop ahead of maturity. among the two strategies followed to produce inter-generic hybrids in vitro, the second strategy yielded more number of regenerated embryos than in the first approach (table 1). there was no significant difference in the number of hybrids produced when embryos were cultured on medium a or b (table 1). these inter-generic hybrids exhibited several morphological traits of both parents (e.g., leaf shape, stem, plant height and flower colour, fig.1). clones of the hybrids were also successfully established in vitro by nodal cuttings. to our knowledge, this is the first report describing production of hybrids between wild mustard and radish via embryo rescue. sensitivity to auxinic herbicides results in excessive root growth in plant cultures in vitro (mithila and hall, 2005). in this study, after 3-4 weeks of initial culture of stem segments, excessive root formation was observed in dicmaba-s radish in response to 1, 5 or 10µm dicamba or picloram in the medium. conversely, wild mustard r segments did not show root formation even at 10µm dicamba or picloram (fig. 2). more importantly, stem segments for all hybrids produced via embryo rescue responded similarly to r wild mustard when treated with dicamba or picloram (fig. 2). these results suggest that d a b fig 1. hybrids produced by crossing auxinic herbicide-s r.-sativus and -r s. arvensis: a and b represent r. sativus and s. arvensis plants, respectively. c and d are the inter-generic hybrids produced by crossing r. sativus and s. arvensis and following embryo rescue technique (note the hybrid exhibiting characteristics intermediate between r. sativus and s. arvensis) intergeneric transfer of herbicide resistance to radish using embryo rescue j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):29-33, 2012 c 32 all the hybrids derived via embryo rescue from crosses (both direct and reciprocal) between radish (s) x wild mustard (r) were found not sensitive to dicamba or picloram. therefore, it appears that the r trait was transferred to the hybrids from r biotypes of the wild mustard. in addition, pcr results of molecular-based assay also demonstrated presence of a 220 bp fragment (representing the aflp marker closely-linked to auxinic herbicide resistance in wild mustard; mithila et al, 2012) in all the hybrids, and in dicamba-r wild mustard; whereas, dna of auxinic herbicide-s wild mustard and radish did not show this fragment (fig. 3). these results suggest that the dna fragment containing auxinic herbicide-resistance from wild mustard was probably transferred to r hybrids. results from whole-plant screening further confirmed dicamba resistance in the hybrids (fig. 4) since these displayed little or no epinasty, a response that was similar to that in r wild mustard plants; however, radish plants ceased to grow 2 weeks after treatment with dicamba (fig. 4). fig 2. response to dicamba (10µµµµµm) or picloram (10µµµµµm) of stem segments of auxinic herbicide-r s. arvensis, -s radish (r.-sativus) and their hybrids (r. sativus x s. arvensis) fig 3. pcr product (∼∼∼∼∼ 220 bp) amplified by primers corresponding to a closet aflp marker linked to dicamba resistance in wild mustard (mithila et al, 2012): lane 1: 100 bp ladder; 2: reaction without a template; 3, 5: wild mustard auxinic herbicide-r; 4, 6: wild mustard-s biotype; 7: radish; 8, 9: inter-generic auxinic herbicide-r hybrids fig 4. a-c: plants treated with dicamba (200g ae/ha) 7 days after treatment. a and c illustrate dicambas radish and -r wild mustard, respectively; b represents the hybrid plant between radish (s) x wild mustard (r) successful gene transfer from interspecific crosses using conventional plant breeding techniques involves several barriers, including (but not limited) to pollen-stigma incompatibility or sterility, embryo and endosperm imbalance, homologous chromosome pairing between the species, etc. in this research, we have demonstrated production of hydrids between two diploid species of brassicaceae, viz., s. arvensis and r. sativus. although both these species are diploid with 2n:18, genomes of these two species are different (mizusima,1980). success of interspecific hybridization among members of brassicaceae depends on genome compatibility as well as ploidy of the species table 1. hybrids produced by crossing auxinic herbicide-s r. sativus and -r s. arvensis: frequency of embryo regeneration and hybrid plant establishment upon direct and reciprocal crossing followed by in vitro culture and embryo rescue cross combination no. of buds no. of siliques no. of embryos no. of embryos no. of hybrids pollinated cultured excised germinated obtained strategy i 1. r. sativus x s. arvensis 100-150 ∼ 70 (a or b) 2 2 2. s. arvensis x r. sativus 100-150 ∼ 65 (a or b) 1 1 strategy ii 1. r. sativus x s. arvensis 150-200 ~ 125 ∼ 50 (a or b) 5 5 2. s. arvensis x r. sativus 150-200 ~ 110 ∼ 25 (a or b) 1 1 a: ms salts + gamborg vitamins (4.4. g/l) + 30 g sucrose/l + 500 mg/l casein hydrolysate (ph of the medium 5.8; agar 8 g/l) b: ms salts + gamborg vitmains (4.4 g/l) + 30g sucrose/l + 0.5mg/l naa + 2.5mg/l kinetin (ph of the medium 5.8; agar 8 g/l) mithila and christopher hall j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):29-33, 2012 33 (mizusima, 1950). based on cytogenetic analyses by mizusima (1980), it appears that at least one chromosome of s. arvensis can form a bivalent with r. sativus during meiosis. since all the hybrids produced via embry rescue in this research were found r to auxinic herbicides, the dicamba-r gene residing on s. arvensis chromosome may have formed a bivalent with r. sativus, thereby transferring dicamba resistance into radish. in conclusion, in we have shown for the first time, possibility of production of dicamba-r hybrids between r. sativus and s. arvensis. further experiments are required to test the possibility of introgressing auxinic herbicide resistance from hybrids into radish by repeated backcrossbreeding to develop radish varieties with desirable agronomic traits, along with auxinic herbicide resistance. this will allow selective removal of most broad-leaf weeds. further, development of auxinic herbicide resistant radish following transfer of resistance trait from related species by introgreesion breeding is a non-transgenic approach thus, allowing acceptance across the globe, including europe. acknowledgement financial support to jch from natural science and engineering research council of canada, and basf, nc, usa through nserc-crd grant, is gratefully acknowledged. references bing, d.j., downey, r.k. and rakow, f.w, 1995, an evaluation of the potential intergeneric gene transfer between brassica napus and sinapis arvensis. plant breed., 114:481-484 heap. i.m. and morrison. i.n. 1992, resistance to auxintype herbicides in wild mustard (sinapis arvensis l.) populations in western canada. annual meeting of weed science society of america. abstract # 32, p. 164 inomata, n.,1988. intergeneric hybridization between brassica napus and sinapis arvensis and their crossability. eucarpia cruciferae newslett., 13: 22-23 jasieniuk, m., morrison, i.n. and brule-babel, a.l.1995. inheritance of dicamba resistance in wild mustard (brassica kaber). weed sci., 43:192-195 jugulam, m., mclean, m.d. and hall, j.c.2005. inheritance of picloram and 2,4-d resistance in wild mustard (brassica kaber). weed sci., 53:417-423 mithila, j. and hall, j.c.2005. comparison of abp1 overexpressing arabidopsis and under-expressing tobacco with an auxinic herbicide-resistant wild mustard (brassica kaber) biotype. pl. sci., 169: 21-28 mithila, j. mclean, m.d., chen, s. and hall, j.c. 2012. development of near-isogenic lines and identification of markers linked to auxinic herbicide resistance in wild mustard (sinapis arvensis). pest mgt. sci., 68:548-556 mizushima, u. 1950 karyogenetic studies of species and genus hybrids in the tribe brassiceae of cruciferae. tohoku j. agril. res., i:1-14 mizushima, u. 1980 genome analysis in brassica and allied genera. in: tsunoda, t., hinata, k. and gomezcampo, g. (eds), brassica crops and wild allies, biology and breeding, pp. 89-106, japan scientific societies press, tokyo momotaz, a., kato, m. and kakihara, f.1998. production of intergeneric hybrids between brassica and sinapis species by means of embryo rescue techniques. euphytica, 103:123-130 (ms received 07 june 2012, revised 28 june, 2012) intergeneric transfer of herbicide resistance to radish using embryo rescue j. hortl. sci. vol. 7(1):29-33, 2012 development and performance of power-operated garlic bulb breaker b.b. channabasamma1, a. carolin rathinakumari*, g. senthil kumaran and p. dayananda section of agricultural engineering icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *e-mail: carolin@iihr.res.in abstract a power-operated garlic bulb breaker to separate cloves from whole-garlic-bulbs was developed, its operational parameters optimized and its performance evaluated. the garlic bulb breaker consisted of a feeding chute, two-stage padded rubber rollers, a blower, outlets for cloves and skins, a main frame, power and power transmission system. the garlic bulb breaker was evaluated using three types of rubber padding material viz., plain type, button type and corrugated type, with four levels of clearance between rubber rollers viz., 15, 18, 21 and 24mm, three levels of peripheral speed, viz., 259.2, 302.4 and 345.6 m/min. the machine displayed performance parameters in terms of breaking efficiency at 96%, per cent clumps of cloves 1.22, per cent clove damage 1.7, per cent clove loss 1.08, and bulb-breaking capacity of 780kg/h using corrugated padding material fitted at 18mm clearance and 259.4m/min peripheral speed. operating cost of the machine was rs. 0.06/kg against rs. 2.25/kg incurred with manual clove separation of cloves. key words: garlic bulb, garlic bulb breaker, power-operated, garlic processing machinery j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):57-62, 2016 introduction garlic (allium sativum) is one of the important bulb crops grown for use as a spice or condiment throughout india. as a culinary ingredient, it adds taste and flavour to a wide range of food preparations. garlic bulbs can be used not only to flavor curries, but, can also be used for making drinks and savouries. it is also used in its processed form, e.g., essential oil, powder, oil macerate, aged extract, paste, pickles etc. garlic is of higher nutritive value than other bulb crops. it is rich in proteins, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and carbohydrates. ascorbic acid content is very high in green garlic. garlic is processed to yield dehydrated products like flakes and powder: besides its use as pickles/paste, it is also canned and bottled. processed products of garlic are in demand in the local market for defense and fast food industries. garlic is also exported to exotic markets and earns valuable foreign exchange. garlic also has remarkable preventive and curative properties in health care as a digestive, carminative and anti-rheumatic. it is also used in formulations for curing lung ailments, healing intestinal ulcers and for checking muscular pain and giddiness. thus, there is a perpetual 1dept of applied engineering, vignan university, vadlamudi, guntur, andhra pradesh, india demand for garlic not only in india, but also around the world. garlic is thus an important foreign exchange earner for india. it is widely grown in different parts of the country by all categories of farmers. india produces about 3.5 per cent of the total world production, and is ranked second after china. garlic is grown in an area of 239,000 hectares in india, with production of 1.22 million tonnes and productivity of 5.69 tonnes/ha (anon., 2014). garlic bulbs are broken into garlic cloves which are then used in pickle and garlic-paste making. garlic cloves are also required as planting material. conventionally, garlic cloves are separated by rubbing the bulb between palms, against jute bags or by beating with a wooden stick. these methods are very laborious and time-consuming, often leading to physical injury to the hand (mudgal et al, 2009). a manually-operated garlic bulb breaker developed by mandhar et al (2005) consisted of one set of rollers, a feeding chute, a collection chute and handle for operating the roller. its bulb breaking capacity was 50kg/h. in view of an increased demand for garlic and its products 58 in domestic and export markets, a power-operated garlic bulb breaker was developed by us and evaluated for its performance. material and methods development of power-operated garlic bulb breaker conventionally, the separation of garlic cloves from the compound bulb of garlic is carried out by shearing and by use of impact forces. based on this principle, a garlic bulb breaker was developed. the garlic bulb breaker consisted of a feed hopper, cloves separating rollers, a blower, outlets for separated garlic cloves and skin, root and stem fractions, power and power transmission systems (fig. 1). a rectangular feeding chute measuring 820 x 560 mm was provided above the rollers for feeding the garlic bulbs. two rollers each of 500mm length and 275mm diameter were selected for higher capacity. materials used and dimensions of various parts of the garlic bulb breaker are presented in table 1. the rollers were made to rotate in opposite directions at different speeds to achieve shearing force required for separation of the cloves. top surfaces of the rollers were covered with rubber padding material to prevent any damage to the cloves. a straight-blade type blower with a blade of 62mm width and 335mm diameter was selected for cleaning the material passing through the rollers (sahay and singh, 1994). a three-phase, 1.5kw, 1440rpm ac electrical motor was used as the prime mover for operating various units of the machine. power was transmitted by the belt and pulley arrangement to the roller and blower. all the above components were fitted with necessary supports, and, fittings on a main frame were fabricated out of m.s. angle section of 40×40×6mm. overall dimensions of the frame were 925mm length, 770mm width and 1030mm height. four swivel-type caster wheels 150mm in diameter were provided for easy mobility of the machine. experimental technique experiments were conducted to optimize the clearance between the rollers and peripheral speed of rollers at different rubber padding materials. three types of rubber padding material, viz., plain, button and corrugated type were used in the study (fig. 2). as the mean geometric diameter of bulb was 45.69±0.85mm, clearance between the rollers was varied as 15, 18, 21 and 24mm. one of the rollers was fitted in the groove to create required clearance. different peripheral speeds selected were 259.2, 302.4 and 345.6m/min for the faster roller (mudgal, 2009). peripheral speeds were varied by changing the size of the driven pulley. speed ratio between rollers was 2:5. table 1. broad dimensions of major components and material used in their construction s. no. part dimension (mm) material /section garlic bulb breaker 1. feed hopper – rectangular shape l820; w560; h240 mild-steel sheet 1mm thick 2. bulb-breaking rollers i) 1st stage rollers od275; l500 ii) 2nd stage rollers od125; l500 mild-steel pipe 10mm thick;mild-steel pipe 6mm thick 3. rubber padding material: l870; w500 thickness of rubber material 4mm;type – epdm; i) plain type hardness – shore 70a ii) button type iii) corrugated type 4. main frame l925; w770; h1030 mild-steel angle size 40×40×6 mm 5. casing (inlet, outlet and blower) l7530; w1780 mild-steel sheet 1mm thick fig 1. power-operated garlic bulb breaker channabasamma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):57-62, 2016 59 garlic bulbs were procured from a local market. a sample of 500g was used in each trial. the compound bulbs were fed into the rollers through a feeding chute. time taken by the garlic bulbs to pass through the rollers was noted. material from both the outlets was collected and separated into different fractions (viz., single-cloves separated, clumps of cloves, damaged cloves, and light-weight fractions, i.e., skin, root and stem). each trial was replicated thrice. the following, standard formulae were used for determining performance parameters, viz., breaking efficiency, per cent clumps of cloves, per cent clove damage, per cent cloves lost and breaking capacity: results on performance of the machine under different treatments for garlic bulb breaking were analyzed using fischer’s factorial completely randomized design with 3 replications, using the statistical package “agres”. mean value of the observation was subjected to two-way anova and significance of the means was put to f-test at p=0.05. based on maximum breaking efficiency, minimum per cent clove damage, per cent clumps of clove and maximum breaking capacity, padding material, clearance between rollers and peripheral speed of the rollers was selected. to further increase garlic bulb breaking efficiency, second stage rollers were fitted just below the first stage rollers. as the second stage rollers had to pass singles cloves, clumps of cloves, and light weight fractions, the diameter was selected was 125mm, while, clearance between rollers was maintained as 10 to 12mm. speed ratios between the first and second stage rollers was 1:2. first and second stage rollers were covered with the selected padding material. clearance between first stage rollers was adjusted to the clearance selected and the machine was operated at a selected peripheral speed. the blower was mounted. fractions other than the cloves, i.e. skin, root and stem were separated by the blower and collected in their respective outlet. performance of the garlic bulb breaker for breaking efficiency, per cent clumps of cloves, per cent clove damage and breaking capacity was calculated using the above-mentioned formulae. in addition to these performance parameters, per cent clove loss was estimated using the formula given below: fig 2. types of rubber padding material used development and performance of power-operated garlic bulb breaker j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):57-62, 2016 weight of clumped cloves (three cloves or more) collected in the main outlet (kg) (total input weight – weight of chaff collected in the chaff outlet) (kg) per cent clumps of = cloves x 100 ——— (2) weight of damaged cloves collected at main outlet (kg) (total input weight – weight of chaff collected in the chaff outlet) (kg) per cent clove = damage x 100 ——— (3) garlic bulb breaking = efficiency weight of single-cloves separated & collected in the main outlet (kg) (total input weight – weight of chaff collected in the chaff outlet) (kg) x 100 ——— (1) per cent clove loss = weight of cloves collected at the chaff outlet, kg (total input weight – weight of chaff collected in the chaff outlet) (kg) x 100 —— (5) total input weight (kg) time taken to break the bulbs (h) breaking capacity = ——— (4) 60 results and discussion performance of the garlic bulb breaker with three different types of rubber padding material, viz., plain-plain, button-button and corrugated types at four clearances between the rollers of 15, 18, 21 and 24mm, and three peripheral speeds of the rollers (259.2, 302.4, 345.6m/min.) was evaluated. performance parameters of the garlic bulb breaker in terms of breaking efficiency, per cent clumps of cloves, per cent damaged cloves and breaking capacity were estimated. optimized parameters were selected as explained, and are discussed below. garlic bulb separation efficiency from table 2, it was inferred that the type of padding material and clearance between the rollers had significant effect and the peripheral speed of rollers did not have effect on the clove separation efficiency. the maximum clove separation efficiency of 89.17 per cent was obtained with corrugated-type padding material at 18mm clearance between rollers at 259.2m/min. separation efficiency of 89.17 per cent was obtained using a single set of rollers. in order to increase the garlic bulb breaking efficiency, the second stage roller was mounted beneath the existing rollers. width and thickness of the cloves was: 10.18±0.35mm and 7.42±0.24mm, respectively, a clearance of 10mm was provided between the second stage rollers. as maximum separation efficiency was obtained with use of corrugated rubber padding material, the second stage rollers were also provided with corrugated rubber padding material. per cent clumps of cloves from table 3, it is inferred that type of padding material and clearance between rollers had a significant effect on per cent clumps of garlic formed. however, peripheral speed of the rollers did not have any effect on per cent clumps of cloves formed. corrugated-type padding material at 18mm clearance resulted in minimum (0.74) per cent clumps of cloves at a peripheral speed of 302.4m/min. per cent damaged cloves from table 4, it is inferred that type of padding material, clearance between rollers and peripheral speed of rollers had a significant effect on per cent damaged cloves. per cent of cloves damaged were least with corrugated-type rubber padding material, and is the range of 0.9 to 3.10 per table 3. effect of type of padding material, clearance between rollers and peripheral speed of rollers on per cent clumps of cloves formed type of padding clearance peripheral speed (m/min) material between 259.2 302.4 345.6 rollers (mm) plain rubber material 15 18.10 9.82 10.36 18 18.27 19.22 19.00 21 25.14 26.65 26.04 24 33.76 41.93 33.73 buttoned rubber material 15 2.10 4.78 8.83 18 11.44 6.89 8.75 21 17.00 33.86 19.90 24 27.22 30.39 29.93 corrugated rubber material 15 21.75 33.18 21.73 18 11.73 0.74 19.50 21 10.97 6.51 10.14 24 27.78 15.59 13.27 f – value sem cd (p=0.01) p ** 1.16 3.95 c ** 1.34 4.56 s ns 1.16 — pc ** 2.32 7.89 cs ns 2.32 — ps ns 2.02 — pcs ns 4.04 — **significant at 1 per cent level table 2. effect of rubber padding material, clearance and roller peripheral speed on breaking efficiency type of padding clearance peripheral speed (s) (m/min) material (p) between 259.2 302.4 345.6 rollers (c) (mm) plain rubber material 15 71.80 84.21 70.34 18 74.41 75.40 69.00 21 68.45 70.65 68.56 24 63.37 55.92 64.79 buttoned rubber material 15 91.28 90.25 82.38 18 81.38 89.33 85.78 21 78.00 55.72 75.50 24 58.50 62.87 65.47 corrugated rubber material 15 75.38 60.09 64.69 18 89.17 88.06 65.37 21 86.15 91.77 86.76 24 71.32 82.18 84.40 f – value sem cd (p=0.01) p ** 1.24 4.28 c ** 1.43 4.94 s ns 1.24 pc ** 2.48 8.56 cs ns 2.48 ps ns 2.14 pcs ** 4.3 14.82 **significant at 1 per cent level channabasamma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):57-62, 2016 61 cent. this low range was obtained at 21 and 24mm clearance and 259.2 and 345.6m/min peripheral speed of rollers, and these were on par. however, 2.87 per cent clove damage was observed with corrugated rubber padding material at 18mm clearance and 259.2m/min peripheral speed. maximum (37.02) per cent cloves got crushed with plaintype rubber padding material at 15mm clearance and 259.2m/min peripheral speed. garlic bulb breaking capacity from table 5, it is inferred that type of padding material, clearance between rollers and peripheral speed of rollers had a significant effect on garlic bulb breaking capacity. highest capacity was obtained with corrugatedtype rubber padding material and was in the range of 622.92 – 825.03kg/h. it was also observed that the capacity increased with increase in clearance and peripheral speed. plain-type padding material gave the lowest capacity of 469.30kg/h at 15mm clearance and 259.2m/min. this variation in capacity among padding materials may be due the characteristics of the padding material. as the corrugated-type padding material behaved like a conveyor, it carried the garlic bulbs positively for further separation, thus leading to highest garlic bulb breaking capacity. selection of optimized parameters from the above discussion, it is observed that: a. maximum garlic bulb breaking efficiency (89.17 per cent) was obtained with corrugated-type rubber padding material at 18mm clearance and 259.2m/ min peripheral speed b. minimum per cent of clumps of cloves formed (0.74) was obtained with corrugated-type rubber padding material at 18mm clearance and 302.4m/min peripheral speed c. minimum per cent of damage of cloves (0.9) was obtained with corrugated-type rubber padding material at 24mm clearance and 259.2m/min peripheral speed d. maximum garlic bulb breaking capacity (825.03kg/ h) was obtained with corrugated-type rubber padding material at 24mm clearance and 345.6m/min peripheral speed of all the padding materials used, corrugated-type padding material resulted in the best performance. as for clearance between rollers, minimum per cent of damage of table 5. effect of rubber padding material, clearance and roller peripheral speed on breaking capacity type of padding clearance peripheral speed (s) (m/min) material (p) between rollers 259.2 302.4 345.6 (c) (mm) plain rubber material 15 469.3 500.68 592.54 18 495.93 553.79 577.34 21 536.25 581.43 592.54 24 510.95 494.48 582.67 buttoned rubber material 15 488.08 568.12 524.15 18 511.52 581.43 559.11 21 510.95 527.91 577.94 24 536.25 536.25 536.25 corrugated rubber material 15 622.92 638.29 697.00 18 639.92 649.27 732.82 21 652.92 678.01 790.42 24 694.92 697.00 825.03 f – value sem cd (p=0.05) p ** 5.18 17.56 c ** 6.00 20.28 s ** 5.18 17.56 pc * 10.36 35.12 cs * 10.36 35.12 ps ** 9.00 30.42 pcs ** 18.00 60.83 *significant at 5 per cent level; **significant at 1 per cent level table 4. effect of type of padding material, clearance between rollers and peripheral speed of rollers on per cent damaged cloves type of padding clearance peripheral speed (m/min) material between 259.2 302.4 345.6 rollers (mm) plain rubber material 15 10.10 5.97 19.30 18 7.32 5.38 12.00 21 6.41 2.70 5.40 24 2.87 2.15 1.48 buttoned rubber material 15 6.62 4.97 8.79 18 7.18 3.78 5.47 21 5.00 10.42 4.60 24 14.28 6.74 4.60 corrugated rubber material 15 2.87 6.73 13.58 18 2.10 11.20 15.13 21 2.88 1.72 3.10 24 0.90 2.23 2.33 f – value sem cd (p=0.05 / p=0.01) p ** 0.58 1.95 c ** 0.76 2.25 s ** 0.58 1.95 pc ** 1.15 3.90 cs ** 1.15 3.90 ps ** 1.00 3.38 pcs ** 1.99 6.75 **significant at 1 per cent level development and performance of power-operated garlic bulb breaker j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):57-62, 2016 62 cloves and maximum garlic bulb breaking capacity was obtained at 24mm clearance. however, garlic bulb breaking efficiency was low (71.32 to 84.40 per cent) at 24mm clearance between rollers which is an important machineparameter. minimum per cent of damaged cloves and maximum garlic bulb breaking capacity was 2.14 and 732.82kg/h, respectively, at 18mm clearance. in the case of peripheral speed of rollers, no significant effect was seen on performance-parameters. thus, corrugated rubber as padding material at 18mm clearance between rollers and 259.2m/min peripheral speed of rollers was found to be optimal for obtaining maximum efficiency. evaluation of performance of garlic bulb breaker with optimized operational parameters the garlic bulb breaker developed with optimized operational parameters was evaluated for performance. the garlic bulb breaker had 96 per cent clove separation efficiency, 1.22 per cent clumps of clove formation, 1.7 per cent clove damage, 1.08 per cent clove loss and 780kg/h bulb breaking capacity. these values are very similar to the performance of garlic bulb breaker developed by mudgal (2009). conclusion a power-operated garlic bulb breaker with two stages of garlic bulb breaking rollers was developed for separating garlic cloves from the compound garlic bulb. experiments were laid out to optimize the design and operational parameters of the machine using three types of roller padding material (plain-plain, button-button and corrugatedcorrugated), at four clearances between the first stage rollers (15, 18, 21 and 24mm) and at three roller peripheral speeds (259.2, 302.4 and 345.6m/min). corrugated-type padding material at 259.4m/min peripheral speed gave percent cloves at 1.22, per cent clove damage 1.7, per cent clove loss 1.08 per cent and bulb breaking capacity 780kg/h. cost of operation was found to be rs. 0.06 per kg against rs. 2.25 per kg by the manual method of clove separation. acknowledgement the authors thank director, iihr, hesaraghatta, bengaluru, for providing facilities for carrying out the research work. references anonymous. 2014. indian horticulture database. national horticulture board, ministry of agriculture, government of india, delhi mandhar, s.c., carolin rathinakumari, a. and senthil kumaran, g. 2005. design and development of a hand-operated garlic bulb breaker and garlic peeler. j. all india food processors’ assoc., 59:76-81 mudgal, v.d. and sahay, s.b. 2009. development and performance evaluation of a garlic bulb breaker. j. agril. mechanization in asia, africa and latin america, 40:32-35 sahay, k.m. and singh, k.k. 1994. in: unit operations of agricultural processing. vikas publishing house pvt. ltd., new delhi, pp. 42-54 channabasamma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):57-62, 2016 (ms received 24 august 2015, revised 26 november 2015, accepted 29 december 2015) bitter gourd, being an important vegetable crop of the gourd family, is a highly cross-pollinated crop and its monoecious sex though governed by genetics, is highly influenced by soil and environmental factors. therefore, the precise knowledge of combining ability and gene action responsible for yield and yield components is a pre-requisite for launching a successful crop improvement programme. hybrids will be very easy to commercialise in bitter gourd due to its high seed content and easy seed extraction technique. accordingly, the present investigation is oriented to gain further knowledge on the genetic aspect of yield and its component in bitter gourd for commercial exploitation of heterosis. the line x tester analysis have been proved to be very successful biometrical tool to study the improvement. the experiment was conducted at vegetable research farm, department of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute-deemed university during the year 2003-2005. evaluation and selection of germplasm were done during kharif season of 2003. among all the genotypes ten best parents were selected for the study. six lines [(mc-84 (l 1 ), s-17 (l 2 ), jmc-21 (l 3 ), ndbt-15 (l 4 ), vrbt-94 (l 5 ) and gy-1 (l 6 ) ] and four testers [vrbt-6-9 (t 1 ), jmc22 (t 2 ), vrbt-89 (t 3 ) and mc-56 (t 4 )] were crossed to short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 170-173, 2009 heterosis in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) murlee yadav, rashmi chaudhary and d. b. singh department of horticulture allahabad agricultural institute deemed university allahabad – 211 007, india e-mail : murli_y@yahoo.co.in abstract the present investigation was conducted to determine heterosis in 6 lines and 4 tester crosses of bitter gourd, where the six lines used were mc-84 (l 1 ), s-17 (l 2 ), jmc-21 (l 3 ), ndbt-15(l 4 ), vrbt-94 (l 5 ) and gy-1 (l 6 ) and the four testers were vrbt-6-9 (t 1 ), jmc-22 (t 2 ), vrbt-89 (t 3 ) and mc-56 (t 4 ). most of the crosses failed to manifest significant heterosis for many of the horticultural traits but traits, like vine length and fruit length showed positive significant heterosis, while, days to first appearance of female flower manifested negative significant heterosis in several crosses. two crosses, namely, mc-84 x vrbt-6-9 and mc-84 x jmc-22 were identified to have potential in terms of yield, whereas two more crosses viz., s-17 x vrbt-6-9 and s-17 x jmc-22 were found superior in terms of powdery mildew resistance. key words : bitter gourd, heterosis get 24 f 1 hybrid combinations (kempthorne, 1957) during the kharif season of 2004. these 24 f 1 hybrids were grown and evaluated in the kharif season of 2005 in a randomised block design with three replications. each plant was grown at 1 x 1.5 m2 spacing. observations were recorded on five randomly selected competitive plants for vine length (cm), number of primary branches vine-1, number of nodes vine-1, internodal length (cm), days to first appearance of female flower, days to appearance of male flower, first effective node, fruit length (cm), fruit width (cm), fruit weight (g), number of fruits vine-1, number of fruits plot-1, yield plant-1, yield plot-1 and yield (q/ha). powdery mildew infestation was measured by following the scale given by narasinghani and tiwari (1995). heterosis was estimated for all the characters over better parent (bp) and mid parent (mp). the results are presented in table 1 to 5. the heterobeltiosis and mean heterosis of two best crosses ranged from 41.93 (l 2 x t 4 ) to 35.25% (l 1 x t 1 ) and 9.86 (l 2 x t 4 ) to 5.03% (l 1 x t 1 ) for yield (q/ha), 39.91 (l 1 x t 3 ) to 36.01% (l 1 x t 1 ) and 5.62 (l 1 x t 1 ) to 2.20% (l 5 x t 1 ) for yield plot-1, 48.62 (l 1 x t 3 ) to 58.51% (l 1 x t 1 ) and 34.75 (l 1 x t 4 ) to 23.10% (l 1 x t 1 ) for yield vine-1, 56.22 (l 6 x t 3 ) to 63.95% (l 6 x t 2 ) and 18.73 (l 6 x t 3 ) to 23.00% (l 6 x t 4 ) for number of fruits per plot, 56.22(l 6 x t 3 ) to 171 69.77% (l 6 x t 2 ) and 31.30 (l 5 x t 4 ) to 26.32% (l 1 x t 4 ), for number of fruits per vine respectively. kushwaha and ram (2002) reported two potential crosses for heterosis breeding based on better parent heterosis ranging from –24.04 to 50.25 and 44.50 to 77.98% over the season for number of fruits plant-1 and for yield plant-1 in bottle gourd. singh and kumar (2002) also reported similar results in bitter gourd for number of fruits plant-1. in contrast to our findings, sirohi et al (1985) recorded 115% higher yield plant-1 in the best f 1 hybrids over the commercial cultivar pspl. however, heterobeltiosis of two best crosses varied from 15.12 (l 2 x t 1 ) to 20.76% (l3 x t 1 ), 39.53 (l 1 x t 1 ) to 31.62% (l 1 x t 2 ), 82.68 (l 6 x t 2 ) to 88.57% (l 2 x t 4 ) and mean heterosis 37.57 (l 1 x t 4 ) to 31.79% (l 5 x t 4 ), 24.19 (l 3 x t 3 ) to 23.88% (l 6 x t 4 ), 2.02 (l 6 x t 1 ) to 7.42% (l 1 x t 1 ) for fruit length, fruit width and fruit weight, respectively. similar results were reported by kushwaha and ram (2002) in bottle gourd, sirohi et al (1978) in bitter gourd for fruit length. significant heterosis over better parent and standard check was observed particularly for fruit weight, fruit length and fruit diameter by singh and kumar (2002) in bitter gourd. table 1. estimates of heterobeltiosis and mean heterosis (%) for various traits in bitter gourd cross vine lngth no. of primary branches/vine no. of nodes internodal length bp m p bp m p bp m p bp m p l 1 x t 1 0.62 13.15* 28.47 8.82 -12.62* -15.12* -7.33 -2.46 l 1 x t 2 -6.15* 18.68* 25.40 -1.86 -12.30* -19.55* -3.35 -1.77 l 1 x t 3 -4.06* 29.81* 22.13 -6.29 -10.24* -33.53* -9.33 -1.09 l 1 x t 4 -4.92* 21.41* 13.79 -15.38 -6.52* -29.12* -16.98* -7.43 l 2 x t 1 -0.95 9.86* 7.64 -6.06 -2.96 -3.19* 1.45 11.60 l 2 x t 2 -2.86 21.43* 21.43 -1.92 1.64 -3.63* 8.30 11.69 l 2 x t 3 -6.35* 25.43* 7.38 -10.94 12.20* -13.64* 6.78 11.42 l 2 x t 4 -6.67* 17.84* -9.48 -30.46 13.77* -7.92* 0.00 6.78 l 3 x t 1 -16.21* -6.40* 0.00 -4.00 6.00* 4.95* 4.11 18.98* l 3 x t 2 -0.50 2.31 293.65* 251.77* 9.02* 4.18* 12.28 20.66* l 3 x t 3 -4.50 7.48* -3.28 -15.11 22.44* -4.89* 16.44 16.44 l 3 x t 4 -6.00* -2.08 -6.03 -19.85 23.91* 1.18 7.51 10.14 l 4 x t 1 -13.83* -3.54 -11.11 -11.72 27.73* -1.51 -24.05* -12.19 l 4 x t 2 -1.01 1.55 -3.17 -10.29 16.02* -4.50* -17.30* -10.00 l 4 x t 3 -2.51 9.48 -7.38 -15.67 -16.93* -17.25* -10.49 -9.26 l 4 x t 4 -19.76* 3.81 -11.21 -21.37 -5.08 -8.65* -15.87 14.97* l 5 x t 1 -3.17 -6.67* 3.52 2.80 31.40* -2.15 -12.33 0.19 l 5 x t 2 -1.65 -1.35 3.17 -2.99 21.90* -2.96 -5.89 1.13 l 5 x t 3 -0.54 6.11 1.64 -6.06 -14.41* -16.48* 3.39 3.39 l 5 x t 4 -24.51* 0.00 -1.72 -11.63 -1.24 -7.72 -6.40 -4.12 l 6 x t 1 -11.64* -8.31* 5.80 3.55 45.26* -0.65 -34.34* -21.92* l 6 x t 2 -1.59 -5.28 -1.54 -6.06 33.96* -1.73 -26.92* -18.02* l 6 x t 3 -9.13* 0.94 0.00 -6.15 -9.91* -18.03* -18.54* -15.08* l 6 x t 4 2.20 -3.80 1.72 -7.09 7.55* -6.56* -22.42* -20.62* s. em. (±) 0.10 0.93 0.15 0.13 0.12 0.10 0.52 0.45 * significant at 5% level table 2. estimates of heterobeltiosis and mean heterosis (%) for various traints in bitter gourd crosses days to days to first appearance of appearance of effective first male flower first female flower node bp m p bp m p bp m p l 1 x t 1 -3.85 1.74 -23.00* -17.65* -15.52 8.89 l 1 x t 2 3.98 8.28* -19.50* -14.36* -10.34 8.33 l 1 x t 3 -7.43* 2.75 -14.50* -14.50* -25.00* -11.27 l 1 x t 4 0.00 9.50* -10.68* -9.36* -26.67* -10.81 l 2 x t 1 -1.65 -0.56 -14.85* -8.51* -10.48 42.31* l 2 x t 2 6.74* 7.34 -12.87* -6.88* -7.26 41.98* l 2 x t 3 -4.95* 1.05 -10.85* -10.45* -4.84 13.46* l 2 x t 4 3.57 8.56* -9.22* -8.33* -2.42 13.08* l 3 x t 1 -2.15 -1.09 -14.29* -6.25* -21.15 -2.38 l 3 x t 2 8.60* 11.60* -14.76* -7.25* -21.15 -8.89 l 3 x t 3 -1.98 2.06 -14.25* -12.20* -41.67* -27.94* l 3 x t 4 2.55 5.24* -13.33* -12.50* -38.89* -22.54* l 4 x t 1 6.91* 8.65* -12.96* -5.24* -6.94 28.85* l 4 x t 2 8.51* 12.09* -11.54* -4.17 -2.78 27.27* l 4 x t 3 1.98 5.64* -9.62* -7.84 -11.90 -5.13 l 4 x t 4 6.12* 8.33* -8.65* -8.21 -14.40 -4.94 l 5 x t 1 -1.92 4.62* -13.08* -4.12 -16.18 14.00 l 5 x t 2 -0.98 7.81* -6.07* 3.08 -4.41 22.64 l 5 x t 3 0.56 2.44 -6.07* -2.90 -19.05* -10.53 l 5 x t 4 0.96 3.91* -5.61* -3.81 -15.56 -38.00 l 6 x t 1 -100* -2.22 -0.56 -23.21 -2.27 l 6 x t 2 -100* -3.33 -2.25 -16.07 0.00 l 6 x t 3 -100* -9.50* -4.74 -33.33* -20.00* l 6 x t 4 -100'* -12.62* -6.71* -33.33* -17.81 s. em. (±) 0.77 0.67 0.96 0.83 0.13 0.11 * significant at 5% level j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 170-173, 2009 heterosis in bitter gourd 172 table 3. estimates of heterobeltiosis and mean heterosis (%) for various traits in bitter gourd cross fruit length fruit width fruit weight (g) no. of fruits/ vine bp m p bp m p bp m p bp m p l 1 x t 1 11.63 -8.13 39.53* 17.14* 31.30 7.42 -3.51 -6.78 l 1 x t 2 2.03 -23.35* 31.62* 1.00 5.28 1.07 22.91 1.54 l 1 x t 3 -13.10* -29.47* 6.10 -13.38 15.61 -2.37 2.22 -12.21 l 1 x t 4 -10.61 -37.57* 14.71 -16.52* 46.00 -9.56 -19.67 -26.32* l 2 x t 1 15.12* -1.00 -19.77 3.65 42.78* -3.02 22.37 -2.11 l 2 x t 2 9.46 -13.83* -20.77 -4.81 18.06 -3.95 -6.58 -12.35 l 2 x t 3 9.29 -7.27 6.10 -10.71 21.05 -14.81 -22.37 -28.92 l 2 x t 4 -6.06 -31.11* 13.24 -14.92 88.57* -5.71 10.53 -23.64* l 3 x t 1 20.76* 4.87 -6.98 -6.98 19.63 -0.62 14.13 1.94 l 3 x t 2 4.52 -1.43 -6.76 -13.75 2.50 -0.27 -5.81 -8.99 l 3 x t 3 9.09 -4.00 -22.39* -24.19* 7.37 -7.97 -21.11 -21.98 l 3 x t 4 1.52 1.52 -12.06 -22.34'* 40.00 -11.71 -20.65 -38.14 l 4 x t 1 -9.52 -10.59 0.51 -0.64 37.96* -0.67 18.06 -8.60 l 4 x t 2 -19.05* -24.18* -4.59 -12.84 14.72 -1.67 -8.33 -16.46 l 4 x t 3 -25.48* -25.48* -2.44 -5.88 29.82 -3.27 -18.60 -27.16 l 4 x t 4 -15.15 -25.33* 0.88 -13.59 71.43* -8.40 13.89 -24.07* l 5 x t 1 -22.35* -22.81* -2.33 -2.33 20.00 -3.28 1.16 -13.00 l 5 x t 2 -20.95* -26.42* -2.86 -10.15 -0.83 -6.05 -17.44 -17.44 l 5 x t 3 -30.95* -31.36* -14.05 -16.10 9.65 -8.76 -13.95 -15.91 l 5 x t 4 -21.97* -31.79* -10.29 -20.78* 41.71 -13.74 -8.14 -31.30* l 6 x t 1 -1.52 -14.47* 10.30 -4.12 59.45 2.02 45.61* -10.27 l 6 x t 2 -19.70* -24.29* -8.42 -13.66 82.68* -4.72 69.77* -14.62 l 6 x t 3 -21.21* -30.67* 7.39 -4.22 40.94 -13.11 56.22* -18.73* l 6 x t 4 -29.70* -20.7* -22.73 23.88* 31.50 -13.25 6.94 -23.00* s. em. (±) 0.89 0.77 0.72 0.62 0.14 0.12 0.24 0.21 * significant at 5% level table 4. estimates of heterobeltiosis and mean heterosis (%) for various traits in bitter gourd cross no. of fruits/ plot yield/ vine yield/ plot yield bp m p bp m p bp m p bp m p l 1 x t 1 -3.51 -6.78 58.51* 23.10 36.01* 5.62 35.25* 5.03 l 1 x t 2 22.79 1.54 34.77 4.41 30.16 0.84 30.24 0.90 l 1 x t 3 2.22 -13.21 48.62* 4.43 39.91* -1.69 37.22 -3.58 l 1 x t 4 -19.67* -26.32* -4.55 -34.75* 36.36 -6.79 38.29 -5.97 l 2 x t 1 22.37 -2.11 36.99* 19.35 14.09 -0.60 12.26 -2.19 l 2 x t 2 -6.58 -12.35 23.58* 7.43 12.97 -1.79 9.78 -4.56 l 2 x t 3 -22.37 -28.92 43.35 13.84 17.49 -6.69 15.94 -7.92 l 2 x t 4 10.53 -23.64* 28.95 -0.19 5.56 -18.29 41.43 9.86 l 3 x t 1 14.13 1.94 6.85 -0.36 2.98 -3.97 1.64 -5.22 l 3 x t 2 -5.81 -8.99 -4.72 -11.33 3.00 -4.16 1.67 -5.39 l 3 x t 3 -21.11 -21.98 8.49 -7.35 0.24 -14.35 1.84 -13.02 l 3 x t 4 -20.65 -38.14* -1.44 -17.85 0.78 -16.00 1.88 -15.08 l 4 x t 1 18.06 -8.60 8.81 3.25 3.77 -1.53 7.82 2.31 l 4 x t 2 -8.33 -16.46 1.38 -4.00 -1.77 -6.98 2.01 -3.40 l 4 x t 3 -4.17 -14.81 9.40 -4.79 8.37 -5.69 -1.26 -14.70 l 4 x t 4 13.89 -24.07* -10.29 -23.78 5.86 -10.06 5.28 -10.55 l 5 x t 1 1.16 -13.00 11.55 6.54 7.00 2.20 2.64 -1.98 l 5 x t 2 -17.44 -17.44 4.52 -0.37 6.29 1.31 1.87 -2.90 l 5 x t 3 -13.95 -15.91 8.94 -4.52 8.08 -5.28 4.59 -8.34 l 5 x t 4 -8.14 -31.30* 9.81 -6.04 10.05 -5.83 2.91 -11.94 l 6 x t 1 45.61* -10.27 8.61 5.31 4.21 1.04 6.07 2.85 l 6 x t 2 63.95* -17.54* 0.59 -2.66 2.75 -0.57 2.45 -0.86 l 6 x t 3 56.22* -18.73* 5.50 -6.03 4.64 -6.79 3.32 -7.97 l 6 x t 4 6.94 -23.00* 7.66 -6.35 3.77 -9.73 0.48 -12.59 s. em. (±) 0.10 0.87 0.30 0.267 0.13 0.11 0.23 0.20 * significant at 5% level murlee yadav et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 170-173, 2009 173 table 5. estimates of heterobeltiosis and mean heterosis (%) for various traits in bitter gourd cross vitamin c powdery mildew content infestation bp m p bp m p l 1 x t 1 1.16 -1.13 -12.12 27.01* l 1 x t 2 6.56* -0.72 -23.23* 4.11 l 1 x t 3 32.97* 9.75* -12.12* 15.23* l 1 x t 4 0.34 0.19 -6.06 14.81* l 2 x t 1 14.86* -18.85* -20.00* 8.47 l 2 x t 2 22.3* -18.65* -10.00 13.39 l 2 x t 3 8.11 -3.03 -5.00 15.15* l 2 x t 4 16.22* -15.27* -2.50 9.09 l 3 x t 1 2.98 -2.72 -7.91 44.63* l 3 x t 2 5.35* -5.19* -4.32 43.01* l 3 x t 3 26.92* 8.71* -2.88 41.36* l 3 x t 4 0.00 -2.99* -1.44 35.64* l 4 x t 1 2.49 -3.52* -7.32 41.61* l 4 x t 2 5.39* -5.58 -5.28 37.06* l 4 x t 3 28.02* 10.17* -3.66 35.43* l 4 x t 4 0.00 -3.41* -3.25 27.96* l 5 x t 1 3.69 0.90 -7.03 43.37* l 5 x t 2 0.00 -1.89 -5.04 38.29* l 5 x t 3 52.20* 18.38* -5.08 35.00* l 5 x t 4 8.53* 2.94* -3.91 28.50* l 6 x t 1 0.38 -1.12 -10.95* 39.43* l 6 x t 2 1.52 -4.64* -8.03 36.96* l 6 x t 3 38.46* 13.26* -6.20 35.98* l 6 x t 4 1.16 0.19 -3.65 32.00* s. em. (±) 0.21 0.19 0.19 0.16 * significant at 5% level for vine length, number of primary branches vine-1, number of nodes, internodal length, heterobeltiosis and mean heterosis of two best cross combinations ranged from 24.51 (l 5 x t 4 ) to –1976% (l 4 x t 4 ), 28.47 (l 1 x t 1 ) to 293.65% (l 3 x t 2 ), 33.96 (l 6 x t 2 ) to 45.28% (l 6 x t 1 ), -26.92 (l 6 x t 2 ) to –34.34% (l 6 x t 1 ) and 29.81 (l 1 x t 3 ) to 25.43% (l 2 x t 3 ), 8.82 (l 1 x t 1 ) to 251.77% (l 3 x t 2 ), 4.18 (l 3 x t 2 ) to 4.95% (l 3 x t 1 ), -20.62 (l 6 x t 4 ) to – 21.92% (l 6 x t 1 ), respectively. the above investigation was also in agreement with the work of rao et al (2000) for branches vine-1 and vine length in ridge gourd. heterosis over better parent was also reported by abusaleha and dutta (1994) for branches per vine and vine length in ridge gourd. maurya et al (2003) also found all negative heterosis over better parent for internodal length in bitter gourd. the heterobeltiosis of two best crosses, such as l 2 x t 3 and l 1 x t 3 was of the order of –4.95 and –7.43% and mean heterosis of two best crosses l 6 x t 1 and l 6 x t 2 are of the order of –100 and –100% for days to first appearance of male flower. the heterobeltiosis for days to first appearance of female flower of two best crosses viz., l 1 x t 2 and l 1 x t 1 are of the order of –19.50 and –23.00% and mean heterosis –14.50 (l 1 x t 3 ) to –17.65% (l 1 x t 1 ) for days to first female flower appearance. the heterobeltiosis for first effective node of two best crosses such as l 5 x t 4 and l 3 x t 3 are of the order of –38.89 to –41.67%. the mean heterosis of two best crosses for first effective node of two best crosses l 3 x t 4 and l 3 x t 3 in the order of 38.00 and –27.94%. similar finding was also reported by maurya et al (2003) for earliness for days to first male and female opening in bitter gourd. it was interpreted that days to first appearance of male flowers, days to first female flower and node number to first female flower negative heterosis is desirable. the heterobeltiosis for vitamin c of two best crosses such as l 6 x t 3 and l 5 x t 3 was of the order of 38.46 and 52.20% and mean heterosis of two best crosses like l 6 x t 3 and l 5 x t 3 was of the order of 13.26 and 18.38%. however, the heterobeltiosis for powdery mildew resistance of two best crosses such as l 1 x t 2 and l 2 x t 1 was of the order of –20.00 to –23.23% and mean heterosis of crosses l 1 x t 1 and l 2 x t 1 was of the order of 4.11 and 8.47%. acknowledgement authors are thankful to the head, department of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute-deemed university for giving all the research facilities during the research work. references abusaleha and dutta, o.p. 1994. manifestation of heterosis in ridge gourd. ind. j. hort., 51: 389-392 kempthorne, o.1957.the theory of diallel cross,genet.41:451-459 kushwaha, m.l. and ram, hari har, 2002. heterosis in bitter gourd (lagenaria siceraria standl mol.) prog. hort., 34: 174-178 maurya, s.k., ram, hari har and singh, j.p. 2003. hybrid breeding in bottle gourd. prog. hort., 35: 46-50 narasinghani,v.g. and tiwari, a.1995. the performance of garden pea varieties with dual resistance against powdery mildew and fusarium wilt. veg. sci. 22: 62-67 rao, b, rao, n, venkata, p. and reddy, b.m. 2000. heterosis in ridge gourd (luffa acutangula roxb l.) haryana j. hort. sci., 29: 96-98 singh, d.k. and kumar, rajesh, 2002. heterosis in bitter gourd (lagenaria siceraria standl mol.). prog. hort., 34 (2) : 204 – 207 sirohi, p.s., and choudhury, b. 1978. heterosis in bitter gourd. veg. sci., 5 : 15-21 (ms received 13 july 2009, revised 12 december 2009) heterosis in bitter gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 170-173, 2009 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 131 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 131-136, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction soil utilitarian bacteria act as a significant contributing factor for improving diminished soil fertility. soil bacteria increase the crop production through their inherent characteristics of soil structure improvisation, production of hormones and enzymes, controlling pathogen and heavy metal. nevertheless, the decline of orga nic fer tilizer s usa ge a nd soil fer tility exploita tion thr ough a gr ochemica l a ffects the horticultural crop yield rate (malhotra et al., 2017). the incorporation of soil utilitarian bacteria as biofertilizers is needed to overcome the aforementioned issues. statistical infusion in the soil nutrient and bacterial data analysis would bring out a realistic field study. from the extensive works of literature, it is found that various initiatives have been taken to improvise horticultural crops productivity through soil nutrient and bacterial analysis. besides, beneficiary microbes such as a. chroococcum, a. vinelandii, a. beijerinckii, a. paspali, a. armeniacus, a. nigricans, a. salinestri , azospirillum, cyanobacteria, azolla, gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus, bacillus aerius, bacillus amyloliquefaciens, bacillus mucilaginous, bacillus subtilis, enterobacter contributes for nitrogen fixation in the soil (dhayalan and karuppasamy 2021). pseudomonas chlororaphiswere, p. putida, p. entomophila, p.koreensis, p.luteola, p. simiae, p.stutzeri, bacillus sp., achromobacter, acinetobacter, aeromonas hydrophila, arthroderma cuniculi, aspergillus niger, bacillus aerius, b. altitudinis, b. thuringenesis, enterococcus casseliflavus, e. gallinarum, lecanicillium psalliotae, paenibacillus taichungensis, serratia nematodiphila, sphingomonas paucimobilis, azotobacter etc. are some of the soil phosphorus solubilizing microbes which are used in different horticultural crops for enhanced productivity (mussa et al., 2018). pseudomonas azotoformans, burkholderia, bacillus mucilaginosus, b. edaphicus, b. circulans, pseudomonas, acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, paenibacillus sp., and enterobacter hormoecheiin are some of the beneficiary bacteria that induces the solubilization of potassium (prajapati and modi 2016). correlation among the soil nutrients and their associated bacterial genera is a substantial research gap. resultant of correlation leads gateway for precise decision making relevant to bio fertilization for horticultural crops. macronutrients and their associated bacterial genera in the soils of anaimalai block in tamil nadu for sustainable vegetable crops cultivation dhayalan v. and sudalaimuthu k.* department of civil engineering, srm institute of science and technology, kattankulathur, tamilnadu, india *corresponding author email: karuppas@srmist.edu.in abstract meticulous analysis on intertwined interaction among the soil nutrients and microbial communities brings fruitful outcomes on horticulture. this study focuses on identifying well compatible bacterial genera in enhancing soil primary macro-nutrients for sustainable vegetable crops cultivation. the biochemical tests were executed for identification of bacterial genera. eventually, mathematical models among available npk nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) and identified bacterial genera were derived to determine most suited bacterial genus for nutrients inhibition. this study reveals the present nutrient’s status of soils at anaimalai block covering 12,424 ha of coimbatore district in tamil nadu. seven utilitarian bacterial genera were identified which inhibit the plant nutrients. among them, azotobacter, arthrobacter and achromobacter actively inhibit available npk in the soil. present study of correlating soil nutrients with bacterial components enriches successful conservation of biosphere through adopting these innovative technologies in horticulture. keywords: correlation, horticultural crops, macronutrients, soil beneficiary microbes, soil fertility, sustainable agriculture and vegetable production. 132 dhayalan and sudalaimuthu j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 131-136, 2022 materials and methods sample site description extensive research work was performed recently in anaimalai at pollachi, which lies between 10.662°n 77.00650°e, located 40km to the south of coimbatore, india. the study area consists of vegetable crops such as tomato, bhendi, brinjal, chilies, caspium, paprika, pumpkin, snake gourd, bitter gourd, cluster bean, potato, cabbage, cauliflower, onion etc., twenty-seven soil samples were collected from the rhizospheric region of horticultural crops for macronutrients analysis. macronutrient analysis the basic physical parameters such as ph, electrical conductivity, and salinity were measured using ph meter (elico li 617), conductivity meter (elico cm 183), and salinity meter respectively. available nitrogen in the soil sample was analyzed using the kjeldahl nitrogen analysis method. total phosphorus was analyzed using the bray-1 method for acidic soil samples and olsen method for alkaline soil samples. available potassium in the soil was estimated using flame photometer (jenway pfp7). bacterial analysis enumeration of microorganism enumeration of bacteria were carried out through serial dilution method to reduce the microbial load and plated by pour plate method. bacteria being isolated fr om the pla tes a r e incuba ted a t 37°c in a bacteriological incubator. gram staining gram staining was done for the isolated bacterial cultures in a slide using gram’s iodine, decolorizing agent and safronin strain. the slides were observed under the trinocular microscope, the purple colors indicated gram positive bacteria reveals the presence of bacterial genera, arthrobacter and most of slides obser ved pink color indicating the pr esence of azotobacter, enterobacter, citrobacter, achromobacter, e. coli and cornybacterium which are characterized by gram negative. further analyses were carried out to confirm the presence of initially traced bacterial genera. the cover slip was taken where its edge was coated with vaseline and the test samples were transferred to the cover slip which was placed over the cavity slide. the slide was viewed under 100x ma gnifica tion and the orga nisms’ characteristics being motile or non-motile were noted down. biochemical test for bacterial genera for the confirmation of bacterial genera certain biochemical tests were carried. indole test were carried out for the isolated bacteria culture in which a red colour ring or pink colour ring at the top reviling positive reaction, where yellow colour ring at the top indicate negative reaction. indole test reveals that most of the identified bacterial genera except arthrobacter, citrobacter and enterobacter exhibit the positive reaction. followed by the indole test, methyl red test were performed, formations of red colour ring at the top indicate the positive reaction which reveals the ex is t enc e of a z o t o b a c t e r, c i t ro b a c t e r, achromobacter, e.coli and cornybacterium and formation of yellow colour ring at top shows the negative reaction which indicate the presence of a r t h ro b a c t e r a nd e n t e ro b a c t e r . f u r t her confir ma tion of bacter ia l gener a was made by simmons citrate utilization test, so as to determine the ability of the microorganism to use citrate as its sole source of carbon. from the simmons citrate utilization test it was revealed that the survival of a zo to ba ct er , ci trob a ct er , e nt ero ba ct e r an d achromobacter were reverbera ted by means of gr een to blue colour cha nges in the ba cter ia l medium specifying positive reaction. the existence of b a c t e r ia l gener a s u c h a s a r t h ro b a c t e r, cornybacterium and e.coli were revealed through green to yellow color changes of bacterial medium indicating the negative reaction (ishiguro et al., 1979). voges pr oska uer tests were included to analyze the presence of identified bacterial genera at most precise manner. voges proskauer tests are used to demonstrate an organism’s ability to convert pyruvate to acetoin. formation of red colour ring exhibits the positive reaction which covey the existence of enterobacter genera and yellow colour ring express the negative reaction exposing the s u r viva l of a z o t o b a c t e r, c i t ro b a c t e r, achromobac ter, e. coli, cornyba cterium, a nd arthrobacter. bacterial genus interpretation based on the outcomes of va rious biochemical tests, identifica tion of bacter ia were made with 133 macronutrients and their associated bacterial genera t h e he lp of b er g ey ’s ma nu a l of s ys t ema t ic ba cteriology. out of 11,669 different bacterial c o l o n i e s 3 1 % o f a r t h ro b a c t e r , 2 4 % o f citrobacter, 17% of escherichia coli, 13% of azotob acter, 7 % of enterob acter a nd 5% of a c h ro m o b a c t e r , wa s f ou nd a s c on t r ib u t i ng ba cter ium for pr omoting soil nutr ients. tota l colonies of bacter ia l genus wer e identified by multiplying the average number of colonies with 105 as dilution factor (ta ble 1). table 1. biochemical characteristic for the identification of bacterial species s.no. s.f. no latitude longitude total bc gs it mrt scut vpt ib cc 1 590 10.588153 76.885931 380 gnr (+) (+) (+) (-) azotobacter 157 2 592 10.587975 76.885421 200 gnr (-) (-) (+) (+) enterobacter 125 3 596 10.587718 76.885257 511 gnr (-) (+) (+) (-) citrobacter 425 4 600 10.588111 76.883713 561 gnr (+) (+) (+) (-) achromobacter 362 5 601 10.587909 76.884139 356 gnr (+) (+) (-) (-) e.coli 208 6 602 10.587721 76.884218 312 gpr (-) (+) (-) (-) cornybacterium 215 7 606 10.587537 76.884144 326 gnr (-) (-) (+) (+) enterobacter 225 8 608 10.587163 76.884039 322 gpr (-) (-) (-) (-) arthrobacter 253 9 630 10.586454 76.882942 320 gnr (+) (+) (+) (-) azotobacter 257 10 637 10.587134 76.883235 320 gnr (+) (+) (-) (-) e.coli 218 11 638 10.587643 76.883528 320 gnr (+) (+) (-) (-) e.coli 218 12 641 10.587063 76.88287 312 gnr (+) (+) (-) (-) e.coli 218 13 642 10.587491 76.882627 245 gpr (-) (-) (-) (-) arthrobacter 253 14 648 10.587277 76.882267 478 gnr (-) (+) (+) (-) citrobacter 425 15 649 10.587783 76.88216 520 gnr (-) (+) (+) (-) citrobacter 425 16 657 10.587926 76.882583 956 gnr (+) (+) (+) (-) azotobacter 557 17 656 10.588503 76.882551 288 gnr (-) (-) (+) (+) enterobacter 225 18 660 10.588254 76.883272 540 gpr (-) (-) (-) (-) arthrobacter 253 19 661 10.588261 76.883422 300 gnr (+) (+) (-) (-) e.coli 218 20 702 10.587996 76.87914 96 gnr (+) (+) (-) (-) e.coli 58 21 703 10.588698 76.87921 96 gnr (+) (+) (-) (-) e.coli 68 22 721 10.589401 76.879324 96 gnr (-) (-) (+) (+) enterobacter 55 23 747 10.588187 76.877757 87 gnr (-) (-) (+) (+) enterobacter 72 24 750 10.587696 76.877974 956 gpr (-) (-) (-) (-) arthrobacter 553 25 751 10.587271 76.878479 956 gpr (-) (-) (-) (-) arthrobacter 651 26 756 10.587306 76.878045 956 gpr (-) (-) (-) (-) arthrobacter 253 27 758 10.587714 76.877569 859 gnr (-) (+) (+) (-) citrobacter 425 bc, bacterial colonies; gs, gram straining; gnr, gram negativerod; gpr, gram positiverod; it, indole test; mrt, methyl red test; scut, simmons citrate utilization test; vpt, voges proskauer test; ib, identified bacteria; cc, colonies count; (+), positive; (-), negative. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 131-136, 2022 134 results and discussion statistical analysis the resulted characteristics of soil were compared with tnau standards. pearson coefficients (table 2.) were incorporated which represents the relationship among the nutrients measured and the associated microbes. statistics which includes bacterial symmetry, bacterial counts, mean value, minimum bacterial count were interpreted by descriptive statistical analysis (table 3). physical parameters and primary macronutrients the study area is observed with clay loam, sandy clay loam and sandy loam types of soil. loam soil is the mixture of sand, silt and clay having the ph value 4.5 to 6.5. most of samples in the study area are reddish brown in color indicating fine soil texture that greatly helps in the horticulture. soil ph value at anaimalai ranges from 6.41 to 8.72. the overall ph result make a strong report that the ph values which falls above 6.5 in some field area is completely due to the other predominant factors such as water and agrochemicals. the bacterium plays a key role in maintaining the soil ph range (hoorman, 2016). one of the identified genera citrobacter count holds positive correlation with ph (table 2). citrobacter can maintain the soil ph ranges from 3 to 11 (oliveira et al., 2016). electrical conductivity finds its value ranges from 0.08 to 0.9 and the highest ec recorded is 0.9 ds/m. excess salinity causes a huge hindrance for horticulture (habib et al., 2016). beneficial bacteria lower the concentration of ethylene that directs to deduce the salinity stresses in horticulture farmlands. utilitarian bacterial genuses identified were achromobacter and azotobacter which are positively correlated (table 2) with electrical conductivity. field available nitrogen ranges from 128 to 265 kg/ha. inspite of two bacterial table 2. pearson correlation among soil available npk and bacterial species pearson correlations nitrogen phosphorus potassium ac ar az ci co e.coli en nitrogen 1 0.291 -0.405* -0.097 -0.366 -0.016 -0.188 0.077 0.150 0.276 phosphorus 0.291 1 0.322 -0.273 0.175 0.357 -0.239 -0.081 -0.059 0.003 potassium -0.405* 0.322 1 0.121 -0.170 -0.031 -0.058 0.186 -0.145 0.136 ac -0.987 -0.273 0.121 1 -0.093 -0.061 -0.082 -0.038 -0.105 -0.081 ar -0.366 0.175 -0.175 -0.093 1 -0.147 -0.198 -0.093 -0.255 -0.197 az -0.016 0.357 -0.031 -0.061 -0.147 1 -0.129 -0.061 -0.166 -0.128 ci -0.118 -0.239 -0.058 -0.082 -0.198 -0.129 1 -0.082 -0.224 -0.172 co 0.077 -0.081 0.186 -0.038 -0.093 -0.061 -0.082 1 -0.105 -0.081 e.coli 0.150 -0.059 -0.145 -0.105 -0.255 -0.166 -0.224 -0.105 1 -0.222 en 0.276 0.003 0.136 -0.081 -0.197 -0.128 -0.172 -0.081 -0.222 1 *. correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ac, achromobacter; ar, arthrobacter; az, azotobacter; ci, citrobacter; co, cornybacterium; e.coli, escherichia coli; en, enterobacter; n total mean sd sum skewness kurtosis cv min median max achromobacter 27 13.40 69.66 362 5.19 27 5.19 0 0 362 arthrobacter 27 82.07 175.8 2216 2.26 4.64 2.14 0 0 651 azotobacter 27 35.96 118.6 971 3.80 15.28 3.29 0 0 557 citrobacter 27 62.96 153.8 1700 2.09 2.59 2.44 0 0 425 cornybacterium 27 7.96 41.37 215 5.19 27 5.19 0 0 215 e.coli 27 44.66 84.91 1206 1.58 0.72 1.09 0 0 218 enterobacter 27 26 64.10 702 2.59 5.94 2.46 0 0 225 sd, standard deviation; cv, coefficient of variation; min, minimum; max, maximum; table 3. descriptive analysis of bacterial species. dhayalan and sudalaimuthu j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 131-136, 2022 135 genus presences in the soil, soil available nitrogen indicates low status. this is due to the presence of e. coli which is not a nitrogen fixation bacterium and also due to other environmental factors. nevertheless, the outcomes of the genus action in the soil still contribute 19% of available nitrogen to the plants. available phosphorus ranges from 15 to 37 kg/ha in the field and fulfills the recommended level which is considered as major growth contributing factor in horticultural crops productivity. two major bacterial genera arthrobacter and azotobacter shows high positive corr elation with phosphor us (ta ble 2).var ious literatures show the importance of azotobacter and arthrobacter in solubilizing the soil phosphorus (banerjee et al., 2010). potassium founds to be extracted at higher concentration by horticultural crops (pimentel et al., 2015) which are in the range between 132 to 374 kg/ha. soil bacteria ensure prolonged crop growth through its production of inorganic acids, acidolysis, polysaccharides and chelation (archana et al., 2013). contributing identified bacterial genus achromobacter and enterobacter shows positive correlation with available potassium level (table 2). identified bacterial genera ma ximum of 362 colonies wer e found to be achromobacter genus, which gives positive correlation with soil electrical conductivity and potassium. achromobacter genus is capable of solubilizing 5.4 µg/ml of potassium in the soil at maximum extend (gupta et al., 2016). nevertheless, the genus finds negative correlations with nitrogen and phosphorus. achromobacter induce ethylene hor mones for contribution of soil available nitrogen (bangash et al., 2021) and helps to expose to transient water stress in horticultural crops more specifically tomato and pepper. arthrobacter genus ranges maximum of 651 in terms of colonies count at the selected study boundary. distinctive nature of arthrobacter in synthesizing plant hormones alleviates the phosphorus deficiency and stress developed by the salinity in the soil (etesami and glick, 2020). the genus finds positive correlation with soil phosphorus whereas shows negative correlation with other soil nutrients. arthrobacter genus induces active mechanism against salt stress in the pisum sativum (pea) crops. maximum of 557 azotobacter colonies count were identified which implies positive correlations with phosphorus, whereas negative correlation with other soil nutrients. though azotobacter magnifies the nitrogen fixation in the soil through active production of phytopathogenic inhibitors, mathematical model implies negative correlation because of the presence of toxic inorganic fertilizers. azotobacter due to its biological activity helps in increasing the phosphorus solubilization. compared to arthrobacter, azotobacter implies the indole a cidic a cids which a r e r esponsible for phosphorus solubiliza tion (aung et al., 2020). citrobacter (425 colonies count) maintain the soil ph in recommended range because of its incredible biological activity (oliveira et al., 2016). maximum of 218 colonies were found to be escherichia coli genera, which give positive correlation with soil nitrogen and negative correlations with other soil nutrients. e.coli is not a nitrogen fixing bacterium but possibly helps in nitrogen cycle by producing urea when e. coli utilizes ammonium. potentiality of e. coli in producing iron-chelating compounds helps to promote the growth of potato crops. enterobacter due to acc deaminase activity induces nitrogen and potassium in the soil (guo et al., 2020). production of indole-3-acetic acids by the enterobacter helps in phosphorus solubilization thus in turn multiple the yields of tomato, cucumber and pepper crops. organic fertilizer selection and dosage recommendations identified bacterial genera needs to be formulated for its survival so as to reach the soil for progress of crop productions. bioativo, azotovit, rhizotorphin, azotoba cter in, ekophit, mizor in®, ma mezo, phylazonit-m, symbion-n, calobium, sardar biofertilizers and ferti-bio are commonly available biofertilizers having identified genera in active state. biofertilizers are usually bioformulated into two major type viz. liquid and solid with natural carriers. conclusion this study implies the necessity of incorporating mathematical models to bring micro investigation on association of insitu soil nutrient and its correlated bacterial genera so as to perceive the current nutrient status. azotobacter, enterobacter, citrobacter, achromobacter, e. coli, and arthrobacter were some of the identified bacterial species that contribute to the soil primary macronutrients. this can be extemporizing for organic fertilizer formulation consisting aforementioned identified bacterial genera and it is recommended to utilize those organic biofertlizers to attain massive yield in horticulture. acknowledgement we the authors grateful to support in the form of fellowship and encouragement received from srm institute of science and technology, kattankulathur. it is pleasure to extend the acknowledgment to dr. akila and vickram muthu rathinasabari for their valuable field assistance. macronutrients and their associated bacterial genera j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 131-136, 2022 136 references ar cha na , d. , na ndish, m. , sa va la gi, v. a nd alaga wadi, a. 2013. char acterization of potassium solubilizing bacteria (ksb) from rhizosphere soil. q. j. life sci., 10:248-257. aung, a., sev, t.m., mon, a.a. and yu, s.s. 2020. detection of abiotic stress tolerant azotobacter species for enhancing plant growth promoting activities. journal of scientific and innovative research. 9(2):48-53. banerjee, s., palit, r., sengupta, c. and standing, d. 2010. stress induced phosphate solubilization by arthrobacter sp. and bacillus sp. isolated from tomato rhizosphere. australian journal of crop science. 4(6):378-383. bangash, n., mahmood, s., akhtar, s., hayat, m.t., gulzar, s. and khalid, a. 2021. formulation of biofertilizer 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22.10.2021; revised: 17.02.2022; accepted: 19.02.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf statistical models for stability analysis in watermelon r.venugopalan and m. pitchaimuthu1 section of economics and statistics indian institute of horticultural research hessearghatta lake po, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: venur@iihr.ernet.in abstract fourteen promising f 1 hybrids of watermelon namely iihr-188 x iihr-118, iihr 114 x iihr 118 , iihr 119 x iihr20-1, arka manik x iihr 46, iihr 43 x iihr 46, arka manik x iihr-188, arka jyothi, ns-295, kushboo, madhubala, apoorva, cwh-7 and riya were evaluated in experimental plots of division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore during 2002-04. information about biometrical characters such as fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), days to first male flower opening & female flower opening, rind thickness(cm) and tss (%) along with yield (t ha-1), were used to develop stability models to identify stable hybrid(s) for a wide range for cultivation. stability models thus developed indicated that two hybrids, viz., arka jyothi (with yield potential of 75.91 t ha-1) across the years and ns-295 (64.25 t ha-1) were stable for a wide range for cultivation. statistical measures of stability, viz., regression coefficient, deviation from regression co-efficient and ecovalence measures, were worked out and utilized for grouping of hybrids into different categories based on their cumulative performance over the years. key words: ecovalence measure, ge interaction, stability models, watermelon j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 153-157, 2009 1division of vegetable crops, iihr, banglaore-560 089. introduction in any crop improvement research, plant breeders before recommending release of a particular variety/hybrid for commercial exploitation in farmer’s field, ensure the stability of varieties, by testing it across different environments/periods. in such studies, the breeders’ main interest will be to estimate the average response of the varieties and also to test the consistency of the yield response from region to region/environment to environment. the presence or absence of the so-called genotype x environment (ge) interaction, coupled with high yield, will largely dictate the good performance of the genotypes. however, in practice, genotypes responsible for showing higher yield are less stable and vice versa. the presence of such a ge interaction also alters the relative ranking of different varieties in addition to reducing the correlation between phenotype and genotype, thus making it difficult for a breeder to judge the true genetic potential of variety. hence, the main aim was to strike a balance between these two extremes by evolving appropriate statistical methods to reduce the component of ge interaction for identifying stable genotypes that interact less with the environment. material and methods fourteen promising f 1 hybrids of watermelon namely, iihr-188 x iihr-118, iihr 114 x iihr 118 , iihr 119 x iihr-20-1, arka manik x iihr 46, iihr 43 x iihr 46, arka manik x iihr-188, arka jyothi, ns-295, kushboo, madhubala, apoorva, cwh-7 and riya evaluated in the experimental plots of division of vegetable crops, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore during 200204, were utilized to develop stability models with a view to identify best variety(s) for commercial exploitation based on yield (t ha-1), fruit length (cm), fruit girth (cm), days to first male flower opening & female flower opening, rind thickness(cm) and tss (%). two different approaches based on eberhart and russell (er) model (eberhart and russell, (1966); bhargava et al., 2008) and freeman and perkins (fp) model (dehghani et al., 2008, freeman and perkins, 1973) were utilized for carrying out stability analysis research. the details of these methods are well elucidated in prabhakaran and jain (1992) and more recently from application of point of view by venugopalan and gowda (2005). 154 measures of stability different measures of stability viz., mean performance (x i ), regression coefficient (b i ), deviation from regression coefficient (s2d i ) and wricke’s ecovalence (w i ) measures (wricke ,1962) were computed using standard formulae, as given below : (i) regression coefficient (b i ): b i = σ (y ij -y i .)(y .j -y..) / s (y .j -y..)2 (ii) deviation from regression (s2d i ): s2d i = [ [ σ (y ij -y i .) 2 – bi2 σ (y .j -y..)2] / (s-2)]s2 e (iii) wricke’s ecovalence (wi): w i = σ (y ij -y i. -y .j -y..).2 based on the these measures, hybrids were classified into any one of the following three groups. group i: ideal genotype (suitable for wide range of environment) b i =1 and s2d i =0 group ii: average stability genotype (suitable for poor environment) b i <1 and s2d i =0 group iii: above average stability (suitable for favorable environment) b i >1 and s2d i =0. in general, a hybrid showing high yield potential under favorable environment and having great phenotypic stability is considered to be stable. moreover, the lower the value of w i smaller will be the fluctuations from the predictable response in different environments. accordingly, as an index of ranking in their order of stability/adaptability characteristics, the genotype with least ecovoalence is considered to be the most stable. results and discussion results of analysis of variance indicated for a differential behavior of all the 14 hybrids across three years (2002-04). results of stability analysis presented in table 1 confirmed the presence of (genotype x environment) g x e interaction as the mean sums of squares for all the characters across the genotypes were significantly differing from each other (p<0.05). this shows that the hybrids had divergent linear response to environmental changes. four measures of stability values, viz., x i , b i , s2d i and w i were also worked out and are presented in table 2. based on these measures, genotypes were grouped into three groups (specific to their adaptability to a given environment) and the results are presented separately for er and fp methods in table 4. further, as an in depth study of the results achieved under er and fp methods pertaining to target group of the breeders, viz., ideal hybrids group, based on their w i values, 14 hybrids were ranked and are presented in table 4. perusal of the results presented in table 2 to table 4 brings out the following salient findings: yield (t ha-1) : under the freeman-perkins model three f 1 hybrids (arka jyothi (c), riya, and ns 295) were identified as ideal, suitable for wide range of cultivation. looking into the values of mean performance (xi) of these ideal lines (table 2), arka jyothi performed better (75.91 t ha-1), across the years, followed by ns-295 (64.25 t ha-1), than all the other lines. accordingly, ecovalence values (w i ) worked out (table 4) for the ideal lines showed that arka jyothi followed by ns 295 were stable for wide range of cultivation for yield t/ha, as they possesses least ecovalence values as compared to other lines. further, iihr-178 x arka manik (with yield potential of 51.93 t ha-1) is classified as an above table 1. sability analysis for different characters in watermelon (mean sum of squares) source / character yield (t/ha) fruit length fruit girth days to first male days to first rind (cm) (cm) flower opening opening thickness female flower (cm) eberhart-russell (er) method genotype 190.15 29.66 29.14 2.337 2.67 0.04 v x env (linear) 85.29 16.61 0.311 1.073 1.82 0.08 pooled deviations 45.46 2.54 1.70 0.914 0.71 0.06 average error 0.52 1.16 0.23 0.239 0.34 0.003 freeman-perkins (fp) method genotypes 191.63 28.98 29.81 2.442 2.44 0.045 environments 329.09 38.65 0.14 2.851 4.17 0.007 combined reg. 653.52 73.61 0.03 5.707 8.34 0.009 residual 4.65 3.69 0.24 0.001 0.001 0.004 hetero of reg. 85.81 17.29 0.50 1.142 2.33 0.070 residual 55.59 4.08 1.10 0.826 0.49 0.083 average error 0.77 2.20 0.27 0.345 0.45 0.005 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 153-157, 2009 venugopalan and pitchaimuthu 155 average genotype, which will respond well to a poor environment. similarly for the other biometrical characters, results presented in table 3 and 4, revealed a marked difference among the number of hybrids grouped separately under two methods. results indicated clearly about the change in cluster membership while adopting freeman-perkins model. in addition to this analysis, based on additional two year yield data (2005-06), optimum number of years required for inferring the stability of the above hybrids was made by testing the w i values of subsequent years with the preceding value. it was observed four years (yield data) was sufficient (in addition to stable performance of arka jyothi and ns-295) to reach the stability of the evaluated genotypes as the measure of ecovalence till fourth year was significantly different from the earlier period and were on par from 5th year onwards. to summarize, stability models (with r2 = 81.4%-99.4%.) table 2. stability parameters of six quantitative traits for 14 watermelon lines under freeman-perkins model name of the hybrid yield (t/ha) fruit length (cm) fruit girth (cm) x i b i s2d i w i x i b i s2d i w i x i b i s2d i w i iihr-178 x arka manik 51.93 0.63 3.12 7.93 22.58 1.46 -2.19 2.5 21.00 -0.98 1.8 2.06 iihr-114 x iihr-118 63.41 1.56 15.77 27.59 21.75 -0.62 -1.71 16.81 18.83 -0.45 0.71 0.82 iihr-119 x iihr-20-1 51.91 2.08 67.65 115.55 27 2.08 -1.16 12.16 21.88 0.05 -0.23 0.0 iihr-118 x iihr-20-1 62.16 2.58 129.72 237.81 20.92 -0.5 -2.08 12.91 18.83 -0.71 2.23 2.31 arka manik x iihr-46 61.2 2.49 23.06 136.9 21.25 -0.3 1.68 7.69 19.98 1.75 -0.26 0.9 iihr-43 x iihr-46 52.43 -1.47 134.09 427.74 22.58 -0.18 -2.14 7.79 17.9 -0.19 -0.24 0.1 arka manik x iihr-188 52.58 3.0 36.44 221.7 24.25 2.6 -2.18 20.44 21.08 -0.35 -0.26 0.06 arka jyothi (c) 75.91 0.07 2.0 44.83 26.58 0.28 -2.18 2.62 19.46 -1.1 -0.23 0.53 ns-295 (c) 64.25 0.88 7.44 14.22 28.63 3.43 -0.77 47.41 21.41 0.7 0.11 0.36 kushboo 58.08 -0.35 13.74 104.54 22.5 -0.54 -1.07 14.04 14.16 -0.53 -0.06 0.22 madhubala 56.25 0.81 97.64 111.69 27.72 3.87 -2.12 61.62 18.75 0.0 -0.27 0.01 apoorva 51.01 1.54 124.77 127.25 25.97 1.5 -1.86 3.77 28.41 -1.15 -0.13 0.52 cwh-7 45.76 1.04 51.94 61.56 19.67 -0.55 45.9 55.08 17.66 0.62 0.15 0.69 riya 48.08 -1.00 -0.76 188.85 18.92 -0.5 -2.08 12.91 18.41 3.56 7.39 12.09 name of the hybrid days to first male flower opening days to first female flower opening rind thickness(cm) x i b i s2d i w i x i b i s2d i w i x i b i s2d i w i iihr-188 x arka manik 32.42 1.35 0.95 1.57 36.6 0.1 -0.39 0.57 1.26 1.81 0.14 0.14 iihr-114 x iihr-118 34.25 2.95 -0.11 3.45 37.42 -0.08 -0.41 0.71 1.3 -4.26 0.07 0.16 iihr-119 x iihr-20-1 33.58 -0.23 -0.34 0.69 37.42 2.06 -0.42 0.15 1.46 5.26 0.01 0.08 iihr-118 x iihr-20-1 34.16 -1.3 3.17 6.36 36.92 3.7 0.02 2.01 1.48 -0.21 -0.0 0.0 arka manik x iihr-46 32.16 1.36 0.18 0.74 39.72 7.05 0.35 10.25 1.33 -3.88 0.07 0.14 iihr-43 x iihr-46 33.66 0.37 -0.27 0.17 38.37 3.54 -0.45 1.34 1.21 -4.17 0.08 0.17 arka manik x iihr-188 32.75 0.14 1.26 1.8 37.67 0.99 -0.45 0.05 1.52 3.95 0.05 0.11 arka jyothi (c) 33.25 0.23 0.21 4.67 37.42 2.18 0.8 1.41 1.24 -0.24 0.0 0.0 ns-295 (c) 34.75 0.13 0.01 0.67 37.13 -2.01 -0.45 3.49 1.53 -0.98 0.1 0.12 kushboo 33.41 1.07 0.41 0.86 37.22 1.78 1.13 1.6 1.43 5.97 0.04 0.13 madhubala 34.58 -0.23 0.4 1.48 37.33 -2.18 0.8 5.11 1.51 -7.59 0.34 0.53 apoorva 34.41 -0.6 0.19 1.8 39.08 -3.26 0.44 7.39 1.6 1.45 0.0 0.01 cwh-7 34.8 1.85 -0.13 1.02 36.92 1.62 -0.44 0.02 1.31 9.31 0.09 0.34 riya 34.83 0.75 -0.06 0.26 38.58 4.32 -0.45 2.5 1.42 -0.2 0.0 0.0 developed for yield and yield attributing biometrical characters of 14 watermelon f 1 hybrids indicated that arka jyothi followed by ns-295 were stable for wide range of cultivation for yield t ha-1, as they possesses least ecovalence values as compared to other lines. results further indicated that iihr-178 x arka manik is suitable for poor environment. thus, arka jyothi performed better (75.91 t ha-1), across the years, followed by ns-295 (64.25 t ha-1), than all the other hybrids. these two hybrids are widely used in crop breeding research and also cultivated for higher productivity across years and seasons. hence, the message arising out from this present study is that breeders may exploit the use of freeman-perkins approach for performing stability research while analyzing multi-location/year/season trails, with a view to cluster the breeding materials/ genotypes based on their stability/adaptability to a specific situation and also to select promising lines for further hybridization programme and for commercial exploitation. statistical models for stability analysis in watermelon j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 153-157, 2009 156 t ab le 3 . g ro u p in g of h yb ri d s b as ed o n r es u lt s of s ta b il it y an al ys is ( u n d er e r a n d f p m od el ) fo r 14 h yb ri d s of w at er m el on s l. n o . c h ar ac te r id ea l g en o ty p e1 b i = 1 a n d s 2 d i = 0 a b o v e a v er ag e g en o ty p e2 b el o w a v er ag e g en o ty p e3 b i < 1 a n d s 2 d i = 0 b i > 1 a n d s 2 d i = 0 1 . y ie ld ( t/ h a) e r m o d el r iy a --f p m o d el a rk a jy o th i (c ) , r iy a, n s 2 9 5 ii h r -1 7 8 x a rk a m an ik -2 . f ru it l en g th ( cm ) ii h r -1 7 8 x a rk a m an ik , a rk a m an ik x i ih r ii h r -1 1 4 x i ih r -1 1 8 ,i ih r -1 1 8 x i ih r -2 0 ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , a rk a m an ik e r m o d el 4 6 ,a p o o rv a 1 , ii h r -4 3 x i ih r -4 6 , a rk a jy o th i x i ih r (c ), k u sh b o o , r iy a ii h r -1 1 4 x i ih r -1 1 8 , 1 8 8 , m ad h u b al a f p m o d el ii h r -1 7 8 x a rk a m an ik , a p o o rv a ii h r -1 1 8 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , a rk a m an ik x i ih r 4 6 , ii h r -4 3 x i ih r -4 6 , a rk a jy o th i (c ), k u sh b o o , r iy a ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 -1 3 . f ru it g ir th ( cm ) ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , ii h r -4 3 x i ih r -4 6 , a rk a -ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 e r m o d el m an ik x i ih r -1 8 8 , n s -2 9 5 ( c ), m ad h u b al a, c w h -7 1 , k u sh b o o , c w h -7 ii h r -1 1 4 x i ih r -1 1 8 , ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , a rk a --m an ik x i ih r -4 6 , ii h r -4 3 x i ih r -4 6 , a rk a m an ik x f p m o d el ii h r -1 8 8 , a rk a jy o th i ( c ), n s -2 9 5 ( c ), k u sh b o o , m ad h u b al a, a p o o rv a, c w h -7 4 . d ay s to f ir st m al e ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , a rk a m an ik x i ih r -1 8 8 , n s ii h r -4 3 x i ih r -4 6 , a p o o rv a ii h r -1 1 4 x i ih r -1 1 8 , c w h -7 fl o w er o p en in g 2 9 5 ( c ), k u sh b o o , m ad h u b al a, r iy a e r m o d el f p m o d el a rk a m an ik x ii h r -4 6 , ii h r -4 3 x i ih r -4 6 , ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , n s -2 9 5 c w h -7 k u sh b o o , r iy a (c ), m ad h u b al a, a p o o rv a 5 d ay s to f ir st f em al e ii h r -1 7 8 x a rk a m an ik , ii h r -1 1 8 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , ii h r ii h r -1 1 4 x i ih r -1 1 8 , a rk a m an ik x i ih r fl o w er o p en in g 4 3 x i ih r -4 6 , a rk a jy o th i ( c ), k u sh b o o , c w h -7 1 8 8 , n s -2 9 5 ( c ) e r m o d el ii h r -1 7 8 x a rk a m an ik , ii h r -1 1 4 x i ih r ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , a rk a m an ik x f p m o d el a rk a m an ik x i ih r -1 8 8 1 1 8 a rk a jy o th i ( c ), n s -2 9 5 ii h r -4 6 , r iy a (c ), k u sh b o o , m ad h u b al a, c w h -7 6 . r in d t h ic k n es s ii h r -1 1 8 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , a rk a jy o th i ( c ), a p o o rv a, r iy a -ii h r -1 1 9 x i ih r -2 0 e r m o d el 1 , k u sh b o o , c w h -7 f p m o d el ii h r -1 1 8 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , a rk a jy o th i ( c ), a p o o rv a, r iy a -7 . t s s ( % ) ii h r -1 7 8 x a rk a m an ik , ii h r -1 1 8 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , r iy a --e r m o d el f p m o d el ii h r -1 7 8 x a rk a m an ik , ii h r -1 1 8 x i ih r -2 0 -1 , r iy a --1 s u it ab le f o r a w id e ra n g e o f en v ir o n m en ts 2 s u it ab le f o r p o o r en v ir o n m en t 3 s u it ab le f o r fa v o ra b le e n v ir o n m en t j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 153-157, 2009 venugopalan and pitchaimuthu 157 table 4. ranking among ideal watermelon hybrids under er and fp models based on measure of ecovalence (w i ) based on eberhart-russell (er) procedure based on freeman-perkins (fp) procedure character ideal genotype ranked wi values ideal genotype ranked wi values 1. yield (t/ha) ns-295 56.686 arka jyothi (c ) 13.24 kushboo 105.441 ns 295 22.58 riya 189.434 riya 122.54 2 fruit length (cm) iihr-188 x iihr-118 2.228 iihr-188 x iihr-118 2.503 apoorva 2.765 apporva 2.621 iihr 43 x iihr 46 4.432 3. fruit girth (cm) madhubala 0.069 iihr 119 x iihr-20-1 0.002 iihr 43 x iihr 46 0.144 madhubala 0.019 iihr 119 x iihr-20-1 0.310 arka manik x iihr-188 0.065 4. days to first male ns-295 0.527 iihr 43 x iihr 46 0.167 flower opening kushboo 0.603 arka manik x iihr 46 0.735 5. days to first female kushboo 0.384 arka manik x iihr-188 0.054 flower opening iihr-188 x iihr-118 0.538 iihr-118 x iihr-20-1 0.859 6. rind thickness(cm) arka manik x iihr 46 0.003 arka manik x iihr 46 0.002 riya 0.003 ns-295 0.003 ns-295 0.008 riya 0.004 apoorva 0.011 apoorva 0.009 7. t.s.s. (%) riya 0.122 arka manik x iihr 46 0.061 arka manik x iihr 46 0.204 riya 0.371 iihr-188 x iihr-118 0.335 iihr-188 x iihr-118 0.781 references bhargava, a., shukla, s. and ohri, d. 2008. genotype x environment interaction studies in chenopodium album l.: an underutilized crop with promising potential. comm. in biom and crop sci., 3:3–15 dehghani, h., sabaghpour, s.h and sabaghnia, n. 2008. genotype × environment interaction for grain yield of some lentil genotypes and relationship among univariate stability statistics. spanish j. agril. res., 6:385-394 eberhart s a. and russell w.a. 1966. stability parameters for comparing varieties. crop sci., 6:36-40 freeman g.h. and perkins j.m. 1971. environmental and genotype-environmental components of variability. viii. relations between genotypes grown in different environments and measures of these environments. heredity, 27:15-23 prabhakaran v.t. and jain j p, 1992. statistical techniques for studying genotype-environment interactions. sap 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with antioxidant potential and á-glucosidase inhibitory activity from jamun (syzygium cumini l.) seeds arivalagan m., priyanka d.r. and rekha a. genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) 36-44 agadi a.h., kolakar s., lakshmana d., nadukeri s. and hanumanthappa m. morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to 45-52 iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c., dutt s., sharma j., raveendran m. and sudhakar d. responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water 53-63 deficit conditions ayub q., khan s.m., hussain i., naveed k., ali s., mehmood a., khan m.j., haq n.u., shehzad q. induced variability for yield and its attributing traits in cluster bean 64-68 [cyamopsis tetragonoloba (l. ) taub] through gamma irradiation lavanya h.n., mishra s., sood m., aghora t.s., anjanappa m., rao v.k. and reddy a.b. in vitro multiplication protocol for curcuma mangga : studies on carbon, 69-76 cytokinin source and explant size waman a.a., bohra p., karthika devi r. and pixy j. effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life 77-90 of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m., bhandari n. and dhital m. post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and 91-102 antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h., saucedo v.c., guerra r.d., suarez e.j., soto h.r.m. lopez j.a., garcia c.e. and hernandez r.g. soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient 103-113 management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour and d. kalaivanan effect of spectral manipulation and seasonal variations on cut foliage production 114-120 and quality of philodendron (philodendron ‘xanadu’) sujatha a. nair, laxman r.h. and sangama short communications studies on mutagenic sensitivity of seeds of pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) 121-124 sankaran m., kalaivanan d. and sunil gowda d.c. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from 125-129 garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v., vasudeva r., hemanth b., nischita p., sthapit b.r., parthasarathy v.a. and rao v.r. 45 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 45-52, 2021 original research paper morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c.*1, dutt s.1, sharma j.1, raveendran m.2 and sudhakar d.2 1icar–central potato research institute, shimla, himachal pradesh 171 001 2department of plant biotechnology, cpmb&b, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore 641003 *corresponding author email: clarissachallam@gmail.com abstract the aim of the study was to assess genotypical differences over different stages for morphophysiological parameters associated with iron (fe) deficiency and their effect on yield. the factorial pot experiment was comprised of two major factors, i) soil-fe status of natural vertisol [fe-sufficient and fe-deficient soils], and ii) genotypes [cp-3443, cp4105, cp-3486 and cp-4069] with differential iron-induced deficiency chlorosis (idc) response. data were recorded and associations between different traits were estimated. under fe-deficient soil, tolerant genotype (cp-3443) recorded significantly higher chlorophyll content, peroxidase activity in leaves and better yield compared to susceptible genotypes which verified usefulness as idc tolerant potato genotypes characteristics. key words: correlation, iron-deficiency chlorosis, morpho-physiological parameters; potato and yield indroduction iron (fe), one of the essential micronutrients for the growth and development of all living organisms, its deficiency is a serious problem in both agriculture and human nutrition. iron is considerably less soluble in soils with a ph value of 8 than zn or mn; thus, inorganic fe makes relatively little contribution to the fe nutrition of plants in calcareous soils (singh et al., 2004). fe level varies with the type and depth of the soil, ranging from 0.2% to 55% (20,000 to 550,000 mg kg1), and the highest concentration is found at 2– 15 cm (mahender et al., 2019). for instance, the total fe content in indian soil ranges from 0.4% to 27.3% (40,000 to 273, 000 mg kg1), but that accessible to the plant is extremely variable, from 0.36 to 174 mg, which depends on the soil, plant, and environmental factors (mahender et al., 2019). calcareous soils may contain high total fe levels but are not accessible to the plants, because iron forms water-insoluble hydr oxides a nd oxides, and/or fe car bona tesbicarbonates. thus, high bicarbonate ion concentration leads to iron-induced deficiency chlorosis (idc) by suppressing iron uptake and/or translocation in plants (li-xuan et al., 2005). potato (solanum tuberosum l.) is a multipurpose crop and is the 4th most important crop contributing to the world’s food requirement next to rice, wheat and maize with a global production of 388 mmt during 2017 (faostat, 2019). potato crop is sensitive to non-optimal iron content in the substrate and marked decreases in tuber quality and yield were r epor ted with r educed bioma ss, chlor ophyll concentrations and alterations in enzyme activities (peroxidase, catalase and acid phosphatase) under fedeficient stress (chatterjee et al., 2006). susceptibility to fe chlorosis is based on a plant’s response to fe deficiency stress and this is genetically regulated (simko et al., 2008). idc response is usually assessed by chlorophyll content in potato (chatterjee et al., 2006) and also other legumes like soybean, dry bean etc (samdur et al., 1999; samdur et al., 2000). higher chlor ophyll content indica tes a lower occurrence of chlorosis in leaves. iron deficiency was also found to decrease the production of oxidative stress-related enzymes such as peroxidase in several plant species and is due to less fe concentrations in fe-deficient leaves (m’sehli et al., 2014). this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 46 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 45-52, 2021 developing micronutrient-efficient genotypes can be a quick, fast and successful way to resolve soil micronutrient disorders and improve human health. in previous studies, we have screened genotypes at seedling stage with the intent to identify idc tolerant potato genotypes. idc tolerant genotypes had registered a significantly lower reduction in plant height, spad value, chlorophyll content, and per oxida se level under fe-deficient condition. however, the association of morpho-physiological parameters under iron deficiency and their effect on yield in p ot a t o genot yp es ha s not b een examined. given that genetic variability for idc r esponses exist a mong pota to genotypes. t he objective of the study was to access genotypic differences for different morpho-physiological and biochemica l pa r a meter s a ssocia ted wit h i dc tolera nce a cr oss growth stages and their yield under natural vertisol (normal and calcareous) soils using pot studies. materials and methods based on our earlier study (challam et al., 2021), 15 potato genotypes were evaluated for responses to fe deficiency stress under controlled aeroponic condition. potato genotypes with differential idc response (tolerant: cp-3443; moderately tolerant: cp4105; moderately susceptible: cp-3486 and susceptible: cp-4069) were further selected for the pot experiment under net house condition at icarcentral potato research institute, regional station, shillong. two soil type viz. fesufficient and fedeficient were collected from two different sites upper shillong (25.54° n, 91.85° e) and nongrah (25.57° n, 91.93° e), respectively. soil samples were collected from identified sites by using hand auger at the soil depths of 0 30 cm by adopting random sampling procedure as described by kalra, 1988. in vitro propagated potato plantlets of the genotypes were planted in twenty-five-centimetre plastic pots were filled with vertisol soils (ph: 4.3) ha ving a va ila b le f e 7 . 2 5 mg/ k g ( d t pa extractable) for fe sufficient plants whereas fe deficient plants were filled with calcareous vertisol soil (ph: 8.6) having available fe 4.53 mg/ kg (d t pa ex tr a cta ble) ( ta b le 1). all t he ma jor nutrients (n, p, k) were supplied in the form of ur ea, dia mmonium phosphate, a nd mur ia te of pota sh fer tilizer s a ccor ding to the pr escr ibed dosage. micronutrients such as zn, mn and mg were added in the form of sulphates to avoid the difficulty of concurrent symptoms of fe deficiency. one-month old in vitro plantlets were transplanted into pots and were irrigated with de-ionized water as and when required. the experimental design was conducted with completely randomized design with four replication per treatment. throughout the dur a tion of the exper iment, a ll the necessa r y management practices including pest and diseases control were carried out to ensure good growth a nd develo p ment . p la nt gr owt h p a r a met er s associated with fe deficiency were assessed as described below. all the parameters were recorded at differ ent inter vals 30, 60, 90 and 120 da ys (harvest) after planting. the morpho-physiological and biochemical parameters such as plant height, nu mb er of ma in s t ems , nu mb er of lea ves , chlorophyll content and peroxidase were recorded across the growth stages. number and weight of tuber s a long wit h r oot : shoot r a tio a nd wer e estimated after harvest stage. all the pa ra meter s wer e recorded a t different intervals 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after planting. the growth parameters such as plant height (round level to the tip of the last opened leaf), total number of stem a nd number of lea ves wer e recor ded. physio-biochemical parameters viz. spad values (boodi et al., 2016), chlorophyll and peroxidise (chatterjee and chatterjee, 2003) were measured across the growth stages. to obtain tuber yield pla nts wer e ma int a ined till ma tu r ity in ea ch treatment. number and weight of tubers along with r oot: shoot r atio were estimated a fter ha r vest sta ge. table 1: properties of the initial soil used for pot experiment soil properties fe-sufficient fe-deficient soil soil soil ph 5.73 8.13 electrical conductivity 0.31 0.23 (ds m-1) organic carbon (%) 1.26 1.67 free caco3 (%) 5.70 10.6 dtpa extractable-fe 17.5 4.53 (mg kg-1) challam et al 47 mean squares for idc tolerant associated traits, yield and it related traits were estimated with the aid of agres statistical package. comparison b et ween t h e t r ea t ment s wa s ma d e b y u s ing common least significant difference at (p = 0.05). pea rson’s cor rela tion coefficient between idc tolerance associated traits across four stages, yield and it related traits were estimated for fe-deficient soils and significance was tested (p = 0.05 and 0.01). results and discussion morpho-physiological parameters g r owt h a nd develop ment in p l a nt s a r e a consequence of excellent coordination of several processes operating at different growing phases of pla nt. plant height, tota l number of stem and number of lea ves a re impor tant mor phological character representing vigour of the plant during t he gr owt h a nd develop ment . t h es e gr owt h indicators were measured periodically during the crop period. being an essential micronutrient, fe promoted the growth of all potato genotypes when grown at fe-sufficient soil. significant difference was observed for plant height, total main stem and number of leaves between the genotypes under different soil condition at all the phenological stages viz . , 3 0 , 6 0 , 9 0 a nd a t ha r ves t s t a ge. t he comparison between fe-sufficient and fe-deficient soil showed significant reduction in plant height and number of stems under fe-deficient soil (table 2). this reduction may be attributed to reduced cell division, meristematic activity in apical tissue, expansion of cell and formation of new cell wall under fe starvations (boodi et al., 2016). the reduction of plant height during stress can serve a n advanta geous purpose for pla nts to r educe t r a ns p or t a tion dis t a nc es , whic h c a n help t o efficiently distribute water, nutrients and assimilates in plants (aliche et al., 2020). on the contrary, number of leaves was found to increase as many side shoots wer e obser ved a s a r esult of fedeficiency in fe-deficient soil. tolerant genotype cp-3443 showed lea st reduction in number of leaves i.e., a greater number of leaves compared to other genotypes although lesser in plant height. boa mp o ns em e t a l . , ( 2 0 1 7 ) ma d e a s imila r obser va tion under fe-deficient conditions, feefficient potatoes have a greater number of leaves due to shorter internodal distance and stem height. this may be influenced by genetic characteristics of genotype related to its ability to grow better and give the higher yield. chlorophylls, the plant pigments responsible for harvesting solar energy and converting into required chemical energy, exhibit a differential pattern in their accumulation in crop plants. gradual increase in chlorophyll was observed from 30 to 90 days, but decline there onwards until harvest was evident for a ll the genotypes in fe-deficient soils. the higher chlor ophyll content in plants under fedeficient soil for initial growth periods could be attributed to the possible acquisition of appreciable fe stores during prior growth of in vitro plants on sufficient fe medium and available fe in soil. h enc e, p la nt s wer e c a p a b le of s u s t a ining chlorophyll biosynthesis during early stages on ex pos ur e t o low fe sup plies . after 9 0 da ys, however, the plants could not acquire sufficient fe from deficient soil led to inhibition of chlorophyll s ynt hesis . t he int er a c t ion ef f ec t wa s f ou nd significant across the growth stage in chlorophyll (a, b and total) (table 2). chlorophyll (a, b, and total) were significa ntly higher among toler ant followed by modera tely tolera nt genotype, but s us c ep tib le ones showed s ignif ic a nt ly les ser content dur ing all the four crop gr owth sta ges under fe-deficient soils (table 2). the ability to absorb fe from the soil under fe-deficient soil as evident in t oler a nt a nd moder a t e ly t oler a nt genotypes helps to pr oduce mor e chlor ophyll pigments, since most of the leaf iron is found in chloroplast, primarily in photosynthetic electron transport chain complexes that comprise about 60 % of the total content of the leaf iron (terry and abadia, 1986). peroxidase (pod) content underwent a significant increase from 30, 60, 90 days but decline there onwards until 120 days was evident for all the genotypes under both soil conditions. however, fedeficient induced a noticeable decrease in the values of peroxidase in comparison to the fe-sufficient condition (table 2). the pod is a heme-containing enzyme and therefore its activity and/or synthesis are probably affected by iron deficiency. in the current study, decreased pod activity under limited fe supply j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 45-52, 2021 chlorosis resistance to iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato 48 table 2 : mean performance of potato genotypes for morpho-physiological parameters in fe-sufficient and fe-deficient soils across growth stages # least significant difference (p = 0.05) for fe-sufficient and fe-deficient soils individually, $ = common least significant difference for both fesufficient and fe-deficient soils for treatment comparisons, c – fe-sufficient soil, t – fe-deficient soil, lsd – least significant difference (p=0.05), ** highly significant, * significant, change (%) % change for mean across four stages between fe-sufficient and fe-deficient soils. j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 45-52, 2021 challam et al 49 may have been due to low activation and/or a reduced production of the pod enzyme. in comparison between genotypes, maximum peroxidase activity was noted in cp-3443 followed by cp-4105, cp-3486 and cp-4069 under fe-deficient soils (table 2). this implies during redox homeostasis, the antioxidant system in tolerant genotypes maintains a balance between production and scavenging of rea ctive oxygen species (ros); such a balance is critical for the protection of the system against oxidative burst (balakrishnan, 2000). yield components under fe-deficient soil, reduced yield was observed in all genotypes compared to plants grown under fesufficient soil. however, idc tolerant genotype were found to have better yield and its related traits compared to susceptible genotypes. the decrease in yield under fe-deficient soil being up to 16% in cp3443, followed by cp-4105 (20%), cp-3486 (27%) and cp-4069 (28%) of its potential yield under fesufficient (fig. 1a). similarly, reduced in number of tubers per plant (13-19%) and average tuber weight (3-12%) were recorded in all four genotypes (fig. 1b & c). under fe-deficient soil, tolerant genotypes have better photosynthetic activity as shown by higher number of leaves and chlorophyll content while registered minimum reduction in number of tubers, average tuber weight and overall yield of plants as compared to susceptible genotypes. root architecture plays an important role in fe uptake. previous studies (zou et al., 2013; li et al., 2015) have shown that most species allocate more biomass to roots at reduced availability of fe and allocate root biomass in shallow soil horizons, as well as increase root length and grow more and more root hairs and lateral roots; some also produce cluster roots, thereby promoting fe uptake. root-shoot ratio is the quantity of plant tissue that supports the quantity of those with growth functions. in case of root to shoot ratio an increase (15%) was observed in tolerant genotypes (cp-3443). a slight reduction of 3% was noted in medium tolerant genotype (cp-4105), whereas a reduction of 8% and 17% was observed in cp-3486 and cp-4069, respectively under fe-deficient soil (fig. 1d). dry matter partitioning to different plant parts was significantly influenced both fe-sufficient and fedeficient conditions. in the study, tolerant genotypes have more root biomass compared to susceptible genotypes. this may be due to better and deeper root system in the genotypes which help in absorption of nutrient from the deeper and surrounding layer of the soils. root to shoot ratio clearly exhibit significant difference amongst potato genotypes in both the conditions. genotypes with a higher root biomass actually compete more effectively for soil nutrients with the ability to produce higher yields, particularly under stress conditions. this is supported by the significant relationship of root to shoot ratio with yield (table 3). the available nutrient status of the soil is another important property which support the crop growth while, the crop growth and dry matter accumulation depends upon the ability of the soil to supply nutrients, the nutrients release from the soil in turn depends upon the demand from growing plants. micronutrients, in pa rticular fe and zn, either function as metal components of different enzymes or as functional structural or regulatory cofactors and are therefore connected to photosynthesis and protein synthesis. the concentration of fe and zn were estimated in the tubers to know their accumulation. a decrease in concentration of fe ranges from 7.17 to 12.33% in tubers was observed in all the genotypes under fedeficient soil (fig. 1e). this may be attributed to low expression of genes resulting in low xylem mobility and poor translocation capacity under fe-deficient soil condition. a similar trend was observed in zn, a stimulator under fe-deficient conditions (6.54-10.05%; fig. 1f) associations a significant positive correlation was observed between morpho-physiological, biochemical and yield parameters in the study (table 3). number of leaves showed significant (p < 0.05) and positive correlation with parameters like total chlorophyll (0.981) and yield (0.970). while, yield per plant was also highly significant with number of tubers (0.957) and root to shoot ratio (0.973), respectively ( ta ble 3 ). under f edef icient c ondit ion, the genotype cp-3443 wa s a ble to pr oduce mor e leaves which participated directly or indirectly in t he ma nu f a c t u r ing of mor e c h lor op hyll (boamponsem et al., 2017). further, their leaves function as efficient photosynthesis structures and j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 45-52, 2021 chlorosis resistance to iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato 50 fig. 1: difference among idc resistant and susceptible potato genotypes under normal and calcareous fe soils for yield and its component traits a) yield, b) number of tubers, c) avg. weight of tuber, d) root-shoot ratio, e) total fe content, f) total zn content. mean of tolerant and susceptible genotypes considered for comparison; standard error bar is common for both resistant and susceptible genotypes. j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 45-52, 2021 challam et al 51 table 3: association between mean of morpho-physiological and biochemical parameters across all four stages and yield –related traits ph tms nl tc pod yield no.tub wt.tub r:s ph 1 tms 0.913 1 nl -0.542 -0.156 1 tc -0.461 -0.059 .981* 1 pod -0.027 0.366 0.765 0.867 1 yield -0.352 0.06 .970* .991** 0.895 1 no.tub -0.358 0.039 0.9 .967* 0.943 .957* 1 wt.tub -0.914 -0.807 0.497 0.494 0.208 0.376 0.494 1 r:s -0.136 0.28 0.888 0.942 .962* .973* 0.947 0.21 1 ph-plant height, tms-total main stems, nl-number of leaves, tc-total chlorophyll, pod-peroxidase, no.tub-number of tubers, wt.tub-weight of tubers, r:s-root-to-shoot ratio * correlation is significant at p value=0.05 ** correlation is significant at p value=0.01 produced higher amount of carbohydrates in the pla nt system registering minimum reduction in numb er of t uber s a nd over a ll yield of pla nts compared to susceptible genotypes (braun et al., 2016). while the root-shoot ratio indicates that the tolerant genotypes may have efficient root to shoot transport and redistribution of fe in the plant (xu et al., 2017). this positive corr ela tion further confirms the involvement of fe in increasing the photosynthetic a ppa r a tus and ma inta ining the minimal stress in tolerant genotypes to enhance the physiological process under fe-deficient soils. conclusion under fe-deficient soil conditions, idc tolerant genot yp es r ec or ded a s ignif ic a n t ly higher chlor ophyll, a nd peroxida se a ctivity in lea ves across all four crop growth stages compared to susceptible genotypes confirming their utility as traits for identification and development of idc toler ant potato genotypes. towards developing high-yielding, idc tolerant potato cultivars for fedeficient environments, selection may be practiced for higher tuber weight and root to shoot ratio. aliche, e.b., bourke, a. p., sanchez, m. r., oortwijn, m., gerkema, e. d., as, h. v., visser, r.g.f., and van der linden, c. g. 2020. morphological and physiological responses of the potato stem transport tissues to dehydration stress. planta, 251: 45. balakrishnan, k. 2000. peroxidase activity as an indicator of the iron deficiency in banana. ind. j. plant physi., 5(4): 389-391. boamponsem, g. a., leung, d.w.m., lister, c. 2017. insights into resistance to fe deficiency stress from a comparative study of in vitro-selected novel fe-efficient and fe-inefficient potato plants. front. plant sci., 8:1581. boodi, i. h., pattanashetti, s. k., biradar, b. 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abstract a study was conducted to find out the effect of antibiotics and gelling agents on agrobacterium-mediated transformation using hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota. hypocotyl explants of brinjal were found to be sensitive even to the lowest level of kanamycin (25 mg/l) tested. explants that showed increased callus initiation and regeneration response upon cocultivation with agrobacterium and on kanamycin at 100 mg/l were selected as this indicated a highly effective selection pressure. cefotaxime did not affect regeneration response and at 500 mg/l, it effectively inhibited agrobacterium overgrowth completely on agrobacterium cocultivated hypocotyl explants. there were marked differences in regeneration response in hypocotyl explants cultured on medium solidified with various gelling agents indicating the influence of gelling agent on the activity of kanamycin in culture medium, which indirectly affects selection and recovery of transformants. antibiotics and gelling agents could therefore affect, directly or indirectly, transformation of brinjal cv. manjarigota. key words: solanum melongena, kanamycin, cefotaxime, gelling agents, transformation 1department of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta, shimoga, india introduction in transformation studies, once the target cells have been transformed, the transgenic cells or plants produced from them are identified on selection medium. a marker gene is necessary because only a low proportion of the cells exposed to the transformation processes subsequently become stably transformed (klee et al, 1987). the use of selection medium confers an advantage to those cells that stably incorporate the transgene construct and are, therefore, resistant to the specific antibiotic in the selective medium. the use of a marker gene in a transformation process thus aims to give a selective advantage to transformed cells by allowing them to grow. the selectable marker gene confers the transformed cells an ability to metabolize compounds that are not usually metabolized by untransformed cells. one such widely used marker gene for transformation of plants is nptii (neomycin phosphotransferase ii) gene, which confers resistance to the aminoglycoside antibiotic kanamycin by phosphorylation of the specific hydroxyl group (nap et al, 1992). antibiotics are added to the culture media to control agrobacterium that may affect the plant regeneration process (since agrobacterium itself is basically a plant pathogen (hanur, 2004)) and to select transformants with an antibiotic resistance that gets cotransferred with the gene of interest. sensitivity to kanamycin varies with crop and explant (shaw et al, 1983). cefotaxime is a b-lactam antibiotic that inhibits bacterial cell wall synthesis. it inhibits the cross linking of peptidoglycan by binding and inactivating of transpeptidase leading to nicks in cell wall by which the cell membrane protudes into the hypotonic environment and, finally, ruptures as a consequence of osmotic shock. although many antibiotics have been described for effective control of agrobacterium cells, cefotaxime is known to exert minimal effect on most plant tissues (mathias and boyd, 1986) and has become most widely used antibiotic in agrobacteriummediated transformation (yu et al, 2001; magioli et al, 2000). cefotaxime has been shown to have both negative and positive effect on callus formation and regeneration in crop plants. various gelling agents differ in their affinity to bind kanamycin and inhibit the latter’s activity in the culture medium, which may indirectly affect transformation and recovery of transformants (laine et al, 2000). though the j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 19-25, 2007 mechanism is not clear, efficiency of kanamycin that inhibiting regeneration differed with various gelling agents (chauvin et al, 1999). in brinjal transformation, the effect of antibiotics, viz., cefotaxime and kanamycin, has been studied to a lesser extent (billings et al, 1997) and there are no reports on the effect of gelling agents in brinjal transformation. in developing an efficient transformation protocol, finding out effect of various in vitro factors is an important step. also, it is necessary to document the effect of such factors affecting transformation in various cultivars of a crop plant, so that importance of any particular factor at the species/varietal level can be studied. this is useful in determining factors for developing an efficient transformation protocol for a given cultivar. in this paper, an effort has been made to study the effect of antibiotics and gelling agents, which are critical factors in making a transformation protocol efficient, using hypocotyl explants in brinjal cv. manjarigota. material and methods plant material the genuine breeder seed material of brinjal cv. manjarigota was obtained from the division of vegetable crops, iihr, bangalore. seeds were soaked in gibberillic acid (100 ppm) for three hours, surface sterilized for 1 minute in 70% ethanol, washed in sterile distilled water, treated for 8-10 min. in sodium hypochlorite (approximately 4% available chlorine) solution and washed five times in sterile distilled water. they were germinated on halfstrength ms (murashige and skoog, 1962) basal medium containing 3% sucrose (w/v), 0.8% agar and ph adjusted to 5.8 using dilute naoh/hcl prior to autoclaving. hypocotyls from aseptically germinated seedlings were used as the explant donor source (hanur et al, 2006). sterilization and culture incubation conditions sterilization of culture medium and instruments was done by autoclaving at 121o c at 15-psi pressure for 15 min. cultures were incubated in culture racks tilted with white, fluorescent tubes with a light intensity of 30-40µe m-2 s-1 under a 16 h photoperiod in a culture room maintained at 25o ± 2° c. plant transformation plasmid pbinbt-1 (the pbinar binary vector containing camv35s promoter, the coding region of synthetic cry1ab gene, ocs terminator and nptii selectable marker cassette) (kumar et al, 1998) was used for standardizing the transformation protocol. the nptii gene conferring kanamycin resistance served as a selectable marker. fifteen to twenty day old hypocotyl explants were precultured for two days on shoot regeneration medium for hypocotyl explants (srmh) containing ms medium with 2 µ m benzyl aminopurine (bap) and 0.05 µ m naphthalene acetic acid (naa) (hanur et al, 2007). explants were transferred to a sterile petri plate, infected with overnight-grown agrobacterium culture for 20-25 min. and placed back onto the parent medium, cocultivated for two days, transferred onto culture media containing cefotaxime (500 mg/l) for two days and then transferred to srmh containing cefotaxime (500 mg/l) and kanamycin (100 mg/l). hypocotyl explants cultured without agrobacterium cocultivation on srmh served as the control. all the explants in all the treatments were subsequently subcultured on shoot elongation medium (sem) and rooting initiation medium (rim) for complete plant regeneration. kanamycin to examine kanamycin sensitivity, hypocotyl explants (without cocultivation) were cultured on srmh containing kanamycin at 0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175 and 200 mg/l. observations were recorded on callus initiation and regeneration response at four weeks from culture initiation. observations on explant survival were recorded weekly upto four weeks from culture initiation. similarly, hypocotyl explants were cultured after agrobacterium cocultivation on srmh containing kanamycin at different levels and observations were recorded and stringent selection pressure for selecting putative transformants was worked out. cefotaxime after cocultivation, hypocotyl explants were cultured at different concentrations of cefotaxime (100, 250, 500, 750 and 1000 mg/l) and transformation procedure thereafter remained the same as above. observations were recorded on callus induction and regeneration response at four weeks from culture initiation. observations on explant survival and bacterial overgrowth were recorded weekly upto four weeks from culture initiation. callus induction and regeneration (transformation) frequency was worked out. gelling agents three types of gelling agent [agar, gelrite (phytagel) and agargel (agar + gelrite)] were used in the culture medium as solidifying agents at all stages of the 20j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 19-25, 2007 prakash et al transformation protocol. observations were recorded on callus induction and regeneration response at four weeks from culture initiation. callus induction and regeneration (transformation) frequency was worked out. data analysis sufficient numbers of replications were maintained in an experiment as required. wherever necessary analysis of variance (anova) was used to test significance of the results (details given below) observed. results and discussion effect of kanamycin on transformation and in vitro morphogenetic response of hypocotyl explants in the experiment conducted to work out the minimum concentration of kanamycin required for complete killing of untransformed plant cells, hypocotyl explants showed varied sensitivity to various levels of kanamycin without agrobacterium co-cultivation. after 4 weeks, 100 % hypocotyl explants remained viable (green) in the control i.e., zero kanamycin. approximately, 92, 16 and 8 % callus induciton response was observed on hypocotyl explants cultured on srmh containing 25, 50 and 75 mg/l kanamycin, respectively. however, these failed to regenerate shoots. hypocotyl explants cultured on srmh containing 100 mg/l kanamycin and above showed neither callusing nor regeneration response. however, billings et al (1997) reported no growth of any kind with control, noninoculated leaf discs (bulging/thickening) cultured on 10100 mg/l kanamycin in brinjal. in the present study, initial callus induction response (bulging near the cut end) on hypocotyl explants on kanamycin containing culture medium, may be because of the nature of hypocotyl explants to respond as fast as compared to other explants like cotyledonary leaf or leaf (curuk et al, 2002; gaba et al, 1999). in the present study, explants gradually turned light yellow and ultimately died on srmh containing kanamycin. time taken for chlorosis (yellowing/white) of explants reduced with increasing kanamycin concentration and differed markedly with kanamycin concentration. shoots (untransformed) cultured on sem containing 50 mg/ l kanamycin did not elongate. shoots cultured on rim containing 25-mg/l kanamycin did not show root induction. instead these turned yellow and died. sensitivity to an antibiotic has been shown to differ with crop plant, cultivar and explant type (sunilkumar and rathore, 2001; barcelo et al, 1998; sriskandrajah and goodwin, 1998; sarmento et al, 1992) and the nature and size of explants may contribute to differed sensitivity to kanamycin (chauvin et al, 1999). in the present study, hypocotyl explants cultured on kanamycin at 100 mg/l did not show any response. in the present study, after the hypocotyl explants were co-cultivated with agrobacterium, their ability to show callus induction and regeneration in the presence of kanamycin increased showing that transformation of plant cells had taken place. hypocotyl explants showed varied morphogenetic responses on various levels of kanamycin after agrobacterium co-cultivation (fig. 1; table 1). callus induction response occurred at all the levels of kanamycin tested (up to 200 mg/l). however, gradual reduction in callus initiation was observed with increase in kanamycin (>100 mg/l) concentration in the culture medium. shoot regeneration response was observed upto 125 mg/l, which, sharply decreased at 150 mg/l or higher concentrations kanamycin. billings et al (1997) found that 50 mg/l kanamycin was more effective for selecting transformed shoots and even transformed cells failed to regenerate at higher levels of kanamycin in cotyledonary leaves of brinjal. table 1. effect of kanamycin on transformation and morphogenetic response of hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota kanamycin callus initiation response regeneration response (mg/l) (% ± se) (% ± se) 25 100.0±0.00 41.86 ±2.51 50 97.6±2.22 19.04 ±1.11 75 97.7±2.22 11.11 ±2.22 100 97.6±2.56 6.90 ±0.34 125 79.5±3.57 2.27 ±2.22 150 74.4±4.03 0.00 ±0.00 175 58.3±5.87 0.00 ±0.00 200 58.3±4.44 0.00 ±0.00 control 100.0±0.00 80.0 ±4.84 fractions were converted into percentages; percentage data are with se. fig 1. effect of kanamycin on agrobacterium mediated transformation and morphogenetic response in hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota m o rp h o g e n e ti c r e s p o n s e ( % ) kanamycin (mg/l) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 19-25, 2007 effect of antibiotics and gelling agents on brinjal transformation 21 higher level of kanamycin has been found to inhibit chlorophyll synthesis even in transgenic tissues (norouzi et al, 2005). however, in almost all previously reported brinjal transformation studies, high concentrations (100200 mg/l) of kanamycin were used to select transformants (rotino and gleddie, 1990; kumar et al, 1998). reducing kanamycin concentration to sub-lethal levels during selection led to higher number of escapes. application of higher kanamycin concentration in the selection medium reduced regeneration response, while, transformed plants remained mostly chimeric in nature in carnation (zuker et al, 1999). in the present study, almost all the explants showed callus initiation (>97%) with regeneration response (6.9%) after agrobacterium co-cultivation on 100mg/l kanamycin. this shows that there is scope for further improvement in regeneration response by optimizing other factors involved in the transformation procedure. moreover, both callus initiation and regeneration response were completely inhibited in control explants at 100 mg/l of kanamycin. kanamycin at 100mg/l was, therefore, identified as a stringent selection pressure for selection of transformants in hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota. effect of cefotaxime on transformation and in vitro morphogenetic response of hypocotyl explants hypocotyl explants cultured on srmh containing cefotaxime showed a little callus production all over the surface (plate 1). cefotaxime did not affect callus initiation response in hypocotyl explants and callusing was seen at 100% at all levels of cefotaxime. cefotaxime did not significantly affect regeneration response. complete exclusion of bacteria was possible by employing a culture medium with cefotaxime at 500 mg/l. explants cultured on cefotaxime below 500 mg/l showed agrobacterium overgrowth. it is known that once bacteria start surviving in the plant tissue, it is difficult to control their overgrowth. the only option was to exclud such explants from the culture to prevent spread of overgrowth to other explants. similarly, it is reported that lower levels of cefotaxime do not completely eliminate agrobacterium in brinjal cotyledons (billings et al, 1997). five hundred mg/l of cefotaxime was extremely effective in eliminating agrobacterium from explants of brinjal up to 3 months (billings et al, 1997; kumar et al, 1998). effective concentrations of antibiotic for elimination of agrobacterium overgrowth was dependent on agrobacterium strain, explant type and crop (sriskandarajah and goodwin, 1998; hoque et al, 2005). various concentrations of cefotaxime, 200-500mg/l, were effectively used to eliminate agrobacterium overgrowth in transformation studies in rice (hoque et al, 2005), strawberry (barcelo et al, 1998) and apple (sriskandaranjah and goodwin, 1998). in the present study hypocotyl explants cultured on higher levels of cefotaxime (>500mg/ l) turned brown at third week from culture initiation. this may be due to delayed sensitivity of explants to higher levels of cefotaxime. similarly, it was seen that papaya callus turned brown in color on medium containing cefotaxime at 250 mg/l (yu et al, 2001). in the present study, slightly higher amount of callus production was visually observed on explants cultured on all levels of cefotaxime compared to the control. however, no significant differences in callus initiation response and regeneration response were observed. picoli et al (2002) found that cefotaxime enhanced callus fresh weight, it also caused a decrease in the rate of embryo regeneration in brinjal. magioli et al (2001) however, reported that presence of cefotaxime did not affect embryogenic callus formation and development from leaf and cotyledonary explants. billings et al (1997) reported no effect on either callus production or regeneration. stimulation of callus growth and regeneration due to cefotaxime have been reported in barley (mathias and mukasa, 1987), bread wheat (mathias and boyd, 1986) and many horticultural crops. however, in the present study, the maximum regeneration response observed in explants cultured on 500mg/l (21.81%) cefotaxime might be due to an effective control of agrobacterium without harming the explants (fig 2). negative effects of cefotaxime on callus formation and plant regeneration have been described in carrot (okkels and pederson, 1988). j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 19-25, 2007 prakash et al 22 plate 1. regeneration response of hypocotyl explants after agrobacterium cocultivation cultured on srmh containing defferent levels of cefotaxime (mg/l):1, 0; 2, 100; 3, 250; 4, 500; 5,750 and 6, 1000 mg/l. in tomato, cefotaxime did not by itself inhibit callus growth in the culture medium, but it clearly decreased shoot differentiation. together with kanamycin, cefotaxime showed a strong negative effect on callus growth, shoot regeneration and transformation frequency in tomato (ling et al, 1998). okkels and pederson (1988) reported stimulation of plant regeneration at low concentrations of cefotaxime (less than 100 mg/l) in carrot and inhibition at high concentration (300 mg/l). enhanced callus formation and shoot regeneration in culture medium containing antibiotic may be possibly caused by release of auxin-like compounds (halford and newbury, 1992; robert et al, 1989; ling et al, 1998). hence, it appears that the effect of cefotaxime on any tissue depends on the crop plant, genotype, explant type, concentration of cefotaxime and other transformation conditions. the present study showed that cefotaxime could promote a slight increase in callus production in explants without a marked effect on regeneration response of hypocotyl explants in brinjal cv. manjarigota. effect of gelling agent in the culture medium on transformation and in vitro morphogenetic response of hypocotyl explants in the present study, three types of gelling agents, viz., agar, agargel (agar + phytagel at 1:1 ratio) and phytagel were assessed for their effect on regeneration response of agrobacterium cocultivated hypocotyl explants in the presence of kanamycin (table 2). gelling agents did not affect callus initiation response from hypocotyl explants and callus induction response was found to be 100% on all the gelling agents tried. explants cultured on medium solidified with agargel showed better regeneration (35.71%) than phytagel (31.42%) or agar (27.14%). though the effect of gelling agent was not significant, it is clear that kanamycin has the maximum activity in a medium solidified with agar than with agargel and phytagel. similarly, agar encouraged maximum effect of kanamycin, whereas phytagel and agargel showed reduced inhibitory effect of kanamycin in flax transformation studies (laine et al, 2000). kanamycin appears to bind to gelrite with higher affinity than to agar; hence, inhibition of regeneration by kanamycin on a medium solidified with gelrite was less, compared to that with agar (chauvin et al, 1999; wilmink and dons, 1993). in the present study, agargel, an intermediate form of agar and phytagel, showed the highest regeneration response and less kanamycin activity compared to that with agar and phytagel. cassells and collins (2000) reported that physical and chemical grading of gelling agents was not related to biological performance of the gelling agents. however, the small differences observed in regeneration response of cocultivated explants cultured on selection medium solidified with various gelling agents suggest that the gelling agent found to be optimal with respect to sensitivity of the explants to kanamycin should be continued to be used in transformation studies. it should not be changed at any stage of the transformation experiment because it may lead to altered response from explants between the experiments. change in solidifying agent may either reduce regeneration response or increase regeneration of escapes due to change caused in the effect of kanamycin (selection). generally, differences were observed in explants cultured on media solidified with various gelling agents in tobacco (chauvin et al, 1999). so, there is also a possibility of the gelling agent itself affecting regeneration response of explants without kanamycin in the culture medium. however, in brinjal, reports indicate agar to be the best gelling agent for the realization of better in vitro regeneration response (perrone et al, 1992). it can be therefore concluded that gelling agents have a role in deciding kanamycin activity, table 2. ef fect of gelling agents on transformation and morphogenetic response from hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota gelling agent callus regeneration response initiation (%) (% ± se) agar 100 27.14±2.8 agar+ phytagel (agargel) 100 35.71±2.0 phytagel 100 31.42±2.6 fractions were converted into percentages; percentage data were subjected to angular transformation; values in the parentheses are transformed values, cd=34.30, sem=3.81. differences among treatments were non-significant at 5%. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 19-25, 2007 effect of antibiotics and gelling agents on brinjal transformation 23 fig 2. effect of cefotaxime on transformation and in vitro morphogenetic response of hypocotyl explants in brinjal cv. manjarigota which in turn, affect transformation and regeneration of hypocotyl explants in brinjal cv. manjarigota. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the national agricultural technology project (natp), icar, for the financial assistance in the form of competitive grants programme (cgp) to the senior author. thanks are also due to the director, iihr, for encouragement. references barcelo, m., mansouri, e. i., mercado, a. j., quesada, a. m. and pliego, f. 1998. regeneration and transformation via agrobacterium tumefaciens of the strawberry cultivar chandler. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 54: 29-36. billings, s., jelenkovic, g., chin, c. k. and eberhardt, j. 1997. the effect of growth regulation and antibiotics on eggplant transformation. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 122: 158-162. cassells, a. c. and collins, i. m. 2000. characterization and 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(ms received 10 may 2006, revised 7 june 2007) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 19-25, 2007 effect of antibiotics and gelling agents on brinjal transformation 25 enrichment of genetic linkage maps and mapping qtls specific to seed strength hardness / softness in guava (psidium guajava l.) b. padmakar1, c. kanupriya, p. madhavi latha, c. vasugi, m.r. dinesh, d. sailaja2 and c. aswath* icar-indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560089, karnataka, india *e-mail: aswath@iihr.res.in abstract the present research focuses mainly on molecular mining and morphological evaluation of guava genome within a full-sib population and, thereby, mapping of quantitative trait loci related to fruit quality traits, viz., seed strength (hardness/softness) and average fruit weight. linkage maps were enriched for both parental lines, ‘kamsari’ and ‘purple local’ using a set of 60 rapd markers following the pseudo-testcross strategy on a panel of 94 progeny. a total of 480 scorable markers were identified, of which 131 were specific to ‘kamsari’ and 28 to ‘purple local’, segregating as test cross markers, and, 321 showing intercross pattern common to both. ‘kamsari’ spanned a total length of 1959.1cm with average marker interval distance of 3.93cm, while ‘purple local’ spanned a length of 1537.9cm with average marker interval distance of 3.29cm, by forming 11 linkage groups. estimated genome length observed was 93.02% and 92.77% in ‘kamsari’ and ‘purple local’, respectively. composite interval mapping (cim) was computed at significance of 0.05 and lod threshold greater than 3.0, which led to detection of one major qtl for the trait of average fruit weight, and, four qtls for the trait of seed strength (hardness/softness). of these, two were major and two minor qtls. our study provides molecular mapping information on marker-assisted selection for improvement of guava in a breeding program. key words: composite interval mapping, guava, linkage map, pseudo-testcross, quantitative trait loci (qtl) introduction guava (psidium guajava l.), native to tropical america, is a perennial tree crop with heterozygous and heterogeneous genome comprising approximately 460 mbp (sara et al, 2012). it is a diploid with 2n=22 and belongs to the family myrtaceae (nakasone and paull, 1998). familiarly known as the apple of the tropics / poor man’s apple, guava is one of the important and major fruit crops in india. it is a repository of nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants, and, has incredible medicinal and pharmaceutical properties (shruthi et al, 2013). guava acts as a dual-purpose fruit used as fresh fruit as well as after processing. development of medium-sized fruits with high tss, pink pulp and soft seeds is a major breeding objective in guava which requires basic understanding of the role of complex genomic regions controlling these traits, i.e., quantitative trait loci (qtl). j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):13-20, 2016 genetic linkage maps provide ready means for localization and map-based cloning of genes, and provide the necessary infrastructure for marker assisted breeding. besides, developing a linkage map with consistent molecular markers forms the basis for analysis of agronomically important traits. construction of linkage maps in heterozygous species is most efficiently achieved using double pseudo-testcross mapping strategy (grattapaglia and sederoff, 1994). guava genome exhibits a high degree of heterogeneity and heterozygosity (chandra and mishra, 2007), and, perennial nature of the crop complicates basic understanding of the genomic sites contributing to various economically important phenotypes. guava is still considered an orphan crop with reference to its exploration at the genomic and/or genetic level. only limited number of reports are available on molecular profiling of the guava genome within a mapping 1center for biotechnology, jntu, hyderabad, telangana, india 2department of biotechnology, griet, hyderabad, telangana, india 14 population (valdés-infante et al, 2003; rodriguez et al, 2007; lepitre et al, 2010; padmakar et al, 2015a, 2015b) or on its quantitative genetics (valdes-infante et al, 2003; rodriguez et al, 2007; ritter et al, 2010). various markers have been used for molecular characterization in guava (nimisha et al, 2013), of which, random amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) markers have been used for assessing molecular diversity (prakash et al, 2002), studying genetic relatedness/diversity (dahiya et al, 2002; sharma et al, 2007; ahmed et al, 2011; pessanha et al, 2011), or determining phylogenetic relationships (chen et al, 2007). hence, in the present study, we report enrichment of the intra-specific linkage maps developed in guava using rapd markers in a pseudo-testcross mapping configuration, and identification of fruit quality related qtls. to our knowledge, this is the first report of a linkage map developed with ssr, srap and rapd markers identifying major qtls for the trait of seed strength (hardness/softness) in guava. material and methods plant material and dna isolation the mapping population comprised 94 f1 progeny obtained from a cross between two cultivars, ‘kamsari’ (2n = 2x = 24) and ‘purple local’ (2n = 2x = 24), maintained in the field germplasm bank at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, india. total genomic dna was extracted from young leaves of the parent plants and f1 progeny, using modified ctab-method (kanupriya et al, 2011). morphological and molecular characterization three traits, namely, seed strength (ss) hardness/ softness, average fruit weight (frwt) and total soluble solids (tss) related to fruit quality, were assessed from a set of five fruits randomly selected per f1 progeny plant, as per dinesh and vasugi (2010). descriptive statistics and pearson correlation coefficient were computed using spss software. a set of 200 rapd markers were used for screening parental lines, of which polymorphic informative markers were used for genotyping mapping population. pcr amplification was carried out in 25μl reaction mixture containing 50mm kcl, 1mm tris-hcl (ph 8.8), 0.01% gelatin, 1.5mm mgcl2, 0.2 mm of each dntp, 0.3μm primer, 100ng genomic dna, and 0.5 units of taq dna polymerase (bengaluru genei, india). pcr was carried out on a master cycler gradient (eppendorf ag, hamburg, germany) thermal cycler, as per padmakar et al (2015b). amplification products were screened on 1.5% agarose gel for confirmation of the amplification. pcr was repeated thrice for checking reproducibility of the polymorphic markers identified. the amplicons generated were scored in a binary format by assigning ‘1’ for presence of a band and ‘0’ for absence of the band. each amplicon was named after the primer name used for amplification, along with a suffix indicating the respective allele size that was amplified. in the case of fragments heterozygous with only one of the parents considered as testcross markers, segregation ratio across the mapping population was tested against a 1:1 ratio, using chi-square (χ2) test at a significance of p<0.05; while, those heterozygous in both the parents were considered as intercross markers and were tested against a 3:1 ratio. linkage map enrichment and qtl analysis the data generated was used for enriching the parentspecific maps developed by our group following the protocol of padmakar et al (2015a). a run test (sokal and rohlf, 1981) was performed using the tseries package in r (trapletti and hornik, 2013) to determine randomness in distribution of the markers. genome coverage was calculated by taking the average value of linkage map length estimated, using the method of fishman et al (2001), and method 4 of chakravarti et al (1994). in the methodology of fishman et al (2001), average spacing of the markers is doubled, and added to the length of each linkage group; whereas, method 4 of chakravarti et al (1994) expands each linkage group by (m+1)/(m-1), where m is the number of loci mapped. quantitative trait loci (qtl) detection was achieved using windows qtl cartographer software (wang et al, 2010) employing composite interval mapping (cim) method (zeng 1994). the walking speed chosen for all qtl was 1.0cm. additive effects of each qtl were estimated by the bayesian test. a qtl was declared as significant at lod value of 3.0. table 1. characteristics of trait variation in the guava mapping population frwt (g) ss (kg/cm2) tss (°b) mean ± se 272.9 ± 5.60 11.69 ± 0.22 9.41 ± 0.10 min. 158.50 7.20 6.50 max. 400.00 12.20 14.50 cv 19.90 19.00 10.50 frwt – average fruit weight; ss – seed strength (hardness/softness); tss – total soluble solids; cv – coefficient of variation padmakar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):13-20, 2016 15 results and discussion morphological and molecular characterization adequate variation was available within the fruit quality trait evaluated (table 1). the value for fruit weight (frwt) ranged from 158.5g to 400g, with a mean of 272.9 ± 5.60g. similarly, this ranged from 6.5kg/cm2 to 14.5kg/ cm2, with a mean of 11.69 ± 0.22kg/cm2 and 7.2°b to 12.2°b, with a mean of 9.4 ± 0.10°b, for the traits of seed strength (ss) and tss, respectively. coefficient of variation (cv) depended strongly on a particular trait under evaluation. cv values observed were 19.9, 19.0 and 10.5 for frwt, ss and tss, respectively. positive correlation was observed between the traits of ss and frwt, significant at α=0.01, with pearson coefficient value of r=0.40; but, a negative correlation was observed between the traits of ss and tss, as well as frwt and tss at α=0.01, with a value of r=0.06 and r=0.21, respectively. initial screening of 200 rapd primers in the parental lines revealed 30% polymorphism. the 60 decamers (table 2) were used for further genotyping the mapping population. a total of 480 scorable bands was produced, with an average of 8.00 bands per primer. size of the amplified products ranged from 150bp to 3kb. of the 480 bands scored, 159 (33.12%) were polymorphic and segregated as testcross markers, of which 131 markers were specific to ‘kamsari’ and 28 to ‘purple local’. the remaining 321 common fragments segregating in 3:1 ratio were treated as intercross markers. finally, a set of 57 markers (11.87%) showing segregation distortion was identified and excluded from further mapping studies. linkage map enrichment ‘kamsari’ parental map (fig. 1) was enriched from 351 markers, leaving 53 unlinked, and grouped into 11 linkage groups (lg) spanning a length of 1951.9cm, with a mean of about 45.2 markers per lg. the lgs (table 3) varied in genetic length from 69.9cm to 414.2cm, with a mean of 178.1cm. average marker interval distance observed was 3.93cm ranging from 0.00cm to 50.5cm. estimated genome length was 2,166.8cm, attributable to 90.41% of genome coverage and 2,048.3cm attributable to 95.64% of genome coverage, as per fishman et al (2001) and chakravarthi et al (1991), respectively. thus, an average of the two methods resulted in genome coverage of 93.02%. in ‘purple local’, out of the 336 markers tested, 318 markers assembled into 11 lgs (fig. 2) covering a total distance of 1537.9cm, with a mean of 42.4 markers per lg. the lgs (table 3) varied in genetic length from 52.9cm to 256.0cm, with a mean of 139.8cm. inter-marker separation ranged table 2. list of polymorphic rapd markers used in the study s. no. rapd primer s. no. rapd primer 1 opag20 2 opao4 3 opao19 4 opau2 5 opaz11 6 opaz14 7 opaz15 8 opaz16 9 opaz18 10 opb7 11 opb19 12 opba2 13 opba6 14 opba12 15 opba13 16 opba14 17 opba16 18 opc2 19 opc3 20 opc8 21 opc13 22 opd8 23 oph15 24 opk1 25 opk2 26 opk3 27 opk4 28 opk6 29 opk7 30 opk8 31 opk10 32 opk11 33 opk17 34 opk20 35 opm4 36 opn9 37 opn11 38 opn12 39 opn13 40 opn20 41 opo2 42 opo9 43 opo11 44 opo12 45 opo13 46 opo14 47 opo16 48 opo18 49 opp2 50 opp10 51 opp17 52 opp19 53 opq1 54 opq2 55 opq3 56 opq6 57 opq18 58 opy1 59 opy3 60 opy9 table 3. characteristics of parent linkage maps parent 1: kamsari parent 2: purple local lga k-lg tmb cmc pl-lg tmb cmc 1 k1 101 69.9 pl1 10 178.8 2 k2 101 102.8 pl2 101 146.3 3 k3 101 170.9 pl3 20 256 4 k4 75 194 pl4 101 92.7 5 k5 18 298 pl5 101 52.9 6 k6 6 106.2 pl6 19 187.5 7 k7 9 115.1 pl7 16 123 8 k8 31 179.9 pl8 26 128.7 9 k9 14 152.8 pl9 43 114.6 10 k10 16 155.3 pl10 20 127.3 11 k11 26 414.2 pl11 10 130.1 total 498 1959.1 467 1537.9 min. 6 69.9 10 52.9 mean 45.2 178.1 42.4 139.8 max. 101 414.2 101 256 gcd 93.02% 92.77% alinkage group btotal number of markers clg length in centimorgans (cm) dgenome coverage (estimation of) qtl analysis in guava for seed strength j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):13-20, 2016 16 fig 1. genetic linkage map of ‘kamsari’: map distances in centimorgans (cm) are indicated to the left, and loci to the right, of each linkage group fig 2. genetic linkage map of ‘purple local’: map distances in centimorgans (cm) are indicated to the left, and loci to the right, of each linkage group padmakar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):13-20, 2016 17 table 4. summary of results of qtl analyses trait qtl linkage marker qtl lr additive r2 group interval position effect (cm) average qfrwt pl2 opq1_1020 mpgcir025_125 49.21 29.47 63.07 26.3 fruit weight total r2 26.3 seed strength qssa pl2 opq1_1020 mpgcir005_254 51.21 174.38 4.1 43.6 (hardness/ softness) qssb pl2 mpgcir005_254 mpgcir025_125 64.51 200.15 4.1 43.6 qssc pl3 mpgcir290_190 mpgcir018_166 234.81 30.36 0.83 2.3 qssd k2 mpgcir099_252 opy1_1045 61.61 46.16 1.11 3.6 total r2 93.2 fig 3. qtls mapped on linkage map of ‘kamsari’ fig 4. qtls mapped on linkage map of ‘purple local’ from 0.0cm to 50.5cm, with a mean marker interval distance of 3.29cm. the genome length computed was 1,705.7cm, attributable to 90.16% of genome coverage and 1,612.1cm attributable to 95.39% of genome coverage, as per fishman et al (2001) and chakravarthi et al (1991), respectively. the average of these two methods resulted in a genome coverage of 92.77%. mapping qtls a total of five putative qtls was detected, with each one explaining between 2% and 43% of the phenotypic variance (table 4). four seed-strength qtls (fig. 3, 4), namely, qssa, qssb, qssc and qssd, were identified and mapped to the lgs k2, pl2-1, pl2-2 and pl3. all showed a positive additive effect and accounted for, respectively, qtl analysis in guava for seed strength j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):13-20, 2016 18 3.6%, 43.6%, 43.6% and 2.3% of phenotypic variance. similarly, one qtl for average fruit weight (fig. 3), namely qfrwt, was identified in ‘purple local’ and was mapped to the lg pl2, and contributed to 26.3% of phenotypic variance and exhibiting a positive effect. morphological and molecular characterization as reported earlier by our group (dinesh and vasugi, 2010), a hybridization program in guava was initiated at icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru, with a primary goal of developing hybrids suitable for both table purpose and processing, having fruits of uniform shape, size, good color, firm and thick pulp, good aroma, soft seeds, high tss, high pectin and a long shelf-life. varieties selected as parents were ‘kamsari’ of mediumsized fruits, pink pulp, tss of 9.8°b, less seed-bearing portion, strong flavour with hard seeds, and, ‘purple local’ of dark purple skin, dull-pink pulp, with soft seeds. fruit characteristics evaluated (frwt, ss and tss) showed significant amount of variation within the mapping population comprising 94 progeny. molecular exploration of guava is still in its infancy owing to a lack of availability of sufficient genomic resources. only a few reports are available on development and application of molecular markers for characterizing guava genome. we have reported genotyping and mapping of guava genome using ssr and srap markers in a previous study (padmakar et al, 2015a), and have majorly focused on enriching the maps developed with rapd markers in the present work. since ssr markers available from guava (risterucci et al, 2005, 2010) and srap primer combinations (li and quiros, 2001) have been already used, rapd markers were used here for further characterization. linkage mapping and qtl mapping construction of linkage maps in highly heterozygous species and perennial crops like guava is complicated because each parent is heterozygous, and linkage phase of the marker alleles is usually unknown (maliepaard et al, 1997). however, in out-crossing species, linkage maps have been developed by a strategy known as double or two-way pseudo-testcross-mapping (grattapaglia and sederoff, 1994), where the f1 population is considered as the mapping population, and this has proved efficient in mapping several heterozygous species (xie et al, 2011; lu et al, 2012; sudarshini et al, 2014; padmakar et al, 2015a, 2015b). in our present study a similar technique was employed for parent-specific linkage map enrichment of both the parents. significant amount of difference was observed on the total distance spanned, average marker interval distance, as also the genome coverage estimated in both parental lines. in ‘kamsari’, the total length of linkage map decreased from 2,553.7cm to 1959.1cm along with a reduction in average marker interval distance from 17.5cm to 3.93cm. in addition, the estimated genome coverage increased from 87.32% to 93.02%. similarly, with ‘purple local’ the reduction observed was from 2,115.9cm to 1537.9cm, and 15.9cm to 3.29cm for the total length of linkage map and average marker interval distance, respectively, with increase in estimated genome coverage from 83.74% to 92.77%. marker loci showed some tendency to cluster, especially the srap markers. some lgs consisted of more loci than the others. this could be due to a lack of marker polymorphism between mapping parents on some chromosomes, and/or, these might be sites on the genome representing suppressed recombination. similar clustering was reported earlier too (zhang et al, 2011; zhang et al, 2013). decamers used in the present study played the key role of missing links in the mapped ssr and srap markers. thus, enriched maps were further exploited for mapping the complex qtls governing fruit quality traits such as seed strength (ss), average fruit weight (frwt) and total soluble solids (tss). studies on understanding quantitative genetics in guava are scanty due to the complexity involved in generating mapping populations, long juvenile period of the crop, lack of adequate genomic resources, and the highly heterozygous nature of guava. till date, only three studies are reported, that too from the same group (valdes-infante et al, 2003; rodriguez et al, 2007; ritter et al, 2010) on mapping of qtls in guava. in our present study, two separate qtl analyses were performed with ‘kamsari’ map (k1–k11, fig. 1) and ‘purple local’ map (pl1– pl11, fig. 2). we mapped five qtls, acting on two fruit quality traits and distributed over 11 lgs (table 4; figs. 3, 4). of the four seed-strength qtls, two were responsible for a major proportion of phenotypic variance. similarly, qtl identified for frwt contributed a significant proportion of variance in trait. besides, qfrwt and qssa have been mapped very closely on lg pl2, but it is unclear whether this reflects existence of two independent loci, or that, a single locus is acting pleiotropically on these two traits. no significant qtls were identified for the trait of tss. this could be due to sampling bias in a mapping population based on correlation studies on the traits of ss and frwt, as reported padmakar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):13-20, 2016 19 earlier (padmakar et al, 2015a). detection (of major fruit quality qtls, being spanned by the markers opq1_1020 mpgcir005_254; mpgcir005_254 mpgcir025_125; mpgcir290_190 mpgcir018_166 and mpgcir099_252 opy1_1045) is encouraging for the prospect of applying marker-assisted breeding in improving guava to develop elite varieties with medium-sized fruits with high tss, pink pulp and soft seeds, considered to be major breeding objectives in this crop. to the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on ssr, srap and rapd-based linkage mapping and fruit quality related qtl identification in guava. application potential of this map in the future for guava improvement is highlighted here. due to a lack of anchor markers between the two maps at present, additional markers (especially, more co-dominant ones) can be used to integrate the two frameworks into a single, saturated map which may be exploited for further studies on gene tagging, mas breeding and comparative genomics. acknowledgement we thank department of biotechnology (dbt), new delhi, india, for providing financial support for the study. conflict of interest the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. references ahmed, b., mannan, m.a. and hossain, s.a. 2011. molecular characterization of guava (psidium guajava l.) germplasm by rapd analysis. int’l. j. nat. 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s.s. and zhang, s. 2013. an aflp, srap, and ssr genetic linkage map and identification of qtls for fruit traits in pear (pyrus l.). pl. mol. biol. rep., 31:678-687 padmakar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):13-20, 2016 (ms received 01 may 2016, revised 10 june 2016, accepted 13 june 2016) optimization of regeneration protocol and agrobacterium mediated transformation in carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) h.m. kallesh prasad1, j.b. mythili, tejaswini1, lalitha anand, h.j. rashmi and c. suneetha division of biotechnology indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560089, india e-mail: jbm@iihr.ernet.in abstract an efficient and reproducible regeneration protocol for carnation genotypes arka flame and iihrs-1 has been developed from leaf and stem explants. although iihrs-1 showed slightly higher regeneration (55%) compared to arka flame (49.2%), there was no significant difference in their regeneration response. however, significant difference in regeneration potential was observed with leaf explant exhibiting higher regeneration potential (5.5 shoots/explant) as compared to (4.9) stem explant. among various plant growth regulator combinations tested for regeneration, the best regeneration response and maximum regeneration potential was obtained in ms medium supplemented with naa (0.1 mg/l) and tdz (1.0mg /l) for both the explants and genotypes used. the medium also proved suitable for inducing elongation of regenerated shoots. rooting of in vitro formed shootlets could be induced at greater frequency in ms medium supplemented with iaa (1.0 mg/l). based on this protocol, transformation was carried out in genotype iihrs-1 using leaf explants with agrobacterium tumefaciens lba 4404 with binary vector prok2 containing baculovirus chitinase gene under the control of 35s promoter with npt ii serving as selectable marker. there was regeneration of putative transformants at a frequency of 28.9%. however, great difficulty was encountered in rooting of shoots. hence a few shoots regenerated on selection medium at random were tested for transgene integration. out of the three shoots tested for npt ii amplification, two shoots tested positive. the presence of transgene was confirmed through pcr amplification of npt ii gene and dot blot analysis of chitinase gene. key words: carnation, genotype, morphogenesis, agrobacterium mediated transformation j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 introduction carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) is one of the most important commercial flowers in the world. to date, new carnation varieties have been produced mainly through traditional breeding, and are propagated vegetatively. however, high heterozygosity, a limited gene pool, and almost no knowledge of carnation’s genetic makeup, severely restrict breeding programs (woodson, 1991). moreover, there are no varieties available in india to match international standards. carnation breeders at, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, have recently released a variety arka flame, the flower quality of which is on par with international standards. they have also identified another promising genotype iihrs-1 that can serve as basic material for future varietal improvement (fig 1). 1department of biotechnology, university of agricultural sciences, gkvk, bangalore-560065, india 2division of ornamental crops, indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta, bangalore-560089, india recent developments in plant molecular biology open the way for unprecedented opportunities to use the technique of genetic engineering for improvement and value addition of flower crops. the availability of methods to introduce a useful defined gene(s) would enable the specific alteration of a single trait and broaden the gene pool available for this crop. the most commonly used method for introduction of genes is agrobacterium mediated transformation. an essential step towards development of transgenic plants through agrobacterium mediated transformation is the development of an efficient regeneration protocol. attempts have been made to regenerate carnation through tissue culture via organogenesis from petals, stem, leaf (nugent et al, 1991;van altvorst et al, 1994) and somatic embryogenesis (frey et al, 1992; yantcheva et al, 1998). similarly there are reports on 121 agrobacterium mediated transformation in carnation using different explants viz., stem, petals, leaves (lu et al, 1991; zuker et al, 2001a). however, there are differences in the efficiency depending on the explant or genotype used. keeping this in view, the present investigation was carried out to compare the two genotypes viz., arka flame and iihrs-1 and explants viz., stem and leave for their morphogenetic response and to identify the suitable genotype and explant for agrobacterium-mediated transformation. material and methods plant material in vitro grown carnation arka flame and iihrs-1 were multiplied through nodal cuttings on ms medium containing bap 0.25 mg/l, ga 3 0.25 mg/l and naa 0.1mg/l. these multiplied plants served as source of explants (fig 2). in vitro regeneration leaf and stem explants obtained from 15-20 day old in vitro grown cultures were inoculated on ms (murashige and skoog,1962) medium containing 3% sucrose with factorial combinations of cytokinins and auxins, viz., benzylaminopurine (bap) or thidiazuran (tdz) and naphthalene acetic acid (naa), respectively. the medium was gelled with phytagel (0.25%) sigma chemical co.(usa) and ph was adjusted to 5.8 prior to autoclaving at 121oc for 15 min. cultures were incubated in culture racks provided with cool white fluorescent tubes with a light intensity of 30-40 mmoles m-2s-1 under a 16 h photoperiod in a culture room maintained at 25oc ± 2oc. elongation of shoot buds could be achieved on sub culturing shoot buds to the same regeneration medium. shootlets obtained were transferred to ms medium (full or half strength) with various auxins or their combinations viz., indole 3 butyric acid (iba) or indole-3-acetic acid (iaa) for root induction. rooted plantlets were transferred to polybags containing autoclaved mixture of sand, soilrite and soil in the ratio of 1:2:1 watered to field capacity and were hardened adopting the closed sachet technique (ravindra and thomas, 1995). transformation and regeneration agrobacterium strain lba4404 containing pr0k2 vector with baculovirus chitinase gene cloned at bamhi site under the control of 35s promoter and selectable marker gene npt ii under the control of nos promoter was used for transformation (fig 3). bacterial strain was grown overnight (o/n) in yeast extract mannitol (yem) medium containing kanamycin at 50 mg/l and collected at log phase, when the absorbance at 600nm was 1.0. the o/n grown culture was centrifuged at 10,000 rpm for 5 min at 4oc and the supernatant was discarded and bacterial pellet resuspended in half strength ms medium. for transformation studies, only the leaf explant from genotype iihrs-1, which showed maximum regeneration potential and the medium in which it was achieved, was used for transformation work. fig 2. source of explants fig 3. t-dna of plasmid prok2 containing 1.65 kb fragment of baculovirus chitinase gene inserted at the multiple cloning site following digestion with bamh1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 fig.1. flowers of arka flame and genotype iihrs-1 optimization of regeneration protocol and agrobacterium mediated transformation in carnation 122 the leaf explants were infected with agrobacterium culture for 5-30 min. blotted dry with filter paper and placed in the regeneration media for co-cultivation for 1-5 days under 16h photoperiod or under complete darkness for varied periods of time. thereafter, the explants were transferred to selection medium containing 75mg/l kanamycin and 500 mg/l of cefotaxime. the explants with putative transformed shootlets were transferred to rooting media containing 50mg/l kanamycin and 500 mg/l cefotaxime. the rooted transformed plants were hardened and transferred to pots. confirmation of the presence of transgene pcr analysis: dna was isolated from leaves of control, transformed plants and agrobacterium plasmid following ctab method (sambrook et al, 1989). the primers of the npt ii gene used were as follows: forward primer (5’gatggattgcacgcagg3’) reverse primer (3’gaaggcgatagaaggcg5’) pcr reaction was carried out in 25 ml containing 2.5ml of 100ng of sample dna, 0.2ml of 10 mm dntps mix, 2.5 ml of 10x assay buffer for taq polymerase containing 15mm mgcl 2 , 0.5 units of taq dna polymerase, 1 ml of 10mm each of forward and reverse primers. dna was subjected to initial denaturation of 94oc for 2 min and 35 cycles of 94oc for 1 min, 60oc for 45sec and 72oc for 1.5min with a final extension of 72oc for 10min. amplified dna fragments were electrophoresed on 1.5% agarose gel and observed under uv light. dot blot assay: genomic dna (5 µg) from pcr positive transformed plants and dna of plasmid prok2 were blotted on to nylon membrane (hybond n+ amersham pharmacia) and hybridized with a labeled baculovirus chitinase probe, washed and detected as per the manufacturer’s instructions of alkphos direct labeling and detection kit (amersham pharmacia biotech uk ltd). the baculovirus chitinase probe was prepared by amplifying it from the plasmid using the gene specific primers as given in shi et al (2000). the pcr product was then labelled and used as a probe. statistical analysis the experiment on in vitro regeneration (tables1 & 2) was carried out in two genotypes using two explants viz., leaf and stem with 5 treatments. for each treatment, 5 tubes were used for each explant and the experiment repeated 6 times in a completely randomized design. the response from the 30 tubes was recorded with 10 tubes representing each replicate. the data indicated in the tables are means of replicated values. the data in table 1 and 2 were transformed using arc sine and square root transformation, respectively. the data were analyzed for three way interaction and subjected to analysis of variance (anova). comparison among treatment means were carried out using lsd values and are reported under “cd” at the end of each table results and discussion in vitro regeneration several factors are known to influence in vitro regeneration from cultured plant tissue. genotypic differences in shoot regeneration ability among cultivated table 1. effect of different plant growth regulator (pgr) combinations on per cent regeneration of shoots from leaf and stem explants of carnation genotypes genotype (a) plant growth regulators (mg/l) (c) bap naa tdz explant (b) mean leaf stem iihrs-155.0(48.7) 1.0 0.1 23.32(28.65) 26.66(30.98) 23.33(28.77) 24.99(29.88) 1.0 0.3 49.12(44.55) 56.60(49.20) 50.00(44.98) 53.33(47.09) 0.1 1.0 75.78(62.20) 86.60(72.76) 73.33(59.19) 79.96(65.97) 1.0 0.1 0.3 59.97(50.98) 63.30(53.05) 60.00(50.83) 61.65(51.94) arka flame 49.1 (44.5) 1.0 0.1 20.00(26.06) 23.33(28.77) 21.65(27.41) 1.0 0.3 46.66(42.98) 43.33(41.05) 44.95(42.01) 0.1 1.0 76.66(61.90) 66.66(54.97) 71.60(58.43) 1.0 0.1 0.3 60.00(51.12) 56.66(48.91) 58.30(50.02) mean 54.5 (48.5) 49.6 (44.7) cd (p ≤ 0.05); a= n.s ; b = n.s ; c = 12.0, (7.89); axb = n.s ; axc = n.s ; bxc = n.s ; axbxc = n.s n.s.not significant values in parentheses indicate arc-sine transformed values kallesh prasad et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 123 table 2. effect of plant growth regulator (pgr) on average number of shootlets per explant of carnation genotype genotype (a) plant growth regulators (mg/l) (c ) bap naa tdz explant (b) mean leaf stem iihrs-15.23 (2.25) 1.0 0.1 2.89(1.70) 3.13(1.77) 2.70(1.64) 2.91(1.70) 1.0 0.3 3.67(1.91) 3.97(1.99) 3.67(1.91) 3.82(1.95) 0.1 1.0 7.39(2.71) 7.76(2.78) 6.80(2.62) 7.28(2.70) 1.0 0.1 0.3 6.80(2.61) 7.57(2.75) 6.23(2.54) 6.90(2.64) arka flame5.14 (2.22) 1.0 0.1 3.10(1.75) 2.63(1.62) 2.87(1.69) 1.0 0.3 3.50(1.87) 3.53(1.88) 3.51(1.87) 0.1 1.0 7.60(2.76) 7.40(2.72) 7.50(2.74) 1.0 0.1 0.3 7.20(2.68) 6.20(2.49) 6.70(2.59) mean 5.48(2.29) 4.89 (2.18) cd (p ≤ 0.05); a= n.s; b = n.s ; c = 12.0, (7.89); axb = n.s ; axc = n.s ; bxc = n.s; axbxc = n.s n.s.not significant values in parentheses indicate square root transformed values carnation are known to exist (firoozabady et al, 1995). in the present study, however, no significant difference among the two genotypes was observed although slight differences in the response of genotypes to shoot regeneration was recorded with iihrs-1 recording higher regeneration (55.0%) followed by arka flame with 49.2%. differences therefore, in regeneration response have been linked to the explant used. carnation regeneration has been reported through the use of various explants viz., petal, stem (nugent et al, 1991) and leaf (van altvorst et al, 1994). other explants such as anthers, ovule and axillary bud have been occasionally used for regeneration with differences in the regeneration ability. however, leaf and stem are the preferred explants and superior to other explants due to their high regeneration potential as well as better quality of plants regenerated. currently most of the work on regeneration of carnation is restricted to these two explants, although there are specific reports on differences in terms of regeneration ability between these two explants. in the present study there was no significant difference in the regeneration response of the explants used, with both leaf (54.6 %) and stem (49.6%) explants giving almost similar regeneration response in both the genotypes tested. however, there was a significant difference between the two explants in their regeneration potential with leaves regenerating more shootlets per explant (5.5) as compared to stem explant (4.9) (tables 1 and 2, fig 4 and 5). among the growth regulators used, it was found that both regeneration percentage and regeneration potential of the explant was expressed at its maximum level with the use of tdz and naa. incorporation of two cytokinin tdz and bap along with naa proved to be superior (59.9%) over bap and naa (23.3%). however, the best regeneration response (75.8%) was obtained in a medium supplemented with naa (0.1 mg/l) and tdz (1.0 mg/l) irrespective of the explant and genotype used (table 1). there was significant reduction in the regeneration response with the use of bap and naa. superiority of tdz over bap in regeneration of shoots from explants has been reported by nugent et al (1991). most of the reports on carnation regeneration have utilized combination of bap and naa (nugent et al, 1991; firoozabady et al, 1995; van altvorst et al, 1996). there are few reports on the use of tdz along with naa (nugent et al, 1991 and sankhla et al, 1995). the concentration of bap and naa has been found to influence only the regeneration potential of the explant (number of shoots/regenerating explant) and not the regeneration percentage. highest numbers of shoots were obtained on medium containing 0.9 mg/l bap and 0.3 mg/l iaa (van altvorst et al, 1994). however, sankhla et al (1995) reported that prolonged growth in tdz resulted in hyperhydricity. hyperhydricity was encountered in the present study as well in both the cultivars of carnation, irrespective of the type of cytokinin used. the problem of hyperhydricity could be checked by incorporation of agar and phytagel in equal proportion in the medium for gelling and supplementing with mannitol (500 mg/l) in addition to plant growth regulators. complete replacement of phytagel with agar resulted in cracking of the medium and poor response of explants.the regeneration media proved suitable for inducing elongation of the regenerated shoots (fig 6). optimization of regeneration protocol and agrobacterium mediated transformation in carnation j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 124 table 3. effect of plant growth regulator (pgr) combinations on percent induction of rooted shoots in carnation genotypes genotype (a) plant growth regulators (mg/l) (c ) explant (b) mean leaf stem iihrs-170.83 (58.7) iaa (1.0) 81.24 (65.8) 83.33 (66.7) 91.66 (73.4) 87.49 (70.0) iba (1.0) 47.91 (43.8) 50.00 (45.0) 58.33 (49.9) 54.16 (47.4) arka flame 58.33 (50.8) iaa (1.0) 58.33 (49.8) 91.66 (73.4) 74.99 (61.6) iba (1.0) 33.33 (35.2) 50.00 (45.0) 41.66 (40.1) mean 56.24 (49.2) 72.91 (60.4) cd (p ≤ 0.05); a = 9.16, (5.77); b = 9.16, (5.77); c = 9.16, (5.77); axb = n.s ; axc = n.s; bxc = n.s ; axbxc = n.s n.s.not significant values in parentheses indicate angular transformed values rooting of in vitro formed shoots was achieved in ms medium supplemented with auxins viz., iaa and iba. among these two, iaa (1.0 mg/l) proved to be superior in inducing rooting (81.2%) as compared to iba (47.9%) at the same concentration. among the genotypes, highest induction of rooting (70.8%) was noticed in iihrs-1 compared to arka flame (58.3%). similarly shoots regenerated from stem explants recorded highest rooting (72.9%) as compared to shoots regenerated from leaf (56.2%) (table 3, fig 7). there was no difference among genotypes in ex vitro establishment of rooted shoots. they established with 75-80% success in ex vitro poly bags containing sand, soilrite and soil in the ratio of 1:2:1 and subsequently transferred to earthen pots (fig 8). transformation the genotype iihrs-1 was used for transformation work due to its higher regeneration response. although leaf and stem explants gave almost similar regeneration response, leaf explants were used due to their significantly higher regeneration potential. further it was found that stem explants produced only callus on selection media and the callus turned brown subsequently without any shoot regeneration. agrobacterium mediated transformation of carnation has been successful with the use of various explants viz., stem (lu et al, 1991; zuker et al, 2001a), leaf (firoozabady et al, 1995) and petals (van altvorst et al, 1996; miroshnichenko and doglov, 2000). among these, both stem and leaf explants have been widely used. the use of petals for transformation has been less successful, despite the extremely high regeneration potential of thesefig 6. in vitro shoot elongation fig 7. rooted shoots fig 4. regeneration from leaf explant of iihrs-1 fig 5. regeneration from stem explant of iihrs-1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 kallesh prasad et al 125 explants because of their ability to induce premature flowering in vitro and difficulty to transfer ex vitro. there was an increase in the percent regeneration response with increase in inoculation time up to 20 min. there after, there was a decline in percent explant regeneration due to agrobacterium overgrowth and death of explants (table 4). hence an inoculation time of 20 minutes with an undiluted agrobacterium culture grown overnight with an o.d of (0.9-1.0) at 600nm followed by 5 days of co-cultivation was required for sufficient infection to take place. it was observed that carnation leaf explants were resistant to infection by agrobacterium as evidenced by the lack of agrobacterium overgrowth even after 3-4 days of co-cultivation. the waxy nature of carnation leaves may be the reason for its resistance to agrobacterium infection. such a long co-cultivation time has been recommended in carnation (ahroni, 1996). light was another important factor, which was found to influence the growth of agrobacterium and retention of healthy explants and their regeneration following inoculation with agrobacterium. incubating the explants after inoculation for 3 days under complete darkness followed by incubation under 16h photoperiod for 2 days resulted in greater number of explant regeneration (51.6%) as compared to incubation of explants under 16h photoperiod (28.3%) or total darkness (33.3%) on all 5 days for cocultivation. (table 4) co-cultivation under 16h photoperiod and total darkness for all 5 days resulted in agrobacterium overgrowth by 3rd day itself as compared to overgrowth appearance on 4th day when co-cultivation was carried out 3 days under complete dark followed by 2 days in 16hour photoperiod condition (data not shown). five days co-cultivated explants were transferred to selection medium containing cefotaxime (500 mg/l) and kanamycin (75 mg/l). there was no need to transfer the co-cultivated explants to cefotaxime medium prior to transfer to selection medium, as there was no agrobacterium overgrowth. in the present study 75mg/l was the concentration at which there was no regeneration from the leaf explant without agrobacterium co-cultivation and hence table 4. effect of inoculation time (min.) and photoperiod (light) during co-cultivation with agrobacterium on percent healthy explants time (min)(a) photoperiod (b) mean (a) 3 days dark and 16h photoperiod complete dark 16 h photoperiod (2days) (5days) (5days) % healthy explants 5 59.0 (50.1) 55.8 (48.8) 55.8 (48.5) 56.9 (49.2) 10 57.4 (49.4) 55.2 (48.1) 51.2 (46.1) 54.6 (47.9) 15 57.2 (49.2) 54.6 (47.9) 51.2 (45.7) 54.3 (47.6) 20 57.4 (49.6) 55.0 (48.0) 51.8 (46.1) 54.7 (47.9) 30 49.0 (44.4) 46.2 (42.8) 40.6 (39.3) 45.3 (42.1) mean (b) 56.0 (48.6) 53.4 (47.1) 50.1 (45.1) cd (p ≤ 0.05); a = n.s ; b = n.s ; axb = n.s n.s.not significant values in parentheses indicate angular transformed values table 5. effect of inoculation time (min) and photoperiod (light) during cocultivation with agrobacterium on percent explant regeneration time (min.) (a) photoperiod (b) mean (a) 3 days dark and complete dark 16 h photoperiod 16 h photoperiod (2 days) (5 days) (5 days) % explant regeneration 5 15.1 (22.6) 10.0 (18.3) 3.3 (8.6) 12.7 (16.3) 10 25.0 (29.7) 13.3 (21.2) 11.7 (19.9) 15.8 (23.6) 15 38.3 (38.2) 21.6 (27.5) 18.3 (25.1) 26.4 (30.3) 20 51.6 (45.9) 33.3 (35.2) 28.3 (32.0) 35.5 (37.7) 30 33.3 (35.2) 20.0 (26.0) 16.7 (23.3) 23.7 (28.2) mean (b) 30.0 (34.3) 21.6 (25.6) 16.9 (21.7) cd (p ≤ 0.05); a = 7.22, (5.12); b = 5.56, (3.97); axb =12.5, (8.87). values in parentheses indicate angular transformed values j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 optimization of regeneration protocol and agrobacterium mediated transformation in carnation 126 the same concentration of kanamycin was used for selecting transformants. there was regeneration of 28.9 % of putative transformants on selection medium (fig 9) and 50% of the regenerated transformants showed elongation in the same medium (fig 10). however, great difficulty was encountered in rooting of these shoots. incorporation of antibiotics in selection media has been reported to reduce multiplication and rooting rates (cassels, 1991). the rooting ability of transgenic carnation plants was enhanced dramatically with rolc gene from a. rhizogenes (zuker et al, 2001c). it was also observed that induction of rooting was considerably reduced in shoots regenerated from leaf explants (56.2%) as compared to shoots regenerated from stem explants (72.9%) in control plants. this may be another reason for encountering difficulty in rooting of shoots as leaf explants were used for transformation. zuker et al (1999) on the other hand have developed a highly efficient procedure for agrobacterium mediated transformation following wounding of stem explants through particle bombardment. this procedure gave rise to 20% transformation efficiency. hence, few shoots regenerated in selection medium at random were tested for transgene integration through pcr analysis of the npt ii gene using the specific primer sequence. out of the 3 shoots tested for npt ii amplification 2 shoots tested positive with a single 750bp band amplifying in the both plasmid and transformed plants but absent in control plant (fig 11) and these transformed shoots tested positive in dot blot assay as well (fig 12). hitherto, the focus of carnation breeding has been on the development of novel floral traits, although the grower would desire carnation plants with improved agronomic performance especially for resistance to diseases. among the various diseases afflicting carnation, wilt disease caused by fusarium oxysporum f.sp. dainthi is a major one. the methods currently used to control this soil borne fungus are very hazardous as well as ineffective and costly. classical breeding efforts to identify and select for resistant phenotype based on extensive and costly screening in infected soil is proving difficult. under these circumstances, development of transgenic lines by incorporating specific genes that could fig 9. regeneration of putative transformants fig 10. elongation of putative transformants fig 11. amplification of nptii gene in putatively transformed plants (iihrs-1) fig 8. hardened plants fig 12. dot blot assay of transgenic (tr1,tr2)plants and plasmid prok2 (p). membrane probed with alk phos labelled baculovirus chitinase gene (1.65 kb) pcr fragment j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 kallesh prasad et al 127 impart resistance to the target organism would be a more effective approach. one of the candidate genes for this purpose is that of the defence protein viz., chitinase. using this approach, zuker et al (2001b) have produced transgenic lines of carnation cv white sim showing high levels of resistance to fusarium oxysporum f.sp. dianthi under glasshouse testing. the present report on the transformation of carnation with a chitinase gene can thus be utilized for the development of fungal resistant carnations. acknowledgement the authors wish to thank dr. ian cooper and dr. hui wang (ceh, oxford, uk) for providing the agrobacterium culture used in the study. references ahroni, a. 1996. developing efficient regeneration and transformation methods for carnation and gypsophila. m.sc. thesis, hebrew university of jerusalem, israel cassells, a.c. 1991. problems in tissue culture: culture contamination. p 31-34. in micropropagation technology and application, debergh, p.c. and zimmerman, r.h. (ed.) kluwer academic publishers, dordrechr firoozababy, e., moy, y., tucker, w., robinson, k. and gutterson, n. 1995. efficient transformation and regeneration of carnation cultivars using agrobacterium. mol. breed., 1: 283-293 frey, l., saranga, y. and janick, j. 1992. somatic embryogenesis in carnation. hort. sci., 27: 63-65 lu, c., nugent, g., wardley richardson, t., chandler, s.f., young, r. and dalling, m.j. 1991. agrobacterium mediated transformation of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.). biotech., 9: 864-868 miroshnichenko, d.n. and doglov, s.v. 2000. production of transgenic hygromycin resistant carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) plants after cocultivation with agrobacterium tumefaceiens. acta hort., 508: 255-258 murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue culture. physiol. plant., 15: 473-497 nugent, g., wardley-richardson, t. and lu, c.y. 1991. plant regeneration from stem and petal of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) plant cell rep., 10: 477-480 ravindra, m. b. and thomas, p. 1995. sachet techniquean efficient method for the acclimatization of micropropagated grapes (vitis vinifera l). curr sci., 68: 546-548 sambrook, j., fritsch, e.f. and maniatis, t. 1989. molecular cloning: a laboratory manual. cold spring harbor, new york sankhla, d., davis, t.d., sankhla, n. and upadhyaya, a. 1995. in vitro regeneration of heat tolerant “german red” carnation through organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis. gartenbauwissenschaft., 60: 228233 shi, j., thomas, c.j., king, l.a., hawes, c.r., possee, r.d., edwards, m.l., pallett, d and cooper, j.i. 2000. the expression of a baculovirus derived chitinase gene increased resistance to tobacco cultivars to brown spot (alternaria alternata) ann. appl. biol., 136:1-8 van altvorst, a.c., koehorst, h.j.j., bruinsma, t. and dons, j.j.m. 1994. improvement of adventitious shoot formation from carnation leaf explants. plant cell tissue org. cult., 37: 87-90 van altvorst, a.c., koehorst, h., de jong, j., dons, h.j.m. 1996. transgenic carnation plants obtained by agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation of petal explants. plant cell tissue org. cult., 45:169-173 woodson, w.r. 1991. biotechnology of floriculture crops. hortsci., 26:1029-1033 yantcheva, a., vlahova, m. and antanassov, a. 1998. direct somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.). plant cell rep., 18: 148-153 zuker, a., ahroni, a., tzfira, t., ben-meir, h. and vainstain, a., 1999. wounding by bombardment yields highly efficient agrobacterium mediated transformation of carnation (dianthus caryophyllus l.) mol breed., 5: 367-375 zuker, a., tzfira, t., ahroni, a., shklarman, e., ovadis, m., itzhaki, h., ben-meir, h. and vainstain, a. 2001a. transgenic dianthus sp. (carnation), in: biotechnology in agriculture and forestry, vol.48; transgenic crops iii y.p.s. bajaj, (ed.) springerverlag berlin, heidelberg zuker, a., shklarman, e., score., ben-meir, h., ovadis, m., netasharir,i., ben-yepht,y., weiss, d., watad, a. and vainstain, a. 2001b. genetic engineering of agronomic and ornamental traits in carnation. acta hort., 560: 91-94 zuker, a., tzfira, t., scorel, g., ovadis, m., shklarman, e., itzhaki, i.and vainstain, a. 2001c. rolc–transgene carnation with improved horticultural traits: quantitative and qualitative analysis of greenhouse grown plants. j amer soc hortsci., 126 : 13-18 (ms received 9 february 2009, revised 30 october 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 120-127, 2009 optimization of regeneration protocol and agrobacterium mediated transformation in carnation final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction ethiopia is naturally endowed with a suitable climate with a distinctive coffee profile and has the potential to produce large amounts of differentiated high-quality green coffee. but currently, ethiopia’s coffee qualities are quite average and need special attention to produce high-quality coffee to be competitive in today’s world market (asfaw, 2018). coffee is the number one for eign exchange earning export commodity of ethiopia. almost 2% of the world’s coffee comes from ethiopia. over 60% of the country’s foreign exchange is obtained through the export of coffee. a quarter of the population is directly or indirectly engaged in the production, processing, and marketing of coffee (chauhan et al., 2015). coffee is grown by 6.3 million smallholder farmers in ethiopia in a n a r ea of 75 8, 52 3 ha wit h a pr oduc tion of 4. 8 million qt a nd a n a ver a ge productivity of 6.36 qt/ha (csa, 2020). coffee is the most important commodity and there is huge potentia l to incr ea se coffee pr oduction a s the country is endowed with suitable agro-ecology, climatic, soil fertility, indigenous quality planting materia ls, and sufficient rainfall in the coffeegrowing belts of the country. and, there is high national and international demand for the ethiopian coffee product, increasing interest of private sector with high investment potential (berhanu, 2017). ethiopia produces a large volume of coffee beans physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and drying methods chala t.1, lamessa k.*2 and jalata z2 1bega district agricultural office, coffee and spices expert, west wollega, ethiopia 2department of plant sciences, faculty of agriculture, shambu campus, wollega university, ethiopia *corresponding author email : klamessa@gmail.com abstract coffee is a stimulant crop with high socio-economic cultural value including economical significance in ethiopia. this study was conducted in 2019-2020 to investigate the effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces on the physical quality of the coffee beans. the experiment was carried out with two factors, harvesting methods and drying surfaces laid out in a two factorial completely randomized block design with three replications using a landrace coffee variety. the result showed that the interaction of harvesting methods and drying surfaces was highly significant (p<0.01) for coffee bean size and dried coffee berry weight. the highest beans retained above screen were recorded from the interaction of mesh wire (90%) and cemented drying (89%) surfaces with selective harvesting methods. the highest dried coffee berry weight (69.33 gm) were attained from the interaction of selective harvesting with mesh wire drying surfaces. the lowest dried coffee berry weight (63.79 gm) were attained from the interaction of strip harvesting with tin drying surfaces. significant (p<0.05) variation for primary defects, length of drying period were recorded. higher length of drying periods (41.67 days) was recorded from the interaction of mesh wire drying surfaces with selective harvesting method and the lowest (20.33 days) was recorded from the interaction of tin drying surfaces with strip harvesting method. the highest percentage of primary defected beans were recorded from the interaction of selective harvesting methods with mesh wire drying surfaces (15%) and the lowest number were recorded from strip harvesting method with drying on plastic (5%). therefore, it can be concluded that using the interaction of selective harvesting and drying on mesh wire is better for optimum physical quality of coffee in the studied area keywords: coffee bean size, drying surface, ethiopia, export, harvesting methods and physical quality, 293 quality of coffee bean affected by harvesting and drying methods j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 every year with 397,500 tons in 2014 alone, and ranking first in africa and fifth in the world (ico, 2015). however, coffee supplied and traded in the local market is usually has a lower quality. coffee on the local market is mainly coffee destined for ex p or t t hr ou gh t he e t hiop ia n c ommodit ies exchange (ecx) market but failed to meet ecx’s quality standards (asfaw, 2018) for export and got rejected. quality is an important attribute of coffee and it is currently becoming even more important than in the past as coffee industry is generally going through a worldwide surplus production crisis (petit et al., 2007). wollega is also a potential coffee growing area of western ethiopia (stieger et al., 2002). though coffee quality is a ffected in severa l wa ys, the agronomic practices followed during harvesting, processing, and handling practices also influence its quality. according to desse’s (2008) report, poor harvesting practices such as stripping, collecting dr op p ed f r u it s f r om t he gr ou nd , imp r op er p os t ha r ves t ha ndling p r a c t ic es s u c h a s b a d processing and drying on the bare ground resulted in the low-quality green coffee bean. among them, type of harvesting and drying methods used are important. however, there is little information on the effect of different practices such as harvesting methods a nd drying surfa ce on coffee qua lity. therefore, this study was initiated to investigate the influence of harvesting methods and drying surfaces on the physical quality attributes of coffee in begi district west, wollega of ethiopia. materials and methods description of the study area: the study site was in begi dist r ic t, west wollega zone, o r omia regional state of ethiopia which is one of the major coffee-pr oducing distr icts. t he selected district represents the agro-ecological zones where coffee is produced. the agroecology of the area is semi-humid and the annual rainfall ranged between 1300-1500 mm per yea r a nd the mea n a nnua l temperature is 20-280c. geographically it is located between la titude of 9 o 26’north a nd longitude 34o32’east at altitude range of 1768 meters above sea level. treatments and experimental design: the local land race of coffee (coffea arabica l.) was used in the present study. the study consists of two factors viz., the ha rvesting method a nd dr ying surfaces. two harvesting method viz., selective and strip harvesting were tested. under strip harvesting method, cherries were harvested when 75% of the cher r ies r ea ched a t full ripe stage wherea s in selective picking the cherries were harvested as they attained full red ripe stage. six drying surfaces viz., bamboo mats, bare ground, cemented floor, mesh wire, plastic sheet and tin sheet were tested. the cherries harvested using both methods were spread out to dry in the sun on the six drying surfaces. they were stirred regularly to promote even drying, prevent fermentation and the development of mold in each treatment. then each sample cherries were dried till their outer shell skin became dark brown and brittle. when the approximate moisture content of 11.5% was attained, dried coffee cherries were collected and de-hulled with mortar carefully and cleaned (boot, 2006). each of the drying surfaces had an area of 1m x 1m = 1m2. laboratory analysis: clean coffee bean sample of 500 g was taken from each treatment combination ba sed on sa mpling pr ocedure set by ethiopian standard (esbn 8.001), which is on the basis of drawing 3 kg per 10 tons. representative samples were assigned an arbitrary code in order to secure an unbiased judgment and brought to coffee quality laborator y of the jimma agricultural resea rch center where the green coffee beans were evaluated for different raw quality attributes. the moisture content of the sample was checked using electronic rapid moisture tester (he 50, germany) to make the uniform required moisture level of all samples. data collection: the data on length of drying period (days), weight of dried coffee berry (g), bean moistu r e content (%), dr ied bea n weight (g), primary defect (count), secondary defect (weight), odor, coffee aroma and coffee flavor were collected according to their respective procedures. data analysis: the various coffee quality data collected were subjected to analysis of variance using statistical procedures as described by gomez and gomez (1984) using sas 9.3 version. the differences between and among treatment means wer e c omp a r ed u s ing t he lea s t s ignif ic a nc e difference test at 5% of significance when the an o va s how s t he p r es enc e of s ignif ic a nt difference. 294 chala et al results and discussion b e an s ize s c re e n ( % ) : t he ma in eff ec t of harvesting methods and drying surfaces as well as their interaction were highly significantly (p<0.01) ( ta b le 1 ) i nf lu enc ing t he b ea n s c r een s iz e. mor eover, the inter action effect of ha r vesting methods and drying surfaces on the total percentage of bean size retained above screen size 14 ranged fr om 90% to 73%. t he highest beans retained above screen were recorded with wire mesh drying surfaces with selective harvesting methods (90%). however, it was at par with cemented floor. the result indicated tha t coffee bea ns har vested in selective picking and treated with different drying surfaces met the export standards except when selective beans dried on tin surfaces (82.3%) (table 2). t he pr esent finding is in a gr eement with m ekonnen ( 2 0 0 9 ) who r ep or t ed t he highes t percentage of beans retained above screen were recorded when different varieties of coffee beans wer e ha r ves t ed. all t h e int er a c t ion of s t r ip harvesting methods with respective drying surfaces ranged from 75.67% to 73% (table 2) which failed under the category of rejected commercial coffee based on ecx (2010) standard. according to ecx (2010), any ethiopian coffee export shall have a minimum of 85% of bean weight remaining on the t op of s c r een 1 4 ( ta b le 2 ) . s imila r ly, mohammedsani et.al. (2017) reported bean size was significantly influenced by harvesting methods and the interaction of harvesting and postharvest processing methods. selective harvesting of red fruits produced a uniform bean size that is above the minimum required bean screen size. to improve quality coffee, traders practice some value-adding activities like removing the defect and undersized bea ns thorough cleaning a nd sorting (anteneh, 2011), and belete (2014) indicated coffee with larger beans usually get a good grade and fetch a higher price than smaller ones. the current study confirmed the report of getachew et.al (2015) who indicated drying coffee on wire mesh and bamboo mats with a thin layer of thickness earned above screen size of beans (>85%). d r ie d be an w e ig ht : t he r es u l t s howed a significant difference in 100 bean weight due to the ma in effect of ha r vesting methods but a nonsignificant result was obtained due to the main effect of drying surfaces and their interactions (table 1). and, from this study, the highest 100b ea n weight wa s r ec or ded when c off ee wa s harvested by selective methods (16.51 g) and the lowest recorded in strip harvesting methods (15.39 g) (table 3). similarly, vaast et.al. (2006) indicated harvesting methods significantly influenced the bean weight of coffee due to the lower biochemical composition of the bean, hence reducing the cup quality. this study confirms also the finding of mohammedsani et.al., (2017), the highest bean weight wa s obtained from selective har vesting compared to strip harvesting. this study showed the selective harvesting method was 7% more than strip harvesting (table 3). another report by boot (2006) showed that the weight of ripe cherry was more by 20% than that of immature cherry. this might be due to the fact that on bamboo, cement, and mesh wire there was a gradual moisture loss and less burning effect, whereas on a tin bed, there was a burning effect on coffee berry which may decrease the weight of coffee seed. the result regarding drying surfaces was supported by mohammedsani et.al., (2017). and, report of wintegens, (2004) and yigzaw (2014) showed that arabica coffee average bean weight with values ranging between 9.2 g and 18.2 g. primary defects: the analysis of variance revealed that the main effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces were highly significant (p<0.01) on the primary defect. and, the interaction effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces were also significant (p<0.05) for primary defect (table 1). the highest percentage of many defected beans was recorded on selective harvesting methods and drying on a wire mesh (15) and the lowest number of a defected bean is recorded from strip harvesting with dr ying on plastic (5) (ta ble 2). this might be because unripe cherries lead to light-green beans, which when dried, become black and these beans are counted as defective in strip harvesting. this study is in agreement with the finding of bee et al.,(2005). j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 295 table 2. bean size screen using ecx (2010) standard table 1. mean squares values of raw quality attributes of coffee as affected by harvesting methods and drying surfaces in begi district, west wollega zone, ethiopia raw quality attributes harvesting drying hm* residual cv methods surfaces dm (hm) (1) (dm) (5) (5) (22) (%) bean size 1332.25** 13.89** 15.31 ** 0.596 1 sed (±) 0.257 0.924 1.307 bean weight (gram) 11.177* 0.538ns 1.92ns 5.45 3.1 sed (±) 0.286 0.166 0.843 primary defect (%) 306.25** 14.65** 1.45 * 0.523 7.2 sed (±) 0.241 0.417 0.59 secondary defect (%) 361** 17.4** 2ns 1.364 11.7 sed (±) 0.389 0.674 0.953 length of drying period ( days) 215.11** 230.73** 1.178* 0.371 2.3 sed (±) 0.352 0.203 0.497 dried coffee berry weight (gram) 29.16** 6.508** 2.67** 0.16 0.6 sed (±) 0.23 0.134 0.327 odor (%) 21.78** 5.24** 0.44ns 0.78 10.3 sed (±) 0.294 0.509 0.72 acidity 25.00** 1.2ns 1.6ns 1.84 10.1 sed (±) 0.452 0.783 1.108 body 2.2ns 4.00ns 1.00ns 2.636 2.2 sed (±) 0.54 0.94 1.33 flavor 20.25 0.85 1.65 2.159 10.8 sed (±) 0.49 0.85 1.2 * significant at p<0.05, ** highly significant at p<0.01, ns= non-significant difference, numbers in parenthesis indicates degree of freedom. cv (%) = coefficient of variation in percent, sed (±) = standard error of difference. harvesting drying methods average value ecx (2010) methods analysis screen beans standard size selective bamboo mats 86.67 harvesting plastic sheet 85.00 cement 89.00 export standard wire mesh 90.00 bare ground 84.67 tin 82.00 strip bamboo 75.67 harvesting bare ground 75.67 cement 73.55 rejected for export wire mesh 73.67 plastic sheet 73.00 tin 73.33 mean 80.19 lsd (5%) 1.307 cv (%) 1.00 ecx (2010) stated that moisture and screen analysis are the two requisites before grading any coffee. the moisture content should be less than 11.5 percent, while the size of the bean should be above screen size 14 for 85 percent of the bean sample. quality of coffee bean affected by harvesting and drying methods j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 296 table 3. the main effect of harvesting method and drying surfaces on raw and physical quality attributes of coffee in begi district, ethiopia treatments bean secondary odor body flavor weight defect harvesting method (hm) to the power selection 16.51 13.17 9.33ab 13.67 14.33a strip 15.39 6.83 7.78b 13 12.83b lsd (5%) 0.34 0.807 0.61 ns 1.016 sed 0.294 0.541 0.49 drying surface (ds) bamboo 16.34 11.00 9.667a 13.5 13.5 bare ground 15.81 8.00 9.667a 12.5 13 cement 16.16 11.50 9abc 14 14 wire mesh 16.13 12.00 9.33ab 14 13.5 plastic sheet 15.70 8.50 8.33acb 13 13.5 tin 15.58 9.00 7.667bc 13 14 lsd (5%) ns 1.39 1.056 ns ns hm*dm ns ns ns ns ns cv (%) 3.10 11.70 10.3 12.2 10.8 means followed by the same letter(s) within rows and columns are not significantly different at p d” 0.05 level of significance, lsd= least significant differences=non-significant, cv (%) = coefficient of variation in percent similarly, with the report of barel and jacquet (1994), selective harvesting of coffee produced the best quality coffee by decreasing the percentage of defective coffee beans. also, berhanu et al., (2014) also indicated that inappropriate post-harvest management practices increased the number of defective coffee beans. moreover, tesfaye (2006) and negussie et.al. (2009) stated that properly processed coffee is with very few defective beans. secondary defects the result showed that there was a highly significant (pd”0.01) variation of secondary defects due to the main effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces. however, the interaction effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces did not significantly affect secondary defects (table 1). selective harvesting had a high mean value of 13.17% indicating relatively pure coffee beans. however, the lower mean value (6.83%) was recorded from strip harvesting (table 3), which indicated a high number of secondary defects due to improper harvesting. this showed that selective harvesting had more coffee beans free from secondary defects as compared to strip harvesting in dryprocessed coffee. this is because selective harvesting involves only picking off the red, fully ripe, and normal cherries carefully from the tree while strip harvesting involves collecting of entire coffee bean just by one pass through cropping season. this result is in line with hicks (2002) who described that although selective picking is more expensive, it can produce the best results of coffee by reducing the number of defects thereby increase the overall quality of coffee which is competent in the world market. and, hicks (2002) reported that coffee that has been inappropriately dried would become brittle and produce too many broken beans that are considered as a secondary defect during hulling. similarly, olamcam (2008) result showed that the coffee well harvested and properly processed has no or very few broken beans and free of foreign matter. length of drying periods: the analysis of variance revealed that the length of drying periods was highly significantly (p<0.01) different due to the main effect of drying surfaces and harvesting methods and significant (p<0.05) difference due to the interaction effect of both factors (table 1). higher length of chala et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 297 table 4. interaction effect of the harvesting method and drying surfaces on the primary defect, length of drying (in days), and dried coffee berry weight at begi west wollega zone, ethiopia. harvesting methods drying surfaces primary defect length of drying (in days) dried coffee berry weight selective strip selective strip selective strip bamboo 12.00 8.00 28.00 21.67 65.67 65.30 bare ground 12.00 6.00 27.33 23.33 65.73 63.80 cement 15.00 9.00 26.67 22.67 67.53 64.90 wire mesh 15.00 9.00 41.67 36.67 69.33 65.53 plastic 12.00 5.00 25.33 20.67 65.53 65.20 tin 12.00 6.00 25.67 20.33 65.50 63.76 mean 26.67 65.65 lsd (5%) 1.224 1.03 0.679 cv (%) 7.20 2.30 0.60 lsd= least significant difference, cv= coefficient of variation dried coffee berry weight the analysis of variance revealed that the weight of dried coffee berry was highly significant (p<0.01) different due to the main effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces. and, the interaction effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces was also highly significant (p<0.01) on dried coffee berry weight (table 1). the highest dried coffee berry weight (69.33) and lowest (63.76) was recorded as an interaction of selective harvesting with mesh wire bed and strip harvest with tin drying, respectively (table 4). this was because in selective harvesting the only red, matured and disease-free coffee berry was harvested. the present finding supports clifford (1985), who reported acceptable dry matter loss within the ranges between 35 and 14%. mekonen (2009) also indicated that selectively harvested coffee of different drying surfaces showed significant variation in coffee weight by recording the highest percentage of beans retained above the screen. itc (2011) also indicated that picking immature cherries with mature cherries could cause a reduction of the weight of the beans. similarly, boot (2006) reported that under almost all conditions, the specific weight of ripe cherry is greater than that of an immature cherry, it is heavier, weighing up to 20% more odor: the analysis of variance revealed there was a highly significant variation (pd”0.01) for odor due to the main effect of coffee harvesting methods and drying surfaces (table 1). however, their interaction effect showed non-significant variations for odor. for selective harvesting (9.33) the mean values of odor were higher than strip harvesting (7.78). for drying surfaces, the highest mean value of odor was recorded when beans dried on bamboo and wire mesh and the lowest was recorded in bare ground and tin (table 3) showing that the odor was affected due to improper harvesting and drying surfaces. a similar finding was drying periods (41.67 days)was recorded from the interaction of wire mesh drying surfaces with selective harvesting method and the lowest (20.33 days) was recorded from the interaction of tin drying surfaces with strip harvesting method but statically at par with the interaction of plastic drying surface with strip harvesting method (20.67) (table 4). harvesting red cher ry would prolong the dr ying periods tha n harvesting in a strip. besides, at the full maturity stage, there might be an increment of moisture and the development of luxurious mucilage. this result agrees with the findings of berhanu et.al. (2014) that the shortest time drying periods were recorded when coffee was dried in bricks off the floor then raised bed. fao (2006) and martin et al. (2009) also reported coffee dried on a flat surface more quickly than that dried on raised-bed surfaces like mesh wire and bamboo mats. quality of coffee bean affected by harvesting and drying methods j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 298 reported by olamcam (2008) indicating properly harvesting beans make free of unpleasant (bad) smells. endale et.al.,(2008) reported that coffee with better management in each stage starting from harvesting until cupping turns out to have a better odor. subedi (2010) reported coffee dried on bricks floor in contact with soil becomes dirty and blotchy resulting in a dull odor. using incongruous drying surfaces and methods reduced raw and cup quality of coffee by producing off-flavor, abnormal color, and unpleasant odor, and finally cup cleanness (mohammedsanni et.al., 2017). flavor: the result showed that the flavor was highly significantly (p<0.01) different due to the main effect of harvesting methods. but, non-significant due to drying surfaces and interaction effect of drying surfaces with harvesting methods (table 1). the highest percentage number of flavors is recorded in selectively harvested coffee (14.33) and the lowest in the number of flavors is recor ded in the strip ha rvesting method (12.83) (ta ble 4). in str ip harvesting, there might be a possibility of harvesting coffee with microorganisms that naturally present in the production environment which use sugars in the pulp and mucilage and excrete organic acids and other meta bolites tha t ma y a ffect the fina l sensor y characteristics of the beverage. this result conforms with getu (2009) work that indicated flavor is identified as an all-round good cup quality attribute which embraces positive values of aromatic attributes, acidity, and body similarly, anteneh (2011) stated poor harvesting practices such as stripping and collecting dropped fruits reduced the quality attributes like flavor. conclusions the result revealed that the interaction of harvesting methods and drying surfaces were highly significant (p<0.001) difference for coffee bean size and dried coffee berr y weight while significa nt (p<0.05) variation for primary defects, length of drying period. the main effect of harvesting methods and drying surfaces were highly significant on bean size, primary defect, secondary defect, length of the drying period, and dried coffee berry weight. coffee beans harvested by selective harvesting and treated under different postharvest processing methods had 85%, except when coffee beans size dried on and above the minimum required bean size for export coffee as compared to strip harvesting beans in which all beans are recorded under rejected coffee due to many small beans (<76%). the highest (16.51 gram) dried bean weight was verified in selective harvesting as well the lowest (13.59 gram) was in strip harvesting. primary and secondary defects were highly significantly influenced by harvesting methods and drying surfaces. the highest length of drying period (41.67 days) was recorded from the interaction of wire mesh drying surfaces with selective harvesting method and the lowest (20.33 days) was recorded from the interaction of tin drying surfaces with strip harvesting method but statically at par with the interaction of plastic drying surfaces with strip harvesting method (20.67). the odor was significantly influenced due to the main effect of coffee harvesting methods and drying surfaces. the highest scale of the odor was recorded from selective harvesting and the lowest from strip harvesting. acidity and flavor were affected by harvesting methods and selective harvesting produced a high raw quality of all attributes. the finding suggests that coffee physical quality could be better improved by the selective picking of red cherries. moreover, drying coffee on bare ground highly reduced raw abnormal color and unpleasant odor. acknowledgments the authors thank the ethiopian coffee and tea authority for their technical support in coffee quality analysis. conflict of interests the authors declare that there is no conflict of interests. references anteneh, t. 2011. farm productivity and value chain analysis of coffee in daro lebu district, west hararghe zone of oromia regional state. m.sc. thesis presented to school of graduate studies of haramaya university, haramaya, ethiopia. p.84 asfaw, t. 2018. evaluating the quality of coffee product on marketing performance of ethiopian ommodity exchange (ecx) hawassa branch. international journal of social sciences perspectives. 2(1): 50-79. doi: 10.33094/ 7.2017.2018.21.50.79 chala et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 299 barel, m., jacquet, m. 1994. coffee quality: its causes, appreciation and improvement. plant research development, 1: 5-13 bee s., brando chj, brumen g, carvalhaes n, kolling-speer i , speer k, suggi liverani f, texeira, aa, thomaziello ra, viani r, vitzhum og (2005). the raw bean. i n: illy and vianni (eds.) , 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(received on 13.10.2021, revised on 02.12.2021 and accepted on 10.01.2022) chala et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 292-300, 2021 00 contents.pdf 01 shalini.pdf 02 sheikh.pdf 03 debanath.pdf 04 nimbolkar.pdf 05 satisha.pdf 06 kaur.pdf 07 nitin kumar.pdf 08 varsha.pdf 09 ravishankar.pdf 10 swamini.pdf 11 vijaykumar.pdf 12 usha bharathi.pdf 13 yogalakshmi.pdf 14 adams.pdf 15 lakshman.pdf 16 yella swami.pdf 17 varalakshmi.pdf 18 sharon.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 22 event report.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf onion (allium cepa l.), an important member of the genus allium of the family alliaceae, is believed to have originated in uzbekistan. india ranks second in the world in area and production after china, and, third in export after the netherlands and spain. it is an important vegetable crop of our country under an area of 4.81 lakh hectares, producing 54.61 lakh tonnes of bulbs both for local consumption and export. india exported 3,33,349 tonnes valued at rs.20,216 lakh (singh, 2005). onion bulbs are rich in phosphorus, calcium, carbohydrates and vitamin c. nursery is a place where seedlings are grown to be transplanted in the field. in india, the traditional method of nursery management under open-field condition is completely dependent on vagaries of nature and about 1520 % seedlings are damaged. therefore, it is necessary to standardize the nursery raising technique in a scientific way to obtain healthy and vigorous seedling for the growers. in raising a vegetable nursery, rooting and growth media are the most important factors for growth and development of seedlings and the root. but, under mostly open-field conditions, farmers use only soil and fym in an inadequate proportion. in place of fym several other organic manures like vermicompost, poultry manure, nadep compost etc., are available which could be utilized for production of better and healthy seedlings. these manures are easily available, retain sufficient water and air and allow sufficient drainage, thus, providing a congenial rhizosphere for better rootj. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 162-163, 2007 effect of various nursery media on onion seedlings development devi singh and vijay bahadur department of horticulture allahabad agricultural institute deemed university allahabad-211007, india e-mail: vijay_rajwade@yahoo.com abstract a field experiment was conducted to standardize the nursery raising technique for onion at the horticulture research farm, department of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute deemed university, allahabad, during 2005-2006. the treatments comprised combinations of soil, sand, fym and vermicompost. altogether, 14 treatments were applied in a randomized block design with three replications. hundred percent germination was found with a combination of soil, sand and fym in proportions of 2:1:2 & 2:2:1, and, 1:1:1 & 2:2:1 soil:sand:vermicompost. among all the treatments, the combination of soil 2 parts, sand 1 part and fym 2 parts, significantly influenced growth and health of seedlings and produced the maximum seedling height (11.42 cm), stem diameter (0.33 cm), root length (10.86 cm), shoot fresh weight (6.96 g), root fresh weight (3.22 g), total seedling fresh weight (10.18 g), shoot dry weight (3.95 g), root dry weight (1.53 g) and total seedling dry weight (5.48g). highest benefit:cost ratio of 3.72 was also seen in this treatment combination. key words: onion, vermicompost, fym, nursery, seedlings growth. moreover, these nursery media improve water holding capacity of the soil under open-field conditions. with this in view sand, soil, fym and vermicompost were used in this investigation in various proportions to accomplish better growth and seedling production in onion. the experiment was conducted at the vegetable research farm, department of horticulture, allahabad agricultural institute-deemed university, allahabad (u.p.), during the rabi season of 2005. onion variety pusa red was used in the experiment. fourteen treatments comprising soil, sand, fym (farm yard manure) and vc (vermicompost) were replicated three times. the treatment combinations were t 1 : soil + sand + fym (1:1:1), t 2 : soil + sand + fym (1:1:2), t 3 : soil + sand + fym (1:2:1), t 4 : soil + sand + fym (1:2:2), t 5 : soil + sand + fym (2:1:1), t 6 : soil + sand + fym (2:1:2), t 7 : soil + sand + fym (2:2:1),t 8 : soil + sand + vc (1:1:1), t 9 : soil + sand + vc (1:1:2),t 10 : soil + sand + vc (1:2:1), t 11 : soil + sand + vc (1:2:2), t 12 : soil + sand + vc (2:2:1), t 13 : soil + sand + vc (2:1:2) and t 14 : soil + sand + vc (2:2:1). the treatments were laid out in a randomized block design with a nursery plot size 1m x 1 m. observations were recorded on ten randomly selected plants from each plot for various characters, viz., percent germination at 8, 9, 10 and 11 days after sowing (das), seedling height (at 15, 35 and 45 das), stem diameter, seedling fresh and dry weight, root and shoot fresh and dry weights at 45 das. short communication 162 163 table 1. influence of various nursery media on raising onion seedlings treatment % seedling stem root shoot root fresh total shoot root total germination height (cm) diameter length fresh weight seedlings dry dry seedlings at 10 das (cm) (cm) weight (g) (g) fresh weight (g) weight (g) weight (g) dry weight (g) t 1 70.00 7.09 0.15 7.03 2.86 1.85 4.71 0.49 0.71 1.65 t 2 84.67 8.18 0.18 7.83 3.00 1.89 4.89 1.12 0.83 1.95 t 3 84.33 7.91 0.18 7.61 3.00 1.88 4.88 1.06 0.72 1.78 t 4 87.67 8.50 0.20 8.13 3.27 2.16 5.44 1.30 0.93 2.23 t 5 86.00 8.26 0.19 8.03 3.11 2.05 5.16 1.20 0.84 2.04 t 6 100.00 11.42 0.33 10.86 6.96 3.22 10.18 3.95 1.53 5.48 t 7 100.00 11.22 0.31 10.70 6.55 3.05 9.60 3.57 1.50 5.07 t 8 100.00 10.32 0.26 10.39 4.74 2.77 7.51 2.39 1.44 3.83 t 9 99.33 9.35 0.23 10.02 4.44 2.61 7.05 1.97 1.24 3.21 t 10 96.00 8.62 0.21 9.81 3.72 2.28 5.99 1.51 1.04 2.55 t 11 99.00 9.14 0.22 9.87 3.89 2.38 6.27 1.52 1.22 2.73 t 12 99.00 9.16 0.23 9.88 4.27 2.44 6.71 1.90 1.22 3.12 t 13 92.67 8.55 0.21 9.36 3.61 2.22 5.82 1.45 0.99 2.44 t 14 100.00 9.56 0.24 10.25 4.44 2.66 7.10 2.16 1.35 3.52 f-test s s s s s s s s s s sed + 1.95 0.22 0.02 0.15 0.09 0.06 0.09 0.06 0.03 0.07 cd (p=0.05) 4.01 0.45 0.03 0.32 0.18 0.12 0.19 0.12 0.07 0.15 note: parameters were recorded at 45 days after sowing except germination percentage table 2. economics of various treatments imposed treatment cost of gross net profit cost: benefit cultivation returns (rs/ha) ratio of raising (rs.) seedlings for 1 ha(rs) t 1 12600 35000 22400 1:2.77 t 2 13160 42250 29090 1:3.21 t 3 13160 42100 28940 1:3.19 t 4 13720 43800 30080 1:3.19 t 5 12880 43000 30120 1:3.30 t 6 13440 50000 36560 1:3.72 t 7 13440 49900 36460 1:3.71 t 8 14280 49850 35570 1:3.49 t 9 16520 49500 32980 1:2.99 t 10 14840 48000 33160 1:3.23 t 11 17080 49500 32420 1:2.89 t 12 14280 49450 35170 1:3.46 t 13 16800 46000 29200 1:2.73 t 14 15120 49800 34680 1:3.29 all the treatments showed significant differences for traits like germination percentage, seedling height, seedling fresh and dry weight , stem diameter, root length, fresh and dry weights of roots and shoots (table 1). among the various nursery media, the best performance obtained with application of soil 2 part + sand 1 part + fym 2 part was found to be significantly superior to the other treatments. this could be due to availability of sufficient nutrient content in fym. fym, in ideal combination with soil and sand, created healthy rhizosphere adequate in physico-chemical and biological properties. this combination may have resulted in better growth and seedling production in onion. similar findings were also reported by booij et al (1985), ponwell et al (1991), baruah (1997), boff et al (2005) and tathan (1997). the highest net return of rs.36560 / 500 m2 and cost: benefit of 1:3:72 was obtained with application of 2 parts soil + 1 part sand + 2 parts fym, followed by 2 part soil + 2 part sand + 1 part fym with a net return of rs. 36460 / 500 m2 and cost: benefit ratio of 1:3.71(table 2). this is also in agreement with the work of awghad et al (1994) in onion. references awghad, p. r., bawanthade, t. l., hedan, g. b., rithe, s. r. and nawlakhe, s. m. 1994. economics of raising onion nursery in daryapur tehsil of amaravati district. j. soils and crops, 4: 38-40 baruah, c. 1997. winter protection of container grown solanaceae crops. ind. j. hortl. sci., 24: 265-267 boff, p., debarba, j. f., silua, e. and werner, h. 2005. quality and health of onion seedlings by adding thermophilic compost. horticultura – brasiliera, 23: 875-880 booij, r., mantel, p. and schroon, g. 1985. a plant with a different potting plugs. groenten in fruit, 40: 62-63 ponwell, a. a., thornton, j. m. and mitchell, j. a. 1991. vigour differences in brassica seedlings and their significance to emergence and seeding variability. j. agril. sci., 116: 369-373 singh, n. p. 2005. basic concept of vegetable science. scientific publishing distribution coy p. 68 tathan, m. 1997. nursery practices on growth of hybrid tomato seedlings. annual report, vegetable research, all india coordinated vegetable improvement project, p 38 nursery media in onion seedling growth (ms received 13 november 2006, revised 23 august 2007) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 162-163, 2007 introduction control of vegetative vigour with simultaneous promotion of flowering is important for enhancing the production efficiency of mango orchards (iyer and kurian, 2002). use of vigour regulating rootstocks such as vellaikulumban and olour (kurian et al, 1996) and growth retardants that are antagonistic to gibberellins such as paclobutrazol (kurian and iyer, 1993) are the most promising approaches in this regard. although the direct effects of paclobutrazol (pbz), on the growth and flowering of mango have been well documented (kulkarni, 1988; kurian and iyer, 1993 a, b, c; burondkar and gunjate, 1991) and many mango orchardists in western and southern parts of india have adopted application of pbz for higher mango production, there is little published information on long term effects of its continuous application as well as residual influence of the chemical on growth, yield and fruit quality of mango in the years following the discontinuation of its application. such information is very important for sustained production of perennial fruit trees; hence this cumulative and residual effects of paclobutrazol on growth, yield and fruit quality of ‘alphonso’ mango y. t. n. reddy and reju m. kurian division of fruit crops indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore – 560 089, india e-mail : nreddy@iihr.ernet.in abstract a field experiment was conducted during 1996 to 2002 at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, to study the cumulative and residual effects of paclobutrazol (pbz) application on shoot vigour, flowering and fruit yield of seventeen years old ‘alphonso’ mango trees. foliar sprays of the chemical at 500, 1000 or 2000 ppm or soil drench at 5 or 10 g a. i. per tree was given during september for three consecutive years and the residual effects were observed for three more subsequent years. application of pbz as soil drench was more effective than its foliar spray and doubled fruit yield during the six years. chemical parameters of fruits such as tss and acidity were not affected by the treatments but average weight of a fruit was less in the case of pbz treatments. residual influence of this chemical, when applied as soil drench, persisted in the three years following the discontinuation of application for three consecutive years, indicating the scope for skipping the application of pbz or tapering down its dose after three years of its continuous application. from the results of this study, application of paclobutrazol at 5 g a.i. per tree as soil drench for three consecutive years and then its discontinuation for the subsequent three years appears to be most appropriate for ‘alphonso’ mango trees in the age group of about 15 to 25 years. key words: mango, mangifera indica, paclobutrazol, shoot vigour, fruit yield, fruit quality study was taken up to bridge the above gap in knowledge concerning enduring use of pbz for enhanced mango productivity. material and methods the experiment was conducted at indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, during 1996-2002, on mango cultivar ‘alphonso’ in randomized block design with four replications. the trees grafted on unspecified rootstocks were seventeen years old at the start of study and were maintained with uniform cultural practices. pbz was applied either as foliar spray of 500, 1000 or 2000 ppm or as soil drench along the drip line of the trees at 5 or 10 g a.i. / tree in 10 liters of water, during september in 1996, 1997 and 1998. percentage of shoots producing panicles or vegetative shoots or remaining dormant as well as the length of new shoots was recorded during january – february following imposition of pbz. fruit yield per tree was recorded in may june from 1997 to 2002. fruit quality parameters such as average fruit weight, total soluble solids (tss), acidity, number of days taken by mature fruits to j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 119-122, 2008 120 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 119-122, 2008 ripen and incidence of spongy tissue disorder were recorded from a random sample of fifty fruits from each tree. analysis of variance and ftest were employed for the interpretation of the results. results and discussion shoot growth there was significant reduction in length of new shoots produced following pbz application, the effect being more marked with soil application than foliar spray and increasing with the dose of the chemical within each method of application as per the earlier findings (burondkar and gunjate, 1991; kurian and iyer, 1993a). pbz is a known inhibitor of gibberellin biosynthesis (anon, 1984) and therefore lower gibberellin levels resulting from its application might have retarded the shoot elongation. the inhibitory effect of pbz on shoot elongation slowly dissipated once its application was discontinued and differences in shoot length were not statistically significant during 2000 to 2002, though the shoots on treated trees remained shorter than those on control trees (table 1). this reduction in shoot elongation serves to control excess vegetative vigour and thereby to restrict the canopy size of mango trees, which would facilitate easier orchard management practices as well as planting mango trees at higher densities than the conventional one. flowering enhanced proportion of flowering shoots through a reduction in proportion of vegetative and dormant shoots, was a striking response to pbz treatments, which was more pronounced with soil application rather than foliar spray (table 2). this effect was quite discernible in all the years of study except during the year 1999 when the natural flowering was high with even the control plants putting forth panicles in 91% of their shoots and continued in years after the treatment was stopped, though statistically not significant, particularly in the case of soil treatments. thus pbz, especially as soil drench, was especially effective in enhancing flowering during years of sparse natural flowering and the residual effect of the chemical in this regard may persist for two to three years after application is stopped. such enhanced flowering of mango trees following pbz treatments has earlier been reported by table 1. effect of pbz on shoot length of ‘alphonso’ mango sl. treatment shoot length (cm) no. 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1 pbz 500 13.2 14.9 15.2 16.3 17.8 16.2 ppm 2 pbz 1000 11.6 14.3 14.6 13.9 18.3 16.1 ppm 3 pbz 2000 11.1 12.2 12.5 11.8 17.3 16.0 ppm 4 pbz 10.5 11.7 12.1 12.8 18.8 15.9 5 g a.i. 5 pbz 10.1 11.4 11.7 12.2 18.0 15.5 10g a.i. 6 control 16.6 18.2 19.7 17.3 19.6 16.6 s. emt + 1.4 2.0 1.9 2.5 2.1 1.8 lsd p=0.05 4.4 5.9 5.7 ns ns ns nsnot significant table 2. effect of pbz on proportion of vegetative, dormant and flowering shoots of ‘alphonso’ mango during flowering sl.no treatment vegetative shoots (%) dormant shoots (%) flowering shoots (%) 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1 pbz 500 20.7 6.2 12.5 10.5 2.0 6.5 15.0 51.3 1.25 2.5 3.0 8.0 64.3 42.5 86.2 87.0 89.0 85.5 ppm 2 pbz 1000 2.5 5.0 15.0 8.0 3.5 10.1 28.0 20.0 0.0 2.0 4.0 9.5 69.5 75.0 85.0 90.0 92.5 80.4 ppm 3 pbz 2000 6.0 2.5 8.7 7.5 3.0 6.2 3.5 57.5 0.0 2.9 2.0 6.9 90.5 90.0 91.2 89.6 95.0 86.9 ppm 4 pbz 5.5 11.3 32.5 6.0 4.0 3.5 6.8 1.2 8.7 1.5 3.0 3.4 87.7 87.5 58.7 92.5 93.0 93.1 5g a.i. 5 pbz 1.3 1.2 31.2 5.0 1.5 2.5 11.2 3.8 2.5 1.0 2.0 3.0 95.0 95.0 66.2 94.0 96.5 94.5 10g a.i. 6 control 8.7 15.0 8.7 12.0 5.0 7.2 4.0 30.0 0 2.0 6.0 6.9 55.0 55.0 91.2 86.0 89.0 85.9 s. em.+ 5.8 4.1 6.7 4.3 3.4 3.5 9.9 13.4 2.6 2.9 2.1 2.9 12.5 12.5 8.0 13.6 10.5 8.1 lsd ns ns 20.0 ns ns ns ns 39.8 ns ns ns ns 37.2* 37.2* 24.0* ns ns ns p=0.05 * significant at p = 0.01; ns = not significant reddy and kurian 121 kurian and iyer (1993b), burondkar and gunjate (1991) and kulkarni (1988). the present study indicates the scope for skipping the application of the chemical after a few years of its continuous application or tapering down its dose, especially during the years when good flowering is expected, while continuing to get the beneficial influence on flowering. fruit yield fruit yield in terms of number and weight of fruits per tree increased with application of pbz and this was table 3. effect of pbz on fruit yield of ‘alphonso’ mango sl. treatment number of fruits per tree weight of fruits per tree (kg / plant) no 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 cumumean 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 cumumean lative lative 1 pbz 500 85.0 49.0 212.5 166.2 150.5 145.5 808.2 134.7 17.4 10.0 43.6 34.1 30.9 32.1 168.1 28.9 ppm 2 pbz 1000 96.2 56.0 188.7 155.0 178.0 162.5 836.4 139.4 20.7 12.0 40.6 33.3 38.3 35.6 180.5 30.0 ppm 3 pbz 2000 147.2 104.7 227.7 119.7 161.2 160.0 921.4 153.5 30.2 21.5 46.7 24.5 33.0 33.6 189.5 31.8 ppm 4 pbz 163.7 463.7 277.5 253.0 159.0 172.1 1489.0 248.1 31.9 90.4 54.1 49.3 31.0 35.8 292.6 49.5 5g a.i. 5 pbz 242.5 389.5 231.2 271.2 259.0 209.4 1609.8 267.1 43.7 70.1 41.6 48.8 46.6 40.7 291.5 48.6 10g a.i. 6 control 78.7 35.0 164.0 122.5 162.2 120.1 682.5 113.7 16.9 7.5 35.3 26.3 34.9 26.4 147.3 24.5 s. em.+ 67.4 98.1 37.9 14.51 86.7 13.3 79.8 30.3 17.2 0.6 5.5 2.7 3.4 3.5 29.9 7.3 lsd ns 291.5 ns 43.1* 57.3* 39.7 239.5 90.9 ns 1.7* 12.9 8.0* 9.9* 10.5 90.1 21.7* p=0.05 * significant at p = 0.01; ns = not significant table 4. effect of pbz on fruit quality of ‘alphonso’ mango sl. treatment tss (obrix) acidity (%) average fruit weight (g) no 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1 pbz 500 18.4 21.0 19.5 18.6 19.6 19.0 0.167 0.217 0.167 0.202 0.202 0.202 200.5 213.2 205.0 210.6 206.3 208.9 ppm 2 pbz 1000 18.6 21.5 19.2 19.2 19.4 19.2 0.184 0.167 0.184 0.218 0.218 0.202 212.2 204.2 215.1 215.8 204.9 215.0 ppm 3 pbz 2000 19.2 20.6 20.0 19.8 18.9 18.5 0.184 0.184 0.184 0.168 0.202 0.218 205.1 201.3 205.0 219.4 204.7 210.0 ppm 4 pbz 19.2 19.2 19.0 18.6 19.9 19.4 0.217 0.184 0.217 0.168 0.218 0.202 195.6 189.9 213.8 210.9 195.9 200.9 5g a.i. 5 pbz 19.0 19.5 20.5 18.0 18.5 19.0 0.184 0.217 0.167 0.235 0.202 0.225 179.5 171.1 179.9 201.7 180.4 196.4 10g a.i. 6 control 19.5 21.3 21.0 18.2 20.5 20.6 0.167 0.134 0.167 0.168 0.202 0.202 210.5 229.0 215.2 220.5 215.4 220.1 s. em.+ 0.5 0.8 0.9 0.3 0.7 0.4 0.02 0.016 0.01 0.03 0.02 0.03 7.4 6.2 5.2 5.3 6.1 4.9 lsd ns ns ns ns ns ns ns 0.048 ns ns ns ns 22.2 18.4* 15.6 16.1 18.3 14.9 p=0.05 * significant at p = 0.01; ns = not significant more striking in the case of soil application than foliar spray (table 3). this effect dissipated in the year following withdrawal of pbz treatment in the case of foliar spray and in the second year following withdrawal of pbz treatment in the case of soil application at lower dose while the effect continued to manifest in the case of soil application at higher dose. though beneficial effects of pbz in enhancing fruit yield of ‘alphonso’ mango have earlier been documented by kurian and iyer (1993c) and burondkar and gunjate (1991), the present study reveals that the soil application of pbz can be temporarily withdrawn for three effects of paclobutrazol in mango j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 119-122, 2008 122 table 5. effect of pbz on incidence of spongy tissue and ripening of ‘alphonso’ mango sl. treatment incidence of spongy tissue (%) days for 50% fruit ripening no 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 1 pbz 500 ppm 2.0 2.5 2.4 2.0 2.9 2.4 9.0 9.8 9.1 9.0 10.1 9.9 2 pbz 1000 ppm 8.0 10.0 2.6 2.5 3.1 3.0 9.1 9.3 9.6 9.2 9.5 9.4 3 pbz 2000 ppm 8.0 10.0 2.0 2.8 3.0 2.8 9.0 8.8 9.8 9.0 9.9 9.0 4 pbz 5g a.i. 7.5 10.0 2.1 3.9 1.9 2.0 8.5 8.8 9.0 8.7 10.5 9.2 5 pbz 10g a.i. 6.5 17.5 2.0 4.2 2.5 2.6 8.7 9.5 10.0 9.1 9.8 9.5 6 control 4.0 5.0 3.2 2.8 4.0 3.8 6.5 6.0 8.5 8.9 8.1 8.4 s. em.+ 4.05 5.03 2.1 3.10 1.5 1.9 0.41 0.59 1.8 0.48 1.7 1.4 lsd p=0.05 ns ns ns ns ns ns 1.21 1.75* ns ns ns ns * significant at p = 0.01; ns = not significant years or so after three years of continuous application without a reduction in fruit yield. pbz alters the source-sink relationships in mango to support fruit growth with fewer leaves and lesser leaf area (kurian et al, 2001), which explains the enhanced fruit yield with lesser vegetative growth. fruit quality there was no appreciable influence of the treatments on chemical parameters of fruit quality such as total soluble solids and acidity, but average weight of a fruit reduced as a result of pbz treatment, more so with the soil application (table 4). almost similar trend was observed by kurian and iyer (1993c) as a direct response to pbz application. the influence of pbz on fruit size continued even during three years following withdrawal of its application in the present study. incidence of spongy tissue disorder in fruits of ‘alphonso’ mango was unaffected by different pbz treatments, but ripening of fruits harvested at full maturity was delayed by pbz as indicated by number of days taken for ripening of 50% of the harvested fruits (table 5). this effect was however not statistically significant in the years after application of the chemical was stopped. references anonymous. 1984. technical data sheetpaclobutrazol, plant growth regulator for fruits. ici. england burondkar, m.m. and gunjate, r.t. 1991. regulation of shoot growth and flowering in ‘alphonso’ mango with paclobutrazol. acta hort., 291:79-84 iyer, c.p.a. and kurian, r.m. 2002. strategies for high density planting of horticultural crops. in. hi-tech horticulture. chadha k.l, choudhary m.l. and prasad k.v (eds.), horticultural society of india, new delhi, pp. 66-78 kulkarni, v.j. 1988. chemical control of tree vigour and the promotion of flowering and fruiting in mango using paclobutrazol. j. hortl. sci., 63: 557-66 kurian, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1993a. chemical regulation of tree size in mango cv. alphonso. i. effects of growth retardants on vegetative growth and tree vigour. j. hortl. sci., 68:349-54 kurian, r. m. and iyer, c. p. a. 1993b. chemical regulation of tree size in mango cv. alphonso. ii. effects of growth retardants on flowering and fruit set. j. hortl. sci., 68:355-60 kurian, r.m. and iyer, c.p.a. 1993c. chemical regulation of tree size in mango cv. alphonso. iii. effects of growth retardants on yield and quality of fruits j. hortl. sci., 68:361-64 kurian, r.m., reddy, v.v.p. and reddy, y.t.n. 1996. growth, yield, fruit quality and leaf nutrient status of thirteen-year-old ‘alphonso’ mango on eight rootstocks. j. hortl. sci., 71:181-86 kurian, r.m., reddy y.t.n., sonkar, r.k. and reddy v.v.p. 2001. effect of paclobutrazol on source-sink relationship in mango (mangifera indica l). j. applied hort., 3:88-90 (ms received 12 march 2008, revised 12 september 2008) reddy and kurian j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 119-122, 2008 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 94-98, 2007 introduction agrobacterium-mediated transformation in plant species is the most widely used transfer system in plants which has been applied to transform and regenerate a few species with commonly used procedures (van wordragen and dons, 1992). brinjal is one of the crop plants in which in vitro plant regeneration was achieved on media supplemented with various growth regulators. (sharma and rajam, 1995; gleddie et al, 1983; magioli et al, 1998). the nature and concentration of growth regulators, in association with specific genotype, explant type and culture medium can cause significant differences in morphogenetic response of brinjal (sharma and rajam, 1995; magioli et al, 1998; magioli et al, 2000; allichio et al, 1982; gleddie et al., 1983). usually, high-frequency regeneration protocols are employed in transformation studies. the adventitious shoot regeneration capacity of cells or tissues to be used in transformation studies significantly affects success in gene transformation (yildiz et al, 2002). however, highly efficient protocols resulted in low transformation frequency and efficiency of less than 0.1 % in brinjal (chen et al, 1995). hence, it is necessary to analyze the effect of growth regulators and plant-related effects of growth regulators and explant-type on agrobacterium-mediated transformation in brinjal (solanum melongena l.) cv. manjarigota d. p. prakash, b. s. deepali, r. asokan, y. l. ramachandra1, lalitha anand and vageeshbabu s. hanur division of biotechnology indian institute of horticultural research hesaraghatta lake post, bangalore 560 089, india e-mail: vageesh@iihr.ernet.in abstract effects of growth regulators and type of explants on transformation and in vitro morphogenetic responses of brinjal cv. manjarigota were studied. both hypocotyl and cotyledonary explants showed marked influence on in vitro morphogenetic responses after agrobacterium co-cultivation. hypocotyl explants showed callus initiation and regeneration responses earlier than cotyledonary leaves. hypocotyl explants were found to be better than cotyledonary leaf explants in regenerating shoots after agrobacterium co-cultivation. there was delay and reduction in both callus and regeneration responses in agrobacterium co-cultivated explants. hypocotyl explants showed the highest regeneration response on ms medium containing 2 µm bap and 0.05 µm naa while cotyledonary leaves did not show regeneration response after agrobacterium co-cultivation. however, they showed green buds on ms medium containing 10 µm bap and 1 µm naa, which could not differentiate into shoots. overall, hypocotyl explants were found better in regenerating shoots after agrobacterium co-cultivation. key words: growth regulators, explant, brinjal, transformation 1department of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta, shimoga, india factors influencing agrobacterium co-cultivation. ‘manjarigota’ is the most preferred south indian round type brinjal cultivar. hence, we have made an attempt to study the effects of a basic operational step, growth regulators and explants on transformation and in vitro morphogenetic response in brinjal cv. manjarigota during agrobacteriummediated transformation. material and methods plant material genuine breeder-seed material of brinjal cv. manjarigota was obtained from the division of vegetable crops, iihr. seeds were soaked in gibberellic acid (100ppm) for three hours, dipped for 1 minute in 70 % ethanol, washed once in sterile distilled water, followed by sterilization for 8-10 minutes in sodium hypochlorite (approximately 4% available chlorine) solution and rinsed five times in sterile distilled water. these were germinated in culture tubes on half-strength ms (murashige and skoog, 1962) basal medium containing 3 % sucrose (w/v); ph was adjusted to 5.8 and the medium was gelled with 0.8 % agar. ph was adjusted to 5.8 before autoclaving. 94 95 media sterilization and culture conditions culture medium and instruments were sterilized by autoclaving at 121oc, 15 psi pressure for 20 minutes. cultures were incubated in culture racks provided with white fluorescent tubes with a light intensity of 30-40µe m-2 s-1 under a 16 hr photoperiod in a culture room maintained at 25°c ± 2°c. explants fifteen to twenty day old-aseptically-grown seedlings, hypocotyl segments obtained after removing apical meristem and basal root stub (1cm long) and cotyledonary leaves separated from stalk and tip were used as explants. growth regulators hypocotyl explants were cultured on ms basal medium containing 3 % sucrose (w/v), 1, 2 or 3µm bap 0.05 and 0.1 µm naa and gelled with 0.8 % agar. cotyledonary leaves were cultured on ms basal medium containing 3 per cent sucrose (w/v), 10 and 12.5 µm bap in combination with 1, 2 or 3 µm naa and gelled with 0.8 % agar. plant transformation agrobacterium strain a208 harboring the plasmid pbinbt-01 (kumar et al, 1998) was used for plant transformation. the nptii gene conferring kanamycin resistance served as a selectable marker. explants were precultured for two days on ms medium containing various hormones, depending on the explant-type. these were collected into a sterile petriplate, infected with agrobacterium culture for 20-25 minutes, and placed back onto the parent medium. explants were co-cultivated for two days, transferred onto culture media containing cefotaxime (500 mg/l) for two days and were then transferred onto medium containing cefotaxime (500 mg/ l) and kanamycin (100 mg/l). hypocotyl explants and cotyledonary leaf explants were cultured without agrobacterium co-cultivation on ms medium containing hormones as specified for these explants, as control. data analysis observations on agrobacterium overgrowth and health of explants were recorded every week for upto 4 weeks. observations were further recorded after 4 weeks of culture on callus initiation and regeneration response. all treatments had six replications. analysis of variance (anova) was carried out to test statistical significance of the results observed. fischers’s least significant difference (lsd) was used to determine statistical significance among means. results and discussion effect of growth regulators on transformation and morphogenetic response in brinjal cv. manjarigota in the present study, hypocotyl explants showed first signs of callus initiation and regeneration response at 8-10 days and 18 to 20 days of culture initiation, respectively. all the explants cultured showed callus initiation response. growth regulator combinations significantly affected regeneration response in hypocotyl explants upon agrobacterium co-cultivation (table 1, plate 1). regeneration was highest (30.85 %) on hypocotyl explants grown in the presence of 2 mm bap and 0.05 mm naa, and lowest (18.27%) on 2 µm bap and 0.1µm naa. inclusion of 0.05 mm naa with bap showed better regeneration response than 0.01 µm naa. cotyledonary leaf explants showed the first signs of callus initiation and shoot bud initiation at 13-15 days, and four-six weeks of culture initiation, respectively. cotyledonary leaf explants produced a profuse callus with adventitious roots. highest number of explants showing green buds was recorded in cotyledonary leaf explants cultured on ms medium containing 10 mm bap and 1 µm naa (21%, with an average of 5.98 buds per explant) and table 1. effect of growth regulator concentration on transformation and morphogenetic response of hypocotyl explant in brinjal cv. manjarigota bap naa µm callus regeneration µ m response (%) initiation response (%) 1 0.05 100 25.55ab 1 0.1 100 21.31ab 2 0.05 100 30.85a 2 0.1 100 18.47b 3 0.05 100 26.96ab 3 0.1 100 18.27b fractions were converted into percentages; percentage data was subjected to angular transformation; cd= 11.74, sem=2.060; differences are significant at 1 %; values followed by the same letter are not significantly different. table 2. effect of growth regulators on transformation and morphogenetic response of cotyledonary leaf explant in brinjal cv. manjarigota bap naa callus no. of green explants µ m µ m initiation (%) buds per showing green explant±se buds (%) ±se 10 1 100 5.98±0.15 21 ± 3.41 10 3 100 3.46±0.20 13 ± 1.91 10 5 100 0.00±0.00 0 ± 0.00 12.5 1 100 4.71±0.16 17 ± 1.914 12.5 3 100 3.24±0.12 5 ± 1.000 12.5 5 100 0.00±0.00 0 ± 0.000 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 94-98, 2007 growth regulators and explant type in brinjal transformation 96 lowest from cotyledonary leaf explants cultured on ms medium containing 12.5 µ mbap and 1 mm naa (17 % of explants showed 4.71 green buds). cotyledonary leaf explants did not show regeneration from shoot buds upon agrobacterium co-cultivation (table 2). irrespective of the bap level, explants cultured on ms medium containing 5 µm naa did not respond. hormonal balance is a key factor in regulation of morphogenesis in cultured explants (murashige, 1974). at similar ratios, varied concentration of cytokinin (bap) and auxin (naa) were used in earlier studies in hypocotyl explants (matsuako and hinata, 1979) and cotyledonary leaf explant culture of brinjal (sharma and rajam, 1995; magioli et al, 1998) in regeneration studies. addition of naa at lower concentration resulted in increased shoot regeneration rate (makay and kitto, 1988) and presence of naa was found to be necessary for in vitro regeneration in strawberry (barcelo et al, 1998). intrinsic hormone levels in a tissue make it respond better at a particular ratio and concentration of hormones, which depends upon the genotype and explant. usually, high frequency in vitro regeneration protocol is used in transformation studies. no report is available on comparison of the effect of hormones on regeneration response in explants with and without agrobacterium cocultivation. however, various reports show that the effect of growth regulators on transformation frequency depends up on the cultivar and the explant in brinjal (magioli et al, 2000; billings et al, 1997). effect of explant on transformation and morphogenetic response in brinjal cv. manjarigota in the present study, callus initiation was not affected by hormonal combination upon agrobacterium cocultivation, both in hypocotyl and cotyledonary leaf explants. similarly, agrobacterium infection did not affect callus initiation response (96%) in hypocotyl explants. but, it had reduced callus initiation response in cotyledonary and leaf explants to the tune of 50-60 per cent in brinjal cv. pusa purple long (kumar and rajam, 2005). however, it reduced callusing response in hypocotyl explants (arpaia et al, 1997) and cotyledonary leaf explants (prabhavathi et al, 2002) upon agrobacterium co-cultivation in other, earlier studies. it appears that survival and response of explants in transformation varied due perhaps to the set of conditions employed in transformation protocol. in the present study, it is clear that agrobacterium co-cultivation and the set of conditions during transformation were not detrimental to the explant and were optimum for survival and response of the explants. hypocotyl explant is more sensitive to any type of treatment after excision (yildiz et al, 2002), particularly, to agrobacterium infection (chakrabarty et al, 2002) compared to leaf explants (arpaia et al, 1997). however, variation in response may be due to the crop, genotype, nature and physical status of explant along with the set of conditions used in transformation studies. in the present study, delay in callus initiation and regeneration response was observed in both types of explants upon agrobacterium co-cultivation and 7-8 day delay in callus initiation response was delayed by 5-6 days in hypocotyl explants and 7-8 days in cotyledonary explant, respectively, as compared to the control explant. 7-8 days delay in regeneration response and 2-3 weeks delay in appearance of green buds was observed in hypocotyl explants and cotyledonary explants, respectively compared to control explants. this delay may be due to the following reasons: 1) plant cells need to withstand the shock agrobacterium infection 2) process of transformation has to occur and 3) only transformed cells show response on the selection medium and these have to multiply into sufficient numbers for expression of response. similarly, callus initiation and regeneration response were delayed in explants co-cultivated with agrobacterium, as compared to the control (without agrobacterium co-cultivation) explant in brinjal (billings et al, 1997). there was a drastic reduction in the regeneration fig 1. regeneration response in hypocotyl explants upon agrobacterium co-cultivation cultured on ms medium containing different hormone combinations: 1) 1 µµµµµm bap+0.05 µµµµµmnaa, 2) 1 µµµµµm bap+0.1 ìmnaa, 3) 2 µµµµµm bap+0.05 µµµµµmnaa, 4) 2 µµµµµm bap+0.1 µµµµµmnaa, 5) 3µµµµµm bap+0.05 ìmnaa, 6) 3 µµµµµm bap+0.1 µµµµµmnaa j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 94-98, 2007 prakash et al 97 response of hypocotyl explants and a complete lack of response of cotyledonary leaf explants upon agrobacterium co-cultivation as compared to the control explants (plate. 2). cotyledonary leaf explants produced green buds which could not differentiate into shoots. the occurrence of delayed and reduced regeneration response from explants upon agrobacterium co-cultivation is not uncommon. possible explanations for this phenomenon are: 1) plant cells may perceive agrobacterium infection as an attack and 2) the inoculation process may influence plant regeneration negatively. similarly, shoot bud differentiation was drastically reduced in explants subjected to agrobacterium infection in cauliflower (chakrabarty et al, 2002). hypocotyl explants were most responsive upon agrobacterium infection. furthermore, early colonization of agrobacterium was a major problem with cotyledonary leaf explants. it might be due to uneven surface of leaf explant, which was not completely exposed to culture media containing cefotaxime. arpaia et al (1997) reported reduced callusing response in both hypocotyl and cotyledonary leaf explants upon agrobacterium co-cultivation. however, higher regeneration response was noticed in kanamycin-resistant calli obtained from hypocotyl explant as compared to that from cotyledonary explant. kumar and rajam (2005) reported higher callus initiation response and lower regeneration response from hypocotyl explant compared to cotyledonary leaf and leaf explants. therefore, experimental conditions other than type of explant may be responsible for differences in response during transformation. hypocotyl explant showed better regeneration response upon agrobacterium co-cultivation in brinjal cv. manjarigota than did cotyledonary leaf explant. similarly, hypocotyl explant resulted in the highest transformation efficiency compared to leaf and cotyledonary leaf explants in perilla (lee et al, 2005). hypocotyl explants were successfully used in agrobacterium-mediated transformation in chilli (nianiou et al, 2000) and cauliflower (chakrabarty et al, 2002). in conclusion, it is stated that hypocotyl explant is better as compared to cotyledonary leaf or leaf tissue for transformation studies in brinjal. the present study also vindicate that morphogenetic response varies with growth regulator and explant type in brinjal. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to the national agricultural technology project (natp), icar, for financial assistance in the form of competitive grants programme (cgp) to the senior author. thanks are due to director, iihr, for encouragement. references allichio, r., grosso, e. d. and boschueri, e., 1982. tissue cultures and plant regeneration from different explants in six cultivars of solanum melongena. experientia, 38:449-450 arpaia, s., mennella, g., onofaro, v. and perri, e. 1997. production of transgenic eggplant (solanum melongena l.) resistant to colorado potato beetle (leptinotarsa decemlineata say). theor. and appl. genet., 95:329-334 barcelo, m., mansouri, e. i., mercado, a. j., quesada, a. m. and pliego, f., 1998. regeneration and transformation via agrobacterium tumefaciens of the strawberry cultivar chandler. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 54:29-36 billings, s., jelenkovic, g., chin, c. k. and eberhadt, j. 1997. the effect of growth regulation and antibiotics on eggplant transformation. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 122:158-162 chakrabarty, r., viswakarma, n., bhat, s. r., kirti, p. b., singh, b. d. and chopra, v. l. 2002. agrobacteriummediated transformation of cauliflower: optimization of protocol and development of bt-transgenic cauliflower. j. biosci., 27:495-502 chen, q., jelenkovic, g., chin, c., billings, s., eberhardt, j.and goffreda, j.c.1995. transfer and transcriptional expression of coleopteran cry3b endotoxin gene of bacillus thuringiensis in eggplant. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 120:921-927 gleddie, s., keller, w. and setterfield, g., 1983. somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration from leaf explants and cell suspensions of solanum melongena (eggplant). canadian j. bot., 61:656-666 fig 2. comparison of regeneration response in hypocotyl explants (1) without and (2) with agrobacterium co-cultivation j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 94-98, 2007 growth regulators and explant type in brinjal transformation 98 (ms received 10 may 2006, revised 18 august 2007) kumar, p. a., mandaokar, a., sreenivasu, k., chakrabarti, s. k., bisaria, s., sharma, r. s., kaur, s. and sharma, r.p. 1998. insect resistant transgenic brinjal plants. mol. breed., 4:33-37 kumar, v. s. and rajam, m. v. 2005. enhanced induction of vir genes results in the improvement of agrobacterium-mediated transformation of eggplant. j.biochem. biotech., 14:89-94 lee, k. b., yu. h. s., kim, h. y., ahn, o. b., hur, s. h., lee, c. s., zhang, z. and lee, y. j.2005. agrobacte rium-mediated transformation of perilla (perilla frutescens). pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 83:51-58 magioli, c., rocha, a. p. m., de oliveira, d. e. and mansur, e., 1998. effcient shoot organogenesis of eggplant (solanum melongena l.) induced by thidiazuron. pl. cell rep., 17:661-663 magioli, c., rocha, a. p. m., pinheiro, m. m., martins, s. g. and mansur, e. 2000. establishment of an efficient agrobacterium-mediated transformation system for eggplant and study of a potential biotechnologically useful promoter. j. pl. biotech., 2:43-49 makay, w. a. and kitto, s. l. 1998. factors affecting in vitro shoot proliferation of french tarragon. hortscience, 113:282-287 murashige, 1974. plant propagation through tissue cultures. annual review of plant physiology, 25:135-166 murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised method for rapid growth and bioassays with tissue cultures. physiol. plant, 15:473-497 nianiou, i., karavangeli, m., zambounis, a., tsaftaris, a., paroussi, g., voyiatzis, d. and paroussis, e. 2000. development of pepper transgenic plants via agrobacterium and biolistic transformation. acta hort., 579:83-87 prabhavathi, v., yadav, j.s., kumar, p.a. and rajam, m.v. 2002. abiotic stress tolerance in transgenic eggplant (solanum melongena l.) by introduction of bacterial mannitol phosphodehydrogenase gene. mol. breed. 9:137-147 sharma, p. and rajam, m. v. 1995. genotype, explant and position effects on organogenesis and embryogenesis in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). j. exptl. bot., 46:135-141 van wordragen, m f. and dons, h. j. m. 1992. agrobacte rium-mediated transformation of recalcitrant crops. pl. mol. biol. reporter, 10:12-36 yildiz, m., ozacan. s. and er, c. 2002. the effect of different explant sources on adventitious shoot regeneration in flax. turkey j. biol., 26:37-40 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 94-98, 2007 prakash et al effect of different packages on quality and extension of shelf-life in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum l. mill.) s. bhuvaneswari*1, t.h. singh2 and a.t. sadhashiva2 1division of post harvest technology & agricultural engineering, icar-iihr, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india *e-mail: bhuvana@iihr.res.in, bhuvana@icar.org.in abstract tomato hybrid ns-2535 at the turning stage was packed in three different packages, namely, corrugated fibre board (cfb) boxes of size 400 x 300 x 150mm, plastic crates (400 x 300 x 150mm) and polyethylene bag of size 300 x 450mm. samples were stored at ambient conditions (temperature: 28-30oc, rh: 55-62%). the samples were analyzed for weight loss (%), spoilage (%), biochemical qualities and shelf-life during storage. fruits had a shelf-life of 11 days in all the packages. at the end of the storage period, tomato packed in cfb boxes and plastic crates showed less spoilage (8.7%-7.65%) and lower weight loss (5.02-5.48%). biochemical analysis showed that lycopene (2.282 and 2.414 mg/100g, respectively), carotenoids (6.46 and 5.26 mg/100g, respectively) and ascorbic acid content (28.83 and 31.14mg/100g, respectively) were higher in tomato packed in cfb boxes and plastic crates compared to those packed in polyethylene bag. samples packed in cfb boxes had a higher content of total sugars (2.54%) than those in other packages. from our studies it was found that storage life of tomato (hyb. ns-2535) packed in cfb boxes and plastic crates could be extended upto 11 days at ambient conditions, with less spoilage, lower weight loss and greater retention of ascorbic acid, lycopene and total sugar content. key words: packaging, post-harvest loss, tomato, cfb box, plastic crate, polythene bag introduction tomato (lycopersicon esculentum l. mill.) is the most popular and widely grown vegetable crop. tomatoes are highly perishable and are subject to bruising damage and spoilage during handling, transportation and storage, which account for 19% loss (gajanana et al, 2006). packaging plays an important role in protecting and extending shelf-life of fruits. extending shelf-life of tomatoes is very important for domestic and export marketing. use of a wooden box (390 x 280 x 200mm) called ‘peti’ for storage has been the normal practice for tomato packaging lately. these boxes weigh about 1.5kg each and have a capacity of holding 13–14kg of tomatoes. tomatoes of relatively uniform colour and size are conventionally selected and packaged in layers in a wooden box. dry grass is placed at the bottom, and between layers, to provide cushioning and protection for the tomato. a sheet of newspaper is placed on top, and the box is closed by nailing (sharan and rawale, 2016). manufacture of these wooden boxes has led to felling of trees, causing deforestation. hence, there is a need to find alternative methods for tomato packaging. corrugated fibre-board boxes (cfb), plastic crates and polythene film packages are currently widely used packaging materials. the present study was conducted with an objective to standardize suitable packaging material for extension of shelf-life in tomato. material and methods packaging studies were conducted by packing tomato hybrid ns-2535 at the turning stage of maturity in three different packages, namely, corrugated fibre board (cfb) boxes of size 400 x 300 x 150mm, plastic 2division of vegetable crops, icar-iihr, bengaluru 560 089, india short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 182-185, 2017 183 crates (400x300x150mm) and polyethylene bag of size 300 x 450mm (thickness 25 micron) of 5kg capacity each. the samples were stored at ambient conditions (temperature: 28-30oc, rh: 55-62%). the samples were analyzed for weight loss (%) and spoilage (%) during storage. physiological loss in weight (plw) was estimated by taking the initial and the final weight of the fruit, using an electronic balance with an accuracy of ± 0.1g, and expressed as percentage. plw (%) = initial weight (g) final weight (g) × 100 initial weight (g) spoilage of fruits was determined by visual observation. shelf-life of the fruit was calculated as the number of days the fruit remained fresh, without any shrinkage or spoilage. quality parameters such as titrable acidity, ascorbic acid content, lycopene, carotenoids, reducing sugars and total sugar content, were determined using standard procedures (ranganna, 2000) for determining titrable acidity, tomato juice was extracted from the sample and filtered using a filter paper. clear juice was used for analysis of titrable acidity as per ranganna (2000). titrable acidity (expressed as per cent citric acid), was determined by titrating 10ml of tomato juice with 0.1n naoh. for calculating ascorbic acid content, 10g of the sample was blended with 3% hpo 3 , and made up to 100ml with hpo3. then, it was filtered and centrifuged. an aliquot (10ml) of hpo 3 extract of the sample was taken and titrated with the standard dye against 2,6dichlorophenol-indophenol dye of known strength to a pink end-point, persisting for 15 seconds (ranganna, 2000). lycopene was estimated by the ‘rapid’ method. lycopene was extracted in petroleum ether and absorbance measured using a spectrophotometer a t 503 nm wave length, us ing a uv vis spe c trophotome te r; c a rotenoid c ontent we re determined as per ranganna (2000). all the experiments were replicated thrice a nd st at is tic a ll y a na lyz e d u si ng com ple te ly ra n dom is e d d e s ig n ( crd ) wi th was p 2 .0 software (bhuvaneswari et al, 2016) results and discussion the end of storage period was determined as a time when the ripe fruit lost its freshness, showed shrinkage of outer skin, and, spoilage. at the end of the storage period, tomato packaged in cfb boxes and plastic crates showed less spoilage (8.7% and 7.65%, respectively) compared to those packed in polythene bag (10.92%) (table 1). similar results were obtained by ramkumar et al (1995) who reported a reduction in damage in grapes packaged in cfb box. j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 182-185, 2017 effect of packaging on quality and shelf-life in tomato table 1. effect of various packages on quality in tomato type of package cfb box plastic crate polyethylene bag cd (5%) plw (%) 6.02 5.48 1.33 1.01 spoilage (%) 8.70 7.65 10.92 0.92 storage life (days) 11 11 11 ns weight of tomato fruit decreased from the initial ‘turning stage’ to red-ripe stage at 11 days under ambient conditions. weight loss was lower in tomatoes packed in polyethylene bag (1.33%), compared to those packed in cfb boxes (6.02%) or plastic crates (5.48%) (table.1). our results further indicated that tomatoes wrapped in polyethylene bags retained significant moisture content during storage. similar observations were made by shahnawaz et al (2012) where weightloss in tomato fruits in the control decreased from green-unripe to red-ripe stage at 11 days at ambient temperature. spoilage (%) of fruits in polyethylene bags was higher (10.95%) than in cfb boxes (8.70%) or plastic crates (7.65%). this may be due to greater moisture accumulation in the polythene bag, resulting in greater spoilage of tomato fruit as compared to than in the other packages. from table 2, it is evident observed that at the end of the storage period of 11 days under ambient conditions, samples packaged in plastic crate had lower titrable acidity compared to that in other packages. these findings are similar to aneesh et al (2007) who reported that titrable acidity gradually decreased during ripening and storage of tomatoes. retention of ascorbic acid was higher in samples packaged in plastic crates and corrugated fibre board boxes compared to those packaged in polythene bags. tomato fruits kept in sealed packages resulted in an atmosphere with higher carbon dioxide and lower oxygen content. these conditions may have helped retain flesh firmness, low ns=non-significant 184 acidity and soluble solids concentration, and delayed lycopene development in the fruit (ait-oubahou and dilley, 1990). these results are also in conformity with findings of mathooko and nabawancuka (2003) where increase in ascorbic acid was observed with ripening in tomato. lycopene (2.282 and 2.414 mg/100g respectively) and carotenoids (6.46 and 5.26 mg/100g respectively) content were higher in tomato packed in cfb boxes and plastic crates compared to those packed in polyethylene pouches. tomato fruits showed significant increase in lycopene content during storage. chlorophyll degradation and increased lycopene synthe sis re sults in the c ha ra cte ristic c olour development during ripening in tomato (yadav et al, 2016). total sugar content increased during storage in tomatoes in all the packages used. these observations are similar to those reported by sood et al (2011), where total sugar content increased from the 3rd day of storage to the 12th day of storage under ambient conditions. tomatoes packed in cfb box recorded higher total sugar content (2.54%) compared to that in the other two types of packages. from the present study, it is found that storage life in tomato (hybrid ns-2535) packed in cfb boxes and plastic crates can be extended up to 11 days at ambient conditions (average temperature: 28°c-30°c, rh: 55-62%) with lower spoilage, lower weight-loss and greater retention of ascorbic acid, lycopene and content of total sugar. references ait-oubahou, a. and dilley, d.r. 1990. design and optimization of modified atmosphere packaging of empire apple fruit following controlled atmosphere storage. proc. congress of the mediterranean phytopathologicla union, october 28 november 3, agadir, morocco aneesh, m., kudachikar, v.b. and ravi, r. 2007. effect of ionizing radiation and modified atmosphere packaging on shelf-life and quality of tomato stored at low temperature. j. food sci. technol., 44(6):633-635 bhuvaneswari, s., narayana, c.k., udhayakumar, r. and veeregowda, r. 2015. effect of packaging and storage tempe rature on s he lf life of minimally processed onion (allium cepa l.). j. hortl. sci., 10(2):216-219 gajanana, t.m., sreenivasamurthy, d., sudha, m. and dakshinamoorthy, v. 2006. marketing and estimation of post harvest losses of tomato crop in karnataka. indian j. agril. mktg., 20:1-10 girja sha ra n and kishor rawa le. 2001. new packaging options for transporting tomatoes in india. itdg food chain, 29:15-18 musta fa, a. and al mughrabi. 1994. effect of packaging methods on quality characteristics of tomato fruits produced in hydroponics. j. king saud univ., 6(1):71-76 muhammad shahnawaz, saghir ahmed sheikh, aijaz hussain soomro, aasia akbar panhwar and sha hzor gul k ha s khe li. 2012. qua lity characteristics of tomatoes (ly copersicon es cule ntum ) store d in var ious wra pping materials. african j . f ood sci. tec hnol. (issn: 2141-5455), 3(5):123-128 mathooko, f.m., nabawanuka, j. 2003. effect of film thickness on post-harvest ripening and quality cha ra cte ristics of toma to (ly cope rsic on esculentum l.) fruit under modified atmosphere packaging. j. agril. sci. technol., 5(1):39-60 bhuvaneswari et al table 2. effect of various packages on biochemical quality in tomato treatment cfb box plastic crate polyethylene bag cd (5%) acidity (%) 0.27 0.22 0.26 0.02 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 28.83 31.14 25.30 10.04 lycopene (mg/100g) 2.282 2.414 1.892 5.49 carotenoids (mg/100g) 6.46 5.26 4.08 0.05 reducing sugars (%) 1.27 1.19 1.22 0.09 total sugars (%) 2.54 2.38 2.44 0.19 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 182-185, 2017 185 (ms received 18 august 2016, revised 30 november 2016, accepted 20 december 2016 ) effect of packaging on quality and shelf-life in tomato ramkumar, m.v., babu, c.k, naik, r., subramanya, s. and krishnamurthy, k.c. 1995. performance of bengaluru blue grapes in corrugated fibre board boxes under simulated conditions. phala samskarana-95, procs. national seminar on post harvest technology of fruits, august 7-9, bengaluru, karnataka, india, pp. 184-187 ranganna, s. 1986. manual of analysis of fruits and vegetable products. 2nd edn. tata mcgraw hill publishing co. ltd, new delhi, 1112 p. sood, m., raj kumari kaul and amriq singh. 2011. effect of post harvest treatments on changes in suga r and lyc opene c onte nt of tomato (lycopersicon esculentum). world j. agril. sci., 13:616 yadav, r.k., sanwai, s.k., singh, p.k. and juri, b. 2009. effect of pre-treatments and packaging of tomato in ldpe and pet films on the storage-life. j. food sci. technol., 46:139141 j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(2): 182-185, 2017 expression of genetic variability and character association in raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) growing wild in north-western himalayas dinesh singh, k. kumar, vikas kumar sharma and mohar singh department of fruit breeding and genetic resources dr y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry nauni, solan-173 230 (hp), india e-mail:dinesh_hort@yahoo.com abstract the present investigation was carried out in various districts of himachal pradesh, jammu & kashmir and uttarakhand states falling under north-western himalayan region of india. as a result of sustained exploration, 170 wild raspberry genotypes were marked and studied for berry quality attributes. variation ranged from 0.25 g 0.93 g for berry weight. berry length varied between 6.31 mm and 14.46 mm, while, berry breadth was 7.02 mm to 15.91 mm. variation in total soluble solids (tss) in berry ranged between 9.6ob and 18.6ob whereas, acidity in berries ranged between 1.02 and 1.72%. the range of variation was 2 4.90% for reducing sugars, 4.2o 11.6o for non-reducing sugars and 2.45.2 mg / 100 g for ascorbic acid. berry weight had significant and positive correlation with its length and its breadth. berry length exhibited positively significant correlation with berry breadth. key words: raspberry, variation, heritability, berry quality, correlation introduction raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) is one of the tastiest wild fruits growing in abundance throughout north-western himalayas. besides providing essential nutrients for human diet, it has great potential in agroprocessing industries in preparation of squash, jam, yoghurt and ice-cream. worldwide, this small fruit is distributed throughout the sub-temperate himalayas between 700 m to 2000 m above mean sea level and in west sikkim, bhutan, khasi hills and burma upto yunnan province of china. in the south, it grows in the western ghats from kanara to ceylon. this fruit has successfully been introduced into florida, usa, for edible and ornamental purposes and for breeding in australia (jennings, 1988). though raspberry has captured the interest of botanists and herbalists, it remains a neglected and unexploited fruit crop for fruit breeders in india (singh and kumar, 2001). the existing, wild population of raspberry comprising shrubs of unknown origin exhibits tremendous variability in growth, flowering, yield and fruit quality attributes, thereby providing a platform for exploitation. till date, no systematic research work has been conducted from the standpoint of developing this as a new crop, in particular, through collection and selection of superior clones. it is, therefore, imperative to study genetic parameters like heritability, correlations, and path coefficient analysis for identification and selection of superior genotypes for use either as cultivars or as suitable parents in future hybridization programmes. findings presented in this communication are a part of the first ever study conducted in india on rubus ellipticus smith. material and methods a field survey of north-western himalayas was undertaken during the years 2007 and 2008 in sub-tropical to wet-temperate areas of solan, shimla, mandi, kullu and chamba districts of himachal pradesh; kathua, udhampur, samba, jammu and reasi districts of jammu and kashmir; and dehradun, rishikesh, uttarkashi and tehri garhwal districts of uttarakhand. geographical information system data of the areas surveyed were recorded with the help of gps (gps map-76, germin, taiwan). geographical features of the area surveyed are as under: j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 28-31, 2009 29 altitude : 760 to 1950 m amsl latitude : 30010’159" to 33004’693"n longitude : 74044’076" to 78025’681"e as a result of sustained exploration in collaboration with local inhabitants, as many as 170 raspberry genotypes growing scattered were marked. on the basis of berry quality traits, 37 genotypes were further shortlisted for study. a random sample of 30 fruits in three replicates was taken from each raspberry genotype and observations were recorded on fruit quality characters viz., berry weight (g), berry length (mm), berry breadth (mm), tss (0b), acidity (%), reducing sugars (%), non-reducing sugars (%), vitamin c (mg/100g) and berry colour. berry size was measured with digital vernier calipers (mitutoyo, japan-cd-6"cs), berry weight with electronic balance, tss by digital refractometer and acidity, sugars and ascorbic acid as per standard procedures given by ranganna (1986). the contribution of each character for every genotype was subjected to analysis of variance (anova) as per standard statistical procedures. the genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were estimated using standard formulae. heritability in a broad sense was calculated according to the formula suggested by hansen et al (1956) at 5% selection intensity, while, direct and indirect effects of independent traits on berry weight were also estimated. results and discussion the analysis of variance showed that mean squares due to genotypes were significant for all the traits included in the study (table 1). estimates of range in variation, average mean performance, genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation, heritability and genetic advance at 5% selection intensity, are presented in table 2. the range in variation was 0.25-0.93 g for berry weight. various workers have reported berry weight ranging between 0.72 and 9.00 g (mladin, 2002; dossett, 2007; mladin and mladin, 2008; kim et al, 2008; milutinovic et al, 2008; and weber et al, 2008). berry length varied between 6.31 and 14.46 mm while berry breadth was 7.02-15.91 mm. earlier studies by mladin and mladin (2008), kim et al (2008), and milutinovic et al (2008) revealed variation in berry length and berry breadth ranging between 7.3 and 26.9 mm and 12.2 and 27.4 mm, respectively. relatively lower values of physical berry characters of berry recorded are perhaps due to the fact that the plants studied grew under minimal cultural conditions as against well-managed cultural conditions reported from elsewhere. variation in berry tss was between 9.60 and18.60 0b whereas, acidity per cent in the berries ranged between 1.02 and1.72%. berry tss and acidity ranging between 5.1 and 16.8ob and 0.3 and 3.09% has been reported by various workers in different rubus species (mladin, 2002 and dossett, 2007). the range of variation was 2.00-4.90% for reducing sugars, 4.20-11.60% for non-reducing sugars and 2.40-5.20mg / 100 g for ascorbic acid. ascorbic acid content ranging from 23.5 to 63.66 mg / 100 g was observed by mladin (2002). however, overall mean performance was 0.54 g for berry weight and 13.740b for tss. this variation offers scope for wild raspberry genetic improvement even within indigenous populations and, suitable donors can be identified accordingly. in addition, genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation were almost identical in expression. the high estimates of table 1. analysis of variance for some quantitative traits of horticultural importance in raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) trait mean squares replication treatment error degree of freedom (d.f.) 2 169 338 berry weight (g) 0.003 0.048* 0.001 berry length (mm) 0.062 5.462* 0.039 berry breadth (mm) 0.053 5.851* 0.044 tss (0b) 0.0001 10.594* 0.06 acidity (%) 0.0004 0.050* 0.002 reducing sugars (%) 0.076 1.079* 0.032 nonreducing sugars (%) 0.048 2.996* 0.04 ascorbic acid (mg /100 g) 0.096 0.602* 0.027 *p < 0.05 table 2. estimation of range, mean, pcv, gcv, heritability and genetic advance for berry weight and component traits trait range mean ±se pcv gcv heritability(%) genetic advance berry weight (g) 0.25-0.93 0.54±0.02 24.11 23.13 0.92 9.70 berry length (mm) 6.31-14.46 10.15±0.11 13.38 13.24 0.98 7.46 berry breadth (mm) 7.02-15.91 12.17±0.12 11.56 11.43 0.98 6.93 tss (0b) 9.60-18.60 13.74±0.14 13.76 13.64 0.98 7.57 acidity (%) 1.02-1.72 1.32±0.03 10.18 9.59 0.89 6.19 reducing sugars (%) 2.00-4.90 3.07±0.10 20.13 19.28 0.92 8.85 nonreducing sugars (%) 4.20-11.60 7.08±0.12 14.31 14.03 0.96 7.64 ascorbic acid (mg /100 g) 2.40-5.20 3.86±0.10 12.14 11.35 0.87 6.71 genetic variation in wild himalayan raspberry j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 28-31, 2009 30 heritability coupled with low genetic advance observed in all the traits reveal presence of non-additive gene effects. high percentage of heritability is due to favourable influence of environment rather than due to genotype and selection for such traits may not be effective. genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients among eight traits are presented in table 3. berry weight had significant and positive correlation with berry length and berry breadth. berry length exhibited positively significant correlation with berry breadth. similar association among these characters was observed by kim et al (2008) in rubus coreanus miq. and by moore et al (2008) in rubus idaeus l. in path analysis, seven of the eight berry traits were considered as casual variables and berry weight was taken table 3. correlation coefficient at genotypic (g) and phenotypic (p) level for berry weight and component traits trait x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 1 g 1.000 0.390* 0.332* -0.005 0.040 0.097 0.095 -0.093 p 1.000 0.368* 0.316* -0.001 0.029 0.087 0.090 -0.080 x 2 g 1.000 0.633** -0.058 -0.060 -0.036 0.095 0.000 p 1.000 0.622** -0.056 -0.057 -0.030 0.092 0.001 x 3 g 1.000 0.028 -0.019 -0.141 0.055 -0.053 p 1.000 0.028 -0.020 -0.133 0.054 -0.051 x 4 g 1.000 0.069 -0.191 0.063 0.082 p 1.000 0.062 -0.180 0.062 0.078 x 5 g 1.000 0.076 -0.011 -0.039 p 1.000 0.065 -0.016 -0.036 x 6 g 1.000 0.291 -0.101 p 1.000 0.272 -0.091 x 7 g 1.000 0.145 p 1.000 0.131 x 8 g 1.000 p 1.000 x 1 = berry weight (g) x 5 = acidity (%) x 2 = berry length (mm) x 6 = reducing sugars (%) x 3 = berry breadth (mm) x 7 = non-reducing sugars (%) x 4 = tss (0b) x 8 = ascorbic acid (mg /100g) * significant at 5% level ** significant at 1% and 5% level as a dependent variable. direct and indirect effects of various traits are presented in table 4. berry length and berry breadth had significant and positive effect on berry weight. significant and positive correlation between different pairs can prove helpful for genetic improvement of different characters, in a single step, if the higher or lower value of each is required, while the negatively associated traits where increased or decreased value of both characters is required cannot be improved in a single step. characters having non-significant correlation suggest that these are independent of each other. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to department of science & technology, govt. of india, new delhi, for providing necessary financial help during the course of investigation table 4. direct (in diagonal) and indirect (other values) effect of berry weight and component traits in rubus ellipticus smith trait effect via: correlation with berry weight berry length (mm) 0.299 0.097 -0.002 -0.003 -0.004 0.003 0.000 0.390* berry breadth (mm) 0.189 0.153 0.001 -0.001 -0.016 0.002 0.004 0.332* tss (0b) -0.017 0.004 0.030 0.003 -0.022 0.002 -0.006 -0.005 acidity (%) -0.018 -0.003 0.002 0.048 0.009 0.000 0.003 0.040 reducing sugars (%) -0.011 -0.022 -0.006 0.004 0.113 0.010 0.008 0.097 nonreducing sugars (%) 0.028 0.008 0.002 -0.001 0.033 0.035 -0.011 0.095 ascorbic acid (mg /100 g) 0.000 -0.008 0.003 -0.002 -0.011 0.005 -0.079 -0.093 * significant at 5% level residual effect 0.8997 dinesh singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 28-31, 2009 31 under the project entitled, “studies on biodiversity of raspberry (rubus ellipticus smith) for selection of superior genotypes growing wild in north-western himalayas”. references dossett, m. 2007. variation and heritability of vegetative, reproductive and fruit chemistry traits in black raspberry (rubus occidentalis l.), m.sc. thesis, oregon state university, usa hanson, c.h, robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1956. biometrical studies of yield in segregating population of korean lespedeza. agron. j., 48:268-272 jennings, d.l. 1988. raspberries and blackberries : their breeding, diseases and growth, academic press, london kim, s.h., chung, h.g. and han, j. 2008. breeding of korean black raspberry (rubus coreanus miq.) for high productivity in korea. acta hort., 777:141-146 milutinovic, m.d., milivojevic, j., dekovic, g., milutinovic, m.m., miletic, r. and novakovic, m. 2008. pomological properties of introduced raspberry cultivars grown in west serbia. acta hort., 777 :193196 mladin, p. and mladin, g., 2008. improvement of raspberry cultivars in romania. acta hort., 777:115-120 mladin, p. 2002. progress in black currant and raspberry breeding in romania. acta hort., 585:149-154 moore, p.p., perkins-veazie, p., weber, c.a. and howard, l., 2008. environmental effect on antioxidant content of ten raspberry cultivars. acta hort., 777:493-504 ranganna, s.1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products (2nd ed.), tata mcgraw hill, new delhi singh, d. and kumar, k. 2001. domestication of wild raspberry. kisan world, 28:29 weber, c.a., perkins-veazie, p., moore, p. p. and howard, l. 2008. variability of antioxidant content in raspberry germplasm. acta hort., 777:493-498 (ms received 21 january 2009, revised 15 may 2009) genetic variation in wild himalayan raspberry j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 28-31, 2009 india ranks second in production and area under banana (after mango) over an acreage of 600.3 million hectares and annual production of 20857.8 tonnes. in uttar pradesh, the acreage is 1.6 million hectares and annual production is 57.1 million tonnes. similarly, guava (psidium guajava l.) is an important fruit crop and ranks fourth in area and production after mango, banana and citrus. its acreage is 178.7 million hectares and annual production is 1856 million tonnes in india. in uttar pradesh, its acreage is 15.8 million hectares and annual production is 162.8 million tonnes (national horticulture board, 2008). post harvest diseases of guava and banana presents a peculiar problem. there is colossal wastage with our poor marketing and transit facilities. the most important causal agents responsible for post harvest diseases of guava and banana are fungi. these microorganisms attack fruits and cause considerable damage during transit, storage and final transportation to the market. around 90-100% fruits have been found to be infected with fungi, namely, pestalotia psidii, colletrotrichum gloeosporioides, rhizopus stolonifer and aspergillus niger, during storage (chaube and pundhir, 2005). one hundred thirty and 120 diseased guava and banana fruit samples were collected during summer season and rainy season from 13 and 12 different fruit markets, respectively of allahabad (table 1 and 2). fungal pathogens were isolated from infected guava and banana fruits and short communication incidence of post-harvest fungal pathogens in guava and banana in allahabad renu srivastava and abhilasha a. lal department of plant protection allahabad agricultural institute – deemed university allahabad-211007, india e-mail: renu1srivastava@rediffmail.co.in abstract a survey was conducted to study incidence of pathogens associated with post-harvest losses in fruits in produce from fruit markets of allahabad. rhizopus stolonifer (20.76%) was a major post-harvest pathogen isolated from the samples, followed by pestalotia psidii (18.46%), alternaria sp. (17.69%), penicillium expansum (11.53%), colletotrichum gloesporioides (10.76%), aspergillus niger (9.23%), tricothecium sp (8.46%), and cladosporium sp. (4%) in guava, and, fusarium sp. (28.3%) curvularia (23.39%), colletotrichum musae (16.6%), trichothecium sp (11.6), penicillium (10.8%), alternaria (5%) and rhizopus (4%) in banana fruit samples. key words: banana, guava, incidence, postharvest losses stored at ambient temperature ranging between 33–37± 2ºc with 98% rh. diseased portions of the fruit surface were cut into small pieces (2-3 mm) and surface-sterilized with 0.1% mercuric chloride solution for 30 seconds. these pieces were then washed thrice with sterilized distilled water and aseptically transferred into clear, sterilized petri dishes (6mm dia) containing 85ml solidified potato dextrose agar medium. the petri dishes were incubated in an inverted position at 28°c for 4-5 days (aneja, 2004). pathogencity of the cultures was tested on healthy, uninjured fruits of uniform size. fruits were surface-sterilized with 0.1% mercuric chloride solution. wounds were made in the fruit with the help of a sterilized cork-borer (0.2 to 0.5 cm). these wounds were inoculated with pathogen-containing spore load (1x104 conidia / ml) as described by he et al (2003). the inoculated fruits were wrapped in sterilized paper and incubated at 28°c and observations were made for development of rot upto 10 days. frequency (%) was calculated as per by singh (2002) : number of fruit samples infected with certain pathogens frequency % = —————————————————x 100 total no. of fruit samples brought from certain fruit market j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 85-89, 2009 86 table 1. incidence of fungal pathogens associated with post-harvest diseases of guava in fruit markets of allahabad sl. location pathogen no. of frequency no. isolated samples tested (%) 1. naini rhizopus stolonifer 3 20 pestalotia psidii 3 10 aspergillus niger 1 30 alternaria sp. 2 30 trichothecium 1 10 2. chowk rhizopus stolonifer 3 30 pestalotia psidii 3 30 alternaria sp. 1 10 aspergillus niger 3 30 3. medical chauraha rhizopus stolonifer 2 20 penicillium expansum 1 10 alternaria sp. 2 20 pestalotia psidii 2 20 trichothecium sp. 2 20 cladosporium sp. 1 10 4. mundara mandi rhizopus stolonifer 2 20 colletotrichum 1 10 gloeosporioides pestalotia psidii 3 30 alternaria sp. 2 20 penicillium expansum 2 20 5. gaughat rhizopus stolonifer 3 30 colletotrichum 2 20 gloeosporioides alternaria sp. 2 20 pestalotia psidii 3 30 6. mahewa east rhizopus stolonifer 3 30 alternaria sp. 3 30 penicillium expansum 2 20 trichothecium sp. 2 20 7. katra rhizopus stolonifer 2 20 alternaria sp. 1 10 pestalotia psidii 2 20 colletotrichum gloeosporioides 1 10 penicillium expansum 2 20 aspergillus niger 2 20 8. civil lines trichothecium sp. 2 20 aspergillus niger 2 20 pestalotia psidii 2 20 alternaria sp. 1 10 colletotrichum 3 30 gloeosporioides 9. baluaghat alternaria sp. 3 30 aspergillus niger 2 20 pestalotia psidii 1 10 colletotrichum gloeosporioides 2 20 trichothecium sp. 2 20 10. teliarganj penicillium expansum 2 20 rhizospus stolonifer 2 20 alternaria sp. 2 20 colletotrichum 2 20 gloeosporioides pestalotia psidii 2 20 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 85-89, 2009 renu srivastava and lal 87 table 1. continued ............ sl. location pathogen isolated no. of frequency no. samples tested (%) 11. jhunsi aspergillus niger 2 20 trichothecium sp. 1 10 pestalotia psidii 2 20 trichothecium sp. 1 10 alternaria sp. 2 20 colletotrichum 2 20 gloeosporioides 12. muthiganj rhizopus stolonifer 2 20 penicillium expansum 1 10 pestalotia psidii 2 20 trichothecium sp. 1 10 alternaria sp. 2 20 colletotrichum 2 20 gloeosporioides 13. zero road rhizopus stolonifer 2 20 alternaria sp. 2 20 pestalotia psidii 1 10 aspergillus niger 3 30 penicillium expansum 2 20 ten diseased guava fruit samples were collected from each location table 2. overall incidence of fungal pathogens associated with post-harvest diseases of guava in allahabad sl. pathogen post-harvest no. of frequency no. isolated disease fruit (%) infected 1. rhizopus stolonifer soft watery rot 27 20.76 2. pestolotia psidii fruit canker 24 18.46 3. alternaria sp. fruit rot 23 17.69 4. penicillium penicillium rot 15 11.53 expansum 5. colletotrichum anthracnose 14 10.76 gloeosporioides 6. aspergillus niger aspergillus rot 12 9.23 7. trichothecium sp. trichothecium rot 11 8.46 8. cladosporium fruit rot 5 4.00 fungal pathogens isolated from fruits were identified as pestalotia psidii, rhizopus stolonifer, aspergillus niger, penicillium expansum, trichothecium spp., fusarium sp., colletotrichum sp. and alternaria sp. from the pathogencity tests it was confirmed that canker was caused by pestalotia psidii, soft rot caused by rhizopus stolonifer, fruit rot caused by alternaria sp. and anthracnose by colletotrichum sp. in guava. incidence of various diseases in different fruit markets on guava is presented in table 1. maximum disease incidence (30%) in guava was found in naini, chowk, mundera mandi, gaught, mahewa east, mahewa west, civil lines, baluaghat and zero road, followed by 20% incidence in medical chouraha, teliarganj, jhunsi, mutthiganj and katra. rhizopus stolonifer was isolated from guava collected from all the fruit markets surveyed in allahabad. mean incidence of post harvest fungal pathogens associated with guava fruits in allahabad was 18.4%. rhizopus stolonifer was the dominant disease followed by pestalotia psidii, alternaria sp., penicillium expansum, colletotrichum gloeosporioides, aspergillus niger, trichothecium sp. and cladosporium sp. (table 2). incidence of various diseases from different fruit markets in banana are presented in table 3. maximum disease incidence of fusarium sp. (36%) was found in zero road, gaught, naini east, mahewa west, jhunsi, mundara mandi, naini west, chowk, civil lines, katra and medical chouraha followed by curvularia sp (24 – 36%) in zero road, teliarganj, gaught, naini east, mahewa west, jhunsi, mundara mandi, naini west, chowk, civil lines, katra and medical chouraha. colletotrichum sp. and penicillium sp. were found to be the next most serious post harvest diseases on banana in allahabad. mean incidence of post harvest fungal pathogen associated with banana fruits in allahabad was 17.1. thus, fusarium sp. was the major post-harvest pathogen isolated, followed by curvularia sp., colletotrichum musae, trichothecium sp., penicillium sp. and alternaria sp. (table 4). factors such as inoculum density, presence and concentration of microbiotic components on fruit surface, physiological state of the fruit and interaction of these factors with temperature and relative humidity may influence the incidence of fruit rot in allahabad. similiar findings have been reported by majumdar and pathak (1989) from jaipur. incidence of pestalotia psidii in guava and post-harvest fungal pathogens in guava and banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 85-89, 2009 88 table 3. incidence of fungal pathogens associated with post-harvest diseases of banana in fruit markets of allahabad location pathogen isolated no. of frequency samples tested zero road fusarium sp. 3 36% colletotrichum musae 2 24% curvularia sp. 3 36% alternaria alternata 1 12% trichothecium sp. 1 12% teliarganj fusarium sp. 2 24% curvularia sp. 2 24% trichothecium sp. 2 24% rhizopus sp. 2 24% alternaria alternata 2 24% gaughat fusarium sp. 3 36% curvularia sp. 2 24% alternaria alternata 1 12% trichothecium sp. 1 12% penicillium sp. 2 24% colletotrichum 1 12% naini east fusarium sp. 3 36% curvularia sp. 1 12% trichothecium sp. 1 12% penicillium sp. 1 12% alternaria 2 24% colletotrichum 1 12% mahewa fusarium sp. 3 36% west curvularia 2 24% trichothecium 1 12% penicillium 1 12% colletotrichum 2 24% rhizopus sp. 1 12% jhunsi fusarium sp. 3 36% curvularia 2 24% penicillium 1 12% rhizopus sp. 1 12% colletotrichum 2 24% trichothecium 1 12% mundara fusarium sp. 3 36% mandi curvularia 2 24% penicillium 2 24% colletotrichum 2 24% trichothecium 1 12% naini west fusarium sp. 3 36% curvularia 2 24% penicillium 2 24% trichothecium 1 12% colletotrichum 2 24% chowk fusarium sp. 3 36% curvularia 3 36% penicillium 1 12% trichothecium 1 12% colletotrichum 2 24% civil lines fusarium sp. 3 36% curvularia 3 36% trichothecium 1 12% colletotrichum 2 24% penicillium 1 12% j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 85-89, 2009 renu srivastava and lal 89 table 3. continued location pathogen isolated no. of frequency samples tested katra fusarium sp. 3 36% curvularia 3 36% trichothecium 1 12% colletotrichum 2 24% penicillium 1 12% medical fusarium sp. 2 24% chauraha curvularia 3 36% colletotrichum 2 24% trichothecium 2 24% penicillium 1 12% ten diseased banana fruit samples were collected from eachlocation; 120 samples from 12 fruit market fusarium sp. in banana was found to be maximum. therefore, in future, an intensive survey of the guava and banana growing area of allahabad should be carried out as these are important fruit of this district. information obtained from this study can be effectively utilized to develop suitable post-harvest management practices to increase the shelflife of guava and banana. table 4. overall incidence of fungal pathogens associated with post-harvest diseases of banana in allahabad s. pathogen post-harvest no. of frequency no. isolated disease fruits tested 1. fusaruim sp. fruit rot 34 28.3% 2. curvularia sp. fruit rot 28 23.3% 3. colletotrichum musae crown rot 20 16.6% 4. trichothecium sp. fruit rot 14 11.6% 5. penicillium expansum penicillium rot 13 10.8% 6. alternaria alternata alternaria rot 6 5.0% 7. rhizopus sp. fruit rot 5 4.0% references aneja, k.r. 2004. experiments in microbiology, plant pathology and biotechnology (fourth edition). new age international (p) ltd., publishers, new delhi, pp. 437-450 chaube, h.s. and pundhir, v.s. 2005. crop diseases and their management. prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi. india, pp. 641-642 he, d., zhang. x., yin, y. sun, p., and zhang, h. 2003. yeast application controlling apple post-harvest disease associated with penicillium expansum. bot. bull. acad. sin., 44:211-216 majumdar, v. l. and pathak, v.n. 1989. incidence of major post-harvest diseases of guava fruits in jaipur markets. indian phytopath., 42:469-470 national horticulture board, 2008. the production and productivity of fruits. database, pp.1-4 singh, r.s. 2002. introduction to principles of plant pathology. oxford and ibh publishing co. pvt. ltd., new delhi, (iv edition), pp. 290 (ms received 13 october 2008, revised 12 february 2009) post-harvest fungal pathogens in guava and banana j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 85-89, 2009 404 not found stack trace: file: /var/www/jhs/pages/article/articlehandler.inc.php line 167 function: dispatcher->handle404() file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkprouter.inc.php line 392 function: articlehandler->initialize(object(request), array(0)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkppagerouter.inc.php line 246 function: pkprouter->_authorizeinitializeandcallrequest(array(2), object(request), array(2), false) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/dispatcher.inc.php line 144 function: pkppagerouter->route(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/lib/pkp/classes/core/pkpapplication.inc.php line 362 function: dispatcher->dispatch(object(request)) file: /var/www/jhs/index.php line 68 function: pkpapplication->execute() c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 1 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review moringa (moringa oleifera l.): an underutilized and traditionally valued 1-13 tree holding remarkable potential jattan m., kumari n., raj kumar, kumar a., rani b., phogat d.s., kumar, s. and kumar, p. original research in papers characterization and evaluation of mountain sweet thorn 14-25 (flacourtia montana j. grah) collections tripathi p.c., ganeshan s., radhika v. and shetti d.l. optimization of methodology for the extraction of polyphenolic compounds 26-35 with antioxidant potential and á-glucosidase inhibitory activity from jamun (syzygium cumini l.) seeds arivalagan m., priyanka d.r. and rekha a. genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) 36-44 agadi a.h., kolakar s., lakshmana d., nadukeri s. and hanumanthappa m. morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to 45-52 iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c., dutt s., sharma j., raveendran m. and sudhakar d. responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water 53-63 deficit conditions ayub q., khan s.m., hussain i., naveed k., ali s., mehmood a., khan m.j., haq n.u., shehzad q. induced variability for yield and its attributing traits in cluster bean 64-68 [cyamopsis tetragonoloba (l. ) taub] through gamma irradiation lavanya h.n., mishra s., sood m., aghora t.s., anjanappa m., rao v.k. and reddy a.b. in vitro multiplication protocol for curcuma mangga : studies on carbon, 69-76 cytokinin source and explant size waman a.a., bohra p., karthika devi r. and pixy j. effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life 77-90 of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m., bhandari n. and dhital m. post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and 91-102 antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h., saucedo v.c., guerra r.d., suarez e.j., soto h.r.m. lopez j.a., garcia c.e. and hernandez r.g. soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient 103-113 management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour and d. kalaivanan effect of spectral manipulation and seasonal variations on cut foliage production 114-120 and quality of philodendron (philodendron ‘xanadu’) sujatha a. nair, laxman r.h. and sangama short communications studies on mutagenic sensitivity of seeds of pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) 121-124 sankaran m., kalaivanan d. and sunil gowda d.c. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from 125-129 garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v., vasudeva r., hemanth b., nischita p., sthapit b.r., parthasarathy v.a. and rao v.r. 77 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 original research paper effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m.1, bhandari n.*1and dhital m.2 1institute of agriculture and animal science, rampur, chitwan, nepal 1*institute of agriculture and animal science, gauradaha, jhapa, nepal 2agriculture and forestry university, rampur, chitwan, nepal *corresponding author e-mail: iaasnirajan@gmail.com abstract laboratory research was conducted to study the effect of wax amended coating on the shelf life of citrus sinensis osbeck during 2017-18 at rampur, chitwan. the experiment was conducted in single factor completely randomized design (crd) with nine treatments and four replications. the treatments consisted of carbendazim and three essential oils viz. lemongrass, mentha and eucalyptus oil at two different concentrations of 0.1% and 0.5%, all of them infused with 10% wax emulsion. the wax treatment devoid of fungicide and essential oils served as control. the application of essential oils with wax improved shelf life and enhanced juice retention, firmness, titratable acidity, vitamin c and disease reduction. but total soluble solid was found higher in fruits treated with wax emulsion only. the highest shelf life and disease control was obtained with wax with 0.5% carbendazim but waxing with 0.5% eucalyptus oil and 0.5% lemongrass oil can be better alternatives considering their superior performance in environmental aspects, consumer preferences and quality parameters like juice retention, firmness, titratable acidity and vitamin c. keywords : carbendazim, eucalyptus oil, green mold, lemongrass oil, post-harvest introduction sweet or a nge (citrus sinensis obseck) is a n economically important citrus fruit of the mid hill region of nepal. the mid hill region of nepal (1000 to 1500 masl altitude) has a comparative advantage in the production of sweet orange over traditional crops (rice, wheat, maize etc). sweet orange is the second most gr own citrus crop in nepa l after mandarin in terms of area and production (moald, 2020). the oranges in the nepalese agricultural market have to compete with products coming from neighboring countries like india and china. the cost of production of sweet orange is higher due to high input costs, the need for hybrid budded and grafted saplings and intensive labor requirements to grow the crop which has forced the grower to think about improving postharvest management practices. the lack of suitable storage and preservation techniques forces the farmers to sell sweet oranges before their horticultural maturity and just after picking. the unaffordable postharvest preservation has led to a negative effect on the citrus enterprises in nepal (kaini, 2013). green mold (penicillium digitatum sacc.) and blue mold (penicillium italicum wehmer) are the most economically important postharvest pathogens of sweet orange causing significant losses (abd-el-khair and hafez, 2006; el-otmani et al., 2011; papoutsis et al., 2019). currently, the control of green and blue mold is a ccomplished by pr e-a nd postha r vest a pplica tion of chemica l fungicides such a s carbendazim, imazalil, thiabendazole, pyrimethanil, fludioxonil, prochloraz and and guazatine (danderson, 1986; ismail and zhang, 2004; smilanick et al., 2006; smilanick et al., 2008; berk, 2016; joshi et al., 2020). br oadly, such fungicides inhibit the ergoster ol synthesis, mitochondrial electron tra nsport and synthesis of multi-site enzymes, protein and nucleic acid thereby kill or inhibit fungi or fungal spore this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 78 bhandari et al. j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 germination (yang et al., 2011). however, synthetic fungicides are used as the conventional ways of r educing postha r vest r ots which ha ve ma ny drawbacks including high cost, handling hazards, concern about pesticide residue on fruit and a threat to human health and environment (tzortzakis, 2009). various synthetic fungicides were identified as toxic and carcinogenic by various researchers (rouabhi, 2010; singh et al., 2016). pathogens also developed r esista nce a ga inst extensive use of synthetic fungicides resulting in declining fungicidal efficiency (fogliata et al., 2000; hao et al., 2011). the application of essential oil amended coatings has been developed as a novel and eco-friendly approach to control postharvest microbes, maintain fruit quality and improve shelf life (alam et al.,2017; jhalegar et al., 2015). the essential oils do not have only antifungal properties, but the secondary metabolites also have antioxidant and bio-regulatory properties (du plooy et al., 2009; jhalegaret al., 2014; bagamboula et al., 2004; hendel et al., 2016). the increasing demand for organic fruits encourages replacing synthetic fungicides with safer alternatives. the volatility, ephemeral nature and biodegradability of essential oils make it comparatively advantageous for the treatment of postharvest citrus disease (ameziane et al., 2007). the synergism between the components in volatiles may be the reason behind the fungitoxic property of essential oils. therefore, there is a minimal possibility of resistance. the application of essential oils with wax increases its longevity and reduces the amountof essential oils required per fruit. therefore, the study was made to compare various wax amended treatments, their efficacy and their impact on postharvest parameters. materials and methods experimental site and fruit material t he pr esent investiga tion wa s ca r r ied out a t agriculture and forestry university (afu), rampur, chitwan during the year 2017-2018. the location of the site is 27o40’ n and 85o19’ e with an elevation of 228 meter above sea level. the experiment was conducted in a cool and humid winter season. the local variety of sweet orange handpicked from the farmers orchard of sindhuli was transported to chitwan for the experiment. the fruits were kept in the tagged plastic trays during the storage period at room temperature.the average weight of fruit was 144.56 g. the average seed number was 10. the average juice content of fruit was 84.19 ml. experimental design t he exper iment wa s la id out in single fa ctor completely randomized design (crd) with nine treatments and four replications. there were a total of 36 experimental trays having 12 fruits per tray. the treatments were finalized based on the findings of tripathi et al., (2004), jhalegar et al., (2015) and rokaya et al., (2016). treatments details t1: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.1% (v/v) lemongrass (cymbopogon flexuosus) oil t2: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.5% (v/v) lemongrass (cymbopogon flexuosus) oil t3: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.1% (v/v) mentha (mentha arvensis) oil t4: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.5% (v/v) mentha (mentha arvensis) oil t5: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.1% (v/v) eucalyptus (eucalyptus sp.) oil t6: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.5% (v/v) eucalyptus (eucalyptus sp.) oil t7: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.1% (v/v) carbendazim (bavistin) t8: 10% (w/v) wax emulsion with 0.5% (v/v) carbendazim (bavistin) t9: control (dipped in 10% wax emulsion only) preparation of 10% wax emulsion paraffin wax (58-60°c, solid lr-grade) was used for preparing wax emulsion. five hundred milliliter of water was boiled in a vessel and 50 g of wax was hea ted in a nother vessel. fifteen milliliter of triethanolamine and ten milliliter of oleic acid was added in water as emulsifier and stabilizers. the molten wax was gradually poured into heated water with constant stirring. the stirring was rigorously done until the solution turns milky color. the milky color indicates well pr epa red emulsion. it was ensured that the heated wax and heated water were at same temperature while mixing. the prepared emulsion was then allowed to cool. preparation and application of essential oils and fungicide the essential oils used in the experiments were pr epa r ed a t herbs pr oduction a nd pr ocessing cor por a tion limited (hppcl), koteshwor, kathmandu. the respective herbs collected from the terai region of nepal were dried, wilted and steam 79 fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating for extended shelf of sweet orange essential oils chemical constituents cymbopogan flexuosus geranial, neral, limonene, caryophyllene, geranyl acetate, linalyl acetate, citral, isogeranial, p-cymene, linalool mentha arvensis menthol, menthone, isomenthone, menthyl acetate, limonene eucalyptus sp. eucalyptol, limonene, aromadendrene, phellamdrene, terpinolene, alpha terpineol source: hppcl website table 1: chemical constituents of essential oils used in experiment j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 distilled to produce oils. one milliliter and five milliliter of essential oils were added in one liter of 10% wax emulsion to prepare 0.1% and 0.5% essential oils with wax emulsion. similarly, the fungicidal solution of carbendazim was prepared by dissolving 1 g and 5 g of carbendazim (carbendazim 50% wp) in 1000 ml of distilled water. one milliliten and five millititen of fungicidal solution were added in one liter of 10% wax emulsion to prepare 0.1% and 0.5% carbendazim with wax emulsion. the fruits were then dipped in the designated solutions for a few seconds, until a glossy film of wax was formed on the surface of fruits. data collection and analysis the data about the juice content, fruit firmness, total soluble solids (tss), titratable acidity (ta), vitamin c (ascorbic acid) and disease severity scoring was taken at every 5th day interval. the physical (fruit firmness) and chemical (juice recovery percentage, tss, ta and vitamin c) properties of fruits were measured by destructive sampling technique. the fruit firmness was measured bypenetrometer (effigy oil model having 8 mm tip) and tss was measured by hand refractometer. acidity and vitamin c was determined as per the procedure outlined by aoac (2005). the juice recovery percentage and content was calculated by following formulae; the shelf life was evaluated based on the appearance and spoilage of fruits. fruits were considered to have reached the end of shelf life when fruits showed visible signs of decay irrespective of diameter of symptom (obagwu and korsten, 2003). disease scoring and identification disea se scor ing wa s done on 0-5 sca le. t he assessment was based on the rotted area with respect to tota l sur face ar ea of the sweet or ange a nd expressed in percentage [0 = no infection (fruits are healthy), 1 = infection starts (0-5% rotting), 2 = 610% rotting, 3 = 11-15% rotting, 4 =16-20% rotting, 5=>20% rotting] (obagwu and korsten, 2003; abd-el-khair and hafez, 2006). the rotted fruits from each replication were removed and counted. disease severity index of decay fruits by pathogen was calculated by following formulae; the infected fruits after treatment with fungicide and essential oils were transferred to the pathology lab of afu for the isolation of fungi. isolation was carried out on martin’s medium (bridson,1995). small pieces (1-1.2 cm thickness) of rotted fruits were sterilized by dipping into 2% sodium hypochlorite solution for 5 minutes and then washed several times with distilled water and finally dried on sterile filter paper (abdel-khair and el-mougy, 2003). the fully sterilized pieces were then transferred onto the surface of the medium in sterilized petri-plates. inoculated plates were incubated at 25oc for 3-5 days. hyphal tip technique was followed for purification of the isolated fungi. barnett and hunter technique was used to identify funga l cultur es ( ba r nett a nd hunter, 1987). t he temper a tur e and r ela tive humidity of the ex p er imenta l r oom wa s r ec or ded da ily. t he a ver a ge minimum temper a t u r e wa s r ecor ded 12.88°c while the average maximum temperature wa s r ecorded 16. 16 °c. t he a ver a ge minimum humidity was 86.04% while the average maximum disease severity index (%) = (abd-el-khair and hafez, 2006) where, n = number of decayed fruits per category, r 1. r5= severity s core m = maximum rating s cale number (5), n = total examined fruits 80 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 bhandari et al. humidity was 91.73%. the climate was mostly cloudy during the experiment with a few instances of drizzles. the data were entered into microsoft excel 2016 and analysis was carried out by using rstudio version 4.0.2. both descr iptive and inferential analysis was carried out. interpretations were made based on results, which were assisted by qualitative and quantitative data/information. results juice recovery percentage juice recovery percentage decreased significantly in all treatments with the advancement of storage time (table 2). on the day of the experimental setup, the juice recovery percentage was found to be 58.24%. the juice recovery percentage was not significant between treatments for the stor age period time of 5 days and 10 days. at 30 days after storage, maximum juice recovery percentage was observed in wax coating with 0.5% lemongrass (42.86%), which was statistically at par with the wax coating with 0.5% eucalyptus (42.81%). the lowest juice r ecover y per centa ge wa s seen in control fruits (33.49%). table 2: effect of postharvest treatments on juice recovery percentage of sweet orange fruits treatments per cent juice content of fruits on days indicated 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 t1 58.24 57.04 50.17 47.04abc 45.05c 43.82bc 41.45cd t2 58.24 56.95 49.56 47.81a 46.21a 44.10ab 42.86a t3 58.24 56.73 49.60 46.67bc 45.30bc 43.69c 41.18c t4 58.24 57.38 51.70 47.92a 45.93ab 44.25a 41.63c t5 58.24 57.10 50.60 47.60ab 45.46abc 43.64c 42.29b t6 58.24 57.23 50.82 47.55ab 46.16a 44.10ab 42.81a t7 58.24 56.98 49.80 46.42c 43.50d 39.71e 38.50e t8 58.24 57.20 51.20 46.12c 44.10d 42.02d 41.16d t9 58.24 56.59 50.63 46.08c 40.67e 36.10f 33.49f lsd 0.60ns 0.85ns 1.06** 0.70*** 0.31*** 0.28*** cv 0.73 1.47 1.55 1.08 0.51 0.47 mean 57.01 50.45 47.02 44.71 42.38 40.59 lsd = least significant difference, cv= coefficient of variation, means within the column followed by same letters do not differ significantly at 5% level of significance by dmrt, significance codes ***at 0.001, **at 0.01, *at 0.05 fruit firmness the fruit firmness decreased with the advancement of the storage period in all treatments (fig. 1). on the day of the experimental setup, the fruit firmness was found to be 5.35 kg/cm2. on the 30th day after storage, firmness was highest for wax with 0.5% eucalyptus (3.50 kg/cm2) and lowest in control (2.25 kg/cm2) followed by wax with 0.1% carbendazim (2.75 kg/cm2). 81 fig.1 : effect of postharvest treatments on firmness of sweet orange fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating for extended shelf of sweet orange total soluble solids (tss) total soluble solid directly influences the taste of sweet orange. the tss of fruit on the first day of storage was 11.20 °brix. tss increased with increment in the storage period in all treatments from 10 days onwards (table 3). however, tss was found to decrease on the 5th day of storage for the treatment wax with mentha. there was no significant difference between treatments on the 5th and 10th day of storage. the highest tss was observed in control fruits (12.41° brix) followed by wax with 0.1% carbendazim (12.28° brix) while the lowest tss was observed in wax with 0.5% lemongrass (11.97° brix) at 30th day after storage. titratable acidity (ta) the titratable acidity is an important factor that is directly related to organic acid present in the fruit and also determines the quality of sweet orange. the ta w as 1 .1 2 o n t he first da y o f t he experiment. the effect was significant only after the 10th day of treatment. there was a gradual decrease in ta of sweet orange along with the storage time. at the end of storage life i.e. 30th d a y, ta w a s hig he st fo r w a x w it h 0 . 5 % lemongrass (0.94%), which was statistically at par to wax with 0.1% lemongrass (0.92%) and 0.5% carbendazim (0.91%). the lowest ta was shown by control (0.72%) at the end of storage life (table 4). 82 table 4: effect of postharvest treatments on ta of sweet orange fruits treatments ta on days indicated 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 t1 1.12 1.05 1.03bc 1.02ab 0.95ab 0.93ab 0.92ab t2 1.12 1.04 1.05b 1.03ab 0.99a 0.95a 0.94a t3 1.12 1.03 0.95de 0.92de 0.91c 0.84d 0.84d t4 1.12 1.04 0.99d 0.94d 0.93bc 0.88c 0.82d t5 1.12 1.05 0.95de 0.9e 0.86d 0.85d 0.82d t6 1.12 1.02 1.04bc 0.98c 0.95abc 0.91b 0.86cd t7 1.12 1.02 1.05bc 1.01b 0.96ab 0.93ab 0.87bcd t8 1.12 1.03 1.08a 1.04a 0.97ab 0.93ab 0.91abc t9 1.12 1.03 0.89e 0.85f 0.76e 0.74e 0.72e lsd 0.00ns 0.12** 0.01*** 0.03*** 0.02*** 0.05*** cv 4.86 1.85 1.30 2.75 2.01 4.00 mean 1.03 1.00 0.96 0.92 0.88 0.85 lsd = least significant difference, cv= coefficient of variation, means within the column followed by same letters don not differ significantly at 5% level of significance by dmrt, significance codes ***at 0.001, **at 0.01, *at 0.05. bhandari et al. treatments tss of fruits on days indicated 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 t1 11.20 11.25 11.30 11.40bcd 11.69b 11.82e 12.21c t2 11.20 11.25 11.30 11.40bcd 11.60c 11.72f 11.97d t3 11.20 11.00 11.20 11.41abc 11.65b 11.97bc 12.22bc t4 11.20 11.00 11.30 11.45ab 11.78a 11.8e 12.19c t5 11.20 11.25 11.30 11.37cd 11.65bc 11.9d 12.20c t6 11.20 11.25 11.30 11.40bcd 11.61c 11.8d 12.10d t7 11.20 11.20 11.25 11.34d 11.65bc 12.02b 12.28b t8 11.20 11.25 11.30 11.37cd 11.61c 11.95c 12.19c t9 11.20 11.25 11.30 11.47a 11.78a 12.19a 12.41a lsd 0.20ns 0.08ns 0.06** 0.04*** 0.04*** 0.06*** cv 1.82 0.53 0.37 0.27 0.23 0.35 mean 11.18 11.28 11.40 11.66 11.91 12.20 lsd = least significant difference, cv= coefficient of variation, means within the column followed by same letters do not differ significantly at 5% level of significance by dmrt, significance codes ***at 0.001, **at 0.01, *at 0.05. table 3: effect of postharvest treatments on tss of sweet orange fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 83 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating for extended shelf of sweet orange ascorbic acid (vitamin c) content vit a min c c ont ent is a n imp or t a nt nu t r it ive parameter in citrus fruits and it was decreased gradually during the advancement of storage days (fig. 2). on the first day of storage, the vitamin c content was measured to be 40 mg/100ml of orange juice. on the 30th day, the highest vitamin c was f ou nd in f r u it s c oa t ed wit h wa x a nd 0 . 5 % eucalyptus (30.31 mg/100ml), followed by wax with 0.5% mentha (29.50 mg/100ml) and 0.1% mentha (29.18mg/100ml), while the lowest vitamin c was observed in control fruits (24.5 mg/100ml). disease severity index t he disea se oc cur r ence in sweet or a nge wa s increased with the storage days (table 5). the green mold (p. digitatum) was confirmed through the lab culture of a pathogen. the fruits treated with essential oils and fungicide were found to be more resistant to postharvest fungal diseases. on the 30 th day of stor a ge, a lmost a ll trea tments exhibited noticeable disease occurrence, control being the highest infected (0.372%) followed by wax with 0.1% mentha (0.180%). the treatment of wax with 0. 5% car bendazim (0. 004%) wa s most effective against fungal pathogen and wax with 0.5% euca lyptus oil (0. 025%) and 0. 5% lemongrass oil (0.025%) being the most effective essential oils. fig. 2: effect of postharvest treatments on ascorbic acid content of sweet orange fruits 84 treatments disease severity index of fruits on days indicated 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 t1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.025bc 0.075b 0.123b t2 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.004de 0.012cd 0.025d t3 0.00 0.00 0.004b 0.012b 0.038b 0.075b 0.180b t4 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.017cd 0.046bc 0.114bc t5 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.012b 0.038b 0.058b 0.114bc t6 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.008de 0.012cd 0.025d t7 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.000 0.033cd t8 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.000 0.004d t9 0.00 0.00 0.042a 0.054a 0.096a 0.207a 0.372a lsd 0.009*** 0.013*** 0.013*** 0.038*** 0.080*** cv 121.76 105.94 35.646 48.471 50.13 mean 0.005 0.008 0.025 0.054 0.110 lsd = least significant difference, cv= coefficient of variation, means within the column followed by same letters do not differ significantly at 5% level of significance by dmrt, significance codes ***at 0.001, **at 0.01, *at 0.05. table 5: effect of postharvest treatments on disease severity index in sweet orange fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 bhandari et al. shelf life the wax treatment with carbendazim and essential oils had a significantly better shelf life as compared to the control treatment (table 6). wax with 0.5% carbendazim (28.25 days) being the highest and significantly better than other treatments. it was followed by wax with 0.1% carbendazim (25.75 days), wax with 0.5% lemongrass oil (20.00 days) and wax with 0.5% eucalyptus oil (19.75 days). the control fruits (8.25 days) were observed to have the lowest shelf life. discussion a significantly lower juice recovery percentage of control fruits might be due to the fact that the essential oils act as a barrier which checks the loss of moisture from the fruit surface due to the clogging of na tur a l openings (ca stillo et al. , 2014). additiona lly, the lower incidence of disease in essential oils and fungicides treated fruit ensure lower metabolism, which might have contributed to a higher juice recovery percentage. the present finding was supported by (bisen et al., 2012). the control fruit also had a wax coating and the transpiration process wa s ver y slow, so ther e wa s a n insignifica nt difference in juice recovery percentage between treatments before 15th day of storage. the moisture table 6: effect of postharvest treatments on shelf life in sweet orange fruits lsd = least significant difference, cv= coefficient of variation, means within the column followed by same letters don not differ significantly at 5% level of significance by dmrt, significance codes ***at 0.001, **at 0.01, *at 0.05. treatments shelf life t1 17.25d t2 20.00c t3 10.00f t4 16.75d t5 14.25e t6 19.75c t7 25.75b t8 28.25a t9 8.25g lsd 0.92*** cv 3.55 mean 17.80 85 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating for extended shelf of sweet orange loss was found significantly lower in fruit treated with essential oil enriched coatings (du plooy et al., 2009; d antunes et al., 2012; castillo et al., 2014). in general, coating formulations that minimize weight loss are also better at maintaining firmness, since this attribute is highly influenced by water content. fruit firmness decreased gradually and significantly along with increasing storage period in all treatments. the decelerated damage may be due to the anti-microbial properties of essential oils. the lowest fruit firmness in control fruit might be due to the rapid degradation of cell walls due to the action of wall-degrading enzymes such as pectinestera se, pectinmethyl­ esterase and polygalacturonase which are produced by fungi. essential oil amended coating maintains cell wall carbohydrate metabolism during storage which is related to decreased susceptibility to infection by fungal pathogen and therefore improves quality. the essentials oils together with commercial wax coating maintain the orga noleptic integrity along with firmness as mentioned by jhalegar et al. (2014). the essential oils affect the portioning of the lipids of the plasma membrane and changing of its integrity, permeability and inorganic ion equilibrium due to their hydrophobic nature (lambert et al., 2001) which might be the reasons for greater firmness in the fruits treated essential oils. the present findings were supported by chafer et al. (2012) on the firmness of navel powell orange and castillo et al. (2014) on lemon fruits. the gradual increase of tss with extending of the storage period might be attributed to concentrated juice content results from dehydration and hydrolysis of polysaccharides.the increased respiration rate due to microbial spoilage, degradation of fruits and increased ethylene production ultimately increased the tss during ripening and senescence which might be the reason for slightly higher tss in control fruits as compared to other treatments. the present result was in agreement with the findings of chafer et al. (2012) on navel powell orange and castillo et al. (2014) on lemon and tao et al. (2014) on satusma ma nda rin, as the essentia l oils did not show a significant effect on tss. the present finding was also inconsistent with asghari et al. (2009) who reported insignificant results in tss while using cumin essential oil on strawberry. the decrease in titratable acidity with storage is due to the oxida tion of orga nic a cids a nd fur ther utilization in the metabolic process in the fruits (hafeez et al.,2012). a gradual declining trend in titratable acidity content of fruit dur ing stor age for a ny treatment was observed by ansari and feridoon (2007) and obenland et al. (2008) in citrus. the decreased in titratable acidity of fruits during storage could be due to the consumption of organic acids in the respiration process as stated by zokaei et al. (2006) and ishaq et al. (2009). similarly, baiea (2013) on washington navel orange detected a decrease in the acidity of fruits during storage. fruits treated with essential oils showed higher retention of titratable acidity during the storage period which might due to delayed in physiological ageing and alteration in metabolism. the present results are in line with mahajan et al. (2010) suggesting that organic acids were used in the respiratory process. the higher titratable acidity in wax with lemongrass treatment is aligned with the finding of fatemi et al. (2012) who reported that the thymol oil delayed the changes in titratable acidity of valencia orange. the present finding was also supported by jhalegar et al. (2014) on kinnow mandarin. abd el wahab et al. (2014) also reported bergamot oil delayed the changes in titratable acidity during cold storage of crimson seedless grape. adisa (1986) stated that vitamin c decreased over time in storage which is similar to the experimental outcome. the decreased in ascorbic acid content of fruits during storage could be due to the conversion of dehydroascorbic to diketogulonic acid by oxidation as reported by ishaq et al. (2009). under stress, such as a pathogen or chemical exposure, a scorbate oxidase levels were increased, which decreased the level of vitamin c (loewus and loewus,1983; loewus et al.,1987). the maximum retention of vitamin c was observed with essential oils treatments due to the antioxidant property of essential oils which prevent ascorbic acid from oxidation (shao et al., 2013). the result was similar to lin et al. (2011) who found that the decrease in vitamin c level was associated with a reduced capacity of preventing oxidative damage which is triggered by the incidence of physiological disorders during storage. the degradation of vitamin c was highest in control fruits which might be due to fruit senescence accompanied by rapid respiration, ethylene production and decay. these results are similar to those reported on the effect of thyme and 86 table 7: summary of studies on the effect of essential oils on major post-harvest pathogens of citrus fruit target pathogen essential oils references orange cv. tomango p. digitatum mentha oil du plooy et al. (2009) orange, lime p. italicum mentha oil tripathi et al. (2004) washington navel orange p. digitatum lemongrass oil, abd-el-khair and hafez eucalyptus oil (2006) valencia orange g. citri-aurantii lemongrass oil regnier et al. (2014) kinnow mandarin p. digitatum, p. italicum eucalyptus oil jhalegar et al. (2014) kinnow mandarin p. italicum and lemongrass oil, jhalegar et al. (2015) p. digitatum eucalyptus oil j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 bhandari et al. clove oil in maintaining ascorbic acid as for orange (zeng et al., 2012; baiea and ei-badawy, 2013). the result was similar to the report of abd-elkha ir and ha fez (2006), a s they r eported the lemongr a s s a nd eu c a lyp t u s es s e nt ia l oils significantly reduced the incidence of fungus p. digitatum in wa shington na vel or a nge dur ing storage. abdolahi et al., (2010) and al-samarrai et al., (2013) found various plant extracts including lemongr ass extr a ct could inhibit the mycelia l growth of pathogenic fungus p. digitatum. the phenolic c omp ounds a nd t heir der iva t ives of essential oils altered the microbial cell permeability by interacting with membrane proteins which would cause deformation in cell structure and function and permit the loss of macromolecules from their body (fung et al., 1997; rattanapitigorn et al., 2 0 0 6) whic h might b e t he r ea s ons of lower microbial growth in the essential oils treated fruits c omp a r e t o c ont r ol. amit a nd m a lik ( 2 0 10 ) indic a t ed t ha t t he va p ou r s of lemongr a s s oil da ma ged t h e c ell memb r a ne ma i nly du e t o membrane deformation. however, the variation in the antifungal effect of the essential oils depends on the solubility and capacity to interact with the cytoplasmic membrane (tripathi and shukla, 2007). t he ef f ic a c y of lemongr a s s wa s a ls o f ou nd superior by jhalegar et al. (2015). similar results were reported by du plooy et al. (2009), fan et al. (2014), jhalegar et al. (2014) and gandarillapacheco et al. (2020) in citrus fruits. the wax with 0.5% carbendazim with its prominent disease resistance had the longest storability. the superiority of shelf life of 0.5% lemongrass and eucalyptus oils treated fruits might be due to the antifungal properties of essential oils (tzortzakis a nd economa kis, 2007; jha lega r et al. , 2014; j ha le ga r e t a l . , 2 0 1 5 ) . i n a ddit ion t o t his , postha rvest decay is positively correlated with ethylene production and respiration rate which were f ou nd t o be decr ea sed b y the a p p lica tion of essential oils (jhalegar et al., 2014; jhalegar et al., 2 0 1 5 ) . t he p r es ent r es u lt wa s i nc ons is t ent with tripathi et al. (2004) and tavakoli et al. (2019). the green mold is the major postharvest pathogen in sweet orange. the chemical fungicides have been found effective against such pathogens, but the health hazard of such pesticides is alarmingly high. the use of essential oils as an alternative for chemicals can be an environment friendly technique for prevention of the health hazards. the shelf life of sweet orange can be extended by infusing wax wit h ca r b enda z im or es s ent ia l oils . bu t t he superiority of essential oils especially wax with 0. 5% eu ca lyptus oil a nd 0. 5% lemongr a ss in qualitative parameters as well as in consumer ’s p r ef er enc e s , or ga nic r equ ir e ment s a nd envir onmen t a l a s p ec t s ma ke t he m a b et t er alternative. 87 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 77-90, 2021 fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating for extended shelf of sweet orange abd el wahab, w.a., abd el wahab s.m., kamel, o. t. 2014. using sa fe a lter na tives for controlling postharvest decay, maintaining 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(received on 16.05.2021, revised on 17.05.2021, accepted on 28.06.2021) introduction application of fertilizer nitrogen to soil is subjected to transformation losses due to presence of urease in the soil. to overcome such losses, coating/ blending urea with neem oil / products is a convenient and effective method. melicans, or bitters, present in neem (azadirachta indica l.) products, when blended with urea, inhibit nitrification and volatilization culminating in reduced leaching losses in soil (devakumar and goswami, 2002; suri et al, 2004). accumulation of ammoniacal and other mineralized nitrogen, owing to microbial immobilization by lowered rates of nitrification in top soil layers, facilitates its availability to the crop subsequently (singh et al, 1989). since treating urea with neem oil enhances nitrogen-use efficiency of the applied fertilizer and as the red sandy soils of bangalore exhibit definite activity of urease enzyme, prilled urea coated with neem oil (2% w/w, nocu) was compared to prilled urea (pu) at different levels of recommended n levels using ‘arka shreshtha’ tomato and ‘arka komal’ french bean in a potculture experiment. nitrogen use efficiency in tomato (lycopersicon esculentum l.) and french bean (phaseolus vulgaris l.) as influenced by coating of urea with neem oil and graded levels of nitrogen s. c. kotur, y. p. shilpashree, m. s. sheshshayee1 and p. r. ramesh division of soil science and agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: sckotur@iihr.ernet.in abstract in a pot-culture study, ‘arka shrestha’ tomato and ‘arka komal’ french bean were raised on red sandy-loam to compare urea coated with neem oil (2% w/w, nocu) and prilled urea (pu) applied at 60, 80 and 100% of recommended n dose. to facilitate direct measurement of n use parameters, urea enriched with 15n (1 atom per cent excess) was used as the source of n. compared to ‘no urea’ control, the application of n significantly increased dry matter production, fruit/pod yield as well as the parameters of n use. prilled urea coated with neem oil (nocu) was superior to pu in both the crops and produced 21% and 9% higher yield compared to the latter. increasing the dose of n significantly increased dry matter production, yield and all parameters of n use. however, the interaction effects showed that n applied as nocu at 80% the of recommended dose produced fruit/pod yield at par with that obtained at 100% of the recommended dose applied as pu in both crops. corresponding fertilizer utilization achieved was 14.9% and 59.0% when 80% of n was applied as nocu compared to 11.5% and 30.1 obtained when 100% of n was applied as pu in tomato and french bean, respectively. key words: neem coated urea, nitrogen use efficiency, tomato, french bean 1present address: department of plant physiology, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore-560 065 material and methods the experimental soil was red sandy-loam (typic haplustalf) with ph 5.9, organic carbon at 0.3%, cation exchange capacity of 8.7 cmol (p+)/kg, urease activity of 2.03 µg nh 4 +/g/hr and alkaline permanganate mineralizable n of 220 kg/ha. in a completely randomized factorial design with 3 replications, the first factor consisted of 2 forms of urea: (i) prilled urea (pu) and (ii) urea coated with 2.0% (w/w) neem oil (nocu). the second factor involved 3 n levels at 60, 80 and 100% of recommended dose for application to the crops. pots were filled with 10 kg of 4 mm sieved soil, and, 25 day-old tomato seedlings were planted and seeds of french bean sown to raise 2 seedlings in each pot. superphosphate and muriate of potash had been incorporated in to the soil earlier. soon after the seedlings established seeds germinated, urea was broadcast on soilsurface. the fertilizer dose given to the crops was 180:150:120 and 80:100:40 n : p : k kg/ha for tomato and french bean crops, respectively. to facilitate direct measurement of n-use, urea enriched with 15n (1 atom per cent excess) was used. in the case of nocu, the required j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 119-122, 2007 119 120 quantity of 15n -enriched urea was blended by triturating in a quartz pestle and mortar. fruits/pods were harvested from time to time and dry leaves collected to estimate total dry matter. at the last harvest, shoots were parts into stem, leaf and fruit/pod. the root was washed free of adhering soil. all the plant separates were cleaned with tap water, rinsed with distilled water and dried in an oven at 70° c to estimate dry matter and n content. abundance of 15n was estimated using ratio mass spectrometer (ce instruments flash ea1112 series thermoquest). values for different plant separates were pooled to obtain uptake of n and other parameters of n-use by the crops. the treatment sum of squares was partitioned into control vs. n application, pu vs. nocu and 60 vs. 80 vs. 100% of recommended n dosage and their interactions were studied as described by cochran and cox (1966). results and discussion effect of n application both tomato and french bean responded significantly to n application by way of increased (i) fruit and dry matter production, (ii) n content of the plant and (iii) n uptake by the plant (tables 1 and 2). the positive response to nitrogen application may be attributed to low levels of available nitrogen in the soil. table 1. effect of n application, coating of urea with neem oil and graded doses of n on fruit yield, dry matter and parameters of n use in tomato cv. arka shreshtha treatment fruit yield shoot dry n content n uptake ndff fertilizer n fertilizer (g/pot) matter (g/pot) (%) (g/pot) (%) uptake (mg/pot) utilization (%) control vs. n application control 295.00 40.20 0.410 0.160 n application 441.60 69.50 0.600 0.420 sem (±) 10.74 1.76 0.008 0.012 cd (p=0.05) 23.41 3.84 0.017 0.025 prilled urea(pu) vs. neem oil coated urea (nocu) pu 399.90 62.70 0.540 0.340 22.10 66.50 10.00 nocu 483.30 76.30 0.660 0.510 24.60 116.90 17.10 sem (±) 5.74 0.94 0.004 0.006 0.23 10.46 0.21 cd (p=0.05) 17.69 2.90 0.013 0.019 0.71 4.49 0.63 levels of nitrogen (percentage of recommended dose) 60% n dose 384.20 63.90 0.510 0.290 19.90 56.30 11.50 80% n dose 429.20 68.90 0.580 0.410 22.10 77.90 11.90 100% n dose 511.50 75.70 0.700 0.530 28.00 140.90 17.20 sem (±) 7.03 1.15 0.005 0.008 0.28 1.78 0.25 cd (p=0.05) 21.67 3.55 0.016 0.023 0.87 5.50 0.77 table 2. effect of n application, coating of urea with neem oil and graded doses of n on pod yield, dry matter production and parameters of n use in french bean var. arka komal treatment pod yield dry matter n content n uptake ndff fertilizer n uptake fertilizer (g/pot) (g/pot) (%) (g/pot) (%) (mg/pot) utilization(%) control vs. n application control 57.40 26.20 1.170 0.340 n application 72.30 38.10 1.390 0.570 sem (±) 1.39 0.36 0.011 0.009 cd (p=0.05) 3.02 0.79 0.024 0.019 prilled urea(pu) vs. neem oil coated urea (nocu) pu 69.30 35.30 1.310 0.490 23.90 110.50 39.20 nocu 75.30 41.00 1.470 0.640 25.70 176.60 60.20 sem (±) 0.74 0.19 0.006 0.005 0.12 2.10 0.66 cd (p=0.05) 2.28 0.60 0.018 0.014 0.37 6.46 2.02 levels of nitrogen (percentage of recommended dose) 60% n dose 63.20 40.00 1.270 0.520 20.50 111.10 50.90 80% n dose 71.00 37.00 1.390 0.550 24.40 148.60 51.10 100% n dose 82.60 37.40 1.520 0.620 24.70 170.90 47.00 sem (±) 0.91 0.24 0.007 0.006 0.15 2.57 0.80 cd (p=0.05) 2.80 0.73 0.022 0.018 0.45 ns 2.48 kotur et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 119-122, 2007 121 table 3. interaction effect of type of urea and levels of n on fruit/pod weight, dry matter production and parameters of n use in tomato and french bean type of urea level of n (% recommended dose) tomato french bean 60 80 100 60 80 100 fruit/pod weight (g/pot) prilled urea 343.3 371.70 484.7 62.3 68.60 77.0 neem oil coated urea (nocu) 425.0 486.70 538.3 64.1 73.50 88.3 se m (±) 9.95 1.28 cd (p=0.05) 30.65 3.95 dry matter (g/pot) prilled urea 59.6 59.90 68.3 38.2 34.70 32.9 neem oil coated urea (nocu) 67.9 77.90 83.1 41.8 39.30 41.8 se m (±) 1.63 0.34 cd (p=0.05) 5.02 1.03 n content (%) prilled urea 0.48 0.520 0.61 1.23 1.27 1.44 neem oil coated urea (nocu) 0.54 0.640 0.79 1.30 1.50 1.60 se m (±) 0.007 0.010 cd (p=0.05) 0.022 0.031 n uptake (g/pot) prilled urea 0.21 0.310 0.41 0.49 0.480 0.52 neem oil coated urea (nocu) 0.37 0.500 0.66 0.56 0.630 0.73 se m (±) 0.011 0.008 cd (p=0.05) 0.033 0.025 ndff (%) prilled urea 19.4 21.60 25.2 19.1 26.00 23.4 neem oil coated urea (nocu) 20.5 22.60 30.7 21.9 22.80 25.9 se m (±) 0.40 0.26 cd (p=0.05) 1.23 0.80 fertilizer n uptake (mg/pot) prilled urea 47.2 58.60 93.7 96.5 125.40 109.5 neem oil coated urea (nocu) 65.4 97.30 188.2 125.6 171.70 232.4 se m (±) 2.52 3.63 cd (p=0.05) 7.78 11.18 nitrogen fertilizer utilization (%) prilled urea 9.6 9.00 11.5 44.3 43.10 30.1 neem oil coated urea (nocu) 13.3 14.90 23.0 57.6 59.00 63.9 se m (±) 0.35 0.34 cd (p=0.05) 1.09 1.03 effect of coating urea with neem oil between pu and nocu, the latter produced significantly higher fruit/pod yield, dry matter production, n content, n uptake, ndff, fertilizer n uptake as well as fertilizer n utilization (tables 1 and 2). this may be attributed to delayed dissolution and hydrolysis of urea to ammonia by neem oil present in nocu leading to continuous and steady supply of nitrogen (singh and singh, 1989; vyas et al, 1991; and upadhyay and patel, 1992). nitrification of the ammonia evolved was also inhibited by neem oil leading to longer persistence of applied urea resulting in better supply of nitrogen and its utilization by the crop at later stages (biddappa and sarkunanan, 1981). according to prasad et al (1999), neem products act as dual-purpose inhibitors of nitrogen use efficiency in tomato and french bean j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 119-122, 2007 122 both ammonia volatilization and simultaneous nitrification. all these factors facilitated supply of n from nocu for longer time to the crop, in comparison to pu which dissipated faster in the soil when applied. effect of n levels among the different levels of n tested in tomato, increasing n dosage significantly improved fruit yield, dry matter production and all parameters of n use, irrespective of the type of urea applied (table 1). similar trend was also observed for pod yield and n use parameters in french bean (table 2). interaction effects in tomato, interaction effects (table 3) conformed to the main effects. in french bean too, a similar trend was evident. however, it is not clear as to why dry matter production showed a significant decline with increasing levels of n applied as pu. when n was applied as nocu, dry matter production at 80% level showed a significant reduction of 39.3 g/pot compared to 41.8 g/pot at both 60 and 100% n levels. neem oil coated urea (nocu) at 80% level of recommended dose produced fruit/pod yield close to that obtained at 100% of the recommended dose applied as pu in both the crops. results indicate that coating urea prills with neem oil holds promise reducing fertilizer input considerably, without any loss in yield. this has both economic and ecological implications. further field studies are suggested to be undertaken before extending the results to growers. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, for encouragement and providing facilities. references biddappa, c. c. and sarkunanan, v. 1981. effect of urea blended with neem cake on the nitrogen transformation in three typical rice soils of orissa. mysore j. agril. sci., 15:388-33 cochran, w. g. and cox, g. m. 1966. experimental designs. john wiley ans sons inc., london devakumar, c. and goswami, b. k. 2002. nematicidal principles from neem-isolation bioassay of some melicans. pesticide res., 4:79-84 prasad, r., singh, d. k. and singh, r. k. 1999. ammonia volatilization loss in rice–wheat cropping system and ways to minimize it. fert. news, 44:53-56 singh, j. s., raghubanshi, a. s., singh, r. s. and srivastava, s. c. 1989. microbial biomass acts as a source of plant nutrients in tropical forest and savanna. nature, 338:499-500 singh, m and singh, t. a. 1989. comparison of neem oil coated urea with some other coated urea fertilizers on an alkaline calcareous soil. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 37:314-18 suri, i. k., rajendra prasad and devakumar, c. 2004. neemcoating of urea – present status and future trends. fert. news, 49:21-24 upadhyay, d. n. and patel, g. r.1992. nitrogen management in rice. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 40:383-85 vyas, b. n., godrej, n. b. and mistry, k. b. 1991. development and evaluation of neem extract as a coating for urea. fert. news, 36:19-27 (ms received 16 august 2007, revised 17 november 2007) kotur et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 119-122, 2007 banana is one of the most important fruit crops grown in india. gujarat is the fifth largest producer of the banana in india (negi et al, 2002). bananas are harvested at various stages of its maturity depending upon distance to market and the purpose for which it is cultivated, such as culinary, table purpose, etc. most commonly the fruit is harvested when the ridges on the surface of the skin changed from angular to round i.e., after attainment of the threefourths full stage (kotecha and desai, 1995). harvested bananas in gujarat are then either stored for ripening or sold as raw/fresh fruit. none of the farmers go for the processing of bananas, because, operations for banana processing are very tedious, time consuming and expensive. during the market glut, the prices crash down and the farmers suffer heavy losses due to the distress sale. due to poor transportation and storage facilities, a sizeable quantity of this fruit is wasted due to its perishable nature. the total estimated loss during post harvest handling of banana in assam was about 22% (anonymous, 2005). whereas, the same was about 19 to 21% in tamil nadu (gajanana et al, 2002) and about 18 to 29% in karnataka (sreenivasa murthy et al, 2002). processing and product development through value addition is the best alternative to reduce the post harvest losses. to improve the marketing system, it is short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 187-190, 2009 assessment of post harvest losses in banana grown in gujarat p.r. davara and n.c. patel college of agricultural engineering and technology junagadh agricultural university junagadh – 362001, india e-mail : pareshdavara@yahoo.com abstract the present investigation was undertaken to assess post harvest losses (at field, traders’ and processors’ level) in gujarat. the effect of various ripening methods on post harvest losses in five varieties viz., robusta, grande naine, sona, mahalaxmi and shreemanthi were determined. the study revealed that overall post harvest loss in banana after harvesting till ripening was found to be 15.43%, which included losses at field level (0.77%), at trader’s level comprising of transportation and handling losses (5.86%) as well as ripening losses (8.80%). only negligible losses were observed during processing of banana. the highest loss (16.00%) was observed in the case of smoking + room temperature method of ripening, while the lowest (4.66%) was observed under ethephon + air-cooled chamber method. ethephon + ice treatment method resulted in ripening loss to the tune of 7.43%, but the method was most widely adopted in gujarat owing to its convenience and better appearance of bananas after ripening. key words : banana, post harvest losses essential to create awareness among the growers, farm workers and managers, traders and exporters about the extent of post harvest losses. considering all these facts, the study was undertaken to assess the post harvest losses of banana, during post harvest ripening. sampling procedure and data collection as defined by acharya and agrawal (2001), the present marketing channels of banana, three stages viz., field level, traders level (transit and ripening losses) and processors level were identified to examine the post harvest losses. the multistage random sampling technique was used for the selection of study area and the sampling units (gajanana et al, 2002; sreenivasa murthy et al, 2002). in the second stage, six districts of gujarat, namely anand, surat, vadodara, narmada, bharuch and junagadh were selected because of their maximum aggregate contribution (94%) to the total state production and considered as an individual zone. in the third stage, two tehsils from each zone were selected in such a way that they represented major banana growers of gujarat. in fourth stage, one village from each tehsil (a total of twelve villages) was selected. in the fifth stage, 3 banana growers of different categories (small, medium and large) were finally selected from each 188 of these villages using random number table for the data collection. thus, a total 36 banana growers were selected randomly. the details at trader’s level were collected from 20 traders of 3 markets (khanderao market at vadodara, khamasha market at ahmedabad and banana wholesaler market at junagadh) as well as villages sarsa (dist. anand) and bharuch, which were selected in such a way that it covered all the trading and ripening practices of banana followed in gujarat. since the banana processing industries are very few in gujarat, the data were collected from the available processors in the area, without adopting any sampling procedure. the estimation of losses at retail level was not included in the study. the data related to post harvest losses at different stages were collected during banana harvesting and marketing season through observation as well as personal interview of the respondents as per the schedules prepared. assessment of post harvest losses the post harvest losses at field level were worked out on the basis of the data collected from 36 sample fields (3 farmers of 12 villages). each sampling unit was made up of 3 sample bunch from each field. thus, the loss was estimated from 108 bunches of different sizes randomly drawn from the lots. the losses at trader’s level i.e., transit and ripening losses were estimated from 20 randomly selected sample traders. the transit loss at trader’s level was estimated from 15 sample traders cum agents engaged in banana ripening from 3 markets viz., khanderao market at vadodara, khamasha market at ahmedabad and banana wholesaler market at junagadh (5 traders from each market), who mostly trade the unripe banana to short distance centers within gujarat and 5 pure traders from village sarsa of anand district (3 traders) and bharuch (2 traders), who mostly trade unripe bananas to long distance marketing centers located in nearby states like delhi, punjab, haryana, rajashthan, jammu and kashmir and madhya pradesh by road. the ripening loss at trader’s level was estimated from the above 15 sample traders cum agents engaged in banana ripening from 3 markets. the losses at processor’s level were estimated at 2 processing industries (one is large scale and one is small scale). statistical analysis the data on various post harvest losses in banana at different stages were subjected to analysis of variance technique using randomized block design (filmore et al, 1982). losses at field level the farmers were not found to sort the harvested banana in the field. however, some of the bananas were discarded at the field which was considered as loss at the field level. the average loss at field level in gujarat was estimated as 0.77% (table 1). the major losses were damage and dropping of fruits during harvesting, handling, loading of bunches, refusal of twin fingers, immature fruits, spoilage as well as pre-harvest ripening of fruit, which made the banana fruits unsuitable for long distance transportation and gave the undesired quality attributes like colour, flavour and taste. generally, farmers sold the bananas when there was good demand in the market so as to get higher economic returns, i.e., during early season or during the scarcity of banana in the market. therefore, the farmers harvested banana at early stage without considering full and even maturity in the bunch. so, immature fruits mainly contributed to increase in the losses at the field level. further, during the market glut the harvesting of banana had to be delayed by the farmers which increased the spoilage and pre-harvest ripening of fruit. losses at traders’ level the losses at traders level included the losses occurred during transportation, unloading and handling as well as during ripening of banana. the district wise average losses during transportation, unloading and handling of banana are given in table 2. table 1. losses in banana at field level district losses at field level (%) damaged dropped spoiled others total loss actual total loss anand 0.25 0.13 0.09 0.32 0.79 0.84 surat 0.26 0.14 0.11 0.26 0.77 0.81 vadodara 0.22 0.14 0.11 0.29 0.76 0.80 narmada 0.20 0.13 0.09 0.26 0.68 0.72 bharuch 0.26 0.14 0.08 0.21 0.69 0.73 junagadh 0.18 0.13 0.09 0.26 0.66 0.70 average 0.23 0.14 0.10 0.27 0.73 0.77 sem 0.050 cd (p=0.05) ns cv % 28.33 davara and patel j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 187-190, 2009 189 table 2. losses during transportation, unloading and handling of banana district particulars of per cent losses respondents observed/reported weight transactual loss portation total loss loss ahmedabad trader cum 2.32 3.58 5.90 vadodara agent engaged in 2.13 3.62 5.75 junagadh banana ripening 1.68 2.53 4.21 anand & bharuch trader alone 2.95 4.63 7.58 average — 2.27 3.59 5.86 sem — 0.350 0.330 0.640 cd (p=0.05) — ns 1.028 1.968 cv % — 34.28 20.79 24.39 the lowest loss (4.21%) was found in junagadh due to the trading and transportation of banana in limited area and short distances of transportation. whereas, the maximum loss (7.58%) was found in case of pure traders (dist. anand and bharuch) who dispatched the banana to long distance marketing centers located in nearby states of gujarat. losses during ripening the ripening practices in gujarat varied from area to area and accordingly the ripening losses. the district wise average losses during ripening are given in table 3. the significantly higher loss to the tune of 13.20% in junagadh district was attributed to the difference in trading practices of banana along with its ripening practices. in junagadh, bananas were not sold on weight basis but sold on number basis. therefore, the agents engaged in banana ripening did not pay their attention towards the effects of ripening practices on the weight loss due to moisture loss and other qualitative losses. they adopted a practice of ripening under smoking and by mixture of calcium carbide and water, which was economical. while in case of ahmedabad and vadodara, the bananas were sold on weight basis, which necessitated reducing the weight loss during ripening. therefore, they used improved methods for the ripening of table 3. district-wise losses during ripening of banana trader per cent losses observed/reported weight loss spoilage loss actual total loss ahmedabad 5.30 2.00 7.30 vadodara 4.50 1.40 5.90 junagadh 9.40 3.80 13.20 average 6.40 2.40 8.80 sem 0.540 0.400 0.670 cd (p=0.05) 1.675 1.248 2.081 cv % 18.67 37.27 16.89 table 4. effect of ripening methods on losses in banana sl. no. method of ripening ripening losses observed/reported (%) weight loss spoilage actual loss total loss 1 ethephon + 3.33 1.33 4.66 air-cooled chamber 2 ethephon + 5.57 1.86 7.43 ice treatment 3 smoking + 9.17 3.00 12.17 ice treatment 4 smoking + 10.00 6.00 16.00 ambient condition 5 mixture of calcium 9.50 4.00 13.50 carbide and water + ice treatment bananas. the principal causes for ripening losses in banana included water loss, detachment of fingers from bunch, peel splitting during ripening, uneven ripening, disease infection and others. all these losses interacted depending upon the external conditions of banana, i.e., temperature and relative humidity. effect of ripening methods on losses the average values of losses during different methods of banana ripening are given in table 4. the higher weight loss during the ripening treatments, i.e., smoking and the calcium carbide + h2o → acetylene gas which hastens ripening. it does not produce large amount of heat were due to the high amount of moisture loss from the banana. the peel of bananas remained green even though internal ripening already commenced. therefore, in such case, the peel colour did not reflect the internal status of banana. after 4 to 5 days under ripening the peel splitting was observed under ethephon + ice treatment method. however, the overall appearance was good indicating good quality of bananas. this was the most widely adopted method of ripening in gujarat. the lowest loss (4.66%) and excellent appearance of banana was found when ethephon + air-cooled chamber method of ripening was followed. losses at processors’ level in gujarat, the processing of banana for value addition was found to be limited to banana figs (dried banana) and banana chips. the banana chips industry was mainly of cottage industry level whereas, the banana figs processing plant was big industry. the total output, as reported by the processor of banana figs was 11 to 12% of the raw material (ripe banana with peel). out of 11 to 12% dried banana, figs were to the tune of 9 to 10% and the assessment of post harvest losses of banana grown in gujarat j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 187-190, 2009 190 remaining 1 to 2% was banana powder. the banana powder could be considered as loss to some extent because as compared to figs (main product), the sale price of powder was half of the banana figs. the majority of processors of banana chips were of small-scale industry category. negligible losses were found to occur at processors level as far as the raw material was concerned. similarly, negligible losses were reported and observed during the processing of banana chips. while frying the chips in oil, some of the banana chips were discoloured or burnt which were removed from the final product. but, the amount of such losses was very little. references acharya, s.s. and agrawal, n.l. 2001. agricultural marketing in india, oxford and ibh publishing company, new delhi anonymous, 2005. post harvest practices and loss assessment of some commercial horticultural crops of assam. an article published by directorate of research (agri.), assam agricultural university, jorhat (ms received 29 june 2009, revised 19 october 2009) filmore, e.b.; larry, w.d. and amihud, k. 1982. statistical methods for food and agriculture, avi publishing co., westport, connecticut gajanana, t.m., sreenivasa murthy, d. and sudha, m. 2002. marketing and post-harvest loss assessment of banana var. poovan in tamil nadu. agril. econ. res. rev.,15:56-65 kotecha, p.m. and desai, b.b. 1995. banana. in: handbook of fruit science and technology : production, composition, storage and processing (d. k. salunkhe and s. s. kadam, eds.), marcel dekker, inc., new york. pp. 67-90 negi, j.p., gupta, a.k., singh, b. and dagar, k.s. 2002. state-wise area, production and productivity of banana, indian horticulture database – 2002, national horticulture board, gurgaon, india, p. 42 sreenivasa murthy, d., gajanana, t.m. and sudha, m. 2002. post-harvest losses and marketing efficiency : a case study of banana in karnataka. the bihar j agri. mktg., 10:221-230 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 187-190, 2009 davara and patel introduction tulips are hardy spring flowering bulbs with most stems terminating into a single flower which has six petals (anonymous, 2001-2002) and represents the largest geophyte crop worldwide. it has gained popularity owing to its beauty and economic value. the use of tulips vary from cut flowers, formal plantings in borders and flower beds, indoor forcing and planting on the rock gardens. tulips have tremendous potential both in the international and domestic markets (desh raj, 1999). however, the quality of cut tulips production are known to be influenced by both pre and post-harvest practices. post harvest losses can be reduced by suitable pre and post harvest management practices. information on the quality of clones of field grown cut tulip blooms at room temperatures following low temperature dry storage is essential for profitable storage and marketing of tulip blooms (new, 1964). since the information available on storage of cut tulips in scanty, the present investigation was undertaken with the objective of finding out suitable storage duration for cut tulips. material and methods healthy and blemish-free scapes were cut, pre-cooled in a refrigerator and were divided into two lots. the scapes were weighed and stored at 40c. one lot of scapes was kept in large beakers with their base dipped in distilled water and the effect of dry and wet storage on post harvest life and flower quality in cut tulip cv. cassini nelofar, f. u. khan, a. q. jhon and m. m. mir division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants sher-e-kashmir university of agricultural sciences and technology of kashmir shalimar campus, srinagar-191121 (jammu & kashmir), india abstract experiments were conducted during 2002-03 and 2003-04 to study the influence of storage methods and duration on post harvest quality of cut tulip cv. cassini. cut tulips cv. cassini stored either dry or wet at 40c for 0,2,4,6 and 8 days showed that days to flower opening was the lowest in those kept under wet storage for 6 and 8 days. flower opening was better with 0.2 and 4 days of dry or wet storage whereas flowers stored dry for 8 days did not open at all. flower size and vase life decreased with the increase in storage period. larger flowers were obtained with dry and wet storage of 0 and 2 days whereas higher vase life was obtained with zero days of wet and dry storage and 4 and 6 days of wet storage. key words: tulip, storage, vase life other lot was bunched and stored dry at 40c. the control scapes were placed directly in distilled water for observations. scapes were taken out from both the lots after 2, 4, 6 and 8 days of storage and placed in the distilled water for vase life studies. the observations on vase life were recorded as per the procedure given by venketarayappa et al., (1980). days taken to flower opening: data of flower opening was recorded and then days calculated from the date of placing in the distilled water in vase. fresh weight changes (% of initial weight): the difference between the weight of flask solution + scape weight of flask + solution represented the fresh weight (g) of the scape on that particular date. fw= (c+s+f)(c+s) where: fw = fresh weight c = container (flask) s = solution f = scape after this the per cent fresh weight change was calculated by the formula: f.w of a particular dayinitial fresh weight fresh weight change (%) = x 100 initial fresh weight j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 143-147, 2007 143 144 water uptake (g/scape): the difference between consecutive measurement of the flask + solution (without scape) represented the water uptake: w u = {c+s} 1 {c+s} 2 where w u = water uptake water loss (g/scape) transpirational g/scape: the difference between consecutive measurements of flask + solution + flower scape represented the water loss. w 1 (transpirational loss) = {c+s+f} 1 – {c+s+f} 2 where w 1 = water loss water balance (g/scape): water uptake minus transpirational loss of water represented water balance: w u = w u – w 1 where w b = water balance water loss/ water uptake ratio: transpirational loss of water divided uptake represented the water loss/ water uptake ratio: w 1ratio = w u flower opening (%): number of flowers that opened fully in the vase was counted and then per cent flower opening counted out of the total flowers placed in the containers. flower diameter (cm): flower diameter was taken across the fully opened flowers. vase life (days): number of days was counted from the date of opening till the tepals lost their decorative value. results and discussion in general, number of days taken to flower opening decreased with the increase in storage period either in dry or wet storage. during first year significantly maximum days (7.0) to flower opening were taken by zero day storage in water which was at par with 0 and 2 days of dry storage (6.44 and 6.11, respectively). cut scapes stored in water for 6 and 8 days took minimum days of 3.66 each for flower opening whereas tulip flowers stored dry for 8 days did not open at all. similar trend was followed during the second year also (table 1). during both the years of study cut tulips stored in water for 8 days gave minimum flower opening percentage (54.73 and 48.24, respectively.) whereas, significantly maximum flower opening was recorded with scapes stored for 0,2 and 4 days of dry and wet storage. aekyung et al (1996) reported that when cut lilium flowers were treated with certain preservatives before storage at 3 or 6 oc for 1-5 days, they failed to open after storage for 5 days or showed rolling of petals and sepal edges. in narcissus cut flowers stored either dry or wet for 14 days at 1-2 oc at >90 per cent rh, some flowers failed to open when transferred to ambient temperatures (nicholas and wallis, 1972; rees, 1985). flower diameter also exhibited decreasing trend with the increase in dry or wet storage (table1). during both the years larger flowers (6.90 and 7.0 cm, respectively) were obtained with zero day dry storage which was at par with zero day of wet storage (6.36 and 6.61 cm, respectively). flower scapes stored dry for 6 days and wet for 8 days were at par with each other in recording the smaller flowers of 5.52 and 5.62 cm, respectively, during first year and 5.54 and 5.40 cm during second year. wallis (1968) reported that increased storage duration reduced flower diameter in cut narcissus. katwata et al (1995) reported that size of the second floret of polianthes tuberosa decreased with the increase in storage from 24-72 h at 4oc. daily water uptake, water loss and water balance of cut tulips did not follow any general trend because all the treatments were not placed in vase on a single day. pooled data of two years revealed (table 2) that on day 8, when all the treatments were in vase, maximum water uptake was recorded by zero day wet and dry stored samples (3.73 and 3.29 g/ scape, respectively) and minimum water uptake (1.47 g/scape) by 2 day dry stored samples song et al (1992) reported that water uptake of cut roses cv. sonia decreased with increased in length of dry storage. song et al (1995) further reported that solution uptake decreased with the increase in storage duration of cut hybrid delphinium. on day 8 and 10, maximum water loss was (table 2) recorded by zero day in dry storage (3.59 and 3.38 g/ scape, respectively). minimum water loss on day 8 was observed in scapes stored in water for 4 days (1.66 g/ scape) and on day 10 in scapes stored dry for 8 days (1.44 g/scape). the cut tulips did not open at all under later treatment and water loss was less owing to less surface available for transpirational loss. as per sanket et al (1994) water loss slowed in cut anthurium as the storage temperatures decreased. treatments exhibited negligible variation as regards water balance upto 6 days of storage whether dry or wet but on 8th and 10th day many treatments showed negative water balance. on day 8, lowest negative water balance (-0.60 g/ scape) was recorded by 4 days of dry storage and highest positive water balance was recorded by 6 days in dry storage nelofar et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 143-147, 2007 145 table 1. effect of dry and wet storage on vase life studies of cut tulips (2002-04) treatments days to flower flower diameter(cm) vase life(day) flower opening(%) opening 1a highly mean i ii mean i ii mean i ii mean significant dry storage (days) (0) 6.44 6.77 6.60 6.90 7.0 6.95 7.21 7.66 7.43 100.00 88.89 94.44 (90.00)** (78.24) (84.12) (2) 6.11 6.55 6.33 6.71 6.30 6.50 7.10 6.77 6.93 100.00 88.89 94.44 (90.00) (78.24) (84.12) (4) 6.11 6.44 6.27 5.59 5.58 5.58 6.10 5.70 5.60 88.89 77.77 83.33 (78.24) (66.48) (72.36) (6) 4.88 4.11 4.49 5.52 5.54 5.53 4.74 4.99 4.86 77.77 66.66 72.21 (66.48) (54.73) (60.60) ( 8) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (-0.00) (-0.00) (-0.00) wet storage (days) (0) 7.0 6.88 6.94 6.36 6.61 6.48 7.55 7.99 7.78 100.00 100.00 100.00 (90.00) (90.00) (90.00) (2) 5.66 5.33 5.49 6.13 6.38 6.25 7.44 7.88 7.66 100.00 100.00 100.00 (90.00) (90.00) (90.00) (4) 4.55 4.44 4.49 5.91 6.19 6.05 6.88 6.44 6.66 100.00 88.89 94.44 (90.00) (78.24) (84.12) (6) 3.66 4.00 3.83 5.80 4.48 5.64 4.99 5.33 5.16 77.77 66.66 72.21 (66.48) (54.73) (60.60) (8) 3.66 3.88 3.77 5.62 5.40 5.51 4.66 4.22 4.44 66.66 55.55 61.10 (54.73) (48.24) (51.48) cd (p=0.05) 2.50 2.22 0.86 1.33 0.73 1.94 18.99 26.44 a year 2002-03 b year 2003-04 * data in parenthesis are the arc sin transformed values. table 2. effect of dry and wet storage on daily water uptake , water loss and water balance (g/scape) of cut tulips cv. cassini (pooled data of two years). treatments days in vase 0 2 4 6 8 10 wu wl wb wu wl wb wu wl wb wu wl wb wu wl wb wu wl wb dry storage (days) (0) 5.57 3.60 1.96 4.17 2.69 1.48 3.59 3.31 0.29 3.01 3.70 0.81 3.29 3.59 -0.29 2.57 3.38 -0.80 (2) 3.58 1.85 1.73 3.01 2.07 0.94 2.13 1.88 0.24 1.47 1.89 -0.42 1.28 1.47 -0.14 (4) 3.96 9.48 0.98 2.36 1.22 1.26 2.20 2.70 -0.60 1.49 2.20 -0.63 (6) 2.97 1.63 1.34 2.28 1.43 0.84 1.97 1.46 0.50 (8) 2.20 1.24 0.97 1.43 1.44 0.31 wet storage (days) (0) 4.67 3.24 1.49 3.85 2.86 0.99 3.49 2.96 0.69 2.12 1.32 0.96 3.73 2.82 0.90 1.73 2.76 -1.01 (2) 4.33 3.29 2.20 3.56 3.06 0.49 3.11 3.45 -0.33 1.93 2.43 -0.16 1.51 2.53 -1.02 (4) 4.77 3.63 1.40 3.22 2.83 0.67 2.29 1.66 0.63 2.10 3.32 -0.87 (6) 4.85 3.44 1.40 2.45 2.33 0.31 3.13 2.66 0.47 (8) 2.0 1.79 0.21 2.47 2.35 0.12 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns ns: non-significant; wu: water uptakewl: water losswb: water balance (0.50 g/ scape). sanket et al (1994) reported that all the components of water balance declined rapidly at all storage temperatures for first 5 days when cut anthuriums were held for 30 days at 8, 13, 18 and 280c (table 2). the trend depicted (table 1) that vase life of cut tulips decreased with the increase in storage period. during both the years, significantly maximum vase life of 7.55 and 7.99 days, respectively was recorded with cut scapes when effect of dry and wet storage in tulip j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 143-147, 2007 146 stored wet for zero day. minimum vase life of 4.66 and 4.22 days was recorded with wet storage for 8 days whereas flowers did not open when tulip cut scapes were dry stored for 8 days. swart (1986) reported that a long period of dry storage (3 days at 2 oc) had an adverse effect on vase life of cut tulips but storing cut flowers by placing them in water prevented these negative effects. vase life of tulips decreased as the storage temperature increased (doss, 1986) and longer periods of storage were possible at 1.10 oc than at 4-5 or 10 oc. mor et al. (1989) also reported that vase life of roses cv. gabriella stored at 1oc for 3 weeks was less than vase life of fresh flowers. changes in fresh weight were influenced significantly by dry and wet storage (table-3) throughout the period of study though all treatments were not placed in vase on one single day. the general trend revealed that tulip scapes gained weight upto 8 days of observation, thereafter, some of the treatments showed decrease in fresh weight. swart (1991) reported that flowers stored in water showed an increase in fresh weight. after all storage period, dry stored flowers showed increase in fresh weight upto day three thereafter, it decreased and the decrease in fresh weight corresponded with a visual decline in flower quality. references aekyung, l., sub, l. k., lee, a. k., sub, j. k., lee, j. s. and roh, m. s. 1996. effect of harvest stage, pre and post harvest treatment on longevity of cut lilium flowers. acta hort. 414:287-293 anonymous, 2001-02. annual progress report. division of floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, s.k. university of agricultural sciences & technology of kashmir, shalimar, srinagar desh raj, 1999. potential of tulip production in wet temperate himalayas. ann. agril. res., 20:365-366 doss, r. p. 1986. preliminary examination of some factors that influence the vase life of cut bulb flowers. acta hort., 177:655-662 katwate, s. m., patil, m. t. and singh, b. r. 1995. influence of low temperature storage on longevity of cut spikes of tuberose. j. maharashtra agril. univ., 20:289-290 mor, y., johnson, f. and faragher, j. d. 1989. long term storage of roses. acta hort., 261:271-279 new, e. h. 1964. lasting qualities of selected clones offield grown cut tulips following cold storage. proceedings ameri. soc. hort. sci., 85:647-656 nichols, r. and wallis, l. w. 1972. cold storage of cut narcissus. experimental hort., 24:68-76 table 3. effect of dry and wet storage on fresh weight changes (%) of cut tulips scapes in vase (pooled data of two years) treatments days in vase 0 2 4 6 8 10 dry storage (days) (0) 14.71 15.31 25.66 28.65 33.05 32.67 (22.32)* (30.13) (31. 79) (34.88) (34.22) (2) 10.59 4.05 18.51 26.08 28.51 25.52 (10.86) (24.88) (30.51) (32.22) (30.17) (4) 12.63 9.17 13.63 18.84 20.98 (16.66) (20.91) (25.60) (26.78) (6) 12.14 7.16 11.51 14.00 (14.39) (18.80) (19.00) (8) 08.84 14.08 18.10 (20.73) (23.09) wet storage (days) (0) 11.11 19.24 38.75 45.22 41.07 41.70 (25.07) (38.39) (42.84) (39.61) (40.05) (2) 11.96 14.74 23.56 28.32 22.35 22.79 (21.11) (28.42) (31.61) (27.16) (26.22) (4) 12.55 15.26 20.29 35.92 29.84 (21.65) (26.00) (35.99) (32.98) (6) 11.73 27.84 34.58 36.39 (29.08) (35.37) (36.81) (8) 11.98 37.01 39.86 (36.31) (38.33) cd (p=0.05) ns 9.52 13.03 12.80 11.28 13.05 ns : non-significant * data in parentheses are the arc sin transformed values. nelofar et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 143-147, 2007 147 rees, a. r. 1985. tulipa pp. 272-77. in: handbook of flowering vou crc press, boca raton, florida sanket, c. k., mujaffar, s. and sass, p. 1994. water balance in cut anthurium flowers in storage and its effects on quality. acta hort., 368:723-732 song, 1. s., harkema, h. and song, j.s. 1995. water balance and vase life of cut iris flowers as influenced by cycloheximide and some plant growth regulators. j. korean soc. hort. sci., 36:900-906 song, c. y., shin, d. g., woo, l. s. and lee, j. s. 1992. studies on the vase life extension of cut gladiolus. j. korean soc. hort. sci., 33:95-101 swart, a. 1986. effect of a post harvest treatment at the grower’s on bulb flower quality. acta horticulturae no. 181:435-438 swart, a. 1991. the effect of low temperatures on the keepability of bulb flowers. acta hort., no. 298:263-266 venkatarayappa, t., tsuijita, m. j. and murr, d. p. 1980. influence of cobaltous ion (co2+) on the post harvest behaviour of ‘samantha’ roses. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 105:148-151 walis, l. w. 1968. growing flower bulbs in nees. diche gartnerborse, 68:201-203 (m s received 9 april 2007, revised 3 september 2007) effect of dry and wet storage in tulip j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 143-147, 2007 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 158-160, 2009 pomegranate (punica granatum l.), belonging to the family punicaceae, is one of the favourite table fruits in the world, for its refreshing juice with nutritional and medicinal properties. this fruit crop has wide adaptability and it grows in tropical, sub-tropical and even temperate regions. in india, pomegranate is commercially cultivated in maharashtra and parts of karnataka where good quality fruits are produced due to dry and hot climate. the crop is also being cultivated in other states. in west bengal, the crop has been introduced in the red laterite zone of the state for its dry and hot climatic condition. among seven cultivars studies, ruby was found to be the best in all aspects (tarai and ghosh, 2006). one of the main problems under jhargram (west bengal) condition is that cv. ruby exhibits heavy flowering and fruit drop by increasing the fruit set and fruit retention. plant growth regulators are reported to play a significant role in pomegranate (chaudhari and desai, 1993). hence, an attempt has been made to find suitable growth regulators and their doses for improving fruit set and yield in pomegranate cv. ruby, under west bengal conditions. the experiment was conducted in a private orchard at jhargram, paschim midnapore, west bengal during 200607 and 2007-08 on 6-year old ruby planted at a spacing of 3 x 3 m. the soil of the experimental orchard was laterite and acidic (ph 5.8) within 2 feet depth. the plants were effect of plant growth regulators in yield and fruit quality in pomegranate cv. ruby s.n. ghosh, b. bera1, s. roy1 and a. kundu1 department of fruits and orchard management faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur – 741252, india e-mail: profsnghosh@yahoo.co.in abstract an investigation was carried out during 2006-07 and 2007-08 to harness beneficial effects of plant growth regulators on yield and fruit quality in pomegranate cv. ruby. seven treatments with three growth regulators, viz., naa at 25, 50 ppm; ga 3 at 10, 20 ppm; 2,4-d at 5, 10 ppm and control (water spray) were sprayed three times starting at 50% flowering stage and, subsequently, at 21 days’ interval. results revealed that application of naa at 25 ppm gave significantly high fruit set (44.3%) and fruit retention (44.1%) which resulted in highest fruit yield of 7.8 kg/plant at the age of 7 years, as against 1.7 kg in the control. fruit weight and quality improved significantly due to growth regulator sprays. key words: pomegranate, growth regulators, yield, fruit quality fertilized every year with 20 kg fym, 300 g n, 100 g p 2 o 5 and 200 g k 2 o/plant in two splits i.e., in december and february, followed by watering at regular intervals. six prophylactic sprays were given to control insect pests and diseases. four shoots per plant were tagged in four directions for recording observations on fruit set and retention. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design with four replications, and two plants per replication. there were seven treatments with three growth regulators, viz., naa at 25, 50 ppm; ga 3 at 10, 20 ppm; 2,4-d at 5, 10 ppm and control (water spray). these chemicals were thoroughly sprayed after sunset, thrice, along with the control (water spray) using teepol as surfactant. the first spray was given at 50% flowering stage i.e., on 20th january of 2007 and 2008 and subsequent sprays were 21-day intervals from the 1st spray. fruit yield was calculated on the basis of actual weight of mature fruits harvested from each plant up to onset of rainy season i.e., 10th june. for fruit weight 5 fruits per plant were taken and average weight was calculated. the t.s.s. was measured by hand refractometer while acidity was determined by following the standard method (a.o.a.c., 1990). results of two years of investigation (table 1) revealed that application of naa had beneficial effect on fruit retention and lower concentration i.e., 25 ppm was the 1mps farm, dahijuri, paschim midnapore, west bengal 159 most effective which resulted maximum fruit setting (44.3%) and retention of fruits (44.1%) while, in control, these were lowest (20.2% and 24.2%, respectively). beneficial role of naa in reducing fruit drop may be explained from the fact that it maintain on-going physiological and biochemical process of inhibition of abscission (tomaszewska and tomaszewska, 1970). it was noted that 2,4-d at 10 ppm was the second best plant growth regulator for improving fruit set and retention. fruit yield was highest in both the years of investigation with foliar application of naa (25 ppm) increase in yield was more than double compared to the control plants. highest yield increment with 25 ppm naa application was due to maximum fruit retention. the result was in close conformity with findings of venkatesan and kader mohideen (1994) in pomegranate, who also obtained highest fruit yield with 2,4-d at 20 ppm, closely followed by naa at 25 ppm. it was observed that effect of naa in yield improvement drastically reduced from 25 ppm and similar observation was also reported by venkatesan and kader mohideen (1994). application of 2,4-d at 10 ppm was found to be the second best treatment in improving fruit yield but ga at any level showed less effectiveness in yield increment. however, pawar et al (2005) recorded highest yield in cv. mridula of pomegranate in maharashtra with 75 ppm ga 3 , while, mohamed (2004) from assiut (egypt) recommended 150 ppm of ga 3 for getting heaviest fruit with lowest fruit-splitting in cv. manfalouty of pomegranate. these reports clearly indicate that the growth regulator and its concentration need to be standardized for a given locality to harness beneficial effects of that hormone. fruit weight significantly improved with the application of growth regulators excepting naa @ 50 ppm and, the treatments were statistically at par in improving fruit weight (table 1). beneficial role of naa, ga 3 and 2,4-d in improving fruit weight was also reported by ghosh et al (1995) in sweet orange, hasan and chattopadhyay (1996), in litchi pandey (1999) in ber and pawar et al (2005) in pomegranate. positive role of auxins like naa, 2,4-d and gibberellins like ga 3 application on fruit weight may be explained from the fact that these are associated with cell division and cell enlargement (leopold, 1958; weaver, 1972). fruit size (length and breadth) and juice recovery parameters were not affected by growth regulator treatment. total soluble solids (tss) content in the fruit significantly increased with growth regulator application and highest tss content was measured in plants sprayed with naa 25 ppm and 2,4-d 10 ppm (14.80b), but, was statistically at par with other treatments. in control plants the tss content was 12.50b. beneficial effect of plant growth regulators in improving tss content in pomegranate was also observed by mohamed (2004). fruit acidity was significantly different among treatments and it was highest (0.63%) in ga 10 ppm and lowest (0.39%) in naa 25 ppm treatments. tss:acid ratio, which determines organoleptic test of fruits, was highest with naa ppm (37.9) and lowest in control (28.4). improvement in tss of fruits due to auxins (naa, 2,4-d) and ga spray may be explained from the fact that application of these growth regulators after fruit set probably improved the physiology of leaves, thereby causing better translocation of vital components in the fruit and assimilation/utilization of photosynthates by the developing fruit (pandey, 1999). references a.o.a.c. 1990. official methods of analyais. association of official agriculture chemists (15 th edn.), washington, d.c. chaudhari, s.m. and desai, u.t. 1993. effect of plant growth regulators on flower sex in pomegranate. ind. j. agril. sci., 63:34-35 table 1. effect of plant growth regulators on yield and fruit quality in pomegranate cv. ruby (mean of 2 years) treatment fruit set fruit retention yield/plant (kg) fruit fruit fruit juice tss acidity tss/acid (%) (%) weight length breadth (%) (0b) (%) ratio 2007 2008 mean (g) (cm) (cm) naa 25 ppm 44.3 (41.73) 44.1 (41.61) 6.2 9.4 7.8 158 6.8 7.3 71.3 14.8 0.39 37.9 naa 50 ppm 24.1 (29.40) 36.7 (37.29) 2.0 2.6 2.3 124 6.4 6.6 70.4 14.0 0.49 28.6 ga 10 ppm 25.9 (30.59) 25.8 (30.53) 6.9 2.6 4.8 163 7.0 7.3 70.7 13.8 0.63 21.9 ga 20 ppm 20.8 (27.13) 25.0 (30.00) 5.1 1.8 3.5 161 6.9 7.2 67.9 14.0 0.42 33.3 2, 4-d 5 ppm 34.1 (35.73) 27.5 (31.63) 4.4 6.7 5.6 157 7.0 7.1 78.2 14.6 0.40 36.5 2, 4-d 10 ppm 40.5 (39.52) 29.2 (32.71) 5.9 7.5 6.7 159 6.9 7.0 77.5 14.8 0.41 36.1 control (water spray) 20.2 (26.71) 24.2 (29.47) 2.5 0.9 1.7 128 6.3 6.8 70.0 12.5 0.44 28.4 cd(p=0.05) 4.5 2.5 0.5 0.2 0.4 5.2 ns ns ns 0.4 0.02 figures in parentheses are angular transformed values j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 158-160, 2009 plant growth regulators in yield and quality of pomegranate 160 ghosh, s.n., chattopadhyay, n., hore, j.k. and munsi, p.s. 1995. effect of bioregulators on fruit retention, yield and qualitative characteristics of sweet orange. proc. nat’l. symp. sustainable agriculture in sub-humid zone. pp. 177-179 hasan, md. abu and chattopadhyay, p.k. 1996. studies on the fruit drop and composition of litchi following growth regulator spray. proc. nat’l. symp. pl. bioregulators hort. pp. 110-112 leopold, a.c. 1958. auxin uses in the control of flowering and fruiting. ann. rev. of pl. physio., 9: 281-310 mohamed, a.k.a. 2004. effect of gibberellic acid (ga 3 ) and benzyladimine (ba) on splitting and quality of manfalouty pomegranate fruits. assiut j. agril. sci., 35:11-21 pandey, v. 1999. effect of naa and ga 3 spray on fruit retention, growth, yield and quality of ber cv. banarasi karka. orissa j. hort., 27:69-73 (ms received 29 decembver 2008, revised 29 june 2009) pawar, p.s., jagtap, d.d., garad, b.v. and shirsath, h.k. 2005. effect of plant growth regulators on maturity, yield and fruit weight of pomegranate cv. mridula. adv. pl. sci., 18:167-170 tarai, r.k. and ghosh, s.n. 2006. performance of different cultivars of pomegranate grown in laterite tracts of west bengal. proc. nat’l. symp. production, utilization and export of underutilized fruits with commercial potentialities, b.c.k.v., west bengal, pp. 74-78 venkatesan, k. and kader mohideen, m. 1994. effect of growth regulators on fruit characters and yield of pomegranate cv. ganesh. south ind. hort., 42:239244 weaver, r.z. 1972. biological effects and mechanism of action. in: plant growth substances in agriculture, s. chand and company ltd., ram nagar, new delhi – 110 055, pp. 90-117 ghosh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 158-160, 2009 african marigold (tagetes erecta l.), a member of asteraceae family, is grown for loose flower, cut flower, potting and bedding purposes, its insecticidal properties and as industrial use in poultry feed. the success of exploitation of hybrid vigour depends upon the combining ability of parental lines to be used in hybridization. parents with high magnitude of combining ability are most suitable for heterosis breeding. therefore, the main objective of this study was to select good combiners, which may produce most promising f 1 hybrids. the present study was carried out at experimental farm of division of floriculture and landscaping, iari, new delhi involving 3 male sterile lines, viz., ms 7 ms 8 and ms 12 and a set of 11 genetically diverse pollinators numbered sel. 7, sel. 8, sel. 14, sel. 19, sel. 21, sel. 22, sel. 27, sel. 28, sel. 29, sel. 31 and sel. 56 as testers. the total area combining ability in african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) y.c. gupta department of floriculture and landscaping dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry nauni, solan – 173 230, india e-mail: ycgupta2006@yahoo.co.in abstract a line x tester crossing programme was done using male sterile lines and a set of 11 genetically diverse pollinators as testers. f 1 ’s along with parents were evaluated during winter and summer seasons. during the seasons, for plant height and flower size, additive gene action was higher compared to non-additive gene action, while for flowering days and stalk length, non-additive and non-additive gene actions played important role during both the seasons, indicating the usefulness of hybrids in marigold cultivation. similarly, for flower number during winter and for plant spread during summer, both additive and non-additive gene action played significant role. for other traits, gene action was inconsistent during different seasons. key words: additive, non-additive, gene action, gca and sca short communication covered under the experiment was 800 sq.m. the line x tester analysis, designed by kempthorne (1957), was adopted to derive combining ability variance and the genic effect and test of significance was carried out using the model given by singh (1979). the hybrids and their parental lines were evaluated during winter and summer seasons in a randomized block design with three replications. observations were recorded on nine characters. it may be mentioned here that during summer crop, sel. 7 did not flower but its three hybrids flowered. no seed set was obtained in any of genotypes in summer. since the environmental conditions during two seasons were strikingly diverse, the data were separately analysed for the two crops without pooling together. the data presented in table 1 & 2 are for winter and summer crops, respectively, indicated that during winter table 1. analysis of variance for combining ability for nine characters during winter season source of variation df days to plant number of flower flower flowering flower harvest no. of flowering height flowers/plant size (cm) weight (g) duration yield (g) index seeds/ (cm) (days) head replication 2 36.20 0.73 887.47 0.50 173.81 27.75 12194.59 32.07 2063.83 females 2 19.10 1139.35** 1628.18** 12.89** 24007.67** 25.30 166593.20** 67.96** 2674.28** males 10 160.21** 76.20** 622.08** 0.94** 1239.48** 362.74** 17889.93** 50.58** 352.96 females x males 20 80.89** 56.64** 326.53** 0.55** 431.14** 96.93** 26816.55** 68.23** 207.07 error 64 12.47 7.30 161.20 0.15 159.82 31.14 1972.81 7.77 669.24 *significant at 5% level **significant at 1% level j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 71-75, 2009 72 table 2. analysis of variance for combining ability for eight characters during summer season source of variation df days to plant number of flower flower flowering flower harvest flowering height (cm) flowers / plant size (cm) weight (g) duration (days) yield (g) index replication 2 6.38 1.39 0.69 0.01 22.15 1.37 1182.49 1.44 females 2 51.13** 1002.70** 1508.97** 6.82* 1511.08** 68.06** 137327.80** 93.31** males 9 259.79** 72.60** 210.82** 1.02 634.17** 89.06** 19103.49** 10.65** females x males 20 74.82** 43.24** 23.31** 0.48** 329.89** 3.73 10809.84** 6.02** error 64 6.19 5.65 10.27 0.17 46.17 4.46 3065.76 3.05 *significant at 5% level **significant at 1% level table 3. estimate of gca effects of parents for nine characters during winter season parents days to plant number of flower flower flowering flower harvest no. of flowering height flowers/plant(cm) size (cm) weight (g) duration yield (g) (days) index seeds/ head females ms 7 0.62 2.46* -1.15 -0.09 5.51 0.61 -21.78 -1.58* -9.70 ms 8 0.23 4.25** 7.53* 0.67** 23.79** 0.39 79.39** 0.36* 8.09 ms 12 -0.85 -6.71** -6.38 -0.57** 29.30** -1.00 -57.61** 1.22 1.61 se(gi) 0.42 0.32 1.51 0.05 1.51 0.66 5.29 0.33 3.08 males sel. 7 -1.48 -0.18 11.14** -0.35** 8.49* 7.57** 41.00** -5.77** 4.97 sel. 8 -0.62 0.97 2.04 0.07 10.28* 0.43 9.61 -0.71 3.41 sel. 14 6.86** 3.42** 14.60** 0.11 -8.47* -5.84** -21.77 -3.42** -6.92 sel. 19 -3.48** -1.88* 6.56 -0.35** -14.87** 0.15 -15.93 0.30 3.64 sel. 21 -8.68** 0.79 11.78** 0.39** 19.87** 13.51** 28.86* 0.12 9.08 sel. 22 -0.79 -3.75** -8.35* -0.16 8.19* -4.24* -96.48** -0.06 -11.59 sel. 27 0.87 3.14** -6.42 -0.09 2.33 -5.59** 40.67** 0.15 -1.81 sel. 28 -2.32* -0.76 -2.75 -0.28* 14.08** -1.15 -56.44** -0.71 -6.81 sel. 29 -3.80** -1.86* -5.28 0.52** 2.05* 0.52 -19.60 -2.96** 0.53 sel. 31 1.76 -5.89** 1.44 -0.29* -9.52* -8.33** 6.49 1.09 0.19 sel. 56 4.07** 2.25* 4.43 0.42** 12.10** 2.96 43.99** 0.43 5.30 se(gi) 0.94 0.72 3.38 0.11 3.37 1.49 11.83 0.74 6.89 *significant at 5% level **significant at 1% level table 4. estimate of gca effects of parents for eight characters during summer season parents days to plant number of flower flower flowering flower harvest flowering height flowers/plant size (cm) weight (g) duration yield (g) index (cm) (days) females ms 7 1.50* 2.56* -7.14** 0.22* 0.09 -0.95 -33.10* 0.14 ms 8 -0.86 4.06** 7.04** 0.33* 7.05* 1.74* 77.83** 1.83* ms 12 -0.64 -6.62** 0.10 -0.55** -7.14* -0.78 -44.74* -1.69* se(gi) 0.31 0.30 0.40 0.05 0.85 0.26 6.89 0.22 males sel. 7 sel. 8 -0.92 0.26 8.35** 0.52** 1.84 2.57** 49.61** 1.83** sel. 14 7.38** 3.36** -1.87* 0.22 -12.46** -2.00** -71.32** -0.70 sel. 19 -1.94* -1.35 -5.12** 0.31* -14.17** -4.95 -55.46** -1.26* sel. 21 -12.54** 0.61 6.97** 0.56** -3.79 4.81** -4.66 0.63 sel. 22 1.54* -4.35* -1.35 -0.22 9.64** -1.59* -28.44 -0.44 sel. 27 1.43 2.16** -4.02** -0.16 6.82** -2.30** 3.08 0.98 sel. 28 -2.62** -1.21 -3.71** -0.43** 1.17 -1.15 -15.12 -0.70 sel. 29 5.42** 1.43* -4.23** 0.07 0.62 -1.57* -30.44 -1.54** sel. 31 1.21 -5.29** 1.87 -0.17 10.90* 2.87** 78.66** 0.85 sel. 56 1.04 1.97* 3.12** -0.08 0.67 3.31** 17.21 0.35 se(gi) 0.66 0.63 0.85 0.11 1.79 0.56 4.62 0.46 *significant at 5% level **significant at 1% level -no flowering j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 71-75, 2009 gupta 73 both male and female lines showed significant variation for plant height, plant spread, flower number, flower weight, flower size, stalk length, flower yield, harvest index and 1000seed weight, providing the evidence of appreciable diversity present in the parental lines for these traits. for flowering days and flowering duration only males, and, for seed number per head only females showed the presence of significant diversity. however, significant variances for all the traits, except for seed number per head, proved that there were significant genic interactions among parental lines for all the characters providing appreciable heterosis for all the traits under study. during summer (table 2), both female and male parents showed significant variances for all the traits, except for flower size in males and for stalk length in females, indicating the presence of appreciable diversity among parents for all the traits during this crop season also. significant variances for all the traits, except for flowering duration, proved the presence of significant genic interactions among male and female lines, giving appreciable heterosis for these traits during summer also. a perusal of data presented in table 3 & 4 indicated that three male sterile lines involved in hybrid production, showed varying degrees of general combining ability (gca) effects for different traits. male sterile line ms -12 showed significant gca for four traits during winter but the effect was in negative direction. during summer also, this female line showed significant gca for five traits but in this season too the effect was in negative direction. line ms-7 showed significant gca effects for three traits during winter, the effect table 5. estimates of sca effects of hybrids for eight characters during winter season hybrids days to plant number of flower flower flowering flower harvest flowering height flowers/plant size (cm) weight (g) duration yield (g) index (cm) (days) ms 7 x sel. 7 8.58** 2.12* -16.16** 0.51** -24.72* -3.31 -105.78** -5.10** ms 7 x sel. 8 4.98** -4.54** -12.99* 0.28 -10.71* -8.73 -124.33** -5.85** ms 7 x sel. 14 0.97 3.52** -2.49 0.17 12.00* 4.13* 22.55 -2.47* ms 7 x sel. 19 1.02 -2.15* 7.72 0.06 7.07 7.71** 77.71** -1.53 ms 7 x sel. 21 -6.72** 1.32 6.79 0.21 -5.50 0.59 27.72 1.22 ms 7 x sel. 22 -1.44 -4.35** -3.44 0.16 0.03 -8.40** -74.24** -1.17 ms 7 x sel. 27 1.06 2.39* -3.74 0.04 7.54 2.79 -41.59* 0.12 ms 7 x sel. 28 -2.78* -0.74 -7.51 0.04 6.42 0.21 -95.12** -0.89 ms 7 x sel. 29 -1.43 2.88** 17.56** 0.04 10.66* 5.38* 157.12** -6.59** ms 7 x sel. 31 0.14 0.79 5.84 0.17 -5.24 -0.34 52.10** 2.38* ms 7 x sel. 56 -4.37** -1.25 8.42 0.19 2.44 -0.03 103.80** 5.90** ms 8 x sel. 7 -8.37** -5.07** 4.23 0.30* 5.23 4.51** 6.88 -1.61 ms 8 x sel. 8 -6.27** -6.98** 14.89** -0.01 12.44** 10.06** 77.86** 6.04** ms 8 x sel. 14 4.46** 2.87** -5.21 0.31* -1.25 -0.81 -17.12 -3.52** ms 8 x sel. 19 -1.80 2.80** -9.19* -0.27 -4.85 -5.60* -44.04* -0.74 ms 8 x sel. 21 -1.13 -4.43* -3.25 -0.73** -12.85* 1.64 -66.26** 2.34* ms 8 x sel. 22 0.94 -0.17 -7.15 0.34* 8.04 2.32 -57.91** -1.78 ms 8 x sel. 27 -1.82 -1.59 7.25 -0.56** 2.48 1.88 53.93** -1.23 ms 8 x sel. 28 -0.50 -4.42** 3.72 -0.40* 7.97 -0.83 104.18** 2.44* ms 8 x sel. 29 4.39 -3.10** -2.72 -0.27 1.81 -9.17** -20.59 2.55* ms 8 x sel. 31 1.86 3.88** -0.87 -0.47** 0.57 -3.52 -18.71 -2.66 ms 8 x sel. 56 8.24** 2.27* -1.69 0.23 -4.25 -0.48 -18.21 -1.84 ms 12 x sel. 7 -0.22 2.95** 11.93* 0.21 19.49** -1.20 98.91** 6.70** ms 12 x sel. 8 1.28 -2.44* -1.90 -0.27 -1.73 -1.32 46.46** 0.19 ms 12 x sel. 14 -5.43** -6.38** 7.70 -0.48** -10.76* -3.32 -5.43 5.99** ms 12 x sel. 19 0.78 -0.65 1.48 0.21 -2.22 -2.11 -33.67 2.27* ms 12 x sel. 21 7.85** 3.12** -3.54 -0.53** 17.74** -2.23 38.54* -3.55** ms 12 x sel. 22 0.50 4.51** 10.59* -0.18 -8.07 6.08** 132.15** 2.96** ms 12 x sel. 27 0.76 -0.81 -3.51 0.52** -10.02* -4.67* -12.34 -1.11 ms 12 x sel. 28 3.28* 5.16** 3.79 0.44** 1.56 0.62 -9.06 -2.35* ms 12 x sel. 29 -2.96 0.22 -14.84** 0.27 -12.47* 3.79 -136.59** -9.14** ms 12 x sel. 31 -1.99 -4.67** -4.97 0.25 4.67 3.87 -33.38 0.28 ms 12 x sel. 56 -3.87** -1.02 -6.72 -0.43** 1.81 0.51 -85.58** -4.07** se(s ij ) 1.33 1.02 4.78 0.15 4.76 2.10 16.73 1.07 *significant at 5% level **significant at 1% level combining ability in african marigold j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 71-75, 2009 74 table 6. estimates of gca effects of hybrids for ten characters during summer season hybrids days to plant number of flower flower flowering flower harvest flowering height flowers/plant size (cm) weight (g) duration yield (g) index (cm) (days) ms 7 x sel. 8 6.06** -3.36** -2.87* 0.29 5.93 -0.89 7.80 0.89 ms 7 x sel. 14 1.16 2.61** 0.74 0.59** -1.43 -0.98 -7.17 -0.45 ms 7 x sel. 19 2.51* -2.82** 1.43 -0.21 0.38 0.06 68.58** 1.42 ms 7 x sel. 21 -4.52** 1.79 0.48 -0.17 -0.67 -0.36 24.18 0.89 ms 7 x sel. 22 0.09 -4.45** 1.26 -0.16 13.53** -0.59 -53.44* -1.27 ms 7 x sel. 27 -1.53 2.04* 1.10 -0.26 6.29** -0.78 17.93 1.10 ms 7 x sel. 28 -3.14** 3.66** 3.59** -0.02 -10.83** 1.26 34.87 -2.12** ms 7 x sel. 29 -0.09 1.14 0.11 0.02 -1.21 2.35** -9.75 0.29 ms 7 x sel. 31 -1.21 0.43 -4.62** 0.35* -4.89 0.11 -82.15** -1.23 ms 7 x sel. 56 0.66 -1.04 -1.21 -0.44** -7.10** -0.19 -38.00 0.47 ms 8 x sel. 8 -8.15** 5.48** -0.99 0.28 -3.56 -0.48 -21.63 -1.37* ms 8 x sel. 14 2.35* 3.08** 1.03 -0.55** -2.60 0.43 -17.10 0.02 ms 8 x sel. 19 -3.33** 1.39 -2.22 -0.29 -5.12 0.04 -81.66** 0.25 ms 8 x sel. 21 -4.27** -4.50** -0.27 -0.22 -0.60 -0.01 25.31** -0.44 ms 8 x sel. 22 -0.82 -0.05 -0.19 -0.07 -19.03** 1.35 -88.96** -1.11 ms 8 x sel. 27 0.82 -1.89* -2.25 0.53** 8.96** 0.73 21.90 0.24 ms 8 x sel. 28 -0.65 -5.67** -3.33** -0.16 18.07** -0.09 55.30* 2.48** ms 8 x sel. 29 2.53* -2.06* 3.46** 0.14 5.14 -0.67 -11.18 0.99 ms 8 x sel. 31 4.15** 2.60** 4.49** 0.04 11.65** -0.51 122.05** 1.04 ms 8 x sel. 56 7.38** 1.53 0.27 0.28 -2.63 -0.78 -11.23 -1.10 ms 12 x sel. 8 2.10* -2.11* 3.85** -0.58** -2.37 1.37 13.84 0.48 ms 12 x sel. 14 -3.50** -5.68** -1.77 -0.08 4.03 0.55 24.27 0.44 ms 12 x sel. 19 0.82 1.43 0.79 0.49** 4.74 -0.11 13.08 -1.66* ms 12 x sel. 21 8.78** 2.71** -0.20 0.39* 1.26 0.37 -49.49* -0.45 ms 12 x sel. 22 0.73 4.40** -1.08 0.24 5.50* -0.76 35.51 2.38** ms 12 x sel. 27 0.71 -0.15 1.15 -0.26 -15.25** 0.05 -47.03* -1.24 ms 12 x sel. 28 3.80** 2.01* -0.26 0.18 -7.24** -1.17 -20.43 -0.36 ms 12 x sel. 29 -2.45* 0.92 -3.57** -0.15 6.33* -1.68* 20.92 -0.39 ms 12 x sel. 31 -2.94** -3.03** 0.13 -0.39 -6.76* 0.41 -39.91 0.10 ms 12 x sel. 56 -8.04** -0.49 0.94 0.16 9.73* 0.97 -49.24* 0.62 si (s ij ) 0.93 0.89 1.20 0.15 2.54 0.79 20.68 0.65 *significant at 5% level **significant at 1% level being negative for two traits. during summer, this female line showed significant gca effects for six traits but the effect was negative for three traits. line ms-8 showed significant gca effects for eight traits during both the seasons, of which only one was in negative direction. for flower yield, ms-8 gave the highest positive gca effect during both the seasons, while for other two female lines it was in negative direction. among the 11 male lines selected for f 1 hybrid production, sel. 7 did not flower in summer, while in winter it showed positive gca effects for five traits and negative gca effects for three traits. sel. 8 showed significant negative effect for five traits during summer, while during winter significant negative effect was for three traits. sel. 14 showed significant positive gca effects for three traits during both the seasons. sel. 19 showed significant negative effect for four traits during winter and for eight traits during summer. sel. 21 showed significant positive gca effects for three traits during summer and for six traits during winter including flower yield. sel. 22 showed significant negative effect for six traits during winter and for three traits during summer. sel. 27 produced significant positive gca effect for three traits including yield during winter. in sel. 28, almost all significant effects observed were in negative direction during both the seasons. sel. 29 showed significant positive gca effects for two traits only during winter and summer. sel. 31 showed significant negative effect for five traits during winter but positive effect for three traits during summer. sel. 56 showed significant positive effect for three traits during summer, while during winter it showed significant positive effect for six traits including flower yield. above discussion clearly indicates that among females, ms-8 and among pollinators, sel. 7 (during winter only), sel. 21, sel. 27 and sel. 56 were the best general combiners in both the seasons. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 71-75, 2009 gupta 75 an understanding of magnitude of additive and nonadditive gene actions controlling various traits in the breeding population is essential for the purposeful management of genetic variability in any crop. during both the crop seasons, for plant height and flower size, additive gene action was more important in addition to non-additive gene action in production of hybrids in marigold. it was supported by earlier finding of reddy et al (1989). in case of flowering days and stalk length, non-additive gene action played a major role in both the seasons. singh and swarup (1971) also reported the role on non-additive gene action in controlling flowering days in marigold. for other traits, gene action was inconsistent over the seasons. estimates of gca effects for 10 characters (table 5 & 6) indicate that for flower yields and for two of its most important components, i.e., flower number and flower weight, out of 33 f 1 hybrids evaluated, ms-7 x sel. 29, ms7 x sel. 56, ms-8 x sel. 8, ms-12 x sel. 22 and ms-12 x sel. 7 were suitable for cultivation during winter, and three hybrids, ms 7 x sel. 19, ms-8 x sel. 28 and ms-8 x sel. 31 for cultivation during summer. hybrid, ms-8 x sel. 28 showed adaptation for cultivation over both the seasons. thus, for flower production, desirable performance of only 8 f 1 hybrids out of 33 f 1 hybrids advocates that a large number of hybrids combinations should be attempted and the hybrids should be the best performance for commercial cultivation. references kempthorne. o. 1957. an introduction to genetic statistics. john wiley and sons, new york, usa reddy, n.t., muthuswamy, s., irulappan, i. and abdul khader, m. 1989. heterosis and combining ability for yield and yield components in african marigold (tagetes erecta l.). south ind. hort., 36:51-56 singh, b. and swarup, v. 1971. heterosis and combining ability in african marigold. ind. j. genet., 31:407415 singh, d. 1979. dialle analysis for combining ability over environments. ind. j. genet., 39:383-386 (ms received 13 may 2008, revised 8 january 2009) combining ability in african marigold j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 71-75, 2009 introduction chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) also known as “queen of the east” (anderson, 1987) belongs to the family asteraceae and is a popular flower crop having its admireres and enthusiasts all over the world. in the current scenario, lower productivity and inferior flower quality of spray-type chrysanthemum is due to inefficient and frequent use of inorganic fertilizers, especially the quick-release nitrogenous fertilizers. in order to minimize these ill effects, organic farming practices involving oil cakes, organic manures etc. must be adopted for sustainable production. neither chemical fertilizer alone nor organic sources exclusively can achieve sustainable production at the present level. the interactive advantages of combining organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen in integrated nutrient management systems are superior to inorganic fertilizer application alone. in view of the above objectives, we undertook an investigation to study yield and yield components of spray chrysanthemum in response to various sources of organic and inorganic nitrogenous fertilizers. studies on yield and yield components of spray chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium ramat.) cv. amal under various sources of nitrogen subhendu s. gantait and p. pal1 department of floriculture, medicinal & aromatic plants faculty of horticulture, uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya pundibari, cooch behar – 736165, india e-mail:ssgflori@gmail.com abstract an investigation was undertaken to study the yield and yield components of spray-type chrysanthemum cv. amal under variaous sources of nitrogen. the treatments considered different levels (100%, 75%, 50% or 25%) of four sources of nitrogen viz., urea, calcium ammonium nitrate, mustard cake and neem cake, alone or in combination of two or more of these. results revealed that maximum stem length (62 cm) of cut flower and flower yield, number of flower heads (6387) and weight (4071.48 g/sqm) were mostly achiveved by application of total recommended dose of nitrogen through a combination of 25% n as neem cake + 25% n as mustard cake + 25% n as can + 25% as urea, and the treatment increased flower yield by 57.96% over treatment with nitrogen solely through urea. flower size, individual flower weight, shelf and vase life of flower as well as anthocyanin content in floral tissue were higher in combined application of all oil cakes and urea and maximum under treatment combination of 50% recommended dose of nitrogen supplied through mustard cake, 25% n through neem cake and 25% n through urea. anthocyanin content of flower tissues increased gradually upto 20 days from opening of the flower and, thereafter, declined sharply. key words: chrysanthemum, nitrogen source, oil cake, organic material and methods the field experiment was conducted at horticultural research station, mondouri (23o n, 83o e and 9.75 mamsl altitude), bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, nadia, west bengal, india, during two consecutive winter seasons of 200305. the soil texture was clay-loam, having ph 6.8, organic carbon 0.58, total n 156.8 kg/ha, available p 2 o 5 50.4 kg/ha and available k 2 o 208.5 kg/ha. the experiment was conducted using cultivar ‘amal’ in a factorial rbd design (frbd) with 16 treatments, and replicated thrice. all plots of the experiment were supplied with the recommended dose of n:p:k @ 20:10:10 g/sqm in both years of experiment. the treatments consisted of different levels (100%, 75%, 50% or 25%) of four sources of nitrogen, viz., urea (ur), calcium ammonium nitrate (can), mustard cake (mc) and neem cake (nc) alone or in combination of two or more of these. treatment combinations were as follows: nitrogen sources like neem cake and mustard cake were applied during land preparation two weeks before planting, and calcium ammonium nitrate was applied as basal 1department of floriculture & landscaping, faculty of horticulture, bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia, west bengal, india. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 54-58, 2009 55 during final land preparation. first top dressing of can and urea was made 15 days after transplanting (dat) and second top dressing of urea at 30 dat. full dose of p 2 o 5 and k 2 o was applied through single super phosphate (ssp) and muriate of potash (mop), respectively, as basal application. observations on growth and yield parameters were recorded and subjected to statistical analysis as per panse and sukhatme (1967). anthocyanin was estimated from freshly-harvested petals starting at flower opening upto colour fading stage, harvested at five days intervals. anthocyanin was estimated by using the method of thimmaiah (2004). results and discussion a perusal of results presented in tables 1, 2, 3 and 4 and fig. 1 and 2 on plant height, canopy spread plant-1, days to optimum bloom, stem-length of flower, flower size, individual flower weight and flower yield (number and weight of flowers heads sqm-1), shelf-life and vase-life of flowers and anthocyanin content of petal revealed significant differences between sole application of inorganic and organic fertilizer and their combinations. maximum plant height and canopy spread plant-1 of 93.20 cm and 59.50 cm, respectively, in pooled data was observed in treatment t 16 in which plants were supplied with total rdn through 25% each of neem cake, mustard cake, can and urea closely followed by the t 1 100% n of rdn through ur (50% basal + 50% in two top-dress) t 2 100% n of rdn through nc (50% basal + 50% top dressing) t 3 100% n of rdn through mc (50% basal + 50% top dressing) t 4 100% n of rdn through can (50% basal + 50% top dressing) t 5 50% n through nc (basal) + 50% n through ur (25x% basal + 25% in two top-dress) t 6 50% n through mc (basal) + 50% n through ur (25% basal + 25% in two top-dress) t 7 50% n through mc (basal) + 50% n through can (basal) t 8 50% n through nc (basal) + 50% n through can ( basal ) t 9 50% n through nc (basal) + 50% n through mc ( basal ) t 10 75% n through mc (basal) + 25% n through can (basal ) t 11 75% n through nc (basal) + 25% n through can (basal ) t 12 50% n through mc (basal) + 25% n through can (basal)+25% n through ur (two top-dress) t 13 50% n through nc (basal) + 25% n through can (basal)+25% n through ur (two top-dress) t 14 50% n through mc (basal) + 25% n through nc (basal)+25% n through ur (two top-dress) t 15 50% n through nc (basal) + 25% n through mc (basal)+25% n through ur (two top-dress) t 16 25% n through nc (basal) + 25% n through mc(basal) +25% n through can (basal) + 25% n through ur (two top-dress) where n= nitrogen, rdn= recommended dose of nitrogen plants treated with a combination of 50% n as mc + 25% n as can + 25% n as urea (t 12 ) showing 89.75 cm and 56.63 cm, respectively. plant height was lowest (65.88 cm) in plants that received with 100% n, supplied solely as neem cake (t 2 ). with regard to sources of nitrogen, plants treated with full dose of recommended nitrogen solely through urea (t 1 ) produced earliest flowering (125.13 days) compared to other treatments, whereas, plants raised on 50% n as table 1. plant height (cm) and canopy spread (cm) of spray chrysanthemum cv. amal under various sources of nitrogen treatment plant height (cm) canopy spread (cm) per plant 1st yr 2nd yr pool 1st yr 2nd yr pool t 1 71.50 66.00 69.00 43.50 35.50 39.50 t 2 66.50 63.25 65.88 42.00 34.00 38.00 t 3 68.00 64.50 66.25 42.50 33.25 37.88 t 4 73.50 68.50 71.00 45.50 38.00 41.75 t 5 74.50 69.00 71.75 46.00 39.00 42.50 t 6 76.00 70.50 73.25 47.00 40.00 43.50 t 7 80.00 75.50 77.75 50.00 43.50 46.75 t 8 78.50 74.00 76.25 49.00 42.50 45.75 t 9 76.50 71.50 74.00 47.00 40.50 44.00 t 1 0 84.00 81.50 82.75 53.50 47.50 50.50 t 1 1 82.50 80.00 81.75 52.00 46.00 49.00 t 1 2 91.50 88.00 89.75 59.25 54.00 56.63 t 1 3 90.50 87.25 88.88 58.00 53.00 55.50 t 1 4 87.50 84.50 86.00 56.50 51.00 53.75 t 1 5 86.00 83.50 84.75 55.50 50.00 52.75 t 1 6 95.25 91.15 93.20 62.50 56.50 59.50 sem ± 1.085 1.482 0.918 1.113 1.474 0.924 cd (p=0.05) 2.31 3.16 2.54 2.41 3.14 1.97 chrysanthemum yield under different nitrogen sources j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 54-58, 2009 56 table 2. days required to full-bloom and stem-length (cm) in flower of spray chrysanthemum cv. amal under various sources of nitrogen treatment daysto stem-length (cm) full-bloom of cut-flower 1st yr 2nd yr pool 1st yr 2nd yr pool t 1 136.75 113.50 125.13 45.50 42.50 44.00 t 2 139.25 116.50 127.88 43.00 40.50 41.75 t 3 140.00 117.00 128.50 44.00 41.00 42.50 t 4 137.00 114.00 125.50 47.00 44.50 45.75 t 5 137.50 114.50 126.00 47.50 45.00 46.25 t 6 138.00 115.50 126.75 48.00 46.00 47.00 t 7 139.00 116.00 127.50 52.00 49.50 50.75 t 8 138.50 115.75 127.13 51.00 48.50 49.75 t 9 144.75 120.00 132.38 49.00 46.50 47.75 t 1 0 142.00 117.75 129.88 55.50 52.00 53.75 t 1 1 141.00 117.25 129.13 54.50 51.00 52.75 t 1 2 144.00 119.25 131.68 62.00 57.50 59.75 t 1 3 142.50 118.25 130.38 61.00 56.50 58.75 t 1 4 146.00 121.00 133.50 59.00 55.00 57.00 t 1 5 145.25 120.50 132.88 57.50 54.00 55.75 t 1 6 143.50 119.00 131.25 64.50 59.50 62.00 sem ± 0.716 0.653 0.485 1.008 0.758 0.631 cd (p=0.05) 1.53 1.39 1.03 2.15 1.61 1.34 table 3. size (cm) and weight (g) of individual flowers of spray chrysanthemum cv. amal under various sources of nitrogen treatment flower-size (cm) weight (g) of individual flower __________________________________________________________ 1st yr 2nd yr pool 1st yr 2nd yr pool t 1 4.00 4.15 4.08 1.35 1.51 1.43 t 2 4.60 4.70 4.65 1.47 1.67 1.57 t 3 4.75 4.90 4.83 1.53 1.75 1.64 t 4 4.10 4.20 4.15 1.36 1.53 1.45 t 5 4.20 4.30 4.25 1.37 1.55 1.46 t 6 4.40 4.50 4.45 1.40 1.59 1.50 t 7 4.55 4.65 4.60 1.45 1.65 1.55 t 8 4.45 4.55 4.50 1.41 1.61 1.51 t 9 5.45 5.60 5.53 1.87 2.14 2.01 t 1 0 5.00 5.15 5.08 1.62 1.85 1.74 t 1 1 4.85 5.00 4.93 1.57 1.79 1.68 t 1 2 5.35 5.55 5.45 1.79 2.05 1.92 t 1 3 5.10 5.25 5.18 1.66 1.88 1.77 t 1 4 5.75 5.80 5.78 2.10 2.40 2.25 t 1 5 5.50 5.65 5.58 1.95 2.20 2.08 t 1 6 5.25 5.40 5.33 1.73 2.00 1.87 sem ± 1.111 0.961 0.073 0.078 0.066 0.063 cd (p=0.05) 2.37 2.05 0.16 0.17 0.14 0.13 fig 2. changes in anthocyanin content (mg/100 g) in flower tissue of spray chrysanthemum cv. amal under varioussources of nitrogen fig 1. self-life and vase-life of flower of spray chrysanthemum cv. amal under various sources of nitrogen mc + 25% n as nc + 25% n as urea (t 14 ) took maximum number of days (133.50 days) to flower. plants treated with 25% n as nc + 25% n as mc + 25 % n as can + 25% n as urea (t 16 ) produced maximum stem length (62 cm) in flowers which was at par with treatment t 12 . plants raised on total rdn with neem cake (t 2 ) recorded minimum (41.75 cm) stem-length in flower. largest size in flower (5.78 cm) was recorded in plants under treatment t 14 (50 % n as mc + 25% n as nc + 25% n as urea), closely followed by plants under treatment t 15 (50 % n as nc + 25% n as mc + 25 % n as urea), whereas, plants treated with total rdn as urea (t 1 ) produced smallest size of flower (4.08 cm). heaviest flower (2.25 g) was produced in t 14 treatment and flower weight was minimum (1.43 g) with t 1 treatment. maximum number of flowers (6387) sqm-1 was recorded in plants treated with 25% n as nc + 25% n as mc + 25% n as can + 25% n as urea (t 16 ), whereas, plants supplied with total rdn solely through neem cake (t 2 ) produced lowest number (2001) of flowers which was closest to treatment t 3 (100% n as mc) with 2230.95 flowers. plants grown on treatment t 16 recorded 218.89% j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 54-58, 2009 gantait and pal 57 table 4. number of flowers per sqm and flower-yield (g) per sqm of spray chrysanthemum cv. amal under varioussources of nitrogen treatment number of flowers per sqm flower yield (g) per sqm 1st yr 2nd yr pool 1st yr 2nd yr pool t 1 2880.20 2320.60 2600.40 2730.40 2424.60 2577.50 t 2 2186.50 1815.50 2001.00 2566.60 2197.40 2382.00 t 3 2480.30 1981.50 2230.95 2645.45 2318.30 2481.88 t 4 3181.65 2515.40 2848.53 2780.30 2524.55 2652.43 t 5 3386.55 2774.40 3080.48 2865.45 2587.80 2736.63 t 6 3750.55 3190.50 3470.53 2993.35 2694.65 2844.00 t 7 4453.40 4008.55 4230.98 3306.35 3001.40 3153.88 t 8 4266.70 3804.40 4035.55 3206.65 2908.45 3057.55 t 9 3920.40 3386.30 3653.35 3057.55 2766.60 2912.08 t 1 0 4906.35 4524.45 4715.40 3520.30 3242.45 3381.38 t 1 1 4764.35 4248.40 4506.38 3427.60 3157.65 3292.63 t 1 2 5985.55 5635.45 5810.50 4060.30 3761.50 3910.90 t 1 3 5768.45 5350.60 5559.53 3974.55 3640.35 3807.45 t 1 4 5324.25 5075.50 5199.88 3797.65 3477.35 3637.50 t 1 5 5137.55 4870.55 5004.05 3669.40 3392.55 3530.98 t 1 6 6720.45 6053.55 6387.00 4238.30 3904.65 4071.48 sem ± 145.055 146.091 102.937 95.68 123.387 78.070 cd (p=0.05) 308.97 311.17 219.26 203.80 262.81 166.29 and 145.62% greater number of flowers compared to t 2 and t 3 treatments, respectively. among different treatments, maximum flower yield (4071.48 g sqm-1) was recorded with t 16 treatment. plants under t 16 treatment produced 70.93% and 57.96% more yield over t 2 and t 1 treatments respectively. both shelf-life and vase-life of flowers was found to be maximum (30 days and 25 days, respectively) in plants under t 14 treatment and the minimum in plants under t 1 treatment (fig.1). plants raised on 100% n solely through neem cake (t 2 ) recorded lowest flower yield by weight (2382 g sqm-1), followed by application of full dose of n in the form of mustard cake (t 3 ). anthocyanin content in floral tissues was estimated from flower opening to flower colour fading stage (fig. 2). anthocyanin content increased gradually upto 20 days from opening of the flower and, thereafter, declined sharply till flower colour fading stage, irrespective of source of nitrogen or combination. flowers under treatment t 14 recorded maximum anthocyanin content, followed by treatment t 15 and, the lowest in flower tepals of plants supplied with total rdn solely through urea (t 1 ). in the present investigation, different sources of nitrogen, alone or in combination, were found to significantly influence all the vegetative and flowering attributes. plants on 75% of recommended dose of nitrogen through equal parts neem cake, mustard cake and can and remaining 25% as top dressing of urea (t 16 ) were outstanding in respect of plant growth, flower yield and yield components. application of total rdn solely through urea (t 1 ) registered early blooming and low quality of flowers as well as lowest anthocyanin content solely in flower tepals at all stages of sampling, followed by t 4 (100% n as can) treatment. oil cakes contain some percentage of oil, which prevents rapid conversion of organic nitrogen into the available form. as nitrogen present in the oil-cake is slow-releasing, nitrogen supply to the plant continued throughout the growing period. several studies have shown that oilcake, in general, increased organic carbon, total and inorganic nitrogen and available phosphorus, exchangeable potassium, calcium and magnesium content of the soil (herron and ehrhart, 1965; olsen et al, 1970; mays et al, 1973). higher proportion of mustard cake in combination with urea and can (t 12 ) registered better performance compared to neem cake combined with urea and can (t 13 ). application of total rdn through neem cake (t 2 ) showed poor vegetative growth and yield of flowers, followed by application of total rdn through mustard cake (t 3 ) compared to other treatments. this might be due to a low level of leaf-n at all the stages of sampling. das and mukherjee (1990) noted adverse effects of neem cake on beneficial micro-organisms present in the soil. mukherjee et al (1991) reported that different groups of soil microorganisms responded differently to addition of different types of oil-cake to soil. mustard cake was superior to neem cake in terms of preponderance of soil organisms, while, neem cake caused adverse effects on beneficial organisms and maintained least amount of total nitrogen in the soil. the presence of lipids and bioregulators like meliacins, epinmbin, salin and azadirachtin associated with oil cake may be responsible for inhibition of bacterial growth. chrysanthemum yield under different nitrogen sources j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 54-58, 2009 58 based on results of this study it can be concluded that maximum plant growth, flower, stem length and floweryield were influenced by combined application of total rdn through 25% n as neem cake + 25% n as mustard cake + 25% n as can + 25% as urea and this treatment increased 57.96% of flower yield over application of total rdn solely through urea. flower size, individual flower-weight, shelfand vase-life of flowers as well as anthocyanin content in flower tepals were found to be higher in plants under sole or combined application of oil cakes (mustard cake and neem cake) than under urea and those characters were recorded to be maximum under treatment combination of 50% n of rdn supplied through mustard cake, 25% n through neem cake and 25% n through urea. anthocyanin content of flower tepals increased gradually upto 20 days from opening of the flower and, thereafter, declined sharply till flower colour fading stage, irrespective of the nitrogen source. references anderson, n.o. 1987. reclassification of genus chrysanthemum. hort. sci., 22:313 das, a.c. and mukherjee, d. 1990. microbiological changes during decomposition of wheat straw and neem cake in soil. environ. ecol., 8:1012-1015 herron, g.m. and ehrhart, a.b. 1965. value of manure on an irrigated calcareous soil. proc. soil sci. amer., 29:278-81 mays, d.a., tenman, g.l. and duggan, j.c. 1973. municipal compost: effect on crop yield and soil properties. j. environ. qual., 2:89-81 mukherjee, d., mitra, s. and das, a.c. 1991. effects of oil cakes on changes in carbon, nitrogen and microbial population in soil. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 39:457-62 olsen, r.j., hensler, r.f. and attoe, o.j. 1970. effect of manure application, aeration and soil ph on soil nitrogen transformations and on certain test values. proc. soil sci.comm. amer., 34:22-25 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1967. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, india, p. 381 thimmaiah, s.r. 2004. pigments. standard methods of biochemical analysis. kalyani publishers, new delhi (ms received 15 september 2008, revised 1 june 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 54-58, 2009 gantait and pal 97 nutrient management in jackfruit (artocarpus heterophyllus lam.) under rainfed condition m. laishram and *s. n. ghosh department of fruits and orchard management, faculty of horticulture bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur – 741 252, west bengal, india *e-mail: profsnghosh@yahoo.co.in abstract an investigation was taken up on eight years old seedling trees of jackfruit, planted at 10 x 10 m spacing at the horticultural research station, mondouri (nadia, west bengal) of the bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya with a view to know the effect of different organic manures and inorganic nutrients (n, p and k) on production, fruit quality, soil heath and foliar npk status. results from the three consecutive years of investigation, it was revealed that highest dose of npk (n 500 p300 k300 g/tree/year) resulted in highest yield (76.3 kg / tree) but gave lower bcr (benefit cost ratio) of 1.13 while its lowest dose (n200p100 k100 g/tree/year) gave higher bcr of 2.00. among the organic manures, vermicompost at 4.00 kg/tree/year produced second higher yield (56.3 kg/tree) with best quality fruits and this treatment resulted in highest bcr of 2.17. soil npk status and ph improved under different treatments as compared to respective initial values. foliar npk values were differed among the treatments although it could not be correlated to the fruit yield. key words: economics, fruit yield and quality, inorganic nutrients, organic manures short communication introduction jackfruit (artocarpus heterophyllus lam) is one of the most important minor fruit crops in tropical and sub-tropical regions. every part of the tree and fruit is used for various purposes. the green ripe fruit is consumed as vegetable while ripe one is used as fresh fruit due to its nutritional value and delicious taste. systematic jackfruit plantation in the country is very rare. most of the cases it is found in homestead garden and in roadside plantation. jackfruit is reported to be a suitable choice degraded lands in asia and africa. generally, jackfruit trees are not given fertilizers and thus little, is known about its fertilizer requirement. however, the trees need good nutrition to promote regular and good bearing. it is well established that quantity and type of fertilizer requirement of a fruit crop depends on the age and agro-climatic condition particularly fertility of the soil in a region. tandon (1987) recommended 600 g n, 300 g p, 240 g k and 50 kg of fym for a bearing jackfruit tree grown at a spacing of 10 m x 10 m inn the state of karnataka (india) while hossain. and haq (2006) suggested a manorial dose of 20 g urea, 300 g triple super phosphate, 500 g muriate of potash, 250 g gypsum and 25 kg fym for an 8-10 years old jack tree. although, there are some reports about application of n, p and k singly or in combination with fym in jackfruit but there is no report or literature available regarding effect of single application of different organic manures and inorganic nutrients (viz. n, p and k) on fruiting and quality aspects of jackfruit. due to deleterious effect of chemical fertilizers on soil, plant and environment, there is now an urgent need to know the effect of various organic manures vs chemical fertilizers (npk) on jackfruit and also their impact on soil fertility and economic profitability. the experiment was conducted on eight years old seedling jackfruit trees planted at 10 x 10 m spacing having uniform growth at the horticultural research station of bidhan chandra krishi viswavidyalaya, mondouri, nadia, west bengal during 2010-2013. the site is situated at 23.50 north latitude and 80034’ east longitude having an altitude of 9.75 m above mean sea level. the experimental site has gangetic new alluvial j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 97-102, 2018 98 soil with sandy clay loam in texture. before undertaking the experiment, composite soil samples of the field was taken from the depth of 0-30 cm for analysis. available n, p and k of the soil were 178.2, 19.7 and 302.2 kg/ ha and ph was 6.60. available ca, mg and zn content in the soil were 36.4 g/g, 40.2g/g and 16.7 g/g, respectively. the climatic condition of the research station was humid sub-tropical. there were nine treatments viz., cow dung at 20 kg and 40 kg; mustard cake at 2 kg and 4 kg; vermicompost 4 kg and 8 kg/tree/year; n200p100k100 g, n400p200k200, n500p300k300 g/tree/year. the source of n, p and k were urea, single super phosphate and muriatic of potash, respectively. the treatments were applied following randomized block design having three replications of each. the treatments were applied in a two feet wide circular trench at three feet away from the trunk in two splits i.e., in june (during on set of monsoon) and in september. no irrigation was provided during the period of investigation. plant protection measures were taken against pests and diseases as and when it was necessary. before imposition of treatments in earlier years, the plants were maintained under rainfed condition with minimum fertilization i.e., 20 kg cow dung + n200p100k100 g /plant/year. observation on fruit yield, physico-chemical characteristics of fruits were taken. fruit setting was determined by dividing the total number of fruits set with total number of female spike. it wass expressed in percent by multiplying with 100. fruit retention was determined by dividing the number of fruits at harvest and initial number of set fruits. it is expressed in per cent by multiplying with 100. tss of fruit was estimated by hand refractrometer while acidity, reducing sugars, total sugars and vitamin c content of the fruit flakes were determined following standard method (a. o. a.c. 1990). the soil ph was determined by using glass electrode ph meter; soil available nitrogen content was estimated following the method as described by jackson (1973); available phosphorus by bray and kurtz (1945) and available potassium by flame photometry (black, 1965). foliar nitrogen content was estimated by microkjelda l method (bla ck, 1965); phosphorus by vandomolybdate phosphoric acid (jackson, 1967) and potassium by photometer (piper, 1956). fruit setting and fruit retention by adopting different nutrient management practices, a significant difference in fruit setting and its retention was observed in jackfruit (table 1). in nutrient management in jackfruit j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 97-102, 2018 table 1. effect of organic manures and inorganic nutrients (npk) on fruit setting, fruit retention and yield of jackfruit treatment * fruit * fruit fruit yield/kg/tree per setting retention tree / year (%) (%) 1st year 2nd year 3rd year pooled cowdung – 20 kg 66.3(54.51) 50.2(45.11) 22.8 70.1 66.5 53.1 cowdung – 40 kg 55.6(48.22) 51.1(45.63) 38.0 40.1 38.0 38.7 mustard cake – 2 kg 57.3(49.20) 45.3(42.30) 20.7 60.3 44.2 41.7 mustard cake – 4 kg 68.3(55.73) 58.4(49.84) 40.4 60.1 58.2 52.9 vermicompost – 4 kg 66.8(54.82) 59.4(50.42) 27.7 75.8 65.3 56.3 vermicompost – 8 kg 65.2(53.85) 44.9(42.07) 34.8 54.3 45.3 44.8 n200p100k100 g 70.0(56.79) 53.1(46.78) 43.3 54.1 58.4 51.9 n400p200k200 g 73.4(58.95) 59.7(50.59) 44.0 56.7 77.4 59.4 n500p300k300 g 76.1(60.73) 65.1(53.79) 37.7 86.4 104.7 76.3 s.em ± 1.01 1.06 6.40 9.63 11.54 6.42 c.d. at 5% 2.14 2.25 13.56 20.41 24.47 13.62 * average of last 2 years figures in the brackets are angular transformed value 99 general fruit setting and retention were higher in trees with chemical fertilizers as compared to organic manures and highest fruit setting (76.1%) and retention (65.1%) were noted in tree receiving highest dose of npk (n500p300k300­ g/year). higher fruit setting and its retention in trees with higher dose of inorganic fertilizers may be due to availability of sufficient amount of nutrients mainly n, which is essential for protein bio-synthesis (klein and weinbaum, 1984) and the fact that the developing fruitlets required sufficient amount of proteins (bouranis et al., 1999). among the organic manures, mustard cake at 4 kg and verimicompost at 4 kg/tree were better in respect of fruit setting and retention. fruit yield it is clear from the data presented in table 1 that different doses of organic manures and inorganic sources of nutrients have significant effect on yield of jackfruit. in case of inorganic fertilizers, yield was increased with increase dose of nutrients and highest yield of 76.3 kg was recorded from the tree receiving highest dose of nutrients (n500p300k300 g / tree) and this treatment was found to be the best in yield improvement as compared to other treatments of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers. highest yield from the trees receiving highest dose of npk might be due to continuous supply of n, p and k which fortifies the tree health and support fruit retention capacity at early stages, thus ultimately gave higher final fruit retention and improved yield per tree (anwar et al. , 2011). among the orga nic ma nur es, vermicompost at 4 kg/tree resulted in maximum jack yield (56.3 kg/tree) followed by cowdung at 20 kg/ tree (53.1 kg/tree) and mustard cake at 4 kg/tree (52.9 kg/tree) and these yield variation was statistically at par among themselves. fruit weight fruit weight of jack was significantly varied due to application of organic manures and in organic nutrients at different doses (table 2). maximum fruit weight (6.2 kg) was recorded from the tree that, received highest dose of npk (n500p300k300 g/tree) closely followed by varmicompost at 4.00 kg/tree (6.1 kg). lowest levels of npk (n200p100k100 g/tree) gave minimum weight of fruit (4.4 kg) which clearly indicated that jack requires a sizeable amount of nutrients like npk for their bulky fruit growth. edible flake and seed content in ripe jack, flake is the edible part which is sweet, aromatic and delicious in taste. the edible flake content was maximum (42 %) in the fruit of the tree which received highest dose of npk (n500p300k300 g/ tree) followed by the tree with mustard cake at 4.0 kg (41.9%) and vermicompost at 4.0 kg (40.8%). minimum edible flake content (37.7%) was recorded from the fruit of the tree that, received lowest dose of npk (n100p100k100 g/tree) (table 2). seed of the jack is also edible. in green jack, which is very popular as vegetable jack, seed is soft and consumed alongwith the hard flake while in ripe jack, it is discarded and consumed as vegetable or used for preparation of many by-products. the seed content in jack was varied due to application of different types of manures and fertilizers (table 2). highest seed content (14.7%) was recorded from the tree that received highest dose of npk (n500p300k300 g/tree) and lowest seed content (11.5%) was from the tree with lowest npk (n200p100k100 g/tree). fruit quality the chemical parameters of fruit showed a significant variation in response to application of different nutrient sources (table 2). the highest tss, (25.20 brix), reducing sugar (6.92%) total sugar (17.90%) and vitamin c (11.2 mg/ 100 g) content were recorded from the fruit of the tree that received vermicompost at 4.0 kg/tree highest followed by highest dose of npk (n500p300k300 g/year). highest value of different fruit quality parameters recorded from the tree with vearmicompost at 4 kg/tree and highest dose of npk may be explained from the fact that the tree synthesized more amount of carbohydrate and sugars due to greater availability of required n and k which ultimately driven from the ‘source’ to fruit which act as ‘sink’ of the nutrients as reported by various workers in different fruit crops (usherwood, 1985; bhargava et al., 1993). leaf npk content foliar npk content was significantly varied due to application of different doses of organic manures and inorganic nutrients (table 3). maximum foliar laishram and ghosh j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 97-102, 2018 100 nutrient management in jackfruit j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 97-102, 2018 table 2. effect of organic manures and inorganic nutrients (npk) on physio-chemical characteristics of jackfruit (average of last 2 years) treatment fruit edible seed tss acidity reducing total vitamin per weight flake sugar sugar c tree / year (kg) (%) (%) (0b) (%) (%) (%) (mg/100g) cowdung – 20 kg 5.5 39.2 12.9 22.7 0.22 6.50 16.00 10.3 cowdung – 40 kg 5.6 39.1 13.3 21.7 0.25 6.28 15.00 10.0 mustard cake – 2 kg 5.9 39.6 12.7 22.7 0.22 5.69 15.56 9.4 mustard cake – 4 kg 6.0 41.3 13.6 23.0 0.25 6.81 16.40 9.8 vermicompost – 4 kg 6.1 40.8 12.8 25.2 0.28 6.92 17.90 11.2 vermicompost – 8 kg 5.9 39.0 12.6 22.9 0.27 5.74 16.20 9.0 n200p100k100 g 4.4 37.7 11.5 23.6 0.23 6.31 14.97 9.8 n400p200k200 g 5.0 38.7 13.6 23.8 0.32 6.50 16.81 10.1 n500p300k300 g 6.2 42.0 14.7 25.0 0.35 6.91 17.85 11.0 s.em ± 0.09 0.38 0.35 0.26 0.01 0.17 0.27 0.21 c.d. at 5% 0.19 0.81 0.75 0.56 0.02 0.37 0.58 0.45 content of nitrogen (1.59%) phosphorus (0.41%) and potassium (0.78%) was recorded from the tree which, received highest dose of npk (n500p300k300 g/tree/ year). among the organic manures, maximum foliar nitrogen (1.57%) and phosphorus (0.39%) were estimated from the trees with vermicompost at 4.0 kg tree while foliar potassium content (0.76%) was recorded from the treatment with cowdung at 20 kg/ tree. soil npk and ph status to know the effect of different manurial treatments on soil npk status, soil samples were collected every year after harvest of the crop and average of three years has been presented in table 3. it is clear from the data that the soil npk status was impr oved irrespective of the treatments as compared to its initial values (before starting of table 3. effect of organic manures and inorganic nutrients on foliar and soil npk content and soil ph in jackfruit orchard (average of last 3 years) treatment foliar content (dry weight basis) in soil (0-30 cm depth) per nitrogen phosphorus potassium nitrogen p2o5 k2o ph tree / year (%) % (%) (kg/ha) (kg/ha) (kg/ha) cowdung – 20 kg 1.55 0.34 0.76 182.2 20.75 329.92 6.71 cowdung – 40 kg 1.36 0.32 0.72 183.8 21.71 332.79 6.66 mustard cake – 2 kg 1.54 0.35 0.67 182.8 22.53 328.84 6.72 mustard cake – 4 kg 1.56 0.36 0.68 184.8 22.81 331.88 6.69 vermicompost – 4 kg 1.57 0.39 0.67 182.9 21.82 327.67 6.70 vermicompost – 8 kg 1.50 0.36 0.63 184.4 22.64 330.54 6.79 n200p100k100 g 1.48 0.35 0.67 183.8 22.45 328.28 6.75 n400p200k200 g 1.56 0.37 0.72 185.2 22.40 332.78 6.73 n500p300k300 g 1.59 0.41 0.78 186.1 23.54 348.91 6.80 s.em ± 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.42 0.15 1.77 0.03 c.d. at 5% 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.90 0.32 3.75 0.07 101 laishram and ghosh j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 97-102, 2018 table 4. economic analysis of different nutrient management practices in jackfruit treatment *yield of jackfruitgross cost of net benefit per income/ha treatments/ ha profit/ha cost ratio tree / year per tree (kg) per ha (kg) (rs.) (rs.) (rs.) (bcr) cowdung – 20 kg 53.1 5310.00 79,650.00 44,947.00 34,703.00 1.77 cowdung – 40 kg 38.7 3870.00 58,050.00 52,947.00 5,103.00 1.10 mustard cake – 2 kg 41.7 4170.00 62,550.00 40,347.00 22,203.00 1.55 mustard cake – 4 kg 52.9 5290.00 79,350.00 43,747.00 35,603.00 1.81 vermicompost – 4 kg 56.3 5630.00 84,450.00 38,947.00 45,503.00 2.17 vermicompost – 8 kg 44.8 4480.00 67,200.00 40,947.00 26,253.00 1.64 n200p100k100 g 51.9 5190.00 77,850.00 59,900.00 17,950.00 2.00 n400p200k200 g 59.4 5940.00 89,100.00 82,100.00 7,000.00 1.09 n500p300k300 g 76.3 7630.00 1,14,450.00 1,01,102.00 13,348.00 1.13 * average of 3 years plant population = 100 trees/ha (10 m x 10 m spacing) saleable price of jackfruit = rs. 15/per kg experiment). highest n, p and k content in the soil (0-30 cm depth) was estimated from the soil of the t r ee wher e highes t n p k dos e w a s a p p lied (n 5 0 0p 3 0 0k 3 0 0 g/ t r ee) a nd t his t r ea t ment a ls o resulted in highest fruit yield. next higher soil npk va lu es wer e es t ima t ed f r om t he t r ea t ment n40 0p20 0k20 0 g/tree followed by mustard cake at 4.0 kg/tree. another interesting observation noted wa s t ha t s oil n p k va lu es wer e lower wit h vermicompost at 4.0 kg/tree as compared to 8.0 kg/tree which indicated that vermicompost at 4.0 kg/tree is sufficient to meet the ‘sink’ demand as because vermicompost at 4.00 kg resulted in higher yield and gave best quality fruit when vermicompost alone is considered. soil ph ‘change’ as noted due to application of manures and inorganic nutrients (i.e., fertilizers) may not be considered as ‘affected’ (table 3). if we compare with the initial value (6.60), then we could say that ph was slightly increased towards ‘neutral’ irrespective of the treatments which may be due to inherent nature of the soil (new alluvial gangetic soil). economic of the treatments calculation of economic viability of the treatments is considered to be the last step for final recommendation of any package and practices related to agricultural/horticultural production. in the present investigation saleable product was ripe jackfruit. production capacity of tree varied due to application of different manorial treatments. the fruit yield per tree has been converted to a hectare considering 100 trees at 10 x 10 m spacing (table 4). cost of each treatment application, gross return and net return per hectare have also been presented in table 4. it was observed that highest expenditure (rs.1,01,102 /-) was incurred in the treatment of highest dose of npk (n500p300k300 g/tree/year) which gave highest yield and thus resulting lower bcr (1.13) as compared to its lowest dose (n200p100k100 g/tree/year). although, the lowest dose of inorganic fertilizers gave lowest yield as compared to other higher doses but bcr was highest (2.00). however, highest bcr of 2.17 was calculated from the treatment of vermicompost at 4.0 kg/tree/year. conclusions from the economic calculation and comparison among the different treatments, it can be concluded that vermicompost at 4.00 kg/tree/year should be adopted under orga nic jack culture. combined application of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers in fruit trees is now emerging as integrated nutrient supply (ins) appr oa ch for susta inable higher production of quality fruits. in this angle, application of vermicompost at 4.00 kg and n200p100k100 g/tree/year together may be considered. 102 (ms received 20 june 2017, revised 13 january 2018, accepted 17 april 2018) nutrient management in jackfruit j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 97-102, 2018 references a. o.a.c. 1990. official methods of analysis. association of official agriculture chemists (15th edn.), washington, d. c. anwar, r., ahmad, s., yaseen, m., ahmad, w. and nafees, m. 2011. bimonthly nutrient application pr ogr amme on ca lcar eous soil impr oves flowering and fruit set in mango (mangifera indica l.). pak. j. bot., 43(2): 983-990. bhargava, b. s. and chadha, k. l. 1993. leaf nutrient guide for fr uit cr ops, in: advances in horticultural fruit crops 2 eds. chadha k.l. and pareek o.p. malhotra publishing house, new delhi. pp.973-1030. black, c.a .1965. methods of soil analysis part-ii, agronomy monograph, no. 9. american society of agronomy, madison, wicconsin, pp. 148. bray, r. h. and kurtz, l.t. 1945. determination of total organic and available forms of phosphorus on soils. soil sci. 50: 39-45. hossain, a.k.m.a. and haq, n. 2006. jackfruit, artocarpus heterophyllus, field manual for extension worker s and fa r mers, scuc, southampton university, uk. jackson, m. l. 1973. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, ed.2, pp. 82-111. jackson, w.l. 1967. soil chemical analysis, prentice hall of india pvt. ltd., new delhi, pp. 183-192. klein, i. and s .a. weinbaum. 1984. foliar application of urea to olive: translocation of urea nitrogen as influenced by sink demand and nitrogen deficiency. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 109: 356– 360. piper, c.s. 1956. soil and plant analysis. waite agric. res.ins. south australia. tandon, h.l.s. 1987. fertilizer recommendations for horticultural crops in india – a guidebook. fer tilizer development a nd consultation organisation, new delhi, india. pp. 112. usherwood, n. r. 1985. the role of potassium in crop quality. in: potassium in agriculture. ed. munson, r.s., asa-cssa-sssa, madison, wi, pp. 489-513. influence of nutrient source on yield, quality and economics of seed production in vegetable cowpea (vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis) sheeba rebecca isaac* and babu mathew kerala agricultural university farming systems research station, sadanandapuram kottarakkara, kollam 691 531, kerala, india *e-mail: sheebarebecca@yahoo.co.in abstract field investigation was carried out to study the influence of different sources of nutrients on seed production in vegetable cowpea (vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis) during 2010-11 in randomized block design, with twelve combinations of nutrient sources. results showed significant variation in seed yield potential in the crop. highest seed yield (435.97kg ha-1) was recorded in the treatment where recommended npk dose for the seed crop was applied along with vermicompost at 50 per cent nitrogen substitution. yield attributes were found non-significant, but had a positive influence on seed yield. germination percentage and 100-seed weight was significantly higher in treatments receiving a combination of vermicompost and poultry manure. benefit:cost analysis revealed that 50 per cent n substitution with vermicompost and 25% n with poultry manure were the most profitable in cowpea seed production. key words: economics, integrated, nitrogen, quality seed, vermicompost j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):72-75, 2016 short communication cowpea (vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis) is one of the most popularly grown vegetable crops in southern kerala on account of its high yield and market preference. local varieties predominate in the market, but recent trends show a shift towards preference for improved and newer varieties released from various research institutions. non-availability of quality seeds in adequate quantity and in time has hampered adoption of improved varieties. quality seed is a pre-requisite in crop production, as, nearly 25 per cent of the yield realized in the crop is decided by quality of the seed material used (kau, 1991). conjunctive use of good quality seeds with inputs like water, fertilizer and plant protection chemicals can help tap the superior genetic potential of high-yielding varieties and accrue benefit to the farmer (kannaiyan, 2005). it is in this background that an experiment was envisaged with an objective of exploring the influence of various nutrient sources on seed production in vegetable cowpea and assessing the economics of integrating different nutrient sources. the experiment was laid out in kollam district, kerala (9016’n latitude, 76037’e longitude, 91.44m above msl) during october 2010 january 2011 in randomized block design, with 12 treatments replicated thrice, involving different nutrient sources. ‘vellyani jyothika’ variety released from kerala agricultural university was used in the study. this variety is characterized by long, light-green pods with seeds tinged cream and red. the soil was ultisol lateritic with 0.65% organic carbon, and, 257.15, 7.89 and 45.75kg ha -1 available n, p and k, respectively. recommended dose (rd) of npk for cowpea seed crop (25:30:12.5kg ha-1) was adopted as per kau, 2007. the experiment constituted twelve treatments, viz., t1 100% rd as chemicals; t2 25% rd n and k as foliar spray; t3 50% of rd n and k as foliar spray; t4 25% n as vermicompost; t5 25% rd n as poultry manure; t6 25% rd n as vermicompost + poultry manure; t7 50% rd n as vermicompost; t8 50% rd n as poultry manure; t9 50% rd n as vermicompost + poultry manure; t10 100% rd with organic sources; t11 150% rd as chemical fertilizers; t12 150% rd with organic sources. chemical and organic manures were applied (alone, or in combinations as per treatments) in three splits: basal, one month after planting, and after the first harvest. full dose of phosphorus was applied at the time of sowing. the first two harvests were made for use of cowpea as vegetable, and thereafter, the fruits were left on the plant for maturation. four pickings 73 influence of nutrient source in vegetable and seed cowpea production of mature pods were undertaken for seed extraction, and, the last-formed fruits were harvested as vegetable. mature pods were dried in the open, avoiding peak sunshine hours during noon. seeds were extracted and dried to safe a moisture level (5-7%) in a seed drier and observations were made on germination percentage, 100-seed weight and vigour index. the observations recorded were analyzed statistically for variation among treatments as per gomez and gomez (1983). cost of cultivation and returns were worked out to compute benefit:cost ratio for comparison between treatments. data on fruit yield, yield attributes and seed yield in cow pea fertilized with various combinations of nutrient sources are presented in table 1. data revealed that influence of the nutrient source on vegetable and mature pod yield, and pod characters, were not significant; but, the effect on seed yield was significant. seed yield was significantly higher when vermicompost was used for 50 per cent n substitution (435.97kg ha-1), which was on par with full organics (421.75 and 409.33kg ha-1) and 25 per cent substitution with poultry manure (413.38kg ha-1). vegetable yield and mature pod yield also followed a similar trend as seed yield, confirming the response to integration of sources. it was also observed that inclusion of organic manures significantly improved seed yield in cow pea. however, substitution level varied with type of manure used. in the treatment concerning integrated application, chemical fertilizers may have supplied initial nutrient requirement, and, the organic sources would have supplied the nutrients at seed maturation stages. increased availability of nutrients to plants with application of organics may have even enhanced the efficiency of the n and p applied. keiko et al (1997) reported efficiency of inorganic manures applied as more pronounced when combined with organic fertilizers. similar results were reported by pandey et al (1980) in okra, chavan et al (1997) and suagundi (2000) in chilli and rekha and gopalakrishnan (2001) in bitter gourd. a positive effect of organic manures, vermicompost and poultry manure on seed yield has been documented earlier (singh et al, 1997; channabasanagowda et al, 2008; menon et al, 2010). the differential action observed may be attributed to differences in mineralization rate and availability of the nutrients to the plants throughout their growth period. yield attributes, pod size, pod weight, number of seeds per fruit and seed weight, also substantiate higher yields recorded in these treatments. poultry manure at 25% substitution was found to be ideal for good seed yield but, at 50% substitution, the concentrated form and the uric acid present may have affected mother plant growth in the early stages, and have had a bearing on yielding ability of the mother crop. among seed quality parameters, germination percentage did not vary significantly with nutrient source (table 2), while, 100-seed weight, vigour index and moisture content showed significant variation. lowest vigour in seeds was recorded in the treatment t8 at 50% n substitution with poultry manure, and with 150% recommended dose applied as chemical fertilizer (t11). the economics of seed production with the different sources of nutrients was worked out as the benefit:cost ratio (table 3) and it was proven that irrespective of the treatment, bc ratio were more than one, the maximum being with 50 per cent pop nitrogen as vermicompost (2.09) on par with 25 % n substitution with poultry manure (2.00) and 100 % nutrients as chemicals (2.05) for the seed crop. organic nutrition recorded significantly lower values for the bc ratios. detailed analysis revealed that chemical fertilizer, despite resulting in lower yields, gave a high b:c ratio due to lower cost of cultivation. in the treatments with organic manure, cost of cultivation was 16 to 39.80% higher, as, these were considered as purchased inputs. nutrient content table 1. influence of nutrient source on yields and pod characters in cowpea treatment vegetable mature pod pod pod yield pod yield length girth weight (kg ha-1) (kg ha-1) (cm) (cm) (g) t1 100% rd as 187.92 594.00 30.53 2.60 6.71 chemical fertilizer t2 25% rdn & 199.00 580.25 31.33 2.30 7.87 k foliar t3 50% rdn & 239.98 627.00 32.40 2.10 6.83 k foliar t4 25% rdn as vc 206.58 466.58 30.60 2.23 7.28 t5 25% rdn as pm 242.92 781.00 28.67 1.80 9.72 t6 25% rdn as 172.33 668.25 29.87 1.53 7.49 vc+pm t7 50% rdn as vc 203.50 800.25 32.83 1.68 7.51 t8 50% rdn as pm 160.42 550.00 30.50 1.63 5.85 t9 50% rdn as 214.67 577.13 32.73 1.67 5.62 vc+pm t10 100% rd as om 196.00 671.00 32.07 1.63 7.31 t11 150% rd as 187.92 603.17 29.97 1.90 7.98 chemical fertilizer t12 150% rd as om 184.10 670.08 30.33 1.47 7.02 cd (p=0.05) ns ns ns ns ns vcvermicompost; pmpoultry manure; omorganic manure; nsnon-significant j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):72-75, 2016 74 in organic materials varies greatly; vermicompost used in the study was prepared from crop residues including the banana pseudostem, leguminous materials and grasses, and contained 0.8 per cent nitrogen; while, poultry manure contained 1.2% n. this added to the quantum of material required and, hence, to the cost of cultivation. as a result, benefit:cost ratio, despite higher yield and gross returns, was narrowed down, especially when compared to use of chemicals. organic nutrition, despite comparable yields, recorded lower profits on this account. this clearly proves that unless organic manures are produced in situ by the farmer, cost of cultivation would remain high, and b:c may could be even negative (incurring loss) despite reaping very good harvests. reports of sheela et al (2010) are in conformity with this observation. our study brings to light the importance of integration of nutrient sources for seed production in cow pea. best yields can be realized by integrating chemical fertilizers with vermicompost, with requirement for nitrogen of the seed crop being met @ 50 per cent each from the two sources. the recommendation would be more economical if the vermicompost were produced in situ at the farm itself. organic cultivation of cowpea seed crop can also be recommended with availability of various nutrients sources that can be integrated for commercial production. references channabasangowda, n.k., patil, b.n., patil, j.s., awaknavar, b.t. and hunje, r. 2008. effect of organic manures on growth, seed yield and quality of wheat. karnataka j. agril. sci., 21:366-368 chavan, p.j., syedismail, g.b., malewar, g. and baig, m.i. 1997. effect of various nitrogen levels through fym and urea on yield, uptake of nutrients and ascorbic acid content in chilli (capsicum annuum l.). j. indian soc. soil sci., 45:833-835 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a.a. 1983. statistical procedures for agricultural research. john wiley & sons, inc., canada kannaiyan, s. 2005. participatory approached in quality seed production. in: recent techniques and participatory approaches on quality seed production. vanangamudi, k., natarajan, n., natesan, p., natarajan, k., bharathi, a., jerlin, r. and saravanan, t. (eds), t.3-5, kalyani publishers, new delhi, india kau (kerala agricultural university). 2007. package of practices recommendatins: crops. 13th edition, kerala agricultural university, thrissur, kerala, india kau technical bulletin no. 20. 1991. tips on vegetable seed production. rajan, s. (ed), kau press, thrissur, kerala, india keiko, i., nunomura,o., nakamura, n., matsufuji, h. and table 2. seed yield and quality characters as influenced by various nutrient sources in cowpea treatment seed 100 germination vigour moisture yield seed (%) index (%) (kgha-1) weight (g) t1 100% rd as 351.77 16.48 89.81 2275.67 7.07 chemical fertilizer t2 25% rdn & 359.74 16.22 93.27 1851.33 6.30 k foliar t3 50% rdn & 355.67 14.19 86.60 2058.00 6.77 k foliar t4 25% rdn 284.53 15.61 93.27 2329.00 6.67 as vc t5 25% rdn 413.38 17.05 96.61 2797.33 5.87 as pm t6 25% rdn 358.04 17.73 89.81 1994.00 6.63 as vc+pm t7 50% rdn 435.97 16.47 89.81 1910.67 7.57 as vc t8 50% rdn 284.44 14.28 83.27 1669.00 6.03 as pm t9 50% rdn 333.13 15.33 96.61 2194.00 5.70 as vc+pm t10 100 % rd 421.75 17.14 93.27 2198.00 6.00 as om t11 150% rd as 318.54 15.05 79.79 1733.33 6.10 chemical fertilizer t12 150% rd 409.33 16.16 96.61 2266.67 5.93 as om cd (p=0.05) 82.28 0.56 ns 904.55 0.73 vcvermicompost; pmpoultry manure; omorganic manure; nsnon-significant table 3. cost of cultivation of seed crop in cowpea and benefit:cost ratio under various nutrient sources treatment cost of b:c ratio cultivation (rs. ha-1) t1 100% rd as chemical fertilizer 206300 2.07 t2 25% rdn & k foliar 218800 2.00 t3 50% rdn & k foliar 231300 1.87 t4 25% rdn as vc 239310 1.45 t5 25% rdn as pm 244960 2.05 t6 25% rdn as vc+pm 246685 1.76 t7 50% rdn as vc 253020 2.09 t8 50% rdn as pm 246120 1.40 t9 50% rdn as vc+pm 249570 1.62 t10 100 % rd as om 282140 1.81 t11 150% rd as chemical fertilizer 219520 1.76 t12 150% rd as om 288360 1.72 cd (p=0.05) 0.054 vcvermicompost; pmpoultry manure; omorganic manure; nsnon-significant sheeba rebecca isaac and babu mathew j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):72-75, 2016 75 takeda, h. 1997. high ascorbic acid content in the fruits of a deep-green cultivar of capsicum annuum throughout the fruit development. capsicum and eggplant newslett., 16:52-55 menon, m.v., reddy, d., bhaskar, prameela, p. and krishnankutty, j. 2010. seed production in vegetable cow pea [vigna unguiculata (l.) walp.] under integrated nutrient management legume res., 33(4):299-301 pandey, v.c., lal, s., pandita, m.l. and singh, g. 1980. effect of nitrogen and phosphorus levels on seed production of okra (abelmoschus esculentus l. moench.). haryana j. hortl. sci., 9(3-4):165-169 rekha, c.r. and gopalakrishnan, j.r. 2001. effect of levels and frequencies of organic manures and inorganic fertilizers on growth and productivity of bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). south indian hort., 49:137-139 sheela, k.r., lakshmi, s., shehana, r.s., pushpakumari, r. and nandakumar, c. 2010. performance of intercrops as influenced by sources and levels of nutrients in coconut based cropping systems. geobios, 37(1):13-16 singh, j.b., sreekrishna, b. and sundharaman, m.r. 1997. performance of scotch bonnet chilli in karnataka and its response to vermicompost. indian cocoa, areca nut and spices j., 21:9-10 sutagundi, r.b. 2000. effect of mulches and nutrient management on growth and yield of chilli (capsicum annuum l.). m.sc. (agri.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, karnataka, india j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):72-75, 2016 (ms received 16 august 2014, revised 06 december 2015, accepted 18 january 2016) influence of nutrient source in vegetable and seed cowpea production j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):136-142, 2015 factors affecting in vitro shoot regeneration in hypocotyls of brinjal (solanum melongena l.) in the early steps of agrobacterium-mediated transformation d.p. prakash, y.l. ramachandra1 and vageeshbabu s. hanur2* college of horticulture, munirabad-583 233, koppal university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, india *e-mail: vageesh@iihr.ernet.in abstract an attempt was made to assess the effect of size, age and position of the explant, pre-culture and high cytokinin concentration in the pre-culture medium on shoot regeneration in brinjal hypocotyls co-cultivated with agrobacterium. the study was carried out using hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota, agrobacterium strain a208 and shoot regeneration medium (full-strength basal ms medium, 2μμμμμm bap + 0.05μμμμμm naa, 3% sucrose and 0.8% agar) containing cefotaxime (250-500mg l-1) and kanamycin (100mg l-1). hypocotyl explants showed callus initiation and shoot regeneration response after 10-12 and 20-22 days of culture, respectively. five-day-old explants did not survive agrobacterium infection, and ten-day-old explants showed higher shoot regeneration (29±1.91%) than older explants. explants of medium size (1cm long; 32±2.62%) from the apical region (38.57±2.61%) showed better shootregeneration ability than explants of any other size or region. a period of four days of pre-culture (33.33±3.76) was optimal best for best shoot-regeneration in hypocotyl explants. no regeneration was seen in hypocotyl explants at shorter or longer pre-culture period. high cytokinin (10μμμμμm) in shoot regeneration medium during pre-culture enhanced shoot regeneration response (47.27±2.98%) in explants co-cultivated with agrobacterium. effects of various factors documented in this study will be useful in developing an efficient agrobacterium-mediated transformation protocol in brinjal cv. manjarigota. key words: eggplant, pre-culture on high bap, explant characters, pcr 1department of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta, shimoga-577 451, india, 2division of biotechnology, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india introduction brinjal (eggplant, aubergine, solanum melongena l.) is a principal vegetable crop grown in many geographical parts of the world. india is the second largest producer of brinjal in the world after china. brinjal is as nutritious as any other solanaceous crop, hardy and suitable for growing in varied agroclimatic conditions. it is mainly cultivated in small-family farms and is a source of income for the resource-poor farmer. a vast scope exists for increasing profits from brinjal cultivation (balappa and hugar, 2002), achievable by developing varieties resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses hampering production. of late, plant transformation technology has gained popularity for crop improvement. agrobacterium is a natural genetic engineer, and, is still preferred for plant transformation due to the simplicity of this transformation system and for precise integration of the transgene (veluthambi et al, 2003). brinjal is highly responsive to in vitro culture via organogenic or embryogenic pathways (collonier et al, 2001). agrobacterium-mediated transformation has been successfully used for producing transgenic plants. also, efforts have been made to work out agrobacterium-and culture medium-related factors on in vitro response (magioli and mansur, 2005). however, poor survival of explants, drastic reduction and high variation in shoot regeneration response in agrobacterium co-cultivated explants, are major drawbacks in the existing transformation protocols. in some cases, highly efficient in vitro regeneration protocols greatly reduced or failed to regenerate shoots after agrobacterium co-cultivation (magioli et al, 2000; billings et al, 1997; chen et al, 1995). this may be due to unfavourable conditions at various steps in plant transformation such as explant character, high concentration of antibiotics, prolonged agrobacterium co-cultivation, etc., leading to necrotic response in explants. improving shoot regeneration frequency of transformation, therefore, is one of the major challenges in brinjal transformation. sanyal et al (2005) reported that a combination of physical and physiological conditions during agro-inoculation, co-cultivation and selection on kanamycin medium were critical determinants, 137 j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):136-142, 2015 factors affecting shoot regeneration in hypocotyls of brinjal resulting in an altered competence for regeneration, cotransformation frequency and elimination of escapes in transformation of a species or genotype. hence, it appears that a comprehensive effort could uncover factors needed for successful transformation, in vitro response of explants along with agrobacterium infection in a cultivar. this would help standardize a transformation protocol favoring high plant recovery from rapid and efficient in vitro shoot regeneration. ‘manjarigota’ is a round-stripe, productive cultivar and is the most preferred in india because of its agreeable taste. we have used this variety as a model plant to study the effects of explant and growth regulators (hanur et al, 2006; prakash et al, 2007a; prakash et al, 2008), antibiotics and gelling agents (prakash et al, 2007b) on in vitro response in hypocotyl explants co-cultivated with agrobacterium. the scope of this study was to investigate the effect of explant characters, pre-culture period and high cytokinin concentration in the pre-culture medium on in vitro response in hypocotyl explants co-cultivated with agrobacterium in brinjal cv. manjarigota. material and methods shoot regeneration medium [srm: full-strength basal ms medium (ms salts, organics and vitamins; murashige and skoog, 1962) containing 2µm bap (bap – 6benzyleaminopurine), 0.05µm naa (naa naphthalene acetic acid), 3% sucrose and 0.8% agar] was used as the culture medium. ph was adjusted to 5.75±0.05 with naoh (sodium hydroxide) or hcl (hydrochloric acid) (0.1n) prior to autoclaving. sterilization of the culture medium and instruments to be used was done by autoclaving at 121°c and 15 pounds per square inch (psi) pressure for 20 minutes. the medium was cooled to under 45°c, antibiotics were added (wherever necessary) and poured into petriplates under a laminar airflow chamber (kirloskar, india). after solidification, the medium was used in the experiments. cultures were incubated at a light intensity (white, fluorescent tubes) of 30-40µe m-2 s-1 under 16h photoperiod in a culture room maintained at 25± 2°c. genuine breeder-seeds of brinjal cv. manjarigota (a predominant, year-round bearing, locally well-adapted and preferred brinjal type in india) were obtained from division of vegetable crops, icar-iihr (indian institute of horticultural research), bengaluru. after removing the apical meristem and basal stubs of the aseptically-germinated seedlings, hypocotyls (prakash et al, 2007a) were used as the source of explants. experiments on assessing the effect of various factors on in vitro response were carried out using a procedure representing the conditions in transformation studies. singlecolony of agrobacterium tumefaciens a208 strain (source: nrc on plant biotechnology, new delhi) was inoculated onto yeast extract mannitol broth (yemb-mannitol 10gl-1, yeast extract 0.4gl--1, nacl 0.1 gl--1, mgso4. 7h2o 0.2gl1 and k2hpo4 0.5gl-1) containing kanamycin (sigma, usa; 50mgl-1), incubated in a shaker at 180rpm (rotations per minute) under 28±1°c, agrobacterium culture grown overnight spun at 5000rpm for 5 minutes, the supernatant discarded, bacterial pellet dissolved in sterile, liquid halfstrength ms medium, cell concentration measured at optical density of 600 nanometer (od600) using a spectrophotometer (biorad, usa); 0.3-0.5 od600 culture was prepared using sterile, liquid half-strength ms medium, for further use. fifteen to twenty day-old, medium sized (1cm) hypocotyl explants were placed on srm in petri plates for pre-culture for two days. explants were collected in a sterile petri plate and immersed for 10-15 minutes in agrobacterium culture (0.3-0.5 od600) for infection. the explants were then blotted onto sterile tissue-paper towels to remove excess agrobacterium placed back onto the medium used for pre-culture, and incubated for co-cultivation for two days. the explants were then transferred onto a fresh culture medium containing cefotaxime (taxim, india; 500mgl-1) for the next two days. finally, these were transferred onto a culture medium containing cefotaxime (250mgl-1) and kanamycin (100mgl-1). to study the effect of age of the explant, hypocotyl explants 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 days old were cultured; to study the effect of size of the explant, hypocotyl explants of small size (0.5cm), medium size (1cm), large size (1.5cm) and very large size (2cm) were cultured; to study the effect of position of the explant, the entire hypocotyl (stem) was divided into three segments, namely, apical, middle and basal region, and cultured; to study the effect of pre-culture, the hypocotyl explants were cultured on srm for 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 days prior to infection with agrobacterium; to study the effect of high cytokinin concentration in the preculture medium, hypocotyl explants were pre-cultured on srm without bap (0µm), on basal srm, and on srm containing high bap concentrations (10, 20, 30 or 40µm). effect of all these factors was assessed by the abovementioned experimental procedure. in addition, hypocotyl explants were cultured on srm without agrobacterium co-cultivation as a control, along with all the other experiments. regenerated shoots were transferred onto shoot elongation medium (sem: srm containing 100mgl-1 138 cefotaxime and 50mgl-1 kanamycin) in culture tubes. shoots with a well-developed primary meristem were transferred onto root induction medium (rim: ms medium supplemented with 5µm iba + 0.1µm bap, 3% sucrose, 0.8% agar, 50mgl-1 cefotaxime and 25mgl-1 kanamycin in culture tubes. adequate number of explants and replications were used in all the experiments. each experiment was repeated at least thrice. observations were recorded on callusinitiation (bulge near the cut-end) and shoot regeneration response at four weeks after culture. frequency (%) of callus-initiation response (number of explants showing callus-initiation response/ number of explants cultured x 100) and frequency (%) of shoot regeneration response (number of explants showing regeneration response/ number of explants cultured x 100) was calculated. percentage data was subjected to angular transformation and, then, subjected to analysis of variance (anova) to test the significance of results obtained. comparison between mean values of treatment was made by least significant difference (lsd) method to identify the best treatment. frequency (%) of elongated shoots and root-induction was calculated. molecular analysis of the transformants was carried out using pcr for confirmation for presence of the marker transgene. good quality dna was isolated from 10 putative transformants using ctab method, and pcr was carried out with antibiotic-specific forward primer (npt-f) 5’ gatggattgcacgcagg 3’ and reverse primer (nptr) 3’ gaaggcgatagaaggcg 5’ to confirm the presence of the transgene. pcrs were performed in a total volume of 25ml, comprising 2.5µl of 10x reaction buffer containing 15mm mgcl2 (genetix), 0.25µl of 10 mm dntps mixture (genetix), 1µl of each primer (10µm, mwg), 0.33µl of taq dna polymerase (genetix), 2.0µl (100-200 ng) of dna sample and 17.92µl of sterile water. as a positive control, 2.0µl of pbinbt-01 dna was used. nontransformed plant dna and sterilized water samples were used as the negative control. pcr was carried out in mwgr pcr system (mwg, germany). dna was denatured at 94oc for 5 min, followed by 35 amplification cycles. each cycle was programmed with three different thermal periods: at 94°c for 1 min to denature dna, at 56oc for 40 sec to anneal the primers, and at 72oc for 1 min for the extension of dna by taq dna polymerase. the final extension lasted for 5 min at 72oc. the amplified product was mixed with 6x loading buffer (30% sucrose, 0.05% xylene cyanol and 0.05% bromophenol blue), and loaded along with 500bp (base pair)/0.5 kb (kilo base pair) ladder (genei, bangalore) onto 1.2% agarose gel containing ethidium bromide (0.001%). electrophoresis was conducted at 50 volts for five hours, and the gel was photographed under uv light using alpha digi doc system (herolab, germany). gels were scored for presence or absence of the expected size of the amplified product. results and discussion in the present study, hypocotyl explants cultured without co-cultivation with agrobacterium on srm showed callus-initiation and shoot regeneration response at 4-5 and 10-12 days, respectively, of culture initiation. these showed 70-80% shoot-regeneration response. agrobacterium cocultivated hypocotyl explants showed callus initiation and shoot regeneration response at 10-12 days and 20-22 days, respectively, of culture. explants gave rise to shoots at one end and adventitious roots at the other, indicating polarity. as expected, there was a delay and drastic reduction in shoot-regeneration response (fig. 1a, 1b and 2) in agrobacterium co-cultivated explants. magioli et al (2000) observed similar results in earlier studies. however, we made a few interesting observations on causes for poor survival of explants, on delay and drastic reduction in shoot fig. 1. a) in vitro shoot regeneration response without agrobacterium treatment on srm, and b) with agrobacterium cocultivation on srm containing kanamycin (100mgl-1) and cefotaxime (250mgl-1); c) shoot elongation on srm containing kanamycin (50mgl-1) and cefotaxime (100mgl-1); d) rooting on rim containing kanamycin (25mgl-1) and cefotaxime (50mgl-1); e) hardened plant; f) pcr amplification of ~0.9kb nptii gene (arrow) in transformed lines of eggplant (lane: m1kb marker ladder (genetix); wt-wild type; p-plasmid dna; 1-12putative transformants) c prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):136-142, 2015 139 regeneration response in agrobacterium co-cultivated explants, which are discussed below. compton (2000) suggested that measures should be taken to use explants of adequate size to ensure that sufficient number of competent cells are present to support cell division and organogenesis, especially in situations that generate cellular stress (e.g., cell culture and genetic transformation). therefore, optimum explants-size is vital in achieving good regeneration, especially upon agrobacterium co-cultivation. in our study, medium-sized (1cm) explants showed higher shoot regeneration response (32±2.62%) than the other sizes of explants tested, upon agrobacterium co-cultivation (fig. 3). similarly, reduction in shoot-regeneration response (frary and earle, 1996) and variation in explants-survival age of hypocotyl explant (days) fig. 2. effect of age of hypcotyl explant on shoot regeneration response in brinjal cv. manjarigota upon co-cultivation with agrobacterium (cd-0.701; significant at p ≤≤≤≤≤ 0.01) size of hypocotyl explant (cm) fig. 3. effect of size of hypocotyl explant on shoot regeneration response in brinjal cv. manjarigota upon co-cultivation with agrobacterium (cd-1.92; significant at p ≤≤≤≤≤ 0.01) position of hypocotyl explant fig. 4. effect of position of hypocotyl explant on shoot regeneration response in brinjal cv. manjarigota upon co-cultivation with agrobacterium (cd-2.72; significant at p ≤≤≤≤≤ 0.01) (lazzeri and dunwell, 1986; frary and earle, 1996) was observed, with increasing or decreasing size of the explant. in the present study, explants from the apical region showed 5-6 days earlier (14-16 days after culture) and higher (38.57±2.61%) shoot-regeneration response than explants from the middle and basal regions. regeneration response decreased from the apical (upper) to the basal (lower) region of hypocotyl (fig. 4). similarly, apical ends of stem segments produced regenerated buds and shoots, while, the basal ends produced only friable callus upon agrobacterium cocultivation in a study by billings et al (1997). this type of differential response from hypocotyl explants from different positions in tissue culture could be due to differences in an endogenous hormonal gradient (sharma and rajam, 1995). faster and better shoot-regeneration from the proximal end of the hypocotyl explants is perhaps due to production of new shoot apical meristem (curuk et al, 2002). further, cultured explants usually exhibit polarity in cell proliferation and morphogenesis relative to the position of an organ (or piece of tissue) on the intact plant (george, 1993). however, explants from the apical region were found to show early and high shoot-regeneration response. in the present study, explants showed no regeneration when ‘no’ or ‘short’ (0-1 day) pre-culture period was allowed. the explants gradually turned yellow at the cutend which progressed towards the middle of the explants. highest regeneration-response was obtained at four days (33.00± 4.04%) pre-culture (table 1). similarly, no regeneration was obtained in hypocotyl explants (co-cultivated without agrobacterium) at short pre-culture; factors affecting shoot regeneration in hypocotyls of brinjal j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):136-142, 2015 140 longer pre-culture period was also not beneficial in brinjal (kumar and rajam, 2005), and, two days’ preculture was employed in most of the previously reported transformation studies in various genotypes. non-competent cells could be made competent by pre-culture of explants on appropriate plant growth factors prior to agrobacterium infection (nehra et al, 1990). it appears that specific pre-culture conditions are required depending upon the explant type (ling et al, 1998), and crop and genotype (fari et al, 1995) for improved regeneration upon agrobacterium co-cultivation. however, our study showed that four days (26.33±3.76) of pre-culture was optimal for best shoot-regeneration in hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota. in our study, pre-culture on high cytokinin (bap) medium did not affect callus-initiation response (98-100%), whereas, it affected shoot-regeneration response significantly. inclusion of bap in the pre-culture medium enhanced shoot-regeneration response (fig. 5). hypocotyl explants pre-cultured on a culture medium containing 10ìm bap showed the highest shoot-regeneration response (47.27±2.98%). similarly, high cytokinin (kinetin) pretreatment was shown to improve shoot-regeneration efficiency in agrobacterium-mediated transformation in tomato (chy and philips, 1987). however, in our study, further increase in bap (>10ìm) in the pre-culture medium resulted in reduced shoot-regeneration response than in the pre-culture medium containing 2ìm bap (srm). herath et al (2005) obtained similar results using high concentrations of bap in culture medium in kenaf. further, in this study, shoots regenerated in cultures pre-cultured on srm containing concentrations of bap higher than 10ìm were gigantic (thick stem with broad leaves) and leathery in nature. in the present study, regenerated shoots in various experiments were healthy, green and showed improvement in growth through subcultures onto srm containing kanamycin, and these elongated (75.63% of regenerated shoots; data not shown; fig. 1c) and rooted (80.46% of elongated shoots; data not shown; fig. 1d) on a culture medium containing kanamycin, which shows their resistance to kanamycin, while control shoots (regenerated without agrobacterium treatment) showed stunted growth, and, gradually turned yellow due to chlorosis, in the culture medium. rooted plantlets were hardened. transformed plants were morphologically normal and fertile (fig. 1e). as for molecular analysis of transformants using pcr, amplification of the expected size of 750bp pcr products for nptii gene was observed in both the transformants (78.58%) and in the positive control (fig. 1f), which showed presence of the transgene. no amplification was found in the negative controls (untransformed plant and water control). in conclusion, physical (size) and physiological (age and position) of the hypocotyl explant and high cytokinin (bap) in the pre-culture medium showed a strong impact on shoot regeneration response in hypocotyl explants of brinjal co-cultivated with agrobacterium. pre-culture period was found to influence survival of explants as well shoot regeneration response, and, high cytokinin in the pre-culture table 1. in vitro response in hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota pre-cultured for various durations pre-culture callus-initiation regeneration score of remarks period frequency (%) frequency (%) sensitivity (% dried (days) of explants shoots) 0 100 00.00 ± 0.00 b/d 1 100 00.00 ± 0.00 b/d 2 100 26.33c ± 3.76 h 3 100 28.33b ± 2.33 h/y 23.07 4 100 33.00a ± 4.04 h/y 46.66 5 100 08.80d ± 2.23 h/y 75.00 6 100 00.00 ± 0.00 h/y 7 100 00.00 ± 0.00 h/y 8 100 00.00 ± 0.00 h/y control 100 74.46 ± 3.94 h nil (without co-cultivation) cd 1.154** **significant at p ≤ 0.01; *appearance of agrobacterium overgrowth; b-brown; d-dead; h-healthy; y-yellowing; ag+: agrobacterium colonization starting around the explant; ag++: prominent agrobacterium overgrowth around the explant; ag+++: agrobacterium overgrowth covering the explant hormone combination and concentration (bap/naa μm) fig. 5. effect of high cytokinin (bap) on shoot regeneration response in hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota upon cocultivation with agrobacterium (cd-19.05; significant at p ≤≤≤≤≤ 0.01) prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):136-142, 2015 141 medium was found to enhance shoot regeneration response in hypocotyl explants of brinjal. testing out effects of these factors in other genotypes and types of explant would help better understand and improve in in vitro shoot regeneration response in explants of brinjal co-cultivated with agrobacterium. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, iihr, for encouragement. references balappa, s.r. and hugar, l.b. 2002. an economic evaluation of brinjal production and its marketing system in karnataka. agril. market, 44:45-49 billings, s., jelenkovic, g., chin, c.k. and eberhadt, j. 1997. the effect of growth regulation and antibiotics on eggplant transformation. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 122:158-162 carman, j., jefferson, n. and cambell, w. 1988. induction of embryogenic triticum aestivum l. calli. ii: quantification of organic 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kaushik, m. and amla, d.v. 2005. agrobacterium-mediated transformation of chickpea (cicer arietinum l.) with bacillus thuringiensis cry1ac gene for resistance against pod borer insect helicoverpa armigera. pl. sci., 168:1135-1146 sharma, p. and rajam, m.v. 1995. genotype, explant and position effects on organogenesis and embryogenesis in eggplant (solanum melongena l.). j. expt’l. bot., 46:135-141 veluthambi, k., gupta, k.a. and sharma, a. 2003. the current status of plant transformation technologies. curr. sci., 84:368-379 (ms received 07 may 2014, revised 03 august 2015, accepted 07 august 2015) prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 10(2):136-142, 2015 effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on soil temperature, growth, earliness and yield of brinjal under net-house and open field in plains of north-western india ajmer singh dhatt, naveen garg*, rajinder singh and i. s. aujla department of vegetable science, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana 141 004, india *e-mail: naveengargpau@gmail.com abstract a two-year study was conducted to compare the performance of brinjal hybrid bh-2 using paddy straw mulch @ 6 t ha-1, clear plastic mulch (25 µm), black plastic mulch (25 µm), plastic low tunnel and control (bare soil) under net-house and open field at punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india. the maximum increase in morning and afternoon soil temperature over bare soil was observed using black plastic mulch followed by clear plastic mulch in both net-house and open field whereas paddy straw mulch reduced the soil temperature over bare soil in open field. under net house, black and clear plastic mulch were better than other treatments and recorded maximum plant height (50.8 cm and 43.7 cm), number of leaves/plant (64.8 and 64.3), early yield (7.1 and 6.6 t ha-1), number of fruits/plant (16.1 and 14.4) and total yield (57.4 and 55.7 t ha-1), respectively. in open field, plastic low tunnel was the best treatment and recorded maximum plant height (40.4 cm), number of leaves/plant (51.2), early yield (5.9 t ha-1), number of fruits/ plant (14.6) and total yield (58.5 t ha-1). the study offers the scope of enhancing brinjal production in spring and early summer which may be highly profitable for farmers. key words: brinjal, soil temperature, paddy straw mulch, plastic mulch, total yield, sclerotinia rot introduction brinjal (solanum melongena l.) crop requires a long warm season for its growth and fruit maturation and is susceptible to frost. the optimum temperature of 22-30oc is most favourable for its successful production of flowers and fruits and its growth is likely to stop at temperatures below 17oc. in plains of northwestern india, where the winter is severe during december to february, the crop growth is adversely affected due to frost and low night temperature (bhat, 2011). it results in short supply and high market price of fruits during early-february to mid-april. although net-house cultivation has been advocated but the plant growth remain restr icted dur ing winter as the perforations (40 mesh) in the net-house do not allow the inside air temperature to rise much above the open field air temperature (sethi et al, 2009). surface mulches promote early harvest by modifying soil and air microclimate and plastic mulch has been found beneficial in brinjal (singh et al, 2005). the plastic mulch materials made of low-density polymers are mainly used due to its easy processing, excellent chemical resistance, high durability, flexibility and odourless characteristics (espi et al, 2006). it has been reported that black mulch is used during spring season to warm the soil whereas aluminum and white coloured mulches are preferred in summer and autumn seasons because these mulches heat the soil less than black mulch (diaz-perez and batal, 2002). in brinjal, black plastic mulch had been found to stimulate growth, induce earliness, reduce infection rate of verticillium wilt and increase the yield (mooran, 1982; abney and russo, 1997), whereas, organic mulch of dry guinea grass (4 t ha-1) conserved soil moisture particularly in the top 4 cm layer and increased the yield (daisley et al, 1988). however, the influence of mulch colour on crop growth and productivity is postulated to be highly specific and may vary with plant taxa, geographical location, climate and seasonal conditions suggesting that plants grown on coloured mulches respond to factors in addition to the light reflected by the mulch j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 106-112, 2017 original research paper 106 107 mulch type and net house / open field on brinjal parameters j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 106-112, 2017 (mahmoudpour and stapleton, 1997; diaz-perez and batal, 2002). besides, the use of low tunnels (covered with low density plastic sheet) in net-house over the plant rows has also been advocated to generate localized greenhouse effect for faster plant growth, earliness and higher total yield of brinjal (sethi et al, 2009). the present study was conducted to assess the effect of paddy straw mulch, plastic mulch (black and clear) and plastic low tunnel on soil temperature, plant growth parameters, earliness, total yield and incidence of insect-pests and diseases on brinjal in both net-house and open field conditions so as to enhance brinjal production during spring and early summer season in north-western plains of india. material and methods the present study was conducted at vegetable research farm, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana (247 m altitude, 30o 55’ north latitude and 75o 51’ east longitude). the research trial was conducted during rabi seasons of 2006-07 and 200708 to compare the performance of brinjal hybrid bh2, (recommended for cultivation in north-western plain zone by all india coordinated research project on vegetable crops) using paddy straw mulch (psm) @ 6 t ha-1, clear plastic mulch (cpm), black plastic mulch (bpm), plastic low tunnel (plt) and control (bare soil) (bs) in both net-house (40-mesh size) and open field. the thickness of plastic mulch sheet was 25µm. thirty five days old seedlings were transplanted on 90 cm wide beds in early-november in both net-house and open field. each treatment was replicated thrice and comprised two rows of seven plants at an intra row spacing of 30 cm. the plastic low tunnel and various mulch materials were used only during winter months (ea r ly-december to end-febr ua r y), when the temperature was a limiting factor in growth and development of brinjal. t he observa tions wer e recor ded for soil temperature (0c) (at 5 cm soil depth at 0830 hrs and 1430 hrs daily), plant height (in cm at 120 dat and 210 dat), number of leaves plant-1 (at 120 dat), plant spr ea d (in cm a t 210 dat), da ys ta ken fr om transplanting to first picking, early yield (from first two pickings) (t ha-1), fruit number plant-1, total yield (t ha1), plant mortality (%) due to low temperature and frost, plant mortality (%) due to sclerotinia rot, and incidence of shoot & fruit borer (%). the data were analyzed using randomized factorial block design employing standard statistical methods (rangaswamy, 2014). results and discussion morning and afternoon soil temperature (0c) at 5 cm depth in open field conditions, use of psm reduced the soil temperature over bare soil by 0.1-0.90c during morning and by 0.1-1.50c during afternoon hours. on the contrary, plastic mulches and low tunnel increased the soil temperature over bare soil during both morning and afternoon hours. the maximum increase was recorded in bpm closely followed by cpm. the bpm enhanced the soil temperature by 0.7-2.60c and 0.23.30c whereas cpm increased it by 0.2-1.70c and 0. 1-2. 20c dur ing mor ning and a fter noon time, respectively (tables 1 and 2). under net-house, all the treatments enhanced the soil temperature over bare soil during both morning and afternoon hours. the maximum increase was recorded by bpm followed by cpm, whereas plt and psm did not cause any major change in soil temperature. during severe winter that prevailed from third week of january to second week of february, the cumulative effect of net-house and black plastic mulch raised soil temperature by 3.8-5.2oc during morning and by 2.4-4.60c during afternoon time. the cpm was also quite effective and it increased the soil temperature by 0.4-3.40c and 0.2-4.50c during morning and afternoon hours, respectively (tables 1 and 2). significant increase in soil temperature using black and white plastic mulches during winter months over control in brinjal has also been reported by awasthi et al (2006). this increase is higher in clear and dark colours than in the reflective ones such as white, silver or aluminum (rangarajan and ingall, 2001) as the degree of soil warming is correlated with reflectivity of the mulch, the black mulch having the lowest light reflectance while silver mulch having the highest (diaz-perez and batal, 2002). the soil temperature lowering effect of paddy straw mulch in open field could be due to the fact that these mulches allow the cool air of atmosphere to pass through it and do not allow the sunlight to heat the soil underneath during day time. 108 dhatt et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 106-112, 2017 week and month net-house open field psm cpm bpm plt bare soil psm cpm bpm plt bare soil 2nd week of dec. 17.1 18.0 19.6 18.3 17.0 16.5 18.3 17.7 17.0 16.7 3rd week of dec. 16.1 17.3 18.6 16.9 15.4 15.2 17.1 16.8 16.5 15.4 4th week of dec. 16.9 17.2 18.4 16.6 16.8 15.5 17.0 17.2 16.6 15.8 1st week of jan. 15.7 16.6 18.0 16.0 15.6 14.1 16.2 15.9 15.5 14.6 2nd week of jan. 16.2 17.2 18.5 14.4 15.7 13.1 14.6 16.2 12.5 14.0 3rd week of jan. 12.4 14.1 16.1 11.0 12.3 10.0 10.9 12.7 10.8 10.7 4th week of jan. 10.2 12.4 15.6 10.0 10.4 09.4 10.8 11.2 10.4 10.0 1st week of feb. 11.5 14.0 16.0 12.0 11.8 10.1 11.6 13.0 11.8 10.4 2nd week of feb. 10.7 14.2 16.0 12.0 10.8 09.7 11.6 12.0 10.6 10.0 3rd week of feb. 16.2 18.0 20.0 16.7 16.0 14.5 16.0 16.0 16.0 14.7 4th week of feb. 17.3 19.3 20.0 18.0 17.7 15.2 16.0 16.0 16.0 15.3 1st week of march 20.1 21.0 22.0 20.0 20.0 18.9 20.0 21.0 20.0 19.0 2nd week of march 21.8 21.6 21.6 21.6 21.6 18.9 19.0 19.0 19.0 19.0 mean 15.6 17.0 18.5 15.7 15.5 13.9 15.3 15.7 14.8 14.3 psm= paddy straw mulch, cpm= clear plastic mulch, bpm= black plastic mulch, plt= plastic low tunnel table 1. effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on weekly morning soil temperature (oc) at 5 cm depth in net-house and open field in north-western plains of india week and month net-house open field psm cpm bpm plt bare soil psm cpm bpm plt bare soil 2nd week of dec. 20.3 21.0 21.2 19.8 19.7 18.6 20.8 20.2 19.2 18.8 3rd week of dec. 19.5 22.9 21.2 20.1 18.4 19.7 21.0 20.6 18.4 20.0 4th week of dec. 19.7 23.0 21.9 20.6 19.0 20.0 21.0 21.8 19.8 20.7 1st week of jan. 19.8 23.2 21.4 19.2 19.2 19.6 21.2 21.2 19.2 20.0 2nd week of jan. 18.6 20.5 22.1 16.7 18.3 18.1 19.8 20.3 14.4 18.7 3rd week of jan. 16.8 20.0 22.0 13.9 17.4 16.4 16.8 18.1 13.7 17.9 4th week of jan. 15.7 17.0 18.0 14.0 15.6 13.8 15.0 14.8 10.4 14.0 1st week of feb. 16.2 17.6 19.4 16.0 16.0 16.2 16.8 17.8 15.8 16.4 2nd week of feb. 18.1 19.6 21.0 17.0 17.6 17.8 18.8 20.0 16.6 18.2 3rd week of feb. 23.1 23.3 24.7 20.7 23.3 22.5 22.8 24.0 20.0 22.7 4th week of feb. 24.9 24.3 26.7 22.3 24.1 20.6 22.9 24.0 21.0 20.7 1st week of march 25.2 26.2 28.0 24.0 25.0 24.8 26.8 28.0 24.0 25.0 2nd week of march 26.1 27.8 28.1 28.8 26.8 26.3 27.0 27.3 28.0 26.5 overall mean 20.3 22.0 22.7 19.5 20.0 19.6 20.8 21.4 18.5 20.0 psm= paddy straw mulch, cpm= clear plastic mulch, bpm= black plastic mulch, plt= plastic low tunnel table 2. effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on weekly afternoon soil temperature (oc) at 5 cm depth in net-house and open field in north-western plains of india 109 mulch type and net house / open field on brinjal parameters j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 106-112, 2017 plant growth parameters the comparison of plant growth parameters across two cultivation environments revealed that periodic plant height (120 dat and 210 dat) and number of leaves per plant of brinjal recorded 33.1%, 19.6% and 30.7% increase respectively, under nethouse than open field conditions, whereas plant spread exhibited non-significant differences (table 3). this depicted better growth of plants under net-house conditions which could be primarily due to high air temperature and better photosynthesis under protected cultivation environment. t he mulching and low tunnel treatments improved the growth parameters of brinjal over bare soil. the maximum improvement was noticed in plant height (120 dat) and number of leaves (120 dat), whereas plant height and plant spread at 210 dat recorded values at par with bare soil except with the use of plt. this revealed that during winter months (december to february) when the temperature is not optimum for brinjal growth, mulching and low tunnel treatments are highly beneficial in improving brinjal growth and development. however, since interaction effect was significant, the effect of these treatments varied across two cultivation environments i.e. nethouse and open field. in net-house, bpm, cpm and plt were better than psm in improving growth attributes of brinjal, whereas plt and bpm were better than other treatments in open field. awasthi et al (2006) have also reported an increase of 146.6% & 95.7% in plant height, and 70.2% & 41.7% in plant sprea d using black and white plastic mulches, respectively in brinjal grown under semi-arid conditions. table 3. effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on growth attributes of brinjal in net-house (nh) and open field (of) in north-western plains of india (pooled data of 2 seasons) treatment plant height (cm) plant height (cm) plant spread (cm) number of leaves plant-1 (120 dat) (210 dat) (210 dat) (120 dat) nh of mean nh of mean nh of mean nh of mean psm 40.4 29.6 35.0 107.0 86.1 96.6 81.3 82.7 82.0 36.7 29.3 33.0 cpm 43.7 33.6 38.7 110.8 93.9 102.4 82.4 79.9 81.2 64.3 45.3 54.8 bpm 50.8 36.4 43.6 102.5 89.9 96.2 88.5 74.6 81.6 64.8 49.4 57.1 plt 48.8 40.4 44.6 113.6 94.1 103.9 80.0 94.8 87.4 63.1 51.2 57.2 bare soil 35.3 24.5 29.9 103.8 85.8 94.8 79.9 83.1 81.5 32.9 25.4 29.2 mean 43.8 32.9 107.5 89.9 82.5 83.0 52.4 40.1 cd (p = 0.05) nh vs of (a) 2.2 2.9 ns 2.8 mulch type (b) 3.3 4.4 3.9 4.0 interaction (a x b) 4.7 6.2 5.6 5.7 earliness and yield attributes the mean values shows that brinjal crop raised in net-house took 9.8 days less to first picking along with 74.7%, 140% and 87.7% increase in number of fruits, early yield and total yield, respectively (table 4). this could be due to a little higher temperature in net-house than in open field. the previous studies conducted on tomato (cheema et al, 2004), bell pepper (singh et al, 2004) and brinjal (sidhu and dhatt, 2007) showed considerable increase in early, total and marketable fruit yield in net-house than in open field. the minimum number of days to first picking was taken by cpm and plt in net-house and open field, respectively. in net-house, the use of different mulches resulted in improvement in early yield (55255%), number of fruits per plant (28%-80.9%) and total yield (23.963%) over bare soil. however, in open field, these treatments caused increase or decrease in early yield (0 to 742.8%), number of fruits per plant (-28% to 156%) and total yield (-36% to 219.7%) over control. 110 dhatt et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 106-112, 2017 apparently, bpm, cpm and plt were better than psm in increasing early and total yield of brinjal in net-house, whereas plt was the best among all treatments in open field. this improvement in plant growth, earliness, and yield parameters of brinjal may be attributed to less weed population, conservation of soil moisture, increase in co2 levels in soil, increase in root-zone temperature which ultimately enhances uptake of water and mineral nutrients by the plants (abney and russo, 1997; diaz-perez and batal, 2002; lamont, 2005). in the open field, low tunnel was better than mulches as it protects tender plants from cold winds a nd fr ost a nd pr ovides wa rmer growing temperatures inside the tunnel. awasthi et al (2006) have also reported an increase of 560% & 380% in fruit number, 516.3% & 341.5% in fruit yield over contr ol with bla ck and white pla stic mulches, respectively, in brinjal grown under semi-arid irrigated conditions. incidence of shoot and fruit borer (%) the incidence of shoot and fruit borer was nil in net-house, whereas it varied from 8.4% (plt) to 35.1% (bare soil) in open field conditions (fig. 1). reduced incidence of fruit borer under net-house than in open has also been reported earlier in brinjal (sidhu and dhatt, 2007), tomato (cheema et al, 2004) and bell pepper (singh et al, 2004). this may be due to the reason that treatment days to first picking early yield (t.ha-1) no. of fruits plant-1 total yield (t.ha-1) nh of mean nh of mean nh of mean nh of mean psm 133.7 149.7 141.7 3.1 0.7 1.9 11.4 4.1 7.8 43.6 11.7 27.7 cpm 124.7 139.7 132.2 6.6 1.1 3.9 14.4 7.0 10.7 55.7 21.2 38.5 bpm 129.0 136.0 132.5 7.1 1.4 4.3 16.1 6.1 11.1 57.4 20.4 38.9 plt 128.3 128.5 128.4 5.0 5.9 5.5 14.6 14.6 14.6 52.0 58.5 55.3 bare soil 139.5 150.2 144.9 2.0 0.7 1.4 8.9 5.7 7.3 35.2 18.3 26.8 mean 131.0 140.8 4.8 2.0 13.1 7.5 48.8 26.0 cd (p = 0.05) nh vs of (a) 1.5 0.2 1.1 2.6 mulch type (b) 2.2 0.4 0.8 3.8 interaction (a x b) 3.2 0.5 1.2 5.4 table 4. effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on earliness and yield attributes of brinjal in net-house (nh) and open field (of) in north-western plains of india (pooled data of 2 seasons) net-house acts as a barrier between adults and larvae of shoot and fruit borer and inside grown plants. the reduced attack of shoot and fruit borer under plt in open field may be due to protection cover of plastic tunnel from insect-pest infestation during initial plant growth. plant mortality (%) due to frost and sclerotinia rot in net-house, plant mortality due to frost was not observed in any of the treatments, whereas in open field, all the treatments except plt showed plant mortality, the maximum was observed in psm (36.5%) followed by control (34.7%), cpm (21.2%) and bpm (14.2%) (fig.2). the probable reason for this is that fig. 1. effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on incidence of shoot and fruit borer (%) in brinjal under net-house (nh) and open field (of) in north-western plains of india 111 mulch type and net house / open field on brinjal parameters j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 106-112, 2017 fig. 2. effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on plant mortality (%) due to low temperature and frost in brinjal under net-house (nh) and open field (of) in north-western plains of india (pooled data of 2 seasons) fig. 3. effect of plastic low tunnel and mulch type on plant mortality (%) due to sclerotinia rot in brinjal under net-house (nh) and open field (of) in north-western plains of india (pooled data of 2 seasons) clear plastic tunnels allow sunlight to pass through during the day and slow heat loss from the surface at night. the downward radiation from the sky at night is enhanced by covering the plants. the condensation, which forms underneath the polyethylene, releases latent heat, warms the plastic and provides even more protection. in addition, under advection frost conditions, the plt covers also block the wind and provide protection. on the other hand, psm caused higher plant mortality (36.5%) than did bare soil (34.7%). this could be due to the fact that organic mulches reduce the transfer of heat from ground to surface soil and hence make crops more prone to frost. the incidence of mortality due to sclerotinia rot was not observed in all growing conditions except plt in net-house where 5.3% mortality of plants was recorded (fig. 3). this could be attributed to high relative humidity build-up in low tunnel which along with low temperature (15.5-21.0 oc) and light is considered conducive for sclerotia germination and infection. conclusion in net-house, bpm, cpm and plt were better than psm in improving growth attributes, early and total yield, however, bpm and cpm are recommended for commercial utilization due to incidence (5.3%) of sclerotinia rot under plt. in open field, plt is recommended as it was better than other treatments in improving growth attributes, increasing early and total yield, protecting plants from frost injury, and decreasing the incidence of shoot and fruit borer. 112 dhatt et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 106-112, 2017 abney, t.d. and russo, v.m. 1997. factors affecting pla nt height a nd yield of eggpla nt. j. sustainable agri., 10(4):37-48 awasthi, o.p., singh, i.s. and sharma, b.d. 2006. effect of mulch on soil-hydrothermal regimes, growth and fruit yield of brinjal under arid conditions. ind. j. hort., 63:192-194 bhat, k.l. 2011. brinjal (solanum melongena linn.). daya publishing house, new delhi, pp 108-133 cheema, d.s., kaur, p. and kaur, s. 2004. off-season cultivation of tomato under net house conditions. acta hort., 659:177-181 daisley, l.e.a., chong, s.k., olesen, f.j., singh, l. and george, c. 1988. effect of surface applied grass mulch on soil water content and yield of cowpea and eggplant in antigua. tropical agric., 65(4):300-304 diaz-perez, j.c. and batal, k.d. 2002. colored plastic film mulches affect tomato growth and yield via changes in root-zone temperature. j. amer. soc. hort. sci., 127(1):127-136 espi, e., salmeron, a., fontecha, a., garcia, y. and real, a.i., 2006. plastic films for agricultural applications. j. plast. film sheet., 22:85-102 la mont, w. j. 2005. pla stics: modifying the microclimate for the production of vegetable crops. horttechnol., 15(3):477-481 mahmoudpour, m.a. a nd stapleton, j. j. 1997. influence of sprayable mulch colour on yield of eggpla nt (solanum melongena l. cv. millionaire). sci. hort., 70:331-338 mooran, g.w. 1982. the influence of black plastic mulching on infection rates of verticillium wilt a nd yields of eggpla nts. phytopathol. , 72(11):1412-1414 rangarajan, a. and ingall, b. 2001. mulch colour affects radicchio quality and yield. hort.sci., 36(7):1240-1243 rangaswamy, r. 2014. a textbook of agricultural statistics. new age international (p) limited publishers, new delhi, pp 333-364 sethi, v.p., dubey, r.k. and dhatt, a.s. 2009. design and evaluation of modified screen net house for off-season vegetable raising in composite climate. energy convers. manag., 50:31123128. sidhu, a.s. and dhatt, a.s., 2007. current status of brinjal research in india. acta hort., 752:243247 singh, d., kaur, s., dhillon, t.s., singh, p., hundal, j.s. and singh, g.j. 2004. protected cultivation of sweet pepper hybrids under net-house in indian conditions. acta hort., 659:515-521 singh, i.s., awasthi, o.p., dhandar, d.g. and meena, s.s. 2005. plastic and organic mulching in brinjal. proceedings of international conference on plasticulture and precision farming, held during 17-21st november, 2005, at new delhi, india, p 501. (ms received 26 june 2016, revised 02 november 2017, accepted 20 december 2017 references effect of agrobacterium infection time, co-cultivation and cell density on in vitro response in hypocotyl of eggplant (solanum melongena l.) d.p. prakash, y.l. ramachandra1 and vageeshbabu s. hanur2* college of horticulture university of horticultural sciences, munirabad 583 233 koppal, karnataka, india *e-mail: vageesh@iihr.res.in abstract the present study purports to assess the effect of agrobacterium infection time, co-cultivation and cell density on in vitro response in hypocotyl explants of eggplant (brinjal) cv. manjarigota. agrobacterium (od600 0.3-0.5) infection for 10-15 minutes (24.44±2.34%) was found to be optimum, while, higher or lower infection-time resulted in reduced callus initiation, shoot regeneration and explant survival. explants with no (only agrobacterium infection) or short (1 day) co-cultivation, showed reduced callus-initiation response and turned yellow, with no regeneration. callus-initiation response increased from day 1 (96.66±03.33%), and reached a maximum on day 2 and day 3 (100±00.00%). it decreased on further increase in co-cultivation time. explants co-cultivated for three days showed highest regeneration response (30.00±02.96%) which thereafter reduced with further increase in co-cultivation time. explants infected with agrobacterium culture at 0.05 od600 showed hardly any regeneration, and turned yellow and necrotic on the selection medium. highest regeneration response (28.33±02.33%) was obtained in explants infected with 0.1 od600 culture, and this gradually reduced as celldensity increased (upto 1.0 od600), becoming zero in explants treated with cultures at 1.5 od600 or above. agrobacterium overgrowth was noticed on explants infected with cultures of 0.5 od600 and above. exposure of hypocotyl explants to higher cell-density, longer infection-time and prolonged co-cultivation regime resulted in severe necrosis of explants; time taken for development of agrobacterium overgrowth was less with increase in the level of these factors. regenerated shoots were healthy, green, elongated and showed root induction on culture medium containing kanamycin. key words: eggplant, manjarigota, regeneration, agrobacterium, pcr j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):21-26, 2016 introduction eggplant (brinjal, solanum melongena l.) is an agronomically important non-tuberous solanaceous crop grown primarily for its large, oval fruit. eggplant is native to india and china and was probably introduced into europe by arabian traders and, then, brought to north america by early european settlers. in popular medicine, eggplant is suggested for treatment of several diseases including diabetes, arthritis, asthma and bronchitis. it is becoming increasingly evident that environmental factors such as drought, salinity, extremes of temperature, incident light, heavy metals and biotic stresses have profound effects on brinjal production worldwide. a technology for production of transgenic plants will have an important and powerful impact on some immediate problems such as abiotic stresses and phytopathogen attack, and, could reduce dependence on chemical pesticides or fungicides. plant transformation is an essential tool both for experimental investigation of gene function and for improvement of crops, either by enhancing existing plus traits, or by introducing new genes. the technique of agrobacterium-mediated transformation has proved to be a popular method favored for its practicality, effectiveness and efficiency. it is a widely used technique for gene transfer to various crops and often produces fertile, and morphologically normal, transgenic plants (veluthambi et al, 2003). in the past decades, a large number of research reports on brinjal transformation were published, particularly on optimization of explant-type and source, plant growth regulators for regeneration, pre-culture period, agrobacterium culture concentration, co-cultivation 1department of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta, shimoga 577 451, india 2division of biotechnology, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, india 22 period, agrobacterium virulent gene inducers, and improvement in transformation efficiency (magioli and mansur, 2005; kumar and rajam, 2005). however, no effort has been made to study the effect of agrobacterium infection-time on in vitro response in transformation studies in brinjal and other crops (opabode et al, 2006). previous studies on brinjal indicate a necessity for identifying factors affecting in vitro response to increase in vitro regeneration frequency in agrobacterium co-cultivated explants and, in turn, transformation efficiency to reduce resources for production of transgenic plants in elite cultivars. ‘manjarigota’ is a popular and preferred round-striped brinjal cultivar. we have earlier reported better growth regulator and explant combinations (hanur et al, 2006; prakash et al, 2007a; prakash et al, 2008), gelling agents and concentration of antibiotics (prakash et al, 2007b) in this cultivar. the present study purports to study the effect of agrobacterium infection-time, co-cultivation and cell density on in vitro response in hypocotyl explants for maximizing plant regeneration. material and methods an efficient shoot regeneration medium [srm: fullstrength basal ms medium (ms salts, organics and vitamins); murashige and skoog, 1962] supplemented with 3% sucrose and 0.8% agar, containing 2µm bap (bap – 6-benzyleaminopurine) + 0.05µm naa (naa naphthalene acetic acid) was used (prakash et al, 2008). ph of the medium was adjusted at pre-sterilization to 5.75±0.05 with naoh (sodium hydroxide) or hcl (hydrochloric acid) (0.1n) after addition of growth regulators. sterilization of the culture medium and instruments was done by autoclaving at 21oc and 15psi pressure for 20 minutes. antibiotics were filter-sterilized before adding to the autoclaved medium (wherever necessary). the medium was cooled down to under 45oc, poured into petri plates under a laminar airflow chamber (alpha scientific co., india). after solidification, the media were used in experiments. cultures were maintained in culture racks placed in a culture room at 25± 2°c under 16h photoperiod with a light intensity (white, fluorescent tubes) of 30-40µe m-2s-1. breeder seeds of eggplant cv. manjarigota were obtained from division of vegetable crops, icar-iihr (indian institute of horticultural research), bangalore. hypocotyls from aseptically germinated seedlings (prakash et al, 2008) were used as the source of explants after removing the apical meristem and basal stub. agrobacterium tumefaciens a208 strain harbouring pbinar-1 binary vector containing camv35s (cauliflower mosaic virus 35s promoter) promoter-nptii (neomycin phosphotransferase gene) ocs terminator cassette was employed (source: nrc on plant biotechnology, new delhi) in plant transformation studies. nptii gene conferring kanamycin resistance served as the selectable marker. a single colony of agrobacterium tumefaciens a208 strain (source: nrc, biotechnology, new delhi) was inoculated onto yeast extract mannitol broth (yemb-mannitol 10g l-1, yeast extract 0.4gl--1, nacl 0.1gl--1, mgso4.7h2o 0.2gl--1 and k2hpo4 0.5g l-1) containing kanamycin (sigma, usa; 50 mgl-1) and incubated in a shaker at 180 rpm and 28±1°c. overnight grown culture of agrobacterium was spun at 5000 rpm for 5 minutes, the supernatant discarded, the bacterial pellet dissolved in sterile, liquid half-strength ms medium, cell concentration measured at optical density of 600 nanometer (od600) using spectrophotometer (biorad, usa). thereupon, 0.3-0.5 od600 culture was prepared using sterile, liquid half-strength ms medium for further use. 15-20 days old, medium-sized (1cm) hypocotyl explants were placed on srm in petri plates for pre-culture for two days. explants were collected into a sterile petri plate and immersed for 10-15 minutes in agrobacterium culture (0.3-0.5 od600) for infection. the explants were then blotted onto sterile tissue paper towels to remove any excess agrobacterium culture, placed back onto the medium used for pre-culture, and incubated under co-cultivation for two days. explants were transferred onto a fresh culture medium containing cefotaxime (taxim, india; 500mg l-1) for the next two days, and were finally transferred onto a culture medium containing cefotaxime (250mg l-1) and kanamycin (100mgl-1). further subculture of explants was carried out at ten day intervals onto fresh srm containing cefotaxime (250mgl-1) and kanamycin (100mgl-1). experiments to assess the effect of various factors on in vitro response were carried out to representing conditions in transformation studies, and, the procedure used was as mentioned above. to study the effect of infectiontime, explants were immersed in agrobacterium culture for 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 minutes before cocultivation; to study the effect of co-cultivation, explants were co-cultivated for 0, 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 days before transfer to srm containing cefatoxime; to study the effect of cell-density, explants were treated with bacterial culture containing agrobacterium culture of 0.05, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 od600. in addition, the explants cultured prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):21-26, 2016 23 without agrobacterium treatment on srm and srm containing cefotaxime (250mg l-1) and kanamycin (100mgl-1), served as the controls. adequate number of explants and replications were used in all the experiments. observations were recorded on callus-initiation (a bulge near the cut end) and shoot regeneration response at four weeks. observations on survival of explants, sensitivity of the explants to agrobacterium infection and agrobacterium overgrowth in culture plates, were recorded weekly upto four weeks after culture initiation. observations on shoot elongation were recorded at 3 weeks of subculture. observations on rooting were recorded as and when root induction occurred. frequency (per cent) of callus-initiation response (number of explants showing callus-initiation response/ number of explants cultured x 100) and frequency (per cent) of shoot regeneration response (number of explants showing regeneration response/ number of explants cultured x 100) was calculated. percentage data was subjected to angular transformation and, then, subjected to analysis of variance (anova) to test significance of the observed results. comparison between mean values of treatment was made by least significant difference (lsd) to identify the best treatment. frequency (per cent) of shoot elongation and root induction was calculated. regenerated shoots were transferred onto shoot elongation medium (sem: srm containing 100mgl-1 cefotaxime and 50mgl-1 kanamycin) in test tubes. shoots with well-developed primary meristem were transferred onto root induction medium (rim: ms medium supplemented with 5µm iba, 0.1µm bap, 3% sucrose, 0.8% agar, 50mgl-1 cefotaxime and 25mgl-1 kanamycin in test tubes. molecular analysis of transformants was done using pcr for confirmation of presence of the marker transgene. good quality dna was isolated from 10 putative transformants using ctab method, and, pcr was carried out with antibiotic-specific forward primer (npt-f) 5’ gatggattgcacgcagg 3’ and reverse primer (npt-r) 3’ gaaggcgatagaaggcg 5’ to confirm presence of the transgene. pcrs were performed in a total volume of 25µl, comprising 2.5µl of 10x reaction buffer containing 15mm mgcl2 (genetix), 0.25µl of 10mm dntps mixture (genetix), 1µl of each primer (10µm, mwg), 0.33µl of taq dna polymerase (genetix), 2.0µl (100-200ng) of dna sample and 17.92µl of sterile water. as a positive control, 2.0µl of pbinbt-01 dna was used. non-transformed plant dna and sterilized water samples were used as negative controls. pcr was carried out in mwgr pcr system (mwg, germany). dna was denatured at 94oc for 5 min, followed by 35 amplification cycles. each cycle was programmed with three different thermal periods: 94oc for 1 min to denature dna, 56oc for 40 sec to anneal the primers, and 72oc for 1 min for the extension of dna by taq dna polymerase. the final extension lasted 5 min at 72oc. the amplified product was mixed with 6x loading buffer (30% sucrose, 0.05% xylene cynol and 0.05% bromophenol blue) and loaded along with 500bp (base-pair)/ 0.5kb (kilo base-pair) ladder (genei, bangalore) into 1.2 per cent agarose gel containing ethidium bromide (0.001%). electrophoresis was conducted at 50 volts for five hours, and the gel was photographed under uv light using alpha digi doc system (herolab, germany). gels were scored for presence or absence of the expected size of the amplified product. results and discussion in this study, eggplant hypocotyl explants treated with agrobacterium culture showed callus-initiation and shootregeneration response after 4-5 and 10-12 days of culture, respectively. the culture showed, on an average, 77% shootregeneration response. agrobacterium co-cultivated hypocotyl explants showed callus-initiation and shootregeneration response after 10-12 days and 20-22 days of culture, respectively (fig. 1-a). a delay and drastic reduction was seen in in vitro regeneration response, common in agrobacterium co-cultivated explants. this could be due to the inhibitory effect of agrobacterium and antibiotics present in the culture medium. similar results have been reported in previous studies (magioli et al, 2000; billings et al, 1997). in our study, agrobacterium infection-time significantly affected callus-initiation and shootregeneration response in eggplant. explants exposed to agrobacterium cell cultures for under five minutes turned yellow and died on the selection medium. explants infected for 5-20 minutes showed over 95% callus-initiation response and stayed green (survived), without any apparent agrobacterium overgrowth. highest regeneration-response was obtained in explants co-cultivated for 10-15 minutes (24.44±2.34%). this reduced in explants infected for less or more time (table 1). further, explants infected for 30 minutes or more showed reduced callus-initiation response, along with reduced or no regeneration response. this is the first study on the effect of agrobacterium infection-time on in vitro response in explants of brinjal. similar results factors affecting in vitro response in eggplant hypocotyls j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):21-26, 2016 24 on effect of infection-time have been reported in cauliflower, however (chakrabarty et al, 2002). insufficient time given for co-cultivation may end up in no-transformation of plant cells (cardoza and stewart, 2003), while, prolonged co-cultivation period affects regeneration competence of the explant (fillatti et al, 1987). in our study, both callus-initiation and regeneration response were significantly affected by the co-cultivation schedule. explants with no (only agrobacterium infection), or short (1 day) co-cultivation, showed reduced callus-initiation response and turned yellow without regenerating. callusinitiation response increased from day one (96.66±03.33%), and reached a maximum on day two and day three (100%); it decreased with further increase in co-cultivation period. explants co-cultivated for three days showed highest regeneration response (30.00±02.96%), and, this reduced with further increase in co-cultivation time (table 2). short co-culture period may not be adequate for agrobacterium infection to take hold, while, longer periods may result in excessive bacterial growth or affect regeneration/survival of the hypocotyl explant. length of co-cultivation period required for achieving maximal gene transfer was genotypedependent, ranging from two to five days in most plant species (zhang et al, 1997). magioli et al (2000) noticed that duration of co-cultivation was important in deciding the rate of kanamycin-resistant calli and adventitious-shoot formation in eggplant; a maximum of two days of cocultivation was used in all the transformation studies in eggplant hitherto. however, our study shows that cocultivation period can be increased to three days, without adversely affecting survival/regeneration response in hypocotyl explants of eggplant cv. manjarigota. in the present study, agrobacterium cell-density significantly affected callus-initiation and regeneration response in eggplant. explants infected with agrobacterium at 0.05 od600 showed no regeneration and turned yellow on the selection medium. highest regeneration response table 1. in vitro response in hypocotyl explants of eggplant cv. manjarigota infected with agrobacterium for various time durations infection callus initiation regeneration score for remarks time (min.) frequency (%) frequency (%) sensitivity of explant 1 100.00a ± 00.00 00.00 ± 00.00 d insufficient 5 100.00ba ± 00.00 04.44d ± 2.20 y insufficient 10 97.7cba ± 02.33 24.44a ± 2.13 h optimum 15 95.55dcba ± 04.67 24.44ba ± 2.34 h optimum 20 95.55edcba ± 02.33 04.44cd ± 2.18 h optimum 30 73.33f ± 04.10 02.22e ± 2.20 b/aog++ (3rd-4th week)* hypersensitive 40 68.88gfh ± 03.07 02.22fe ± 2.20 d/ aog+++ (3rd week)* hypersensitive 50 62.22hgf ± 02.09 00.00 ± 0.00 d/ aog+++ (2nd week)* hypersensitive 60 40.00ih ± 06.67 00.00 ± 0.00 d/ aog+++ (2nd week)* hypersensitive control 100.00 ± 00.00 78.93 ± 3.84 h cd 21.32** 2.19** **significant at p≤0.01; b-brown; h-healthy; y-yellowing; d-dead; aog++ prominent agrobacterium overgrowth around the explant; aog+++ agrobacterium overgrowth covering the entire explant table 2. in vitro response in hypocotyl explants of eggplant cv. manjarigota co-cultivated with agrobacterium for various time durations co-cultivation callus initiation regeneration score for remarks (days) frequency (%) frequency (%) sensitivity of explant 0 16.66f ± 01.93 00.00 ± 00.00 y insufficient 1 96.66c ± 03.33 00.00 ± 00.00 h optimal 2 100.00a ± 00.00 25.00b ± 02.87 h optimal 3 100.00ba ± 00.00 30.00a ± 02.96 h optimal 4 95.00d ± 02.89 18.33c ± 01.66 b/aog+ hypersensitive 5 65.00e ± 07.27 10.00d ± 02.76 d/aog+++ hypersensitive 6 00.00 ± 00.00 00.00 ± 00.00 d hypersensitive 7 00.00 ± 00.00 00.00 ± 00.00 d hypersensitive control 100.00 ± 00.00 76.68 ± 03.48 h cd 1.249** 1.127** **significant at p≤0.01; b-brown; h-healthy; y-yellowing; d-dead; aog+agrobacterium colonization starting around the explant; aog+++ agrobacterium overgrowth covering the entire explant prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):21-26, 2016 25 (28.33±02.33%) was obtained in explants infected with bacterial colonies at 0.1 od600; it reduced gradually as celldensity increased (upto1.0 od600), and was nil in explants treated with 1.5 od600 or above (table 3). agrobacterium overgrowth was noticed on explants infected with bacterial cultures of 0.5 od600 or more. in the earlier studies, higher bacterial density (0.4-1.5 at od600) in eggplant hypocotyl explants increased transient gus activity (kumar and rajam, 2005); however, it adversely affected survival of explants, callus growth, and subsequent regeneration (kumar and rajam, 2005; billings et al, 1997; magioli et al, 2000). hence, in the present study, treatments containing very low levels of agrobacterium cell-density (<0.4 at od600) were tested and were found to be beneficial for the health of the explants as well as in vitro regeneration in hypocotyl explants of eggplant cv. manjarigota. in our study, agrobacterium colonization on eggplant hypocotyl explants was observed with infection-time, cocultivation, and agrobacterium cell-density. exposure of hypocotyl to higher cell-density, longer exposure/infection time and prolonged co-cultivation resulted in severe necrosis of the explant, while, diluted culture reduced necrosis in the hypocotyl explants to a great extent. time taken for agrobacterium overgrowth reduced with increased level of infection-time, co-cultivation and cell-density. in these cases, explants turned brown and died, perhaps be due to hypersensitivity of the explants to agrobacterium. elimination of agrobacterium overgrowth was difficult with prolonged co-cultivation of explants. similar results were reported earlier in eggplant and cauliflower (magioli et al, 2000; kumar and rajam, 2005). in the present study, regenerated shoots in various experiments were healthy, green and showed improved growth on subculture onto srm containing kanamycin, and were elongated (79.23% of regenerated shoots; data not shown; fig.1-b) and rooted (85.48% of elongated shoots; data not shown; fig. 1-c) in the culture medium containing kanamycin. this shows their table 3. in vitro response in hypocotyl explants of eggplant cv. manjarigota treated with varying agrobacterium cell-density agrobacterium callus initiation regeneration score for remarks cell-density (od600) frequency (%) frequency (%) sensitivity of explant 0.05 100.00a ± 00.00 06.60e ± 00.00 y insufficient 0.1 100.00ba ± 00.00 28.33a ± 02.33 h optimum 0.3 100.00cba ± 00.00 22.00b ± 02.05 h optimum 0.5 82.22d ± 02.20 13.33c ± 04.04 b/aog+ hypersensitive 0.7 75.50ed ± 05.86 08.80d ± 02.43 d/aog+++ hypersensitive 0.1 68.88fe ± 05.93 02.20f ± 02.20 d/aog+++ hypersensitive 1.5 53.33g ± 06.67 00.00 ± 00.00 d hypersensitive 2.0 42.22hg ± 05.89 00.00 ± 00.00 d hypersensitive control 100.00 ± 00.00 78.37 ± 04.13 h (without co-cultivation) cd 15.52** 1.88** **significant at p≤0.01; b-brown; h-healthy; y-yellowing; d-dead; aog+agrobacterium colonization starting around the explant; aog+++ agrobacterium overgrowth covering the entire explant fig. 1. a. regeneration response in hypocotyl explants of brinjal cv. manjarigota in srm containing cefotaxime (250 mgl-1) and kanamycin (100 ml-1); b. shoot elongation in srm containing cefotaxime (100 mgl-1) and kanamycin (50 mgl-1); c. rooting in ms medium containing cefotaxime (50 mgl-1) and kanamycin (25 mg-1); d. a hardened putative transformant plant of brinjal cv. manjarigota; e. pcr amplification of ~0.9kb nptii gene (arrow) in transformed lines of eggplant (lanes: m1kb marker (genetix); wt-wild type; w-water control; p-plasmid dna; 1-10 putative transformants). factors affecting in vitro response in eggplant hypocotyls j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):21-26, 2016 26 (ms received 07 may 2014, revised 03 august 2015, accepted 23 august 2015) resistance to kanamycin, while, control shoots (regenerated without agrobacterium treatment) showed stunted growth, and, gradually turned yellow in the culture medium due to chlorosis. rooted plantlets were hardened. transformed plants were morphologically normal and fertile (fig.1-d). molecular analysis of the transformants using pcr showed amplification of an expected size (750bp) pcr products for nptii gene in both treated (87.43%) and positive control (fig. 1-e), indicating the presence of the transgene. no amplification was found in negative controls (untransformed plant and water control). in conclusion, the present study provides a baseline for working out optimum conditions for agrobacterium infection-time, co-cultivation period and cell-density in transformation protocols using hypocotyl explants in eggplant cv. manjarigota. in addition, it hints at reasons for poor explants-survival and low shoot-regeneration in explants co-cultivated with agrobacterium in transformation studies previously reported. this would help design improved protocols for future transformation studies. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to director, icar-iihr, for encouragement. references billings, s., jelenkovic, g., chin, c.k. and eberhadt, j. 1997. the effect of growth regulation and antibiotics on eggplant transformation. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 122:158-162 cardoza, v. and stewart, c.n. 2003. increased agrobacterium-mediated transformation and rooting efficiencies in canola from hypocotyl segment explants. pl. cell rep., 21:599-604 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use as an alternative model plant. acta bot. bras., 19:139-148 magioli, c., rocha, a.p.m., pinheiro, m.m., martins, s.g. and mansur, e. 2000. establishment of an efficient agrobacterium-mediated transformation system for eggplant and study of a potential biotechnologically useful promoter. j. pl. biotech., 2:43-49 murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tissue cultures. physiol. plantarum, 15:473-497 prakash, d.p., deepali, b.s., asokan, r., ramachandra, y.l., lalitha anand and vageeshbabu s. hanur. 2007a. effect of explant type and growth regulators in the transformation of brinjal (solanum melongena l.) cv. manjarigota. j. hortl. sci., 2:94-98 prakash, d.p., deepali, b.s., asokan, r., ramachandra, y.l., lalitha anand and vageeshbabu s. hanur. 2007b. effect of antibiotics and gelling agents in the transformation of brinjal (solanum melongena l.) cv. manjarigota. j. hortl. sci. 2:19-25 prakash, d.p., deepali, b.s., asokan, r., ramachandra, y.l., shetti, d.l., lalitha anand and vageeshbabu s. hanur. 2008. effect of growth regulators on in vitro complete plant regeneration in brinjal (solanum melongena l.). ind. j. hort., 6:112-116 veluthambi, k., gupta, k.a. and sharma, a. 2003. the current status of plant transformation technologies. curr. sci., 84:368-379 zhang, z., coyne, d.p. and mitra, a. 1997. factors affecting agrobacterium-mediated transformation of common bean. j. amer. soc. hortl. sci., 122:300-305 prakash et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):21-26, 2016 final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 199 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 199-205, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v.1, smaranika mishra2*, lingaiah h.b.1, venugopalan r.3 , rao k.v.4 kattegoudar j.5 and madhavi reddy k.2 1department of vegetable science, college of horticulture, bengaluru, india. 2,7division of vegetable crops, 3division of social sciences; 4division of plant basic sciences, indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-89, india.; 5department of vegetable science, kvk, kolar, karnataka, india. *corresponding author email : smaranika.mishra@icar.gov.in abstract general combining ability (gca) among parents and specific combining ability (sca) of crosses were studied to identify horticulturally superior crosses for growth, yield and component traits in bell pepper. experimental material included 21 f1 hybrids developed by crossing seven parents in half diallel mating design. parents and crosses were planted in randomized complete block design (rcbd) during rabi 2019 to estimate the effects of combining ability. among parents, arka mohini showed good gca effects for most of the traits (number of secondary branches, early flowering and harvesting, fruit weight and yield) whereas among crosses, arka mohini × cw308, arka mohini× california wonder and yolo wonder × california wonder were identified as potential hybrids for yield and attributing traits based on sca effects. key words : bell pepper, half-diallel mating, general combining ability, hybrids, specific combining ability and yield introduction bell pepper (capsicum annuum var. grossum), also known as capsicum, sweet pepper or shimla mirch is a popular vegetable worldwide for its pleasant flavour and delicate taste. further, it is an abundant source of ascorbic acid, vitamin a a nd other minerals (shar ma et al. 2013). it belongs to the family solanaceae and have a diploid chromosome number 2n=24. both green as well as coloured (red and yellow) fruits of bell pepper have gained a status of high value crop in india. the demand for bell pepper in recent years has increased with the emergence of continental food industry (sood et al. 2010). it always fetches premium price in the market because of its regular demand and inadequate supply owing to average productivity. the basic reason for this is lack of superior quality indigenous varieties and hybrids with high yield and tolerance to biotic as well as abiotic stresses. indian bell pepper seed market is dominated by imported private sector hybrids and varieties, which increases the input cost for the farmers. hence, there is an urgent need to strengthen the crop improvement programme for developing new va r iet ies or hybr ids in t his c r op c a pa b le of s a t is f ying t he needs of f a r mer s a s well a s consumers. for development of f 1 hybrids, selection of parents is of utmost importance. parents are generally selected based on their combining ability. here, combining ability refers to the ability of lines or parents to combine well during hybridization process so that desirable genes or characters get transmitted to their progenies (fasahat et al. 2016). general combining ability and specific combining ability are the two main types of combining ability. the study on general combining ability of parents and specific combining ability of the crosses helps in ident if ica tion of bes t pa r ent s a nd c r oss es respectively. further, the combining ability of the parents also depends upon the nature of genetic system oper a ting in them whic h p r edict s t he efficiency of selection. keeping this in view, the objective of this investigation was to work out general combining ability (gca) among parents and specific combining ability of crosses (sca) to identify the promising hybrids. 200 varsha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 199-205, 2021 materials and methods the study was conducted at icarindian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru-89 during the year 2019-2020 for two seasons. during kharif, 2019 hybrids were developed using seven diverse and elite capsicum genotypes viz., arka mohini, arka gaurav, arka basant, yolo wonder, california wonder, uhfbp-4 and cw-308. they were crossed in half diallel fashion to obtain twenty-one cross combinations/hybrids. in rabi, 2020, seedlings of 7 pa r ents a nd 21 cr osses wer e transplanted in open field in randomized block design with three replications at a spacing of 60x30 cm. the standard cultural practices were followed as per the package of practices of bell pepper by indian institute of horticulture research, 2011.observations were recorded on number of primary branches (npb), number of secondary branches (nsb), plant height (cm) (ph), days to 50% flowering (df), days to first harvest (dfh), fruit length in cm (fl), fruit width in cm (fw), number of lobes per fruit (nlf), pericarp thickness in cm (pt), average fruit weight in gm (afw) , number of fruits per plant (nfp), total yield per plant in gm (yp). indostat software was used for statistical analysis of the data. results and discussion analysis of variance for gca was found significant for a ll the tr a its except npb a nd a na lysis of variance for sca was found significant for all the traits (table 1).with respect to gca and sca variance, there was predominance of sca for all the studied traits indicating the presence of nonadditive gene action which could be attributed to dominance and epistatic components like dominance x dominance and additive ‘x’ dominance type of interactions indicating sufficient scope for heterosis breeding. the parents a nd crosses were scored based on their gca and sca status. significantly negative gca and sca was scored as “-1” and non-significant gca and sca was scored as “0” whereas “+1” scor e was given to significantly positive gca and sca effects. by taking these scores into consideration, parents and hybrids were classified as poor, average and good combiners (table 2 & 3). arka mohini was identified as good general combiner for nsb, df, dfh, afw and yp. arka basant for ph, dfh, fl and nfp whereas, yolo wonder for dfh and pt (table 2). in sca studies, crosses based on arka mohini, arka basant and yolo wonder as one of the parents exhibited good combining effects. arka mohini x yolo wonder, arka mohini x cw308, arka mohini x uhfbp4, arka basant x california wonder and arka basant x cw308, yolo wonder x california wonder exhibited good sca effects for most of the traits (table 3). arka mohini based crosses showed higher yield attributed to more number of big and heavy fruits per plant. arka mohini x yolo wonder showed good sca for traits like npb, nsb, pt, afw and yp; arka mohini x cw308 for ph, fw, nfp, afw and yp; arka mohini x uhfbp4 for nsb, pt, nfp, afw and yp whereas, arka basant based hybrids showed earliness along with higher yield. arka basant x california wonder exhibited good sca for ph, df, dfh, nfp, afw and yp; and arka basant x cw308 for fl, pt, nfp, afw a nd yp. yolo wonder x c a lif or nia wonder exhibited good sca for npb, nsb, nlf, pt, nfp, afw and yp. the results obtained indicates that traits like npb, nps, ph, df, dfh, fw, pt, nfp, afw and yp are governed by non-additive genes hence, highly amenable for exploitation through heterosis. similar results were reported by hegde (2019), praveen et al. (2017) and aditika (2018) for npb, nsb and ph in capsicum. kaur et al. (2018), praveen et al. (2017) and devi et al. (2018) reported non additive gene action for earliness traits in capsicum. kamble et al. (2009), hegde (2016), praveen et al. (2017) and devi et al. (2018) have also reported good sca for fruit length and fruit width. kaur et al. (2018), aditika (2018) and devi et al. (2018) have reported high sca effects for pericarp thickness and average number of fruits per plant. good sca for average fruit weight and yield has been reported by ga la l et al. (2018) a nd aditika (2018) supporting the present investigation. based on the general combining ability of parents and specific combining ability of crosses, only three crosses showing good sca coupled with good or, average gca of the parents involved in it viz., arka mohini x cw308, arka mohini x yolo wonder and yolo wonder x california wonder with gg and ga intera ctions (table 3) ar e identified for futur e considerations. further studies on the heterosis of the traits in the developed crosses will be useful in identifying the best heterotic combinations among them. 201 combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids ta bl e 1. a n o va f or c om bi ni ng a bi lit y   df n p b n sb p h d f d f h f l f w n l f p t n f p a f w y p g c a 6 0. 05 0. 24 * 50 .1 9* 47 .6 2* 71 .1 0* 1. 12 * 0. 15 * 0. 08 * 0. 00 3* 1. 12 * 15 9. 13 * 97 63 .4 5 * sc a 21 0. 05 * 0. 24 * 18 .0 1 * 27 .9 0 * 32 .6 5 * 1. 81 * 0. 07 * 0. 05 * 0. 00 7* 1. 39 * 13 3. 86 * 34 15 6. 48 * e rr or 54 0. 03 0. 06 5. 03 8. 16 6. 13 0. 29 0. 04 0. 03 0. 00 1 0. 06 2. 92 43 .8 8 *: s ig ni fic an ce a t p= 0 .0 5; g c a : g en er al c om bi ni ng a bi lit y, s c a : sp ec ifi c co m bi ni ng a bi lit y, n p b : n o. o f pr im ar y br an ch es , n sb : n o. o f se co nd ar y br an ch es , ph : p la nt h ei gh t, d f: d ay s to 5 0% f lo w er in g, d fh : d ay s to f ir st h ar ve st , fl : fr ui t le ng th , fw : fr ui t w id th , n l f: n o. o f lo be s pe r fr ui t, pt : pe ric ar p th ic kn es s, a fp : a ve ra ge f ru it pe r pl an t, a fw : a ve ra ge f ru it w ei gh t, y p: y ie ld p er p la nt ta bl e 2. o ve ra ll ge ne ra l c om bi ni ng a bi lit y (g c a ) of p ar en ts f or d iff er en t tr ai ts sl . p ar en ts n p b n sb p h d f d f h f l f w n l f p t n f p a f w y p to ta l g c a n o. +v e -v e 1. a rk a m oh in i 0 +1 -1 +1 +1 0 0 0 0 0 +1 +1 5 1 g oo d 2. a rk a g au ra v 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 +1 0 -1 -1 -1 1 4 po or 3. a rk a b as an t 0 0 +1 0 +1 +1 -1 -1 0 +1 -1 -1 4 4 a ve ra ge 4. y ol o w on de r 0 0 0 0 +1 0 0 0 +1 0 +1 0 3 0 g oo d 5. c al if or ni a w on de r 0 0 +1 0 0 -1 0 0 -1 0 0 +1 2 2 a ve ra ge 6. u h fb p4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -1 -1 0 3 po or 7. c w 30 8 0 0 0 -1 0 0 +1 0 +1 0 0 0 2 1 g oo d n p b : n o. o f pr im ar y br an ch es , n sb : n o. o f se co nd ar y br an ch es , ph : p la nt h ei gh t, d f: d ay s to 5 0% f lo w er in g, d fh : d ay s to f ir st h ar ve st , fl : fr ui t le ng th , fw : fr ui t w id th , n l f: n o. o f lo be s pe r fr ui t, pt : pe ri ca rp t hi ck ne ss , n fp : n um be r of f ru its p er p la nt , a fw : a ve ra ge f ru it w ei gh t, y p : y ie ld p er p la nt j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 199-205, 2021 202 ta bl e 3. o ve ra ll sp ec ifi c co m bi ni ng a bi lit y (s c a ) of c ro ss es f or d iff er en t tr ai ts s. n o. c ro ss es n pb n sb ph d f d fh fl fw n lf pt n fp a fw y p to ta l s c a e ffe ct s +v e -v e c ro ss es pa re nt s 1. a m x a g 0 0 0 -1 -1 0 0 0 +1 0 0 -1 1 3 p g x p 2. a m x a b 0 0 -1 +1 0 0 0 0 -1 +1 +1 +1 4 2 a g x p 3. a m x y w +1 +1 0 -1 -1 0 0 0 +1 0 +1 +1 5 2 g g x g 4. a m x c w 0 -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -1 -1 0 4 p g x a 5. a m x u h f bp 4 0 +1 -1 0 -1 0 0 0 +1 +1 +1 +1 5 2 g g x p 6. a m x c w 30 8 0 0 +1 -1 -1 0 +1 0 -1 +1 +1 +1 5 3 g g x g 7. a g x a b 0 0 +1 0 0 0 +1 0 +1 0 -1 -1 3 2 a p x p 8. a g x y w 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 +1 -1 0 +1 -1 2 3 p p x g 9. a g x c w 0 +1 0 0 0 0 0 0 +1 0 +1 +1 4 0 a p x a 10 . a g x u h fb p4 0 -1 0 0 0 0 0 +1 -1 0 +1 +1 3 2 a p x p 11 . a g x c w 30 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 +1 0 -1 +1 2 1 a p x g 12 . a b x yw 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 +1 -1 -1 -1 1 3 p p x g 13 . a b x cw 0 0 +1 +1 +1 +1 0 0 -1 +1 +1 +1 7 1 g p x a 14 . a b x u h fb p4 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 +1 -1 0 +1 -1 2 3 p p x p 15 . a b x cw 30 8 0 0 0 -1 -1 +1 0 0 +1 +1 +1 +1 5 2 g p x g 16 . yw x c w +1 +1 0 0 0 0 0 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 7 0 g g x a 17 . yw x u h fb p4 0 0 0 0 0 +1 0 0 +1 0 -1 +1 3 1 a g x p 18 . yw x u h fc w 30 8 0 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 0 +1 -1 1 2 p g x g 19 . cw x u h fb p4 0 +1 +1 -1 -1 -1 0 0 0 0 +1 +1 4 3 a a x p 20 . cw x c w 30 8 0 0 -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 +1 +1 2 1 a a x g 21 . u h fb p4 x c w 30 8 0 0 0 0 0 +1 0 0 +1 0 -1 -1 2 2 a p x g n pb : n o. o f pr im ar y br an ch es , n sb : n o. o f se co nd ar y br an ch es , ph : pl an t he ig ht , d f: d ay s to 5 0% f lo w er in g, d fh : d ay s to f ir st h ar ve st , fl : fr ui t le ng th , fw : fr ui t w id th , n l f: n o. o f lo be s pe r fr ui t, pt : pe ri ca rp t hi ck ne ss , n fp : n um be r of f ru its p er p la nt , a fw : a ve ra ge f ru it w ei gh t, y p: y ie ld p er p la nt , a m : a rk a m oh in i, a g : a rk a g au ra v, a b : a rk a b as an t, y w : y ol o w on de r, c w : c al if or ni a w on de r varsha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 199-205, 2021 203 sl .n o. p ar en ts n p b n sb p h d f d f h f l f w n l f p t n f p a f w y p 1. a rk a m oh in i 0. 09 0. 28 * -4 .7 2* 3. 55 * 2. 89 * -0 .2 5 0. 05 -0 .0 03 -0 .0 1 0. 08 8. 19 * 47 .3 7* 2. a rk a g au ra v 0. 02 -0 .1 2 0. 08 -2 .4 9* -3 .8 8 -0 .0 8 0. 10 0. 14 * 0. 01 -0 .5 8 * -1 .8 6 * -3 5. 07 * 3. a rk a b as an t -0 .0 2 -0 .0 07 1. 87 * 2. 14 3. 45 * 0. 50 * -0 .1 8 * -0 .1 4* 0. 01 0. 60 * -3 .7 8 * -3 9. 91 * 4. y ol o w on de r -0 .0 4 0. 07 -1 .2 8 -1 .1 2 2. 11 * 0. 27 -0 .0 2 -0 .0 6 0. 02 * 0. 00 2 2. 38 * 3. 33 5. c al if or ni a w on de r -0 .0 9 -0 .1 5 1. 93 * 0. 21 -1 .9 5 -0 .5 7 * -0 .0 3 0. 06 -0 .0 3 ** 0. 05 -0 .9 7 35 .8 0* 6. u h fb p4 0. 10 0. 08 1. 08 0. 36 -0 .9 2 -0 .0 5 -0 .1 3 0. 04 -0 .0 1 -0 .1 9 * -3 .8 1 * -1 2. 19 * 7. c w 30 8 -0 .0 6 -0 .1 7 1. 03 -2 .6 4* -1 .6 9 0. 17 0. 20 * -0 .0 3 0. 02 * 0. 04 -0 .1 5 0. 67 se m ± 0. 05 0. 07 0. 69 0. 88 0. 76 0. 05 0. 06 0. 05 0. 00 1 0. 07 3 0. 53 2. 04 c d a t 5% 0. 12 0. 19 1. 69 2. 16 1. 87 0. 41 0. 14 0. 12 0. 01 0. 18 1. 29 5. 00 *: s ig ni fi ca nc e at p = 0. 05 ; n pb : n o. o f pr im ar y br an ch es , n sb : n o. o f se co nd ar y br an ch es , ph : p la nt h ei gh t, d f: d ay s to 5 0% f lo w er in g, d fh : d ay s to f ir st h ar ve st , fl : fr ui t le ng th , fw : fr ui t w id th , n l f: n o. o f lo be s pe r fr ui t, pt : pe ri ca rp t hi ck ne ss , a fp : a ve ra ge f ru it pe r pl an t, a fw : a ve ra ge f ru it w ei gh t, y p : y ie ld p er p la nt su pp le m en ta ry t ab le 1 : g en er al c om bi ni ng a bi lit y ef fe ct s (g c a ) of p ar en ts g ro w th a nd y ie ld p ar am et er s combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 199-205, 2021 204 sl .n o. c ro ss es n p b n sb p h d f d f h f l f w n l f p t n f p a f w y p 1. a m a g -0 .1 2 0. 28 -2 .4 8 -6 .2 3* -4 .7 1* 0. 41 0. 11 0. 03 0. 10 * -0 .1 3 0. 43 -4 7. 83 * 2. a m a b 0. 19 0. 34 -5 .2 3* 7. 14 * 0. 95 -0 .3 6 0. 08 0. 05 -0 .0 3* 1. 06 * 9. 75 * 22 3. 50 * 3. a m y w 0. 38 * 0. 49 * -1 .0 8 -7 .2 7 * -5 .0 5* -0 .1 0 0. 07 0. 00 4 0. 06 * 0. 53 5. 89 * 11 5. 16 * 4. a m c w -0 .2 3 -0 .5 5* -2 .2 9 3. 07 2. 36 0. 28 -0 .0 2 -0 .0 8 -0 .0 2 -1 .1 8* -4 .4 6* -2 02 .0 4* 5. a m u h fb p4 0. 24 0. 76 * -4 .2 0* -3 .0 8 -4 .0 1* 0. 23 0. 13 0. 17 0. 06 * 1. 33 * 7. 79 * 15 0. 59 * 6. a m c w 30 8 0. 13 -0 .2 2 9. 61 * -5 .0 8* -6 .5 7* 0. 18 0. 41 * 0. 00 4 -0 .0 5* 1. 16 * 8. 72 * 20 2. 99 * 7. a g a b 0. 07 -0 .0 9 5. 86 * -3 .1 5 -3 .2 7 -0 .1 4 0. 41 * 0. 00 7 0. 07 * -0 .1 1 -1 1. 32 * -1 59 .4 9* 8. a g y w 0. 18 -0 .3 8 -3 .1 6 -1 .5 7 -5 .2 7* 0. 44 -0 .0 49 0. 36 * -0 .0 6* 0. 12 5. 72 * -3 0. 76 * 9. a g c w -0 .0 3 0. 72 * 3. 56 3. 10 -1 .8 6 -0 .1 6 -0 .0 2 0. 00 7 0. 13 * 0. 44 0. 94 * 11 7. 23 * 10 . a g u h fb p4 0. 04 -0 .5 1* 1. 51 -3 .0 4 -1 .8 9 0. 08 0. 08 0. 32 * -0 .0 3* 0. 52 16 .8 4* 18 2. 83 * 11 . a g c w 30 8 0. 16 0. 30 0. 83 3. 29 3. 55 -0 .2 3 0. 18 -0 .1 1 0. 07 * 0. 76 -8 .1 2* 85 .3 9* 12 . a b y w 0. 23 0. 39 3. 29 -2 .5 3 -3 .9 3 -0 .9 6 0. 03 -0 .2 2 0. 07 * -0 .9 6* -8 .2 3* -1 07 .8 3* 13 . a b c w 0. 19 -0 .1 2 3. 64 * 7. 81 * 8. 14 * 1. 91 * 0. 10 -0 .0 7 -0 .1 0* 1. 29 * 2. 02 * 13 5. 08 * 14 . a b u h fb p4 -0 .0 5 -0 .1 5 -1 .3 1 8. 99 * 3. 77 -0 .7 3 -0 .1 1 0. 31 * -0 .1 4* -0 .4 6 3. 52 * -5 9. 20 * 15 . a b c w 30 8 -0 .1 9 -0 .3 2 -1 .0 6 -4 .6 8* -8 .4 5* 3. 08 * 0. 09 -0 .0 6 0. 09 * 2. 31 * 21 .2 8* 28 6. 86 * 16 . y w c w 0. 36 * 0. 50 * 0. 06 2 -3 .6 0 -0 .8 6 -0 .3 0 0. 33 0. 28 * 0. 06 * 1. 93 * 14 .9 9* 21 1. 16 * 17 . y w u h fb p4 -0 .1 6 0. 07 0. 78 2. 92 2. 77 3. 36 * 0. 24 0. 13 0. 09 * -0 .5 6 -1 3. 91 * 13 3. 23 * 18 . y w c w 30 8 -0 .2 4 -0 .2 4 1. 69 1. 92 -3 .7 9 -1 .1 4* 0. 12 -0 .0 7 0. 00 2 -0 .2 2 7. 60 * -4 2. 61 * 19 . c w u h fb p4 -0 .0 06 0. 73 * 7. 90 * -4 .7 5* -4 .8 2* -0 .7 4* 0. 02 -0 .1 6 0. 01 0. 63 12 .2 2* 13 7. 06 * 20 . c w c w 30 8 0. 02 0. 32 -4 .9 8* -1 .0 8 -1 .3 8 0. 13 0. 02 0. 18 -0 .0 2 -0 .6 3 3. 93 * 34 .7 5* 21 . u h fb p4 c w 30 8 0. 08 7 -0 .3 8 -1 .2 6 -1 .2 3 -2 .7 5 1. 14 * 0. 10 0. 13 0. 08 * -0 .5 3 -9 .2 1* -7 8. 02 * se m ± 0. 12 0. 19 1. 71 2. 18 1. 89 0. 41 0. 14 0. 12 0. 01 0. 41 0. 14 0. 12 c d a t 5% 0. 26 0. 40 3. 57 4. 55 3. 94 0. 86 0. 29 0. 25 0. 03 0. 86 0. 29 0. 25 *: s ig ni fi ca nc e at p = 0. 05 ; n pb : n o. o f pr im ar y br an ch es , n sb : n o. o f se co nd ar y br an ch es , ph : p la nt h ei gh t, d f: d ay s to 5 0% f lo w er in g, d fh : d ay s to f ir st h ar ve st , fl : fr ui t le ng th , fw : fr ui t w id th , n l f: n o. o f lo be s pe r fr ui t, pt : pe ric ar p th ic kn es s, a fp : a ve ra ge f ru it pe r pl an t, a fw : a ve ra ge f ru it w ei gh t, y p: y ie ld p er p la nt ; a m : a rk a m oh in i, a g : a rk a g ou ra v, a b : a rk a b as an t, y w : y ol o w on de r, c w : c al ifo rn ia w on de r su pp le m en ta ry t ab le 2 : sp ec ifi c co m bi ni ng a bi lit y ef fe ct s (s c a ) fo r cr os se s varsha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 199-205, 2021 205 aditika, 2018. studies on heterosis, combining ability and confirmation of hybridity in bell pepper (capsicum annuum l.). ph. d thesis, dr. ya shwa nt singh pa r ma r univer sity of horticulture and forestry. solan (nauni), himachal pradesh (india). devi, m. b., pathania, n. k. and thakur, n, 2018. estimation of genetic variability, gca and sca effects for development of early and high yielding bell pepper hybr ids suitable for protected cultivation. j. nat. appl. sci., 10(1): 410-416 fasahat, p., rajabi, a., rad, j. m. and derera, j., 2016. principles and utilization of combining a bility in pla nt br eeding. biometrics & biostatistics international journal., 4(1): 1-24. galal, r. m., mohamed, a. g. and ismail, h. e. m, 2018. combining ability for yield and fruit quality in sweet pepper (capsicum annuum l.). zagazig. j. agric. res., :835-850. hegde, c. b. , pa nt, s. c. , t hila k, j. c. a nd punetha, s., 2019. analysis of combining ability and studies of gene action for yield and yield contributing traits in a half diallel cross of capsicum (capsicum annuum l. var. references g ro s s u m s endt . ) . j . ph a r m a c o g n phytochem., 8(3): 274-277. kamble, c., mulge, r. and madalageri, m. b, 2009. combining ability for earliness and productivity in sweet pepper (capsicum annuum l.). j. agric. sci., 22(1): 151-154. ka ur, j. , spehia, r. s. a nd ver ma , n, 2018. estimating combining ability for earliness and yield contr ibuting tr a its in bell pepper (capsicum annuum var grossum l.) under protected conditions. int. j. microbial. app. sci., 7(8): 308-319. praveen, y., srinivasa, v. , lakshmana, d. and hadapad, b, 2017. combining ability studies for growth and yield characters in bell pepper (capsicum annuum l.)., environ. ecol., 35(2): 1521-1525. sharma, v. k., punetha, s. and sharma, b. b, 2013. heterosis studies for earliness, fruit yield and yield attributing traits in bell pepper. afr. j. agric. res., 8(29): 4088-4098. sood, s. and kumar, n, 2010. heterosis for fruit yield and related horticultural traits in bell pepper. int. j. veg. sci., 16(4): 361-373. (received on 26.08.2021, revised on 26.11.2021 and accepted on 30.11.2021) combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 199-205, 2021 00 contents.pdf 08 varsha.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf effects of clay mineral application on soil moisture status, physiological traits and yield of rainfed tomato under semi-arid alfisols v. s. rao and g. r. maruthi sankar central research institute for dryland agriculture santoshnagar, hyderabad–500059, india e-mail : vsrao@crida.ernet.in abstract the effects of application of farm yard manure (fym) and clay mineral (cm) on soil and plant characteristics like soil moisture at field capacity, permanent wilting point, leaf area, leaf nitrogen, relative water content, yield of tomato were examined based on field experiments conducted in a semi-arid alfisol at hyderabad during 1998 –99 and 1999-2000. two levels of fym and three levels of cm (fullers earth) were applied in the filed. the analysis of variance indicated that application of 16 t/ha of cm together with 10 t/ha of fym retained a significantly higher soil moisture as measured by pressure outflow and gravimetric methods. the per cent survival, leaf area and relative water content was also significantly higher. on the other hand, application of 8 t/ha of cm together with 10 t/ha of fym helped to achieve maximum leaf n, higher marketable yield, fruit firmness, total soluble solids, total soluble solids-acidity ratio in tomato under semi-arid alfisols. key words : soil moisture, plant traits, correlation, regression, prediction introduction the growth and productivity of vegetable crops can be greatly enhanced by improving moisture retention capacity of soils by making water available to plants for longer periods in post-rainy season. many methods such as microsite improvement, development of micro-catchment areas and mulching are adopted to conserve moisture for a longer time in the root zone of the plant under dryland farming systems. the inherent capacity of soil for retention of water could also be improved with the addition of organic matter and tank silt. singh and singh (1988) found that bentonite was useful in reducing percolation losses in round gourd (citrullus vulgaris) in rainfed sandy soils. based on information available, it was felt that the addition of clay minerals with high water holding capacity and cation exchange capacity can be attempted specifically in the case of alfisols to improve establishment and yields of vegetable crops. information is lacking on the use of fullers earth on vegetable crops grown on alfisols under semi-arid conditions in telangana region of andhra pradesh. the present study was therefore conducted on the use of clay mineral (fullers earth) for establishment, growth and yield parameters of tomato under semi-arid alfisols. material and methods field experiments were conducted on rainfed tomato with ‘pusa ruby’ variety during 1998-99 and 1999-2000 cropping seasons in a semi-arid alfisol at central research institute for dryland agriculture, hyderabad. the study was conducted with the objective of assessing the influence of farm yard manure (fym) and clay minerals (cm) on the growth and yield of tomato under rainfed conditions. two levels of fym @ 0 and 10 t/ha and 3 levels of cm @ 0, 8 and 16 t/ha were tested in the field experiments. the experiments were conducted in a plot size of 5 x 4 m with 4 replications in a randomized block design. the treatments were randomized and superimposed to plots under each of the 4 replications. the plots receiving fym treatment were given @ 10 t / ha. the quantities of cm as per treatments were spread in each plot and mixed thoroughly to a depth of 30 cm with spades and the plots were kept ready for transplanting of tomato. nursery was raised near a farm pond at the research farm by using harvested water. healthy, 25 day – old seedlings were used for transplanting. transplanting was taken up during 1st week of july in 1998–99 and 1999– 2000 seasons immediately after the receipt of first rains in which the soil was fully saturated with moisture. the j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 recommended fertilizer dose of 120 kg n, 60 kg p 2 o 5 and 60 kg k 2 o/ha was applied in all the field experiments. nitrogen was applied in 3 split doses as and when it rained. planting was done on flat beds of the experimental plots having raised edges on sides at a spacing of 50 x 50 cm. earthing up was done 15 days after planting so as to form ridges and furrows enabling in-situ water harvesting. the plants received regular plant protection sprays to control pests and diseases. observations were recorded on soil moisture at field capacity (33 kpa) and permanent wilting point (1500 kpa) by pressure outflow method (laryea and katyal, 1995). observations on soil moisture were also recorded based on gravimetric method (laryea and katyal, 1995) in two depths viz., 0-15 and 15-30 cm on three different dates during the dry period. leaf area (cm2) was measured using l1-3100 area meter ( licor inc., lincoln, nebraska, usa). relative water content was determined following rachna narang et al (1999) and leaf nitrogen (%) was measured by procedure of jackson (1967). among fruit quality characters, total soluble solids (°brix), acidity (%) and fruit firmness (kg/cm2) were measured as discussed by ranganna (1986). apart from soil moisture and plant traits, marketable and unmarketable yield (kg/ha) were recorded in each of the 24 plots. the analysis of variance of effects of fym, cm and their interaction was carried out based on f–test (kempthorne, 1952). results and discussion effect of fym and cm on soil moisture the effects of fym and cm on soil moisture (%) in 0–15 and 15–30 cm soil depth at field capacity (33 kpa) and permanent wilting point (1500 kpa) based on ‘pressure outflow’ method were tested for significance. soil moisture increased with an increase in levels of cm and fym at both field capacity and permanent wilting points.the main and interaction effects of treatments on soil moisture and their significance for different treatment combinations under 0–15 and 15–30 cm depths measured at field capacity and permanent wilting point are given in table 1. the available moisture was maximum at 17.2% with the application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha, while it was minimum at 9.58% with the application of only fym @ 10 t/ha at field capacity under 0–15 cm of depth. in case of permanent wilting point, a maximum moisture of 11.48% was observed at 0-15cm depth with application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with clay mineral @ 16 t/ha, while a minimum of 6.49% was obtained under control. fym had a significant interaction with cm in influencing soil moisture. the mean moisture at field capacity was 12.39% with a c.v of 26.4%, while the moisture at permanent wilting point in 0–15 cm depth was 8.44% with a c.v of 22.4%. the soil moisture determined under 33 kpa and 1500 kpa pressures indicated that in 0–15 cm soil depth showed a maximum difference of 6.07% with the application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 8 t/ha, while a minimum of 2.64% occurred with the application of only fym @ 10 t/ha. a mean difference of 3.92% in moisture was observed with a variation of 39.4% among treatments of fym and cm tested. a maximum soil moisture of 20.99% was observed in 15–30 cm depth with the application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha, while a minimum of 8.66% was observed in control under field capacity. the corresponding values of permanent wilting point for the above treatments were 11.61% and 5.47%, respectively. f– test indicated that both fym and cm significantly influenced moisture in 15–30 cm depth. there was no significant interaction of fym and cm in influencing sub– soil moisture. a mean moisture of 14.21% was attained with 26.4% variation for field capacity as compared to 8.72% with 22.4% variation for permanent wilting point in 15–30 cm depth using pressure outflow method. in 15–30 cm depth, a maximum difference of 9.38% between soil moisture measured under 33 kpa and 1500 kpa categories was found with an application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha, while a minimum difference of 3.19% occurred under control. the treatments had a mean moisture difference of 5.49% with a variation of 44.4%. the soil moisture (%) based on pressure outflow method showed an increase with an increase of cm and fym application at both field capacity and permanent wilting point especially in 15–30 cm depth. at 0–15 cm depth, although soil moisture (%) increased with cm application at 33 and 1500 kpa, the available moisture content did not show much variation. however, there was a substantial increase in moisture when cm were applied along with fym. the influence of cm on available moisture was greater at 15–30 cm depth, especially when it was applied along with fym. the transformation of added fym into organic colloids increased the water holding capacity of soil along with cm. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 27 effect of clay minerals on soil and plant charateristics table 1. effect of fym and clay minerals on moisture based on ‘pressure outflow’ method fym (t/ha) cm (t/ha) soil moisture (%) at field capacity (33 kpa) and permanent wilting point (1500 kpa) in different depths 0–15 cm 15–30 cm fc pwp difference fc pwp difference 0 0 9.65 6.49 3.16 8.66 5.47 3.19 0 8 10.21 7.33 2.88 10.46 6.63 3.83 0 16 11.97 8.93 3.04 14.77 9.38 5.39 10 0 9.58 6.94 2.64 12.97 9.21 3.76 10 8 15.55 9.48 6.07 17.41 10.04 7.37 10 16 17.20 11.48 5.72 20.99 11.61 9.38 mean 12.39 8.44 3.92 14.21 8.72 5.49 cv (%) 26.40 22.40 39.40 31.90 26.00 44.40 f–test fym ** ** ** ** ** ** cm ** ** ** ** ** ** fym x cm ** ** ns ns ns ns lsd fym 0.73 0.57 0.80 0.88 0.56 0.80 cm 0.89 0.70 0.95 1.07 0.68 1.15 fym x cm 1.26 0.99 ns ns ns ns ** indicates significance at 1% level cv : coefficient of variation (%) fc : field capacity pwp : permanent wilting point cm : clay mineral ns : not significant lsd : least significant difference unger (1975) reported that at lower depths of soil, the influence of clay species on water retention at 33 kpa becomes more evident. in this experiment also, the influence of cm along with fym on soil moisture retention at 33 kpa was more evident at 15–30 cm depth. brown (1977) suggested that at a potential of 33 kpa, the water retention by soils is directly associated with clay content. prasad and pillai (1995) studied moisture retention characteristics of red soils and reported that in most of the pedons, the available water and moisture retained at field capacity were low in surface soils than in lower horizons and they attributed it to lesser clay content, low cec and exchangeable bases in surface horizons. this was also the reason for low available soil moisture content observed in 0–15 cm soil depth in the study. by using pure clay minerals, gupta et al (2000) reported that water retention and release were maximum in bentonite clay followed by illite and kaolinite. effect of fym and cm on soil moisture (%) during stress soil moisture (%) measured at two soil depths viz., 0–15 and 15–30 cm during the period of development stress showed that the soil moisture retention was better in those where the cm content was higher. the f–test for main and interaction effects of fym and cm on soil moisture measured in two soil depths based on gravimetric method are given in table 2. at 0–15 cm depth, a maximum soil moisture of 11.42, 8.16 and 6.79% was attained with the application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha compared to this, a minimum soil moisture of 6.73% was observed with the application of only fym @ 10 t/ha. it is clear that fym and cm significantly influenced available moisture in 0– 15 cm. a significant interaction of fym and cm was also observed. the treatment means for moisture were 8.57% with a variation of 19.3%; 6.37% with a variation of 22.9% and 5.19% with a variation of 18.1% during the development of soil moisture stress. under 15–30 cm depth, a maximum soil moisture of 13.01, 11.81 and 11.44% was attained with application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha. compared to this, control gave minimum moisture of 7.05% and 4.98%, while only fym @ 10 t/ha gave a minimum of 6.57%. the f–test indicated that fym and cm significantly influenced available moisture in 15–30 cm depth on all dates of observation. there was a significant interaction effect of fym and clay minerals on moisture on all the 3 dates. the treatments provided a mean moisture of 9.82% with a variation of 22.0% on 1–8–1998, 8.36% with a variation of 32.9% on 25–11–1998 and 7.99% with a variation of 24.5% on 12–8–1999 under 15–30 cm. the results indicated that moisture increased from 1st to 2nd depth in all treatments except control on 1–8–1998. the soil moisture (%) during stress in 0–15 cm depth increased in cm and fym application. the influence of soil amendments on moisture retention was greater in 15–30 cm than 0–15 cm depth. this was due to the finer fractions retained at 15–30 cm than in 0–15 cm depth. application of soil colloids in the form of cm and j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 28 rao and maruthi sankar fym improved the organic colloidal fraction of soil after decomposition, retaining higher soil moisture (%) during stress. prasuna rani et al (1991) observed a positive relationship between soil moisture retention in clays with higher cec. gupta et al (2000) stated that water retention curves of alluvial, red, laterite and black soils reflected the influence of respective clay minerals present in the soils in influencing water retention characteristics. effect of fym and clay minerals on physiological traits the results of analysis of variance (anova) of main effects of fym and cm and their interaction are given in table 3 which showed that there was no significant interaction of fym and cm treatments on the plant parameters. table 2. effect of fym and cm on soil moisture fym (t/ha) cm (t/ha) soil moisture (%) at different depths during stress period 1–8–1998 25–11–1998 12–8–1999 0–15 cm 5–30 cm 0–15 cm 15–30 cm 0–15 cm 5–30 cm 0 0 7.40 7.05 4.27 4.98 4.09 6.57 0 8 7.91 8.36 6.93 9.59 4.53 6.79 0 16 8.96 11.05 7.26 10.69 5.08 6.90 10 0 6.73 8.76 5.00 5.84 5.07 7.00 10 8 9.03 10.67 6.62 7.24 5.62 9.27 10 16 11.42 13.01 8.16 11.81 6.79 11.44 mean 8.57 9.82 6.37 8.36 5.19 7.99 cv (%) 19.30 22.00 22.90 32.90 18.10 24.50 f–test fym ** ** ns ns ** ** cm ** ** ** ** ** ** fym x cm ** ** ** ** ** ** lsd fym 0.43 0.43 ns ns 0.42 0.42 cm 0.53 0.53 0.48 0.48 0.51 0.51 fym x cm 0.75 0.75 0.68 0.68 0.73 0.73 ** indicates significance at 1% level cv : coefficient of variation cm : clay mineral ns : not significant lsd : least significant difference survival there were no significant difference between control and treatments on survival (%) of tomato. the treatments had a mean survival of 96.5%. leaf area there was a reduction in leaf area when cm was applied without fym. this may be due to the fact that n availability increased with application of cm along with fym, rather than cm alone. a maximum leaf area of 3631 cm2 was observed with application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha, while a minimum of 2086 cm2 was observed with only cm @ 8 t/ha. the treatments had a mean leaf area of 2924 cm2 with a variation of 21.9%. table 3. effect of fym and clay minerals on survival, leaf area, leaf n and relative water content in tomato fym (t/ha) cm (t/ha) survival (%) leaf area (cm2) leaf n (%) rwc (%) 0 0 97.0 2912 2.60 75.2 0 8 96.5 2086 2.49 78.2 0 16 94.7 2279 2.34 80.2 10 0 96.5 3569 3.73 77.2 10 8 95.2 3065 3.79 81.7 10 16 98.7 3631 3.40 85.5 mean 96.5 2924 3.06 79.7 cv (%) 1.5 21.9 21.5 4.6 f–test fym ns ** ** ** cm ns ns ** ** fym x cm ns ns ns ns lsd fym ns 955 0.65 2.2 cm ns ns 0.79 2.7 fym x cm ns ns ns ns ** indicates significance at 1% level cv : coefficient of variation cm : clay mineral ns : not significant lsd : least significant difference j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 29 effect of clay minerals on soil and plant charateristics leaf nitrogen the f–test carried out for leaf n indicated that there was a significant difference between treatments with fym and without fym, and also among cm levels. a minimum leaf n of 2.34% was observed with application of cm @ 16 t/ha, while a maximum leaf n of 3.4% was observed with application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha. the treatments had a mean leaf n of 3.06% with 21.5% variation. application of cm with and without fym decreased leaf n significantly. however, fym had a significant effect in increasing leaf n when it was applied along with cm. this was due to the fact that montmorillonite clay present with fullers earth fixed n in the form of ammonia (tisdale et al, 1985). thus additional n supplied through fym resulted in increased leaf n content. relative water content the relative water content (rwc) during stress was significantly influenced by both fym and cm application. a maximum rwc of 85.5% was observed with an application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ ha, while a minimum of 75.25% was observed when only cm @ 8 t/ha was applied. the treatments gave a mean rwc of 79.7% with a variation of 4.6%. application of cm and fym increased moisture retention capacity of soil, which resulted in an increased rwc in leaves during stress period. the importance of rwc in stress period was emphasized by boyer (1969). effect of application of fym and cm on yield of tomato marketable yield the anova of marketable yield indicated that both fym and cm had a significant effect on yield in both seasons as given in table 4. it is observed that a maximum marketable yield of 10215 kg/ha was obtained when fym was applied @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha, while a minimum of 8035 kg/ha was attained under control during 1998–99. the respective treatment combinations provided a maximum yield of 13085 kg/ha and a minimum of 9870 kg/ha during 1999–2000. application of only fym increased marketable yield by 935 kg/ha in 1998–99 and 1020 kg/ha in 1999–2000. similarly, application of only cm increased yield in both years. the application of only cm @ 8 and 16 t/ha gave an increased yield of 470 and 1200 kg/ha in 1999–2000 compared to 665 and 1140 kg/ha obtained in 1998–99. it was observed that relatively higher yields of tomato were realized in 1999–2000 as compared to 1998–99 in all treatments. there was a significant difference between yields attained with different combinations of fym and cm in both seasons. the treatments gave a mean marketable yield of 9125 and 11255 kg/ha with a variation of 8.3 and 10.7% during 1998–99 and 1999–2000, respectively. the marketable yield significantly increased with application of both fym and cm. keshava murthy and kotur (2000) made similar observations of increased yields in banana when tank silt was applied in combination with fym, than when tank silt was applied alone. the fruit yield table 4. effect of fym and clay minerals on yield of tomato in an alfisol fym (t/ha) cm (t/ha) yield (kg/ha) marketable unmarketable 1998–99 1999–2000 1998–99 1999–2000 0 0 8035 9870 350 540 0 8 8700 10340 315 425 0 16 9175 11070 290 340 10 0 8970 10890 600 690 10 8 9665 12270 490 590 10 16 10215 13085 365 190 mean 9125 11255 400 465 cv (%) 8.3 10.7 29.7 39.2 f–test fym ** ** ns ns cm ** ** ns ns fym x cm ns ns ns ns lsd fym 1005 1445 ns ns cm 960 1630 ns ns fym x cm ns ns ns ns ** indicates significance at 1% level cv : coefficient of variation cm : clay mineral ns : not significant lsd : least significant difference j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 30 rao and maruthi sankar in 1999–2000 with a rainfall of 408.3 mm was relatively higher than in 1998–99 with a rainfall of 588.5 mm during crop growth period. this was due to the fact that clay minerals helped in better crop growth and yield during less rainfall than high rainfall situations. effect of fym and cm application on fruit quality traits fruit firmness the anova indicated significance of clay mineral and non-significance of fym on fruit firmness in both seasons as given in table 5. the fruit firmness increased when fym and cm were applied together than when cm was applied alone. maximum fruit firmness of 1.35 kg cm2 was attained with an application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha, compared to a minimum of 0.70 kg cm-2 under control. the treatments gave a mean fruit firmness of 0.99 kg cm-2 with variation of 27.3%. total soluble solids both fym and cm levels had no significant influence on total soluble solids (°brix) as given in table 5. the observations recorded on total soluble solids indicated that a maximum of 5.65 °brix was attained under control, while a minimum of 5.1 was attained with cm @ 16 t/ha. the treatments gave a mean total soluble solids of 5.31 °brix with a variation of 3.7%. acidity (%) the cm levels affected acidity (%) significantly while fym levels did not have an influence. maximum acidity of 0.81% was recorded under control, while a minimum of 0.40% was observed in fym @ 10 t/ha treatment together with cm @ 16 t/ha. the acidity (%) significantly decreased with application of cm under both fym and no-fym combinations, while the effect of fym was non-significant in influencing acidity (%) in tomato. the treatments showed a mean fruit firmness of 0.60% with a variation of 27.3% in the study. increased fruit firmness and reduced acidity which were significant due to cm application increased the availability of calcium and potassium to the plant (tisdale et al 1985). the role of potassium in increasing fruit firmness and keeping quality of vegetables was also emphasized by kemmler and tandon (1988). total soluble solids–acidity ratio there was no significant influence of fym and cm levels on tss-acidity ratio (table 5). the brix–acidity ratio was higher when fym and cm were applied together than when fym was not applied. it is observed that a maximum ratio of 10.1 was attained with an application of fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 16 t/ha, while a minimum of 7.24 was attained with fym @ 10 t/ha together with cm @ 8 t/ha. the treatments gave a mean ratio of 8.97 with a variation of 11.4% in the study. estimates of correlation between different parameters the estimates of correlation among the various parameters are presented in table 6. among fruit quality parameters, fruit firmness had a significant correlation with available moisture in both depths under field capacity and permanent wilting point. the acidity was significantly correlated with soil moisture in 15–30 cm depth under field capacity and permanent wilting point and marketable yield. table 5. effect of fym and cm on fruit firmness, total soluble solids and acidity in tomato fym (t/ha) cm (t/ha) fruit firmness total soluble solids acidity (%) tss/acidity ratio (kg/cm2) (° brix) 0 0 0.70 5.65 0.81 8.37 0 8 0.78 5.40 0.72 9.15 0 16 0.85 5.10 0.69 9.36 10 0 0.98 5.15 0.54 9.57 10 8 1.29 5.30 0.46 7.24 10 16 1.35 5.25 0.40 10.10 mean 0.99 5.31 0.60 8.97 cv (%) 27.3 3.7 26.7 11.4 f–test fym ns ns ns ns cm ** ns ** ns fym x cm ns ns ns ns lsd fym ns ns ns ns cm 0.45 ns 0.31 ns fym x cm ns ns ns ns ** indicates significance at 1% level cv : coefficient of variation cm : clay mineral ns : not significant lsd : least significant difference j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 31 effect of clay minerals on soil and plant charateristics table 6. estimates of significant correlation between different variables in tomato variable 1 variable 2 r-value relative water content soil moisture in 0–15 cm (33 kpa) 0.95** relative water content soil moisture in 0–15 cm (1500 kpa) 0.99** relative water content water availability in 0–15 cm 0.81* relative water content soil moisture in 15–30 cm (33 kpa) 0.96** relative water content soil moisture in 15–30 cm (1500 kpa) 0.88* relative water content water availability in 15–30 cm 0.98** relative water content soil moisture in 0–15 cm (1–8–98) (stress) 0.94** relative water content soil moisture in 15–30 cm (1–8–98) (stress) 0.97** relative water content soil moisture in 0–15 cm (25–11–98) (stress) 0.88* relative water content soil moisture in 0–15 cm (12–8–99) (stress) 0.95** relative water content soil moisture in 15–30 cm (12–8–99) (stress) 0.88* relative water content marketable yield (1998–99) 0.97** relative water content marketable yield (1999–2000) 0.96** relative water content fruit firmness 0.86* relative water content acidity -0.81* soil moisture in 0–15 cm (33 kpa) marketable yield (1998–99) 0.91** soil moisture in 0–15 cm (33 kpa) fruit firmness 0.91** soil moisture in 0–15 cm (1500 kpa) marketable yield (1998–99) 0.94** soil moisture in 0–15 cm (1500 kpa) fruit firmness 0.84* soil moisture in 15–30 cm (33 kpa) marketable yield (1998–99) 0.99** soil moisture in 15–30 cm (33 kpa) fruit firmness 0.93** soil moisture in 15–30 cm (33 kpa) acidity -0.90* soil moisture in 15–30 cm (1500 kpa) marketable yield (1998–99) 0.96** soil moisture in 15–30 cm (1500 kpa) fruit firmness 0.89* soil moisture in 15–30 cm (1500 kpa) acidity -0.91** soil moisture in 0–15 cm (1–8–98) marketable yield (1998–99) 0.83* soil moisture in 15–30 cm (1–8–98) marketable yield (1998–99) 0.95** soil moisture in 15–30 cm (1–8–98) fruit firmness 0.81* soil moisture in 0–15 cm (12–8–99) marketable yield (1999–2000) 0.98** soil moisture in 15–30 cm (12–8–99) marketable yield (1999–2000) 0.91** marketable yield fruit firmness 0.93** marketable yield acidity -0.92** fruit firmness acidity 0.97** * and ** indicate significance at 5% and 1% levels, respectively references boyer, j. s. 1969. measurement of the water status of plants. ann. rev. pl. physiol., 20 : 351-64. brown, kirk w. 1977. shrinking and swelling of clay, clay strength and other properties of clay soils and clays. in minerals in soil environments. soil science society of america, madison, wisconsin, usa. pp 689-707. gupta, s. k., minhas, p. s., sondhi, s. k., tyagi, n. k. and yadav, j. s. p. 2000. water resources management. in: natural resource management for agricultural production in india. international conference on managing natural resources for sustainable agricultural production in the 21st century, pp 1418, february, 2000, new delhi, india. jackson, m. l. 1967. soil chemical analysis. prentice hall (india), new delhi. kemmler, g. and tandon, h. l. s. 1998. potassium deficiency and its correction in horticultural crops. ipi bulletin – fertilizing for yield and quality. joint publication of international potash institute, berne, switzerland and fertilizer development & consultation organization, new delhi. pp 5-8. kempthorne, o. 1952. design of experiments. john wiley & sons, new york. the marketable yield was significantly correlated with available moisture in both depths under field capacity and permanent wilting point. it was found from the study that application of 16 t/ha of cm together with 10 t/ha of fym was superior for attaining maximum soil moisture, survival (%), leaf area and rwc. however, application of 8 t/ha of cm together with 10 t/ha of fym was superior for attaining maximum leaf n, marketable yield, fruit firmness, total soluble solids, total soluble solids-acidity ratio in tomato under semi-arid alfisols. j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 32 rao and maruthi sankar keshava murthy, s. v. and kotur, s. c. 2000. a comparison of tank silt, farm yard manure and single superphosphate as sources phosphorus of “ney poovan” banana. in: international conference on managing natural resources for sustainable agricultural production in 21st century, 14-18, february, 2000. laryea, k. b. and katyal, j. c. 1995. physical measurement for assessing management effects on soil processes and resource utilization. icrisat and crida. pareek, o. p. 1997. arid horticulture : its potential. indian 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july, 1988, crida, hyderabad. tisdale, samuel l., nelson, werner l. and beaton, james d. 1985. soil fertility and fertilizers. fourth edition, macmillan publishing co., new york. pp112-291. unger, p. w. 1975. relationships between water retention, texture, density and organic matter content of west and south central texas soils. texas agricultural experimental station, misc. publication, md 1192c, pp1-20. (ms received 5 october 2006, revised 2 march 2007) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 26-33, 2007 33 effect of clay minerals on soil and plant charateristics final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 177 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 177-184, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction grape cultivation in india is highly remunerative owing to its high foreign exchange with maximum net returns to grape growers. thompson seedless is the preferred variety by growers and more than 70% of the area under grape cultivation is occupied by thompson seedless and its clonal selections like tasa-ganesh, sonaka, manik chaman etc. though thompson seedless is the internationally accepted table grape across the globe, in recent years many new green and colored varieties are dominating in the export market. the important varieties are crimson seedless, fantasy seedless, red globe, autumn royal etc. due to change in the international export market scenario, the area under coloured grape varieties is steadily increasing in mild tropical climatic regions of india especially in southern india. the important cultivars grown there are flame seedless, sharad seedless (syn: kishmish cheyrni) and its clonal selections, red globe, crimson seedless etc. though most of the cultural practices are similar to that of thompson seedless, their response is different for growth regulator application and canopy management practices. coloured grape variety crimson seedless is gaining importance in recent years due to their superior quality with respect to bunch and berry parameters and extended shelf life. gibberellic acid (ga) is commonly used in grape cultivation to improve size of berries and length of clusters. though grapevine cultivars shows large variation in response to applied ga, the reasons for such variations are unclear. this variation in response of different varieties to ga3 might be possible due to var iation in ga signalling components and/or availability of bioactive ga (acheampong et al., 2017). unlike seeded varieties of grapes, berries of the small stenospermic grape varieties like thompson seedless, flame seedless, and crimson seedless etc. will have lower concentration of ga as they carry optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j.1*, kumar sampath p.1 and upreti k.k.2 1division of fruit crops; 2division of basic sciences icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru – 560089, karnataka, india *corresponding author email: satisha.j@icar.gov.in abstract crimson seedless is a coloured grape, gaining popularity in india for its attractive colour, bunch and berry quality with better shelf life. in cultivation of any seedless grape variety, application of ga3 at different stages is very much essential to produce good quality berries and bunches. however, this variety is highly sensitive to excess application which adversely affects bunch quality. thus, there is a need to standardize mild dose of ga3 for rachis elongation which will help to reduce bunch compactness to a greater extent. hence, an experiment was initiated to standardize concentration of ga3 for rachis elongation of crimson seedless grapes. three different concentrations of ga3 (viz., 5 ppm, 7.5 ppm, and 10 ppm) were sprayed during pre bloom stage and compared with unsprayed control. among different treatments, pre-bloom spray of ga3@5 ppm could produce less compact bunches with highest average bunch weight, berry weight, berry length and tss. however, bunches sprayed with 7.5 ppm and 10 ppm ga3 could also produce good quality bunches, average berry weight with tss. because of severe coiling of rachis at 7.5 ppm and 10 ppm ga3 spraying, bunches were too straggly compared to spraying of 5 ppm ga3. the control bunches without ga3 produced very compact clusters with less average bunch weight, berry weight, berry diameter and berry length. keywords: crimson seedless, cluster compactness, fruit quality, ga3, grapes and rachis elongation 178 satisha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 177-184, 2021 rudimentary seed traces due to abortion of endosperm following fertilization (cheng et al., 2013). hence, external application of ga3 is routinely followed to stimulate development of berries in stenospermic varieties for commercial acceptance of berry size in addition to flower thinning and rachis elongation (wea ver, 1965; ha r r ell a nd willia ms, 1987). thompson seedless grapes require quite higher concentration of ga3 which is to be applied at different stages of cluster development to attain desirable bunch and berry qualities (chadha and shikhama ny, 1999). without the knowledge on concentration of ga3 to be applied to crimson seedless, some of growers used similar concentrations as used for thompson seedless which resulted in adverse effects on bunch and berry quality parameters. however, application of higher concentration of ga3 at different stages of berry development in crimson seedless grapes is found to be toxic and not advisable. higher concentration of ga3 results in excessive berry thinning (straggly clusters) and shot berry formation, as well as an unacceptable reduction in fruitfulness in the following year (dokoozlian et al., 2000). higher concentration of ga3 sometimes causes lignifications and contortion of the rachis (aguero et al., 2000). iqbal et al. (2011) suggested that ga rates @ 20 g/ ac effective for berry sizing are detrimental to the productivity and fruit quality of crimson seedless. hence, there was a need to optimize the concentration of ga3to elongate rachis which can improve the overall bunch and berry quality parameters. higher concentration of ga3 used arbitrarily was found to have adverse effect wherein it caused severe coiling of rachis. under tropical climatic conditions of india, no information is available on concentration of ga3 to be used to improve rachis elongation in crimson seedless grapes. hence, the present investigation was taken up to standardize the concentration of ga3 to be sprayed at pre-bloom stage to improve bunch and berry characters. materials and methods this study was undertaken at the experimental vineyard of icar indian institute of horticultural research (icar iihr) located at hessaraghatta, bengaluru during three consecutive years 2016-17 to 2018-19. it is situated at an elevation of 890 meters above sea level, 120 68’ north latitude and 77038’ east latitude. four year old vines of cv. crimson seedless grafted on dogridge rootstock and trained on to ‘y’ trellis were utilized for imposition of treatments. the spacing followed was 3.3m × 2.0m. throughout the experiment r egula r soil management and pla nt protection practices were followed in compliance with the schedule developed for successful grape cultivation in the region. similar to the practices followed in most of the tropical grape growing countries, the vines were pruned twice in a year once after harvest of previous crop which is popularly known as foundation pruning. this pruning usually coincides with summer season and is done to encourage canes with fruitful buds. again on these developed canes, one more pruning was done retaining 5-6 buds per cane, encouraging cluster development which is usually called as fruit pruning. different concentrations of ga3 viz., 5 ppm (5 mg/l), 7.5 ppm (7.5 mg/l) and 10 ppm (10 mg/l) were sprayed at panicle emergence stage (23-28 days after pruning, el stage 15) along with one treatment as control (water spray). the stock solution of ga3 was prepared just before spraying, by dissolving 1g of ga3 in 5 ml absolute alcohol and make up the volume to 1 litre using distilled water. from this stock solution desired concentrations were made with suitable dilutions. the experiment was laid out as randomized block design with 4 treatments and seven replications. ea ch treatment consisted of six vines. in ea ch replication 20 clusters were tagged to record all the bunch a nd ber r y qua lity pa r a meter s. ber r y physiochemical analysis was performed immediately after harvest. average berry weight, berry diameter and berry length were measured as per the standard procedures using electronic balance and measuring scale. cluster compactness was calculated using number of berries per bunch and total length of rachis and first five rachillae. berry total soluble solids (tss) was measured using temper ature compensa ted refractometer calibrated at room temperature of 25oc. titratable acidity was measured using titration method where in 10 ml of grape juice was titrated against 0.1 n sodium hydroxide using phenolphthalein as indicator. peel anthocyanin concentration was estimated as per the procedure reported by fuleki, (1969) using spectrophotometer and quantity of anthocyanin in the sample was calculated using cyanidin hydrochloride as standard and expressed as mg/100g fresh weight. total phenol content in grape juice was estimated by spectrophotometric method using folin ciocalteu reagent (fcr) as per the method developed by singleton and rossi, (1965). total sugar was estimated by the method developed by somyogi, (1952) and expressed in g/100gfw.the 179 optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality average of three years observations were used for statistical analysis. spss for windows version 9.0 and microsoft excel 2003 were used to carry out statistical analysis and graphical data presentation. results and discussion significant differences among the treatments were recorded for rachis length in response to different concentrations of ga3 applied. the clusters treated with ga3 @ 5 ppm recorded highest total rachis length of 124.90 cm followed by those treated with ga3 @ 7.5 ppm which recorded rachis length of 89.52cm (table 1). the least length of the rachis (55.68cm) was recorded in untreated control. though higher rachis length of more than 124.90 cm was recorded when ga3 was applied at 10 ppm, there was severe coiling of rachis which affected the bunch quality at later stages of berry development with respect to shape, appearance, lignified rachis etc. statistically significant differences among the treatments were recorded for bunch compactness. ga3 at 5 ppm recorded the less bunch compactness (0.94 berries / cm of rachis length) among all the treatments resulting in development of loose cluster, while in treatment where no ga3 application was applied, it recorded maximum bunch compactness (2.59 berries/cm of ra chis length) table 1. influence of different concentration of ga3 on bunch characters of grape cv. crimson seedless (mean of three years) treatments total length total number of bunch bunch of rachis berries per compactness weight (cm) bunch (no. of (g) berries/cm of rachis) ga3 at 5ppm 124.90 102.40 00.94 507.42 ga3 at 7.5ppm 089.50 110.42 01.26 482.04 ga3 at 10ppm 132.90 119.11 01.11 499.55 control 055.60 140.75 02.59 442.56 sem ± 009.80 010.52 00.18 037.20 cd(p=0.05) 029.50 ns 00.54 ns *ns: non significant resulting in very tight clusters. though ga3 @ 7.5 and 10 ppm could produce loose clusters, their bunch shape was not desirable due to coiling of rachis. application of ga3 at different concentrations has brought significant changes in cluster morphological parameters like rachis length, length of internodes, rachis weight etc. rachis elongation is the most essential phenomenon to produce loose grape bunches. application of ga3 has brought significant changes in rachis length compared to control clusters and which might be due to lot of biochemical events which takes place at cellular level. there was negative correlation (-0.743) between the total rachis length and cluster compactness (fig 1) which means, more the rachis length the number of berries per unit length is less indicating loose clusters. the bunch morphological fig. 1. correlation between total rachis length and cluster compactness in grape cv. crimson seedless **correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (p<0.01) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 177-184, 2021 180 parameters of the present experiment are in accordance with established reports on the application of ga3 for improved berry and bunch characters (looney and wood, 1977; molitor et al., 2012; weaver, 1958; weaver, 1975). the rachis elongation is a complex process which requires enhanced carbon metabolism of sugar accumulation by phloem area expansion. the increased rachis elongation in our studies might be due to over expression of some proteins involves in these processes which belong to biological processes like generation of precursor metabolites, cellular protein metabolic process, responses to abiotic stimulus and protein processes (ghule et al., 2019a). the process of rachis elongation in response to applied ga3 has been studied extensively at different levels viz., phenotypic, physiologica l a nd tr a nscr iptomes (domingos et al., 2016; upadhyay et al., 2018). most of these studies have indicated cell wall loosening and cell enlargement as the key physiological processes which are essential for rachis elongation to make grape clusters less compact. schopfer (2001) and liszkay et al, (2004) in their studies reported that hydroxyl radicals generated via fenton reaction with h2o2 as the substrate which helps in cell wall loosening and cell enlargement. similarly some of the proteins associated with cell biogenesis like irx15-like like pr oteins which a re involved in seconda ry wa ll participate in xylan biosynthesis as they are major hemicelluloses in secondary cell walls of most of dicotyledonous plants (brown et al., 2011). similarly, the process of cell wall elongation and wall loosening involves significant alterations in the properties of cell wall polysaccharides. nunan et al. (2001) predicted the activation of some of the enzymes that participate in cell wall modification. in our study also, the protein eocpf 1 (β ga la ctosidase bg1) belonging to ca r bohydr a te, monosa ccha r ide, a nd ga la ctose metabolism might have played a key role in elongating the cell wall which usually exists with other proteins, viz. pectin methylesterase, polygalacturonase, and xyloglucan endotransglycosylase. though no difference was recorded for total bunch weight in r esponse to a pplica tion of different concentrations of ga3 which is a factor of number of berries per cluster, ga3 at 5 ppm recorded maximum bunch weight (507.48g) among the all treatments while treatment without ga3 application recorded the least bunch weight (442.54g). but, application of ga3 brought a significant difference in individual berry weight wherein ga3 @ 5 ppm registered maximum berry weight (4.93g) followed by ga3@ 7.5ppm (4.85g). the least average berry weight was recorded in untr ea ted contr ol t 4 (3. 98g). s ome of the mechanisms proposed for ga3 action are increased activity of soluble invertase (pérez and gómez, 2000) and subsequent change in water potential of berries and modulation of aquaporin genes by ga3 (espinoza et al. 2009) to increase the water content of berries dur ing ber r y gr owth. recent pr oteome a nd transcriptome-based analyses (cheng et al.,2015; wang et al., 2012) have also shown ga3-mediated modulation of several genes involved in cell expansion and cell wall modification which might be responsible for the increase in berry size and volume. in a study to see the effect of ga3 on berry sizing in thompson seedless grapes, ghule et al, (2019 b) reported the increased size of berries in ga3 applied bunches and was attributed to increase level of peroxidase as early response a nd suppr essed level of ca ta la se a nd glutaredoxin as late response and concluded that berry enlargement might have influenced by expression of antioxidant enzymes such as catalase and peroxidise which was also suggested by wang et al. (2017). no significant difference was recorded for berry quality parameters like berry diameter, total soluble solids etc (table 2). however, titratable acidity was found to be highest in control vines (0.52%) while the least acidity (0.41%) was recorded in clusters treated with 5 ppm ga3. observations on anthocyanin concentration are presented in table 3. significant differences among the treatments were recorded. among all treatments bunches treated with ga3 @ 7.5ppm (247.914mg/100g) registered maximum anthocyanin concentration (table 3) followed by ga3@ 5ppm t 1 (177. 327 mg/100g). the least anthocyanin concentration was recorded in bunches with no ga3 application i.e., t4 (167.143 mg/100g). the highest anthocyanin concentration in treatment with 7.5 ppm ga3 might be due to its lower total sugar concentration which has exhibited negative correlation (r= -0.413, fig 2) and vice versa in treatments with ga3 @ 5 ppm and 10 ppm. the sugar conversion into anthocyanin biosynthesis is reported by few workers in different flowers and fruit crops as reported by ozer et al. (2012). our findings are in accordance with that of peppi et al. (2006), where the application of gibberellic acid (ga 3) was effective at increasing the satisha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 177-184, 2021 181 table 2. influence of different concentration of ga3 on berry quality parameters of grape cv. crimson seedless (mean of three years) treatments 50 berry average berry berry tss acidity weight (g) berry diameter length (0b) (%) weight (g) (mm) (mm) ga3at 5 ppm 246.41 4.92 17.31 25.82 18.52 0.24 ga3at 7.5 ppm 242.51 4.81 17.30 25.43 17.57 0.32 ga3at 10 ppm 233.44 4.63 17.43 24.64 17.66 0.41 control 199.35 3.92 16.82 22.77 18.21 0.51 sem ± 8.843 0.17 0.27 0.47 0.40 0.054 cd (p = 0.05) 26.27 0.53 ns 1.40 ns 0.16 *ns: non significant table 3. influence of different concentration of ga3 on berry quality parameters of grape cv. crimson seedless (mean of three years) treatments anthocyanin total phenols total sugars concentration (mg/100g) (g/100g) (mg/100g) ga3 at 5ppm 177.30 112.70 18.20 ga3 at 7.5ppm 247.90 172.60 15.90 ga3 at 10ppm 173.70 217.60 16.00 control 167.10 155.10 17.40 sem ± 016.50 023.73 00.38 cd(p=0.05) 049.40 071.06 01.13 fig. 2. correlation between anthocyanins and total sugars in grape cv. crimson seedless **correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (p<0.01) anthocyanins content of grape variety flame seedless. the use of higher concentrations of ga3 (over 50 ppm) lea ds to a r eduction in the content of anthocyanins in berries (rusjan, 2010) and this in turn has an adverse effect on the organoleptic properties of varieties with red and blue color of the skin intended for consumption in fresh condition. significant differences among the treatments were recorded with respect to total phenol content wherein, bunches treated with ga3 @ 10ppm (217.605 mg/ 100g) registered maximum total phenols followed by ga3 @ 7.5ppm t2 (172.664mg/100g). the least total phenol was recorded in clusters treated with ga3 @ 5ppm t 1 (112. 752mg/100g). ga3 (highest 3 concentrations) and cppu treatments (highest 2 concentrations) significantly increased the total phenol content of the grapes after cold storage avenant et al (2017). increased phenol content of ‘regal seedless’ was correlated with an increased astringent taste (fraser, 2007), with serious negative implications regarding consumer preferences and market access. application of higher concentration of ga3 might not only reduce the physical appearance of cluster with respect to lignifications of rachis but also reduce the chemical properties with respect to reduced sugar optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 177-184, 2021 182 content and more phenolic compounds as evidenced in present study which is in accordance with the findings of avenant et al. (2017). significant differences among the treatments were recorded for total sugars. among all treatments bunches treated with ga3 at 5 ppm (18.211g/100g) registered maximum total sugars followed by bunches without ga3 application (17.444g/100g). the least total sugars was recorded in bunches treated with ga3 at 7.5 ppm (15.914g/100g). the increase in reducing, non-reducing and total sugars might be ascribed to the conversion of starch and acids into sugars in addition to continuous mobilization of sugars from leaves to berries (singh et al., 1993). singh and khanduja, (1977) further reported that the application of ga3 in pusa seedless showed increased sugars and decreased a cidity content. applica tion of ga3 a t r a chis elongation stage might have stimulated internal synthesis of ga3 in young berries which might have increased the sink drawing ability leading to more accumulation of sugars in treated berries than in control. the phloem loading capacity is increased or stimulated by application of ga3 in many crops which helps in better translocation of photosynthates synthesized in leaves to young berries via phloem vessels. application of ga3 modifies phloem loading, phloem area and increased expression of sugar transporters to enhance carbon metabolism (murcia et al., 2016). a ten-fold increase in some of the genes involved in sugar transport and metabolism was observed in malbec grapes compared to control. a positive cor r ela tion wa s obser ved between photosynthesis and stomatal conductance in ga3 treated vines (murcia et al., 2016). berry growth is stimulated due to increase in rate of cell division as well as cell elongation (dokoozlian and peacock, 2001). plant hormones have strong effects on berry growth and development (guerios et al., 2016) among them, gas take part in a critical function in berry sizing and enlargement (weaver and mccune, 1960). in the last few years, the effect of exogenous ga3 application on grape berry growth and cell enlargement has been studied by several researchers; however, the basic mode of action of ga3 to produce maximum berry size is not very clear. ga3 applications may also have negative effects on grapevine, including excessive reduction of the number of berries per cluster, the production of grassy or herbaceous flavors in the fruit, a reduction in tissue winter hardiness and a reduction in node fruitfulness. these phytotoxic effects of ga tend to become more pronounced in the seeded varieties. considering the above findings from the present study and other supported results from different workers, it might be summarized that ga3 at 5 ppm might be optimum for bringing about desirable changes in bunch morphology in crimson seedless. super or suboptimal level of ga3might result in adverse effect on bunch characters. references acheampong, a.k., hu, j., rotman, a., zheng, c., halaly, t. andtakebayashi, y. 2015. functional characterization and developmental expression profiling of gibberellin signalling 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(received on 21.08.2021, revised on 11.10.2021 and accepted on 17.11.2021) satisha et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 177-184, 2021 00 contents.pdf 05 satisha.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper assessment of growth and yield parameters in arecanut (areca catechu l.) through correlation and path analysis under hilly zone of karnataka hiremata v.*1, narayanaswamy m.2 and shet r.m.1 1university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot, karnataka, india 2university of agricultural and horticultural sciences shivamogga, karnataka, india *corresponding author email : virugpb2019@gmail.com abstract arecanut (areca catechu l.) commonly called as betel nut is a high value commercial crop of coastal and malnad region of kerala and karnataka. the present study was carried out at agricultural and horticultural research station sringeri, uahs shivamogga in 2018. the study attempts the correlation studies in the germplasm will help to understand the mutual relationship among various traits and thereby assist in selecting the character contributing to the yield. in addition to this the selection for yield directly is ineffective as yield is affected by many other traits. the highest positive significant for the association of fruit yield per palm was with the fresh kernel weight per palm (0.96g) followed by dry weight of husk per palm (0.89g) and fresh weight of husk per palm (0.89g). path analysis revealed that nineteen out of thirty-four characters recorded that fruit volume (2.40cc) had highest positive direct effect on fruit yield per palm followed by fresh fruit weight (2.17g) and breadth of leaf sheath (2.11m). it can be concluded that growth and yield characters may be considered in selection criteria for the improvement of yield in arecanut. keywords : arecanut, correlation, path analysis and yield introduction the coastal and maland region of karnataka has tremendous potential for cultivation of arecanut due to favourable soil and climate, it is mostly confined to 28° north and south of the equator. it grows within a temperature range of 14 °c to 36 °c. susceptibility to low and diverse temperature, it requires ample supply of soil moisture and plentiful of rainfall throughout the year (1,500-5,000 mm). it can be grown in a soil type such as laterites, red loamy and alluvial. the depth of soil may not be less than 1 m. the soil should be well drained. ar eca nut (areca catechu l. ) is a high va lue commercial crop of india, which is also called betel nut. it is widely distributed in philippines, indonesia, sri lanka, southern china, taiwan and java. india stands first in the world in arecanut production followed by myanma r, bangladesh, china a nd indonesia. (indiastat, 2020). a total of 11.08 lakh tons of arecanut was produced from 7.43 lakh ha in india with a pr oductivity of 1491 kg per ha (indiastat, 2020). area and production in different states indicate that karnataka, kerala and assam occupy 80 per cent of area and production followed by meghalaya, west bengal, tamil nadu, mizoram and odisha. the little effort has been identifying the genetic potential of arecanut genotypes in the region. the natural genetic variation for most of the yield contributing characters is considerable in this crop in the region and there is a need for the breeders to restructure the materials for increasing the production and productivity. correlation study in yield and yield attributing characters/traits will be of value in selection of traits during improvement. path analysis provides an effective means of finding out direct and indirect ca uses of a ssocia tion a nd per mits a cr itica l examination of given correlation and measures the relative importance of each factor. it gives more accurate pattern of trait association through direct and indirect effects. materials and method ten arecanut genotypes such as sumangala, sringeri local, mohit nagar, sas-1, hirhalli dwarf, keladi local, sagar local, thirthahalli local, sreemangala 2 hiremata et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 00-00, 2022 and mangala as test entries with three replications, each having three palms of eight years old were evaluated at agricultural and horticultural research station, sringeri, which is located in the western ghats and represents the typical hill zone (9) of karnataka and lies at 13025’ north latitude and 750 25’ east longitude with an altitude of 980 m above mean sea level during 2018. the observation on growth and yield characters were recorded at the time of maturity. phenotypic cor r elations of 34 cha r acter s both growth and yield quantitative characters namely, kernel breadth (mm), fr esh weight of husk (g), number of bunches per palm, husk thickness (mm), dry weight of husk (g), fresh nut yield per palm (g), recovery percentage (%), bunch weight per palm (g), fresh kernel weight per palm (g), fresh weight of husk per palm (g), dry weight of husk per palm, (g) number of inflor escence, plant height (m), crown length (m), girth (m), inter nodal length (m), number of fronds , number of leaflets , length of oldest leaf (m), breadth of oldest leaf (m), length of leaf sheath (m), brea dth of leaf sheath (m), number of female flowers per inflorescence, number of nuts per palm, fruit length(mm), fruit breadth (mm), fresh fruit weight (mm), kernel length (mm) , fruit volume (cc), dry weight of kernel (mm), total chlorophyll content (μg /g) and number of nuts per inflorescence fruit yield per palm (g) presented in table 1 and 2. mean data was subjected for study of correlation and path coefficient as suggested by miller et al. (1958) and dewey and lu (1959) respectively. results and discussion t he a na lysis of va r ia nc e showed signif ic a nt diff er enc es a mong the genot yp es f or a ll t he characters studied. the extent of variability present in the ger mplasm provides scope for the crop improvement programme and also depends on the extent of heritability for a trait. range of variation observed for all the traits indicated the presence of sufficient amount of variation among the genotypes f or a ll t he c ha r a ct er s st udied. t he genot yp e mangala recorded higher mean value for traits like fruit length, fruit breadth, husk thickness, fresh weight of husk, fresh nut yield, bunch weight, fresh weight of kernel, dry weight of kernel, fresh weight of husk per palm, dry weight of husk per palm and number of inflor escences. sas-1 recorded the lowest value for fruit length and kernel length. sringeri local recorded the lowest value for fruit br eadth and fr uit volume. suma ngala recorded higher value for fruit volume and lowest value for number of nuts per inflorescence. mohit nagar recorded higher value for fresh fruit weight, kernel breadth, fresh weight of kernel, dry weight of kernel a nd dry weight of husk while lower va lue for recovery percentage. the minimum kernel weight was observed in hirehalli dwarf. the higher kernel weight was observed in sumangala, mohit nagar cultivars which has been reported earlier (ananda and rajesh, 2004) [2]. phenotypic expression of any traits largely depends on the genotype of the plant and influences environmental variation but gener a lly, higher envir onment a l inf lu enc e suppr esses the complete expr ession of genes. phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than the genotypic coefficient of variation for all the c ha r a c t er s s t u died b u t , t his ne eds a good understanding of the association of different traits with yield and their association among themselves. the correlation analysis helps in examining the possibility of improving yield and its attributing traits through an indirect selection of their highly correlated component traits. in this investigation, correlation coefficients were worked out on ten genotypes of arecanut. t he s t u dy o f t he a s s oc ia t ion of c omp onent characters with a complex trait like yield is very helpful for ease of gainful selection in any breeding p r ogr a mme. it ha s b een est a b lished t ha t the str uctur e of yield must be pr obed thr ough its components r ather tha n yield. the concept of correlations was elaborated by fisher (1918) and wright (1921). the association of fruit yield per palm was positive significant with the kernel breadth (0.39), fresh weight of husk (0.65), number of bunches per palm (0.68), husk thickness (0.69), dry weight of husk (0.40), fresh nut yield per palm (0.68), recovery percentage (0.36), bunch weight per palm (0.68), fresh kernel weight per palm (0.97), fresh weight of husk per palm (0.89), dry weight of husk per palm (0.90) and number of inflorescence (0.66) (archana, 2017) and rajesh (2007) for per cent nut set, the number of female flowers per inflorescence. since these a ssocia ted cha r a cter s wer e in the 3 assessment of growth and yield parameters in arecanut (areca catechu l.) desirable direction, it indicated that simultaneous selection for these characters would be rewarding in improving the dry kernel yield. talukder et al. (2011) observed that nut weight showed a positive and significant correlation with husk weight, the volume of water, shell weight, kernel weight and ker nel thickness in coconut. highly significant positive correlations were observed among whole nut weight, dehusked nut weight and copra weight by natarajan et al. (2010). the remaining characters are positive but nonsignificant viz., plant height (0.09), crown length (0.26), girth (0.12), inter nodal length (0.24), number of fronds (0.07), number of leaflets (0.10), length of oldest leaf (0.22), breadth of oldest leaf (0.30), length of leaf sheath (0.13), breadth of leaf sheath (0.31), which is mainly due to an increase in crown length would accommodate a greater number of leaves which in response produce high quantities of photosynthates. the number of female flowers per inflorescence (0.01), number of nuts per palm (0.46), fruit length (0.34), fruit breadth (0.62), fresh fruit weight (0.34), kernel length (0.16), fruit volume (0.19), dry weight of kernel (0.27) the results were confirmed with the findings of rajesh (2007). in arecanut, plant height, husk thickness, kernel breadth and dry weight of kernel are important characters to be accounted for gaining improvement in yield per palm. since these characters had a high direct association on dry kernel yield at the phenotypic level. this indicated that in arecanut production of nuts is not affected due to the individual nut weight and vice versa. total chlorophyll content (-0.10) and number of nuts per inflorescence (-0.30) had a negative association with fruit yield per palm but it was very low and nonsignificant and none of the characters showed negative correlation with yield/plant. therefore, there may not be any problem in increasing the yield of arecanut through any of the characters under study. anand et al. (2005) noticed the fresh fruit weight, dry kernel weight, dry kernel recovery, dry fruit weight was correlated positively with kernel yield while husk thickness had negative association with kernel yield in exotic accessions (ananda et al., 2005). similarly, characters like fresh fruit weight, dry kernel weight and dry kernel recovery had high magnitude of correlation with kernel yield and production of nuts in arecanut varieties during initial bearing in coastal region of karnataka (ananda et al., 2001) while negative correlations were reported between the dry nut weight and dry husk weight with kernel yield. therefore, all the characters were found helpful in increasing the yield of arecanut. (table 1 and 2). the coefficient of correlation does not give the true picture under complex situa tions. under such situations, path coefficient analysis provides a mean to determine the direct influence of one variable (cause) upon another var iable (effect). for the establishment of cause and effect relationship path coefficient analysis offers an opportunity for partition of correlation coefficient into component of direct and indirect effects (wright, 1921) and path coefficient analysis is the effective measure of direct and indirect causes of association and also depicts the relative importance of each factor involved in contributing to the final pr oduct that is yield (dewey and lu, 1959).path coefficient analysis was carried out by taking fruit yield per plant as dependent variable. positive and negative, direct and indirect effect of yield components on fruit yield per plant is presented in table 3 and 4. the present investigation path analysis revealed that nineteen out of thirty-four characters recorded that fruit volume (2.40) had highest positive direct effect on fruit yield per palm followed by fresh fruit weight (2.18) and breadth of leaf sheath (2.12). remaining characters had negative direct effect, among them number of inflorescences per palm (-0.25) had highest negative direct effect on fruit yield per palm followed by number of fronds (-2.22) and fresh husk weight per palm (-1.51). rajesh (2007) observed the direct effects on dry kernel yield via nut set, breadth of leaflet, internodal length, the number of leaves, the number of inflorescences per palm, length of leaf, fresh fruit weight. the traits viz., crown length, internodal length and leaf breadth were negatively contributed towards dry kernel yield. similar results were observed by bavappa and nair (1982). the local arecanut cultivar of south kanara in coconut cultivars, such trends have been reported by renuga (1999) and jerard (2002), ganesamurthy et al. (2002) in coconut and natarajan et al. (2010) in arecanut. therefore, it can be concluded that these characters can be considered in selection criteria for the improvement of yield in arecanut. the residual effect (0.067) obtained was less than 0.5, suggesting that some of the characters have not been included, which may be responsible to enhance the fruit yield of arecanut. 4 ta bl e 1 : e st im at es o f p he no ty pi c co rr el at io n co ef fic ie nt fo r gr ow th a nd y ie ld a tt ri bu tin g tr ai ts o f a re ca nu t t ra it x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 x 11 x 12 x 13 x 14 x 1 1. 00 0 0. 80 ** 0. 56 ** 0. 93 ** 0. 51 ** 0. 32 0. 89 ** 0. 88 ** 0. 82 ** 0. 48 ** 0. 38 * -0 .0 7 0. 29 0. 09 x 2 1. 00 0 0. 40 * 0. 80 ** 0. 56 ** 0. 45 * 0. 85 ** 0. 83 ** 0. 92 ** 0. 52 ** 0. 39 * -0 .0 9 0. 25 0. 26 x 3 1. 00 0 0. 59 ** 0. 71 ** 0. 73 ** 0. 59 ** 0. 55 ** 0. 52 ** 0. 82 ** 0. 44 * -0 .0 9 -0 .0 9 0. 12 x 4 1. 00 0 0. 40 * 0. 47 ** 0. 94 ** 0. 89 ** 0. 82 ** 0. 51 ** 0. 31 -0 .0 9 0. 35 0. 20 x 5 1. 00 0. 70 ** 0. 51 ** 0. 59 ** 0. 64 ** 0. 86 ** 0. 36 * 0. 07 -0 .1 7 0. 07 x 6 1. 00 0 0. 55 ** 0. 46 * 0. 59 ** 0. 72 ** 0. 18 0. 04 -0 .1 1 0. 09 x 7 1. 00 0 0. 92 ** 0. 92 ** 0. 52 ** 0. 38 * -0 .0 7 0. 32 0. 22 x 8 1. 00 0 0. 86 ** 0. 58 ** 0. 43 * 0. 07 0. 19 0. 30 x 9 1. 00 0 0. 54 ** 0. 32 -0 .1 3 0. 21 0. 13 x 10 1. 00 0 0. 37 * -0 .0 1 -0 .0 3 0. 31 x 11 1. 00 0. 04 -0 .2 8 0. 68 ** x 12 1. 00 -0 .2 5 -0 .0 9 x 13 1. 00 0. 01 x 14 1. 00 *l ev el o f si gn ifi ca nc e at 5 % * * l ev el o f si gn ifi ca nc e at 1 % w he re , x 1= pl an t h ei gh t ( m ) x 2= c ro w n le ng th ( m ) x 3= g irt h (m ) x 4= in te rn od al le ng th ( m ) x 5= n o. o f fr on ds . x 6= n o. o f le af le ts . x 7= l en gt h of o ld es t l ea f (m ) x 8= b re ad th o f ol de st le af (m ) x 9= l en gt h of le af s he at h (m ) x 10 =b re ad th o f le af s he at h (m ). x 11 =n o. o f bu nc he s/ p al m ( m ). x 12 =t ot al c hl or op hy ll (µ g/ m l) x 13 = n o. o f fe m al e flo w er s pe r in flo re sc en ce . x 14 =y ie ld (g / pa lm ) hiremata et al 5 ta bl e 2 : e st im at es o f ph en ot yp ic c or re la tio n co ef fic ie nt f or y ie ld a nd y ie ld a tt ri bu tin g tr ai ts o f ar ec an ut t ra it x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 x 11 x 12 x 13 x 14 x 15 x 16 x 17 x 18 x 19 x 20 x 21 x 1 1. 00 0 0. 40 * 0. 22 0. 42 * 0. 45 * 0. 75 ** 0. 63 ** 0. 69 ** 0. 61 ** 0. 86 ** 0. 82 ** 0. 32 0. 69 ** 0. 44 * 0. 57 ** 0. 62 ** 0. 62 ** 0. 36 -0 .3 3 -1 4 0. 33 x 2 1. 00 0 0. 49 ** 0. 74 ** 0. 76 ** 0. 18 0. 56 ** 0. 41 * 0. 37 * 0. 55 * 0. 39 * 0. 60 ** 0. 53 ** 0. 67 ** 0. 70 ** 0. 69 ** 0. 50 ** -0 .5 4 0. 23 -0 .1 8 0. 62 ** x 3 1. 00 0 0. 86 ** 0. 63 ** -0 .3 2 0. 24 0. 25 0. 22 0. 37 * 0. 40 * 0. 05 0. 06 0. 18 0. 14 0. 12 -0 .0 7 -0 .2 9 -0 .0 7 0. 12 0. 19 x 4 1. 00 0 0. 71 ** -0 .0 1 0. 58 ** 0. 58 ** 0. 57 ** 0. 60 ** 0. 62 ** 0. 44 * 0. 39 * 0. 38 * 0. 41 * 0. 35 0. 25 -0 .0 7 0. 12 -0 .0 5 0. 33 x 5 1. 00 0. 01 0. 34 0. 36 * 0. 36 0. 60 ** 0. 57 ** 05 3* * 0. 62 ** 0. 63 ** 0. 60 ** 0. 73 ** 0. 39 * -0 .2 5 0. 18 0. 21 0. 69 ** x 6 1. 00 0 0. 47 0. 46 ** 0. 44 * 0. 55 ** 0. 52 ** 0. 26 0. 48 ** 0. 25 0. 38 * 0. 40 * 0. 55 ** 0. 05 -0 .1 2 -0 .0 3 0. 16 x 7 1. 00 0 0. 84 ** 0. 89 ** * 0. 74 ** 0. 73 ** 0. 68 ** 0. 70 ** 0. 53 ** 0. 66 ** 0. 55 ** 0. 67 ** 0. 03 0. 09 -0 .3 1 0. 38 * x 8 1. 00 0 0. 92 ** 0. 81 ** 0. 84 ** 0. 71 ** 0. 75 ** 0. 42 * 0. 56 ** 0. 59 ** 0. 69 ** -0 .1 3 0. 07 -0 .2 7 0. 29 x 9 1. 00 0 0. 71 ** 0. 84 ** 0. 72 ** 0. 78 ** 0. 37 * 0. 49 ** 0. 45 * 0. 53 ** 0. 15 0. 10 -0 .2 3 0. 27 x 10 1. 00 0 0. 86 ** 0. 61 ** 0. 79 ** 0. 37 ** 0. 81 ** 0. 78 ** 0. 76 ** -0 .3 9* 0. 03 0. 02 0. 64 ** x 11 1. 00 0. 58 ** 0. 76 ** 0. 43 * 0. 52 ** 0. 59 ** 0. 52 ** -0 .1 7 -0 .0 6 0. 06 0. 39 * x 12 1. 00 0. 81 ** 0. 71 ** 0. 75 ** 0. 72 ** 0. 71 ** 0. 11 0. 56 ** -0 .0 2 0. 68 ** x 13 1. 00 0. 70 ** 0. 78 ** 0. 82 ** 0. 72 ** -0 .0 5 0. 15 -0 .1 1 0. 66 ** x 14 1. 00 0. 97 ** 0. 89 ** 0. 77 ** -0 .3 2 0. 41 * 0. 16 0. 96 ** x 15 1. 00 0. 91 ** 0. 87 ** -0 .3 3 0. 32 -0 .0 1 0. 89 ** x 16 1. 00 0. 81 ** -0 .3 3 0. 25 0. 14 0. 89 ** x 17 1. 00 -0 .3 8 0. 29 -0 .0 8 0. 66 ** x 18 1. 00 0. 22 -0 .1 1 -0 .3 0 x 19 1. 00 0. 33 0. 45 * x 20 1. 00 0. 36 * *l ev el o f si gn ifi ca nc e at 5 % * * l ev el o f si gn if ic an ce a t 1% w he re , x 1= fr ui t le ng th ( m m ) x 2= f ru it br ea dt h (m m ) x 3= fr ui t vo lu m e (c c) x 4= fr es h fr ui t w ei gh t (g /f ru it) x 5= h us k th ic kn es s (m m ). x 6= k er ne l le ng th ( m m ) x 7= k er ne l br ea dt h (m m ) x 8= f re sh w ei gh t of k er ne l(g /f ru it) x 9= d ry w ei gh t of k er ne l ( g/ pa lm ) x 10 =f re sh w ei gh t of h us k (g /p al m ) x 11 =d ry w ei gh t of h us k (g /p al m ) x 12 = fr es h nu t yi el d (g /p al m ) x 13 =b un ch w t (g /p al m )x 14 = fr es h ke rn el w ei gh t ( g/ p al m ) x 15 = fr es h hu sk w ei gh t( g/ pa lm ) x 16 = d ry h us k w ei gh t (g /p al m ) x 17 = n o. o f in fl or es ce nc e x 18 = n o. n ut s pe r in fl or es ce nc e x 19 =t ot al n ut s pe r pa lm x 20 = r ec ov er y pe rc en ta ge (% ) x 21 = y ie ld ( g/ p al m ). assessment of growth and yield parameters in arecanut (areca catechu l.) 6 ta bl e 3 : d ir ec t an d in di re ct e ff ec ts o f gr ow th p ar am et er s on k er ne l y ie ld t ra it x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 x 11 x 12 x 13 x 14 x 1 0. 75 0. 59 0. 42 0. 69 0. 38 0. 24 0. 67 0. 65 0. 61 0. 36 0. 28 -0 .0 5 0. 22 0. 09 x 2 -0 .6 9 -0 .8 7 -0 .3 5 -0 .6 9 -0 .4 9 -0 .3 9 -0 .7 4 -0 .7 2 -0 .8 0 -0 .4 5 -0 .3 4 0. 08 -0 .2 2 0. 26 x 3 -0 .5 3 -0 .3 8 -0 .9 4 -0 .5 5 -0 .6 7 -0 .6 8 -0 .5 6 -0 .5 2 -0 .4 9 -0 .7 7 -0 .4 1 0. 09 0. 08 0. 12 x 4 -1 .2 5 -1 .0 8 -0 .7 9 -1 .3 4 -0 .5 5 0. 63 -1 .2 7 -1 .2 1 -1 .1 1 -0 .6 9 -0 .4 2 0. 12 -0 .4 8 0. 20 x 5 -1 .1 2 -1 .2 4 -1 .5 9 -0 .9 1 -2 .2 2 -1 .5 7 -1 .1 4 -1 .3 0 -1 .4 4 -1 .9 1 -0 .8 1 -0 .1 6 0. 39 0. 07 x 6 0. 20 0. 27 0. 44 0. 28 0. 43 0. 61 0. 34 0. 28 0. 36 0. 44 0. 11 0. 03 -0 .0 6 0. 09 x 7 -0 .5 8 -0 .5 6 -0 .3 9 -0 .6 2 -0 .3 4 -0 .3 6 -0 .6 6 -0 .6 1 -0 .6 1 -0 .3 4 -0 .2 5 0. 05 -0 .2 1 0. 22 x 8 0. 70 0. 67 0. 44 0. 72 0. 47 0. 37 0. 74 0. 79 0. 69 0. 46 0. 34 0. 05 0. 16 0. 30 x 9 1. 16 1. 30 0. 73 1. 15 0. 91 0. 84 1. 29 1. 21 1. 40 0. 76 0. 45 -0 .1 9 0. 29 0. 13 x 10 1. 03 1. 11 1. 74 1. 09 1. 82 1. 52 1. 10 1. 22 1. 15 2. 11 0. 79 -0 .2 4 -0 .0 8 0. 31 x 11 0. 38 0. 39 0. 44 0. 31 0. 36 0. 18 0. 38 0. 43 0. 32 0. 37 0. 99 0. 04 -0 .2 8 0. 68 x 12 -0 .0 1 -0 .0 1 -0 .0 13 -0 .0 1 0. 01 0. 01 -0 .0 1 0. 01 -0 .0 2 -0 .0 2 0. 01 0. 13 -0 .0 3 -0 .0 9 x 13 0. 07 0. 06 -0 .0 2 0. 09 -0 .0 4 -0 .0 2 0. 07 0. 05 0. 05 -0 .0 1 -0 .0 7 -0 .0 6 0. 24 0. 01 x 14 1. 00 0 *l ev el o f si gn ifi ca nc e at 5 % * * l ev el o f si gn if ic an ce a t 1% w he re , x 1= pl an t he ig ht ( m ) x 2= c ro w n le ng th ( m ) x 3= g ir th ( m ) x 4= in te rn od al l en gt h (m ) x 5= n o. o f fr on ds . x 6= n o. o f le af le ts . x 7= l en gt h of o ld es t le af ( m ) x 8= b re ad th o f ol de st le af (m ) x 9= l en gt h of l ea f sh ea th ( m ) x 10 =b re ad th o f le af s he at h (m ). x 11 =n o. o f bu nc he s/ p al m ( m ). x 12 =t ot al c hl or op hy ll (µ g/ m l) x 13 = n o. o f fe m al e flo w er s pe r in flo re sc en ce x 14 = y ie ld ( g/ p al m ) hiremata et al 7 ta bl e 4 : d ir ec t an d in di re ct e ff ec ts o f yi el d co m po ne nt s on k er ne l y ie ld t ra it x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 x 11 x 12 x 13 x 14 x 15 x 16 x 17 x 18 x 19 x 20 x 21 x 1 0. 12 0. 05 0. 03 0. 52 0. 06 0. 09 0. 08 0. 09 0. 07 0. 11 0. 10 0. 04 0. 08 0. 05 0. 07 0. 07 0. 07 -0 .0 4 -0 .0 4 -0 .0 1 0. 33 x 2 -0 .1 4 -0 .3 4 -0 .1 7 -0 .2 5 -0 .2 6 -0 .0 3 -0 .1 9 -0 .1 4 -0 .1 3 -0 .1 9 -0 .1 4 -0 .2 0 -0 .1 8 -0 .2 3 -0 .2 4 -0 .2 3 -0 .1 7 0. 02 -0 .0 8 0. 06 0. 62 x 3 0. 53 1. 18 2. 40 2. 07 1. 51 -0 .7 8 0. 59 0. 61 0. 54 0. 89 0. 97 0. 12 0. 14 0. 44 0. 35 0. 30 -0 .1 8 -0 .6 9 -0 .1 7 0. 28 0. 19 x 4 -0 .6 4 -1 .1 2 -1 .3 9 -1 .5 1 -1 .0 8 0. 01 -0 .8 8 -0 .8 9 -0 .8 6 -0 .9 1 -0 .9 4 -0 .6 8 -0 .5 9 -0 .5 8 -0 .6 3 -0 .5 4 -0 .3 9 0. 11 -0 .1 7 0. 08 0. 33 x 5 -0 .1 3 -0 .2 2 -0 .1 8 -0 .2 0 -0 .2 9 -0 .0 02 -0 .0 9 -0 .1 0 -0 .1 0 -0 .1 7 -0 .1 6 -0 .1 5 -0 .1 8 -0 .1 8 -0 .1 7 -0 .2 1 -0 .1 1 0. 07 -0 .0 5 -0 .0 6 0. 69 x 6 0. 64 0. 08 -0 .2 8 -0 .0 1 0. 01 0. 85 0. 40 0. 39 0. 38 0. 47 0. 44 0. 22 0. 41 0. 22 0. 33 0. 35 0. 47 0. 04 -0 .1 0 -0 .0 2 0. 16 x 7 0. 41 0. 37 0. 16 0. 38 0. 22 0. 31 0. 65 0. 55 0. 58 0. 48 0. 48 0. 44 0. 46 0. 35 0. 43 0. 36 0. 44 0. 02 0. 06 -0 .2 0 0. 38 x 8 -0 .4 4 -0 .2 6 -0 .1 6 -0 .3 7 -0 .2 3 -0 .2 9 -0 .5 3 0. 63 -0 .5 8 -0 .5 1 -0 .5 3 -0 .4 4 -0 .4 7 -0 .2 6 -0 .3 5 -0 .3 2 -0 .4 3 0. 08 -0 .0 4 0. 17 0. 29 x 9 -0 .6 4 -0 .3 9 -0 .2 4 -0 .5 9 -0 .3 8 -0 .4 7 -0 .9 5 -0 .9 7 -1 .0 5 -0 .7 5 -0 .8 9 -0 .7 6 -0 .8 2 -0 .3 9 -0 .5 1 -0 .4 8 -0 .5 6 -0 .1 6 -0 .1 1 0. 24 0. 27 x 10 0. 46 0. 29 0. 19 0. 32 0. 32 0. 29 0. 39 0. 54 0. 38 0. 53 0. 46 0. 33 0. 42 0. 39 0. 43 0. 42 0. 41 -0 .2 1 0. 02 0. 01 0. 64 x 11 -0 .8 4 -0 .4 0 -0 .4 2 -0 .6 4 -0 .5 8 -0 .5 3 -0 .7 5 -0 .8 6 -0 .8 6 -0 .8 8 -1 .0 2 -0 .5 9 -0 .7 8 -0 .4 4 -0 .5 3 -0 .6 1 -0 .5 3 0. 17 0. 07 -0 .0 7 0. 39 x 12 0. 69 1. 31 0. 11 0. 76 1. 15 0. 56 1. 48 1. 54 1. 58 1. 34 1. 27 2. 17 1. 77 1. 56 1. 64 1. 58 1. 56 0. 25 1. 22 -0 .0 4 0. 68 x 13 0. 54 0. 42 0. 47 0. 30 0. 49 0. 38 0. 56 0. 59 0. 62 0. 63 0. 60 0. 65 0. 79 0. 56 0. 62 0. 65 0. 57 -0 .0 4 0. 12 -0 .0 9 0. 69 x 14 -0 .1 3 -0 .2 1 -0 .0 6 -0 .1 2 -0 .2 0 -0 .0 8 -0 .1 7 -0 .1 3 -0 .1 2 -0 .2 3 -0 .1 3 -0 .2 3 -0 .2 3 -0 .3 2 -0 .3 1 -0 .2 8 -0 .2 5 0. 10 -0 .1 3 -0 .0 5 0. 96 x 15 -0 .1 2 -0 .1 5 -0 .0 3 -0 .1 0 -0 .1 3 -0 .0 8 -0 .1 3 -0 .1 2 -0 .1 0 -0 .1 7 -0 .1 1 -0 .1 6 -0 .1 7 -0 .2 1 -0 .2 1 -0 .1 9 -0 .1 8 0. 07 -0 .0 6 0. 00 0. 89 x 16 0. 11 0. 12 0. 02 0. 06 0. 13 0. 07 0. 10 0. 09 0. 08 0. 15 0. 11 -0 .1 8 0. 15 0. 16 0. 17 0. 18 0. 15 -0 .0 6 -0 .0 4 0. 02 0. 89 x 17 -0 .1 5 -0 .1 2 0. 02 -0 .0 6 -0 .1 0 -0 .1 4 -0 .1 6 -0 .1 7 -0 .1 3 0. 18 -0 .1 3 -0 .0 2 -0 .1 8 -0 .1 9 -0 .2 2 -0 .2 0 -0 .2 5 0. 09 -0 .0 7 0. 02 0. 66 x 18 0. 05 0. 01 0. 04 0. 01 0. 03 -0 .0 1 -0 .0 1 0. 07 2 -0 .0 2 0. 05 0. 02 0. 00 0. 01 0. 04 0. 04 0. 65 0. 05 -0 .1 4 -0 .0 3 0. 02 -0 .3 0 x 19 -0 .0 00 0. 00 -0 .0 0 0. 00 0. 00 -0 .0 0 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 -0 .0 0 -0 .0 0 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 -0 .0 0 0. 00 0. 00 0. 45 x 20 -0 .0 0 -0 .0 0 0. 00 -0 .0 0 0. 00 -0 .0 0 -0 .0 0 -0 .0 0 -0 .0 0 0. 00 0. 00 -0 .2 3 -0 .0 0 0. 00 -0 .0 0 0. 00 -0 .0 0 -0 .0 0 0. 00 0. 00 0. 36 *l ev el o f si gn ifi ca nc e at 5 % * * l ev el o f si gn if ic an ce a t 1% w he re , x 1= fr ui t le ng th ( m m ) x 2= f ru it br ea dt h (m m ) x 3= fr ui t vo lu m e (c c) x 4= fr es h fr ui t w ei gh t (g /f ru it) x 5= h us k th ic kn es s (m m ). x 6= k er ne l le ng th ( m m ) x 7= k er ne l br ea dt h (m m ) x 8= f re sh w ei gh t of k er ne l(g /f ru it) x 9= d ry w ei gh t o f ke rn el ( g/ pa lm ) x 10 =f re sh w ei gh t of h us k (g /p al m ) x 11 =d ry w ei gh t of h us k (g /p al m ) x 12 = fr es h nu t y ie ld ( g/ pa lm ) x 13 =b un ch w t (g /p al m )x 14 =f re sh k er ne l w ei gh t( g/ p al m ) x 15 =f re sh h us k w ei gh t( g/ pa lm ) x 16 =d ry h us k w ei gh t (g /p al m ) x 17 =n o. o f in fl or es ce nc e x 18 = n o. n ut s pe r in flo re sc en ce x 19 =t ot al nu ts p er p al m x 20 = r ec ov er y pe rc en ta ge (% ) x 21 = y ie ld ( g/ p al m ) assessment of growth and yield parameters in arecanut (areca catechu l.) 8 hiremata et al conclusion the study of the association of component characters with a complex trait like yield is very helpful for ease of gainful selection in any breeding programme. the association of fruit yield per palm was positively significant with most of the morphological characters under study. path analysis revealed that nineteen of thirty-eight characters recorded fruit volume had highest positive direct effect on fruit yield per palm followed by fresh fruit weight and breadth of leaf sheath. it can be concluded that these characters may be considered in selection criteria for the improvement of yield in arecanut. references ananda, k. s., anuradha, s. and choudhary, b. s. 2001. initial bearing tendency of arecanut (areca catechu l.) varieties in coastal region of ka r na ta ka . isg&p dia mond jubilee symposium on hundred years of post-mendelian genetics and plant breeding retrospect and prospects university of agricultural sciences, dharwad, karnataka. 112. ananda, k. s., sane, a. and choudhary, b. s. 2000. growth and yield performances of arecanut varieties in malnad region of karnataka. j. of plantation crops, 28:105-109. ananda, k. s., balasimha, d. and rajagopal, v. 2004. arecanut, icarcentral plantation crops research institute, kasaragod, kerala, india. p. 7-50. ananda, k. s. and rajesh, b. 2004. variability and characters association among the nut traits in accessions of arecanut (areca catechu l.), in: proceedings of national workshop on arecanut productionaspects and prospects. r. bhat and s. sujatha (eds.). icarcentral plantation crops research institute, kasaragod, india, p.63-66. ananda, k. s., rajesh, b. and shobha, d. 2005, yield performance of exotic accessions of arecanut (areca catechu l.). indian j. plant gen. resources, 18(1): 114-116. archana, c. 2017. studies on flowering behaviour of arecanut (areca catechu l.) germplasm in terai agro-climatic zone of west bengal. m. sc. thesis. uttar banga krishi vishwavidyalaya, west bengal. p. 1-54 ba va ppa , k. v. a. a nd na ir, m. k. , 1982, cytogenetics and breeding. the arecanut palm., central plantation crops research institute, kasaragod, p.5196. dewey, j. r. and lu, k. h., 1959, correlation and path analysis of components of crested wheat grass seed production. agron. j., 51: 515-518. ganesamurthy, k., natarajan, c., rajarathinam, s., vincent, s. and khan, h. h. 2002. genetic variability and correlation of yield and nut characters in coconut (cocos nucifera l.). j. of plantation crops, 30(2):23-25. jerard, a., 2002, studies on the mean performances, variability, association analysis, stability and genetic diversity of coconut (cocos nucifera l.) genotypes. ph. d t hesis, ta mil na du agricultural university, india. miller, d.a., williams, j.c., robinson, h.f. and comstock, k.b. 1958. estimates of genotypic and environmental variances and covariances in upland cotton and their implication in selection. agron. j. 50: 126-31. natarajan, c., ganesamurthy, k. and kavitha, m. 2010. genetic variability in coconut (cocos nucifera). electronic j. of plant breeding., 1(5):1367-1370. ra jesh, b. 2007. genetic va r ia bility for morphological, biochemical and yield traits in arecanut (areca catechu l.) accessions. ph. d. t hesis, ma nga lor e univ. , ma nga lor e, karnataka. p. 205-208. renuga, m., 1999, studies on indexing the economic characters of varieties and hybrids for the genetic impr ovement of coconut (cocos nucifera l.) through selection. ph.d. thesis, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore, india. talukder, m. z. a., sarker, u., khan, a. b. m. m. m., moniruzzaman, m. and zaman, m. m. 2011. genetic va ria bility and correlation coefficient of coconut (cocos nucifera l.) in barisal region. int. j. of biological res., 11(1):15-21. wright, s. 1921. correlation and causation. j. of agril. res., 20:557-585. 103 short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 103-107, 2018 16s rrna gene taxonomic profiling of endophytic bacteria associated with phylaenopsis roots d. girija*1, p.k. rajeevan , swathi balakrishnan1, p. s. panchami1 and mahesh mohan1 department of agricultural microbiology1,department of floriculture and landscapping2 kerala agricultural university,vellanikkara, 680656 *email: devakigirija@gmail.com abstract orchids are one of the main groups of ornamental plants commercially exploited. in the present study, we analyzed the diversity of bacterial community in phalaenopsis root using metagenomic approach. the diversity of bacterial taxonomic category was assessed at different operational taxonomic unit (otu) levels using ribosomal database project (rdp) pipeline and mg-rast. at phylum level, proteobacteria (61.34%) was the most dominant group followed by unclassified derived from bacteria (24.74%) and actinobacteria (12.52%). genus level analysis revealed the abundance of rubrobacter, pseudomonas and acinetobacter. the study revealed that of the total species detected 50.83 per cent were unclassified, stressing the importance of metagenomics to assess the diversity of endophytes associated with orchid roots. keywords: endophyte, orchid, diversity introduction orchidaceae is one of the largest plant families, including almost 10% of all flowering plant species. among these, the monopodial epiphytic phalaenopsis or ‘moth orchid is one of the most popular orchids due to its ease of production and blooming year-round. the orchid roots are associated with various fungi and endotrophic bacteria (teixeira et al., 2015). apart from mycorrhizal fungi, previous reports revealed the abundance of endophytic bacteria on the roots of the cultivated tropical orchids of genera calanthe, acampe and dendrobium (tsavkelova et al., 2003). orchids are characterized by low survival rate in the green house due to the germination under asymbiotic conditions in vitro. generally, endophytes play an important role in promoting plant growth and yield, suppress pathogens, aid in removing heavy metal contaminants, solubilize phosphate or contribute to nitrogen assimilation for plants (hallmann et al., 2006). over the past decade, our understanding of microbial diversity and function in complex environments has increased significantly, primarily because of the introduction of next generation sequencing (ngs) (lozupone and knight, 2007). the culture-independent, high-throughput sequencing-based community analysis allows us to observe the microbiome associated with the plants. since the endophytes have a strong impact on orchids growth, it is very important to study their relationships with plant for developing new strategies for orchid conservation and better exploitation of their medicinal principles.therefore, in the present study, we employed ngs technology to unveil the culturable and unculturable endophytic bacteria in phalaenopsis root to elucidate the microbial plant colonisation pattern and evaluate its microbial diversity. the phalaenopsis plants grown in sphagnum moss under green house conditions were collected from the department of pomology and floriculture, college of hor ticultur e, vella nikka r a . sa mples wer e immediately transferred and processed for further studies. the roots were detached with sterile knife and washed with sterile distilled water plus a few drops of tween-20 and left for 10–15 min to drain. these were then cut into 4–5 pieces (2–3 cm in size). surface sterilization was performed by immersing separately in 90% etha nol (5 min), followed by sodium hypochlorite (3%) solution (2 min), and 75% ethanol (3 min). the disinfected roots were rinsed three times in sterile distilled water. total genomic dna was extracted from the surface sterilized root tissues using qiagen dnea sy pla nt kit following the manufa ctur er ’s pr otocol. extr a cted dna wa s 104 suspended in qiagn elution buffer and stored at 200c. pcr amplification was carried out to amplify v3 conserved region of 16s rrna gene sequences using the 16s rrna gene primers (forward primer 5¹cctacgggnggcwgcag-3¹ and reverse 5¹gact achvgggtatcta-3¹). the amplicons were purified and sequenced on the illumina miseq platform at scigenom pvt. ltd. cochin. the fastq sequences were filtered to remove chimeric sequences and singletons to obtain preprocessed reads, which was then clustered to obtain otus. the chloroplast sequences that comprised of almost 97.5 per cent of the total reads were removed using qiime analysis. further taxonomic annotation of the 301 otus obtained were done using qiime and mg-rast tools. total dna was isolated from the roots of phalaenopsis plants and the presence of 16s rrna gene was confirmed by amplification with universal primers. total raw sequencing reads (paired end) of 1,96,595 with average sequence length of 151 bp each was obtained from illumina miseq™ sequencer. the abundance of major bacterial groups in each taxonomic category is given in table 1. altogether, 10 bacterial phyla were detected and among these, proteobacteria (61.34%) was the most dominant group followed by unclassified derived from bacteria (24. 74%) and actinobacter ia (12. 52%). rea ds belonging to acidobacteria, bacteriodetes, chloroflexi, cyanobacteria, spirochaetes, tenericutes, firmicutes and bacteriodetes were found to be the other phyla with less than 1 per cent (fig 1). the higher abundance of proteobacteria in the roots of orchids suggests that members of this phylum are particularly well adapted to colonize inner plant tissues and establish as root endophytes. the phylum proteobacteria comprises several species that promote plant growth and act as biological control agents of different diseases (bulgarelli et al., 2013). actinobacteria play specific roles, for instance, protecting the host plants against insects and diseases especially by the production of bioactive compounds. firmicutes were found to be metabolically the most versatile group with production of multiple enzyme activities. cyanobacteria are photosynthetic; some are capable of fixing nitrogen and others improve soil-aggregation stability (issa et al., 2007), a key aspect of soil conservation. results of the present investigation are in agreement with the earlier reports on proteobacteria, actinobacteria, firmicutes and bacteriodes being the prominent phyla in the roots of tree peony (yang et al., 2017). a total of 7 bacterial classes were identified and among them gammaproteobacteria was the mos t domina nt gr ou p ( 4 1 . 9 0 %) f ollowed b y unclassified (derived fr om ba cter ia ) (31. 35%) actinoba cter ia (25. 11%) a nd ba cilli (1. 37%) (fig 2). a total of 17 bacterial orders were detected. the most dominant group was unclassified derived f r om b a c t er ia ( 3 5 . 9 9 % ) f o llowed b y pseudomonadales (30.69%) and rubrobacterales 16s rrna gene taxonomic profiling of endophytic bacteria j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 103-107, 2018 fig. 1. abundance of endophytic bacteria at phylum level constructed in mg-rast with illumina sequencing data set fig. 2. abundance of endophyticbacteria at genus level constructed in mg-rast with illumina sequencing data set 105 girija et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 103-107, 2018 table 1. abundance of major taxonomic category from phyla to species level of endophyticbacteriain phalaenopsisroot 106 16s rrna gene taxonomic profiling of endophytic bacteria j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 103-107, 2018 (27.47%). orders actinomy etales, bacillales and enterobacteriales were also present more than one per cent. analyses at family level revealed a total of 22 bacterial families were present in the sample. major bacterial families present in the sample were u nc la s s if ie d der ived f r om b a c t e r ia ( 3 6 % ) , f ollowed b y r u b r ob a c t er a c ea e ( 2 7 . 4 8 % ) , pseudomonadaceae (21.68%) and moraxellaceae (9. 01%). the ga mma proteoba cter ia included ps e u d o m o n a s , pa n t o e a , a c i n e t o b a c t e r , stenotrophomonas and xanthomonas making it phylogenetica lly the most diverse group in the current study. altogether 31 bacterial genera were p r es ent . unc la s s if ied der ived f r om b a c t er ia (35.99%) was the most domina nt group in the present study followed by rubrobacter (27.47%), pseudomonas (21.67%) and acinetobacter (9%). genus enterobacter and aneurinibacillus were also present at more than one per cent abundance. genus rubrobacter is well known to be a radiation resistant bacterium. genus pseudomonas can utilize more than 200 compounds as carbon source, can fix atmospheric n and solubilize p. several of the genera isolated in the current study, including pa n t o e a , ps e u d o m o n a s , b a c i l l u s a nd acinetobacter have been isolated from different plants and shown to possess plant growth promoting a c tivit ies ( tr ivedi et a l. , 2 011) . i t ha s been p r eviou s ly ob s er ved t ha t in ma ny c a s es , ps e u d o m o n a s a nd memb er s of enterobacteriaceae are abundant in both the soil environment and the plant interior (spiers et al., 2 00 0) . t he pr eva lenc e of pse ud om o na s a nd bacil lus endos ymbionts wa s a ls o r epor t ed in australian terrestrial orchids (wilkinson et al., 1994). the study emphasizes on the importance of metagenomics to assess the diversity and role of endophytic microbes in plants. this study extends the knowledge on the composition and diversity in the orchid microbial populations. moreover, most of the endophytes observed in the present study are perhaps good producer s of bioa ctive compounds, which ca n promote the growth of orchids in seedling stage and also in ex vitro acclimatization. bulgarelli d., schlaeppi, k., spaepen, s., ver loren and van themaat e. 2013. structure and functions of the bacterial microbiota of plants. annu. rev. plant biol, 64: 807-838. hallmann, j., berg, g. and schulz, b. 2006. isolation procedures for endophytic microorganisms.in: b.e. schulz, c.c. boyle, t. sieber (eds.), microbial root endophytes, vol. 9, springer, berlin heidelberg 2006, p. 299–319. issa, o.m., defarge, c., le bissonnais, y., marin, b., duval, o., bruand, a., d’acqui, l.p. nordenberg, s. and annerman, m., 2007. effects of the inoculation of cyanobacteria on the micr ostr uctur e a nd the structura l stability of a tropical soil. plant soil, 290:209– 219 lozupone, c.a. and knight, r. global patterns in bacterial diversity. 2007. proc. natl. acad. sci.,104: 11436–11440. spiers, a.j., buckling, a. and raineythen, p.b. 2000.the causes of pseudomonas diversity. microbiology,146:2345–2350. teixeira da silva j.a., tsavkelova, e.a., zeng, s., p a r t hib ha n, s . a nd r a o m . v. 2 0 1 5 . s ymb io t ic i n v i t ro s eed p r o p a ga t ion of dendrobium: fungal and bacterial partners a nd their influence on pla nt gr owth and development. planta, 24:21–22. trivedi, p. spann, t. and wang, n. 2011. isolation and characterization of beneficial bacteria associated with citrus roots in florida microb ecol., 62:324-336 references 107 girija et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 13(1) : 103-107, 2018 (ms received 10 august 2017, revised 03 april 2018, accepted 30 june 2018) tsavkelova, e.a., klimova, y.s., cherdyntseva, t. a. a nd netr usov, a. i. 2006. micr obia l producers of plant growth stimulators and t heir p r a c t ic a l u s e: a r eview, a p p l . biochem.microbiol., 42:133–143. yang, r., liu, p. and ye, w. 2017. illumina-based analysis of endophytic bacterial diversity of tree peony (paeonia sect. moutan) roots and leaves. braz.j.microbiol.,48: 695-705. wilkinson, k., dixon, k., sivasithamparam, k. and ghisa lberti, e. , 1994. effect of iaa on symbiotic germinationof an australian orchid a nd its pr oduction b y or chid-a ssocia ted bacteria. plant soil, 159: 291–295. j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 128-133, 2009 effect of paclobutrazol and benzyl adenine on oriental lily hybrids puja sharma, y.d. sharma and y.c. gupta department of floriculture and landscaping dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry nauni, solan, h.p.-173230, india e-mail: pujasharma03@gmail.com abstract studies on the effect of growth regulators viz., paclobutrazol and benzyl adenine (pbz and ba, respectively) on oriental lily hybrids, ‘star gazer pink’ and ‘star gazer white’ in the second year were carried out at department of floriculture and landscaping, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry, nauni, solan (h.p). the effect of growth regulators applied in the first year, was studied on growth and flowering of oriental lily hybrids in the second year. plant height and number of leaves plant-1 were recorded maximum when pbz 25 ppm was applied in the first year. maximum plant height and number of leaves plant-1 were found in ‘star gazer white’ (84.46 cm; 35.04 cm). bulbs of ‘star gazer white’ when dipped in pbz 25 ppm for 12 h in the first year resulted in maximum plant height (102.50 cm) in the second year. leaf area in the second year was recorded maximum in ‘star gazer white’ (34.40 cm2) when pbz 50 ppm was applied as bulb dip in the first year. flower buds were initiated earlier in ‘star gazer white’ (84.48 days) as compared to ‘star gazer pink’ (85.90 days). days to bud initiation were also recorded minimum (75.81 days) when pbz 25 ppm was applied as pre-plant bulb dip. more number of flowers plant-1 was recorded in ‘star gazer white’ (5.42) which lasted longer on stems (16.77 days). bulbs dipped in growth regulators in the first season produced maximum number of flowers plant-1 (5.72) and duration of flowering was also maximum (18.28 days). key words: pbz, ba, lilium, star gazer pink, star gazer white introduction lilium is one of the most beautiful geophytes in the flower world and ranks among the top ten traded cut flowers. oriental lilies occupy a prestigious position among the group owing to its large fragrant flowers and long vase life. the size of bulbs reduces after flowering in lilium. these bulbs cannot be reused for commercial flower production due to their small size which subsequently produces poor quality flowers. although, lilium cultivation is gaining popularity among the farmers in india but one of the major bottlenecks in large scale cultivation is the high cost of planting material which has to be purchased every year. the present investigation was therefore planned to increase the size of lilium oriental hybrid bulbs by using growth regulators (pbz and ba) for the production of commercial flower crop. material and methods studies on two oriental lily hybrids, viz. ‘star gazer pink’ and ‘star gazer white’ were carried out at the experimental farm of department of floriculture and landscaping, dr. y.s. parmar university of horticulture and forestry nauni, solan (h.p) during 2000-2001. bulbs of uniform size (10/12 cm) were planted in january and growth regulators viz., paclobutrazol (pbz) and benzyl adenine (ba) were applied (at two levels each i.e., 25 ppm and 50 ppm). as treatment, 3 methods of application were selected i.e., pre plant bulb dip (12h), foliar spray (up to the level of droplet formation) and soil drench (200 ml around stem base). foliar spray and soil drench applications were made when plants attained a height of 15 cm. the plants were raised as per standard cultural practices. plants were debudded and the bulbs were harvested after drying of the plant. data on bulb size of the harvested bulbs is presented in table 1. after cold treatment of bulbs at 4ºc for two months in moistened sawdust, planting was done and the crop was grown following standard cultural practices. no growth regulator treatment was applied in the second year. different vegetative and flowering parameters were recorded from time to time. overall the experiment consisting of 30 treatment combinations including 2 cultivars, 5 levels parameters were recorded from time to time. overall the experiment consisting of 30 treatment combinations including 129 2 cultivars, 5 levels of growth regulators and 3 levels of methods of application of growth regulators was conducted in factorial randomised block design. recorded data was subjected to analysis of variance. results and discussion bulb circumference was found to be better in pbz 25 ppm followed by pbz 50 ppm when compared to other treatments (table 1). dipping the bulb gave better results than other methods of application (table 1). it is evident from the data (table 2a) that mean height of plants of ‘star gazer white’ was more (84.46 cm) as compared to ‘star gazer pink’ (81.38 cm). bulbs/plants treated with pbz 25 ppm in the first year produced plants of maximum height in both ‘star gazer white’ (93.13 cm) and ‘star gazer pink’ (90.20 cm). the effect of dip and drench treatments did not differ significantly from each other. interaction data (table 2b) also shows that maximum plant height (102.50 cm) was recorded when bulbs were dipped in pbz 25 ppm in the first year. the effect of pbz in increasing the plant height in second year was due to better bulb size. in a similar study simmonds and cumming (1977) found that the inhibitory effects of the retardants ccc and ancymidol on stem elongation were carried over into the replacement stems of lilium cultivar ‘enchantment’ in the next growing season but the degree of inhibition was considerably reduced. on the contrary, ethrel, which inhibited stem elongation of cvs ‘enchantment’ and ‘harmony’ during the first season’s growth produced a significant increase in stem elongation, during the second season’s growth. more number of leaves per plant (table 3) was recorded in ‘star gazer white’ (35.04) as compared to ‘star gazer pink’ (34.07). number of leaves was also maximum table 1. bulb circumference (cm) of harvested bulbs of lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and ‘star gazer white’ upon application of growth regulators growth regulator cultivar (cv.) mean method of application (m) treatment (ppm) (t) star gazer star gazer pink white dip drench spray pbz 25 16.73 17.30 17.02 18.85 16.60 15.60 50 16.00 16.27 16.13 17.65 16.00 14.75 ba 25 15.57 16.04 15.81 16.90 16.15 14.37 50 14.93 15.90 15.42 16.55 15.15 14.55 control (distilled water) 13.60 14.10 13.85 13.85 13.85 13.85 mean 15.37 15.92 16.76 15.55 14.62 cd 0.05 cv. 0.24 t 0.38 m 0.30 t x m 0.66 in ‘star gazer white’ (40.22) in pbz 25 ppm treated plants /bulb in the first year. plants treated with ba also produced more number of leaves per plant. number of leaves on a plant could directly be correlated with plant height in the respective treatment, which could further be correlated with their respective bulb size at the time of planting. data (table 4a) also shows that more leaf area per plant (28.09 cm2) was produced by plants of cultivar ‘star gazer white’ as compared to ‘star gazer pink’ (27.05 cm2). maximum leaf area per plant (28.81cm2) was also recorded when pbz 25 ppm was applied in the first year. ba at both the levels also showed an increase in leaf area over control. leaf area per plant was recorded maximum when pbz 25 ppm was applied as pre plant bulb dip (35.25 cm2) in the first season. growth regulators applied as bulb dip produced comparatively larger leaf area (29.49 cm2) in the second growing season as compared to drench and spray application. data in table 4b also reveals the similar results i.e. leaf area per plant was maximum (34.40 cm2) when pbz 50 ppm was applied as pre plant bulb dip in ‘star gazer white’. increased leaf area can again be correlated to the increased bulb size and circumference in the respective treatments. results shows that the application of pbz in the first year has significantly enhanced all vegetative parameters in the second year. it is apparent from the data that the retardation effect of pbz was not carried to the next generation. although the metabolic fate of triazoles has not been studied in great detail but a few studies suggest that root applied pbz is acropetally transported to the leaves primarily via xylem in apple (lever, 1986; richardson and quinlan, 1986). further soil applied pbz is relatively immobile and transpiration by leaves is required to pull the chemical to meristematic region. only a small portion reaches the j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 128-133, 2009 effect of paclobutrazol and benzyl adenine on oriental lily hybrids 130 growing point where it can effectively inhibit the growth (davis et al, 1988). as far as foliar applications of the pbz is concerned, wang et al (1986) reported that foliar applied pbz was not transported to stem or roots and thus has localized effects. in the light of above studies it could be concluded that in the present experiment the persistence and further movement of pbz into daughter bulbs is either absent or negligible. lever (1986) has proposed that a threshold concentration of paclobutrazol is needed in the shoot apex to maintain the ga biosynthesis suppression. it seems that paclobutrazol, if present in the second year bulbs, is in a concentration lower than the threshold for inducing height reduction in the next growing season. increased plant height, more number of leaves and larger leaf area, may therefore be attributed to larger quantity of food reserves in the bulbs. in lilium asiatic hybrids ‘elite’ and ‘jolanda’, lee and yang (1997) have found that the stem height, node number and leaf area are positively correlated with bulb circumference. data in table 5 shows that flower buds were initiated earlier in cultivar ‘star gazer white’ (84.48 days) as compared to ‘star gazer pink’ (85.90 days). in ‘star gazer white’, pbz 50 ppm applied in the first season resulted in earliest flower bud initiation (80.31 days). it has been observed by table 2 a. effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on plant height (cm) in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and ‘star gazer white’ growth regulator cultivar (cv.) mean method of application (m) treatment (ppm) (t) star gazer star gazer pink white dip drench spray pbz 25 90.20 93.13 91.67 98.25 90.95 85.10 50 90.13 90.33 90.23 96.15 92.75 81.80 ba 25 77.40 84.33 80.87 77.40 84.90 80.30 50 83.98 85.68 84.83 84.37 88.32 81.81 control (distilled water) 65.20 68.80 67.00 67.00 67.00 67.00 mean 81.38 84.46 84.77 84.78 79.20 method of application dip 81.82 87.73 drench 82.49 87.08 spray 79.84 78.56 cd 0.05 cv. 0.75 t 1.19 m 0.92 cv. x t 1.69 cv. x m 1.31 t x m 2.08 table 2 b. interaction effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on plant height (cm) in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and ‘star gazer white’ growth regulator star gazer pink star gazer white treatment (ppm) (t) dip drench spray dip drench spray pbz 25 95.40 89.20 86.00 102.50 92.70 84.20 50 94.90 91.10 84.40 97.40 94.40 79.20 ba 25 73.40 79.40 79.40 81.40 90.40 81.20 50 80.20 87.53 84.20 88.53 89.10 79.40 control (distilled water) 65.20 65.20 65.20 68.80 68.80 68.80 cd 0.05 cv. x t x m 2.93 puja sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 128-133, 2009 131 table 3. effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on number of leaves per plant in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and star gazer white’ growth regulator cultivar (cv.) mean treatment (ppm) (t) star gazer pink star gazer white pbz 25 36.60 40.22 38.41 50 35.13 40.10 37.62 ba 25 33.73 32.62 33.18 50 32.77 34.07 33.42 control (distilled water) 32.10 28.20 30.15 mean 34.07 35.04 method of application dip 36.06 34.77 35.42 drench 34.16 34.87 34.52 spray 31.98 35.48 33.73 cd 0.05 cv. 0.96 t 1.53 m 1.18 cv.x t 2.16 cv.x m 1.68 table 4 a. effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on leaf area (cm2) in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and `star gazer white’ growth regulator cultivar (cv.) mean method of application (m ) treatment (ppm) (t) star gazer pink star gazer white dip drench spray pbz 25 28.80 28.82 28.81 35.25 27.43 26.75 50 27.23 29.34 28.29 32.15 26.37 26.35 ba 25 27.63 26.93 27.28 27.65 26.95 27.25 50 27.49 28.97 28.23 30.15 28.20 26.33 control (distilled water) 24.10 26.40 25.25 25.25 25.25 25.25 mean 27.05 28.09 29.49 26.84 26.39 method of application dip 28.58 30.40 drench 26.16 27.52 spray 26.41 26.36 cd 0.05 cv. 0.48 t 0.75 m 0.58 cv.x t 1.07 cvx m 0.83 t x m 1.32 table 4 b. interaction effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on leaf area (cm2) in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and star gazer white growth regulator star gazer pink star gazer white treatment (ppm) (t) dip drench spray dip drench spray pbz 25 31.40 26.70 28.30 33.10 28.17 25.20 50 29.90 25.40 26.40 34.40 27.33 26.30 ba 25 28.40 26.40 28.10 26.90 27.50 26.40 50 29.10 28.20 25.17 31.20 28.20 27.50 control (distilled water) 24.10 24.10 24.10 26.40 26.40 26.40 cd 0.05 cv. x t x m 1.86 effect of paclobutrazol and benzyl adenine on oriental lily hybrids j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 128-133, 2009 132 table 5. effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on days to bud initiation in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and star gazer white’ growth regulator cultivar (cv.) mean method of application (m) treatment (ppm) (t) star gazer pink star gazer white dip drench spray pbz 25 82.56 80.51 81.54 75.81 82.16 86.63 50 84.91 80.31 82.54 79.07 82.67 86.08 ba 25 85.81 85.91 85.86 83.84 85.68 88.05 50 87.11 87.36 87.23 84.95 87.57 89.18 control (distilled water) 89.12 88.30 88.71 88.71 88.71 88.71 mean 85.90 84.48 82.48 85.36 87.73 method of application dip 84.44 80.51 drench 86.11 84.61 spray 87.15 88.32 cd 0.05 cv. 1.26 t 1.99 m 1.54 cv.x m 2.18 t x m 3.45 table 6. effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on number of flowers per plant in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and star gazer white’ growth regulator cultivar (cv.) mean method of application (m) treatment (ppm) (t) star gazer pink star gazer white dip drench spray pbz 25 5.66 6.36 6.01 6.65 5.95 5.45 50 5.56 6.03 5.80 6.50 5.70 5.20 ba 25 5.16 5.66 5.41 5.95 5.25 5.05 50 5.00 5.23 5.11 5.75 4.85 4.75 control (distilled water) 3.70 3.80 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75 mean 5.02 5.42 5.72 5.10 4.84 cd 0.05 cv. 0.098 t 0.15 m 0.12 cv.x t 0.22 t x m 0.27 table 7 a. effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on duration of flowering (days) in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and star gazer white’ growth regulator cultivar (cv.) mean method of application (m) treatment (ppm) (t) star gazer pink star gazer white dip drench spray pbz 25 16.83 19.13 17.98 22.25 16.70 15.00 50 16.83 18.10 17.47 20.60 16.30 15.50 ba 25 15.57 15.97 15.77 17.15 15.75 14.40 50 15.93 15.93 15.93 16.90 15.35 15.55 control (distilled water) 14.30 14.70 14.50 14.50 14.50 14.50 mean 15.89 16.77 18.28 15.72 14.99 cd 0.05 cv. 0.23 t 0.37 m 0.28 cv.x t 0.52 t x m 0.64 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 128-133, 2009 puja sharma et al 133 earlier workers also that plants with more vegetative growth initiated earlier flowering, which could be associated with higher plant height, more leaf number and leaf area in this treatment. the decrease in days to bud initiation could therefore be associated to larger bulb size in these treatments. more number of flowers per plant (table 6) was recorded in cultivar ‘star gazer white’ (5.42) as compared to ‘star gazer pink’ (5.02). maximum number of flowers per plant (6.01) were recorded when pbz 25 ppm was applied in the first year. growth regulators applied as bulb dip in the first season produced more number of flowers per plant (5.72). maximum number of flowers per plant (6.65) were recorded when pbz 25 ppm was applied as pre-plant bulb dip in the first year. the effectiveness of pre-plant bulb dip in the first year in increasing number of flowers per plant in the subsequent year could be correlated to larger bulb size in these treatments. misra et al (2000) while studying the effect of bulb size on growth and flowering, flowering behaviour of tuberose reported that the larger sized bulbs produced the highest number of spikes per plant. longer duration of flowering (table 7a) was recorded in cultivar ‘star gazer white’ (16.77 days) as compared to ‘star gazer pink’ (15.89 days). flowers lasted longer (17.98 days) on plants when pbz 25 ppm was applied in the first season. both the concentrations of pbz and ba increased duration of flowering over control. duration of flowering could again be correlated to the bulb size (table1) in the respective treatments. maximum duration of flowering (22.25 days) was recorded when pbz 25 ppm was applied as bulb dip in the first year. interaction data (table 7b) also shows that maximum duration of flowering (24.1 days) was achieved in ‘star gazer white’ raised from the bulb which were treated in the first year with pbz 25 ppm. in cultivar ‘star gazer pink’ also same treatment resulted in maximum duration of flowering (20.4 days). table 7 b. interaction effect of growth regulators applied in the first year on duration of flowering (days) in lilium cultivars ‘star gazer pink’ and star gazer white growth regulator star gazer pink star gazer white reatments (ppm) (t) dip drench spray dip drench spray pbz 25 20.40 15.20 14.90 24.10 18.20 15.10 50 19.90 15.40 15.20 21.30 17.20 15.80 ba 25 17.10 15.80 13.80 17.20 15.70 15.00 50 16.90 15.20 15.70 16.90 15.50 15.40 control (distilled water) 14.30 14.30 14.30 14.70 14.70 14.70 cd 0.05 cv. 0.90 treatment of bulbs with pbz in the first season resulted in the development of bigger sized daughter bulbs and ultimately helped in production of more number of flowers, which flowered for longer duration in comparison to untreated bulbs. roxas (1986), while working with lilium regale concluded that quantitative and qualitative flower yield parameters are strongly influenced by bulb size. lee and yang (1997) have also found that larger bulbs flowered for longer durations and produced more number of flowers per plant. references davis, tim d., george l.s. and sankhla, n. 1988. triazole plant growth regulators. in: hort. rev., 10: 63-105 lee, y.j. and yang, c.m. 1997. bulb size and cut flower effects on growth, flowering and propagation of asiatic hybrid lilies ‘elite’ and ‘jolanda’. j. agr. fty., 46 :13-27 lever, b.g. 1986. ‘cultar’a technical overview. acta hort., 179:459-466 misra, n., singh, a.k. and singh, o.p. 2000. effect of bulb size and spacing on growth and flowering behaviour of tuberose (polyanthes tuberosa linn). adv. plant sci.,13:563-566 ramesh kumar, sheo-gobind and yadav, d.s. 2003. growth, flowering and bulb production of tuberose as influenced by different bulb size, spacing and depth of planting. haryana j. of hort. sci., 32:66-69 richardson, p.j. and quinlan, j.d. 1986. uptake and translocation of paclobutrazol by shoots of m.26 apple rootstock. plant growth reg., 4:347-56 roxas, u.a. 1986. the effect of vernalization of bulbs of different sizes on the flowering of l.regale. e.h.willon cloture protette. 15:17-23 simmonds, j.a. and cumming, b.g.1977. bulbs dip application of growth regulating chemicals for inhibiting stem elongation of ‘enchantment’ and ‘harmony’ lilies. sci. hort., 6:71-81 wang, s.y., sun, t. and faust, m. 1986. translocation of paclobutrazol, a gibberellin biosynthesis inhibitor, in apple seedlings. plant physiol., 82:11-14 (ms received 6 march 2009, revised 31 october 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 128-133, 2009 effect of paclobutrazol and benzyl adenine on oriental lily hybrids tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.), a popular bulbous flower crop, is grown commercially for varied uses particularly in eastern, southern and western parts of india. tuberose needs warm and humid conditions for its luxuriant growth. average range of annual temperature, relative humidity and rainfall of goa are 22-330c, 58-88% and 27003000 mm, respectively. there is a good demand for cut tuberose in goa, which is totally dependent on neighbouring states for the supply. there is a huge potential for tuberose production in the state owing to the presence of congenial climate and good market. there are reports on the performance of tuberose varieties in different parts of the country (biswas et al, 2002). though there are many varieties available in the country, location specific evaluation of varieties will help the growers to select the most suitable and high yielding variety. in this context, efforts were made to identify an ideal cultivar for commercial cultivation of tuberose in goa. five cultivars namely mexican single, shringar, suvasini, prajwal and vaibhav were evaluated in randomized block design with four replications during august 2003 and september 2004 at icar research complex for goa, ela, old goa. soil of the experimental site was lateritic in nature having 5.4 ph and 0.037 ec and available n (0.89%), p (98.1 kg/ha), k (604.8 kg/ha) status was high. farmyard manure @30 t/ha was applied at the time of land preparation. sampurna (19:19:19) @600 kg/ha was applied short communication performance of tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) cultivars in goa k. ramachandrudu1 and m. thangam icar research complex for goa, ela, old goa-403 402, india e-mail: chandrakr2000@yahoo.com abstarct tuberose is one of the popular cut flowers in goa and holds great potential for cultivation in the state. the experiment laid out in randomized block design (rbd) with four replications was conducted at icar research complex, ela, old goa, during 2003-04 to evaluate the performance of five tuberose cultivars under local agroclimatic conditions. results were significant among cultivars for all characters except bulb production/plant. maximum plant height was observed in ‘prajwal’ whereas, the minimum was observed in ‘shringar’. among the cultivars, ‘mexican single’ was found to be early, while, ‘suvasini’ and ‘prajwal’ were late in flowering. highest number of florets/spike was recorded in ‘suvasini’, closely followed by ‘vaibhav’. the best performance for spike length, number of spikes/plant, number of bulbs/plant, bulb weight and bulb diameter was observed in mexican single. key words: cultivars, performance, tuberose in three equal splits. first dose was given at the time of planting, second dose in 4th month and third dose in 8th month after planting. healthy and medium size bulbs of 2-3 cm were planted at a spacing of 35 x 30 cm on flat bed. other standard cultural practices including earthing up were carried out during the crop period. observations were recorded on plant height, days to flowering, yield components and characters of bulbs. the collected data were subjected to statistical analysis and presented in table 1. results of the study revealed that differences among cultivars for various characters except bulb yield/plant were found significant (table 1). plant height which was measured before the emergence of spike was recorded the maximum in prajwal (65.13 cm) and followed by mexican single (60.85 cm). plants were dwarf in nature in shringar (52.09 cm), which was found at a par with vaibhav (54.92 cm). the difference between mexican single (60.85 cm) and suvasini (58.27 cm) for plant height was found non-significant. among the cultivars, earliness both in emergence of spike (101 days) and opening of first pair of flower buds (119.79 days) was observed in mexican single whereas, it was delayed in prajwal and suvasini. marked difference between shringar and vaibhav for days to opening of flower buds was observed though they took almost the same period of time to reach the spike emergence stage. in tuberose, sturdy and lengthy spikes are preferred in cut flower trade. spike length was significantly 1directorate of oil palm research, pedavegi-534 450, west godavari district, andhra pradesh j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 76-77, 2009 77 superior in mexican single (103.79 cm) when compared to other cultivars whereas it was shortest in shringar (76.95 cm). spike length was similar in suvasini (91.54 cm) and vaibhav (91.25 cm). maximum rachis length was seen in vaibhav (56.03 cm) followed by suvasini (50.52 cm), while the minimum was observed in shringar (26.36 cm). spikes of suvasini (57.46) had the highest number of florets while the lowest was recorded in mexican single (42.65), which was found at a par with shringar (44.77). individual floret weight (table 1) was maximum in suvasini (2.65 g) whereas, it was minimum in shringar (1.06 g). similar trend among the cultivars was observed in respect of floret diameter. cultivar mexican single (5.73) recorded the highest spike yield/plant, which was significantly superior to other cultivars. the present results are in conformity with the findings of irulappan et al (1980) on tuberose. results were found non-significant between shringar (3.02) and vaibhav (3.02). spike yield/plant was lowest in suvasini (2.43) followed by prajwal (2.67). non-significant results were observed among the cultivars for number of bulbs/ plant. both the bulb weight (11.98 g) and bulb diameter (2.20 cm) were happened to be the maximum in mexican single. the bulb weight was minimum in shringar (7.96 g), followed by vaibhav (8.88 g). lower bulb size was observed in vaibhav (1.79 cm) and suvasini (1.88 cm), shringar (1.90 cm) and prajwal (1.95 cm). similarly, irulappan et al (1980), bankar and mukhopadhyay (1980), patil et al (1987) and murthy et al (1997) reported performance of tuberose cultivars under various agro-climatic conditions. it is concluded from the study that cultivar mexican single can be a good choice for commercial cultivation in goa, as it excelled in performance for most of the characters. references bankar, g.j. and mukhopadhyay, a.1980. varietal trial on tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.) south ind. hort., 28:150-151 biswas, b., naveen kumar, p. and bhattacharjee, s.k. 2002. tuberose. tech. bulletin, all india co. res. proj. flori, new delhi, pp.1-25 irulappan, i., doraipandian, a. and muthuswamy, s. 1980. varietal evaluation in tuberose (polianthes tuberosa l.). national seminar prod. tech. comm. flower crops, tnau, coimbatore, pp.69-70 murthy, n. and srinivas, m. 1997. genotype performance and character association studies in tuberose. j. orn, hort., 5:31-32 patil, j.d., patil, b.a, chougule, b.b. and bhat, n.r. 1987. performance of different tuberose cultivars under pune conditions. curr. rep., mahatma phule agricultural university, rahuri, 3:118 (ms received 11 november 2008, revised 5 june 2009) table 1. performance of tuberose cultivars under agro-climatic conditions of goa cultivar plant days to days to spike rachis florets/ floret floret no. of no. of bulb bulb height emergence flower length length spike weight diameter spikes/ bulbs/ weight diameter (cm) of spike opening (cm) (cm) (g) (cm) plant plant (g) (cm) mexican single 60.85 101.00 119.00 103.79 34.15 42.65 1.18 3.34 5.73 16.86 11.98 2.20 shringar 52.09 104.50 122.00 76.95 26.36 44.77 1.06 3.22 3.02 15.54 7.96 1.90 suvasini 58.27 109.00 131.00 91.54 50.52 57.46 2.65 4.12 2.43 17.05 11.60 1.88 prajwal 65.13 110.50 131.00 97.78 33.75 51.39 1.98 3.59 2.67 16.69 10.52 1.95 vaibhav 54.92 104.00 126.00 91.25 56.03 55.65 2.26 3.58 3.02 16.53 8.88 1.79 cd (p=0.05) 5.67 1.62 1.32 5.95 6.94 5.55 0.30 0.20 0.54 ns 1.55 0.17 performance of tuberose in goa j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 76-77, 2009 j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 99-103, 2007 1department of biotechnology, kuvempu university, shankaraghatta 577451 introduction papaya, being a highly cross-pollinated crop, is polygamous in nature when propagated through seeds. it is cultivated worldwide using dioecious cultivars in the subtropical region and with gynodioecious cultivars in the tropical region, which segregate into female and hermaphrodite offspring. in commercial cultivation, one third of the females in a gynodioecious population need to be removed as these have limited economic value. dioecious varieties normally produce 50% male plants, if propagated by seed. in addition, the papaya ring spot virus (psrv) is a major disease in papaya causing 70-80% loss in plantations. though this can be overcome using resistant varieties, these would lose their resistance if propagated by seeds. these problems however, can be solved if the plants are clonally propagated. clonal propagation through in vitro methods of known sex types is a better option since conventional techniques like use of cuttings and grafting have resulted in limited success. papaya, being polygamous, requires that the explants be excised from a known sex type, which can be realised only when the tree attains reproductive maturity. thus sex determination in papaya plants at the seedling a revised protocol for in vitro propagation of carica papaya using lateral buds from field-grown trees prakash patil, neeta vastrad, m. r. dinesh and a. r. bantwal1 indian institute of horticultural research hessarghatta lake post, bangalore-560 089, india e-mail: pnp@iihr.ernet.in abstract a revised protocol has been developed for in vitro propogation of papaya using explants from field-grown trees. successful establishment of papaya in vitro using lateral buds could be obtained by treating the buds with carbendazim (0.2%) and streptomycin (0.1%) for 24h, followed by surface sterilization with mercuric chloride (0.1%) for 3 minutes and culturing on ms medium supplemented with bap (0.3 mg/l) and naa (0.1 mg/l). established buds were proliferated on modified ms medium supplemented with bap (0.3 mg/l) and naa (0.1 mg/l). modified ms medium supplemented with bap (0.3 mg/l), naa (0.1 mg/l) and ga 3 (1 mg/l) caused extensive elongation of shoots. elongated shootlets were rooted on half-strength ms medium supplemented with bap (0.1mg/l), naa (0.1 mg/l) and iba (2 mg/l). rooted plantlets were initially hardened on a potting mixture consisting of soilrite and later on a mixture of sand, soil and fym (1:1:1). key words: micropropagation, mature explants, carica papaya stage or selecting explants from the mature tree enables propagation of the known sex. successful true-to-type propagation under in vitro conditions can be achieved if explants are taken from mature, field-grown trees. studies on use of lateral buds from field-grown trees have been successful under in vitro conditions but commercial exploitation on large scale remains unexploited due to lack of a micropropagation protocol. hence, clonal propagation of individuals of known sex can be successfully applied to true-to-type propagation of carica papaya. material and methods explant preparation axillary buds were dissected from nodes of fieldgrown hermaphrodite, bearing plants of var. surya in plastic covers and kept under running water with 1-2 drops of tween-20 for 2h to minimize the flow of latex. these explants of 4-5mm size were pre-treated with carbendazim (0.2%) and streptomycin (0.1%) for 24h on a shaker at 150 rpm, followed by surface-sterilization with mercuric chloride (0.1%) for 3 min. the explants were rinsed 4-5 times in sterile distilled water to wash off residual sterilants and were then inoculated on medium. in all the experiments 20 explants were taken and replicated three times. 99 100 media and culture conditions explant establishment treated explants were inoculated onto murashige and skoog (1962) basal medium supplemented with different concentrations and combinations of cytokinins viz., bap (0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 2.5 mg/l) and kinetin (2.5mg/l) and auxins naa (0.1, 0.2, 0.5 mg/l), iaa (0.175, 0.2, 0.5, 1.0 mg/l). media were gelled with 0.8% agar. ph of the media was adjusted to 5.8 prior to autoclaving at 103.4 kpa for 20 min. subculture for proliferation and elongation contamination-free cultures were sub-cultured onto establishment medium at every 15 days. the establishment medium comprised of murashige and skoog (1962) basal medium supplemented with various concentrations and combinations of plant growth regulators (naa at 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5mg/l, iaa at 0.175, 0.2, 0.5 and 1.0mg/l, bap at 0.2, 0.3, 0.5 and 2.5mg/l and kinetin at 2.5mg/l). the same medium was used for proliferation of explants. when the shootlets were nearly 2mm in length, they were transferred to elongation medium containing ms basal salts with bap (0.3mg/l), naa (0.1mg/l) and gibberellic acid (ga 3 ) (0.5, 1.0 and 2.0mg/l). subculture for rooting well-developed shoots (3-4 cm long) were then transferred onto rooting medium to induce rhizogenesis under in vitro conditions. to promote in vitro rhizogenesis, ¾, ½, and full strength murashige and skoog (1962) basal medium supplemented with different concentrations and combinations of plant growth regulators (iba at 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0mg/1, naa at 0.1mg/l and bap at 0.1mg/l) were used. acclimatization well-developed shootlets of carica papaya with in vitro-formed roots were removed from culture media and transplanted into netted pots containing soilritetm. these were maintained at 90% relative humidity by covering with polythene. later, holes were punched on these covers to permit transpiration. during the hardening period, temperature of 25±1°c and 16h photoperiod was maintained. the in vitro hardened carica papaya plantlets were further hardened under ex vitro conditions with sterilised fym: sand: soil mixture in the ratio of 1:1:1. subsequently, these primary hardened plants were transferred (at 1½ months) to greenhouse conditions and maintained there for further field-planting. culture incubation cultures were incubated at 16h photoperiod, at 25+1oc under white cool fluorescent light having an intensity of 30limol/m2/sec. results and discussion effect of 6-benzyl amino purine on shoot proliferation in the present investigation (table 1), explants were cultured on ms basal medium supplemented with naa at 0.1 mg/l and different concentrations of bap (0.1, 0.2 and 0.5 mg/l). inclusion of bap at 0.3 mg/l recorded the highest proliferation of 71 and 85% at 7 and 15 dai, respectively, with low callusing. higher concentration of bap (0.5 mg/l) recorded a proliferation of 71% both at 7 and 15 dai, with moderate callusing at the base of the explants. these results are contrary to the findings of litz and conover (1978), table 1. effect of different concentrations of bap on proliferation of papaya cultures type of proliferation at 7 dai** proliferation bap at bap at bap at category* 0.2 mg/l 0.3 mg/l 0.5 mg/l vgp 14% 7% 0% gp 0% 35% 7% p 22% 43% 64% np 64% 7% 14% nr nil 8% 15% type of proliferation at 15 dai bap at bap at bap at 0.2 mg/l 0.3 mg/l 0.5 mg/l vgp 14% 14% 0% gp 7% 29% 7% p 22% 36% 64% np 29% 7% 14% nr 28% 14% 15% * vgpvery good proliferation, gpgood proliferation, pproliferation, npno proliferation, nr-no response ** daidays after inoculation fig 1. proliferation of the cultures on ms medium supplemented with bap(0.3mg/l) and naa (0.1mg/l) prakash patil et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 99-103, 2007 101 reuveni et al (1990) and drew (1988) who recorded higher multiplication rate with lowest callus production on murashige and skoog (1962) medium supplemented with bap at 0.5mg/l and naa at 0.1mg/l. in the present study, an average of five-fold increase (fig 1) was observed upto 10 subcultures and this remained static thereafter, which is in accordance with the findings of de winnaar (1988) who obtained a 7-fold increase in each subculture until eight cycles and then became static. litz and conover (1978) too observed a 7-fold increase in plant number during every cycle and cultures continued to proliferate even after the 8th subculture. varied response of explants, in the present study, to multiple shoot proliferation may be due to the plant species, clone, physiological state of the explants, endogenous, status of cytokinins and source of the chemicals. effect of ga 3 on shoot elongation at different intervals ga 3 is known to cause elongation of shoots when applied as a supplement in the medium. in the present study (table 2), explants were cultured on ms basal medium supplemented with bap at 0.3 mg/l, naa at 0.1 mg/l and varying concentrations of ga 3 (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mg/l) for elongation of the shootlets. tufts of the proliferated, multiple shoots were transferred onto the elongation medium after observing maximum proliferation. results revealed that inclusion of ga 3 at 0.5 mg/l and 1 mg/l gave table 2. effect of different concentrations of ga3 on shoot elongation in papaya shoot buds under in vitro conditions shoot elongation* at 15dai** ga3 vle e ne nr concentration (mg/l) 0.5 36% 14% 50% 1.0 36% 50% 14% 2.0 43% 14% 36% 7% shoot elongation at 30dai 0.5 35% 21% 43% 1.0 29% 64% 7% 2.0 21% 50% 29% * e – elongated, vle – very little elongation **daidays after inoculation table 3. mean multiplication rate per subculture of papaya shoots at different stages of subculture stage of multiplication subculture rate per culture cycle 1 4.02 subcultured on proliferation 2 5.26 medium without ga 3 3 6.69 4 7.02 5 4.27 subcultured on proliferation 6 4.47 medium containing ga 3 7 5.23 8 6.14 9 6.32 10 6.26 mean 5.57 sem± 0.176 cd (p=0.01) 0.659 table 4. effect of strength of basal medium on root initiation treatment per cent mean mean root mean root number length of number of induction of roots roots secondary per shoot (cm) roots (scoring) ms 20 1.990 4.316 2.160 ½ ms 45 3.800 3.075 4.710 ¾ ms 37 1.740 2.699 2.030 s em+ 0.134 0.117 0.124 cd (p=0.05) 0.391 0.341 0.362 cd (p=0.05) 0.528 0.461 0.489 number of replications per treatment = 10 number of secondary roots scoring 0 0 1-5 1 6-10 2 11-15 3 16-20 4 21-25 5 26-30 6 maximum elongation of shoots (shoot length of 2 cm) (fig 2). de winnaar (1988) used ga 3 in the proliferating medium which induced shoot elongation although it reduced the multiplication rate. results in the present study are similar to the findings of de winnaar (1988) wherein multiplication rate was lower on elongation medium compared to that in proliferation medium (table 3). results obtained by reuveni et al (1990) are contrary to the present research findings wherein ga 3 did not have any significant effect when used for elongation of shootlets. elongation of shootlets was also observed after prolonged culture in rooting media in papaya (siddique et al, 1999). effect of basal medium on per cent root induction a reduced mineral concentration in the medium increases the root initiation as reported by drew (1987). in fig 2. elongation of shootlets on ms medium supplemented with bap(0.3mg/l),naa(0.1mg/l) and ga3(1mg/l) revised protocol for micropropagation of papaya j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 99-103, 2007 102 the present study (table 4) different levels of murashige and skoog basal medium viz., full ms, ½ ms, ¾ ms were tried along with bap at 0.1mg/l and naa at 0.1mg/l. culturing on ½ ms proved to induce higher percentage of root induction (45%) compared to ¾ ms (37%) and full ms (20%)(fig 3). the results are contrary to the findings of teo and chan (1994) who obtained 33% of rooting on ms medium and 26% of rooting on ½ strength ms indicating lesser percentage of root induction on reduced mineral salts (½ ms) than the normal medium (ms). results of the present investigation revealed that reduced mineral concentration increased root initiation (45%) as against 20% on full ms thus indicating the favourable influence of reduced salt concentration on root induction. bonga (1982) also reported that, reduction in mineral concentration has the influence on root number and initiation with tissue culture of tree species. however, drew (1987, 1988) obtained only 30% rooting of shoots derived from mature tissue while 90% of those from 6-month-old plants within 3 weeks indicating the influence of explant age on rooting. drew (1987) reported maximum rooting (68%) on cultures with only distilled water with 1% agar. effect of different concentrations of iba on rooting experiments involving iba using ½ ms basal along with bap at 0.1mg/l and naa at 0.1mg/l supplemented with different concentrations of iba (0.5, 1.0 and 2.0mg/l) were tried to increase the rooting efficiency (table 5). best rooting (48%) of cultured shoots was achieved with ½ strength ms supplemented with bap at 0.1mg/l, naa at 0.1mg/l and iba at 2mg/l. plants on this treatment initiated more roots per plants and had better quality root system than those on iba treatment at 0.5mg/l or 1.0 mg/l (fig.3). drew (1987) reported that using iba at 2mg/l in the medium promoted good rooting of shoots in papaya. higher concentrations of iba and naa in the medium caused abnormal root formation. difference in quality of root system on plants grown on iba and naa has been also observed in grapevine and camellias (novak and juvova, 1982; samautin et al, 1986). in the present study, 48 % rooting was observed in plantlets drew (1988) reported 90% rooting. however, the reason for low percentage of rooting may be light intensity, maintained at 130µ mol/m2/sec with 16h photoperiod throughout the growth period which recorded an inhibitory effect on root induction. drew (1987) reported the use of 80µ mol/m2/sec during the root induction. however after the root initiation the growth increased as the light on the foliage increased (drew, 1987). table 5. effect of different concentration of iba on rooting treatment per cent mean mean mean nature of (i ba) rooting number of root number of the root roots per length secondary shoot (cm) roots (scoring) 0.5 mg/l 23 0.640 1.085 1.270 thick blunted root 1.0mg/l 35 1.290 1.657 1.410 thick long root with less number of secondary roots 2.0 mg/l 48 3.380 3.351 3.890 thin, long and higher number of secondary roots sem± 0.133 0.113 0.126 cd (p=0.05) 0.386 0.329 0.366 cd (p=0.01) 0.521 0.445 0.494 number of replications per treatment = 10 fig 4. a-d: a-b: primary hardening of the plantlets developed in vitro. c-d: secondary hardening of the plants developed in vitro prakash patil et al j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 99-103, 2007 fig 3. a-d: rooting of the shootlets a-b: rooting of the shootlets on ½ ms supplemented with bap(0.1mg/l), naa(0.1mg/l) and iba (2mg/l). c-d: nature of roots grown on ½ ms supplemented different concentrations of iba 103 acclimatization acclimatization of well-developed plantlets of carica papaya with in vitro formed shoots and roots was achieved on transplantation into netted pots containing soilrite (fig 4). these plantlets were hardened under ex vitro conditions with sterilized fym: sand: soil mixture in the ratio of 1:1:1. later, these primary hardened plants were transferred (at 1 ½ months) to greenhouse conditions (fig 4). success rate for acclimatization during this stage was 90% and when plantlets were transferred to the field, all were established (fig 5). these plants grew well and produced fruits. similarly, hari prakash et al (1996) could harden in vitro generated plantlets of guava in the same combination of potting mixture (sand: soil: fym) in the ratio of 1:1:1. hazarika et al (1998) could harden in vitro developed plantlets of citrus by loosening the caps after 46 weeks of rooting. later, these primary hardened plantlets were transplanted into a mist-house indicating the need of the plantlets for gradual change in relative humidity and temperature during acclimatization, in the present investigation. acknowledgement the first author gratefully acknowledges the indian council of agricultural research, new delhi, for providing financial assistance under ap cess fund for the study. thanks are due to the director and the project co-ordinator (tropical fruits), iihr, bangalore, for providing necessary facilities. references bonga, j. m. 1982. tissue culture techniques. in: tissue culture in forestry. bonga, j.m. and durzan, d.j. (eds). martinus nijhoff publishers, the hague. de winnaar, w. 1988. clonal propagation of papaya in vitro. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 12:305-310 drew, r. a. 1987. the effects of medium composition and cultural conditions on in vitro root initiation and growth of papaya (carica papaya l.). j. hortl. sci., 62:551-556 drew, r. a. 1988. rapid clonal propagation of papaya in vitro from mature field-grown trees. hort. sci., 23:609-611 hari prakash, tiwari, j. p. and prakash, h. 1996. microprpagation of guava (psidum gujava l.). j. appl. hort., 2:98-101 hazarika, b. n., singh, i. p., nagaraju, v. and parthasarathy, v.a. 1998. an efficient method of acclimatization of micropropagated plantlets of citrus. ann. rev. pl. physiol., 12:47-51 litz, r. e. and conover, r. a. 1978. in vitro propagation of papaya. hort. sci., 13:241-242 murashige, t. and skoog, f. 1962. a revised medium for rapid growth and bioassays with tobacco tissue cultures. physiol. plant., 15:473-497 novak, f. j. and juvova, z. 1982. clonal propagation of grapevine through in vitro axillary bud culture. sci. hortic., 18:231-240 rajeevan, m.s. and pandey, r. m. 1986. lateral bud culture of papaya carica papaya l. for clonal propagation. pl.cell tiss. org. cult. 6:181-188 reuveni, o., shlesinger, d. r. and lavi, u. 1990. in vitro clonal propagation of dioecious carica papaya. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 20:41-46 samautin, a., vieitez, a. m. and vieitez, e. 1986. rooting of tissue cultured camellias. j. hortl. sci., 61:113-120 siddiqui, z. m., farooq, s. a. and rao, y. b. n. 1999. high efficiency clonal propagation of carica papaya under in vitro conditions through epicotyl explants. adv.pl. sci., 12:341-344 teo, h. k. c. and chan, k. l. 1994. the effects of agar content, nutrient concentration, genotype and light intensity on the in vitro rooting of papaya microcuttings. j. hortl. sci., 69:267-273 (ms received 21 may 2007, revised 31 october 2007) fig. 5 : tissue cultured plants flowering in the field revised protocol for micropropagation of papaya j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (2): 99-103, 2007 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 34-40, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction citrus is one of the most important fruit crops of the world grown in more than 114 countries. more than 70 per cent of the world total citrus production is from northern hemisphere particularly in china, br a zil, india , usa a nd c ountr ies a r ound the mediterranean. in india, the area under citrus is 1.05 million ha with a production of 13.97 million tonnes and average productivity of 10.30 tonnes/ ha (nhb 2019-20). india is at 3rd position in the p r odu c t ion of c it r u s ( fao 2 0 1 8 ) . p r eviou s investigation shows that modern citrus species origina ted in nor th ea ster n india and a djacent northern burma (gmitter and xulan hu 1990). the citrus genus belongs to the family rutaceae that includes 162 species (tanaka 1993) and is grown in tropical and subtropical region of the world. in india, 30 citrus species have been reported (singh a nd cha dha 1993) in which, nine species a r e available throughout india. north-eastern region is a hot spot for biodiversity of citrus and having ger mpla sm of 23 ta x a inc luding 6 8 va r iet ies reported by sharma et al. (2004). icar ccri, nagpur is officially holding largest collection of va lu a b le c it r u s ger mp la s m. t he r e a r e 6 1 4 accessions of citrus including 23 rootstocks from exotic sources (from u.s.a. and australia), 552 from indigenous sources and 39 scion cultivars (mandarin, sweet orange, grapefruit and pummelo from u.s.a., france, japan and niger). besides, 55 superior clones of nagpur mandarin, 12 of acid lime, 5 of ‘mosa mbi’ sweet or a nge a nd 6 of pummelo have been identified (www.ccri.org.in). icar-ccri had been identified as national active citrus collection sites by nbpgr, new delhi and cytogenetic study of entire citrus germplasm could help in identification of minute genetic variants, in det ec t ion o f t r u e hyb r id in hyb r idiz a t ion propagation. this study has enabled to understand chromosome number in evaluation of citrus group (guerra et al. 1997). further, there is dire need to understand the genetic variation at ploidy level and ploidy analysis among citrus mutants using leaf meristematic tissue vijayakumari n.1*, lahane y.b.1 and rekha a.2 1plant tissue culture lab, icar-central citrus research institute, nagpur 440 010 maharashtra, india 2 icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, india *corresponding author email : narukullav@gmail.com abstract a promising method for preparing metaphase spread for counting the number of chromosomes from the emerging shoot tissue is described in this report. in the present study, we adopted enzymatic digestion of shoot tips to analyse the chromosome number. the chromosomes in metaphase stage of cell division are highly condensed and easy to count in routine cytological technique. even the morphological features like position of centromere can be seen in metaphase. in prophase it may not be clear as the chromosomes are getting ready for cell division. in enzymatic digestion even the prophase chromosomes are visible, which can be counted. hence enzymatic digestion technique is more efficient in citrus as compared to acid digestion method as the citrus crop is a perennial crop with small-sized chromosomes. furthermore, the sample collection in the field was easy and actively growing vegetative flush was available throughout the year. this technique was attempted in the tissue culture lab of icarccri in various in vitro and in vivo ploidy induction experiments in citrus sinensis osbeck (sweet orange cv. mosambi), c. reticulata blanco (nagpur mandarin) and c. jambhiri lush (rough lemon), for confirmation of diploidy (2n=2x=18), triploidy (2n=3x=27), tetraploid (2n=4x=36), hexaploid (2n=6x=54). keywords: citrus, chromosome, enzymatic digestion, mutants and ploidy 35 ploidy analysis among citrus mutants using leaf meristematic tissue j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 34-40, 2022 morphology level, due to the existence of huge genetic biodiversity and economic importance of several citrus species (hynniewta et al. 2011). the available published literature reports suggested the pr evalence of different chromosome number in different species such as 2n=18 or 2n=27 in c. aurantifolia (longley 1925; krug and bacchi 2003) and 2n=18, 27, 36 in c. limonia osbeck, (frost 1925a, b) are some examples. therefore, there is a need to underta ke investiga tions on cytogenetica l approa ches to define the existing genetic variation in the citrus genus. the present investigations were an attempt to analyse sample which were developed a s a pa rt of polyploidy breeding programs at icar-ccri, and samples were triploids, tetraploids and hexaploids, in the citrus scion and rootstock, cultivars as observed in flow cytometric studies. citrus chromosomes are small with 2-4µm length (krug 1943). the mitotic index is mostly low in root tips. high-grade metaphase preparation requires a proper high-resolution metaphase spread. cytogenetic studies such as chromosome counting in various invitro a nd in-vivo ploidy exper iments, in-situ hybridization of higher ploidy species help in cultivar improvement. currently available and routinely used squash preparation methodology is unable to obtain good quality chromosome spreads. t he enz yma t ic diges t ion met ho d f or lea f chromosome preparation is a reliable technique to solve drawbacks in conventional squash preparation methodology (kesa ra , 2003). the method was reproducible initially for citrus sinensis osbeck (sweet orange cv. mosambi), c. reticulate blanco (nagpur ma ndar in), c. jambhiri lush (rough lemon), in woody tree species. root-tips were not easily available for analysis from the field because growing roots are small and are fibrous in nature. roots from seedlings are too small and hence only one slide can be prepared from approximately ten roots. emerging shoot tissue is reliable and most dep enda b le s ou r c e of a c t ive met a p ha s e chromosomes in any plant species. in the present investigation, ploidy samples with higher number of chromosomal counts such as triploid (2n=3x=27), tetraploid (2n=4x=36) and hexaploid (2n=6x=54) and smaller size of citrus chromosome were hindrance in getting a proper metaphase spread and subsequent chromosome counting. hence research efforts were directed to develop a technique, based on enzyme digestion hypotonic protoplast dropping methodology, which enables getting a high-quality metaphase spread and counting of chromosomes by using actively dividing meristematic tissue of shoot tips. materials and methods enzyme digestion and protoplast dropping methods were used for studying chromosome numbers of mitotically active leaf meristem cells from regenerated ploidy plants following the protocols of kesara, (2003) with some changes in the protocol, which helped in resolving the problem of spreading and visualization of chromosome in citrus crop. citrus chromosomes are small in size 2-4µm (krug 1943) and mitotic index is mostly low. in hcl digestion and squash preparation methodologies, the frequency of getting good quality chromosome spreads especially in citrus crop was low. for tissue collection, the diploid, triploid and tetraploid plants of different citrus species obtained from various sources i.e., in-vitro, greenhouse and natural open field conditions in the experimental block of icar-ccri wer e collected. t he fresh emerging shoots of approximately 2-3 mm in size, harvested from the plants were used as the source of the mitotic cells for leaf chromosome preparation and were placed in ice water (0-40c) for 24 h to retain in metaphases. the excess water was drained with the help of filter paper and the samples were placed in 1 ml of cold fixative in 2 to 3 micro tubes that were then kept at room temp for 2 h. carnoys fixative was changed once during this process of fixation. after completing the fixation procedure, the samples were removed from fixative and were rinsed with double distilled water and kept immersed in water for the next 30 minutes. the digestion period gets extended with the size of bud. the small buds measuring 1 to 2 mm were used. two to four shoot buds were placed in 100µl of cellulase / pectinase enzyme mixture incubated at 37-38°c temp for 4hrs in water bath. for protoplast isolation, post 4-6 hrs of digestion treatment, the bud tissues were crushed into cellulase /pectinase enzyme mixtures with help of needle and filtered with the help of the tissue filter made of nylon mesh with pore size of 30 µm. the suspension must run down inside the wall of the micro tube 2ml. the filtered suspension was kept at 4° c for about 15 to 30 min. 36 vijayakumari et al the tissues were then subjected to hypotonic treatment of protoplasts where, the filter suspensions in vials/ microtubes were added with 1.5 ml of cold 75mm kcl solution. the protoplast suspensions were mixed by gently inversing the tubes for 15 to 20 min and were left in stand still position for 5 to 7 min. cleaning and fixation of the protoplasts were carried out by centrifuging the protoplast suspensions at 7000 rpm for 5min. the supernatants were discarded and added with 1 ml of ice-cold fixative to the protoplast pellet. this fixative + protoplast mixtures were kept at room temperature for the next 5 min or at 4°c for a longer time. again, the protoplasts were spinned down at 7000 rpm for another 5 min. the fixative supernatants were discarded and this fixation procedure was repeated 2-3 times as above. a 50µl of fresh cold fixative (a mixture of 1part glacial acetic acid and 3 parts absolute ethanol) was added to each of the protoplast pellets and gently mixed into suspension. glass slides were kept wet and chilled for further use at 4°c. the protoplast suspension was dropped on the ice-cold and wet slide from 15 cm height. the slide was immersed in the absolute ethanol for few seconds, after drying the protoplast drop followed by air drying again and adding a drop of carmine solution. the coverslip was placed and sealed with the help of transparent nail paint (kesara, 2003). ploidy analysis was carried out using a flow cytometer (partec gmbh, munster, germany). flow cytometry works by estimating the volume and florescence of isolated nuclei. the ploidy was presented in the form of a histogram of integral fluorescence with the peaks depicting the ploidy level of the respective sample. the protocol includes a series of steps starting with excision of a 0.3-cm2 piece of emerging leaf tissue and placing in a petri dish. the sample was prepared for analysis using a high-resolution staining kit (partec gmbh). the samples were chopped with a sharp blade in the presence of 500-800µl of nuclei extraction buffer and the nuclei were filtered through a nylon screen 30-μm filter into a 3.5-ml tube and stained with 0.51ml of nuclei staining buffer (4 2, 6diamidino-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride). after that, samples were run in the flow cytometer. when the cells with labelled with fluorescent colouring due to the staining buffer passed through the measuring area one after the other, the individual cells or particles got illuminated by the excitation light and the fluorescent light intensity was proportional to dna content. the samples were analysed in a uv-led partec flow cytometer with light emission at 365 nm, adjusted to fluorescence optical detection to gain as per the control sample of cultivar or as per species. more than 5000 nuclei were assessed in each sample. nuclear dna histograms were constructed using cyview software (partec gmbh, germany), which determines peak position and relative ploidy level of the tested samples. results and discussion research studies on polyploidy breeding program initia ted at icar-ccri, since la st few year s. standardized the protocols for induction of triploidy, tetraploidy in commercial citrus rootstocks and scions via endosperm rescue, micro budding coupled with colchicine treatment, and also by colchicine treatment of meristimatically active seeds. (vijayakumari and pooja, 2013), and generated various polyploids which were tested by flow cytometry method but the results of flow cytometry analysis were found varying due to the shifting of histogram inconsistent peaks. at this juncture to reconfirm the results, alternate chromosome counting technique was employed to ascertain the chromosome number. the flow cytometry methods sometimes yield fluctuating results depending on genome size, age of the sample and also with parents and progeny due to prevalence of introgressive hybridization in citrus species. the estimated counts of seed derived plants differ with that of parent trees. citrus is mostly propagated by vegetative/asexual means, but in this study, we generated polyploidy plants by innovative in vitro and in vivo propagation techniques. seed is the product of natural hybridization or sexual reproduction which leads to variation in the genetic makeup of both in parent and progeny trees. chance of getting the obvious/clear convincing results /chromosome numbers of control and test plants through flow cytometry was observed to be tough. polyploidy occurs naturally in citrus, mostly through spontaneous mutations, and polyploids are generally slow in gr owth less vigorous tha n the diploid counterparts (gmitter et al., 1991). in our experiments we ha ve successfully regener a ted la rge no of polyploidy plantlets via somatic embryogenesis from hybrid endosperm rescue and also by colchicine treatment of meristematically active seeds, but while assessing the ploidy level of all polyploidy plants with conventional method of using the root tips by squash spread techniques is quite difficult due to small size j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 34-40, 2022 37 of chromosomes in citrus, mitotic index is mostly low in root tips (hynniewta, 2011). further the slow growth rate of polyploids creates a difference in age group of test plant sample and control plant sample. the chromosome preparation method described in this pa per is technica lly possible a nd simple for implementation, for cytogenetic confirmation of ploidy of large population of citrus both in the field and at nursery level and also plants obtained by different propagation methods. in citrus cultivars chromosomes are small in size so sometimes accurate chromosome counting is generally difficult to achieve in mutants where ploidy is high. this improved methodology of chromosome counting helped in revalidation of flow cytometry analysed samples. in this investigation, polyploids generated in various experiments were confirmed by chromosome counts and also flow cytometry (table 1, fig. 1-3). fig. 1. processed metaphase cells of citrus jambhiri lush. (rough lemon) sample table 1. chromosome count of diploid mother plant and developed polyploidy plants sl.no. species name chromosome count developed polyploidy diploid mother plant plants chromosome counts 1 citrus jambhiri lush. 18 4x-36 2 citrus sinensis osbeck 18 (3x-27), (4x-36),(6x-54) 3 citrus reticulata blanco 18 (3x-27), (4x-36) (a) diploid (2n=18), (b) tetraploid(2n=4x=36).result of chromosomes count is correlated with flow cytometry analysis (histogram peaks) in control sample of citrus jambhiri lush. (rough lemon). (d) with tetraploid sample (2n=4x = 36) ploidy analysis among citrus mutants using leaf meristematic tissue j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 34-40, 2022 38 fig. 2. processed metaphase cells of citrus sinensis osbeck (sweet orange cv. mosambi) (a) diploid (2n = 18), (b) tetraploid (2n = 4x = 27), (c) triploid (3n = 27), (d) hexaploid (6n =54) in comparison with the flow cytometry analysis (by histogram peaks e to h). vijayakumari et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 34-40, 2022 39 fig. 3. processed metaphase cells of citrus reticulata blanco (nagpur mandarin) sample (a) diploid (2x=18), (b) triploid (3x= 27), (c) tetraploid (4x=36), in comparison with the flow cytometry analysis (by histogram peaks – d to f). shoot tip is a very convenient source of sample for chromosome preparations. collection of shoot sample is the most simple and reliable, and it is mitotically active material from established plants. approximately 2 to 3 mm of a healthy, vigorous growing shoot collected during active growth stage. the mitotic active phase is observed highest when the bud size is 2-3mm.ideal time to collect such sample is in the morning (9 am) where condition of light should be approximately 2000 lux and temperature around 25270c. before attaining above mentioned stage, the plant should undergo for a break of 12 hrs dark phase. after collection, samples were kept in ice cold water in the intermediate duration of carrying it from field to lab. collected samples of shoot tips were carefully defoliated and transferred into the ice-chilled water(040c) for 24hr. and treated with0.1% colchicine for 45min in the dark condition to arrest metaphase. this treatment enhances chromosome condensation and mor e impor ta ntly, impr oved the spr ea ding of chromosome within a cell. the fixation preserves the tissue morphology and minimizes endogenous nuclease activity and other degradation processes. fixation time affects the tissue sample quality. higher the duration of fixation approximately up to 10hrs, results into tissue hardening. but here we have observed during research methodology optimum time for this technique in citrus 2 hrs duration is sufficient to generate a quality sample. the enzyme digestion treatment at 370c for 6 hr treatment gave best result in citrus crop. cellula se a nd pectina se enzyme with 2. 5% concentration improves chromosome spreading and better sighting of chromosome. with this methodology the chromosomes are well spread at metaphase enabling well distributed chromosomes for getting clear countable chromosomes, these results are in confirmation of results obtained by (kesara, 2003). it helps to reconfirm result of flow cytometry. root chromosomes preparation by traditional squashed technique ma kes poor qua lity spr ea ds, either chromosome fused together or some are lost between cells during tapping and squashings, a s it was observed in preliminary experiments. conclusion in this research paper we have used technique based on enzyme digestion treatment, protoplast dropping method and metaphase spread count which enabled better display of accurate chromosomal count. this study fa cilitated in double check or repetitive validation of ploidy level of samples generated in various in-vitro and in-vivo ploidy experiments, which were already observed in flow cytometry. the results which we achieved during research is highly helpful for further karyotype analysis and in-situ hybridization application, as chromosomal count can be very much accurate because, of clear well spread, elongated, chromosome morphology on metaphase plates. ploidy analysis among citrus mutants using leaf meristematic tissue j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 34-40, 2022 40 references fao statistics faostat ranking countries by commodity 2018, http://www.fao.org (2018) frost, h.b. 1925a. tetraploidy in citrus. proceedings of national academy science of usa., 11: 535–537. frost, h.b. 1925b. the chromosomes of citrus. journal washington academy of science., 15:1–3. gmittar, f.g. and xulan, h.u. 1990. the possible role of yunnan, china, in the origin of contemporary citrus species (rutaceae). econ.bot., 44: 2, 267-277. gmitter, f.g., ling, x., cai, c. and grosser, j.w. 1991. colchicine-induced polyploidy in citrus embryogenic cultures, somatic embryos and regenerated plantlets. plant sci., 74: 135-141. guerra, m., pedrosa, a., silva, a.e.b., cornelio, m.t.m., santos, k.g.b. and soares filho, w.s. 1997. chromosome number and secondary constriction variation in 51 accessions of a citrus germplasm bank. brazilian journal of genetics., 20: 489–496. hynniewta, m., malik, s.k. and rao, s.r. 2011. karyological studies in ten species of citrus (linnaeus, 1753) (rutaceae) of north-east india. comparative cytogenetics., 5(4): 277– 287, icar central citrus research institute, nagpur, official website http://www.ccringp.org.in/ccringp/. kesara, a.j. 2003. preparation of chromosome from plant leaf meristems for karyotype analysis and in situ hybridization. methods in cell science., 25: 91-95. krug, c.a. and bacchi, o. 2003.triploid varieties of citrus. journal of heredity., 34: 277–283. kr ug, c. a. 1943. chromosome number s in the subfamily aurantioideae with special reference to the genus citrus. botanical gazette., 104: 602–611. longley, a. e. 1925. polycar py, polyspor y a nd polyploidy in citrus and citrus relatives. journal washington academy of science., 15: 347–351. nhb. national horticulture board ministry of agriculture, governement of india, gurgaon, haryana. www.nhb.gov.in, 2019-20. sharma, b.d., hore, d.k. and gupta, s.g. 2004. genetic resources of citrus of north-eastern india and their potential use. genetic resources and crop evolution., 51: 411-418. singh, h. p. a nd cha dha , k. l. 1993. genetic resour ces of citrus: in: adva nces in horticulture, (eds) malhotra publishing house, new delhi., 1:164. tanaka, t. 1993. taxonomie de la citr iculture tropicale. revue de botanique applique., 10:114–119. vijayakumari, n. and pooja, k. 2013. grow triploid cultivars of nagpur man darin for better harvest. indian horticulture., 18-19. vijayakumari et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 34-40, 2022 (received: 16.12.2021; revised:01.04.2022; accepted 03.04.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf indiscriminate spraying of pesticides not only results in excessive toxic residues on vegetable crops, but also leads to resurgence of non-target pests and adverse effects on natural enemies. integrated pest management (ipm) technologies, either with no residues of pesticides or residues below permissible levels, have been developed for cabbage, cauliflower and tomato crops at the indian institute of horticultural research (iihr), bangalore (krishnamoorthy, 2004). these ipms have also been demonstrated in farmers’ fields and found to be economically feasible albeit, with some constraints (gajanana et al, 2004; 2006). large scale validation and promotion of ipm in these crops was taken up at iihr, bangalore, in the year 2004-05 under the mission-mode natp sub-project – “validation and promotion of ipm in vegetables” with national centre for integrated pest management, new delhi, as the lead centre. apart from recording pesticide spray pattern in ipm and non-ipm (which follow a different schedule of plant protection treatments, mostly with insecticides) of these crops in farmers’ fields situated around bangalore, pesticide residues in these crops too were analyzed and compared. this was done to assess whether excess pesticide residues remained on vegetable crops grown under nonipm conditions compared to those grown under ipm conditions. short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 191-194, 2009 comparative study of pesticide residue pattern in vegetables grown using ipm and non-ipm practices debi sharma, p.n. krishna moorthy1 and a. krishnamoorthy1 division of soil science & agricultural chemistry indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake p.o. bangalore -560089, india. e-mail: dsharma@iihr.ernet.in abstract pesticide residue persistence pattern in three vegetable crops, viz., tomato, cabbage and cauliflower, cultivated following previously developed pesticide residue-free ipm packages, was compared with a crop cultivated under conventional or non ipm conditions. it was observed that vegetables grown as per ipm practices were safer to consume at harvest compared to those grown as per conventional cultivation practices, with chemical control as the sole means of plant protection. pesticide residues, if present, were mostly in trace amounts (< 0.01 ppm) in vegetables grown as per ipm practices, except the residues of methomyl and monocrotophos in cabbage, where slightly higher levels of pesticides were observed. key words : cabbage, cauliflower, ipm, pesticide residues, tomato, vegetables 1division of entomology and nematology, iihr, bangalore-89 ipm practices were carried out in tomato (varieties: mruthyunjaya-2, arjun, abhinav, us-816) in farmers’ fields located at several villages lying between latitudes 120 58' n and 130 14' n and longitudes 770 23' e and 770 38' e, viz., thammarasanahalli, agrahar, kandavara, thirhalli, thorenagasandra, thirumalapura, patrenahalli, vaderahalli, agalgurki, augatta and kodi ramasandra. cabbage ipm was demonstrated in 92 farms in 40.77 ha area, cauliflower ipm was demonstrated in 25 farms covering 10.5 ha area and tomato ipm was demonstrated in 168 farms in 79.22 ha area. area cultivated in each case varied from 0.1 ha to 2.0 ha, but most of the fields were less than 1 ha in size. tomato samples, at harvest, were collected from 22 fields with a sample size of 2 kg in each case. tomato fruit samples were also collected from 6 farmers’ fields where non-ipm practices were followed. tomato varieties grown in these fields were the same as mentioned above and the fields were located at kodi ramasandra, devashettahalli, patrenahalli, thirnahalli and kuppali villages. while collecting the samples, information regarding name of farmer, village, variety, area of cultivation, date of planting, pesticides used, number and stage of spray, etc. were collected. in a similar manner, heads of cabbage (cv. hare krishna, unnathi) were collected from six farmers’ fields where cabbage ipm was demonstrated (villages: 192 kalenahalli, thammarasanahalli, adde, thirnahalli) and from four farmers’ fields where non-ipm was followed (village: meda agrahara). cauliflower (cvs. basanth, nh-6) were also collected from six farmers’ fields where ipm practices were demonstrated (villages: siddenayakanahalli, haralur, thammarasanahalli) and from four farmers’ fields where no ipm practices were followed (villages: patrenahalli, thammarasanahalli, agrahara). samples thus collected in each case were subjected to multiclass, multipesticide residue analysis (mrm) procedures (handa et al, 1999). samples (cut, mixed and quartered) were extracted with acetonitrile using waring blender. the extract was filtered using buchner funnel and the filtrate partitioned with 3 x 50 ml chloroform after adding 50 ml of saturated sodium chloride solution. chloroform layers were collected, combined, dried and concentrated before cleaning-up using adsorption column chromatography. the final determination of organophosphate and carbamate residues was carried out using glc with thermionic sensitive detector (tsd). in another step, the same sample was extracted with acetonitrile, filtered through buchner funnel and partitioned against 3 x 50 ml hexane. the hexane layer was dried, concentrated and cleaned-up through adsorption column chromatography using florisil as an adsorbent. the cleaned up extract was eluted and determined by glc with electron capture detector (ecd) for analyzing organochlorine and synthetic pyrethroid pesticide residues. some important pesticides which could not be analyzed by the above mrm were analyzed individually by methods given in table 1. results obtained from the above analyses were compared to those obtained for 45 pesticide standards available in our laboratory and residues of pesticides determined. tomato although the number of pesticides showing detectable residues was higher in tomatoes grown under ipm practices when compared to tomatoes grown under non-ipm practices, residues in former were found at very low levels and well within permissible limits (table 2). twenty three per cent of the ipm tomato did not contain detectable pesticide residues. most of the pesticides detected in tomato were present only in one sample. carbendazim and triazophos residues, however, were detected in 5 and 4 samples, respectively. of the six tomato samples drawn from fields where no ipm practices were followed, one sample contained no detectable pesticide residues. three samples, however, contained residues of either triazophos or lambda cyhalothrin above the permissible levels at harvest (table 2). cabbage in cabbage too, none of the pesticide residues was found to be present above permissible levels in samples drawn from farmers’ fields where the crop was grown as per ipm schedule (table 3). however, residues of acephate, methomyl and monocrotophos were high (upto 1.6 ppm, 4.2 ppm and 1.9 ppm, respectively). in cabbage grown under table 1. summary of pesticide residue protocols used pesticide method of reference estimation mancozeb spectrophotometry bis, 1993 etu (toxic metabolite of mancozeb) hplc ahmad et al, 1995 carbendazim hplc sharma & awasthi, 1999 imidacloprid hplc ishii et al, 1994 indoxacarb hplc anonymous, 2000 all other pesticides glc handa et al, 1999 table 2. status of pesticide residues in tomato samples from ipm and non-ipm plots name of pesticide residues in residues in mrl ipm samples non-ipm (ppm) (ppm) samples(ppm) no residues detected (6) (0) acephate 0.003 (1) 2.0 carbendazim 0.01-0.112 (5) 0.014 (1) 0.5 chloropyrifos 0.003, 0.01 (2) 0.003, 0.02 (2) 0.5 chlorothalonil 0.001 (1) 2.0 cypermethrin 0.038, 0.001 (2) 0.5 deltamethrin 0.001, 0.002 (2) 0.001 (1) 0.2 dicofol 0.01 (1) 1.0 dimethoate 0.001 (1) 1.0 endosulphan 0.002, 0.087 (2) 0.019 (1) 3.0 ethion 0.08 (1) 0.05 (1) 0.5 fenamiphos 0.01 (1) 0.2 fenvalerate 0.003 (1) 1.0 fluvalinate 0.35 (1) 0.5 imidacloprid 0.01 (1) 0.04, 0.05 (2) 0.1 lambda cyhalothrin 0.01 (1) 0.70 (1) 0.1 lindane 0.01 (1) 0.011 (1) 1.0 malathion 0.01 (1) 3.0 methyl parathion 0.002 (1) 0.01 monocrotophos 0.08 (1) 1.0 profenofos 0.003 (1) 2.0 triazophos 0.35 (4) 0.01-0.04 (4) 0.1 *figures in parenthese show number of samples with residues of a particular pesticide **no. of samples: total = 31, ipm = 26 (none above mrl), nonipm = 6 (3 above mrl) debi sharma et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 191-194, 2009 193 non-ipm practices, of the four samples collected, three contained residues of at least one pesticide above permissible level (table 3). methomyl is used for controlling the pest spodoptera litura in cabbage and cauliflower. although it is recommended to be used only as a bait by mixing with jaggery, it is often sprayed directly on the crop resulting in persistence of its residues. monocrotophos, although banned for use in vegetables, is extensively in use by farmers against biting, chewing and sucking insects. triazophos used against leaf miner in tomato has a low mrl and is, therefore, toxic even at very low levels. cauliflower in the case of cauliflower, all five samples collected from farmers’ fields where ipm practices were demonstrated and followed, were safe with respect to levels of pesticide residues (table 4) of which 2 samples did not have detectable levels of any pesticide. all cauliflower samples grown under conventional non-ipm practices contained detectable levels of pesticide residues. residues of acephate, methomyl and monocrotophos were detected above permissible levels in some of the samples. all three vegetables grown by ipm practices did not contain pesticide residues above permissible levels at harvest. residues of several pesticides could be detected in these, albeit at low levels. the residues were mostly present as traces (<0.01 ppm) in these samples, but, in some cases, e.g. cabbage (ipm), methomyl (4.0 – 4.2 ppm) and monocrotophos (0.13 ppm), residues were present only slightly below permissible levels (5 ppm and 0.2 ppm, respectively). monocrotophos is not recommended for use in ipm of cabbage while methomyl is recommended to be used only as indirect bait. this shows that either these farmers had not followed the ipm schedule strictly, or, there was spray-drift from nearby fields. pesticide residue levels were generally higher in vegetables grown without following ipm recommendations, with some of the pesticides having residues above safe or permissible levels (tables 2, 3 and 4). in addition, 18.6% of the total samples grown under ipm did not contain any detectable residues of pesticides. however, only 4.5% of the total samples grown under nonipm practices did not contain any detectable pesticide residues. it was noted that, in general, residues of traditional pesticides such as cypermethrin, monocrotophos, triazophos, acephate, etc. were found above detectable levels in non – ipm vegetables. therefore, 50–75% of vegetable samples grown under non-ipm conditions contained residues above permissible levels at harvest. however, since the sample size of non-ipm vegetable samples was small (4-6), per cent contamination data cannot be extrapolated to all three vegetables at harvest. instead, in this study, the figures were used merely for comparison, and it was seen that tomato, cabbage and cauliflower grown as per ipm practices were safer to consume at harvest compared to those grown as per conventional cultivation practices (non-ipm), with chemical control as the sole means of plant protection. the study, therefore, brought out the fact that pesticide residues table 3. status of pesticide residues in cabbage samples from ipm and non-ipm plots name of pesticide residues in residues in mrl ipm samples non-ipm (ppm) (ppm) samples (ppm) no residues detected (0) acephate 0.03 – 1.67 (4) 2.0 chlorothalonil 0.001, 0.01 (2) 0.001 (2) 5.0 chlorpyrifos 0.8, 1.55 (2) 1.0 dicofol 0.01(1) 1.0 dichlorovos 0.067 (1) 0.5 dimethoate 0.015, 0.031 (2) 0.08 (1) 2.0 indoxacarb 0.21 (1) 5.0 lindane 0.22 (1) 3.0 fenamiphos 0.01 (1) 0.2 fenitrothion 3.02 (1) 0.5 methomyl 4.0, 4.2 (2) 1.42, 5.50 (2) 5.0 monocrotophos 0.13 (1) 0.2 *figures in parenthesis show number of samples with residues of a particular pesticides **no. of samples: total = 10, ipm = 6 (none above mrl), non-ipm = 4 (3 above mrl) table 4. status of pesticide residues in cauliflower samples from ipm and non-ipm plots name of pesticide residues in residues in mrl ipm samples non-ipm (ppm) (ppm) samples (ppm) no residues detected (2) (0) acephate 0.18 (1) 3.2 (1) 2.0 cypermethrin 0.06, 0.10 (2) 0.5 dimethoate 0.01 (1) 5.0 fenvalerate 0.11 (1) 3.0 indoxacarb 0.21 (1) 0.010, 0.205 (2) 1.0 lambda cyhalothrin 0.05 (1) 0.4 lindane 0.01 (1) 0.001 (1) 1.0 methomyl 5.9 (1) 5.0 monocrotophos 0.01 – 0.05 (3) 0.2 *figures in parenthesis show the number of samples with residues of a particular pesticide **no. of samples: total = 10, ipm = 5 (none above mrl), non-ipm = 5 (3 above mrl) pesticide in ipm vegetables j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 191-194, 2009 194 were found in lower quantities in ipm – vegetables and were within permissible levels. it also brought out the need for further field demonstrations and strict compliance of ipm in these vegetables. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge financial assistance received from national agricultural technology project (natp) under icar for carrying out the above study. references ahmad, n., guo, l., mandarakas, p. and appleby, s. 1995. determination of dithiocarbamate and its breakdown product ethylene thiourea in fruits and vegetables. j. aoac int’l., 78:1238 -1243 anonymous. 2000. residue analysis of indoxacarb. protocol of dupont chemical co. usa, dup/mp/065/008 krishnamoorthy, a. 2004. final report, 2000 – 2003, development of pesticide residue free ipm package for vegetables. psr 41, iihr, bangalore. 213 pp. bis. 1993. draft indian standard for analysis of mancozeb residues in food. bureau of indian standards, new delhi, india gajanana, t.m., krishna moorthy, p.n., anupama, h.l., prasanna kumar, g.t. and ranganath, r. 2004. economic analysis of integrated pest management in cabbage. pest mgt. hortl. ecosys., 10:55-59 gajanana., t.m., krishna moorthy, p.n., anupama, h.l., ranganath, r. and prasanna kumar, g.t. 2006. integrated pest and disease management in tomato: an economic analysis. agril. econ. res. rev. 19:269-280 handa, s.k., agnihotri, n.p. and kulshreshtha, g. 1999. multiresidue methods for estimation of pesticide residues in “pesticide residues : significance, management and analysis” research periodicals and book publishing house, india, pp. 136-145 ishii, y., kobori, i., araki, y., kurogochi, s., iwaya, k and kagabu s. 1994. hplc determination of the new insecticide imidacloprid and its behaviour in rice and cucumber. j agril. fd. chem., 42:2917-2921 sharma, d and awasthi, m.d. 1999. high performance liquid chromatographic method for analysis of carbendazim in fruits and vegetables. pest. res. j., 11:23-126 (ms received 16 january 2009, revised 6 july 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 191-194, 2009 debi sharma et al final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single c o n t e n t s journal of horticultural sciences volume 16 issue 2 june 2021 in this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 193 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 193-198, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) nithinkumar k.r.1, kumar j.s.a.,2, varalakshmi b., sadanand k.3 , mushrif s.k.4, ramachandra r.k. 5, and prashanth s.j. 6 1department of vegetable science, college of horticulture, kolar; 2department of vegetable science, college of horticulture, mysuru; 3division of vegetable crops, iihr, bengaluru; 4department of plant pathology, college of horticulture, kolar; 5department of bci, college of horticulture, mysuru; 6department of vegetable science, college of horticulture, bengaluru *corresponding author email : nithinkumarveg@gmail.com abstract the genetic divergence of forty bitter gourd genotypes was studied for sixteen different parameters by adopting mahalanobis d2 statistics using tocher’smethod. the genotypes were grouped into six clusters irrespective of geographic divergence, indicating no parallelism between geographic and genetic diversity. a maximum of 32 genotypes entered in cluster i, followed by 4 genotypes in cluster ii. the cluster iii, iv, v and vi had single genotypes each. maximum inter cluster distance observed between cluster ii and cluster iv followed by cluster iv and cluster v and cluster ii and v. this indicates, the genotypes belonging to cluster ii (gyb-3-12, bit-3-1-2-1, bit-3-1-1-1, arkaharit), cluster iv (ic-68238) and cluster v (bit-18-1-1) are more diverse and hence, hybridization between genotypes of respective cluster may improve the yield and quality of bitter gourd. keywords: bitter gourd, clusters, d2 analysis and genetic divergence original research paper introduction materials and methods the present investigation was carried out at the depa r tment of vegeta ble science, college of hor ticultur e, yela chenaha lli, mysur u district, ka r na ta ka dur ing 2017-18. t he exper imenta l materials comprised of 40 indigenous genotypes of bitter gourd including some of the commercially released varieties from different institutes of india as listed in table 1. the experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design (rcbd) with two replications. the spacing used in this experiment was 120×90 cm. the recommended npk fertilizer doses and cultural practices along with plant protection measures were followed to raise a commercial crop (choudhary et al., 2003). five randomly chosen plants in each replication of each entry were labelled and used for recording the observations. the mean of five plants was taken for analysis. observations were recorded for 16 parameters like vine length (m), number of branches per vine, duration of crop (days), node at which first female flower appears, days to first female flower opening, days to 50 per cent flowering, days to first fruit picking, fruit length (cm), fruit diameter (cm), average fruit weight (g), number of fruits per vine, fruit yield per vine (kg), fruit yield per hectare (t), number of seeds per fruit, flesh thickness (mm) bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) is considered as a valuable vegetable crop for its nutritional and medicinal properties, but it is neglected in terms of genetic and molecular breeding. even though bitter gourd has a relatively broad phenotypic species variation due to diverse morphological traits, the studies on multi variate analysis is limited (singh et al., 2013). genetic divergence has been considered as an important factor in discriminating the genetically diver se pa r ents for efficient a nd successful hybridization programme in order to get potential tr ansgr essive segrega nts a nd also pr ovide new recombination of genes in the gene pool. d2 statistics (mahalanobis, 1936) is highly acceptable as it provides a measure of magnitude for divergence between two genotypes under comparison. grouping of genotypes based on d2 analysis will be useful in choosing suitable parental lines for hybridization. therefore, the present study was conducted to identify suitable parents out of 40 bitter gourd genotypes to initiate a breeding programme by identifying the clusters that are diverse and contain genotypes with good performance. 194 nithinkumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 193-198, 2021 and ascorbic acid (mg/100g). the data were subjected to multivariate analysis of genetic divergence using mahalanobis d2 statistic. grouping of entries was done by tocher’s method (rao, 1952). table 1. list of genotypes and their sources of collection sl. genotypes source sl. genotypes source no. no. 1 preethi kau, vellanikkara 21 bit-10-1-1 coh, kolar, karnataka 2 yellapur local-2 yellapur, karnataka 22 west bengal west bengal local-2 3 bit-25-2-1 coh, kolar, karnataka 23 kotla local-1 rajastan 4 meghnaa-2 masood seeds, bangladesh 24 bit-10-1-2 coh, kolar, karnataka 5 jhalawar local-3 jalawar, rajastan 25 bit-5-1-4-1 coh, kolar, karnataka 6 co-1 tnau, coimbatore 26 contai bolder barasat agri hybrid seeds, west bengal 7 bit-22-1-1-3 coh, kolar, karnataka 27 bit-1-2-2-4 coh, kolar, karnataka 8 bit-9-2-4-1 maharashtra 28 bit-18-1-1 varanasi, uttar pradesh 9 gyb-3-1-2 tamil nadu 29 jhalawar local-1 jalawar, rajastan 10 bit-1-2-3 coh, kolar, karnataka 30 bit-3-1-1-1 tamil nadu 11 yellapur local-1 yellapur, karnataka 31 gyb-5-1-5-2 coh, kolar, karnataka 12 bit-37-2-1 coh, kolar, karnataka 32 bit-22-1-1-1 coh, kolar, karnataka 13 deb-505 debgiri pvt ltd. kolkatta 33 bit-9-2-1-2 maharashtra 14 bit-3-1-2-1 tamil nadu 34 gyl-2 coh, kolar, karnataka 15 bit-9-3-2-3 maharashtra 35 gyb-2-2 coh, kolar, karnataka 16 bit-5-1-2-1 coh, kolar, karnataka 36 katahi hyderabad 17 west bengal west bengal 37 bit-35-1-1 odisha local-1 18 jhalawar local-2 jalawar, rajastan 38 bit-31-2-2 coh, kolar, karnataka 19 super green super seeds, odissa 39 arkaharit iihr, bengaluru 20 ic-68238 nbpgr, new delhi 40 bit-9-1-4-1 maharashtra results and discussion the results from the analysis of variance for 16 characters indicated significantly high differences among 40 genotypes of bitter gourd under study. these 40 genotypes were grouped into six clusters. the distribution of genotypes into 6 clusters were presented in table 2. cluster i is the largest cluster having 32 genotypes followed by cluster ii with four genotypes (gyb-3-1-2, bit-3-1-2-1, bit-3-1-1-1and arkaharit). cluster iii (yellapur local-2), cluster iv (ic-68238), cluster v (bit-18-1-1) and cluster vi (jhalawar local2) had one genotype each. the genotypes collected from different geographical regions were present in same clusters indicating that there was no association between geographical distribution and genetic diversity as reported earlier by bhagwat et al. (2013) in bitter gourd. the intra and inter-cluster d2 and d values among 6 clusters are furnished in the table 3. and illustrated in figure 1. intra-cluster average d2 values ranged from 0 to 104.02. among the clusters, cluster ii had the maximum intra-cluster distance (104.02) followed by cluster i (96.08). the clusters like iii, iv, v and cluster vi had no inter cluster distance (zero) as they were represented by single genotypes. the maximum inter cluster d2 value was found between cluster ii and vi (1620.05) followed by cluster iv and vi (1262.95), cluster ii and v (1098.44), cluster ii and cluster iii 195 genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) (851.00), cluster i and cluster vi (749.76) and cluster iv and v (685.87). the minimum inter-cluster d2 values was observed between cluster iii and v (103.32) followed by cluster v and vi (168.13). highest inter cluster distance was found in cluster ii and vi, suggesting that hybridisation between the genotypes from these clusters may lead to high heterotic effects and better segregants (rabbani et al., 2012). similarly, lowest inter cluster distance was observed in cluster iii and v indicating that, genotypes exhibited higher genetic similarity (tyagi et al., 2017). the per cent contribution of sixteen characters towards total divergence in bitter gourd genotypes is shown in table 4. among all the characters, ascorbic acid contributed the maximum (37.31%) to the diversity by taking first rank in 291 times out of 780 combinations, followed by fruit length (15.64% with 122 times ranked first), fruit diameter (14.36% with 112 times ranked first), flesh thickness (11.92% with 93 times ranked first), number of seeds per fruit (9.49% with 74 times ranked first), days to first female flower opening (6.92% with 54 times ranked first), average fruit weight (1.28% with 10 times ranked fir st). while, ther e wa s little a nd negligible table 2. cluster composition based on d2 statistics in bitter gourd cluster number of genotypes included in the clustergenotypes i 32 preethi, bit-25-2-1, meghnaa-2, jhalawar local-3, co1, bit-22-1-1-3, bit-9-2-4-1, bit-1-2-3, yellapurlocal-1, bit-37-2-1, deb-505, bit-9-3-2-3, bit-5-1-2-1, west bengal local-1, super green, bit-10-1-1, west bengal local-2, kotla local-1, bit10-1-2, bit-5-1-4-1, contai bolder, bit-1-2-2-4, jhalawar local-1, gyb-5-1-5-2, bit22-1-1-1, bit-9-2-1-2, gyl-2, gyb-2-2, katahi, bit-35-1-1, bit-31-2-2, bit-9-1-41 ii 4 gyb-3-1-2, bit-3-1-2-1, bit-3-1-1-1, arkaharit iii 1 yellapurlocal-2 iv 1 ic-68238 v 1 bit-18-1-1 vi 1 jhalawar local-2 i ii iii iv v vi i 96.08 (9.80) 399.88 (19.20) 207.68 (14.41) 179.48 (13.34) 333.55 (18.26) 749.76 (27.38) ii 104.02 (10.12) 851.00 (29.17) 215.32 (14.67) 1098.44 (33.14) 1620.05 (40.25) iii 0.00(0.00) 539.69 (23.23) 103.32 (10.16) 369.75 (19.23) iv 0.00 (0.00) 685.87 (26.19) 1262.95 (35.54) v 0.00 (0.00) 168.13 (12.96) vi 0.00 (0.00) figures in parenthesis denotes corresponding d values table 3. intra-cluster (diagonal) and inter-cluster d2 and d values in bitter gourd genotypes mahalanobis euclidean distance (not to the scale) fig1. intra-cluster and inter-cluster distance of bitter gourd genotypes (trocher’s method) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 193-198, 2021 196 table 4. per cent contribution of sixteen characters towards total divergence in bitter gourd genotypes sl. characters no. of times per cent germplasm no. ranked first contribution 1 vine length (m) 4 0.51 2 number of branches per vine 7 0.90 3 duration of crop (days) 0 0.00 4 node at which first female flower appears 1 0.13 5 days to first female flower opening 54 6.92 6 days to 50 per cent flowering 0 0.00 7 days to first fruit picking 0 0.00 8 fruit length (cm) 122 15.64 9 fruit diameter (cm) 112 14.36 10 average fruit weight (g) 10 1.28 11 number of fruits per vine 6 0.77 12 fruit yield per vine (kg) 6 0.77 13 fruit yield per hectare (t) 0 0.00 14 number of seeds per fruit 74 9.49 15 flesh thickness (mm) 93 11.92 16 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 291 37.31 total 780 100.00 contribution from number of branches per vine (0.90%), number of fruits per vine (0.77%), fruit yield per vine (0.77%), vine length (0.51%) and node at which first female flower appears (0.13%). similar results were reported by sidhu and pathak, 2016 in bitter gourd. however, the duration of crop, days to 50 per cent flowering, days to first fruit picking and fruit yield per hectare had no contribution towards genetic divergence. simila r findings wer e also observed by sundaram (2008) and bhagwat et al. (2013). apart from the divergence, the performance of genotypes and the char acter with ma ximum contribution towards divergence should also be given due consideration which appear as desirable for improvement of bitter gourd (deepa and mariyappan, 2013). cluster means of forty genotypes showed that mean values of cluster varied for all the sixteen characters studied. cluster ii, v an vi performed better for the biometric parameters studied. among the clusters, cluster vi was generally poor and cluster i as well as cluster iii were intermediate in number of fruits per vine and fruit yield (table 5.). cluster ii with four genotypes showed early flowering, flowering at lower node and early fruit picking. cluster ii had smaller fruits but the number of fruits per vine was highest. cluster vi with one genotype had longer fruits (30 cm), lower fruit diameter with high average fruit weight and higher ascorbic acid content (112.43). higher number of branches, longer duration of crop and higher fruit yield was noticed in cluster v with one genotype (bit-18-1-1). highest vine length was observed in the cluster iii (3.67 m). cluster i with maximum number of genotypes showed intermediate performance for almost all the characters observed. the best cluster with yield and yield components studied was cluster v followed by cluster iii and cluster i. by using these elite germplasms, there is a scope for varietal improvement in bitter gourd. inter-crossing of genotypes based on the mean performance for their characters would be effective for further crop improvement. to develop early varieties with small fruits and higher number of fruits per vine, cluster ii would be effective as it showed early flowering. selection from cluster i would be useful in breeding moderately early flowering, intermediate yield with longer crop duration. cluster vi can be used in breeding for longer fruits with greater average fruit nithinkumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 193-198, 2021 197 table 5. the cluster mean of sixteen characters for six clusters in bitter gourd genotypes sl. characters cluster cluster cluster cluster cluster cluster no. i ii iii iv v vi 1 vine length (m) 2.71 1.91 3.67 1.84 2.58 2.33 2 number of branches per vine 10.54 8.15 10.60 8.50 11.00 9.40 3 duration of crop (days) 95.79 85.56 92.13 86.50 98.50 94.00 4 node at which first female flower appears 15.39 11.33 15.50 14.10 14.30 16.50 5 days to first female flower opening 41.46 35.69 37.60 42.55 41.35 44.50 6 days to 50 per cent flowering 44.10 37.88 41.50 44.75 47.50 44.77 7 days to first fruit picking 58.74 50.59 56.00 58.00 61.50 59.50 8 fruit length (cm) 16.94 7.05 22.43 13.49 29.05 30.00 9 fruit diameter (cm) 4.82 4.46 4.48 5.48 5.04 2.85 10 average fruit weight (g) 84.68 36.91 85.60 79.00 88.70 91.85 11 number of fruits per vine 12.87 14.76 13.10 12.10 14.60 8.85 12 fruit yield per vine (kg) 1.11 0.53 1.14 0.96 1.28 0.69 13 fruit yield per hectare (t) 10.24 4.92 10.55 8.87 11.82 6.38 14 number of seeds per fruit 18.06 8.75 23.50 10.50 20.50 18.25 15 flesh thickness (mm) 6.09 4.63 4.94 9.41 6.69 4.11 16 ascorbic acid (mg/100g) 94.56 101.45 84.10 100.50 102.42 112.43 weight and higher ascorbic acid content, as the demand is increasing in our country. to breed varieties with higher yield and late flowering, selection from cluster v would be useful. conclusion genetic divergence has been consider ed a s a n important factor in discriminating the genetically diver se pa r ents for efficient a nd successful hybridization programme in order to get potential tr ansgr essive segrega nts a nd also pr ovide new recombination of genes in the gene pool.maximum inter cluster distance observed between cluster ii and cluster iv followed by cluster iv and cluster v and cluster ii and v. this indicates, the genotypes belonging tocluster ii (gyb-3-1-2, bit-3-1-2-1, bit3-1-1-1, arkaharit), cluster iv (ic-68238) and cluster v (bit-18-1-1) a r e mor e diver se a nd hence, hybridization between genotypes of respective cluster may improve the yield and quality of bitter gourd. references bhagwat, s., anoop, k. s. and shailesh, k., 2013, genetic divergence studies in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). acad. j. plant sci., 6 (2): 89-91. choudhary, b. r., fageria, m. s. and dhaka, r. s., 2003, textbook on production technology of vegetables. kalyani publishers. pp. 183201. deepa, d. n. and mariyappan, s., 2013, studies on genetic diversity in snake gourd (tr icho san the sang uin a l . ). af ri can . j. agric. res., 8(42): 5221-5225. mahalanobis, p. c., 1936, on the genera lised distance in statistics. proc. nat. acad. sci., (india): pp. 79-85. rabbani, m. g., naher, m. j. and hoque, s., 2012, va r ia b ilit y, c ha r a c t er a s s oc ia t ion a nd diver sity ana lysis of r idge gourd ( luffa acutangularoxb.) genotypes of bangladesh. saarc j. agric., 10(2): 1-10. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 193-198, 2021 198 rao, c. r., 1952, advanced statistical methods in biometrical research. john wiley and sons, inc. new york. p. 390 sidhu, g. k., pathak, m., 2016, genetic diversity a na lys i s in b it t er g ou r d ( m o m o rd i c a charantial.) using morphological traits. int. j. agric. innov. res. singh, b., singh, a. k. and kumar, s., 2013, genetic divergence studies in bitter gourd (received on 07.07.2021, revised on 27.11.2021 and accepted on 06.01.2022) (momordica charantia l.).acad. j. plant sci. 6:89-91. sundaram, v., 2008, genetic diversity studies for parental selection in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). asian j. hort., 3(2): 333-335. tyagi, n., singh, v. b. and tripathi, v. 2017, studies on genetic divergence in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.). indian j. ecol. 2017(44): 607-609. nithinkumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 193-198, 2021 00 contents.pdf 07 nitin kumar.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzvelev.) is a multi-use flower crop and gaining more popularity as a cut flower for interior decoration and in bouquets. in india, due to research on genetic improvement at different institutions, approximately one thousand varieties, have been developed. in spite of wide range of variability, very little attention has been paid for its improvement. there is a need for identification of varieties suitable for growing in different agro climatic conditions for specific purposes. information on the nature and magnitude of variability present in the existing material and association among the various characters is pre-requisite for any breeding programme for high yield and quality. flower yield, a complex character, is not only influenced by its associated characters but also are governed by number of genes, and environment. for effective selection, it is necessary to separate genetic variability from total variability, which enables breeders to adopt suitable breeding programmes. the assessment of genetic variability is necessary to evaluate the performance of the individual cultivars. the analysis of variance permits estimation of phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variability of various polygenic traits. the genotypic co-efficient of variation measures the extent of variability among the different traits caused due to the inherent capacity of genotype. the short communication j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 174-176, 2009 studies on genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance in chrysanthemum v. baskaran1, r. jayanthi, t. janakiram2 and k. abirami3 department of horticulture, university of agricultural sciences gkvk campus, bangalore560 065, india e-mail: vbaski01@gmail.com abstract studies on genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance were carried out among ten genotypes of chrysanthemum for characters to identify elite genotypes to be used in breeding programme. the results showed high phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variation for traits like number of suckers per plant (gcv = 90.13; pcv = 95.67) and flower disc diameter (gcv = 63.19; pcv = 66.76). high heritability values were obtained for all the characterister except number of sprays per plant and plant spread. in high heritability estimate coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was observed for number of suckers per plant (174.91), flower disc diameter (123.23) and number of flowers per plant (114.81). it was observed that heritable variability in the breeding materials characters like number of suckers per plant, flower disc diameter, number of flowers per plant, flower weight, yield per plant and number of ray florets could be exploited for improvement through crop breeding programme. key words: chrysanthemum, genetic variability, genetic advance heritability genotypic and phenotypic co-efficient of variation are needed to understand the effect of environment on various polygenic traits (allard, 1960). the aim of present study was to understand the nature and extent of variability present in a set of ten genotypes and to identify elite genotypes to be used in hybridization programme to bring about desired improvement for crop yield. the present experiment was carried out at the horticultural research station, department of horticulture, gandhi krishi vigyan kendra, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore during the year 1999 – 2000. the experiment was laid out in randomized block design, comprising ten genotypes and replicated thrice. each genotype was allotted at random in each sub-block. the crop was successfully raised by following recommended agronomic practices during the period of crop growth. five plants selected at random per variety per replication avoiding border plants were tagged, which constituted the sample for observations. observations were recorded on twenty different traits. phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variations and heritability (burton and devane, 1953) and genetic advance (johnson et al, 1995) were estimated. data on phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variations, heritability and genetic advance for different traits 1& 3 directorate of medicinal & aromatic plants research, boriavi, anand, gujarat 2 division of ornamental crops, iihr, hessaraghatta lake post, bangalore560 089 175 table 1. genetic parameters of chrysanthemum s. no parameters range mean pcv gcv heritability genetic (h2) advance asper cent mean 1 plant height 30.26-54.03 41.97 19.03 15.92 70.02 11.52 2 number of leaves per plant 102.76-216.86 146.24 29.59 25.66 75.19 45.84 3 number of branches per plant 25.26-60.33 40.64 32.66 30.49 87.16 58.64 4 plant spread 24.20-47.10 35.79 21.30 16.22 57.99 25.44 5 number of sprays per palnt 15.00-42.46 28.28 42.09 28.68 46.41 40.24 6 stem girth a) basal 0.62-1.11 0.81 23.68 18.99 64.32 31.37 b) middle 0.38-0.66 0.51 18.75 14.33 58.64 22.66 c) top 0.25-0.38 0.31 21.03 16.97 65.10 22.73 7 number of days taken for 14.00-29.33 23.75 23.73 19.59 68.11 33.30 flowering from bud initiation 8 number of days taken 110.33-155.66 134.86 15.43 11.97 60.25 19.15 for 50% flowering 9 duration of flowering 26.33-51.66 38.46 26.77 23.43 76.60 42.25 10 yield per plant 94.00-365.00 205.15 46.06 44.05 91.47 86.68 11 yield per square meter 1.04-4.05 2.27 46.07 44.07 91.48 86.83 12 number of suckers per plant 2.73-58.50 17.03 95.67 90.13 88.73 174.91 13 flower diameter 2.01-8.14 4.99 34.28 33.13 93.41 65.97 14 flower disc diameter 0.11-1.38 0.69 66.76 63.19 89.60 123.23 15 stalk length 4.67-17.52 12.16 36.77 34.31 87.09 65.95 16 stalk girth 0.11-0.32 0.22 28.64 27.17 90.00 53.10 17 number of flowers per plant 37.00-287.00 124.16 58.84 57.27 94.71 114.81 18 flower weight 0.48-3.59 2.12 53.39 47.45 78.97 86.85 19 number of ray florets per head 47.33-253.20 175.24 42.89 40.83 90.64 80.08 20 length of ray florets 0.74-3.96 2.13 46.07 45.38 97.02 45.39 pcv: phenotypic coefficient of variation gcv: genotypic coefficient of variation are presented in table 1. a wide range of variability for all the traits except stem girth, flower yield per square meter, flower disc diameter, stalk girth, flower weight and length of ray florets was reported. estimates of genotypic coefficient of variation were lesser than the estimates of phenotypic co-efficient of variation, indicating that the apparent variation is not only due to genotype but also due to influence of environment. the present results are in agreement with the interpretations of the works of ponuswami et al (1985) on the estimates of co-efficient of variation in chrysanthemum. high phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variation were found for the traits number of suckers per plant (gcv = 90.13; pcv = 95.67) and flower disc diameter (gcv = 63.19; pcv = 66.76). this is in line with the earlier findings of hemalatha et al (1992). high genotypic co-efficient of variation obtained for the above characters is important and impress the plant breeders for the effective utilization of the existing variability for further breeding programmes. low genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation were noticed for the characters number of days taken for 50% flowering, plant height, plant spread, number of days taken for flowering from bud initiation, stem girth, duration of flowering, stalk girth, number of leaves per plant, number of branches per plant, flower diameter, stalk length, number of sprays per plant, yield per plant, number of ray florets and length of ray florets. the results were in accordance with the findings of misra et al, (1987), choudhary (1987) and srinivas (1993) in dahlia. chaugule (1985) obtained lower values of genotypic co-efficient of variation and phenotypic co-efficient of variation for duration of flowering in chrysanthemum. narrow difference in phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variation were obtained for number of flowers per plant, flower diameter, length of ray florets and stalk girth indicating least effect of environment on these characters. thus, these traits expressed the true genetic potential in varied environments. genetic studies in chrysanthemum j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 174-176, 2009 176 (ms received 12 march 2009, revised 26 october 2009) a similar trend of low environmental influence has been reported for flower diameter by choudhary (1987) in dahlia. the characters showing the least difference between phenotypic and genotypic co-efficient of variation may be utilized in the selection programme. high heritability values were obtained for all the characteristics except number of sprays per plant and plant spread. highest heritability values were noticed for length of ray florets (97.02%), number of flowers per plant (94.71%) and flower diameter (9.41%). similar results were obtained by chaugule (1985) for number and weight of flowers per plant and for number of flowers per plant in chrysanthemum (ponnuswamy et al, 1985). heritability estimates along with genetic advance is a useful criteria in selecting an individual. high heritability estimate coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was observed for number of suckers per plant (174.91), flower disc diameter (123.23) and number of flowers per plant (114.81) suggesting the role of additive gene action in the expression of these characters and as such could be considered as reliable indices for selection. the result is in conformity with the findings of chaugule (1985) for number of flower per plant in chrysanthemum. these results are in agreement with the reports of ponnuswamy et al (1985) and hemalatha et al (1992) in chrysanthemum. from the present study, it could be concluded that heritable variability exists in the breeding materials for characters like number of suckers per plant, flower disc diameter, number of flowers per plant, flower weight, yield per plant and number of ray florets and could be exploited for improvement through crop breeding programme. reference allard, r.w. 1960. principles of plant breeding, john wilky and sons inc., london burton, g.w. and devane, r.w. 1953. estimating heritability in tall foscue (festuca arundinaces) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478-481 chaugule, b.b. 1985. studies on genetic variability in chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum morifolium). m.sc. thesis, m.p.a.u., rahuri choudhary, m.l. 1987. genetic variability in dahlia. prog. hort., 19:58-60 hemalata, b., patil, a.a. and nalawadi, u.g. 1992. variability studies in chrysanthemum. prog. hort., 24:55-59 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimation of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:314-318 misra, r.l., verma, t.s., thakur, p.g. and singh, b. 1987. variability and correlation studies in dahlia. indian j. hort., 44:269-273 ponnuswami, v., chezhiyan, n., md. abdul khader, j.b.m. and thamburaj, s., 1985. genetic variability in chrysanthemum. south indian hort., 33:211-213 srinivas, p.t. 1993. genetic variability in dahlia (dahlia variabilis). ph. d (hort.) thesis, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore, india baskaran et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 174-176, 2009 focus j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 1present address: division of entomology and nematology, indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 560089, india management of potato nematodes: an overview k. s. krishna prasad1 central potato research station ootacamund-643004, nilgiris district, india e-mail: karpakal@yahoo.com abstract root-knot nematodes and cyst nematodes are important constraints that reduce potato yields in india. three species of meloidogyne cause root-knots on the crop throughout the country, of which, m. incognita is more wide-spread. infected tubers also result in marketable-yield-loss particularly in the seed potatoes. the cyst nematodes include two species of globodera restricted to the hilly regions of tamil nadu and are of quarantine importance, inhibiting seedpotato production. potato produce from these hills is used only for consumption. the endoparasitic nature of their life cycle, deposition of eggs into a gelatinous egg mass in root knot and the female turning in to a hard cyst encompassing the eggs within them in cyst nematode makes them difficult organisms to manage. both these nematodes exhibit physiologic variation, hence, their management is not absolute with host-resistance. therefore, an integrated nematode management (inm) is adopted in both the cases. root-knot nematode in north india is managed using nematode-free seed tubers, crop rotation with maize or wheat and application of 1-2 kg ai /ha carbofuran 3% g at the time of potato planting. cyst nematode in tamil nadu hills is managed by crop rotation with vegetables, particularly cabbage and carrot, intercropping potato with beans or wheat, alternating nematode resistant potato variety ‘kufri swarna’ and application of 2 kg ai /ha carbofuran 3% g at planting. a two-year adoption of inm for root-knot and a three-year inm practice for cyst nematodes gives efficient and economical production system. potato farmers in himachal pradesh and tamil nadu hills follow practices standardized at the central potato research institute, shimla and it’s substation in the nilgiri hills. key words: root-knot nematodes, cyst nematodes, late blight disease, pathotypes, virulent strains, host resistance, crop rotation, cropping sequence, integrated management introduction cultivated potato solanum tuberosum linn., originated in the andes mountains in south america, was introduced in the 16 th century to europe and was subsequently distributed throughout the world (pushkarnath, 1976). now, it is grown in almost all countries and is recognized as the world’s most important tuber crop playing a vital role, meeting food requirement of people, particularly, in the developing countries (swaminathan and sawyer, 1983). being one of the top high-value crops, its importance is highlighted by the united nations by naming the year 2008 as the ‘international year of potato’ (fao, 2007). its global production is about 320 million tones, of which china (72 million tonnes) russian federation (35 million tonnes) and india (26 million tonnes) are the major producers. in our country, potato is cultivated in almost all states under varying ecological situations. basically, potato is cultivated in colder regions, but the adaptability of this crop to varied climates has been well-exploited indigenously by developing varieties suitable to different agro-climatic zones in india (pushkarnath, 1976). thus, the crop is grown under long-day conditions of summer months in the midhills of himalayas, short-day conditions of winter months in the north-west plains of punjab, haryana, uttar pradesh, bihar and west bengal, in the equinox conditions of deccan plateau during rainy seasons, and, almost round-the-year in equable climate of tamil nadu hills (grewal et al, 1992). it now serves as a major food source next only to rice, wheat and maize in our country (pandey and sarkar, 2005). major constraints in potato production are insect pests, nematodes and diseases which account for nearly 37% yield loss throughout the globe, of which the share of 90 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 diseases and nematode parasites alone is 23% (sasser and freckman, 1987). late blight (phytophthora infestans), bacterial wilt (ralstonia solanacearum), tuber moth (phthoremia operculella), root-knot nematodes (meloidogyne spp.) and cyst nematodes (globodera spp.) are major pests, especially in india. but, unlike the infestation or incidence of an insect pest or disease, nematode infections are difficult to recognize or diagnose, as, these are often mistaken for nutrient deficiency. primarily, the root-knot nematode (rkn) and potato cyst nematode (pcn) are important among 90 parasitic nematodes (table 1) associated with the potato rhizhospere in india (krishna prasad, 1993). both these nematodes are highly-adapted, obligate plant parasites exhibiting endoparasitic life cycle. other important nematode parasites (fig.1) that occur in the potato rhizoshere are spiral (helicotylenchus spp), stunt (tylenchorhynchus spp; quinsulcius spp.), lesion (pratylenchus spp.), reniform (rotylenchulus reniformis) and pin (paratylenchus spp.) nematodes, that feed on potato roots, causing appreciable yield-reduction (krishna prasad and sharma, 1985; krishna prasad and rajendran, 1990). economic importance the earliest record of a plant parasitic nematode (ppn) infection on potato was that of pcn by julius kuhn in 1881 at rostoch, germany, followed by occurrence of rkn by neal in 1889 at florida, usa. since then, at least 150 species of ppn have been encountered in the rhizosphere of potato throughout the world (jensen et al, 1979). among these, the rkn (meloidogyne spp. basically tropical, polyphagous and prevalent in all regions) and pcn (temperate, host-specific and mainly restricted to potato-growing localities in mild climates) are the most important nematode parasites of potato (jones et al, 1981). the endoparasitic nature of life cycle and protection of eggs in an egg-mass, or a cyst, make these organisms difficult to manage (sethi and gaur, 1986). between these two, the pcn, popularly called ‘the golden nematode’, is important throughout the world and is considered as the number one quarantine pest (trudgill, 1985). most of the countries free of pcn have quarantine regulations on import of potato that might endanger introduction of cysts into their country (stone, 1985). domestic quarantine regulations are strictly followed in the usa, canada and india to prevent further spread of pcn (brodie et al,1993). crop loss nematodes are mostly root feeders living in soil and cause gradual yield reduction, in addition to predisposing plants to infection by other microorganisms. the degree of damage depends on crop husbandry, nematode density and environmental conditions (evans, 1993).the estimated yield-loss in potato by ppn around the world is 12.2% (sasser, 1989). under indian conditions, an initial level of even two larvae of rkn per gram of soil results in overall yield reduction of 42.5% while, pcn accounts for 65% loss (krishna prasad, 1993). rkn infection on tubers manifests, as pimple-like blisters. mere presence of two infected tubers per bag of 80 kg seed potato is sufficient to reject for export from himachal pradesh, a state which follows potato seed certification (krishna prasad, 1986). quarantine regulations occurrence of pcn in india on potato from nilgiri hills during 1961 provided the trigger for organized nematological research in the country, as, this nematode had established itself as one of the most destructive pests of potato all over the world (evans and stone, 1977; seshadri, 1978). potential danger from this nematode to potato cultivation in the country was such that government of tamil nadu amended the destructive insect pest act 1914 in 1971 to ensure inspection of seed potato for presence fig 1. major parasitic nematodes associated with potato in india krishna prasad 91 table 1. parasitic nematodes associated with the potato crop in india nematode locality state initial record anguina tritici kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1975 aphelenchoides avenae kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 a. ritzemabosi kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1975 a. solani kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1965 aphelenchus avenae hyderabad andhra pradesh das, 1960 aligarh uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1974 shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 criconemoides ornatus kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1960 criconemoides spp. kufri himachal pradesh cpri,1957 ditylenchus destructor shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 d. dipsaci imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 d. solani hapur uttar pradesh hussain and khan, 1976 ditylenchus spp. aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 dorylaimus spp. shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1965 ecphydophora goodeyi aligarh uttar pradesh hussain and khan, 1965a enchoderella mustafi aligarh uttar pradesh hussain and khan, 1965 eudorylaimus monohystera aligarh uttar pradesh jairajpuri, 1969 globodera pallida ootacamund tamil nadu howard, 1977 devikulam kerala ramana and das, 1988 g. rostochiensis ootacamund tamil nadu jones, 1961 kodaikanal tamil nadu vijayarhagavan et al, 1975 helicotylenchus caudatus almora uttaranchal sultan, 1985 h. crenatus bhakulty himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 h. dihystera bhakulty, himachal pradesh cpri, 1965 keylong himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 h. nannus kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1960 h. willmottae ootacamund tamil nadu siddiqui, 1972 helicotylenchus spp. ootacamund tamil nadu murthy, 1963 shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 delhi delhi khan and wadhwa, 1969 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1974 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1976 imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 hemicriconemoides spp. aligargh uttar pradesh fasahat et al,1973 shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1985 hemicycliophora spp kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1960 imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 heterodera avenae shimla, mandikulu, himachal pradesh krishna prasad, 1986 sirmourkinnaur and lahaul-spiti h. carotae himachal pradesh swarup et al, 1964 h. punciata himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 hoplolaimus galetus patna bihar cpri, 1960 h. indicus aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 hoplolaimus spp. allahabad uttar pradesh edward et al, 1963 delhi delhi khan and wadhwa, 1969 aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1974 imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 management of potato nematodes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 92 indokochinema ekramullahi burdwan west bengal jana and baqri, 1982 lelenchus annulatus octacamund tamil nadu saddiqui and khan, 1983 longidorella minitissima aligarh uttar pradesh khan, 1972 longidorus elongetus aligarh uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 l. nirulai shillong meghalaya siddiqui, 1965 longidorus spp. shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1975 meloidogyne arenaria aligarh uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 m. hapla* shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1975 m. incognita* kufri himachal pradesh thirumalchar, 1951 m.javanica* patna bihar pushkarnath and roy choudhary, 1958 meloidogyne spp. imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 michonchus digiturus rajgurunagar maharashtra jairajpuri, 1969 nothotylenchus cylindricus almora uttaranchal khan and siddiqi, 1968 n. geraerti aligarh uttar pradesh khan and siddiqi, 1968 n. hexaglyphus almora uttaranchal hussain and khan, 1974 ogma spp. srinagar jammu & kashmir paratrichodorus spp. almora uttaranchal khan, 1972 paratylenchus spp. shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1973a jalandhar punjab cpri, 1974 imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 ootacamund tamil nadu krishna prasad, 1986 pratylencuhus brachyurus kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1962 p. brevicauda hyderabad andhra pradesh das, 1960 shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 p. coffeae allahabad uttar pradesh edward, 1969 shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 p. indicus hyderabad andhra pradesh das, 1960 shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 p. penetrans shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1962 p. pratenses shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 p. teres jallandhar punjab khan and singh, 1975 allahabad uttar pradesh edward et al, 1963 pratylencuhus spp. ootacamund tamil nadu murthy, 1963 aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1974 madapur karnataka singh et al, 1979 psillenchus spp. shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 quinisulcius capitatus kufri, himachal pradesh cpri, 1974 bhakhulty himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 keylong himachal pradesh krishnaprasad and sukumaran, 1986 q.acti shimla himachal pradesh nagesh, 1993 rotylenchulus reniformis ootacamund tamil nadu murthy, 1963 delhi delhi verma and prasad, 1969 solan himachal pradesh swarup et al, 1967 aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 table 1. continued nematode locality state initial record krishna prasad j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 93 r. stajnabu aligarh uttar pradesh hussain and khan, 1965b rotylenchulus spp. delhi delhi khan and wadhwa,1969 imported tubers nbpgr, 1980 rotylenchus ranpoi rajgurunagar maharashtra darekar and khan, 1982 rotylenchus spp. aligarh uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 scutellonema spp aligarh uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 thornedia solani aligarh uttar pradesh hussain and khan, 1965c trichodorus christei kolar karnataka cpri, 1965 t. minor shimla himachal pradesh siddiqi, 1960 t. nannus jalandhar punjab cpri, 1974 t. pachydermus jalandhar punjab cpri, 1965 t. similes aligarh uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 trichodorus spp. aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1974 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1984 tylenchorhynchus brevidens soil samples delhi sethi and swarup, 1968 punjab sethi and swarup, 1968 rajasthan sethi and swarup, 1968 t. claytoni shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1985 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1985 t. cuticaudatus bhubaneswar orissa roy and das, 1983 t. dubius shimla himachal pradesh cpri, 1975 t. martini shimlapatna himachal pradeshbihar cpri, 1960 t. mashoodi aligarh uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 t.neoclavicaudatus soil adhering totubers uttar pradesh khan et al, 1964 imported potato tubers mathur et al, 1978 t. swarupi burdwan west bengal singh and khera, 1978 tylenchorhynchus spp. shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 delhi delhi khan and wadhwa, 1969 aligarh uttar pradesh fasahat et al, 1973 imported tubers nbpgr, 1978 tylenchus spp. shillong meghalaya cpri, 1965 kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 xiphinema americanum kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 x. index kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1962 x. indicum kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 x. radicicola kufri himachal pradesh cpri, 1966 xiphinema spp. shillong meghalaya cpri, 1964 jalandhar punjab cpri, 1974 madapur karnataka singh et al, 1979 ootacamund tamil nadu krishna prasad, 1986 *refer table 2 for detailed, state-wise prevalence of root-knot nematodes table 1. continued nematode locality state initial record of cyst nematode and check its spread to other parts of the country. large-scale inspection of potato fields around the country revealed that this nematode was restricted to the hills in tamil nadu (logiswaran and menon, 1965). therefore, seed movement of potato from these hills is banned and the entire produce is used for consumption purposes only. however, detection of pcn from the neighboring states of tamil nadu such as karnataka (singh and krishna prasad, 1986) and kerala (ramana and mohandas, 1988) calls for strengthening of domestic quarantine. the other nematode pests of potato that merit quarantine importance and are not yet found in the country are the potato rot nematode, ditylenchus destructor and potato false root-knot nematode, naccobus aberrans (renjhen, 1973). management of potato nematodes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 94 distribution rkn, with about 65 species of meloidogyne, is widely distributed throughout the world causing typical root-galls on crop plants (brodie et al, 1993). at least ten of these infest potatoes, though, m. incognita, m. javanica and m. hapla are predominant. in india, rkn was first reported on potato in 1951 from shimla (thirumalachar, 1951) and is prevalent in all the potato growing regions of the country (nirula and roy choudhary, 1957). meloidogyne incognita is the dominant rkn species causing galls on roots and tubers, followed by m. javanica. infestation of m. hapla on potato roots is recorded at higher altitudes of 2000m (above) msl from hilly tracts of himachal pradesh, jammu & kashmir, uttaranchal and tamil nadu (table 2). detailed surveys undertaken in himachal pradesh (fig 2) and uttaranchal shows that all these three species affect potato with varying intensity. meloidogyne incognita is occurring either alone or with the other two species, at fig 2. rootknot nematode intensity on potato in himachal pradesh table 2. species of meloidogyne causing root-knots on potato in india state / union territory species initial record andhra pradesh m. javanica das, 1960 arunachal pradesh m. incognita mishra and jaya prakash, 1980 assam m. incognita cpri, 1957, 1965 bihar m. incognita cpri, 1957, lal and m. javanica das, 1957 delhi m. javanica prasad et al, 1964 gujarat m. incognita desai et al, 1970 haryana m. incognita cpri, 1971 m. javanica himachal pradesh m. hapla cpri, 1974 m. incognita mukhopadhyaya,1970 m. javanica cpri, 1957 jammu & kashmir m. hapla cpri, 1977 karnataka m. incognita cpri, 1957 m. javanica cpri, 1965 maharashtra m. incognita cpri, 1965 m. javanica manjrekar and talgeri, 1969 meghalaya m. incognita pushkarnath and roy choudhary, 1958 orissa m. incognita cpri, 1977 punjab m. incognita cpri, 1963 m. javanica cpri, 1974 rajasthan m. incognita cpri, 1972 m. javanica cpri, 1974 tamil nadu m. hapla, gill, 1974 m. incognita singh et al, 1979 m. javanica singh et al, 1979 uttar pradesh m. incognita cpri, 1957 m. javanica gill, 1974 uttaranchal m. hapla krishna prasad, 1993 m. incognita cpri, 1957 west bengal m. incognita cpri, 1971 altitudes ranging 760-2900 m msl. infestation of m. javanica was observed at lower altitudes of 410 to 1100 m msl while m. hapla was restricted to higher altitudes of 1950 to 3300 m msl and its presence could be ascertained by indicator plant reaction (krishna prasad, 1986). tuber infection manifests as blisters and is invariably associated with m. incognita and m. javanica wherever bacterial wilt is endemic (nirula and paharia, 1970; krishna prasad and sukumaran, 1986; nagesh and shekhawat, 1997). pcn is restricted to the potato growing localities of about 60 countries, with two species that are characterized by colour of the developing female (evans and stone, 1977). globodera pallida (white or creamcoloured females) is prevalent in 25 countries and g. rostochiensis (yellow cyst nematode) is reported from 57 countries (brodie et al, 1993). dr. f. g. w. jones, head, nematology department, rothamsted experimental station, harpenden, u.k., on a personal trip to ootacamund, first detected this nematode in india from a field situated at an elevation of 2125m msl. realizing the importance of this problem in potato, the indian council of agricultural research (icar) and the government of tamil nadu launched the ‘golden nematode scheme’ at ootacamund in 1963 (seshadri and sivakumar, 1962). large-scale inspection of potatoes in the marketing mandies at mettupalayam (trading centre and rail-head at the foothills krishna prasad j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 95 table 3. distribution of pcn species in major potato growing localities of nilgiri hills locality msl-climate no. of potato occurrence% occurrence% crops /year g. pallida g. rostochiensis nanjanadu 2250-cool two 0.0 100.0 mynala 2250-cool two 15.0 85.0 vijayanagaram 2175-cool two 28.5 71.5 kavaratty 2175-cool two 0.0 100.0 thalaiattumandu 2150-cool two 25.0 86.0 fern hill 2150-ambient cool two 49.0 51.0 hullahatty 2100ambient cool one 51.0 49.0 finger post 2100 -ambient cool two 26.0 74.0 adigaratty 2070 -ambient warm one 94.0 6.0 kallahatty 1950 -ambient warm three 92.5 7.5 sholur 1950 -ambient warm two 81.0 19.5 thummanatty 1920 -warm two 100.0 0.0 thummanada 1920 -warm two 100.0 0.0 jegathala 1875 -warm one 100.0 0.0 milidhen 1850 -warm one 100.0 0.0 fig 3. intensity of potato cyst nematodes in nilgiri hills. of nilgiris) and field-to-field surveys were undertaken (seshadri, 1970). these studies indicated presence of cysts in potato consignments meant for transportation to bombay, calcutta, cuttack and poona (seshadri, 1978). detailed surveys conducted in other major potato growing areas of assam, himachal pradesh, karnataka, punjab, tamil nadu and uttar pradesh indicated this nematode to be restricted to the nilgiri hills (gill, 1974) and kodaikanal hills (thangaraju, 1983) of tamil nadu. presence of cysts of pcn in several potatogrowing villages was recorded in karnataka (singh and krishna prasad, 1986) although the species could not be determined, as, the eggs in the cysts were non-viable. later, g. pallida was observed to be associated with potato at the devikulam locality in idukki district of kerala (ramana and mohandas, 1988). species composition, distribution and intensity (fig 3) indicated 57% pcn population in the nilgiris to be that of g. pallida and 43% was that of g. management of potato nematodes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 96 rostochiensis. nematode intensity was high (table 3) in localities where invariably two potato crops were taken in a calendar year (krishna prasad, 2003). both species differed in their preference for infecting and developing on potato, with the former preferring altitudes of 1550 to 2100 m msl and the latter preferring localities above 2100m msl (krishna prasad, 2004c). physiologic specialisation initially it was thought that pcn populations at the nilgiris comprised g. rostochiensis pathotype a (hari kishore et al,1969). breeding and screening potato for resistance to cyst nematodes brought to light occurrence of ro1 and pa 2 in both species (howard, 1977). cultivation of nematode-resistant potato ‘kufri swarna’ (derived from solanum vernei) at different localities in the nilgiris indicated the presence of other pathotypes (krishna prasad, 1996). differential host-reaction studies have shown that three pathotypes occur in each species at the nilgiris (krishna prasad, 2004). pathotype ro1 of g .rostochiensis and pa 2 of g. pallida are the most prevalent and constitute 75% of total population. other pathtoype pa 1 accounted for 15%, followed by ro2, at 7%. the least prevalent pathotypes pa3 and ro5 accounted for only 3% but were able to develop distinctly on some of the differential hosts, indicating their virulence (krishna prasad, 2006). pcn populations from kodaikanal constituted pathotypes ro1 of g. rostochiensis and pa 2 of g. pallida. field symptoms generally, nematode infestations are not easy to recognize and may be suspected when yellowing of foliage, coupled with stunted growth of the plants in patches (fig 4) is observed which is often mistaken for nutrient deficiency symptoms. yield-reduction due to nematode damage is fig 5. root knot nematode on potato roots with egg masses fig 6. female cyst nematodes on potato roots fig 4. initial nematode infection progressive and increases year after year. rkn juveniles, on entry into the root, cause typical root galls and affect uptake of nutrients. similarly, pcn juveniles also enter feeder roots, establish and obstruct uptake of minerals and nutrients, impeding the overall plant growth, but without forming root knots. in both the cases, field symptoms appear after the nematode population in the soil builds up to about 10 eggs and larvae (propagules) per 100 ml of soil. initially, small patches of poorly growing, pale yellow plants are observed. a closer examination of the root system of such plants show galls of rkn (fig 5) while, in pcn, one can observe yellow or white, small, mustard-size female nematodes sticking to the roots (fig 6). temporary wilting of plants occurs around mid-noon and late evening, while, in heavily infested fields, plants remain stunted, show premature yellowing and poor root development. reduction in size and number of tubers is also observed. pimple-like blisters appear on tubers due to rkn, which reduces the marketable value of the produce (fig 7) especially, the seed tubers. well-grown cysts on tubers are often seen in fields krishna prasad j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 97 fig 7. tubers infected by rkn heavily infested with pcn (fig 8) and cause gradual reduction in yield year after year, with poor quality seed tubers despite good crop-management practices (ravichandran et al, 2001). nematode biology lifecycle and biology of rkn and pcn are similar, with only subtle differences. since rkn is polyphagous, the larvae readily hatch in soil without presence of any stimulant, while, in the oligophagous pcn, hatching of cysts is initiated by root diffusates. solanine and alfa-chaconine are glycoalkaloids released by potato roots, which act as pcn hatching stimulants. absence of potato root exudates is known to force pcn eggs to remain unhatched for 15-20 years. the 2nd stage larvae emerging out of the egg-mass or cyst move actively in soil, to invade roots, and lie parallel to the vascular system. this infection results in formation of giant cells from which nematodes extract nourishment. female larvae undergo successive molts, increasing each time in size to attain a spheri-cal shape. adult females remain attached to the roots by their neck, are pear-shaped fig 8. potato field heavily infected by nematodes fig 9. life cycle of root-knot nematode in potato and measure 0.7 -0.8 mm in diameter and are white or yellow in colour. rkn eggs are laid into a gelatinous matrix (fig 9) while, in pcn, females turn brown and become hard cysts. male nematodes are thread-like and come out freely from the root system. approximately 25 to 30 days are required for completion of life cycle in both the cases (fig 10). however, in winter months at shimla, rkn took about 65 days to complete its lifecycle, due to snowfall that decrease the soil temparatures (nirula and raj, 1969). fig 10. life cycle of cyst nematode in potato management of potato nematodes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 98 generally, one nematode generation is completed in a crop season as potato itself is grown as a sandwitch crop at most places, particularly, in the indian plains. evidence of the 2nd generation being completed in both rkn and pcn is available. as there is no distinct dormancy in rkn prior to hatching, larvae from the first generation can infect stolons and tubers, while pcn exhibits specific dormancy. globodera rostochiensis, with a shorter dormancy of 45 to 60 days can complete its second generation in the nilgiri hills (krishna prasad, 2004b) on potato in the long-duration varieties that complete a crop cycle in 130 days. globodeva pallida generally has one life cycle, with 60 to 75 days’ dormancy. multiplication rate of both the nematodes ranges from 7 to 13 times the initial population in one crop cycle on potato (krishna prasad, 2004c). studies have shown that g. pallida is able to develop and reproduce in the foothills of nilgiris at 300 to 350 m msl from october to february, when ambient temperatures ranges from 14° to 19°c (minimum) and 22o to 30°c (maximum). however g. rostochiensis could develop into females only at 1400m msl and above, where maximum day temperature is not more than 24°c during the above months (krishna prasad, 2004a). nematode spread at the time of harvest, egg-masses or the brown cysts containing eggs are easily dislodged into the soil (fig 11). nematode infection by either the egg mass or cysts with eggs within usually spreads with soil adhering to the farm implements, harvested tubers, gunny bags, etc. other major means of spread is through contaminated compost, laborers feet, and, by seed potatoes. during monsoon months, water running down slopes also facilitates transmittance or spread of cysts. ( logiswaran and menon, 1965). fig 11. mature cysts in soil debris nematode management nematode management is practiced using seeds obtained from nematode-free areas and by following several cultural practices like deep ploughing and exposing soil to summer heat, trap cropping, rotation with non-host crops, intercropping in potato based cropping system, nematicide treatment to reduce the initial nematode population, breeding nematode-resistant potato varieties, addition of organic amendments to increase the activity of antagonistic microorganisms, and by use of biological-control agents (sethi and gaur, 1986). however, the endoparasitic nature of the nematode, deposition of eggs into a gelatinous eggs mass (in rkn) and the female turning into a hard cyst encompassing eggs within (in pcn) makes them difficult organisms to manage. occurrence of physiologic variations (krishna prasad, 1996; mathur and krishna prasad, 1998; wajid khan and khan, 1998) complicates the use of resistant varieties. experience shows that these nematodes need to be managed by adopting several plant protection strategies. cultural practices cultural management basically involves all crophusbandry practices that deprive the nematodes from infesting potato thereby reducing their population (evans and stone, 1977; evans, 1993). the most common practice is use of healthy seed, crop rotation and intercropping with antagonistic plants. surveys conducted to document speciescomplex, distribution and subsequent mapping of nematode intensity, have helped identify nematode-free zones for seedpotato production in india (fig 2 and 3). this has helped in obtaining healthy seed potatoes and thus potato from northwest plains of punjab and haryana states and the high hilly districts of kullu, kinnaur and lahual & spiti in himachal pradesh are more favored as a source for reducing rkn infection. on the other hand, potato from nilgiris and kodaikanal hills is avoided, to restrict the movement of pcn. growing non-host crops such as maize, wheat and the trap-crop, marigold helps minimize rkn in northern india (gill, 1974; deshraj, 1983). a two-year crop rotation and application of nematicide (carbofuran @ 2 kg ai /ha in two equal splits, once at planting and the other at earthingup) increased potato yields by 45% and brought down rkn tuber-infection by 96% in shimla hills (krishna prasad, 1986). crop rotation with non-solanaceous vegetables (beetroot, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, french bean, garlic, krishna prasad j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 99 radish, turnip, etc.) between september-november reduced pcn cysts and its propagules in south indian hills, ranging from 24 and 76% respectively (table 4). a three and four year rotational sequence with a nematode susceptible and resistant potato brought down pcn by 98 to 99% and increased yields by 65% in nilgiri hills (krishna prasad, 2000). these crop rotations and inter-cropping of potato with french bean or wheat reduced nematode infestation by 35%, while, nutritive value of the soil increased (manorama et al, 2003). exposing soil to summer heat, fallowing, mulching, trap-cropping, addition of organic amendments to increase the activity of antagonistic organisms in the soil are other methods of nematode management in potato. breeding for resistance use of host-resistance is the most sustainable nematode management strategy and has been exploited in potato nematode management (stone and turner, 1983). research on breeding for nematode resistance in india started for rkn in 1961 and for pcn in 1968 at the central potato research institute, shimla and its sub-station at ootacamund. high degree of resistance in several tuberbearing solanum species is available (table 5) both for rkn and pcn (birhman et al, 1998; gaur et al, 1999). continuous breeding and selection of resistant lines of potato brought to light existence of variations within the species of rkn and pcn which were designated as biotypes and pathotypes. pathotype-specific, major genes control resistance to pcn (kort et al, 1977) and non-specifictable 4. effect of growing potato and other crops on cysts and propogules of pcn initial population : cysts 250/100 ml soil eggs and larvae : 85 /cyst crop build-up build up calculated per cent index * index* of cpr** reduction of cysts eggs and value over larvae susceptible potato var. at harvest susceptible 4.982 2.551 12.71* potato var. resistant 0.582 0.454 0.26 97.9 potato var. french bean 0.612 0.752 0.46 96.4 cabbage 0.514 0.385 0.22 98.4 carrot 0.537 0.392 0.19 98.3 garlic 0.628 0.422 0.26 97.9 maize 0.734 0.704 0.51 95.9 wheat 0.716 0.795 0.57 95.5 oat 0.695 0.681 0.47 96.3 fallow 0.915 0.860 0.76 93.9 *build-up index calculated as the ratio of final population over initial population ** cpr calculated as cumulative percent reduction over initial population table 5. nematode resistance available in tuber-bearing solanum species (compiled from cpri annual reports) species number of accessions number of accessions resistant to rkn resistant to pcn solanum acaule 3 2 s. acroscopicum 1 — s. agrimonifolium 1 — s. ajanhurri 1 — s. bolviense 2 — s. brevicaule 1 — s. bulbocastanum 1 1 s. cardiophyllum 3 — s. chacoense 14 2 s. chrenbergii — 1 s. chaucha 1 — s. curtilobum 3 — s. demissum 7 2 s. famatinae 1 1 s. fendleri — 1 s. hougasii 1 — s. infundibuliforme 1 — s. jamesil 1 — s. gourlayi — 1 s. grandarillasii 1 — s. kurtzianum 2 3 s. leptophyes 2 — s. lignicaule 1 — s. maglla 2 — s. microdontum 1 3 s. multidissectum 1 2 s. ochranthum 1 — s. oplocense — 2 s. phureja 2 2 s. pinnatisectum 1 — s. raphanifolium 4 — s. recho 1 — s. sanitaerosae 1 — s. sparsipillum 2 3 s. spegazzinii 5 9 s. stenophyllidium 1 — s. stenotonum 1 — s. stoloniferum 8 — s. sucrense — 2 s. tarifense — 1 s. tuberosum spp andigena 28 168 s. tuberosum 16 13 s. vallis mexici 1 — s. vernei 2 5 inter varietal hybrids 161 287 imported accessions 75 22 management of potato nematodes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 100 polygenes to rkn (harikishore et al, 1977). an intervarietal hybrid hc-294 possessed resistance to m. incognita and several commercial potato varieties showed reduced development and reproduction (cpri, 1986). high degree of pcn resistance available in s. vernei (clone 62-33-3) has been used for developing a pcn resistant variety ‘kufri swarna’ (fig 12) at the nilgiris (cpri, 1986). this variety offers better management of pcn as it is resistant to pathotypes ro 1 and pa 2 (maximum occurrence). continuous cultivation of resistant varieties helps build up other pathotypes (krishna prasad, 1996). therefore, it has to be alternated often with a susceptible potato variety. south indian hills, which grow potato throughout the year, are also endemic to the late blight (lb) pathogen, phytopthora infestans (krishna prasad and latha, 1999), and hence, potato varieties should have combined resistance to pcn and lb (fig13). potato breeding and evaluation resulted in developing 21 promising advance hybrids (fig 14) with combined resistance to pcn and lb (krishna prasad et al, 2001; joseph et al, 2003). two advance hybrids os/93fig 12. pcn resistant variety kufri swarna fig 13. growth comparison in potato varieties in healthy & nematode-sick plots fig 14. view of promising advance hybrids with combined resistance to pcn and lb at cprs, ooty d204 and os/94-l956, have entered adoptive research trials in farmers’ fields (fig 15; joseph and krishnaprasad, 2005). one of the selections, e/79-42, has been registered with nbpgr as an excellent male source, with combined resistance to pcn and lb (krishna prasad, 2006). chemicals in nematode management initially, dd (1-3 dichloropropane1-2 dichloropropene), edb (ethylene di bromide), mbr (methyl bromide), dbcp (dibromochloropropene), dorlone (a mixture of dd and edb) were used for controlling rkn and pcn. massive chemical-control attempt was also made under the indo-german nilgiris development project during 1971-75 to check pcn. the treatment was made mandatory under the tamil nadu pest act 1971 and all the infested fields at that time in nilgiris were treated with 30 kg ai/ha of fensulfothion (dasanit 10 % g) in the first year, followed by 15 kg ai/ha in the subsequent years. nearly 1000 tons of 10% fensulfothion was used treating about 3100 hectares of annual cropped area, over a period of five years (seshadri, 1978). thus, each hectare, on average, received 325 kgs of the pesticide. in spite of lb resistant pcn susceptible lb susceptible pcn susceptible lb susceptible pcn resistant fig 15. adoptive research trials in farmers’ fields in the nilgiris krishna prasad j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 101 this massive application of pesticides, pcn continued to be one of the limiting factors for potato production in the nilgiris (table 6; cpri, 1985). at present, application of carbofuran at 2 kg ai/ha is recommended to keep nematodes at below the economic threshold levels of less than 10 eggs or larvae per 100 ml of soil at the time of planting potato (krishna prasad, 2000). this will help reduce the initial nematode inoculum in soil and also reduce build-up of pathotypes that multipliy on the resistant cv. ‘kufri swarna’(krishna prasad, 2007b). biocontrol agents for nematode management nematode management in potato by bioagents has not been exploited to its full potential (crump, 1989; crump and flynn, 1992). the fungus, paecilomyces lilacinus, is effective against root knot nematodes on potato (jatala, 1985) and was extensively used for rkn management in other crops under the international meloidogyne project (sasser, 1989), while, the endomychorhhizal fungi, glomus fasciculatus and g. mossae, offer possibilities for nematode management, especially rkn, in india (krishna prasad, 1993). two bioagents, paecilomyces lilacinus and pochonia chlamydosporia, in talc formulations, were tested for pcn management under field conditions, with and without the nematicide (krishna prasad and nagesh, 2007). both these organisms (fig 16) were able to reduce cysts and propagules fig 16. bio-agent growing on potato cyst nematodes fig 17. potato cyst mematode-sick plots at cprs, ooty table 6. quantity of dasanit 10%g used in the nilgiris for pcn control year hectares dasanit 10 % g treated used in kg 1970 1220 3,28,518 1971 1400 2,23,639 1972 1564 1,99,425 1973 1227 1,11,246 1974 1874 1,37,150 total 9,99,978 kg (1000 tonnes) by 46 to 49% while increasing marketable-potato yields by 40 to 70%. similarly, pseudomonas flourencens, in combination with paecilomyces lilacinus, brought about substantial yield increase upto 70% while reducing pcn (malavika et al, 2008). the rapidity with which many of these nematode biocontrol agents have been used in the indian agriculture for management of several parasitic nematodes like rkn, in vegetables (rao et al, 1997, 1998; rao, 2004), ornamentals (rao et al, 2003) and reniform and burrowing nematodes in cotton (shivakumar et al, 2004) and banana (karuna et al, 2004) has shown that indigenously isolated and multiplied biocontrol agents will become an important component of nematode management in potato as well (walia, 2004, krishna prasad, 2007a). integrated management experience has shown that neither rkn nor pcn can be eradicated once these establish in a locality (sethi and gaur, 1986; hamid and alam, 1998). their similarities in population dynamics, biology and life cycle facilitate integrated management of rkn and pcn in potato. hence, these nematodes need to be managed by combining several plant-protection strategies (kamra and dhawan, 1998). rkn in the north indian hills is being managed by application of carbofuran 3g at 1 or 2 kg ai/ha at potato planting (deshraj, 1983); two-year crop rotation with wheat or maize and seed certification after inspection for root knots on seed tubers (krishna prasad, 1986, 1993). this has helped keep juveniles of rkn at less than the threshold level of 10 to 20 larvae /100 g of soil sample. integrated pcn management practice was standardized in a nematode sick plot (fig. 17) over a period of eight years involving crop rotation, intercropping, host resistance and nematicide treatment at potato planting management of potato nematodes j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 102 (krishna prasad, 2001). the treatments incorporated were potato cultivar kufri swarna resistant to pcn, potato cultivar kufri jyothi-pcn susceptible, locally grown vegetable cultivars of cabbage, carrot, french bean, garlic, pea, radish, and carbofuran at 2 kg ai /ha. a pcn sick plot with initial population of 42 -50 cysts /100 soil harboring about 1500-2000 eggs and larvae was sub-divided into 72 sub-plots and the above crops were grown during aprilaugust. the potato crop received nematicide treatment. nematode build-up was monitored during the crop period and crops were alternated in the subsequent year. each year, after the harvest of the main crop in sub-plots, wheat and fodder oat were planted. (fig 18). this further reduced nematode populations by 20 to 24%, in addition to utilizing residual moisture in the soil. nematode resistant potato and other vegetables were able to bring down the nematode population by 82% in the very first year, with an accumulated reduction of upto 99.5% following pesticide treatment and crop rotation. at the same time, increase in nematode population in the susceptible potato variety was 3.2 times for cysts and 6.3 times for eggs and larvae, resulting in 65% yield-reduction. cabbage and carrot grown after potato harvest reduced initial nematode populations and increased the potato yield the subsequent year. studies indicated that even a threeyear crop rotation of susceptible potato is sufficient to get economical yields when it is rotated with resistant potato or cabbage or carrot. however, there is a need to resort to minimum application of pesticide (2 kg ai/ha of carbofuran) before the nematode-resistant potato can be grown, to keep the initial nematode population low and to avoid build-up of the less prevalent pathotypes. this cropping sequence has given 28 to 30 t/ha in pcn susceptible potatoes and 31 to 34 t /h in the resistant potatoes. now, farmers in the nilgiris are following this crop management schedule (fig 19). other nematodes several parasitic nematodes such as the lesion, spiral, stunt and reniform nematodes are constantly encountered in surveys on potato fields (gill, 1974). not much information was available hitherto on their role as pathogens in potato (krishna prasad, 1984), hence, their relative occurrence was quantified in potato based croping system at nilgiris(table 7). pathogenicity of quinslcius capitatus, a stunt nematode frequently occurring in the himalayan mid-hills (krishna prasad and sharma, 1985), and the spiral nematode (helicotylenchus dihystera) prevalent in all the potatogrowing tracts of india, was established on potato (krishna prasad and rajendran,1990).the stunt nematode reduced 14 to 29% tuber yield, while, the spiral nematode accounted for 9 to 27% tuber yield reduction. both these nematodes, polyphagous ectoparasites commonly encountered in all the potato-growing localities, are potential pests of potato, if fig 19. a view of farmers practising ipm in the nilgiris fig 18. ipm practices for nematode management in potato table 7. build-up of ectoparasitic nematodes on different crops in the nilgiris crop duration spiral lesion total in days nematode nematode epn potato 110 7.82 5.35 6.58 bean 75 3.45 2.85 3.15 cabbage 115 6.45 4.85 5.65 carrot 125 4.85 3.50 4.18 garlic 105 4.50 3.30 3.90 maize 135 7.60 5.20 6.40 wheat 110 6.00 4.85 5.42 oot 120 5.05 4.25 4.65 mean build-up 5.71 4.27 4.99 index* * *build-up index calculated as the ratio of final population over initial population krishna prasad j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 103 rkn or pcn are to be managed by host resistance alone. studies on build-up of spiral and lesion nematodes in potato fields at ootacamund showed that ectoparasitic nematodes preferred potato, followed by maize, cabbage and wheat in that order. other parasitic nematodes of importance in potato are the pin (paratylenchus spp.), reniform (rotylenchulus spp.) and lesion (pratylenchus spp.) nematodes. however, management practices followed for pcn or rkn reduce these pests (krishna prasad, 2007b). conclusion potato, an important crop grown in india, throughout the country, is associated with about 90 species of plant parasitic nematodes belonging to 38 genera. among these, root-knot nematodes and cyst nematodes are important constraints in crop productivity. root-knot nematodes are present throughout the country, while, cyst nematodes are restricted to the hilly regions of tamil nadu. the endoparasitic nature of life cycle in these nematodes poses difficulties in their management. further, physiologic variation in these nematodes makes host resistance often a failure. therefore, an integrated nematode management (inm) is adopted in both the cases. the root-knot nematode in north india is managed using nematode-free seed tubers, a two-year crop rotation with maize or wheat, and, with nematicide (carbofuran @ 2 kg ai/ha) application in split doses. the cyst nematode in tamil nadu hills is managed by following a three-year crop rotation with vegetables, intercropping with beans or wheat, using nematode resistant potatoes and by application of the nematicide in split doses. adoption of inm for these nematodes has proved efficient and economical in himachal pradesh and tamil nadu hills. few indigenously multiplied biocontrol agents like paecilomyces lilacinus, pochonia chlamydosporia and pseudomonas flourencens offer excellent opportunity for incorporation into this nematode-management system. acknowledgement the author is grateful to dr. n.m. nayar, dr. g.s. shekhawat, and dr. s.m. paul khurana, ex-directors and dr. s.k. pandey, present director, central potato research institute, shimla, for 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hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 89-106, 2008 introduction sweet flag (acorus calamus l.), commonly known as ‘batch’, is an important minor spice cum medicinal and aromatic plant belonging to the family araceae. it is a semiaquatic perennial herb with long, creeping, much branched, aromatic rhizomes and fibrous root and occurs widely all over india, especially in hilly tracts (selvi et al. 2003). it is mainly cultivated in the netherlands, persia, united kingdom, india and sri lanka. in india, it is common in kashmir and the kumayun region of himalayas. however, it is cultivated in karnataka, kashmir, manipur and nagaland. root is used for treatment of kwashiorkor disease in children. the rhizomes are used as carminative, stimulant and tonic (jain, 2001). rhizome extracts are used against feeling of over-fullness, flatulence and colic pain. it contains 1.5 to 3.5% essential oil. the essential oil extracted from the rhizome is utilized in perfumery. at lower dose, it also has a stimulating effect. it has been used in purifying water. due to presence of acorin in its essential oil, it is commonly used as a remedy for asthma and chronic diarrhoea. “bach” is a commercial product available in the effect of fym and ga 3 on growth and yield of sweet flag (acorus calamus l.) under terai zone of west bengal s. datta, a.n. dey and s. maitra faculty of horticulture uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya pundibari, cooch behar -736 165, india e-mail : suchanddatta@rediffmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted during 2003 04 and 2004 05 at the instructional farm of uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, pundibari, cooch behar, west bengal, to study the effect of different levels of farm yard manure (fym) (0, 12.5, 25, 37.5 and 50 t ha-1) and ga 3 (0 and 100 ppm) on production in sweet flag. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design with three replications. farm yard manure significantly affected yield and vegetative characters. ga 3 also showed similar effect, except, that rhizome diameter and dry-recovery percentage were found non-significant. interaction effect between fym and ga 3 for growth and yield parameters was found nonsignificant. plant height, number of leaves, rhizome length, rhizome diameter and yield increased with increase in dose of fym from 0 to 50 t ha-1 but was reverse in the case of dry recovery. similarly, these parameters increased with application of ga 3 but showed non-significant relationship, except in rhizome yield. maximum fresh and dry rhizome yield (3013.23 kg ha-1, 1389.15 kg ha-1 respectively) was recorded with 50 t ha-1 fym supplemented with 100 ppm ga 3, followed by application of 50 t ha-1 fym (2879.80 and 1342.65 kg ha-1, respectively). key words : acorus calamus l., dry recovery, fym, ga 3, growth, sweet flag, yield market, also prepared from sweet flag. fresh rhizomes are used in confectionery and also used as a substitute for ginger (farooqui et al, 2000). in west bengal, ground dried rhizome and rhizome powder is used in bait for fishing. the smoke of sweet flag, taken orally through a funnel, relieves cough. it can be a good source of earning from lands that are low-lying and where other crops cannot grow. application of organic matter improves soil physical and chemical properties and also improves the productivity of the crop (deka and patgiri, 2002). productivity in this crop is very low compared to other root crops. use of plant growth regulators, in addition to other package of practices, is an important factor for increasing productivity and quality of the produce manifold (krishnamurthy, 1975). beneficial effect of ga 3 on yield has been well-established in many crops like potato (tomar and ramgiry, 1977), onion (gawad et al, 1986; singh et al, 2002) and garlic (rahman et al, 2004). for along crop duration (about 10 months) and its rhizomatous nature, it requires heavy input of fertilizers. but, continuous use of inorganic chemical fertilizer negatively affects soil environment and pollutes underground water. it j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 59-62, 2009 60 is essential to reduce indiscriminate use of inorganic chemical fertilizer and to simultaneously increase the use of organic manures which improve soil, plant health and plant growth regulators. therefore, the present investigation was carried out to assess efficacy of gibberelic acid (ga 3 ) with fym on growth, yield and quality of sweet flag in terai zone of west bengal. material and methods the experiment was conducted during 2003 04 and 2004 05 at the instructional farm (26019’86" n latitude, 89023’53" e longitude, altitude of 43 m amsl) of uttar banga krishi viswavidyalaya, pundibari, cooch behar, west bengal to study the effect of different levels of fym (0, 12.5, 25, 37.5 and 50 t ha-1) and ga 3 (0 and 100 ppm) on production in sweet flag. the crop was grown under rainfed condition. the total amount of rainfall received was 323.21 cm during 2003 04 and 301.09 cm during 2004-05, respectively. the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design with three replications. the soil was sandy-loam and coarse with poor water-holding capacity and the climate was humid tropical. all the doses of fym were applied during final land preparation. ga 3 was applied one month after planting of sweet flag as spray in ga 3 treated plots and only water was sprayed in control plots. rhizome bits of 5 cm with growing tops were transplanted in the field in a plot of 1.50 m x 2.10 m size with a spacing of 30 cm x 30 cm. in both years the crop was transplanted during the third week of march and harvested during the 3rd week of january. the crop was given recommended package of practices excluding the fertilizer schedule. no inorganic fertilizers were added. observations on various growth and yield characters were recorded twice, from ten randomly selected plants in each replication ( excluding the border row) at 180 days after transplanting and at harvest, respectively. dry-recovery percentage was taken as dryweight over fresh-weight of rhizomes. statistical analysis was done as per gomez and gomez (1984). results and discussion it has been found that growth and yield parameters are somewhat higher in the second year of study might be due to the favourable climatic condition like higher average sunshine hour. the results on plant height, numbers of leaves, rhizome length and diameter have been presented in table 1. plant height, number of leaves, rhizome length and diameter increased significantly with the increasing doses of fym (0 to 50 t ha-1). lower growth and yield parameters (44.92, 12.64, 17.81 and 12.62 cm, respectively) were recorded in plants received no fym and highest values (59.23, 19.35, 22.87 and 14.21 cm, respectively) observed in plants with the highest doses of fym (50 t ha-1). excepting rhizome diameter, all three growth and yield characters were significantly affected by application of ga 3 . maximum plant height (51.85 cm), number of leaves per plant (16.07) and rhizome length (20.74 cm) were recorded in100 ppm ga 3 treatment. application of ga 3 also increased number of leaves as in case of potato (singh et al, 2003). the interaction effect between ga 3 and fym was non-significant for all the parameters recorded except for rhizome length of sweet flag in the second year. the results on fresh and dry yield and dry recovery have been presented in table 2. dry recovery percentage was inversely proportional to incremental doses of fym. the highest dry recovery percentage (48.88%) was recorded from plants received no fym and it was lowest (46.41%) in the highest doses (50 t ha-1) of fym, which was statistically at par with the 37.5 t ha-1 fym treatment (46.97%). ga 3 had no significant effect on dry recovery percentage. the interaction effect between fym and ga 3 was also found statistically significant, however, maximum dry recovery was obtained from the untreated plants. though non significant, the maximum plant height (60.44 cm), rhizome diameter (14.26 mm) and number of leaves (19.77) were recorded in the plants treated with 50 t ha-1 fym along with 100 ppm ga 3 . same treatment combination also showed maximum rhizome length (23.05 cm) of sweet flag. fresh and dry yield of sweet flag is significantly affected by fym treatment. fresh and dry yield increases with the increase in the doses of fym from 0 to 50 t ha-1. maximum fresh and dry yield (2946 kg ha-1 and 1365.90 kg ha-1, respectively) was recorded with 50 t ha-1 fym followed by 37.5 t ha-1 fym (2524.50 kg ha-1 and 1271.60 kg ha-1, respectively) treatment. ga 3 also showed significant effect on fresh and dry yield of sweet flag. the maximum fresh and dry yield (2568.75 kg ha-1 and 1212.84 kg ha-1, respectively) was recorded with 100 ppm ga 3 treated plants. interaction effect of ga 3 and fym on fresh and dry weight of sweet flag was found statistically nonsignificant. however, maximum fresh and dry yield (3013.23 kg ha-1 and 1389.15 kg ha-1, respectively) was obtained with the plants treated with 50 t ha-1 fym along with 100 ppm ga 3 . higher rate of fym increased the yield significantly and this might be due to higher availability of macro and micro plant nutrients throughout the growth period which j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 59-62, 2009 datta et al 61 table 2. effect of farm yard manure and ga 3 on yield and recovery in sweet flag treatment yield (kg ha-1) dry recovery (%) dry yield (kg ha-1) 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled fym (t ha-1) f 0 (0) 1917.14 2285.59 2101.37 48.58 49.18 48.88 931.20 1120.59 1025.90 f 1 (12.5) 2113.76 2441.80 2277.78 47.88 48.67 48.28 101.93 1188.43 645.18 f 2 (25) 2272.49 2685.18 2478.84 47.30 47.92 47.61 1074.34 1285.99 1180.17 f 3 (37.5) 2487.88 2944.44 2716.16 46.40 47.53 46.97 1148.35 1394.85 1271.60 f 4 (50) 2705.00 3187.83 2946.42 45.87 46.95 46.41 1239.90 1491.89 1365.90 sem± 54.88 49.73 86.38 0.40 0.36 0.27 27.13 25.27 24.52 cd (p= 0.05) 163.07 147.74 256.64 1.19 1.07 0.82 80.61 75.09 72.86 ga 3 (ppm) g 0 (0) 2242.91 2637.03 2439.97 47.43 48.23 47.83 1060.66 1268.64 1164.65 g 1 (100) 2356.60 2780.90 2568.75 46.98 47.87 47.43 1101.62 1324.05 1212.84 sem± 34.71 31.45 63.91 0.25 0.23 0.17 12.35 15.98 17.50 cd (p= 0.05) 103.14 93.44 191.73 ns n. s. n.s. 37.05 47.49 51.63 fym x ga 3 f 0 g 0 1862.34 2232.81 2047.58 49.20 49.53 49.37 916.04 1105.14 1010.59 f 0 g 1 1973.55 2338.38 2155.97 47.97 48.83 48.40 946.35 1136.04 1041.20 f 1 g 0 2079.37 2354.50 2216.94 48.07 48.73 48.40 999.35 1147.19 1073.27 f 1 g 1 2148.15 2529.10 2338.63 47.70 48.60 48.15 1024.50 1229.66 1127.08 f 2 g 0 2206.35 2597.83 2402.09 47.30 48.07 47.69 1043.09 1247.33 1145.21 f 2 g 1 2338.62 2772.49 2555.56 47.30 47.77 47.54 1105.60 1324.64 1215.12 f 3 g 0 2417.99 2888.89 2653.44 46.47 47.73 47.10 1124.67 1378.41 1251.54 f 3 g 1 2557.77 3000.00 2778.89 46.33 47.33 46.83 1172.04 1411.29 1291.67 f 4 g 0 2648.50 3111.10 2879.80 46.13 47.10 46.62 1220.16 1465.14 1342.65 f 4 g 1 2761.91 3264.55 3013.23 45.60 46.80 46.20 1259.65 1518.64 1389.15 sem± 77.62 70.32 84.08 0.57 0.51 0.38 38.37 35.74 27.67 cd (p= 0.05) n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s ns =non-significant table 1. effect of farm yard manure and ga 3 on plant height, leaf number, rhizome length and diameter in sweet flag treatment plant height (cm) number of leaves rhizome length (cm) rhizome diameter (mm) 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled 2003-04 2004-05 pooled fym (t ha-1) f 0 (0) 40.37 49.47 44.92 12.32 12.95 12.64 17.47 18.15 17.81 12.41 12.83 12.62 f 1 (12.5) 42.80 50.70 46.75 13.50 14.13 13.82 19.47 20.02 19.75 13.08 13.38 13.23 f 2 (25) 47.93 52.20 50.07 15.02 15.53 15.28 19.89 20.89 20.39 13.47 13.82 13.65 f 3 (37.5) 50.67 57.07 53.87 17.10 17.57 17.34 21.88 21.75 21.82 13.82 14.13 13.98 f 4 (50) 57.28 61.18 59.23 18.43 20.27 19.35 22.62 23.11 22.87 13.84 14.58 14.21 sem± 0.95 1.05 0.71 0.42 0.53 0.34 0.48 0.35 0.31 0.31 0.24 0.25 cd (p= 0.05) 2.85 4.14 2.13 1.27 1.59 1.02 1.44 1.05 0.93 0.94 0.72 0.74 ga 3 (ppm) g 0 (0) 46.88 53.39 50.14 14.89 15.64 15.27 20.07 20.55 20.31 13.27 13.64 13.46 g 1 (100) 48.83 54.86 51.85 15.60 16.53 16.07 20.46 21.02 20.74 13.39 13.80 13.60 sem± 0.60 0.67 0.45 0.27 0.33 0.21 0.31 0.13 0.13 0.19 0.15 0.19 cd (p= 0.05) 1.79 2.01 1.34 0.81 1.00 0.62 n.s. 0.39 0.38 n.s. n. s. n. s. fym x ga 3 f 0 g 0 39.67 49.07 44.37 11.97 12.37 12.17 17.18 17.49 17.34 12.38 12.67 12.53 f 0 g 1 41.07 49.87 45.47 12.67 13.53 13.10 17.75 18.51 18.13 12.45 12.99 12.72 f 1 g 0 42.00 49.77 45.89 12.93 13.67 13.30 19.31 19.86 19.59 13.01 13.34 13.18 f 1 g 1 43.60 51.63 47.62 13.77 14.60 14.18 19.63 20.18 19.91 13.16 13.42 13.29 f 2 g 0 47.27 51.27 49.27 14.43 15.07 14.75 19.67 20.74 20.21 13.29 13.71 13.50 f 2 g 1 48.60 53.13 50.87 15.60 16.0 15.80 20.10 21.03 20.57 13.65 13.93 13.79 f 3 g 0 49.0 56.67 52.84 17.2 17.17 17.18 21.64 21.52 21.58 13.80 14.01 13.91 f 3 g 1 52.33 57.47 54.90 17.00 17.97 17.48 22.11 21.98 22.05 13.85 14.25 14.05 f 4 g 0 56.00 60.17 58.09 17.90 19.97 18.93 22.56 22.81 22.69 13.85 14.47 14.16 f 4 g 1 58.67 62.20 60.44 18.97 20.57 19.77 22.68 23.42 23.05 13.82 14.69 14.26 s em± 1.34 1.49 1.00 0.59 0.74 0.48 0.68 0.49 0.34 0.43 0.34 0.29 cd (p= 0.05) n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s n s =non-significant effect of fym and ga 3 on sweet flag j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 59-62, 2009 62 increased the available nutrient status of the soil resulting better growth and yield of the crop. application of ga 3 enhanced growth parameters like plant height, number of leaves which ultimately enhanced canopy photosynthesis and consequently increased the length and diameter of rhizome which ultimately increased yield as observed by gawad et al (1986) and singh et al (2002) in onion and rahman et al (2004) in garlic. from the above discussion, it may be concluded that increase in application of fym from 0 to 50 t ha-1 along with ga 3 has increased rhizome yield of sweet flag and an application of 50 t ha-1 fym along with 100 ppm ga 3 exhibited maximum yield (3013.23 kg ha-1 and 1389.15 kg ha-1 fresh and dry, respectively) and hence, both fym and ga 3 are beneficial for increasing the rhizome yield of sweet flag for the zone of study. references deka, p.k. and patgiri, d.k. 2002. effect of sources of organic matter as soil amendments on soil water transmission in inceptisols. ind. j. soil conservation, 30:280-282 farooqui, a. a., sreerammu, b. s. and srivasapa, k.n. 2000. cultivation practices of sweet flag. spice india, 13:18-21 gawad, a. e. a. a., el tabbakh, a. m., el habbal, m. s. and thabet, e. m. a. 1986. effect of spraying onion plants with iaa and ga 3 on yield and chemical composition of onion bulbs. ann. agril. sci., 31: 1021-1031 gomez, k.a. and gomez, a. a. 1984. statistical producers for biological research. john wiley and sons (2nd ed), new york, 97 107p jain, s. k. 2001. calamus. p11-12. in : medicinal plants. national book trust publishers, new delhi, india krishnamurthy, h. n. 1975. gibberellins and plant growth. john wiley and sons. new delhi, 356 p rahman, m. s., islam, m. a., haque, m. s. and karim, m. a. 2004. effects of planting dates and gibberellic acid on growth and yield of garlic. asian j. pl. sci., 3:344-352 selvi, b. s., selvaraj, n. and raghu, r. 2003. sweetflag. spice india, 14:4 singh, p., tewari, n. and katiyar, p.k. 2002. pretransplanting seedling treatment with growth regulators and their effect on growth and bulb production of onion (allium cepa l.). progressive hort., 2:181-182 singh, b., kushwah, v. s. and pandey, s. k. 2003. effect of plant growth regulators on potato production. j. potato assoc., 30:195-196 tomar, i.s. and ramgiry, s.r. 1977. effect of growth regulators on growth and yield of potato (solanum tuberosum l.). adv. in pl. sci., 10:51-54. (ms received 29 october 2008, revised 16 june 2009) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 59-62, 2009 datta et al effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients on growth, leaf yield and quality of coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) cv. sadhana y. mounika, g. thanuja sivaram*, p. syam sundar reddy and m. ramaiah college of horticulture, dr. ysr horticultural university, anantharajupeta 516 105, ysr dist. (a.p.), india *e-mail: th_09@rediffmail.com abstract a field experiment was conducted during rabi 2015-16 at research farm, college of horticulture, dr.y.s.r. horticultural university, anantharajupeta (andhra pradesh), india, to study the effect of different biofertilizers and micronutrients on growth, leaf yield and quality of coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) cv. sadhana. the experiment was conducted in a factorial randomized block design with biofertilizers and micronutrients. the biofertilizer treatments were seed inoculation with azospirillum, phosphate solubilising bacteria (psb), azospirillum + phosphate solubilising bacteria (psb) and control (without any biofertilizer), while the micronutrient treatments comprised of foliar sprays of zinc sulphate, copper sulphate, ferrous sulphate each at @ 0.5% and control (without any micronutrient). the sixteen treatment combinations were replicated thrice. among the treatments, seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb+ foliar spray of zinc sulphate @ 0.5% recorded maximum plant height, number of primary branches, leaf area, fresh leaf yield per plant, leaf yield per plot, leaf yield per hectare, dry matter production, protein content, ascorbic acid content and moisture content. while, the lowest days to germination and leaf chlorophyll contents were recorded with the seed inoculation of azospirillum + psb + foliar spray of ferrous sulphate @ 0.5%. key words: coriander, growth, biofertilizers, micronutrients, quality, yield. j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 113-117, 2017 constraint in coriander production (sarada et al., 2008). in recent years, biofertilizers have emerged as an important component of integrated nutrient supply system and have shown promise to improve crop yields a nd nutr ient supplies. azotobacter, psb a nd azospirillum are the widely used biofertilizers, that significantly contribute n and p to plants besides providing tolerance to water stressed situations (maheshwari et al. 1991). kalidasu et al. 2008., reported that the beneficial effect of foliar application of micronutrients on crops may be due to the improved ability of the crop to absorb nutrients, photosynthesis and better sink source relationship as these play vital r ole in va r ious biochemica l pr ocesses. since information regarding the use of biofertilizers and micronutrients suitable for rainfed vertisols of andhra pradesh is very meagre, the present field experiment was conducted to study the effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients on growth, leaf yield and quality of coriander. introduction coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) is a major seed spice of india, and is mainly cultivated in the states of rajasthan, gujarat, andhra pradesh, madhya pradesh, tamil nadu, orissa, karnataka, uttar pradesh and bihar, with a production of 52.4 million tonnes from 54.3 million hectares (nhb, 2013). andhra pradesh ranks second in production of coriander and ranks first among the southern states of the country. the share of andhra pradesh is highest i.e. 26,000 metric tonnes from 21,800 hectares (nhb, 2015). coriander is globally referred to as cilantro or chinese parsley, and is very popular around the world for the use in soups, salads, dressing of vegetables and seasoning purposes .under andhra pradesh conditions, the crop has to survive under residual soil moisture thr oughout the cr opping per iod a nd genera lly experiences terminal moisture stress which results in poor yields, which has been identified as a major original research paper 113 114 mounika et al material and methods a field experiment was conducted during rabi 2015-16 at research farm, college of horticulture, dr. y.s.r. horticultural university, anantharajupeta, andhra pradesh (india).the experiment was laid out in factorial randomized block design with sixteen tr ea tments, viz. , b1m 1-seed inocula tion with azospirillum+ foliar spray of znso4 @ 0.5%, b1m2seed inoculation with azospirillum + foliar spray of feso 4 @0. 5 %, b1m 3 -seed inocula tion with azospirillum+ foliar spray of cuso4 @ 0.5%, b1m0seed inoculation with azospirillum, b2m1seed inoculation with psb + foliar spray of znso4@ 0.5%, b2m2-seed inoculation with psb +foliar spray of feso4 @ 0.5%, b2m3-seed inoculation with psb +folia r spr a y of cuso 4@ 0. 5%, b2m 0-seed inoculation with psb, b3m1-seed inoculation with azospirillum +psb+foliar spray of znso4@ 0.5%, b3m2-seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb +foliar spray of feso4@ 0.5%,b3m3-seed inoculation with azospirillum+psb+ foliar spray of cuso4 @ 0.5%,b3m0-seed inoculation with azospirillum +psb, b0m1foliar spray of znso4 @ 0.5%, b0m2foliar spray of feso4 @ 0.5 %, b0m3-foliar spray of cuso4 @0.5%, b0m0-control. seeds were sown in 2 m × 2m plots with a spacing of 20 cm × 15 cm. the crop was fertilized with 10 t of fym along with npk @ 30: 40: 20 kg/ha as basal. two third’s of the nitrogen was applied as top dressing in two equal splits i.e. at 20 and 40 das. need based cultural and plant protection operations were taken up to the leaf harvest. five plant samples from each replication were selected at random to record data on morphological, yield and quality attributing characters. the experimental data was analysed statistically as outlined by panse and sukhatme (1995). results and discussion morphological characters morphological characters such as plant height, number of primary branches per plant (table 1), leaf area per plant (table 2) showed significant variation with different biofer tilizers a nd micr onutr ient treatments. among the biofertilizers, seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb recorded highest plant height at harvest (29.03 cm), number of primary branches at harvest (4.30) and leaf area (67.95cm2) at 45 days of leaf harvest. the days to germination (table 1) of coriander seed was significantly influenced by seed treatment with biofertilizers. as the application of micronutrients was done post-emergence of the crop, the micronutrient effect and the interaction between biofertilizers and micronutrients application were found to be non-significant. the observed differences between the control and inoculated treatments could j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 113-117, 2017 table 1. effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients on the days to germination, plant height at harvest and number of primary branches at harvest of coriander cv. sadhana. days to germination plant height (cm) at harvest number of primary branches at harvest biofertilizers micronutrients b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean m0 8. 1 7. 2 7. 4 7. 8 7. 6 20 .2 24 .2 24 .8 26 .0 23 .8 2. 8 3. 5 2. 2 4. 2 3. 2 m1 7. 2 6. 6 7. 5 7. 4 7. 2 23 .0 27 .3 26 .4 36 .3 30 .8 3. 0 4. 2 3. 4 4. 4 3. 8 m2 7. 1 7. 6 7. 2 6. 4 7. 1 22 .4 27 .8 28 .0 32 .6 26 .2 3. 1 3. 9 3. 9 4. 2 3. 7 m3 8. 3 7. 4 7. 1 7. 4 7. 6 23 .1 26 .0 27 .6 31 .2 26 .0 3. 0 3. 6 3. 2 4. 3 3. 5 mean 7. 7 7. 2 7. 3 7. 3 22 .2 27 .5 28 .0 29 .0 3. 0 3. 8 3. 2 4. 3 source b m b×m b m b×m b m b×m s. e m ± 0. 13 0.13 0. 25 0. 17 0. 17 0. 34 0. 02 0. 02 0. 05 cd (p=0.05) 0. 37 ns ns 0. 49 0. 49 0. 99 0. 07 0. 07 0. 13 b0 : control m0 : control b1 : seed inoculation with azospirillum m1: foliar spray of znso4 @ 0.5% b2 : seed inoculation with psb m2: foliar spray of feso4 @ 0.5% b3 : seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb m3: foliar spray of cuso4 @ 0.5% 115 effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients in coriander be attributed to the availability of atmospheric nitrogen and soil phosphorus as a result of microbial inoculation, have led to better root and shoot development, better uptake of water, nutrients and their transportation. the observed results were in accordance with rahimi et al. (2009) in coriander and mehta et al. (2012) in fenugreek. among the different micronutrients, the foliar application of zinc sulphate @ 0.5 % (m1) recorded significantly higher plant height at harvest (30.81cm), number of primary branches at harvest (3.83) and leaf area (61.55 cm2) at 45 days of leaf harvest. this could be attributed to fact that zinc is an activator of enzymes, and is involved in protein synthesis besides having a direct effect on the enzymatic regulation in plants. the synthesis of tryptophan, the precursor of indole acetic acid (iaa) in the presence of zinc, could be attributed to the improved plant growth as previously described by ingle et al. (1993) in chilli and chhibba et al. (2007) in fenugreek. the combination of azospirillum + psb + foliar spray of zinc sulphate @ 0.5% (b3m1), recorded significantly higher plant height at harvest (36.31cm), number of primary branches at harvest (4.40) and leaf area (75.65cm2) at 45 days of leaf harvest. yield and yield attributes the yield and yield attributing characters, such as fresh leaf yield per plant, leaf yield per plot, leaf yield p er hec t a r e ( table 3 ) a nd dr y ma t t er pr oduction (table 2) a lso showed significa nt va riation among the different biofertilizer a nd micronutrient treatments. among the biofertilizers, seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb recorded maximum leaf yield per plant (3.74g), leaf yield per plot (0.48 kg), leaf yield per hectare (1.22t) and dry matter production (0.97g per plant). the application of biofertilizers might have enhanced the availability of nutrients and the production of growth hormones by bacteria could have contributed to the increase in the length a nd breadth of leaves lea ding to increased leaf yield. similar results were obtained by singh et al. (2012) and sonali et al. (2012) in fenugreek. among different micronutrients, the foliar application of zinc sulphate @ 0.5 % (m1) recorded significantly higher leaf yield per plant (3.60g), leaf yield per plot (0.46kg), leaf yield per hectare (1.18t) and dry matter production (0.64g per plant). similar results were observed by chhibba et al. (2007) in fenugreek. i nt er a c t ion ef f ec t of b iof er t iliz er s a nd mic r onu t r i ent s on s eed inoc u l a t ion wit h azospirillum + psb + foliar spray of zinc sulphate @ 0.5% b3m1 recorded significantly maximum leaf yield per plant (3.94g), leaf yield per plot (0.50 kg), lea f yield per hecta r e (1. 30 t) a nd dr y ma tter production (0.78g per plant). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 113-117, 2017 table 2. effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients on leaf area, dry matter production and moisture of coriander cv. sadhana leaf area (cm2) dry matter production (g/plant) moisture (%) biofertilizers micronutrients b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean m0 27.35 50.15 44.21 60.65 45.59 0. 46 0. 59 0. 50 0. 58 0. 53 82.28 85.65 86.00 86.25 85.04 m1 40.15 66.21 64.18 75.65 61.55 0. 53 0. 60 0. 63 0. 78 0. 64 85.21 85.28 84.65 90.15 86.32 m2 38.65 63.65 56.82 71.25 57.59 0. 50 0. 62 0. 62 0. 68 0. 61 83.65 84.56 82.65 88.19 84.76 m3 33.25 58.34 48.68 64.25 51.13 0. 48 0. 63 0. 64 0. 65 0. 60 84.34 83.85 84.65 88.65 85.37 me an 34.85 59.59 53.47 67.95 0. 49 0. 61 0. 60 0. 67 83.87 84.84 84.48 88.31 source b m b×m b m b×m b m b×m s.e m ± 0. 35 0. 35 0. 69 0.003 0.003 0.008 0. 56 0. 56 1. 13 cd (p=0.05) 1. 00 1. 00 2. 00 0. 01 0. 01 0. 02 1. 63 1. 63 3. 26 b0 : control m0 : control b1 : seed inoculation with azospirillum m1: foliar spray of znso4 @ 0.5% b2 : seed inoculation with psb m2: foliar spray of feso4 @ 0.5% b3 : seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb m3: foliar spray of cuso4 @ 0.5% 116 mounika et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 113-117, 2017 table 3. effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients on leaf yield per plant, leaf yield per plot and leaf yield per hectare of coriander cv. sadhana. leaf yield per plant (g) leaf yield per plot (kg) leaf yield per hectare (t/ha) biofertilizers micronutrients b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean m0 2. 8 3. 1 3. 0 3. 4 3. 1 0. 3 0. 4 0. 4 0. 4 0. 40 0. 9 1. 0 1. 0 1. 1 1. 0 m1 3. 2 3. 6 3. 5 3. 9 3. 6 0. 4 0. 4 0. 4 0. 5 0. 46 1. 0 1. 2 1. 1 1. 3 1. 1 m2 3. 0 3. 2 3. 3 3. 8 3. 3 0. 4 0. 4 0. 4 0. 4 0. 44 0. 9 1. 1 1. 1 1. 2 1. 1 m3 2. 9 3. 2 3. 2 3. 7 3. 3 0. 3 0. 4 0. 4 0. 4 0. 42 0. 9 1. 0 1. 0 1. 2 1. 0 mean 3. 0 3. 3 3. 3 3. 7 0. 4 0. 4 0. 4 0. 4 0. 9 1. 1 1. 0 1. 2 source b m b×m b m b×m b m b×m s. e m ± 0. 02 0. 02 0. 04 0. 01 0. 01 0. 02 0. 01 0. 01 0. 02 cd (p=0.05) 0. 06 0. 06 0. 12 0. 03 0. 03 0. 09 0. 02 0. 02 0. 04 b0 : control m0 : control b1 : seed inoculation with azospirillum m1: foliar spray of znso4 @ 0.5% b2 : seed inoculation with psb m2: foliar spray of feso4 @ 0.5% b3 : seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb m3: foliar spray of cuso4 @ 0.5% table 4. effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients on ascorbic acid, total chlorophyll and protein content of coriander cv. sadhana ascorbic acid (mg/100 g) total chlorophyll (mg/100 g) proteins (%) biofertilizers micronutrients b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean b0 b1 b2 b3 mean m0 115.3 129.6 125.0 134.2 126.0 1. 0 1. 1 1. 1 1. 2 1. 1 2. 8 3. 3 3. 4 3. 5 3. 3 m1 123.6 140.8 139.6 146.6 137.7 1. 1 1. 2 1. 2 1. 3 1. 2 3. 3 3. 6 3. 6 3. 8 3. 6 m2 119.2 136.2 135.2 142.2 133.2 1. 1 1. 2 1. 2 1. 4 1. 2 3. 2 3. 5 3. 5 3. 7 3. 5 m3 117.7 134.8 128.4 138.6 129.9 1. 0 1. 2 1. 1 1. 3 1. 2 3. 1 3. 6 3. 4 3. 7 3. 5 mean 119.0 135.3 132.1 140.4 1. 1 1. 2 1. 2 1. 3 3. 1 3. 5 3. 5 3. 7 source b m b×m b m b×m b m b×m s. e m ± 0. 85 0. 85 1. 70 0. 01 0. 01 0. 02 0. 02 0. 02 0. 04 cd (p=0.05) 2. 45 2. 45 4. 90 0. 02 0. 02 0. 05 0. 06 0. 06 0. 13 b0 : control m0 : control b1 : seed inoculation with azospirillum m1: foliar spray of znso4 @ 0.5% b2 : seed inoculation with psb m2: foliar spray of feso4 @ 0.5% b3 : seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb m3: foliar spray of cuso4 @ 0.5% quality characters with regards to quality characters, viz., moisture content (table 2), ascorbic acid content, protein content and chlorophyll content (table 4) were significantly affected by different biofertilizers and micr onutrients. among the biofer tilizer s, seed inocula tion with azospirillum + psb r ecorded maximum moisture content (88.31%), ascorbic acid content (140.47 mg100g-1), protein (3.72%) and chlorophyll contents (1.33mg 100g-1). similar results were observed by singh (2015) in coriander. among the different micronutrients, foliar application of zinc sulphate @ 0.5 % (m1) recorded significantly higher moisture content (86.32%), ascorbic acid content (137.32mg100g-1) and protein content (3.63%).while, chlorophyll content in leaf was maximum (1.27 mg100g-1) with foliar application of ferrous sulphate @ 0.5 % (m2). these results are in 117 effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients in coriander j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 113-117, 2017 line with the earlier findings of rajamanickam et al. (2011) in mint. the interaction effect of biofertilizers and micronutrients on seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb + foliar spray of zinc sulphate @ 0.5% b3m1 recorded significantly higher moisture content (90.15%), ascorbic acid content (146.68mg100g-1) and protein content (3.80%).while, chlorophyll content in lea f was maximum (1. 40 mg100g-1) with seed inoculation of azospirillum + psb + foliar spray of ferrous sulphate @ 0.5%. t he r esults obta ined fr om the pr esent investigation inferred that the combination of seed inoculation with azospirillum + psb along with foliar application of znso4 @ 0.5 per cent showed significant influence on vegetative growth, leaf yield and quality parameters in coriander cv. sadhana. references chhibba, m., nayyar, v.k. and kanwar,j.s. 2007. influence of mode and source of applied iron on fenugreek (trigonella corniculata l.) in a typic ustochrept in punjab, india. international j. agri. biol.,9(2): 254– 256. ingle, v.g., thakre, a.u., badhe, s.b. and khan, m.a.h.1993. effect of foliar spray of auxins, micronutrients with urea on fruit drop and yield of chilli cv. ca 960. punj. kris. vidya. res. j.,17: 142-145. kalidasu, g., sarada, c. and reddy, y.t. 2008. influence of micronutrients on growth and yield of coriander (coriandrum sativum) in rain fed vertisols. j. spices and aromatic crops., 17 (2): 187-189. maheshwari, s.k., gangreede, s.k. and trived, k.c. 1991. comparative responces of palmarosa to azotobacter and nitrogen under rainfed and irrigated swards. ind.perf.,35(2): 108-111. mehta, r.s., anwer, m.m., aishwath, o.p. and meena, r.s. 2012. growth, yield and quality of fenugreek (trigonella foenum graecum l.) as influenced by nitrogen, phosphorus and bio-fertilizers. indian j. hort.,69(1): 94-97. national horticulture board, 2013. area and production statistics of horticulture crops. ministry of agriculture, government of india, p 6. national horticulture board, 2015. area and production statistics of horticulture crops. ministry of agriculture, government of india, p 288. panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1995. statistical methods for agricultural workers. 4th edition, i c a r, new delhi. 1-347. rahimi, a.r., mashayekhi, k., amini, s., soltani, e. 2009. effect of mineral vs. biofertilizer on the growth, yield and essential oil content of coriander (coriandrum sativum l.). medicinal and aromatic plant science biotechnology.,3:21-23 . rajamanickam, v., venkatesan, s. and shakila, a. 2011. effect of organic manures, consortium of biofertilizers and inorganic fertilizers on yield, nutrient uptake and profitability of mint (mentha arvensis l.). asian. j. hort., 6 (1): 191-194. sarada, c., giridhar. k. and yellamanda reddy, t. 2008. effect of bio-regulators and their time of application on growth and yield of coriander (coriandrum sativum). j spices and aromatic crops.,17: 183-186. singh, s., choudhary, m.r., garhwal, o.p., jakhar, m.l. and yadav, b.l. 2012. effect of biofertilizers and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus on quality production of kasturi methi (trigonella corniculata). international j. seed spices.,2(2):38-40. singh, s.p. 2015. effect of znso4, feso4, cuso4 and mnso4 on growth, yield and economics of coriander (coriandrum sativum l.) cv. pant haritima. j. ecofriendly agriculture.,10(1): 32-35. sonali, r.a., soyam, a.p., wagh, v.n., dod, p.k., nagre, n. and gade, r.n. 2012. effect of different biofertilizers on growth, yield and quality of fenugreek. asian j .hort..7 (1):28-30. (ms received 28 august 2016, revised 24 march 2017, accepted 25 october 2017) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 118-123, 2017 impact of pruning on growth, yield and quality of mango cv. dashehari a.k. singh*, c.p. singh and l. bora department of horticulture, college of agriculture gbpua&t, pantnagar 263 145, u.s. nagar, uttarakhand. *e-mail: aksashi@yahoo.co.in abstract an experiment was carried out to study the impact of pruning on growth, yield and quality of mango cv. dashehari. ten treatments consisted of heading back of terminal shoots at two different levels viz., m1: 10 cm & m2: 20 cm, with two level of frequency i.e., f1: annually & f2: biennially and at two different timings i.e., t1: immediately after fruit harvest (june-july) & t2: during rest period before the emergence of new growth (floral and vegetative) including control as m0f0t0 with and without paclobutazol (pbz), were imposed on the trees. the trial was laid out in randomized block design replicated thrice and single tree served as treatment unit. on the basis of 6 years (2009-2014) pooled data, it was observed that the vigorous growth in terms of tree height (4.56 m), trunk circumference (43.56 cm) and tree spread (3.03 m) were observed in the trees under control (m0f0t0 without pbz), whereas the trees which were pruned annually by heading back of 20 cm of terminal shoots during rest period before emergence of new growth along with paclabutrazol application (m2f1t2) showed less growth in terms of tree height (3.30 m) and spread (2.21 m). the annual pruning of tree by heading back of 10 cm of terminal shoots immediately after fruit harvest along with paclobutrazol application (m1f1t1) proved effective for increasing the number of fruits per tree (51.31), yield (9.09 kg/tree and 15.14 t/ha), b: c ratio (4.04), maintaining fruit quality and for having the appropriate dwarfing effect on the tree. keywords: mango, pruning, vegetative growth, yield, fruit quality, paclobutrazole. introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) is one of the most important tropical fruits of the world and is commonly known as the ‘king of fruits’. the poor productivity of orchard can be attributed to wide tree spacing, lack of canopy architecture and long juvenile phase. in india, mango occupies 20.7 % production share with an area of 2.21 million hectares and annual production of 18.50 million tonnes having productivity of 8.34 metric tonnes per hectare (anon, 2015). in order to meet the challenges of high productivity, optimization of growth parameters and minimization of the unproductive components of trees without sacrificing the overall health of the tree and quality of the product are of paramount importance. suitable levels, frequency and time of pruning play an important role in deciding the quality and yield of the crop. fruit plants attain tall and huge structure as they are not regulated by proper pruning and training from initial stage, leads to higher orchard management cost and it becomes quite cumbersome as well as expensive to restructure the canopy of the trees (rathore, 2009). there are several reasons for pruning perennial fruit trees and if done drastically may influences several physiological processes directly or indirectly. these effects result from alteration in biochemical system within the tree. it also helps to restore the balance between root system and the above ground parts, followed maintaining height, canopy spread and density required for effective spraying with better fruit yield and quality. in general, management of canopy architecture deals with positioning and maintenance of pla nt’s fr ame wor k in r ela tion to optimum productivity and quality fruits (davenport, 2006). presently, the high density planting in mango is gaining momentum wherein, planting at a closer spacing is being adopted, which is capable of enhancing productivity original research paper 118 119 impact of pruning in mango cv. dashehari and ensuring continuous cropping of mango trees besides getting good quality mangoes. thus, keeping in view the impor ta nce of pruning and use of paclabutrazol the experiment was undertaken to see its impact on vegetative growth (to find out relevancy for high density planting), yield and quality of mango cv. dashehari. material and methods the experiment was conducted at horticulture resea r ch centr e, pa tha r cha tta , gbpua&t, pantnagar at an altitude of 29 ºn latitude & 79.3 º e longitudes and at 243.84 meters above mean sea level during the year 2009-2014 in dashehari mango orchard planted at the distance of 3×2 meter. the trial was started in the year 2009 on 8 years old dashehari mango and continuously conducted for six years and thus at the end of the experimentation the age of the trees were 13 years. in total, 10 treatments consisted of heading back of terminal shoots at two different levels viz., m1: 10cm & m2: 20 cm, with two level of frequency i.e., f1: annually & f2: biennially and at two different timings i.e., t1: immediately after fruit harvest (june-july) & t 2: during rest period before the emergence of new growth (floral and vegetative) including control as m0f0t0 and m0f0t 0 without paclobutazol (pbz) were imposed. the paclobutrazol @ 1.0 ml a.i per meter canopy spread was applied in september through trunk soil line pour-tslp method (application of aqueous solution of pbz in trench near to collar of trunk) uniformly to all trees under the treatments except absolute control (i.e., m 0f0t 0 without pbz). the trial was laid out in randomized block design, replicated thrice and single tree served as treatment unit. the uniform cultural practices were a dopted for a ll the tr ees of ma ngo under the experimentation. the vegetative performance of trees under different treatments was studied on the basis of tree height, trunk circumference and tree spread. the data on number of fruit per plant and yield were recorded at the time of fruit harvesting. the average fruit weight and fruit size (length and width) were recorded with the help of digital balance and vernier calliper, respectively. the total soluble solids (tss) of the fruits were measured with hand refractrometer (erma) and expressed in degree brix (0b). the acidity was estimated by the standard method of aoac, 1980. the b:c ratio was calculated by dividing the gross income with the total cost incurred. the data were statistically analysed by using the standard procedure as suggested by cochran and cox, 1963. results and discussion impact on vegetative growth and yield the data pertaining to effect of pruning and paclobutrazol on vegetative growth and yield on mango cv. dashehari showed significant difference among the treatments (table 1). on the basis of 6 years (2009-2014) pooled data, the minimum tree height was noticed with m2f1t2 (3.30 m), followed by m1f1t2 (3.33 m), m2f1t1 (3.34 m), m1f2t2 (3.52 m), which were found statistically at par with each other, whereas, maximum tree height (4.56 m) was observed under the control (m0f0t0 without pbz). the higher tree circumference was noticed in m0f0t0 without pbz (43.56 cm) followed by m2f2t1 (42.21 cm), whereas the lower circumference was observed in m0f 0t 0 (33.23). the tree sprea d was observed maximum in m0f0t0 without pbz (3.03 m), m2f2t1 (3.00 m), m2f2t2 (2.95 m), m1f1t1 (2.95 m) and m1f2t1 (2.94 m), which were found statistically at par with each other, whereas, it was minimum in m2f1t2 (2.21 cm). in the un-pruned trees (m0f0t0 without pbz), the maximum height may be due to uninterrupted growth. as the treatment m2f1t2 with pbz showed that this was very effective for development of dwarfed tree (3.03 m) but at the same time the yield (5.11 t/ha) was reduced at a greater extent and it is certainly due to more heavy pruning during the rest period. pruning effect on the tree architecture in the present study is in support with the findings of ram et al., 1997 in mango. the tree subjected to annual pruning coupled with heading back during rest period with paclobutrazol application had registered lower height which may be due to increased tree structural strength in proportion to the number of terminal shoots tipped during the period of canopy development. these effects are especially relevant to high density orchards. shading within the canopy reduces photo-saturation of leaves and the conversion of light energy to carbohydrates for growth and cropping. in dense mango canopies many leaves are in total shade and heavy shading eventually results in poor canopy regeneration, lower floral initiation (dambreville et al., 2013), fruit set and yield (sharma et al., 2006). j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 118-123, 2017 120 singh et al based on the 6 years (2009-2014) pooled data related to impact of pruning and paclobutrazol on mango cv. dashehari, it was observed that number of fruits per tree (table. 1) were higher with m1f1t1 (51.31), m1f2t1 (51.16), m2f1t1 (40.77) and m0f0t0 (33.93), whereas it was lower in m2f1t2 (19.46), m0f0t0 (20.59) without paclobutrazol. the yield per hectare (fig.1) was found higher with the treatment of m1f1t1 (15.14 t/ha), m1f2t1 (12.82 t/ha), m0f0t0 (11.44 t/ha), m2f1t1 (11.02 t/ha) and those were statistically at par with each other, whereas lower yield with m2f1t2 (5.11 t/ha), m0f0t0 (6.13 t/ha) without paclobutrazol, m1f1t2 (7.16 t/ha), m1f2t2 (8.04 t/ha) and m2f2t1 (5.43). it is also depicted from the fig.1 that the higher b:c ratio (4.04) was observed with the treatment of m1f1t1, followed by m1f2t1 (3.85) whereas, the lower b:c ratio with m2f1t2 (1.36), followed by m1f1t2 (1.91). the overall yield was found comparatively lower under all the treatments which are certainly because of younger age of the trees. the yield parameters have clearly shown that in north india the pruning during rest period has no significance; rather it reduces the yield drastically. therefore, the pruning operation in mango must be adopted immediately after the harvesting of the fruits. the data have also shown that yield was found more in those plants which were treated with paclobutrazol coupled with pruning. thus, it had also indicated that the treatment of paclobutrazol or pruning alone is not effective for regular bearing and good yield in mango cv. dashehari. the pruning would have initiated higher number of lateral shoots, j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 118-123, 2017 # method: m1-10 cm heading back of terminal shoots, m2-20 cm heading back of terminal shoots, frequency:f1annually, f2-biennially, time: t1-immediately after fruit harvest (june-july), t2-during rest period before the emergence of new growth (floral and vegetative) and with standard dose of paclobutrazole. table 1. effect of pruning on vegetative growth and yield in mango cv. dashehari (based on 6 years pooled data: 2009-2014) vegetative growth yield s. no. treatments # tree height tree tree spread number of yield per tree (m) circumference (m) fruits (kg) (m) 1. m1f1t1 4.11 0.37 2.95 51.31 9.09 2. m1f2t1 3.67 0.37 2.94 51.16 7.70 3. m1f1t2 3.33 0.36 2.39 30.86 4.30 4. m1f2t2 3.52 0.38 2.78 26.92 4.83 5. m2f1t1 3.34 0.37 2.51 40.77 6.62 6. m2f2t1 3.55 0.42 3.00 29.74 5.43 7. m2f1t2 3.30 0.36 2.21 19.46 3.07 8. m2f2t2 4.11 0.41 2.95 31.83 6.12 9. m0f0t0 3.62 0.33 2.64 33.93 6.87 10. m0f0t0(without pbz) 4.56 0.43 3.03 20.59 3.68 sem ± 0.92 0.47 0.52 6.50 1.01 c.d (p= 0.05) 0.26 1.36 0.15 18.52 2.90 c.v 6.06 3.04 4.71 47.25 43.17 fig. 1. effect of pruning on yield (t/ha) and b:c ratio in mango cv. dashehari. 121 impact of pruning in mango cv. dashehari which leads to increase in the number of fruiting branches. these results are in confirmatory with the findings of davenport, 2006 and uddin et al., 2014, who have reported that pruning stimulates development of more laterals and thus resulted in increased potential for yield in mango. pruning and thinning operations lead to increase in yield (singh et al., 2010 and ram et al., 1997) because they are effective in diverting nutrients and water taken by the tree to productive branches in mango. relevancy of pruning for high density planting the data given in table 1 clearly show that the different level of pruning gives the dwarfing effect to the plants. this effect is especially relevant for the trees grown under high density planting system. the tipping a nd pruning operations ha ve been also recommended in south africa by oosthuyse, 1992 for good branching, dwarfing effect and more yields in mango. in the present investigation, the annual pruning by hea ding ba ck of 10 cm of ter mina l shoots immediately after fruit harvest with paclobutrazole application has been found appropriate for high density planting. impact on quality (physico-chemical) characteristics the data given in table 2 show that the physicochemical characteristics were also affected by pruning and use of paclobutrazol. the result showed that the trees subjected to the treatment m0f0t0 gave higher fruit weight (206.91 g) followed by m2f2t2 (189.12 g), m2f2t1 (186.80 g), m1f1t1 (184.83 g), m0f0t0 (184.36 g) and m1f2t2 (178.70 g). the lower fruit weight was noticed with m1f1t2 (112.98 g), m2f1t2 (136.00 g), m2f1t1 (136.18 g) and m1f2t1 (155.14 g), which were found statistically at par with each other. similar to the present finding, oosthuyse and jacobs, (1995) have also reported that increase in number of branching points are directly associated with a reduction in the average fruit weight. the fruit length was noticed maximum in m0f0t0 (10.47 cm) followed by m1f1t1 (10.16 cm), m2f2t1 (10.15 cm), m0f0t0 (9.98 cm). the minimum length of the fruit was observed in m1f1t2 (7.78 cm). higher fruit diameter (table 2) was reported in m0f0t 0 (5.76) , m0f0t0 (5.55 cm) without pbz, m1f1t1 (5.53 cm), m1f2t1 (5.37 cm) and m1f2t2 (5.41 cm) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 118-123, 2017 # method: m1-10 cm heading back of terminal shoots, m2-20 cm heading back of terminal shoots, frequency: f1annually, f2-biennially,time: t1-immediately after fruit harvest(june-july), t2-during rest period before the emergence of new growth (floral and vegetative) and with standard dose of paclobutrazole. table 2. effect of pruning on quality characteristics of mango cv. dashehari (based on 6 years pooled data: 2009-2014) fruit fruit fruit pulp t.s.s acidity s. no. treatments # weight length diameter weight (g) (cm) (cm) (g) (ob) (%) 1. m1f1t1 184.83 10.16 5.53 121.61 19.06 0.27 2. m1f2t1 155.14 9.53 5.37 98.18 18.81 0.28 3. m1f1t2 112.98 7.78 4.49 82.24 15.21 0.22 4. m1f2t2 178.70 9.91 5.41 119.44 19.56 0.28 5. m2f1t1 136.18 8.01 4.33 85.61 15.63 0.23 6. m2f2t1 186.80 10.15 5.41 121.87 19.59 0.27 7. m2f1t2 136.00 8.31 4.41 88.09 15.45 0.25 8. m2f2t2 189.12 10.03 5.50 126.57 18.88 0.27 9. m0f0t0 206.91 10.47 5.76 147.93 19.85 0.26 10. m0f0t0 (without pbz) 184.36 9.98 5.55 120.06 17.60 0.28 sem ± 17.50 0.89 0.43 11.60 1.59 0.28 c.d. (p=0.05) 49.86 2.53 1.24 33.06 4.53 0.82 c.v 25.66 23.10 20.69 25.57 21.70 26.64 122 a nd m 2f 2 t 1 ( 5 . 4 1 c m) , whi c h wer e f ou nd statistically at par with each other. the lower fruit diameter was reported in m2f1t1 (4.33 cm) followed by m2f1t 2 (4.41 cm) and m1f1t2 (4.49 cm). an increase in fruit size has been also observed by oosthuyse (1992) and it is possibly relates to a lesser depletion of ca r bohydr a te a nd other nut r ient r es er ves b y les s veget a t ive gr o wt h, whos e development is suppressed. the profound effect of pruning & pbz was also observed on pulp weight (table 2). the higher pulp content was noticed in m 0f0t 0 (147.93 g), m2f2t2 (126.57 g), m2f2t 1 (121.87 g), m1f1t 1 (121.61 g), m0f0t0 without pbz (120.06 g), m1f2t2 (119.44), which were found statistically at par with each other, whereas, lower content of pulp with m1f1t 2 (82. 24) followed by m2f 1t 1 (85.61 g), m2f1t2 (88.09 g) and m1f2t1 (98.18 g). significant variation was also observed in tss and acidity in pruned trees with use of pbz. the higher tss was observed in m0f0t0 (19.85 %b), followed by m2f2t1 (19.59 %b), m1f2t2 (19.56 %b), m1f1t1 (19.06 %b), m2f2t2 (18.88 %b), whereas, the lower content was noticed in m1f1t2 (15.21 %b), m2f1t2 (15.45 %b), m2f1t1 (15.63 %b). the perusal of data (table 2) on fr uit acidity showed tha t lower content of titratable acidity was observed in m1f1t2 (0.22 %) and m2f1t1 (0.23 %), whereas maximum titratable acidity in m1f2t 1, m1f2t 2 , m0f0t0 without pbz each 0.28 %. the fruit quality improvements with respect to tss and acidity in response to pbz treatments can be related to assimilate partitioning of the plant. higher net return from mango could be assured by increasing the productivity through adoption of appropriate management practices. paclobutrazol is reported to exer t influence on par titioning the photosyntha tes to the sites of flowering and fruit production, consequent to the reduction of vegetative growth. kurian et al. (2001) r epor t ed t ha t t he p a clob u tr a z ol a p pea r ed t o favourably alter the source sink relationship of mango to support fruit growth. thus, finally it can be concluded that the annual pruning of tree by heading back of 10 cm terminal shoots immediately after fruit harvest and with application of paclobutrazol @ 1 ml active ingredient per meter canopy spread may be adopted under high density planting for higher yield with maintained fruit quality in mango cv. dashehari. acknowledgement this research paper forms the part of technical pr ogra mme of resear ch work under “all india coordinated research project on fruit” (aicrpfruits), therefore, the authors are highly grateful to icar, new delhi for providing the grant under above said project. singh et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 118-123, 2017 123 impact of pruning in mango cv. dashehari (ms received 02 august 2017, revised 26 october 2017, accepted 20 december 2017) j. hortl. sci. vol. 12(2) : 118-123, 2017 references a.o.a.c. 1980. official methods of analysis. 13th edition. association of official analytical chemist, washington, d. c. anonymous, 2015. horticultural statistics at a g la nc e. n a t iona l h or t ic u lt u r e boa r d, gurgaon, haryana, pp. 17-18. cochran, w. and cox, w.m. 1963. experimental design, asia publishing house bombay, pp. 143-167. dambreville, a. lauri, p. trottier, c. guedon, y and normand, f. 2013. deciphering structural and temporal interplays during the architectural development of mango trees. j. exp. bot., 64: 2467-2480. da venpor t, l. t. 2006. pr uning str a tegies to maximize tropical mango production from the time of planting to restoration of old orchards. hort. sci., 41: 544-548. kurian, r.m., reddy, y.t.n., sonkar, r.k. and reddy, v.v.p. 2001. effect of paclobutrazol on s ou r c e s ink r ela t ions hip in ma ngo (mangifera indica l.). j. appl. hort., 3: 8890. oosthuyse, s.a. 1992. ideas on pruning of mango trees. s.a. mango growers assoc. year., 12:1-8. oosthuyse, s.a. and jacobs, g. 1995. relationship between branching frequency, and growth, cropping and structural strength of 2-year-old mango trees. sci. hort., 64: 85-93. r a m, s , s i ngh, c . p a nd k u ma r , s . 1 9 9 7 . comparative performance of dashehari and amrapali mangoes in high density orcharding. ind. j. hort., 54: 179-183. ra thore, d.s. 2009. conceptua lization of tr ee canopy management for higher productivity in subtropical fruits. in: ma na gement of canopy architecture for higher productivity in subtropical fruits held at cish, lucknow, 5-7 pp. sharma, r.r. singh, s. and singh, d.b. 2006. effect of pruning intensity on light penetration and leaf physiology in amrapali mango trees under high-density planting. fruit, 61: 117-123. singh, s.k., sharma, r.r and patel, v.b. 2010. influence of pruning intensity on flowering, fruit yields and floral malformation in three mango cultivars planted under high density. ind. j. hort. 67: 84-89. uddin m.s, hossain, m.f., islam,. hossain, m.m and uddin, m.s. 2014. effect of post harvest pruning on the control of tree size and yield of mango. bull. inst. trop. agr. kyushu univ., 37: 41-46. final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 184-189, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction pomegranate (punica granatum l.), one of the most favorite table fruits is native to persia. the crop is very hardy and thus thrives well under arid and semiarid climatic conditions. during the last two decades, the area under pomegranate cultivation is increasing substantially and many growers have taken up it as commercial farming due to the fact that the fruit satisfies the nutritional and medicinal needs of the consumer as the fruits have potent anti-mutagenic, anti-hypertensive, anti-inflammatory properties and ability to reduce liver injury (holland et al., 2009). in spite of several benefits, the fruit consumption is not to the expected consumption and the availability of pomegr anate fruit in the ma rket ar e largely restricted to the harvesting season due to a high dema nd a nd la ck of a ppr opr ia te post-ha r vest technology to extend the storage life and maintain fruit quality (erkan and kader, 2011). pomegranate being a non-climacteric fruit can be stored for few days under ambient conditions, but has potentiality to be stored for longer duration. but, long-term storage of pomegranate fruit has often been limited by weight loss, decay development, husk scald, loss of aril quality and taste (porat et al., 2016). however, modified atmosphere packaging (map) has been found to be successful in reducing water loss, visible shriveling symptoms, husk scald a nd deca y of pomegranate fruit during cold storage, but improper use of map will have negative impact (artés et al., 2000; selcuk and erkan, 2015). map bags have been widely used for pomegranate storage and shipping in effect of modified atmosphere package on physico-chemical properties of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) fruits sahel n.a.1, krishna h.c.2*, bhuvaneswari s.3, mushrif s.k.4, reddy a.5 and foshanji a.s.1 1department of food science, faculty of agriculture, herat university, herat, afghanistan. 2department of postharvest technology, college of horticulture, uhs campus, bengaluru, india. 3department of postharvest technology and agri. engineering, iihr, bengaluru, india 4department of plant pathology, college of horticulture, uhsb, kolar, india 5department of plant pathology, college of horticulture, uhs campus, bengaluru, india *corresponding author e-mail : krishnahc@gmail.com abstract pomegranate is an important table and processed fruit owing to its nutritional quality. extending the fruit life of the plant is very much limited owing to its metabolic activities viz., respiration, transpiration and microbial infection. an experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of different packaging materials on physico-chemical properties of pomegranate fruits during storage. fruits were harvested with stalk and washed with sodium hypochlorite, air dried and graded. fruits were stored under modified atmospheric packaging conditions using different packaging materials viz., polyethylene bag, polypropylene bag, xtend® bag and silver nano bag hima fresh®. fruits without package served as controls. fruits were stored at low temperature 7±2 °c and 90±5 % rh. map treated fruits had higher quality parameters across all packaging treatments. plw and respiration rate increased while, moisture content, colour, texture and acidity decreased with prolonged storage, but the rate of decrease was highest in unpacked fruits. map maintained the quality of pomegranate fruits upto 100 days compared to unpackaged fruits (40 days). shelf life of stored fruit at ambient condition was 4 to 5 days. fruit decay was 12 % in polyethylene whereas it was 6 % in xtend® bag at the end of 100 day of storage. keywords: decay percentage, map, pomegranate, shelf life and storage life 185 effect of modified atmosphere package on pomegranate fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 184-189, 2022 pomegranate exporting countries. map is most widely used technology to alter the gas composition in package in passive approach. this is achieved by the interaction between the respiration rate of the produce and the transfer of gases through the packaging material (mahajan et al., 2007). in map, respiration rate is reduced by increasing co2 and decreasing o2 concentration. map for pomegranates has been shown to reduce weight loss, shrinkage, scald development, decay, delay senescence and maintain post-harvest fruit quality of pomegranates (selcuk and erkan, 2014). the present study aims at extending the storage life of pomegranate fruits by application of modified atmosphere and humidity using different packaging materials. material and methods the pomegranate fruits cv. bhagwa were handharvested at ripe stage with 0.5 cm stalk intact and were graded based on the uniformity. fruits were washed in 150 ppm sodium hypochlorite. later, the fruits were washed in running tap water and air dried to remove surface water. fifteen to twenty uniform fruits weighing 4-5 kg were packed in modified atmosphere package bags viz., polyethylene bag (t1), polypropylene bag (t2), xtend ® bag (t3) and silver nano bag hima fresh® (t4) along with control unpack (t5) and kept in corrugated fiberboard boxes as per treatment and stored at low temperature 7±2° c and 90 ± 5 % relative humidity (fig.1). experiment was carried out using completely randomized design with five treatments and five replications. data were recorded till the termination of experiment through numbering for all non-destructive parameters. the weight loss was recorded by using 10 mg precision electronic weighing balance (make: sartorius gmbh, gottingen, germany, model: ge812). the plw was calculated using standard formula and expressed as per cent. fruit colour was measured using a n instr ument por ta ble color imeter spectrophotometer (lovibond lc 100, model rm200, the tintometer ltd, salisbury, uk). fruit firmness evalua tion wa s ca r r ied out by pier cing 5 mm cylindrical probe at a speed of 2 mm/s with automatic return. the downward penetration at 5 mm is pretest speed and post-test speed were1 and 10 mm/s, respectively using texture analyzer (model ta hd plus; make stable microsystems, uk) equipped with a 50 kg load cell. finally, the data were analyzed statistically. the respiration rate was measured by piercing the probe of an auto oxygen/ carbon di-oxide analyzer (make: quantek, model: 902d dual track) and was calculated using the following formula. respiration rate (mg co2 kg -1 h-1) = % co2 x container volume (ml) x 60 fruit weight (kg) x enclosing time (min) x 100 the titratable acidity of pomegranate fruits sample was determined by visual titration method following the protocol (ranganna, 1986). the fruit decay incidence was visually assessed by counting the total number of rotten fruits. for both external and internal decay, percentage of discarded fruits was calculated using the following formula. decay incidence (%) = number of discarded fruits at each sampling date x 100total number of fruits in treatment the number of days in which the fruits were in acceptable condition was taken as the storage life or keeping quality of fruits. the fruits were removed from fig. 1. effect of map bag showing ma/mh condition during storage of pomegranate fruits 186 sahel et al bags and kept in ambient condition at 25±5° c to stimulate the commercial handling operations and to determine the shelf life. results and discussion the plw significantly increased with prolonged storage in all the treatments (fig. 2). however, plw was maximum in the control fruits as there was 11.32 per cent loss in weight at 40 days of storing while, the plw was 0.87 and 3.12 % in the fruits packed in silver nano ba g hima fresh® a nd xtend® bag, respectively even after 100 days of storage. it can be assumed that the packaging materials act as barriers to moisture loss by way of establishing a microenvironment with high relative humidity similar to fruit moisture content 80-85 per cent causing a very low vapour pressure difference between fruits and external environment. all these factors help in slowing down the respiration and transpiration rates. the present results are in confirmation with the previous findings of nanda et al. (2001) and porat et al. (2016). t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage fig. 2. effect of modified atmosphere package on physiological loss in weight (%) of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) pomegranate fruits at the final stage of senescence become less intense and this characteristic visual change seems to be associated with a gradual decrease in the parameters: l*, a* and b* (fig. 3a, 3b and 3c). decrease in l*, a* and b* values was found to be more prominent in control unpacked fruits indicating the change in colour of pomegranate fruits from red to br own colour. minimum colour cha nge was observed in fruits packed in silver nano bag while, highest color change was obser ved in contr ol. minimum colour change in map fruits might be attributed to minimum moisture loss and lesser rate t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage fig. 3b. effect of modified atmosphere package on colour value (a*) of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage fig. 3a. effect of modified atmosphere package on colour value (l*) of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage fig. 3c. effect of modified atmosphere package on colour value (b*) of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) of respiration delaying senescence in pomegranate fruits. naik et al. (2017) also reported that the hunter color (l*, a* and b*) values of pomegranate fruits gradually decreased with each successive storage period. from the data (fig.4), it was observed that the respiration rate of pomegranate fruits packed in modified atmosphere packaging materials decreased initially after harvest but increased gradually with j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 184-189, 2022 187 prolonged storage. significant difference was recorded with respect to respiration rate in the control fruits at 20 and 40 days after storage while, no difference was noticed at 60, 80, and 100 days among map packed fruits. the increase in respiration rate of fruits during storage could be an indication of increase in stress including presence of physiological disorders and metabolic reactions. low respiration in map bag fruits may be due to lower moisture loss, lower stress and low availability of o2 inside the package and maximum accumulation of co2 in the bags. the above ûndings agree with meighani et al. (2014) and mphahlele et al. (2016). the results on changes in headspace oxygen and carbon di-oxide concentration as influenced by modified atmosphere packing of pomegranate fruits during storage are presented in fig. 5. as the storage period progressed, the oxygen concentration was significantly decreased and carbon dioxide increased due to respiration. the highest oxygen (13.92 %) and lowest carbon dioxide (4.04 %) concentration was recorded in xtend® bag while, the lowest oxygen (5.18 %) and highest carbon dioxide (7.68 %) were recorded in silver nano bag at 100 days after storage compared to other treatments. this might be due to the lower permeability to gases by the silver nano bag compared to xtend® bag which had micro-perforation resulting in optimum water vapor and gas transmission rate. our results agree with mphahlele et al. (2016) and mshraky et al. (2017). t he firmness of pomegr ana te fr uits decrea sed significantly with prolonged storage period (fig. 6). however, the pomegranate fruits which were packed by silver nano bag recorded highest firmness (6.24 kg cm-1) on day 40 than other treatments while, control recorded lower firmness (5.04 kg cm-1) on the same day of storage. with prolonged storage, the firmness of the fruit was decreased. silver nano bag maintained higher firmness (5.81 cm-1) while, lower firmness (5.62 kg cm-1) was observed in xtend® bag after 100 days of stora ge. this could be attr ibuted to slow degradational changes during initial period and also less moisture loss in map fruits maintaining better firmness compared to control. these results agree with mshraky et al. (2016) and kumar et al. (2013). t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage; initial respiration rate: 18.17 mg co2 kg -1 h-1 fig. 4. effect of modified atmosphere package on respiration rate (mg co2 kg -1 h-1) of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage fig. 5. effect of modified atmosphere package on gas composition inside map bags of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage; initial texture: 6.51 kg cm-1 fig. 6. effect of modified atmosphere package on texture (kg cm-1) of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) data pertaining to the effect of different treatments on titratable acidity are presented in fig. 7. significant difference was recorded among treatments at 40 days after storage. the least (0.78 %) acidity was recorded in unpacked control fruits whereas maximum (0.93 %) acidity was recorded in silver nano bag. thereafter, no difference was observed till 100 days indicating constant titratable acidity in map pomegranate fruits which might be due to reduction in metabolic effect of modified atmosphere package on pomegranate fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 184-189, 2022 188 changes of organic acid into carbon dioxide and water as reported by arendse et al. (2014) nanda et al. (2001). the decay percentage was significantly increased with extended storage as depicted in the fig. 8. there was no microbial decay of fruits at 20 days after storage irrespective of treatments. the highest decay (7.00 %) was noticed in unpacked fruits while there was no decay in silver nano bag and xtend® bag fruits at 40 days of storage. thereafter, control fruits were terminated. later, minimum decay of 1, 2 and 6 per cent was recorded in fruits packed in xtend® bag at 60, 80and 100 days after storage, respectively whereas maximum per cent decay of 7, 10 and 12 was observed in fruits packed in polyethylene bag a t 60, 80a nd 100 days of storage, respectively. this high decay incidence might be due to high availability of moisture inside the package providing congenial environment for the growth of micro-organisms. xtend® bag reduced decay on account of the modified atmosphere and modified humidity which might be due to moisture va p or a nd ga s t r a ns mis s ion p r event ing a ccumula tion of moistur e. our r es ults a r e in confirmation with that of samar et al. (2017). t he pomegra na te fr uits pa cked with differ ent packaging materials delayed metabolic activity and increased shelf life. the pomegranate fruits packed in map bags had 100 days of storage life compared to unpacked fruits which recorded only 40 days (table 1). shelf-life simulation of stored fruits (7±2º c) at ambient condition (25±5º c) was 4 to 5 days. the increase in storage life might be due to reduced metabolic activity and optimum gas and wa t er va p or tr a nsmis s ion r a te in m ap b a gs c r ea t ing op timu m condit ions a long wit h low temperature storage for fruits. t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage; initial titratable acidity: 0.95 per cent fig. 7. effect of modified atmosphere package on titratable acidity percentage of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) t1polyethylene bag; t2polypropylene bag; t3xtend ® bag; t4silver nano bag; t5control (unpack) das: days after storage fig. 8. effect of modified atmosphere package on decay percentage of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) table 1. effect of modified atmosphere package on storage and shelf life of pomegranate fruits under low temperature storage (7±2o c) storage life (days) shelf life (days) at ambient condition treatment at low temperature (25±5o c) (7±2o c) 60 das 80 das 100 das t1polyethylene bag 100 5.00 4.50 4.00 t2polypropylene bag 100 5.00 5.00 4.00 t3xtend ® bag 100 5.00 4.50 4.00 t4silver nano bag 100 5.00 5.00 4.00 t5control (unpack) 40 — — — das: days after storage —: end of storage life sahel et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 184-189, 2022 189 conclusion pomegranate fruits packed with different map bags and stored in low temperature (7±2° c and relative humidity of 90±5 %) were found to have prolonged the storage and shelf life. the map bags such as polyethylene, polypropylene, xtend® bag and silver nano bag (hima fresh®) had shown to increase the storage life upto 100 days with minimum losses of (6 %) micr obial decay in ca se of xtend® bag whereas, unpacked (control) fruits had a storage life of only 40 days. acknowledgements senior author is grateful to the university support a nd wor kfor ce development progr a m, pur due univer sity, west la fa yette, india na , usa for sponsoring the education programme and university of horticultural sciences, bagalkote, india for providing all the support during the study period. references arendse, e., fawoleo, a. and opara, u. l. 2014. effects of postha rvest storage condi tions on phyt ochemica l an d ra dica l-sca venging acti vity of pomegranate fruit (cv. wonderful). sci. hortic., 169: 125-129. artés, f., villaescusa, r. and tudela, j.a. 2000. modified atmosphere packaging of pomegranate. j. food sci., 65:1112-1116. erkan, m. and kader, a. a. 2011. pomegranate (punica granat um l.), in : postharv est b iology and technology of tropical and subtropical fruits, yahia, e. m. (eds.), wood head publishing, new york. pp.287-311. holland, d., hatib, k., and bar-ya’akov, i. 2009. pomegranate: botany, horticulture, breeding. in: horticultural reviews, janick, j. (eds.), john wiley & sons inc., usa. pp.127-191. kumar, a. k., babu, j. d., bhagwan, a. and kumar, r. m. 2013. effect of modified atmosphere packaging on shelf life and quality of ‘bhagwa’ pomegranate in cold storage. acta hortic., 1012: 963-969. mahajan, b. v. c., dhatt, a. s., kumar, s. and manohar, l. 2007. effect of pre-storage treatments and packaging on the storage behavior and quality of kinnow mandarin. j. food sci. technol., 43(6): 589-593. meighani, h., ghasemnezhad, m. and bakhshi, d. 2014. effect of different coatings on post-harvest quality and bioactive compounds of pomegranate (punica granatum l.) fruits. j. food sci. technol., 52(7): 4507-4514. mphahlele, r. r., fawole, o. a., and opara, u. l. 2016. influence of packaging system and long-term storage on physiological attributes, biochemical quality, volatile composition and antioxidant properties of pomegranate fruit. sci. hortic., 211:140–151. mshraky, a. m., khaled, n. and fekry, o. m. 2017. effect of modified atmosphere and smart packaging on t h e qual i t y a n d st or a bil i t y of “wonder ful ” pomegranate. middle east j. appl. sci., 7(1): 92101. naik, d. r., prasad, m. d., joshi, v., padmavathamma, s. and naik, s. c. 2017. physico-chemical changes of minimally processed pomegranate arils cv. bhagwa as affected by packaging materials. int. j. pure appl. biosci., 5(4): 994-1001. nanda, s., rao, s. d. v. and krishnamurthy, s. 2001. effects of shrink film wrapping and storage temperature on the shelf life a nd quali ty of pomegranate fruits. postharvest biol. technol., 22(1): 61-69. porat, r., kosto, i. and daus, a. 2016. bulk storage of “wonderful” pomegranate fruit using modiûed atmosphere bags. j. plant scie., 63(1): 45-50. ranganna, s. 1986. handbook of analysis and quality control for fruit and vegetable products. second edn., tata mcgraw-hill pub. co., new delhi, india 1112p. samar, a. m. a., shaarawi. and nagy, k. s. 2017. effect of modified atmosphere packaging on fruit quality of “wonderful” pomegranate under cold storage conditions. middle eastj. agric. res., 6(2): 495-505. selcuk, n. and erkan m. 2014. changes in antioxidant a ct i vit y an d post ha r vest qua l it y of sweet pom egra na tes cv. hi cr an na r un der modi fed atmosphere packaging. postharvest biol. technol., 92: 29-36. selcuk, n. and erkan, m. 2015. changes in phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity of sour-sweet pomegranates cv. ‘hicaznar ’ during long-term storage under modified atmosphere packaging. postharvest biol. technol., 109: 30-39. effect of modified atmosphere package on pomegranate fruits j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 184-189, 2022 (received: 27.08.2021; revised: 06.03.2022; accepted: 07.03.2022) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf 1division of ornamental crops, iihr, bangalore – 560 089 introduction chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora) is the second largest cut flower crop grown all over the globe and one of the most popular commercial flower crops in india (kher, 1988). conventionally the crop is propagated through suckers, which is quite slow for rapid multiplication of new varieties and exotic introductions, particularly, if the variety does not actively sucker. micropropagation is an alternate approach for rapid cloning of chrysanthemums (ben jaacov and langhans, 1972; rout and das, 1997; teixeira da silva, 2004). an elite pompon type chrysanthemum cv. arka swarna with attractive golden flowers was developed at the indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, valued for both cut and loose flowers (janakiram and rao, 2001), but is a shy suckering type. panicker et al (2007) evolved a micropropagation protocol for cv.‘arka swarna’ which involved culture of shoot-tip and nodal segments on ms basal medium devoid of any plant growth regulators.the microcuttings gave rise to a single shoot coupled with rooting, yielding 90 100% rooted plantlets within 2 4 weeks, all of which were suitable for acclimatization. the cultures showed reduction in rooting with cytokinins in the medium bringing acclimatization and field evaluation of micropropagated plants of chrysanthemum cv.‘arka swarna’ bindu panicker, pious thomas and t. janakiram1 division of biotechnology indian institute of horticultural research hessarghatta lake, bangalore -560089, india e-mail: pioust@iihr.ernet.in abstract chrysanthemum cv.‘arka swarna’ was micropropagated using shoot-tip and nodal microcuttings on ms medium containing 3% sucrose and 0.25% phytagel® in the absence of externally supplied plant growth regulators, yielding 90 100% rooted plantlets, or in medium containing 1 µm benzyladenine or kinetin yielding 20 32% plantlets within 2 4 weeks of subculture. the stocks were acclimatized employing sachet technique wherein the rooted plantlets (2.5 4 cm) were planted in polythene bags of 5"×9" filled to one-third height with planting mixture. the closed bags with 1 5 plants were incubated under conditions similar to the in vitro stocks. the plantlets recorded 90 100% establishment within 4 weeks. the ex vitro established plants were evaluated in the field a month later by direct planting , or after one month in a field nursery-bed, along with conventional suckers. while field establishment (80 95%) was not significantly influenced by the treatments, micropropagated plants put through the nursery appeared to be the best among the three treatments in vegetative growth, floral characteristics and flower yield, demonstrating advantage of micropropagation over conventional propagation for shy-suckering chrysanthemums. key words : acclimatization, chrysanthemum, dendranthema grandiflora, hardening, micropropagation down the yield of hardenable plantlets to 20-32% at 1 µm benzyl adenine (ba) or kinetin. no rooting was observed above 5 µm. all the cultures showed covertly residing endophytic bacteria with no apparent adverse effect (panicker et al, 2007). tissue culture derived plants are very delicate and need to go through slow transition from the protected in vitro condition to the ex vitro environment, termed as hardening or acclimatization (preece and sutter1991; ravindra and thomas, 1995; thomas, 1998). further, a successful micropropagation protocol warrants that performance of tissue culture derived plants is matched to or is better than conventionally propagated plants. the present study was taken up to assess establishment of micropropagated chrysanthemumplants ex vitro and to test field performance of tissue-culture derived plants in comparison to conventionally propagated plants. material and methods plant material studies were carried out using micropropagated plantlets of chrysanthemum cv. ‘arka swarna’ which j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 32-35, 2009 33 acclimatization of micropropagated chrysanthemum initiated in vitro from field had been derived nodal explants and were further propagated in vitro for a period of one year, as described in an earlier study (panicker et al, 2007). rooted plantlets were derived from shoot-tip and nodal segments after cultured on ms basal medium supplied with 3% sucrose and gelled with 2.5 gl-1 phytagel® (sigma chemical co, st. louis, usa) with no added plant growth regulators, or, on medium supplied with 1 µm ba / kinetin. such plantlets, with a shoot height of 2.5 4 cm, 3 5 nodes and 1 10 or more roots, were used for acclimatization. acclimatization sachet method, as described by ravindra and thomas (1995), was employed for acclimatization. rooted plantlets were briefly washed under tap water and planted in potting mixture comprising 2:1:1 parts of autoclaved sand, soil and soilritetcò (karnataka explosives, ltd., perlite division, bangalore) filled to one-third capacity in polythene bags (9 inch height × 5 inch width). these in turn, were provided with drainage holes and watered to field capacity. only a single plantlet was used per bag unless mentioned otherwise. the upper open end of the polybag was closed with a staple pin and the sachets were incubated under ambient conditions (25-30°c) and provided with 16 h of light (30-50 µe m-2 s-1) using cool, white fluorescent lamps (thomas, 1998). the top of the sachet was opened two weeks after planting and ex-vitro establishment % was recorded one month from planting. the plants were shifted to a glasshouse and placed there for another a month, or, were transplanted to a nursery bed, under shadenets (approx. 400 µe m-2 s-1 light). planting of upto five rooted plantlets per polythene bag and pruning of in-vitro formed roots at planting (thomas and ravindra, 1997) was also tried. field evaluation of micropropagated and conventionally propagated plants acclimatized plants were evaluated in field either directly (one month from opening sachets) or after planting in a nursery for a month, along with conventionally propagated suckers. t1 : tissue culture derived, one-month old plants post acclimatization, planted directly in field (code: tc-d) t2: tissue culture derived, acclimatized plants planted in nursery bed under shade and after a month transplanted to experimental field (code: tc-n) t3: conventionally propagated suckers from mother plants raised in nursery for a month and subsequently transplanted to experimental field (code: cp-s). the experiment was laid out in completely randomized design (crd) in a single bed of red loamy soil supplemented with sand and farm yard manure. six replications with four plants constituted one replication. percent establishment was recorded taking into account the whole population of plants in a treatment. other plant growth variables (plant height, plant spread, number of primary branches and buds) were recorded from all four plants in a replication and floral characteristics (flower diameter, number of ray florets and flower weight) were recorded on five flowers from five representative plants in each replication. flower yield / plant and duration of flowering were also assessed. statistical analysis statistical analysis was performed as per gomez and gomez (1984). crd design was followed for the field experiment on account of accommodating all the treatments and their replications in a uniform bed. percent values were subjected to arc-sine transformation before statistical analysis to stabilize the variance. results and discussion the shoot-tip and nodal segments that were cultured on ms basal medium gave rise to a single shoot 2 3.5 cm long coupled with rooting in 90 100% microcuttings, and 20 32% rooting in medium supplied with 1 µm ba or kinetin with shoot height of 2 2.5 cm. no rooting was observed at higher ba/ kinetin (5 20 µm) cones. micropropagated plants showed 90 100% establishment in sachet method of acclimatization in different batches (fig. 1a). the top of the sachet was opened, exposing the plants to ambient environment, 10-14 days after planting. the plants kept in the same bags for one month or more displayed good growth (fig. 1b). tissue culture derived plants showed relatively better field establishment over conventional suckers, although, the effect was not significant (table 1). overall, tissue culture derived plants were comparable to or superior to conventionally propagated plants, depending on whether these were planted directly (tc-d) or after going though a nursery (tc-n). tc-n plants outperformed tc-d plants in plant height, plant spread, number of flower buds, flower diameter, number of florets, flower weight and yield per plant. compared to conventionally propagated plants, tcn plants were better in respect of flower diameter, flower weight, number of florets and yield per plant. tc plants, j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 32-35, 2009 34 fig 1. acclimatization of micropropagated chrysanthemum through sachet technique (a) and the established plants showing growth during their maintenance in the same sachets (b). (bar = approx. 10 cm) fig 2. performance of chrysanthemum plants in the field following direct planting of acclimatized plants (a), acclimatized plants after a month in field nursery (b), and, conventional sucker-derived plants at one month in field nursery (c) table 1. performance of tissue culture derived and conventionally propagated plants of chrysanthemum cv. arka swarna treatment field plant no. of plants flower flower florets flowering flower floweryield / sucker establishment height branches pread (cm) buds diameter (no.) duration wt.(g) plant(g) (no.) (%) (cm) n-s e-w (no.) (cm) (days) tc plant95(84.0) 58.5 13.9 27.5 30.3 76.3 4.66 215.1 41.80 3.53 269.71 8.55 direct (tc-d) tc plant95(84.0) 64.5 15.2 33.1 37.4 100.9 5.22 222.1 44.60 5.00 500.78 9.00 nursery (tc-n) conventional 80(69.0) 67.5 16.0 30.0 34.5 87.5 4.21 191.5 39.20 2.75 241.92 5.95 sucker (cp-s) significance ns ** ns ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** sed ± 7.14 1.22 3.21 0.90 0.54 2.84 0.07 1.29 0.42 0.25 18.77 0.26 cd (p = 0.05) 30.86 5.77** 5.25 4.29** 2.56** 13.50** 0.31** 6.13** 2.01** 0.20** 81.02** 0.78** whether planted directly or after pre-nursery, displayed significantly higher sucker production than conventional sucker derived plants. overall, tissue culture-derived plants transplanted after a span in the nursery bed appeared to be better than those in the other two treatments (fig. 2). in a subsequent trial, it was found that pruning invitro formed roots made planting into the sachets easier with no apparent negative effects on establishment (90 100%) or growth. upto five plantlets could be planted per sachet, giving similar establishment rate as with single j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 32-35, 2009 bindu panikar et at 35 plants. post establishment (2-3 weeks), these could be transplanted to the nursery bed under shade, thus serving as a source of plants for subsequent field planting. the present study demonstrates suitability of micropropagation for rapid clonal propagation of shysuckering ‘arka swarna’ based on results from field evaluation. a phase of one month in nursery bed subsequent to primary acclimatization was desirable in micropropagated chrysanthemum. performance of acclimatized plants was not satisfactory in direct field-planting, possibly due to their delicate nature and delay in adjusting to field conditions. tissue cultured plants of pepper, cardamom and vanilla also have shown similar results of better performance compared to conventionally propagated material (rathy et al, 2005; kuruvilla et al, 2005; madhusoodanan et al, 2005). planting as many as five rooted plantlets in a polythene bag and their transplantation to nursery appeared feasible, serving as an alternative to conventional sucker propagation in this shysuckering cultivar. references ben-jaacov, j. and langhans, r.w. 1972. rapid multiplication of chrysanthemum plants by stem-tip proliferation. hort. sci., 7:289-290 gomez, a. k. and gomez, a. a. 1984. statistical procedures for agricultural research, 2nd ed., john wiley and sons publication, 680p janakiram, t. and rao, t.m. 2001. chrysanthemum. technical bulletin. indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore, india, 18p kher, m.a. 1988. chrysanthemum in india. associated publishers co., new delhi, 79p kuruvilla, k.m., madhusoodanan, k.j., sudharshan, m.r., natarajan, p. and thomas, j. 2005. performance evaluation of tissue culture vs. open pollinated seedlings of cardamom. national symposium on biotechnological interventions for improvement of horticultural crops issues and strategies, 10-12 jan, 2005, thrissur, pp 81-83 madhusoodanan, k.j., kuruvilla, k.m., vadiraj, b.a., radhakrishnan, v.v. and thomas, j. 2005. on farm evaluation of tissue culture vanilla plants vis-a-vis vegetative cuttings. national symposium on biotechnological interventions for improvement of horticultural crops issues and strategies, 10-12 jan, 2005, thrissur, pp 89-90 panicker, b., thomas, p., janakiram, t., venugopalan, r. and sathyanarayana, b.n. 2007. influence of cytokinin levels on in vitro propagation of shy suckering chrysanthemum ‘arka swarna’ and activation of endophytic bacteria. in vitro cell. dev. biol.plant, 43:614-622 preece, j.e. and sutter, e.g. 1991. acclimatization of micropropagated plants to the glasshouse and field. p71-93. in: micropropagation: technology and application. debergh, p.c. and zimmerman, r.h. (ed). kluwer academic publishers, dordrecht, the netherlands. ravindra, m.b. and thomas, p. 1995. sachet technique an efficient method for the acclimatization of micropropagated grapes (vitis vinifera l.). curr. sci., 68:546-548 rathy, k., jini, p. j., shaiju, k.v., rajesh, p.k., sreekumar, p. k., maji, a. and nazeem, p. a. 2005. comparative evaluation of tissue culture derived black pepper plants with conventional plants. national symposium on biotechnological interventions for improvement of horticultural crops issues and strategies, 10-12 jan 2005, thrissur, pp 159-160 rout, g.r. and das, p. 1997. recent trends in the biotechnology of chrysanthemum: a critical review. sci. hort., 69:239-257 teixeira da silva, j. a. 2004. ornamental chrysanthemums: improvement by biotechnology. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 79:1-18 thomas, p. 1998. humid incubation period and plantlet age influence acclimatization and establishment of micropropagated grapes. in vitro cell. dev. biol.plant, 34:52-56 thomas, p. and ravindra, m.b. 1997. effect of pruning or removal of in vitro formed roots on ex vitro root regeneration and growth in micropropagated grapes. pl. cell tiss. org. cult., 51: 177-180 (ms received 20 december 2008, revised 15 june 2009) acclimatization of micropropagated chrysanthemum j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 32-35, 2009 effect of integrated nutrient management on onion yield and soil properties under chromic haplusterts of karnataka p. k. basavaraja, s. sridhara1, a. r. sushma and g. r. hareesh department of soil science and agricultural chemistry gkvk, university of agricultural sciences, bangalore-560 065, india e-mail: pkbraj@yahoo.com abstract a field experiment was conducted during the kharif season of 2002 and 2003 under chromic haplusterts (medium black soils) at zonal agricultural research station, hiriyur to study the effect of coir pith based compost (cpbc) along with organic manures and inorganic fertilizers on yield of onion. the study revealed that combined application of cpbc @ 15 t/ha along with press mud (pm) and half the recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) gave significant higher bulb yield of onion (14.70 t/ha) as compared to rdf along with fym (9.55 t/ha). the bulb yields were on par with the combined application of cpbc along with fym and 50% rdf or combined application of cpbc and green manure (gm) along with 100% rdf, indicating the utility of cpbc in onion cultivation. higher net and gross returns were recorded with application of cpbc and pm @ 15 t/ha each along with 50% rdf with better benefit cost ratio. the yield and quality parameters also differed significantly among the various combinations of cpbc with pm or fym in conjunction with inorganic fertilizers. analysis of the soil after the harvest of onion crop did not show any significant difference in ph and ec among the treatments. however, organic carbon, available phosphorus and available potash were significantly higher due to application of cpbc, pm, fym and gm along with 50% or 100% rdf. key words: onion, coir pith based compost, economics, soil properties 1 zonal agricultural research station, shimoga, karnataka, india introduction onion is an of the important vegetable crop of commerce in karnataka. it is predominantly grown under rainfed condition in central dry zone of karnataka although it is also grown under protective irrigation to some extent. continuous application of inorganic fertilizers to soil tends to reduce the yield of crops over time by affecting the soil properties. this calls for use of organic manures in crop production (biswas and bendi, 1989). application of organic manures is known to improve the weight and girth of the individual bulbs in addition to influencing the quality and keeping quality of onion. onion is a heavy feeder of nutrients and thus requires heavy doses of organic manures. on an average, onion crop requires about 30 t of farmyard manure (fym) per hectare apart from inorganic fertilizers (anon. 2005). in recent years, reduction in the cattle population and increasing mechanization of agriculture has led to an enormous reduction in the availability of organic manures. this calls for converting locally available resources into organic manures as well as evaluating their utility in crop production. coir pith is one such waste material which is available freely and in plenty in chitradurga district and, which can be converted into organic manure easily. studies on the effect of combined application of coir pith based compost (cpbc) along with other organic sources of nutrients in combination with inorganic sources of nutrients on onion are lacking. hence an attempt has been made to study the agronomic efficiency as well as economics of use of cpbc along with other organic sources of nutrients in onion. material and methods a field experiment was conducted during the kharif season of 2002 and 2003 at zonal agricultural research station, hiriyur under protective irrigation. the soil was medium black with ph of 8.7 and contained 0.45 % o.c, 20.8 kg/ha available p 2 o 5 and 168.0 kg/ha of available k 2 o. the experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. there were twelve treatment combinations (table1), which included various combinations of inorganic fertilizers with various sources of organic manures viz., cpbc, fym, press mud (pm), copper ore tailings (cot) j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 34-37, 2007 and green manure (gm). the cpbc had 1.06% n, 0.08% p, 0.85% k, fym had 0.83% n, 0.20% p, 0.61% k, pm had 1.63% n, 1.47% p, 0.61% k, gm contained 0.60% n, 0.13% p, 0.40% k and cot contained 0.3% n, 0.04% p and 0.14% k. these organic manures were spread uniformly in the respective plots and incorporated in the soil to a depth of 8-10 cm before sowing. the seeds of onion cv. satara gharva three weeks which is widely grown in central dry zone of karnataka, were sown on finely prepared seed bed and forty days old seedlings were transplanted at a spacing of 15 cm x 10 cm in the second week of july in both the years after incorporating the required quantity of inorganic fertilizers in each plot. standard crop protection measures were adopted for onion cultivation during the crop growth. after 110 days of transplanting, mature onion bulbs were harvested and sun dried. the bulbs were separated from the stalks and the bulb yield was recorded. onion bulbs were cut horizontally and the number of layers was counted. a hand-held refractometer was used to measure the total soluble solids (tss). polar and equatorial diameter of bulb were measured by vernier calipers. volume of the bulbs was measured as the amount of water displaced by the individual bulbs using a measuring cylinder. the prevailing rates of the inputs as well as the produce were used to work out the actual cost of cultivation, and the returns obtained from each treatment combination. the data were subjected to statistical analysis as per the method outlined by panse and sukhatme (1978). results and discussion bulb yield of onion differed significantly due among the treatment combinations in which organic manure was applied along with fertilizers. the highest mean bulb yield of 14.7 t/ha was recorded with the combined application of cpbc with pm and half the recommended dose of fertilizer (rdf) as compared to rdf along with fym (table 2). the lowest mean bulb yield of onion was obtained with the application of rdf alone (7.66 t/ha). studies conducted by krishnamurthy and sharanappa (2005) also indicated an increase in bulb yield of onion due to combined application of compost prepared from different sources along with rdf. bulb yield of onion obtained by the combined application of cpbc either with cot or with fm were the same indicating the utility of compost prepared from agro waste like coir pith in producing onion. table 1. treatment details treatment details of treatments number t 1 recommended dose of fertilizer alone (rdf) (125 n: 50 p 2 o 5 : 125k 2 o kg/ha) t 2 coir pith based compost (cpbc) @ 15 t/ha + 50% rdf t 3 cpbc @ 30 t/ha + 50% rdf t 4 cpbc @ 15t/ha + press mud @ 15t/ha + 50% rdf t 5 cpbc @ 15t/ha + press mud @ 15t/ha + rdf t 6 cpbc @ 15t/ha + copper ore tailings @ 1t/ha + 50% rdf t 7 cpbc @ 15t/ha + copper ore tailings @ 1t/ha + rdf t 8 cpbc @ 15t/ha + green manuring @ 15t/ha + 50% rdf t 9 cpbc @ 15t/ha + green manuring @ 15t/ha + rdf t 10 cpbc @ 15t/ha + fym @ 15t/ha+ 50% rdf t 11 cpbc @ 15t/ha + fym @ 15t/ha+ rdf t 12 rdf + fym @ 30t/ha table 2. bulb yield and quality parameters of onion as influenced by combined application of organic and inorganic sources of nutrients bulb yield (t/ha) quality parameters (mean of two years) treatments 2002 2003 mean bulb volume number of equatorial polar (cm) total (ml) layers per bulb diameter bulb diameter soluble solids(%) bulb (cm) t 1 5.21 10.11 7.66 41.5 5.4 3.6 3.2 9.7 t 2 6.44 10.95 8.69 43.3 6.2 4.6 4.3 10.0 t 3 7.81 13.00 10.40 50.7 7.7 5.0 4.4 10.7 t 4 12.73 16.68 14.70 57.8 12.9 6.3 5.3 11.1 t 5 10.26 13.03 11.64 51.0 8.3 5.0 4.6 10.7 t 6 6.49 11.24 8.86 44.2 7.1 4.7 4.2 10.1 t 7 7.34 12.42 9.88 50.2 7.4 4.9 4.4 10.6 t 8 7.52 12.50 10.01 50.5 7.7 4.9 4.4 10.6 t 9 10.47 14.00 12.23 55.1 10.5 5.5 4.9 10.7 t 10 12.0 14.02 13.03 57.3 12.4 6.0 5.0 10.8 t 11 7.16 11.62 9.39 48.8 7.4 4.8 4.4 10.3 t 12 7.02 11.29 9.55 49.2 7.3 4.8 4.3 10.1 sem± 9.32 8.59 9.19 12.13 6.35 5.13 2.99 4.05 c.d(p=0.05) 3.23 2.97 3.18 4.32 5.13 1.83 1.35 ns 35j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 34-37, 2007 effect of inm on onion yield and soil properties the yield parameters of onion like bulb volume, number of layers per bulb, polar and equatorial diameter of the bulb differed significantly among the treatments in which cpbc was applied with different sources of organic and inorganic nutrients (table 2). the volume of the bulbs was significantly higher with the application of cpbc and pm along with half of the rdf (57.8 ml), which is on par with application of cpbc and fym along with half of the rdf (57.3 ml). the number of layers per bulb as well as equatorial and polar diameter of individual bulbs also followed a similar trend (table 2). however, an important quality parameter of onion bulbs viz; total soluble solids was not influenced by any of the treatment combinations, although it was higher in t4 (11.1%). these results are in conformity with those of venna et al (1972), hussaini and aman (2000). the economic benefits of use of cpbc along with other organic sources combined with recommended or half the rdf was assessed by calculating the net and gross returns and benefit cost ratio. the cost of cultivation ranged from rs. 21,700/ha with rdf alone to rs. 33,900 /ha with rdf along with recommended organic manures (table 3). the highest gross return of rs.73,500/ha was obtained by the combined application of cpbc along with pm and half of the rdf as compared to either rdf alone (rs. 38,300 / ha) or combined application of rdf and fym (rs. 47,750 /ha). the gross return was the lowest with the application of rdf (rs. 38,300/ha). similarly, the highest net returns were obtained by the combined application of cpbc along with pm and half the rdf (rs. 47,800/ha) followed by the table 3. economics of onion crop as influenced by combined application of organic and inorganic sources of nutrients (mean of two years) tr. no cost of gross net b: c ratio cultivation returns returns (rs /ha) (rs /ha) (rs /ha) t 1 21700 38300 16600 1.76 t 2 23300 43450 20150 1.86 t 3 26300 52000 25700 1.98 t 4 25700 73500 47800 2.86 t 5 30100 58200 28100 1.93 t 6 26800 44300 17500 1.65 t 7 24900 49400 24500 1.98 t 8 23800 50050 26250 2.10 t 9 28200 61150 32950 2.17 t 10 29300 65150 35850 2.22 t 11 30700 46950 16250 1.53 t 12 33900 47750 13850 1.41 sem± na 11710 8416 2.63 c.d(p=0.05) 4150 3850 0.93 rate of onion : rs. 5000 per ton combined application of cpbc with fym and the rdf (rs. 35,850/ha) as against the combined application of rdf alone, which recorded the lowest net returns (rs.16,600/ ha). the benefit cost ratio of 2.86 was obtained by the combined application of cpbc and pm along with half the rdf which was on par with the remaining treatment combinations except the application of rdf alone and combined application of fym with half the rdf. this is mainly because of lower cost of production of cpbc, as it is made from coir pith, a byproduct of industry, which is presently going waste. the benefit cost ratio was lowest with the combined application of rdf along with fym (1.41). the lower net returns and benefit cost obtained with the combined use of manures and fertilizers may be attributed to higher cost as well as handling charges particularly with respect to fym. the results are inconformity with the findings of krishnamurthy and sharanappa (2005). soil analysis after the harvest of onion crop did not show any significant change in ph and ec among the treatments (table 4). these observations are in line with those of badanur et al (1990). but, the organic carbon was significantly higher (1.11 %) where cpbc and pm were applied @ 15 t/ha each along with 50% rdf as compared to application of 100% rdf alone. this could be attributed to better root growth and higher amount of plant residues added to soil after harvest (bhriguvanshi, 1988; bhandari et al, 1992). similarly, available phosphorus was also higher in treatments where cpbc and pm were applied @ 15 t/ha each along with 100 % rdf (69.7 kg p 2 0 5 /ha) and 50% rdf (61.7 kg p 2 0 5 /ha) as compared to other treatments. application of cpbc and pm, which are acidic in nature dissolved the fixed p of black soil and enhanced the available p content of the soil. this is in conformity with the findings of subramanian and kumaraswamy (1989). however, the available potash was significantly higher (221 kg k 2 o /ha) where cpbc and gm were applied @ 15 t/ha each with 100% rdf, which was on par with cpbc @ 30 t/ha with 50% rdf or fym @ 30 t/ha with 100% rdf or cpbc and fym @ 15 t/ha each with 50 % or 100% rdf application. since cellulose is a major component of coir pith, its contains various organic acids, which might have solubalised the non-exchangeable k to soluble forms of k to some extent (chitra and janaki, 1999). based on the present study, it can be concluded that cpbc can be used as a cheap source of nutrient as well as a better substitute to the scarcely available fym. apart from this, combined application of cpbc along with 36j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 34-37, 2007 basavaraja et al pm saves the requirement of inorganic nutrients by about a half of the recommended levels. references anonymous, 2005. package of practices for higher yields. university of agricultural sciences, gkvk, bangalore, p 206. badanur, v. p., polesh, c.m. and naik, b. k. 1990. long term effect of integrated nutrient management on properties of vertisol under dry land agriculture. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 38:426. bhandari, a. l., anil sood, sharma, k. n. and rana, d. s. 1992. integrated nutrient management in a rice wheat system. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 40: 742-747. bhriguvanshi, s. r. 1988. long term effects of high doses of fertilizers and manure on soil properties and crop yield. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 36: 784-786. biswas, c. r. and bendi, d. k. 1989. long-term effects of manures and fertilizers on wheat based cropping systems in semi arid alluvial soils. fert. news, 84:3-38. table 4. soil properties after harvest of onion crop as influenced by cpbc and other organics and in-organics treatments ph ec oc av.p 2 o 5 av.k 2 o (1:2.5) (1:2.5) (%) (kg/ha) (kg/ha) rdf (100%) only 8.6 0.18 0.52 27.5 174 cpbc @ 15t/ha+rdf(50%) 8.6 0.18 0.95 31.3 170 cpbc @ 30t/ha+rdf (50%) 8.6 0.20 0.97 31.7 201 cpbc @ 15t/ha+pressmud @15t/ha + rdf (50%) 8.6 0.19 1.11 61.7 190 cpbc @ 15 t/ha+pressmud @ 15t/ha +rdf (100%) 8.6 0.17 1.02 69.7 183 cpbc @ 15t/ha+cot @ 1 t/ha+rdf (50%) 8.7 0.20 0.91 33.1 182 cpbc @15t/ha+cot @ 1t/ha +rdf (100%) 8.7 0.18 0.97 34.8 187 cpbc @ 15 t/ha+gm @ 15 t/ha+rdf (50%) 8.7 0.19 0.97 32.6 190 cpbc @ 15t/ha+gm @15 t/ha+rdf (100%) 8.6 0.18 0.93 42.8 221 cpbc @ 15t/ha+fym @ 5t/ha+rdf (50%) 8.7 0.18 1.03 49.5 210 cpbc @ 15t/ha+fym @ 15t/ha+rdf (100%) 8.6 0.19 0.97 53.5 206 fym @ 30t/ha+rdf (100%) 8.6 0.17 0.97 47.5 204 cd (p=0.05) ns ns 0.19 12.8 30.3 initial 8.7 0.15 0.50 20.8 168 chitra, l. and janaki, p. 1999. impact of various organic sources on k uptake and yield of rice in thamirabarani river tract of tamil nadu. madras agri. j., 86 : 46-48. hussaini, m. a. and aman, e. b. 2000. yield and bulb size distribution and storability of onion under different n fertilization and irrigation regime. trop. agri., 77: 146-149. krishnamurthy, d. and sharanappa. 2005. effect of sole and integrated use of improved composts and npk fertilizers on the quality, productivity and shelflife of bangalore rose red onion. mysore j. of agril. sci., 39: 355-361. panse,v. g. and sukhatme 1978. statistical methods for agricultural workers. icar, new delhi, pp 51-55. subramanian, k. s. and kumaraswamy, k. 1989. effect of continuous cropping and fertilization on chemical properties of soil. j. ind. soc. soil sci., 37: 171. venna, j. p., rathore, s. v. s. and vedram. 1972. effect of levels of nitrogen and spacing on the performance of bulb crop of onion. progressive hort., 4: 57-68. 37j. hort. sci. vol. 2 (1): 34-37, 2007 effect of inm on onion yield and soil properties (ms received 18 january 2007, revised 29 june 2007) final sph -jhs coverpage 16-2 jan 2021 single 315 the icar-iihr in its five decades of research on 54 horticultural crops, has released 302 varieties and licensed 104 technologies to 400 clients with 800 licenses, thus paving the way for entrepreneurship in the field of horticulture. the institute has been popularizing the varieties by imparting training as well as by taking them to the farmers’ field through conducting demonstration and field days, the effect of which can be seen in north-eastern region of the country, wherein almost seven states have adopted the vegetable varieties of the institute. however, to promote entrepreneurship in the field of horticulture it was decided to display the technologies developed in one place and through virtual and physical mode. hence, 255 demonstration plots were set up. in addition to this provision was made for stalls so that other private and public institutions could display their technology. the ma in theme of this fa ir being ‘horticulture for startup and standup india’ and the main objectives were: i. to showcase the new abiotic and biotic stress resistant technologies right from seed to input production to plant protection measures including biopesticides to post-harvest, value addition and machinery for horticulture to every stakeholder ii. to make the stakeholders aware of the benefits of integrated farming systems, urban horticulture and the digitized seed supply system adopted by the institute to reach them to the doorstep of the farmers, iii. to create awareness with regard to the pollination and the need to conserve pollinators and also to highlight the importance of resistant varieties in organic farming, iv. to make stakeholders aware of the opportunities in horticulture to become entrepreneurs through ‘atmanirbhar krishi’, v. provide an opportunity to expose the farmers to the entrepreneurs who are successfully running their business. the event was organized in collaboration with the ka r na ta ka sta te depa r tment of hor ticultur e, karnataka state department of agriculture, society for promotion of horticulture, bengaluru, bessthort a tbi of icar-iihr, icar-atari (zone 11) bengaluru and the sri sri institute of agricultural sciences & technology trust (aol), bengaluru. the modus operandi and the details of methodology followed in organizing nhf 2021 are discussed here. modus operandi the national horticulture fair (nhf 2021), which was held for five days from 8th to 12th february 2021 comprised of two approaches viz., virtual mode and the physical mode. the success of an event depends on how well it gets publicized. publicity was carried out both at the national as well as the state level through social, print and electronic media. forty (40) lakh messages were sent through mkisan to reach nook and corner of the country. a brochure depicting the highlights of the nhf 2021 was prepared in ka nna da , hindi a nd english a nd were widely circulated throughout the country especially among the line depa rtments a nd educa tiona l institutions. animated films depicting the technologies developed and the opportunities for entrepreneurship were widely circulated in kannada, malayalam, tamil, telugu and hindi. two pr ess confer ences wer e held with journalists representing leading dailies of various languages. press conference was held with the leading electronic media representatives, the news on nhf 2021 was carried during prime time. journalists were also taken for a guided tour of the demonstration plots with emphasis on the technologies showcased. the fair was conducted on two modes viz., virtual and physical. to create awareness about the virtual mode meeting was held with the ddg (extension), icar and directors of agriculture technology application research institute (atari), which was followed up with two meetings with kvk heads, where in decision was taken to identify nodal officers from each zone. a virtual meeting with all the directors under the subject matter division of horticultural sciences with ddg (hs) and adg’s was conducted wher ein decision was taken for cross posting the event links in their websites. social media groups were created for kvk’s and fpo’s for each zone, which helped in the coordination of the activities. event report national horticultural fair 2021 a success story 316 horticultural crops that are being cultivated in the 11 atari zones, and the problems connected with these crops viz., seed, planting material to plant protection and postharvest management were collected two months in advance. the problems thus collected were segregated and the compiled information was used for developing the technology videos, power point slides and for identifying experts connected with the crop, technology. moderators for different languages were identified for the programme preparation. there were 11 moderators for 11 languages, because of which solution to the problems were clarified in local languages. the technical sessions in virtual mode were organized across 11 icar-atari zones of the country covering 700 plus krishi vigyan kendras and 600 plus fpo’s, 160 sri sri institute of farmers training centre’s belonging to 16 states. in each login through a two-way link, around 50 to 100 farmers were mobilized at each krishi vigyan kendras (kvk)/ fa r mer s’ pr oducer orga niza tion (fpo) for participation in the live technical session of the horticulture fair 2021. the setup of the virtual mode was carried out in the following way: over 22 cameras were connected to live console, which were integrated with far end live feed. the master feed from pcr (production control room) was broadcasted live on satellite as well as two-way feed to all the kvks and fpo s in the country. the entire 5-day program was live casted on all social media platforms reaching around 18.7 lakh people. six ca mer a s wer e placed in the field to show the demonstration plots of various technologies. cross posting of one-way link was also done through the websites of 9 institutes. one-way participant entry was through the below platform, wherein anyone who wished to view the programme were able to do so by logging in through the registration using their mobile number. in all, there were 11 technical sessions, which were developed after collecting the problems associated with different crops from kvk heads. subject matter pictorial representation of online logging in facilitated to attend the nhf-2021 virtually virtual platform for two-way and one-way telecast 317 experts from icar institutes and icar-atari’s addressed the problems of the respective zones related to horticulture crops by showing the technology demonstration plots and also the videos of the farmers who have successfully grown the crop. in different places (kvks & fpos) 7000 logins were observed, which accounted for 4.2 lakhs viewers, total primary source viewing being 18.7 lakhs. in all the r ea ch from the secondar y sources through the subscription to our youtube channel (followers) was 38.2 lakhs. hence, the total viewing was to the tune of 56.9 lakhs. the geographical reach apart from india, the programme was viewed in other countries viz. , philippines, united sta tes, sr i la nka , bangladesh, pakistan, nepal, united arab emirates, australia, saudi arabia, algeria, and kuwait. the physical mode was carried out with the idea ‘seeing is believing’ and was made possible by the participation of various private and public institutions who displayed their technologies through stalls numbering about 200. apart from this the incubates who have taken the technology from the institute also participated, which motivated the other farmers to become entrepreneurs. the live 255 demonstration plots having emphasis on resistant varieties and ecofriendly technologies were on display. the publicity given through the media helped in creating awareness about the nhf 2021 in the state of karnataka and the neighboring states. the stakeholder mobilization wa s ver y effectively ca r r ied out by the sta te departments. electronic registration was also made to restrict the number of visitors. the foot fall for the physical fair in all the five days was to the tune of 56.243. six workshops / training programmes were conducted during the event days on; terrace gardening (vegetable growing and medicinal pla nts for home r emedies), soilless vegetable cultivation, home scale processing (fruits: lime, orange, vegetables: tomato, onion, chilli, flowers: rose, brine preservation / pickling), safe plant health management in hobby horticulture, mushroom products, workshop on hydroponics for terrace & peri urba n horticulture, a nd modern irrigation technologies in horticultural crops. a total of 691 participants attended these workshops. eleven farmers from six different states of the country who have adopted icar iihr technologies and one extension worker from manipur who was instrumental in popularizing the icar iihr technologies were felicitated during the fair. technology commercialization a goal achieved the icar-iihr during the past five decades has commercialized its technologies to more than 400 clients. the institute developed varieties in fruits, vegetables and flower crops are being produced through ‘seed village concept’ and through private nurseries. the theme of nhf 2021 being ‘horticulture for startup and standup india’, eight entrepreneurs took 15 technologies with an mou. the virtual mode was attended by the officials of icar institutes, hor ticultur e a nd agricultur e univer sities, dir ector s of sta te hor ticultur e departments, heads of kvks and representatives from private industry, press personnel, farmers and students. the event had 255 demonstration plots of various varieties and technologies developed by the institute. the problems related with the growing of horticultural crops in various regions of the country inauguration function of nhf-2021 technical session in progress 318 were addressed by the experts through live video interaction with the help of the demonstration plots. a total viewing of 56.9 lakhs was recorded during the five da ys event, which included one wa y communication viewing through social media network (14.5 lakhs), video conference viewing through 7000 logins in various places of kvk’s, fpo’s and sri sri institute of agricultural sciences & technology trust accounted for a total primary source viewing of 4.2 lakhs. the reach from the secondary sources through the subscription to our youtube channel (followers) was 38.2 lakhs. viewership was also noticed from 11 different countries. the footfall for the physical fair was nearly 56,000. publicity preceding the fair by way of animated videos, press and media played a greater role in making the fair successful as commercialization of 12 technologies also took place. various private and public institutions as well as entrepreneurs who have purchased the technology from the institute got an opportunity to display their products. dhananjaya m.v. upreti k.k. dinesh m.r (icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hesaraghatta lake post, bengaluru) (received 07.07.2021; accepted 31.07.2021) 00 contents.pdf 01 shalini.pdf 02 sheikh.pdf 03 debanath.pdf 04 nimbolkar.pdf 05 satisha.pdf 06 kaur.pdf 07 nitin kumar.pdf 08 varsha.pdf 09 ravishankar.pdf 10 swamini.pdf 11 vijaykumar.pdf 12 usha bharathi.pdf 13 yogalakshmi.pdf 14 adams.pdf 15 lakshman.pdf 16 yella swami.pdf 17 varalakshmi.pdf 18 sharon.pdf 19 lamesssa.pdf 20 divya.pdf 21 wani.pdf 22 event report.pdf 23 index and last pages.pdf introduction marigold (tagetes erecta l.) is one of the most popular and commercial flowering annual cultivated in different parts of the country. it has great demand for garland, cut flowers and decorative purposes at various kinds of religious and social functions. nutrients play an important role in growth and development of marigold crop. continuous and indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers alters the soil fertility, leading to soil pollution and ultimately poor crop yield. it is therefore, necessary to restrict their use. however, considering recent concept of integrated nutrient management system, which has currently a special significance in crop production to address the sustainability problem and is being practiced in several crops. integration of biofertilizers and organic manures reduce the consumption of inorganic fertilizers and increase the quality and quantity of flower. efficacy of the inorganic fertilizers was increased when they are combined with organic manures. application of farmyard manure (fym) increased the population of micro-flora mainly azotobacter (gupta et al, 1999). the j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 134-137, 2009 effect of integrated nutrient management on growth, flowering behaviour and yield of african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) cv. african giant double orange dhiraj kumar1, b.p. singh and viveka nand singh2 department of horticulture n.d. university of agriculture and technology narendra nagar (kumarganj), faizabad-224 229, india e-mail: dhiru1sri@gmail.com abstract a field experiment was carried out to study the effect of integrated nutrient management on growth, flowering behaviour and yield of marigold (tagetes erecta l.) at the main experiment station, narendra deva university of agriculture and technology, narendra nagar (kumarganj), faizabad, during 2004 and 2005 in randomized block design. there were thirteen treatments involving two biofertilizers, viz., azotobacter and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria (psb) and two levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, viz., (50% and 100%), farm yard manure (fym) and control (recommended dose of npk., i.e., 200:100:100 kg/ha). one month old seedlings were transplanted at a spacing of 40 x 30 cm. results revealed that combined application of azotobacter and psb with fym and 50% recommended dose of nitrogen and phosphorus significantly improved growth, flowering behavior and yield during both years (2004 and 2005). application of azotobacter + psb + fym @ 30 ha-1 + nitrogen @ 100 ha-1 and phosphorus @ 50 kg/ha was found to be best for growth, flowering behaviour and yield of cv. african giant double orange. key words: integrated nutrient management, biofertilizers, tagetes erecta l. 1present address: c.a. section, indian school of mines university, dhanbad826004, jharkhand , india 2department of vegetable science, nduat, faizabad, india combined application of azotobacter and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria along with 75% nitrogen was found to be most effective in increasing the flower yield of marigold (gupta et al., 1999). keeping in view the above facts, this experiment was carried out to study the effect of integrated nutrient management on growth, flowering behaviour and yield of marigold cv. african giant double orange in relation to reduced dose of nitrogen and phosphorus. material and methods an experiment was conducted during summer season of 2004 and 2005 at main experiment station (horticulture), narendra deva university of agriculture and technology, narendra nagar (kumargang), faizabad in randomized block design. there were 13 treatments involving two biofertilizers viz., azotobacter and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria (psb) and two levels of nitrogen and phosphorus viz., 50% and100%; farm yard manure (fym) alone and in combination and control (recommended dose of npk). the treatments were recommended dose of npk 135 @ 200:100:100 kg/ha (t 1 ), psb @ 2 kg/ha (t 2 ), azotobacter @ 2 kg/ha (t 3 ), psb + azotobacter (t 4 ), fym @ 30 t/ha (t 5 ), psb + 50% p + 100% n and k (t 6 ), psb + 50% p + 100% n and k + fym (t 7 ), azotobacter + 50% n + 100% p and k (t 8 ), azotobacter + 50% n + 100% p and k + fym (t 9 ), psb + azotobacter + 50% n and p + 100% k (t 10 ), psb + azotobacter + 50% n and p + 100% k + fym (t 11 ), psb + azotobacter + 100% npk + fym (t 12 ) and psb + azotobacter + 100% npk (t 13 ). azotobacter @ 2 kg/ha was applied through seedlings root treatments for few minutes before transplanting while psb @ 2 kg/ha was applied through soil treatment at the time of transplanting. the data recorded on various parameters of growth, flowering behaviour, yield attributes and flower yield were subjected to statistical analysis (panse and sukhatme, 1989). results and discussion growth parameters all the growth parameters were influenced significantly due to various treatments of integrated nutrient management during both experimental years. the data recorded ( table 1a and 1b) on plant height at bud initiation stage revealed that maximum values (99.30 and 102.23 cm) were observed with the application of psb + azotobacter + full npk + fym (t 12 ) and it was found to be significantly superior over all other treatments followed by t 11 treatment during 2004 and 2005. however, maximum values regarding other growth parameters like stem diameter (2.91 and 3.23 cm), plant spread (3420.03 and 3502.52 cm), number of primary branches plant-1 (13.59 and 15.69), number of leaves plant-1 (180.13 and 184.11) and leaf area (189.89 and 194.54 cm2) were recorded with the application of psb + azotobacter + full k + fym + half n and p (t 11 ). results clearly showed that the combined application of psb, azotobacter and fym along with half nitrogen and phosphorus proved to be beneficial for robust growth of plant as compared to other treatments. this might be due to nitrogen and phosphorus fertilization in combination of bioinoculants (azotobacter and psb) and fym proved to be beneficial to fix the atmospheric nitrogen and solubilize fixed phosphorus in soil and it also secrete growth substances like auxins, which stimulated the plant metabolic activities and photosynthetic efficacy leading better growth and development of plant. above results are in conformity with the findings of kulkarni (1990) in aster, chandrikapure et al, (1999) in marigold and kumar et al. (2003) in aster. flowering parameters data presented in table 1a and 1b, on flowering parameters showed significant response to different treatments of integrated nutrient management. with respect to days taken for bud initiation, first flower opening and flowering span, the application of psb + azotobacter + 50% n and p + full k + fym (t 11 ) recorded minimum number of days for bud initiation (48.20 and 45.12 days) and first flower opening (9.30 and 11.65 days) and marked increase in flowering span of marigold (41.39 and 45.79 table 1a. effect of inm on plant growth and flowering behaviour of african marigold cv. african giant double orange treatment plant height stem diameter plant spread number of number of leaves leaf area days taken to (cm) (cm) (cm) main branches per plant (cm2) bud initiation per plant 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 t 1 69.09 70.23 1.55 1.87 1705.81 1705.83 7.89 9.99 147.89 151.47 156.64 161.29 52.60 57.56 t 2 65.87 69.45 1.58 1.90 1795.23 1800.57 6.24 8.34 145.34 149.32 125.03 134.41 50.50 53.26 t 3 67.97 72.23 1.77 2.09 1815.34 1820.68 7.83 9.93 161.34 165.25 132.15 142.56 52.30 51.23 t 4 68.46 73.23 1.70 2.02 1905.05 1879.56 7.19 9.29 160.16 164.14 129.75 152.56 51.70 53.00 t 5 75.04 80.56 1.80 2.12 2005.17 2023.32 8.74 10.84 140.56 144.54 139.10 143.75 49.70 51.45 t 6 70.56 75.43 1.72 2.04 1997.02 2004.36 6.25 8.36 145.08 149.06 131.40 136.05 50.09 49.12 t 7 71.55 77.12 1.67 1.99 2110.91 2116.25 8.14 10.24 158.95 162.93 145.16 149.81 51.40 52.42 t 8 72.45 77.23 1.79 2.11 2223.14 2356.23 8.10 10.20 169.89 173.87 150.31 154.96 51.72 56.23 t 9 76.46 81.87 2.41 2.73 2800.56 2754.98 9.13 11.23 172.86 176.04 158.64 163.29 51.80 55.79 t 1 0 78.56 83.56 1.89 2.21 2010.39 2065.13 10.27 12.37 171.77 175.68 184.74 189.39 49.60 45.65 t 1 1 88.47 90.54 2.91 3.23 3420.03 3502.52 13.59 15.69 180.13 184.11 189.89 194.54 48.20 45.12 t 1 2 99.30 102.23 2.61 2.93 3210.27 3323.56 8.23 10.33 169.24 173.22 173.06 177.71 49.23 49.06 t 1 3 80.30 85.46 2.52 2.84 2870.23 2956.54 7.27 9.53 153.54 157.52 165.71 170.36 51.50 55.45 sem± 2.59 2.70 0.07 0.08 107.99 73.80 0.32 0.33 3.89 5.9 5.60 4.77 0.69 1.69 cd (p=0.05) 7.55 7.89 0.21 0.24 315.21 215.44 0.93 0.96 11.37 17.23 16.36 13.92 2.02 4.92 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 134-137, 2009 integrated nutrient management in african marigold 136 days) and it was significantly superior over application of npk alone, fym and biofertilizers during both the years. this might be due to early completion of vegetative growth and changing of vegetative primordia to reproductive primordia, probably due to the secretion growth promoting substances like auxins, gibberellins, vitamins and organic acids (rossaria and basera, 1975), which promoted faster vegetative growth and ultimately induced early flower bud initiation and prolonged flowering span. similar observations have been recorded by chandrikapure et al. (1999) and gupta et al (1999) in marigold. yield and yield parameters it is evident from table 2 that the integration of organic manures and biofertilizers with inorganic fertilizers showed significant response towards yield attributes and yield of african marigold. the flower stalk length (10.34 cm in 2004 and 12.46 in 2005), flower diameter (7.10 cm in 2004 and 8.54 cm in 2005), fresh weight of flower (8.18 g in 2004 and 8.33 g in 2005) and number of flowers per plant (28.93 in 2004 and 29.44 in 2005) were highest under treatment t 11 followed by t 12 , whereas minimum values with respect to above mentioned parameters were recorded in t 1 , t 2 and t 3 treatments. the significant increase in these parameters might be due to high nitrogen and phosphorus assimilation from fym and 50% nitrogen and phosphorus in association with more nitrogen fixing and phosphorus solubilizing proficiency and secretion of hormones by the cultures. these findings corroborate with that of yadav et al (2000) in marigold and shashidara and gopinath (2002) in calendula. inoculation with combined culture of azotobacter and psb along with fym and various doses of nitrogen and phosphorus exhibited yield and shelf life of flower as compared to application of inorganic fertilizers, organic manures and biofertilizers alone during 2004 and 2005. among all treatments, application of azotobacter + psb + fym +50% n and p + full k (t 11 ) recorded maximum flower yield per hectare (196.66 and 212.72 q/ha) and shelf life (7.12 and 7.69 days), followed by azotobacter + psb + fym + full npk and further it was significantly superior over all the treatments during both the years. the effect of combined application of azotobacter + psb culture in association with nitrogen and phosphorus with or without fym was observed to be better than the application of culture inoculation alone/combination. this increase in yield might be due to active and rapid multiplication of bacteria especially in rhizospher creating favorable condition for nitrogen fixation and phosphorus solubilization at higher rate through nitrogen supply by nitrogenous fertilizers and supply of other nutrients, bacterial secretion, hormone production and supply of antibacterial and antifungal compounds, which were favourable for growth and ultimately increased yield. the flower yield increase in combination treatments of azotobacter + psb + fym + 50% nitrogen and phosphorus + full potassium might be due to robust growth and maximum increase in flowering span, flower diameter and flower number. similar observations have been reported by kumar et al (2003) in aster, gupta et al (1999), chandrikapure et al (1999) and syamal et al (2006) in marigold. table 2. effect of inm on yield attributes and yield of african marigold cv. african giant double orange treatment flower stalk flower diameter fresh weight of number of flower yield shelf life length (cm) (cm) flower (g) flowers per (q/ha) (days) plant 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 t 1 7.17 11.41 4.58 6.16 5.55 5.70 19.83 22.02 91.63 104.60 3.65 4.22 t 2 6.17 8.20 4.60 6.63 5.88 6.00 16.33 18.03 79.95 90.49 6.20 6.77 t 3 7.87 9.99 5.09 6.65 5.62 5.92 19.85 21.28 92.98 104.86 5.43 6.00 t 4 6.47 8.59 5.40 6.95 6.37 6.28 18.95 21.61 100.49 112.98 3.89 4.46 t 5 7.77 9.89 5.45 7.09 6.77 6.96 20.22 20.65 114.24 119.58 4.89 5.46 t 6 8.12 8.29 5.49 7.16 7.23 6.95 20.43 22.14 132.50 127.26 4.23 4.80 t 7 7.29 9.41 5.52 7.49 6.56 6.54 24.85 25.94 135.96 143.28 5.42 5.99 t 8 6.74 8.86 6.13 7.66 7.24 6.93 20.32 21.92 130.81 126.63 6.96 7.53 t 9 7.24 9.36 6.15 7.77 8.09 7.60 21.43 24.14 144.60 153.99 5.98 6.55 t 1 0 9.27 11.39 6.41 7.80 7.72 7.57 22.99 23.09 138.63 145.90 6.00 6.57 t 1 1 10.34 12.46 7.10 8.54 8.18 8.33 28.93 29.44 196.66 212.72 7.12 7.69 t 1 2 9.28 10.40 6.88 7.93 7.77 7.71 27.60 28.77 166.40 184.95 6.90 7.47 t 1 3 8.14 10.24 6.68 7.88 7.03 6.55 20.57 21.44 120.58 120.57 5.23 5.80 sem± 0.22 0.31 0.53 0.35 0.19 0.43 0.77 0.88 5.74 8.75 0.23 0.16 cd (p=0.05) 0.65 0.91 1.57 1.03 0.56 1.23 2.25 2.57 16.78 25.55 0.67 0.47 dhiraj kumar et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 134-137, 2009 137 maximum gross income (rs.1,57,328 and 1,70,176), net income (rs.1,14,241.29 and rs.1,23,760.10) and cost:benefit ratio (2.66 and 2.67) was achieved with the application of azotobacter + psb + fym + 50% n and p + full k (t 11 ), while maximum cost of cultivation (rs.45,450.71 and 48,995.25) was observed with the application of psb + azotobacter + 100% npk + fym (t 12 ) (table 3). it is also worth mentioning that inoculation of biofertilizers along with farmyard manure and 50% nitrogen and phosphorus help in achieving significant flower yield as compared to all the combinations of biofertilizers, organic manure and inorganic fertilizers. thus, reducing the 50% dose of nitrogen and phosphorus by the integration of biofertilizers (azotobacter and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria) and organic manure (farmyard manure) is advantageous. references chandrikapure, k.r., sadavarte, k.t.; panchabhai, d.m. and shelke, b.d. 1999. effect of bioinoculants and graded doses of nitrogen on growth and flower yield of marigold. orissa j. hort., 27: 31-34 gupta, n.s., sadavarte, k.t., mahorkar, v.k., jadhao, b.j. and dorak. s.v. 1999. effect of graded levels of nitrogen and bioinoculants on growth and yield of marigold. j. soils and crops, 9:80-83 kulkarni, r.g. 1990. studies on effect of azotobacter and azospirillum alone and in combination under graded levels of nitrogen on growth and yield aster. m.sc. thesis submitted to m.p.k.v., rahuri kumar, p., raghava, s.p.s. and misra, r.l. 2003. effect of biofertilizers on growth and yield of china aster. j. orn. hort., 6:85-88 panse, v.g. and sukhatme, p.v. 1989. statistical methods for agricultural workers 5th ed., icar, new delhi rossaria, a. and basera, j.m. 1975. synthesis of auxin, gibberellins and cytokinins by azotobacter vinelandi and azotobacter beijrnokii related to effects produced on tomato plants. plant and soil, 19:304314 shashidhara, g.r. and gopinath, g. 2002. effect of nutrients and bioinoculants in calendula. in: floriculture research trends in india. published by indian society of ornamental horticulture. icar, new delhi. pp. 206-208 syamal, m.m.; dixit, s.k. and kumar, s. 2006. effect of bi-inoculants on growth and yield in marigold. j. orn. hort., 9:304-305 yadav, p. k., singh, s., dhindwal, a.s. and yadav, m.k. 2000. effect of nitrogen and fym application on floral characters and yield of african marigold. haryana j. hort. sci., 29:69-71 table 3. economics of flower production through integrated nutrient management treatment flower yield gross income cost of cultivation net income b:c ratio (q/ha) (rs./ha) (rs./ha) (rs./ha) 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 2004 2005 t 1 91.63 104.60 73304.00 83680.00 38494.71 40356.25 34809.29 43323.75 0.90 1.07 t 2 79.95 90.49 63960.00 72392.00 32762.00 34251.00 31198.00 38141.00 0.95 1.11 t 3 92.98 104.86 74384.00 83888.00 32762.00 34251.00 41622 .00 49637.00 1.27 1.45 t 4 100.49 112.98 80392.00 90384.00 32874.00 34363.00 47518.00 56021.00 1.45 1.63 t 5 114.24 119.58 91392.00 95664.00 39382.00 42554.00 52010.00 53110.00 1.32 1.25 t 6 132.50 127.26 106000.00 101808.00 37379.48 39200.30 68620.52 62607.70 1.84 1.60 t 7 135.96 143.28 108768.00 114624.00 44111.48 47615.30 64656.52 67008.70 1.47 1.41 t 8 130.81 126.63 104648.00 101304.00 37369.94 39156.85 67278.06 62147.15 1.80 1.59 t 9 144.60 153.99 115680.00 123192.00 44101.94 47571.85 71578.06 75620.15 1.62 1.59 t 1 0 138.63 145.90 110904.00 116720.00 36254.71 38000.90 74649.29 78719.10 2.06 2.07 t 1 1 196.66 212.72 157328.00 170176.00 42986.71 46415.90 114241.29 123760.10 2.66 2.67 t 1 2 166.40 184.95 133120.00 147960.00 45450.71 48995.25 87669.29 98964.75 1.93 2.02 t 1 3 120.58 120.57 96464.00 96456.00 38718.71 40580.25 57745.29 55875.75 1.49 1.38 (ms received 29 november 2008, revised 12 august 2009) integrated nutrient management in african marigold j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (2): 134-137, 2009 introduction the turmeric of commerce is dried rhizome of curcuma longa l. (syn. curcuma domestica val.) belonging to the family zingiberaceae and traces its origin to tropical rain forests of south east asia. turmeric, the indian saffron, is mainly valued for its colouring constituent, ‘curcumin’, which is indispensable in food industry, confectionery, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics (zachariah and babu, 1992). in recognition of the importance of turmeric, emphasis on evolving new varieties with high yield and quality has been in the forefront of research. germplasm characterization is an important link between conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources. for any breeding programme, genetic diversity is raw material to the breeder since genetic variation determines the potential for selection and is useful in resolving phylogenetic relationships. however, existence of multiple local names and lack of authentic identity of materials have narrowed genetic resource base. conventional taxonomic techniques in conjunction with molecular biology tools may help resolve taxonomic confusion prevailing in the genus. though a few studies on morphological and anatomical characterization of curcuma species have been attempted, not much has been multivariate based marker analysis in turmeric (curcuma longa l.) k. r. vijayalatha and n. chezhiyan horticultural college and research institute tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore –641003, india. e-mail: viji_k_r@yahoo.com abstract genetic diversity of 30 accessions of turmeric was assessed at the molecular level and compared to morphological traits for degree of divergence. the pattern of clustering of quantitative data based on d2, k means and upgma revealed discrepancy among them. the cluster profile, based on quantitative data and rapd markers exhibited considerable levels of congruence between them. accessions studied for degree of divergence by rapd profiles revealed 68.50% polymorphism for 21 primers. the highest number of fragments (10) was obtained with primer opg 19 while opc 18 was completely monomorphic. primers opb 08, opc 20, ope 09 and opg 19 detected a high level of polymorphism (> 90%). discrepancy observed at both morphological and molecular levels in the accessions emphasizes the need for specific morphological and molecular markers for discriminating these accessions. key words : genetic divergence, turmeric, marker, polymorphism, primer done on molecular characterization (sasikumar, 2005). recently, use of molecular markers has assumed great significance in germplasm characterization and assessment of genetic diversity. universal acceptance of pcrbased markers has accelerated the use of molecular markers, more specifically dna based markers, that are valid in assessing genetic diversity as these are genetically stable and detectable during all stages. hence, an effort was made to understand quantitative relationship and genetic relation using multivariate statistical tools and rapd markers. material and methods two hundred and twenty three accessions of turmeric drawn from different states of india are maintained in the germplasm pool at department of spices and plantation crops, horticultural college and research institute, tamil nadu agricultural university, coimbatore and were used as the experimental material. plant material : the number of accessions in the germplasm was too high to assess the divergence at a molecular level. the d2 statistic was found to be a useful tool in grouping the accessions phenotypically. therefore, all the 223 accessions were subjected to mahalonobis d2 statistic to cull out variable parameters. the accessions clustered into two groups, exhibiting a wide variability for eight parameters of j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 107-111, 2008 108 j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 107-111, 2008 importance, among the 22 quantitative traits evaluated. further d2 statistic was performed based on eight parameters, to group the accessions into five clusters. thirty accessions were selected to represent each cluster, based on growth and yield performance. the accessions were raised in randomized block design and replicated twice. biometrical observations were recorded on five randomly tagged plants. details of accessions are furnished in table 1. dna extraction molecular profiling of selected accessions was done using rapd marker. dna from all the 30 accessions was extracted using the protocol described by mccouch et al (1988) from leaves frozen at –20°c. rapd analysis genomic dna from 30 accessions was amplified using a set of 20 arbitrary oligonucleotide decamer primers (operon technologies, alameda, calif., usa) (table 1). amplification reactions were in volumes of 20 ml containing 10 mm tris hcl (ph 8.3), 50 mm kcl, 1.5 mm mgcl 2 , 0.001 per cent gelatin, dntps each at 0.1 mm, 0.2 mm primer, 25-30 ng of genomic dna and 0.5 unit of taq dna polymerase (bangalore genei pvt. ltd., bangalore). amplifications were performed in 0.2 ml thin-walled pcr tubes in a ptc 100 thermal cycler (mj research inc.) programmed for 35 cycles. after initial denaturation for 2 min at 92°c, each cycle consisted of 1 min at 92°c, 1 min at 36°c and 2 min at 72°c. these 35 cycles were followed by 7 min. final extension at 72°c. pcr amplified products (15 ml) were subjected to electrophoresis in 1.5% agarose gel in 1 x tbe buffer at 120 v for 3.5 h using apelex electrophoresis unit. statistical analysis amplified dna fragments detected upon electrophoretic separation in each genotype were scored for presence (1) or absence (0) of clear and unambiguous bands. a data matrix comprising ‘1’ and ‘0’ was formed and this data matrix was subjected to further analysis. two different sets of data gathered (quantitative and rapd marker) were subjected to cluster analysis. the binary data generated from rapd marker data set was subjected to sequential agglomerative hierarchical non-overlapping (sahn) clustering. upgma (unweighted pair group method with arithmetic average) dendrogram was constructed based on jaccard’s similarity coefficient matrix. the quantitative data were also subjected to cluster analysis using d2 statistic (mahalonobis, 1936) and k means (sneath and sokal, 1973) based on euclidean distance and upgma method based on squared euclidean distance. results and discussion the d2 statistic identified eight variable parameters and clustered them into five groups. thirty accessions were selected from the five clusters (table 1). on ranking the characters, relative contribution of yield (65.65%), followed by girth of secondary rhizomes (10.46%), weight of primary and secondary rhizomes (8.57% and 7.77% respectively) and days to maturity (6.63%) were the highest contributors to total divergence, while plant height, number of leaves and number of tillers contributed the least to divergence. hence, seventeen accessions of cluster 1, ten accessions of cluster 5 and single genotype from cluster 2, 3 and 4 were shortlisted as the experimental material and were compared at the morphological and molecular level (table 2). table 1. accessions selected by d2 statistic s. no. accession number accession 1 2 bs 2 2 15 bs 16 3 22 bs -23 4 47 bs 48 5 52 bs 53 6 75 bs 76 7 88 bs 89 8 89 bs 90 9 114 bs 115 10 120 kanthi 11 121 shoba 12 122 vk 5 13 130 sudarshana 14 131 suguna 15 132 suvarna 16 133 roma 17 134 kalimpong 18 146 alleppey 19 148 pts 12 20 151 prabha 21 152 prathibha 22 156 pts 2 23 169 erode local 24 175 erode local 25 184 erode local 26 189 co 1 27 194 jts 2 28 195 rajendrasonia 29 198 pts 55 30 209 erode local vijayalatha and chezhiyan 109 multivariate analysis the accessions were subjected to different statistical tools : d2 statistic, k means and upgma, based on 22 quantitative traits. using d2 statistic the accessions were grouped into five clusters based on d2 statistic for 22 quantitative traits. the clustering pattern revealed that except for bs 2 and bs 76, accessions from bhavanisagar clustered together. among accessions from erode, er 169 was found to be distinct. accessions having the same geographical origin, viz., sudarshana and suguna from andhra pradesh, vk 5, prabha and prathibha from kerala, clustered together, while, pts 55 was distinct among the accessions from orissa (table 3). using k means a cluster tree was constructed with 22 quantitative traits using k means clustering, based on euclidean distance. the k means grouped the accessions into five clusters (table 3). the pattern of clustering revealed that the accessions from bhavanisagar clustered together, except for bs 76, bs 89 and bs 115. among the accessions from erode, er 209 and er 175 clustered together, while, er 184 clustered with co 1. accessions from the same geographical origin, sudarshana and suguna, vk 5, prabha and shoba were similar, while, prathibha and suvarna were distinct from other kerala accessions. among accessions from orissa, pts 2 was distinct from the others and clustered with bhavanisagar genoytpes. the genotype rajendrasonia was distinct from rest of the accessions. using upgma a dendrogram was constructed with 22 quantitative traits using upgma, on the basis of squared euclidean distance of standardized data. the pattern of clustering indicated two distinct groups among accessions. all the accessions, except kalimpong, formed a single cluster. the remaining 29 accessions formed two subgroups, one with 17 accessions and the other with 12 accessions. table 3. cluster composition of turmeric genotypes based on d2 and k means cluster analysis cluster no. cluster members based on d2 statistic cluster members based on k means 1 bs 2, bs 76, kalimpong bs 2, bs 16, bs 23, bs 53, bs 89, bs 90, prathibha, pts 2, jts 2, er 209 2 co1, jts 2 bs 76, shoba, vk 5, prabha, er 175, er 184, co1, salem local 3 bs 16, bs 23, bs 53, bs 89, bs 90, bs 115, sudarshana, suguna, rajendrasonia kanthi, shoba, roma, salem local 4 vk 5, sudarshana, suguna, suvarna, alleppey, bs 115, kanthi, allepey pts 12, prabha, prathibha, pts 2, er 169 5 er 175, er 184, rajendrasonia, pts 55, er 209 suvarna, roma, kalimpong, pts 12, er 169, pts 55 table 2. cluster mean values of eight characters for turmeric accessions cluster / character 1 2 3 4 5 % contribution number of accessions 143 2 2 2 74 plant height (cm) 37.36 34.07 32.61 32.46 34.06 0.08 number of leaves 15.03 12.04 11.38 11.75 12.84 0.22 number of tillers 3.68 1.67 1.75 1.71 1.74 0.60 days to maturity 248.71 233.25 242.75 251.50 235.38 0.63 weight of primary rhizomes (cm) 100.89 92.50 127.08 87.09 106.51 8.57 weight of secondary rhizomes (cm) 67.44 71.67 75.00 61.25 71.38 7.77 girth of secondary rhizomes (cm) 5.11 4.42 4.46 4.21 4.19 10.46 yield (kg/plot) 3.77 2.96 2.78 2.70 3.65 65.65 fig 1. dendrogram of thirty accessions using upgma based on squared euclidean distances molecular markers in turmeric j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 107-111, 2008 110 accessions from bhavanisagar and erode locations exhibited similarity except for bs 90 and er 209, which were distinct. among the accessions, bs 76 and bs 115 from bhavanisagar and pts 12 and pts 55 from orissa, exhibited higher level of homogenity between them. accessions sudarshana and suguna from andhra pradesh, and, prabha and prathibha from kerala were very distinct though these were from the same geographical area (fig 1). however, accessions from diverse geographical origin like pts 2 and roma (orissa), and, vk 5 and suvarna (kerala) got clustered together with accessions from bhavanisagar (tamil nadu). rapd polymorphism rapd profiles for the thirty accessions were generated to make genetic diversity analysis. of the seventydecamer primers used for rapd analysis, 21 primers yielded scorable, unambiguous markers while 14 primers failed to amplify. pcr amplification of template dna produced a total of 89 markers of which 61 markers were found to be polymorphic (68.5%) and the rest were monomorphic (table 4). the number of markers produced per primer varied from two (opb 11, opb 14, opc 01, opc 16, opc 18, ope 03 and ope 04) to ten (opg 19). a higher number of polymorphic markers (10) were obtained with primer opg 19 while primer opc 18 produced monomorphic markers. based on the level of polymorphism detected by individual primers, four primers (opb 08, opc 20, ope 09 and opg 19) revealed over 90% polymorphism (table 5). cluster analysis was performed based on jaccard’s similarity coefficient and a dendrogram was constructed (fig 2) involving all the accessions. the dendrogram based on rapd profiles reflected considerable level of genetic considering the geographical distribution. accessions were classified into two major groups. the first group was further sub-grouped into three (1a, 1b, 1c) clusters. this group consisted of accessions from bhavanisagar, viz., bs 16, bs 23, bs 53, bs 89, bs 90 and bs 115, with higher level of similarity among those from the same geographical origin (shamina et al, 1198). other accessions grouped along with accessions of bhavanisagar include pts 12, prabha, roma, jts 2 and rajendrasonia. accessions er 175 and er 184 were grouped with co1. some accessions having the same geographical origin and higher level of similarity (based on quantitative data) were found in different clusters. accessions prabha, table 4. level of polymorphic loci detected by rapd analysis number of primers 21 total number of markers produced 89 range of markers 2 – 10 average number of markers 4 number of monomorphic markers 27 number of polymorphic markers 61 per cent polymorphism 68.50 fig 2. dendrogram of thirty accessions using upgma based on jaccard similarity coefficient for rapd markers table 5. details of random primers used for rapd analysis random 5 ’ to 3’ gc total polypolyprimer sequence content markers morphic morphism (%) markers ( % ) opb 08 gtccacacgg 70 4 4 100.00 opb 09 tgggggactc 70 7 6 85.71 opb 11 gtagacccgt 80 2 1 50.00 opb 14 tcggctctgg 70 2 1 50.00 opb 15 ggagggtgtt 60 5 3 60.00 opc 01 ttcgagccag 70 2 1 50.00 opc 16 cacactccag 60 2 1 50.00 opc 18 tgagtgggtg 60 2 0 0.00 opc 20 acttcgccac 60 3 3 100.00 ope 03 ccagatgcac 60 2 1 50.00 ope 09 cttcacccga 60 4 4 100.00 opf 03 cctgatcacc 60 5 3 60.00 opf 04 ggtgatcagg 60 2 1 50.00 opf 09 ccaagcttcc 60 9 8 88.89 opf 13 ggctgcagaa 60 9 5 55.55 opg 10 agggccgtct 70 6 2 33.33 opg 13 ctctccgcca 70 3 1 33.33 opg 14 ggatgagacc 60x 3 2 66.67 opg 17 acgaccgaca 60 4 3 75.00 opg 19 gtcagggcaa 60 10 9 90.00 opg 20 tctccctcag 60 3 2 66.67 total 89 61 68.50 average marker / primer 4.23 2.90 vijayalatha and chezhiyan j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 107-111, 2008 111 pathibha, vk 5 and kanthi from kerala were found to be in different clusters. however, accessions of diverse geographical origin such as pts 12 (orissa), prabha (kerala), suvarna (andhra pradesh) and vk 5 (also from kerala) formed separate clusters. genetic diversity assessed using 22 quantitative traits among the 30 accessions was consistent with not all the methods used. the accessions exhibited considerable level of congruence between them. the probable reason could be variation inherent in the nature of algorithms involved. the inconsistency may be due to efficiency of the algorithm to eliminate bias in the quantitative data, which is invariably under the influence of environment. discrepancy among the three tools studied shows that morphological traits alone are not sufficient for discriminating the accessions, as, turmeric lacks defined morphological descriptors, coupled with cultivar-specific characters. this meager morphological diversity exhibited among accessions may be due to their related pedigree, which make discrimination of accessions rather cumbersome. this also reinforces the belief that accessions collected from the same geographical area do not have any impact on genetic diversity. in comparing clustering pattern of quantitative traits with rapd markers, genetic dissimilarity was noticed. however, clustering of bhavanisagar accessions showed that sudarshana and suguna, er 175 and er 184 were similar both at the morphological and molecular level. credibility of genetic diversity analysis involving 22 quantitative traits and 89 rapd markers could not be established beyond doubt, since; pedigree details of the accessions involved were not available. though the accessions are known for their geographical origin, the latter could not be used as a criterion to establish relationship between accessions, since, accessions from the same geographical origin had clustered separately. molecular profiling of curcuma accessions had some similarity with morphological characterization, though, there were incongruities of the accessions of unidentical morphology falling in the same group, or vice versa (syamkumar and sasikumar, 2007). although rapd markers are widely used for genetic analysis, the inherent problems in the rapd technique do not make these markers a reliable system for reproduction of results. however, the technical simplicity and high throughput of this technique (williams et al, 1990) helps to engage rapd markers for large-scale survey. marker systems such as ssr may help establish differences among accessions with greater accuracy compared to rapd markers. further, use of molecular markers should be combined with reliable morphological descriptors of qualitative nature and pedigree details of the genotype, to strengthen the diversity analysis and, in turn, aid germplasm management. acknowledgement the authors thank dr. m. maheswaran, associate professor, cpmb, tnau, coimbatore, for extending facilities to carry out the research and mr. r. venkatachalam, assistant professor (hort), for interpretation of results. references mahalonobis, p.c. 1936. on the generalise distance in statistics. proc. natl. instt. sci., 2:49-55 mccouch, s.r., kochert, g. yu, z.h. wang z.y., khush, g.s.. coffman w.r and tanksley. s.d. 1988. molecular mapping of rice chromosomes. theor. appl. genet., 76:815-829 sasikumar, b. 2005. genetic resources of curcuma: diversity, characterization and utilization. plant gen. res. c&u 3: 230-251 shamina, a., zachariah, t.j., sasikumar, b and george, j.k. 1998. biochemical variation in turmeric (curcuma longa l.) accessions based on isozyme polymorhism. j. hortl. sci. and biotech., 73:479-483 sneath, p.h.a. and sokal, r.r. 1973. principles of numerical taxonomy. san francisco, w.h. freeman syamkumar, s and sasikumar. b. 2007. molecular marker based genetic diversity analysis of curcuma species from india. sci. horti., 112:235-241 williams, j.g.k., kubelik, a.r., livek, k.j., rafalski, j and tingey. s.v. 1990. dna polymorphisms amplified by arbitary primers are useful as genetic markers. nucl. acid res., 18:6531-6535 zachariah, t.j. and babu. k.n. 1992. effect of storage of fresh turmeric, oleoresin and curcumin content. j. spices and aromatic crops, 1:55-58 (ms received 15 october 2007, revised 16 june 2008) molecular markers in turmeric j. hortl. sci. vol. 3 (2): 107-111, 2008 final sph -jhs coverpage 17-1 jan 2022 single 25 j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction ridge gourd (luffa acutangular (roxb.)l.) is an important cucurbitaceous vegetable crop grown in tropical and subtropical countries, especially in asia and india (jansen et al., 1993). it is a crop grown for immature fruit rich in dietary fibre and minerals (sheshadri, 1990). in addition to culinary properties, it ha s numer ous medicina l pr oper ties which traditionally used for the treatment of stomach ailments and fever (burkill, 1985; chakravarty,1990). though cultivars of ridge gourd are monoecious, diverse sex forms were reported viz., androecious, gynoecious, gynomonoecious, andromonoecious and hermaphrodite types (choudhary and thakur, 1965). the female flowers are solitary whereas male flowers are in racemes. principally 2 genes are involved in production of various sex forms (richaria, 1948). male sterility is of practical importance in vegetable breeding as it facilitates f1 hybrid seed production without hand pollination. male sterility in ridge gourd was first reported from india by deshpande et al. (1979) and then by pradeepkumar et al. (2007). male sterility is governed by single recessive nuclear gene in water melon (hexun et al., 1998; ping et al., 2010); musk melon (dhatt and gill, 2000; park et al., 2009), cucumber (zhang et al., 1994) and for the first time, cytoplasmic male sterility (cms) with two dominant restorer genes has been reported in ridge gourd by pradeepkumar et al. (2012). at icar-iihr, bengaluru also male sterile mutants were identified in ridge gourd germplasm (varalakshmi and deepak, 2017). present study was conducted to characterize that male sterility observed, to work out the genetics of its inheritance and to develop male sterile and maintainer lines in different genetic backgrounds of ridge gourd. materials and methods the work was undertaken in the experimental field of division of vegetable crops, icar-iihr, bengaluru. initially two male sterile mutant plants viz.,iihrrg12ms and iihrrg-28ms in different genetic backgrounds have been identified during kharif, 201516 and ma inta ined in the division ever since. morphological characters of these male sterile mutants were recorded viz., days for emergence of first fertile male flower, days for emergence of ûrst female flower, node at which first fertile male flower appeared, node at which first female flower appeared, male bud length characterization, inheritance of male sterility and development of male sterile and maintainer lines in ridge gourd (luffa acutangula (roxb.) l.) varalakshmi b.1* and rajasekharan p.e.2 1division of vegetable crops, 2division of flower and medicinal crops, icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka * corresponding author email : varalakshmi.b@icar.gov.in abstract two male sterile mutants iihrrg-12ms (long fruited) and iihrrg-28ms (medium long fruited) were identified from the ridge gourd germplasm iihr-12 and iihr-28 respectively at icar-iihr, bengaluru. these two male-sterile (ms) sources were characterized by the production of rudimentary male flowers in the racemes in contrast to the bright yellow flowers with fertile pollen and healthy anthers in male fertile, monoecious plants. using these ms lines the inheritance of male sterility was worked out, which is cytoplasmic genic male sterility (cgms) type, with single dominant gene either in homozygous or heterozygous condition restoring male fertility in the presence of sterile cytoplasm. in order to develop f1 hybrids using male sterility, several male sterile and maintainer lines were developed in different genetic back grounds such as green/dark green fruit colour and short/medium long/long fruit length. keywords: cgms, gene action, inheritance, maintainer lines, male sterility and ridge gourd 26 varalakshmi and rajasekharan j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 and pollen fertility (%). pollen fertility percentage was assessed from ten randomly selected male ûower buds in each line at anthesis on the basis of stainability in acetocarmine and the counts were taken from ten fields under microscope for each flower bud. well filled, uniformly and darkly stained pollen grains were consider ed a s fer tile a nd the r est a s ster ile. simultaneously, these ms plants were crossed with 22 monoecious lines viz.,iihr-1, iihr-7, iihr-10-2, iihr-11, iihr-12, iihr-17-2-1-6, iihr -19, iihr23, iihr-26, iihr-27, iihr-29, iihr-31, iihr-34, iihr-35, iihr-39, iihr-40, iihr-41, iihr-43, iihr-46, iihr-47, iihr-49 and iihr-72-2 to study the inheritance of male sterility and fertility restoration in ridge gourd during kharif season of 2015-16. all the 22 f1 hybrids and parental lines were grown with recommended package of practices during rabisummer season of 2016-17. observations pertaining to male and female fertility were recorded from 15 plants in each line/hybrid. among the 22 hybrids, 10 fer tile hybr ids (iihrrg-28ms x iihr-10-2, iihrrg-28ms × iihr-72-2, iihrrg-12ms × iihr -17-2-1-6, iihrrg-12ms x iihr-1, iihrrg-12ms x iihr-12, iihrrg-12ms x iihr-40, iihrrg12msx iihr-41, iihrrg-12ms x iihr-43, iihrrg-12ms x iihr-47 and iihrrg-12ms x iihr-49) were selfed to generate f2 population as well as back crossed with respective male parent to produce bc1 generation. five hybrids were male sterile viz.,iihrrg-12msxiihr-19, iihrrg-12msxiihr27, iihrrg-12msxiihr-31, iihrrg-12msx iihr34 and iihrrg-12msxiihr-39. remaining seven hybrids were not uniform with respect to fertility (iihrrg-12msxiihr-7, iihrrg-12msxiihr-11, iihrrg-12msxiihr-23, iihrrg-12msxiihr-26, iihrrg-12msxiihr-29, iihrrg-12msxiihr-35 a nd iihrrg-12msxiihr-46) a nd wer e not considered further in the study. f2 population (200 plants), bc1 generation (50 plants) were raised during the kharif season, 2017-18 and evaluated for male sterility and restoration of fertility. chi-square (χ2) goodness-of-fit analysis (russell, 1996) was conducted for segregation of male fertility and sterility in f2 populations of two crosses viz., iihrrg-12msx iihr17-2-1-6 and iihrrg-28msx iihr-72-2. in order to transfer the male sterility in to different genetic backgrounds, crosses were made between male sterile lines and ten different advanced breeding lines with different genetic backgrounds to convert them into ms lines as well as maintainer lines viz., iihr-62(long, green), iihr-5-1-2 (medium long, green), iihr-37-4-1, iihr-23-5-4, iihr-34-2-2, iihr-49-31, iihr-22-4-2, iihr-26-4-2, iihr-70-1 and iihr11-1-2. ma le ster ile pr ogeny wa s r epea tedly backcrossed with the male parents (maintainer lines) for six generations to develop the male sterile (a line) and maintainer lines (b line). results and discussion characterization of male sterility in ridge gourd male sterility is defined as failure of plant to produce the functional anthers, pollen or male gametes. at icar-iihr, two male sterile mutants were identified in iihrrg-12 (long fruited) and iihrrg-28 (medium long fruited) germplasm lines. these two ms sources viz., iihrrg-12ms and iihrrg-28ms wer e characterized by the production of rudimentary male flowers in the racemes in contrast to the bright yellow flowers with fertile pollen and healthy anthers in male fer tile, monoecious pla nts (fig.1 a nd fig. 2). rudimentary male buds remained unopened and fell down 12–16 days after the emergence. similar fig. 1. characterization of male sterility in ridge gourd rudimentary male flowers fertile male flowers sterile and fertile pollen 27 male sterile and maintainer lines in ridge gourd characteristics of the male sterile line were reported by pradeepkumar et al. (2010) in ridge gourd. expression of male sterility and restoration of fertility in f1 hybrids hybrids have expressed different fertility status, viz., complete sterile, complete fertile and some hybrids with both fertile and sterile plants. if male sterility was controlled by dominant gene, which was a rare phenomenon in cucurbits, all the hybrids should have expressed complete sterility in f1 generation, then as all the individuals carrying ms allele are sterile and do not produce progenies as pollen parents. if it is controlled by recessive nuclear gene as in musk melon (park et al., 2009), water melon (ping et al., 2010), squash (carle, 1997) and cucumber (zhang et al., 1994), then f1 should have segregated into 1:1 fertile a nd ster ile pla nts ba sed on the homozygosity/ heterozygosity of the locus controlling the sterility. but here in this case, male sterility expression of f1 hybrids indicates the role of cms genes. cms is maternally inher ited a nd is a ssocia ted with a specific (mitochondrial) gene whose expression impairs the production of viable pollen without otherwise affecting the plant (kempken and pring, 1999; budar and pelletier, 2001). premature degeneration of the tapetum at the early to mid uni-nucleate microspore stage leads to the development of non-viable pollen (roberts et al., 1995). general theory about the phenotype of cms plants which usually appear normal, vigorous, and undistinguishable from the fertile analogue (hanson and conde, 1985) proved true in the present study also. there are nuclear genes that can restore fertility, termed nuclear restorer (rf) or fertility restorer (fr) genes, which are specific for each studied cms system (popova et al., 2007). the restorer of fertility (rf) genes in the nucleus function to suppress the cms phenotype and restore the male fertility. dominant nuclear fertility restorer gene in ‘iihr-1, iihr-10-2, iihr-12, iihr -17-2-1-6, iihr-40, iihr-41, iihr43, iihr-47, iihr-49, iihr-72-2’ out of 22 genotypes is responsible for regaining male fertility of hybrids with ms mutant line. all these ten lines could be possible restorer lines. seven other cr osses (iihrrg-12msxiihr-7, iihrrg-12msxiihr-11, iihrrg-12msxiihr-23, iihrrg-12msxiihr-26, iihrrg-12msxiihr-29, iihrrg-12msxiihr-35 and iihrrg-12msxiihr46) had both male sterile and male fertile plants in different ratios indicating that the fertility restorer genes might be in heterozygous condition in these inbred lines which can be used to develop either maintainer lines or restorer lines a fter progeny evaluation and back crossing. five hybrids viz.,iihrrg-12msxiihr-19, iihrrg12msxiihr-27,iihrrg-12msxiihr-31, iihrrg12msxiihr-34 and iihrrg-12msxiihr-39 were male sterile indicating the maintenance of sterility and these advanced breeding lines could be possible maintainer lines. though the five male pa rents exhibited high pollen fertility (52-83%), they failed to transmit this character to f1 hybrids indicating the cytoplasmic inheritance of male sterility in ridge gourd. the average bud length of male buds of male sterile hybrids at full development stage was found to be 0.6±0.01cm which was significantly different from the average bud length of male fertile parents (1.7± 0.05cm) (supplementary data table s1). these rudimentary male buds in racemes of male sterile hybrids remained unopened and fell down 12–16 days a fter the emergence. t he a nther lobes wer e undeveloped and pollen grains were small, shrunken and poorly stained in these hybrids throughout the crop growth indicating a stable sterility mechanism. male fer tile hybr ids ha d high mea n pollen fer tility (47±6.57%) throughout the crop growth. in the male sterile hybrids node for the first female flower was earlier (9.6th node) compared to the male fertile hybrids (10.2nd node) and also the days taken for the emergence of first female flower is less in male fig. 2. male flower production in monoecious line (left) and absence of male flowers in male sterile line (right) j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 28 sterile hybrids (41.2 days) compared to male fertile hybrids (43.4days) (supplementary data table s2). similarly mean female bud length was more (94.8 cm) in male sterile hybrids than male fertile hybrids (4.6cm) and also the fruit length was more in sterile hybrids (24.8cm) than in fertile hybrids (20.2cm) analysis of f2 population from the crosses, iihrrg-12msxiihr-17-2-1-6 and iihrrg 28msx iihr-72-2 for male sterility and restoration of fertility: out of the 239 f2 plants of the cross iihrrg-12ms x iihr-17-2-1-6, 182 were male fertile and 57 were male sterile till the end of the season. there were observable differences between the male sterile and male fertile plants with respect to male flower production though female flowers in both types were similar. node for the first fertile male flower ranged from 2-14th node with the mean of 4.92 and the days taken for the first male flower ranged from 29-51 days with a mean of 42.08 days. average male flower bud length was less in male sterile plants (0.61cm) compa red to the male fer tile pla nts (1.89 cm) (supplementary data able s3). mean pollen fertility of these male fertile plants was 24.95% as against zero fertility of male sterile plants. with respect to female flower traits, there were slight differences between male sterile and male fertile plants. node for first female flower was earlier in sterile plants (9.4) compared to male fertile plants (10.18), similarly even the number of days taken for first female flower appearance was less in male sterile plants (43.3 days) compared to male fertile plants (45.99). however, the average female flower bud length and fruit length were almost same in both male sterile and male fertile plants. in another f2 population of the cross, iihrrg-28msx iihr-72-2, out of 235 f2 plants, 175 were male fertile and 60 were male sterile. in this cross also there were differences between male sterile as well as male fertile plants with respect to male flower production. node for the first fertile male flower ranged from 2-8th node with the mean of 4.21 and the days taken for the first male flower ranged from 39-55 days with a mean of 42.84 days. average male flower bud length was less in male sterile plants (0.63cm) compared to the male fertile plants (1.85 cm). mean pollen fertility of these male fertile plants was 7.56% as against zero fertility of male sterile plants. with respect to female flower traits, there were slight differences between male sterile and male fertile plants. node for first female flower was earlier in sterile plants (8.52) compared to male fertile plants (9.82), similarly even the number of days taken for first female flower appearance was less in male sterile plants (42.8 days) compared to male fertile pla nts (44. 38)(supplementar y data ta ble s3). however, the average female flower bud length and fruit length were almost same in both male sterile and male fertile plants. all the f1 plants of these two ms x mf crosses and their corresponding back cross populations were male fertile. as the f2 population segregated into two classes in both the crosses, monohybrid ratio, 3:1 was tested for significance using chi-square test. the chi-square value for the 3:1 (fertile: sterile) single dominant gene action exhibited a good fit to the expected ratio (8090% probability) (table 1 and 2). the f 2 data indicated the presence of cytoplasmic genic male sterility (cgms) in ridge gourd with single dominant gene restoring male fertility in the presence of sterile cytoplasm. however, pradeepkumar et al. (2012) earlier reported that two dominant fertility restorer genes are responsible for restoration of fertility in the presence of sterile cytoplasm in ridge gourd using arka sumeet variety as restorer line. this could be due to different genetic makeup of different male sterile and restorer lines used in these studies. assuming that ms line is having genotype, rf1rf1 and sterile cytoplasm (s) and male parent, iihr17-2-1-6/iihr-72-2 possesses a genotype rf1rf1 carrying a fertility restorer gene in homozygous dominant state and normal fertile cytoplasm (n), f1 will be male fertile as the genotype of f 1 is srf1rf1. though f1 is inheriting a sterile cytoplasm from ma le sterile female pa rent, pr esence of a dominant fertility restorer gene, viz., rf1 restores the fertility of f1 (table 3). in f2 presence of single domina nt f e r t ilit y r es t or er gen e in eit her homozygous or heterozygous condition ensures ma le fer tility. the gene action governing ma le sterility can be explained with the following model. evaluation of back crosses made between fertile hybrids with restorers during summer three male fertile hybrids were back crossed with restorer lines and all these back cross progenies were male fertile indicating the restoration of male fertility in these lines (restorer lines) (table 4). varalakshmi and rajasekharan j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 29 cross genotype f2’s (3:1)   fertile sterile (iihrrg-12msxiihr-17-2-1-6) expected 179 60 f2 population   observed 182 57   difference 3 -3   chi square value 0.169   probability 50-70% f2’s (3:1)   fertile sterile (iihrrg-28msxiihr-72-2) expected 176 59 f2 population   observed 175 60   difference -1 1   chi square value 0.035   probability 80-90% table 2. chi-square test for f2 population segregating for male sterility and male fertility in ridge gourd cross f1’s back cross f2’s fertile sterile fertile sterile fertile sterile (iihrrg-12msxiihr-17-2-1-6) 15 0 44 0 182 57 (iihrrg-28msxiihr-72-2) 15 0 37 0 175 60 table 1. segregation of male sterile and male fertile plants in f1, back cross and f2 generation of the crosses, iihrrg-28msx iihr-72-2 and iihrrg-12msxiihr-17-2-1-6 male sterile and maintainer lines in ridge gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 parents male sterile line male fertile line iihrrg-12ms/ iihr-17-2-1-6/ iihrrg-28ms iihr-72-2 s(rfrf) n(rfrf ) gametes s(rf) n(rf) f1 male fertile s(rfrf) gametes rf, rf eggs/pollen rf rf rf srfrf male fertile srfrfmale fertile rf srfrf male fertile srfrfmale sterile table 3. proposed genetic model for single dominant gene action in ridge gourd bc1 generation of the cross (iihrrg-28ms × iihr-72-2) x iihr-72-2 exhibited increased male fertility compared to f1 (iihrrg-28ms × iihr72-2). all three bc1­populations  took  little more days to male flower production (45-46) and wide var iation was obser ved a mong the ba ck cr oss populations with respect to the node for the first female flower appearance (4-26th node) and days taken for the emergence of first female flower (3465 days) (table 5). bc populations exhibited pollen fertility in the range of 40-78%. wide variation was observed for average female bud length (4-6 cm) and fruit length (20-25cm) among the three back cross populations. 30 table 4. evaluation of back crosses made between fertile hybrids and fertility restorers male flower characters male fertile back cross node at first days for the average pollen fertile male emergence of male bud fertility flower first fertile male length % flower range mean range mean range mean range mean (iihrrg-28ms × iihr-10-2) × 2-7 4 39-48 42 1.0-2.6 1.85 19-63 40 iihr-10-2 (iihrrg-28ms × iihr-72-2) × 3-12 5 37-45 42 1.1-2.6 1.91 47-100 74 iihr-72-2 (iihrrg-12ms × iihr 3-16 5 40-48 43 1.0-2.6 1.80 19-88 58 17-2-1-6) × iihr -17-2-1-6 mean   1.0   0.8   0.1   16.8 sem±   0.6   0.5   0.0   9.7 varalakshmi and rajasekharan development of ms lines (a lines) and maintainer lines (b lines) in different genetic back grounds the identified cytoplasmic male sterility (cms trait) has been transferred to different genetic backgrounds, by crossing ten different advanced breeding lines with different genetic backgrounds viz., iihr-6-2 (long, green), iihr-5-1-2 (medium long, green), iihr-374-1 (short, green) iihr-23-5-4 (medium, green), iihr34-2-2, iihr-49-3-1(medium, green), iihr-22-4-2, iihr-26-4-2, iihr-70-1 (long, dark green) and iihr11-1-2 with male ster ile line (iihrrg-28ms/ iihrrg-12ms maintained through sib mating with maintainer line, iihrrg-28/iihrrg-12) to convert table 5. evaluation of back crosses made between fertile hybrids and fertility restorers female flower characters male fertile back cross node at first days for the average average fertile emergence of female bud fruit length flower first female length (cm) flower (cm) range mean range mean range mean range mean (iihrrg-28ms x iihr-10-2) × 4-25 12.1 34-62 46 5-7.5 6 16.5-30 25 iihr-10-2 (iihrrg-28ms × iihr-72-2) x 5-15 9.5 34-62 45 5-7.5 6 12.5-30 20 iihr-72-2 (iihrrg-12ms × iihr -17-2-1-6) 4-26 24.0 34-65 45 4-5.5 4 12-28 20 × iihr -17-2-1-6 mean   15.2   45.1   5.7   21.8 sem±   4.5   0.3   0.6   1.7 them into ms lines. all these f1 populations were male sterile due to cytoplasmic inheritance of male sterility in the identified source. these f1’s were repeatedly back crossed with their respective male parents/ maintainer lines for six generations continuously. the back cross population plants which were having similar fruit attributes of maintainer lines in each generation were selected and back crossed with the maintainer line. in each generation the back cross populations were checked for maintenance of sterility and found that all were maintaining sterility in 100% population. thus, by bc6 generation, all these ten populations viz.,iihr-6-2ms, iihr-5-1-2ms, iihr37-4-1ms, iihr-23-5-4ms, iihr-34-2-2ms, iihrj. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 31 49-3-1ms, iihr-22-4-2ms, iihr-26-4-2ms, iihr70-1ms and iihr-11-1-2ms were perfectly male sterile resembling the respective maintainer lines morphologically in different genetic back grounds such as green, dark green, long, medium long, short fruit back grounds (fig. 3). thus, these ten maintainer lines iihr-6-2, iihr-5-1-2, iihr-37-4-1, iihr-235-4, iihr-34-2-2, iihr-49-3-1, iihr-22-4-2, iihr-26-4-2, iihr-70-1 and iihr-11-1-2 proved to possess fertility restorer gene (rf) in homozygous recessive condition making them as ideal maintainer lines (pradeepkumar et al., 2018). these 10 sets of male sterile (a lines) as well as maintainer lines (b lines) in different genetic backgrounds (fig 3) are now ready for the development of hybrids using fertility restorer lines (c lines). this study confirms the presence of cgms system in ridge gourd paving way for commercial hybrid seed production in this crop as reported by pradeepkumar et al., (2018), who for the first time developed cgms system in ridge gourd by developing ms la 101 and la 101, male s ter ile ( a line) a nd ma int a iner line (b line) respectively. acknowledgement the a uthors wish to acknowledge the fina ncial support provided by icar, new delhi by granting a ‘flagship program-application of male sterility systems to increase the efficiency of f 1 hybrids in horticultural crops: onion, ca rr ot, chilli, r idge gourd, okra and marigold’ and expresses gratitude to the lea der of the pr oject, late dr. r. veer e gowda for his constant encouragement. male sterile and maintainer lines in ridge gourd fig. 3. fruits of male sterile and maintainer lines in different genetic backgrounds (long/medium/short fruit length and dark green/green fruit color) in ridge gourd iihr-49-3-1(medium, green) iihr-6-2 (long, green)iihr-70-1 (long, dark green) iihr-37-4-1 (short, green) j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 32 references budar, f. and pelletier, g. 2001. male sterility in plants: occurrence, determinism, significance and use. life sci. 324: 543–550. burkill, h.m. 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(eds.), nayaprakash publishers, calcutta, pp. 91–164. varalakshmi, b and deepak, g.c. 2017. identification of male sterility, its inheritance and fertility restoration in ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (roxb. ) l. ]. abstr a cts of inter na tiona l symposium on horticulture : priorities and emerging tr ends, 5-8th september, 2017, bengaluru, india.pp.182. ping, z.y., l. he, x.h., bin and peng, g.s. 2010. mrna differential display between the male s t er ile b u ds a nd ma le f er t il e b u ds in watermelon male sterile g17abline. j. fruit sci. 27: 1037-1041. zhang, q., gabert, a.c. and baggett, j.r. 1994. char acterizing a cucumber pollen sterile mutant: inheritance, allelism, and response to chemical and environmental factors. j. am. soc. hort. sci. 119: 804-807. male sterile and maintainer lines in ridge gourd j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(1) : 25-33, 2022 (received: 24.06.2021 ; revised: 11.112021; accepted: 22.12.2021 ) 00 a final sph -jhs coverpage first 2 pages.pdf 00 content and in this issue.pdf 01 mohan kumar g n.pdf 02 meera pandey.pdf 03 biradar c.pdf 04 varalakshmi b.pdf 05 vijayakumari n.pdf 06 barik s.pdf 07 sajid m b.pdf 08 ranga d.pdf 09 usha s.pdf 10 manisha.pdf 11 amulya r n.pdf 12 akshatha h j.pdf 13 adak t.pdf 14 sujatha s.pdf 15 gowda p p.pdf 16 subba s.pdf 17 dhayalan v.pdf 19 ahmed s.pdf 20 vishwakarma p k.pdf 21 deep lata.pdf 22 udaykumar k p.pdf 23 nayaka v s k.pdf 24 sahel n a.pdf 25 bayogan e r v.pdf 26 rathinakumari a c.pdf 27 yella swami c.pdf 28 saidulu y.pdf 29 sindhu s.pdf 30 neeraj.pdf 31 sivaranjani r.pdf 32 rashied tetteh.pdf 34 sangeetha g.pdf 35 shareefa m.pdf 36 last pages.pdf j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. original research paper introduction india is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world and produces 260 million tons of food grains. despite this, india also faces huge postharvest losses accounting for lack of proper handling practices and storage infrastructures. these postharvest losses incurred due to inadequacies in storage and logistics account for rs. 92,651 crores ($13 billion) per year. according to the committee on doubling farmers’ income, the proportions of produce that farmers are unable to sell in the market at the national level are 34 % a nd 44. 6 %, for vegeta bles a nd fr uits respectively and 40 % for fruits and vegetables together. this means, every year, farmers lose around rs 63,000 crore for not being able to sell their produce for which, they have already made investments. it is also reported that only 10-11% of fruits and vegetables cultivated in india can be saved using cold storage facilities due to the expenses involved and lack of suitable facilities. finance is another setback. to avert storage woes and lack of finance and liquidity; horticultural farmers are compelled to sell their produce immediately, within days of harvest, at any prevailing rate due to high perishability of horticultural crops. this covers distress sale and farmers do not realize the best price because of supply glut in the market. farmers producer company may reduce this loss through improved value chain management. in india, the producer company concept has arisen as a new generation farmer’s organization. fruits and vegetables are suitable sector which can provide 2-4 times higher income to farmers than cereals. near about 23 per cent of total registered fpcs are working exclusively in horticulture and assessing performance of horticultural farmers producer companies: comparative case study mukherjee a.1, kumar u.2, singh d.k.2, shubha k.2, atheequlla g.a.*3 sinha p.k.4 and singh p.1 1divn. of agrl extn, icar-indian agricultural research institute, new delhi 2icar-research comple for eastern region, patna 3icar-indian institute of horticultural research, bangalore 4icar-indian agricultural research institute, jharkahnd, india *corresponding author email : atheeq.agriextn@gmail.com abstract every year the horticultural sector of india faces huge quantity of food wastage due to lack of processing, value addition and post-harvest handling. farmers producer company (fpc) can mitigate the loss through ensuring better value chain management. there are several horticulture based fpcs established in different parts of india. they have grown very fast and competing with agro-industries. the present study aimed to assess the performance of fpcs working in horticulture sector. the study was conducted in maharashtra state of india by selecting three fpcs working in horticultural sector. performance of these fpcs was assessed through effectiveness index developed for this study. seven components viz. functional effectiveness, increase in income, increase in farmers share in consumers rupees, inclusiveness, sustainability of company, farmers satisfaction and empowerment were included in the index by following standard index forming protocol. sahyadri farms was found the best performing one among the selected fpcs, regarding effectiveness with a mean index score of 63.69 followed by vasundhara agro producer company limited (50.20) and junnar taluka fpc ltd. (41.29). keywords: effectiveness, farmers’ producer company (fpc), horticulture 521 assessing performance of horticultural farmers producer companies j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 many more are working in mixed approach i.e. combination of agricultural and horticultural crops as production options. fpcs can act as a potential driving force for agricultural and rural development. they are working as ‘engines’ of development that can uphold the pennon of rural development even ahead of local level, offering benefits to the rest of society (blokland and goue, 2007). in reality, fpcs have favorable position of scale economies applies to input purchases and accumulation, processing and marketing of the farmers produce in bulk. in both these cases, fpos can bargain better prices. through vertical and horizontal coordination as well as forward and backward linkage, fpcs work in value-addition processes which has not only enhanced their dealing power but also increased the share in consumers’ rupee. fpcs have minimized the risk of farmers through promoting crop and livestock insurances. it has diminished the cost of information seeking, connecting smallholders to more complex market situation and making farmers acquainted with the competitive business environment through capacity building and empowerment. t her e a r e sever a l hor ticultur e-based fpcs in maha r ashtra which ha ve grown very fast and competing with agro industries. the strategic and technological innovations in value chain, clear vision, strong planning and technical insight are the core factors which made the fpc a leader among all grapes exporting agencies. there is immense potential for fpcs to work similarly in the area of value-chain management, so that the huge amount of post-harvest losses can be saved and utilized for home consumption and exports. as the model is new, less studies have been carried out so far on assessing the performance of farmers producer companies in horticulture. therefore, the present study is aimed to assess the performance of fpcs working in horticulture sector. materials and methods study area: the study was conducted in maharashtra state of india. the state is one of the pioneer states in india where the growth of farmers producer companies is remarkably high. three successful companies working in vegetable, fruits and overall horticulture and processing industry were selected from the state through purposive sampling based on five specific criteria viz. i. the fpc has been working for more than 5 years successfully; ii. it has a sizeable membership (more than 2000 members), iii. turnover has been more than rs. 50 lakhs; iv. fpc has several reported success stories and v. it has a unique business model. the criteria based purposive sampling was useful to select an effective and functional companies wor king a t gr ound level. ba sed on tha t thr ee companies have been selected based on the growth. junna r ta luka fpc ltd. is a fpc in initia l development stage and working in mainly vegetable sector. vasundhara agro producer company limited was selected as a company working mainly in fruits and some vegetable crops at moderate stage of growth. sahyadri farms working both in fruits and vegetable was selected for the study as it has achieved a tremendous growth level. the data was collected from the members of their fpcs pune and nasik district of maharashtra. operationalization of performance in this r esea r ch, we ha ve oper a tiona lized the performance as how effectively the producer company carr ies out its functions. it is better related to organizational performance which indicates how successfully an organized group of people with a pa r ticula r pur pose per for m a function. in a n organization like farmers producer company, it is important to take care of farmers’ satisfaction, empowerment, increasing income of farmers, ensuring va lue cha in ma na gement, functional ea siness, inclusiveness etc. by combining a ll these, a n effectiveness index was prepared which is used in this study. research design and survey instrument in this study, an ex-post facto research design was used. a semi-structured interview schedule was prepared. the interview schedule consisted of eighteen different socio-personal and socio-economic variables of respondents and an index was formulated to measure the effectiveness of horticulture-based producer company. the effectiveness index included seven components (1) functioning efficiency, (2) increase in income, (3) increase in farmers share in consumers rupee (4) inclusiveness, (5) sustainability of fa r mer s pr oducer compa ny, (6) fa r mer s satisfaction and (7) empowerment the index was prepared based on the above-mentioned parameters and was calculated by the following equation. 522 mukherjee et al where, efpc = indicated the effectiveness of the particular company (1) fe = functioning effectiveness, (2) i = increase in income, (3) fsc= increase in farmers share in consumers’ rupee, (4) inc = inclusiveness, (5) s = sustainability of farmers producer com pany, (6 ) fs= farmers satisfaction and (7) e = empowerment wi is respective weight calculated based on analytical hierarchy process (ahp) of experts rating to the seven components based on saaty (2008) and mukherjee et al., (2018c). after consultation with the experts and reviewing a vast volume of literature, a rating scale was prepared for constructing the effectiveness index comprising the seven components. the effectiveness index was prepared following standard procedure. twenty experts working in the top management for promoting farmers organizations were consulted and review of related studies were considered for constructing the index. the effectiveness index comprised of the seven following components. (1) functional effectiveness: a functional efficiency index with 1-5 point scale was developed to evaluate the functioning of fpcs. ten most relevant dimensions were studied in this index measuring the functional effectiveness. summa tion of the scor es of 10 functioning variables used in the study yielded functioning score of a single respondent. the scores of members of a particular group were added together to get the functioning score of that fpcs. the index was calculated by dividing the actual score by the maximum possible score of functioning. a similar method was followed by abadi (2010). (2) increase in income: measurement of increase in income was calculated by outreaching the earlier income per year (i.e. before the intervention of the fpc) and the pr esent income per yea r of the agricultural produce (i.e. after the intervention of the fpc). (3) increase in farmers share in consumer rupee: this was calculated by outreaching the earlier farmers share (i.e. before the intervention of the fpc) and the present farmers share of the agricultural produce (i.e. after the intervention of the fpc). (4) inclusiveness: the component inclusiveness was added as dimension in effectiveness to study how inclusive the compa nies wer e in including the ba ckwa r d cla ss a nd poor est of the poor. t he inclusiveness was studied by an index developed for the study including the category of farmers, caste, gender and financial class. (5) sustainability of the company: sustainability of company is very much important. if a source of income is not sustained, it cannot provide livelihood security. the sustainability of fpc was measured by a schedule developed for the purpose. this included the growth trends of fixed and capital assets of company and most importantly the human resources were considered. (6) farmers satisfaction: the farmers satisfaction of the fpc services based on the selected dimensions was measured by an index developed for that purpose following the procedure given by edwards (1957). this index consisted of 15 statements with 1-5 point of scale to which the respondents were asked to give their responses. the responses were averaged to get respondents satisfaction. (7) empowerment: empowerment of farmers due to joining of fpc was measured by an index developed for the purpose following the procedure given by edward (1957). this index consisted of 14 statements covering all aspects of empowerment with 1-5 point of scale on which the respondents were asked to give their responses. t he r esponse of all seven components in this effectiveness index wer e nor ma lized by z transformation and then averaged. similar methods were also followed by mukherjee et al., (2011) and nikam, (2013). the weights for each component were assigned based on experts judgments using analytical hierarchy process (ahp) depicted in table 1 which indicates, the empowerment was weighted highest (eigen value = 0.26) followed by sustainability of producer company (eigen value = 0.20), members farmers satisfaction (eigen value = 0.17). increase in income and share in consumers rupee was weighted next eigen value 0.14 and 0.11 respectively. the consistency ratio of the ahp was 0.147 and consistency index 0.0991. the ci should be less than 0.1 which satisfies the result. the consistency index score indicated the consistency in judges’ ratings. j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 523 sampling and data collection focused group discussions (fgds) and series of key infor ma nt inter views wer e ca r r ied out to identify the aspects of effectiveness. additionally, previous effectiveness studies were also reviewed to pr epa r e the sur vey instr ument. t he sur vey instrument was sent to experts for their comments and possible modification and improvement were done based on their recommendations. for easy understanding of the farmers, the instrument was translated in hindi (common language) and a pilot test of 20 farmers was done to further clarify the questions. in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants to ensure the triangulation of data. proper care was taken to make the respondents comfortable and the unbiased recording of the data wa s ensured. t he data were collected from 50 randomly selected members of the company but due to incomplete response some interview schedules were rejected. finally, a sample of 34 respondents of va s undha r a agr o p r oduc er c ompa ny; 3 7 respondents from junnar taluka fpc ltd. and 38 respondents of sahyadri farms were considered for analysis. statistical analysis: comparison of socio-economic characteristics of farmers across the company were done through non parametric tests. for the statistical analysis, the data were analyzed using ms excel and spss 20 software. table 1 : effectiveness index weight scores for various components of fpcs functional income share in inclusivesustainasatisfacempowereigenattribute efficiency consume ness bility tion ment value rupee functional 1.0 0.33 0.40 0.50 0.29 0.31 0.25 0.05 efficiency increase 3 1.00 1.50 2.00 0.67 0.80 0.50 0.14 in income share in con2.5 0.67 1.00 1.50 0.50 0.57 0.40 0.11 sume rupee inclusiveness 2 0.50 0.67 1.00 0.40 0.44 0.33 0.08 sustainability 3.5 1.50 2.00 2.50 1.00 1.25 0.67 0.20 satisfaction 3.25 1.25 1.75 2.25 0.80 1.00 0.57 0.17 empowerment 4 2.00 2.50 3.00 1.50 1.75 1.00 0.26 note: cr=0.147; ci=0.0991 results and discussion profile of selected farmers producer companies: assessment of effectiveness of fpcs starts with compa r a tive pr ofile stu dy. it is impor t a nt to understand the structural and functional difference of selected fpcs for better comparison as a case. the compar ative profiles of selected fpcs are depicted in the table 2. vasundhara agri-horti producer company limited vasundhara agri-horti producer company limited (vapcol) is a pioneering organisation functioning for the remuneration of farmers’ family in tribal areas across various states of india. the company was established in july, 2004 with help of baif ( bha r a t iya agr o i ndu s t r ies f ou nda t ion) orga niza tion. pr esently ther e ar e 48 pr oducer groups consisting of 41,000 farmers from the state of maharashtra, gujarat, rajasthan, uttar pradesh, madhya pradesh, and chhattisgarh. the turnover of the company is estimated as rs 17 crores. junnar taluka farmers producer company ltd. junnar taluka farmers producer co. ltd (jtfpc), promoted by vegetable growers association of india with support of small farmers agribusiness consor tium (sfac), (ministr y of agricultur e, assessing performance of horticultural farmers producer companies j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 524 govt. of india), is a registered farmers producer compa ny under the companies act 1956. the company was established in the year 2009 is pune, maharashtra, with the hand holding of vegetable growers association of india. this company is involved in crop production, crop protection and explor ing ma r keting pla tfor m to the pr oducer members in ameliorating the economic status by value addition to their produce. the objectives of the company are collectivize the small vegetable growers, improve the standards of living through better use of improved technology of vegetable production, processing and marketing; minimize the environmenta l degra dation while ma int a ining s u s t a ina b le pr of it s a nd p r ovide consultancy in the field of horticulture especially for promotion of organic farming. table 2 : comparisons of the profiles of selected farmers producer company particulars of vasundhara agro junnar sahyadri selected producer producer company taluka farms companies limited fpc ltd. year of registration 2004 2013 2011 promoting baif veg. growers own organization association of india ownership model institutional individual individual followed no. of members 41000 farmers of 1600 1000 48 producer groups area of operation maharashtra; pune, maharashtra nasik, maharashtra gujarat; rajasthan; up; madhya pradesh; chhattisgarh turnover 17 5 500 (rs. crores)* products marketed cashew, all vegetables, all fruits and mango and amla pomegranate, vegetables value added products grapes market national and local and regional national and landscape international market markets international markets service marketing, supply of inputs, financial assistance, provided financial assistance, training of crop insurance, food managerial members, processing, marketing, support etc. value addition and production improvement, marketing etc. training etc. note : * approximate estimation sahyadri farms ‘sahyadri farms’ is working as a farmers producer company since 2011 in nasik, maharashtra. it is a 100 percent farmer ’s owned and professionally managed producer company. it is operationally sound with best use of production and processing tec hnology. toda y, the c ompa ny is a lea ding exporter of grapes in india, exporting ~14 percent of the total export of grapes to europe. there are more than 3000 farmers working day and night for the company. it is india’s leading fpc which is producing, ma r keting and expor ting of fr ozen vegeta ble, va lue a dded fr uit pr oducts, etc. to germany, usa, norway and many other countries. socio-economic profile of fpc members the socio economic profile of selected fpc members’ from all three fpcs was studied for comparison. the results are presented in the table 3. mukherjee et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 525 table 3 : socio-economic profile of members of different fpcs characteristics vapcol sahyadri farms junnar taluka (n=34) (n=37) (n=38) age a. young (18-35 years) 11 (32.4) 20 (54.05) 17 (44.7) b. middle aged (36-50 years) 6 (17.6) 9 (24.32) 16 (42.1) c. old (51-80 years) 17 (50.0) 8 (21.62) 5 (13.2) gender a. male 16 (47.1) 32(86.5) 37 (97.4) b. female 18 (52.9) 5 (13.5) 1 (2.6) education level a. middle schooling 18 (52.9) 8 (21.6) 21 (55.3) b. higher secondary 14(41.2) 16 (43.2) 13 (34.2) c. graduate 2 (5.9) 13 (35.1) 4 (10.5) family size a. nuclear (up to 5) 10 (29.4) 12 (32.4) 10 (26.3) b. joint family (6 and above) 24 (70.6) 25 (67.6) 28 (73.7) farm size a. up to 1 ha 34 (100.0) 24 (64.9) 25 (65.8) b. more than 1 ha 0 (0.0) 13 (35.1) 13 (34.2) social participation a. high 32 (94.1) 33 (89.2) 33 (86.8) b. low 2 (5.9) 4 (10.8) 5 (13.2) extension agency contact a. high 33 (97.1) 33 (89.2) 23 (60.5) b. low 1 (2.9) 4 (10.8) 15 (39.5) urban contact a. high 28 (82.4) 37 (100.0) 37 (100.0) b. low 6 (17.6) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) training experience a. never 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) b. once 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) c. two and more 34 (100.0) 37 (100.0) 38 (100.0) members of other group a. no 0 (0.0) 5 (13.5) 17 (44.7) b. yes 34 (100.0) 32 (86.5) 21 (55.3) progressiveness a. less 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) b. moderate 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) c. high 0 (0.0) 3 (8.10) 0 (0.0) d. very high 34 (100.0) 34 (91.90) 38 (100.0) assessing performance of horticultural farmers producer companies j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 526 the table 3 indicates that majority of the farmers were of young categories for sahyadri farms (54.05%) and junnar taluka fpc (44.70%). in case of vapcol majority of the members were found much older and experienced than others. there was no significant difference in age groups recorded. also, majority of the respondent members were male in both the cases of sahyadri farms and junnar taluka fpc, but in case of vapcol, majority (52.90%) were female. a similar case was also recorded for level of education and family size. majority of the vapcol farmers were small and marginal in nature having less than 1 hectare land holding. although, in case of sahyadri farms, it was found that 64.90 % of the farmers were marginal in nature where as 35.10 % had having land holding more than 1 hectare. in the vegetable based farmer producer company at junnar block 65.80 % of the farmers were marginal. social participation is an important parameter of socioeconomic status. the highest social participation was recorded for vapcol farmers (94.10 %) followed by sahyadri farms (89.20 %) and junnar taluka farmer producer company (86.60 %). similar case can also be seen in case of extension agency contact where, a majority of the vapcol fa rmers (97. 10 %) had high level of extension agency contact followed by sahyadri farms (89.20 %). for training experience it was found that all of the producer company members attended two and more trainings in their life time. majority of them were members of other groups like self-help groups, co-operatives etc. the number is highest in case of vapcol because, it is following institutional model where several cooperatives combine to form farmers producer company, so apart from the membership in fpos, the vapcol farmers were also associated in cooperatives. sahyadri farm was developed from self help groups, that is why 86.50 % of the farmers had membership in other groups but the case is different for junnar taluka where, individual farmers associated with each other to form the company so, only 55.30 % farmers were associated with other groups. in case of progressiveness and attitude, it was found that majority of the farmers in all the groups were progressive in nature and have positive attitude towards fpcs. the increase in annual income was found to be the highest in case of sahyadri farms, in which 64.90 % of the members where earning more than 3 lakh after joining sahyadri farms whereas 35.10 % earn between 2 to 3 lakh per year. the majority of the farmers of junnar taluka (57.90 %) were earning 2-3 lakh and 42.10 % of them has enhanced their income up to rs. 1 to 2 lakhs after joining the fpc. the vapcol is a association of very small farmers and it was found that the majority (88.20 %) had able to enhance income up to 1 lakh per annum after joining the company, while 11.8 % up to 1 to 2 lakh per annum. comparative effectiveness of selected farmers producer companies it is essentia l to a ssess the effective of fpcs wor king in the hor t ic ultu r e s ec tor. p r odu cer company wise mean score of the components of effectiveness is depicted in table 4. functional efficiency wise, all the companies scored more than 4. 5 out of 5, which is a quite high scor e. it indicated that the companies were well functioning. the highest score was obtained by sahyadri farms (4.55) as it has its own management tea m and qualified salaried staff. functional efficiency wise the companies are nearly at par with each other. attitude towards the fpc a. positive 34 (100.0) 36 (97.30) 38 (100.0) b. negative 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) c. neutral 0 (0.0) 1 (2.70) 0 (0.0) annual income a. 0-1 lakh 30 (88.2) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) b. 1-2 lakh 4 (11.8) 0 (0.0) 16 (42.1) c. 2-3 lakh 0 (0.0) 13 (35.1) 22 (57.9) d. more than 3 lakh 0 (0.0) 24 (64.9) 0 (0.0) note: figures in parentheses indicate percentage value mukherjee et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 527 0.81 and 0.69 respectively. satisfaction of member farmers was high for all the fpcs. the score obtained by the companies was in the range of 4.37 (junnar taluka fpc ltd.) to 4.49 (sahyadri farms). it indicates the farmers perceived level of satisfaction after joining producer company. empowerment is another important parameter for effectiveness. the companies which empowered the member better were vasundhara agro producer company limited (4.47) followed by junnar taluka fpc ltd. (4.44) and sahyadri farms (4.42). the overall mean score of farmers satisfaction were more than 4.4 out of the scale of 5. the effectiveness score of different farmers producer companies are depicted in table 5. the overall index score indicates that the sahyadri farms is the best among other regarding effectiveness with mean score 63. 69 followed by vasundha r a agr o pr oducer company ltd (50.20) and junnar taluka fpc ltd. (41.29). the reason behind this are that the companies are good in empowering their members, have a sustainable business venture, the members were highly satisfied with the performance of company and effective in enhancing farmers income. to study the whether the companies significantly differ in effectiveness, one way anova was conducted. the f value was 68.142 which were significant at 1 per cent level of significance. it is observed that the companies significantly differed from each other in effectiveness (table 6). table 4 : overall effectiveness of fpcs based on components mean score company functional increase increase in share in inclusivesustainasatisfacempowerefficiency in income consumer’s rupee ness bility tion ment (%) (%) vapcol 4.51 31.71 34.71 0.76 0.81 4.44 4.47 sahyadri 4.55 67.41 32.08 0.67 0.92 4.49 4.42 farms jtfpc 4.52 32.29 32.18 0.75 0.69 4.37 4.44 ltd. as per the data, the highest percentage increase in annual income of members farmers before joining the company was observed in sahyadri farms (67.41%). the results showed that farmer’s income had enhanced in a range of 32 to 67 per cent after joining farmers producer companies. farmers share in consumer ’s rupee was another component, which indicates level of value addition. it was found that farmers share in consumers rupee had increased 32-35 per cent more than earlier. it is mainly due to the value addition at producer company level. the highest increase was found for vapcol (34.71 %) which was due to well-established marketing channel by the company. beside this door to door picking and delivery to retail market and marketing efficiency has culminated the change. inclusiveness is another indicator used in this index to have a look on whether the companies are working with the poor and backward section of society or not. it was found all the fpcs were inclusive in nature. vapcol farms scored 0.76 out of 1 whereas junnar taluka fpc ltd. scored 0.75 whereas in case of the sahyadri farms the members are already working in grapes and a large number of the members were rich before joining the fpc which is reflected in the lesser inclusiveness score (0.67). sustainability of an organization is key factor in effectiveness. the big fpcs scor ed better in these pa r a meter s. in sustainability parameter, sahyadri farms, vapcol and junnar taluka fpc ltd. got the index score 0.92, table 5 : overall effectiveness of farmer producer company fpcs mean sd range minimum maximum vpcol 50.20 10.64 46.31 27.67 73.98 sahyadri farms 63.69 12.33 52.98 34.69 87.67 jtfpc ltd. 41.29 10.84 49.10 17.17 66.27 assessing performance of horticultural farmers producer companies j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 528 effectiveness of any farmers producer company depends on how better it is empowering farmers. how it is influencing the social, political, psychological and economic empowerment parameters of the rural community. farmers producer company provided a platform for farmers to join together, involve together and work with groups. this enhanced farmer ’s inter a ction with different progr essive fa rmer s (mukherjee et al., 2020). as per the experts rating, empowerment was weighted highest (0.26), the fpcs who ensured better empowering farmers through training and capacity building exercise in horticultural products gained major weightages. sustainability of income was another important parameter realized to be the important in effectiveness of fpcs. it depends upon sales growth, membership growth, successful ventures made, profit growth, market linkages and several others factors. farmer producer companies can play a more important role in sustainable agricultural intensification for smallholders, particularly by addressing the constraints like the size of landholding, access to credit, irrigation, and marketplaces (reddy et al., 2020). satisfaction of the producers are the next important index parameter which includes timeliness of inputs deliver y, qua lity ser vice, dividend distribution, income enhancement etc. conclusion in this study, an attempt was made to measure the performance of horticulture based farmers producer companies with a n effectiveness ha ving seven components namely, functioning efficiency, increase in income, increase in farmers share in consumers rupee inclusiveness, sustainability of farmers producer company, farmers satisfaction and empowerment. the component empowerment was weighted highest followed by sustainability of producer company members, farmers satisfaction and increase in income. sahyadri farms was the best among other regarding effectiveness with mean score 63.69 followed by and vasundhara agro producer company limited. (50.20) and junnar taluka fpc ltd. (41.29). the reason table 6 : effectiveness of fpcs (anova) category sum of squares df mean square f sig.(p) between groups 1.159 7 0.166 68.142 0.000 within groups .693 285 0.002 total 1.852 292 behind this may be that the companies are good in empowering their members, having a sustainable business venture, the members were highly satisfied with the performance of company and effective in enhancing farmers income. the three parameters, farmers empowerment, fpc sustainability and farmers satisfaction cumulatively contributing 63 % of index weights. to be effective, the horticultural fpcs need to focus on these three parameters most. acknowledgement the authors are thankful to iari for conceptual support and icar for funding support for the study. references abadi, t. g. 2010. impact of agricultural marketing coopera tive societies in empower ing and enhancing rural livelihood in india. ph.d. thesis. division of agricultural extension, indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. ala gh, y. k. 2007. on pr oducer compa nies. pradhan’s wor kshop on pr oducer compa nies. ava ila ble a t https:// www.pradan.net/images/news/prof_ykalagh.pdf accessed on 16 december 2021. blokland, k. and goue, c. 2007. farmers’ peer-topeer support path to economic development. in: ton, g., bijman, j. and oorthuizen, j. (eds), producer organizations and market chains. fa cilita ting tr a jector ies of cha nge in developing countr ies. wa geningen: wageningen academic publishers, pp. 71–88. edward, a.l.1957. techniques of attitude scale construction. vakils, feffer and simons inc, new york. edward, e.l; lloyd, s.j. 1973. expectancy theory and job behavior. organizat. behav. human per., 9(3): 482. mukherjee, a., bahal, r., burman, r.r., dubey, s.k., and jha, g.k. 2011. effectiveness of tata kisan mukherjee et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 529 sansar in technology advisory and delivery services in uttar pradesh. indian j. ext. educ., 11(3): 8-13. mukher jee, a. , monda l, t. , bisht, j. k. , a nd pattanayak, a. 2018c. farmers’ preference of fodder trees in mid hills of uttarakhand: a compr ehensive r a nking using a na lytica l hierarchy process. range mgmt. agrofor. 39(1): 115-120. mukherjee, a., singh, p., ray, m., satyapriya and bur ma n, r. r. 2018b. enhancing fa r mer s income through farmers’ producers companies in india: status and roadmap. indian j. agri. sci., 88(8): 1151-61. mukherjee, a., singh, p., satyapriya and burman, r.r. 2018a. road map and strategies for effective viable profit making farmer producer companies. icar news, janua ry-march, pp. 16-18. mukherjee, a., singh, p., maity, a., shubha, k., and burman, r. r. 2020. enhancing livelihood security of dairy farmers through farmers’ producer compa ny: a diagnostic study of bundelkhand region. range manag. agrofor., 41(1): 156-167. nikam, v.r., 2013. linking farmers to export market: a case of mahagrapes in india. ph.d. thesis. division of agricultural extension, indian agricultural research institute, new delhi. reddy, i. v., wakle, p. k., koshti, n. r. , and sonkamble, a. m. 2017. constraints and suggestions of the chilli farmers in bhiwapur pa ncha ytsa miti of na gpur distr ict. j. pharmacogn. phytochem., sp1: 625-628. reddy, v. r., chiranjeeivi, t., and syme, g. 2020. inclusive susta ina ble intensifica tion of agriculture in west bengal, india: policy and institutional approaches. int. j. agric. sustain., 18(1): 70-83. saaty, t.l. 2008. decision making with the analytic hierarchy process. int. j. ser. sci., 1: 83-98. singh, s. 2008. pr oducer companies a s new gener a tion cooper a tives. economic a nd political weekly pp. 22-24. mukherjee et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 17(2) : 520-529, 2022 (received : 16.10.2021; revised : 15.12.2022; accepted : 29.12.2022) introduction marigold, a member of the family asteraceae, is native to central and south america especially mexico (kaplan, 1960). the genus comprises thirty species of strongly scented annual and perennial herbs (anonymous, 1976). cultivated genera include tagetes erecta l., commonly referred to as african marigold. in addition, the genus is recognized as a source of natural colourant, essential oil and thiophenes. it is one of the most important looseflower crops grown commercially in many parts of the country. flowers of marigold are used in garland-making, wreaths, as religious offering, in hall decoration, etc. it is in great demand as loose flower throughout the year. carotenoids extracted from flowers are used commercially in pharmaceuticals, foods supplements, as animal feed additives and colourants in food and cosmetics. many workers have tried to improve marigold by breeding resulting effect of gamma irradiation on african marigold (tagetes erecta l.) cv. pusa narangi gainda viveka nand singh, b. k. banerji, a. k. dwivedi and a. k. verma floriculture section national botanical research institute rana pratap marg, lucknow-226 001, india e-mail: banerjibk@yahoo.co.in abstract seeds of african marigold cv. ‘pusa narangi gainda’ were irradiated with 0, 100, 200, 300 and 400 grays of gamma rays to induce mutation. seeds were sown just after irradiation and 30-day old seedlings were transplanted into beds. reduction in survival percentage, plant height, number of branches, leaf number, leaf size, plant-spread, stem diameter, increased foliage and floral abnormalities were observed upon irradiation and with increase in dose of gamma rays. ld 50 was determined on survival basis. leaf abnormality manifested itself as leathery texture of leaf, enhanced and irregular leaf thickness, asymmetric development of pinnate leaflets, reduction in pinnae number, chlorophyll variegation, pale and deep green leaves, narrow leaves and small leaves. percentage of abnormal leaves and plants increased with increase in dose of gamma rays. fasciation of stem was a common abnormality observed in all the treatments. days to bud initiation, earliness in colour-appearance and days to full bloom were all significantly delayed upon exposure to gamma rays. flower-head size, height and weight were highest at the lowest dose. number of ray florets and size (length and width) decreased with increasing radiation dose. floral abnormalities and % of plants with abnormal flower-heads increased with increasing dose of gamma irradiation. floral abnormality included fasciation of flower-head and asymmetric development of ray florets. stimulating effect of gamma irradiation was observed at 100 grays where almost all the characters studied showed positive correlation, including growth and yield attributes. it is concluded that exposure to 100 grays of gamma rays in african marigold cv. pusa narangi gainda results in higher yield and marketable bloom. key words: tagetes erecta, african marigold, pusa narangi gainda, gamma irradiation induced mutation in novel cultivars, but, very little work has been done on mutation breeding. several workers have examined effects of mutagens like gamma irradiation, ethyl methane sulphonate (ems) and nitrosomethyle urea (nmu) on marigold (heslot, 1968). chlorophyll-deficient effects have been noticed in coleoptile of tagetes erecta l. with gamma irradiation by zaharia (1991). since few attempts have been made to improve tagetes erecta l. (african marigold) cv. ‘pusa narangi gainda’, the present investigation was carried out using gamma irradiation as a tool to induce mutation. material and methods dry and healthy seeds of african marigold cv. pusa narangi gainda were irradiated with 0, 100, 200, 300 and 400 grays of gamma rays (60co). the experiment was conducted at floriculture section, national botanical research institute, lucknow, during the winter of 2007-08 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 36-40, 2009 37 to evaluate effects of gamma irradiation on quantitative traits. treated seeds were sown along with the control (unirradiated) immediately after irradiation in 30 cm earthen pots and irrigated with a fine spray of water. transplanting was done at thirty days from sowing. the experiment was conducted in a randomized block design with three replications spacd at 30 cm x 30 cm. in the m 1 population, observations were recorded on various quantitative traits viz., plant height and spread, number of branches/leaves per plant, leaf size, stem diameter, morphological abnormalities in foliage and flower, flowering behaviour (days to bud-initiation, colour appearance and full-bloom); flowerhead height, weight and size (length and width), number of ray and disc florets, size of ray florets, fresh and dry weight the flower-head, number of seeds per flower-head and per cent fertile and sterile seeds per flower-head. chlorophyll was estimated by the method of arnon (1949). results and discussion reduction in % plant survival, plant height, branch number, plant-spread, leaf number and size and stem diameter was observed at 100 grays exposure of gamma rays. maximum reduction in these traits was observed in the highest dose (400 grays). control plants exhibited hundred per cent survival, with normal growth (plate 1) and no morphological abnormalities either in leaf or in stem, during various stages of plant growth (right from seedling upto mature flowering stage) while, leaf and stem abnormalities were quite clear and visible during various stages of vegetative growth in the treated population. survival of plants was with increase in dose. highest mortality was recorded with 400 grays of gamma rays where only 68.5% of the plants survived. ld 50 on survival basis was determined above 400 grays of gamma rays. morphological abnormality in leaves manifested as asymmetrical leaf lamina, reduction in leaf size, narrow leaves, laminar fission, leathery texture, deep and pale green leaves and chlorophyll variegation of different grades (plates 2-4). no significant differences in chlorophyll a, b or total chlorophyll content were observed upon irradiation. this is in concurrence with findings of geetha (1992) who reported chlorophyll deficient effects of gamma irradiation on tagetes patula l. cetl (1985) examined the effect of various concentrations of nmu on tagetes erecta seeds and reported similar results for almost all the parameters studied (plant-height, stem diameter, flower-head size, flower-head height, time of flowering, branching habit, leaf size and flower-stalk length). stem abnormalities included fasciation and forking (plate 4). per cent leaf abnormalities and percentage of plants with morphological abnormalities increased with increas in dose of gamma rays. higher leaf abnormalities of 53.5% were observed with 400 grays, in which 82.8% of the population exhibited abnormal plant type (table 1). plant-spread significantly (p<0.001) declined upon irradiation and with increased dose of gamma rays. maximum reduction in plant-spread was observed with 400 grays exposure (table 1). growth rate was measured using two parameters, viz. plant height and development of new leaves at fortnightly intervals. at the end of the first fortnight, growth rate was identical in both untreated and treated plants (fig 1 & 2). in the second fortnight (30 days of growth), difference in plant growth was prominent and effect of gamma irradiation was quite clear. a sharp decline in plant-height and leaf-number was recorded here in the treated population in comparison fig 1. effect of gamma irradiation on plant height (cm) fig 2. effect of gamma irradiation on number of leaves per plant number of leaves per plant at different days from exposure treatment (gamma rays) grays plant height (cm) at different days from exposure treatment (gamma rays) grays effect of gamma rays on marigold j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 36-40, 2009 38 table 1. effect of gamma irradiation on vegetative characters of african marigold cv. pusa narangi gainda trait treatment with gamma ray (grays) 0 100 200 300 400 (control) vegetative parameters survival (%) 100.00 100.00 88.45 79.12 68.53 plant height (cm) ± se 62.09 64.43 48.04*** 45.65*** 40.32*** ±1.41 ±1.71 ±1.56 ±1.47 ±1.38 number of branches/plant ±se 5.45 6.00 4.80 4.33 3.77 ±0.52 ±0.31 ±0.36 ±0.30 ±0.66 n s plant-spread (cm) ±se 29.24 31.26 20.35*** 18.63*** 17.59*** ±0.81 ±0.77 ±0.81 ±0.57 ±0.75 e w plant-spread (cm) ±se 28.35 29.51 21.07*** 18.32*** 17.20*** ±0.87 ±0.79 ±0.84 ±0.61 ±0.64 number of leaves/plant ±se 59.90 63.40 45.27*** 36.70*** 30.90*** ±4.78 ±3.73 ±3.45 ±4.32 ±2.06 leaf length (cm) ± se 15.94 16.70 12.76*** 10.90*** 9.78*** ±0.27 ±0.25 ±0.14 ±0.27 ±0.27 leaf width (cm) ± se 6.94 7.04 5.81*** 5.30*** 4.52*** ±0.19 ±0.16 ±0.22 ±0.17 ±0.19 stem diameter (cm) ± se 0.63 0.67 0.50*** 0.42*** 0.38*** ±0.02 ±0.01 ±0.01 ±0.01 ±0.02 % leaf abnormalities ±se 0.00 9.37 28.12 31.03 53.57 % morphologically abnormal plants ±se 0.00 9.37 37.18 44.82 82.80 chlorophyll content (mg/g fresh weight) chlorophyll ‘a’ 0.035 0.034 0.044 0.036 0.034 chlorophyll ‘b’ 0.061 0.061 0.063 0.064 0.059 total chlorophyll 0.098 0.105 0.101 0.103 0.095 *=p < 0.05; †=p < 0.02; **= p < 0.01; ***= p < 0.001 to the control. plant-height and number of leaves per plant decreased with increasing dose of gamma rays at 200 grays. at the lowest dose of 100 grays, stimulation in plant-height and increase in number of leaves per plant was recorded. in the third fortnight (45 days of growth), plant-height and number of leaves per plant were quite similar to that in the second fortnight (fig 1 and 2). chlorophyll estimation was carried out in fresh leaves in both the control and irradiated plants using spectrophotometer (ultrospec 2000). no significant difference in chlorophylls a, b and total chlorophyll content was observed upon gamma irradiation and with increase in dose. however, a slight increase in chlorophyll `a’ content was observed with 200 grays exposure. bud-initiation was seen at 36 days from planting in the control population. it was significantly (p< 0.01) delayed with 200 grays exposure to gamma rays. the maximum delay of 6 days was observed in the highest dose i.e., 400 grays (table 1). first floral-bud colour expression was observed at 49 days from planting and was delayed with 200 grays exposure. significant (p< 0.01) delay in first floralbud colour expression of 9 days was observed (400 grays) exposure. full-bloom was noticed at two months from planting in the control population, which was significantly (p< 0.01) delayed with exposure to gamma rays at 100 grays. maximum delay of 8 days was observed in the highest dose of 400 grays. in general, flowering was delayed upon irradiation. banerji and datta (1991, 1993, 1995 and 2002) reported similar results in chrysanthemum. number of flower-heads per plant increased slightly at the lowest dose fig 3. effect of gamma irradiation on chlorophyll content cholorophyll content (mg/g fresh wt.) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 36-40, 2009 viveka nand singh et al 39 (100 grays), and, progressively decreased with increase in dose. maximum reduction in flower number, i.e., 50%, was observed at 400 grays. flower-head size decreased with increase in gamma ray dose and was significant (p< 0.01) at 200 grays. flowerhead weight was not overly affected with irradiation. however, number of ray florets per head increased at 100 grays exposure. here, an increase of 19 ray florets per head was recorded. but, at 200 grays exposure, a sharp decline in ray-floret number was observed (25 ray florets fewer per head). both reduction and increase in ray-floret number was observed with differential irradiation. number of ray-florets per head increased at 200 grays (table 2). length and width of ray floret significantly (p< 0.01) declined at 200 grays. fresh and dry weight of flower was found to increase at 100 grays, and, a decreasing trend was observed at 2900 grays. number of seeds per head was higher at irradiation upto 300 grays and decreased significantly (p< 0.01) at 400 grays exposure. number of fertile seeds significantly (p< 0.01) increased at 100 grays, fell sharp thereafter. in the control flower-head, 32% seed sterility was observed, while, it declined at 100 grays and increased again to double that of the control at 400 grays exposure. plant survival, height, leaf-size, number of branches and leaves, and flower-head size declined upon gamma irradiation. reduction was significant mostly at higher doses. different types of morphological abnormalities in leaves (changes in shape, size, margin, apex and fission of leaves) and flower-head (shape and size of flower-head, asymmetric development of floret, fasciation of flower-head) were recorded with irradiation (plate 5-7). frequency of leaf and floral abnormalities and per cent plants with morphological abnormalities increased with increase in dose. flowering behaviour was also affected upon irradiation. table 2. effect of gamma irradiation on flowering behaviour and flower yield attributes of african marigold cv. pusa narangi gainda trait treatment with gamma ray (grays) 0 100 200 300 400 (control) flowering behaviour days to bud initiation ±se 36.32 36.22 40.46** 39.89** 42.43*** ±0.96 ±0.77 ±0.78 ±0.88 ±0.98 days to first-colour ± se 49.17 48.90 54.24*** 56.06*** 58.52*** ±0.92 ±0.77 ±0.87 ±0.99 ±1.08 days to full-bloom ± se 61.40 60.36 66.56*** 65.78*** 69.03*** ±0.97 ±0.36 ±0.49 ±0.64 ±0.83 number of flower heads/plant ±se 7.67 9.14* 5.67*** 4.77*** 3.39*** ±0.44 ±0.49 ±0.36 ±0.29 ±0.19 flower-head size (cm) ± se 7.04 7.64 6.60** 6.52*** 5.66*** ±0.16 ±0.09 ±0.11 ±0.05 ±0.12 flower-head height (cm) ± se 4.88 5.02 4.60 4.38*** 4.28*** ± 0.07 ± 0.05 ± 0.15 ± 0.10 ± 0.20 number of ray florets/head ±se 115.80 134.80* 98.20 96.20 90.80† ±7.85 ±3.38 ±6.44 ±6.80 ±5.37 number of disc florat/head ±se 98.80 91.80 125.60** 131.60*** 111.50 ±7.60 ±6.44 ±2.99 ±4.62 ±2.28 ray floret length (cm) ±se 2.69 2.88 2.58 2.10*** 1.52*** ±0.10 ±0.01 ±0.01 ±0.02 ±0.05 ray floret width (cm) ±se 1.84 2.02 1.54*** 1.41*** 1.40*** ±0.01 ±0.02 ±0.02 ±0.03 ±0.02 fresh weight of flower-head (g) ±se 7.54 8.16 6.80** 6.52*** 5.28*** ±0.17 ±0.20 ±0.20 ±0.21 ±0.37 dry weight of flower-head (g) ±se 1.05 1.13 0.91 0.80 0.53 ± 0.31 ± 0.50 ± 0.29 ± 0.42 ± 0.53 number of seeds/head ±se 198.50 213.60 205.10 207.60 170.50*** ± 6.20 ± 5.41 ±5.20 ±7.49 ± 5.80 % fertile seed ±se 68.18 75.86*** 58.33*** 51.33*** 40.87*** ± 0.95 ± 0.85 ±0.91 ± 0.86 ±0.80 % sterile seed ±se 31.82 24.14** 41.67*** 48.67*** 59.13*** ±0.49 ±0.58 ±0.41 ±0.39 ±0.51 *=p < 0.05; †=p < 0.02; **= p < 0.01; ***= p < 0.001 j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 36-40, 2009 effect of gamma rays on marigold 40 reduction in ‘survival to maturity’ and plant-height upon treatment with gamma rays may be due to inactivation of auxins and a decrease in auxin content with increased irradiation dose. banerji and datta (1993, 2002) explained that survival of plants to maturity and plantheight depended upon the nature and extent of chromosome damage. percentage of abnormal leaves/plant increased with increase in exposure to gamma rays. increase in plant-height and flower-production at lower doses was due to the stimulating effect of gamma rays. this effect of gamma rays has been recorded with 100 grays exposure where plant-height, branch number, plant-spread (n-s & e-w), number of leaves, flowerheads, ray florets and seeds per flower increased (tables 1 & 2). sax (1963) and sparrow (1954) reported stimulation of plant-growth with lower doses of ionizing radiation. decrease in leaf and flower-head number with higher doses might be due to decrease in branch number (banerji and datta, 2001). floral abnormalities increased upon irradiation. banerji and datta (1990, 1992, 2002 and 2003) also reported similar type of floral abnormalities in different cultivars of chrysanthemum with gamma irradiation. on the whole, this study revealed that exposure of seeds at 100 grays is best among the doses studied, for improving growth and yield in the above stated variety of marigold. aknowledgement the authors are thankful to director, nbri, lucknow, for providing facilities to carry out the research. references anonymous. 1976. hortus third a concise dictionary of plants cultivated in the united states and canada. macmillan publishing company arnon, d.i. 1949. copper enzymes in isolated chloroplast polyphenyl 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radiation. radiation bot., 1:562 zaharia, i. 1991. “actiunea radiathlor gamma asupra germinatiei si biosintezei pigmentilor assimilatory da unele plante floricole” seria agricultura, 44:107-114 (ms received 7 july 2008, revised 5 december, 2008) j. hortl. sci. vol. 4 (1): 36-40, 2009 viveka nand singh et al introduction cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) is one of the most popular vegetable crops of the cucurbitaceae family, with chromosome number 2n=14. as a vegetable crop, cucumber is of great economic importance. in india, 6,40,990 tonnes of cucumber are produced from an area of 40,900 hectares (anon., 2014). in karnataka, area under cucumber cultivation is about 6,903 hectares, with annual production of 1,03,396 m tonnes. average productivity of cucumber in karnataka is about 14.98 m tonnes per hectare (anon., 2013). cucumber is grown as an ideal summer vegetable crop worldwide for its edible, tender fruit. the fruit is versatile and is consumed variously as a salad ingredient, pickle, dessert fruit, as a cooked vegetable besides its cooling effect. due to its high content of potassium (5080mg/100g), cucumber is highly useful in both high and low blood pressure alleviation (kashif et al, 2008). in addition, cucumber is extensively used in the cosmetics industry. it is regarded as a refreshing condiment owing to its low energy content. in spite of its importance, a large variability, its adaptability and uses, research priority accorded for improvement of this crop is very meagre in our country. there is a pressing need to assess its genetic variability and exploit the name to improve yield per unit genetic variability and heritability for growth and yield in cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) n. pushpalatha*, m. anjanappa, v. devappa, and m. pitchaimuthu1 college of horticulture, university of horticultural sciences campus gkvk, bengaluru-560 065, karnataka, india *e-mail: pushpalathanagarajc@gmail.com abstract quantification of variability is the most essential pre-breeding tool in any crop improvement programme. the present investigation was carried out to assess variability existing in twenty four diverse cucumber genotypes. results revealed high phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation for yield per plant, fruit flesh thickness, number of fruits per plant, number of nodes per plant, number of branches per plant, average fruit weight, internode length and vine length. high heritability, coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean, was recorded for all the characters studied except days to first female-flower opening, days to 50% flowering and days to first-fruit harvest, indicating a scope for improvement through selection. key words: genetic variability, heritability, gcv, pcv, cucumber j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):33-36, 2016 area. hence, the present investigation was formulated with an objective of assessing and quantifying genetic variability, heritability, genetic advance, and genetic advance over per cent of mean for growth and yield traits in selected cucumber genotypes. material and methods the present investigation was carried out during 2014-15 at department of vegetable science, college of horticulture, bengaluru. twenty four, diverse cucumber genotypes, viz., tmg-1, hassan local, eum-402-102, mullu sauthe, sambar sauthe, white long, cohc-37, green long, ch-1, swl, green salad, poinsette, salad cucumber, kc-1, ch-20 , pcuc-6, cohc-42, nch-1, dharwad local, iihr-304, kh-1, iihr-341, sirsi local and himangi were planted in randomized block design with two replications. individual replication consisted of ten plants per genotype, of which five representative plants each were selected and tagged for recording observations. the climatic conditions were moderate and suitable for cucumber cultivation. the soil at the experimental site was red sandy-loam, friable, with good water-holding capacity. spacing followed was 1.5m x 0.75m. all the cultural practices were carried out as per the package of practices for horticultural crops given out by university of horticultural sciences, bagalkot. 1icar-indian institute of horticultural research, hessaraghatta lake post, bengaluru 560 089, karnataka, india 34 analysis of variance (anova) for individual characters was done on the basis of mean values, as per panse and sukhatme (1967). components of variance, heritability and genetic advance were estimated as per burton and devane (1953), falconer (1981) and johnson et al (1955), respectively. results and discussion genetic variability is a pre-requisite for a successful breeding program in any crop species, and, a critical survey of the available genetic variability is essential before initiating an improvement program (haussmann et al, 2004). a close proximity in the phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variability was observed, indicating little influence of environment on expression of the various traits studied. analysis of variance for various quantitative characters revealed that mean squares were significant for all the traits under study, indicating an existence of sufficient genetic variability for all the plant characters studied, and, the variation due to replication was non-significant (table 1). vine length exhibited a high variability among the traits studied, ranging from 115.13cm to 241.95cm in dharwad local and green salad, respectively, with a general mean of 175.70cm. mean number of branches per plant was 4.70, which ranged from 2.50 (ch-20) to 6.90 (dharwad local). mean number of nodes per vine was 25.40, with maximum number of nodes (37.00) seen in nch-1 and the least number of nodes (12.70) in sambar sauthe. distance between nodes varied significantly among the genotypes studied, ranging from 3.76cm in cohc-37 to 10.95cm in iihr-304, with a mean length of 7.27cm. node position at which the first female-flower appeared ranged from 3.50 (iihr-341) to 6.60 (ch-20), with a mean value of 5.23. days required for opening of the first femaleflower ranged from 40.3 to 55.40 in himangi and green long, respectively, with a mean of 46.83 days. number of days required for 50% flowering ranged from 40.50 to 58.00 in cohc-37 and sambar sauthe, respectively, with a general mean of 48.02 days. mean number of female flowers per plant was 27.40, ranging from 18.40 (hassan local) to 35.70 (poinsette). mean number of male flowers per plant was 148.17, ranging from 115.40 (hassan local) to 221.50 (green salad). mean sex ratio was 5.59 male flowers to one female flower, ranging from 4.34 (poinsette) to 7.25 (green salad). mean number of days taken for harvest of the first edible fruit was 53.34 days, ranging from 47.50 days in hassan local to 58.30 days in pcuc-6. number of fruits per plant ranged from 4.60 (iihr-304 and sirsi local) to 10.50 (hassan local), with an overall mean value of 6.60 fruits. average fruit weight recorded was minimum in nch1 (130.50g), and maximum in pcuc-6 (371.93g), with a mean value of 263.31g. fruit yield ranged from 1.11kg in iihr-304 to 3.58kg in tmg-1, with a general mean value of 1.95kg. minimum fruit length was recorded in nch-1 (13.80cm) and maximum in cohc-42 (29.86cm), with an overall mean of 22.54cm. mean diameter of the fruit was 5.51cm, which ranged from 4.23cm in hassan local to 7.02cm in cohc-42. minimum flesh-thickness was recorded in ch-20 (1.08cm) and maximum in dharwad local (3.16cm), with a general mean of 1.68cm. the mean value for fruit cavity was 2.87cm, and ranged from 1.40cm to 3.48cm in iihr-304 and cohc-42, respectively. the mean value for 100 seed weight was 2.72g, which ranged from 1.53g (himangi) to 3.50g (eum-402-102). the mean value for fruit shelf-life was 6.60 days, and ranged from 4.60 days (iihr-304 and nch-1) to 8.10 days (sambar sauthe and dharwad local). table 1. analysis of variance (anova) for various horticultural traits in cucumber character genotype replication error vine length (cm) 2682.12** 26.99 11.31 number of branches 2.59** 0.00033 0.125 per plant number of nodes 97.71** 0.61 1.04 per plant internode length (cm) 6.29** 0.47 0.087 node of first female-flower 1.81** 1.08 0.191 appearance days to first female-flower 31.15** 0.14 1.73 opening days to 50% flowering 46.05** 10.08 2.52 number of female flowers 35.10** 0.75 2.15 per plant number of male flowers 990.20** 58.96 27.29 per plant sex ratio 1.24** 0.19 0.073 days to first-fruit harvest 19.57** 2.90 1.53 fruit length (cm) 45.74** 0.09 0.31 fruit diameter (cm) 0.68** 0.06 0.03 fruit-flesh thickness (cm) 0.52** 0.005 0.018 fruit cavity at edible stage (cm) 0.57** 0.0001 0.034 average fruit weight (g) 8316.47** 0.023 25.73 total number of fruits per plant 6.38** 0.42 0.24 yield per plant (kg) 0.88** 0.113 0.028 100 seed weight (g) 0.55** 0.006 0.0061 shelf-life (days) 2.43** 0.07 0.18 ** significant at 1% probability level j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):33-36, 2016 pushpalatha et al 35 phenotypic coefficient of variation was found to be highest for yield per plant (34.57), followed by fruit flesh thickness (31.00), number of nodes per plant (27.63), number of fruits per plant (27.60), average fruit weight (24.53) and number of branches per plant (24.84) suggesting, that, the variation was due to the genotype. very little influence of environment was seen on expression of a character. thus, there is a scope for phenotypic selection for these traits. similar results were obtained by singh et al (2014). a few traits recorded moderate phenotypic coefficient, viz., node at which the first female-flower appeared (19.10), number of female flowers per plant (15.75), number of male flowers per plant (15.21), sex ratio (14.51), fruit diameter (10.84), fruit cavity (19.13), 100 seed weight (19.32) and shelf-life (17.30). genotypic coefficient of variation recorded highest in yield per plant (33.48), followed by fruit flesh thickness (29.91), number of nodes per plant (27.34), number of fruits per plant (26.60), average fruit weight (24.45) and number of branches per plant (23.67). moderate phenotypic coefficient was recorded for node at which the first femaleflower appeared (17.18), number of female flowers per plant (14.81), number of male flowers per plant (14.80), sex ratio (13.68), fruit diameter (10.39), fruit cavity (18.01), 100 seed weight (19.10) and shelf-life (16.07). lowest genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation was recorded for days to first-fruit harvest (6.09 and 5.63). heritability was estimated with genetic advance to assess the extent of improvement in an individual trait. high heritability was recorded for all the characters under study, showing agreement with the findings of uddin et al (2006) and gaikwad et al (2011). a high heritability, coupled with genetic advance as per cent mean, was obtained for all the growth characters studied except days to first female-flower opening, days to 50% flowering, and days to first-fruit harvest indicating, that, all these characters were controlled by additive gene action. similar results were reported by veena et al (2012) for number of fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit diameter, fruit cavity at edible stage, average fruit weight, 100 seed weight and fruit yield per plant in cucumber. moderate genetic advance as per cent mean was registered for days to first female-flower appearance (15.92), days to 50% flowering (18.81) and days to first-fruit harvest (10.72), indicating both additive and non-additive gene action. genetic advance recorded was highest for average fruit weight (132.22), vine length (74.96) and number of male flowers per plant (43.97). knowledge of genetic variability assessed via estimation of coefficient of variation, heritability (broadsense) and genetic advance, were of paramount importance in formulating trait-specific breeding. in the present study, tmg-1, eum402-102, hassan local and iihr-341 recorded good fruit yield besides higher number of fruits. these genotypes can be utilized in further breeding. table 2. estimates for different genetic parameters with reference to various horticultural traits in cucumber character mean range pcv gcv broad-sense genetic genetic min max (%) (%) heritability advance advance as (%) % of mean vine length (cm) 175.70 115.13 241.95 20.89 20.80 99.20 74.96 42.66 number of branches per plant 4.70 2.50 6.90 24.84 23.67 90.80 2.18 46.45 number of nodes per plant 25.40 12.70 37.00 27.63 27.34 97.90 14.17 55.72 internode length (cm) 7.27 3.76 10.95 24.58 24.24 97.30 3.58 49.26 node of first female-flower appearance 5.23 3.50 6.60 19.10 17.18 80.90 1.67 31.84 days to first female-flower opening 46.83 40.30 55.40 8.64 8.17 89.50 7.47 15.92 days to 50% flowering 48.02 40.50 58.00 10.19 9.64 89.60 9.10 18.81 number of male flowers per plant 148.17 115.40 221.50 15.21 14.80 94.60 43.97 29.66 number of female flowers per plant 27.40 18.40 35.70 15.75 14.81 88.40 7.86 28.70 sex ratio 5.59 4.34 7.25 14.51 13.68 88.80 1.48 26.56 days to first-fruit harvest 53.34 47.50 58.30 6.09 5.63 85.50 5.72 10.72 fruit length (cm) 22.54 13.80 29.86 21.29 21.14 98.60 9.75 43.25 fruit diameter (cm) 5.51 4.23 7.02 10.84 10.39 91.90 1.13 20.52 fruit flesh-thickness (cm) 1.68 1.08 3.16 31.00 29.91 93.00 1.00 59.42 fruit cavity at edible stage (cm) 2.87 1.40 3.48 19.13 18.01 88.70 1.00 34.94 average fruit weight (g) 263.31 130.50 371.93 24.53 24.45 99.40 132.22 50.21 total number of fruits per plant 6.60 4.60 10.50 27.60 26.60 92.80 3.48 52.79 yield per plant (kg) 1.95 1.11 3.58 34.57 33.48 93.70 1.30 66.77 100 seed weight (g) 2.72 1.53 3.50 19.32 19.10 97.80 1.06 38.92 shelf-life (days) 6.60 4.60 8.10 17.30 16.07 86.30 2.03 30.76 genetic variability and heritability for growth and yield in cucumber j. hortl. sci. vol. 11(1):33-36, 2016 36 references anonymous. 2013. crop-wise statistics of horticultural crops in karnataka state 2012-13. government of karnataka, directorate of horticulture, department of horticulture, lalbagh, bangalore, karnataka, india, p. 52 anonymous. 2014. indian horticulture database 2013, area and production of fruits and vegetables all india (2013-14), ministry of agriculture, government of india, new delhi, india burton, g.w. and dewane, e.v.m. 1953. estimating heritability in tall fescue (festuca arundinacea l.) from replicated clonal material. agron. j., 45:478481 falconer, d.s. 1981. introduction to quantitative genetics. second edition, london longman group ltd., longman house, harrow, england, pp. 350 gaikwad, a.g., musmade, a.m., dhumal, s.s. and sonawane, h.g. 2011. variability studies in cucumber (cucumis sativus l.). ecol. envir. cons., 17:799-802 haussmann, b.i.g., parzies, h. k., presterl, t., susic, z. and miedaner, t. 2004. plant genetic resources in crop improvement. pl. genet. resources, 2:3-21 johnson, h.w., robinson, h.f. and comstock, r.e. 1955. estimation of genetic and environmental variability in soybean. agron. j., 47:477-483 kashif, w., kamran, q.m. and jilani, m.s. 2008. effect of different nitrogen levels on 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this issue i-ii review phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of 131-143 plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji and u.k.dhatt research articles response of fruit yield and quality to foliar application of micro-nutrients in 144-151 lemon [citrus limon (l.) burm.] cv. assam lemon sheikh k.h.a., singh b., haokip s.w., shankar k., debbarma r. studies on high density planting and nutrient requirement of banana in 152-163 different states of india debnath sanjit bauri f.k., swain s., patel a.n., patel a.r., shaikh n.b., bhalerao v.p., baruah k., manju p.r., suma a., menon r., gutam s. and p. patil mineral nutrient composition in leaf and root tissues of fifteen polyembryonic 164-176 mango genotypes grown under varying levels of salinity nimbolkar p.k., kurian r.m., varalakshmi l.r., upreti k.k., laxman r.h. and d. kalaivanan optimization of ga3 concentration for improved bunch and berry quality in 177-184 grape cv. crimson seedless (vitis vinifera l) satisha j., kumar sampath p. and upreti k.k. rgap molecular marker for resistance against yellow mosaic disease in 185-192 ridge gourd [luffa acutangula (l.) roxb.] kaur m., varalakshmi b., kumar m., lakshmana reddy d.c., mahesha b. and pitchaimuthu m. genetic divergence study in bitter gourd (momordica charantia l.) 193-198 nithinkumar k.r., kumar j.s.a., varalakshmi b, mushrif s.k., ramachandra r.k. , prashanth s.j. combining ability studies to develop superior hybrids in bell pepper 199-205 (capsicum annuum var. grossum l.) varsha v., smaranika mishra, lingaiah h.b., venugopalan r., rao k.v. kattegoudar j. and madhavi reddy k. ssr marker development in abelmoschus esculentus (l.) moench 206-214 using transcriptome sequencing and genetic diversity studies gayathri m., pitchaimuthu m. and k.v. ravishankar generation mean analysis of important yield traits in bitter gourd 215-221 (momordica charantia) swamini bhoi, varalakshmi b., rao e.s., pitchaimuthu m. and hima bindu k. influence of phenophase based irrigation and fertigation schedule on vegetative 222-233 performance of chrysanthemum (dendranthema grandiflora tzelev.) var. marigold vijayakumar s., sujatha a. nair, nair a.k., laxman r.h. and kalaivanan d. performance evaluation of double type tuberose iihr-4 (ic-0633777) for 234-240 flower yield, quality and biotic stress response bharathi t.u., meenakshi srinivas, umamaheswari r. and sonavane, p. anti-fungal activity of trichoderma atroviride against fusarium oxysporum f. sp. 241-250 lycopersici causing wilt disease of tomato yogalakshmi s., thiruvudainambi s., kalpana k., thamizh vendan r. and oviya r. seed transmission of bean common mosaic virus-blackeye cowpea mosaic strain 251-260 (bcmv-blcm) threaten cowpea seed health in the ashanti and brong-ahafo regions of ghana adams f.k., kumar p.l., kwoseh c., ogunsanya p., akromah r. and tetteh r. effect of container size and types on the root phenotypic characters of capsicum 261-270 raviteja m.s.v., laxman r.h., rashmi k., kannan s., namratha m.r. and madhavi reddy k. physio-morphological and mechanical properties of chillies for 271-279 mechanical harvesting yella swami c., senthil kumaran g., naik r.k., reddy b.s. and rathina kumari a.c. assessment of soil and water quality status of rose growing areas of 280-286 rajasthan and uttar pradesh in india varalakshmi lr., tejaswini p., rajendiran s. and k.k. upreti qualitative and organoleptic evaluation of immature cashew kernels under storage 287-291 sharon jacob and sobhana a. physical quality of coffee bean (coffea arabica l.) as affected by harvesting and 292-300 drying methods chala t., lamessa k. and jalata z vegetative vigour, yield and field tolerance to leaf rust in four f1 hybrids of 301-308 coffee (coffea arabica l.) in india divya k. das, shivanna m.b. and prakash n.s. limonene extraction from the zest of citrus sinensis, citrus limon, vitis vinifera 309-314 and evaluation of its antimicrobial activity wani a.k., singh r., mir t.g. and akhtar n. event report 315-318 national horticultural fair 2021 a success story dhananjaya m.v., upreti k.k. and dinesh m.r. subject index 319-321 author index 322-323 131 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants: harnessing the potential of plants beyond aesthetics shalini jhanji* and dhatt u.k. punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, punjab 141004 *corresponding author email : shalinijhanji@pau.edu abstract indoor air pollution has emerged as a major threat to human health worldwide that needs to be dealt urgently. the present review is an effort to overview the different indoor air pollutants (co2, volatile organic compounds (vocs) like formaldehyde, benzene, nitrous oxide, trichloroethylene, fluorine, ammonia, radon, aldehyde, hydrocarbons etc.) their hazardous effects on human health, potential of indoor plants in their remediation and their practical utility. besides providing oxygen to breathe, multifaceted roles of indoor plants have been well documented. plants were used since decades for indoor decorations based on their aesthetic value, but now studies are focused on screening plant species for their efficiency in absorption of indoor air pollutants. the basis for phytoremediation is the potent efficiency of some plants to assimilate, degrade, or modify toxic pollutants into non-toxic ones. phytoremediation seems to be the key solution to improve indoor air quality as it has many potential advantages (simple, potentially cheap, and easily implemented) in comparison to other traditional or latest methods. breathing walls, portable air filters for rooms or whole house filtration through heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are some of the technologies developed, to reduce indoor air pollution and improve indoor air quality but all these are costly, resource consuming and still there is question on their efficiency. detailed account of morphological, anatomical and molecular mechanisms underlying plant leaves and leaf associated microbes in reduction of pollutants have been reviewed that could help in developing cost effective and eco friendly remediation technologies. this review gives a brief discussion about air phytoremediation to improve effectiveness of this technology in practical use. keywords: indoor air pollutants, herbs, phytoremediation and plants review introduction degradation in air quality has become the biggest concern and awareness regarding its maintenance and protection is increasing all over the world. there are numerous anthropogenic causes of outdoor and indoor air quality degradation viz., volcanic eruption, fossil fuel burning, forest fires, motor vehicle pollution, controlled burning in agriculture, fumes from paints or air sprays, waste deposits in landfills military resources such as nuclear weapons and toxic germ warfare, fertilizers, furnitures, coolants etc that leads to numerous respiratory, heart diseases and could even be carcinogenic. major air pollutants include particulate matters (pms), carbon monoxide, oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, gr ound-level ozone (o 3) a nd vola t ile orga nic compounds (vocs) tha t ca n ca use dozens of diseases and threaten human health (archibald et al., 2017; burns et al., 2020). according  to a who report, nearly 91% of the world’s population lives in areas where the level of airborne pollutants exceeds who permissible limits (health effects institute, 2018). the changing lifestyle is further adding to the problem as it has limited the activities of people to indoors which forces large percent of urban population to spend most of their times, indoors. ventilation plays a crucial role in promoting the comfort and health of occupants (rackes and waring, 2014). the world has 132 jhanji and dhatt j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 experienced unprecedented urban growth during the last three decades. urban population is expected to incr ea se fr om 55% in 2018 to 68% by 2050. projections show that urbanization, the gradual shift in residence of the human population from rural to urban areas, combined with the overall growth of the world’s population could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050, with close to 90% of this increase taking place in asia and africa, according to a new united nations data set launched (anon., 2018b). with increasing urbanization and rising migration of people from rural to urban areas, space is the major concern. buildings generate almost 40% of global greenhouse gases (ghg’s) annually as compared to transport (23%) and industries (32%). closed working spaces and lack of ventilation leads to accumulation of pollutants excess amounts. human beings spend 80-90% of their time in enclosed spaces, such as houses, office buildings, and schools with restricted air circulation (yrieix et al., 2010). in closed buildings, besides pollutants, occupa nts themselves a r e a ma jor sour ce of indoor a ir contamination. the occupants are the major source of carbon dioxide (co2) that poses threat to health at higher concentrations (siskos et al., 2001).therefore, indoor air quality (iaq) may be worse than outdoor air quality (watson, 2013). according to the studies conducted, indoor air has been reported to be 12 times more polluted than outdoor air (zabiegala, 2006). so, urban iaq has emerged as an important international health issue that needs to be reviewed and resolved at earliest possible. further, it demands for greener indoors with good iaq to cater the health issues of occupants. the current article gives an overview of degrading iaq and its effect on human health; criteria for selection of indoor plants with high phytoremediation efficacy and mechanism underlying their efficacy that could stimulate more research in this area and improve its effectiveness in practical use. major indoor pollutants carbon dioxide is one of the major indoor pollutants that pose threat to human life. the average breath of an adult contains 35,000-50,000 ppm of co2 that gets accumulated in closed buildings (prill, 2000). the outdoor co2 level is in a range of 350-450 ppm but the indoor co2 level is 100 times greater than outdoor co2 level, even in buildings where complaints with rega rd to indoor air qua lity ar e few. the co 2 concentration indicates air exchange rate in buildings as co2 levels more than 1000 ppm indicate inadequate ventila tion a nd occupants ha ve pr oblems like headaches, nose and throat ailments, tiredness, lack of concentration and fatigue (bulinska et al., 2014). this does not mean that low co2 levels are indicators of good indoor air quality (iaq) as iaq is dependent upon several other pollutants. besides co2, the other indoor pollutants are volatile orga nic compounds (vocs) like formaldehyde, benzene, nitrous oxide, trichloro-ethylene, fluorine, a mmonia , r a don, a ldehyde, hydr oca r bons etc. exposure to such chemicals leads to severe diseases like multiple chemical sensitivity, sick building syndrome allergies, asthma, headache, stroke, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) and lung cancer (shinohara et al., 2004).the effects of some of these air pollutants ranging from respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease to bladder and lung cancer affecting human health have been summarized by kampa and castanas (2008). some indoor air pollutants, their source and health effects have been summarized in table 1. according to the survey of world health organization (who) around 3.8 million people in a year die from the exposure to household air pollution (anon., 2018a). among various vocs, formaldehyde is a main contaminant in terms of indoor air which originates from various paper products, curtains, adhesives, carpets, varnishes, permanent press-fabrics. its concentration in new houses is often several times higher than that in older homes (marco et al., 1995). the key solution to this problem is planting indoor plants that can survive under such adverse conditions with least maintenance and inputs. besides acting as potential sinks of indoor pollutants, indoor plants add to the beauty and liveliness to our homes and offices and thus improve iaq. indoor plants means the plants that can grow indoor i.e. their light, temperature and water requirements are low. they may be either flowering plants (peace lily, kalanchoe, amaryllis, hydrangeas, poinsettia) or folia ge pla nts (ca ctus, pa lm pla nts, fer n a nd succulents). besides oxygen producing ability another comprehensive research conducted by the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) has found that common household plants work as natural 133 phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 air purifiers. interestingly indoor plants can remove a notable amount of at least 87% of voc’s in 24 hours. voc’s are present in many household products, including paints, paint strippers and other solvents, wood preservatives, aerosol sprays, cleansers and disinfectants, moth repellents, hobby supplies, pesticides, dry-cleaned clothing, building materials and furnishing, office equipment including glues and adhesives, permanent markers and photographic solutions (anon., 2021). succulents and many indoor house plants are further advantageous as they are of small size and add continuous flush of fresh oxygen day and night. studies have shown that people in buildings with plants like money plant, motherinlaw’s tongue and areca palm have 34% fewer respiratory problems, 54% less eye irritation and 24% fewer headaches (anon., 2016). assessment of utility of indoor plants indoor plants absorb carbon dioxide, keep the oxygen flowing and remove harmful toxins like vocs which help to deter the illness, lower the stress levels and create a relaxed and happy ambience. this further helps in improving concentration, enhancing creativity and increasing productivity that fulfills overall wellbeing. the air purifying qualities of indoor plants ultima tely stimula te a ha ppier a nd hea lthier environment. it may seem far-fetched and unconvincing that having greenery indoor can have such important effects but the scientific results and findings have proved it. numerous indoor plants have huge capability of removing various categories of toxins from indoor air; hence foster the indoor air quality. based on study conducted by nasa, toxins like benzene, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene and ammonia were considered and houseplants were selected to test their pollutant removal efficiency and it was found that they removed these pollutants in significant amounts (table 2). parallel to this, there are several other benefits of indoor plants which can be discussed under following headings: air purifiers: succulents such as aloe vera and snake plant have excellent air purifying and toxins removal properties. the plants emit the water vapour and that in return generates the pumping action which pulls the conta minated air down to roots of pla nts. t he succulents convert the contaminants to plant food and thus purify the air. the studies showed that many common foliage plants reduced levels of some indoor polluta nts, including forma ldehyde and carbon monoxide, from small, sealed test chambers. the pollution reduction was largely due to bacteria growing on the plant roots (wolverton et al., 1989). plants grown in potting soil have been rated for their relative removal rate of toxins, such as formaldehyde. for this compound, boston fern can remove 1863 µg/ h, bamboo palm 1350 µg/h, janet craig dracaena 1328 µg/h, english ivy 1120 µg/h, peace lily 939µg/ h, areca palm and corn plant 938 µg/h. all the details of how plants clean such air, and how to use them, are in the classic paperback book “how to grow fresh air” by the researcher b.c. wolverton. living walls of plants have become more common in buildings, including modular units that one can even install in a home. a new technology of breathing walls introduces a method for improving the indoor air quality, and this technology is called breathing walls. the concept of a breathing wall is to purify the internal air flowing out through the walls and to reduce the concentration of indoor air pollutants. this draws a steady stream of filtered air through the walls and into the buildings all the times, providing exceptionally clean ventilation to occupants (zhai, 2016). a company in sydney (australia) has partnered with the university of technology to quantify the positive effects of what they term “breathing walls” to remove carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds from interior air. the u.s. researchers fisk and rosenfeld of the berkeley national laboratory have quantified a $58 billion annual savings from sick-building illness with the use of plants (anon., 2007). improvement in indoor humidity level: the indoor plants r egula te the humidity level which is an important factor influencing indoor weather. the studies conducted by agricultural university in norway revealed that indoor plants at home regulate the humidity levels inside the house as plants release moisture in form of vapour, and this increased moisture improves the sore throat, allergies, cold and dry cough and even some skin diseases (fjeld, 2000). the foliage plants can raise relative humidity to healthier and more comfortable levels in interior spaces. the relative humidity of the air inside buildings is often below the range of 30% to 60% recommended for human comfort, especially when buildings are 134 jhanji and dhatt j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 being heated. when the indoor relative humidity is too low, colds are more frequent and wood dries and cracks. in this study, when plants were present, less than 2% of the space was occupied by the plants, the relative humidity was raised from 25% without plants to 30% with plants. the enhancing effect of indoor plants on relative humidity raised the concern that indoor plants might result in too much increase in relative humidity. but this is unlikely to occur as when the relative humidity rises, the rate of water loss from the plant slows due to decreased concentration gradient between plant tissue and atmosphere (lohr, 2010) continuous oxygen supply: unlike most of the plants, succulents do not release carbon dioxide at night instead they have specialized built in mechanism which maintains the continuous supply of oxygen. improve our focus: number of studies has been conducted on both students as well the workers which have proved that attentiveness, concentration and brain capabilities increase when plants were kept in their room. the university of michigan conducted a study which found memory retention is improved as much as 20% when plants are present in room (anon., 2008). increase pain tolerance: the plants in our vicinity have capability to decrease our sensitivity to pain. the horticulture therapy research was conducted by university of kansas which showed that patients needed less medication when they had plants in their room. one more study was conducted to examine people’s ability of perception to pain in presence or absence of plants. about 71% of subjects in room with plants had their overall physical health above excellent whereas this per cent decline to 56% in the conditions when there were no plants around (lohr and pearsonmims, 2000). increase working productivity: mental fatigue has been shown to be reduced by plants. indoor plants have potential to increase the productivity per working person. the studies conducted in texas, washington state and england revealed that the employees with pla nts in their envir onments wer e 12% mor e productive than those working in environment without exposure to interior plants. students in dorm room with the view of nature and plants had better and increased productivity than those without it, assuring the role of plants in increasing the potential of the subject for performance. (lohr, 2010) improve memory: another important aspect is memory which is influenced by plants. a study was conducted in the university of michigan, which revealed that there are numerous benefits of interacting with nature. they reported that interaction for just an hour with nature could increase the memory retention (berman et al., 2008). help to prevent diseases: the positive effect of plants on health and disease prevention has been proved from several years. the presence of plants on working desk in office improved the health of subject as a study conducted in the university of norway revealed that there was 60% decrease in sickness rates with plants in office (fjeld, 2000). speed up the healing process: researchers who have assessed the impact of nature/plants on human health have suggested that people-plant interactions provide physiological stress reduction within minutes along with faster physical recovery from stress that further improves emotional and cognitive health (kaplan, 2001; chang and chen, 2005). the healing process through plants was also supported by texas a & m university. they recommended that patients who interacted with plants, engaged in gardening have faster recovery rate and less downtime in post-surgery patients. the soothing effects of ornamental flowers and plants are so great that simply having daily views of flowers and other ornamental plants in landscaped areas outside patient recovery room can also significantly speed up recovery time (hall and dickson, 2011). reduce stress: the study was conducted that stress reducing responses also occur when people are in a room with a few containerized interior plants, even when their attention is not drawn to the plants (lohr et al., 1996). a study revealed that people given a task on computer had higher systolic blood pressure in a room without any plant as compared to people doing same task in a room with plants (lohr, 2010). reduce noise: the studies have shown that plants also reduce the indoor noise levels, making it a pleasant environment. for instance, a hedge of small indoor plant in workspace can reduce the noise levels up to five decibels. plants absorb the sound and create a calming effect. a study from london south bank university showed that there is a positive effect on noise reduction from large plants placed in corners of the rooms (perry, 2018) 135 phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 ta bl e 1. c om m on in do or a ir p ol lu ta nt s an d th ei r ef fe ct s on h um an h ea lth 136 jhanji and dhatt j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 improves perception: plants improve the rate of perception as revealed in a study of opryland hotel in nashville. the occupancy rate of that hotel was higher than national average. a scientific study was conducted and the main factor accounting for this was their high investment over $1 million on interior plants, as a matter of fact it was the largest investment on indoor plants in country (perry, 2018). ameliorative potential of indoor plants to improve indoor air quality the studies conducted by nasa back in 1980s, demonstrated that plants have potential to ameliorate airborne pollutants. susanto et al. (2021) provided evidence-based insight into usefulness of indoor plants as an alternative way for indoor air remediation. sever a l studies demonstr a ted efficient phytoremediation of specific indoor air pollutants through the use of specific plants. the plants osmunda japonica, davalliamariesii, selaginella tamariscina, polypodium formosanum,lavandula spp., pteris dispar, pteris multifida, pelargonium spp., aloe vera, and epipremnum aureum were reported to be efficient in removing formaldehyde from indoor air (kim et al., 2010). liu et al. (2007) reported that crassula portulacea, hydrangea macrophylla, cymbidium “golden elf”, syngonium podophyllum, euphorbia milii, sansevieria trifasciata, chlorophytum comosum, dracenas anderiana, hedera helix, and clitori aternatea, with chlorophytum comosum have high benzene removal efficiency. phytoremediation of toluene ma y be a chieved thr ough schefflera elegantisima, philodendron spp. “sunlight,” and hedera helix (kim et al., 2011). zamioculcas zamiifolia was potent in remediating xylene (sriprapat et al., 2013) and ethylbenzene to some extent (toabaita et al., 2016). hoya carnosa, hemigraphis alternata, fittonia argyroneura and asparagus densiflorus efficiently remove vocs like benzene, toluene, octane, t ce, and a-pinene a nd ficus benjaminaoctane and a-pinene. wood et al. (2006) documented that the popular indoor pot plant dracena deremenis “janet craig” as an excellent species for the removal of vocs. similar results for removal of vocs viz., benzene, ethylbenzene, xylene, styrene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and toluene was recorded for ficus spp. (hong et al., 2017). the efficiency of nephrolepis obliterate in r educing indoor formaldehyde levels was found up to 100% (teiri et al., 2018). aydogan and montoya (2011) revealed the effica cy of pla nts such a s hedera helix, chrysanthemum morifolium, dieffenbachia compacta, and epipremnum aureum in reducing formaldehyde levels up to 90% within 24 hours. indoor plants are not only potent to reduce vocs, co a nd co 2 levels but a lso p a r ticula te ma tter (panyametheekul et al., 2018). several other studies also have shown the use of potted plants as a mechanical system for phytoremediation of several indoor air pollutants. latest technologies have provided biofiltration walls or green walls or large filtration systems but potted plants are most effective in terms of phytoremediation capacity, maintenance and cost (agarwal et al., 2019). recent a dva ncements in indoor a ir phytor emedia tion technologies, botanical biofiltration systems could more efficiently reduce the concentrations of indoor air pollutants through action of active airflow in plant growing medium, along with vertically aligned plants that leads to higher leaf area density per unit of floor space. despite of clear potential of these latest systems, still research needs to be focused on potential and cost effectiveness for proper selection of plants and their functional integration in buildings (petit et al., 2018). the use of indoor plants as phytoremedia tion technology in compa r ison to la test technologies is slow but envir onment friendly air-purification strategy i.e. financially affordable with minimal energy consumption (susanto et al., 2021). strategies for selection of indoor plants selection of plants for indoors is based on criteria such a s a esthetic fea tur es, good sur viva l a nd low maintenance. generally evergreen plant species with broad leaves and inhabitants of understorey of large canopies of tropical and sub-tropical climates have been selected as indoor foliage plants as they have been adapted to photosynthesize under low light intensities and grow profusely (anderson et al., 1987). the plants that are adapted to shade have large leaf area and reduced stomatal aperture leading to removal of pollutants through adsorption rather than absorption (gommer et al., 2013). this selection criteria of shade adaption for indoor plants need to be supplemented with mor phological (i.e. ,) leaf shape, size, and hairiness), anatomical (i.e.,) composition of epidermis 137 phytoremediation of indoor air pollutants j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 table 2. indoor plants and their indoor pollutant removal efficacy 138 and mesophyll layers, and stomatal density and size) and physiological (co2 assimilation rate and activity of detoxifying enzymes) properties that determine their air phytoremediation potential. advanced omics technologies (genomics, pr oteomics, a nd metabolomics) could be used to understand the biochemical mechanism of indoor air pollutant degradation. the detailed unraveling of metabolic pathways, genes and enzymes involved in catabolism of pollutants will ena ble the deter mina tion of biomarkers for phenotyping appropriate plant species for improving iaq. the selection of plants for indoor should be done very carefully with scientific approach as some plants may have negative impact on human health too. some ornamental plants produce allergic pollens and/or release harmful vocs; their surfaces may harbor pathogenic microbes and/or pests (carinanos and casares-porcel, 2011). thus, ornamental shade-loving plants with more foliage (leafy part), less pollen, and short blooming period could be selected to reduce indoor air pollution. low grade plastic pots used for planting can also produce vocs; hence, alternatives to plastic pots for indoor planting besides appropriate plants have to be considered. one of the best tools for selecting plants for indoor is the air pollution tolerance index (apti). apti considers biochemical properties of leaves such as ascorbic acid; relative water content, total chlorophyll and leaf extract ph. these properties affect the value of the plant’s tolerance to air pollutants. for example, under water stress, the content of chlorophyll induces reactive oxygen species in the chloroplast. the high value of ascorbic acid is one of the strategies to prevent oxidative damage to the thylakoid membranes under water stress conditions (bandehali et al., 2021). how plants remediate indoor air pollutants the plants during photosynthesis simultaneously take up co2 and release o2 and during transpiration, release water vapour through stomata on their leaf surface (smith and pitt, 2011). thus, the potential of plants to improve iaq depends upon the capacity of leaves to exchange gases and pollutants from indoor air through stomata. schreck et al. (2012) also reported that the points of entry of metal-enriched particles after their deposition on the leaf surface, could be the cuticle and stomata. this capacity is further limited by physical constraints pertaining to stomatal and mesophyll resistance. the size of stomatal pore varies with variation in environmental conditions viz., light, temperature, humidity -and cascades of signaling through plant hormones especially abscisic acid. besides stomatal absorption, pollutants can get adsorbed on the external surfaces of plants or soil-root interface and thus get removed. the process of absorbing lipophilic semi volatile compounds is achieved through leaf surface adsorption, where atmospheric resistance serves as a major limiting factor (wei et al., 2017). this type of removal depends upon the tota l sur fa ce a r ea a nd a na tomica l, morphological and chemical features of the plant surface along with characteristics of the soil substrate (irga et al., 2013). the adsorption of pollutants especially lipophilic vocs, such as benzene, on plant surfa ce is dependent upon type and density of trichomes (li et al., 2018), cuticular wax deposition a nd lipid composition of epidermal membr ane (gawronska and bakera, 2015). the potential of plants to ameliorate indoor pollutants was earlier based on simplistic approaches but more accurate experimentation through simulation of foliage to indoor air pollutants not only confirmed the earlier reports (fares et al., 2015) but also revealed that the amount of pollutants absorbed through stomata is 30100 times more than adsorbed on the plant surface or non-stomatal deposition (tani et al., 2009). after entering into plant leaf either through absorption or adsorption, pollutants are translocated to shoots and roots for metabolic degradation through oxidases or hydrolases a nd then conjugation with different metabolic compounds (sugars, amino acid, organic acids, and peptides) to form bioproducts. these products are either re expelled (into air or as root exudates into soil) or used as carbon and energy sources (oikawa and lerdau, 2013). in addition to air phytoremediation through absorption and adsorption of pollutants by plant surface, another lea st explored aspect is phyllor emedia tion i.e. remediation through habituated microbes either on leaf surface or endophytes by biodegrading or transforming pollutants into less or nontoxic molecules (sandhu et al., 2007). leaves are the primary photosynthetic organs with dorsiventral symmetry and play pivotal roles in supporting phyllosphere microbes (bringel and couee, 2015). several reports documented that both jhanji and dhatt j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(2) : 131-143, 2021 139 plant leaves and leaf-associated microbes mitigated air pollutants, such a s azalea leaves and the lea fassociated pseudomonas putida in reducing vocs (de kempeneer et al., 2004) and poplar leaves and the leaf-associated methylobacterium sp. decreased xenobiotic compounds (van aken et al., 2004). thus, the different mecha nisms underlying the phytoremediation potential of plants for indoor polluta nts a re micr obia l degr a dation thr ough rhizospheric microorganisms, phytoextraction i.e. plant-liquid extraction, plant-gas extraction i.e. stomatal uptake, enzymatic catalysis inside tissues and plant transpiration & evaporation from leaves (sharma et al., 2019) conclusions and future perspective the complexities in the source, chemical nature, effects and stability of air pollutants pose a great challenge for standardizing technologies for their remediation. further, different pollutants are prevailing at different rates in different microenvironments which dema nds for loca tion specific r emedia tion for pollutants individually or in groups. the selection of plants suitable for indoor phytoremediation should follow unambiguous scientific criteria that reflect their capacity to sequestrate air borne pollutants, instead of only taking into consideration their aesthetic features. the plant-soil-microbe system through metabolizing, sequestering or degrading air pollutants improve indoor air quality. limited information on number and group of plant species indicating their potential and suita bility for removing a ir polluta nts enta ils uncertainties. the studies should be planned to concentrate on developing plant by editing genomes through dna modifications to over express or insert genes coding for detoxifying enzymes. the integration of sma r t sensor networ ks a nd computer ized technologies with highly performing indoor plant species could provide great opportunities to improve iaq through eco-sustainable and cost-effective techniques. recent adva ncements in indoor a ir phytoremediation technologies, botanical biofiltration systems could more efficiently filter indoor air but still research needs to be focused on potential and cost effectiveness for their functional integration in buildings. further research is needed to develop, test and 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review moringa (moringa oleifera l.): an underutilized and traditionally valued 1-13 tree holding remarkable potential jattan m., kumari n., raj kumar, kumar a., rani b., phogat d.s., kumar, s. and kumar, p. original research in papers characterization and evaluation of mountain sweet thorn 14-25 (flacourtia montana j. grah) collections tripathi p.c., ganeshan s., radhika v. and shetti d.l. optimization of methodology for the extraction of polyphenolic compounds 26-35 with antioxidant potential and á-glucosidase inhibitory activity from jamun (syzygium cumini l.) seeds arivalagan m., priyanka d.r. and rekha a. genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) 36-44 agadi a.h., kolakar s., lakshmana d., nadukeri s. and hanumanthappa m. morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to 45-52 iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c., dutt s., sharma j., raveendran m. and sudhakar d. responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water 53-63 deficit conditions ayub q., khan s.m., hussain i., naveed k., ali s., mehmood a., khan m.j., haq n.u., shehzad q. induced variability for yield and its attributing traits in cluster bean 64-68 [cyamopsis tetragonoloba (l. ) taub] through gamma irradiation lavanya h.n., mishra s., sood m., aghora t.s., anjanappa m., rao v.k. and reddy a.b. in vitro multiplication protocol for curcuma mangga : studies on carbon, 69-76 cytokinin source and explant size waman a.a., bohra p., karthika devi r. and pixy j. effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life 77-90 of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m., bhandari n. and dhital m. post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and 91-102 antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h., saucedo v.c., guerra r.d., suarez e.j., soto h.r.m. lopez j.a., garcia c.e. and hernandez r.g. soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient 103-113 management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour and d. kalaivanan effect of spectral manipulation and seasonal variations on cut foliage production 114-120 and quality of philodendron (philodendron ‘xanadu’) sujatha a. nair, laxman r.h. and sangama short communications studies on mutagenic sensitivity of seeds of pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) 121-124 sankaran m., kalaivanan d. and sunil gowda d.c. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from 125-129 garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v., vasudeva r., hemanth b., nischita p., sthapit b.r., parthasarathy v.a. and rao v.r. in this issue… the farmers involved in the production of horticultural produce have defied the challenges due to second wave of the covid pandemic. especially, the information that india’s horticulture production is expected to increase by 2.93 per cent to a record level of 329.86 million tonnes (mt) in 2020-21, according to the second advance estimate of horticulture production released by the ministry of agriculture is very much motivating. though many hurdles are faced by the farmers due to the prevailing covid pandemic with respect to timely marketing, storage and other issues, the horticultural production has maintained the steady growth. wish that in other countries also the horticulture production enhances to provide the nutritional security. journal of horticultural sciences takes pride in sharing the recent research developments in different disciplines of horticulture. many native vegetable crops have nutraceutical values. one of them is moringa or commonly called as drumstick. jattan et al. have reviewed the traditional values, requirement for crop cultivation, crop improvement, value addition, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical values with respect to this crop. many under-utilized fruit crops are brought to cultivation again with scientific interventions. one such crop is mountain sweet corn (flacourtia montana). the fruits have high potential for processing into jam, jelly, wine, etc. and this plant has good medicinal value. tripathi et al. evaluated and characterized the mountain sweet corn accessions from western ghats and identified a suitable line with higher yield, regular bearing nature and less thorniness. ravishankar et al. isolated and characterized the microsatellite markers from the under-utilized tree species garcinia indica. in their study, 3725 microsatellites were identified and primers were designed for 1374 microsatellites. the ssr developed will be useful in studying genetic diversity, mapping and fingerprinting of garcinia indica and related species. among the leafy vegetables, amaranthus ranks first in production. agadi et al. estimated the nature and extent of genetic variability among twenty amaranthus genotypes. they found that arka arunima, chikmagalur local, ic-551486, ic-551494 and ic-551466 recorded high foliage yield per plot and could be utilized in further breeding programme.challam et al. studied the morpho-physiological parameters associated with resistance to iron deficiency induced chlorosis in potato and their effect on yield attributed. they found that genotype cp-3443) was found tolerant to fe deficiency induced chlorosis. ayub et al. evaluated responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water deficit conditions in pakistan. they concluded that drought caused significant variation on physical and biochemical attributes of okra whereas the cultivar ‘sabz pari’ showed resistance towards the water stress. gamma ray is an effective mutagen which creates useful variability in crops where the natural variation is very meagre and creation of variability by conventional methods is cumbersome. lavanya et al. studied the induced variability in cluster bean due to gamma irradiation and found that the traits like ij. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) 2021 plant height, pod length, pod width, pulp to seed ratio showed sufficient variability. sankaran et al. also employed the gamma irradiation to generate variability in pummelo. they found that 60 gy gamma dose can effectively be used for raising the mutant populations to identify a desirable mutation in pummelo soil microbiome plays important role in crop production. there is need to pay attention on the nutrition management practices. they should encourage the soil microbe population that will indirectly help the plant health. al-mosour and kalaivanan have demonstrated that integrated nutrient management can maximize soil microbial community dynamics which is considered as driving force behind regulating soil processes that support sustainable sweet basil cultivation. while attempting to evaluate the spectral manipulations on cultivation of cut foliage crops, nair et al. found that coloured shade nets did not influence vase life of the cut foliage in philodendron and observed that cultivation of philodendron ‘xanadu’ under white shade resulted in maximum cut foliage yield and quality. mango ginger is an underutilized rhizomatous species that has been valued in the tropical asian countries as a source of vegetable, spice, salad, medicine and essential oil. huge quantity of seed rhizomes is required to promote this crop in larger area. waman et al. developed an in vitro protocol for the multiplication of mango ginger. jamun seed is a rich source of polyphenolic compounds with antioxidant potential and alpha glucosidase inhibitory activity. arivalagan et al. have optimized the methodology for the extraction of such polyphenols from jamun seeds. this will be of much in nutraceutical industry. similarly, gonzález et al. studied the post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear in mexico. they observed that there was high correlation between antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds. the methodologies developed by them will be useful tool for the quantification of bioactive compounds fruit tissues. post-harvest disease management is an important aspect in delivering the harvested produce safely to the end-user. bhandari et al. have recorded that application of essential oils with wax improved shelf life of sweet oranges in nepal and this treatment enhanced juice retention, firmness, titratable acidity, vitamin c and disease reduction. s. sriram editor in chief j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) 2021 ii 1 j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 review moringa (moringa oleifera l.) : an underutilized and traditionally valued tree holding remarkable potential minakshi jattan1, kumari n.2, raj kumar3*, kumar a.3, rani b.2, phogat d.s.1, kumar s.1 and kumar p.4 1department of genetics and plant breeding, ccs haryana agricultural university, hisar, india 2department of biochemistry, ccs haryana agricultural university, hisar, india 3icar-centre for soil salinity research institute, karnal, india 4department of plant pathology, punjab agricultural university, ludhiana, india *corresponding author email: rajhorticulture@gmail.com abstract moringa (moringa oleifera l.) commonly known as “drumstick tree” belongs to the family moringaceae. it is now grown worldwide but its native region is india. it is a fast-growing tree that responds to low inputs and has high regeneration potential after cutting. its nutritional value and capacity to grow economically in different soils and environmental conditions makes it a wonder tree. it is highly nutritious and each part is being utilized in various forms. it is widely cultivated for its young pods, flowers and leaves for use as traditional herbal medicine and vegetable. it is also used by indigenous people in the tropics and sub-tropics as a source of remedies. the leaves are also used as a source of fodder in many countries of the world as it can sustain green fodder availability round the year without extra efforts. various parts of this tree are good source of ascorbic acid, calcium, iron, protein and antioxidant compounds. hence, its remarkable properties help to fight nutritional deficiency, human diseases and improve performance of livestock. keywords: antioxidants, fodder, livestock, malnutrition, moringa, nutrients and pharmaceutical introduction moringa (moringa oleifera l.) also known as ben oil tree, benzolive tree, drumstick tree or horseradish tree is the most versatile and comes under the category of underutilized perennial plant species. all parts of this plant i.e. leaves, roots, flowers, pods and seeds have remarkable range of properties due to the presence of essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals etc. therefore, this plant can serve as a highly nutritious food with medicinal properties for human beings as well as fodder for livestock (nouman et al., 2014 and masih et al., 2019). essential nutrients present in moringa oleifera such as vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and amino acids are helpful in activating enzymes, hormones and osmotic adjustment in the body. hence, enhance growth, body functions and maintenance of life processes (anjorin et al., 2010). also, a wide range of antioxidants available in leaves, make it a valuable source of natural antioxidants, nutraceuticals and functional components (anwa r et al. , 2007). t her efor e, moringa oleifera can serve as an effective remedy for malnutrition particularly in the developing countries of the world. in the present scenario when the cultivatable area for fodder production is decreasing day by day due to the cultivation of cash crops; moringa oleifera can serve as an important source of quality fodder. this plant can be used as livestock fodder, as a supplement to enhance the dry matter intake (dmi) and digestibility of fodder in livestock. it is helpful in weight gain and enhances milk production in livestock. fodder qua lity ca n be impr oved by mixing moringa oleifera leaves with other fodder crops which contributes towards better livestock perfor ma nce. hence, moringa oleifera can be used as nutritional supplement for livestock due to its nutritional value and good biomass production (sanchez et al., 2006). this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 2 jattan et al due to several medicinal and therapeutic properties of moringa oleifera traditionally, it has been used to treat problems such as anemia, anxiety, asthma, bronchitis, skin infections in different cultures of the wor ld. it a lso possesses a nti-dia betic, a ntihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic and anti-tumor activities (sharma et al., 2012). therefore, various bioactive compounds isolated from moringa oleifera are utilized in medicinal field at large scale (abalaka et al., 2009). moringa oleifera being rich in phytochemicals and nutrients as compared to vegetables; helps to enhance immunity. hence, its consumption should be encouraged to strengthen immunity and cope up with malnutrition. the biochemical composition of different parts of moringa oleifera varies from location to location (anjorin et al., 2010). these variations in biochemical composition may be due to cultivation methods, environment and genetic background (brisibe et al., 2009). there is very scanty scientific information on the potential of this species to alleviate nutritional problems. there is lack of moringa oleifera varieties due to less infor ma tion a va ila ble on genetic improvement programs for this tree (padulosi et al., 2013). therefore, to solve the malnutrition problems such as protein deficiency in the population of developing countries of the world; further studies are needed on breeding and genetic improvement of this species. this information will be helpful in utilizing the full potential of this nutrient rich and incredible tree in various arenas of life. origin and distribution moringa is a member of the family moringaceae which is comprised of thirteen species from various geographical locations (shahzad et al., 2013). it is commercially cultivated in parts of africa and india. four species i.e. moringa drouhardii (madagascar), m. ovalifolia (namibia and southwest angola), m. hilderandtii (madaga sca r) and m. stenopetala (kenya a nd ethiopia ) a r e cha r a cter ized by bloated water-storing trunks. three species i.e. m. peregrine, m. oleifera and m. concanesis are known for their slender trees with juvenile stage being tuberous. the remaining six species (m. arborea, m. borziana, m. longituba, m. pygmaea, m. rivae and m. peregrina) are tuberous in nature. m. oleifera is chiefly cultivated species of moringa genus. it is a softwood deciduous tree. it is indigenous to the himalayan foothills. it is widely cultivated in tropical regions of south asia from northern pakistan to northern bengal state in india and northeastern bangladesh, nepal, afganistan, sri lanka, west asia, the caribbean and sub-saharan africa, latin america and reported in florida and the pacific islands (sachan et al., 2010). tree morphology moringa oleifera tree bears spreading, open crown of drooping and fragile branches. the compound tripinnate leaves alternately bear leaflets in opposite pairs and leaf length ranges from 45-90 cm. the leaflets are dark green with red tinged midveins, entire margins and rounded at apex (rollof et al., 2009). the soft stem wood is light weight and bark is whitishgrey, thick and corky. the deep tap root system and spreading tuberous lateral roots provide support to the tree. it may flower twice in a year or round the year. the flowers have pleasa nt smell and these a re produced in 10-25 cm long loose axillary panicles. the flower s a r e white or cea my-white in colour, zygomorphic and pentamerous (sachan et al., 2010). calyx contains five sepals which are green, lobed and tubular. corolla comprises five narrowly spathelate, veined and creamy-white petals. androecium is compr ised of five fer tile yellow sta mens with alternating five smaller sterile stamens (staminodes). gynoecium is represented by a single, stalked superior ovary with slender style. ovary is one celled with double rows of ovules (10-25). moringa fruit is called as pod and looks like drumstick. pods are large (1060 cm long) and turn brown at maturity. the seeds are rounded, one cm in diameter, dark brown to black in color with three papery wings. traditional value each part of moringa oleifera tree has immense potential (fig 1). it was documented in indian vedic literature nearly 5000 years ago (patwardhan, 2003). in the tropical and sub-tropical regions, moringa is highly va lued by loca l people beca use of its pharmaceutical value and consumed as infusions and decoctions. this tree has served as a remedy to cure more than 300 diseases and can be regarded as a panacea. the roots have a pungent odour resembling with horseradish tree (armoracia rusticana). it is used as a flavoring agent and in cardiac & circulatory problems (mishra et al., 2011). root-bark is used as antiviral, anti-inflammatory, analgesic. the leaves are j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 3 moringa : an underutilized and traditionally valued tree used as a remedial source for the treatment of various ailments like influenza, malaria, typhoid, arthritis, inflammations, skin problems, hypertension and diabetes. the flowers are generally consumed as cooked vegetable or salad. stem-bark and flowers are hypoglycemic. pods are antipyretic and anthelmintic. seeds have 30-40% oil and it is called as ben oil which is resistant to rancidity and used in cooking (yu et al., 2005). it is also used for the treatment of hysteria, scurvy, prostate problems and bladder troubles (fahey, 2005). indian ayurveda claims that moringa oil possesses antitumor, antiepileptic, antiinflammatory, antiulcer, antibacterial, antifungal properties and it is utilized for the treatment of different a ilments in the indigenous system of medicine. growth conditions and plantation moringa oleifera grows very fast and it can adapt to variable ecosystems and farming systems with a temperature range of 25-35 0c. it is tolerant to drought and can be grown in sandy or loamy soils. the soils which are waterlogged or poorly drained are not suitable because it may cause rotting. the soil with a slightly acidic to slightly alkaline ph is suitable for it. an annual rainfall of 250-3000 mm is essential for its proper growth. during germination phase, it can withstand up to 3 ds m–1 electrical conductivity (ec). however, its resistance to salinity increases during later stages of growth. the antioxidant system of moringa oleifera is responsible to tolerate moderate salinity with a mild effect on its mineral composition (nouman et al., 2012). therefore, it can be grown in diverse environments i.e. hot, humid and dry with well drained soils. although this plant can grow in versatile environments, yet the nutrient content and strength of the plant is ensured by the soil condition. soil fertility, application of different doses and combinations of fertilizers; cause variations in nutrient composition of plant/plant parts (dania et al., 2014). moringa plantation can be done from seeds, cuttings or nursery saplings. however, direct cultivation through seeds is utilized when seed is sufficient in quantity. this method has high seed germination rate and takes 5-12 days for germination (leone et al., 2015). it can be grown to full-sized trees to get leaves, flowers, pods and seeds as economic parts. it can also be grown as a bush and intensively planted to get leaves as the economic part (fig. 2). the best sowing j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 fig. 1: moringa (moringa olefera l.) at different growth and development stages: (a) seed, (b) direct seeded sapling in field, (c) nursery raised sapling, (d) harvesting stage for fodder, (e) flowering stage, (f) fruiting stage 4 is the beginning of the rainy season. it ensures enough water to the growing tree during its first growing season to become well-established. after that, much water is not required. planting method depends on available space and which economic part is to be subsequent cuttings. cultivation for the pod or seed purpose requires 20 kg farmyard manure per pit at the time of sowing and then application of chemical fertilizers i.e., 100 g each of urea, super phosphate and muriate of potash per plant for getting higher yield (kader and shanmugavelu, 1982). the application of 7.5 kg farmyard manure and 0.37 kg ammonium sulfate per tree can increase yield up to three folds (morton, 1991). for proper weed control weeding should be done at regular intervals whenever required. irrigation requirement in moringa depends on the rainfall. first irrigation should be given just after sowing. dur ing ea r ly sta ges of development, irrigations should be managed properly for the establishment of plant. then in later stages it should be given as per need. for the management of insect pests like hairy caterpillar; bio-pesticide like neem seed kernel extract (5 % solution) should be sprayed on the crop during infestation. post harvest management and value addition moringa plant parts can be used directly as a fresh harvest or these can be processed and value added through various methods for utilization in diverse forms. lea ves and flowers are gener ally shade dried and ground to a fine powder for utilization as tea or food additive. moringa leaf dry matter in the form of powder or pellets is also utilized as a value-added product for livestock. the roots from young plants are dried after removing root bark and powdered for use as a hot seasoning base. in ma ny countr ies, the use of moringa a s a food fortificant is increasing rapidly. different parts of this tree are used in making soups (babayeju et al., 2014), weaning foods (arise et al., 2014), herbal biscuits (alam et al., 2014), bread (chinma et al., 2014), cake (kolawole et al., 2013) and yoghurt (hekmat et al., 2015). hence, different parts of the tree put value to diversity of food items by enhancing their nutritional potential. also, the ben oil obta ined from seeds after cold pressing or s olvent ex t r a c t ion ha s b een u s ed in s kin preparations and ointments since egyptian times. the oil is used in making cosmetic products and perfumes. the oil cake is a byproduct of oil extraction and useful as an organic fertilizer. in this way, processing and value addition of moringa leads to increase in its value and it can serve as a good source of income for small land holding farmers. j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 jattan et al fig. 2: potential utilities of different parts of moringa (moringa oleifera l.) utilized. for good seed production, 2-3 seeds per hole are planted 2-3 cm deep with 2-5 meter spacing between trees depending of the annual or perennial types. for good leaf production, dense planting should be done i.e., 30 cm x 10 cm spacing. when the trees reach about 1.5 m tall, prune them down to 15 cm. the pruned rows grow back with a greater number of branches and leaves. it gives a continuous supply of leaves. plantation can be done from cuttings having diameter 4-5 cm and length 100 cm; by digging a hole, adding manure and mounding the soil (peter, 1978). the sprouting takes variable time depending on various factors like genotype, length of cuttings and growth conditions. however, plants grown from cuttings are sensitive to winds and drought due to lack of strong root system. it can also be cultivated through nursery raised saplings. the saplings are grown in plastic bags having sandy or loamy soils. saplings have tender roots and hence transplanted carefully when attain the height of about 30 cm. agronomic management field preparation for cultivation is done by adding farmyard manure (10 mt/ha) and chemical fertilizers. the application of chemical fertilizers depends on the soil condition. generally, moringa oleifera cultivation for fodder purpose needs 150 kg nitrogen, 60 kg phosphorus, 40 kg potash, 30 kg sulphur and 10 kg zinc sulphate for one hectare. nitrogen is given in split doses; 30 kg at the time of filed preparation and later equal split doses i.e. after 45 days of sowing and after seed oil leaves seeds pods flowers human food uses animal feed & fodder pharmaceutical pods leaves seed oil roots gumtwigs leaves branches 5 nutritional potential of moringa moringa oleifera is used to fight malnutrition among infants and nursing mothers especially promising in the tropics because it can provide leaves as a source of food and fodder even in dry period when other sources are typically scanty (folkard and sutherland, 1996). moringa has enormous potential as it is helpful in improving human health, weight gain and milk production in livestock. as a food sensere care there should be sustainability and stability in quality food supply for raising any stable community. cereals, pulses, vegetables, fruits, meat and milk are the sour ces of food which fulfill our nutr itiona l requirements. however, many of these food items are not affordable by a large population, especially those living below the poverty line. in developing countries, the diet is devoid of proteins, vitamins and minerals. therefore, for these people; plants that are particularly nutritious represent a valuable option to fulfill such needs. moringa oleifera has the potential to fulfill ma ny of such needs due to the multitudes of properties which are harbored by this tree species. mor inga lea ves ha ve plentiful of nutr itiona l components. the leaves can be taken fresh, cooked or in the form of dry powder. the dry powder retains its nutr itiona l value for ma ny months without refrigeration. the leaves and pods are generally used in common food items. moringa leaves are rich in vitamin a, c and e (hekmat et al., 2015). dry leaves contain ten times more vitamin a than carrot and seven times more vitamin c than orange. minerals i.e., iron (25 times than spinach), potassium (15 times than bananas) and calcium (17 times than milk) are also in abundance in dry powder of moringa (rockwood et al., 2013). moringa leaves also contain large amount of magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc and iron (hekmat et al., 2015). moringa leaves are rich in protein and this is cited in various studies (thurber and fahey, 2009). the studies also reveal that average crude protein in animal milk is much less in comparison to fresh and dry moringa leaves (stelwagen, 2003; chandan, 2006). moringa leaves possess higher amino acids content than those recommended by food and agriculture organization (mendieta-araica et al., 2011). moringa seed meal contains large number of amino acids, except for valine, lysine, and threonine (oliveira et al., 1999). moringa dry leaves and fresh pods contain higher contents of arginine, valine and leucine. however, some amino acids (serine, glutamate, aspartate, proline, glycine and alanine) have not been identified in dry leaves and fresh pods (fuglie, 2000). the phytonutrients (carotenoids, tocopherols and ascorbic acid) have also been reported in moringa leaves which help in free radical scavenging (dan malam et al., 2001; saini et al., 2014a; saini et al., 2014b). moringa flowers and pods also contain appreciable amounts of carotenoids. therefore, moringa is the best food supplement for children and infants to combat malnutrition. the whole seeds of moringa can be eaten as such, roasted or used in powdered form. moringa seeds have sweet to bitter taste and are consumed mostly after frying (makkar and becker, 1996). moringa seed oil (ben oil) is used for cooking and salad dressing. ben oil in seeds is about 30-40% which is rich in unsaturated fatty acids (82%) (ferrao and mendez, 1970). the fatty acids present in oil are; linolenic acid, linoleic acid, oleic acid, palmitic, stearic, and behenic acid. the seeds also contain fibre, minerals, proteins, vitamins and amino acids (kasolo et al., 2010). as animal feed and fodder various tree species are utilized as a fodder for lives t oc k o r s u p p lement low qu a lit y f odder especially in the dry period (otsyina and dzowela, 1995). m. oleifera has the potential to supplement low-quality livestock fodders thereby increasing dry matter intake (dmi) and digestibility. it serves as the best example of quality fodder for increasing milk and meat production along with its environment friendly nature and low input requirements. the gr een f odd er a s well a s dr y ma t t er ( d m ) production depends on the fertilizer, genetic makeup, season and ecological conditions (palada et al., 2 0 07 ) . m a c r onu tr ient s whic h a r e p r es ent in abundance in moringa play important roles like tissue building, physiologica l, meta bolic, a nd biochemical processes in livestock. magnesium (mg) and potassium (k) are important for lactating animals. the lactating cows require 0.17–0.20% mg in dry matter (nrc, 1996). magnesium (mg) deficiency during lactating period results in low blood mg which causes low milk yield. similarly, beef cows require 0.70% k in dry matter. besides essential nutrients a nd multivitamins, moringa leaves also possess crude protein (21.8%), acid j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 moringa : an underutilized and traditionally valued tree 6 detergent fibre (22.8%), and neutral detergent fibre ( 3 0 . 8 % ) . t he c r u de f a t ( 4 1 2 . 0 g kg – 1) , carbohydrates (211.2 g kg–1) and ash (44.3 g kg– 1) ha ve a lso been r epor ted in mor inga lea ves (oliveira et al., 1999). all these compounds are important in increasing livestock production. hence, mor inga leaves which are rich source of these nutrients; fulfill the nutritional requirements of livestock in the best possible way. different plant parts (leaves, twigs or branches etc.) of this tree have variable concentration of nutrients. hence, the fodder mixtures containing different proportions of moringa plant parts provide an array of nutrition. for example, mixing of moringa leaves with soft twigs in fodder provides lower cp and higher ndf contents, whereas mixing moringa leaves with seed cake in fodder provides higher cp contents (murro et al., 2003 and fujihara et al., 2005). depending upon the nutritional requirement of an animal; specific combination of moringa plant parts can be given to the animal so that it can utilize the fodder in a best way. as for an example, moringa leaves with twigs having low crude protein can be given to dry cows, requiring low nutrient fodders. animals like cattle, goat, sheep, rabbits as well as pigs easily eat green leaves and stems of moringa (mulugeta and fekadu, 2014). it incr eases the animal weight gain and protein intake (aharwal, 2 01 8 ). pos it ive ef f ec ts of dif fer ent p a r t s of m or inga ha ve b een r ep or t ed in t he f or m of increased milk yield in cows, growth rate in sheep a nd feeding beha vior in goa t. livestoc k feed supplemented with moringa leaves can increase up to 32% of daily weight gain in livestock. mixing of fresh moringa leaves (15 to 17 kg) in daily feed of livestock can boost milk production by 43%. the milk production can be increased further with the supplementation of dry matter feed i.e., 58 and 65% increase by 2 kg and 3 kg dry matter feed, respectively (foidl et al., 2001). moringa diet has t he highes t eff icienc y of pr otein & nit r ogen utilization and nutrient digestibility (sultana et al., 2015). moringa leaf meal (mlm) can also be included in poultry and fish meal. the mlm in poultry feed can be particularly used by the small farm holders as natural and healthy feed substitute to synthetic feed supplements (hermogenes et al., 2014). moringa leaves which are rich in protein help in improving the microbial protein synthesis in rumen of animals. hence, it is a suitable alternate of soybean and rapeseed meal and can be given to ruminants (soliva et al., 2005). anti-nutritional factors besides nutritional factors, antinutritional factors are also reported in many food and fodder trees a nd these exert negative effect on human and a nima l hea l t h b y int er f er ing wi t h va r iou s physiological processes. therefore, such trees are not selected as priority for food and fodder. some trees belonging to genus acacia, albizia, sesbania are utilized for fodder purpose and these possess antinutritional factors (kumar, 1992). however, moringa oleifera represents unique property of being rich in minerals and lower in antinutritional factors. moringa leaves possess tannins that range from 13-20 g kg-1of dry leaves and it is very less in c omp a r is on t o s e s b a n i a s e s b a n , a c a c i a angustissima, and acacia cyanophylla leaves (31, 66 and 38 g kg–1, respectively). the concentration of phytates is also low in moringa and it ranges from 25-31 g kg-1of the dry leaves (ahn et al., 1989; makkar and becker, 1996; salem et al., 1999). lectins, trypsin, and amylase inhibitors have not been reported in moringa leaves (ferreira et al., 2008). the glucosinolates and isothiocyanates have been reported in moringa leaves and roots (bennet t et a l. , 2 003; newton et a l. , 2 010 ). however, their concentration depends upon the soil type, climatic conditions, cultivar and its growth stage. moringa leaves possess saponins, which impart a bitter taste. saponins and isothiocyanates do not always have harmful effects and hence can be consumed by both livestock and human beings ( f oidl e t a l . , 2 0 0 1 ; p r ic e, 2 0 0 0 ) . o t her antinutritional factors found in many fodder trees a r e oxa la t es . h owever, ox a la t es r ep or t ed in moringa leaves are mainly insoluble oxalates and hence do not cause harmful effect (radek a nd savage, 2008). hence, moringa oleifera is having better nutritional composition tha n other lea fy vegetables or fodders and can be utilized for food as well as fodder purpose. pharmaceutical potential of moringa the various parts of moringa oleifera possess antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antiulcer, antibacterial and antifungal properties. many bioactive j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 jattan et al 7 compounds like glycosides, malonates and flavonoids have been isolated from moringa oleifera (bennett et al. , 2003; miea n a nd moha med, 2001). isothiocyanates isolated from moringa leaves possess the capability to fight against human tumor cells. the reason behind this activity may be its capability to induce reactive oxygen species in cancerous cells which is target specific (tiloke et al., 2013; jung, 2014; leelawat and leelawat, 2014). many of the plant glycosides can be used in treatment of cancer or chronic diseases (chumark et al., 2008; ghasi et al., 2000; murakami et al., 1998). lipid peroxidation plays an important part in artherogenesis, thrombosis and cancer development. the flavonoids isolated from moringa leaves could modulate this process of lipid peroxida tion and hence ca n combat with these diseases. the flavonoids also help in scavenging of free radicals and inhibition of oxidative and hydrolytic enzymes which ar e involved in sever al chr onic diseases (rodrigo et al., 2011; siddhuraju and becker, 2003). quercetin, which is a powerful antioxidant, also helps in lowering blood pressure (larson et al., 2012). moringa leaf powder also helps in reducing blood sugar levels due to the presence of isothiocyanates (kushwaha et al., 2014; waterman et al., 2015). moringa leaf, pod and seeds also possess antiinflammatory properties (cheenpracha et al., 2010). however, these results are based on lab and animal studies and confirmation on human beings further needs to be verified. pods are helpful in treating eye disorders, diarrhea, joint pain, liver and spleen problems. t he immature pods are used against intestinal worms (kasolo et al., 2010). moringa seeds help in treating many diseases like epilepsy, arthritis, viral diseases etc (kasolo et al., 2010 and sutalangka et al., 2013) . the flowers of moringa can cure arthritis, cold, urinary and heart problems (fuglie, 2005). the gum is used as an antiseptic (rajangam et al., 2001). the fresh root is used in case of intermittent fever. it can also be applied externally as a paste to treat inflammation, palsy, dropsy and animal bites. the root infusion helps in treating asthma and a scites. root ba rk acts as a n a nti-ulcer, antiinflammatory and cardiac stimulatory agent (mishra et al., 2011 and fahey, 2005). crop improvement m o r i n g a o l e i f e r a is a c r os s p ollina t ed t r ee species having diploid chromosome number equal t o 2 8 . t he r ef or e, high het er o geneit y in morphological, physiological and quantitative traits is anticipated. this tree presents diversity of forms i. e . , a nnu a l to per ennia l typ es, deciduous to evergreen, semi-spreading to upright. also, some trees flower in two sea sons a nd others flower throughout the year (raja et al., 2013). hence, the variability present in various characters can be a source for genetic improvement. however, lack of elite cultivars adapted to local environment and use of open pollinated seed for crop cultivation may be impor t a nt f a ct or s tha t limit its pr oduct ivit y. moreover, the number of germplasm accessions and active germplasm banks are incipient across the world. despite india, some other research centres like avdrc (taiwan), rural development initiative (za mbia ) a nd mor inga philippines founda tion (philippines); are also involved at the global level, in mor inga impr ovement. ma ny ecotypes viz. jaffna, chavakacheri murungai, chemmurungai, kadumurungai and kodikkal murungai have been reported in india (kumar et al., 2014). despite huge variability in moringa oleifera no institution has database for cultivated or natural germplasm accessions. there is great inconsistency between the inherent genetic variability in this species and reflected in available germplasm. hence, priority must be focused on the fixation of poor variability in a va ila b le ger mp la s m in ger mp la sm ba nks because it may hinder with the progress of crop improvement programs. any crop improvement program depends on the available genetic diversity. there is much less information available on genetic diversity of genus moringa. some of the studies show a wide genetic diversity present in moringa (ramachandran et al., 1980; shahzad et al., 2013; suthanthirapandian et al., 1989). these studies also emphasize on the great potential for genetic improvement of this species to enhance the use of this under-utilized t r ee. t her e is one downs ide a ls o i. e. , s ome antinutritional factors in moringa can reduce the absorption of minerals and protein (richter et al., 2003; teixeir a et al., 2014). hence, differ ent st r a tegies shou ld be exp lor ed t o ha r ness t he available genetic diversity. the true understanding of genet ic diver s it y c a n b e ga i ned b y t he cha racteriza tion of both cultivated and natural accessions present all over the wor ld. var ious j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 moringa : an underutilized and traditionally valued tree 8 breeding programs, including plant introduction, evaluation, selection, hybr idiza tion a nd use of biotechnological methods have been employed for the development of varieties with dwarf stature, high biomass production, high seed yield and oil content, better quality, resistance to pest and diseases. introduction t he va r iety, ja ffna is pr esumed to ha ve been introduced from sri lanka. it is cultivated in southern india. chavakacheri murungai is also an introduced variety from sri lanka. selection (mass and pure line) the selection of plants starts with open pollination. the plants are selected based on production potential and tested under various conditions and sites. then, it is followed by controlled pollination. the variety, pkm 1, has been developed through pure line selection. it is annual type and best suited for tropical plains. hybridization and selection it involves hybridization between diverse genotypes followed by selection. the variety, pkm 2 is derived from a cross involving mp31 and mp28 as parents. it is annual type and gives 48% more yield over pkm1. it is suitable for cultivation in tropical plains of india. mutation breeding it is also an important breeding method for creation of variability or novel traits. however, this method is not much utilized in moringa. molecular breeding work on mor inga crop improvement ba sed on biotechnology or molecular breeding is very limited and it is just at budding stage. it is obvious from the nucleotide da tabase (ncbi) which possess very less sequence information (dna and rna). recently, due importance has been given to micro propagation (kantharajah and dodd, 1991) and use of molecu la r ma r ker s for cha r a cter iza tion of germplasm for crop improvement. use of molecular markers can enhance the genetic improvement as it helps in identifying diverse genotypes. these diverse genotypes can be utilized in hybridization pr ogr a ms to pr oduce r ecombina nts with wide variability. biotechnological studies in moringa started with the use of dominant markers. the amplified fragment length polymorphism (aflp) marker technique was used to study diversity in natural populations from india and introduced populations in malawi and kenya (muluvi et al., 1999). in this study it was noticed that the population differentiation was significant and genotypes separated according to geographical origin. further, randomly amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) marker technique was used by different researchers to study diversity among cultivated and non-cultivated population of moringa (mgendi et al., 2010; abubakar et al., 2011; da silva et al., 2012; saini et al., 2013 and r u fa i e t al . , 2 0 1 3 ) . i n a ll t hes e s t u dies a n appreciable level of genetic diversity was reported in natural populations with respect to cultivated ones. hence, less genetic diversity in cultivated a cc ess ions indic a t es t ha t ther e is a n ut mos t requirement to widen the genetic base for crop improvement programs. later, with the advent of co-dominant markers like simple sequence repeats (ssrs), the molecular genetic diversity studies got impr oved. mor inga a ccessions collected fr om different countr ies (pa kista n, india, ta nzania , senegal, mozambique, zimbabwe, florida, mexico, haiti and belize) have been evaluated earlier and it has been reported that there was high genetic diversity in wild pakistan accessions, as compared with other accessions (shahzad et al., 2013). both morphological and molecular markers (ssrs) have been used for characterization of 300 genotypes of moringa collected from different locations of india and large diversity have been observed (ganesan et al., 2014). both these markers have been used later to screen 34 genotypes of moringa collected from different regions of tamil nadu (natarajan and joshi, 2015). it has resulted in identification of s up er ior genot yp es which c a n b e ut iliz ed in hybridization program to improve oil yield. in this way, morphological markers along with molecular markers can prove an authentic tool to enhance and strengthen breeding programs of moringa. conclusions and future perspectives moringa oleifera has several strengths and potential utilities. the usage and merits of moringa as food, livestock fodder and pharmaceutica l have been documented widely. although moringa plant has j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 jattan et al 9 babayeju, a., gbadebo, c., obalowu, m., otunola, g., nmom, i., kayode, r., toye, a. and ojo, f. 2014. comparison of organoleptic properties of egusi and eforiro soup blends produced with moringa and spinach leaves. food sci. and qual. manage., 28: 15-18. bennett, r. n., mellon, f. a., foidl, n., pratt, j. h., dupont, m. s. and perkins l. 2003. profiling glucosinolates and phenolics in vegetative and reproductive tissues of the multi-purpose trees moringa oleifera l. (horseradish tree) and moringa stenopetala. j agric food chem, 51: 3546-3553. brisibe, e. a., umoren, u. e., brisibe, f., magalhaes, p. m., ferreira, j. f. s., luthria, d., wu, x. and prior, r. l. 2009. nutritional characterization and antioxidant capacity of different tissues of artemisia annua l. food chem., 115:12401246. chandan, r. c. 2006. history and consumption trends, in: manufacturing yogurt and fermented milks, edited by rc chandan, (blackwell publishing, ames, ia, usa), 3-15. cheenpracha, s., park, e. j., yoshida, w. y., barit, c., wall, m., pezzuto, j. m. and chang, l. c. 2010. potential anti-inflammatory phenolic glycosides from the medicinal plant moringa oleifera fruits. bioorg. med. chem., 18: 6598-6602. chinma, c., abu, j. and akoma, s. 2014. effect of germinated tiger nut and moringa flour blends on the quality of wheat-based bread. j. food process. preserv., 38: 721-727. chuma r k, p. , khuna wa t, p. , sa nva r inda , y. , phornchirasilp, s., morales, n. p., phivthongngam, l., ratanachamnong, p., srisawat, s. and pongrapeeporn, k. u. 2008. the in vitro a nd ex vivo a ntioxida nt pr oper ties, hypolipidaemic and anti-atherosclerotic activities of water extract of moringa oleifera lam. leaves. j. ethnopharmacol., 116: 439-446. enormous potential, however it has some challenges. many aspects of this tree e.g., the most successful utilization in agricultural practices, harmful effects of antinutritional factors on human beings and livestock, are still unanswered. some antinutritional factors reported in this species may limit its utility in form of food and fodder. therefore, more attention and j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 1-13, 2021 moringa : an underutilized and traditionally valued tree research are warranted in this direction i.e., how it should be used in diets. aside from this, agronomic practices requirements for high fodder biomass production have not yet been studied. therefore, more emphasis should be given to these arenas of research 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tree holding remarkable potential jattan m., kumari n., raj kumar, kumar a., rani b., phogat d.s., kumar, s. and kumar, p. original research in papers characterization and evaluation of mountain sweet thorn 14-25 (flacourtia montana j. grah) collections tripathi p.c., ganeshan s., radhika v. and shetti d.l. optimization of methodology for the extraction of polyphenolic compounds 26-35 with antioxidant potential and á-glucosidase inhibitory activity from jamun (syzygium cumini l.) seeds arivalagan m., priyanka d.r. and rekha a. genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) 36-44 agadi a.h., kolakar s., lakshmana d., nadukeri s. and hanumanthappa m. morpho-physiological parameters associated with chlorosis resistance to 45-52 iron deficiency and their effect on yield and related attributes in potato (solanum tuberosum l.) challam c., dutt s., sharma j., raveendran m. and sudhakar d. responses of different okra (abelmoschus esculentus) cultivars to water 53-63 deficit conditions ayub q., khan s.m., hussain i., naveed k., ali s., mehmood a., khan m.j., haq n.u., shehzad q. induced variability for yield and its attributing traits in cluster bean 64-68 [cyamopsis tetragonoloba (l. ) taub] through gamma irradiation lavanya h.n., mishra s., sood m., aghora t.s., anjanappa m., rao v.k. and reddy a.b. in vitro multiplication protocol for curcuma mangga : studies on carbon, 69-76 cytokinin source and explant size waman a.a., bohra p., karthika devi r. and pixy j. effect of fungicide and essential oils amended wax coating on quality and shelf life 77-90 of sweet orange (citrus sinensis osbeck) bhandari m., bhandari n. and dhital m. post-harvest quality and quantification of betalains, phenolic compounds and 91-102 antioxidant activity in fruits of three cultivars of prickly pear (opuntia ficus-indica l. mill) gonzalez f.p.h., saucedo v.c., guerra r.d., suarez e.j., soto h.r.m. lopez j.a., garcia c.e. and hernandez r.g. soil microbial community dynamics as influenced by integrated nutrient 103-113 management practices in sweet basil (ocimum basilicum l.) cultivation baraa al-mansour and d. kalaivanan effect of spectral manipulation and seasonal variations on cut foliage production 114-120 and quality of philodendron (philodendron ‘xanadu’) sujatha a. nair, laxman r.h. and sangama short communications studies on mutagenic sensitivity of seeds of pummelo (citrus maxima merr.) 121-124 sankaran m., kalaivanan d. and sunil gowda d.c. isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers from 125-129 garcinia indica and cross species amplification ravishankar k.v., vasudeva r., hemanth b., nischita p., sthapit b.r., parthasarathy v.a. and rao v.r. j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 36-44, 2021 original research paper genetic variability studies in amaranthus (amaranthus spp.) annapoorna h. agadi,*1 kolakar s.1, lakshmana d.1, nadukeri s.2 and hanumanthappa m. 3 1 department of crop improvement and biotechnology, uahs, shivamogga 2 department of plantation crops, uahs, shivamogga 3 dean, coh, mudigere, uahs, shivamogga * corresponding author e-mail : annapurna8021@gmail.com abstract an investigation was carried out to estimate the nature and extent of genetic variability among twenty amaranthus genotypes (amaranthus spp.) under randomized block design during the year 2019-20. the phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than genotypic coefficient of variation for all the traits. high genotypic coefficient of variation (gcv) and phenotypic coefficient variation (pcv) were observed for leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, agr, dry weight of leaf per plant, specific leaf weight, speed of germination, chlorophyll content and ascorbic acid (vitamin c). moderate gcv and pcv were observed for leaf length, leaf width, petiole length, dry weight of stem per plant, leaf: stem ratio and foliage yield per plant. the high estimates of heritability coupled with higher values of genetic advance as per cent mean (gam) were observed for the parameters like test weight, speed of germination, germination percentage, seedling dry matter, seedling vigour index-1, seedling vigour index-2, plant height, leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, agr, specific leaf weight, stem weight per plot, dry weight of leaf, dry weight of stem, leaf: stem ratio, foliage yield per plant, chlorophyll, ascorbic acid and betacarotene content which indicates the predominance of additive gene action. arka arunima, chikmagalur local, ic-551486, ic-551494 and ic-551466 recorded high foliage yield per plot and these can be utilized in further breeding programme. key words: genotypic coefficient of variation, genetic advance as per cent mean, heritability and phenotypic coefficient variation introduction which provide the necessary information to assess the variability. studying the phenotypic expression of the plant characters and yield is controlled by the genetic makeup of the plant and environment which is composed of additive variance (heritable) and nonadditive variance including dominance and epistasis (non-a llelic) interaction. therefore, it becomes necessary to partition the obser ved phenotypic var ia bility into its her ita ble and non-herita ble components with suita ble par a meter s such a s genotypic and phenotypic coefficient of variation, heritability and genetic advance. further, genetic advance can be used to predict the efficiency of selection. with this ba ckgr ound, the pr esent investigation was carried out to assess the extent of genetic variability in amaranthus genotypes for yield and its component traits. amaranthus or chaulai (amaranthus spp.) is a very popular widespread leafy vegetable throughout the tropics and the temperate zone of the world including india. it is grown throughout the year since it has very quick growth and is suited for crop rotation. most of the cultivated species are monoecious and windpollinated, while the grain species with colourful inflor escence ar e occa siona lly visited by bees (khoshoo and pal, 1970). the genus amaranthus includes 50-60 species, cultivated for leaf as well as for grains and few are wild species. vegetable type of leaf amaranth i.e., a. tricolor is originated in south east asia, particularly in india (rai and yadav, 2005). pla nt hybr idiza tion, muta tion a nd polyploidy breeding are the ways and means to restore or create the variability in the existing germplasm. in order to achieve this, collection and chara cterisation of available genotypes could be the pre-requisite step this is an open access article d istributed under the terms of creative commons attribution-noncommer cial-shareal ike 4.0 international license, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, d istribution, and reproduction in any med ium, provide d the original author and source are credited. 37 genetic variability studies in amaranthus j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 36-44, 2021 table 1: details of amaranthus genotypes used in the study s. no. germplasm source 1 arka arunima iihr, bengaluru 2 ic-551486 nbpgr, new delhi 3 ic-447684 nbpgr, new delhi 4 ic-551482 nbpgr, new delhi 5 ic-551483 nbpgr, new delhi 6 ic-551462 nbpgr, new delhi 7 ic-551492 nbpgr, new delhi 8 ic-551466 nbpgr, new delhi 9 ic-551477 nbpgr, new delhi 10 ic-38174 nbpgr, new delhi 11 ic-551506 nbpgr, new delhi 12 ic-551494 nbpgr, new delhi 13 ic-551459 nbpgr, new delhi 14 ic551468 nbpgr, new delhi 15 dharwad local farmer’s field 16 kunigal local farmer’s field 17 arbhavi local farmer’s field 18 gokak local farmer’s field 19 mudigere local farmer’s field 20 chikmagalur local farmer’s field materials and methods the experiment was laid out in randomized block design ( r bd ), wit h t wo r eplic a t ions du r ing summer, 2019. the genetic factors viz., ra nge, mean, phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv), genot yp ic c oef f ic ient of va r ia t ion ( g c v) , heritability (h2), genetic advance (ga) and genetic advance as per cent mean (gam)were calculated. the details of genotypes used in the study are presented in the table 1. result the results of the present experiment carried out wit h t wen t y genot yp es of a ma r a nt hu s (amaranthus tricolor l.) to assess the genetic variability among yield and its component traits are presented under the following headings. analysis of variance the analysis of variance indicated that significantly higher amount of variability among the genotypes for growth and yield parameters viz., plant height, stem girth, leaf length, number of branches per plant, leaf width, stem girth, petiole length, leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, absolute growth r ate (agr), dr y weight of leaf per pla nt, dr y weight of the stem per plant, specific leaf weight, stem weight of plant per plot, leaf :stem ratio, foliage yield per plant, foliage yield per ha, total yield per plant. similarly, the quality traits viz., ascorbic, beta carotene, total chlor ophyll were found to have higher variability tejaswini et al. (2017). the results are presented in the table. 2. genetic variability, heritability and genetic advance for different parameters of amaranthus genotypes the results pertaining to genetic factors viz., range, mean, phenotypic coefficient of variation (pcv), genot yp ic c oef f ic ient of va r ia t ion ( g c v) , heritability (h2), genetic advance (ga) and genetic advance as per cent mean (gam) are presented in table 3. morphological characteristics plant height and stem girth: the variability for plant height and stem girth was high, as reflected by its wide range from 51.33 (ic-551477) and 11.54 (ic551482) to 64.21 cm (kunigal local) and 18.93 mm (arka arunima) with mean value of 57.08 cm and 15.35 mm respectively. the pcv and gcv values were low (5.79 and 6.15% respectively). stem girth exhibited moder a te pcv (11. 85%), low gcv (8.96%). the magnitude of heritability estimates was high (88.80%) and moderate heritability (57.20%) with moderate genetic advance over per cent mean (11.26%) and (13.95%) respectively. 38 agadi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 36-44, 2021 table 2: analysis of variance (mean sum of squares) for growth, yield and biochemical parameters in amaranthus (amaranthus tricolor l.) source of variation/ replications genotypes s. em ± cd @ 5% cv characters degree of freedom 1 19 growth & yield parameters plant height (cm) 0.0016 20.28 *** 0.75 2.30 1.92 stem girth (mm) 1.14 5.20** 0.82 2.49 7.75 number of branches 0.021 2.38 0.80 2.43 9.10 per plant number of nodes per plant 0.006 2.55 0.78 2.39 8.14 petiole length (cm) 0.05 1.007* 0.39 1.21 10.01 leaf length (cm) 1.42 10.53*** 0.59 1.82 8.98 leaf width (cm) 0.36 1.93 0.34 1.05 9.22 leaf area (cm2) 0.17 7376.70 *** 1.98 6.01 2.01 leaf area index 0.0007 0.01 *** 0.006 0.018 4.13 leaf area duration 0.68 822.32 *** 1.79 5.46 3.70 agr 0.001 0.005 *** 0.012 0.038 11.40 cgr 0.09 0.63 0.49 1.51 0.89 dry weight of leaf/plant (g) 10.53 30.16 *** 1.18 3.58 10.10 dry weight of stem/plant (g) 8.77 36.25 *** 1.17 3.57 7.04 specific leaf weight 0.000002 0.003 *** 0.0004 0.0012 1.41 stem weight of plant/plot (g) 0.20 8722.80 *** 0.86 2.62 0.22 leaf : stem ratio 0.00036 0.009*** 0.015 0.046 4.28 foliage yield/plant (g) 8.36 489.47*** 2.25 6.85 2.30 foliage yield/plot (kg) 0.68 0.42 0.33 1.0148 10.61 foliage yield/ha (t) 50.62 9.23 2.52 7.6702 0.88 biochemical parameters chlorophyll (mg/g) 0.046923 0.32*** 0.08 0.26 7.00 ascorbic acid (mg/g) 0.000023 6.38 *** 0.04 0.14 1.77 beta carotene (mg/g) 0.001562 1.61 *** 0.02 0.06 0.38 39 s l . character range mean gcv% pcv% h2 (%) ga gamno. growth & yield parameters 1 plant height (cm) 52.3 64.21 57.26 5.39 5.72 88.00 5.99 10.46 2 stem girth (mm) 11.54 18.93 15.35 8.96 11.85 57.00 2.14 13.95 3 number of branches 10.75 14.91 13.04 5.60 10.68 27.00 0.77 6.05 per plant 4 number of nodes 12.07 15.95 14.06 5.60 9.88 32.00 0.91 6.53 per plant 6 petiole length (cm) 4.15 7.18 5.78 10.02 14.17 50.00 0.84 14.60 7 leaf length (cm) 5.38 14.37 9.68 22.83 24.53 86.00 4.23 43.76 8 leaf width (cm) 4.19 7.57 6.21 16.83 19.19 76.00 1.65 30.39 9 leaf area (cm2) 24.45 268.33 142.62 42.56 42.60 99.00 124.89 87.57 10 leaf area index 0.07 0.38 0.21 42.06 42.26 99.00 0.18 86.22 11 leaf area duration 38.39 114.16 69.83 28.92 29.15 98.00 41.25 59.07 12 agr 0.09 0.26 0.16 30.15 32.23 87.00 0.09 58.08 13 cgr 1.84 3.66 2.56 9.36 29.68 9.00 0.15 6.07 14 dry weight of 12.39 25.02 16.96 21.76 23.98 82.00 6.89 40.64 leaf/plant (g) 15 dry weight of 16.01 32.06 24.23 16.84 18.26 85.00 7.75 32.02 stem/plant (g) 16 specific leaf weight 0.01 0.19 0.041 95.01 95.02 100.00 0.08 195.69 17 stem weight of 600.09 792.78 696.71 9.47 9.48 100.00 136.00 19.52 plant per plot (g) 18 leaf : stem ratio 0.41 0.67 0.51 13.25 13.93 90.50 0.13 25.97 19 foliage yield/ 113.71 169.40 142.18 10.88 11.12. 95.70 31.18 21.93 plant (g) 20 foliage yield/ 3.89 5.43 4.56 6.75 12.58 28.80 0.34 7.47 plot (kg) 21 foliage yield/ 19.4500 27.17 23.76 6.095 14.16 18.50 1.28 5.40 ha (t) biochemical parameters 22 chlorophyll (mg/g) 1.20 2.70 1.79 21.89 22.99 90.07 0.77 42.96 23 ascorbic acid (mg/g) 1.32 7.00 3.84 46.47 46.51 99.90 3.67 95.67 24 beta carotene (mg/g) 6.92 10.12 8.62 10.42 10.42 99.90 1.84 21.45 table 3: estimates of mean, range, components of variance, heritability and genetic advance for growth, yield and biochemical parameters in amaranthus (amaranthus tricolor l.) genetic variability studies in amaranthus j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 36-44, 2021 40 number of branches per plant and petiole length: the number of branches per plant ranged between 10.50 (ic-551477) and4.15 (ic-551462)to 15.91 (arka arunima) and 7.18 cm (arka arunima)with mean value of 13.04 and 5.78 cm respectively. the moderate estimates of pcv (13.27 ) and (14.17 ), low gcv (3.98%) and moderate (10.02%) were noticed. low heritability (27%) and low genetic advance as per cent mean (2.46) was observed for the trait. petiole length (cm): petiole length ranged from 4.15 (ic-551462) to 7.18 cm (arka arunima). the average value for the trait was 5.78 cm. pcv (14.17%) and gcv (10.02%) values were moderate along with moderate heritability (50%) and moderate genetic advance as per cent mean (14.60%). leaf characteristics leaf length and width: it ranged from 5.38 (ic5515067) to 12.83 cm (ic-38174) with a mean of 9.68 cm. the high pcv (21.36%) and moderate gcv (18.95%) were observed. high heritability (78.80%) coupled with high genetic advance over per cent mean (34.66%) was noticed. leaf width (cm): the variability observed for leaf width was high, as reflected by its wide range from 4.59 (ic-551468) to 8.58 cm (ic-551486) with an average value of 6.21 cm. high estimates of pcv (20. 96%) a nd moder a te gcv (16. 29%) wer e observed. the estimates of heritability was high (60.40%) along with high genetic advance as per cent mean (26.08%). leaf area and leaf area index (lai): the values for leaf area ranged from 24.45 (ic-551486) to 268.33 cm2 (arka arunima) with mean value of 142.62 cm2. high estimates of gcv (42.56%) and pcv (42.60%) were found. high heritability (99%) coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean (87.57%) was observed for the trait. the values for leaf area index ranged from 0.07 (ic551486) to 0.38 (arka arunima) with mean value of 0.21. high estimates of gcv (42.06%) and pcv (42. 26%) were found. high her itability (99%) coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean (86.22%) was observed for the trait. leaf area duration (days): the mean value for leaf area duration was 69.83 days with a range of 38.39 (ic-551486) to 114.16 days (arka arunima). the estimates of pcv and gcv were high (29.16% and 28. 92%, respectively). high her itability (98%) coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean (59.07%) was noticed. physiological characteristics absolute growth rate (agr): the values for agr ranged from 0.09 (ic-551494) to 0.26 (arka arunima) with mean value of 0.16. the estimates of gcv and pcv observed were high with values 30.15 and 32.23 per cent respectively, high heritability (87% ) coupled with high genetic advance (58.08) was observed for the trait. crop growth rate (cgr): the values for cgr ranged from 1.84 (ic-551483) to 3.67 (arka arunima) with mean value of 2.56. the moderate estimates of gcv (9.36%) and high pcv (29.68%) coupled with low heritability (09.00%) and low genetic advance as per cent of mean (6.07) was observed. specific leaf weight: the values for specific leaf weight ranged from 0.01 (ic-551466) to 0.19 (ic551486) with mean value of 0.04. the high estimates of gcv (95.01%) and pcv (95.02%) was observed. the high estimates of heritability (100%) coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean (195.69%) was observed for the trait. yield and its component traits foliage yield per plant (g): the mean value for foliage yield per plant was 142.18 g which range from 114.60 (ic-551468) to 169.40 g (arka arunima). moderate estimates of gcv (10.88%) and pcv (11. 12%) wa s obser ved. t he high herita bility (95.70%) coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean (21.93%) was noticed for the trait. foliage yield per plot (kg): the estimated value for foliage yield per plot ranged from 3.89 (ic-551468) to 5.43 kg (arka arunima) and mean value for this trait was 4.56 kg. low gcv (6.75%) and moderate pcv (12.58%) values were recorded. the heritability estimated was low (28.80%) along with low genetic advance as per cent mean (7.47%) was noticed for the trait. total yield per plant (g): the mean value for total yield per plant was 175.03 g which ranged from 150.69 (ic-551468) to 207.59 (arka arunima). low estima tes of gcv (6.12%) a nd moderate pcv (11.34%) was observed. the low heritability (29.10%) with low genetic advance as per cent of mean (6.80) was noticed for the trait. agadi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 36-44, 2021 41 total yield per plot (kg): the mean value for total yield per plant was 5.26 g which ranged from 4.52 (ic-551468) to 6.22 (arka ar unima). the low estima tes of gcv (6.50%) a nd moderate pcv (11. 29%) wa s obser ved. t he low her ita bility (33.50%) with low genetic advance as per cent of mean (7.80) was noticed for the trait biochemical parameters chlorophyll content (mg/g): chlorophyll content was ranged from 1.20 (arbhavi local) to 2.70 mg (arka ar unima) with a grand mea n of 1.79 mg. t he estimates of gcv and pcv were high (21.90% and 22.99% respectively). high heritability (90.70%) was observed along with high genetic advance as per cent mean (42.96%) for the trait. ascorbic acid (mg/g): ascorbic acid ranged from 1.32 (ic-447684) to 7.00 mg (arka arunima) with a grand mean of 3.84 mg. the estimates of gcv and pcv were high (46.47% and 46.51% respectively). high heritability (99.90%) was observed along with high genetic advance as per cent mean (95.68 %) for the trait. beta-carotene (mg/g): beta-carotene content ranged from 6.92 (ic-551483) to 10.12 mg (mudigere local) with a grand mean of 8.62 mg. moderate estimates of gcv (10.42%) and pcv (10.42%) were observed. high heritability (99.90%) was observed along with high genetic advance as per cent mean (21.45%) for the trait. discussion for any crop improvement programme, it is important and a pre–requisite to maintain the genetic variability that allows identification of promising genotypes in the germplasm collections that can be used in the breeding programme to develop promising cultivars. variability, heritability, genetic advance and genetic advance over mean existence of genetic variability among the genotypes for the characters to be improved is the most basic requirement for successful selection. in the present investigation, variance due to treatments (genotypes) was significa nt for a ll the twenty for gr owth, ea rliness, yield and leaf qua lity pa rameters. it indicated that sufficient variability existed for most of the characters and considerable improvement could be a chieved in these cha r a cter s by selection. however, the analysis of variance by itself is not enough and conclusive to explain all the inherent genotypic variance in the collections. the phenotype of cr op is influenced by a dditive gene effect (heritable), dominance (non-heritable) and epistatic (non-allelic) interaction. hence, it becomes necessary to split the observed variability into phenotypic variation and genotypic variation which indicates the extent of variability existing for various traits. the estimation of heritability has a greater role to play in determining the effectiveness of selection for a character provided it is considered in conjunction with the predicted genetic advance as suggested by panse and sukhatme (1962) and johnson et al. (1955) as the heritability is influenced by bio-metrical method, gener a tion of hybr id, sa mple size of experimental material and environment. with these points in view, the results of the variability observed in the twenty amaranthus genotypes evaluated in the present investigation are discussed hereunder. phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variability the extent of variability present in the germplasm provides scope for the crop improvement programme and also depends on the extent of heritability for a trait. variation can be created artificially but the examination of naturally existing variability in the germplasm of the species is also an important task for the breeder. in the present study, totally twenty genotypes were evaluated to know the extent of variability for growth, yield and quality parameters. the analysis of variance indicated highly significa nt differences among genotypes for all the characters viz., plant height, stem girth, number of branches per plant, leaf length, leaf area, leaf area index, petiole length, leaf area duration, absolute growth rate, specific leaf weight, foliage yield per plant, total yield per plant, chlorophyll content, ascorbic acid content and beta-carotene content. thus, it is implied that there was reasonably sufficient variability in the material used for the study, which provides ample scope for selecting superior and desired genotypes by the plant breeders for further crop improvement. the results from a nalysis of variance revea led highly significant variation among the genotypes for growth, yield and quality parameters in amaranthus (table 4) and considerable improvement could be achieved. however, the analysis of variance by genetic variability studies in amaranthus j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 36-44, 2021 42 itself is not enough and conclusive to explain all the inherent genotypic variances in the genotypes. one of the ways, by which variability in the characters could be assessed is through simple approach of ex a mining t he r a nge of va r ia t ions. ra nge of variation observed for all the traits indicated the presence of sufficient amount of variation among the genotypes for all the characters studied. means of genotypes varied greatly for the traits viz., stem girth, leaf area, leaf area duration, dry weight of leaf per plant, dry weight of stem per plant, foliage yield per plant, foliage yield per hec t a r e ind ic a t ed t he higher ma gnit u de of variability. in the present study, wide ra nge of variability was observed for all the characters. in the present experiment, high estimates of gcv and pcv values were observed for leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, specific leaf weight. the similar results were also observed by rani and veeragavatham (2003) for specific leaf weight; kusuma et al. (2007) for dry weight of leaf per plant; anuja and mohideen (2007), ramesh et al. (2013) a nd pa nda et al. (2017) for lea f a r ea ; tejaswini et al. (2017) for leaf area index and leaf area duration; yadav et al. (2014) and tejaswini et al. (2017) for leaf length. high gcv and pcv values with narrow difference is an indication of existence of broad genetic base among the population, suggesting stable expression of genotypes for these traits which provides scope for the improvement of these characters through simple selection. moderate gcv and pcv were observed for leaf width, petiole length and foliage yield per plant which indicated presence of moderate amount of variability for these traits and little influence of environment on these traits. the similar results are also observed by ahammed et al. (2012), hasan et al.(2013), patial et al.(2014), buhroy et al. (2017) and diwan et al. (2017). it appears that phenotypic variability may be a good measure of genotypic variability for almost all growth characters such as leaf length, leaf width, petiole length and foliage yield per plant as the es tima t es of gcv a nd pcv wer e closer a nd parallel indicating that they are least affected by environment. heritability and genetic advance the effectiveness of selection for any character depends not only on the amount of phenotypic and genotypic variability but also on estimates of broad sense heritability. high heritability was observed for plant height, leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, agr, specific leaf weight, foliage yield per plant, chlorophyll, ascorbic acid and betacarotene content which indicates the prevalence of a dditive gene a ctions a nd lesser inf luence of envir onment in the expr ession of these tr aits, hence these characters are amenable for selection. the similar results were also observed by pan et al., (2008), chattopadhyay et al., (2013),yadav et a l . , ( 2 0 1 4 ) , venka t es h ( 2 0 1 4 ) , m ob ina a nd jagatpati (2015), sarker et al., (2016), buhroy et al., (2017), lokeshkumar a nd murthy (2017), panda et al., (2017) and yogendra et al., (2018) for plant height, specific leaf weight, yogendra et al. (2018) for leaf length. kusuma et al., (2007) and ramesh et al., (2013) for dry weight of leaf per plant, dry weight of stem per plant, tejaswini et al., (2017) for leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, lea f a r ea d u r a t ion, f olia ge yield p er p la nt , chlorophyll content, ascorbic acid and beta carotene content. heritability in broad sense is not the true indicator of inher it a nce of tr a it s. since, only a dditive c omponent of genetic va r ia nce is eff iciently t r a ns f er r ed f r om gener a t ion t o gener a t ion. therefore, heritability in broad sense may mislead in judging the effectiveness of selection for the trait. considering heritability in broad sense along with genetic advance may reveal the prevalence of specific components (additive or non-additive) of genetic variance and thus, helps in judging the eff ec tiveness of s elect ion f or t he tr a it mor e accurately. high heritability accompanied with high genet ic a dva nc e indic a t es t he p r eva lence of additive gene effects and hence, selection would be effective for such tr a its. fr om the pr esent investigation characters like leaf length, leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, agr, specific leaf weight, foliage yield per plant, chlorophyll content, ascorbic acid and beta-carotene content recorded high heritability with high genetic advance over mea n. this indicates the predominance of agadi et al j. hortl. sci. vol. 16(1) : 36-44, 2021 43 additive gene action and amenable for phenotypic selection in ea r ly gener a tions, r esults a r e in accordance with the findings of pan et al., (2008), chattopadhyay et al., (2013), venkatesh (2014), yadav et al., (2014), mobina and jagatpati (2015) sa r ker et al. , (2015), buhr oy et al. , (2 017), lokeshkumar and murthy (2017), panda et al., (2017) and yogendra et al., (2018) for plant height, specific leaf weight, foliage yield per plot yogendra et al., (2018) and kehinde et al., (2013) for leaf length. kusuma et al., (2007), ramesh et al. , (2013) and tejaswini et al., (2017) for leaf length, leaf width, leaf area, leaf area duration, foliage yield per plot, chlorophyll content, ascorbic acid and beta carotene content in amaranthus. prevalence of high degree of additive components of genetic variance, high heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent mean, presence of high gcv and pcv for the characters viz., leaf length, leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, agr, specific leaf weight, which indicated lesser influence of environment in expression of these traits and prevalence of additive gene action in their inheritance. hence, genetic improvements of these traits are amenable for selection. conclusion in the present investigation, high gcv and pcv were observed for parameters like, leaf area, leaf area index, leaf area duration, agr, dry weight of lea f p er pla nt, s pecific lea f weight, sp eed of germination, chlorophyll content and ascorbic acid (vitamin c). it indicated 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